LEE, Richard Henry (1732-1794), an American statesman and orator, born in Westmoreland county, Virginia, U.S., January 20, 1732, was one of six distinguished sons of Thomas Lee, a descendant of an old Cavalier family. After obtaining the foundation of a liberal education in England, and spending a little time in travel, he returned to Virginia in 1752, coming into possession of a fine property left him by his father, and for several years applied himself to varied studies. At the age of twenty-five he was appointed justice of the peace, and soon after was chosen a delegate to the house of burgesses. He kept a diffident silence during two sessions, his first speech being in strong opposition to slavery, which he proposed to discourage, and eventually to abolish, by imposing a heavy tax on all further importations. In 1764 Lee had applied for a collectorship under the Stamp Act, which afterwards roused the determined hostility of the colonies, but on reflexion he regretted doing so, and became an outspoken promoter of the most extreme democratic ideas. In February 1766 he organized an association in Westmoreland, in accordance with Patrick Henry’s famous resolution against the Act. At the winter session of the burgesses in 1766, Lee, with the aid of Patrick Henry, succeeded in carrying the house upon a test question against the united aristocratic elements of the colony. In 1767 he spoke eloquently against the acts levying duties upon tea and other articles, and in 1768, in a letter to John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, he made the suggestion of a private correspondence among the friends of liberty in the different colonies. Lee is said also to have originated, in a conversation with fellow burgesses in 1773, the plan of an inter-colonial or so-called continental congress, which was carried into effect next year. At this first congress in Philadelphia in 1774, Lee is said to have penned the address to the king, and is known to have prepared that to the people of British America, together with the second address to the people of Great Britain, directed by congress in 1775, both of which are among the most effective papers of the time. On June 7, 1776, instructed by the Virginia house of burgesses, he introduced in congress the resolutions declaring “that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” Lee was in congress in 1778-80 and 1784-85, and was one of the first senators chosen from Virginia after the adoption of the federal constitution. Though strongly opposed to the adoption of that constitution, owing to what he regarded as its dangerous infringements upon the independent power of the States, he accepted the place of senator in hope of bringing about amendments. He became a warm upholder of Washington’s administration, and his prejudices against the constitution were largely removed by its working in practice. He retired from public life in 1792, and died at Chantilly in Westmoreland county, June 19, 1794.

See Memoirs, by his grandson R. H. Lee, 2 vols., 1825.

LEE, Robert Edward (1807-1870), general of the Confederate States army, and one of the greatest of modern commanders, was born at Stratford, in Westmoreland county, Virginia, on January 19,1807. His father, General Harry Lee, better known in the War of Independence as “Light-Horse Harry Lee,” and afterwards governor of Virginia, was the son of a cousin of the subject of last article. Robert Lee entered the military academy at West Point in 1825, and graduated in 1829, when he received a commission in the corps of engineers. When the Mexican war broke out Lee, who was then captain, served in the army under General Scott. He distinguished himself greatly throughout the campaign, and was brevetted as colonel for his conduct at the siege of Chapultepec, where he was wounded. In 1852 he was appointed superintendent of the academy at West Point, and in 1855 he was promoted lieutenant-colonel of the second regiment of cavalry, with which he served in Texas. In March 1861 he was made colonel of the first regiment of cavalry, but in the following month, learning that his native State had withdrawn from the Union, he resigned as an officer of the United States army, and was forthwith put in command of the Virginian forces. When Virginia joined the Confederacy he was the third of five generals appointed by the Southern Congress. No adequate opportunity of gaining distinction was afforded him, however, until the beginning of June 1862, when he received command of the army of northern Virginia, and commenced the series of operations the result of which before the month had closed was to compel M i Clellan to abandon the siege of Richmond. Following up this advantage and Jackson’s victory at Cedar Run on August 9, Lee advanced in person to lead the army that was being formed on the south bank of the Rapidan; after crossing that river he inflicted upon Pope at Manassas the disastrous defeat by which the Federal army was compelled to retire within the fortified lines of Washington. Lee now decided on the invasion of Maryland, and advanced to Frederick city, but, being compelled to divide his forces, he sustained a check in the passes of South Mountain (September 16, 17) which compelled him to recross the Potomac. After a few weeks’ breathing time he found himself again face to face with the Federal army near Fredericksburg early in November; on December 13 the enemy, having crossed the Rappahannock on the previous day, assailed his position in strength, but was defeated with great loss. In the following spring the hostile armies still faced one another on the Rappahannock, but the brilliant strategy of Lee, as exhibited in the battles at Chaneellorsville (May 2-4), against vastly superior forces, resulted in the retreat of the enemy, while Lee was left free to resume his old policy of throwing the Federal forces on the defensive by an advance into Pennsylvania. He encountered the enemy near Gettysburg on July 1, and decided advantages were gained, but the struggle was renewed on the two following days with disastrous consequences to him; he retreated, however, in good order, and reached Virginia on the 12th, when the campaign of the year practically closed. That of 1864 began on May 4, when Grant crossed the Rapidan; the passage itself was unresisted, but his subsequent progress was hotly contested in a series of well-fought battles which did not prevent the Federal general from reaching the south side of the Appomattox. The siege of Petersburg began in June, and lasted until April 2, 1865. A week afterwards Lee surrendered with his whole army, thus virtually terminating the war. In the same year he was elected president of Washington and Lee university at Lexington, Virginia, which office he retained until his death on October 12, 1870.

