Present-Messrs. TWISS, LEIGHTON, EVERARD, WRAGG, LEONARD and JOHNSON. Period-A.D. 1873. LEONARD : In the space where Angel street, Snig hill, Castle street, Bank street, and Water lane converge, stood previously the Irish Cross. We have spoken of it before as having been removed-at least the shaft of it-into Paradise square. TWISS: have reason to believe that the Irish Cross stood rather within, or at any rate on the confines of the triangular area we mentioned when last together-in fact just where Mr. Dixon's shop now is, at the corner of Angel street and Bank street. LEONARD: Bank street was; of course, unmade at that time. TWISS : This locality possesses a very interesting association, as the site of one of Sheffield's earliest printing offices. I prize highly a series of ballads, or as they are called on one of the titlepages, "all sorts of new songs and penny histories;" " Printed by John Garnet, at the Castle green head, near the Irish Cross." They are not dated, but we know from other sources that Garnet was there at any rate between the years 1736, when he printed Cawthorn's " Perjured Lover," mentioned before, and 1745, when he printed a " Covenant agreed on by Nether Chapel." He also issued "Anew Historical Catechism, by W.L., S.P., 1737." These ballads of mine answer somewhat to our present street songs, though more elaborate. They have such titles as these :- The Golden Bull, or the Crafty Princess, in four parts;" " The Irish Stroller's Garland;" " The Petticoat loose Garland;" " The Extravagant Youth's Garland." Others are religious publications. The dates I have given, 1736-1745, are, you will remember, a few years earlier than the time (1754) when Francis Lister had his printing office " near the Shambles;" or 1755, when Revel Homfray had his. " Opposite to the Cock in the High street." Bee ante p. 78. LEIGHTON : On the Castle street side of Water lane, in premises now destroyed for the erection of a new building, lived the Staniforths-father, son, and grandson. Both the latter were distinguished surgeons. Chantrey, who was a great friend of Mr. William Staniforth, of the middle generation, had to adopt a ruse in order to obtain a portrait for the family of the old gentleman' Mr. Samuel Staniforth. However, he produced an excellent likeness.* WRAGG : Mr. William Staniforth was considered the best operative surgeon and oculist in the town. " Staniforth's eye ointment" was very celebrated. Mr. Cheney, Mr. C. H. Webb, and Mr. William Staniforth, senr., were the first Infirmary surgeons, and Mr. William Staniforth, junr., became a colleague of his father in that official capacity, on Mr. Cheney's retirement in 1812. William Staniforth, the elder, retired in 1819 , and died, August 21st, 1833, aged 83 years. There is a marble medallion of him. in the Board-room of the Infirmary. EVERARD: He had a brother named Samuel, a linendraper, in Castle street-in the shop, I believe, afterwards long occupied by Mr. Roebuck, currier. He lived in the house adjoining the shop; his brother, the surgeon, living next door to him, nearer Water lane. When I remember him after his retirement from business, he was a tall, thin, and sedate old gentleman, wearing a white cravat, fullruffled shirt front, and a tail. In the drapery business he would be coeval with Mr. Vennor, of High street. He spent a large portion of his time in cultivating the flowers and fruits of his garden, which was a large piece of ground enclosed with high brick walls, opposite Mr. Bailey's gates at Burn Greave, in what was formerly Grimesthorpe road. He might often be met in the summer time in the Wicker, walking home, slow and stately, with a large bouquet of flowers, or a small basket of fruit, in his hand. LEIGHTON : The Castle Inn still occupies its old position at the other corner of Water lane. O'Brien, the Irish Giant, had rooms there and received visitors. He used to light his pipe in the streets by taking off the top of the lamps. Joesy Eyre, the constable, insisted on entering O'Brien's room without payment, by virtue of his office, but when he wished to retire, O'Brien refused to allow him to do so, unless he paid, the alternative offered to him being an exit through the window. Fussy chose the more ignominious course of paying his money to be liberated. In Water lane, too, 'I Old Crownshaw" kept the "All Nations" public-house. The old politicians used to meet there. It was a most respectable part of the town then, but look at it now! Though it is improved since the Police Offices demolished a whole row of houses. WRAGG: In Snig hill was Michael Raybould, the moneychanger. At that time there was scarcely anything but copper money. Butchers and others took their copper to him for something more portable when they went to market, for which he charged 2d. per pound. LEONARD: Just as you may see in Eastern towns now. WRAGG: Besides this, other people went to him for change, and he charged them also 2d., so that he got 4d. each pound by the transactions. Mr. Stoakes, who has been mentioned as a cheese factor, at the top of King street, was the last person who changed money in this manner. TWISS : It is recorded, on the 27th February, 1801, " The bellman has been crying that the inhabitants of Sheffield may be supplied with the best fine flour, at Michael Raybould's, Snig hill, at 10s. 6d. per stone of 141bs." This was thought wonderfully cheap. LEIGHTON : Opposite Michael Raybould's, the old Black Lion and another building, a shop, projected into the street, just below the gateway of the Black Swan. I remember a shoemaker and leather seller having the shop, and Mr. Twibell was there before he went to his late premises on the opposite side. EVERARD: It was there that Dr. John Pye Smith was born. The premises were pulled down some years ago (1849) to widen the street. LEONARD: A little below that, where is now Barker's shoe shop, the Independent first saw the light, for those were the premises occupied by Mr. H. A. Bacon, its originator. The printing office was in an attic, where a man could hardly stand upright, and the staff consisted of four apprentices and three or four journeymen, and the paper was printed on a small hand-press. The first copy was " pulled" by George Blythman, and was " flyed " by George Rogers, who has been intimately connected with the paper from that day to this. The first editor was an Irishman, named Fanning, the second Ebenezer Rhodes, the third Thomas Asline Ward; then the paper was bought by the late Robert Leader. Henry Andrew Bacon's father, Mr. Clay Bacon, had himself been a printer, but at that time he was a partner in the firm of Bower and Bacon, type-founders, in the Nursery, just by Messrs. Chadbum's wheel, in what is now Nursery street. They were the first type-founders in Sheffield, and one of the earliest firms in the provinces-at any rate, there was none other at that time nearer than London. Mr. H. A. Bacon married the niece of 94 Neddy Furniss," the shoemaker in Westbar green, and with her obtained a comfortable fortune. Mrs. Bacon survived him, changed her name a second time to that of Briggs, and is still living. One of her daughters married Mr. Atkinson, formerly a draper at the bottom of Angel street (now Mr. Hovey's), and the other Mr. Barlow, of Rawmarsh. TWISS: We have now traced this newspaper to all its locations-Snig hill, Angel street, High street (with Mulberry street), corner of Bank street and Snig hill, and, lastly, Bank street. So that it has not wandered many hundred yards. LEONARD: The premises standing near the bottom of Snig hill, on the right, just before the street makes the gradual bend towards Newhall street, shame their neighbours by their antiquity. There we see again the gables, the small windows and inconvenient low rooms that used to be the characteristics of Sheffield architecture. TWISS: You mean the house now divided in occupation between Mr. Jones, butcher, and Mr. Samuel Parker Hall, cutler ? LE0NARD: Yes, and the narrow gable above which is a fruiterer's, between them being the lower premises of a hairdresser. TWISS: The house I speak of is the last before the street bends, and it must have a curious history, but I have not been able to get at it. There is a fine broad staircase going right up to the top. There is a tradition that it was once an inn-the Srigh or Snig, and hence the name. But you will say-what is a Snigh or Snig? It is an old Saxon name for the eel, and daring philologists connect this with the water at the bottom of Newhall, street. Another derivation, you know, attempts to connect the name with the steepness of the declivity, which necessitated the application of a snag or brake to wheeled vehicles descending it. LEIGHTON: At the bottom of Snig hill, the uncle of Jonathan Marshall used to keep an iron and steel shop. He left his nephew a good sum of money, with which he set up the steel converting business in Millsands, and died enormously rich. He and Benjamin Rose, the druggist, of Angel street, were great companions. They both had plenty of money, but they walked to Doncaster races rather than hire a horse. Marshall had frequent losses, for hardly anybody ever failed but he was a creditor. It didn't matter, however, for he and the Walkers of Masbro' were the only people in the steel trade, so they had it and all its great profits to themselves. EVERARD : It was in the service of Jonathan Marshall. that the progenitor of the great firm of Thomas Firth and Sons acquired that practical skill as a steel converter which he handed down to his son, and which was the chief cause of the first success of the firm. His son besides being with Mr. Marshall was, before he started in business for himself, with the Sandersons. LEIGHTON: Standing with its side to Newhall street and facing Millsands is Hollis's Hospital, or, as it used commonly to be called, Brown Hospital, built on the site of the. first Dissenters' chapel in the town. Its history is to be found in Hunter's Hallamshire; but the inscription on the Newhall streetside, over a blocked up doorway, may be recorded here, for although there seems to be no present prospect of its obliteration, when such things do disappear there is no recovering them :-" EVERARD: While almost everything else round here has changed, this building remains the same, close to busy thoroughfares, and yet, as it were, removed from them. Stepping down here , only a few yards from the noisy streets, has to some extent the effect of getting into a Cathedral close. LEONARD : At the bottom of Newhall. street, are the offices erected some years ago by Naylor, Vickers & Co. They occupy the site of the old " horse dyke," in which lads used to bathe and paddle, and where the street watering carts were filled. WRAGG: This part of Bridge street was called " Under the water" or " T'under watter," and 'I The Isle" was where Tennant's brewery now stands. In Water lane, were some troughs, or rather a wellhence the name. LEONARD: Was it not hereabouts that the celebrated adventure of Tommy Hotbread took place ? WRAGG : Yea. " Tommy Hotbread," took his name from calling hot cakes, " halfpenny rolls," on a morning. At that time, sixty years ago, all the spring-knife cutlers were knock-kneed from being underfed, and had long arms from the peculiar manner in which they worked; but Tommy was worst of all, and since he was a little feeble old man besides, it was as much as he could do to walk, let alone taking any one into custody. Besides, he had an impediment in his speech. One night he was fast asleep in his box, near Newhall street, when