hat all the manufacturers are large owners of stocking-frames. One of the leading firms at Leicester is in possession of upwards of a thousand frames; other firms own 800, 600, 500, &c. Now the custom is, for the 'stocking-weaver,' or 'frame-work knitter,' or 'stockinger' (for by all these names is the actual workman known), when he receives an order to make so many dozen pairs of stockings, or any other description of hosiery, to rent from the firm the frame with which he is to do the work. It is, to a stranger who first observes the system, most inexplicable thing that scarcely a single stockinger is the owner of the machine with which he works. The hand-loom weaver of Yorkshire, or of Spitalfields, however poor he may be, can claim a property in the machine he uses; but for some reason or other or rather from a very complicated string of causes the stockinger of Nottingham or Leicester, cannot do so. He pays a rent for his machine. And here again a system is observable which we should hardly have looked for: that the rent is reckoned per week and not per piece. The man is paid for his services at per piece, the price being higher or lower according to the varying briskness of trade; but he pays a weekly rent for the frame, whether he earns much or little by it. We are generally in the habit of thinking that those understand a system best who are engaged in it; else we would venture to propound a little wise expostulation on this matter: we might, perhaps, deem ourselves sagacious in asking, Why not let the frame-rent bear a certain fixed ratio to, or per centage on, the price paid for the work done; so that the one should fluctuate, pari passu, with the other? However, as the hosiery folks have undoubtedly the privilege of managing their own affairs in their own way, we must take matters as we find them. When Mr. Muggeridge, who also investigated, as a Government Commissioner, the whole system of the hosiery manufacture in 1845, came to make his Report, he spoke of the frame-rents in the following decisive terms:"The evidence both of masters and men is perfectly conclusive and coincident in one point: viz., that the amount of this deduction is regulated by no fixed rate or principle whatever; that it is not dependent upon the value of the frame, upon the amount of money earned in it, or on the extent of the work made; that it has differed in amount at different times, and now does so at different places; that the youthful learner or apprentice pays the same rent for his scanty earnings as the most expert and skilful workman in the trade for his, of fourfold the amount; and that the practice of this deduction or charge has existed for upwards of a century." Strange, that this manufacture should be almost the only one in England so circumstanced! As we do not pretend to go very minutely into these manufacturing matters here, we shall not say much about prices, and rents, and charges; but we may state that the frame-rent seems to vary from 8d. to 3s. 6d. per week: one shilling is said to be a very usual rent for the narrowest frames. The manufacturer lets out his frames with his work; for it is one condition of his arangements, that his own work shall, as far as possible, be done in his own frames: indeed, as the rent of almost all the frames yields a large per centage on their cost, this profit is sometimes regarded as a substitute for the absence of profit in the work done in bad times. But now comes another feature in this hosiery system. As frame-rents are known to be profitable, why should not other persons embark in the enterprize? Why should not the butcher, or the baker, or the publican invest a portion of his savings in the purchase of stocking-frames, although he may know nothing of the manufacture himself? This is actually done; and all frames so owned are called independent frames :-pity it is that the poor weaver himself does not, or cannot, or will not, or must not (for it is doubtful which is the correct term) have an independent' for himself! Some of the frame-smiths and sinker-makers keep independent frames to let out on hire to such weavers as may require them; and retail tradesmen, as we have said, do so likewise. Many of these independent frames are rented by masters or manufacturers, who have not sufficient capital to furnish the weavers with frames; and these masters then put an additional rental on the frames, which, together with the original rent, has to be paid by the workmen. It is supposed that about one-seventh or one-eighth of the whole number of frames at work are of this 'independent' kind. Where a manufacturer is employing a number of workmen, some in his own frames, and the rest in independent frames hired from other parties, any depression of trade leads him to discharge first those engaged on the independent frames, in order that his own frame-rent may continue as long as the work continues. So remarkably does