The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

256
THE BRITISH ISLES.
ingenious washing machines. In the valley of the Worth, which joins the Aire at
Keighley, is Haworth, the home of the Brontes. Binrjlcy is engaged in the worsted
and woollen trades. Saltaire, below it, is a model town, and was founded in 1853
by the late Sir Titus Salt, who first introduced the nlanufacture of alpaca into
England. Passing SJnpJey, which carries on the same industries as Bingley, we
reach Leeds, the commercial and industrial metropolis of the whole district, by
right of its population the fifth town of England, but the first in the world for its
clothing trade. This branch of industry has been carried on here from very
remote times, and as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century the cloth-
makers oi' Leeds, instructed in their craft by Flemish workmen, sent their wares
f orley
Fig. 125.
1°30' W.of Gt,
—
Leeds.
Scale 1 : 192,000.
,^.-:v>'
uito every part of England. Halifax at that time was the most important manu-
facturing town of the county, and its burgesses enjoyed the privilege of beheading
every maleftictor who stole any cloth from off the " tenters," a privilege of which
they freely availed themselves until its abrogation in 1650. By the end of the
seventeenth century Leeds had distanced all its Yorkshire rivals in the clothing
trade, and about the same period, in consequence of the introduction of coal into
its factories, it enriched itself still further by adding fresh branches of industry to
that which had first established its reputation. At the present day almost every
description of cloth is made at Leeds, but, besides this, there are huge flax-mills,
iron-mills, locomotive works, dye and bleaching works, felt factories, brass foundries,