some fellows leaving a public-house, carried it and Tommy into the goit in Millsands. On Tommy awaking and observing the water in it, he said, " Be me thoul there's a thorm." He then cried out to his jokers, who were waiting to see the result, 11 Athihtance, gentlemen," and on discovering his true position he threatened, it is said, that if they did not get him out he would take them into " cuthdody." LEONARD : The story is told in several different forms and with sundry variations. One account makes Tommy's watch box to have been near the Castle Inn, facing up Angel street. According to this version, the watchman did not wait to be in the water before he awoke, but as he was being carried down Snig hill, box and all, he roared out vigorously, "If yo doan't thet me doan, o'le tak yo all up." The grinders, however, went straight a-head and placed the box in the middle of the horse dyke, not the goit as Mr. Wragg said. TWISS: The version given in a note in Mr. John Wilson's edition of Mather is, that the jokers were a party of scissorgrinders who had been at a trade meeting at Mr. Hinchlife's, the Greyhound, Gibraltar, and they, on peeping into the box, at the bottom of Snig hill, found Tommy asleep. One of them went to " borrow" a clothes line which some good woman had left out at night, and with this cord they tied the watchman in his box and bore him off notwithstanding his shouts. This account agrees with Mr. Wragg in making the goit the scene of the immersion. Mr. Wilson tells another practical joke that was played on Hotbread by the workmen of Holy, Wilkinson and Co., when he was selling fruit in Mulberry street. They called to him out of the window for some apples, and made the coppers hot before throwing them out to him. On going up the stairs to complain to Mr. Holy, they poured a mixture of whiting and water on to his head. LEIGHTON: The watchmen of those days would have presented a wonderful sight to a Government Inspector. The whole "Posse" for the entire town did not exceed above half a score. Besides Tommy Hotbread, there were " Sammy Suck-thumb," Neddy Jennings," and others. They were accustomed to announce the time and the state of the weather, and. one great part of their duty was to call up people who had to rise early. Any lateness was sure to be excused on the ground that the watchman had forgotten his .promise to rouse them. The watch boxes that protected the watchmen were put up by the Town Trustees. WRAGG: Yes, we mentioned that under the willow tree, on Brookhill, once before. JOHNSON : The Hotbreads and the Suck-thumbs, the Eyres, Woollens, Halls, and Hinchliffes, flourished about the end of the last century. But forty years ago we were still under the constable regime, for policemen had not yet reached us. There were Flather, Wild, Waterfall, and Bland for Sheffield, and Birks for Eccelesall. It was as common in those days to speak of fetching Bland, as it is now to go for a policeman. I saw Bland take past my father's shop, George Sandys, a butcher in Pinstone street, who had murdered his wife. WRAGG: I fear you are not quite accurate in your facts. There never were more than three constables, but they had their " runners." Bland was first an assistant of Thomas Smith, to execute the warrants on debtors, and put them in gaol, in Scotland street. Nor was Birks a constable at first, he was " runner" to Marples, his wife's father, whom he subsequently succeeded. Wild had a runner named Wildgoose, " Jim Goose," and it was he who apprehended Sandys and took him to York. "Goose" and "Old Crookes," the watchman, generally did the work now assigned to detectives; but as Wildgoose couldn't read, he had no chance of becoming a constable, so he ceased to be a " runner" and worked at his trade-file cutting-until his death. In 1825, the constables were Thomas Smith, keeper of Scotland street Gaol; Thomas Flather and John Waterfall. The assistantconstables were John Waterfall, jun., James Wild and William Bland. LEIGHTON: Wild, the constable, lived at one time in a house at the bottom of North Church street, opposite the old Queen street chapel school-room; and subsequently in Queen street, opposite the chapel. EVERARD: It is a little curious and very creditable that sons of both Wild and Waterfall became bank managers. WRAGG: Tom Smith, whom I have named, subsequently kept the Blue Boar, in Westbar, and afterwards the Royal Oak, King street. He accumulated considerable wealth; but Hinchliffe, his senior, a fellow constable and fellow publican, the father of 11 Jemmy Queer," was not so successful. He ended his days in the Shrewsbury Hospital. His family appears to have been in the scissor trade for more than a century, one of them, Mr. Robert Hinchliffe, having produced the first pair of hand polished scissors in 1761. LEONARD : The story is that he was induced to attempt to make them in order to ingratiate himself in the affections of the girl who afterwards became his wife. JOHNSON : Smith and Hinchliffe were the proprietors of the bowling green further on, from which the present street takes its name. LEIGHTON : The Blue Boar had been Mr. Hagger's house, with a coat of arms over it, and Smith new-fronted it. On the side nearest Snig hill-now the three shops between Woollen's and Raby's, was a grand house, belonging to Mr. Norris-Sammy Norris he was called. There were steps leading up to it, and the workshops of Norris, who was a razor maker, were up the yard behind. He was Master Cutler in 1777. Norris had two sons and one daughter, Catherine, who married Richard Ince, asolicitor at Wirksworth, of whom came the late Mr. T. N. Ince, of Wakefield. The elder son of Mr. Norris married the daughter of the Rev. James Dixon, vicar of Ecelesfield. The younger son, Thomas, became a clergyman, and was for some time chaplain to the Forces, and died at Chelsea in 1816. WRAGG: The case of old Mr. Norris was a very sad one. He traded to Germany, and one year, by great exertions, took an unusually large stock of razors to Leipsic fair, expecting to reap the due reward of his efforts. Instead of customers to the fair came the French invading army, the city was fired, and Mr. Norris, it was said, had to secrete himself in a pig- stye. The disaster ruined him, for notwithstanding the commiseration of his creditors and the public, he never recovered his former position. He died an inmate of the Shrewsbury Hospital, July 16th, 1817. LEONARD : I have just a shade of doubt whether it was the old gentleman or the son Thomas who went to Leipsic, for although afterwards a clergyman, the latter was at one time in his father's business. It is certain, however, that it was the old man who died in the Shrewsbury Hospital. LEIGHTON: On the opposite side of Westbar, up a passage, the father of the late Peter Frith began business as an optician, 70 years ago. He prospered, devoting himself more to the fancy branches than his competitors, and saved a large sum of money. The, father of old Mr. Oakes, the tobacconist, still living in Westbar three doors from the corner of Colson street, had a meal and flour shop on the same (south) side of the street, belonging to the late Benj. Withers' father. The rent was £9 per annum; it has since been refronted and is now occupied by Mr. Barlow, saddler, and a tobacconist, at a very much higher, rental. At the corner of Colson style was Mr. Denton, grocer, of Fox hill. He was brother to the late William Denton, of Pitsmoor. LEONARD: Old Mr. Oakes, who has been mentioned, is 86 years' old, yet he relates that Westbar has not greatly altered in his lifetime. In the part of it nearest to Snig hill, the buildings are much the same, though most of the shops have been refronted. LEONARD : Westbar. had the honour of producing the first Sheffield manufacturer who ventured to open direct business communication with London. The story is thus told:About the middle of the last century, Mr. Fox, of Westbar-- who built the lofty houses near West court, in one of which he afterwards lived, and Mr. Samuel Fowler in the other-was the first person to undertake a journey to London for the purpose of selling his wares. It was necessary to go on foot, and before starting he made his will and gave a large farewell party to his friends. Nothing that his wife or friends could say to him could dissuade him from encountering all the fatigue, hazard, and difficulty of the journey. He started on foot, carrying his treasure on his back. The first day he walked as far as Mansfield, where he rested for the night. The next day he had to wait until a sufficient number of travellers met together to venture across Nottingham forest, on account of the numerous robberies that were committed on travellers there, and also because of the intricacies of the road. He reached Nottingham in safety, and ultimately he reached London, sold his goods to his' satisfaction, and obtained plenty of orders for more. His examplewas soon followed by others, who went upon similar business, but this is believed to have been the first instance of personal intercourse with the metropolis. EVERARD: Business journeys must have been made to London earlier than that, though doubtless they would be great and rare occasions. An ancestor of ray own, in the cutlery trade, went up, I believe in the reign of Queen Anne, and I have a copper-plate, engraved by my great-grandfather, to perpetuate the memory of that event. WRAGO : In New street, lived Spence Broughton, who was hung and gibbeted on Attercliffe Common in 1792, for robbing the mail-cart there. " He was," says Mr. Oakes, who remembers, as a boy six years old, seeing the gibbet-post being made by a man named Gregory, in the Nursery, " a fine fellow, standing six feet high." The Sunday after he was gibbeted, the road through Attercliffe was one mass of people going to see the wretched spectacle. It seemed as if everybody from Sheffield and Rotherham and all around had gone to visit the scene. LEONARD: There is none of the uncertainty which attaches to Frank Fearn's gibbet-post in connection with the ultimate destination of Spence Broughton's. A few yeasr ago - in May, 1867, large crowds were attracted to the Yellow Lion, in Clifton street, Attercliffe Common, to see an upright piece of solid black oak, 4ft. 6in. long and 18in. square, fixed in and passing through a massive framework, 1Oft. long and 1ft. deep, firmly imbedded in the ground. The post was bolted to this latter. This relic was found by a person named Holroyd, while making excavations for cellars opposite the Yellow Lion, and I suppose there can be no doubt that they were the socket and low art of the gibbet-post put up in 1792, the upper part having been cut away and removed some years before. I am not aware what became of them. JOHNSON : The fragment of the post is still kept at the Yellow Lion. TWISS : It was Mr. Henry Sorby, of Woodburn, who took down the gibbet when the land on which it was erected became his property. His chief motive was to put a stop to the injury done by trespassers visiting this relic of a barbarous custom. I suppose he must have cut it off instead of taking it up out of the ground. The gibbet was deposited in his coach-house, where I saw it. I am not clear what afterwards became of the post, but I am under the impression that it was used for a beam in a cottage, and that it was removed in consequence of the prejudice it caused against the house. LEIGHTON: As an instance of the absurd stories that get abroad about such matters, I may say it has been solemnly affirmed, in print, that Spence Broughton's