The events of Lee’s military career briefly indicated in this notice belong to the history of the United States, and will call for further notice in that connexion. To do justice to his extraordinary ability as a general, displayed under circumstances of extreme difficulty, when his movements were continually hampered by political necessities, as well by the lack of material resources, would require an elaborate military biography; it was never more nobly displayed than in the last hopeless stages of the fatal struggle. The personal history of Lee is lost in the history of the great crisis of America’s national life; political friends and foes alike acknowledged the disinterestedness and purity of his motives, his self-denying sense of duty, and the unrepining loyalty with which he accepted the ruin of his party.

It contains the pigment, though part of the latter intrudes into the subjacent layer, and is composed as usual of columnar granular cells, a horizontal section presenting a somewhat regularly areolated aspect. Rawlins Johnson alludes to the vascularity of the surface of the leech, and Ray Lankester notes the extension of the capillaries into this layer. The latter has not been verified, even in the hypoderm of the snout, though preparations presenting such appearances are not uncommon. The hypoderm is closely united to the subjacent muscular layer, though it can hardly be said with Gegenbaur that it is continued into the parenchyma of the body. It is this layer and the cuticle which are marked by the superficial annulations. Various unicellular glands occur underneath the hypoderm, in particular two chief sets—superficial and deep. The former are situated amongst the outer (circular) muscular fibres and pigment, while the latter lie amongst the connective tissue, muscular fibres, and vessels that constitute the “parenchyma” between the muscular layers of the body-wall and the alimentary canal. It has been suggested that the former secrete the ordinary mucus, the latter the cocoons. Both open by ducts on the surface of the cuticle, and it is stated that those in the neighbourhood of the genital segments are enlarged at the time of oviposition. In the Nemerteans it is the homologue of the leech’s hypoderm which secretes the envelopment of the ova.

The muscular layers consist of external circular fibres in several strata, between which the hypodermicglands, pigmentcells, and vessels intrude. When this coat is examined in thin superficial (horizontal) sections the fasciculi are observed to be separated by intervals. Other circular fibres occur within the longitudinal layer. The latter muscles form the great mass of the body-wall, and are grouped into various bands by the connective tissue and radiating muscles. The latter pass directly from the dorsal to the ventral surface laterally, and thus become vertical fibres; and they are very well seen in Xephelis, where they form four or five conspicuous bands between the circular layer dorsally and ventrally, and thus appear to have a considerable influence in determining the shape of the body. The extensible snout presents a muscular structure analogous to that of the tongue in the higher animals, and it is capable of even more extensive and varied movements. A complex series of muscles (circular, radial, and longitudinal) exists in connexion with the posterior sucker. The muscles of the leech are non-striated, and are formed of long spindle-cells with nuclei. The locomotion of the leech is effected by the alternate attachment of the suckers, or by swimming through the water like an eel. It is fond of waving its body to and fro in the water when attached by its posterior sucker, and this would certainly aid the aeration of the blood in the superficial vessels.

There is no special body-cavity, the blood-vessels and connective tissue alone occurring between the muscles and the digestive chamber. Rolleston speaks of dissepiments between the digestive diverticula, that between the last two not being prolonged to the ganglia. In the histology of the leech an important part is played by the connective tissue, which envelops all the organs, traverses the muscles, and is filled in certain places and in its cellular elements by brown granules. Moreover, certain of these cells are stated by Ray Lankester to form the walls of the blood-vessels.

