it desirable at once to obviate a renewal of dock monopolies, and to provide for present and future expansion of commerce, by building a new dock. They procured their Bill in 1825; and proceeded to take down eight hundred houses, and St. Catharine's Hospital, founded in 1148, by Maude, spouse of King Stephen, -re-establishing this hospital and appurtenances in Regent's Park. The first stone of the new dock was laid in May, 1825; and it was actually finished and opened in October, 1828, though the mere circuit-wall, lofty and secure, comprehends an area of twenty-three acres, and there is accommodation within for 120 ships, besides smaller craft, and for 110,000 tons of goods. The most noticeable circumstance in connection with St. Catharine's Dock is perhaps the new economy of time and convenience in loading and unloading vessels, from the use of scientific principles and methods discovered since the last erections of the kind. The capital employed exceeded 2,000,000l. London The markets of London were much improved during this period, the Duke of Bedford building the handsome markets. edifice in Covent Garden, which occupies the place of the dirty, inconvenient, and unsightly buildings which formerly stood in the centre of the market area: Fleet Market being opened in November, 1829; and Hungerford Market begun in 1830.2 Besides the convenience and advantage to health conferred by the markets themselves, they occasioned the opening of new streets, and the removal of many nuisances. The old Fleet Market became the present Farringdon Street; and Hungerford Street was rebuilt, on a new site, and with an increased width of ten feet. Elsewhere, the street improvements were very great; much space being cleared round St. Martin's Church, by which a close neighborhood was ventilated; and yet greater advantages gained by the removal of Exeter 'Change and the adjacent houses. Men's minds were by this time turned to the subject of street improvement which means, primarily, health improvement-in London; and that course of action was beginning, which, with the help of railway facilities, will end only, we may hope, with the laying-open every court and alley where men live, to the passage of the air of heaven. Parks. The health and pleasure of the Londoners were beginning to be considered in regard to the parks, as well as the streets. In 1827, St. James's Park, which was before as little beautiful as any piece of ground in such a place could well be made, was laid out anew, with such exquisite taste as makes it one of the finest walks in the world. In the same year, Hyde Park was much improved by drainage and planting. The Regent's Park was continually improving by the growth of its 1 London, iii., pp. 74-76. 2 Companion to the Almanac, 1830, p. 241. plantations, and becoming as much a favorite of promenaders as any park in London. On its outskirts, too, there was now a great and increasing attraction. The Zoological Gardens, begun in 1825, were opened to visitors in the spring of 1828; and those who came to enjoy the wise and profitable pleasures of the place soon amounted to hundreds of thousands, so as to guarantee the self-support of the institution. The opening of the first Zoological Gardens in England deserves to be noted in any history of popular interests, so great is the privilege of an airy walk among a vast variety of the creatures, winged and fourfooted, which we may read of as peopling all the lands of the globe, but can here alone ever hope to see. The King was during this period pleasing himself, but nobody else, with the erection of Buckingham Palace. What- Buckingham ever may be thought of his gentlemanly qualities in Palace. other ways, his subjects agreed, when they looked at the Brighton Pavilion and at his Pimlico Palace, that he had not good taste in building and architecture; for his edifices were neither healthful, convenient, nor beautiful. The cost of Buckingham Palace was enormous; partly from frequent changes of plan in the sovereign and his architect, which went to impair the beauty of the structure, as well as to increase the expense. The one alteration of raising the wings cost 50,000l.; and the whole affair little, if at all, less than 500,000l. Parliament did not permit this extravagance to pass unreproved, a committee of the House of Commons issuing a strong censure upon it in 1829. A nearly similar sum was voted by Parliament for the Windsor preservation and improvement of Windsor Castle; and Castle. no one was heard to object to this item of the national expendiThe preservation of this old royal castle is truly a national duty; and the manner in which it was done was satisfactory and gratifying to the best judges. ture. The new Post-office bears inscribed on the frieze above the columns of the façade the date of the reign of George New PostIV., 1829. Yet it was set about in 1815, after the office. old situation in Lombard Street had been found unfit for the enlarged and increasing business of the establishment. It is amusing to read now, in the papers of the time, the accounts of the vastness of the new establishment, as transcending even the needs of the expanding postal communication of the day. If any one could have foreseen what was to happen to the postal communication of Great Britain within a few years, a somewhat different tone would have been used. But it is well that men should enjoy the spectacle of their own achievements for a while, before they become abashed by a knowledge of the greater things yet to be done. The new Post-office will always be considered fine in aspect; and in 1829 it might fairly be called vast in its dimensions and arrangements, however much these may need enlargement to meet the wants of a later time. London During the same year, London University was advancing; the ground was clearing for the erection of King's College; clubs. and the Athenæum Club-house was preparing for the reception of its members at the opening of the next year. The club had been in existence six years; and it was now so flourishing as to be able to build for itself the beautiful house which overlooks the area where the Regent's palace of Carlton House stood at the time of its origin. These modern clubs are a feature of the age worthy of note; for they differ essentially from the clubs so famous in the last two centuries. The two have no condition in common, except that of admission by ballot, or by consent of the rest, however expressed. Dr. Johnson's account of a club is, that it is "an assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions;" but there is implied in this a degree of mutual acquaintanceship and fellowship which do not exist in the large modern clubs, where the object is not political or literary, or even social, but merely the personal convenience and enjoyment of the members, who use for this object the principle of the economy of association. The modern club is a mixture of the hotel, the home, and the reading-room. The member calls for what he pleases, and is waited on as at a hotel; he goes in and out, and lives in splendid apartments without daily charge, as at home, his subscription covering his expenses; and he sees newspapers and books, and meets acquaintances, as at the readingroom. Of the convenience of the arrangement, of the soundness of the principle of the economy of association, there can be no doubt; and it is on this account because it may be hoped that the principle will be extended from these clubbists to classes which need the aid more pressingly that the London clubs of this century form so important a feature of the time. There is some complaint that these luxurious abodes draw men from home, make them fond of a bachelor-life, and tend to discourage marriage, already growing too infrequent among the upper classes of society, — and to lessen the intercourse between men and women of education; objections which will never be practically available against the clear daily convenience of such institutions. The remedy will be found, if it is found, not in unmaking these associations, but in extending them to a point which will obviate the objections. Already, the less opulent classes are stirring to prove the principle of the economy of association in clubs, where the object is, not bachelor luxury and ease, but comfort and intellectual advantage, in which wife and sister may share the general table, library, and lecture-room; where those whose daily busi ness lies far from home may enjoy mid-day comfort and evening improvement at a moderate expense, through the association of numbers. The city clerk, the shopman, the music and drawing master and mistress, the daily governess, married persons, and brothers and sisters, can now live out of town, can dine here, and see the newspapers, and stay for the evening lecture, while enjoying the benefit of an abode in the country, instead of a lodging in a close street in the city. When the experiment has been tried somewhat further, and found to succeed, it may be hoped that women will have courage to adopt the principle, and to obtain more comfort and advantage out of a slender income than a multitude of widows and single women do now. In a state of society like our own at present, a transition state as regards the position of women, the lot of the educated woman with narrow means is a particularly hard one. Formerly, every woman above the laboring class was supported by father, husband, or brother; and marriage was almost universal. In the future, possibly marriage may again become general; and, if not, women will assuredly have an independent position of self-maintenance, and more and more employments will be open to them, as their abilities and their needs may demand. At present, there is an intervening state, in which the condition of a multitude of women of the middle class is hard. Marriage is not now general, except among the poor. Of the great middle class it is computed that only half, or little more, marry before middle age. It is no longer true that every woman is supported by husband, father, or brother; a multitude of women have to support themselves; and only too many of them, their fathers and brothers too: but few departments of industry are yet opened to them, and those few are most inadequately paid. While this state of things endures,which, however, cannot be for long, — there is a multitude of educated women in London, and the country-towns of England, living in isolation on means so small as to command scarcely the bare necessaries of life. They are dispersed as boarders in schools and lodging-houses, able to obtain nothing more than mere food, shelter, and clothes; without society, without books, without the pleasures of art or science, while the gentlemen of the London clubs are living in luxury on the same expenditure, by means of the principle of economy of association. When such women have looked a little longer on the handsome exterior of these clubhouses, and heard a little more of the luxury enjoyed within, it may be hoped that they will have courage to try an experiment of their own; clubbing together their small means, their incomes, their books and music, and make a home, where, without increased expenditure, they may command a good table, good apartments, a library, and the advantages and pleasures of society It seems scarcely possible that the new club-principle of our time, already extending, should stop short of this, while so many are looking forward to a much wider application still. Those who think this a reasonable expectation will consider the opening of the Athenæum Club-house, with its 1000 members, and that of the United Service and other neighboring joint-stock mansions, a sign of the times worth noting. Two large public buildings were rising at this time within a few miles of London, which have nothing in common Epsom Stand. but their date. There was a grand stand on Epsom race-course, of which nothing more need be said than what was said at the time, that it was 66 on a more magnificent scale than the stand at Doncaster." 1 What does the subject admit of more? Hanwell The other edifice was the metropolitan Lunatic AsyAsylum. lum at Hanwell, of whose destination so much might be said as to need a volume. We can merely note here, what a history of the time requires, that the mode of life within those walls was almost as new as the edifice itself; and there were things to be seen there far nobler and more interesting than any architectural spectacle ever offered to the eyes of men.2 The building-up that was to go on within was far grander than any that could be seen without, the building-up of the overthrown faculties, the restoration of shattered affections. The Middlesex magistrates secured the services of Dr. and Mrs. (afterwards Sir William and Lady) Ellis as superintendents; and their method of management stands in noble contrast with that of former times, when the insane were subjected to no medicinal or moral treatment, but only to coercion. Instead of being chained, and left in idleness and misery, the patients here were immediately employed, and permitted all the liberty which their employment required. Not only might they be seen gardening with the necessary tools; but the men dug a canal, by which stores were brought up to the building at a great saving of expense. A score of insane men might be seen there, working with spade, pickaxe, and shovel; they built the wall; they kept the place in repair; they worked and lived much as other men would have done; and, from first to last, no accident happened. They attended chapel; and no interruption to the service ever occurred. The women earned in their work-rooms the means of buying an organ for the chapel-service. No sign of the times can be more worthy of notice than this, that the insane had begun to be treated like other diseased persons, by medicine and regimen, and with the sympathy and care that their suffering state requires. As for the results, the recoveries were found to be out of all proportion more 1 Annual Register, 1829, Chron. p. 17. 2 Companion to the Almanac 1831, p. 220. |