gibbet-post was set on fire and burned down by women who were collecting rubbish in the field. Solid oak like that would take more than casual burning. EVERARD: I have seen an extract from the Mercury, of Oct. 6, 1827, which shows that Broughton's gibbet-post was removed on the 27th of September in that year. I visited it about 1817, when the clothes were fluttering rags, and the Whitened bones could be seen. LEONARD : Have you ever seen the touching letter which Spence Broughton is said to have addressed to his wife on the eve of his execution ? It is as follows: " My dear Eliza,-This is the last affectionate token thou will ever receive from my hand, a hand that trembles at my approaching dissolution, so soon, so soon, so very soon to ensue. Before thou wilt open this last epistle of thine unfortunate husband, these eyes, which overflow with tears of contrition, shall have ceased to weep, and this heart now fluttering on the very verge of eternity shall beat no more. 1 have prepared my mind to meet death without horror, and ah, how happy, had that death been the common visitation of nature. Be not discomfited; God will be your friend. In the solitude of my cell, I have sought Him, His spirit hath supported me, hath assisted me in my prayers, and many a time in the moment of remorseful anguish bath whispered peace ; for, my dear Eliza, I never added cruelty to injustice. Yet, tho' I have resolved to meet death without fear, one part of my awful sentence, a sentence aggravated by being merited, chills me with horror when 1 reflect that my poor remains, the tokens of mortality, must not sleep in peace, but be buffeted about by the. storms of heaven and parched by the summer's sun, while the traveller shrinks at the sight with disgust and terror. This consideration freezes my blood. This cell, this awful gloom, these irons, yea, death itself is not so grievous. Why will the laws continue to sport with the wretched after life is at an end ? " My Eliza, my friend, my wife, the last sad scene approaches when I shall be no more ; leave the world and- thee, my dear, to its mercy. Not only thee, 'but my unprotected children, the pledges of a love, through misfortune, through dissipation, through vice and infamy, on thy part unchanged. Ah, fool that I was to think friendship could exist but with virtue. " Had I listened to the advice thou hast so often given me, we had been a family respectable and respected, but it is past. That advice hath been slighted. I am doomed to an ignominious death, and thou and my children, horrid thought! to infamy. To thee alone I trust the education of those illfated creatures, whom I now more than ever love and weep for. Warn them to avoid gaming of every description, that baneful vice which has caused their father to be suspended, a long and lasting spectacle to feed the eye of curiosity. Teach them the ways of religion in their early years. Cause them to learn some trade, that business and time may occupy the mind and leave no room for dissipation. When seated round your winter's fire, when the little innocents inquire after their unfortunate father, tell them gaming was his ruin ; he neglected all religious duties; he never conversed with his heart in solitude; he stilled the upbraidings of conscience in the company of the lewd and profligate, and is hung on high, a sad and dismal warning to after times. I see thee employed, while tears trickle down that face which I have so ill deserved. " Adieu, my Eliza, adieu for ever, the morning appears for the last time to these sad eyes. Pleasant would death be on a sick bed after my soul had made her peace with God. With God I hope her peace is made. He is. not a God of all terror, but a God of mercy. On that mercy I rely, and on the interposition of a Saviour. May my tears, my penitence, and deep contrition be acceptable to that Almighty Being before whom I am shortly to appear. "Adieu, my Eliza, adieu, farewell; the pen falls from my hand and. slumber overtakes me, the next will be the sleep of death. Farewell. " Yours in love. SPENCE BROUGHTON." TWISS: It is a touching letter and I see no reason to doubt its authenticity. WRAGG : There used to be some little shops at the bottom of New street, which have been rebuilt. A great guinea buyer lived at the bottom of that street. He let in Walker's bank for a large amount, and as that was followed by the burning down of the cotton mill it was a bad year for them. At the top of Hicks' lane was Wilkinson, a tooth drawer. A miser named Smith lived near, the beginning of whose wealth was receiving compensation for a boy who was killed in a coalpit. In North street was, 70 years ago, Daniel Hemming, who worked for Spurrs the cutlers. He was the first man who invented oval shields for pen-knife handles. 1 JOHNSON: New street boasted the possession of one of the town pumps ; it still stands in the bend, up the street. WRAGG: On a part of the site of the Surrey Music Hall (still standing in the ruin caused by the fire in 1865) was the uncle of the late Dr. G. C. Holland. To his trade the Doctor was at first brought up, and as a youth he might be seen there making wigs. EVERARD: George Calvert Holland was too remarkable a man to be passed over with a mere mention of that kind. The perseverance which enabled him to triumph over the disadvantages of a lowly origin, the scholarship which he snatched by his own hard industry, the romantic though painful vicissitudes of his life, and his genial personal presence alike point to him as an illustrious figure in the history of Sheffield during the earlier half of the present century. I do not know that his physical bearing can be better hit off than in the appreciative biographical sketch which appeared in the Independent at the time of his deathMarch, 1865. I should just like to read these sentences from among others: " The graceful courtesy of the man, the courtly kindliness of his greeting, and his never-failing refinement of thought, expression, and bearing marked him wherever he was as one who, despite his humble lineage, had received from Nature herself, and under her own hand and seal, the patent of a gentleman. His great acquirements as a scholar were borne without any of the scholar's pedantry. His arduous labours as an author, whose works are characterized by rare originality of thought, did not import into his manners any taint of the literary churl. Reverses of fortune that would have crushed a man of less powerful and less active intellect had no power either to crush or to sour him. His philosophic spirit stood by him through his declining health and ruined fortunes. The sentient marble of which he was moulded was of all too fine a grain to receive any stain from extrinsic surroundings, and when his duties as a public man called him to sit in an assembly notorious for the irritating acrimony and offensive coarseness in which some of its members indulged, his unruffled urbanity and unaffected elegance never failed to exhibit him in admirable relief as one who could better brook insult than brook the idea that any word or action of his should be unworthy of a gentleman and a scholar. When circumstances were against him he rose superior to circumstances. Those even whose acquaintance with him was of the slightest, will think of him with most respectful regret. His full grey eye, and thin intellectual face that spoke, before his tongue could speak it, a cordial greeting, will live in the memory of hundreds who were privileged with his acquaintance, and who felt in his society that when a man is moulded and tempered and endowed like him, the advantages of worldly circumstances are but as the tinselled rags which the superstitious hang upon the images of the saints in a misjudged attempt to do them honour." LEIGHTON: That is an admirable description of the man. I should like much to have my remembrance of the other parts of that notice revived. EVERARD: Mr. Leonard showed it to me and I doubt not he will read it to us. LEONARD : I will chiefly give you those parts which sketch Dr. Holland's personal history:-" Holland was born at Pitsmoor sixty-four years ago (this, you will remember, was written in 1865), when Pitsmoor was an outlying hamlet, and salmon were speared in the then clear waters of the Don. His father, a sawmaker, working with Kenyon and Go., gave the boy a fair education. The lad was not precocious. He was, happily for his future distinction, a child delighting in boyish sports, and manifesting no special aptitude either for learning or books. Nobody suspected him of superior ability, nor did he suspect it himself. At an early age he was apprenticed to an uncle, whose humble but honest business we need not indicate; suffice it to mention that it was a business of small profits and quick returns, and one which gave young Holland a fine opportunity for the study of physiognomy a nd for observing the remarkable variety which exists in the size and formation of human heads. In the olden times the perruquier was often a little of the surgeon -in modern times even he sometimes lapses into the ancient trade-and the boy who was to become an accomplished physician, made his first approach to the profession through the antique gateway. At sixteen an accident led him to test his mental powers. One Sunday morning he was taking a walk with a companion, who told him he had composed a hymn, and who read the verses to him for the purpose of obtaining his opinion on their merits. Young Holland was surprised at the talent of his youthful companion. The germ of a worthy ambition was quickened within him, and partly from curiosity as to his own qualifications and partly from a dimly dawning consciousness of dormant power, he resolved to try to write verses too. The result of this first essay in composition astonished himself as much as it did his friends; and from that time he became a regular contributor to the Poet's Corner in one of those weekly journals which were at that period the only newspapers published in the town. This was the turning point in his life. New aspirations were awakened within him, new tastes took posession of him. With all the ardour of youth and all the vivid appreciation which is felt by lads who are realising for the first time the flattering sense of superiority to their fellows, he became a reader. But no reader of novels was he. The most ponderous tomes of history, travel, and science were as novels to him, and he ransacked libraries with the delighted eye of an explorer who is meeting at every turn some new feature of what to him is a new world. His love of the classics caused him often to prolong his readings through the night. But he became dissatisfied with translations; he burned to read Virgil and Petrarch in their native tongue. Under difficulties which had about them strange elements of the grotesque, he-the sawmaker's son-set himself to acquire Latin, French, and Italian, and made such extraordinary progress as to become a marvel amongst all his acquaintances. His was the faith that worked miracles. He voyaged among strange fields of knowledge in the spirit of a discoverer, and valued most the acquisitions which at first seemed most remote. The uncle was by no means pleased with the boy's bravery. The love of knowledge had become an absorbing passion, and the plain tradesman gravely shook his head, and uttered his fears that no good would ever come of such a voracious consumption of books. But the youth had wiser friends, who lent him books, and frankly told him that he would wrong himself if he did not seek