ar baiting,
that in 1621, by a unanimous vote, they transferred the money intended for a
bible to the purchase of a bear.

Times are changed; every inhabitant of Congleton can now have his own bible
for tenpence. Bear baiting and cock fighting have been discontinued; but we
hope the inhabitants have grown wiser than they were some fifteen years ago,
when they allowed themselves, for the sake of petty political disputes, to be
continually drawn through the Courts of Law and Chancery--a process quite as
cruel for the suitors, and more expensive and less amusing than bear-baiting.

At the Town Hall is to be seen a "bridle" for a scold, which the ladies of
the present generation are too well behaved ever to deserve. President
Bradshaw, the regicide, was a Cheshireman, born and christened at Stockport.
He practised as barrister, and served the office of mayor in 1637, at
Congleton, of which he afterwards became high steward. At Macclesfield,
according to tradition, he wrote, when a boy, on a tombstone, these prophetic
lines:--

"My brother Henry must heir the land,
My brother Frank must be at his command,
Whilst I, poor Jack! will do that,
That all the world shall wonder at."

Bradshaw became Chief Justice of the County Palatine of Chester under the
Commonwealth, was dismissed by Cromwell for his Republican opinions, died in
1659, was magnificently buried in Westminster Abbey, and disinterred and
gibbeted with Cromwell and Ireton at the Restoration. A piece of vengeance
on poor dead bones that remained unimitated until one of the mobs of the
first French Revolution scattered the bones of the French Kings buried in the
vaults of St. Denis.

THE LAKES.

Some of our readers may feel disposed to visit the charming scenery with
which Cumberland and Westmoreland abound; and that they may be assisted in
their route thereto, and in their rambles through that beautiful district, we
will furnish a few notes descriptive of the most convenient and pleasant
routes.

From Congleton an easy diversion may be made, by railway, to Crewe, and from
thence the journey, along the North-Western line, passing Northwich
(Cheshire) and Warrington (Lancashire), via Parkside, to Preston, Garstang,
and Lancaster, is rapid and agreeable. The approach to Preston is remarkably
pleasing, the railway being carried across a magnificent vale, through which
the river Lune, a fine, wide stream, equalling in beauty the far-famed D