The inferior surface of the snout constitutes a spoonshaped cavity leading into the mouth, which thus with its marginal lip is capable of forming a most efficient sucker. At the junction of the buccal with the pharyngeal region are a median dorsal and two lateral prominent semicircular or sometimes slightly hatchet-shaped elevations, which in contraction fit into pits in the wall. On the free edge of each of these muscular cushions the chitinous buccal lining is furnished with a closely arranged and microscopic series of transverse processes (eighty or ninety in number), each of which somewhat resembles the middle valve of a Chiton or the upper jaw of Physa. They are arranged indeed after the manner of the ridge-tiles of a roof, the lateral pieces sloping downward on each side from the prominent median point. These angular transverse plates are separated by a well-marked interval, and they commence as small processes. They are distinctly calcified. It is these organs, mounted on the three muscular cushions, which cause the somewhat triradiate wounds, and which may pass through the true skin to the cellular tissue, a feat which Poupart’s notion of suction could hardly accomplish. Great ambiguity seems to run throughout text-books on this subject, and yet the figures of Brandt and Moquin-Tandon represent the condition very fairly, though some appear to have mistaken the lateral view of the muscular cushion for a “horny jaw.” These teeth can only act en masse with the muscular pad on which they rest, and have not the individual movement seen for instance in the long hook-rows of certain polychaetous Annelids. As Leuckart and others have shown, each of these muscular cushions has a most complex structure. The superficial fibres are for the most part oblique, the central vertical (that is, at right angles to the teeth) and cut into lamellae by transverse fibres. The whole forms a very efficient motor apparatus for both cushion and teeth in all their varied functions.

The mouth opens into the pharynx, the structure of which, as in other Cnathobdellidae, differs essentially from that of the Phynchobdellidae. In ordinary contracted preparations the central canal in front is either triangular or triradiate. Internally it is covered by the cuticular and the tough hypodermic layers, from which the radiating muscles pass to the body-wall, the space between the hypoderm and the strong circular fibres of the organ being occupied by regularly arranged longitudinal fibres clasped by the radial fibres. The mixed muscular layer of the body-wall occurs outside the foregoing. The entire arrangement is well adapted for dilating, shortening, and lengthening the canal, and performing all the complex actions of a powerful suctorial apparatus. In the Bhyη- choljdellidae, on the other hand, the protrusible proboscis, with its intricate structure and its sheath, presents little in common with the foregoing. The pharynx terminates in the stomach, an elongated chamber having eleven lateral diverticula (c to c''), which form short pouches directed backward on each side, with the exception of the posterior pair (c"), which are so large and long as to be almost in apposition when distended, and nearly to reach the termination of the body. From the point of bifurcation the canal proper (c') is continued as a somewhat small tube—to end in an anus on the dorsum, immediately in front of the posterior sucker. The inner surface of the alimentary canal is lined by a minutely granular epithelium. Salivary glands have been described by various authors as situated in the parenchyma outside the pharynx, and the number of large granular glands in this region is certainly great. Digestion seems to be slow in leeches, and breeders feed them with blood only once in six months. It is well to remember that the alimentary canal contains blood in those brought direct from their native marshes.

The nervous system consists of twenty-three pairs of ventral ganglia, the first being connected by commissures (between which the gullet passes) with the supra-cesophageal or cephalic ganglia. An intermediate stomato-gastric ganglion sends branches to the central muscular cushion for the teeth, and another on each side gives twigs to the lateral cushions. The cephalic mass supplies the eyes and the cup-shaped sense-organs. The former, to the number of ten, are situated on the three anterior segments and on the fifth and eighth segments, the whole forming an ellipse, and their structure has been carefully investigated by Leydig and others. Dr R. M. Gunn observes that in the leech they are formed of cup-shaped or bell-shaped depressions of the skin, surrounded by numerous pigmentcells. The fundus is furnished with large clear cells having peculiar nuclei. They are merely altered epithelial cells, and are found to be continuous with them. Between these in the axis of the cup is a space traversed by a nervous filament which pierces the fundus. According to Leydig this nerve-filament ends in a freely exposed papilliform elevation at the mouth of the cup-shaped eye. No connexion has been found between the nerve and the cells. Milne-Edwards, again, suggests that these refracting cellules are very like the primordial cellules of the refracting cone of the retinal composite eye of insects. Near the mouth of the cup Ranke figures retinal cones (Glaskörperkugeln), which are arranged like nerve end-organs in a mosaic, on a flat extension of the optic ganglion. These cones are very like those of the vertebrate eye, consisting of a somewhat rounded granular body, connected at the base with a nerve filament, and having a clear, stiff, rod-like projection on its outer part. Dr Gunn has been unable to see these cones or the termination of the optic nerve. The wall of the clear cell is very thick, and the “nucleus” is generally seen to be an inward projection of this wall ending in a knob-like enlargement. Where it appears free, that is probably due to the plane of section, the side or end of the knob being severed from its connexion. Besides the cells having this inward projection of the wall there are others containing highly refractive spherules like oil globules. Ranke observes how little these “optic cups” differ from the touch or taste organs scattered on the snout and sides of the animal, and he is of opinion that they probably serve equally for the three kinds of sensory perception (sight, taste, and touch). If Ranke’s account is correct, and if the cone-mosaic situated at the mouth of the cup be directly stimulated by the rays of light, it is difficult to account for the function of the large clear cells, and more especially the pigment around. F rom the position of the pigment it cannot serve for the isolation of Ranke’s elements, and it can hardly be required for the prevention of the confusion of images. Yet by its presence the eye of the leech is distinguished from the adjacent and very similar touch-organs. Dr Gunn is of opinion that the light acts on the pigment, and develops some form of energy which affects the contents of the cell, whence a stimulus is communicated to the nerve. Unfortunately a nervous connexion with these cells has not been found.

