Ralph Bower of
Wilmslow, whose children owned it in 1817. The Leighs built a chancel in
the church of Wilmslow, where some of them are buried, their arms painted
in the windows. The hall is an "ancient, respectable mansion of brick."
December 2d.--Yesterday, a chill, misty December day, yet I saw a woman
barefooted in the street, not to speak of children.
Cold and uncertain as the weather is, there is still a great deal of
small trade carried on in the open air. Women and men sit in the streets
with a stock of combs and such small things to sell, the women knitting
as if they sat by a fireside. Cheap crockery is laid out in the street,
so far out that without any great deviation from the regular
carriage-track a wheel might pass straight through it. Stalls of apples
are innumerable, but the apples are not fit for a pig. In some streets
herrings are very abundant, laid out on boards. Coals seem to be for
sale by the wheelbarrowful. Here and there you see children with some
small article for sale,--as, for instance, a girl with two linen caps. A
somewhat overladen cart of coal was passing along and some small quantity
of the coal fell off; no sooner had the wheels passed than several women
and children gathered to the spot, like hens and chickens round a handful
of corn, and picked it up in their aprons. We have nothing similar to
these street-women in our country.
December 10th.
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