536 



PANORAMA OF MANCHESTER. 



ground. Thus this bloody battle terminated by a cannonade on both 

 sides, the last shots being fired by the Poles. 



Generals Szembek and Skrzynecki proposed to fall on the Russians 

 during the night with all our infantry ; but Prince Radziwill or- 

 dered the right bank of the Vistula to be abandoned, which was 

 effected during the nights of the 25th and 26th of February. 



Thus terminated the ever-memorable battle of Grochow, in which 

 an army of 120,000 Russians, with 400 pieces of artillery, were un- 

 able to conquer 35,000 Poles, with only 100 pieces of cannon, who, 

 in spite of their great numerical inferiority, were more than once on 

 the point of achieving a decisive victory. It is said when the official 

 accounts of this battle reached the Grand Duke Constantine, the 

 pride of the Martinet got the better of the despot ; and the Russian 

 rubbing his hands, with an air of pride and satisfaction, he exclaimed 

 to some of his staff, "Gentlemen, those Poles are my men; I 

 formed them !" 



PANORAMA OF MANCHESTER. ERA OF MECHANISM.* 



THE complaint, so long and so often made, that London absorbed 

 too great a portion of the wealth and population of Great Britain, is 

 not likely to continue. The " Modern Babylon" has a rival, which is 

 hastening after her with rapid steps. In amount of population, the 

 Metropolis of Manufactures may be fairly said to equal London al- 

 ready ; for, although Manchester, considered per se, contains little 

 more than a quarter of a million of people, yet, looking at it as a sec- 

 tion of a connected series of towns and populous villages immediately 

 surrounding it, the statement is perfectly true. Let the London Post 

 Office and the Exchange of Manchester be taken as centres of two 

 districts, fifteen miles every way, and we have no doubt that the 

 number of inhabitants will be found to be greatest in the latter. 

 There is indeed this peculiarity about London that it is London, 

 and nothing else. Leave its suburbs a mile behind us, and we might 

 be a hundred miles from a great city every thing is so quiet and 

 even solitary. This has arisen from its size and influence preventing 

 any other town springing up near it. Not so Manchester and its 

 neighbours ; and a drive of a few miles in any direction only serves 

 to shew us hives of human beings. 



Liverpool and Manchester are at the present time as much parts of 

 the same town as Poplar and Chelsea, or Camden Town and Camber- 

 well, are parts of London. " Oh dear !' exclaims some Bow-bell 

 man, "only just look at the map why they are thirty miles apart." 

 So they are ; and yet it is easy to get from Manchester to Liverpool 

 as from Poplar to Chelsea, and the distance, great as it is, may be tra- 



* " Panorama of Manchester, and Railway Companion." Everett, Man- 

 chester. Hamilton, Adams, and Co., London. 



