The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-01-02
DISAPPEARANCE OF THE
HISTORIC OLD LONDON
Christ's Hospital and Newgate Latest
Landmarks to Go.


Landmarks to Go.
Note the cheerful legends put upon
the ratings of Christ hospital by those
who are now reducing that venerable
pile to .nothingness What a subtle
into the announcement, Good old
bricks for SALE" Really, it only wants
the heading, What Ho!" to complete
the unlocking antiqarian's temporary
disbelief in Providence. Then there is
another notice: Hard Core and Dry
Brick Rubbish for Disposar-a form of
words that rings with the indecent
brutality of inevitableness. Rubbish!
Yes, the Grey Friars' cloister has be-
come rubbish. May be the great hall,
mixed up with old tins and cinders. will
go to the making of road in a South
London suburb. 1t is possible that the
Grecfans cloister, ground up, will be-
come the foundations or q fried-fiSh
shop.
They can remove the masonry, but
not the memories, in their carts. The
Coleridge and Lamb and Leigh Hunt
associations are not for disposal" with
the hard core and dry brick rubbish.
What a spot that will always be, how
ever prosaic the rent-yielding build
ings that may replace the old school,
which, by the by, itself replaced an in
stitution whereof the memory is yet
green. That was the convent of Grey
FriarS, with adjoining churchyard that
was thought, in the Middle Ages, to
be peculiarly free from incubi and fly
ing demons of all sorts" Therefore it
became a fashionable burying place,
and almost as popular as the great
Abbey even with royalty" There the
English Queen Isabella was buried with
the heart of her murdered husband
on her breast. There also were placed
the remains of her Wretched paramOur,
the gentle Mortimer" who was hung
at Tyburn, and left two days whitening
on the galloWS. 1t was also the last
resting place of two rapacious favorites
of Richard II. chow frankly can one
talk of distinguished personages of the
paSt), to wit, Sir Nicholas Brembe
Qord mayor of London), and Sir Rob-
ert TreSilian (chief justice of England).
Both gentlemen breathed their last at
Tyburn, though it was understood at
the time that the hanging of the latter
proved impossible until certain magic
images and the head of the devil had
been removed from his person. True
those ancient monuments and tOmbS
have not been visible for several GEN.
turtles, for in 1916 Sir Martin Bowes
Qord mayor) "basely and stupidity
sold the lot for 6 so.
How full the place is of literary
schoolboy memories. Take Leigh
Hunts account of his first impressions
of Lamb "a penSive, brown, hand
some and kindly face, and gait adj
vancing with a motion from side to
side, between involuntary conscious
ness and attempted ease. His brown
complexion may have been owing to
visit to the country; his air of I'M
easiness, to great burden Of sorrow.
He dressed with a Quakerlike plain
ness. did not know him as Lamb; I
took him for a Mr.. Guy having heard
somebody address him by that appela-
tive, suppose in JEST
At last Newgate is going. The
housebreakers are throwing 1T down
piece by piece. How many persons in
the past would have been willing, with
out any payment, to prize out some Of
those great stones. Nay, some enter
prizing individuals have essayed de-
molition in small way. Jack Shep-
pard, that thievish young London car
penter destroyed some small portions
of the institution. "On the first oc-
casion,'' says Mr.. Thornbury, Jack,
during an interview with two female
friends in the lodge at Newgate, broke
a spike off the hatch, and, by the as
sistance of the two women, being slim
and flexible, was pulled through the
opening, and so escaped. Retaken at
Finchley, the angry turnkeys gripped
him with heavy irons (such as are still
fastened above the side doors Of the
PRISON. and chained him to a stout
staple in the floor of a strong room
called the Castle There people of all
ranks came to see him, and all gave
money to the young lion of the hour,
but extreme care was taken that no
sympathizers should pass a chisel or
a file. Jack was, however, eager for
notoriety, and resolute to battle the
turnkeys. He chose a quiet afternoon,
when most of the turkeys were away
with their amiable charges at the Old
Bailey sessions. With a small nail
he had found, he loosened his chain
from the floor stable, then slipped his
small, thievish hands through his
handouts and tied up his letters as
high as he could with his garters.
With a piece of his broken chain he
worked out of the chimney a trans
verse iron bar that stopped his upward
progress.
Jack forced off the lock in seven
short minutes and got into passage
leading to the chapel. To force a
strong bolt here he broke a hole
through the wall, and with an iron
spike from the chapel door opened a
way between the chapel and the low
er leads"
The place is passing away. but it's
lamentable, p1t1ful and awful memo
ries will endure Here is a sample of
the grim associations Of the Old Bal
ley: The bodies of murderers after
execution were removed for dissection
to the surgeons theater, and in the
annual register for 1903 we read of an
awful experiment, performed on the
corpse of a murderer named Foster.
ut was" says the writer, Subjected
to the galvanic process by Mr.. Aldini
Ga nephew Of Galvani) in presence of
Mr.. Keate, Mr.. Carpue and several
other professional gentlement. On the
first application of the process to the
face the jaw of the deceased criminal
began to culver, and the adjoining
muscles were horribly contorted, and
one eye actually opened"
Today a notice board over the pris-
on wall draws attention to the tenn
porary prison cells, constructed by
some patent process, that have been
erected on the area that has been clear
ed Of the ancient buildings.-London
oi