tion by colleagues who are fully competent to the task. We have little skill in such matters, and all we could do when looking at these things, was to admire, and wonder at the marvellous beauty and ingenuity of these various contrivances. We were especially delighted with the mohair manufacture. In a large floor of the Yarn Company's establishment, we saw the hair brought by the machinery from its rough state through various ingenious processes till there was wound on the reels a delicate silken thread, and all with only the slightest interference on the part of the human spinner. Almost all of this mohair-twist is exported in this state to France, where it is woven into the plush that forms so important a part of the casing of livery servants and parish beadles; other varieties of French velvets are also woven from it.

But we must break off, There are many things we are compelled to leave unnoticed. We need not say that Norwich has many charities, because the good city is famous for them. In olden times a great number of religious establishments existed in the city, and though they were abolished, and every trace of most of their buildings has gone, yet their generous spirit towards the poor and the afflicted seems to have passed from them to the citizens, and to have been always zealously cherished. Nor need we say that it has literary institutions and literary society; for Norwich has always maintained the title it early won to literary celebrity, and there have never been missing the names of Norwich men from the lists of those who have attained a general and not merely local reputation. These and all such matters, there fore, we may leave without any risk of being misunderstood.

We have run a little more than is our custom into antiquarian detail and architectural criticism in this paper; but it was difficult to avoid doing so. Norwich is a city that is, and will continue to be, visited for its antiquities. It carries on the face of it the evidence of its antiquity. Something of this has been got rid of, but very unwisely. Norwich cannot put on the smart air of a modern city, and it injures its own honest excellence in attempting it, Had its citizens carefully sought "the conservation of its antiquities" as old Bale entreated them, every real improvement might have been effected, at least as well it has been, and the city have remained one of the finest of old cities. But while much has been irrecoverably swept away, we are convinced that much remains that eludes the ken of a casual visitor, and is unknown to the ordinary in habitant. And hence we rejoice that the Archaeolo gical Institute has fixed on Norwich as the place in which its members are to assemble this year; and we fully hope, and, indeed, think we are fairly entitled to expect, that the united exertions of so large a body of accomplished antiquaries, guided and assisted as they will be by the zeal of their local coadjutors, will bring to light much that is not apparent in a superficial survey, and has been left undescribed by the city historians.

A word as to the neighbourhood and we have done. Norfolk generally is a flat county. There is hardly a hill in it. The little hills about Norwich seem almost mountains, after being used to the flatness of other parts of the county. And Norwich does derive a great accession of beauty from them, though we suspect that beauty is a little heightened by the contrast which they present to the surrounding flatness. At any rate the vicinity of Norwich appears to us very lovely. We like exceedingly the quiet green lanes, the pleasant strolls by the rivers, and the range of graceful prospects that we get from the surrounding heights. The river Wensum, on which Norwich is built, is a pretty stream, and will afford the visitor, who is fond of angling or rowing, some very pleasant exercise. It rises at West Rudham, about thirty miles from Norwich, and falls into the Yare at Trowse Eye, about a mile and a half below the old city. As we have seen, sea vessels once sailed freely up to Norwich; but in process of time, from the formation of a sand-bar at the ancient embouchure of the Yare, since called Lake Lothing, only river-craft were able to reach the Wensum. In 1712 a bank was erected, to prevent the ingress of the sea into Lake Lothing, and Yarmouth became the port of Norwich, access to the ocean being now impracticable in any other way. About twenty years ago, however, an Act of Parliament was obtained, after the most strenuous opposition on the part of the corporation of Yarmouth, for deepening the bed of the river by Norwich, and cutting a communication to the navigable part of the Waveney, and through Lake Lothing; thus restoring to Norwich its ancient communication with the sea. The work was completed in 1833, and seavessels, not drawing above ten feet of water, may now ascend to Norwich. The craft most commonly employed on the Wensum is, however, what is called a wherry-a vessel not at all resembling that known by the same name on the Thames. The Norwich wherry is, in fact, a light barge, of from twenty to forty tons burden; it has a mast so balanced as to be raised or depressed with great ease, and carries a large sail. tacks readily, seems easily held in hand, and is managed without difficulty by a man and boy, or, as is quite as common, by a man and his wife. The pleasant steamboat excursions between Norwich and Yarmouth are nearly over. Only one steam-boat lingers on, and it has to bear up against the unequal competition of the railway,