this hosiery system present itself to our view at every step, that we are forcibly led to compare it with the factory system elsewhere. If stockings were made in large steam-worked factories, none of the arrangements here described would prevail; whether it would be better or worse for those concerned, is a large question which we shall not venture to discuss. The reader has a good deal more to learn than concerns the manufacturer, the workman, and the independent.' There is, for instance, the master, who also rejoices in the multifarious appellations of masterman, bagman, middleman, middlemaster, putter-out, and undertaker: why the Nottingham and Leicester people do not agree upon some one among these many names, they themselves perhaps could not say; but we will use the term middleman, because it exactly designates the position of the individual. A middleman is a sub-manufacturer, who stands between the manufacturer and the workman, receiving orders from the former, and giving them out to the latter. Where a manufacturer is the owner of a great number of frames, he does not trouble himself to deal separately with every one among (perhaps) a thousand work people, but transacts his business with one-tenth or one-twelfth of that number of middlemen, who themselves engage Mr. Muggeridge gives many interesting details, illus with the workmen. This middleman-system is observ- | hosiery,' narrowed clock hose,' 'Vandykes,' 'plated able in nearly all handicraft employments, but does hose, plated waistcoats,' 'long-arm gloves,' 'tickler and not prevail in the factory regulations, except to a very eyelet mitts,'' spring and lace mitts,' 'Berlin web pantalimited extent. The middlemen receive the yarns from loons,' and many others. The chief part of these were the manufacturers' warehouses, give it out to the work- enumerated as branches of manufacture, which for various men, receive from them the hosiery made of the mate- reasons had had their day of fashion, and had gone rial, and carry that hosiery to the warehouse; they into oblivion. receive a definite price from the manufacturer, and pay a price to the workmen-both being matter of agree-trative of the rise and fall, the alternate prosperity and ment at the time; and they derive their profit from the difference between these two prices. They sometimes possess frames of their own, or hire independent' frames from other parties; and they have then an interest in working these frames in preference to others: indeed they will, in such case, take work at a very low price, in order to employ their own frames and secure their frame-rents. We thus see that the frame-rent system stamps its peculiar features on all around; and that the workman is at the mercy (so far as this matter is concerned) of three distinct classes of persons-the manufacturer, the middleman, and the independent' owner-who all look out for frame-rents, as a good property even under all fluctuations of trade and prices: good, at least, in so far as the frames are actually employed; for, if unemployed, no profit is derived from them by any one. distress, often attendant on what may to us seem a very trivial article of manufacture. In 1819 an old fancy production, called the 'knotted hose,' was revived at Leicester. It took the taste of the wearers so thoroughly, that all the spare frames became speedily applied to it, numbers of work people crowded into this branch, and yet wages continued for some years higher than before; but the fashion died away gradually, and the high wages died with it. Several years earlier than this, a peculiar web, called '2 and 1 raised cord,' was introduced at Leicester; it required peculiar frames and skilful workmen; the product became fashionable, wages rose 50 per cent. higher than in other branches, and workmen speedily transferred themselves to this department; but this material had had a large sale among military clothiers, and the conclusion of the war brought a conclusion also to the bright days of the There is a slight difference between the middleman2 and 1 raised cord.' This had been probably named and the bagman. The former receives the raw material from the 2 and 1 ribbed hose,' which Mr. Strutt had for the manufacturer, and returns it to him in the form introduced at Derby towards the close of the last cenof hosiery; but the bagman is a small dealer on his tury, and which was for many years a source of great own account: he buys his wool or cotton when and profit to him and of high wages to his workmen. where and how he can, has it made up into hosiery Almost every variety in the hosiery manufacture has (on his own frames, usually,) by the stockingers, and in like manner had its day of brightness, when manuoffers it for sale to the manufacturers, or large dealers. facturers reaped good profits, and workmen earned good He is accustomed to take his bag full of finished goods wages: fickle fashion then