MR SPECTATOR’S LONDON

Evening Star, Issue 19381, 15 October 1926, Page 1

M R SPECTATOR’S LONDON

A GLIMPSE AT THE FAST

What manner of town was this London on that morning of Alarch 1, 1710, when tho first ‘ Spectator ’ paper appeared? On Thursday, at the hour for chocolate, when tho paper was thrust beneath the door, there lived in Greater London between five and six hundred thousand persons, . . .

London’s western limit in tho days of Anno lay where Bolton street now leads north from Piccadilly and Giccn Park; and this district, which is a present centre for polito -shopping and exclusive clubs, must have been but a .scattered suburb wavering into fields. Hyde Park already existed, named for the grandfather of the Queen . . . but, _ of being an enclosure within the city, it lay like a. common on the farthest edge of town. St. Pancras Church, now below Fusion Station and Regent’s Park, was set in tho muddy country at a distance for a picnic. . . .

There were farms to the north of the British Aluseum, where now a nest of settlement stretches for many crowded miles. . . . There was still but one bridge across the river, and wherries waited for a fare. The Strand was a shopping _ centre—not, as now, a place of bargains, but a street where ladies matched a ribbon to their eyes. . . . Bloomsbury was the fashionable quarter, and tho houses of the great were set in gardens that looked through unobstructed country up to Highgato. Afayfair had not yet come to wealth; and, as its name implies, a rowdy celebration of contortionists and dancing bears was given there each spring in the open fields. Moored at Whitehall was a barge named “Tho Folly,” with a promenade on top. It had been a fashionable resort for dancing in tho summer evenings of tho Restoration, but _ now its fame is tarnished by a noisier company. London streets were narrow and irregular, ill-paved and lighted by infrequent oil lamps or by the flickering lantern of a traveller. Houses were not nnmlwred, and shops were marked by a hanging signboard. Alcrchandise was piled upon the kerb. . . . The traffic of the_streets was by coach and chair ,nnd six horses were the mark of wealth and station. The Thames was still a thoroughfare for wherries, but since Elizabethan days the city had spread somewhat from the river. It was an age of itinerant merchants. Buy my Dish of great Eeles! Buy a new Almanack! Colly Alolly Puffs! Any old Iron, take money for! Sixpence a pound, fair cherryes! . . . Small Coale! New River Water! Lilly White Vinegar 3 pence a quart! Old Satten, Old Taffety or Velvet! Buy my Dutch _ Biskets! A Afnrry now Song! Knives or Scissors to grinde! Alaids, buy a moppe! ... And so, I repeat, our fancy, wandering in the past, chooses to settle on the shallow days of Anne.—Charles S. Brooks, in 'Like Summer’s Cloud.’