Chapter 8 FLEET-STREET, OLD ALSATIA, AND LONDON LODGING-HOUSES.

E have again reached the point from which we started at the commencement of our work, leaving behind us undescribed many objects of great interest to such as love to dwell upon the past, beside others of importance belonging to the present, but possessing not those picturesque features which we prefer dwelling upon. Here we shall pause for a while, and, as there is but little around us in the shape of "bricks and mortar" to arrest our attention, take a glance at the lights and shadows of busy life.

We have now arrived at Fleet-street, which, with its ramifications to the right and left, is as jagged as a spray of fern. Branching from this busy street you enter courts and alleys, such as if a stranger to the neighbourhood once got entangled amongst, he would scarcely find his way out of again, though he tried for a full hour by the clock, unless he made many inquiries: courts which somehow seem to have run into a knot-so ravelled that you can neither find beginning nor end, so often are you stopped by a dead wall here, and thrown into a whirlpool of alleys a little further on, as if they had been run up by hundreds of builders from different points in the dark, who, when daylight came, found themselves in all sorts of zigzag ways endeavouring to brick up one another. And in these places you will always find "Apartments to let." True, they are very close, but then they are very central, for what part of London is there that the great main artery of Fleet-street does not lead into? If you are struck by the planet Venus, whatever astronomers may say to the contrary, there you will find that she has her satellites that are ever moving round and round. Should you happen to be overtaken by drink-a demon who ever lies in wait in this neighbourhood-there you have station-houses and policemen at hand; if in debt, there are sponging-houses with their doors open to receive you. Should you even have the honour of being hanged, you cannot well miss finding your way to Newgate.

Whitefriars, in Fleet-street, appears to have been one of the most notorious places in London. We all remember Sir Walter Scott's description of Alsatia (a name given to this locality about 1600) in the Fortunes of Nigel; and from the same work we have so often quoted, we are enabled to bring the spot once more before the "mind's eye" of our readers, as it was in its decay. It first commences with Salisbury court as follows:

"Every two or three steps we met some old figure or another which looked as if the devil had robbed them of all their natural beauty * * * and inspired (into them) his own infernal spirit; for nothing but devilism could be read in every feature. Theft, homicide, and blasphemy peeped out at every window of their souls; lying, perjury, fraud, impudence, and misery were the only graces of their countenances.

"One with slip-shoes, without stockings, and dirty linen, visible through a crape dress, was stepping from the ale-house to her lodgings with a parcel of pipes in one hand and a gallon-pot in the other; yet with her head dressed up to as much advantage as if the other members of her body were sacrificed to keep her ill-looking face in a little finery. Another, I suppose taken from the oyster-tub and put into (similar) allurements, made a more cleanly appearance, but became her ornaments as a cow would a curb-bridle or a sow a hunting-saddle. Then every now and then would bolt out a fellow, and whip nimbly across the way, being equally fearful, as I imagine, of both constable and sergeant, and looking as if the dread of the gallows had drawn its picture in his countenance. * * * *

"We soon departed hence, my friend conducting me to a place called Whitefriars, which, he told me, was formerly of great service to the honest traders of the city, who, if they could, by cant, flattery or dissimulation, procure large credit amongst their zealous fraternity, would slip in here with their effects, take sanctuary against the laws, compound their debts for a small matter, and oftentimes get a better estate by breaking than they could ever propose to do by trading. But now a late Act [he must here allude to the Act passed about 1696, William III.] of Parliament has taken away its privileges; and since knaves can neither break with safety nor advantage, it is observed that there are not a quarter so many shopkeepers play at bo-peep with their creditors as when they were encouraged to be rogues by such cheating conveniences. * * *

"We came into the main street of this neglected asylum, so very thin of people, the windows broken, and the houses untenanted, as if the plague, or some like judgment from heaven, as well as execution on earth, had made a great slaughter amongst the poor inhabitants."-London Spy, 1699. Part 7.

It seems strange that such a lawless community should then have dwelt almost within the very sanctuary of the law, for the author (Ned Ward) just quoted tells us, that "he passed through the little wicket of a great pair of gates into the Temple."

We must not pass without noticing St. Bride's Church, situated by the office of our merry neighbour Punch, who does his "spiriting gently," and is as great a "terror to evil-doers" as the constables were in the olden time to the sinners of Alsatia.

