Municipal Apathy
The linking-up of central with outlying London had hardly begun in the 'forties. Many of the nearer suburbs were then practically detached villages. Kensington was reached by a dark, badly-laid country road from Knightsbridge, where, till 1846, carters used to stop at the Half-way House, a little roadside inn, for their half-pint of porter and bit of bread and cheese. The isolation of Brook Green, Islington, Battersea Fields, even Chelsea, when a little allowance has been made for satiric license, was a real thing. Lord Ebury shot snipe in Pimlico in the 'twenties; and they probably frequented its swamps as late as the year 1840. What are now parks or residential quarters were then waste spaces or open fields. The "Pontine Marshes" of Shepherd's Bush, as Punch called them, have long been drained and covered with houses. But there were wildernesses even in central London, notably Leicester Square and Lincoln's Inn Fields. The "dead seclusion" and unkempt appearance of Leicester Square was a standing reproach to Londoners. As for the terra incognita of Lincoln's Inn Fields, "the Metropolitan Bush," it only differed from Leicester Square because it was "invisible to the naked eye." The dirt and confusion and cruelty to animals which reigned in the region of Smithfield market, and are the subject of reiterated protests in Punch, belong to an unregretted past. Punch was a great Londoner. We talk of people being house-proud; he was city-proud, and it irked him to see historic squares and public places neglected or disfigured. For years and years his complaints go up against the interminable delays in the erection and completion of the Nelson memorial in Trafalgar Square, the lions that lingered, the fountains that would not play. They begin in 1844; in 1845 he calls Trafalgar Square "England's Folly," and eleven years later we read:—
In England, the growth of buildings, like that of its institutions, is exceedingly slow, if sure. Years are taken over a building that on the Continent would be run up in almost as many months. A celebrated German statistician has sent us the following incredible particulars:
years. To erect a Simple Column It takes in England 12 Ditto, with Lions, everything complete " 24 To build a Common Bridge " 15 Ditto a Suspension Bridge " 25 Ditto Houses of Parliament " A trifle under 100 With statues, the same authority proceeds to say, they have a curious plan. They erect the pedestal first, and then leave it in one of their most public places to be ready for the statue of some celebrated man, when they have caught one. Thus, in Trafalgar Square, they have a pedestal that has been waiting for years. It is supposed to be for the COMING MAN, but apparently he is in no hurry to make his appearance.
| years. | |||
| To erect a Simple Column | It takes in England | 12 | |
| Ditto, with Lions, everything complete | " | 24 | |
| To build a Common Bridge | " | 15 | |
| Ditto a Suspension Bridge | " | 25 | |
| Ditto Houses of Parliament | " | A trifle under 100 |
"Britannia," Punch makes the remark, is assuredly "a great deal happier in her heroes than in her efforts to perpetuate their memory." And six years later he adds: "We cannot make a statue that is not ridiculous ourselves, nor, although we invite foreign competition, is it likely that we shall get any other kind of statue made." In the same spirit of national self-criticism the following lines appear in 1851 on "The Nation and Its Monuments":—
The National Gallery holds its place
In Trafalgar's noble Square,
And being a national disgrace,
Will remain for ever there.
The Duke on the Arch was raised, in spite