ILIA STRATED ITINERARY COUNTY OF LANCASTKIt IHII IIONoi RED LAM VST1 ■: mi ui L O N DO \ How \\i> ['ARSONS, ri. 1. 1 i 31 i:ri i i A DVE R.T1 SEMEN T. It is a subject of just complaint, that no English Itinerary has appeared, combining descriptions of scenery and antiquities with living manners and characteristics. T'> remedy this deficiency, the Proprietors of the present Work have undertaken to produce a body of pictorial topography, combining view- and descriptions of the picturesque in nature with the wonderful in art, -exhibiting England as it is in it- natural scenery, historic memorials, and productive industry. For this purpose every County will he described from personal observation : tie' illustrations will he drawn upon the spot ; the old halls, battle-fields, and ] ' remarkable in the national history, will In- carefully noticed ; and local customs, leg* nds, and singularities, remarked ; hut the antiquary and chronicler will he followed no further than may he required to explain existing facts, the main object of the "Work being to depict the present aspect of the country. The agricultural Bystems of the different Counties will he note 1. a- Likewise every branch of our national industry. The last will he examined in connexion with the localitv where each may flourish, a- the cotton manufacture in the description of South Lancashire, and the woollen trade in that of York-hire. In like manner, the pro- duction <»f other manufactures will form a part of the description of the places whore tie y most extensively prevail. High-road travelling impart- a very inadequate idea of English bc< in ry ; it i- only by diverging from the main track that the traveller e.m appreciate its varied beaut Scarcely any two Counties are alike, and yet the features of each hive a commu- nity of character stamping them decidedly English. Whatever be the natui ry. whether the wild or cultivated, the romantic, -"ft. gland it bears the impress of nationality. We have an endless variety for the pencil of the artist, " equal," as Bj ron truly observes, "in picturesque beauty to th.it of any other country." It only remains that this scenery be rendered familiar by publications similar to that which i- now proposed. Thus the inhabitants of ren igh- bouriiv counties, the people of Cornwall and the people of Cumberland,— will In- drawn toward- each other by a mutual knowledge of their respective localities; and, what is not less important, the merchant, the manufacturer, the landowner, and the iv.l<;6H84 2 ADVERTISEMENT. former, will learn the nature of each other's toil*, caret] and pursuits, and will see how •i.illy their very different avocations oontribnte to their mutual prosperity. The pictorial embellishments of the Work will, most <>f them, be altogether new, or the objects wil □ in such ;i position as has not before been represented. They will embrace every kind of subject that can contribute interest or utility. In a work of this nature there i- the reflection, that it will preserve the aspect <>f much which will speedily undergo mutation. Woods that crown favourite sites will soon be no more ; monuments <>f our earlier history are continually annihilated by the tool of the roadmaker ; the ruins of our monasteries, castles, and feudal halls, are East dis- appearing ; commercial speculation is diverting the stream from its ancient lied, to drive machinery, to supply the reservoir, or to feed the barge-laden canal; even the aspect of many of our towns bears little resemblance, in external form, to that which it formerly did, while villages of the olden time have become important towns that the absentee of a score or two of years from his native place, finds in it but a Stranger's visage. This must continue to be the case in the progress of national elevation or decay ; ami, therefore, every picture of the natural or social features of the country at a fixed date, forms a most important standard for future comparison. Our cathedrals, churches, palaces, castles, and municipal edifices, in fact, every object of local as well as general interest, will be depicted faithfully. An endeavour, too, will be made to portray any peculiarities of dress or carriage that are sufficiently obvious. The implements of the mechanic, miner, <>r husbandman, adopted in their r.il pursuits, when found to be novel, together with objects in natural history, come equally within the design of the Work. Landscapes will necessarily form an osive subject for the embellishments when illustrating the topography of the Counties, whether from claims picturesque, historical, or social. They will be of the best kind, on steel and wood, from paintings by artists of superior reputation. <>nc of the most valuable branches of knowledge, wherein our ignorance is least excusable, consists in an acquaintance with our own country. Numbers correspond with distant places where tiny never \i-;t ; ami it is as natural and fitting that they Bhould know something <>f a locality with which a connexion is kept up in this manner, as that they Bhould be acquainted with any other thing which does not come immediately before the visual sense. In the last case, tie' most agreeable mode of obtaining this species of information is in works like the present, which are. as much as possible, divested of those dry and formal disquisitions which are so uninteresting to the general reader. I'o the young, in particular, most "f the conjectures of the antiquary, reared, like the Cornish cheesewring, upon a rickety foundation, and utterly destitute of interest, couched in language shrivelled into dryness and Bavouring of worms ami epitaphs, cannot be alluring. If the acquirement of information be made a distasteful task, the information it-elf wi 1 he of little value, from the indifference with which it is inevitably ADVERTISEMENT. Mcompanied. The present attempt, then, to supply a more agreeable and familiar source of topographical information, by uniting the efforts of the pen and pencil for that purpose, can scarcely meet with a well-founded objection. There is another class of persons to whom this Work may recommend itself, con- sisting of those who wish to preserve more than the features of such object* as thej may have seen in travelling, or during a casual residence in Bome particular place ; and still further, to obtain information respecting what they only thus know from Visual recognition. Faithful embellishments accompanying such a work, freshen in the mind the scenes they represent, that lapse of time had began to render obscure. A deposit, therefore, for the preservation of such scenes or objects, will afford a standing nit rence for present use, ami reflect, as in a mirror, that which now exists for the comparison of the unborn with the still greater changes which it will be their lot to observe. V\ ho docs not look with interest upon the picture of Kenilworth, as it stood in the maiden reign, copies of which still exist \ and then turning upon the ivy-mantled ruins as they now totter, who fails to contrast the gorgeous pageantry of the court that once developed itself there, its pomp rendered more splendid, and its blazonry more rich, from reflecting the radiance of the genius to which it owe- it- revival — who does not feel the interest and utility of this contrast between the past and present? The mechanical inventions used in our manufactories, — the result of consummate ingenuity and great practical experience united, — will be accurately described, and so illustrated by the graver, as to bring their construction within the grasp of the plainest comprehension. The mode of operation will be shown by which tiny produce those astonishing effects which have contributed so largely to the national opulence. Among these are the carding-machine, and the mule used in the cotton fabrication: — the won- derful machines of the iron-founder, with their giant-power of rending, compressing, or laminating the most refractory materials : — the plastic -kill displayed in the Potteries, where the fine arts unite with the mechanical to satisfy the demands of the taste, that fluctuates continually, and of the wealth, that sets no limit to self-gratification : — then there are the countless products of our larger manufacturing town-, contributiii the comforts, elegancies, or luxurious demands of a rich ami mighty people: these interesting topics are all connected with the present design. At the conclusion of each County, it i- intended to collect, in a brief and tabular farm, the topographical and statistical information which is now spread over a vast number of unwieldy volumes, thus giving a body of references easily accessible, and at the same time a permanent record of beta, This portion of the Work will include every matter of a local nature the inhabitant, Strang) r. or tourist, may require, and will be essential to tie ;i of all who may seek an acquaintance with facts i _ rding the social state "t" t!.>- English Counties. Among other information of this nature, it i< the intention to give, in the fullest manner, the Population Returns for •I Al>\ I Kli-IMIN i. each pariah in 1841 ; the Benefices, their value in 1535 and at present; the Tenths in 15;5.') ; Tithe Commutations, Fixed Payments, Curates' Stipends, Name- of Incum- benta, Dates of Inductions, and Patrons ; the Poor-law Unions, with the districts they embrace, and the sum- levied for their support ; an Abstract of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, with a statement <>f comparative longevity, in each County ; the Charities, Schools, and Places of Worships the Savings' Banks Returns; the average Kate of Rental; the Turnpike Trusts, [ncome and Expenditure, with the extent of Roads; the Parliamentary Representation, and Borough Boundaries; the Names of the Magis- tracy ; together with an Account of the Canal-. Railroads, and public undertakings i f every kind ; arranged in so simple and concise a form, a- to afford an accurate idea of the existing Btate of our county relations in all t i :-. The Editorship of the Work i- committed to .Mr. Reddino ; the County of Corn- wall will he the production of hi- pen ; the manufacturing districts of the County of l,anea»ter will he described by W. C. TAYLOR, LL.D., ami the remaining portion by Mr. RXDDIKO. This Work will be issued in Half-crown Monthly Parts, each to contain forty-eight pages of letter-press, in imperial octavo, embodying from twenty to thirty wood-cuts, with one engraving on steel, of the more attractive landscapes in the County, the latter from subjects by Mr. Cbbswick, painted expressly for the Work ; and, in order to meet the wishes of those who desire a more rapid possession of the numbers, the Pro- prietors have resolved to publish two parte every month,— one belonging to a County principally noted for its natural beauties or romantic and picturesque features ; the Other distinguished for some great branch of national manufacture. In pursuance of this design) the publication is commenced with Cornwall and Lancashire; and the order in which each County i- intended to appear, will be uniformly announced upon terminating it- predecessor. The first part of each County will be accompanied by an accurate Map, compiled from tin' Ordnance Survey. That the Public may form some notion of the extent of the publication, it may be mentioned that CoBKWALL will be comprised in five, and Lancashire in six Parts. The -cope and end of the undertaking, it is hoped, will be appreciated by the Public, although the limits of a Prospectus are \ ery inadequate to convey more than an outline of their character and objects. It i- proposed to enter fully into all the elements of national strength contained within the geographical limits of England, whether elaborated by art or spontaneously produced by nature. A wide held i-. indeed, open, but having carefully measured it- extent and variety, and found it equally replete with the agreeable and the useful, the projectors of the Work trust to glean such a harvest from both as will afford present pleasure a- a descriptive itinerary, and future profit a- a permanent record. Ft. CLAVi PK1NTKH, hill. \l> -I Mtl I H1LI LANCASHIRE Lani ishire/ one of the most important territorial divisions of England, extending over a large superficies, takes rank among the counties the firal in population and the fifth in extent of surface. Cheshire and Derbyshire limit this county southward, Cumberland and Westmoreland northward, and Yorkshire upon the oast. On the western Bide, bordering upon the Iri-h Channel, the boundary line is extremely irregular, from the indentation- of the coast. We were struck with the remarkable difference the county exhibits in the northern and southern districts, and the same may be observed of the eastern and western, as well as in its peculiar adaptation to the development of the wonderful manufacturing energies it has called into action. In an agricultural sense, the indifferent nature of the soil over a Large pari of the surface effectu- ally prevents it- holding more than secondary rank. The waste land- are still very considerable, notwithstanding the consumption of a population which has been augmented with a rapidity unexampled in any other district of the same extent in the world. The returns of Is. 51 shewed that the increase had been eight-foldf since the first year of the eighteenth century, ami thai in the last ten year- of that term it had augmented twent\-e\eii per (cut. The returns of L841, -hew an increase of 24*7 per cent The cause of this pheno- menon is found in the astonishing magnitude of its m anufactures and the wonderful activity of its commercial relations. Possessing a tine port ami exhaUStless COal mine-, the additions to the population and wealth of Lan- cashire arise, as iii almost all similar ca-e-, from the u-e of those o| it- natural resources which are mOSl accessible, and are to be procured with the smallest outlay of capital. • Or county ,,( Lancaster, — the name is said 10 b« derived from the Saxon I nncn.^rna/rr, after the COUIlt] town. Antiquaries say ili.u the name <>t' the county loan itself cunc from .11 uni.i, I.ancaste'' lituated upon the river / . ,„. The latitude of Manchester, new the southern extremity of the county, is ."»:)• •_'!» s.; the longitude -" I-' ». ; the northern end lies in abOUl . 1 24 V W. The sup.. ikies cover 1765 iquare miles, or about 1,129,000 acres. It is divided into the hundred) of Amounderneae, containing 145,110 acres; Blackburn, 172 90 l ,79,990;! Red Salford. 214370; and West Derby, 284,780. t From 106,200 to I d in 1841, 1,667,1 R g ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: One portion of Lancashire — Lonsdale, north of the Sands — present- a superficies so different from the rest, that it belongs, from it- natural con- stitution, to Cumberland and Westmoreland. Tt is marked by very elevated mountain summit-, by deep glens and narrow lake-, by savage wild-, and by much of the most beautiful scenery in the island. South of the -and-. the hanks of the Lune are fine, yet their extent i- -mall, and the higher and more extruded Landscapes in the eastern part of the county are indebted to Yorkshire for their noble distances. Yet there is some hold scenery upon this border, as we see exemplified in Pendle Hill. In the hundreds of Blackburn and Rochdale, still keeping upon the eastern border, there are scenes which are very beautiful, particularly on the banks of the Kibble; but these are confined to a few particular spots, and are not sufficiently extensive to impart their oavh character to the county generally. The western part of Lancashire, from Lancaster to the banks of the Mersey, is flat and uninteresting, and near the sea exhibits more than ordinary want of the finer sea-shore character. Xo bold rocks and towering cliffs mark the ocean boundary; but in their place are treeless wastes, bleak moors, and unprofitable and wearisome sands. It will thus be seen that the elevated land is confined to the eastern side, south of Fumes-. — that the western is level; and that though here and there detached portions of the surface are interesting and even beautiful, they are not numerous enough to class the surface south of the sands very high in picturesque beauty any more than in fertility of production. The climate of Lancashire i- mild, and may be styled wet rather than moist. The Roman name of the Segaritii, signifying, according to Whittaker, " the country of water," — though that writer presumes this wa- in reference to the sea — is by no means inappropriate in reference to the climate. The temperature of the summer is rarely otherwise than low. The mean ha- been taken on the average of eight years at fifty-one and half degrees of Fahrenheit. During west and south-west winds, a considerable degree of damp cold i- LANCASHIRE. 8 experienced, and in the northern and eastern districts the spring Beason comes in \ it\ late.* The geological aspect of Lancashire displays little variety of formation compared with many counties of much Less extent. Sandstone, of the red species, was the mosl conspicuous formation \\ Inch \\c encountered* underneath which lies the vast bed of rock salt so well known a little more to the south in that part of England. This sandstone spreads along the shores of the Mersey towards Manchester, and may he detected upon the western side of the county as far north as Lancaster and the vale of the Lnne. Over this bed of stone in many parts, particularly westward, peat-mosses arc spread, clay and marie likewise cover it to a considerable thickness. The general appearance of the surface over this sandstone stratum is Level, or the elevations encountered are hut trivial. North of Preston the covering of peat-mo— is less marked than to the westward of a line drawn from Liverpool to Preston by Ormskirk. These depositions of peat, called "mosses" in this county, have been brought into cultivation, except in a few places, where they still retain their natural appearance. Large timber trees, black as ebony, are discovered in these peat-beds, the remnants of the primeval forests of the island; they will be more particularly noticed hereafter under their local names. Under the sandstone formation repose the treasures of Lancashire, in the great coal measures upon which are laid the foundations of the Won- derful superstructure of manufactures that renders the county so renowned. The principal coal-field is of irregular extent, and lies between the Mersey and Ribble, extending itself by Colnc and Burnley, south-westwards to Blackburn, Chorley, Upholland, "Wigan, northerly to Ormskirk, and afterwards by Prescot to Warrington. It describes a very irregular line of boundary, by Newton to Worsley and Manchester, extending round the last-named place for a distance of five mile-, and going afterwards to the boundary of the county, but not traversing it into Yorkshire. The high land upon the Yorkshire limit consists of what is locally termed " millstone grit," and is found to come out from under the coal measures. This grit i- discovered also in the ba-in- of the Mersey and Ribble, and r\m in the valley of the Irwell. Carboniferous lime- stone occurs north of the Lune, while near Kirkbv Lonsdale the red sandstone shews it-elf. The lofty hill- of Furucss, rising in the "Old Man*' mountain and others, to the height of between two and three thousand feet above the in- composed <>!' schistose, or mountain and carboniferous slate. Sand and sand-beaches are common to the whole of the extreme west of the county, and cover a Large trait in the bay- of Morecombe ami of the Leven. 'I of the metals are discoverable in -e\i ral plare- in Fume—. DaltOU DOSS) • The mean annual temperature for Manch est e r , as observed by Dr. Daltou for fourteen years, is J'. This is low tor a maritime county not situated further northwards. From observations made in the same town for seven years, the mean annual quantity <>t" rain is 86*14 indies, which is perhaps a fair average Tor the entire county south of the simK, beyond which it is probable that ■•"> "U inches, being thai of Kei del, bordering on Furness, ma* approximate to the correct average. I ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY : rich mines of iron, the ore from which is exported. There are workings of copper and Lead, but they return only a small profit. The Cannel coal raised in Lancashire is remarkable for bearing to be tinned in a lathe, and trinket^ of it are thus made; its peculiarities in burning are well known. The quantity raised L not great Having thus briefly touched upon two or three BubjectB connected with the county generally, which cannot well be attached to the description of any particular locality, we have only to add that the Duchy and Palatinate of Lancaster include estate's and property out of that county. This Duchy was given at the Conquesl to Roger de Poitou, and by subsequent forfeiture came into the possession of the crown. Henry III. appointed his youngest son Kail I Lancaster. Passing afterwards through several hands, the Duchy and estate-. were ultimately vested in Edward IV. as Duke of Lancaster, being settled by act of parliament upon the prince and his heirs for ever. Considerable additions were made to the possessions of the Duchy by Henry VIII. out of the estates be seized at the dissolution of the monasteries; but this situation of things did not long continue, since succeeding monarchs greatly deteriorated the property by granting leases. The larger part consists at present of what are called the forests of Myerscough, Fullwood, Blaesdale, Wyersdale, and Quernmore, all in the northern part of the county, containing respectively 2200, DOT, 9000, 20,000, and 3000 acres. The Duchy of Lancaster being a County Palatine, or, in other words, possessing royal privileges, contains a Court of Chancery founded by Edward III., having an equity jurisdiction within the palatinate. The appointments of all officers, and even of the sheriffs, emanate from the Duchy. We shall now, after this succinct notice of what is connected more imme- diately with the county at large, postpone every other topic to enter upon a description of the Cotton Manufacture — that object of primary importance in this district of gigantic industry. A tourist in Lancashire has to March for objects of interest, different from those which excited his attention in other lands: he has to contemplate Stupendous triumphs of Bcience and art, instead of the wondrous works of nature: he has to deal with the present and the future, Scarcely finding tunc to bestow inquiry or reflection on the past. Whatever it may have been, Lancashire is now the home of a system of manufactures which has revolu- tionized the trade of the entire world, baffled the calculations of the wisest, falsified the predictions of the most far-sighted, and both in its good and in its evil consequences evolved results which contradict almost every principle received as an aphorism in a past generation, lie who \isits a manufacturing district for the firsl time, must prepare himself to meet a social Bystem abso- lutely new — not merely in its phases, but its elements — to which his past experience furnishes no guide, and history oilers no analogy. The steam-engine bad no precedent; locomotive^ are equal!} destitute oi I \M L8HIR1 ■ ■) a parentage and an Infancy; the rude machines which are doubtfully exhibited as parents of the power-loom and the mule-spinner, are at best hut dwarf- that became the parents of giants. A commander in William's army at the battle of Hastings, would be as well qualified to manoeuvre the household brigade of Queen Victoria, or superintend the arrangement of a park of artillery, ;!•> an agriculturist or even a merchant to understand at the first glance the economy of mills and manufactories. "The Factor) System," as > it is generally called, i- not only new in itself, hut it is the prolific parenl of many other novelties which have not yet received their lull development; no person can contemplate the vast interval which separates the rising generation of operatives from that beginning to disappear from the stage, without perci iv- ing that the factory population is in a state of transition, and that there is a steady progress toward- further changes, the nature of which will probably be undiscovered until they have attained their maturity. It will be well for the traveller, as he is hurried onwards by the railroad to those district-, where brass and iron are apparently opposed to the tliew- aml sinew- of man, hut where in reality they work together in increasing harmony, to prepare himself by reflection for the novelties he i- about to encounter. Let him remember thai he is about to see a new state of society establishing itself in an old nation. The factory Bystem suddenly developed it-»dt* in a land already crowded to excess with forms and institutions: its rapidity was incalculable, it- energies resistless — pushing aside every thing which was likely to impede its securing for itself a place in social existence, and it did not always exhibit delicacy or tenderness in thrusting out and removing it- opponents. From the very beginning it did not, nor doe- it yet wholly, harmonize with all the ancient and hereditary institutions of the land: it has therefore incommoded and inconvenienced many whose positions were fixed by that system, and has received annoyance- from them in turn; it resembles "the big man forcing his way through a crowd." elbowing, jostling, and thrusting aside his weaker neighbours, and receiving many a sly pinch in n\ enge. The factory system is established, bul not yet accommodated; it- existence i- recognised, but its relations to all thai was previously i xisting have not been settled: they are indeed in the process of arrangement, but such weighty interests are involved in the term- of agreement, thai the negotiations are not likely to be terminated by Legislation or diplomacy, but will wail the resistless current of events. From these considerations, the traveller will Bee thai th< system i- in a greater or less degree intertwined with every political question which Hjes public attention in the present day; and if he be weary of the contests and struggles of parties, he will acl wi-.U if he adopts a firm resolution to confine his attention entirely to facts, and to Leave the opinion- which will be offered to him by thousands in the quiel possession of their natural owm re. I. ENQ] \M> IN MM \ I M I II \ III ( l.VI I KV : He Lb aboul to investigate a subject of the deepest and yel of increasing importance, nol merely to England bu1 to the civilized world; there can be no doubt that the system of society aboul to be offered to his view, will be the agent most potent in modifying the course and progress of the next and many succeeding generations, and guiding their destinies, whether for good or e\ il. It is not to he expected that any traveller can give a complete account of all the circumstances connected with the manufacturing districts of Lancashire, and all theii influences on public polity and domestic lite; for such a task no human powers of observation would be adequate. Some influences are too extensive, others too minute, and all are in such constant action, that it is scarcely possible to find the momenl of repose when an examination of their constituent parts might be attempted. Even those who have resided in the manufacturing districts all their lives, and who have been neither incurious nor uninterested spectators of the changes which machinery has wrought, are ready to confess that there is mnch in the system which either escapes their kin or baffles their comprehension \ that there are agencies at work, viewless as the wind — " they hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh or w hither it goeth;" and this must necessarily he the case; for. until machinery has worked out all its results, the condition of society which it produces must lie regarded as in a state of transition. Transition is necessarily associated with doubt — we know what we are. hut know not what we maybe, — there are those who hope for change, and there are those who fear it. These feelings are not always the dictates of sell-interest: hope from change often arises from nobler causes thai) dissatisfac- tion with the existing state of things, and fear of change must not always he attributed to the dread of seeing advantages afforded to the many, which are now monopolized by the lew; men on all sides are actuated by better motives than those for which their opponents give them credit: the errors most com- monly attributed to principles will in the great majority of instances be found to arise from false or imperfect perceptions of facts. In these preliminary observations, we have embodied the reflections which passed through our minds while the train carried us from Birmingham towards Manchester. We reflected how- various and how- contradictory were the accounts given <>f a manufacturing population. The pictures which we had Been were drawn either entirely with chalk or entirely with charcoal: they were either all light or all dark, without a single neutral tint. Hut we made these reflections without at all impugning the honesty of those who had given these opposite delineations: we could not hut remember that our own views had been greatly modified by every successive visil to Manchester, and that we weic most positive at the time when we knew least about the matter. There needed not the errors ^\' others to give us a lesson of warning: we had . rrors of our own in abundance tor s,, useful a purpose. I Wi ISHIRE. A- M;iik :he8ter is the capita] of the manufacturing districts of Lancashire, it will be the first place to engage the attention of a traveller. It is the centre of a system <>t' railroads, which will booh conned it with all the greal marts of England. There arc already five of these greal channels of communication radiating from the town, and measures arc in preparation for connecting them together by a junction line, which will give Manchester greater facilities of communication than London itself possesses. The Grand Junction Railway, the route most usually traversed by visitors from the south, enters the count} 1>\ a bridge over the river Mersey, not for from the town of Warrington. A cotton mill close to the Warrington station announces the limit- of the spinning districts on that side more forcibly than any other landmark that could be erected; at no greal distance, a new- manufactory for the construc- tion of locomotive engines similarly bears evidence that this is the native land of steam-carriages; while the lofty chimney of Muspratt's chemical works in tin' distance, explains at the very outset the reason why church spires and monumental columns are scarcely to be found within the precinct- of Lancashire. About four miles from Warrington the Grand .1 unction join- the Liver pool and Manchester Railway at the Parkside station. Here also the North Union (Preston and Lancaster) Railway comes upon the same line, so that Parkside would seem likely to flourish a- a railway village; but from some cause or other its capabilities are neglected, and those who are compelled to stop at it when changing from one line of railway to another, will find it like •• the Baron of Bucklivie's town," which had neither " horse's meat nor man's meat, nor a place to sit down." Few railroads have any charms for the lovers of the picturesque, and that between l'arkside and Manchester may compete in dullness with any in the kingdom. A great part of it passes over Chal Moss, which, until the formation of the railroad, was one of the most dangerous and treacherous bogs in the three kingdoms. Indeed, when the railroad was first proposed to be made between Liverpool and Manchester, the notion of carrying it over (hat Mo was scouted by several of the most eminent surveyors and engineers, who spoke of the attempt as little short of' insanity. .1 u-t where the railroad crosses the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal, a foundry has linn erected by Mi Bsra, Nasmyth and Gaskell, which is perhaps the mosl favourably situated of any s U n an eminence, jusl above the junction of the Irwell and the Medlock, whence there is a pretty extensive view over the townships of Ilulme and Ohorlton. The prospect is anything but cheering. Forests of chimneys, cloud- of smoke and volumes of vapour, like the seething of some stupendous cauldron, occupy the entire landscape; there is no sky, but a dark gray haze, variegated by masses of smoke more dense than the rest, which look like fleeces of black wool, or clouds of sublimated ink. It would seem a- if tire and water, proverbially the be-; servants and the worst masters, m re here the recognised despots of humanity, and that smoke and steam were the visible signs of the tyranny they exercised over suffering victims. There i- little in the Liverpool-road to dissipate these gloomy illusions; it is not until the traveller reaches Mosley-street, that he begins to think that Manchester i- a place which may possibly be inhabited from choice. I.\N( VMJ1UK. 9 *^r*^ The Exchange Lb the first great objed of curio- sity to ;i visitor of Man- chester. It Btands at the tower end of Market- street, w bich is the best Btreet in the town, and not unworthy of ranking as a provincial ^Regent- street: the front is a semi- circle of ample dimen- sions, erected in a bold but chaste style, and sur- rounded by an open space, which enables the \ isitor to appreciate the noble proportions of the build- ing. The lower part of the building is almost exclusively occupied by tin 1 loom in which the merchants meet; its area is more than lour thousand BQUare feet, and it is lighted principally by a semicircular dome. The Exchange maybe regarded as the parliament house of the lords of cotton; it is their Legislative assembly: the affairs of the executive are entrusted to a smaller body, which meets in the Chamber of Commerce, located in a different part of the town. This parliament assembles every Tuesday, and the attendance is greatest about one o'clock, being the hour of " high change." There is perhaps no part of the world in which bo much is done and so little said in the same space of time. A stranger sees nothing at first but a collection of gentlemen with thoughtful intelligent (aces, who con- verse with each Other in laconic whispers, BUpply the delects of WOrds b\ nods ami signs, move noiselessly from one part of the room to another, guided as it' by BOme hidden instinct to the precise person in the crowd with whom they have business- to tran-act. A phrenologist will nowhere meet such a collection of decidedly clever heads; and the physiognomist who declared that he could find traces of stupidity in the faces of the wisest philosophers, would be at a lo-» to find any indication of its presence in the countenances assembled on the Exchange at Manchester. Genius appears to be not less rare than folly; the characteristic features of the meeting collectively and individually, are thoa -i talent in high working order. Whether trade be brisk or dull. " high chai is equally crowded, and the difference of its aspect .it the two periods is sufficiently striking. In stirring times, every man on change -eeiiis .is if he belonged to the mmmnnity nf dancing dervishes, In inu r utterly incapable <>f remaining for a single second in one place: it is the principle of a Manchesu t man. that " nought 18 done while aught remains to do;*' let him but have the 10 i M.I.AM) IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUBT: opportunity, and he will undertake to supply all the markets between China and Peru, and will be exceedingly vexed if he lias lost an opportunity of selling some yarn at Japan on his May. When trade is dull, the merchants and factors stand motionless as statues, or move about as slowly as if they followed a funeral; the look of eagerness is exchanged for that of dogged obstinacy; it seems to say, " my mind is made up to lose so much, but I am resolved to lose no more." An increase of Bternness and inflexibility accom- panies the decline of the Manchester trade, and foreigners declare that the worst time to expert a bargain is a season of distress. " High change" lasts little more than an hour; after the clock has struck two the meeting gradually melts away, and before three the building is as silent and deserted as one of the catacombs of Kgypt. Suppose, gentle reader, what is not very for from the fact, that we have made an appointment with a mill-owner to see his factory this evening. We arc to spend some days in Manchester together, and as the entire social economy of the town depends on its cotton manufactures, we must endeavour to form some adequate notion of their nature, in order to prepare ourselves for rightly comprehending their effects. More than one visit to a cotton mill is necessary to overcome the confusion created by its novelty and its complication, so as to obtain any notion of the several processes to which the material is subjected before it a— umes the shape of yarn. The din of the machinery, which, if there be any power-looms at work, beats the Falls of Niagara all to nothing; — the rapid motions of the several wheels and shafts — the variety and complication of the several pro- cesses which pass under view, distract the mind, and at first produce a sense of weariness which it is not easy for a visitor to overcome. On the present occasion it will be better not to distract ourselves by entering into an examin- ation of the Steam-Enginej its only connexion with cotton spinning is a- a moving power, and its place is often beneficially supplied by the water-wheel. We need only remember that steam, or water, turns the horizontal shafts which we shall see revolving close to the ceiling of every room, and that the straps which play over these shafts communicate motion to the several machine- we -hall inspect. Silk, flax, wool, and cotton, may be regarded as the basis of all textile or woven fabrics: the process of weaving is in principle the same for all. but there is a great variety in the spinning of these several substances, occasioned by the great difference of their staple. Silk indeed, of which the substance is already one of continuous thread, is more properly said to be thrown than spun; cotton has the shortest staple of any material used in spinning, and consequently there is most difficulty in procuring from it a perfectly smooth yarn. Mechanical ingenuity is therefore taxed, not merely to increase the amount, but also to secure uniformity of production, and the contrivances for the latter purpose are far more minute and curious than those for increasing the quantity . LANI LSHIRE. 11 ( otton is a vegetable wool, which adheres to the seeds of certain plants, shrubs, ami trees: the cotton produced from annual vegetables is far the most valuable, on account of the Length and fineness of it- staple, but shrubs yield the most abundant produce. The plants may. with very little attention, be mown in this country, and the \ellow flower of the cotton is no despicable ornament to the greenhouse. It is indeed frequently cultivated by horticulturists, and need not therefore be further described. The Beeds round which the wool grows are very oily, and were they packed with the wool they would render it mouldy and dirty. It is therefore necessary that the seeds should he removed before the cotton is packed for exportation; and the inferiority of the Hindoos in this process is one of the reasons why Indian cotton bears so low a price when compared with American. Those immense wagons, that are met incessantly traversing the streets of Manchester, drawn by horses which can alone be matched by the drays of London, arc for the most part laden with bales of cotton in the raw or manu- factured state. Our present concern is with the former; and as some of tin' loose particles constantly fall from the bags into the street, it may be advisable to cast a brief glance at the raw material. The relative value of raw cotton depends on the Length of its staple, the delicacy of its fibre, and its freedom from dirt and seeds. An unpractised eye does not easily detect the differences which a manufacturer perceives at a single glance, and one is apt to conclude that in the sale of cotton there La great scope for fraud, by mixing the inferior kinds with those of superior quality. On inquiry, we were informed that there were many opportunities for such deception, but that it was rarely if ever practised. Raw cotton is sold by sample, and so high is the sen-.,, of commercial honour among the cotton dealers that a contract is rarely voided by supplying an article inferior to the sample. Previous to the opening of the railroad the cotton dealers formed an important part of the merchants of Manchester, but since that period many manufacturers prefer making their purchases in Liverpool. However careful the Americans may be, cotton never comes to England in a state fit for immediate use; some seeds remain after the most careful clean- in-, and the pressure to which it is subjected in packing, forms hard matted Lumps, and Borne of the coarser and heavier wool i^ unavoidably mixed with that of superior quality. The first operation in the process of manufacture is consequently the cleaning of the cotton. It is put into the blowing machine, where the cotton is torn open by revolving spikes. and subjected to the action of a very powerful blast, produced by the rapid turnings of a tan; the light wool is thus blown to some distance from the b< ivi< r portions, the dirt, seeds, etc. This process is con- tinued in the scutching machine, where the cotton is \^J&^^ beaten bv metallic blades making from S000 to 5000 1 ' 1 SV ENGLAND t» I 1 M . NINETEENTH I IN I I i:\ : revolutions in the minute; these completely open the fibre, and Beparate the fine wool from the waste, which fells to the ground through a frame of wire work. The cleaning process is generally called "willowing," which is either a corruption of winnowing, or perhaps derived from the willow frames on which the cotton was cleaned by beating, before blowing machines were invented. Previous to this improvement the cotton was placed upon willow hurdles, or upon cords stretched over a wooden frame, and then beaten with smooth switches. This operation, technically called batting, though very fatiguing, and we believe unwholesome, from the dust, etc. which was scattered about, was usually performed by women : it is now very rarely practised, except when some remarkably fine cotton is required for the manufacture of lace, when it is of importance to preserve the Length of the staple, which might he injured by machinery. The Hindoos open the fibres of their cotton by a bow similar to that which hatters use in raising wool; the same contrivance appears to have been em- ployed in America, for we find the term " bowed cotton" still employed in the language of commerce. Judging from its effects on wool and fur, we should think that the bow is an effective machine for cleaning and opening the fibres, but it would be far slower and less productive than the willow. When cleaned the cotton is brought to the lapping or spreading machine, where a given weight of the wool is spread over a determinate surface of cloth, and being then slightly compressed by a cy- linder, it is lapped round a cylindrical roller so as to be in a tit state for feeding the carding machine. It is a singular feet, illustrating the accu- racy with which machinery works, that the weight of the cotton spread on the doth in this process regulates the fineness of the thread ultimately produced, and that there is rarely any great amount of error in the calculation. The next process, that of carding, is one of the most beautiful in the whole of the cotton manufacture. An explanation of the object to lie attained, is necessary for those who have not paid Mime attention to the subject. In order that any material should be spun, that is. should have its fibres twisted together, it is essential that these fibres should be Btraighl and parallel with each other. After having been subjected to the action of the willow, the ' 1 \\< \-IHKI . 13 fibres of the cotton are blown aboul in every direction, and if compressed would l)i" entangled with each other. This, which is the objecl to be gained for the process of felting, is precisely thai which musl be carefully avoided for spinning. In order to Btraighten the fibre, the cotton is made to pass between cards or brushes of wire, one of winch is stationary and the other in motion. the wire teeth catch the fibres, and by their continued action pull them into nearly parallel directions. This process was anciently, and in some rural districts both of England and Ireland is still, effected by hand-card-, which might be described as two brushes with handles, having short w ires instead of hairs. The labour was usually performed by women, who placed one of the cards on the knee, holding it firm with the left hand; and then spreading the cotton or wool in small quantities over the wire, drew the other card repeatedly over it with the right hand until the fibres wire deemed sufficiently Btraight. When thus prepared, the cardings were taken oft' in a roll by the hand, and laid so as to be united into a continuous roving by the spinning wheel. The first great improvement in this process was to fix one of the card- to a table and BUSpend the other from the ceiling, so that the workman could move it without having to sustain it-, weight. Such a contrivance allowed "stock-cards," a- they were called, to he made of double the si/e of hand- cards, and consequently to double the quantity of work produced. We have Been stock-cards in Borne rural districts, where there i- -till a domestic manu- facture of woollens, hut they are daily becoming of more rare occurrence. In nearly all manufactures, they have been superseded by the cylindrical cards, which Mr. Baines has shewn to he the invention of Mr. Lewis Paul of Birmingham, about the year 17 is. A.bou1 17<>0, the process, which Beems to have been either neglected or disused, was revived by Mr. Mom- of \\ igan, and applied to the carding of cotton. The perfecting of the machine has been claimed for Sir Richard Arkwright, bul the originality of his invention has been very fiercelj contested. Without entering into the controversy, we -hall proceed to describe briefly the machine in it- present -tate. The carding machine has the appearance of a cylindrical box, into which cotton i- given by the roller, round which it was wrapped in the spreading operation. It- wooden covering is a series of narrow pannels; and if one of these he lilted, it will he -een that each of t hi in i- a card, and that a cylinder covered with card- occupies the inti rior of the box, between which and the 14 ENGLAND l\ 111!' NINETEENTH i I NTVUY pannel-cards the cotton is rapidly passed. At the opposite side of the box is a Becond cylinder, the cards on which, instead of being placed horizontally. are wound spirally round the cylinder, which is called a doffer, so as to remove the carded cotton in a continuous fleece. The cotton is slipped from the doffer by the action of a slip of metal, finely toothed like a comb, which being worked against the cylinder by means of a crank, beats or brushes off the cotton in a fine filmy fleece. The cloud-like appearance of the carded cotton, ..,,.. as it is brushed from the doffer or finishing cylinder by the crank and comb, is singularly beautiful — a breath seems to disturb the delicacy of it- t< \- ture, and to the touch it is all *" but impalpable. The filmy fleece i> gradually contracted a- it passes through a funnel, by which it is forced to assume the shape of a roll or sliver. It then passes between two rollers, l>v which it is compressed into the shape of a riband of consi- derable tenacity, in which state it coils it-elf up in a deep tin can. Looking at the various parts of this interesting machine, the attention is first engaged by the feeding cylinder, which supplies the cotton to the cards 1 \M LSHIBE. 15 more regularly and continuously than could be effected by hands. The successive cards on the concave and convex cylinder arc seen to subjecl the wool to several successive cardings at each revolution of the wheel; and to prevent the necessity of stopping the machine to remove the carded cotton. it is stripped off bj the doffer, which removes the cotton, ool in successive portions, but in one continuous fleece. Again, the removal of this fleece from the doffer, which would be both tedious and imperfect if attempted by hand- card-, is completely accomplished bj the simple agency of the crank and comb. The construction of the cards well deserves the attention of the visitor. Each card consists of a band of leather, pierced with teeth of iron wire, each bit of wire bearing two teeth J . The teeth must be perfectly alike in si/e and shape, and they must be equally distributed over the surface of the leather. It may be deemed easy to bend the wire at right angles, so as to make it penetrate the leather, but a second and more difficult operation remains; each tooth must be bent to a given obtuse angle ""j N . which musl not have the slightest variation in the whole of the same system of cards. Were any one tooth to vary from the angle formed by the rest, it would lay hold of more or less- cotton, and thus render the carding irregular. Again, the leather must lie of uniform thickness, for any inequalities would be equivalent to a variation in the length of the teeth; the holes with which it is pierced to receive the double tooth must also have the sanie inclination to the plane of the leather; and finally, the cross part of the wire at the back must he held last, so as to prevent the teeth from easily shifting their position. A card-making machine, invented hy Mr. Dyer of Manchester, was exhibited at the meeting of the British Association in Birmingham in 1839; it split the leather, pierced it, cut the wire, formed the teeth, gave them the requisite inclination, and fixed them in the leather, with a precision and rapidity which excited the admiration of all the mechanists who saw it. The cards which it produces, are not however so highly valued as those in which machinery is more partially employed, hut its inventor does not despair of bringing it to complete perfection. Carding i- not the only operation employed to Btraighten the fibre of the cotton. h may easily he conceived that the teeth of the cards will frequently lay hold of a fibre hy the middle, and thus double it together, in which state it is unlit for spinning. This evil is corrected in the drawing frame — an important part of the spinning machinery, for it executes work which could scarcely have been effected by human hands. The essential parts of the drawing frame may he easily understood from description. Each drawing head consists of three pairs of rollers; the upper one of each pair being smooth and covered with leather, the lower being fluted longitudinally. They are placed at a distance from r.^\\ other, which is regulated bj the staple of tin- cotton; that is to say. the distance between each pair of wheels i- generally a very little mure than the length of the fibres subjected i" their action. The 16 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUET: loose riband formed by the carding machine lb pulled through these rollers .mil as they revolve with different velocities the fibres pull out each other. and reciprocally extend each other to their lull Length, But a not less im- portant object of the drawing frame is to equalize the consist- ency of the cardings, One carding, not- withstanding all the precautions that have heen taken, will be found to have more or less of substance than another, and it is necessary to coun- teract this inequality by combining several of the carded ribands, technically called ft card-ends," into one sliver. Eight card-ends arc usually brought to the Hist drawing head, and after passing through the rollers they combine to from one sliver of the same density as each of them separately, thus increasing eight-fold the chances of uniformity in the sliver. Four of these slivers are again subjected to the same process, and thus the chances of uniformity are thirty-two-fold those of the original card-ends; and this is continued until the Last sliver may lie regarded as containing parts of 300 card-ends: hut for very tine spinning, the doubling of the fibres, as the process i-. called, is multiplied more than (10,000 times. The drawing frames are fed from the tin cans containing the card-ends, and the chief duty of those who attend them is to mend or piece the feeding slivers when one of them is broken, or when one of the cylindrical cans is exhausted. A contrivance has been recently introduced to abbreviate this labour: a cylin- drical weight is made to fall at intervals into the receiving can, and by pressing down the sliver, to force it to hold more than double the quantity which it would contain if the sliver were hit to coil itself loosely. En the mills for fine spinning, greal attention is paid to this process, because any defects left by the drawing frame cannot be cured in subsequent operations. The Labour of attending to the machine-, b the lightesl in the cotton mill, but there are lew parts which require more vigilance and care. A.S a casual visitor is very likely to pass by a drawing lrame without perceiving its construction, it may be well to mention that there is a mahogany bar laced with flannel over every drawing head, and a similar bar pressed I \\( VSIIIRE. 