The chief trade is cotton spinning and manufacturing, including calico-printing :and bleaching and dyeing; but there are also considerable manufactures of silk and mixed goods, of small-wares, of machinery and tools, of paper and chemicals; and Manchester is also a depot for all kinds of textile fabrics, and does a very large export trade. There are ordinarily employed in the cotton-mills about 60,000 persons, who earn about. X30,000 per week in wages. There are at least 7,000 skilled mechanics constantly engaged in the production of steam-engines, spinning:mules, looms, and other machinery, chiefly for the production of the various textile fabrics, whose wages average about 32s. each per week, and who need some 1500 laborers to assist them.
The educational endowtnents of Manchester are small compared with its population. There is a hospital school for 100 boys, founded by Sir Humphrey Cheetham, and incor porated by Charles II.; there is also a grammar-school, with about 250 free, and 350 paying pupils, founded 1519, by Hugh Oldham, bishop of Exeter. According to a. school-board return in 1873, the number of day-scholars in Manchester was 38,500 in actual attendance; and in evening schools and literary institutions there are from 4,000 to 5.000 pupils. In 1846 John Owens, a Manchester merchant, left 100,000 to found a college for secular instruction; and in connection with that institution, there are now more than 800 day and evening students. The college is well conducted, and is steadily rising in popularity. In 1873 a new building was erected at a cost of about .-V.,90,000, and
the royal school of medicine was incorporated with it, whilst the natural history society and the geological societies handed over their collections into its keeping. A mechanics' institution was commenced in 182,4, and is still carried on successfully. It has day and evening classes, a good library.and reading-roon2, and all the necessary appliances for secondary education. Similar institutions on a smaller scale exist in Salford, and in the out-townships of Longsight, Rusholme, Harpurhey, Cheetham Hill, and Pendleton. In, Manchester originated the agitation for free trade (see ANTI-CORN-LAW LEAGUE). Man chester was also the first place to secure the privilege of inland bonding for articles chargeable with customs duties, and novv produces a large revenue from that source.
Camden, who died in 1623, says: " Where the Irk runs into the Irwell, on the left hand bank, and scarce three miles from the Mersey, stands that ancient town called irt Antoninus (according to different copies), Mancuniura and Manutium. Perhaps, as an, inland town, it has the best trade of any in these northern parts. The fustian manu facture, called Manchester cottons, still continues there; this, with a great variety of other manufactures, called Manchester wares, renders not only the town itself, but the parish. about it rich, populous, and industrious." The parish of Manchester covers a large area, reaching to Stockport, Oldham, and Ashton-under-Lyne, and in the early part of the 16th c. was reckoned to have 20,000 communicaVi