THE PANIC CEASES.
Instead of contracting their issues the Directors of the Bank boldly extended them. In one day they discounted 4,200 bills. December 8th, the discounts at the Bank amounted to £7,500,000; on the 15th, they were £11,500,000, and on the 29th, £15,000,000. December 3d, the circulation of the Bank was £17,500,000, and the day before Christmas, December 24th, it was £25,500,000, or, $127,500,000. Any kind of paper that was not absolutely worthless, was discounted. Tremendous advances on deposits of bills of exchange were madeby the Bank, stock was entered as security, and exchequer bills were purchased. The gallant old institution weathered the storm, and, on the 26th of December, gold began to come in slowly. During the latter part of the panic week a forgotten box of one-pound notes, containing £700,000, was discovered, and these were immediately issued, and the Directors acknowledged that the forgotten box saved the commercial credit of the Bank and of England. There was only £601,000 in bullion and £426,000 in coin when the rush stopped. In February, 1797, when the Bank suspended cash payments, there was £1,086,170 in coin and bullion remaining in the vaults.
bank
THE BANK OF ENGLAND.
I saw, in a glass case, a bank note for one million of pounds (canceled,) which had passed between the Bank and the government in some transaction or another. Think of it, a piece of paper five by two and a half inches in size, which wasgood on its face any place in the world forFive Millions of Dollars. I saw also here, several other bank bills for large amounts, such as ten, fifty, one hundred, and two hundred and fifty thousand pounds each. These were the most valuable strips of printed paper I ever saw.
It must be recollected, that inside of the walls of the Bank of England, which covers four acres, as I have observed, everything is made, excepting the paper of which the bank notes are manufactured. The gold, of course, is coined in the Mint on Tower Hill, but everything else is done inside of the Bank walls, including paper staining, engraving, making the steel plates from which the notes are transferred, and other useful arts. Printer's ink is also made, the ink having to be of a peculiar shade so as to prevent counterfeiting. Then there are book binderies, where the ledgers and accounts are bound, and a number of other rooms devoted to various purposes.
It is a noticeable fact, that every Bank official whom we meet on our journey through all these lofty apartments, halls and saloons, wears full evening dress though it is not yet noonday. Swallow-tail coats, white neck-cloths, and white vests, of the most spotless hues, seem to be the Bank uniform.
And what pleasant surprises there are in this institution. Now the guide leading, and I following, we emerge into an open court-yard, of very good size, which has lawns, shrubberies, and dainty little grass plots, with the most cheering flower-beds, the colors of which are very refreshing to the eye. Here are well-shaded and sanded paths, and lofty, leafy trees, and all these rural delights are concentrated in a space of one and a half acres, the dimensions of the grounds walled in by the Bank. Here, in the heart of mighty London, is a green oasis, like a diamond set in a pig's nose.
These detached buildings, with white steps leading to their doors, and neatly-ornamented porticoes, are the residences of the Governor and Directors, and here they hold receptions, and levees, and the questions and inquiries of angry stockholders are heard and answered at quarterly meetings. The guide asks me if "I would like to see the workshops of the Bank." Iagree at once to his proposition, and on ascending a flight of narrow stone steps, we find ourselves in a large room which is used by the Bank mechanics to prepare the steel plates upon which the Bank notes are engraved.
A very powerful steam engine, which is used for other mechanical and artistic purposes in the Bank, is the motive power by which the work is done in this room. I can hear the sharp steel wedge scraping and polishing the already bright sheets of steel, and the noise is a most disagreeable one. All the workman has to do, however, is simply to place the plate and spindle in the exact spot, when the machine, like a stroke of vengeance seizes it, and in a second it is bright as silver.
MAKING INK FOR BANK NOTES.
Now we are in the room in which the printer's ink is manufactured with which the Bank notes are printed. The ink has to be of a very peculiar black shade, as counterfeiting would be easy were the materials used to be the same as in other inks.
Masses of black matter are being ground into a fine powder by rollers, I think that the guide told me it was nutgalls; large lumps are placed beneath the rollers, the cylinder revolves, and the powder is crushed to a fine paste.
The guide says, "If there's a bit of sand left in the paste, why then the grinding hasn't been done right." The rollers are of strong steel, and the smallest substance would be ground under them. A grain of sand will cause the two rollers as they meet to recede from each other, so sensitive are they to the finest hard substance.
Now we are out in a court again and we can see the engine room, and the huge coal fires burning, and the big boiler sweltering and steaming away at a great rate. The man who attends the engine is in his shirt-sleeves, and a little blackened, and I believe that, not excepting the Beadle, this was the only man whom I saw inside of the Bank who was not in full dress.
