rkenwell, and over this Ditch most of the
alleys have a small boarded bridge."

We can easily picture it, the courts swarming with thieves and rogues
who slipped from justice by this back-way, which made the place a kind
of warren with endless ramifications and outlets. All this district is
strongly associated with the stories of Dickens, who mentions Saffron
Hill in "Oliver Twist," not much to its credit. In later times Italian
organ-grinders and ice-cream vendors had a special predilection for the
place, and did not add to its reputation. Curiously enough, the resident
population of the neighbourhood are now almost wholly British, with very
few Italians, as the majority of the foreigners have gone to join the
colony just outside the Liberty, in Eyre Street Hill, Skinner's Street,
etc. Within quite recent times the clergyman of the parish dare only go
to visit these parishioners accompanied by two policemen in plain
clothes. Now the lower half is a hive of industry, and is lined by great
business houses. Further north, on the east side, the dwellings are
still poor and squalid, but on one side a great part of the street has
been demolished to make way for a Board school, built in a way
immeasurably superior to the usual Board school style. Opposite is the
Church of St. Peter, which is an early work of Sir Charles Barry. This
is in light stone, in the Perpendicular style, and has two western
towers. It was built at the time of the separation of the district,
about 1832.

In Hatton Wall an old yard bore the name of Hat in Tun, which was
interesting as showing the derivation of the word. Strype mentions in
this street a very old inn, called the Bull Inn. The part of Hatton Wall
to the west of Hatton Garden was known as Vine Street, and here there
was "a steep descent into the Ditch, where there is a bridge that
leadeth to Clerkenwell Green" (Strype). In Hatton Yard Mr. Fogg,
Dickens' magistrate, presided over a police-court.

Leather Lane is called by Strype "Lither" Lane. Even in his day he
reviles it as of no reputation, and this character it retains. It is one
of the open street markets of London, lined with barrows and coster
stalls, and abounding in low public-houses. The White Hart, the King's
Head, and the Nag's Head, are mentioned by Strype, and these names
survive amid innumerable others. At the south end a house with
overhanging stories remains; this curtails the already narrow space
across the Lane.

On th