The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1888-03-24
LONDON'S ODD CORNERS.
HELEN CAMPBELL WRITES ABOUT
PETTiCOAT LANE.
Ono Of the Most Curious Portions of This
Greatest, and, In some Respects. Most
Curious City OF the World Graphically
Described.
Especial Correspondence

Curious City OF the World Graphically
Described.
Especial Correspondence
LONDON, Feb. 2-Till the story of old Lon
don has been thoroughly studied and its past
made so alive that it demonstrates the
present and gives its own Interpretation to
many az otherwise incomprehensible POINT,
the path of the pilgrim in its streets is beset
with bewilderment New London is plain
and unmistakable. A morning in Belgravia
is troubled with no perplexities save the
ever recurring one, as to how its inhabitants
endure year after year its intense and aggres.
sive gentility. But, as it is said, good
Americans, when they die, go to Paris" so it
NAV DO said of the Londoners and Belgravia,
whose monotonous lines of street are
the Mecca of business mems wives
and daughters, while just outside these
sacred precincts is a fringe of those
whose slender purses debar entrance, but
who, like Miss Tox, regard it as n blessed and
inestimable privilege to be so near distinc'
ton. To have great street just around the
corner is compensation enough for all incon-
veniences of whatever nature, and this ac-
counts for the innumerable little by streets
in tho west end, where the stables of the
great houses mngle with the homes of the
lesser People, who, through the chickering's of
footmcn and coachmen and grooms, come to
have sense Of intimacy with their en-
ployers and n possession of much knowledge
as to their private affairs. Sunlight and air
have small entrance in these by streets, half
court, half yard, and owning every incon-
venience that can be included in the position
or general arrangement Of house. Such
street is partly dead wall and part stables,
but at the entrance there are always three or
four small airless houses, in great request,
for reasons already mentioned, and il ever by
any chance vacant, which seldom happens,
they are advertised at once by the house
agent as ''gentlemanly residence in the
most aristocratic part Of the town, inhabited
solely by the elite of the beau monde"
With this London happily we have nothing
to do. It is as well defined, as rectangular
and as uninteresting as Philadelphia itself;
but, unlike Philadelphia, it has no sunshine
save the erratic and intermittent sunshine Of
the English climate. and it is draped in
mantle worn by fashion and famine alike;
mantle of SCOT, which is as all pervading rs
the fog and mist and cloud in which the
Englishman lives and moves and has his
being. Only strong purpose or imperative
business would take one into these monoton-
GUS and depressing regions, from which one
escapes with speed to anything as absolutely
its opposite as possible.
Naturally then it is to Pettcoat lane that
we turn, journeying to it by devious ways as
one must whose path lies in old London.
From the West End to the Bank OF England,
that focus of city life and the point from
which countless lines of omnibuses radate,
while each avenue of departure from it has
its own interest for antiquarian or casual
stroller in these precincts. Out through
Lombard street, which instantly suggests
generations of substantial bankers; through
Fenchurch into Aldgate, only name today,
but, up to 1850, an actual gate as well defined
AZ Temple Bar, and from the time Of the
Romans the chief outlet to the eastern coun.
ties Its first form having fallen out of
repair, the fierce barons who had brought
King John to terms in the Magma
Charta, turned their attention, first to the
monks, from whose Golfers they stole money
enough to pay for all charges Of rebuilding,
and then to the Jews, whose substantial
houses in the Minaries and near by furnished
all the stone required. Over the gate, in the
dwelling house which made part of it, lived
Chaucer, who seems to have felt no qualms
Is to any wrong done Jew or monk, and long
after his tenancy had ended, it became
temporary prison, and remained so till its
destruction. Baron and squire, soldier and
commoner, and poet who looked upon it all
as scene set for his purposes, have walked
here, each with his own thought of the busy
nd NJ thoyp with much tbn,, III
save contempt for the jew, hurryng, with
bent head, through the throng toward the
lanes where his trade centered. Then, as
now, old clothes was one of the chief inter-
ests in life; and, though there was then no
formally organized Old Clothes exchange as
today, the trade was chiefly in Jewish hands,
and seems likely to remain there Not Petit
coat lane alone, but labyrinth of other
lanes, Rosemary leading the list, are given
over to this pursuit, and, as seems to be the
law for this traffic the world over, they are
all dark and narrow and crowded. Eyes APP
parently are not so much needed in this
business us fingers, and touch determines all
question as to quality, far better than sight.
Rag fair, the Rag fair Of Shakespeare and
earlier dramatists began it all, but it is with
in fifty years or so that this has consolidated
itself as it were, into the Old Clothes ex-
changes, two OF which do an enormous bust
ness in supplying the small shops and dealers,
and one of them being devoted solely to the
sale of unredeemed pledges in clothing; to the
other contributions come from all the world,
10 that Jew or GENTLE Greek, Copt or Ara
bian might easily find needed garment.
But the supply is mainly English, and the
renovation of its various orders is the source
of many a strange trade, thriving side by side
with the old clothes shop and an essential
part of its success. Even the present cheap
ness of wearing apparel, and the vast amount
Of shoddy cloth which makes such cheapness
possible, has not destroyed the occupation of
the men and women who test the possibilities
of every left off garment at a glance.
Petticoat lane is, then, simply an extern
sion of the old clothes mart, and, with the
adjacent lanes and alleys given over to the
same trade, represents two or three miles of
old clothes. There is much besides, but the
first view on a bright morning, when the
trade is at its best, leads to the conviction
that nothing else can be. The lane, long and
narrow, with low houses on either side, Ii
but vista of many colored garments, not
only at the sides but ON the ground. The
crowd fits about or gathers into little groups