The three anterior pairs of ventral ganglia (δ) coalesce into a single mass, and in the same way the last large ganglion (δ') is composed of seven. The ordinary ventral ganglia give off two branches on each side, one of which has a small ganglion developed on it. The penultimate ganglion sends off only a single branch on each side, while the last gives off from seven to nine for the supply of the posterior sucker. The nerve-cells, as usual in these ganglia, are chiefly external, and the fibrous region internal, while the whole is surrounded by a neurilemma. This system has been the subject of many elaborate researches, amongst which those of Leydig and Hoffmann are conspicuous. A sympathetic or azygos nerve discovered by Brandt runs along the ventral surface of the digestive tract. In development it is found that in many leeches the long cords are originally separate, but afterwards come close together so as to resemble a single connecting cord.

The circulatory system presents a median dorsal, a median ventral, and two large lateral longitudinal trunks, all anastomosing with each other, and giving off numerous branches to the muscular layer of the mesoderm and various internal organs. The median sinus in the head surrounds the ganglia and oesophageal ring. It has a ventral development in the rest of the body, where it encloses the alimentary canal and the gangliated nerve-cord. The blood-vessels have a well marked systole and diastole—from eight to ten times per minute. The fluid is red, and devoid of corpuscles. Old observers noticed the finely reticulated condition of the integuments when the vessels were injected, but, as formerly noticed, vessels could not be seen in the hypoderm proper. The active to and fro waving movements of leeches in the water when attached by the posterior sucker are probably connected with cutaneous respiration.

No part of the leech has caused more discussion than the series of seventeen pairs of segmental organs (e, e') which occur in a line external to the testes, and alternating in position with them. Some considered them respiratory, others excretory, while a few connected them with the reproductive system. They consist of a muscular saccate ciliated organ which communicates with the exterior near the posterior part of each primary segment, and externally of a loopshaped gland, labyrinthine in structure, one end of which opens into the former sac, while a caecal process is prolonged on each of the testes in their region. In minute structure it has been found that the cells which constitute the gland are all penetrated by ductules, which, however, do not communicate with the large duct in the axis of all the lobes (Bourne). The gland is surrounded by an elaborate plexus of blood-vessels. These organs are in the embryo preceded, in the posterior region of the body, by three pairs of looped canals, which disappear before the permanent ones are developed.

The leech is hermaphrodite, hut congress of different individuals is necessary for reproduction, and thereafter spermatophores, which have a special covering, are found in the respective vaginae. The male organs consist of an intromittent apparatus (Ae) with a muscular and glandular basal structure (y), and a duct (f) on each side from the vesicula seminalis. The latter has a vas deferens connecting it with the nine globular testes (d, d', d", &c.) ranged along each side of the body, one of which is displaced outward at d". The intromittent organ reaches the exterior at the junction of the first and second sixth of the body (between the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth rings). The female apparatus is placed in the segment between the seminal vesicles and the first testis, four annuli intervening between the respective sexual apertures. The external opening of this system (between the twenty-ninth and thirtieth rings) leads into an oval sac (∕)> the vagina—furnished with thick muscular walls. A coiled oviduct passes from its apex through glandular tissue, which probably secretes the albuminous matter surrounding the eggs, and divides into branches, one leading to each ovary (ι). In Haemopis the ovaries form a coiled filament, and on this the ovarian germs are budded. The ova are connected with the filament by a thin envelope which is drawn out into a stalk. There is no cord in Nephelis, but the ovarian germs form groups of cells.

Three or four days after congress the leech may be observed to be contracted above and below the genital apertures, and an abundant secretion is poured out so as to surround this region of the body as in the Nemerteans. Into this investment the contents of the female organs and their opaline gelatinous envelopment are forced. The animal elongates the anterior part of its body, withdraws its head, and the structure just mentioned slips off as a cocoon containing from five to eighteen ova, and frequently showing slight elevations at the points through which the body passed. The cocoons are deposited in cavities in the mud during the summer and autumn, and some seem also to deposit them during the winter. The ovoid cocoons consist of a network of spongy fibres, and indeed have been mistaken for a sponge. The older authors considered the leech viviparous until Noble and Rawlins Johnson observed the foregoing phenomena.

