The great number of shuttle-changing devices recently brought under the notice of Lancashire cotton manufacturers is a proof, if proof were needed, of a general desire for labour-saving improvements in weaving mechanisms. As yet manufacturers have done more in the way of inquiry than of practical experiment, although the number of mills in which automatic looms of one type or another are being quietly tested is greater than may be generally supposed. The possibilities of automatic looms are admitted on all hands to be great, but there is an equally general disposition amongst manufacturers to await developments and to see a somewhat closer approximation in practice to the theoretical ideal before plunging into capital expenditure upon new machinery or radical alterations in existing looms. At this stage every new invention claiming to solve the problems which are peculiar to the Lancashire system of cotton manufacture is sure to receive close attention, and the readers of the ╥Manchester Guardian╙ will not fail to recognise the great interest and probable value of the latest of such inventions, an invention which, if its claim to effect a 10 per cent increase in production, a 10 per cent economy of expense, and at least a 10 per cent advance in the weaver╒s wages be established, may approach in importance the invention of the fly-shuttle itself.
What are the qualifications ╤ apart from original genius and brains ╤ most likely to be of service to the inventor of a successful automatic loom? In the first place, he must have been a weaver. Even the mechanically trained loom-making expert is not so well qualified to judge, to select and reject methods and means, as he would be had he been schooled into an intelligent, practised, and alert weaver. Next, he must have been a tackler. The weaver may run the loom to perfection, but when it comes to setting the crank, to adjusting the pick, to judgment of the right cover, to correct fixing of tappets and economical use of leather fittings the skill of the experienced tackler is necessary. And the tackler╒s instinctive dislike of complexity in mechanism and of new additions to the working parts is a safeguard against many dangers that beset the inventive faculty. Any addition to the mechanism of a loom is to be jealously scrutinised and only grudgingly permitted. In addition to the qualifications of the weaver and the tackler, the ideal loom-inventor must have the commercial instinct of the employer. He must provide such attachments as will involve the minimum of alteration in, and be easily affixed to, existing looms. The close riddle of this test will sift the wheat from the chaff.
The loom attachments now under notice are the devices and property of a man who has successively, and successfully, occupied the three positions named. As weaver, tackler, and employer, the inventor of the Cowburn patent shelf-shuttling motion has had special training and experience to qualify him for the task he has undertaken. ╥Putting two shuttles in╙ the loom is an experience dreaded by every weaver when teaching a learner. The ╥trap╙ caused thereby is temper-trying and waste-making. This need be no longer possible. Mr. Cowburn╒s cunning little device, which he calls ╥the shuttle stop motion,╙ is applicable to every power loom, plain or check. By its use the careless or mentally preoccupied weaver is freed for ever from the possibility of that discouraging catastrophe. The employer need no more be vexed by the sight of looms stopped during the repair of a smash caused by the putting in of two shuttles. The device is astonishingly simple. It is obvious ╤ so obvious that its previous non-discovery is surprising, and this one point in the automatic arrangement is indicative of the whole scheme. Simplicity is its keynote. If it fails it will, I think, be for some other reason than undue complexity. One of the main reasons for the reluctance of manufacturers to adopt some of the existing devices for application to their ordinary looms is the proverbial danger of putting new wine into old bottles.
