At these gardens this Sunday afternoon there were several hundreds of people, not of the more distinguished kind. They found a very pretty girl here who was so condescending as to take tea with them.
Leaving the Conduit House, they paid another visit to Bagnigge Wells in order to drink a bowl of negus. By this time the place was a scene of open profligacy. They next called a coach, and drove to Kensington Gardens, where they walked about for an hour seeing the great people. Among others, they had the happiness of beholding the D— of Gr-ft-n, accompanied by Miss P—, and L—d H—y with the famous Mrs. W—. Feeling the want of a little refreshment, they sought a tea-garden in Brompton known as Cromwell's Gardens or Florida Gardens, where they drank coffee, and contemplated the beauty of many lovely creatures.
It was now nine o'clock in the evening. In the neighborhood of the Mall they saw a great block of carriages on their way to Lady H—'s Sunday routs. The explorers then visited certain houses frequented by the baser sort, and were rewarded in the manner that might have been expected—namely, with ribaldry and blasphemy. As the clock struck ten they arrived at the Dog and Duck, St. George's Fields. From the Dog and Duck they repaired to The Temple of Flora, a place of the same description as Bagnigge Wells. Here, as the magistrates had refused a wine license, they kept a citizen and vintner on the premises. He, by virtue of his livery, had the right to sell wine without a license. Our friends took a bottle here. The Apollo Gardens, the Thatched House, the Flora Tea-garden, were also places of resort of the same kind, all with a garden, tea and music rooms, and a company of doubtful morals. They drove next to the Bermondsey Spa Gardens, described as an elegant place of entertainment, two miles from London Bridge, with a walk hung with colored lamps not inferior to that of Vauxhall. There was also a lovely pasteboard castle and a museum of curiosities. They had another bottle here, and a comfortable glass of cherry-brandy before getting into the carriage. Finally they reached the place whence they started at midnight, and after a final bumper of red port retired to rest. A noble Sunday, lasting from four o'clock in the morning till midnight. They walked twenty miles at least; they drank all day long—port, Lisbon, chocolate, negus, tea, coffee, and cherry-brandy, besides their beer at dinner. On nine different occasions they called for a pint or a bottle. A truly wonderful and improving Sunday!
A chapter on Georgian London would be incomplete indeed which failed to notice the institution which plays so large a part in the literature of the period—the debtors' prison. Strange it seems to us who have only recently reformed in this matter, that a man should be locked up for life because he was unable to pay a trifling debt, or even a heavy debt. Everybody knows the Fleet, with its racquet courts and its prisoners; everybody knows the King's Bench, and the Marshalsea also is familiar to us. Here, however, is a picture of Wood Street Compter, which is not so well known. In this place, one of the two City Compters under the sheriffs, were confined not only debtors, but also persons charged with night assaults—men or women—and felons and common thieves, the latter perhaps when Newgate was full. For these there was the strong room, in which men and women were locked up together, unless they could afford a separate room, for which they paid two shillings a night before commitment, and one shilling a night after. On the master's side, those of the debtors who could afford to pay for them had separate rooms, but miserably furnished; on the common side there were two wards. In one of these, which was nearly dark and called the Hole, shelves were arranged along the wall like the bunks in a cabin; here those who had any beds laid them, those who had none slept on the bare shelf. This was the living-room and the cooking-room, as well as the sleeping-room. The smell of the place, the narrator says, was intolerable. In the second ward of the common side lived those a little removed from destitution, who could pay fifteen pence a week for the accommodation of a bed. Otherwise it was the same as the first ward. The women had a separate ward. There was a drinking-bar here in a kind of cellar—"the place full of ill smells and every inconvenience that man could conceive." Quarrels, fightings, and brawls were punished by black hole. Men in prison on charge of night assaults were called rats; women under similar charges were called mice.
It seems as if life under such conditions must have been intolerable. Never to be alone, never to be clean, never to be quiet, never to be free from the smell of bad cooking, confined rooms, stale tobacco, vile spirits; never to be free from the society of vile men; this was the punishment for those who could not pay their debts. Wood Street Compter was removed to Giltspur Street in 1791.
The subject of Fleet weddings has been treated at length in a certain novel founded on one of them. They did not altogether belong to the baser sort, or to the more profligate sort. Many a young citizen arranged with his mistress to take her secretly to the Fleet, there to marry her, then back again and on their knees to the parents. This saved the expense of the wedding-feast, which was almost as great as that of the funeral-feast.
As to trade, it was marching in giant strides, such as even good old Sir Thomas Gresham had not considered possible. The increase of trade belongs to the historian; we have only to notice the great warehouses along Thames Street, the quays and wharves, the barges and lighters, the ships lying two miles in length in two long lines below bridge, the crowd of stevedores, watermen, lightermen, the never-ending turmoil of those who loaded and unloaded the ships, the solid, sober merchants dressed in brown cloth, with white silk stockings and white lace ruffles and neckerchiefs. They are growing rich—they are growing very rich. London has long been the richest city in the world.
These notes are wholly insufficient to show the London of George, the Second. They illustrate the daily life of the citizens; they also show something of the brutality, the drunkenness, and the rough side of the lower levels. The better side of London—that of the scholars, divines, writers, and professional men—comes out fully in the memoirs and letters of the period, which are fortunately abundant. There we can find the stately courtesy of the better sort, the dignity, the respect to rank, the exaction of respect, the social gradations which were recognized by those above as well as those below, the religion which was partly formal and partly touched with the old Puritanic spirit, the benevolence and the charity of the upper class, coupled with their determination that those below shall never be allowed to combine, the survival of old traditions, and all the other points which make us love this century so much. If any notes on London of this period omitted mention of these points, they would be inadequate indeed.
These notes—these chapters—to conclude, make no pretence to show more than the City life; which was decorous at all times, and especially during the last century. Of the wickedness, goodness, vice, and virtue that went on at the court, and among the aristocracy from age to age, nothing has been said. The moralist has plenty to say on this subject. Unfortunately, the moralist always picks out the worst cases, and wants us to believe that they are average specimens. A good deal might be said, I am of opinion, on the other side, in considering the many virtues; the courage, loyalty, moderation, and the sense of honor which has always distinguished the better sort among the nobility.