Here is a large room where the Bank-paper is cut to the proper size for notes, and a thousand pound note is exactly the same size as one for five pounds, which is the smallest denomination issued by the Bank.
Then there is the room for the compositors and binders, and in the latter apartment, all the account books which the vast business of the Bank make necessary, are paged, lined, and bound. Of ledgers alone, one thousand are used yearly, in this fountain head of finance, and check books innumerable are also printed and bound here.
Now I am again in the court-yard, which is paved very neatly—but no, I have not been here before. This fact I recognize as I look around me. Thisanothercourt-yard.
"This is the Library, Sir," said the guide.
I began to think that the Bank officials were indeed a very literary set of people, who could find time in business hours to read books, but I was presently made aware of my mistake.
The guide knocks quietly at a small iron door, which revolves on its hinges with a noise, and a man in that same inevitable dress-coat, cravat, and neck-tie, opens the door, and I gain an entrance to a place which looks to me very like the casemate of a Monitor, or a sally-port in a stone fortress. Iron doors, iron hinges, and iron windows, shaped in a circular form, and embayed in the wall, are the most significant signs around me.
Although it is broad daylight outside, there is utter darkness within, but for the single gas jet which burns as if suffering from some defect in the pipe.
I feel that some mystery is to be explained, or some strange sight shown me—or else why this change from sunlight to this cribbed and dungeon-like casemate.
It would be impossible to break into this room; and to get out of it, if the doors were locked, would be equally difficult, I imagine.
Now the gentleman who has opened the door goes behind an iron railing, and says:
"This is the Library of the Bank, Sir, and these are the volumes that compose the Library," he says to the writer, at the same time taking a large package of notes from a shelf—on which there are many hundred packages of like description—"we keep here the canceled notes which are called in, andtherefore they can never be used again. We keep these old notes for twenty-five years, in case a forgery has been committed, and when it becomes necessary to produce the notes for evidence—why, here they are—we have notes here for millions of pounds," said he, turning over bundle after bundle of ragged looking papers, that had once been of incalculable value.
These notes, after a certain time, are reduced to pulp, and again are made into paper, from which in turn fresh bank notes are made, so that these old rags have the property which Ponce de Leon's fountain gave, of renewing their youth.
Into another room now, where the notes are printed from the plates, and to insure honesty in the printer—the machine registers the number of each note printed—the registering being done in a distant part of the establishment.
IN THE VAULTS.
And now we are in the Vaults, where the precious metals are kept, and where I saw and handled riches such as would have bewildered Pizzaro, or Cortez, even in their wildest imaginings.
Here are the Bullion Vaults, in which are kept bars of gold and silver. The gold bars weigh sixteen pounds each, while the silver bar varies.
The Bank pays for gold seventy-eight shillings an ounce, while silver is generally valued at about five shillings and two pence an ounce.
It is enough to dazzle the eyes of a miser, or render him blind, to look at the show of gold bars piled up behind the railings, in those large glass presses. Thousands of them! And they are piled up just as I have often seen the stacks of solder in a plumber or gas-fitter's shop in America, without any seeming care as to how they are laid.
Here a couple of men entered with kegs, and one of them, stepping up to me, asks:
"Would you like to handle a large sum of money, Sir?"
"I don't care if I do," I said; and the very polite gentleman went to a safe in the corner and opening one of the numerous black doors of iron which ornament every portion of the room,he brought forth four medium sized packages, and laid them on the counter before me, saying:
"Please to hold open your hand. Now, Sir, there are four packages of Bank of England notes, all ready for delivery, and in each package isone million of pounds."
perspire
"I BEGAN TO PERSPIRE."
I began to perspire and lose my sight and hearing. "Can there be," I said, "so much money in the world?" and then I heard him say again:
"Please to examine the packages—one—two—three—four—millions."
I cried out, "stop, stop—give me breath—do you mean to say," said I, "that there are four million of pounds in these four packages—twenty millionof dollars?"
"That is what I mean," said the polite official, and he smiled slightly at the excitement which he saw in my features.
At that moment I did not envy C. Vanderbilt, and I despised Jim Fisk.
Dim thoughts of murder flashed across my brain—and yet, no—I banished it from my mind. Twenty million of dollars! But then, the Tower! Ha-ha—away, fell design.
In one week the issue of bank notes amount to twenty-five million of pounds, or one hundred and twenty-five million of dollars. During the last twelve months the Bank has purchased three million and a half pounds' worth of gold bars, and one million eight hundred pounds' worth of silver bars. During thesame period it sold six million pounds' worth of gold bars, and a quarter of a million pounds' worth of silver' bars.
MAKING SOVEREIGNS.