17 gentlj by a weight against the lower tier of rollers ; these remove all loose fibres, and it is necessary to displace the upper bar in order to Bee the action nf the machinery . The next operation is the making of a roving or thin Bliver, aboul the thickness of candles [ck,andgn inn- it only so much of a tw isl as will enable it to hold together. The attenuation of the sliver is accom- plished by rollers acting in the same way as in the drawing pro- cess, but various contrivances ha\ e been devised to give the roving just s () much tension as is neces- sary and no more. Arkwright invented the can-roving frame, in which a slight twist was given to the roving by making the receiv- ing can revolve upon a pivot. It was necessary that the rovings alter this operation should be wound off npon bobbins, a process injurious to their delicate texture; to obviate this evil, the jack- frame, or jack in the box was contrived, which wound the roving on a bobbin as it received its twist instead of leaving it to coil in the can. At presenl the process of roving is generally performed by the bobbin and fly frame, an ingenious but complex piece of mechanism, though its principles admit of easy explanation. n Is ENGLAND IN 1 III. NINETEENTH CENTURA Two objects are to be effected: first, the roving is to receive a slight twist, and, secondly, it is to be thru wound on the bobbin. For the fir-t purpose the motion of the spindle i- sufficient, the chief difficulty lies in effecting the second. The sliver passes from the roller to the bobbin through the hollow arm of* a flyer at- tached to the spindle, the other arm of the spindle is solid, and sen es only to balance the ma- chinery. In the most perfi cl spindles there is a brass ring attached to the end of the hollow arm of the flyer, acted upon by a spring, for the purpose of compressing the roving; there is also a delivering finger, round which the roving takes a turn which prevents its being improperly stretched by the centrifugal force produced by the rotation of the flyer. The amount of twist given to the roving depends upon the ratio between the speed of the roller by which it is delivered and that of the spindle, and this ratio, of course, is invariable during the proct ss The winding-up however presents many difficulties : the delivering finger of the flyer must glide up and down under regulated pressure, so as to lay the roving evenly over the entire surface of the bobbin; and as each coil of roving increases the periphery or thickness of the bobbin, there is a necessity for a cor- n-ponding change of motion to accommodate the receiving powers of the bobbin to the quantity of roving given out by the delivering arm of the flyer. Were the bobbin at rest, every revolution of the spindle would wind round it a length of roving equal to it- cir- cumference; but as the revolutions of the spindle are deter- mined by the degree of twist Here— ;iry to be given to the roving, and not by the amount which the bobbin can take up at each revolution, it becomes necessary to make the bobbin revolve in the -aine direction with the fiver, but at a -peed so much less a- will enable it to take up the exact amount of roving given out by the feeding rollers. Sup- pose that quantity to be -i\ inches, and that the circum- ference of the bobbin i- at the -one time six inches, if the spindle make- nine revolution- while the bobbin makes only eight, it will have gained one revolution, and by that mean- will have wound round the bobbin the exact quantity of ro\ ing issued by the delivering roller- ; now a- th<- circumference of the bobbins i- constantly increased by the roving 1. \\< LSHIRE. 1!) wound upon it. there fa a perpetually recurring necessity for a series of adjust- ments, which were found in practice to be beyond the capacity of the persons employed to superintend the working of these frames. The thicker that the bobbin becomes in consequence of the roving wound upon it, the more musl it-* motion be increased in order to diminish the difference of velocity between it and the spindle: this fa effected by causing the driving strap to act <>n a conical, instead of a cylindrical drum, thus giving to the movement a variable instead of an equable velocity. It is not necessary to enter into any examin- ation of the many Ingenious contrivances which have been devised to render the roving machines more perfect and automatic; the reader will best appreciate the difficulty of the operation, by bearing in mind thai the process of twisting by the spindle, and winding <>n the bobbin, though connected in feet, are quite independent in principle, and that there is therefore a necessity for the nicesl adjustment, in order that the one should he accommodated to the other. It maybe noticed that two slivers from the drawing frame are combined in a roving, and consequently that we are. after this, to double the amount of the combinations from the original cardings. We may add that the compress- ing apparatus attached to the delivering arm of the flyer i- not yel universally used, bul is chiefly found in new mills. The roving process is repeated for the liner kind-, or as they are technically called, the higher numbers, of Yarn. When it is completed, the rovings are taken to he spun either by the throstle or the mule; hut the rovings for the higher numbers are previously worked on the stretching frame, which in all its essential parts is the same as the mule, and may therefore he included in the description of that machine. Twist of low numbers, called water-twist, because it was originally worked in Arkwright's water-frame, is spun by the throstle, a machine probably deriving its name from its singing noise. It is in principle nearly the same as the drawing frame which has been just described ; it extends the rovings by the action of rollers into slender threads, and twists them by the rotation of spindles and flyers. The machinery however is far more simple, because the hard-twisted throstle thread docs not require such tender manipulation as the delicate roving. The chief interruption which takes place in throstle spinning is caused by the necessity of removing the full bobbins and supplying empty bobbins in their place. The person employed in this duty is called a " doff r;" and if he is very dexterous the delay will not average more than half an bour per day. The Danforth throstle, for which a patent was obtained Some years ago, has been rejected by many eminent spinners, because the bobbins of yarn it affords being smaller than those tinned oil' by the common throstle, there is a greater delay in the doffing. It is also objectionable for another reason; the yarn it produces is Boflly wound, ami is Liable to considerable waste when reeled upon the bobbins in the warping mill. The yarn, however, is s ;i j ( l to posx^s ;i greater degree of < Lasticit) . ami is therefore preferred for the weaving of' certain kinds of calico. IQ engi wii i n iin. \ i \ ii ii.n in century: Mule-spinning is 1 >« > 1 1 1 more common and more interesting than throstle- Bpinning. Let the reader imagine himself in the room, a part of which is represented in the accompanying cut, and it is probable that the circumstances worthy of his notice will present themselves in nearly tin- following order. lie will see a carriage about a yard in height, and of very considerable Length, varying in different mills, bearing a row of spindles between its upper rails: it has generally three wheels, which traverse on the same number of iron guiding bars, so as to allow of its drawing out to a distance of more than four feet from the stationary frame; as it recedes from the frame, it draws with it, and elongates the threads or rather rovings delivered to it through rollers, by a series of bobbins in the creels or stationary rails. The threads a- they are elongated are twisted by the spindles; and should any of them break, it is the duty of a boy or girl, called a piecer, to join the disunited ends ;is the carriage moves from the upright frame. A girl in the ait of piecing the yam is represented in the cut. When the carriage has receded to its full extent, the spindles continue to revolve until the requisite quantity of twist is communicated to the yarn. The spinner then causes the spindles to revolve backwards until he has unwound the portion of thread which has coded spirally round it from the point to the nose of the cop, and at the same time he lowers a filler wire, supported by hooks, as seen in the cut. so as to regulate the winding of the yam on the cop in a proper spiral. There is great nicety required in regulating the pushing back of the carriage, for it is necessary that its rate of travelling should be commensurate with the revolution of the I \\« \-llIKi:. ,'1 spindles. Three simultaneous and delicate movements hare thus to be effected l-\ the spinnei as the carriage returns : he must guide tin- taller wire bo as to ensure the regular winding of the yarn on the cop; he must regulate the rota- tion of the spindles, of which there arc often a thousand to one mule; and he must push the carriage at such a rate as to supply precisely the exact amounl of yarn that the spindles can take up. The little pieeers can only take up the ends when the carriage is within a fool <>r two of the delivering roller, and they have therefore an interval of" rest while the carriages traverse backwards and forwards. The spinnei too ha- a brief respite while the carriage is moving outward- from the frame. The time taken to make a stretch, that is to draw out a thread equal in Length to the range of the carriage, increases with the fineness of the yarn, and varies also according to the completeness of the machinery and the skill of the operative. The breaking of the threads depends not merely on the machinery, hut to a very great extent on the atmosphere and temperature. We w ere in a mill during the prevalence of a sharp drying east wind, and found that it produced such an effect on the fibres of the cotton that the threads broke fester than the pieeers could mend them, and that the spinning of very high numbers at such a time was all but impossible. The room- in which fine yarn is -pun are kept at a temperature of from 70° to 80°, which is not so high as to produce much inconvenience. It is obvious that the spinner is a very important workman when such mule- a- that we have described are employed: on him depend not merely the machinery and its work, hut the employment of the young pieeers and the "scavengers" or "cleaners." who are constantly employed in removing the waste cotton or "fly" a- i- -hewn in the cut. The spinners knew their strength, and though they received very large remuneration, frequently turned out for higher wages, by which they not only threw their assistants, the pieeers and cleaners, out of employment, hut also the operatives engaged in the several processes for preparing the cotton previously to its being spun. I remedy this evil, many attempt- were made to construct -elf-acting mule-, that i-. mules which would not require the attention of a spinner, hut could he wholly managed by hi- subordinates. Mr. Roberts, of the firm ^>i' Sharp, Roberts and Co., was the first, and is >till the only inventor that can he -aid to have succeeded in this desirable objectj hi- Belf-aeting mule- are ver) generally used in the mill- when' Low-numbers are -pun. but 1 believe that they have not been found applicable to the spinning of the finer yarns. After being -pun, the yarn, if not de-lined for weft or doubling, i- wound oil' on a h( I Igon ri el. on.- yard and a hall' in circumference j the reel strikes a < h< < k after every eight! revolutions, which form what i- called n ley, that i- 1 JO yards of yarn; Beven Leys form a lunik of 840 yards of yarn, and the fin of the thread i- known by the number of these hank- that weigh a pound. The- finest yarn ever yel produced was -pun in the null of T. Eiouldsworth, gg ENGLAND in THE NINETEENTH CENTURY! Esq.: there were 460 hanks in the pound, which at 840 yards to the hank gives a length of 878,000 yards, or about 215 miles. This is, however, a very unusual degree of fineness: it is \\ Mr. Chapman of Manchester. Ii supplies the wire cuts it to the requisite Length, fixes and binds it at the required intervals with the most perfeel accu- racy, and performs all this with a rapidity and precision which can scarcer) be surpassed by any other machinery. As it i- necessary thai the wires for the dents should be of equal thickness throughout, the machine draws and flattens the wire through cylindrical rollers] and there is a contrivance for throwing the machinery oul of gear when any imperfection or inequality occurs in the wire. The mode of counting the dents iii a reed varies in differenl Localities; Mr. Chapman distinguishes his by the number of hundred dents in a yard. lie shewed us one reed which contained the amazing number of 1800 dents in the yard, that is to say, loo in an inch — so that his machine had actually made 866 divisions of a single inch, mathematically exact, both in parallelism and equality. In order that the weaving should he perfect, great care is nec< ssary in all the preliminary arrangements of the warp yarn, which must he extended on the loom in parallel lines, and with an equal degree of tension. The rods which separate the alternate threads, technically called lease-rods, are to he set so as to keep the threads which arc to go through one heddle quite distinct from those belonging to the other. Having received his yarn in a bundle, the weaver first rolls it regularly on the yarn cylinder, keeping the threads distincl by an instrument called a ravel, which is in fact a coarse kind of reed. After the warp is wound on the cylinder, the operation of- drawing-in" commences; that is, the alternate threads are to lie drawn through their respective healdfi or heddles, and all the threads through the dents of the reed. The instrument used in this process is called a sley. or reed- j| . hook, and is so constructed as to take two <~- - threads through e\ ery dent or interval of the !^^P^/^^ reed. In reeds of very high number, for S^/ weaving the finest muslins, the "drawing-in" is an operation of meat nicety, requiring both sharp ne is of edghl and delicacy of manipulation ; and the reed-hooks employed are made of the finest and host tempered steel; hut in ordinary cloth the process is simple, and is usually per- formed 1>\ women. The lease, or separation of the alternate threads in the war]) varn. is made l>v the pins in the warping mill, and is preserved h\ the lease rods. These rods being tied together at the ends. Becure the permanency of the lease ami guide the operative m drawing the alternate yarns through the heddles. To facilitate the process, the beam on which the warp yarn has been wound is suspended a little above the heddles, bo as to allow tin yarn to hang down perpendicularly. The op then opens the loop in each of the twines ,,f 28 ENGLAND l\ THE NINETEENTH CENTURY I the heddles successively, and through each draws a warp thread. This is there- fore an operation not very un- like threading a needle, having it- eye in the middle instead of the end. Alter the threads have been passed singly through the loops or eyes of the heddles, they are drawn in pairs through the dents of the reed. The heddles are then mounted with the cords by which they are moved, and the reed being placed in the batten, every thing is ready for the weaver to commence his operations. The power-loom is now generally vised for the weav- ing of plain cloth, and for various kinds of twilled and figured goods. Mr. Roberts is the patentee of the power- loom most commonly used; hut many other mechanists have produced various contrivances lor weaving by machinery, and there can be no doubt that manual labour, at least for the coarser kinds of good-, must rapidly fall into disuse. In one respect the power-loom has a very obvious advantage over the hand-loom: the batten, lay or lathe, to which the reed is attached. drives home the weft to the rest of the Avcb after it has been shot from the spindle; now a weaker or stronger blow of this lathe alters the thickness of the cloth, and alter any interruption, the most experienced weaver finds it difficult to commence with a blow of precisely the same force as that with which he left off. In the power-loom the lathe is easily adjusted to give a steady certain blow, and when once regulated by the engineer, it moves with unvarying precision from the beginning to the end of the piece. Hence power-loom cloth is always of a more equable and regular texture than that woven by hand. Power-looms are generally placed in sheds, and lighted from the to]> by ;i single range of windows t, ( every row of looms. The weavers, or rather the tenters, have very little to do besides watching the machinery and correcting any delects in the materials to he woven. As the labour is light, it is usually performed by women or young persons; and we were informed that the business is so simple as to he easily learned in a month or six weeks. The cloth when woven is either made up for sale in an unbleached state, or -ent to the bleach-WOrks, where, as we shall hereafter sec. it goes through a I \\< wiiii; i . 29 -cries of processes not Less ingenious, and scarcely Less complicated than those which have Inm just described. Having noticed the several processes dis- played in a cotton mill, it remains to examine the structure of the edifice in which all this various and complicated machinery is contained. This is a subject of much greater importance than is generally supposed, for the architec- tural arrangements of the mill exercise very greal influence, not only on the perfection of the manufacture, but also on the health and morals of the operatives. Mr. Fairbairn of Manchester, in addition to his great eminent an engineer, is the most distinguished authority in factory architecture, and the mills erected under his superintendence may fairly be taken as models. The moving power may either be the steam-engine or the water-wheel, or a combination of both. There are feu- opportunities for the erection of water- wheels in the immediate vicinity of Manchester, and I believe thai all the town mills are set in motion by steam. Bui in the romantic valleys and dales, north and .at of the town, at a distance of from ten to thirt\ miles, waterfalls arc brought to aid steam and save the consumption of coals. Formerly, the steam-engine was imbedded in the structure of the building in which it was placed, so that when it was necessary to be removed, a greal part of the masonry hail to he taken d.,w n ; modern engines are usually constructed more like those OSed in steam-packets, they are BeCUTed by bolts t,, the floor and walU. and can be taken away without any displacement of the structure. The boilers which supply Bteam are usually placed in an external ahed. The engine or engines, tor two are sometimes combined, work by cranks and ■ 30 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURA so as to set in motion the horizontal shaft to which the fly-wheel belongs. Prom this shaft, motion is communicated to the main upright shaft, which extends from the foundation to the upper story of the mill. This again Bets in motion horizontal shafts extending along the ceiling of each story in the build- ing. The advantage of haying two engines arises from the working of them in such a way that the one exerts its greatest force when the other has the Least, so that the joint operation of both gives an equable motion to the shafts, which being smooth, highly polished, and fixed in firm bearings of bras- work, silently and evenly, without producing any of those vibrations which those who only know the working of steam-engines from the experience of a steam- packet mighl expect, and which I am informed was frequently felt in the older factories. Though water may not be wanting to drive a wheel, the vicinity of a river or canal is almost essential to a mill, in order to facilitate the conveyance of fuel, to supply the boilers, and to afford good drainage. Hence, most of the nulls in Manchester are close either to the Irwell or the Medlock ; and the noble Mersey is studded with factories for miles upon miles of its course. Compactness is a very important consideration in the construction of a mill. Tt is desirable that as little time as possible should be lost in removing the cotton from the scene of one set of operations to the stage of its next process. Hence, mills are erected of seven or eight stories in height, even in those localities where the saving of ground need not be taken into consideration. The stairs are now, almost without exception, of stone ; the staircase is of the kind usually called a well, that is, it winds spirally round a hollow shaft in the centre. As communication by the stairs would in many cases be tedious and fa- tiguing, the centre of the well is occupied by a contrivance called the hoist, which may be briefly described as a movable closet that can ascend or descend at pleasure through the shaft of the well, and land the persons in it on any of thi' floors of the mill, through doors which open from the shaft on the lobbies: A A and 15 15 are the walls ( ,f the well shaft. (' i- pari of a door in the wall B, leading to the floor or some lobby of the mill : E is the hoist, which is raised by the rope (i. This rope passes I w< LSHIRE. !1 over a system of wheels and pulleys, being worked l>\ the counterbalancing weight V, which ascends as the hoisl descends, and vice versd. II is a past leading to apartments in the mill ; 1 I is the double rope pulley, by pressing on which the persons in the hoist can either ascend or descend as thej please. This very economic and l>ene\ olent cont ii\ ance tor saving the fatigue ill' ascending ami descending stairs, was the joint invention of Messrs. \V. Strati and Frost, <»t' Derby. The most scrupulous attention is paid to cleanliness in almost every mill; those which were exception-, are last disappearing, lint cleanliness i- found in Manchester where it would he least expected, among the firemen and attend- ant- on the boilers. The coals are raised from their bins in a yard by a series of bucket^, similar to those of the dredging machines used for deepening the beds of rivers, theme they are emptied into a wagon with a drop-bottom, which moves on a railway over the feeding-hoppers attached to each furnace, and are supplied to the fires in the exact proportion required to generate steam necessary for the work. Xot only are the floors and walls kept lice from the slightest impurity, hut the overseers take care that the children should keep themselves neat. They go round every morning and reprove those who have failed to wash themselves after breakfast; the delinquents are without excuse, as soap, water and towels are provided gratuitously for their use. In many mills, hoxes and nests ( ,t' drawers are provided, in which the female operatives deposit their streel dresses, and put on their working clothes before they begin their labours. There is also a separate washing and dressing room for the women, from which as well as from their other places of retirement, the male operatives are care- fully excluded. We have been much interested by observing the difference of appearance between the females when at work, and when they are going home to dinner; they do not exhibit any trace of their occupation when they appear in the street; many of them indeed display in the arrangement of their iln-v and person a neatness and taste not unbecoming a higher walk of life. The proper ventilation of the rooms is qow regarded as an object of primary importance in the construction of mills. Taylor's mill, mar Preston, is in this respect a perfect model ; it has in every room a double system of ventilators: the series at the top of each loom removing the foul air, while fresh air is supplied by those near the floor. The mills me warmed by steam-pipes, from which some portion of' the steam is permitted to escape and mix with the BUITOUnding atmosphere. \\ e ha\e already noticed that a moist warm temperature is essential to the perfec- tion of cotton manufactures, and especially to the spinning of the finer yarns; but the influence of such an atmosphere on the health of the operatives appear- ing questionable, we Bought information from various medical gentlemen who had enjoyed long opportunities for observing the vital statistics of fkctorii They unanimously condemned the system of warming apartments by stov< ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY: hot-air pipes : they declared that a dry, heated atmosphere is pernicious, and referred to the experience of the calico-printers, and of those who arc in the habit of using Arnott's Btoves. We subsequently found that bleachers and calico-printers have generally adopted the system of heating by steam, in con- sequence of the ill effects produced by dry hot air <>n the health of the operatives. Regularity and precision are required in all the operations of a cotton mill, and these are enforced by the accurate working of the machinery. Accidents from the machinery are of very rare occurrence: the most dangerous parts of the turning shafts, which almost alone are perilous to the incautious, are either protected l>v wooden boxes or placed where there is rarely occasion to pass them. The driving-strap- are dangerous only to those who voluntarily encounter peril. Were the proprietors to leave the dangerous parts of their machinery so exposed as to produce great liability to accident, they would not only he necdles>ly cruel, hut stupidly blind to their own interests. Any acci- dent would produce a derangemenl of machinery, the repairing of which would cost infinitely more than the cases or boxes necessary to prevent its occurrence. In one mill, we are told that Blight cuts and bruises were frequently occasioned by the tricks which young operatives played upon each other when employed to oil the machinery, hut in most of the instances in our inquiry from the operatives respecting the frequency of accidents, they laughingly asked if we thought workpeople were such fools as to hurt themselves designedly. Most modern mills are built fire-proof; those which are not so, have gene- rally a fire-engine of their own, in the use of which the operatives are occasion- allv exercised. It is now also the favourite plan to have the cotton raised by a crane in its raw state to the upper story; it then descends from floor to floor in the successive stages of its manufacture, until on the ground-floor it is woven into cloth by the power-loom. 'flic amount of capital invested in a spinning mill is usually calculated by the number of spindles required, which not unfrequently amounts to one hundred thousand. Some years ago the cost of a mill was estimated at a pound per spindle; hut in consequence of the progress of mechanical improve- ment, the cost is not now rated higher than 13*. h/. per spindle. The rapidity with which the great engineering houses can stock a mill with all its engines and machinery is scarcely credible; they are enabled to do so by having accurate wooden models of all the several parts, from which castings are easily taken, and the framework is thus got ready with the greatest expedition, Saving gone through a cotton mill, let us now breathe a little fresh air. or at least the atmosphere that hears the name in the manufacturing districts. Manchester is watered by the Irwell and its tributaries, the Medlock and the Irk. and no three streams in the universe are forced to do such an amount oi work and m';i\ engeriug in proportion to their si/e. The Irwell separates Man- ■ tester from the borough of Salford, as the Thames divides Southwark from 1 \\( \-l! [RE. London: ltut the connexion between Manchester and Salford almost amounts to identity; the same occupations are pursued in both; many who have pi of business in one, reside in the other, and the boundary between them i- narrow that it is crossed in a moment. This facility did not always exist: tin- old bridge over the Irwcll. which was steep, narrow, and incon\ l niuit . continued from the fourteenth century until the September of L887, when it was stepped by order ot* the authorities, and a temporary wooden bri erected preparatory to the taking down of the ancient structure, and building of a new bridge more suited to the exigencies of the locality. This was chiefly ov ing to the exertions of the Manchester Improvement Committee: at their instigation the venerable bridge was indicted at the Quarter Sessions of Sal ford, October 1836, for insufficiency of footway, roadway, and water- way; not a single legal antiquarian appeared to plead for the antique pile] it was taken down, and the new bridge was opened on the MOth ot' March 1839, the anniversary ot' her Majesty 's accession, in whose honour the bridge receii ed the name of Victoria. The view of and from the Victoria Bridge to the spectator. On the Manchester Bide we catch a glance of the old ( !ol- offers many objects of into I -** legiate Church and Cheet- ham( lollege, both of which w e shall subsequently \ Tit ; while in the direction of Salford we see the besl con- structed and tallest chim- neys ^\. factories that are to lie found in the district. 1 neb ed BOme of them have a good architectural l and were they built ot' stone instead of brick, when they cease to vomit forth smoke they might pass for triumphal columns. The liver is really unsightly. Gas drainings, the refuse of factories, mute -with countless other abomination- to contaminate the stream, and render it equally fatal to animal and vegetable life. The barges which pas- up and down add to the sombre effect of it- dark ("lour; they are eluni-v. heavily constructed vessels, and are generally propelled by poles or shafts. Thi accustomed to the d ashing steamers and trim-built wherries of the Thame-, can receive little pleasure from contemplating the navigation of the Lrwell. The aspeel of the MedlocK i- -till worst . n from the bridge l< ading into Chorlton, it is like nothing b.ut an overgrown puddle. It is, however, unfair to judge of these rivers in their artificial state. The upper vale of the Med- 34 ENGLAND I\ MM NINETEENTH CENTURY: loci offers a most tempting excursion to geologists. II" we cross the bridge and visit the crescent of Salford, we shall have a delightful landscape view, exhibiting what the Irwell might have been had not its waters been enslaved to cotton. Manufactures haunt us even here; but the immense pile of building to the right is not a cotton mill, it is a bleach-work, erected there on account of the valuable supply of water afforded by the river. In spite of our tolerance, or rather our liking for manufactures, we could Avish that the Adelphi Bleach- works were erected in any other place. The entire plain formed by the winding of the Irwell at this spot, would have formed a noble park for the recreation of the wearied operatives of Manchester and Salford; they would have been enabled to compare their condition with that of rural life — for a considerable farm and many detached cottages arc within the field of view — while their love of picturesque landscape, which strange as it may seem is stronger in no class than the operatives of Manchester, would have been gratified by the rising grounds of Kcrsall and Broughton, studded as they are with mansions and villas of varied architecture. There are a number of book-stalls in Manchester. One of great celebrity stood near the entrance into Salford, which is now chiefly remembered on account of its connexion with an interesting personal history we shall take the liberty to narrate, suppressing, for obvious reasons, the name of the hero. Some thirty or forty years ago a young carpenter, in a Welch county, was drawn for the militia; he had no taste for a soldier's life, with its great dangers and small pay. In addition to the ordinary mysteries of his own trade, he had acquired great skill in turning, was a tolerable wheelwright, and when no more experienced workman could be had, was found able to mend the machinery of a mill, and even to suggest some mechanical improvements which his neighbours were too obstinate to adopt. After a very brief period of service he deserted and came to London, where he obtained employment in a lathe manufactory. Here he soon became conspicuous for his mechanical skill, and the ingenuity of his contrivances to diminish labour and perfect the machines he constructed. While he was rapidly advancing in the confidence of his employer and the estimation of his comrades, he happened to meet in the street a sergeant belonging to his former regiment, by whom he was recognised. It was necessary for him to quit London in order to escape the consequences of his desertion; he sought shelter and employment in several provincial towns, and at length came to Manchester. He had no acquaintances in the town, and was for some time unable to procure work: during this interval of reluctant leisure, his attention was attracted by the sight of some mathematical books on the old stall in Salford; he stopped to look at them, entered into conversation with the proprietor, who was an intelligent humourist, and soon inspired him with an interest in his fortunes. Our morning as the adventurer went to consull his friend at tin book si II LANCASH] 35 on his chances of obtaining employment, a gentleman came up to purchase some work on practical mechanics. Ajb be turned over the plates, which appealed very complex, lie got a little pn/./led, and said to himself hi a half- whisper, "I cannot understand this!" His perplexitj and anxiety were so evidenl that the young Btranger was induced t<> come to his assistance ; lie explained the diagrams in such lucid and simple language, that the gentleman was prompted to inquire into his history. 'The tale was soon told ; and the keeper of the book-stall added to it, that since the young man had conic to Manchester he had been very anxious to procure work, and that be had employed the interval in the study of mathematics. "Do you understand anything of the management of lathes, young man?" asked the gentleman. " Yes, sir, for lathe-making- was the business in which I was engaged." " W ell ; come to my house to-morrow. 1 have got down a lathe from one of the first makers in London, but owing to some peculiarities in its construc- tion, 1 fear that I cannot easily find a person qualified to set it up." On the morrow the young man went at the appointed time to the house of his mw employer. The lathe was unpacked, and he at once recognised it as one of hi- own construction. Hi' mentioned the fact to the gentleman, and identified his work by specifying some private marks on the machinery. When his task was accomplished, the young man solicited and obtained leave to try some experiments on turning spindles. lie produced some specimens so obviously superior to the spindles then in use, that his patron was induced to advance him a sum sufficient to set lrim up in the turnery business. The new spindles were soon eagerly sought; their maker at the same time gained opportunities of becoming acquainted with the several processes of a cotton mill, and as he studied them, improvement after improvement was opened to his mind. His fame as a mechanist rapidly increased; men of wealth sought a partnership with the man of talent; capital was supplied to carry out the suggestion- of ingenuity; and at the present moment the hero of this history i- at the head of an establishment, the fame of which extends through both hemispheres. After having heard this history, it was impossible to avoid feeling some regret lor the disappearance of the old hook-stall in Salford, In rambling through the old streets round the Collegiate Church, the I Her will he amused to find that one of them bears the ominous name of "Hanging Ditch." Local tradition declares that it derived this name from ha\ ing been the scene of the execution of Beveral Romish clergy and recusants in the reigo of Queen Elizabeth. It i- now chiefly remarkable for the Corn Exchange, one of the mosl chaste and eleganl of the many structures for which Manchester is indebted to the taste of Mr. Lane. It is an [onic struc- ture, adapted from the Temple of Ceres in A.ttica; unfortunately, it- situation, in a narrow obscure street, prevents it receiving 'II the admiration which it merits. :>(! r\< | wii in THE \i\! m'mh CENTUE1 : At the dining hour in Manchester — one o'clock — mills an' closed, ware- houses deserted, shops turned into Bolitudes, and business of every kind suspended. Many writers have attempted to delineate the impetuous rush which at the stroke of the single hour takes place in the streets; to us it appeared a living picture of the French in the Russian campaign flying before the hourras of the Cossacks, or speeding in their half-famished state to plunder the magazines of Smolensko. The rush is fierce while it lasts, but in a few minutes it is over, and Manchester for half-an-hour is the City of the Silent. \- two o'clock approaches the diners are seen returning, individually or in groups, with slow and measured steps, to their respective duties; hut it is full three o'clock before the lull career of business is resumed, and thus the two best hour-- <>f the day are all hut wholly wasted in Manchester. Some efforts have been made and are making to conquer this tyrant custom, lmt it appears inveterate, for it is regularly observed by many of those who condemn it most loudly. It cannot he ascribed to indolent or luxurious habits: in no part of the world do men of business allow themselves such little recreation as in Manchester; they commence their toil at an early hour in the morning, they continue it to a late hour of the night: the dining hour is their only interval of relaxation, and though it is productive of many inconveniences. it will, we think - , he found unalterable. Entering Piccadilly from Market-street, attention is directed to the im- mense warehouses just behind the Infirmary, in George-street and Mosley- street: the largest, and most appropriate in its style of architecture, being a plain substantial building of brick, belongs to Sir T. Potter and Co. Oldham-road is nearly a continuous street the whole way to Oldham, a dis- tance of about seven miles, but since the opening of the heeds and Manchester railway, its importance as a thoroughfare has been greatly diminished. The road or street passes through the district of Ancoats. which is the chief abode of the operative population, and is therefore worthy of a visit, which shall be paid at a future opportunity. ( lontinuing along the 1 iondon-road, we reach the new- terminus of the Manchester and Birmingham railway, which is now in process of erection. \o railroad on which we have travelled possesses a termi- nus so favourably circumstanced; it is almost in the centre of the business part of the town, and yet it has facilities of ingress and egress, equal if not superior to those which are located in the outskirts. This railway is a singular monu- ment of enterprise and speculation: Manchester has already a railway commu- nication with Birmingham by the Grand Junction line, and the saving of time by the new line will not at most exceed an hour. In the centre of Ardwick Green, there is a prettj miniature lake: the houses round the green are plain substantial dwellings, hut those on the south side are detached Buildings, each surrounded with a little ornamental plantation, which with the lake produces a very pleasing effect At \ ictoria Park, an attempt has been made to combine domestic comfort I V.NCASHIR1 87 with architectural taste. The rapid conversion of the private residences in IVIosley-street and many other parte of Manchester into warehouses, induced a company of gentlemen to purchase this park, \\ hich contains aboul 1 10 acres of land, in order to stud it with villas, which would unite the advantage of vicinity to the town with a freedom from the smoke of factories and with the privacj of a country residence. The plan was well arranged; the park lias been laid cut so as to make the most of the space, for it contains five miles of Walk , and the \illas already erected are for the most part in good taste. The Oxford-road, adjoining Victoria Park, is adorned on each side with villas and private residences, superior on the whole to those on any other outlet from the town. At some short distance from it, is the suburb of Green Heys, occupied for the most part by a colony of Germans. Oxford-Street deteriorates as we get hack towards Manchester, and near its upper end reveals a nest of filthy hovels, called Little Ireland. A large brick building near All-Souls Church is used as a college, principally for the educa- tion of Unitarian ministers. Oxford-road leads u> into Mosley-street, near St. Peter's Church and the Scottish Kirk, which are so placed as to destroy their architectural effect. The Hall of the Natural History Society, in Peter-street, contains the finest zoological collection of' any provincial museum in the empire, and probably in Europe. It is particularly .-, <•> rich in ornithology: the birds arc well preserved, and ar- ranged with greal taste and The field of IVtcrloo, ^G*-'- now covered with buildings, is in the immediate vicinity of the Museum: it was the SCI ne of a collision between the yeomanry ca\a!r\ and a multitude assembled to hear Mr. Henry Hunt in the year L817. Though many years have since elapsed, the angry feelings to which the Bad event gave rise have not vet wholly subsided, and the stranger who makes inquiries on the Bubjecl will be pained to find that any reference to it awakes a bitterness of tone and sentiment which he could not have anticipated. The Town-hall of' Manchester is a very handsome stone building, from a design of the late M r. Goodwin. The interior arrangements have been sacrificed to obtain one large room for public meetings. This hall is 180 feet Long by it wide. It- centra] dome is copied from the Athenian Temple of the Winds, and i> a truly classical structure. The walls and dome are covered with fresco paintings, executed by Mr. Aglio. The first view of the fr< i- very Btriking, but they will not bear a close examination; the drawing 38 ENGLAND 1 "^ I It T NINETEENTH CENTURY is generally incorrect, and the designs verge on the very consummation of absurdity. Some are allegorical, some mythological, and some historical, while in others, the three M\irs arc incongruously blended. For instance, the dome represents Britan- nia commanding Peace to descend on Europe and restore the reign of Ait and Virtue. We have a young urchin with a little ship in his hand, such as a boy might take to float in a pond — and this is the allegorical representation of the commereial enterprise of Manchester! A female bearing the fasces overthrows two figures; and this is not, as we should have supposed, a village maid terrifying impudent assailants with a fagot, but represents constitutional liberty defeating tyranny and hypocrisy! It will be sufficient to enumerate the subjects of some of the other paintings: we have Lord Macartney and the Emperor of China; the Argonautic Expedition; the supposed discovery of America by Sebastian Cabot; the British Empire protected by Strength, Wisdom, and Justice, really embodies Mrs. Malaprop's '"allegory on the banks of the Nile," that river appearing in the group under the significant symbol of an African mounted on a sphynx ; Nadir-Shah giving audience to an English Embassy : the Deities of Olympus in council; the four Cardinal Virtues ; and the formation of Man by Prometheus! These frescoes are not the only nor even the worst defect of the hall: it has been built with such a disregard to acoustics, that in whatever position a speaker may be placed, his voice can only be heard at a short distance. Our attention was directed more than once to the number of wholesale houses for the sale of " small wares." On inquiry we found thai by this phrase was meant tapes, bobbins, etc.; for the manufacture of which, several mills exisl in Manchester. The machinery used does not differ materially from that employed in other cotton factories; but the quantities produced are truly surprising. We have been assured that one mill alone weaves more than 1,000,000 yards of tape every week, which in the course of a year would give a length of above 30,000 miles, considerably more than the equatorial circum- ference <>f the earth. The old Bailej Prison, in Salford, covers several acres of ground, and i- one of the besl conducted prisons in England; visitors are not very readily admitted, but a good view of its extent and the general arrangement of the buildings can he obtained from the Bolton railwav. LANCASHIRE. -J'.) 1 n Salford we see r\ idences in every direction thai it is a place of very recent growth, and one in which population has increased with greater rapidity than the niean^ of accommodation. The number of low Lodging houses in several districts is truly calamitous, and the anecdotes related of the amount of indivi- duals found living in one crowded apartment are frightful. We shall again have occasion to refer to this pregnant source of social e\ils, — at present we must content ourselves with noting the evidence that both the wealth and the misery of Manchester have been of recent and of rapid growth. Hence there exist abundant materials for the history of its staple trade, and it will be interesting to glance at the particulars of its rise and progress before in- vestigating the few remnants of a more remote antiquity preserved in the neighbourhood. It has been already observed that certain woollen goods called cottons (,i corruption of " coatings") and fustians were manufactured in Manchester and its neighbourhood before the reign of Elizabeth. Indeed so celebrated even in that age were the Lancashire weavers, that linen yarn was imported from Inland and sent back after it had been woven into cloth. Cotton wool was probably introduced as a substitute for animal wool by the Flemings who sought shelter in England from the tyranny of the Duke of Alva, many of whom settled in and round Manchester. During a Long period linen warps were used for all the goods in which cotton was employed, and in consequence great quantities of linen yarn were imported from Ireland, Scotland, and Northern Germany. The cotton weft was however usually spun in Lancashire, generally by the family and neighbours of the weaver. About the year 1760, though nothing hut the coarse kinds of cotton, such as fustians and dimities, were produced, yet the demand for these goods began to exceed the supply, and the weaver became dependent on the spinner. AW' have- conversed with very old persons who remember when the weavers or their motors travelled about from cottage to cottage with their packhorses •Meet yarn from the spinsters, often paying a most exorbitant price for it, which absorbed the profits of weaving. This was the commencement of the system of infant Labour, which was at its worst and greatest height before any- body thought <>f a factory. Spinning was M > profitable that every child in the cottage was forced to help in the process — picking the cotton, winding the yam, and arranging the card-ends. When the father was a weaver, and the mother a spinner, which was very commonly the case, the tasks imposed upon the children were most onerous; one of my informants, a man over eighty j , declared that he never thought of his infancy without shuddering. The invention of the fly-shuttle by Mr. John Kay of Bury, already men- tioned, gave a great impulse to weaving, which was increased in L760, when his s,,n. Mr. Robert Kay. added to it the invention of " the drop box," by means of which .1 weaver could at pleasure use ; 1 1 1 \ one of three shuttles, each containing a different coloured weft. Tin one-thread wheel, wher< each 10 ENGLAND I.N I Hi. NINETEENTH CENTURY: spinner could niil\ make one roving or one thread, was inadequate to supply the rapidly increasing demand for yarn, and the improvements in weaving directed the inventive faculties of English mechanists to search for the means of obtaining similar facilities in spinning. The elongation of metal bars and plates bypassing them between cylinders appears to have first suggested the idea that carded rolls of wool and cotton might be lengthened into rovings by the same means. This application of the principle was tii-t made by Mr. John Wyatt of Birmingham, who took out a patent for the invention, in the name of his partner Mr. Paid, in 1738. 'I he machines constructed by Wyatt. how ever excellent in principle, ware so imper- fect in their details, that they could not be profitably worked ; Wyatt had not the capita] necessary to carry out bis plans, nor the steady application to con- duct the varied experiments by which a mechanical principle can alone lie brought into complete operation. Moreover, Wyatt was quite unacquainted with the cotton business, and was therefore very likely to follow the analogy of Laminating metals too far, without sufficiently allowing for the great difference of materials. We do not pretend to such a know ledge of mechanism as would enable us to pronounce positively on this subject; but so far as we can judge, Wyatt does not seem to have taken into account the modifications of his principle required by the peculiar staple of cotton. The machine as first constructed had but one pair of rollers, and could not therefore remedy any defect in the arrangement of the fibres which remained after carding; even when two pairs of rollers were used, they appear to have been employed merely to elongate the roving without any reference to improving the regularity of the fibres. The arranging of the spindles and bobbins in a frame, and tin 1 turning of the bobbins and spindles by distinct wheels, was an invention of the Italian silk-throwsters, which Sir T. Lombe had introduced into his great mill at Derby; but in silt spinning, rollers are not necessary, because the filament spun by the worm is a Continuous thread, incapable of being further attenuated. It may be right to repeat what has been before stated, that the difficulty to be overcome in mechanical cotton-spinning is not the twisting of the yarn, for this process, or at Leasl one very analogous to it. had been long familiar to the silk-throwsters j the real difficulty was to get a roving evenly attenuated, ready to receive the twist by which it was converted into yarn. Wyatt's principle <<\' employing rollers to effed this object, no doubt excited the attention oi' man\ mechanists, w ho tried to apply it in various forms. Thomas Highs, a reed- maker of Leigh, appears to have made a machine in which rollers were employed for spinning cotton in the year 1767, and he communicated his invention to John Kay. a clockmaker, whom he employed to make a model of the machine, with brass wheels and less clumsy contrivances than those he had himself devised. Kay is said to have communicated this invention to Aik- wright,who saM its value, and devoted all his energies to perfeel it- application. LANCASHIRE. -II There is no question more disputed in the history of invention than the relative claims of Sighs and Arkwright, yel to a cool inquirer it does not appear of very difficull solution. There is a wide distinction between the dis- covery of a principle, and the practical application of thai principle: it is the latter that gives any principle its marketable value. The polarity of the magnet appears to have been known long before anybody dreamed <>l" apply- ing it to the purposes of navigation, and countless experiments were tried before Borne fortunate inventor produced the mariner's compass. In like manner, the principle of spinning cotton by rollers unquestionably was first brought forward by Wyatl : it only remains then to determine whether Highs or Arkwrighl had the better claim to the practical application of the principle after it had remained dormant for more than thirty years. Taking Arkwright's ease exclusively on the hostile evidence given by Highs and Kay when Arkwright's patent was contested, in 1785, the matter resolves itself into the very simple question, whether had Highs or Arkwright the clearer perception of the value of \Vvatt\s principle.' It is admitted on all hands that Highs never completed a spinning machine, thai he never exhibited the model said to have been made by Kav, and that he did not communicate hi- invention to any manufacturer who would have advanced the capital necessary to give it a fair trial. At most then. Highs can only lay claim to a project, which most probably would have perished in his hands; for had he known its value or utility, he had more available means than Arkwrighl for obtaining aid to bring it to perfection. Highs had some reputation as a mechanist; he was a reed-maker, and therefore known to many cotton-manufacturers; indeed in 1 7 7 L 3 his mechanical ingenuity was rewarded by a present of two hundred guineas from the manu- facturers of Manchester, for his invention of a spinning machine which was exhibited at the Exchange. Had such a man been convinced of the practica- bility of his project, he would easily have found mean- for bringing it into actual work. A loose notion floating through the mind, followed by two or three imperfect, and confessedly imperfect, attempts for it- realization, may give a man a title to ingenuity, but are tar from establishing a claim to invention. Arkwrighl was a barber at Bolton: he possessed the secret of some chemical process for dyeing the hair, which was of some value at a time when wigs were universal!) worn; but he was so fond of making mechanical exp riments, that he neglected his trade and injured his circumstances. It is said thai he was engaged in an attempt to produce perpetual motion: this, however, i- no imputation against his intelligence, for he -bared the folly with the gr< mechanists of his day. It i- very probable thai he tir-t heard of the principle of -pinning by rollers from Kay; but the conception of the entire process for giving effect to that principle was indisputably Arkwright's own. He -hewed hi- knowledge of it- value by abandoning his former business, by p> rseverance !