South London

To speak of these inns is like entering upon a historical catalogue. There are so many of them, and the associations connected with them carry one away into so many directions and land him into many strange corners of history.

At the south end of London Bridge, and on the west side of it, stood a tavern called the 'Bear at the Bridge Foot.' It was built in the year 1319 by one Thomas Drinkwater, taverner of London. In Riley's 'Memorials' may be found a lease of this house by the proprietor to one James Beauflur. The lease is for six years. James Beauflur is to pay no rent, because he has advanced money to Thomas Drinkwater to help in the building. James is, in fact, to act as manager of a 'tied' house. Thomas Drinkwater will furnish all the wine, and will keep an exact account of the same and will have a settlement twice a year. Thomas will also complete the furniture of the house with 'hanaps,' that is, handled mugs of silver and of wood, with curtains, clothes, and everything else necessary for the proper conduct of a tavern.

One hopes that James Beauflur made the tavern pay. This was the commencement of a long and singularly prosperous inn. It became one of the most famous inns of London, and one of the most popular for dinners. Hither came the Churchwardens and vestry of St. Olave's to feast at the expense of the parish as long as feasts were allowed. Some of the bills of these dinners have been preserved among the papers of St. Saviour's. Rendle the antiquary and historian of Southwark gives one:

Among the names of persons connected with the tavern must be noticed that of the Duke of Norfolk – 'Jockey of Norfolk' – in 1463. Two hundred years later, one Cornelius Cooke, late a Colonel in Cromwell's army and a commissioner for the sale of the King's lands, enters upon a new sphere of usefulness by turning landlord of the Bear at the Bridge Foot. Samuel Pepys records several visits paid to the tavern. From this house the Duke of Richmond carried off Miss Stewart. It was pulled down in 1761, when the end of the bridge was widened. I need not catalogue the whole long list of the Southwark inns: you may find them all enumerated in Rendle's book, but mention may be made of the more important. Some of them, it will be seen, had been in more ancient times the town houses of great people – Bishops, Abbots and nobles. Other town houses, those off the highway of trade, having been deserted by their former occupants, fell upon evil times, went down in the world, even became mere tenements. This happened to Sir John Fastolf's house, and to the house of the Prior of Lewes, and to many others. Those standing in the highway, whither came all the merchants; whither came all the waggons; became transformed, and proved more valuable property as inns than as residences.

Thus, in Foul Lane, now just south of St. Mary Overies, was the entrance to the Green Dragon Inn. This inn was anciently the town house of the Cobhams. This family left Southwark, and the house, with some alterations, became an Inn. When carriers began to ply between London and the country towns, Tunbridge was connected by a carrier's cart with the Green Dragon. Early in the eighteenth century it became the Southwark post-office. Another and a much more important inn for carriers and waggons was the King's Head. Taylor, the Water Poet, says that 'carriers come into the Borough of Southwark out of the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey: from Reigate to the Falcon: from Tunbridge, Seavenoks, and Staplehurst to the Katherine Wheel, and others from Sussex thither; Dorking and Ledderhead to the Greyhound: some to the Spurre, the George, the King's Head: some lodge at the Tabbard or Talbot: many, far and wide, are to be had almost daily at the White Hart.'

The White Hart is, if possible, a more historical inn than Chaucer's Tabard itself. It was the headquarters of Jack Cade, as has already been related in chapter vi (#pgepubid00012). In front of this inn one Hawarden was beheaded: and also in front of this inn the headless body of Lord Say, after being dragged at the horsetail from the Standard at Chepe, was cut up in quarters, which were displayed in various places in order to strike terror into the minds of the people.

I have spoken sufficiently of Chaucer already. The Tabard Inn, from which the famous Company set out, was named after the ornamented coat or jacket worn by Kings at Coronations, and by heralds, or even by ordinary persons. In the fourteenth century it was the town house of the Abbot of Hyde, Winchester. Does this mean that the Abbot allowed the place to be used as an ordinary inn? It is clear that Chaucer speaks of it as an ordinary inn. Yet in 1307 the Bishop of Winchester licenses a chapel at the Abbot's Hospitium in the Parish of St. Margaret, Southwark. At the Dissolution it is surrendered as 'a hostelry called the Taberd, the Abbot's place, the Abbot's stable, the garden belonging, a dung place leading to the ditch going to the Thames.' It is explained in Spight's 'Chaucer,' 1598, that the old Tabard had much decayed, but that it had been repaired 'with the Abbot's house adjoining.' Until the inn was finally pulled down, a room used to be shown as that in which Chaucer's Company assembled. This, however, was not the room, though it may have been rebuilt on the site of the old room. For on Friday, May 26, 1676, a destructive fire broke out, which raged over a large part of the Borough and destroyed the Queen's Head, the Talbot, the George, the White Hart, the King's Head, the Green Dragon, the Borough Compter, the Meat Market, and about 500 houses. St. Thomas's Hospital was saved by a change of wind, which also seems to have saved St. Mary Overies.