In the Weighing Office, established in 1842, to detect light gold, is the ingenious machine invented by Mr. W. Cotton, then Deputy-Governor of the Bank. About 80 or 100 light and heavy sovereigns are placed indiscriminately in a round tube; as they descend on the machinery beneath, those which are light receive a slight touch, which moves them into their proper receptacle, and those which are of legitimate weight pass into their appointed place. The light coins are then defaced by a machine, 200 in a minute; and by the weighing-machinery 35,000 may be weighed in one day. There are six of these machines, which from 1844 to 1849 weighed upwards of 48,000,000 pieces without any inaccuracy. The average amount of gold tendered in one year is nine millions, of which more than a quarter is light. The silver is put up into bags, each of one hundred pounds value, and the gold into bags of a thousand; and then these bagsful of bullion are sent through a strongly guarded door, or rather window, into the Treasury, a dark, gloomy apartment, fitted up with iron presses, supplied with huge locks and bolts.
And now I was to behold the process. After leaving the Treasury vaults, where I was shown the Bank notes, I was taken to a very large room on an upper floor, in which was a small and elegant steam engine, with other intricate machines, for weighing and defacing, or marking coins.
There was a large table with a number of coin shovels, and its entire surface was covered with sovereigns, heaped a foot high, the table having a raised rim all around it.
They were weighing these sovereigns—these officials with the finely starched shirts and white neck-ties; and this was the manner of it:
There were two open square boxes, which had connections with a number of wheels and revolving cylinders, and from each of these boxes projected the mouth of a scoop or highly polished funnel. A roll of sovereigns passed into this box, sliding slowly down through the mouth, and thence into a larger box below on the floor.
The attendants fill the tubes, and at the lower end of the scoop the work is done. Whenever a sovereign of light weight touches this spot in the lower part of the tube, a small brass plate jumps out and pushes the light sovereign into the left-hand aperture, while the full-weight pieces drop without hindrance into the right-hand box. The small brass plate does the business very quietly.
The light sovereigns are then gathered, placed in a bag, and sent back to the Mint to be re-coined. The man who was working the machine pulled a crank and a number, perhaps a thousand, of these marked sovereigns fell into the box. I took some of them in my hand, and found them almost totally defaced, and a number had been slit in two halves by the process, but no gold dust is lost the operation is performed so cleanly.
On the very same spot where once stood the Monastery of the Cistercian Monks, or Gray Friars, the Royal Mint of England is now located, and here all the money in use in England is coined by the "Company of Moneyers," as they are called. The building is situated on Tower Hill, the Mint having for a thousand years been carried on in the Tower itself.
For many hundreds of years the coinage of England had been debased by succeeding money-makers, who were entrusted by the Kings with the coinage, and in the reign of King Edward I, 280 Jews, of both sexes, were charged by this monarch with having debased the silver and gold coins, and were hung in London for the offence. King John, in 1212, ordered all the prisoners in his custody, among whom were some ecclesiastics, to be brought before him for instant judgment, at the same time summoning Cardinal Pandulph, the Papal Legate, to appear also to witness the judgment. Pandulph appeared, and King John thinking to frighten that haughty prelate who had often humbled him, ordered a priest among the prisoners, who had counterfeited money, to be hanged.
Pandulph stepped forward and said:
"Lord King, who so dares lay finger on yon clerk, thoughhe were of royal blood, him shall I excommunicate, and he shall be anathema of Holy Church."
Pandulph, who was indeed a very energetic person, left the apartment to get a candle, so that he might curse John in due form, and the King having been thoroughly frightened, delivered the priest to Pandulph to have that prelate do justice on him, but the legate immediately liberated the offender.
During the reign of the Saxon Edgar, the penny had become scarcely equal to a half-penny in weight, and St. Dunstan, who was a bishop and confessor to the King, became so outraged at the debasement of the coinage, that on Whit-Sunday he refused to celebrate the mass before the King until justice had been done on three officials, or as they were called "moneyers." They were at once taken out of the Church and had their right hands struck off by order of the King.
In those days even the gold coins were of square, longitudinal, and all sorts of irregular and uncouth shapes.
One of the prophecies of the Sage Merlin was to the effect that when the money of England should become round, the Prince of Wales would be crowned in London. Edward I, having ascertained that such a prophecy was believed among the Welsh people, caused the head of their last native Prince, Llewellyn, to be cut off and sent to the Tower in London, where it was crowned with willows in mockery of the prophecy, and since then no native Welshman has held the title of Prince of Wales, with England's consent.
HENRY VIII A COUNTERFEITER.
Henry VIII, among his many acts of scoundrelism, was guilty of debasing the coinage of his kingdom, and when his illegitimate daughter, Queen Elizabeth, called in £638,000 of silver and gold money for the purpose of re-coining it, she ascertained on going to the Mint in person, (where she coined with her own hands several pieces of money) that these monies, whose current value on the face had been £638,000, were then only worth in reality £244,000.
