the entrance upon the new home, but the restoration to health of the master of the house.

During the two years immediately succeeding, we find Dr. Heaton engaged in his professional and public work on the old lines. The new Town Hall which had been erected in Leeds, and which will long remain a monument of the public spirit of the generation which raised it, was about to be opened by the Queen; and immediately afterwards the meeting of the British Association was to be held in Leeds. Both of these events necessarily occupied much of Dr. Heaton's attention, for not a little work in connection with both events was thrown upon him. They did not, however, so completely engross his thoughts as to prevent his attending to matters which came more directly within the scope of his labours as a physician; and in May 1858 we find in his journal a record of the fact that he had commenced, at the suggestion of his wife, an effort to form a library in the Infirmary, for the benefit of the patients, who were at that time thrown very much upon their own resources during their hours of weariness and pain. The effort was happily successful. A large number of books were procured; Mrs. Heaton and one or two other ladies undertook the duty of inclosing them in suitable covers, stamping and cataloguing them; and in a very short time they were placed in the Infirmary, where they proved, it need hardly be said, a source

both of amusement and instruction to the patients. It may seem strange to many that so recently as 1858 a great public hospital should not have been provided with a library for the use of the inmates. The progress of public opinion in these matters has, however, been extraordinarily rapid during the last twenty years, and efforts the utility and even necessity of which are now universally recognised were comparatively novel in 1858.

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CHAPTER VII.

PROGRESS OF LEEDS, AND PUBLIC WORK.

MENTION has already been made in the course of this narrative of the erection of the Leeds Town Hall, and of the controversy which accompanied the selection of a design for that building. It may seem to some persons that the building of the municipal offices of a provincial town is a matter of little importance either local or national. As a matter of fact, the erection of this Leeds Town Hall was important both locally and nationally. Those who are acquainted with the town are aware that from that event dates the great development which has taken place in local architecture. Down to 1858 there was hardly one really beautiful building in the town, with the exception of one or two of the churches, and utility in its baldest and most offensive shape seemed to be the object sought after by all the inhabitants. Row after row of houses was built in accordance with the needs of the population, but not the slightest attempt was made to introduce any change into the meagre and squalid architectural styles which had prevailed for

more than a generation. Briggate, the main thoroughfare of the town, and the street in which Dr. Heaton's father so long carried on his business, was one of the plainest and poorest streets in England. It might almost have been thought that those who were responsible for it had deliberately conspired together to produce the worst possible effect. Boar Lane, the street which gave access to the railway stations, and along which an enormous traffic was constantly being carried, was as ugly as Briggate, and had the additional disadvantage of being so narrow that at certain points two-wheeled vehicles of ordinary size could not pass each other. The rest of Leeds consisted of long terraces of tasteless suburban houses, or streets occupied by mean and paltry dwellings allotted to the poor.

All this was changed by the erection of the Town Hall. But the change was not wrought without a great struggle. The public-spirited men of the borough saw that a splendid opportunity had presented itself for revolutionising the architecture of Leeds. They believed, and as it proved with entire justice, that, if a noble municipal palace that might fairly vie with some of the best Town Halls of the Continent were to be erected in the middle of their hitherto squalid and unbeautiful town, it would become a practical admonition to the populace of the value of beauty and art, and in course of time men

would learn to live up to it. Furthermore, they saw that the time was approaching when provincial life would regain some of its lost importance, and when cities like Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds, ceasing to be mere humble dependants upon the capital of the nation, would themselves become the capitals of the districts in which they were situated, just as the old county towns had been one or two hundred years before. They felt, therefore, that a rich town like Leeds, having to consider the necessity of erecting a Town Hall, was bound to approach that question in the most broad and liberal spirit, and to incur that which might even seem to some to be an extravagant expenditure, rather than fail in a duty which it owed to the rest of the community and to posterity.

But it need hardly be said that farseeing and public men are not the only active members of a community. Leeds, like other towns, had a considerable number of citizens whose one idea of the duty of the local government was that it should avoid all expenditure which could not be proved to be absolutely necessary. It is to be regretted that this false idea of economy should be so generally prevalent in provincial communities. We must remember, however, the character of the great majority of the population in these communities. It does not consist of men of wealth and culture. Very few