UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES

 
 THE CITY
 
 THE CITY 
 
 INTO THE CORPORATION, ITS LIVERY COMPANIES, 
 AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF THEIR CHARITIES AND ENDOWMENTS 
 
 BY WILLIAM GILBERT 
 
 AUTHOR OF "CONTRASTS," ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 DALDY, ISBISTER & CO. 
 
 56, LUDGATE HILL 
 1877
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, 
 CITY ROAD.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEB PACK 
 
 I. INTHODUCTORY 1 
 
 c/3 
 
 II. DEMOLITION OF THE DWELLINGS OF THE WORKING 
 
 CLASSES . . 24 
 
 2: 
 
 III. Cmr PAROCHIAL CHARITIES 42 
 
 IV. LIVERY COMPANIES G7 
 
 5 
 
 Q V. LIVERY COMPANIES (continued) 92 
 
 (M 
 
 z VI. LIYERY COMPANIES (continued) 122 
 
 VII. LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR DUTIES, ETC. . . . 149 
 
 VIII. LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE . 176 
 
 IX. THE CORPORATION . . . '. . . .208 
 
 ' -r* 
 
 X. CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES 239 
 
 UJ 
 
 co XI. CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES (continued) .... 272 
 
 XII. CITY ENDOWED SCHOOLS 304 
 
 XIII. ENDOWED SCHOOLS . . . . . . . 329 
 
 XIV. CONCLUSION . . 363
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 FROM the numerous books which, from, time to time, 
 have been written respecting the abuses and anoma- 
 lies to be found in the administration of affairs in the 
 City of London, the reader may naturally look upon 
 another bearing on the same subject as a work of super- 
 erogation. Upon further investigation, however, he may, 
 as we have done, arrive at the conclusion that, glaring 
 as have been the defects already brought under the 
 notice of the public, others may be quoted equally grave 
 which have hitherto been passed over with comparatively 
 little censure. But even if the present venture has but 
 scant claim to originality of subject, it has been the 
 .earnest endeavour of the author to treat it in a manner 
 somewhat different from the works already alluded to, 
 so as, if possible, to attract the attention of the reader, 
 if from no better reason than its novelty alone. When 
 others have written on the abuses existing in the muni- 
 cipality of the City of London, especially those which 
 are to be detected in the application of the funds in 
 the possession of the livery companies or trade guilds, 
 
 B
 
 2 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 they are generally answered by replies so full of legal 
 quibbles and plausible sophistries that the imagination 
 of the reader becomes fatigued before he has been able 
 to arrive at any settled conclusion; and the subject gra- 
 dually fades from his mind, or at any rate it loses all its 
 interest. Even with those authors who treat the subject 
 from a moral or religious point of view, the result is in 
 general but little better. With the exception of the 
 Rev. William Rogers, rector of St. Botolph, Bishops- 
 gate, and one or two others of the clergy, that body, 
 which ought to consider themselves the natural guar- 
 dians of the rights of the poor, seem, as a rule, entirely 
 indifferent to the subject, and the abuses of the City 
 charitable endowments, both parochial and corporate, 
 remain undisturbed, while those interested in the pre- 
 sent state of things point to the apathy of the clergy 
 as a proof that the administration of these charities 
 leaves nothing to be desired. 
 
 The novelty mentioned as the great characteristic 
 of our treatment of the subject is simply as follows. 
 Instead of attempting to prove the injustice inflicted on 
 the inhabitants of the metropolis in general and the 
 poor in particular by legal arguments, as from his 
 ignorance of the law the author might, by the attempt, 
 do more harm than good to the cause in which he is so 
 deeply interested, he proposes to place before the reader 
 some of the results of our metropolitan civic legislation, 
 prefaced by a short description of some of the acts of 
 the Corporation during the last five-and-twenty years, 
 and the results which have accrued from them, thus
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 leaving the reader to judge of the tree by its fruits. 
 Should he approve of the results of the (City) legisla- 
 tion as they will be spread truthfully before him, no 
 harm will be done to him or to us, as from a simple 
 statement of facts there is little room for legal sophistry 
 to develop itself. If, on the contrary, he should be 
 convinced, as we trust he will be, that the grossest in- 
 justice has been inflicted not only upon the metropolitan 
 community at large, especially Christ's legatees, the 
 poor, it is hoped that his honest expression of indig- 
 nation will not be the sole result, but that he will 
 endeavour to assist personally in the movement, which 
 probably will be brought soon before the public, to 
 eradicate or modify the abuses to be found in the muni- 
 cipal legislation of the City of London. 
 
 In the first place, then, we hold that the government 
 of no capital in the world enjoys a reputation so far 
 above its merits as that of the ancient City of London. 
 That its admirers are many is true ; but the majorit}^ 
 of these, and the most energetic in its praises, are 
 directly or indirectly interested in the continuance of 
 its abuses. Then, again, there are those who behold it 
 from a distance, and being unscathed by its abuses are 
 comparatively indifferent on the subject, and willing to 
 believe anything said in its favour; who, as well as 
 foreigners, accept as established facts the mendacious 
 compliments heaped on its management in speeches by 
 guests at civic feasts, and reported, more or less accu- 
 rately, by the public press. According to the speeches 
 of its flatterers, the City properly so called might be
 
 4 THE CUT AS IT IS. 
 
 held forward as a model for all other capitals to imitate ; 
 while those Londoners who view it from another point 
 and their name is legion denounce its institutions and 
 their management as being open to the gravest repro- 
 bation. In fact, there is no medium to be found between 
 the description given of it by its admirers and its adver- 
 saries, and yet both parties strenuously assert the truth 
 of their statements, and that with so much courage 
 and energy that it would be unjust to say either was 
 not speaking from honest convictions, though it is 
 clear one side or the other must be in error. 
 
 Such being the case, it must be obvious that to con- 
 vince either would be an impossibility. At the same 
 time the author, as before stated, considers that there 
 does not exist upon the face of the earth a spot where 
 tyranny and dishonesty are more rampant than in the 
 City of London, or where grosser cruelty or injustice 
 has been, and is now, practised on the poor and indus- 
 trial classes ; that cruelty and injustice increasing in 
 . intensity as the condition in life of the victim is the less 
 able to support it. Nay, more, that these acts of injus- 
 tice are not practised in secret by the class of men who 
 merely possess a second-rate reputation for honesty, but 
 by those City magnates who loudly assert their posses- 
 sion of that virtue, and yet openly set public opinion at 
 defiance their actions in the matter of civic legislation 
 being, as a rule, legalised by our laws. 
 
 To make the enormous and barefaced injustice prac- 
 tised by our civic authorties stand out in still stronger 
 relief, the reader should some day cast his eye over a
 
 . INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 newspaper report when it narrates the proceedings which 
 took place at some City guild feast, and the speeches 
 which were made on the occasion. Would it be possible 
 to compliment the City, its philanthropy, its manage- 
 ment, and its enormous wealth in more eulogistic 
 terms ? The majority of the speeches seem all cast in 
 one mould, their principal ingredient being outrageous 
 flattery on the enlightened and influential body of men 
 the speaker has the honour of addressing, when, per- 
 haps, returning thanks for the high compliment done 
 him (no matter whether prime minister or commander- 
 in-chief, a duke or any other dignitary) in drinking 
 his health. With all this there is a certain amount of 
 the ludicrous mixed up, which goes far to redeem 
 the bad taste of such abject flattery. But when the 
 health of the judges or bishops (and there is generall} 7 " 
 at least one of each invited) is proposed, the case is very 
 different. Then the ludicrous is lost in the painful. 
 No two classes of dignitaries are more respected by the 
 public at large, and our feelings are shocked to find 
 that men of such eminence, and in such professions, 
 should be so employed. Neither the judge nor the 
 bishop seems to have the slightest idea that he has 
 been invited there but to cast an air of justice and 
 morality over proceedings which, if properly investi- 
 gated, would be found to be utterly destitute of both 
 qualifications. 
 
 Each judge or bishop in his turn seems to be unaware 
 or indifferent to the possibility that the enormous cost of 
 the dinner alone of which he is partaking was obtained
 
 6 THE CIT1'AS IT IS. 
 
 by means verging, perhaps, on absolute dishonesty, by 
 appropriating funds placed in the hands of the par- 
 ticular guild for trade purposes and charity, when, it 
 may be, there is not a member present who is employed 
 in the trade or craft which bears its name. Let us first 
 state the case of the judge. If the reader will wade 
 through the report of his speech, and give it his cool 
 attention, he must be struck with surprise that a man 
 of education and shrewd observation, as our judges as a 
 rule indisputably are, could listen with calmness and 
 patience to the amount of fulsome adulation " poured 
 into his ear against the stomach of his sense," or how 
 he could, without disgust, swallow the loathsome flat- 
 tery, hot from the mouth of some alderman, with 
 which the toast is larded. " How the proposer is over- 
 whelmed with pride at the honour of bringing the 
 toast placed in his hands under the notice of those 
 assembled ! Would that he could do so in a manner to 
 do it justice, or that it had been placed in abler hands 
 than his ! " The speaker then goes on in the regular 
 stereotyped fashion, laying on his vapid compliments 
 with the usual execrable civic taste, exalting the British 
 judge above all other judges on the face of the earth, 
 at the same time framing his words in such a manner 
 as to insinuate that the practice of taking bribes or 
 giving dishonest judgments was, as a rule, openly prac- 
 tised by the foreign judges with unblushing effrontery. 
 "That our laws were the summit of human wisdom, 
 and were administered by judges who were the envy 
 and admiration of surrounding nations. Rich and
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 poor stood on an equality before them ; the poorest was 
 never deprived of his right to an honest upright judg- 
 ment, nor were the richest and most powerful able to 
 make an English judge swerve from the honest dis- 
 charge of his duties." 
 
 The answer of the judge to the toast proposing his 
 health is generally in little better taste as to its com- 
 position than the language of the alderman who pro- 
 posed it. Of course he complimented the City of 
 London on the law-abiding spirit of its population, 
 which he could only attribute to its admirable insti- 
 tutions and the example set to the working classes 
 by those who employed them. The virtues of our 
 working classes are then generally mentioned in their 
 turn, and, by way of raising them still higher, a 
 contrast is frequently drawn between them and the 
 working classes in foreign countries of course vastly 
 to the credit of our countrymen and, especially, that 
 we might indeed be proud that those sanguinary 
 scenes which are so common in Paris and other conti- 
 nental cities never occurred among us. The judge 
 might have added, and with perfect truth, that the 
 whole of the City working classes have been driven 
 from it by those who employed them, while the cha- 
 rities they inherited have been torn from them and 
 given, in an enormous majority of cases, to those who 
 were in affluence, or at least above want. Perhaps it 
 may be said that our judges are not cognizant of this 
 foul and dishonest despotism on the part of the Corpo- 
 ration of the City of London and the livery companies,
 
 8 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 and yet it would be an easy task to name more than 
 one of their number who are or have been members of 
 City companies, and especially those companies which 
 have taken the most active part in such transactions. 
 
 The part the bishop takes in these proceedings is 
 scarcely less offensive than that of the judge not so 
 much, however, from what he says, as from the painful 
 reminiscences of the indifference shown by the City 
 clergy in allowing others, without opposition, to warp 
 from their original uses the enormous funds left for the 
 benefit of the poor, as well as in allowing the vast 
 endowments existing for their education to be, without 
 a murmur of indignation, either wasted or applied to 
 the benefit of those whose parents are fully able to 
 educate them without encroaching on any charitable 
 funds for the purpose. The phraseology of the rev. 
 lord, however, when returning thanks, ' is generally 
 harmless enough. He reminds his hearers of their 
 responsibilities, both religious and moral; he compli- 
 ments them on the fact that the City is alike the centre 
 of wealth and charity, where the interests of the 
 great producers of wealth the industrial classes are 
 treated with the justice due to them, and their wel- 
 fare, both temporal and spiritual, watched over in a 
 righteous and paternal manner. So far from this 
 being true, the industrial classes and in that term 
 we comprise all those whose earnings do not exceed 
 200 a year have, on the contrary, been treated with 
 the foulest injustice. Their dwellings, bad enough, it 
 is true, have been demolished, and the tenants have
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 been driven away without one question being asked 
 whither they were going or where they expected to 
 find the shelter of a roof, their oppressors compli- 
 menting themselves that the well-to-do portion of the 
 population would no longer be shocked by the un- 
 sightly scenes which had frequently met their eyes in 
 the particular locality being operated on at the time. 
 
 A certain City magnate, when questioned as to the 
 present abodes of some hundreds of poor creatures who 
 had lately been ejected from their homes in the vicinity 
 of Bishopsgate Street, replied, " I know nothing at all 
 about them. All I know is, we have got rid of them 
 out of the City ; let those that they are now among 
 make the best of them they can ; we have had enough 
 of them." l^or was there anything extraordinary in 
 this gentleman's remarks ; expressions of the kind are 
 very common in the mouths of your* civic authorities. 
 Yet, after all, bad as the houses were from which these 
 tenants were ejected, they had still, in common with 
 others of the same description, roofs of some sort over 
 them ; and if every room sheltered too many, still it 
 did cover them ; and, in common humanity, some 
 other shelter ought to have been provided for them 
 before they were driven awaj'. Provision of the kind 
 would have been made for them in Paris ; but, perhaps, 
 we may be told, as is frequent in the case of City 
 dinners, that all foreign municipal administration is 
 decidedly inferior to our own, and also utterly corrupt, 
 so we had better leave that part of the subject un- 
 touched. All we maintain is, that before these improve-
 
 10 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 ments in the City proper or elsewhere were commenced, 
 some shelter ought to have been provided for those 
 about to be ejected ; but such an idea seems never to 
 have entered the heads of the Corporation or livery 
 companies of the City of London. 
 
 Before we touch on the manifold abuses and iniqui- 
 ties which abound in the City of London, and which, 
 the reader should understand, is the whole space within 
 the City boundaries or walls, it would, perhaps, assist 
 him in forming a better conception of the facts 'about 
 to be placed before him if the author dedicated a few 
 pages to a description of some of the alterations which 
 have of late years taken place, not only in its streets 
 and buildings, but also in its municipal administration, 
 as he will thereby be better able to appreciate the 
 gross acts of injustice which have lately been perpe- 
 trated on the poorer and working classes. It will 
 also assist him in better understanding the gross mass 
 of corruption and dishonesty which, in spite of plau- 
 sible excuses and specious sophisms, is still abundant 
 in it, especially in those departments under the autho- 
 rity of the municipal officials and livery companies. 
 
 During the first thirty years of the present century, 
 the City, by the great extension of its commercial 
 enterprise and the increase of its wealth, tempted a 
 vast number of strangers, principally of the working 
 classes, to reside in it, till it became in many parts 
 exceedingly overcrowded. At that time the City 
 proper was divided into no fewer than ninety-eight 
 parishes, each maintaining its own poor. Commerce
 
 INTRODUCTION. 1 1 
 
 and wealth continuing to increase, greater space was 
 of course required for the offices of our City merchants 
 and bankers, and new buildings were erected in a far 
 more magnificent style, as well as of greater dimensions, 
 than those they replaced. One natural result which 
 followed was an enormous increase of the value of 
 land in the City, especially in the neighbourhood of 
 the Bank and the Royal Exchange. It may be easily 
 imagined that the poorer inhabitants residing in the 
 vicinity, who had been ejected from their homes by 
 these alterations, attempted to settle as closely as pos- 
 sible to the spot from which they had been driven, so 
 as to be near to the scene of their daily occupation. 
 Those among them who were the better remunerated 
 for their work generally settled in the streets eastward 
 of the present Post Office and St. Martin's-le-Grrand, 
 or in the neighbourhood near, but principally north 
 of, the City Road. But perhaps the greater number 
 sought for shelter in the neighbourhood of the present 
 Farringdon Street and Road, extending from nearly 
 the City side of the Thames near Blackfriars Bridge 
 to Clerkenwell. The demolition of buildings to erect 
 larger in the City near the Bank produced the most 
 distressing effects in the locality of Farringdon Road. 
 Not only had the population for some years previous 
 increased so rapidly that there was hardly shelter to 
 be found for those it contained ; but when the numbers 
 ejected from the central districts were added, the whole 
 became so crowded together that at length the atten- 
 tion of the public was attracted to it, without, however,.
 
 iz THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 for many years making any impression on the civic 
 authorities. Nay, more, it almost seemed that their 
 contempt and indifference to the subject increased in 
 proportion as the misery and degradation of the poor 
 creatures ejected were the greater. 
 
 But another element entered into the misery and 
 suffering of the overcrowded inhabitants of the Far- 
 ringdon Street district which deserves a special notice. 
 In London, as in all other cities of Europe, apart from 
 private acts of benevolence, are different institutions 
 made for the relief of the poor in times of distress, 
 and no capital in the world possesses richer charitable 
 endowments for the purpose than the City of London. 
 But apart from the City guilds, charitable trusts, and 
 parochial charities, there was also the poor law, and, 
 after all, this was considered the natural means of 
 relief for all those in a state of destitution. In fact, 
 according to its original conception, the poor law 
 might properly be regarded as a regulated almsgiving 
 of the community, at the same time armed with the 
 power of compelling those to give who would other- 
 wise evade their responsibilities to their poorer fellow- 
 citizens. Now London, as before stated, was divided, 
 some forty years ago, into ninety-eight parishes, each 
 parish, beyond its particular charitable endowments 
 and institutions, maintaining its own poor under the 
 action of the poor law. It would therefore, at first 
 sight, appear that the whole of the City poor, although 
 they might be greatly overcrowded, and thereby 
 obliged to live in a dirty and degraded manner, had
 
 INTROD UCTION. 1 3 
 
 nothing to complain of on the score of want of liber- 
 ality among the rich, Never was there a greater 
 fallacy. More sordid avarice, more cold-blooded cruelty 
 and injustice, than the poor of the overcrowded 
 parishes received from the richer in the distribution 
 of the civic charitable endowments, as well as the 
 poor law as it stood in 1850, could not be found in the 
 municipal history of Europe. More than that, when- 
 ever a poor parish was smarting under some gross act 
 of injustice which had been inflicted on it by a richer, 
 an application was made to the law for redress, and, 
 in nine cases out of ten, judgment was given against 
 the weaker and the poorer. 
 
 To describe the different acts of injustice practised 
 by the richer parishes upon the poorer would occupy 
 too much space to narrate at any length. A few 
 instances must suffice. For example, the method the 
 rich parish employed, if not habitually, at any rate 
 very frequently, to relieve themselves of their liabili- 
 ties is really worthy of remark, as tending to prove 
 how a humanely-intentioned law could be perverted 
 from its original purposes ; and yet, under the opinion 
 of our law authorities, the injustice perpetrated would 
 be found perfectly legal. Take, for example, any 
 wealthy parish in the centre of the City, in which a poor, 
 broken-down, poverty-stricken creature might, under 
 the then poor law, have applied for a night's lodging ; 
 as a rule, the official Would endeavour to find some 
 excuse for evading the responsibility ; but if the man 
 persisted, he would receive, perhaps, a shilling, with
 
 1 4 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 the understanding that he should go on to Farringdon 
 Street or any other poor locality, and there demand his 
 night's lodging. It might seem to the reader that the 
 shilling so given would easily have procured the 
 applicant a bed even in the parish he was then in ; but 
 there was another and far stronger reason for sending 
 him farther afield. As the law then stood, in what- 
 ever parish a pauper had last slept, and before he 
 became an incubus on the rates, with a right to perma- 
 nent relief, the parochial authorities were obliged to 
 assist him for the moment, and then, at the cost of 
 the parishioners, to send him to his legal settlement, 
 which occasionally was both difficult and expensive to 
 find, frequently costing from fifty to a hundred 
 pounds, and from this sum the richer parish from 
 which the pauper had received the shilling was 
 exempt, the poorer having to pay the whole. 
 
 In order to mitigate this cruelty, a law was then 
 passed which formed the City into three unions, each 
 union to maintain its own poor from a common rate. 
 But civic ingenuity was quite equal to the occasion. 
 The guardians of the City unions agreed together to 
 build their wards for the reception of casual paupers at 
 Bow, some five miles distant, and the result was, that 
 when a broken-down tramp received an order for a 
 night's lodging, he rarely reached Bow, but stopped at 
 Whitechapel or some other poor parish on the road, 
 and thus the City was quit of him. 
 
 Respecting the condition of the City parishes prior to 
 their formation into three unions, the contrasts which
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 might be drawn between the amounts levied for the relief 
 of the poor would occasionally verge closely on the ridi- 
 culous. For example, the parish of St. Michael's, Corn- 
 hill, paid a rate of only one penny in the pound, while 
 another in Farringdon Street paid five shillings. The 
 parish of St. Christopher-le-Stock, containing the Bank 
 of England, paid one-tenth part of a farthing in the 
 pound on an assessment of one half its value, while the 
 parish of St. Ann's, Blackfriars, containing the space 
 between Ludgate Hill and the river- side, paid eight 
 shillings, and the greater part of this amount was 
 levied on persons scarcely above poverty themselves. 
 Nothing was more frequent than for a number of the 
 poorer ratepayers to have lodgers in their rooms who 
 at the moment were in receipt of parochial relief. The 
 amount paid by this unfortunate parish would have 
 reduced it to a state of bankruptcy had it not been for 
 a few large establishments in it, and these, by the way, 
 employed but little labour, and that, as a rule, so well 
 paid as to place them far above the necessity of paro- 
 chial relief. Of these, the Apothecaries' Hall paid 124 
 per annum direct to the relief of the poor, and the 
 Times newspaper office 240. 
 
 That our statement that these contrasts sometimes 
 verged on the ridiculous is true, may be shown by the 
 following facts out of many which might be quoted. 
 The parish of St. Bartholomew the Great, containing 
 the Royal Exchange, as well as the Stock Exchange, 
 had, some forty years since, but one pauper, an old 
 man, who was comfortably boarded and lodged some
 
 1 6 THE CITFAS IT IS. 
 
 twenty miles from town. Of course the parish pos- 
 sessed its board of guardians as well as other parochial 
 officials to look after his welfare, and one of the plea- 
 sant events of each year was to make, formally, an ex- 
 cursion into the country to visit this fortunate pauper, 
 and see that he was cared for in a proper manner. For 
 some years he continued in remarkably robust health, 
 and the board of guardians continued, as in duty bound, 
 their annual visits of inspection, when one day they 
 received the intelligence that their old friend had died 
 suddenly. They most conscientiously lamented the 
 event, though their sorrow was not altogether aroused 
 by the pauper's death nor by the loss of their annual 
 trip. Another element was mixed with it ; for by the 
 law as it then stood, whenever it came to pass that a 
 parish had no poor of its own, it was liable to be joined 
 to some more heavily burdened parish in the same neigh- 
 bourhood. The guardians of the poor of the parish of 
 St. Bartholomew the Great, whose rate did not exceed 
 one penny in the pound, now looked anxiously around 
 them to discover a parishioner poor enough for paro- 
 chial relief. None, however, was to be found, and as a 
 last resource the guardians of St. Bartholomew the 
 Great were driven to the painful necessity of adver- 
 tising for a pauper, though for some time without 
 success. 
 
 Hundreds of other cruelties and absurdities existed 
 in the administration of the poor law in the City of 
 London prior to the formation of the three City unions. 
 But to narrate them, even shortly, would occupy too
 
 INTRODUCTION. ij 
 
 much space, and we will now instead bring under the 
 notice of the reader some of the effects resulting from 
 them, first, by the cruel overcrowding of the poor, and 
 then obliging them even in the time of their distress 
 to relieve each other, notwithstanding the excessive 
 poverty of the poorer parishes a fact perfectly well 
 known to the civic authorities, both through the voice 
 of public opinion and the newspaper press. The demo- 
 lition, however, of second and third class houses in the 
 richer parishes continued without abatement, and in 
 consequence the overcrowding of the poorer districts 
 became even denser than before. The complaints of 
 the parish officials, especially the medical officers, were 
 so loud, that none but the Corporation of the City of 
 London, including its principal officials, could have 
 remained callous or deaf to the existing state of things. 
 At length a circumstance occurred which fully proved 
 to the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and others, the necessity 
 of immediate and energetic action, and this motive 
 power was no other than the visitation of the cholera. 
 The attack over, they immediately commenced opera- 
 tions. After having deliberated for a short time, they 
 resolutely determined to destroy all the houses in the 
 present Farringdon Road line, as that district was more 
 overcrowded than any other in the City. And their 
 resolution was not only carried out to the letter, but 
 before they had finished their labours they had far 
 exceeded their original determination. Every house in 
 the line was demolished, and more than forty thousand 
 of the working classes were driven from the locality, not 
 
 c
 
 1 8 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 a thought having been given by the destroyers as 
 to where those ejected were to find shelter. Of those 
 driven away a vast number settled in Clerkenwell, 
 beyond the City boundaries ; others went over to the 
 Surrey side into Lambeth and Southwark ; others of 
 the more intelligent among them endeavoured to find 
 lodgings in Holborn, St. Ann's, Blackfriars, and other 
 localities where house-rent was likely to be within 
 their means, even though the accommodation afforded 
 might be small. 
 
 The reader might imagine, from a vast number of the 
 working classes still anxious to obtain dwellings in the 
 City, as well as the shopkeepers dependent on them for 
 their custom, and the immense space of ground laid bare 
 by the demolitions a space, in fact, larger than would 
 have held many second-class cities in England that 
 building operations would soon commence. Those 
 who imagined anything of the kind evidently knew 
 very little of the Corporation of the City of London. 
 Every man among them, aldermen, common council- 
 men, and every other official, set his face against any 
 proceedings of the kind, and the whole space of ground 
 at last acquired the name of the Farringdon Street 
 wastes. For some time the whole line of road re- 
 mained barren and profitless, notwithstanding the fact 
 that many builders from time to time made offers for it. 
 Each in his turn had, however, his offer rejected, till 
 at length the patience of the speculators became ex- 
 hausted, and the Corporation was no longer troubled 
 in the matter. Their poorer fellow-citizens who had
 
 INTRO D UCTION. i g 
 
 dwelt in the houses had been driven away, and what 
 more could be wanted ? 
 
 But after a rest of some years the slumber of the 
 metropolitan authorities was again broken, and their 
 energies called once more into action, not in any man- 
 ner to improve the condition of the many poor who 
 still remained on the skirts of the line of projected 
 road, but to adopt measures similar to those which had 
 been so effectual on former occasions in other words, 
 to drive them away altogether. But an excuse had to 
 be found which might offer some justification for such 
 a proceeding. To project a new line of road (the prin- 
 cipal reason brought forward for the Farringdon Road 
 demolition) would hardly do in the present instance, 
 as no improvement was at the time required. Another 
 reason was now given, and one which certainly carried 
 with it a good excuse the degraded manner in which 
 the inhabitants were crowded together, and the sanitary 
 improvements absolutely required to guarantee the me- 
 tropolis against an outbreak of fever or pestilence. JSTor, 
 it must be admitted, were some stringent and strong 
 reformations unnecessary. Bad as Farringdon Road 
 had formerly been, it was far superior to what was to be 
 found in the localities now proposed to be destroyed. 
 It would be a difficult matter to give the reader any 
 adequate description of the different courts and alleys 
 marked out for demolition. The best notion which 
 may be formed of them may be found in the reports of 
 the City sanitary inspectors and parochial and medical 
 officers. From the many quotations which might be
 
 20 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 given, we will adduce one or two, commencing with an 
 extract from one of Dr. Letheby's reports on the 
 subject. 
 
 " To say nothing of the too frequent occurrence of 
 what may be considered necessitous overcrowding, 
 where the husband and wife and young family of four 
 or five children are crammed into one miserably small 
 ill-conditioned room, there are numerous instances 
 where adults of both sexes belonging to different 
 families are lodging in the same room, regardless of all 
 the common decencies of life, and where from three to 
 five grown up men and women, with a train or two of 
 three children, are accustomed to herd together like 
 brute beasts or savages, where all the offices of nature 
 are performed in the most public and offensive manner, 
 and where every human instinct of propriety or 
 decency is smothered. Like my predecessor, I have 
 seen grown-up persons of both sexes sleeping in com- 
 mon with their parents, brothers and sisters, cousins, 
 and even the casual acquaintance of a day's tramp, 
 occupying the same filthy bed of rags ; a woman suffer- 
 ing from travail in the midst of males and females of 
 different families that tenant the same room, where 
 birth and death go hand in hand where the child 
 newly born, the patient cut down from fever, and the 
 corpse waiting for interment have no separation from 
 each other or the rest of the inmates. Among many 
 of the cases I have alluded to, there are some which 
 have impressed themselves on my attention by their 
 utter depravity cases where from three to four
 
 INTROD UCTION. 2 r 
 
 adults of both sexes were found sleeping in the same 
 bed." 
 
 "We are not squeamish, but with a most sincere 
 admiration for the learned doctor, we must, out of 
 respect for our readers, decline going into further 
 details of his report. 
 
 Respecting the mortality among the infant popula- 
 tion of the City (and in fact many of the poorer dis- 
 tricts of the metropolis) twenty years since, let us 
 quote as an authority Dr. Ross of Farringdon Street 
 a gentleman who, in ability, integrity, and knowledge 
 of the subject, was not to be surpassed by Dr. Letheby 
 himself : 
 
 " The numerous courts and alleys in this neighbour- 
 hood perfectly swarm with children ; but so fearful is 
 the mortality, from want of proper food and attention, 
 that not more than one in five of those born ever 
 reach five years of age. Their state is truly pitiable ; 
 it is a shame and disgrace to a Christian country." 
 
 Dr. Ross further stated that among the enormous 
 number of the inhabitants of the City who had come 
 under his notice, including the forty thousand already 
 ejected from Farringdon Road, he had never found a 
 third generation; or, in other words, an individual 
 who had reached twenty years of age whose father 
 and grandfather had been born in the locality. 
 
 The ejections and demolitions decided on at last 
 commenced, but the Corporation said not a word about 
 replacing the houses destroyed with better-class dwell- 
 ings. At length public indignation was aroused
 
 22 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 through the medium of the press, and expressed itself 
 so loudly and emphatically, that even the civic autho- 
 rities could no longer be indifferent to it, and they 
 promised to take the subject of erecting fresh dwell- 
 ings for those ejected into their" serious consideration. 
 Still nothing was done till the year 1861, when, on 
 the 7th of March, Mr. Charles Pearson so forcibly 
 brought the subject under the notice of the Common 
 Council, that, after some time debating, tho following 
 resolution was arrived at : 
 
 " The noble street improvements undertaken by the 
 Corporation having swept, and are about to sweep, 
 away thousands of artizans and mechanics from their 
 humble dwellings, to make way for the spacious streets 
 and splendid warehouses to take their place ; to supply 
 the lack of dwellings these wholesale clearances create, 
 the Corporation have determined to vote a sufficient 
 sum of money to purchase land and erect lodging- 
 houses in the neighbourhood." 
 
 Here certainly appeared, OD the part of the Corpo- 
 ration, a step in the right direction. The City had 
 promised, nay, voted, the money, and had even gone so 
 far as to purchase the site, at a cost of some twenty- 
 five thousand pounds. They then waited nine years ; 
 public indignation in the meantime died gradually 
 away, and the philanthropists were soothed; nay, 
 more, the members of the Corporation were much 
 complimented for their liberality. But having waited 
 until it might be hoped the pledge would be forgotten, 
 in place of building the lodging-houses promised, the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 City sold the land at a very enhanced price to the 
 Metropolitan Railway Company for warehouses and 
 works. It was estimated up to the year 1861, when 
 the last demolitions were completed, that the number 
 of artizans and their families who had been ejected 
 from the Farringdon E,oad districts alone could not 
 have been less than fifty thousand, and the only retri- 
 bution or compensation the Corporation offered was 
 the above-named promise, which was dishonourably 
 broken. There is, however, one transaction of very 
 late date, which ought in common justice to be 
 placed to the credit of the Corporation. Some three 
 years since, when public indignation had been again 
 aroused at the ruthless manner the industrial classes. 
 were year after year driven out of the City, while so 
 much land lay waste and unproductive, the Corpora- 
 tion, as an act of merciful consideration for their 
 poorer fellow-citizens, graciously allotted on the 
 extreme borders of the City, near Clerkenwell, a block 
 of ground to a highly respectable working men's 
 building society which had applied to them on the 
 subject, on the condition, however, that they should 
 pay for it a ground rent of 700 per annum ! For 
 some time the building society endeavoured to prove 
 that so high a ground rent would necessarily greatly 
 increase the amount of rent the tenants would have to 
 pay. The Corporation was, however, impracticable; 
 and, as no better bargain could be made, the terms 
 were accepted.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DEMOLITION OF THE DWELLINGS OF THE WORKING 
 
 CLASSES. 
 
 A FTER the somewhat lengthened description we 
 have given of the ejectments in Farringdon Road, 
 and the manner in which the ground which had 
 formerly been so densely covered with the dwellings 
 of the working classes was allowed for the greater 
 part of a quarter of a century to remain idle and 
 unproductive, it might be thought that the cruelty 
 and injustice of the Corporation on its poorer fellow- 
 citizens could not have been carried further. This, 
 however, was very far from being the case, for many 
 other districts in the City of London, if not of 
 equal magnitude, were scarcely less overcrowded, 
 although the inhabitants were, as a rule, of a more 
 respectable class. As before stated, the poor, when the 
 demolitions of their dwellings were being carried on in 
 Farringdon Road, in great numbers still continued to 
 seek for shelter on the Surrey side of the water or in 
 Clerkenwell, while others attempted to find homes in 
 the already crowded districts of St. Ann's, Blackfriars,
 
 DEMOLITION OF DWELLINGS. 25 
 
 and the congeries of streets which lie between Watling 
 Street and the Thames, so as to keep as close as pos- 
 sible to the City firms by whom they were employed. 
 The results were not only that the whole districts 
 became fearfully overcrowded, but the poor-rates in 
 the different little parishes (it being before the City 
 parishes were formed into unions) became still higher. 
 Appeals were now frequently made to the Corporation 
 for some relief from this excessive taxation, and the 
 Corporation at length listened to their complaints. 
 Having deliberated for some time over the matter, they 
 at length decided on applying to Parliament for a bill 
 for the formation of New Cannon Street, ostensibly 
 that it would be a grand civic improvement, but in 
 reality that it would also have the effect of driving 
 away all persons living in the line of road who would 
 be likely to come upon the poor-rates. The plan suc- 
 ceeded to admiration, the bill was obtained, and opera- 
 tions were forthwith commenced. The houses in the 
 line were demolished even with far greater rapidity 
 than those in Farringdon Road, and the industrious 
 classes who inhabited them were driven away; and, 
 as usual, no one took the trouble to ask where they 
 expected to find shelter, or, with one solitary excep- 
 tion, interesting himself in the matter. The exception 
 alluded to was the incumbent of one of the small over- 
 crowded parishes on the line, all of whose congregation 
 had been driven away. Feeling great commiseration 
 for their lot, he made application on the subject to the 
 civic authorities. He asked for permission to be allowed
 
 26 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 to build a good model lodging-house on some of the 
 vacant land in his parish, volunteering to find among 
 his personal friends the money for the purpose, and 
 further promising to superintend it himself, so that 
 no disreputable persons might be mixed up with the 
 tenants. His offer was courteously but peremptorily 
 refused. "No," they said, "we have, at much trouble 
 and expense, got rid of all that sort of gentry, and it 
 would be bad policy to do anything to tempt them 
 back again." It would be unjust to the authorities in 
 power at the time to have imagined that they were 
 actuated by any feeling akin to a personal dislike to 
 the working classes ; it was a selfish pecuniary feeling 
 which actuated them, nothing more. At present the 
 same feeling of objection to the presence of the indus- 
 trial classes in the City still exists, but it springs from 
 a different sentiment. The motive is now comprised, 
 as we intend hereafter to show, of a compound of pride 
 and dishonesty ; the latter appearing in the desire to 
 appropriate to the comfort, indulgence, and interests of 
 the rich, endowments and institutions intended solely 
 for the benefit of the poor, and their raising such 
 barriers in defence of their ill-gotten powers as shall 
 prevent, unless by a miracle or strongly developed 
 angry public feeling terms in municipal reforms 
 sometimes almost synonymous any reformation from 
 being effected which may have the effect of turning 
 some of the charitable funds and endowments to those 
 for whose use they were intended. 
 
 Before speaking further of the demolitions in the
 
 DEMOLITION OF DWELLINGS. 27 
 
 City, let us cast an eye on the condition of those 
 ejected into the districts north and south of Farringdon 
 Street Clerkenwell, Southwark, and Blackfriars 
 into which a greater portion of the poor were driven. 
 In Clerkenwell they were most fearfully overcrowded 
 before those from Farringdon Road joined them. 
 When the new-comers arrived none would build 
 houses to receive them, the rates being already too 
 heavy. Some idea may be given of the condition of 
 the neighbourhood by quoting the Building News, 
 July 12th, 1860. After mentioning several horrible 
 examples of overcrowding, that journal says : 
 
 " Within a limited area of courts and alleys of not 
 more than half an acre, will be found fifty or sixty 
 small houses let out in tenements. Without making^ 
 any allowance for casual inhabitants for the night or 
 otherwise, we shall here find congregated together, 
 upon a fair average, a thousand men, women, and 
 children." 
 
 Dr. Griffiths, a medical officer of health, in a letter 
 to the author, says, " The fact of a large family living 
 in a small room with a decomposing corpse is a very 
 common occurrence in my district." 
 
 Let us now cross Blackfriars Bridge, and cast a 
 glance at the condition of the working classes ejected 
 from the City who settled in the Southwark district, 
 in order to be as near the scene of their labours in 
 the City as possible, whether at what is termed river 
 work, as porters on wharves, loading and unloading 
 barges, and similar occupations, all, in fact, directly or
 
 28 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 indirectly employed by City houses. Time being a 
 great portion of a working man's capital, he naturally, 
 when expelled from the City, keeps as close to his 
 work as possible, to lose as little of his energies in 
 walking to and fro as is absolutel}' necessarj'. As the 
 City demolitions progressed, the whole district gradu- 
 ally became exceedingly overcrowded almost as much 
 BO as Farringdon Road itself before the ejectment 
 commenced. A short extract from a report at the 
 time of Mr. Bianchi, medical officer of health for 
 Blackfriars, and another from Mr. Rendell, medical 
 officer of health for Southwark, will give an unvar- 
 nished matter-of-fact idea of the poor in that locality 
 about the year '61. 
 
 Mr. Bianchi writes : " Again I inspected a house in 
 Ewer Street in a fearful state of dilapidation, in which 
 twenty-seven persons were living in seven small rooms. 
 In many instances, many adult men and women were 
 sleeping in the same room, without its being possible, 
 even if there was any inclination, to make any provi- 
 sion for decency or morality. I may also mention that 
 in the lying-in ward of the workhouse four-fifths of 
 those confined within this last twelve years have been 
 young unmarried women, who have been obliged to 
 live in the manner described." 
 
 With regard to the state of the Southwark district, 
 Mr. Rendell, the medical officer of health, wrote in the 
 same year: "The kind of cases mentioned by Dr. 
 Letheby in his report are very common in my parish. 
 I have many in my mind such as the dead remaining,
 
 DEMOLITION OF DWELLINGS. 29 
 
 after death from infectious diseases, in rooms with 
 the living. Overcrowding is just now the rule in our 
 poorer habitations. I have constantly to get rid of 
 men out of rooms where women are confined. One in 
 search of abuses has only to choose the class of case he 
 requires, and he can he supplied, usque ad nauseam et 
 longius,'" 1 Other evidence might also be brought forward 
 to show the degraded state of the whole district, which 
 in the end had become a scandal to the metropolis. 
 Nor did there appear to be much chance for any im- 
 provement by the authorities in the district itself, as a 
 very large proportion of the property belonged to the 
 Church, and was known as the Winchester Park Estates. 
 Of course, assistance from that quarter was not likely 
 to be obtained, and things might have become, if pos- 
 sible, worse, had not the Metropolitan Board of Works 
 determined to take the matter in hand. After a little 
 consideration, they resolved to make a road from Stam- 
 ford Street, Blackfriars, to the Borough. They might 
 easily have made it shorter and less expensive, but the 
 line they at length determined on would be carried 
 through the overcrowded districts, and the inhabitants 
 would thereby be driven away. 
 
 The houses in the line of the present Southwark 
 Street having been destroyed, the ground, as in the 
 case of Cannon Street and Farringdon Road, remained 
 for many years utterly waste and useless, with the 
 exception of a few patches on which some magnificent 
 warehouses were built. How close was the affinity 
 existing in the feeling of the Metropolitan Board of
 
 jo THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 Works and the Corporation of the City of London, in 
 their indifference to the welfare and comfort of the 
 working classes those who had heen first, without 
 pity, driven from the City, and then from Southwark 
 may be seen by the following anecdote, which is a 
 fact. 
 
 A gentleman possessed of great experience in the 
 habits and manners of the working classes, noticing 
 the fearful overcrowding which had taken place in 
 Newington and Lambeth after the demolition of the 
 houses in the formation of Southwark Street, suggested 
 to one of the leading members of the Metropolitan 
 Board of Works whether it might not be practicable 
 to build a number of first-class model lodging-houses in 
 Southwark Street, so* that, perhaps, a thousand skilled 
 artizans and their families, and other respectable em- 
 ployes, might be able to live nearer to their work in 
 the City. 
 
 "Why do you not form a company and build 
 them ? " was the reply ; " the Board are always willing 
 to listen to an offer. But if your time is of any value, 
 let me give you a hint. The Board will demand from 
 you, in all probability, a far higher ground-rent than 
 from any one else." 
 
 " Why so ? I should have thought it ought to 
 have been cheaper, considering the uses to which the 
 ground would be applied." 
 
 " Certainly not," answered the member of the Metro- 
 politan Board of Works. " The close vicinity of houses 
 for the working classes would deteriorate the value of
 
 DEMOLITION OF DWELLINGS. 31 
 
 the adjoining land for other purposes, so your idea is 
 very unlikely to come to anything after all."* 
 
 But other circumstances occurred which tended to drive 
 the operatives who tenaciously clung to the neighbour- 
 hood of Southwark Street to a still farther distance from 
 the City but for which neither the Corporation nor the 
 Metropolitan Board of Works were to blame such as 
 the extension of the London, Chatham, and Dover 
 Railway across the river to Ludgate Hill, which passed 
 through almost the whole of the dwellings of the 
 working classes then resident in the vicinity, while the 
 extension of the Charing Cross Railway to the Borough 
 completed the work ; and now the whole of the South- 
 wark Street district near the Thames is as completely 
 cleared of the dwellings of the working classes as 
 Earringdon Road itself. 
 
 But the demolition of the houses of the small shop- 
 keepers, poorly paid clerks, warehousemen, shop as- 
 sistants, operatives, and others resident in Farringdon 
 Road and its numerous courts and alleys, by no 
 means comprised all those who had been ejected from 
 the centre of the City Union. Another enormous 
 work of destruction was projected and carried out the 
 long and magnificent line of road known as Queen 
 Yictoria Street, extending from Blackfriars Bridge to 
 
 * Here, however, it ought to be stated, to the honour of the Metro- 
 politan Board of Works, that after allowing an obscure portion of the 
 ground to remain profitless and waste for some twenty years, stimu- 
 lated at last by public opinion, they allowed the Peabody dwellings 
 trustees to erect on it a block of their admirable model lodging- 
 houses, but requiring a heavy ground-rent in return.
 
 3 z THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 the Mansion House. Other grand improvements were 
 also effected in the neighbourhood of the Bank and the 
 Royal Exchange down to the river-side, nor did they 
 stop till every dwelling-house of the value of from 150 
 to 200 a year was completely destroyed. "What, 
 then, must have been the injustice practised on the 
 industrial classes prior to the latter demolitions being 
 effected, and how completely they must have been 
 swept out of the centre of the City, when even houses 
 of that rent were condemned to be destroyed, while 
 those erected on the spot were either warehouses, 
 offices, or the terminus of the Cannon Street Railway, 
 which in itself ejected more than twelve hundred 
 persons. 
 
 It should not be imagined, however, that the central 
 City parishes alone were guilty of these unmerciful 
 works of destruction. Many extensive alterations took 
 place in the eastern, north-eastern, and south-western 
 districts of the City, most of them being the work, 
 directly or indirectly, of the Corporation or public 
 companies under their patronage, all, however, tend- 
 ing, either to a greater or less degree, to drive the 
 working classes, small tradesmen, and skilled crafts- 
 men outside the City boundaries, and all in this respect 
 succeeding, whatever might be the ostensible object of 
 the undertaking. Let us first glance at the parishes 
 known as the East London Union, reaching from Corn- 
 hill to Aldgate. In this district formerly lived a very 
 large working population, employed in the different 
 warehouses of the East India Company and private mer-
 
 DEMOLITION OF DWELLINGS. 33 
 
 chants, as well as several manufactories and large 
 mercantile establishments. The part of this union 
 the most densely crowded with the working classes 
 was, perhaps, that stretching from the parish of St. 
 Olave's, Hart Street, inclusive, to Whitechapel. The 
 first movement for dislodging the poor from the 
 locality was the formation of the Blackwall terminus. 
 This drove several thousands from the union, who 
 sought a refuge in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel 
 and Shoreditch, already overburdened with their own 
 poor. Afterwards other improvements took place, 
 each in its turn carried out in those parts where 
 the working classes were the more thickly congregated 
 together, and this system was continued till it was 
 difficult, if not impossible, to find the dwelling of a 
 man whose income was less than 150 a year resident 
 in the union. 
 
 But while these City unions were thus employed in 
 getting rid of the whole of their working classes out 
 of their district, what was the condition of White- 
 chapel ? Not simply that they were overcrowded with 
 their own poor, but they were thus obliged to receive 
 the whole of the poor from the East London Union. 
 Perhaps a better example could not be given of the 
 extreme selfishness exhibited by the City and their 
 heartless treatment of the poor, than by contrasting 
 the condition of the workhouses of St. Olave's, Hart 
 Street, district, comprising Fenchurch Street and the 
 different localities adjoining it that is to say, the 
 districts from which the poor were ejected with the 
 
 D
 
 34 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 "Whitechapel workhouse. Our description of the work- 
 house of the latter parish, somewhat condensed, was 
 written by the pen of Mr. Charles Dickens, in Household 
 Words, February, 1856, and, it may be added, not in 
 the slightest degree exaggerated. 
 
 " Crouched under the" wall of the workhouse, in the 
 dark street, on the muddy pavement stones, with the 
 rain raining on them, were five bundles of rags ; they 
 were motionless, and had no appearance of human 
 form. ' What is this ? ' said my companion ; ' what is 
 this ? ' ' Some miserable people shut out of the 
 casual ward.' As we were looking at them, a decent 
 working man, having the appearance of a stonemason, 
 touched me on the shoulder. ' This is an awful sight, 
 sir/ said he, 'for a Christian country.' 'It is, indeed, 
 my friend,' sa} r s I ; ' it is, God knows.' ' I have seen 
 much worse than this,' said the stonemason ; ' I have 
 counted fifteen, twenty, and five-and-twenty at a 
 time. . . .' " Mr. Dickens, then addressing the master 
 of the workhouse, said, " ' Do you know that there 
 are five wretched creatures outside ? ' 'I have not 
 seen them, but I dare say there are.' ' Do you doubt 
 they are there ? ; ' No, not at all ; there may be 
 many more.' ' Are they men or women ? ' * Women, 
 I suppose. Very likely one or two of them may 
 have been there last night, and the night before that.' 
 ' There all night, do you mean ? ' ' Very likely.' 
 My friend and I looked at each other, and the master 
 of the workhouse added quickly, 'Why, Lord bless 
 me ! what am I to do ? what can I do ? The place is
 
 DEMOLITION OF DWELLINGS. 35 
 
 full the place is full every night. I suppose I must 
 give the preference to women with children, mustn't 
 I ? You would not have me not do that.' ' Surely 
 not/ says I ; ( it is a humane principle, and I am glad 
 to hear of it. Do not forget I do not blame you. 
 What I want to ask/ I went on, ' is whether you know 
 anything against these five beings outside,' 'I don't 
 know anything about them,' says he emphatically ; 
 ' that is to say, they are there solely because the 
 place is full solely because the place is full.' 
 
 " We went to the ragged bundle nearest the door, 
 and I touched it. No movement replying, I gently 
 shook it. The rags began to be slowly stirred within, 
 and little by little the head of a young woman of three 
 or four and twenty, as I should judge, gaunt with want 
 of food and dirt, but not naturally ugly, appeared. 
 * Tell us/ I said, 'why are you lying there?' * Because 
 I can't get into the workhouse.' * Were you here last 
 night ? ' ( Yes, and the night before that too.' " * 
 
 Let our readers ponder well over this terrible recital 
 of Mr. Dickens, and then learn that a few hundred 
 paces off, in the neighbouring City parish of St. Olave's, 
 Hart Street, stood the workhouse not only for its own 
 poor, but for those of the parishes about Fenchurch 
 Street, which was no longer used, and the poor 
 had been sent away. At the time, and for fifteen 
 
 * The publication of the above article in Household Words had the 
 <jffect of drawing public attention to the Whitechapel workhouse. 
 The result was that a new and a far more commodious building 
 was erected. The old workhouse was closed, and the shocking scenes 
 so graphically told by Mr. Dickens no longer occurred.
 
 36 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 years prior to the above narrative, the doors of that 
 workhouse had been closed, and had never been opened 
 to relieve the distresses of the wandering poor even 
 by giving them a night's lodging, although the neigh- 
 bouring parish to which their poor had been ejected 
 (Whitechapel) exhibited night after night such dis- 
 tressing scenes. The author visited the Hart Street 
 workhouse in October, 1861. He had considerable 
 difficulty in finding the building, from the secluded 
 position it was in, although close to Aldgate. The 
 entrance in St. John Street had been bricked up some 
 twenty years before, and presented merely the appear- 
 ance of a dead wall. It was so difficult to find, that 
 even the policeman on duty did not know it. At length, 
 with considerable trouble, he found there was a back 
 entrance in a miserable alley in Crutched Friars. 
 Having been furnished with a key by a citizen resident 
 in the district, who did not wish his name to be known, 
 lest he might excite the ill feeling of his brother parish- 
 ioners, he opened the door. On entering the court- 
 yard the gas lamp in the centre was still erect. He 
 then visited the matron's room, the children's room, 
 the board room, kitchen, and wards, all of which re- 
 mained, but in a wretched state of dilapidation. All 
 the windows were broken, and the rain had poured in 
 through them and the roof without impediment for 
 many winters. Most of the fixtures were still there, 
 and the wrecks of some poor children's toys, some 
 memorandum books, and a portion of the flock bedding 
 on which the paupers had been at work some twenty
 
 DEMOLITION OF DWELLINGS. 37 
 
 years before, were lying mildewed and rotten on the 
 floor. Apparently no one had entered the building 
 for many years. At the commencement it might have 
 been easily made useful, and even at that time a few 
 hundred pounds might have converted it into an ex- 
 cellent refuge for many hundred poor. Nor could this 
 parish, which allowed such scenes to pass night after 
 night at the neighbouring workhouse of Whitechapel, 
 plead poverty in excuse for its neglect. On the con- 
 trary, it contained enormous wealth; the Corn Ex- 
 change, the offices of the Victoria Dock Company and 
 several other companies of equal magnitude, the enor- 
 mous warehouses of the East India Dock Company, 
 and many hundred offices of our first merchants, were 
 to be found within its precincts ; while the enormous 
 number of neighbouring poor employed in these lo- 
 calities were almost all located in the Whitechapel 
 district. 
 
 Let us now glance at the north-eastern districts, and 
 follow the line of the Metropolitan Railway from King's 
 Cross to Moorgate Street, and its further continuance 
 across Finsbury Circus to Liverpool Street, and imagine 
 how many of the small tradesmen and operative class 
 were driven from their homes further eastward and north- 
 ward to a great distance beyond the City boundaries, or 
 into the already overcrowded districts to the south of the 
 City Road. In the formation of the Moorgate Street 
 Station alone three thousand householders and lodgers, 
 the latter principally shop assistants and operatives, were 
 ejected. But it may be asked, "Were no means taken 
 
 f. ^.
 
 38 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 to provide them with shelter or to remunerate them 
 for the inconvenience they suffered ? " There were none 
 whatever. The company even went so far as to demolish 
 the parish church ; but, in compensation, the Corpora- 
 tion, under the patronage of the City magistrates, ob- 
 tained licenses for three new gin-shops, notwithstanding 
 the great reduction in the population. The Corporation 
 then appeared to consider they had done their duty in 
 the matter ; the consciences of the aldermen, common 
 councilmen, and other City magnates were perfectly 
 clear and unsullied, and they felt certain it would be 
 unjust to expect them to have done more than they had 
 in the matter. But this is not all ; the line has now, as 
 before stated, been continued to Liverpool Street, where 
 it joins the termini of the Eastern Counties and other 
 railways, these termini alone covering altogether many 
 acres of ground, which before the companies commenced 
 alterations was densely covered with the dwellings of 
 the City working classes, and all crowded with inmates. 
 These in their turn have been driven eastward and 
 northward, and further than ever from their work. 
 But one great object, if no other, has been obtained. 
 They have been driven so far from the City, that they 
 have lost not only their identity as citizens of London, 
 but also their right in the thousand and one charitable 
 endowments and educational institutions of enormous 
 wealth it contains, as well as their constitutional privi- 
 leges as voters in the City elections, parliamentary and 
 municipal, to which, had they remained, vast numbers 
 of them would have been entitled. Nor are these
 
 DEMOLITION OF DWELLINGS. 39 
 
 mischiefs the only ones to be deplored. That con- 
 tinuity of good feeling which formerly existed to a 
 greater or less degree between employer and employed, 
 has been completely severed. The employer knows 
 not even by sight the faces or names of the immense 
 number of those in his service, and appears to have lost 
 all interest in their welfare, except in subscribing some 
 trifling contribution, at, perhaps, a City charity dinner, 
 and the operatives and clerks in their turn, in a vast 
 number of cases, look upon the partners of the firms in 
 which they are employed with an angry feeling, which 
 occasionally unpleasantly develops itself, and which, if 
 further investigated, would be found to be latent to a 
 far greater extent than is generally imagined. 
 
 In the western and south-western districts of the City 
 of London, or as it is now better known, as the West 
 London City Union, the same system of ejectment of 
 the industrial classes has been carried on with equal 
 vigour, and with equal indifference to the question in 
 what manner those driven away were to find dwellings, 
 as have been shown by the municipal authorities of the 
 other two unions. But although those ejected from the 
 Western City Union were very numerous, the fact was 
 not so apparent to the casual observer as those driven 
 from Farringdon Street and Moorgate Street and other 
 more central localities ; their dwellings being principally 
 in the back streets between Fleet Street and Holborn, 
 as well as near the riverside. By degrees, as they 
 were driven out of the City, a vast number congre- 
 gated together in the already overcrowded parish of St.
 
 40 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 Clement Danes, immediately outside the City boundary 
 and close to Temple Bar. In fact, so dense had become 
 the overcrowding, that although the natural position of 
 the parish was, perhaps, the best adapted in London for 
 sanitary purposes, it became the most unhealthy, as was 
 proved by the death-rate for several years exceeding 
 the births, while in an average of the other parishes 
 in London the births exceeded the death-rate by more 
 than twenty per cent. In this fearful state the parish 
 continued for some years, when a circumstance at last 
 occurred (not emanating from the civic authorities, it is 
 true, but strongly supported by them) which not only 
 effectually put a stop to any fresh emigrants arriving 
 from the City, but in one fell swoop cleared from the 
 parish the whole of the industrial classes and poor who 
 resided in it. It having been decided by Government 
 to remove the law courts to a more convenient situa- 
 tion, a spot was selected on the northern part of the 
 parish of St. Clement Danes. True, there were other 
 sites to be found equally convenient and far less ex- 
 pensive, but it was urged that the spot selected was 
 fearfully overcrowded, and that it would be a merito- 
 rious work to improve it. The suggestion was carried 
 out to the letter. Six thousand of the working classes 
 were driven from their homes to find a shelter where 
 they could, not a question having been asked, nor appa- 
 rently a thought having been bestowed, on the subject 
 by those who were the prime movers in the undertaking. 
 But what made the whole transaction the more cruel 
 was, that the demolitions were carried out long before
 
 DEMOLITION OF DWELLINGS. 41 
 
 the land was wanted for the law courts. If the reader 
 is an inhabitant of London, he can most probably bear 
 witness to the fact that the whole of the enormous space 
 of ground required for building the law courts remained 
 waste and profitless for more than ten years.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES. 
 
 TT must not be imagined that the demolitions of the 
 * dwellings of the industrial classes who resided in 
 the City of London, as mentioned in the last chapter, 
 comprised the whole which have been carried out. 
 Those which have been offered to the notice of the 
 reader were some of the more striking examples, 
 those, in fact, which were the more likely to have 
 come principally under his notice, without the injus- 
 tice and cruelty, directly or indirectly perpetrated 
 in carrying them out, being understood by him. Nor 
 are these ejectments yet complete, or the work of the 
 Corporation and the livery companies (the latter now 
 possibly being the more active of the two) likely to 
 terminate for some time to come. They appear to be 
 determined to do their work effectually, and not only 
 exclude every working man from the City of London, 
 and the poorer classes generally, but the whole of the 
 clerks, warehousemen, and the more intelligent and 
 industrious class of operatives as well, so as to leave 
 the City entirely in the hands of the Mayor and Corpo-
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES. 43 
 
 ration, who are, in nine cases out of ten, working hand 
 in hand or under the direction of the livery companies, 
 as well as with the enormous funds still directly or indi- 
 rectly under the control of the civic authorities. Should 
 the reader have any doubt of the truth of this statement, 
 he has merely to consult a map lately published, show- 
 ing the projected alterations which have been decided 
 on by the Corporation and the Metropolitan Board of 
 Works, and he will easily conclude that, when com- 
 pleted, there will scarcely be a dwelling house in Lon- 
 don left to reside in. No mansions are built for the 
 rich, as they will not reside in them ; while for those 
 whose incomes do not exceed three or four hundred 
 pounds a year no dwelling houses can be built ; the 
 ostensible reason at present given is, not that the poor- 
 rate is still the bug-bear it used formerly to be, but 
 the policy of escaping the inhabited house duty. 
 
 Let us now glance for a few moments on the effects 
 of these ejectments on the working and middle classes 
 formerly inhabiting the City of London, though it will 
 be difficult to make the reader understand the cruelty 
 and injustice of most of these proceedings. Let us take, 
 for example, a class, and one alone, which has been, 
 ejected from the West London Union. A considerable 
 portion of these at first found homes in the parish of 
 St. Clement Danes. The class alluded to are those 
 connected with the public press and other large print- 
 ing offices, comprising compositors, pressmen, machine- 
 men, readers, reading boys, and others. On these the 
 effect has been particularly unjust. If the reader is at
 
 44 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 all acquainted with the nature of the night-work 
 carried on in these establishments, he can bear witness 
 to the heated atmosphere in which compositors and 
 others work ; and, when over, how advantageous it 
 would be (certainly to the less robust among them) to 
 be able to find good and commodious lodgings near the 
 printing offices they are employed in. And yet, if 
 inquiry were made of the many thousand hands 
 employed in these establishments, and other printing 
 offices between St. Paul's and Temple Bar, it would be 
 found that not one in ten can find a house in an 
 average distance of a mile and a half from his work. 
 It has been urged that the more adroit compositors on 
 the daily press are so well paid, that each would 
 prefer living in a house by himself on the Surrey side 
 of the water, rather than dwelling near the office in 
 which he is employed, notwithstanding the economy in 
 health, labour, and money such a change would effect. 
 Admitting this to be true, of which, by the way, we 
 have great doubts, it may be answered that all are not 
 so well paid as a first-class compositor on a daily news- 
 paper, and the case of those who are less fortunate or 
 are less remunerated for their labours ought also to 
 be taken into consideration. Diseases of the lungs are 
 especially frequent among those working in a heated 
 atmosphere, and afterwards exposed to the cold air of 
 a London winter's morning, and the condition of the 
 wives, widows, and orphans of these men ought also to 
 weigh in the matter. 
 
 But it is not only the highly intelligent class of men
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES. 45 
 
 employed in large printing-offices who suffer severely 
 from being driven away from their work, and fre- 
 quently to a great distance, by these ejectments. It 
 would form an interesting problem to discover what is 
 the comparative pecuniary loss incurred by those who 
 are thus driven from the City, and yet are obliged to 
 visit it daily. At least one hundred and twenty thou- 
 sand working men have been driven from the City, 
 during the last forty years. Even in 1793, there were 
 at least one hundred thousand more than in the present 
 day, without counting the additional numbers whose 
 labours in the City were called into operation by the 
 increase of commerce, but who were unable, even 
 before the ejectments commenced, to find lodgings 
 within its precincts. At the same time it should be 
 remembered that, after the buildings were destroyed 
 for the formation of Farringdon Street, Cannon Street, 
 and other localities, there was ample room for house 
 accommodation, on the model of the Peabody dwell- 
 ings, which could have been built on the vast space of 
 ground which for so many years remained uncovered. 
 Nay, more, there was space sufficient not only to erect 
 homes for those ejected, but for as many more who 
 would willingly have lived within the City boundaries. 
 At a rough computation, those who had been driven a 
 mile and a half from their labours must have lost 
 thereby at least an hour a day. Calculating the value 
 of labour at sixpence an hour, how vast, from this 
 cause alone, must be the tax thus placed on the City 
 working classes ! Those who arrive either by the work-
 
 46 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 men's trains or the steamboat must be taxed still 
 higher. It has been estimated that the whole tax 
 placed on the City working classes from this cause 
 alone must reach to a quarter of a million sterling 
 per annum. Others make the amount still higher. 
 
 Nor have they, as is frequently urged, gained any- 
 thing by their house-rent being cheaper ; it is now, at 
 & distance of a mile and a half from their work, at 
 least as much as they paid in the City. Nothing is 
 more common than to find that the small houses in the 
 distant parts of Southwark, Bermondsey, Whitechapel, 
 and Bethnal Green, and which did not cost more than 
 200 each building, now let out to lodgers each paying 
 4s. per week for a room, or an average of 42 a year 
 for each house ; and in the populous districts the amount 
 is far greater. In conversation with a man emplo3^ed 
 as a porter in a publishing house on Ludgate Hill, he 
 complained bitterly of the enormous rent that he and 
 his class had to pay for their lodgings. He had a wife 
 and three children, and his wages averaged 26s. a week, 
 out of which he was obliged to pay 9s. a week for two 
 rooms he occupied, at a distance of a mile and a half 
 from his work. Knowing there was space to spare in 
 the warehouse he was employed in, he was asked why he 
 did not appeal to the firm for permission to sleep in the 
 house of business ? "I did so," he replied, " but was 
 told by my masters that by their lease, which they held 
 of a livery company, they were not allowed to let any 
 one sleep on the premises to avoid the inhabited house 
 duty. On the boy population this system of being
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES, 47 . 
 
 obliged to live so far from their work acts with peculiar 
 severity. On questioning one of the partners of the 
 same firm on the subject, he pointed out to me two boys 
 in the warehouse, one of whom lived in Highgate, the 
 other in Chelsea, and both had to walk to and from 
 their work daily. Another similar case was also 
 pointed out in a large printing firm further east. A 
 reading boy was wanted, and a lad with good credentials 
 applied for the appointment. As on examination he ap- 
 peared well adapted for the work, the manager asked for 
 his address, promising to write to him in the course of 
 a few days. The address the boy gave happening to be 
 at Bow, the manager said to him, "My lad, you won't 
 do for us, you live too far off; you will be so tired 
 when you arrive here you will not be fit for your 
 work." " Oh, don't send me away on that account," 
 said the lad ; " many of your boys live farther off than 
 I do." And on making inquiries into the subject the 
 manager found it to be the case. 
 
 It may possibly be argued, as has frequently been 
 done before, that a vast majority of those ejected from 
 the City were of the poorer classes, who having no 
 personal or proprietary right in it, have therefore 
 no just cause to complain of the treatment they have 
 received. If they brought nothing with them into the 
 City, and accumulated neither money nor property 
 while there, they have no reasonable right to complain 
 at having lost all legal claim on the Corporation or 
 livery companies. That they are now in the position of 
 tenants whose leases have expired, and having been
 
 48 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 unable to renew them have, as a natural consequence, 
 been ejected. But is this really the case ? Possibly, if 
 the subject were further investigated, it might appear 
 that those who have thus unwillingly been ejected 
 have had a very great injustice done them. 
 
 It cannot be denied that many of the grievances 
 they complain of have been inflicted under the sanc- 
 tion of the law, and many of the most despotic and 
 cruel acts which have been perpetrated have not only 
 been legalised by the Court of Chancery, and in many 
 cases have afterwards received even the benedictions of 
 bishops and archbishops for the legal cruelty perpe- 
 trated. It need hardly be said that these latter scan- 
 dals as a rule are connected with the abuse of the City 
 parochial and other charities, which have been carried 
 out in so ruthless a manner as to deprive the poor, for 
 whom they were indisputably intended, of all the 
 many benefits which could be derived from them. And 
 even in those comparatively rare cases in which the 
 City charities are applied on anything like a charitable 
 footing, it will be found that as a rule those who require 
 charitable aid the less receive the greater portion, 
 while those who are the most in want receive the less, 
 and so downwards, " the assistance bestowed descending 
 in an apparently graduated manner from the least 
 needy to the poorer, while the poorest, for whose benefit 
 the endowment was effected, are deprived of all part in 
 the inheritance intended entirely for their use. The 
 wealth of the City endowed charities is now so vast, as 
 to make the old saying that the streets of London are
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES. 49 
 
 paved with gold hardly any longer a figure of speech, 
 but a reality. And yet with this enormous wealth it 
 can easily be proved that other charities have been 
 bequeathed, also of enormous value, which have either 
 been lost or absorbed in some unaccountable and unre- 
 corded manner, or under some miserable law quibble 
 have been withdrawn altogether from the poor they 
 were intended to relieve, and applied solely for the 
 benefit of the rich. Cases can also easily be named in 
 which these funds have been applied, not simply to 
 the uses of those who are rich, but to uses of very 
 doubtful morality, and that without any remonstrance 
 on the part of the clergy, who ought to have been fore- 
 most in defence of the interests of the poor. One 
 instance we will mention, which took place about the 
 year 1820, will serve as an example of the rest, ad- 
 mitting at the same time that it is one of the most 
 glaring description, and certainly could not have been 
 perpetrated without resistance in the present day. 
 
