|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: plain, that there were 120,000 people employed in the woollen and
silk and wool manufactures of that city only; not that the people
all lived in the city, though Norwich is a very large and populous
city too: but, I say, they were employed for spinning the yarn used
for such goods as were all made in that city. This account is
curious enough, and very exact, but it is too long for the compass
of this work.
This shows the wonderful extent of the Norwich manufacture, or
stuff-weaving trade, by which so many thousands of families are
maintained. Their trade, indeed, felt a very sensible decay, and
the cries of the poor began to be very loud, when the wearing of
|