Page:The National Gazetteer - A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands, Volume 2.djvu/772

Rh MANCHESTER. 764 MANCHESTER. It is difficult to determine the precise number of millsi spindles, and persons employed in Manchester alone from the factory returns, but the annexed quotation from the returns of 1863 will suffice to show the position Manchester bears to the general manufactures of the kingdom as the centre of the cotton manufacture. " Lancashire employs 77'4 per cent, of the total mimher of persons employed in the cotton trade in England and Wales. In the counties of Lancashire, Cheshire, and York, the total increase of mills since 1839 is S9'6 per cent., and of persons employed 91'2 per cent. In addi- tion to this the speed of the spindles has increased upon throstles 500, and upon mulea 1,000 revolutions a minute, i.e., the speed of the throstle spindle, -which in 1839 was 4,500 times a minute, is now 5,000, and of the mule spindle, that which was 5,000 is now 6,000 times a minute, amounting in the former case to a tenth, and in the latter to a sixth additional increase to that of the mills themselves." The railways are the branch of the London and North- Western, which has its terminus at Victoria station, and which runs between Liverpool and Manchester by way of Newton and Warrington, and which was the first opened in this country for general traffic purposes ; the Lancashire and Yorkshire, with a terminus in the same station, and which communicates with Liverpool circuitously by Blackburn and Ormskirk, and which has branches to Oldham, Southport, Halifax, Bradford, Huddersfield, Wakefield, and Rochdale. At Bank Top, Market Street, near the infirmary, is the terminus of the main London and North- Western line, communicating with London, Birmingham, Crewe, and the chief arterial lines of the United Kingdom, of which this last-named place is the centre ; also the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire, leading E., and forming the more direct route to Sheffield, Hull, and Great Grimsby. These are the principal stations ; the others are situated in New Bailey-street, Salford, the terminus of the lines communicating with Bury, Blackburn, &c., and the South Junction and Altringham, in Oxford Koad, Hulme, the line which reaches Liverpool by way of Chester, and which communicates more directly with North and South Wales, and the towns passed by the Great Western and its tributary lines. The canals are those of the Duke of Bridgewater, which flows into the Mersey at Runcorn ; the Ashton-under-Lyne, Stockport, and Macclesfield, which all join each other and have a common basin at the back of Piccadilly ; the Rochdale and Halifax, communicating with the Bridgewater; and the Bolton and Bury, with a terminus in Salford.- The borough of Manchester was incorporated by royal charter in 1838, and the government of the town is vested in the town council, which includes the mayor, aldermen, and councillors, elected under the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Acts. Since the incorporation of the borough, a separate commission of the peace and court of quarter sessions has been obtained by grant from the crown, and an efficient constabulary force established for the borough, under the control of the watch com- mittee. The municipal borough is divided into 15 wards, over each of which an alderman presides, the rest of the local governing body being 48 councillors and the recorder. The town is supplied with water by the cor- poration, which has established large water-works in the neighbourhood of Moltram, in Longdendale, 10 miles E. of Manchester. These were completed at a cost estimated to exceed half a million sterling, and are on a strictly colossal scale. There are minor reservoirs at Woodhead, Torside, Rhodes Wood, Armfield, Hollingworth, and Godley, their total capacity being 567,859,797 cubic feet. The Moltram Tunnel is 2,772 yards in length, or more than lj mile, is 6 feet wide, and as many high. The fire-engine establishment is exceedingly effective, and comprises some fifteen engines, with all necessary implements. The gas companies are also under the management of the corporation, the profits realised from the manufacture and sale of gas being devoted to the improvement of the streets, and in public expenditure for the advantage of the city. They were established Originally in 1817, but the streets were not lit with gas till 1824. The population, according to the census return of 1861, of the city of Manchester, is 357,979, and of the borough of Salford, 102,449. The further returns give the following analysis of this total : Manchester Salford 137,381 58,628 44,723 21,386 2,662 2,161 E'S 9,864 8,880 2,167 1,119 71,868 27,637 6,37 2,445 The town on the whole is moderately healthy, but the mortality in certain districts is very heavy among children. In the Manchester registration district proper, including the so-called townships, with its sub-districts of Ancoats, St. George's, Market-street, London-road, the population being, in 1841, 192,219, the number of births were 7,145, and of deaths 5,831 ; in 1S51, popula- tion 228,435, births 9,118, deaths 7,020 ; in 1860, popu- lation 213,625, births 9,085, deaths 6,807. The total births in Manchester in 1862 were 4,635, against 3,828 deaths ; in 1863, 4,655 births, 4,096 deaths. In Salford the births in 1862 were 2,196, against 1,337 deaths; in 1863 the births were 2,136, the deaths 1,451. But these returns would need to be slightly amended, the census and registrars* districts being slightly different. The annual average rate of mortality, from all causes, to 1,000 persons living, 1851-60, in Manchester, would be 31, and in Salford 26, showing, with the exception of Liverpool (33), the largest death-rate in the country, and more than that of Bolton (27), Wigan (27), and Oldham (25), the towns which surround it the diseases operating most malifically being scarlatina and diseases of the respiratory organs ; consumption, diarrhoea, and measle standing next in order. Against this the birth-rate for the entire counties of Lancaster and Chester was slightly above that of the average of the kingdom; and it is probable that the privations caused by what has been termed the "cotton famine" enhanced the mortality. The tables for the intermediate years show a consider- able oscillation in the death rate, caused by deflections of temperature and those other causes which especially operate to the diminution of life in large towns. Man- chester retains many of the characteristics of a manufac- turing town which has risen from a very humble begin- ning, in the squalid and narrow character of the streets, and the comparative narrowness of some of the principal thoroughfares. Till within the past few years a large proportion, nearly 10 per cent., of the population lived in cellars and in places absolutely unfit for human occu- pation the returns for 1849 showing something like 5,000 cellars used as habitations, and a population of 20,399 resident in these wretched and unwholesome abodes. Till the commencement of the year 1860 and the outbreak of the American war, the city of Manchester showed a progressive, rapid, and continuous increase in its prosperity. The check to the supply of cotton, how- ever, threw a large number of the labouring population out of employment, and necessitated an appeal to other sources of supply for the growth of the staple. But in spite of the depressing influences referred to, and the evils of non-employment and pauperism following in their train, the returns of mortality and sickness prove that the sanitary condition of the neighbourhood was not seriously impaired by the privations inflicted. A development of further supplies of cotton from other countries during the last three years, together with the happy conclusion of the American war, have again restored Manchester to something like its old prosperity ; while the introduction of Indian, Surat, Egyptian, and Brazilian cottons has to some extent rendered the country independent of its former sources of supply. The report of the factory inspectors, to the date of April, 1863, speaks of a minute but sensible improvement; and the weekly returns of May, 1863, show how far the foreign varieties of cotton were superseding the exclusive supply hitherto derived from the United States :