Probation a Novel

gues were wagging furiously in the reaction of the release from work, and the inhalation of the air, which, though close and thunderous, was yet fresher than that in the great hot factories. Thanshope was built on a situation with considerable claims to natural beauty, and there were days, even now, when it looked beautiful. Its streets all climbed up and down steep hills. Whenever the day or the smoke was clear enough, hills might be seen surrounding it on all sides in the distance, except to the south, where Manchester lay. There was a river?the river Thanse?running through the town, which unfortunate stream formed a fertile source of bickering and heart-burning amongst the members of the town-council, the medical men, and the people who write to the newspapers : one party of them contended that there was nothing the matter with the river Thanse, it was a good and wholesome stream, which purified the town; while the other party said that it and its unspeakable uncleanness were at the root of all the ills that Thanshope flesh suffered from. Altogether, the verdict of a stranger would most likely have been that Thanshope was a dim, unlovely, smoky place, in which no one would choose to live whose business did not oblige him to do so?a place where substantial dirt was the co-operator of substantial prosperity, where grime and plenty went hand in hand. Yet there were people who loved this dirty town, and who lived contented lives in it?people not belongi...