Rides on Railways Part 19

We believe that Mr. Torr also farms another estate, which he purchased, in conjunction with friends, from Sir William Stanley, at Eastham, near Hooton (a pleasant voyage of an hour up the river), and cultivates after the North Lincolns.h.i.+re style, in such a manner as to set an example to the Ches.h.i.+re farmers--not a little needed. The country about Eastham is the prettiest part of the Mersey.

While on the subject of agricultural improvements, we may mention that Mr.

Robert Neilson, another mercantile notability, holds a farm, under Lord Stanley, at a short railroad ride from Liverpool, which we have not yet had an opportunity of examining, but understand that it is a very remarkable instance of good farming, and consequently heavy crops, in a county (Lancas.h.i.+re) where slovenly farming is quite the rule, and well worth a visit from competent judges, whom as we are also informed Mr. Neilson is happy to receive.

If, as seems not improbable, it should become the fas.h.i.+on among our merchant princes to seek health and relaxation by applying capital and commercial principles to land, good farming will spread, by force of vaccination, over the country, and plain tenant-farmers will apply, cheaply and economically, the fruits of experience, purchased dearly, although not too dearly, by merchant farmers. A successful man may as well--nay, much better--sink money for a small return in such a wholesome and useful pursuit as agriculture, than in emulating the landed aristocracy, who laugh quietly at such efforts, or h.o.a.rding and speculating to add to what is already more than enough.

If a visit be paid to Mr. Neilson's farm, it would be very desirable to obtain, if possible, permission to view the Earl of Derby's collection of rare birds and animals, one of the finest in the world. But permission is rarely granted to strangers who have not some scientific claim to the favour.

Lord Derby has agents collecting for him in every part of the world, and has been very successful in rearing many birds from tropical and semi-tropical countries in confinement, which have baffled the efforts of zoological societies. The aviaries are arranged on a large scale, with shrubs growing in and water flowing through them. In fine weather some beautiful parrots, macaws, and other birds of a tame kind, are permitted to fly about the grounds. There is something very novel and striking in beholding brilliant macaws and c.o.c.katoos swinging on a lofty green-leaved bough, and then, at the call of the keeper, darting down to be fed where stately Indian and African cranes and clumsy emus are stalking about.

The late Earl was celebrated as a c.o.c.kfighter, and the possessor of one of the finest breeds of game fowls in the kingdom. A few only are now kept up at Knowsley, as presents to the n.o.ble owner's friends. Knowsley lies near Prescott, about seven miles from Liverpool. The family are descended from the Lord Stanley who was created Earl of Derby by the Earl of Lancaster and Derby, afterwards Henry IV., for services rendered at the battle of Bosworth Field. An ancestress, Charlotte de la Tremouille, Countess of Derby, is celebrated for her defence of Latham House against the Parliamentary forces in the Great Civil War, and is one of the heroines of Sir Walter Scott's novel of "Peveril of the Peak." {159}

Liverpool is particularly well placed as a starting point for excursions, in consequence of the number of railways with which it is connected, and the number of steamboats which frequent its port, where a whole dock is especially devoted to vessels of that cla.s.s.

By crossing over to Birkenhead, Chester may be reached, and thence the quietest route to Ireland, by Britannia Bridge and Holyhead; or a journey through North Wales may be commenced. By the East Lancas.h.i.+re, starting from the Station behind the Exchange, a direct line is opened through Ormskirk to Preston, the lakes of c.u.mberland, and to Scotland by the west coast line.

From the same station a circuitous route through Wigan and Bolton, on the Lancas.h.i.+re and Yorks.h.i.+re Railway, opens a second road to Manchester, and affords a complete communication with the manufacturing districts of Lancas.h.i.+re and Yorks.h.i.+re.

On the roads to London it is not now necessary to treat.

The steam accommodation from Liverpool has always been excellent, far superior to that afforded in the Thames. No such wretched slow-sailing tubs are to be found as those which plied between London and Boulogne and Calais, until railway compet.i.tion introduced a little improvement. The interior fittings and feeding on board Liverpool boats are generally superior. The proprietors have taken the Scotch and Americans as models, and not the stingy people of the Thames.

It is very odd that while the French and Scotch can contrive to give a delicious breakfast or dinner on s.h.i.+pboard, while the Germans on the Rhine are positively luxurious, and while we know that a steam-boiler offers every convenience for pet.i.ts plats, the real old English steam-boats of the General Steam Navigation Company never vary from huge joints and skinny chickens, with vegetables plain boiled.

