( ^« ) 



CHAPTER IV. 



If we recross the Rhine at Diisseldorf, and regain the 

 high road which we left at Xanten, we come, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Crefeld, into a manufacturing district. The 

 population of the circles of Crefeld and Gladbach is 

 nealy 600 to the English square mile ; that of the circle 

 of Kempen exceeds 350 to the mile. The labourers, or 

 more properly speaking, the weavers, in this district, like 

 those near Elberfeld, occupy very small holdings, which 

 they cultivate in the usual garden-like manner that ac- 

 companies such allotments. The price of produce is 

 here, too, generally high, and the complaints of distress 

 are loud and manifold throughout the district, especially 

 in the present year, when the failure of the potato-crop 

 threatens to press heavily upon the poorer portion of the 

 population. We find ourselves therefore once more in a 

 part of the country which ought to merge from agriculture 

 into gardening in a natural manner, and cannot wonder 

 at the high prices and high rents which these small par- 

 cels obtain. In the adjacent districts of Geldern and 

 JUlich, although the soil 'is better, neither rent nor pur- 

 chase-money rates so high. Flax is cultivated through- 

 out, and linen is one of the chief productions of the loom 

 in these parts. Cotton-factories are creeping into this 

 neighbourhood, but those as yet estabhshed are on a very 

 small scale. Silk gives the most employment, after linen, 

 to the hand-loom weavers. 



