The Children's Book of London Part 1

The Children's Book of London.

by Geraldine Edith Mitton.

BOOK I

LONDON AS IT IS

THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF LONDON

CHAPTER I

LONDON CHILDREN

To begin with, the streets of London are not paved with gold; but I need not have said that, for nowadays the very youngest child knows it. It was d.i.c.k Whittington who first imagined anything so foolish; but then he was only a country lad, and in his days there were not the same opportunities for finding out the truth about things as there are now.

There were very few books for one thing, and those there were cost a great deal of money, and would hardly be likely to come in d.i.c.k's way; so that if there was by chance a book which described London as it was then, it is not at all probable that he would have seen it. There were no photographs, either, to show him what London was really like, so, of course, he had to make up ideas about it himself, just as you who live in the country and have heard people talking about London do now. Are the stories you invent at all like the stories d.i.c.k Whittington made up for himself? You can't answer because you're not writing this book, so I must answer for you. Perhaps you think London is a place where there are no lessons to do, and where there is always a great deal of fun going on; where you can go to see sights all day long; the huge waxwork figures at Madame Tussaud's, as big as real people; and lions and tigers and elephants and bears at the Zoo; and you think that the boys and girls who live in London spend all their time in seeing wonderful things.

If this is what you think, some of it is true enough. There are a great many wonderful things to be seen in London, and if you want to hear about them at once you must skip all this chapter and a great many others besides, and go on to page 241, where you will find them described. But if you want to know what London itself is really like you must wait a little longer. The best people to tell you would be the children who live in London; they will read this book, and, of course, they could answer all your questions, but they would not all answer in the same way.

Some would say: 'Oh yes, of course we all know the Zoo, but that's for small children; _we_ are quite tired of a dull place like that, where everyone goes; we like b.a.l.l.s, with good floors for dancing, and programmes, and everything done as it is at grown-up b.a.l.l.s; and we like theatres, where we can sit in the front row and look through opera-gla.s.ses and eat ices. Madame Tussaud's? Yes, it's there still; we went to it when we were quite little babies, but it's not at all fashionable.'

And another child might say: 'I don't mind driving with mother in the Row when I'm really beautifully dressed.'

But I'll tell you a secret about the little boys and girls who talk like this: they are not really children at all, they never have been and never will be; they are grown-up men and women in child shapes, and by the time their bodies have grown big they won't enjoy anything at all.

Master Augustus will be a dull young man, who hates everybody, and does not know how to get through the long, dreary day; and Miss Ruby will be a mere heartless woman, who only cares to please herself, and does not mind how unhappy she makes everyone else. And all this will be because their foolish father and mother let them have everything they wanted, and allowed them to go everywhere they liked, and that is not at all good even for grown-up people, and it is very, very much worse for children.

There are, however, many other sorts of children in London, and it is rather interesting to hear what they think of the town in which they live. For instance, there are the children of people who are not at all poor, who have nice houses and plenty of money, but who are yet sensible enough to know that their children must have something else besides pleasure. If we asked one of their children what he thought of London, he might say: 'I've seen the Zoo, of course, and Madame Tussaud's, and I've been to Maskelyne's Mysteries and the Hippodrome, and they're all jolly, especially the Zoo; but those things generally happen in the holidays: we don't have such fun every day.' A boy or a girl of this sort has really a much duller time than one who lives in the country.

London is so big, so huge, that he sees only a wee bit of it.

London is the capital town of England, as everyone knows. In d.i.c.k Whittington's time it was not very big, but it has grown and grown, until it is seventeen miles in one direction and twelve in another. You know what a mile is, perhaps; well, try to imagine seventeen miles one after another, end to end, on and on, all streets of houses, with here and there a park, very carefully kept, not in the least like a country park. And all these streets and streets of houses are not very interesting, and in many of them the houses are all alike, built of dull-coloured stone or red brick, or else they are covered with plaster.

