The antiquarian and historical student may linger long in Cheshire, which abounds in interesting architectural remains of several centuries, particularly of the black and white timbered mansions, and is studded with the sites of famous stories.

[Excavation at Hartford:  ill21.jpg]

We shall pass Hartford Station without notice, and shall not pause to visit Northwich and the celebrated Marston Salt Pits, although well worth visiting, for which purpose a cricketer’s suit of flannel will be found the best costume, and a few good Bengal lights an assistance in viewing the wonders of the salt caves.  On across the long Dutton viaduct, spanning the Weaver navigation, we drive until, crossing the Mersey and Irwell canal and the river Mersey, we quit Cheshire and enter Lancashire, to run into the Warrington Station.

[The Dutton viaduct:  ill23.jpg]

* * * * *

Warrington may be dismissed in a very few words.  It is situated in the ugliest part of Lancashire, in a flat district, among coal mines, on the banks of a very unpicturesque river, surrounded by a population in character much resembling that described in the “Black Country” of Staffordshire, and Worcestershire, and Shropshire.  It was one of the earliest seats of manufacture in Lancashire, and has the advantage of coal close at hand, with canal and river navigation and railways to Chester through Runcorn (nineteen miles), to Crewe, to Liverpool, to Manchester, and thereby to all quarters in the north of England.

[The Warrington viaduct:  ill22.jpg]

Coarse linens and checks, then sailcloth, were its first manufactures; at present, cotton spinning, power-loom weaving, the manufacture of glass, machinery, and millwork, pins, nails, tools, spades, soap, hats, and gunpowder, and many other trades, are carried on here.  The markets for live stock of the district and from Ireland are important, and market gardening is carried on to a considerable amount in the neighbourhood of the town.  The Mersey is navigable up to Warrington at spring tides for vessels, “flats,” of from seventy to one hundred tons.  A salmon and smelt fishery, which formerly existed, has disappeared from the waters by so many manufactories.

Warrington, under the Reform Act, returns one member to Parliament.  Its ale is celebrated:  it formerly returned an M.P.  The inhabitants enjoy the benefit of three endowed schools, one of them richly endowed.  Howard’s work on Prisons was first printed at Warrington.

[Warrington:  ill24.jpg]

On leaving Warrington, a few minutes bring us to Newton junction, upon the old Manchester and Liverpool Railway, where George Stephenson established the economy of steam locomotive conveyance twenty-one years ago.

In half an hour we are rolling down the Edgehill Tunnel into Liverpool.

LIVERPOOL.