There is little difficulty in rearing leeches in confinement if a proper method is followed, and accordingly various leech tanks and ponds have been constructed. One of the largest schemes of the kind is a leech farm of 13 acres near Newton, Long Island, U.S. The breeding ponds are in oblongs, each of 1⅜ acres in extent, and 3 feet or more in depth. The bottom is composed of clay, and the margins of peat. The cocoons are deposited in the soft peat from June onward, the chief enemies being musk-rats, water-rats, and water-shrews, which dig the cocoons out of the peat. The adult leeches are fed every six months on fresh blood placed in linen bags suspended in the water. It is also the opinion of some that leeches which have been filled with blood make good breeders.

In regard to the development of the Gnatliobdellidae, Neρhelis, perhaps, has been more completely worked out than Hinido (though the observations of Weber, Leuckart, Robin, and others on the latter are important), and, as the former very much resembles the latter, except in the presence of cilia in the embryo anteriorly, a brief notice of it will suffice. Butschli describes the usual divisions of the eggs, which need not be given in detail, especially as an excellent summary is to be found in Balfour’s Comparative Embryology. According to these authors the cells which constitute the epiblast give origin to others which form the hypoblast and vitelline spheres. Two patches of epiblast gradually spread over the vitelline spheres. Then the hypoblast cells increase and fill up a space bounded behind by three vitelline spheres and in front by the epiblast of the anterior end. At the sides of the hypoblast the mesoblast has become established, probably as two lateral bands. The hypoblast cells range themselves round a central cavity, increase, and become filled with food-yolk. The mouth and thick-walled oesophagus are then developed, probably by epiblastic invagination.

The mesoblast now forms two lateral curved bands at the sides of the body. The three vitelline spheres become covered with the flattened cells of the epiblast. The cephalic region becomes ciliated, and the cilia enter the oesophagus. The epiblast develops the cuticle, which is raised into transverse rings, without, however, having any relation to the true segments of the mesoblast. The nervous system is probably derived from the epiblast, the ventral cord breaking up into a series of ganglia, which correspond with the true somites, except that the first and last, as already mentioned, are composed of several. The supra-cesophagal ganglia arise independently. The mesoblast probably takes its origin from the two mesoblastic bands, and the segments formed by it grow upward and meet in the dorsal line, and septa are formed between the somites. The somatic layer of the mesoblast gives rise to the muscles. The mesoblast also gives origin to the excretory (segmental) and generative organs, and the vascular system. A delicate musculature, however, would appear to be developed independently of the mesoblastic bands. The mouth and pharynx are formed by the epiblast, the rest of the canal by the hypoblast, which from the first has a sac-like shape. The posterior sacculation of the stomach in Hirudo is originally unpaired. The dental pads are formed about the same time as the eyes as protuberances of the oral cavity. The anus is developed very late above the posterior· sucker. In the embryo of Hirudo Leuckart found three pairs of segmental organs...

Though regarded as the capital of the great manufacturing district of the West Riding, Leeds is not in its centre, but on its border. Eastward and northward the country is wholly agricultural, while to the west and south-west the populous villages resound with the shuttle and the steam-engine. In this district are carried on a woollen manufacture of great extent and of considerable antiquity and a worsted manufacture of extraordinary vigour (a graft on the woollen manufacture); to these have latterly been added the iron manufacture and that of machines and steam-engines, and the making of boots and ready-made clothing, besides a manufacture of flax, which now constitutes one of the staple trades of Leeds.

