Before entering on a detail of occurrences which possess, comparatively speaking, only an isolated interest, I shall occupy a few pages in the consideration of some general facts and statistics, which may enable the reader to judge of the advance which the County of Worcester has made during a truly remarkable half-century. No former period in the world’s history ever witnessed such mental activity and progress.

The Increase of Population, though not a perfect test of general prosperity, yet indicates that the employments which engage the attention of the inhabitants of any given district are flourishing, that there is no such apprehended deficiency of the articles of wealth as seriously to check marriage, and that there is an absence of some of those evils which are constantly at work to retard the replenishment of the earth by the human family. For the statistics of population in this county I refer the reader to Table 1, in the Appendix, from which he will perceive that a continuous, and in some instances a rapid increase has taken place in the manufacturing districts. Until the last ten years, however, the increase of population in this county, though exceeding that of many counties, did not quite come up to the average increase of the entire kingdom. The rate of increase from 1801 to 1811, was—

From 1841 to 1851, the rate of increase for Worcestershire was slightly above the average, being as nearly as possible 13 per cent., while that of England, as a whole, had declined, and was only about 12.7. This is a fact upon which no interpretation can be put, except such as is flattering to the condition and prospects of our county. Emigration has been slowly going on from our manufacturing districts during the last fifteen years, but there has been no remarkable exodus at any particular period. Many farm labourers and small occupants of land have also been seduced by the Mormons to seek an imaginary paradise in the Far West. Even this desultory emigration cannot but be beneficial. Great Britain has yet, however, to acquire the practical wisdom of the ancients in carrying out a systematic colonization, and it still remains for her people to perform the noble mission which their national advantages and insular position seem to assign them—that of peopling the solitudes of the earth with a race which has hitherto proved equal to all difficulties, and who would carry with them the laws of an Alfred, the language of a Shakspere, and, above all, the ennobling influences of the Christian religion.

A tabular statement of Criminals convicted, and of the nature of the sentences inflicted upon them, will also be found in the Appendix. When the improvement in the machinery for detecting crimes and bringing offenders to justice is taken into account, there would not seem to be any serious increase in the amount of crime committed; but there certainly is no room for believing that the intelligence of the age, or the activity of the police, have been successful in diminishing it. Neither does the comparative leniency of the punishments inflicted afford any proof that the crimes committed are less heinous than formerly. The decrease in severity of punishments is to be attributed solely to the amelioration of our criminal code, and the humane desire to reclaim rather than to punish, which now distinguishes our legislature and even pervades the judiciary. Worcestershire, it must be admitted, holds a bad preËminence both in respect to the number and character of the offences committed within its boundaries: a recent return, made by order of the Privy Council, assigns it the very lowest place amongst the English counties as to the proportion of criminals to the population, and within three of the bottom of the list in degree of crime.

Education is regarded by many as the panacea which is to empty our prisons and render the judge’s office a sinecure; and, without being inclined to attribute to it any such efficacy, it cannot be doubted that it does act as a check to the commission of many of the grosser offences against society. A private individual has not at his command the means necessary to compile complete statistics on a subject like this; it is a matter of congratulation, however, that Government caused inquiries to be made, at the last census, which will by and by put us in possession of much important information on this head. Without pretending to accuracy, I believe it will be found that there are in Worcestershire about 550 private and public day and boarding schools, having accommodation for the instruction of 20,000 scholars. It is not, indeed, want of accommodation that is now so much to be complained of—for few of the school-rooms are filled—as inferiority in the quality of the instruction imparted. Earnest efforts are, however, being made by all educational societies and the supporters of public schools to remedy the admitted deficiency. Nearly all the schools now existing in the county, with the exception of the Grammar and Free Schools of which there are some seventy-six, have been founded during the present century, and owe their existence, and in greatest part their continuance, to the voluntary benevolence of persons residing on the spot. Within the last three or four years, public attention has been much directed to the lax administration of the funds of the various charity schools in the county, and should the gentlemen who have taken the matter so zealously in hand be successful in bringing about the reforms which these institutions so imperatively need, the poor of many future generations will have reason to thank them for their labours. I must not omit to notice here the means which have been taken in the latter part of this half-century to induce a love and pursuit of knowledge amongst the working classes, by the establishment of Mechanics’ Institutions, one of which is now to be found in almost every town in the county. The elder born of these societies are, unfortunately, already passing to decay, and, as at present conducted, they do not seem to possess any inherent vitality. They have undoubtedly been useful in displaying the more attractive results of study and science—the flowers by the wayside, which may tempt triflers to venture a short distance on Learning’s easier paths—but they offer little or no assistance to those who would resolutely dare its difficult ascents. The efforts of the friends of education should be directed to making these institutions what their projector, Lord Brougham, intended they should be—People’s Colleges.

