If a taylor be short of employment, he has only to consult a landlord over a bottle, who, by their joint powers, can give birth to a cloaths club; where every member is supplied with a suit to his taste, of a stipulated price. These are chiefly composed of batchelors, who wish to shine in the eye of the fair.
Thus a bricklayer stands at the head of the building club, where every member perhaps subscribes two guineas per month, and each house, value about one hundred pounds, is balloted for, as soon as erected. As a house is a weighty concern, every member is obliged to produce two bondsmen for the performance of covenants.
I will venture to pronounce another the capital club, for when the contributions amount to 50l. the members ballot for this capital, to bring into business: Here also securities are necessary. It is easy to conceive the two last clubs are extremely beneficial to building and to commerce.
The last I shall enumerate is the clock club: When the weekly deposits of the members amount to about 4l. they call lots who shall be first served with a clock of that value, and continue the same method till the whole club is supplied; after which, the clockmaker and landlord cast about for another set, who are chiefly composed of young house-keepers. Hence the beginner ornaments his premises with furniture, the artist finds employment and profit, and the publican empties his barrel.
Thus we have taken a transient survey of this rising colony of arts, uniting observation with fact: We have seen her dark manufactures, in darker times: We have attended her through her commercial, religious, political, and pleasurable walks: Have viewed her in many points of light, but never in decline; 'till we have now set her in the fair sunshine of the present day.
Perhaps I shall not be charged with prolixity, that unpardonable sin against the reader, when it is considered, that three thousand years are deposited in the compass of one hundred and forty little pages.
Some other circumstances deserve attention, which could not be introduced without breaking the thread of history: But as that thread is now drawn to an end, I must, before I resume it, step back into the recesses of time, and slumber through the long ages of seventeen hundred years; if the active reader, therefore, has no inclination for a nod of that length, or, in simple phrase, no relish for antiquity, I advise him to pass over the five ensuing chapters.
IKENIELD STREET.
About five furlongs North of the Navigation Bridge, in Great Charles street, which is the boundary of the present buildings, runs the Ikenield-street; one of those famous pretorian roads which mark the Romans with conquest, and the Britons with slavery.