Cloth is the staple trade of the town, although the manufacture itself is not the leading one within the borough, being carried on, to a large extent, in townships out of the parish and borough of Leeds. In the town, however, the trade centres, and there the cloth is finally prepared for the market by what is technically termed finishing or dressing—a department quite distinct in Leeds from that of the manufacturer. In this respect the Yorkshire cloth trade differs essentially from that of the west of England, where the manufacturer conducts the two operations of making and finishing the cloth within the same premises. Several Leeds firms conduct their business on the west of England model; but, as the rule, the order of the trade is as follows. The great bulk of the cloths sold in Leeds are produced either in the out-townships of the borough, or in the villages lying west of Leeds, and principally in Pudsey, Farsley, Rawden, Yeadon, Horsforth, and Guiseley, which are all in other parishes, within an extreme radius of 10 miles from Leeds. The cloths so manufactured are sold in the unfinished or balk state to the merchants of Leeds, by whom they are put out to the cloth-dressers or finishers, whose special craft it is to raise the pile or nap on the face of the cloth, and to complete it for the purposes of the tailor and the final consumer. In former times a considerable proportion of the business between the manufacturer and the merchant was conducted in the cloth halls, which are two in number. In these the manufacturers formerly took their stand and waited the custom of the merchants, but within the last twenty or thirty years a great change has taken place in the mode of transacting business, and the cloth halls have practically fallen into disuse. The merchant now orders his goods direct from the manufacturer, specifying the weight, colour, and quality of the articles he wants, and these are delivered to him without passing through the halls. Thus a picturesque and characteristic feature of life in Leeds seems likely at no distant date to become extinct. At one period it seemed probable that the business of the cloth trade would assume the west of England type. Mr William Hirst, a very skilful manufacturer, introduced goods of superior texture and quality, and by his success induced many capitalists to erect mills on a large scale, in which all the processes of the manufacture and finishing were conducted. The change was, however, only temporary. Many of these mills are now occupied for finishing only, and some have been devoted to other branches of the local manufactures. The spinning of flax by machinery was commenced in the township of Holbeck (in the borough of Leeds) more than one hundred years since, by Mr John Marshall, who was one of the first to apply the principle of Sir Richard Arkwright’s water frame, invented for the cotton manufacture, to the spinning of linen yarn. The works of Messrs Marshal & Company are very extensive, and one portion of them is an object of attraction to all strangers visiting the town. It is a vast room 400 feet by 220, filled with machinery, all of which is turned by shafting which requires two coupled engines of 350 horse-power to impel it. Light is admitted by glass cupolas. The whole building is held together by a double series of iron ties, uniting the iron pillars which sustain the many-arched roof. The external form is Egyptian.

The spinning of worsted yarn and the weaving of worsted goods were formerly carried on to a considerable extent in Leeds, but have now nearly died out, Bradford, Bingley, and Keighley, with the villages immediately adjoining, having attracted almost the entire trade. Amongst the smaller branches of the textile manufactures carried on in Leeds must be enumerated those of silk and carpeting, neither of them unimportant, though falling far short of the flax and woollen trades.

It is probable that the iron trade in its different branches, including the casting of metal, and the manufacture of steam-engines, of steam-ploughs, of machinery of every kind, and of mechanical tools, now gives employment to a larger number of persons within the borough of Leeds than any other branch of industry. The great works founded by the late Sir Peter Fairbairn, as well as those of Messrs Kitson & Co. and of Messrs John Fowler & Co., in the last-named of which the Fowler steam-plough is the staple article of manufacture, occupy places in the front rank of such establishments in the country; while Messrs Greenwood & Batley and other tool-makers give employment to a large number of hands, and export the goods they produce to all parts of the globe.

Leeds was at one time famed for the production of artistic pottery, and very fine specimens of old Leeds ware are still occasionally to be discovered among the residences of the poor in the town. This branch of manufacture, however, became extinct about eighty years ago. Within the last three years it has been revived, and once more attention has been directed to the high artistic merit which the pottery of the town has attained.

In addition to these particular branches of industry, the manufacture of ready-made clothing has become one of great importance. In some of the establishments for this purpose such as that of Messrs John Barrow & Sons, the number of hands employed is so large that from a thousand to twelve hundred suits of clothing can be produced daily. Machinery is now used in all the departments in these places, and the work is conducted with a rapidity and at a price which would have seemed incredible thirty years ago. Leeds has in recent years become famous as the chief seat of the cap manufacture in the United Kingdom. The leather trade is also one of great importance in the borough, many large tanning establishments being erected on the outskirts, while the wholesale manufacture of boots and shoes for army and other purposes is carried on in workshops which are the largest of their kind in the United Kingdom.

