Knoxville Whig and chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1875-1882, 1875-07-07
OUR EUROPEAN LETTER.
Manchester An Ola DipRy Looking
City-Two story HOu.ss-A Fine
Town HRIl-Capt. BOynton.


While you are doubtless reveling in
ice cream, soda water and palm leaf
fans, / find great comfort in drawing
close up to my fire. l have not had "a
comfortable feeling of warmth since l
have been in England. Any day, even
at noon, a fire in the room would have
been comfortable. 1t is, too, not a
bracing kind of GOODNESS, but a pene-
trating chilliness that is uncomforta-
bly, suggestive of neuralgia, rheuma>
tism and little delights of similar
character. don't think they ever get
into perspiration here, actually or
figuratively, for though have taken
more pedestrian exercise in the last
two weeks than during the same
time at any previous period in
my history, | have not been vet
able to raise perceptible moisture.
This accounts, | think, for the reputa-
| ton the English have as walkers. 1t
nevergets too warm to walk with COM
! fort, and heat is the great enemy to,
| locomotiOn on foot. Everybody walks
! here, and distances that we would
! consider enormous. | was in GEN
tleman's house, few evenings ago,
when his daughter came in to tell him
she was going out for an evening stroll,
After she had left the room, | asked
him how far away the place was to
which she was going. The father
said it was miles. A constitutions
al " of 10 miles is 10y no means I'M
common. The great amount of exer-
else INDUCED i'll here is not, think,
because the people are more energetic
than ourselves, but, because the eli
mate and the roads make walking so
much less laborious and uncomfort-
able. The roads are every where
like streets and in few hours
after a rain are quite dry.
Speaking OF rain, according to my
experience, England deserves the
character she has for humidity. Every
single day for two weeks it has rained
more or less, and sometimes very hard.
| Still one does not mind il so much as
ut first thought might be supposed.
| You soon get accustomed to it, aud
look for it with the same regularity as
! the resident of the Arkansas swamp
looks for his chill. When you go out
you take your umbrella in your hand
as instinctively as you put your hat on
| your head. You are never wrong in
your superstition that it will rain be-
| fore you get back.
Manchester is provincial town
all towns in England, outside of
| London, are provincial -but vet il
is place of no little importance in
British industry. 1t is the great cen.
tel for cotton manufacture, as Sheffield
and Birmingham are the centers
of iron manufacture. Its nearness to
Liverpool gives it a great advantage in
this respect, for it places it within easy
reach of the imported raw cotton, and
of centre from which To distribute
the manufactured material throughout
! the world.
This proximity to great sea port
town is not perhaps of so much impor-
lance now to a manufacturing town as
it was before the time of railroads, and
1t was in this pre-railroad time that
Manchester began to engage in manu-
featuring. The first railroad that was
ever laid down was between Marches
ter aud Liverpool. There is also a
canal between the two points which
does an immense business especially
in heavy freight, as it has the advan.
tage of taking the goods in the boats
alongside the vessels and thus saving
the labor and time in unloading the
cars and transferring their contents. 1t
was built by the Duke of
Bridgewater / think and he
spent the whole of an immense
fortune on it, but it has been a paving
investment and has left his heirs an
income almost fabulous in amount.
AS far as architectural beauty is con-
cerned, aud indeed as regards anything
that appeals to the eye, Manchester is
about as complete a failure as any CITY
it has been my fortune to see. They
say Glasgow is as bad, but l haven't
seen Glasgow yet. The streets are, as
a rule, narrow, the houses plain, and
present the dingiest, most weather.
beaten and woe-begone appearance
imaginable. EYen the houses in the
best part of the city have this look.
One feels constantly like rushing to
the owner and implOring him, for the
sake of humanity, to invest pound
or so in some bright paint and paint
his rusty walls. Another peculiar
feature in Manchester architecture
is its immense number of two
storied houses. In the portions of the
town removed from the great business
streets you see street after street of
these low, dingy houses, and all, as a
rule, built upon precisely the same
pattern. l asked one of the inhabit-
ants why this was, aud why they did
not build, as with us, 4, or stories
" 1t Is the result of custom, he said,
81 that has become established among
us, for every family to occupy house
separate and distinct from every other
family. However limited mans
means are, If he makes any preten-
tions to espectability, he must have a
house of his own; and as the majority
of our people are OF the working class,
they can not afford to pay high rents,
and the landlord is forced to build his
houses to suit the purses Of his ten
ants.n
1t must be said this plan has
much in its favor, and is Infinitely
superior TO the tenement-house sys-
tenn so prevalent in some of the larger
towns of America. l understand,