nce to the
advanced guard of troops bivouacking. The bold men of Liverpool were
then led undauntedly forward, and it was said that every other man
marched into Warrington with his supper on his knapsack.

The most admirable improvements that the town underwent was when
Lord-street was widened and the Crescent formed, the completion of which
undertaking cost upwards of half a million of money. Castle-street was
narrow, badly paved, and badly lighted at night, as, indeed, was the
whole town. Yet, I recollect there were some people who objected to the
improvements at the top of Lord-street, who clung pertinaciously to the
old Potato Market, and the block of buildings called Castle Hill. The
houses that were erected upon the site of Castle Ditch had the floors of
some of their rooms greatly inclined in consequence of the subsidence of
the soil. There was a joke current at the time that these apartments
ought to be devoted to dining purposes, as the gravy would always run to
one side of the plate!

A great increase has taken place in the value of property in every part
of the town. In Castle-street sixty years ago a house and shop could be
had for 30 pounds per annum. The premises in which Roscoe's Bank was
carried on, and now occupied by Messrs. Nixon, were purchased by Mr.
Harvey who, finding his property remaining unoccupied for so long a time,
began to despair of letting it, and grew quite nervous about his bargain.
On the formation of Brunswick-street, projected in 1786, this handsome
thoroughfare was cut through Smock-alley and the houses in
Chorley-street, and swept away a portion of the old Theatre Royal in
Drury-lane; it then ran down to the old Custom-house yard, on the site of
which the Goree Piazzas and warehouses were erected. Drury-lane was
formerly called Entwhistle-street, after an old and influential family
who filled high offices in the town in their day.

Any one can fancy what Castle-street must have been when the market was
held in it, by filling Cable-street with baskets of farmers' produce, and
blocking it up with all sorts of provisions and stalls, in which the
usual marketable commodities would be exposed for sale.

The introduction of Gas in the town was an immense stride in the march of
improvement; yet there were not a few persons who bitterly complained of
the Gas Company so often disturbing the streets to enable them to lay
down their pipes. Frequent letters appeared in the papers of