How well I recollect the Woodside Ferry when I was a boy. There was a long causeway at it, which ran into the river, formed of logs of wood and large boulder stones. Up this causeway you walked until you came to the overhanging shore which on the left hand was cut away to admit the causeway continuing up into the land. There was a small thicket of trees on the rock-top and a patch of garden which belonged to the ferryman. The only house visible was a farm-house which stood on the spot where the (Gough's) Woodside Hotel may now be found. It had a garden enclosed by a hedge round it. The road to Bidston was a rough, rutted way, and the land was for the most part marshy between Woodside and Bidston, and the country looked very desolate, wild, and rugged. There were some pretty walks over the fields. There was one from Holt Hill to Oxton which I was very fond of. When the weather was fine I have had many and many a pleasant ramble over land where now houses show themselves in hundreds, nay, thousands, and where I have gone bird-nesting, and picking wild flowers, and mushrooming in their season. Lord! what changes I have seen and yet live to see; and I am very thankful for His mercies, which have been manifold and abundant. Wallasey Pool was a glorious piece of water once, and many a good fish I have taken out of it in the upper waters. The view of Birkenhead Priory was at one time very picturesque, before they built the church near it and the houses round it. I recollect when there was not a dwelling near it. It seemed to stand out well in the landscape, and certainly looked very pretty. It was a great shame that persons should have been permitted to carry away the stones for building or any other purpose. Had not a stop at last been put to this sort of work there would not in time have been a vestige of the old Abbey left. I recollect that there was a belief that a tunnel or subterraneous passage ran under the Mersey to Liverpool from the Priory, and that the entrance in 1818, when the church was built, had been found and a good way traversed. That passage was commonly spoken of as being in existence when I was a boy, and I often vowed I would try to find it. I have been up the tunnels or caves at the Red and White Noses many a time for great distances. I was once fishing for codling at the Perch, and with two young companions went up the caves for at least a mile, and could have gone further only we became frightened as our lights went out. It was thought these caves ran up to Chester Cathedral--but that was all stuff. I believe they were excavated by smugglers in part, and partly natural cavities of the earth. We knew little then of archaeology or geology, or any other "ology," or I might be able to tell a good deal about these caves, for I saw them more than once, but I now forget what their size and height was. The floor, I recollect, was very uneven and strewed