No manufactures of note are carried on in Huntingdon shire, except wool, stapling, and spinning yarn : the latter is the chief business of the women and children in the win ter season; in the summer they find more profitable em ployment in the fields. There is a small manufacture of lace at Kimholton ; and at St Neots, there is a very large paper mill worked by patent machinery. At Standground, there are two manufactures fur sacking. The markets and fairs of St Ives for live cattle are some of the greatest in Eng land.
In the year 1303, the poor's rates amounted to 30,9521.: in the year ending the 25th of March, 1815, it amounted to 40,6251.
There are few remarkable antiquities in this county. Dornford, in the north-west part of it, formerly called Deorm-ceaster and Caer Dorm, is probably the Durobri ye, a passage of the Nen mentioned in tile Itinerary of An toninus. A little above Stilton, a Roman pathway, leading from Dornford to Huntingdon, appears with a very high bank, which, in an old Saxon charter, is called Erming street. From Ramsey, which stands on an isle of the same name, formed by the fens, there tuns a causeway, called Kings-delf, for ten miles, to Peterborough. It appears upon
record in King Edgar's time. At Ramsey, was formerly a very rich abbey, built in the midst of a bog. There is little left of it, beside a part of the old gate-house, and a statue of its founder Alwyn, who was called alderman of all England, and cousin to King Edgar. The keys and ragged staff in his hand denote his This is rec koned one of the most ancient pieces of English sculpture extant.
This county, under the Saxon heptarchy, formed part of the kingdom of Mercia, or the middle Angles. Mr Speed mentions an observation of Sir Robert Cotton, that the fa milies of this county were so worn out even in his time, (about the beginning of the 17th century,) that, though it was formerly very rich in gentry, yet few surnames of any note were then remaining that could be traced higher than Henry VIII. Mr Camden remarks, that, in the civil wars, there were more actions in this than in much larger ties, because it was the native county of Oliver Cromwell.
According to the returns made in the year 1800, the po pulation of this county was 37,568. In the year 1811, the returns afford the following results.