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

cease, the Companies may remain and continue to exercise a central influence, at the least in London, over the Crafts and Arts which they represent. Let us never destroy what has been useful: let us, on the other hand, preserve it, altered to meet changed circumstances. For an institution is not like a tree which grows and decays. If it is a good institution, built upon the needs and adapted to the circumstances of human nature, it will never decay but, like the Saxon form of popular election, live and develop and change as the people themselves change from age to age.



63. LONDON.

GREATER LONDON.

It has been a great misfortune for London that, when its Wall ceased to be the true boundary of the town, and when the people began to spread in all directions outside the walls, no statesman arose with vision clear enough to perceive that the old system must be enlarged or abolished: that the City must cease to mean the City of the Edwards, and must include these new suburbs, from Richmond on the West to Poplar on the East, and from Hampstead on the North to Balham on the South. It is true that something was done: there are the Wards of Bridge Without, which is Southwark: and of Farringdon Without. There should have been provision for the creation of new Wards whenever the growth of a suburb warranted its addition. That, however, has not been done. The Old London remains as it was, and as we now see it, surrounded by another, and an immense City, or aggregate of cities, all placed under the rule of a Council.

This was done by the Act of 1888, which created a County whose boundaries were the same as those of the former Metropolitan Board of Works; in other words, it embraces all the suburbs of London properly so called. This County extends from Putney and Hammersmith on the West to Plumstead on the East: on the North are Hampstead and Highgate; on the South are Tooting, Streatham, Lewisham and Eltham. There are 138 Councillors, of whom 19 are Aldermen and one a Chairman. The conservative tendency of our people is shown in their retention of the old division of aldermen. It is, once more, Kings, Lords, and Commons. But the functions of the Aldermen do not differ from those of the Councillor. The Councillors are elected by the ratepayers for three years, the Aldermen for six; but there is a rule as to retiring by rotation.

The powers of the County Council are enormous. It regulates the building of houses and streets: the drainage: places of amusement: it can close streets and pull down houses: it administers and makes regulations concerning parks, bridges, tunnels, subways, dairies, cattle diseases, explosives, lunatic asylums, reformatory schools, weights and measures. It grants licenses for music and dancing: it carries on, in fact, the whole administration of the greatest City in the world, and, in some respects, the best managed City.

In order to carry out these works the Council expend about 600,000_l._ a year. It has a debt of 30,000,000_l._, against which are various assets, so that the real debt is no more than 18,000,000_l._ The rating outside the City was last year 121/2_d._ in the pound. The first Chairman was Lord Rosebery. He has been succeeded by Sir John Lubbock and Mr. John Hutton. The list of County Councillors contains men of every rank and every opinion. Dukes, Earls and Barons, sit upon the Council beside plain working men--an excellent promise for the future.

Such is the government of London. Within the City what was intended to be democratic has become oligarchic. The election by the whole people has become the election by 8,000 only. Without the City a great democratic Parliament attracts men whose historic names and titles belong to the aristocracy. In the London County Council the Peers may, if they are elected, sit beside the Commons.

Lastly, what is the chief lesson for you to learn out of this history? It is short, and may be summed up in a few sentences.

1. Consider how your liberties have grown silently and steadily out of the original free institutions of your Saxon ancestors. They have grown as the trunk, the tree, the leaves, the flower, the fruit, grow from the single seed. The Folk Mote, the 'Law worthiness' of every man, the absence of any Over Lord but the King, have kept London always free and ready for every expansion of her liberties. Respect, therefore, the ancient things which have made the City--and the country--what it is. Trust that the further natural growth of the old tree--still vigorous--will be safer for us than to cut it down and plant a sapling, which may prove a poison tree. And with the old institutions respect the old places. Never, if you can help it, suffer an old monument to be pulled down and destroyed. Keep before your eyes the things which remind you of the past. When you look on London Stone, remember that Henry of London Stone was one of the first Mayors. When you go up College Hill, remember Whittington who gave it that name. When you pass the Royal Exchange think of Gresham: when you go up Walbrook remember the stream beneath your feet, the Roman Fortress on your right, and the British town on your left. London is crammed full of associations for those who read and know and think. You will be better citizens of the present for knowing about the citizens of the past.

