made fortunes under their roofs, and
were hoping to live and die where they had been born and brought up.
Many tough battles had the authorities to fight with the owners of the
property. Some were most unreasonable in the compensation they demanded,
while others for a time obstinately refused to enter into any
negotiations whatever, completely disregarding all promised advantages.
The most obtuse and determined man was a shoemaker or cobbler, who owned
a small house and shop which stood near Hockenall-alley. Nothing could
persuade him to go out of his house or listen to any proposition. Out he
would not go, although his neighbours had disappeared and his house
actually stood like an island in the midst of the traffic current. The
road was carried on each side of his house, but there stood the cobbler's
stall alone in its glory. While new and comfortable dwellings were
springing up, the old cobbler laughed at his persecutors, defied them,
and stood his ground in spite of all entreaty. There the house stood in
the middle of the street, and for a long time put a stop to further and
complete improvement, until the authorities, roused by the indignation of
the public, took forcible possession of the place and pulled the old
obnoxious building about the owner's ears, in spite of his resistance and
his fighting manfully for what he thought were his rights; nor would he
leave the house until it had been unroofed, the floors torn up, and the
walls crumbling and falling down from room to room. The cobbler stuck to
his old house to the last, showing fight all through, with a
determination and persistence worthy of a nobler cause. Some few years
ago a barber, also in Dale-street, exhibited an equal degree of
persistence in keeping possession of his shop which was wanted for an
improvement near Temple-street. This man clung to his old house and shop
until it was made utterly uninhabitable..

Dale-street, when I was a boy, was not very much broader than Sir
Thomas's Buildings; in some parts it was quite as narrow, especially
about Cumberland-street end. The carrying trade at one time from
Liverpool was by means of packhorses, long strings of which used to leave
the town with their burthens, attended by their drivers, and always
mustered together in considerable number in Dale-street previous to
starting. This they did that they might be strong enough to resist the
highwaymen who infested the roads at the end of the last cen