Several of the villages in the neighbourhood of Norwich are very beautiful, and some of them have old churches and other buildings, that serve as an object to ramble after. At Heigham, which adjoins Norwich on the north-west, is the house in which Bishop Hall resided. Some portions remain not much altered; but the building itself has been greatly changed. It is now an inn. Eaton is another old village, about two miles from the city. It was here that, in former days, the judges used to be met by the corporation at the assize time. Eaton church affords an example of the thatched roof that Fuller says was, in his day,

From

common on the chancels of the city churches. the high grounds of Lakenham there are some agreeable prospects. Old Catton is worth visiting, for its picturesque old church, which has a round, ivycovered tower; and in the interior are some interesting monuments. In the church of Sprowston, about two miles north of Norwich, are some monuments that are worth looking at. One, in memory of Lady Micklethwait, is by Bacon, and is generally considered to be one of his best works. Costessey, on the Wensum, about four miles from Norwich, contains a large and handsome mansion, partly ancient, called Costessey Hall, belonging to Lord Strafford. In most of the villages already mentioned there are good residences, but the greater part of them are modern, and have little remarkable about them. But while all these places afford pleasant little strolls, and have mostly something beside the walk to reward the ramble, the favourite resort of the Norwich holiday makers is Thorpe; and it is a charming place, and has many attractions to the citizens. It stretches along the Yare, which is here just wide enough for rowing and yachtingexercises which the people of Norwich delight and excel in. Thorpe is the head-quarters of the Norwich

Yacht Club, and some pretty craft may be seen when it meets here. It is here, also, that the rowing-matcheswhether for oars or scullers-take place. Then there is a ferry from Thorpe to Whitlingham, where is the White House, a neat countrified inn, with tea-gardens (or, as they are oddly called, Swiss Gardens), which stretch up the hill side, and afford agreeable shelter and goodly prospects. At Whitlingham, on the hill, a few hundred yards beyond the White House, are the ruins of the church, the principal part of which, the round tower, is an attractive object from the river. Thorpe has been brought within easy reach of the Norwich people by the Norfolk Railway. It is about a mile and a half from the city, and there is no station at it; but the Company has built a wooden platform, and, during the summer runs penny excursion trains at convenient hours. The idea is a good one, and might be wisely followed on some other lines. The only thing to be complained of in this instance is, that the passengers ride in open carriages without seats, which is hardly proper, though the distance is so short. That the carriages are open is no matter, but seats might as well be provided.

THE LAND WE LIVE IN.

MANCHESTER.

Mr. Baines gives the following sketch of the customary mode of conducting the cotton sales at Liverpool:-"Cotton is sold at Liverpool by brokers, who are employed by the importers, and are charged 10s. per £100 for their trouble in valuing and selling it. The buyers, who are the Manchester cotton-dealers, and the spinners all over the country, also employ brokers, at the same rate of commission, to make their purchases. The cotton is principally bought and sold by sample the purchasers very rarely considering it necessary to examine the bulk. By the strict probity and honour invariably observed by the brokers in their dealings with each other, this immense business is conducted with a facility and despatch which have probably no parallel in any other market of the world, and which could not exist to the same extent in the sale of any other description of merchandize. It may be mentioned, as a proof both of the excellence of the arrangements for carrying on the business, and of the integrity of the parties engaged in it, that, though the sales are not made with the formalities necessary to render the bargains legally binding, a dispute or difficulty in their fulfilment is almost unknown. Whatever misunderstandings arise are at once settled by a reference to some of the brokers not interested in the transaction; and such is the good feeling which prevails among them, that on these occasions the decision is, with scarcely an exception, prompt and satisfactory." It is possible that, in the interval which has elapsed since Mr. Baines wrote his account of the Cotton Manufacture, whence the above is taken, the extension of railway communication may have somewhat modified the system of conducting sales between the merchants of Liverpool and the manufacturers farther east; but the main features are doubtless the same.

