I doubt the rascal did not come by it very honestly, neither was a costly bracelet that one of my father's best hands (once a Northwich salt-flatman) brought home for my baby sister. This man would insist upon putting it on the baby somewhere, in spite of all my mother and the nurse could say; so, as its thigh was the nearest approach to the bracelet in size of any of its little limbs, there the bracelet was clasped. It fitted tightly and baby evidently did not approve of the ornament. My mother took it off when the man left. I have it now. This man used to tell queer stories about the salt trade, and the fortunes made therein, and how they used to land salt on stormy and dark nights on the Cheshire or Lancashire borders, or into boats alongside, substituting the same weight of water as the salt taken out, so that the cargo should pass muster at the Liverpool Custom House. The duty was payable at the works, and the cargo was re-weighed in Liverpool. If found over weight, the merchant had to pay extra duty; and if short weight, he had to make up the deficiency in salt. The trade required a large capital, and was, therefore, in few hands. One house is known to have paid as much as 30,000 pounds for duty in six weeks. My grandfather told me that in 1732 (time of William and Mary), when he was a boy, the duty on salt was levied for a term of years at first, but made perpetual in the third year of George II. Sir R. Walpole proposed to set apart the proceeds of the impost for his majesty's use. The Salt houses occupied the site of Orford-street (called after Mr. Blackburne's seat in Cheshire). I have often heard my grandfather speak of them as an intolerable nuisance, causing, at times, the town to be enveloped in steam and smoke. These Salt houses raised such an outcry at last that in 1703 they were removed to Garston, Mr. Blackburne having obtained an act of Parliament relative to them for that purpose. The fine and coarse salts manufactured in Liverpool were in the proportion of fifteen tons of Northwich or Cheshire rock-salt to forty-five tons of seawater, to produce thirteen tons of salt. To show how imperishable salt must be, if such testimony be needed, it is a fact that, in the yard of a warehouse occupied by a friend of mine in Orford-street, the soil was always damp previous to a change of weather, and a well therein was of no use whatever, except for cleansing purposes, so brackish was the water.