But Manchester, at the time of Mr. Sandboy’s visit, was not the Manchester of every-day life.
The black smoke no longer streamed from the tall chimneys of its factories—the sky above was no longer swarthy, as if grimed with the endless labour of the town, but clear, and without a cloud. Not a cart, nor a van, nor a railway wagon, nor a lurry, broke the stillness of the streets, and the tramp of the policeman on his rounds was alone to be heard. The mills were all hushed—the fires were out—the engines were motionless—not a wheel whirred—not a loom clacked—not a cop twirled, within them. The workers, young and old, had all gone to take their share in England’s holiday. To walk through the work-rooms that a little while ago had trembled and clattered with the stir of their many machines, impressed the mind with the same sense of desolation as a theatre seen by daylight. The mice, startled at the strange sound of a footstep, scampered from out the heaps of cotton that lay upon the floor, and spiders had already begun to spin their webs in the unused shuttles of the looms. At night, the many windows of the mills and warehouses no longer shimmered, like gold, with the lights within, but glittered, like plates of silver, with the moon-rays shining on them from without. The doors of the huge warehouses were all closed, and the steps grown green from long disuse. Not a cab stood in front of the infirmary—not a vehicle loitered beside the pavement in Market-street.
In the morning, not a factory bell was to be heard; nor a “bus” to be seen bringing from the suburbs its crowds of merchants piled on the roof and packed on the splash-board in front of the coachman. Not a milkman dragged through the streets his huge tin can suspended on wheels; nor was a scavenger, with his long loose blue woollen shirt and round-crowned hat, to be met with.
On Saturday night, the thoroughfares clattered not with the tread of the thousands of heavy-booted operatives on the pavement; not a grocer’s shop was brilliant with the ground-glass globes of its many lamps; not a linen draper’s window was stuck over with bills telling of another “Tremendous Failure” or “Awful Sacrifice!”
Looking for Lodgings.
This is all I have ma’m:—I have just let the last tent on the tiles to a Foreign Nobleman
In Smithfield, there was neither light nor sound. The glossy crockery and glittering glass no longer was strewn upon the ground, and no impatient dealer was there jingling his cups and tumblers, and rattling his basins to bring the customers to his stand. The covered sheds, spread with bright-coloured handkerchiefs and muslin, and hung with long streamers of lace, had all disappeared; the long narrow alleys of old clothes stalls, decked with washed-out gowns and brown stays, and yellow petticoats and limp bonnets, were gone; the old-boots stalls, bright with the highly-polished shoe, were nowhere visible; nor the black hardware, nor the white wicker-baskets, nor the dangling hairy brooms, nor the glass cases glittering with showy jewellery. The booth-like cook-shops were shut up, and not a boy was to be seen within them enjoying his cheap basin of steaming soup or plate of smoking pie; and the sheets of tripe, like bundles of shammy leather, and the cow-heels, white and soddened, like washerwomen’s hands, had disappeared from the stalls.
In Victoria Market the oranges were no longer to be seen piled up in pyramids, and glittering like balls of gold against their white-papered shelves. Not a sound of music was to be heard in any of the harmonic taverns. The piano of “The Hen And Chickens” was hushed. The fiddle and violoncello sounded not in “The Cotton Tree.” At Ben Lang’s the lights were all out, and the galleries empty—not a seriously-comic song, nor comically-serious ditty disturbed the silence of the “Saloon.”
The shutters of the Exchange, too, were closed—none sat at the tables, or stood at the desks scanning the papers. At Milner’s, the patent iron safe that, laden with gold, had stood the attack of twenty desperate robbers, was hidden for a time by the shutters. Barton the stationer had eloped to London with his Love. Nathaniel Gould and his brother from London had both returned to the metropolis to see the Exhibition, and his mother. Binyons and Hunter had given over desiccating their coffee, and had gone to air themselves instead, in the metropolis. At Crowther’s Hotel, the pretty barmaid was no longer to be seen, for “The Angel” had retired to London. At the Commercial Dining Rooms, Bell’s joints had ceased to be hot from twelve till three, for he, like the rest, had gone, legs and shoulders and all, to the Great Exhibition; while Mrs. Ja. Stewart, (“professed cook,”) no longer recommended those gentlemen who wanted a relish to try her chops. Mrs. Lalor, having exhausted “her winter supply of fancy shirts, braces, cravats, &c.,” had availed herself of the opportunity of seeing the Exhibition to provide herself with a summer stock. Mr. Albert, the dentist, of George-street, whose “artificial teeth, he assures us, are such perfect imitations of nature, that it is confidently predicted they will speedily supersede every other kind,” had started for the metropolis, leaving his incorrodible teeth behind him; and J. Casper, the tailor, of Market-street, having “invented a cloth with two distinct faces, which may be worn on either side, and suitable for trowsers,” as well as coats and vests, had turned his coat like the very best “double-faced,” and gone up in a pair of his own patent pantaloons, with the intention of using the outsides for week days, and the insides for Sundays. At the City Mourning Establishment, the young ladies of the shop had given over sorrowing for the deceased friends of their customers, and, substituting lively pink glacés for their sombre bombazins, had suddenly changed, like lobsters, from black to red, and gone up with the chief mourner of “the establishment,” determined to have a few weeks’ pleasure, like the rest of the world; while Beddoe, of the opposition depôt for grief, had, “in consequence of the mildness of the season,” (coupled with its general healthiness) “not only reduced all his stock of the previous winter’s weeds and weepers, but finding the mortality much below the usual average, had put up the black shutters of his shop, and affixed a hatchment, with the motto of “Resurgam,” over his door, as a notice that he would turn up again shortly.
Not a shop but had some announcement pasted on the shutters. In the principal thoroughfares chickens scratched at the unremoved dust, while the crowing of rival cocks sounded shrill in the silent streets. Corpulent old ducks waddled along the kerb-stones to bathe themselves, in the gutter. In Market-street the grass was already beginning to sprout between the stones. The cats, left to take care of themselves, wandered about as thin as French pigs, and lay in wait for the birds, that no longer scared by the noise, now began to flock and twitter loudly in every thoroughfare. In the People’s Parks, pigs roamed among the flowers, while geese and donkeys nibbled at the grass.