Part 26

On the north side, Moorfields still remained an open space; beyond lay Hoxton Fields, White Conduit Fields, Lamb's Conduit Fields, and Marylebone Fields. The suburb of Bloomsbury was beginning. A crowded suburb had sprung up north of the Strand. Westminster was a great city by itself. Southwark, now a borough with half a million people, as great as Liverpool, occupied then a little strip of marshy land not half a mile broad at its widest. East and west, to Lambeth on the one side and to Redriff on the other, was a narrow strip of river-side, dotted with houses and hamlets.

The walls of the City were never formally pulled down. They disappeared bit by bit. Houses were built close to them and upon them: they were covered up. Excavations constantly bring to light some of the foundations. When a church-yard was placed against the wall, as at St. Giles's, Cripplegate, and at St. Alphege, London Wall, some portions were allowed to remain. The course of the wall is perfectly well known, and has often been mapped. It is strange, however, that the corporation should have been so careless as to make no attempt at all to preserve some portions of this most interesting monument.

The gates still stood, and were closed at sunset, until the year 1760. Then they were all pulled down, and the materials sold. Temple Bar, which was never a City gate, properly speaking, remained until the other day. The gates were, I suppose, an obstruction to traffic, yet one regrets their disappearance. They were not old, but they had a character of their own, and they preserved the memory of ancient sites. I wish they could have been preserved to this day. A statue of Queen Elizabeth, which formerly stood on the west front of Lud Gate, is, I believe, the only part of a City gate not destroyed. It is now placed on the south wall of St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street, where thousands pass by every day, regardless of this monument of London before the fire!

I have found, in a pamphlet written (1754) to advocate certain improvements in the City, glimpses of things too petty for the dignity of history, yet not without interest to one who wishes to reconstruct the life of the time. For instance, the streets were not cleaned, except in certain thoroughfares; at the back of the Royal Exchange, for instance, was a scandalous accumulation of filth suffered to remain, and the posterns of the City gates were equally neglected and abused. The rubbish shot into the streets was not cleared away; think of the streets all discharging the duty of the dust-bin! Cellar doors and windows were left open carelessly; stone steps projected from the houses far across the foot-path. Where pavement had been laid down it was suffered to become broken and ruinous, and so left. Houses that had fallen down or been burned down were left unbuilt, an ugly hole in the line of the street. Sheds for shops were placed against the walls of churches, as at St. Antholin's, Budge Row, and at St. Ethelburga's, where they still remain, transformed into houses. Sheds for shops have been built out in the street before the houses in certain places. Houses rebuilt are pushed forward into the street. Live bullocks driven through the streets are a constant danger; mad dogs are another danger--why is there no tax on dogs? Beggars and vagrants swarm in every street. The common people practise habitually a profaneness of speech which is shocking. These are some of the things complained of by my pamphleteer. He next advocates certain improvements. He would establish a public Mercantile Library--we now have it at the Guildhall. He complains that the City gates have been encroached upon and defaced--six years later they were taken down. He shows us that while within the City itself there were oil-lamps set up at regular intervals in all the streets, there were none outside the Freedom. At that time beyond St. Martin's le Grand, and in the district of St. Bartholomew's, the streets were left in darkness absolute. This was shortly afterwards remedied. He wants stronger and stouter men for the City watch, and would have some stationed in different parts of the City in the daytime. That, too, was done, after many years. We must consider that the old theory was that the citizens should in the daytime keep order for themselves. He asks why no wheel carriages are permitted on the north side of St. Paul's. He might ask the same question still, and the answer would be that it is a very great happiness to be able to keep one, if only one, street in London free from carts and omnibuses.

He then proceeds to propose the erection of equestrian statues in various parts of the City. This has now been accomplished, but yet we are not wholly satisfied. He would put up piazzas, porticos, and triumphal arches here and there; he would remove the bars and chains of Holborn, Smithfield, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, and Whitechapel, and would put up stone piers with the City arms upon them. We have almost forgotten those bars and chains. He proposes a new stone bridge across the river at the mouth of Fleet Ditch. Blackfriars Bridge has been erected there. It is a most instructive pamphlet, written, it is evident, by a man much in advance of his age.

