GLASGOW.

Hotels-Queen's, large and excellent house, Royal, North British, George,

Globe, Caledonian-all first class hotels in George Square; Buck's Head, an extensive, first class, and old established house, 61 Argyle Street; Star, 72 Glassford Street; Tontine, 28 Trongate; Commercial, 272 George Street. Restaurants:-Queen's, 81 and 83 Buchanan Street; Ferguson and Forrester,

36 Buchanan Street; M'Lerie, 108 St. Vincent Street; C. Wilson, 10 West Nile Street; William Lang, 73 Queen Street; Graham, Exchange Place. News-rooms-Royal Exchange, Queen Street; Athenæum, Ingram Street; Tontine, Trougate-all free to strangers

Coach and Horse Hirers:-Walker, 29 Cambridge Street; Wylie and Lochead, 58 Union Street; Menzies, 124 Argyle Street; Lawson, 142 Queen Street. Public Libraries-University, High Street; Glasgow, 15 Bath Street; Athenæum, 110 Ingram Street; Stirling's (free), 48 Millar Street; Miller's (circulating) 57 Gallowgate.

General Post Office:-George Square.

GLASGOW, the commercial metropolis of Scotland, and the third city in the United Kingdom in point of wealth, population, and manufacturing and commercial importance, is situated in Lanarkshire, in the lower part of the basin of the Clyde, at a point whence that river becomes navigable to the Atlantic Ocean. The range of the Campsie and Kilpatrick hills form a screen around it, from north-east to north-west, at a distance of from eight to ten miles, while the uplands of Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire rise in gentle acclivities on the east, south, and south-west. The climate is temperate, but, from its vicinity to the sea, and the high grounds in the neighbourhood, it is much subject to humidity; though the actual quantity of rain which falls in the course of twelve months is not greater than in other localities.

The population in 1851 was 333,657 within the Parliamentary boundary, and including the suburbs, 358,951. In 1861 the population within the parliamentary boundary was 395,251,

and including the suburbs, 446,365. Of these 209,999 are males, and 236,396 females. Glasgow thus shews an increase of 86,257 in its population within the last ten years. The average number in each family is 472. The city contains upwards of a hundred miles of formed and paved streets.

St. Mungo, or, as he has also been styled, St. Kentigern, is the reputed founder of the city. Somewhere about the year 560, this dignitary is supposed to have established the bishopric of Glasgow, where the upper and older part of the town still remains. In those rude times, the vicinity of churches and churchmen was highly advantageous, on account of the comparative security which they afforded; and thus, the nascent elements of the future city were, under the pastoral protection of the good saint and his pious successors, gradually extended and matured.

The annals of Glasgow, from the middle of the sixth to the early part of the twelfth century, are involved in the obscurity which overshadows nearly the whole contemporary history of those ages.

Previous to 1775 the mercantile capital and enterprise of Glasgow were almost wholly employed in the tobacco trade. Large fortunes were made by this traffic, and the city still exhibits evidences of the wealth and social importance of the "Tobacco Lords," as they were termed; some of the finest private dwellings in the city, and several elegant streets, being the splendid relics of their former civic grandeur and importance. The interruption which the war of the American Revolution gave to this branch of trade turned the attention of the citizens to the manufacture of cotton goods, then feebly developing its latent energies in Lancashire; and to this branch of manufacture Glasgow chiefly owes her preeminence as a commercial and manufacturing city.

For more than forty years, however, prior to this period, there existed in Glasgow a considerable manufacture of linen, lawns, and cambrics, which ultimately merged in the cotton manufacture. Its progress was not very rapid till towards the close of the last century, when the wars which sprung out of the French Revolution, by suspending and limiting for a time the manufactures of the continental nations, gave a new impetus to this manufacture in Great Britain,

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in which impetus Glasgow largely shared. Of the extent of that branch of the cotton manufacture in which hand-loom weavers are employed, it is impossible to form anything like an accurate estimate, from the absence of any ascertained data. It is supposed, but the calculation is necessarily loose and imperfect, that 40,000 hand-loom weavers are employed by Glasgow manufacturers; the produce of whose labour, including the additional value appended to it before being brought to market, has been assumed to be about three millions sterling.

Power-loom weaving was introduced into Glasgow as far back as 1792, but until 1801 it may be considered as having been merely experimental. At present there are about twenty-five thousand steam-looms set in motion by Glasgow capital, producing a daily average of 625,000 yards of cloth; and in a year of 300 working days, 187,500,000 yards. Assuming sixpence per yard as the average value, this branch of the cotton manufacture in Glasgow amounts to £4,687,500—a stupendous result, when the recent period of its introduction is considered.

The spinning of cotton yarn was begun in Glasgow in 1792, and has gradually, and of late years rapidly increased. The total number of spindles in motion in Glasgow, and belonging to Glasgow capitalists, has been calculated by experienced persons to be about 1,800,000 at present. Of the value of the products no estimate can be attempted with any certainty, but from four to five millions sterling have been assumed as the probable amount. In 1818 only 46,565 bales of cotton were consumed, and in 1834 the consumption was 95,603 bales. The annual consumption of cotton is now about 45,000,000 lbs. or 120,000 bales. Silk has likewise become an extensive article of commerce and manufacture. This article, with various rich foreign wools, is now woven into cotton fabrics with the most brilliant success, Calico printing is also carried on to a vast extent, especially since the abolition of the duty on printed goods. It was first attempted in 1742 on a small scale, at Pollockshaws, in the neighbourhood of Glasgow; and now there are few streams, within ten miles round the city, the waters of which do not carry abundant evidence of the printing establishments on their banks. The works of Henry Monteith and Company at Barrowfield and Blantyre, Messrs. James Black and Company, and Messrs. William Stirling and Sons on the Leven, Messrs. Dalglish, Falconer, and Company, at Campsie, Messrs. Inglis and Wakefield at Busby, Messrs. Crum at Thornliebank, and Messrs. Higginbotham at Little Govan, are amongst the most noted and extensive.