Chapter VIII: Part 8

The race-course is situated at some miles distant from the town; races take place three times a-year, two being flat races, and the third a steeple- chase. They are well supported and attended, although not by ladies so much as in the Midland and Northern Counties. The Liverpool races are chiefly matters of business, something like the Newmarket, with the addition of a mob. A large attendance comes from Manchester, where more betting is carried on than in any town out of London. Gambling of all kinds naturally follows in the wake of cotton speculation, which is gambling.

The crashes produced in Liverpool by the sacra fames auri are sometimes startling, and they come out in visible relief, because, in spite of its size, gossip flourishes as intensely as in a village. During one of the cotton manias a young gentleman, barely of age, in possession of an income of some two thousand a-year from land, and ready money to the extent of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, joined an ingenious penniless gentleman in speculating in cotton, and found himself in less than twelve months a bankrupt; thus sacrificing, without the least enjoyment, a fortune sufficient for the enjoyment of every rational pleasure, or for the support of the highest honours in the State.

Such instances are not uncommon, although on a less magnificent scale; indeed, it is well to be cautious in inquiring after a Liverpool merchant or broker after an absence of a few years; a very few years are sufficient to render the poor rich and the rich poor, an eighth of a penny in the pound of cotton will do it.

The Municipal Corporation of Liverpool is the wealthiest in England after London, and virtually richer than London, inasmuch as the expenses are trifling, the property is improving, and the Liverpool aldermen and common- councillors have no vested claims to costly entertainments.

The majority is in the hands of the Conservative party, the Liberal party having only enjoyed the sweets of power for a brief period after the passing of the Financial Reform Bill; but the principle of representation keeps down any inclination toward the inevitable jobberies of a close self-elected body, and pushes local legislators on, quite up to the mark of the public opinion of the locality they govern.

A stranger, who has no interest in party squabbles, must confess that the funds of this wealthy estate are on the whole fairly and wisely distributed.

The Irish population, amounting to many thousands of the poorest and most ignorant class, who find a refuge from the miseries of their own country in the first port from Dublin, and employment in the vast demand for unskilled labour caused by the perpetual movement in imports and exports, impose a heavy tax on the poor-rates and police-rates of this borough.

In the education of this part of the community, the Liberal Corporation made provision in the extensive Corporation schools, by adopting the Irish Government scheme of instruction, permitting the Roman Catholics to make use of their own translation of the Bible, and to absent themselves from the religious instruction of the orthodox.

On this question the municipal elections were fought. The general education party were eventually beaten. The Roman Catholics were withdrawn from the schools, and thrown entirely upon the priests or the streets for education, and great was the rejoicing among the party who carried a large wooden Bible as their standard.

But subsequent events have induced those who have given any attention to the state of the operative classes in Liverpool, of whatever politics, to doubt whether it would not have been better to have been busy, for the last fifteen years, in teaching those classes something, who, knowing nothing, supply very expensive customers to the Liverpool courts of law and jail.

Liverpool returns two members to the House of Commons.

The election contests were formerly wonderfully bitter and absurd, for on one occasion, just before the passing of the Reform Bill, nearly two hundred thousand pounds were spent by two parties, between whose politics there was scarcely a shade of difference.

William Roscoe represented Liverpool for a short time, but was rejected at a second election, in consequence of his opposition to the Slave Trade. He was the son of a publican, and rose from an office boy to be an attorney in large practice, and eventually a banker. He was ruined by the stopping of his bank, which, after being for many years under the taxing harrows of the old corrupt bankrupt system, paid twenty shillings in the pound. William Roscoe was a voluminous writer of political pamphlets and poetry, which are now quite forgotten; his literary reputation deservedly rests upon his lives of Lorenzo de Medici, published in 1796, and of Leo X; the former of which has recently been republished by Mr. Bohn, in his cheap series of reprints.

Of even more value than his literary productions, was the school, or party, which he founded in Liverpool, while he was still wealthy and influential, embracing all who had a taste for literature and art. At that period Liverpool was rising into wealth on a vigorous prosecution of the Slave Trade, of which its parliamentary representatives were the avowed supporters. At that time vulgar wealth was the only distinction, and low debauchery the almost only amusement of the principal merchants. Absurd as it may now seem, when all the well-to-do world profess to be educated and temperate, Roscoe and his friends rendered inestimable service by making elegant tastes and temperate habits respectable, and by raising up an opposition to the old Slave Trade party, whose paradise lay in turtle soup, port wine, and punch. He set an example to merchants of stocking a library as well as a cellar, which has been followed, until now it is considered a matter of course. William Roscoe died in 1831, at a very advanced age. He was a remarkably fine-looking man, with a grand aristocratic head.

In addition to Huskisson and George Canning, Liverpool once very nearly had the honour of sending to Parliament Henry Brougham, in days when the Chancellorship and the House of Lords could scarcely have been expected by that versatile genius, even in a dream.

At present Liverpool interests are well represented in the House of Commons. The borough has had the good sense to prefer a merchant townsman, Sir Thomas Birch, and the son of a merchant, and friend and co-minister of the late Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Cardwell, to a soldier, and the dreamy poetical son of a Protectionist duke. A place like Liverpool ought to find in its own body better men than young lords or old soldiers. But young Liverpool dearly loves a lord, of any politics; and a little polite attention from a duke will produce an unconscious effect even on the trade report of a broker of "fashion."

