DUDLEY. 133

Campbell (afterwards Lord Chief Justice) being first returned. Mr. Hawkes, a Conservative, succeeded him in several elections, and in 1844 Mr. Benbow, Lord Ward's solicitor, also a Conservative, was chosen. His successor was Mr. H. B. Sheridan, the present Member, who is a Liberal, and distinguished for his successful opposition to the fire insurance duty. Considering the rough population, electioneering disturbances here have never been serious; but the same cannot be said of the colliers' riots nor of the Chartist fooleries led on by the once notorious Sam Cooke.

Dudley was probably an insignificant town till the impulse given to it by the coal and iron trades in the seventeenth century. Under the enterprise of the Foleys and -the rapid expansion of the coal and iron trades, the town increased in population and importance, until it has become numerically by far the largest place in the county, and must inevitably expand at a rate which shall distance all competitors, if what I am told is correct - and the authority is unquestionable - that the marriages at the parish church average 400 per annum! Indeed, I was myself once present there on a Sunday when forty couples attended for the purpose of being made "one flesh." Canals and railways have done much for the town, and the appearance of its streets was greatly improved by a general paving a few years ago, as also by the destruction of the Middle Row and the establishment of a better market-place. Then new streets were built, churches, schools, banks, offices, a gaol, and other public buildings erected, including a Mechanics' Institution of some pretensions, a fine new workhouse, and large numbers of workmen's houses, not so much in as around the town. Water supply was added; and if the sewerage is not perfection, it is better than that of many other towns in the county. Yet Dudley should bear in mind that much remains to be done for the sanitary state of its teeming population, and that on the visitation of the cholera in 1832 the town suffered severely, ,there being 1,132 seizures and 260 deaths. Well, then,