Our Manchester manufacturer, then, has purchased his bags of cotton, and is about to convey them to his factory, where 'yarn' is to be spun, preparatory to the weaving of calico, or muslin, or cotton velvet, or some one among the countless varieties of woven goods. But how to convey his bulky bags? Here we come at once to one of the most mighty phases in the history of Manchester-the formation of railways. Time was, when all who were interested in these matters thought that goods' traffic would far exceed in amount passenger traffic on railways; for the yearning was rather after cheap goods transit than quick passenger transit. The creative power of railways, whereby a new taste is imparted to the people, was yet to be developed : men only thought, then, of accommodating the existing traffic; and there seems, indeed, to have been good reason why an improved or cheapened mode was found of conveying cotton from Liverpool to Manchester.

Not that the district was ill-provided with roads and canals on the contrary, hardly any other part of England equalled it in this respect. The turnpikeroads from Manchester to London, to Liverpool, to

Rochdale, to Bury, to Bolton, &c., are all very efficient, and if it were possible to make road conveyance adequate to the mighty wants of Manchester, these roads would not have been found wanting. But many years ago,― indeed, soon after the rise of the Arkwright system, it was found that road conveyance was far too costly for the bulk of raw and manufactured produce; and hence the rise of water communication, as exemplified on the Bridgewater, the Mersey and Irwell, and other canals. But even the canals would not do-they had not the expansive quality (commercially speaking) which the requirements of the district needed. It was in 1826 that the merchants of Liverpool and the manufacturers of Manchester obtained an Act of Parliament for the construction of a railway between the two towns; and the history of the enterprise, between that period and 1830, will ever remain one of the most deeply interesting features in the history of commerce.

Little need we wonder if the turnpike trusts and the canal companies resisted the new order of things. Legal battles and parliamentary battles, leases and amalgamations, have gone on between the canals and the railways; and the result is that there is an immense traffic for nearly all. Nothing can more excite the attention of a stranger than the enormous trains of trucks laden with cotton, which run smoothly over the thirty miles between Liverpool and Manchester, and deposit their stores at the terminus: and the distance of time that intervenes between the transit of the bag of raw cotton in one direction, and that of the bale of wrought cotton in the other, by becoming shorter and shorter, as modes of conveyance and of manufacture became more rapid, is not an inapt measure of modern progress in these matters.

Two or three examples may be interesting here, to show what can be and has been done in regard to expeditious transit and manufacture. One of these runs as follows:-"A gentleman left Manchester in the morning, went to Liverpool, thirty miles off, purchased and took back with him to Manchester on the

railway, 150 tons of cotton. This he immediately disposed of, and the article being liked, an offer was made to take another such quantity. Off he starts again, and actually, that evening, delivered the second 150 tons, having travelled 120 miles in four separate journeys, and bought, sold, and delivered, thirty miles off, at two distinct consecutive deliveries, 300 tons of goods in about twelve hours." In another example, "A merchant in Manchester wanted 1500 pieces of printed calico of a particular description in three colours, to be sent off the next day to America: not finding them at any of the warehouses, he went to Harpurhey, to Mr. Lockett's, who had nothing of the kind wanted; this was at five in the evening, and it was necessary to have the goods in Manchester the next day before one, to go by the railway to Liverpool. Mr. Alsop, who is at the head of Mr. Lockett's establishment, said he was willing to undertake the order at his own risk. He did so; the pieces were printed in three colours,