•« ! •.' ENGLAND in l III mm I l.i NTH CENT! KV : in obtaining means to set up his first spinning machine as an experimental model in the parlour of the Free Grammar School of Preston, and by his abandoning Lancashire, where a marked hostility to machinery was at this time evinced, in order to establish his cotton spinning at Nottingham. Arkwright first applied to Messrs. Wright the bankers, for some pecuniary aid, which was granted on the condition of a share in the profits. The per- fecting of the machine, however, required more time and a greater outlay of capital than the bankers had anticipated; they therefore advised the adventurer to obtain other assistance, and introduced him to Mr. Need, the partner of Mr. Jedediah Strutt, who had some time before obtained a patent for a mosl ingenious improvement of the stocking frame. .Mr. Strutt was one of the most remarkable and estimable men of his day; originally educated as a farmer, he had directed his attention to mechanical improvements, and had discovered the means of weaving ribbed stockings in the stocking frame. He saw at a glance the merits of Arkwright's invention, and the defects in the adjustment of the parts which impeded its working. A partnership was proposed and accepted; the capital of Messrs. Xcecl and Strutt relieved Arkwright from pecuniary difficulties; he soon made his machine practicable, and in 1769 he secured his invention by a patent. There is reason to believe that Arkwright was more deeply indebted to the mechanical genius of Mr. Jedediah Strutt than his friends have been willing to acknow- ledge; but Mr. Strutt was already too rich in unquestioned fame to envy a small share to other-. Arkwright's machine was the origin of the modern Throstle: it was firs! Bel in motion by horse power, but it was subsequently driven by a water- wheel, \\li« nee it received the name of the "water-frame." Some of Ark- wright's original water-frames are, it is said, still in use at Crompton in Derbyshire, the first extensive mill erected by him and his partners; but the jealousy with which strangers are excluded from the establishment, renders it difficult to obtain any positive knowledge on the subject. The specification annexed to Arkwright's patent shews that his water frame, in its principles, includes both the modern drawing frame and throstle. The original purpose of the machine was to convert the rovings into yarn: but it was -o obviously applicable to the formation of the rovings themselves, that the drawing frame can scarcely be considered a separate invention. Ark- wright applied his mind to every process used in the preparation of cotton, and introduced improvements into them all. He may indeed be regarded as the founder of the Factory system, for he established such a continuous union between all the processes, and so multiplied the processes themselves, that it was requisite to have the whole conducted in a single building. It is now- necessary to go back and examine a very different invention for spinning, having no connexion in principle with that which has been just described, though it has been united to it in the happiest combination. The LAW LSHIRE. !.; old principle of wool Bpinning was to draw out a definite Length of roving during the revolution of the Bpindle to which the end of the roving had been previously attached, and this was effected by the hand-wheel, which the spinner turned with one hand, while she drew out the roving and afterwards wound it on the horizontal Bpindle with the other. About the year L764, James Kargreaves, a weaver, near Blackburn] having a wile and Beven young children to supporl from his earnings, tilt very acutely the difEculty of obtain- ing welt, the labours of his family being far lioni Bufficient to procure him an adequate supply. It happened that he observed a one-thread wheel overturned upon the floor, when the wheel and spindle continued to revolve. This Led him to consider what would he the effect of placing the spindles perpendicularly instead of horizontally, and he rightly concluded that it would he possible to make several spindles thus placed in a row, revolve by the turning of a single wheel. In other words, he conceived the pos-dbility of Bpinning Beveral threads at once. The machine which he invented was called the " Spinning Jenny," probably because '-.Jenny"' was a cant name fur the old hand-wheel which it superseded. A brief description of it may be interesting, for though it has been Long since superseded by the mule in tin- cotton manufacture, it i- Mill sometimes used in the spinning of coarse wool. On the left side of the wooden frame is a system of spindle-. Bet nearly upright in horizontal bars, and secured by brass steps and rings. Each spindle has at the lower end a whorl or whirl, round which a band passes to set it in motion. This band also passes over a drum or cylinder placed just in front of the lower extremity of the spindles, and the drum by a driving- band receives motion from the large wheel which the spinner turns. Over the spindles i- a guiding wire, directed by a small wheel, round which a cord p;bMs to the farther end of the machine; by this cord the spinner move- the guiding wire so ;i- to regulate the winding of the yarn on the cop-. To the right of the drum or cylinder i- a slanting frame, containing the bobbin- of rovings which are to be spun. On the frame i- a carriage which traverses backwards and forward- in groves, aided by friction-wheels, and this carriage Bupports two notched cross rails, the upper of which i- moveable, to form a clasp. Through the notches of these rail- the rovings pass i<> the -pindh-. The carriage being placed close to the -pindh-. and the rovings having been drawn through the notches of the clasp, the -pinner pulls the carriage backwards until a sufficient Length of rovings ha- been unrolled from tin; bobbin-: he then fa-ten- the clasp, and turning the whe< 1 Bets all the spindles in motion by the driving band which goes over the drum. The drawing out he thread by pulling hack the carriage and the spinning go on simultane- ously, and the proportion between the two operations depend- on the relative action of the right and left hand of tin- -pinner. When the thread- are spun, the clasp carriage i- again pushed forward, and the -pindh- -et in motion to ii ENGLAND in nil. NINETEENTH CENTURY: take up the yarn under the guidance of the fafler wire. The clasp Lb then raised, a new series of rovings given out, and the former process repeat d. The spinning jenny is merely a multiple of the hand-wheel: it did not, like the machines of Wyatt and Arkwright, establish any new principle, and it was only applicable to the last stage of the process, the conversion of the roving into yarn. It was besides a domestic implement, and was soon intro- duced into the houses and cottages of the Lancashire weavers: by its aid a woman was enabled to spin as much yarn as sixteen or even twenty persons could produce with the common wheel, and the deficiency of weft which had hitherto impeded the progress of the loom was supplied. Hargreaves for some time kept his invention secret, using the jenny only to obtain weft lor liis own loom. The vanity of Ids wife induced her to betraj the secret, the neighbouring spinners were alarmed — they feared that such an invention would deprive them of employment — a mob assembled, forced Hargreaves' house, broke his machinery to pieces, and menaced his life. IN removed to Nottingham, where he entered into partnership with Mr. John .lames, and took out a patent for his invention. But having sold some jennies before leaving Lancashire, to obtain clothing for his children, the patent could not be sustained, and he lost all the fruits of his discovery. It has been erroneously asserted, that he died in great distress; but though he did not acquire a great fortune, his industry and activity enabled him to earn a moderate competence, and bequeath a decent provision to Ids widow and children. Several circumstances contributed to retard the growth of the cotton manufacture, particularly the laws made to protect the silk and woollen trades, the hostility of the operatives to machinery, and the league which the Lan- cashire manufacturers formed against Arkwright. For the protection of the silk and woollen manufactures, an act was passed in the reign of George 1. prohibiting the use of printed or dyed calicoes, which were then imported from India, under very heavy penalties: in the following reign this was so far relaxed as to allow the printing of mixed goods having a warp entirely of linen yarn; the prohibition however against goods made wholly of cotton was rigorously renewed. It was not until vain was spun by Arkwright's water-frame, that cotton thread proper for warping could be obtained in England; the aet which had been directed against Indian goods, was now, contrary to the intention of its Cramers, made to operate against English manufactures. The officers of excise refused to let Arkwright's plain calicoes pass, unless they paid the same rate of duty as Indian goods, and his printed calicoes were altogether prohibited. Application was made to Parliament for relief; but strange to relate, the proposal to put English-made calicoes on a legislative equality with other domestic manufactures was opposed by all the cotton manufacturers ni' Lan- cashire! This opposition was M , utterly without an object, that it has been LANCASHIRE. 45 justly Btigmatized as "one < >t t lie most signal instances on record of the Mind- inn- effects of commercial jealousy." Hostility to machinery was not confined to the working classes: many persons in the middle and higher ranks shared in the delusion, thai machinery would Lessen the demand for labour, ami throw multitudes out of employment. They forgot that no combination of brass and iron, 'of wheels and screws, can possibly think, and therefore thai machines can only work under human superintendence. In 1799, at a period when wages were high and work plenty, a furious mob scoured the country round Blackburn, destroyed every jenny which worked more than twenty spindles, and demolished carding en- gines, water frames, and every machine worked by horses or by water power. Mr. Peel, among other individuals, was a severe sufferer on this occasion : his works for cotton spinning and calico printing at Altham were destroyed, the machinery thrown into the river, and his personal safety endangered. \ mill which Arkwright had erected near Chorley, was pulled down in the presence of a large body of the police and military without any of the autho- rities interfering for its protection. It was useless for the injured parties to seek Legal redress, for several powerful persons had combined to screen the rioters from punishment. Their motive appears to have been a dread thai machinery, by superseding manual labour, would throw a heavy burthen on the poor-rates, and deteriorate the value of land in Lancashire. Experience has since shewn the fallacy of such an idea and that machinery has increased the amount of employment more than twenty-fold, and it would not lie easy to calculate how much the demand for building ground has added to the rental of the landowners. Blackburn Long suffered from the pernicious effects of these outrages; the m manufacturers migrated to other districts; and Blackburn, which bid fair to be the metropolis of the new trade, ceded its honours and advan: to Manchester. It is gratifying to add, that I'vw traces of this hostility to machinery can now be found among the operatives of Lancashire; we have conversed with many operatives in the factories, both male and female, old and young; all wire equally convinced that machinery ensured them Bteady employment and high wages. They reasoned tints; — when a Large capital is invested, the proprietor cannot afford to let it remain idle; and he will pay lilgh wages, both on account of the greal amount of property he entrust-, to those he employs, and because in a very large busim b< ax but a small proportion to the amount of other expenses. In L785, Arkwright's patents wire Bel aside, after one of the most inte- resting triab recorded in commercial history; all the machines which he had perfected, if not invented, wire thrown (.pen to the public; and the cotton trade advanced with a rapidity for beyond what has evi r been known in any other branch of industry. Capital and labour rushed to it in torrents; mills were erected and filled with machini ry; workmen w< . red at extravagant 46 ENG] \M) IN THE NT. I i I .! \ I I! CENTURY : wages, which ii was impossibli tin, but which it was accessary to off in the first instance, to induct' them to abandon other employments. " Wages were high in those days,"' said an old operative to me, " because two masl were looking for one man j they were lowered since. Ik cause two men began to look for one master." We quote his words, because they contain the whole theory of wages in a single sentence. The invention of the Mule, which combined the processes of Arkwrighl and Hargreaves, as lias been already mentioned, gave fresh vigour to the cotton trade. This machine was invented by Samuel Crompton, a weaver of respectable character and moderate circumstances, who lived at a cottage called Hall in the Wood, near Bolton, not far from the extensive cotton works of the Missis. Ashwortli. Crompton completed a machine in the year 1770, and sel it to work in his garret, content to earn by his manual labour the reward of his perseverance and ingenuity. The excellence of his yarn drew persons from all quarters to ascertain the means by which it was produced; they would not take a refusal; some even procured ladders, and climbed to the windows to see him at his work. Among his visitors were master manufacturers, to whom the poor man, for a trifling reward, explained the principle of his machine, and shewed the nature of its operations. They knew the value of the discovery better than he did himself; they made immense fortunes by its immediate and extensive adoption; he continued his humble course, and never secured his invention by patent. Abont the year 1802, Mr. Kennedy, a gentleman of Manchester equally distinguished by intelligence, philanthropy, and love of justice, in conjunction with Mr. Lee, commenced raising a subscription for Crompton, which produced about 500/., and enabled him to enlarge his little establishment for spinning and weaving, at Bolton. In 1812, he made a circuit through the cotton districts, and collected evidence to prove that the number of spindles worked on his principle amounted to four or five millions — a number which lias since been doubled, lie submitted the result to his kind friends. Messrs. Lee and Kennedy; by their advice a memorial to Parliament was prepared, which was signed by the principal manufacturers of the kingdom. The miserable sum of five thousand pounds was granted to a man who had added millions to the wealth of the empire! With this sum Crompton established his sons in the bleaching business; but a series of misfortunes blighted his hopes, the establishment failed, his sons dispersed, leaving him with his daughter reduced to poverty. Messrs. Hicks and lvothwell, of Bolton, the indefatigable Mr. Kennedy, and some others, raised a second subscription, and purchased for Crompton a life annuity producing 63/. per annum. lie only enjoyed it two years: he died January 26, 1827, leaving his daughter in circumstances of great distress. bar different was the fate of Arkwright. lie was the firsl to organize a factory on a complete system, and he was long regarded as the most skilful i \\i \vim;r. 47 manager of such an extensive concern. The mill at Cromford became his own when his partnership with the Messrs. Strutl terminated; bul he had besides large shares in extensive mills in Derbyshire] Lancashire, and Scotland. He received knighthood from George III.: he accumulated one of the Largesl fortunes ever acquired by an individual in England; and what probably grati- fied him still more, lie compelled the Lancashire spinners to confess his superiority, ami submit to his dictation. For several years he fixed the price of cotton twist, no one venturing to vary from his pi i Among the more recent improvements in spinning machinery, the bobbin and fly frame is one of the most interesting, if not one of the most important. When first introduced, the construction of these frame- was very complicated, and required the employment of three or tour conical cylinders to produce the several variable motions which have been previously described. The construction has been much simplified, chiefly by the mechanical inge- nuity of Mr. Henry Houldsworth, who introduced a \ cry simple system of adjustments for the relative speed of the bobbin and the fly. He shewed that motion could be communicated, as in the annexed en<;ra\ inu'. by simple rotatory means; and obtained a patent for his admirable i mention in January 1826. Since that time many additional improvements have been made in the construction of the machinery; and to the man of science it affords the most perfect example of an equating principle, thoroughly accomplished, which is to be found in the whole range of the mechanical arts. Spinning machinery was at first set in motion by horses or by water-power. We have even heard of an apparatus which was turned by a donky. Water-power was however the principal means employed, and it is still used to a considerable extent. Its disadvanta however, are obvious: the mill must be buill where there is an available waterfall, without reference to any other circumstances of convenience \ the number of such falls is limited, and the Supply in Lancashire must soon have been exhausted ; Btreams are exposed to droughts and flood- — opposite evils, but equally injurious to regular work. Improvements in agriculture also are destructive to mill property; they deprive the bolI of its Bponginess, and prevent it from retaining the water, thus increasing the alternation of drought and flood. 1' the millowners who use water-power in the neighbourhood of Bolton have been obliged to unite in constructing immense reservoirs, to r< c< ive the superabundance of season and supply the deficiency of another. The application of the steam- |N ENGLAND IX THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: engine to spinning machinery gave the manufacturers inexhaustible power and uniform motion. From the moment of it- adoption the apparatus for manu- facturing cotton became susceptible of almost any extension. Mills could now be erected wherever fuel was abundant; and coal overthrew the supremacy of water. The first steam-engine erected in Manchester was put up by Messrs. Arkwright and Simpson, for their mill on Shude-hill, in 1783; but it was an atmospheric engine, and not so successful as to encourage imitation. Far different was the effect produced by the steam-engine which Messrs. Uoulton and Watt erected for Mr. Drinkwatcr, in ITS;]; its work excited universal admiration, and led to the application of power to many processes which had hitherto been wrought by hand. Mr. Kelly of Lanark was the first to apply power to the working of mules, and the success of his experiment gave a filial blow to the system of domestic labour. The mules, which had hitherto been chiefly worked in house-, were removed to the mill; and thus the factory system was completed. Weaving had given the first impulse to spinning, and it soon began to participate in the advantages of machinery. The first rough outline of the power-loom was devised by the llcv. Dr. Cartwright, in the year 1T8T ; Iris ingenuity was rewarded by a parliamentary grant of 10,000Z. in 1809. But the invention was in too rude a state to be worked with profit until it was perfected by the successive improvements of Messrs. Radcliffe, Ross, Horrocks, and Marsland. Of these gentlemen, Mr. Radcliffe was the most eminent inventor; he devised the dressing frame, without which the power-loom must have been nearly useless; but his unremitting attention to the perfecting of his invention seriously injured his circumstances. Horrocks also failed to reap the reward of his ingenuity, though both appear to have had as strong a claim on the gratitude of the country as the Rev. Dr. Cartwright. Some of the results of the series of inventions just described maybe briefly enumerated. The labour of one man, aided by power and machinery, can produce as much yarn as 250 men could spin without such assistance. Every spindle in a mill — and some contain one hundred thousand — can produce from two to three hanks of yarn, each of 840 yards, in a day. Taking the average al two hanks and a half, all the spindles would, in the course of a day, spin about 120,000 miles of yarn, which would very nearly go five times round the equatorial circumference of the earth. Before machinery was employed, there were not more than 30,000 persons engaged in the cotton manufacture; the mills now afford employment to more than eight times that number — a sufficiently striking proof that the progress of machinery has not diminished the demand for labour. But if we add to those the persons engaged in all the trades connected with spinning and weaving; in the carriage, export, and sale of the goods produced, and in the import of the raw materials, the amount of persons dependent on the cotton trade for their support will be found at the lowest estimate considerably above a million. LANCASHIRE, I' 1 There arc about 100,000 power-looms and dressing-frames in the three kingdoms: each of the latter consumes on an average five pounds 9 weight oi Hour weekly, BO that the total amount of Hour consumed in power-loom wea\ ing annually i- 26,600,00011 >s. or !):>,S(J0 loads. The agricultural labourers employed in the production of this flour must he added to the amount of the population dependenl for rapport on the cotton manufacture. An attentive consideration of all the available documents, and of the estimates made by various statisticians, shews that the value of cottons annually manufactured in this country exceeds thirty-six millions sterling; and that more than a million and a half of persons are directly or indirectly dependent on this branch of industry tor their subsistence. Saving fixed these important facts in the mind, and considered their connexion with the national prosperity, the visitor of Manchester will renew his inspection of its streets with more anxious feelings than those which first directed his inquiries. The factories will he the chief objects of his curiosity j he will he anxious to learn their influence on the health, morals, and well-being of the population. But before entering upon this inquiry, he has to learn that the factory system is not confined to the spinning and weaving of cotton: it extends to bleaching and dyeing; to the manufactures of wool, flax, and silk; and is rapidly extending its influence to other branches of industry. Bleaching, almost within the memory of man, could only be effected during the summer months, and required several weeks for its completion. It was common in the last century to send cottons and linens in the spring to be bleached on the level plains of Holland, and to receive them back late in the autumn. When doth was bleached at home, the quantity of ground it occu- pied for such a length of time was very considerable ; it- exposed state attracted the cupidity of thieves, and the mean- taken for its protection multiplied capital punishments, led to a dangerous extension of mantraps and spring guns and placed deadly weapons in the hands of unskilful and imprudent persons. The horror excited by the execution of a lad for robbing a bleach-ground, on what is said to have been rather un-ullicicnt evidence, i- not yet forgotten in Manchester; tradition tells of the general sympathy excited by his condemna- tion, of the efforts made to procure a pardon, of it- refusal on the ground that the robbery of bleach-grounds had become a 7ery common crime. iA' the lad's i/.ing protestations of innocence on the BCafibld, and of the multitudinous •I of the spectators when the law fulfilled ii- vengeance on it- victim. Another and if possible a darker story i- told of the ancient system. The son of an extensive bleacher went to sea at an early age; he voyaged into distant land-, and for many weary years had not -< t hi- foot on British ground. Hi- ship at Length arrived in Liverpool; he took hi- place on the coach, which then quitted Liverpool in the morning and readied Blanch* ster in the evening. 1 li- father's place wras a f< w miles from the latter town, bul he was too impatient ii 50 LAND IN THB NINET] EN III CENT1 KV : to wait for the coming of another morning; he set out on foot, and when he came near home took a short cut to hi- paternal house through the bleach- field. There had been a robbery in the neighbourhood some time before; the lad's father was himself on the watch; he saw the supposed robber going directly to the cloth, levelled bis rifle, fired, and his own son fell mortally wounded. The shot collected a crowd; the dying youth was r< cognised by his famil y — the veil must cover the rest of the picture. W. give this Btory as we heard it, from the mouth of an old man who said that he remembered the circumstance; it certainly is a possible occurrence, for our own memory supplies us with a parallel catastrophe in another part of the empire. An accident led the Swedish philosopher Scheie to observe the effi chloride, or owmuriatic acid, in removing the colouring matter of vegetables. The French chemist Berthollet extended Scheie's experiments, and in l~ s o published an account of the efficacy of the new acid in bleaching vegetable fibre8. Mr. Thomas Henry of Manchester, who was then rising into tame by his skill as a practical chemist, his abilities as a lecturer, and his accomplishments i general scholar, repeated and extended the experiments of Berthollet. In 1788 he exhibited to the trade a yard of cotton cloth bleached by chemical means. The process was first extensively used by the Messrs. Bidgway of Bolton; it was gradually rendered more complete by the continued application of Dr. Henry, and by the labours of Watt, the improver of the steam-engine, and Mr. Tennant of Glasgow. Bleaching and calico-printing are generally united in the same establish- ment; as a large supply of water is required lor both processes. The bleaching and printing factories arc' therefore erected in the vicinity of Manchester rather than in the town; but they are most numerous in the valleys between J Jury . Blackburn, and Clitheroe. When cotton cloth is brought to the bleachers, it is looked over very care- fully and picked, it is then measured, and taken to be rolled evenly on a cylinder. The rolling of the cloth, both for bleaching and printing, requires great accuracy to prevent any create; for this purpose it passes over a jointed cylinder having an eccentric motion, which smooths out the cloth by the lateral movement of the parts. The tirst process is singeing: the cloth pass r s rapidly over a red-hot copper cylinder, which burns off loose •• ily.'* broken threads, and any other inequalities on its surface, without injuring the texture of tin- cloth. During this operation a very pungent smell is given out from the burning particles of cotton, but it produces no ill effect on the workmen, because they are chiefly engaged at the front of' the furnace where the smell is least sensibly observed, and because the process is usually conducted in an open -lnd, through which there i- a constant current of fresh air. Alter having been singed, the cloth is thrown loose into water, and after Some time is taken to lie more effectually washed l>y the dash-wheel. This is b \er\ large hollow wheel, usually divided into four compartments, 1 \M \M111T. 51 in each i>t' which is ;i bundle of cloth, li i- supplied with a jet of the purest spring water that can be obtained, through a circular aperture in tin- side, and the wheel in order to re- ceive till— \V,H. I revolves close to the end of a flattened pipe. 'I'll.' flow of tin- water can he regulated with thegreatest pre- cision, and the ease with which it is turned off and on. is cal- culated toexcite the attention of a \ isitor. The cloth 1) c i 11 14, thrown backwards and forwards by the rapid revolutions of the wheel. The washing does not remove all the gluten and oil which the cloth received when it was subjected to the dressing process by the weaver; for this purpose it must he boiled in lime. The boiler has a false bottom perforated with holes, over which the cloth is laid in alternate Layers with cream of lime. A Btream of boiling water jets from a pipe in the upper pari of the boiler over the Layers and -ink- through them into the pari below the false bottom; here, as it is again heated to the boiling point, it is forced up through a pipe in the middle of the boiler, and again Bpouted over the cloth. This process is usually continued for eighl hours, when the paste-dressing, grease, etc. being effectually removed, it is (.nee more washed iii the dash-wheel. In the next prOCe88 the cloth is steeped in a weak Bolution of sulphuric acid, which forms a sulphate of lime with the lime of the former operation. this it goes hack to the dash-wheel. It is next hoiled in a weak solution of carbonate of soda, to remove any oil or grease 1< ft by the lime, ami again washed by the dash-v heel. The (loth is now reaily to he subjected t<> the action ofthe bleaching-nuid, that is, chloride of lime dissolved in water. About a gallon and a half of this Liquid is allowed tor every pound weight of cloth, and aboul one pound of bleaching powder for two pounds of cloth. In this mixture the goods are steeped for about six hours; when they are taken out ti r sufficiently bleached to an unpractised eye, Uy aftei thej receive another washing in tin' dash- wheel. But the experienced eye soon discovers that the colouring matter of the fibre is not yet complete 1\ removed. 5:2 ENGLAND IN' THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: Again the cloth is steeped in a weak solution of sulphuric acid, the mixture having one gallon of acid for every twenty-five gallons of water. The chlorine disengaged during this operation would render the process unwholesome with- out care and vigilance, but it is conducted with such caution that all danger is averted. In this process the oxide of iron which may have been deposited on the cloth is removed, and the lime disengaged from the chlorine forms sulphate of lime with the acid. Sulphate of lime being in fact soft alabastei is capable of being applied to ornamental purposes; we have seen Mime pretty toys at Mr. Thompson's great works at Primrose, near Clithcroc, made from the sulphate which had been deposited on the sides of the vat-. After having been washed, the cloth is again boiled in a solution of carbonate of soda, then washed and passed through a weaker bleaching fluid than was first used; washed again, and a third time passed through the solution of sulphuric acid. The bleaching process is now complete, and the cloth receives its last washing previous to its being dried. The first steeping in sulphuric acid, and the first boiling in the ley made of carbonate of soda, in the order of our enumeration, arc not invariably employed; they are, however, rarely neglected by those bleachers who prepare cotton for their own printing. After the cloth is washed, a great part of the water is squeezed out by passing it between two rollers; in this damp state, it is straightened and mangled. If the cloth is designed for sale without being printed, it is smoothed and stiffened by being passed through weak starch, made of Avheaten flour, to which some add a little porcelain clay and calcined sulphate of lime. These substances render the cloth stiffer and apparently stronger than it really is; they also improve the gloss which is imparted to it in the process of calen- dering. The cloth is then passed through the drying machine, which consists of several copper cylinders heated by steam. The calender (a corruption of cylinder) consists of several cylindrical rollers which play against each other. The cloth slightly damped, passing between these is very tightly pressed, and its surface becomes smooth and glossy. It is sometimes made to assume a wiry appearance, by passing two pieces together through the roller, so that the warp threads of' one should he impressed upon the other. After Vicing calendered, the cloths are folded in pieces; each of which receives a distinctive mark ; they are then compressed in Bramah's patent press, packed and sent to the merchant. The cost of bleaching is about one halfpenny per yard, and the time occupied in the process is from one to two days; hut if any object wire to be gained by greater spied, the process might easily be accelerated. Bleach-works require engines of considerable power: those who undertake their management must combine chemical with mechanical skill, for everj process is effected either by chemical agents or by machinery; human hands are employed only to convey the cloth from one series of operations to I \\i ISHIR] . 53 another. Very large capitals are invested in bleaching establishments, and considerable Bums arc annually -pent in chemical experiments. The mere arrangement of the vats, boilers and machines; requires extra- ordinary care; and the strict- est method and order must be preserved in the entire esta- blishment The managers are always nun of "^^ science, many v of them taking rank with the tir-t chemists of the day: when printing is superadded to bleaching, the range of their acquirements must be further extended, and in fact they are, taken as a body, annum the mosl scientific and well informed of any class in England. The destructive effect of chemical works on the trees and plants in their neighbourhood, is very generally known; there is an entire grove near Bolton, in which every tree has been killed by the effluvia? of a chemical manufactory in the neighbourhood. But on the other hand, \\ e never Baw a more thriving collection of water-plants than that which exists in one of' the reservoirs of' Mayficld. the water-lilies are particularly fine. There i- no question connected with the manufactures of Manchester, on which the public has evinced a deeper interest, and received more inconsistent information, than that of juvenile labour in the mills and the bleaching establishments. Several mill-owners hid made very ample provision for the education of the young persons in their employment, long before they wiie compelled to do v,, by law. Many of these Bchools are not Less worthy of a \ivit, than the factories to which they are attached. We cannot avoid mentioning one, which we accidentally visited. The children Bung Beveral hymns and innocent Bongs, with greal taste and feeling; among othi rs, Moore's little melody. ••Those Evening Bells," was executed with perfect harmony, and with a manifest perception of its pathos, quite wonderful in such young chorister. We examined the children in reading, writing, mental arithmetic, geography, and Scripture history; the answering tar surpass,,] all that we could have anticipated, it would have been highly creditable to children of the same age in tin- best academy in England. 54 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY There is no part of England in which better instruction is afforded to the children of the lower ranks than Manchester and the surrounding districts. The Lancasterian schools of Manchester are admirably conducted, and the Sunday schools are very numerous, and managed with great care. But the institutions most worthy of a stranger's visit are the Blind Asylum and School for the Deaf and Dumb, which are united in one 1 mil ding, on the Shclford road, in the immediate vicinity of the Botanical and I Iorticultural Gardens. The building is in the Tudor style of architec- ture, and produces a very happy effect by its nume- rous octagonal towers and chimneys. The centre of the structure is a church, designed for the use of the two institutions: the wing next Manchester is devoted to the Blind Asylum; the other wing is laid out as a school for the deaf and dumb. The Blind Asylum originated in the munificence of Mr. Thomas Hcnshaw. an eminent hat-manufacturer in Oldham, who at las death, in 1810, bequeathed 20,000/. to endow a Blue-Coat School in Oldham, and the like Bum for a Blind Asylum at Manchester. By a singular clause in the will, it was pro- vided " that the said money should not be applied in the purchase of lands, or the erection of buildings, it being his expectation that other persons would at their expense purchase lands and buildings for these purposes." Eighteen years elapsed before the bequest was made available in Oldham, but five and twenty years passed before means were collected for erecting the Blind Asvlum in Manchester. The subject, however, was zealously taken up in 1835; the sum of 9000/. was very speedily collected, ground was purchased. and a building commenced in connexion with the committee for the Deaf and Dumb School, who had about the same time collected 10,000/. for the erection of suitable accommodations for their own institution. Tlio Blind Asylum was opened in 1839, and its subsequent progress has been most satisfactory. The children are taught to read from the works printed in raised Roman characters under the direction of Mr. Alston of Glasgow, whose exertions for the education of the blind have been justly celebrated throughout Europe and America. The boys arc employed in the manufacture of wicker-work, such as baskets, cradles, cages, etc.j the girls arc engaged in needlework, knitting, and netting. Both arc instructed in music, and every Sunday the full cathedral service of the Church of England LANI LSHIRE. 55 Lb chanted <>r song By a choii composed entirely of blind persons. I ntil a very recent period the blind were taughl music entirely by the car. bul Mr. Alston has recently introduced a system of printing music "with raised characters which has enabled them to acquire a very competent knowledge of notation. Though not so large as the Blind Asylum of Liverpool — the first which was established in Great Britain — Henshaw's Institution Lb equally well managed, and lias already produced the most beneficial results. The School for the Deaf and Dumb was established in the year 1825, and was conducted in an inconvenient building in Stanley-street, Salford, until the present edifice was erected. The course of instruction extends over five y and i- justly celebrated for its practical utility and efficiency. Chetham College or Hospital is a chartered institution founded by 1 [umphrey Chetham, who acquired a large fortune in trade during the early part of the seventeenth century, and was one of the first " merchant prince-" of Lancashire. A royal charter gave effect to the stipulations of his will in 1665; a body corporate of twenty-four feoffees was appointed, with powers to Bupply the vacancies in their number as the) occurred, and to them the entire management of the funds bequeathed by the benevolent founder was entrusted. Eighty boys are now received into the school in the following proportions: — from Manchester 28, from Salford 12, from Droylsden <>, from Crumpsal] 4. from Bolton :.'(>, and from Turton 10. They are educated, clothed, and lodged gratuitously. Their dress is Bingularly unbecoming, a- indeed are the dr< of most similar institutions in England; it consists of a blue frock, cap, and Btockings, with a yellow under-coal or vest. At a proper age the boys are put apprentice; four pounds are given with them a- a fee. and they receive each two -nit- of clothes a- an outfit. The college i- a curious and very ancienl building. It was at lir-t occupied by the clergy of' the Collegiate Church, and afterwards became one of the baronial halls ot' the Harlot" Derby: it i to tin of Chetham's charity by the Parliamentary Sequestrators, but the transfer was not finally completed until after the Restoration. A \ii\ ( \i client library, containing about :.'•">.<>()() volumes, i- attached to 56 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURA the institution; several of the works arc rare and valuable, and there are also -nine curious manuscripts. The regulations under which readers are admitted to the use of the library are liberal and judicious. The Free Grammar School of Manchester was founded in the early pari of the sixteenth century, and is BO richly endowed that its funds are adequate to the education of all the children in Manchester. It i- however so conducted .is to prepare hoys for some of the learned professions rather than the pursuits of commercial life, and hence its utility to a trading and manufacturing community is much restricted. Several exhibitions are in the gift of the Warden and High Master: there are also fifteen exhibitions for pupils of this school founded at Brazennose College Oxford, together with a portion of certain scholarships in Brazennose and Magdalen Colleges Oxford, and St. John's ( lollege Cambridge. The ecclesiastical government of Manchester is vested in the wardens and four fellows of the Collegiate Church, but the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have recommended that Lancashire shall be formed into a Bishopric, and the Collegiate Church elevated to the rank of a Cathedral. The building is not unworthy of such dignity: it i- a venerable Gothic pile, erected in a commanding situation, so that its architectural merits are not hist, as is the case with too many of our ecclesiastical edifices. Only a por- tion of the capacious interior is devoted to the purposes of public worship. The rest is divided into chapels, filled with monumental effigies and mural tablets, which, together with the inscriptions on the windows of stained glass, would furnish materials lor an interesting family history of this part of Lancashire In the older tombs are laid the remain- of barons bold and gallant knights, who would have looked upon trade and commerce as the greatesl of all degradations; beside them repose those who regarded honourable industry as more than an equivalent lor patents oi nobility — the architect- of their own fortunes — the founders of their own families. But this church affords us less gloomy associations; it is the most popular church in the county for the solemnization of marriage; and indeed so numerous are the parties coming to lie united at the expiration of Lent, that weddings are performed b\ wholesale. I W< VSHIRE. ■V, The Collegiate Church of Manchester ranks among the firsl of those ecclesiastical edifices which were erected when the florid style of our Pointed architecture was in full development Its date and Btyle belong to the Bame class of religious structures as Bath \\>\<- \ Church, Bang's College Chapel, Cambridge, and others remarkable for airy and slender supports and ornamental profusion, while it would puzzle the most fastidious to point out a disproportion in the one case, or indicate where a single attribute in the other could be omitted with advantage. The " dim religious light," which seemed so carefully pre- served in the edifices of the preceding ages, even in those of the early Saxon times, is here exchanged for ■• day's garish ej e " without stint. The deli- cacy of the ornament-, the alenderness of the columns, and the lightness of the groins and arches, which excite wonder, as in King's College, at the enormous weights they seem to sus- pend in the air, give this Btyle a character of grace and a delicacy quite feminine, contrasted with the Herculean masses and solid arches <>f our earlier ecclesiastical structures. The Collegiate Church of Manchester, then, belonging to this period of our architectural history, may compete with any of its claS8 under its own peculiar plan. It i- disadvantageously situated, amidst the smoke of countless manufacture es, in an atmosphi re continually clouded, and built of a red -<>ft -tone, in its qualities of colour and duration unworthy of 80 beautiful a building. The sharpness of the angles, externally, is corroded by time and miserably blackened, bo that the aspect on the outside may not at first sight strike the unpractised eye with it- excellence of proportion and « 1. . design, though to individuals at all acquainted with the differ* nl u ord< rs," if we ma) bo speak, which exisl in the religious edifici - of England down to the i 58 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: date of this church, its merits must be at once apparent. It was begun by Lord dc la Warre in 1421; lmt it appears that the entire fabric was not worked out until 1485, and that considerable additions were made in the sixteenth century. Many alterations and addition- are of recent origin. There are also numerous chapels in this church, all but one of which are private property. Upon entering, the admirable adjustment and symmetry of the parts arc at once disclosed. From the nave, the impression which the architect designed to produce is complete, exhibiting great lightness, beauty, and even playfulness of design and execution. The columns sustain light arches con- structed -with great skill] the spandrels are ornamented with cinquefoil vaultings containing shields of a dark colour, and the walls over them pierced with small windows of five lights; the roof is lofty and highly decorated. From the capitals of the lower columns slender pillars shoot tip, ornamented "with trefoil-, support- ing half-lengths of angels holding musical instruments. From the capital- of these, a third row of column- rises from behind the angel-effigies, and sustains the roof. The choir is one of the most beautiful we have ever seen. The ceiling is flat, divided ornamentally into squares and supported by light rafter-, which at the terminations are sustained by angular buttresses rising between the windows, perforated laterally, and of a very elegant pattern and appear- ance. At the cast end is a broad window, of seven divisions, filled with painted glass of modern date. The windows on both sides of the choir are more elaborately executed than those of the nave. The stalls are finely carved, and some of the panel work is wonderfully executed. Most of the stalls in this rich choir are adorned with those designs so utterly inconsistent in an edifice dedicated to religious purposes, which have often been made the subject of remark, and do not yet seem to be satisfactorily explained. In one is the representation of a fox running away with a goose, and an old woman sallying after the marauder, with a child dragging at her garment-. This is in the schoolmaster's stall. There is, in addition to the same design, an old fox sitting with a large rod over his shoulders, teaching two cubs to read; opposite to him is another old fox, perhaps designed as the usher. There is a party of monkeys, one administering extreme unction to a dying man. and the rest plundering him of his property and eating hi- provisions. Another monkey is nursing an infant in swaddling clothes. A different stall is decorated with a bear-baiting; and one represents a boar upon his hindlegs, playing the bagpipes, with four young pigs behind their trough, dancing on their hind leg6 to his notes. There is backgammon-playing and music, and a dog bearing away a fox on his back, which carries in its turn a pole with a dead hare at the end. Another -hew- a huntsman at a fire roasting something, and using his pole as a spit, while four pots are seen on the lire; three with lids on. and on the fourth a hare putting a lid over a seething dog. The remnant of the ancient screen of this church exhibit- -onie line wood- carving. A piece of tapestry, curious from its age rather than quality, is I \\. ISHIRB. 59 placed over it. The chapter-house windows arc mutilated, but the house itself is in a tolerable Btate of repair. The painted glass exhibits a number of portraits. * The tower of this church, the upper portion of which i- \, rv beautiful, is supposed to have been erected at different periods of time. In the upper part there is a good deal of rich tracery. The principal entrance formerly led through this tower into the body of the church. It is much to be Lamented that the modern alterations and additions are not all in harmony with the date of the original building. In the reign of Elizabeth (1578), a renewed charter of foundation was given to this church, appointing a warden, four fellows, two chaplains, four Laymen, and four children skilled in music; also changing the name of the college from that of the Virgin previously, to Christ's College. The monuments in the church arc for the most part in a good state of preservation; and though in some places rather crowded, they are generally so arranged as to form very impressive groups. 'The chapel of the Derby family is that which possi sses tin- greatesl share of historic interest: it is said to have been erected for the purpose of enclosing the remains of one of the barons hold of the house of Stanley, whose body was refused the honour of sepulture within the church, because he had not obtained absolution from ecclesiastical censure previous to his death. St. Mary's Chapel contains m \ nal interesting monuments of the family of the ( Ihethams: and the Trafford Chapel, in addition to the memorials of the ancient family from which it takes it- name, possesses a very handsome monument to the memory of Dauntsey 1 Inline. Esq., erected by the trustees of the Royal Infirmary; he bequeathed a large sum of money to that institution, in addition to many other hem tions to the poor of the town. The effect of these chapels is at first a little distracting, but alter a visitor ha- gone through them once or twice, he begins to perceive their harmony with the entire edifice, and to feci that •• the long- drawn aisles" are appropriate accompaniments to " the fretted vault.*' The influence of factory labour on health is a subject which has given ri-e to much controversy. It i- commonly believed that bleach and print works an- the most unhealthy of any, but bo for as accurate information can lie derived from statistical returns, this opinion appears decidedly erroneous. Having already described the bleaching processes, we -hall now gii account of calico printing, an art in which England i- yet unrivalled. Calico printing in England may be said to have been created by the rivalry of the woollen and silk manufacturers. In the year 1700 the -ilk and woollen manufacturers obtained an act of parliament prohibiting the introduction of the beautiful print- of India and the adjacent countries. But instead of • There is a curious Diary extant, written by a sexton of this churcb, in which he gives an account of ill buriala from li>7si.