village, into a still more populous and flourishing town. It is evident
to the stranger, that as the gable-ended houses, which obtrude themselves
corner-wise on the widening street, fall vacant, they are pulled down to
allow of greater space for traffic, and a more modern style of
architecture. The quaint and narrow shop-windows of fifty years ago, are
giving way to large panes and plate-glass. Nearly every dwelling seems
devoted to some branch of commerce. In passing hastily through the town,
one hardly perceives where the necessary lawyer and doctor can live, so
little appearance is there of any dwellings of the professional middle-
class, such as abound in our old cathedral towns. In fact, nothing can
be more opposed than the state of society, the modes of thinking, the
standards of reference on all points of morality, manners, and even
politics and religion, in such a new manufacturing place as Keighley in
the north, and any stately, sleepy, picturesque cathedral town in the
south. Yet the aspect of Keighley promises well for future stateliness,
if not picturesqueness. Grey stone abounds; and the rows of houses built
of it have a kind of solid grandeur connected with their uniform and
enduring lines. The frame-work of the doors, and the lintels of the
windows, even in the smallest dwellings, are made of blocks of stone.
There is no painted wood to require continual beautifying, or else
present a shabby aspect; and the stone is kept scrupulously clean by the
notable Yorkshire housewives. Such glimpses into the interior as a
passer-by obtains, reveal a rough abundance of the means of living, and
diligent and active habits in the women. But the voices of the people
are hard, and their tones discordant, promising little of the musical
taste that distinguishes the district, and which has already furnished a
Carrodus to the musical world. The names over the shops (of which the
one just given is a sample) seem strange even to an inhabitant of the
neighbouring county, and have a peculiar smack and flavour of the place.