In
1821, it contained 8,726 houses, and perhaps 500 have been built since,
chiefly villas to the westward, while the compact town is about one mile
by half a mile. The principal streets are well built, and there are
three old churches, and two new ones lately finished, besides another
now building.
"Sheffield presents at this time the extraordinary spectacle of an
immense town expanded from a village, without any additional
arrangements for its government beyond what it originally possessed as a
village. There is no corporation, not even a resident magistrate, and
yet all live in peace, decorum, and advantageous mutual intercourse."
_Religion._
"Order is a moral result of religion in Sheffield. No town in the
kingdom more universally exhibits the external forms of devotion, and in
none are there perhaps a greater number of serious devotees. The largest
erections in Sheffield are those for the service of religion, and they
are numerous. Besides six old and new churches, adapted to accommodate
from 10,000 to 12,000 persons, there are seventeen chapels for the
various denominations of Dissenters, capable of affording sitting room
for 12,000 or 15,000 more. Except the Unitarian Chapel, and perhaps the
Catholic one, the doctrines preached in all the others, are what, in
London, and at Oxford and Cambridge, would generally be called _Ultra_.
"A spectacle highly characteristic of Sheffield, and exemplifying, at
the same time the harmony of the several sects, is the juxtaposition of
four several chapels, observable on one side of a main street; while
nearly adjoining is the church of St.
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