employment in some worthier calling than in his uncle's lowly trade. The first scheme of his friends was to procure for him an admission to the Unitarian College, but the want of the needful resources caused that project to break down. Happily he had a relation, a surgeon, who took a creditable interest in the splendid efforts at self-elevation that were being made by so promising a youth. It was arranged that the accomplished lad should go to Edinburgh and pre pare himself for taking his degree as Doctor of Medicine, and to Edinburgh he went. He spent three years in that city, making great progress in his studies, and becoming acquainted with and esteemed by the most rising men of the University. From the modern Athens he removed to Paris, where he diligently pursued his studies in anatomy, physiology, and pathology. Sensible of his vantage as a man of letters, he presented himself in Paris before the examiners for the degree of Bachelor of Letters, and was personally examined by the eminent Guizot, who 'bestowed on him special praise for his intimate acquaintance with the classics. After spending a year in Paris he returned to Edinburgh, where he completed his studies, and obtained his diploma as M.D. with great eclat. He then commenced practice in Manchester, became an active member of the learned bodies in that city, and made many friends among men of scientific and literary eminence. We have thus traced the sawmaker's son from the school to the shop-from the shop to the study-and from the study to the examination in which he earned the applause of the gifted professors of the Sorbonne, and we must now briefly sketch his professional life. " Young G. C. Holland, now M.D. and Bachelor of Letters, did not remain long in Manchester. His youthful susceptibility was wounded by a malignant allusion in one of the local papers to his humble antecedents, and he moved for a while to Edinburgh, where he pursued his experiments and researches for his first physiological work, 'An Experimental Inquiry into the Laws of Life.' After committing this important work to the press, he came to Sheffield, and commenced practising in his native town. The flattering reception his book met with in the medical reviews and the public press raised him in the estimation of his townsmen, and in the course of a few years his practice brought him in about £1400 a year. During this time he was elected one of the physicians to the Infirmaryoften lectured before the members of the Mechanics' Institution-was an active member of the Philosophical Society, and became its president. At the first borough election he was chairman for Mr. T. A. Ward; and at the second borough election he appeared on the hustings for Mr. S. Bailey, that gentleman having personally declined to contest the borough again. On all these occasions Dr. Holland displayed great activity of mind and often rose to a pitch of eloquence which surprised his contemporaries, and threw their oratorical efforts into the shade. During the agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws the Doctor made the serious mistake of joining the Protectionists. He became one of the lecturers, and had a discussion with Mr. Ackland, in the Theatre of this town. He had also a discussion with the veteran Free-trader, Mr. William Ibbotson, in the same place. This erratic course alienated the Doctor from many of his old friends, but the farmers around Doncaster acknowledged his brilliant services by presenting him with a purse containing 500 guineas. " When the railway speculation commenced in 1843 the Doctor went into it with all the spirit of his sanguine nature, and with considerable success. He was chairman of several companies, and a director of many more. He was also a director in the Sheffield and Retford Bank, and of another at Leeds. Unlike some other speculators, he held his stock too long. The crash came, and with it a writ from the London and Westminster Bank for £54,000. He had then given up his practice, and was living at Wadsley Hall in the style of a country gentleman. He was driven into bankruptcy, and retired to a small cottage near Worksop until his affairs were settled. There, in poverty and distress, he wrote his 'Philosophy of Animated Nature,' a work which he always considered as his best. He then tried his fortune in the metropolis, and, although a gentleman in manners, an author whose works had received the highest compliments from the highest authorities on the questions of which he had treated, he was lost in the modern Babylon, and, mortified at his illsuccess, he returned to Sheffield in 1851. On his return to his native town, it told against him that he countenanced and partially practised homoeopathy. Homoeopathy was heresy, and the orthodox in medicine, like the orthodox in divinity, look coldly on the heretically wicked. Indeed it is to be feared that an independence of mind which would not permit itself to be trammelled by routine, and a temperament which retained to the last the speculative and sanguine cast of his youth, did much to impede that practical recognition to which his extensive attainments and brilliant natural powers entitled him. Indeed a shade of sadness comes over us when we think of how much he has done for his age and how little the age has done for him We can count our doctors by the thousand, but when we are called upon to bury the author of ' The Philosophy of Animated Nature,' we are reminded that men so amiable, so learned, so gifted, and so passionately fond of curious research are public benefactors whose thoughts do not perish with them, and whose labours entitle them to be regarded as the philanthropists who bequeath to the world--- silver and gold indeed, but the mature fruits of the intellect with which they were endowed. Dr. G. Calvert Holland, formerly President of the Hunterian and Royal Physical Societies, Edinburgh, Bachelor of Letters of the University of Paris, author of 'An Experimental Inquiry into the Laws of Life,' ' Inquiry into the Principles and Practice of Medicine,' ' The Physiology of the Liver and Spleen,' ' The Vital Statistics of Sheffield,' ' The Philosophy of the Moving Powers of the Blood,' ' The Philosophy of Animated Nature,' and a little library of other works of the same high class, was no ordinary man. His address was worthy of his appearance, his bearing became his reputation, his reputation realized more than could even have been anticipated from his youthful promise, and the only thing to be regretted is, that when laden with honours and with years he did not reap a greater material reward." LEIGHTON : Thank you, I have enjoyed that much, for it is all very true. WRAGG: Robert Holland, the sawmaker, became at a late period of his life, after the manner of so many Sheffield artizans, the landlord of the Blue Boar, which has already been mentioned. George Holland, his brother, built the property at the top of Hicks lane. JOHNSON : In Hicks lane, lived a family that for several reasons must be noticed-the Mellons. Michael Mellon, the chimney sweeper, was well known; his grandson, Henry Mellon, gave us a remarkable instance of a selfmade man ; while the romantic story of one of the family becoming raised to the peerage as Duchess of St. Albans is too good to be lost. Mr. Holland* tells us that he wa's unable to remember the street in which Michael Mellon's rhyming invitation to customers was hung out on a swinging sign-board, but he fancied it was True Love's Gutter. Whether Mellon ever lived there or not he was certainly at one time a " character " in Westbar, with his bow-legs and his habits of insobriety, living, as I have said, in Hicks lane. The gravestone in the Churchyard, which Mr. Holland mentions, is over his wife Sarah, who died the 6th October, 1807, aged 42. There is some little vagueness as to the relationship of Harriet, the actress, who is said to have risen so high in the world, to this chimney-sweep, but the probability seems to be that she was his sister. It has been said she was his aunt, but that would make her too old to be the consort of the Duke of St. Albans, who was born in 1801. TWISS : Is not the story altogether apocryphal ? JOHNSON : I think not; at all events it is a very curious one, none the less curious from the doubt that hangs over it. If by any means the identity of Harriet, Duchess of St. Albans, with Harriet Mellon, of Hicks lane, could have been tested by a law court, the case would certainly have been remarkable. LEIGHTON : The Mellon family believed very firmly in the identity-though that, to be sure, is not much to go by. TWISS : And it was repudiated by the " other side." EVERARD : Mr. Holland, in the paper already mentioned, speaks of the relationship as an established fact, and the Rev. C. Collier in a " Notice of the Rev. Henry Mellon,'.' in the Reliquary for January, 1872 (Vol. xii., p. 152), says that of the relationship there can be but little doubt." JOHNSON : He also speaks of the Duchess as Henry Mellon's great-aunt, which, since Michael. was Henry's grandfather, confirms my belief that Harriet Mellon was Michael.'s sister. However, the story goes thus: Harriet Mellon went on the stage, and achieved a great success. A fine tribute to her acting is said to have occurred once at Liverpool. The character she was playing-that of a woman in the depths of poverty and distress-had to appeal for help against a remorseless bailiff. She acted the part with such feeling that a sailor in the audience rushed upon the stage to her assistance. TWISS : Similar stories have been told of many actors. LEONARD : What a sceptical mood you are in to-night! JOHNSON: On the London boards Miss Mellon made a conquest of Thomas Coutts, the banker, grandfather of the present Baroness Burdett Coutts, and after his death she TWISS: (aside) Being no doubt very wealthy JOHNSON : -Formed a second alliance with William Aubrey do Vere Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St. Albans, the father of the present Duke. EVERARD Then was she the mother of the present Duke ? JOHNSON No. There was no issue. The Duchess died August 6th, 1837. The Duke married again, and the present Duke and Lady Diana Huddlestone are the result of the alliance. LEONARD : I see Debrett describes the first Duchess as daughter of Matthew Mellon, gent." The marriage took place 16th June, 1827. EVERARD : It seems to me that Henry Mellon's career has something in it much worthier of family pride than this illmatched alliance with the aristocracy, and this relative who would never acknowledge the pit from which she was digged, nor lend a helping hand to those who were still floundering in it. But Henry Mellon did without her, though her persistent refusal to notice his application for the help necessary to obtain a university training was a great disappointment to him. TWISS: That he succeeded by self-help is all the more to his credit, and adds another to the eminent pupils who have conferred honour upon the Sheffield Boys' Charity School. EVERARD: The source of the following sketch of Henry Mellon's career I have already acknowledged. Mr. Collier tells us that Michael, the wit and public character, begat John, and John, " a good steady man, who followed his father's trade," begat Henry in 1818. His father dying early, the boy was placed in the Charity School. His studiousness and love of learning made its mark, and he became the head boy. He was, on leaving, apprenticed as silversmith to Mr. Samuel Roberts, the great patron of that school, but during his apprenticeship he showed a strong