The above numbers tell very little to the mind of one who is not conversant with the proceedings of other ports; but when we find that London, Liverpool, and Newcastle, are the only British ports which take precedence of Hull in the number of vessels despatched therefrom; and that Leith, Glasgow, Greenock, Bristol, and the whole of the Irish ports, are subordinate to Hull in this matter-we may excuse the merchants of the Humber if they are a little proud of their busy port. The nations to which the foreign vessels in the Hull trade mostly belong are Germany, Denmark, Holland, and Sweden. The chief trade is with Russia, the Hanse Towns, Holland, and the North American colonies: the trade with France is but small.

If the Hull merchants were to test the grandeur of their port according to the amount of Customs' duty realized by the Government, it would occupy a somewhat different rank from that which results from taking the number and tonnage of the vessels. This arises from two causes. The Customs' arrangements sometimes require that the duties for a particular river shall be paid at a particular town on that river; and secondly, the kind of commodities mostly imported by any one town may be more amenable to Customs' duties than those of another. This is strikingly exemplified at Bristol, where the imported commodities pay a very high average Customs' duty. Influenced by these causes, the principal ports rank thus, in respect to Customs' receipts :-London, Liverpool, Bristol and Dublin (about equal), Glasgow and Leith (about equal), Rull, Newcastle, Belfast, Greenock, Cork. Hull stands

fourth on the list in respect to tonnage, but only seventh in regard to Customs; Newcastle occupies the third place in tonnage, but the eighth in Customs. Hull contributes rather over half a million sterling annually to the revenue of Customs.

THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY OF HULL.

In looking at the commercial arrangements of Hull generally, exclusive of those of the docks, we find that they are influenced by the peculiar form of the town. The old portion of Hull is, as we have said, an island, bounded by the two rivers and the three docks; and as this portion is incapable of enlargement, no new commercial establishments of any great extent can be established within it. Most of the notable buildings of the town (except those quite modern) lie within this boundary; although it does not occupy more than oneeighth part of the actual area of this constantly growing town. The Market-place, Queen-street, Low-gate, Whitefriar-gate, Myton-gate, Blackfriar-gate, Humberstreet, High-street-the principal commercial streets of the town-are all here situated. The most curious among these streets is High-street, the original main street of the town. It lies nearly close to, and follows the windings of, the river Hull. It is so narrow, the road-paving is so irregularly pebbly, the foot-pavement is so infinitesi mally small, the houses are so large and high and old, the staiths or passages leading down to the river are so numerous, that this street is distinguished from all others in Hull. It is a sort of Thames-street or

Crossing the river Hull, and escaping from the timber-wharfs which lie between it and the Citadel, we find a long string of factories and works of great magnitude lining the eastern banks of the river for nearly a couple of miles. Glass-works, pottery-works, alkaliworks, bone-mills, iron-works, and a multitude of others, occupy positions very near the banks of the river. When we depart a little way from the river eastward, we soon reach the private streets, the partlybuilt ground, and the gardens and fields of Sutton, Sudcoates, and Drypool.

Keeping to the west of the river Hull, but extending our walk northward of the Docks, we come to the very extensive suburb, parish, or district of Sculcoates; a district in which many of the wealthier inhabitants have their private residences, and in which new streets and squares are springing up every year. But all the wealthy people, and all the good streets and squares, keep clear of the river Hull. So thoroughly is this river-on both banks, and for a couple of miles in length-given up to commerce and manufactures-that the amenities of private life do not invade the territory. Ships and seamen, smoke and factories, wharfs and warehouses, have it all their own way. There is a narrow crooked street, called Trippet in one part, Wincolmlee in another, and Church-street in a third; it follows the windings of the river Hull; and it presents such an array of oil-mills, glue-mills, bone-mills, horn and hoof-mills, cement-mills, colour-mills, &c., as render it not among the most savoury of thoroughfares. High up in this direction, on the extreme northern verge of industrious and ever-busy Hull, stands a building which we should hardly expect to find there. It is a cotton-mill on a vast scale, replete with all the finest apparatus of such establishments. There are two such at Hull; one on the eastern and the other on the western side of the river; both owned by joint-stock companies, whose shares are sold in the market like those of a railway-company. But (such is the force of habit) though the hundreds of windows, the loftiness of the chimneys, the perfection of the machinery, the excellence of the work, the number of the operatives, may be indisputable, yet one can hardly reconcile it with customary ideas to associate Hull with a cotton-mill. Nay, though Cobden Place presents us with a very pretty range of cottages near the mill, yet even this can scarcely induce us to regard the mill other than as a "fish out of water." No disrespect to either mill or partners, however; for, after all, it may be a flourishing concern, and a commercial becefit to Hull generally.

