256 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



the walls, to step out once more into the good old mud and clouds 

 and smells of Nature again. 



Among the debtors, one was pointed out to us as a well-edu- 

 cated lawyer, formerly having a large and respectable practice, 

 and enjoying a considerable fortune. He had been confined for 

 several years, but, it was thought, would soon be released. The 

 placards of an association for taking the part of imprisoned debt- 

 ors were posted in the hall. 



The title city is applied, in England, only to a town which is 

 the residence of a bishop, and is equivalent to "a cathedral town." 

 Hereford is a city ; Chester is a city ; but Liverpool, with ten 

 times the population of both of them, is not a city. The term 

 town, again, in England, is never applied to the subdivisions of a 

 county (a township), but is used to designate a place that is 

 closely built, and with a considerable population what we 

 should give the title of city to. Thus London, the largest town, 

 is every where called "the town." "The city" designates a 

 small part of London, near the Cathedral of St. Paul. (All over 

 Great Britain they speak of going "up to London," never 

 "down." This use of "down" and "up," meaninglessly, in a 

 sentence, I had supposed was a "down-east" idiom; but it is 

 common in old England.) 



The cathedral at Hereford, built in the time of William the 

 Conqueror, is in a more ornamented style of Gothic than any an- 

 cient religious edifice we had seen. I did not greatly admire it. 

 Considerable additions or repairs have been lately made. On 

 one of the new gables I w r as surprised to see some fifty of those 

 grotesque heads, freshly cut. They were not very ugly, or very 

 droll indeed, had no marked character, or any thing that showed 

 a gem'us, even for the comical, in their designer or executer. 



