the
window. But if we do, we may see reclamation and cultivation, in the shape
of root-crops and plantations, extending over the wet waste.

William Roscoe was one of the first to attempt to reclaim this Moss; and it
is worthy of note, that it was among the literary and scientific friends of
Roscoe that George Stephenson's idea of a railroad from Liverpool to
Manchester, through Chat-Moss, found its warmest supporters, at a time when
support was much needed; for the shares were hawked, and even distributed
among friends who were guaranteed against loss, in order to make up a fitting
parliamentary subscription to what has proved one of the most successful
speculations in public works, of this century.

MANCHESTER.

As we roll into Manchester, and mark by what successive invasions the city
has been half-surrounded by railways, it is amusing to remember the fears
which landowners expressed in 1829, and really felt, lest the new flaming and
smoking carriage-apparatus should damage the value of property which has been
more than doubled in value by the new invention.

Manchester is the greatest manufactory in the world. The cradle and
metropolis of a trade which employs a million and a half of souls, beside the
sailors, the merchants, the planters and the slaves, who grow or carry or buy
the raw material, it is the second city in the empire, and perhaps,
considered in relation to the commercial influence of Great Britain, scarcely
second. Blot out the capital, the credit, the living enterprise, the
manufacturing power of Manchester, and we have lost a century of commercial
progress. Manchester is essentially a place of work and action, carried on
by men recruited from every district where a mental grenadier of the
Manchester standard is to be found. Suffolk and Devonshire, Norfolk and
Cornwall send their quota, as well as the neighbouring manufacturing schools
of Yorkshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire. Scotchmen in great numbers, and some
Irishmen, chiefly from the north, are also at home there. We are speaking
now not of operatives, but of those who rise to be manufacturers or
merchants. The Americans are rather constant visitors than permanent
residents; but the Germans are sufficiently numerous to be able to form a
society of their own, the most agreeable in Manchester; and the commerce of
Greece is represented by a great number of houses, which are increasing in
number and importance.

Then Manchester, a