of Chancery. In 1723 (George
I.) the inn was highly aristocratic, its inmates being the Lord Chief
Justice, the Lord Chief Baron, justices, and Serjeants. In 1730,
however, the fickle serjeants removed to Chancery Lane, and Adam, the
architect of the Adelphi, designed the present nineteen houses and the
present street frontage. On the site of the hall arose the Amicable
Assurance Society, which in 1865 transferred its business to the
Economic, and the house is now the Norwich Union Office. The inn is a
parish in itself, making its own assessment, and contributing to the
City rates. Its pavement, which had been part of the stone-work of Old
St. Paul's, was not replaced till 1860. The conservative old inn
retained its old oil lamps long after the introduction of gas.

The arms of Serjeants' Inn, worked into the iron gate opening on Fleet
Street, are a dove and a serpent, the serpent twisted into a kind of
true lover's knot. The lawyers of Serjeants' Inn, no doubt, unite the
wisdom of the serpent with the guilelessness of the dove. Singularly
enough Dr. Dodd, the popular preacher, who was hanged, bore arms nearly
similar.

Half way down Bouverie Street, in the centre of old Whitefriars, is the
office of the _Daily News_. The first number of this popular and
influential paper appeared on January 21, 1846. The publishers, and part
proprietors, were Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, the printers; the editor was
Charles Dickens; the manager was Dickens's father, Mr. John Dickens; the
second, or assistant, editor, Douglas Jerrold; and among the other
"leader" writers were Albany Fonblanque and John Forster, both of the
_Examiner_. "Father Prout" (Mahoney) acted as Roman correspondent. The
musical critic was the late Mr. George Hogarth, Dickens's father-in-law;
and the new journal had an "Irish Famine Commissioner" in the person of
Mr. R.H. Horne, the poet. Miss Martineau wrote leading articles in the
new paper for several years, and Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens was also a
recognised contributor. The staff of Parliamentary reporters was said to
be the best in London, several having been taken, at an advanced salary,
off the _Times_.

"The speculative proprietorship," says Mr. Grant, in his "History of the
Newspaper Press," "was divided into one hundred shares, some of which
were held by Sir William Jackson, M.P., Sir Joshua Watkins, and the late
Sir Joseph Paxton. Mr. Charles Dickens, as editor, received a salary of
L2,000 a year."

[Illu