And if there was one thing more than another that impressed me as having the real spirit of Manchester abiding within it, it was the lurry. I use the word lurry with the true Manchester spelling as though it were an English and not merely a Manchester word. The lurry is symbolic of the city and the dwellers within its walls. The lurry incarnate in wood and iron is a cart or wagon, what you will, a four-wheeled, oblong, flat tray, cumbersome yet capable of bearing great burdens. There is a stern largeness about its aspect, a straightness about its course—it is never at its ease in turning corners—which always suggests to me an ancient Roman origin, though there is a noble catholicity about it which is quite the reverse of Roman, for it will carry anything for money. I have seen a two-horse lurry marching slowly down Market Street bearing only a solitary blue band-box. But its chief and usual burden is a load of bales of cotton cloth. From the upper windows of narrow streets heavy pieces of cloth are flung accurately and rapidly on to the lurry waiting below, and the driver, moving within
an ace of destruction on the floor of the lurry, stacks them solidly together until the load is complete. Then when the sun shines—as it has been known to on occasions even in Portland Street—the lurry, with its two magnificent horses, strolls proudly away to station or steamer, no tarpaulin covering its snowy burden—the harvest of Lancashire—and when your stranger’s eyes follow it with admiration, you begin to learn something of the spirit and character of the city whose symbol it is. For the lurry is a carrier of goods from man to man, a four-wheeled middleman, moving in a straight, dogged, obstinate course, shoving lighter affairs aside, disputing its right to all the street even with its own municipality and their trams, caring little who goes down beneath its hoofs and wheels so long as the cotton bales and pieces arrive and are sent forth, and that the loads are pressed down and shaken together and running over, and that business is good.
And the lurry horses, like the Sunday School children, have their feast day also, which is the first of May, when, bedecked with ribbons and caparisoned in gleaming harness, they parade the streets. Who that has seen them will ever forget the splendid teams of Robert Clay, the bleacher, as they swing round into Albert Square on a sunny first of May and gladden the hearts of Manchester man, woman and child, with a vision of strength and wealth and beauty and business?
For the first idea of Manchester is business, and the
second idea of Manchester is business, and the seventy times seventh idea of Manchester is business, and the outward and visible sign of the Manchester idea is a lurry laden with cotton cloth. And had I had a hand in the emblazoning of a coat of arms, instead of a beehive—whose denizens are, after all, but a dull set of socialist fellows, fond of rural pursuits and little embued with the Manchester ideals—I would have set aside that terrestrial globe semée of bees volant on a wreath of the colours, and instituted a lurry—not rampant or courant, but passant—day and night constantly and eternally passant, until the last Manchester contract is fulfilled and the last load of cotton goods is delivered.
I do not say I learned all this about Manchester in one Whit-week. On the contrary, it took me a quarter of a century to find out what little I have learned, and even now I recognise that I am only outside the veil of a great mystery. For the heart and life and being of Manchester and its surroundings is a human study worthy of a sane and honest philosopher, if such a one exist, and I am only attempting to set down a few traveller’s notes, as it were.
Now, at first, no Courts were sitting, and I sat in my chambers, which were up two flights of stairs in 41, John Dalton Street—where I remained even in the days of my prosperity—and there I settled to work on my edition of Dorothy Osborne’s letters, and only heard the blurred rattle of the lurries over the stone setts through the double windows which
all Manchester offices must have to preserve the sense of hearing of their inmates.
And though I think it is a good thing for the fledgling barrister to write a book of some sort, so that he may have an occupation to keep him in his chambers, and be there ready to greet that first great cause which is going to bring him fame or fortune, yet he should never miss a meet of the profession at sessions or assizes, even though he is well aware he is merely going to sit at the receipt of a custom that is not there.
The Manchester Assize Courts, where most of our local courts were held, are very handsome and convenient buildings. Any other city but Manchester would have approached them through something better than a slum. But there is not a single entrance into Manchester that can be described as either comely or decent. The individual public buildings of Manchester are, many of them, of exceptional beauty. How fine the Town Hall would look—if it were washed! The streets of Manchester are by no means badly cleansed. Why should Manchester wash her feet and not wash her face? Why should Manchester fail to appreciate what other cities of Europe seem to understand, that you do not only want fine buildings, but worthy roads and streets to see them as you approach? It is the approach shot that Manchester has to learn in architecture.