The City Capitol.
THE LORD MAYOR'S RETREAT.--THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER.--CITY
PROCESSIONS.--"THE TIMES" AND THE CITY.--THE STOCK EXCHANGE.--A
PIECE OF SELF-GOVERNMENT.--LLOYD'S.--RETURN TO SIR JOHN, AND SOME
OF THE OPINIONS OF THAT WORTHY.
Our road to-day lies to the east. Seated on the roof of an omnibus, we
ride down the Strand, through Temple-bar and Fleet-street, and pass St.
Paul's. The road and the pavements are crowded in the extreme; the din
is deafening; but the shrill voices of the costermongers in the
side-streets are heard even above the thunders of the City.
We stop for one moment at the foot of Ludgate-hill, and look back. We
see part of Fleet-street, and as far as our eyes can reach, there is
nothing but a dark, confused, quickly-moving mass of men, horses, and
vehicles; not a yard of the pavement is to be seen--nothing but heads
along the rows of houses, and in the road, too, an ocean of heads, the
property of gentlemen on the roofs of omnibuses, which crowd the City
more than any other part of the town.
These are the streets whose excess of traffic makes the strongest
impression upon the stranger; and this part of London is moreover
specially dear to the historian. We, too, propose to take our time with
it and to walk through it leisurely. But to-day we are bound farther
eastward. We shall leave the omnibus at the further end of Cheapside.
In the heart of the City, less than half a mile from the Thames and
London-bridge, various streets meeting form an irregular open place.
This irregular place is one of the most remarkable spots in London. For
no other place, except that of Westminster, can vie with this in the
importance of its buildings and the crowding of its streets, though
many may surpass it in extent, beauty, and architectural regularity. It
is the Capitoline Forum of British Rome; it holds its temples, the
Mansion-house, the Exchange and the Bank. In the centre, the equestrian
statue of the saviour of the capitol--the Duke of Wellington. All round
are islands of pavements, as in other parts of the town, for the
foot-passengers to retire to from the maelstrom of vehicles.
At our right, just as we come out of Cheapside, is a house supported by
columns and surrounded with strong massive railings. Two flights of
stone steps lead to the upper story; massive stone pillars surrounded by
gas-lamps stand in a row in front of it, but neither the gas nor the
clearest noonday sun suffices to bring out the allegorical carvings
which ornament the roof. This is the Mansion-house; the official
residence of the Lord Mayor, who here holds his court, as if his was one
of the crowned heads.
Here he lives. Here are the halls in which the most luxurious dinners of
modern times are given; here are his offices and courts of justice,
according to the ancient rights and privileges of the City of London.
Every year the Lord Mayor elect enters upon the functions of his office
on the ninth of November. The City crowns its king with mediæval
ceremonies. The shops are shut at an early hour and many do not open at
all; for masters and servants must see the "show." For many hours the
City is closed against all vehicles; flags and streamers are hung out
from the houses; the pavement is covered with gravel; holiday faces
everywhere; amiable street-boys at every corner bearing flags; brass
bands and confusion and endless cheers! Such is the grave, demure, and
busy City on that remarkable day.
While the streets are every moment becoming more crowded and noisy, the
new Lord Mayor takes the customary oaths in the presence of the Court of
Aldermen, and signs a security to the amount of £4000 for the City
plate, which, according to a moderate computation, has a value of at
least £20,000.
This done, he is Lord and King of the City, and sets out upon his
coronation procession, surrounded by his lieges and accompanied by the
ex-Mayor, the Aldermen, Sheriffs, the dignitaries of his guild, the
city heralds, trumpeters, men in brass armour, and other thrones,
principalities, and powers. The road which the Lord Mayor is to take is
not prescribed by law; but according to an old custom, the procession
must pass through that particular ward in which the King of the City
acted as Alderman. The ward participates in the triumph of the day; and
the cheers in that particular locality are, if possible, louder than any
where else.
The procession turns next to the banks of the Thames. The Lord Mayor,
according to time-honored custom, must take a trip in a gondola from one
of the City bridges to Westminster. Fair weather or foul, take the water
he must; and the broad river presents a spectacle on such occasions as
is never seen in any town of Europe, since the Venetian Doges and their
nuptials with the Adriatic have become matter for history.
