CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE BRIDGES OF LONDON.

LONDON may well be proud of her bridges. Fifteen of the finest structures of their kind in the world span with mighty and enduring arches, the surface of the Thames; in a distance of seven miles on the river from London Bridge, to the Suspension Bridge, at Hammersmith. Paris alone can rival London in her super-aqueous structures, but in massiveness and grandeur there is no bridge covering the Seine, and having such a magnificent roadway and arches as Waterloo Bridge.

Of all the bridges which span the Thames, none have a history like that of London Bridge; although the present structure dates only from 1825. The history of old London Bridge is that of London itself, for the bridge was coeval with the overthrow of the Saxon dynasty, and the death of Richard Coeur de Lion.

The first bridge erected on the site of the present London Bridge, was a wooden one by Ethelred III., in 994, and the tolls were paid by boats bringing fish to "Bylingsgate," which was then a water-gate of the city. The next bridge here was constructed by the pious brothers of St. Mary, Southwark, which house was originally a convent, established by a young girl named Mary, daughter to a ferryman, who plied at this point, and from the profits of the ferry the bridge was constructed. This bridge was almost totally destroyed by the Norwegian King Olave in 1008, and was rebuilt by Canute in 1016, swept away by a flood 1091, rebuilt 1097, burnt 1136, and a new one was erected of elm timber in 1163 by Peter, a priest and chaplain of St. Mary's, Colechurch, in the Poultry.

This bridge did not satisfy the pious architect, however, and he began with great zeal to build a stone one, the first in England, a little to the westward of the timber bridge in 1176, when Henry II. gave toward the construction the proceeds of a tax on wool, from which originated the saying, "London Bridge was built on woolpacks," a phrase that has often been taken in its literal meaning. Priest Peter died in 1205 and the bridge was finished in 1209.

This bridge consisted of a stone platform 926 feet long, and 40 feet wide, standing about 60 feet above the level of the water, and comprehended a draw bridge and nineteen pointed arches, with massive piers raised upon strong oak and elm piles covered by thick planks bolted together, so that after all, the famous stone bridge had a wooden platform. There was a gate-house, with turrets and battlements at either end, and toward the centre, on the east side, was built a beautiful gothic chapel of stone to the memory of St. Thomas (à Becket), of Canterbury. In a crypt of the chapel was placed a stone tomb over the body of Priest Peter, the founder of the bridge. This bridge, in the time of Elizabeth, is described as having "sumptuous buildings, and stately and beautiful houses on either side," making one continuous street from end to end and having an archway under the houses and dwellings through which vehicles, sedan-chairs, and pedestrians passed. The river could be seen at intervals in the gaps of masonry, and, in fact, this bridge was as much of a thoroughfare and causeway besides, having all the characteristics of a street on solid ground, as any open space in London. Some of the buildings had shops and beer-houses in the lower stories.

The chronicles of this stone bridge during six centuries, form, perhaps, the most interesting episodes in the history of London. The scenes of fire, siege, insurrection, and popular vengeance, of national rejoicing, and of the pageant victories of man and of death, of fame or funeral, which have transpired on and about the bridge, it were vain for me to attempt to describe. In 1212, four years after the completion of the structure, a terrific conflagration took place on the bridge, and 3000 persons perished in the flames, both ends being on fire at the same time. De Montfort repulsed Henry III., on this bridge, and the populace attacked and stoned his Queen in her barge as she prepared to shoot the bridge. Wat Tyler, the popular rebel entered London by this road to be struck down by Sir William Walworth in 1381. Richard II. was received here by the citizens in 1392. In 1415 Henry V., fresh from Agincourt, passed the bridge, and seven years after his corpse was carried over it to be buried at Westminster Abbey. In 1450 Jack Cade attempted to storm London Bridge, but he was defeated and his head placed on a pole over the gate-house. In 1477 the Bastard of Falconbridge attacked the bridge, and fired several houses. In 1554 Sir Thomas Wyatt crossed the bridge at the head of 2000 men, to dethrone Queen Mary, and lost his head for it. In 1632 more than one-third of the houses on the bridge were destroyed by fire, and in 1666 the whole labyrinth of dwellings, shops, and edifices, were swept away by the Great Fire; the entire street being rebuilt within twenty years after. The houses were entirely removed and parapets and balustrades were erected on each side in 1732, and one hundred years after, in 1832, the venerable structure was demolished to make way for the new London Bridge now standing. Holbein, the painter, lived on the bridge, book publishers occupied shops on it, and the London tradesmen believed it to be one of the Seven Wonders of the world. Hogarth lodged here, and Swift and Pope visited Tucker, a bookseller who had a shop on the bridge.

