Trafford, schooled in rigid
fortunes, and formed by struggle, if not by adversity, was
ripe for the occasion, and equal to it. He became very
opulent, and he lost no time in carrying into life and being
the plans which he had brooded over in the years when his good
thoughts were limited to dreams. On the banks of his native
Mowe he had built a factory which was now one of the marvels
of the district; one might almost say, of the country: a
single room, spreading over nearly two acres, and holding more
than two thousand work-people. The roof of groined arches,
lighted by ventilating domes at the height of eighteen feet,
was supported by hollow cast-iron columns, through which the
drainage of the roof was effected. The height of the ordinary
rooms in which the work-people in manufactories are engaged is
not more than from nine to eleven feet; and these are built in
stories, the heat and effluvia of the lower rooms communicated
to those above, and the difficulty of ventilation
insurmountable. At Mr Trafford's, by an ingenious process,
not unlike that which is practised in the House of Commons,
the ventilation was also carried on from below, so that the
whole building was kept at a steady temperature, and little
susceptible to atmospheric influence.
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