Mr. William Brown, at the head of the greatest American house in the world, after Baring's, represents South Lancashire, but on Manchester influence, scarcely with the consent of Liverpool. Mr. Brown, who is an Irishman by birth, has been entirely the architect of his own fortune, and began business--on a very limited scale indeed--within the memory of persons now living. The firm has now agents in every town of any importance in the United States, and is the means of keeping in active employment hundreds of traders in all our manufacturing districts. The relations with Birmingham and the hardware country are very close. Another Liverpool man of whom the Liverpool people are justly proud, is the best debater in the House of Commons, if he only knew his own mind, the Right Honourable William Gladstone, the son of Sir John Gladstone, Bart., of Fasque, N.B., formerly a Liverpool merchant. Sir John Gladstone is a Scotchman, and in conjunction with another gentleman, also the head of a first-rate Liverpool house, Mr. Sandbatch, went out to the West Indies (Demerara) as journeymen bakers, in the same way that Mr. Miles, the grandfather of the members for East Somerset and Bristol, and founder of the great Bristol banking house, went out to Barbadoes as a journeyman cooper. If we add to these instances that the first Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Brotherton (who himself told the House, in a debate on the Factory Time Bill, that he had commenced life as a factory operative), beside many others, too numerous to mention, it will be found that our House of Commons is not so far out of the reach of industrious merit as foreigners usually imagine.

In conclusion, we may note that Liverpool, which gave very cold and niggard support to the Great Exhibition (chiefly because the project was ill received by the ducal house which patronizes the fashionables of the town), sent a contribution which very completely represented its imports, specifying the scientific and commercial name of each article, country of production, and quantity imported.

This collection occupies a considerable space, but it will be found, on examination, that a few staples employ the greater part of the shipping inwards. Cotton occupies by far the largest place, the air is filled with floating motes of cotton all round the business quarters of the town; timber probably stands next in the tonnage it employs; West Indian produce is less important than it was formerly; a great trade is done with South America, in hides, both dry and salted; tobacco, both from the United States and Cuba, arrives in large quantities. There are several great snuff and cigar manufactories in Liverpool. The hemp and tallow trade is increasing, as is the foreign corn trade. The Mediterranean, and especially the Italian, trade, has been rendered more important by steam communication. The China trade has not increased as much as was expected.

When the Docks and Public Institutions have been examined, and the places of interest on the Cheshire shore visited, Liverpool presents nothing to detain the traveller who has no private claims on his attention.

It must be acknowledged that the general appearance of the town and of the people is more agreeable than that of Birmingham or Manchester, although Liverpool can claim none of the historical and antiquarian interest in which Bristol and Chester are rich. There are parts of the town devoted to low lodging houses, and accommodation for the poor Irish and emigrants, as bad as the worst parts of St. Giles's or Spitalfields. Indeed, the mortality is greater than that of any other town in England.

Liverpool is a great port for emigration to the United States and Canada. On the line of packet ships the accommodation for those who can pay 5 pounds and upwards is excellent; in the timber ships they are packed like herrings after being lodged like pigs. But what can be expected for the fare. At 2 pounds the shipowners undertake to give a passage, and find two quarts of water and a pound of bread per day. The Government Emigration Agents are indefatigable in their efforts, municipal and Parliamentary regulations have been from time to time applied to the subject, nevertheless the frauds and cruelties inflicted on emigrants are frightful.

An attempt was made some short time since to have an Emigrant's Home as a sort of Model Barrack, erected in one of the New Docks, so as to form a counterpoise to the frauds of emigration lodging-house keepers, but local jealousies defeated a plan which would have been equally advantageous to the town and the emigrants.

The state of poverty and crime in Liverpool, fed as it is by the overflowings of many districts, is an important subject, which has excited the anxious attention of several enlightened residents, among others of the late Police Magistrate, Mr. Edward Rushton, who died suddenly without being able to bring his plans to maturity.

In conclusion we may say of Liverpool, that it is a town which has a great and increasing population, a wealthy Corporation, a thriving trade, yet less of the materials of a metropolis than many other towns of less commercial importance.

For further temporary information, a traveller may advantageously consult the Liverpool papers, of which there is one for every day in the week--that is to say, an Albion, a Times, a Mail, a Standard, a Mercury, a Journal, a Chronicle--of all shades of politics, of large size, conducted with great ability, and affording, in addition to the news and politics of the day, a great deal of general information, in the shape of extracts from popular works and original articles.

If we would learn why the opinions of inhabitants of towns prevail over the opinions of landowners and agriculturists, we have only to compare the active intelligence of the two as exhibited by such journals as are to be found in Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham with those supported by the rural community. A single sect expends more on the support of the press than all the farmers and farmers' friends united, who are more numerous, more wealthy, not wanting in intelligence in their own pursuits, but quite without cohesion or combination.

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LIVERPOOL TO MANCHESTER.--There are two ways from Liverpool to Manchester, one by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, through Bolton, which has a station behind the Exchange, and one by the old route, through Newton. The line by the new one has Bolton upon its course, and renders the Aintree Racecourse half as near Manchester as Liverpool.

