Human intelligence required for the successful performance of combing expertness and experience in high combination. Wool-combers came to be a class by themselves in England—a class magnifying its own importance and skill—quite the aristocracy of the manufacture. For years after the experiments of the inventors were well under way, and even after machines were in
Fig. 15.—A Noble Comb.
actual use, the hand-combers remained confident that no automatic machine could supersede their boasted expertness of hand. Failure after failure seemed to warrant their confidence. The combing machine is one in which the power of the capitalist, no less than the genius of the inventor, has been exemplified. It cost more to complete, and has yielded more in the way of profit to its inventors, than any other machine of the century. To Dr. Edmund Cartwright, the inventor of the power-loom, belongs the honor of creating the germ of the subsequent machines. His first machine, patented in 1789, consisted of a cylinder, armed with rows of teeth, revolving in such a manner that its teeth would catch and clear out the wool contained in the teeth of a fixed and upright comb. His second machine, patented in 1790, superseded