 In the year 1815, a tradesman of the name of Trout- 
 beck died in Wapping, in which parish he had resided 
 more than fifty years. He appears to have been rather 
 an eccentric character. He had neither friends nor 
 relations, and but few acquaintances ; yet he was much 
 respected for his inoffensive manners and general in- 
 tegrity of conduct. Although parsimonious in the- 
 extreme in his housekeeping, and suspected by many 
 to be a miser, he could occasionally be very charitable. 
 At his death he was found to be the owner of a vast 
 amount more property than any had given him credit 
 
 E
 
 So THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 for. He left a will in which he bequeathed the sum of 
 6,000 to build a new wing to the church charity 
 schools of St. John's, Wapping, in which he had been 
 educated, and the residue of his property was to be 
 applied to the board, education, and clothing of poor 
 boys of the same parish. At the time of his death 
 that " most religious and gracious king," George IV., 
 was Prince Regent. In consequence of his licentious 
 extravagance, he had exceeded his income by more than 
 a quarter of a million, and an application was made to 
 the House of Commons for a grant of money to be 
 appropriated to the payment of his debts. The Minister 
 also stated that he was happy to inform the House that, 
 although the debts of his Royal Highness amounted to 
 that sum, the nation would not be called upon to pay 
 the whole. A tradesman in "Wapping, of the name of 
 Troutbeck, had lately died, leaving a sum of money for 
 the building of some schools, and a further sum, con- 
 siderably exceeding 100,000, to the maintenance of 
 poor boys in the parish. He was authorised by the 
 Lord Chancellor (Eldon) to state that, inasmuch as the 
 said Troutbeck had no relatives, the whole of his pro- 
 perty was an escheat to the Crown. Two or three 
 claimants afterwards started up as relatives of Trout- 
 beck, but none could prove his identity, and the whole 
 of the property was divided, under the excuse of pay- 
 ing the Prince's debts, among black-legs, fiddlers, 
 jewellers, opera dancers, tailors, and other creditors 
 possibly still more objectionable. It can now, it is 
 stated, be easily shown that the different investments
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES. 51 
 
 of Troutbeck's money at the time of his death have, 
 since that date, increased so enormously in value, as to 
 be sufficient were the amount expended in the manner 
 Troutbeck intended to maintain the poor children 
 not of Wapping only, but of the whole eastern district 
 of the metropolis, without any contributions from other 
 sources. 
 
 Although in point of iniquity few cases equal 
 to that of Troutbeck could be mentioned, there 
 are many scores of smaller charities, making in the 
 aggregate an enormous sum, which have also been 
 lost to the poor, or partially compensated for by an 
 increase in the rates. Of those which do remain, 
 their distribution is so eccentric and capricious, as 
 almost, according to the Corporation and trades guild 
 ideas, to make it appear an impossibility to find fitting 
 candidates to receive them. JSTor would this conclu- 
 sion, if properly investigated, prove as absurd as it 
 appears at first sight. Witness, for example, the 
 present application of the funds of the Charterhouse 
 School and Dulwich College, when compared with the 
 intentions of the founders, and many other educational 
 endowments of which we shall speak more at length 
 in another chapter funds which are wholly bestowed 
 on those who have not, from their position in society, 
 the slightest claim whatever on charitable funds and 
 endowments. 
 
 To give the reader some idea of the enormous civic 
 charitable parochial endowments, from which the poor 
 and industrial classes are now completely shut out, the
 
 52 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 final barrier being effected by their ejectments from 
 the City, and the pure philanthropy which originated 
 these institutions, as well as the iniquitously unjust 
 uses to which they are now applied, would indeed be a 
 very difficult and complicated task, We shall therefore 
 content ourselves with giving a limited description of 
 some of those best known to the public at large, as the 
 reader, if so inclined, may the easier inquire into them 
 himself and ascertain to a certainty the truth or false- 
 hood of our statements. As it would be as difficult 
 as tedious to classify minutely the different objects of 
 these charities, we will divide them into certain com- 
 prehensive classes, admitting, at the same time, that 
 they frequently so closely overlap each other as to 
 make their perfect classification a work of considerable 
 difficulty. 
 
 Let us commence, then, with some of the City paro- 
 chial charities, as the majority of these were intended 
 for distribution among the poorest of the parishioners.* 
 As many of them, if not the majority, are now obsolete, 
 it might naturally be held that, in equity and good 
 Christian 'feeling, they ought to be applied to the aug- 
 mentation of purely charitable trusts in those dis- 
 tricts or parishes outside the City boundaries into 
 which the poor have been driven, so that the particular 
 funds might thus be applied as nearly as possible to the 
 
 * The author is indebted to the writer of a pamphlet published by 
 Mr. J. E. Day, Savoy Street, Strand, and another written by Sir 
 Charles Trevelyan, for much of the information contained in this 
 chapter respecting the City parochial charities.
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES. 53 
 
 uses for which, the testator intended them ; or, in case 
 the purposes for which they were originally instituted 
 no longer exist, the amount now realised might be 
 applied to other really charitable purposes in any 
 of our overcrowded poor districts outside the City 
 boundaries. 
 
 Let us take, for example, the legacy left by Lady 
 Mico, in 1670 (2,000), to redeem poor slaves. It was 
 invested by her executors in a freehold wharf in Castle 
 Baynard, which has been sold, and the funds now 
 amount to upwards of 111,000. Again, in 1552, the 
 churchwardens of St. Clement Danes purchased a void 
 piece of ground in Holborn, with a tenement on it 
 called " The Slaughter House," for 160. This now 
 yields, it is said, some 5,000 a year, and forms 
 part of an aggregate charitable fund which will shortly 
 be set free. And here may be found one of the 
 many glaring anomalies in our municipal government, 
 which form such rich subjects for the reflection and 
 amusement of the cynic. And this the more so by 
 the habit of outrageous boasting made use of by the 
 Endowed School Commissioners, the Corporation of the 
 City of London, the trades guilds and their admirers, 
 of the just and judicious ministrations of the various 
 charitable funds at their disposal. The reader will 
 remember that in the last chapter we called his atten- 
 tion to the large space of ground in the parish of St* 
 Clement Danes which had been set apart for the new 
 law courts, and which had remained idle and unpro- 
 ductive for so many years. On this ground, prior
 
 54- THE CITFAS IT IS. 
 
 to the demolition of the houses, resided the whole 
 poor of the parish of St. Clement Danes, in number 
 about six thousand. Another case mentioned by Sir 
 Charles Trevelyan in a letter to the Times, June 14, 
 1869, may also be quoted. So clearly and forcibly are 
 some of these examples expressed by Sir Charles, that 
 it would be doing him an injustice were we not to 
 give them in his own words : 
 
 " The founders of our City charities might say that 
 our poor had been driven away by a force of circum- 
 stances to a distance, but the funds appropriated by us 
 to their benefit have been largely increased. Now tell 
 us by these abundant means how have you fulfilled our 
 intentions towards the objects of our solicitude ? Then 
 would come out the shameful, the almost incredible, 
 fact that the City parochial charities, which were con- 
 secrated to the poor, have, in the great majority of 
 cases, been misappropriated to the rich. St. Mildred, 
 Bread Street, may be taken as a representative case. 
 The population is 223, and the income from the (charity) 
 estates in 1865 was 707 2s. lid. ; the expenditure the 
 same year was as follows : 
 
 *. d. 
 
 Church-rate purposes : . . . 289 5 
 
 Managements and outgoings . . 52 2 
 
 Applied towards payment of poor-rates . 233 13 7 
 
 For the poor . . . . 15 2 4 
 
 Total . . 590 2 11 
 
 "In order to get rid of the income, the church-
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES. 55 
 
 wardens pay 60 a year to a curate, although, according 
 to one informant, there is no service in the church for 
 want of a congregation. Another, more intent on accu- 
 racy, took a course down Bread Street, and found that 
 there are two churches there almost contiguous All- 
 hallows and St. Mildred. Upon inquiring from an intel- 
 ligent policeman, who occasionally drops in when cold, 
 perhaps, he was told that there is no evening, and only 
 one morning, service in both churches ; and that, on his 
 last occasion of worshipping, the policeman found in 
 AUhallows ten persons, including the officials; in St. 
 Mildred's he found two, including the officials, the 
 beadle and the pew- opener composing the congrega- 
 tion. A sum of money has lately been spent in re- 
 pairing St. Mildred's Church. Poor there are none. 
 The churches all round that district are as thick as 
 blackberries. 
 
 " In St. Michael le Quern, the parish which has been 
 obliterated by the Post Office, the population has of 
 course disappeared, but the few remaining householders 
 have the disposal of an income which has been declared 
 by Sir John Karslake and Lord Justice Selwyn to be ' a 
 charity under the jurisdiction of the Board of Charity 
 Commissioners/ The churchwardens resisted rendering 
 accounts for years, even to the verge of litigation ; 
 and when, under the pressure of the legal opinion, the 
 accounts were obtained, it appeared that the income 
 of the charity from City property was 292 10s., 
 and that in the year ending March, 1868, there was 
 expended
 
 56 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 For purposes of St. Vedast Church, and 
 salaries of vestry clerks and church 
 
 officers . . . ^j> 177 1 2 
 
 Churchwardens' audit dinner . . 27 
 
 Gifts to poor . . . > 32 13 
 
 Contribution in aid of poor-rate . 100 
 
 Total . . 336 14 2 
 
 " By a will dated the 16th of January, 1503, the 
 following bequest was made to the parish of St. 
 Edmund the King and Martyr : 
 
 " Twenty shillings in bread among poor parish- 
 ioners of the parish, and 20s. in coal ; 5s. among 
 the priests and clerks for certain yearly services in 
 the church (superstitious uses) ; os. in alms for the 
 poor ; each of the wardens, 65. ScL ; 7 to each of 
 two chaplains nominated by the trustees. Residue 
 for the repair and rebuilding of the property of the 
 City. 
 
 " In 1868, the annual income had increased to 
 1,421 2s. 4d., and the expenditure was as follows : 
 
 *. d. 
 
 Rector, for Sunday evening service . . 195 6 6 
 Clerk, pew-opener, verger, lighting and 
 
 warming church . . . 204 
 
 To 23 poor parishioners, in money . . 497 
 To 23 same poor persons, in clothing, bread, 
 
 coals, and meat . * . 1-50 
 
 Meat for poor --t" : i. . * 32 
 
 Repairs . . , . * 97 
 
 Total . 1,175 66"
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES. 57 
 
 or, on an average, 23 for each poor person. The one 
 who receives most has upwards of 60. 
 
 Sir Charles then calls the attention of the public to 
 other abuses in the distribution of the City charities, 
 equally disgraceful with those we have quoted, and 
 then concludes his admirable letter in the following 
 manner : 
 
 ""Without entering further into any humiliating 
 details, the City is pregnant with such cases, the diffi- 
 culty being to make any selections. It may be stated 
 generally that the funds left for the relief of the poor 
 are, for the most part, expended by the wealthy owners 
 of City property in paying their church and poor 
 rates, the latter being the contribution with which 
 their shops and counting-houses are charged to the 
 union rate. The love of power is also lavishly 
 indulged in by maintaining a body of well-paid 
 officials, who do duty as congregations to the otherwise 
 deserted churches. . * , At St. Michael's, Cornhill, 
 there has been an unstinted expenditure of charitable 
 funds in indulging the aesthetic tastes of the church- 
 wardens. The intense costliness of this work of art 
 for it can be regarded in no other light gives a painful 
 impression of luxurious waste, quite irrespective of the 
 source from which the expenditure has been defrayed. 
 The ' dim religious light ' has been so fully obtained 
 by highly elaborate stained glass windows, that the 
 church has to be lighted with gas even in a bright 
 summer's forenoon. But any mode of getting rid of 
 these charitable funds is better than the pervading
 
 58 THE CITY AS IT IS, 
 
 demoralisation of the sinecure rector, the full-blown 
 church officials, and the show paupers at 60 a year 
 each. In many of the parishes there are large accu- 
 mulations which, even in the present liberal license, 
 the churchwardens have failed to dispose of." 
 
 The Times not only inserted Sir Charles Trevelyan's 
 letter, but in an admirably written leading article 
 complimented him highly upon it, almost to the full 
 agreeing with him in the views he had taken, and 
 in some instances even exceeding in blame the lan- 
 guage in which he denounced the abuses existing in 
 the civic charitable endowments. " The parochial 
 charities of the City," the writer said, " stand alone 
 among kindred endowments in two material respects. 
 While their wealth has been increased beyond all pre- 
 cedent or previous calculation by the progressive value 
 of sites in the centre of London, their local objects 
 have been extinguished or diminished by the same pro- 
 cess. The area of the City within the municipal limit 
 is less than one square mile. This was once the entire 
 metropolis. It swarmed with a busy, thriving popu- 
 lation, who were born and died within its limits, and 
 were animated by a warm feeling of attachment to 
 municipality, guild, and parish, the fruits of which are 
 to be seen in the numerous churches and overflowing 
 charities. There is scarcely the semblance of the cor- 
 porate or parochial feeling in modern days, when, as 
 Sir Charles Trevelyan says, 'the City has been con- 
 verted into an exchange or counting-house for the 
 metropolis.' At the same time, it must not be sup-
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES. 59 
 
 posed that such, necessities as the founders of these 
 charities designed, however injudiciously, to relieve 
 no longer exist in London. They still exist in those 
 parts to which the poor of the City have retired like 
 aboriginal tribes before the advance of civilisation. 
 They are to be traced in the weekly returns of the 
 metropolitan pauperism, in the constant appeals for 
 metropolitan hospitals, and in the dark calendar of 
 metropolitan vice and ignorance. Yet there are small 
 parishes containing but three or four acres, and nearly 
 covered by public buildings, which have charitable 
 incomes of thousands a year." 
 
 After commenting upon the different points in Sir 
 Charles Trevelyan's letter, the article concludes : "It 
 is a common impression that an effective jurisdiction 
 over all charities is vested in the Charity Commis- 
 sioners ; but this impression is quite unfounded. The 
 Charity Commissioners have no power to restrain 
 charity trustees from squandering their funds, unless 
 where actual breaches of trust have been committed. 
 They may submit to Parliament schemes for the reform 
 of charities, but no principles or rules have been laid 
 down under which the schemes are to be framed or 
 passed into law, and the result is that little can be 
 done except by application to Chancery. It is high 
 time for this branch of our law to be revised and 
 reconstructed ; and, in any event, there is ample room 
 for the movement originated by Mr. Rogers and sup- 
 ported by Sir Charles Trevelyan. There is a living 
 want of education for a special class side by side
 
 60 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 with a reservoir of charitable funds, now running to 
 waste." 
 
 This letter of Sir Charles Trevelyan and the reply, 
 and the article on it in the Times newspaper, may 
 almost be considered as the proximate cause of the 
 movement which has taken root. If it has not as yet put 
 forth many solid branches, it is hoped that in time it 
 will effect some reformation in the administration of our 
 City charities. It also had the effect of bringing forth, 
 through the medium of the public press, several other 
 parochial abuses which were hitherto but little known 
 to the general public. Among them was one which 
 appeared in the Times newspaper on the 25th of June 
 of the same year, in a letter signed " Civis." In it 
 he says : 
 
 " Sir Charles Trevelyan has by no means exhausted 
 the catalogue of parishes in which large sums of money 
 are wasted, or worse than wasted, in so-called charity ; 
 but one of the instances mentioned in his letter is so 
 remarkable, that I cannot do better than give some 
 details respecting it which he has omitted. 
 
 " This instance is to be found in the parish of St. 
 Mildred's, Bread Street. St. Mildred's is a small parish, 
 lying on both sides of Cannon Street, about half way 
 between St. Paul's and Cannon Street Station. The 
 revenue of its charity estates is now 824 10s. per 
 annum. What were the trusts upon which this pro- 
 perty, or at least the bulk of it, was given cannot now 
 be discovered, since the older deeds seem to have 
 perished in the Great Fire. Ever since then the
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES. 
 
 61 
 
 charity income has been applied to what is described 
 in the more recent deeds as ' the common benefit and 
 profit of the parish/ To these words the trustees have 
 given a liberal interpretation, for out of the 824 they 
 not only defray all the expenses connected with the 
 church, but actually pay the whole poor-rates 'of the 
 parish, reaching to nearly 300 a year, and thereby 
 relieve the occupiers to that amount annually. The 
 items of their expenditure are shown in the accounts 
 they furnish the Charity Commissioners. Among them 
 there appears the following : 
 
 Vestry clerk . . . 
 
 Parish clerk . 
 
 Organist . . . 
 
 Pew- opener . . . 
 
 Clothing for choristers (two years) 
 
 Donations to curate (two years) 
 
 Gifts to the poor (two years) 
 
 Applied in aid of poor-rate (two years) ! 
 
 Donation to Bread Street ward schools 
 
 Breakfast and dinner on Ascension Day 
 audit dinner, and refreshment after 
 vestries, visiting parish estates, and cab 
 hire (two years) , 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 77 4 6 
 
 1 
 
 38 1 6 
 
 
 30 
 
 
 33 19 10 
 
 
 35 18 6 
 
 
 60 
 
 . 
 
 81 6 
 
 rs)! 
 
 518 3 10 
 
 ols 
 
 21 
 
 >n Day 
 
 
 241 1 
 
 1,136 15 2 
 
 " Now of this charity revenue of 800 a year, nearly 
 300 goes to pay the rate at which the parish is 
 assessed to the union for the support of the poor that 
 is to say, it is applied to relieve, not the poor (there are no 
 poor in the parish), but the wealthy occupiers of offices 
 and warehouses who would otherwise have to pay their 
 rates out of their own pockets. Of the remaining 500
 
 2 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 a year, how much is there that can be thought to be 
 usefully or even charitably spent ? St. Mildred's is a 
 small parish, covering only two or three acres of 
 ground. It has only two inhabited houses, all the rest 
 of the area being taken up by warehouses and com- 
 mercial offices, the persons employed in which live far 
 away in the suburbs. There are no poor, so that the 
 ' gifts made to the poor ' go to the people not resident 
 in the parish, but who have been at some time in their 
 lives connected with it, and who may, perhaps, be at 
 this moment receiving parish relief elsewhere. There 
 is nobody to go to the church, and, even if there were, 
 the neighbourhood contains so many other empty 
 churches, that the accommodation provided here would 
 still be wholly uuneeded. As a matter of fact, the con- 
 gregation consists of the salaried organist, parish clerk, 
 and pew-opener, and of the choristers who get their 
 clothes for nothing. In short, all the money spent on 
 church purposes is, like the 600 which was expended 
 a few years ago in repairing the church, absolutely 
 thrown away. Not one citizen of London, not one 
 member of the Church of England (except indeed the 
 officials above mentioned), gets any good whatever 
 from the maintenance of St. Mildred's Church, while 
 we hear on every side complaints of the want of money 
 for the extension of education, for the erection of 
 churches in neglected districts, for the support of hos- 
 pitals and infirmaries. Many other cases at the time 
 came under the notice of the public respecting these 
 City parochial charities, each in its way as objectionable
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES. 63 
 
 as those we have quoted. One parish had an estate 
 producing 300 a year, invested in the rector and 
 churchwardens, to sustain and support all the works, 
 ornaments, and other burdens of the parish church. 
 Of this there remained a balance in hand of 580, after 
 paying the parish and vestry clerks, pew-opener, fire- 
 engine keeper, and wine, which item alone was eight 
 guineas, &c. Among the charges was dinner at Rich- 
 mond ; the items in the three different years were re- 
 spectively 29 8s. 2d., 42 5s. Oct., 32 11s. 6d. The 
 explanation was that the churchwarden 'has always 
 considered it very advantageous for the interests of the 
 parish, and the promotion of good feeling among the 
 parishioners, that an opportunity should occasionally be 
 afforded them to meet together in a sociable and friendly 
 manner.' This parish has been merged in another, 
 which has a separate church fund of 482 a year, from 
 which 20 105. 6d. appears to have been paid in 1868 
 for an audit dinner at the Crystal Palace. In another 
 case the estate consists of nine houses and twenty acres 
 of land, yielding an annual rent of 333. The trustees 
 are eighteen in number. The whole body went once in 
 three years to inspect the property, after which they 
 dined together, till the affair was brought tinder the 
 notice of the public, and charging 50 to the charity 
 for their expenses. They thought it ' very desirable 
 that the whole of the trustees should be . intimately 
 acquainted with the nature of the property ! ' The 
 nouses were let on a lease, expiring in 1876, and some 
 of the leases of the land will not expire till 1926."
 
 64. THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 Another characteristic specimen of the management 
 of the civic parochial charities is mentioned by Sir 
 Charles Trevelyan, which it is worth while to quote if 
 only for the absurdities, to speak in the most compli- 
 mentary manner, to be detected in its administrations. 
 
 "There is a charity for poor widows, freemen, &c., 
 with an income of 60 a year, the whole of which is 
 derived from dividends. In 1868 the charge for 
 management was : 
 
 . d. 
 
 To the seven trustees for dinner, &c. . .800 
 
 Secretary and solicitor . , .1146 
 
 Total , . 19 4 6 
 
 The same trustees made the following charge in the 
 same year for the management of a loan charity : 
 
 *. d. 
 
 To the seven trustees : Expenses of attend- 
 ing eight meetings, at which six loans 
 of 400 each were granted, and two 
 paid off . . . . 53 
 
 Secretary and solicitor . . . 139 12 9 
 
 Messenger . . . * 35 
 
 Total . . 227 12 9 
 
 TOTAL" COST OF MANAGEMENT. 
 
 *. d. 
 
 1864 , . 209 16 
 
 1865 . . 220 6 
 
 1866 . , 200 7 9 
 
 t. d. 
 
 1867 . , 216 7 1 
 
 1868 . . 227 12 9 
 
 OF LOANS GRANTED. 
 1864. 1865. 1866. 1867. 1868. 
 
 45576
 
 CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES, 65 
 
 AVEKAGE COST OF EACH LOAN. 
 
 x. d. 
 
 1864 . . 52 9 
 
 1865 . 73 8 8 
 
 1867 . . 30 1 8 
 
 1868 . 37 18 9 
 
 1866 . . 40 1 6 
 
 Five years' average cost of each loan, 46 15s. lid. 
 
 " When another charity was founded in 1461 it 
 seemed doubtful whether it would yield 40s. a year 
 beyond some small charges for superstitious uses. It 
 is now invested in a farm, yielding 275 a year, which 
 is applied to doles and church purposes. In 1863 the 
 trustees charged 15 15s. for their expenses in visiting 
 this farm, which had been let in the previous year for 
 twenty-one years, and yet in 1865 they charged 
 13 2s. 11^. for supervision/' 
 
 It would occupy too much of our limited space to 
 quote further instances of extravagance and other 
 abuses in these City parish charities, of which the poor 
 who have been driven from the City are deprived of all 
 the benefits which were solel} r intended for their use 
 and comfort, and we shall content ourselves with a 
 mere list of their different descriptions and the value of 
 their endowments, begging the reader to bear in mind 
 that they are taken from a Parliamentary return pub- 
 lished April 17, 1871, and that they are now more 
 valuable than they were then. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Education. .... 16,851 11 6 
 
 Apprenticing .... 2,000 10 10 
 
 Clerical purposes \ .-. . . 5,827 13 10 
 
 Carried forward . . 24,679 16 2 
 
 F
 
 66 
 
 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 Brought forward 
 
 Church purposes .... 
 Dissenting places of worship and their 
 ministers .... 
 Public uses .. . . . 
 
 Almshouse and pensioners 
 Distribution of articles in kind . . 
 
 Distribution of money . . . 
 
 General uses of the poor . . . 
 
 Medical 
 
 And yet this enormous amount for parish charity alone 
 is fully absorbed in a district of the metropolis con- 
 taining only 70,000 souls, among whom there are few 
 or no poor. 
 
 
 
 f. 
 
 </. 
 
 24,679 
 
 16 
 
 2 
 
 29,317 
 
 18 
 
 7 
 
 57 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 7,169 
 
 11 
 
 6 
 
 10,259 
 
 3 
 
 8 
 
 3,605 
 
 7 
 
 I 
 
 5,371 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 4,174 
 
 12 
 
 7 
 
 187 
 
 17 
 
 1 
 
 84,822 
 
 16 
 
 9
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 
 
 reader must not imagine that the instances we 
 -*- have given of the abuses existing in the adminis- 
 tration of the City parochial charities and endowments 
 comprise the whole list. There are scores of others, 
 each of which, in its way, would have exhibited in its 
 management as gross abuses or anomalies as the few we 
 have mentioned. One element, however, in the admi- 
 nistration of these parochial charities ought to be re- 
 marked. It is generally supposed that the greater the 
 amount of temptation the more apt are the tempted to 
 succumb, but in the working of these charities this 
 idea seems to have been set at nought ; the same rapa- 
 city, the same cupidity, and the same indifference to 
 the objects of the trust placed in the hands of the 
 administrators no matter whether as trustees, church- 
 wardens, clerical incumbents, or what not is, without 
 variation, to be distinguished in the whole. And cer- 
 tainly the scope of the different funds of these charities 
 is very extensive. Those instances we have given show 
 that many of these parochial charities are of great
 
 68 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 value, others less; but the reader is possibly hardly 
 aware to how small a sum many of them descend, but 
 which are misapplied as regularly and systematically 
 as the most valuable. In the words of Sir Charles 
 Trevelyan : 
 
 " The bequests represent every variety of private 
 property, such as houses, cottages, stables, gardens, 
 workshops, warehouses, wharfs, and farms. Shares in 
 houses was one of the commonest forms in bequests. 
 St. Botolph, Aldgate, alone, has one-fourth of ten 
 houses. Other items are two houses and the site of five 
 others. 'Part of site of premises, site of South Sea 
 House.' Moiety of a small piece of land. Then of 
 their parochial charities, many are of still less value ; 
 some of them are diverted from their original uses in a 
 manner which almost excites a smile of ridicule. The 
 Bishop of London's return is full of entries of this 
 description : 'Allhallows Staining 58 6s. 8cl. to 
 minister for reading prayers twice a day [not read], 
 includes 7 to clerk and 4 13s. 4d. for ringing bell 
 [not rung]. Allhallows Barking to vicar for main- 
 taining evening service in church [service not kept up]. 
 St. Benet's, Paul's Wharf 10 to rector for daily ser- 
 vice in church [not read] . St. Catherine Cree Church 
 19 2s. [lecture only occasionally delivered]. St. Mary 
 Aldermary 100 to lecturer for loans without interest 
 [not accounted for]. St. Margaret Pattens 95, 
 morning prayers [not read for several years, or bell 
 rung, notwithstanding the various endowments for the 
 clergy and the repair of the church, besides a tithe-rent
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 69 
 
 charge]. St. Andrew Undershaft 6 12s. paid to 
 rector for evening prayers [only performed on Sundays 
 and certain Wednesdays].' Was there ever," con- 
 tinues Sir Charles Trevelyan, "such a case of the 
 house of God turned into a temple of mammon ? The 
 congregations have disappeared, and the sacred ordi- 
 nances are discontinued or are performed to empty 
 benches. The old ' superstitious uses ' were respectable 
 compared with this, for however unscriptural these 
 ceremonies may have been, they were performed by 
 persons who thought they were doing God a service. 
 The ministers of religion ought not to be so tempted." 
 
 A better comment on this disgraceful state of affairs 
 could not be placed before the reader than is to be 
 found in a leading article of the Times newspaper, 
 January 26th, 1870. When speaking of the abuses 
 existing in the City parochial institutions and cha- 
 rities, the writer says : 
 
 " The City has gradually ceased to have a resident 
 population, and in consequence its various churches 
 too numerous, perhaps, even in its most crowded days 
 had been, one after the other, deserted until the ser- 
 vice had to be performed to almost empty benches. 
 Two or three paid officials and a few charity children, 
 who sometimes had to be coaxed into accepting a 
 bounty of which their parents stood in little need, con- 
 stantly made up the entire congregation of a church 
 large enough to accommodate many hundred wor- 
 shippers, and amply endowed. The householders who 
 with their wives and families had formerly filled its
 
 70 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 comfortable pews had all gone to live in other parts of 
 London, and their houses had been turned into offices, 
 swarming with a busy crowd during the day, but at 
 night, and from Saturday evening to Monday morning, 
 with but one solitary tenant left in charge of them. 
 The immediate waste of religious force was in itself 
 evil enough, but it necessarily brought a troop of other 
 evils in its train. The clergymen openly abandon the 
 parishes, to the wants of which it was still nominally 
 their duty to minister, and live miles away, appearing 
 only on Sundays to go through the solemn farce of a 
 service. In some cases the farce was not even gone 
 through, though money was drawn for it, and thus 
 obtained practically by false pretences. . . . The 
 money was still forthcoming, and had, it seemed, to be 
 paid to somebody, although the work for which it was 
 generally set apart was no longer performed. Still 
 greater anomalies arose in the attempt to dispose, with- 
 out actual fraud, of the money originally set apart in 
 each parish for the poor. The poor had disappeared, 
 swept away into cheaper districts by the advancing 
 tide of wealth, but the money to be expended on them 
 was still there, and had somehow to be got rid of. 
 Who can wonder that it was often scandalously mis- 
 appropriated ? "We can say nothing of what may be 
 called, by way of distinction, the negative evils result- 
 ing from such a system, although they are far from 
 inconsiderable. The mere space, for instance, occupied 
 by the churches, which thus served no other purpose 
 than to bring religion into disgrace, might have been
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 71 
 
 turned to most profitable account in localities where 
 every inch, of ground had its high value in the market. 
 The money misspent for want of proper objects of 
 expenditure was urgently wanted for endless useful 
 purposes already to hand/' 
 
 And now comes the serious question : On whom 
 ought the blame of this state of things to be cast ? A 
 good deal certainly falls to the portion of the City 
 authorities for the abuse of their power in driving from 
 the City boundaries the great mass of objects for whose 
 use and relief the principal portion of these parochial 
 endowments were originally intended. But, it may be 
 asked, " "Were there no officials or body of men whose 
 duty it was to watch over the interests of the poor, 
 especially in the distribution of funds placed in the 
 hands of the civic authorities, and more or less under 
 their control ? And, in that case, did they do their duty 
 in defence of the poor and needy ? " The answer is 
 a very simple one. There can be no doubt that the 
 City clergy, as a body, were morally under an obliga- 
 tion to defend the funds placed under their control from 
 waste and abuse ; and yet it would be difficult to quote 
 a single instance in which the City clergy, as a whole, 
 have attempted to combine in defence of the rights of 
 the poor. It should be remembered that by an Act of 
 Parliament, the 37th of Henry VIII., the tithes of the 
 City of London were fixed at 2s. 9d. in the pound on 
 the actual rental ; but this was paid into the common 
 treasury of the parish, whence it was apportioned and 
 applied to " the sustentation and relief of the poor, the
 
 7 2 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 repairs of tlie church, and the support of the clergy." 
 It is true that afterwards very considerable alterations 
 and modifications took place, and the relief of the 
 poor, in consequence of the urgent remonstrances of 
 the clergy, was removed as an obligatory lien on the 
 revenues of the church, leaving, however, at the same 
 time, the moral duty untouched of rendering to the 
 poor all that was their due ; and this duty, it must be 
 admitted, has been by them most disgracefully neglected. 
 
 Among the many excuses which have been brought 
 forward in defence of the civic authorities and the 
 clergy for their neglect of the interests of the poor 
 may be especially mentioned the following. It is stated 
 that the very nature of these parochial charities carried 
 with them a very demoralising effect. As a general 
 rule, the giving of these alms, or " doles," as they were 
 called, tended to deprive or deteriorate the moral neces- 
 sity which should be taught them of the duty of self- 
 reliance ; that these doles tended not only to pauperise, 
 but to destroy the spirit of independence which ought 
 to be fostered in the poor, leading them, in fact, into 
 the path of professional mendicancy. 
 
 Nothing is more common than to hear this maxim 
 continually quoted by our civic political economists, 
 yet nothing can be more unjust or untrue to the great 
 body of our industrial classes ; for, if the matter were 
 rightly viewed, it would be found that, cceteris jyaribus, 
 no portion of the population carry, as a rule, the 
 principle of self-dependence to a higher point. There 
 is no grade in society, even to the lowest, in which
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 73 
 
 this honourable principle may not be detected. Let the 
 reader, when he passes a string of men walking by the 
 side of the road bearing what are commonly called 
 " sandwich boards," having advertisements on them, 
 back and front, of some public exhibition, or pushing 
 shopkeepers' stock in trade, examine for a moment 
 the physical condition of these men. At a glance he 
 will see that not one in ten among them is capable of 
 doing a day's work at any hard or skilled labour ; and 
 yet these men, in performing their monotonous duty, 
 are actuated solely by a spirit of independence. Any 
 individual among them would be eligible to be ad- 
 mitted into the district union workhouse as a pauper. 
 Instead, however, he prefers (actuated by a spirit of 
 self-dependence) to earn a miserable wage, scarcely 
 sufficient to keep body and soul together, rather than 
 obtain shelter in a workhouse, where the amount ex- 
 pended on him would be fifty per cent, more than that 
 which he would gain by his day's work. 
 
 But the greater portion of these small parochial City 
 charities were left principally for old women, especially 
 widows ; and it would be a singular and pleasing task 
 to the reader were he to investigate somewhat minutely 
 the manner in which these poor creatures live, as well 
 as the trifle they contrive to live on. At the same time 
 they perfectly well know that they have only to apply to 
 the parish for outdoor relief, and they would be certain 
 to receive it. Yet their spirit of "self-dependence" 
 not only restrains them from asking charity of the 
 rich, but they shudder with abhorrence at the idea of
 
 74 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 submitting to the degradation of receiving parochial 
 relief. Any one in the habit of reading the daily 
 papers must frequently, especially in winter time, have 
 had his attention called, under the head of " Coro- 
 ners' Inquests," to the numerous deaths of old women, 
 with verdicts returned of "Died from want of the 
 necessaries of life." But these inquests, as well as the 
 collected returns of the cases of the kind, as published 
 by the Local Government Board, give but a very slight 
 idea of the number of such cases that actually occur. 
 Any parish surgeon would endorse our statement, that 
 vast numbers of these poor creatures die from starvation 
 and destitution so protracted as to do away with the 
 necessity of a coroner's inquest ; so that, at the last, 
 any trifling illness which overtakes them, possibly a 
 slight cold, carries them off. It is more than possible, 
 however, that were the subject further investigated it 
 could be shown that the illness itself was of the most 
 trifling description, but that the vital stamina of the 
 patient had been so reduced by want as to be incapable 
 of making head against it. Cases of this kind might be 
 quoted by hundreds, in which the poor creatures had 
 merely to apply to the parochial authorities for relief, 
 who would have found them in fire, food, clothing, and 
 shelter, and yet they preferred death itself to the pain 
 of wounding their spirit of self-dependence. 
 
 Having now slightly touched on some of the acts of 
 injustice inflicted on the poorer classes of those who, 
 before their ejectment from the City of London, had 
 been entitled to their share in the different parochial
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 75 
 
 charities and endowments especially bequeathed for 
 their relief and comfort, let us now glance at some of 
 the acts of a similar, or possibly worse, character per- 
 petrated on them, both directly and indirectly, by the 
 livery companies and Corporation of the City of 
 London. Let us begin with the former, as, after all, 
 to them will the greater portion of the blame be due ; 
 for in the present day, whatever it might have been at 
 the formation of these guilds, they form really the most 
 powerful body in the City. And in their case, let it be 
 remembered that the injustice emanating from them 
 does not fall simply on those poor entitled to the alms 
 of the church, who in the cases last mentioned were 
 the principal sufferers, but to a great extent on the 
 whole population of the metropolis, rich and poor, with 
 the exception of those individuals who having, by means 
 more or less honourable, obtained the management of 
 the livery companies, or, as they ought more properly 
 to be called, if the funds at their disposal were justly 
 administered, the City trade guilds. 
 
 Great as have been the acts of injustice perpetrated by 
 the civic authorities, which have already been brought 
 under the notice of the reader, they sink into compara- 
 tive insignificance when compared with the oppression 
 and indifference to public opinion exhibited by these 
 companies. It would, perhaps, be considered scan- 
 dalous if we were openly to state that these companies, 
 according to the letter of the law, are not honestly 
 managed. Again, if we did so, we should be making 
 the assertion blindfold, and not from any result of
 
 76 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 investigation ; for, although we have taken some trouble 
 in the matter, we have been unable to obtain, except to 
 a very limited degree, any particulars sufficiently exact 
 to enable us to bear out our statements. It must, 
 however, be clear to all that, as an act of common 
 justice, the livery companies ought to be carried out 
 as closely as possible to the intention of their original 
 organization ; but, as we shall be able to prove, the 
 <lirect contrary has been the state of the case. 
 
 We will not detain the reader by going into any 
 elaborate description of the origin of the livery com- 
 panies. The subject has been repeatedly written on 
 by others, and so clearly and forcibly as to render any 
 repetition a useless labour on the part of the author, 
 as well as needless repetition to the reader. All we 
 shall attempt to show is, the original intentions of 
 the trade guilds, for what uses they were instituted, 
 and in what manner their rules and regulations were 
 carried out. Afterwards, we shall shortly show the 
 condition that most of them are in at the present day, 
 to point out as far as we are able some of the enormous 
 funds at their disposal, and how little those for whose 
 uses they were originally intended are benefited by 
 them ; that so far from their being used in the manner 
 intended by those who bequeathed them, they are 
 applied to totally different purposes, while the members 
 of the real craft or trade who should in common 
 justice be their recipients are, with very solitary ex- 
 ceptions, totally deprived of any share or benefit in the 
 funds of the particular company which professes to
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES, 77 
 
 represent them. And this is the more iniquitous, as it 
 was in great part the action of the City guilds, in con- 
 junction with the Corporation, which so fully succeeded 
 in ejecting them from the City of London. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the first formation of 
 these guilds was instigated by a charitable feeling. 
 A number of men joined together to raise funds for the 
 assistance of the decayed members of what would now 
 be called their " Benefit Society," as well as to assist 
 each other to the bes't of their abilities in the time of 
 sickness or distress. The clerical element also entered 
 largely into their formation, for from the earliest date 
 one of the principal officials of these guilds was the 
 chaplain, who appeared also in great measure to act as 
 their almoner. Then, again, they appear to have sepa- 
 rated themselves into different trade societies, but this 
 at first appears to have been very indistinct members 
 of different trades mixing together with one common 
 great object, that was, in times of distress, to afford 
 relief and assistance to each other. " It was not till 
 the time of Edward II. when," Mr. Norton observes,* 
 "we discern the first authentic mention of the mer- 
 cantile nature of the civic constitution of London, and 
 of the mercantile qualifications requisite in the can- 
 didate for admission to the freedom of the City. By 
 one of a number of articles of regulation ordained by 
 the citizens for their internal government, which 
 articles were confirmed by the King and incorporated 
 into a charter, it was provided that no person, whether 
 * " Commentaries on London."
 
 78 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 an inhabitant of the City or otherwise, should be 
 admitted into the civic freedom unless he was a mem- 
 ber of one of the trades or mysteries, or unless with the 
 full consent of the whole community concerned. Before 
 this, no mention is made of any mercantile qualifica- 
 tion to entitle the householder to his admission into the 
 Corporation." 
 
 To show how completely these livery companies 
 were composed of members of the different crafts and 
 trades they represented, we may point out as an 
 example the rules of the Grocers' Company. They 
 chiefly regarded the qualifications of members, keeping 
 trade secrets, the regulation of apprenticeships and of 
 the company's peculiar concerns, and the uniting 
 together of it "in brotherly love and affection." To 
 these may be added, as forming a prominent feature in 
 all the ancient communities, the regulation of their 
 religious and other ceremonies. The charitable feeling 
 of the grocers for unfortunate members was, says an 
 eminent writer on the City guilds,* highly praiseworthy. 
 "Any such becoming poor from 'adventures on the 
 sea,' or advanced price of merchandise, or by borrow- 
 ing and pledging, or by any other misfortunes, might, 
 by ordinations of the wardens and company, be 
 assisted out of the common money according to his 
 situation (if he could not do without), when they were 
 able to maintain him by the same money, to afford 
 afterwards a settled asylum for distressed members ; and 
 
 * William Herbert, " History of the Twelve Great Livery Com- 
 panies of London."
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 79 
 
 all companies early built dwellings next their halls for 
 their reception. Hence we may trace the various alms- 
 houses of the companies, which, though generally 
 afterwards removed, owing to the increased value of 
 their original situations, have in our own day been 
 erected on other and more pleasant sites, in a superior 
 style, and still form some of the noblest and most 
 gratifying charities around London." 
 
 Respecting these " noble and gratifying charities " 
 which, as Mr. Herbert justly states, are to be seen around 
 London, it would be curious to inquire how many of them 
 are inhabited by members of the craft or trade which 
 bears their name, or of those who are receiving pen- 
 sions from the companies. Certainly not more than 
 one in a hundred ; and yet we are told, not solely by 
 the ordinary class of those who have usurped the trade 
 guilds, but by the highest legal authorities, that such 
 dispositions of the guild funds are not contrary to the 
 law. How completely in their origin these companies 
 were especially instituted for the benefit of the trades 
 they represented, may be judged from the fact that one 
 of the principal duties of the wardens and their 
 officials was to examine minutely into the manner in 
 which the tradesmen of the different guilds conducted 
 their business, and if any infractions or acts of dis- 
 honesty were detected, they were punished, by fine or 
 otherwise, by the members of their own trade or craft. 
 Mr. Herbert gives some curious instances of this proof 
 of the power of the different guilds over their fellow- 
 tradesmen. " They had absolute jurisdiction," he says,
 
 8o THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 " over their respective trades, and, in pursuance of their 
 right of search before mentioned, the principals of each 
 company were accustomed, somewhat in the manner of 
 a jury, to take regular rounds." The ordinances of the 
 Grocers, for example (who for several ages had the 
 oversight of drugs, amongst numerous other articles), 
 enjoin their wardens "to go and assayen weights, 
 powders, confeccions, plasters, oyntenents, and all 
 other thynges belonging to the same crafte," and to 
 notice every shop where they found defects, in order 
 that they might be remedied. In like manner, we 
 find the Goldsmiths had the assay of metals, the Fish- 
 mongers the oversight of and rejection of fish brought 
 to London which they disliked, the Vintners the 
 tasting and gauging of wines. 
 
 The Merchant Taylors' records, at a later date, 
 state that company to have possessed not only the 
 right of trade search, but that they kept a " silver 
 yard " for the measurement of cloth, which is said to 
 have weighed thirty ounces, and to have the company's 
 arms engraved on it. With this standard they for 
 ages attended West Smithfield during Bartholomew 
 Fair, at the time when cloth formed the great article 
 of commerce, and a part of the ground is from that 
 circumstance still called " Cloth Fair." This custom 
 appears from an entry in the company's account books 
 under the year 1567, when it was directed " that fit 
 persons should be appointed on the vigil of the eve of 
 St. Bartholomew to see that a proper yard measure be 
 used." And in 1566, we find one " Pullen " to have
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 81 
 
 been committed by the court to prison for using an 
 unlawful yard found in his shop at the time of the 
 search. These records further mention, under the year 
 1612, that it was the custom to have a dinner at 
 Merchant Taylors' Hall for the search on St. Bartho- 
 lomew's eve. All these searches were, however, sub- 
 jected to the control of the City, and the searchers 
 were not to act in violation of any of its privileges. 
 
 Similar examples of punishment to those of the 
 Merchant Taylors for frauds met with on these occa- 
 sions were very frequent in the books of the Grocers. 
 Among others, the two following may be quoted as 
 examples: "1456 A Fyne of John Aysfielde. M. 
 That John Ayshfielde hath put him to rewle for ofiens 
 don in makynge of untrewe powder, gynger, cynamon, 
 and saunders, for which ofiens doon the wardeyns and 
 the feliship associed be fully accorded that he shall 
 maak a fyne of vis. viijd. ; and in case so be that he 
 be founde in suche another trespasse, that then he to 
 be rewled by the avyse of the wardeynes and the felis- 
 chipe associed ; what they wil do ther in hye and 
 lowe." And (same date) : " A Fyne " wherein " John 
 Fneyach " did " put him to rewle for ofiens doon in 
 rydynge into countre with wares unsolde ; for which 
 offens doon y e wardeynes and the felischipe associed " 
 fully conclude that he should pay a fine of 3s. 4d. 
 
 The wardens of all other trades seemed to have 
 equal power over the craftsmen and dealers of their 
 guild. The Fishmongers were no more exempt than 
 other trades ; on the contrary, their regulations were 
 
 G
 
 lz THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 most numerous. The freemen of the livery were pro- 
 hibited from entering into partnership in fish with 
 foreigners, who bring it in their ships, thereby to 
 enhance the price. It was prohibited to store fish up 
 in cellars to retail afterwards at exorbitant rates, or 
 buy before the King's purveyors might have their 
 choice. That no fish except salt fish should be kept in 
 London beyond the second day, on pain of forfeiting 
 of the fish and a fine. The profits of a London fish- 
 monger, all of whom were members of their company, 
 were limited to a penny in the shilling. Forestalling 
 and regrating the market were prohibited, and none 
 were permitted to sell their fish secretly within doors, 
 but to sell it in the open market. No fishmonger was 
 to water fish twice or to sell what was bad. If he 
 broke either of these regulations, he was to be fined 
 for the first offence 12 pence, for the second 20 pence, 
 and for the third to be "jugyd to a pair of stockys" 
 openly in the market-place. 
 
 It may be said, in extenuation of the Fishmongers' 
 Company, that in the present day their guild duties are 
 not quite extinct, several of them being carried out in 
 a full and efficient manner, especially as regards the 
 supervision of the fish, with respect to its quality and 
 condition, which is brought into the London market, 
 and that these duties are carried out in a scrupulous, 
 just, and honourable manner. This fact, as far as it 
 goes, may readily be admitted ; but, at the same time, 
 it is equally a fact that not a tithe of the expenditure 
 of the Company, especially as far as the maintenance and
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 83 
 
 value of their hall, salaries, feasting, and other items are 
 concerned, in the slightest degree benefits the trade or 
 its poorer members they profess to represent. The same 
 excuse for non-interference in the City companies is 
 also brought forward in the case of the Goldsmiths, 
 certain onerous duties in the surveillance of the value of 
 the precious metals being carried out by them according 
 to the strict rules of common honesty. But if in the 
 case of the Fishmongers an immense proportion of the 
 funds belonging to the trade guild are appropriated to 
 other uses, they sink into insignificance when compared 
 with the Goldsmiths' Company. The reader may, to a 
 certain extent, judge of this fact any time when he may 
 be passing their magnificent hall at the rear of the Post 
 Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand, the rental of which, 
 were it not their own freehold, would not, at the pre- 
 sent value of land in the City, be less than 8,000 or 
 10,000 a-year, and that is far from being an exaggera- 
 tion; for if a comparison of the value of lands and 
 buildings which have lately been erected in the City of 
 London were made, it would far exceed it. Let the 
 reader, as he inspects this magnificent edifice, notice in 
 one corner of.it a small erection leading to the base- 
 ment, where are placed the offices for carrying on the 
 duties of what should j ustly be called the trade guild ; 
 let him afterwards examine the amount of space and 
 the splendour of that portion of the building which is 
 applied to feasting and various ceremonies belonging 
 to the Company; and by comparing the amount of 
 space occupied by official duties with that set apart for
 
 84 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 feasting and entertainment of the members, he will be 
 able to form a tolerably clear idea of the proportion of 
 the funds which are applied solely to trade purposes, 
 and of the proportion paid for the feasting and delecta- 
 tion of the great majority of its members, who are not 
 in the most remote degree connected, directly or indi- 
 rectly, with the craft and mystery of the company. 
 
 How completely the Goldsmiths' Company, as far as 
 their trade purposes were concerned, was instituted for 
 the benefit of handicraftsmen skilled in the working of 
 the precious metals, may be judged from the following 
 description given by Maitland in his " London/' and 
 quoted by Mr. Herbert in his " History of the City 
 Companies : " 
 
 " By the said grant Edward invested the Corporation 
 with a privilege of inspecting, trying, and regulating 
 all gold and silver wares, not only in the City, but like- 
 wise in all parts of the kingdom, with a power to punish 
 all offenders concerned in working adulterated gold and 
 silver, and a privilege of making by-laws for their 
 better government. This company is governed by a 
 prime and three other wardens, and ninety-eight assist- 
 ants, with a livery of one hundred and ninety-eight 
 members, whose fine, when admitted, is 20. They 
 have a very great estate, out of which, according to the 
 directions of the several benefactors, is paid to charitable 
 uses above 1,000 per annum." 
 
 Every notice to be found respecting them proves 
 them to have elected those in their body who were in the 
 trade, and the guild was denominated "The Wardens
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 85 
 
 and Commonalty of the Mystery of the Goldsmiths." 
 When the company was first confirmed as a guild they 
 were ordered to elect " honest and lawful and sufficient 
 men, best skilled in the trade, to inquire of and correct 
 the grievances which they had complained of in their 
 petition for a charter, and to reform and punish defects 
 in their craft." How completely the Goldsmiths were 
 a trading and manufacturing guild, the following short 
 extract from their first charter will go far to prove. 
 The charter says, " That all those who were of the Gold- 
 smiths' Hall sit in their shops in the high street of 
 Cheap ; and that no silver in plate, nor vessel of gold or 
 silver, ought to be sold in the City of London except at 
 the King's Exchange, or in the said street of Cheap, 
 among the goldsmiths, and that publicly, to the end the 
 persons of the said trade might inform themselves 
 whether the sellers came lawfully by such vessel or not : 
 that of late, not only the merchants and strangers 
 brought counterfeit sterling into the nation, and many 
 also of the trade of goldsmiths kept shops in obscure 
 turnings and by-lanes and streets, but did buy vessels 
 of gold and silver secretly and without inquiry, and, 
 immediately melting them down, did make the metal 
 into plate, and sell it to merchants trading beyond sea, 
 that it might be exported ; and so they made false work 
 of gold and silver, as bracelets, lockets, rings, and 
 other jewels, in which they put glass of divers colours, 
 counterfeiting right stones, and did put more alloy in 
 the silver than they ought, which they sold to those 
 who had no skill in such things."
 
 86 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 The powers placed in the hands of the company for the 
 punishment of offenders seem to have been most strin- 
 gent, as we may judge from an extract from the " Chro- 
 nicle of London," and quoted by Mr. Herbert. It says, 
 "All the goldsmythes of London, and all those that 
 kept on the Change, and many other men of the citee, 
 weren arrested and taken for buyenge of plates of sylver, 
 and for chaunge of grete money for small money, whyche 
 were indicted by the wardes of the citee ; and, on the 
 Monday next after the Epithanie, the justyces sentence 
 at the Yeld halle to make deliverance, that is to seyn, 
 Sr. Stephen of Pencestre, Sr. John of Cobham, and 
 others with them, to assist them, and there were fore- 
 jugged and drawen and hanged iij. Englyshe christen 
 men and xij. Englyshe Jewes." 
 
 From the following extract from their charter, re- 
 newed in the time of James II., the reader may judge 
 how completely the charitable or benevolent element 
 entered into the organization of the company, even 
 from its commencement in the time" of Richard I. It 
 notices how " that many persons of that trade, by fire 
 and the smoke of quicksilver, had lost their sight, and 
 that others of them by working at that trade became 
 so crazed and infirm that they were disabled to subsist 
 but of relief from others ; and that divers of the said 
 City compassionating the condition of such, were dis- 
 posed to give and grant divers tenements and rents in 
 the said City, to the value of twenty pounds per annum, 
 to the Company of the said craft, towards the main- 
 tenance of the said blind, weak, and infirm ; and also of
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 87 
 
 a chaplain to celebrate mass amongst them every day, 
 for the souls of all the faithful departed, according to 
 the ordinance in that behalf to be made." 
 
 Among the records of the Goldsmiths' Company one 
 may especially be noticed, as tending to prove that all 
 journeymen craftsmen could pass their apprenticeship 
 and take up their freedom in their trade City guilds, 
 and were then entitled, not only to a voice in its 
 management, but also in the elections of wardens and 
 superior officers. The dispute alluded to occurred in 
 the year 1529. In the company's records it is stated 
 " that this day Richard Cowper, Richard Asplyn, John 
 Cranks, and others, came in before Mr. "Wardens, the 
 livery, and all other of the commonalty of Goldsmiths 
 now assembled, and said that ' they wold none of the 
 Eleccion or Chewsyng of Wardens, with much other 
 vngoodly language and demeanour/ Whereupon, 
 shortly after, a bill of the said ungoodly behaviour was 
 made unto the mayor and aldermen of this city, accord- 
 ing to the truth of the misbehaviour ; the tenor whereof 
 hereafter ensueth." 
 
 Cowper and his companions, in answer * to the peti- 
 tion of the wardens, sent into the Lord Mayor, &c., 
 their counter petition, " in the name of the Committee 
 out of the Livery of Goldsmiths," and which bears date 
 the 14-th of May in the same year. 
 
 They pray on behalf of the said committee 
 
 " 1. That they may have nomination of the wardens' 
 election, as well as the commonalty or livery, inasmuch 
 * From Herbert's " City Companies," vol. ii. p. 147.
 
 88 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 as they be all but one commonalty ; and not to name 
 the chusers, The which is contrary to the King's 
 letters-patent. 
 
 "2. That they may be informed where the lame, 
 blind, and sick persons be found, with the 10 lands 
 that were purchased by license in the days of King 
 Edward III. and King Richard II., and to whose 
 use it is put. 
 
 " 3. There having been divers and many lands, tene- 
 ments, and great sums of money, by gifts, wills, and 
 testaments, given, granted, and bequeathed unto the 
 wardens and commonalty, and their successors, They 
 pray to know particularly the quantity and quality 
 thereof, that they may lament the decreasing thereof, 
 or else joy in the increase. 
 
 " 4. They pray that, inasmuch as they have a com- 
 mon seal, to be put forth for all manner of things and 
 matters, in the name of ' the wardens and commonalty/ 
 that it may not be put forth without the assent of the 
 whole commonalty. 
 
 "5. That, whereas all ordinances and constitutions 
 should be made by the wardens and commonalty, 
 They desire that there be none made without the assent 
 of the whole commonalty. 
 
 " 6. That, whereas the hall is granted to be common 
 to the whole community, They desire that it may not 
 be several [distinct or apart]. 
 
 " 7. They lastly desire, Inasmuch as all manner of 
 works, as well of gold as silver, should be brought to 
 the common hall of the Goldsmiths for proof and
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 89 
 
 examination, that the works of silver be not only 
 brought there, but also of gold, for many and divers 
 considerations. ' ' 
 
 The wardens on their part answered the charge of 
 the members of the disaffected commonalty with con- 
 siderably more legal tact than apparent justice, and 
 endeavoured to weaken the cause of their adversaries 
 by attacking the character of the complainants as 
 being persons of light disposition and out of the livery 
 of the same mystery, and also, it must be admitted, 
 clearing themselves from the accusation of want of in- 
 tegrity of the administration of the company's charitable 
 funds. In Cowper's and his associates' reply, they style 
 themselves " the Artificers, the Poor Men of the Craft 
 of Goldsmiths, to the Uncharitable and Slanderous 
 Answer made and brought to My Lord Mayor, by them 
 who usurp the name to be called the Wardens of the 
 Mystery of Goldsmiths of London, for this year : and 
 of Divers Others of their Adherents, who have been 
 Wardens." 
 
 It would occupy too much space to go at any length 
 into the dispute before the Lord Mayor between the 
 artificers and wardens of the Goldsmiths' Company. A 
 very few of the arguments brought forward by the 
 artificers must suffice, though these will be sufficient 
 to show the power the working craftsmen claimed to 
 have, and were generally allowed to have, in the manage- 
 ment of the affairs of the company. They commenced 
 by saying, "That the said usurpers of the name of 
 wardens slanderously called the said poor _ artificers
 
 90 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 'Confederates and Movers of Division,' because they 
 speak for their liberties by the King's grants, license, 
 and commandments." The replicants contended that 
 the said usurping wardens, &c., were not elected by 
 the commonalty, pursuant by the King's letters-patent , 
 as would appear by such letters, if they should be read ; 
 nor were they elected in the manner before used, which 
 was, " That four of the names of the choosers should 
 be pricked off by the commonalty, openly in the hall, 
 but that by the sinister counsel of their clerk, they 
 caused the ' Bill of Choosers ' to be pricked by four or 
 five householders (whereof one of them was of another 
 occupation) and by divers others of their own servants 
 secretly in a parlour, being altogether only sixteen 
 persons in number ; while the whole great company of 
 the commonalty were expelled, and kept out by force 
 and strength. And that they did not keep the im- 
 partial order of the Lord Mayor and aldermen, which 
 was that eight of the livery, and five not in the livery, 
 should charitably commune together for the reforma- 
 tion of all misdoers belonging to the said mystery. 
 On these accounts they aflirm that there were no 
 wardens lawfully elected or chosen that year, and they 
 therefore prayed the Lord Mayor, as High Warden 
 of all the City mysteries of London, to take the whole of 
 the funds, as well as the hall and different endowments 
 of the Goldsmiths' Company, into his keeping." In the 
 above dispute, which was carried on for a consider- 
 able length of time, the craftsmen, although they cer- 
 tainly lost their cause, as certainly established the
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 91 
 
 power of the commonalty or craftsmen in the manage- 
 ment of the company and the election of the wardens 
 and superior officers. The above short extract also 
 shows the manner in which the wardens were elected, 
 and the power the working men of the craft had in 
 their selection.
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 LIVERY COMPANIES (continued). 
 
 TTAVING given two examples of the livery com- 
 -*-- panics whose original institution and duties are 
 in the present day not actually set at nought, let us 
 now turn to some of the other companies of whose 
 original duties not a trace remains, and whose officials, 
 wardens, and different members of the company almost 
 appear to have been selected the more readily as their 
 ignorance of the trade which it is their duty to 
 control was the greater. And this will appear the 
 stronger when it is remembered that, by just right, 
 every citizen of London has a claim to be admitted 
 as member of the trade he is employed in. Mr. Ser- 
 jeant Pulling, in his work on London, says, " It may 
 nevertheless, however, admit of considerable doubt, 
 whether every tradesman within London has not still 
 an inchoate right to be admitted as a member of that 
 particular company having a superintendence over his 
 trade. These companies are not voluntary societies, 
 consisting of persons chosen by voluntary consent, nor 
 can the admission of members, as in the Corporation
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 93 
 
 at large, be considered to be settled by prescription, 
 and confined to persons possessed of particular quali- 
 fications, as apprenticeship or patrimony. On the 
 contrary, the charters of all incorporated companies 
 expressly state them to be composed of the working 
 members of the different trades or mysteries which 
 they represent, and further, in many instances, re- 
 quiring all persons in such trades, within certain limits, 
 to become members thereof." Of these companies, of 
 which the original purpose of their institution, whether 
 as regards trade or the particular dispositions of chari- 
 table trusts placed in their hands for the benefit of the 
 poorer members of their trade, appear to be lost, we 
 will first select the Grocers. 
 
 The Company of Grocers, or, as they were originally 
 termed, "Pepperers," were first incorporated by the 
 name of Grocers in the reign of Edward III. Strype, 
 speaking of them in his continuation of Stow, 1754, 
 says of them, " This fraternity, anciently denominated 
 ' Pepperers,' having changed their name, were, under 
 that denomination, incorporated by the name of the 
 Wardens and Commonalty of the City of London, 
 which was confirmed by Henry VI., anno 1429. This 
 company consists of a prime and three other wardens, 
 fifty-two assistants, and one hundred and twenty-seven 
 liverymen, whose fine of admission is twenty pounds. 
 They have a great estate, out of which is yearly paid 
 to the poor about seven hundred pounds." Why they 
 acquired the name of Grocers has never been satis- 
 factorily accounted for. Pennant absurdly ascribes
 
 94 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 it to their having dealt in grossi, or figs. Ravenhill 
 says that " the word ' grocer * was a term at first 
 distinguishing merchants of this society in opposition 
 to inferior traders, for they usually sold in gross 
 quantities by great weights." He further adds, that 
 " in some of our old books the word signifies merchants 
 that in their merchandising dealt in the whole of any 
 kind. But, in after times, the word " grocery " became 
 so extensive, that it can now be hardly restrained to 
 certain kinds of merchandises they have formerly dealt 
 in ; for they have been the most universal merchants 
 that traded abroad, and what they brought home 
 many artists of this society found out ways afterwards 
 to change and alter the species, by mixture, confections, 
 and compositions of simple ingredients, by which means 
 many and various ways of dealing and trading passed 
 under the denomination of Groceries : and, indeed, this 
 city and nation do in a great measure owe the im- 
 provement of navigation to merchants originally exer- 
 cising their mystery, as trading into all foreign parts 
 from whence we have received either spices, drugs, fruits, 
 gums, or other rich aromatic commodities." Almost 
 every record in existence respecting the Grocers' Com- 
 pany, till a very late period in the last century, prove 
 them to have been instituted for the double purpose of 
 trade superintendence and organization, and benevo- 
 lent purposes, especially to members of their guild and 
 their families, as well as the administration of other 
 charitable funds placed in their hands. In 1450 they 
 obtained the office of garbeller of spices within the
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 95 
 
 City. The explanation of the term says, " The gar- 
 beller of spices is an officer of great antiquity in the 
 City of London, who is empowered to enter any shop 
 or warehouse, to view and search drugs, &c., and to 
 garble and cleanse them." Herbert, however, says 
 that garbelling was originally confined to pepper and 
 other spices, and was deemed necessary to prevent their 
 being adulterated, for which purpose a chief garbeller 
 was appointed, and sworn to execute his office faith- 
 fully and impartially. The fraternity appear to have 
 obtained this latter privilege in consequence of a peti- 
 tion presented by them to the Corporation of London 
 conjointly with Angelo Ciba, Reginald Grillo, Tobias 
 Lomellino, Branca Doria, and other Genoese, Floren- 
 tine, Lucca, and Lombardy merchants, complaining of 
 the unjust mode of garbelling spices and other "sotill 
 wares ; " whereupon it was ordered that any merchant 
 who should for the future sell spices or other merchan- 
 dise belonging to garbellage, without its being cleansed 
 by a garbeller, chosen, accepted, and sworn for that 
 purpose, should forfeit the goods. The Grocers' Com- 
 pany, as best understanding these commodities, were 
 requested to recommend some member of their own 
 body to the Court of Aldermen to fill this office, which 
 they accordingly did, and Thomas Halfmark was chosen 
 and sworn garbeller of spices and sotill ware. 
 
 How various and onerous were the duties imposed 
 on the Grocers' Company may be judged from the 
 following extract quoted from Herbert's " City Com- 
 panies," and which also goes far to prove how important
 
 96 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 a part their guild played in tlie administration of the 
 trade under their control : 
 
 " In 1664, the physicians having obtained a charter 
 of incorporation, which seemed likely to abridge the 
 sphere of the company's medical control, the following 
 notice appears on the books : ' Divers members of this 
 company trading in drugs made request and suit for 
 the countenance and protection of the court in the free- 
 dom of their trade, against the invasion of the College 
 of Physicians, who, having lately obtained from his 
 Majesty a patent, with new and strange power of 
 privilege and search, seizure, fine, and imprisonment, 
 are attempting the passing of a bill in Parliament for 
 the ratification of the same, which, if effected, will be 
 an insupportable inconvenience and prejudice.' ' They 
 prayed the aid of the court, which was granted, and a 
 committee appointed to consult and instruct counsel to 
 defend them before the committee in Parliament; it 
 was likewise ordered that the charges incurred by the 
 druggists for the defence of their right against the physi- 
 cians should be defrayed by the Grocers' Company. 
 The "plague yjsar," 1665, produced an order of the 
 Grocers' Court, " that the election feast is to be[forborne 
 this year, upon serious consideration of the sadness of 
 the times, and increase of this sore visitation of the 
 City." 
 
 The charitable element, which, as we before stated, 
 was indisputably the proximate cause of the first forma- 
 tion of the City guilds, is also to be noticed in their 
 charter. Speaking of their funds and lands, " they are
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 97 
 
 to have and to hold them, and their successors for ever, 
 in aid of sustaining as well the poor men of the said 
 commonalty, as of a chaplain to celebrate divine service 
 daily for ever." 
 
 And thoroughly they seem to have obeyed the regu- 
 lation. Few of the livery companies had among the 
 members of their craft who gave more nobly to the 
 poor when living, or more noble endowments, than are 
 to be found among the Grocers. But a singular fact 
 presents itself to our notice even here that the chari- 
 table contributions of the liverymen and freemen were 
 the greater, proportionate means being taken into con- 
 sideration, when the whole company consisted of mem- 
 bers of their trade, and appear to have diminished in 
 proportion as the lands on which the greater portions 
 were held became, by the increase of the population 
 and other causes, the more valuable. And not only 
 did they confine their good deeds to the alleviation 
 of misery, but they boasted, and loudly too, of their 
 superior patriotism and courage. As early as 1374 we 
 find that Sir John Philpot, a London grocer, fitted out 
 a fleet at his own expense to repress the piracies of a 
 freebooter named John Mercer, a Scot, who was con- 
 sequently taken, with fifteen Spanish ships which he 
 commanded, and all their rich plunder. Philpot after- 
 wards conveyed an English army into Brittany with 
 ships of his own hiring, and released more than a 
 thousand victualling ships from the enemy. Fuller, for 
 this and other patriotic acts, styles him, whilst living, 
 " The scourge of the Scots, the fright of the French, 
 
 H
 
 98 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 the delight of the Commons, the darling of the mer- 
 chants, the hatred of some curious lords ; but who was 
 at his death lamented, and afterwards beloved by all, 
 when his memory was restored to its diie esteem." In 
 fact, it would appear that boasting of their patriotism 
 and prowess was somewhat of a weakness with the 
 Grocers' Company, and in speaking of their martial 
 deeds they were accustomed to make use of language 
 occasionally verging on the bombastic. 
 
