the previous night— not in cotton, but in
snow. Streets and roads were impassable to
all the light-footed pedestrians. Eddies of
wind had heaped up insurmountable
barriers of snow across the large open
stone-paved square in which the Goliaths of
cotton industry were wont to congregate
and meet their brokers. For once the brokers
were beaten out of their own field, the
Liverpool Exchange: it was a sheer
impossibility to office sales on the summit of
those Exchange alps, or in the chilly valleys
between. The young stock and share brokers
were equally at a non-plus; for the morning
mail-trains were snow-bound half way
from Manchester and orders from
customers were wanting, In this dilemma a
snow-ball was flung from the corridor
among the Stags across the open square,
and in an instant a whole battery of
snow-balls was driving in return amongst
the Cottons. The conflict was entered
upon with all the pent-up energies of
disappointed brokers and frozen-out speculators.
The share-market had not been so
animated since 'forty-five. Cotton was
remarkably buoyant, and knowing men who
had the day before been speculating for a
rise, found themselves in for a heavy fall.

The same spirit which rode rampant over
the snowy barriers of the Exchange has
achieved great things for Our Sister. In
Liverpool there are noble public buildings,
whether considered as works of art, or as
facilities for the dispatch of its gigantic
business. The energy which has erected
St. George's Hall, has likewise given the
town magnificent warehouses and docks
that are worthy counterparts of those
studding the shores of tho Thames. The
Liverpool railway termini are perhaps the
finest in the world as regards the perfect
system under which they are worked. Were
it otherwise, indeed, the immense trade
pouring its mighty tide through the port,
would overwhelm the place in hopeless
confusion.

It is not alone in the article of cotton
that Liverpool has made vast strides. Her
denizens are likewise extensive dealers in
Canadian timber and Irish emigrants. The
importation of Canadian timber during the
year eighteen hundred and fifty-two, amounts
to exactly a thousand tons or loads for every
consecutive day throughout the year: being
precisely the same quantity as the imported
cotton. The whole of the Irish emigrants from
Northern America arrive in the Mersey,
and last year these amounted to a quarter of a
million: equal to the entire population of
Liverpool in the time of the Stuarts. Inasmuch
as our western capital is simply the
depot for its ultimate distribution, it may
be imagined how numerous and systematic
must be the machinery of ships, railways,
and canals, by means of which this mass
of raw material, dead and living, is
scattered far and wide for ultimate conversion
into ships, houses, and colonies. Large as the
local trade in timber of all kinds may appear
to the general reader, it forms but a fraction
of the aggregate annually brought into the
country from foreign lands, and which,
independent of our home-grown supply, has
increased within twenty years from half a
million of tons to two millions and a half.

What Liverpool has done for herself and
others, may be best seen by a reference to the
returns from the Board of Trade, showing, as
these do, the yearly growth of our commerce,
with all parts of the world. The first railway
in this kingdom was that connecting
Manchester with Liverpool, the application to
Parliament for which was made in eighteen
hundred and twenty-five. Five years later,,
that line was opened and made memorable
by the untimely death of Mr. Huskisson.
Among other reasons given for the
construction of a railway-line for goods to
Manchester, was the reason, that the
yearly quantity of cotton dispatched thither
had increased from one hundred and ten
millions of pounds weight, to one hundred
and sixty millions. It is not difficult to
ascertain the great boon conferred on the
manufacturing interest of Lancashire by the
construction of railways. In eighteen hundred
and thirty-five the quantity of cotton
imported into this country was three hundred
millions of pounds, or double the weight of
the imports when railways were projected ten
years previously. Last year, the import
amounted to a fraction short of nine hundred
millions of pounds. Of the two millions and
a quarter of bales brought into Liverpool in
one year, two millions were dispatched to the
Lancashire mills. The railways conveyed one
and a quarter million of those bales, while
three quarters of a million went by canals and
highway conveyances. It is clear therefore
that had the cotton manufacture of this
country expanded, as it has done, without
railways, it would have needed for its supply
four times the present means of transport by
canal-boats and ordinary waggons.

The mercantile marine of Liverpool is as
numerous and as efficient as any in the world..
Some of the very finest and fastest passenger-
ships leave this port for the States and the
Colonies, and so well established is the worldwide
reputation of their sea-going ships, that
we have heard natives of India, while gazing
in wonder at a beautiful clipper-craft under a
spread of canvass, inquire whether it was an
English or a Liverpool ship.

The merchant princes of Liverpool are a
numerous body, not a few of them having
carved out their fortunes with their own
hands—and goodly fortunes too. They have
their suburban villas, their marine villas, and
their town mansions, on a princely scale. They
are hospitable and generous; and the good
taste ann splendour of their public
entertainments are proverbial. They have lived