No religious census has been taken in Leeds since that of 1851. There are, however, 181 places of worship in the town, these being divided as follows :—Church of England, 46; λVesleyan Methodist, 40; Primitive Methodist, 30; United Methodist Free Church, 12; Congregational, 12; Baptist, 11; Methodist New Connexion, 10; Catholic, 6; Unitarian, 3; Presbyterian, 2; Friends, 2; various, 5. The Leeds school board, which was established immediately after the passing of the Education Act in 1870, has now (1882) 47 schools under its control within the limits of the borough, and these accommodate 30,000 children. In addition to these there are 34 national and parochial schools, 8 Roman Catholic schools, and 6 Wesleyan schools. The educational institutions of a higher order in the town are numerous and important. Of these the principal is the Yorkshire College, established in 1875 for the purpose of supplying instruction in the artsand sciences which are applicable to the manufactures, engineering, mining, and agriculture of the county. It has a staff of 19 professors, instructors, and assistant lecturers, and upwards of 350 day and 160 evening students. The college, which has carried on its operations hitherto in temporary premises, will shortly remove to permanent buildings designed by Mr Waterhouse, A. R. A. These buildings, which when completed will cost upwards of £100,000, will occupy a site of about 3⅜ acres, and will comprise extensive laboratories and workshops, large lecture theatres, and a college library and museum. The Leeds Public Library, established under the Public Libraries’ Act, now takes the first place amongst similar institutions in the borough. The reference library contained 26,000 volumes at the close of 1881, and the lending libraries 83,000 volumes, the expenditure for the year being £4150. The issue of volumes during the year reached the large total of 639,616. The Leeds Old Library, a private institution, founded in 1768 by Dr Priestley, who was at that time minister at the Unitarian chapel in the town, contains a very valuable selection of books, numbering about 75,000 volumes, and is in possession of commodious premises in Commercial Street. The Philosophical and Literary Society 7 , established in 1820, possesses a handsome building in Park Row, containing a laboratory, a lecture room, and a museum, with many fine specimens in natural history, geology, and archaeology. The society also possesses a library of upwards of 16,000 volumes, chiefly rare scientific works. During the winter months, lectures on scientific and literary subjects are given in the lecture hall by men of eminence. The Leeds Mechanics’ Institute in Cookridge Street is a striking building in the Italian style. It comprises a large circular lecture room, with gallery, capable of seating 1500 persons, besides a library, reading, committee, and class rooms. The foundation stone was laid in 1865, and the total cost of the building has been nearly £30,000. Day and evening classes and an art school are carried on within the building, and are largely frequented. The Young Men’s Christian Association, another educational institute of importance, occupies the building in South Parade formerly used as a mechanics’ institute. The Grammar School, a handsome building, erected at Woodhouse Moor, has endowments producing over £3000 yearly. There are six exhibitions of £50 a year, each tenable for four years at Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham. It provides education for about 280 scholars. There is also a large training college for students purposing to enter the Wesleyan Methodist ministry at Headingley 7 , one of the suburbs of Leeds. The principal charitable institution of the town is the general infirmary in Great George Street, a Gothic building, built of brick, with stone dressings, from designs by Sir Gilbert Scott. It is arranged upon the pavilion system, each ward being isolated from the rest of the building, and has a highly ornamental exterior, whilst the internal accommodation is suited to the requirements of the patients and the medical staff. The total cost of the erection was more than £100,000. The house of recovery for fever patients, founded in 1802, now occupies a handsome building at Burmantofts. There are also a large building used as a public dispensary in North Street, an institution for the blind, deaf, and dumb in Woodhouse Lane, a School of Medicine and other hospitals and charitable institutions.

The town and borough of Leeds was incorporated by letteιs patent, 2 Charles I., but this charter was cancelled or surrendered. A new charter was granted, 13 Charles II., under the style of mayor, aidermen, and burgesses of the borough of Leeds. The corporation consisted of a mayor, 12 aidermen, 24 assistants, and a staff of 13 officials. The Municipal Act of 1834 gave Leeds a corporation of 16 aidermen and 48 councillors, which has effected great improvements in the management of local matters. In addition to the powers granted to it by 7 the Municipal Reform Act, the town council has acquired, through successive Improvement Acts, complete control over the paving and construction of the streets within the borough, as well as considerable powers for enforcing the consumption of smoke. It has also acquired the whole of the water supply of Leeds, and it controls the public markets, the lighting and watching of the streets, the execution of the Public Health Acts, &c. The supply of water for Leeds is now derived from the valley of the Washburn, one of the tributaries of the Wharfe, where very extensive reservoirs have been provided, at a cost of £1,400,000. The gas supply of the town is also in the hands of the corporation, which purchased the whole of the gas works from the two companies then in existence in 1870, at the cost of nearly £1,000,000. The entire suite of markets, comprising the corn exchange, the Smithfield cattle market, and the produce markets, have been acquired at different periods, and the corporation has expended upon this property £240,000. The rateable value of the municipal borough is £1,122,000, and the income of the borough derived from the borough rate £88,106. The debt of the town amounted in 1881 to £3,884,000. Of the places of recreation in Leeds, the principal is the Grand Theatre, a handsome building erected from the designs of Mr Corson, in Upper Briggate, in 1879. Large assembly-rooms adjoin this theatre. There is another theatre in King Charles Croft, and there are one or two music halls. Some years ago # the corporation acquired, at a large expenditure, Boundhay Park, an estate of great beauty in the neighbourhood of the town. After a portion of the ground had been laid out as building sites, the central part of the estate, comprising splendid lawns, woods of great extent, and a lake covering 40 acres, were reserved as a place of public recreation, and the park is now a favourite resort of the people of Leeds, and also of the inhabitants of the surrounding country. It is under the management of a committee of the corporation, and, though situated at an inconvenient distance from the centre of the town, is largely frequented during the summer months. Woodhouse Moor, a common occupying an elevated position northwest of the town, has been planted with trees and provided with walks within the last ten years; and in other parts of the town the corporation have laid out pieces of land, which had long been left bare and neglected, as recreation grounds.