comes in, and either dooms to the warehouses on Saturdays: and hence he becomes the particular species of manufacture to a lingering a bagman.' The middleman resides mostly in the death, or brings it down to the level of all others in towns the bagman has his scene of operations mostly respect to profit. in the villages-he is the link which connects Nottingham and Leicester with the villages. The bagman is often a shopkeeper; and if report speaks truly, he is prone to pay his stockingers in goods from his general store which goods are neither the best nor the cheapest of their kind. The Leicester and Nottingham people have never yet been able to settle the question, whether the bagman' and 'middleman' system is more of a good than an evil: the stockingers generally dislike it the manufacturers are divided in opinion. The peculiar kind of mesh or twisting, which constitutes the distinguishing feature of hosiery-work, gives great elasticity or pliability to the manufactured web, and this has led to its employment in a larger variety of articles than most non-initiated readers would suppose. In a Nottingham newspaper, where comments were made on the state of trade in that district, we find mention made of the following varieties of work; we simply enumerate them, without dwelling on the comments to which they gave rise: 'twills,' 'elastics,' 'brocades,' 'knotted hose,'' waistcoat-pieces,'' cottonribs,' 'worsted knotted hose,' 'German ribs,' 'fleecy The reader is now in a position to form some judgment of the hosiery manufacture, and of its relation to Leicester and Leicestershire. Go to the mills: you will see worsted being spun into yarn for the purposes of hosiery. Go to the manufacturers' warehouses: you will see the bagman offering to sell finished hosiery at a price which even the manufacturer himself cannot undersell; or the middleman receiving yarn which he is to return as finished goods; or the stockinger doing the same thing (for some of the workmen deal directly with the principals, without the intervention of a middleman). Go to the middleman's abode, or to the bagman's shop: you will see how these parties contrive to scrape up three kinds of profit-on the hosiery which they undertake to get made, on the frames which they rent out to the stockingers, and on the countless chandlery wares which they sell in their shops. Go to the bouses where the stockingers work: you will see that many of them frequently work together, and pay threepence or sixpence a week rent for 'standing-room' for their frame. Lastly, go to the humble dwellings in the humble streets: here you will see the wives and daughters of the stockingers earning a poor pittance at seaming' the hosiery which has been made. NOTTINGHAM: ITS HILL, CAVES, AND CASTLE. Let us now travel northward, and glance at the topographical and industrial features of other portions of the hosiery district. The whole district comprises about 240 parishes in the three counties, and forms a sort of oblong oval area; we may place its limits at about Chesterfield in the north, Market Harborough in the south, Newark in the east, and Ashby-de-la Zouch in the west—an area, in round numbers, of 70 miles long and 45 wide. The trade groups itself round a smaller number of centres in the northern than in the southern half of this oval; for our present purpose, we may confine ourselves pretty nearly to the towns and environs of Nottingham and Derby-each of which presents other objects of manufacturing interest, besides those relating to hosiery. Nottingham is a less favoured centre of railway communication than Leicester promises to be; but still it is not without a fair share of those handmaids to commerce. The Midland Railway sends its branch through Nottingham to Newark and Lincoln, which places the town in connection with the north-east and south-west districts; while other lines will run to Grantham, Mansfield, and Ambergate. Nottingham has a more commanding situation than Leicester; it stands on higher ground, and presents within the scope of the eye a wider range of country on the east, west, and south: towards the south-east the beautiful Vale of Belvoir comes into view; but the chief slope of the town is facing the south, where it gradually sinks to the northern bank of the river Trent. The town itself is watered by two little streams, the Leen and the Beck, which wind about among the lower streets, and then enter the Trent. A chain of wooded hills bounds Nottingham at some distance on the north, and separates it from Sherwood Forest, the famed locale of the Robin Hood of past days. Not Whenever a town has a castle within or near it, one always looks to that castle as a link to connect the present age with the past history of the town. tingham has a castle, and every visitor to Nottingham goes to see it; but every visitor is disappointed in his expectation of seeing a fine old time-worn, ivy-grown, half-crumbled, embattled