There is a great part of London where people only go to work, and from which they come away again at nights. In the mornings hundreds and hundreds of men pour into this part as fast as the trains can bring them, and go to their offices, which are in great buildings, many different offices being in one building; and the streets are filled with men hurrying this way and that, always in a hurry. There is no one standing about or idling. Omnibuses and carts and cabs are all mixed up together in the roadway, until you would think it was impossible for them ever to be disentangled again. And now and then some bold man on a bicycle dares to ride right into the middle of it all, between the wheels and under the horses' noses, and how he ever gets through without being crushed up as flat as a paper-knife is a wonder!

At nights, when the men have done their day's work, they are in as much of a hurry to get out of this part of London, which is called the City, as they were to get into it in the morning. They go by cabs and omnibuses and trains back to their homes and their children, and the City is left still and silent, with just a quiet cat flitting across the street, and making a frightened jump when the big policeman turns his lantern on to her.

The children of rich people seldom see this part of London. Perhaps their father goes there every day, and they hear him talk of the City, but it is like another town to them, so vague and far away it seems.

These children probably have lessons with their governess at home, and when twelve o'clock comes they go for a walk. When they open the front-door they see a long street, stretching both ways, filled with dark, dull-looking houses just the same as their own. The street pavement is made of wood, which is quieter than stones, and when the cabs run past they make very little sound. If the children are lucky they live in a square, and there is a garden in the middle, with iron railings round it, and everyone who lives in the square has a key to open the gate; but it must not be left open, or other people would get in and use the garden too. It has green gra.s.s in it and flower-beds, and it is all very prim and proper, and not at all interesting; and, worst of all, the dear dogs, Scamp and Jim, cannot go there, even when they are led by a string. The gardener would turn them out, for he imagines they would kick about in his flower-beds and rake out the seeds. This is not the sort of garden that a country child would care for. But Jack and Ethel are not country children; they are quite used to their garden, and like it very much.

We can see them start on their morning walk with Miss Primity, their governess. Both the children wear gloves--they never go out without them--and in the street they walk quietly; but when they have pa.s.sed down the street and got into Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens, they can run about as much as they like. In the Gardens there is a big round pond, where Jack can sail his boat; and on Sat.u.r.days the water is covered with white sails, and even men come down and join in the sport, making their toy boats race against one another. The boats are often quite large, and the scene is very gay and pretty. There are a great many ducks, which clamour to be fed; and there are other children there too. These may be friends of Jack's and Ethel's, and they can play together, and Ethel can show her new doll, and Jack can boast of all the things he means to do when he grows up. The Gardens are very nice, but it is rather dull always having the same walk in the same place every day, and sometimes the children get a little tired of it, and are glad when a half-holiday comes and an aunt or uncle carries them off to see some of the wonderful things of which London is full.

There is another part of London of which we have not yet spoken. We have heard of the City and of the West End--the City, where business men work, and the West End, where rich people live; but there is also the East End, lying beyond the City, and the people who live here are nearly all poor. If you asked any of the children of the East End if they had seen Madame Tussaud's or the Zoo, they would grin, and say, 'Garn!' and if you told them about these things they might say, 'Ye're kiddin', ye're,' which is their way of saying they don't believe you, and think you are telling stories. In the streets where these children live everything is dirty and nasty. A number of families live together in one house, perhaps even in one room, for I have heard of rooms where each family had a corner. The women never do anything more than they can help. They never mend their old dresses, or wash themselves or their children, or try to cook nicely; they do nothing. They spend the day sitting on their dirty doorsteps, with the youngest baby on their knees, and their hair is all uncombed, and their dresses are filthy and torn, and they shout out to other women across the street, and make remarks on anyone who happens to pa.s.s. The poor little baby gets dreadful things to eat--things that you would think would kill an ordinary child--bits of herring or apple, and anything else its mother eats, and sometimes even sips of beer or gin. If it cries, it is joggled about or slapped, and as soon as ever it is able to sit up, it is put down on the pavement among a number of other dirty, untidy children and left to take care of itself. When a little girl is seven she is thought quite old enough to look after all the younger ones, and on Sat.u.r.days she goes off with other little girls, pushing a rickety old perambulator or a wooden cart, with perhaps two babies in it and several smaller children hanging on to her skirt; and she goes down the foul street and on until she comes to a tiny little bit of ground, where there are seats and some bushes and hard paths, and this is a playground. But what do you think it really has been? A graveyard, and there are still graves and big stones, showing that people have been buried there long years ago. But the children who play in it do not mind this at all; they sit on the graves, and think that they are very lucky to get this place away from the street. Then the poor little babies are left in their go-carts or perambulators, very often in the sun, with their heads hanging down over the edge, while Liza talks to Bella; and they both put their hair in curl-papers, and show each other any small things they have picked up in the street. They have no need of dolls, for both Bella and Liza have living dolls, which are often very troublesome; but they are quite used to it, and if the live doll cries they just stop talking and rush up to it and push it up and down, or take it out and shake it about for a few minutes, and then put it back again and go on with their talk.

