The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-02-22

q discussing and a walking to and fro, and
ohaflering and ruflling, with now and then a
gallant or citizen or buxom wench who would
compound for the proclamation by turning aside
for a minute or two to worship at mass or
listen to sermon when the latter was in
BDglish, dd popuium. II is curious to oh
serve how, while these things were tOle-
rated, small observanoes were enforced.
If an apprentice entered the church
with his cap on, or gallant kept
covered, he was rudely brought to civility by
the vergers. Beggars would tOtter in, out of
the hot summer sun or the winter snow and,
weary, filthy, and sleepy, would lie down in
the midst Of clean worshippers. The vergers
had to rouse these unwholesome visitants and
bid them move on The nave, too, was at one
time the favorite walking place of all the frail
and saucy beauty Of the city. In very early
times these damsels, when caught, and esps-
cially If they were dressed more demonstra-
lively than the law allowed, we're fddled out
of the city in mock procession, which only left
the not deeply blu5hing offenders at the en-
trance to Cock Lane. The readers OF Med
Ward" will remember that, in more recent
days, the public mad galleries at ST. Luke's
were to these persons what st. Pdul's was
before, and the Quadrant became in our own
period. Dean Milman thinks that in the
earlier times, the instructions for keeping OBJ
! jectionable per5Onages out of the cathedral
were seldom or never carried out with rigid
severity.
AS the period of the Reformation approached
and was reached, it cannot be said that man
ners improved. Morals and customs hardly
knew change. The ruthless destruction of
beautiful realities, as well as of things en-
couraeing harmless sentiment, was a disgrace
to all concerned. Dean Milman alludes to a
curious and not creditabe letter about a rich
cross, adorned with jewels, secretly taken
from the church by Smythe q residentary,
and presented to Anne Boleyn, with the un-
derstanding that he would have her favor in
certain transactions with the Dean and
Chapter. The things done openly were even
! worse than this stealing and receiving. The
old preaching could not have been in
| accordance with practice, or the people would
! have thought and spoken more becomingly of
| what the priests had described as the Real
Presence, while they acted rs if there was
neither Presence nor Reality. Popular Slang
called the mystery of the Sacrament by
! the ireverent appellation of "Jack-in-the-
! box" Popular poets wrote co arse and vulgar
! ballads, which were answered from the other
! side in ballads equally coarse and vulgar,
sung in support of religion and purity.
| "R.dley preached in vain. Sunday after Sun
day the Cathedral was thrOnged, not with
decent and respectable citizens, but with a
| noisy rabble, many of them boys, to hear un-
seemly language on that solemn rite, so sacred
to all religious minds, SO passionately adored
| by those of the old faith.'
Yet all laws intended to preserve the Cathe-
dral from public proclamation seem to have been
disregarded. The people appeared to consider
it their own house and ground, at least when
twas not used for some especially gorgeous
Church or State ceremony. Under the TudOrs
the public had established right of way. The
! thoroughfare was theirs as unquestioned as
Cheapside. Brewers traversed it from north
to south or south to north with their laden
! drays drawn by their cattering teams of
heavy hOrsse bakers passed through with
their loaves on their head, or drove through
in their carts; mules, horses, dogs, all were
employe as well as men, in the porterage of
every species, often OF the heaviest wares; and
the noisiest thoroughfare in London was this
road through ST. Paul's Cathedral. Every
attempt to suppress the abuse, save the pro-
hibition OF passage for quadrupeds, seems to
have failed. Fine and Imprisonment were not
sufficient to deter offenders. Elizabeth, how
ever, took means to succeed better than her
predecessors in restoring something like de-
corum and suppressng anything approach
ing to riot. She set up pillory in the
church-yard, close to the bishops residen CO.
The first man fixed in it was condemned fol
fray in the church. Fired is the suitable
, term, seeing that he was nailed by the ears t.
, the post, and he was unfixed simply by cut
, ting his head away from them, when the un
| lucky fellow was sent earless home.
r more arrow-hying, no more drawing of dag
gers either within or near the Cathedral n,
more dealing therein was to be allowed, M
} walking up and down, no bargaining, lettering
, gossiping, no proclamation of any sort, during
divine service. At other hours OF the dal
the open Cathedral nave was the show -grount
3 Of fashion-the asylum of those who shunnet
daylight. Paul's Walk had its moodisl
hours and its moodish ways, and graduall
even Queen Bess' proclamation became but a
2 idle thunder. Horses and mules did not re
1 cover their right or custom of entry, bu
2 every other nuisance did. The idle Wen
5 there out of idleness the hungry were ther
, when other men were at the ordinaries; an
= Humphrey, whom popular error trans
9 ferred from his tomb in st. Alban's to ont
= which was occupied by Beauchamp in ST
3 PauPs. In his lifetime the good Duke neVe
let hungry guest depart with the appetite ht
f brought with him, for he was the most hospi
9 table of hosts, and he especially loved to hav
= scholars at his table. With the idle and tn
= hungry were plumed cavaliers, and thieve
i looking after their purses; painted wome1
9 ogling FOOLS and rufians watching the women
: Merchants congregated on ground of thei
n own; gulls read swindling advertisements
& or yielded themselves to rascals vino live
d by them. Parasites walked by tn
y side of naughty patrons, an
It flattered them loudly as they walked
l. others made saVOry jests, at which thei
r patrons smiled with scorn as if they wer
y half indignant that they could be brought
,e smile at anything. There was not a NOR
e fashionable, and at the same time more VII
d laineus locality. II it was a scandal to divines
70 it was also study for dramatists. Coined
1t and Farce borrowed examples from it, an