swamp, continually overflowed by the river--Lambeth Marsh commemorates
that condition of the locality. Down to Deptford, Peckham, Camberwell,
Stockwell, Brixton, and Clapham did the flood extend. But by the
gradual damming up of the southern bank of the Thames, the erection of
buildings on the Surrey side, and the draining of the soil, the latter
was gradually laid dry, and the numerous rivulets which meandered
through the marsh were reduced to three between the still-existing
rivers--namely, the Ravenscourt to the east, and the Wandle to the west.
The first brook, again going from east to west, is the Neckinger, which
rose at the foot of Denmark Hill and adjacent parts, and, after passing
in two streams under the Old Kent Road, united north of it, and reached
the Thames at St. Saviour's Dock, which, in fact, is the enlarged mouth
of the old river. But according to some old maps we have consulted, it
had a branch running in a more easterly direction, and entering the
Thames at a point near the present Commercial Docks Pier. But of this
latter branch no trace remains, whilst the northerly course to the
Thames is indicated by various roads, such as the Grange and the
Neckinger Roads. The brook ran past Bermondsey Abbey, up to the gates
of which it was navigable from the Thames. The Grange Road took its name
from a farm known as the Grange, and here the Neckinger was spanned by a
bridge. When Bermondsey Abbey was destroyed, a number of tanneries were
established on the site, which took their water from the Neckinger, in
connection with which a number of tidal ditches, to admit water from the
Thames, were cut in various directions. Near the Upper Grange Road
stood a windmill, and at the mouth of the Neckinger a water-mill, the
owner of which shut off the tide when it suited his purpose, which led
to frequent disputes between him and the tanners. But in time the
latter sank artesian wells, the mill was driven by steam-power, and the
water of the Neckinger being no longer required for manufacturing
purposes, the river was neglected and finally built over. The Neckinger
Mills had been erected in the last century by a company to manufacture
paper from straw; but, this enterprise failing, the premises passed into
the hands of the leather manufacturers. A street to the east of St.
Saviour's Dock, and parallel with it, is still known as Mill Street.
There was another bridge over the Neckinger where it crossed the Old
Kent Road, near the spot where the Albany Road joins the latter road.
It was known as Thomas-a-Watering, from St. Thomas, the patron of the
dissolved monastery or hospital of that name in Southwark. The bridge
was the most southern point of the boundary of the Borough of Southwark,
and in ancient days the first halting-place out of London on the road to
Kent. Chaucer's pilgrims passed it on their way to the shrine of St.
Thomas-a-Becket at Canterbury:
'And forth we riden ...
Unto the watering-place of St. Thomas,
And then our host began his hors arrest.'
Deputations of citizens used to go so far to meet royal or other
distinguished personages who came to visit London. From the end of the
fifteenth century the spot was set apart for executions, and numerous
are the records of criminals who were hanged there until about the
middle of the last century.
In 1690 two very handsome Janus heads--i.e., heads with two faces--were
discovered near St. Thomas-a-Watering. They were found near two ancient
piers of a large gate--Janus was the God of Gates. One was taken up and
set up on a gardener's door; but the other, being embedded in quicksand,
from which springs flowed out pretty freely, was left. Dr. Woodward,
who founded the Professorship of Geology in the University of Cambridge,
afterwards purchased the head which had been saved, and added it to his
collection of curiosities. At the beginning of this century there was
still a brook running across the Kent Road on the spot mentioned above,
with a bridge over it, and the current from the Peckham and Denmark
hills was at times so strong as to overflow at least two acres of
ground. East of the Mill Street above mentioned there is a spot which
has been rendered famous by Dickens in 'Oliver Twist'--namely, Jacob's
Island. As the description he gives of it is known to everyone, we need
not here repeat it; it applies, partially only, to the locality now.
It is, or to speak correctly was, a 'Venice of drains.' But it was not
always so; in the reign of Henry II. the foul, stagnant ditch, which
till recently made an island of this pestilential spot, was a running
stream, supplied with the waters which were brought down in the
Neckinger from the southern hills. On its banks stood the mills of the
monks of St. John and St. Mary, dependencies of the Abbey of Bermondsey,
which were worked by it. In those days the neighbourhood consisted of
blooming gardens and verdant meadows. Close to Jacob's Island were
Cupid's Gardens, a kind of Ranelagh on a small scale, but still a very
pleasant place of public entertainment. Tanneries, and many still more
objectionable trades now carried on in the locality, were then undreamt
of.
Many of the horrors of Jacob's Island are now things of the past. The
foul ditch, in whose black mud the juveniles used to disport themselves,
undeterred by the close proximity of the unsavoury carcasses of dead
dogs and cats, is now filled up and turned into a solid road. Many of
the tumble-down houses have been pulled down--in fact, the romance of
the place is gone.
Let us proceed westward; we come to the once important Effra, which
remained a running stream till within the sixties, when it, like others,
became a mere sewer. It rose in the high grounds of Norwood, and ran
down Croxted Lane, till within the last two or three years a perfectly
rural retreat; at the Half Moon Inn at Herne Hill it received an
affluent, which rose between Streatham Hill and Knight's Hill. Skirting
the park of Brockwell Hall, it ran along Water Lane, past the
police-station in the Brixton Road. Here it took a sharp turn to the
north, and ran parallel to the Brixton Road, access to the houses on the
eastern side being gained by little bridges, till it reached St. Mark's
Church, where it took a sharp turn to the west. But before reaching
that point, a branch of the river, at a spot somewhere between the
present Clapham and South Lambeth Roads, in what used formerly to be
called Fentiman's Fields, turned in a northerly direction towards the
South Lambeth Road, flowing through what was then Caroon Park,
afterwards the Lawn Estate, a portion of which has recently become
Vauxhall Park. The river ran along the lane leading by the side of the
present Vauxhall Park to the Crown Works of Messrs. Higgs and Hill, at
the corner of the lane turning almost at right angles up the South
Lambeth Road towards Vauxhall Cross. As in the Brixton Road, little
bridges here gave access to the houses on the eastern side of the South
Lambeth Road. According to an old map, this branch of the Effra sent
off another across the South Lambeth Road and a Mr. Freeman's land,
lying between it and the Kingston Highway, as the Wandsworth Road was
then called, and thus reached the Thames. The main stream, which we
left at St. Mark's Church, continued its course along the south side of
the Oval, sending off in a north-westerly direction a branch which fell
into a circular basin, probably on the spot where the great gas-holders
now stand in Upper Kennington Lane. It then turned towards Vauxhall,
where it passed under a bridge, called Cox's Bridge, and fell into the
Thames a little northward of Vauxhall Bridge.
At Belair, one of the show-houses of Dulwich, a branch of the Effra ran
through the grounds; the Effra itself also traversed the Springfield
Estate near Herne Hill, now given up to the builders. The river there
appears to have been much wider than elsewhere, and in depth about nine
feet, with banks shaded by old trees. The present writer remembers the
Effra as a river, and was told by a gardener, now deceased, who had
worked on the Caroon Estate, which extended from the present Dorset Road
to the Oval, for more than fifty years, that he had often seen the Effra
along Lawn Lane assume the proportions of a river, wide and deep enough
to bear large barges, which statement gives countenance to the tradition
that Queen Elizabeth frequently in her barge visited Sir Noel Caroon,
the Dutch Ambassador, who lived at Caroon House, on the site of which
stand the mansion and factory of Mark Beaufoy, Esq., who is also the
owner of the Belair House above-mentioned. Dr. Montgomery, sometime
Vicar of St. Mark's, and now Bishop of Tasmania, in his 'History of
Kennington,' says that, in 1753, the whole space occupied by the Oval
and a number of streets was open meadow through which the Effra
meandered at will. It was a sparkling river running over a bright
gravelly bottom, and supplied fresh water to the neighbourhood. A
bridge crossed the Effra at St. Mark's, and was called Merton Bridge,
from its formerly having been repaired by the Canons of Merton Abbey,
who had lands for that purpose. Curiously enough, the author from whom
we take this, Thomas Allen, in his 'History of Lambeth,' published in
1827, when the Effra was yet a running stream, refers to it only on the
above occasion, when he calls it a 'small stream.' 'Et c'est ainsi
qu'on ecrit l'histoire.'
One more 'lost river' remains on our list, the Falcon Brook, which,
rising on the south side of Balham Hill, flowed almost due north between
Clapham and Wandsworth Commons to Battersea Rise, which it crossed,
after which it turned sharply to the west, ran along Lavender Road,
crossed the York Road, and discharged itself into the Thames through
Battersea Creek, which is all that now remains of the river, except the
underground sewer which represents its former course. Once many
pleasant villas stood on its banks; at the present day the entire valley
through which it flowed is covered by one of the densest masses of dingy
streets to be seen anywhere near London. Nothing remains to recall even
its name, except the Falcon Road, and a newly-erected public-house which
has supplanted the original Falcon, a somewhat rustic building, which,
however, harmonized well with the then surroundings, which were of a
perfectly rural aspect, such as, looking at the present scene, we can
scarcely realize. But it can be seen in a rare print of the river,
engraved by S. Rawle, after an original drawing by J. Nixon. He was an
artist, who, passing the Falcon, which was then kept by a man named
Robert Death, saw a number of undertaker's men regaling themselves after
a funeral on the open space in front of the inn. They were not only
eating and drinking and smoking, but indulging in various antics,
endeavouring to make the maids of the inn join in their hilarity. This
scene, and the queer coincidence of the landlord's strange name, induced
Nixon to make a sketch of it, which was engraved and published in 1802,
the following lines from Blair's poem 'The Grave' being added to the
print:
'But see the well-plumed hearse comes nodding on,
Stately and slow, and properly attended
By the whole sable tribe, that painful watch
The sick man's door, and live upon the dead,
By letting out their persons by the hour
To mimic sorrow, when the heart's not sad.'
A cantata was also published about the same time, supposed to be sung by
undertakers' merry men, to celebrate the pleasure and benefit of burying
a nabob, and drink to their
'...next merry meeting and quackery's increase!'
Here we close our journey and our records at a funeral. Well, the finale
is not inappropriate. Have we not been attending the funerals of so
many gay and bright and sparkling, joyfully leaping and rushing, and
sometimes roaring, brooks and rivers, descending from the sunny
hillsides, finally to be buried in dark and noisome sewers? And the
lost river, alas! is but too often the type of the lost life. But
moralizing is not in our line--we think it sad waste of time; it is no
better than doctors' prescriptions. We would rather remind the reader,
who in these notes may miss elegance of style and picturesqueness of
description, that such qualities were incompatible with the compactness
of details the space at our command imposed upon us. Besides, a more
florid style must borrow something from imagination; but here we had
only to deal with facts, and if the reader finds as much pleasure in
studying as we did in collecting them, though the labour was great, he
will not regret the time bestowed on their perusal.