The best description of London about this time is certainly Gay's "Trivia." Witness the following lines on Thames Street:

"O who that rugged street would traverse o'er, That stretches, O Fleet Ditch, from thy black shore To the Tow'r's moated walls? Here steams ascend That, in mixed fumes, the wrinkled nose offend. Where chandler's cauldrons boil; where fishy prey Hide the wet stall, long absent from the sea; And where the cleaver chops the heifer's spoil, And where huge hogsheads sweat with trainy oil; Thy breathing nostril hold: but how shall I Pass, where in piles Carnavian cheeses lie; Cheese, that the table's closing rites denies, And bids me with th' unwilling chaplain, rise?"

If you were to ask any person specially interested in the Church of England--not necessarily a clergyman of that Church--which was the deadest and lowest and feeblest period in the history of the Anglican Church, he would, without the least hesitation, reply that the reign of George the Second covered that period. This is universally accepted. I think, however, that one may show, without much trouble, that this belief is not based upon inquiry into the facts of the time. The Church of George the Second did not, it is true, greatly resemble that of this generation: it had its own customs, and it had its own life. It is certain that the churches were what is commonly called "ugly"--that is to say, they were built by Wren, or were imitations of his style, and had nothing to do with Early English, or Decorated, or even Perpendicular. Also, it is certain that the congregations sat in pews, each family by itself; that there were some few pews of greater dignity than others, where sat my Lord Mayor, or the aldermen, or the sheriffs, or the masters of City companies. It is also certain that all the churches had galleries; that the services were performed from a "three-decker;" that the sermon was preached in a black gown, and that the clergyman called himself a minister, and not a priest. All these things are abominations to some of us in the latter half of the nineteenth century. There were also pluralists; the poor were left very much to themselves, and the parish was not "worked" according to modern ideas. There were no mothers' meetings, no day in the country, no lectures and tea-meetings; no activity; no "working," in fact, at all. But was it quite a dead time? Let us see.

There were at that time a hundred and nine parish churches in London and Westminster. At forty-four of these there was daily service--surely this is a recognized indication of some religious activity--at one of these there were three daily services; at all of them--the whole hundred and nine--there were services every Wednesday and Friday, and on all holy days and saints' days. There were endowments for occasional sermons in nearly every church. So much of the Puritan spirit remained that the sermon was still considered the most important part of Church service; in other words, sound doctrine being then held to be essential to salvation, instruction in doctrine was considered of far greater importance than prayer or praise; a fact which quite sufficiently accounts for the slovenly character of Church services down to thirty or forty years ago. The singing, observe, might be deplorable, but the sermon--the essential--was sound.

Sound doctrine. That was the one thing needful. It trampled on everything else. Of commercial morality, of the duties and responsibilities of masters towards servants, of any rights possessed by the producers either in their produce or in their government, or in their power to better their position, not one word was ever said. The same men who would gravely and earnestly and with fervent prayers discuss the meaning of a text, would take a share in a slaver bound for the Guinea Coast and Jamaica, or go out to watch the flogging of a wretch at the cart-tail, or the hanging of a poor woman for stealing a loaf of bread, without a thought that they were doing or witnessing anything but what was right and laudable. The same men would cheerfully pay their servants wages just enough to live upon and make tenfold, twentyfold profit to themselves, and think they were doing God service. So far the religious life of the century was low and feeble. But the science of morals advances; it has very little indeed to do with sound doctrine, but a great deal with human brotherhood; could we look into the middle of the next century we should perhaps shudder to discover how we ourselves will be regarded as inhuman sweaters and oppressors of the poor. Let us, therefore, cease to speak of our forefathers with contempt. They had their religion; it differed from ours; we have ours, and our grandchildren's will differ from that.

There were no Sunday-schools. These came in towards the end of the century; still there were schools in almost every parish in the City. At these schools the children were instructed in the rudiments of the Christian faith. Why, the free-schools of the City, without counting the great grammar-schools of St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors', Charter House, Christ's Hospital, the Mercers', St. Olave's, and St. Saviour's, gave instruction to five thousand boys and half that number of girls. There was not a poor boy of respectable parents in the whole City, I believe, who could not receive a sound education--quite as good as he would now get at a Board School, and on Sunday he had to go to church and was duly catechised.

