ses, the shattered stones of the well, and of the little
fretted channel which was long ago built and traced for it by gentler
hands, lie scattered, each from each, under a ragged bank of mortar, and
scoria; and brick-layers' refuse, on one side, which the clean water
nevertheless chastises to purity; but it cannot conquer the dead earth
beyond; and there, circled and coiled under festering scum, the stagnant
edge of the pool effaces itself into a slope of black slime, the
accumulation of indolent years. Half-a-dozen men, with one day's work,
could cleanse those pools, and trim the flowers about their banks, and
make every breath of summer air above them rich with cool balm; and
every glittering wave medicinal, as if it ran, troubled of angels, from
the porch of Bethesda. But that day's work is never given, nor will be;
nor will any joy be possible to heart of man, for evermore, about those
wells of English waters.

When I last left them, I walked up slowly through the back streets of
Croydon, from the old church to the hospital; and, just on the left,
before coming up to the crossing of the High Street, there was a new
public-house built. And the front of it was built in so wise manner,
that a recess of two feet was left below its front windows, between them
and the street-pavement--a recess too narrow for any possible use (for
even if it had been occupied by a seat, as in old time it might have
been, everybody walking along the street would have fallen over the legs
of the reposing wayfarers). But, by way of making this two feet depth of
freehold land more expressive of the dignity of an establishment for the
sale of spirituous liquors, it was fenced from the pavement by an
imposing iron railing, having four or five spearheads to the yard of it,
and six feet high; containing as much iron and iron-work, indeed as
could well be put into the space; and by this stately arrangement, the
little piece of dead ground within, between wall and street, became a
protective receptacle of refuse; cigar ends, and oyster shells, and the
like, such as an open-handed English street-populace habitually scatters
from its presence, and was thus left, unsweepable by any ordinary
methods. Now the iron bars which, uselessly (or in great degree worse
than uselessly), enclosed this bit of ground, and made it pestilent,
represented a quantity of work which would have cleansed the Carshalton
pools three times over;--of work, partly cramped and de