This is a populous province; in no other part have I seen the towns standing so near together. We soon advanced to Newcastle-under-Line. Here my friend the coachman told me they had a curious custom of punishing scolds, by putting a bridle and bitt into the mouth of the offender, so as to confine her tongue, and leading her in this manner through the streets as an example. Whether the English women are particularly addicted to this offence, I am not sufficiently acquainted with them to say; but it should seem so by the severity with which the laws regard it. In other places immersion is the punishment; the woman is fastened in a chair at the end of a long plank or pole, which is hoisted out over the river, and there elevated or lowered by means of a lever; in this manner they dip her as often as the officiating constable thinks proper, or till she no longer displays any inclination to continue the offence, which probably is not till she has lost the power. Both methods are effectual ones of enforcing silence upon an unruly tongue, but they are barbarous customs, and ought to be wholly disused.[6]
We were now entering Cheshire, the great cheese country, and the difference between a land of manufactures and a land of pasturage was delightful. The houses of the labourers were clean cottages: those of the rich, old mansions with old trees about them in view of the village church, where generation after generation, for ages back, the heirs of the family had been baptized in the same font, and buried in the same vault; not newly-erected brick buildings with shrubs and saplings round them, in hearing of the mill-wheels and hammer, by which the fortune of the owner has been fabricated. One house which we passed was the most singular I have ever seen: very old it must needs be,—how many centuries I will not venture to conjecture. The materials are wood and mortar without stone; the timber-frames painted black, and the intervening panes of plaster-work whitened; no dress in an old picture was ever more curiously variegated with stripes and slashes. The roof rises into many points; the upper story projecting over the lower like a machicolated gateway, except that the projection is far greater; and long windows with little diamond-shaped panes reach almost from side to side, so that the rooms must be light as a lantern. There is a moat round it. I should guess it to be one of the oldest dwelling-houses in the kingdom.
We saw this quiet pastoral country to the best advantage; the sun was setting, and the long twilight of an English summer evening gives to the English landscape a charm wholly its own. As soon as it grew dark the coach lamps were lighted; the horses have no bells, and this is as needful for the security of other travellers as for our own. But the roads are wide; and if a traveller keeps his own proper side, according to the law of the roads, however fearful it may be to see two of these fiery eyes coming on through the darkness, at the rate of two leagues in the hour, he is perfectly safe. We meant, when evening closed, to have forsaken the roof and taken our seats withinside; but the places were filled by chance passengers picked up on the way, and no choice was left us. Star-light and a mild summer air made the situation not unpleasant, if we had not been weary and disposed to sleep; this propensity it was not safe to indulge; and the two hours after night set in till we reached Manchester, were the most wearying of the whole day.
The entrance into the city reminded me of London, we drove so long over rough street stones, only the streets were shorter and the turns we made more frequent. It was midnight when we alighted at a spacious inn, called the Bridgewater Arms. In these large manufacturing towns, inns have neither the cleanliness or comfort which we find in smaller places. In the country there is a civility about the people of the house, and an attention on their part, which, though you know hospitality is their trade, shows, or seems to show, something of the virtue. Here all is hurry and bustle; customers must come in the way of trade, and they care not whether you are pleased or not. We were led into a long room, hung round with great-coats, spurs, and horsewhips, and with so many portmanteaus and saddle-bags lying about it, that it looked like a warehouse. Two men were smoking over a bottle of wine at one table; they were talking of parabolics and elliptics, and describing diagrams on the table with a wet finger; a single one was writing at another, with a large pocket-book lying open before him. We called for supper; and he civilly told us that he also had given a like order, and if we would permit him should be happy to join us. To this we of course acceded. We found him to be a commercial traveller, and he gave us some useful information concerning Manchester, and the best method of proceeding on our journey. It was going towards two o'clock when we retired. We slept as usual in a double-bedded room, but we had no inclination to converse after we were in bed. I fell asleep almost instantaneously, and did not awake till nine in the morning.—I must not forget to tell you, that over the entrance to the passage on each side of which the bed-rooms are arranged, is written in large letters Morphean!
[5] If Don Manuel had remained long enough in England, he might have seen parliament annulling its own contract in its own wrong, granting away the public money at a time when the people were more heavily burthened than they had ever been before, and doing this in defiance of the legal authorities.—Tr.
[6] D. Manuel is mistaken in supposing that they are still in use. The ducking-stools are fallen into decay, and in many places the stocks also,—little to the credit of the magistrates.—Tr.
LETTER XXXVIII.
Manchester.—Cotton Manufactory.—Remarks upon the pernicious Effects of the manufacturing System.
J. had provided us with letters to a gentleman in Manchester; we delivered them after breakfast, and were received with that courtesy which a foreigner, when he takes with him the expected recommendations, is sure to experience in England. He took us to one of the great cotton manufactories, showed us the number of children who were at work there, and dwelt with delight on the infinite good which resulted from employing them at so early an age. I listened without contradicting him, for who would lift up his voice against Diana in Ephesus!—proposed my questions in such a way as not to imply, or at least not to advance, any difference of opinion, and returned with a feeling at heart which makes me thank God I am not an Englishman.