The theory of parish organization in the last century was very simple, yet it was effective. The parishes were small--some of them tiny in their dimensions--so that, although they were densely populated, the rector or vicar knew every soul that belonged to his church. The affairs of the people--the care of the poor--were provided for by the companies. The children were taught at the free-schools or the grammar-schools. At fourteen a boy was made a prentice, and entered some livery. Once in a company, his whole life was assured. He would get regular work; he would have the wages due; he would marry; his children would be cared for as he had been. He would be looked after not by the Church--that was not the function of the Church--but by his company, in sickness and in age, as well as in time of strength and work. Every Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, and holy day there were services, with sermons; but we need not suppose that the working-man considered it his duty to flock to the week-day services. On Sunday, of course, he went, because the whole parish was expected to be in church. They did attend. Station and order were preserved within the church as without. The rich merchants and the masters sat in the most beautiful pews possible to conceive, richly carved with blazoned shields and figures in white and gold, with high backs, above which the tops of the wigs proudly nodded. These pews were gathered about the pulpit, which was itself a miracle of carved work, though perhaps it was only a box stuck onto the wall. The altar, the walls, the galleries were all adorned with wood-carvings. Under the galleries and in the aisles, on plain benches, sat the folk who worked for wages, the bedesmen and bedeswomen, and the charity children. The retail people, who kept the shops, had less eligible pews behind their betters. They left the church in order, the great people first, then the lesser, and then the least. No order and rank--all to be equal--in the house of the Lord? Nonsense! How could that be allowed when He has ordained that they shall be unequal outside His house? The notion of equality in the Church is quite a modern idea. It is not yet accepted, though here and there it is tolerated. It is, in fact, revolutionary; it is subversive of rank. Are we to understand that it is as easy for a pauper to get into the kingdom of heaven as a prince? We may say so, but, my friends, no prince will ever be got to believe it.

An excellent example of a last-century church is to be seen in Thames Street. It is the Church of All Hallows the Great. The building is a square room, with no beauty except that of proportion; it is rich in wood-carvings; the pulpit, lavishly adorned with precious work, ought to belong to some great cathedral; it has got a screen of carved wood right across the church which is most beautiful. The old arrangement of the last century is still preserved; the pulpit is placed against the middle of the wall; the pews of the merchants are gathered about, while the pews of the common people are those nearest to the communion table. Formerly the latter were appropriated to the watermen's apprentices. These youths, once the hope of the Thames, sat with their backs to the table, and have left the record of their presence in their initials carved with dates on the sloping book-stand. There they are, "J. F. 1710," "B. R. 1734," with a rude carving of a ship, showing how they beguiled the tedium of the sermon. The arrangement of the pews illustrates the importance in which the sermon was held. The people, as at Paul's Cross, gathered about the preacher. The modern impatience with which the sermon is received is mainly owing to the fact that we no longer feel so strongly the importance of sound doctrine; we have come to think, more or less clearly, that the future of a man cannot possibly depend upon the question whether he has at any time expressed assent or consent to certain doctrines which he is wholly incapable of understanding. We see around us so many forms of creed that we have grown careless, or tolerant, or contemptuous, or charitable concerning doctrine.

There were penalties for absence from service. A man who stayed away was liable to the censure of the Church, with a fine of one shilling for every offence. He was called upon to prove where he had been to church, because it was not thought possible that anybody should stay away from service altogether. If a person harbored in his house one who did not attend the parish church, he was liable to a fine of £20 a month; the third part of the fine being given to the informer. I do not suppose that these laws were ever rigidly enforced; otherwise the Nonconformists would have cried out oftener and louder. But their spirit remained. During the week, the parish, save for the services, was left to take care of itself. There were no visits, no concerts, no magic lanterns, no Bible classes, no missionary meeting--nothing--everybody attended to his own business. The men worked all day long; the women looked after the house all day long; in the evenings the taverns were crowded; there were clubs of all kinds; everybody took his tobacco and his glass at a tavern or a club, and no harm was thought of it.

