CHAPTER XII. FROM 1842 TO THE YEAR 1844 INCLUSIVE. In this year the number of marriages registered in England and Wales was 118,825, of which number 110,047 were according to the rites of the Church of England; and 8,778 at the registrars' office, or otherwise. Of these, 5,387 of the bridegrooms, and 16,003 of the brides were under age; 15,649 of the bridegrooms were widowers, and 10,579 of the brides were widows; and 38,031 of the bridegrooms, and 56,685 of the brides were unable to write their names, being nearly one half of the total number married. The chapel at Wetherby, dedicated to St. James, and consecrated on the first of February, 1842, was built in lieu of the former small ancient edifice, on a site given by Edwin Greenwood, Esquire, of Keighley, at an expense exceeding £4000, raised by subscription, towards which the Ripon Diocesan and the Incor porated Societies granted respectively £300, and £230, and Colonel Wyndham, Richard Fountayne Wilson, Esquire, lord of the manor, and Quintin Rhodes, Esquire, each £300; Mr. Rhodes also presented an organ. It is a handsome structure in the early English style, with a square embattled tower crowned by pinnacles, and contains seven hundred sitings, of which one hundred and eighty are free. TABLE SHOWING THE PROGRESS OF CRIME IN THE BRITISH Years. England. Scotland. Ireland. Years. England. Scotland Ireland. XII. A. D. 1842 CHAP. A.D. 1842 Red Hall, an ancient mansion, at Shadwell, near Leeds, was the birth-place of one of the dukes of Norfolk, and is now the property of William Simpson Atkinson, Esquire, of Barrowby Hall, by whom it has been greatly improved. A new church was erected at Shadwell in 1840. The tithes were commuted for land and a money payment, under an act of inclosure, in 1803. In August this year formidable riots broke out amongst the workmen, in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and other parts of the munufacturing districts, the object of which was an advance of wages. In most of the towns in Yorkshire special constables were enrolled, and the military brought from a distance, but fortunately they were not called upon to act. Superstition of the people in the village of Cairnbulg, and Inverallochie, situated about seven miles south of Fraserburgh, in Scotland, two villages, or rather one in two divisions, formed by a stream which runs through the middle of the principal thoroughfare. These villages are approached by roads which beggar the powers of description. The traveller with difficulty gets accommodation for his horse, as the innkeeper declares he can scarcely recollect the time when a nag had been tied up in his stable. In the spring of 1840, neither corn nor hay was to be had. So deep-rooted are the prejudices of the inhabitants in favour of their old way sof life, that not one of them would dare to set himself up as a reformer, or appear to be at all better than the rest, either in dress, furniture, or ideas. The wealthy are in every thing like the poor in their appearance and habits. Any innovation would bring on the guilty party the aversion of his neighbours. Water-kelpies, mermaids, ghosts, the belief in lucky days, in omens of stars and clouds, is still a practical faith among the inhabitants. They tremble before an imaginary invisible. On the evening preceding a day on which several boats belonging to Footdee, a neighbouring village, were lost, and all hands perished at sea, an unusual omen was seen—a hare ran through their fish town. Frederic the Great of Prusia, once met a student of theology in the street, and asked him where he came from. "I am a Berliner," was the reply. "Psha," said the king, "the Berliners are good for nothing.' "I know two Berlin boys who are exceptions to that rule," said the student. "Whom?" "Your majesty and myself." The king desired him to attend at the palace. The Tower of London was originally built to defend the river, and to constitute a citadel; while the present district called the city, constituted London, and the city itself was a fortress. Standing on a rising ground at the south-east, overlooking a portion of London which once contained the houses of the chief nobility, and the property of the principal traders; by its guns commanding the course of the Thames, and protecting the anchorage of the merchant ships, which in those days moored in the current, it formed an important place of strength; and being large, capable of every kind of royal decoration; and being secure alike from the tumults of the citizens and the assaults of a foreign enemy, it offered a suitable position for the residence of the sovereign in early and troubled times. CHAP. A. D. 1843 manufac ture in The progress of the worsted manufacture in Bradford, has been Worsted as rapid and as unexampled as that of its population. In 1800, and woollen according to the census, 1290 persons were employed in Bradford in trade or manufactures. In 1811, 1595 families were so em- Bradford. ployed; in 1821, 2452 families; in 1831, 3867, besides 1605 labourers. The first mill wrought by steam in Bradford, (1798,) had a fifteen-horse engine; in 1809, the number of horses' power employed in propelling the machinery of worsted mills in Bradford and its immediate neighbourhood was about 492; in 1830, 1047; and now (1843) it is upwards of 2000. It is estimated that there are in the borough of Bradford, and principally in the town, about seventy worsted-mills, with an aggregate of 2000 horses' power. In these mills are about 2000 spinning-frames, which each spin from five to six gross of hanks of yarn a-day, each hank measuring 560 yards. The usual numbers spun are from twentyfours to eighties, that is, where twenty-four or eighty hanks make a pound weight of worsted. In some instances the spinning of yarn has been carried to such an extreme fineness, that one hundred and twenties have been spun, that is, nearly forty miles length of yarn to the pound of worsted. Besides these spinning frames, there are in the town about 1500 power-looms propelled by steam, each loom working off about half a piece a day, narrow width. There are also vast numbers of worsted pieces yet woven by hand in the surrounding villages; but the hand-loom weavers are a very ill-paid and indigent class, struggling ineffectually against that never tired all-powerful drudge, the steam engine. It is sorrowful to add that the small manufacturers, who (alternately following with their families the labours of the loom and