NO. OF PARLIAMENTARY ELECTORS IN EACH POLICE DISTRICT IN THE TOWNSHIP OF SALFORD FOR THE YEAR 1835-6.

CLASSES OF VOTERS FOR 1835-6 IN THE BOROUGH OF SALFORD.

The history of the contests for the representation of the county does not pertain to the objects of this volume; but, as a document for future reference, the annexed will not be without interest:

COUNTY VOTERS IN EACH TOWNSHIP OF THE HUNDRED
OF SALFORD FOR THE YEAR 1835-6.

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

From the earliest times the spirit of commercial enterprise seems to have animated the people of Lancashire. Even before that obscure period of their history in which, through the intervention of Roman policy, our forefathers were induced to abandon their roving life and settle down to the peaceful pursuits of incipient civilization, Phoenician traders had discovered the rich products of this island, and sought to barter the fruits of their industry for our metals. The Greek merchants of Marseilles, at a more recent date, made the Isle of Wight a depôt from which they carried on an extensive traffic with the mainland. English commerce was at that time confined to the absolute necessaries of life; but after the Roman invasion the luxuries of the East were supplied abundantly to this Country. Ribchester was the great marine outlet, and the benefits, mental and social, which generally attend communion with foreign nations, were liberally diffused among the people of England. "Our own province and parish, in particular, (says a distinguished writer) seem to have attained a more considerable degree of refinement, and to have actually existed in a more flourishing condition, than any of them knew for many, very many, centuries afterwards. All the improvements of the Romans had necessarily been introduced among us. Our mines were worked with the greatest skill; and our towns were decorated with baths, temples, market-places and porticos. Our architects were

even so remarkably numerous and good, that a body of them was sent by Constantine into Gaul, to rebuild the ruined Augustodunum with the greater magnificence. And so universally diffused were the riches of the kingdom that, even after the lapse of many centuries, and merely from the scatterings of negligence or the concealment of fear, the sites of all the greater cities in the provinces remain generally to the present time inexhaustible ruins of the Roman wealth. But the ravages of two destructive wars-the Saxon and the Danish—and the two settlements of foreigners, ferocious and rude, among us, threw the nation, the country and the parishes three or four centuries back in the progress of improvement, and successively re-plunged us all in a state of ignorance and incivility, which is the natural tendency of the darkened intellect and vitiated passions of humanity, and from which we never emerged entirely till the fifteenth or sixteenth century."

It was, indeed, impossible that commerce, at all times liable to suspension by the slightest political convulsion, should rear its head beneficially during that terrible crisis, the issue of which involved the destinies of this island as an independent state. But necessity is a hard task-master; and the shock of the Norman conquest was no sooner overpast, and the Country restored to a state of internal quiet, than the people began to resume the occupations which had not then, as now, for their object the indulgence of foreign speculation, but were limited to the gratification of the first wants of a rude population. The Kings of England appear uniformly to have directed their attention to the nurture of commerce, though not always in the most enlightened spirit. In the existence of the periodical fairs, which, no doubt, were to a great extent-but not wholly-seasons of rejoicing, an evidence is afforded that different districts of the Country were engaged in mutual

traffic, of which, probably, the products of the loom formed an important ingredient. This town, indeed, must have had a considerable trade at the period under review, since, so early as the reign of Edward II., there existed a mill for dyeing goods on the banks of the Irk, and a few years afterwards one for fulling was erected. In the reign of Edward III., the Lord de la Warre having raised a company of Lancashire men to attend him in the war in Flanders, their noble commander contrived, on his return, to carry with him some voluntary emigrants from the traders of the Low Countries, who settled in this county, and gave an impulse to manufactures. Manchester, most probably, would receive a large proportion of these strangers. The Government of Henry VIII. achieved one act of legislation more judicious than some of those which were passed with the avowed object of promoting trade-that, namely, by which the right of sanctuary was removed from Manchester, on the ground (as already stated) that it tended to the injury of the manufacturing population. At that time the town was "well inhabited" and "distinguished for its trade in linens and woollens." Fustians range among the earliest manufactures of England; the fabric is well adapted to the climate, and "anciently" it was considered "creditable wearing in England for persons of the primest quality." In the reign of Edward VI. an act was passed to regulate the dimensions of "Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire cottons," and "Manchester rugs or friezes." Unfortunately these early records are almost the sole means which now remain of estimating the kind and the extent of the existing trade-they suffice, however, to shew that from its infancy this great town has depended upon the manufacturing labour of its energetic population.

From the seventeeth century may be dated the rapid expansion of mercantile projects. Not only did they then afford employment to a large proportion of the people of