conspicuous, equal to the other improvements, they are advertised again on repairing leases, and are so shamefully propped up from time to time that the City must come to decay: nay, it will be even hazardous to walk the streets."
Though the latter assertion rather exceeds the truth, it will be recollected that Houghton-street Clare-market, Wapping, the neighbourhood of Bishopsgate-street, and Billingsgate, have very recently proved that fatal consequences attend the parsimony of those landlords who repair when they should rebuild; and I think I may safely declare that there are at this moment at least 3000 houses in a dangerous state of ruin within London and Westminster, which may hereafter make their owners repent the indulgence of their avarice. He that observes the present miserable representatives of bricks and dirt mortar constantly ascending in tottering piles around him, cannot wonder that houses sometimes fall with their own weight ere they are finished; and he must anticipate future consequences. The Legislature wisely enacted regulations to prevent the communication of accidental fires; but more remains to be done—let them ordain that bricks and mortar should hereafter be of a certain standard, under a heavy fine and imprisonment; and that surveyors should be appointed to order the demolition of new houses built in opposition to the clauses of the Act.
The reader who admires adulteration may find
enough of it thus noticed in the London Chronicle, June 2, 1764. This article evinces that I am not the first person who has reprobated the London brick-maker. "We have long complained of alum bread, of small beer brewed with treacle and water, and porter without malt or hops. No one is now ignorant, that half of the best rums and brandies are but malt spirits; and that the quantity of port-wine which is drunk in England, by the help of Alicant and other mixtures, more than doubly exceeds what is annually imported. And every family at this time is lamenting the unmerciful roguery of forestallers and engrossers, and those who increase the price upon all adulterated commodities, without any feeling for the consumer. But we take not the least notice of a practice that seems more hurtful to the community than any of the above—the present method of making bricks.
"If you go to the remains of London Wall, or examine any old brick buildings, you will find it more difficult to pull it down, than it was for the architect to raise it; but let any person attend to the continual accounts given in the papers of the number of half-built houses that tumble down before they can be finished, and he will tremble for those who are to inhabit the many piles of new buildings that are daily rising in this metropolis. When we consider the practice among some of the brick-makers about the town, we shall not wonder
at this consequence, though we must shudder at the evil. The increase of buildings has increased the demand, and consequently the price of bricks. The demand for bricks has raised the price of brick-earth so greatly, that the makers are tempted to mix the slop of the streets, ashes, scavengers dirt, and every thing that will make the brick-earth or clay go as far as possible. It is said the price of this brick-earth is more than doubled within these two or three years. The Scavenger, unwilling to be behind with the Landholder, has doubled the price of ashes, trebled the price of cinders, and charges a considerable price for the filth, mud, and what they call the slop of the streets. This slop makes near one half of the composition that is to raise the enormous and very numerous buildings which are to unite London with Highgate, Bromley, Rumford, and Brentford, within these five years; unless, what seems very possible, the bricklayers, carpenters, and masons, with all their labourers and workmen, are overwhelmed in the ruins of their own buildings before the plan is finished. The Legislature has provided for our safety against the roguery of the Builders; but, unless the materials of which the bricks are made shall be taken into consideration, London may shortly resemble the City of Lisbon, without the intervention of an Earthquake."
When the Corporation of London had determined in 1766 to remove many of the inconveniences and obstructions then common in the City of London, it appeared in evidence that the Streets were generally badly paved, very dirty, and not sufficiently lighted; and that the Signs prevented a free circulation of the air and view of the Streets, while the Posts contributed to impede the passenger. Nor were the Penthouses less injurious; those, loaded with flower-pots, often occasioned dangerous hurts by the fall of the latter; and the watering of the plants in them contributed, with the projecting spouts, in rainy weather, to sluice the Citizen, who at the same time steered his undulating or zig-zag way through wheelbarrows and bawling owners. Another comfort peculiar to this period was the ambition of Shop-keepers, who encroached upon the footways by bow-windows. When an example was set, the whole fraternity, fired with emulation, thrust each new one beyond his neighbour. Such were the impediments to walking so recently as 1766! The reader may imagine how a Londoner must have felt during a high wind and shower; a thousand signs swinging on rusty hinges above him, threatening ruin to his person at every step, and a thousand spouts pouring cascades at his luckless head.
The extravagant use of Signs had been complained of early in the century, when they were
described as very large, very fine with gilding and carving, and very absurd. Golden perriwigs, saws, axes, razors, trees, lancets, knives, salmon, cheese, blacks' heads with gilt hair, half-moons, sugar-loaves, and Westphalia hams, were repeated without mercy from the Borough to Clerkenwell, and from Whitechapel to the Haymarket; but a person who knew what they were much better than myself thus described them under the signature of A. B. in one of the newspapers of 1764: "In the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV. the inhabitants of the City of Paris were ever complaining how sick the City was, and how fast they died: upon which, Louis consulted the Medical people what could be the cause of it: and they all agreed, that it was owing to the largeness of the Signs, which choaked up the free circulating air, which ever administers to health; upon which an edict was published, that no Sign should be more than 18 inches by 12, and all the iron perhaps may weigh four or five pounds; and I do suppose that some of the Sign-irons in London weigh four or five hundred, and some a great deal more. Soon after this edict was published, it was declared by the inhabitants, that they found a sensible difference in their healths. The general run of their streets are a little wider than Paternoster-row; a few much wider, and a great many not so wide.
"Now, when the wind blows hard upon a very broad Sign, with a great weight of Iron on the front of the house, I often wonder, that the fronts do not fall oftener than they do. In the year 1718, the front of a house, opposite Bride-lane in Fleet-street, fell down, and killed two young ladies, a cobler, and the King's Jeweller. This you may depend upon as a truth; many others were maimed, and a few more were killed, I cannot say how many: this was done by the wind blowing hard against the large Sign and Iron. These gorgeous Signs are to draw in customers; but, if they were all upon a footing, and our signs and callings were wrote as they are in the Strand, would not every body be the better for it, and a great deal of money be saved into the bargain? First, they would save their money; secondly, render the City more healthy; and thirdly, prevent people's brains being knocked out," &c. &c.