Everything is great in Yorkshire, even their rogues are on
a large scale; in Spain, men of the same calibre would be prime ministers and
grandees of the first class; in France, under a monarchy, a portfolio, and
the use of the telegraph, with no end of ribands, would have been the least
reward. Here the honours stop short between two dukes, as supporters arm in
arm; but still we are obliged to own that no one but a Yorkshireman could
have so bent all the wild beasts of Belgravia and Mayfair, from the Countess
Gazelle to the Ducal Elephant, to his purpose, as an ex-king did. Our task
will be confined on the present occasion to a sketch of Huddersfield and
Leeds, centres of the woollen manufacture, which forms the third great staple
of English manufactures, and of Sheffield, famed for keen blades.
* * * * *
HUDDERSFIELD, twenty-six miles from Manchester, is the first important town,
on a road studded with stations, from which busy weavers and spinners are
continually passing and repassing. It is situated in a naturally barren
district, where previously to 1811 the inhabitants chiefly lived on oaten
cake, and has been raised to a high degree of prosperity by the extension of
the manufactures, a position on the high road between Manchester and Leeds,
intersected by a canal, uniting the east and west, or inland navigation, and
more recently by railroads, which connect it with all the manufacturing towns
of the north.
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