possible, these subterranean dens are constructed, and a very
considerable portion of the population dwells in them.

Among the worst of these towns after Preston and Oldham is Bolton, eleven
miles north-west of Manchester. It has, so far as I have been able to
observe in my repeated visits, but one main street, a very dirty one,
Deansgate, which serves as a market, and is even in the finest weather a
dark, unattractive hole in spite of the fact that, except for the
factories, its sides are formed by low one and two-storied houses. Here,
as everywhere, the older part of the town is especially ruinous and
miserable. A dark-coloured body of water, which leaves the beholder in
doubt whether it is a brook or a long string of stagnant puddles, flows
through the town and contributes its share to the total pollution of the
air, by no means pure without it.

There is Stockport, too, which lies on the Cheshire side of the Mersey,
but belongs nevertheless to the manufacturing district of Manchester. It
lies in a narrow valley along the Mersey, so that the streets slope down
a steep hill on one side and up an equally steep one on the other, while
the railway from Manchester to Birmingham passes over a high viaduct
above the city and the whole valley. Stockport is renowned throughout
the entire district as one of the duskiest, smokiest holes, and looks,
indeed, especially when viewed from the viaduct, excessively repellent.
But far more repulsive are the cottages and cellar dwellings of the
working-class, which stretch in long rows through all parts of the town
from the valley bottom to the crest of the hill. I do not remember to
have seen so many cellars used as dwellings in any other town of this
district.

A few miles north-east of Stockport is Ashton-under-Lyne, one of the