Walk with me from the Bridge head southwards, noting the Inns first on the right or the west, and then on the left or east.

We have, first, the Bear on Bridge Head: then, before getting to Ford Lane, the Bull's Head: opposite the market place, the Goat: next the Clement. Opposite St. George's Church we cross over, and are on the east side, going north again: here we have a succession of Inns: the Half Moon: the Blue Maid and the Mermaid: the Nag's Head: the Spur: the Christopher: the Cross Keys: the Tabard: the George: the White Hart: the King's Head: the Black Swan: the Boar's Head. There is a pleasing atmosphere of business mixed with festivity about this street of inns and courtyards: of stables and grooms: of drivers and guards: of coaches and waggons: of merchants and middlemen: of country squires come up on business, with the hope of combining a little pleasure amongst the excitements of the town with a profitable deal or two. There is the smell of roast meats hanging about the courtyards of the inns. There is a continual calling for the drawers, there is a clinking of hanaps and a murmur of voices.

The strepitus, however, of the High Street is not like that of Bankside. There is no tinkling of guitars: no singing before noon or after noon: no laughing: the country folk do not laugh: they do not understand the wit of the poets and the players. High Street has nothing to do with Bankside: the merchants and the squires know nothing about the Show Folk.

There was one exception. Among the Show Folk was a certain Edward Alleyn, who was a man of business as well as a conductor of entertainments. He was on the vestry of St. Saviour's: he was also churchwarden, his name appears in the parish accounts of the period. He was a popular churchwarden: probably he had about him so much of the showman that he was genial, and mannerly, and courteous – these are the elementary virtues of the profession. For we find that when he proposes to retire his fellow members of the vestry refuse to let him go.

It is melancholy to walk down the High Street and to reflect that all these inns, most of them so picturesque, were standing thirty or forty years ago, and that some of them were standing ten years ago. One of them is figured in the 'Pickwick Papers.' The courtyard is too vast: the figures are too small: the galleries are too large: but the effect produced is admirable. Now not only are the old Inns gone, but there is nothing to take their place: a modern public-house is not an Inn. The need of an Inn at Southwark is gone: there are no more caravans of produce brought up to the Borough: the High Street has become the shop and the provider of everything for the populations of the parishes of St. Saviour, St. Olave, St. Thomas, and St. George.

CHAPTER XV

THE DEBTORS' PRISON

There was another kind of Sanctuary in Southwark, a place of Refuge not invited, and of security against one's will – The Debtors' Prison. In fact, there were three Debtors' Prisons – the King's Bench, the Marshalsea, and the Borough Compter. The consideration of these melancholy places – all the more melancholy because they were full of noisy revelry – fills one with amazement to think that a system so ridiculous should be continued so long, and should be abandoned with so much regret, reluctance, and with forebodings so gloomy. There would be no more credit, no more confidence, if the debtor could not be imprisoned. Trade would be destroyed. The Debtors' Prison was a part of trade. It is fifty years and more since the power of imprisoning a debtor for life was taken from the creditor: yet there is as much credit as ever, and as much confidence. To a trading community such as ours it seems, naturally, that the injury inflicted upon a merchant by failing to pay his just claims is so great that imprisonment ought to be awarded to such an offender. The Law gave the creditor the power of revenge full and terrible and lifelong. The Law said to the debtor: 'Whether you are to blame or not, you owe money which you cannot pay: you shall be locked up in a crowded prison: you shall be deprived of your means of getting a livelihood: you shall have no allowance of food: you shall have no fire: you shall have no bed: you shall be forced to herd with a noisome unwashed crowd of wretches: and whereas a criminal may get off with a year or two, you shall be sentenced to life-long imprisonment.'

