Lancashire Part 4

It is in the neighbourhood of these rural establishments that the hurt done by manufacturing to the pristine beauty of the country becomes conspicuous. Near the towns the results are simply dirt, withered hedges, and a general withdrawal of meadow adornment. In the country we perceive how the picturesque becomes affected. Railways are not more cruel. Cotton, with all its kindliness, reverses the celestial process which makes the wilderness blossom as the rose. There are differences in degree--the upper portion of the Irwell valley, near Summerseat, is in a measure exceptional; but we must never expect to find a spot wholly devoid of ill.u.s.trations of blight and mischief.

Against the destruction of natural beauty, when works and factories a.s.sume the sway, of course must be set not only the employment of the industrious, but the enormous rise in the value of the land; since rise of such character is a sign of advancing civilisation, which in due time will more than compensate the damage. In the manufacturing parts of Lancas.h.i.+re land available for farming purposes commands ten times the rental of a century ago. Mr. Henry Ashworth's paper on the increase in the value of Lancas.h.i.+re property, published in 1841, showed that since 1692 the rise in Bolton had been six hundredfold.

The highest place in the trio of beautiful arts now before us is held undeniably by calico-printing, since it not only "paints" the woven fabric "with delight," but in its power to multiply and vary the cheerful pictures is practically inexhaustible; thus representing, and in the most charming manner, the outcome of the sweet facility of the seasons. Next to the diversities of living flowers a.s.suredly come the devices of the pattern-designer who discreetly goes to nature for his inspiration. Much of his work must of necessity be conventionalised, and some of it cannot be other than arbitrary and artificial; but there is no reason why, in its steadiest practice, strictly natural forms and colours should not always be regarded as truest and best.

The tendency is daily more and more in this direction, so that calico-printing may justly antic.i.p.ate a future even more distinguished than its present and its past. The "past," if we press for the birthday, is an ancient one indeed. Not to mention the chintzes of India, in the days of Calidasa, Pliny shows us very plainly that printing by means of mordants was practised in Egypt in the first century of the Christian era. When introduced into Western Europe is not known; for our present sketch it is enough that in England it began about A.D. 1700, coming, like many other excellent things, of the short-sighted efforts of selfishness, which, fortunately for mankind, always invites the retaliations of generosity. In the year mentioned, 1700, with a view to favouring the manufacturers of woollen and silk, the importation of prints from India was forbidden. Experiments were at once made with a view to production of similar work at home. This was soon discovered to be practicable, and preparations were made for printing upon a large scale, and at a moderate cost, when a new hindrance arose--say rather that the old malignant one, jealous opposition, reappeared. For a time this was successful, but at last the privilege to print in England was conceded, burdened, however, with the condition that the metropolis and the immediate vicinity should alone possess the right--a circ.u.mstance which recalls to mind the original law as to joint-stock banks. The monopoly wrought its own destruction, for there was one county at least, a despised but courageous one in the north, which was not likely to remain a pa.s.sive spectator. Contemporaneously with the new bleaching process above described, contemporaneously also with the employment of the new cotton machinery, calico-printing obtained the provincial footing which from that time forwards has never ceased to strengthen, and which now renders Lancas.h.i.+re the most important district in the world in regard alike to the immensity of production and the inexpressible beauty of the workmans.h.i.+p. It is not too much to say, with an eminent author, that the calico-printing works of Lancas.h.i.+re are ent.i.tled to count with the most distinguished English seats of useful science, and the most interesting scenes of the exercise of tasteful invention. The earliest enterprise was in Manchester itself, in 1745, the year of the visit of Prince Charles and his army, the original Lancas.h.i.+re efforts having been made, so history says, by the grandfather of the late distinguished surgeon, Mr. Joseph Jordan. The "works" were situated on the banks of the Irwell, close to St. Mary's Church. Blackburn soon followed, and under the influence of the supreme abilities of the Peels, remained for many years the uncontested centre. Print-works are now met with in every little recess where there is supply of water, doubtless the first thing looked for when they were founded. The natural current sufficed at first; but it soon became customary to construct home or private reservoirs, and upon these the dependence is now essentially placed. No county in England needs so much water as Lancas.h.i.+re, and certainly there is not one that presents so many little bits of water-surface artificially prepared. It is pleasant to observe that the reservoirs belonging to "works," when belonging to a man of taste, have often been rendered extremely pretty by the introduction of water-lilies: flowers not only of unrivalled queenliness among aquatics, but distinguished among our native vegetation by the pensive languor always a.s.sociated with the idea of the Oriental--the water-lilies' birthright--for, as a race, they are much more Asiatic than European, and by happy coincidence the most appropriate that could be placed there, the water-lily being the emblem not more of the Nile than of the Ganges.