For choice take a Tuesday or Saturday, and travel up by the early Cotton Brokers' Express to Manchester, so as to see one more phase of the English commercial character. The Brokers are a jovial set and hospitable, as keen as Yankees and as industrious. There is a marked difference between them and the Spinners, but they are of no particular country. Liverpool, like Manchester, although not to the same degree, is colonised by strangers. Both Irishmen and Scotchmen are to be found among the most respectable and successful, and a considerable number of Americans are settled there as merchants and shipping agents; indeed it is half American in its character.

In this year of 1851, to describe the Liverpool and Manchester Railway would be absurd; acres of print, in all civilized languages, and yards of picture- illustration, have been devoted to it. At Newton Station you see below you a race-course of great antiquity, and what was once a huge hotel, built to supply a room large enough for the Mother Partingtons of Lancashire to meet and prepare their mops for sweeping back the Atlantic tide of public opinion. There they met, and dined and drank and shouted, and unanimously agreed that it was foolish legislation which transferred the right of representation from the village of Newton to the great city of Manchester; after which they went home, and wisely submitted to the summons which found its speaking-trumpets at Manchester. Fortunately for this country, a minority knows how to submit to a majority, and the Conservative Hall, by a sort of accidental satire on its original uses, has been turned into a printing office.

A little farther on is Chat-Moss, a quaking bog, which the opponents of the first railway proved, to the satisfaction of many intelligent persons, to be an impassable obstacle to the construction of any solid road. We fly across it now reading or writing, scarcely taking the trouble to look out of the window. But if we do, we may see reclamation and cultivation, in the shape of root-crops and plantations, extending over the wet waste.

William Roscoe was one of the first to attempt to reclaim this Moss; and it is worthy of note, that it was among the literary and scientific friends of Roscoe that George Stephenson's idea of a railroad from Liverpool to Manchester, through Chat-Moss, found its warmest supporters, at a time when support was much needed; for the shares were hawked, and even distributed among friends who were guaranteed against loss, in order to make up a fitting parliamentary subscription to what has proved one of the most successful speculations in public works, of this century.

MANCHESTER.

As we roll into Manchester, and mark by what successive invasions the city has been half-surrounded by railways, it is amusing to remember the fears which landowners expressed in 1829, and really felt, lest the new flaming and smoking carriage-apparatus should damage the value of property which has been more than doubled in value by the new invention.

Manchester is the greatest manufactory in the world. The cradle and metropolis of a trade which employs a million and a half of souls, beside the sailors, the merchants, the planters and the slaves, who grow or carry or buy the raw material, it is the second city in the empire, and perhaps, considered in relation to the commercial influence of Great Britain, scarcely second. Blot out the capital, the credit, the living enterprise, the manufacturing power of Manchester, and we have lost a century of commercial progress. Manchester is essentially a place of work and action, carried on by men recruited from every district where a mental grenadier of the Manchester standard is to be found. Suffolk and Devonshire, Norfolk and Cornwall send their quota, as well as the neighbouring manufacturing schools of Yorkshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire. Scotchmen in great numbers, and some Irishmen, chiefly from the north, are also at home there. We are speaking now not of operatives, but of those who rise to be manufacturers or merchants. The Americans are rather constant visitors than permanent residents; but the Germans are sufficiently numerous to be able to form a society of their own, the most agreeable in Manchester; and the commerce of Greece is represented by a great number of houses, which are increasing in number and importance.

Then Manchester, although only an inland canal port, trades largely and directly, through Liverpool chiefly, to the most parts of the world, consuming one-tenth of the whole imports of that town. The correspondence of a first-class house for one morning would alone be a lesson in geography.

Then again, the ceaseless enterprise and enormous powers of manufacture are supported by a constantly-improving mechanical ingenuity, which seems to those unaccustomed to such works nothing less than miraculous: as, for instance, some of the inventions of Mr. Whitworth and of Mr. Roberts.

But all this is hidden from the eye of a stranger; and Manchester is a dark and dingy ledger, closely clasped, unless he comes prepared to open a good account, or armed with letters of introduction of a more than ordinarily pressing nature. The gentleman who was all smiles while accepting your civilities, and energetically amusing himself on a tour of pleasure, has scarcely time to look up from his desk to greet you when enthroned in his counting-house. The fact is, that these Manchester men rise early, work hard, dine at one o'clock, work again, and go home, some distance out of town, to work or to sleep,--so they have no time for unprofitable hospitality or civility.

We do not say this by way of idle reproach to the people of Manchester, who follow their vocation, and do work of which we as Englishmen have reason to be proud, but partly by way of warning to travellers who, armed with the sort of letters that have proved passports to everything best worth seeing throughout the rest of Europe, may expect to pass an agreeable day or two in the cotton metropolis; and partly by way of hint to politicians who, very fond of inveighing against the cold shade of aristocracy, would find something worth imitating in the almost universal courtesy of modern nobility, which is quite consistent with the extremest liberality of abstract opinions.

Dr. Dalton, the celebrated natural philosopher, for many years a resident in Manchester, has proved that Manchester is not so damp and rainy a place as is generally imagined; that the mean annual fall of rain is less than that of Lancaster, Kendal, and Dumfries. Nevertheless, it is better to expect rain, for although the day at Liverpool, Halifax, or Sheffield may have been brilliantly fine, the probability is that you will find the train, as it approaches the city, gradually slipping into a heavy shower or a Scotch mist.

The walk from any of the stations is very disheartening; tall warehouses, dingy brick houses, a ceaseless roar of carts and waggons in the main streets, and a population of which all the better dressed march at double quick time, with care-brent brows, and if pausing, only to exchange gruff monosyllables and short words.

