The History of London by Walter Besant (best classic books TXT) 📕

which was a very fine thing, to think much of their own places and to take pride in the station to which they were called: to respect those in higher station and to receive respect from those lower than themselves. Though merchants had not, and have not, any rank assigned to them by the Court officials, there was as much difference of rank and place in the City as without. And in no time was there greater personal dignity than in this age when rank and station were so much regarded. But between the nobility and the City there was little intercourse and no sympathy. The manners, the morals, the dignity of the City ill assorted with those of the aristocracy at a time when drinking and gambling were ruining the old families and destroying the noblest names. There has always belonged to the London merchant a great respect for personal character and conduct. We are accustomed to regard this as a survival of Puritanism. This is not so: it existed before the arrival of Puritanism: it arose in the time when the men in the wards knew each other and when the master of many servants set the example, because his life was visible to all, of order, honour, and self-respect.



56. UNDER GEORGE THE SECOND.

PART II.

After the Great Fire, the number of City churches was reduced from 126 to 87. Those that were rebuilt were for the most part much larger and more capacious than their predecessors. In many cases, Wren, the great architect, who rebuilt St. Paul's Cathedral and all the churches, in order to get a larger church took in a part of the churchyard, which accounts for the fact that many of the City churchyards are now so small. Again, as the old churches had been built mainly for the purpose of saying and singing mass, the new churches were built mainly for the purpose of hearing sermons. They were therefore provided with pews for the accommodation of the hearers, and resembled, in their original design, a convenient square room, where the preacher might be seen and heard by all, rather than a cruciform church. Some of Wren's churches, however, though they may be described as square rooms, are exceedingly beautiful, for instance, St. Stephen's, Walbrook, while nearly all are enriched with woodwork of a beautiful description. It was the custom in the last century to attend frequent church services, and to hear many sermons. The parish church entered into the daily life much more under George the Second's reign than it does now, in spite of our improved services and our multiplication of services. In forty-four City churches there was service, sometimes twice, sometimes once, every day. In all of them there were evening services on Wednesday and Fridays: in many there were endowed lectureships, which gave an additional sermon once a week, or at stated times. Fast days were commonly observed, though it was not customary to close shops or suspend business on Good Friday or Ash Wednesday: not more than half of the City churches possessed an organ: on Sunday afternoons the children were duly catechised: if boys misbehaved, the beadle or sexton caned them in the churchyard: the laws were still in force which fined the parishioners for absence from church and for harbouring in their houses people who did not go to church. Except for Sunday services, sermons, and visitations of the sick, the clergy had nothing to do. What is now considered the work of the parish clergy--the work that occupies all their time--is entirely modern. Formerly this kind of work was not done at all; the people were left to themselves: the clergy were not the organisers of mothers' meetings, country jaunts, athletics, boys' clubs, and amusements. The Nonconformists still formed an important part of the City. They had many chapels, but their social influence in London, which was very great at the beginning of the century, declined steadily, until thirty or forty years ago it stood at a very low ebb indeed.

In the streets the roads were paved with round pebbles--they were 'cobbled': the footway was protected by posts placed at intervals: the paving stones, which only existed in the principal streets before the year 1766, were small, and badly laid: after a shower they splashed up mud and water when one stepped upon them. The signs which we have seen on the Elizabethan houses still hung out from every shop and every house: they had grown bigger: they were set in immense frames of ironwork, which creaked noisily, and sometimes tore out the front of a house by their enormous weight. The shop windows were now glazed with small panes, mostly oblong, and often in bow windows: you may find several such shops still remaining: one at the top of the Haymarket: one in Coventry Street: one in the Strand: there were no fronts of plate glass brilliantly illuminated to exhibit the contents exposed for sale: the old-fashioned shopkeeper prided himself on keeping within, and out of sight, his best and choicest goods. A few candles lit up the shop in the winter afternoons.

To walk in the streets meant the encounter of roughness and rudeness which would now be thought intolerable. There were no police to keep order: if a man wanted order he might fight for it. Fights, indeed, were common in the streets: the waggoners, the hackney coachmen, the men with the wheelbarrows, the porters who carried things, were always fighting in the streets: gentlemen were hustled by bullies, and often had to fight them: most men carried a thick cudgel for self-protection.

