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From this eventful period down to the present day, saving a few royal visits, no circumstance has occurred of sufficient import to deserve especial mention here. So now, kind reader, having in our own way, and as briefly and modestly as possible, told our historic tale, we will close the present chapter, and in our next be ready to accompany you in your wanderings about the city.

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The Railway Station.—Chester the Terminus of Six Railways.—Flookersbrook.—Lead Works.—Canal and Bridge.—William Penn the Quaker.—Foregate Street and Old Watling Street.—Post Office and Old Bank.—The Eastgate, Roman and Mediæval.—The Eastgate of to-day.

Presuming, gentle reader, you have sagaciously chosen us as your companion, we will evince our desire to be friendly and agreeable by meeting you at the Station (for doubtless you have only just arrived by train), and taking you affectionately under our wing, will straightway introduce you to the chief Lions of Chester.

What think you, in the first place, of our noble Station, with its elegant iron roof of sixty feet span, and its thirteen miles of railway line? Twenty years ago, the ground it stands upon, and indeed the neighbourhood around, were but plain kitchen-gardens and uninteresting fields. But a marvellous change has been effected since then, and, as if by enchantment, suburban Flookersbrook has now become the very life’s-blood of the city. Stretching away on either side of us, as far as the eye can reach, we see the passengers’ arrival and departure sheds, booking offices, refreshment rooms, goods and carriage depots, waterworks, gasworks, and all the other facilities and conveniences which are the usual characteristics of the railway system; while beyond the limits of the Station, and indeed of the city itself, which here intrenches upon the township of Hoole, the busy hum of life is ceaselessly heard spreading itself in every direction, and rapidly transforming the region of the plough into the turmoil of the town.