Picturesque Sketches of London, Past and Present

lors, and

glance backward at the scenes which in former years met the eye on the very spots

the open noon of day, and at night trodden with dread by the peaceful passenger; when the Tower Hamlets disgorged their lawless inhabitants to witness an execution on Tower-hill, attack a press-gang, or rescue some sailor from the claws of justice, to be borne in triumph to the nearest tavern, and amid flip, fiddling, and dancing, bid defiance to every 'Charley' that for a mile around drawled out the passing hours. In those days

have made a more ungainly appearance.... Every post they came near was in danger of having its head broken; for every one as he passed by gave the senseless block a bang with his cudgel, as if they wished every post they met to be either the boatswain or the purser. The very dogs in the street shunned them with as much fear as a loitering vagrant would a gang of press-m

le oil-case nor'-westers, with long fantails behind, telling that, unlike the hats in Bond-street, these are made to keep a billow that breaks over the head out of the nape of the neck; while the rough pilot-coats that hang like skins about the tent of a Russian bear-hunter, proclaim that they were never made to be worn in "a lady's chamber," but to be donned where the winds whistle, and the sea-gulls scream, and the big waves come roaring after each other like a thousand unchained hungry lions. There you see the gaudy handkerchi

wn into icy seas, or bent listlessly where the waves of the warm Mediterranean roll, and the arch-backed dolphins tumble. It makes the heart of a true-born Englishman, although he is not worth a groat, beat high when he enters the gates that open upon such a scene of naval grandeur; and we forgive those old sea-kings, while we gaze around, who all but conquered our country, and blended the

h their passing feet-all were doomed to be swept away, to make room for the "guardian giants that prowl around our coasts." From this, good came; living London had not room enough for her dead, and the green hills that look down upon her glory were then turned into sepulchres; rural cemeteries sprang up, and thither her departed sons and daughters were borne; instead of pe

a Docks, which lie nearer Blackwall, merchandise valued at twenty millions of money has at one time been deposited on the wharfs, in the warehouses, and in the vaults below. The wealth of London

USE, BL

ty would remain in getting over the bulky goods which are stored within. The walls which encircle the two London Docks were erected at a cost of sixty-five thousand pounds; and no less a sum than four millions was expended in completing this vast establishment. The East India Docks

that when the first inroad was made on these old vested rights, a clamour was raised by carmen, porters, lightermen, and all the shoal of waterside labourers, who benefited more or less by the very difficulties which attended the removal of merchandise, and that from Wapping to Westminster the whole aquatic populace raised their voices against the dock crusades. Even the Trinity House itself murmured about an invasion of interests, and contended that the Royal Dock at Deptford would be ruined. City limits and city privileges were all in all to these sticklers for old rights; nor have matters altered much even up to the present day, when a proposed improvement in the

been chartered to carry out emigrants to America; it was a few days before the ship was announced to sail. The owner was a worthy gentleman; the party who had hired the ship, needy adventurers, whose references had blinded all inquiries, and who were only found out when interference was of no legal avail. For days "hired vagabonds" had been "touting" at every wharf and public-house in the neighbourhood; and the call, although not so openly made as t

hildren running about, and playing at hide and seek among the bales and casks-fair-haired, red-cheeked, blue-eyed beauties, whose sun-burnt arms and necks told that they had had the run of the open village-green; and such we found had been the case when we inquired. Both father and mother were fine specimens of English peasantry: the grandfather and grandmother were also there. They had fixed up the very clock in the hold, which had for years ticked in the old familiar cottage, and br

the oven, had that morning, he said, been sent on board to assist them-it was the gift of a few poor Irish people who lived in the borough of Southwark. This bread, he said, with a little suet, would make excellent puddings; and he promised that Pat should not lack the latter ingredient. It appeared that there were many little things which a willing hand might do on board a ship, and, as he said, "We never yet allowed one to starve; but this is a queer lot." If we remember rightly, the number of passenger

nt might be worse employed than in applying a remedy to these evils. We fear that many who leave our shores with refined and delicate feelings, who, however humble may be their station in life, are gifted with that innate love

and a common steerage, rendered as comfortable as circumstances will permit, a perfect elysium. Picture those who have never in all their lives encountered a stronger gale than needed a safe hand to keep on the hat, turning all sorts of imaginable somersaults, and who never heard any noise louder over their heads than when some relative fell down drunk upon the chamber-floor at a feast-time, first listening to the tramp, and thunder, and hurly-burly on deck, when the ship is struck by a heavy sea, and every timbe

