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THE CATASTROPHE OF TWELVE HOURS; 



A TRUE STORY. 



CHAPTER I. 



u A tale of sorrow for your eyes may weep." Old Play. 



ALL persons to whom Manchester is familiar are aware that many 

 of its more ancient portions consist of old but picturesque-looking 

 black and white houses, built of wood and mortar. This style of 

 building was in vogue during the latter half of the sixteenth century, 

 and the strange and grotesque figures placed over many of the door- 

 ways, the carved and projecting cornices, with the low and pointed 

 windows filled with exceedingly minute glass panes, on which much 

 ingenuity must have been exercised, combine to produce a very singular 

 external appearance. Many of these houses are still to be found 

 surrounding the collegiate church, and forming portions of the streets 

 known as Long Millgate, &c. &c. ; that part of the town, in fact, 

 originally inhabited by our wealthier progenitors. Some few still 

 remain in all their pristine singularity, as far as the outside is 

 concerned ; but there are very few indeed with the interior in a state 

 of similar originality. If we might judge of the character of our an- 

 cestors by their style of building, we should at once pronounce that 

 it was pre-eminently social ; for, not content with making their streets 

 little more than eight feet wide, they contrived that, as their houses 

 increased in altitude, they should in like ratio approximate towards 

 their opposite neighbour. 



In several of the courts and lanes in the immediate vicinity of the 

 college this odd style of house-neighbouring is very strikingly seen ; 

 and any one disposed to make the experiment may readily step from 

 one house to its fellow on the opposite side of the street, provided he 

 is not troubled with a particularly short pair of legs. This conti- 

 guity overhead acted as a complete screen to the light of day, and as 

 the streets were arranged with an utter contempt of right lines, ven- 

 tilation was in like manner imperfect ; and when we bear in mind 

 that entire towns were composed of streets, lanes, and courts of 

 similar narrowness that these were uniformly unsewered that the 

 floors of the houses themselves were unflagged, and generally covered 

 with straw or damp rushes, which served as a receptacle for family 

 filth for many days that the rooms were low, small, and irregular- 

 and that the habits of their indwellers were coarse and rude we 

 can feel no surprise that the plague and other contagious and epi- 

 demic diseases have in past times made such horrible ravages ; and it 

 is equally consolatory to reflect that the removal of so many oauses 

 obnoxious to health will, in all probability, ever prevent the recur- 

 rence of similar scenes of devastation. 



In one of these courts opening into Long Millgate dwelt the 

 family to which our present story relates. It afforded one of the 



M.M. No. 108. 4 Q 



