It seems an ungracious thing to say, but Swansea is apparently somewhat hampered by its antiquity. In the struggle for supremacy with Cardiff, it has not had Cardiff's free hand in the matter of laying out a new town; nor, one may add, quite that powerful vigour of youth which carries all before it. Hence, it has already been left behind. The Duke of Beaufort is not such a potentate in Swansea as the Marquess of Bute in Cardiff; yet he stands to this city somewhat like the Marquess to Cardiff. It was a Duke of Beaufort who cut the first sod of the North Dock, or Town-Float, in 1852; and his Grace has large representation in the Swansea Harbour Trust, which has charge of the city's port affairs. The late Lord Swansea, speaking on behalf of this Corporation, once said: "Swansea, you may depend upon it, is destined to become the Ocean Port of England." Cardiff, at any rate, laughs such words to scorn, and even a layman of England may be allowed to think the prophecy over-sanguine. The North Dock has an area of 14 acres, and is "connected with a half-tide basin of two and a half acres by a lock 160 feet long and 50 feet wide, having at its seaward entrance gates of 60 feet, with a depth of 23 feet over the sill at spring-tides and 16 feet at neaps." This is, of course, but one of Swansea's docks, and by no means the most important of them. Cardiff's docks are undoubtedly finer than Swansea's, with more gigantic fitments. Swansea, though ancient, possesses few relics of its past. The castle tower, in the main street, with a clock set in it, is the chief of them. In the large hall of the Royal Institution of South Wales--one of Swansea's many meritorious establishments--may be seen divers drawings and engravings of the city one, two, and three centuries ago. In all of them the castle towers stand up as if they still had the feudal faith strong in them. Green, pleasant, wooded hills form the invariable background. How changed the landscape now! The green hills are gone; cut bare and covered with mean mechanic tenements or smoking manufactories. On the summit of the most conspicuous of them are a few gaunt walls, which by night may, with the help of a glamorous moon, come near being deceptively picturesque. This is the so-called Morriston Castle, three miles north of the city, yet with the black suburb of Morriston at its feet, an active contributant to Swansea's fortunes. The "castle's" history is brief and ignominious. A hundred years ago Sir John Morris, a maker of tin plates, who gives his name to the suburb, erected a lofty and large building on this breezy hilltop, for the accommodation of four-and-twenty of his workmen and their families. Healthier homes these could not then have had within easy reach of their daily labour. But the gradient of the hill soon wore out their enthusiasm, and, one by one, the families moved down on to the level. Then the lodging-house, being abandoned, fell slowly but surely into ruin.