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CONGLETON is an ancient borough of Cheshire, on the borders of Staffordshire,
containing a number of those black and white oak frame and plaster houses,
which are peculiar to that county, and well worth examining. It is situated
in a deep romantic valley on the banks of the river Dane, and enjoys a
greater reputation for health than commercial progress. The population does
not appear to have increased between the two last census. The Municipal
Corporation dates from a remote period. It appears from the Corporation
Books that the Mayor and Aldermen patronised every kind of sport--plays, cock
fights, bear baiting, morris dancing. So fond were they of bear baiting,
that in 1621, by a unanimous vote, they transferred the money intended for a
bible to the purchase of a bear.
Times are changed; every inhabitant of Congleton can now have his own bible
for tenpence. Bear baiting and cock fighting have been discontinued; but we
hope the inhabitants have grown wiser than they were some fifteen years ago,
when they allowed themselves, for the sake of petty political disputes, to be
continually drawn through the Courts of Law and Chancery--a process quite as
cruel for the suitors, and more expensive and less amusing than bear-baiting.
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