In the edition of 30th September 1818, 'Black Dwarf' (a weekly political and satirical magazine), a journeyman cotton spinner wrote that,
'when the spinning of cotton was in its infancy and before those terrible machines for superseding the necessity of human labour, called steam engines, came into use, there were a great number of what were then called little master; men who with a small capital could procure a few machines and employ a few hands......But none are thus employed now; for all the cotton is broke up by a machine, turned by the steam engine, called a devil: so that the spinner's wives have no employment except that they go work in the factory all day at what can be done by children for a few shillings¹, four or five per week.....Steam engines came into use, to purchase which, and to erect buildings sufficient to contain them and six or seven hundred hands, required great capital...'

Reference: Thompson, E.P. - The Making of the English Working Class (Pelican, 1981) p229