was originally called Candlewick Street, from the candle-makers who lived there. It afterwards, became a resort of drapers.

[extra_illustrations.1.544.2] , the old Roman , or milestone, is now a mere rounded boulder, set in a stone case built into the outer southern wall of the church of St. Swithin, . Camden, in his says-

The stone called London Stone, from its situation in the centre of the longest diameter of the City, I take to have been a miliary, like that in the Forum at Rome, from whence all the distances were measured.

Camden's opinion, that from this stone the Roman roads radiated, and that by it the distances were reckoned, seems now generally received. tow, who thinks that there was some legend of the early Christians connected with it, says :

On the south side of this high street (Candlewick or

Cannon Street

), near unto the channel, is pitched upright a great stone, called London Stone, fixed in the ground very deep, fastened with bars of iron, and otherwise so strongly set, that if carts do run against it through negligence, the wheels be broken and the stone itself unshaken. The cause why this stone was set there, the time when, or other memory is none.

Strype describes it in his day as already set in its case.

This stone, before the Fire of London, was much worn away, and, as it were, but a stump remaining. But it is now, for the preservation of it, cased over with a new stone, handsomely wrought, cut hollow underneath, so as the old stone may be seen, the new

one

being over it, to shelter and defend the old venerable

one

.

It stood formerly on the south side of , but was removed to the north, . In it was again removed, as an obstruction, and, but for the praiseworthy interposition [extra_illustrations.1.544.3] 

This most interesting relic of Roman London is that very stone which the arch-rebel Jack Cade struck with his bloody sword when he had stormed , and

Now is Mortimer lord of this city

Cade.Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting upon London Stone, I charge and command that the conduit run nothing but claret wine this first year of our reign. And now henceforward it shall be treason for any that calls me Lord Mortimer.-Shakespeare, Second Part of Henry VI., act iv., sc. 6.

Dryden, too, mentions this stone in a very fine passage of his Fable of the

Cock and the Fox:

The bees in arms

Drive headlong from the waxen cells in swarms.

Jack Straw at London Stone, with all his rout,

Struck not the city with so loud a shout.

Of the old denizens of this neighbourhood in Henry VIII.'s days, Stow gives a very picturesque sketch in the following passage, where he says:--

The late Earl of Oxford, father to him that now liveth, hath been noted within these

forty

years to have ridden into this city, and so to his house by London Stone, with

eighty

gentlemen in a livery of Reading tawny, and chains of gold about their necks, before him, and

one hundred

tall yeomen in the like livery to follow him, without chains, but all having his cognizance of the blue boar embroidered on their left shoulder.

A turning from leads us to [extra_illustrations.1.545.1] . The cost of this bridge was computed at , and the annual revenue was estimated at . tolls amounted to a large annual sum; and it was supposed might fairly claim about a of it. Great stress also was laid on the improvements that would ensue in the miserable streets about and along the road to the King's Bench. We need scarcely remind our readers that the bridge never answered, and was almost disused till the tolls were removed and it was thrown open to general traffic.

Southwark Bridge

,

designed by

John Rennie, F.R.S.

, was built by a public company, and cost about

£ 800,000

. It consists of

three

cast-iron arches; the centre

240

feet span, and the

two

side arches

210

feet each, about fortytwo feet above the highest spring-tides; the ribs forming, as it were, a series of hollow masses, or

voussoirs

, similar to those of stone, a principle new in the construction of cast-iron bridges, and very successful. The whole of the segmental pieces and the braces are kept in their places by dovetailed sockets and long cast-iron wedges, so that bolts are unnecessary, although they were used during the construction of the bridge to keep the pieces in their places until the wedges had been driven. The spandrels are similarly connected, and upon them rests the roadway, of solid plates of cast iron, joined by iron cement. The piers and abutments are of stone, founded upon timber platforms resting upon piles driven below the bed of the river. The masonry is tied throughout by vertical and horizontal bond-stones, so that the whole rests as

one

mass in the best position to resist the horizontal thrust. The

first

stone was laid by Admiral Lord Keith,

May 23rd, 1815

, the bill for erecting the bridge having been passed

May 16th, 1811

. The iron-work (weight

5,700

tons) had been so well put together by the Walkers of Rotherham, the founders, and the masonry by the contractors, Jolliffe and Banks, that, when the work was finished, scarcely any sinking was discernible in the arches. From experiments made to ascertain the expansion and contraction between the extreme range of winter and summer temperature, it was found that the arch rose in the summer about

one

inch to

one

and a half inch. The works were commenced in

1813

, and the bridge was opened by lamp-light,

March 24th, 1819

, as the clock of

St. Paul's Cathedral

tolled midnight. Towards the middle of the western side of the bridge used to be a descent from the pavement to a steam-boat pier.