> 1680; ' li >w deepe the Lye, andwht place they cum ffrotn, Hoothe in town and pariah" — Tbia irorthy'i name was Philip Burnell. 60 l M.I.AM) IN TIIK NINETEENTH I I.N I I KY : people returning to their old materials of dress, the taste for chintzes remained as strong as ever — plain calicoes were imported from India and printed in England. So rapidly did the business increase, that it attracted the notice of the administration, and was of course made to contribute to the revenue The woollen manufacturers were not daunted; they obtained in 1720 a law prohibiting the wear of any printed or dyed goods of which cotton formed a part, with the exceptions of blue calicoes, muslins, and fustians. Ten years afterwards this statute was so far relaxed as to allow the printing of cloths with a linen warp and a cotton weft; but it was not until 177 1 that the printing of cloths manufactured wholly of cotton was legalized in England. The printing business was at first confined to London and its vicinity; but it was introduced into Lancashire about the middle of the last century, where the local advantages of vicinity to the cotton manufacturers, cheapness of fuel. abundance of water, and a rate of wages more moderate than that of the metropolis, soon enabled it to triumph over all competition. The success of calico printing in Lancashire must, in a great degree. be attributed to the late Sir Robert Peel. It is recorded as a curious proof of the humble means with which he commenced laying the foundation of his fortune, that when he began to try experiments, the cloth, instead of being calendered, was ironed by a female of the family, and that the pattern was a parsley leaf. From this time the progress of calico printing in Lan- cashire is identified with the rise of the Peel family; the establishments which they founded have for the most part passed into other hands, but they still rank among the largest in the north of England. The oldest form of calico printing, which is still continued for several kinds of goods, is block printing. The pattern is carved in relief on an engraved block of sycamore, to which a handle is attached; the workman applies the surface of the block to a woollen cloth, kept saturated with the colour, and then placing the block on the piece to be printed strikes it with an iron mallet so as to leave an impress of the figure. There are wire points at the corner ni' the block, which enable the printer to apply it with exactness, and to make different blocks " justify," or fall in the same place, when several are required to produce a single pattern. If then- be more colours than one in the pattern, it is necessary to have a separate block for every colour, and to repeat the stamping with every block. The skill of the workman is shewn in the accuracy with which the several blocks fall into their proper places on the pattern. This is a slow and tedious operation; the printing of a single piece of calico, twenty-eight yards in length, requires the application of the block 1 18 times. A nearer approach to the process of letter-press, or rather stereotype printing, is sometimes used with great advantage in small patterns. Instead of rutting the block, the pattern is raised on it by the insertion of bit- of copper, which are firml\ fixed in it at a uniform height, and form in effeel LANCASHIRE. (II a stereotype plate. This invention, which some time since was applied to the printing <>t' music, and subsequently abandoned, appears, if we may judge from its application at Mayfield, to be of greal value in cotton printing; the copper is more easily cleaned than the wood, there is le-s chance of blotching the pattern, and a greater facility of making several blocks "justify" with each other when it is necessary to combine them for the production of a figure with several colours. When any error was made in this respeel with the ordinary process, it was necessary to destroy the block and cut a new one; in the newer process, when an alteration is requisite, the copper points are easily moved to their proper place, a pincers draws them out, and a hammer drives them in without delay or difficulty. The use of the blocks with raised points has led to the invention of a species of press, also to he seen at Mayfield, which prints several colours at once. Tin- cloth to be printed nnrols only the breadth of a Bingle colour-block at a time; as it passes successively under the blocks, which are placed in close contact. it receives of course a separate impression from each, and is given out from the press with all the colours of the pattern complete. This invention, it is believed, i- capable of being extended and improved, and we have heard of attempts made to apply it to Letter-press printing. As delicate patterns could not he easily engraved on wood, copper-plates were introduced, chiefly we believe in the neighbourhood of London, and they were applied by means of the ordinary copper-plate press. This was the most tedious of all tin- processes employed, and the goods thus produced were consequently very dear; it is now we believe almost wholly disus< d. Cylinder printing is far the most important improvement made in this ail, bearing nearly the same relation to block and plate printing that the nude does to the old spinning wheels. It is said to have been invented bv a Scotch- man named Bell, and was first applied to printing in Lancashire about the year 1785. The pattern- are engraved on a polished copper cylinder, round the whole circumference, and from one end to the other; the diameter of the cylinder is about three inches, and it- Length varies according to the breadth of the cloth to be printed. The cylinder revolve- horizontally in a press, the lower part turning over a trough containing the colouring matter, which it of course take- up; an clastic knife-blade working against the cylinder, some- thing L^ke the crank and comb in the carding machine, remove- the colour from the smooth surface of the cylinder, Leaving only the portions contained in the engraved line- of the pattern. The piece of (loth being passed over and pressed against the upper Burface of the cylinder, takes up the pattern, and then. IS printed, i: i- turned over -evi ral cylindrical bo\i s heati d by -team, which remove from it every particle ofmoisture. The nio-t ingenious and at the -ame time the mo-t simple contrivance, in this beautiful and mo-t wondrous pi< ce of mechanism, i- the knife-blade, which i- technically Called " the doctor.*' It i- -aid to have obtained itv name 62 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY from the following circumstance. When Mr. Hargreaves, a partner in the factory of Mosney aear Preston, where cylindrical printing was first introduced, was making some experiments with the process, one of his workmen who stood by said, " All this is very well Sir, but how will you remove the superfluous colour from the surface of the cylinder ?" Mr. Hargreaves took up a common knife which was near, and placing it horizontally against the revolving <\ Under, at once shewed its action in removing the colour, asking the operative " What do you say to this?" After a moment's pause of surprise and pleasure, the man replied, " Sir, you have doctored it !" — a common phrase for " you have cured it;" and the contrivance has ever since retained the name of " doctor." Cylinders, like blocks, may be engraved with different portions of the same pattern, and made to justify with each other, and as each cylinder revolves in a trough of a different colour, the resulting pattern will have as many colours as there are cylinders. It is not uncommon to set' from three to six cylinders in one press, each cylinder engraved with a different part of the pattern, and printing a different colour on the cloth. A man and boy. at such a press, can do more work than a hundred men, attended by a hundred boys, could by block printing. The preparation of patterns is an increasing branch of industry, but docs not yet hold so high a rank as might be expected in England. It is not easy to estimate the cost of a design: some are purchased for a few shillings, and I. \\( VSHTRE. 63 others bring as high a price a-- twenty pounds. Mr. Thomson of Clitheroe, has Btated in his evidence before the House of Commons, that he would have sou-lit designs for furniture cotton from some of the most eminent artists to Europe, at an unlimited price, it' he could have obtained Buch an extension of copyrighl as would secure him adequate remuneration. Simple and inartificial designs are generally the greatesl favourites with the public: Lane's net, of which an engraving is given, was one of the most successful ever produced. It will he seen that it is nothing more than a simple arrangement of right lines. Uut it also deserves to he remarked, that e\er\ original pattern which i^ successful, becomes the Bource of a new style, and suggests variations of the original combination, which are in (ad new patterns. We have given Borne specimens of the \ ariet\ of patterns derived from Lane's original net, hut they form only a small proportion of the entire amount. There i-> a con-tant demand for aovelt} and \.niet\ of patterns, not only in the home market, hut in every country to which English calicoes an' exported; and we have been assured by a gentleman mosl extensivelj engaged in the trade, that a printer i- seldom able to sell the same design a Becond time to the same individual. Neither purit} of taste nor excellence of design can com- 64 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY! pete with the charm of novelty, and this compels extensive printers to produce fresh varieties every week, and frequently within the week. It has been calculated that out of* five hundred designs, one hundred will he decidedly successful, fifty moderately so, and the rest nearly complete failures. There is, however, a greater permanence in the oriental taste, and the same patterns arc exported year after year to Asiatic countries. A curious anecdote will shew the great importance of a new and successful pattern. Messrs. Simpson and Co. of Fox-hill Bank, had to print a quantity of cloth in parallel stripes ; by some accident a portion of the cloth was creased, and the stripes being thrown angularly on each other, produced a new effect, which received the name of the Diorama pattern. Such a favourite was this novelty, that the unprecedented number of 25,000 pieces was sold in one day. Novelty of effect, however, was its only recommendation, and it is now little valued. There are two classes of production in calico printing which differ con- siderably in their application and generally in their design, though some styles are common to both; these arc "garment printing'" and "furniture printing."' It is difficult to draw a precise line between these two branches; for some patterns are applied both to garments and furniture in Great Britain, and some patterns which are exclusively applied to furniture at home, arc exported for dresses to foreign markets. Some of the richly flowered and gaudy patterns for instance meet with a ready sale on the coast of Africa. In general it may be stated that the patterns for furniture arc more elaborate and expensive than those for dress. We have seen some which, for the mere drawing and engraving, cost from fifty to a hundred pounds. A still greater expense is incurred in what is called the "making-out" of the pattern; that is reducing it to such a scale, and making such a distribution of its parts, as will make the several portions " justify"" or harmonise with each other when engraved on separate blocks or cylinders. Patterns have been exhibited which had to be drawn over again five or six times, because the least imperfection in furniture designs is at once detected even by an unpractised eye. 'flu' patterns were originally engraved on the copper cylinder by the hand ; they are now transferred to it by mechanical pressure from a small steel cylinder, similar in principle to the invention which Mr. Perkins devised for multiplying the plates of bank-notes. It is generally difficult to determine the claims of a disputed invention; it is. however, certain that Mr. Joseph Lockitt of Manchester, practised this process in 1808, before Mr. Perkins had conic from America to settle in London, and lie brought it, almost unaided, to the very high degree of perfection which it lias new attained. The pattern having been drawn so as to fit the circumference of the copper, is engraved on a Cylinder of softened steel about four inches in length and one in diameter. The steel is then tempered and pressed against a second cylinder of softened steel, to which of course the lines of the pattern are transferred in relief. This LWt \MIIRE. GO again is tempered or hardened, after which it is applied to the copper cylinder, on -which it impresses even the mosl delicate lines of the pattern as finely and accurately as it' they had been cut by the graver. Another process is frequently employed, which may be called "etching," — the copper cylinder is covered with a thin coat of varnish, BUch as is used in the ordinary etching, and on this the pattern is draw □ w ith a diamond-pointed tracer. The cylinder is then immersed in aquafortis, and of course the parts from which the varnish has been removed by the tracer, are corroded or engraved. The most wondrous part remains to be told; the diamond tracer is generally applied by a process similar to the eccentric chuck of a lathe, and thus the entire surface of the cylinder is covered with patterns, or ground works of patterns, without any exercise of human skill or ingenuity. The eccentric designs, as the patterns thus produced arc called, from the eccentric chuck employed in the process, admit of incalculable varieties of form, and some of them arc exquisitely beautiful. Nothing in machinery is more calculated to impress a visitor with feelings of -wonder and admiration than a visit to the manufactory of the Messrs. Lockett; the patterns produced by the eccentrics appear to rival the finished labours of an accomplished artist, while the apparent simplicity of the means is so disproportionate to the complicated results produced, that a stranger is almost tempted to doubt the evidence of his senses. When the cylinders are thus covered with ground- work, an additional pattern may be engraved upon them cither by the hand or the steel cylinder. In consequence of these obvious advantages, cylinders eccentrically engraved are largely exported from Manchester both to the Continent and North America. The Prussians and Germans send their own designs to be engraved on the cylinders, having previously selected the ground-work; but \f copper cylinders. As this process will enable artists to transfer very elaborate designs to the copper ;it a trifling expense, it will probably had to a great improvement in the art of design, which has retrograded rather than advanced in England. When the printing trade was confined t" the vicinity of London, pattern-drawing flourished. Mr. Thomson of Clitheroe . •• The designs of several distinguished artists are still remembered with admiration; and Raymond, Kilbuni, Wagner, ami Kdwards, are regarded as the old masters of the English school of design in (alien printing. 1 have the good fortune to possess .1 \ oli line of drawings of this period, in which pattern drawing Is elevated to the dignity ofs tine ait. The art of printing since that period has made gigantic strides, and is now one of the mosl beautiful and refined of the chemical arts. The art of designing has at tin same time K 66 ENGLAND in III!. MM MINI 1 1 CENTURY: retrograded." We must, however, add that within the last two years attention has been paid to the preparation of patterns, particularly those for mousselines- de-laine and ( Shine silks; and no doubt English calico printing will soon exhibit the most happy combination of the fine with the useful arts. Saying described the machinery used in calico printing, we must endea- vour to give a general notion ol* the process, and for this purpose we must warn the reader that the foundation of the -whole maybe said to be the proper application of mordants. The nature of these is admirably explained by Dr. Thomson, in the article on dyeing in the last edition of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica.' "The term mordant is applied by dyers to certain substances with which the cloth to be dy< d must be impregnated, otherwise the colouring matter would not adhere to the cloth but would be removed by washing. Tims the red colour given to cotton by madder would not be fixed, unless the cloth were previously steeped in a solution of salt of alumina. It has been ascer- tained that the cloth has the property of decomposing the salt of alumina, and of combining with and of retaining a portion of alumina. The red colouring principle of the madder has an affinity for this alumina and combines with it. The consequence is, that the alumina being firmlv retained by the cloth, and the colouring matter by the alumina, the dye becomes fast, or cannot be removed by washing the cloth with water, even by the assistance of soap, though simple water is sufficient to remove the red colouring matter from the (loth, unless the alum mordant has been previously applied. The term mordant (from the Latin word mordere to bite) was applied to these substances by the French writers on dyeing, from a notion entertained by them that the action of the mordants was mechanical; that they were of a corrosive or biting nature, and served merely to open pores in the fibres of the cloth, into which the colouring matter might insinuate itself. And after the inaccuracy of this notion was discovered, and the real use of mordants ascertained, the term \\ . a still continued as sufficiently appropriate, or rather as a proper name, without any allusion to its original signification. The term mordant, however, is not limited to those substances merely which serve like alumina to fix the colours. It is applied also to certain substances which have the property of altering the shade of colour, or brightening the colour, as it is called." Most commonly the printing process is employed for fixing the mordants on the cloth, which is then dyed in the ordinary way. When the cloth is cashed, those parts only retain the colour which have imbibed the mordant, and the other parts remain white. It is generally believed that this process was discovered in India, where it was undoubtedly practised at a very early period; but from the description given by Pliny,* it is evident that in the • There exists in Egypt a wondrous method of dyeing. The while cloth is stained in various places, not with dye stud's, but with substances which have naturally the property of absorbing (fixing) colours. These applications are not risible on the cloth; hut when the pieces are dipped into a hut cauldron, containing the dye, they are in an instant after drawn out, dyed. The remarkable circumstance is, that though there be only one dye in the cauldron, yet different colours appear on the cloth, nor can the colours be afterwards removed. — Natural Hhti ry, Hook xxxv. I \\< LSHIRE. 67 first century of the Christian era calico printing was understood and practised in Egypt. The most common mordant is the aluminate, formed by the mixture of three parts of acetate of lead (vulgarly called " sugar of lead",) with lour of alum. When this is applied by the hlock or cylinder, it is usually thickened with starch or »um, according to the nature and style of the cloth. In some a the mordants formed from the chloride of tin are mixed with the colour- ing matter, and both applied to the cloth together; hut the colours thus produced, though originally very beautiful, soon lade when exposed to tin- action of light and air. The mordants, as we have said, arc employed to combine with the dyes, and thus produce a permanent colour; but this effect would not follow if tin entire mordant entered into a perfect chemical combination with the dye: it is necessary that a portion of the mordant should be held suspended and undecomposed in the cloth. This is effected by a process called "dunging:" the cloth tinged with the mordant is passed through a mixture of cow-dung and water, which has the property of holding the aluminates in BUSpense. Such, at least, is the explanation of the process most commonly given by chemists; but Ave have not seen any satisfactory reason assigned for the failure of the various attempts that have been made to produce the same result by a more direct chemical process. The use of the dung-bath was probably first suggested to calico printers by their observing that animal fibres, such as silk and wool, received dyes more perfectly than vegetable fibres, such as flax and cotton; they therefore sou-lit out means to the vegetable fibre, and the success of their experiments induced them to persevere in the practice. Many have supposed that it was some peculiarity in this process which rendered the colours of the Indian chintzes so superior to an\ produced in Europe; but on inquiry from us intimately acquainted with the manufactures of 1 [indostan, we have not been able to discover any plausible ground for such a supposition. It would be impossible within our limits to give even an outline- of the different chemical combinations by which colour is produced; in fact, the chemistry of dyes is now recognised as a separate branch of science, and has been the Bubjecl of many large and elaborate treatises. We shall only mention a few processes, which can be described w it h sufficient generality to render them interesting to unscientific readers. From what we have said, it is clear that the use of the mordants is to |i\ the COloUTS of the pattern. If then tin- whole ground be coloured, the cloth must be immersed in the mordant, and the white must be produced by Bomething which will neutralize or counteract its ellicc J . Tins counteraction of the mordants is produced by what are called "dis- chargers;" that is. by printing the parts designed to be kept white with an acid which will neutralise or destroy the mordant, and consequently the colour G8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: which the cloth in that place had imbibed. The citric acid is chiefly used for this purpose; and, according to circumstances, it is either applied before the cloth is dipped in the mordant, so as to prevent its action, or it is applied afterwards to counteract its agency. This reverse of the original process of calico printing is said to have been first introduced in Scotland, but it was not practised successfully and extensively until it was adopted by the Peels of Church, about the commencement of the present century. " Resisters," or " resist pastes," are scarcely of less value than " dis- chargers" in all the variety of dyes which indigo is employed to produce. While "Mordants" fix colours and "Dischargers" remove them, " Resistei-"' prevent the indigo dye from leaving a trace of its presence. This process is said to have been discovered by a commercial traveller, who had so little know- ledge of its value that he sold his secret for five pounds. The process was first extensively employed by the late Sir Robert Peel, in his works near Bury, and the beauty of its effects, and the extreme precision of outline in the patterns produced, at once placed his establishment at the head of all the factories for calico printing in the country. No part of the chemistry of calico printing is more interesting than the process of dyeing Turkey-reds, but it is unfortunately very complicated, and in many of its parts apparently tentative. On one operation of a series, and one of the longest and most complicated scries that exists in the whole range of the art, depends the perfect or imperfect success of the entire work. At which stage of the series this decisive effect is produced, has yet eluded the investi- gations of science. At one time it was attributed to the effect of climate, and the air and water of Elberfield were assigned as the cause of the stipcriority which Elberfield attained. But Mr. Stciner, the proprietor of the great estab- lishment at Church, one of the original manufactories of the Peels, produces the most brilliant dye without any exposure to the sun and air. This dye was restricted to yarn, until M. Koechlin, of Mulhausen in Alsace, applied it to cloth in the year 1810, and soon after discovered the means by which patterns could be printed on this beautiful ground. The process is simply to print a pattern on the Turkey red, or any other dyed colour, with a powerful acid, and then to immerse the cloth in a solution of chloride of lime. Neither of these agents separately would discharge the colour, but the chloride being liberated in the parts which have received the acid, performs its usual bleaching func- tions, and renders the parts so affected purely white. The various applications of manganese and the chromic dyes have given to English colours a richness and variety which bid fair to establish as great a superiority in colours as we have hitherto had in yarns and cloths. It is a fact which ought not to be forgotten, that many of the greatest discoveries in modern chemistry have been derived from experiments for the improvement of colours, and that the leading calico printers spare neither time, trouble, nor expense, in their endeavours still further to promote the science. The labora- I \\< A.SHIBE. GO tones and scientific libraries attached to mosi of the printing Victories are fully equal to those of our besl public institutions, and among the chemists they employ are to be found names that have shed the brightest lustre on the annals of modern Bcience. We have given merely a general outline of calico printing; it i- a business which to be well and successfully carried out, requires a combination of the bighesl mechanical attainments, the most extensive chemical knowledge, and iu> small acquaintance with the art of design. Some of the print works employ more than a thousand operatives; they are all conducted with extreme order, cleanliness, and punctuality; they exhibit at once the greatest triumphs of mechanical art and chemical science, both kept under the control of human agency, and working for the advancement of human comfort. The silk trade is a modern branch of industry in Manchester, but it has extended itself so rapidly that it is now second only to the cotton ma nufacture The town of Middleton, near Manchester, is indeed principally inhabited by silk-weavers. As we shall have to describe the silk trade in connexion with other localities, we shall here only notice a few of those branches which air peculiar, or nearly so, to the Lancastrian districts. It is in the weaving, rather than the spinning or throwing, that the -ilk manufacture becomes deeply interesting, and in some of the weaving branches Manchester is unrivalled. No one who has visited the establishment of Mr. Lewis Schwabe, can ever forget the extraordinary beauty of the fabrics wrought in his jacquard looms. The richness and beauty of the patterns surpass all that the imagination could previously have conceived: the flowers wrought into the silk- and satins appear more like the work of the best painter than of the weaver. IK' ha- also some of the finesl specimens vel produced, of the interweaving of glass thread with textile fabric-. But nothing in this establishment is more likely to engage the attention of a scientific visitor, than the application of the Pantagraph to the art of em- broidery. The embroidery Loom i- an upright frame, on the top of which i- a moveable rod attached to one arm of the pantagraph. The material to be embroidered pa— es over this rod to a roller beneath. On each side are carriages having a horizontal motion backwards and forwards, Bupplied with .1 system of clippers, and also of needles having the eye in the middle; these needles are threaded with the various coloured -ilk- thai are to be em- broidered on the suspended piece. The tenter, sitting at one end. moves the Long arm of the pantagraph to a point marked in a copy of the pattern, and the other arm of the pantagraph gives a corresponding motion to the rod from which the piece i- suspended; one of the carriages moving forward drives it- needle- into tin' suspended (loth; tiny are then caught and drawn through by the dippers in the carriage at the other side; tin- process i- repeated at everj change of the pantagraph, and thus several copies ;i re em- broidered with mathematical accuracy on the piece at the -.one time. So 70 BNGJ WD IN THE NINETEENTH CENT1 l:\ simple is this very ingenious contrivance, that the frame may be worked by a woman and two girls; the woman guiding the pantagraph to the points marked on the pattern, and the girls directing the motion of the carriages. The figure at the side of the machine represents, on an enlarged scale, the apparatus for passing the needles. Mr. Schwabe has several jacquard looms at work, and in these are pro- duced some varieties of figured satin, such as we have not seen in any other establishment. Among these, a pattern differing from the ground-work only by a shade of tint is particularly remarkable; the effect produced is that of the finest penciling, and both in beauty of design and accuracy of execution not unworthy of the first artist. The manufacture of engines and machinery is ncccssarilv a very important branch of industry in Manchester, but as the subject must elsewhere engage our attention we shall not dwell 14)011 it here, further than to remark that this is a business which requires not only mechanical skill but also great intelligence and science in those by whom it is conducted. Modern trade and commerce daily increase in their demands on mental acquirements, and this is particularly the ease in .Manchester, where a very slight improvement in manipulation confers an immense advantage, on account of the vast amount of production o\er which it spreads, and where for the same reason a slight error or miscalculation must produce incalculable injury. The merchants and manufacturers, aware that their own interests are inti- mately connected with the general diffusion of intelligence, have not only aided in securing primary instruction for the young in their schools, but have encouraged the establishment of several institutions where adults can on very moderate terms obtain a knowledge of Science, and at the same time enjoy the advantages of literary relaxation. Of these institutions, the Athemrum in Bond-Street holds the first rank. It is a splendid building, erected from the LANCASHIRE. 71 designs of Mr. Barry, the architect of the new Houses of Parliament. The members, who are principally young men, have the use of a well-supplied news-room, a select library, and the privilege of attending Lectures. There are also classes for instruction in the modern langus and in music. Concerts and balls are occasionally given, and conversational meet- ings held tor the purpose of mutual instruction. There arc Mechanics 1 Institutes both in Manches- ter and Salford: that of Man- chester, situated in Cooper- Btreet, was the first building erected in England for such a purpose. It has a tine library, containing about (5000 volumes, and the members have the privilege of attending lectures and classes. At both of these institutions there have been public exhibitions of the wonders of nature and art, contributed for the pur- pose from the private collections of noblemen and gentlemen in the neigh- bourhood. In each of these exhibitions there were more than 25,000 articles of various kind--; they remained open for -everal months, and were each visited by more than 120,000 persons, and on no occasion was there a single instance of wanton mischief or material damage to the article- displayed. A BChool of design has been recently opt lied in one of the room- of' the I Institution, where Lectures are delivered on painting and sculpture, and on the sciences more immediately connected with these art-, such as anatomy, zoology, botany, etc.; competent masters give instruction in the various branches of drawing, and preparations are in progress for establishing a museum of models, and a binary of book- and engravii; The Lyceums, which owe their origin to Manchester, are the cheapesl institutions lor adult instruction which have yet been founded. For eight shillings a year the member- have the use of a news-room, coffee-room, and Library, the privilege of attending classes and Lectures, and of holding friendly meetings for conversation, music, and other rational recreations. A Social Hall ha- been recently erected by some of the follower- of Mr. Robert Owen, but a- it i- much used for political meetings and the pro- pagation of peculiar opinion-, it cannot be considered an ordinary educational institution. There is no town in England, the inhabitant- of which display a greater 72 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: taste for music than Manchester. Several societies and clubs hare been formed for it- cultivation, at the head of which is the proprietary body of tin Nevi ( loncert Hall. This hall is a modern structure with a plain exterior, but its internal arrangements and ornaments deserve the highest praise. There are about 600 subscribers, and about half as many candidates for admission. Persons have frequently to wait for several years before they can become members, as the number is limited. The Glee Club, the Madrigal Society, and the Choral Society, are on a smaller scale than the society of the Concert Hall; but they are very efficiently conducted, and the first musical composers in England are honorary members of the Glee Club. The Choral Society is not an institution for mere amuse- ment, it is in fact a school of mnsic, and most of the members of its choir are singers professionally engaged in churches and chapels. Chiefly in conse- quence of this institution, sacred music at Manchester, in the various places of worship, has a higher and more scientific character than in most parts of the kingdom. This musical taste descends to the operative classes; there are several associations of the work-people for the enjoyment of vocal and instrumental music, and in many of the large factories the operatives have been aided by their employers in forming musical bands, which afford the people means of innocent enjoyment, and have a very powerful effect in preventing dissipation. The Zoological Gardens, on the New Bury Road, are capable of being made the means of affording both amusement and instruction. They are delightfully situated, and the grounds, fifteen acres in extent, have been laid out with great taste and skill. Unfortunately these gardens are not sufficiently open at the times when they could be visited by the operatives, or by persons engaged in active business, so that, like the Botanic Gardens, their utility- is comparatively circumscribed by narrow limits. Although the exertions of the " Foot-path Protection Society" have pre- served many beautiful rural walks to the people of Manchester, yet it is to be lamented that there is no public park or green in which the labouring population can enjoy healthy exercise and recreation. Nowhere are these elements of public health more necessary, because in the poorer district- of Manchester, such as Ancoats. Angel Meadow, and Little Inland, the popula- tion is out of all proportion beyond the means of accommodation, and children can neither be conveniently kept in the small lodging-room, nor safely per- mitted to be out of doors. The peasants of Lancashire were anciently cele- brated for their skill and agility in athletic sports, and they still display the taste whenever they have an opportunity of exercising it. But there is no spot expressly Bel apart where the Operatives can enjoy the old healthy -port- ot England, which would he so grateful after the monotony of tin- factory, and ,m antidote to the injurious effects produced by crowded lodgings and damp cellars. These cellars are necessarily chosen by the poor hand-loom weavers, because a moist atmosphere is required for weaving cotton, hut poverty often LAN* ISHIRE. 73 compels them to Bhare these miserable abodes with others — t ill more wretched than themselves. No better proof ran be given of the deficiency of lodging for the destitute poor in Manchester, than the reporl of that excellent institu- tion, the Night Asylum: in the first year of its existence it afforded shelter to 11,006 men, 8877 women, and £523 children, making a total of 17,400 cases of persons rescued from Bleeping on the Btones of the street. There are three public cemeteries connected with Manchester j they are laid Out with great taste, and very carefully watched. The oldest, that of Rusholme-road, is particularly worthy of notice; it is open to visitors at proper hours, and the registration of the burials is so perfect as to afford every advantage which persons interested in statistical inquiries can desire. The finest pile of building in Manchester is the noble range which includes the Royal Infirmary, the Dispensary, and the Lunatic Asylum. It stands in almost the only Open space to be found within the town, and has a large sheet of water in front which i- every day renewed, six physicians and six surgeons, elected 1>\ the ballot of the en- tire body of trustees, are attached to this institu- tion, and there are besides a resident surgeon and apothecary. It- annual income i- about 9000/., and the average expenditure' amounts to very nearly the same sum. It is interesting to go from Piccadilly, where modern Manchester appears to the best advantage, to one of the tew remains of the Old Halls which recal the m mory of it- ancient condition. Dr. Aikin enumerate- seventeen "I these structures. Borne of which were as old as the Conquest Most of them however have disappeared j hut Ordsall Hall, with it- ancient moat, is still in a State of tolerable preservation; and the -till more interesting remain- of llulme Hall, «»n the Irwell. are well deserving of a \ i-it from the antiquarian. Bulme Hill was the -eat of the Prestwich family; hut Sir Thomas Prest- wich was bo impoverished by fines and sequestrations during the ('ivil W ars, that in 1660 he was compelled to -ell the man-ion, which was purchased by Sir Edward Mosl< j . Tradition Btates that sir Thomas was indue- d by hi- mother to make large pecuniary sacrifices in the cause of Charles 1., by the assurance that she had an immense treasure concealed, which would more than repay his expenditure. It is generally believed that this treasure was hidden in llulme Hall, or it- immediate vicinity, and superstition added that it was 1- 74 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: protected by unhallowed charms, which could only be dissolved by a spell known to the Dowager Lady Prestwich alone. Unfortunately for her son she was suddenly attacked by apoplexy, and struck Bpeech- less, nor did she again re- cover the use of her tongue. Fortune tellers — a race of bnpostors that once flourished in Manches- ter — are said to have often cheated credulous people in the last century, by holding out hopes of dis- covering the depository of this treasure, and the means of obtaining it from the demons under whose guardianship it was supposed to be placed. After passing through several hands, Hulme Hall was finally sold to the Duke of Bridgewater; it is fast losing its ancient character, being now in a dilapidated state, and occupied by a number of poor cottagers. Ancoats I [all was the principal seat of the Mosleys, the lords of the manor of .Manchester. Its chief historic interest arises from its having afforded shelter to the you tg Pretender when he visited the north of England in secret, pre- vious to his invasion of Scotland in 1745. This visit is not noticed in most histories, but it was authenticated by persons who recognised him again when lie entered Manchester at the head of the Scottish army. Collyhurst Hall ;iik1 Hough Hall were also seats of' the Mosleys. Birch Hall was the property of the Birch family. They took the side of the Parliament in the civil war, and were the principal agents in securing Manchester against the Kail of Derby. The patronage of lurch Chapel is vested in the proprietors of the Hall. This chapel is singularly placed in the midst of fields not long since remote from any habitations, and has. even since the alterations and improvements made by the reverend incumbent, little the appearance of an ecclesiastical edifice. There were many other halls, of which the situations can now- be scarcer) traced] we may mention one, as an anecdote connected with it will serve to illustrate the \,;st change in the value of landed property consequent on the increase of manufactures. In 1644, Chorlton Hall and the adjoining estate were sold to an apothecar) of Manchester for 300/.J the same property at the i Iom of the last century brought at a sale more than 60,000/.! LANCASHIRE. , .") Tn every road leading oul of Manchester there are rigns of the great improvements derived from applying the profits of the gas-works to widening streets and making good approaches to the principal marts of business. The water-works are managed with equal skill and wisdom. From the immense reservoir at Beswick, a million and a half gallons of water are daily supplied t<> the inhabitants of the town through Beventy miles of iron pipes. Not far from the reservoir is Clayton Hall, once the residence of the munificent i Humphrey Chetham; the moat has been restored, but unfortunately the house has been modernised, and scarcely retains a trace of its ancient state, except the old belfry and the windows which light the kitchen. At no great distance are the new mills erected in the township of Droyls- den, where very recently there was not a single manufactory. Bui in the later stages of its growth, the cotton trade began to increase more rapidly in the adjoining towns and villages than in Manchester its,. It', and that metropolis of the trade is now more important as a central mart and warehousing depot than as an actually manufacturing place. The advantages of" coal and water have led to a vasl extension of the spinning, bleaching, weaving, and printing trades in the direction oi Ajshton- under-Lyne and Stayley Bridge, from whence these trade- have spread into the adjoining county of Chester, bo that Duckinfield, Mottram, Hyde, Stock- port, etc.. may he regarded as dependent on Manchester. On the road to A^hton we pass mar the interesting village of Fairfield, a Moravian settlement, established in 1788. The Moravians, or United Brethren, when forced by persecution to take refuge in England, were recog- T6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: nised by the Statute of 1749, as an " ancient Trot, -taut Episcopal Church." Few of tin present community are descended from the early emigrants; the settlement is composed principally of English families who have embraced their belief, and the number is small, because they conscientiously abstain from making proselytes, The village consists of two main streets. The centre of the front facing the Ashton-road is occupied by the chapel; a plain hut neat brick edifice. On the right is the house occupied by the sisters of the community, who live under conventual rule, -without being bound by monastic vows. They are principally engaged in preparing a variety of pieces of embroidery and orna- mental needlework, which are sold for the benefit of the society. The un- married brethren occupy a corresponding building to the left of the chapel, and undertake the education of a limited number of boy-. The entire front, which extends from one end of the village to the other, is laid out as a garden; it is well stocked with fruit trees, on the cultivation of which extraordinary care La bestowed, and the produce is consequently abundant. The burial-ground lies beyond the garden: here the males and females are interred in separate plots, with no monumental epitaphs beyond the record of their names, ages, and dates of decease, on a small square -tone at the head of each grave. The village is remarkable for cleanliness, order, and an air of substantial comfort. There are several large factories at each side of the turnpike-road, and their numbers increase rapidlj as we approach Ashton. A peat-moss close to them is chiefly used for the supply of fuel. The undertaking has been com- menced, and is supported by the Marl of Stamford and Warrington, a great proprietor of the surrounding country. LAN! 18HISB. i < The ;i --]>«*<• t of Ashton-under-Lyne Is wrv striking when viewed from a distance; the town is built on a hill rising rather abrupt!) from the north hank of the river Tame. Like Manchester, it has grown vers rapidly from an insignificant country town Into a populous and thriving borough ; l>u( the suddenness <>f its growth lias prevented attention being paid to architectural beauty, or to the regularity and convenience of the streets. Most of the inhabitants are engaged in the cotton trade or the branches of industry con- nected with it. The weaving of ginghams, nankeens, and calicoes, employs great numbers; the ginghams arc chiefly woven by hand, while thejacquard loom has been applied to the production of figured ginghams \\ ith greal success. The prosperity of Ashton must be chiefly attributed to its coal and canals. A branch of the great Lancashire coal-field extends from Ashton-under-Lyne to Macclesfield, and the seam of workable coal is said to average thirty feet. Ashton-under-Lyne was a place of greal importance even in the Saxon times. Soon alter the Conquest it became the stronghold of a Norman baron, who, according to tradition, was the scourge of the neighbouring counties. Hifl marauding expeditions are said to have been pushed to the very gates of Chester, and it was impossible to retaliate on him, as the passes through the marshes were known only to his followers. The castle of Ashton was founded by this "moss-trooper," but was greatly altered in the day- of the Plantagenets. Very little care is bestowed on the preservation of this interesting building. The donjon keep is tolerably perfect, and so are some of the flanking walls which protected the court. At some distance from the castle is " the gallows field,*' where, anciently, a gibbet was erected, to shew that the lords of Ashton had the power of life and death within their domains. This privilege was so freely exercised by sir Ralph of Ashton — sometimes confounded w ith the moss- trooper already mentioned, but who really lived in the reign of Henry VI. — that it was commonly said, Sweet Jem, for thy mere] sake, And lor t ii y bitter passion. Save us from the axe of the Tower, And from Sir Ralph of Ashelon.* There are two churches in Ashton j the oldest i> a venerable structure, marked bj considerable antiquity .f t The Cruelties of Sir Ralph are annually cumini muralcd al Aslilon h\ the singular custom of " riding the black lad.' A straw figure of the tyrant, not unlike the London representation of Guy Pawkes, is paraded round the town, ami then ignominiously destroyed. It appears that bis cruellt uas chiefly occasioned by his /eal for agricultural improvements : the fields round Ashton were infested by a mischievous weed called the " oorn-marygold," to ensure its extirpation, Sir Etajpfa declared thai any person on whose gTOUnd the plant should he found growing, should forfeit a fit iheep to the lord of the soil. R es ist a n ce was made tO the payment of this exoi hiiant penalty, and he punished his opponent! with all the leverilj of feudal law. f The following epitaph maj he seen on a tomb in Ashton churchyard : — " Here resteth the body of John Leech of Hurst, buried the I6tb daj of October 1689, aged 00 years, ulmi>_\ Anne Ins wife, h.nl issue twelve children, and in his lifetime was f.ithei lo twelve, grandfathei to seventy-five, greal grandfather to ninety-two, great l;i eal grandfather lo two; in all one hundred and eighty one pet 7s ENGLAND IN iHE NINETEENTH CENTURA The New Town-Hall, recently erected from designs by Messrs. Young mid Lee of Manchester, was publicly opened in January 1842. It is an elegant stone edifice: but the material of which it is constructed, a coarse grit stone, is very unfa- vourable to the de- velopement of the design. The order of architecture is ( lorin- thian; presenting in front an attached co- lonnade mantis, raised considerably above the level of the street upon a continuous pedestal, or stylobate, and surmounted by a balustrade-parapet, the central compart- ment of which is charged with an in- cription, and is de- signed to be crowned with an emblematic figure of .Justice. The interior is approached by an inclosed porch or piazza, formed by the three central aper- tures of the arcade, composing the lower story of the order: and comprises a spacious hall, thirty feet square and sixteen feet high, adorned with Ionic columns and pilasters; attached, are committee rooms and other public offices, and beyond is the grand staircase, leading to a noble public room, eighty-three feet long, forty feet wide, and nearly thirty feel high.* Stayley Bridge, in the vicinity of A.shton, is one of the most remarkable instances of the rapid accumulation of wealth, populations, and buildings, produced by the cotton manufacture. Some years ago it was a miserable hamlet, remarkable only for the picturesque views from the Old Bank, a steep hill which i ises boldly above the north bank of the river; and before the prospect was shut out by building, commanded an extensive view of very rich scenery. The cottagers, in addition to their agricultural pursuits, employed themselves in spinning woollen yarn for the manufacture of stockings; there was only one dyer in the place, and he possessed the solitary piece of workmanship w hich could he Baid to make any approach to machinery, which consisted of two wheels turned 1>\ mastiffs, similar to the dog-wheels anciently used in kitchens. It is now a flourishing town with municipal insti- • Several hamlets which formerly stood al a distance, now form pan of Ash ton; the moat remark- able of which .hi' Huston and Charleston, built at the beginning of the American war, ami tailed alter the names of those placet in the United States. I \\( LSHIRE. 79 tutions of it-- own, and extends to Borne distance on the Cheshire side of the river. The persons employed in the mills and factories have conic at differenl times from thf agriculturaJ counties and districts; they are in fact colonists, not connected with Lancashire by birth <>r relationship, and are therefore very slightly influenced by local attachments. The village of Mosley, and the hamlel of Hartshead, have shared in the genera] improvement of the district. It is remarkable thai in no place was the introduction of machinery more vehemently opposed than in the localities which it has subsequently most enriched. When Mr. Hall erected the first steam-engine for spinning by power, in L 796, he was obliged to convert his mill into a garrison, and keep the gates locked both by day and night. Time dissipated these alarms, ami now sonic of the finest specimens of machinerv are found in Stayley Bridge and its neighbourhood. Along the Mersey most of the flourishing manufactories are on the ( 'h< shjiv side, until we come to Warrington, one of the oldest, if not the very oldest town in Lancashire. It was a station of the Romans, and was named Yerita- nnin from two British words, signifying the "town of the ford or ferry," because the Mersey was fordable in its neighbourhood at a spot which gives name to the present village of Latchford. A bridge having been built by the first Earl of Derby, for the purpose of enabling Henrj \ II. to pay him a visit with greater convenience, the eastern part of' the town was deserted for the vicinity of the bridge, and thus the parish church was left, as old Leland expresses it, " at the tail end of' all the town." There i- no bridge over the Mersey between Warrington and Liverpool, nor for many miles up between it and Manchester; hence \\ arrington was Looked upon as a place of considerable importance in the time of tin- civil wars, and ( 'harlo I. originally intended to have raised his standard there instead of at Nottingham. Ill-founded sus- picions of the loyalty of Lord Strange, led to the abandonment of this d. Warrington, however, was garrisoned for the king; and when the walls were stormed the loyalists took post in the church, where they made a resolute defence. The injuries which this venerable edifice received have destroyed most of the trace- of its great antiquity, for it is of Saxon origin, and existed at the period of the Conquest. A crypt, which is supposed to have been oi S 'ii origin, has been recently discovered under the eastern part of the church, and the inhabitants of the town have had it chared out. and restored as mark as possible to its ancient state. The most remarkable monument in the church is that of' Sir Thomas Boteler and his lady. The knighl Is sheathed in armour, ami the dress of the lady i- different from any found on our ancient tombs; the principal peculiarity is a cap shaped like a mitre, which appears to have had the ornaments UBUallj confined to ecclesiastical dignitai i< The Butlers of Bewse) were lord- of Warrington, and the rivals of the Stanleys, in the Lancashire. It w is a- much lor the purpose oi 80 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUKY : depriving Sir Thomas Butler of the profits of the ferry, as for opening a convenient access to the King, that the Karl of Derby bought ground from the Norris family to build the bridge over the Mersey. A bitter feud arose between the families; and the Earl of Derby, or, as he was then, Lord Stanley, resolved to murder his great opponent. As the castle of Bewsey w;is stronglj fortified and secured by a wide moat, this was a difficult enter- prise; but having bribed one of the knight's chamberlains to place a light in his master's chamber window. Lord Stanley, accompanied by Sir Piers Legh and some others, crossed the moat in leather boats, climbed to the window, forced an entrance, and seized Sir Thomas Butler, or, as he is called in some versions of the legend, Sir John Butler, in his bed. They then, with many circumstances of barbarity, hanged him on a tree in his own park. They would also have murdered his infant son, had not a servant maid carried oil' the child in her apron, while a negro servant kept the assassins at bay.