Part 23

"Before I leave you in your Houses (where your estates are managed by your servants, and your persons educated by your Wives), I will take a short survey of your Children: to whom you are so terrible, that you seem to make use of authority whilst they are young, as if you knew it would not continue till their manhood: you begin with them in such rough discipline, as if they were born mad, and you meant to fright them into their wits again before they had any to lose. When they increase in years, you make them strangers; keeping them at such distance, out of jealousy they should presume to be your companions, that, when they reach manhood, they use you as if they were none of your acquaintance. If you take pains to teach them any thing, it is only what they should not learn, bashfulness; which you interpret to be their respect to you, but it rather shews they are in trouble, and afraid of you; and not only of you, but all that are older than themselves; as if youth were a crime, or as if you had a greater quarrel to Nature than to the Devil. You seem to teach them to be ashamed of their persons, even when you are willing to excuse their faults. This education you give them at home; but though you have frequently the pride to disdain the behaviour of other nations, yet you have sometimes the discretion to send your sons abroad to learn it. To Paris they come, the school of Europe; where is taught the approaches and demeanours towards power; where they may learn honour, which is the generous honesty, which is the civil boldness of courts. But there they arrive not to converse with us, but themselves; to see the gates of the Court, not to enter and frequent it; or to take a hasty survey of greatness as far as envy, but not to study it as far as imitation; at last return home, despising those necessary virtues which they took not pains to acquire; and are only ill-altered in their dress and mind, by making that a deformity in seeming over-careful and forced, which we make graceful in being negligent and easy. I have now left your Houses, and am passing through your Streets; but not in a Coach, for they are uneasily hung, and so narrow that I took them for a Sedan upon wheels: nor is it safe for a stranger to use them, till the quarrel be decided, whether six of your nobles, sitting together, shall stop, and give place to as many barrels of beer. Your City is the only Metropolis of Europe where there is a wonderful dignity belonging to Carts. Master Londoner, be not so hot against Coaches: take advice from one who eats much sorrel in his broth. Can you be too civil to such gentry as bravely scorn to be provident?--who, when they have no business here to employ them, nor public pleasures to divert them, yet even then kindly invent occasions to bring them hither, that at your own rates they may change their land for our wares, and have purposely avoided the coarse study of arithmetick, lest they should be able to affront you with examining your accompts.

"I wonder at your riches, when I see you drink in a morning; but more at your confidence, when I see gray-beards come out of a tavern, and stay at the door to make the last debate of their business; and I am yet more amazed at your health, when I taste your wine; but most of all at your politicks, in permitting such public poisoning, under the style of free mystery, to encourage trade and diligence.

"I would now make a safe retreat, but that methinks I am stopped by one of your heroic games, called _Foot-ball_; which I conceive (under your favour) not very conveniently civil in the streets, especially in such irregular and narrow roads as _Crooked-lane_. Yet it argues your courage much like your military pastime of Throwing at Cocks. But your mettle would be more magnified (since you have long allowed those valiant exercises in the street) to draw your Archers from Finsbury, and, during high market, let them shoot at butts in Cheapside. I have now no more to say but what refers to a few private notes, which I shall give you in a whisper when we meet in Moorfields; from whence (because the place was for public pleasure, and to shew the magnificence of your City) I shall desire you to banish the laundresses and bleachers, whose acres of old linen make a show like the fields of Carthagena, when the five months' shifts of the whole fleet are washed and spread."

The following letter from the celebrated Erasmus to Dr. Francis, Physician to Cardinal Wolsey, will afford a disgusting view of the interior of common dwellings in the reign of Henry VIII.:

"I often wonder, and not without concern, whence it comes to pass, that England for so many years hath been continually afflicted with pestilence; and above all with the sweating-sickness, which seems in a manner peculiar to that country. We read of a City which was delivered from a plague of long continuance, by altering the buildings according to the advice of a certain philosopher. I am much mistaken, if England, by the same method, might not find a cure. First of all, they are totally regardless concerning the aspect of their doors and windows to the East, North, &c. Then they build their chambers so that they admit not a thorough air, which yet, in Galen's opinion, is very necessary. They glaze a great part of the sides with small panes, designed to admit the light and exclude the wind; but these windows are full of chinks, through which enters a percolated air, which, stagnating in the room, is more noxious than the wind.