An estimate of the provision made for Religious Instruction in this county will be found in the Appendix—Table No. 3. The Established Church, by new buildings or enlargements, has increased the accommodation for attendants on its forms of worship, since the year 1800, by one fifth to one fourth. Upon looking at the large numbers provided for by Wesleyanism, in its various forms, the thought cannot but occur that if the Church of England could have retained John Wesley and his followers, as Rome did St. Francis D’Assissi, to be its evangelists among the masses of the population, it must have received a vast accession of strength. The Wesleyans in forsaking their first simple object of evangelism for that of building up a permanent ecclesiastical polity, seem to have mistaken the source of their own power, and during the last two years their numbers have considerably decreased from disaffection in the body. The Independents and Baptists have been deficient in proselytism, conceiving their special mission to be to keep in purity the faith committed to them from their Puritan forefathers. The Unitarians and Friends are stationary sects. The Roman Catholics have built ten small chapels in this county during the present century, and as to numbers, they have barely kept pace with the increase of population. The annual value of church livings in this county is about £62,000; the income of the See of Worcester is fixed at £5,000; and the net revenue of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester is returned at £8,698. The various bodies of Protestant Dissenters raise at least £20,000 annually for the support of their ministers, Sabbath schools, missions, and other religious institutions.

This county yields at once the richest fruits of the soil and the most practically valuable mineral productions. The total acreage of the county, exclusive of roads and rivers, is 431,616; and by far the larger portion of this surface is devoted to Agriculture. According to Mr. Fowler’s valuation, made in the year 1842, the total value of property assessable to the county rate is £912,863; of which £263,000 may be taken as representing the rental of buildings and land in the towns and manufacturing districts, leaving £650,000 as the annual value of agricultural property. In this statement the city of Worcester, the rateable rental of which is about £75,000, is, of course, not included. If it is assumed that 380,000 acres are arable and grass land, that will probably be an approximation to the truth. In the total absence of agricultural statistics any attempt to compute the present produce of the county would be quite out of the question, but that it has greatly increased of late years cannot be doubted. A gentleman, upon whose practical knowledge and information the most entire reliance may be placed, informs me that the average yield per acre throughout the Vale of Evesham is now about 27 bushels in wheat, 32 in barley, 40 in oats, 27 in beans; and that there has been an increase of fully 15 per cent. in the wheat and barley crops, and of 10 per cent. in the bean crop, within the last 20 or 25 years. Hops, however, for which this county has been and still is so famous, have to a great extent gone out of cultivation; and while at the beginning of the century some 6,000 acres were devoted to their growth, there are now not more than 1,625 acres of hop plantation. With regard to the general progress of agriculture, the half-century may be divided into three periods. During the war the high prices of provisions stimulated improvement, and much drainage was then done, though in so rude and unscientific a way that it has since been found necessary to replace a great deal of it. The Earl of Plymouth, the Earl of Coventry, and A. Lechmere, Esq., in this county, very early bestowed great pains on the drainage of their estates. From 1814 to 1830 agriculture, comparatively speaking, was at a stand still; [6] but during the last twenty years many and signal improvements have been made in its science. Many persons still living can recollect whole hamlets and villages in this county in which there was scarce an enclosure; and nearly the whole of the land was cultivated in common by the resident farmers, to each one of whom would be assigned a certain quantity in wheat, barley, vetches, and fallow. Between each ploughed land was left a strip of mere, into which the surface water from the adjoining ridges all sank and rendered it little better than a constant bog, which diseased the few poor sheep grazing upon it and made the ague a common and hereditary ill to farmer and labourer alike. The amount of unenclosed land now to be found in the county is quite unimportant; thorough drainage is regarded as essential to all cultivation; burnt soil has been much used to lighten the heavy clays; manures of all kinds are extensively employed; and implements of a very improved and economic description are used in almost every farming operation. The increased cultivation of the turnip, and better management of the clay fallows, are marked features in Worcestershire agricultural improvements. Clay lands, that formerly were allowed to lie fallow every fourth or fifth year, are now planted with vetches, and sheep-folded. A remarkable advance, too, has been made in the character of the stock reared, especially in the size and quality of the sheep. The better drainage of the land has prevented much of the disease which used formerly to thin out the flocks year by year, and there has been no serious rot in the county since 1831. The local agricultural societies, which have been established during the last fifteen years, have done much by their premiums and annual exhibitions to stimulate improvement, but our chief confidence for progress in the future lies in our being able to number amongst our landowners and occupiers men of intelligence and enterprise, who, in all quarters of the county, are seriously engaged in adjusting the relations of landlord and tenant to the circumstances of the times, and by improved modes of farm management and cultivation seeking to meet successfully unrestricted foreign competition.

