Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-08-22
BY A PEACEFUL SEA.
Wakeman, the Wanderer, Tells OF a
North of England Resort.
A RESTING PLACE FOR MILLIONS.
The Resort for the Fashionable Folk and
TOiling Miners Alike.
ITS STORY AND ITS VARIED CHARMS


CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DISPATCH.1
SOUTHPORT, ENGLAND, Aug. S.-The
western coast of England, all the way north
from the city of Liverpool to the Solway
Firth, which on the west marks the boundary
between England and Scotland, faces an
almost silent arm of the Irish Sea. The
power of the tides in the North Channel
and st. Georges Channel is broken by the
rugged shores of the Isle of Man; and with
the exception of the tides of Liverpool on
the extreme south, and in the Solway Firth
at the extreme north of this region, the
waves OF the sea reach the shore almost
ceaselessly in murmurous ripples or dream
full calm
Curiously, too, and as if notably illustra-
tive of the seeming truth that nature ever
fashions her forces to a nicely of fitting and
balance, the entire shore line for all this
distance-a shore line accounting for inden-
tations of nearly 200 miles-is nowhere so
feet above the sea level. The sea is ever
asleep beside it.
This is the Lancashire coast. 1t is q
coast of endless and measureless sand. Be-
hind it, level reaches of reclaimed land,
with dykes of sod and whitewashed peas
ants huts, stretch far away to many towns
changing night and day with machinery,
dense with human strivers, sitting with SCOT
and smoke.
THE SURROUNDING LANDSCAPE.
To the east, a horizon line of chimney
stacks. Then, nearer the ocean, valley of
truck farms. Then the shore line, mass of
low, drear sand dunes, hiding an hundred
sunny villages and towns; every one nest
of homes for those who strive in the inland
cities. or the holiday place for those mill
ions who change the clatter of the mine
drill and spindle for the song of the sea but
one bright day in all the scourging year.
Southport is chief of all the English west
coast resorts. 1t is in fact the great north
of England watering place. Scarborough
on the east coast directly opposite, drawing
from the Yorkshire towns for visitors, has
greater antiquity, some interesting history,
and is altogether quaint and beautiful; but
being only a summer watering place it can
not vie with Southport.
Southport excels in the tenderness of its
sea, the soft breezes of its coast and the
transcendent splendor of its endless golden
sands Besides, there are 1000, 900 or 5,000,-
900 people so near it-in Liverpool, Chester,
Manchester, Wigan, Preston, Burnley,
Leeds, Bradford and scores more of crowded
manufacturing cities-that they can get to
Southport and home again the same day for
railway fare of from 2 to 4 shillings
each. And about all of them do that very
thing whenever the money can be spared.
NOT AN ANCIENT PLACE
Southport can boast of no remote an
tiquity, though it forms part of the ancient
parish of North Meols, in the Hundreds of
West Derby. 1t is hardly century old.
Its founder was Churchtown innkeeper,
one William Sutton, "rosy-nosed Bill' he
was called in the old days, because his own
good cheer most prominently spoke its mer-
its in his hearty old face. He was also
called the "Old Duke, because of his lordly
ways. At one end of the present splendid
Lord street he built huge hostelry among
the sand hills. This was nicknamed 'The
Folly by those who were not so far seeing
as William.
1t soon happened that customers were at
tracted to his inn by his famous grilled fish
and good cheer: Just as epicures will go half
the length of our land for those glorious
"planked shad, that can only be got as the
shad was designed to be cooked, at a certain
inn at Gloucester on the Delaware, hard by
staid old Philadelphia A little hamlet of
cottages soon sprang up around ''The Duke
Folly" Its owner was also the best fiddler
in all the countryside, and one night when
some registering literary guests from Liver
pool had been reveling Zip and heel, " in a
convivial moment over a bottle of rare old
port his house was named "South Port. /"
And Southport the place, now of $4,000
souls. will ever remain.
WHEN IT BECAME FASHIONABLE.
The salubrity of the air, the delights of
the sands and the breezes from the sea soon
drew residents to the quaint, wild spot, and
handsome dwellings were erected. By 1920
Southport had become a place of fashion
and favorite resort, the sands being in the
summertime place of great gaiety. Visit
packets, and holiday makers came by carts,
or on foot with their bundles and hampers
on their backs and shoulders.
Along in the ffties we hear of Haw-
thorne, then our Consul at Liverpool, and
his friend Henry Bright making the place,
it's beach and the far-stretching dunes their
frequent haunts both for dreamful idling
and for literary work.
Perhaps it is largely fanciful association
of person and place, but somehow with
Hawthorne in ones mind the lovely, leafy
city, as it is to-day, takes on the garb of our
own delicious Salem. The trim, pretty
yards recall it. The long, elm-shaded ave-
nues, with CLINT and simmer of the sea
through their narrowing vistas, bring it low
ingly to the memory. The wide, clean, sum
shine-dappled yards, backed by prim, pre-
else houses, hint of it: Hundreds of
"hipped" roofs, quaint gables and ivy
haunted dormers reproduce its sweet old
hooks. The half houses, half shops where
modern affairs and holiday makers relent
less needs have conjured perky shops in the
fronts of stately mansions, gay as Fauntle-
roy children in the laps of men or matrons
of the old regime, are like the bright set
tings peering out of many of the grim old
house fronts of Salem.
LIKE ONE AMERICAN TOWN.
And one loves to trace the likeness
further-in the hush of the by-streets,
where even country birds trill summer time
songs fearlesslv; in the old, old folk who
saunter about the town as though they had
naught ON their minds but the making of
codicils, because of fancied Sights, late
meals or overdone grills; in the flavor and
SAVIOR of olden seawise ways and memories
not from rotting hulks and wharves as at
Salem, but in the rich old sea captains who
swagger here, when their gout and rheumat-
les will let them; and in the wild-eyed
young and heartsome life that comes from
the outer world to feel its pensive calm,
staring at its dowagers and dreamtulness, as
a cathedral pageant might be viewed, going