On the day that George the Third's first son and successor was born—afterwards George IV—the captured treasure of the Spanish vessel "Hermione," amounting to sixty-five tonsof silver and one bag full of gold, was carried in triumphant procession through the streets of London—amid the acclamation of the citizens—borne by twenty wagons. The value of the treasure was one million of pounds. This money was taken to the Mint to be coined.
In 1804 the English Government having determined to declare war against Spain, some private parties under the leadership of a Captain Moore, fitted out four ships to intercept some Spanish vessels on their way home from the Indies with treasure, and this infamous act of piracy was performed before the capturers of the Spanish galleons had heard of the impending declaration of war, and in fact before war was declared.
Some hundreds of persons were blown up in the Spanish Admiral's vessel, and one rich Spanish merchant who was returning on one of the vessels with his wife and daughters—having accumulated a great fortune—lost their lives by this act of treachery.
In 1804 the ransom payable to the British Government from the Chinese Nation, amounting to sixty-five tons of silver, or two millions of Chinese dollars, the price which China had to pay for not taking her opium quietly, was brought home and transferred to the Mint to be coined.
The money paid by France to Charles II of England for the town of Dunkirk, an immense treasure, was spent by that monarch in the worst kind of debauchery, and the face of Britannia which remains to this day upon English coins, is the likeness of Miss Frances Stewart, afterward Duchess of Richmond, and at one time a mistress of this dissolute King.
Guineas, which are valued at twenty-one shillings, while the sovereign is valued at a pound or twenty shillings, were first coined from the gold brought by the African Company from Guinea, and the coins had an elephant stamped on them.
In the same reign were struck the five guinea, the two guinea piece and the half guinea pieces. The coinage of this monarch's reign, who was only fitted to be the keeper of a bagnio, was so much depreciated, that in the reign of William and Mary, when 572 bags of silver coin were called in of CharlesII's reign, it was found to weigh only 9,480 pounds, although the proper weight should have been 18,450 pounds.
The gold quarter guinea was coined by George I, and this coin is remarkable for bearing for the first time the letters "F.D." (Fidei Defensor,) or "Defender of the Faith." George III, an old blockhead as the First George was an old blackguard, coined seven shilling pieces, but these have been withdrawn, as have also the guineas and half guineas, which are now replaced by the sovereign, half sovereign, and crown, which latter coin is valued at five shillings.
When the bad money of Henry VIII was called in, the workmen in the Mint declared that it contained arsenic, and many of them "became sick to death with the savor." For this sickness some venerable idiot ordered them to drink from dead men's skulls, and a warrant was actually obtained whereby the heads of several Catholic priests, which then decorated London Bridge, were taken down and drinking cups were made from them for the workmen.
The present building in use by the Company of Moneyers for a Mint, was erected in 1811 on Tower Hill, and cost with the construction of machinery two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. If one hundred thousand pounds worth of gold bars are sent into the Mint one morning, on the next they will be ready for delivery in sovereigns.
HOW TO MAKE MONEY.
The gold is melted in pots made of black lead, which will not break in annealing, and then the alloy of copper is added (to gold one part in twelve; to silver eighteen pennyweights to a pound), and the mixed metal cast into small bars. The bars then in a heated state are first passed through the rollers, which are of tremendous power, these reducing them to one fourth of their former thickness and increasing them proportionally in length. Then the sheets of metal are passed through the cold rollers, which laminates them to the required thickness of coin.
Now comes the work of the cutting-out machines. There are fifteen of these elegant engines in the same basement, set apart for them.
The bars having been cut into the required strips and thickness, the protecting rim is next raised in the "Marking Room," and after blanching and annealing, they are ready for coining.
There are twelve presses for this purpose, each of which makes a hundred strokes a minute, and at each stroke, above and below, a blank is made into a perfect coin, stamped on both sides and milled at the edge, each press coining about ten thousand pieces of money in one hour. One little boy is alone needed to feed a press with blanks.
The coin is tested before the Lord Chancellor or Chancellor of the Exchequer and a jury of twelve goldsmiths, who are sworn to give a fair judgment, once a year—this being a trial between the Company of Coiners and the Government who own the coin. In a late trial of two hundred pounds weight of gold coin, the bulk weighed just one pennyweight and fifteen grains less than was correct—which is pretty good workmanship.
In a period of eighteen years the amount of money coined by the Company was as follows:
Profit to the Company for coinage of above amount £214,000.
Amount charged for coining £67,250,000—by the Company of Moneyers—£421,000.
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bridge
LONDON BRIDGE.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE BRIDGES OF LONDON.
