I dare say you would be much amused by a visit to Manchester, in
Lancashire, where the art of spinning cotton is carried to a high
perfection. There are more than a hundred and forty cotton factories
in that city, where men, women, and children, are continually at work,
minding the machines, which are about twenty thousand in number. When
you first go into one of these factories, you hear a terrible noise of
whirling and whizzing, and see an immense number of wheels flying
round and round.

Halifax and Leeds, in Yorkshire, are the chief places for woollen
cloth, the manufacture of which employs the greater part of the
inhabitants. A weekly market is held in Halifax for the sale of
woollens, in a spacious building called the Piece Hall; but in Leeds,
the markets are held two days in the week, in the two Cloth Halls.

Staffordshire is famous for earthenware; the reason of this is, that
there is such an enormous quantity of yellow clay suitable for that
manufacture, found there. Indeed, there are several towns and villages
formed into a district called "The Potteries;" and in consequence of
the innumerable furnaces, which are always blazing, the place looks at
night as if was on fire. Gloves, lace, and stockings, are mostly made
in Nottingham, where there are several thousand machines for the
manufacture of these things.

From Kidderminster, in Worcester, we have very fine carpets; from
Gloucester, we have cheese and pins; Northampton is celebrated for
leather; Shrewsbury, for flannel. The great mines are in Cumberland,
Cornwall, Northumberland, Durham, and Derbyshire. However, if I were
to tell you of all the places in England, that are famed for
different manufactures, I am afraid I should both exceed our space,
and wear out your patience, which I should be sorry to do. So I will
now tell you something about London.

[Illustration]

London, which you know is the capital of our own dear native land, is
the greatest commercial city in the world; it has been reckoned that
the value of the property shipped and unshipped on the river Thames,
every year, is more than one hundred million pounds. An enormous
quantity of property is laid in the London Docks, at Wapping; indeed,
the warehouse for tobacco alone covers a space of nearly five acres,
while the vaults underneath the ground are more than eighteen acres in
extent.

More coaches, omnibusses, waggons, vans, and other conveyances, crowd
the streets of London tha