At one o'clock the factory hands are dismissed, and the masters proceed to dinner on horseback and in all sorts of vehicles at a thundering pace. The working-class population will be found less unhealthy and better looking than would be expected. The costume of the women, a cap and a short sleeved jacket fitting the waist, called a Lancashire bedgown, is decidedly picturesque. For a quarter of an hour some streets are almost impassable, and the movement gives the idea of a population deserting a city. An hour's silence follows, after which the tide flows again: the footpaths are filled with the "hands;" and the "heads," with very red faces, furiously drive their hundred guinea nags back to business. Now this is one of the sights of Manchester.

Again, Tuesday is the business day at the Exchange, in St. Ann's Square. The room is one of the finest in the kingdom; the faces and the scene generally afford much curious matter for the study of the artist and physiognomist. Compare it with the groups of well dressed dawdlers at Leamington, Cheltenham, Bath, with the very different style of acute intellect displayed at a meeting of the Institute of Civil Engineers, or with the merchants of Liverpool, part of whom also attend Manchester.

The personal appearance of the Manchester manufacturers and their customers, as seen on 'Change, fully justifies the old saw, "Liverpool gentlemen, Manchester men, Rochdale fellows (fellies), and Wigan chaps."

In Liverpool all are equal,--merchant deals with merchant; in Manchester the millowner is an autocrat, restrained by customs of the trade and occasional strikes, and he carries his rough ways into private life.

But facts show that, with all its plate and varnish, Liverpool is as inferior to Manchester in an intellectual, as it is superior in an external point of view.

In politics Manchester leads, and Liverpool and Lancashire unwillingly follow,--in the education of the operative and middle classes,--in literary, scientific, and musical associations,--in sanitary measures,--in the formation of public parks and pleasure grounds, Manchester displays an incontestable superiority; being more rapid, more energetic, and more liberal than her more fashionable neighbours.

A list of a few of the institutions and public establishments will show this.

The Royal Institution in Mosley Street occupies a large building, established for the encouragement of the Fine Arts by exhibitions of paintings and sculptures, and the delivery of lectures.

The Philosophical Society was established in 1781, and has numbered among its members Dr. Dalton, Dr. Henry, and Dr. Percival, and has had its Transactions translated into French and German.

The Natural History Society has filled a museum in Peter Street with objects of natural history, and opens it during holiday seasons to the public at a nominal charge, when thousands of visitors, chiefly operatives, attend.

The Mechanics' Institution, founded in 1824, after surviving many difficulties, has become one of the most flourishing and useful institutions of the kind in the kingdom. Its chief activity is displayed in the education of the operative members in the class-rooms. The library is large, well selected, and in constant requisition. In one department the School of Design is carried on, and could not be conducted in a more appropriate building.

This School of Design, supported by the Government for the purpose of promoting design as applied to the staple manufactures, and diffusing a general feeling for art amongst the manufacturing community, was formerly accommodated within the walls of the Royal Institution as a tenant, paying a rent, strangely enough, for the use of a building which had ostensibly been erected for promoting art and science!

It was not until 1836, that, on the recommendation of a Committee of the House of Commons, active steps were taken to establish in England that class of artistic instruction applied to manufactures which had been cultivated in France ever since the time that the great Colbert was the minister of Louis XIV.

At Manchester, some of the leading men connected with the calico-printing trade and looms of art, established a School of Design within the Royal Institution, where two rooms were lent rent-free; but, as soon as Government apportioned a part of a special grant to the Manchester School, the Committee, who were also as nearly as possible the Council of the Royal Institution, with that appetite for public money which seems incident to men of all nations, all classes, and all politics, voted 100 out of the 250 pounds per annum for rent. This school did nothing of a practical nature, and consequently did not progress in public estimation. The master was a clever artist, but not up, perhaps he would have said not down, to his work. A School of Design at Manchester is meant, not to breed artists in high art, but to have art applied to the trades of the city. The master was changed, and, at the request of the local committee, the Council of the School of Design at Somerset House sent down, in 1845, Mr. George Wallis, who had shown his qualifications as an assistant at Somerset House and as master of the Spitalfields school. At that time the Manchester school had been in existence five years, and had done nothing toward its original object. In two years from the time of Mr. Wallis taking the charge, the funds of the school were flourishing; the interest taken in it by the public was great, and nearly half the Institution was occupied by the pupils, while the applications for admission were more numerous than could be accommodated. Under this management the public, who care little for abstract art, were taught the close connexion between the instruction of the School of Design and their private pursuits.

This is what is wanted in all our towns. It is not enough to teach boys and girls,--the manufacturers and purchasers need to be taught by the eye, if not by the hand.

According to part of Mr. Wallis's plan, an exhibition was held of the drawings executed by the pupils for the annual prizes, which had a great influence in laying the foundation for the efforts made by Manchester at the Great Exhibition of Industry in Hyde Park.

While matters were proceeding so satisfactorily, the Somerset House authorities (who have since been tried and condemned by a Committee of the House of Commons), proceeded to earn their salaries by giving instructions which could not be carried out without destroying all the good that had been done. The Manchester Committee and Mr. Wallis protested against this red tapish interference. It was persisted in; Mr. Wallis {172} resigned, to the great regret of his pupils and manufacturing friends in the managing council.

