e centre of the British Islands,
the thickly peopled stretch of West Yorkshire and South Lancashire, with
its numerous factory towns, yields nothing to the other great
manufacturing centres. The woollen district of the West Riding of
Yorkshire is a charming region, a beautiful green hill country, whose
elevations grow more rugged towards the West until they reach their
highest point in the bold ridge of Blackstone Edge, the watershed between
the Irish Sea and the German Ocean. The valleys of the Aire, along which
stretches Leeds, and of the Calder, through which the Manchester-Leeds
railway runs, are among the most attractive in England, and are strewn in
all directions with the factories, villages, and towns. The houses of
rough grey stone look so neat and clean in comparison with the blackened
brick buildings of Lancashire, that it is a pleasure to look at them. But
on coming into the towns themselves, one finds little to rejoice over.
Leeds lies as the _Artisan_ describes it, and as I found confirmed upon
examination: "on a gentle slope that descends into the valley of the
Aire. This stream flows through the city for about a mile-and-a-half and
is exposed to violent floods during thaws or heavy rain. The higher
western portions of the city are clean, for such a large town. But the
low-lying districts along the river and its tributary becks are narrow,
dirty, and enough in themselves to shorten the lives of the inhabitants,
especially of little children. Added to this, the disgusting state of
the working-men's districts about Kirkgate, Marsh Lane, Cross Street and
Richmond Road, which is chiefly attributable to their unpaved, drainless
streets, irregular architecture, numerous courts and alleys, and total
lack of the most ordinary means of cleanliness, all this taken together
is explanation enough of the excessive mortality in these unhappy abodes
of filthy misery. In consequence of the overflows of the Aire" (which,
it must be added, like all other rivers in the service of manufacture,
flows into the city at one end clear and transparent, and flows out at
the other end thick, black, and foul, smelling of all possible refuse),
"the houses and cellars are often so full of water that they have to be
pumped out. And at such times the water rises, even where there are
sewers, out of them into cellars, {40a} engenders miasmatic vapours
strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, and leaves a disgusting
residuu