Morning journal and courier., 1891-05-19
Ancient London.

Eugene Lawrence in Harper's Magazinel
 To form a true conception of the Ro- | man city we must sweep away all the ac- cumulated results of modern art and in | dustry. We must create tabuls rasa, and remove, as the mere fgments of fan cy, the cathedral, the abbey, the tower, the swarming throngs of Cheapside, and the endless squares of brick buildings that shelter the millions of the London of to- day; dissolve the splendid vision and think only of the past. Confined within the narrow limits of these walls, its great est length the river front, its greatest breadth between Cripplegate and the Thames, we see the Roman city. It is en- closed by wall of stone-work and cement twenty to thirty feet high. Towers or ca- setla appear at intervals. It was built upon the plan of all other Roman cities,
 and resembled Pompeii or Lindum. Its
 four chief streets, at least forty feet wide,
 met in its forum; they were perfectly
 straight and led directly to the gates. At
 their side were narrower limites, or lanes,
 all equally straight and free from sinuosl-
 ties. The Roman engineers laid out their strata with unchanging regularity Every street was paved with smooth stone like those of Pompeii. Beneath the streets ran the sewers and the water-pipes-we may assume-so invariably found in every Roman city.
 lit is impossible to determine exactly the sites of the London forum; it is only probable that there must have been one. We may, however. infer from evidence too detailed and minute to enter upon here, | that the forum stood upon the oldest part | of Roman London, namely, south of Corn | hill and east of the Mansion house. It is | by no means certain that there was fo- l rum. But an inscribed tile seems to show | that the seat of government of the pro vince was at London. Those, however,
 who consider the later importance of Ro-
 man London can hardly believe that 1t had
 no public buildings At first an insignif-
 cant town, although port of some trade, | for more than two centuries it controlled
 the exports and imports of the entire Is | land. Its wharves were filled with anlma
 tion, its harbor with ships of burden. Al
 the authorities point to London as a cen
 ter of commercial activity.
 So complete was the security ill whict | South Britain remained for centuries, un der the protection of Hadrian's wall snt the fortified cities of the west, that Lon don was left without any other defens than strong castle on the banks of tn
 river until the age of Constantine. Un l like nearly all the other Roman cities, l = had no walls, was unprotected even by ? ditch, and lay open on all sides to attack n At last, however, at some unknown period t but between the years $50 and 369, b. l some unknown hand, the Roman wall We s built. Its extent may easily be traced
 | fragments of it still remain: and recently ? at an excavation made by the railway com g pany, a party of antiquarians were ena - bled to study a;,d explore more than on l. hundred feet in length of these ancien O defenses Saxon and Dane, Norman an, @ Englishman hGvu ill the long course of fiji e teen centuries altered, overthrown or re F., built them; but their course and circui
 were never changed. The Roman wal
 fixed the limit of the city, and its veners
 ble fragments still recall the days whe Y, the last Roman legions marched down th Dover street, when Alfred restored th a wall. or when Pym and Hampden foun |, within it's shelter the citadel of moder :, | freedom