Great Britain -- Description and travel; Railroad travel -- Great Britain; Railroads -- Great Britain
So much for employing a scientific and practical agriculturist as land agent,
instead of a fashionable London attorney. {193}
YORKSHIRE.
From Manchester to Leeds is a journey of forty-five miles, and about two
hours. We should like to describe Yorkshire, one of the few counties to
which men are proud to belong. We never hear any one say, with conscious
pride, "I am a Hampshireman or an Essex man, or even a Lancashireman," while
there are some counties of which the natives are positively ashamed.
But we have neither time nor space to say anything about those things of
which a Yorkshireman has reason to be proud--of the hills, the woods, the
dales, the romantic streams,--above all, of the lovely Wharfe, of the fat
plains, the great woods, the miles of black coal mines, where we have heard
the little boys driving their horses and singing hymns, sounding like angels
in the infernal regions, the rare good sheep, the Teeswater cattle, that gave
us short-horns, of horses, well known wherever the best are valued, be it
racer, hunter, or proud-prancing carriage horse; hounds that it takes a
Yorkshire horse to live with; and huntsmen, whom to hear tally-away and see
ride out of cover makes the heart of man leap as at the sound of a trumpet;
foxes stanch and wily, worthy of the hounds; and then of those famous
dalesmen farmers, tall, broad-shouldered, with bullet heads, and keen grey
eyes, rosy bloom, high cheek bones, foxy whiskers, full white-teethed,
laughing mouths, hard riders, hard drinkers, keen bargainers, capital
fellows; and besides those the slips, grafts, and thinnings from the farms,
who in factories, counting-houses, and shops, show something of the powerful
Yorkshire stamp. Everything is great in Yorkshire, even their rogues are on
a large scale; in Spain, men of the same calibre would be prime ministers and
grandees of the first class; in France, under a monarchy, a portfolio, and
the use of the telegraph, with no end of ribands, would have been the least
reward. Here the honours stop short between two dukes, as supporters arm in
arm; but still we are obliged to own that no one but a Yorkshireman could
have so bent all the wild beasts of Belgravia and Mayfair, from the Countess
Gazelle to the Ducal Elephant, to his purpose, as an ex-king did. Our task
will be confined on the present occasion to a sketch of Huddersfield and
Leeds, centres of the woollen manufacture, which forms the third great staple
of English manufactures, and of Sheffield, famed for keen blades.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account