Part 18

Let us proceed westward; we come to the once important Effra, which remained a running stream till within the sixties, when it, like others, became a mere sewer. It rose in the high grounds of Norwood, and ran down Croxted Lane, till within the last two or three years a perfectly rural retreat; at the Half Moon Inn at Herne Hill it received an affluent, which rose between Streatham Hill and Knight's Hill. Skirting the park of Brockwell Hall, it ran along Water Lane, past the police-station in the Brixton Road. Here it took a sharp turn to the north, and ran parallel to the Brixton Road, access to the houses on the eastern side being gained by little bridges, till it reached St. Mark's Church, where it took a sharp turn to the west. But before reaching that point, a branch of the river, at a spot somewhere between the present Clapham and South Lambeth Roads, in what used formerly to be called Fentiman's Fields, turned in a northerly direction towards the South Lambeth Road, flowing through what was then Caroon Park, afterwards the Lawn Estate, a portion of which has recently become Vauxhall Park. The river ran along the lane leading by the side of the present Vauxhall Park to the Crown Works of Messrs. Higgs and Hill, at the corner of the lane turning almost at right angles up the South Lambeth Road towards Vauxhall Cross. As in the Brixton Road, little bridges here gave access to the houses on the eastern side of the South Lambeth Road. According to an old map, this branch of the Effra sent off another across the South Lambeth Road and a Mr. Freeman's land, lying between it and the Kingston Highway, as the Wandsworth Road was then called, and thus reached the Thames. The main stream, which we left at St. Mark's Church, continued its course along the south side of the Oval, sending off in a north-westerly direction a branch which fell into a circular basin, probably on the spot where the great gas-holders now stand in Upper Kennington Lane. It then turned towards Vauxhall, where it passed under a bridge, called Cox's Bridge, and fell into the Thames a little northward of Vauxhall Bridge.

At Belair, one of the show-houses of Dulwich, a branch of the Effra ran through the grounds; the Effra itself also traversed the Springfield Estate near Herne Hill, now given up to the builders. The river there appears to have been much wider than elsewhere, and in depth about nine feet, with banks shaded by old trees. The present writer remembers the Effra as a river, and was told by a gardener, now deceased, who had worked on the Caroon Estate, which extended from the present Dorset Road to the Oval, for more than fifty years, that he had often seen the Effra along Lawn Lane assume the proportions of a river, wide and deep enough to bear large barges, which statement gives countenance to the tradition that Queen Elizabeth frequently in her barge visited Sir Noel Caroon, the Dutch Ambassador, who lived at Caroon House, on the site of which stand the mansion and factory of Mark Beaufoy, Esq., who is also the owner of the Belair House above-mentioned. Dr. Montgomery, sometime Vicar of St. Mark's, and now Bishop of Tasmania, in his 'History of Kennington,' says that, in 1753, the whole space occupied by the Oval and a number of streets was open meadow through which the Effra meandered at will. It was a sparkling river running over a bright gravelly bottom, and supplied fresh water to the neighbourhood. A bridge crossed the Effra at St. Mark's, and was called Merton Bridge, from its formerly having been repaired by the Canons of Merton Abbey, who had lands for that purpose. Curiously enough, the author from whom we take this, Thomas Allen, in his 'History of Lambeth,' published in 1827, when the Effra was yet a running stream, refers to it only on the above occasion, when he calls it a 'small stream.' 'Et c'est ainsi qu'on ecrit l'histoire.'

One more 'lost river' remains on our list, the Falcon Brook, which, rising on the south side of Balham Hill, flowed almost due north between Clapham and Wandsworth Commons to Battersea Rise, which it crossed, after which it turned sharply to the west, ran along Lavender Road, crossed the York Road, and discharged itself into the Thames through Battersea Creek, which is all that now remains of the river, except the underground sewer which represents its former course. Once many pleasant villas stood on its banks; at the present day the entire valley through which it flowed is covered by one of the densest masses of dingy streets to be seen anywhere near London. Nothing remains to recall even its name, except the Falcon Road, and a newly-erected public-house which has supplanted the original Falcon, a somewhat rustic building, which, however, harmonized well with the then surroundings, which were of a perfectly rural aspect, such as, looking at the present scene, we can scarcely realize. But it can be seen in a rare print of the river, engraved by S. Rawle, after an original drawing by J. Nixon. He was an artist, who, passing the Falcon, which was then kept by a man named Robert Death, saw a number of undertaker's men regaling themselves after a funeral on the open space in front of the inn. They were not only eating and drinking and smoking, but indulging in various antics, endeavouring to make the maids of the inn join in their hilarity. This scene, and the queer coincidence of the landlord's strange name, induced Nixon to make a sketch of it, which was engraved and published in 1802, the following lines from Blair's poem 'The Grave' being added to the print:

'But see the well-plumed hearse comes nodding on, Stately and slow, and properly attended By the whole sable tribe, that painful watch The sick man's door, and live upon the dead, By letting out their persons by the hour To mimic sorrow, when the heart's not sad.'

