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East London by Walter Besant PDF

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of East London, by Walter Besant This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: East London Author: Walter Besant Release Date: February 11, 2019 [EBook #58869] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST LONDON *** Produced by Chris Curnow, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. I EAST LONDON A Street Row in the East End. IV EAST LONDON BY WALTER BESANT AUTHOR OF “LONDON,” “SOUTH LONDON,” “WESTMINSTER,” ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY PHIL MAY, JOSEPH PENNELL, AND L. RAVEN-HILL NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1901 V Copyright, 1899, 1900, 1901, by The Century Co. The DeVinne Press. VI CONTENTS PAGE I WHAT EAST LONDON IS 1 II THE CITY OF MANY CRAFTS 19 III THE POOL AND THE RIVERSIDE 39 IV THE WALL 101 V THE FACTORY GIRL 114 VI THE KEY OF THE STREET 153 VII THE ALIEN 185 VIII THE HOUSELESS 209 IX THE SUBMERGED 227 X THE MEMORIES OF THE PAST 253 XI ON SPORTS AND PASTIMES 285 XII THE HELPING HAND 317 INDEX 359 vi ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE A Street Row in the East End Frontispiece Map of East London 5 London Street, Limehouse 11 A Typical Street in Bethnal Green 15 An East End Wharf 25 An East End Factory 31 Barge-Builders 36 The Water-Gate of London: Tower Bridge Looking Toward St. Paul’s 43 The Bank of “The Pool.” Looking Toward Tower Bridge 49 In the Docks 53 The Tower of London 57 The Water-Gate of London: Tower Bridge from the East Side of the Tower 63 The Turn of the Tide on the Lower Thames 69 Coming Up the Lower Thames with the Tide 75 Off Shadwell 80 Ratcliffe-Cross Stairs 83 Limehouse Basin and Church 89 The Thames Side at Limehouse 93 Greenwich Hospital 97 Wade Street, Limehouse 117 In an East End Gin-Shop 125 The British Workman in Epping Forest 131 Brook Street, Limehouse 139 An August Bank-Holiday in the East End 145 A Music-Hall 150 vii viii The West India Dock Gates 157 The Barges that Lie Down the Thames 163 East London Loafers 169 The “Hooligans” 175 Sunday Gambling 179 Whitechapel Shops 190 A Corner in Petticoat Lane 197 A “Schnorrer” (Beggar) of the Ghetto 200 East and West Ham 215 East and West Ham, from the Marshes 215 Salvation Army Shelter 232 Sandwich-men 245 “A Quiet Dullness” 259 The Street and Old Church Tower, Hackney 262 An East London Suburb, Overlooking Hackney Marshes 265 Clapton 269 The Old Church, Stoke Newington 272 A Street in Stoke Newington 274 House in Stoke Newington in which Edgar Allan Poe Lived 277 Hampstead Heath, Looking “Hendon Way” 293 The Shooting-Gallery 299 On Margate Sands 305 Toynbee Hall and St. Jude’s Church 312 The New Whitechapel Art Gallery 322 The East London Mission 329 The New Model Dwellings 336 Dr. Barnardo’s Home, Stepney Causeway 340 Mile End Almshouses 347 “The Bridge of Hope,” A Well-known East End Night Refuge 355 I WHAT EAST LONDON IS 2 EAST LONDON 3 I I WHAT EAST LONDON IS N my previous books on London I have found it necessary to begin with some consideration of the history and antiquities of the district concerned. For instance, my book on Westminster demanded this historical treatment, because Westminster is essentially an old historical city with its roots far down in the centuries of the past: once a Roman station; once the market-place of the island; once a port; always a place of religion and unction; for six hundred years the site of the King’s House; for five hundred years the seat of Parliament; for as many the home of our illustrious dead. But with East London there is no necessity to speak of history. This modern city, the growth of a single century, —nay, of half a century,—has no concern and no interest in the past; its present is not affected by its past; there are no monuments to recall the past; its history is mostly a blank—that blank which is the history of woods and meadows, arable and pasture land, over which the centuries pass, making no more mark than the breezes of yesterday have made on the waves and waters of the ocean. It is, however, necessary that the reader should understand exactly what I mean by East London. For this purpose I have prepared a small map showing the part of Greater London, which in these pages stands for East London. I include all that area which lies east of Bishopsgate Street Without and north of the river Thames; I include that area newly covered with houses, now a densely populated suburb, lying east of the river Lea; and