Our mineral productions are Coal and Iron, both of which are found in large quantities at the northern extremity of the county, and coal is also raised in the neighbourhood of Bewdley. The Dudley division of the South Staffordshire coal field is celebrated for producing what is known as the ten yard or thick coal—so named because the bed is thirty feet in thickness. It is, indeed, the largest and most important bed of coal in the kingdom, and its good qualities are too well known to every housekeeper in this district to need that I should expatiate upon them here. With the associated thin coals and ironstone this bed is worth at least £1,000 per acre. The number of tons of coal raised in the Dudley district (Worcestershire only) during 1851 may be approximately reckoned at 700,000, worth perhaps £25,000. It was in this district that coal was first used for the purpose of smelting iron, in the year 1619. The duties on the introduction of foreign iron were cither removed or rendered merely nominal in 1826, and the production has since nearly quadrupled, and now amounts to 2,250,000 tons annually. The South Staffordshire and Worcestershire iron district ranks second in importance, far surpassing Scotland in the manufacture of wrought iron, and the quality is superior to that of South Wales. The number of furnaces now in blast in this county is twenty-eight, and eighteen out of blast. Nearly 150,000 tons of iron were made here in 1851, and prices ranged from 50s. to 57s. 6d. hot blast; cold blast, 60s. to 67s. 6d.; best makes, 120s., and second ditto, 110s. per ton. The make of iron has not greatly increased in Worcestershire during the last few years, but no branch of our productive industry rests on surer foundations, or has more prospect of continuous extension, than the iron trade.The Glass manufacture, of which Stourbridge is a principal seat, affords a most striking instance of the tendency of excessive duties, collected under regulations which interfere with and cramp industrial processes. In 1811 the home consumption of glass amounted to 417,911 cwt.: in 1812 the excise duties on this article were doubled; the average consumption of the next three years was but 264,931 cwt.; and up to the time of the reduction of the duties by two-thirds, in 1835, there had been no increase whatever in the consumption of British glass since the commencement of the present century. Since the entire abolition of the duties, in 1845, the consumption has increased to a surprising extent, and glass has been applied to uses previously undreamt of. The manufacture was introduced into Stourbridge, about 1556, by refugees from Lorraine, and has continued to flourish there ever since. The descriptions principally made here are flint, bottle, and chemical utensil glass. There are now twelve glass manufactories in the town and neighbourhood, employing about 1,050 pairs of hands, and the trade generally is in a prosperous state. The manufacture of Fire Bricks, and the sale of clay for glass works, is a trade at Stourbridge, now almost as important as the manufacture of glass itself; and as it is one with the details of which the public are not generally conversant, I shall enter somewhat into particulars. Beneath all coal strata is found a clay, which, from the peculiarity of its ingredients, is remarkably well adapted to stand the action of intense heat. An analysis of the best clay raised at Stourbridge, gives

