ain.

"Liverpool," said one of its inhabitants to me, "is more like an American
than an English city; it is new, bustling, and prosperous." I saw some
evidences of this after I had got my baggage through the custom-house,
which was attended with considerable delay, the officers prying very
closely into the contents of certain packages which I was taking for
friends of mine to their friends in England, cutting the packthread,
breaking the seals, and tearing the wrappers without mercy. I saw the
streets crowded with huge drays, carrying merchandise to and fro, and
admired the solid construction of the docks, in which lay thousands of
vessels from all parts of the globe. The walls of these docks are built of
large blocks of red sandstone, with broad gateways opening to the river
Mersey, and when the tide is at its height, which I believe is about
thirty feet from low water, the gates are open, and vessels allowed to
enter and depart. When the tide begins to retire, the gates are closed,
and the water and the vessels locked in together. Along the river for
miles, the banks are flanked with this massive masonry, which in some
places I should judge to be nearly forty feet in height. Meantime the town
is spreading into the interior; new streets are opened; in one field you
may see the brickmakers occupied in their calling, and in the opposite one
the bricklayers building rows of houses. New churches and new public
buildings of various kinds are going up in these neighborhoods.

The streets which contain the shops have for the most part a gay and showy
appearance; the buildings are generally of stucco, and show more of
architectural decoration than in our cities. The greater part of the
houses, however, are built of brick which has a rough surface, and soon
acquires in this climate a dark color, giving a gloomy aspect to the
streets. The public buildings, which are rather numerous, are of a
drab-colored freestone, and those which have been built for forty or fifty
years, the Town Hall, for example, and some of the churches, appear almost
of a sooty hue. I went through the rooms of the Town Hall and was shown
the statue of Canning, by Chantry, an impressive work as it seemed to me.
One of the rooms contains a portrait of him by Lawrence, looking very much
like a feeble old gentleman whom I remember as not long since an appraiser
in the New York custom-house. We were shown a lofty saloon in which the
Common Council of Liverpool e