Dickens' London

Nothing is likely to give the stranger a just estimate of the magnitude of this more than will the observance of the excellent police control of the cross traffic, when, in some measure, its volume will be apparent.

It would perhaps be impossible in a work such as this that any one locality could be described with anything like adequate completeness. Certainly one would not hope to cover the ground entire, where every division and subdivision partakes severally of widely different characteristics.

Southwark and the Borough, with its High Street, St. George's Church and Fields, the old Marshalsea – or the memory of it – "The King's Bench" Prison, and "Guy's," are something quite different with respect to manners and customs from Whitechapel or Limehouse.

So, too, are St. Giles' and Pimlico in the west, and Hampstead and Highgate in North London. Since all of these are dealt with elsewhere, to a greater or lesser degree, a few comments on the Whitechapel of Dickens' day must suffice here, and, truth to tell, it has not greatly changed since that time, save for a periodical cleaning up and broadening of the main thoroughfare. It is with more or less contempt and disgust that Whitechapel is commonly recalled to mind. Still, Whitechapel is neither more nor less disreputable than many other localities sustained by a similar strata of society. It serves, however, to illustrate the life of the east end, as contrasted with that of the west of London – the other pole of the social sphere – and is, moreover, peopled by that class which Dickens, in a large measure, incorporated into the novels.

In ancient times Northumberland, Throgmorton, and Crosby were noble names associated therewith. In Dickens' day butchers, it would seem, were the predominate species of humanity, while to-day Jewish "sweat-shops" are in the ascendant, a sufficiently fine distinction to render it recognizable to any dweller in a large city, whatever his nationality.

The fleur-de-lis and royal blazonings are no longer seen, and such good old Anglo-Saxon names as Stiles, Stiggins, and Stodges are effectually obliterated from shop signs. How changed this ancient neighbourhood is from what it must once have been! Crosby Hall, in Bishopsgate Street, not far distant, the ci-devant palace of Richard II., is now a mere eating-house, albeit a very good one. And as for the other noble houses, they have gone the way of all fanes when once encroached upon by the demands of business progress.

Baynard Castle, where Henry VII. received his ambassadors, and in which the crafty Cecil plotted against Lady Jane Grey, almost before the ink was dry with which he had solemnly registered his name to serve her, has long ago been numbered amongst the things that were. The archers of Mile-end, with their chains of gold, have departed: the spot on which the tent stood, where bluff Hal regaled himself after having witnessed their sports, is now covered with mean-looking houses: as one has said, "the poetry of ancient London is well-nigh dead."

The voice of the stream is for ever hushed that went murmuring before the dwellings of our forefathers, along Aldgate and down Fenchurch Street, and past the door of Sir Thomas Gresham's house, in Lombard Street, until it doubled round by the Mansion House and emptied itself into the river. There is still the sound of rushing waters by the Steam-Packet Wharf, at London Bridge; but how different to the "brawling brook" of former days is the "evil odour" which arises from the poisonous sewers of to-day.

And to what have these old-world splendours given place? Splendid gin-shops, plate-glass palaces, into which squalor and misery rush and drown the remembrance of their wretchedness in drowsy and poisonous potations of an inferior quality of liquor. Such splendour and squalor is the very contrast which makes thinking men pause, and pause again.

The Whitechapel butcher was of the old school. He delighted in a blue livery, and wore his "steel" with as much satisfaction as a young ensign does his sword. He neither spurned the worsted leggins nor duck apron; but with bare muscular arms, and knife keen enough to sever the hamstring of a bull, took his stand proudly at the front of his shop, and looked "lovingly" on the well-fed joints above his head. The gutters before his door literally ran with blood: pass by whenever you would, there the crimson current constantly flowed; and the smell the passenger inhaled was not that of "Araby." A "Whitechapel bird" and a "Whitechapel butcher" were once synonymous phrases, used to denote a character the very reverse of a gentleman; but, says a writer of the fifties, "in the manners of the latter we believe there is a great improvement, and that more than one 'knight of the cleaver' who here in the daytime manufacture sheep into mutton chops, keeps his country house."

