a particularly black and grimy edifice, containing some genuine old wood
carvings within the choir. We stayed a good while, in order to see some
people married. One couple, with their groomsman and bride's-maid, were
sitting within the choir; but when the clergyman was robed and ready,
there entered five other couples, each attended by groomsman and
bride's-maid. They all were of the lower orders; one or two respectably
dressed, but most of them poverty-stricken,--the men in their ordinary
loafer's or laborer's attire, the women with their poor, shabby shawls
drawn closely about them; faded untimely, wrinkled with penury and care;
nothing fresh, virgin-like, or hopeful about them; joining themselves to
their mates with the idea of making their own misery less intolerable by
adding another's to it. All the six couple stood up in a row before the
altar, with the groomsmen and bride's-maids in a row behind them; and
the clergyman proceeded to marry them in such a way that it almost
seemed to make every man and woman the husband and wife of every other.
However, there were some small portions of the service directed towards
each separate couple; and they appeared to assort themselves in their
own fashion afterwards, each one saluting his bride with a kiss. The
clergyman, the sexton, and the clerk all seemed to find something funny
in this affair; and the woman who admitted us into the church smiled too,
when she told us that a wedding-party was waiting to be married. But I
think it was the saddest thing we have seen since leaving home; though
funny enough if one likes to look at it from a ludicrous point of view.
This mob of poor marriages was caused by the fact that no marriage fee is
paid during Easter.
This ended the memorable things of our tour; for my wife and J----- left
Manchester for Southport, and I for Liverpool, before noon.
April 19th.--On the 15th, having been invited to attend at the laying of
the corner-stone of