the famous Barclay who wrote the Apology for the Quakers, and Perkins was the chief clerk on Thrale's establishment. While on his tour to the Hebrides, in 1773, Johnson mentioned that Thrale "paid 20,000l. a year to the revenue, and that he had four vats, each of which held 1600 barrels, above a thousand hogsheads." The amount at present paid to the revenue by the firm is nine times 20,0007. The visitor should exert his influence among his friends to obtain an order of admission to any one of the larger Breweries. Foreigners wearing moustaches had better abstain altogether, remembering the disgraceful treatment which an Austrian officer received in one of these establishments. The best London porter and stout in draught is to be had at the Cock Tavern, 201, Fleet-street, and at the Rainbow Tavern, 15, Fleet-street, immediately opposite. Judges of ale recommend John O'Groat's, 61, Rupert-street, Haymarket; and the Edinburgh Castle, 322, Strand. XI.-WATER COMPANIES. THE cities of London and Westminster, and the borough of Southwark, and certain parishes and places adjacent thereto, are at present supplied with water by nine Companies, who exercise absolute and irresponsible discretion in the quality, price, and quantity, of the article_they_sell. These Companies are:-NEW RIVER COMPANY; EAST LONDON WATER WORKS COMPANY; SOUTHWARK AND VAUXHALL WATER COMPANY; WEST MIDDLESEX WATER WORKS COMPANY; LAMBETH WATER WORKS COMPANY; CHELSEA WATER WORKS COMPANY; GRAND JUNCTION WATER WORKS COMPANY; KENT WATER WORKS COMPANY; HAMPSTEAD WATER WORKS COMPANY. The daily supply is nearly 46 millions of gallons per day, of which 20 millions are from the Thames, and 26 millions from the New River and other sources. This supply is equal, it is said, to a river 9 feet wide and 3 feet deep, running at two miles an hour. The City is entirely supplied from the New River and the River Lea; not by the Thames. The nine companies supply 271,795 tenements; the New River supplying 83,206 of that number. The Thames has hitherto been at once our cistern and our cesspool; but this great disgrace is in some degree remedied, as far as supply is concerned by an Act passed in 1852 directing that on and after 31st of August, 1855, no companies, except the Chelsea Company, shall take water from any part of the Thames below Teddington Lock. The new system of Main Drainage (1859-63) will, it is hoped, relieve the Thames from the second reproach of foulness. The NEW RIVER is an artificial stream, 38 miles in length, about 18 feet wide and 4 feet deep, projected 1608-9, and completed 1620, by Sir Hugh Myddelton, a native of Denbigh, in Wales, and a member of the Goldsmiths' Company, for the purpose of supplying the City of London with water. Nearly ruined by his scheme, Myddelton parted with his interest in it to a company, called the New River Company, in whose hands it still remains, reserving to himself and his heirs for ever an annuity of 100l. per annum. This annuity ceased to be claimed about the year 1715. The river has its rise at Chadwell Springs, situated in meadows, midway between Hertford and Ware, runs for several miles parallel with the river Lea, from which it borrows water at Ware, and at last empties itself into 83,206 tenements, and down the throats of 800,000 persons, having run a very circuitous course from its source to London. The principal spring, marked by a stone erected by the Company, is now a spacious basin with an islet, containing a monument to Myddelton, erected, in 1800, by Mylne, the architect and engineer. The dividend for the year 1633, which is believed to have been the first, was 157. 38. 3d. A single share bequeathed by Myddelton to the Goldsmiths' Company, for charitable purposes, produces 900l. a year. The main of the New River at Islington was, it is said, shut down at the time of the Great Fire of London in 1666; and it was believed by some, who pretended to the means of knowing, that the supply of water had been stopped by Captain John Graunt, a papist. The story, however, it is reasonable to think, was a mere party invention of those heated times. One of the figures in Tempest's Cries of London, executed and published in the reign of James II., carries "New River Water." XII.-MAIN DRAINAGE.-SEWERAGE. A new system of Main Drainage for London was decided on in 1858, and begun 1859, by the METROPOLITAN BOARD OF WORKS, the object being to divert the impurities of the great City from the Thames, into which they had hitherto been discharged. A series of large sewers, in fact, tunnels, carried under streets and buildings, whose aggregate length amounts to 85 miles, have been constructed on either side of the Thames, at right angles with the old sewers and a little below their levels, so as to intercept the sewage, and prevent its polluting the river in its passage through London. They discharge themselves by a general outfall channel at Barking Creek on the left bank of the Thames, and at Crossness, near Plumstead, on the right. The greater part of the sewage is carried away along with the rainfall by gravitation; but the sewage of the low levels requires to be pumped up by steam-engines into the outfall channels, and is previously subjected to a process of deodorising. The cost of executing this extensive design is 4,100,000l.! On the S. side of the Thames the high level channels (10 miles long) begin at Clapham, the low level (11 miles) at Putney, both uniting at Deptford Creek; thence proceeding to Erith, 7 miles. On the N. or City side of the Thames, three systems of sewers, beginning at Hampstead, Kilburn, and the river embankment, meet together on the river Lea. The works at Bow Creek, below Blackwall, in bridges, aqueducts, culverts, and conduits, are on the most