CHAP. VI.
Newgate and its Neighbourhood.
RIVERS UNDER GROUND.—DIVISION OF LABOUR.—EXECUTIONS.—THE PEOPLE’S FESTIVALS.—PREDILECTION FOR CRIMINAL CASES.—STATISTICS OF NEWGATE.—PATERNOSTER-ROW.—SMITHFIELD.—SELF-GOVERNMENT, ITS BRIGHT AND DARK SIDES.
LONDON has, besides the Thames, a great many smaller rivers, the majority of which have, for many years past, been appropriated by the commissioners of sewers and the antiquarians. In the olden days, men went out of the way of rivers. In our own time, the rivers are compelled to give way to mankind. They are vaulted and bridged over, and houses have been built on the vaults, or streets have been constructed over them; and the grocer in the corner shop yonder has not the least suspicion of his house standing on a river, and he never thinks of the lamentable condition of his goods, in case the vault were to give way under him.
One of these rivers was the Fleet river. After it the street is named even at the present day. The site of its bed is still marked by a broad valley street with considerable hills, all built over, on either side. The hills are so steep that heavy drays and omnibuses cannot come down without locking.
This operation, though insignificant, furnishes an opportune illustration of the extent to which the principle of the division of labour has been carried in London.
Just look at that lumbering omnibus, thundering along at a sharp trot. It has reached the brink when the horses are stopped for a second; and at that very moment a fellow makes a rush at the omnibus, bending his body almost under the wheels, and moving forward with the vehicle, which still proceeds, he unhooks the drag, and puts it to one of the hind-wheels. This done, he calls out “All right!” The horses, sagacious creatures, understand the meaning of that sentence as well as the driver; they fall again into a sharp trot down the hill. At the bottom there is another human creature making a neck-or-nothing rush at the wheels, taking the drag off and hooking it on again. “All right!” The horses stamp the pavement to the flying-about of sparks, the driver makes a noise which is half a whistle and half a hiss, and the omnibus rushes up the opposite bank of the quondam Fleet river.
“Time is money!” is an English proverb, and one whose validity is so strongly acknowledged, that in many instances money is freely spent in order to effect a saving of time. Those two men save the omnibuses exactly one minute in each tour down Holborn Hill, for one minute each of them would lose if they were to stop to put on the drag. But one minute’s loss to the many thousands who daily pass this way represents a considerable capital of time. If the two men are remunerated at the rate of only one halfpenny per omnibus, their incomes will be found to be larger than the salary of many a public functionary in Germany.
This, then, is another specimen of industry and economy peculiar to London streets. But, let us say, that it is possible only by means of the enormous traffic which crowds the streets of London.
We have, meanwhile, walked down the steep descent. We have crossed the hidden stream, walked up the hill on the other side, and now we stand on a broad plateau, where two large streets cross at right angles. This conformation produces a considerable amount of space between the pavements—a sort of irregular open square, and one which from time to time presents a melancholy spectacle.
One of the street corners is taken up by the old Newgate Prison; and the open place in front serves for the execution of felons who have been sentenced to death at the Sessions, and who, in the first instance, had been committed to Newgate. It is a shocking custom, though it springs from the humane desire to shorten the agony which the criminal must suffer on his road from the prison to the scaffold.