For the old people there were almshouses, and there was the bounty of the companies. And since there must be always poor people among us, there were doles in every parish. Special cases were provided for as they arose by the merchants themselves. Finally, if one was sick or dying, the clergyman went to read the office appointed for the sick; and when one died, he read the office appointed for the dead.

All this is simple and intelligible. The Church provided instruction in doctrine for old and young, forms of prayer, consolation in sickness, baptism, communion, and burial for all; some churches had charitable endowments; the rest was left to the parishioners themselves. This is not quite the modern idea of the parish, but it seems to have worked as well as our own practice. Their clergyman was a divine, and nothing more; ours undertakes the care of the poor first of all; he is the administrator of charity; he is, next, the director of schools, the organizer of amusements, the leader of athletics, the trainer of the choir, the president of musical societies, the founder of working-lad's institutes; he also reads the service at church, and he preaches a short sermon every Sunday; but the latter functions are not much regarded by his people. Their clergyman was a divine; he was therefore a scholar. Therein lies the whole difference. We have no divines now, and very few scholars among the parish clergy, or even among the bishops. Here and there one or two divines are found upon the Episcopal bench, and one or two at Oxford and Cambridge; in the parish churches, none. We do not ask for divines, or even for preachers; we want organizers, administrators, athletes, and singers. And the only reason for calling the time of George the Second a dead time for the Church seems to be that its clergy were not like our own.

Let us walk abroad and view the streets. They are changed, indeed, since Stow led us from St. Andrew's Undershaft to St. Paul's. The old gabled houses are all gone, except in the narrow limits of that part spared by the fire; in their places are tall houses with large sash windows and flat façade. Within, they are wainscoted, the fashion of tapestry having completely gone out. Foot-passengers are protected by rows of posts at intervals of four or five feet. Flat paving-stones are not in general use, and those that have been laid down are small and insecure. The shops are small, and there is little pretence at displaying the goods; they have, however, all got windows in front. A single candle, or two at the most, illuminate the wares in the evening or the short afternoons of winter. A sign hangs out over every door. The drawing of St. Dunstan's in the West shows that part of Fleet Street before the paving-stones were laid down. The only pavement both for the road and the footway consisted of large, round pebbles, over which the rolling of the vehicles made the most dreadful noise. In the year 1762, however, an improvement was introduced in Westminster, followed by the City of London in 1766. The roads were paved with squares of Scotch granite laid in gravel; the posts were removed; a curb was laid down; gutters provided, and the footway paved with flat stones. About the same time the corporation took down the overhanging signs, removed the City gates, covered over Fleet Ditch, and broadened numerous narrow passages. The drawing here reproduced of the Monument and the beginning of London Bridge dates between 1757 and 1766; for the houses are already down in the bridge--this was done in 1757, and the posts and signs are not yet removed from the street. The view gives an excellent idea of a London street of that time. The posts were by no means all removed. The drawing of Temple Bar from Butcher Row, taken as late as 1796, in which they are still standing, shows this. It also shows the kind of houses in the lower streets. Butcher Row, though it stood in the Strand at the back of St. Clement's Church, a highly respectable quarter, was one of the most disreputable places in the whole of London--given over to crimps, flash lodging-houses, and people of the baser sort.

There are certain dangers and inconveniences in walking along the streets: the finest dress may be ruined by the carelessness of a dustman or a chimney-sweep; the custom of exposing meat on open bulkheads leads to many an irreparable stain of grease. Bullies push the peaceful passenger into the gutter--it is a great time for street swagger; barbers blow the flour into wigs at open doorways, causing violent wrath among those outside; mad bulls career up and down the streets; men quarrel, make a ring, and fight it out before the traffic can go on; pickpockets are both numerous and dexterous; footpads abound in the open squares of Lincoln's Inn, Bloomsbury, and Portman; highwaymen swarm on all the roads; men-servants are insolent and rascally; the noise in the leading streets is deafening; in a shower the way becomes impassable from the rain-spouts on the roof, which discharge their contents upon the streets below.