Dover-The Cinque Ports-Ancient Customs-Walmer Castle- Folkestone-Club Life-Martello Towers-Shorncliff Camp and the Romney Marsh and Dungenees-The Military Canal-Napoleon From Folkestone by Dover, Deal and Canterbury to London-The Cathedral-The "Ashes" of Kings--The Fate of Sovereigns, &c. 200-208 Chatham-Faversham-Rochester-Sir Francis Doyle--Gads' Hill -Cobham Hall-Mss Letters of Sir John Peyton, Governor of The Anglo-Norman Isle of Guernsey-Literature &c.,-The Sport- ing Club-The Institutions of the Island, &c.-Hauteville House, Victor Hugo, Private Theatricals, &c.--Public Lec- tures, &c.-St. John's Readings-Lectures on Electricity- Workingmen's Association-Remarks by Colonel J. L. Peyton- RAMBLING REMINISCENCES: CHAPTER I. LONDON PAST AND PRESENT. On the 22nd of November, 1861, after a boisterous voyage across the South Atlantic from Charleston, S. C., by the Burmuda and Azore Islands, in the Confederate man-of-war, Nashville, Capt. Robert W. Pegram, commanding, we found ourselves comfortably ensconced in a West-end (London) Hotel.Every one has heard of London and its November fogs Few Americans know what either exactly is. Daniel Webster, after his return to the United States, was asked what he thought of London, and replied, "I have not yet done wondering." This language gives expression to the sentiment with which it has always inspired us, and we are sure we shall never cease to wonder at London or a genuine, London fog, dim, dreary, sullen as it is, particularly in November, when it is a vile, double distilled fog of the most intolerable kind. Winter has already scattered his shafts, and this penetrating fog comes like a demon in search of the dead strewn in town and country, through forest and field. It is cold, it is wet, it is dark, it shrouds all things in a ghostly gloom, a smoke like darkness. But for the gas lights it would be black as the ninth plague of Egypt at mid-day. Looking out of our window in Trafalgar Square, the morning after our arrival, we saw the town wrapped in a vast winding sheet of gray mist and yellow smoke. It was eleven o'clock, still there was no sign of day; gas blazed in street lamps and shop windows. The smoke was thick, the mist thicker, the sky black; few persons were abroad; fewer cabs, and the drivers of these few shouted apparently at the darkness through which they slowly groped their way. About one o'clock the fog for a few moments cleared up, and seemed sneaking off into the country. The blackened sky became yellow, and the sun loomed as through a glass darkly. Our spirits were reviving when the sun quickly covered himself again with the clouds of night and sailed unseen across the sky. Stiff in every limb, with tender feet and heavy head, the effects of a winter voyage across the ocean, a tour round our chamber contented us on this our first day in the great metropolis. Looking out on the cloudy, muggy, dark and wretched streets, strangely illuminated with flickering gas-lights, if the writer did not for the first time in his life, wish himself another man, he certainly wished himself in another place. The vitality of our youth was not to be quenched, however, by such surroundings, and substituting the philosophy of maturer years for any depressing heavi ness under which we were suffering, we soon plucked up spirits, and in a few weeks commenced those explorations which have left us ever since, like Mr. Webster, "wondering." Let us take a glance at this grim old metropolis: There is no romance about the London of the present; tourists have rummaged it from end to end-it is known the world over from Belgravia to Bethnel Green, from Camberwell to Campdentown. Yet it still interests and fills the stranger with astonishment. The more he knows of it, the more he wishes to know. Widely understood as it may be the number familiar with that great capital is infinitesimal when compared with the sedentary world who are almost totally ignorant of all but its name. This is some excuse for re-telling the old story of its wonders and mysteries. The stranger in London is bewildered at its extent, its gloomy grandeur, its grim magnificence. He sees before him a labyrinthine confusion of streets, straight, broad and spacious, narrow, crooked and filthy, according to locality, and intersecting each other at every possible angle. With a correct general idea of the metropolis, gathered from a chart, he cannot find his way from one quarter to another without the aid of a guide, or even retain his knowledge of the points of the compass, unless he remains in the vicinity of such leading thoroughfares as the Strand, Oxford Street or Piccadilly. He may spend weeks with all the ardour of an explorer, perambulating the side-walks and visiting the principal objects of curiosity, and still have an imperfect idea of the place. The mass of highways and byways is still as intricate as a Chinese puzzle, though during the last decade large sums have been expended in straightening old and opening new avenues for the pu pose of simplifying the system of streets, and more readily ac commodating the traffic. The city of London proper commences at Temple Bar, and covers an area of little more than one square mile, and contains a population of 111,784 persons only. As the gateway is wit hout beauty and obstructs the most crowded of London's thoroughfares, its retention is a striking illustration of the conservative character of the English mind, of the tenacity with which our · an cestors cling to whatever is old. It is Passing this so-called barrier, we are in the city proper. not the