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1689-1714.]

STREET ECONOMY, AND POLICE.

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been formed into a street. Changes marking the changes of society were going on. May Fair, "held in Brookfield Market-place, at the east corner of Hyde Park," dwindled away; and the Brook which flowed from Tyburn was covered over by the houses of Brook Street. The May-pole in the Strand, which James duke of York employed his sailors to hoist up at the Restoration, to typify the downfall of Puritanism, was removed to Wanstead, to support "the largest telescope in the world." Puritanism lost its power of domination, and gradually slided into Dissent. At the Revolution there was a transient struggle, in which a little toleration was the only victory of the principle which had overthrown the monarchy. The New Church in the Strand took the place of the old May-pole. Addison's Tory Fox-hunter seeing this church of St. Mary le Strand half-built, thought that Dissent had triumphed, and that an old temple of the establishment was in process of demolition. He "was agreeably surprised to find that instead of pulling it down they were building it up, and that fifty more were raising in other parts of the town.'

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The Street Economy, as it may be called, and the Police of the London of the beginning of the eighteenth century, have so often been described, that we can merely glance at these subjects, which are the peculiar province of the essayist. It was a city, cleaner probably, and with more public conveniences than any other capital of Europe; but in what we should now deem a condition most unfavourable to health, comfort, and security. There were no foot-pavements as distinguished from the carriage-road. There were lines of posts in the chief streets, within which it was only safe to walk. The carmen in the principal road were fighting with the hackney coach drivers. The chairmen drove the foot-passengers off the railed-in way; and the footpassengers themselves struggled for the honour of the wall. Every square and open place was a deposit for rubbish and filth, gathering in heaps of abomination, to be very tardily removed by the dustman. The streets were resonant with the bawlings of higlers and wandering merchants of every denomination. The pick-pockets and ring-droppers had no preventive police to regulate the exercise of their profession. A crowd of vagabond boys were often pursuing their sports in the most crowded thoroughfares, of which sports foot-ball was the favourite. The apprentice in the merchant's counting-house enters in his petty cash-book-" For mending the back-shop sashes broken by the foot-ball, 2s. 6d." The Thames was the most convenient highway between the City and Westminster, with wherries employing four or five thousand watermen. The hackney-coaches, to the number of eight hundred, had not displaced them. But a more rugged set than the Thames watermen-more terrific to a timid squire from the country, or an ancient lady going down Blackfriars to take the air-it is impossible to conceive. Their shouts of "Next oars and "Skullers," were appalling. No sooner was the boat on its way, up or down the stream, but every passenger in another boat was assailed with a volley of "water compliments," compared with which the "slang" of our politer day is soft as the oaths of Hotspur's wife. It was at night that the real dangers of the street began.

* "Freeholder," No. 47, June 1, 1716.

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"Complete Tradesman," vol. ii. Vide (but you had better not) "Tom Brown's Works," vol. iii. p. 288, ed. 1730.

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ROBBERIES AND OUTRAGES.

[1689-1714. The Watch was in the most lamentable state of imbecility. The Court of Common Council, in 1716, decreed that the streets should be lighted-but the few glass lamps only made "darkness visible." Robberies were common in every great thoroughfare. The very link-boy was a thief. The resorts of bullies and cut-throats, Whitefriars and the Savoy, the Mint and the Clink, were put down by Act of Parliament in 1697, as places of refuge for fraudulent debtors; and the great haunts of villainy no longer bade defiance to the officers of the law. But the drunken outrages of the night-prowlers, “The Mohawks," who had "an outrageous ambition of doing all possible hurt to their fellow-creatures," were denounced by the "Spectator," on the 12th of March, 1712; though on the 8th of April he says, some are apt to think that these Mohawks are a kind of bull-beggars, first invented by prudent married men and masters of families, in order to deter their wives and daughters from taking the air at unseasonable hours."* Swift was terrified about them; and a royal proclamation was issued, offering a reward of £100 for the detection of any person wounding or maiming one of her majesty's subjects. There was probably much exaggeration in these terrors. The historian of London deduces their origin from "fictitious stories artfully contrived to intimidate the people;" and adds, "It does not appear that ever any person was detected of any of the said crimes." He made all inquiry in places where they were said to have been chiefly committed, and could never learn of any one person having received the least hurt. Nevertheless, the deportment of some of the rich, "flown with insolence and wine," was one of the reasonable terrors of a street guarded by decrepit old men, and during an administration of justice which might be often bribed by wealth and awed by rank.

