its memories of old Dr. Johnson, did a roaring trade far
into the night. There was a twopenny post for London, but elsewhere the
charge for letters was exorbitant and prohibitory. Vice had more
opportunities than now. There was no early closing, and in the Haymarket
and in Drury Lane these places were frequented by prostitutes and their
victims all night long. A favourite place for men to sup at was Evans's
in Covent Garden, the Cider Cellars in Maiden Lane, and the Coal Hole in
the Strand. The songs were of the coarsest, and the company, consisting
of lords and touts, medical students, swell mobsmen, and fast men from
the City, not much better. At such places decency was unknown, and yet
how patronised they were, especially at Christmas time, when the country
farmer stole away from home, ostensibly to see the Fat Cattle Show, then
held in Baker Street. Of course there were no underground railways, and
the travelling public had to put up with omnibuses and cabs, dearer, more
like hearses than they are now.

I should be sorry to recommend any one to read the novels of Fielding or
of Smollet. And yet in one sense they are useful. At any rate, they
show how much the England of to-day is in advance of the England of 150
years ago. For instance, take London. It is held that London is in a
bad way in spite of its reforming County Council. It is clear from the
perusal of Smollet's novels that a purifying process has long been at
work with regard to London, and that if our County Councillors do their
duty as their progenitors have done, little will remain to be done to
make the metropolis a model city. "Humphry Clinker" appeared in 1771.
It contains the adventures of a worthy Welsh Squire, Matthew Bramble, who
in the course of his travels with his family finds himself in London.
The old Squire is astonished at its size. "What I left open fields,
producing corn and hay, I now find covered with streets and squares, and
palaces and churches. I am credibly informed that in the space of seven
years 11,000 new houses have been built in one quarter of Westminster,
exclusive of what is daily added to other parts of this metropolis.
Pimlico is almost joined to Chelsea and Kensington, and if this
infatuation continues for half-a-century, I suppose, the whole county of
Middlesex will be covered with brick." A prophecy that has almost come
to pass in our time. At that time London contained one-sixth of the
entire populatio