Now all this is very fine, and a wonderful improvement on the old dog-eared Redinmadeasy, but better follows.  After a time the children grew tired and sleepy, one fell asleep.  Did the Master slap them all round and pull the ears of the poor little fat somnus?  No.  He marched them all out singing and beating time to play for a quarter of an hour.

We commend Swinton to the consideration of the credulous disciples of the firebrand school of economists, who believe that Manchester men devour little children daily, without stint or mercy for their poor little bodies or souls.

Manchester obtained a municipal corporation under the provisions of the general act for that purpose, passed in the reign of his late Majesty William IV.  Gas works, established in 1817, are the property of the town, and produce a surplus income amounting to between three and four thousand pounds a year, which are devoted to public improvements.  The corporation have recently obtained power to establish water works, and to purchase up the plant of an existing company.

The guardians of the workhouses of Manchester have a most difficult task to perform, especially in times of commercial depression, as thousands are thrown upon their hands at once.  Among the most troublesome customers are the Irish, who flock to Manchester through Liverpool in search of work, and form a population herding together, very ignorant, very poor, and very uncleanly.

MANCHESTER MANUFACTURES.

It is quite impossible to give the same sort of sketch of the manufactures of this city as we gave of Birmingham, because they are on so much larger and more complicated a scale.  One may understand how a gun-barrel or a steel-pen is made at one inspection; but in a visit to a textile mill, a sight of whizzing machinery, under the charge of some hundred men, women, boys, and girls, only produces an indefinable feeling of confusion to a person who has not previously made himself acquainted with the elements of the subject.  To attempt to explain how a piece of calico is made without the aid of woodcuts, would be very unsatisfactory.  Premising, then, that the cotton in various forms is the staple manufacture of Manchester, and that silk, mixed fabrics of cotton and silk, cotton and wool, etc., are also made extensively, we advise the traveller to prepare himself by reading the work of Dr. Ure or the articles on Textiles in the Penny Cyclopaedia.

A visit to the workshops of the celebrated machinists Messrs. Sharpe, Roberts, & Co. would probably afford a view of some parts of the most improved textile machinery in a state of rest, as well as a very excellent idea of the rapid progress of mechanical arts.  Improvements in manufacturing machines are so constant and rapid, that it is almost a proverb—­“that before a foreigner can get the most improved machinery which he has purchased in England home and at work, something better will be invented.”