"As to the floors, _they are usually made of clay, covered with rushes_ that grew in fens, which are so slightly removed now and then, that the lower part remains _sometimes for twenty years together_, and in it a collection of spittle, vomit, urine of dogs and men, beer, scraps of fish, and other filthiness not to be named. Hence, upon change of weather, a vapour is exhaled, very pernicious, in my opinion, to the human body. Add to this, that England is not only surrounded with the sea, but in many parts is fenny, and intersected with streams of a brackish water; and that salt fish is the common and the favourite food of the poor. I am persuaded that the Island would be far more healthy, if the use of these rushes were quite laid aside, and the chambers so built as to let in the air on two or three sides, with such glass windows as might be either thrown quite open, or kept quite shut, without small crannies to let in the wind. For, as it is useful sometimes to admit a free air, so is it sometimes to exclude it. The common people laugh at a man who complains that he is affected by changeable and cloudy weather; but, for my part, for these thirty years past, if I ever entered into a room which had been uninhabited for some months, immediately I grew feverish. It would also be of great benefit, if the lower people could be persuaded to eat less of their salt fish; and if public officers were appointed to see that the streets were kept free from mud and ----, and that not only in the City, but in the Suburbs. You will smile, perhaps, and think that my time lies upon my hands, since I employ it in such speculations; but I have a great affection for a country which received me so hospitably for a considerable time, and I shall be glad to end the remainder of my days in it if it be possible. Though I know you to be better skilled in these things than I pretend to be, yet I could not forbear from giving you my thoughts, that, if we are both of a mind, you may propose the project to men in authority; since even Princes have not thought such regulations to be beneath their inspection."

The tyrant who then reigned could not plead ignorance of the causes which almost depopulated London. A physician cannot offend when he talks of health to his patron. Wolsey must have heard the above truths repeated by Francis, and the _name_ of Erasmus must have enforced his arguments: the haughty Cardinal accomplished far more unworthy objects with his master than a consideration of the health of his people would have been; therefore each were criminal in not doing that for the benefit of the publick which a nod from absolute power could effect. A despicable disregard of decency evidently prevailed in the royal breasts of the Monarchs who reigned between the Conquest and the great Fire; the plague, the leprosy, and the sweating-sickness, reigned with them; filth in the dark confined streets, and filth in every house, made infection eternal; and yet not one step appears to have been taken in obedience to instinct--Instinct makes a man inimical to dirt.

Heaven be praised, old London _was burnt_. Good reader, turn to the views, in order to see what it has been; observe those hovels convulsed; imagine the chambers within them, and wonder why the plague, the leprosy, and the sweating-sickness, raged. Turn then to the prints illustrative of our present dwellings, and be happy.

The misery of 1665 must have operated on the minds of the Legislature and the Citizens, when they rebuilt and inhabited their houses. The former enacted many salutary clauses for the preservation of health, and would have done more, had not the publick rejected that which was for their benefit; those who preferred high habitations and narrow dark streets had them. It is only to be lamented, that we are compelled to suffer for their folly. These errors are now frequently partially removed by the exertion of the Corporation of London; but a complete reformation is impossible.