 John Churchman, sheriff in 1385, was founder of the 
 Custom House, and first procured for the company the 
 custody of the King's Beam. In 1410, Sir Thomas 
 Knolles not only was a great benefactor of the Grocers' 
 Company, but restored at his own cost the church of 
 St. Antholin's, Watling Street. Several other grocers, 
 among them Sir Thomas Cecil, were liberal contributors 
 to the charitable funds of the Grocers' Company. Sir 
 John Cutler also, and a score of others, were all equally 
 entitled to the respect of posterity for their noble exer- 
 tions on behalf of the poor, the advance of education, and 
 the rebuilding, restoring, and endowment of churches. 
 It would be a curious but somewhat painful contrast 
 to draw, between the efforts of the present members of 
 the Grocers' Company, in the furtherance of good 
 works, and the deeds of their predecessors. Enough 
 and to spare may be shown to prove the vast personal 
 generosity and good management of their trust funds 
 in former ages. "With the members of the modern 
 guild, although their integrity may be unimpeachable, 
 yet objections might occasionally be taken to their
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 99 
 
 method of dispensing the charitable legacies of their 
 ancestors. As to their personal generosity in adding 
 from their own pockets sums of money to increase 
 their present charitable capital, we hear but little 
 indeed. 
 
 Let us now turn to another company, whose devia- 
 tions from the original purposes for which they were 
 instituted have been so great, as to leave scarcely a trace 
 of their ancient calling to be found among them. 
 
 Machyn, in his diary, 1555, speaking of the 
 " Marchand's Tayllers fest," held on the 2nd of July 
 in that year, says that all the wardens and members 
 of the company were not only tailors, but tailors' sons. 
 "When it is recollected," continues a note in the ap- 
 pendix of the modern edition of Wilson's " Diary/* 
 " that the great City historian Stow, and his contempo- 
 rary Speed, as well as Antony Munday, Thomas Mid- 
 dleton, and others, besides a fair proportion of civic 
 senators and benefactors of former days, were tailors, 
 there can be no reason to despise the brethren of this 
 very necessary craft at any stage of its history, even if, 
 besides manufacturing pavilions for our kings, robes of 
 state for our nobles, and tents, &c., for our soldiers, 
 they all condescended to become makers of ordinary 
 garments, by stitching jerkins for our apprentices, 
 doublets for our shopmen, and trunk-hose for our 
 cooks." 
 
 Originally the tailor and the draper, though not 
 members of the same fraternity as in the present day, 
 went hand in hand together, each contributing equally
 
 ioo THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 to furnish our necessary articles of clothing. Tho 
 merchant tailors, however, as their wealth increased, 
 appear to have felt ashamed of their humble origin, 
 and attempted to prove, by the addition of merchant 
 before their name, that they were raised above the ordi- 
 nary acceptation of the trade in the present day. This, 
 however, is simply untrue, and may almost be con- 
 sidered as a part or portion of the vanity and super- 
 ciliousness which appears to have been an attribute of 
 the company, if not from its earliest origin, certainly 
 since James I. paid them the unfortunate compliment 
 of allowing them to alter their name to Merchant 
 Taylors. * 
 
 There cannot be the slightest doubt, notwithstanding 
 the objection made by the members of the Taylors' 
 Company in the present day to their origin, that they 
 were as completely a trade guild as that of the Wax 
 Chandlers, or Weavers, or any other craft. As a 
 proof how completely the trade was handicraft from 
 the earliest date, and not mercantile, may be seen 
 
 * The habit of boasting, common to the Taylors' Company, may be 
 found frequently noticed by writers in the seventeenth century. Pepys, 
 in his Diary, 1668, speaks of his annoyance in having purchased a 
 book entitled "A History of the Taylors' Company," which he found 
 so absurd and ridiculous, that he threw it aside in disgust. The title 
 of the book was, "The Honor of the Merchant Taylors: wherein 
 are set forth the valiant deeds and heroic performances of merchant 
 tailors in former ages, their honorable loves and knightly adven- 
 tures, their combating of foreign enemies, and glorious successes in 
 honour of the English nation ; together with their pious acts rind 
 large benevolences, their building of public structures, especially that 
 of Blackwell Hall, to be a market-place for selling woollen cloths. 
 Written by William Winstanley, London, 1668."
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 101 
 
 in a" scarce tract of Deffelds, 1612, in which, he nar- 
 rates how the devil strolled into Birchin Lane, at that 
 day the quarter frequented by the tailors, " knowing 
 by his owne experience that everie taylor hath his hell 
 to himselfe under his shop-board (where he damnes 
 new satin), as amongst them he thought to find his 
 best welcome, and therefore into Birchin Lane he 
 stalked verie mannerly, pride going along with him 
 and taking the upper hand. No sooner, however, was 
 he entered into their ranks, than by the tailors, whose 
 weapons are ' Spanish needles/ he was most terribly 
 and sharply set upon ; everie 'prentise boy had a pull at 
 him. Hee feared they had all been sergeants because 
 they all had him by the back." 
 
 But perhaps a still greater proof of their being a 
 working craft may be found in the following extract 
 quoted from their charter at the time they were allowed 
 to call themselves Merchant Taylors. After mention- 
 ing that "the fraternity had authority to hold and 
 enjoy lands, and all other possessions whatsoever, 
 together with all liberties and privileges formerly 
 granted them ; to purchase, hold, and alienate estates, 
 &c. ; to plead and be impleaded, and to make and exe- 
 cute statutes and ordinances for the good and whole- 
 some government, search and connection of the trade, 
 audits, members, provided the same ordinances be not 
 contrary to the laws and customs of England, nor 
 unprejudice the Lord Mayor of London/' Further, 
 the King grants that the master and wardens may 
 exercise full right of survey and search within the
 
 ioz THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 City and suburbs over all persons belonging to the 
 fraternity or exercising its mysteries, as also natives, 
 traders, and foreigners, as well in the making, cutting, 
 and woi'king of men's apparel, as howsoever otherwise 
 using or exercising the same mysteries " within the 
 City and suburbs, and that they may have the correc- 
 tion and punishment of all offenders among them, in 
 matters of the said trade, so far as should be needful 
 for the benefit and advantage of the King's liege people 
 or otherwise whomsoever, provided such search and 
 correction were exercised by the master and wardens 
 according to the law of England, the ordinances and 
 statutes therefore made, and the customs of the City of 
 London." The charter further arranged that no per- 
 son shall use the said art or mystery unless first 
 admitted or authorised by the guild so to do, and that 
 no right of search should be exercised over the trade 
 within the City or liberties, " or by their goods and 
 wares, woollen cloths, ells and measures, to the same 
 mysteries belonging or appertaining," except by the 
 said master and wardens, and saving whatever might 
 be prejudicial to the authority of the Mayor of London. 
 But notwithstanding the ridicule heaped upon the 
 Merchant Taylors' Company, infinitely less in the nature 
 of their craft than their inordinate boasting, there were 
 at the same time many very honourable, celebrated, 
 and eminent men connected with them. Among these 
 may be mentioned Sir John Hawkwood, who was the 
 son of a tailor of Manningtree, in Essex, where he was 
 born in the reign of Edward III. He was afterwards
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. loj 
 
 sent up to London and apprenticed to a tailor; but 
 when grown up to man's estate, and after apparently 
 having taken up his freedom of the company, he was 
 pressed into the army and sent abroad, where, in the 
 words of Grainger, "his genius, which had been 
 cramped and confined to the shop-board, soon ex- 
 panded and surmounted the narrow prejudices which 
 adhered to his birth and education. He signalised 
 himself as a soldier in France and Italy, and par- 
 ticularly at Pisa.* 
 
 He afterwards entered into the service of Florence, 
 where he died. The description of his deeds given, 
 however, by the Merchant Taylors' Company have been 
 from time to time so magnified and distorted, that at 
 length it began erroneously to be suspected that Sir 
 John Hawkwood was neither more nor less than a 
 fabulous character, his reputed prowess approaching 
 far closer to the heroes of fairy tales than that of an 
 ordinary mortal. 
 
 Another hero of the Merchant Taylors' Company was 
 a certain Sir Ralph Blackwell. But here again tradition 
 has so mingled up his career with fiction that it is diffi- 
 
 * Although, as a successful soldier, it is customary to speak of him 
 with praise and respect, if his real character were narrowly investi- 
 gated, it is more than probable that Sir John Hawkwood would be 
 adjudged no better than an unscrupulous mercenary, who was per- 
 fectly willing to sell his sword and his experience, which, according to 
 the military science of that day, was certainly great, to the highest 
 bidder. He married a natural daughter of Bernado, brother to 
 Galleazo, Duke of Milan, with, whom he received a large fortune. 
 Finding it, however, afterwards to his interest, or yielding to a large 
 bribe, ho, without the slightest reluctance, turned his arms against 
 his father-in-law.
 
 104 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 cult to distinguish one from the other. Whittington, 
 who is stated to have been a fellow-apprentice with Sir 
 John Hawkwood, was certainly a real character, and one 
 who tended more to raise the honour of his company 
 than either Blackwell or the mercenary Hawkwood. 
 Several other men of celebrity might also be mentioned, 
 but none among them of such standing as to raise the 
 company to a status superior in point of precedence to 
 any other of the City guilds. 
 
 The Mercers' Company, one of the richest and most 
 powerful in the City of London, may be quoted as 
 another instance of the unscrupulous manner in which 
 the original duties for which they were instituted have 
 been set aside, till not a vestige of them remains. And 
 yet, among the whole of the City guilds, there is not 
 one in which the origin of the company can be more 
 distinctly proved to have been a charitable endowment 
 for the benefit of sick, infirm, and decayed members, 
 and the regulation of the mysteries of the trade. 
 
 In proof that the Mercers' Company was originally 
 established, so far as its benefit funds went, as a means 
 for affording relief and assistance in poverty and sick- 
 ness to their brethren in the " mystery of mercery," 
 we have but to quote a short extract from their original 
 charter, confirmed again in the reign of Elizabeth : 
 " To all to whom these present letters shall come, 
 greeting. Know ye, that whereas the Lord Richard, 
 late King of England, our progenitor, the thirteenth 
 day of January, in the seventeenth year of his reign, 
 in consideration had, that several men of the mystery
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 105 
 
 of mercery in the City of London, often by misfortunes 
 of the sea, and other unfortunate casualties, had become 
 so impoverished and destitute that they had little or 
 nothing in consequence to subsist on, unless from the 
 alms and other assistance of the faithful in Christ, be- 
 stowed and accruing to them in the way of charity. 
 And by reason whereof the men of the mystery afore- 
 said, in the City aforesaid, being voluntarily desirous 
 to have and form some establishment, as well for the 
 perpetual sustentation of such poor, as of a chaplain to 
 celebrate divine offices, for the state of the said land, 
 king, and the men of the mystery aforesaid." 
 
 Herbert, speaking of this company, says the word 
 " mercer/' in ancient times, was the name for a dealer 
 in small wares, and not, as afterwards, a vendor of 
 silks. Merceries then comprehended all things sold 
 retail by the little balance (in contradistinction of things 
 sold by the beam, or by the gross), and included not 
 only toys, together with haberdashery and various 
 other articles connected with dress, but also spices and 
 drugs ; in short, what at present constitutes the stock 
 of a general shopkeeper. The mercers, in these periods 
 of simplicity, chiefly frequented the fairs and markets ; 
 for we learn that, in 1290, mercers who attended the 
 French fairs for trading purposes in some instances sat 
 on the ground to sell their wares, and only paid a half- 
 penny toll, while others, who elevated their goods on 
 stalls, paid a penny. Afterwards, the silk trade formed 
 the main feature in the mercer's business, though for 
 some time it appears to have been carried on by " the
 
 106 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 silk women and throwsters of London," and who, in 
 petitioning for their charter in the reign of Henry VI., 
 prayed " that the Lombards and other strangers may be 
 hindered from importing raw silk into the realm, con- 
 trary to custom, and to the ruin of the mystery and 
 occupation of silk-making and other virtuous female 
 occupations." 
 
 In 1561, we find the mercers to have been an actual 
 trading company, and conformably to what is at present 
 understood by the name dealers in silk. A notice of the 
 Grocers' minutes of this year informs us, that the war- 
 dens of the Mercers were summoned before the Queen's 
 council " for uttering and selling velvets, sattens, da- 
 maskes, at the great price they did, considering that 
 her Majesty had brought her base coin to as fine a coin 
 as ever was in England ; which baseness of coin had 
 theretofore been theirs, and other excuses for the high 
 prices of all manner of wares, and that the nobility 
 perceived no amendment of the prices of the said sort 
 of silks, to the great offence of her Grace." The 
 Mercers properly answered, that " they had no authority 
 over those who sold silks unless they were members of 
 their own company, and that retail trades of other 
 companies were much more faulty, in proof thereof 
 they requested their honours to send for the Grocers 
 and take them to task, promising for themselves to 
 make such reforms as would give satisfaction." 
 
 Every notice extant respecting the Mercers' Com- 
 pany goes to prove, not only that they were a body of 
 traders possessing a charter for trade purposes, but that
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 107 
 
 all assistants and freemen of the company were con- 
 sidered members, and had a right to a voice in the 
 election of wardens and superior officers, and to be 
 relieved in times of distress from the corporate funds of 
 the guild. It would almost appear that one reason for 
 the alteration in the name and title of this company, in 
 the time of Charles II., arose from the desire to prove 
 that all classes of men who were freemen in the trade 
 had a voice in its management. The alteration goes on 
 to say, " that all and every of the freemen of the mystery 
 of Mercers in London shall henceforward be a body cor- 
 porate and politic, by the name of the Master, Wardens,, 
 and Commonalty of the Mystery of Mercers of the City 
 of London, with perpetual succession, and shall under 
 such name be capable of possessing estates of whatsoever 
 kind in fee," &c. Nay, more, of all the City compa- 
 nies, none, till a very late date, possibly the commence- 
 ment of the present century, appear to have more 
 rigidly excluded outsiders and others not of their 
 mystery from becoming members of their corporation. 
 In the year 1701, Sir "William Gore, a member of the 
 Mercers' Company, was chosen Lord Mayor of London. 
 In his speech at the dinner which afterwards took place 
 in the Guildhall, he complimented the men of the 
 " Mystery of Mercery " of having always kept their 
 brethren to members of their trade ; " while other com- 
 panies," he continued, " had admitted strangers to the 
 right of membership, they alone had kept to their trade, 
 all being brethren of the same livery." In the pre- 
 sent day it would, perhaps, be impossible to find one
 
 io8 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 individual in the guild who is even indirectly connected 
 with the trade. 
 
 Again, the Drapers' Company is another which pos- 
 sesses few or none of the members of the trade for 
 whose interests they were incorporated, and even if an 
 exception could be found, all trade attributes which 
 formerly belonged to the company are now utterly 
 obsolete, and yet none had their trade duties and rights 
 more thoroughly defined. They were formerly indis- 
 criminately called drapers and clothiers, the former 
 term seeming to have been applied to those who made 
 and sold cloth in or near London, and the latter to those 
 who brought it for sale from the country. Stow appears 
 to make this distinction in speaking of Cloth Fair by 
 Smithfield, where, he says, " the clothiers of England 
 and the drapers of London kept their booths and stand- 
 ings." Like all the other City companies, the prin- 
 cipal cause for their uniting as a guild was that of 
 assisting each other in times of distress ; the second, for 
 the regulation of the trade. In proof of the former, 
 Herbert says, " The relief of the decayed brethren, or, as 
 the ordinances added, to those fallen in poverty, was 
 provided for by an article which states that any brother 
 having been in full livery for one year, and being in 
 good name, who should fall into poverty or sickness, 
 should by the whole body be admitted to alms. If he 
 had never served as warden, he was to be allowed four 
 marks a year, to be paid quarterly ; if otherwise, he was 
 to have fully fourteen pence per week from the box 
 ' till the tyme that wj r ll increse them oderwyse.' '' The
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES, 109 
 
 following addition is made to this article in 1503, at 
 which time the company had built almshouses : 
 " Provided always, that the poor so admitted shall dwell 
 within the place, and use them always as an almones- 
 man, and that such stuff as he shall bring with him 
 shall rest in the house for his successor, after the dis- 
 cretion of this place, except he have a wife or child, in 
 which case they are to receive his goods, and to imme- 
 diately avoid the place." 
 
 The rules for the guidance of the trade portion of the 
 Drapers' Company's duties prove in the most marked 
 manner the utilitarian principles on which they were 
 organized. A few of these we will quote, as their com- 
 parison with the manner the duties of the guild are 
 performed in the present day may form in the reader's 
 mind a somewhat ludicrous contrast.* Merchandising 
 affairs, already noticed as the primeval custom of the 
 trade guilds, peculiarly applied to the great staple com- 
 modity of cloth. The Drapers have a special ordinance 
 in the sixth of Henry IV. about visiting the fairs of 
 Westminster, St. Bartholomew, Smithfield, and South- 
 wark, which forbids members, under the penalty of 
 10, from being found with goods at either of the 
 above places " over the franchise," which was thirty 
 days for Westminster, and three each for St. Bartholo- 
 mew and South wark. 
 
 At the two latter fairs the company, jointly with the 
 Merchant Taylors, held their annual trade search, cloth 
 
 * For the following examples we are indebted to Mr. Herbert's 
 " History of the City Companies."
 
 no THE CITY AS II IS. 
 
 being at both fairs the great commodity sold, the whole 
 of which was subjected to the admeasurement of the 
 company's measure. They had for the latter purpose 
 the Drapers' ell, stated to have been granted to them by 
 Edward III. It is variously denominated in their 
 books as "the yard," "the company's standard," and 
 other names, and the " new trymmyng " of it occurs as 
 an annual item of expense, as well as occasionally the 
 cost of a new bag for the company's standard. The 
 searchers always had a treat on these occasions, though 
 certainly what would now be thought a humble one. 
 " Brede, wyne, and pers " (pears) constitute this enter- 
 tainment, "at the searche of our Lady Feyre, in South- 
 wark," in 1485, amounting that year to 15|o?. ; in 
 1496, 16< is charged "for potacions at South wark, at 
 our Lady Fayr ; " and in 1514 the sum of 1 2s., the 
 last payment being said to be " for the potacions at 
 Robert Lazenby's aft r ou r serche at St. Barth' ws even." 
 Both these fairs, like that of "Westminster, belonged in 
 the Catholic times to the heads of religious houses ; 
 Westminster to its abbot, and St. Bartholomew and 
 Southwark (or St. Mary Overy, as it is oftener called) 
 to the priors of those monasteries. Another entry is as 
 follows : " Accorded by all the aldermen of this frater- 
 nity and fellowship, and with the whole body of the 
 same fellowship, that no member shall take with him at 
 any time any person who is not of his own fellowship, 
 to ride or go to any place in town or out of town, where 
 <-loth may be bought by any draper of this fraternity, 
 or afford the agent of any other company any know-
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. in 
 
 ledge of any bargain making, or the knowledge of 
 cloth, or of its price, or of any point belonging unto 
 drapery." 
 
 Non-freemen were excluded from the trade, and it 
 was a finable offence in members who employed them. 
 A still higher offence was, any member assuming the 
 functions of a clerk, and particularly in matters of 
 apprenticeship. 
 
 In the year 1533, Thomas Benet, a member, being 
 convicted of this double crime, namely, of keeping 
 foreigners in his house and setting them to work 
 contrary to the good ordinances of this house, and also 
 that he had made a pair of indentures for one of his 
 apprentices, called Roger Beston, instead of applying 
 to this house, was ordered to bring a gauge or secu- 
 rity to the wardens of 10 value, and being rebel 
 and disobedient thereto, he was by the lord mayor im- 
 prisoned. After he had been confined a day and a 
 night, he "made humble mediac'on," and was again 
 allowed to appear before the wardens, with plate to 
 the required value. Having in addition "behaved 
 very humbly and penitently," he was told to pay 10s. 
 as a fine and take his plate. But perceiving his 
 gain lay in submission, he is stated to have accepted 
 their kindness, that the wardens gave him again his 
 gauge of plate, and only made him pay 3s. 4d. 
 
 When the fault was of a heinous kind, and particu- 
 larly for continued rebellion to the masters, the penalty 
 extended to expulsion. The article on this subject in 
 the first ordinances states, "that any person of the
 
 ii2 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 fraternity who was of misruled or evil frame should be 
 summoned before the wardens and corrected as seemed 
 good to their discretion. If he rebelled and would 
 not obey their correction," the wardens were then to 
 call the " Council of the Mystery," and they were to 
 correct him after their discretion. If he would not 
 obey their " rule and correction," they were to present 
 him before the mayor as a rebel, and the said person 
 was to be utterly discharged and put out from the 
 fraternity and fellowship. 
 
 All these rules and regulations are, with the excep- 
 tion of one, now of course totally obsolete ; but that 
 seems adhered to by the present Drapers' guild with a 
 tenacity which could hardly be surpassed. Under the 
 head of " keeping the secrets of the craft," it was pro- 
 vided by an ordinance that "none do betray lytel 
 thyngs said in counsell to others of the craft, nor no 
 brother inform any stranger." The examples of the 
 enforcement of this rule and its punishment were car- 
 ried out with great strictness. 
 
 The Haberdashers and Clothworkers, both rich and 
 powerful companies, were instituted for the regulation 
 of the trades and the relief of the members in times of 
 their distress, sickness, or decay. Their rules and regu- 
 lations differ so little in form from those of the Drapers 
 and Mercers, that it is hardly necessary to go into any 
 minute details respecting them. The Clothworkers, by 
 the way, in their charter or regulations, give an exact 
 account of the different grades in their guild, which 
 may be taken as the rule with most of the other livery
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES, 413 
 
 companies. They are curious as proving that, different 
 both as respects dignity of position and duties in the 
 trade or craft they might be, they were all equally 
 members of it, and had, directly or indirectly, a voice 
 in its management. 
 
 The first degree was apprentices of the craft, none 
 of which, by the ordinances, were to take wages or to 
 work journey-work. 
 
 The second degree was freemen, sometimes called 
 yeomanry, sometimes bachelors. They were presented 
 and were admitted to work by journeys, or journey-work. 
 They entered into bond, however, not to work with 
 any foreigner or non-freeman, but with freemen only 
 of their craft. 
 
 The third degree was householders. 
 
 The fourth degree was the livery or clothing (that 
 is, such as wore a gown or hood), and the livery or 
 clothing it was which were called the fellowship. 
 
 The fifth degree was wardens, which office had also 
 two steps : 1st, young wardens; 2nd, second wardens; 
 the third or upper warden was the master. 
 
 The whole company, like the others we have described, 
 were subject to the lord mayor and aldermen, who 
 forced those who rebelled to be bound in recognizance 
 in the Mayor's Court fined for disobedience, for 
 breach of the ordinances, disobeying the court of mas- 
 ter wardens and assistants in general, as well as in the 
 trade searches, and in extreme cases the lord mayor 
 would commit to the counter.* 
 
 * Herbert's " City Companies." 
 I
 
 ii4 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 It need hardly be said that the trade purposes for 
 which these two last companies were instituted are 
 totally obsolete, and the enormous charitable funds in 
 the hands of the present so-called members of ,he craft 
 and managers of the guild would be found, on a very 
 little investigation, to be applied to uses far different 
 from the purposes intended by those who bequeathed 
 them. If they are not, they widely differ from the 
 fate of the charitable and trade funds in the hands of 
 those having the management of all other trade guilds. 
 It would be a curious subject for inquiry to ascertain 
 the amount of the enormous funds at the disposal of 
 the managers, how many of these gentlemen are even 
 remotely connected with the trades they represent, and 
 how much of their charitable trust funds, if any, reach 
 the members of the trade for whose benefit and govern- 
 ment the guilds obtained their charters. 
 
 The Ironmongers', Leathersellers', Skinners', and 
 other companies, all followed in the same line. In propor- 
 tion as time passed on, and the wealth, either for trade 
 purposes, or charity, or education increased, the duties of 
 the managers and their interest in the trades they repre- 
 sented appear to have decreased in exact proportion, till 
 hardly an element for which they obtained their original 
 charters is to be discovered among them. Several as, 
 for example, the Merchant Taylors repudiate with dis- 
 gust the idea that members of that highly useful, but 
 scarcely aristocratical, craft should be allowed a place 
 among them. If any can now be found, there can be 
 but two or three, and their admission can only have
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 115 
 
 been obtained by some strong marks of disapprobation, 
 which a few years since burst from the public press at 
 the exclusiveness exhibited by this company. Possibly 
 the best example which could be given of the objection- 
 able features to be found in many of our City guilds 
 may be remarked in the Merchant Taylors. In their 
 records may be found specimens of the most abject 
 debasement before the powerful when the guild itself 
 was weak, and the utmost arrogance when they were 
 rich and imagined themselves, as at present, strong. 
 An amusing contrast of these opposite states of feeling 
 on the part of the guild is given by Mr. Firth in 
 his admirable work on the Municipality of London.* 
 " Very different," he says, " was the conduct of the 
 companies when the Commissioners of 1835 received 
 the royal command to inquire into the Corporation of 
 London. Upon this occasion the Merchant Taylors dis- 
 tinguished themselves amongst the companies by their 
 opposition. They told the Commissioners that 'they 
 would meet them with unqualified resistance.' ' King 
 "William IV. had commanded his loving subjects to 
 give their best assistance to his trusty and well-beloved 
 Commissioners, but the Merchant Taylors, administer- 
 ing a vast income amassed under public auspices, and 
 held by them as trustees for public purposes that is to 
 say, for the training and supervision of tailors and 
 breeches-makers arrogantly set both King and Com- 
 mission at defiance. It would be amusing, if not so 
 
 * " Municipal London," by J. E. B. Firth, LL.B. London : 
 Longman, Green, and Co.
 
 u6 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 lamentable, to contrast this with their conduct in 1684. 
 They were then foremost in craving submission. They 
 begged the King, in their most servile language, to 
 take back their charter ; and when he granted them a 
 new one, which he did the same year, they voted that 
 all the company should wait upon the King and thank 
 him. Judge Jeffreys, however, informed them that 
 the King "accepted their thanks, but would excuse 
 their attendance ; " whereupon the company voted a 
 present in plate for "the great and extraordinary 
 honour he had conferred on them." It is exactly 
 what might be anticipated that the abject cowardice 
 of 1684 would develop into the confident assumption 
 of 1837 ; and that the title-deeds which the men of 
 1684 offered to the King, their descendants two hun- 
 dred and fifty years later should claim as their " pri- 
 vate property." James II. endeavoured to corrupt the 
 electoral body of the companies, so as to use them for 
 his own purposes ; and still the Merchant Taylors were 
 to the fore, and proposed to set up his statue in the 
 Royal Exchange. 
 
 Before entirely quitting the subject of the origin and 
 rules relating to the ancient organization of the City 
 livery companies, we would bring under the notice of 
 the reader one which was formerly of great importance, 
 but which is now, except in name, completely extinct 
 the Brewers' Company. With the exception of the 
 Leathersellers', this company possesses a more curious 
 collection of records than any other in London. Nor 
 must it be imagined that the trade guild was confined
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 117 
 
 to the master brewers ; on the contrary, all the journey- 
 men were as much members of the company as their em- 
 ployers, and had, either directly or indirectly, as strong 
 a voice in its management as the master and wardens 
 themselves. To show how completely the craftsmen or 
 working men of this livery were considered members 
 of the guild, let us quote an order issued by the 
 wardens on the 15th of February, 1422 : " That on the 
 occasion of the King's visit to the City, all house- 
 keepers (journeymen) of their company, and all the 
 brewers' men of a salary of forty shillings a year, 
 should provide themselves with new clothes to do 
 honour to his Majesty." The trade rules and regula- 
 tions of this company seem to have been most rigidly 
 kept without regard to person, no matter how high 
 his standing in the company might be. Some of the 
 examples quoted by Herbert are exceedingly curious. 
 " The books of the Brewers' Company, 1421," he says, 
 " contain a long and curious story of the perverseness 
 of one William Payne, at the sign of the Swan, by St. 
 Anthony's Hospital, Threadneedle Street, which origi- 
 nated in his refusal to contribute a barrel of ale to be 
 sent to the KiDg (Henry V.) whilst he was in France." 
 For this afiair he was fined 3s. 4d. for a swan for the 
 master's breakfast, and, refusing to pay, he was impri- 
 soned. Afterwards, contemptuously resolving " not to 
 wear the company's livery," he was brought before the 
 mayor, and eventually imprisoned ; but it is added, 
 " was very long before he could be humbled and brought 
 to good behaviour."
 
 u8 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 A swan, or the value of a swan, seems to have been 
 a very common fine in the earlier days of our City 
 guilds. Herbert quotes another example from the books 
 of the Brewers' Company. " Another story," he says, 
 " in which a swan was also the fine, occurred soon after. 
 It details the ill-treatment of Simon Potkin, of the Key 
 at Aldgate, who had paid 2Qd. to a friend to procure a 
 certificate of the ' oppressive acts/ as they were termed, 
 of the famous Sir Richard Whittington, then lord 
 mayor, and who appears to have been particularly 
 severe with the retailers of ale. This Potkin, on being 
 fined by the chamberlain for bad measure, excused him- 
 self by saying that ' he had given money to the master 
 of the Brewers that he might sell at his own will.' For 
 this slander he is stated to have got into great trouble 
 with his company, and to have been only finally par- 
 doned on paying 3s. 4d. fine for a swan, to be eaten by 
 the master, ' but out of which,' it is added, ' he was 
 allowed his own share.' " 
 
 The long immunity from interference enjoyed by the 
 City companies has resulted from negligence of their 
 own interests on the part of London tradesmen a neg- 
 ligence no doubt mainty due to absolute ignorance of 
 their rights an ignorance carefully fostered by the 
 companies, who kept all their financial proprietary 
 arrangements impenetrably shrouded in the breasts of 
 a few in each company, so that neither the ordinary 
 members nor the livery are suffered to know them ; and 
 those who do know them are probably bound by their 
 oaths not to reveal what they know.
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. rig 
 
 Before terminating our short description of some of 
 the most prominent of the City guilds, it remains to 
 mention a circumstance connected with them which is 
 now, and has been for the last century, obsolete, and 
 which must tend to prove how far the charitable ele- 
 ment formerly existed in the organization of these 
 guilds the admission of women as members of the 
 livery companies * and was furnished by Mr. Edward 
 Lawford, the then clerk of the Drapers' Company, to 
 the Commissioners for municipal inquiry. Speaking of 
 the Drapers' Company, the proper style of this com- 
 pany, he says, was " The Master, Wardens, and brethren 
 and sisters of the Guild or Fraternity of the Blessed 
 Virgin Mary of the Mystery of Drapers of the City of 
 London." They possessed a livery by prescription, the 
 numbers of which were not limited. There were many 
 females free of this company ; they invariably came on 
 the lists for the purpose of participating in the charities 
 of the company. Forty-two females had been so ad- 
 mitted since 1800, who participated equally in the 
 benevolent charity of the company, and in those cha- 
 rities the company held in trust. They had a right to 
 be admitted to certain almshouses, of which they, as 
 free-women of the company, were entitled. Females 
 were admitted by right of patrimony ; " a majority of 
 the females admitted partake of the charities of the 
 company." Mr. Lawford would have rendered his evi- 
 dence still more satisfactory had he informed us how 
 many of the forty sisters nominated between the years 
 * From the Times newspaper, November 7th, 1834.
 
 i2o THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 1800 and 1834 were directly or indirectly members 
 of the drapers' trade. It is very probable he might 
 have had some difficulty in finding any, and yet at 
 the origin they were distinctly working members 
 of the trade, for we find in one of the earlier rules of 
 the guild, 1503, the following extract : " Every brother 
 or sister of the fellowship taking an apprentice shall 
 present him to the wardens, and shall pay 13s. 4d. 
 instead of 3s. 4?." Again, among the ordinances a few 
 years later, the right of sisters to take apprentices, and 
 the fee to the wardens, is distinctly specified. The 
 ordinances also protect them from arrest in their busi- 
 ness by other members without leave given. Sisters, 
 when they were buried, had also the use of the best 
 " pall," " for the Drapers' Company kept two of great 
 magnificence, to be used at the interment of their 
 members," and were followed by the fraternity to the 
 grave with every respectful ceremony equally as the 
 men. The Grocers' Company had also many women 
 members, and in some companies for example, that of 
 the Brewers they were admitted equally with the men. 
 The Fishmongers' Company also had many. The sisters 
 had also, in like manner with the brethren, their dis- 
 tinctive dress or livery, and frequently took part in the 
 different processions and ceremonies of the craft or 
 guild to which they belonged. 
 
 Speaking of the present condition of the livery com- 
 panies, Mr. Firth justly says,* " Their charters remain 
 unrepealed, and whilst they are the very titles under 
 * " Municipal London."
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 121 
 
 which the companies claim to hold their exceptional 
 rights, yet where they provide that all the members 
 then using, or thereafter to use, the particular mystery 
 in London or in the suburbs shall be members, there 
 the governing body quietly ignore them altogether, 
 and deny to a City or suburban tradesman the rights 
 which are plainly given him by the charter, as are 
 the rights of holding land and of perpetual succes- 
 sion. And so well is it known that these charters, 
 whilst useful as titles to property, are altogether dis- 
 regarded so far as their correlative responsibilities are 
 concerned, that the policy is generally pursued of 
 declining to produce them at all. They are alleged to 
 be private property, with which no one else has any 
 more right than he has with a man's title-deeds."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 LIVERY COMPANIES (contimied). 
 
 principal feature of the ancient City guilds 
 which is apparent among them in the present day 
 is their inordinate love of feasting ; but even here, in 
 one respect, they differ considerably from the ancient 
 usages of the different livery companies that of having 
 the sisters of the craft or trade present on the occasion. 
 Again, another difference also deserves mention that 
 of their origin. The members of the different trades 
 contributed from their own pockets, and not out of the 
 corporate funds, the cost of the feast, although it is but 
 justice to add that this last regulation soon fell into 
 disuse, and the expenses were defrayed out of the com- 
 mon funds of the livery. Herbert quotes some amusing 
 instances of this love of feasting among our ancestors. 
 In the Grocers', for example, " those of the livery who 
 attended were to pay 3s. 6?., those who did not 2s. 6d., 
 which sums were to go towards the joint expenses of 
 the dinner and the maintenance of the priest ; persons 
 not in the livery, and who kept shops, were only to 
 pay 12d." But after- ordinances state, "every man, 
 being a brother to the fellowship, and in the clothing
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 123 
 
 of the same," that did not come "unto the dynner or 
 soper that should be made for the eleccion of the 
 wardeyns yearly," was to forfeit 5s. to the use and 
 behalf of the fellowship. Not only did widows, wives, 
 and single women, who were members, join the 
 joyous throng, but from the Grocers' ordinance of 
 1348 we find the "bretherne" could introduce their 
 fair acquaintances by paying for their admission, and 
 that not as, in modern times, to gaze in galleries, the 
 mere spectators of good living, but as participants. 
 There is an amusing simplicity in the ordinances 
 alluded to of the Grocers on these points. They enjoin 
 that every one of the fraternity having a wife or com- 
 panion shall bring them to the feast ; every man, it is 
 added, shall pay for his wife 2Qd., or man and wife, 
 5s., that is to say, 20d. for the man, 20d. for his com- 
 panion, and 20d. for the priest. "Women not members, 
 but who should afterwards marry members, were to be 
 entered and looked upon " as of the fraternity for ever, 
 and be assisted and made one of us." If left a widow, 
 such female member was to come to the annual dinner, 
 and pay, if able, 40d. ; but in case she married again 
 to one who was not of the fraternity, she was to be 
 expelled, and so to remain during such marriage. 
 " Nor none of us ought to meddle or interfere in any- 
 thing with her on account of the fraternity so long as 
 she remains married." The admissions of different 
 companies of course varied with circumstances. The 
 brothers of the Brewers' Company, for example, were 
 to pay 12d., the sisters 8d., and a brother and his wife
 
 J24 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 whilst among the Fishmongers the members 
 were to pay towards the feast on their quitting the 
 church for a religious ceremony always took place 
 before any of these feasts every man 12c?., and for his 
 wife 8d., and each for " his gest in the same manere 
 at the assemble as the wardeynes shall reasonabilly 
 ordeyne." 
 
 As time passed on, the sisters seem to have been 
 treated with still greater respect, no charge being made 
 for their presence at the feasts. In the Drapers' Com- 
 pany, for example, in addition to the various apartments 
 for the use of the members, one is called the ladies' 
 chamber, or retiring room. The ladies' chamber, says 
 Herbert (an apartment which the company still retains, 
 and under the same denomination), was a splendid 
 room, solely appropriated to the uses of the sisters of 
 the livery, and in which they occasionally had separate 
 dinners, instead of mixing with the company in the 
 hall. The married ladies only, and those of the highest 
 class, are mentioned as its guests : the " Chekker 
 Chamber " is described " to have been set apart for 
 maydens." Both married and single sisters, however, 
 more usually partook of the hospitality of the hall with 
 the " brothers." 
 
 When the ladies dined in their chamber, they were 
 treated with high distinction. They sat at the upper 
 or side tables according to their rank, and the length 
 of those tables shows they must have been capable of 
 accommodating a great many guests "towels, or 
 table-cloths," "for the side table in the ladies' chamber,"
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 125 
 
 being mentioned eight yards long. The fare was the 
 same as at the court table. It included at the election 
 feast in 1515, brawn and mustard, capon boiled, swan 
 roasted, pike, venison baked and roast, jellies, pastry, 
 quails, sturgeon, salmon, and wafers and ipocras, which 
 were served up in five " messes," or courses. The second 
 ladies' table was served with four courses, and a like 
 number of courses were provided "in the Chekker 
 Chamber for the maydens." Amongst the ladies pre- 
 sent on this occasion, amounting to thirty-four in 
 number, were the Lady Mayoress, Ladies Capell, Har- 
 riott, Aylmer, Achilly, Mormoux, and Fenkyl, the 
 sheriffs' ladies, and " lady wardenesses," &c. 
 
 It would take up too much space to go at any length 
 into the description given by different authors of the 
 lavish expenditure incurred by the trade companies on 
 these feasts ; suffice it to say that the gluttony of our 
 ancestors fully equalled that of the guilds at the 
 present day, though some excuse may be offered for the 
 former from the fact that civilisation was then far 
 less advanced than it is now. Still, from the time of 
 Chaucer to that of Henry VIII., considerable improve- 
 ment in culinary matters was observable. The por- 
 poise and fat hog were far less frequently to be found 
 on the tables of the livery companies, though even then 
 the viands were coarser than those now in fashion. 
 For example: the midsummer feast, 1515, of the 
 Drapers' Company, cost 64 8s. 2d. Herbert describes 
 the items provided, which included 100| load of fag- 
 gots, and a load of " talwood," price 7s. 8d. ; a barrell
 
 iz6 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 of sturgeon, containing 22 jowls, besides rounds and 
 middles, 40s. ; three boars, 34s. ; Hall, the poulterer, 
 was paid in " arrest " of his poultry 4, and 6 was 
 paid to him afterwards ; a " load of coles," containing 
 31 quarters, cost only Is. 4?. ;* 24 dozen quails, 
 4 10s.; 45 pike, 3; 2 sacks of meal, 8s. 10^.; 
 1 hogshead of red wine, 1 hogshead of claret, 1 hogs- 
 head of white wine, including porterage, 10 5s. 6d. ; 
 21 gallons of muscatel for ipocras, 1 16s. 8d. Lady 
 Chapell sent the company a fine buck, and five other 
 bucks were recorded from different persons named, all 
 of whom received rewards or compliments in return. 
 The water bailiff's servant was paid Qd. " for his dili- 
 gence about the saumons." Of ale there was drunk 
 13J barrels, besides 3 kilderkins of "single beer." 
 For cooking this great feast, the company's cook was 
 allowed 1 13s. 4d., exclusive of sums paid to the 
 " turn broches " and other menials of the kitchen. 
 Three pence was paid for a potell of sweet wine for the 
 singers, and 3Qd. for the priests and clerks of 
 Saint Michael's, for the " solemnpe masse " on the pre- 
 ceding Sunday. Two pence is charged for mending 
 " the garlands appertaining to the master, and also to 
 the bachelors." And, lastly, which forms one of the 
 most interesting items, as deciding the fact of there 
 having then existed regular companies of actors, is the 
 following: "To John Slye and his company, for two 
 plays on Monday and Tuesday (including Robert 
 
 Herbert must certainly have made some mistake in the cost of 
 this item."
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 127 
 
 Williams the harp and Henry Colet the luth), 4s. 
 Again, a proof of the fact that the ordinary members 
 of a livery company were traders or craftsmen of the 
 particular guild which bears its name, may be seen in 
 several instances in Machyn's Diary. Speaking of 
 a dinner, in 1555, of the Merchant Taylors' Company, 
 he remarks that all the members then present, as well 
 as the wardens, were not only tailors, but tailors' sons, 
 and that this dinner was numerously attended may be 
 judged by his noticing that " they had agaynst their 
 diner 8 bokes (bucks) and 2 stayes (stags)." 
 
 Another attribute to be found at the livery feasts of 
 our ancestors, in common with those of the present 
 day, is the abject sycophancy they showed to persons 
 of title and other dignitaries they invited as guests to 
 their feasts. Persons of high rank, when invited, 
 were personally waited on by the heads of the company. 
 We find an instance in 1496, when the accounts charge 
 4d. " for bote hire to desyre my Lord Tresorer to our 
 feste," who at that time was William Paulet, first 
 Marquis of Winchester. The most usual of the great 
 guests, however, at these entertainments, were the dig- 
 nified and conventual clergy, as will be seen by a 
 slight notice of strangers, &c., present in the year 
 1519* 
 
 " At the election feast this year, there were among 
 
 the guests, " My Lord Bishop of Carlisle, the minister 
 
 of Saint Thomas Aeon, the prior of Christchurch 
 
 (Holy Trinity, Aldgate), the prior of Saint Bartholo- 
 
 * Herbert.
 
 128 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 mew, the prior of St. Mary Amys, Sir Richard Broke, 
 judge and knight, the priest of St. Lawrence, the prin- 
 cipal of the Austin Friars, the prior of the same place, 
 the parson of St. Mighels, the sheriffs," &c. The 
 guests of eminence, with other strangers, consisted of 
 seventy-eight persons forty-four men, and thirty-four 
 women. One other circumstance ought, in justice to 
 the givers of the feast, to be mentioned : " The poor 
 almsmen of the company also attended, and had 
 severally their rewards." 
 
 It should also be mentioned that the lavish expen- 
 diture of the livery companies and others brought on 
 them and the clergy strong remonstrance from many 
 of the leading clerical reformers of the day ; among 
 others Bishop Latimer, who preached a lecture on the 
 subject at Paul's Cross. In a letter written by Thomas 
 Dorset, curate of St. Margaret's, Lothbury, to the 
 Mayor of Plymouth, he says : 
 
 " On Sundaye last the byshope of Worcestre preched 
 at Paules Crosse, and he said that byshopes, abottes, 
 priores, parsones, canones resident, pristes, and all, were 
 strange theves, ye dukes, lordes, and all ; the king 
 quod he made a marvielles good acte of parliamente, 
 that certayne men shoulde sowe every of them two 
 acres of hempe, but it was all to litel, were it so muche 
 more to hang the theves that be in England. Byshopes, 
 abbotes, and such others, should not have so many ser- 
 vauntes, nor so many dysches, but to goo to their first 
 foundacion, and kepe hospitalite to fede the nedye 
 people, not jolye felowes with golden chaines and
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 129 
 
 velvet gownes, ne let them not ones come into the 
 houses of religious men ; let them call them knave 
 byshope, knave abbot, knave prior, yet fede none of 
 them all, nor their horses, nor the dogges." Could 
 a Latimer be found among our modern bishops he 
 might do good service, not only in the cause of the 
 poor, but of Christianity itself, by employing his 
 energies to the reformation of the livery companies 
 and Corporation of the City of London. By changing 
 a little of his phraseology, and substituting for the 
 words, "bishoppes, abbottes, and such others," the 
 words judges, peers, members of parliament, and 
 bankers, &c., he would find sufficient material for 
 another sermon such as his predecessor preached at 
 Paul's Cross. 
 
 To go at any length into a description of these 
 modern guild dinners would be a useless waste of time ; 
 suffice it to say they, as a rule, are conducted on a 
 scale, if not of good taste, at least with the most lavish 
 expenditure. A friend of the author's was one day 
 present as a guest at a dinner of the Mercers' Company, 
 and was seated near the prime warden. During the 
 meal the company near him drank freely of a light 
 hock of exquisite flavour but little strength. The 
 guest openly expressed his admiration of the quality of 
 the wine. "It is certainly very beautiful," said a 
 gentleman near him ; " I will tell you what we gave 
 for it." Then referring to a card near the warden's 
 plate (one of that gentleman's duties being during his 
 term of office to see that the wine drank at the feast
 
 130 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 was reinstated in the company's cellars with other of 
 equal value), he continued, "that wine costs us 104s. 
 a dozen." The guest afterwards, when speaking of the 
 price of the wine to a friend, the latter, a member of 
 the Goldsmiths' Company, said, " One hundred and 
 four shillings a dozen ! Why, when the Prince of 
 Wales dined with us, the cheapest wine on his table 
 cost the company 120s. a dozen." It may be added 
 that at the Mercers' feast, the guest alluded to was 
 informed that there were no fewer than five haunches 
 of venison on the tables. 
 
 Another anecdote worth repeating was also brought 
 under the author's notice. A gentleman was invited 
 to dine at a dinner given at Richmond by the Dyers' 
 Company. "We follow," said the inviter, "in our 
 country feasts, the good old custom of allowing ladies 
 to be present, so you can bring your wife with you if 
 you please. It will be a capital dinner, and will not 
 cost us, one way or the other, less than 3 a head. I 
 am going to-morrow, with another on the dinner com- 
 mittee, to order it. We are each allowed two guineas 
 for our private dinner and expenses, so it will be a 
 pleasant little trip for us. By the way, if you and your 
 wife go, I will send you a couple of guineas for your 
 railway fare. We are very particular not to let our 
 guests be at any expense." " You seem to do things 
 in a very liberal manner," said his friend, " but allow 
 me to ask you one question. Are there any members 
 of the dyers' trade in your company ? " " In that 
 respect," replied the inviter, "we differ from many
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 131 
 
 others of the City livery companies. "We have one 
 bondfde member of the craft still with us." 
 
 Mr. Danby Seymour, in a lecture he gave to the St. 
 Pancras Working Men's Club, April 5th, 1876, with 
 great justice, when speaking on the extravagance of 
 these modern trade guild feasts, said, <l "Why should a 
 humble guardian of some little metropolitan poor-law 
 union be overwhelmed with a shower of abuse, because 
 he buys a bouquet of flowers and hires a fly to dine at 
 Hampstead, all at the expense of the poor, and some 
 rich City guild be smothered with praise for its princely 
 hospitality, because it entertains princes and ministers, 
 and pious members of the House of Commons, out of 
 funds devoted by those who left them to the regulation 
 of the trade which the company represented, the spread 
 of technical education, and the relief of poor decayed 
 members of the craft ? That there should be reasonable 
 hospitality is just, but don't let us have 30,000 a year 
 spent by one company on what may be justly called 
 bloated banquets. To my mind, the vast boxes of bon- 
 bons distributed to the guests at some City banquets 
 are just as reprehensible as the bouquet of flowers which 
 the guardians bought out of the poor-rate to grace 
 their feast. Only the guardians show a more delicate 
 and SBsthetic taste than the City magnates." 
 
 Mr. Seymour might have gone further, and brought 
 under the notice of his hearers a singular contrast be- 
 tween the feasts of the City guilds in bygone days and 
 those of the present ; and the singularity is further 
 increased as the contrast exemplifies in a striking
 
 1 32 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 manner the benevolent feeling which formerly played 
 so honourable a part in the old City feasts, and the 
 abject selfishness and gluttony of the modern. For- 
 merly, when plates and dishes were considered luxuries 
 the slice (or trencher) of common bread generally doing 
 duty for the former and forks were unknown, beside 
 the guests' seats were placed baskets of wicker-work, 
 known as " void baskets," into which scraps of meat, 
 pieces of bread, and other eatables not consumed by the 
 guests, were thrown. The feast over, the contents of 
 these void baskets were distributed among the poor, espe- 
 cially those confined for debt in the City Prison. Fre- 
 quent allusions to this practice were made by our older 
 writers, especially the dramatists. By degrees the 
 practice fell into disuse, but the guild continued the 
 charity in a different form. At the present time, in 
 another form, it still exists, but, oh ! how changed, both 
 in principle and practice ! It has now assumed the form 
 of boxes of costly bonbons, presented to those who, 
 satiated with the feast they have partaken of, can eat 
 no more, to carry home to their wives and families. It 
 has been roughly estimated that the annual cost of these 
 bonbons would provide yearly a Christmas treat, not 
 only for the poor inmates of our metropolitan work- 
 houses, but for all the children in our London district 
 schools as well, and this from the mere extra waste of 
 our selfish and extravagant livery companies' feasts, 
 the whole costs of which are paid for from funds 
 bequeathed for trade and charitable purposes. 
 
 To return to Mr. Seymour and his lecture at the
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 133 
 
 St. Pancras "Working Men's Club. Still speaking on the 
 subject of these sumptuous City feasts, he says : 
 
 " Sometimes, on feast days, a few pounds are distri- 
 buted to each liveryman, and this is said to be according 
 to old custom. A seat on the court of assistants itself 
 carries a salary with it, and all meetings of committees 
 are paid for. In some companies there are dinners 
 twice a week, and, in addition to salaries, sometimes the 
 guests find a five-pound note delicately secreted under 
 their plates. Huge boxes of bonbons are also distri- 
 buted to the guests. Relations are educated at the 
 companies' schools, or accommodated with exhibitions 
 to the universities free of expense ; sometimes a rela- 
 tion is presented with a living of which the company is 
 patron ; while poorer friends are provided for in alms- 
 houses and by pensions." 
 
 "A knowing hand, and one well acquainted with 
 City matters, gave it as his opinion, derived from long 
 experience, that it was the abuse of the ancient virtue 
 of hospitality which had gained for the City companies 
 this license to abuse their trusts and squander the public 
 money. ' The dinners have done it,' he said. ' Feast- 
 ing and joviality always formed part of the system of 
 these old societies ; but in the earliest times the feasters 
 paid for their own dinners, and in their best times they 
 executed the important duties of the benefit societies 
 and trades unions and public analysts of our day. The 
 great bulk of their funds was devoted to public purposes, 
 and they did not, like the Goldsmiths' Company of our 
 own time, spend 30,000 a-year on dining.' '
 
 134 THE CITY AS IT .IS. 
 
 It would be curious, and certainly from all external 
 experiences not difficult, to investigate the cause of the 
 lavish expenditure on our City feasts. It certainly 
 has strongly the appearance of an attempt, on the part 
 of the livery companies (to use Scripture phraseology), 
 to make themselves friends with the mammon of 
 unrighteousness. By this means they contrive to gather 
 round them persons of importance, influence, and high 
 standing, who, doubtful of the right of expenditure 
 made for their entertainment, hardly like to attack 
 those of whose hospitality they _ have so sumptuously 
 profited. 
 
 Nor are we alone in this supposition. Mr. Firth, in 
 this respect, certainly goes entirely with us : " They 
 (the livery companies) are careful to be on the best 
 possible terms with the powers that be. Officers of the 
 government and dignitaries of the law are regularly 
 invited to partake of their ' noble hospitality.' No one 
 who has partaken of these gorgeous banquets can find 
 it in his breast to treat his hosts harshly. The source 
 of the funds and of their misappropriation seem matters 
 of small moment, after dinner representing the perfected 
 skill of four hundred years of continual dining. No one 
 who has quaffed rich wines from the chased goblets of 
 the Skinners' Company is inclined to be over inquisitive 
 as to their charters ; and no one who has sat at table 
 with the Merchant Taylors troubles himself to ask how 
 many tailors there are in the livery. So, by the most 
 delicate and graceful suasion in times of quiet, the 
 companies prepare themselves friends in times of need.
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 135 
 
 One of our Lord's parables thus receives excellent 
 exemplification ." 
 
 And here, again, should be noticed a peculiarity 
 existing between the guests and honorary members 
 at the ancient City feasts, who were not of the trade 
 guilds, and the members of those of our own time. The 
 modern liverymen are particularly fond of quoting, in 
 excuse for the present organization of the companies, 
 that formerly kings, princes, and noblemen of the 
 highest position in the State were members of the. guild, 
 and that they are equally justified in admitting judges, 
 chancellors, princes, dukes, and others, to be members 
 of those of the present day. But a very slight investi- 
 gation would discover a totally different state of affairs. 
 It is true that formerly, almost at the first institution 
 of these guilds, monarchs, nobles, and other magnates 
 were admitted into the company, but solely as honorary 
 members, the livery and commonalty of the company 
 strictly confining their members to the brethren and 
 sisters of the craft or trade. How different is it now, 
 when members belonging to the trade or craft are 
 almost, without a figure of speech, driven from it, while 
 those unconnected with it absorb and control the whole 
 management and funds, as the following short extract 
 from the Times newspaper, October, 1876, will show : 
 
 "The seventy- six great and small livery companies or 
 guilds of the City of London contain in their list of 
 freemen the following, among other eminent persons : 
 the Prince of Wales combines the two trades of Fish- 
 monger and Haberdasher ; the Dukes of Connaught,
 
 136 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 Edinburgh, and Cambridge are Fishmongers, as are 
 also Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Lowe, Mr. Samuel Morley, Sir 
 Morton Peto, Mr. Russell Gurney, Sir A. D. Sassoon, 
 and the Barons Lionel and Nathan Rothschild; the 
 Marquis of Lome and Baron Heath are Grocers ; Lord 
 Beaconsfield, Sir Richard Baggallay, Q.C., M.P., Sir 
 Moses Montefiore, and Sir Anthony Rothschild are 
 Merchant Taylors ; Sir T. G. A. Parkyns is a Cook ; 
 while the Rev. C. Q,. Jackson and Sir David Salomons 
 are Coopers ; Mr. Justice Lush and the Recorder for 
 Manchester are Curriers; Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. 
 "Ward Hunt, Rear -Admiral Sir John Hay, Sir Michael 
 Hicks-Beach, and the Right Hon. J. R. Mowbray are 
 Feltmakers; Mr. Cunliffe Brooks, M.P., Mr. W. H. 
 Peek, M.P., and Sir Thomas Gabriel are Goldsmiths ; 
 Mr. Ayxton and Sir Charles Whetham are Leather- 
 sellers ; ten clergymen, including a bishop, together 
 with the Lord Mayor, Colonels Palmer and Holmes, 
 and Mr. James "Watney, M.P., belong to the liveries of 
 the Drapers, Mercers, and Haberdashers ; Mr. Goschen, 
 Archdeacon Jennings, Sir Thomas Chambers, Sir A. 
 Lusk, Mr. Newdegate, Mr. R. N. Philips, Mr. Hart 
 Dyke, M.P., and the Hon. Stuart Wortley, are Spec- 
 tacle-makers ; among the Turners, Sir Bartle Frere, 
 Sir Samuel Baker, Mr. John Macgregor, Sir William 
 Armstrong, Sir Gilbert Scott, and David Chadwick 
 appear ; Sir George Elliott, Sir Charles Bright, and 
 Colonel Burdett are Needle-makers ; the Rev. A. C. 
 Ranger is a Pewter-pot maker ; Mr. Digby Seymour and 
 the Vicar of Wandsworth are Plumbers ; while Mr. Har-
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 137 
 
 dinge GKffard is a Saddler ; Sir W. H. Humphreys is a 
 Tallow Chandler ; Sir Francis Hicks is a Salter ; and 
 the Revs. H. Wadmore and E. Burbidge are Skin- 
 ners. Among others, Sir Richard Wallace, Sir Gilbert 
 Campbell, Sir P. Colquhoun, Q.C., Colonel Dyot, Hon. 
 A. Gr. J. Ponsonby, and Colonel Sir H. Wilmot are 
 Coachmakers." 
 
 All the gentlemen above named are not " honorary " 
 but direct members of the different crafts, and to their 
 names may also be added those of Lord Selborne, late 
 Lord Chancellor, who is now prime warden of the Mer- 
 cers' Company, and Sir Alexander Cockburn, Chief 
 Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench. Several other 
 names almost equally eminent might be added ; but the 
 above will show not only how differently constituted are 
 our trade guilds of the present day from those of our fore- 
 fathers, but another lesson may be culled by the muni- 
 cipal reformer that may stand him in good need without 
 combined and energetic union on the part of all those 
 directly or indirectly injured by the present organization 
 of the Corporation of the City of London, all attempts 
 to obtain our rights as citizens and reorganize the Cor- 
 poration and the civic municipality will be useless. 
 Again, we agree with a writer in the public press, whose 
 contributions, though under an assumed name,* are well 
 known to be from the pen of a gentleman who has 
 probed deeply into our metropolitan civic abuses, when 
 he says, " We protest against princes bolstering up by 
 their presence the great unreformed Corporation, and 
 * Nemesis.
 
 138 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 we caution their advisers that neglect of popular dis- 
 content may lead to strong reminders. Their absence, 
 and ignorance thereby of popular feeling, will condone 
 visits determined on, but which cannot be repeated 
 without results damaging to the Court party. Is the 
 weight of a Court to be thrown into the scale against 
 a popular movement ? Is reform to be stayed because 
 the Court pleases to shut its eyes to popular indignation 
 against a hideous abuse in our midst ? The summons 
 of ' the herald at the entrance to the pavilion of 
 Guildhall will reassure the Corporation of Court favour 
 and succour in their misdoings." 
 
 As the whole cost of the sumptuous banquets are 
 really paid out of the pocket of the London tradesmen, 
 craftsmen, and other industrials, who earn the means 
 of existence by the sweat of their brow, the efforts of 
 their brains, or both combined, let us see as far as we 
 can, to what the total will amount, promising that we 
 will take the different items at their minimum, so that 
 if we are in error we cannot be justly accused of preju- 
 dice or exaggeration. At the same time, should we in 
 any item be incorrect, we trust the reader will attribute 
 it to the difficulty we have experienced in getting any 
 information from the livery companies or their officials. 
 
 Mr. Seymour, when speaking of the enormous costs 
 of these feasts, appears hardly to have gone deep 
 enough into the matter. Had he given the subject a 
 little more consideration, he would have found that the 
 amount indirectly incurred for one item omitted alone is 
 immeasurably greater than the cost of the feasts them-
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 139 
 
 selves, extravagant as they may be and that is, the 
 value of the halls in which these banquets are given ; 
 and we trust we shall be able to prove to the reader, 
 that although this abuse is frequently less spoken of 
 than any other, it deserves as much if not more repro- 
 bation than all the other items of the feast put together. 
 And here, again, some singular contrasts may be drawn, 
 and some which may tend to strengthen our case, be- 
 tween the uses of these buildings in former times, when 
 the trade guilds were honourably what they professed 
 themselves to be, and those of the present day. On the 
 first institution of these guilds, there is no doubt that 
 the word (Hall) described purposely the place of meet- 
 ing of the members of a livery company. It was evi- 
 dently at first nothing but a large room ; but afterwards, 
 as the duties and uses of the guild became more onerous 
 and extensive, other apartments were added to it, each 
 having its own particular uses. Everything appears to 
 have been carried out in a most primitive manner ; the 
 floor was strewed with rushes, and the tables were simply 
 boards placed on tressels, except, perhaps, that at which 
 the principal guests were seated. There was also a 
 sort of temporary stage erected on their feast days for 
 the use of the minstrels and comedians, who were 
 engaged to amuse the company during the time of the 
 dinner. Most of these halls were originally erected by 
 the members of the different guilds out of subscriptions 
 from the private purses of the members, and not from 
 the trade guild funds. As an example, we may quote 
 one mentioned by Herbert :
 
 HO THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 "One of the first of these buildings," he says, 
 "which apparently corresponded with the increased 
 consequence of the newly-chartered company, was the 
 Goldsmiths' Hall, which must also have ranked with 
 the earliest in point of age, as their fraternity had an 
 assay office in the reign of Henry I. This hall was 
 built by Bartholomew Read, goldsmith, and Lord Mayor 
 in 1502, and was of such magnitude that Stow treats 
 Grafton's account of it as fabulous, observing that West- 
 minster Hall itself would scarcely have equalled it." 
 
 Most of the halls which existed before or near the 
 Reformation seem to have been formed from the 
 deserted mansions of the great, and consequently pos- 
 sessed, in many instances, gardens. Drapers' Hall was 
 the mansion of Lord Cromwell, and still retains its fine 
 gardens. Salters' Hall was the town seat of the Earls 
 of Oxford, and is said to have been the place where 
 Empson and Dudley used to meet in Henry VII. 's 
 reign, and part of which (till very lately) formed the fine 
 court of their present hall. The Grocers built on the 
 site of the Lord Fitz Walter's town mansion, and had 
 (1838) a fine garden, part of which is still also preserved. 
 The minor companies, in several instances, bought and 
 converted the halls of the dissolved religious houses 
 into trade halls : as the Leathersellers, who fitted up 
 the fine hall of the nuns of St. Helen's ; the Pinners, 
 who occupied the Austin Friars' hall, afterwards 
 called Pinners' Hall Meeting-house ; the Barber Sur- 
 geons, who built on part of the site of the Hermitage of 
 St. James in the Wall, and others.
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 141 
 
 Another point should also be brought under the notice 
 of the reader, and it is also quoted by Herbert that 
 the only costly articles of furniture of these halls was 
 the large quantity of silver plate they possessed. But, 
 unlike their successors in the present day, the whole of 
 these expensive articles appear to have been presented 
 by members of the guild ; whereas among our modern 
 livery companies, whatever requires renewing is paid 
 for out of the funds of the guild itself, whether plate or 
 other expensive articles. Among the predecessors of 
 the Goldsmiths' Company, for example, are, in common 
 with other halls, many entries in their inventories 
 similar to the following : 
 
 " 1466. A standing cuppe of sylver with a cover, 
 weying xxiv. ounces troy, given by Thomas Sweten- 
 ham, grocer, Jh'u be mercifull unto his soul ! " 
 
 " 1467. Of the gyfts of John Godyn, grocer. (Jh'u 
 have mercy on his soul!) A standinge cuppe, the 
 cover of sylver, and alle gylte with roses and sonnes 
 [suns] weighing xxxj. ounces." 
 
 " 1467. Of the gyfte of Sir John Howard, Knyghte, 
 a standing cuppe, and cover of sylver, and alle gylte, 
 weying xvj. ounces and half troy weighte. God send 
 him long life and welfare." 
 
 Drinking- cups, gallon-pots, basons and ewers, large 
 silver salvers, goblets, and salts constituted the articles 
 usually given, and which are said to be of " sylver, 
 sylver guylte, parcel guylte, or silver white." 
 
 It would be curious to inquire how much of the 
 expenses of the furniture of the company halls in the
 
 i 4 z THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 present day is paid for out of the pockets of or presented 
 by the members of the guilds ; but the halls of our civic 
 ancestors, as they increased in size, had many duties to 
 perform which are evaded in the present day. For ex- 
 ample, during the reigns of Elizabeth and the Stuarts, 
 every hall was obliged to have a granary and an armoury 
 within its walls ; nay, more, there were rooms set apart 
 when it was possible as dwellings for decayed mem- 
 bers, and there was always a room adjoining the hall 
 for the almsmen to assemble in when they were called 
 upon to join in processions and pageants. Then, again, 
 there were rooms required for offices where the alms- 
 men, pensioners, and poor of the commonalty were 
 relieved, and the duties connected with them performed. 
 But, more than all, there were rooms in which the 
 " properties," to use a theatrical expression, connected 
 with the City pageants, which were generally exceed- 
 ingly cumbrous, and occupied a vast amount of space, 
 as well as rooms for entertaining and hearing com- 
 plaints, for administering justice, the hearing and 
 deciding disputes between masters, apprentices, and 
 journeymen, and other duties connected with the craft, 
 all of which are now obsolete, and of course the space 
 they formerly occupied is no longer required. Perhaps 
 the present Guildhall would, upon a large scale, give 
 the reader a tolerably correct idea of the general run of 
 the companies' halls some two or three centuries back. 
 
 If we now turn to our modern City halls and reflect 
 for a moment upon the duties performed in those of our 
 ancestors, we shall easily perceive how vast a change
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 143 
 
 for the worse has taken place in them. The halls them- 
 selves are far more sumptuous as well as larger than 
 those of our ancestors, while the whole of the duties 
 belonging to the trades, as well as the custody of the 
 " properties " of the City pageants, the warehousing of 
 corn, and the armoury, are not only obsolete, but very 
 probably utterly forgotten, leaving in fact the sole use 
 of the hall, with the most rare exceptions, merely for 
 feasting. That being the case, the following list of 
 the official valuation in 1873 of these halls, for the 
 purpose of municipal taxation, will give some idea of 
 the cost of these feasts, when added to the amount ex- 
 pended in wine, provisions, and extra attendance, &c. 
 
 Name of Hall. Gross Value. Name of Hall. 
 
 Gross Value. 
 
 Apothecaries . 
 
 . 6,500 
 
 Brought forward 30,645 
 
 Armourers and Braziers 
 
 . 1,000 
 
 Girdlers . 
 
 800 
 
 Bakers 
 
 460 
 
 Goldsmiths 
 
 . 5,500 
 
 Barbers . 
 
 350 
 
 Grocers . 
 
 . 4,000 
 
 Brewers . 
 
 . 1,000 
 
 Haberdashers . 
 
 860 
 
 Butchers . 
 
 700 
 
 Innholders 
 
 400 
 
 Carpenters 
 
 180 
 
 Ironmongers . 
 
 . 1,500 
 
 Clothworkers . 
 
 . 5,000 
 
 Leathersellers . 
 
 950 
 
 Coachbuilders . 
 
 280 
 
 Merchant Taylors 
 
 . 3,030 
 
 Coopers . 
 
