And all the time the usual struggle with the Code went on, varied now with resistance to an attack from the local authority; now with presentment of a cold shoulder to obstruction offered by the Teachers’ Union; now with the soothing of indignant managers, upon whose toes all the other parties were treading. It was only in the intervals between the recitation of Standard V. and the geography of Standard VI. that one had time to notice that the rooms in which both classes were taught were unfit for human habitation; it was only on a chance visit to a cookery or woodwork class that one discovered, that the instruction was given in what the local authority called a basement, and I called a cellar; it was only on a similar chance visit to a school that I discovered abominations which almost took away my appetite for dinner. And it was only after escaping from the day’s drudgery that I had even short leisure to study the people, far too short a time to be able to give any reasoned account of them. A pilgrim may report his impressions of manners and customs, but he cannot generalise on character. True that the Manchester folk made no attempt to conceal their failings, or to conciliate the casual visitor. I have mentioned the “inordinate self-satisfaction” of the city, but it would be better to describe it as an over-full recognition of its own surpassing merits: let us not suppose that it went far beyond a just claim. There went with it a certain consciousness that in the wear and tear of crowded life the amenities of society were a little neglected. It was told me with a strange delight that the commercial travellers, and others, speak of Manchester _men_, and Liverpool _gentlemen_, and it was averred that the former put on silk hats when they journeyed to do business with the latter. I mentioned this double tribute to a Liverpool resident, and he replied that _he had not noticed it_. Now, what did he mean? Was it that the Liverpool gentlemen...? or that he had not seen the silk hats? It is better not to ask too many questions. But the absence of pretence is sometimes itself a pretence, and the people are not so black as they paint themselves. Let us be reasonable. If the dwellers in Manchester had been more richly endowed with beauty, grace, courtesy, and so on, would they have continued to live in Manchester? Or would not other cities have enticed away men who combined these merits with the intelligence and activity which have produced the Ship Canal, and the Technological Museum? We do not expect to find pine-apples in the Hebrides, or violets in the Sahara. Dipping into a volume of Burns, I came to some lines so exactly suitable to the occasion, that I cannot do better than conclude with them, after the manner of Addison: “But fare ye weel, auld Nickie-ben, O wad ye tak’ a thought an’ men’ Ye aiblins might--I dinna ken-- Still hae a stake: _I’m wae to think upo’ yon den, Ev’n for your sake_.” FOOTNOTES: