A Morning's Walk from London to Kew

by Sir R. Phillips

At any rate, it is irrational to suppose that the CAUSE of CAUSES operates in the production of natural phenomena by the aid of such complicated machinery, and such involved powers, as men have forced into nature, for the purpose of accounting for affections on their senses, or effects of matter on matter; in the measure of which they have no standard but their sensitive powers and the undiscovered relations of the agent and patient. Would it not, on the contrary, be more consistent with the proper views of philosophy to dismiss all occult powers, which are so many signs of our ignorance or superstition, and to search for the SECONDARY CAUSES of all phenomena, as well between the smallest as the largest masses, in the undeviating laws of ARITHMETIC, GEOMETRY, and MECHANICS; whose simplicity, sublimity, perfection, and immutability, accord with our deductions in regard to the attributes of an OMNISCIENT ARCHITECT and OMNIPOTENT DIRECTOR of the universe?

This, however, is certain, that such catastrophes as those described could never occur, if the imperfect conductors of which our buildings are generally composed, were encompassed by more perfect conductors. The ridge of the roof of every house should be of metal; and, if that metallic ridge were connected with the leaden water-pipes, and by them continued into the ground, all buildings would be protected. A descending or an ascending ball would then find a conduit, by which to pass, or freely propagate its powers, without the violent effects that accompany its transition through air and other non-conductors. The rods of Franklin are toys, which were ingeniously contrived in the infancy of this branch of science, but they ought now to be forgotten.

Before I dismiss this interesting topic, I would ask whether the transmission of the power called electric, to a particular spot, does not always afford evidence, that at that spot there exists, beneath the surface of the earth, either a vein of metallic ore, a spring, or some other competent conductor, which the power called electric is seeking to reach, when the antagonist non-conductors exhibit their destructive phenomena? Does not the power or vacuum created by the change of volume in the aqueous vapour of the cloud, regard only the perfect conductors prepared to receive it, however deeply they may be concealed beneath the surface of the non-conducting or imperfectly-conducting soil and vegetable surface? If it were not so, would not the stroke always affect the higher objects, or prefer palpable conductors in moderately elevated sites? In this instance 200 degrees of the horizon were more elevated than the place attacked, while the destruction proves that the superficies invited no accumulation here. Must not then the predisposing and operative cause have existed beneath the surface; and, hence, may not the selection of lightning, in most cases where it prefers lower sites, afford evidence of the existence of metallic strata, of springs, or other conducting surfaces, the discovery of which, by such natural test, may sometimes be important to the owner of the soil?

The bottom of Roehampton-lane joins the road which leads from Putney and Wandsworth to Richmond. Here I came again upon the same alluvial Flat which I left when I ascended from Wandsworth to Putney-heath, having since passed a corner of the undulating high land on which stand Wimbledon, its common, Roehampton, Richmond-park, and its lovely hill. A more interesting site of the same extent, is not perhaps to be found in the world. Its picturesque beauty, and its general advantages as a place of residence, are attested by the preference given to it by ministers and public men, who select it as a retreat from the cares of ambition. On this ridge Pitt, Tooke, Addington, Burdett, Goldsmid, and Dundas, were recent contemporary residents. Here, amid the orgies of the latter, were probably concerted many of those political projects which have unfortunately desolated the finest portions of Europe, for the wicked, yet vain, purpose of destroying Truth by the sword! In an adjoining domain, Tooke beguiled, in philological pastime, the evening of a life whose meridian had been employed in disputing, inch by inch, the overwhelming march of corrupt influence; while, as though it were for effect of light and shade, the spacious plain of Wimbledon served to display the ostentatious manœuvres of those servile agents of equivocal justice, whose permanent organization by an anti-human policy has been engrafted on modern society, but whose aid would seldom or never be necessary, if the purposes of their employers accorded with the omnipotent influence of truth, reason, and justice.

I was now on the border of Barnes Common, consisting of 500 acres of waste; and at a few paces eastward stands Barnes poor-house! Yes!—in this enlightened country—in the vicinage of the residence of many boasted statesmen—stands a PARISH POOR-HOUSE ON A WASTE! The unappropriated means of plenty and independence surrounding a mansion of hopeless poverty, maintained by collections of nearly 4000l. per annum from the industrious parishioners! Lest readers in future ages should doubt the fact, the antiquary of the year 2500 is hereby assured,—that it stood at the angle of the Wandsworth and Fulham roads, at the perpendicular distance of a mile from the Thames, and by the side of the fashionable ride from London to Richmond!—Did so monstrous an incongruity never penetrate the heads or hearts of any of the high personages who daily pass it? Did it never occur to any of them that it would be more rational to convert the materials of this building into cottages, surrounded by two or three acres of the waste, by which the happiness of the poor and the interests of the public would be blended? Can any antiquated feudal right to this useless tract properly supersede the paramount claims of the poor and the public?—From respect to any such right, ought so great a libel on our political economy to be suffered to exist, as a receptacle for the poor in the middle of an uncultivated and unappropriated waste? To dwell further on so mortifying a proof of the fallibility of human wisdom may, however, pique the pride of those who enjoy the power to organize a better system:—I therefore forbear!

