The rich are generally pompous, self-sufficient, proud, and overbearing to those they regard as inferiors, and courteous and affable to their equals. The poor are a servile, crouching race to their employers, or masters, as they are called, and most ardently attached to the queen. Many of them are ignorant and degraded, and live but little better than paupers. There is almost as much licentiousness among a portion of the female poor as the stranger observes at Cork; and to an American, such exhibitions as are witnessed in Liverpool are revolting. The laborers and mechanics of the city are numerous, and are generally dressed in a coarse, white cotton cloth, which, in a climate so cold, looks uncomfortable. There is but little intelligence among them, and although the trade and communication between the United States and Liverpool is so extensive, the majority of the working classes have no correct geographical ideas of our country, and speak of New York as the whole of America.

The most remarkable feature of Liverpool is the fact that there is not a single daily newspaper published in the city. With a population of nearly five hundred thousand, and a commerce so great as to reach every section of the world, this place cannot boast one daily paper! while San Francisco, a city of but four years' growth, issues seven. The London Times, during the great Exhibition, sneered at the sorry appearance of the penny dailies then in the "glass palace;" but the writer forgot the vast power wielded by those little sheets in the United States-a power which may some day be felt in England.

The enormous dray-horses of the city are great curiosities to the American traveller, both as regards size and their wonderful powers. I have seen them full seven feet and a half high, and some even higher than that. Many of them are twice as large as a draught-horse with us, and they look like young elephants when moving along the street. The wagons to which they are attached are great clumsy platforms, supported by four ponderous wheels, the whole sufficiently heavy for two of our horses without the addition of a load; and, incredible as it may appear, it is not an unusual thing to see two of these animals drawing such a machine, with as many as thirty bales of cotton piled upon it. Their movements are slow; and it is more than likely that two of our small horses would do quite as much work in a day, drawing lighter loads, as two of the Liverpool horses perform, and at a much less cost.

In contrast to the dray-horse stands the donkey-a numerous class in Liverpool. Many of them are not larger than a setterdog, and you will see one drawing a cart three times as large as himself, with a great lubberly clown in addition to the ordinary load. They are the only draught animals not taxed, and on that account are used mostly by the poor; in many instances being the sole support of an entire family. They are a miserable set of brutes, and the masters often look more brutal and inhuman than the donkeys.

There are many other things worthy of note in and about Liverpool, not the least striking of which are the windmills in the vicinity. The broad arms of these strange edifices are whirled around by the passing breeze, and as they cut and slash the air, bring to the traveller's mind the gallant exploits of Don Quixote and his doughty squire.

But enough of the great seaport of Lancashire! I leave its mud and filth, tall, ungainly warehouses, and motley throng, to be described by others, and turn once more to our ill-fated ship. I went down to her before leaving the town, and how changed! The cargo had been discharged, the passengers were all gone, and the cabin, so lately the abode of a cheerful and social company of warm-hearted friends, was silent and deserted. Those who had crossed the great deep in that splendid saloon had separated, each to his destination, and probably never to meet again. But friendships were formed there bright and holy; friendships that will be cherished until the last hour of existence; and though fate estrange the wanderers, time cannot efface from memory the pleasures enjoyed in each other's company, or the feelings of happiness which the recollections of the voyage recall to mind.

Occasionally, since then, I have met with one of my fellowvoyagers, and such meetings have always been seasons of unfeigned happiness. The old ship is generally a subject of inquiry, and, as her fate may interest the reader, I give it here. On her return-voyage she ran down a brig, and sunk her-put into New York for repairs-sailed from thence to Chagres, where she caught fire, and was burned to the water's edge, and sank to rise no more. She was what the sailors call " an unlucky craft," and her end was in character with her performances from the firstunfortunate!

CHAPTER IV.

MANCHESTER AND ITS VICINITY.

