Decline of Cumberland Wrestling. 217 



Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping 



something new, 

 That which they have done but earnest of the things 



that they shall do. 



Sixty-five or seventy years ago it took two 

 and a-half days and two nights to travel from 

 Carlisle to London by coach. The road lay 

 through Lancaster and Manchester, whence 

 it made its way across the pleasant midland 

 counties. "At last," writes Dr. Smiles, "on 

 the evening of the third day the coach 

 reached Highgate Hill, from which George 

 Moore looked down on the city of London, 

 the scene of his future labours. Already 

 the prodigious magnitude of the place 

 astonished the young traveller. The coach 

 traversed street after street, going down Old 

 Street and Pancras Road, down Gray's Inn 

 Lane, along Holborn and Newgate Street, 

 until finally it stopped at the Swan with 

 Two Necks in Lad Lane, Wood Street." 



It arrived in London on the night before 

 Good Friday, 1825. Next morning all the 

 shops were shut, What was he to do on 

 Good Friday ? He knew that all the Cum- 

 berland men in London were accustomed to 



