backs from Ancaster, in Lincolnshire, thirty-five miles distant, and they loaded back with coal, which was taken in exchange for the stone. The roads being almost impassable in certain seasons and difficult at all times, there was necessarily very little trade between one part of the kingdom and another. For without ready communication either by land or water, the commercial exchange of bulky articles-raw produce or manufactured commodities-is simply impossible. Hence England was not, and as yet could not be, very much of a commercial country. It was cheaper to bring foreign wares to London by sea than to bring them by tedious journeys on horses' backs from the interior of the country. Two centuries ago the inland carriage of goods from Norwich was as much as the sea freight from Lisbon. From London to Birmingham the charge was from 51. to 7. a ton, and from London to Exeter 127. A century later the charge between Birmingham and London was reduced to between 8s. and 9s. a ton for every ten miles, or an average of about 51. a ton; but at the same time the rate of carriage between Leeds and London was 137. a ton. This rate, it will readily be imagined, was prohibitory as regarded the large mass of manufactured articles in general consumption. But many articles now in common domestic use even amongst the poorest classes were then comparatively little known. No manufacture of pottery but of the very coarsest kind existed; vessels of wood, of pewter, and even of leather, formed the principal part of the household and table utensils of genteel and opulent families; and we long continued to import our cloths, our linen, our glass, our "Delph" ware, our cutlery, our paper, and even our hats, from France, Germany, and Holland. 1 The little trade which existed between one part of the kingdom and the other was carried on by means of pack 1A History of Inland Navigation.' London, 1769, p. 73. horses, along roads little better than bridle-paths. These horses travelled in lines, with the bales or panniers strapped across their backs. The foremost horse bore a bell or a collar of bells, and was hence called the "bellhorse." He was selected because of his sagacity; and by the tinklings of the bells he carried, the movements of his followers were regulated. The bells also gave notice of the approach of the convoy to those who might be advancing from the opposite direction. This was a matter of some importance, as in many parts of the path there was not room for two loaded horses to pass each other, and quarrels and fights between the drivers of the pack-horse trains were frequent as to which of the meeting convoys was to pass down into the dirt and allow the other to pass along the bridleway. The pack-horses not only carried merchandise but passengers, and at certain times scholars proceeding to and from Oxford and Cambridge. When Smollett travelled from N 2 Glasgow to London, he rode partly on pack-horses, partly by waggon, and partly on foot; and the adventures which he described as having befallen Roderick Random are supposed to have been drawn in a great measure from his own experiences during the journey. A cross-country merchandise traffic gradually sprang up between the northern counties, since become preeminently the manufacturing districts of England; and long lines of pack-horses laden with bales of wool and cotton traversed the hill ranges which divide Yorkshire from Lancashire. Whitaker says that as late as 1753 the roads near Leeds consisted of a narrow hollow way little wider than a ditch, barely allowing of the passage of a vehicle drawn by horses in a single line; this deep narrow road being flanked by an elevated causeway covered with flags or boulder stones. When travellers encountered each other on this narrow track, they often tried to wear out each other's patience rather than descend into the dirt alongside. The raw wool and bale goods of the district were nearly all carried along these flagged ways on the backs of single horses; and it is difficult to imagine the delay, the toil, and the perils by which the conduct of the traffic was attended. On horseback before daybreak and long after nightfall, these hardy sons of trade pursued their object with the spirit and intrepidity of foxhunters; and the boldest of their country neighbours had no reason to despise either their horsemanship or their courage.' The Manchester trade was carried on in the same way. The chapmen there used to keep their gangs of pack-horses, which accompanied them to all the principal towns, bearing their goods in packs, which they sold to their customers, 1 Loides and Elmete,' by T. D. Whitaker, LL.D., 1816, p. 81. Notwithstanding its dangers, Dr. Whitaker seems to have been of opinion that the old mode of travelling was even safer than that which immediately followed it: "Under the old state of roads and manners," he says, "it was impossible that more than one death could happen at once; what, by any possibility, could take place analogous to a race betwixt two stage-coaches, in which the lives of thirty or forty distressed and helpless bringing back sheep's wool and other raw materials of manufacture.1 The only records of this long-superseded mode of communication are now to be traced on the signboards of wayside public-houses. Many of the old roads still exist in Yorkshire and Lancashire; but all that remains of the former traffic is the pack-horse painted on these village signs things as retentive of odd bygone facts as the picture-writing of the ancient Mexicans.2 individuals are at the mercy of two intoxicated brutes ?" 1 The author of the 'Original' says:-"I have by tradition the following particulars of the mode of carrying on the home trade by one of the principal merchants of Manchester, who was born at the commencement of the last century, and who realised a sufficient fortune to keep a carriage when not half-a-dozen were kept in the town by persons connected with business. He sent the manufactures of the place into Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and the intervening counties, and principally took in exchange feathers from Lincolnshire and malt from Cambridgeshire and Nottinghamshire. All his commodities were conveyed on packhorses, and he was from home the greater part of every year, performing his journeys entirely on horseback. His balances were received in guineas, and were carried with him in his saddle-bags. He was exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather, to great labour and fatigue, and to constant danger. In Lincolnshire he travelled chiefly along bridle-ways, through fields where frequent gibbets warned him of his perils, and where flocks of wild-fowl continually darkened the air. Business carried on in this manner required a combination of personal attention, courage, and physical strength not to be hoped for in a deputy; and a merchant then led a much more severe and irksome life than a bagman afterwards, and still more than a traveller' of the present day. In the earlier days of the merchant above-mentioned the wine-merchant who supplied Manchester resided at Preston, then always called Proud Preston, because exclusively inhabited by gentry. The wine was carried on horses, and a gallon was considered a large order. Men in business confined themselves generally to punch and ale, using wine only as a medicine, or on extraordinary occasions; so that a considerable tradesman somewhat injured his credit amongst his neighbours by being so extravagant as to send to a tavern for wine to entertain a London customer." 2 Earl of Ellesmere's Essays,' p. 244. In the curious collection of old coins at the Guildhall there are several halfpenny tokens issued by the proprietors of inns bearing the sign of the pack-horse. Some of these would indicate that pack-horses were kept for hire. We append a couple of illustrations of these curious old coins. OL PACK-HORSE HALFPENNY TOKENS СНАРТЕR III. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS INFLUENCED BY THE STATE OF WHILST the road communications of the country remained thus imperfect, the people of one part of England knew next to nothing of the people of the other parts. When a shower of rain had the effect of rendering the highways impassable, even horsemen were cautious in venturing far from home, and it was only a limited number who could afford to travel on horseback. The labouring people journeyed a-foot, and the limited middle class used the waggon or the coach. But the amount of intercourse between the people of different districts then exceedingly limited at all times-was, in a country so wet as England, necessarily suspended during the greater part of the year. This slight degree of communication. consequently produced numerous distinct and stronglymarked local dialects, local prejudices, and local customs, which survive to this day, though they are rapidly disappearing, to the regret of many, under the influence of our improved facilities for travelling. Every village had its witches, sometimes of different sorts, and there was scarcely an old house but had its white lady or moaning old man with the long beard. There were ghosts in the fens which walked on stilts, whilst the sprites of the hill country rode on flashes of fire. But those village witches and local ghosts have long since disappeared, excepting perhaps in a few of the less penetrable districts, where they still survive. It is curious to find that down even to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the inhabitants of the southern districts of the island regarded those of the north as a |