The barbarity of the system, its futility, because the debtor was deprived of the means of making money to pay his debts, withal, were exposed over and over again: prisoners wrote accounts of their prisons: commissions held inquiry into the management of the prisons: regulations were laid down: Acts were passed to release debtors by hundreds at one time: the system of allowing prisoners to live in 'Rules' was tolerated: but the real evil remained untouched so long as a creditor had the power of imprisoning a debtor. The power was abused in the most monstrous manner: a man owed a few shillings: he could not pay: he was put into prison: the next day he discovered that he was in debt to an attorney for as many pounds. If he owed as much as 10l., the bill against him for his arrest amounted to 11l. 15s. 8d. of what we should now call 'taxed costs.' In the year 1759 there were 20,000 prisoners for debt in Great Britain and Ireland. Think what that means: all those were in enforced idleness. Why, their work at 2s. a day means 600,000l. a year: all that wealth lost to the State: nay more, because they were mostly married men with families: their families had to be maintained, so that not only did the country lose 600,000l. a year by the idleness of the debtors, it also lost that much again for the maintenance of their families. Put it in another way. A poor man knowing one trade which one cannot practise in a prison owed, say, 15s. He was arrested and put into prison. He lived there for thirty years. He lived on doles and the proceeds of the begging box, and what his friends could give him: he lived, say, on five shillings a week. He cost some one therefore; the charitable people who dropped money into the box; the community; for his maintenance in the prison, and for thirty years of it, the sum total of 400l. This is rather an expensive tax on the State: but the tradesman to whom he owed the money considered no more than his own 15s. In addition there were his wife and children to keep until the latter were self-supporting. This charge represented perhaps another 400l. But there were 20,000 debtors in prison. If they were all in like evil case, the State was taxed on their behalf in the sum of sixteen millions spread over thirty years, or half a million a year, because these luckless creatures could not pay an insignificant debt of a few shillings or a few pounds.

The King's Bench was the largest of all the Debtors' Prisons. It formerly stood on the east side of the High Street, on the site of what is now the second street north of St. George's Church. This prison was taken down in 1758, and the Debtors were removed to a larger and much more commodious place on the other side of the street south of Lant Street – the site is now marked by a number of new and very ugly houses and mean streets. When it was built it looked out at the back of St. George's Fields and across Lambeth Marsh, then an open space, and by this time drained. But the good air without was fully balanced by the bad air within.

The place was surrounded by a very high wall, the area covered was extensive, and the buildings were more commodious than had ever before been attempted in a prison. But they were not large enough. In the year 1776 the prisoners had to lie two in a bed, and even for those who could pay there were not beds enough, and many slept on the floor of the chapel. There were 395 prisoners: in addition to the prisoners many of them had wives and children with them. There were 279 wives and 725 children: a total of 1,399 sleeping every night in the prison. There was a good water supply, but there was no infirmary, no resident surgeon, and no bath. Imagine a place containing 1,399 persons, and no bath and no infirmary!

Among these prisoners, about a hundred years ago, was a certain Colonel Hanger, who has left his memoirs behind him for the edification of posterity. According to him, the prison 'rivalled the purlieus of Wapping, St. Giles, and St. James's in vice, debauchery, and drunkenness.' The general immorality was so great that it was only possible, he says, to escape contagion by living separate or by consorting only with the few gentlemen of honour who might be found there: 'otherwise a man will quickly sink into dissipation: he will lose every sense of honour and dignity: every moral principle and virtuous disposition.' Among the prisoners in Hanger's time, there were seldom fifty who had any regular means of sustenance. They were always underfed. At that time a detaining creditor had to find sixpence a day for the prisoner's support. But in 1798 a pound of bread cost 4½d., a pint of porter 2d.: therefore a man who had to live on 6d. a day could not get more than a pound of bread and a half pint of porter. And then the 6d. a day was constantly withheld on some pretence or another, and the poor prisoner had not the wherewithal to engage an attorney to secure his rights. And as for attorneys their name stank in the prison: more than half of the prisoners, Hanger avers, were kept there solely because they could not pay the attorneys' costs.

Those prisoners who knew any trade which could be carried on in the King's Bench were fortunate. The cobbler, the tailor, the barber, the fiddler, the carpenter, could get employment and were able to maintain themselves: some of them kept shops, and the principal building in the place, about 360 feet long, had its ground floor, looking out upon an open court, occupied by shops where everything could be bought except spirits, which were forbidden. They were brought in, however, secretly by the visitors. The open court was the common Recreation Ground: there was the Parade, a Walk along the front of the building: three pumps where were benches: these were three separate centres of conversation: there were racket and fives courts: a ground for the play called 'bumble puppy.' And in fine weather there were tables set out here and there, with chairs and benches, where the collegians drank beer and smoked tobacco.

