2OO Country Rambles. 



Ashton-under-Lyne, Blackley, Bury, Rochdale, Middle- 

 ton, Oldham, Whitefield, Eccles, Ringley, Radcliffe, and 

 Harpurhey; and the best attended, the last year or two, 

 those held at Prestwich, Whitefield, and Bury. The 

 meetings, as at the beginning, are held upon the Sunday 

 afternoon, at some respectable tavern, such being the only 

 place where working men can assemble inexpensively; 

 and though this may seem to some persons detrimental to 

 good order and sobriety, no religious service was ever 

 more decorously conducted. Working men can assemble 

 at a tavern, and not abuse it, quite as well as gentlemen; 

 in either case, all depends on the ideas they carry in with 

 them. It is the peculiar characteristic of intelligent 

 delight in the objects of nature, that, with very rare 

 exceptions, it brings with it a moral and harmonising 

 influence on the heart, so that men who gather together 

 as our Lancashire botanists do, albeit in a public-house 

 and on a Sunday, are the most likely of all in their 

 station of life, to conduct themselves in a manner becom- 

 ing intelligent beings. When the churchwardens or 

 other peace-officers think proper to walk in, as sometimes 

 happens, they always express themselves satisfied. Twice 

 only, during upwards of seventy years, have the meetings 

 been interfered with by the authorities, and in neither 

 case has it been from disapproval of them, or because of 

 misconduct on the part of the members. The second 

 occasion, which alone had notoriety, fell in November, 

 1850, when the men had assembled, as often before, at 

 the "Ostrich," in Rooden Lane. The landlord of the 