I include that aggregation of crowded towns, each large enough to form an important city by itself, formed of the once rural suburban villages called Hackney, Clapton, Stoke Newington, Old Ford, Stepney, Bow and Stratford. In order to save the trouble of a long description, and because the reader ought to know something of the natural features of the ground on which East London stands, I have presented on the map certain indications by which the reader, with a little study, may make out for himself as much of these natural features as are necessary. He will see, for instance, that the parts now lying along the bank of the river were formerly either foreshore or marshland, overflowed at every high tide, and lying below a low, natural cliff, which receded inland till it met the rising ground of the bank of the river Lea. The figures on the map mark the sites of villages successively reclaimed from the river by a dyke or sea-wall; if the reader were to visit these riverside parishes he would find in many places the streets actually lower than the high tide of the river, but protected by this sea-wall, now invisible and built over. North of the cliff was a level expanse of cultivated farms, woods and orchards, common ground and pasture land. Map of East London. This level ground was a manor belonging to the Bishop of London; the farmers, huntsmen, fowlers, and fishermen occupying it were his tenants; he was jealous over encroachments, and would not permit the City to stretch out its arms over his domain. The history of the manor belongs to the antiquary: to the East Londoner himself it has no interest; and indeed, there is very little to tell. That Captain Courageous, Wat Tyler, marched his men across this manor. They came by the road marked “To Bow.” One of our kings held a Parliament in the Bishop’s Palace; heretics were occasionally burned here; there were one or two monastic houses; a bishop’s palace there was; and there was one parish church, for the large parish called Stebenhithe, now Stepney. Farmhouses were scattered about; there were orchards and gardens, lovely woods, broad pastures, acres of waving corn. The citizens of London, though this place belonged to the bishop, had the right of hunting and fishing in its woods and over its low-lying levels; it was a right of the most valuable kind, for the marshes were full of wild birds and the woods were full of creatures fit for man’s food. In the year 1504, Sir Thomas More, writing to his friend Dean Colet, then Vicar of Stepney, says: “Wheresoever you look, the earth yieldeth you a pleasant prospect; the temperature of the air fresheth you, and the very bounds of the heavens do delight you. Here you find nothing but bounteous gifts of nature and saint-like tokens of innocency.” The whole of the area between the northern road, which is our western boundary, and the river Lea is now covered with houses and people; the peninsula, marked on the map by the number “VII,” consisting of low and malarial ground, long stood out against occupation, but is now almost entirely covered over and absorbed by factories and workmen’s residences; what is more, the people of the original East London have now overflowed and crossed the Lea, and spread themselves over the marshes and meadows beyond. This population—not to speak of the suburban villas, which now cover many square miles—represents a movement and a migration of the last twenty years. It has created new towns which were formerly rural villages. West Ham, with a population of nearly 300,000; East Ham, with 90,000; Stratford, with its “daughters,” 150,000; and other “hamlets” similarly overgrown. Including, therefore, as we must include, these new populations, we have an aggregate of nearly two millions of people, living all together in what ought to be a single city under one rule. This should be a very remarkable city for its numbers alone; the population is greater than that of Berlin or Vienna, or St. Petersburg, or Philadelphia. As a crowded mass of humanity alone it should demand serious consideration. In other respects, however, it is more remarkable still. You will acknowledge with me that in these respects and from these points of view, no other city in the world is like East London. To begin with, it is not a city by organization; it is a collocation of overgrown villages lying side by side. It had, until this year (1900), no center, no heart, no representative body, no mayor, no aldermen, no council, no wards; it has not 4 7 8

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