 600 
 
 Painters . 
 
 300 
 
 Cordwainers 
 
 800 
 
 Saddlers . 
 
 . 1,050 
 
 Curriers . 
 
 100 
 
 Salters 
 
 . 3,000 
 
 Cutlers 
 
 700 
 
 Skinners . 
 
 . 1,760 
 
 Drapers . 
 
 . 8,000 
 
 Stationers 
 
 . 1,600 
 
 Dyers 
 
 . 1,000 
 
 Tallow Chandlers 
 
 800 
 
 Fellowship Porters . 
 
 125 
 
 Vintners . 
 
 625 
 
 Fishmongers . . 
 
 . 3,500 
 
 Watermen 
 
 250 
 
 Founders 
 
 350 
 
 Wax Chandlers 
 
 500 
 
 Carried forward 
 
 30.645 
 
 
 57,560 
 
 It should be understood, however, that although we
 
 144 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 have given the estimated annual value of these halls as 
 they were recorded in the City Union books in 1873, 
 not only were many of them greatly undervalued, but 
 during the last three years considerable increase in the 
 value of all City property has taken place, and the 
 halls, without exception, are of greater value than they 
 were at the time mentioned. But even then the va- 
 luations were often so much beneath the real worth of 
 many of these buildings as to make us wonder that the 
 other ratepayers did not express some angry feelings 
 on the subject, as of course their own municipal taxa- 
 tion must have increased in proportion as these magnifi- 
 cent halls were underrated. Let us take, for example, 
 the Goldsmiths' Hall, with a nominal annual value of 
 5,500 a year. If the sums which have lately been 
 paid in the neighbourhood for property may be taken 
 as a test, the value of this hall would be found to be 
 considerably higher. Again, we may mention the 
 Leathersellers' Hall, in Great St. Helen's, whose gross 
 value has been put down at 950 per annum. If the 
 reader, in passing through Bishopsgate Street, would 
 cast his eye at the building and estimate its relative 
 size and magnificence with that of the other houses 
 near, all of which, by the way, are the property of the 
 Leathersellers' Company, and then remember that the 
 annual gross rental of each of these houses is some- 
 where about 1,000 a year, he may then form some 
 conclusion how much more than 950 per annum is the 
 value of the hall. The Drapers' Company will form a 
 still more striking example. This building figures in
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. H5 
 
 the City accounts as being of the gross value of 8,000 
 a year ; and this in Throgmorton Street, which is, per- 
 haps, the most valuable part of the City of London. 
 On the building of this hall alone the company has 
 lately expended no less than 74,000. At the back of 
 the hall is a very large garden, the property of the 
 company. This alone has lately been let off in building 
 leases for 15,000 a year ; yet, with the increased value 
 of the newly -built hall, the whole is estimated by the 
 City Assessment Committee at only 8,000 per annum. 
 However, that we may not appear captious, let us 
 take the value of these City halls at 60,000 a year ; 
 but to this, it should be remembered, must be added 
 the amount of municipal and other taxation levied upon 
 them, which, considering the heavy taxation which falls 
 on the City of London, cannot be less than 20,000 
 a year. This is no exaggerated statement. If the 
 reader will only refer to his own domestic expenditure, 
 he will find that with all classes of taxes levied upon 
 house property, including property tax, inhabited house 
 duty, &c., it will amount to very little less than a third 
 of his rental. But there are other expenses to be esti- 
 mated the cost of repairs, wear and tear of furniture, 
 servants, and the mere establishment expenses, includ- 
 ing fees to the different members of the liveries them- 
 selves, and divers expenses incidental to the buildings 
 which will not amount to much less than 20,000 a year 
 more, making, in point of fact, a gross expenditure 
 for the one item of house-rent alone at somewhere 
 about 100,000 a year ; and this sum, be it understood, 
 
 L
 
 146 THE CITY AS IT IS, 
 
 incurred by a body of men who are trustees of money 
 placed in their hands for trade and charitable purposes, 
 and all of whom, with the most trifling exception, 
 strangers to the craft or trade of which they profess 
 themselves to be members. 
 
 But it may be said that, assuming the guilds to be 
 thoroughly reformed, they would still require house 
 room for the performance not only of their trade duties, 
 but of the banquets which they might, with their own 
 funds, honestly give to the members of their own guilds 
 and others they might think fit to invite ; and this of 
 course could not be done without having halls in which 
 they might be carried out. How far this objection is a 
 valid one may be judged from the fact that there are a 
 great number of guilds without halls, whose duties of 
 hospitality are performed as honourably as those of the 
 guilds the rent of whose halls we have just quoted. 
 For example, the Blacksmiths, the Bowyers, the Clock- 
 makers, Distillers, Feltmakers, Joiners, Guumakers, 
 Lorimers, Masons, Musicians, Pewterers, Scriveners, 
 Shipwrights, Tinplate-workers, Tilers and Bricklayers, 
 and some twenty others.* 
 
 * Mr. W. H. James, M.P., in a paper he lately read at the Social 
 Science Congress at Liverpool, noticed the waste of the City livery 
 companies, and the uses to which the money so squandered might be 
 made available for technical and other education of artizans and the 
 industrial classes in general. "These guilds," he showed, "at the 
 present time possessed real property in London alone to the amount 
 of 450,000 annual value, but they were not distinguished for the 
 amount they spent on education. The Turners, however, amongst 
 the least wealthy of the companies, had given prizes for turning in 
 wood and pottery, and the cutting of diamonds." He quoted also
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES. 147 
 
 But hitherto we have spoken merely of the cost or 
 the halls ; let us now turn to that of the dinners them- 
 selves. What the gross total of these expenses may be 
 it would be difficult indeed to arrive at. Mr. Danby 
 Seymour, as well as several writers who have men- 
 tioned the subject, quotes the expenditure of the Gold- 
 smiths' Company for one year for feasting alone in their 
 hall at 30,000. This sum, it may be said, might be 
 exceptional such, for example, as the banquet given to 
 the Prince of Wales, or other festivities of the kind. 
 But then, again, we have to take the expenditure of 
 the other guilds into consideration, each in its way 
 vying with the others in the lavish manner in which 
 these festivals are conducted, and boasting amongst 
 themselves the amount of their expenditure; though 
 the moment a reformer attempts to take up the matter, 
 and asks them any question relating to their feasts, not a 
 word of reply or explanation can be got everything is 
 shrouded in impenetrable secrecy. If we may be 
 accused of somewhat overstating those accessories to 
 the companies' feeding, the annual value of their halls 
 
 the balance-sheet of the Joiners' Company for the year 1875 a 
 company, be it remembered, that possesses no hall, and is managed, 
 according to civic ideas of the charitable management of trade funds, 
 in an economical manner. To the debtors' side were rents, 1,150; 
 dividend, 100; freedom of the City, 150; new liverymen, 850: 
 total, 2,250. On the creditors' side dinners and festivities, 700 ; 
 investment, 560 ; salaries, 130 ; court livery fees, 200 (this of course 
 went to the superior grades of the members of the guild) ; sundries, 
 200; pensions and charitable donations, 130; balance, 170: 
 total, 2,250. He further showed that there was not one of all the 
 trades incorporated in the Trades Council of London which some of 
 the eighty-nine City companies might not legitimately include.
 
 H8 THE CITY AS IT IS, 
 
 which, by the way, we emphatically deny let us at 
 any rate in compensation understate, and that con- 
 siderably, the annual cost of these guild feasts, and 
 instead of quoting them at .30,000 for one company 
 alone, place the whole expenditure of the companies 
 having halls at 50,000 a year, which the reader, if he 
 knows anything of the subject, will admit to be a 
 very moderate estimate. But should, however, any 
 objection be made, we will go further, and give the 
 livery companies the benefit of the sums spent in 
 feasting of those of the City companies having no halls. 
 Let us take on an average that of the Joiners' Com- 
 pany, where the dinners for the year 1875 were ad- 
 mitted to have cost 750. Let us admit also, however, 
 that this, too, might have been exceptional, and that 
 the usual expenditure for dinners would not exceed 
 500. But there are thirty companies having no- 
 halls, which at 500 a year each would yield a total of 
 some 15,000, which, added to the expenditure of the 
 great companies possessing halls, would make a total for 
 the feasting alone of the livery companies, with the 
 accessories of the halls, &c., a sum of not less than 
 150,000, which, in common with other instances we- 
 have quoted, is taken from funds the greater part placed 
 in the hands of the managers for municipal and trade 
 purposes and charity to the poor, especially to members 
 of the different crafts and trades, of which any par- 
 ticular guild bears the name.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR DUTIES, ETC. 
 
 "DEFORE further continuing our remarks respecting 
 the property placed in the hands of the managers 
 and trustees of the City guilds, as well as the enormous 
 amount of patronage they possess, we will lay before 
 the reader a short statement of the present condition of 
 the livery companies in relation to the metropolitan 
 public at large, the power they possess, as well as the 
 claims they put forward to manage what they are 
 pleased to call "their own property" without inter- 
 ference from outsiders, as well as some of the argu- 
 ments of the would-be reformers who dispute the rights 
 the guilds so loudly proclaim as their own. For many 
 years past discontent has been exhibited among a vast 
 majority of the metropolitan population at what they 
 considered the waste and extravagance perpetrated by 
 the guilds of moneys placed in their hands for definite 
 purposes, and occasionally persons would start forward 
 and attempt to bring these abuses, by means of the 
 press or otherwise, tinder the notice of the general 
 public. But all these efforts, as a rule, seem in a short 
 time to have died away, and the guilds appear to have
 
 ISO THE CITY AS 77 IS. 
 
 considered on each, occasion when the subject was 
 dropped, that their rights to spend undisturbed the 
 sums in their hands were more fully than ever con- 
 firmed, and things again went on in their original 
 course. But lately an association has been formed, 
 composed of men of ability, energy, and position, 
 determined to attack in every possible manner the 
 grievances they complained of, and to use all pos- 
 sible means to bring them under the notice of the 
 public, in the hope that at last some reformation may 
 be effected, and the funds belonging to the guilds, as 
 well as the Corporation of the City of London, be 
 applied in better accordance with the uses for which 
 these bodies were instituted. So formidable did this 
 association appear to the members of the different 
 City guilds, that at last they came to the conclusion 
 that the body opposing them was sufficiently strong to 
 need their combined action to meet it if they wished 
 to maintain their present position, and that the threats 
 and exposures brought forward by their adversaries were 
 of such a nature as to require their utmost vigilance 
 as well as energy in repulsing them ; and at last they 
 began to organize themselves in such a manner as to 
 oppose the best possible front to the attacking party. 
 
 The claims of the two "opposing parties, and the 
 basis on which they wished to establish their rights, 
 were simply as follow. To quote the words of Mr. 
 Firth,* the City Guilds Reform Association main- 
 tain : 
 
 " Municipal London."
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERY COMPANIES. 151 
 
 " 1. The London livery companies are an integral 
 part of the Corporation. 
 
 " 2. The property of the companies is public trust 
 property, and much of it is available for municipal 
 purposes. 
 
 " 3. The companies are trustees of vast estates, of 
 which London tradesmen, artizans, and others ought to 
 be the beneficiaries, but that such trusts are dis- 
 regarded. 
 
 " 4. The companies are also trustees of estates appli- 
 cable to charitable uses : they fail to apply to such uses 
 the whole of the funds fairly applicable to them. 
 
 " 5. The companies were incorporated to benefit 
 trade, to train artizans, and to repress bad workman- 
 ship : they perform none of these functions. 
 
 "6. The companies are, by charter, to be com- 
 posed of members of a given trade in many cases, and 
 are legally compellable to admit members of it : yet 
 they admit members irrespective of the trade, and 
 impose restrictions on those who are admissible. 
 
 " 7. The companies are subject to the control of the 
 Corporation, but as the members of that body are 
 members of the companies also, and are promoted in 
 the latter concurrently with their advancement in the 
 former, such control is never enforced. 
 
 " 8. The companies are subject to the control of the 
 Crown, and their lands and monopolous privileges were 
 only granted under the condition that they performed 
 certain duties : they have ceased to perform the duties, 
 but they continue to hold the lands.
 
 i S 2 THE CITY AS 12 IS. 
 
 " 9. The continuance of a large amount of land in 
 the heart of the City and in the north of Ireland in 
 the hands of corporate and unproductive bodies is a 
 hindrance to commerce and a loss to the revenue." 
 
 As the reader must perceive, it would have been diffi- 
 cult for the City guilds to have had such accusations as 
 these brought against them without taking some ener- 
 getic action and combining to defend themselves. For 
 some time, however, they contented themselves with 
 merely threats of defiance ; but at length, finding that 
 the members of this society were not only men of talent 
 and determination, but that through their means the 
 artizan and industrial classes were beginning to under- 
 stand the matter, they took the alarm, and began to 
 make preparations for their mutual defence against the 
 serious attack which was likely to be made on them. 
 The first direct attempt at concentric organization on 
 the part of the livery companies appears to have taken 
 place at a dinner given by the Lord Mayor at the Man- 
 sion House to the trustees of the City guilds, October 
 16th, 1876, and it is almost needless to say that the 
 majority if not the whole of these gentlemen readily 
 accepted the invitation. But with the invitation itself 
 there was a peculiarity which deserves notice, as being 
 possibly the first attempt of the City guilds to imitate, 
 though to a very moderate extent, a custom of their 
 ancestors. We have already brought under the notice 
 of the reader that it was the custom at the ancient City 
 feasts for the members of the City guilds to be accom- 
 panied by their wives and other ladies, and to omit the
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERY COMPANIES. 153 
 
 practice was punishable by a fine. At the Lord Mayor's 
 dinner alluded to the wives of the masters of the City 
 guilds were all invited to be present. Whether a fine 
 would have been imposed upon their husbands (more 
 majorem] whose better halves did not accompany them 
 it is impossible to say, but from the report given of the 
 number of ladies present, there would be no oppor- 
 tunity, even if legal, to have' put that clause of the law 
 into force. 
 
 As usual, after the customary toasts were disposed 
 of, the real business of the evening, and for which 
 of course the guests present had been expressly invited, 
 was commenced by the Lord Mayor, on giving what is 
 usually termed " the toast of the evening," adding that 
 it was the one which immediately concerned themselves 
 The Guilds of the City of London. " He was," in the 
 words of the Times report, " much pleased to see so large 
 an assembly of masters of the City guilds present that 
 night. It was a great honour paid to himself that 
 they should have responded to his invitation in such 
 numbers, and a still greater compliment that they 
 should have brought their wives with them. The guilds of 
 the City of London," he continued, " putting aside the 
 religious bodies, were the oldest associations in the 
 world, at the same time they had been in their day 
 some of the most powerful associations in defending 
 the Court, the Church, and other institutions of less 
 moment. He believed that to these guilds the citizens 
 of London owe a very large amount of the liberty they 
 now possess, and similar guilds, he rejoiced to know,
 
 J54 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 were springing up all over England and on the Conti- 
 nent as well. It was simply impossible that institutions 
 founded many centuries ago, and carried on by suc- 
 cessions of men of common sense and ability, had been 
 useless and unproductive of good, and that this was 
 the state with the City companies was shown by the 
 fact that they all lived in the respect and esteem of the 
 people of this country. There were some who found 
 fault with the guilds, but such persons could hardly 
 know how much we owe to them, or what noble schools 
 they had established from time to time, and how many 
 more they would establish. He might mention, by the 
 way, that no man who had been bankrupt in fortune or 
 morals could take a seat in their courts. "Within the 
 last few years large funds had fallen into their hands 
 by the increase of their property, and that it led to the 
 attack which had lately been made on them, and which 
 he said would be sure to fail in the end. He dwelt on 
 the intelligence with which the guilds were managed, 
 on the good they did in the responsibilities which sur- 
 rounded them in the dispensation of their wealth, and 
 he deprecated any interference with them. He alluded to 
 their munificent charities in the shape of churches, 
 schools, and almshouses, and urged in conclusion, amid 
 responsive cheers, that the citizens were all more or less 
 interested in their long continuance." 
 
 The remarks of the Lord Mayor on the admirable 
 and honourable manner the City guilds were managed 
 were both endorsed and supplemented by the Master of 
 the Mercers' Company, one of the richest of the City
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERY COMPANIES. 155 
 
 guilds, when returning thanks to the Lord Mayor and 
 Lady Mayoress for their kind hospitality on the occa- 
 sion. The guilds, he said, had striven faithfully and 
 earnestly for the last six centuries to do their duty 
 in their various and varied spheres, and they now 
 stood well before their fellow-citizens, and, he believed^ 
 the country at large. He felt he was right in saying 
 that no other trusts had existed so long, and remained so 
 unaltered and unimpaired, as those appertaining to the 
 City guilds. Latterly a question had arisen whether 
 they were entitled to spend their own property ; that 
 was no doubt a most vital question to them as guilds, as 
 it would naturally be to individuals. He very much 
 doubted whether Parliament would ever consent to- 
 such an inquiry as that suggested in the last session. 
 The chief magistrate for the time being was naturally 
 true to the City guilds ; but in the present Lord 
 Mayor they possessed one who had done more for 
 them than they could have ventured to expect. Though 
 saying that much, he asserted most distinctly that the 
 City companies had no reason to fear any inquiry ; that 
 their funds were well, honestly, charitably, and conscien- 
 tiously administered, as many a hospital, refuge, and 
 charity could testify. 
 
 Let us now pause for a few moments to consider how 
 far the self-laudations of the Right Hon. the Lord 
 Mayor, the Master of the Mercers' Company, and the 
 guests present, all of whom were masters of the City 
 guilds, accompanied by their wives, were merited, and 
 how far some of the guilds performed the duties for
 
 156 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 which they were originally instituted in the conscien- 
 tious manner described. The Clothworkers' Company, 
 for example, has not a single citizen of London 
 engaged in the trade ; moreover, it is now extinct in 
 the metropolis ; yet this company is one of the richest 
 of the whole. It is enormously wealthy, and its hos- 
 pitality is unbounded. Among other valuable property 
 in its possession is the sum of 20,000, stated to have 
 been given them for the purpose of making themselves 
 comfortable,* and which, it is said, is still rigidly 
 adhered to. Nevertheless, the Clothworkers' Company 
 was, to all intents and purposes, a working fraternity, 
 as is shown by their charter, 3 and 4 Edward VI., 
 chap. xi. It had also the right of search for the 
 purpose of the preventing of frauds in the woollen 
 manufactures of England such as the clothier's seal 
 on his cloth ; against the overstretching of cloth ; for 
 the well drying of cloths ; also for the well drying of 
 all wools to be converted into clothes, or into hats or 
 capes ; for the preventing the putting of any deceitful 
 thing upon cloth, such as flocks, chalks, flour, starch, 
 Ac., or using iron cards for the rowing of cloths ; also 
 for the measuring of cloths. All these duties are to 
 the members of the guild but a dead letter save the 
 one first mentioned. In like manner, with very trifling 
 exceptions, the other City guilds seem utterly to neg- 
 lect the duties for which they were originally insti- 
 tuted, and for which such enormous funds have been 
 
 * Vide note of this well-known bequest, " Pearson on Corporation 
 JReform," page 88.
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERF COMPANIES. 157 
 
 placed in their hands, whether for municipal, trade, or 
 charitable purposes. 
 
 The duties of the Grocers' Company were in like 
 manner exceedingly onerous and important, and are 
 in like manner utterly neglected, and with still less 
 excuse than the Clothworkers, for their craft is now 
 extinct in the metropolis, while the trade of the grocer 
 is more flourishing than ever, and has naturally more 
 need of supervision. And yet by their charter, as was 
 before stated, one of their principal duties was 
 to detect frauds practised on the public. They not 
 only were made responsible, as already shown, for the 
 proper " garbelling of drugs," but also the inspection 
 of the many different commodities sold in their trade ; 
 in fact, performing, and having the right to perform, 
 the duties of the officials at present employed by the 
 different vestries in London for the purpose of detect- 
 ing and prosecuting all persons guilty of adulterating 
 their goods. And this duty the guild seems formerly 
 to have performed in a just and conscientious manner. 
 In the list of goods directly under their control and 
 inspection, there was hardly one that was then known 
 in England that was not included. The City records 
 contain abundant instances of the energetic manner 
 the wardens and others performed the duties assigned 
 to them. One or two cases in point must suffice. For 
 example, in 1571 we find that Rauf King, a brother of 
 the company, " and certain others makers of comfytes, 
 were charged before the wardeyns for their misde- 
 meanours in minglinge starche with augur, and such
 
 158 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 other things as not to be tolerated nor suffered. And 
 the said Rauf King having now in his place a goode 
 quantitie of comfytes made with coarse stuffe, and 
 mingled, as aforesaid, with starch and such like," it 
 was ordered that the comfits should be put into a tub 
 of water, and so consumed and poured out, and that 
 " everie of the said cornfytte makers shall be made to 
 enter into bonds in 20, that they shall not hereafter 
 make any biscuits but with clere sugur onlie, nor make 
 any comfits that shall be wroughte upon seeds or any 
 other thing but with clere sugur onlie." 
 
 That the Grocers' Company had not only the power 
 to prosecute tradesmen detected in selling adulterated 
 commodities known at present under the generic term 
 of groceries, but also of drugs and chemicals, is clearly 
 shown in the following case. On the 7th of February, 
 1616, Michael Euson having been impeached before 
 the court, he being an apothecary and a brother of the 
 company, of selling " divers sortes of defective apo- 
 thecaries wares, which, on triall, were found to be 
 defective, corrupt, and unwholesome for man's body ; " 
 and it being further found that he had "sold and 
 uttered the like wares to Mr. Lownes, the Prince, his 
 Highnesse's apothecary, and others;" and he also 
 being found very unfit in making of compositions 
 and confections, and insufficient and unskilful to deal 
 therein, he was by the court, in consideration of the 
 great damage and danger which might happen to the 
 company by committing such enormities, committed 
 to the Poultry compter.
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERY COMPANIES. 159 
 
 The Grocers, in common with other City guilds, had 
 often duties to perform which would in the present day 
 appear absurd. For example, Mr. Firth, in his work 
 on " Municipal London," quotes an order given " that 
 two Ironmongers and two Grocers should be deputed 
 to stand at Bishopsgate all day to see that no 
 citizen passed through wearing any dress that his 
 position did not entitle him to wear." This sort of 
 duty, and many others relating to citizenship, have 
 now died a natural death, but the inspection by 
 Grocers of their trade and their right to prosecute 
 offenders still exists, although from some unaccountable 
 apathy on the part of the public they are allowed 
 entirely to neglect those duties for the performance of 
 which, together with the administration of charitable 
 funds in their hands, their charter of incorporation was 
 originally obtained. 
 
 The municipal duties of the Merchant Taylors at last 
 became so onerous, that to carry them out fully it was 
 found necessary to admit substitutes among the wardens, 
 and on March 14th, 1596, the following enactment 
 was made : " That the members becoming numerous, 
 and their affairs becoming very great, by reason of the 
 many charities they had to manage, the court of assist- 
 ants of the company, with a view of making the busi- 
 ness more easy, did substitute some of the inferior 
 members, who were tailors by trade, and for method's 
 sake constituted them * wardens' substitutes ; ' also 
 
 
 
 sixteen persons to aid and assist in such matters as the 
 court of assistants of the company should direct ; and
 
 ioo THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 that they should meet at the hall and at such times 
 as the master and wardens should please." 
 
 This new arrangement, however, which promised at 
 first to be a most efficient one, soon proved a complete 
 failure, and that from a dominant weakness in most of 
 the City guilds from the earliest times to the present, 
 and which is said to be peculiarly dominant in the 
 Merchant Taylors' Company of our own day. The 
 weakness alluded to is to be found in the following 
 quotation from the company's records : " These ' war- 
 dens' substitutes ' began to think that they were capable 
 of governing the society, and given to such extravagance 
 in eating, &c., that they run the company considerably 
 into debt. The company thought it was high time to 
 stop their extravagance, and in 1661 found on examining 
 their proceedings " that they were a great grievance, and 
 dismissed them, at the same time adopting regulations 
 which put the company's affairs into a much better 
 state. 
 
 That there is no danger of the present Merchant 
 Taylors' guild causing the ruin of the company by 
 excessive expenditure in dinners may be readily ad- 
 mitted; but whether this fortunate state of things is 
 caused by the members' abstinence or the immense 
 wealth they hold in their hands, is a question left for 
 the reader to determine. 
 
 Of the Skinners' Company Herbert tells us, " The 
 charter of James which is the company's acting 
 charter after stating that heretofore on ' the humble 
 petition of divers men sometymes of the Cittee of Lon-
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERY COMPANIES. 161 
 
 don called Skynners, as well the late King Edward 
 III., as divers other kings and queens of England, 
 his progenitors, had granted sundry charters to the 
 men of the mysterye of Skinners in London,' by which 
 charters they had power, amongst other things, to choose 
 and elect, yearly, one master and four wardens, skilful 
 men in the said mystery, to make general search and 
 view, as well within London and the suburbs thereof, 
 as also within any fair or market in England, for false 
 and deceitful wares and workmanship of Skinners, and 
 to punish the offenders and delinquents using any 
 deceit in the said mystery, either in bad workmanship 
 or false packing of skins ; and after reciting that the 
 late Queen Elizabeth by her charter or letters patent, 
 dated at Westminster, 8th July, in the second year of 
 her reign, ordered that the master and wardens, or two 
 of them (at the least) to make due search for such abuses 
 and defects in workmanship of ' Skynners and of Skyn- 
 neresses ; ' the duties of the master and wardens were 
 most strictly defined, all tending to prove that the com- 
 pany was, strictly speaking, not simply dealers in furs, 
 but a working craft, and the extent of their right of 
 search and punishment of offenders clearly denned. 
 They were, in the words of the charter of Elizabeth, to 
 see : ' That every fur should be of one kind, and manu- 
 factured good and pure without admixture of other fur. 
 That no skinner or furrier should sell old furs other- 
 wise than as coming from vestments, that is to say, 
 collars or linings, and old hoods with their tippets on, 
 on account that the great, as well as the commonalty of 
 
 M
 
 1 62 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 the City aforesaid, by old furs arid hoods, which they 
 believe to be new ones, are by many furriers often 
 deceived. And that no skinner nor furrier should by 
 any means offer to sell furs on the street and highways, 
 or markets of the aforesaid City, otherwise than as old, 
 for the reasons aforesaid.' ' 
 
 It may be argued that at the time the charter 
 alluded to was obtained furs, including rabbit and 
 hare skins, were among the most common articles of 
 dress both of rich and poor, and that fashions having 
 so much changed, this rigid surveillance of the trade is 
 no longer needed, and the duties of the master wardens 
 and liverymen are no longer required as far as the 
 control of the trade is concerned. But it should be 
 remembered that members of the guild are in possession 
 of enormous funds both for charitable and trade pur- 
 poses, that their charter is still unrepealed, and 
 although the skinners and furriers' trade is much 
 diminished in the present day, proportionate numbers 
 of the population being taken into consideration, it still 
 exists, and is of great importance, not merely to the 
 tradesman, but to the public at large, and that as honest 
 men the livery should exercise a control over it, for which 
 purpose they have abundant means and funds in their 
 hands. There mast, moreover, be many members or 
 commonalty of the craft in reduced circumstances, if 
 not actual poverty. It would be interesting to inquire 
 how many of these are among the recipients of the 
 charitable funds of the company, and, if any, what pro- 
 portion they bear to those who are in the receipt of the
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERY COMPANIES, 163 
 
 guild charitable funds, and are not in the most remote 
 manner, either directly or indirectly, connected with the 
 trade. 
 
 The Goldsmiths' Company, whose duties we have 
 already slightly touched upon, is also worthy of remark 
 and consideration, the more so as the original purposes 
 for which it was instituted are still to a comparatively 
 small extent performed small, let it be understood, 
 when contrasted with their enormous wealth and the 
 amount of purely trade duties performed by their 
 company. Let us hear what Mr. Beal, a gentleman 
 well versed in all matters connected with municipal 
 reform, says of them. Speaking of the injustice the 
 artisans of this craft have received from the livery- 
 men of this company and the Corporation of the City 
 of London, he says, " The treatment of the artificers of 
 this company by the Corporation, without any remon- 
 strance or opposition by the master, wardens, or livery- 
 men of the guild, seems to have been most iniquitous. 
 They have as a body been driven from the City, 
 while the charities and funds so lavishly bestowed 
 or bequeathed for their use in bygone times are 
 now lost to them. It is said, and apparently with 
 reason, that the amount spent by this company in 
 dinners and festivities alone would furnish annuities 
 of 20 a year each to a thousand poor artizans of 
 the craft, and leave a considerable balance over. And 
 yet the Goldsmiths' Company is their benefit society, 
 or at least ought to be. This company had a license 
 from Edward III. to purchase lands in mortmain for
 
 164 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 the maintenance of weak, blind, and infirm goldsmiths. 
 The lands in mortmain may remain, but where are the 
 Goldsmith pensioners ? Those who are fortunate enough 
 to derive benefit from this close corporation receive, 
 it is said, sometimes as much as 30Q a year, and it 
 has almshouses erected on a costly scale at Hackney, 
 A.cton, and Woolwich." We may further add, in exem- 
 plification of the extravagant and ostentatious manner 
 the City guilds perform the few acts of charity they can 
 justly be credited with, that in 1812 the Goldsmiths* 
 Company built some almshouses for twenty people at a 
 cost of 12,000, or 600 per inmate. But the price of 
 material and labour in the present day, without calcu- 
 lating the increased value of the ground, is more than 
 double that in 1812, consequently, without exaggera- 
 tion, and assuming that at present they contain the same 
 number of almsmen, they each stand at 60 or 70 
 per annum for house rent alone. On mentioning this 
 circumstance to a gentleman well acquainted with the 
 management of the City trade guilds, he replied, " It 
 is certainly a heavy rental for an almsman to stand at, 
 but you will find, I think, that the Drapers' Company 
 erected some years since, in Norfolk or Suffolk, a num- 
 ber of almshouses at a far heavier proportionate cost." 
 
 Of the waste of charitable funds in the hands of the 
 livery companies we will not at present speak, nor 
 of the sums employed by them in furthering education, 
 both general and technical, which latter term might 
 properly include " apprenticeship," reserving them fora 
 future chapter, but content ourselves with simply men-
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERY COMPANIES. 165 
 
 tioning one or two facts connected with the Gold- 
 smiths' Company which their admirers may place to 
 their credit. At the same time we will admit we, in 
 part, do so for the purpose of pointing out to the muni- 
 cipal reformer the beneficent effect which may be pro- 
 duced by outspoken disapprobation of the management 
 of the City guilds, as the following notice was not issued 
 by the Goldsmiths' Company till the maladministration 
 of the livery companies in general was brought some- 
 what prominently under the notice of the public : 
 
 " With a view to the encouragement of technical 
 education in the design and execution of works of art 
 in the precious metals, the Goldsmiths' Company of 
 London have resolved to give the following prizes, viz. : 
 An annual prize of 50 for the best design for some 
 article in gold or silver which, when manufactured, 
 shall exceed thirty ounces in weight. An annual prizo 
 of 50 for the best model of some such article as afore- 
 said. An annual prize of 25 for the best execution 
 and workmanship of some such article as aforesaid. 
 TI>ree annual prizes of 25 each for (1st) the best 
 design, (2nd) the best model, and (3rd) the best execu- 
 tion and workmanship, of some article in gold or silver 
 which, when manufactured, shall be less than thirty 
 ounces in weight. An annual prize of 25 each for 
 the best specimens of (1st) chasing or repousse work, 
 and (2nd) engraving. Originality shall be necessary 
 to obtain either of the prizes for design, and no copy 
 shall be the subject of a prize. The company have 
 also resolved that a travelling scholarship of 100 per
 
 1 66 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 annum may be awarded by the wardens to a student 
 who has shown exceptional talent, and who shall have 
 obtained a prize for design for three successive years, 
 in order to enable him to study art in the precious 
 metals on the Continent of Europe. (Signed) WALTER 
 PRIDEAUX, Clerk of the Goldsmiths' Company. Gold- 
 smiths' Hall, 1876." 
 
 While admitting that the Goldsmiths have here made 
 a grand move in the right direction, at the same time 
 the date of the above resolution, 1876, opens the ques- 
 tion, that if the master and wardens have the right to 
 award prizes of the kind, why has it not been done 
 before ? Want of funds could not be pleaded in 
 excuse ; and if their present action in the matter be 
 praiseworthy, as it indisputably is, what term ought to 
 be applied to the inaction in furthering the technical 
 and artistic education they have hitherto maintained ? 
 Nor is this all that has lately been performed in the 
 right way by the Goldsmiths' Company, although it 
 would be difficult to determine how their craft 
 is in any way benefited by the following gift. Since 
 the publication of the above praiseworthy resolution on 
 the part of the company, they have awarded the sum 
 of 1,000 for the promotion of chemical research. It 
 is difficult to perceive in what way a donation of the 
 kind is likely to benefit their craft, as, perhaps, no 
 branch of chemistry is better understood than that 
 relating to the precious metals, nor can we understand 
 from what clause in their charter they derived their 
 right to make the gift. But, after all, their present
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERY COMPANIES. 167 
 
 much-vaunted liberality is trifling indeed when com- 
 pared with their expenditure. We have already shown 
 what is the annual value and average expenditure in 
 maintaining their hall, and we have heard on good 
 authority, too, that the salary of their clerk is not less 
 than 4,000 a year, more, in fact, than the salaries of 
 the vestry clerks of St. George' s, Hanover Square, Pad- 
 dington, and Kensington put together. But we may 
 be told that the clerk of the Goldsmiths' Company is a 
 solicitor, and that a very large amount of law costs may 
 be considered as included in his salary. Be it so ; but 
 it would be found on investigation that the salary he 
 receives is not only fully equal to the combined salaries 
 of the three vestry clerks and the vestries' solicitors' 
 bills put together, but that there will be a considerable 
 balance remaining. 
 
 Two other livery companies also deserve especial 
 notice, as incorporated in great part for performance of 
 duties which at present are thrown upon the vestries 
 and ratepayers under the Adulteration of Food Act 
 the Brewers and the Vintners. As we have already 
 slightly alluded to the former of these guilds, we 
 will confine our few remarks to the Vintners. Speaking 
 of this company, Stow tells us, " The Vintnors of 
 London were of old times called Marchant Vintnors of 
 Gascony, and so I read them in the records of Edward 2 
 the 11 yeare, and Edward 3 the 9 yeare. They were 
 as well Englishmen as straungers born beyond the seas, 
 but then subjects to the King of England, great Bour- 
 deaux marchaunts of Gascoyne and French wines ;
 
 168 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 divers of whom were maires of this citie, namely John 
 Adrian vintnor, Reignwold at Conduit, John Oxen- 
 ford ; Henry Picard, that feasted the kings of England 
 France and Scotland, and Cypris; John Stoder that 
 gave Stoder's lane to the Yintnors, which four last 
 named were Maiors in the time of Edward 4th, and yet 
 Gascoigne wine then sold at London at not more than 
 4d. per quart and Rhenish not above 6^. the gallon. 
 I reade of sweet wines, that in the reign of Edward 4 
 John Peeche, fishmonger, was accused for that he pro- 
 cured license for the only sale of them in London, 
 which notwithstanding he justified by law, he was 
 imprisoned and fined. More I read that in the 6th of 
 Henry 6 the Lombardes corrupting their sweet wines, 
 when knowledge thereof came to John Ranwell Maior 
 of London he in divers places in the Citie, commanded 
 the heades of the buts and other vessels in the open 
 streets, to be broken to the number of fifty, so that the 
 liquor running forth passed through the citie like a 
 stream of raine water, in the sight of all people from 
 which arose a most loathsome savour." 
 
 From the above it would appear that the Vintners' 
 Company, though rarely quoted in the present day, 
 were formerly of great importance and standing in the 
 City, and they were, moreover, entrusted with little 
 less than arbitrary power to carry out the duties 
 assigned them. Further, their original charter was 
 confirmed by the inspeximus 6 Henry VI., in which 
 the duties of the guild were more strictly defined. It 
 invests the company " with the right of trade search
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERY COMPANIES. 169 
 
 over inferior buyers and sellers," ordaining for this 
 purpose that the company, or " merchants of the craft 
 or merchandize of wines," as it terms them, "shall 
 choose each year four persons of the most sufficient, 
 true, and most cunning of the said craft (that hold no 
 tavern), and them present to the Mayor of London, or 
 other presiding officer, and swear them in such pre- 
 sence, to oversee that all manner of wines whatsoever 
 they be, are sold at retail in taverns at reasonable 
 prices, &c. That the Taverners be ruled by the said 
 four persons, who are empowered to correct and amend 
 defaults, which may be found in the exercise of the 
 said craft, and punish therefore according to their good 
 advice and consideration, with the help of such Mayor 
 or president." As a further proof of the power placed 
 in the hands of the Vintners' Company, it was ordained 
 that " all wines coming to London shall be discharged 
 and put to land above London Bridge against the 
 Vintry, so that the King's bottlers and gaugers may 
 there take custom." The Vintners were also empowered 
 to punish with great severity all persons adulterating 
 mines. Those which particularly came under their 
 notice appear to have been the following, as enumerated 
 by Herbert in his history of the City companies : 
 Muscadell, a rich wine ; Malmsey ; Rhenish ; Dale wine, 
 a sort of Rhenish ; Stum, strong new wine ; Gascony 
 wine ; Alicant, a Spanish wine, and made of mul- 
 berries (!) ; Canary wine, or sweet sack (the grape of 
 which was brought from the Canaries) ; Sherry, the 
 original sack, not sweet ; Rumney, a sort of Spanish
 
 170 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 wine. Sack was a term loosely applied at first to all 
 white wines. 
 
 The reader may possibly agree with us that at the 
 present time there exists for the Vintners abundant 
 opportunities for performing with advantage the duties 
 for which they were incorporated, and for which, let it 
 be understood, they have abundant funds in their pos- 
 session, not only for the City of London, but for the 
 whole metropolis. They have, moreover, large funds 
 in their hands for charitable purposes, especially for 
 the poor of their trades. Herbert tells us that " before 
 the fire the site of the Vintners' Hall was occupied by 
 thirteen almshouses, devised to the master, wardens, 
 and commonalty of the craft of Vintners by the will of 
 Guy Shuldham, Nov. 7th, 1446. . . . And he directed 
 that the said company should grant these thirteen 
 little mansions lying together, parcel of his lands and 
 tenements intended for such almshouses, to thirteen 
 poor and needy men or women of the said craft to bo 
 appointed by the master, wardens, &c., of the said craft, 
 for which no rent was to be taken from them. When 
 it was determined to widen Thames Street, these aims- 
 houses were pulled down, and twelve others, under the 
 name of the Vintners' Almshouses, with a central 
 chapel, were built instead in the Mile End Road, and 
 are now confined to women. Other endowments have 
 been added to them, which enabled the almshouses to be 
 rebuilt on a larger scale. The other gifts, including 
 10 for an annual dinner, coals to the inmates, and 
 various other allowances, amount to 435 2s. in thq
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERY COMPANIES. 171 
 
 whole. The almswomen consist of the widows of free- 
 men of the company, liverymen's nidoms being pre- 
 ferred." It would be satisfactory to know how many 
 of the widows domiciled in these comfortable "little 
 mansions " are widows of members of the trade, as well 
 as how many persons participating in its various 
 charities were connected either directly or indirectly 
 with it. 
 
 It would tire the patience of the reader to go at any 
 greater length into the question of the duties imposed 
 upon the different livery guilds, not only with respect 
 to the control and inspection of their trade, but their 
 municipal duties as well, and from the performance of 
 which no guild, however important or influential, was 
 exempt. And these duties were frequently not only 
 onerous, but disagreeable as well. For example, in the 
 year 1515, when the City guilds were in the height of 
 their prosperity, an entry made in the City records 
 states that it was ordered and decreed by the Court 
 of Aldermen " That the clerks and beadles of the 
 following eight mysteries, that is to say, the Mer- 
 cers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths,. 
 Skinners, Merchant Taylors, and Haberdashers, 
 should from thenceforth be discharged of the office 
 of constable, raker, or scavenger for ever, as long as- 
 they should stand and continue in their said rooms of 
 clerks and beadles." But this order, in common with 
 all other ordinances theretofore made concerning like 
 discharges, was on the Monday after Epiphany, in the 
 eighth of Henry VIII., " utterly repealed, revoked,.
 
 1 72 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 and annulled."* Nor has this decision on the part of 
 his Majesty Henry VIII., as far as we have been able 
 to learn, been repealed up to the present day, proving 
 how imperative were the obligations placed on the 
 City guilds for the performance of municipal duties, 
 and at the livery's expense, similar to those carried 
 out by the metropolitan vestries in the present day. 
 
 The question may now naturally arise in the mind 
 of the reader If the duties of the City guilds are so 
 useful and various, why should they not be extended 
 over the metropolis at large, and thus relieve the over- 
 burdened ratepayer of a large portion of the heavy 
 taxation at present imposed upon him? The reply 
 would most probably be, that by their charters their 
 trade, as well as charitable and municipal duties, were 
 confined to the City of London and its precincts, and 
 by the emigration (as they are pleased to call the 
 wholesale destruction of the dwellings of the working 
 and industrial classes within the City boundaries by 
 the Corporation, Metropolitan Board of Works, and 
 other agencies) their duties have fallen into abeyance, 
 and can no longer be practised, even if their charters 
 still remain unrepealed. As this is a very common 
 excuse in the mouths of the members of the different 
 City trade guilds, the following facts and extracts from 
 their charters still unrepealed may go far to prove to 
 the reader the fallacy of such arguments, f For ex- 
 
 * " City Records," Rep. 3, folio 121. 
 
 t To Mr. Firth's exhaustive work, " Municipal London," we arc 
 indebted for the greater part of the above quotations.
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERY COMPANIES. 173 
 
 ample, the Goldsmiths' Company have by their 
 charter the right of inspection, search, and regula- 
 tion of all sorts of gold and silver, wrought or to be 
 wrought, and exposed for sale within the City of 
 London and suburbs thereof, and within three miles of 
 the same, and in all fairs, marts, and markets, cities, 
 towns, or boroughs, and all other places throughout 
 England. 
 
 The Skinners' Company had, by a charter of Edward 
 III., a similar power to punish the defective manufac- 
 ture of furs. Their rights of search, &c., were scarcely 
 less extensive than those of the Goldsmiths. 
 
 The Dyers' Company have full control over the trade 
 in London, and within ten miles ; and by one of the 
 last of their charters every person practising the mys- 
 tery must be a member of the company. On making 
 inquiry some three years since, we were informed that 
 only one member of the guild was really a dyer. 
 
 The Bakers' Company have power to prove and 
 weigh all bread sold in the City and a considerable 
 area round it, and if defective to seize it, and give it 
 to the poor. They had also powers to impose fines, 
 and levy the same by distress. In like manner the 
 master and wardens of the Brewers' Company have the 
 power to control all those that exercise that mystery in 
 London and for four miles in extent; while the 
 Butchers' Company had control over the City and two 
 miles round it. 
 
 The Cutlers'. Company had the control of the trade 
 in the City and the suburbs within three miles of th&
 
 i 7 4 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 City. The Wax Chandlers had the same power 
 over their trade in the City and within ten miles 
 round it. 
 
 The Saddlers' Company had the right to make search 
 and destroy defective wares in London and suburbs, the 
 Borough of South wark, the City of Westminster, and 
 all places within two miles .of the City and suburbs. 
 The Carpenters' Company have a limit of two miles 
 from the City ; the Cordwainers, three miles ; the Cur- 
 riers, three miles ; the Founders, three miles ; the 
 Bakers, twelve miles ; the Coopers, two miles ; the 
 Weavers, ten miles ; the Scriveners, three miles ; the 
 Fruiterers, three miles ; the Farriers, seven miles ; the 
 Homers, twenty- four miles ; the Apothecaries, seven 
 miles (now regulated by statute) ; the Combmakers, ten 
 miles ; the Feltmakers, four miles ; the Needlemakers, 
 ten miles ; the Coachmakers, twenty miles ; the Grun- 
 makers, four miles; and so on with the other com- 
 panies. 
 
 It may be seen from the above how fallacious is the 
 excuse that the power of trade control and the exercise 
 of municipal duties imposed on them by their charters are 
 confined to the City boundaries. If an average were made 
 of the space around the City that each guild has the right 
 of search, regulation, and control, it would be found to 
 be little, if any, less than that comprised under the 
 Metropolis Local Management Act ; and such being the 
 case, whether it ought not to be the policy of our City 
 municipal reformers to agitate for some extension of 
 their fund over the same for, as it is commonly expressed
 
 DUTIES OF LIVERY COMPANIES. 175 
 
 in the City charters, the benefit of the people. Of the 
 power and means of the guilds in relieving, and in per- 
 fect keeping with their charters, the heavy present 
 local taxation the metropolitan population are labour- 
 ing under, we purpose speaking in the following 
 chapter.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 
 
 TTAVING now given the reader a short sketch of the 
 duties imposed upon the City livery companies, 
 we will leave it to the reader to determine how those 
 duties are performed, so as to merit the praises of the 
 Lord Mayor, the Master of the Mercers' Company, and 
 other speakers, at the dinner given to the masters of 
 the City guilds, alluded to in the last chapter, and 
 proceed to inquire whether the funds in the hands of 
 the companies are not sufficient to enable them to 
 extend their operations for the " benefit of the people at 
 large." To ascertain the amount of wealth in the 
 possession of the City guilds would be a very difficult 
 task, but we will endeavour to give the reader some 
 approximate idea. In the first place it is stated, and on 
 apparently good authority, that nearly one-half of the 
 land in the City is held in trust by them for municipal, 
 charitable, educational, and trade purposes. What is 
 the value of the whole would be a difficult task for any 
 private individual to arrive at, for so great is their
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 177 
 
 assumed power or license that they possess, at any rate 
 the more influential companies among them, thai! they 
 have set the Government at defiance. For example, 
 Mr. Firth tells us that " in the year 1833 the Royal 
 Commissioners were permitted by some of the companies 
 to inspect some of their charters, but, notwithstanding 
 their power to examine upon oath, their authority was 
 often denied, their circular of queries unanswered, and 
 some of the companies declined to appear or give 
 any account of their stewardship." Surely no Royal 
 Commission was ever treated so scurvily, or bore its 
 snubbing with equal composure. The independence 
 and opposition of the companies was especially notice- 
 able in the case of those that had large funds, and 
 whose control of them was assumed to be irresponsible, 
 while small companies, who had very little to lose, were 
 frequently willing to tell the Commissioners everything 
 they wished to know. The Grocers, for example, 
 declined to give any account of themselves to the Com- 
 missioners, and probably they were wise in their gene- 
 ration. It is not, however, without a certain aptitude 
 that one recognises the motto of the company " God 
 grants Grace." It would be interesting to know how 
 the graceless Grocers do dispense their vast property. 
 For example, in 1636 one William Pennefather by 
 his will gave 233 6s. Sd. to buy land of the yearly 
 value of 11 13s. 4d., such sum to be divided among 
 seven poor almspeople. How much does the land 
 bring in, and how much is paid over? So a house 
 is given to the same company to provide 4 a year 
 
 N
 
 178 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 for an iron post and a glass lanthorn to be fixed at 
 Billings Gate. If the house now brings in (as it 
 possibly does) 300 a-year, how much is given to 
 the poor ? 
 
 Many other instances might be quoted of the imper- 
 tinent independence and want of courtesy to the Go- 
 vernment authorities equally striking, but they exercise 
 others, perhaps, still more objectionable, in concealing 
 their affairs from the inferior members the governors 
 of many of the richer companies maintaining that they 
 owe no account even to their own members, much less to 
 the public. The Corporation itself attempted to take the 
 same high standing, but with hardly the same success. 
 In a somewhat arrogant " statement " of the Court of 
 Aldermen, submitted to both Houses of Parliament after 
 the introduction of the Bill of 1856, the Aldermen say, 
 " that they exposed their title-deeds and the accounts 
 of their revenue to the Royal Commissioners with 
 feelings of honest pride and generous confidence, 
 but that they little expected to see from the pen of 
 British statesmen a report applying laws of meum 
 and tuum to a Corporation different to those which, 
 at least at present, prevail in regard to private indi- 
 viduals." 
 
 As a proof of the difficulty of obtaining any accurate 
 knowledge of the funds and estates of the livery com- 
 panies, we will quote that of the Drapers as an example. 
 The income of the Drapers' Company was represented 
 to the Commissioners in 1837 as about 24,000 a year, 
 and as a rule it is generally quoted by the members of
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 179 
 
 the guild at about the same amount now. But was it 
 the real state of the case ? Since 1837 the average 
 value of property in the City and the Drapers' Com- 
 pany are, perhaps, the largest owners of land in it 
 has more than doubled, without counting the great 
 advance in value of their other properties. They have 
 since rebuilt the hall, which is assessed for the poor at 
 8,000 a year net, at a cost of 70,000, and they have 
 let off their garden on building leases for 15,000 per 
 annum more that property being alone worth the 
 amount their whole assets were valued at in 1837. And 
 now arises the interesting question, what is done with 
 the surplus ? They spent on entertainments and dinners 
 5,000 a year, on salaries 4,000 a year, and on pen- 
 sions and gratuities some 5,000 a year more. Has 
 their expenditure increased in all respects in propor- 
 tion with the increase of funds ? If so, the new and 
 costly hall in Throgmorton Street must be little other 
 than a huge house of gluttony. "It would," says 
 Mr, Firth, " be edifying to have a public audit of their 
 accounts. Five hundred years ago all the members of 
 a company knew what their funds were, and how they 
 were spent. This very company obtained its ano- 
 malous privileges in 1365, on the ground that meddlers 
 in drapery, by their ignorance of the trade, greatly 
 enhanced the price, and the quality was deteriorated. 
 To-day a London draper would have small chance of 
 getting much information from the company, if indeed 
 he could get admitted at all." 
 
 Of the Merchant Taylors we have already spoken,
 
 :8o THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 but what we have said conveys only a slight idea of the 
 enormous funds in their possession, and which, by the 
 way, are rapidly increasing. Let us give one case in 
 point. Possibly the reader, when passing from the 
 Old Jewry through Coleman Street, may have noticed 
 a house on the left-hand side, from which a large clock 
 protrudes, which is visible from one end of the street 
 to the other. This house is the property of the Mer- 
 chant Taylors' Company; it reaches from Coleman Street 
 through to Basinghall Street, and in the centre was a 
 hall some thirty-five feet in diameter known as the 
 Wool Exchange. The whole block was let on lease 
 for 750 per annum, but, the lease falling in, it was 
 renewed at a ground rent of 3,500 per annum, on the 
 condition that the company who took the lease should 
 pull down the old buildings and erect new. This has 
 been done at an expenditure of nearly a quarter of a 
 million of money. But a curious fact remains to be 
 noticed, and which may be found in all modern build- 
 ings erected on land belonging to the livery com- 
 panies no person, other than "a care-taker," is 
 allowed to sleep on the premises, for the purpose, 
 as it is stated, of escaping the inhabited house duty, 
 but more probably with the intent of impeding the 
 industrial classes from returning into the City. And 
 yet the buildings alluded to, now let out in offices, 
 might have afforded house accommodation for more 
 than seven hundred persons. The same rule has 
 been carried out in all those magnificent buildings in 
 Cannon Street, as well as most others (we certainly
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 181 
 
 have been able to find no exception) within the City 
 boundaries. 
 
 The same difficulty exists in obtaining anything 
 like a just idea of the revenue of the Goldsmiths' 
 Company. Quoting a letter from the Weekly Dispatch, 
 addressed to the editor, and signed " Nemesis," evi- 
 dently the composition of a gentleman well acquainted 
 with his subject, and to which, if we could take any 
 objection to his statements, it would be that he has 
 rather underrated his conclusions than exaggerated 
 them, he says : 
 
 " In the history of the Goldsmiths' Company allu- 
 sion will continually be found to the artificers and 
 commonalty, as to apprentices, freemen, and wardens. 
 For example, as be^pre stated, in 1529 a dispute arose 
 between the artificers and poor men of the craft of 
 goldsmiths relative to the election of wardens. How 
 much of the funds of this corporation now reaches the 
 artificers of the guild ? They, the craftsmen, have 
 benefit societies, long since formed to replace the one 
 of which they have been dispossessed. What does the 
 Goldsmiths' Company contribute ? The hall of the Gold- 
 smiths' Company is worth, say, <! 0,000 per annum. By 
 the ordinary descent of property this belongs to the 
 artificers of Clerkenwell. To what use would they apply 
 it ? At twenty years' purchase it is worth 200,000, 
 which invested at four per cent, would produce 8,000 
 a year enough, perhaps, to pension every man among 
 them above sixty years of age entitled to benefit from 
 the guild fund. In addition it has
 
 1 8i THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 *. d. 
 Six houses at Alb Hay, producing, per 
 
 annum ..... 685 
 
 Five at Halle . , . . 522 
 
 Six at Malton . . . 825 
 
 Forty-four left by Sir Win. Bowes . 2,288 
 From Mr. Fox . . . .800 
 
 Four houses ..... 172 
 
 A farm, 198 acres . . . 845 
 
 Another, 32 acres , . . 83 
 
 Rent charges, amounting to . 127 
 
 Other rent charges . . . 52 
 
 In stock (Consols) . . . . 927 17 6 
 
 In other stocks . . . . 18,415 
 
 In other stocks . . . 914 
 
 In various stocks .... 6,580 
 
 For almshouses, per annum . . 6,180 
 
 Money gifts. . . . 10 
 
 Gifts in articles . . . 23 
 
 Payments to parishes and schools . . 977 
 
 or a total income for specific purposes, known, of over 
 20,000 per annum, with a total assumed income of 
 over 150,000 per annum, of which we have no 
 account, and of which we demand that an effectual 
 audit and full disclosure shall be made, or that it shall 
 be handed over to a body of Commissioners (with all 
 kindred property) to administer/' 
 
 The same vigorous writer, when mentioning the 
 Haberdashers' Company, says, " The Company of 
 Haberdashers is a notable one charity and benevo- 
 lence of the rarest and most distinguished kind for- 
 merly marked it for their own. Its trusts proclaim, 
 in days gone by, how much it was esteemed. It has 
 free schools in Bunhill Row, Monmouth, Newport, 
 Banbury, and Hoxton; almshouses at Hoxton, Mon-
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 183 
 
 mouth, Newport, and Banbury; four lectureships, 
 eighteen scholarships, numerous pensions and gifts. 
 Assuming the governing body to be nobly ambitious of 
 doing good, here is work for the noblest and worthiest 
 of our race. It pays 3,527 to parishes and schools, 
 1,373 to almshouses and pensions, and acknowledges 
 a total income for charitable purposes of 5,677 per 
 annum. Its history is a small thing. Suffice it to 
 say it survives to our day, the trustee of property 
 intended for great uses. A list of its pensions would 
 fill columns. Its distinctive power in London is asso- 
 ciated with Aske's Hospital at Hoxton, for the main- 
 tenance of twenty liverymen or freemen, and for the 
 maintenance and education of twenty boys, sons of 
 freemen. Robert Aske left 30,000 for building and 
 endowing the hospital. There were great errors in the 
 earlier days of this trust, marring its usefulness. How 
 now ? How many boys ? What education ? Is it 
 better than an ordinary old charity school, or would 
 the boys fare better at a national school? It is a 
 simple inquiry, and merits a reply." 
 
 They return the Aldersey bequest as having an 
 income of 7 per annum. The bequest, however, 
 maintains a free school at Banbury, in Cheshire. A 
 portion of the property is leased for 500 years at 122 
 per annum, the lessee to repair the grammar school 
 and house of the master, and a further portion for 
 2,000 years at 8 per annum. Blundell's Charity is 
 returned at 2, but it represents JSTo. 8, Poultry, which 
 must be worth some hundreds per annum. What is
 
 1 84 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 done with the surplus? Morgan's Charity, returned 
 at 20 per annum, consisted of a house in Budge 
 Row, two in Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, two in 
 Eastcheap, and a house and land at Stratford, in Essex. 
 What is the explanation ? They appear to have appro- 
 priated to themselves Mrs. Clarke's Charity for some 
 time, now represented by 666 per annum, but do not 
 say how the income is appropriated. Caldwell's Charity 
 needs inquiry, seeing that a house on Ludgate Hill 
 was sold for 92. They hold under Whitmore's 
 Charity houses in Bishopsgate and Helmet Court, pro- 
 ducing, we should think, some hundreds per annum, 
 and they return the income at 21. Will the clerk 
 of the company explain ? These are queries on things 
 recorded. We do not pretend to touch on property or 
 its administration for which no trust is avowed. There 
 is no balance-sheet of that no details, no history, no 
 array of salaries, no douceurs, fees to members of court 
 or to wardens, or cost of banquets all that is a blank 
 lill Parliament proclaims an audit and appoints an 
 auditor. Will the Lord Mayor pardon one inquiry ? 
 What is become of Somers* Charity, represented in 
 the last return as stock 23 6s. 8d., dividends 14s., of 
 which 2s. is paid to clerk and beadle, but which 
 formerly possessed a house in St. Dunstan's, Fleet 
 Street ? What has become of it ? What is its history ? 
 Twelve shillings is now put into the poor-box annually, 
 but how about the house ? Sir Stephen Peacock gave 
 lands in St. Sepulchre's, Newgate Street. The income 
 is returned at 9 5*. 4d., and the property consisted of
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 185 
 
 24, Crutched Friars, which seventy years ago produced 
 55 per annum, and two coach-houses and a stable in 
 French Horn Yard in the rear, which then produced 
 25 per annum now shall we say 700 per annum ? * 
 Again, what information can the Lord Mayor give about 
 this, and Gale's Charity, and Harlowe's Charity ? 
 
 " We are justly curious," Nemesis continues, " to 
 know something of Sir N. Rainton's bequest of two 
 houses and two warehouses in Lombard Street, to pay 
 40s. a year for the use of the poor. Now this property 
 formed part of Plough Court and 77, Lombard Street. 
 They return the total gross income at 87 ; now it 
 represents thousands per annum, or should do so. 
 What does Alderman Cotton, late prime warden, say 
 to this, and as to the lapsed purposes of Hazlefort's 
 Charity ? In Bishopsgate Street and Helmet Court are 
 two houses, of which the rents were 2 13s. 4d. per 
 annum. Who knows anything of the present rental ? 
 Is it 1,500 per annum ? To whom is it paid, and 
 how expended ? It is connected with the charities of 
 Dr. Bell and Parthinia Lowman. It may be, possibly 
 it is, honestly to be accounted [for. We only want to 
 know that it is all as it should be/' 
 
 After alluding to the mismanagement of Trotman's 
 School in Bunhill Row, the income now returned at 
 173 per annum ; the magnificent charity of Jones, 
 consisting of 521 acres of land in Monmouthshire, to 
 
 * The author, as trustee for a piece of land in close vicinity to the 
 above, but not of greater dimensions, sold it, ten years since, for 
 building purposes, for 17,500.
 
 186 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 support a grammar school and almshouses in Mon- 
 mouth ; Shingler's Charity and others, all in the hands 
 of the Haberdashers' Company, Nemesis continues : 
 
 "If no other company was made the subject of a 
 parliamentary inquiry, certainly the Haberdashers' 
 ought to go through that ordeal, if only to explain 
 Jeston's Charity, and its twenty-four houses returned 
 at 170 per annum, and 3,000 consols. As these 
 houses are eighteen in Haberdashers' Square and six 
 in St. Giles's, we arej[curious to know how it is they 
 produce only 170 per annum. Again, Lady Wild's 
 Charity has enabled them to purchase six advowsons, 
 and that alone would be a curious and interesting 
 subject of inquiry for Parliament. Talk of misappro- 
 priation ! Will the clerk give us the history of the 
 Paradyne Charity and Lady Romney's Charity, and 
 Mr. Freeman's, unique in the history of neglected 
 trusts ? Parliament alone can getthe history of Ham- 
 mond's Charity, with its fifteen houses in Mincing 
 Lane and Tower Street, charged to pay 80 per 
 annum with an income of 98 ; and that of Hazle- 
 fort's, with its farm of 212 acres at Great Bardfield, 
 and its copyhold property at Matching, Essex. If any 
 noble-minded citizen would apply to Chancery on this 
 latter charity he would leave a name endearingly to 
 be remembered. Barnes's Charity is still returned at 
 54 per annum ; but as it is possessed of a house in 
 Lombard Street, we want to know its rental. Seventy 
 years ago it was 150 per annum what is it to-day ? 
 Houses in Lombard Street letting at 80 thirty years
 
 LIVERY COMPANIESTHEIR REVENUE. 187 
 
 ago now realise 700 and 800 per annum. The 
 rate of growth in value extends, strangely enough, to 
 property held in trust by companies and in that in 
 the hands of private individuals. Sir GL Barnes's 
 Charity represents now 133 stock. What has become 
 of the windmill in Finsbury ? It appears to have been 
 sold for 100. Is this stewardship of great trusts? 
 Young tradesmen should apply for loans under Culver- 
 well's and other charities. Hoarding's, and Barrett's, 
 and Offley's Charities appear to have been lost, and the 
 company make no return as to them. Buckland's 
 substantial charity of the houses in St. Michael-le- 
 Quern is now 200 stock, and that is all to represent 
 three houses in Paternoster Row. They are rich in 
 loan charities. One Taylor left 200 to be loaned, 
 but having lost 50 of it in 1666, the company appears 
 to have appropriated it, and pays 1 4s. per annum in 
 lieu to St. Stephen's, Coleman Street. They seem ta 
 have dealt in a similar way with Harrison's Charity." 
 
 It must not be supposed that the charities quoted by 
 Nemesis comprise the whole number possessed by the 
 Haberdashers' Company, for that is far from being the 
 case. It would appear, from a return printed by 
 order of the House of Commons, July 15th, 1868, 
 that they possess thirty-one more, equally valuable. 
 But correct as Nemesis usually is, he has made an 
 error in his valuation of the company's valuable trusts. 
 He has evidently taken his figures from the above 
 report, and not taken into consideration the increase 
 in the value of City property since 1868, the increased
 
 1 88 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 rental to be levied when the present leases fall in as, 
 for example, the case we mention as the property in 
 Coleman Street belonging to the Merchant Taylors' 
 Company as well as the annual value of land at pre- 
 sent unbuilt upon, but which will hereafter prove 
 vastly productive, increasing the value named by 
 Nemesis at least twenty-five per cent. 
 
 Before making any concluding remark on the 
 funds in possession of the Haberdashers' Company and 
 the management of its valuable charities, we shall 
 briefly allude to two other companies, the Drapers' and 
 the Mercers'. Respecting the former we have given 
 a remote idea of its wealth, and we shall only allude 
 to the amount of charitable funds in its possession, 
 leaving untouched those that remain for trade and 
 municipal purposes. It appears, then, that rich as 
 is the Haberdashers' Company in charitable trusts, 
 it is in arrear of the Drapers'. From the Parlia- 
 mentary [Report of 1868, it would appear that they 
 possessed no fewer than seventy-eight charitable en- 
 dowments 6,514 for general education, 1,975 for 
 apprenticeship or technical education, and 6,089 for 
 the support of almshouses and their inmates, besides 
 other charities admitted by the company themselves, 
 the whole reaching to the sum of 15,181 per annum. 
 As in the case of the Haberdashers' Company, the 
 greater part of this enormous income is derived from 
 house property and land, much of it in the most valu- 
 able part of the City, and of course yielding, either at 
 present or in reversion, a far higher sum than the
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 189 
 
 amount returned in the Parliamentary Report pub- 
 lished some ten years since. We may here add that. 
 in addition to its City and English property and in 
 different stocks, the Drapers' Company possesses no 
 fewer than 27,025 acres of land in the best part of 
 Ireland, yielding a present rental of 14,859 ; but 
 when the present leases fall in, the rents will be raised 
 from twenty-five to fifty per cent, on their present 
 valuation. 
 
 Including St. Paul's School, the Mercers' is still 
 richer in charitable endowments than the Drapers'. 
 The company has for general educational endowments, 
 not including the value of the land and the school 
 buildings, which are never given in their returns, but 
 which in themselves form an item of great value, no 
 less than 14,130 per annum ; and for apprenticing or 
 technical education (terms synonymous) 1,606 more ; 
 for almshouses and the inmates, 7,162 more ; which, 
 including other charitable trusts and St. Paul's School, 
 altogether amounts to 25,147 per annum. Of the 
 gross income of the company we can form no adequate 
 idea, for its managers appear to have, in common with 
 all other guilds, a violent objection to allowing their 
 income to be known. One item alone we may mention, 
 that they possess in the best part of Ireland an estate 
 of 21,241 acres, the leases of which are now expiring, 
 and on which, according to the newspaper reports, they 
 intend raising their rents to 40,000 a year. 
 
 As it is common in the present day to find the trades 
 of haberdasher, draper, and mercer to be carried on in
 
 i go THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 the same house, the three may be considered as one ; 
 and such being the case, we would submit to the 
 members "of these trades whether they, with their assist- 
 ants, both men and women (the latter having by the 
 original charters a right to be admitted as sisters of the 
 guilds), should not assist in the present movement 
 for the reform of the City livery companies, and if 
 not for their own benefit, for that of " the decaid " 
 members of their trade, their wives, and children. The 
 prizes to be gained are worth trying for. Without 
 alluding- to the sums held in trust by the three com- 
 panies for trade and municipal purposes, those for 
 charitable purposes alone will be somewhat as follows 
 more, rather than less : 
 
 *. d. 
 
 Haberdashers . % . 5,677 
 
 Drapers ..... 15,181 16 
 Mercers (including St. Paul's) . . 26,147 
 
 Total . 46,005 15 
 
 If to this should be added twenty-five per cent, for in- 
 creased value, &c., of securities since 1868, the gross 
 total will not be less than 57,220 per annum. 
 
 It would be interesting also to investigate how many 
 of those having the administration of the enormous funds 
 are members of the trades they profess to represent, how 
 many of the inmates of their almshouses were directly 
 or indirectly connected with the trade of haberdasher, 
 draper, or mercer, or how many children of members 
 of these trades are receiving from the charitable funds
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 191 
 
 of the above-named companies any education, either 
 elementary, secondary, or technical. 
 
