The town was then "a mile in length," and the streets were "open and clean." Words change their meaning with lapse of time, and the visitor who in 1650 thus describes them may have been given a little to overpraise; but if Manchester deserved such epithets, alas for the condition of the streets elsewhere! As the town increased in size, the complexion may also very possibly have deteriorated. The fact remains, that after the lapse of another 150 years, say in 1800, it was inexpressibly mean and common, continuing so in a very considerable degree up to a period quite recent. People who know Manchester only as it looks to-day can form no conception of the beggarly appearance of most of the central part no further back than during the reign of George IV. Several years after he came to the throne, where Market Street now is, there was only a miserable one-horse lane, with a footpath of less than twenty-four inches. Narrow "entries" led to adjacent "courts." Railed steps led down to cellars, which were used for front parlours. The shops were dark and lowbrowed; of ornament there was not a scrap. Mosley Street, King Street, and one or two others comparatively modern, presented, no doubt a very decided contrast. Still it was without the slightest injustice that so late as in or about 1845 Mr. Cobden described Manchester as the shabbiest city in Europe for its wealth. That the town needed some improvement is indicated rather suggestively by the fact, that between 1832 and 1861 the authorities paved, drained, and flagged the footways of no fewer than 1578 streets, measuring upwards of sixty miles in length. Many of them, certainly, were new, but the great mass of the gracious work was retrospective. These matters are worth recalling, since it is only by comparison with the past that modern Manchester can be appreciated.