June 21st.--Southport, I presume, is now in its most vivid aspect; there
being a multitude of visitors here, principally of the middling classes,
and a frequent crowd, whom I take to be working-people from Manchester
and other factory towns. It is the strangest place to come to for the
pleasures of the sea, of which we scarcely have a glimpse from month's
end to mouth's end, nor any fresh, exhilarating breath from it, but a
lazy, languid atmosphere, brooding over the waste of sands; or even if
there be a sulky and bitter wind blowing along the promenade, it still
brings no salt elixir. I never was more weary of a place in all my life,
and never felt such a disinterested pity as for the people who come here
for pleasure. Nevertheless, the town has its amusements; in the first
place, the daylong and perennial one of donkey-riding along the sands,
large parties of men and girls pottering along together; the Flying
Dutchman trundles hither and thither when there is breeze enough; an arch
cry-man sets up his targets on the beach; the bathing-houses stand by
scores and fifties along the shore, and likewise on the banks of the
Ribble, a mile seaward; the hotels have their billiard-rooms; there is a
theatre every evening; from morning till night comes a succession of
organ-grinders, playing interminably under your window; and a man with a
bassoon and a monkey, who takes your pennies and pulls off his cap in
acknowledgment; and wandering minstrels, with guitar and voice; and a
Highland bagpipe, squealing out a tangled skein of discord, together with
a Highland maid, who dances a hornpipe; and Punch and Judy,--in a word,
we have specimens of all manner of vagrancy that infests England.
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