 It would possibly tire the reader's patience if we went 
 at any length into the administration of charitable 
 funds in the hands of the livery companies ; suffice it to 
 say they are all amply supplied for purposes of the 
 kind, and all seem to fritter away their funds in the 
 same unsatisfactory manner, one rule seeming to guide 
 them all how the smallest amount of good can be 
 effected at the heaviest possible amount of cost, and 
 how the smallest amount of benefit can be obtained 
 from them by the poor of the different guilds they pro- 
 fess to represent. According to the Parliamentary Re- 
 port (1868) above alluded to, the City livery com- 
 panies possess in charitable trusts for education alone 
 (exclusive of the 12,000 a year, the endowment of 
 St. Paul's School) 19,008 per annum, and 5,646 for 
 apprenticeship or technical education, for the support of 
 almshouses and their inmates and pensioners, 53,972, 
 almost the whole for members of their different trades, 
 as well as other trusts for charitable uses of not less 
 than 99,027 per annum. To this amount, however, 
 should the income of St. Paul's School be added, as 
 well as the increase in the value of the different 
 securities as well as land, it would raise the whole at a 
 fair computation to not less than 125,000 a year. Let 
 this amount be added to that we have mentioned for 
 feasting, the maintenance of the halls, and other acces- 
 sories to what is called " civic hospitality " (of the cost 
 of which not a shilling comes out of the pockets of either
 
 1 92 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 host or guests), at the moderate sum of 150,000 a year, 
 making with the charity trust a total of 275,000 per 
 annum. 
 
 It must not, however, be concluded that this sum by 
 any means represents the wealth of the City guilds, 
 though, as we said before, to what amount it really 
 reaches it would be a difficult matter to say. Among 
 other valuable items in their assets may be named their 
 Irish estates. The origin of the Irish Society dates 
 back as far as the reign of James I. This monarch con- 
 ceived the idea of colonising the north of Ireland 
 with English and Scottish Protestants. More than 
 500,000 acres of land had been confiscated to the 
 Crown, and the King thought that the best way to 
 remove the disaffection and weakness of this part of his 
 kingdom was to introduce a new and sturdy Protestant 
 colony. In pursuance of this design he entered into 
 certain negotiations with the Corporation of London, 
 under which the Corporation undertook the colonisa- 
 tion and settlement of a large tract of country. Con- 
 siderable sums of money were raised by the Corporation, 
 which was assessed upon the livery companies. It was 
 then divided as far as was practicable into twelve 
 equal parts, and apportioned by lot among the twelve 
 great companies. There still remained under control 
 of the Corporation undivided certain lands, farms, and 
 so forth, and these have since formed the area of the 
 Irish Society's jurisdiction. The society's charter was 
 taken away by Charles L, but restored by Charles II. 
 Their property is now held under this grant. "The
 
 LIVERY COMPANIESTHEIR REVENUE. 193 
 
 rest of the estates granted by King James to the Cor- 
 poration have been dealt with by the livery companies. 
 Some of them have been sold, others are still in the 
 possession of the companies. Whether we regard the 
 livery companies at the time of the subdivision as 
 flourishing trade organizations or as inseparable parts 
 of the Corporation, in either point of view these lands 
 and the moneys they have produced are impressed in 
 the hands of the present holders with the character of 
 trust property. Formerly it was the custom to divide 
 the surplus income of the society amongst the twelve 
 great companies, and upon the discontinuance of this 
 practice the Skinners' Company brought an action with 
 respect to their share of the undivided estate. But 
 after much litigation the House of Lords decided, con- 
 firming the decision of Lord Langdale, that the Irish 
 Society were simply trustees for public purposes. The 
 legal position occupied by the companies is in many 
 respects the same, but the question as to what their 
 rights and duties are in respect to their Irish property 
 has never been litigated, and they have used the pro- 
 duct of their shares as their own private property." * 
 
 Has the reader any idea of the value of the Irish 
 estates in the hands of the livery companies and " used 
 by them as their own private property ? " "Without 
 counting the amount realised by the companies (the 
 Skinners for example) who have sold their portions of 
 the land, and already received the proceeds of the sale, 
 their rental according to the present leases in the 
 * Firth, " Municipality of London."
 
 194 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 possession of eight of these companies,* is given in the 
 last Parliamentary Return as follows : 
 
 Valuation. 
 
 Acres. * d- 
 
 Drapers . . . 27,025 14,859 3 
 
 Fishmongers . . 20,509 9,159 8 
 
 Grocers . . . 11,638 6,457 
 
 Ironmongers . . 12,714 8,032 4 
 
 Mercers . . . 21,741 11,740 
 
 Salters . . . 19,445 17,263 
 
 Skinners . . . 34,772 9,611 
 
 Irish Society . . 6,075 11,336 
 
 Total . 153,919 88,357 15 
 
 But it is held by those well acquainted with the value 
 of land in that part of Ireland in which those estates 
 are situated, that at the expiration of the present leases, 
 which have on an average but a short time to run, 
 at least an increase of 25 per cent, will be added to 
 the amounts at present paid (judging by the demands 
 made lately by the Mercers' Company for the renewal 
 of their leases it would be more), which would raise the 
 value of the whole of the companies' Irish estates to 
 considerably more than two millions sterling, taking 
 the rentals at four per cent, on the value of the realis- 
 able capital of the companies on these estates alone. 
 Of the value of the companies' properties in the City 
 and suburbs it would be difficult, as we before stated, 
 to form any approximate idea, beyond the fact that 
 it is assessed to the poor-rate at about 500,000 a year. 
 Without taking into account the reversionary value of 
 * Owners of Land in Ireland, Parliamentary Return, 1876.
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 195 
 
 leases about to fall in, the assumed value of what is 
 called waste land unlet in the City, and for which 
 enormous sums are demanded, together with the value 
 of their Irish estates, will at a moderate computation 
 raise the amount of their annual income to nearly 
 600,000. 
 
 Beyond the pecuniary property in the hands of the 
 City companies, they possess an almost fabulous amount 
 of patronage, some of which we will bring under the 
 notice of the reader, premising that the statements are 
 taken from, perhaps, the best authority extant respect- 
 ing the history of the wealthier City guilds Herbert's 
 history of the " Twelve Great Livery Companies of 
 London." 
 
 The Mercers' Company possess the patronage of the 
 following livings : the master, or " tutor," of "Whit- 
 tin gton's College at Highgate ; the high mastership of 
 St. Paul's, the sur-master of ditto, the under-master, or 
 "ancient chaplain," of ditto, the assistant-master of 
 ditto ; the classical master of Mercers' School, the 
 assistant ditto, the writing master of ditto, the assistant 
 ditto ; the Lent preacher at Mercers' Chapel, Cheap- 
 side ; the preacher of various occasional sermons and 
 lectures ; the seven lecturers (jointly with the City) at 
 the Gresham Lectures, Royal Exchange ; the warden, 
 twenty-two almsmen, officers, and servants of Trinity 
 Hospital at Greenwich ; the rectory of Kirton, in 
 Lincolnshire, and the advowson and patronage of the 
 vicarage ; a lectureship at St. Bartholomew's, Thread- 
 needle Street ; lectureship at Hexham, in Northumber-
 
 196 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 land ; rectory of Canwick, Lincolnshire, and appoint- 
 ment of vicar ; rectory of Repham, ditto ; lectureship 
 of Berwick-upon-Tweed ; the lectureship of Grantham, 
 Lincolnshire ; and the rectory of Wakefield, York- 
 shire ; besides forty -five exhibitions or temporary 
 pensions to poor scholars at the Universities of Oxford 
 and Cambridge. 
 
 The Grocers hold the mastership of the Free Gram- 
 mar School at Oundle ; the mastership of the Free 
 School at Colwall, in Herefordshire ; the mastership of 
 the Free Grammar School at Witney, Oxfordshire, and 
 the under-master of ditto ; the third presentation to the 
 rectory of St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside ; the rectory 
 of St. Austell, in the county of Cornwall ; the rectory 
 of Norhill in Bedfordshire ; the rectory and patronage 
 of the vicarage of Miborough, in Devonshire ; the 
 rectory of St. Stephen's, Walbrook ; and the alternate 
 patronage or presentation to the rectory of St. Mil- 
 dred's, Poultry, with eight scholarships to Oxford 
 and Cambridge. The Merchant Taylors possess in 
 London and the country no fewer than six public 
 schools : one on the ground lately occupied by the 
 Charterhouse ; one at "Wolverhampton, in the county 
 of Stafford ; another at Great Crosby, in the parish of 
 Shelton, county of Lancaster ; a fourth at Audlem, in 
 the county of Chester ; a fifth at Ash well, in the county 
 of Herts ; and the sixth at Wallingford, in the county 
 of Berks. The company have, moreover,' fifty-nine 
 scholarships, many among them, it is true, but of small 
 value to those who are rich, but still of importance to
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 197 
 
 those parents whose means are limited. The Iron- 
 mongers, Haberdashers, and Drapers have also valu- 
 able livings in their hands, the latter company, as we 
 before stated, possessing one group of six advowsons, 
 numerous schools and scholarships, none of the compa- 
 nies holding more than those we have mentioned, but 
 several as many, all of which are considered by the 
 members of the different liveries as their especial private 
 property, but which are held by many legists of great 
 eminence to have been placed in their hands solely as 
 trust property "for the common benefit of the people." 
 But the excuse put forth by the livery companies 
 "that the funds in their possession are private pro- 
 perty when the uses for which they held the charitable 
 trusts have been fulfilled to the letter, and the letter 
 only ; and they are justified in appropriating the sur- 
 plus at their own discretion without interference or 
 animadversion or criticism from outsiders. This view 
 of the case ought to be disputed by every honest man, 
 especially such as have the interests of the poor at 
 heart. The theory has also received occasionally 
 several severe shocks from legal decisions ; and if the 
 ruling of the court in the following case would be a 
 correct one and few but liverymen could doubt it 
 it seems probable that not less than one hundred 
 thousand is upon its ruling annually taken from the 
 pockets of the London poor and misappropriated. 
 That we may make no mistake in the bearings of the 
 case, we will quote verbatim. Mr. Firth's ("Municipal 
 London ") description of it :
 
 i 9 8 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 " In 1570 one Robert Donkyn, formerly a member 
 of the Merchant Taylors' Company, divided certain 
 house property in Bishopsgate to the master, wardens, 
 and commonalty of the Merchant Taylors' Company, to 
 the extent and upon the condition that they should 
 every year out of the rents provide for twelve poor 
 men twelve gowns of Welsh frieze of the price of six- 
 teen pence the yard, twelve shirts of the value of two 
 shillings each shirt, twelve pairs of shoes of the value 
 of twelve pence the pair ; and he then provided in a 
 similar manner for twelve poor women. The produce 
 of the house property at the death of the testator was 
 somewhat more than was requisite for the purpose, but 
 since that time it has enormously increased, and until 
 the Charity Commissioners heard of the case, the com- 
 pany pocketed the balance, taking, of course, due care 
 to clothe the twelve poor men and twelve poor 
 women." 
 
 It was held by the Master of the Rolls and the 
 Court of Appeal tJiat the company were not entitled to 
 appropriate the surplus to their own purposes. Of 
 course the intention of the testator is the basis upon 
 which the decision rests. If he had given estates to a 
 company, with the undertaking and upon the condition 
 that they should make certain payments, as in the case 
 of the Attorney-General v. The "Wax Chandlers' Com- 
 pany, the decision would have been different ; but there 
 was in this case, as in the case of hundreds of others, 
 no manifest intention to give the property to other than 
 charitable uses.
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 199 
 
 " Robert Donkyn," Mr. Firth continues, " never 
 supposed that the value of money and the price of 
 frieze would change ; still less did he suppose that the 
 twelve or fifteen cottages and gardens, bringing in 
 their thirty shillings a year each, and requiring con- 
 stant repairs, would in the course of years be replaced 
 by magnificent warehouses yielding a princely income. 
 What would have Ijeen his bequest if such a prospect 
 had been unrolled before him it is impossible to say ; 
 and the case is a striking illustration of the absurdity 
 of allowing a testator to control the direction of land 
 for hundreds of years. The Merchant Taylors' Com- 
 pany are now bound to expend the revenue in chari- 
 table purposes." 
 
 In addition to trusts of this kind, there are also many 
 others where a valuable landed estate has been left for 
 purposes which are altogether extinct. The payment 
 of preachers in churches which have been pulled down 
 for example, at Paul's Cross and at other places are 
 of this class. A sum left to the marriage portioning of 
 maidens arc also of this class. For example, a bequest 
 left to the Drapers' Company brought in more than 
 2,000 a year forty years ago, but most of it was 
 applied to " corporate purposes." 
 
 Before quitting this portion of our subject we may 
 be allowed to quote once more the above learned 
 writer : " Whilst the ordinary funds at the command 
 of the companies are mainly spent in salaries, pensions, 
 and dinners, those that are expressly left for the pur- 
 poses of charity are so bestowed, with a more or less
 
 200 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 literal adhesion to the terms of the bequest. When a 
 testator, three hundred years ago, left a house or land, 
 to the intent that the income should be employed to 
 pay a certain sum yearly to a schoolmaster, who should 
 teach the poor children of the craft, he was of the 
 opinion that the value of money, which for two hun- 
 dred years had remained stationary, would so continue, 
 and had not in contemplation that his land would 
 increase in value twenty- fold. A large amount of 
 land has been left to the City companies upon these 
 and similar educational trusts. Sometimes the whole 
 income is devoted to educational uses, which are, how- 
 ever, as a rule, widely different from what the donor 
 intended ; sometimes only the literal terms of the gifts 
 are attended to, and the balance of income is appro- 
 priated by the companies for their own private pur- 
 poses. There is no doubt that when the land or 
 property is given with the intention that the company 
 shall be merely trustees and not beneficiaries, then the 
 balance is misappropriated. We cannot estimate the 
 amount of such misappropriated balance ; but the 
 Examiner (a newspaper which has given great con- 
 sideration to the question) estimates it at not less than 
 one hundred thousand pounds per annum." 
 
 It may now fairly be asked why, if the trades and 
 crafts nominally under the control of the City livery 
 companies are open by their charters for all those 
 practising them, they do not take up their freedom, 
 and, by considering them in the light of their benefit 
 societies, profit by the advantages to be derived by the
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 20 r 
 
 immense accumulation of property in the Lands of 
 their managers? The question is easily answered. 
 The sums required to be paid for admission into the 
 richer companies are so high, that those whose best 
 policy it would be to join them are utterly unable to do 
 so. How could an operative tailor, a mercer's shop 
 assistant, male or female, a working saddler, or crafts- 
 men of the following trades, raise the money to qualify 
 himself for membership in any of the guilds which bears 
 its name ? If a man or woman wants to become a Draper, 
 he must pay nearly 150 ; a Clothworker, 128 ; a 
 Saddler, 64, and so on. And what is the result? 
 Although the wardens, masters, and liverymen were 
 formerly obliged to prove before election that they were 
 honest men, well skilled in their craft, it would, as before 
 stated, be now almost an impossibility to find one such 
 case among them. Machyn in his Diary, 1556, speak- 
 ing of the " Marchaund Tayllers' fest," held on the 2nd 
 of July in that year, says that all the wardens of the 
 company were not only tailors, but tailors' sons. For- 
 merly the Merchant Taylors' School was used solely for 
 tailors' sons, but "Wilson, in his " History of the Mer- 
 chant Taylors' School," 1812, boasted that there was 
 not a boy among them that was the son of a tailor, and 
 it is more than possible in the present day the same 
 rule holds good certainly there is not the son of an 
 operative tailor among them. In the year 1701, as 
 already mentioned, Sir William Gore, a member of the 
 Mercers' Company, was chosen Lord Mayor of London. 
 In his speech at the dinner which afterwards took
 
 202 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 place in the Guildhall, he complimented the brethren of 
 the mystery of mercerie " on having kept their mem- 
 bers solely to those of their own trade." At the present 
 time we believe there is not a member of the trade 
 among them, or at the best but very few exceptions. 
 They boast, however, that among their leading men are 
 an ex-Lord Chancellor and the present Chief Justice 
 of the Court of Queen's Bench. 
 
 To afford the reader a good idea of the mechanism 
 and policy of the modern livery guilds, we cannot do 
 better than quote verbatim, and at some length, the 
 remarks of Mr. Firth on the subject : " The anxiety on 
 the part of liverymen to be elected on the court of assist- 
 ants of a company is readily understood when its advan- 
 tages are known. Men are willing to pay down more than 
 100 to become members of the larger companies, and 
 common sense tells us they do not do this without the 
 hope of due reward. That reward takes many forms, 
 and reaches its highest point when a man is elected on 
 the court. Before he is elected to the court he may, if 
 judicious and discreet, have some good pickings. He 
 will probably have dinner tickets representing an out- 
 lay of 50 to 100 per annum, and he may get one of 
 the many sinecure appointments at large salaries which 
 are in the gift of the company. He may be its clerk, 
 at a salary sometimes in excess of the market value of 
 the duty he has to perform, or he may be solicitor, 
 or deputy or assistant to these officers, or he may be 
 auditor, remembrancer, librarian, chaplain, or standing 
 counsel, and so on through many highly-paid offices,
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 203 
 
 the tenants of which enjoy the maximum of income 
 with the minimum of work in fact, sometimes without 
 the shadow of it. 
 
 " But the good things culminate when a man is 
 elected to the court of assistants. It is a matter of 
 common repute that the estates of companies are often 
 leased to members at absurd rentals, enabling the 
 lucky lessees to make an excellent profit in re-letting 
 them. In the estimates given of the aggregate incomes 
 of companies we have considered these estates at their 
 real value, not at the value put upon them by the com- 
 panies.* It is clear that we are justified in regarding 
 that as income of the company which is allowed to 
 various members in the way of beneficial leases. Every 
 now and then, as feast days come round, the members 
 of a livery will receive a few pounds a head in me- 
 mory of some ancient benefactor. The responsibility 
 of a seat on the court carries with it a salary; the 
 meetings of the committee are duly paid for; some 
 
 * When the above was in type, our attention was called to the 
 following letter to the Editor of the Echo : " In Herbert's ' History 
 of the City Companies ' it is recorded that an alderman devised by bis 
 will to his company, to pay Gd. weekly to seven poor members of the 
 company, 'such as had been householders or occupiers of the said 
 mystery, and had fallen into decay or poverty,' two houses in Bow, in 
 the ward of Cheap, two ditto with a garden and appurtenances in 
 Lothbury, ' that great messuage with the garden in the parish of 
 Saint Peter-le-Poer, and a piece of ground with stables in Saint 
 Olave's.' On searching the Parliamentary Returns I find the company 
 concerned returns this as a bequest of 9 2s. per annum, and that sum 
 is devoted annually as prescribed. One of these six properties was 
 recently offered as a leasehold property for sale, the ground rent paid 
 to the company being over 3,000 per annum. I think I am not far 
 out in putting the six at about 25,000 per annum."
 
 204- THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 companies have dinners of some kind as often as once a 
 week." 
 
 When speaking of the manner the City guilds escape 
 their present fair share of taxation, and the stringent 
 manner they were formerly (and, according to their 
 statutes, are at present) under the control of the Crown, 
 Mr. Firth continues : " The universities and colleges of 
 Oxford and Cambridge hold more than three hundred 
 thousand acres of land in mortmain, and the City com- 
 panies, if we include their Irish estates, probably still 
 more. These lands do not contribute their fair share 
 to the revenue, even if the income derived from them 
 were rightly employed. Thus upon land in the hands 
 of private owners succession duty is paid once every 
 twenty or thirty years, but upon these lands never. 
 If it were proposed that the tenure should continue, 
 the remedy might be found in revaluing the estates 
 every thirty years or so, and then charging a certain 
 percentage by way of duty. It is estimated that if all 
 land in mortmain were made to pay its fair share 
 of succession duty upon the above principle, this 
 source of public revenue would be increased by some- 
 thing like two and two and a half millions per annum. 
 .... The companies have now divorced the trade 
 from the property, and, keeping the latter, care little 
 for the former. But their conduct was very different 
 some three hundred years ago, and their privileges and 
 property suffered constant revision, and were only con- 
 firmed by succeeding sovereigns for good considera- 
 tion. Henry VIII. made them pay large sums of
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 205 
 
 money. In 1545 he made them pay him more than 
 20,000 towards the expenses of the Scotch war. In 
 1551 he ordered the Drapers' Company to supply a 
 vessel for foreign enterprise, and they forthwith did so. 
 In 1546 took place a visitation on the suppression of 
 chantries, and a commission was appointed to make a 
 full disclosure of all property, &c., of the livery com- 
 panies. King Edward VI. received 18,700 under 
 this commission. Queen Mary obtained 65,000 from 
 the livery companies towards the expenses of the 
 French war. Queen Elizabeth is said to have extracted 
 as much as 140,000 from them, and then compelled 
 them to borrow it back on the security of their own 
 gold plate, and to pay the Crown seven per cent, for 
 the loan. James I., who incorporated no fewer than 
 fifteen new monopolous companies, took care to be well 
 paid 'for all the charters he granted. Nine of the 
 twelve great companies had new charters from this 
 monarch, making their powers over their trades more 
 absolute than ever. Charles I. exacted large payments 
 for his favours from the companies. At one assembly 
 of the Common Hall no less a sum than 100,000 was 
 voted, and precepts issued by the companies for its col- 
 lection. They were still further impoverished under 
 the Commonwealth ; but so great was their recuperative 
 power, that they welcomed Charles II., at the Restora- 
 tion, with most magnificent presents." 
 
 In the above list of fines and contributions imposed 
 upon the livery companies, the reader should bear in 
 mind the different value of moneys in those reigns and
 
 206 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 the present day. By assuming that money was then 
 at least five times scarcer than with us, and that the 
 area of the metropolis, as well as its population, was 
 not a twentieth part that which is now comprised 
 within the metropolitan area, and the wealth of the 
 population fully as much less, he will form a juster 
 estimate of the enormous amount of taxation former 
 monarchs levied from the City livery companies. 
 
 We will now refer the reader to the speech of the 
 Lord Mayor at the dinner given by him to the mas- 
 ters of the City guilds and their wives mentioned at 
 the commencement of the present chapter, and how 
 far the compliments paid to the livery companies and 
 the manner in which they performed their duties were 
 merited. Of the many guilds, only some six or seven 
 fulfil, even in the slightest manner, the duties their 
 charters imposed upon them. The Stationers' Company, 
 it is true, keep a register of new books, but do little 
 for "the greater encouragement of the production of 
 literary works of lasting benefit to the world," as it 
 was intended by the statute of George III. confirmed 
 in 1842. The Apothecaries exercise some control over 
 their trade, far beyond " the City and suburbs, and 
 within seven miles thereof." They also examine candi- 
 dates as to their skill in pharmacy, and are empowered 
 to destroy adulterated drugs. The Goldsmiths con- 
 fine themselves to the inspection of the precious metals, 
 but do not appear to take the slightest trouble about 
 manufactured goods. The Gunmakers have statutory 
 powers to prove gun barrels. The Fishmongers no
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES THEIR REVENUE. 207 
 
 longer control their trade as formerly enforced, but 
 certainly are of great public service in their con- 
 demnation of unsaleable fish. Beyond the examples 
 named, could the Lord Mayor inform us what further 
 trade duties are performed by the City guilds ? "We 
 know of none. Of these modern charities and 'the 
 manner in which they are administered we will not at 
 present speak, as they will be touched upon in a future 
 chapter ; and we will conclude the present by merely 
 remarking that if the City guilds perform their duty 
 in a satisfactory manner, it would be difficult indeed 
 to name any gross abuse which may not possess such 
 vast mitigating circumstances as shall fully absolve 
 any objectionable qualities they may contain, no matter 
 how gross they may be.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CORPORATION. 
 
 TTAYING given a sketch of the origin and present 
 condition of the City livery companies, as well 
 as the vast wealth in their possession for charitable, 
 educational, and municipal purposes, as well as the 
 manner a large proportion of that wealth is squan- 
 dered, misappropriated, or frittered away in pageantry, 
 feasting, and other similar purposes, we will now quit 
 that portion of our subject, and turn our attention to 
 the government of the City of London, and the ex- 
 travagance displayed in its administration. Before 
 doing so, however, and by way of making that extrava- 
 gance stand out in still stronger relief, we would call 
 the attention of the reader to the fact that the immense 
 sums we shall have to deal with, and the vast power in 
 the hands of the Corporation, are placed under the 
 control of a body of men representing about a one- 
 hundredth part of the population of the metropolis, or 
 in fact not more than a third that of the parish of 
 St. Pancras. Nay, more, that proportion is annually 
 decreasing as far as regards the City, and, as has been
 
 THE CORPORATION. '209 
 
 the case for the last forty years, in proportion as the 
 number of the inhabitants decreases, the wealth in the 
 hands of the remainder increases in a far greater 
 degree. 
 
 Before fairly attacking the abuses and absurdities, as 
 well as extravagances, to be found in the administration 
 of affairs in the City, it may be as well to give the 
 reader, who may not have paid much attention to the 
 subject, a short description of the organization of the 
 Corporation, dwelling afterwards on some of the more 
 salient anomalies to be detected in it ; and for this pur- 
 pose we cannot do better than to quote verbatim some 
 extracts from an admirable article in the Westminster 
 Review, on the Government of London, January, 1876 : 
 11 We all know," says the writer, "that London is 
 made up of the City and numerous districts which 
 form around it a honeycomb of great cities. All ques- 
 tions respecting it are virtually imperial questions ; all 
 the great interests of the country flow into or have a 
 stake in one or other of the centres. Unlike other 
 towns, London is at once the home of royalty, the seat 
 of Government, and a congregation of rank, fashion, 
 and luxury. The total area of the metropolis covers 
 nearly 80,000 acres, and of this area the historical 
 Corporation of the City of London occupies 702 acres, 
 only. The government of this total area is confided 
 to the City Corporation, the Corporation of West- 
 minster, the Metropolitan Board, vestries and district 
 boards, and boards of guardians, &c. 
 
 " The City proper is governed by the Mayor, Alder-
 
 zio THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 men, Court of Common Council, and Court of Common 
 Hall. It is divided into twenty-six wards of varying 
 size, and has some eighty guilds and companies, the 
 members of which are admitted on varying conditions, 
 and are called liverymen and freemen. The Common 
 Council is elected annually, the Aldermen for life. 
 The Court of Aldermen has executive and judicial 
 authority, the Court of Common Council both legisla- 
 tive and administrative authority, and these powers are 
 sought to be preserved in the bills recently before Par- 
 liament. The Court of Common Hall is composed 
 of the Lord Mayor, four aldermen, and the liverymen 
 of the City guilds, and nominates yearly two aldermen 
 for the Court of Aldermen to select one for the office of 
 Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor is not, therefore, chosen 
 directly by the electors, and the electors are not of 
 necessity resident householders. The aldermen and 
 councillors of each ward exercise authority in the 
 ward, and courts are held called wardmotes. Although 
 each ward elects an alderman, the wards are of unequal 
 size. There are some small wards and some large 
 ones, but more small wards than large ones, so that a 
 minority hold power, but it is questionable how far 
 such minority represent the intelligence and property 
 of the whole. Some wards have been nearly absorbed 
 for the sites of railway stations, like Cannon Street, 
 and the London, Chatham, and Dover in Farringdon 
 Street, and other local improvements like the Post 
 Office. Every alderman is a judge and a magistrate, 
 not only for his own ward, but the whole City ; and
 
 THE CORPORATION. 211 
 
 as nobody pretends that aldermen are qualified to 
 exercise magisterial functions, highly paid officials are 
 retained as chief clerks to advise them on questions of 
 law and justice. They have the superintendence of 
 prisons, and are governors of the royal hospitals ; they 
 appoint the Recorder and many other important 
 officials ; and they are not only members of their own 
 court, but sit and vote in the Court of Common Council. 
 Every alderman is eligible in his turn for the office of 
 Lord Mayor, so that a small ward elects the Mayor, 
 and elevates to baronetcies and peerages the favoured 
 Grocer or Tallow Chandler in its midst. The roll of no- 
 bility in alliance with such fortunate nominees is great, 
 and Mr. Orridge lately presented to his fellow-citizens a 
 laboured detail of such royal and other alliances flowing 
 from this humble fount. In his office the Lord Mayor 
 has great power ; he may obstruct the work of the 
 Court of Common Council by dissolving it at any 
 stage of its sitting, and this prerogative belongs also 
 to aldermen by withdrawing from the Council Chamber, 
 and so rendering their proceedings informal. The 
 Court of Common Council has the management of all 
 the finances of the Corporation, the hereditary revenues, 
 and the City lands. Its work is chiefly done by com- 
 mittees, and the position of chairman of these is eagerly 
 sought for as a stepping-stone to other corporate dig- 
 nities ; but the Commissioners of 1854 thought these 
 committees too large, and so reported and expressed 
 the same opinion with regard to the members of the 
 Court of Common Council. The Corporation controls
 
 212 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 its own police, and the City has maintained its right to 
 this municipal action on repeated occasions when the 
 Government of the day has sought to invade it. ... 
 The City is made joint authority with the Metropolitan 
 Board in dealing with the funds to free the bridges 
 within sixteen miles of St. Paul's, but the junction 
 of interests has not improved their acquaintance. 
 To the rivalry established we doubtless owe many 
 great improvements. The City, so long dormant as to 
 the Holborn Viaduct, was quickened by the jealousy of 
 the new authority entering its gates. The splendour 
 of these improvements, the new Meat Market, the 
 new Blackfriars Bridge, its energy in dealing with 
 vacant lands, its action in securing the City of London 
 Gas Act, were stimulated by its vicinity to the labours 
 and works of its rival." 
 
 And all this tremendous array of mechanism for the 
 purpose of working and the administration of a district 
 of the metropolis not containing a population greater 
 than one-third part that of the parish of St. Pancras ; 
 for it should be borne in mind, that although that most 
 powerful portion of the Corporation, or Municipality, of 
 the City of London, the livery companies, hold rule 
 on an average over trades, &c., almost to the full area 
 comprised in the Metropolis Local Management Act, 
 with funds in their hands for that purpose, they dis- 
 honestly evade the performance of those duties. The 
 bare consideration of the subject seems to bring with it 
 a mingled feeling of a parody of the sublime and a 
 reality of the ridiculous. Let us, in exemplification,
 
 THE CORPORATION. 213 
 
 attempt to trace, in the first place, the career of the 
 Lord Mayor, his cost, and that of some of his officials, 
 as well as his pageantry and surroundings. ' Let us 
 take, as an example, the expenditure incurred by a late 
 Lord Mayor, as recently published in the accounts of 
 the City Corporation ; and be it understood that the 
 sum total is rather below the average of mayoralties 
 than above it. In the first place, there is the salary of 
 the right hon. gentleman himself, 10,000, plus an 
 allowance of 83 65. 8d. for income-tax ; and then 
 follows an item of 17 10s. for a violet robe for my 
 Lord Mayor, immediately followed by another of 65 
 for a reception robe for my Lord Mayor. We have 
 then the salary of the Lord Mayor's Chaplain, 97 10*. 
 Against this entry no exception ought to be taken, as it 
 is decidedly cheap at the money, when the duties he 
 has to perform are taken into consideration, as well 
 as injury to his health. No dinner would be complete 
 without him. These dinners, as a rule, must be a 
 serious element in the duties of City livery chaplains 
 and others connected with civic hospitality. We re- 
 member, some years since, when a certain Ordinary of 
 Newgate was questioned as to the amount of spiritual 
 consolation he bestowed on prisoners the day on which 
 they were condemned to death, he replied, " that he 
 was not able to comfort and console them to the extent 
 he wished, as he had daily, during the sessions, to take 
 the chair at two dinners." 
 
 To return to the expenditure incurred by the office 
 of Lord Mayor. The next article on the list was the
 
 214 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 sum of 600, paid to Messrs. Gillow for decorative 
 work at the Mansion House ; ditto for painters, 82 ; 
 ditto for repairs, 1,086; cleaning, 150; winding 
 clocks, 17 ; furniture repairs, 537 ; plate and repairs 
 to plate, 71. These appear to have been the whole of 
 the items connected with the Mansion House. With 
 the stabling department we find repairs to state coach 
 and harness, 52 ; and one or two other trifling sums 
 for insurance, &c. Connected with the ceremonies on 
 Lord Mayor's day the items become more serious. For 
 example, the fees for presenting the Lord Mayor to the 
 Lord Chancellor are set down at 12 12s. 8d. ; lighting 
 Guildhall for Lord Mayor's day, 200 ; decorations for 
 Lord Mayor's day, 324 16s. 8d. ; the Sheriffs (cus- 
 tomary allowance), 687 6s. 8d. ; Sword-bearer, 300. 
 What possibly can be the use of this official, or what 
 his duties can be to warrant such a salary, we are 
 utterly at a loss to imagine. Again^ Sergeants-at-Arms 
 are set down at 250. But the following item sur- 
 passes all. It is no less than 134 for robes for Sword- 
 bearer. Then come bequests to Sheriffs, which appear 
 not to have been included in the sum above named, 
 36. Then again come "another usual allowance " to 
 Sheriffs, 50; the Water Bailiff's second young man, 
 whoever that fortunate young gentleman may be, 
 110 ; the trumpeters, 23 18s. ; the Sheriffs' Yeomen, 
 487. 
 
 Of course the amounts mentioned above do not in- 
 clude those incurred by the annual Lord Mayor's Show. 
 These appear to be yearly increasing in splendour, as
 
 THE CORPORATION. 215 
 
 if attempting to imitate the gorgeous pageantries of 
 former days, of which we have so many minute accounts 
 still to be found in the archives of the Corporation and 
 different livery companies. But our modern " shows " 
 strangely -differ in one respect from those of our ances- 
 tors. It was formerly the custom to carry in the pro- 
 cession a hanner emblematical of the trade or craft of 
 the guild of which the Lord Mayor was a member, to 
 which he had been apprenticed, and which he then 
 practised. There were as well pageants of the other 
 guilds who took part in the procession or festivities 
 attendant on the ceremony. For example, the Ironmon- 
 gers had a trade pageant representing the Lemnians' 
 Forge, with Vulcan, the smith of Lemnos, at work, 
 surrounded by his servants in black hair waistcoats and 
 leather aprons. The Skinners, in 1671, had a pageant 
 which represented a wilderness, consisting of a variety 
 of trees, bushes, shrubs, brambles, and thickets, inha- 
 bited and haunted by divers wild beasts, and birds of 
 various kinds and colours. Sir Thomas Kelkington, of 
 the same company, Mayor in 1689, varied this scene of 
 a wilderness, called "The Company's Pageant," by intro- 
 ducing, in addition to the wild beasts of the former 
 show, " wolves, bears, panthers and leopards, sables and 
 beavers, together with dogs, cats, foxes, and rabbits," 
 and which latter, the account says, " were tost up now 
 and then into a balcony full of spectators, which fell 
 upon the company's heads, and being by them tost 
 again into the crowd, afforded great diversion."* The 
 * Herbert, vol. i. page 205.
 
 ii6 THE CITY AS 77 IS. 
 
 Drapers, in 1679, had a pageant still more in character, 
 representing Salisbury Plain, " where rustic shepherds 
 and shepherdesses were feeding and folding their flocks," 
 and " for the future exaltation of the Drapers' delight, 
 here were several trades met together, all pertinent to 
 the making of cloth, as carders, spinners, dyers, wool- 
 combers and shearers, dressers, fullers, and weavers, 
 which were set without order, because the excellence, of 
 this same did consist in confusion." The Vintners had 
 a pageant of a vineyard, with the triumph of Bacchus 
 and other appropriate devices. The pageant of the 
 Goldsmiths was still more indicative of their craft. It 
 represented a goldsmith's laboratory, and is described as 
 representing a spacious workshop, of several artificers, 
 distinct in the proper department for the several opera- 
 tions in the mystery of goldsmiths, containing forges, 
 anvils, hammers, and other instruments of their art. In 
 the midst, on a rich golden chair, sat St. Dunstan, the 
 ancient patron and guardian of the company, in pontifi- 
 catibus, in one hand a golden crosier, in the other his 
 goldsmith's tongs, with the devil beneath his feet. A 
 large goldsmith's forge faced the saint's throne, with 
 fire, crucibles, &c., and a boy blowing the bellows. The 
 Grocers' Company's pageant was equally indicative of 
 their trade. When opposite Bow Church, his lordship 
 was entertained with a " scean of drollery," in which 
 were Americians (Americans) ; some were pruning, 
 others gathering, others planting several sorts of 
 grocery, others disporting and throwing their fruit 
 about to show the abundance or profit of labour, others
 
 THE CORPORATION. 217 
 
 making music (after their labour) on the tongs and 
 other antique instruments. But if more were required 
 to show the trade indication of the Lord Mayor of the 
 day, 1661, it may be found in the fact "that 50 sugar 
 loaves, 36 Ibs. of nutmegs, 24 Ibs. of dates, were thrown 
 among the people during the procession, by those which 
 sat of the griffins and camels." 
 
 All the other City companies, without exception, 
 carried or performed in the procession pageants or 
 scenic representations of the trade or craft to which the 
 Lord Mayor belonged, and which he was practising at 
 the time of his mayoralty. Would it be possible in the 
 present day to find one who was in the trade of which 
 the guild to which he belonged bore the name ? If so, 
 it would be a remarkable exception to the rule. Could a 
 more bitter satire be conceived than bearing in the pro- 
 cession pageants such as we have described in any of 
 our Lord Mayor's shows ? One credit, however, is due to 
 the civic authorities entrusted with the management of 
 these displays, and that, too, in good taste their keep- 
 ing from sight anything which might remind the spec- 
 tator of the origin or uses of the trade guilds from 
 which our present Lord Mayors are selected. 
 
 But after all, and notwithstanding the absurd anoma- 
 lies by which he is surrounded, the Lord Mayor is a 
 personage of great and real importance. After he has 
 been presented to the Lord Chancellor, in lieu of the 
 monarch, which always takes place on the 8th of Novem- 
 ber, he is sworn in before the Aldermen and the Lord 
 Mayor who is about retiring from office, and he is then.
 
 2i 8 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 presented to the Judges at Westminster. When he has 
 taken office he is Lord Lieutenant within the City. He 
 is chief butler at the coronation, and beside his sword of 
 state, of which we have already spoken, he is allowed 
 to have his mace, the same as royalty (granted, in so 
 many words, by the fourth charter of Edward III.), 
 carried before him, and his sergeants to bear that and 
 the sword, his marshals and his marshals' men, his 
 state coach which, as was stated by a former Lord 
 Mayor, " it was to be hoped would last for ever, as it 
 had been painted by Madame Vestris's father" a 
 palace, and a banqueting hall in which to dispense 
 civic hospitalities to the potentates of the earth who 
 periodically come into our midst. He is the chief 
 depositary of the privileges and asserter of the rights 
 of the City. Thus, in strict law,* he is the meter of 
 coal, salt, and fruit, and the ganger of wine and oil. 
 He was also formerly Conservator of the Thames and 
 Admiral of the Port ; but many of these offices are 
 lessened in importance or abolished, and most of them 
 can be performed by deputy. He is a justice of oyer and 
 terminer, and a justice of the peace for the City. He is 
 the cx-officio chairman of the Court of Aldermen, the 
 Court of Common Council, and the Court of Common. 
 HaU. 
 
 But important as the duties and position of the 
 
 Lord Mayor of London may be in the present day, the 
 
 office is greatly shorn of its ancient splendour and 
 
 dignity, and with it the importance of the Aldermen, 
 
 * Firth's " Municipal London."
 
 THE CORPORATION. 219 
 
 Common Council, and other civic dignitaries and 
 officials, have sunk in equal proportion. Who would 
 imagine that the alderman of Portsoken ward with its 
 hundred constituents, or still more Dowgate with its 
 forty-one, or Queenhithe with its twenty-six, in com- 
 mon with the other wards, could ever have been the 
 important personage thus described by Stow ? " This 
 name of true dignity declareth the most eminent degree 
 of magistracy, and it doth extend through all England, 
 in cities, towns, and corporations, in which sometimes 
 the alderman is sole and chief. Even so in the chief 
 city of the land, in London, the metropolis of Great 
 Britain, the mother of authentic memory, the ancient 
 and eke the modern seat of her royalty, yea, the very 
 chamber royal of Majesty, the open haven of mer- 
 chandize, the storehouse of commerce, and the safe 
 asylum of peace and plenty." 
 
 With the other City officials we need detain the reader 
 but a very short time. The principal civic power after 
 the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen is the Court of 
 Common Council. It is composed of 26 aldermen and 
 206 councillors, making a total of 232 an assembly of 
 which the Lord Mayor is ex-officio chairman. The 
 needful quorum includes the Lord Mayor or his deputy, 
 two aldermen, and 36 common councillors. The Court, 
 of Common Council is the great legislative body of the 
 City ; it elects most of the officials of the Corporation, 
 and it has unlimited control over the City cash. To it 
 is confided the management of the great estates of the 
 Corporation, and the control of the common seal. Mo&t
 
 220 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 of the executive work is delegated to one or other of 
 the committees selected from it, the numbers of which, 
 as reported by the commissioners of 1854, " are incon- 
 veniently large." The members receive certain pay- 
 ments for attendance, and indulge in an excursion in 
 summer. The annual cost of these committees in 
 this way is considerable, and is defrayed out of the 
 City purse (qy. Metropolitan) by a warrant directed to 
 the Chamberlain. The Lord Mayor may also at any 
 time dissolve the court by an order to his sword-bearer 
 to remove the sword. 
 
 One of the principal points remaining to be noticed 
 in the government of the City of London is its wards, 
 of which there are no fewer than twenty- six, each with 
 an organization of its own, and with its clerk and 
 other officials. We have thus, without counting the 
 great Corporation salaried officers, a staff for the 
 management and control of the affairs of the seventy 
 thousand inhabitants of London a Lord Mayor, two 
 sheriffs, 26 aldermen, and 206 common councillors, with- 
 out taking into consideration the staff of the twenty-six 
 wards. Let us now ascertain as nearly as we can, or at 
 any rate somewhat approximately, what is the expendi- 
 ture incurred by these gentlemen in their management 
 of the affairs of the City ; and here again we quote from 
 the article in the Westminster Review. Alluding to the 
 cause of the enormous expenditure of the Corporation, 
 the writer goes on to say : " This (lavish expenditure 
 and feasting) is made the occasion for the distribution 
 of honours knighthoods and baronetcies which have
 
 THE CORPORATION. 221 
 
 fallen so thickly on recent lord mayors and sheriffs, the 
 elect of the little wards of the City area, and the ex- 
 travagance of the Corporation has been the price at 
 which they have been bought. The mayoralty costs 
 the chamber over 15,000 per annum ; and the two 
 Sheriffs nearly 2,000 per annum more ; the officers 
 of State and law officers officers of every depart- 
 ment -are retained at princely salaries. It allows 
 nearly 4,000 per annum to committees of the Corpo- 
 ration for refreshments. In opening West Ham Park 
 it spent in pageantry and refreshments over 700. 
 In the spirited exercise of its power to save Epping 
 Forest it spent for law costs alone 11,000 ; in receiving 
 the Emperor of Russia over 13,000 were extracted 
 from the City cash. In unveiling the statue of the late 
 Prince Consort 1,800 were devoted to dining and other 
 festivities. The Town Clerk's establishment costs over 
 4,000 a year, and that of the Architect over 2,400 ; 
 Mr. Remembrancer, j2,500 ; Mr. Comptroller, nearly 
 3,000 ; the City Solicitor, 2,800 ; the rcard clerks 
 over 4,000. The judges, magistrates, police, prisons, 
 and courts of law absorb 125,000 per annum, as a 
 set-off against which it takes credit for 10,000 for 
 the value of felons' goods forfeited." 
 
 In the letters signed " Nemesis " in the Weekly Dis- 
 patch is an amusing analysis of many of the above items : 
 " How an official auditor," says the writer, " would 
 gloat could he ransack Mr. Chamberlain's archives by 
 a sudden command ; what secrets would he disclose ! 
 But mind, there is no audit. The accounts produced
 
 .222 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 are signed by the chairman and a few members of the 
 committee, but official audit by responsible officers 
 there is none. The necessity for an official auditor, I 
 think, will be apparent if your readers will follow me in 
 an analysis of one branch of the City expenditure. 
 What is paid to City officials? To learn this you 
 must not omit one of the 130 pages of accounts, and 
 you will have to thread through them with care to 
 find in out-of-the-way corners explanations and gratui- 
 ties in several accounts to one officer, and proportions 
 of salary charged to varying divisions. Take Mr. 
 Solicitor. He will be found in fifteen pages and thirty 
 items at least. His salary is stated at 1,800 a year, 
 expenses of his office 1,003. But there are law costs 
 charged or paid him, ' costs ' amounting to 1,386 5s. 8d. ; 
 expenses allowed, 1,289 4s. 2d. ; various solicitors' 
 costs, 272 3s. 9d. ; and one little bill for Epping 
 Forest work of 11,998 14s. 6d. ; total, 17,699 8s. 2d. 
 .... One of the most extraordinary officials is ' Mr. 
 Hall-keeper.' He crops up in twenty-seven places. 
 His work is most multifarious and extraordinary. He 
 spent at laying the foundation-stone at Billingsgate 
 127 13s. ; and then, if I am to believe the City Press, 
 they had a paragraph in which ' Mr. Hall-keeper ' 
 flourishes : 
 
 "'CLOTHING THE MINISTRY. 
 
 "'The ancient custom of making a present of .fine 
 eloth to certain high officers of State and gentlemen of
 
 THE CORPORATION. 223 
 
 her Majesty's household has been observed by a com- 
 mittee of the Court of Aldermen last week. The cus- 
 tom seems to have originated in a desire to encourage 
 competition in the ancient woollen cloth work of the 
 City by sending specimens of its finest produce to those 
 best qualified to judge of its excellence. Blackwell 
 Hall, the head-quarters of the trade in former days, 
 covered the spot where the City Library now stands. 
 It has also been suggested that the present was made 
 as a bribe to cover the monopoly of the cloth trade 
 which the City formerly enjoyed. The oflicial order 
 for the distribution provides that pieces of cloth of four 
 and a half yards each shall be sent to the first Secre- 
 tary of State, the Lord Chancellor, the Chamberlain of 
 the Household, the Vice- Chamberlain of the Household, 
 the Lord Steward, the Comptroller, the Lord Chief 
 Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, the Chief Baron 
 of the Exchequer, the Master of the Rolls, the Recorder 
 of London, the Attorney- General, the Solicitor- General, 
 and the Common Serjeant. The order further states 
 that six yards of black cloth and six yards of green 
 cloth shall be given to the Town Clerk, four yards of 
 black and two yards of green cloth to the chief clerk 
 in the Town Clerk's office, four yards to the attorney of 
 the Exchequer, and four yards to the attorney in 
 Chancery, four yards to the Recorder's clerk, and four 
 yards to the usher to the Court of Aldermen. The 
 hall-keeper receives at the same time the usual supply 
 of green cloths for the tables in the courts and com- 
 mittee-rooms, varying according to circumstances.
 
 224 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 The distribution is carried out by Mr. Hadland, the 
 hall-keeper.' 
 
 "Mr. Hall-keeper's official salary and other emolu- 
 ments are 400 per annum ; he paid gas committee's 
 expenses, 100 ; for a trip to see the Queen at Windsor 
 (much against her Majesty's expressed wish, by the 
 way), 134 4s. 3d. When the Lord Mayor went to St. 
 Paul's, somehow Mr. Hall-keeper spent 150; and 
 when he went to the Duke of Edinburgh's, 89 19s. Qd. ; 
 he spent besides on assistants and little luncheons, &c., 
 2,484, or a total of 3,993 Us. 
 
 " Mr. Architect must not be neglected. He has had 
 a splendid douceur in consideration of his many years' 
 services, and moreover a salary of 1,500 a year, while 
 his assistants figure for 907 more. His other expenses 
 are for a model, 200 ; for a clerk of the works, 150 ; 
 and for sundries, 1,836; or a total of 4,503. 
 Another great official is Mr. Comptroller, who manages 
 the City estates. His salary is 2,000, and expenses 
 of office allowed 969 ; with law and costs and 
 expenses of a committee, 153 3s. ; and expenses in 
 addition, 565 2s. 6d. But then Mr. Comptroller 
 does not do all the estate business. We have a 
 ' quickener ' of City tenants, and a gentleman to let 
 vacant City lands, paid partly by salary, partly by 
 commission got out of City cash, who appears in. the 
 accounts for 463 ; a superintendent of labourers, 
 163 13s. ; an inspector of fruit and clerk of the coal 
 dues (the same individual), for himself and his assistants,
 
 THE CORPORATION. 225 
 
 ,2,137 Then, again, there is the Recorder, with a 
 salary of 2,000 per annum, and a judge of the Lord 
 Mayor's Court, and many other officials for the manage- 
 ment and well-being of less than the hundredth part 
 of the population of the metropolis." 
 
 But there are two or three other civic officials to 
 whom it would be an injustice not to give them a short 
 notice ; and the first of these is the Town Clerk. The 
 accounts must be searched in many pages in which 
 Mr. Town Clerk and his assistants can be got at ; but 
 when you do succeed, you arrive at the fact that his 
 salary is 1,500, and that in addition, in disburse- 
 ments, salaries, and gratuities, a sum over 3,000 is 
 expended. This, says Nemesis, will strike the most 
 hurried observer as a startling total 4,500 as 
 the cost of a secretary's establishment for the one- 
 hundredth part of the population of the metropolis. 
 
 The next important official worthy of notice is Mr. 
 Remembrancer. His salary is 1,800 per annum, 
 recently augmented, his disbursements expenses of 
 office, expenses in relation to bills in Parliament, par- 
 liamentary expenses 300 (whatever that may mean) 
 altogether amounting to 3,968 5s. 3d. Thousands of 
 pounds are sometimes spent in opposing one bill. The 
 principal duties of the office appear to be to attend 
 daily the Houses of Parliament during the session, and 
 to report to the Corporation on any measure affecting 
 the City interests, and particularly to stop any effort at 
 reform, or any measure for the good of the metropolis, 
 to oppose "improvement bills" of the Metropolitan 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 Board of Works, unless the City is protected or 
 excluded, and other similar duties. The Remembrancer 
 is also great in the forms and ceremonies of civic 
 pageantry, to aid him in his arduous duties in the 
 House of Commons. Every reception of a Czar, or a 
 Shah, or a Khedive, is an opportunity to summon 
 adherents, members of the House of Peers, members of 
 the House of Commons, potent individuals from every 
 circle even vestrymen are invited to secure their 
 alliance, "tying the weak and the strong, the poor and 
 the powerful, to the great civic Juggernaut." 
 
 But the Chamberlain is the brains of the Corpora- 
 tion its prime minister. He was formerly appointed 
 by the King. He is the treasurer and banker of the 
 Corporation. He is nominally elected yearly, in reality 
 for life, and vast sums are sometimes expended to secure 
 the office Nemesis tells us as much as 10,000 and 
 aldermen have subscribed largely to secure the election 
 of a brother alderman. Himself, his cashier and clerks, 
 and expenses, cost 69,000 per annum. Out of this his 
 own salary is 2,500, and with emoluments is esti- 
 mated at about 3,200 per annum. He gives security 
 for 30,000 to the Corporation. He had formerly, if 
 he has not now, power over the City apprentices, and 
 can or could commit them to prison. He unites magis- 
 terial with executive functions, and he is the laureate 
 or orator of the Corporation. 
 
 Of the cost of civic gluttony apart from the 150,000 
 a year, including all accessories, rent of halls, &c., of 
 the livery companies, we have not before us any definite 
 * Nemesis.
 
 THE CORPORATION. 
 
 227 
 
 figures to arrive at even an approximate total, but it 
 must be something enormous. One item alone will go 
 far to prove the extent to which this ignoble vice is 
 carried by those who have the administration of civic 
 affairs. "We mentioned that allowances were made for 
 refreshments of the different committees appointed by 
 the Corporation, and composed of aldermen and common 
 councilmen. The annual cost of this alone is as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 The Committee for letting City Lands 
 Bridge House Estate Committee 
 Commissioners of Sewers 
 Corn, Coal, and Finance Committees 
 General Purposes Committees 
 Officers and Clerks Committee 
 Markets Improvement Committee 
 Cattle Market Committee 
 Law and Parliamentary Committee . 
 Local Government Committee 
 Grain Metage Committee 
 For summer trips and excursions to Rich 
 mond, Greenwich, &c. . 
 
 s. d. 
 
 400 
 
 300 
 
 400 
 
 200 
 
 200 
 
 LOO 
 
 200 
 
 200 
 
 100 
 
 150 
 
 100 
 
 750 
 
 It would be tedious to go into further details on the 
 subject of feasting. The reader has already had brought 
 under his notice the entertainments to the Emperor of 
 Russia and Shah of Persia, the Prince of "Wales, and 
 other celebrities. Mr. Firth remarks, " It is alleged 
 that while the allowances and expenses for refreshment 
 of the City committees, &c., are expended on food, 
 drink, and costs of travelling, no money is paid to 
 members. And the proceeding is defended on the 
 ground, no doubt a true one, that the attendance is
 
 228 THE Cin AS IT IS. 
 
 much more numerous, and the work obtained from 
 members much better than it would be if they were 
 sent empty away. But while we sympathize with the 
 poor-law guardians in being surcharged by a ruthless 
 auditor the cost of a cup of tea, we are not prepared to 
 say that the City is spending its money properly in 
 feeding committees of thirty or forty at this rate." 
 
 The City estate accounts are examined by auditors 
 appointed by that remarkable body, " The Common 
 Hall." The audit of what the Corporation are pleased 
 to call their "public and trust accounts" is by the 
 Corporation. Thus we see that although the Corpora- 
 tion succeeds in levying heavy taxes upon the suburban 
 Londoner, it takes very good care that he shall have no 
 part in the returns or emoluments, and, moreover, that 
 he shall have no guarantee that his money is expended 
 properly. A spending body that is its own trustee and 
 its own auditor must be of remarkable composition if it 
 does not now and then overlook its own extravagances. 
 The City seems to have regarded any fair attempt at 
 economy as useless, and so the flood tide of extrava- 
 gance sweeps through all their accounts. If Mr. Lloyd 
 Roberts, the excellent auditor of the London School 
 Board and of the Poor-law Board accounts were to be 
 authorised to audit the accounts of the City Chamber- 
 lain, he would probably surcharge these luxurious 
 trustees something like 60,000.* 
 
 The total amount expended on the City reception of the Sultan, 
 the King of the Belgians, the recovery of the Prince of Wales, the 
 Shah of Persia, and the Emperor of Russia, was 72,721.
 
 THE CORPORATION, 229 
 
 Another singular item, in civic expenditure, seldom 
 spoken of, but well worthy of serious consideration, is 
 that of repairs ; and an audit of these alone would bring 
 forward some singular facts. Let us take, for example, 
 the two most important buildings connected with the 
 Corporation the Mansion House and the Guildhall. 
 In the year 1874 alone no less than 1,772 was 
 expended in repairs on the Mansion House, and 812 
 in decoration, and yet in the previous year no less than 
 3,000 was expended on repairs, decoration, and furni- 
 ture. The actual amount charged against the City's 
 estate during the last ten years amounts at least to 
 20,000, whilst the cost of furniture and decorations 
 during the same period amounts to nearly 15,000 
 more. The total cost of keeping up this building since 
 1865, exclusive of salaries, has been about 53,000 ; 
 and it is reported that for want of sufficient repairs it 
 is even now in a most unsatisfactory condition. 
 
 The expenditure for repairs on the Mansion House, 
 heavy as they appear at first sight, are trifling when 
 compared with the sums expended for repairs on the 
 Guildhall. During the year 1874 the cost of maintain- 
 ing this building was no less than 22,478, from which, 
 however, the salaries of the hall-keeper and printing 
 (about 2,000) must be deducted. Nor is the expen- 
 diture for repairs in 1874 in any way beyond the annual 
 average, for during the last ten years, in ordinary re- 
 pairs, the sum amounts to 24,000, to which must be 
 added the cost of a new roof in 1866 of 23,729. The 
 total amount spent on the Guildhall during ten years
 
 230 THE CITY AS II IS. 
 
 ending 1874 amounted to no less than 117,476. 
 Other buildings also require frequent and costly repair, 
 among others Temple Bar and the Monument. More 
 than 1,000 has been spent in ten years on that 
 admirable specimen of City taste, as well as just 
 appreciation of the fine arts " The Lord Mayor's State 
 Coach." 
 
 We have already placed before the reader an account 
 of some of the salaries paid to City officials, and the 
 machinery for the administration of affairs of a district 
 of the metropolis with a population numbering, as we 
 before said, considerably less than one-third the popu- 
 lation of the parish of St. Pancras. As it would be a 
 waste of the reader's time to go through it again, we 
 will content ourselves with giving merely the total 
 amount to which wages and salaries reach, considering 
 all sums less than 200 per annum as wages and above 
 that amount as salaries, and the result would be as 
 follows : wages would amount to 115,000 per annum, 
 and salaries to about 65,000. But in addition to 
 these salaries there are other items which ought to be 
 added, which would increase the amount of salaries 
 enormously. The livery companies, if they performed 
 their duties honestly, have many onerous duties to 
 perform, and for which funds are in their hands. To 
 what amount the wages and salaries of their staffs 
 would amount no one can tell, but putting the gross 
 salaries of their clerks and principal officials at only 
 15,000 per annum, it would raise the sum total to 
 80,000 per annum. When speaking of such enor-
 
 THE CORPORATION. 
 
 231 
 
 mous amounts paid for duties performed, or which 
 ought to be performed, we are apt to be embarrassed by 
 their magnitude, and not to realise them distinctly 
 unless contrasted with other salaries for which the 
 duties performed are equally onerous and important, or 
 possibly more so ; and as the City officials are punc- 
 tilious on points of dignity, we will take our equivalents 
 from sources which will do them no discredit. For 
 example, the annual salary of 
 
 The Lord Chamberlain is . . 
 
 The Prime Minister 
 
 Secretary of State Home Department 
 
 Foreign Affairs 
 
 Colonies 
 
 India . 
 
 War . 
 
 First Lord of the Admiralty 
 Lord President of the Privy Council 
 The Lord Chief Justice Queen's Bench 
 Common Pleas 
 
 President Council of Education *. 
 President of Local Government Board 
 President Board of Trade 
 
 Making a total, without touching salaries under 200 
 per annum, of some 18,000 per annum less than the j 
 annual sums paid for the services of the City officials. 
 
 But the reader must not imagine the profits and 
 emoluments attached to the officials in the employ of the 
 City are all comprised in their salaries, for such is far 
 from being the case. For example, Mr. Firth* gives many 
 instances of most valuable emoluments paid to our civic 
 * " Municipal London." 
 
 
 
 *. 
 
 d. 
 
 2,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 4,500 
 
 
 
 
 
 2,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 8,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 7,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 2,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 2,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 2,000 
 
 
 

 
 232 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 functionaries, which, though not comprised in their 
 salaries, would go far to swell the 80,000 quoted ahove. 
 " In illustration of the observation previously made as 
 to gratuities, we may take the case of the City Engineer. 
 The Commissioners of Sewers pay him a salary of 1,625 
 a year, but, in addition to the service rendered on this 
 account, he is allowed two separate sums of 1,550 
 and 71 respectively, on account of professional services 
 rendered in respect to the improvements in Holborn 
 Valley and Farringdon Market. The same official re- 
 ceived in 1873 for extra professional services, 849 ; 
 in 1872, 1,281 ; in 1871, 8,400 ; in 1870, 1,605 ; 
 in 1869, 800. It is certainly open to grave question 
 whether the Corporation, who, for all practical pur- 
 poses, are as much the trustees of the Holborn Valley 
 Fund as they are of the consolidated rate each account 
 being managed by a committee of their whole body 
 are justified in giving large gratuities of this kind 
 merely because they allow the servant of one com- 
 mittee to render assistance to another. It is quite clear 
 that the Commissioners of Sewers are presumed to pay 
 the Engineer for the whole of his time, and no reduction 
 is made in his salary for the time given elsewhere. As 
 an illustration of another form in which gratuities are 
 given, may be quoted the payments made on the occa- 
 sion of the visit of the Czar. On this occasion various 
 clerks in the office of the Town Clerk, Architect, &c., 
 received sums varying in amount from fifty guineas 
 downwards on account of their 'extra services.' 
 
 " When any office is altered in its character or is
 
 THE CORPORATION. 233 
 
 abolished, it is customary to increase the salary, or to 
 bestow some gratuity on the holder. As an illustration 
 of the latter may be taken the abolition of Whitecross 
 Street Prison in 1870, on which occasion the surgeon 
 received a gratuity of 400, and other officials of the 
 prison proportionate amounts. As an illustration of 
 the former may be taken the post of judge in the City 
 of London Court. In 1866 this absorbent official re- 
 ceived, as judge of the Sheriffs' Court, 900. In 1867, 
 when the court was assimilated to a county court, he 
 received in salary and compensation, 1,799. In 1868 
 he received as judge of the City of London Court 
 900, and 300 more was added on account of the 
 newly assumed equitable jurisdiction. In 1869, on 
 account of salary and compensation with respect to the 
 judgeship of this court, he appears to have received 
 2,495. The salary of this office was subsequently 
 advanced to 1,800 a year, and in 1871 105 was 
 allowed in addition to enable him to pay a deputy. In 
 1875, in consequence of the Admiralty jurisdiction con- 
 ferred on the court some years before, the judge of 
 this court was voted by the Common Council a further 
 salary of 300 per annum, and compensation to the 
 amount of 1,000 on account of the discharge of this 
 special duty during preceding years." 
 
 Nor are these the only advantages accruing to faith- 
 ful service. In 1873 the sum of 5,000 was voted as 
 a special gratuity to the City Architect " in recognition 
 of the satisfactory manner in which he had carried out 
 the large works entrusted to him during the preceding
 
 234 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 ten years. So, in 1869, 2,500 was voted to the City 
 Chamberlain for his successful management of the City 
 accounts. It is hardly necessary to say that the Com- 
 mon Council are overwhelmed with applications for 
 increase of salary. In 1870 the City Remembrancer, 
 whose work was far overpaid at 1,500 a year, wrote 
 to the Common Council for an increase of salary, 
 mournfully adding, " I have not received, directly or 
 indirectly, any emoluments except my salary, whilst 
 other officers have been more fortunate" He has now 
 got his salary increased to 2,000 a year ; and so on 
 every hand there is this fighting for the spoil and 
 scheming for fresh assaults on the City exchequer. 
 And in addition to all we find an item in the City 
 expenditure of 20,000 for pensions. If to this amount 
 be added the sum of 53,912 for pensions and alms- 
 houses under the control of the livery companies,* it 
 will make a total of no less than 73,912 in the hands 
 of the City authorities and guilds, without taking into 
 consideration 10,259 a year mentioned in Mr. Andrew 
 Johnson's Report, April 17th, 1871, on City Parochial 
 Charities. 
 
 On one point the Corporation of the City of London 
 assert a claim to a status far superior to all other muni- 
 cipal bodies or vestries engaged in the local administra- 
 tion of the metropolis, and point to the honourable 
 mention made of them by certain portions of the public 
 
 * See Parliamentary Report (Lord Robert Montagu), July 15th, 
 1868. The property of many of these endowments has lately much 
 increased in value.
 
 THE CORPORATION. 235 
 
 press, as well as the important duties thrown on them, 
 connected with the reception of dignitaries, either 
 British or foreign, and the satisfactory manner they per- 
 form these and other important functions, which never 
 fall to the lot of vestries or other bodies under the Local 
 Management Act ; in fact, they not only assume to 
 themselves a position far superior to that of the vestries 
 in intelligence and importance, but look upon all other 
 local coporate bodies in London with a sort of digni- 
 fied patronage, evidently the result of conscientious con- 
 viction. But are they really justified in doing so ? We 
 have attempted to investigate their right to the intel- 
 lectual superiority or that of social position they claim, 
 but have been unable to arrive at the same result. 
 Without the slightest intentional disrespect to the- 
 aldermen or Corporation, we were unable to discover any 
 of the elements among them which should raise them 
 above the level of the ordinary parish vestry. Among 
 the list of aldermen we find three describing them- 
 selves as of no occupation, and six others as merchants 
 and manufacturers ; of the rest one was a solicitor, one 
 a tea-dealer, one a druggist, one a hop-merchant, and 
 the remainder were of different trades, generally retail, 
 but not one among them gave an address as residing within 
 the City. 
 
 The Common Council, which the reader is aware is 
 composed of 206 members, the descriptions given of 
 their occupation was just as varied; and though all were 
 evidently men of undoubted respectability, there wa& 
 nothing to be found among them to mark them as men
 
 236 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 of any superior intelligence to those who ordinarily 
 compose a parish vestry. Among the professional classes, 
 there were two barristers, twenty-one solicitors and 
 accountants, and one actuary. Of auctioneers, there 
 were nine ; booksellers and oilmen, eight each ; ware- 
 housemen, tailors, and drapers, six each ; grocers, tea- 
 dealers, and druggists, five each ; bakers, brokers, and 
 butchers, four each. The rest were made up of the 
 following trades : merchants, publicans, undertakers, fish- 
 mongers, hatters, sugar- merchants, livery-stable keepers, 
 factors, paper-makers, looking-glass makers, &c. 
 
 Let us now compare the probable amount of intelli- 
 gence possessed by an average west-end vestry (assum- 
 ing respectability of life and integrity to be equal), say 
 either Paddington, Westminster, St. George's, Han- 
 over Square, or Kensington. Let us take, for example, 
 the latter as a fair specimen of the other three. On it 
 we find one baronet, two Queen's counsel, one county 
 court judge, two clergymen, twelve barristers (includ- 
 ing a former attorney -general in one of the colonies), 
 eleven solicitors, five officers in the army (including a 
 major-general of engineers, two lieutenant-colonels, 
 and a major), six surgeons and physicians, leading 
 tradesmen, owners of property, and other men of posi- 
 tion in the district. In conclusion, these gentlemen 
 perform their duties without the slightest expense to 
 the ratepayers. The committees alone of the Corporation 
 of London expend 4,000 a year for refreshments, &c., 
 only. Mr. Firth (" Municipal London ") justly remarks, 
 " It is quite true that social position does not of neces-
 
 THE CORPORATION. 237 
 
 sity involve high capacity ; but a corporation, and one 
 imposing heavy taxation, ought to be a body represent- 
 ing the various bodies affected by its action, and it is 
 here that we think the Corporation of London is far 
 from occupying its true position." 
 