*XVI.*
*ROGUES ASSORTED.*
On Horwood's Map of London, dated 1799, just one hundred years ago,
there is shown a road, starting from Blue Anchor Lane, Bermondsey, at
almost a right angle to the latter, and running in an easterly
direction, but with a considerable curve in it, and this road is called
Rogues' Lane. It is more than half a mile long, perfectly solitary, not
a house on or near it, the land around it being a wild waste, and as
deserted as a lonely moor in the recesses of Wales or Cornwall. How did
this lane acquire its name? Did the inhabitants of the East End of
London construct it as a kind of sewer for carrying off into the
outlying wilderness the rogues who infested their streets? or did the
rogues of that day, openly or tacitly acknowledging themselves to be
such, choose the lane as a kind of rendezvous, as a sort of peripatetic
exchange for the transaction of their rascally schemes? The East End of
London seems, indeed, in those days, to have been a favourite resort of
rogues--Stepney had its Rogues' Well--now they prefer the West End. But
the rogues of old were somewhat different from the modern specimens;
they were chiefly thieves, footpads, burglars, sneaks, low cheats, sham
cripples, and such mean fry--modern civilization, with its panacea of
education, had not yet asserted itself. Culture, which licks all the
world into shape, has even reached the rogues; the petty scoundrels of
old are replaced by the magnificent swindlers of the present day, who
deal not in paltry pence, but in weighty sovereigns--who do not cheat a
silly countryman out of the few shillings his purse may contain, but
wheedle trusting spinsters and mad and greedy speculators out of
thousands of pounds. The modern rogue is either a promoter of bogus
companies, or a director who issues bogus shares, an embezzling
bank-manager or trustee, or a man who lives far beyond his means, even
when he knows that all his available assets are gone in betting, racing,
and Stock Exchange speculation, or a fraudulent bankrupt. And there is
no slitting of noses, no whipping, not even exposure on the pillory
ominously looming at the end of their career; when the game is up, no
more cash to be obtained by loans, and the infuriated creditors become
troublesome, he attempts one more big haul, the proceeds of which, if
successful, he prudently settles on his wife, and then the unfortunate
victim of circumstances, over which, as he pathetically says, he had no
control, leisurely takes a walk to Carey Street, has a comfortable wash
and brush up in the financial lavatory which hospitably stands open
there, and he comes out, thoroughly whitewashed and rid of all
importunate claims upon him, after which he hires a fine mansion in
Belgravia, fares sumptuously every day, and bespatters with the mud of
his chariot-wheels the deluded shareholders and tradespeople whom his
wily schemes have ruined. It is all, or nearly all, the outcome of
modern education, which, by ramming notions totally unsuited to the
minds and characters under tuition into juvenile minds, bears such
bitter fruit. But educational cranks have it all their own way now,
though it is wrong to call them 'educational'; they fancy that education
means 'cramming,' never mind whether the food is assimilated with the
body, whilst education really means the very opposite--namely, a drawing
out, not a putting in: a drawing out of the hidden properties of mind
and character. But let us come to our theme--the London rogues of old;
their evil deeds were done long ago, and will therefore not rile as does
the rascality we see around us now. We will take the beggars first: not
all beggars are rogues, but the majority are. They fared variously
under various Kings; some protected, some persecuted them. Strange it
is that, under the juvenile, gentle Edward VI., one of the most severe
laws was passed against them: a servant absenting himself for three days
or more from his work was to be, on his re-capture, marked with a hot
iron with the letter V (vagabond), and be his master's slave for two
years, and fed on bread and water; should he run away again, he was, on
being caught, to be marked on his forehead or cheek with a hot iron with
the letter S (slave), and be his master's slave for life; for a third
escape the punishment was death. This diabolical law was repealed two
years after. Under Elizabeth sturdy beggars were whipped till the blood
came. James I. rather sympathized with them; he, like them, always was
in need of 'siller.' Hence the country, and especially London, swarmed
with rogues of every description, known by various cant terms, such as
Rufflers, Upright Men, Hookers, Rogues, Pallyards, Abraham Men, Traters,
Freshwater Mariners or Whipjacks, Dommerars, Swadders, Bawdy Baskets,
Doxies, with many other names of the same slang category; and, of
course, the object of all the members of these various associations was
to cheat the unwary and charitable. In course of time some of these
terms went out of use--the cant of rogues is always on the move--but new
ones took their places; and, in spite of all the laws passed against
them, beggars continued to flourish. In 1728 a spirited presentment to
the Court of King's Bench was made by the Grand Jury of Middlesex
against the unusual swarms of sturdy and clamorous beggars, as well as
the many frightful objects exposed in the streets; and, the nuisance not
abating, a similar presentment was made in 1741, with the same
unsatisfactory result. And as long as there are people who will not,
and people who cannot, work, and as long as there are thoughtless people
who will indiscriminately give alms, beggars will infest our streets.