city of former times, full of densely inhabited houses and fine residences, belonging to the chief merchants, the landed gentry and the nobility-the great landlords of the country; the city, as it once was, of small and narrow streets, of mean lath and plaster houses on rickety wooden frames and of all imaginable sizes and shapes; the city of badly cleaned and foully smelling streets, and of desolating plagues bursting forth from time to time and carrying off myriads of people. On the contrary, it is the city par excellence of the trade, business and commerce of the modern world. The city of the Bank, the Mint and the exchange of Lombard Street, Cornhill and Mincing Lane, of warehouses and Counting rooms, of vaults and offices, in a word, of those great commercial houses whose extended operations embrace the entire globe. The city where the Bankers, brokers, merchants, stock jobbers, money changers, Jew and Gentile, most do love to congregate, and where they regularly cast up the accounts of the world. Fleet street and the Strand are the great arteries of the city, and, passing by Temple Bar from Charing Cross, extend to Ludgate Hill, where St. Paul's rears its towering front. Here making the circuit of the Cathedral and thence branching into Cheapside, Poultry, Cornhill and Cannon streets. These are a few only of the great arteries through which the tide of population and business flows. Thousands of others in all directions are daily choaked with vehicles and myriads of human beings who swarm like bees on every spot. Around this focus or centre of business have grown up, with incredible rapidity, the different quarters known as Brompton, Hammersmith, St. John's Wood, etc., which with the "city" con'stitute what is known as the Metropolis, or the Metropolitan district, spreading over an area 18 miles long by 14 wide, and containing a population of about 3,800,000 souls. This is the monster London which has been so well styled a province covered with houses. The houses are built almost entirely of brick and are generally inferior in size, architectural ornament and imposing appearance. They inspire no idea, indeed, that they are the palaces of the rich and great. The humid atmosphere, causing the smoke to settle down upon the dwellings, soon changes their color, the brick becoming of a dingy gray, the whole assuming a dreary and dismal appearance. Buckingham Palace, the residence of the Queen, and on which vast sums have been lavished, during the reign of George IV and since, is not equal to many of the country seats of the nobility, and St. James' Palace, where the Royal Drawing-rooms or receptions are held, and which was the town residence of the royal ܐ܂ family until the accession of Queen Victoria, is a low, red brick building resembling a lying-in-hospital, for which purpose it was originally intended. Excepting St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, the New Parliament Houses, Somerset House, the British Museum, the University of London, the principal club houses, and some of the fine old historical residences, such as Northumberland and Chesterfield houses and the new hotels, there is little in the way of architectural beauty or symmetry of which London can boast. It is a monotonous wilderness of brick and mortar, where the stranger sees little evidence, save upon stated occasions of solemn processions, of the existence of an opulent aristocracy and brilliant And The paucity of fine private residences in this great city, the seat of the wealthiest of commercial empires, is striking, and can only be explained upon the hypothesis that the money which would embellish any other capital is elsewhere expended. this is, indeed, the fact. In England the proprietorship of landed property carries with it greater dignity and influence than in any other country. Hence the nobleman directs his attention specially to the improvement of his country estates. On these he spends the chief part of his time, his talents and capital in making agricultural experiments, in rearing fine stock, and in growing large crops. Here, if he belongs to the old nobility, he keeps up a baronial castle or a stately hall, dispensing a princely hospitality. If he is of the class of new rich, he builds a spacious mansion and endeavors to rival "my lords." These large estates have grown out of the feudal system and the law of primogeniture, which Dr. Johnson rather justified, because "that it makes but one fool in a family," and constitutes one of the peculiar features of England.— Among the most magnificent we remember to have seen, during a long residence in the country, may be mentioned in passingthose of the Marquis of Breadalbane, whose property extends on a straight line from his mansion a distance of 100 miles, and the Duke of Sutherland's, which covers a whole county in Scotland, extending from sea to sea. The Duke of Norfolk's park in Sussex, is fifteen miles in circuit, and the Island of Lewis, containing 500,000 acres, is owned by a single individual! The process of absorption is still going on, the larger domains growing larger and larger as the number of proprietors decrease. A hundred years ago there were 250,000 proprietors in England and now there are only 30,000. This is a great evil certainly and must be remedied. Urgent necessity there is of nationalizing the land, as the present state of affairs both in England and Ireland show. Against this increasing evil John Bright, the late J. S. Mill and the Manchester party generally, have raised their voices and are proceeding to "agitate" the country. |