Mr. Charles Dickens, in of the chapters of his has sketched; in his most exquisite manner, just such old City churches as we have in and its turnings. The dusty oblivion into which they are sinking, their past glory, their mouldy old tombs-everything he paints with the correctness of Teniers and the finish of Gerard Dow.

There is,

a pale heap of books in the corner of my pew, and while the organ, which is hoarse and sleepy, plays in such fashion that I can hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of any music, I look at the books, which are mostly bound in faded baize and stuff. They belonged, in 1754, to the Dowgate family. And who were they? Jane Comfort must have married young Dowgate, and come into the family that way. Young Dowgate was courting Jane Comfort when he gave her her prayer-book, and recorded the presentation in the fly-leaf. If Jane were fond of young Dowgate, why did she die and leave the book here? Perhaps at the rickety altar, and before the damp Commandments, she, Comfort, had taken him, Dowgate, in a flush of youthful hope and joy; and perhaps it had not turned out in the long run as great a success as was expected.

The opening of the service recalls my wandering thoughts. I then find to my astonishment that I have been, and still am, taking a strong kind of invisible snuff up my nose, into my eyes, and down my throat. I wink, sneeze, and cough. The clerk sneezes: the clergyman winks; the unseen organist sneezes and coughs (and probably winks); all our little party wink, sneeze, and cough. The snuff seems to be made of the decay of matting, wood, cloth, stone, iron, earth, and something else. Is the something else the decay of dead citizens in the vaults below? As sure as death it The Fourth Salters' Hall. (see page 548.) is! Not only in the cold, damp February day, do we cough and sneeze dead citizens, all through the service, but dead citizens have got into the very bellows of the organ, and half-choked the same. We stamp our feet to warm them, and dead citizens arise in heavy clouds. Dead citizens stick upon the walls, and lie pulverised on the sounding-board over the clergyman's head, and when a gust of air comes, tumble down upon him.

In the churches about Mark Lane there was a dry whiff of wheat; and I accidentally struck an airy sample of barley out of an aged hassock in one of them. From Rood Lane to Tower Street, and thereabouts, there was sometimes a subtle flavour of wine; sometimes of tea. One church, near Mincing Lane, smelt like a druggist's drawer. Behind the Monument, the service had a flavour of damaged oranges, which, a little further down the river, tempered into herrings, and gradually toned into a cosmopolitan blast of fish. In one church, the exact counterpart Qf the church in the Rake's Progress, where the hero is being married to the horrible old lady, there was no speciality of atmosphere, until the organ shook a perfume of hides all over us from some adjacent warehouse.

The dark vestries and registries into which I have peeped, and the little hemmed--in churchyards that have echoed to my feet, have left impressions Cordwainers' Hall. (See Page 550.) on my memory as distinct and quaint as any it has that way received. In all those dusty registers that the worms are eating, there is not a line but made some hearts leap, or some tears flow, in their day. Still and dry now, still and dry! And the old tree at the window, with no room for its branches, has seen them all out. So with the tomb of the old master of the old company, on which it drips. His son restored it and died, his daughter restored it and died, and then he had been remembered long enough, and the tree took possession of him, and his name cracked out.

The Salters, who have anchored in , have had at least halls before the present . The was in , to be

Henry Bell and Robert Bassett, wardens of the fraternity and gild of the Salters, of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Church of All Saints, of

Bread Street

, London, and to the brothers and sisters of the same fraternity and gild, and their successors for ever, the land and ground where there was then lately erected a hall called Salters' Hall, and

six

mansions by him then newly erected upon the same ground, in

Bread Street

, in the parish of All Saints.

This hall was destroyed by fire in . The hall, in , had an almshouse adjoining, as Stow tells us,

for poore decayed brethren.

The hall, built after the Great Fire had made clear work of Oxford House, was a small brick building, the entrance opening within an arcade of arches springing from square fluted pillars. A large garden adjoined it, and next that was the Salters' Hall Meeting. House. he parlour was handsome, and there were a few original portraits. This hall, the clerk's house, with another at the, gate of , were pulled down and sold in . [extra_illustrations.1.548.1]  was designed by Mr. Henry Carr, and completed in .

As a chartered company there is no record of the Salters before the year of Edward III., when liberties were granted them. In the of Edward III. they sent members to the common council. Richard II. granted them a livery, but they were incorporated in by Elizabeth. Henry VIII. had granted them arms, and Elizabeth a crest and supporters. The arms are:-- Chevron azure and gules, covered salts, or, springing salt proper. On a helmet and torse, issuing out of a cloud argent, a sinister arm proper, holding a salt as the former. Supporters, otters argent plattee, gorged with ducal coronets, thereto a chain affixed and reflected, or; motto,

Sal sapit Omnia.

furnished by a London antiquary,

The Romans worked salt-pits in England, and salt-works are frequently mentioned in Domesday Book. Rock or fossil salt, says Herbert, was never worked in England till , when it was discovered in Cheshire. The enormous use of salt fish in the Catholic households of the Middle Ages brought wealth to the Salters.

