at the last inevitable
change, whether it be a Municipal Corporation Reform, a Tithe Commutation, or
a Corn Tax Repeal, will prove the ruin of England, should study the
geographical march of our manufactures, and mark how, on the whole
population, the rise of a new staple in one district, or the invention of a
new art, constantly creates a new demand for labour. The exhaustion of our
forests, instead of destroying, founded one great element of our world-wide
commercial influence.

We make no apology for this digression, knowing that, to many minds, facts
connected with the rise of the iron trade will have as much interest as notes
on the scene of a battle or the birthplace of a second-rate poet, besides, as
we omit to say what we do not know, it is necessary we should say what we do.

Besides mining and smelting iron ore, a considerable population in and around
Dudley is engaged in the manufacture of glass and of nails; the latter being
a domestic manufacture, at which men, women, and children all work at home.

The castle dates from a Saxon prince, Dodo, A.D. 700; but, like the bird of
the same name, the original building is extinct. But very interesting ruins
of a Norman gateway, tower, and keep, are in existence; and form, with the
caves, a show-place leased by the South Staffordshire as an attraction to
their excursion trains. The caves are lighted up on special occasions, and
were honoured by a visit from the geologists of the British Association when
last they met at Birmingham. A fossil, called the Dudley locust, is found in
great quantities and varieties in the limestone quarries, which form part of
the mineral wealth of the neighbourhood.

The broad gauge line through Birmingham and Oxford will shortly afford Dudley
a direct and rapid communication with London. To passengers this will be a
great convenience, but a mode of conveyance so unwieldy, clumsy, and costly,
is singularly ill fitted for a mineral district, as experience among the
narrow tram-ways of the north has amply proved.

Dudley returns one member to Parliament; whose politics must, it is supposed,
be those of the holder of the Ward estate.

Returning from Dudley through Walsall to Bescot Bridge, the rail pursues its
course through a mining country to Bilston and Wolverhampton. On the road we
pass in sight of the Birmingham canal, one of the finest works of the kind in
the kingdom. An enormous sum was spent in improving the navigation, in