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312
Walks in the Black Country

and his Countess had been able to get in only with considerable difficulty. So he had invited the villagers to have their next Penny Reading in an apartment of his mansion. Nor was this all; the manuscript programme was just that moment brought into the inn, by which we saw that the Earl was down on it for the first reading, to be followed by Sir Thomas Moncrieffe, and a harp solo from a lady of the chateau. The clergyman, schoolmaster, and several other gentlemen of the village were to contribute readings and songs to thc entertainment, and our landlord's daughter was coming all the way from Manchester to sing for them. I learnt afterwards that about 450 persons were present, and that they had a delightful evening.

In addition to these intellectual entertainments, soup and other food are distributed daily at the hall to the sick and poor. Putting all these things together and taking an aggregate aspect of Lord Stamford's establishment and its manifold and generous hospitalities, he may be congratulated on a course of beneficence to the community around him, not only in the highest degree creditable to him, but worthy of imitation by all the nobility and gentry of England. We noticed these features of his disposition and character with much interest, and felt highly pleased with our visit to Enville Gardens, and with the proof we