524 General Results of a Gardening Tour : — 



It may be alleged that such a power as we contemplate, 

 if delegated to parishes or counties, would be liable to 

 abuse; and to a certain extent this is inevitable, because 

 abuse, like accident, enters more or less into every thing : 

 but if parish and county representatives were elected on an 

 efficient representative system, and all their proceedings con- 

 ducted in public and published in the local and general 

 newspapers the abuse would be comparatively small ; oligar- 

 chical vestries and representative vestries are very different 

 bodies, and very different proceedings must be expected from 

 them. 



Canals^ however important a step they may have formed in 

 the progress of intercommunication, will probably in future 

 be seldom resorted to, with the exception of ship canals com- 

 municating with the sea. Many of them in the hilly coun- 

 tries form beautiful ribands of Water, admirably adapted 

 for supplying foregrounds to villas. Canals of this descrip- 

 tion we should be sorry to see destroyed ; and all of them, we 

 trust, may long be found useful for local and agricultural pur- 

 poses, if for no other. 



The Towns of Manchester and Liverpool have increased 

 since 1826 to an astonishing extent; and we can only regret 

 that this increase has not taken place according to some 

 regular system. The consequence of the want of such 

 a system is, that one part of the town becomes attended with 

 less advantages in point of salubrity, recreation, and markets, 

 than another; and this in time must occasion a deterioration 

 of the health of the inhabitants of those parts, and finally the 

 depreciation of their property. It appears to us that all 

 towns ought to be governed by a council of representatives, 

 elected by the whole of the householders. Were this the 

 case, the poorer occupiers of houses would have their wants 

 attended to, and we should not find, as at present, almost 

 every thing done with reference only to the rich. In Man- 

 chester, not only would gardens and places of recreation be 

 provided in the interior of the town, but the cleanliness of 

 dress and of the interior of houses would no longer be in- 

 jured by the dark volumes of smoke now issuing from the 

 chimneys of numerous engines, and covering every thing with 

 soot. To the rich, who have for the most part country 

 houses, or who look forward to having them, this is less an 

 evil than to those in middling or poorer circumstances, who 

 have no prospect but that of local and perpetual labour, and 

 therefore they submit to it. In our preceeding article, we sug- 

 gested a mode by which the soot might be deposited ; but on 

 conversing with an eminent engineer and proprietor of exten- 

 sive engines and consequently smoky chimneys, in Liverpool, 



