--We left York at twelve o'clock, and were delayed an hour or
two at Leeds, waiting for a train. I strolled up into the town, and saw
a fair, with puppet-shows, booths of penny actors, merry-go-rounds,
clowns, boxers, and other such things as I saw, above a year ago, at
Greenwich fair, and likewise at Tranmere, during the Whitsuntide
holidays.
We resumed our journey, and reached Southport in pretty good trim at
about nine o'clock. It has been a very interesting tour. We find
Southport just as we left it, with its regular streets of little and big
lodging-houses, where the visitors perambulate to and fro without any
imaginable object. The tide, too, seems not to have been up over the
waste of sands since we went away; and far seaward stands the same row of
bathing-machines, and just on the verge of the horizon a gleam of water,
--even this being not the sea, but the mouth of the river Ribble, seeking
the sea amid the sandy desert. But we shall soon say good-by to
Southport.
OLD TRAFFORD, MANCHESTER.
July 22d.--We left Southport for good on the 20th, and have established
ourselves in this place, in lodgings that had been provided for us by Mr.
Swain; our principal object being to spend a few weeks in the proximity
of the Arts' Exhibition. We are here, about three miles from the
Victoria Railway station in Manchester on one side, and nearly a mile
from the Exhibition on the other. This is a suburb of Manchester, and
consists of a long street, called the Stratford Road, bordered with brick
houses two stories high, such as are usually the dwellings of tradesmen
or respectable mechanics, but which are now in demand for lodgings, at
high prices, on account of the Exhibition.
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