Anybody might enter the Prison to visit an inmate or to look round: every day the place was thronged with visitors, chiefly to see the new comers: the time came when the newcomer was an old resident, who had worn out the kindness of his friends or had outlived them, and now lingered on, poor and friendless, in this living grave. All day long the children played in the court, shouting and running: they saw things that they ought not to have seen: they heard things which they ought not to have heard: they learned habits which they ought not to have learned. Can one conceive a worse school for a boy than the King's Bench Prison? Look at the Court on a fine and sunny afternoon. The whole College is out and in the open: some stroll up and down: in the Prison nobody ever walks: they all stroll: even, it may be said without unkindness, they slouch. The men wear coats which are mostly in holes at the elbows, with other garments that equally show signs of decay: they wear slippers because it is absurd to wear boots in a prison: the slippers are down at heel – never mind: no one cares here whether one is shabby or not: it is better to go ragged than to go hungry. If the men are ragged the women are slatternly: they have lost even the feminine desire to please: they please nobody, and certainly not their husbands: they are shrewish as to tongue and vicious as to temper. Look at their faces: there is this face and that face, but there is not a single happy face among them all. The average face is resentful, painted with strong drink, stamped with the seal of vice and self-indulgence. A vile place, which has imprinted its own vileness on the face of everyone who lives within its walls.

A worse place than the King's Bench was a wretched little Prison called the Borough Compter. It was used both for debtors and for criminals. Now you shall hear what marvellous thing in the way of cruelty can be brought about when the execution of the law is entrusted to such men as prison warders and turnkeys.

The place consisted of a women's ward, a debtors' ward, a felons' ward, and a yard for exercise. The yard was nineteen feet square: this was the only exercising ground for all the prisoners. When Buxton visited the place in the year 1817, there were then thirty-eight debtors, thirty women, and twenty children – all had to exercise themselves in this little yard: he does not say how many felons there were. The debtors' ward consisted of two rooms, each of which was twenty feet long and about nine feet broad. Each room was furnished with eight straw beds, sixteen rugs, and a piece of timber for a pillow. Twenty prisoners slept side by side on these beds! That gives a breadth of twelve inches for each. No one therefore could move in bed. The place was shut up: in the morning the heat and stench were so awful that when the door was opened all rushed together, undressed as they were, into the yard for fresh air. Now and then a man would be brought in with an infectious disease or covered with vermin: they had to endure his company as best they could. There was no infirmary: no surgeon: no conveniences whatever in case of sickness. And the place was so crowded that those who might have carried on their trade could not for want of space. As for the women's ward, I forbear to speak. Think, however, of the noisome, horrible, stinking place, narrow and confined, with its felons' ward of innocent and guilty, tried and untried: the past masters in villainy with the innocent country boy: the honest working man with his wife and children slowly starving and slowly poisoned by the brutal law which permitted a creditor to send him there for life for a paltry debt of a few shillings. Think of the simple-minded country girl thrust into the women's ward, where wickedness was authorised, where nothing was disguised! I sometimes ask whether in the year 1998 the historian of manners will call attention to the lamentable brutality of this the end of the nineteenth century. There are some points as to which I am doubtful. But I cannot believe that there will be anything alleged against us compared with the sleek complacency with which the City Fathers and the Legislators regarded the condition of the Debtors' Prisons.

I have not forgotten the Marshalsea. The position of the Marshalsea Prison was changed from its first site south of King Street in the year 1810, when it was removed to the site which it occupied down to the end, overlooking St. George's Churchyard. The choice of that site is a good illustration of English conservatism. Why was the Marshalsea brought there? Because there had been a prison on the spot before. From time immemorial the Surrey Prison had stood there. They called the place the White Lyon. It still stood when the Marshalsea was brought there: it was still standing when the Marshalsea was pulled down.

