And by moving down to Manchester in Whit-week I found myself indeed plunged into a new world. For Whit-week, as I said, is a universal holiday among all sorts and conditions of people, and every man, woman and child has his or her share in the feast. For the shops close, the workman goes to Blackpool or the Isle of Man, and the employer to Paris or the West Highlands, or St. Andrews, or North Berwick as the mood suggests, and Lancashire and Yorkshire play cricket at Old Trafford and the races are run, and the children dressed in white, carrying their banners, move in procession through streets thronged with admiring parents. And that all may be at peace and good will the Protestant children “walk”—that is the Manchester word—on one day and the Roman Catholics on another, for fear the good Christian parents of either denomination should batter each other’s skulls whilst their little children are singing “Lead Kindly Light.” And if you want to see one of the prettiest sights
in the land, go and see the children “walking,” the little Catholics for choice, because their frocks are daintier and their banners more picturesque, and their parents in the crowd, among whom you should stand, are more Irish, enthusiastic and full of epigram. But by no means go to Manchester in Whit-week if you want to buy or sell. And if you have to move into a new house it is obviously not the right season to make the attempt, for at this season no money or entreaty will save your vans from being held up, and you may make up your mind to lay your carpets yourself. When you become a citizen of Manchester you recognise the sanity of the Whit-week festival. It comes at a time when days are long, weather favourable, the despair of winter behind you and the joy of summer at your feet. Some day all England will acquire the Whit-week habit, and it will cease to be the special luxury of Manchester.
As there was no possibility of work or any kind of progress in domestic affairs, I had ample leisure to survey the city and study its geography. My earliest impressions were not prepossessing. The town of Manchester seemed to consist of one long street—Market Street—which was far too small for the trams and lurries and men and women who wanted to use it. All the other streets seemed half empty, and this one was overcrowded. The costumes of the inhabitants struck me as grotesque. Men’s gloves were only to be seen in the shop windows, and I wondered why they were there at
all, but discovered afterwards that the devout carried them to church or chapel on Sundays. Top hats were worn, certainly, but generally with light tweed suits. Frock coats were surmounted by boating straws, and I remember the shock experienced by my Cockney mind when I met a native clothed in correct black coat and silk hat in Albert Square ruining his chances in life, as I thought, by the added blasphemy of a short pipe. It must not be thought that I sighed deeply for the Babylonish garments of the Temple, for I soon learned that in Manchester, of all places, you might
Gi’e fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man’s a man for a’ that.
And, for myself, I cared for none of these things, and no doubt Charley McKeand—whose outspoken comments on men and manners were the joy of the circuit—was fully within the truth when he insisted, as he always did, that I was the worst-dressed man on the circuit.
But truth compels me to say that my memory of the first aspect of Manchester was a scene of hustle, roughness, and uncouthness rather depressing to a stranger in a strange land not to the manner born. I discovered before long the kindness of heart and the real sense of independence that underlies and is the origin of the Manchester manner, but I still think that there are many natives who mistake incivility for independence, thereby lowering their fellow-citizens in the esteem of mankind.
I could quote many instances of what I mean, but one will suffice. An eminent Withington butcher, having delivered meat of exceptional toughness, my wife remonstrated with him about it, when he blurted out, “Nay, missis, it’s not my meat—if anything’s wrong, more laikely it’s your teeth.”
It is this kind of greeting that puzzles the softer races of the South.