structure. The truth is, that the Nottingham Castle of our age is not the one made memorable to us in the days of the Edwards and Henrys. Nottingham, after having been a notable possession in the hands of the Romans, the Saxons, and the Danes, was strengthened by a castle, built near the south-west side by William the Conqueror, and conferred by him on his natural son, William Peverel. The town suffered much during the troubled reigns of Stephen and Henry II.; and in the struggles of Richard II.'s reign, the castle, which was of great strength, was an object of contest. But the event for which the castle is best known was the capture of Roger Morti mer, the favourite of Queen Isabella, in 1330. During the civil war between Charles I. and his Parliament, the king set up his standard (there is a street in the town called Standard Hill, near the castle,) at Nottingham, in 1642; but the town came next year into the hands of the Parliamentarians, who garrisoned the castle. During the time of Oliver Cromwell, the old castle was dismantled; and at length, after the Restoration, it was destroyed altogether, to make way for a structure as unlike a castle as can well be conceived. The hill on which the castle stands shares in the history of the castle itself; for there are caves or hollows within it, which played a part in the catastrophe of Mortimer. The hill, or rather rock, (for such it is) rises abruptly from the northern bank of the little river Leen, but on the other sides it slopes down gradually to the level of the town. Close to the river there are some spots almost perpendicular; and in these places many rooms and small dwellings have been built on the face of the rock, by excavating the escarpment: the castle being a couple of hundred feet above our heads. A little further on, winding round the base of the hill, is a group of small gardens, occupying a plot of ground which was once the moat or fosse of the castle, afterwards a fish-pond, but now producing an annual rental from the holders of the gardens. A little ascent from these gardens brings us to the road from Nottingham to the neighbouring town of Lenton, a part of which road is cut through the solid rock whereon the castle stands. Shortly after this we reach Standard Hill; and at the easiest part of the slope of the castle hill we arrive at the gates of the castle-the veritable gates, which have withstood all the storms of time and war. Not far from these gates are many small streets, whose names—' Edward,' Isabella,' 'Mortimer,' &c.-show what are the historical recollections connected with the spot. The gates are locked, but the usual kind of silver key will draw the bolts. On gaining admission within, we find ourselves in a grass-plot, or court,-once, probably, the outer quadrangle of the castle. On the opposite side from the entrance, a flight of steps leads up to the terrace which surrounds the castle, and on whose level it stands. Here we see a plain white house, in the Italian style, forming the only 'castle' which Nottingham has had for nearly two centuries. And it has not even (as it at present stands) the merit of being a white house; for we find desolation and solitude, walls and windows bare and blackened, and heaps of stones filling the interior. This sad picture it has presented for eighteen years. When the Reform Bill was thrown out, in 1831, by the House of Lords, the rabble of Nottingham, thinking to make one of the peers suffer for the rest, raised a riot, and set fire to the castle,-then, and now, belonging to the Duke of Newcastle. The shell of the building withstood the fire, but the interior was utterly consumed. In the next year the duke obtained, at the Leicester Assizes, a verdict for £21,000 against the parish or hundred in which the castle is situated. The money was paid, but the castle has never since been repaired or inha- | Parliamentarians under Colonel Hutchinson, in 1643: bited; and there it remains-a memento of ungoverned mob-excitement; a source of expense to the rate-payers, who had to provide the costs and damages of the trial; and a mortification to the inhabitants of Nottingham, whenever a stranger makes inquiries on the matter. Like the blocked-up windows of Apsley House, the smoked and desolate walls of Nottingham Castle carry with them rather a severe reproof. We have said that there are caves or hollows within the Castle Hill. Some etymologists trace the name of Nottingham to two Saxon words, which express the "place of caverns," supposed to refer to this matter; but be this as it may, the hollows are certainly of a curious kind. When standing on the castle terrace, we find a small and almost hidden flight of steps, leading down to subterraneous passages in the sandstone rock the sides and floor of these passages have decayed and crumbled in a considerable degree, so that what once constituted a flight of steps is now merely an