The multiplicity of the printing processes, and their complexity, call for many distinct buildings. Hence, when large, and isolated away in the country, as very generally happens, a print-works has quite the look of a rising village. There is a laboratory, with library, for the managing chemist, a suite of apartments for the designers, and a house and fruitful garden for the resident partner, with, in addition, not uncommonly, a schoolroom for the children. When the designers have completed their sketches, the engraver's work begins--a business in itself, and carried on almost exclusively in town, and especially in Manchester. Originally the pattern was cut upon a block of wood, usually sycamore, the success of the transfer to the cloth depending chiefly upon the dexterity of the workman. In 1785 this very primitive mode was superseded by "cylinder-printing," the pattern being engraved upon copper rollers, as many as there are colours; and though "block-printing" shares the unquenchable vitality of hand-loom weaving, the roller may now be considered universal. The employment of copper supplies another very interesting ill.u.s.tration of the resort made to this metal in almost every kind of high decorative art, and prepares us to understand the fitness of the ancient mythological use, and why a.s.sociated with the G.o.ddess of love and beauty.

These great undertakings--the bleaching, the dyeing, and the printing of the calico--demand steady supplies of the chemicals and other agents by means of which the various objects are attained. Hence in Lancas.h.i.+re the unrivalled number and extent of the manufacturing chemical works; and, especially in Manchester, the business,--never heard of in many English counties, here locally distinguished as the "drysalter's." The drysalter sees to the importation from foreign countries of the indigo, the madder, and other dye-stuffs in daily request; he deals also in the manifold kinds of gum constantly asked for, supplying himself partly from abroad, _via_ Liverpool, partly from works close by which prepare it artificially. A well-known sight in Manchester is that of a cartload of logs of some curious tropical dyewood, rudely hewn by the axe, and still retaining in the cavities of the bark little relics of the mosses and lichens of their native forest.

The chemical works are located princ.i.p.ally in the extreme south-west, especially near Widnes, a place which at once betrays itself to the pa.s.sing traveller in the almost suffocating atmosphere, and the total extinction of the beauty of trees and hedges, spectres and gaunt skeletons alone remaining where once was verdure. Here we find in its utmost vigour the manufacture of "soda-ash" (an impure carbonate), and of chloride of lime, both for the use of bleachers; also, prepared from the first-named, "caustic soda," for the soap-boilers of Liverpool and Warrington; and chlorate of potash, peculiarly for the dyers. Nitric acid also is made in immense quant.i.ty, the basis being Chilian saltpetre, though for their materials for the soda-products the manufacturers have no need to go further than Ches.h.i.+re, the supply of salt being drawn entirely from the Northwich mines. The discharge of stifling vapours was much worse before the pa.s.sing of the Alkali Act than at present; and, curiously enough, though by no means without a parallel, involved positive loss to the manufacturer, who now manages to detain a considerable amount of good residuum previously wasted. The Act permits a limited quant.i.ty of noxious matter to go up the chimney; the stream is tested every day to see that the right is not abused: how terrible is the action even of that little the surrounding fields are themselves not slow to testify; everything, even in summer, looks dirty, lean, and dejected. Sulphuric acid is likewise manufactured on a great scale, especially at Newton-le-Willows, the basis (except when required to be very pure, when sulphur is employed) being iron pyrites imported from Spain.

Hundreds of thousands of tons are prepared every year. There is probably not a single manufacturing process carried on in England in which chemical agency is involved which does not call for it. Hence, in the consumption of sulphuric acid, we have always a capital index to the state of trade, so far as regards appeal to the activity of the producing cla.s.ses.

In the extent of its manufacture of all the substances above mentioned, Lancas.h.i.+re is far ahead of every compet.i.tor in the world; Germany comes next, and then probably France.

Carbolic acid is of peculiarly Lancas.h.i.+re origin, having been originally introduced commercially by the late Dr. Crace Calvert.