A cantata was also published about the same time, supposed to be sung by undertakers' merry men, to celebrate the pleasure and benefit of burying a nabob, and drink to their

'...next merry meeting and quackery's increase!'

Here we close our journey and our records at a funeral. Well, the finale is not inappropriate. Have we not been attending the funerals of so many gay and bright and sparkling, joyfully leaping and rushing, and sometimes roaring, brooks and rivers, descending from the sunny hillsides, finally to be buried in dark and noisome sewers? And the lost river, alas! is but too often the type of the lost life. But moralizing is not in our line--we think it sad waste of time; it is no better than doctors' prescriptions. We would rather remind the reader, who in these notes may miss elegance of style and picturesqueness of description, that such qualities were incompatible with the compactness of details the space at our command imposed upon us. Besides, a more florid style must borrow something from imagination; but here we had only to deal with facts, and if the reader finds as much pleasure in studying as we did in collecting them, though the labour was great, he will not regret the time bestowed on their perusal.

*XVI.*

*ROGUES ASSORTED.*

On Horwood's Map of London, dated 1799, just one hundred years ago, there is shown a road, starting from Blue Anchor Lane, Bermondsey, at almost a right angle to the latter, and running in an easterly direction, but with a considerable curve in it, and this road is called Rogues' Lane. It is more than half a mile long, perfectly solitary, not a house on or near it, the land around it being a wild waste, and as deserted as a lonely moor in the recesses of Wales or Cornwall. How did this lane acquire its name? Did the inhabitants of the East End of London construct it as a kind of sewer for carrying off into the outlying wilderness the rogues who infested their streets? or did the rogues of that day, openly or tacitly acknowledging themselves to be such, choose the lane as a kind of rendezvous, as a sort of peripatetic exchange for the transaction of their rascally schemes? The East End of London seems, indeed, in those days, to have been a favourite resort of rogues--Stepney had its Rogues' Well--now they prefer the West End. But the rogues of old were somewhat different from the modern specimens; they were chiefly thieves, footpads, burglars, sneaks, low cheats, sham cripples, and such mean fry--modern civilization, with its panacea of education, had not yet asserted itself. Culture, which licks all the world into shape, has even reached the rogues; the petty scoundrels of old are replaced by the magnificent swindlers of the present day, who deal not in paltry pence, but in weighty sovereigns--who do not cheat a silly countryman out of the few shillings his purse may contain, but wheedle trusting spinsters and mad and greedy speculators out of thousands of pounds. The modern rogue is either a promoter of bogus companies, or a director who issues bogus shares, an embezzling bank-manager or trustee, or a man who lives far beyond his means, even when he knows that all his available assets are gone in betting, racing, and Stock Exchange speculation, or a fraudulent bankrupt. And there is no slitting of noses, no whipping, not even exposure on the pillory ominously looming at the end of their career; when the game is up, no more cash to be obtained by loans, and the infuriated creditors become troublesome, he attempts one more big haul, the proceeds of which, if successful, he prudently settles on his wife, and then the unfortunate victim of circumstances, over which, as he pathetically says, he had no control, leisurely takes a walk to Carey Street, has a comfortable wash and brush up in the financial lavatory which hospitably stands open there, and he comes out, thoroughly whitewashed and rid of all importunate claims upon him, after which he hires a fine mansion in Belgravia, fares sumptuously every day, and bespatters with the mud of his chariot-wheels the deluded shareholders and tradespeople whom his wily schemes have ruined. It is all, or nearly all, the outcome of modern education, which, by ramming notions totally unsuited to the minds and characters under tuition into juvenile minds, bears such bitter fruit. But educational cranks have it all their own way now, though it is wrong to call them 'educational'; they fancy that education means 'cramming,' never mind whether the food is assimilated with the body, whilst education really means the very opposite--namely, a drawing out, not a putting in: a drawing out of the hidden properties of mind and character. But let us come to our theme--the London rogues of old; their evil deeds were done long ago, and will therefore not rile as does the rascality we see around us now. We will take the beggars first: not all beggars are rogues, but the majority are. They fared variously under various Kings; some protected, some persecuted them. Strange it is that, under the juvenile, gentle Edward VI., one of the most severe laws was passed against them: a servant absenting himself for three days or more from his work was to be, on his re-capture, marked with a hot iron with the letter V (vagabond), and be his master's slave for two years, and fed on bread and water; should he run away again, he was, on being caught, to be marked on his forehead or cheek with a hot iron with the letter S (slave), and be his master's slave for life; for a third escape the punishment was death. This diabolical law was repealed two years after. Under Elizabeth sturdy beggars were whipped till the blood came. James I. rather sympathized with them; he, like them, always was in need of 'siller.' Hence the country, and especially London, swarmed with rogues of every description, known by various cant terms, such as Rufflers, Upright Men, Hookers, Rogues, Pallyards, Abraham Men, Traters, Freshwater Mariners or Whipjacks, Dommerars, Swadders, Bawdy Baskets, Doxies, with many other names of the same slang category; and, of course, the object of all the members of these various associations was to cheat the unwary and charitable. In course of time some of these terms went out of use--the cant of rogues is always on the move--but new ones took their places; and, in spite of all the laws passed against them, beggars continued to flourish. In 1728 a spirited presentment to the Court of King's Bench was made by the Grand Jury of Middlesex against the unusual swarms of sturdy and clamorous beggars, as well as the many frightful objects exposed in the streets; and, the nuisance not abating, a similar presentment was made in 1741, with the same unsatisfactory result. And as long as there are people who will not, and people who cannot, work, and as long as there are thoughtless people who will indiscriminately give alms, beggars will infest our streets. Referring to such, Sir Richard Phillips, in his 'Morning's Walk from London to Kew' (1820), tells us that the passage from Charing Cross to St. James's Park through Spring Gardens was a favourite haunt of beggars. Says he: 'A blind woman was brought to her post by a little boy, who, carelessly leading her against the step of a door, she gave him a smart box on the ear, and exclaimed, "Damn you, you rascal! can't you mind what you are about?" and then, leaning her back against the wall, in the same breath she began to chaunt a hymn.' Even now you may hear a psalm-singing woman, who has hired two or three children to render the show more effective, when these get weary, growl, in a hoarse whisper between her Hallelujahs, 'Sing out, ye devils!' The Rookery in St. Giles's, demolished to make room for New Oxford Street, was the very paradise of beggars. They there held an annual carnival, to which Major Hanger on one occasion accompanied George IV., when still Prince of Wales. The chairman, addressing the company, and pointing to the Prince, said: 'I call upon that 'ere gemman with a shirt for a song.' The Prince got excused on his friend agreeing to sing for him, who then sang a ballad called 'The Beggar's Wedding; or, the Jovial Crew,' with great applause. The beggars drank his health, and he and the Prince soon after managed to make good their retreat.

