There even arise, though very rarely, conditions under which this kind of writing is positively ordered. Thus, when the Editor of the Evening Mercury changed his politics for money on the 17th of September, 1899, all that part of his staff who were unable to drop their outworn shibboleths were put on to writing up various parts of London in the legal interval preceding their dismissal, and a very good job they made of it.
Never, perhaps, were the five rules governing the art more thoroughly adhered to. A land-owning family was introduced into each; living persons were treated with courtesy and affection; a tone of regret was used at the opening of each; each closed with a phrase of passionate patriotism; and each was carefully run parallel to the course of English History in general; and the proper praise and blame allotted to this name and that, according to its present standing with the more ignorant of the general public.[11]
It was in this series (afterwards issued in Book form under the title, London! My London) that the following article—which I can put forward as an excellent model—was the contribution of my friend, Mr. James Bayley. It may interest the young reader (if he be as yet unfamiliar with our great London names) to know that under the pseudonym of “Cringle” is concealed the family of Holt, whose present head is, of course, the Duke of Sheffield.
DISAPPEARING LONDON: MANNING GREEN.
At a moment when a whole district of the metropolis is compulsorily passing into the hands of a soulless corporation, it is intolerable that the proprietors of land in that district should receive no compensation for the historical importance of their estates. Manning Green, which will soon be replaced by the roar and bustle—or bustle and confusion, whichever you like—of a great railway station, is one of those centres whence the great empire-builders of our race proceeded in past times.
For many centuries it was a bare, bleak spot, such as our England could boast by the thousand in the rude but heroic days when the marvellous fortunes of the Anglo-Saxon race were preparing in the slow designs of Providence. For perhaps a generation it was one of those suburban villages that are said by a contemporary poet to “nestle in their trees.” Doubtless it sent forth in the sixties many brave lads to fight for the liberties of Europe in Italy or Denmark, but their humble record has perished. Such a thought recalls the fine lines of Gray:—
“Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest;
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.”
Twenty to twenty-five years ago the advancing tide of the capital of the world swept round this little outlying place; it was submerged, and soon made part of greater London.
Relics are still to be discovered of the period when Manning Green had something rural about it, as Highgate and South Croydon have now. Thus “The Jolly Drover” (whose license was recently refused because it was not a tied house) recalls the great sheep-droves that once passed through the village from the north. It is now rare indeed to meet with a countryman driving his flock to market through the streets of London, though the sight is not absolutely unknown. The present writer was once stopped in the early morning by a herd of oxen south of Westminster Bridge, and what may seem more remarkable he has frequently seen wild animals in the charge of negroes pass through Soho on their way to the Hippodrome. It is as Tennyson says:—