LONDON may well be proud of her bridges. Fifteen of the finest structures of their kind in the world span with mighty and enduring arches, the surface of the Thames; in a distance of seven miles on the river from London Bridge, to the Suspension Bridge, at Hammersmith. Paris alone can rival London in her super-aqueous structures, but in massiveness and grandeur there is no bridge covering the Seine, and having such a magnificent roadway and arches as Waterloo Bridge.
Of all the bridges which span the Thames, none have a history like that of London Bridge; although the present structure dates only from 1825. The history of old London Bridge is that of London itself, for the bridge was coeval with the overthrow of the Saxon dynasty, and the death of Richard C[oe]ur de Lion.
The first bridge erected on the site of the present London Bridge, was a wooden one by Ethelred III., in 994, and the tolls were paid by boats bringing fish to "Bylingsgate," which was then a water-gate of the city. The next bridge here was constructed by the pious brothers of St. Mary, Southwark, which house was originally a convent, established by a young girl named Mary, daughter to a ferryman, who plied at this point, and from the profits of the ferry the bridge was constructed. This bridge was almost totally destroyed by the Norwegian King Olave in 1008, and was rebuilt by Canute in 1016, swept away by a flood 1091, rebuilt 1097, burnt 1136, and a new one was erected of elm timber in 1163 by Peter, a priest and chaplain of St. Mary's, Colechurch, in the Poultry.
This bridge did not satisfy the pious architect, however, and he began with great zeal to build a stone one, the first in England, a little to the westward of the timber bridge in 1176, when Henry II. gave toward the construction the proceeds of a tax on wool, from which originated the saying, "London Bridge was built on woolpacks," a phrase that has often been taken in its literal meaning. Priest Peter died in 1205 and the bridge was finished in 1209.
This bridge consisted of a stone platform 926 feet long, and 40 feet wide, standing about 60 feet above the level of the water, and comprehended a draw bridge and nineteen pointed arches, with massive piers raised upon strong oak and elm piles covered by thick planks bolted together, so that after all, the famous stone bridge had a wooden platform. There was a gate-house, with turrets and battlements at either end, and toward the centre, on the east side, was built a beautiful gothic chapel of stone to the memory of St. Thomas (à Becket), of Canterbury. In a crypt of the chapel was placed a stone tomb over the body of Priest Peter, the founder of the bridge. This bridge, in the time of Elizabeth, is described as having "sumptuous buildings, and stately and beautiful houses on either side," making one continuous street from end to end and having an archway under the houses and dwellings through which vehicles, sedan-chairs, and pedestrians passed. The river could be seen at intervals in the gaps of masonry, and, in fact, this bridge was as much of a thoroughfare and causeway besides, having all the characteristics of a street on solid ground, as any open space in London. Some of the buildings had shops and beer-houses in the lower stories.
The chronicles of this stone bridge during six centuries, form, perhaps, the most interesting episodes in the history of London. The scenes of fire, siege, insurrection, and popular vengeance, of national rejoicing, and of the pageant victories of man and of death, of fame or funeral, which have transpired on and about the bridge, it were vain for me to attempt to describe. In 1212, four years after the completion of the structure, a terrific conflagration took place on the bridge, and 3000 persons perished in the flames, both ends being on fire at the same time. De Montfort repulsed Henry III., on this bridge, and the populace attacked and stoned his Queen in her barge as she prepared to shoot the bridge. Wat Tyler, the popular rebel entered London by this road to be struck down by Sir William Walworth in 1381. Richard II. was received here by the citizens in 1392. In 1415 Henry V., fresh from Agincourt, passed the bridge, and seven years after his corpse was carried over it to be buried at Westminster Abbey. In 1450 Jack Cade attempted to storm London Bridge, but he was defeated and his head placed on a pole over the gate-house. In 1477 the Bastard of Falconbridge attacked the bridge, and fired several houses. In 1554 Sir Thomas Wyatt crossed the bridge at the head of 2000 men, to dethrone Queen Mary, and lost his head for it. In 1632 more than one-third of the houses on the bridge were destroyed by fire, and in 1666 the whole labyrinth of dwellings, shops, and edifices, were swept away by the Great Fire; the entire street being rebuilt within twenty years after. The houses were entirely removed and parapets and balustrades were erected on each side in 1732, and one hundred years after, in 1832, the venerable structure was demolished to make way for the new London Bridge now standing. Holbein, the painter, lived on the bridge, book publishers occupied shops on it, and the London tradesmen believed it to be one of the Seven Wonders of the world. Hogarth lodged here, and Swift and Pope visited Tucker, a bookseller who had a shop on the bridge.
GRINNING SKULLS.
The most terrible reminiscence of the bridge is connected with the fact that its gate-houses at either end were garnished for many hundreds of years by the heads of many great and good men as well as of bad and depraved villains, whose skulls were exposed on spikes to dry and bleach in the sun.