The result was that the undertaking dwindled away rapidly to less than its original insignificance,--the students fell off, and a deficit of debt replaced the previously flourishing funds. Out of evil comes good. The case of Manchester enabled Mr. Milner Gibson, M.P. for Manchester, to get his Committee and overhaul the Schools of Design throughout the kingdom.

Certain changes were effected. The school, no longer able to pay the high rent required by the Royal Institution, was removed to its present site in Brown Street, placed under the management of Mr. Hammersley, who had previously been a successful teacher at Nottingham, and freed from the meddling of incompetent authorities. And now pupils anxiously crowd to receive instruction, and annually display practical evidence of the advantages they are enjoying.

The Manchester Mechanics' Institution was one of the pioneers in the movement which led to the Great Exhibition. In 1831, was held its first Polytechnic Exhibition for the purpose of showing the connexion between natural productions, science, and manufactures. Subsequent Exhibitions were carried out with great effect as a means of instruction and education, and with such success as to pay off a heavy debt which had previously cramped the usefulness of the Institution.

There are also several other institutions of the same class, amongst others Salford, Ancoats, and Miles Platting Auxiliary Mechanics' Institutes.

The Athenaeum constitutes a kind of literary club for the middle classes, who are provided with a good library and reading-room in a very handsome building.

The Manchester Library contains 10,000 volumes, the Manchester Subscription Library, established 1765, has the most extensive collection of books in the city.

A Concert Hall in Peter Street, exclusively used for the purposes indicated by its name, is supported by 600 subscribers at five guineas each.

The Chetham Society has been founded for the purpose of publishing ancient MSS. and scarce works connected with the history of Lancashire.

The Exchange has upwards of two thousand subscribers.

By way of helping the body as well as the mind, in 1846 the inhabitants of Manchester formed by subscription three public parks, called Queen's Park, Peel's Park, and Philip's Park, in three different parts of the suburbs.

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THE FREE GRAMMAR SCHOOL was founded by Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, in the early part of the sixteenth century. It was originally founded for the purpose of furnishing simple and elementary instruction to the poor. This design is sufficiently proved by the language of the foundation deed, which describes those sought to be benefited as persons who had been long in ignorance "on account of the poverty of their parents." The present income of the school is upwards of 5000 pounds a-year, leaving a considerable income over its expenditure, notwithstanding that the operations of the school have been extended by a decree of the Court of Chancery. In the year 1833 the Court authorised the erection of a new building to include a residence for the master. There are two schools, called the Higher and Lower. The instructions given embrace the Greek and Latin, and the French, German, and other modern languages; English literature, mathematics, the modern arts and sciences, etc. A library is attached to the school for the use of the pupils. There are twelve exhibitions, of the annual value of 60 pounds each, for four years, in the gift of the Warden and High Master, who, however, respect the recommendations of the Examiners. These gentlemen are three in number, being Masters of Arts and Bachelors of Law of two years' standing, two of them appointed by the Professor, and one by the High Master. They each receive 20 pounds for their services. In addition to the twelve exhibitions mentioned above, there are fifteen others connected with the school, the bequest of a merchant named Hulme. These are appropriated to under-graduates of Brasenose College, Oxford. Their value is to be fixed by the patrons, but cannot exceed the sum of 220 pounds a year. They are to be held for four years from the thirteenth term after matriculation. There are sixteen scholarships to the same College; and sixteen to St. John's, Cambridge, varying in value from l8 to 26 pounds, stand in rotation with the pupils of Marlborough and Hereford Schools, and six scholarships of 24 pounds to Magdalen College, Oxford, Manchester pupils having the preference. The Examiners have also the power of making awards of books or mathematical instruments, to the value of 25 pounds, in any cases of great merit.

The High Master's salary is fixed not to exceed 600 pounds, with house-rent and taxes free. He is also allowed to take twenty boarders. He has the assistance of an Usher (salary 300 pounds, with house and fifteen boarders); an Assistant (salary 200 pounds, with house and twelve boarders); an Usher's Assistant (salary 150 pounds, with house and ten boarders). There are, in addition, a Master of the Lower School, a Writing, and a Mathematical Master, a teacher of English literature, and another of foreign languages; all, with the exception of the last, having houses, and their aggregate salaries amounting to 800 pounds.

Four hundred scholars attended in 1850.

MANCHESTER NEW COLLEGE is an institution belonging to the Unitarian body, on the plan of King's College, London, and was opened for the reception of students on the 5th October, 1840. The curriculum of instruction embraces every department of learning and polite literature.

THE LANCASHIRE INDEPENDENT COLLEGE is one of the affiliated Colleges of the London University, and was established for the education of candidates for the Christian Ministry amongst Congregational dissenters. There are three resident Professors, the principal being the Rev. Dr. Vaughan, formerly Professor of History in the University of London.

OWEN'S COLLEGE has recently been opened on the testamentary endowment of a Mr. Owen, for affording an education on the plan of University College, London.