I think it was in the year 1877 or 1878 or thereabouts that I walked over to see the Marshalsea before it was pulled down. I found a long narrow terrace of mean houses – they are still standing: there was a narrow courtyard in front for exercise and air: a high wall separated the prison from the Churchyard: the rooms in the terrace were filled with deep cupboards on either side of the fireplace: these cupboards contained the coals, the cooking utensils, the stores, and the clothes of the occupants. My guide, a working man employed on the demolition of another part of the Prison, pointed to certain marks on the floor as, he said, the place where they fastened the staples when they tied down the poor prisoners. Such was his historic information: he also pointed out Mr. Dorrit's room – so real was the novelist's creation. At the east end of the terrace there were certain rooms which I believe to have been the tap-room and the coffee-room. Then we came to the White Lyon, which at the time I did not know to have been the White Lyon. It was a very ancient building. It consisted of two rooms, one above the other: the staircase and the floors were of most solid work: the windows were barred: bars crossed the chimney a few feet up: large square nails were driven into the oaken pillars and into the doors. The lower room had evidently been kitchen, day room, sleeping room and all. Outside was a tiny yard for exercise: this was the old Surrey Prison. I have seen another prison exactly like it, and, if my memory does not play tricks, it was at the little country town of Ilminster. This was a Clink, and on this pattern, I believe, all the old Prisons were constructed. Beyond the Clink was the chapel, a modern structure. So far as I know, Mr. Dickens père, and Mr. Dorrit, were the only persons of eminence confined in this modern Marshalsea. In the older Marshalsea all kinds of distinguished people were kept captive, notably Bishop Bonner, who died there. They say that it was necessary to bury him at midnight for fear of the people, who would have rent his dead body in pieces if they could. Perhaps. But it was not at any time usual for a mob of Englishmen to pull a dead body, even of a martyr-making Marian Bishop, to pieces. Later on, in the last century, it was the rule to bury at night. The darkness, the flicker of the torches, increased the solemnity of the ceremony. So that after all Bishop Bonner may have been buried at night in the usual fashion. He lies buried somewhere in St. George's Churchyard. It is now a pretty garden, whose benches in fine weather are filled with people resting and sunning themselves: in spring the garden is full of pleasant greenery: the dead parishioners to whom headstones have been consecrated, if they ever visit the spot, may amuse themselves by picking out their own tombstones among the illegible ones which line the wall. But I hardly think, wherever they may now be quartered, they would care to revisit this place. The owners of the headstones were in their day accounted as the more fortunate sons of men: they were vestrymen and guardians and churchwardens: they owned shops: they kept the inns and ran the stage coaches and the waggons and the caravans: their tills were heavy with guineas: their faces were smug and smiling: their chins were double: they talked benevolent commonplace: they exchanged the most beautiful sentiments: and they crammed their debtors into these prisons.

There are other tenants of this small area: they belonged to the great army – how great! how vast! how rapidly increasing! – of the 'Not-quite-so-fortunate.' They were brought here from the King's Bench and the Marshalsea: they came from the Master's side and from the Common side. They came here from the mean streets and lanes of the Borough: they were the porters and the fishermen and the rogues and the grooms and the 'service' generally. This churchyard represents all that can be imagined of human patience, human work, human suffering, human degradation. Everything is here beneath our feet, and we sit among these memories unmoved and enjoy the sunshine and forget the sorrows of the past.

CHAPTER XVI

THE PLEASURE GARDENS

It is somewhat remarkable that two books should have appeared almost at the same time on the Pleasure Gardens of London – that of Messrs. Warwick and Edgar Wroth, and that of Mr. H. A. Rogers. I refer the reader who desires exact and special knowledge on the subject to these two books. For my own part I have only to speak of two or three of these gardens, and shall confine myself to certain sources of information neither so exact nor so detailed as those from which Messrs. Warwick and Wroth have drawn the material for their excellent work.

The Pleasure Gardens grew out of the old Bear Baiting Gardens. The London citizen loved sport first and above all things: next, he loved the country: to sit under the shade of trees in the summer: to walk upon the soft sward; to smell the flowers: to rest his eyes upon country scenes. He has always yearned for the country while he remained in town. With these things he desired, as a concomitant of the entertainment, good eating, good drinking, the merry sound of music not softly but loudly played: the voices of those who sang: and a platform or floor for dancing. All these things he could get in Paris Gardens so long as that place existed, together with its bears and dogs. When the bears disappeared, what followed? The Gardens continued without the bears. There were also the Mulberry Gardens on the site of Buckingham House, and the Spring Gardens at Charing Cross. In the month of July 1661 Evelyn visited the new garden of Foxhall, afterwards Vauxhall, and in June 1665, the year of the Plague, Pepys spent the evening at the same place, for the first time, and with great delight.

The Pleasure Garden apart from the sport of Bear and Bull Baiting was then beginning. Before long it became a necessity of life – at least, of the gregarious and social life of which the eighteenth century was so fond. Many things are said about that century, now so nearly removed from us by the space of another century, but we cannot say that it was not social, and that it was not gregarious. It had its coffee houses: its clubs: its taverns: its coteries: its societies: it loved the theatre: the opera: the concert: the oratorio: the masquerade: the Assembly: the card-room: but most of all the eighteenth century loved its Pleasure Gardens. It took every opportunity of getting away from the quiet house to crowds and noise and the scene of merriment.

