Morning journal and courier., 1891-08-22
MIR. wAKEMAN's JoURNKyINGs

II Be At Southport, Rngland-Enslish Wa terfng Places - The Lancashire Coast-Southport the Principal Sea- Coast Resort-How the Cottages Were First Built-Its Conservato- ry and Aquarfum-The Kew Gar
 dens-vietoria Baths and Botanic Gardens-The Marine Esplanade. SOUTHPORT, England, Aug. 8. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 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 shore almost cesselessly in murmurous nipples or dreamful calm.
 Cautiously, too, and as if notably illus trative of the seeming truth that nature ever fashions it's forces to a nicety of fit ting and balance, the entire shore line for all this distance-a shore line accounting for indentations of nearly two hundrerd miles-is nowhere fifty feet above the sea level. The sea is ever asleep beside it.
 This is the Lancashire coast It is @ coast of endless and measureless sand
 Behind 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, stifing with soot and smoke To the east, a horizon line of chimney stacks. Then, nearer the ocean, valley os truck farms. Then the shore line, mass of low, drear sand dunes, hiding an hundred sunny villages and towns; every one a nest of homes for those who strive in the inland cities, or the holiday place for those millions who change the chatter 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. It is in fact the great north of England watering place. Scar borough on the east coast directly oppo- site, drawing from the Yorkshire towns for visitors, has greater antiquity, some interesting history, and is altogether quaint and beautiful; but being only summer watering-pla it cannot vie with Southport. New Brighton, Liverpoops Coney Island, at the mouth of the Mersey,
 is gayer and more rollicking. Llandudno,
 the famous north of Wales resort, is grandly beautiful. All the bright places like Ilfracombe, Bideford and sweet Clo- velly along the Devonshire coast, have su- perior charms in scenery and in the witch ing wildness of cliff-hung coast. South port excels in the tenderness of its sea, the soft breezes of it's coast and the tran scendent splendor of it's endless golden sands. Besides, there are four or five | million 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 a railway fare of from two to four shillings each. And about all of them do that very thing whenever the money can be spared.
 Southport can boast of no remote anti quity, though it forms part of the ancient parish of North Meols, in the Hundreds of u. It's 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 merits 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 hos telry among the sand hills. This was
 nicknsmed "The Folly" by those who were
 not so far-seeing as William. It soon hap pened that customers were attracted to his inn by his famous grilled fisk 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. little hamlet of cottages soon sprang up around 'sThe Dukes Folly" Its owner was also
 the best fiddler in all the countryside, and | one night when some registering literary guests from Liverpool had been reveling Zip and heel" in a convivisl moment over | named "South Port" And Southport the place, now of fifty thousand souls, will | ever remain.
 The cottages first built here were of the whitewashed and matched order among the sand-hills, and with their beds of shrubs and flowers gave an agreeable color
 to the scene. There was an assemblage of
 mimic mountains, with long, struggling
 street, and beyond, vast expanse of level
 country. The salubrity of the air, the de- | lights of the sands and the breezes from
 the sea, soon drew residents to the quaint wild spot, and handsome dwellings were
 eracted. By 1920 Southport had become
 a place of fashion and fsvorite resort, the
 sands being in the summer time place of
 great gaiety. Visitors then arrived by
 coach and by canal 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 Hawthorne, 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. Indeed, after much inquiry of the
 old, old folk of Southport am persuaded
 that the portion of "Transformation"
 written in England and necessary for the
 securing by Hawthorne of his English
 copyright on that work, was composed in
 the quiet retreats of the then little old
 inns here.