The period of most astonishing expansion has been that which, as in Manchester, may be termed the strictly modern one. The best of the public buildings have been erected within the memory of living men. Most of the docks have been constructed since 1812. The first steamboat upon the Mersey turned its paddles in 1815. The first steam voyage to New York commemorates 1838. In Liverpool, it should not be forgotten, originated directly afterwards the great scheme which gave rise to the "Peninsular and Oriental," upon which followed in turn the Suez Railway, and then the Suez Canal. The current era has also witnessed an immense influx into Liverpool of well-informed American, Canadian, and continental merchants, Germans particularly. These have brought (and every year sees new arrivals) the habits of thought, the special views, and the fruits of the widely diverse social and political training peculiar to the respective nationalities. [Illustration: THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, LIVERPOOL] A very considerable number of the native English Liverpool merchants have resided, sometimes for a lengthened period, in foreign countries. Maintaining correspondence with those countries, having connections one with another all over the world, they are kept alive to everything that has relation to commerce. They can tell us about the harvests in all parts of the world, the value of gold and silver, and the operation of legal enactments. Residence abroad supplies new and more liberal ideas, and enables men to judge more accurately. The result is that, although Liverpool, like other places, contains its full quota of the incurably ignorant and prejudiced, the spirit and the method of the mercantile community are in the aggregate thoughtful, inviting, and enjoyable. The occupations of the better class of merchants, and their constant consociation with one another, require and develop not only business powers, but the courtesies which distinguish gentlemen. A stamp is given quite different from that which comes of life spent habitually among "hands";[14] the impression upon the mind of the visitor is that, whatever may be the case elsewhere, in Liverpool ability and good manners are in partnership. And this not only in commercial transactions: the characteristics observable in office hours reappear in the privacy of home. [14] In Liverpool, strictly speaking, there are _no_ "hands," no troops of workpeople, that is to say, young and old, male and female, equivalent as regards relation to employer to the operatives of Oldham and Stalybridge.