The streets were far noisier in the last century than ever they had been before. Chiefly, this was due to the enormous increase of wheeled vehicles. Formerly everything came into the City or went out of it on the backs of pack-horses and pack-asses. Now the roads were so much improved that waggons could be used for everything, and the long lines of pack-horses had disappeared from the main roads. In the country lanes the pack-horse was still employed. Everybody was able to ride, and the City apprentice, when he had a holiday, always spent it on horseback. But for everyday the hackney coach was used. Smaller carts were also coming into use. And for dragging about barrels of beer and heavy cases a dray of iron, without wheels, was used. All these innovations meant more noise and still more noise. Had Whittington, in the time of George II., sat down on Highgate Hill (still a grassy slope), he would have heard, loud above the sound of Bow Bells, the rumbling of the waggons on Cheapside.



57. UNDER GEORGE THE SECOND.

PART III.

In walking through the City to-day, one may remark that there is very little crying of things to sell. In certain streets, as Broad Street, Whitecross Street, Whitechapel, or Middlesex Street, there is a kind of open street, fair, or market; but the street cries such as Hogarth depicted exist no longer. People used to sell a thousand things in the streets which are now sold in shops. All the little things--thread, string, pins, needles, small coal, ink, and straps--that are wanted in a house were sold by hawkers and bawled all day long in the streets: fruit of all kinds was sold from house to house: fish: milk: cakes and bread: herbs and drugs: brimstone matches: an endless procession passed along, all bawling their wares. Then there were the people who ground knives, mended chairs, soldered pots and pans: these bawled with the hawkers. We can no longer speak of the roar of London: there is no roar: the vehicles, nearly all provided with springs, roll smoothly over an even surface of asphalt: there are no more drays without wheels: there are no more street fights: there is comparatively little bawling of things to sell.

In those days people liked the noise. It was a part of the City life: it showed how big and busy the City was since it could make such a tremendous noise by the mere carrying on of the daily round. Could any other city--even Paris--boast of such a noise? People who came up from the country to visit London were invited to consider the noise of the City as a part of its magnificence and pride.

What else had they to consider? What were the sights of London?

First of all, St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. Then the Tower and the Monument, the Royal Exchange and the Mansion House, Guildhall and the Bank of England, London Bridge, Newgate, St. James's and the Horse Guards. These were to be visited by day. In the evening there were the theatres, Drury Lane and Covent Garden: and there were the Gardens.

The citizens were always fond of their Gardens. They were opened as soon as the weather would allow, and they continued open till the autumn chills made them impossible. The gardens were those of Vauxhall--still in existence as a small park: Ranelagh, at Chelsea: Marylebone, opposite the old Parish Church in High Street: Bagnigge Wells, which lay East of Gray's Inn Road: Belsize, near Hampstead: the White Conduit House in the fields near Islington: the Florida Gardens at Brompton: the Temple of Flora, the Apollo Gardens, and the Bermondsey Spa Gardens, all on the south side. These Gardens, now built over, were all alike. Every one of them had an ornamental water, walks and shrubs, a room for dancing and singing, and a stand for the band out of doors. People walked about, looked at each other, had supper, drank punch--and went home. If the Gardens were at any distance from the City they marched together for safety.

The river was still the favourite highway--thousands of boats plied up and down: it was much safer, shorter, and more pleasant to take oars from Westminster to the City than to walk or to hire a coach.

The high roads of the country were rapidly improving. Stage coaches ran from London to all the principal towns. They started, for the most part, at eight in the evening. They charged fourpence a mile, and they pretended to accomplish the journey at the rate of seven miles an hour. You may easily compare the cost of travelling when you remember that you may now go anywhere for a penny a mile--one fourth the former charge at five or six times the rate. The 'short stages,' of which there were a great many, ran to and from the suburbs: they were like the omnibuses, but not so frequent, and they cost a great deal more. Threepence a mile was the usual charge. There was a penny post in London, first set up by a private person. A letter sent from London cost twopence the first stage: threepence for two stages: above 150 miles, sixpence: Ireland and Scotland, sixpence: any foreign country a shilling. There were no bank notes under the value of 20_l._: there were no postal orders or any conveniences of that kind. Money was remitted to London either by carrier or through some merchant. Banks there were by this time: but most people preferred keeping their own money in their own houses. Also banks being few everybody carried gold: this partly explains the prevalence of highway robbery: very likely the passengers on any long stage coach carried between them some hundreds of guineas: a whole railway train in these days would not yield so much: for people no longer carry with them more money than is wanted for the small expenditure of the day: tram, omnibus, cab, luncheon or dinner.



58. UNDER GEORGE THE SECOND.

PART IV.

So far we understand that London about the year 1750 was a city filled with dignified merchants all