Among the most infamous rogues of the last century were men of the Jonathan Wild stamp--_agents provocateurs_, as we should now style them--who not only led people into crime, but shared the proceeds of it with the felons; nay, worse, they got persons who were quite innocent convicted, by perjured witnesses, of crimes which had never been committed. It was practices like these which at last brought Jonathan Wild himself to the scaffold.

The tricks of rogues change their names, but remain the same; what is now known as the 'confidence trick,' which, though it has been exposed in police-courts and reported in the press thousands of times, even in our day finds ready victims, was formerly called 'coney-catching,' and there were generally three confederates--the Setter, the Verser, and the Barnacle. The Setter, strolling along the Strand, Fleet Street, or Holborn, on the look-out for flats, on espying a coney, whom his dress and general appearance pronounced to be a man from the country, would make up to him, and, as a rule, quickly find out what county he came from, his name, and other particulars. If he could not induce him to have a drink with him, he would manage to convey to his confederate, the Verser, close by, the information gained, whereupon the Verser would suddenly come upon the countryman, salute him by his name, and ask after friends in the country. He proclaimed himself the near kinsman of some neighbour of the coney, and asserted to have been in the latter's house several times. The countryman, though he could not remember these visits, was yet taken unawares, and readily accepted the invitation to have a drink. They then induced him to play at cards, and soon left him as bare of money as an ape is of a tail, for in those days coney-catching was practised by the assistance of a pack of cards. But if all these lures were wasted on the coney, the Setter or Verser would drop a shilling in the street, so that the coney must see it fall, when he would naturally pick it up, whereupon one of the confederates would cry out, 'Half-part!' and claim half the find. The countryman would readily agree to exchange the money, but the Setter or Verser would say, 'Nay, friend; it is unlucky to keep found money,' and the farce would end in the money being spent in drink at a tavern; then cards would be called for, and the coney induced to take an interest in them by being initiated into a new game called 'mum-chance,' at which he was allowed to win money. While so engaged, the door would be opened by a stranger, the Barnacle, who, on seeing the players, would say, 'Excuse me, gentlemen: I thought a friend of mine was here.' The stranger would be invited to have a glass of wine, and join in the game, which he would readily do, 'to oblige the company'; and the end would be that the coney, after having been allowed to win for some time, would gradually begin to lose his money, then his watch, or any other valuables he might have about him, and finally be left with no property but the clothes he was standing up in. This, as we have stated, was called 'coney-catching,' or 'coney-catching _law_,' for those rogues possessed a great regard for law; all their practices went by the name of 'law'--'high law' meant highway robbery; 'cheating law,' playing with false dice; 'versing law,' the passing of bad gold; 'figging law,' the cutting of purses.