CHETHAM'S HOSPITAL, or, as it is more properly termed, "College," was founded by Charter in the year 1665, by Humphrey Chetham, a Manchester citizen and tradesman, who had, during his lifetime, brought up, fed, and educated fourteen boys of Manchester and Salford. He paid a heavy fine to Charles I. for persisting in his refusal of a baronetcy, and in 1634 was appointed Sheriff of his county. By his will Chetham directed that the number of boys he had previously provided for should be augmented by the addition of one from Droylsden, two from Crumpsall, four from Turton, and ten from Bolton; and left the sum of 7000 pounds to be devoted to their instruction and maintenance, from six to fourteen years of age, and for their apprenticeship afterwards to some trade. The funds having since increased, 80 boys are now received, in the following proportions, from the several places mentioned in the founder's will, viz.:--Manchester, 28; Salford, 12; Droylsden, 6; Crumpsall, 4; Bolton, 20; Turton, 10. They are clothed, fed, boarded, lodged, and instructed in reading, writing, grammar, and arithmetic. The boys are selected by the Feoffees in annual meeting at Easter, within six days before the Monday in which week an application must be sent in to the Governor, accompanied by a printed note of recommendation, signed by the overseers and churchwardens of the place in which the candidate resides.

THE COLLEGE LIBRARY is situated in the same old building in which accommodation is found for the College, and is a fine collection of upwards of 25,000 volumes. The germ of this library consisted of the books bequeathed by Humphrey Chetham, many of them of great scarcity and value. The collection contains comparatively few volumes of modern date. The library is open to the use of the public without charge or restriction, and a small, but convenient, reading-room is provided for their accommodation. Books are not allowed to be removed from the premises, and every reader is obliged to make an entry of each volume he wishes to obtain. Notwithstanding the immense population of Manchester and Salford, this valuable institution is comparatively little used, the number of readers averaging less than twenty per day.

SWINTON SCHOOL.--In connexion with the Workhouse an Industrial House and School has been erected at Swinton, five miles from the City, which affords so admirable an example for imitation by all manufacturing or crowded communities, that we are glad to be able to extract the main facts concerning it from a graphic description in the first volume of Dickens's Household Words:--

"Swinton School cost sixty thousand pounds, and is a handsome building in
the Tudor style of architecture, with a frontage of 450 feet, containing
more than 100 windows. Pleasure grounds and play grounds surround it, and
it resembles more a nobleman's palace than the Home of Pauper Children.
The inmates consist of 630 children, of whom 305 are orphans, and 124
deserted by their parents, under charge of a Chaplain, a Head Master, a
Medical Officer, a Roman Catholic Priest, a Governor, a Matron, six
Schoolmasters, and four School-mistresses, with a numerous staff of
officials, Nurses, and Teachers of Trades, receiving salaries and wages
amounting to 1,800 pounds a-year, besides board. Some in the institution
are as young as one year and a half.

All are educated, and those who are old enough are taught trades and
domestic employments. When they leave they are furnished with two suits
of clothes. The character of the Institution stands so high, that the
public are eager for the girls as domestic servants. If it has not
already been done, we hope that the cultivation of land on the system of
market gardens will be added to the trades, as affording a more certain,
and, in some respects, more generally useful employment. Educated
agricultural labourers are rare, much prized, and soon promoted to be
overseers and bailiffs.

The education at Swinton is conducted on the modern plan, which prevails
in the best schools under Government inspection. The children are taught
to love and look upon their masters and mistresses as friends, to be
consulted and applied to as they would to kind parents.

For instance take this bit, familiar to visitors of Infant Schools, but
still new to many:--

The children under six years of age, summoned by the sound of a whistle
from the play ground, trooped in glad groups to an anteroom, and girls and
boys intermixed, at a signal from the Master marched into the schoolroom
singing a tune.

Then followed such viva voce instruction as too many better endowed
children do not get for want of competent teachers. Indeed a better
education is now given in Workhouses than can be obtained for children
under twelve years of age at any paid school that we know of. For
instance:--

"What day is this?"
"Monday."
"What sort of a day is it?"
"Very fine."
"Why is it fine?"
"Because the sun shines, and it does not rain."
"Is rain a bad thing, then?"
"No."
"What is it useful for?"
"To make the flowers and the fruit grow."
"Who sends rain and sunshine?"
"God."
"What ought we to do in return for his goodness?"
"Praise him."
"Let us praise him, then," added the Master.

And the children altogether repeated, and then sang, a part of the 149th
psalm."

Now all this is very fine, and a wonderful improvement on the old dog-eared Redinmadeasy, but better follows. After a time the children grew tired and sleepy, one fell asleep. Did the Master slap them all round and pull the ears of the poor little fat somnus? No. He marched them all out singing and beating time to play for a quarter of an hour.

We commend Swinton to the consideration of the credulous disciples of the firebrand school of economists, who believe that Manchester men devour little children daily, without stint or mercy for their poor little bodies or souls.

Manchester obtained a municipal corporation under the provisions of the general act for that purpose, passed in the reign of his late Majesty William IV. Gas works, established in 1817, are the property of the town, and produce a surplus income amounting to between three and four thousand pounds a year, which are devoted to public improvements. The corporation have recently obtained power to establish water works, and to purchase up the plant of an existing company.

The guardians of the workhouses of Manchester have a most difficult task to perform, especially in times of commercial depression, as thousands are thrown upon their hands at once. Among the most troublesome customers are the Irish, who flock to Manchester through Liverpool in search of work, and form a population herding together, very ignorant, very poor, and very uncleanly.

MANCHESTER MANUFACTURES.