Sometimes, not often, they have a feast, and perhaps Bella brings out a dirty bottle which she has picked up, and fills it with water at the fountain; and Liza takes from her pocket an apple and some sticky toffee, and perhaps one of the little ones has a bun. And then the apple is rubbed until it shines with a dirty bit of rag called a pocket-handkerchief, and they all sit down together in a row and share the things; and even the baby has a hard lump of apple stuffed into its mouth, for Liza and Bella do not mean to be unkind to their babies, for they have mother-hearts in them.

Well, of course, there are many other sorts of children in London besides these: there are the children of working men, who are neatly dressed and go out on Sundays with their father and mother; there are chauffeurs' children who live near the garage, or in the mews, where rich people keep their motor-cars or carriages. It is not easy in London to find rooms for cars or carriages close to the house, so a number of stables were built together, making a long yard like a street, and the people who lived near kept their carriages there, but there are fewer carriages now, and often the rooms in the mews are empty or used by outside people, while the cars are kept at some big garage a little distance off. There are many others who are not so lucky as chauffeurs'

or coachmen's children; think of the little children who belong to the organ-grinders, and who are taken about in a basket tied on to the grinding organ, with the hideous noise in their ears all day. I wonder that they can ever hear at all when they grow up. Many, very many, of the children have no playground at all but the street, the pavement, where people are pa.s.sing all the time. They sit on the doorsteps and breathe in the dust, and all their playthings, if they have any--and even their food--are often thick with dust. I have seen a child rubbing a bit of bread-and-jam up and down on the dirty stone before it eats it.

But the rich children and the poor children do not often meet, for if the rich children go through the streets in the poorer parts they are in motor-cars or cabs, and in their part of the park there are not many poor children, while in the parks where the poor children go you do not find many rich ones. And though there are parts of London where poor and rich are very near together, yet their lives never mix as the lives of country children do. Very often in the country a child knows the names of all the other children in its village, and who they are and all about them; but in London it is not so. And many rich children grumble all the time if they do not have everything they want, and never think of their poor little brothers and sisters, who would s.n.a.t.c.h eagerly at many of the things they throw away.

Have you heard the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who piped so wonderfully that he could make anything follow him when he liked, and how he piped so that all the rats ran after him, and he led them to the river and they were drowned? When he asked the mayor and chief men in the town to be paid for what he had done, they laughed, and said: 'No, now the rats are dead, you can't make them alive again; we have got what we wanted, and we won't pay you.' So the piper was very angry, and piped another tune, and all the children in the town followed him; and he led them on and on toward a great mountain, where a cave opened suddenly, and they all went in, and were never seen again. I think if that Pied Piper came to London he would find very many more different sorts of children than ever he found in Hamelin, where--

'Out came the children running: All the little boys and girls, With rosy checks and flaxen curls, And sparkling eyes, and teeth like pearls, Tripping and skipping ran merrily after The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.'

