shallow bed, quite unconscious of the part it was to play in the
world's affairs. This village was twenty-five miles north-west of
Boston, not on a high-road leading anywhere; but, nevertheless, it
began to move on, as usual, by the erection of a saw-mill, as at that
point it was found convenient to arrest the downward progress of the
timber, and convert it into plank. And so it went on, and on, step by
step, till it became the splendid town it is, so large as to have two
railway depôts: one in the suburbs, and the principal one in the
centre of the town--for the Yankees think the closer their railways
are to the town the better.

Lowell now covers five square miles, with handsome, straight streets;
the principal one, Merrimac Street, being a mile and a half in length,
and about sixty feet wide, with footways twelve feet wide, and rows of
trees between them and the road. The appearance of this street reminds
the spectator of the best in France. The loom-power of a manufacturing
place, I understand, is estimated by the number of spindles, and this
works 350,000; the mills employ 14,000 males, and 10,000 females; the
number of inhabitants reckoned stationary, 12,000. It has lately been
raised to the dignity of a city by a charter of incorporation, which,
in the state of Massachusetts, can be claimed by any town when the
number of its inhabitants amounts to 10,000: thus it appoints its
officers, and manages its own affairs, as a body corporate and
municipal.

The most striking feature of the social system here, is the condition
of the mill-workers, of which, as it is so different from ours, I
shall give you some particulars. The corporation of Lowell has built
streets of convenient houses, for the accommodation of the workmen;
and nine-tenths of these are occupied by the unmarried. These houses