THE BRIGHT CITY.
The Earl of Shaftesbury has volunteered an epistle eulogistic of Manchester. "Thoroughfares are opened"—says the noble lord—"courts and alleys cleansed—drains and sewers constructed," &c. &c. Nothing, according to the noble lord, will soon be wanting to Manchester to make it emphatically the Bright City; nothing but—as Punch opines—a little public spirit. "The Turk may go hang so that he buys our goods." "Liberty in its highest sense, is the liberty to buy and sell." "The worst worldly evil is a bad shilling." A few of these maxims do certainly still defile the moral atmosphere of Manchester, cleansed as the air inhaled may be from the reek of cesspools. Mr. Bright's hat, though covering a large, cool head, is nevertheless not big enough to extinguish the turban of Turkey. "Great spirits"—says Jean Paul—"are buried under golden mountains." In like manner, sympathy with a noble cause may be stifled in cotton-bags.
"All round my neck I vears the shirt collar,
All round the neck for a twelvemonth and a day;
And if any one should ax you the reason vy I vears it;
So, tell 'em 'cause it's now the fashionable vay."