have gradually enlarged the population of Sheffield to 42,157 in 1821; since which it has considerably increased, and may, in 1829, be estimated at 50,000.  In 1821, it contained 8,726 houses, and perhaps 500 have been built since, chiefly villas to the westward, while the compact town is about one mile by half a mile.  The principal streets are well built, and there are three old churches, and two new ones lately finished, besides another now building.

“Sheffield presents at this time the extraordinary spectacle of an immense town expanded from a village, without any additional arrangements for its government beyond what it originally possessed as a village.  There is no corporation, not even a resident magistrate, and yet all live in peace, decorum, and advantageous mutual intercourse.”

Religion.

“Order is a moral result of religion in Sheffield.  No town in the kingdom more universally exhibits the external forms of devotion, and in none are there perhaps a greater number of serious devotees.  The largest erections in Sheffield are those for the service of religion, and they are numerous.  Besides six old and new churches, adapted to accommodate from 10,000 to 12,000 persons, there are seventeen chapels for the various denominations of Dissenters, capable of affording sitting room for 12,000 or 15,000 more.  Except the Unitarian Chapel, and perhaps the Catholic one, the doctrines preached in all the others, are what, in London, and at Oxford and Cambridge, would generally be called Ultra.

“A spectacle highly characteristic of Sheffield, and exemplifying, at the same time the harmony of the several sects, is the juxtaposition of four several chapels, observable on one side of a main street; while nearly adjoining is the church of St. Paul.  There are thus every Sunday, in simultaneous local devotion, the ceremonial Catholics, the moral Unitarians, the metaphysical Calvinists, the serious disciples of John Wesley, and the spiritual members of the establishment.

“The whole of the places of worship afford accommodation for about 12,000 Methodists and Dissenters, and about 9,500 of the Church Establishment.  So that, if half go twice a day, and half once, 30,000 of the 50,000 inhabitants attend places of worship every Sunday.”

Public Institutions.

“There are the following institutions for the promotion of knowledge and science:—­

“1.  A Permanent Library supported by the subscriptions of 270 members at one guinea each, and four guineas admission.  The books are numerous; but, contrary to the practice of other similar institutions, books of Theology, and the trash of modern Novels, are introduced.

“2.  A Literary and Philosophical Society for lectures, and the purchase of apparatus, now very complete, supported by 80 proprietors, at two guineas, besides a still greater number of subscribers at one guinea per annum.