stupendous scale. The ordinary daily amount of London sewage thus discharged into the River Thames on the N. side has been calculated at 10,000,000 cubic feet, and on the south side 4,000,000 cubic feet. Formerly the sewers emptied themselves into the Thames at various levels. When the tide rose above the orifices of these sewers, the whole drainage of the district was stopped until the tide receded again, rendering the whole river side system of sewers in Kent and Surrey a succession of cesspools. Now their contents are received in reservoirs at the river bank, which are discharged into the river about the time of high water, thus both diluting the sewage and carrying it down by the ebb to a point 26 miles below London Bridge. When the North low level sewer is finished, the whole sewage of London will be diverted away from the Thames into this gigantic aqueduct. The engineer of the Main Drainage is Mr. Bazalgette. XIII.-TOWER OF LONDON. TOWER OF LONDON, the most celebrated fortress in Great Britain, stands immediately without the ancient City walls, on the left or Middlesex bank of the Thames, and "below bridge," between the Custom House and St. Katherine Docks. "This Tower," says Stow, "is a citadel to defend or command the City a royal palace a prison of state for the most dangerous offenders; the armoury for warlike provisions; the treasury of the ornaments and jewels of the Crown; and general conserver of most of the records of the King's courts of justice at Westminster."-Stow, p. 23. Tradition has carried its erection many centuries earlier than our records warrant, attributing its foundation to Julius Cæsar: "Prince. Where shall we sojourn till our coronation? Your highness will repose you at the Tower. "Buck. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place, Shakspeare, King Richard III., Act iii., sc. 1. 'This is the way To Julius Cæsar's ill-erected Tower." Shakspeare, King Richard II., Act v., sc. "Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame, Gray, The Bard. The Government of the Tower has been entrusted since the days of the Conqueror to a high officer called the Constable. That office was filled by the Duke of Wellington, and is now by Gen. Sir John Burgoyne. The Lieut.-Governor is Col. Lord de Ros, author of " Historical Memorials of the Tower," 1866. The Tower is entered from the side of Tower Hill by the Lions' Gate, on the W. side, where the lions and King's beasts were formerly kept. Here tickets are distributed— for the Armoury and White Tower, 6d.; and for the Crown jewels, 6d. each person. Admission from 10 to 4. Strangers are conducted over the Tower by the Warders, whose places were formerly bought; but who are now all old soldiers, appointed on account of good services. They conduct visitors in parties of 12. Passing under two Gothic gateways through the Middle and Byward Towers, and over the broad and deep moat surrounding the fortress, once an eyesore and unwholesome, now drained and kept as a garden, though still capable of being flooded at high water, we enter the Outer Bail, and perceive before us the wall of the Inner Bail, 30 to 40 ft. high, surmounted by towers at intervals. At the S.W. angle rises the Bell Tower, forming part of the Governor's house, while, rt., in the line of the outer rampart is St. Thomas Tower, and the Traitor's Gate, opening to the river beneath a fine wide arch, well restored and rebuilt in 1866, by Salvin. The Traitor's Gate "That gate misnamed, through which before Went Sidney, Russell, Raleigh, Cranmer, More." Rogers's Human Life. is so called because prisoners, brought by water, were admitted by it. It is now closed. Nearly opposite to it rises the Bloody Tower, gloomy and ominous name, so called, because within it took place the murder of the princes, Edward V. and Duke of York, sons of Edward IV., by order of Richard III., described by the Duke of Wellington as "the only place of security in which prisoners of State can be placed." Passing beneath the portcullis which still hangs above the gateway of the Bloody Tower, you enter the Inner Bail. In the corner of the square, on the left, is the Governor's lodgings in the Bell Tower (mentioned above, and not shown to the public). They contain the Council Chamber, in which Guy Fawkes was examined by the Lords and King James, with application of torture; also the Romish priests who were accomplices in the Powder plot. This event is commemorated by a curious monument, of parti-coloured marbles, and with inscriptions in Latin and Hebrew. In another part of this building is an inscription carved on an old mantel-piece relating to the Countess of Lenox, grandmother of Jaines the First, "commitede prysner to thys Logynge for the Marige of her Sonne, my Lord Henry Darnle and the Queene of Scotlande." The Bell Tower was the prison of Queen Elizabeth, of Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and probably of Lord Nithsdale, whose escape thence was so wonderfully effected by his heroic wife.* The oldest portion existing of the Tower is the isolated square Keep, or Donjon in the centre, called the White Tower, built by William the Conqueror (circ. 1178), Gundulph, bishop of Rochester, being architect. It was re-faced and the windows modernised by Wren, but within it is nearly unaltered. A winding stair at the corner, at the foot of which the bones of "the murdered princes" were found, leads to the Chapel of St. John, long used, as well as the other chambers, to hold Records; now laid open. It is one of the best preserved and oldest specimens of Early Norman style in Britain; plain and massive piers supporting round arches and a barrel vault. The E. end is an apse, and round it and the aisles * See Lord De Ros" Memorials," 183". |