in regular uniform, provided with bull's-eye
lanthorns to pick their way in and out of the dark and dirty
back-streets. One single constable had sufficed, and a dark hole had
done duty as a prison. Now a superintendent and other officers, a
full staff, and a complete police-station, with cells, justice-room,
all the paraphernalia were required; and so preposterous did this
seem to other towns, formerly leading towns in the country, but
which had remained stagnant while Swindon went ahead, that they
bitterly resented the building, and satirized it as a 'Palace of
Justice,' though, in good truth, sorely needed. A vast corn
exchange, a vaster drill-hall for the workmen--who had formed a
volunteer corps--to drill in, chapels of every description, and some
of really large size--all these arose.

The little old town on the hill a mile from the station felt the
wave of progress strongly. The streets were paved; sewers driven
under the town at a depth of 40 feet through solid stone, in order
to dispose of the sewage on a second sewage farm of over 100 acres.
Shops, banks, and, above all, public-houses, abounded and increased
apace, especially in the new town, where every third house seemed to
be licensed premises. The cart-track seen by the luncheon-party in
the furze was laid down and macadamized, and a street erected, named
after the finest street in London, full of shops of all
descriptions. Every denomination, from the Plymouth Brethren to the
Roman Catholics, had their place of worship. Most of the tradesmen
had two branches, one in the upper and one in the lower town, and
the banks followed their example. Not satisfied with two railways,
two others are now in embryo--one a link in the long-talked-of
through communication between North and South, from Manchester to
Southampton, the other a local line with possible extensions. A
population of barely 2,000 has risen to 15,000, and this does not
nearly represent the real number of inhabitants, for there is a
large floating population, and, in addition, five or six villages
surrounding the town are in reality merely suburbs, and in great
part populated by men working in the town. These villages have
shared in the general movement, and some of them have almost trebled
in size and importance. This population is made up of the most
incongruous elements: labouring men of the adjacent counties who
have left the plough and the sickle for the hammer and the spade;
Irish in large n