pages 128-129

128                 Illustrations of Lancashire

programme of the "free and open church" system; and from one of the suburbs came the first cry for the enfranchisement of women. Lancashire, if nothing .else, is frank, cordial, sagacious, and given to the sterling humanities of life. These always revolve upon Freedom, whence, yet again in illustration of the Lancashire heart, the establishment of the Society (original in idea, if not unique) for the Preservation of Ancient Footpaths.1 The large infusion of the German element has been immensely beneficial, not only in relation to commerce, but to the general culture of the town. It is owing in no slight degree to the presence of educated Germans that the Manchester "shippers," in their better portion, now resemble the corresponding class in Liverpool. The change for the better, since the time when Coleridge met with his odd reception, is quite as marked, no doubt, among the leaders of the Home commerce, in whose ranks are plenty of peers of the Liverpool "gentlemen." Records of the past are never without their interest. During the siege, the command of the defence was in the hands of Colonel Rosworm, a celebrated German engineer, who, when all was over, considered himself

1, Founded in 1826. See the interesting particulars in Mr. Prentice's Historical Sketches and Personal Recollections, pp. 289-295. 1851

Manchester                 129

ill-used, and published a pamphlet complaining of the town's injustice, enumerating the opportunities he had had of betraying it to the Royalists, and of dividing the inhabitants against themselves. "But then," he adds, "I should have been a Manchester man, for never let an unthankful one, or a promise-breaker, bear another name!" On the title- page of "The Pole Booke for Manchester, 22d May 1690," an old list of the inhabitants, printed by the Chetham Society, the aforetime owner has written, " Generation of vipers I
Manchester is now, like Liverpool, if not a school of refinement, one of the principal seats of English culture. lt possesses not fewer than ten or twelve free libraries, including the branches of the City Free Library, established under Mr. Ewart's Act, which last are available on Sundays, and are freely used by the class of people the opening was designed to benefit. The staff of assistants at the City Library and its branches consists very largely of young women. There is another first-class Free Library in Salford, within the same building, a Free Gallery of Paintings, and a well-arranged and thoroughly useful museum. The "Athenaeum " provides its members with 60,000 newspapers per annum, and, in addition, 9500 weekly, and 500 monthly and quarterly maga-