lthough only an inland canal port, trades largely and
directly, through Liverpool chiefly, to the most parts of the world,
consuming one-tenth of the whole imports of that town. The correspondence of
a first-class house for one morning would alone be a lesson in geography.

Then again, the ceaseless enterprise and enormous powers of manufacture are
supported by a constantly-improving mechanical ingenuity, which seems to
those unaccustomed to such works nothing less than miraculous: as, for
instance, some of the inventions of Mr. Whitworth and of Mr. Roberts.

But all this is hidden from the eye of a stranger; and Manchester is a dark
and dingy ledger, closely clasped, unless he comes prepared to open a good
account, or armed with letters of introduction of a more than ordinarily
pressing nature. The gentleman who was all smiles while accepting your
civilities, and energetically amusing himself on a tour of pleasure, has
scarcely time to look up from his desk to greet you when enthroned in his
counting-house. The fact is, that these Manchester men rise early, work
hard, dine at one o'clock, work again, and go home, some distance out of
town, to work or to sleep,--so they have no time for unprofitable hospitality
or civility.

We do not say this by way of idle reproach to the people of Manchester, who
follow their vocation, and do work of which we as Englishmen have reason to
be proud, but partly by way of warning to travellers who, armed with the sort
of letters that have proved passports to everything best worth seeing
throughout the rest of Europe, may expect to pass an agreeable day or two in
the cotton metropolis; and partly by way of hint to politicians who, very
fond of inveighing against the cold shade of aristocracy, would find
something worth imitating in the almost universal courtesy of modern
nobility, which is quite consistent with the extremest liberality of abstract
opinions.

Dr. Dalton, the celebrated natural philosopher, for many years a resident in
Manchester, has proved that Manchester is not so damp and rainy a place as is
generally imagined; that the mean annual fall of rain is less than that of
Lancaster, Kendal, and Dumfries. Nevertheless, it is better to expect rain,
for although the day at Liverpool, Halifax, or Sheffield may have been
brilliantly fine, the probability is that you will find the train, as it
approaches the city, gradually slipping into a heavy shower or a Scotch mist.

The