The presence of lime or iron in any considerable quantities would render the clay fusible, but when the silica and alumina so greatly preponderate, it will stand any amount of heat that can be raised in ordinary furnaces. The best clay fetches about 55s. per ton, and is used for glass-house pots and the bricks used in making glass furnaces, not only in England but other countries; it is exported to North America in large quantities, and to South America, France, Holland, and Germany. Besides the best clay, inferior descriptions called “seconds,” “black,” and “offal” clay are raised to a considerable extent. The first (black), mixed in certain proportions with “seconds,” potsherds, &c., is chiefly used for making crucibles, in which metals are melted; and of these Birmingham alone takes about 100 dozen weekly from this district. The “offal clay,” or that which is raised from the mine in the mixed or broken state, is not “picked” (or selected), but ground and sold at 10s. per ton: with this the great bulk of fire bricks are made. The trade is one of ancient date; Rufford’s clay works have been carried on during the whole of this century under the same name, but its principal development has taken place within the last forty years. Formerly the owners did not get half the best or other clays, and forty years ago there was no better speculation than taking to what was then considered a broken, or worked-out mine. Nor did they attempt any but square or roughly-made bricks, whereas the trade now can model and finish neatly. Even now the capabilities of Stourbridge fire clay are not generally understood. It has had a steady unfluctuating demand, and notwithstanding the discovery of fire clay in various parts of the island, Stourbridge never did a larger business than at present. The Stourbridge clays and bricks are sold freely both in the north and in Wales. About 15,000 tons of best clay are raised annually in the Stourbridge district. There are four proprietors of clay mines in Stourbridge, and two firms renting mines; five out of the six being also manufacturers of fire bricks and other articles in which the clay is used. The fire bricks are made of all sizes; the largest kept in regular stock weighs 635lbs. The glass-house bricks are sold “green” (dry) and but seldom burnt. The common description for gas works, iron works, and all other purposes, are burnt. About 14,000,000 of bricks of all descriptions are made annually in the Stourbridge district, consuming about 46,000 tons of clay, and may be valued at £50,000. An important branch of the trade, and one which has been gradually increasing for the last seven years, is the manufacture of clay retorts for gas works, and they are now generally preferred to metal. The most striking purpose to which the fire clay has been turned is the manufacture of large baths in one piece. At the suggestion of Prince Albert, the Society of Arts in 1846 offered a premium for the production of such an article, and in 1850 one was made at the works of F. T. Rufford, Esq., which gained the Gold Isis Medal. It had been thought impossible to manufacture such an article in one piece because of the great contraction which all pottery undergoes in burning, but after much patient experiment, the ingenuity and skill of the practical men in Mr. Rufford’s works produced a perfect and beautiful vessel which may be said to be imperishable, will never discolour, is cleansed without labour, and is incapable of retaining the poison of any contagious disease in an active form. The clearness of the colour (white or marbled) is effected by veneering china on the inner surface of the fire clay, and the contractile effect of burning is overcome by assimilating the two clays. Many public baths are now supplied with this useful article, which bids fair altogether to supersede the metallic baths. The number of hands employed at Stourbridge in the manufacture of bricks and other articles from fire clay is about 900. The town has been considerably improved since 1820: the bridge over the Stour was widened in 1840; a new market hall has recently been erected, and the inhabitants generally seem to have somewhat of the spirit and enterprise expected in a flourishing manufacturing place.

