From Gretna Green to Land's End : a literary journey in England . ever-plying ferry-boats enable the merchant princes to residewell out of the town. So luxurious is the lotof these merchants deemed to be that Lan-cashire has set in opposition the terms *aLiverpool gentleman and a Manchesterman, while one of the ruder cotton towns,Bolton, adds its contribution of a Boltonchap. This congestion of life in the greatport means an extreme of poverty as well asof riches. The poor quarters of Liverpoolhave been called the worst slums in Chris-tendom, yet a recent investigation has shownthat within a l
From Gretna Green to Land's End : a literary journey in England . ever-plying ferry-boats enable the merchant princes to residewell out of the town. So luxurious is the lotof these merchants deemed to be that Lan-cashire has set in opposition the terms *aLiverpool gentleman and a Manchesterman, while one of the ruder cotton towns,Bolton, adds its contribution of a Boltonchap. This congestion of life in the greatport means an extreme of poverty as well asof riches. The poor quarters of Liverpoolhave been called the worst slums in Chris-tendom, yet a recent investigation has shownthat within a limited area, selected becauseof its squalor and misery, over five thousandpounds a year goes in drink. The familiesthat herd together by threes and fours in asingle dirty cellar, sleeping on straw andshavings, nevertheless have money to spendat the pub,—precisely the same flaring,gilded ginshop to-day as when Hawthornesaw and pitied its sad revellers half acentury ago. While Liverpool has a sorry pre-eminencefor high death-rate and for records of vice and 78. A GROUP OF INDUSTRIAL COUNTIES crime, Manchester, the cinder-heap, mayfairly claim to excel in sheer dismalness. Theriver Irwell, on which it stands, is so blackthat the Manchester clerks, as the sayinggoes, run down to it every morning and filltheir ink-pots. Not only Manchester, but allthe region for ten miles around, is one monstercotton factory. The towns within this sootyring — tall-chimneyed Bolton; Bury, that hasbeen making cloth since the days of HenryVIII; Middleton on the sable Irk; Rochdale,whose beautiful river is forced to toil notfor cotton only, but for flannels and fustiansand friezes; bustling Oldham; Ashton-under-Lyme, with its whirr of more than threemillion spindles; Staley Bridge on the Tame;Stockport in Cheshire; Salford, which practi-cally makes one town with Manchester; andManchester itself — all stand on a deep coal-field. The miners may be seen, of a Sundayafternoon, lounging at the street c
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