It is quite impossible to give the same sort of sketch of the manufactures of this city as we gave of Birmingham, because they are on so much larger and more complicated a scale. One may understand how a gun-barrel or a steel-pen is made at one inspection; but in a visit to a textile mill, a sight of whizzing machinery, under the charge of some hundred men, women, boys, and girls, only produces an indefinable feeling of confusion to a person who has not previously made himself acquainted with the elements of the subject. To attempt to explain how a piece of calico is made without the aid of woodcuts, would be very unsatisfactory. Premising, then, that the cotton in various forms is the staple manufacture of Manchester, and that silk, mixed fabrics of cotton and silk, cotton and wool, etc., are also made extensively, we advise the traveller to prepare himself by reading the work of Dr. Ure or the articles on Textiles in the Penny Cyclopaedia.

A visit to the workshops of the celebrated machinists Messrs. Sharpe, Roberts, & Co. would probably afford a view of some parts of the most improved textile machinery in a state of rest, as well as a very excellent idea of the rapid progress of mechanical arts. Improvements in manufacturing machines are so constant and rapid, that it is almost a proverb--"that before a foreigner can get the most improved machinery which he has purchased in England home and at work, something better will be invented."

A Manchester manufacturer, on the approach of a busy season, will sometimes stop his factories to put in new machines, at a cost of twenty thousand pounds.

Of equal interest with Messrs. Sharpe, Roberts, & Co., are the works of Messrs. Whitworth, the manufacturers of exquisite tools, more powerful than any elephant, more delicately-fitted than any watch for executing the metalwork of steam-engines, of philosophical instruments, and everything requiring either great power or mathematical nicety. Some of these tools for planing, boring, rivetting, welding, cutting iron and other metals, are to be found in great iron manufactories. Indeed, Mr. Roberts and Mr. Whitworth are of a class of men who have proved that the execution of almost all imitations of natural mechanics are merely a question of comparative expense. If you choose to pay for it, you may have the moving fingers of a man, or the prehensile trunk of an elephant, perfectly executed.

From the manufacture of machines, the next step lies naturally to some branch of cotton manufactures.

COTTON.--The rise of this manufacture has been wonderfully rapid. In the time of Henry VIII., the spinning wheel came into use in England, superseding the spindle and distaff, which may still be seen in the south of France and Italy, and in India, where no other tools are used. In the same reign Manchester became distinguished for its manufactures.

In the seventeenth century, Humphrey Chetham, whose name has already been mentioned as the founder of a splendid charity, was among the eminent tradesmen.

The barbarities of the Duke of Alva on the Protestants of the Netherlands, and the revocation of the edict of Nantes, by which the persecutions of the French Protestants was renewed, supplied all our manufacturing districts with skilful Artisans and mechanics in silk and woollen.

In 1786, the importation of raw cotton only amounted to nineteen million pounds weight, obtained from the West Indies, the French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies, and from Turkey and Smyrna. Two years previously an American ship which imported eight bags was seized, on the ground that so much cotton could not be the produce of the United States!

So early as 1738, one Charles Wyatt, of Birmingham, took out a patent for spinning yarn by machinery, which he tried at Northampton, but reaped no profits from the invention, which was discontinued and forgotten. In 1767, James Hargreaves, an illiterate weaver residing near Church, in Lancashire, who seven years previously had invented a carding machine, much like that in use at the present day, invented the spinning jenny,--by which eighty spindles were set to work instead of the one of the spinning wheel. Hargreaves derived no benefit from his invention; twice a mob of spinners on the old principle rose and destroyed all the machinery made on his plan, and chased him away. In 1769, Richard Arkwright took out his first patent (having Mr. Need of Nottingham and Mr. Strutt of Derby as partners,) for spinning with rollers.

Arkwright was born in the humblest class of life at Preston in Lancashire. At "Proud Preston" he first followed the business of a barber, then became a dealer in hair, travelling the country to collect it, and selling it prepared to the wigmakers. Having accumulated a little money, he set about endeavouring to invent perpetual motion, and, in the search, invented, or sufficiently adapted and improved, a cotton spinning apparatus to induce two practical men like the Messrs. Need and Strutt to join him. His claim to original invention has been disputed. That he was not the first inventor is clear, and it is equally clear that he must have been a man of very considerable and original mechanical genius.

With Arkwright's patent, the rise of the cotton trade began.

In 1786, Mr. Samuel Crompton's invention came into use, called the mule jenny, because partaking of the movements of both Hargreaves' and Arkwright's inventions, by which, for the first time, yarn fine enough for muslins could be spun. Crompton did not, probably could not, afford to take out a patent, but worked his mule jenny with his own hands in an attic at Bolton, where he carried on a small spinning and weaving business. Already, in 1812, there were between four and five million spindles on this principle, but the inventor continued poor and almost unknown. Mr. Kennedy (author of a brief memoir of Crompton), and Mr. Lee, raised 500 pounds for him by subscription, and he afterwards received a grant of 8000 pounds from Parliament, which his sons lost in business. Mr. Kennedy again exerted himself and raised an annuity of 63 pounds, which the unfortunate inventor only lived two years to enjoy.

The spinning machines threatened to out-travel the weaving powers of the country, when, in 1785, Dr. Cartwright, a clergyman of Kent, with no previous knowledge of weaving, after an expenditure of 40,000 pounds, invented the power-loom, for which he afterwards received a grant of 10,000 pounds from Parliament. To supply our cotton manufactures, there were imported in 1849 1,900,000 bales of 330lbs. each. Of this quantity, 1,400,000 bales came from the United States.