ecclesiastical bent, teaching in Garden street Sunday School, and helping the clergymen at the Parish Church at the Sunday afternoon baptisms. What was of more importance, he studiously increased the knowledge already acquired, devoted himself to Hebrew, and ransacked the Mechanics' Library for works on poetry and history. Ultimately he became a student at the Church Missionary College, Islington; passed through the course with diligence, and was ordained by the Bishop of London after a creditable examination. " What a strange transformation in a few years," says Mr. Collier-" a chimney sweeper's child -a poor charity boy, with his yellow stockings and leather breeches-an apprentice boy, with an apron tied round his waist-now the accomplished Rev. Henry Mellon. He was in every way worthy of his position. With an open, ruddy countenance, and a clear brow, he had a voice of fair compass, a graceful bearing, an entire absence of patois in his speech, an unassuming manner, and remarkable powers of conversation. I shall never forget when he occupied the pulpit in the church where he had sat as a charity boy, and where I heard his first sermon in his native town. Those who knew him as a boy, and many such were present, could hardly realise in the graceful preacher the poor lad born in the depths of obscurity and poverty." After a brief missionary career in India, where he lost his wife, the Rev. Henry Mellon returned to England, held curacies in Cornwall and Oxford, and eventually settled at Wadsley. " Poor fellow! His day was soon over. His sun set early. He died in his 32nd year (1849), and was buried in the churchyard of Wadsley." I have omitted Mr. Collier's estimate of his characteristics as a preacher, and the description of his keen appreciation of nature, since the work in which these occur is readily accessible. WRAGG: It is hardy needful, I suppose, to recall the old Workhouse, standing out between the bottom of the croft or lane to which it gave a name, and Silver street. Yet one ought not to pass over that old and familiar landmark of byegone days, any more than we should omit to shed a tear in sympathy with the adjacent pump, bereft of all its utility, except as a preaching rostrum. JOHNSON: It was put up by the Town Trustees, who wisely purchased the site of the old workhouse, to keep the space open. WRAGG Neddy Furniss" was a Westbar worthy. He was a prosperous shoemaker, who left his property to his niece, already spoken of as the wife of Mr. H. A. Bacon, of Snig hill. LEONARD : Near Furniss's shop was a celebrated gardener, named Thomas Burgin, who died in 1819. WRAGG : He was, I believe, the father of the late Mr. William Burgin, the gardener, whose shop stood on the site of Mr. Sharman's grocery shop at the top of Corporation street. His was the garden near Brightside Vestry Hall, and his the orchard in Harvest lane that was such a grand sight when its fruit trees were in blossom. The Burgins were a family of gardeners. I have counted as many as four of them in the Directory published 1828. One of the buildings destroyed in making Corporation street was the shop of the late Mr. John Gaunt, grocer. On his retirement from business he removed to Darnall. He gave the site of St. Jude's Church, and afterwards paid largely towards its erection. He was from the neighbourhood of Penistone-I think Denby, where there are now some of the family. It is said one of the Gaunts at Denby can show the family descent from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Mr. Joseph Gaunt, the scale cutter, of Pea croft, is a cousin of the late grocer, and 1 would also add, the Gaunts of Leeds, are of the same family. JOHNSON: There are many other names well known in Sheffield that might be mentioned in connection with West bar, though this would bring us' to times more recent than we profess to take cognizance of. There was Mr. John Turton, the surgeon (see p. 42.); John Spink, the pawnbroker, who, marrying the niece of the owner of the property, turned Benjamin Fox out of the shop where the ruined Casino now stands ; Benjamin Smilter, father of the present High Bailiff; Francis Cluley, the earliest surgical instrument maker, who was next door to the " Old Tankard," removing thence to Surrey street. WRAGG: The " Old Tankard," by the way, was once kept by Jonathan Moore, one of the subjects of Mather's virulent songs. TWISS: And it is pertinent to the locality to remark that Mather himself is said to have been born about the year 1737, in Cack Alley, a passage or "jennel" leading from Westbar green to Lambert street. LEONARD: The house of Mr. Popplewell, currier, close to the " Old Tankard," bears date 1794. JOHNSON: Then there was William Marshall, ironmonger and paper dealer, on the site of the Surrey Vaults, at the head of Workhouse lane; the Dickensons and the Spurrs, connected by marriage with the Mellons; Christopher Marshall, the pawnbroker; George Shalleross, the miller, to long and honourably associated with Red Hill Sunday school. These and many others might be dwelt on were it not going too far out of the record. LEIGHTON: You are all familiar with the palisaded house at the bottom of Lambert street, now occupied by Mr. Watts, clasp manufacturer-a business carried on there for many years. Long ago it was the residence of Capt. Chisholm. The workshops behind have been long used by coffin makers, and there is a story of an escaped debtor from Scotland street gaol finding secure refuge in one of those ghastly structures. And this reminds me of other whimsicalities of the neighbourhood-of the old lady living at the top of Bower spring, who had such a mania for storing farthings, that after her death they were found hidden about the house in barrows full ; or of " Sally Platts," the robust gardener's wife of 16 stone weight and 87 years of age, who began life as the only survivor of ten children produced at one birth, and who was currently reported to have been put into a quart pot in those days of innocent infancy. The name of her mother who achieved the feat of ten children at a birth was Ann Birch. Then there was Molly Revill, the celebrated oat-cake maker, on the site of the shops now occupied by Councillor Searle and Mr. Miller, chemist. EVERARD: George Harrison, a table-blade forger in Lambert street, was- long a local preacher among the Independents-indeed he and " Bishop" Bower were the last of the old generation on the " plan." He was a member of Garden street chapel when the Rev. Mark Docker was there, and was one of the founders of Mount Zion chapel. WRAGG: In Lambert street, or Lambert croft (Scotland street was formerly called Lambert Knott) the Tillotson family were located before they removed to Coalpit lane. TWISS: There is a curious story told of the manner in which the further part of Westbar was raised to its present level. At one time, it is said, that portion between Westbar green and Gibraltar street was so low, that a person standing at the bottom of Furnace hill might with ease have leapt upon a load of hay passing down the street. There was then a converting furnace at the bottom of the hill, which was worked with only one box or pot. By some mismanagement the whole mass of iron was melted together in one huge solid block of steel, there being in the furnace at the time some ten tons of metal. Nothing could be done with this when it was cold, and after it had lain in the yard a great number of years, proceedings began to be taken for filling up the road below. The best employment that could be thought of for the mass of steel, was to let it go towards filling up the road. The tradition has been handed down by very old men, and if there be any truth in it the steel is still there, waiting to astonish some antiquaries of the future. WRAGG: The Bower' spring troughs were reputed to contain the best drinking water in the town. It came from Furnace hill, as was proved when Messrs. Hudson & Clarke erected their engine. That stopped the water, and Messrs. Gaunt & Turton's works were then built where the troughs had been. JOHNSON: It was Mr. Turton who built the Bower spring works in the old Workhouse gardens, leaving Mr. Gaunt on Furnace hill. This would be between the years 1825-8. The history of Mr. Gaunt's business is worth tracing. it was sold to Richard Griffiths, who, having come to the town from his native Wales as a carter to Brittain and Wilkinson's, of Carver street, got initiated into the mysteries of steel converting, and ultimately became manager at Sanderson's. His son, for whom the business was intended, died; his son in-law let it slip, and it was sold to Thomas Gatley, the son of a gardener at Attercliffe who had kept one of the stalls on the King street side of the market. Young Gatley was himself apprenticed to Isaac Deakin, penblade maker (sonin-law of George Merrill, fork maker, Harvest lane), and afterwaxds had a scrap shop in Gibraltar street, near " The Cherry Tree," Then he was at the bottom of Furnace hill, late Mr. Joshua Wortley's. Having acquired money he bought Gaunt's business, and subsequently sold it to Mr. Wm. Jackson, Sheaf Island Works. He acquired much of the property about here. Like so many other worthies whom we have had to notice, Mr. Gatley was connected with Queen street chapel-until 1834, when he seceded and was the means of establishing Mount Zion chapel, the congregation of which met in a room over a shop in Carver lane while the chapel was building. LEIGHTON : Furnace hill was formerly called " t' Cock Tail;" I haven't the remotest notion why. " The Cock Tail lady" was celebrated by Mather; and " Buck Hathard," the son of a tailor, was also one of the " characters" it produced. Mr. Peech, a scissor manufacturer here, was the father-in-law of Henry Steel, who has made himself a name among the frequenters of the turf, and " t' Cocktail" had the honour of contributing a soldier to the Life Guards in the person of Samuel Wragg, who, and his son as well, was a cutler hare. WRAGG: The Quaker family, the Broadheads, have been associated with Westbar and the neighbourhood throughout the present century. Mr. John Broadhead, then a maltster, was in Scotland street, next door to the chapel. Then he came to the bottom of Furnace hill, subsequently crossing to the other side of Westbar, where the grocer's shop has been ever since. Mr. John Broadhead died in 1838. It is a little singular that not only did his son Alfred succeed to his own grocery business, but that four of his five daughters married grocers. JOHNSON: Two trade notes may be made here. One is that " frame polishing" may be said to have had its birth in Furnace hill-that is polishing spring knives without the aid of steam or water power. It was originated by Mark Blackwell (landlord of " The Grapes") and his brother George, by way of resisting a strike of the grinders. And it succeeded too. The other is that the first nail cut in Sheffield is said to have been made down the yard by the " Dog and Partridge," the old public-house almost opposite to the bottom of the hill. WRAGG: The Andrew family is closely identified with this locality. Old Joseph Andrew was a prosperous grocer and tallow chandler in Furnace hill before this century began. Three of his sons, Isaac, Matthew and Joseph, were grocers, the first-named in Westbar at the corner of Hicks lane, the second in Charles street, and the third, first (1825) in Paradise square and afterwards (1833) in Westbar green. Two other sons, twins, were William Henry and Albert George. They succeeded to the business of Messrs. George Butler