Splendid gondolas richly gilt, glass-covered, and bedecked with a
variety of flags and streamers, bear the Lord Mayor and his suite.
Previous to starting, a supply of water is taken on board--thus hath
custom willed it. The Lord Mayor's gondola is either rowed by his own
bargemen, or it is taken in tow by a steam-tug. And round the gondolas
there are boats innumerable with brass bands; and the bridges and the
river banks are covered with spectators, and the river is more full of
life, gladness, and colour, than on any other day of the year.
The trip to Westminster is short; it is, however, long enough for the
company to take a copious _dejeuner à la fourchette_ in the saloon of
the City barge. This breakfast is a kind of introduction to the grand
world-famed dinner, with which the Lord Mayor inaugurates his advent to
power. The dinner is the most important part of the business, as,
indeed, the giving and eating of dinners forms one of the chief
functions of the City corporations. So, at least, says _Punch_, and so
says the _Times_.
The Lord Mayor and his suite land at Westminster Bridge. In Westminster
he repairs to the Court of Exchequer, where he is introduced to the
Judges. He takes another oath; and to clinch that oath, and show that he
means to be worthy of his office and of the City of London, he
commissions the Recorder to invite the Judges to dinner. This invitation
is delivered in quite as solemn a tone as the oath, and the oath is
taken in the same business-like manner in which the invitation is given.
A foreigner would be at a loss to know which of the two is the most
solemn and important.
These ceremonies over, the procession returns the way it came, and lands
at Blackfriars Bridge. Thenceforward it increases in splendour and
magnificence. The fairer portion of humanity join it in their state
coaches--the Lady Mayoress, the Aldermen's and Sheriffs' wives; and
after them come Royal Princes, Ministers of State, the Judges of the
land, and the Foreign Ambassadors. The procession over, they all sit
down to dinner. What they eat, how they eat it, and how much they eat,
is on the following morning duly chronicled in the journals. The number
and quality of the courses will at once enable an experienced city-man
to come to a pretty correct conclusion as to the Lord Mayor's virtues or
vices. Meats rich and rare count as so many merits; but a couple of low
and vulgar dishes would at once turn public opinion in the City against
the City's chosen prince. The Lord Mayor's reputation emanates from the
kitchen and the larder, exactly as a great diplomatist's renown may
frequently be traced to the desk of some private secretary.
The Lady Mayoress shares all the honours which are showered upon her
worthy husband; she is a genuine "lady" for a whole twelvemonth, and
perhaps for life, if her husband has the good luck to be honoured with a
visit from the Queen, on which occasion it is customary for the Lord
Mayor to be made a baronet, while a couple of Aldermen, at least, come
in for the honours of knighthood. But if the Queen does not visit the
City, the Lord Mayor descends at the end of the year to his former
position. For three hundred and sixty-five days he is a "Lord," and his
wife is a "Lady"; he goes to Court, and is on terms of good fellowship
with royal princes, gartered dukes, and belted earls; and he has the
high honour and privilege of feasting the Corporation. His year of
office over, he quits the Mansion House, returns to his shop and apron,
and is the same quiet and humble citizen he was before.
Of course the shop and apron we have mentioned in jest only. A man who
can aspire to the dignity of the mayoralty has long ceased to be a
tradesman; he is a merchant prince, a banker, a _millionaire_. How else
could he afford the luxury of that expensive dignity, especially since
he cannot but neglect his business whilst he is in office.
The Lord Mayor's pay from the City amounts to £8000, but his expenses
are enormous. Woe to him if he be careful of his money, if his dinners
are few and far between, or his horses and carriages less splendid than
those of his predecessors! Such enormities expose him to the contempt of
the grandees of the City. The Common Councilmen shrug their shoulders,
and the Aldermen declare that they were mistaken in him. The outraged
feelings of the City pursue him even after his return to private life.
He is in duty bound to spend the eight thousand pounds he receives from
the City; it is highly meritorious in him if he spends more. Bright is
his place in the annals of the City, if he feasts its sons at the
expense of double the amount of his official income!
There is much aristocratic pride and civic haughtiness in this city
royalty. It rests on a broad historical basis; and it was strongest with
regard to royalty at Whitehall, whenever the latter had to apply to the
wealthy city corporations for relief in its financial troubles. But it
was also a firm bulwark against the encroachments of the kings of
England of former days, supported as they were by venal judges and
parliaments; and it deserves the respect of the English as an historical
relic. Its merits lie in the past; for at present English liberty needs
not the protection of a City king.
The prerogatives of the city of London have, of late years, become the
subject of a violent agitation. That agitation was commenced by "The
Times," on the occasion of the great exhibition. "The Times" holds that
it is unreasonable that the city--at the present day a mere function of
London--should continue to play the part of the sovereign; that the Lord
Mayor speaking in the name of London, should invite the Queen; that,
conducting himself as representative of the metropolis, he should be
feasted by the Prefect of the _Seine_, and kissed by Mons. Cartier. What
right has the City to such honours, now that London has long since
engulphed it? Where are the merits of the City? What does the Lord
Mayor? What do the Aldermen? Nothing--unless it be that they eat turtle
soup, and _patés de foie gras_? Is obesity a title to honours?
Thus says "The Times," with great justice, but with very little
tenderness. No Englishman who knows anything of the history of his
country, will deny that in evil days the City became a champion of
liberty against the kings at Whitehall; that the Lord Mayors protected
the press, and sheltered the printers from the violence of the
government; that on such occasions the City had many a hot contest with
the parliaments, and that, to this day, the city members belong to the
liberal party. But liberal principles might be adhered to even without
the Lord Mayor and his Lucullian dinners. And, as for the City's former
services, it ought to be remembered, that there is a vast difference
between living institutions and stone monuments. Old towers and castles,
which at one time did good service against a foreign enemy, have, so to
say, a vested right to the place in which they stand; it were wrong to
pull them down merely because they are now useless. But far different is
the case with living institutions that jar with the tendencies of the
century. To wait for their gradual decay were a suicidal act in a
nation.
A great many of the institutions of the City ought to be consigned to
mediæval curiosity shops. They were, certainly, very useful in their
day, when they had a purpose and a meaning; but so was the old German
"Heerbann;" so were the guilds; and so was superstition. It were mere
madness to spare them in consideration of past services. They must fall,
sooner or later; and the sculptors and historians of England will take
good care that the former merits of the City shall not be lost in
oblivion.
Up to the present time, the agitation against the arrogance of the city
corporations has been confined to the press; to the "Times" belongs the
merit of having commenced that agitation. The Londoners have as yet
taken no active part in it; and this is another proof of the
conservative tendencies which are incarnate in the great mass of the
English nation. There is in this conservatism a narrow-mindedness which
is the more striking as, in the affairs of practical life, the
Anglo-British race can, least of all, be accused of a want of common
sense.
In despite of this innate conservatism, the masses are gradually awaking
to political consciousness. Formerly it was considered a matter of
course, that wealthy persons only were elected to serve in Parliament;
or that rich traders only would aspire to the mayoralty, or the dignity
of an alderman. Reforms are impending. What will come of them depends
partly on the leaders of the movement; on the degree of resistance which
the government of the day may oppose to them; and, partly, though the
English are loth to admit it, on the course of events on the continent
of Europe.
Perhaps we shall resume the question on another occasion. Just now we
are in the capitoline market of the city. We leave the Mansion-house,
and turn to the other temples which grace the spot.
Opposite to the Mansion-house, is the Royal Exchange; a vast detached
building of an imposing aspect. The English are not, generally, famous
for their style of architecture; the antique columns, though great
favourites, puzzle them sorely. They put them exactly where they are not
wanted; and, in many of their public buildings the columns, instead of
supporting the structure, are themselves supported by some architectural
contrivance. The modern buildings suffer, moreover, from a striking
uniformity; they have all the same columned fronts, which we see at the
Mansion-house, the Exchange, and several of the theatres. It is always
the same pattern, exactly as if those buildings had come out of some
Birmingham factory.
This monotony in the style of public buildings would be altogether
unbearable, but for the climate. The smoky and foggy atmosphere of
London indemnifies us for the want of original ideas in the architects.
It gives the London buildings a venerable, antique colouring. The
Exchange, for instance, has the appearance of having weathered the
storms of a hundred winters, while, in fact, it is quite a new building.