We remember, some years ago, embarking on a splendid French steamer, afterwards run down and sunk in the Channel, to go to Havre, and returning by Boulogne to London. In the French vessel it was almost impossible to keep from eating,--soups, cutlets, plump fowls, all excellent and not dear. On board the English boat it was necessary to be very hungry, in order to attack the solid, untempting joints of roast and boiled.

This is a travelling age, and both hotel keepers and steam-boat owners will find profit in allowing the spirit of free trade and interchange to extend to the kitchen. Our public cooks are always spoiling the best meat and vegetables in Europe.

More than twenty lines of steamers ply from Liverpool to the various ports of Ireland; the Isle of Man, which is a favourite watering-place for the Lancas.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re people; Glasgow and other parts of Scotland, Whitehaven and Carlisle, Bangor, Caernarvon, and other ports of Wales, beside the deep-sea steamers to New York, Philadelphia, and Boston; to Constantinople, Malta, and Smyrna; and to Gibraltar, Genoa, Leghorn, Civita Vecchia (for Rome), Naples, Messina, and Palermo; so that an indifferent traveller has ample choice, which is sometimes very convenient for a man who wants to go somewhere and does not care where.

The amus.e.m.e.nts of Liverpool include two theatres, an amphitheatre for horsemans.h.i.+p, and several sets of subscription concerts, for the use of which a fine hall has been erected.

The race-course is situated at some miles distant from the town; races take place three times a-year, two being flat races, and the third a steeple- chase. They are well supported and attended, although not by ladies so much as in the Midland and Northern Counties. The Liverpool races are chiefly matters of business, something like the Newmarket, with the addition of a mob. A large attendance comes from Manchester, where more betting is carried on than in any town out of London. Gambling of all kinds naturally follows in the wake of cotton speculation, which is gambling.

The crashes produced in Liverpool by the sacra fames auri are sometimes startling, and they come out in visible relief, because, in spite of its size, gossip flourishes as intensely as in a village. During one of the cotton manias a young gentleman, barely of age, in possession of an income of some two thousand a-year from land, and ready money to the extent of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, joined an ingenious penniless gentleman in speculating in cotton, and found himself in less than twelve months a bankrupt; thus sacrificing, without the least enjoyment, a fortune sufficient for the enjoyment of every rational pleasure, or for the support of the highest honours in the State.

Such instances are not uncommon, although on a less magnificent scale; indeed, it is well to be cautious in inquiring after a Liverpool merchant or broker after an absence of a few years; a very few years are sufficient to render the poor rich and the rich poor, an eighth of a penny in the pound of cotton will do it.

The Munic.i.p.al Corporation of Liverpool is the wealthiest in England after London, and virtually richer than London, inasmuch as the expenses are trifling, the property is improving, and the Liverpool aldermen and common- councillors have no vested claims to costly entertainments.

The majority is in the hands of the Conservative party, the Liberal party having only enjoyed the sweets of power for a brief period after the pa.s.sing of the Financial Reform Bill; but the principle of representation keeps down any inclination toward the inevitable jobberies of a close self-elected body, and pushes local legislators on, quite up to the mark of the public opinion of the locality they govern.

A stranger, who has no interest in party squabbles, must confess that the funds of this wealthy estate are on the whole fairly and wisely distributed.

The Irish population, amounting to many thousands of the poorest and most ignorant cla.s.s, who find a refuge from the miseries of their own country in the first port from Dublin, and employment in the vast demand for unskilled labour caused by the perpetual movement in imports and exports, impose a heavy tax on the poor-rates and police-rates of this borough.

In the education of this part of the community, the Liberal Corporation made provision in the extensive Corporation schools, by adopting the Irish Government scheme of instruction, permitting the Roman Catholics to make use of their own translation of the Bible, and to absent themselves from the religious instruction of the orthodox.

On this question the munic.i.p.al elections were fought. The general education party were eventually beaten. The Roman Catholics were withdrawn from the schools, and thrown entirely upon the priests or the streets for education, and great was the rejoicing among the party who carried a large wooden Bible as their standard.

But subsequent events have induced those who have given any attention to the state of the operative cla.s.ses in Liverpool, of whatever politics, to doubt whether it would not have been better to have been busy, for the last fifteen years, in teaching those cla.s.ses something, who, knowing nothing, supply very expensive customers to the Liverpool courts of law and jail.

Liverpool returns two members to the House of Commons.

The election contests were formerly wonderfully bitter and absurd, for on one occasion, just before the pa.s.sing of the Reform Bill, nearly two hundred thousand pounds were spent by two parties, between whose politics there was scarcely a shade of difference.