In a pageant of , written by the poet Peele, clad like a sea-nymph presented the Salter mayor (Webb) with a rigged and manned pinnace, as he took barge to go to .

In the Drapers' pageant of , when each of the companies were represented by allegorical figures, the Salters were figured by Salina in a sky-coloured robe and coronation mantle, and crowned with white and yellow roses. Among the citizens nominated by the, common council to attend the mayor as chief butler, at tlie coronation of Richard III., occurs the name of a Salter.

The following bill of fare for people of the Company of Salters, A.D. , is still preserved:--

In the Company's books (says Herbert) is a receipt

For to make a moost choyce Paaste of Gamys to be eten at ye Feste of Chrystemasse

The original congregation of Salters' Hall Chapel assembled at Buckingham House, . The minister was Richard Mayo, who died in . He was so eloquent, that it is said even the windows were crowded when he preached. He was of the seceders of . Nathaniel Taylor, who died in , was latterly so infirm that he used to crawl into the pulpit upon his knees.

He was a man,

of great wit, worth, and courage;

the prince of preachers.

You that are against persecution come up stairs :

You that are for declaring your faith in the doctrine of the Trinity stay below.

scandalous majority,

When the Presbyterians forsook Salters' Hall, some people came there who called the hall

the Areopagus,

so closely linked with our old City history, and its Nonconformist associations.

In , a mysterious murder took place in . The victim, a widow, named Sarah Millson, was housekeeper on the premises of Messrs. Bevington, leather-sellers. About o'clock in the evening, when sitting by the fire in company with another servant, the street bell was heard to ring, on which Millson went down to the door, remarking to her neighbour that knew who it was. She did not return, although for an hour this did not excite any suspicion, as she was in the habit of holding conversations at the street door. A little after o'clock, the other woman-Elizabeth Lowes-went down, and found Millson dead at the bottom of the stairs, the blood still flowing profusely from a number of deep wounds in the head. Her shoes had been taken off and were lying on a table in the hall, and as there was no blood on them it was presumed this was done before the murder. The housekeeper's keys were also found on the stairs. Opening the door to procure assistance, Lowes observed a woman on the doorstep, screening herself apparently from the rain, which was falling heavily at the time. She moved off as soon as the door was opened, saying, in answer to the request for assistance,

Oh I dear, no; I can't come in!

St. Martin Orgar, a church near , was destroyed in thb Great Fire, and not rebuilt. It had been used, says Strype, by the French Protestants, who had a French minister, episcopally ordained. There was a monument here to Sir Allen Cotton, Knight, and Alderman of London, some time Lord Mayor, with this epitaph-

When he left Earth rich bounty dy'd, Mild courtesie gave place to pride; Soft Mercie to bright Justice said, O sister, we are both betray'd. White Innocence lay on the ground, By Truth, and wept at either's wound.

Those sons of Levi did lament, Their lamps went out, their oyl was spent. Heaven hath his soul, and only we Spin out our lives in misery. So Death thou missest of thy ends, And kil'st not him, but kil'st his friends.

A Bill in Parliament being engrossed for the erection of a church for the French Protestants in the churchyard of this parish, after the Great Fire, the parishioners offered reasons to the Parliament against it; declaring that they were not against erecting a church, but only against erecting it in the place mentioned in the Bill; since by the Act for rebuilding the city, the site and churchyard of St. Martin Orgar was directed to be enclosed with a wall, and laid open for a burying-place for the parish.

The tame statue of that honest but commonplace monarch, William IV., at the end of , is of granite, and the work of a Mr. Nixon. It costupwards of , of which was voted by the Common Council of London. It is feet inches in height, weighs tons, and is chiefly memorable as marking the site of the famous

Boar's Head

The opening of the Extension Railway, , provided a communication with and , and through it with the whole of the South-Eastern system. [extra_illustrations.1.550.1]  has lines of rails; the curves branching east and west to and have lines, and in the station there are lines of rails and spacious platforms, of them having a double carriage road for exit and entrance. The signal-box at the entrance to the [extra_illustrations.1.550.2]  extends from side of the bridge to the other, and has a range of over levers, coloured red for danger-signals, and green for safety and going out. [extra_illustrations.1.550.3] , a handsome building, is after the design by Mr. Barry. Arrangements were made for the reception of about passengers yearly.

[extra_illustrations.1.544.2] London Stone

[extra_illustrations.1.544.3] Architecture

[extra_illustrations.1.545.1] Southwark Bridge

[extra_illustrations.1.548.1] The present hall

[extra_illustrations.1.550.1] The bridge across the Thames approaching the station

[extra_illustrations.1.550.2] Cannon Street station

[extra_illustrations.1.550.3] The hotel at Cannon Street Station