* * A different version of this legend is given in a spirited ballad, which Mr. lioby has introduced into his " Legends of Lancashire." According to him, the heir of Bewsey was conveyed away by a page in a basket, and the treacherous porter was deceived by the stratagem described in the following extract : — " Now whither away, thou little page; Now whither away so fast?" " They have slain Sir John," said the little page, " And his head in the wicker cast." " And whither goest thou with that grisly bead?" Cried the grim porter again. " To Warrington Bridge they bid me run, Ami set it up amain." " There may it hang," cried that loathly knave, "And grin till its teeth be dry; While every day with jeer and taunt Will I mock it till I die." The porter open'd the wicket straight, And the messenger went his way; For he little guess'd of the head that now In that basket of wicker lay. •• \\\-'ve kill'd the bird, but where 's the egg?'' Then cried these ruffians three. "Where is thy child?" The lady mourn'd, Hut never a word spoke she. Hut swift, as an arrow, to his bed The lady in terror sprung, When, oh! a sorrowful dame was she, And her hands she madly wrung. " The babe is gone! oh ! spare my child, And strike my heart in twain." To those ruthless men the lady knelt, But her piteous suit was vain. The ballad then describes the rage of the murderers, and the revived hopes of the mother when the absence of the babe was discovered. Tins leads to the catastrophe; for the ruffians, Buspeeting thai the porter had been guilty of double treachery, wreak Weir vengeance on him, I \\i \-ll I !: I 81 , Thoueh tin- most ancienl pari of Warrineton was near the church, the mosl Btrikiiig remains of antiquity are in 1 1 1 * - vicinity of the market-place. On the wc>t side "fit arc two fine specimens of the ornamental exterior of ancient wood architecture; and a cottage in the \ icinitv has a room in an admi- rable state of preserva- tion, which is the mosl perfect specimen of En- glish domestic architec- ture in tlic age of the Tudors to be found in any of the northern counti* 3. Many circumstances contribute to determine the geographical distribution of the various branches of the cotton trade Calico printing, for instance, is most conveniently conducted in rural districts, and in the vicinity of milk-farms; because the cloth after receiving the mor- dants, must be passed through a mixture of cow-dung and water, which, as we have already said, fixes the mordants in the cloth better than any prepa- ration yet discovered. Cheapness of ground is an object of great importance in weaving by machinery, on account of the large extent of the power-loom sheds. Hand-loom weaving is the branch most independent of localities, and is therefore the most widely distributed. Fustian weaving appears to flourish most on the southern and eastern frontiers of Lancashire, from Warrington round to Oldham. It is woven both by power and hand; and there are some peculiarities in the pro, ess which merit a description. Common fustian is a coarse, thick-twilled cotton, com- monly called pillow; but corduroys, velverets, velveteens, and thicksetts, belong to the s;,nie fabric, differing only in the fineness of the material, and the greater care bestowed on the superior article. In the process of twilling, the weft, instead of passing alternately under and over each thread of the warp, alternates at certain intervals. 80 as to bring three or more threads of the Wirp together, like the strands of a r..pi '. at the deiermined spots, and bind them into <.ne cord. The resulting texture is. consequently, thicker than cloth woven in the ordinary manner; but it is not necessarily much stronger, because the parts are less perfectly held together. Ordinary cotton would be obviously too thin for outside dothing except in tropical climates, and the process of twilling has been therefore introduced, in order to accumulate a large quantity of material in a given space. Flushing b another process, originally borrowed from Balk-weaving, sometimes applied to plain, but much. more usually to twilled goods. Its effects art enin M ENGLAND IN Mil. NINETEBNTB CENTURY: velvets and in corduroys, which are in fact coarse striped velvets. Flushings arc weft threads, which pass over certain parts of the warp without being decussated, and which, therefore, when the piece is woven, form loops on its surface. The patterns of the flushings may be almost infinitely varied by the use of extra warp or extra web, and by the introduction of different colours ; hut, in mosl cases, they are raised by additional shots of weft. In the weaving of the plain or tabby-backed velvets and velveteens, it is usual to throw in two shots of flushing for each shot of ground. Cords or corduroys are always twilled fabrics, and velveteens plain. When the piece is woven, the weft threads intended to form the pile ar< spread over the surface in a series of loops, which must be cut through with a knife. This is a very delicate operation, whether performed by hand or by in thine, '('he cloth is spread upon a table about six feet in length, and held in a state of tension by two rollers witb ratchet wheels, one of which gives out the cloth, and the other folds it up, as the cutting of each six-foot length is completed. The knife is made of steel, about two feet in length, having a square handle at one end, and tapering at the other into a blade as thin as paper; a guide is fixed at the lower side, which prevents it from turning and cutting the cloth, and at the same time checks its elasticity. The operative, holding the knife in the right hand, places the projecting point under the extreme loop of the weft, and balancing bis body on the left foot, like a dancer about to execute a difficult pirouette, pushes the knife straight through the entire length of the table, and repeats the operation until every loop is cut through; the cut portion is then taken up on the receiving roller, and the operation is repeated on a similar portion, which is at the same time given out by the del vering roller. Cords or corduroys are generally stiffened with glue previously to their being cut. The machine for __ - ^^^ cutting fustians re- verses the operation of the hand: in it the knives are fixed, and the cloth is drawn over them. Its su- periority consists in its having a series of knives, which cut' all the loops simultaneously, while an operative can only cut one row at a time. The cloth is drawn up an inclined plane, on which the series of knives is fixed at a proper angle. The handle of each knife is inserted into the socket of a circular spring connected with a transverse bar, which, by means <>\' the Levers and arms attached to ii. \\ ill throw the machine out of geer w ben the operation of the knife i> impeded by any obstruction, such as a knot in the cord. Should the knife cut through the coid, its weight will fall on a transverse bar with similar appurtenances, I \M ISHIRE. and tlic action of the machine will be immediately stopped. There is also a third contrivance of the same kind, in the possible case of the knife jumping up nut of the series of loops which it Is cutting. Prom this brief description it is evidenl that the great merit of this machine consists In its security against accidents; then' are lew machines, indeed, which equal it In the ingenuity of the contrivances for stopping the work when any thing goes wrong. The Loops being cut, the next operation is to raise the pile, and give ii uniformity of appearance : for this purpose it Is passed through the brushing or teazling machine, which consists of a series of wooden rollers, covered over with tin-plate, the surface of which has been burred or rendered rough 1>\ a punch. Over each of these tollers there is a block of wood, the under surface of which is hollowed out into a concavity corresponding with the roller. These concaves are lined with card-brushes; and being moved by a crank backwards and forwards in the direction of the axles of the rollers, they brush and raise the shaggy surface of the fustian as it pasM^ over the rollers, and by their continued action render the pile uniform and smooth. The pile or flushing adds not only to the warmth and beauty of the fabric, hut by its resistance to friction greatly increases its durability. In order to perfect the smoothness of the pile, the cut surface of the cloth is singed 1»\ being passed rapidly over an iron cylinder kept red-hot. Both processes are repeated three or four times, until the surface of the cord is quite smooth and polished. The bleaching and dyeing of the cloths arc not different in principle from the processes already described ; if anything they are more simple, as there are no printed patterns used. After being dyed they are still'ened with glue, and then rapidly dried by being passed over hollow- cylinders kepi heated bj -team. Before they are ready for delivery it is necessary that both cords and velveteens should be polished: the former are well rubbed with a bar of wood on which coarse emery has been glued; the latter are finished by being slightly run over with bee8-wax and then polished w it 1 1 a wedge of hard wood. When smooth fustians are cut before dyeing they are called "moleskins," but if cut alter being dyed, they are named '* beavertecn-.'* There are many other varieties of this fabric, but their description would only be interesting t<» persons engaged in trade. Enough has been said to -hew how this peculiar process of weaving accomplishes the desirable results <>t" increased warmth, durability, and susceptibility of ornament Warrington also possesses manu- factures rani in the literary history of England a- Warrington. From it- pre-- the first newspaper < \er published in Lancashire was issued; and it was also the hT-t town in the I \(,\ \N I) IN I II I M\ I I 1KN I II I I.N IT |;\ : i :ountry from which a Btage-coach was Btarted. In tin- middle of the last century it was aot unjustly called the Athena "I' the north of England. In 1T")T an academy was established; which rapidly rose into celebrity under the direction of Dr. Aikin, Dr. Priestley. Dr. Taylor (author of the "Hebrew ( loncordance"), Dr. Enfield, and the Rev. Gilbert Wakefield. Mrs. Barbauld celebrated its opening in one of her best poems, which Enfield has preserved in his "Speaker;" a collection of pieces originally made for the use of the students in Warrington Academy. The anticipations of the poetess were unfortunately not realized: some disputes arose between the trustees and the professors; the establishment was broken up in 1783, and from its frag- ments a college was formed at York, which has been recently transferred to Manchester. The literary tastes created during the flourishing days of the Academy led to the establishment of a library, which is still excellent; and to an extent of publication almost unparalleled in the provincial press. Howard's great work on Prisons was printed at Warrington, under the superintendence of Dr. Aikin; and from the same press were issued most of Mrs. Barbauld's poems, the earlier writings of the late Thomas Roscoe, the works of Dr. Terrier, Gibson, and many others. The taste thus created is not extinct. Before taking leave of "Warrington, it should be added that the town has a well-conducted grammar school, and a blue-coat school which, from the number of bequests made to it, appears to be an established favourite with the inhabitants. Warrington has the advantages of an agricultural mart, and there is ;i greater appearance of comfort and neatness in the habitations of the poor than we have found in most towns of Lancashire. Bradley Hall, in the neighbourhood of Warrington, is supposed to occupy the site of one of the castles of the Haydocks, a powerful family in Lancashire at the time of the Plantagcncts. The moat and the remains of the gatew ay still attest its former greatness. At the distance of three miles north from Warrington all traces of manu- facturing proximity arc- lost; we are close to the village of Winwick: this sequestered spot, which forms almost a rural oasis in the manufacturing districts, is supposed by Archbishop Usher and other eminent antiquarians to have been the site of Cair-Guintguic, one of the twenty-tight British cities which according to Gildas existed at the time of the Roman invasion. Traces have been discovered which seem to prove 1 that the great Roman road between Warrington and Wigan was constructed in this direction. A better authenticated tradition identifies Winwick with the favourite residence of Oswald, King of Northumbria, and points out the vicinity of its venerable church as the spot in which he fell fighting against the pagans I'!' Mercia, \.n. 642. This church, belonging to the richest rectory in the kingdom, stands on a little hill adjoining the wood and rookery. It is a large 1 \\i ISHIRE. 85 irregular building, built, or more probably repaired, at differenl ages, but still ha\ ing sufficient unity amid the varieties of its st\ Lea to -lnu thai it represents a structure of very remote antiquity. The edifice consists of a tower, nave, aisles, two private chapels and a chancel. The tower is built in a massive style of architecture, but is much disfigured by a buttress on one Bide, which rises above the castellated parapet This appears to have been an addition of a later period than the original structure, and it was probably erected to remedy some delect in the foundation on that side. Above the parapet rises an octagonal spire, of lighl and eleganl proportions, surmounted by a vane, which is a conspicuous objeel to the surrounding neighbourhood, and verj useful as a land-mark for the boundaries of adjoining properties. The body of the church is entered by a massive porch, over which there is an inscrip- tion, so injured by time as to be quite illegible. There is however a Latin inscription, in Saxon letters, on the cornice of the south wall, which can be deciphered, though not without some difficulty. It is to the following effect :— This PLACE, O Oswald, FORMERLY delighted Yin MUCH. Yob were king op the Northumbrians, now in hi win. You POSSESS A KINGDOM, SAVING FALLEN in tiii: field op Marcefeld. We BESEECH tiiei:, blessed saint, to Remember cs . . . The rest is very much defaced, but it intimates that this part of the edifice was rebuilt about the middle of the fourteenth century. The rout', which is supported by beautiful frame-work. Was erected in 1701. but the gentlemen who superintended the structure had the good taste to preserve the character of the older roof, and to introduce several of its ornaments: the most conspicuous of these i-, •• the eagle and child," the well- known cognizance of the Stanley family; the valuable patronage of this church having been granted to Sir .John Stanley in the reign of 1 bine VI., and it has ever since been enjoyed by hi- descendants. The nave is separated from the aisles by five indented arches, supported by clustered columns and tinted capitals. There is a beautiful organ in the west gallery, which though a modern gift to the church, has been so judiciously placed as to harinoni/e w ith the antique character of the building. The windows are very interior in architectural beauty to the rest of the edifice, and the buttresses between them aie quite dilapidated. The chapel on the south side belongs to the family of the I. cub-. It contains several monuments: one of which has a male and a female figure of bras-, representing Sir Peter Legh and his lady: and records that the knight, after the death of the lady, took VOWI of celibacy, and entered into holy orders. He survived her nearly thirty years, and died at the beginning of the sixteenth centur_\ . The chapel of the Gerarda contains several curious monuments, the most 86 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY! ancient of which has the following inscription, in church text, on the bottom of a fringe of brass which borders the tombstone: — Here lietii Peers Gerard Esquyer, son and iieire or Thomas Gerard, knygiit OF THE BRYNE, WHICH MARRIED MaRGARET, DAUGHTER TO WlLLIAM S TAR LET OF HOTON, KNYGIITE, AND ONI. OF THE BEIRE8 OF JoiIN BeOHLBT KNYGIITE, WHICH DIED THE 19tH OF JuNE 1492, ON WHOSE BOWLE (ioD HAVE MERCY. Ami:N. A full-length figure of the knight sheathed in plate armour is recumbent on the tomb; it is made of brass, and is executed with a greater degree <>1 artistic skill than most monuments of the fifteenth century. W inwick Church is very rich in monumental brasses, some of which are \ ery curious. We were- informed that one of these, with an inscription in Hebrew, had been found about twenty years ago in the churchyard, but we were unable to discover the subsequent fate of this unique curiosity. l'< w parishes in England have so large a number of endowed charities as Winwick. There are no less than thirty-seven enumerated in the Report of the ( lharitable Commissioners. There was some years ago a laudable custom of remitting the year's rent of their cottages to six poor labouring families, selected for industry, piety, and general good conduct. A painted board stating this fact used to be exhibited outside the cottages of the families thus distinguished, and was regarded justly as an honourable mark of distinction by the inhabitants. St. Oswald's Well is about half a mile to the north of Winwick church, and affords the strongest corroboration of the identity of this place with Marce- feld (battle-field), where Oswald fell twelve centuries ago, defending his religion and country against the sanguinary pagans of Mercia. Bede saw. that this Well was originally formed by the piety of pilgrims who visited the spot where the Christian champion fell. Each was anxious to obtain a portion of the earth which had been consecrated by bis blood, until at length a dee]) fosse was scraped in the ground, and that this, finally, was deepened into a well. An examination of the spot renders this Legend far from improbable; i ven at the present day the earth and water are supposed to be possessed of peculiar sanctity, and from it all the neighbouring Catholic chapels are supplied with holy water. The peasantry are said to attribute great sanctity to the old communion service preserved in Winwick church. The flagons and cups are of pewter, covered with red paint, but nothing is known of their history. At Winwick, the Scottish army under Baillie, after the defeat of the Duke of Hamilton near Wigan, made a vain attempt to Stop the progress of Cromwell. After a brief resistance, the Scotch were forced to yield themselves prisoners, on the single condition of haying their lives spared: they were carried prisoners to Warrington. From Red Hill to Newton the road presents nothing remarkable, but Newton itself has been changed by the railway from a decayed borough into a thriving village. i \\( \-iin:i'. ^7 Some of the most interesting and stupendous works connected with the Manchester and Liverpool Railway are in the immediate vicinity of Newton. We may particularly notice- the Sankey Viaduct, which carries the railway rvi!t/\ft over a considerable valley, and also over the canal. It is supported by nine arches of brick and stone, each of fifty feel diameter, and from fifty to seventy feet in height. There is a smaller viaduct over tin- Newton valley, under the arches of which the Xewton river and the Warrington turnpike- road p. i--. There i- nothing remarkable in Newton itself, save some ancient houses of frame-work, round one of which, dignified by the name of "The Hall."' there are -till some feint traces of the old moat. At the distance of about three-quarters of a mile to the north there is an ancient harrow, nearly thirty yards in diameter, and nine in height. It is covered with oaks, the age of which must manifestly he counted by centuries, and i- supposed by antiquarians to he the memorial of sonic great battle between the Saxons and the native Britons. There are Large ula-s and vitriol works in the neigh- bourhood, and extensive iron foundries, with Beveral establishments for the w ea\ ing of fustians and corduroy s. Then- i- a g 1 t arnpike-road from Newton to Leigh, which passes through a rich and interesting country, though no1 much diversified by hill and dale. The chief landed proprietors are the Legh family, w ho-e seal is at I.ow ton. Leigh Church, in tin- town-hip ofWesI Leigh, La very similar in it- con- struction to the church of Winwick, but the architecture i- inferior. A private chapel on the north belongs to the Tilde-ley family, and contain- the remains of sir Thomas Tildesley, the mosl distinguished of the royalist Leaders at the battle of Wigan bane. 88 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The town of Leigh enjoys a considerable Bhare of the cotton trade, and a portion of the silk. We have already mentioned that very plausible claims to the invention of the spinning-jenny have been made on behalf of Thomas Highs, a native of this town. But having already noticed this claim in a preceding page, it is unnecessary to say more upon the subject in this place. To the north of Leigh is the township of Athorton, containing several manufacturing establishments, and the thriving village, or rather town of Chowbcnt. In the early stages of the cotton-manufacture, the best spinning- jennies and carding-machines were said to be made at Chowbent. Approaching Worsley, the rich meadows of Leigh gradually disappear, and the country offers to view chiefly tracts of pasture land and peat-moss. But the principal objects of attraction here arc the wonders of art, rather than the beauties of nature. Worsley Hall is a modern edifice; but the Old Hall, though much dilapi- dated, is still in existence, and it contains some very extraordinary specimens of ancient carvings in wood, brought from Hulme Hall in Manchester. The date of the original foundation is assigned to the age of the Conquest, when this demesne belonged to an eminent hero of ancient romance, Kli/eus de Workesley or Worsley, the first Anglo-Norman baron who volunteered to join in the first crusade; induced, it is said, by personal friendship for Robert Duke of Normandy, who abandoned his claims on the English crown and his paternal duchy to join in recovering Palestine. The hero of Worsley was famed for his numerous combats with Giants, Saracens, Dragons, etc.. and is said to have been slain in an encounter with a venomous serpent at lvhodes, where he was buried. Wardley Hall, partially occupied as a farm-house, has little to remind a visitor of it-- former greatness. It was anciently the seat of a family named Downes, which, became extinct in the seventeenth century. Roger Downes, the last male representative of the family, is said in tradition to have been one 1 \M \MIIKE. 89 of the wildest and most licentious of the courtiers of Charles IT. Once in a drunken frolic he declared to his companions that lie would murder the first person he met. Sallying forth from the tavern he met a poor tailor, and ran him through with his sword. After Beveral adventures of the same kind, he was killed by a blow of a hill on London Bridge. His head was severed from hi- body, and the latter thrown into the river; hut the head, carefully packed in straw, was sent to his sister at Wardley House. Superstition now took up the tale: it was declared that the head could not be removed from the Hall; whenever it was carried away it was sure to return, and the individuals engaged in its removal were punished very severely. St. Helens, originally an inconsiderable village, is now a very thriving town, and is likely to rise into a place of very considerable importance. Its prosperity must chiefly be attributed to the great abundance of excellent coal found in its neighbourhood, and its easy communication with the port of Liverpool, by railway and canal. In addition to the facilities afforded by the Manchester and Liverpool railway, there is a railway between the St. Helens coal-field and Runcorn-Gap, which affords a direct and cheap communication with the navigation of the Mersey. These advantages early pointed out the place as a favourable locality for the establishment of works in which great heat, and consequently a large consumption of coals, would be required, such as the smelting and refining of copper ores, the manufacture of glass and vitrified pottery-ware, etc. Our artist has here given a distant view of St. 1 [elens. Formerly, the establishments erected tor sun Lting copper were on a very large scale; but they have now been for the mosl part discontinued, and the Btaple manufacture (if the place i> plate glass, which is carried on at E&avenhead, and i> the Largesl establishment of the kind in England, affording employment to more than three hundred workmen. The first company tor the manufacture of British plate gla^> was incorporate d in 177o, and commenced it- operations at Kavcnhead ; on it- failure, the concerns were transferred, in L798, to a new company, under the management •f which the establishment has thriven beyond all expectation or pr< cedent. <»(> ENG1 \M) IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY so as to render the British plate glass superior to that of any other country The seals of each company, shewing a portion of their mode of working at the several periods, arc annexed. The establishment at Ravcnhcad covers about thirty acres of ground, and is enclosed by a lofty stone wall, and secured by gates. Beyond the wall are the cottages occupied by the work-people, which arc for the most part neat and convenient, though not quite equal in comfort and appearance to the cottages of the operatives in other parts of Lancashire. At the first establish- ment of this manufactory, the workmen were brought over from France, as LANCASHIRE. 91 they were from Venice when plate-glass work- wen- established at Lambeth under the patronage of the Duke of Buckingham, in the preceding century. But now the great majority of the persons employed arc Englishmen, and thej have acquired a proficiency in the manufacture, superior to thai of either tin- French or tin- Venetian artisans. This superiority arises not from the dex- terity ol" the workmen, but from the application of chemical and mechanical science to the improvement of the Beveral processes. Great jealousy is mani- fested by the proprietors in keeping secret the details of their process* 3, and although admission is granted by the manager on giving in names, yet questions are answered with caution, and any very minute inquiry is evaded. This proceeds more from a dread of foreign, than domestic rivalry; we were informed that emissaries from France and Germany are constantly on the watch, to obtain an insight into the methods by which the British have carried the manufacture to such high perfection, and that workmen supposed t possess secrets were enticed to emigrate by the proffer of very large rewards. The general principles of the manufacture cannot however be kept secret, and they are quite sufficient for a popular description. Glass may be described as the compound of silex and alkali, formed by the fusing of both substances together; silex is Hint or sand, and the principal alkalies arc potash and soda. Great obscurity rests on the history of its invention, which appears principally to have arisen from authors confounding together perfect glass, and substances imperfectly vitrified. Although silex, under ordinary circumstances, cannot be perfectly melted alone, yet every one is aware that the stones and bricks of furnaces in which an intense heat is employed, assume more or less of a vitrified appearance; and this i- more especially the case where wood is used for fuel. Some knowledge <»!' the process of' vitrification must therefore have been obtained when men became acquainted with the art of smelting metals, that is, at a period anterior to ;ill existing records. The next step in the process would be the discovery of what is called a " a flux" — that is, some substance which will liquify more readily than the material primarily designed to be melted, and the action of which will render it more sensible of the operation of heat. Fluxes arc used in melting all metals difficult of fusion, but they arc generally separated again from the metal. 1 11 the manufacture of glass. ,,n the contrary, it is in, essary that the silex should be intimately blended with the alkali, and the latter therefore is both a flux and an ingredient; lime, or litharge, is added to increase the fusibility of the metal, and may therefore be properly regarded as a flux. In the manufacture of plate glass, manganese and the oxide of cobalt are used merely to ensure perfect transparency by neutralising the slight tint of yellow which would result from the other ingredients. This i- counteracted by the red tinge of the manganese ami the delicate blue of the cobalt. The efficac] of tin alkalies, oj rathei tic necessity ol employing alkaline 92 l GLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY ! substances, in order to effect the liquifaction of silex, is said to have been discovered by accident. Pliny relates that some mariners being driven by stress of weather into the mouth of the river Belus on the Phoenician coast, where the plant kali grew in abundance, kindled a fire on the shore to dress their food. The ashes of the plant were by the force of the heat incorporated with the silicious sand, and the sailors were surprised to discover transparent stones where their fire had been. It has been objected to the truth of this anecdote, that specimens of glass have been found in some of the oldest Egyptian tombs; but this might have arisen from the active intercourse between the Tyrians and Egyptians; and besides, it is notorious that tin- sands of the Belus were long supposed to be superior to any other for the purpose of making glass. Sidon ami Alexandria were the most celebrated marts for glass in the age of the Boman Empire, but their fame was eclipsed by Venice, in the Middle Avis, which for several centuries had almost a complete monopoly of the manufacture. The Venetian glass was blown, and was therefore of limited dimensions: the method of casting plates was commenced in France, by Thevart, towards the close of the seventeenth century, and being patronized by the government, it soon arrived at great eminence. The founders of the British Plate Glass Company imported their first workmen from France, but they have now surpassed their teachers, for the English mirror plates are pro- duced larger than the French, and are universally confessed to be superior; and moreover, in consequence of the easier supply of fuel, they could be produced at a cheaper rate but for the duty, which exceeds %8. 9d. per superficial foot. In the manufacture of plate glass, the first great consideration is the preparation of the flux, and in this kind of glass, soda is the alkali preferred. The soda is obtained from common salt (muriate of soda), a plentiful supply of which can always be obtained at St. Helens, from the salt-works of Cheshire. The salt is decomposed by being dissolved with the sub-carbonate of potash, and exposed to heat. The muriate of potash formed during the process i^ separated by priority of crystallization, and the requisite alkaline salt is then obtained by the ordinary process of evaporation. It is then analyzed, to determine how much real alkali it contains, and consequently how much sand it will require. According to Mr. Parkes, the following are the propor- tions of tin' materials necessary to produce a good plate, which V\ ill resist the action of air, water, and the common mineral acids — Silicious sand trashed and sifted 7~20 lbs. Alkaline salt prepared as above 450 Quiok-Lime slacked and sifted 80 Nine '23 Cullet, or broken plate glass 425 Total 1700 lbs. ami this mixture will give on the average i200lbs. of good glass. I \\( \MI1KI. 93 The furnace in which the glass is melted, occupies the centre of a large building, called the Foundry. The foundry at Ravenhead is the Largesl apartment under one root' in Greal Britain, being LIS yards in length, by a little oyer 50 in breadth. The glass is fused in earthen pots or crucibles, which arc placed in the central furnace, and exposed to the most intense heat. They have not only to endure the action of the fire, but also the solvent power of the glass itself, and of the fluxes which are used for liquifying the silex. In fact, the best crucibles gradually dissolve and mix a portion of their earth with the glass which they contain, and hence it is necessary not only that tiny should be composed of materials difficult to fuse, but also of earths sufficiently pure not to injure the glass should a portion of them combine with it. The crucibles or pots are commonly made of five parts of the finest Stourbridge clay and one part of old crucibles ground to powder. These materials are kneaded together by the feet of the workmen, a process which it has been found impossible to Supersede by machinery. The materials are prepared for the crucibles by a process called " Gritting." They are calcined together by being exposed to a degree of heat Sufficient to bring them to a consistence like paste. All moisture i- thus effectually removed ; for a drop of water in the materials, OT a globule of air in the crucibles, would by its expansion produce an injurious explosion in the furnace. The carbonic acid in the alkalies and chalk i- at the same time expelled, and an amalgama- tion of the different materials begins to take place, which ui\es uniformity to the subsequent process of melting. The frit i^ cut into square cakes, and put into the crucibles in successive portions until they are quite filled. This i> rath, r a tedious operation, because the frit is more bulky than the fused metal, and no new portion can lie added until tin- preceding charge i- melted down. A- the materials melt and fuse 94 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: together, an opaque white scum rises to the surface, which La carefully skimmed away. This scum Is called "glass-gall," and is useful as a flux to the refiners of metals. If not removed the glass-gall would be volatized, and in its form of vapour greatly injure the furnace and the crucibles. As the heat continues the glass-gall disappears, and the glass throws to its surface minute bubbles, which burst on the top and become beautifully brilliant. The process from the cessation of the vapour of the glass-gall to the time when no more bubbles are thrown up, is called " refining." When it terminates, the metal has become uniformly liquid) clear, transparent, and colourless; and it is tested by taking out samples with an iron rod, and allowing them to cool. When the glass is thoroughly refined, it i^ transferred in its liquid state from the pots or crucibles into a vessel or cistern.* This transfer is effected by means of a copper ladle about a foot in diameter, fixed into an iron handle seven feet long. As the cistern has been previously heated to a tem- perature equal to that of the glass, there is obviously a great danger that the copper would give way under the great heat and weight of the melted glass. To prevent such an accident, the bottom of the ladle is supported by an iron bar held by two other workmen. This process is one of the most severe on the persons employed, both on account of the heat and the fatigue. After the cistern has been filled it must remain for several hours in the furnace, that the air bubbles which were formed by pouring the liquid metal from one vessel to another should have time to rise and disperse. In many of the olden mirrors it is not unusual to find one or two air Haws, which greatly disfigure the plate, and render the reflections imperfect. The metal in the cistern is examined by taking out samples until it is ascertained that all the air-bubbles have been dispersed, and it is then ready to be removed to the casting-table. The casting-table in France, and formerly in Ravenhead, was made of copper, supported by solid masonry. It was supposed that copper would have levs effect in discolouring tin: hot melted glass than iron; and many persons still retain this opinion. But copper is found liable to crack under the sudden accession of heat which arises from pouring over them the molten mass of liquid fire: the tables were thus rendered useless, after the vast expense which had been incurred in grinding and polishing them. Having met with several accidents of this kind, the British Plate ( rlass ( lompany resolved to make a trial of cast-iron. It was not easy to obtain an iron plate of the dimensions they required; but at length they were able to east one, fifteen feet in length, nine in breadth, and six inches in thickness. This massive table, including its frame, weighs fourteen tons; and it was necessary to construct a carriage pur- posely for its conveyance from the iron-foundry to the glass-house. It is sup- ported on castors, for the convenience of readily moving it towards the mouths of the different annealing ovens. These ovens are placed in two rows on each • The term fbi this vessel is when small a cuvette, the large a muilion, I \\< \M|| RE. 95 side of the foundry, and are each sixteen feel wide, and forty feel deep. Their floors are exactly on the level of the casting-table. Notwithstanding the vasl size of the apartmenl in which these operations arc conducted, the greatest precautions arc necessary to prevent any dis- turbance of the atmosphere from the time thai a casting is commenced until the BUrface of the glass is hardened. The opening or shutting of a door, or a current of air through a window, would produce a disturbance of the atmo- sphere which would ripple the surface of the plate and impair its value. Hence it is very rarely that strangers are permitted to \ iew this operation, and we musl therefore be contented to describe it from the accounts furnished by others. When by inspection of the samples it is found that the melted glass in the cistern is in that state which experience has shewn to he most favourable to its flowing readily and equably, a signal is given, to ensure the perfect tran- quillity necessary to the complete BUCCess of the operation. The cistern is then drawn from the furnace and removed tu the casting-table, which has been previously heated with hot ashes and perfectly (leaned. The melted glass also i- carefully skimmed, to remove any impurities which may have collected <>n the -urface ; for the mixture of an\ foreign surfaee would infal- libly spoil the plate. As BOOn as this is done the cistern is raised DJ a crane, so a-- to he at a small height above the upper end of the casting-table. It i- then tilted over, and the melted ltIiss pours out like a Hood of tire, flowing and spreading in every direction upon the table between two iron ril>-. the !)() ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: intervals between which determine its breadth, and their height above the table it- thickness. While the glass is still fluid, or nearly so, a heavy copper roller, turned very true in a lathe, passes over it, resting on the ribs by which it is confined, and it rolls out the glass into an equable thickness through its entire length. Should the cistern contain more melted glass than is necessary to fill the table, the surplus is received in a vessel of water placed at the extreme end for the purpose; but if the glass falls short of the required quantify, a moveable rib is shifted up the table, so a- to give a square termi- nation to the plate, and prevent unnecessary waste. Those who have seen this operation describe it as very splendid and interesting. The flow of the molten glass over the metallic table appears like a lava flood issuing from a volcano. The plate, as the copper roller passes over it. exhibits a great variety of rich hues; and the gradual disappearance of these as the metal cools is one of the most beautiful optical effects that can be produced. This operation requires the aid of about twenty workmen, each of whom has his particular duty assigned him. As soon as the plates are sufficiently cooled, they are pushed by main force from the table into the annealing oven, and spread out one by one in a hori- zontal position. As each oven is filled, the mouth is closed with an iron door, and the crevices stopped with clay, until the annealing process is completed, which it usually is in fourteen or fifteen days. Without the process of annealing, glass of any kind would be liable to fly with the smallest change of temperature, and Would break with the slightest scratch or touch, or even without any apparent cause of external injury. In cast glass the annealing requires more care and time than in blown glass, and the slightest inattention would infallibly produce ruinous results. The extreme fragility of unanncaled glass is ascribed by some to mechanical, and by others to electrical causes. The well-known experiments of Rupert's drop ami the Bologna phial seem to prove that it arises from the external portion being disproportionately contracted when the glass is .suddenly cooled; and hence, when air is by any means admitted into the porous interior, the atoms near the surface, being placed in a position of mechanical disadvantage, are unable to resist its force and pressure. When the plates are thoroughly annealed they are taken out and squared, carefully inspected, and should any Haws or bubbles appear, the plate is divided by cutting through the places where they occur. They arc cut with a rough diamond guided by a rule, similar to that used by glaziers; but as the plate is thicker than ordinary window- glass, the diamond requires to be managed with more skill. After the diamond ha- cut a line sufficiently deep to guide the fracture, the rough ends are broken oil' by the hand or by a hammer, and any splinters which may adhere to the plate are removed by pincers. Flaws* and inequalities are most common near the extreme, and therefore in squaring the glass care is taken that the line of LAN< U3HIRE. ! , fracture should pass through them, because imperfections near the edge trill ))c concealed by the lVanie. The smoothness of the table and the perfect surface of the copper cylinder are net BufBcienl tO ensure a true face to the plates; for this purpo -e the\ must be ground. The machinery constructed for this process at Etavenhead is the most perfeel of its kind in existence, and is worked by a steam-engine. The operation consists in rubbing one plate horizontally over another, tin" grinding substance being placed between them. Common sand was the first material used, hut this was found to wear away too large a portion of the glass, and also to diminish its lustre, from the admixture of ferruginous particles with the glass. Powdered flint, thoroughly purified, is now used instead of sand; and we were informed that this has produced a Baying of more than fifty per cent. The rough action of the powdered Hint is subsequently corrected by grinding the plates with charges of emery. The next process is similar to the grinding, hut termed smoothing; the emery dust increasing in tenuity until the last charge used is an almost impalpable powder. Polishing is the completion of the grinding process, and is also worked by a steam- engine. Great dexterity, watchfulness, ami judgment are essential to the success of the operation. The plates of glass are firmly imbedded in plaster- of-Paris, and placed under polishers formed by compact wool-padding upon blocks of wood. These are constantly traversing up and down ; and the machinery, by giving the plate a slow lateral movement, causes it ultimately to he polished all over. The material used in polishing is eachomar, or crocus mart is, which not only is the best substance that can he employed for the purpose, hut has aho the additional merit of enabling the workman to judge of his progress and success, by the aid he receives from its colour. The plates are again carefully inspected before they are transmitted to the warehouse. They are always divided with a reference to keeping any flaws or imperfections at the edges of the squares, and also with a view to keeping the plates as large 1 as possihle. This latter purpose is closely connected with the profits of the husiness, for the prices ,.f the plates per Bquare inch, rise in proportion as the plates increase in size, as may he seen hy referring to the Company's li-t of prices. It is indeed \erv dillicult to ohtain a perfect plate of the largest size. In spite of all the care and caution that may he employed, there will be flaws and imperfections in the great majority of castings. Air babbles will escape the ken of the most practised eve, and they very often remain undetected until the plate has come into the hands of the polisher. The broken pieces of glass and uneven ends cannot exactly he called wast.', because, as we have seen, culiet or broken glass always forms an ingre- dient in the original frit. There is, however. always a waste in the re-melting, ami consequently a necessity for preventing an accumulation of culiet. Some years ago an effort was made to turn the refuse and BCOrisG of glass to account by pressing them into the shape of bricks. The experiment succeeded to a o 98 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH ( FNTTTtY considerable extent; but the bricks were found very costly, and the use of them entailed an additional expense in cement, as they could not be -well held together by common mortar, and the project is now virtually abandoned. The last process connected with the manufacture of plate glass is that which is usually called " silvering," but which should rather be named " tinning," since it consists in covering one side of the plate with an amalga- mation of tin and quicksilver, so as to reflect the rays of light. This is a very simple operation; but great nicety and dexterity arc requisite in the manipulation. A table of slate or stone is provided: round this table there is a groove or channel to carry off the surplus quicksilver; and the table rests on a pivot, so that, it can, when necessary, be changed from a horizontal into an inclined plane. This slab or table is first fixed horizontally. A sheet of tinfoil, rather larger than the plate, is spread and carefully smoothed. As much quicksilver, in its liquid form, is then spread over the foil as will lie steadily on its surface without overflowing; and a linen cloth, the width of the plate of glass, is spread upon that end of the table. The plate is then brought to the table, and made to slide steadily on to the foil charged with quicksilver. Great care is required in this operation, because the plate must dip in the quicksilver and push the metal before it, in order to remove any impurities or oxides which may rest on the surface of the quicksilver, and also to prevent the formation of air bubbles between the amalgam and the plate; but at the same time it is necessary to prevent the plate from coming into immediate contact with the sheet of tinfoil, which would infallibly be torn by the slightest touch. When the entire plate has been brought into its position, and has dropped gently on the foil, it is heavily loaded with weights covered with flannel, to squeeze out the superfluous quicksilver, the escape of which is further facilitated by giving the slab a gentle slope, and increasing the inclination l>\ slow degrees. A day or two afterwards the plate is carefully lilted up and turned over; its under side is thus covered over with a very soft amalgam made by the quicksilvei and foil. Several days however elapse before the amalgam has acquired the proper degree of hardness; and during this period globules of quicksilver drop from the lower edge of the plate. So long as the amalgam is in an imperfect state, portions of it arc Liable to be i.wt LSHIRE. !)!) detached from it by any electrical changes in the atmosphere or violent con- cussions of the air, Buch as a thunder-storm, a very high wind, or the firing of artillery. It is impossible to apply an adequate remedy to such an accident, for patching is immediately detected by the wheat-seam which marks the line of contact between the old and the new amalgam. In most cases, when an imperfection is detected, the amalgam is removed and the process of silvering repeated from the very beginning. Before the Ravenhead Company had perfected the manufacture, the action of light on plate glass long exposed to the solar rays was very remarkable, which may be clearly seen in some windows to this day; it acquired a violet or purple tinge, arising from some chemical used in the mixture. If portions were taken from the same plate, and some of them exposed for a few months to the light while others were kept covered, the difference between them became so great, that persons unacquainted with the circumstances could hardly be persuaded to believe in their former identity. Different plates exhibit a great difference in their susceptibility of this action. It may however be said that blown plates are more readily acted upon than cast plates; and the French and some other glasses even now in time acquire a yellow tint, whilst that manufactured by the British Company does not change. The blowing of plate glass differs from the ordinary glass manufacture chiefly in the workman blowing it into the shape of a cylinder instead of a globe. While yet soft, the cylinder is cut open with a shears, and flattened out. Plates of a larger size than fifty inches by thirty, cannot be produced by blowing; but by casting, plates have been obtained measuring one hundred and sixty inches by eighty, or nearly ninety square feet of glass. One now at the Reform Club-house in Pall Mall is about one hundred and fifty niches by ninety, and supposed to be the most perfect plate in the world. St. Helens i> a township in the parish of Prescot mentioned hereafter, and may be said to contain the four townships of Sutton, Parr, Windle, and Kceleston. It is uninteresting in appearance — draggling and irregular ; built of red brick ; is ill-paved, dirty, and lies low. It has a neat town-hall, which contain^ a news' room, magistrates* court, and police office. The church of St. Mary is a large building erected of brick ; the other churches are St. Thomas, built by Mr. Greenall, M.P. for Wigan, provided for by a small endowment ; one at Eccleston, outside the town, built by Mr. Taylor, of Eccleston 1 [all, and a chapel of ease to St. l [elens al Parr. A canal runs from St. I [elens to Runcorn Gap, passing close to Warrington, and joining the Mersey: it is one of the oldest in England. Of the railroad from St. Helens to Runcorn, about three miles ig used as a branch to the great Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and numerous colliery railways run into the line, connecting with it the different works. There are many Irish in St. Helens, and about four thousand Catholics, also an Independents' chapel, and a Quakers' meeting-house of great antiquity. 