164 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Aug. 



1884. 



but for tlie greater part these are but little known, popu- 

 larly speaking, in soutliern England. 



The fishing-villages on some parts of the Lancashire 

 coast are remarkable for the utterly primitive habits of 

 the inhabitants, and for the large quantities of flounders 

 and shellfish here taken. All along the wild shores of 

 this beautiful region may be seen the picturesque lime- 

 stone cliffs, mingled with hanging woods, peaceful-looking, 

 fresh grassy mounds, and far away in the grey distance are 

 the lofty mountains and elevated moors — virtually unin- 

 habited stretches of country, swept by perfectly pure and 

 fresh breezes, and equally refreshing to body and mind. 



Barrow, the port whence the famous iron ore of the 

 Furness district is shipped, lies on the coast of the penin- 

 sula, and is opposite a little island which tradition tells us 

 was once a burial-place for the Nor.se Sea Kings. Until 

 18i7 this place was only a small fishing-village, having 

 barely 300 inhabitants, but in 1875 it had increased to 

 40,000, and now the docks and the various iron and steel 

 works render this town one of the great sights on the 

 Lancashire coast. Furness Abbey gives in its remains the 

 finest examples extant of medireval ecclesiastical architec- 

 ture. It was formerly one of the most powerful of the 

 great religious establishments of England, before, as Scott 

 tells us, the ire of a despotic kind made altar shake and 

 crozier bend. The landed property of the abbey once 

 included the entire promontory on which it is situated, and 

 extended to the river Duddon, whose beauties Wordsworth 

 has crystallised for evermore in some of his exquisite sonnets. 

 This domain was about equal to the area of the Isle of Man, 

 and the Abbey could, and frequently did, send over a thou- 

 sand regular troops into the field, sending, by-the-by, a large 

 contingent to Flodden Field under Sir Edward Stanley. 

 On the hill commanding the Abbey there was formerly a 

 beacon, and thence alarm fires were flashed right across 

 Morecambe Bay as far as the grim towers of Lancaster 

 Castle. The Abbey has a very fine transept, and many 

 very interesting monuments, and for full four centuries 

 these proud and lordly representatives of what was 

 emphatically a Church Militant held imperial sway far 

 and wide. The last abbot was, if I mistake not, Roger 

 Pyle, who surrendered his authority to Henry VIII., and 

 thenceforth all the material pomp and circumstance of 

 these lordly priests went to decay. For the last three 

 centuries the rooks have occupied the ruins, which have 

 been preserved from further decay by the Duke of Devon- 

 shire. These i-emains furnished subject-matter for one of 

 Wordsworth's many fine examples of what may be called 

 topographical poetry, and no one can stand amid these 

 magnificent ruins without feeling some emotion, some touch 

 of that fine sympathy with the past which imparts to every 

 ruin its true pathos. 



The Furness District, once the boundary between the 

 Kingdoms of England and Scotland, and the scene of many 

 a tough border scuffle which has found no historian, may be 

 described as in some measure all mountain, and it was in 

 these stern and natural fortresses that the ancient Britons 

 lingered for two centuries and a quarter after the Saxons 

 had obtained the mastery everywhere, except in Wales. 



Straightaway due west of the mouth of the romantic 

 River Duddon is the Isle of Man, its southern extremity 

 being in a line with Walney Island, at the enti^ance to 

 Morecambe Bay. Before, therefore, entering the Solway 

 Firth, and proceeding, as I propose doing, up this wild 

 coast and among the wilder islands of Scotland on the west, 

 I shall rapidly sketch this i-emarkable island, which, as it 

 richly deserves, is becoming more and more a place of 

 resort for those who desire to be personally familiar with 

 the less known seascape beauties of the British Isles. 



eiritorial (gossftp. 



The well-remembered words of Virgil, " Uno avnlso, 

 non deficit alter," have had no more literal applicability in 

 recent days than to the succession of shows at South Ken- 

 sington. With the Health Exhibition in the very height 

 of its popularity ; with its innumerable forms of restaurant 

 perennially mobbed by customers ; with the instructive 

 popular archteological lesson conveyed by the admirable 

 model of Old London, daily and hourly being learned by 

 the thousands who throng it ; with the exhibition of 

 historical costumes scanned by a perpetually densely 

 packed crowd ; with the third-rate Cremome at night in 

 the gardens, where 'Arry smokes his cheap tobacco and 

 Jemimarann exhibits her fringe, her long gloves, and her 

 box-pleated skirt ; with the dairy cows in f uU milk ; the 

 sweet-stufT and candle-making machinery in full work ; 

 with the bands playing, the lamps twinkling, the 

 steam-boilers hissing, and the dynamos whirling — already 

 is the note of preparation in the air, and the prospectus of 

 the International Inventions Exhibition in 1885 lies before 

 me as I write. Reading through it, it seems as though the 

 bazaar element, so obtrusive in the present show, will be — 

 or rather may be — to a certain extent, modified ; and that 

 the Exhibition may possibly assume a more strictly scien- 

 tific character than the present one. It cannot, however, 

 bs lost sight of that the Commissioners of the '51 Exhibition 

 have now become as much showmen as Mr. P. T. Bamum, 

 Mr. Hollingshead, or Madame Tussaud. If turning their 

 buildings into a series of railway refreshment-rooms, or 

 lighting their gardens with "10,000 additional lamps" 

 pays, they will furnish the buffets, stick up the little marble 

 tables, and light the lamps. They are merely trying to 

 justify their raison d'etre, and have hit upon periodical 

 shows as a good device for giving employment to the 

 officials on their estate and of making money. If money 

 can be made by science, all well and good ; if not, well, a 

 slight soupcon of the Bartlemy-fair element obviously 

 proves attractive. 



The present " glorious weather " (to employ the phrase- 

 just now in every one's mouth) brings us once more face to 

 face with the wholly inefficient means we possess in this 

 country for meeting the somewhat violent extremes of 

 temperature to which we are subject Adapted, perhaps, 

 best to the average warmth of an English spring or autumn, 

 a very severe winter, and perhaps even more conspicuously 

 an abnormally hot summer, shows the weakness at once of 

 our domestic architecture and of our orthodox type of 

 dress. That any human being should disport himself in a 

 " pot " hat and black cloth coat with the thermometer 

 registering 15-1 Fahrenheit in the sun, must seem almost 

 incredible to any one who does not daily see the un- 

 numbered thousands so attired who throng the streets of 

 the metropolis. But the cult of Mrs. Grundy among 

 Englishmen is so earnest and sincere that the average 

 Londoner would about as soon think of carrying a 

 Punch's show through St. James's-square, or of wheeling a 

 barrow full of periwinkles down Bond-street, as of appear- 

 ing in either of those localities in a " khaki " suit with a pith 

 hat and " puggree." And what applies to our attire may 

 be equally predicated of our contrivances — or, rather, \itter 

 want of contrivances — for keeping our houses cool. Why 

 does not some enterprising tradesman devise something 

 akin to the Indian " tattie," and furnish us with a sun- 

 blind constructed to be kept wet The delicious coolness 

 produced in the air by the rapid evaporation from such a 

 device must be felt to be appreciated. Nay, even a modi- 