The external appearance of the town has been greatly improved within the last twenty years. The event which had the greatest influence in promoting the erection of more handsome buildings than those of which Leeds was formerly constituted was the opening of the town-hall by the Queen in the year 1858. This is a noble building in the Grecian style. It is 250 feet long and 200 broad, and is crowned by a tower 225 feet high. The principal apartment in it is the Victoria Hall, a richly ornamented chamber 161 feet long, 72 feet wide, and 75 feet high. The building, which cost, including the site and fittings, more than £130,000, is adorned with statues and portraits of local celebrities. The municipal offices, including school board offices and buildings for the public library, are now in course of erection in the immediate neighbourhood of the town-hall, and will cost when completed upwards of £100,000. The other public buildings of importance in the town are the royal exchange, in Perpendicular Gothic, the foundation of which was laid in 1872, the corn exchange, a fine oval edifice, and the bank of Messrs Beckett & Co., one of the best works of Sir Gilbert Scott.

Leeds has long been distinguished for the activity of its political and public life. It has taken a leading part in many of the great questions which have agitated the country during the present century, and among its successive representatives in parliament have been Lord Macaulay, Sir William Molesworth, Mr Marshall, three members of the Baines family, ami other men whose names are familiar in the annals of the Liberal party, to which upon the whole the borough has given a consistent support since its enfranchisement in 1832. The newspapers published in the town are the Leeds Mercury, daily, Liberal, established in 1718; the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, daily, Conservative, established in 1754; the Leeds Express, evening, Radical; the Leeds Daily Mews, evening, Conservative; and the Leeds Times, weekly, Liberal. The Leeds Mercury for eighty years has been the property of Messrs Edward Baines & Sons, and has long been considered one of the most influential of provincial journals.

The area of the municipal and parliamentary borough is 21,572 acres. In addition to the township of Leeds some ten out-townships are included in this area. The population (207,165 in 1861 and 259,212 in 1871) in 1881 was 309,126, the number of inhabited houses being 65,034. Leeds is one of the boroughs which under the Reform Act of 1867 return three members of parliament.

The name of Leeds has been attributed to a cnief named Leod. Traces of Roman workmanship have at various times been discovered in the town, and in the parish church several very interesting Anglo-Saxon crosses, discovered when the church was rebuilt in 1838, are preserved. The castle of Leeds occupied a site on Mill Hill, and is supposed to have been built by Ilbert de Laci at the time of the Conquest, but no traces of it remain.

For the history of Leeds see Ralph Thoresby, Ducatus Leodicnsis, 1715, 2ded., 1816, with notes and additions by T. D. Whitaker, who published the same year a companion volume Loidis and Elrncte; Parsons, History of Leeds, Bradford, and JVakefield, 1840; Wardell, The Antiquities of the Borough of Leeds, 1853. (T. W. R. )

LEEK, a market-town of Staffordshire, England, is situated on a fine eminence above the river Churnet, and on the Churnet Valley branch of the North Staffordshire Railway, 24 miles east-north-east of Stafford. Its streets are wide and regular, and its sanitary and water arrangements are very complete. The church, dedicated to Saint Edward the Confessor, is in the Early English style. Much of the old building, erected in 1180, remains, but it has been frequently repaired, and in 1867 and 1875 underwent extensive restoration. In the vicinity of the town are the ruins of the Cistercian abbey De la Croix (known as Dieulacres), erected in 1214 by Ranulf de Blondeville, sixth earl of Chester. The grammar school was built in the beginning of last century by the earl of Macclesfield. The other principal buildings are the memorial cottage hospital for the county of Stafford, erected in 1870 from a private bequest, and the new town and market hall erected on the site of the old building. There is an important silk manufacture, and also agricultural implement works. The population of the urban sanitary district in 1881 was 12,865.

British and Roman remains have been found in the vicinity of Leek at various periods, and the town itself is of very great antiquity. For some centuries after the Conquest it was the property of the earls of Chester, but afterwards it was bestowed on the monks of the abbey De la Croix. It received a market from King John. On the 3d of December 1745 it was entered by the troops of the Pretender, and again on the 7th of the same month.