Many things were required to make a Pleasure Garden. There must be, first, abundance of trees – at first cherry trees, but these afterwards disappeared: if possible, there should be avenues of trees: aisles and dark walks of trees. There must be, next, an ornamental water with a fountain and a bridge: there must be a row of rustic bowers or retreats in which tea and supper could be served: there must be a platform for open-air dancing and promenading: there must be card-rooms: there must be a long room for dancing and for promenading, with a gallery for the orchestra and the singers. Add to these things a crowd every night including all classes and conditions of men and women. The eighteenth century was by no means a leveller of distinctions, but all classes met together without levelling. Distinctions were preserved: each party kept to itself: the nobleman wore his star and sash: he did not pretend to be on a level with the people around him: they liked him to keep up the dignity of aristocratic separation: he brought Ladies to the Gardens, sometimes in domino, sometimes not. They were not expected to speak to the ladies outside their set: they danced together in the minuets: after the minuets they withdrew. The main point about the company of the Gardens was that each party was separate and kept separate. In the Park, either in the morning or the afternoon, it was not difficult to make acquaintances. The reason was that in the Park were only to be found in the morning or the afternoon those people who were not engaged in earning their livelihood. Accordingly, all professional men – lawyers, physicians, attorneys, surgeons, artists, architects, literary people: all those engaged in trade, from the greatest merchant to the smallest shopkeeper, were excluded: they were occupied elsewhere. Therefore, the servants and footmen not being allowed in the Park, but compelled to wait outside, the people of position had the place to themselves, and access was easy. In the Gardens it was different: all could enter who paid the shilling for an entrance fee. Among them were the gentlemen in the red coat who bore His Majesty's Commission: the young fellows about town, a noisy disreputable band with noisy and disreputable companions: the plain citizen with his wife and daughter, the young fellow who was courting her: the young tradesman taking a holiday for once: the highwayman: the common pickpocket, and whole troops of the customary courtesan. All were here enjoying together – but separated into tiny groups of two or three – the strings of coloured lamps, the blare of the orchestra, the songs, the dances, and the supper. As for the last, it seems to have been always a cold collation: it generally consisted of chicken and a thin slice of ham, with a bowl of punch and a bottle of Port. There was no affectation of fine or polite behaviour; everybody behaved exactly as he pleased: the citizen was not gêné by the presence of the great lady: he prattled his vulgar commonplaces without being abashed: nor did the great lady put on 'side,' or behave among her own company with any affectation of dignity or reserve in the presence of the mercer of Ludgate Hill in the next box. Perhaps the recognition of rank made them all behave more naturally. After all, the mercer had his own rank. He could look forward to becoming Alderman, Sheriff, and Lord Mayor: he understood very well that he was already a good way up the ladder: the social precedence which belongs to the possession of money and the employment of many servants had already placed him in front of a vast crowd of inferiors: he was perfectly satisfied with his own position, although he could certainly never become a noble earl or wear a star upon his breast, or hope to consort on equal terms with the jewelled lady in silks which he knew (professionally) to be beyond all price, with her rouged face and high-dressed head, who laughed so loud and talked so fast with the noble lords her companions, one of whom was blind drunk and the other was a little mincing beau who walked on his toes with bent knees and carried his hat under his arm, and spoke under his breath as if every word was to be listened to. Do you think the honest mercer was indignant at the manners of the great? Not he: he called for another bowl of punch and tied his handkerchief over his wig to keep off the damp. In the box on the other side of the citizen from Ludgate Hill was a party also taking supper and punch, with plenty of the latter. They were under the lead of an extremely fine gentleman: his white coat was covered with gold lace: his hat was laced in the same way: his waistcoat was of flowered silk: his ruffles were of white lace – lace of Valenciennes. The ladies with him were dressed with a corresponding splendour. Everybody knew that the gentleman was a highwayman: his face was perfectly well known: he had been going on so long that his time must soon be up. In a few months at most he would take that fatal journey in the cart to Tyburn, there to meet the end common to his kind. A good many people in the Gardens knew, besides, that the ladies with him – ladies of St. Giles in the Fields – were dressed from the stores of a receiving house for stolen goods. Perhaps the consciousness of this cheap and easy way of getting one's clothes made the ladies so buoyantly and extravagantly happy, with their sprightly sallies and their high-bred courtesy of adjectives. But the mercer troubled himself not at all about them.

The toleration of the mercer ought to endear his memory to us. For in all public assemblies there are things which must be tolerated. Less wise, we shut up the Assembly. We cannot keep out the Lady of the Camellias from the Pleasure Garden. Therefore we shut up the place. In the eighteenth century this lady was told that everybody must behave with a certain amount of restraint: we have improved upon that manner: we cut off our nose to spite our face: we shut up the lovely Garden because we cannot keep her out.