 We find in one of the City Guilds Reform Asso- 
 ciation's fly-sheets, the following letter by an anony- 
 mous writer, said to have been written to Lord Chief 
 Justice Cockburn, when certain honours were proposed 
 to be offered to him by the City and Grocers' Company, 
 and we cannot do better than to terminate our chapter 
 on the Corporation by quoting it : 
 
 " It is announced in the public press that your lord- 
 ship will to-morrow be presented with the freedom of 
 the City of London. A long and illustrious roll of 
 names upon whom the City has bestowed this gift is 
 thus fitly closed by one not less illustrious than any 
 that have preceded it. 
 
 " But, my lord, while the recipients of this honour 
 are, as ever, distinguished in character and career, the 
 honour itself has lessened in value as ages have rolled 
 on, until to-day it scarcely represents a worthy object 
 of human ambition. 
 
 " Time was when the freedom of the City of London, 
 presented in its Guildhall by its elected rulers, was an 
 unmistakable proof coming from the whole body of the 
 most important and intelligent community in England. 
 To-day such a presentation has a different significance. 
 The Corporation of the City of London is a narrow and 
 exclusive body'of men, who have appropriated to them-
 
 238 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 selves power and property which are the heritage of a 
 far wider area a body of men with whom the inhabit- 
 ants of the metropolis generally have no sort of inte- 
 rest or sympathy. In the persistent denial to suburban 
 London of municipal rights, the Corporation of the City 
 of London now seeks to strengthen itself with states- 
 men, politicians, and lawyers of eminence. It is in pur- 
 suance of this policy that your lordship is now asked to 
 accept that citizenship and freedom which it is fondly 
 hoped will enlist your powerful advocacy against re- 
 form, and most attentively will your utterances be 
 listened to to-morrow by the City Corporation, in order 
 that they may then gather fresh hope to animate them 
 in the war they are now waging against reform. 
 
 " A recollection of the part you took in the Muni- 
 cipal Commission of 1837, as well as a consideration of 
 your lordship's eminent and distinguished career, not 
 merely at the bar and on the bench, but in the forum 
 and on the platform, whenever the interests of human 
 freedom or of public liberty were at issue, point to the 
 confident conclusion that herein the Corporation will 
 be disappointed, and to the millions outside the City 
 who are anxious for municipal freedom you will not, 
 towards the close of so noble a life, present the spec- 
 tacle of a Liberal statesman supporting a policy of 
 reaction." 
 
 How far the writer of the above letter and " the mil- 
 lions outside the City anxious for municipal freedom " 
 have reason to be contented with his lordship's civic 
 policy, we will leave the reader to determine.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 
 
 HHHE reader might reasonably imagine that we must 
 * have come to the end of the catalogue of abuses 
 and anomalies to be found among the deeds of the Cor- 
 poration of the City of London and its livery com- 
 panies ; but that is far from being the case ; other, and 
 possibly still worse, remain to be told, especially in the 
 administration of the charities directly or indirectly 
 under their control. "Without disputing the amount of 
 good occasionally performed, it is_, as a rule, carried out 
 in such an extravagant manner as to render it doubt- 
 ful whether, on the whole, as much money is not 
 wasted or misapplied as the amount bearing benefit to 
 the recipients, and even that is too frequently expended 
 on individuals who are not in themselves objects of 
 charity, and that, too, in direct antagonism to the trust 
 under which the funds are held. Before, however, 
 going systematically into the question of the abuse of 
 these charities, we will point out some facts tending to 
 prove how unfairly City extravagance, both of the 
 Corporation and the guilds, acts not only with respect
 
 2 4 o THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 to the poor, but upon tens of thousands of others scarcely 
 above pauperism themselves, and upon the whole metro- 
 politan public as well. 
 
 In one of our earlier chapters we pointed out how 
 heavity increased was the taxation imposed upon the 
 industrial classes, from the bare fact of their dwellings 
 in the City having been destroyed, and their tenants 
 driven to suburban localities more or less distant ; and 
 we will now investigate what effect civic mismanagement 
 and extravagance has upon the population at large. In 
 doing so, it is more than probable we shall find all grades 
 in society prejudicially affected by it, the injury done, 
 however, proportionate means taken into consideration, 
 being less among the wealthier members of society, 
 and gradually increasing as the individual is the poorer, 
 till it arrives at the working classes, when it is the 
 heaviest of all. Whenever any reformer attempts to 
 lessen City extravagance, or endeavours to secure a 
 j ust portion of educational endowments for the benefit 
 of the poor and industrial classes, he is habitually met 
 by the argument, " Why should we part with any of our 
 own funds to save the pockets of the ratepayer ? " All 
 this is plausible enough as far as the wealthier rate- 
 payers are concerned. If they, with abundance of 
 means to resist injustice, choose to put up with it 
 tamely, that is a subject for their consideration ; but 
 with the poor it is very different. They smart most 
 severely under the infliction without the means to pre- 
 vent it. While the rich and influential can make them- 
 selves heard and attended to if they use but a little
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 241 
 
 energy, the poorer classes are powerless, no matter how 
 keenly they may suffer by the excessive taxation at 
 present placed on them. It is also untrue that the 
 industrial classes as well as the poor do not suffer in 
 like proportion with the rich in any increase in muni- 
 cipal taxation, and that if they have any difficulty in 
 paying their share it arises solely from their improvi- 
 dent habits. "We hear it continually said that the 
 working classes have no idea of thrift, no thought of 
 laying by for a rainy day, although when in work they 
 are paid good wages. " Skilled workmen," we are told, 
 "in many of our manufactories are often better paid 
 than clerks of ten years' standing in a government 
 office. Many a mechanic receives a wage that would 
 be equal to the salaries of two curates ; yet on the first 
 temporary reverse of fortune which happens to them, 
 either from sickness, slackness of trade, or domestic 
 misfortune, they are obliged to rely either on the 
 charity of others or to apply to the parochial authori- 
 ties for assistance." Remarks such as these are uttered 
 in great abundance by self-styled political economists, 
 and in an immense number of cases without the 
 slightest basis of truth to be detected in them. A 
 very frequent exception must be made in our first-class 
 mechanics, whose labours require but skill in their 
 handicraft ; but with others, whose duties require both 
 skill and high intelligence combined, the statement is, 
 as a rule, utterly untrue. Thriftless they occasionally 
 may be, but a large majority of them have good 
 balances in the savings-bank, while far more subscribe
 
 242 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 to trade benefit clubs, it being impossible for them to 
 become members of the City livery companies, whose 
 members have usurped the whole of the funds their 
 craft may have inherited, and who have placed insuper- 
 able obstacles in the way of the legitimate craftsmen 
 joining them again. 
 
 Again, it should be borne in mind that in the eastern 
 and south-eastern districts of the metropolis, which 
 contain a working population of some eight or nine 
 hundred thousand souls, there are at least two unskilled 
 labourers for every skilled artizan, and that these on 
 an average are paid a far lower rate of wage scarcely 
 one- half that which is paid to their more skilled fellow- 
 workmen. Again, a vast proportion of the working 
 population of the Tower Hamlets are neither skilled 
 artizans nor unskilled labourers, and there are also an 
 immense number of widows with families, and others 
 who are solely dependent on their own exertions. 
 These last earn on an average a wage compared with 
 which that earned by the dock labourer and along- 
 shore men may be considered extravagant. Respect- 
 able adult young women, for example, who work at 
 biscuit packing for 7s. a week for twelve hours' labour 
 per diem ; makers of glass bugles for ladies' dresses, 
 who earn, like the biscuit packers, when in full work, 
 about Is. a day ; makers of boys' caps at 4^d. each, find- 
 ing their own thread ; slipper-makers, and a hundred 
 other occupations, the average wage per week not being 
 above 7s., are all ratepayers. The skilled artizan, 
 who pays 6s. a week for his rooms, has included in it
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 243 
 
 at least 5 per annum for rates and taxes, and every 
 poor sempstress inhabiting a top back room in a Pea- 
 body model lodging-house has included in her 2s. rent 
 per week the sum of 1 4s. 2d. for municipal taxation. 
 Let us look at the effect of the taxation at present 
 levied by the School Board alone on these poor people, 
 then take into consideration the amount of waste to be 
 found in the endowed and parochial schools under the 
 direct or indirect control of the City authorities, and 
 afterwards ask ourselves the question whether it is not 
 a duty on our parts to insist on an equitable arrange- 
 ment of the City educational trusts before any further 
 taxation shall be placed on those the least able to pay 
 the amount to be levied. The late Lord Brougham 
 once remarked that if the medical and educational 
 endowments connected with the City of London were 
 carefully administered, they would, he thought, be 
 found sufficient for the care of the sick and the educa- 
 tion of the poor of the whole metropolis. Possibly, 
 from the examples we have given of the abuse of the 
 City educational trusts, the reader may be apt to 
 imagine that his lordship could not have spoken with- 
 out good data to go upon ; but our list, as we said 
 before, of the abuses to be found in the City endowed 
 schools is very far indeed from being complete, and if 
 the reader will give us his attention we shall be able to 
 show, in the words of Milton, that "in the lowest 
 depth there is a lower deep," and that, iniquitous as 
 have been many of the cases we have quoted, 
 still stronger are to follow. Before, however, fairly
 
 244 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 taking up the educational question, we will detain the 
 reader for a short time with a description of the City 
 medical endowments, which, together with the Blue- 
 coat School and Bridewell Hospital, are known as the 
 royal hospitals charitable trusts possessing enormous 
 wealth, but so extravagantly mismanaged, that one- 
 half the benefits which might be derived from them 
 are lost. 
 
 It may be argued that the three great City medical 
 endowments, St. Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's for 
 general medical and surgical cases, and Bethlem for the 
 insane, are special endowments instituted for particular 
 purposes, totally irrespective of civic supervision or con- 
 trol. We will therefore endeavour, by some short extracts 
 from the " Memoranda, References, and Documents 
 relating to the Royal Hospitals of the City of London," 
 collected and prepared in the year 1836 by order of the 
 Common Council, to correct that error. The oldest of 
 these institutions is indisputably St. Bartholomew's, 
 which was established as early as 1133 by Raherus, the 
 jester or minstrel of Henry I., who " built on the west 
 suburb of London, called Smithfield, an hospital for a 
 master, brethren, and sisters, and for poor diseased per- 
 sons till they got well, for women with child until deli- 
 vered, and for the maintenance of their children born 
 there until seven years of age, if their mothers died in 
 the hospital ; " and, with slight variations, the hospital 
 was continued under the same rules till the dissolution 
 of the religious houses in the reign of Henry VIII. 
 St. Thomas's Hospital was founded a century later by
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 24.5 
 
 Richard, Prior of Bermondsey, as a house of alms for 
 converts and poor children. Bethlem, or the hospital of 
 St. Mary, was founded by Simon Fitz Mary, 1247, for 
 distracted persons. At the dissolution of the religious 
 houses the whole of the inmates of these three hospitals 
 were turned into the streets, and private or municipal 
 charity being insufficient to provide for them, the Mayor, 
 Aldermen, and Commonalty petitioned his Majesty 
 King Henry VIII., in the thirtieth year of his reign, 
 to grant, among other things, the three hospitals named 
 to the City, for the purpose of relieving the sufferings 
 of the sick and wounded, and of shelter and protection 
 of the insane. The words of the petition itself were so 
 clear and graphic that we produce an extract from it 
 in all its quaint orthography. It says, in explanation 
 of their prayer, that it was 
 
 "For the ayde and comforte of the poore sykke, 
 blynde, aged, and impotent persones beyinge not hable 
 to helpe theymselffs, not havynge any place certeyn 
 wheryn they may be lodged, cherrysshed, and refresshed 
 tyll they be cured and holpen of their dyseases and 
 syknesse. For the ayde of the sayd poore people we 
 enforme your Grace that there be nere and witfyyn the 
 cytye of London three hospytalls or spytells commonly 
 called Saynt Mary Bethlem Spytell, Saynt Bartholomew 
 Spytell, and Saynt Thomas Spytell founded of good 
 devocion by auncyent fathers and endowed with great 
 possessions and rents only for the relyeff, comforte, and 
 ayde of the poore and indigent people not beynge hable 
 to helpe themselves, and not to the mayntenance of
 
 246 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 priests, canoiis, and monks carnally lyvyng as they have 
 of late done, nothing regardyng the myserable people 
 lycnge in the streetes, offending every dene person 
 passyng by the way with their fylthye and nasty 
 savours. Wherefore it may please your mercyfull 
 goodnesse, ever enclyned to p}'tie and compassyon for 
 the relyef of Cristes very images, creatyed in hys owne 
 symlytude, to order and establyshe by graunte or other- 
 wyse, by your most virtuous and sage discretion, That 
 the Mayor and Ids Brethren of your Cytye of London, 
 or with such other as shall stande wyth your most 
 gratyous favour, shall and may from henceforthe have 
 the order, rule, dyspocion, and govournancc of the sayd 
 hospytalls with the rents appertaynyng to the same, so 
 that the sick, needy, and indygent persons shall be 
 refreshed, mayntayned and comforted, fownde, heled 
 and cured of theyre infyrmyties frankly and freely, by 
 phisycions, surgeons, and appotecarys, whiche shall have 
 salary, stypcnd, and mages only to attend for that intent 
 and purpose." 
 
 The prayer of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Com- 
 monalty of the City of London was granted by the 
 King, nor has there been any very great alteration 
 since ; for, although others have also a voice in the 
 management, the Corporation, being in the majority, 
 are still all-powerful should they be pleased to exercise 
 their full rights over the three hospitals. 
 
 The consent of the King was followed by an act 
 passed by the Common Council that four aldermen and 
 eight of the common council should always and from
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 247 
 
 henceforth have the survey, rule, order, and govern- 
 ment of St. Bartholomew's Hospital ; and in the year 
 1552 the citizens of London having purchased the void, 
 suppressed hospital of St. Thomas, began in the month 
 of July the reparations thereof for poor impotent, 
 lame, and diseased people, and the Court of Aldermen 
 appointed three aldermen and three of the common 
 council to survey and govern it. The following entry 
 in the City records will tend to show how completely 
 these hospitals were under the control and in the power 
 of the Corporation. It is dated December 8th, 1691, 
 3 William and Mary : "A petition was received from 
 John Brown, late senior surgeon of Saint Thomas Hos- 
 pital, and was read in the Court of Aldermen, setting 
 forth that some time since, upon false suggestions, and 
 without any just and reasonable cause, he was wrong- 
 fully removed from his employment, and therefore pray- 
 ing to be relieved by the Court. The Court referred the 
 petition to the president, treasurer, and governors of 
 that hospital to consider the petition, and lay before the 
 Coui't of Aldermen their reasons for having removed 
 the said Brown from his employment." On another 
 occasion, April 13th, 1703, the City, represented by the 
 Court of Aldermen, went so far as to remove from their 
 appointments the senior physician and senior surgeon, 
 Dr. Forless and Mr. Thomas Elton. 
 
 It would occupy too much space to go at any further 
 length into the history of St. Bartholomew's and St. 
 Thomas's Hospitals ; suffice to say, that in the City 
 records there are abundant entries tending to prove
 
 248 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 that they were instituted as the pauper sick asylums 
 and general hospitals of the City of London, that they 
 were under the control of the Lord Mayor and Cor- 
 poration, and that on several occasions, when their 
 endowments and voluntary contributions were not suffi- 
 cient for their maintenance, the Common Council levied 
 by direct taxation the amount necessary to keep them 
 in efficient working order. 
 
 It must not, however, be imagined that the complex 
 system of government of these hospitals adopted by the 
 City authorities worked altogether satisfactorily ; indeed 
 disputes and differences between the governors appointed 
 by the Corporation and the Court of Aldermen and other 
 authorities were of very frequent occurrence. Till as 
 late as the year 1782 St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 
 though under the absolute control of the City authori- 
 ties, was independent of the managing staff of the other 
 royal hospitals; and St. Thomas's, on more than one 
 occasion, attempted to obtain an exemption from the 
 supervision of the civic authorities, with the exception 
 of those directly appointed to their own establishment. 
 To remedy the differences of opinion which so fre- 
 quently arose respecting the management of the royal 
 hospitals, an Act of Parliament was passed (22 George 
 III.). It recites that: " Whereas divers disputes and 
 differences have arisen between the Mayor and Com- 
 monalty and Citizens of the City of London, governors 
 of the possessions, revenues, and goods of the Hospi- 
 tals of Edward King of England the Sixth, of Christ, 
 Bridewell, and Saint Thomas the Apostle, and of Henry
 
 'CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 249 
 
 the Eighth, King of England, called ' The House of the 
 Poor ' (Saint Bartholomew's), in "West Smithfield, and 
 the House and Hospital called Bethlem, and the presi- 
 dents, treasurers, and acting governors of the same, 
 touching their respective powers and privileges, in the 
 ordinary management, government, and disposition of 
 the said hospitals, and estates, possessions, and revenues 
 thereof. And whereas several persons deputed by the 
 said Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City 
 of London have had several meetings with persons 
 deputed by the said presidents, treasurers, and acting 
 governors for the purpose of terminating the said 
 
 matters in dispute between them and the 
 
 said treasurers and acting governors have respectively 
 entered into an agreement in the words or to the pur- 
 port following (that is to say)." 
 
 The Act of Parliament, after considerable preliminary 
 matter not touching the right of the City to the con- 
 trol of the royal hospitals, goes on to say : " And 
 whereas disputes have arisen between the said Mayor 
 and Commonalty and Citizens and the persons acting as 
 governors of the said hospitals, and the estates, posses- 
 sions, and revenues thereof, touching their respective 
 rights, powers, and privileges in the ordering, manage- 
 ment, and governing of the said hospitals, it is believed 
 to be for the mutual benefit of the said Mayor, Com- 
 monalty, and Citizens, and of the said hospitals, that all 
 such disputes should cease, and that the actual order- 
 ing, management, and government of the said hospitals 
 respectively shall for ever hereafter be continued in the
 
 2so THE Cm AS IT IS. 
 
 Mayor and Aldermen of the said City, together with 
 the persons now acting as governors or hereafter to 
 be elected as such in the usual mode of election of 
 governors of the said respective hospitals, and such of 
 the commoners of the said City as shall be elected in the 
 manner hereafter named." The Act further ordains 
 " that the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen and the members 
 of the Court of Common Council, and other governors 
 duty elected, shall have good right, full pmver, and abso- 
 lute authority from time to time, and at all times here- 
 after, to nominate, elect, and appoint the presidents, 
 treasurers, and all ot/to- officers and ministers of and for 
 the said hospitals respectively, and to do every other act, 
 matter, and thing necessary or expedient to be done for 
 the good government of the same several hospitals." 
 
 The Act further ordains that twelve persons, being 
 members of the Common Council, be sent to St. Bar- 
 tholomew's Hospital, and twelve others to St. Thomas's, 
 "to be governors thereof respectively." Since the 
 passing of that Act of Parliament, which is still in 
 force, some modifications in the management were 
 agreed to by Lord Eldon as far as concerns St. Thomas's, 
 but not in any way abrogating the powers of the Lord 
 Mayor and Common Council of the City of London ; 
 and such being the case, we would submit to the reader 
 whether the two hospitals, St. Bartholomew's and St. 
 Thomas's, are not City hospitals, and whether they are 
 not answerable for any extravagance and mismanage- 
 ment connected with the administration of their affairs ? 
 
 Let us first turn to the case of St. Thomas's Hospital.
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 251 
 
 It is but justice to the Corporation to admit that if its 
 management were unsatisfactory while under their rule, 
 it by no means improved under the arrangements sug- 
 gested by Lord Eldon in 1809. The Corporation, though 
 still holding almost plenary powers over its administra- 
 tion, appear to have taken the altered state of things 
 in high dudgeon, and abstained to a great extent from, 
 using a proper influence over its control, and the result 
 was that gradually the charity began to lose much of" 
 its original character. It was no longer one of the 
 pauper sick asylums, to which all sick persons brought 
 under the notice of the Bridewell authorities or found 
 destitute in the streets were sent to be cured. It 
 became actually, with its then neighbour, Guy's, a 
 first-class medical school, the interests of which were 
 quite as much, if not more, cared for than the uses of 
 the hospital itself. That patients were most skilfully 
 treated there can be no doubt, and in that respect those- 
 admitted lost nothing from the comparative lack of' 
 supervision bestowed on them by the Corporation ; at 
 the same time many patients were refused admission 
 who were entitled to it under the charter of the hospi- 
 tal, for no better reason than that their diseases were 
 aggravated, if not caused, by want they being thus 
 precisely, in fact, those for whom the charity was 
 originally instituted. 
 
 But if the patients admitted were not altogether 
 those for whom the hospital was originally intended, 
 those who did receive relief within its walls were- 
 attended to with skill and consideration, the interests-
 
 252 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 of the medical school being still dominant in the 
 minds of the professional staff. At length the 
 "good-will" or reputation of the school became in 
 itself a valuable property. As time passed on, how- 
 ever, gross abuses were developed in the school ; the 
 professorships and medical appointments, with the 
 benefits accruing from them, fell into the hands of a 
 clique of medical men who used their powers far less 
 for the advance of science than for the benefit of 
 their own particular relations and friends, and not un- 
 frequently made their patronage a source of consider- 
 able emolument in pushing forward the candidates 
 they proposed, without sufficient consideration for the 
 interests of the patients, as well as an impediment to 
 the advance of medical science. Nothing was more 
 common than to find a gentleman who had been edu- 
 cated at the school, and was known to be of great 
 ability, after waiting years in the hope of being 
 admitted as one of the hospital staff on the occasion of 
 the first vacancy, quietly set aside to make room for 
 some other, whose sole recommendation was that he was 
 a protege of Astley Cooper or some other professional 
 star in vogue at the time. At length these evils 
 arose to such a height that public opinion was called to 
 them ; but so resolute were the professors of the school 
 in maintaining their right to conduct matters as they 
 pleased and without interference, and so apathetic were 
 the real governing body of the hospital the Mayor and 
 Corporation to the grievances complained of, that little 
 or no reformation was effected. At last a gross case of
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 253 
 
 abuse of power on the part of the staff of surgeons and 
 physicians and medical school fortunately raised the ire 
 of two gentlemen well acquainted with the subject, the 
 late Mr. "Wakley, M.P., and Mr. Lambert, a surgeon, 
 who determined at all hazards to effect some reforma- 
 tion in the system then in vogue; and haying, princi- 
 pally for that purpose, started the well-known publica- 
 tion, the Lancet) they made a resolute attack on the 
 abuses existing in St. Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals, 
 partly for the benefit of the patients, and partly by way 
 of opening a career for medical men of talent, though 
 without patronage, who at the time stood not the 
 slightest chance of advancement when opposed by those 
 who possessed the influence of the medical staff of the 
 hospitals. 
 
 That Mr. Wakley and the Lancet did an immense 
 amount of good, not only to the sick poor and the 
 medical profession, but to the public at large, by vigorous 
 attacks on the Borough hospitals, is too well known to 
 require us to say more on the subject. If Mr. Wakley 
 did not succeed in accomplishing all he desired, he at 
 least effected so large a measure of reform that there 
 was left comparatively little cause for censure apart 
 from the difficulty still experienced, though to a less 
 degree, of men of great ability educated in the hos- 
 pital, though without patronage, becoming members of 
 the medical staff a difficulty which will doubtless 
 always exist till those valuable appointments, as in 
 Paris and other Continental cities, shall be thrown 
 open either to public competition or some other system.
 
 2 54 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 by which the most worthy, instead of those possessed 
 of the greatest private interest, shall be selected for 
 appointments of the kind. At length a circumstance 
 occurred which caused a great revolution in the affairs 
 of the hospital, and which, if not intended to interfere 
 with the comfort and well-being of the patients, was 
 contemplated to advance greatly the interest of the 
 medical staff, and especially the advancement of the 
 medical school. 
 
 As the reader is aware, St. Thomas's Hospital re- 
 mained on its original site in the Borough till it was 
 purchased some few years since, at a heavy cost, by 
 the Charing Cross Railway Company. The sale having 
 been completed, and the patients removed to a tem- 
 porary hospital provisionally erected in the grounds 
 of the Surrey Zoological Gardens, a site had to be 
 found for the new hospital. A strong difference of 
 opinion appears for some time to have existed among 
 the authorities. Some of the trustees argued that as 
 St. Thomas's Hospital was to all intents and purposes a 
 City charity, it ought to be erected as nearly as possible 
 to some part of the metropolis where the working 
 classes, employed by City firms, either directly or in- 
 directly, were densest and accidents most common ; nay, 
 more, it was the inheritance of the City poor, and that 
 they ought not to be deprived of the benefits to be 
 obtained from it. The medical staff and school pro- 
 fessors, however, proposed that it should be removed to 
 some convenient locality in the neighbourhood of the 
 West -end of the metropolis. But to this proposition
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 255 
 
 great opposition was offered, not only by outsiders, 
 but, mirabile dictu, by the City authorities themselves, 
 who, indignant at the injustice which would be done to 
 the densely crowded poor in the eastern districts, were 
 sufficiently aroused from their ordinary torpor to raise 
 their voices against the plan proposed being carried into 
 execution. They argued that the "West-end of the metro- 
 polis was far better supplied with hospital accommoda- 
 tion than the East ; that already there were the West- 
 minster, the Charing Cross, Middlesex, St. George's, St 
 Mary's, King's College, and the West London general 
 hospitals, besides a vast number of hospitals for special 
 cases, such as the Cancer, Consumption, Orthopedic, 
 Paralysis and Epilepsy, and Children's, and a score of 
 other similar establishments ; and that the presence 
 of another large hospital at the West-end was hardly 
 needed. They further urged that if St. Thomas's Hos- 
 pital were removed further westward, the enormous 
 population of the Borough, Walworth, Bermondsey, 
 and the other districts stretching eastward, would be 
 left with only one general hospital (Guy's), which was 
 totally insufficient for the poor inhabiting them, with- 
 out taking into consideration the districts of Wool- 
 wich, Greenwich, Deptford, and Eotherhithe, and other 
 localities, who were in the habit of sending a large pro- 
 portion of their serious cases to St. Thomas's and Guy's 
 Hospitals. They further stated that before St. Thomas's 
 Hospital was removed, both that and Guy's were full to 
 overflowing, and that to remove one to the West-end of 
 London, as wasj)roposed by the medical staff and others,
 
 2 S 6 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 would be to deprive a large proportion of the population 
 of the metropolis of advantages they had hitherto re- 
 ceived. They showed how scant was hospital accommo- 
 dation in the south-eastern district of the metropolis by 
 bringing forward the fact that the poor girl who was 
 found nearly murdered in a lane near Eltham, and whose 
 case caused so much sensation in the public mind a few 
 years since, had, when at the point of death, to be car- 
 ried, sitting erect beside a policeman in a street cab, 
 nearly ten miles through the crowded south-eastern 
 districts before she could reach Guy's Hospital. Again, 
 it was urged that in the north-eastern districts, of 
 the metropolis, with a population exceeding 600,000 
 souls, there was not one general hospital with tho 
 exception of that known as the German Hospital at 
 Dalston ; and as an immense majority of that popula- 
 tion was composed of the working classes dependent on 
 labour provided for them by City firms, a hospital of 
 distinctly City origin would be better placed among 
 them than at the West-end, where there was sufficient 
 accommodation of the kind provided already. 
 
 On the other hand, however, the trustees, evidently 
 actuated by the advice of the medical professors, were 
 still of the opinion that the hospital should be removed 
 westward ; their opponents, including the City authori- 
 ties, offered no further opposition, and a site was selected 
 opposite the Houses of Parliament, notwithstanding the 
 fact that close on the other side of the river was another 
 (the "Westminster) of honourable notoriety, fully capable 
 of affording first-class medical relief to the neighbour-
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 257 
 
 hood, and the more so from the fact, that by the enor- 
 mous destruction of the dwellings of the working classes 
 for the Westminster improvements, no fewer than 35,000 
 of the poor had been driven from their homes to find 
 shelter in other localities. It would be difficult to dis- 
 cover any plausible reason for the trustees and governors 
 of St. Thomas's Hospital for selecting the site they did 
 for their new building. The strongest argument which 
 appears to have been made use of in favour of the re- 
 moval to its present position was, that the physicians and 
 surgeons attached to St. Thomas's Hospital were among 
 the most expert and learned in the metropolis, and 
 that as with many of them minutes were as guineas, 
 it was not to be supposed they could, as a rule, visit 
 the districts still farther east and north-east, where a 
 vast majority of the poor reside, great as their charity 
 and humanity might be. It would, it was said, be 
 casting too heavy a burden on their philanthropy, 
 utterly ignoring the fact that the hospital was endowed 
 and supported for the benefit of the working classes of 
 the City, and not to such an extent for the convenience 
 of the medical staff. Again, another objection might be 
 urged to the, at first sight, plausible excuse of the conve- 
 nience of the medical officers and professors of the school 
 of medicine attached to the hospital, that it would 
 deprive the poor of the benefits of their extraordinary 
 skill and scientific knowledge. Without in any manner 
 whatever attempting to dispute the admirable skill and 
 humanity of the medical officers attached to St. Thomas's 
 Hospital, we have not the slightest hesitation in stating
 
 258 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 that the whole ability of the medical profession in 
 London is not confined to the staff of two or three of 
 our larger hospitals, and there is as much skill, ear- 
 nestness, and philanthropy to be found among others of 
 the profession in London, whose names are seldom or 
 never heard of beyond the poor parishes in which they 
 reside, and whose only impediment in the road to fame 
 and fortune is, that the class of their private patients is 
 not so aristocratic as that under the care of the doctors 
 of some of our larger hospitals. Had the new St, 
 Thomas's Hospital been built in the neighbourhood of 
 "Walworth, Bermondsey, Haggerstone, or Shoreditch, 
 and the present medical staff found it inconvenient or 
 impossible to attend their patients at so great a distance 
 from their homes, it is more than possible that medical 
 men of as much skill, if not as much eminence, might 
 have been found in the immediate vicinity that is .to 
 say, if the success attending their cases might be con- 
 sidered as the test of their ability. As we shall have 
 occasion to speak again on the prejudicial effect of this 
 " hero worship " offered to certain celebrities in the 
 medical profession, not only on its members at large 
 but the poor as well, we will at present quit the subject, 
 and turn again to St. Thomas's Hospital. 
 
 The site having been determined on, it was purchased of 
 the Metropolitan Board of Works for the sum of 95,000, 
 to which 5,000 was afterwards added for the roadway. 
 Some have severely criticized the Metropolitan Board 
 of "Works for disposing of so valuable a spot of ground 
 for so small a sum ; while others considered that the}'-
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 259 
 
 were perfectly justified in so doing, inasmuch, as it 
 would hardly have been commendable in the Board to 
 liave driven too hard a bargain with so excellent a 
 charity. The site having been purchased, the plans for 
 the building had to be determined on. Much study 
 and thought were bestowed upon it, and the most emi- 
 nent authorities on sanitary subjects were called in to 
 decide how the new hospital might be made a model for 
 all contemplated erections of the kind to follow. Not 
 a scientific suggestion by any eminent sanitary autho- 
 rity, and possibly no medical theory on the part of any 
 medical authority, which was not carried out to the 
 letter, and that, as the hospital balance-sheet will prove, 
 without taking much, if any, consideration as to its 
 cost. But a question has since arisen in the minds of 
 many, whether the enormous sum expended in the 
 erection of the new hospital might not have been ap- 
 plied with greater advantage both to the sick poor and 
 the benefit of the public at large. Already we have 
 stated that the site and roadway cost 100,000, and the 
 building, by the original contract, 330,000 more. 
 Even if the latter sum was not exceeded, which we are 
 informed it was to a considerable extent, the hospital 
 when finished, including furniture, &c., certainly did 
 not cost less than half a million of money. Many, how- 
 ever, who profess to be well acquainted with the sub- 
 ject, say that it far exceeded that amount. When fully 
 completed the hospital was opened in state by her 
 Majesty, but before patients were admitted the public 
 were for some time invited to inspect it, especially
 
 zbo THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 members of the medical profession and students, that 
 they might thereby obtain a perfect knowledge of the 
 best and most complete method, in respect to sanitary 
 arrangements in particular, on which sick asylums 
 ought to be erected. 
 
 The hospital at last was opened for patients, but 
 from the expenditure incurred on the building the 
 funds at the time were not more than sufficient for the 
 maintenance of 400 patients, the number it was in- 
 tended to accommodate being 600. But admitting the 
 hospital at present to contain its full number of 
 patients (600), let us see what each costs this City 
 charity for the poor and destitute sick for house-rent 
 alone. The sum of half a million divided among them 
 will give an average of some 833 per bed. That the 
 reader may form some idea what this sum really repre- 
 sents, we will offer him the following comparison. Were 
 it possible, it would be more advantageous to the 
 patients in a hospital that each had a separate room ; 
 but as this would be far too costly a plan in a public 
 charity, wards containing a greater or smaller number 
 of beds are, for the purpose of economy, used instead. 
 Perhaps the better way to arrive at a just conclusion 
 would be to estimate the cost of the space for each bed 
 to be equal to that of an average bedroom in a good 
 dwelling-house, and the reader, even at the low estimate 
 of 833 per bedroom, will then see what class of houses 
 might be built for the money. Let us take, for example, 
 a first-class Belgrave Square mansion, containing twenty 
 bedrooms, and the whole fitted up in the most perfect
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 261 
 
 manner. We were informed by two eminent West- 
 end builders that the erection of such a mansion would 
 cost, perhaps, with the ground it stands on, some 
 12,000 or 13,000 certainly not more. Assume, 
 then, that each of the bedrooms in a given number 
 of houses is allotted to a patient of St. Thomas's Hos- 
 pital, and it will be found that his or her cost for house- 
 rent would be, on an average, one-third less than at 
 present. Should the funds of the hospital, however, 
 not be able to accommodate more than the 400 patients 
 at present in the hospital, their cost for house-rent 
 would be in the Belgrave Square mansion only one- 
 half what it now is. 
 
 But it may be said that in estimating the cost of 
 St. Thomas's Hospital at 833 per bed, and then com- 
 paring the cost with that of a Belgrave Square man- 
 sion, we have not taken into consideration that the 
 new building contains vast accommodation for out- 
 patients, officers, officers' dwellings, medical schools, 
 &c. Admitting this to be true, we may state, on the 
 other hand, that in taking the cost of the mansion at 
 so much per bedroom, we have also taken into con- 
 sideration the other portions of the establishment, such 
 as dining and drawing rooms, library, breakfast- rooms, 
 and the cost of the vast and complicated basements, 
 with all the expensive fittings, fixtures, and joiners' 
 work, with the square and gardens in front for the 
 exercise and amusement of the patients ; therefore the 
 comparison must be admitted not to be an invidious 
 one.
 
 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 There was one item, however, in the cost of SL 
 Thomas's Hospital which is far greater than the cost 
 incurred in a Belgrave Square mansion the cement on. 
 the walls. This in the hospital is of Parian cement, 
 the price of which is at least douhle per square yard to 
 the cement or plaster of the walls of any first-class 
 private dwelling in London. The medical officers con- 
 sidered it necessary for the welfare of the patients, and 
 the managers very properly agreed to the expenditure. 
 Another serious item in the cost of the hospital is the 
 medical school buildings. On these, we are told, has. 
 been expended at least .35,000, without taking into con- 
 sideration the value of the land. The Lord Chancellor, 
 however, it is said, was appealed to on the subject, and 
 sanctioned this expenditure, and the wisdom and justice 
 of a decision of the Court of Chancery of course cannot 
 be doubted. His lordship appears to have considered > 
 if our authority is correct, that the medical school was 
 the property of the professors (although not a word on 
 the subject is to be found in any of the hospital char- 
 ters), and that they had a right to buildings propor- 
 tionate to the expenditure incurred in the erection of 
 the hospital. Now the sum quoted (30,000) does not 
 include the cost of the site, which has been shown to be 
 about twenty-five per cent, of the cost of the whole school 
 building. This will raise, even at the most moderate 
 calculation, the gross cost of the schools to 35,000 or 
 .40,000. It has been proved that if the school build- 
 ings had been erected for the accommodation of the 
 same number as are at present attached to the hospital
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 263 
 
 at the same proportionate cost of the medical schools of 
 St. George's, Westminster, and Charing Cross Hos- 
 pitals, the new building at St. Thomas's might have 
 been erected at a cost of some 5,000 or 6,000. 
 This would have left a balance from the gross sums 
 expended to have built economically a workhouse in- 
 firmary of some 150 to 200 beds- 
 
 But the advocates of the enormous expenditure pro- 
 posed to be lavished on St. Thomas's Hospital argued 
 that the immense advantages which would accrue from 
 it, as a perfect model of sanitary science and skill, 
 would be more than commensurate for its cost, especi- 
 ally as the works would be superintended by the most 
 eminent medical professors. Judging, however, from 
 the results, some of the most cheaply erected hos- 
 pitals in the metropolis would upon sanitary grounds 
 compare very favourably with it. Take, for example, 
 the hospitals of the Scotch Fusilier Guards or Gre- 
 nadier Guards, which did not cost more than 80 per 
 bed, including the value of the ground, instead of 833. 
 But possibly a still more striking comparison may 
 be drawn by contrasting the cost and effects of St. 
 Thomas's with that of the, unfortunately, little known 
 Poplar Hospital. The loud boasting as to the excellent 
 sanitary advantages derived from the eminent scientific 
 gentlemen who were consulted on the erection of 
 St. Thomas's Hospital gradually ceased a year or so 
 after it opened, and a most suspicious silence supplied 
 its place. Of the cause on our own authority we are 
 unable to speak with any certainty; but from the
 
 264 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 hospital report * it would appear that in 1875 those two 
 strong proofs of defective sanitary condition in a hospital, 
 erysipelas and pysemia, were developed in the wards to 
 an alarming degree, there having been no fewer than 
 fifty-one cases of the former, of which thirteen proved 
 fatal; of the latter sixteen, all fatal. Singular to say, no 
 public notice has been taken of this terrible calamity, 
 and the Local Government Board, which ought to have 
 interested themselves in the matter, seemed to have 
 passed it over with perfect indifference. Twenty-nine 
 cases had certainly proved fatal, without taking into 
 consideration the remainder, many of whom through 
 life might carry with them the seeds of the disease. 
 But then they were in a celebrated hospital, erected as 
 a model to all others, and " surrounded by all the 
 requirements of science," and what could they have 
 more ? One thing more might be added, and which is 
 perfectly true that not the slightest blame, either 
 directly or indirectly, could be thrown on the medical 
 staff for this unfortunate state of affairs ; on the con- 
 trary, every kindness and attention were lavished on the 
 unfortunate patients ; their deaths were to be attri- 
 buted solely to defective sanitary arrangements, and no 
 other cause. The reader may possibly remember the 
 case of an epidemic breaking out in a large charity 
 school at Wandsworth some two years since, when 
 three girls out of a total of 300 died from fever. 
 Public attention was called to the subject, and a rigorous 
 search was very properly made to discover the cause 
 * Quoted from the Medical Times and Gazette.
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 265 
 
 of the outbreak, and energetic measures were taken 
 to prevent a repetition the Government authorities 
 themselves taking, as they ought to have done, an 
 active part in the matter. But we put it to the reader 
 whether in a hospital containing 400 patients, no fewer 
 than twenty-nine died from defective sanitary con- 
 ditions, it ought not to have interested the Government 
 and the public press more than it did, as well as whether 
 the hospital itself ought not to have been closed till 
 the cause of so terrible a misfortune had been dis- 
 covered, and, if possible, rectified ? 
 
 Let us now turn to Poplar Hospital, one of the 
 poorest, and certainly one of the most useful, hospitals 
 in London, and managed with an amount of skill and 
 devotion to the interests of the patients second to none, 
 even the richest, in the metropolis. Perhaps we may 
 be accused of presumption in deciding or even speak- 
 ing on the subject of "skill," as being a point far 
 above our capacity to decide upon ; and in proof it 
 may be urged that the professors of St. Thomas's, St. 
 Bartholomew's, and other great hospitals are men of 
 eminence, whereas the working medical staff of the 
 Poplar Hospital are men not known beyond the locality 
 they inhabit, more than one among them having been 
 known to keep open dispensaries. Perhaps, we repeat, 
 we may be accused of presumption in passing an opinion 
 on so abstruse a subject ; but as there may be one miti- 
 gating circumstance in our case, we may as well offer it 
 to the reader before we go any further. We admit 
 that our opinions on the matter are based upon an old-
 
 266 THE Cin AS IT IS. 
 
 fashioned theory held by certain scientific stars in the 
 medical profession in but little estimation, that is, 
 "judging of the tree by its fruits," and that, too, on 
 subjects connected with the medical profession as well 
 as other things. Should it chance that the reader may 
 be of our opinion, he possibly, after having read the 
 following few facts and figures, will admit that in our 
 comparison between the Poplar Hospital and St. 
 Thomas's (that civic sick asylum) we are not altogether 
 wrong in the conclusion we have arrived at. 
 
 For many years the only hospital in the eastern por- 
 tion of the metropolis was the London. This, as the 
 reader is doubtless aware, is an institution in high 
 repute, and with a medical staff inferior to no hospital 
 in England. But from, the position of this hospital 
 great inconvenience was felt and danger incurred in 
 carrying patients who had met with serious accidents 
 when working in the East and West India Docks, 
 which was still further aggravated when the Victoria 
 Docks were opened, as well as the many large factories 
 and ship-building establishments in the neighbourhood. 
 To remedy this unfortunate state of things, several ship- 
 builders and owners, as well as gentlemen connected 
 with the docks, with Messrs. Green, Wigram, and 
 Ravenhill at their head, resolved, if possible, to start a 
 hospital somewhere in the neighbourhood of Poplar. 
 The scheme was opposed on the plea that medical men 
 and surgeons of eminence could not be found who 
 would superintend and care for the patients at so great 
 a distance from their private practice, and therefore
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 267 
 
 the whole scheme would turn out a failure. But the 
 gentlemen who started the idea were men of a practical 
 turn of mind, and did not admit the objection. Their 
 reasons were simple in the extreme, and the result has 
 not only proved that they were correct, but has 
 strengthened us in our conclusion that the whole 
 medical science of the metropolis is not solely confined 
 to those who attend the rich and aristocratic, but that 
 there is as much skill to be found among our general 
 practitioners and parish surgeons as among the phy- 
 sicians and surgeons of the highest estimation. To the 
 objections raised against opening a hospital in the dis- 
 trict, that the medical men residing near the locality 
 were merely general practitioners, and therefore inca- 
 pable of attending to the serious accidents which would 
 be brought under their notice, Messrs. Green and friends 
 argued that many of them possibly the majority had 
 formerly served as surgeons in the merchant service,, 
 and that if they were capable of attending scientifically 
 to serious accidents which occurred at sea, they would be 
 equally competent to treat the same class of cases on 
 land. They were, moreover, supported in their decision 
 by Government, which made over to them the old 
 Blackwall custom-house for a hospital a building, 
 according to modern views, utterly unadapted for the 
 purpose. Subscriptions were now raised, some beds 
 and apparatus purchased, some general practitioners 
 in the neighbourhood who had served at sea were- 
 appointed as surgeons, and the hospital was opened. 
 And what has been the result ? This hospital, small
 
 2b8 THE CITY AS II IS. 
 
 as it is, containing only, if as much, a tenth part of the 
 number of patients in St. Thomas's Hospital, in an 
 edifice so inexpensive that, even at the present high 
 price of materials and labour, it would probably have cost 
 not more than 45 per bed instead of 833 as in St. 
 Thomas's. No sanitary authority of eminence was called 
 in to advise upon what improvements and alterations 
 should be made consistent with the advance of modern 
 science, the managers contenting themselves with 
 great cleanliness and good ventilation, yet it receives a 
 greater number of serious accidents than any three in- 
 cluding St. Thomas's and St. Bartholomew's of the 
 West-end hospitals put together, and the success 
 attending their operations and cures is fully as satis- 
 factory as in any other hospital in the metropolis, no 
 matter how eminent its medical staff may be. From 
 the Poplar Hospital Report of 1872 (the latest we have 
 seen, though we are informed those published since 
 exhibit a still more flattering state of affairs), there were 
 received 262 in-patients, and treated 2,512 out-patients 
 all surgical cases. Of operations and amputations of 
 different descriptions, including those of the thumb and 
 finger, they had no fewer than fifty- two, seven cases of 
 ligature of the principal arteries, more than a thousand 
 wounds and lacerations, nearly eight hundred con- 
 tusions, twelve fractures of the skull, six of which 
 were compound, fifty-one other fractures, nine of which 
 were of the humerus, twenty-four of the fore arm, 
 twelve of the thigh bone, two of them compound. And 
 yet, notwithstanding this large number of surgical
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 269 
 
 cases, comprising more wounded than occurs in many 
 battle-fields, during the whole year there were only 
 fourteen deaths, less than one-half the number that 
 occurred in St. Thomas's Hospital from defective 
 sanitary arrangements alone. Of the deaths which 
 occurred in the Poplar Hospital, five died from the 
 serious nature of their wounds a few hours after ad- 
 mission, and eight before the close of the following day. 
 Nor is this result the only gratifying feature we have 
 to mention respecting the administration of the Poplar 
 Hospital. Objectionable as it may appear in the eyes 
 of the designers, advisers, and architects, and especially 
 the eminent sanitary authorities of St. Thomas's Hos- 
 pital, not one death was occasioned during the whole 
 year by pyaemia or erysipelas a fact possibly unequalled 
 (surpassed it could not have been) by any hospital in 
 the metropolis. 
 
 Before quitting the subject of the Poplar Hospital 
 we may add, to the disgrace of the Lord Mayor and 
 Corporation, that although the patients admitted are 
 principally those who contribute in a great degree to 
 the wealth of the City seamen in the merchant ser- 
 vice it is the worst supported in the metropolis. It 
 may be urged that, as a body, the civic authorities are 
 not called upon, in their corporate capacity, to take 
 under their consideration an institution so far removed 
 from the City itself. But they should also bear in 
 mind that the two great hospitals of St. Thomas's and 
 St. Bartholomew's are still to a great extent under the 
 authority of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, that they
 
 270 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 are enormously rich, that their uses were not intended 
 for the poor of the City alone, but " the suburbs 
 thereof," and, as we shall show in the next chapter, the 
 waste of funds in their administration would go far 
 beyond the maintenance of the Poplar surgical hospital 
 even if it were three times its present size, and its sister 
 surgical hospital, the Dreadnought, as well. They are 
 surely bound in common humanity, if not common 
 honesty, to exert themselves in the matter. As it is, 
 the subscriptions given by the merchants and capitalists 
 of the City and that the richest and most commercial 
 city in the world form a singular contrast between 
 the charitable feelings of our wealthier classes for mis- 
 fortunes of the kind and that of the poorer. On look- 
 ing over the subscription list some two years since, we 
 found that the working men in the principal ship- 
 building yards in the neighbourhood subscribed a larger 
 sum for the maintenance of the hospital than all Lom- 
 bard Street and the Royal Exchange put together. 
 
 It must not for a moment be imagined that, notwith- 
 standing the advantage which might be gained from 
 far greater economy in hospital building than that 
 shown in St. Thomas's Hospital, we would advise 
 a forced economy from want of means similar to that 
 to be foun$ in the structure of the Poplar Hospital. 
 Without hesitation we admit it to be unfit for the uses 
 of a general hospital such a one, in fact, as would be 
 sufficiently large for the immense population gathered 
 around it. Moreover, the accommodation for the resi- 
 dent medical officers is far worse than ought to be pro-
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES, 271 
 
 vided for gentlemen of so much skill and humanity, 
 if not of popular eminence, attached to it. At the same 
 time, if instead of 833 per bed, as at St. Thomas's Hos- 
 pital, one for 70 per bed were erected such, in fact, 
 as the infirmary lately built in Kensington and made 
 to accommodate 400 patients the number at present to 
 be found in St. Thomas's it would hardly be sufficient 
 for the wants of the immense industrial population 
 employed near it.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES (continued). 
 
 TF there may remain any doubt in the mind of the 
 reader whether, by the ruling of Lord Eldon in 
 1809, St. Thomas's Hospital was not under the abso- 
 lute control of the civic authorities, according to its 
 original charter, that can hardly be the case with the 
 other City hospital, or " House of the Poor " as it was 
 called, even till the commencement of the present cen- 
 tury, St. Bartholomew's. A proof of the intention of 
 its institution may be found in its original charter 
 of 36 Henry VIII. The letters patent,* after stating 
 that although the monastery of St. Bartholomew had 
 been dissolved, yet for the future the] charitable uses 
 for which it was founded should be continued, the King 
 " desiring nothing more than that the true works of 
 charity and piety should not be abolished there, but 
 rather fully restored and renewed according to the 
 primitive pattern of their general sincerity, and the 
 abuses of the foundation of the same hospital on lapse 
 of time lamentably occurring, being reformed, have 
 * Translation of letters patent, June 23rd, 1544.
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 273 
 
 endeavoured, as far as human infirmity will permit, 
 that henceforth there be comfort for the prisoner, 
 shelter to the poor, visitation of the sick, food for the 
 hungry, drink for the thirsty, clothes to the naked, 
 and sepulture to the dead, administered there, and that 
 other works of piety be performed there to the glory 
 of Almighty God, and to the common utility and hap- 
 piness of our subjects." 
 
 By this it will doubtless appear to the reader that 
 the original establishment of St. Bartholomew's Hos- 
 pital was simply and purely that of a parish work- 
 house under the Local Government Board in the pre- 
 sent day. If further proof were needed to establish 
 the parochial or pauper character of St. Bartholo- 
 mew's for the reception of the metropolitan poor, it 
 may be found in the deed of covenant between King 
 Henry VIII. and the Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens 
 of London (under whose management the institution 
 was placed) respecting the hospitals, dated 27th of 
 December, 1546, in which it is related that "our 
 Sovereign Lord the King is pleased and contented 
 that the said hospital of Saint Bartholomew's shall 
 from henceforth be a place and house for the relief 
 and sustentation of poor people, and shall be called 
 the 'House of the Poore,' in "West Smithfield, in the 
 suburbs of the City of London, of King Henry the 
 Eighth's foundation." 
 
 But while the hospital was at first used as the City 
 workhouse, one of its principal uses was that of a 
 hospital in the present acceptation and meaning of the 
 
 T
 
 274 THE CITYAS IT IS. 
 
 word, for we find it stipulated in the same letter 
 patent that " the said Lord Mayor, Commonalty, and 
 Citizens, and their successors, shall find perpetually one 
 person sufficiently learned in the science of physic, and 
 one other person having sufficient knowledge in 
 surgery, to be continually attendant on the sick and 
 sore poor people at the said hospital, hereafter to be 
 called ' the House of the Poore,' and to minister to 
 them from time to time such things as shall be needful 
 and necessary for their sicknesses and diseases; and 
 that the said Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of 
 London, and their successors, shall give and pay to the 
 same physician yearly the sum of 20, and to the 
 same surgeon yearly the sum of 20, and that the said 
 Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens of London, and their 
 successors, at their proper costs and charges, from time 
 to time shall buy and provide all manner of poticary 
 ware and other things most necessary and convenient 
 for the making of salves, and all other things touching 
 physic and surgery, for the help and healing of the 
 said poor sick people." 
 
 It would occupy too much space to go at any length 
 into the history of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. By 
 degrees it began to lose more and more of its attributes 
 as a parish workhouse in the strict meaning of the 
 term, and in equal ratio its uses as the pauper sick 
 asylum of the metropolis. It still remained under the 
 absolute control and government of the civic autho- 
 rities, but although occasionally different rules have 
 been made for [its management, in no case whatever
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 275 
 
 has it been removed from their jurisdiction. Nay, 
 more, they were empowered by an Act, 5 Philip and 
 Mary, which on several occasions was put in force, for 
 granting the profits of sundry offices, &c., for the use 
 of the hospitals, especially duties on "the balance 
 commonly called the King's Beame, the gawginge of 
 wyne and fyshe, and the measurynge or measures of 
 silk and woollen clothes, &c., commonly called Black- 
 well Hall." Nor are we aware of any Act of Parliament 
 repealing that power of taxing the citizens of London 
 for the maintenance of St. Bartholomew's Hospital 
 should the state of its funds require it. St. Bar- 
 tholomew's was, in fact, the first hospital supported, 
 beyond its endowment, by a tax levied on the citizens ; 
 and one curious circumstance connected with raising 
 money by means of taxation for the support of this 
 charity was, that the livery companies were called upon 
 to supply a large portion of the amount required. For 
 example, in the year 1548 an act was passed by the 
 Common Council for assessing the City companies in 
 the sum of 500 marks, to be paid annually to St. 
 Bartholomew's Hospital. It is perfectly true that after 
 continuing their payments, together with the City, for 
 a century and a half, they attempted to avoid the 
 responsibility, and for more than fifty years the contri- 
 bution of 500 marks annually remained unpaid. At 
 length the governors of the hospital took proceedings 
 in Chancery, not only for the continuance of the tax, 
 but for the arrears as well, which they gained ; and the 
 Court of Common Council, 12th of November, 1712,
 
 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 ordered the payment of 3,214 4s. 9d. and the costs of 
 suit, " decreed by the Court of Chancery to be paid to 
 the said hospital by the Mayor and Commonalty and 
 Citizens of the City of London, and of the yearly sum 
 of 100 to the said hospital for ever." Whether the 
 livery companies continued their quota it would be 
 difficult to say. If they did, it would be one of the few 
 instances on record during the last century and a half 
 in which they have not succeeded in relieving them- 
 selves from every duty consistent with their citizenship. 
 If the objectionable features we noticed in our 
 description of St. Thomas's Hospital during the first 
 thirty years of the present century were not to be 
 found in St. Bartholomew's, at the same time they 
 did exist in a smaller degree. True, no jobbery equal 
 to that practised by Astley Cooper, and which required 
 all the energy of the Lancet to modify, though not 
 entirely to suppress, can be quoted ; still the appoint- 
 ments to the hospital staff were made far less as a rule 
 with respect to the skill and learning of the applicant 
 than the influence certain medical men had with the 
 governing body. One surgeon of eminence, apart from 
 the students in the school, was in the habit of taking 
 private pupils, who paid him sums varying from 500 
 to 1,000 ; not that the scientific education he was 
 capable of imparting was in any manner superior to 
 that of other professors, but that his influence with the 
 governing body was so great, that in the event of a 
 vacancy in the medical staff the candidate he nomi- 
 nated was certain of the appointment, and that to the
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 277 
 
 Injury of others who had been educated at the school, 
 whose scientific acquirements were greatly superior, and 
 who, perhaps, had anxiously waited for many years in the 
 hopes that when a vacancy occurred they might obtain 
 the much-coveted prize which so frequently led to fame 
 and fortune. And here, again, the Corporation, who 
 really still possessed great power in the government of 
 the hospital had they pleased to claim it, seemed perfectly 
 apathetic on the subject, leaving the whole affair in the 
 hands of one of their colleagues, a man of indisputable 
 integrity and humanity, it is true, but of no particular 
 intelligence or education, who was easily led by the 
 dominant medical officer of the day, and. whose nominal 
 patronage for many years was so great, that any per- 
 son he favoured was almost to a certainty appointed to 
 a vacancy. This system, however, after a time, thanks 
 to the medical press, received a check, and the abuse 
 was much ameliorated. The first break in the old 
 system of patronage took place about the time of the 
 election of Sir James Paget, whose principal qualifica- 
 tion for the appointment was his vast professional skill, 
 and who has since done so much to maintain the repu- 
 tation of the hospital, notwithstanding the unfavour- 
 able auguries pronounced by the supporters of the old 
 system of selecting their medical and surgical officers. 
 
 That St. Bartholomew's Hospital has hitherto been 
 of incalculable service to the poor of the metropolis 
 there can be no doubt, and it indisputably is so in the 
 present day ; but the question is, Whether its bene- 
 fits might not have been considerably extended, if a
 
 278 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 just system of economy had been introduced into its 
 management? Again, another question should be 
 entertained, Whether to maintain a hospital of such 
 magnitude in its present position is not a useless waste 
 of power to do good ? When bringing St. Thomas's 
 Hospital under the notice of the reader, we especially 
 dwelt on the injustice it inflicted on the poor in remov- 
 ing it so far from the reach of the dwellings as well as 
 the localities in which the great massesof our work- 
 ing classes lived or were employed. With St. Bar- 
 tholomew's Hospital the direct reverse has been the 
 case ; the poor, instead, have been driven far away from 
 the principal metropolitan hospital, and the one above 
 all others intended for their benefit. In the beginning 
 of the present century, and in fact till some thirty 
 years since, St. Bartholomew's Hospital stood in the 
 centre of a densely crowded district, and was the great 
 means of medical aid and assistance to the tens of 
 thousands congregated around it. And then com- 
 menced, as we narrated in our introductory chapter, 
 the great civic improvements. The first of these de- 
 stroyed the dwellings of some 35,000 of the working 
 classes, who in a great measure depended upon the 
 hospital for medical and surgical relief. Then followed 
 other demolitions of the dwellings of the working classes 
 even nearer to the hospital, and these have continued 
 till the present day, when it is next to an impossibility 
 to find the dwelling of an artizan or labourer any- 
 where near the building. In the year 1874 we took a 
 list of the addresses of the patients both in and out
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 279 
 
 patients who attended during one week, and we found 
 the average distance they lived from the hospital was 
 something more than a mile and a half. In respect 
 to the out-patients alone, let the reader imagine how 
 fearful a tax it must be on the energies of a sick and 
 wounded person to walk a distance of three miles, to 
 and fro inclusive, without counting the time he is 
 obliged to remain in the hospital till his turn comes 
 to see the physician or surgeon of the day. And yet 
 a vast space of ground within the City boundaries 
 remains unbuilt on, and it might be supposed some 
 of it could be used for the erection of dwellings for 
 the working classes. Of that, however, there is 
 little chance ; the clause in all leases or agreements 
 against any persons beyond " care takers " being 
 allowed to sleep on the premises will effectually stop 
 the increase of the industrial classes among the City 
 population. There are now of their order 120,000 
 fewer than in the year 1780, nor is there the slightest 
 chance of the return of a tithe of that number. 
 
 Of course any attempt or suggestion to remove even 
 a portion of St. Bartholomew's Hospital to a locality 
 where the working classes abound, would be met with 
 indignant opposition both from the medical staff itself 
 and the City authorities. Any one proposing a scheme 
 of the kind would be both abused and ridiculed, and 
 the old objection would be brought forward that it 
 would be an injustice to men of such high eminence as 
 the medical staff at present attached to the hospital to 
 expect them to attend at another established at a greater
 
 280 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 distance from the West-end, and thereby the greater 
 portion of their private patients, than they do now. 
 But the same argument that we used in the case of St. 
 Thomas's will hold good with its sister, the " House of 
 the Poor," or City general hospital, St. Bartholomew's. 
 We drew a comparison between the success of the prac- 
 tice of the celebrated professors of St. Thomas's Hos- 
 pital all men of high fame both for medical and 
 sanitary science and that of the comparatively un- 
 known staff of the Poplar Hospital, certainly not to 
 the discredit of the latter ; and we will now offer a 
 similar proof that an immense amount of skill may be 
 displayed by other medical men of comparative little 
 note by a short comparison between the results of the 
 practice in the Dreadnought, or Seamen's Hospital, 
 now removed to Greenwich. On the medical side the 
 results under Dr. Harry Leach and Dr. Balfe, as well 
 as the surgeons, Mr. Johnston Smith and Dr. O'Farril, 
 together with the other members of the staff, were quite 
 as favourable, and the cases equally difficult of cure, 
 as those of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. In the Dread- 
 nought Report we find the following paragraph : " The 
 death-rate of this hospital, as compared with that of 
 the metropolitan general hospitals, has for many years 
 past been very low. In 1875 the total death-rate was 
 5 '5 per cent., the medical death-rate being about 8 
 per cent., and the surgical death-rate a little below 
 3 per cent.* The average death-rate in the London 
 
 * Compare this with the mortality in' St. Thomas's Hospital from 
 pyaemia and erysipelas attendant on surgical cases alono.j
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 281 
 
 general hospitals may be estimated at about 9 per 
 cent." From another paragraph in the report we gather 
 that the rules for the admission of in-patients extend 
 to certain common though most formidable cases inad- 
 missible in the larger and more celebrated general hos- 
 pitals. " Admission," it says, " is always afforded to 
 cases of phthisis, of incurable diseases, and of infectious 
 diseases (small-pox alone excepted), and to moribund 
 persons. The explanation of the fact of so low a 
 death-rate in a hospital with 250 beds, in which all 
 kinds of cases are treated, may in this instance be sup- 
 plied readily, and with confidence that it will insure 
 for the charity liberal support." "With every possible 
 respect for Mr. "W. Johnston Smith, sen., resident 
 medical officer of the hospital, we must beg leave to 
 differ from him in the prognostication (and on that 
 point alone) with which he concludes his report. So 
 far from agreeing with him in the " liberal support " 
 he speaks of, it would be impossible to imagine any- 
 thing more mean, beggarly, or contemptible than the 
 contributions bestowed on this invaluable charity by 
 the civic authorities, merchants, and capitalists of the 
 City of London. 
 
 To return to St. Bartholomew's Hospital and its 
 sanitary condition. Although a building of much older 
 date than St. Thomas's, it would appear, judging from 
 the comparative number of cases of erysipelas and 
 pyaemia in the surgical wards, to be in a far more 
 satisfactory sanitary condition. With 33 per cent, more 
 in-patients than St. Thomas's, instead of the sixty-
 
 282 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 eight cases in the latter hospital, St. Bartholomew s 
 had but forty-six. Some singular anomalies in con- 
 struction of hospitals and the benefits arising from sani- 
 tary science occasionally appear, which almost induce 
 us to believe that many of its laws at present in vogue 
 are based upon somewhat empirical principles. St. 
 Thomas's Hospital, on whose construction a vast sum 
 of money as well as scientific study was bestowed, has 
 a proportionate amount of these terrible maladies far in 
 excess of St. Bartholomew's, erected at a far smaller 
 cost. St. Bartholomew's, in its turn, was far more 
 expensively and scientifically constructed than the 
 Dreadnought, and has proportionately more cases ; while 
 the latter hospital has had far more expended on it 
 than the Poplar, which, as stated in the last chapter, 
 had during the year not a single case of death arising 
 from either maladj'.* 
 
 * "Were it not for the serious nature of the subject, the disap- 
 pointing manner in which many of the efforts of our sanitary 
 professors terminate would occasionally almost reach the ludicrous. 
 One general rule seems to apply to the hospitals erected under their 
 advice or control : that the larger the sum expended the more unsatis- 
 factory the results. This is particularly observable in our lying-in 
 hospitals, establishments where perfect ventilation and appliances are, 
 perhaps, more necessary than iu any others. From some researches 
 made by the late Dr. Edward Smith, it would appear that the greater 
 the amount of money expended in the erection of one of these institu- 
 tions, the greater the mortality, while that known as Queen Charlotte's 
 Hospital, in the Marylebone Road, which did not average more than 
 40 per bed, was the most successful of all. The average cost of these 
 institutions was of course far higher than the lying-in wards in the 
 London workhouse infirmaries, but the mortality in the lying-in 
 hospitals was six to one higher than in the workhouses. But the 
 most extraordinary fact. connected with the subject took place in the 
 King's College Hospital. By way of showing the manner in which
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 283 
 
 Another point has frequently been urged against 
 any interference with the convenience of the medical 
 staff of these two great City medical charities, St. 
 
 a lying-in institution ought to be managed, so as to avoid the 
 excessive mortality which took place in them, as well as to offer a 
 good model to all institutions of the kind, it was determined to open 
 two wards in that Imilding in which every requirement of science, 
 both obstetrical and sanitary, might be found in perfection. Greater 
 ingenuity and study than was shown in the arrangement of these 
 wards it would be difficult to imagine. The floor was of oak, as being 
 considered less liable to absorb organic matter than deal boards, and 
 the walls had a coating of cement which, though costly, was con- 
 sidered far superior, in a sanitary point of view, to the ordinary 
 lime-white of the generality of institutions of the kind. Each 
 patient was allowed between four and five thousand cubic feet of air 
 to her bed, and the arrangements for warmth and ventilation were of 
 the most liberal and complicated description. The expense incurred, 
 as may naturally be supposed, was enormous. It was estimated that 
 taking into account the original cost of the building, it must have 
 averaged some 600 per bed. Unfortunately the results were by no 
 means commensurate with the ingenuity and liberality of the arrange- 
 ments. After the wards had been open for four years, the mortality 
 among the patients was shown to be so great, that considerable doubts 
 arose in the minds of many of the governors whether it would not be 
 better to close them. The promoters, however, would not allow this 
 to be done, but they proposed other and far more scientific arrange- 
 ments which would make the wards and their sanitary condition 
 perfect. The alterations having been made, the wards, which had 
 been temporarily closed, were again opened, but the results were even 
 more lamentable than before. During the next two years the mor- 
 tality among the patients, so far from diminishing, rose to one in 
 fifteen of the gross number of patients received, and the wards were 
 then definitely ordered to be closed. The mortality during the six 
 years they were opened averaged about one in twenty-three. In 
 eleven of the metropolitan workhouse infirmaries, comprising Ber- 
 mondsey, Chelsea, Clerkenwell, Fulham, St. James's, and six others, 
 out of 2,413 deliveries there was not otie death. It may also be stated 
 that the whole of the latter cases were superintended by parish sur- 
 geons, those in King's College and the lying-in hospitals by physicians- 
 in high repute.
 