Supplies are in daily request for the production of colour: the employment for antiseptic purposes is larger yet; the export is also very considerable. Other immensely important chemicals prepared in South Lancas.h.i.+re, and on a scale almost incredible,--Manchester helping the Widnes corner,--are sulphate of soda and sulphate of copper, the last-named being now in unlimited demand, not only by the dyers and calico-printers, but for the batteries used in electric telegraphy. In the presence of all this marvellous work, how quaintly reads the history of the Lancas.h.i.+re chemistry of 500 years ago. It had then not emerged from alchemy, which, after being forbidden by Henry IV., and again legalised by Henry VI., was warmly encouraged by the credulous Edward III., and had no devouter adherents than the a.s.shetons and the Traffords, who in their loyalty undertook to supply the king with silver and gold to the extent of his needs--so soon as the "philosopher's stone" should be discovered! Before we laugh at their misdirected zeal, it may be well to inquire whether the world has suffered more from scornful and premature rejection, or from honest and simple enthusiasm, such as in playing with alchemy brought to life the germs of the profoundest and most variously useful of the sciences.

Though Lancas.h.i.+re tries no longer to trans.m.u.te the baser metals into the precious ones by means of alchemy, it succeeds by the honester and less circuitous route of industry. Lead is obtained, though not in large quant.i.ty, at Anglezark, near Rivington Pike; and iron, in the excellent form of haemat.i.te, plentifully in the Ulverston and Furness district. The smelting is carried on chiefly at Barrow, where the business will no doubt continue to prosper, though haemat.i.te of late years has somewhat lost its ancient supremacy, methods having been discovered by which ores. .h.i.therto deemed inferior are practically changed to good and useful ones.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE WIRE WORKS]

In any case the triumphs of Lancas.h.i.+re will continue to be shown, as heretofore, in her foundries and engine-works, the latter innumerable.

Whitworth, Fairbairn, Nasmyth, are names too well known to need more than citation. Nasmyth's steam-hammer in itself is unique.

Irresistible when it smites with a will, a giant in power and emphasis, it can a.s.sume, when it pleases, the lightsome manners of a b.u.t.terfly. Let a lady place her hand upon the anvil, the mighty creature just gives it a kiss, gently, courteously, and retires. It is rather a misfortune for the stupendous products of the foundry and engine-works that, except in the case of the locomotive, as soon as completed they are hidden away for evermore, embedded where completely lost to view, and thought of as little as the human heart. Happily in the streets of Manchester there is frequent reminder, in the shape of some leviathan drawn slowly by a team of eight, ten, twelve, or even fourteen superb horses. Bradford, one of the suburbs of Manchester, supplies the world with the visible factor of its nervous system--those mysterious-looking threads which now everywhere show against the sky, and literally allow of intercourse between "Indus and the Pole." In addition to their manufacture of telegraph-wire, the Messrs. Johnson prepare the whole of what is wanted for the wire-rope bridges now common in America. Large quant.i.ties of wire are produced also at Warrington; here, however, of kinds adapted more particularly for domestic use. In connection with metal it is worthy also of note that Lancas.h.i.+re is the princ.i.p.al seat of the manufacture of the impregnable safes which, laughing at thieves and fire, challenge even the earthquake. They are made in Liverpool by Milner and Company, and near Bolton by the Chatwoods.

Lancas.h.i.+re was long distinguished for its manufacture of silk, though it never acquired the importance held by Macclesfield. In Europe this beautiful art came to the front as one of the results of the later Crusades--enterprises which, though productive of untold suffering, awoke the mind of all the civilised parts of the Continent from its slumber of ages, enlarging the sphere of popular thought, reviving the taste for elegant practices forgotten since the fall of the Western Empire, and extending commerce and knowledge in general. To Lancas.h.i.+re men the history is thus one of special interest. Italy led the way in the manufacture; Spain and France soon followed, the latter acquiring distinction, and at the close of the sixteenth century the English Channel was crossed. Tyranny, as in the case of calico-printing, was the prime cause, the original Spitalfields weavers having been part of the crowd of Protestants who at that period were constrained, like the unhappy and forlorn in more modern times, to seek the refuge always afforded in our sea-girt isle.[24] James I. was so strongly impressed with the importance of the manufacture that, hoping to promote it at home, he procured many thousands of young mulberry-trees, some of which, or their immediate descendants, are still to be found, venerable but not exhausted, in the grounds and gardens of old country houses. The Civil Wars gave a heavy check to further progress. Little more was done till 1718, when a silk-mill, worked by a water-wheel, was built at Derby. This in time had to close its doors awhile, through the refusal of the King of Sardinia to permit the exportation of the raw material, always so difficult to procure in quant.i.ty. At last there was recovery; the manufacture crept into Ches.h.i.+re, and at the commencement of the present century into Lancas.h.i.+re, taking root especially in the ancient villages of Middleton and Eccles, and gradually spreading to the adjacent hamlets.