TIRED of Liverpool, and anxious for a change of scenery, I left the dingy seaport "by rail," and, after passing through the dark and gloomy tunnel which extends from Lime Street Station to Edgehill, emerged into the light of a perfect day and a clear atmosphere, beyond the limits of the famous town. It was delightful to behold once more the green fields and bright sky, and my eyes, for the first time, took in the glories of an English landscape. Yes! there it was, before me, the rural charm of our fatherland. But a single glance was allowed; the train did not stop long at any one station, and I was obliged to be content with a gleam of the sweet prospect. Hedgerows lined the fields; tall oaks reared their majestic forms to the skies; white cottages peeped out from ivy and clustered leaves; and the landscape looked a very garden. The tall spires of the village churches, and the large mansions of the wealthy, came rapidly in sight, and then passed by, leaving upon my mind their impress, clear and ineffaceable, for they were types of Old England, and spoke of the ancient day, and I gloried in beholding them. The train whirled us on, on, past hamlet and town, through tunnel and farm, over viaduct and moor; but nearly the whole distance was pleasant to the view. The ground, at the sides of the rail, was under cultivation from the hedges and walls down to the very track; and at the stations there were garden-patches, in which roses and other favorite flowers grew luxuriantly, and distilled upon the air their sweetness. And this, thought I, is England; and this velvet-grass, and these broad fields, and those neat cottages and magnificent parks, are the charms which draw the American across the angry waters, that he may feast his eyes on them and grow familiar with the beauty of his ancestral land! But my poetic reverie was doomed to end. Rain began to fall fast as we approached the great cotton manufactory of the realm, and I entered Manchester in a drenching shower. The landscape which so recently claimed my admiration was gone, and I stood alone in one of the filthiest places I had ever placed foot into up to that time. Smoke and clouds hung over the town, and through the veil of darkness which they created I could trace indistinctly the tall chimneys and towering forms of countless cotton factories. A small stream, black as ink, flowed near the station where I stood, and the earth around me appeared as black as the waters of the rill. "The dark and the light side of the picture!" mused I; "we cannot expect sunshine and flowers always, and this black scene is put before me as a contrast with what I have just been enjoying so much. Hope and despair! the country and the town! The pure air of heaven and the polluted air of a manufacturing city! Let me see; I'll cross that Styx, and look into Hades!"

My luggage was carefully packed away in the "office for left parcels"-a very great convenience, too, is that office to travellers, if they happen to know of its existence! - and then I bade adieu to my companion of the trip, a gentleman from Savannah, whose acquaintance I made in Liverpool, and plunged, literally plunged, into Manchester. Down into the valley of the foul stream, across its gloomy waters, through a narrow passage between two massive mills, and out into an old, odd-looking street, with houses on either side, whose upper story hung over the footwalks like heavy brows over the eyes of a guilty man. They were gloomy buildings, and appeared to frown people away, to prevent the curious making examination of the heart within. I passed them rapidly, gazing on this side and then on that, at things strange and quaint, and soon gained a finer thoroughfare, where I was cordially greeted, in true Yankee tone, with

"How are you now, and what brought you here? When did you leave home?" and a host of similar questions, to all of which I made reply, and then we joined company and rambled on to my companion's hotel, in which I took up my temporary abode while in Manchester.

It was a pleasure to meet an old friend so many thousand miles from home, and that so unexpectedly to each, and we enjoyed the blessing as long as time would allow, and then parted as suddenly

as we met.

A week's residence afforded me opportunity to visit the most remarkable localities, and become acquainted, to a certain extent, with the habits and modes of life of the working population of the town. My entrance into Manchester was in a shower, and my final departure was in rain. During four of six days, while I remained there, the rain fell almost constantly, and I was informed that it is not an uncommon circumstance to have wet weather five out of seven days.

It has been satisfactorily ascertained by scientific observation that one-fifth more rain falls at Manchester during a twelvemonth than in any other part of England. This may be a blessing rather than a misfortune, as the supply of water for the immense manufactories is thus kept up, and thousands of poor furnished with employment.

It was Whitsuntide, the manufacturers' holiday (or week), at the time of this visit. The greater part of the factories were stopped, the populace enjoying themselves, each according to the bent of his mind, or the depth and fulness of his purse. Thousands had gone to the "Great Exhibition" and Paris, while great numbers were on trips to Ireland or Scotland, or some other equally attractive part of the kingdom, then so easily reached by cheap excursions. The working people, however, generally remained at home for want of funds to go abroad; and as they are the majority, Manchester was not entirely deserted.

The town of Manchester is of great antiquity, its history being clearly traced to the times of the Roman power in Britain; but