This is another of Wren's beautiful churches, and is enriched by stained glass, copied from Rubens, the subject the Descent from the Cross. The steeple was struck by lightning in 1764, and when repaired was reduced in height, though it still towers a graceful and noble monument above the surrounding houses, as it

"Points its silent finger to the sky,

And teaches grovelling man to look on high."

In the old church, destroyed in the Great Fire, was buried the famous printer Wynkin de Worde, whose works are now worth their weight in gold, and are almost as scarce as those which were issued from the press by Caxton. Here also was buried the notorious Mary Frith, commonly called Moll Cut-Purse. On her adventures Dekker and Middleton founded the play entitled The Roving Girl, or Moll Cut-Purse. She died in the seventy-fifth year of her age, at her house in Fleet-street, next the Globe tavern, in 1659. In her will she left 20l. for the conduit to run with wine at the Restoration of Charles II. It was Moll who robbed General Fairfax on Hounslow Heath. Her life was published in 1662. She was, says Granger, "a fortune-teller, a pickpocket, a thief, and a receiver of stolen goods." She died of the dropsy, and her life is supposed to have been prolonged through the large quantity of tobacco which she smoked. Our great Milton at one time lodged in St. Bride's churchyard. It would form a goodly catalogue of celebrated names to enumerate all who have been buried in St. Bride's, or lived in the adjoining neighbourhood.

Many of the houses, as in the time of Milton, in the back streets and alleys are let out in lodgings; and we will now give, from our own experience, a specimen of a downright London lodging-house-we mean, one in which the landlord lives entirely by letting lodgings-for we allude not to hotels, or respectable boarding-houses, but to places where you are "taken in and done for."

An author, during his early career, is compelled to become acquainted with the "ins and outs" and "ways and means" of London lodging-houses; and as his occupation keeps him more within doors than those who hold situations, or are otherwise engaged, he is, to use a more expressive than elegant phrase, "Up to their moves and down to their dodges." We have in our day known more than one gentleman who kept his own gridiron, and brought home his rump-steak-taught by experience that half a pound of his own cooking was equal to a pound after it had been entrusted to the Cinderella or the Cerberus of the kitchen. We have known whisky in such places (which overnight was above proof) become so weak in a single day during our absence, as never to require water; and have seen a shoulder of lamb, which, after our frugal dinner, was carried away with a gap in it scarcely wide enough to admit of our two fingers, return at supper-time with a hole in the middle big enough to shake hands through, without touching any thing on either side except the knuckle, or the edge of the bare blade-bone. It was wonderful how often the cat got to our meat, and what trouble our landlady had been at, according to her account, to cut off the portions puss had mangled, before it was again fit to appear on the table. Cruel woman! she was always beating the cat whenever we had a cold joint. As for our tea-caddy, we tried half-a-dozen various kinds of locks; but they were picked with far more ease than the clever American managed to pick Chubb's patent. When we did at last get an unpickable lock, caddy and tea went altogether, and Cinderella said her mistress had had a strange sweep, and that sweeps were always sure to carry something or another away in the soot. The next day we found a sixpenny tin tea-caddy in our cupboard, so took the hint, and never sent out for more than two ounces at a time; and the landlady seemed to settle down satisfied with little more than half of it, so we had it "fresh and fresh" every day. We found that a twopenny French roll went as far as a half-quartern loaf, as we were never allowed to look a second time upon the remains of either. They charged us for cream and gave us milk-and-water; but perhaps this was done out of a tender regard for our health. How broth was made in these old model lodging-houses, we never could clearly comprehend; but the landlady had an herbalist book, and we believe made out her bill from the index, beginning at agrimony and ending at yarrow-root. A bottle of wine when decanted in the kitchen cost about eighteenpence a glass; walnuts, a penny each; filberts came up so ripe that we found one in a cluster where four or five had originally nestled together; lobsters always lost their claws down-stairs, and very often came up with one side of the shell empty. Bottled stout was always going off in the cellar, and they shewed us the corks which had been blown out-indeed in these matters they were rather particular. They were dreadfully troubled with bluebottles in summer, and the largest joint would not keep beyond a day.

