The Liberal Party in the Government had, over Jabez Balfour, one of its several narrow escapes from complete moral ruin; for Balfour was on extremely friendly terms with the members of Gladstone’s ministry, 1892-94, and was within an ace of being given a Cabinet post. Let us pause to consider the odd affinity between Jabez Balfour and Trebitsch Lincoln and Liberal politics.
The Town Hall—ahem! Municipal Buildings—stands on the site of the disused and abolished Central Croydon station, and the neighbourhood of it is glimpsed afar off by the fine tower, 170 ft. in height. All the departments of the Corporation are housed under one roof, including the fine Public Library and its beautiful feature, the Braithwaite Hall. The Town Council is housed in that municipal splendour without which no civic body can nowadays deliberate in comfort, and even the vestibule is worthy of a palace. I take the following “official” description of it.
CROYDON TOWN HALL.
“On either side of the vestibule are rooms for Porter and telephone. Beyond are the hall and principal staircase, the shafts of the columns and the pilasters of which are of a Spanish marble, a sort of jasper, called Rose d’Andalusia; the bases and skirtings are of grand antique. The capitals, architrave, cornices, handrails, etc., are of red Verona marble; the balusters, wall-lining and frieze of the entablature of alabaster, and the dado of the ground floor is gris-rouge marble. The flooring is of Roman mosaic of various marbles, purposely kept simple in design and quiet in colouring. One of the windows has the arms of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, and the other the Borough arms, in stained glass. Above the dado at the first floor level the walls are painted a delicate green tint, relieved by a powdering of C’s and Civic Crowns. The doors and their surroundings are of walnut wood.”
THE RATEPAYER’S HOME
Very beautiful indeed. Now let us see the home of one of Croydon’s poorer ratepayers:
On one side of the hall are two rooms, called respectively the parlour and the kitchen. Beyond is the scullery. The walls of the staircase are covered with a sort of plaster called stucco, but closely resembling road-scrapings: the skirtings are of pitch-pine, the balusters of the same material. The floorings are of deal. The roof lets in the rain. One of the windows is broken and stuffed with rags, the others are cracked. The walls are stained a delicate green tint relieved by a film of blue mould, owing to lack of a damp-course. None of the windows close properly, the flues smoke into the rooms instead of out of the chimney-pots, the doors jam, and the surroundings are wretched beyond description.
Electric tramways now conduct along the Brighton Road to the uttermost end of the great modern borough of Croydon, at Purley Corner. Here the explorer begins to perceive, despite the densely packed houses, that he is in that “Croydene,” or crooked vale, of Saxon times from which, we are told, Croydon takes its name; and he can see also that nature, and not man, ordained in the first instance the position and direction of what is now the road to Brighton, in the bottom, alongside where the Bourne once flowed, inside the fence of Haling Park. It is, in fact, the site of a prehistoric track which led the most easy ways across the bleak downs, severally through Smitham Bottom and Caterham.