“One with slip-shoes, without stockings, and dirty linen, visible through a crape dress, was stepping from the ale-house to her lodgings with a parcel of pipes in one hand and a gallon-pot in the other; yet with her head dressed up to as much advantage as if the other members of her body were sacrificed to keep her ill-looking face in a little finery. Another, I suppose taken from the oyster-tub and put into (similar) allurements, made a more cleanly appearance, but became her ornaments as a cow would a curb-bridle or a sow a hunting-saddle. Then every now and then would bolt out a fellow, and whip nimbly across the way, being equally fearful, as I imagine, of both constable and sergeant, and looking as if the dread of the gallows had drawn its picture in his countenance. * * * *
“We soon departed hence, my friend conducting me to a place called Whitefriars, which, he told me, was formerly of great service to the honest traders of the city, who, if they could, by cant, flattery or dissimulation, procure large credit amongst their zealous fraternity, would slip in here with their effects, take sanctuary against the laws, compound their debts for a small matter, and oftentimes get a better estate by breaking than they could ever propose to do by trading. But now a late Act [he must here allude to the Act passed about 1696, William III.] of Parliament has taken away its privileges; and since knaves can neither break with safety nor advantage, it is observed that there are not a quarter so many shopkeepers play at bo-peep with their creditors as when they were encouraged to be rogues by such cheating conveniences. * * *
“We came into the main street of this neglected asylum, so very thin of people, the windows broken, and the houses untenanted, as if the plague, or some like judgment from heaven, as well as execution on earth, had made a great slaughter amongst the poor inhabitants.”—London Spy, 1699. Part 7.
It seems strange that such a lawless community should then have dwelt almost within the very sanctuary of the law, for the author (Ned Ward) just quoted tells us, that “he passed through the little wicket of a great pair of gates into the Temple.”
We must not pass without noticing St. Bride’s Church, situated by the office of our merry neighbour Punch, who does his “spiriting gently,” and is as great a “terror to evil-doers” as the constables were in the olden time to the sinners of Alsatia.
This is another of Wren’s beautiful churches, and is enriched by stained glass, copied from Rubens, the subject the Descent from the Cross. The steeple was struck by lightning in 1764, and when repaired was reduced in height, though it still towers a graceful and noble monument above the surrounding houses, as it
“Points its silent finger to the sky,
And teaches grovelling man to look on high.”
In the old church, destroyed in the Great Fire, was buried the famous printer Wynkin de Worde, whose works are now worth their weight in gold, and are almost as scarce as those which were issued from the press by Caxton. Here also was buried the notorious Mary Frith, commonly called Moll Cut-Purse. On her adventures Dekker and Middleton founded the play entitled The Roving Girl, or Moll Cut-Purse. She died in the seventy-fifth year of her age, at her house in Fleet-street, next the Globe tavern, in 1659. In her will she left 20l. for the conduit to run with wine at the Restoration of Charles II. It was Moll who robbed General Fairfax on Hounslow Heath. Her life was published in 1662. She was, says Granger, “a fortune-teller, a pickpocket, a thief, and a receiver of stolen goods.” She died of the dropsy, and her life is supposed to have been prolonged through the large quantity of tobacco which she smoked. Our great Milton at one time lodged in St. Bride’s churchyard. It would form a goodly catalogue of celebrated names to enumerate all who have been buried in St. Bride’s, or lived in the adjoining neighbourhood.
Many of the houses, as in the time of Milton, in the back streets and alleys are let out in lodgings; and we will now give, from our own experience, a specimen of a downright London lodging-house—we mean, one in which the landlord lives entirely by letting lodgings—for we allude not to hotels, or respectable boarding-houses, but to places where you are “taken in and done for.”
An author, during his early career, is compelled to become acquainted with the “ins and outs” and “ways and means” of London lodging-houses; and as his occupation keeps him more within doors than those who hold situations, or are otherwise engaged, he is, to use a more expressive than elegant phrase, “Up to their moves and down to their dodges.” We have in our day known more than one gentleman who kept his own gridiron, and brought home his rump-steak—taught by experience that half a pound of his own cooking was equal to a pound after it had been entrusted to the Cinderella or the Cerberus of the kitchen. We have known whisky in such places (which overnight was above proof) become so weak in a single day during our absence, as never to require water; and have seen a shoulder of lamb, which, after our frugal dinner, was carried away with a gap in it scarcely wide enough to admit of our two fingers, return at supper-time with a hole in the middle big enough to shake hands through, without touching any thing on either side except the knuckle, or the edge of the bare blade-bone. It was wonderful how often the cat got to our meat, and what trouble our landlady had been at, according to her account, to cut off the portions puss had mangled, before it was again fit to appear on the table. Cruel woman! she was always beating the cat whenever we had a cold joint. As for our tea-caddy, we tried half-a-dozen various kinds of locks; but they were picked with far more ease than the clever American managed to pick Chubb’s patent. When we did at last get an unpickable lock, caddy and tea went altogether, and Cinderella said her mistress had had a strange sweep, and that sweeps were always sure to carry something or another away in the soot. The next day we found a sixpenny tin tea-caddy in our cupboard, so took the hint, and never sent out for more than two ounces at a time; and the landlady seemed to settle down satisfied with little more than half of it, so we had it “fresh and fresh” every day. We found that a twopenny French roll went as far as a half-quartern loaf, as we were never allowed to look a second time upon the remains of either. They charged us for cream and gave us milk-and-water; but perhaps this was done out of a tender regard for our health. How broth was made in these old model lodging-houses, we never could clearly comprehend; but the landlady had an herbalist book, and we believe made out her bill from the index, beginning at agrimony and ending at yarrow-root. A bottle of wine when decanted in the kitchen cost about eighteenpence a glass; walnuts, a penny each; filberts came up so ripe that we found one in a cluster where four or five had originally nestled together; lobsters always lost their claws down-stairs, and very often came up with one side of the shell empty. Bottled stout was always going off in the cellar, and they shewed us the corks which had been blown out—indeed in these matters they were rather particular. They were dreadfully troubled with bluebottles in summer, and the largest joint would not keep beyond a day.