and Co., spring knife cutlers, in Trinity street, which was afterwards removed to Trinity works, Eyre street, the old premises becoming Mr. Longden's foundry. Isaac Andrew was, in his later years, blind. His brother Joseph was the father of John Henry Andrew, steel manufacturer, a member of the present Corporation, and of Mrs. Crowther, Fargate. The Butlers employed a larger number of men than any other house in the trade when the " statements" of 1810 and 1814 were made. TWISS: Towards the end of the last century all these streets running up the hill were thickly occupied by manufacturers. A familiar name among them is that of Daniel Doncaster, who, in 1787, was a filesmith in Copper street. In 1817 he was carrying on the same business in Allen street, while in 1821 the names of William and John take the place of that of Daniel, and in 1828 William alone. Then, in 1833 another Daniel had joined William, and in 1841 he carried on the business alone in Doncaster street and Copper street, and continued to do so until joined by his sons. It is said that Daniel Doncaster the elder bought a field opposite his Allen street works for a sum far below what one year's ground rents now amount to ; while you are no doubt aware that Daniel Doncaster the younger married the daughter of him who owned so much property in that neighbourhood that his name, Allen, was given to the street. WRAGG: In Cross Smithfield was established, somewhere about the middle of last century, the business now carried on in Sycamore street by Mr. Thomas Wilson, the grandson of its founder. The germs of the business seem to have been laid by old Thomas Wilson at Ran Moor or Hallam. He was one of the enterprising men who first saw the possibility of dispensing with factors and of opening up connections of his own without the intervention of a middle-man. Determining to offer his knives-shoemakers' and butchers'-for sale himself, he packed up his goods and took them on his back into Lancashire. Wherever he sold any knives, he told the purchasers he should come again at a fixed period of time, and if the article did not suit he would return the money. On his next journey he had no complaints, but so much greater demand that some of the retail shops would have purchased the whole of his stock, but he kept to his promise to the others. He readily sold all he had taken, and soon returned home to manufacture more goods with which to complete his journey. This was the first time that the trade mark of the Four Peppercorns and a Diamond with the name " Wilson" went into the market; now it is a guarantee of good quality in all the countries of the world. LEIGHTON: Steadfast to their old localities in Snow hill are Richard Groves & Sons, perhaps the oldest saw manufacturers in the town. Mr. Groves, the grandfather of the present firm, always had an open Bible before him on his work-board. JOHNSON : A very old workman for that firm was the father of the late Mr. Hebblethwaite, who survived his son and lived to a great age. LEONARD: Talking of saw-makers reminds me that Spear and Jackson were in Gibraltar street-a few doors on the town side of the old Lancasterian schools-before they went into Saville street. EVERARD : All book-worms will remember that favourite resort just by-Mr. Joseph Pearce's book shop. At one time it was on the premises now occupied by John Gartside Elliott, a son of Ebenezer Elliott, the druggist, who is famed for his prescriptions for children's disorders. Afterwards Mr. Pearce went into the shop which is now Hardy's furniture store. LEONARD: The name of Ebenezer Elliott calls up remembrances of those days when he occupied the steel warehouse between the bottom of Snow hill and Trinity street. It was in 1833 that Elliott came to Gibraltar street, removing from Burgess street, where he had been in business as an iron and steel merchant since 1821. While here he built himself a house at Upperthorpe. In 1837, a commercial revulsion began, and Elliott used to say that he ought to have retired from business then, as he once intended. But being afraid of leading an idle life, "which being interpreted," said he, " means my unwillingness to resign the profits of business," he waited for the crash and " lost fully one-third of his savings, and after enabling his six sons to quit the nest, got out of the fracas with about £6000." However, as he pleasantly explained, he had his compensations, for " Had I built my house on my land at Foxley, three miles from Sheffield, as I proposed to do in 1836, I should now have been liable to be dragged into public meetings, subscriptions, &c., and deluged with the visits of casual strangers, as I was at Upperthorpe. Here, out of the way of great temptations, and visited only by persons who respect me (alas, by how few of them!) I can perhaps live within my reduced income." That was written from Argilt hill, Great Houghton, whither, as you all know, he had retired in 1841. He reckoned that he had paid about £18 per acre for his land, and that his rental did not stand at more than twenty guineas. In a letter to Mr. Tait, which shows the poet in one of his pleasantest moods, he gave a lively description of his household and his family. " My establishment is illustrious for a St. Bernard dog, and a Welsh pony, the observed of all observers, which, in its green old age of twenty years,, draws a small gig, both untaxed. I also run my only Sheffield carriage, the wheelbarrow, besides a pony cart ; and I have set up a grindstone. Conceive of me, then, possessed of a mare, gig and harness, which with repairs cost altogether £8. 10s. Od. ; a dog almost as big as the mare and much wiser than his master; a pony cart, a wheelbarrow, and a grindstoneand turn up your nose if you like " LEIGHTON: One sometimes thinks of Elliott as having retired rather early, since he was only twenty years in business in Sheffield. But that is because one forgets he was forty years of age when he came here. JOHNSON : That was a very sad story that appeared some time ago about the death of one of his sons. LEONARD: Yes, that was-his second son, Benjamin Gartside, of whom, in the letter I have before quoted from, Elliott wrote: " My son Benjamin, unwarned by his father's losses, is carrying on a steel trade in Sheffield in my old premises, where (as he thinks, poor fellow I for lie is a great hoper) he has some prospect; in any other country he would already have made an independency. He endures privations such as no man of his pretensions ought to endure anywhere, and such as no man will here endure if free-trade be obtained before all is lost. He is a fine young man, upwards of six feet high, of superior abilities and the highest moral worthbut, alas! not unindebted to his grandmother!" EVERARD: That last reference is to a nervous temperament and "body-consuming sensibilities" which Elliott himself always said he derived from his mother, whose life was 64 a continuous disease." LEIGHTON : Do you remember the particulars of Benjamin Elliott's death ? LEONARD : It occurred in December, 1867. Eleven years previously, on the death of his aunt Gartside, who left him her property, he gave up business and went to live in her house at Shiregreen-as charming a country retreat as could be desired. But it would seem his solitary life at the steel warehouse, where he had lived entirely by himself, had engendered in him misanthropic habits which he could not shake off-possibly he had no disposition to try. The garden was entirely neglected. Little by little every vestage of glass disappeared from the windows, the shutters were kept constantly closed, and Mr. Elliott lived in a small kitchen at the back, his only companion being a dog. His milk and other necessaries were handed in to him at the door, which he opened no further than to admit them. On two mornings in the winter of the year I have named, the door never opened for the reception of the milk, and on the night of the second the place was forced open, and there the recluse was found, stark and stiff, under the sinkstone, dressed only partially in trousers and shirt, his boots unlaced and without stockings. The room was covered in all directions with papers and memoranda. His seat had been a cast iron chair, his bed a sofa. An old printing press, some old arms, crockery, tools and other articles were strewn around in admired confusion, while on the mantelpiece w as a memorandum, " That the Greeks were an intellectual but not a polite nation." Near the couch was a copy of Mrs. Shelley's " Frankenstein," so worn as to lead to the supposition that its gloomy fancies had been congenial to him. The other part of the house, with its books, its furniture and its paintings, was in good order and condition. It is said that Benjamin Elliott bore a strong resemblance to his celebrated father, and he had the reputation among his friends of being a man of superior attainments and 2 me cultivation. Formerly he had been a contributor of both prose and poetry to a serial publication. An old friend who visited him a few months before his death, and who excited intense amazement among the neighbours by obtaining, after some delay, admission to the house, wrote: " If I had seen poor Ben in a forest 1 should have taken him to be a wild man-his hair and beard I should say had not come in contact with comb and scissors for years ; his apparel was a pair of very shabby trousers, destitute of buttons and fastened with twine, and a coloured woollen shirt. He wore no coat or waistcoat. I stayed with him a little over an hour, and was much surprised at his cheerful and jocular conversation. He told me many anecdotes of his father, such as how he thrashed a certain reverend gentleman who insulted him in his office in Gibraltar street, &c. I asked him how he passed his time ? He replied, chiefly in meditation, as his eyes were so bad he could not comfortably either read or write for long together. 