It is a very interesting
spot; and so much the more so because a modern town, with its brick and
stone houses, its flags and pavements, has sprung up about the ruins,
which were new a thousand years ago. The station of the Chester railway
is within a hundred yards. Formerly the monks of this Priory kept the
only ferry that then existed on the Mersey.
At a dinner at Mr. Bramley Moore's a little while ago, we had a
prairie-hen from the West of America. It was a very delicate bird, and a
gentleman carved it most skilfully to a dozen guests, and had still a
second slice to offer to them.
Aboard the ferry-boat yesterday, there was a laboring man eating oysters.
He took them one by one from his pocket in interminable succession,
opened them with his jack-knife, swallowed each one, threw the shell
overboard, and then sought for another. Having concluded his meal, he
took out a clay tobacco-pipe, filled it, lighted it with a match, and
smoked it,--all this, while the other passengers were looking at him, and
with a perfect coolness and independence, such as no single man can ever
feel in America. Here a man does not seem to consider what other people
will think of his conduct, but only whether it suits his own convenience
to do so and so. It may be the better way.
A French military man, a veteran of all Napoleon's wars, is now living,
with a false leg and arm, both movable by springs, false teeth, a false
eye, a silver nose with a flesh-colored covering, and a silver plate
replacing part of the skull.
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