The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-22
DlCkENS' LONDON.
Old Landmarks Disappearing From
 City by the Thames.
From the London Chronicle.

I From the London Chronicle.
 l London is so great, so boundless, that 1 the face of it is constantly undergoing a l. change. That the changes are, in the ma 1 jority of cases, for the better there Is no doubt, but when the hand of the i'm , prover'' fails 1t strikes heavily, and there is hardly an improvement of some sort or other which does not rob London of a 1 landmark of importance.
 And so 1t is with the London which Charles Dickens loved so well. But really l there is very little of Dickens London left | to us nowadays.
 | The great illusion-threatened times without number-is there. however, and We are wont to fondly gaze at 1t and fancy that Little Nell really did live there at the Old Curiosity Shop off Lincoln s-Lnn- | Fields; but there Is not one shred of evi- dence to prove that this was the home 1 of that sweet child and her grandfather. The house is doomed and when 1t has passed away one of the great delusions of Charles Dickens London will have passed away. too, and if we are not the poorer | for 1t in that respect we shall certainly mourn its loss as a vanished bit old Old 1 London.
 l Lant street, or at least that part of it ], where Dickens lived as boy, ana where | Bob Sawyer held his memorable party,
 
 of Little Dorrit fame, but a tablet is still there to record the fact St. Georges church, where Little Dorrit slept on tho 1 night of her party" and where she l was afterward married still stands Lon 1 don bridge steps, figuring in "Oliver l Twist" although altered by the recent widening, are still there. The Curious little hooks in A great place like Lon l don'-the Inns of Court-are mostly still with us. It is true that FurnivaTs Inn has disappeared altogether and great 1 loss to Dickens London 1t is; for here l the young novelist had chambers, and
 here "Pickwick" was written. Yet for all l that Furnivals Inn is not mentioned in l the novel. It was Gray's Inn that occa- 1 stoned the remark of MT. Picawick that | the Inns of Court were "curious f1Yile
 hooks in great place like London" and 1t was here "up two pairs of steep and dirty stairs' that Mir Perker, the little attorney, lived. CT $ Inn has l not much changed since then In out ward appearance but being somewhat
 distance now from the center of legal London. 1t is not so favored by lawyers as 1t was when the pages of "Pickwick' | were written.
 1 Almost opposite. and behind the most
 ancient part of Holburn. London, where | certain gabled houses some centuries of age still stand looking upon the public | way. as if disconsolately looking for Old
 Bourne that has long run dry, Is little
 nook composed of two irregular quadran- | gles called Staple Inn"
 These inns are the only real parts of 1 Dickens London left us. Those that are
 still preserved are almost intact. Staple
 Inn is no exception. Dickens must have l had a great fondness for the Inns of 1 Court, for almost without exception we ! find mention of them, more or less. in every one of his books. Grays inn finds I place in his first novel; Staple inn in , his last.
 1 I can conceive no more picturesque spot l in all London than Staple inn. How long ! it will remain hidden away behind the handful of bulging old houses I do not l know. We are continually hearing that
 the old houses on. Holburn are doomed, and when they fall Staple inn will fail,
 too. The old houses are wold famous. but not So Staple inn. Why, l know | not, but the average Londoner is, per haps. hardly aware there is such place
 "It is one of those nooks,' continues
 Dickens, "the turning into which from the clashing streets imparts to the re- lieved pedestrian the sensation of having 1 put cotton in his ears and velvet soles
 on his boots. It is one of those hooks
 where a few smoky sparrows twitter in
 smoky trees. as though they called te
 one another. Let us play at country.