Still, it is quite as black and sooty as Westminster Abbey, or Somerset
House; and yet it is not even nine years old. The old Exchange was burnt
down in 1838; it required six years to complete the new building, which
was opened in October, 1844, with much solemnity.
Up to the reign of Elizabeth, the London merchants had no Exchange
building; they transacted business in the open air, in Lombard Street,
in St. Paul's Church-yard, and sometimes even _in_ St. Paul's; for this
cathedral was, at the time we speak of, the great centre of business,
fashion, and prostitution. Sir Thomas Gresham, who had frequently acted
as the Queen's agent on the Continent, offered to construct an Exchange
building, provided the city would grant him the ground to build it on.
His proposal was accepted; a piece of ground was bought for £3,737
6_d._, and the first stone was laid on the 7th June, 1565. At the end of
the following year, the building was completed; and to judge from the
sketches which still remain, it was designed in imitation of the Antwerp
Exchange.
The virgin Queen expressed her high satisfaction with the undertaking
most royally, by dining with Sir Thomas Gresham, and bestowing on the
building the title of "Royal Exchange." When Sir Thomas, at a later
period, was compelled to depart this world, he bequeathed his Exchange
to the City, and founded the Gresham College, of which, at the present
day, nothing remains but the Gresham Lectures, which are generally, and
justly, classed among the city jobs, whose name is Legion.
Gresham's Exchange, with its profuse display of grasshoppers--the
founder's crest--fell a sacrifice to the great fire in 1666. So attached
had the city merchants become to their new temple of Plutus, that they
restored it in preference even to their churches; and, two years after
the great fire the New Exchange was completed and solemnly opened by
Charles II. Gresham's bust, which had been saved out of the
conflagration, was placed in a niche of honor, and a cast brass
grasshopper, the last of its numerous family, was raised to the top of
the steeple, on which bad eminence it had to stand all weathers, until,
relieved by another conflagration in 1838, it has been allowed to find a
retreat on the eastern front of the present Exchange building.
Times have altered since the days of Old Gresham, the site of whose
Exchange cost less than £4,000, while the present building comes to
£150,000, exclusive of the cost of the ground. In his time, grave and
sober citizens had mustachios and imperials; and wild young fellows,
bent upon mischief and dissipation, repaired to the taverns of the city.
In our days everybody is smooth shaved, and there is a chapel in every
corner. Formerly the merchants relied on their own understanding and the
honesty of their high-born debtors; at present they have no confidence
either in the former or the latter: and out of the fulness of their
godly despair, they have engraved in front of their Exchange building
the motto of the city--_Domine dirige nos_--Direct us, O Lord, and
reveal unto us the time and the hour at which consols and shares should
be bought and sold!
The Exchange, as we have said, is a splendid building; but professional
architects will shrug their shoulders when they look at it in the
detail. Why all those corners on the eastern side, and why those small
narrow shops? It is wrong to condemn anybody or anything on mere _primâ
facie_ evidence. The architect who designed the Exchange had similar
though greater difficulties to contend with, than Paxton in the
construction of the Exhibition Building in Hyde Park. Paxton's great
antagonist was Colonel Sibthorp, an honourable and gallant member of the
House of Commons, who would not consent to sacrifice the trees which
adorned the site of the building. "Make what fuss you like about your
modern ideas of industry," said the chivalric Don Quixote, "but you
shall not touch the trees; they are worth all your industry, and all
your foreign nicknacks, and free-trade and nonsense, and, indeed,
anything that ever came from Manchester." And what said Paxton? Why, he
said, "Let the old trees stand, we will roof them over!" and he built
his glass house one hundred feet higher in the middle, and thus made the
transept. And there was room for everything and everybody--men and
merchandize, stray children and lost petticoats, bad coffee, clever
pickpockets from England, France, and Germany--and, sometimes, for the
rain, too, when the weather was very bad, and we here sought shelter.
