“From what I know of the habits of the poor within this city, I am led to believe that the erection of drinking fountains would be of especial service to them; for although the average supply of water to the metropolis is abundant, yet the distribution of it is so unequal that the poorer classes do not obtain their proper proportion; in fact, this has become so serious a matter in most of the courts and alleys of this city, that I have great difficulty in dealing with it. You are, no doubt, aware that the water companies have been obliged to shorten the time of supply ever since they have been compelled by the Act of Parliament to furnish filtered water to the public; and, as the poor have not the means of altering the present condition of the service, and adapting it to the new arrangement, their receptacles are never filled during the short time that the water is on. Every contrivance is, therefore, used to secure as much water as possible while it is flowing; but, partly from the filthy state of the cisterns, and partly from the fœtid emanations to which the water is exposed in the over-crowded rooms in which it is kept, it is rarely, if ever, drinkable. The poor, then, would be too glad to avail themselves of the opportunities afforded by the public fountains, and would, I am quite sure, hail them as boons of the greatest value; and when it comes to be known that the water which flows from the fountains is as pure as chemical and other contrivances can render it, the boon will most assuredly be prized by all.
“At present, the public wells of this city are largely used by all classes of persons; and, knowing what I do of the composition of these waters, I have looked with much concern at the probable mischief that might be occasioned by them; for though they are generally grateful to the palate, and deliriously cool, they are rich in all kinds of filthy decomposing products, as the soakage from sewers and cesspools, and the not less repulsive matters from the over-crowded churchyards. What, therefore, can be of greater importance to the public than the opportunity of drinking water which shall not only be grateful and cool, as that from the city pumps, but which shall have none of its lurking dangers?
“As to the quality of the water that is now supplied by the public companies I can speak in the fullest confidence, for it is not merely the most available for your purposes, but it is in reality the best supply that can be obtained. I need not describe the admirable arrangements that have been employed by the several companies for the purification of the water, but I may state that there is not a city in Europe that has so large a supply of good water as this metropolis, and I do not know where or how you could obtain a better. I say, therefore, without hesitation, that the water supplied by the public companies is the best that can be used for the fountains; and, seeing that it will be twice filtered, and carefully freed from every kind of impurity by the most perfect chemical and mechanical contrivances, there need be no hesitation on the part of the most fastidious in freely drinking at the public fountains.”
CHAPTER XX.
CONCLUSION.
One bright May morning in the year of our Lord, 1445, the streets of London presented an unusually animated appearance. Here and there were quaint devices and rare allegories, well pleasing alike to the rude eye and taste of citizen and peer. From dark lane and darker alley poured forth swarms eager to behold the stranger, who, young, high-spirited, and beautiful, had come to wear the diadem of royalty, and to share the English throne. The land of love and song had given her birth. Her “gorgeous beauty,” as our national dramatist describes it, had been ripened but by fifteen summers’s suns. Hope told a flattering tale. She discerned not the signs that prophesied a dark and dreary future. A tempest rudely greeted her as she landed on our shores. Sickness preyed upon her frame. Those whose fathers’s bones were bleaching on the battle-fields of France murmured that Maine and Anjou, won by so free an expenditure of English blood and gold, should be ceded to the sire of one who, dowerless, came to claim the throne, and, as
it speedily appeared, to rule the fortunes, of Henry Plantagenet. In mercy the sad perspective of thirty wintry years was hidden from her view. She dreamt not of the cup of bitterness it was hers to drink—how she should be driven from the land that then hailed her with delight—how all that woman should abhor should be laid to her charge—how, in her desolate chateau, stripped of her power, and fame, and crown, lonely and broken-hearted, she should spend the evening of her life in unavailing sorrow and regret, till, with bloodshot eyes, and wrinkled brow, and leprous skin, she should become all that men shuddered to behold. But onward passed the procession, and smiles were on her lips, and joy was in her heart. Bright was her queenly eye, and beautiful was her flaxen hair, so well known in romance or in the songs of wandering troubadour. Around her were the children of no common race, gallant and haughty, dark-eyed Norman barons, ready to keep, as their fathers had won, with their own good swords, power and nobility upon British soil.
Years have come and gone. The great ones of the earth have felt their power slip from them. Crowns and sceptres have turned to dust. Thrones have tottered to their fall; but there was then that evolving itself of which succeeding ages have witnessed but the more full development. In that procession there were symptoms of a coming change—signs, and warning voices, that told the noble that the power and pride of the individual man was being torn from him—that he had been weighed
in the balance and found wanting. The trading companies—the sons of the Saxon churl—the middle classes—for the first time appeared upon the scene, and were deemed a fitting escort to royalty. History herself has deigned to tell us of their show and bravery—how, on horseback, with blue gowns and embroidered shoes, and red hoods, they joined the nobles and prelates of our land. Four hundred years have but seen the increase of their wealth, of their respectability, and power. Their struggle upwards has been long and tedious, but it has been safe and sure. The wars of the red rose and the white—wars which beggared the princes of England, and spilt the blood of its nobles like water—were favourable to the progress of the middle class. The battle of Barnet witnessed the fall and death of the kingmaker, and with her champion feudalism fell. The power passed from the baron. The most thoughtless began to perceive that a time was coming when mere brute strength would fail its possessor. Dim and shadowy notions of the superiority of right to might were loosened from the bondage of the past, and set afloat; discoveries, strange and wonderful, became the property of the many; the fountains of knowledge, and thought, and fame were opened, and men pressed thither, eager to win higher honour than that obtained by the intrigues of court, or the accidents of birth.
With all that was bright and good did the middle classes identify themselves. In them was the stronghold of civilization. The prince and peer were unwilling to
admit of changes in polity, in religion, or in law, which to them could bring no good, and might possibly bring harm. Conventional usage had stamped them with a higher worth than that which by right belonged to them; their adulterated gold passed as current coin; hence it was their interest to oppose every attempt to establish a more natural test. The aristocracy ceased to be the thinkers of the age. From the middle classes came the men whose words and deeds we will not willingly let die. Shakspere, Milton, and Cromwell shew what of genius, and power, and divine aim, at one time the middle classes contained.
And now, once more, is there not an upheaving of humanity from beneath? and over society as it is, does not once more loom the shadow of a coming change? Does not middle-class civilization in its mode of utterance and thought, betoken symptoms of decay? Look at it as it does the genteel thing, and sleeps an easy hour in Episcopalian church or Dissenting chapel—as it faintly applauds a world-renovating principle, and gracefully bows assent to a divine idea. Ask it its problem of life, its mission, and it knows no other than to have a good account at the bank, and to keep a gig; possibly, if it be very ambitious, it may, in its heart of hearts, yearn for a couple of flunkeys and a fashionable square. It is very moral and very religious. Much is it attached to morality and religion in the abstract; but to take one step in their behalf—to cut the shop, for their sake, for an hour—is a thing it rarely does. Often is it too much
trouble for it to vote at a municipal election—to employ the franchise to which it has a right—to support the man or the paper that advocates its principles. That is, it refuses to grapple with the great principle of ill with which man comes into this world to make war; and, rather than lose a pound, or sacrifice its respectability, or depart from the routine of formalism into which it has grown, it will let the devil take possession of the world.