[Illustration: THE THREE SPIRES OF LICHFIELD. From Photograph.] It became apparent that owing to our many delays, we could not easily reach Manchester, and we stopped at Newcastle-under-Lyme for the night. This town has about 20,000 people and lies on the outer edge of the potteries district, where Josiah Wedgewood founded this great industry over one hundred years ago. The whole region comprising Burslem, Hanley, Newcastle, Stoke-on-Trent and many smaller places may be described as a huge, scattered city of about 300,000 inhabitants, nearly all directly or indirectly connected with the manufacture of various grades of china and earthenware. The Castle Hotel, where we stopped, was a very old inn, yet it proved unexpectedly homelike and comfortable. Our little party was given a small private dining room with massive antique furniture, and we were served with an excellent dinner by an obsequious waiter in full-dress suit and with immaculate linen. He cleared the table and left us for the evening with the apartment as a sitting room, and a mahogany desk by the fireside, well supplied with stationery, afforded amends for neglected letters. In the morning, our breakfast was served in the same room, and the bill for entertainment seemed astonishingly low. Mine host will no doubt be wiser in this particular as motorists more and more invade the country. An hour's drive brought us to Manchester. The road by which we entered the city took us direct to the Midland Hotel, which is reputed to be the finest in the Kingdom. Manchester is a city of nearly a million inhabitants, but its streets seemed almost like those of a country town as compared with the crowded thoroughfares of London. It is a great center for motoring and I found many of the garages so full that they could not take another car. I eventually came to one of the largest, where by considerable shifting they managed to accommodate my car. But with all this rush of business, it seemed to me that the owners were in no danger of becoming plutocrats, for the charge for a day's garage, cleaning the car, polishing the brass and making a slight repair, was five shillings. For half the way from Manchester to Leeds, the drive was about as trying as anything I found in England. The road is winding, exceedingly steep in places, and built up on both sides with houses--largely homes of miners and mill operatives. The pavement is of rough cobble-stones, and swarms of dogs and children crowded the way everywhere. Under such conditions, the numerous steep hills, narrow places and sharp turns in the road made progress slow indeed. It was evident that the British motorists generally avoid this country, for we met no cars and our own attracted attention that showed it was not a common spectacle. However, the trip was none the less an interesting one as showing a bit of the country and a phase of English life not usually seen by tourists.