"Last night and the night before,
Three tom-cats came knocking at my door.
I went down to let them in,
And they knocked me down with a rolling-pin."
The two men who felled the unfortunate George Smith, alarmed by his cries of "Murder!" threatened to shoot him if he were not quiet, and, going over his pockets, were rewarded by a find of twenty-five shillings. While they were thus engaged in sorting him over, a third confederate, ransacking the house, discovered three pounds. With this booty and a parting kick, they left their victim, and disappeared as silently as they came.
XV
Romford, now approached, is but twelve miles from London, and has frankly given up the impossible and ceased all pretence of being provincial. At the same time, building-land having only just (in the speculator's phrase) become "ripe for development," the townlet has not yet lost all individuality in suburban extension.
The place, say some antiquaries, derives its name from the "Roman ford" on the Rom brook, but it is a great deal more likely that the origin is identical with that of the first syllable in the names of Ramsgate, Ramsey and Romney, and comes from the Anglo-Saxon "ruim" = a marsh. Time was when the town was celebrated for its manufacture of breeches; an industry which gave rise to a saying still current in the less polished nooks and corners of Essex—"Go to Romford and get your backsides new bottomed." Breeches have long ceased to be a noted product of the town, which for many years past has bulked large in the annals of Beer. Barricades, avenues, mountains and Alpine ranges of barrels, hogsheads, firkins and kilderkins of Romford ale and stout proclaim that the Englishman's preference for his "national drink" has not abated, and that
"Damn his eyes, whoever tries
To rob a poor man of his beer"
is still a popular sentiment; as both the brewers of arsenical compounds and the more rabid among teetotallers are some day likely to discover.
ENTRANCE TO ROMFORD.