The heads of Sir William Wallace, 1305; Simon Frisel, 1306; four traitor knights, 1397; Lord Bardolf, 1308; Bolingbroke, 1440; Jack Cade and his rebels, 1451; the Cornish traitors of 1497, and of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester (displaced in fourteen days after by that of Sir Thomas More, 1335), have adorned this ghostly bridge. From 1578 to 1605, it was a common sight to see the heads of Roman Catholic priests exposed on this bridge, their offence being that they sought to preach their doctrines in London. Finally, in the reign of Charles II., this display of bare, grinning skulls was transferred to Temple Bar.
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TEMPLE BAR, FLEET STREET.
Temple Bar, as it is called, is a large, gray archway, which spans Fleet street in its busiest traffic and jam. The archway was formerly the limit of the City of London, and when a sovereign came westward from Westminster, or eastward from the Tower, to make a formal entry, the Lord Mayor and theCity Councils, in robes of state, were present under its historic archway to offer the keys and admit the Sovereign. The rusty gates were then rolled back, and on such occasions the pageants were very fine.
For over a hundred years the London traders and shopkeepers, and the students of the Temple, were regaled with the daily and ghastly sight of a row of grinning and socketless skulls, which were ranged in lines on cruel spikes above the architrave of Temple Bar. There is an empty room in the upper story which has a terrible history, for here heads were boiled in pitch before being exposed.
In 1737, Eustace Budgell, a cousin of Addison and a contributor to the Spectator, when reduced to poverty, took a boat at Somerset Stairs, and ordering the waterman to row down the river, threw himself into the flood as the boat shot London Bridge. He had filled his pockets with stones, and he left behind him a slip of paper on which was written, "What Cato did and Addison approved cannot be wrong." This was a great puff for Addison's tragedy. Edward Osborne, an apprentice of Sir William Hewet, afterwards Lord Mayor, jumped from the window of one of the bridge houses, in 1536, to save his master's daughter, an infant, and years afterwards he was rewarded with her hand in marriage, and became Lord Mayor himself. The grandson of the apprentice became Duke of Leeds and the founder of the present ducal house of that name. No bridge ever constructed had such a history as that of Old London Bridge.
THE TRAFFIC ON LONDON BRIDGES.
The flow of traffic on some of the principal bridges by actual computation during twelve hours, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., was: Pedestrians, London Bridge, 96,080; Southwark Bridge, 2,500; Blackfriars Bridge, 48,095; Waterloo Bridge, 12,000; Westminster Bridge, 38,015. Equestrian traffic: London Bridge, 211; Southwark Bridge, 93; Blackfriars, 91; Waterloo, 38; Westminster Bridge, 311. Vehicular traffic: London Bridge, 26,800; Southwark Bridge, 516; Blackfriars Bridge, 6,384; Waterloo Bridge, 2,603; Westminster Bridge, 7,300. From these figures it will be seen that the traffic on London Bridgewhich leads from the heart of the business portion of the city, and is toll free, exceeded that on all of the others put together. Some of the bridges are owned by companies and a toll of half a penny per passenger is taken for revenue by them.
London Bridge was designed by Sir John Rennie and built by his son. The first pile was driven March 15th, 1824, government contributing £200,000 toward the undertaking. Altogether the bridge cost £2,000,000 before it was finished. It is built on coffer-dams, and the bridge has five semi-elliptical arches. The centre arch has a span of 152 feet, and a rise above high water mark of 24 feet 6 inches; the two arches next the centre are 140 feet span, and the two abutment arches have 130 feet of span. There is a parapet four feet high and the length between the abutments is 782 feet, while the width between the parapets is 53 feet. The bridge was nearly eight years in construction, and 120,000 tons of stone were used in its erection.
Southwark Bridge is constructed of iron with three colossal arches, and was built by Rennie. The middle arch has a span of 240 feet and a rise of 24 feet. Its height above low-water mark to the roadway is 55 feet. The cost was £800,000 and the bridge was opened in 1819. Its length is 700 feet, and the roadway is 42 feet wide.
The new Blackfriars Bridge is 1,000 feet long, 42 feet wide, and the cost will be £300,000.
Waterloo Bridge is the finest in the world. Its dimensions are: Length between abutments 2,456 feet, water-way, 1,326 feet. The carriage-way is 28 feet wide with a pathway on each side of seven feet. There are nine arches, each of which are 120 feet in span with a rise of 35 feet. Waterloo Bridge has a level grade from one end to the other. Canova, the sculptor, said of this bridge, "It was alone worth a journey from Rome to London to see it." The cost was £1,000,000.
WATERLOO BRIDGE.