1 told him I thought he was doing very wrong, both to himself and others, to shut himself from society in the way he did. He replied he was quite happy and comfortable, and he wished people to let him alone." I should add that he was sometimes heard humming cheerful airs or singing " Auld Lang Syne," and that he had not altogether lost interest in the affairs of the outer world, since he was a regular reader of newspapers, and he had journeyed to Sheffield at the county election of 1865 to vote for Milton and Beaumont. LEIGHTON : The old Lancasterian school-before that a riding school, as its rough interior will enable you readily to believe-has broken out into shops since the new schools were built in Bowling green street. Some seventy or eighty years ago, or so, that building and the " Water-house" at the bottom of Allen lane, where the Burkinshaws were accustomed to preside over the sale of water by the bucketful, were the extremity of the town in this direction. On the premises last mentioned, the wooden water pipes, which may occasionally be seen when the Company is making repairs, wore bored by hand. Some of them were taken up from Broad lane only a short time ago. JOHNSON: That property was sold by the Duke of Norfolk to Mr. Matthewman and the original proprietors of the Water Company, and it was in their possession in 1741. It was afterwards sold to Lawyer Hoyle, and then to its present occupier, Mr. Laycock. LEONARD : We have been traversing Westbar and the streets which run down the hill to the left, and have necessarily had to leave, for the time being, the district ' on the right, which includes Spring street and other places productive of much old-world gossip. Suppose, therefore, we now turn back to that ? WRAGG: A prominent firm in Spring street was that of the Baileys. The late Mr. Samuel Bailey's father, Mr. Joseph Bailey, carried on business at the top of Workhouse lane, now the Surrey Vaults. LEONARD : Suppose we go further back still-to the time of Mr. Samuel Bailey's grandfather-Matthias Bailey, who married Elizabeth Wood, at Ecelesfield, on Christmas day, 1733, and who, for many years afterwards lived at Masbro', and was employed in some responsible capacity in the works of the Messrs. Walker of that town. " They were" it has been written 'I plain, honest, hardworking people ; their lasses went out to service, and the lad Joseph was put apprentice to a scissor-smith. When he had served his time he commenced business in Sands pavours, in Bow street, afterwards removed to the premises in Workhouse lane, and finally built the works in Spring street, the firm being then Bailey, Eadon and Bailey, factors and merchants." Joseph Bailey married Mary, the daughter of old John Eadon, of the Free Writing School, and Samuel Bailey was their youngest child. The Eadon in the firm was John, the elder son of the same John Eadon, and was consequently Joseph Bailey's brother-in-law. WRAGG: The Spring street premises of the Baileys were* at the corner of Love street. Spring street, once called Brick lane (1736), took its name from a well in Bailey's yard, and people used to fetch the water to boil greens, &c., as there was believed to be none like it. From little to more Joseph Bailey increased in wealth, built Burn Greave, and in the year 1801 was Master Cutler.' He was one of the first merchants in Sheffield who traded with America. By thrift, economy, and industry, he amassed a fortune, which, with good using, has enabled his youngest son to leave £100,000 to his native town. It is not necessary to dwell on that son's achievements as a philosophical writer. LEIGHTON : Nor on his poetic effusions EVERARD : HOW? Samuel Bailey a poet? LEONARD: There is very good reason for believing that he was the author of " Maro," an anonymous poem published by Longmans, in 1845. It is a satire in verse, for it can hardly be called a poem. It has none of the imagination of poetry, as you may well suppose. WRAGG : Samuel Bailey ought to have been the first parliamentary representative of Sheffield. I once asked a table blade forger, who was perhaps the most intelligent man in the trade, how he could account for Mr. Bailey having only 812 votes, instead of being, as he ought to have been, at the head of the poll, or close behind the late Thos. Asline Ward, with the distant candidates nowhere. He replied that he believed the circumstance of Mr. Bailey's having been a factor prejudiced the townsfolks' minds against him. LEONARD : How could that be? WRAGG: There had been a system, which was then just about dying out, of factors forcing stuff, that is to say goods, which they had themselves taken in exchange from manufacturers instead of payment in money. It was called " stuffing," or " taking up," and related chiefly to drapery and tea. The Baileys had, rightly or wrongly, the reputation of carrying the obnoxious system to a great extent. LEIGHTON: The evil of the plan was the severity and injustice with which it pressed on the workmen. It was a system of "passing on" from one to another, and the people who could not " pass it on" any further were the victims. JOHNSON: I see. The customers passed goods on to the factors, the factors to the manufacturers, and the manufactturers to the workmen. WRAGG: Quite so. LEONARD: The late Mr. John Holland has recorded, in one of his numerous anonymous papers, that the practice existed at Beilby and Proctor's, as well as at other firms. " Taking up," he explained, was obtaining on credit, with the employer's order, various articles of food, especially cheese and tea, and every description of clothing. This " stuffing" was not only compulsory, but the prices charged were generally exorbitant; of course they were paid for by a " setting-up," or weekly instalments, or stoppages on the cash side of the wages' book. This was convenient to the employer as a mode of barter between him and the merchant with whom lie dealt, and both made an unfair profit by it, and it tethered the workman by a perpetual debt. WRAGG: In those days merchants, or rather factors, for that was their name then, had signs on their premises stating that they held licences to sell tea or spirits. The last signs in the town were those of Hoult, Rowbotham, Wingfield and Wade, (it was over the archway), and on the premises of Mr. Lockwood, in Arundel street; and these were kept up long after the practice had fallen into abeyance. The firm of Harwood and Thomas, whose premises were in George street, now L the Sheffield Banking Co., had a room properly fitted up with shelves and counter like a regular draper's shop. TWISS : I am sure nothing disreputable could be affirmed either of that firm, or of Hoult, Rowbotham and Co. LEONARD : There were, I have been told, special circumstances connected with Harwood and Thomas's business-for instance, that Mr. Lewis Thomas, who was for many years a member of Queen street Church, was brought up as a draper. It is true that they had a large room (corresponding, 1 believe, in size with the principal business room of the Bank before it was enlarged-it used to be called the Old Coffee House) fitted up as a draper's shop. WRAGG: My father has taken tea in this way at twelve shillings per pound. LEONARD: No doubt there would be unscrupulous firms then as ever, and 1 do not defend the system, for it was open to the abuses we still see in districts where " truck" persists in surviving. It was well that it should be stopped, but it is only fair to show that something, as I heard from a friend a few days ago, can be said in defence, and that some of the houses were honourable enough to act fairly. My informant said, " The house in which I was an apprentice was in the country trade, as distinguished from the foreign merchants, and had a good share of the Sheffield trade with Belfast. To promote it they frequently had one or more hogsheads of hams or boxes of linen. We also kept black and green tea. All these were sold at fair prices, with very little pressure, if any, on the cutlers to buy them." LEIGHTON: Bad as it was there is more to be said for this system than for the " swag-shops," whose operation was irredeemably evil. These were simply establishments that preyed on the misfortunes of others, their chief victims being 'I little mesters" in difficulties. When short of ready money, and without any immediate market for their goods, they sold them to the swag-shops at, of course, a large per centage of loss. But what was worse than this, unscrupulous factors' buyers or " devils," would make excuses to reject goods they had ordered when brought in, with the deliberate purpose of forcing the makers to the swag-shops, and of buying them thence themselves at a lower price. EVERARD : The " stuffing" system was an abominable one, and it was carried out with a great amount of fraud and extortion ; but it may be said that commercial intercourse was not then out of swaddling clothes. The system was to some extent a natural result of the infancy of trade, and was an artificial attempt to overcome the difficulties of circulating goods. In these clays it has been long superannuated. JOHNSON : Our present complicated and wonderful trading system was not made in a day. It is going further back than the " stuffing" system, but let me read you this description of the infancy of the Sheffield trade:-" Formerly the manufacturers had no trade connections, but depended entirely upon persons coming to the town to purchase the articles manufactured. These traders were called ' chaps or chapmen,' and were mostly Scotch or Irish, with some English. Their chief resort was Tommy Rose's, The Bird-in-hand, Church lane. The house. stood where the Cutlers' Hall in part now stands. They generally had with them two, three, or more packhorses for the conveyance of the goods purchased. When a ' chap' arrived, the ostler went round to each of the manufacturers to inform him of the fact, and each gave him a penny for his information and trouble. An old man said, 'Oive been raand wi'him mony a toime, when oi war a lad, aboon 70 year sin.' Sometimes there were two' three, or four 'chaps' in the house at one time, and each had a separate room for 'business. The cutlers waited until all was ready and then went upstairs ' i' their kales.' If they bargained they left the goods and took the money home with them. The house was sometimes quite crowded. There wore other houses in the town which travellers or " chaps' frequented upon the same business, but none was as popular as Tommy Rose's. This was a very precarious way of doing business. As the makers had the materials to find, as well as the labour, it put them to great inconvenience and caused many families to suffer great privations during the time they had the goods in hand. To remove this difficulty the Cutlers' Company frequently advanced money on goods deposited with them without any interest being charged. This was always thankfully accepted until the goods could find a market. In 1768, the Town Trustees let out £200 to twenty scissorsmiths, upon bond in small sums. In 1741, Sir Fras. Sitwell bequeathed £400 to the Cutlers' Company, to be let out in sums not exceeding £5 to any necessitous member or other inhabitant. It is remarkable there is no account of this in the Company's books, although there are persons now living who can remember their fathers having received money from this source. These benevolences assisted the trade a great deal, for if a person had a stock of goods he could not dispose of, Le could take them to the Cutlers' Hall and deposit them there until he found a market. Tommy Rose's being next the Cutlers' Hall, where the` chaps' usually put up, the goods were easily removed if wanted. 