EMIGRANTS AT LIVERPOOL _By G. P. Jacomb Hood_ SHIPPING ON THE MERSEY _By A. Brunet-Debaines_ AMERICAN WHEAT AT LIVERPOOL RAN AWAY TO SEA ST. NICHOLAS CHURCH, LIVERPOOL _By H. Toussaint_ THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, LIVERPOOL ST. GEORGE'S HALL, LIVERPOOL THE EXCHANGE, LIVERPOOL _By R. Kent Thomas_ WIGAN WARRINGTON THE DINNER HOUR PAY-DAY IN A COTTON MILL _By G. P. Jacomb Hood_ IN A COTTON FACTORY MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL ST. ANNE'S SQUARE, MANCHESTER TOWN HALL, MANCHESTER _By T. Riley_ DEANSGATE, MANCHESTER IN THE WIRE WORKS MAKING COKE SMELTING GLASS-BLOWING _By G. P. Jacomb Hood_ ON THE BRIDGEWATER CANAL _By G. P. Jacomb Hood_ ON THE BRIDGEWATER CANAL BLACKSTONE EDGE THE LAKE AT LITTLEBOROUGH WATERFALL IN CLIVIGER IN THE BURNLEY VALLEY THE RIBBLE AT CLITHEROE CONISTON _By David Law_ NEAR THE COPPER MINES, CONISTON LANCASTER _By David Law_ CLITHEROE CASTLE FURNESS ABBEY FURNESS ABBEY _By R. Kent Thomas_ DARCY LEVER, NEAR BOLTON SPEKE HALL _By T. Riley_ HALE HALL HALL IN THE WOOD _By R. Kent Thomas_ HOGHTON TOWER STONYHURST _By R. Kent Thomas_ LANCASHIRE I LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COUNTY Directly connected with the whole world, through the medium of its shipping and manufactures, Lancashire is commercially to Great Britain what the Forum was to ancient Rome--the centre from which roads led towards every principal province of the empire. Being nearer to the Atlantic, Liverpool commands a larger portion of our commerce with North America even than London: it is from the Mersey that the great westward steamers chiefly sail. The biographies of the distinguished men who had their birthplace in Lancashire, and lived there always, many of them living still, would fill a volume. A second would hardly suffice to tell of those who, though not natives, have identified themselves at various periods with Lancashire movements and occupations. No county has drawn into its population a larger number of individuals of the powerful classes, some taking up their permanent abode in it, others coming for temporary purposes. In cultivated circles in the large towns the veritable Lancashire men are always fewer in number than those born elsewhere, or whose fathers did not belong to Lancashire. No trifling item is it in the county annals that the immortal author of the _Advancement of Learning_ represented, as member of Parliament, for four years (1588-1592) the town which in 1809 gave birth to William Ewart Gladstone, and which, during the boyhood of the latter, sent Canning to the House of Commons.[1] In days to come England will point to Lancashire as the cradle also of the Stanleys, one generation after another, of Sir Robert Peel, John Bright, and Richard Cobden. The value to the country of the several men, the soundness of their legislative policy, the consistency of