the first patent for a locomotive engine,
which they executed the following year. {144}

The railway village of Crewe is on the same plan as that of Wolverton, but
situated in much prettier scenery; and includes a church, infant, boys' and
girls' schools, a Library and Literary Institution, held in the Town-hall,
where a fine room is occasionally well filled by popular lectures, and balls
in the winter.

On one occasion, about three years ago, the name of a gentleman looking over
the works in company with a foreman was recognized as that of a writer on a
popular subject, and he was requested by a deputation of the men to deliver a
lecture the same evening in the Town-hall. He consented; and a written
notice, stuck up in the workshops at one o'clock, assembled at six o'clock
upwards of six hundred of the mechanics and their wives and families, forming
a most attentive and intelligent audience.

This establishment was considerably reduced during the depression in railway
property, and several of the mechanics emigrated to the United States. One
of these, a Chartist politician, a Methodist preacher, and a coach-spring
maker, with a little taste for sporting, expressed himself, in a letter which
found its way into the "Emigrant's Journal," well pleased with the people,
the laws, and the institutions amongst which he had transplanted himself; but
when he came to speak of the railroads, he considered them "not fit to carry
hogs to market." So much for a man criticising his own trade.

We must not pause to describe as we could wish, in detail, the arrangements
of this interesting village; for we have heavy work before us, and must press
on.

Parties passing, who have leisure to stay a day, will find very fair
accommodation at the inn overlooking the station, and often, about one
o'clock, a fine hot joint of grass-fed beef of magnificent dimensions. In
winter, this hotel is one of the quarters of gentlemen going to meet the
Cheshire hounds, a first-rate pack, with a country which, if not first-rate,
is far from second-rate, including certain parts of grass country which may
be fairly compared to Leicestershire and Northamptonshire.

Crewe Hall, one of the "Meets," is the seat of Lord Crewe, the grandson of
the beautiful Mrs. Crewe, so celebrated for her wit and Buff and Blue
politics, in the time of Charles James Fox, the Duchess of Devonshire, the
Westminster Election, and "All The Talents of the last century."

The