Birth and Parentage. 31 



hand-looms producing calicoes and rough 

 cottons by manual industry, but not to such 

 an extent as to deprive Carlisle of the charac- 

 ter of a quiet, sleepy old cathedral city, the 

 capital and market town of a large surround- 

 ing- agricultural district, which was inhabited 

 by old county families who looked down 

 somewhat contemptuously upon their urban 

 neighbours within the walls. Nothing broke 

 the unvarying stillness and monotony of the 

 streets of Carlisle except the weekly Saturday 

 market, when the farmers and their wives for 

 miles round came trooping into the city to 

 dispose of their country produce. Once a 

 year, in August, His Majesty's Justices of 

 Assize (I am speaking of a time long an- 

 terior to Queen Victoria's reign) entered the 

 city, escorted by the sheriff and gentlemen 

 of the county, to deliver the gaol of its scanty 

 contingent of criminals, and occasionally to 

 leave some poor wretch to be hanged for 

 murder or horse-stealing, the latter being 

 then a capital offence. At the close of the 

 Assizes, a county ball was invariably held, 

 followed by the annual races, at which all the 

 nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood, 



