The court-yard of the station was filled with a crowd of omnibuses, fiacres and _vigilantes_, an improvement upon the cabs of London, and a drive of a few minutes brought us to the Cauter, or Place d’Armes, where, following the direction of the Hand-book, we stopped at the Hôtel de la Poste, a spacious house, kept by a M. Oldi, who, we were told, was son to a Baroness of the same name, who figured on the occasion of the trial of Queen Caroline. GHENT. My anxiety was to learn something of the actual state of manufacturing industry in Belgium, and Ghent, its principal seat and centre, presented the most favourable opportunities. Our introductions were numerous, but my chief obligations are to _M. Grenier_, one of the most intelligent and accomplished men of business whom it has been my good fortune to meet. He had been formerly an officer in the Imperial Guard of Napoleon, whilst Belgium was a province of the empire, but on the return of peace, in 1815, betook himself to pursuits of commerce, and is now connected with some of the most important manufacturing and trading establishments of Belgium. I owe a similar acknowledgment for the polite attentions of _M. de Smet de Naeyer_,[6] an eminent manufacturer, and one of the officers of the Chamber of Commerce and of the Conseil de Prud’hommes at Ghent. The latter body which is an institution, originally French, was introduced in Belgium by a decree of Napoleon in 1810. It is a board formed jointly of employers and workmen, elected by annual sections, and discharging all its functions, not only gratuitously as regards the public, but without payment to its own members, beyond the mere expenditure of the office, and a moderate salary to a secretary. Its duties have reference to the adjustment of the mutual intercourse between workmen and their masters in every branch of manufacture, the prevention of combinations, the performance of contracts, the regulation of apprenticeship, and the effectual administration of the system of _livrets_--a species of permanent diploma, which the artisan received on the termination of his pulpilage, signed by the master to whom he had been articled, and sealed by the President of the Conseil de Prud’hommes. Without the production of his _livret_, no tradesman can be received into employment; and in it are entered all his successive discharges and acquittances with his various masters. The powers of fining and of forfeiture exercised by the conseil, are summary up to a certain amount, and in cases of graver importance, there is a resort to the correctional police.