agriculture,) a few years since, thickly inhabited the countless detached houses with which the slopes of Bradford parish are covered, and make it appear almost like one vast town, are quickly disappearing; and their children are exchanging the domestic loom for the labours of the neighbouring mills. The valuable statistical document known as the official account Trade of the United of the trade of the United Kingdom, has been made public for kingdom. the year ending 5th January, 1842. In glancing at the general results we find the total imports of coffee have been 70,250,766lbs. in 1841; and 41,512,555lbs. in the year ending 5th January, 1842, the decline being chiefly on foreign produce, while the duty dropped from £922,468 to £888,646. The imports of wheat last year were 2,408,974 quarters, and by January 1842 return, 1,993,383 quarters. The duty in 1841 was £725,052, and in 1842, £390,071. Of wheat meal or flour the receipts for 1841 were set down at 1,537,838 cwt.; in 1842, 1,251,521 cwt. On dyes generally the XII. A. D. 1843 CHAP. import duties were less last year. Upon fruits there was more duty received last year. Upon thrown silk there was an increase from £46,633, to £47,288, and upon raw silk a decline from £16,627 to £14,826. Upon European silk manufactures generally more duty was received, but upon those of India, Bandanas, and Imposts. other silk handkerchiefs, less. The total receipts from sugar were £5,123,969 to the 5th January last, and £4,465,000 to the corresponding period of 1841. Upon tallow there was an advance from £186,510 to £205,621, and upon tea from £3,473,964 to £3,978,198. The total of wine was £1,800,066 against £1,872,799 to January, 1841. Upon cotton wool the duties fell from £650,622 to £529,791, upon sheep's from £133,257 to £130,017, and upon other articles from £753,957 to £747,831. The total decline in the customs receipts or reports last year, therefore, as compared with 1840, was from £23,466,117 to £23,006,152. Land improved by draining, &c. The estimate of the entire value of the manufactures of Great Britain for the year 1840, from statistical tables lately published by Messrs. Longman and Co., from official documents, stands thus-Total value of manufactured goods exchanged with foreign countries for their productions, £47,357,766. Value of manufactured goods exchanged for home produce, £133,300,000. There are, in Great Britain alone, at least twenty millions of acres which are capable of being so far improved by draining or otherwise, as to be capable of yielding an annual return each of one quarter of corn above their present produce. Suppose this improvement to be effected, we should then raise twenty millions of quarters in addition to our present crops―a quantity equal to onethird of our actual consumption. We should have, in fact, seventeen or eighteen millions of quarters of grain of various kinds to export, were the known method of improvement only applied to the whole land. Or, looking to the future, since the population at the present rate of increase, will be one-third greater in twenty-five years, the application of the same known means over the entire island, would keep us independent of foreign supply for the next quarter of a century. At the York assizes in 1831, the great cause of Hungate against Gascoigne was decided in favour of the former. The action was brought for the recovery of the estate of Sherburn, near Ferrybridge, Yorkshire. This estate was granted by Charles I. to Sir Philip Hungate, who fell at Chester, fighting in the royal cause. Sir Thomas Gascoigne married the daughter of his descendant, and held the estate in trust for the uncle of his wife, a lunatic, who died in 1749. Their daughter married to Mr. Olivier, who took the name of Gascoigne. The male issue thus failing, it was proved, by a very satisfactory chain of evidence, that the estate which was entailed reverted to an elder branch of the male line, from whom the plaintiff proved himself lineally descended. An aunt, aged eighty, was the principal witness, who, through the XII. fatigue of her journey from Chelmsford, in Essex, to York, died CHAP. just as her examination had been taken. The skeleton of a whale was exhibited in Leeds market of the amazing length of ninety-five feet. The carriage in which it was exhibited was of colossal size, and very appropriately represented a British man-of-war. The exhibition was so arranged, that the visitors could walk through the skeleton of the gigantic wonder of the deep without the least inconvenience. A. D. 1843 A gentleman in Northallerton, Yorkshire, had for some time in Singular his possession a tame lion, which had always been considered per- Conflict. fectly harmless, till a few nights previously to Christmas, when he broke his chain, and perambulating the town, he came in contact with a ferocious bull-mastiff belonging to a butcher; a battle instantly commenced, when the roaring of the lion, and the howling of the dog, called forth a large party of all sorts of people, who, as is customary, encouraged the two combatants to worry each other. For some time the victory was doubtful, but at length the dog by a singular manœuvre threw the lion on his back, and made a furious grasp at the poor animal's throat, and would have despatched him, had he not been rescued by the spectators. Died, at his residence, Bishop-Hill, York, aged 73, Stephen Beckwith, Esq., M.D. He graduated in 1790; and a short time previous to his death, he bequeathed upwards of £40,000 to the charitable institutions of York. He had never been married. In the extensive parish of Otley, during a period of 575 years, viz: from 1267 to the year under date, there have only been thirty-two vicars officiating there, averaging eighteen years' labour each vicar, though the first named in this account only enjoyed the living one year, this was Galfridas Bridlington, being the shortest on record; whilst the Rev. John Barker, who was inducted about the year 1530, enjoyed the vicarage fifty-six years, being the longest mentioned in the archives in York Minster. Mr. Albany Renton, farmer of Leathley, near Otley, in the Westriding of Yorkshire, has in his possession, a species of fungus, gathered by him in one of his fields, measuring more than a yard in circumference, yet such is its lightness, that it does not weigh half an ounce. The queen's billiard table is made of a portion of the Royal Died, after a short illness, at her villa, near Sinigaglia, in the |