of the Crowns. The gentry lived in
their strong Peel castles; even the larger farm-houses were fortified;
and bloodhounds were trained for the purpose of tracking the
cattle-reavers to their retreats in the hills. The Judges of Assize rode
from Carlisle to Newcastle guarded by an escort armed to the teeth. A
tribute called "dagger and protection money" was annually paid by the
Sheriff of Newcastle for the purpose of providing daggers and other
weapons for the escort; and, though the need of such protection has long
since ceased, the tribute continues to be paid in broad gold pieces of
the time of Charles the First.

Until about the middle of last century the roads across Northumberland
were little better than horse-tracks, and not many years since the
primitive agricultural cart with solid wooden wheels was almost as common
in the western parts of the county as it is in Spain now. The tract of
the old Roman road continued to be the most practicable route between
Newcastle and Carlisle, the traffic between the two towns having been
carried along it upon packhorses until a comparatively recent period.

Since that time great changes have taken place on the Tyne. When wood
for firing became scarce and dear, and the forests of the South of
England were found inadequate to supply the increasing demand for fuel,
attention was turned to the rich stores of coal lying underground in the
neighbourhood of Newcastle and Durham. It then became an article of
increasing export, and "seacoal" fires gradually supplanted those of
wood. Hence an old writer described Newcastle as "the Eye of the North,
and the Hearth that warmeth the South parts of this kingdom with Fire."
Fuel has become the staple product of the district, the quantity exported
increasing from year to year, until the coal raised from these northern
mines amounts to upwards of sixteen millions of tons a year, of which not
less than nine millions are annually conveyed away by sea.

Newcastle has in the mean time spread in all directions far beyond its
ancient boundaries. From a walled mediaeval town of monks and merchants,
it has been converted into a busy centre of commerce and manufactures
inhabited by nearly 100,000 people. It is no longer a Border fortress--a
"shield and defence against the invasions and frequent insults of the
Scots," as described in ancient charters--but a busy centre of peaceful
industry, and the outlet for a vast amount of steam-power, whi