The manufactures of Kidderminster are of many years standing. In 1536 it was enacted that “No person of what degree or quality soever they be, shall make within the shire of Worcester any manner of woollen cloths, except only within the city of Worcester, the borough and towns of Kidderminster, Evesham, Droitwich, and Bromsgrove, under pain of forfeiting, for every broad cloth elsewhere made, the sum of ten pounds;” and in the time of Charles II an act was passed “for regulating the manufacture of Kidderminster stuffs.” Arras, frieze, cheneys and ratteens, poplin, prunellas, rich brocades and quilted stuffs were all made here in their turn, but the Carpet Manufacture, to which the town has entirely owed its prosperity and fame in later years, was not introduced till the middle of last century. At first the Scotch carpets only were made, but afterwards Wilton and Brussels, and the Kidderminster goods at once acquired celebrity for substantial workmanship and brilliancy of colouring. At the beginning of the present century there were probably about 400 looms at work here, but there are now at least 3,000. The trade has of course been subject to many fluctuations, and there have been several seasons of severe distress amongst the weavers, which have been for the most part coincident with stagnation in other departments of manufacture, and are traceable to the same general causes. During the last ten years the business has been comparatively prosperous, there has been a great increase of production, and the tapestry carpeting is largely exported to the Continent, where its cheapness secures sale in the teeth of the elegant, but costly, “velvets” of France. The many improvements which have been introduced into the method of manufacture during the present century, have principally had reference to the construction of the looms, and economy in the amount of wool used; in design there is still something to be accomplished. The principal varieties now made are the ordinary Venetian carpeting, the Scotch or Kidderminster, Brussels, Wilton, Genoa velvets, Axminster, Saxony, and the patent tapestry carpetings, which last are among the most recent and important introductions. Some of the yarns employed in the fabrication of these were printed and arranged in Halifax, under a patent from Messrs. Crossley, which however expired in September last. Steam looms for tapestry under patents from the same firm are already at work in the town, and steam looms for the manufacture of Brussels carpeting are about to be introduced, the effect of which, upon the general character of the trade, must needs be exceedingly important; but though the change can scarcely fail to occasion temporary distress, it may fairly be hoped that, like all other improvements, it will result in a large increase of the manufacture, and add to the demand for labour and its remuneration. The other manufactures carried on here, principally relate to the preparation of leather; damask silks are made by one manufacturer; and there are one or two spinning mills. There are various tin forges in the neighbourhood, and iron, tin, and screw works at Cookley employing many hands.

Redditch and its neighbourhood is the principal seat of the needle and fish hook manufactures in this kingdom, and has been so for upwards of a century. In 1800 perhaps 500 persons found employment in this business at Redditch, while the present number, including children, is at least 2,300, and the quantity of needles made has increased from 150 to 1,000 millions per annum. A very large population is also engaged in the manufacture, at Astwood Bank, Feckenham, Crab’s Cross, &c., but all the needles so made are known as Redditch needles. The superiority of the article manufactured here ensures it a sale all over the world, and it is only in the common and inferior descriptions that the German makers come into competition with those of this county; in fact, the Germans themselves send to Redditch for their best goods. Some very important improvements have been lately introduced into the manufactories, and especially a contrivance for carrying off the fine steel dust created in the operation of grinding the needles, which was formerly very destructive of the lives of the persons employed. The fish hook trade is carried on to a considerable extent in this neighbourhood, and large quantities of barbs, from the fly fisher’s delicate tackle to the whaler’s harpoon, are annually exported to all quarters of the globe. There is also one pin manufactory in the town. The operative needle makers are amongst the most intelligent of our artizans, and the future prospects of the trade are in most respects encouraging.