But Colonel Sibthorp never crossed the threshold. Mr. Tite, the
architect who made the plans for the New Exchange, had to contend with a
legion of small conservative Sibthorpes, with a large number of
shopkeepers who held places in the Old Exchange, and who insisted on
having their shops in the new one. They could not be dispossessed; and
in some manner or other it was necessary to sacrifice the beauty of the
building to the claims of the vested interests. A great many people
cannot understand why there is no covered hall for the accommodation of
the merchants on Change, and why they must carry on their business
either in the open court or in the arcade which surrounds it. The London
climate is certainly not made for open-air amusements or occupations;
and an Englishman, though with a threefold encasement of flannel, stands
in great awe of draughts and rheumatism.
Nevertheless, the English merchant is condemned, in the fogs of winter
and the rains of autumn, to brave the climate in an open yard, and to
stake his health and his fortune on the chances of the season and the
turn of the market. The reason is, that Englishmen are as much afraid of
close rooms as of rheumatism and colds; and the Gresham Committee, which
superintended the construction of the New Exchange, decided in favor of
unlimited ventilation. Certain branches of business, which in many
respects are much more extensive than the speculations in stocks and
shares, have for a long time past been carried on in certain saloons. In
the Exchange building itself there is a broad staircase, with crowds of
busy people ascending and descending, and there is a door with large
gold letters, "Lloyd's Coffee House." Let us ascend that staircase, and
see what sort of a coffee-house this is. We pass through a large hall,
from which doors open to several rooms; at each door stands a porter in
scarlet livery. In the hall itself are several marble statues and a
large marble tablet, which the merchants of London erected to the
_Times_, out of gratitude for the successful labours of that journal in
unmasking a gigantic scheme of imposition and fraud, which threatened
ruin to the whole trade of London. In the centre of the hall there is a
large black board, on which are written the names and destinations of
all the ships carrying mails which will sail from English ports on that
and the following day. In the corner to the right there is a door with
the inscription, "Captains' Room." No one is allowed to enter this room
but the commanders of merchant vessels, or those who have business to
transact with them. Next to it is the "Commercial Room," the meeting
place of all the foreign merchants who come to London. We prefer
entering a saloon on the other side of the hall, the doors of which are
continually opening and shutting; it is crowded with the underwriters,
that is to say, with capitalists, who do business in the assurance of
vessels and their freights. The telegraphic messages of vessels arrived,
sailed, stranded, or lost, are first brought into this room. Whoever
enters by this door walks, in the first instance, to a large folio
volume which lies on a desk of its own. It is Lloyd's Journal,
containing short entries of the latest events in English ports and the
sea ports in every other part of the world. It tells the underwriters
whether the vessels which they have insured have sailed, whether they
have been spoken with, or have reached the port of their destination.
Are they over-due?--run a-ground?--wrecked?--lost?
In this room there are always millions at stake. So firmly established
is the reputation of this institution, that there is hardly ever a
barque sailing from the ports of the Baltic, or the French, Spanish, or
Indian seas which is not insured at Lloyd's. Its branch establishments
are in all the commercial ports of the world; but its head-office is in
Cornhill, and in the rooms of the Exchange. Before we again descend the
stairs, let us for one moment enter the reading-room. Perfect silence;
tables, chairs, desks; readers here and there; men of all countries and
of all nations; all round the walls, high desks with files of
newspapers, whose shape and colour indicate that they have not been
printed in Europe; they are, indeed, papers from the other side of the
ocean--China, Barbary, Brazilian, Australian, Cape, and Honolulu
papers--a collection unrivalled in extent, though less orderly than the
collections of the Trieste Lloyd's and the Hamburg Börsen-halle. It is
here that the stranger from the German continent first receives an
adequate idea of the enormous extent of commercial journalism. How far
different is this reading-room from anything we see at home? How
extensive must be the communications of a nation to which such journals
are a necessity! How small does German commerce look in comparison with
this! When we were at school, we were told that commerce was a means of
communication between the various parts of the world; that merchants
are the messengers of progressive civilisation; and that to be a good
merchant a man ought to be well read in geography, history, politics,
and a great many other sciences. And then we saw our neighbour, the
grocer and tallow-chandler, weighing and making up sugar in paper
parcels all the year round. He knew nothing whatever of geography,
history, or politics; but for all that, he was a wealthy man and a great
person in the town, and everybody said he was the pattern of a good
merchant. We could not understand this. At a later period, when we lived
in a German metropolis, we saw other great merchants, bankers, and
manufacturers. They did not make up paper parcels as the grocer and
tallow-chandler did; they were dressed with a certain elegance; they
read newspapers, and were fond of discussing the events of the day. But
many of them had not the least idea of the politics which they
discussed, and on which they founded their speculations; they had
forgotten whatever they had learnt of geography, commercial topography,
and history; and nevertheless they passed as capital men of business and
accomplished merchants. Our romantic ideas of the requirements, the
influences, and the radiations of the commerce of the world received
again a rude shock; but now, suddenly, as accident leads us into Lloyd's
reading-room, the old impressions come back again. Thus, after all, the
lessons of our school-days were not untrue! These, then, are the
messengers of commerce which promote the exchange of civilisation
between the continents and islands of the world. Neither sciences nor
religions are powerful enough to found those organs. They owe their
existence solely to commerce: possibly they may be means to an end; but
it is also an undoubted fact that they exert a vast influence on the
peaceful progress of civilisation.