As a set-off to what Macaulay has prophesied in regard to London Bridge and the future New Zealander, Baron Charles Dupin, the great French publicist, speaks of Waterloo Bridge as follows:
bridge
THE NEW BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE.
"If from the incalculable effect of the revolutions which empires undergo, the nations of a future age should demand one day what was formerly the New Sidon, and what has become of the Tyre of the West, which covered with her vessels every sea?—most of the edifices devoured by a destructive climate will no longer exist to answer the curiosity of man by the voice of monuments; But Waterloo Bridge, built in the centre of the commercial world, will exist to tell the most remote generations—'here was a rich, industrious, and powerful city.' The traveller, on beholding this superb monument, will suppose that some great prince wished, by many years of labor, to consecrate forever the glory of his life by this imposing structure. But if tradition instruct the traveller that six years sufficed for the undertaking and finishing the work—if he learns that an association of a number of private individuals was rich enoughto defray the expense of this colossal monument, worthy of Sesostris and the Cæsars—he will admire still more the nation in which similar undertakings could be the fruit of the efforts of a few obscure individuals, lost in the crowd of industrious citizens."
Charing Cross is the next bridge on the Thames, being built of iron and used by a railway company. It was built by Brunel, and is a graceful structure, but does not permit of pedestrian traffic.
Westminster Bridge is nearly level in its grade, and has seven arches. It is 1,220 feet long. The cost was £400,000.
Lambeth Bridge is of iron with three arches, each of 280 feet span, and the width is 54 feet. Cost, £100,000.
Vauxhall Bridge is of iron with nine arches of equal span—each 78 feet wide. The breadth of the roadway is 36 feet, and the total length of the bridge is 840 feet.
Pimlico Railway Bridge is built of iron, with four openings or spans of 175 feet each. The bridge is 900 feet in length, and has a width of 24 feet.
Chelsea Chain Suspension Bridge is 922 feet long and 45 feet wide. Cost, £75,000.
Hammersmith Suspension Bridge is 841 feet long and 32 feet wide. Cost, £180,000.
Scott, the American diver, lost his life while performing acrobatic feats on Waterloo Bridge. The season he chose for diving from a height of twenty feet above the parapet of the highest London bridge was during an intense frost, when the river was full of ice, and the enormous masses floating with the tide scarcely appeared to leave a space for his reckless plunge into the river or his rise therefrom. He watched his moment, and the feat was performed over and over again with perfect safety. But he had been told that the Londoners wanted novelty. It was not enough that he should do day after day what no man had ever ventured to do before.
DEADLY ACROBATICS.
To leap off the parapets of the Southwark and Waterloo bridges into the half-frozen river had become a common thing; and so the poor fellow must have a scaffold put up, and hemust suspend himself from its cross bars by his arm, his leg and his neck, in succession. Twice was the last experiment repeated; but on the third attempt the body hung motionless. The applause and laughter that death could be so counterfeited was tumultuous; but a cry of terror went forth that the man was dead. He perished for catering to a morbid public appetite. Every one who saw this voluntary hanging went away degraded and disgusted at the terrible result of the show.
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CHAPTER XXXIX.
AT WINDSOR CASTLE.
FROM Windsor Castle the view is one of the finest in England. A vast panorama extending as far as the eye can reach. All flat—the faint, bare, blue horizontal line, scarcely discernible from the clouds, so distant is it, as straight as the boundary of a calm sea—and yet how infinitely varied! What would such an expanse of land be in any other country but England, which is, in itself, a huge landscape garden?
A lovely river, to which the hackneyed illustration of "a stream of molten gold" might well be applied, from the silent roll of its glittering waters, as if impeded by their own rich weight, now flashing like a strip of the sun's self, through broad meadows, whose green is scarcely less dazzling—now lost in shady nooks of wondrous and refreshing coolness.
Trees of various species and growth, singly, in clumps, and in rows, are everywhere. Little bright-looking villages, with their white spires, or grey towers, are dotted all over the scene. Beyond where I stand, on the ramparts of the Castle, I can see the Gothic turrets and spires of Eton College, founded by Henry of Lancaster, flanked by oak and birch trees, and above us, on this delightful day in autumn, the banner of St. George is floating right saucily, denoting that this Martial Keep is a royal fortress and a hereditary residence of the Sovereigns of England.
THE DEMON HUNTSMAN.
Everything seems in perfect harmony around us, as the sun falls in slanting and roseate beams on grass, tree, flower, castle, and river. There are not many hours, in one's life, such as I enjoyed that pleasant evening in September. The gentle hum of human life reaching me from the distance, is no more injurious to the effect than the rustling of the trees, or the chirping of the birds. The quiet bustle down at the stone bridge, the shouts of the bargemen—heard several seconds after their utterance,—the plashing of the oars of stray boats, the cricketers over there in their play-ground, where reposes some of the dust of Arthur's blood; all these have a charm for the drowsy senses.
