L E E L E E 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, Roundhay 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 cor poration, 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 north west 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, and 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 News, evening, Conservative; and the Leeds Times, weekly, Liberal. The Leeds Mercury for eighty years has been the property of Messrs Edward Bailies & 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 chief 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 do Laci at the time of the Conquest, but no traces of it remain.
For the history of Leeds see Ralph Thoreby, Ducatus Leodiensis, 1715, 2d ed., 1516, with notes and additions by T. D. Whitaker, who published the same year a companion volume Loidis and Elmete; Parsons, History of Leeds, Bradford, and Wakefield, 1840; Wardell, The Antiquities of the Borough of Leeds, 1853. (T. V. R.)
LEEK, the Allium Porrum of botanists, a plant which is now considered as a mere variety of Allium Ampeloprasum produced by cultivation. It was formerly regarded as being a native of Switzerland, and the year 1582 has been get down as the date of its introduction to England. Both these assumptions are, however, erroneous. The plant is pro bably of Eastern origin, since it was commonly cultivated in Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs, and is so to the pre sent day while as regards its first appearance in England both Tusser and Gerard – two of our earliest writers on this class of subjects, the former of whom flourished in the early part and the latter in the later part of the 16th century – speak of it as being then commonly cultivated and used.[1] The Romans, it would appear, made great use of the leek for savouring their dishes, as seems proved by the number of recipes for its use referred to by Celsius. Hence it is more than probable that it was brought to Eng land by the Romans during the period of their occupation. Italy was celebrated for leeks in the time of Pliny (H. N., xix. c. 6), according to whom they were brought into great notice and esteem through the emperor Nero, derisively surnamed "Porrophagus," who used to eat them for several days in every month to clear his voice. The leek is very generally cultivated in Great Britain as an esculent, but more especially in Scotland and in Wales, being esteemed as an excellent and wholesome vegetable, with properties very similar to those of the onion, but of a milder character. In America it is not much cultivated except by market gardeners in the neighbourhood of large cities. The whole plant, with the exception of the fibrous roots, is used in soups and stews. The sheathing stalks of the leaves lap over each other, and form a thickish stem-like base, which is blanched, and is the part chiefly preferred. These blanched steins are much employed in French cookery. They form an important ingredient in Scotch winter broth, and particularly in the national dish cock-a-leekie, and are also largely used boiled, and served with toasted bread and white sauce, as in the case of asparagus. Leeks are sown in the spring, earlier or later according to the soil and the season, and are planted out for the summer, being dropped into holes which are made with a stout dibble and left unfilled in order to allow the stems space to swell. When they are thus planted deeply the holes gradually fill up. and the base of the stem becomes blanched and prepared for use, a process aided by drawing up the earth round about the stems as they elongate. The leek is one of the most useful vegetables the cottager can grow, as it will supply him with a large amount of produce at a season when it will prove very welcome, namely, during the winter and spring. It is extremely hardy, and presents no difficulty in its cultivation, the chief point, as with all succulent esculents, being that it should be grown quickly upon well- enriched soil. The plant is of biennial duration, flowering the second year, and perishing after perfecting its seeds. The leek is the national symbol or badge of the Welsh, who wear it in their hats on St David's Day. The origin of this custom has received various explanations, all of which are probably more or less speculative.
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
1 Tusser, in his verse for the month of March, writes: –
"Now leckes are in season, for pottage ful good. And spareth the milck cow, and purgeth the blood; These hauving with peason, for pottage in Lent, Thou spareth both otemel and bread to be spent."
- ↑ 1