There would be London children whose eyes did not sparkle, and who had almost forgotten to laugh, as well as those like the children of Hamelin, who were so bright and so gay.

CHAPTER II

LONDON

Now, we have seen something of the children who live in London, and it is time to try to think a little of what London itself is like. As I have said, the boys and girls who live there do not know very much about it; they only know their own little corner of it, because London is so big that it is almost impossible even for a grown-up person to know it quite well in every part. I have told you it is about seventeen miles long and twelve broad, but you cannot understand really how long that is; you can only get some little idea. This great town stretches on for mile after mile, houses and houses and streets and streets, with here and there a park, but even the park is surrounded by houses. Children who live in small towns can always get out into the country and see green trees and gra.s.s and hedges, but many of the children who live in London have never seen the country, and have no idea what it is like.

We heard in the last chapter just a little about this great town, how it is divided into three parts, that is to say, the West End, where the rich people live, and the City, where men go to work, and the East End, where the poor people live. Of course, it isn't quite so simple as that, because all the rich people don't live in the West End or all the poor people in the East. Some of the poor ones live in the West End, too, but roughly we may put it so, just to get some idea of the place.

Through this great London there rolls a great river, and there is scarcely any need to say what the name of that river is, for every child knows about the Thames. The great river cuts London into two parts, and on the south side of it there are many poor streets with poor people living in them, and close to the river is a palace, where the Archbishop of Canterbury lives. He is head of all the clergymen and all the bishops of the English Church. The palace has stood there for many hundreds of years, and it is curious to think that this important man, who has so much power, and who has the right to walk before all the dukes and earls when he goes to Parliament, lives there among the poor people on the south side of the river.

The City, where men have their offices and go to work, is really quite a small part of London, but it is very important. Here there is the Bank of England, where bank-notes are made, and where there is gold in great bars lying in the cellars. The Bank has streets all round its four sides, as if it were an island, and the streets were rivers, and inside, in the middle of the building, there is a yard, with trees in it and a garden. It does seem so funny to find a garden here amongst all the houses. If you went into the Bank to see it, you would meet a man wearing a funny c.o.c.ked hat like those that men used to wear in old times; and if you showed him that you had leave to go all over the building, he would tell you where to go and be very civil. We shall hear more about the Bank later on.

Close to the Bank is the Mansion House, where the Lord Mayor lives. The Lord Mayor is a very grand person indeed. He is the head of the City, and a new Lord Mayor is chosen every year. There are other big buildings around near the Bank, and just here seven streets meet, and there is an open s.p.a.ce. Now, if you were suddenly dropped down into that open s.p.a.ce at, say, the middle of the day, you would most certainly be run over unless you stood close beside the very biggest policeman you could see, for every thing on wheels is coming in every direction--big motor-omnibuses, generally painted the most vivid scarlet, crammed with people inside and on the top; taxi-cabs with patient drivers, who would not jump if a gunpowder explosion went off under their noses; they have to keep good-tempered all day long, in spite of the tangle of traffic; immense lorries loaded with beer barrels; and little tiny carts with greengrocer's stuff, perhaps dragged by a dear little donkey, who looks as if he could run right under the bodies of the big dray-horses. And all these things are coming so fast and so close to one another, that it seems a miracle anyone can get through. Not long ago an underground pa.s.sage with steps leading down to it was built, so that people can go under instead of over the street, which is, I think, a very good thing.

In the City there are a great many churches, nearly all built by one man, Sir Christopher Wren, a very clever man. But you will say, 'Why do people want churches in the City? Didn't you say that everyone went away to their own houses at night and on Sundays? Isn't the City, then, quite empty?'