100 ENGLAND IK Nil: NINETEENTH CENTURY : All sides of the place exhibit tall chimneys and dense smoke ; the chemical works around exhale sulphurous vapours, and many of the inhabitants have their houses out of the town iii consequence. Parr, a straggling outlet of St. Helens, contains a great proportion of the coal pits. Some of the houses have sunk ten or twelve feet below the surface, others have the walls leaning or tottering. These townships owe their rapid rise to the coal, situated over part of a "field" extending to perhaps fourteen or fifteen square miles; and being of excellent quality. There are great numbers employed in the pits; in some nearly as many as two hundred people, about a third of whom are women. A proprietor engages a collier, who himself excavates the coal alone, and he employs either his own family (if he have any), or pays assistants, generally women and children, to convey the coal which he has cut out to the foot of the shaft; these are called wagoners, who push it in baskets on a kind of railway laid along the different levels. A collier would pay twelve or thirteen shillings a week to these assistants; but if hey are of his own family he saves money, as generally his wife and all his children are employed in the pits, and he can thus make on an average forty shillings a week, if he have two or more assistants in his own family. He gets ten and sixpence for what is called a "work," which is seven tons, and thus acts more in the character of a contractor with the proprietor for the delivery of coal than as a regular labourer. The hours of work here are generally seven or eight, or from three or four a.m. to eleven a.m. In the pits the women wear men's dresses, and are undistinguishable from the other sex except by their hair or earrings! The moral condition of the people is low, owing to the system of bringing children into the pits at eight years of age; they are in many eases totally uneducated: a child too once set at work never leaves the employment; the mass are very ignorant, and although not uncivil, are still rude and uncouth in their address. Infant chools have been instituted, but these are of trilling use. There are a few " night schools" where some of the older children and adults attend; but a system of education, encouraged by the proprietors, is much wanted. The health of the colliers is generally good, as the pits are of an even temperature, and accidents from explosions are rare. The principal manufacture of St. Helens, as already shewn, is glass. A species intended to supersede the plate, lias been lately manufactured in the town, and is called German glass, made by foreign workmen, principally Belgians, introduced by Mr. Pilkington in 1841. This glass is not cast, as plate glass is, but made somewhat in the mode of window or crown glass, and intended as a cheap substitute for plate. In one of the opening pages on entering upon this account of Lancashire we alluded to the prevalence of red sandstone along the shores oi' the Meney, which upon approaching Liverpool by the railway will be seen cut into deeply a good part of the way from Newton. In this formation the great tunnel is • 1 J§ ' i jJjKj*c-» _ 1 *- r ^ ■-III 1 f LANC \sillKK. 101 excavated, which passes under the town, commencing at Edgehill, and looking as if it Led to the shores of A vermis. Elere we imagined the fictions of Eastern romance were about to he realized; we mean those which relate, how from dark and mysterious caverns descending towards the heart of the earth some magician leads the hero of the tale, or he is conducted by a talisman in his possession, until he suddenly finds himself in a palace of enchantment, or in delightful gardens where the trees hear emeralds and rubies more valuable than the golden apples of the Hesperides. We are carried along by invisible agency, through or rather under the earth, and know not what country is above our heads in our state of purgatorial darkness, which we imagine is to prepare us for something out of the common way. All at once, when we think we art' approaching the centre of " the great globe itself," we emerge into day, and find, it is true, no enchanted palaces around us — no Hesperian gardens — hut one of the finest towns in the world; the abode of industry and of opulence; the home of commerce and magnificence, familiar to those far sojourners who inhabit "realms that Caesar never knew," — whose merchants are princes, and whose name is borne in ocean leagues " thrice from the centre to the uttermost pole" by all the winds that blow — we are in Liverpool! Passing out under a fine gateway constructed of freestone, — part of the elegant architectural front of the railway station here exhibited, measuring above three hundred feet in extent, — we hailed the sunbeams with double pleasure after our mole-like inhumation, proceeding to the well-known street of hotels. Dale-street, and " ensconcing ourselves at the sign," or perhaps we should say hotel, of the Victor of Waterloo. The first hall- hour on entering a large place is passed in resolving, re-resolving, and frequently making op the mind to nothing at all; ami in this plight we commenced our rambles about the second commercial town in the kingdom. Liverpool is not without those great lines, or principal thorough- fares, which are the best guides to the Btranger, ami are nut only acquired by a single glance at a map, but recognised afterwards with facility by the mul- tiplicity ofpassi Qgers and the display of elegant shop- which they are certain 102 ENGLAND IN 'HIE NINETEENTH CENTURY: to exhibit. The parliamentary boundary of Liverpool, returning two members, comprises the townships of Liverpool, Everton, Kirkdale, and part of Toxteth and West Derby; but the township and parish of Liverpool, -which arc the Bame in superficial extent, cover only 3&02 acres.* Dale-street, terminating on the south at the Mersey and Docks, and continued up Shaws'-brow to the eastward, along the London-road, Pembroke-place, W< at I >< rby-street, Edge- hill, and the Wavertree-road, constitutes with them a central line of division, running east and west. This line is crossed at the end of Dale-street, before ascending Shaws'-brow, by Byrom-street upon the left hand, leading into New Scotland-road, and then into the Kirkdale-road, by which the suburb of Everton is attained. On the right, where the Old Haymarket once stood, a street, generally thronged with people, called Whitechapel, curving to the right at its farther extremity, and crossing the end of Lord-street, enters Paradise-street, this last terminating in Hanover-street near the Custom-house. Thus we mapped the town in our " mind's eye" in four grand division-, carrying the last line of street, though not without an obtuse angle, into 1 ), ile-strect on the left from Paradise-street, and so up to the Cemetery of St. James. Liverpool stands partly upon the red sandstone formation and partly upon loam and sand; the climate is subject to rain, and the atmosphere is conse- qucntly moist. It ranges along the northern shore of the Mersey in mag- nificent docks, communicating with that river by intermediate basins. The Mersey is about 1200 yards broad between the Lancashire and Cheshire shores opposite to the docks, but higher and lower down it is much broader. This river rises from the union of several small streams within the borders of Yorkshire, receiving the waters of the Govt, Bollin, Irwell, and Weaver, and is first called the Tame; it forms a wide though shallow stream, in which mud-banks accumulate and shift continually. The height of the tides which rise here, fifteen at neap, and thirty feet at spring, obviates much incon- venience from this cause; and vessels of seventy or eighty tons can ascend the river to Warrington, the spring tides rising nine feet at the bridge in that town. The scenery in the vicinity, except about Toxteth Park and Everton, is monotonous, everywhere exhibiting a noble town lying in the foreground, with distant views of sea and hilly land. Whoever desires a knowledge of Liverpool and its vicinity should ascend the tower of St. George's Church at Everton. The more distant Bcenery, towards Wales, will lti' found the most attractive part of the prospect, fox we visited this spot ; and although compared to Liverpool beneath, it is airy and pleasing, we prefer the higher part of Toxteth Park Looking down the Mersey, the interesting part of the \iew from Everton being too distant; but of Everton and its vicinity we shall say more presently; it suffices now to observe that it lies in the north-eastern quarter * According lo Mr. Bulterworth'a most useful and carefully compiled " Statistical Sketch of Lancashire," containing much valuable information. I \\< \nIIIUK. 103 of the old town of Liverpool. Toxteth Park, partly within the borough, once belonged to the Earls of Derby, in 1591 was disparked, and the Sefton family gol possession of it in 1640, when it was subsequently occupied by farms; a large portion is now let by Lord Sefton iii building lots. It lies on the south-cast of Liverpool, along the shore of the Mersey, in the Kirkdale division of West Derby hundred, and extends over 2897 acres. The portion within the borough of Liverpool is called Harrington. Edge-hill and Lou- hill, on the east within the borough, are in the township of West Derby and parish of Walton-on-the-1 lill ; Kirkdalc, on the north within the borough, is a township in the parish of Walton. The rapid progress of Liverpool in commercial opulence and extent of building is without a parallel in the history of towns. In 1700 the population \vas only 4240; and the marriages were in that year but 34; christenings 131; burials 125. Leland speaks of Lyrpolc, alias Lyvcrpolc, as a paved town, probably as many of the turnpike-roads in its vicinity are now paved, having only a chapel, its parish church being at Walton. There were only 13S householders living there in 1565; but it increased so considerably as to resist Prince Rupert in 1044, being on the side of the Parliament, and having round it a mud wall and a ditch with a castle. Of what Liver- pool was after the chapel of St. Nicholas was made the parish chinch, and be- fore a second c h u r c h w a s erected, the fol- lowing engrav- ing of old Liver- pool will give a correct idea. In 1780 the inhabitants had increased to 12,000; and the first \, < Jtcepl a small sloop, sailed to Africa on the piratical traffic in sla\es. u <>\\ abolished, happily tor humanity. One dock had been made, and an Act was applied for t., make a second in 1788; and in 17 10 the population had reached 18,000. The slave-ships increased from 15 in 1780, to 7 1 in 1760, when the town had 25,781 inhabitants; and a new dock was finished in 1771; while in that year 105 ships sailed tor Africa. The internal canal navigation, belonging to the Duke of Bridgewater, now began to benefit the town. A theatre was built in 177:.'; and in the following year a census was taken, and the houses inhabited found to be 5928, having 8002 families and 34,407 101 BNGLAND IN Till NINETEENTH CENTURY: inhabitants ; the deaths annually being one in 27i of the population. In 177 1 no lesa than 989 British and 61 foreign vessels entered Liverpool, and about the same number cleared outwards; and in 1784 there Mere of British 1217, and <>i" foreign vessels 1440. In 17!>3 they had increased to 17<>l British and 1739 foreign; and in 1805 the number of vessels of all hands was IMS. In 1815 the number was 6440; and in 1819 the dock duties had reached 117,962/. annually, and the ship- 7M!>: while in 1840 the number of \. jselfl attained 15,998; and the dock dues (in 175:2 only 1770/. 8». &J. , reached 197,477/. 18*. 6d. The customs dues are between four and five millions sterling, the cotton imported reaching a million and a half of bags. Tin' imports approach a value of twenty millions: the exports exceeding that sum by a fourth; and it is calculated that 1S00 tons of goods pass daily between Liverpool and .Manchester. This will furnish an idea of the magnitude of the trade of this mighty town, which is said to possess a traffic equal to one-half of London, one-fourth of all the foreign trade of the empire, one-twelfth of the shipping, and one-sixth of the general commerce. During the Avar it sent to sea one-third more armed vessels with licenses to sail without convoy than all the other British ports put together. The site of Liverpool is low, and we regret that upon examining the returns of the population for 1841, and comparing them with those of the births, marriages, and deaths, we should have found such a startling result — a result not so surprising to us as it would he had we not seen some of the older returns. In 1662, the baptisms wire 30, and burials SO; in 1700, as above, the former 131, the burials 125; in 1800, the baptisms 8033, burials 3157. The births registered in 1889, when a close approximation to correct- ness in the returns took place, were 7128, deaths 7487 ; in 1840, with a population of 223,054, the returns shewed 9990 deaths to 9925 births. We then went further, and made calculations upon a basis every way favourable; for we applied to the Population Returns of 1841 the Registrar-General's return of births and deaths for 1840 in Liverpool, consequently we applied them to nearly the tenth part of a clear increase more than we ought, and the result, compared with the totality of England exclusively of Wales, made from a table in which the decimal surplus population was deducted from England alone, gives the following figures: Birth to Pop. Deaths to Pop. Bfarr. to Pop. Births to M.irr. Population of all England reduced 1 i . oi n~ i t t t i- ^ ± 1,1- «n « toJuneSO, 1840,14,767,751 J l to 31 °' 1 to &4S 1 to 12529 40S Liverpool, 223,054 . . 1 to 22-47 1 to 22-82 1 to 606 2(5 Here are puzzling anomalies; double the deaths and marriages, and little more than half the number of births averaged in the totality of England. This statement we have been the first to give so minutely on the returns of 1841, and we submit it with regret to the high-minded and public-spirited inhabitants of Liverpool, for they may perhaps probe the canst'. It is evident 1 ENCASH 105 thai the increase of 1821 inhabitants in the last ten years, must have arisen from the influx of new residents. Manchester and Salfbrd increased nearlj 26,000 in the same space of time on a population of 262,000* Before the Municipal Art. Liverpool was governed by a Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen, and a Council of forty-one burgesses; but the present Council under the Municipal Act, elected in sixteen wards, consists of fort v-ei-ht . who elect a .Mayor and sixteen Aldermen. There are regular borough sessions, and a common and fire police establishment In 1838-9, the Corporation income was 246,000/. and 101,000/. were expended in street improvements; and between 1786 and 1838, 1,688,496/. Their revenue is now 300,000/.; and it is a singula! circumstance in the history of this wonderful tenvn, that in 1793, though now so enormously rich, they were obliged to apply to Par- liament for relief; and when they did this, the statement of their income for 1798 was only 25,000/., the value of their property 1,046,776*: and it may lie concluded as the most flattering view they could take of their affairs, they were in debt 367,816/. The number of burgesses who elect the Town Council is !)l<)<>. The parliamentary electors, :iT:.'T freemen included, were, in 1886—12,492. We walked up Pale-street into Water-street opposite St George's Dock, passing those extensive warehouses, with their long arcade called Gorcc Build- ings, large enough to contain the cargoes of a navy of merchantmen. The} were erected in 1802, in place of other warehouses that were destroyed 1>\ a disastrous tire, which consumed merchandise stored up in them to the value ol nearly a million sterling. These warehouses are five stories high above the ar- ■ .id. • beneath : i!n v form a uni- form and ex- tensive front of most imposing appearance and pi oport i on ^. and laic Saint ( teorge's dock, low, nds which we were going, pi'es, nt ing the aspect here displayed by the artist From this p..int we Bet "ut to visit the northernmost division of the do, ks, and passing by the north battery, round the Clarence Docks, to take a glance • This subject ni.iv be investigated by the r< If through 1 R tui which we hall give at ilit oii.l of this I tint i v. fi^fc^^f' ._ ' M-N"lnliil ! n Mill 'If Id Mr In 1 1| | "MtllftiitlUii. IM 106 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: at the lower part of the Mersey, and the entire port, over against what been called New Brighton, <>n tin- Cheshire shore; in imitation, we presume, of the lamed time-killing place of that name in Sussex. We first crossed an iron bridge at the end of St. George's dock; which duck was made in 1762, and covers 26,793 square yards of surface; having a communication with Can- ning dock, once denominated the "dry dock." on the east, built in 1738, and principally occupied with north country vessels. Canning dock has a quay 500 yards long, and communicates with Salthousc dock, yet more to the southward, which possesses an area of 2025 square yards, and a quay called Cornhill, having a building yard between that and the sea. We continued our route to the vi\>j;e of the river, where passengers were embarking and landing from the steamers: always an amusing scene. The ladies, net all heroines, and some, we hope we are not ill-natured in the remark, evidently affecting a fear they did not really feel', coidd not but attract attention in the way of condolence and kind offices. On the edge of the quay, behind St. George's Dock, are sit- uated some of the most commodious and hand- some baths we have ever seen, measuring 239 feel in length, divided into wings, one for each sex, replete with every con- venience. The front form- a handsome sheltered colonnade of coupled columns, as here exhibited. We next coasted the basin, having opposite to us the church of St. Nicholas erected on the site of the former chapel, and crossing sundry drawbridges passed down Prince's terrace, on the river side of the dock of that name. Prime's dock is 500 yards long, and covers 57,129 square yards ; it was com- pleted in 1821. The gates are forty-five feetwide, and thirty-four deep: and it is surrounded by a high brick wall, which seems to have been constructed with the utmost possible degree of durability; for, on the end next St. George"- dock, they were taking down a portion of the wall but a perch or two in extent, and we observed that they cut the wall into pieces of a yard square, and car- ried away the portions entire, depositing them the ilat way. one upon another, a- if they bad been single Btones : an experiment by which modern brickwork in some larger and richer places than even Liverpool will not bear to In tested. We examined this dock internally, and then walked the whole Length on the outside by the Mersey, watching the busy scene on the river where numberless vessels were moving. This walk measures 750 yards in length, and ends at a basin which we were obliged to walk a go >d part round t\ the common council, and all retire in turn at the end of a given term, four at a time, hut are eligible lor re-eleetimi. Keeping within the same quarter, namely, that we have described as situated between Dale-street on the east, and New Scotland-road northward-. we proceeded by the M< rsey until we were nearly opposite the North Battery, when turning to the right we crossed into the Victoria-road, and passed along Great Howard-street to the gaol belonging to the borough, " As fai kick ns iS-U. tlic value <>t" tlic stock, grain, pork, and Imttcr imported into Liverpool, was ' than 1,444,500/. within the year. 110 \NP IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURA erected on the plan of the philanthropist Howard. It seems airy and well- constructed; but we weir sorry to learn that its inmates were mostly unfor- tunate debtors. Here we caught a glimpse of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal; and glancing at St. Paul's church, we turned round, and going down Old Hall-street entered the Exchange under the arcade at the back part. This fabric was begun in 1803. and cost 110.848/., and is a handsome structure, forming three sides of a square, built upon an arcade of rustic work. The centre of the western side is composed of coupled three-quarter Corinthian columns, supporting caryatides. The wings and two other fronts have Corinthian pilasters over the basement. The arcade extends 107 feet by 178; and in the centre of the piazza, better decorated with a statue of the hero than the allegorical composition it contains, is a monument to the memory of Nelson, by Westmacott As Commerce and Peace are twin-sisters, the piazza of a commercial exchange can hardly be deemed in character with a warlike monument decorated with trophies. The detect of the Exchange buildings is, that the Town-hall stands in the way oi' a substitute for one side, which it does not sufficiently till: and the observer cannot exclude the idea that it is an unfinished work. The Town-hall, a handsome Palladian building, was erected by Wood oi' Bath in 17 !!•. The front has Corinthian columns upon a rustic basement, and is a beautiful and tasteful work; but over the top stands a cupola, which, when viewed from St. Geo: - i r.t. -. ems to crush the building, being much too large to be sightly, although it has been considerably reduced subsequent to the original erection oi' the edifice. The interior, besides the rooms on the basement story, contains a saloon, opening from the staircax-. thirty feet long; two drawing-rooms, about the same length and twenty-five high. There is also a ball-room, eighty-nine feet by forty-one; and a second, sixty-one by twenty-eighl ; a banqueting-room, titty by thim ; and a refectory, thirty-six by twenty-one. The whole is elegantly fitted up: and <>n the landing I \M VslllKK. I 1 of the Btaircase there La a Btatue of Canning, bj Chantrey, who had much attached himself to the town, as the town had to him. The external dome i> crowned with a figure of Britannia, b< i d in the i ograving. Nut tar from the Town-hall is the Sessions- house, where the assizes are held for the hundred of \\ esl Derby. It i*. a plain build- ing, extending in front 11 I feet, construct- ed of stone, and used also by the Court of Re- quests. Crossing Dale-street into South Castle-street, the New Custom-house is Been directly in front. '1 bi> building, by far the fines! in Liverpool, both in magnitude and architectural execution, was begun in 1828, by Mr. Foster, the architect to the corporation, and was erected by that body, who pre- sented the land and completed the work — the cost. 150,000/., being repaid from Government by instalments of 25,000/. annually. The basement is vaulted for the reception of goods in bond: all thi a portion is devoted to the customs, and the southern pari La occupied by the General Post-office, above which is the The n maind< r of die building contains the Stamp-office, the Dock Treasurer's and Secretary's offices, the 112 ENGLAND IN nil' NINETEENTH CENTURY: Board-room and offices of the Dock Committee. This spacious and handsomt edifice is built in the form of a double cross, one front facing Castle-street and the other Canning-place; and both fronts are of the Ionic order, on a rustic basement. It stands near where the old dock was situated, the walls being brought up from the bottom thirty feet and upwards below the street level. The material is a warm-coloured freestone from Cheshire; the extreme length !(>(> feet, and the width at the wings ninety-four. The columns are above fifty feet high, and five in diameter; there is nothing superfluous about the design; all is simple and grand, resting for effect, as may be seen, upon the magnitude of the parts and the harmony of the proportions. The Royal Institution has nothing to boast of in its architectural details. having been originally a private house, which was purchased and altered for the objects that the founders had in view, — the promotion of literature, science, and the arts, by means of academic schools and public lectures ; the encouragement of societies who may unite for similar objects; the collection of books, objects of art, and natural history; the formation of a chemical laboratory and philosophical apparatus, and the association of proprietors for these purposes; and it was opened in 1817, with a discourse from the venerable William Roscoc. The house with the wings extends 140 feet in front, and contains suitable apartments for such an institution, with an excel- lent Museum, consisting of objects of natural history, casts from antique sculptures, and everything that can contribute to extend the bounds of know- ledge in a large and opulent town. The Athenaeum was the first thing of the kind established in this country. The building is neat and plain, possessing a library and newsroom, belonging to n body of 500 subscribing proprietors, and opened in 171)0. The number of volumes in the library is 14,000: they do not circulate, but every accom- modation for reading is provided in the building, which is in Bold-street. The Lyceum, also in Bold-street, was established by subscription, and reckons 800 subscribers. The building was erected for the purpose, at an expense of 11,000/.; and the library reckons 80,000 volumes: there are separate rooms for reading newspapers and for periodical literature. The Union Newsroom in Duke-strcct, and the Exchange Newsroom in the Exchange-buildings, are elegant saloons, devoted to the purposes which their names imply. There 1 is also what is called the Underwriters-room in the Exchange-buildings, which is provided with newspapers and all kinds of publications relative to the shipping interest, resembling Lloyds in the metro- polis. These are the principal, out of many establishments of a similar character, but of comparatively trivial extent. Among other scientific institu- tions, that called the Medical Institution, at Mount Pleasant, having a circular front, 1 ho curve of which is 198 feet, furnished with a lecture-room and museum, struck us as having a very pleasing (fleet; and bears a character o| considerable utility. There is also an Apothecaries* Hall, erected at an LAN) ISHIR] . 113 expense of 20,000/. j but it would appeal thai it is no more than a mercantile dispensary of drugs, unconnected with any direct scientific purpose. A Mechanics' Institution was opened in Mount-street In 1835; the first stone of the building being laid in the Bame year, constructed of the Ionic order, but not completed ; and possessing ample accommodations for every thing connected with sueh an establishment. The interior was nearly con- sumed by fire in 1837. The land was given by the corporation; and the edifice covers nearly an acre of ground. A Polytechnic School has been established recently in connexion with this institution. There is also an insti- tution in St. Anne-street, founded in 1835, for supplying useful information and instruction to young men connected with professional or commercial pursuits. The Royal Bank is an entirely new building, in the Grecian taste, which, while its exterior is remark- able for its handsome and chaste appearance, it is in- ternally adapted with more than common ingenuity to the objects for •which it was erected. With public amusements Liverpool may be consi- dered amply provided; and before the decline of the stage generally, from the falling off in actors or the change in public feel- ing, which dwelling upon the realities of existence can find entertainment no longer in what is merely imaginative, and little beneficial either in the Way of instruction or amusement — in fact, in the better times of the drama, Liverpool was celebrated for its patronage of the sock and buskin. The Old Theatre, built in ITT:.', situated on the east side of Williamson-square, is open from May to December. It has a stone semi- circular flout, adorned with figures in relief, and the royal arms; the interior is convenient The Liver Theatre in Church-streel i^ opened only during the winter months, and is neatly fitted ap for representations of the same kind as are given in the minor theatres of the metropolis. The royal amphitheatre in Great Charlotte-street, near St. John's-market, is an elegant edifice, well adapted to its objed of exhibiting equestrian feats, pantomimes, and melodramatic pieces; the lion? covered with Roman cement, plain and 114 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: onornamented. There are ball-rooms, the principal called the Wellington Rooms, convenient in every respect for large assemblies, hut characterized 1>\ nothing more than the better kind of accommodation required for such edifices. Chancing to visit the Post-office for our letter-, the day being fine we directed our steps to the contiguous southern dock, which we have already mentioned, passing the end of the Duke's Dock, which belonged to the Duke of Bridgewatcr, and is now the property of his trustees. It was made to receive the Hat canal vessels, and possesses large warehouses for the reception of the goods thus conveyed. From Wapping, we entered the King's Dock, to see the extensive tobacco warehouses which are built there parallel witli the Mersey. These buildings are 575 feet long by 838 wide, and cover more than three acres and a quarter within the walls, being a huge house for the receipt of a duty that operates as a bonus to the smuggler: it is rented by the government. King's Dock covers 37,770 square yards, and has 875 yards of quay, the part nearest the Mersey forming a pleasant promenade opposite the broader part of the river. On the eastern side of the King's Dock is a basin which communicates both with that and a dock situated further in on the east, called Queen's Dock, much larger, for it covers 51,501 square yards, and has 1255 yards of quay. This dock is principally filled with timber ships and Dutch vessels, and it communicates with a dry dock, called Brunswick Half-tide Dock, and through that with Brunswick Dock, built in 1832; the two latter having together a superficies of 70,001) square yards, admitting vessels of 1000 tons. It is principally used by shipping in the timber trade. Brunswick Dock also communicates with the Mersey by a basin of i's own; and further south, between Sefton-street and the river, arc the Harrington Docks, applied principally to the timber trade, consisting of two wet open docks, (500 feet long. There are various basins or docks higher up the river, hut in size they are insignificant in comparison with those we have enumerated. In this quarter of Liverpool, keeping in mind the four divisions to which we before alluded, and in which the Custom-house and Post-office stand, are St. James's-street and Mill-street, leading to Toxteth Park, of which all that is within the borough is laid out for streets, some com- pleted, and many others begun. The high ground here affords a tine prospect across the Mersey into Cheshire, as avcII as over Lancashire. On the top of James-street taking Upper Parliament-street, situated upon the left hand; and on the left again, in the last-named street, we came upon St. James's ( lemetery. The proper approach to this last resting-place of mortality is along Duke- street, which is easily found from the Exchange, by going up Castle-streel and turning to the left-hand at the Custom-house. This cemetery was once a quarry of red sandstone and comprises altogether 44,000 square yards of ground, which is not as much as the Queen's Dock. It is surrounded by a wall and iron railings, and on the western side has rather incongruously 1 \M \s||||;| 115 a public esplanade; but the peculiarity of the cemetery is, thai ii consists prin- cipally of catacombs, having ample doorways, amounting in all to one hundred and five. There are four entrances; the interior is planted and laid out neatly, a chapel erected on a conspicuous part of the ground in the Grecian taste rising over all, the whole being very appropriate. Mr. Huskisson's remains rest near the centre of the ground, and a circular monument with ten columns surmounted by a dome is placed over them, and the statue of the deceased by ( ribson in the centre beneath, habited in a toga. The fault of this ceme- tery in our view is, that it displays too much of art; it is an ornament pf death formed in the midst of streets densely populated as if the King of Terrors in this thrifty nation must be made t lie most of, in the way of pecuniary return. In one spot in the cemetery \\ e saw the site of a grave marked by a bed of flowers, and were told that this singular memorial had been a la.-t requesl of the youth- ful tenant] a young lady, «rho till a victim to consumption — " the fairest still the fleetest." There are several monuments in the ground dis- playing considerable taste, and a l'< w which to iu seemed offensive by the 116 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: fulsomencss of their laudations. As we left this last sojourn of mortals we were more than ever in the mind to agree with the author of the Minstrel: Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down. Where a green grassy turf is all I crave, Willi here and there a violet bestrewn, Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave — The esplanade we have alluded to above, before the quarry was made into a cemetery, was a place of public resort, shaped for that purpose by one of the chief magistrates, and previously called Quarry Hill. His worship thought- lessly, it being out of name for a public promenade, called it Mount Zion, thinking perhaps that there Avas no reason why a pleasant walk should not have a good name, upon the principle of a late divine, who applied to song tunes the words of the psalms, because it was "a pity that the devil should have all the good tunes." Thus Quarry Hill was exalted into " Mount Zion," but his worship's well meaning was misinterpreted by a fastidious Welch clergy- man, who was " horrified " as the ladies say, at seeing the words, " bottled beer to be had," recorded upon the door leading to the Mount Zion of Liverpool. This was not all ; the reverend gentleman invoked the Muse of Satire to his aid, and wrote- some verses, which, after alluding to a sign of bottled beer upon the door of Mount Zion, concluded — But thou who hear'st the poor man's prayer, Protect the innocent and guard the fair, And, if thou can'st forgive, forgive the Mayor ! The Mayor, evidently the best practical Christian of the two, had employed the poor out of work during a hard winter to make the walk. The name was next changed to the Mount; and then, to heal the breach entirely, it was placed under the tutelage of St. James, and is named at present St. James's Walk. The river, the verdant coast of Cheshire opposite, and sometimes the mountains of "Wales, arc visible from it, shipping and houses composing the foreground of the picture; but the finest objects arc too far distant; while what is wanting in picturesque effect, being artificial, is too near to lay claim to more than a pleasing relief in the way of picture from the monotony of the street houses. But then this is so close at home as to be of inestimable value to those who can step upon it almost from their own doors, and it presents the town in all its expansion close at hand.* • It is scarcely possible to look down upon the streets and structures between the Mount and the Mersey without calling to mind the late Lord Erskine's description of the effect produced by a similar prospect of this town. In his happiest vein of eloquence he says: " If I were capable of painting in words the impression Liverpool made on my imagination, it would form a beautiful picture indeed! T had before often been at the principal seaports in this island, and believing that having seen Bristol and those other towns that deservedly pass for great ones, I had seen everything in this great nation of navigators on which a subject should pride himself; I own 1 was astonished and astounded, when, after pa n 1 \ enumerate the principal of the other charitable establishments in this wealthy and magnificent town: namely, a blue-coat school, founded in 170!), having 250 boys and 100 girls ;f a school for the indigent blind; a house of recovt rj ; a strangers' friend society ; a Welch charitable society; a penitentiary, and a county refuge for the destitute; a marine society; Liverpool charitable, ladies' lying-in, and district provident, societies; an institution f>r instructing the deaf and dumb, and numerous others. One other establishment, peculiar \\ e you — iliat immense plain which stands like another Venice upon the waters— which is intersected by those numerous doeki — which glitters with those cheerful habitations of well-protected men — which i-- the busy seat of trade, and the gaj soene of elegant amusements, growing cut of its prosperity — where there is the most cheerful face of industry — where there arc riches overflowing, and everything thai can delight a man who u ishes to wethe prosperitj of a great community and a great empire, — all this has been created by the industry and well-disciplined management of a handful of men since you were a boy.' I must have been a stick or a stone not to he affected by such a picture." f The blue-coat school has an hospital attached to it; a plaid building, constructed of brick an 1 stone, erected in 1 7"J*> . 118 l \'l \\I> I\ THE NINETEENTH I BNTURT believe to Liverpool, deserves to be honourably mentioned; it is the Charitable Institution House, elected for the accommodation of the committees of the different charitable societies connected with the town. Opportunities arc thus afforded to the members of the different institutions of becoming acquainted with the proceedings of each other, by which mutual interference is pre- \cnted, and abuses of the charities rendered easy of detection. Passing along Dale-street up Shaw's-brow, and keeping to the 1. ft through Islington and Brunswick-road, we came into the Derby-road in the north-eastern quarter of the town, and following this road for some distance reached the Zoological Gardens, which are upon the right just within the borough limit, near the West Derby Workhouse, and beyond the Necropolis. These gardens are laid out with a good deal of tastej and the ground being adapted by nature for such a purpose, irregular and spacious, comprising no less than ten acres, affords a variety of surface which admits of considerable picturesque display. Nothing has been omitted here in the way of ornament ; the trees, shrubs, and flowers arc manifold in their varieties, and grouped with judg- ment. The animals are well accommo- dated, numerous, and apparently in good condition. Entertainments are given occasionally of the same nature as those in the Surrey Zoological Gardens of the metro- polis; while Liverpool possesses, besides this interesting and valuable estab- lishment, a Botanic Garden at the top of Edge-hill, extending over eleven acres, laid out with exact attention to the objects for which it was created. The cost of these extensive and useful undertakings is defrayed by sub- scription, abundantly indicating the munificence of the townspeople, as well as the great extent of their pecuniary resources, to which no other place out of the metropolis affords a parallel example. The Necropolis is ; ( cemetery of considerable extent, called locally the Low-hill Cemetery] and is surrounded by a lofty wall, enclosing an oblong square of about five acres in superficial extent. A portion, ten feel from the Avail all round on the interior side, is set apart for a colonnade, to receive tombs and inscriptions j but only a part of this, on one of the sides, i^ yet ' • LANC \s|| [RE. 119 completed; and the centre i- laid out in an ornamental shrubbery. The entrance consists of a stone front, haying two Lodges, with Doric pillars between, supporting a cornice of the same order, remarkably mat and well- proportioned. The service of the Church of England, or any other, may be read here by the clergyman of the denomination to which the deceased may happen to belong] and a chaplain is appointed, who reads the service when desired without any lees, which service is that of the Church of England, with a Blight alteration of one or two passages. The arrangements and care of the cemetery are under the management of a committee of gentlemen, who suffer nothing savouring of bad taste, indecorous or ludicrous, to appear in the mortuary inscriptions. The Everton-road passes along- the western side of the Necropolis leading into Everton village; an agreeable place, out of the bustle of Liverpool; and here, down what is called Rupert-place, yet stands the cottage occupied by Prince Rupert as his head-quarters during the siege of Liverpool in 1G44. It consists of one story, and most probably stood alone in the fields at that period, though now surrounded by dwellings. It is whitewashed, and presents to the passenger the following aspect, appearing to be carefully preserved as a relic of the contest for absolute power in this part of the country between a monarch and his people. It appears that Prince Rupert and the Earl of Derby, after having taken Bolton, went to make 1 Liver- pool an easy conquest, but found it defendedby a mud wall on the east and north. having a deep ditch; and upon the wall, bags of Irish wool were piled, of which a large importation happened just before to h;i\e taken place. A wide marsh inundated from the Mersey rendered the town inaccessible on the south-east side, and the streets in that direction were closed by gates defended with cannon; while on the south side WBfl a Strong ca-tle BUTTOUnded with a wide and very deep dinh, wi 11 defended by artillery. Prince Kupc it was repulsed again and again for above a mouth, with great slaughter; but at last, some accounts gay hy the treachery of the c omm a n da n t, others by neglect in defending the side next the marshes, the place was entered, and all who were nut put to the sword, except those in the castle, who capitulated. The town was very Boon after retaken by Colonel lurch, and continued to remain true to the popular cause. Everton i- older than Liverpool, and not long I at Bome con- siderable distance from the building- of the present town; standing upon !:.'() ENGLAND IN TUP. NINETEENTH CENTURY: Lofty land compared to Liverpool itself, and more than a mile from the boundary of the old town. The manor once belonged to John of Gaunt; by whose son, Henry IV., it became vested in the Crown, and there remained until in 1629 Charles I. sold it, as he did much of the Crown property, to raise money for his private purposes; and it afterwards was resold to Lord Stanley and Strange. Hero was an ancient beacon, erected in the reign of Henry III., blown down in 1803, the site of which is occupied by the church of St. George. This beacon consisted of three stories: the lowest was a kitchen, the upper rooms were des- cribed as spacious ; and on an angle of the fort was a stone hollow for placing combustibles to be kindled in case of an enemv's land- ing, as it was conspicuous as far north-east as Riving- ton Pike and Ashursl Bea- con. St. George's Church is a neat edifice, opened in 1814; the view from the top of the tower is well worth the trouble of an ascent. Evcrton is now connected with Liverpool by several streets, which run parallel with Church- street and Domingo-road, having cross lines. Evcrton-brow and Brunswiek- crescent run up from the town into the -village, as well as Brunswick- road. Proceeding along the hill summit, and going northward, while passing a Large house called St. Domingo, built with the spoils of priva- teering obtained from a ship belonging to what was then a French colony, a perfect view is obtained of Liverpool, the Mersey down to its mouth, and the more distant sea. In clear weather the higher Welch mountains are visible, as well as those of Cumberland, but in faint outline only. This eminence is about 200 feet above the Mersey, but the country round being low, with a good deal of water, this height will be found enough to afford a pretty extensive prospect. Following the road a little further, the village of Kirkdale appears; through and almost up to which streets are planned or completed in more than one line; the principal of these is called New Scotland-road, and termi- nate- in Byrom-street on the south, and on the north crossing a parallel road tailed the Boundary-road, g"ing through Kirkdale, and intersecting the Everton road nearly at the northern end of that village. Out of the Kirkdale- road on the Left, along Castle or Smith street-, is the waj to the Gaol for the I \\. tSHIRE. 181 hundred of We^t Derby. This building is very large, stands in a healthful situation, covers 28,648 square yards of ground, and is adapted for 800 prisoners, who can be divided into twenty-two classes; possessing too an enor- mous treadmill, capable of admitting L'K) prisoners upon it at once. The form of the building is circular, terminating in wings of a square figure, the chapel in the centre. The arrangements are considered to be of the best kind, particu- larly for apportioning punishments, and for separating offenders of different shades of guilt from intercourse with each other, which is effected by means • \. eedingly judicious. Kirkdale is a township of a very ancient date, and \\ .is the property of the l)e la More family in 1280. Their Kirkdale residence, a curious relic of antiquity, was lately pulled down; the name was Bankhall; it was surrounded by a moat, over which "vvas a bridge leading to a turret ed gateway, decorated with stone carvings; and this led to the inner court. The hall was open to the roof, and the beams and rafters covered with old carved woik, representing implements of war, heraldic designs, and family shields. The structures of Liverpool, applied to the purposes of religious worship, arc numerous, as we have before observed. The only church that possessed a claim to antiquity was that of St. Nicholas, the earliest parish records belonging to which do not date before 1681 : it was a chapel of ease under "Walton-on-thc-Hill, until 1699, when the town of Liverpool was made a distinct parish. There was once a statue of St. Nicholas in the churchyard ; regarded as the tutelar guardian of seamen on proceeding upon their outward-bound voyages. This church is seen in its pristine state in the wood engraving of old Liverpool ; it was rebuilt in 177 I, except the tower, and stands nearly opposite St. George's Dock. In L810, as the congregation were assembling on a Sun- day for divine worship, and about ten minutes before it usually commenced, the spire tell through the roof along the centre aisle of the church, owing to the ring- ing of the bells loosening the stones of the arches OH which it rested. The chil- dren of the Moorfh Ids charitv were entering at the moment — the girls pre- ceding the boys; but the latter all escaped, while of the others, twenty-eight were buried under the fallen mass, twenty-three killed, and five taken to the 122 ENGLAND IX THE NINETEENTH CENTURY hospital; of which number one died subsequently. The present tower soon afterwards erected, so that no trace of the ancient church now remains. None of the churches of Liverpool have any pretensions to extraordinary beauty or novelty of design, some being constructed with little regard to purity or simplicity, others with too much of pretension to what they evidently dd not possess; but the Name circumstances are only observable here in common with the metropolis. St. Peter's church, built in 1704, is a plain and inelegant, but solid struc- ture, having a heavy square tower terminating octagonally with a pinnacle at each angle : it stands in Church-street, and contains one or two monuments to individuals of the town; that to Mr. Cunliffe, a merchant of Liverpool, being marked by expense rather than beauty. St. George's church, built originally in 17o:2. has been rebuilt by Mr. Foster, the town architect, in the Doric style, with tasteful simplicity; though the lower part of the tower, supporting a double row of columns, is so sufficiently substantial, as almost to border upon heaviness. St. Thomas's church is a very tasteless affair: it had originally a fine spire, but as it would appear that the noisy resonance of bells is almost a part of orthodoxy in Liverpool, and the ringing made it vibrate, the spire was sacri- ficed to the bells, and a heavy cupola ensures the safety of as much ringing as the pullers of the ropes choose to inflict upon the surrounding inhabitants. St. Paul's was erected in 1769 ; and compared to most of the other churches in the town, has an impo- sing appearance and an air of elegance; but it pos- hshs none of the grandeur which the architect was solicitous of conferring upon it, by making it a copy of St. Paul's, London. The frog cannot success- fully compete with the ox in architecture any mor< than in fable. St. Luke in the Anglo-Gothic, or pointed style, is exceed- ingly well wrought out by M r. Foster, the corpora- tion architect, of which this is a representation. St. Ann's church, placed north and south — stark heterodoxy in ecclesiastical architecture — was built in 1770. at the expense of two private gentlemen: the galleries are supported by cast-iron pillars, said to be the first ever used for a similar purpose. Christ- church is a roomy and handsome edifice, built by a private individual. .Mr. LAN( V.SHIRE. 128 Houghton, endowed by him, and opened for divine worship in 1800. The church of St. .John was erected at the public expense in 1784. St. Philip's. St. Ann's, St. Michael's, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, St. James, and those of St. Stephen, St. Matthew, All Saints, St. Andrew, St. .Mark. Christ, Trinity, St. David, St. Catherine, St. Bride, St. Matthias, St. Augustine at Everton, St.. hide; and the church of the indigent blind, built of stone, a copy of the temple of Jupiter in Egina, in the early Doric style; St. Peter's, and a floating church, are the principal places of worship belonging to the Estab- lishment : besides which, there are several Episcopal chapels. The Catholics have five chapels; the Wesleyans nine, the Baptists five, the Independents nine; the dissenters in all fifty-nine. We have only enumerated by name the principal churches belonging to the Establishment, which, includ- ing chapels, number together thirty-two: and including the places of public worship considered as attached to Liverpool on the Cheshire shore, the total number, belonging to all creeds, is 10£, of which one is a Jews synagogue. The dissenting chapel re- cently erected by the con- gregation of the Rev. Dr. Raffles is remarkable for simplicity of design and chasteness of ornament. The Scotch kirk in Rodney- street is also a pleasing spe- cimen of Grecian architec- ture ; and the Wesleyan chapel in Harrington pos- sesses a fine window of stained glass. There are in Liverpool ' ■> Sunday -schools, with 1 <),()()() scholars ; evening schools, lo. with 548 scho- lars ; day schools, including charity and infant, c generally successful, though still felt not to be beyond the possibility of solitary failure. When Liverpool flung off* the inhuman traffic in slaves, which the government so long fostered and encouraged, -he came forth like a gianl refreshed; as if'.lustice were grateful for the renuncia- tion of a traffic so disgraceful, and at once threw into her docks and ware- houses, by an activity without parallel, the merchandise and riches of empires. There is a statue of George III. on horseback, in Roman costume, near Pembroke-place and the London-road, which is of no great merit on the score of art, and is the work of Westmacott : its situation is exceedingly well chosen. There is something ludicrous to those who remember the King's person and manner in thus dressing him up like Julius Caesar; it almost rccals the lines of Peter Pindar. A street parallel with Rodney-street, terminating one end in Mount Pleasant and the other in Duke-street, bears the venerable name of Eoscoc. The his- torian of Lorenzo de Medici is always coupled by foreigners with the town to which in his lifetime he was so attached. 