e pulled
down; that some of the monuments would be removed, the rest destroyed;
that the bones of the illustrious dead would be carted away and
scattered, and that the site would be occupied by warehouses used for
commercial purposes. One can picture the frantic rage and despair with
which the news would everywhere be received; one can imagine the
stirring of the hearts of all those who to every part of the world
inherit the Anglo-Saxon speech, one can hear the sobbing and the
wailing which accompany the last anthem, the last sermon, the last
prayer.

St. Katherine's by the Tower was the Abbey of East London, poor and
small, certainly, compared with the Cathedral church of the City and
the Abbey of the West; but stately and ancient; endowed by half a
dozen Sovereigns; consecrated by the memory of seven hundred years,
filled with the monuments of great men and small men buried within her
walls; standing in her own Precinct; with her own Courts, Spiritual
and Temporal; with her own judges and officers; surrounded by the
claustral buildings belonging to Master, Brethren, Sisters, and
Bedeswomen. The church and the hospital had long survived the
intentions of the founders; yet as they stood, so situated, so
ancient, so venerable, amid a dense population of rough sailors and
sailor folk, with such enormous possibilities for good and useful
work, sacred and secular, one is lost in wonder that the consent of
Parliament, even for purposes of gain, could be obtained for their
destruction. Yet St. Katherine's was destroyed. When the voice of the
preacher died away, the destroyers began their work. They pulled down
the church; they hacked up the monuments, and dug up the bones; they
destroyed the Master's house, and cut down the trees in his quiet
orchard; they pulled down the Brothers' houses round the little
ancient square; they pulled down the row of Sisters' houses and the
Bedeswomen's houses; they swept the people out of the Precinct, and
destroyed the streets; they pulled down the Courts, Spiritual and
Temporal, and opened the doors of the prison; they grubbed up the
burying ground, and with the bones and the dust of the dead, and the
rubbish of the foundations, they filled up the old reservoir of the
Chelsea water-works, and enabled Mr.

Cubitt to build Eccleston Square. When all was gone they let the water
into the big hole they had made, and called it St. Katherine's Dock.
All this done, they became aware of certain pr