The viands offered for sale augur well for the strength of the stomachs of the Whitechapel populace. The sheep's trotters look as if they had scarcely had time enough to kick off the dirt before they were potted; and as for the ham, it appears bleached, instead of salted; and to look at the sandwiches, you would think they were anything except what they are called. As for the fried fish, it resembles coarse red sand-paper; and you would sooner think of purchasing a penny-worth to polish the handle of a cricket bat or racket, than of trying its qualities in any other way. The "black puddings" resemble great fossil ammonites, cut up lengthwise. What the "faggots" are made of, which form such a popular dish in this neighbourhood, we have yet to learn. We have heard rumours of chopped lights, liver, suet, and onions as being the components of these dusky dainties; but he must be a daring man who would convince himself by tasting: for our part, it would seem that there was a great mystery to be unravelled before the innumerable strata which form these smoking hillocks will ever be made known. The pork pies which you see in these windows contain no such effeminate morsels as lean meat, but have the appearance of good substantial bladders of lard shoved into a strong crust, and "done brown" in a superheated oven.

Such, crudely, is an impression of certain aspects of "trade" in Whitechapel, but its most characteristic feature outside of the innumerable hawkers of nearly everything under the sun, new or old, which can be sold at a relatively low price, is the famous "Rag Fair," a sort of "old clo's" mart, whose presiding geniuses are invariably of the Jewish persuasion, either male or female. Rags which may have clothed the fair person of a duchess have here so fallen as to be fit only for dusting cloths. The insistent vender will assure you that they have been worn but "werry leetle, werry leetle, indeed… Vell, vot of it, look at the pryshe!"

Dank and fetid boxes and barrows, to say naught of the more ambitious shops, fill the Whitechapel Road and Petticoat Lane (now changed to Middlesex Street, but some measure of the old activities may still be seen of a Sunday morning).

A rummaging around will bring to light, likely enough, something that may once have been a court dress, a bridal costume, or a ball gown; a pair of small satin slippers, once white; a rusty crêpe, a "topper of a manifestly early vintage, or what not, all may be found here. One might almost fancy that Pride, in some material personification, might indeed be found buried beneath the mass of dross, or having shuffled off its last vestiges of respectability, its corse might at least be found to have left its shroud behind; and such these tattered habiliments really are. Rag Fair to-day is still the great graveyard of Fashion; the last cemetery to which cast-off clothes are borne before they enter upon another state of existence, and are spirited into dusters and dish-clouts.

Of all modern cities, London, perhaps more than any other, is justly celebrated for the number and variety of its suburbs.

On the northwest are Hampstead, with its noble Heath reminiscent of "highwaymen and scoundrels," and its charming variety of landscape scenery; and Harrow, with its famous old school, associated with the memory of Byron, Peel, and many other eminent men, to the churchyard of which Byron was a frequent visitor. "There is," he wrote to a friend in after years, "a spot in the churchyard, near the footpath on the brow of the hill looking toward Windsor, and a tomb (bearing the name of Peachey) under a large tree, where I used to sit for hours and hours when a boy." Nearly northward are Highgate, with its fringe of woods, and its remarkable series of ponds; Finchley, also once celebrated for its highwaymen, but now for its cemeteries; Hornsey, with its ivy-clad church, and its pretty winding New River; and Barnet, with its great annual fair, still an institution attended largely by costers and horse-traders. On the northeast are Edmonton, with its tavern, which the readers of "John Gilpin" will of course never forget; Enfield, where the government manufactures rifles on a vast scale; Waltham, notable for its ancient abbey church; and Epping Forest, a boon to picnic parties from the east end of London.

South of the Thames, likewise, there are many pretty spots, quite distinct from those which border upon the river's bank. Wimbledon, with its furze-clad common and picturesque windmill; Mitcham, with its herb gardens; Norwood, a pleasant bit of high ground, from which a view of London from the south can be had; Lewisham and Bromley, surrounded by many pretty bits of scenery; Blackheath, a famous place for golf and other outdoor games; Eltham, where a bit of King John's palace is still left to view; the Crays, a string of picturesque villages on the banks of the River Cray, etc. Dulwich is a village about five miles south of London Bridge. Here Edward Alleyn, or Allen, a distinguished actor in the reign of James I., founded and endowed an hospital or college, called Dulwich College, for the residence and support of poor persons, under certain limitations.

THE END

A BRIEF CHRONOLOGY OF SOME OF THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CITY OF LONDON DURING THE LIFETIME OF CHARLES DICKENS