We gained considerable time by making a detour
through side streets--not an altogether easy performance--and after much
inquiry regained the main road leading out of the city. Warrington is a
city of more than one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, a
manufacturing place with nothing to detain the tourist. On the main
street near the river is a fine bronze statue of Oliver Cromwell, one of
four that I saw erected to the memory of the Protector in England. Our
route from Warrington led through Wigan and Preston, manufacturing
cities of nearly one hundred thousand each, and the suburbs of the three
are almost continuous. Tram cars were numerous and children played
everywhere with utter unconcern for the vehicles which crowded the
streets.

When we came to Lancaster we were glad to stop, although our day's
journey had covered only sixty miles. We knew very little of Lancaster
and resorted to the guide-books for something of its antecedents, only
to learn the discouraging fact that here, as everywhere, the Romans had
been ahead of us. The town has a history reaching back to the Roman
occupation, but its landmarks have been largely obliterated in the
manufacturing center which it has become. Charles Dickens was a guest at
Lancaster, and in recording his impressions he declared it "a pleasant
place, dropped in the midst of a charming landscape; a place with a
fine, ancient fragment of a castle; a place of lovely walks and
possessing many staid old houses, richly fitted with Honduras mahogany,"
and followed with other reflections not so complimentary concerning the
industrial slavery which prevailed in the city a generation or two ago.
The "fine, ancient fragment of a castle" has been built into the modern
structure which now serves as the seat of the county court. The square
tower of the Norman keep is included in the building. This in general
style and architecture conforms to the old castle, which, excepting the
fragment mentioned by Dickens, has long since vanished. Near at hand is
St. Mary's Church, rivaling in size and dignity many of the cathedrals,
and its massive, buttressed walls and tall, graceful spire do justice to
its magnificent site. From the eminence occupied by the church the Irish
Sea is plainly visible, and in the distance the almost tropical Isle of
Man rises abruptly out of the blue waters. The monotony of our previous
day's travel was forgotten in lively anticipation as we proceeded at
what seemed a