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London's Odd Corners

London's Odd Corners image
Parent Issue
Day
9
Month
February
Year
1888
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

London, Jan. 2. - The most determined and vigorous walker soon discovers that London distances hedge in such tendencies, and that, unless research limits itself to some particular street or lane, that bus or cab or the "underground'1 must be called in as allies. For tho last, however, the stranger comes to entertain a certain terror, and even the native bas been heard to say that London university should have a chair ior the expounding of the mysteries of the "inner circle" aud the "outer circle:' and all that lies between, among and amidst. The cab has distinct advantages, but presupposes ability to wrestle triumphantly with the British cabman, whose tendencies have been taught us from Dickensdown. It is the "bus" that offers the best compromise, giving fair speed, and not only a look at one's fellow travelers, but the opportunity to taste a fearful joy in climbing to the second story of tho vehicle and seeing thus, not only one's immediato companions, but the world at large. Fashion has stepped in and decreed that omnibus tops are, for the present, "good form," and that a ride on one is to be regarded as an entirely justifiable lark, but the experimental American, feminine as well as masculine, had long ago discovered that such method gave the most satisfactory resulta to be had from any riding in London - better air, unobstructed visión and a delicious sense of lawlessness being the chief. Naturally, then, it is a bus that is chosen for the long ride toward Southwark and its ending at London bridge, and tho temptation is strong to picture its occupants one by one, as they come and go, each with as sharply defmed characteristics as even Dickens himself could have desired. It is the long deflned distinction of class that make an English crowd so much more individual than an American one, or that underlying sturdy indepeudence of judgment which makes the British matron certain that ■whatever she elects to wear is, from the f act, necessarily what should be worn? The latter has its f uil share, and the serene, well kept. rnother of a row of red cheeked, stolid, comfortable children takes her place and presents to the amazed American eyes that behold her 200 pounds of self possessed avoirdupois, ciad in a light summer silk- a yellow plush cloak, long and full and lined with brighter yellow - a gray bonnet with pink roses and nodding plumes, pale yellow silk gloves, revealing some inches of a red, substantial arm, a fur boa, and low shoes, with white stockingsl Ineongruous? Never, if once arranged and thus united upon her British presence, from which much ale and beef long ago eliminated any corners or angles, leaving only a rotundity, the syuonym for which one feels must be "stall fed." Much meditation on thisandother vagaries of costume has brought one suddenly to the Borough, and there des cent is made, for corners today are to be sought in this, one of the oklest bits of old London. The Borough High street down which the omnibus rumbles out of sight, was the highway in early London times between the city and the southern counties, for the Roman road into Kent crossed the river at the site of old London bridge. At the cast lies Bermondsey, given over to hides and tanners, a whiff of leather in the air as we turn toward it, but with which, today, we have nothlng to do, though its odd corners are many and the names of its streets still preserve tha memory of the monastic gardens and farms, and the fair paths of the country palace where Eleanor of Agristaino once walked. We are on the way to three old inns and cannot linger, save for a moment to turn aside toward the spot once occupied by tho Marshalsea, best known through Dickens' "Little Dorrit." It is closo to St. George's church, in which tho old vergers made her a bed of cushions, with the book of registers for her pillow, the nightthe poorchild, with half witted Maggy, was shut out of the prison, and the graveyard of which is bo f uil of cofflns that if they were unearthed and piled one on top of the other, they would form a stoeple higher thaa the high one of the church iteelf I The prison itself vanishcd long ago, but its traces are found in Marshalsea place, in which, as ono turns out of Angel place, the f eet rest on the very paving stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail. Here are the crowding ghosts of many miserable ycars. It is not alone debtors of later years, but names that we all know, that once beat against these narro w bounds. Bishop Bonner, tho "bloody bishop," had ten years of expiation here, and Georgo Wither, the poet and a general ia CromwelTs army, was hustled away to the same quarters f or having written tho satire, "Abuses Stript and Whipt," and no whit dismayed by this accident of fate, wrote here his best poein, "The Shepherd's Hunting." Baxter, too, had his turn, and many another, even royalty finding one judge bent upon justice and sentencing wild Princo Harry to a term of confinement for ome specially outrageous frolic with Falstaff, not long before he renounced all follies and as Henry V more than atoned for them, this sudden metamorphosis being to the chronic and incurable amazement not only of Falstaff, but of every other boon companion in the past. Like the Marshalsea. the Tabard, the most : famous of all Southwark's oíd inns, has made way for traffic, but the lover, not only of Chaucer but of the past, will pause as Borough High street is reached again, and reproduce for a moment the inn with its balustraded galleries, the little rooms opening out of them, and tho bustling court yard fllledwith wagons and traffic. Till 1873 it stood as it had .stood, with but slight changes since 1300, when the jolly abbot of Hyde settled that here was tho best spot for a Grothic tavern. The original inn stood till 1602, and was then rebuilt, foot for foot, on the same plan, with tho ancient sign of tho Tabard, that stately garment of old time, still swinging before it. Here Drydcn carne, as thousands of pilgrims have come before and since. Writing froni it: "I see all the pilgrims in the "Canterbury Tales," their humors, their features and their very dress, as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in Southwark." No loss distinctly does the pilgrim of to-day reproduce it all, and lingers on the spot as if it were still to be written: At nlght was come into that hostelry Well nine and twenty in a company Of Sunday folk, by adventure of fall In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all, Tbat toward Canterbury woulden ridii. Farther on toward the bridge, the crowded stroet, inconceivably dingy and grimy, given over, it would seem, to minor theatres, "shell fish, ginger beer, spring vans, green grocery and pawnbrokers," comes the George, once the St. George, its doublé tier of wooden galleries looking down oa an open court, whero in eiirly days strolling players acted, and where