Referring to such, Sir Richard Phillips, in his 'Morning's Walk from
London to Kew' (1820), tells us that the passage from Charing Cross to
St. James's Park through Spring Gardens was a favourite haunt of
beggars. Says he: 'A blind woman was brought to her post by a little
boy, who, carelessly leading her against the step of a door, she gave
him a smart box on the ear, and exclaimed, "Damn you, you rascal! can't
you mind what you are about?" and then, leaning her back against the
wall, in the same breath she began to chaunt a hymn.' Even now you may
hear a psalm-singing woman, who has hired two or three children to
render the show more effective, when these get weary, growl, in a hoarse
whisper between her Hallelujahs, 'Sing out, ye devils!' The Rookery in
St. Giles's, demolished to make room for New Oxford Street, was the very
paradise of beggars. They there held an annual carnival, to which Major
Hanger on one occasion accompanied George IV., when still Prince of
Wales. The chairman, addressing the company, and pointing to the
Prince, said: 'I call upon that 'ere gemman with a shirt for a song.'
The Prince got excused on his friend agreeing to sing for him, who then
sang a ballad called 'The Beggar's Wedding; or, the Jovial Crew,' with
great applause. The beggars drank his health, and he and the Prince
soon after managed to make good their retreat.
Among the most infamous rogues of the last century were men of the
Jonathan Wild stamp--_agents provocateurs_, as we should now style
them--who not only led people into crime, but shared the proceeds of it
with the felons; nay, worse, they got persons who were quite innocent
convicted, by perjured witnesses, of crimes which had never been
committed. It was practices like these which at last brought Jonathan
Wild himself to the scaffold.
The tricks of rogues change their names, but remain the same; what is
now known as the 'confidence trick,' which, though it has been exposed
in police-courts and reported in the press thousands of times, even in
our day finds ready victims, was formerly called 'coney-catching,' and
there were generally three confederates--the Setter, the Verser, and the
Barnacle. The Setter, strolling along the Strand, Fleet Street, or
Holborn, on the look-out for flats, on espying a coney, whom his dress
and general appearance pronounced to be a man from the country, would
make up to him, and, as a rule, quickly find out what county he came
from, his name, and other particulars. If he could not induce him to
have a drink with him, he would manage to convey to his confederate, the
Verser, close by, the information gained, whereupon the Verser would
suddenly come upon the countryman, salute him by his name, and ask after
friends in the country. He proclaimed himself the near kinsman of some
neighbour of the coney, and asserted to have been in the latter's house
several times. The countryman, though he could not remember these
visits, was yet taken unawares, and readily accepted the invitation to
have a drink. They then induced him to play at cards, and soon left him
as bare of money as an ape is of a tail, for in those days
coney-catching was practised by the assistance of a pack of cards. But
if all these lures were wasted on the coney, the Setter or Verser would
drop a shilling in the street, so that the coney must see it fall, when
he would naturally pick it up, whereupon one of the confederates would
cry out, 'Half-part!' and claim half the find. The countryman would
readily agree to exchange the money, but the Setter or Verser would say,
'Nay, friend; it is unlucky to keep found money,' and the farce would
end in the money being spent in drink at a tavern; then cards would be
called for, and the coney induced to take an interest in them by being
initiated into a new game called 'mum-chance,' at which he was allowed
to win money. While so engaged, the door would be opened by a stranger,
the Barnacle, who, on seeing the players, would say, 'Excuse me,
gentlemen: I thought a friend of mine was here.' The stranger would be
invited to have a glass of wine, and join in the game, which he would
readily do, 'to oblige the company'; and the end would be that the
coney, after having been allowed to win for some time, would gradually
begin to lose his money, then his watch, or any other valuables he might
have about him, and finally be left with no property but the clothes he
was standing up in. This, as we have stated, was called
'coney-catching,' or 'coney-catching _law_,' for those rogues possessed
a great regard for law; all their practices went by the name of
'law'--'high law' meant highway robbery; 'cheating law,' playing with
false dice; 'versing law,' the passing of bad gold; 'figging law,' the
cutting of purses.