These and other considerations prompted me to visit the interior. I found it clean and airy, but the best rooms were not appropriated to the poor. The master and matron were plain honest people, who, I have no doubt, do all the justice that is possible with a wretched pittance of 5s. 6d. per head per week. Should 4s. 6d. remain to provide each with twenty-one meals, this is but two-pence half-penny per meal! Think of this, ye pampered minions of wealth, who gorge turtle at a guinea a pound, who beastialize yourselves with wine at a shilling a glass, and who wantonly devour a guinea’s worth of fruit after finishing a sumptuous dinner!—The guardians have judiciously annexed to the house an acre or two of ground for a garden, which is cultivated by the paupers, and supplies them with sufficient vegetables. This, though a faint approach to my plan, is yet sufficient to prove what the whole common would effect, if properly applied to the wants and natural claims of the poor. It is too often pretended that these wastes are incapable of cultivation—but the fertile appearance of enclosed patches constantly falsifies such selfish and malignant assertions.

I visited the community of these paupers, consisting in this small parish of only thirty men, women, and children, in one large room. Among them were some disgusting-looking idiots, a class of objects who seem to be the constant nuisance of every poor-house.[4] How painful it must be to honest poverty to be brought into contact with such wretched creatures, who are often vicious, and, in their tricks and habits, always offensive and dirty. Surely, for the sake of these degraded specimens of our kind, as well as out of respect to the parish-poor, who have no choice but to live with them, every county ought to be provided with a special Asylum for idiots; whose purpose should be to smoothen their passage through life, and to render it as little noisome to others, and to one another, as possible.

On leaving this poor-house, I crossed Barnes Common in a north-eastern direction, with a view to visit at Barnes-Elms the former residence of Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, and once the place of meeting of the famous Kit-Cat Club.

On this Common, nature still appeared to be in a primeval and unfinished state. The entire Flat from the high ground to the Thames, is evidently a mere freshwater formation, of comparatively modern date, created out of the rocky ruins which the rains, in a series of ages, have washed from the high grounds, and further augmented by the decay of local vegetation. The adjacent high lands, being elevated above the action of the fresh water, were no doubt marine formations, created by the flowing of the sea during the four thousand years when the earth was last in its perihelion during our summer months; which was between twelve and seven thousand years since. The Flat or fresh-water formation, on which I was walking, still only approaches its completion; and the desiccated soil has not yet fully defined the boundaries of the river. At spring-tides, particularly when the line of the moon’s apsides coincides with the syzygies, or when the ascending node is in the vernal equinox, or after heavy rains, the river still overflows its banks, and indicates its originally extended scite under ordinary circumstances.

The state of transition also appears in marshes, bogs, and ponds, which, but for the interference of man, would many ages ago have been filled up with decayed forests and the remains of undisturbed vegetation. Rivers thus become agents of the NEVER-CEASING CREATION, and a means of giving greater equality to the face of the land. The sea, as it retired, either abruptly from some situations, or gradually from others, left dry land, consisting of downs and swelling hills, disposed in all the variety which would be consequential on a succession of floods and ebbs during several thousand years. These downs, acted upon by rain, were mechanically, or in solution, carried off by the water to the lowest levels, the elevations being thereby depressed, and the valleys proportionally raised. The low lands became of course the channels through which the rains returned to the sea, and the successive deposits on their sides, hardened by the wind and sun, have in five or six thousand years created such tracts of alluvial soil, as those which now present themselves in contiguity with most rivers. The soil, thus assembled and compounded, is similar in its nature to the rocks and hills whence it was washed; but, having been so pulverized and so divided by solution, it forms the finest medium for the secretion of all vegetable principles, and hence the banks of rivers are the favourite residences of man. Should the channel constantly narrow itself more and more, till it becomes choaked in its course, or at its outlet, then, for a time, lakes would be formed, which in like manner would narrow themselves and disappear. New channels would then be formed, or the rain would so diffuse itself over the surface, that the fall and the evaporation would balance each other.