their only successor, the Punch and Judy hhow, inay still be occasionally iouüd. More than on of these old iuns may be seen in this curióos región apar i he rivcr, fallen f rom its high ostato and g.vin over chiefly to watermen of various orders. Una more is on our fray, the White Ilart, immortalized by Diekens as the inn where Sam Weller serrad his apprenticeship. Just boyond Guy hospital one soes the court, filled up, it is trua, with a modern luncheon bar, but the oíd inn no less distinctive than when Dickens' keen eye saw its characteristics: "A great, rambling, queer oíd place, with galleries and passages and staircases wide enough and antiquated enough to furnish materials for a hundred ghost stories." Fiction and history divido honors here, fiction, it is feared, receiving largest share, for there is no doubt that Sam Weller is much more a familiar friend than Jack Cade, who, from one of theso galleries, remonstrated with his peasant íollowers who were accepting the pai-don offered by Buckingham and Clifford, the tale being told in Shakespeare's- or must one perhaps say Bacon's? - "Henry VI." "Will ye needs be hanged with your pardons about your necks? Hath my sword, therefore, broke through London gates that you should leave me at the White Hart in . South warkf' Cade himself met the fate of rebels elsewhere, but more than one of his followers was beheaded here in the open court, and ghosts may well walk through the ancient corridors or look again from the balustraded galleries. Pull down the old as they may, wipe out ancient landmarks and the maze of little streets and alleys, the legacy of the past, every foot of soü owns its story, and one that it is most often well worth while to teil. Trade dominates more and more, its sordid face the most evident fact as we approach the bridge, where suddenly, as if in rebuke of the workaday clamor and strife, rises St. Saviour's church, one of the finest specimens of early English architecture in London, or, indeed, England, and, though marred by restorations and alterations, still a delight to the eye. Here two women divide honors, for tho church, long bef ore the Norman conquest, rose here as belonging to the Priory of St. Mary Overy, said saint, as the story goes, having begun her career as a ferry woman, who evidently charged heavy tolls, as it was her earnings and savings that raised the walls and endowed the priory. When her boat ceased to ply between the shores, and she had crossed a more mysterious river, bridgeless and boatless, Swithin, a noble Saxon dame, built the first timber bridge, and from the steps of St. Saviourone descended to that, as today they descend to its successor. Here one lingers involuntarily. Four poets found final rest within, for one of whom the register had only the pathetic entry, "Philip Marsinger, a stranger;" and the younger brother of Shakespeare is eutered as "Edward Shakespeare, a player in the ehurch." Here, too, in the beautiful Lady chapel, sat the court of Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, before whom Bishop Hooper and John Rogers were condemned to death at the stake, popular feeling running 80 high in favor of the latter that he was taken f rom here to Newgate secretly by night, for fear that riot and attempted rescue would be the result when his conviction became known. It is thus that "Merrie England" so of ten belies its name. The old inns hold their promise of good cheer, and the great kitchens and tap rooms have seen wild revelry enough, but even for them has been the sight of political or other martyr done to death in their court yards, while no foot of playground, no matter how much the people's om, but has been steeped in blood and watered with tears of English matron and maid. If "Merrie England" deserved its name it must have come from a determination as fixed as Mark Tapley:s, to be jolly under any and all circumstances, and certainly circumstance3 haTe done their best to favor such resolution. The peasant of the past, usually represented as dancing heavily about a Maypole, or gazing contentedly at some procession of his lords and masters as it swept by, has no counterpart today, nor will his liko coma again. For here about tho oíd Borough, where every stono means history and tha "making of the English people," thero are faces of all types that England holds, but no face yet seen carries any sense of merriment, or any good thing that migbt bear its name. It is the burden of living that ooks from dull eyes and stolid faces, and a hopelessness, unconseious it may be, but always apparent, that better things may come. Tho typical Englishman, as wo know him, has but occasional place, and the mass, hurrying to and fro in the midst of this roar of trafflc, are thin and eager and restless of conntenanco as any crowd of Americans in tho same type of surroundings. It is a relief to turn from them, and seek refuge once moro in the past, whoso ghosts are less ággressivo than this tumultuous present, and tho past at this moment means London bridge, which, in its earlier estáte, Hogarth made familiar to all who havo studied his prints, the sixth picture of his "Marriage a la Modo," showing tho houses on oíd London bridge. lts great width and importauce as the main thoroughfare brought flrst ono tradeand then another to the houses built on either side. The booksellers mado a part of it as famous as Paternoster rovv has been for generations; clock makere and jewelers contended for place, and the ancestress of the Dukes of Leeds, feil as a baby from one of the overhanging windows, and was rescued by her father's apprentice, who in good time married her and became lord mayor of London. On tho first stone bridge stood a chapel erected on tho iriddie arch, and later, in the Sixteenth century, a fantastic building of wood, constructed in Holland and sent over, having four tovvers and domes with gilded vanes. By this time the houses were falling into decay, the street having become narrow, darksomê and dangerous to passengere from themultitude of carriages; frequent arches of strong timbers crossing the street from the tops of the houses to keep them together and from falling into the river. Nothing but uso could preserve the repose of the inmates, who soon grew deaf to the "noise of falling waters, the clamors of watermen, or the frequent shrieks of drowning wretches." For the rapids swirleil about the great piers, and tüus the proverb carne, "London bridge was made for wise men to go over and fools to go under." One by ono the old houses were removed, and at lust the ancient structuro itself, with its memories of battles and its traitors' gate, over which the head of one of her noblest, Sü' Thomas More, was exposed, and the new bridge now spans thedarkstream.unchanged and unehanging. It, too, has its ghosts, but life so crowda and jostles them that they slip asido, well knowing, however, that their turn will como and that their placo is surer than Unit of tho living.

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Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Register