And it was only after escaping from the day’s drudgery that I had even short leisure to study the people, far too short a time to be able to give any reasoned account of them. A pilgrim may report his impressions of manners and customs, but he cannot generalise on character. True that the Manchester folk made no attempt to conceal their failings, or to conciliate the casual visitor. I have mentioned the “inordinate self-satisfaction” of the city, but it would be better to describe it as an over-full recognition of its own surpassing merits: let us not suppose that it went far beyond a just claim. There went with it a certain consciousness that in the wear and tear of crowded life the amenities of society were a little neglected. It was told me with a strange delight that the commercial travellers, and others, speak of Manchester men, and Liverpool gentlemen, and it was averred that the former put on silk hats when they journeyed to do business with the latter. I mentioned this double tribute to a Liverpool resident, and he replied that he had not noticed it. Now, what did he mean? Was it that the Liverpool gentlemen...? or that he had not seen the silk hats? It is better not to ask too many questions.
But the absence of pretence is sometimes itself a pretence, and the people are not so black as they paint themselves. Let us be reasonable. If the dwellers in Manchester had been more richly endowed with beauty, grace, courtesy, and so on, would they have continued to live in Manchester? Or would not other cities have enticed away men who combined these merits with the intelligence and activity which have produced the Ship Canal, and the Technological Museum? We do not expect to find pine-apples in the Hebrides, or violets in the Sahara.
Dipping into a volume of Burns, I came to some lines so exactly suitable to the occasion, that I cannot do better than conclude with them, after the manner of Addison:
“But fare ye weel, auld Nickie-ben,
O wad ye tak’ a thought an’ men’
Ye aiblins might—I dinna ken—
Still hae a stake:
I’m wae to think upo’ yon den,
Ev’n for your sake.”
FOOTNOTES:
[44] Note that I fully admit the right of the County of Durham to this meaningless title, and also to immunity from me.
[45] “Nicholas Nickleby,” chapter xxiv.
[46] “That it would tend to secure a greater uniformity of standard among the Inspectors, if the chief Inspectors ceased to have charge of small districts of their own, and confined themselves to the larger areas which they have to supervise, &c., &c.,” p. 76, Report.
[47] “Protection,” said Mr. Disraeli, “is not only dead, it is d——d.” A modern Protectionist would lament that the statesman did not read Alton Locke, published before the utterance, ch. xxii: “And sae the deevil’s dead.... At ony rate I’d no bury him till he began smell a wee strong like. It’s a grewsome thing, is premature interment, Alton, laddie!”