Nail Making employs a large number of people both at Bromsgrove and in the neighbourhood of Stourbridge. In the former town and district there were, some sixty years ago, only five or six nail masters or factors, and not more than 400 or 500 persons engaged in the business, but it now furnishes occupation for ten times that number. Twenty-five years since the trade was in a prosperous state, but about this time, owing to the demand being good, an inferior article was made, with which the customers were dissatisfied; and the result of this state of things was the invention of a machine which, by singular ingenuity and application of mechanical skill, cuts every part of the nail at once out of a solid sheet of iron. The rapidity, ease, and cheapness with which nails were thus multiplied, of course caused a great change in the condition and prospects of the nail-making districts. The demand, however, still continues for many descriptions of the article which cannot be made, or so well made, by machine, and supplies a tolerable amount of employment. The French and Germans now successfully compete with us in the manufacture, and the export trade to America is decreasing in consequence of the prohibitory duty imposed by the government of that country. The nailors, as a class, are almost as destitute as the colliers of everything like intelligence, and this is chiefly owing to the early age at which the children work at the trade and are able to earn a livelihood for themselves. The truck system—by which the employer pays the wages of his workpeople, not in money, but in goods of his own providing, and at prices of his own fixing—is an evil of monstrous growth, which has greatly assisted in the degradation of the workpeople. Recently, however, many benevolent efforts have been made to provide them with education and to remedy the social evils which exist amongst them. Thirty or forty years ago there was a considerable linen trade carried on at Bromsgrove. A good deal of flax was once grown in this neighbourhood, and the manufacture by the hand loom was considerable, but the introduction of machinery superseded this mode of making, and enterprise and capital, necessary to the establishment of factories with the latest improvements in machinery, were wanting. Moreover Bromsgrove linens got into disrepute, because those of inferior make were sent here for bleaching and sold as of Bromsgrove manufacture. Bromsgrove itself has been much improved within the last twenty years. In the year 1846 an Act of Parliament was passed for paving, cleansing, draining, and improving the town, and for the better assessing and collecting the parochial rates.

The Salt Manufacture of Droitwich is one of the most ancient businesses in the kingdom, having been carried on for upwards of 1,000 years, and the salt made here has always been celebrated for its strength and purity. From the year 1805 until 1823 salt was subject to a duty of 15s. a bushel or £30 a ton, and this impost was collected by the excise every six weeks. A large capital was therefore required to carry on the trade, and the price of fine salt was at least £32 per ton. In that year, however, the duty was reduced to 2s. a bushel, and in 1825 it was removed altogether; and the highest price of fine salt, since its repeal, has been £1. 2s. 6d. per ton. That such a reduction in price must have led to a greatly increased consumption is self-evident, but there was no very immediate or considerable increase in the make. The proprietors of the original salt works in this borough sought to protect themselves against competition, by buying up most of the land that would be available for the erection of new works, and for a time they kept up their profits. Rival companies, however, did at length find means of establishing themselves, and about twelve or fourteen years ago a large increase of production took place, but the price of the article has been so reduced by this competition that the business has become very unremunerative. Repeated failures have taken place amongst the more recent firms; and half a million of capital, invested in the manufacture within the last twenty-five years, has been entirely lost. Within the last fifty years the primitive method of simply boring for the brine has been improved upon by casing the pit with wood, and more recently shafts have been sunk quite through the fresh water springs, the bottom and sides of which are secured with iron cylinders before boring down to the brine springs. By this means the brine (which lies 173 feet from the surface) is obtained at its full saturation of 42 parts of salt to 100, while formerly it varied between 28 and 37 percent. The present annual make at Droitwich of all kinds of salt is about 80,000 tons, and at the works at Stoke, from 25,000 to 30,000 tons; the average price per ton is scarcely more than 10s. The Droitwich trade labours under considerable disadvantage in the heavy tonnage which the manufacturers have to pay for the carriage of the article to the outports, and the iniquitous tax imposed upon the article in the East Indies, where it is almost a necessary of life, is a great hindrance to an extension of sale.