It is a fallacy to say that the New River now exclusively _prevents_ infectious disorders by the distribution of its water through the City, as it is well known to have been introduced to the houses very many years before 1665. It is to the improved dwellings composed of brick, the wainscot or papered walls, the high cielings, the boarded floors, and large windows, and cleanliness, that we are indebted for the general preservation of health since 1666. From that auspicious year the very existence of the natives of London improved; their bodies moved in a large space of pure air; and, finding every thing clean and new around them, they determined to keep them so. Previously-unknown luxuries and improvements in furniture were suggested; and a man of moderate fortune saw his house vie with, nay superior to, the old palaces of his governors. When he paced his streets, he felt the genial Western breeze pass him, rich with the perfumes of the country, instead of the stench described by Erasmus; and looking upward, he beheld the beautiful blue of the air, variegated with fleecy clouds, in place of projecting black beams and plaster, obscured by vapour and smoke. But there were other blessings, which he thought not of, that are attained by his successors; and those I shall proceed to describe chronologically, after introducing the assertions of M. de Grosley on the state of London with respect to Cleanliness _circa_ 1750. That gentleman observes, in his Tour to London, that "the plate, hearth-stones (generally marble), moveables, apartments, doors, stairs, the very street-doors, their locks, and the large brass knockers (almost exclusively iron at present), are every day washed, scowered, or rubbed. Even in lodging-houses, the middle of the stairs is often covered with carpeting, to prevent them from being soiled. All the apartments in the house have mats or carpets; and the use of them has been adopted some years since by the French."

The streets of London must have been dangerously dark during the winter nights before it was burnt: lanterns with candles were very sparingly scattered, nor was light much better distributed even in the new streets previous to the last century.

Globular lamps were introduced by Michael Cole, who obtained a patent July 1708; a copy of the docquet for which follows: "A grant unto Michael Cole, gent. of the sole use and benefit in England and Ireland of his invention of a _new kind of Light_, composed of one entire glass of a globular shape, with a lamp, which will give a clearer and more certain light from all parts thereof, without any dark shadows or what else may be confounding or troublesome to the sight, than any other Lamps that have hitherto been in use: To hold to the said Michael Cole, his executors, administrators, and assigns, during the term of fourteen years; with a proviso, that the said invention shall not before the determination of the term of twenty-one years (which commenced June 24, 1694) be used within the City of London, or the liberties thereof, to the prejudice of the proprietors of the public glass lights called _Convex lights, now used_ in the said City and liberties thereof; and such other provisos, prohibitions, and clauses are inserted, as were directed by warrant under her Majesty's Royal sign manual. Subscribed by Mr. Solicitor General.

"JOHN WOODESON, _Dep. to Sir_ GEORGE PIERS, _Bart._"

Cole first exhibited his Globe Lamp at the door of the St. James's Coffee-house in 1709, and attended there to answer queries relating to it. He afterwards offered to dispose of his patent for the benefit of this Kingdom, as he resided in Ireland.

The ensuing report was made September 17, 1736, by Alderman Alsop and Godschall, and eight Common Council-men, appointed a Committee to consider in what manner the Act of Parliament "for the better enlightening the streets of London" might be put in execution.

"There were 1287 houses under the rent of 10_l. per annum_; 4741 of 10_l._ and under 20_l._; 3045 of 20_l._ and under 30_l._; 1849 of 30_l._ and under 40_l._; and 3092 of 40_l._ and upwards. In all 14,014 houses, then inhabited and chargeable; which were about 400 less than the Committee imagined. The number of lamps required was 4200, exclusive of those wanted for public buildings and void places, fixed at twenty-five yards distance on each side of the way in the high streets, and at thirty-five in lesser streets, lanes, &c. The several Wards of the City agreed for the lighting them at an average of 41_s. per annum per_ lamp, at which rate the expence of the 4200 amounted to 8610_l._ The fixing of those on posts and irons, averaged at 14_s._ 6_d._ each, 3045_l._; total expence 5628_l._ The rates to supply which sum were fixed as follows: Houses under 10_l._--3_s._ 6_d. per annum_; under 20_l._--7_s._ 6_d._; under 30_l._--8_s._; under 40_l._--9_s._ 6_d._; upwards of 40_l._--12_s._"

The above particulars will be sufficient to explain the manner in which London and Westminster is now lighted. The only variety that has since occurred is, the converting of the shape of the lamps from a globular form to that of a bell, and affixing them to the iron railing of the area and houses. Several attempts to introduce strong reflectors have failed, as it has been uniformly found that they injure and confuse the sight.