11 In the year 1710, a person of the name of Wright introduced the first stage waggon. Before that all public travelling was equestrian, and the conveyance of all bulk and weight was effected by carriage as distinguished from draught. The burden was fitted to the animal's back-which not unfrequently was ill-fitted to bear it-and shambling along cross roads, fording rivers, and climbing steeps, the jaded brute day by day pursued his wearied route. In those days a busy street at dawn would present an appearance only now to be seen in Cairo, or some other Eastern city, when a caravan is preparing to start on its journey-only here, horses or mules, instead of camels or asses, were the beasts. Often a train of not fewer than fifty in number were being laden-the majority with the heavy produce of the manufactories, others with market stock, live and dead-grain and poultry, and vegetables, and even pigs. At last when all was ready, the bells tinkled, and human beings poured forth from the inn. These consisted of travellers and their friends, and merchants who, either accompanying their wares or on some other business, were journeying to the capital. Perched on high, amidst boxes and bundles, were children and women, old men and maidens, leaving amidst the tears of their acquaintance; whilst the more active of the men were either starting on foot, or more easily bestriding a beast which had some appearance of saddle and pillion on its back. The orders for march being given, onward they moved through the town, into the country, over roads on which a track was paved for the especial use of the pack-horse train; but lanes also had to be traversed, in which holes constantly occurred, producing violent shocks. Across swamps, where the sagacity of the animals had to be trusted, across swollen rivers where the women and the live stock were alike alarmed, the cavalcade at last reached its longed-for halting place for the night. Until 1747, or thereabouts,. there was no travelling from hence to sell goods or solicit orders." WRAGG : But we are wandering away from Spring street. It runs through what was once " Norris' field"-so called from the owner, Mr. Norris, who lived, as has been said, in Westbar. Old Mr. Oakes, who has been mentioned as still living, and keeping a tobacconists' shop in Westbar, was formerly a whitesmith, in Spring street, as was his father before him. Their shop was under Hirst's school, and from thence he can remember to have seen right across Norris' field and Colson crofts-then really fields, with a footpath through them-to the river, over which he could see persons crossing by a wooden bridge into the Bridgehouses, before the old iron bridge was erected. I have mentioned Hirst's school. It was opposite the bottom of Hicks lane, and was kept by the late Mr. Thomas Hirst, surveyor, who died in Fargate, and by his father. Between Hicks lane and Workhouse lane was Mr. Benjamin Vickers, who was Master Cutler in 1799. He was uncle to the then Mr. Vickers of Mill Sands, and granduncle to the late (1872-3) Master Cutler, Mr. T. E. Vickers. LEIGHTON : The " Blue Pig," in Spring street, formerly the Boar, is an old publichouse. It was kept many years ago by Mr. John Hawke, whom Mather attacked. Subsequently it was occupied by Mr. Webster and Mr. John Ellis. LEONARD: It has been stated that at one time the late James Dixon, of Page Hall, lived in Spring street, next door to the Ball Inn, in a house the rent of which was £9 per annum. That was before he went into partnership with Mr. Smith-Smith and Dixon the firm was at first. WRAGG: Spring street was the birthplace of a man whose history is a curious illustration of the vicissitudes of families-I mean the late Mr. William Stratford. He was born on the property of the Mr. Hirst already mentioned, in what is now the back part of the Bird-in-the-Hand beerhouse. He was the nineteenth in descent from John Stratford of the Parliament of Edward II., 1320, and the head of the pedigree; and by a subsequent marriage of John Stratford, who died in 1533, with a lineal descendant of William de Traci, one of the four knights who murdered Thomas A'Becket, the late William Stratford was descended both from the Dukes of Normandy and the ancient Saxon Kings of England. TWISS : How is that? WRAGG: William de Traci was a descendant of Ethelred the Unready, and of Queen Emma, daughter of the third Duke of Normandy, and by a series of strange events, the William Stratford in whom we are interested came to be the male representative of all the other Stratfords. The family decline began with Walter Stratford, of Farm Cote, Gloucester, William Stratford's great grandfather. There have been ,several causes assigned for his becoming reduced-as that he re-built the family mansion in a style too costly for his means, considering the largeness of his family, for by his first wife he had three children, and by the second ten. Only three of the thirteen children married, and of these the ninth and youngest son alone, George Stratford, continued the family line. EVERARD : William, Stratford's grandfather? WRAGG: Yes. Leaving the neighbourhood of his birth when his father got into straitened circumstances, he sold the estate, and, after living at various places, settled in Henley-in-Arden, where he had a corn-mill. But nothing prospered with him. He had two sons, Thomas and John, both of whom were apprenticed to the well-known Matthew Boulton, of the Soho, Birmingham. John served his legal apprenticeship, and was at the Soho when the celebrated James Watt joined Boulton, and it is said that John Stratford was the only person who could understand Watt's curious pronunciation of English. Boulton and Watt sent him to the Gregory Mine, Ashover, with one of their engines, to drain a lead mine on the estate of the late celebrated Sir Joseph Banks. This was in 1783, and after remaining at Ashover until 1800, he removed to London, and became the engineer to the New River Company. LEONARD : But how about Spring street ? WRAGG : I now come to that in the person of Thomas Stratford, the other apprentice of Boulton's, and with him our local interest in the family begins. Before his term of apprenticeship had expired he enlisted-not from dissipation, but because he was a man of lofty spirit and keen sensibilities. Mr. Boulton obtained his discharge, but he enlisted again in the artillery, and was discharged on the peace that resulted in the declaration of American Independence. He married a Birmingham woman, named Kelsey, and came to live in Sheffield-in Spring street, as already stated. From what I have heard, he and his wife would seem to have been the most singularly matched couple in the town. He was a wellformed man, 5 feet 10 inches, with red hair, and quite a gentleman in appearance, whilst his wife was a little, stumpy, thick-set woman, the darkest complexion ever seen not actually black, yet all their children were light complexioned. Mrs. Stratford, however, was very kind-hearted and amiable. Her husband worked for the firm of Barber and Genn, fender manufacturers, Spring street, and did jobs at home for Mr. George Oates, of the Wicker, and also for Mr. Linley, of Spring street, in ornamenting scissors, now done by grinders at the wheel. He was one of the first to join the Sheffield Volunteers, at their original formation, and he was one of those who found their own clothes. Mr. Linley, for whom he worked at home, was Master Cutler in 1797. On the feastday he remarked that Mr. Linley had not invited him to the feast. His wife replied, "Thee works for Mr. Linley, and as such thee't a working man." He sharply replied, " I'm as good as any man who will be there." His wife was accustomed to remark to her children that their father looked what he ought to be-a gentleman, and she seems to have cherished the hope that the family would be restored to its former position. EVERARD : I should imagine that his family pride would keep him somewhat aloof from his fellow-workmen. WRAGG : It did, and his respectable manner of conducting himself seems to have been specially offensive to some of them. In a very depressed state of trade, when Barber and Genn gave numbers of people warning, Thomas Stratford was amongst them. This discharge from employment sorely pinched him, and as a last resort, he undertook the menial work of assisting masons. Not being accustomed to the labour, and getting wet, he was seized with rheumatic fever, and never perfectly recovered. He died in 1808, in the 48th year of his age, and was buried in the Parish Churchyard, near to the Girls' Charity School. EVERARD : It is a very sad history. WRAGG: Now for the late William, Stratford. He was the eldest son of this Thomas Stratford, and was brought up as a silver-smith. He served his time as a candlestick hand, but afterwards he was a spinner. He had a brother, Thomas, who, although he had lost a leg, was the leader of all kinds of rough play. He died a young man. Their sister married Mr. B. Hinchliffe, whose son, Mr. T. 0. Hinchliffe, is now in Garden street. William Stratford married a daughter of William Gray, and had a son and a daughter; the son a silversmith in New Church street; the daughter married Frederick Withy Horsfield, the son of an apprentice of the late Robert Waterhouse's father, and the nephew of the historian of Lewes. The Horsfield family, which has been several times mentioned, is an old one. It was seated at Halifax, and had a grant of arms. I believe the Waterhouse family sprang from a person in Lincolnshire, and removed to Halifax. The present representative of the family is Major Waterhouse, of Well head, Halifax, the Tory M.P. for Pontefract. William Stratford was established in Bramall lane, but towards the end of his life he went to live at Mosborough. He died on the 18th of April, 1859, aged 72, and was interred at Eckington. LEIGHTON: It is a little difficult to follow your description of the descent. One almost needs a genealogical table. LEONARD: Beyond Bower spring, the footpath- Cottonmill walk-was the continuation of Spring street. It ran in the direction now taken by Russell street, across " Long croft," as the open space was called in 1771, towards Green lane. Of course it took its name from the cotton mill of Mr. Middleton. An open stream ran from the top of Cornish street, in front of Green lane, and emptied itself in the Don, below where Green lane works now stand. On the other side of the stream were cottage gardens. Middleton's silk mill-built in 1758, burnt down in 1792, and the cotton mill, re-erected on the same site only in turn to be burnt down in 1810, and again built only to become the Poor-house in 1829-stood alone in its glory, its nearest neighbour being Kelham Wheel, still there, as it had been at least as long before as in 1674, on the now covered-in " Goit." Across the river was the suburb of Bridgehouses, and all around was verdure. Those were the days when " The old cherry tree," whose name is now perpetuated only by the public-house and the yard where it stood, was still young, and when Allen " lane " and the Bowling green marked the extremity of the inhabited region of Gibraltar. Beyond, the road ran between fields-" Moorfields"-and on to the distant rural haunts of Philadelphia and Upperthorpe. There was Lawyer Hoyle's house up on the left; and the little barber's shop, just before you come to Roscoe place, near the junction of the Infirmary and Penistone roads, was alone in its glory until 1806, when Mr. Shaw built the stove-grate works just named, and with his partner, Mr. Jobson, laid the foundations of that trade which has obtained for Sheffield the manufacture of stoves and fenders previously claimed by Edinburgh and London. Two personal notes may be made as to Mr. Shaw and Mr. Jobson. The former was a Baptist, and he not only held service in his works on Sundays, but established a Sunday-school as well. Mr. Jobson was the last person in Sheffield who retained the old-fashioned queue, and a great scandal was occasioned by some officers cutting it off in St. Philip's Church, one Sunday. JOHNSON: In Green lane, in the days we are speaking of, and even much later, the works had not become sufficiently numerous to interfere with bathing in the river. The Cleekham Inn and a grinding wheel occupied part of Messrs. Dixon's works at Cornish place, while Watery street was a rural lane with a Stream running down it. Dr. Buchan, usually spoken of as living in the Hartshead, is said to have lodged at one time in a house at the bottom of Ball street. LEIGHTON: We have had so long a talk to-night that we can hardly now enter upon the enticing suburban topics of which we are on the verge. Let us defer them.This Hospital, For sixteen poor aged Inhabitants of Sheffield or within two Miles round it, And School for fifty children, were founded by Thomas Hollis, of London, Cutler, 1703, And further endowed by his Sons, Thomas Hollis, 1724, and John Hollis, 1726, And rebuilt more commodiously by the Trustees, 1776,
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