For the same reason we have practically forbidden the youth of the lower middle class to practise the laudable, innocent, and delightful diversion of dancing. Not a single place, except certain so-called clubs, where the young people can now go to dance. Why? Because the magistrates in their wisdom have concluded that vice free and unchecked out of doors is better for the people than vice fettered and restrained by the necessity of behaving decently, and compelled to hide itself under the semblance of virtue. The Pleasure Gardens were shut up one after the other for that reason. When will they return? And in what form?

The Gardens of South London were not so celebrated as those of the North. Against Ranelagh, Cremorne, Marylebone, Bagnigge Wells, the White Conduit House – the South can only point to Vauxhall as a national institution. They were, however, of considerable note in their time, and were greatly frequented. They lay in a half circle, like pearls on a chain, all round South London. There were the Lambeth Wells, the Marble Hall, and the Cumberland Gardens at Vauxhall, besides Vauxhall itself; the Black Prince, Newington Butts; the Temple of Flora, the Temple of Apollo, the Flora Tea Gardens, the Restoration Spring Gardens, the Dog and Duck, the Folly on the Thames; Cuper's Gardens; Finch's Grotto, the Bermondsey Spa, and St. Helena Gardens, Rotherhithe. No doubt there were others, but these were the principal Gardens.

Cuper's Gardens lay exactly opposite to Somerset House. When Waterloo Bridge and Waterloo Bridge Road were constructed the latter passed right through the former site of the Gardens. St. John's Church marks the southern limit of the Gardens. They were opened about the year 1678 by one Cuper, gardener to the Earl of Arundel. He begged such of the statues belonging to his master as were mutilated, and decorated the new gardens with them. Aubrey mentions them as belonging to Jesus College, Oxford; he calls them Cupid's gardens, and speaks of the arbours and walks of the place. There was a tavern connected with the gardens by the riverside, and fireworks were exhibited. These gardens continued until 1753, when they were suppressed as a nuisance. Cunningham quotes the prologue to Mrs. Centlivre's 'Busy Body.'

The Fleet Street sempstress, toast of Temple sparks,
That runs spruce neckcloths for attorneys' clerks,
At Cupid's Gardens will her hours regale,
Sing 'Fair Dorinda,' and drink bottled ale.

In the 'Sunday Ramble' (1794) the Dog and Duck is one of the last places visited in the course of that very remarkable Sunday 'out,' which began at four o'clock in the morning and ended at one o'clock next morning, such was the zeal of the ramblers. The place was a tavern in St. George's Fields. On its site now stands Bethlehem Hospital. It was first built for the accommodation of those who came to this spot in order to drink the waters of a spring supposed to possess wonderful properties, especially in the case of cutaneous disorders and scrofula. The spring, like so many other medicinal springs, has long since been forgotten. Where is Beulah Spa? Who remembereth Hampstead Spa? Yet in its day the spring in St. George's Wells had no small reputation. It was especially in vogue between 1744 and 1770. Dr. Johnson advised Mrs. Thrale to try it. When the Spa declined, the tavern looked out for other attractions; it found them by day in certain ponds on the Fields close to the tavern: these ponds especially on Sunday were used for the magnificent sport of hunting the duck by dogs. All the ponds around London, especially those lying on the east side of Tottenham Court Road, were used for this sport. The gallant sportsmen, their hunt over, naturally felt thirsty: they were easily persuaded to stay for the evening when on week days there was music, with dancing, singing, supper, and more drink, and on Sundays the organ, with a choice company of the most well-bred gentlemen and ladies of similar breeding and taste.

