volve in my mind the wonderful changes
that have taken place in my time in this native town of mine. The other
day, soon after the completion of the large Landing-Stage, I sat down and
thought would any man then making use of the old baths, swimming inside
the palisade, have not considered me, some eighty years ago, a mad fool
to have predicted that before I died I should sit on a long floating
stage two or three hundred yards from where we were swimming, that would
be about a quarter of a mile in length, and that between it and the shore
there would be most wonderful docks built, in which the ships of all
nations would display their colours, and discharge their precious
freights? As I sat there the other day, I thought of the one bath and
the old houses by the river's brink, and the Bath-street, along which
came, in the summer-time, such strings of country "dowkers." Beyond the
baths there were no houses, all was open shore consisting of boulder
stones, sand, and pools, such as may be seen on any sea-beach. There was
hot as well as cold water bathing in the baths, and a palisade ran out
into the river, within which, at high-water, persons could swim, as in a
plunge-bath. These baths were erected originally by Mr. Wright, who sold
them to the corporation in 1774, by which body they were enlarged and
greatly improved.

I recollect the bath-woman sold a sort of parliament cake, covered over
with coloured sugar plums, and also some sweet things which in appearance
resembled slugs. I never see these caraway-cakes and confections in the
low shops in which they are now only sold, without thinking of the fat
old bath-woman, who was a terror to me and others of my size and age. In
1816 these baths were discontinued and pulled down on the opening of
George's Pier-head baths. For a mile or more there was good bathing on
the shore. The bathing machines were introduced about the end of the
last century. The keeper of the "Wishing Gate-house" had several, and an
old man who lived in a low hut near the mill (the remains of which still
stand in the Waterloo-road) had two or three, and made money by them. At
that time Bootle and Bootle Marshes were wild places, the roads
execrable, and as for frogs (Bootle organs), the noise they made at night
was wonderful. I recollect all the docks and streets from Bath-street
downwards being sand-hills and salt-marshes. New Quay, of which
Bath-street was a continuation, was a sort of hav