to record publicly, when an opportunity like the present offers, the sense of satisfaction and admiration which the sight of such a prodigious and complicated establishment cannot fail to excite.

This establishment I examined in detail for the space of two hours, from ten till twelve o'clock, when all the hands engaged in the cotton department, as well as the millwright, the mechanics, the joiners, the plumbers, the painters, the turners, the moulders, the smiths, and the masons-for all these are daily at work on these endless premises,-went to their dinner.

I took advantage of the latter circumstance to post myself favourably at the door, so as to survey every one of the adult and younger girls, as well as most of the boys, employed in these mills. I had already seen most of them at their posts in the course of the morning, standing before thousands of power-looms, (of which one room alone contains upwards of 600), or guiding, and placing, and arranging the 80,000 spindles which daily twirl in these mills, under a moving power equivalent to 397 horses, and which convert annually four millions of pounds of raw material into cotton thread; and on both occasions I noticed few, very few individuals indeed, who appeared either weak or sickly, or in any way as if affected by the peculiar work they were engaged in, by the constant standing posture they are obliged to preserve, and the damp and hot atmosphere in which for eight hours a day some of them live. On the contrary, the majority of the grown girls had a smiling and good-looking countenance, neither emaciated nor bloated, and their figures appeared light, active, and free from any defect.

I can readily believe the story, often repeated in Manchester, which states, that when Sir Francis Chantry beheld this assemblage of young women in a cotton factory, he declared that were he in want of varied yet perfect forms and moulds of female structure, he should seek them in these very esta

blishments. And yet how hardly have the master factors been dealt with by the philanthropist, for their supposed cruel and harsh treatment of these very creatures, whose frames were said to have been estropiated, and their health broken, by the severity of their employment!

As for the little urchins, many of them between eight and ten years of age only, whom I beheld in this place, engaged in several branches of light work-never has it been my lot to see a merrier set. They went through their allotted task, laughing and joking, with alacrity and unimpaired energy; and when I saw them issuing from the mills as the noon bell dismissed them to their dinner, so little tired seemed they, or so little pressed by hunger, that they would-like so many schoolboys just escaped from their gymnasium-stop by the road-wrestle-tumble about-throw stones-crack jokes together, and laugh immoderately; thus evincing at once what state of health they must have enjoyed at the time.

At the conclusion of my visit, one of the junior partners asked me, as a professional man, whether I thought the people in their factory looked as a certain great philanthropic lord had stated-miserable and slavish. Justice and truth demanded that my answer should be as decisive as it was immediate, in the negative: but how far the present state of things, which enabled me to give such an answer, be or be not the result of the act of factory discipline, which that lord, moved by the purest motives, has been instrumental in enacting, I was not prepared by any previous knowledge of the establishment to determine.

On quitting Messrs. Birley's great factory, and by their advice, we proceeded to a far different, yet equally surprising establishment, the Locomotive Engine Manufactory, or, "the Atlas Works" of Messrs. Sharp, Roberts, and Co.

My friend Clare, who is himself an excellent engineering mechanic, explained every thing to me as we proceeded from one large compartment of these gigantic premises to another,

and imparted information on many points, respecting which I was before in total ignorance, especially with regard to the locomotive engines for railway trains. Of the latter, many were in progress of construction which were destined for the railways in Belgium-as well as for that which leads from St. Petersburg to Tzarcoçelo.

The view of these two great establishments-in one of which a bulky mass of vegetable fibre is converted, as if by magic, into the finest cloth, through the ingenious contrivances of machinery; while in the other the rudest and most shapeless lump of iron is wrought and moulded into some of the most wonderful agents of power and motion-would induce one to think that if the ingenuity of man's mind cannot impart life to organic matter, it can, at all events, cause inorganic matter to live. For what else but life is that wonderful, complicated, and all-working movement, elementarily generated by heat, playing upon the particles of water, by which almost every artificial thing man wants in this world is created and formed?

And now farewell to an old friend, with hearty thanks for his kindness and cordiality, and away by one of the public vehicles, which in three hours and a half is to deposit me at my next station, Buxton.

Stockport, the most important town we passed through, like many others in Lancashire and Cheshire, I found nearly double in extent to what I had known it twenty-five years before.

One of the most splendid specimens in this country of viaducts to carry a railway is now in course of rapid construction; and will, when completed, be not only the longest and loftiest, but, from its situation, the finest object of that kind to be seen in an English landscape.

The country beyond it is beautiful, and assumed at every step a richer aspect as we kept ascending. At Whaley Bridge, the surrounding landscape, however, is more striking than upon the summit of a very elevated ground, where

the first view is obtained of Buxton, with its gray buildings dotting the green vale, or scattered upon the surrounding hills. At Whaley Bridge, the Peak Forest canal comes in as a very pretty feature in the landscape.

This approach to Buxton from Manchester is not the finest. That from Matlock is the most imposing, as the whole road indeed is, from that place to Buxton.

I put up at the Great Hotel. It was full, and the last bed-room that remained unoccupied was assigned to my use.

CHAPTER II.

BUXTON.

Aristocracy of BUXTON-Mea culpa, mea culpa—Whose fault is it?—The CRESCENT-St. Ann's Clift-Living Panorama-GENERAL VIEW of the Spa-Improvements necessary, and suggested-The WELL HOUSE—A Kur-Saal-Buxton Mineral Water-Its Taste and Physical Character -CHEMICAL ANALYSIS-Azote present, and what are its Virtues? The GREAT PUBLIC BATH-Promiscuous Bath-Ludicrous RencontreThe Gentlemen'S PRIVATE BATH-Author's Experiment-First Impression and Secondary Effects-Deductions and Advice-The HOT BATHS -Their Nature and Management-Effects of Buxton Water heated— The CHARITY BATUS-Medicinal Virtues of the Buxton WaterDiseases most benefited by it-CASES-The late DR. WILLIS-Sources of the Mineral Water-Distribution and Supply-Investigation difficult-MYSTERY-Climate of Buxton-THE GREAT HOTEL-Its Comforts and Expenses-Miss P-LODGING-HOUSES-The Great BALL-ROOM-Le Marquis de B. at MIVART'S.

THERE is a fragrance of aristocracy in the very air of this Spa, which at once bespeaks it the rendezvous of far different classes of visiters from those we have seen at Askerne or elsewhere, among the minor watering-places of the north. The very first coup-d'œil at the " Grand Hotel," as I surveyed the interior of that large building in my way up the principal staircase to the remote chamber assigned to me, showed me that I must take some pains with my toilet. Having done so, and again descended for the purpose of ascertaining from the landlord the address of Sir Charles Scudamore, whom I knew to be in Buxton, where he has for many years been in