[24] The late greatly respected Mr. E. R. Le Mare, who came to Manchester in 1829, and was long distinguished among the local silk-merchants, belonged by descent to one of these identical old Huguenot families. Died at Clevedon, 4th February 1881, aged eighty-four.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAKING c.o.kE]

The arrival was opportune, and helped to break the fall of the hand-loom cotton weavers, many of whom could not endure the loss of freedom imposed by the rules of the factory, and whose latent love of beauty, as disclosed in their taste for floriculture, was called forth in a new and agreeable manner. Silk-weaving was further congenial to these men in being more cleanly and less laborious than the former work, requiring more care and vigilance, and rather more skill, thus exactly suiting a race of wors.h.i.+ppers of the auricula, the polyanthus, and the carnation. The auricula, locally called the "basier," a corruption of "bear's ear," is the subject of a charming little poem by one of the old Swinton weavers, preserved intact, reprinted in Wilkinson's _Lancas.h.i.+re Ballads_, and peculiarly valuable in respect of the light it throws upon the temperament of a simple and worthy race, now almost extinct. We may be allowed to quote two of the verses:

Come and listen awhile unto what we shall say Concerning the season, the month we call May; For the flowers they are springing, the birds they do sing, And the basiers are sweet in the morning of May.

When the trees are in bloom, and the meadows are green, The sweet-smelling cowslips are plain to be seen; The sweet ties of nature we plainly do say, For the basiers are sweet in the morning of May!

The silk-weavers about Middleton were renowned also for their zest in entomology, and truly wonderful were their cabinets of Lepidoptera.

Unfortunately, when all was prosperous, there came a change. Ever since 1860, the year of the new, and still current, silk-treaties with France, whereby its original command of the trade was restored, the manufacture of silk in Lancas.h.i.+re, and everywhere else in England, has been steadily and hopelessly declining; and at the present day, compared with half a century ago, the production is less than a tenth of what it was. Power-looms naturally have the preference with employers, since they represent invested capital; whereas the hand-loom weaver, if there is no work for him, has merely to be told so. The latter, as a consequence, is now seldom met with. The trade, such as remains, gathers chiefly about Leigh. Middleton, once so famous for its "broad silks,"--those adapted for ladies' dresses,--now spends its time chiefly in the preparation of "tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs"; and wherever carried on the manufacture is almost wholly of the kind called "mixed," or cotton and silk combined, this being more in demand, because lower in price, though not wearing so well.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

From silk that befits empresses to hemp, the material of sackcloth, the way is long. But it must not be overlooked, in regard to the textile manufactures of Lancas.h.i.+re, that each extreme is familiar.

Warrington, in the bygones, prepared more than half the entire quant.i.ty of sailcloth required for the navy. It was a s.h.i.+p laden with hemp from the Baltic for use in Lancas.h.i.+re which, touching at the Isle of Skye, brought the first news of Prince Charles Edward's landing there.

Lancas.h.i.+re produces one-sixth of all the paper made in England. In other words, there are in this county about fifty of the nearly 300 English paper-mills, including the very largest of them--Messrs.

