found, half-a-mile off, on
the borders of Yorkshire, similar conveniences and more accessible ground-
landlords in the Byrons, Lords of the Manor of Rochdale. And when, some time
afterwards, a like application met with a like answer, other manufacturers
went away to another corner, and built Oldham.

So the Middleton farms continued very pretty picturesque farms; Middleton
village grew into a miserable town, and was passed over in 1830, when every
population was putting forth its claims to a share in making the laws of the
United Kingdom; while Oldham, with 30,000 inhabitants, was allotted two
members, (an honour which cost the life of one of them, our best describer of
English rural scenery, in racy Saxon English, William Cobbett); Rochdale,
with 24,000, obtained one, and eventually made itself loudly heard in the
House, in the person of John Bright, a gentleman of pluck not without
eloquence, who has done a good deal, considering the disadvantages he has
laboured under, in not having been brought to his level in a public school,
and in having been brought up in the atmosphere of adulation, to which the
wealthy and clever of a small sect are as much exposed as the scions of a
"proud aristocracy."

A few years ago, the late lord, who had occasionally lived on the estate,
died. His successor pulled down the Manor House, became an absentee, always
in want of ready money, and introduced the Irish system into the management
of his estate. That is to say, good farming became a sure mode of inviting
an increase of rent--for indispensable repairs no ready money was forthcoming,
so tenants who had an indisputable claim to such allowances, received a
reduction of rent instead; they generally accepted the reduction, and did no
more of the repairs than would just make shift. The land in the town
suitable for building was let at chief rents to the highest bidder, with no
consideration for the mutual convenience of neighbours, or the welfare of
future residents.

Thus mismanaged and dilapidated, the estates were brought into the market,
and purchased for Messrs. Peto & Betts, by their land agent, Mr. Francis
Fuller, for less than 200,000 pounds; and the lands of the aristocracy of
blood passed into the possession of the aristocracy of trade. Here was a
subject for a doleful ballad from "A Young Englander," commencing--

"Ye tenants old of Middleton ye cannot need but sigh,
Departed are the traces of your own nobility,