Daily American telegraph. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1851-1852, 1852-01-21

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after London, Winchester, York, Lincoln Bos-
ton, st. Ives, Lynn, and Stamford. Dover and
Dunwich were both important seaports. and
Southampton already thriving place. Var
mouth was starting into life through the her.
ring fishery, and Newcastle had just begun to
profit by its coal But over the whole country
there was nothing like the hive Of people
which increase Of wealth and population now
supplies for the days work of British Industry
The whole population of London itself was
under twenty thousand /" In the fourteenth
century, the whole number of the inhabitants
Of Lincoln, who contributed to an assessment
of ninths was less than eight hundred" Lon
don we have to picture as q mass of little
whitewashed tenements, with an approach to
pavement in the narrow streets, each street
appropriated to its own trade Down the
centre Of streets leading to the Thames, ran
the town drainage into the river; near the
river dwelt the merchants and the adventurers
on the deep sea- Besides the corporation
wards the city contained sokes or districts
under independent lords; the soke lords and
their tenants had a vote as citizens. but were
exempt from city jurisdiction. The conse-
quence of this arrangement was a city divided
against ITSELF which gave comparative impunity
to malefactors The streets were SO dangerous
that the canons of st. Martin-le-G Grand were
afraid to 60 across the road to their collegiate
church, and SO obtained leave to connect their
lodgings with the church tower by wooden
bridge.
The main traffic out of London was to
Dover, and this road was worked by hackney
men, who let horse at Southwark for the
stage to Rochester where it was exchanged
for another hackney that went on to Canter-
bury, and SO on. The charge was for each of
those two stages sixteen pence; that is to say
a sovereign in present money. Carts were
also provided to transport the luggage; but
the roads were SO bad that in some districts it
was necessary to rest the cattle four days after
travelling two, although the usage was to
travel four days and rest three SO four days
made q week to travellers. No cross-road
could be attempted without the assistance of a
guide. Ladies Of rank went out occasionally
in covered cars, vehicles richly painted and lined
but numbering wagons as to their construction
King Henry the Third ordered house Of deal
to be made, running on wheels; SO King of
England was the first of the long train of at
fractions who have since travelled in caravans.
| Trade was in keeping with the poverty and
scanty numbers of the population. Goldsmiths
and others merely worked in other mems
material. Those who kept stores supplied
| them from the annual fairs, and if any run
upon the shops exhausted them, it was requisite
to wait until the next fair came round When
Henry the Third wanted to take Bedford
Castle pickaxes were required, and ropes
wherewith to pull the battering machines. He
sent a royal order to the sheriffs of London to
supply the necessary ARTICLES they were. not
to be raised in London; and ropes and pick
axes We're demanded of the sherifs of Dorset
shire and other countes-immense trouble be-
ing taken, throughout several counties. to exc
cute an order which two tradesmen would now
receive as a trifing item in the routine of their
business
| When it is remembered that the details Of
home comfort which we have given, miserable
| as they are, have been drawn from the estab-
lislrment of Kings it will be easy to imagine
what was the condition of the common people
in this country during the blessed ages of ro-
nance and chiValry. Those wretched good old
times There is hardly glory in them that
will bear the light. Even the Wardon pie,
that phantom emblem of good cheer, which we
troll over with an oily chuckle when we sing
about the monks of old is-what? "The
Cistertiau monks of Wardon, in Bedfordshire
produced, at some early but uncertain time, a
baking variety of the pear. 1t BORE and still
bears the name of the abbey it figured on its
armorial escutcheon, and supplied the contents
of those Wardon pies 50 often named in old
descriptions Of feasts" The fagon of wine
and the Wardon pie, what have they come to ?
Yin ordinatre in wooden mug, and a quashy
mess of baking pears under a pie-crust Of the
Middle Ages!