[Sidenote: GRINNING SKULLS.]

The most terrible reminiscence of the bridge is connected with the fact that its gate-houses at either end were garnished for many hundreds of years by the heads of many great and good men as well as of bad and depraved villains, whose skulls were exposed on spikes to dry and bleach in the sun.

The heads of Sir William Wallace, 1305; Simon Frisel, 1306; four traitor knights, 1397; Lord Bardolf, 1308; Bolingbroke, 1440; Jack Cade and his rebels, 1451; the Cornish traitors of 1497, and of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester (displaced in fourteen days after by that of Sir Thomas More, 1335), have adorned this ghostly bridge. From 1578 to 1605, it was a common sight to see the heads of Roman Catholic priests exposed on this bridge, their offence being that they sought to preach their doctrines in London. Finally, in the reign of Charles II., this display of bare, grinning skulls was transferred to Temple Bar.

Temple Bar, as it is called, is a large, gray archway, which spans Fleet street in its busiest traffic and jam. The archway was formerly the limit of the City of London, and when a sovereign came westward from Westminster, or eastward from the Tower, to make a formal entry, the Lord Mayor and the City Councils, in robes of state, were present under its historic archway to offer the keys and admit the Sovereign. The rusty gates were then rolled back, and on such occasions the pageants were very fine.

For over a hundred years the London traders and shopkeepers, and the students of the Temple, were regaled with the daily and ghastly sight of a row of grinning and socketless skulls, which were ranged in lines on cruel spikes above the architrave of Temple Bar. There is an empty room in the upper story which has a terrible history, for here heads were boiled in pitch before being exposed.

In 1737, Eustace Budgell, a cousin of Addison and a contributor to the Spectator, when reduced to poverty, took a boat at Somerset Stairs, and ordering the waterman to row down the river, threw himself into the flood as the boat shot London Bridge. He had filled his pockets with stones, and he left behind him a slip of paper on which was written, "What Cato did and Addison approved cannot be wrong." This was a great puff for Addison's tragedy. Edward Osborne, an apprentice of Sir William Hewet, afterwards Lord Mayor, jumped from the window of one of the bridge houses, in 1536, to save his master's daughter, an infant, and years afterwards he was rewarded with her hand in marriage, and became Lord Mayor himself. The grandson of the apprentice became Duke of Leeds and the founder of the present ducal house of that name. No bridge ever constructed had such a history as that of Old London Bridge.

[Sidenote: THE TRAFFIC ON LONDON BRIDGES.]

The flow of traffic on some of the principal bridges by actual computation during twelve hours, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., was: Pedestrians, London Bridge, 96,080; Southwark Bridge, 2,500; Blackfriars Bridge, 48,095; Waterloo Bridge, 12,000; Westminster Bridge, 38,015. Equestrian traffic: London Bridge, 211; Southwark Bridge, 93; Blackfriars, 91; Waterloo, 38; Westminster Bridge, 311. Vehicular traffic: London Bridge, 26,800; Southwark Bridge, 516; Blackfriars Bridge, 6,384; Waterloo Bridge, 2,603; Westminster Bridge, 7,300. From these figures it will be seen that the traffic on London Bridge which leads from the heart of the business portion of the city, and is toll free, exceeded that on all of the others put together. Some of the bridges are owned by companies and a toll of half a penny per passenger is taken for revenue by them.

London Bridge was designed by Sir John Rennie and built by his son. The first pile was driven March 15th, 1824, government contributing £200,000 toward the undertaking. Altogether the bridge cost £2,000,000 before it was finished. It is built on coffer-dams, and the bridge has five semi-elliptical arches. The centre arch has a span of 152 feet, and a rise above high water mark of 24 feet 6 inches; the two arches next the centre are 140 feet span, and the two abutment arches have 130 feet of span. There is a parapet four feet high and the length between the abutments is 782 feet, while the width between the parapets is 53 feet. The bridge was nearly eight years in construction, and 120,000 tons of stone were used in its erection.

