I recollect Dale-street when it was a narrow thoroughfare, ill-paved and ill-lighted at night. It was not half the present width. In 1808, as the town began to spread and its traffic increase, great complaints were constantly being made of the inconvenience of the principal streets, and it was agreed on all sides that something should be done towards improvement. The first movement was made by widening Dale-street; the improvement being by throwing the thoroughfare open from Castle-street to Temple-court, but it really was not until 1820 that this street was set out in anything like a bold and handsome manner. Great difficulties were constantly thrown in the way of alterations by many of the inhabitants, who had lived in their old houses, made fortunes under their roofs, and were hoping to live and die where they had been born and brought up. Many tough battles had the authorities to fight with the owners of the property. Some were most unreasonable in the compensation they demanded, while others for a time obstinately refused to enter into any negotiations whatever, completely disregarding all promised advantages. The most obtuse and determined man was a shoemaker or cobbler, who owned a small house and shop which stood near Hockenall-alley. Nothing could persuade him to go out of his house or listen to any proposition. Out he would not go, although his neighbours had disappeared and his house actually stood like an island in the midst of the traffic current. The road was carried on each side of his house, but there stood the cobbler's stall alone in its glory. While new and comfortable dwellings were springing up, the old cobbler laughed at his persecutors, defied them, and stood his ground in spite of all entreaty. There the house stood in the middle of the street, and for a long time put a stop to further and complete improvement, until the authorities, roused by the indignation of the public, took forcible possession of the place and pulled the old obnoxious building about the owner's ears, in spite of his resistance and his fighting manfully for what he thought were his rights; nor would he leave the house until it had been unroofed, the floors torn up, and the walls crumbling and falling down from room to room. The cobbler stuck to his old house to the last, showing fight all through, with a determination and persistence worthy of a nobler cause. Some few years ago a barber, also in Dale-street, exhibited an equal degree of persistence in keeping possession of his shop which was wanted for an improvement near Temple-street. This man clung to his old house and shop until it was made utterly uninhabitable..