William Roscoe represented Liverpool for a short time, but was rejected at a second election, in consequence of his opposition to the Slave Trade. He was the son of a publican, and rose from an office boy to be an attorney in large practice, and eventually a banker. He was ruined by the stopping of his bank, which, after being for many years under the taxing harrows of the old corrupt bankrupt system, paid twenty s.h.i.+llings in the pound. William Roscoe was a voluminous writer of political pamphlets and poetry, which are now quite forgotten; his literary reputation deservedly rests upon his lives of Lorenzo de Medici, published in 1796, and of Leo X; the former of which has recently been republished by Mr. Bohn, in his cheap series of reprints.

Of even more value than his literary productions, was the school, or party, which he founded in Liverpool, while he was still wealthy and influential, embracing all who had a taste for literature and art. At that period Liverpool was rising into wealth on a vigorous prosecution of the Slave Trade, of which its parliamentary representatives were the avowed supporters.

At that time vulgar wealth was the only distinction, and low debauchery the almost only amus.e.m.e.nt of the princ.i.p.al merchants. Absurd as it may now seem, when all the well-to-do world profess to be educated and temperate, Roscoe and his friends rendered inestimable service by making elegant tastes and temperate habits respectable, and by raising up an opposition to the old Slave Trade party, whose paradise lay in turtle soup, port wine, and punch.

He set an example to merchants of stocking a library as well as a cellar, which has been followed, until now it is considered a matter of course.

William Roscoe died in 1831, at a very advanced age. He was a remarkably fine-looking man, with a grand aristocratic head.

In addition to Huskisson and George Canning, Liverpool once very nearly had the honour of sending to Parliament Henry Brougham, in days when the Chancellors.h.i.+p and the House of Lords could scarcely have been expected by that versatile genius, even in a dream.

At present Liverpool interests are well represented in the House of Commons.

The borough has had the good sense to prefer a merchant townsman, Sir Thomas Birch, and the son of a merchant, and friend and co-minister of the late Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Cardwell, to a soldier, and the dreamy poetical son of a Protectionist duke. A place like Liverpool ought to find in its own body better men than young lords or old soldiers. But young Liverpool dearly loves a lord, of any politics; and a little polite attention from a duke will produce an unconscious effect even on the trade report of a broker of "fas.h.i.+on."

Mr. William Brown, at the head of the greatest American house in the world, after Baring's, represents South Lancas.h.i.+re, but on Manchester influence, scarcely with the consent of Liverpool. Mr. Brown, who is an Irishman by birth, has been entirely the architect of his own fortune, and began business--on a very limited scale indeed--within the memory of persons now living. The firm has now agents in every town of any importance in the United States, and is the means of keeping in active employment hundreds of traders in all our manufacturing districts. The relations with Birmingham and the hardware country are very close. Another Liverpool man of whom the Liverpool people are justly proud, is the best debater in the House of Commons, if he only knew his own mind, the Right Honourable William Gladstone, the son of Sir John Gladstone, Bart., of Fasque, N.B., formerly a Liverpool merchant. Sir John Gladstone is a Scotchman, and in conjunction with another gentleman, also the head of a first-rate Liverpool house, Mr.

Sandbatch, went out to the West Indies (Demerara) as journeymen bakers, in the same way that Mr. Miles, the grandfather of the members for East Somerset and Bristol, and founder of the great Bristol banking house, went out to Barbadoes as a journeyman cooper. If we add to these instances that the first Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Brotherton (who himself told the House, in a debate on the Factory Time Bill, that he had commenced life as a factory operative), beside many others, too numerous to mention, it will be found that our House of Commons is not so far out of the reach of industrious merit as foreigners usually imagine.

In conclusion, we may note that Liverpool, which gave very cold and n.i.g.g.ard support to the Great Exhibition (chiefly because the project was ill received by the ducal house which patronizes the fas.h.i.+onables of the town), sent a contribution which very completely represented its imports, specifying the scientific and commercial name of each article, country of production, and quant.i.ty imported.

This collection occupies a considerable s.p.a.ce, but it will be found, on examination, that a few staples employ the greater part of the s.h.i.+pping inwards. Cotton occupies by far the largest place, the air is filled with floating motes of cotton all round the business quarters of the town; timber probably stands next in the tonnage it employs; West Indian produce is less important than it was formerly; a great trade is done with South America, in hides, both dry and salted; tobacco, both from the United States and Cuba, arrives in large quant.i.ties. There are several great snuff and cigar manufactories in Liverpool. The hemp and tallow trade is increasing, as is the foreign corn trade. The Mediterranean, and especially the Italian, trade, has been rendered more important by steam communication. The China trade has not increased as much as was expected.