The sleepy-looking chimneys of the old, royal town, immediately beneath me, fill up their place in the picture famously; even steam—that most implacable enemy of romance—appears on the scene without injuring it. The little toy-house-looking railway station, which I can see from where I stand, on the battlements, is a harmless, nay a pleasing object; and to watch the lilliputian train that has just left it, disappearing fussily among the old trees, is a perfect delight.
Windsor Castle has been the abode of royalty from the time of the Saxon Kings. It was while King John lived at Windsor, that the barons obtained from him Magna Charta. Cromwell has held his republican courts in Windsor, and Charles I lies buried in its Chapel Royal.
James, the Royal poet and King of Scotland, has visited here, and David, another Scottish monarch, was a prisoner in its gloomy towers. Here was instituted the Order of the Garter by Edward, who was "every inch a King," and some of the most splendid pageantries and courtly ceremonies of history have been enacted within the walls of Windsor Castle. In its vast forests, Herne, the Diabolical Hunter, has chased the Phantom Deer to the tally-ho of unearthly horns. This forest, or, as it was called, "Windsor Great Forest," was of enormous extent, and comprehended a circumference of one hundred and twenty miles. In the time of James I, this great area had been reduced to seventy-seven and a half miles. There werethen three thousand head of deer, and fifteen walks, in the forest, each about three miles long. The next reduction of its size left the Forest only fifty-six miles in circumference, and in 1814 an act of Parliament was passed to enclose its boundaries. Since then villages, and detached buildings, and private residences, have encroached upon this once magnificent demesne, until but 6,000 acres of wood and dell have been left of all the great medieval acreage.
Edward, the Confessor, held a court here, and assigned the Manor of Windsor to the Abbot and Monks of Westminster. William de Wykeham, the great philanthropist and scholar, who founded Winchester School and the New College at Oxford, was appointed Clerk of the Works at Windsor to superintend the reconstruction of the Castle, in 1356, and his fee from Edward III for the service was one shilling a day while he remained in the town, and two shillings a day when he went elsewhere upon business.
The Castle is divided into a great number of apartments, many of which are memorable for their historical recollections, and among them are St. George's Chapel, Beaufort Chapel, the Round Tower, the North Terrace, the Audience Chamber, the Vandyck Gallery, the Queen's Drawing Room, the State Ante-Room, the Grand Vestibule, the Waterloo Chamber, the Grand Ball Room, St. George's Hall, the Guard Chamber, the Queen's Presence Chamber, the King's Closet, the Queen's Private Closet, the King's Drawing Room, the Throne Room, the State Apartments, and the Private Apartments. The Home Park attached to the Castle is a private garden in which the Queen walks or rides while residing at Windsor. The Queen seldom rides on horseback of late years, as she has become so fat and pursy that she is in constant dread that she will have to take any such exercise as walking in the open air, or even promenading upon the Grand Terrace of Windsor.
In St. George's Chapel, a beautiful little edifice, are hung the banners of the Knights of the Order of the Garter, and under each banner is the carved stall, made of wood, on which each Knight of the Chapter sits, at the installation of a newmember, or when any grand ceremony may make their presence necessary. In the groined roof above the banners, are worked the arms of Edward the Black Prince, Henry VI, Edward IV, Henry VII, and the succeeding English Sovereigns. The helmets, swords, and mantles of the Knights, together with the brass plates, recording their titles, are also to be seen here. In this Chapel is buried the crumbled dust of poor Jane Seymour, one of Henry VIII's unfortunate wives and the mother of Edward VI, who reformed the Prayer Book and Liturgy of the Church of England. The body of Charles I also lies here, but he was more fortunate than Jane Seymour, whose memory is almost forgotten.
In the Beaufort Chapel is the family tomb of that perverse old idiot of a king, George III, in which repose the ashes of his children and Queen; the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, Princess Charlotte, William IV, uncle to Queen Victoria, the royal blackguard and scoundrel George IV, the Princess Augusta, who was believed to have been insane, and Queen Adelaide.
It is in the Beaufort Chapel that the Poor or Military Knights of St. George's College, assemble to pray and beseech the Almighty for the health and welfare of the Queen of England, and for the Most Noble Companions of the Order of the Garter, to whom the Poor Knights cling as a species of indigent parasites. The Order of Poor Knights was established by act of Parliament of Edward IV, in the name of the "Poor Knights of St. George's College," and was to consist of a Dean, 12 Secular Canons, 13 Priests, 4 Clerks, 6 Choristers, and 24 "Alms Knights."