2. The next lesson is your duty to your country. What does it mean, the right of the Folk Mote? The Mote has now become a House of Commons, a County Council, a School Board. You have the same rights that your ancestor had. He was jealous over them: he fought to the death to preserve them and to strengthen them. Be as jealous, for they are far more important to you than ever they were to him. You have a hundred times as much to defend: you have dangers which he did not know or fear. Show your jealousy by exercising your right as the most sacred duty you have to fulfil. Your vote is an inheritance and a trust. You have inherited it direct from the Angles and the Jutes: as you exercise that vote so it will be ill or well with you and your children. Be very jealous of the man you put in power: learn to distinguish the man who wants place from the man who wants justice: vote only for the right man: and do your best to find out the right man. It is difficult at all times. You may make it less difficult by sending to the various Parliaments of the country a man you know, who has lived among you, whose life, whose private character, whose previous record you know instead of the stranger who comes to court your vote. Above all things _vote always_ and let the first duty in your mind always be to protect your rights and your liberties.

These are the two lessons that this book should teach you--the respect that is due to the past and the duty that is owed to the present.



NOTES

1. THE FOUNDATION OF LONDON. PART I.

~AEneas~: a Trojan prince who escaped from Troy when it was destroyed by the Greeks.

~Venus~, the Roman Goddess of Love and Beauty, was the mother of AEneas.

~Troy~: a famous city in the north-west corner of Asia Minor. It was destroyed by Greek invaders about 1,000 years before Christ, and the stories connected with it form one of the chief subjects of Greek and Latin poets.

~Troynovant~ means New Troy.

~Constantine the Great~ was Emperor of Rome, that is, of all the then known world from 305 to 337 A.D. He was the first Roman Emperor to adopt and favour Christianity. Constantinople is named after him, and was made by him the capital of the Empire.

~Geoffrey of Monmouth~ was a British historian of the twelfth century. He was made Bishop of St. Asaph in 1152. His 'histories' are largely made up of stories, such as that about Brutus, which nobody believes now.

~historical document~: a piece of writing that can be used to prove some event in the history of past times.

~architecture~: the art of building; the style in which houses are built.

~Cornhill~: a street in the City of London running west to east from the Royal Exchange into Leadenhall Street. It was probably named after a family of that name, and not from any corn market on the site.

~bastion~: a strong turret or tower at the corner of a fortified building.

~Walbrook~: a small stream that crossed the City from north to south. It flowed near where the Mansion House now stands (Walbrook is a street at the side of the Mansion House), and fell into the Thames at Dowgate, near where Cannon Street Railway Station now stands.

~Fleet River~: a small stream which fell into the Thames near where Blackfriars Railway Station now stands.

~Moorfields~ was a piece of moor land lying to the north of the City, outside the walls. The City gate which led to this district was the Moorgate, a name which still survives in Moorgate Street.

~Ken Wood~, in Hampstead, ~Hainault Forest~, a small piece of wood in Essex, about eight miles north-east of London, and ~Epping Forest~, a larger portion, also in Essex, to the west of Hainault Forest, are all remaining portions of a great forest that once stretched away from London far into the country.

~Chelsea, Bermondsey~: in all such words _ea_ or _ey_ is an old word for island. In this way are formed Winchelsea, Battersea, &c.; ~Thorney~ (where Westminster is now) is the Island of Thorns; and ~Jersey~, Caesar's Island.

~Southwark~: a district of London opposite the City, on the south side of the Thames. It was the South work, or fort, and is spoken of as a village as late as 1327, the accession of Edward III.


2. THE FOUNDATION OF LONDON. PART II.

~Malarious~: causing the air to be bad, and so giving rise to fevers; unhealthy. (Latin _malus_, bad; _aer_, air.)

~Weybridge~, in Surrey, near where the river Wey, after flowing past Godalming and Guildford, falls into the Thames.

~entrenching~: making a trench or ditch. The earth dug out was formed into a mound. The mound and ditch, together with the stockade, protected the place.

~stockade~: a barrier made of _stakes_ stuck in the ground.

~Gaul~: the old name for the country now called France--the land of the Galli, or Celts. _Gaelic_ is the language still spoken by the Celts in Scotland.

~Thanet~: a district in the north-east of Kent, containing Ramsgate, Margate, and Broadstairs. The river Stour parts it from the rest of Kent, so that it is still an 'island,' though the channel was formerly much wider and deeper.

~Captain Cook~: a famous sailor born 1728, murdered in the Sandwich Islands 1779. He was among the first to visit Australia and New Zealand, and made many discoveries in the Pacific.

~Polynesians~: the natives of Polynesia, or the smaller islands in the South Pacific. They are brown-skinned, and akin in race to the Maories of New Zealand and the Malays.

~Brythonic~: that portion of the Celts whose descendants are now the Welsh, Bretons: (in Bretagne, on the west coast of France), and Cornishmen.

~Basques~: the natives of a part of northern Spain, near the Pyrenees. Their language is unconnected with any other, except perhaps that of the Finns. The Province and Bay of Biscay