The Manchester manufacturers have lately raised a small fund by subscription, and sent out Mr. Mackay, a barrister, author of The Western World, to examine and report on the prospects of obtaining cotton from India; and the son of the late Mr. John Fielden, a great manufacturer, has embarked a considerable sum at Natal in the cultivation of cotton. The dependence on the United States for such a staple has begun to render our Manchester men uncomfortable. They have not, however, displayed the spirit and energy that might have been expected either from their usual political vigour or from the tone of their advice to the farmers in distress.

The successive improvements in weaving by machinery we shall not attempt to trace. To use the phrase of a Nottingham mechanic, "there are machines now that will weave anything, from a piece of sacking to a spider's web." But fine muslins and fancy goods are chiefly woven by hand.

The power-loom has recently been adapted, under Bright's patent, to weaving carpets, which are afterwards printed.

With respect to spinning; fine yarns which cost twenty guineas a pound have been reduced to four shillings by improved machinery, and in the Great Exhibition of Industry Messrs. Houldsworth exhibited as a curiosity, a pound of cotton spun 2,000 miles in length.

Arkwright, among the early improvers, was the only one who realized a large fortune, which his patience, his energy, his skill, his judgment, his perseverance well deserved, whether he was an original inventor or not.

The large supplies of cheap coals by canal soon made Lancashire the principal seat of the manufacture.

Among the many who realized great wealth by the new manufacture, was the first Sir Robert Peel, who began life near Bolton as a labouring man, by frugality accumulated enough money to commence first with a donkey a small coal trade, and then to enter on a cotton mill, which eventually placed him in a position to become a Member of Parliament and a baronet, and to give his son that starting place in education and society of which he availed himself so wisely and so patriotically, to his own honour and the permanent benefit of his country.

There are several mills and factories in Manchester in which the most perfect productions of mechanical skill may be seen in operation; but it is a trade which will be seen under much more favourable circumstances in some of those valleys near Manchester, where the masters of the mill provide the cottages of their "hands," or where the cottages are held in freehold by the more frugal workmen themselves, with little gardens attached, in pure air in open situations.

There are many cotton lords, and the number is increasing, who take the warmest interest in the condition of the people in their employ, and who do all they can to promote their health, their education, and their amusements. A visit to one of these establishments, will convince those who have taken their ideas of a manufacturing population from the rabid novelettes and yet more rabid railings of the Ferrand school, that there is nothing in the factory system itself, properly conducted, opposed to the permanent welfare of the working classes. On the contrary, in average times, the wages are sufficient to enable the operatives to live in great comfort, and to lay by more than in other trades; while between the comfort of their position and that of the agricultural labourer there is no comparison, so infinitely are the advantages on the side of the factory hand. There have also been a series of legislative and other changes during the last twenty years, all tending to raise the condition of this class. At the same time, it is impossible not to observe that, quite irrespective of political opinions, there is a wide gulf between the great mass of the employers and the employed. There is dislike--there is undefined distrust. Those who doubt this will do well to investigate working-class opinions for themselves, not at election time, and in such a familiar manner as to get at the truth without compliments. Probably in times of prosperity this feeling is not increasing--we are strongly inclined to think it is diminishing; but it is a question not to be neglected. Manchester men, of the class who run at the aristocracy, the army, and the navy just as a bull runs at a red rag, will perhaps be very angry at our saying this; but we speak as we have found mobs at fires, and chatty fustian jackets in third class trains on the Lancashire and Yorkshire line; and, although a friend protests against the opinion, we still think that the ordinary Manchester millhand looks on his employer with about the same feelings that Mr. John Bright regards a colonel in the guards. We hope we may live to see them all more amiable, and better friends.

Manchester during the last seventy years, has been peopled more rapidly than the "Black Country" which we have described, with a crowd of immigrants of the most ignorant class, from the agricultural counties of England, from Ireland, and from Scotland. These people have been crowded together under very demoralising circumstances.

But we do not dwell or enter further into this important part of the condition of Manchester, because, unlike Birmingham, the Corn Law discussions have, to the enormous advantage of the city, drawn hundreds of jealous eyes upon the domestic life of the poor; and because men of all parties, Church and Dissent, Radicals and Conservatives, are trying hard and as cordially as their mutual prejudices will allow them, to work out a plan of education for raising the moral condition of a class, who, if neglected in their dirt and ignorance, will become, in the strongest sense of the French term, Dangereuse!

But to return to the Manchester of to-day; it has become rather the mercantile than the manufacturing centre of the cotton manufacture. There are firms in Manchester which hold an interest in woollen, silk, and linen manufactures in all parts of the kingdom and even of the continent.

From a pamphlet published last year by the Rev. Mr. Baker, it appears that there are five hundred and fifty cotton manufactories of one kind or other in the cotton district of Lancashire and Cheshire. Of these, in Ashton-under- Lyne, Dukinfield, and Mosley, there are fifty-three mills, Blackburn fifty- seven, Bolton forty-two, Burnley twenty-five spinning manufactories, at Heywood twenty-eight mills, Oldham one hundred and fifty-eight, Preston thirty-eight, Staley Bridge twenty, Stockport forty-seven mills, Warrington only four, Manchester seventy-eight.

The following is a brief outline of the stages of cotton manufacture which may be useful to those who consider the question for the first time.