beyond this room is the _Pentice_ or Council Chamber, where the mayor and magistrates settle the accounts of the drunk and disorderly, and take preliminary depositions in cases of felony, &c. This room, in which the Mayor is also annually chosen by the Council, has on its walls full-length portraits of George III., several members of the Grosvenor family, and of William Cross, Esq., the first Reform Mayor of Chester. Yonder series of large panels, contain portraits of Owen Jones, Offley, and other famous benefactors to the poor of the city. In a room in Abbey Square, the _City Records_, extending from the reign of the first Edward to the present time, are wretchedly huddled together—we wish we could say _preserved_; but surely the day is not far distant when a custodian of these important documents shall be appointed by the Council,—one who shall not only understand, but also _glorify_ his office; then will many a dark epoch in the city’s history be unravelled, and many a fact revealed which now lies hidden in the dust of obscurity. [Picture: Exchange, and Markets] Opposite to the EXCHANGE is SAINT WERBURGH STREET, down which we must straightway roam, having a glorious treat awaiting us, in our long-promised visit to CHESTER CATHEDRAL. But before we set foot within the sacred fane, let us proceed a little further, in order to examine yonder stately-looking pile, only just completed,—to wit, the NEW MUSIC HALL. Perhaps no structure within the city has undergone greater or more numerous changes of character than the shell of the one we are now surveying. The first we hear of it is as the Chapel of St. Nicholas, built, it is supposed, early in the fourteenth century. About this time, we read that the monks of St. Werburgh (monks were greedy dogs!), wishing to have the whole Cathedral to themselves, transferred the parish Church of St. Oswald, then as now occupying the south transept of the Cathedral, to this Chapel of St. Nicholas, which latter had perhaps been built with that idea “looming in the future.” But the parishioners and corporation repudiated the change, and after much litigation recovered their old parish Church,—so the chapel of St. Nicholas was speedily deserted. After being “to let” for some fifty or sixty years, we next hear of it as the COMMON HALL of the city, removed here from Common-hall Street in 1545. In this service it remained, the arena of _law_, if not of _justice_ (for the two do not always go hand in hand), until 1698, when the magisterial chair was removed to its present resting-place in the EXCHANGE. The third phase in its existence was its conversion into the warehouse of a common carrier, and into a mart for the sale of _wool_; the name it then bore was the WOOL HALL. Again was St. Nicholas the victim of transformation; for, at least as early as the year 1727, the walls, which once echoed forth the sounds of prayer and