The manufactures with which Worcester itself is associated, during the half-century just closed, have reached their meridian and have seriously declined. Our porcelain factories were once almost as famous as those of SÉvres, and notices will be found in the following pages of continual visits from Royal and distinguished personages to witness the art of the potter, and to give large orders for splendid services of China; but this is one of those articles the demand for which has been greatly affected by a change of fashion, and plate has now almost wholly superseded China for dinner services amongst people of wealth. Truth requires it to be said also that our manufacturers have allowed themselves to be outstripped, in spirit and improvement, by those of other places. At the beginning of this century there were forty or fifty master glovers in Worcester. The trade received a serious check by the suspension of our intercourse with America in 1812, nevertheless, the number had increased in 1826 to 120; but the repeal of the import duty in that year, together with the more general use of Berlin and silk gloves, has had such a damaging effect upon the trade, that there are at present only twenty master glovers in the city. One firm, however (known as the Messrs. Dent’s), has a world-wide celebrity, and manufactures on a very large scale. It was not so much in price as in quality that the Worcester makers had to dread foreign competition; the article sent out from their workshops before the repeal of the duty was clumsily and badly made. Worcester gloves are now equal in every respect to those imported from France, and are often sold as French to accommodate the prejudice of the customer. It seems hard to say why Worcester, a city so centrally situated, and, before the railway era, so advantageously situated as regards the means of communication with other parts of the kingdom, has not become a manufacturing emporium and a place of much greater importance. In my belief, one principal reason has been the hindrance to speculative or bon fide building, which exists in the bad tenure of land everywhere around the city; there can be no doubt that this has driven enterprising men to settle in places which in other respects were less suitable for their undertakings. There has, moreover, been a lack of unity and coÖperation amongst the inhabitants in the promotion of the general good which has been “the worm i’ the bud” to many schemes which would in all probability have greatly advanced the prosperity of the city. Considerations of the common weal have been postponed to the interests of partizanship. To make an application of our civic motto—Worcester, if faithful to herself, may flourish ever. Worcester is rich in charitable institutions and revenues for alleviating the distresses of poverty. It may be a question, indeed, whether these have not reached the point at which eleemosynary aid ceases to be advantageous, begins to foster dependence, and eats out the energy of a community; but their abundance has at any rate not had the effect of drying up the streams of private benevolence. At least £40,000 have been raised in Worcester at different periods of distress and necessity which have occurred since 1800, for the relief and aid of its own poor.

There are many minor manufactures carried on in the county, especially the preparation of leather at Bewdley, Stourport, and Worcester, which need not be further particularised, and for the remaining towns and boroughs—these—like an honoured aristocracy—repose on their historical associations; the fame which the touches of a master hand, such as Fielding’s, may have cast around their name; or the remembrances of former activity and bustle. But I must not omit a passing notice of Malvern, that gem of nature’s setting, on whose hills the purest air is breathed, the purest water drank, and the richest and most unique inland landscape to be seen in all England. Formerly what is called Malvern Wells was the only part of the hills at which visitors stopped, but for the last twenty years Great Malvern has been gradually growing as a place of resort, and is now a “town” by Act of Parliament. And whether for pleasure or for health it must continue to be resorted to, and to increase in fame and importance; for it abounds in nature’s simplest but most efficacious restoratives, and its beauties will bear repeated inspection, and will be appreciated just in proportion to the cultivation of the mind that dwells on them.

Even from this hasty and cursory glance at the progress of the county during the first half of the nineteenth century, it will be apparent that Worcestershire has not been deficient in contributing her quota to the general prosperity. The age is remorseless in its demands; we cannot stand still. The years that are past press with all their accelerated momentum on the heels of those that follow and hurry them to a yet greater speed. But our resources are not exhausted, nor need we fear that they shall ever be. We do not trace the decay of nations to any failure in the material of greatness, but in the enervation of the mind that should develop it. It only remains for us, then, to be found in the practice of intelligence and industry—which make a people great—and of the virtues which make a people happy.