The game you brought home yourself was never sweet; what the landlady purchased for you was always good. Many cheap game-hawkers came to the door; and sometimes the landlady was dining off a fine pheasant, while your own was thrown into the dust-bin.

The whole household were troubled with bad memories, and were always making mistakes. If you laid out a pair of trousers or a coat to be repaired, you found sixpence or ninepence on the mantelpiece a morning or two after, which was all the old clothesman would give for them. Then they were very sorry, but that stupid girl was always making some mistake or another, and the landlady would call on the tailor herself another time. There were no queen's-heads in those days; and when we sent the money to prepay a letter, they invariably forgot to stamp "paid" on it at the post-office, though the girl knew to an inch where she had put the money at the time, and could remember every thing that was on the counter; and sometimes she said she had put the money in the scales, and was sure it could not have rolled off and fallen on the floor. Butter in these houses was very solid: it was wonderful what a thin slice you had for half a pound, though the Cinderella of the establishment swore that she saw it bump the scale down. Your linen wore out very fast, and, after the buttons began to come off, they were never fit to be sent to the laundress again. Your stockings stood darning twice; pocket-handkerchiefs and light gloves the landlady was kind enough to purchase for you every week. Your brushes, hair-brushes, combs, &c. were, of course, common property. They sent you up the newspaper about five minutes before the boy called for it, provided every body below had done with it.

In some of these houses every thing about you is cold, hard, bright, and uncomfortably clean, as if always ready to be let-"got up," as it were, to strike every new comer. If you drop a crumb on the carpet it is picked up before your face, by way of a gentle hint; a stain of ink on the table-cover you would never hear the last of. Some mysterious kind of white cabbage-network covers the back of the easy chair, and lies grinning at you, full of holes, all over the sofa; you see nothing but knots, and would as soon think of finding ease were you to lie down on a stone floor strewn with bullets as on that hard white knotted cordage. Everything in the room is for show, nothing for comfort. The mantelpiece is covered with articles which are neither ornamental nor useful: shells, four a shilling; a couple of white delf candlesticks; two old hand-screens, picked up dirt-cheap at an auction; in the centre three ugly-shaped earthenware articles, red, blue, and gilt tarnished, holding about a dozen spills each, which are never used-you are sick of seeing them reflected in the long mirror which was bought a bargain. If you have a handful of fire in the cold glittering grate on a bitter winter night, it makes you shiver to look at it: the poker looks so bright and chilling, you are afraid to touch it; and if a piece of coal falls out, they come in to see if you called, for they are always listening. Sometimes you shove your boot toe into the fire in utter desperation, or walk up and down the room, and storm heartily for exercise. You feel as if you would like to kick the couple of cursed carpet-covered hassocks about to warm you, and end by knocking down the fire-irons, to break the homeless silence. Never, in such places, on any account, begin to sharpen your razors near midnight, for the Evil One seems ever to be lurking in the gloomy corners of such cheerless houses, and there is no knowing what thoughts he might put into your head.

These are the class of houses in which you see neat bills in the windows, announcing "Respectable Apartments for Single Gentlemen." They never admit children into these old, keen, money-making lodging-houses: the echoes of those houses are never broken by childish laughter, nor these creaking floors shaken by merry romps; they like your shy, silent, bashful man, who submits quietly to every imposition; for they care not what he thinks, so long as he complains not openly.

In some streets you find lodging-houses inhabited by three distinct classes, who are as much separated from each other as if they lived fifty miles apart. The poor inhabitant in the attic may be dying while the first-floor lodger is entertaining a party of friends; and although they have both dwelt under the same roof for years, it is likely enough that not a single word was ever exchanged between them.

