THE TOY-SHOP OF THE WORLD.

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THE TOY-SHOP OF THE WORLD.

THE north of Warwickshire is a manufacturing district; a coal-field extends from near Coventry to Tamworth which employs many people, chiefly at Bedworth.

Nuneaton is a busy town among the collieries, where ribbons, silk, tools, and other things are made.

The great manufacturing town of Warwickshire, and one of the greatest in England, is Birmingham, situated close to the Staffordshire iron and coal mines. It stands on rather high ground, and is considered a healthy town; it has some wide streets and good buildings, and some famous colleges and schools. But it is not these things that make a holiday in Birmingham a great treat. The owners of many of the factories are good enough to let visitors go over them; and we may there see pens and pins, toys and brooches, turned out of hand in a wonderful way, for, in Birmingham, nearly everything is made by steam-power. It would be hard to name the thing which is not made there. Look round your room, and you will probably see twenty things which have been produced in this busy town: the bolt on the door, the screws which fix it, the gas-fittings, the castors on sofa or chair, the coal-box, perhaps the fender; the tea-tray, tea-pot, tea-spoons, the pen you write with, the inkstand you use; the buttons on coat or dress, the toys and dolls the little ones have left about; vases and glasses. Guns, too, are made here, and machines; things of all sizes and for all uses, from a pin to a steam-engine.

Let us get an order for Gillott's pen factory: the rooms are large and airy; there is no unpleasant smell;

but there is such a whirr of machinery that you can hardly hear the words of your conductor, who is kindly explaining everything. Where does the noise come from? All round the room there are countless machines, each about the size of a sewing-machine, all of which are kept at work by a steam-engine somewhere in the building. A woman, or a young girl, neat and well-dressed, sits before each machine. What is she doing? That you cannot discover; you see a sort of flutter of her hand, but that is all which tells you she takes a pen from a heap, holds it under punch or press, puts it with another heap, and takes another pen. The conductor explains all this, but the work-women are too rapid for you to follow their movements.

We have no time for a peep at the button factories, nor at Elkington's great plate factory, where teapots and spoons, candlesticks, forks, and a hundred other things are made; nor at the pin-making, gun-making, or any of the other curious manufactures of this great "toy-shop."

Map Questions.

1. What river enters Warwick from Northamptonshire? Name four important towns on this river. What vale does it flow through on leaving Warwickshire?

2. What is the ridge of high land called which runs through the county from north to south? Name three places of interest which lie at the foot of this ridge.

3. What hill in the south was the scene of a famous battle? Date of the battle?

4. What counties border Warwickshire? In what part of England is this county? What great manufacturing town is on the Staffordshire border?

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LEICESTER AND RUTLAND.

I.

RUTLAND, the smallest county of England, is really like a corner of Leicestershire. It is a very pleasant and pretty county, with hills and vales, woods and streams, blooming orchards, and many fine houses and parks. There is some rather high land in the north, and there is the beautiful Vale of Catmoss, with its woods and green pastures. In the south of the shire there is part of the green and rather flat Welland Valley, as well as the valleys of the streams which join the Welland, little valleys, not a mile across, running from east to west, and divided from one another by ranges of low hills.

Often a noble mansion stands on one of these swelling hills, half hidden among great oaks and beeches; and there are green lawns, soft as velvet, about the house; and, beyond, the park, with its clumps of trees and open glades, and deer browsing in herds.

Rutland is altogether a farming county, and both its wheat and barley are thought particularly good; so, too, is its cheese; the kind called Stilton is made in the Vale of Catmoss. There, and in the east of the county, where the rivers meet, are broad pastures where many cows are fed.

This little county has only two towns of any note, both clean, neat, market-towns: Uppingham, where there is a well-known school, and Oakham, the county town, where was born Jeffrey Hudson, the dwarf who amused the ladies of Charles I.'s court.

LEICESTERSHIRE, also, is a farming county, a county famous for "Leicester sheep," for long- and shorthorned cattle, and for horses. The raising of "stock," as it is called, is the kind of farming for which Leicestershire is most noted; perhaps because a Mr. Bakewell, of Dishley, near Loughborough, did a great deal to improve the breeds both of sheep and cattle. Great quantities of butter and cheese are made too; and the county of Leicester, with its green pastures, high hedgerows, and corn crops and green crops growing up to the tops of the low hills, with its woods and green meadows, streams and vales, is as pleasant to look upon as any in England.

The highest point in the county is Bardon Hill, near Charnwood Forest. Though only 850 feet high, it rises in such a flat district, that from the top of it on a clear day you may see nearly right across England, from the Welsh hills on the one side to Lincoln Cathedral on the other; such a wide view as is not to be had from any other point in the country. Charnwood Forest is a forest no longer; it is the highest land in the county, with hills and heaths and rugged wastes, though most of it is now under cultivation.

Nearly filling the corner of the county west of Charnwood Forest is the coal-field of Ashby-de-laZouch, measuring about ten miles every way. The chief collieries are at Ashby-de-la-Zouch-named after Alan de la Zouch, to whom the land belonged in the reign of Henry III.-and at Moira, Coalville, and Swannington.