3 lis celebrated collection of Italian authors, about three hundred volumes, is deposited in the library of the Athe- naeum, through a trait of character in a well known merchant of Liverpool, Mr. Rathbone, most honourable to his head and heart; for knowing that Eoscoc regretted the loss of those works more than of any other books he possessed, he made the purchase of them at the sale of Roscoe's library, and presented them to his friend. Who would not envy Mr. Rathbone his feelings upon that occasion ! Eoscoc declined the present, unless upon the condition that tiny should be afterwards deposited in the Library of the Athenaeum, where they now remain, in an establishment to form which we believe Roscoe was one of the chief instruments. No one knew this truly good and learned man but must have his hue Roman portraiture indelibly impressed upon his memory. We shall not easily forget the last time we Were in his company, four indi- viduals only being present, among them I'go Foscolo, the great Literary name of modern Italy: when Roscoe's equanimity of temper and firm bearing con- trasted well with the fiery temperament of the Italian or Greek, as Foscolo at times affected to consider himself. Both have now slept for years with their fathers. Roscoe, born March 8, L 753, died June 80, 1831, and was of humble parentage, and self-taughl ; for he would not submit to the mechanical drudgery of the schoolmaster, even in the limited way in which his parents could alone afford him the elements of an education, since hi' possessed a better key to instruction than the rod of the pedagogue, having acquired the .lit of thinking for himself in his earlier years. At sixteen he was employed I.ANC \snn;r. 127 in the office of an attorney as an articled clerk, when be wrote verses, and contrived to acquire the Latin. French, and Italian languages. On the expira- tion of his articles he wenl into partnership with an eminent attorney of Liverpool, and Boon managed the whole business, which obtained a high reputation. Giving up business with a competency, he entered himself in 1805 at ( iray's Inn. intending to go to the bar, and was induced aboul the Bame time to join in a Liverpool banking-house, which (ailed and involved him in its ruins, when he resigned all his property to his creditors, bul retained to the last day of his life the esteem and respect of every rank and degree of mankind, both in and out of England, for his fame was not confined to his native shores. Hero is the house in which he was born, yet standing upon Mount Pleasant, a spot of ground which must have been apart from, and have commanded a line view of, Liverpool fourscore years ago. Although Roscoe is the great literary name of Liver- pool, it is not the only one distinguished in a similar pursuit. Dr. Currie, of that place, wrote an excellent lite of Burns, the first and best we ha\ eever read; and Dr. Shepherd published a lite of Bracciolini. Stubbs, the animal painter, connects Liverpool with the pictorial art by an excellence which no one is inclined to dispute; and Doare, a very promising sculptor, was;, native of the town ; while in mathematics it was an honour to produce so dis- tinguished an individual as Horrox. We believe the late Mrs. Remans was also a Dative of Liverpool. The number and excellence of the literary insti- tutions of Liverpool prove at least a fondness lor the cultivation of the mind to be pre\ alent there. (>t the character of the inhabitants it does not become us to speak, from wanting a - 1 1 1 ! i < i t • 1 1 1 personal knowledge of the subject : but we may form some opinion of what it may be, from the elegance of the town, from the liberality of the institutions, the probity of the citizens, and corporate body, and from the absence in society of the ridiculous exclusivene8s exhibited so much in other places, the offspring of pride and ignorance. Wnere commercial intercourse, personal and 1>\ correspondence, is continual with the inhabitants 128 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: of all countries, there must be less prejudice, greater civility, fewer of the pretensions of class, more open and kindly manners, and a more frank and manly bearing than in places not so happily circumstanced for imbibing the Bterling humanities of life, and for extinguishing the miserable spirit of bigotry and illiberality in private intercourse. Those who arc solicitous for that of which they cannot estimate the worthlcssncss, and are content to exchange the weighty gold of simple warm manners for the hollowness of overwrought refinement, or the servility that chills while paying the compliment it secretly repudiates, must not, it appears to us, expect to find their social beau ideal in Liverpool. The market days in Liverpool are "Wednesday and Saturday; but, as in other large places, merchandise and wares of every sort required by the population arc purchaseablc daily in all quarters of the town. Means of water communi- cation exist, both by canals and rivers as well as on land by railways and roads, for the conveyance of all kinds of goods at easy and cheap rates. The exports consist principally of the manufactures of the counties of Lancaster, Stafford, York, Warwick, and Chester ; while the imports are of all kinds, but principally colonial ; and the coasting trade extends to every part of the United Kingdom. Small vessels can ascend on the Mersey and Irwell for thirty-five miles above Liverpool, by winch much agricultural produce is conveyed. The steam-vessels plying at the different ferries across the Mersey, to the Isle of Man, to the north of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, arc very nume- rous ; so long ago as 1830, no less than thirty-six sailed to and from Ireland alone, and the number now must be greatly increased. The limits of the port arc " from the Redstoncs in Hoylelake at the point of Wirral, southerly, to the foot of the river called Ribble Water, in a direct line northerly ; and so upon the south side of that river to Hesketh Bank easterly, and to the rivers Astland and Douglas there, and so all along the sea-coasts of Meals and Formby unto the river Mersey, all over the rivers Mersey, Irwell, and Weaver."* Towards the mouth of the Mersey, from Runcorn downwards, there arc commodious steam ferries, and many individuals whose business is in Liver- pool reside on the Cheshire shore, passing backwards and forwards continually. The New ferry, Rockhouse ferry, Birkenhead ferry, "Woodside and Scacombe, are the points in communication more immediately with Liverpool ; Woodside 1 icing the most ancient. North of Scacombe ferry is the magazine where the vessels inward-bound deposit their gunpowder. Near to the Cheshire shore, opposite Kirkdale, in the borough of Liverpool, but west of it, is the fort on Rock point, protecting the entrance of the Mersey. The principal face of the work is about 200 yards in extent, rising twenty-five feet above the water, mounting six thirty-two pound guns, with others at the angles which flank the faces, mounted on towers commanding the fronts respectively. This fort covers the entrance perfectly, as the channel by which vessels arc obliged to • Liverpool itanda in lat. .03° 22T, N and 2° 30', W. long. I \\i \-!i I i ' | .,,, pass is not more than 000 yards wide, owing to the Burbo Sand, so thai they must come within range of the guns. There arc barracks for 100 men within the fort, which i- completely insulated at spring tide. Heavy seas frequently break against the north-east and north-west faces, but these arc defended from the spray by a strong course of masonry. Near the fort stands a fine lighthouse, exhibiting a re- volving light of great intensity. It i-> built on the plan Smeaton followed at the Eddystonej the material being a very durable marble from the Isle of Anglesey, carried up solid for a considerable height, and tin' Btones dovetailed into each other, and cemented with puzzolano from the territory of Naples: the expense, defrayed by the Liverpool corporation, was 27,000/. We have not before given the reader a representation of the entrance to a dock basin, and for this purpose introduce to his notice the gates of Duke's Dock, which, though by no means so large as those belonging to the dock- of a later date in point of erection, are more picturesque, and admit over them a \ Lew of distant scenery. There lies beyond them, including the river, shipping, and the (he-hire shore for .1 considerable extent, a prospeel ->t' novelty and interest, situated at no great distance from one of the ferri< an extended line of country. and embracing ISO ENGLAND l\ Mil NINETEENTH CENTURY: From the Lancashire side, north of Liverpool, the fort and lighthouse arc seen to great advantage; and in fine weather the vessels passing and repassing present a lively scene of very high interest. Smoking steamers, proceeding on their courses without regard to the wind; fishing-boats, busy at their voca- tion ; vessels, large and small, crossing each other, working in or out, some apparently making fourteen knots in fifteen hours, while others, finding the breeze auspicious, spread all their bellying sails to catch its full impulse: in one. as Campbell beautifully expresses it. waves "the flag that braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze;" and in another the ensign of some foreigner floating peacefully on the gale in the pursuit of a traffic mutually beneficial through the advantages of a profitable commerce. We could not but feel plea- sure at such a sight ; and hope that, though every empire, and with it all commercial traffic, must have its cycle, the scenes which are thus so beautifully displayed might exist to the utmost verge of a prolonged season. The manufactures carried on in Liverpool are not important; for it i- in the import of raw cotton and its export in a manufactured state, the dealing with goods in the condition in which they come to hand, rather than the transformation of the materials from one state to another, in fact the supplying all parts of the globe, that the business of Liverpool consists. The pent-up regular toil of the cotton factory, and the habits of seafaring men, and labourers in docks and warehouses, would not, it is probable, harmonize with each other; the independence of labour in the open air, where much must depend upon will — and the dependence of the factory, where man is wholly a machine. would be found to interfere continually, did they coexist together to any extent. The few goods manufactured in Liverpool arc principally subsidiary to the demands of the merchant for his shipping. There arc several sugar refineries, some small foundries, a good deal of ship-building in wood and iron, a manu- factory of steam-engines for vessels, and manufactories of anchors, chain cables, and similar articles, naturally in demand in a large seaport. Of these the most important, are the establishments for the manufacture of chain cables, of machinery for steam-engines, locomotive and marine, and of common anchors. The links of the chain cables arc forged of an oval form; and, while they are red hot, a stay is introduced, being a broad ended band of cold cast-iron, to which the sides of the link are drawn close by the hammer : and. as the ting contracts in cooling, the stay is held on as firmly as if it formed part of the substance of the ring. When the chain is complete, it is taken to be proved ; this is done by extending it in portions upon a very long and narrow table, and subjecting it to an enormous strain, produced either by Leverage or the wheel and axle. We were informed that few ch:iiiis are ever perfect when first wrought, and that generally li\e or six links must be renewed before the manufacturer can certify to its perfect security. Fawcett's engine-manufactory is one of the largest in the kingdom, and we l.ANt \n||| ft] . 131 shall take advantage of a visit to it to describe the outlines of some of the processes in the manufacture of steam machinery, which has now become a branch of industry in Lancashire scarcely second in importance to the cotton manufacture. All the heavier parts of steam-machinery are made of cast-iron, and hence their perfection musl mainly depend on that of the wooden models from which their moulds are shaped. In fact, the preparation of models La the most important and expensive part of the business; and in large establishments the collections of them are valued at several thousand pounds. The frame- work of the various machines used in mills is rarely Busceptible of ornament; the great object is to combine lightness with strength, and to occupy as small a space as possible; the models of these frames have therefore no interest e\eept for the professional engineer. It is far otherwise with the framework in which the engines of steam-vessels are set: the engine-room, between the two cylinders, is altogether formed of cast-iron; and in general, considerable taste and fancy are displayed in its decoration. We saw one at Mr. Fawcett's which, when set up, would form a Gothic chapel in the richest style of florid architecture; and another, which Avas modelled from a Grecian temple. These are cast by piecemeal, but with such accuracy that the joinings cannot be detected by an unpractised eye. Ajb motion is communicated from the steam-engine to the machinery by means of turning shafts, it is necessary, to save the waste of power by friction, that these shafts should be perfectly true and smooth. It was formerly usual t i give a level surface to iron by using the chisel and file; but this process, besides being very tedious and expensive, Mas also deficient in accuracy, especially when applied to shafts of very considerable length. The planing of iron became therefore a problem which has long exercised the ingenuity of the best engineers, and it is now generally effected by an application of the lathe. There are two ways by which the process may be effected: the plane, which is a piece of the hardest steel, may be made to traverse horizon- tally over the iron shaft kept revolving beneath it; or the shaft may be gradually pushed forward under the plane, fixed stationary at the proper angle, being propelled by a screw, so as to secure its gradual advance, and also to prevent any change in its true direction. The Latter is the plan most generally adopted, and few mechanical processes are more likely to fill the mind of a visitor with wonder than to Bee iron planed apparently with as much facility as the softest wood, and throwing off rolls of shaving as lightly folded ;is those in the shop of the cabinet-maker. In this way the la surfaces are planed with the assistance of a single workman. The smoothing of shafts, and of similar parts of machinery, is here broughl to the highest perfection, and may be considered a part of' the art of turning. Cannons were at firsl made iA' iron hoops or bars, welded or brazed together. They were afterwards cast hollow, with a cavity a- nearly cylindrical as could I'.V.l I \<.|.\M> IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: be obtained by casting, and then the surface was smoothed by a boring machine, with steel cutters. In this May it was almost impossible to obtain a true bore; balls of a smaller size than would otherwise be necessary were used, occasioning great windage and loss of powder. They are now cast perfectly solid ; and care is taken, by melting pig-iron of different qualities together, that the cast-iron should not be too hard to be acted upon by the borer. In general, the boring-bar is fixed, and the revolving gun exposed to the action of a steel-cutter constantly impelled towards the gun. The cutters in this process become highly magnetic, so thai the boring-dust i- seen adhering, and hanging from their edges when they are drawn out. When the boring is completed, the touchhole is drilled. In the boring of steam cylinders, the steel-cutters revolve, and the cylinder is fixed. The cylinder is placed horizontally, while the cutters are forced forward by a steam-engine or water-wheel. The operation is commonly repeated three times; and in the finishing process it is thought essentia] bo keep the machine continually at work from the beginning to the end of the operation, without any regard to meal-times, or to day and night. Were it discontinued, the cylinder would lose the heat acquired by the friction, and a ridge would be formed at the spot where the boring was suspended, which would be highly injurious to its proportion. Iron is not only turned and bored with as much ease and accuracy as wood, but, by means of shears, moved by a lever and wheel worked by steam, it is cut through as if it were paper. We saw a piece of iron, three-fourths of an inch thick, so divided at Messrs. Sharp and Roberts's manufactory. The shock on the person holding the bar is not very great, provided he holds the bar near the axle of the shears; but if he applies it near the edge the jerk is considerable; and is likely, not only to wrest the bar from his hand, but to do injury to the machine. In all the establishments for the manufacture of machines, the contrivances for the transmission and conversion of motion are multiplied and various, but it would be impossible to describe them in a popular form. The chief objects of attraction are the processes of casting, turning, planing, boring, and welding; and these in their general features do not essentially differ from the applica- tions of the same operations with winch all are familiar. Wonder, in fact, is excited chiefly byseeing common operations working on materials which might he supposed far removed beyond their sphere. The country round Liverpool abounds in every direction with fine resi- dences. Mattered through the neighbouring parishes. To the southward, at no great distance, i- Childwall, a large parish and vicarage, that includes the chapelries of Hall, Speke, Garston, Wavertree, Atherton, and Woolton, con- taining numerous sea), and old balk ( 'hildw all Abbey is a house belonging to the Marquis of Salisbury, who obtained it by marriage with the daughter of Mi-. Bamber Gascoigne : it is about four miles south-east from Liverpool, and 1. \\i ISHIR1 ■ 133 was built, after a design bj Nash, bj the brother of the Late General Gascoigne, who was member of parliament for Liverpool. The style is Gothic, of that character which neither antiquity nor taste combine to recommend; it is a heavy Looking edifice, but the |g| prospect from the towers, of w hich there are two — one sur- mounted with a smaller turret in the way of the eagle tower at ( laernarvon — is very extensive, commanding a plain stretching from Ormskirk in one direction away to Cheshire in another. This neighbourhood is the haunt of the Liverpool holiday keepers, and possesses an excellent inn, to which they resort in considerable numbers. In this parish is Speke Hall, a view of which, as well as an interior of one of the rooms, is here given; it was built about 350 years ago, is surrounded by a ditch or moat, and possesses every trait interesting to the Lover of antiquity. Gigantic yew- Bhed their gloom over an antique court ; the old hall i- decora- ted with a wain- scot mantel- piece, said to have been brought from Edinburgh cas- tle after the vie- to] \ at Flodden Field ; and Sir William Norria brought here a pari of the Scotch king's Library from rlolyrood House. In some of the volumes now in the Athenaum at Liverpool, it i> recorded in the hand-writin- of Sir William himself : -that Edyes Boro* wasse wone y« vm ,b daye of Maye, ano w\m ll. VIII. el ano dni » miii and y' y bok< wae gotty and 134 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: brought awaye by me Will*m Norres of y e Speike K. thye \i daye of Maye." On the wainscoting is inscribed, u Sleep not till thou hast well con- sidered how thou spent the day past: it' thou hast done well, thank Grod for'tj if otherwise, repent." The Norris family resided at Speke for many genera- tions before the time when the battle of Flodden Field was fought, in 1513. The old carving affords an example <>f the taste <>i the age in which it was done, and is by no means deficient in merit. 'Ibis ancient house belongs to Mr. Watt, to whose father it was sold by the son of the late Mr. Topham Beauclerk; to whom it descended from the family of Norris. Wavertree Village, Lying on the east of Liverpool upon proceeding by the Edge-hill load, is distant about two miles. This village contains between two and three thousand inhabitants] the manor was called Vauretrea at the Conquest. And here is Wavertree Hall, the residence of .Mr. Lawrence; characterized by somewhat of antiquity in its appearance, and this feeling is more strongly impressed by the cawing of the numerous rooks that inhabit a number of large elm tries contiguous to the mansion. Hale Hall is a very ancient house; the estate on which it stands belonged to the Lord of Hale as far back as the Conquest: it next became the property of the Columber family, and from them descended to the Hollands, and thence to the Irelands, with whom it remained until the middle of the last century, when it came into the possession of the Blackburne family, of Orford near Warrington, by marriage, and is now the seat of Mr. Blackburne, who for many years represented Lancashire in parliament The house is built of brick, a good deal of it covered with ivy. Lpon the tower in front of the bouse here seen is the date 1674, and the inscription " buill by Sir Gilbert I.Wi \-||!i;i . 135 Ireland and Dame Margaret his wife." A new front has been added on tin- south by Mr. Blackburae, commanding a fine view of the Mersey, three miles across, and part of Cheshire, with several of the Welch mountains. The present view represents the oldest front. In this chapelry was horn, in L578, the giant called the " Child of Hale.*' named John Middleton, who was possessed of extraordinary strength. He visited the court of .lames I., and a portrait of him is preserved in Brazennose College, Oxford. His hand was seventeen inches from the carpus to the end of the middle finger, Ins palm was eight inches and a half, and his height nine feet three inches! It appears that some Lancashire gentlemen dr< • 'I him '"with Large ruffs about his neck and hands, a striped doublet of crimson and white round his waist, a blue girdle embroidered with gold, large while plush breeches powdered with blue flowers; green stockings; broad shoes of a light colour. Inning red heels, and tied with large bows of red ribbon; and just below- his knees bandages of the same colour, with large bows ; and by his side a sword, suspended by a broad belt over his shoulder, and embroid- ered, as his girdle, with blue and gold, with the addition of gold fringe upon the edge.* 5 In such a costume, he must have been a tit match lor Gog and Magog ill the London Guildhall. His amazing size is said to have frightened away some thieves who came to rob his mother's house. In Garston chapelry is Aidburgh Hall, once the seat of the Tarleton family; and in the same chapelry Allerton Hall, the residence <>f Mr. Roscoe during one part of his lite, but which ceased to he such long before his decease, owing to the position in which this learned and excellent man was placed by ad- _ verse circumstan- ces. The house commands a fine view oyer the Mer- sev at its widest part, and the high lands about Run- corn. The estate _ formerly belonged to the Lathom family, of Parbold, near the town of Ormskirk. and was sold to an alderman of Liverpool, from whom Mr. Roscoe purchased it. The connexion with Allerton Hall of a name so distinguished will always make it remembered, for wherever the s,,ns of Genius inhabited, even " the wilderness is lio-int i:\il. Ami li illnucii in all time." l.W ENGLAND IN J UK NINETEENTH CENTURY I Wbolton Hall is a fine mansion, once the property of the Molyneuxs, and situated in the chapelry known by that name. There is a house called Roby Mall, oear Childwall Abbey, occupied by Mr. Edwards, a merchant of Liver- pool, said to stand in the place of one very old, which was there previously; and the present mansion was built by Mr. John Williamson of Liverpool, and was sold uol a great while ago to William Leigh, Esq., to whose son it now belongs. Mr. Roby, author of those amusing and clever volumes, the •• Traditions of Lancashire," is reported to have had an ancestral residence at this place. North of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway is the parish of Pr< which contains, with the town and township of that name, the township- of Eccleston, Fair. Windle-with-Hardshaw, and St. Helen- town. In W indie tow oship are the remains of a chapel, now called Windleshaw Abbey. PresCOl was made a living by royal charter in 1445, is eight miles from Liverpool north-eastward, and contains eleven almshouses, which have an income of 172/. : and a grammar-school, endowed with 159/. ; a town-hall, prison, mechanics* institution, and several subscription charities. The site of the town is high, and much coal is raised in its vicinity ; it has manufactories of earthenware, but is more celebrated for manufactures of small files, watch tools and movements, carried on also in the surrounding townships. The church here has a tower which, at no great height above the Level of the roof-ridge of the body of the church — up to that point being Gothic, with a window Inning a pointed arch— meets a broad cornice, and is carried with Doric pilasters, having a semi-gothic win- dow between them, to the base of a spire with a Palladian balustrade at tie' top, and urns at the angles ; then commences Gothic again in a spire with small windows. This lower and spire, the most extraordinary examples of bad taste we ever -aw . Were erected, the spire in 17!M). the body in 1820. In l'i( scot was born John Philip Kemble, the great- est actor on the English Btage after Garrick; the house in w hich he first saw the light i- here represented. John Keiuhle was born in February. 17oT. the -mi of the manager of a company of actor- who itinerated the country. I \\< ISHIRE. 137 and died February ^<>, l< s :. ); b at Laasanne, where he is buried. South of the railway line, bounded by ^__ the Mersey in the opposite direction, arc the tow aships of Cronton, Whiston, Rain- hill, Widness, Appleton, Bold, Penketh, Ghreat San- key, and Ditton. A rail- way from St. Helens to the Mersey, opposite Runcorn, passes through several of these townships. In Wid- ness (he church, or rather chapel, of Farnworth, built before 1433, is dedi- cated to St. Wilfred ; it possesses Borne ancient me- morials; and is here repre- sented. Great Sankey church in that township was re-built in 1768, and is a neat structure; that of Kainhill was erected in 1838. The parish of Walton-on-the-Hill, in the Kirkdale division of West Derby, contains the township of Walton, the church of which is said to be of Saxon origin, situated three miles north of Liverpool, and West Derby, Fazakerly, Bootle-with-Linacre, Everton, Kirkdale, Formby, Simonswood, and Kirkby townships. The church at Walton was rebuilt in lo'3(>, and in 1742; and contains a verv ancient font; the parish also includes eleven chapels ; a market, w ith a lair, was granted to it in 1£1£. There are endowed schools at Walton, Formby, West Derby, and Kirkby. Adjoining West Derby is the extra-parochial district <>f Croxteth Park, containing s 10 acres, and Croxteth Hall, a seat of Lord Sei'ton. East of Croxteth is Knowsley Hall and Park, in the chapelry of Huyton, in which also lb the district oi Roby: Knowsley is a Beat <>l the Earl of Derby, erected of brick at different periods, and of greal size, though an heterogeneous mixture of architectural styles. The park is extensive and well wooded, but the trees exhibit the effeel of the prevalent wind-, many of them sloping to the north east. 1 1 • more ancient part <>f the house is Gothic, and once had round towers, Baid to have been built by the firsl Earl of Derby for the reception <>t Henry VII., but according to other accounts only repaired by the first Marl for that purpose. Henry, who owed bo much to the Earl's politic conduct at BoSWOrtb 1'ield, and in gratitude for lib Bervices beheaded bis brother Sir William Stanley, under the pretext that he was concerned in the conspiracy that caused the rebellion of Perkin Warbeck, although the Bordid tyrant 138 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY : knew that Sir William had two years before raised 3000 men at his own private expense, and greatly contributed to place the crown upon his head. Sir William was one of the richest men in England; and the king, in his ruling passion, which was avarice, lusted after the possession of his wealth, and as the means of obtaining it, beheaded the brother of his mother's husband, his own chamberlain, wholly unsuspicious of offence, and actually pattered with a traitor named Clifford to procure evidence against him. hypocritically affected to believe the evidence untrue, pretended t<> scruples he did not feel, and then impatient of longer delaying the possession of the property of an innocent man, to whom lie in a great measure owed hi- crown, put him to death. Hume, ever the apologist of despotic power, while he admits the desire of Henry to seize Stanley's property, says that the only thing ever resembling proof brought against Stanley, in the farce denominated a state trial of those times, was, that he said, if "Warbeck was really the son of Prince Edward, he would not bear arms against him; although the unfor- tunate man had been long surrounded by the king's spies, who were endea- vouring to entrap him — without one shadow of other proof, and with these admissions, Hume insinuates that it was probable Stanley was a traitor, and had assisted "Warbeck with money, "as some assert!" After this murder ol Stanley by 1 icnry, he paid a visit in the following year to his father-in-law, grieving, report says, that the truth about Stanley had come too late ! This visit, according to some, was accompanied with the following incident. When the king had gone over the house at Lathom, his host conducted him to the leads to see the prospect, and the Earl's jester was present; who, observing the king near the verge of the roof, which was unprovided with a railing or parapet, went up to his master, and directing his attention to the fact, said, " Tom, remember Will."* The king heard the words, hastened down, and speedily left his father-in-law's residence. The jester afterwards seemed concerned that the opportunity was omitted of thus punishing the despot — a punishment which would have been well merited; and this was not the only lesson of royal gratitude for almost unparalleled devotion that the Stanley family were destined to learn. \\ hen the front of Knowsley was re-erected by the Earl of Derby, who died in 1785 ; to which house this nobleman made great additions, though not in very good taste, a- he built an Ionic and Doric front, with coupled columns, attached to an edifice partially in the old Gothic. He had engraved upon the front the following inscription, comme- morative of the treatment the family had received from Charles 11. Besides the destruction and loss of property, in the gallant defence of Lathom by the lady of James Earl ol' Derby in behalf of Charles I., when his son invaded England to try and obtain the throne by arms, the gallant Earl risked his life and joined Charles, certain to be punished as a traitor it' taken in a contest that was virtually a rebellion against the established government, had the " Kennett's M S. LANC \sillKK. 139 Karl not been before obnoxious to the ruling powers; and alter the battle of \\ orcester, being made prisoner, was ultimately beheaded at Bolton. When the Restoration occurred, both houses of Parliament agreed to restore the Karl of Derby's property to his family; for even those who mighl not have liked the cause, admired the single-heartedness and devotion of the man who had sealed his principles with his blood; but Charles II. refused t" sanction the return of tlu> Derby property, perhaps to favour some courtezan intrigue. ■■.lames Earl of Derby, Lord of Man ami the [ales, grandson of James Marl of Derby, by Charlotte, daughter of (lamle Duke of Tremouille, was be- headed at Bolton, the loth of October 1651, for strenuously adhering to King Charles II.. who refused a bill unanimously passed by both houses of Parlia- ment for restoring to the family the estates which he had lost by his loyalty to him." Such is the inscription to which we made allusion above. Mr. Pennant, in his zeal for the deservedly outcast Stuart race, has declared the inscription "calumniating;" though it would be difficult to prove truth in this or any other case to be calumny. There are paintings here of members of the Stanley family, and among them a portrait of Thomas Lord Stanley, whose conduct at the field of Bosworth decided the fate of the day, and obtained for him the earldom which the family now possesses; he died in 1504. He is represented dressed in black, with a bonnet and a ruff, holding a white wand. The portraits of the mother of Henry ATI., and of the third Earl of Derby, renowned for his hospitality, who kept 220 individuals in his pay, and fed threescore daily, besides all comers three times a week, and every Good Friday ^200, " with meat, drink, money, and money's worth;" and the portrait of .lames Earl of Derby who was beheaded at Bolton, and of his heroic lady, are all here. There are many interesting his- torical portraits besides in this princely man- sion, and sum,. good pictures by the Italian mas- ters. Annexed is a reprt a n- tation <>f one of the fronts of Knowsley Hall. Knowshy possess* i a collection of blemish picture by James Marl of Derby, who senl Mr. Winstanly, an artist, abroad for the purpos,. of Collecting them, about the commencement of tin- last century. that were purchased 140 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: Returning Into Liverpool, and passing out through the village of Kirk- dale, we proceeded along a payed road — for all the roads lure are paved with small stones lor miles together, and cause the most disagreeable jolting in a carriage, and to the pedestrian a sensation in the i'eet by no means agreeable — we soon reached the village of Walton, with its church and new tower, Inning a pleasant view of the country on the right-hand side, stretching far away, well wooded, and relieved by many abodes of mercantile opulence. As we proceeded, the right-hand side of the road increased in interest, until we reached the turnpike-gate on the road to Onnskirk, where some distant scenery burst upon the view; and objects on the left of the road, which before were of little interest, began to mend in some degree, and add to an agreeable though far from striking view of the country. Ixivington-l'ike, near Chorley, was distinctly visible, and the country about the shallow valley and chapehy of Fazakerly, with Knowsley Hall, the latter embosomed in dense woods. At length Ave came to the race-ground, between four and five miles from liver- pool, where a commodious inn is situated, called the Sefton Arms, close to the ground. The stand Avas built in 1829, and is a handsome structure, apparently Avell adapted for its object, four stories high, and capable of con- taining a great many spectators, for the leads will hold above tAVO thousand, and must afford a very extensive prospect; the course is a mile and a half round, railed the whole distance. Six thousand persons are accommodated in the interior stands; and avc were informed that 20,000/. had been expended upon the course and buildings, which arc in the parish of Aintree. Farther upon the left, is Sephton, or Sefton church, " bosomed in tufted trees," on the border of some fine mcadoAV land. This parish contains the toAvnships of Aintree on the right of the road at about the sixth milestone, Great and Little Crosby close to the sea shore, Litherland, Orrel and Ford, Thornton, Ince Blundcll, Nethcrton, and Lunt, all of which lie on the left of the Liverpool road to Ormskirk, except Aintree. Ince Blundell church. erected in 1111, was rebuilt 1520, and is a very handsome edifice, containing monuments of the Molyneuz and Blundell families, There are three episcopal and lbur catholic chapels in the parish of Sefton; much of the land in which is marsh, yet it lets for sixty shillings an acre. In Great Crosby there are two endowed schools ; one for grammar, ami one for girls; this parish is\isited as a bathing place. Sefton itself is seven miles north from Liverpool, and is both a parish and manor, once belonging to the Molyneux family by in- heritance from William de Moulin, an ancestor. The church is large and handsome, consisting of a nave, two aisles, and a tower with a steeple, owing its erection to Anthony Molyneux, a rector here about the time of Henry VIII. This church is separated from the nave by a screen, and contains sixteen stalls, remarkably well executed in carved work, and ornamented with grotesque figures ; and there is a fine carved canopv remaining over the pulpit, the workmanship of which is exceedingly beautiful, though much injured by I \\i \Mlil;l 1 11 time. Many of the Molyneux family are interred in this church, which con- tains a number of Hue monuments erected to differenl members of the family. The follow in- i^ a faithful representation of a part of the interior of this edifice. There arc two figures of knights templars here, cross-legged, with triangular shields; and theri' is an altar tomb to the memory of Sir Richard Molvneux and his wife, who died in 11-]!): Sir Richard wa> a distinguished combatant at the battle of Agincourt, where he was knighted by Benrj \ Sir William .Molvneux, who distinguished himself at Hodden Field, with his two wires, also lie- interred here; he died in 1648; and here, on brass plates, are recorded the deaths of his son, his two wives, and their children. There i- some painted glass je\ remaining, inscribed to members of the family. • The oldest of these monuments is thai to tbe memory of Richard Molyneui ami Joanna liis wife. The two monument* of tbe knights templan eihibit them in chain armour; bj their armorial shields thev are members of the same family. The monument upon Sir Richard .Molvneux who died in 1568, exhibits him placed between his two wives; liy the fust of whom he ha. I live sons ami eight daughters, ami by the second, Bre sons and one daughter, who are all ranged in order near their respective mothers. This tomb has the following inscription : — Dame Worshope was my guide in life, And diil my doings guide ; Dame Wertue left me not alone. When soule from bodye byed. Ami thoughe that deaths with dints of darts 11 i'li brought mj corps on ileepe, The eternal! Ood, my eternall sonic, i nally doetbe keeps. 1 !• ENGLAND l\ THE M M IT.KXTII i I \|i i:Y Melling and Maghull, on the right of the road, are townships, together with Lydiate and Down Holland, in tin- parish <>1' Balsall, the village of which lies three miles west of Ormskirk. The church of Salsall is a rich living, in the gilt of the Blundell family, dedicated to St. Cuthbert, erected in 1424, and containing some effigies and oaken stalls. At Ly- diate are the pict uresq ae ruins of a chapel built in 1520, and lo- cally denomi- nated the Ali- bey, of which the engraving will give a cor- rect idea. It was erected 1 y one of the Ire- land family in the time of Henry VIII. This ruin is richly clothed with ivy. the area is overgrown with brambles, and the long rank grass bends in wild luxuriance upon gravestones which time has rendered illegible, although it was used as a burying-place down to the early part of the last century : — thus comes oblivion, and o'er strewn remains And marr'd resemblances of eartb and heaven, Time strides, and mocks man and bis monuments ! Bordering upon HEalsall is the obscure parish of Altcar. situated among marshes. The church was elected in 174(i, and exhibits nothing worthy of remark, while the parishioners in this miasmatic district are wholly occupied in agricultural pursuits. There is one school and two charities here, and in Ilalsall there are three endowed schools; which parish i- further remarkable for it- extent of peat mosses. Aughton is a parish situated about two miles from Ormskirk. divided into Aughton and [JpHtherland. The church, built of stone, in the sixteenth century, stands near the road, and the roof, adorned with old carved work, is decorated with a Bpire; upon Aughton Common there are remnants of considerable entrenchments. The road, which all the way from Liverpool had been Hat, and only occasionally possessed of interest, here begun to ascend, in taet the entire parish of A.Ughton Btands upon ground higher than that to to the southward. At the distance from Ormskirk of about two mile-, the I \\. ISH I RE. l i.; western side of the mad here and there exhibited a good many trees, and Looked better all the way as it trended to the eastward, or in a direction further from the sea. Along the coast, the tlat shore terminates in a line of sand- hills, dreary and monotonous beyond idea, but they do not spread so far inland as they would Others ise do, from the care taken to plant rushes, and to preser\ e them from being cut. Some of the sandhills here are large, measuring half a mile at the base, the openings between them Looking miserably desolate: and just -within these hills, which afford some little shelter in their vicinity, moss or peat Land commences. Trees are rarely seen singly ; and when grouped, are shorn on one side by the keen western blast ; Large quantities of timber have notwithstanding been dug up in the peat mosses, and oaks are found embedded jusl below the surface, with their heads lying in one direction, the whole district abounding- with them. It would appear as if the sea had once covered the land here, and that afterwards the land had gained upon the sea. A le-, interesting line of coast we never saw; while the sea. from its shallowness to a great distance from the shore, exhibits few of its customary attractions. \\ e entered Ormskirk, thirteen miles from Liverpool, a little after noon, and found it to consist of one principal street, from which the main thoroughfare - branch off somewhat like the last letter but one of the alphabet; while there is a fourth small street, joining one of the other three near the termination. I' is a parish, township, and market town, in a district considered particularly healthy, and contains lie- sides its own township those of Lathom, Scarisbrick, Burscough, BickerstafFe,and Skelmersdale The church w a- greatly repaired in IT:.'!*; it stands on the rite of an- other that existed before the ( lonquest. Thesquaretower, bold, broad, and massy, pro- bably remained from the an- cient edifice, for it i- much tiniew orn, and carries marks of considerable antiquity. The tower and spire, it w ill be -.in, Btand separate, if tin- lower pari of what most people would call a spin' can be deemed a tow.r. Still, whenever erected, no satisfactory statement can be given to justify the above monstrosity in architecture. ■• V\ ho built this odd-looking church?" we asked a decent-looking farmi i- like individual who was reading the tombstones 144 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY : "That's more en I naw ; connaw zay, n<»r no mon elze I spoze." " Vou do not know much more aboul the matter than I do, 1 perceive, friend ; yon are not of this part of the county ?" " Naw, Ize be fro' o'er Morcom zands." This -was no satisfactory answer ; and directing our steps to a Becond and more intelligent person, we were informed that two maiden ladies repaired or reconstructed the church in the present grotesque manner, because they could not agree about connecting the towers together. Some of the windows have circular arches and the window-frames terminate in Gothic points, evidently of recent date, while over each is a narrow rim. sculptured with angels and cupids; from which execrable taste we suspect that the steeple was placed as it stands, under the idea that it was a happy thought, "a grace beyond the reach of art." There is a burial vault in this church in a chapel belonging to the Derby family, built after the dissolution of Burscough Priory; some of the monuments of the Stanleys, first erected at Burscough, are said to have been brought here ; and there arc effigies of ladies, supposed to be of that house. This church is dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul; the chapel of the Stanleys is on the south-east part. There is much modern work in the way of repair mixed up with the old, in architectural confusion; here an old Saxon door, and there a pointed or a modern round arch. The bells were brought from Burscough Priory, being divided between this church and Crouton. The spire has been several times rebuilt. There are many dilapidated monuments ; and near the stairs of the pulpit is a memorial to Mr. Ashton of Pankcth, who died in 1707, and was six feet seven inches in height; and besides the effigies of the ladies already alluded to in the Stanley chapel, there is the figure of a knight recumbent, half destroyed by time. Here lies too the heroic Charlotte dc Tremouille and her brave and headless husband. There is a free grammar school in Ormskirk, and an English one established by the Earl of Derby, together with several charitable benefactions; a town-hall, market, and court-house, are among the other public buildings. The township of Biekerstaffe in this parish contains nothing worthy of remark, and is entirely agricultural; the same may be said of Skelmersdale and Scarisbrick. Lathom also, in Ormskirk parish, was the source of great disappointment to us. We went to the spot of which we had read an account with the hope of seeing some traces of the house distinguished for the defence made by the Countess of Derby, Charlotte de Tremouille, on behalf of the Stuarts, lor which the Stanleys were so right royally requited; we expected to find some fragment upon which to connect an association with female heroism, but we were never more disappointed in any day-dream of our lives. The site of Lathom House, once the seat of the ancient family of that name, who possessed it before the Stanleys, stood on an uninteresting, extensive flat, upon which there is now a modern house with wings connected by a colonnade, erected by Sir Thomas Boothe, who obtained the land by purchase, about the 1 \\< \-!lli:r. 1 1') year 1724, the \ i rv antithesis of the picturesque or antique, than w hich we had rather have met with one fragment of the < > 1 < I building, one solitary turret, that might have cemented in Borne degree the present and the past. One tower did stand until 171 1, when Lathom passed by marriage to those who Beem to have had no feeling for its celebrity, and no value for ground hallowed by proud recollections of female spirit. We speak not here of the side espoused by the defenders of Lathom, it is enough that the sincerity of the actors in the deed performed was not to be impugned. It was in Kill that Sir Thomas Fairfax, on the part of the people of England, summoned Lathom, the Beat of the Karl of I )erhy. the ( 'otinte-s alone being at home. She demanded a we< k to consider, wondering "Sir Thomas Fairfax should require her to give up her Lord's house in his absence," and she employed that time in strengthening the defences, continuing to parley, and rejecting ultimately all the -conditions tendered. Fairfax at last insisted that the house should he evacuated by tin o'clock the next morning, and a Hat refusal was the result; the Countess declaring that though " a woman and a stranger, divorced from her friends and robbed of her estate, she was ready to receive their utmost violence, trusting in God for protection and deliverance." Hie siege endured from the commencement of .March to the twenty-third of May without success; the besieged making effective sallies, and the besiegers displaying a want of -kill in the use of their artillery which seems unaccountable. Fairfax had left the conduct of the siege to Colonel Rigby, and, on sending in a summon- to the Countess, she ordered the messenger to her presence, and told him he deserved to be hanged up at the gate. - - Carry," said she, " this answer hack to Rigby (tearing the paper), and tell that insolent rebel, he shall have neither persons, goods, nor house. When our strength and provisions are spent, we -hall find a fire more merciful than Rigbyj and then, it' the providence of God prevent it not, my good- and house -hall hum in his sight; and myself, children, and soldier-, rather than fall into his hands will seal our religion and loyalty in the same flames." The last summons was sent to thi- heroic woman on the twenty- third of May. after nearly three months of alarm and danger. She replied, •• the mercies of the wicked are cruel," and that unless they treated with her Lord, "they should never take her, nor any of her friends alive." Prince Rupert raised the siege booh afterward-, and the Countess with her family withdrew to the [sle of Man. The house was taken in the following year by General Egerton, and it- defences ruined. It stood upon a mossy flat, sur- rounded by a wall -i\ leet thick, having nine tower-, ami in each tower -i\ cannon-; and there wa- a high tower called " tl, tower" in tin' centre. The gatehouse was Btrong and high, upon all tin' tower- were placed the best mark-mi n of the Earl, with their fowling-pieces, taking oil' the offic< re'; the besiegers were unable to make any impression upon the wall-; and it i- said they Buffered severely. A good deal of the town-hip of Lathom still belongs to the Stanlej -. the re&idi n me of that family h.i\ ing been once 146 ENGLAND l\ THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: at Cross Hall. Blythe Hall, in Ormskirk township, is the residence of Mr. Bootle Wilbraham, whose lather, Lord Skelmersdale, resides at Lathom. The north-west cud of the town of Ormskirk commands an extensive prospect over a Level fertile country. The principal manufactories arc for cotton weaving, silk winding, and hat making. The best potatoes and carrots in Lancashire arc said to be grown here, and we can vouch for the fabrication of the best gingerbread, for scare* lv had we alighted at the Talbot inn, when we were offered by half-a-dozen fair hands together, little packets of gingerbread, in the way of purchase. " Buy my fine Ormskirk gingerbread — the best is made here," was an appeal impossible to be resisted; and we, in confessing its excellence afterwards at Preston, were told that it was a confection of far- spread notoriety. Some of the females who offered it too, came nearer the idea we had formed of Lancashire witches, from their witchery, than any of the sex we had before seen north of the Mersey, rather than their positive beauty. The Lancasterians may contend with the Yorkists for crowns and be \ Lctors, but must submit to be rivalled by them in the question of the Roses. Burscough Township is chiefly noted for a priory of black canons of that name, which stood there on the foundation of the Earls of Derby. It was dilapidated by Henry VIII. with the other religious houses, for the sake of its revenues; but the Prior was fortunate enough to secure a pension, which refutes the story of the king's having dissolved the house because its Prior was declared to be incontinent — the crime charged on almost all the heads of houses to disguise the real object: that unprincipled despot Avould have been glad of such a plea against the Prior, to refuse him a provision afterwards, had it been sustainable. The revenues were 1291. Is. 10(L, and the establishment bad existed for three hundred and fifty years. Previous to the dissolution, the ancestry of the Derby family had made Burscough their burying-place, hut they, as well as the brotherhood of Burscough, slept too soundly to be disturbed by the pickaxe of the royal plunderer, as the fragments of walls and monuments fell from the position of ages upon their unconscious ashes. It was evening when we walked from Ormskirk to Burscough, along the road that leads towards Preston, paved with round stones, the ground being too spongy, from its ancient moorland character, to sustain heavy car- riages and remain in a tolerable state of repair. Wo thought of the" Pilgrims and the Peas*' just after we left Ormskirk. looking in vain for a smooth track of mother earth, if Only six inches wide, as a relief to feet defended with some- thing much more susceptible of the inconvenience than a Lancashire sabot. The weather was calm and autumnal almost to sadness; the foliage "in the scar and yellow leaf;"" the shadows projected far into the road, and the sun was near the horizon ; in short it was an evening formed for a visit where " Ruin, ruthless king," mocked man and his monuments. At less than two miles from Ormskirk we discovered all that was left of the Priory, stand- in- in a very agreeable seclusion, not for from a little stream of water, and l.ANC ^SHIRE. 14' observed tlu^ grass growing as verdantly, and sheep feeding as undisturbedly upon what had been hallowed ground, as they did upon the vulgar surface elsewhere; upon ground hallowed for 350 years before the reign of the •• Defender of the Faith," by generation after generation of voices raised in worship to the skies. There too had been chanted for an equal time in behalf of the long train of departed lord- of th.it soil, as they were deposited in suc- cession in the la-t resting-place of their lather-, the solemn soul-thrilling hymn for the departed used by the Catholics, of which Sir Walter Scotl was so fond.