 284 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 Thomas's and St. Bartholomew's Hospitals, by extend- 
 ing the benefits to be derived from them farther east- 
 wards into those districts in which the labouring poor of 
 the City principally reside. It is urged that the duties 
 performed by the medical and surgical professors are 
 purely of a philanthropic description ; that in accept- 
 ing their appointments they are actuated solely by the 
 wish to benefit their fellow-creatures, and to do this 
 they gratuitously devote some hours per week, and 
 those in the most valuable part of the day, in solacing 
 the misfortunes of the poor, and instructing, by their 
 example and teaching, a vast number of young men to 
 follow in their footsteps, so that in their turn they may 
 be equally useful to those requiring medical aid. To 
 add to these self-imposed philanthropic labours would 
 be an act both of cruelty and injustice an unwar- 
 rantable encroachment on the time of professors who 
 already give, without hope of earthly reward, so much 
 of their skill and energies to those too poor to pay for 
 them. But if the subject be further investigated, some 
 very different features perfectly justifiable in their 
 way may present themselves in those purely philan- 
 thropic principles which actuate the professors of these 
 two great City hospitals, showing that with kindness of 
 heart worldly interests may occasionally be mixed up, 
 without the slightest disrespect to the physician or 
 injury to the patient. That philanthropy may be 
 one of the existing causes which induces a young 
 physician or surgeon to obtain one of the medical 
 appointments to either of these City hospitals we will
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 285 
 
 not for a moment attempt to deny ; but to say it is the 
 sole cause is to state an absurdity. They are, in fact, 
 most valuable appointments, and the first step to wealth 
 and eminence. True, they receive no annual salary for 
 their services, but they are, as a rule, well remunerated 
 in another manner. To each of these City hospitals is 
 attached a medical school, which in its way is of great 
 and remunerative use to the medical staff and pro- 
 fessors. It appears from the Lancet and Medical Times 
 that when the session opened in 1876 there were no 
 fewer than 551 students attached to the schools of these 
 two hospitals. Each of these gentlemen, when they 
 shall have received their diplomas and start in practice- 
 on their own account, if they have occasion to call in 
 any one in consultation, naturally choose for the purpose 
 one of their old professors, and thereby raise him to a 
 greater eminence (or popularity) than he would other- 
 wise have obtained. But there is another benefit of 
 considerable importance which the professors of these 
 two City hospitals derive from the medical schools 
 their immediate pecuniary value. The most moderate 
 fees demanded of the pupils at any medical school in 
 London is 30 per annum, and at schools of such 
 eminence as that at St. Thomas's and St. Bartholo- 
 mew's they would in all probability be more. If, then, at 
 these two schools there is an average, as shown above, 
 of 551 pupils, the annual amount of fees received from 
 them must amount to 16,530. Now it can hardly be 
 maintained, with an income of that amount, that the 
 professors of these City hospitals are actuated solely
 
 286 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 by philanthropic motives, as their advocates maintain 
 them to be ; and their convenience and time are not 
 more worthy of consideration than those of the labour- 
 ing poor dependent on the City of London for their 
 means of existence, and for whose benefit these two 
 hospitals were originally instituted. 
 
 Possibly the reader may imagine that out of the 
 above-named sum of 1*6,530 there may be many out- 
 goings which would diminish the amount. There may 
 be, but not that we can see to any great degree. If, 
 again, there are any, in all probability they are consider- 
 ably lessened by the support given them by the hospital 
 authorities, either in pecuniary aid, or the cession of 
 valuable land belonging to the hospital, or both. We 
 have already stated that St. Thomas's Hospital school 
 building and land cost some 35,000 ; but as this ex- 
 penditure had been sanctioned by the Lord Chancellor, 
 though upon what principle it is difficult to understand, 
 nothing more can be said on the subject. But with St. 
 Bartholomew's it is different. If the reader will merely 
 visit and inspect the medical school buildings on the 
 hospital ground, and then take into consideration that 
 it has been estimated that every square foot of that 
 ground is worth some 5, he may form some rough 
 idea of the value of the whole. Apart from this, St. 
 Bartholomew's medical school has from time to time 
 received from the hospital authorities presents in hard 
 cash. The latest sum we are able to prove from the 
 Report of the Charity Commissioners was given some 
 twenty-five years since (no later account having been
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 287 
 
 forwarded to them), and amounted to 5,000 for the 
 erection and improvement of some school buildings. 
 
 It must not be sxipposed that we do not admit, and 
 to the full, the necessity and advantages of our medical 
 schools ; but we much doubt, when it can so easily be 
 proved by their returns that they may be made self- 
 supporting, whether it is justifiable to add to their 
 profits by applying to their use funds and valuable land 
 which were bequeathed or given for the sole benefit of 
 the patients. Nay, more (without in this case alluding 
 to St. Thomas's or St. Bartholomew's), applications are 
 frequently made to the public solely for the maintenance 
 of the sick poor in the hospitals, a part of which, and 
 occasionally a great part too, is applied to the further- 
 ance of the interests of a private profitable undertaking 
 the medical school ; and in support of our statement 
 we offer the following case in point. The reader is aware 
 that a livery company the Grocers' lately erected a 
 new wing to the London Hospital at a cost of 25,000, 
 and which, in commemoration of their " charity," is to 
 be hereafter called the " Grocers' Wing." How far 
 any " charity " was shown by the Grocers' guild in the 
 matter it would be somewhat difficult to determine. 
 Had the members of that company subscribed from their 
 own private resources the sum necessary for the erec- 
 tion of the new wing, it would have been impossible to 
 have complimented them too highly for their philan- 
 thropy ; but to bestow money placed in their hands for 
 other uses than the one to which they in this case 
 applied it, hardly entitles them to the credit of an act
 
 288 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 of personal charity. At the same time it must be ad- 
 mitted that the poor, in this instance, benefit by the uses 
 they placed the money to in the erection of the hospital 
 wing ; and being one of the few applications of money, 
 in any sum, for the benefit of the working classes by 
 the City guilds, we will admit a certain amount of 
 credit is due to them in the matter. 
 
 The wing, as the reader is aware, was opened with 
 great state and ceremony by her Majesty ; and on the 
 score that the current expenditure of the hospital was 
 considerably in excess of its revenue, an urgent appeal 
 was made to the public to supply the deficiency, which 
 was responded to with more or less liberality. But about 
 the same time the appeal was made, the following extract 
 from the minutes of the meeting of the house com- 
 mittee of the London Hospital appeared in the Lancet 
 on May 13th, 1876 : "With reference to the subject 
 of medical school management, and in order to carry 
 into effect the decisions arrived at therein at the meet- 
 ings of the house committee and the past officers, which 
 have from time to time been specially held to consider 
 this matter, it was moved by Commander Davis, R.N., 
 seconded by H. J. Thompson, jun., Esq., and unani- 
 mously resolved : 
 
 " ' That with a view to the development and improve- 
 ment of the London Hospital medical school, and in con- 
 nection with the proposed joint management thereof in 
 future by representatives of the house committee and 
 of the medical council respectively, it be recommended 
 to the governors that, during the next three years, tho
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 289 
 
 present grants to the college, amounting to 290 per 
 annum, be replaced by a grant of 2,000 per annum, 
 the committee trusting that by this liberal assistance on 
 the part of the governors, the medical school of the 
 London Hospital may be placed on a more satisfactory 
 basis, to the great ultimate advantage of the charity. 5 " 
 
 At five per cent., 2,000 a year would repre- 
 sent the interest on 40,000, a sum not only far in 
 excess of that received on the occasion of the special 
 appeal to the public alluded to, but the whole of the 
 amount given at the sermons on Hospital Sunday and 
 Hospital Saturday fund put together. True, it is said the 
 2,000 a year is only to continue for three years, but if 
 it ceases at that time it will be very unlike the trans- 
 actions in money matters between the governing bodies 
 of hospitals generally and medical schools. Nor in 
 this place had the medical school of the London Hos- 
 pital the plea of poverty to offer in extenuation, for 
 without inquiring into the value of the ground given 
 by the governors to the school and other assistance 
 afforded it, we find that it has at present no fewer than 
 131 pupils, who, at the moderate sum of 30 per head 
 for tuition, will raise the revenue of the school from 
 that source alone to 3,690 per annum. 
 
 Let us now turn to another hospital, that of St. 
 Mary's, Bethlehem, for the insane. This, in common 
 with St. Thomas's and St. Bartholomew's, is termed a 
 royal hospital, and was instituted for " distracted 
 persons," and placed under the management and control 
 of the Mayor, Common Council, and Citizens of London. 
 
 V
 
 2 9 o THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 Nothing can be more explicit on this point than the 
 words of its original charter of King Charles L, dated 
 the 14th of October, 1638. "Know ye that we, from 
 our soul affecting and intimately desiring to support 
 and establish the said work (Bethlem Hospital), for us, 
 our heirs, and successors, do grant and confirm to the 
 said Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the said 
 City, and their successors, the said custody and ordering 
 and government of the said house and hospital called 
 Bethlem, and all manors, lands, tenements, possessions, 
 and revenues whatsoever, and wheresoever lying and 
 being, belonging and appertaining to the same house 
 and hospital called Bethlem, and do make, ordain, and 
 constitute by these presents, those the Mayor and Com- 
 monalty and Citizens of the said City, and their suc- 
 cessors, masters, keepers, and governors of the said 
 house and hospital called Bethlem, and of the said 
 manors, lands, tenements, and other premises belonging 
 
 to the same house called Bethlem And further, 
 
 for us, our heirs, and successors we will, and by these 
 presents declare our good pleasure, and do charge the 
 came Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the said 
 City, and their successors, that they do not deliver nor 
 grant the said manors, lands, tenements, possessions, or 
 revenues belonging to the said house or hospital, or any 
 part of them, for any term or terms of years exceeding 
 the number of one and twenty years, to commence 
 from the time of the making of such like grant or lease, 
 in possession, and not in reversion." The powers men- 
 tioned above were further confirmed by the " Act of
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARIIIES. 291 
 
 Parliament confirming Agreements with the Governors 
 of Hospitals," 22 George III., 1782, in which the Lord 
 Mayor and Common Council were still invested with 
 the government and control of Bethlem Hospital, which, 
 from its first foundation as a religious house by Simon 
 Fitzmary, sheriff of London, 1247, had stood near the 
 church of St. Botolph, without Bishopsgate. Fitzmary 
 established it as a priory of canons, with brethren and 
 sisters ; and Edward III., in the fourteenth year of his 
 reign, granted a protection for the brethren, Militia 
 Beatce, Mariee de Bethlem, within the City of London. 
 
 About the year 1809 it was decided to remove this 
 hospital, which had remained in its old locality, from its 
 original foundation into St. George's Fields, South wark, 
 and a large plot of ground containing several acres, 
 now of great value, was secured and appropriated for 
 the purpose. A very large sum of money, at least for 
 that day, was expended on the building, which, however, 
 in common with other instances which might be quoted 
 of a much later date, by no means yielded a correspond- 
 ing amount of benefit. It is of vast size ; at the same 
 time, in the opinion of most if not all physicians accus- 
 tomed to the treatment of insane patients, it is by no 
 means adapted to the purposes for which it was origin- 
 ally intended. It was built to accommodate 200 pa- 
 tients, who are indisputably treated with great skill, 
 kindness, and attention. In fact, it would be impossible 
 to mention a lunatic asylum in England where greater 
 sympathy and care are lavished on the patients, but at 
 what cost we shall presently show. It should be men-
 
 2 92 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 tioned, however, that at the opening of the present 
 hospital, Lord Eldon, then Lord Chancellor, made some 
 alterations in its management. The sole control and 
 government was taken from the City of London, 
 leaving, however, the Corporation of the City the 
 greatest powers, but adding others to them, with what 
 beneficial results it would be impossible to say. On 
 one point the Lord Chancellor made an alteration, 
 possibly, perfectly consistent with his peculiar interpre- 
 tation of the word " charity," which may very probably 
 differ from that of the reader, and is the better worth 
 quoting as another specimen of the utter disregard 
 often paid by the Court of Chancery to the original 
 intention of many of our charitable endowments. Prior 
 to its removal to Southwark an excellent rule existed 
 in the admission of patients to this charity. Although 
 it had been considered from the time of its original 
 charter as the pauper lunatic asylum of the metropolis, 
 a regulation was made that any patient having money 
 of his own, or who had relations capable of assisting 
 him, should pay a weekly sum for his support, more or 
 less in proportion with his means. If totally destitute, 
 the patient was admitted gratuitously. Lord Eldon 
 amended this rule, and the amendment is maintained, 
 we believe, up to the present day. By it all those who 
 are too poor to contribute anything towards their sup- 
 port are rigorously excluded, while those who are able 
 of themselves, or through their friends, to contribute 
 something in return for the benefits received are admitted 
 gratuitously. By this change the purely charitable
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 293 
 
 intention of the original endowment is in great part 
 lost, and instead of being, as was intended, the pauper 
 lunatic asylum of the metropolis, it is now a retreat for 
 the lower middle-class patients. 
 
 Let us now consider at what cost these three City 
 hospitals are worked, what is their gross income, as 
 well as what good might be done were they more 
 economically managed; and if we do not fully prove 
 the theory of Lord Brougham, that if our hospitals were 
 carefully managed their gross revenue would be suffi- 
 cient for the maintenance of the whole sick poor of the 
 metropolis, we shall be able to show that the waste 
 alone to be detected in the management of these three 
 hospitals would, in itself, do an amount of extra good 
 scarcely inferior to that which they at present perform. 
 Anticipating an objection which may possibly be made, 
 that to diminish the expenditure of these hospitals 
 would be to deprive the patients of many of the com- 
 forts and benefits they receive, we will draw a com- 
 parison -bet ween the expenditure and good derived from 
 another hospital more economically managed, and which, 
 for the skill of its medical and surgical staff, and general 
 kindness and attention bestowed on the patients, is, 
 without claiming any superiority, fully equal to either 
 of the great City hospitals. We allude to the West- 
 minster. 
 
 As the reader is possibly aware, the Westminster 
 Hospital is situated near the north bank of the river 
 Thames, and nearly opposite that of St. Thomas's on 
 the south bank. From its first institution till the
 
 294- THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 present day its physicians and surgeons have been 
 among the most eminent in London. If St. Bartholo- 
 mew's can boast of Harvey, the supposed discoverer 
 of the circulation of the blood, the Westminster with 
 fully as much reason can boast of Chiselden and 
 Pyle, whose reputations were fully equal, as surgeons, 
 physiologists, and anatomists, to that of Harvey, and 
 founded on more certain data. In later times it num- 
 bered among its staff the names of Lynn, White, Sir 
 Anthony Carlisle, Guthrie, Sir George Tothill, Bright, 
 and many others ; and at present, Bond, the eminent 
 professor of medical jurisprudence, Dr. Basham 
 Barnard Holt, Fenshaw, Macnamara, and others no 
 less eminent. Of the appointments of the hospitals 
 none are superior in London, and the cures effected 
 equal to any. The nursing, one of the most important 
 elements in the present practice of medicine, may stand 
 in honourable competition with the most celebrated 
 hospitals in Europe. If the patients in St. Thomas's 
 Hospital are nursed by ladies from Miss Nightingale's 
 school, and St. Bartholomew's by those of St. John's 
 House, or any other equally celebrated institution, 
 those in the Westminster are under the charge of 
 ladies trained in the celebrated school established by 
 the late lamented Lady Augusta Stanley, and are in 
 the performance of their duties directly under the 
 superintendence of Miss Mary Merryweather, who 
 founded and for several years superintended the cele- 
 brated nursing institution attached to the great hos- 
 pital in Liverpool, while the subordinate officials are
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 295 
 
 as efficient as in any other hospital in the metropolis. 
 With such a staff as this it must be evident that any 
 one doubting the skill and attention bestowed upon 
 the patients must be difficult indeed to convince. 
 
 Let us now ascertain at what cost this valuable in- 
 stitution is carried on, not simply without parsimony, 
 but with ample liberality, if in this instance at least 
 the tree may be judged by its fruits. The West- 
 minster Hospital contains at an average 210 in-patients. 
 It is maintained partly by endowments and partly by 
 annual subscriptions and donations. The annual cost 
 of the establishment, including the maintenance of 
 patients, drugs, surgical instruments, salaries for offi- 
 cials and servants, and establishment charges of all 
 descriptions, including rates and taxes, amounts to 
 8,540 a year. To this cost should be added house- 
 rent or the annual value of the building and ground on 
 which it stands. True, the building is freehold, belong- 
 ing to the charity, but its value has been estimated at 
 30,000 ; but to meet any objection which may be made 
 as to its being less than the present value, seeing that it 
 was made some ten years since, we will assume its value 
 at 50,000, which, at four per cent, interest, would 
 make, house-rent included, the cost of each bed between 
 50 and 60 per annum. Our reason for including 
 the amount of rental is, that the endowed charities have 
 the somewhat unfair habit o^ concealing, when they 
 state their revenues, the value of the buildings and 
 ground on which the institution in question stands. 
 
 Let us now attempt to form an estimate of the re-
 
 296 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 venues of the three great City hospitals, and commence 
 with that of St. Thomas's. This hospital, like that of 
 the "Westminster, is maintained by endowments and 
 subscriptions, but both are] greatly in excess of the 
 Westminster, proportionate numbers of patients taken 
 into consideration. We find by the report of the 
 Charity Commission, some time prior to the purchase of 
 the hospital by the railway, that its endowed income 
 was then quoted at 42,800 a year, and which has 
 since, by the great rise in the value of property, in- 
 creased so much that it may now fairly be estimated at 
 50,000. To this, however, should be added the value 
 of the ground and building on which, as we stated 
 before, so large a sum had been expended; and esti- 
 mating the cost of both at only 400,000 (in reality it 
 far exceeded that amount), and calculating interest at 
 four per cent., it would raise the gross annual revenue 
 of the hospital to 65,000 per annum. At present the 
 number of patients in the hospital is stated (and we 
 believe correctly) to be 400. 
 
 The gross annual revenue of St. Bartholomew's Hos- 
 pital is much larger than that of St. Thomas's, but the 
 number of patients is about a third more. It has 
 altogether about 600 beds, without counting those in 
 a convalescent hospital at Hackney. Its income from 
 endowments and other sources, the value of the re- 
 versionary increase when present leases fall in, will 
 certainly not be less than 65,000 per annum. To 
 this, however, should be added the value of the build- 
 ings and the ground on which they stand. To
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 297 
 
 arrive at a just valuation of these would be somewhat 
 difficult ; but from the price lately offered by a railway 
 company for Christ's Hospital, which abuts on St. 
 Bartholomew's, it would be worth some 350,000, 
 which at four per cent, would yield 14,000 per annum, 
 making a total of 79,000 per annum as its real in- 
 come. Bethlem Hospital, according to the report of 
 the Charity Commissioners published some ' fourteen 
 years since, was stated to be 23,854 19s. Id. ; but since 
 that date the value of its endowments, in common with 
 all other landed property, has greatly increased, and 
 with its reversionary interests its present income may, 
 without exaggeration, be quoted at about 30,000 per 
 annum. To this, in like manner with the other hos- 
 pitals we have named, must be added the value of the 
 present hospital and the large space of ground on 
 which it stands. The value of this ground and the 
 buildings on it is certainly not less than 5,000 per 
 annum (and that, too, at a very moderate valuation), 
 making a total estimated value of not less than 35,000 
 per annum. The managers of this hospital state that 
 its income is not beyond the amount required for its 
 proper maintenance, but the reader may, with a little 
 consideration, judge on that point for himself. Accord- 
 ing to the last report published by its managers, its 
 expenditure appears to us to be most extravagant. 
 Among other items let us take one. The cost of the 
 staff, including the superior officials, servants, and 
 nurses for less than two hundred patients figures for 
 5,100 a year. Compare that amount with the cost
 
 298 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 for staff at the Idiot Asylum at Caterham. There we 
 find no fewer than 1,800 patients, who in every way 
 are as well cared for as those in Bethlem, but the gross 
 cost of the entire staff is only 6,361 per annum. It 
 may possibly be said that the patients in Bethlem 
 Hospital are of a description more difficult to manage 
 than those of Caterham. But admitting, as we do, that 
 patients suffering from acute mania require a greater 
 amount of attention than imbeciles, we still maintain 
 that the amount expended in Bethlem is excessive. As 
 a proof, we may mention that in the Criminal Lunatic 
 Asylum at Fisherton one of the largest and best 
 managed in the kingdom, and where the patients were 
 of the most dangerous class the cost did not exceed 
 lls. per head per week, or 28 12s. per year. 
 
 Let us now inquire if the funds of these three great 
 City hospitals were as economically managed as the 
 Westminster, where fully as much skill and attention is 
 bestowed on the patients, and with fully as beneficial 
 results, what amount of benefit might be derived from 
 them ? In the first place, the total number of patients 
 in these City hospitals amounts to about twelve hun- 
 dred, and of course the funds would be amply sufficient 
 to maintain them without any reduction in their num- 
 bers. Out of the surplus, an addition of a hundred and 
 fifty beds might be made to the Dreadnought Hospital, 
 and another one hundred and fifty to the Poplar Hos- 
 pital, both admirable but badly supported institutions, 
 and much in want of extension and assistance. 
 
 We have still a large surplus remaining to account
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 299 
 
 for, and we suggest that it might be employed in the 
 following manner. "We have already brought under 
 the notice of the reader the gross injustice inflicted on 
 the working classes in the east of London by the 
 removal of one of the City hospitals, St. Thomas's, in 
 great part instituted for their benefit, to the western 
 district in which it has since been erected. That injury 
 might to a great extent be condoned in the following 
 manner. The north-eastern and south-eastern districts 
 of the metropolis contain an aggregate population 
 little short of a million, a vast proportion of whom 
 are of the working classes. For their accommodation 
 and relief there is not one general hospital,* a fact 
 which, to the honour of civilisation, can be found only 
 in the richest (and, as it boasts itself, the most chari- 
 table) city in the world. From the surplus remaining 
 two hospitals might be built and maintained at the cost 
 of the "Westminster of three hundred beds each, one in 
 the north-eastern district, the other in the south-eastern. 
 As the new St. Thomas's Hospital was intended to hold 
 six hundred beds, instead of four hundred as at present, 
 this arrangement would go far to supply the deficiency 
 in hospital accommodation caused by its removal. 
 
 * The London Hospital principally relieves patients from the 
 neighbourhood of Whitechapel and the districts due east towards 
 Stepney, as well as the poor on the line of the river ; Guy's Hospital 
 principally those of Southwark and the districts by the line of the 
 river towards Eotherhithe, &c. The localities alluded to above are 
 on the south-east, Walworth, Camberwell, Peckham, Deptford, Green- 
 wich, &c. ; on the north-east, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Dalston, &c. 
 The Poplar and Dreadnought Hospitals are solely for men, the former 
 admitting only surgical cases.
 
 3 oo THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 But we have still a considerable sum to deal with, 
 and we would suggest that it might be applied to the 
 relief of a certain class of cases which, neither within 
 the walls of a hospital nor resident in their homes, 
 receive the amount of consideration from the public 
 they are by their misfortunes entitled to. We allude 
 to incurable patients, and their name is legion. These 
 are not admissible into our general hospitals, under the 
 pretext that institutions of the kind were intended for 
 the cure of patients, not to take charge of those who 
 cannot be cured. Again, it is no uncommon matter, 
 when a patient has been two months or something 
 more in a hospital without any perceptible benefit, 
 for his physician to consider him as incurable, and to 
 discharge him, utterly ignoring the fact that if he 
 was an object of sympathy when he entered the hos- 
 pital, he was still more so when discharged, his 
 malady no better, if not worse, and his power of 
 supporting himself still less. Some of these make 
 their way to the workhouse infirmaries, where they 
 are not unfrequently cured, after having been pro- 
 nounced incurable by the hospital staff again tending 
 to prove that the whole medical science of the metro- 
 polis is not solely confined to those physicians whose 
 names are held in most repute by the public. Others 
 return to their homes, or to those of their friends, 
 where, if they are unable to attend at the hospital, they 
 generally die. Possibly instances of this kind may 
 have come under the reader's notice ; if not, they are very 
 easily discovered, but, unfortunately, seldom looked for.
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES 301 
 
 After all, Dickens was right, when, speaking of our 
 poorer classes, he said, " I think the best side of such 
 people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are 
 to the poor is little known excepting to themselves and 
 God." If some of those gentlemen who are now so 
 loudly boasting of the philanthropy of the heads of the 
 medical profession, as shown by their attention and 
 kindness to the sick poor, would investigate the vast 
 amount of kindness to the sick exhibited by some of 
 our grossly maligned working classes, they might easily 
 find in very humble homes acts of untiring kindness 
 and humanity to the helpless sick that, with the excep- 
 tion of a majority of our nursing staffs, would put the 
 philanthropy of our eminent and fashionable physicians 
 far in the background. If any popular writer would 
 make a collection of these cases, graphically but not 
 sensationally written, he might publish a volume of far 
 greater and more genuine interest than nine-tenths of 
 those which at present issue from the press in such vast 
 abundance. 
 
 Another class of incurable cases, which from their 
 chronic nature are not admitted into our hospitals, 
 remains to be noticed, and these, unhappily, are to be 
 found in great numbers. Formerly different attempts 
 were made to receive a certain proportion of them into 
 the general hospitals. True, St. Thomas's was only to 
 receive " such cases as were curable ; " but St. Bartho- 
 lomew's, by its original charter, had no clause whatever 
 relieving them from the onus of receiving incurable 
 patients. Afterwards the governors of the Middlesex
 
 302 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 and Westminster Hospitals established in them wards 
 for incurable patients, but not sufficiently large or 
 liberally endowed to receive a tithe of the incurable 
 patients who applied for admission. Later still two 
 admirably managed hospitals were established for incur- 
 able patients, one at Putney the other at Clapham, but 
 neither by any means sufficiently extensive to meet the 
 demands made upon them, leaving still many hundreds 
 qualified for relief. It need hardly be said the presence 
 of a helpless incurable patient in the home of a poor 
 man must be a heavy tax upon the family, more espe- 
 cially when the invalid is unable by his or her exertions 
 to add anything to the limited family exchequer. Yet 
 cases of this kind may be found by hundreds all cared 
 for by members of their own family, stamping still 
 deeper the truth of Mr. Dickens's remark. The Hos- 
 pital for Incurables at Putney, the Hospital for the 
 Cure of Paralysis in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, and, 
 we believe, the Home for Incurables at Clapham, have 
 established a certain, but unfortunately a very small, 
 number of pensions. "We would now submit whether a 
 pension system of the kind might not be established on 
 the surplus still remaining of the waste of the three 
 great City hospitals? Would it not confer a great 
 benefit on the poor incurable patients at present receiv- 
 ing no relief if a thousand pensions of 20 per annum 
 were accorded them? And the funds left unappro- 
 priated would be far more than sufficient for the pur- 
 pose. There would still be a balance if the reader 
 will kindly follow our calculations he may verify the
 
 CITY MEDICAL CHARITIES. 303 
 
 fact himself of some 35,000 per annum, which might 
 go towards the maintenance of patients in the Small 
 Pox or Fever Hospitals, or the endowments of scholar- 
 ships at our medical schools. Or should the reader be 
 of a captious disposition, he may place the whole 
 amount to the reduction of any exaggeration he may 
 think we have been guilty of in our honestly intended 
 calculations. We now submit that we have sufficiently 
 proved that the three great City hospitals have been 
 managed in a disgracefully extravagant manner. If 
 the City authorities have exercised any authority in the 
 matter, they are greatly to blame; if they have not, 
 with, as we maintain, the power still in their hands, 
 their behaviour has been utterly inexcusable.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CITY ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 
 
 T)ESIDES the three royal hospitals mentioned in the 
 *-* last chapter, there are two others, in like manner 
 virtually under the control and management of the 
 City authorities, to be brought under the notice of the 
 reader Bridewell and the Bluecoat School. It may be 
 urged that so many alterations have been made in the 
 government of these charities, that the Lord Mayor, 
 Commonalty, and Citizens of London are no longer in 
 their corporate capacity answerable for any abuses or 
 mismanagement which may be detected in them, and 
 therefore it would be unjust to accuse them of being 
 parties concerned in the matter. But whatever altera- 
 tions may have taken place in the management, their 
 original charters remain unrepealed; and if by any 
 laches on their part their authority be diminished or 
 lost, they are open to strong animadversion for their 
 moral cowardice, neglect, or indifference, as the case 
 may be. 
 
 Let us commence with Bridewell. Its original 
 charter is dated 26th of June, 7 Edward VI., 1553.
 
 CITY ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 305 
 
 " Whereas," it says, " we pitying the miserable estate of 
 the poor, fatherless, decrepit, aged, sick and infirm, and 
 impotent persons, languishing under various kinds of 
 diseases, and also of our special grace, thoroughly con- 
 sidering the honest pious endeavours of our most humble 
 and obedient subjects, the Mayor, Commonalty, and 
 Citizens of our City of London, who by all ways and 
 methods diligently study for the good provision of the 
 poor and every sort of them, and that by such reason 
 and care neither children yet being in their infancy 
 shall lack good education and instruction, nor when 
 they shall obtain riper years shall be destitute of honest 
 callings and occupations, whereby they may honestly 
 exercise themselves in some good faculty and science 
 for the advantage and utility of the Commonwealth, 
 nor that the sick and diseased when they shall be 
 recovered and restored to health may remain idle and 
 lazy vagabonds of the state, but that they in like man- 
 ner may be placed and compelled to labour, at honest 
 and wholesome employments : Know ye that we as 
 well for the considerations aforesaid as of our special 
 grace and of our certain knowledge and mere motion, 
 desiring not only the progress, amplification, and in- 
 crease of so honest and noble a work, but also conde- 
 scending in our name and by our royal authority to 
 take upon ourself the patronage of this most excellent 
 and most holy foundation now lately established, have 
 given and granted, and by these presents do give and 
 grant, to the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of 
 London all that our manor, capital messuage, and tene- 
 
 x
 
 3 o6 THE CITY- AS IT IS. 
 
 ment, and our mansion house called Bridewell or 
 Bridewell Place, with all and singular its rights, mem- 
 bers, and appurtenances, situate, lying, and being in the 
 parish of Saint Breyed in Fleet Street, London, and all 
 and singular, houses, edifices, lands, tenements, rents, 
 reversions, and services, gardens, void grounds, places* 
 ways, easements, profits, and commodities whatsoever to 
 the said house in Bridewell Place in any wise belonging 
 or appertaining." 
 
 After enumerating a number of valuable estates, both 
 in London (especially mentioning the Savoy Palace or 
 Hospital, in the Strand, and all the property and revenues 
 belonging to it) and in different parts of the country, 
 all of which were to be applied to the endowment of 
 Bridewell Hospital, the charter goes on to show that 
 although the Mayor and Citizens of London were to 
 hvae the management of the charity, its benefits were 
 not to be confined solely to the City. " And further 
 we give and grant," it says, " for us our heirs and suc- 
 cessors, to the aforesaid Mayor and Commonalty and 
 Citizens of London aforesaid, and their successors for 
 ever, that it may and shall be lawful, as well to the 
 aforesaid Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens for the 
 time being, as to the same and such officers, ministers, or 
 governors as the aforesaid Mayor and Commonalty and 
 Citizens shall from time to time appoint or ordain to 
 be officers, ministers, or governors under them of the 
 said manor or house called Bridewell Place, or the 
 other houses or hospitals assigned for the aforesaid poor 
 and of two or three of them, at all times hereafter from
 
 CITY ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 307 
 
 time to time, as well within the said City of London 
 and the suburbs of the same as within our said county 
 of Middlesex," &c. 
 
 From an " Act of Common Council respecting the 
 maintenance of Bridewell Hospital," passed in the 
 reign of Elizabeth, 29th of May, 1590, it would appear 
 that the livery companies took also a part in the 
 government and maintenance of Bridewell Hospital. 
 It is certain they were taxed, in common with the 
 other royal hospitals, towards its support. The Act 
 says : " Also it is by this the same authoritie aforesaide 
 enacted, ordayned, and decreed that Mr. Richard Sal- 
 townstall and Stephen Soame, Aldermen, Thomas Wil- 
 ford and George Sotherton, Merchaunt Tailors, Thomas 
 Cordell, Mercer, John Harvey, John Moore, and Ran- 
 dall Morgan, Skinners, Simon Horspool, Richard 
 Bowdler/John Quarles Benedict Barneham, and James 
 Deane, Drapers, William Milward, Haberdasher, 
 Humphrey Weld and Richard Gore, Grocers, and 
 Thomas Bennett [trade illegible] or any eight or more 
 of them, shall at some time or times and place by them 
 to be appointed between this and the 24th day of June 
 next, meete, and bye their good discrecions devise and 
 set down some good meanes as well how the house of 
 Bridewell shall be henceforth maintained, as well as 
 how the arreayes that the same is run into shall be 
 paid. And Henry Lovell appointed to warne them." 
 
 Several other extracts might be taken from the 
 records of the City of London as well as the charters on 
 which the other royal hospitals were founded, all tending
 
 308 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 to prove that Bridewell was under the full management 
 and control of the Lord Mayor and Corporation of the 
 City of London, but not one tending in even the most 
 remote degree to remove it from their hands. Perhaps 
 the best idea of the particular uses for which Bridewell 
 Hospital was established may be formed from a report 
 entered in the minutes of the Court of Aldermen, 29th 
 March, 1644, 19 Charles I., entitled, "A report from the 
 president, three treasurers, and eleven governors of St. 
 Thomas, Christ's, and Bridewell Hospitals addressed 
 to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen." Speaking of the 
 latter hospital, the report recommends the Lord Mayor 
 for the time being to order the constables and beadles of 
 the wards to search from time to time for all sorts of 
 rogues, vagrants, idle women and children which beg, 
 wander, and lie idle in the streets, and bring them to 
 Bridewell, to be seen and examined by the governors 
 thereof, assisted by two governors of each of the other 
 hospitals, and to dispose and sort the sick poor and 
 lame who are unable to work to St. Bartholomew's or 
 St. Thomas's Hospital, and the small children not able 
 to work and born in the City to Christ's Hospital 
 to be brought up and taught, and when twelve years 
 old to send them back to Bridewell to be employed 
 in some good occupation. And the stout and sturdy 
 rogues and vagabonds, and the women and others of 
 small strength, to be employed in Bridewell. The 
 report was signed by the treasurers and eleven gover- 
 nors, and the following note was made thereto : " We 
 whose names are subscribed have perused this report,
 
 CITY ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 309 
 
 and conceive it to be according to law, and may pro- 
 duce good to the City. PETER PHEASANT, JOHN 
 GREENES. The report being openly read in the Court 
 of Aldermen was allowed of and ordered to be entered 
 on the Records and to be performed in all things." 
 
 From the above it will appear that Bridewell was 
 considered at the time spoken of as the City work- 
 house, the governors, however, having power to punish 
 delinquents and vagabonds in a manner hardly con- 
 sistent with our present ideas of poor-law jurisdiction. 
 It continued in this double capacity till a very late 
 date, and was even used till some four years since for 
 the punishment of unruly City apprentices, but these 
 only by order of the City Chamberlain; now, even 
 that power has fallen into disuse. By the Bridewell 
 Hospital Report, 1869, it seems that one apprentice 
 had in that year been detained in custody of the hos- 
 pital authorities for twenty-one days, eleven for fourteen 
 days, and one for seven days. A note in the report 
 also says that even in these cases a part of the time for 
 which their committal was made out was remitted. 
 The next year the governors refused to take charge of 
 any more unruly apprentices. 
 
 For many years the duties and objects for which 
 Bridewell Hospital was originally instituted dropped 
 off till a very few of them remained unimpaired at the 
 commencement of the present century. The establish- 
 ment of the poor-law in the City and the introduction 
 of parish workhouses rendered useless their labours in 
 that department ; and the organization first of the City
 
 310 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 watch, and afterwards of the police force, did away 
 with their duties of custodians of the peace. True 
 they had some prisoners under their control, and from 
 documents still remaining without taking into con- 
 sideration Hogarth's well-known plate on the subject 
 their rule appears to have been a severe if not a salu- 
 tary one. But the establishment of more prisons and 
 houses of correction, not to take into consideration the 
 new prison at Holloway, did away with that part of the 
 duties of the Bridewell governors, till at length they 
 were only left the school already mentioned. 
 
 It would be unjust to say that these schools, now 
 known as King Edward's Schools, have not been well 
 managed, so far as their original uses are concerned 
 those of a pauper charity school ; and even in the pre- 
 sent day the education the children receive is certainty 
 not superior to that given in the schools under the 
 management of the Metropolitan School Board, but at 
 what cost we shall 'presently show. In an entry in 
 Pepys's diary, October 3rd, 1664, he says, " I visited 
 Bridewell, and there I did with great pleasure see many 
 pretty works, and the little children employed every 
 one of them to do something, which was a very fine 
 sight, and worthy of encouragement." Industrial or 
 technical education was then, as now, a portion of their 
 training the school, in fact, at its commencement 
 being the industrial school attached to Christ's Hos- 
 pital. Other writers since Pepys's time have also 
 spoken in terms of high commendation of the training 
 the children received in these schools, but all describing
 
 CITY ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 311 
 
 them in the light of charity schools, in which children 
 received only that class of education which would enable 
 them to start in life either as domestic servants or 
 in some humble handicraft. Even at the present day, 
 when the value of good education among the industrial 
 classes is admitted by all, it is but little better. Al- 
 though the pupils are indisputably treated with great 
 kindness and consideration, their education, as well as 
 their food and raiment, is not superior to that of the 
 children in Mr. Spurgeon's orphanage at Clapham, or 
 the children in the High Church Orphanage at Clewer, 
 although it must be admitted that in these latter insti- 
 tutions they are especially well cared for. At the 
 same time, from the balance-sheet in the report of the 
 governors of these schools in 1872, it would appear 
 that the number of officials employed in King Edward's 
 Schools, as well as the salaries they receive, might be 
 considered sufficient to provide them with an education 
 quite equal to that given in the higher classes of King's 
 College, the Westminster, or University College 
 Schools. In defence of this opinion we will adduce a 
 few items from the balance-sheet of King Edward's 
 Schools, and then submit to the reader whether we 
 were not justified in coming to such a conclusion. By 
 it we find that solely to look after the spiritual welfare 
 of these 217 charity children there were in 1872 two 
 chaplains, the senior having a residence partly fur- 
 nished and 450 a year salary, and the assistant chap- 
 lain 120. Beyond these there was a powerful staff of 
 schoolmasters, trade instructors, and other officials
 
 312 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 employed on the establishment, amounting in all to no 
 fewer than twenty-four persons, being at the ratio of 
 one official or servant for every nine charity children.* 
 The cost of education and superintendence of the 217 
 children was in the year 1869 no less than 1,840 a 
 year a large proportion of the officials being also 
 boarded and lodged. 
 
 By the governors of King Edward's Schools' Report, 
 published 1869, they admit even at that date the 
 gross income of the foundation to be no less than 
 18,175 16s. Qd. per annum ; but this is far beneath 
 its present value. In the amount named, the value 
 of the ground on which Bridewell then stood and 
 that of the school, which has since been removed into 
 Surrey, are both omitted, the whole, at the lowest 
 computation, being worth at least 2,000 per annum. 
 But there are two other items to be taken into con- 
 sideration. The reader may possibly remember a 
 large plot of ground, stretching at the rear of the 
 houses on the western side of the road leading to 
 Blackfriars Bridge, and reaching nearly from Fleet 
 Street to the gasworks near the river. This ground, 
 which is of enormous value, and which remained idle 
 and unproductive for nearly twenty years, is the pro- 
 perty of Bridewell Hospital. It has, however, latety 
 been let on building leases, not only affording a large 
 
 * At the time the report was printed we are informed that the 
 managers of the charity intended to increase the number of children 
 to 300. But admitting this to have heen done without any increase 
 of the staff, the number of officials was far in excess of that required 
 for the instruction and superintendence of the children in the schools.
 
 CITY ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 313 
 
 and immediate increase to the revenues of the charity, 
 but a reversionary value as well. To this should also 
 be added the proportionate increase in the value of 
 property in London and elsewhere during the last eight 
 or nine years, and of which the estates with which 
 Bridewell was endowed have received their full share. 
 All these things being taken into consideration, it 
 would be no exaggeration to assume the gross income 
 of Bridewell Hospital to be no less than 25,000 per 
 annum. Of ;the revenue of the hospital the sum of 
 565 16s. a year is put down as salaries totally apart 
 from the schools ; but as the whole of the uses of 
 Bridewell appear, with the exception of the schools, to 
 have become extinct, it is difficult to understand what 
 the duties of the officials may be who receive that 
 amount in return for their services. 
 
 Wealthy as the Bridewell Hospital may be, and small 
 in proportion to their cost as may be the benefits 
 derived from it, in both cases it is surpassed by the 
 remaining royal hospital under City control and ma- 
 nagement the Bluecoat School, or Christ's Hospital. 
 It would be impossible to name an institution in 
 Europe established on more purely Christian prin- 
 ciples than the Bluecoat School, nor one which, at divers 
 times, has been more or less perverted from the uses it 
 was intended for. Stow, in his "Summerie," 1556, 
 speaking of Christ's Hospital, says, " It was established 
 to take the chylde out of the strete, which was the 
 seede and increase of beggury, by reason of ydle 
 bringing up. And to nouryshe the said chylde in
 
 314 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 some goode learninge, and exercise profitable to the 
 commonweale." He goes on to say that in one month 
 from the opening of the school, November 21st, 1552, 
 "chyldren had been taken from the stretes to the 
 numbre of fower hundred." Machyn also, in his 
 "Diary," about the same time, makes frequent men- 
 tion of the children in this school, all tending to prove 
 that they were taken from precisely the same class of 
 children as those which now come under the ministra- 
 tions of the Poor-law Board. For example, in 1552 
 he mentions, on the occasion of a Christmas treat 
 having been given to the children that "the boysse 
 wore cape skotys " (Scotch caps). On the 22nd day of 
 March, 1552, at the funeral of Mr. John Heths, 
 " dwellyng in Fenchyrche Strette, there went affor him 
 a hundreds chyldren of Gray Friars [Christ Church] 
 boysse and gyrlles two and two together, and he gave 
 them shurts and gyrdulls and makitors, and after that 
 they had wey and figges and good ale." Again, in 
 1557, speaking of the Spital sermon, he mentions the 
 children of Christ's Hospital being present : " And 
 alle the chyldren of the hospital, boyth men chyldren 
 and women chyldren, that be kepte with certayn landes 
 and the cherete of the nobul Citie of London." By 
 way of exciting the charity, doubtless, of the good 
 citizens of London, they generally, he said, attended 
 funerals, carrying green staves in their hands. 
 
 The original charter of Christ's Hospital so closely 
 in its wording resembles those of the other hospitals, 
 and the full control of its funds and management
 
 CITY ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 315. 
 
 which it gives to the Lord Mayor, Commonalty, and 
 Citizens of London is in like manner so explicit, that it 
 "would be a useless waste of the reader's time to dwell 
 at any length upon it. We shall, therefore, restrict 
 ourselves to a few remarks relative to the changes 
 which have been made in its management at different 
 epochs, always, leaving, however, the authority of the 
 Corporation unrepealed, though considerably circum- 
 scribed. 
 
 On the 30th September, 1567, 9 Elizabeth, a precept 
 was issued by the Mayor to the governors of Christ's 
 Hospital (as well as to the governors of the other royal 
 hospitals) to provide a strong sure chest for their trea- 
 sure chest, having three locks and keys, one to be kept 
 by the treasurer, one by the president, and the third by 
 an ancient governor, a member of the Common Council. 
 The Mayor appears to have been very precise as well 
 as authoritative in his directions : " We charge and 
 command you that with convenient spede do provide a 
 strong and sure chest to be your treasure chest, and 
 that ye do place or cause to be placed the same chest 
 in the most strongest and surest place in your saide 
 house, and cause the same to be substantially fastened 
 to some principall wall of the same house, with lynks of 
 yron, so that the same be not movable, and that you do 
 cause the saide chest to have three locks and three 
 keys, &c. And that in the saide cheste ye do repose 
 and bestowe all the money that is in your treasurer's 
 handes, and lykewise do cause to be bestowed from 
 tyme to tyme all such sommes of money as by
 
 3 1 6 THE CITY A S IT IS. 
 
 means cometh or hereafter shall come and be converted 
 to the use of the saide house. And that ye shall not 
 take out of the saide chest any some or sommes of 
 money otherwise than with the consent of the said pre- 
 sident, treasurer, and ancient commoner of the said 
 house, always provided that the treasurer of the saide 
 house for the tyme beinge shall have in his hands, as 
 by way of trust for the necessaries of the said house to 
 be provided aforehand with one hundred marks." After 
 certain equally stringent directions with respect to 
 book-keeping, auditing, and other matters, the precept 
 concludes in a manner clearly proving that Christ's 
 Hospital was considered at the time as an institution 
 directly under the control of the Lord Mayor and civic 
 authorities : " Faile ye not as ye tenden the honor of 
 this Cittie of London and the welthe and good conty- 
 niance of your said house. (Signed) BLACKWELL, 
 Mayor." 
 
 A modification of the liberal principles for the admis- 
 sion of destitute children was made about the time of 
 Charles I., at the same time practically admitting the 
 control of the Mayor and citizens over the management 
 of the institution. In a rule of the house touching 
 the admission of children it says, " There shall be no 
 chylde admitted into this hospitall except it be first 
 declared to this house, by a certificate in writinge, by a 
 vestry holden in the parishe by whom the suite is 
 made, and the same to be subscribed by the alderman 
 of the warde or his deputie, or of six of the auncients 
 of the saide parish at the least, that the saide childe
 
 CITY ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 317 
 
 was borne in lawful matrimonie, or else in no wise to 
 
 be admitted And this ordinance touchinge the 
 
 admission of children be not broken, except in cases of 
 extremity where losse of life and perishing would pre- 
 sently follow, if they be not received into the said hos- 
 pital, which is to be considered by the treasurer and 
 two of the almoners at the leaste, and the same childe 
 to be entered into the courte book, and by the trea- 
 surer and almoners to be underwritten, for the clerkes 
 warrant in that behalfe." 
 
 The following extract from the same rules respecting 
 the education and training of the children in Christ's 
 Hospital clearly shows the class for which the institu- 
 tion was intended. It is headed, " For putting Children 
 foorth to Service. Item. The treasurer, with one other 
 of the governors at the least, shall put forth any of the 
 children of this house to service, having a careful regard 
 to whom they be put, chiefly that they be honest per- 
 sons, and such as will be well able to keep them, and 
 to bring them up to such facultie, service, or occupation 
 as they may hereafter be good members of the common- 
 wealth. "Whereas, without such regard taken, they may 
 happen to become more poore than their poore parents 
 and also become evil members, to the great griefe of 
 such as relieve them daily in this house, and that as 
 nighe as they can to binde them with none that be not 
 freemen of this city ; and before they are put forth, 
 being men children, they may write and reade and 
 caste accounts, being founde apt thereto. And that suche 
 of the children as may be very pregnant and very apt
 
 3i8 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 to learning be reserved and kepte in the grammar 
 schole, in hope of preferment to the universities, where 
 they may be virtuously educated, and in time become 
 learned and good members of the commonweale." 
 
 Evelyn, in his Diary, mentions that he visited the 
 Bluecoat Schools in 1637, when the above rules were 
 still in force. " I likewise saw," he says, " Christ 
 Church and Hospital, a very goodly Gothic building 
 the hall, schools, and lodgings in great order for 
 bringing up of many hundred poor children of both 
 sexes. It is an exemplary charity." 
 
 The rules above mentioned held good till after the 
 great fire, and then several alterations were made as to 
 the admission of children, which greatly tended to 
 reduce the number of those absolutely destitute which 
 were sent by the parishes the class, in fact, for whose 
 benefit the institution was founded and greatly increas- 
 ing the patronage of the aldermen and other members 
 of the Corporation. Up to that time it would appear 
 that no children were refused, and if any applied for 
 whom there was no room in the house, they were 
 boarded out till such time as they could be received. 
 At the same time it must be admitted, that for some 
 years afterwards but few real abuses could be detected 
 in the administration of the school, nor were the new 
 rules they issued open to much objection. They are 
 dated February 9th, 1676, 29 Charles II. They were 
 as follows : 
 
 "1. That no children be taken but such as are the 
 children of freemen of this City.
 
 CITY ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 319 
 
 " 2. That no children be taken in but such as are 
 living within the City and liberty thereof." (This was 
 made void February 19th, 1677.) 
 
 " 3. That no children be taken in under the age of 
 seven years. 
 
 "4. That no children be taken in but such as are 
 orphans, wanting either father or mother or both. 
 
 " 5. That none be taken in that are foundlings, or 
 that are maintained at the parish charge. 
 
 " 6. That none be taken in that are lame, crooked, 
 or deformed, nor that have any infectious disease, as 
 the leprosy, scald head, itch, scab, or that have the evil 
 or rupture. 
 
 " 7. That none be admitted but such as are without 
 probable means of being provided for in other ways, 
 nor without a certificate as therein mentioned." 
 
 There was also another rule made, which, although 
 not immediately relating to the admission of chil- 
 dren, is worth quoting as showing how completely 
 the administration of the hospital was under the 
 Lord Mayor and Corporation of the City of London. 
 Referring especially to the Lord Mayor, it says, 
 " That in these rules there is first a particular pro- 
 vision made for the Lord Mayor." It then continues, 
 "Then, to testify the respect of the hospital to the 
 aldermen as such, and bearing the chief place in the 
 government of the City, there is a fixed settlement as 
 to their presentation and preference before all others ; 
 so that what was anciently but casual and uncertain 
 is by this rule made certain. There is also a particular
 
 320 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 respect to be paid to those aldermen that are of the 
 house who have their turn as aldermen and their turn 
 as governors." 
 
 So far there appears to be nothing objectionable in 
 the rules, but there then follows one which doubtless 
 was fairly enough intended at the time it was made, but 
 has in the end tended more to create the abuses to be 
 found in the charity from the time it was made till the 
 present day than possibly all the other rules put toge- 
 ther. Speaking of the admission of children it says, 
 " There is a care to be particularly taken for benefactors 
 and for all governors who may be useful to the house 
 and may be bountiful in their charity." 
 
 There can be but little doubt that the passing of this 
 rule opened the way to much corruption in the govern- 
 ment of the Bluecoat School. True, its benefactors 
 became far more liberal in their donations, and they 
 canvassed others to contribute, using their patronage, 
 however, to its fullest extent the while. The hospital 
 had also many valuable legacies bequeathed to it, in 
 fact it was supported in a very liberal manner ; but, 
 unfortunately, abuses in proportion crept into its 
 management. When these abuses had reached their 
 highest point, a reformer appeared on the scene who 
 effected a great but, alas ! not durable reformation, and 
 this was no other than the celebrated Samuel Pepys. 
 It is more than probable that the proximate cause of his 
 interference in the matter, more than any other, was a 
 ceremony which took place in consequence of two 
 eccentric legacies which had been left to two pupils who
 
 CITY ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 321 
 
 had been educated in the school. In a letter, dated 
 September 20th, 1695, to Mrs. Steward, he says, "One 
 thing there is indeed which comes in my way as a 
 governor of Christ's Hospital to hear of, which carries a 
 little mirth with it, and indeed is very odd. Two wealthy 
 citizens are lately dead, and have left their estates, one 
 to a Bluecoat boy and the other to a Bluecoat girl in 
 Christ's Hospital. The extraordinariness of which has 
 led some of the magistrates to carry it on to a match, 
 which is ended in a public wedding, he in his habit of 
 blue satin, led by two girls, and she in blue, with an 
 apron green and petticoat yellow, all of sarsnet, led 
 by two of the boys of the house through Cheapside 
 to Guildhall Chapel, where they were married by 
 the Dean of St. Paul's, she given away by my Lord 
 Mayor. The wedding dinner, it seems, was kept in 
 the hospital hall . . . Bow bells are just now 
 ringing, ding, dong, but whether for this I cannot 
 presently tell; but it is likely enough, for I have 
 known them ring on much foolisher occasions, and 
 lately too." 
 
 "Whether this was the first cause of Pepys turning his 
 attention to the abuses and extravagancies to be found in 
 Christ's Hospital it would be difficult to say ; but two 
 years later we find the following entry in a report of 
 the Court of Aldermen : " Letter and other papers 
 from Samuel Pepys, Esq., relating to Christ's Hos- 
 pital, being read, the Town Clerk was directed to pre- 
 pare an answer, to be perused and approved by the 
 Lord Mayor before sent. After many attempts to evade
 
 3*2 THE CITY AS 77 IS. 
 
 complying with the letter written by the Lord Mayor, 
 insisting upon the governors of the hospital bringing 
 their accounts before the Court of Aldermen, as well as 
 answers to the accusation brought against them by 
 Pepys of 'ill-management and misapplication of the 
 revenue of Christ's Hospital,' a portion of the accounts 
 was brought forward, but a greater portion under differ- 
 ent excuses withheld. Even now, however, sufficient 
 was shown to prove that great abuses existed in the 
 administration of the hospital, and the Court of Alder- 
 men determined to make a searching examination into 
 the accounts. Pepys, instead of being further snubbed, 
 as he appears to have been when he first brought the 
 affair under the notice of the Court, now rose to high 
 favour, and was presented with the freedom of the 
 City, and on the following month, June 20th, 1699, 
 we find this entry in the reports of the Court of 
 Aldermen : " Sir John Moore, knight and alderman, 
 and president of Christ's Hospital, representing unto 
 the Court his great age and infirmity of body which 
 rendered him unable for such attention and apprecia- 
 tion of his own person as the trust and service of that 
 hospital required, begged the Court to permit him 
 to lay down his presidentship." The Court having 
 granted his request, resolved, " That Samuel Pepys, 
 Esq., having given so many eminent proofs of his 
 zeal and vigilance for the interests of that hospital, and 
 his ability to carry on and effect its reformation, the 
 Court was of opinion that he was the most qualified 
 person to be appointed, and the Court requested (it
 
 CITF ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 323 
 
 being an office of charity especially at this time) that 
 he would accept thereof." 
 
 Pepys seems to have set about his work with great 
 energy, and was soon able to show that not only the 
 greatest abuses existed in the management of the hos- 
 pital, but liberal as had been the contributions it had 
 lately received, its extravagance had been such that 
 it was almost in a state of insolvency. He clearly 
 proved these facts to the Court of Aldermen, and they 
 resolved to place the government of the hospital more 
 distinctly than before under the rule of the City 
 authorities, " according to its ancient observances and 
 uses." 
 
 From that time to the present the charity has re- 
 mained to all intents and purposes an institution under 
 the control and authority of the Corporation of the City 
 of London, although the practice of persons, paying a 
 certain sum of money for the privilege of nominating 
 children, and thereby becoming governors, has, per- 
 haps, not left their authority quite as omnipotent 
 as before. By the report of the Select Committee of 
 the House of Commons, of which Henry Brougham 
 (Lord Brougham) was chairman, the question of the 
 authority of the Corporation was gone into somewhat 
 minutely. The following are a few of the questions 
 and answers : 
 
 " Who are the governors of the hospital ? The 
 Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of 
 London, as represented by the Lord Mayor, Alder- 
 men, and twelve of the Common Councilmen, chosen.
 
 3>4 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 by the rest of the Common Council out of their 
 body. 
 
 " By what law or custom is the Corporation of the 
 City of London so represented for the purposes of this 
 charity? The Act of Parliament of the year 1782 
 settled the disputes between the City of London and 
 the hospital. It is entitled, &c. Since the passing of 
 this Act the share of the government of this hospital 
 belonging to the Corporation of the City of London 
 has become vested in the Mayor, Aldermen, and twelve 
 Common Councilmen chosen by the whole Common 
 Council. 
 
 "Who are the governors besides the Corporation 
 of the City of London? Noblemen and gentlemen 
 of all ranks who become benefactors to a certain 
 amount. 
 
 " Then are the Committee to understand that the 
 Mayor, each alderman, and each of the twelve common 
 councilmen chosen by the rest of their body have all 
 the privileges of individual governors? Yes, they 
 have; each of them is*a governor, but the aldermen 
 have exclusive rights. 
 
 "Who is the head of the charity? A president, 
 elected by the body of governors, and no instance has 
 been known of its being other than an alderman of 
 London. 
 
 " Is he elected for life ? Yes, as long as he con- 
 tinues to be an alderman. 
 
 " How do the governors present to the charity ? 
 The Lord Mayor presents two, one being extra as
 
 CITY ENDO WED SCHOOLS. 3 2 5 
 
 lord mayor ; the president, as president, two, and one 
 as alderman ; the other twenty-four aldermen each one 
 annually, provided any children are admitted. 
 
 " Suppose the Lord Mayor was president ? He 
 would have two as lord mayor and two as pre- 
 sident." 
 
 It may be seen by the above how completely Christ's 
 Hospital is a City charity, and as such the Corpora- 
 tion are fully open to censure should any extravagance 
 or abuses be detected in its management. 
 
 Let us now submit a short extract from the last 
 report of the Charity Commissioners respecting Christ's 
 Hospital, which was drawn up by Mr. Thomas Hare 
 February 12th, 1864, and which appears to be as just 
 and impartial a document as ever was published by that 
 influential body. By it we find in that year, apart 
 from the valuable estates with which the charity was 
 endowed, the trustees had in the Bank of England no 
 less than 635,000. Apart from other City patronage 
 it appears that the Grocers' Company, in the year 
 1848, presented the charity the sum of 10,000, under 
 the condition, however, that they should be allowed to 
 have always six children in the school. Now, taking 
 into consideration the average gross cost of a child in 
 that school, they received for that act of philanthropy 
 a return of six per cent. How many children pre- 
 sented by them were sons of members of the grocers' 
 trade is not stated. The expenditure in 1864 for the 
 working staff of this charity school for 1,200 children 
 was as follows :
 
 326 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 *. d. 
 
 Masters, teachers, and stationery . . 10,432 
 
 Medical staff, &c 1,500 
 
 Officers and clerks and residential charges 2,250 
 
 Steward, servants, beadles, Sec. . . 5,800 
 
 Pensions to retired officers . . 1,458 
 
 Total . 21,440 0. 
 
 Mr. Hare calculated the gross <jost per head of the 
 children 'the same year as follows : 
 
 *. d. 
 
 Cost for education . . . . 41 2 6 
 
 For house-rent, &c. . ', f _ . t 14 
 
 Apprenticeship, &c. . . . . , 3 
 
 58 2 6 
 
 But Mr. Hare, in 1864, in his calculation estimated 
 the value of the premises and the grounds on which 
 they stand at 200,000 ; but the trustees were offered 
 two or three years since for the Newgate Street pro- 
 perty alone no less than 600,000, and which, consider- 
 ing the extent of the ground 'alone (five acres), and 
 comparing the amount offered with the sum received 
 for St. Thomas's Hospital, would not appear more than 
 its value, which would add at the least 15 a year to 
 the cost of each child, or a gross total of 73 per 
 head. But Mr. Hare mentions another subject, which, 
 in our opinion, ought to be brought more before the 
 public than it is the gross injustice done to the female 
 children in the school. It was instituted for an equal 
 number of boys and girls. At the time of Mr. Hare's 
 report there were in the schools some twelve hundred
 
 CITY ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 327 
 
 boys and twenty-seven girls. With respect to the gross 
 income of Christ's Hospital, it appears to have been, in 
 1864, about 70,000 a year. But, as before shown, at 
 least 15,000 a year should be added for the increased 
 value of the ground on which it standa; and taking 
 into consideration the enormous increase in the value 
 of its estates, both present and reversionary, the in- 
 come of the charity will be hardly less than 100,000, 
 from which, however, should be deducted 7,000 per 
 annum for the blind charity under the management of 
 the governors of the Bluecoat School. 
 
 Let us now take up again the question of the Bride- ' 
 w^ll, or King Edward's School, also under the control of 
 the Corporation, which, as we before mentioned, was 
 instituted as the industrial school attached to Christ's 
 Hospital, and joining their revenues, see what amount 
 of good might be drawn from them instead of that 
 they at present yield. Leaving out of the question for 
 the moment the value of the school buildings and land 
 they stand on, we will assume the whole immediate 
 value of their joint incomes, together with their pro- 
 spective increase before the lapse of ten years, at 
 100,000 per annum. Assume that the boys in the 
 Bluecoat Charity School were sent to their homes, and 
 their parents or friends allowed 35 per annum for five 
 or six years for the board, maintenance, and instruction 
 of each child, what might be done with the 55,000 
 per annum surplus ? It might have been applied to the 
 board, clothing, education, &c., of two thousand orphan 
 girls, at an annual cost of 25 each, house-rent in-
 
 328 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 eluded an expenditure of about twenty per cent, more 
 than at the Anglican sisterhood's establishment at 
 Clewer with a balance remaining sufficient for the 
 maintenance of the boys in King Edward's Schools at 
 the cost per head of the boys in Mr. Spurgeon's Orphan- 
 age at Clapham, leaving still untouched the revenue 
 which might be derived from the land on which the 
 buildings stand (at least 600,000) unaccounted for.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 
 
 have still to bring under the notice of the 
 reader other City charities, which cannot be 
 properly considered as entirely parochial or under the 
 absolute control of the Corporation or livery companies, 
 but in which the inhabitants of the metropolis at large 
 have directly or indirectly an interest, and these chari- 
 ties are not only as wealthy, but their funds are as dis- 
 gracefully wasted and abused as any of those we have 
 mentioned. Fortunately, however, the abuses alluded 
 to have aroused the energies of a very powerful body, 
 the Metropolitan School Board, and they have lately 
 issued a report and schedule of the London educational 
 endowments, which, though without touching on other 
 charities, have brought to light so vast an amount of 
 extravagance and waste in the management of these 
 trusts as to arouse the suspicions of all under whose 
 notice it may come that other charitable trusts may be 
 managed in a like discreditable manner. Although 
 the report issued by the London School Board applies 
 to all educational charities in the metropolis, nine-
 
 330 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 tenths of these are either under the absolute control of 
 the City or livery companies, and an equal proportion 
 of the blame for their maladministration is justly their 
 due. 
 
 The report of the School Board alluded to, as well 
 as the preliminary r*emarks, appear to have been drawn 
 up by Mr. Bramley, the minuting clerk of the Board, 
 and admirably he seems to have performed the difficult 
 task assigned to him. His figures are evidently most 
 correct, and the remarks which precede them, while 
 perfectly courteous, are written in a phraseology so 
 straightforward and candid as to merit the respect and 
 thanks of all interested in the just administration and 
 reform of our City and other charities. Speaking of 
 the opposition and difficulties thrown in his way, Mr. 
 Bramley says, " The work undertaken by your com- 
 mittee was one of no common difficulty. The founda- 
 tions in London for the promotion of learning and 
 labour are, for the most part, superintended by ancient, 
 wealthy, and influential corporations or governing 
 bodies, proud of their trust and jealous of their preroga- 
 tives, from whom no willing co-operation in this inves- 
 tigation could be expected Under these cir- 
 cumstances, your committee at once recognised that 
 it would be idle to proceed by the method of personal 
 examination. They felt that to invite the attendance 
 of witnesses or the production of evidence would only 
 arouse resentment and refusal. The sources of intelli- 
 gence open to them were circumscribed to Parliament- 
 ary and official returns, ordinary publications, the
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 331 
 
 information which might be granted by the depart- 
 ments of Government, and private inquiry." After 
 mentioning the courtesy and kindness the committee 
 received from the Charity Commissioners, Mr. Bramley 
 continues : " With great willingness they employed 
 their mediation in quarters to which their position and 
 connections gave them access, but the functionaries of 
 the City companies were not found to be communica- 
 tive, though the companies on other occasions have 
 shown a friendly inclination towards the Board." 
 
 In a foot-note the report mentions the friendly acts of 
 the livery companies towards the London School Board,, 
 but we cannot help thinking there must be a latent 
 amount of sarcasm in the gratitude the Board express*. 
 " The following benefactions," the note says, " have 
 been bestowed on public elementary schools in London 
 (to be superintended by the London School Board) by 
 the City companies : Cloth workers' Company, two 
 scholarships of 30 per annum each for four years ; 
 Skinners' Company, one scholarship of 30 per annum 
 for four years; Drapers' Company, seven scholarships 
 of 30 per annum each for four years ; making a gross 
 sum of 1,200 to be expended in four years. The 
 bare assessment for the poor-rate of their halls alone 
 during the four years, without calculating the cost of 
 maintaining them, or feasts given in them, would be 
 68,000 during the period, and their liberality in the 
 cause of education, as exemplified by their donations to 
 the School Board, would therefore be something under 
 sixpence in the pound on that amount. But it should
 
 33* THE CITFAS IT IS. 
 
 be borne in mind that the 1,200 named is the whole 
 amount received by the School Board from the livery 
 companies for the cause of education in the metropolis ; 
 and scant as may appear to the reader the generosity 
 of the three companies named in the report, it reaches 
 by comparison to lavish liberality when compared with 
 the aggregate wealth of the City guilds, which, after 
 deducting the charities they are compelled to support, 
 will still leave them an income of some 450,000 per 
 annum. 
 
 In the facts and figures which we have from time to 
 time brought under the notice of the reader, we have 
 dwelt upon the systematic manner the proximate or 
 immediate increase about to take place in the revenues of 
 the parochial and endowed charities belonging to the 
 City of London, as well as the value of their buildings 
 and the ground on which they stand, are invariably 
 omitted. In doing so, however, we have more than once 
 been under the apprehension that, especially in the 
 former instance, we may have been thought to have 
 overstated our case. As the report of the School Board 
 distinctly endorses our opinion on the injustice of leav- 
 ing unnoticed these proximate additions to the revenues 
 of the City charities, we will quote verbatim the para- 
 graph alluding to the subject : " Endowments distinctly 
 destined for education may have eluded discovery, some 
 which might under recent enactments be so appro- 
 priated are not included. The estimates of revenue, 
 dating from periods more or less remote, are greatly 
 understated with reference to the present time, and no
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 333. 
 
 account is taken of proximate sources of increase which in 
 many cases are certain and important. Notwithstanding 
 the omission and abatement alluded to," the report con- 
 tinues, "the present return shows that the interests of 
 learning and labour, within the limits of the jurisdic- 
 tion of your Board, have inherited from the munificence 
 of the past an annual revenue of 222,459, of which 
 208,891 are appropriated to education, and 13,567 
 to industrial training a sum which exceeds by 65,879 
 the whole amount of the school-rate assigned at present 
 in the metropolis to the current expenses of elementary 
 education, irrespective of the cost of building, the 
 interest on borrowed money, and the reimbursement of 
 the debt." 
 