Wrigley and Sons', near Bury. The first to be established was Crompton's, at Farnworth, near Bolton, which dates from 1676, or exactly eighty-eight years after the building of the famous Kentish one referred to by Shakspere,[25] which itself followed, by just a century, the primeval one at Stevenage. Every description of paper, except that required for bank-notes, is made in Lancas.h.i.+re. The mills themselves, like the dyeworks, haunt the river-sides, though they no longer draw their supplies of water from the stream. Paper-works cannot possibly prosper if there be iron in the water they use, or decomposed vegetable matter. Hence in Lancas.h.i.+re it is now customary to sink wells of considerable depth, and in any case to provide for elaborate filtration. No spectacle in its way is more wonderful than that of a paper-machine at work. There is no limit to the length of the piece it is able to produce continuously, save that which is imposed by its own restricted dimensions. A roll could be made--as it is--of three or four miles in length, the cylinder gradually gathering up the pulp till it can hold no more. Very interesting also is it to observe the variety of material now employed. Esparto, or "Spanish gra.s.s," is brought to Liverpool (as to Cardiff and Newcastle) in exchange for coal, and wood-pulp from Norway and Sweden _via_ Hull.

[25] Sir John Spielman's, at Dartford.--_Vide_ 2nd Henry VI., Act iv. Scene 7.

At Darwen we find the largest and most important production in England of the ornamental wall-papers which now take the place of the distemper painting of ancient Egypt, Herculaneum, and Pompeii. The manufacture was originally very similar to block calico-printing. In or about 1839 Messrs. C. & J. G. Potter introduced "rollers," with the additional novelty of the pattern being cut in relief; and this is now almost universal, the Messrs. Potter having progeny, as it were, all over the country, though they themselves still produce quite one-half of the quant.i.ty consumed. They have customers in every part of the civilised world, and adapt their work to the diverse and often fantastic tastes of all in turn, directed not uncommonly, as in the case of the Hindoos and the j.a.panese, by native designs, which they are required to follow implicitly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GLa.s.s-BLOWING]

To go further into the story of modern Lancas.h.i.+re manufacturing is not possible, since there is scarcely a British industry which in this county is without example, and to treat of the whole even briefly would require thrice the s.p.a.ce already occupied. Among the foremost scenes to be described would be the plate-gla.s.s works at St. Helens; and the Manchester india-rubber works, the original, now sixty-seven years old, still carried on under the familiar name of Charles Macintosh & Co. The first were established in Glasgow; London, and then Manchester, were the next following centres, beginning with simple waterproof, but now producing articles of every conceivable variety. Thread, tape, pins, carpenters' tools, nails, screws, terra-cotta, bottles, aniline, soap, bra.s.s, and pewter-work, are also Lancas.h.i.+re staples. Gunpowder is manufactured near the foot of Windermere; and at Prescot and thereabouts the people employ themselves, as they have done now for nearly three centuries, in manufacturing the delicate "works" and "movements" required for watches. Not without significance either, in regard to the general capabilities of the county, is the preparation at Newton by Messrs.

M'Corquodale of the whole of the requirements of the Government, both for home use and in India, in the way of stationery and account-books.

For the Government alone they manufacture forty millions of envelopes every year. They also execute the enormous amount of printing demanded by the L. & N. W. Railway Company. The great s.h.i.+p-building works at Barrow now need no more than a reference. The magnificent Atlantic Inman steamer, the _City of Rome_, a s.h.i.+p with a gross tonnage of 8400, and propelled by, upon the lowest estimate, 8500 indicated horse-power, was launched here in June 1881. After the ill-fated _Great Eastern_, this was the largest vessel then afloat. All has come into existence since about 1860, when the population of this out-of-the-way Lancas.h.i.+re village was under 4000, though now nearly 50,000, a growth without parallel except in the United States.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE BRIDGEWATER Ca.n.a.l]

Omitting a considerable number of minor activities, there is, in addition to the above, the vast sphere of industry, part of the very life of working Lancas.h.i.+re, though not a manufacture, indicated by the little word "coal." In their value and importance the Lancas.h.i.+re collieries vie with the cotton-mills, declaring once again how close and constant is the dependence of the prosperity of a great manufacturing district upon its geology. Coalfields lying below the surface leave the soil above them free for the purposes of the farmer and the builder; in other words, for the raising of human food and the development of useful constructive arts. Where there is plenty of coal double the number of people can exist; the enormous population of Lancas.h.i.+re south of the Ribble has unquestionably come as much of its coalfields as of the invention of the spinning-jenny. The prevailing rock in this portion of Lancas.h.i.+re is the well-known new red sandstone, the same as that which overlies all our other best English coal deposits. Concurrently with it, and with the millstone-grit, the measures which have brought so much wealth to the county, extend from Pendleton, two miles from Manchester, to Colne in the north-east, and to St. Helen's in the west, many vast branches running out in various directions from the princ.i.p.al ma.s.s. What the exact thickness may be of course is not known, but, according to Mr. d.i.c.kinson, it may be estimated at 6450 feet. Some of the deepest pits in the country have been sunk in it, as at the Rosebridge Colliery, near Wigan, where the depth already reached is nearly 2500 feet, and the Ashton-moss Pit, near Ashton-under-Lyne, which goes still lower,--it is said to 2700 feet,--in which case this last will be the deepest in England. The direction of the dip is described by the colliers in a very pretty way. They say it is towards "the rising sun," or "the setting sun,"