* From the time of Richard Coeur dc Lion to the reign of Henry \ III. had those sounds been heard, incense ascended, and the pomp of the Catholic worship been displayed here; and of all this circumstance and locality, we found remaining hut two mouldering fragments of walls, hit like sepulchral -tone- in seclusion and solitude, to tell a tale of departed nun and things! they were but a few feet high, and they casl a shadow in the evening sun, diminutive and weak indeed to the mass of gloom and grandeur once flung down h\ tower and pinnacle, pointed arch and solid buttress. These remains are so slight as not to be worth a visit lor themselves, hut mighty for recalling those undying recollections of the past that cling to the heart and intertwine in every fibre of being. The parish of Rufford lies to the northward of Ormskirk, bounded on the west by that of North Meols, \: while the river Douglas limits it on the east; thewhole,withthe exception of some church property, belonging to Sir Thomas Hesketh of Rufford Hall. The church, once a chapel, is an ancient building, containing several monuments of the Heskeths. The improvement- of late years in draining land have reduced to com- paratively narrow boundaries the existence of the agues and intermit- tents with which, from the niar-hy nature of the soil, this parish was once much afflicted. Ruffbrd Old Hall, a remnant of Elizabethan architecture, built of wood filled in with brick and plas- tered, i- a very picturesque object ; the room- are paneled and ornamented with wood carving: it i- the reaidi " Diet in-, diet ilia. Crw is i ipandetu vexilla, Solvet Kclum in brilla! L48 LAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY '. of Mr. 'I nomas Henry Hesketh. The Xrw Hall, occupied by Sir Thomas the lather, was built in 1708, and lias nothing remarkable in its appearance; the entrance is by a portico of lour Ionic columns. There i- another fine old house in this parish, called Holmeswood House, occupied by a farmer. This flat country consists for the most part of drained. mosses covered with vegetable loam, beneath which lie large lives, many Beeming as it' they had been burned, all as if they had been torn up by the roots, and laid across each other in every direction. North of Rufiford is Tarleton parish, which contains no object worthy of notice. Hesketh and BecconsaU parish lie north- west of Tarleton, bounded itself north-west by the Kibble river, which at high water is full three miles across, but fordable when [the tide is out. The parish church is best known as Keceonsall Chapel. Fleetwood, recorder of London in 1560, was born in this parish; he published "DucatusLancastri and several law works. North Meols is a village by the sea side, and a parish nine miles north-west from Ormskirk, and south of Hesketh and Beccon-.dl. containing- a division called Birkdale. The church, built in 1571, is small, dedicated to St. Cuthbert, and possesses memorials of the Hesketh and Fleet- wood families. That the sea covered this part of Lancashire formerly is evident, as layers of shells are found only four or five feet beneath the surface in digging the graves in the churchyard. Meols Hall, a fine old building lure, is tenanted by a farmer. Two miles from North Meols is Southport, a bathing place, nearly opposite to Lytham, on the northern bank of the Kibble. This town, now a fashionable bathing-place among the Lancastrians, is situated amid dreary sand-banks, having no recommendation from nature beyond a pure sea air. The houses have increased from 38 in 1809, to 350, and the population to about 1000. Birkdale is the southern division of North Meols, the coast of which is covered with sand-hills, and contains a part of Mciton, vulgarly " Martin Meer," once an extensive morass passing into five or sis neighbouring parishes. In 1. eland's time, it was four miles long and two broad, and emptied itself into the sea. About 1692, Mi - . Fleetwood of Bank Hall commenced draining this meer by a sluice shutting and opening with the tide, and died with the idea that he had completed the work. When the water was drained off, eight canoes were found, scooped out of the trunks of trees in the same mode as they are made among the Indian- of the Pacific at this day. one of them had plates of iron fixed upon it, . ad all were anterior perhaps to the wicker boats covered with skins, found to be used by the natives of these islands upon their invasion by the Romans. We have given a sketch of one of these rude bark-, constructed when the I \M LSH I RE. 1 19 war-ship of a hundred guns, made by the descendants of the same natives, could not have been imaged in the wildest dream of those who fabricated such rude craft. The connexion between the two occupying a space of L800 years of progressive art, co-extensive with the march from barbarism to civilization — from naked painted bodies, or raw sheepskin clothing, to robea of cotton and satin, Indian muslins and Cashmere shawls. In 1755 the Meer was again inundated by a very high tide, owing to the insufficiency of the sluice gates, and Mr. Eccleston, of Scarisbrick, made a second attempt to drain it and succeeded, until 17S<>, when a partial inunda- tion happened from a breach in the banks of the river Douglas, hut extensive injury was prevented by the action of some stopgates, which had been provi- dentially set up to guard against such an accident. In 1813 the sea gates were swept away, and the Stopgates again saved the land. Since that year a great deal has been effectually done for a portion of the Meer, which i- become good land. The landowners were not for a long time able to agree so as to undertake the task themselves, or to accept the terms of others, w ho offered to undertake' the task upon having the land granted to them for a term of years. Returning to Ormskirk, and passing by Skelmcrsdale, leaving Dalton, a township of Wigan, upon the left of our route, in which the principal building i- Ashhurst Hall, with an ancient gateway, now held by a farmer, we reached I pholland, another township in Wigan parish ; one of the most old-fashioned looking places, with breakneck streets, down which we were ever driven. It stands on the side of a steep hill, which the streets descend, and where the carriage road zigzags in no manner agreeable. I 'pholland is thought to have been once the m at of a Saxon chief: and BOme antiquities, believed to be Roman, particularly the figure of an idol, have been found here. In the reign of Edward I. it was held of Edmund Rail of Lancaster, and the Rail's suc- cessor gave it to Sir Robert de Holland, who endowed a chapel here, dedicated to St. Thomas, afterwards changed into a priory of Renedictine monks. Passing from the Holland-, to the Lovells, by whom being forfeited, it came to the Rail of Derby; it was sold by the daughter of the ninth earl of that name to the A-hur-t family, and subsequently purchased 1>\ sir Thomas Rootle. Leland speaks of the Priory a- one of "Blake Monkes, a two miles from \\ i_.ui. The Wottons were founders there." The Hollands were a family marked out by misfortune: the lasl of the race, during the first depositions of I I tin y \ [., became a fugitive in Flanders, though jusl be ton- he was possessed of great power; and i- -aid to have been -ecu running barefooted to ask aim- in a foreign Land. He fought lor his master at the battle of Barnet, became dependent upon a servant for subsistence, and at last was picked up a corpse floating in the sea off Dover. The present ruin- of tin' Priory consist of ivied wall-, in which some of the Btone-work of the windows \ IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: arc to be traced foundations, with fragments of arches. The church or chapel, which is extra-parochial, is a fine old building, having a -olid tower, over which the ivy creeps, and renders it a highly picturesque object. One of the windows is a beautiful specimen of skill and taste, mosl ingeniously designed, and rilled with painted glass put together in confusion, it i- probable, from all parts of the Priory; the windows are all inure or Less adorned with this material, and some of the colours arc exceedingly rich. The interior exhibits a nave, side aisles, and chancel; and before it was deteriorated by modern additions, must have had a very striking effect, from the loftiness and massive construction of the different parts. A little north of Upholland is the township of Orrel, lying on the Douglas river, which rises near Wigan, and falls into the estuary of the Kibble. There are extensive coal mines in this parish, which contains a mansion of Elizabeth's time, called Orrel Hall, used as a farmhouse; and a nunnery of forty-two French ladies, who, flying to England during the Revolution, first settled in Yorkshire, and then removed to Orrel. Pemberton is another township near Wigan. very populous; to the marvel of our forefathers it contained a well, the site of which is now unknown, like that at llindley, near Hindlev llall, renowned for taking fire upon a lighted candle being brought in contact with the surface. As there are at present one or two places whence carburetted hydrogen issues from the ground, which will take fire in the same manner, the phenomenon was, in all probability, precisely similar in origin. Winstanley, a district lying south-west of Wigan, and rich in coal mines, has on its border the township of Billinge, composed of two hamlets, and possess- ing, from the top of an eminence called Billinge chapel, a prospect extending over sixteen counties, serving too as a landmark for shipping. South-cast of this township lie those of Ashton in Makerfield, and Hay dock; the latter call- ing for no particular notice, other than that it was partly the property of the unfortunate family of Holland. Ashton in Makerfield is the largest township in Winwick parish, and this whole township once belonged to the Bryns of Bryn Hall, from whence it came to the present Sir John Gerard, whose family is one of the oldest in England. The hall is said to have been a fine old place of residence, and is connected with the persecution of a Roman Catholic priest, and lii- execution by hanging, drawing and quartering, as late as the reign of Charles 1. in 1628.* He was executed on the charge of crediting the • Mr. lioby, in his Traditions of Lancashire, professing t<> give the fact upon which lie founded one of liis talis, accuses the unfortunate priest of rape, and states that he was executed for thai crime in the reign of William III. That gentleman says — "not less devoid of truth is the tradition that Arrowsmith was hanged for making « good confession. Having been found guilty of a rape, in all probability this story of liis martyrdom and miraculous attestation to the truth of the cause for which lie Buffered, were contrived for the purpose of preventing the scandal that might come upon the church through the delinquency of an unworthy member." All this Mr. Elobj gives as from himself, and mentions a curse pronounced by Father Arrowsmith upon the under-shei ill", who executed him, in the reign of \\ illiam 111. Now Ariowsinith was hung, under sanction of an atrocious law, for no other LANCASHIRE. 151 faith of his forefathers, and of prevailing upon others to give credit to the same belief. The hand of the Father Arrowsmith thus executed, for thai was his name, was believed by the vulgar in Lancashire to be as capable of working cures as the royal touch, and is said to have been applied to that superstitious purpose at a later period; and truly if any miserable fragment of mutilated humanity were capable of performing such absurdities upon the ground of perfect freedom from stain, in the sight of heaven, for what a flagitious act of Legislation had constituted a crime, it Mould be thai of one judicially assassi- nated for his conscientious belief in his own creed — a (reed too \\ hich had been that of his country for more than a thousand preceding years. We were spared. owing to a want of room in another part of this work,* from giving the revolt- ing details of a similar case, involving the fate of a man of consideration in the davs of Queen Elizabeth, whose fortune was the marked prey of rapacious courtiers, — when we too truly observed that the only difference between the parties of those times -was, that one of them burned and the other only hung their \ ietims. We entered the town of Wigan on a market-day, when the weather Mas Mann and the hue of the houses anything but cheerful, the coal smoke being amply seconded in dinginess by the pavement covered thickly with dark dust which the feet of the crowd of passengers kept continually in motion. Although a place of considerable antiquity, and remarkable, more particu- larly, as the arena of several contests during the wars between the Stuarts and the people. Wigan is now chiefly known as a seat of peaceful manufacture, both of cotton and metals, being situated among coal mines. The ncighbour- h 1 is noted for producing the species well known as ( 'annal or Gannal coal. which may be turned in a lathe, and gives out a bright light when burning; it is found in beds about three feet thick, (hep in the earth, compared with other kinds of the same mineral. The parish of Wigan, ten miles long and six broad, once afforded a lingular proof of the abuses of the old times in the administration of tin law when committing temporal authority to spiritual men. The rector being lord of the manor of Wigan, was cited to the a^-i/es for acts committed in the latter character, which he had carried beyond all bounds of justice, and it would appear of common decency, in matters of thai nature, even in those days. reason hut because he bad taken ordera as a Catholic priest, and bad endeavoured to pi avail upon others to bo of his own faith. For iliis offence, and for tins offence alone, in 1<>"JS, in the rci^n, not of William III., but of Charles I., was he tried at [.anrattw assises, and hanged, drawn and quartered, in tin- -.ami' year that Edmund sshton, Esq. was sheriff 1 . Mr. Roby might have seen what was the real state of the case in the same History of Lancashire as that which ho repeatedly quotes, li is no unfounded charge against modern novel writing thai it tends to invalidate the truths of history. Those who read hooks superficially, or merely for amusement at fust, and turn afterwards from romance to cohl fact, find it difficult to divisl the mind of what has been previously impressed upon it in the waini colouring of the writer of fiction. * - i.thern l)i\isi,7!». with an appropriate inscription. Sir Thomas appears to have been a chivalrous gentleman, as well as a determined friend of the Stuarts: his hist supposed 1. \\C V — 111 I.T 158 male heir joined the Pretender's Btandard in 17 !•">. There is a picture of him extant; dressed in a cuirass with a buff jacket, his hair over his Bhoulders in the manner of bis time. It bears the stamp of a gentlemanly carriage, with agreeable and good features, the very sight of which causes regrel thai Buch men Bhould have ever been arrayed againsl each other on their own ground. In the contesl in Wigan-lane, besides Sir Thomas Tyldesley, Lord \\ r id- drington, one colonel, two majors, and a number of other officers, fell i and five colonels, four lieutenant-colonels, a major, lour captains, two lieutenants, and lour hundred men, were made prisoners. The Pretender remained in Wigan for one night in 1745, and levied contributions; but it docs not appear that any other occurrence of moment took place, as he was on his retreat to the North, with the Duke of Cumberland moving in pursuit. The charities of \\ igan are numerous, and do great honour to the inhabi- tants, being directed to almost every praiseworthy object; and there are among them no less than thirty-five Sunday and Charity schools, instructing nearly 8000 children. The town-hall, which is built of brick, was erected in 17J0 ; the sessions-house was rebuilt in 1829; while the borough gaol bears as old a date .i- the reign of Henry VIII. Wigan has a public dispensary, a barrack Conned out of the old Cloth-hall, and a hundred and fifteen steam-engines, with a united power of !211o horses ; it keeps two weekly markets and three annual fairs. Near Standish Gate, on the left-hand side going out of the town, is the remnant of an ancient cross, which seems, from some engravings of no very old date, to be recently altered, or the pavement raised round it and the houses be- hind it reconstructed. We have given the representa- tion as it now stands. This is the remnant of Mab'a ( Iross, connected with a singular Btory. Wo have already alluded to a muti- lated monument in Wigan church over the remains of Sii- William Bradshaighe, a military man, and his lady Mabell. Sir William, w ho was fond of travelling, lived in the reign of Edward III., and having gone away from home as it vras supposed to the wars, and nothing being heard of him for ten year-, hi- wif«- Mabell, heiress of Hugh Noma de rXaighe and lot ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: Blackrode, haying given up her husband for dead, as she very well might have done, married a Welch knight. At length Sir William made his appear- ance at home in a pilgrim's garb, and came to Haighe among the poor, who were in the habit of going there for alms. The Lady Mabel! seeing him, his resemblance t<> her husband, whom she thought dead, struck her so much that she weptj for which very natural feeling her new spouse chastised her in that choler to which Welchmen are said to be rather prone. Upon this Sir William went round to his tenantry and made himself known to them, when the Welch knight betook himself to his heels, was overtaken by Sir William near Newton Park, and killed. The confessor of Dame Mabell, in consequence of her involuntary offence, enjoined her to go once a week while she lived, barefooted and barelegged, from the Haighe where she resided to the cross which is called Mab's Cross to this day. in memory of the circum- stance. This, it must be confessed, was a hard sentence after a ten y supposed widowhood, at least it would be thought so in modern times, when the grief of widowhood is generally much shorter lived. It is said that Sir William and Lady Mabell, the weekly pilgrimage notwithstanding, lived very happily together afterwards. Haighe, the place of their residence, is called Hawe by Leland, "who says, " Mr. Bradeshau hath a place called Hawe about a myle from Wigan. He hath founde moche canel like se coole, in hi> grounde, very profitable to him, and Gcradc of Ynsc dwelleth in that paroch." Haighe Hall had been the seat of the Norris family down to the reign of Edward HI., the heiress of which family marrying Sir William Bradshaighe, it came by a more recent marriage to the sixth Earl of Balcarras, Baron Wigan, and is the property of the present earl. There is an old picture extant of the hall and gardens, as laid out in the Flemish fashion, at the beginning of the Last century.* Proceeding towards Preston town, wc find on the western side of the railroad going northward from Wigan, part of the parish of Standish, in Leyland hundred, containing in all ten townships. Standish Hall, the seal of the family of that name, has been modernized, and is remarkable a- being the place where the " Lancashire Plot " of 1694 was concocted, for replacing the Stuarts on the British throne. There were once thirty-two halls in this parish, of which Langtree and Bradley are the principal thai arc Left. There are some antique crosses here, and the church is a handsome structure, in the 'lu-can order of architecture, erected in L 584, by Richard Moodi, who had been a monk, and whose figure lies recumbenl upon a tomb within. The advowson <>f this church has been in the Standish family for TOO years. The church spire was blown down in 1806; there is a chapel of the Standishes within the church, and numerous monuments and inscriptions, one of which, to the memory of Mr. Watt of Oakhill. executed by the elder Bacon, is a pleasing piece of sculpture. The township.- in this parish do not call for • I « . i i i n.' s I ...i,. ., i.ii p. vol, iii. LANCASHIRE. 155 particular notice, but in that of Coppnll is Blainscq Hall, once the residence of the ancient family of the name. Keeleston parish, to the north of Standish, com- prises the townships of Parbold, Heskin, and Wrightington, and is watered by tin- Farrow river, which rises near Chorley, and joining the Lostock more to the northward, falls into the Douglas. It has a ehureh of considerable antiquity Lying in some flat meadows a little way from the village, having one aisle, a nave, and chancel — the eastern window decorated with painted glass; the date of it- erection it is difficult to discover amid the modern reparations. Here the curfew continues to be rung. Parhold and Wrightington town- ships contain good coal mines and stone quarries; — Wrightington Hall i- almost wholly an edifice of the last century, with a few portions of the ancient house, standing in a fine park. Horrock Hall, the seal of the Rigby family, is an old stone edifice, and belonged to the Colonel Rigby distinguished during the wars in the time of Charles I. Croston parish lies on the north- west, clipped of the township of lloole in 1642, which was made a distinct parish; of Chorley, cut off in 1793, at the instance of the rector, as well as RufFord, to provide two livings for two of his sons; of Tarleton, and of Hesketh, with Bccconsall, taken away in 1821, by which means the rector and vicar of Croston was enabled to hold these parishes for his life. Croston parish, beside its own township, was reduced to those ofBispham, Bretherton, Mawdsley, and Ulnes Walton. Croston borders on the river Douglas, which falls into the estuary of the Kibble; the parish church is a large building, containing the two chapels of RufFord and Bccconsall, with a square tower of a construction exceedingly solid; the roof within is flat and paneled. This church was bnilt upon the site of one of an older date, in the Kith century. The village of Croston Mauds on the banks of the river Yarrow, and there is much low land in its \icinity. The townships of Mawdsley, Ui-pham, Bretherton, and Ulnes, do not possess any object worthy of remark, except Bank Hall, a fine old brick mansion in the style of Elizabeth, erected in 1608, once the residence of the family of Banastre, and now the property of Mi. Leigh Keck. .Much Hoolc parish contains nothing of interest, and the va,,,, may he said of Little lloole; agues are prevalent overall this district, from the marshy nature of the soil. Leyland, which lies north of Eccleston, gives name to the hundred of Leylandj and contain- nine townships : of the-e, Euxton Btands on the high road to Preston from Wigan, having the river Farrow on the south; the manor belonging to Mr. Longworth of Liverpool, by purchase; the other town- ships in this parish Lying to the t astward of the road to Preston, we pass over for the moment. Edward the Confessor i- said to have held the manor of Leyland: the church stands on high -round on one side of the village, a roomy fabric, the body in the modern taste, elected in 1816, but the tower i- a remnant of the former structure, which was of old English architecture more than com- monly imp osing. A -tone in the churchyard mark- wh. re r< St the ashes of 156 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENT! ftl : the last of tin' family of the Weardens, and is dated in the 14th century. There were two Edward Shakespeare, vicars lure The principal old residences are Warden Hall, belonging to the Farrington family, erected in 1509; an old hall, a seat of the ( lharnocks, ofwhom the divine Edward Char- nock was one. 1\ nw orthain is a township and parish comprising those of Longton, Howick, Farrington, and Sutton. The parish church is within a mile and a hall' of the populous town of Preston, and there was here a monas- ter) of Benedictines established from Evesham very soon after the Norman Conquest, which came into the Fleetwood family upon the suppression of the monastic establishments in the 15th century, and was fitted up and inhabited by them until they sold it. After passing through several hamK.it came to the Etev. Et. A Rawstone by purchase. The church i- dedicated to St. Mary, and was erected about the commencement of the 15th century; it has been recently repaired in the modern taste, we had rather it had been restored to its pristine architectural state. IVnwortham Hall is a modern edifice, erected by Mr. Law- rence Rawstone, in 183^, and commands a fine view of the Kibble, with the adjacent shores. Howick is a small township, and with Hutton, Farrington. and Langton, exhibits nothing remarkable; but some Roman antiquities and part of a Roman road have been found in the vicinity of these townships. 'The buried timber, or more properly subterranean forest, to which we have already adverted as existing in the west of Lancashire, is frequently disclosed by the removal of the sand, and trees are abstracted from beneath it, but not of so large a size as those found more to the southward. Passing Walton le Dale, alter crossing the Derwent, the road leading over rich 1<'\\ meadow ground, we come to the Kibble, here a noble stream, flow- ing along parallel with, and not far from the hill which, rising abruptly from the Level beneath, carries upon its summit Kreston, or as the Lancastrians term it "Proud Kreston." 'I he site is imposing and beautiful from the southern approach, even the chimneys of the cotton manufactories, that rival the church tower in height, do not appear so unsightly as in other places; the smoke too. from the elevated situation of the town. Seems to hang about it much less than about other manufacturing places not so happy in position. On • Qtering the town, the streets are found to be Bpacious and well built, but the customary hue of a southern Lancashire town is everywhere discovered, as if the blackness of the coal and the whiteness of the cotton were blended. to form that prevalent dinginess of external objects, which is so unsightly, 1 1 ion. (ton "us, and wearisome to the vision, in the towns of this count v. Preston, in the centre of Lancashire and hundred of Amounderness, is a place of great antiquity, and until the commencement of the last century appears to have stood first in the county for wealth, although inferior to Manchester in population. Charles I. made a greater demand upon Preston for ship-money, than upon any other tov\ n in the county. It thrives its name from having been once much occupied 1>\ ecclesiastics, at the time when the Ht LANCASHIBB. 1">7 hundred of Amounderness belonged to the ( lathedral of York. The celebrated guild of merchants, called Preston Guild, had its origin about 1329, though some think it to be of a much older date; and the Custumale of this town is ;I curious document, securing privileges, some of them of a very singular kind, nor are the penalties annexed much less - i. Debtors, being burgesses, were it appears to be ducked on the cuckstool for the fourth offence j hut to he- at mercy for the sum of twelvepence for three offences, provided the debt were incurred for bread and ale. [fa man's wife be lying-in of a son, and lie pleaded it, he was excused from obeying a justice's Bummons to go upon an expedition. It' any one called a married woman a naughty name, and no witnesses were forthcoming, she might clear herself upon oath ; and then he who Mas guilty of so calling her, was " to take himself by the nose, and say he had spoken a lie.'' , * The document, TOO years old, declares it to be the law of Preston "which they have from the law of the Bretons." There were formerly two monastic institutions in Preston, one called the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, the other a monastery of grey friars; the last was a prison until about fifty years ago, and traces of it yet remain. In the war between Charles I. and the people of England, Preston was first occupied by t lie- royal party, but was quickly captured by the Parliament forces, and the mayor killed in the storm. The Earl of Derby afterwards retook it, and demolished the defences, and it was close to Preston that Cromwell routed the Scotch army in 1648, after Sir Marniadukc Longdate had joined. The battle was fought by the Kibble, and though Cromwell's strength was not hall' that of his opponents, they lost in two days 15,000 men out of £6,000, the remainder being nearly all taken or slain soon afterwards. Preston received several charters, and two in the reign of Charles II. Among other superstitions of the time, the corporation in 1680 voted five shillings to support the expense of two daughters <>f indigent burgesses going to ( Chester to get cured by the royal touch, [nil 15, the town being oc< upied by the Pretender's forces, it was attacked and partly carried by storm, when the garrison surrendered. In 17 L5, the Pre tender remained but a very short time at Preston on his retreat. There was once established in Preston a Jacobite club, under the name of the '"Mayor and Corporation of the Ancient Borough of Walton:" it pos- sessed all the insignia of a corporate body, and was continued Long after the political objed which created it had ceased,* mOSl probably out of good fellow- ship. Richard Arkwright was born at Pit-ton in L782; and here, in a tattered dress, he commenced in conjunction with a mechanic named .John ECay, in 1768, some of his improvements in the cotton-spinning mechanism, which afterwards he followed up with so much BUCCesS. The first cotton niaiiuf • in Preston was established in 1777. There are fifty-two Bteam-engines in the town, having an aj power of about fifteen hundred horses. There is abo a good deal of flax spinning exi < uted here. • BuDt - I . ■ , Mil. iv. 158 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Preston consisted originally of a good street, running nearly cast and west, on the right side of which, going westwards, was the market-place, and out of this Fryer-street led north westwards^ The main street was called Fisher- street, and eastwards en- tered Church-street, which was a continuation of the right line, having the church at the commencement, be- low which edifice, on the opposite side, is the present gaol. Time has not changed the plan of the town, for the great additions made are only branches from this centre; the streets are w ide and commodious, the hous< 9 well built, and the ap- proaches good in all direc- tions. The engraving shews the market place. The gaol is a large building, seemingly well adapted for the purposes for which it was erected, and contains a hundred and eighty cells; there is a chapel and treadmill, and adjoining are a convenient court-house and sessions- hall. This prison is said to be very well regulated; but we were somewhat startled in seeing cannon mounted upon the angles of the building, and pointed up and down the streets. AVe were told that they were placed there some time ago, upon an apprehension of violence in the town; but that appre- hension over, they should have been removed from a building where the moral force of the laws alone should be exhibited, not instruments of violence. There are several churches in Preston; the old, or parish church, is dedicated to St. Wilfred ; and we never saw an ecclesiastical structure with so little about it that is interesting; the registers arc of no earlier date than 1611. In all there are four churches and one Episcopal chapel, two Roman Catholic, and thirteen other chapels belonging to different denominations of dissenters. There is a guildhall, built about IT*':.': the town-hall was completed in 17 s .'; and there is a coin exchange, a cloth and a market hall. There are gas and water works, by which the town is well lit and supplied with water; and it possesses a library, called the " Palatine** library; a " Preston Institution for the Diffusion of Knowledge," with a library and museum; a law library, an agricultural society, a theatre, and public walks. Preston is a port; vessels of 150 tons ascending nearly to the town, and about :>0,000 tons of goods are entered, both inwards and outwards, annually. There is a fishery too in LANCASHIRE. 159 tli.' Ribble, belonging to the borough; the population of which is reckoned about 10.000. Preston possessed no Less than Beven charters, including the two before mentioned, Borne of which Beem to have conferred upon it the impolitic and tyrannical power, too common, of excluding from Living in towns or cities and taii\ ing on business in them, all not freemen, or \\ ho do not pay large Bums of money for the permission, to be expended in corporation feastings, In m itl connected with municipal affairs, Preston was Inn-- distinguished before the Municipal Reform Act. What arc called the Guilds of Preston, at which the corporation enacted bye-laws and confirmed their privileges, is peculiar. These arc held every twenty years, when the Trades, as they are called, meet with banners and music, form a procession, and keep up a species of carnival, at considerable cosl to the town. The ladies of all degrees equally partake in the festival; and halls and feastings are the order of the day. It is said that this species of municipal jubilee has been kept up for two centuries and half. and that it is wholly a local custom. Hie different companies or trades, after the amusements of the time are over, attend to some formalities before the corporation officers, and tin- guild adjourns for twenty years. The inhabitants of Preston, according to rumour, assume an air of the l and of high breeding, which has conferred upon the town the epithet of " proud," already mentioned; even beardless young gentlemen make an effort to appear something, and among both sexes there is a perpetual effort to walk upon stilts. \\\. savv nothing of the kind in the place, and must attribute the slander to the jealousy of those domiciliated in some less fortunate town of the county than Preston in building and situation, and in addition perhaps t<» a rival feeling, where cotton is Less successfully manufactured. The borough of Preston, comprising Fishwick, returns two members to Parliament; the parish includes nine townships, namely — Preston, Barton, Fishwick, Elston, Broughton, Grimsargh with Brockholes, Eaighton, Lea, Ashton, Lngol and Cottam, and Ribbleton, In the town are fifty-five day, seventeen Sunday, and nine boarding schools; ami the Sunday scholars, gra- tuitously educated, are said t<> be 10,000 in number; there are also several charities, and societies for charitable purposes, in the town and parish. We shall now change OUT ground a little south-eastwards, in older to finish our itinerary of the hundreds ofSalford and Leyland, and then proceed north- wards into those of' Blackburn and Amounderness, For this purpose « out early in the dusk of a February morning, from the northern Buburb of ichester, intending to survey a districl comprehended by a line drawn from Manchester to ((.Inc. from Colne to Clitheroe, from Clitheroe to Black- burn, from Blackburn to Chorley, and thence t" Wigan, including Haslingden, Bury, and Bolton — a part of Lancashire which has other claims to attention besides being the great Beat of the cotton manufacture, and in which the anti- quarian, the historian, and the Lover of the picturesque, may find abundant 160 ENGLAND IN" 1IIF NINETEENTH CENTURY: sources of gratification. As we passed along the streets we were much Btruck by thousands of Lights proceeding from the windows of the factories, which opened oul before us m the shape of a crescent, skirting the dark horizon. The streets themselves were bare and silent, except thai every now and then we came upon a gin-shop — last to close and first to open of all the other marts — which shone bright and looked invitingly, bul mostly presented a dark contrast in the squalid figures and sad countenances of the pitiable frequenters. Passing on we saw a group, which is no unusual sighl in this manufacturing metropolis, a family of Irish peasants just entering the town. It consisted of father, mother, and three children. Like the ancient philosopher, they, in appearance, carried all their treasures with them. The man — a gaunt figure, trod on before, with a huge stick for his support, and rags alone for his cover- ing; barefooted, and looking as keen with tasting and hoping as his own mountain air. The woman, scarcely above four feet, bore in the hood of her tattered cloak, a huge fat child of two years old, who was devouring a Lump of bread. The little creature, short, thin, and wan, seemed to totter under her load. Some distance behind, almost naked and footworn, came a boy of ten years of age, followed by a girl somewhat his senior, equally wearj , and nearly as badly clad. There they were, going to establish themselves in some dark damp cellar, and make another painful experiment in the art of subsisting on the Leasl possible sustenance, and in the worst possible condition. It was pleasing to find ourselves drawing near to the fresh air of the country, and ere long we found other and more pleasing objects of contempla- tion. Pursuing an agreeable walk, through a country di- versified with well wooded inequalities, rivulets, and handsome mansions, we ar- rived at a gate on the right of the road, which, not far from the village of lilake- le\ , led to the " ]>oggart"s- clough," or as it is generally termed by the natives •• Bog- Jgart-hole." The word ap- pears to he a corruption of Bwgheist* Certainly die ideal being itself is o\ on still well known, and no little feared in the rural districts of Lancashire. The " clough" is a long cleft or dell between two rocks, * The etymology of Boggart is uncertain. Bug and Bogle are probably other forma of it. Hotli of these words arc of Ccliic origin, and signify to frighten. In Matthew's Bible, I'-alm xci. '). i ' • ■'-' r I w< LSHIRE. llil the Bides of which rise abruptly, and leave a narrow pass, widening a little here and there, through which flows a small broOk. In Bpite Of the repeated invasions of trade, with its unpicturesque accompaniments, the place presents some interesting not to say romantic points of view, and affords in the midst of summer a cool Bhady retreat, which the good people of Manchester seem strangely to neglect In days ,.f yore however, an honest farmer, who resided on the top of the " Clough," was sorely annoyed by its unearthly tenant. Night after nighl the sprite paid his unwelcome visits. Trick- of all kinds were played; sometimes the milk was churned, at other- it was overset; the beds were stripped of their covering; the maids found theni- Belves in the morning either on the floor, or with their heels on the pillows; rendered, " Thou slialt not be afraid for any Bugs by night." ll»h was the name of a fierce Gothic general, son of Odin. The hobgoblin mentioned in the text bears some resemblance to Robin-Good- Fellow, concerning whose pranks there is an eminently beautiful poem ascribed to Ben Jonson (" Iteliques of Ancient Poetry, \ol. iv.), a stanza or two of which we quote, if only to shew how admirably the rhythm is adapted to the subject — From Oberon, in faiiye land, The king of ghosts and shadows there, Mad Robin I, at his command, Am sent to view the night-sports here. What revel! rout Is kept about, In every corner where I go, I will o'er see And merry bee, And make good sport, with ho, ho, ho! More swift than lightening can I Bye About this aery welkin soone, And in a minute's space desciye Each thing that's done belowe the moone, There's not a L Or ghost shall wag, Or cry, "ware goblins," where I go; Rut Robin I There feates will spy, And send them home, with ho, ho, ho! Then follows a deacription of his doings, which shew th it he COuld lease and terrify as well as amuse. The sprite in our legend, however, seems more like a brother of his— not so genei.ilK known — Robbt-Bad'FeOow, thus set forth in an old tract We meet with Robin- Bad- Fellow a-nighta, That enters house-; secret in the il.uk, And only comes to pilfer, slc.de and sharke, And as the one m.ide dishes clean | th. J The other takes them quite anil cle.n.e ,n\.u. What 'ere it lie that in within his reach. The filching tiieke he doth his fingers teach. 102 ENGLAND IN Mil. NINETEENTH CENTTJEY : the children started in their sleep, their hair bristled up, their eyeballs rolled, they woke and wept! The master of the house tried every remedy, patience last of all; and when this i'ailed him, he made np his mind to " flit.*' All was soon ready for the removal ; the wagons were Loaded over night, only a few more fearful hour- and they would he far enough from the goblin and his " hole." The family for Once contented themselves with straw beds. Tn the morning they were surprised to find how comfortably they had all slept, and now congratulated each other that as the Iiuggart saw they were in earnest, he had made up his mind to part company in a quiet, friendly manner. Breakfast wa- soon over, the horses were yoked, the carriages moved. "Thank Cod," said the farmer, " we are flitting at last." " Yes."" cried a voice (but too well known) as from the top of the first wagon, " and I'm flitting wi' ye." We entered the cleft, and looked in vain for the abode of the Boggart, but were abundantly repaid by the beauty of the scenery. Coming from the other end of the dell, a boy met us of the true Lancashire ,:\ breed, his breast uncovered, . .. his head bare and uncomb- ed, his eyes and mouth lull of broad quiet fun, with something like cunning in his look, and signs of health and strength from head to foot. "Hast thou seen the Boggart ?" we inquired, " There's noa Boggart neaw," replied he, with an archness of meaning that language is quite unable to convey. We next reached Middleton, a neat village, with a picturesque church well situated on the brow of a hill by the road side, forming an interesting object from many points of the surrounding country. The manor ol Middle- ton, originally part of the honor of Clitheroe, and held by the Lacies, passed in the reign of Henry VI. into the family of Assheton. The pariah church of Middleton. here -hewn, is of great antiquity. In this churchyard the gravestones are not erect, as is customary in the more southern counties, but lie on the ground, as is generally the case throughout Lancashire and the North. Brand says,* referring to a pas-age in Cicero, Popular Antiquities, p. 202, vol. ii. ].\m \Niiii;i;. ](|.; that "this custom has been derived from eery ancient times.'* We wish it were honoured in the breach rather than the observance, for more than any other thing the practice derogates from picturesque effect, and perhaps is that which constitutes the great difference between the churchyards of the South and those of the North. The church tower is surmounted by a structure of wood; some have imagined from deficiency in the strength of the substratum — which is of clay, and could hear anything \ others have assigned considerations of' economy — but why lay out any money, unless some reason required the tower to be heightened? We have no doubt the addition was made to improve the proportions and appearance of the building. There remains in the uorth windows of this church a group of figures, representing persons of note in the neighbourhood, to whom is assigned the honour of having led the famous Middleton bowmen in the buttle of Elodden field. On the floor of a niche in the north wall, now covered, may be traced the outlines of an ancient Cross. The stained glass, which forms the ornament of the chancel window. Was removed hither from an ancient room in the rectory house, called " The Hall," where maybe seen a very curious specimen of a carved oak screen. This house is an antique structure, supported in part by buttresses. Some of the old inhabitants of the last generation remembered when it was but- rounded by a moat with a drawbridge; part "f the moat remains, and loop- hole- tor the discharge of arrows are still visible in the walls of the house. In tin' year L812, when the spirit of Luddism, having tor its object the destruction of machinery, spread from the county of Nottingham into Yorkshire ; ad Lancashire, it broke out with great violence in Middleton. A factory here was surrounded by several thousands of persons in menacing array. Loss of life did not deter the rioter-, ami peace was restored only by the arrival of a large body of cavalry from Manchester. Dr. A—hetoii, rector of Middleton, born Kill, was the first projector of 164 ENGLAND IN I in: NINETEENTH I I \ I l KY : the scheme for providing a maintenance for clergymen's widows; which may lie considered as the origin of many systems of assurance in this kingdom. Crossing the country towards the east, we came to Oldham. The road Leading hence to Manchester we found lined with carts conveying coal t<> Manchester from Oldham, where the Lest house coal of the neighbourhood is obtained. Oldham is a parochial chapelry in the parish of Prestwich. The chinch placed on an eminence near the centre of the town, overlooks the surrounding country. A Saxon origin is claimed for the first erection. In this place marriages were proclaimed by a magistrate in the market-place, during the time of the Commonwealth. Oldham, has the distinction of giving name, if not birth, to Hugh Oldham. Bishop of Exeter, collated in 1501. He founded and endowed the Free Grammar School of Manchester. No town in this vicinity has grown in size and numbers more rapidly than Oldham. Its vicinity to Manchester, the advantages of water carriage, the industry of the inhabitants, and above all, its mineral resources, have constituted this one of the most extensive seats of the staple manufacture in the county. An improvement in manners and intellectual cultivation is beginning to be visible. The goods chiefly made here are fustians, velveteens, calicoes, and cotton and woollen cords. The silk manufacture is making progress. The original staple trade is the manufacture of hats, which still prevails to a very large extent. The town is situated on an eminence, near the source of the Irk, and is washed on the east by a branch of the Medlock. In Plumptou and Plumpton Clough, a woody glen, the remains of an iron forge were found, supposed to be the work of the Saxons. In the township of Chadderton, lying to the Avcst of Oldham, near the front door of the Hall, is a tumulus, near which a number of ancient relics have been found. A lew miles brought us to Rochdale,* and Ave found ourselves entering on a more elevated country; in fact the high hills, which branch off from the English Apennines, run down near Rochdale in long ridges into the level country of Manchester and its vicinity. Now for the first time Ave became sensible of the cold keen air we should have to encounter in skirting, as was our intention, the base of the mountains which separate Yorkshire from Lan- cashire, and form part of that extensive range which has been not inaptly • It is tlie inhabitants of this district whom Camden had chiefly it) view, when, in his prefatory remarks to his account of Lancashire, be says: " Whom I feel some secret reluctance to visit, if they will forgive me the expression. I fear I shall give little satisfaction to myself or my readers here, so little encouragement did I meet with when I surveyed much the greater part of this county, so com- pletely has time destroyed the original names everywhere. But that I may not seem to neglect Lancashire, I must attempt the task, not doubting but Providence, which has hitherto favoured me, will assist me here.'' How different is Lancashire "in the nineteenth century" from this unknown and barbarous land on which the hardy topographer trembled to set his foot! I \\i 18H1RE. 165 denominated " the backbone of the island.*' On drawing Dear to the town we wire struck 1>\ the hard cold appearance which the custom of covering the dwellings with stone, instead of slates or tiles, <;'i\es to all the places in this part of the county. Nor, on entering it did we find any beauty in the buildings, or arrangements of the streets, to remove the unfavourable effect. On our right we passed the Koch, a river which gives its name to the town. On a height, to our left, was the church. If the building which it replaced had no better architectural pretensions than the present edifice, it was hardly worth the while for spiritual beings to take the trouble they are said to have given themselves in fixing its site.* The materials laid for the building on the spol fixed upon by Gamel the Saxon thane, are said to have been removed by Bupernatural agency. This Gamel, it appears, held two hides in Recedham or Rochdale, under Edward the Confessor, and afterwards, by a gift of Roger de Poictou, he had two carncates of land: he is conjectured to be the progenitor of Agnes de Rachdale, who married Sir John Saville, according to the pedi- gree of the Saville family ;f but to proceed — the necessary preparations were made, the banks of the river groaned under the huge beams and massy stones, and all seemed to promise a speedy and successful termination. But there were those — not the less powerful because invisible to eyes of flesh and blood — who did not approve of the site. ha\ ing resolved that the edifice should raise its head on the neighbouring hill. Accordingly, in one night all was trans- ferred to its summit. The spectacle was beheld in the morning with universal dismay! But the lord was not a man to be easily foiled; at his command the materials were brought down to their former station. A watch was set. and all now appeared safe. In the morning, however, the ground was once more Inn-! Another attempt was rewarded by another failure. The spirits had Conquered. One who knew more of them than he should have done, made his appearance, and after detailing what he chose of the doings of the sprites, presented to the lord a massy ring, bearing an inscription of this purport: The Norman shall rule on the Saxon's heel, And the stranger shall rule o'er England*! weal ; Through castle and hall, by night or hv day, The Stranger shall thrive lor ever and . l!ul in Uaeheds above the rest, The stranger shall thrive the best ! In accordance with this ratiocination runs the old and now nearly obsolete remark, that " str ; mu r . G35. LANC \-lllUl'. 107 ful spot, on the left side of the road. It was the place of which we were in search, " The Thrutch." The name is descriptive of the character of the spot. To thrutehj in the Lancashire . ^>-:- l>n tuis, is to thrust with vio- lence, and the division be- ->«»..,^ tween the two sides of the rock has the appearance of having been produced by a sudden and resistless thrust of nature. On the top, as you turn in from the road, stands Healey Hall which, like many houses dignified with the name of Hall, in these parts, has little but age, size, and solidity, to dis- tinguish it from an ordinary farm-house. It is now in- habited by Mr. Tweedale, a partner in the firm of Leech and Tweedale, woollen manufacturers, whose works, together with those of another tradesman, occupy this cleft In running the eye over the map which accompanies Dr. Whitaker's History of Whalley, one is surprised to mark the great number of Halls scattered over the district we are now surveying. Relics of most of these remain, but in general the houses are turned to manufacturing or agricultural purposes. The fear expressed by that learned, acute, but prejudiced writer, has to a great extent been realised. "A new principle is now introduced, which threatens gradually to absorb the whole property of the district within its own vortex. I mean the principle of manufacture-, aided by the discoveries Lately made in the tWO fhmgerWU (!) sciences of Chemistry and Mechanics. The operation of this principle is accompanied with another effect, of which it is impossible to speak but in the language of BOrTOW and indignation. In great manufactories human corruption, accumulated in large masses, seems to undergo a kind of fermentation, which sublimes it to a degree of malignity not to be exceeded out of In 11."* The property has changed hands; socially, the change is, we think, for the better, for we entirely disapprove of the unqualified terms in which the historian condemns manufactures; at the same time we have too often been painfully -truck with the devastations which "the principle of manufactures" has committed on many, it' not most of the venerable or pic- turesque -pots in the Manchester district, not to lament the good old days when neither -team, nor -moke, nor t ill chimneys, nor M unwa-hed artitiu re," defiled the beauties of nature. A- ir is, how ( \ . r, one finds it an almosl impos- • Hist. whit. [. 184. Ids ENGLAND IN Mil NINETEENTH i INTUHV sibility to escape from the unsightly objects which manufactures have planted alike in the Lowest