Page:A protest against the extension of railways in the Lake District - Somervell (1876).djvu/80

 of arches supporting the well-known Memorial Chapel on the bridge, and in the background the parish church with its lofty spire, around which are grouped clusters of houses and cottages, which cover the sides of the hill down to the river banks. Commerce is unrepresented; no one seems in a hurry; wood-cutting is going on in one corner, sheep-washing in another; two magnificently dressed gentlemen in Cavalier hats with fowling-pieces, a spaniel, and game-bag, are standing in the middle of the road, while a fisherman is wading across the river just above the weir. This is the spot which Mr. Ruskin speaks of as being now one of the two most frightful things he has ever yet seen. In 1770 the chapel was used as a warehouse for goods, and its 'beautiful carving much defaced.' Arthur Young, who was in Wakefield about that time on his Northern tour, gives an encouraging account of the town from an æsthetic point of view. Mutton and beef were 3d. per lb., wages from 6s. to 14s. a week, manufacturer's house-rent from 40s. to 50s.; the trade of the place was very dull, and had been so ever since the peace. In 1801, the population was about 8000; in 1811, 8,593; in 1821, nearly 11,000; and in 1838, Dibdin became eloquent and prophetical on its future:—'It is the most opulent as well as trade-stirring town in the West Riding of York, and contains a population of upwards of 15,000 souls. By this time thirty years to come, it will have quadrupled that number.' Thirty-eight years have gone by, and Wakefield has only doubled the number. The chimneys have, however, more than kept pace with the population, nor is Dibdin's account out of place now of the 'curling columns of dense and slowly moving smoke which seem to involve everything within its immediate neighbourhood in impenetrable obscurity.' Had Wakefield but increased in the same proportion as its neighbours, the loss of the advantages given to it by nature would have been less felt. In all the great West Riding towns, Leeds or Sheffield or Bradford, there is a certain sense of power, of concentrated energy, which, though the sky is darkened and the air poisoned, strikes and impresses