the different points included between these opposites being similarly expressed by "dipping towards nine-o'clock sun," "twelve-o'clock sun,"

and so on. The sun is thus their compa.s.s, though few men see less of it during their hours of labour. The neighbourhood of a colliery is generally well declared. Independently of the apparatus over the opening of the pit, there is no mistaking the significance of the row of neat cottages, all fas.h.i.+oned on the same architectural model, a few stray ones here and there, a trim little front garden seldom wanting, with close by a few shops, a school-house, a chapel, both very plain, and the proprietor's or agent's residence, somewhat ornate, and garnished with evergreen shrubs, ready always for the was.h.i.+ng of a kindly shower. In many places, as at Wigan, Atherton, Tyldesley, and St. Helens, women, both single and married, work at the collieries, but only above ground, or at the bank. They are prohibited by statute from descending the pit, and their names and ages are all exactly registered. Up to the waist they are dressed like men. Above the knees, instead of a coat, they have a peculiarly fas.h.i.+oned tunic, a compromise between gown and jacket, by which they may be distinguished from afar: a limp bonnet tied under the chin protects the head, but never conceals the ear-rings and plaited hair. Many of these women are plainly equal to their masculine colleagues in physical power, yet they earn only two-thirds of the wages given to men. The decorum of their behaviour while at work is unimpeachable; on Sundays they do their best to dress like ladies. The Lancas.h.i.+re quarries are also remarkable, though little resorted to by the architect. Commercial prosperity is always most conspicuous where the buildings are princ.i.p.ally not of stone, but of brick.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE BRIDGEWATER Ca.n.a.l]

Nothing does more to sustain and encourage the industry of a working population than a steady system of transit, and a well-timed delivery, alike of the natural products of the ground and of the articles manufactured. Hence the early development in Lancas.h.i.+re of the idea of the ca.n.a.l, and, sixty years afterwards, of that of the railway. The history of the Bridgewater Ca.n.a.l is one of the most interesting connected with the county enterprise, the more so since all other ca.n.a.ls were imitations of it. Many, however, are not aware that the celebrated peer under whose dictation it was constructed--Francis Egerton, the third and last Duke of Bridgewater--was led to devote himself for solace sake to engineering through a disappointment in love. That women, when troubled or bereaved, should take refuge in works of charity, and that when wealthy they should found hospitals and build orphanages, is very natural, and has plenty of exemplification; but for a man to turn when similarly circ.u.mstanced to science is phenomenal, and the records of search for consolation after this manner would probably be sifted in vain for a parallel case.

Several versions of the story are afloat; whichever way be the true one, it is beyond a doubt that one of the greatest industrial achievements ever witnessed in England had for its prime cause the caprice or the temper of the widowed d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton,--to whom a second coronet was offered,--she who in her early days was the celebrated belle Elizabeth Gunning. There is a waterway of this description in Lancas.h.i.+re more remarkable in some respects even than the duke's ca.n.a.l--that one called the Leeds and Liverpool, the Lancas.h.i.+re portion of which curls round from the great seaport by way of Ormskirk, Southport, Wigan, Chorley, Burnley, and Colne, where the Yorks.h.i.+re boundary is crossed. Near the towns, and especially in the south-west and south-east, these useful highways are dreary and uninteresting; but in rural districts, such as they must needs traverse, often for lengths of many miles, the borders sometimes acquire an unlooked-for picturesqueness, and are gaily dressed with wild-flowers. In any case they never fail in possession of the rude charms of the gliding boat, the slow-paced horse, and artless guide.

The Lancas.h.i.+re railway system, it may be remarked, extends to within a trifle of 600 miles.

