MANCHESTER ITS HISTORY, GROWTH, AND IMPORTANCE. INDUSTRIES, FACTS, FIGURES, AND ILLUSTRATIONS. A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW. MANCHESTER is a name which has penetrated to the most distant regions of the habitable globe, and its merchants and manufacturers arc known throughout the whole civilized world. To write all that could legitimately be written of Manchester would fill many large volumes, and therefore our readers must be content with a very modest description both of the place itself and of its people. Manchester is a very ancient as well as a very interesting place, though but comparatively little of its early history can be given with absolute certainty. It is a well-known fact that it is mentioned along with Salford, Rochdale, and Radcliffe in Doomsday Book ; and these are the only plum which are named in that famous book in the district now known as South- East Lancashire, the greater portions of which were then either forest or waste lands.
Mr. W. E. A. Axon, M.R.S.L., a most competent and reliable authority, in an article contributed by him some time ago to the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," observes in reference to Manchester: "Nearly the only point of certainty in its history before the Con- quest is that it suffered greatly from devastations of the Danes, and that in 923 Edward, who was then at Thelwall, near War- rington, sent a number of his Mercian troops to garrison it." The same writer remarks : "It was probably one of the scenes of the missionary preaching of Paulinus ; and it is said (although by a chronicler of comparatively late date) to have been the residence of Ina, King of Wessex, and his Queen Ethelberga, after he had defeated Ivor, somewhere about the year 689." It is not necessary to dive deeper into the ancient history of the city, but, though briefly, some facts regarding the Manchester of more recent times may be chronicled. It may be stated that Manchester is distant from London 188 miles by the London and North Western Railway, 189 by the Midland route, and 188¾ by the Great Northern. The distance from Liverpool is 31½ miles. According to the last census (1881), the population of the municipal borough of Manchester was 341,414, and of the parliamentary borough (which includes the townships of Harpurhey, Newton, Bradford, and Beswick), 393,585. In 1885 the city boundary was extended to include Rusholme, Bradford (a local township), and Harpurhey i and the population of the municipal borough was thus raised to 373,583, and of the parliamentary borough to 404,823. Although the town of Salford is, both for municipal and parliamentary purposes, separate and distinct from Manchester, it is quite impossible in a work of this kind to treat them separately except for statistical purposes, inasmuch as they do, in reality, form one immense homogeneous community, and what is applicable' to one equally applies to both. It is not therefore out of place to state that the population of Salford, (whose municipal and parliamentary limits are identical), according to the last census, was 176,235. This gives to the combined parlimentary area of Manchester and Salford a total population of 581,058. Of course, as these figures only apply to the year 1881, it can be safely assumed that the population now is over 600,000. A charter of incorporation was granted to Manchester so recently as the year 1838, previous to which the government was vested in a borough reeve, two con- stables, and other officers, elected or appointed at the Court Leet of the Lord of the Manor.
The municipal government is now composed of nineteen alder- men and fifty- seven councillors, and the city is divided into eighteen wards, or electoral divisions. Manchester became a city by Royal Charter on the 29th of March, 1853. It will scarcely be credited by the present generation, that prior to the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, neither Manchester nor Salford enjoyed direct Parliamentary representation, whilst places of the utmost insignificance and with a more handful of electors returned one or more members to the House of Commons. In fact, in some dis- tricts single individuals had the power to return members for their pocket boroughs. All such scandals and anomalies as these, however, have happily disappeared, and if the recollection of them be revived by the few amongst the present residents who are old enough to remember those days, it is rather for the purpose of provoking mirth than anger, and doubtless with the desire, too, of impressing upon the young men of this age how much their fathers and grandfathers have accomplished, both in the shape of parliamentary and other reforms, within the last sixty or seventy years. Salford received a Charter of Incorporation on the 16th of