The shop-keepers of London are of infinite service to the rest of the inhabitants by their liberal use of the Patent Lamp, to shew their commodities during the long evenings of winter. The parish lamps glimmer above them, and are hardly distinguishable before ten o'clock.

The first essential improvement of London, after the re-building of the City, was the filling of Fleet-ditch, and forming the streets where the market is situated; and the next, the continuation of the plan to Blackfriars-bridge. The latter was suggested by the success of Westminster-bridge; and the removal of the houses and widening of the arches of London-bridge proceeded from perceiving the neat appearance and superior accommodations of the new ones.

The following is a list of "Openings to be made in the City of London, pursuant to an Act of Parliament" passed in the Session of 1760.

"In Aldersgate Ward. A passage twenty feet wide, from the East side of Aldersgate-street (opposite to Little Britain) to the West of Noble-street, opposite to Oat-lane; and through Wood-street, opposite to Love-lane.

In Aldgate Ward. A passage fifty feet wide, from the Mason's shop facing Crutched-friars, in a direct line to the Minories.

A passage, twenty-five feet wide, through Northumberland-alley, into Crutched-friars.

In Bishopsgate Ward. A passage, twenty-five feet wide, through Angel-court, in Bishopsgate-street, into Little St. Helen's.

A passage, twenty feet wide, from Broad-street, through Union-court, into Bishopsgate-street.

In Coleman-street Ward. A passage, fifty feet wide, from Tokenhouse-yard to London-wall.

In Farringdon Ward Within. A passage through Cock-alley, on Ludgate-hill, opposite to the Old Bailey, forty feet wide, into Blackfriars.

A passage, twenty-five feet wide, from Butcher-hall-lane, into Little-Britain.

In Farringdon Ward Without. A passage, thirty feet wide, in the middle of Snow-hill, to the Fleet-market.

_The following passages are to be improved and enlarged._

In Aldgate Ward. The East side of Billiter-lane, to enlarge the passage thirty feet.

The East end of Leadenhall-street, to be thirty-five feet wide.

Part of the houses on the East side of Poor Jewry-lane, beginning at the North side of the Horse and Trumpet, and extending to Gould-square, to range in a line with that end of the lane next to Aldgate; the passage to be made thirty-five feet wide.

In Broad-street Ward. The House to be pulled down at the West end of the buildings between Cornhill and Threadneedle-street, opposite to the South end of Princes-street, and the ground laid into the street.

Houses to be pulled down on the South side of Threadneedle-street, extending from the house before-mentioned Eastward, till that part of the street opposite to the Bank gates; and the passage there enlarged to thirty-five feet in width.

Coleman-street Ward. One house on the N. E. corner of the Old Jewry, and another house at the S. W. corner of Coleman-street, and the ground laid into the street.

Cordwainers' Ward. The house at the N. E. corner of Trinity-lane, near the Dog Tavern, and the ground laid into the street.

In Cornhill Ward. The house at the West end of the buildings between Cornhill and Lombard-street, and the ground laid into the street.

In Cripplegate Ward Within. The houses which project forwards at the West end of Silver-street, from the end of Monkwell-street, quite through into Aldersgate-street, to make a street forty feet wide.

The house at the corner of Aldermanbury, facing Milk-street, and the ground laid into the street.

In Farringdon Ward Within. The Tin-shop and the Trunk-maker's house, at the S. W. corner of Cheapside, leading into St. Paul's Church-yard, and the ground laid into the street.

Such part of the houses in Creed-lane as are necessary to widen the passage to thirty feet.

In Farringdon Ward Without. All the houses in Middle-row between the paved alley, adjoining to St. Sepulchre's church and Giltspur-street, from the North end quite through to the South end, facing Hart-street, and the ground laid into the street.

