Newcastle, Stoke-on-Trent and many smaller places may be described as a
huge, scattered city of about 300,000 inhabitants, nearly all directly
or indirectly connected with the manufacture of various grades of china
and earthenware. The Castle Hotel, where we stopped, was a very old inn,
yet it proved unexpectedly homelike and comfortable. Our little party
was given a small private dining room with massive antique furniture,
and we were served with an excellent dinner by an obsequious waiter in
full-dress suit and with immaculate linen. He cleared the table and left
us for the evening with the apartment as a sitting room, and a mahogany
desk by the fireside, well supplied with stationery, afforded amends for
neglected letters. In the morning, our breakfast was served in the same
room, and the bill for entertainment seemed astonishingly low. Mine host
will no doubt be wiser in this particular as motorists more and more
invade the country.

An hour's drive brought us to Manchester. The road by which we entered
the city took us direct to the Midland Hotel, which is reputed to be the
finest in the Kingdom. Manchester is a city of nearly a million
inhabitants, but its streets seemed almost like those of a country town
as compared with the crowded thoroughfares of London. It is a great
center for motoring and I found many of the garages so full that they
could not take another car. I eventually came to one of the largest,
where by considerable shifting they managed to accommodate my car. But
with all this rush of business, it seemed to me that the owners were in
no danger of becoming plutocrats, for the charge for a day's garage,
cleaning the car, polishing the brass and making a slight repair, was
five shillings.

For half the way from Manchester to Leeds, the drive was about as trying
as anything I found in England. The road is winding, exceedingly steep