VI

PECULIARITIES OF CHARACTER, DIALECT, AND PASTIMES

The primitive Lancas.h.i.+re character--industrious, frugal, sanguine, persevering, inflexible in determination--has already been sketched in brief. Some additional features, observable more particularly among the operatives and away in the country, deserve notice, the more so since it is in a people's average temperament that the key is usually found to their pursuits in playtime--after the songs, the most interesting chapter in a local history. The sum total of the private morals of working Lancas.h.i.+re probably does not differ _pro rata_ from that which would be disclosed by a census of any other county. So with the manners and customs, for although in Lancas.h.i.+re the suavity of the South is soon missed, and though there is little touching of the hat or saying of "Sir," the absence of a courteous spirit is more apparent than real, and in any case is amply compensated by a thoroughness of kindly sentiment which more polished communities do not always share. The "factory-folk," the colliers, and others, are usually considered turbulent and given to outrages. They are not so by nature. Though often rough, self-willed, and obstinate, the working population as a whole is too thoroughly Saxon for the riotousness one looks for while in the presence of the Celt. Social conflicts, when they arise, are set on foot by mischief-makers and noisy idlers whose personal interest it is to promote antagonisms. Save for these veritable "disturbers of the peace" the probability is that there would be few or none of the "strikes" and "turn-outs" which bring so much misery to the unfortunate women and children who have no say in the matter. The people who "strike" are in the ma.s.s more to be pitied than held chargeable with love of disorder, for, as a rule, they have been cruelly misled into the notion that it is the master's interest to pay as little as possible for their labour, the truth being that for his own sake he pays them the utmost the business will justify, so that they shall be strong enough, healthy enough, cheerful and good-tempered enough, to work with a will, thus augmenting his personal profits. Every master of common-sense understands the principle, and _does_ so pay. It may be useful to remind the reader that the profits made by a Lancas.h.i.+re "cotton-lord" differ totally in their composition from the payment received for his work by an artist, a physician, or a barrister. The cotton-manufacturer's profits consist of an infinite number of particles, an atom per head on the work of 500, and often 1000 a.s.sistants. To the outside and afar-off public, who hear of contentions over pennies, the sum seems nothing, and the man who refuses the penny a sordid fellow. But to the employer it very soon means hundreds of pounds, and represents perhaps half a year's income.

In Lancas.h.i.+re, whatever may be the case elsewhere, the people who "strike" are deceived in no slight measure through their own honesty and sincerity of purpose. One of the original characteristics of the county is to be fair and unsuspecting; no people in the world have a stronger dislike of deceit; one of the reasons why a genuine Lancas.h.i.+re man can usually be trusted is, that he is so little inclined to overstate or misrepresent. The very circ.u.mstance that wins our esteem thus renders him vulnerable. Disposed to be honest themselves, the operatives fall so much more readily a prey to unscrupulous agitators. It is amusing, at the same time, to note how soon, when he detects an impostor, a Lancas.h.i.+re man will put him out of countenance; and how quick he is, in excellent balance, to perceive the meritorious, either in person or subject, and, perceiving, to appreciate.

A remarkable instance of the promotion of strikes by mischief-makers occurred at the commencement of the spring of 1881, when the colliers stood out for six weeks, at a loss to themselves of no less than 250,000 in wages, such as otherwise they would have earned. The chairman of the London and North-Western Railway Company explained it at the shareholders' meeting on 24th July, pointing out at the same time the immense collateral harm inflicted:

"They might remember that at the beginning of the year there was a settlement made with the colliers of Lancas.h.i.+re and their employers with regard to a mutual insurance fund against accident; but a Member of Parliament went down and persuaded these poor, unhappy people that they had better not accept it, but take care of themselves. He also persuaded them to make a strike, the result of which was disaster to every one. Prices did not go up, and unless prices went up wages could not; and the men afterwards suffered great distress. From this cause they estimated that the Company had lost traffic to the amount of about 100,000."

