File:London (1892) (14584651097).jpg

Identifier: londonbesant00besa (find matches)
Title: London
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Besant, Walter, Sir, 1836-1901
Subjects: London (England) -- History London (England) -- Social life and customs
Publisher: London : Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ings are defaced, andthe church is given over for worldly things. Come in. We entered by the north transept. There was much that astonished me in this walk throughLondon of the year 1603, but nothing so surprising andunexpected as St. Pauls Cathedral. I had pictured a churchnarrow, long, somewhat low and dark. I found, on the otherhand, that it was in every respect a most noble church,longer than any other cathedral I had ever seen, loftier also, TUDOR 271 and well lighted in every part, the style grand and simple.Consider, therefore, my astonishment at rinding the church•desecrated and abandoned like the common streets for thegeneral uses of the people. The choir alone, where the oldscreen still stood, was reserved for purposes of worship, forthere was a public thoroughfare through the transepts andacross the church. Men tramped through, carrying baskets•of meat or of bread, sacks of coal, bundles, bags, and parcels•of all kinds, walking as in the streets, turning neither to *-
Text Appearing After Image:
J 7i^rLL~. OLD ST. PAULS right nor left. Hucksters and peddlers not only walkedthrough but lingered on their way to sell their wares.Servants stood and sat about a certain pillar to be hired ;scriveners sat about another pillar writing letters for thosewho required their services ; clergymen in quest of a curacyor vicarage gathered at another pillar. Remember theverses, said Stow : Who wants a churchman that can service say,Read first and faire his monthlie homilic,And wed and bury and make Christian soules ?Come to the left side alley of St. Pauls. -»— -» LONDO V 1 The poor clergymen, he went on, have fallen upon eviltimes ; there is not preferment enough for all of them, andmany of the country parishes are too poor to keep a man,even though he live more hardly than a yeoman. This, he added, is an exchange where almost as muchbusiness is done as at Sir Thomas Greshams Burse, but of ::

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