inclined plane. The passages are very tortuous, and have light thrown in upon them through loopholes cut in the face of the rock. Along the sides of the passages are several hemispherical cavities; and, as local guides have a theory for everything, these cavities are said to have been formed as a depository for cannon-balls, -a reserve store of ammunition for the defence of the castle in times of danger. Some of the passages have been designedly blocked up; others have become choked by falling fragments: but there is little doubt that they led originally to the level of the river, and that they were formed as defensive contrivances in turbulent times. A general name for this series of caverns or passages is Mortimer's Hole.' Those who are familiar with English history in the time of Edward II. will remember that that monarch was murdered, chiefly through the machinations of his queen, Isabella, and her favourite, Mortimer, at Berkeley Castle; that his youthful successor, Edward III., with a body of adherents, had to maintain a hard struggle against the guilty pair; and that those adherents resolved to seize Mortimer, while with the queen and the young king in Nottingham Castle. The confederates forced an entry by night into a room adjoining to Isabella's apartment, where Mortimer was engaged in consultation with the Bishop of Lincoln and his principal advisers. The door was instantly forced, and two knights, who endeavoured to defend the entrance, were slain. The queen, alarmed by the noise, and conjecturing its cause, exclaimed, "Sweet son, fair son, spare my gentle Mortimer!" But her fears would not permit her to remain in bed. She burst into the room, crying out that he was a "worthy knight, her dearest friend, her wellbeloved cousin." The catastrophe, however, was at hand: Mortimer was captured, tried for high treason, and executed. One of the most interesting periods connected with the history of Nottingham Castle is the period when it was besieged by the Royalists, and defended by the an incident not so much interesting on its own account, as for the narrative given by Lucy Hutchinson, the widow of the governor, in her 'Memoirs' of her husband. The colonel was made governor at a critical time; and Mrs. Hutchinson describes the castle and its defensive arrangements. "The castle," she says, was built upon a rock, and Nature had made it capable of very strong fortification; but the buildings were very ruinous and uninhabitable, neither affording room to lodge soldiers nor provisions. The castle stands at one end of the town, upon such an eminence as commands the chief streets of the town." We need not follow the details of the siege; but while standing on the castle terrace, one may easily see that the castle could easily have "commanded the chief streets of the town." The view is very comprehensive towards the south-west, embracing a considerable part of the town, many factories, the railway, the small Leen, and the larger Trent, the manufacturing villages, Radford and Lenton, the gardens around the base of the hill, and the dim outlines of the Derbyshire hills in the distance. The steel-plate shows the castle and town from the south. Of the history of the modern castle, scarcely a line is needed. The old castle was given to the Duke of Buckingham after the Restoration, and then passed into the hands of the Duke of Newcastle, who pulled it down, and built another, in which feudal strength was exchanged for drawing-room luxury. It was in this new building that the Earl of Devonshire and other noblemen met, in 1688, to concert measures for the support of William of Orange. The catastrophe of 1831 is the last page in the history of the castle. NOTTINGHAM: THE TOWN AND ITS BUILDings. When we descend from the Castle Hill to the town, we come to as dense a mass of streets, perhaps, as is to be found in England: narrow courts, and houses built back to back, everywhere abound. There are a few good streets and open thoroughfares, but the number is too small. It is rather a perplexing town for a stranger to walk through the first time; there is no straightforward thoroughgoing artery from east to west, or from north to south. The market-place is rather westward of the middle of the town; and a fine market-place it is; but in no direction is there a good straight street from thence to the margin of the town: we have to wind around many crooked and steep streets to reach the commercial centre of the place. A new street, called Albert Street, will shortly improve the central parts of the town. This market-place is one of the largest in the kingdom. (Cut, No. 5.) It is a triangular open area, bounded by lofty houses and arcaded shops. Saturday evening is especially a time to visit this spot: the large area is crowded with all imaginable nicknacks, which the wages of a working population can purchase. The goods are arranged in long rows on the ground, or |