All the houses in Middle-row, between the Great and Little Old Bailey, from the North end facing Hart-street, to the Baptist's Head at the South end, facing the Great Old Bailey, and the ground laid into the street.

The shops under St. Dunstan's church in Fleet-street, and the ground laid into the street.

In Langbourn Ward. Such part of the houses at the end of Mark-lane, next to Fenchurch-street, as will make the passage there thirty feet wide.

Such part of the houses at the East end of Lombard-street, as will make the passage there thirty feet wide.

In Portsoken Ward. The house at the N. E. corner of Houndsditch, adjoining to the church-yard, and the ground laid into the street.

In Tower Ward. Such part of the houses on St. Dunstan's-hill, adjoining to the George Alehouse, and opposite to the Chain, and such part of the warehouses opposite to the end of St. Dunstan's Church, as will make the passage thirty feet wide.

The house on the N. W. corner of Great Tower-street, and also the house on the S. E. corner of Little Tower-street, occupied by Messrs. Julon and Lidner, to make a convenient passage.

The house in Mark-lane which adjoins to All-hallows Staining, and projects twelve feet before the other houses, to make it range in a line with the other houses, and enlarge the passage.

In Vintry Ward. The houses on the North side of Thames-street which reach from Elbow-lane to College-hill, and also those on the South side of the said street which reach from Vintner's-hall to Bull-wharf-lane, in order to make the street forty feet wide.

The house at the corner of Tower-royal, facing College-hill, to be pulled down, and the ground laid into the street.

In Walbrook Ward. The house at the N. E. corner of Bucklersbury, which projects before the other buildings.

In Bishopsgate Ward. The two houses between New Broad-street and New Broad-street-buildings."

The removal of all the City Gates promoted a better circulation of air; and London Wall gave place near Moorgate to a fine new street.

It has ever been the practice of the London builders to erect houses at the least possible expence, because their tenures are almost exclusively leasehold. Hence it is that the Editors of the Newspapers of the last century were compelled from time to time to notice the horrid effects produced by the fall of those frail buildings. I am fully convinced, that not less than one hundred lives have been lost in this way between 1700 and 1807; and that at least three times as many persons were maimed. The publick justly condemned the supineness of their officials in not preventing occurrences of this description; and the compilers of the London Chronicle say in October 1760, "In one of the morning papers is a complaint of the present method of letting leases of the City Lands, and other estates of public bodies. It is not sufficient to build Bridges; it is not enough to widen and improve Streets and Passages: no, we should examine farther. Consider what the Houses are: they are all superannuated; the City is worn out; the major part of the houses have stood much longer than they should, _many years longer than they were built for_; and, instead of being rebuilt as the leases expire, or any thing done to aggrandise and render the City conspicuous, equal to the other improvements, they are advertised again on repairing leases, and are so shamefully propped up from time to time that the City must come to decay: nay, it will be even hazardous to walk the streets."

Though the latter assertion rather exceeds the truth, it will be recollected that Houghton-street Clare-market, Wapping, the neighbourhood of Bishopsgate-street, and Billingsgate, have very recently proved that fatal consequences attend the parsimony of those landlords who repair when they should rebuild; and I think I may safely declare that there are at this moment at least 3000 houses in a dangerous state of ruin within London and Westminster, which may hereafter make their owners repent the indulgence of their avarice. He that observes the present miserable representatives of bricks and _dirt_ mortar constantly ascending in tottering piles around him, cannot wonder that houses sometimes fall with their own weight ere they are finished; and he must anticipate future consequences. The Legislature wisely enacted regulations to prevent the communication of accidental fires; but more remains to be done--let them ordain that bricks and mortar should hereafter be of a certain standard, under a heavy fine and imprisonment; and that surveyors should be appointed to order the demolition of new houses built in opposition to the clauses of the Act.