PROCEEDINGS FOR 1897 CXLIX 



the city finds the work is done more satisfactorily, and quite as economi- 

 cally under the present arrangement. 



The refuse of the city is all burned up in the destructors, and the 

 ash is very largely used in the manufacture of concrete pavements. 



The Free Libraries Act was adopted by the city in 1874. There 

 are now six large libraries with reading-rooms in different parts of the 

 city, but prior to the adoption of this act, Bristol possessed a free library 

 which was the oldest in the kingdom, and was founded in 1613. This 

 old library is now the headquarters of our free library system. The 

 museum is also municipal property. For the maintenance of the former 

 we are limited to Id. in the pound rate, and for the latter ^d. in the 

 pound ; the ccmtributions for these two purposes, out of the rates, 

 -amount to about $35,000 a year. 



In order to encourage the art of swimming and to add to the general 

 healthfulness of the rising generation, the city possesses six public swim- 

 ming baths, municipally owned and worked. At some of these baths, 

 dejjartraents for laundry purposes are attached, so that the poorer people 

 may have convenient facilities for washing and drying their clothes. 



The city owns considerable property in real estate, which has been 

 acquired in various ways — by gifts, by bequests, and by leases falling in 

 on corporation land, which yields a revenue of $130,000 a year, but will 

 probably be very largely increased within the next generation, as many 

 valuable leases will be falling in. 



Manufactures. 



Although Bristol does not take rank as one of the first of the 

 English manufacturing towns in any of the great staple industries of the 

 country, yet its position on the Bristol and Somerset coal field has enabled 

 it to carry on not a few very important manufacturing concerns, and in 

 spite of the great competition of the larger manufacturing centres, to 

 develop some of them to such an extent as to make them known in 

 almost all parts of the world — thanks to the skill, energy, and business 

 shrewdness and capacity of both masters and men. Among the most 

 widely known of these manufactured goods I may mention " Bristol 

 Bird's Eye" tobacco and Fry's Cocoa, as well as the galvanized and 

 corrugated iron of the St. Vincent's Iron Works. All these are exported 

 in vast bulk and, I may be permitted to say, are as greatly appreciated 

 all over the world as they are largely consumed. The city is also an 

 important centre for the leather trade, being one of three great leather 

 marts of the country, the two others being Bermondsey and Leeds. It 

 has long been known for its tanning industry, which has been exten- 

 sively developed in later years, whilst the excellence of its productions in 

 sole leather, together with the convenience of the port for the importa- 



