London to John O 1 Groat's. 309 



St. Peter's of Coat-and-trouserdom. Its river, streams 

 and canals run black and blue with the stringent 

 juices of all the woods and weeds of the world used 

 in dyeing. The wools of all the continents come 

 floating in here, like baled summer clouds of heaven. 

 It is a city of magnipotent chimneys ; and they stand 

 thick and tall on the hills and in the valleys around, 

 and puff their black breathings into the face and eyes 

 of the sky above, baconising its countenance, and giving 

 it no time to wash up and look sober, calm and clean, 

 except a few hours on the sabbath. The Leeds Mercury 

 is a power in the land, and everybody who reads the 

 English language in either hemisphere knows Edward 

 Baines by name. 



As I emerged from the great, busy town on the 

 north, I passed by the estates and residences of its 

 manufacturing aristocracy. The homes they have built 

 and embellished should satisfy the tastes and ambitions 

 of any hereditary nobility. They need only a little 

 more age to make them rival many baronial establish- 

 ments. It is interesting to see how the different classes 

 of society are stepping into each other's shoes in going 

 up into higher grades of social life. The merchant and 

 manufacturing princes of England have not only reached 

 but surpassed the conditions of wealth, taste and ele- 

 gance which the hereditary peers of the realm occupied 