*Nos. 324 and 347.

+"Maitland's London," i. 511.

Comparative Table of the Number of Houses and Estimated Population at the Revolution, and of the Populations of 1801 and 1851 ;

with the Assessment for Aid in 1689-arranged in Registration Divisions.

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Fixed position of the various Classes-Difficulty of passing from one position to another-The Rural Population-The Cottager-The Agricultural Labourer-Character of the Agricultural Labourer-The Farmers and Small Freeholders-The Gentlemen and Esquires-Character of the Country Gentleman-His Animosities-The Nobility-The Nobility and Esquires in London-The Clergy-Great Social Evils-Neglect-The Press-Liberal Arts and Sciences.

IN considering the proportions of the various degrees of society, as presented by the approximating "Scheme" of 1688, and the exact Census of 1851, we must bear in mind that, a century and a half ago, the facilities possessed by the people of passing from one occupation to another occupation were very limited; and that the power of what we term rising in the world was equally restricted. In the locality in which a labourer was born he generally remained to the end of his life. The laws of Settlement were attempted to be relaxed in 1697; for it was felt and avowed that paupers were created by the restraints which prevented them seeking employ where

1689-1714.]

THE RURAL POPULATION.

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there was work to be done, and compelled them to starve upon the parochial pittance where there was no capital to support labour. But the clumsy machinery for remedying the evil would not act; and this semi-slavery continued unmitigated till our own time. The barriers which prevented the artificer or the trader from passing out of his first condition into one more eligible were almost as onerous. The severe enforcement of the laws of Apprenticeship kept a man for ever in the particular pursuit for which he had served seven years of dreary education; and the devices of Guilds and Companies and City-freedoms created a practical monopoly, which it was very difficult to overthrow. Some few men of great ability certainly overcame the impediments of birth and education, and rose to opulence and honours; but the rise of the commonalty was always regarded with extreme jealousy by the born great. The servile literature of the days before the Revolution echoed this sentiment. It was sedulously inculcated, in the fashionable belief, that all the wealth of the community was derived from the expenditure of the higher classes; that the prodigality of the gentry was the sole cause "that cooks, vintners, innkeepers, and such mean fellows, enrich themselves; and that not only these, but tailors, dancing-masters, and such trifling fellows, arrive to that riches and pride, as to ride in their coaches, keep their summer houses, to be served in plate, &c., an insolence insupportable in other well-governed nations." + Philosophers arose to tell the prodigal great that they were in the right course, for that private vices were public benefits; and so, in very charity to the providers of luxuries, the country squire became a rake upon town, and his estates went to ruin, and all his poor dependents felt the curse of his licentiousness. It was this extreme dependence of many of the peasantry upon the landowners, that held them bound in more ignoble chains than those of the old feudality. They might receive a capricious patronage, but they could not demand a constant protection.

We may probably arrive at some view, however unsatisfactory, of the component parts and condition of the Rural Population, by a further analysis of Gregory King's scheme. We have assumed that the incomes of families of rank, independent of the incomes of those in "greater offices and places," are derived from their landed estates. This aggregate income is somewhat under six millions sterling. It is appropriated to sixteen thousand six hundred families, who altogether number about a hundred and fifty-four thousand persons, or between nine and ten in each family. This is an excess of five in each family above the usual rate of families, and it will show that eighty-three thousand servants and retainers are maintained in these great households. But there are also forty thousand "freeholders of the better sort," with an aggregate income of more than three millions and a half, who have each two in family beyond the average. This gives another eighty thousand dependents. The aggregate income of a hundred and twenty thousand "freeholders of the lesser sort" is about six millions and a half; and these maintain sixty thousand in their households beyond the usual proportion. There are thus two hundred and twenty thousand persons directly maintained by the expenditure of the independent classes-of the classes who are not dependent upon

8 & 9 Gul. iii., c. 3.

VOL. V.

+ Chamberlayne; "Present State of England," 1687, p. 43.

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