The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-03-10
Memories of Mir. Pickwick.
Philadelphia Times.


 of London localities, as all the world knows, was considerable, could walk through Fleet street after the lapse o1 half century since his incarceration in the Fleet prison, the journey would assurediy produce in the mind of that distinguished parsonage a strange be- wilderment. Much still remains, it is true, of its double lines of dingy brick fronts, and the two venerable houses near St. Dunstan's church, in one of which there is something like evidence that Michael Dray ton, who sang 30 lustily of the rivers of Eng land in his "Polyolbion," in days when Shakespeare and Ben Johnson were wont to carouse at the Devil Tavern, just over the way, passed much of his life, still look down upon the bustling scene-queer old gable-fronted tene- ments that by strange chance escaped the fire of London, which dropped and died out at their very doors. The pastry cooks, however, with the low built, projecting bow-fronted shop just here, which was wont to place at its doors a bucket of water labeled "For dogs only" would certainly be missed, and in vain would the benev- olent eye endeavor to reconcile itself to the thin, lank slice of nondescript architecture which looms in the dis tance in the place of Temple Bar.
 It is not in these things, however, that the change in Fleet street would be found. It is in the enormous in- crease of the business of the street. the everlasting stream of omnibuses, mere occasional apparitions of fifty years since; the no less continual stream of hansoms-strange objects they would be in the eyes of an elderly gentleman who had been wont to sit beside the driver in a curiously gaunt vehicle with lofty hood, as seen in Seymour's picture in an early monthly part of the "Posthumous Papers" But the greatest change of all would be felt in the jostling crowds that throng the Fleet street pavements nearly all day long.
 Both the street and the prison in which Mr. Picksctck found himself after the unfortunate issue of the case of BardeU vs. Pickaoick derived their names from the river known in his- tory as "the Fleet" once an important stream making its way down from it's sources in Caen Wood on Hampstead Hill to the Thames at Blackfriars, and bearing upon its lower waters many a craft, both large and small, laden with merchandise for the convenience of the citizens.
 It is difficult now to imagine the days when he who descended Fleet street on his way to St. Paul's, or Holborn Hill on his way to Newgate, crossed steep little stone bridge. Bridewell Bridge may be seen in one of the illustrations to the early edi- tions of Pope's "Dunciad," published in 1728-9, in which day an irregular open air market for fruit and flow CTS and vegetables was held along its quays, from the northward almost to Fleet street corner in the picturesque continental fashion. When the river was finally arched over in 1773, the market became a recognized institu- tion, with more of elbow room than it enjoyed before. This reminds us that though the Fleet river had even then silted up to great extent and lost it's old importance as channel of water communication, it still existed, and in fact exists to this day. When the great demolitions were first made for the construction of the Farringdon road, the stream of the Fleet was at a spot hereabouts laid bare, and many may remember how in the rainy sea- son it's turbid waters were seen to rush and roar in the gulf below.
 Round about the Fleet gather num- berless curious associations, endless facts and stories and to- kens of old manners. There was the Fleet prison, which has a history of its own, and Bridewell, once mighty place, though it has now been for some past mere reformatory prison. Old Bridewell extended along the western bank from it's present site opposite Ludgate sta- tion to its fortified front on the river, at the spot where the Fleet fell into the Thames, or, in other words, on the site of Lord Mayor De Keyser's hotel and the embankment in front thereof. It was one of the ancient fortresses guarding the entrance to the little river, which had else been a vulnera- ble point in the city defences. The Fleet has bequeathed to modern Lon- don at least one advantage in the mo- ble breadth of Bridge street and Far ringdon street, which occupy not merely the breadth of the stream, but that of the adjacent quays and side walks.
 Consumption Surely Cured. To the Editor:-
 plooon infnrv,n uonr voala~o %ba%