The lodger who occupies the first floor seldom condescends to speak to the "common people" who live in the garrets, for there is almost as much difference in their habits as there is between the aristocracy and the quiet plodding citizen. He who occupies the attic is very probably an honest hard-handed mechanic, who comes home to his dinner regularly at twelve o'clock, gives one loud single knock at the door, and is admitted by his poor but clean-looking wife: he wipes his feet carefully before going up stairs-first and second-floor doors never by any possible chance opening in the mean time. Second-floor comes with a bold double-knock, something between a bum-bailiff's, a postman's, and a tax-gatherer's; he dines at one or two, and is on nodding terms with the first-floor; he persevered for months trying on a "Fine morning, sir," and at last was made happy by a most surly "Very, sir." He progressed a step farther one day by saying something unpleasant about the "common people up-stairs." First-floor dines at three or four, if he is a clerk or holds some slight situation under government, obtained, perhaps, through his father selling his vote at a country election: he gives a regular "ran-tan-tan-tirra-irra-tir-tir-tir," for he keeps a little draggle-tailed, dirty, poor parish-child, and she answers the door-that is "our servant." The ground-floor people-that is, generally, the landlord and his family (if they do not live in the kitchen)-bow and smile at the first-floor from the parlour window: he is such a respectable "gent," and pays so regular; has a gallon of spirits sent in at a time, and never disgraces the house by having in such beggarly things as half-a-hundred of coals and two bundles of wood.

But the picture is not complete without the children. First-floor have their hair plaited behind (if they are girls), and the ends of these long tails are tied with either blue or pink ribbon; they also wear little trousers, frilled about the ankles like little bantam-cocks, and strut about before the door like the above-named bird. Second-floor children are very tidy, as most of the washing is put out, and the mother can spare time to look after them; they are taught to "toady" to first-floor as soon as they have learned to talk; to call them "miss" or "master," and their father and mother "pa" and "ma." Your heart aches while you look on the canting little creatures, whose every motion is watched by the eyes of the parents. Second-floor's children are always to blame if any thing goes wrong, and the lick-spittle parents chide their children for the faults of the others, to keep in with first-floor. You have in those dear children a true picture of the humbug and hollow-heartedness of the insincere portion of mankind.

Mean time, third-floor are sitting on the top landing, eating dry bread, their hands and faces very dirty through playing with the coal-scuttle, while their poor, pale, industrious mother is busy washing. But they will be taken out for a walk somewhere on Sunday, and for one day in the week be the happiest party under that roof. We are sorry that this savage-looking picture is true to nature; but on scanning it narrowly, there is not a single feature that we ought to soften down.

Happy are they who can find lodging-houses in London in which they can feel "at home." That there are thousands of these comfortable places, we entertain no doubt of; the worst of it is, young men are too fond of shifting about, and have not patience to wait until they become accustomed to the ways of these really respectable people. "Slow" has become a bad word of late; and they are generally empty-headed, think-much-of-themselves, "fast," frothy fellows, who use it. "Slow and sure" was an old saying, often quoted by our wise forefathers.

Considering how cheerless and comfortless many of these lodging-houses are, we cease to wonder at the number of taverns and coffee-houses which abound in London, and should be glad to see a few more such admirable institutions as the Whittington Club, for we here see at least one cause why they are so much frequented. How lonely seems a place (except to a man whose studious habits require solitude), on a long winter night, where a young man has to sit five or six hours without having a living soul to speak to. He lights his lucifer-match, and, as the faint blue speck slowly bursts into flame, he looks round upon the voiceless solitude, and sighs. He sets a light to the sticks and coal which the char-woman or the dirty Cinderella placed in the grate, after they had arranged his bedroom in the morning, and for a time the crackling of the fire seems like pleasant companionship. Then the church-clock tolls slowly and sadly, and he yawns while he thinks of the weary hours that have yet to pass away before bedtime. He makes his own tea-or, perchance, the little dirty servant, who has sixpence a week and her "wittals," brings it up: when he has finished, he rings the bell, the things are cleared away, and then he may hang himself if he pleases, quite certain that the deed would never be discovered until the morrow. Were he taken ill, and to ring the bell, the little servant would be sent to fetch a doctor, if the lodger had the wherewithal to pay; if not, they would advise him to go to one of the hospitals. If he required attendance, some old woman (fond of gin), who had perhaps been discharged from the hospitals for drunkenness, would be hired to nurse him, grumbling every time she entered the room, and declaring that she could not find a single thing she wanted in the house. Perhaps on the first day of his illness he would receive notice to quit the apartments at the end of the week: we have witnessed such conduct in a keen money-making London lodging-house in our day, and had much ado to prevent ourselves from throwing the mercenary wretch down-stairs who had given the helpless lodger warning to leave. In such houses as these there are always apartments to let, for very few stay a day longer than they are compelled.