nk of what they were destined to endure. We pictured them in their restless slumber, murmuring like bees-dreaming of their cottage, then far away-or dizzy with the rocking of the ship, recall

in a myst

ders to

is footsteps

s upon t

s of his relatives to the far forest which he is driven into, and there erects a new hut, leaves scarcely an object of regret behind, for his hopes are anchored upon his great hunting-ground beyond the grave. One who soars into higher and purer realms in the dreams of an hereafter, is chained to earth by greater regrets. The very tree in the centre of the villa

the sti

r's chain h

ry brings

days ar

ut their emigrants to New Zealand. What we then witnessed compelled us to take another view of emigration, and

during the civil war, laid aside their psalters to load arquebusses, were the unflinching elements out of which our colonies were formed in those stormy old times. Neither gaols nor workhouses were emptied to people these early settlements, but firm, high-souled men and women went out, accompanied by their ministers and grave elders-such as in more ancient days assembled in our Saxon witenagemotes-full of moral resolves, and g

ith-members of the English Church-and who are to begin by building schools and erecting places of worship, and thus providing for the intellectual and spiritual

in short, we shall not err by calling it a religious community. Hunger, and crime, and sin, and sorrow, and nakedness, and wretchedness they leave behind. Except the working emigrants who accompany them, we believe that nearly the whole of the settlers are large purchasers of land: some few of those who have speculated remai

hey were unable to obtain a living in it, like the many thousands who covet but the common necessaries of life, and cannot obtain them. We turned from the well-spread t

near a thou

and tables pine

they sit, in such neighbourhoods as Whitechapel and Bethnal-green, and hear of holidays and merry seasons, in which they have no share. The Christmas bells but ring out to them telling that nights are long and coals dear; and they are compelled to sit and listen to those sounds in the darkness, or by the glimmering of a handful of fire, for they are too poor to purchase even a candle. Spring processions and Whitsun holidays but tell them that there are pleasant places somewhere, which people are rushing out of town to see, though for them the flowers grow not, nor have they ever rested under the cooling shadow of a green tree. All they know of time is by feeling hungry, and struggling against sleep, while "stit

pelting of the

the dark corner of the room! Where are their pictures to enliven the walls? their flowers, to tell that spring or summer has come? The imagination must form a landscape where the mortar has broken away-the only white patch in that dirty dwelling; their flowers of summer are dy

has power to

make the t

ry wind d

tarving populace in those lands, where Health would stand with roses in her hands to plant in their pale cheeks, while honest Labour waved his sickle to welcome them to the thatched hut, which, stored with plenty, would send its blue smoke under the green trees, and then in coiling shadows over the golden harvest-field. Alas! these go not out with the Canterbury colonists. We should consider the present emigrants as going before to prepare the way for their feebler or poorer brethren. Their intelligence, capital, and enterprise will, we trust, create such a demand for labour,

only misery, where the only hours of happiness they knew were those which went winged over their unconscious childhood, when hunger was scarcely felt while they played, and sorrow only forgotten when they slumbered-when the Angel of Sleep came and carried away the very memory of wretchedness until they awoke again. May the peaceful daisies soon blow about their home in a land where there is plenty and to spare, and human life is not made up of labour, hunger pangs, and short, fitful, moaning snatches of slumber, which is not sleep. May they, like those who are now preceding them, find a home around which to twine their affections, with a few trees and flowers that they can love and call their own, where the sun has room to get near them at morning, and can give them a p

did for the heathen Danes, if she will not send them to other countries. Labour is the only true wealth that Nature ordained when she provided us with the raw materials. The possessor of millions is compelled to buy labour; his gold will neither clothe nor feed him; with it he calls in hard-handed industry to his aid. These are old truisms which no arguments can overthrow. Have we exhausted all our resources of employment, that we are compelled to drive so many thousands who are willing to labour from the land? This is a question more important than any other, and of a thousand times more consequence than the money even now spent in sending out emigrants. How many little freeholds might be reared in our wastes, with our facilities, with what we are spending annually in emigration? and how much closer would these little spots bind the affections of the occupiers to the soil, and make them struggle proudly to bear their share of the burdens which are necessary to support the state! Let a large

OCKS-OUT