Leeds began to grow in the last century, when it became the chief mart of the woollen clothiers, while the worsted-trade gathered about Bradford. These still remain the centres of the two great divisions of the woollen industry, which is the characteristic business of Yorkshire. The factories began then to appear at Leeds, and in the present century the city has made astonishing advances, growing from fifty-three thousand population in 1801 until it exceeds three hundred thousand now. The great cloth-mart to-day is for miles a region of tall chimneys and barrack-like edifices, within which steadily roars machinery that represents some of the most ingenious skill of the human race. Within this hive of busy industry there still linger some memorials of the past among its hundreds of cloth-mills. Turning out of the broad Briggate into the quiet street of St. John, we come to the church built there by the piety of the wealthy clothier John Harrison, and consecrated in 1634. St. John's Church, which he built and presented to the town because the older parish church could scarce hold half the inhabitants, consists of a long nave and chancel, with a south aisle. It is of Gothic architecture, and much of the ancient woodwork, including the pulpit, remains. Arabesques moulded in white plaster fill the panels between the main roof-beams. This interesting church has undergone little historical change excepting the recent rebuilding of the tower. John Harrison is entombed in the church. The old parish church in Kirkgate has been within a few years entirely rebuilt. The other churches of Leeds, like this one, are all modern, and it also has an imposing Town Hall, opened by the queen in 1858, in which are held the annual musical festivals, which have attained much importance. A statue of the Duke of Wellington stands in the open square in front. The two Cloth Halls of Leeds, the Mixed Cloth Hall and the White Cloth Hall, where the business of selling was at first carried on, are now little used, the trade being conducted directly between the manufacturer and the clothier. Some of the mills are of enormous size, and they include every operation from the raw material to the finished fabric. But, with all their ingenious machinery, the cloth-weavers have not yet been able to supersede the use of the teasel, by which the loose fibres of wool are raised to the surface to form, when cut and sheared, the pile or nap. These teasels, which are largely grown in Yorkshire, are fastened into a cylinder, and at least three thousand of them will be consumed in "teasling" a piece of cloth forty yards long. BOLTON ABBEY. [Illustration: GATEWAY IN THE PRIORY, BOLTON ABBEY.] [Illustration: THE CHURCHYARD, BOLTON ABBEY.]