The western environs of the town are not such as seem ikely to present us with many manufacturing or commercial establishments. They have more private streets. One of the most notable, or perhaps the most notable

We must not think of quitting the commerce and manufactures of Hull, without a word or two about whales and whale-fishers.

Hull has been for generations one of the headquarters of the Greenland Whale-fishery. The northern ports of our island have had far more to do with this branch of enterprise than the southern; and the merchants and seamen of Hull have a whole host of associations connected with the subject. The lively author of the Home Tour in the Manufacturing Districts,' while noticing the arrival of one of these vessels at the port, says: "The interest evinced by all descriptions of persons at Hull, on the arrival of a whaler, is very remarkable; for it may be said that the moral and physical affections of half the inhabitants are more or less excited-some in the hope or reality of profit, direct or indirect; and others by a host of domestic joys and anxieties." He goes on to observe : "An additional cause rendered the present spectacle even still more touching. A custom prevails among the seamen of these vessels, when traversing the polar seas, to fix, on the first day of May, a garland aloft, suspended midway on a rope leading from the maintopgallant-mast head to the foretop-mast head: a garland, not, indeed, bedecked with flowers, but ornamented with knots of riband, love-tokens of the lads for their lasses; each containing, as it were, a little tender history, sanctified in the heart's treasury, and with the details of which they alone are acquainted." This garland remains suspended, "blow high, blow low, in spite of sleet and hail, till the ship reaches once more her port. No sooner does she arrive at the Docks, than, according to long-established custom, it becomes an object of supreme emulation among the boys of the town, seamen's sons, to compete for the possession of the aforesaid symbol: to which end, animated by the gaze of their friends on shore, and a spirit of rivalry among themselves, they vie with each other in a perilous race up the rigging. The contest was at this moment about to take place: the garland being suspended aloft, in the position before described, and containing within its periphery the model of a ship, cut from the heart of an English oak, the type of honest affection."

The northern whale-fishery has in past generations been looked upon with great favour in Hull. It was established (or perhaps we had better say revived) by a Mr. Standidge, in 1765: and it reached its highest pitch at Hull in 1818, when sixty-three ships belonging

to that port were engaged in it. But this fishery is no longer what it once was. The whales, like the beavers, are thinning under the influence of man's hunting and fishing propensities. But such whales as are brought to England are treated pretty much the same way at all the ports whither the whale ships are bound. There are establishments at Hull, at the outskirts of the town, where the boiling-down of the monsters takes place. Let the reader imagine a whaleship to arrive at the port, with the hull packed quite full of blubber and barrels. The ponderous animal is cut up piecemeal while at sea, and all the parts which are worth preserving are stowed away in the hold of the ship; and among these parts the most notable is the flesh or blubber, whence the oil is obtained. This blubber, when conveyed to the boiling-house, is emptied from the barrels into large vats, where it undergoes those processes which yield the common lamp-oil, processes which render the boiling-house anything but an Elysium. Another matter of attention is the whalebone: this is not, as many persons suppose, the actual substance of the bones of the whale: it is the material of a sort of screen or comb, within the mouth of the animal, which assists in the collection of weeds and small fishes for the food of the whale. The whalebone having a sort of lamellar structure, is easily split into layers by a cutting instrument. Women then scrape off a kind of pithy or horny substance from the surface of the whalebone; and also a kind of fringy or fibrous edging, which is applied to many such purposes as horsehair. Glue is made from a part of the offal of the whale; and everything which is applicable to no other useful purpose is prepared for manure: so that the monster of the deep is made to contribute to man's wants in many ways. Whether the Messrs. Enderby's South Sea projects will throw the whale traffic into a new channel is an interesting point, to be decided by the future.