Of the 50,000,000 lbs. of tea which are sold in the east of London, a
handful has found its way to the West, to Guildford-street. It lies in
the bottom of the venerable silver family tea-pot; and this tea-pot
stands on the table of the parlour, to which the reader has been
introduced on former occasions. The mistress of the house is passing in
review her two lines of cups and saucers, headed by the milk-jug and
sugar-basin. Mrs. Bella reads _Punch_, and smiles, not at the jokes,
but because she is happy that English liberty admits of such jokes. The
two younger daughters of the house occupy one chair between them, where
they read "David Copperfield," and two very small grandchildren of Sir
John perform a polka in the further corner of the room. Sir John
himself, as usual, is reading the _Times_, and just now he wags his head
very impressively, because he has been reading Gladstone's letter about
the affairs of Naples. Sir John, though perfectly convinced of Dr.
Keif's honesty and good faith, has never at any time given full credit
to his statements when that gentleman presumed to hint that the
administration of criminal justice in Italy is not altogether so
unexceptionable as that at the Old Bailey. But now, since Mr. Gladstone
corroborates Dr. Keif's statement in that respect--Mr. Gladstone, who is
a native of England, a very respectable man, and a conservative to his
nethermost coating of flannel--now indeed Sir John is of opinion that
the Neapolitans have, after all, good cause for complaint.
We have returned from our excursion into the city, and reenter the
comfortable parlour, shake hands all round, and sit down by the
tea-table. Sir John has smuggled the _Times_ under his chair, lest the
Doctor should at once have a weapon to attack him with. He asks where we
have been; and when we tell him, he leans his head back, purses up his
mouth, shuts his eyes, and says "Well?" This "Well" of Sir John's,
accompanied by that peculiar movement of the head, means, if translated
into common language, "Well, what do you say to London? Mere nothing,
isn't it?--A business in Mincing-lane, a mere trifle?--merely a piece of
Leipsic or Frankfort--never mind--patience--you'll see what London is.
You'll open your eyes by and bye! Only think what enormous sums are
turned over at Lloyd's every year!"
Sir John is altogether victorious to-day. We cannot meet him on this
ground. In vain does Dr. Keif attempt to demonstrate that there is no
reason why Germany should not become as wealthy and mighty as England,
if she had only a little more union, a little less government, an idea
or so more of a fleet, fewer custom-houses, a little more money and less
soldiery. Sir John admits every one of Dr. Keif's propositions; but his
30,000,000 lbs. of coffee, and his 50,000,000 lbs. of tea, and his
20,000,000 lbs. of tobacco, are great facts, and stubborn facts, against
which nothing can be said. Germany may be better off a couple of hundred
years hence. Of course it may, there is no reason why it should not; but
it is very badly off now, and that is a fact, too. And Sir John launches
forth into a long and elaborate lecture on insurance companies,
premiums, percentages, capital, bonuses, and dividends, intermixed with
certain allusions to the impractical and improvident habits of the
Germans, and the uselessness generally of all the German professors. The
last word, pronounced with a certain emphasis, rouses Dr. Keif from the
sleep into which Sir John's statistical and economical expositions had
lulled him.
"Long life to all our German professors!" said Dr. Keif, rubbing his
eyes. "50,000,000 lbs. of tea in Mincing-lane, and not a drop in my cup.
Where's the greatness of England, Sir John?--Good night."