 Speaking of the City charities, the School Board 
 report continues : "A general view, however, of the 
 original character and actual appropriation of the great 
 educational foundations of London leaves on the minds 
 of your committee impressions which it is believed 
 must be extensively shared by moderate and impartial 
 persons, and which may be briefly embodied in the 
 following terms. The foundations referred to were 
 in the main designed for the support, education, and 
 advancement of poor children belonging to the 
 humblest class, and they have been largely applied for 
 the benefit of children who are not poor, or who are 
 poor in a superior order of life. These endowments, 
 or a large portion of the increment arising from them, 
 might, without any perversion of the intention of the 
 founders, have been applied to the elementary, indus-
 
 334 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 trial, and reformatory education of the children of the 
 London poor in the forms at present credited. . . . 
 Under the impulse of the Charity Commissioners, 
 foundations created for the benefit of the poorest class 
 are systematically applied for the promotion of middle- 
 class education, with some indirect or incommensurate 
 recognition of the claims of elementary education. 
 Endowment is treated as the peculiar heritage of the 
 middle orders. The masses are to be provided for by 
 voluntary contributions, government aid, and the 
 school-rate. This principle may be discovered in most 
 of the schemes of the Charity Commissioners, who 
 have derived it from the Endowed Schools Commission. 
 It is conspicuous in the plans for the regulation of the 
 great foundations of Dulwich College and Saint Paul's 
 School, still under revision." 
 
 Speaking of the manner many of the richer endow- 
 ments for educational purposes are warped from their 
 original uses, the report in a foot-note continues : 
 " Christ's Hospital was intended * for the virtuous bring- 
 ing up of miserable youths ; ' Dulwich College de- 
 signed * for the better maintenance, education, relief, 
 and sustenance of poor and needy people, men, 
 women, and children, the poor children to be orphans,' 
 or ' at least such as their parents receive the weekly 
 alms of the parish, and also for a day school in which 
 the children of Dulwich are to be taught/ without 
 recompense or reward ; Charterhouse, on the educa- 
 tional side, 'a free school for the instructing, teach- 
 ing, maintenance, and education of poor children or
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 335 
 
 scholars ; ' St. Paul's School's main intention free edu- 
 cation in a day school. All these foundations have 
 practically become middle-class or upper-class schools, 
 or are designed to become so under schemes emanating 
 from the Endowed Schools Commission or Charity 
 Commission." 
 
 The abuses to be detected in the administration of 
 the Bluecoat School we have already alluded to, and, 
 would space allow us, we could point out others equally 
 glaring in the other endowed educational charities 
 mentioned above. Let us take for an example the 
 Charterhouse, a school which, if not directly under the 
 control or management of the Corporation of London 
 or the livery companies, is certainly a City charity, If 
 a few examples might be brought forward to prove that 
 the elements of that most Christian virtue " Charity ' ' 
 may occasionally be detected in the management of 
 Christ's Hospital, it would, to the best of our know- 
 ledge and belief, be impossible to do so under the pre- 
 sent management of the Charterhouse. "We trust we are 
 doing its managers no injustice in making this state- 
 ment. We have certainly tried hard to find some ele- 
 ment of charity existing in it, but have discovered none. 
 And yet, to all intents and purposes, it was established 
 as a charity school combined with a hospital for poor 
 old men, and, as the reader is perhaps aware, a few years 
 since stood in Aldersgate, in the City. It was founded 
 in 1611, and its gross endowment, present and rever- 
 sionary, cannot represent an annual income of less than 
 28,000 a year. Abundant proofs could be adduced if
 
 336 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 necessary to prove the charitable nature of the original 
 endowment. 
 
 Evelyn in his Diary, 1641, when at Amsterdam, 
 writes : " I now went to the Weste House, a founda- 
 tion like our Charter House for the education of poor 
 children, where they were taught several occupations. 
 The girls are so well taught in housewifery, that men 
 of good worth who seek that chiefly in a woman seek 
 for their wives in this hospital." Again, in a tract 
 published some ten years before, the writer, speaking 
 of an avaricious old man, who boasted of the charities 
 he performed, says, "If he could not eat half a 
 black pudding he had bought for a penny, and he gave 
 the other half to a starving boy, he would believe that 
 he had done as great an act of charity as Button when 
 he founded the Charter House." 
 
 And here arises a curious question for those of our 
 readers who have to maintain a wife and family, and 
 whose average income may not exceed 400 per annum. 
 The Charterhouse School has lately been removed to 
 Godalming, and the scheme of its present management 
 was drawn up by the Endowed Schools Commissioners, 
 and is, as it now stands, as complete an embodiment of 
 their ideas of the proper application of charitable funds 
 as could well be imagined, and from it the reader may 
 probably form some idea of the manner the funds of 
 St. Paul's School and other gratuitous educational 
 endowments may be bestowed in conformity with the 
 wishes of the original founders. Possibly the better 
 plan in describing its present management would be to
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 337 
 
 quote verbatim a notice on the subject as it appeared 
 in the Times newspaper, when the present scheme was 
 published : " The new governing body of the' Charter- 
 house," it says, "have recently passed a resolution which 
 cannot fail to have a most important influence upon 
 the future of the school, namely, that henceforth all 
 nominations to the foundations shall be made, not as 
 heretofore, by a system of private patronage at the 
 hands of individual governors, but by open competi- 
 tion or examination, as has been already the case for 
 some years at Eton, Winchester, &c. One turn has 
 been reserved to each of the retiring governors, by 
 way of recognition of what may be regarded as a sort 
 of ' vested interest/ and we understand that of such 
 nominations about ten remain to be made before the 
 new regulation will actually take effect. Henceforth, 
 therefore, that is, within a few months, there will be 
 no fewer than sixty scholarships tenable at the school, 
 out of which thirty will be styled 'junior scholarships/ 
 and will be open to all boys between twelve and four- 
 teen years of age, whether already in the school or 
 not. These will be of the value of 60 a year, and 
 will be tenable till the end of the boy's sixteenth year, 
 or till his election to a senior scholarship. The 
 examinations for the junior scholarships will be in 
 English, Latin, French, and arithmetic. The senior 
 scholarships will be open to all boys between fourteen 
 and sixteen years of age who shall have been in the 
 school for at least one year, and they will be of the 
 annual value of 80. Besides these, there will be ten 
 
 z
 
 338 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 exhibitions of the annual value of 20, open to all 
 boys in the school under fourteen years of age. These 
 exhibit-ions will be tenable until the age of sixteen, and 
 inay be held conjointly with junior but not with senior 
 scholarships. There will be given away annually five 
 exhibitions of 80 a year to be competed for by boys 
 leaving school. These will be tenable for four years 
 at either of the universities or elsewhere, in prepara- 
 tion for any profession or occupation, subject to the 
 approval of the governing body. The consequence of 
 this resolution will be, that while the fees for tuitioti and 
 board mil be fixed at 95 annually, any [qy.] promising 
 and industrious boy will be able to reduce in his 
 parents' favour the expenses of his education to 15. 
 All credit, we feel, is due to the governing body for 
 thus voluntarily giving up a system of private patron- 
 age in favour of the public at large." 
 
 Let the reader bear in mind that the Charterhouse 
 Schools were not instituted for the sole benefit of the 
 wealthy, but re in the strict sense of the word charity 
 schools, enrolled under the Charity Commissioners Act, 
 and that they were not instituted for the benefit of the 
 inhabitants of Godalming, but for those of London. 
 By the present arrangement all day-school education 
 is entirely removed from the class for whom above all 
 others it was originally intended, including the indus- 
 trial classes and the poor and needy. Among the 
 needy might properly be ranged men of small incomes 
 and large families, to whom the benefits of a gratuitous 
 or low-priced education would be far more consistent
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 339 
 
 with the intentions of " the benevolent founder " than 
 those who are able to pay for the board and education 
 of their sons the enormous sum of 95 a year of some 
 eight months.* Let the reader (if even a man of mode- 
 rate wealth, with an income, say, of 500 a year) ask 
 himself the question whether he does not know that he 
 could obtain for his son an education of the highest 
 description, including board, for the sum of 95 a 
 year without drawing on the funds of a charity for the 
 least assistance whether, in fact, the sum of 95 
 a year (assuming the school to have 50Q scholars) 
 would not be sufficient for their board and education, 
 leaving a balance large enough for the rewards of 
 merit enumerated above, without touching the foun- 
 dation fund even to the value of a shilling. Again, 
 it should be understood that .the 95 per annum of 
 the Charterhouse does not cover all expenses neces- 
 sary before gaining one of the prizes proposed to be 
 given. 
 
 We come now to another City school, in which, even 
 if we cannot discover the barefaced injustice inflicted 
 on the poor and persons of small income as are appa- 
 rent in the present application of the Charterhouse 
 School endowments, at least sufficient may be pointed 
 out to justify the idea that a great deal more good 
 might be done by the livery company (the Merchant 
 Taylors) which owns it than it at present yields. 
 Moreover, it would appear from the statutes on which 
 
 * We understand that this sum has since been raised to 120 per 
 annum.
 
 340 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 the school was founded that the principal portion of 
 the funds with which it was originally endowed was 
 intended solely for charitable purposes. As far as the 
 education of the poor went, it was to all intents and 
 purposes based on purely philanthropic principles as 
 much so, in fact, as Christ's Hospital itself, though in 
 the present day it would be difficult to discover a cha- 
 ritable element connected with it. Should any doubt 
 exist in the reader's mind of the justice of our state- 
 ment, we beg to submit to him the following short 
 clauses from the original statutes of the Merchant 
 Taylors' School. Among the directions to the head 
 master it is ordained, " He shall nor have, nor teache, 
 at one tyme within the foresaide schoole, nor elsewhere, 
 above the number of two hundred and fifty schollers. 
 And he shall not refuse to take, receave, and teach in 
 the saide school freely one hundred schollers, parcell of 
 the saide number of two hundred and fifty schollers, 
 being poore men's sonnes, and coming thither to be 
 taught (if such be meete and apt to learn) without any 
 tiling to be paid by the parents of the saide one 
 hundredthe poor children for their instruction and 
 learninge. And he shall also receave and teache in 
 the saide schoole fiffty schollers more, being another 
 parcell of the saide two hundredth and fifty children 
 comyng thither to be taught, and being found apte and 
 meete to learn as aforesaid, and being poore men's chil- 
 dren, so that their poore parents, or other their friends, 
 will pay and give to the head master for their instruc- 
 tion and learning after two shillings and two pence
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 341 
 
 per quarter for a pair of them." That the founders of 
 the school were resolved that their instructions should 
 be carried out to the letter may be seen in another 
 clause in the same statute. When speaking of the 
 duties of the head master it says, after reminding 
 him of his position in that capacity, that "there 
 is no roome of contynience and perpetuity, but upon 
 your doinge your duty in the said scholle. And every 
 yeare when as the wardens and assistants shall be 
 assembled in the schoole house concerning the visita- 
 tion thereof, you shall submit you to their examination, 
 and found doing your duty accordingly, you shall con- 
 tinue, otherwise being warned, you shall contente you 
 to departe."* 
 
 From its earliest institution till the present day the 
 Merchant Taylors' School has remained under the direct 
 and especial management of the livery company whose 
 name it bears. In the 37th clause of the original 
 statutes it is ordered " that the master and wardens of 
 this company (Merchant Taylors') for the time being, 
 and also all such as shall have borne the roome of a 
 master of this mystery (except such as shall have 
 
 * It does not appear when the rule admitting the children of the 
 poor -was abolished. Certainly it existed as late as the year 1805, 
 when several alterations, all to the prejudice of the poor, were made 
 in the rules of the school. Dr. Wilson, in his " History of the 
 Merchant Taylors' School," published in 1812, boasts that there was 
 not a tailor's son among the pupils, nor, we believe, is there one in 
 the present day. It is more than probable, however, that the original 
 rule may still exist, though not acted upon. Stranger phenomena 
 than that might be discovered among many of our metropolitan 
 endowed charities.
 
 342 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 borne the place and room of an alderman and sheriff of 
 this mystery) shall be for ever in time to come called, 
 and be the surveyors of the said schoole, and they from 
 time to time shall take upon them the charge and 
 oversight of the said schoole, to see that in the saide 
 schoole be no more taught than the number afore 
 appointed, and after and according as is before devised 
 and made, and also see that the same' be well and suffi- 
 ciently repaired from time to time by the warden rentor 
 of our lands lying in the easte part which for the time 
 shall be. And for their labours in the schoole business 
 it is not to be doubted but our Saviour Jesus Christ 
 shall reward them as well in this world as in the 
 world to come. For godlyness, saythe Saint Paule, is 
 profitable to all things, as a thinge which hath both 
 promises in this lief and in that that is to come. 
 1 Timotheus, 4." 
 
 Let us now compare the Merchant Taylors' School 
 when first instituted, as described above, with the 
 school of the present day. Now, as then, it is under 
 the direct control of the Merchant Taylors' livery 
 company, but when the members, wardens, and masters 
 speak of it, either in public or private, they never 
 allude to it, as was formerly the case, as a mystery. 
 Possibly in making this omission they are actuated by 
 a spirit of truth, there being, we believe, not a 
 member of the guild or craft, either 'master or ope- 
 rative, among them. The school at present supplies an 
 excellent education to 500 pupils, who in return pay 
 for it some ten to fifteen guineas per annum. On the
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 343 
 
 20th of December, 1876, the anniversary, or Doctor's 
 Day, was celebrated, and the prizes given away in 
 presence of the notables of the Merchant Taylors' Com- 
 pany and a large number of friends. This portion of 
 the ceremony over, the scholars recited different extracts 
 from several authors, all evidently in a most credit- 
 able manner, reflecting great honour on themselves 
 and their instructors. And then came one of the most 
 interesting performances of the day a mottet in Latin, 
 an amplification in verse of the school motto, Homo 
 plantat, homo irrigat, sed dot Deus incrementum. And 
 here again may be drawn a strong contrast between 
 the management of the school, when at its origin all 
 the managers of the guild were "makers of men's 
 apparel," and the more dignified occupations and pro- 
 fessions of those who now supply their place. The school 
 at its origin instructed, and by its statutes of that day 
 ought now to instruct, half the number of pupils, being 
 poor men's sons, without any payment whatever. There 
 were then 250 pupils, there are now 500 ; consequently 
 there ought to be one-half the present number the 
 children of poor parents, but " apte to learn " under in- 
 struction. But at the present time we believe there is 
 not one : certainly no mention was made in the news- 
 paper reports of any of them having been present at the 
 last celebration of " Doctor's Day." Nor can it be 
 argued that the education at the Merchant Taylors' 
 School is of a class too elevated to be useless to the 
 child of the working man; but it should be remem- 
 bered that the boys on the charity portion of the foun-
 
 344 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 dation were to be equally well educated with the richer, 
 and in case the head master neglected to comply with 
 this order he was to be dismissed from his appointment. 
 But assuming, however, that the poor man's son, 
 whose father has industriously " planted and watered," 
 where in respect to the Merchant Taylors' School is 
 the " incrementum " that God has bestowed on his 
 labours ? We also hear that in the evening of the 
 " Doctor's Day" a splendid banquet was given in honour 
 of the event, in the Company's hall, in Threadneedle 
 Street, to 150 guests, which must have cost, all acces- 
 sories included, some 600 or 700 a sum equivalent 
 to the best elementary education, at the School Board 
 rate, for 250 " poor men's sons ;" but the idea did not 
 seem to strike any of those either of the guests or the 
 members of the guild present on the festive occasion. 
 
 Before quitting the Merchant Taylors' School, we 
 may be excused if we ask why the sum of either ten or 
 fifteen guineas exacted from the parents of the pupils 
 should not be reduced, so as to allow the children of 
 other parents, not absolutely poor, but still far from 
 rich, to receive a portion of the indisputable benefits 
 derived from the instruction imparted within its walls. 
 Possibly we may be told that the educational endow- 
 ment is not rich, and in proof be pointed to their return of 
 its income to the Charity Commissioners as not exceed- 
 ing 2,000 per annum, and therefore that a good edu- 
 cation could not be given for any sum less than that 
 at present demanded. But on a little further investi- 
 gation several objections arise which make us somewhat
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 345 
 
 doubt the correctness of such a conclusion. It is said, 
 and upon what we believe is good authority, that the 
 Merchant Taylors have lately, out of their profuse 
 generosity, expended 100,000 on their school build- 
 ings out of their corporate funds. Be it so ; but they 
 have at the same time thereby raised the value of their 
 school endowment some 4,000 per annum more. Again, 
 there is no difficulty in showing that from the com- 
 mencement of the new buildings, a few years since, the 
 value of their London estates alone have increased to a 
 far larger amount than the sum expended on the 
 school buildings. In a former chapter we brought 
 under the notice of the reader the enormous increase in 
 the value of a block of buildings known as the Wool 
 Exchange in Coleman Street in the City, the property 
 of the company. The increase in the value of this one 
 building alone would be fully equal to the whole amount 
 the company have spent upon their schools. 
 
 But as we may have occasion to speak of other schools 
 which are directly or indirectly under civic manage- 
 ment, we may as well at once attempt to prove that in 
 the case of the Merchant Taylors' School as well as 
 others, they demand too high a sum for the education 
 they afford ; and for that purpose we draw a compari- 
 son between the payment for the pupils of the Merchant 
 Taylors and the results obtained with those of another 
 City livery company's school the Stationers'. If the 
 favourable reports of the latter school be true and we 
 have no reason to doubt them it would appear that as 
 excellent an education can be obtained in the Stationers'
 
 346 THE CI7FAS II IS. 
 
 Company's Schools as in any of the most celebrated in 
 the country, ranging from the elementary to the highest 
 grade of literature and science, not excluding the cele- 
 brated schools of Eton, Harrow, Westminster, Charter- 
 house, Winchester, or King's College, London, for an 
 average sum of 6 a year. Possibly we may be accused 
 of presumption in attempting to judge of the compara- 
 tive value of the education given in the celebrated 
 schools mentioned schools which have on their different 
 boards of management the names of those who, for pro- 
 found learning and piety, are unsurpassed in any king- 
 dom in the world. If so, we will submit to the reader 
 our reasons for arriving at our conclusion on the sub- 
 ject, and probably he will admit that we were not 
 without some data to go upon. 
 
 Among those principally interested in the manage- 
 ment of the Stationers' Company's Schools, all of whom 
 take an active part in furthering its welfare, are found 
 the names of Sir Sydney Waterlow, chairman of the 
 school and Stationers' Company; Francis and William 
 Rivington, Esqs., the celebrated publishers ; John 
 Murray, Esq., publisher, Albemaiie Street ; Thomas 
 Longman, Esq., Paternoster Row ; John Gough Nichols, 
 Esq., F.S.A., Parliament Street, Westminster ; William 
 Clowes, Esq., Duke Street, Stamford Street ; J. Butter- 
 worth, Esq., law publisher, Fleet Street ; as well as 
 several other publishers of the highest standing in Lon- 
 don. With such names as these on the list of managers 
 of a school, would it be possible to quote another 
 possessing names of persons more eminently qualified to
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 347 
 
 form an opinion of the value of education ? And these 
 gentlemen, let it be understood, unlike many of the 
 eminent men on the committees of the other schools we 
 have mentioned, do not consider their office as merely 
 honorary, but exert themselves personally and ener- 
 getically in its welfare. 
 
 To quote from the prospectus of the Stationers' Com- 
 pany's Schools, the course of education comprises in- 
 struction in the principles of the Christian religion, the 
 English, Greek, Latin, and French languages, mathe- 
 matics, history, geography, book-keeping, writing, 
 drawing, vocal music, drilling, chemistry, and physical 
 science, all of which are taught by first-class professors, 
 under the superintendence of Mr. Alexander Isbister, 
 M.A., LL.D., the head master. Although it is true 
 that the present school building in Bolt Court, Fleet 
 Street, will not hold more than 200 pupils, while the 
 Merchant Taylors' School accommodates 500, the endow- 
 ment of the former does not exceed 300 a year, 
 including rent of school premises, while that of the 
 latter is at least 2,000 a year for educational purposes 
 alone, in addition to the value of 4,000 per annum for 
 house-rent. Notwithstanding the greater facilities of 
 the Merchant Taylors' School, which was founded partly 
 for charitable purposes, the education there given, 
 though excellent, is no better than that of the Stationers' 
 Company's Schools, which, without any charitable en- 
 dowment in it, affords as excellent an education for 6, 
 including books and stationery. 
 
 Let us now turn to another City school under the
 
 348 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 control of a livery company St. Paul's. This school 
 really belongs to the Mercers' Company, and it is in- 
 tended, after the example set by the managers of the 
 Charterhouse Schools, to remove it into the country, 
 unless some vigorous opposition is shown to the pro- 
 posed scheme by the inhabitants of the metropolis. 
 It partakes also, by its original institution, of the 
 double element of a charity and endowed school. It 
 was founded in the year 1509. Its present income 
 is returned by its managers to the Charity Commis- 
 sioners at 12,000 per annum, but this, including 
 the building and the ground on which it stands, 
 together with the increase in the value of its estates, 
 both present and reversionary, may be safely and 
 without exaggeration taken at 16,000 a year. The 
 number of scholars is limited to 153, at least so it is 
 asserted ; but at the same time it should be remem- 
 bered that the founder, Dean Colet, gave the trustees 
 full power to alter from time to time any of the rules 
 they might consider to be disadvantageous to the in- 
 terest of the school. Let the reader, when passing 
 the school, cast a glance at the boys whom he may 
 see playing behind the iron railing which separates 
 the building from the street, and then say if he can 
 recognise them as belonging to " every class, country, 
 or degree," for which it was originally intended ; or if 
 he could pick out the poor scholar who swept out the 
 schoolroom, and for that duty received fourpence from 
 each new boy when he signed his name on admission. 
 At the same time, we are quite ready to admit that a
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 349. 
 
 considerable reformation has taken place in this school 
 since it first came under the inspection of the Charity 
 Commissioners. Before that happy event took place, 
 one of the abuses annually perpetrated was the notorious 
 " apposition dinner." How far this repast had diverged 
 from the intention of the "pious founder," as Dean 
 Colet is habitually called on " speech days " and other 
 public occasions, may be judged from the fact that 
 the Charity Commissioners brought under the notice 
 of the managers that the item in their expendi- 
 ture of 229 for the annual feast greatly exceeded the 
 amount named in the original rules, "for the littel 
 dinner the cost whereof was not to exceed foure nobles, 
 and which was to be held as near Candlemas as possible, 
 the time not to exceed three days after or before." 
 
 The same report of the Charity Commissioners also 
 remarks on several other items of expenditure which 
 appeared to them too liberal, and further suggested 
 that as the school was endowed for the benefit of the 
 poor as well as the rich, the poor ought to receive some 
 benefits from its endowment. At present appointments 
 are given to the school by the master and wardens of 
 the Mercers' Company. The boys indisputably receive 
 an excellent education, but at the same time not superior 
 to that given at the Stationers' Company's School. 
 Without presuming to offer any opinion on the relative 
 merits of the two schools from our own judgment, we 
 may remark that the education of the latter school 
 seems in some sort the more appreciated of the two, 
 from the fact that it is no unusual occurrence to find
 
 350 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 in it boys who have been removed from St. Paul's. 
 And this is the more remarkable inasmuch as the edu- 
 cation in the latter school is gratuitous, while for that 
 in the Stationers' the average yearly sum of 6 is paid. 
 It should also be remarked, in the interest " of the people 
 at large," as the charter of the Mercers' and other 
 City companies express it, instead of educating the 
 limited number of 153 boys, so as to represent the 
 number of fish St. Peter caught in his net, if the 
 endowment were properly administered some 2,500 
 pupils might receive gratuitously as excellent an educa- 
 tion as that given at the Stationers' Company's School, 
 leaving a considerable balance beyond for prizes and 
 exhibitions to the universities. 
 
 But St. Paul's School is not the only one in the City 
 of London under the direct control and superintendence 
 of the Mercers' Company; they have another, richly 
 endowed, which bears their name, but of which little is 
 known, the company being singularly averse from 
 giving any information respecting it. Even the Charity 
 Commissioners seem to know little about it ; and they 
 (the Mercers) appear to have set the Endowed School 
 Commissioners, if not at defiance, at least to have 
 afforded them but few particulars on the subject. 
 Nicholas Carlisle,* speaking of this school, says, 
 " Respecting the origin of this ancient and remarkable 
 school, which has suffered neglect, from that vicissitude 
 
 * "Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools of 
 England and Wales," by Nicholas Carlisle, F.R.S., M.R.I.A., Assist- 
 ant Librarian to his Majesty, and Fellow and Secretary of the Society 
 of Antiquaries of London, 1818.
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. '351 
 
 to which all human institutions are liable, there exist 
 but few satisfactory records in the annals of the City of 
 London." After giving a short notice of the vicissi- 
 tudes and changes among its patrons, no very great 
 success appearing to have attended it during the 
 eighteenth century, Carlisle goes on to inform us, " that 
 after being closed, it was opened again on the 13th 
 of August, 1804, upon an entirely new plan, but with 
 only one scholar; but as soon as the new plan of the 
 school, recommending, in addition to the classics, Eng- 
 lish grammar and arithmetic should be taught, appli- 
 cations for admission became more numerous. " In 
 short, the school so prospered under this wise system 
 that the Mercers' Company thought proper to enlarge 
 it, and to increase it from twenty-five scholars to thirty- 
 five, its original number, the head master considering 
 he should not be able to teach more." It was especially 
 mentioned that scholars should be admitted without 
 restriction of age or place, and all were to be taught 
 gratuitously. The Mercers at large are the patrons, 
 but they have committed the superintendence of the 
 school, with the right of nomination, to the master and 
 wardens of the mystery for the time being. 
 
 Perhaps the best and most concise method of placing 
 before the reader the present condition of the funds 
 and endowments of the Mercers' School, would be to 
 quote a few extracts from an article in the Weekly 
 Dispatch, December 17th, 1876, by a well-known writer, 
 who is thoroughly acquainted with his subject, but 
 who withholds his name: "Last week the Mercers
 
 352 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 successfully negotiated with the Commissioners of the 
 City Sewers to receive 22,000 compensation to set 
 back premises between the Old Jewry and Ironmonger 
 Lane (that is, on the opposite side to the Grocers' pro- 
 perty, No. 8, on which they receive a sixth part of a 
 ground rent of 3,300, and disburse 9 2*.)- This 
 property must have been, if we are not mistaken, the 
 former site of the Mercers' School. An earlier desire 
 to widen the entrance to Old Jewry led to a substantial 
 compensation, and the removal of the school to Budge 
 Row, before its transfer to its present site on College 
 Hill. In the return from the company it is stated that 
 the company is ' under a covenant to educate twenty- 
 five boys, now increased to seventy,' and they admit an 
 income of 1,800 16s. 6d. It was to be a free school 
 for ever, but the company permitted the master to 
 receive private pupils. Upon the company's own show- 
 ing, therefore, 1,800 per annum is spent in educating 
 seventy boys not in clothing or in boarding them on 
 a site rent free, or a cost of 26 per boy. TVill thp Mer- 
 cers now tell us what is the present income of the pro- 
 perty on the west side of Old Jewry, of the property in St. 
 Mary Axe, at West Ham, and also whether the 22,000 
 will be devoted to the purposes of the Mercers' School?" 
 If the waste of funds in the Charterhouse, Merchant 
 Taylors', and St. Paul's Schools has struck the reader 
 as being unjustifiable, they are not the only ones under 
 the direct or indirect administration of the Corporation 
 of the City of London where similar abuses may be 
 found. There are other schools to which equal objec-
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 353 
 
 tions may be taken ; but as the funds in the power of 
 the managers, though considerable, are much less than 
 those schools we have mentioned, we will leave that 
 portion of the City educational endowments, and men- 
 tion a few others where, if the civic authorities have no 
 legitimate control, at least as appertaining to the City 
 of London, they have hitherto exercised great influ- 
 ence. But if the hands of the Corporation are tied 
 in the matter of the schools we are about to mention, 
 their tongues were at full liberty, and the question 
 may fairly be asked whether they were justified in 
 keeping silent in the matter? The first case of the 
 kind we shall bring under the notice of the reader 
 is that of St. Katherine's Hospital. Some five-and- 
 forty years since there stood on the ground at 
 present occupied by St. Katherine's Docks some alms- 
 houses, with a dwelling for a warder, and a school 
 for poor boys belonging to the same foundation. The 
 neighbourhood at the time was of the most wretched 
 and demoralised description, and the property around 
 the hospital almost valueless ; in fact, it was for this 
 reason, as well as for the convenient position, that it 
 was chosen for the site of the present St. Katherine's 
 Docks. When the dock company had obtained the 
 charter, before commencing operations existing interests 
 had to be bought out, and among these was the Hos- 
 pital of St. Katherine. This saint, however, like a 
 good many others in the City, appears to have been an 
 excellent hand at a bargain, and for this wretched pro- 
 perty her trustees obtained from the dock company the 
 
 A A
 
 354 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 enormous sum of 160,000. The question now arose 
 what was to be done with the funds, and this was the 
 more urgent as about the time of the bargain with the 
 dock company some rents and other securities belong- 
 ing to the trust fell in, and were re-let at a vast annual 
 increase in the charity's revenue. At length the ques- 
 tion was referred to the Lord Chancellor, praying him 
 to suggest a plan for the future administration of the 
 charity. He, considering the demoralised nature of 
 the inhabitants of Wapping and the vicinity of the 
 London Docks, thought it would be better to remove 
 the hospital to a more pious locality, and at length 
 approved of a site in the Regent's Park. Here some 
 ten or twelve houses were built, to be inhabited gratui- 
 tously by decayed ladies and gentlemen of quality, while 
 the senior poor man, beadle, or warden, or whatever his 
 title may be, had a handsome house erected for his 
 occupation. The present income of the charity exceeds 
 12,000 a year. The pensioners, apart from the pen- 
 sions they receive, generally let out their houses ready 
 furnished, and occasionally, it is said, their seats in the 
 hospital chapel ; while the warden, till very lately, if 
 not now, received some 2,000 a year, including the 
 value of his house, for seeing that the poor pensioners 
 made themselves comfortable. It may be mentioned, 
 in conclusion, that the sum they returned to the Charity 
 Commissioners, and quoted in the late School Board 
 Report, as applied to charitable educational purposes, 
 was only 140 per annum. 
 
 Let us now shortly notice another educational en-
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 355 
 
 dowment, Dulwich College, which, although not at 
 present in any way under the legitimate control of 
 either the Corporation or livery companies of the City 
 of London, is of sufficiently civic origin as to have 
 offered a valid excuse for the expression of indignation 
 on the part of either at the application of its funds as 
 proposed by the Endowed Schools Commissioners and 
 approved by the Lord Chancellor. The income of this 
 charity for educational purposes alone, as admitted by 
 the trustees and published by the Charity Commis- 
 sioners, is 11,230 4s. per annum. It was the inten- 
 tion of the founder that his very valuable bequest, 
 both for adults and children, should be applied for the 
 benefit "of the poor and needy." As before stated, 
 " the poor children to be orphans, or of parents so 
 poor as to be in the receipt of parish relief;" the 
 children in the College School, as well as the chil- 
 dren in the Dulwich School, to be taught without 
 fee or reward. Had the trustees been permitted to 
 have entirely their own way, it is more than possible 
 that the whole of the income for educational purposes 
 would have been lavished on the establishment at 
 Dulwich, but Mr. McCullagh Torrens, M.P., and cer- 
 tain other municipal reformers, raised so loud a cry at 
 this injustice, that public indignation was aroused, and 
 in so energetic a manner, that the Commissioners, apa- 
 thetic as they may be as a rule, were obliged to make 
 some concessions, and Finsbury, Camberwell, and 
 another district named by Allen contrived to obtain 
 some portion of the endowment, leaving by far the
 
 356 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 greater portion of it to be applied to the maintenance 
 of the college at Dulwich, in which, as far as we have 
 been able to discover, there does not appear to be a 
 single charitable element in the whole of its adminis- 
 tration ; nor are the pupils taught without fee or 
 reward, but, on the contrary, pay liberally for the 
 education they receive. 
 
 There appears to exist in the minds of the Endowed 
 Schools Commissioners an impression that extravagance 
 and liberality are synonymous terms, and if there be 
 any foundation for this suspicion, Dulwich College in 
 its plan and architectural elevation may be brought 
 forward in proof. On the building and ground of this 
 charity for the benefit " of poor children " the trustees 
 have expended fully 120,000, and that for the accom- 
 modation of from 600 to 800 pupils. In excuse for this 
 expenditure, they maintain that a school of proportions 
 sufficiently large to receive such a number of pupils 
 could not be built for a less sum. But is this really the 
 case ? Let us compare it with another school of some 
 notoriety, if not placed in so prominent a position as 
 Dulwich College the Jewish Free Schools in Bell 
 Lane, Whitechapel. The school buildings, instead of 
 being constructed to hold 800 pupils, have on an 
 average 2,600. The education given in the Bell Lane 
 Schools extends from the purely elementary up to 
 that of the highest class. Many eminent men of the 
 Hebrew persuasion now in London, in the law, in 
 the practice of medicine, and literary men, as well 
 as artists, merchants, and bankers, [received here
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 357 
 
 their first education. And yet the whole cost of the 
 school buildings, to accommodate 2,600 pupils of all 
 grades, did not exceed 20,000, including the pur- 
 chase of the freehold, or less than 10 per head of 
 the scholars under instruction. Let the reader compare 
 these amounts with the cost of Dulwich College 
 120,000 for 800 pupils, or in round numbers 150 
 per head and then say whether some 80,000 of the 
 cost might not have been better expended in further- 
 ing education among the poorer classes for whom the 
 endowment was originally intended.* 
 
 * The cost of many of the school buildings erected by the City of 
 London, both of those of the livery companies and Corporation, is 
 enormous. Let us take for example that of Christ's Hospital, for 
 which a railway company offered 600,000, with some other schools 
 in which the pupils are also boarded, and the reader will then perceive 
 what might be effected at a much less cost, and with appointments and 
 accommodation in every respect equal, if not superior. Let us take as 
 an example the Cambridge County College, which possesses separate 
 rooms for 300 boarders, separate rooms for 12 tutors, 12 class-rooms, 
 each 48 feet in length, 14 bath-rooms, 48 w.c.'s, servants' rooms, 
 matron's apartments, library, committee-rooms, sitting-rooms, chapel, 
 dining-hall, lecture-hall, numerous lavatories, and two large houses 
 for principal and vice-principal ; the cost of the land and building did 
 not average more than 100 per student. 
 
 Take, again, the Cheltenham College ; principal, the Rev. T. Jex- 
 Blake. Here the accommodation for 55 boarders, 8 to 10 masters and 
 families, and 8 to 10 servants, costs at an average 90 per inmate. 
 
 A still stronger proof may be found in the Uppingham Public 
 School, which is not one building, but rather resembles a handsome 
 village. The entire establishment consists of a church, gymnasium, 
 school-rooms, 2 fives' -courts, hospital, 2 bathing-places, 2 cricket- 
 fields, 1 cricket-pavilion, a separate study for each boy, and 14 
 large mansions for residences ; the average cost for each inmate 
 being only 81. Let us now divide the 600,000 of the Bluecoat 
 School among the gross number of pupils, say 1,200, and the result 
 will be no less than 500 per head.
 
 358 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 The administration of another charitable endowment, 
 partially, if not entirely, in the hands of the civic 
 authorities, is also worthy of notice, as another proof of 
 the lamentable waste of money arising more or less 
 from want of capacity or else indifference on the part 
 of its managers the Emanuel Hospital. This charity, 
 Low tells us, was established in James Street, "West- 
 minster, in 1594, and incorporated 1660. It was 
 founded by Lady Dacre for 10 poor men, 10 poor 
 women, 10 poor boys, and 10 poor girls ; one of each 
 from the parishes of Chelsea and Hayes, in Middlesex, 
 City of London, and Brandsburton, in Yorkshire, and 
 the rest from the parish of "Westminster, each pensioner 
 to have a house and garden, 20 a year, and two chal- 
 drons of coals. This number was afterwards extended 
 till it reached to double the original number, besides 
 60 children, and the payment to pensioners increased 
 to 24 per annum. The charity was placed under the 
 guardianship of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of 
 London for the time being. 
 
 In the year 1865 this institution, which then had 
 the number of almspeople mentioned above, together 
 with Palmer's Charity, which had 12 almspeople and 
 20 boys ; Emery Hill's Charity, which had 12 alms- 
 people and 35 boys, and the Greencoat School 
 Charity, which had 28Jboys only, all in "Westminster, 
 were brought under the notice of the Endowed Schools 
 Commissioners, who united them under one board of 
 management, having drawn up a scheme for its future 
 government. After a lapse of some five years the-
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 359 
 
 scheme was published, and in each case the governing 
 bodies were left undisturbed in the management of 
 the almshouse department. The Lord Mayor and 
 Aldermen were to govern the Emanuel Hospital alms- 
 people, as also to manage the Brandsburton estate, 
 while Palmer's and Hill's trustees were to do the same 
 with respect to their almshouses and the alms share of 
 the property. The net consolidated amount then left 
 for educational purposes was estimated by the En- 
 dowed Schools Commissioners at 4,000 a year, exclu- 
 sive of 800 a year not then, for some cause unex- 
 plained, deemed available. 
 
 The new governing body as proposed by the Com- 
 missioners, and which has been carried into effect, 
 consists of the Dean of "Westminster for the time 
 being, the two members of Parliament for West- 
 minster, three members to be named by the Lord 
 Mayor and Aldermen, one "Westminster incumbent, 
 three persons named respectively by the Dean and 
 Chapter, the governors of "Westminster School, and 
 ten others. The Commissioners also proposed to apply 
 the 4,000 per annum in creating three large schools 
 for boys, each to contain 300 pupils, viz., two day 
 schools in Westminster, and one boarding school in the 
 country near London. These schools, the Commis- 
 sioners say, are intended for children of the same class 
 as those which now use the schools, viz., the lower 
 middle class and upper artizan. The fee for instruction 
 might, at the wish of the governors, be as low as 2 
 a year in one day school, and 4 a year in the other
 
 S6o THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 day school as well as in the boarding school. The 
 fee .for boarding was not to exceed 20 per annum. 
 There is to be free instruction for 50 only, at half fees 
 for 50 more, out of each 300 scholars. 
 
 Considerable opposition was offered to the scheme of 
 the Commissioners, notwithstanding that at first sight 
 it seemed plausible enough. Some objections were 
 made, and with good cause, against the idea that these 
 charitable funds should be withheld from the poorest, 
 for whom they were evidently originally intended ; but 
 the strongest opposition that was offered was on the 
 ground that certain civic authorities had a strong voice 
 in the management of educational charitable funds 
 which were intended by the Commissioners for the 
 benefit of the inhabitants of Westminster. The scheme 
 also gave great offence to the Corporation, inasmuch as 
 they maintained that the governing power should 
 remain absolutely in their hands, as the children in 
 the City proper were as much intended, if not more so, 
 to benefit by the endowment as those of Westminster. 
 The dispute between the Corporation and the Com- 
 missioners at last reached such a height that before 
 the scheme received the royal assent Mr. Craw- 
 ford, M.P. for the City, presented a motion to the 
 effect that "an humble address be presented to her 
 Majesty praying her to withhold her assent to the 
 scheme of the Endowed Schools Commissioners for the 
 management of Emanuel Hospital in the City of West- 
 minster." The debate was a most animated one. The 
 principal opponent to Mr. Crawford's motion was Mr.
 
 ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 361 
 
 Andrew Johnston, M.P., who argued his point with 
 great tact and ability, resting his arguments principally 
 on the fact that the children of the poor had by the 
 destruction of dwellings by the Corporation itself been 
 driven beyond the City boundaries, and thereby the 
 government of the school by the civic authorities 
 was not needed. Speaking of the claims of West- 
 minster over the City, he remarked that "the En- 
 dowed Schools Commissioners were not likely to be 
 accused of limiting these areas unduly, but they 
 have thought it right to limit the benefits of this 
 foundation to the poorer parishes of Chelsea and West- 
 minster. The population of these districts is 137,000. 
 Surely there are poor enough here without importing 
 poor children from the City of London. It is asserted 
 there are plenty of poor children there. Possibly there 
 are, but there are also abundant endowments for them, 
 and if proper use is not made of them it is not the 
 fault of the Endowed Schools Commissioners. Why, 
 sir, I hold in my hand a list of seventeen parishes. 
 They contain, on an average, 181 men, women, and 
 children each. They have, on an average, an income 
 of 1 ,290 per annum each of endowed charities. As 
 to what they do with them I am not going to trouble 
 the House with on this occasion. It is a very curious 
 study, but they largely use them in paying their rates, 
 that is to say, in alleviating the burdens on palatial 
 warehouses and banks out of funds left for the oenefit 
 of the poor." 
 
 Let us now point our moral in the matter of the
 
 362 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 Emanuel Hospital Schools. Up to the time when they 
 came under the notice of the Endowed Schools Com- 
 missioners the Corporation had the undisputed control 
 of this charity, and since the Commissioners' scheme 
 received the royal assent they have still a voice potential 
 in their management. The income is admitted for 
 education alone to be 4,000 per annum, but they omit 
 to mention that the unproductive land in Victoria 
 Street, Westminster, lying between it and the park, is 
 worth at the least 7,000 a year more. There is also 
 another charity in the same locality, in the management 
 of which we believe the City has indirectly some voice. 
 the Greycoat School. The income of this charity for 
 educational purposes, as quoted by the School Board in 
 their report, is 3,500 per annum, irrespective of their 
 unproductive land in Victoria Street, for which they 
 are asking 6,000 a year, making, together with 
 Emanuel Hospital, a gross income for educational 
 purposes of 20,500 a year, and this without taking 
 into account some other valuable school land in the 
 same locality. But more remains to be told. This 
 land has been lying idle and unproductive for the last 
 twenty years. Another singular feature in the matter 
 of these schools may also be noted. The endowments 
 of these schools, which have so long remained unprofit- 
 able, were intended for educational instruction after the 
 tenets of the Church of England. During the twenty 
 years the ground has remained idle the children of 
 Roman Catholics in their charity schools in the locality 
 have increased from 240 to 1,365.
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 fTIHE reader must not imagine that we have by any 
 -*- means exhausted the catalogue of abuses, whether 
 parochial, charitable, educational, or municipal, to be 
 found in the administration of affairs in the City of 
 London, for such a conclusion would be a most falla- 
 cious one. "We might have brought under his notice 
 the enormous clerical revenues and the numerous staff 
 of clergy employed in the different civic churches, as 
 well as other appointments ; but as it might give 
 umbrage to many of our readers if we dwelt at any 
 length on the subject, we will shortly allude to a few 
 of its salient points, leaving the others untouched. 
 We find, by the Clergy List, that for a population less 
 than one-third that of the parish of St. Pancras, there 
 are no fewer than 106 parochial livings, with incomes 
 averaging from 30 to 2,400 per annum, with a staff 
 of 79 incumbents and 59 curates, and this without 
 counting the cathedral staff of St. Paul's, the masters 
 of the endowed schools, the chaplains of the principal 
 livery companies, and many other similar appointments
 
 3 64 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 too numerous to mention. Many other subjects of 
 interest remain untold, which, if not of the magnitude 
 of those we have mentioned, are equally barefaced 
 and unjust. In all of these the poor as well as the 
 industrial classes in general have more or less suffered, 
 and, after the civic fashion, the injustice has increased 
 in proportion as the poverty of the sufferers is the 
 greater or their means of opposition the less. In many 
 cases of the latter kind there may be found in the 
 replies to those who attempt to remonstrate with the 
 Corporation or livery companies, an amount of cynical 
 impudence, yet so utterly transparent, that it would 
 provoke a smile were not the subject so painful. On 
 other occasions they bring forward excuses of extra- 
 ordinarily subtle sophistry, in fact, so much so as to 
 dazzle or perplex by their ingenuity men of ability who 
 had arrived at the conclusion that injustice was being 
 done to the poor. Let us take, for example, the case of 
 Mr. Andrew Johnston, in the debate in the House of 
 Commons on the Emanuel Hospital scheme, men- 
 tioned in the last chapter. Speaking of some of the 
 small City parochial charities, consisting of doles, &c., 
 he said, " Well, sir, these funds ought to provide for 
 the education of City children.* Section 30 of the 
 Endowed Schools Commissioners' Act provides a cheap 
 and easy method of doing this. That section has been 
 
 * Could Mr. Johnston inform us where any "City" children are 
 to be found ? We are unacquainted with any locality in which there 
 are sufficient poor children to fill a school large enough to accommo- 
 date a hundred pupils.
 
 CONCLUSION. 365 
 
 law for four years, and not one of these bodies has 
 made the slightest more towards taking advantage of 
 it ! And yet, sir, they had a noble example before 
 them. I hold in my hand a scheme promoted by the 
 Grocers' Company. My hon. friend the member for 
 the City spoke of this scheme. I wonder he did not 
 see how it tells against, rather than in favour of his 
 argument ! I am glad to say it is no longer a scheme, 
 for although a right rev. prelate did threaten it with 
 opposition in the other House, it has received her 
 Majesty's assent, and is now the law of the land. And 
 a noble part too. Thirty thousand pounds' worth of 
 ' useless doles,' and of funds under their absolute com- 
 mand, the Grocers' Company devote to founding a great 
 second-rate day school." 
 
 With great respect for Mr. Andrew Johnston, he was 
 hardly justified in the ' conclusion he had arrived at. 
 The doles he alluded to were of a purely charitable 
 nature, intended for the sole benefit of the poorest, all 
 of whom have been driven from the City, while the 
 Grocers' Company's Schools appear to have hardly a 
 charitable element to be found in them, as every pupil 
 is obliged to pay 6 per annum for the education he 
 receives. Had the company established a free school, 
 open to all, rich or poor, a strong excuse might be 
 offered for the present school ; whereas it is not only 
 established in a locality where there are but few if any 
 poor, but, if there were, the terms demanded for the 
 instruction given would deprive that class for whose 
 uses the money was bequeathed from profiting by it in
 
 3 66 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 any manner. And then, again, without in this instance 
 alluding specially to the Grocers' Company, it would 
 be curious to inquire to what uses these " doles " of 
 charities have been put by the livery companies and 
 the Corporation of the City of London, when the original 
 trusts have, from want of applicants and other causes, 
 become obsolete, as well as the plausible excuses given 
 for applying the funds to other uses than those for 
 which they were originally intended. One of the most 
 frequent of these excuses is, that by giving away these 
 doles of food to the poorest that spirit of self-dependence 
 which it ought to be the duty of every true moralist to 
 encourage is destroyed in them. Although it might 
 be somewhat difficult to show in what manner the 
 receipt of these doles is more likely to destroy the spirit 
 of self-dependence than the poor-law outdoor relief, on 
 which they are recommended fo depend as less demo- 
 ralising, it would be equally difficult to prove whether 
 a large portion of these doles, or at least their monetary 
 equivalents, is not expended in a manner equally ob- 
 jectionable to the moralist. It has been stated, and we 
 believe on good authority, that the annual value of these 
 confiscated doles has been exceeded five times over by 
 the increased expenditure in feasting, and its accessories, 
 by the livery companies since the abolition of the City 
 doles first commenced. In other words, the amount 
 and value of the food intended for the necessitous 
 or starving poor has been, and is now, consumed 
 by those who are far from want of any kind, and 
 that without causing the slightest pangs of con-
 
 CONCLUSION. 367 
 
 science or fear of demoralisation in the minds of the 
 consumers. 
 
 The reader may, and with reason, imagine that there 
 must exist some extenuating circumstances which could 
 be brought forward in favour of the Corporation of 
 London and the livery companies so as to make their 
 management appear less objectionable than it at present 
 does to a vast majority of the inhabitants of the metro- 
 polis. This may be the case, but as far as our expe- 
 rience goes we know but of one the unjustifiable 
 indifference shown by the government authorities to 
 the abuses which existed, and which either by the 
 press or public opinion were daily so forcibly brought 
 under their notice ; and to no authority does this remark 
 more directly apply than to the Local Government 
 Board. Whatever excuses other Commissioners might 
 make as to their want of power or right to interfere, 
 that Board had none. On the contrary, one of the 
 principal powers placed in their hands was precisely 
 that which authorised the Commissioners to investigate 
 and correct such abuses as those existing in the ancient 
 charities and endowments of the City of London, as 
 the following extract from their Act of Parliament 
 will go far to show : " And be it enacted, that it shall 
 be lawful for the said Commissioners, and they are 
 hereby empowered from time to time as they may 
 think fit, to require from all persons in whom any 
 freehold, copyhold, or leasehold estate, or any other 
 property or funds belonging to any parish, and held in 
 trust for or applicable for the relief of the poor, or
 
 3 68 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 which may be applied in diminution of the poor's-rate 
 of such parish, shall be vested, or who shall be in 
 receipt of the rents, profit, or income of any such 
 estates, property, or funds, a true and detailed account 
 in writing of the place where such estate may be 
 situate, or in what mode or on what security such other 
 property or funds may be invested, with such details 
 of the rents, profits, and incomes thereof, and of the 
 appropriation of the same, and of all such other par- 
 ticulars relating thereto as the said Commissioners may 
 direct and require ; and such statement, or a true copy 
 of the same, shall, under the regulations of the said 
 Commissioners, be open for the inspection of the 
 owners of property and ratepayers in such parish ; 
 provided always, that nothing hereinbefore contained 
 shall apply to any funds raised from time to time by 
 the voluntary contributions of the inhabitants of such 
 parish." 
 
 Before concluding our labours, let us shortly call the 
 attention of our readers to some of the principal 
 abuses we have brought under their notice, and then 
 speak of the first steps we hold should be taken to 
 obtain redress both for the industrial classes of all 
 denominations, and the population of the metropolis 
 at large. 
 
 1. "We have attempted to show the despotic cruelty 
 exercised on the working men and others in driving 
 them out of the City at a great and inconvenient distance 
 from their labours, thereby taxing their energies as well 
 as their earnings in a most unjustifiable manner, the
 
 CONCLUSION. 369 
 
 injustice increased by the destruction of their City dwell- 
 ings, and then allowing the land on which they stood to 
 remain for a quarter of a century or more waste and 
 unproductive rather than permit them to return. 
 
 2. We have to some extent shown how vast were 
 the parochial charities to which the poor thus ejected 
 from the City were entitled, and which increased in value 
 in proportion as the number of recipients in the par- 
 ticular parish in which they were situated became the 
 less ; and we have further shown that in the uses to 
 which these funds were afterwards placed how com- 
 pletely all the charitable intentions of the original 
 benefactors have been set aside and disregarded. 
 
 3. We have further brought under our reader's 
 notice some of the grosser abuses existing in the City 
 livery guilds, how vast is the amount of their wealth, 
 and how rapidly, at more than compound interest, that 
 wealth is increasing. That with the increase of this 
 wealth no proportionate increase in charitable action 
 is apparent, and the doles, over which they had supreme 
 power when left under their administration, have been 
 consumed by the increased expenditure of their feast- 
 ing.* We have also attempted to prove how dis- 
 
 * The reasons put forth by the livery companies in defence of 
 their confiscation of the "doles," as well as the increased extrava- 
 gance of their own feeding, occasionally verge on the ludicrous. 
 In defence of the confiscation of the doles, they urge that it is, as wa 
 stated, done to encourage a sentiment of self-dependence among the 
 working classes ; in defence of their own increased gluttony, they 
 profess that it is to stimulate the feelings of brotherly love and charity 
 even at present to be so largely found among the richer portion of 
 the population, That doles are in the present day a most objection- 
 
 B B
 
 370 THE CITY AS IT IS, 
 
 honestly the guilds of the present day have evaded the 
 municipal and trade duties for which they were princi- 
 pally instituted, and at the same time driving, by enor- 
 mous entrance fees, the craftsmen from all participation 
 in the benefits to be derived from the accumulated 
 funds bequeathed to the particular guild in which they 
 may be employed. In many instances they have thrown 
 impediments in the way of employers in the same trade 
 becoming members of the livery ; and this to such 
 an extent, that for a man to say that he is a liveryman 
 of the Goldsmiths', Drapers', Clothworkers', Leather- 
 sellers', and other guilds, is almost tantamount to de- 
 claring that he is in no way connected with the trade 
 itself. For any one to admit that he is a member of the 
 Mercers' Company is not only equivalent to saying that 
 he is not in any manner connected with the " mystery 
 of mercerie," but at the same time leaves open the 
 probability (a remote one, it is true, but still a proba- 
 bility) that he may be a chief justice or an ex- lord 
 chancellor. The livery guilds have not only been 
 mainly instrumental in driving the industrial classes 
 beyond the City precincts, but have thrown, in their 
 leases, every possible legal impediment in the way of 
 their return. Few have an idea to what an extent this 
 despotism has been carried. Sooner than allow homes, 
 no matter how respectable the Peabody dwellings for 
 
 able manner of administering charity no man of common sense can 
 doubt ; but surely the funds bequeathed with so charitable a feeling 
 might be employed in some manner more consistent with the spirit of 
 charity than can be detected in the uses the money is at present put to.
 
 CONCLUSION. 371 
 
 example to be built, they, in conjunction with the 
 Corporation, have allowed much of their land to remain 
 waste and unproductive. Should the reader consider 
 this statement exaggerated, the next time he crosses the 
 Holborn Yiaduct let him cast his eyes to the north- 
 ward and mark the immense expanse of ground even 
 at present uncovered, and which has remained so for 
 the last quarter of a century. Let him then remember 
 that a quarter of a century since the owners of that 
 land could have obtained, even on the side roads, three 
 guineas a foot rental for the frontage, and that the 
 whole might in the course of a week be now let for 
 the same rental. He may then, perhaps, admit that 
 we are not without some data to go upon. 
 
 4. The extravagant administration of the Corpora- 
 tion funds, as well as the amount spent in feasting and 
 ceremonial, have also been noted, as well as the abuse 
 and injustice exhibited in the management of the royal 
 hospitals and other endowments, educational or other- 
 wise, directly or indirectly connected with the City. 
 We have attempted to prove that if the City great 
 medical endowments were administered with the 
 economy of the Westminster Hospital, more than 1,500 
 beds in addition to those already under the manage- 
 ment of the governors might be made applicable to 
 municipal uses beneficial to the whole metropolis, and 
 that without the cost of one shilling to the ratepayer. 
 That the workhouse infirmaries lately erected, together 
 with the small-pox and fever asylums, might be main- 
 tained from the excess funds of the three hospitals,
 
 372 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 St. Thomas's, St. Bartholomew's, and Bethlem, and 
 that the excess so applied would be simply a return of 
 the endowments to their original uses the relief of the 
 sick poor of the City of London and the suburbs thereof. 
 We have further given instances of the waste of edu- 
 cational funds, and that to an extent which almost 
 bears out Lord Brougham's opinion that they were 
 sufficient, if properly managed, for the elementary edu- 
 cation of the children of the whole metropolis. Other 
 abuses we have also noted, many of which present an 
 almost incredible amalgamation of refined cruelty, 
 injustice, and despotism unsurpassed in any capital in 
 Europe, and which is rendered still more detestable by 
 the cant and sophistry of the perpetrators, that all is 
 done solely with a view to benefit their fellow- creatures. 
 We have attempted to erase from the reader's mind 
 the false impression which may have taken root in it, 
 and excusably so, from the repetition of the falsehood 
 perpetually dinned into his ears at City dinners and 
 at civic public meetings that if the City is the great 
 organ of the wealth of the community, it is equally 
 the great origin of charitable enterprise among the 
 wealthy ; that all the greatest charitable works of the 
 present day, the Hospital Sunday Fund, the Saturday 
 Hospital Fund, as well as other similar charitable 
 funds, all derived their origin from civic charitable 
 enterprise. 
 
 In one of our principal newspapers we found, a 
 short time since, a highly eulogistic paragraph on the 
 wonderful charitable efforts of the City of London
 
 CONCLUSION. 37 3 
 
 in collecting during the year a sum of not less 
 than 50,000 for different philanthropic purposes, 
 adding that no city in Europe could have equalled it. 
 Why, during the Orissa famine seventy Parsee mer- 
 chants in Calcutta subscribed a far larger amount, and 
 that without blowing their own trumpets on the occa- 
 sion. When the writer's pen was employed on the 
 above paragraph, it would have conveyed to the reader 
 a far better idea of the power of the City authorities 
 had it stated the following short fact that the City 
 is the great organ of monetary circulation in the 
 kingdom, and that the amount of money from all 
 sources which passes through it in the course of the 
 year represents the interest and profit on some three 
 thousand millions of pounds sterling. Let him or the 
 reader compare that amount with the 50,000 boasted 
 of by the writer of the paragraph, and a better con- 
 clusion will be arrived at of the value of the " City " 
 influence in works of charity than merely its own 
 boasting. That charitable feeling in England is latent 
 to an extent sufficient to wipe our poor-laws from the 
 statute books is certain, and to spare ; but to develop it 
 in a satisfactory manner would require a far different 
 agency than the " City " authorities. We have con- 
 stantly brought before us the liberal contributions of the 
 livery companies to the poor-box at the different police- 
 courts ; but compare the amounts given with the ascer- 
 tained revenues of these companies, and, proportionate 
 means being taken into consideration, the contribution 
 of the widow's mite in^o the Lord's treasury almost
 
 374 THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 becomes a useless piece of ostentatious display. There 
 is, however, even in this contrast, an element of good 
 in the widow's charity which is wanting in that of the 
 livery companies : the mite was her own, and she was, 
 in equity, justified in bestowing it as she pleased ; but 
 the money forwarded by the livery company to the 
 police-court was placed in their trust for a different 
 purpose, and, moreover, as not being their own private 
 property, all personal charitable feeling on the part of 
 the donors was completely annulled. Nor can this 
 state of things be excused on the plea of lack of suffi- 
 cient moral and religious supervision. By reference 
 to the Clergy List we find that the clerical staff of the 
 City is comprised of one dean (St. Paul's), with a salary 
 of 2,000 per annum, four canons with 3,666, a pre- 
 centor, chancellor, treasurer, two archdeacons, twenty- 
 nine prebendaries, beside twenty-one other clerical 
 officials, all of whose salaries are not stated. There 
 are also no fewer than one hundred and twenty-nine 
 livings, some, it is true, but of very trifling value, 
 others ranging from 500 to 1,500 a year ; the 
 income of the whole (without comprising the value of 
 the parsonage houses) making a total of 37,647 per 
 annum. Besides these there are a large number of other 
 clerical appointments, such as chaplains to the City 
 guilds and prisons, lectureships, &c. ; and the whole 
 of this immense clerical staff is for the religious instruc- 
 tion and supervision of a resident population of less 
 than 70,000 souls, which is daily decreasing. 
 
 Having, possibly imperfectly, sketched so many of
 
 CONCLUSION. 375 
 
 the abuses existing in our London civic administration, 
 leaving many still untouched, we would now respect- 
 fully ask the reader whether some energetic means 
 should not be taken to work out an effectual reforma- 
 tion, so as to relieve the metropolis at large, including 
 all classes, rich and poor alike, from the civic incubus 
 at present weighing on them. And this is only to be 
 done by the united action of all parties aggrieved by 
 the present state of things. If the inhabitants of 
 the metropolis were to] take up the matter, redress 
 would certainly soon follow. Let them remember that 
 to keep up the so-called civic privileges and hospitality 
 the metropolitan ratepayers are mulcted of some half a 
 million sterling per annum; and if the reader can 
 without inconvenience pay his quota, he should remem- 
 ber that there are thousands of his fellow-citizens far 
 less fortunately situated. Let the inhabitants of the 
 metropolis remember how grievously have the children 
 of the poor (Christ's legatees) been robbed of their inhe- 
 ritance, and that, too, in one of the most vital elements 
 of their future respectability and prosperity their edu- 
 cation ; that we have inherited a life interest and a 
 life interest only in vast charitable educational endow- 
 ments, and that we have allowed those funds to be 
 taken from those for whom they were intended and 
 given to the rich. Let the ratepayers, for they com- 
 prise all portions of the population, resolve that in case 
 the hackneyed argument in defence of these civic abuses 
 should be brought forward that the country is at pre- 
 sent in so flourishing a state of prosperity that the
 
 37<> THE CITY AS IT IS. 
 
 inhabitants of the metropolis have no just reason to 
 object either to the present expenditure or waste of 
 the City let them still insist on some strong civic 
 reform to the extent at least of effecting a great reduc- 
 tion of the mismanagement, stupidity, and gluttony 
 which at present characterize it. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PP-nfTED BT V1BTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY EOAD, LONDON.
 
 MEMOIE OF NOKMAN MACLEOD, D.D. 
 
 BY HIS BROTHER, THE REV. DONALD MACLEOD, D.D., 
 One of Her Majesty's Chaplains. 
 
 With Portraits and numerous Illustrations, 2 vols. demy Svo, 26s. 
 
 " We once more commend to our readers a work which is a fitting monument, 
 erected with the true self -forgetfulness of a loving brother and a faithful biographer, 
 and which will leave the abiding impression that in Norman Macleod all who knew 
 him mourn a devoted, gallant, and delightful friend, and his Church and country 
 lost a magnificent champion of the good, the noble, and the true." Times. 
 
 " The biographer's delicate duty has been performed with tact and good taste, 
 and it is rare that one writing so soon after his hero's death is able to give so much 
 completeness to his portrait." Daily A'ews. 
 
 " Mr. Donald Macleod has done his work of compiling this memoir of his justly- 
 celebrated brother with care and good taste. The introductory chapters give an 
 interesting glimpse of a state of life and manners that is now well-nigh forgotten." 
 Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " There is in this memoir a sense of vivid reality and of close personal contact, 
 which is a rare quality in this branch of literature." Saturday Review. 
 
 "A memoir worthy of the subject. It may well do for Scotland what Dr. 
 Stanley's Life of Arnold did for England." Spectator. 
 
 " There is throughout these volumes a freedom from cant and sentimentality 
 that is rare in the biography of a popular divine." Athenceum. 
 
 " The life of a good and honest man is here narrated with a simplicity and truth- 
 fulness which disarm criticism." Examiner. 
 
 " We are much mistaken if it does not take high rank among select biographies. 
 It reveals a rich nature readily moved to fine issues. Humour, fun, waggish satire, 
 sparkling fancy, pathetic touches, devout experiences, and fine insights go to- 
 gether ; yet they never conflict for the bond of a pure, self-denying nature runs 
 through all. Mr. Donald Macleod has done his work well." Nonconformitt. 
 
 " The biographer has done his task well. He writes with a practised pen, and 
 good sense and good taste pervade the volumes." Scotsman. 
 
 "The favourable impression made by a first reading is deepened by each subse- 
 quent examination of the work." North British Daily Mail. 
 
 " This book is a portrait, and it is so well done, that it may be taken as an ex- 
 ample by writers who have such a delicate piece of work in hand. . . . That a man 
 so free in thought, so bold in speech, so broad in charity, should be at the same 
 time so simply devout, full of all the tremblings of the tenderest piety, is a lesson 
 and example to us all." Blackwood? s Magazine. 
 
 " You could not say where he was greatest, but you felt that everywhere he was 
 a streaming fountain of influence, and a man among a million men." Fraser't 
 Magazine. 
 
 " A really good book. . . . We could venture earnestly to commend it to the 
 consideration of the English clergy. . . . Brave and tender, manful and simple, 
 profoundly susceptible of enjoyment, but never preferring it to duty ; overflowing 
 with love, yet always chivalrous for truth ; full of power, full of labour, full of 
 honour, he has died, and has bequeathed to us for a study, which we hope will reach 
 far beyond the bounds of his communion and denomination, the portrait of a great 
 orator and pastor, and a true and noble-hearted man." Church Quarterly Review. 
 
 " A man of great faculty, whose genius was of the kind that would have justified 
 itself in almost any direction. He might have been an artist, a great commander, 
 an author of high rank. We think of him with an affection which increases ia 
 the light of more intimate knowledge, as a true worker for others, a devoted, self- 
 denying man." British Quarterly Review. 
 
 " A valuable and interesting book. It is the life of a thorough man 
 
 with boundless fun there is always strong sense and real earnestness." 
 Westminster Review. 
 
 " We have nothing but praise for these volumes. Inspired by deep affection, the 
 author's work has been done with delicate skill, with perfect fairness, and with 
 here and there a courageous word for ' freedom's holy law.' "Theological Review. 
 
 DALDY, ISBISTER & CO., 56, LUDQATE HILL, LONDON.
 
 SSJovfcs bo tf)e late (Eljarlcs 
 
 i. 
 HEALTH AND EDUCATION. 
 
 Third Thousand. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 " Remarkable for the variety and interest of its contents. ... It is 
 impossible within our space to do adequate justice to this attractive 
 volume." Spectator. 
 
 " Those who see the importance of translating the precepts of physiology 
 from a scientific ' tongue not understanded of the people ' into plain and 
 forcible English, may well rejoice that Mr. Kingsley has taken up the 
 cause." Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 n. 
 TOWN GEOLOGY. 
 
 Fourth Thousand. Crown 8vo, 5s. 
 
 "A masterpiece of popular scientific exposition." Echo. 
 
 " The author here compresses within the briefest compass the results of 
 many years' thought and observation, and illustrates his facts and sug- 
 gestions with singular felicity of -language. Not even Professor Huxley 
 could convey scientific information in a style more straightforward and 
 transparent." fall Mall Gazette. 
 
 III. 
 
 MADAM HOW AND LADY WHY; 
 
 Or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children. 
 With Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt extra, 5s. 
 
 IV. 
 
 SELECTIONS FKOM WEITINGS. 
 
 With Portrait. Second Thousand. Crown 8vo, Cs. 
 
 " These selections are thoroughly representative, and give us Mr. 
 Kingsley at his best." Standard. 
 
 DALDY, I6BISTEE & CO., 5G, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON. 
 
 UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA 
 
 AT 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS /NGELES
 
 DA 
 
 686 Gilbert 
 
 G37c The city, 
 
 
 HERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILn 
 
 000 999 931 9