We happened to be at Hull on the day when the gallant whaler, 'Abram,' started on her venturous voyage to the icy regions. There are few newspaper readers who are not aware of the frequent exploits of the whalers among the ice-bergs of the Greenland seas; of the aid which they have often afforded to the hardy Arctic explorers; of the ominous absence and silence of Sir John Franklin; of the plans of the English Government to assist in his rescue, if living; of the recent unsuccessful search made by Sir James Ross; of the tearful but heroic attempts of the wife (perhaps widow) of the veteran officer, to send still more and more assistance to the probable place of his detention; and of the agreement which this lady made with the captain and crew of a Hull whale-ship, to start with provisions and stores on a voyage to Baffin's Bay, to assist the missing navigators. The ship 'Abram' was ready for her task by the middle of June. God speed the expedition!

THE BUILDINGS AND INSTITUTIONS OF HULL. We have said very little hitherto of the public

buildings of Hull. Let us rapidly glance at some among the principal of them. A few of the larger streets we have named; and a word or two, en passant, concerning the poorer or humbler, may not be amiss. There is a general tendency in most towns for the inhabitants of a particular class or rank to copy each other in the style of dwellings inhabited; and thus, although we may not be able to assign any special reason for the adoption of a certain style of buildings in one town rather than another, yet we may observe a family likeness running through the mass of buildings in one town. Mr. Smith, of Deanston, who examined the sanatory condition of Hull four or five years ago on the part of the Government, tells us that the masters of small vessels and the mates of larger vessels very frequently reside in that town in oblong square paved courts, to which entrance is obtained by smaller narrow arched alleys, which branch out of the principal streets. The entrance-alleys are too often dirty and neglected; but the courts are well paved, and are scrubbed and washed scrupulously clean. Mr. Smith remarks that it is very pleasing, after having passed through these unsavoury alleys, "to find yourself all at once in a court from twenty to forty feet square, or oblong, with a paved area washed as clean as the deck of a ship. The doors and windows of the dwellings are all as tidy as possible; and the windows have all clean muslin screens." He then speaks of the residences of the working classes, which, as in most old towns, houses formerly occupied by a better class." But new rows of houses have been built, which are "set off in oblong courts, open at one end to the street, and generally closed at the other by a wall, and in some cases a dwelling. These courts are from eighteen to twenty feet wide, well flagged on the surface, with a fall towards the centre, where there is a covered sewer to receive all the surface and slop water through openings grated over, or covered with a stone perforated with many small holes. A row of stand-pipes for supplying water is arranged along the middle of the court. No carts are permitted to come into these courts. The dwellings are arranged on each side; they have a living-room below, fourteen or fifteen feet square, with a little scullery in one corner at the back, and a very small back court. . . . . Up-stairs are two small bed-rooms. These houses are occupied by artizans and the better class of labourers. The buildings are of brick, with slated roofs: the floors of the livingrooms are flagged, and there are no under cellars." Luckily for Hull, the near approach of the tide-water in the docks to the general level of the streets will not allow of cellars being made for habitation. Would it were so at Liverpool.

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In a large majority of our towns, a cathedral or church is the most important building. Hull is no exception to this rule. The church of the Holy Trinity at Hull is one of those fine old structures which command our admiration, whether we be commercially inclined or lovers of the picturesque. (Engraving.) It is grand from its character, and venerable for its age.