Like Ranelagh and Bagnigge Wells, and indeed all the Pleasure Gardens, the Dog and Duck was a favourite place for breakfasts. The fashion of the public breakfast, now so completely forgotten, was brought to London from Bath, Tunbridge Wells, and Epsom. Tea and coffee were served at breakfast. After breakfast the people stayed on at the gardens, very often all day and half the night at the Dog and Duck. There was a bowling green for fine weather, there was also a swimming bath – I believe, the only one south of the Thames. About three or four in the afternoon there was dinner, with a bottle or several bottles of wine. One of the ponds not then employed for duck-hunting was in the garden, and served as an ornamental water, with alcoves or bowers round it; a band played at intervals during the day. In the long room there was an organ, with an excellent organist. In the evening, there was generally a concert; the Dog and Duck maintained its own poet and its own composer. All this sounds very innocent and Arcadian, but in truth the place was acquiring a most evil reputation. In 1787 it was closed on Sunday, and in 1799 it was suppressed. In the 'Sunday Ramble' (1794) the Dog and Duck is open, but the Ramble may have taken place before 1787. Let us see what is going on. Remember that it is Sunday evening. But there is not the least trace of any respect for the day, and the place – to speak the truth – is full of the vilest company in the world, whose histories are described in the greedy fulness and with the hypocritical indignation against the wickedness of the people which were common among such writers a hundred years ago. I suppose they would not venture to set down what they did, but for the pretence of indignation. Thus, there is a certain City merchant, once a Quaker and formerly a bankrupt, but now rich and flourishing again. His companion is an ex-orange-girl, his mistress. Observe that the writer is certainly airing some City scandal of the day, and that his readers know perfectly well who was meant. There is a certain Nan Sheldon, who seems to have been a lady of some conversational powers with a considerable fund of information about the shady side of town life. There is also present a young lady described as the mistress of the 'Rev. Dr. D – s, of St. G.' Here, no doubt, we have a piece of contemporary humour which enables us to have a slap at the Church. There is other company of the like kind, but this specimen must suffice. As to the men, they are chiefly 'prentices and shopmen. At the Dog and Duck the license to sell drink had been withdrawn. The manager, however, met the difficulty by engaging a free vintner, i. e. a member of the Vintners' Company, for whom no license was required. He therefore came to sell the drink to the visitors. It is a curious illustration of City privileges. Leaving the Dog and Duck, the Ramblers visited the Temple of Flora, dropped a tear over the Apollo Gardens, deserted and falling into ruins, and visited the Flora Tea Garden. The company here was more respectable, in consequence of some separation among the ladies; it was not, however, very orderly, and political argument ran high.

From this Tea Garden they drove to the Bermondsey Spa Gardens. Let me extract this account of this place, which was once so popular:

'We found the entrance presents a vista between trees, hung with lamps, blue, red, green, and white; nor is the walk in which they are hung inferior (length excepted) to the grand walk in Vauxhall Gardens. Nearly at the upper end of the walk is a large room, hung round with paintings, many of them in an elegant and the rest in a singular taste. At the upper end of the room is a painting of a butcher's shop, so finely executed by the landlord that a stranger to the place would cheapen a fillet of veal or a buttock of beef, a shoulder of mutton or a leg of pork, without hesitation, if there were not other pictures in the room to take off his attention. But these paintings are not seen on a Sunday.

'The accommodations at this place on a Sunday are very good, and the charges reasonable, and the captain, who is very intimate with Mr. Keyse, declares that there is no place in the vicinity of London can afford a more agreeable evening's entertainment.

'This elegant place of entertainment is situate in the lower road, between the Borough of Southwark and Deptford. The proprietor calls it one, but it is nearer two miles from London Bridge, and the same distance from that of Black-Friars. The proprietor is Mr. Thomas Keyse, who has been at great expense, and exerted himself in a very extraordinary manner, for the entertainment of the public; and his labours have been amply repaid.

'It is easy to paint the elegance of this place, situated in a spot where elegance, among people who talk of taste, would be little expected. But Mr. Keyse's good humour, his unaffected easiness of behaviour, and his genuine taste for the polite arts, have secured him universal approbation.

'The gardens, with an adjacent field, consist of not less than four acres.

'On the north-east side of the gardens is a very fine lawn, consisting of about three acres, and in a field, parted from this lawn by a sunk fence, is a building with turrets, resembling a fortress, or castle. The turrets are in the ancient style of building. At each side of this fortress, at unequal distances, are two buildings, from which, on public nights, bomb shells, &c., are thrown at the fortress; the fire is returned, and the whole exhibits a very picturesque, and therefore a horrid, prospect of a siege.

'After walking a round or two in the gardens we retired into the parlour, where we were very agreeably entertained by the proprietor, who, contrary to his own rule, favoured us with a sight of his curious museum, for, it being Sunday, he never shows to any one these articles; but, the captain never having seen them, I wished him to be gratified with such an agreeable sight.

'Mr. Keyse presented us with a little pamphlet, written by the late celebrated John Oakman, of lyric memory, descriptive of his situation, which a few years ago was but a waste piece of ground. "Here is now," said he, "an agreeable place, where before was but a mere wilderness piece of ground, and, in my opinion, it was a better plan to lay it out in this manner than any other wise, as the remoteness of any place of public entertainment from this secured to me in my retreat a comfortable piece of livelihood."