When the Docks and Public Inst.i.tutions have been examined, and the places of interest on the Ches.h.i.+re sh.o.r.e visited, Liverpool presents nothing to detain the traveller who has no private claims on his attention.

It must be acknowledged that the general appearance of the town and of the people is more agreeable than that of Birmingham or Manchester, although Liverpool can claim none of the historical and antiquarian interest in which Bristol and Chester are rich. There are parts of the town devoted to low lodging houses, and accommodation for the poor Irish and emigrants, as bad as the worst parts of St. Giles's or Spitalfields. Indeed, the mortality is greater than that of any other town in England.

Liverpool is a great port for emigration to the United States and Canada. On the line of packet s.h.i.+ps the accommodation for those who can pay 5 pounds and upwards is excellent; in the timber s.h.i.+ps they are packed like herrings after being lodged like pigs. But what can be expected for the fare. At 2 pounds the s.h.i.+powners undertake to give a pa.s.sage, and find two quarts of water and a pound of bread per day. The Government Emigration Agents are indefatigable in their efforts, munic.i.p.al and Parliamentary regulations have been from time to time applied to the subject, nevertheless the frauds and cruelties inflicted on emigrants are frightful.

An attempt was made some short time since to have an Emigrant's Home as a sort of Model Barrack, erected in one of the New Docks, so as to form a counterpoise to the frauds of emigration lodging-house keepers, but local jealousies defeated a plan which would have been equally advantageous to the town and the emigrants.

The state of poverty and crime in Liverpool, fed as it is by the overflowings of many districts, is an important subject, which has excited the anxious attention of several enlightened residents, among others of the late Police Magistrate, Mr. Edward Rushton, who died suddenly without being able to bring his plans to maturity.

In conclusion we may say of Liverpool, that it is a town which has a great and increasing population, a wealthy Corporation, a thriving trade, yet less of the materials of a metropolis than many other towns of less commercial importance.

For further temporary information, a traveller may advantageously consult the Liverpool papers, of which there is one for every day in the week--that is to say, an Albion, a Times, a Mail, a Standard, a Mercury, a Journal, a Chronicle--of all shades of politics, of large size, conducted with great ability, and affording, in addition to the news and politics of the day, a great deal of general information, in the shape of extracts from popular works and original articles.

If we would learn why the opinions of inhabitants of towns prevail over the opinions of landowners and agriculturists, we have only to compare the active intelligence of the two as exhibited by such journals as are to be found in Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham with those supported by the rural community. A single sect expends more on the support of the press than all the farmers and farmers' friends united, who are more numerous, more wealthy, not wanting in intelligence in their own pursuits, but quite without cohesion or combination.

LIVERPOOL TO MANCHESTER.--There are two ways from Liverpool to Manchester, one by the Lancas.h.i.+re and Yorks.h.i.+re Railway, through Bolton, which has a station behind the Exchange, and one by the old route, through Newton. The line by the new one has Bolton upon its course, and renders the Aintree Racecourse half as near Manchester as Liverpool.

For choice take a Tuesday or Sat.u.r.day, and travel up by the early Cotton Brokers' Express to Manchester, so as to see one more phase of the English commercial character. The Brokers are a jovial set and hospitable, as keen as Yankees and as industrious. There is a marked difference between them and the Spinners, but they are of no particular country. Liverpool, like Manchester, although not to the same degree, is colonised by strangers. Both Irishmen and Scotchmen are to be found among the most respectable and successful, and a considerable number of Americans are settled there as merchants and s.h.i.+pping agents; indeed it is half American in its character.

In this year of 1851, to describe the Liverpool and Manchester Railway would be absurd; acres of print, in all civilized languages, and yards of picture- ill.u.s.tration, have been devoted to it. At Newton Station you see below you a race-course of great antiquity, and what was once a huge hotel, built to supply a room large enough for the Mother Partingtons of Lancas.h.i.+re to meet and prepare their mops for sweeping back the Atlantic tide of public opinion.

There they met, and dined and drank and shouted, and unanimously agreed that it was foolish legislation which transferred the right of representation from the village of Newton to the great city of Manchester; after which they went home, and wisely submitted to the summons which found its speaking-trumpets at Manchester. Fortunately for this country, a minority knows how to submit to a majority, and the Conservative Hall, by a sort of accidental satire on its original uses, has been turned into a printing office.