Southwark Bridge is constructed of iron with three colossal arches, and was built by Rennie. The middle arch has a span of 240 feet and a rise of 24 feet. Its height above low-water mark to the roadway is 55 feet. The cost was £800,000 and the bridge was opened in 1819. Its length is 700 feet, and the roadway is 42 feet wide.

The new Blackfriars Bridge is 1,000 feet long, 42 feet wide, and the cost will be £300,000.

Waterloo Bridge is the finest in the world. Its dimensions are: Length between abutments 2,456 feet, water-way, 1,326 feet. The carriage-way is 28 feet wide with a pathway on each side of seven feet. There are nine arches, each of which are 120 feet in span with a rise of 35 feet. Waterloo Bridge has a level grade from one end to the other. Canova, the sculptor, said of this bridge, "It was alone worth a journey from Rome to London to see it." The cost was £1,000,000.

[Sidenote: WATERLOO BRIDGE.]

As a set-off to what Macaulay has prophesied in regard to London Bridge and the future New Zealander, Baron Charles Dupin, the great French publicist, speaks of Waterloo Bridge as follows:

"If from the incalculable effect of the revolutions which empires undergo, the nations of a future age should demand one day what was formerly the New Sidon, and what has become of the Tyre of the West, which covered with her vessels every sea?--most of the edifices devoured by a destructive climate will no longer exist to answer the curiosity of man by the voice of monuments; But Waterloo Bridge, built in the centre of the commercial world, will exist to tell the most remote generations--'here was a rich, industrious, and powerful city.' The traveller, on beholding this superb monument, will suppose that some great prince wished, by many years of labor, to consecrate forever the glory of his life by this imposing structure. But if tradition instruct the traveller that six years sufficed for the undertaking and finishing the work--if he learns that an association of a number of private individuals was rich enough to defray the expense of this colossal monument, worthy of Sesostris and the Cæsars--he will admire still more the nation in which similar undertakings could be the fruit of the efforts of a few obscure individuals, lost in the crowd of industrious citizens."

Charing Cross is the next bridge on the Thames, being built of iron and used by a railway company. It was built by Brunel, and is a graceful structure, but does not permit of pedestrian traffic.

Westminster Bridge is nearly level in its grade, and has seven arches. It is 1,220 feet long. The cost was £400,000.

Lambeth Bridge is of iron with three arches, each of 280 feet span, and the width is 54 feet. Cost, £100,000.

Vauxhall Bridge is of iron with nine arches of equal span--each 78 feet wide. The breadth of the roadway is 36 feet, and the total length of the bridge is 840 feet.

Pimlico Railway Bridge is built of iron, with four openings or spans of 175 feet each. The bridge is 900 feet in length, and has a width of 24 feet.

Chelsea Chain Suspension Bridge is 922 feet long and 45 feet wide. Cost, £75,000.

Hammersmith Suspension Bridge is 841 feet long and 32 feet wide. Cost, £180,000.

Scott, the American diver, lost his life while performing acrobatic feats on Waterloo Bridge. The season he chose for diving from a height of twenty feet above the parapet of the highest London bridge was during an intense frost, when the river was full of ice, and the enormous masses floating with the tide scarcely appeared to leave a space for his reckless plunge into the river or his rise therefrom. He watched his moment, and the feat was performed over and over again with perfect safety. But he had been told that the Londoners wanted novelty. It was not enough that he should do day after day what no man had ever ventured to do before.

[Sidenote: DEADLY ACROBATICS.]

To leap off the parapets of the Southwark and Waterloo bridges into the half-frozen river had become a common thing; and so the poor fellow must have a scaffold put up, and he must suspend himself from its cross bars by his arm, his leg and his neck, in succession. Twice was the last experiment repeated; but on the third attempt the body hung motionless. The applause and laughter that death could be so counterfeited was tumultuous; but a cry of terror went forth that the man was dead. He perished for catering to a morbid public appetite. Every one who saw this voluntary hanging went away degraded and disgusted at the terrible result of the show.