We have here described the worst class of London lodging-houses, such as are kept by unprincipled persons who have no other means of living except what they make by their apartments and by robbing their lodgers. A stranger cannot wholly avoid these man-traps; but, if he take our advice, he will stay at some decent coffee-house or tavern until he gets settled, and not venture into apartments, unless those who have them to let can be recommended by such acquaintance as he is pretty sure to meet with when he has once found employment. Poor people do not rob each other in this manner; it is that hungry class which "apes gentility"-who "smile, and rob while they do smile."

There are thousands of places to be found in London where it is their study to make a lodger feel "at home;" where a man may sit and sun himself in the smiles of a warm domestic hearth, and, though a stranger, never know what it is to feel lonely. But these are not houses in which people live alone by letting lodgings, neither will you find more than one or two lodgers under such a roof. Changes, such as they foresaw not, compel them to add a few shillings a week to their income-for they have lived so many years in the same house that it would make them miserable to leave it. A son is in a situation, or a daughter has got married, and they have no longer any use for the rooms they occupied; or the landlord cannot do so much work as he formerly did. These, and a hundred other causes, open the door to the most comfortable of all London lodgings, and fortunate is the stranger who finds a home under such a roof. Such people would scorn to take away the value of a pin that was not their own; and the only discomfort you feel is in the fear that they do not charge enough to remunerate them for their kindness and attention.

Young men and "fast men!" if you are fortunate enough to dwell in such a home, where their circumstances will not allow them to keep a servant, but where a modest daughter honours you by her attendance, respect her as you would a sister. Remember, also, that it is poverty which compels the servant to wait upon you, and that it is your duty to respect her for those services. Remember that

"He prayeth best who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all."

Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.

Although the old "memories" that float about Fleet-street would fill a volume, we must not pass on without glancing at St. Dunstan's Church, though it is a new building, and the figures, so often gazed on in "wonderment" by the gaping crowds of other days, no longer step out in their wonted place to strike the hours. For the origin of these wooden "puppets," see Douglas Jerrold's St. James's and St. Giles's, in which he reads as severe a lecture to hard-hearted overseers as the old ballad of The Babes in the Wood does to "wicked uncles." Before the statue of Queen Elizabeth, which stands over the doorway fronting Fleet-street, a poor simple-hearted Irishwoman was one morning, not long ago, observed kneeling, and repeating her prayers: she mistook it for the figure of the Virgin. This statue is supposed to be the only relic preserved when Ludgate (one of the city-gates that stood on Ludgate-hill,) was taken down in 1760. It ornamented the old church of St. Dunstan, as it now does the present one.

Nor must we omit a word or two before we pass through Temple-Bar about the Cock Tavern, to which our living poet laureate Alfred Tennyson does "most resort," according to his own confession, in "Will Waterproof's lyrical monologue made at the Cock," in an old box

"larded with the steam

Of thirty thousand dinners."

Many of the old taverns in Fleet-street-Dr. Johnson's favourite "Mitre" for example-have rich recollections of the wit and wisdom of the wits and sages of former days. With many of these our readers are doubtless familiar, but they perhaps never heard of the "Cock" before reading Tennyson's poems. Nevertheless there is a fact in the history of this old tavern worth knowing. The bird that gives name to this "haunt of hungry sinners" was, according to our laureate,

"Of a larger egg

Than modern poultry drop,

Stepped forward on a firmer leg,

And crammed a plumper crop."

He was, indeed, a regal fowl, for he not only coined copper money, but stamped it with his own effigy and circulated it amongst his customers in the form of tokens. If a man who had newly dined required change out of the money for his dinner, he received it, not in pence, but in copper cocks, which were afterwards duly honoured by the worthy landlord, who gave to their bearer full value in generous food and liquor. This currency was so extensive that when, during the ravages of the Great Plague in London, the door of the Cock was closed, "when the plump head waiter" and all other subordinates were dismissed, and the landlord had fled to the country to escape the scourge, public notice was given of the time when the house would be again opened, and that the copper tokens would be duly honoured. One of these is still carefully preserved as "a relic of the olden time."

The Temple alone would occupy a long chapter, and detain us in this locality far beyond the limits that our pages allow, so we shall without further apology pass through Temple Bar and enter the Strand.