Another result was the permanent loss of an important market to the local colliery proprietors. Many thousands of tons of Lancas.h.i.+re steam-coal were previously being sent weekly to Birkenhead; but during the stoppage of the Wigan collieries the coal masters of North and South Wales obtained possession of the market, and the quant.i.ty now sent to Birkenhead is confined to only a few hundreds of tons. The general question as to strikes, and of the kind of grievances that may sometimes be not unreasonably complained of, is no doubt a very large and complex one. But whatever may be the case elsewhere, it is impossible for the "strikers" to deny that in the aggregate, and in the long run, the tendency of the Lancas.h.i.+re masters' doings is to create and diffuse social happiness among the employed. It is the master's interest that his people should be not only strong and healthy and good workmen, but good men. Comfortable homes are prepared for their families. Schools were provided by innumerable Lancas.h.i.+re masters long before they were required to do so by law. Many an employer is noted for the pains he takes, and the money he spends, with a view to the operatives' enjoyments.

During the continuance of these ill-advised "strikes," and when the depression of trade--quite as distasteful to the master as to the man--involves "short time"--four or five days' work in the week, or even less, instead of six, another capital feature of the Lancas.h.i.+re character comes to the front. No people in the world are capable of profounder fort.i.tude. Patience under suffering never fails. Though pinched by hunger, such is the manly and womanly pride of the Lancas.h.i.+re operatives that they care less about privations than to be constrained to surrender any portion, however trifling, of their independence. That the large-hearted and intelligent among mankind are always the last to complain in the hour of trial no one needs telling.

People of this character are probably more numerous everywhere than may be thought, for the simple reason that they are the least likely to be heard of; but it is worth putting on paper that no better ill.u.s.trations are to be found than exist in plenty in working Lancas.h.i.+re. It is refres.h.i.+ng also to note the hearty kindness of the Lancas.h.i.+re operatives one to another in time of distress. Not upon "Trades' Union" principles, but upon the broad and unselfish basis of strong, natural, human sympathy, familiar to the friendly visitor; and which, when elevated, as it often is, by religion, and warmed and expanded by personal affection, becomes so beautiful that in its presence all short-comings are forgotten. These good qualities are unfolded very specially on the occurrence of a terrible accident, such as a coal-pit explosion. In the yearning to be foremost in help to rescue; in the gentleness, the deference to authority, the obedience to discipline, the resignation then exhibited,--this last coming not of indifference, but of calmness,--a capacity is plainly shown for the highest conceivable moral development.

_The Dialect._--The original county dialect of Lancas.h.i.+re is of twofold interest. Still heard among the rustics, it is peculiarly valuable to the student of the English language. "Our South Lancas.h.i.+re speech," says its most accomplished interpreter, "is second to none in England in the vestiges which it contains of the tongue of other days.... To explain Anglo-Saxon there is no speech so original and important as our own South Lancas.h.i.+re _patois_."[26] To the ears of strangers who know nothing about it the sound is often uncouth and barbarous. That it is far from being so is proved by the use long made of this dialect for lyric poetry and for tales both racy and pathetic.[27] There is conclusive evidence also of its sweet and meaningful pathos in the resorting to it in times of deep emotion by people of the highest culture, who then unconsciously throw aside the learning and the vocabulary of school and college for the simplicity that never fails to touch the heart. The t.i.tles of the stories hold a conspicuous place in Mr. Axon's list of the no fewer than 279 publications ill.u.s.trative of the general subject of the Lancas.h.i.+re dialect;[28] the literature of which, he justly remarks in the introduction, is richer than that of the popular speech of any other English county. This is so much the more noteworthy since, with the famous manufacturing epoch of 1785, everything belonging to primitive Lancas.h.i.+re began to experience change and decay. In a certain sense it may be said that the dialect has not only survived unhurt, but has risen, during the last thirty or forty years, to a position worthy of the native talent; and that the latter, in days to come, will have no better commemoration than the metrical literature. Two particulars at once arrest attention. No English dialect more abounds in interesting archaisms; and certainly not one is so little tainted with expressions of the nature of slang.[29]

[26] _On the South Lancas.h.i.+re Dialect_. By Thomas Heywood, F.S.A. Chetham Society. Vol. lvii. pp. 8, 36.

[27] _Vide_ Mr. George Milner, "On the Lancas.h.i.+re Dialect considered as a Vehicle for Poetry," _Manchester Literary Club Papers_, vol. i. p. 20. 1875.

[28] _Vide_ Mr. George Milner, "On the Lancas.h.i.+re Dialect considered as a Vehicle for Poetry," _Manchester Literary Club Papers_, Appendix to the vol. for 1876.