Vagrants and tramps in those days called themselves by the more dignified appellation of 'cursitors'; and the counterfeiter of epilepsy was a 'counterfeit crank'; money-dropping and ring-dropping were even then old tricks of cozenage. Those who are acquainted with the modern way of coney-catching, or the confidence trick--and who is not that lives in London?--will know that the trick is now much simplified, and yields much quicker and more satisfactory results--to the rogues. And though, as we mentioned above, the trick has been exposed over and over again, new fools are found every day to go into the trap. In fact, all the old rogueries flourish at the present time, besides a few new ones invented in this century. The holders of sham auctions; the horse-makers, who, by means of drugs and other devices, make old horses look as good as new till they are sold; the free foresters, who during the night rob suburban gardens of roots and flowers, and sell them next day off their barrows, all 'a-growing and a-blowing'; the dog stealers; the beer and spirit doctors, who double and treble Master Bung's stock by vile adulteration; the sellers of established businesses, which never had any actual existence--all these are types of venerable institutions which survive to this day, and not only survive, but flourish in everlasting youth. The racing, betting and Stock Exchange swindles perform their eternal merry-go-round, as they did when first started several centuries ago, and the home employment deception still draws the last shillings from the purses of poor people. And in most cases, unfortunately, the law is powerless to reach the rogues; our foolish humanitarianism, the interests of trade, the freedom of the subject to contract, the technicalities and quibbles of legislative acts, and the uncertainty as to their meaning, are at the bottom of all this failure of justice. We ought to cease prating about the dignity of man--as if there were any dignity in such paltry rogues!--and return, perhaps in a modified form, to the drastic remedies of our forefathers, who retaliated on those who made their neighbour suffer in health or in purse by inflicting on them bodily pain and personal disgrace, and not merely fining them, as is the custom with us. In the 'Memorials of London and London Life,' extracted from the City Archives, and extending from the years 1272 to 1419, will be found between twenty and thirty condemnations to the pillory, the stocks, imprisonment, and being drawn through the city on a hurdle, for deficiency of weight in bread, coals, etc., for false measure, for enhancing the price of wheat, for swindling, such as selling brass rings and chains for gold, for selling false bowstrings, putrid meat, fowls and fish, and in these latter cases the articles condemned were burnt under the noses of the culprits, as they stood in the pillory. Even women had to undergo the punishment of the pillory, one specially constructed for them being used on such occasions; it was called the thewe.

At the commencement we referred to a Rogues' Lane at Bermondsey, but there was another lane of that name in the very centre of London, Shire Lane, which was close to Temple Bar, and pulled down when room had to be made for the new Law Courts. The Kit-Kat Club held its meetings in that lane; but in spite of the dukes and lords frequenting that club, the lane never was considered respectable, and in the days of James I. was known as Rogues' Lane, it being then the resort of persons coming under that denomination. In the Bible public-house--a printers' house of call--there was a room with a trap in it, by which Jack Sheppard, who used the house, could drop into a subterranean passage which led to Bell Yard. The Angel and Crown, another public-house in the same lane, was the scene of the murder of a Mr. Quarrington, for which Thomas Carr and Elizabeth Adams were hanged at Tyburn. One night a man was robbed, thrown downstairs and killed in one of the dens of Rogues' Lane. Nos. 13 and 14 were bad houses; Nos. 9, 10 and 11, where thieves used to meet, was known as 'Cadgers' Hall'; Nos. 1, 2 and 3 were houses of ill-fame, and there existed a communication with the house No. 242, Strand, through which the thieves used to escape after ill-treating their victims. In Ship Yard, close to Shire Lane, there stood a block of houses which were let out to vagrants, thieves, sharpers, smashers and other disreputable characters. Throughout the vaults of this rookery there existed a continuous passage, so that easy access could be obtained from one to the other, facilitating escape or concealment in the case of pursuit. The end house of this block was selected for the manufacture of bad coin, and was known as the 'Smashing Lumber.' Every room had its secret trap or panel, and from the upper story, which was the workshop, there was a draft connected with the cellar, to which the base coin could be lowered in case of surprise.

It is astonishing, and shows us the hollowness of the pretence to civilization and decency set up on behalf of the velvet-dressed, lace and gold-bedizened aristocrats of those days, that persons, not only of respectability, but of rank and title, could live in such close quarters with thieves and vagabonds of the lowest grade. Yet, as already mentioned, the Kit-Kats had their club in Shire Lane; in 1603 there was living in it Sir Arthur Atie, in early life secretary to the Earl of Leicester; Elias Ashmole also inhabited the lane, so did Hoole, the translator of Tasso, and James Perry, the editor of the _Morning Chronicle_, who died worth L130,000.