Yes, that is true; on Sundays the City is empty, except for people who come down to walk round and look at it. But the churches are still there, and there are still services in them on Sundays, because long years ago good men left money to pay the clergymen, and no one has any right to use it for any other purpose; so the clergymen preach, and very few people are there to hear. It seems odd, doesn't it? But there are many things odd in this great, dear, smoky London of ours. There used to be many more churches in the City than there are now; at one time there were seventy churches or more all in this small s.p.a.ce! There aren't so many now, but still there are a good many left.

If you went on beyond the City, further away from the West End, you would come to that miserable part where the poor people live, and in some parts here there are a great many foreigners, who come to England to get work, and who earn very little money, and are rough and rude, and all live together in one place. In some streets you would hardly hear English spoken at all. On Sat.u.r.day nights here the streets are quite a sight, because the people have barrows or stalls by the sides of the road instead of shops, and when evening comes they light them up with flaming torches. And then they spread out all sorts of things for sale, and yell and shout for people to come and buy; and crowds of people do come, and the pavement is covered with people pushing and jostling to get things cheaply. On one stall you will see piles of fruit--cheap green grapes hanging in bunches, red apples, yellow oranges, and perhaps tomatoes; and on another stall nothing but raw meat, and here the women buy a little bit for their Sunday dinners; and on another stall there is nothing but yards and yards of white embroidery. It seems such a queer thing to sell there; but it is there: I have seen it, and the wonder is it does not get so black that no one could use it. Then another stall may have fish, and here all sorts of sh.e.l.l-fish will be lying in little saucers with a pinch of pepper and a spoonful of vinegar over them, and people take them up and eat them there and then. And all down the street the lights flare, until you would think they must set fire to everything, and the people at the stalls cry, 'Buy, buy, buy!' And perhaps in the midst of all this noise and confusion you might see a little baby, rolled up in a shawl, lying on the ground or in a box close to a stall.

If you went down to the river from the East End you would find many very wonderful things, but here hardly any London people from the West End go; it is so far that very few of the people who live in London have ever been there at all. The great river rolls on to the sea, and twice in every day and night the sea sends a strong tide flooding up to London, and the barges, bringing coal and straw and wood and many other things, use the tide to come up the river, for otherwise they must have a small steamboat to drag them. And by the side of the river there are great houses built right on the edge of the water, where all day long men work, either taking things out of steamers or putting other things into other steamers to go away to foreign countries. The river is covered with steamers and barges and boats, just as the streets are crowded with omnibuses and cabs and carts. Always men are working and bringing things to the great City and sending things out. If it were not so the City could not live at all, because the people must be fed and clothed, and they can't make everything they want or grow what they want to eat in London itself.

Down in this part of London there are huge docks, but I am quite sure you do not know what docks are. They are basins of water, like immense ponds or lakes, shut in on all sides except for one entrance from the river, and here ships can come in and lie snugly and safely without being pushed about by the tides, and they can be painted and mended and made fit to go to sea again. One of these docks on a fine afternoon in summer is a very beautiful sight; all the tall masts and funnels of the ships are mixed up together like a forest of trees, and the blue sky peeps through them and the blue water ripples round them. When you saw this sight you would understand a little what a wonderful city London is, and how she sends her ships out to all parts of the world.

One of the great sights on the river is the Tower Bridge. This is not the newest bridge, but it was built later than most of the others. It has two great towers rising one on each side, to the sky, and the bridge lies across low down between these towers. But when a big ship comes and wants to get up the river under the bridge, what is to be done? The bridge is not high enough! Well, what does happen is this, and I hope that every one of you will see it one day, for it is one of the grandest things in all London: a man rings a bell, and the cabs and carriages and carts and people who are on the bridge rush quickly across to the other side, and when the bridge is quite empty then the man in the tower touches some machinery, and slowly the great bridge, which is like a road, remember, rises up into the air in two pieces, just as you might lift your hands while the elbows rested on your knees without moving, and the beautiful ship pa.s.ses underneath, and the bridge goes back again quite gently into its place. This bridge has been called the Gate of London, and it is a very good name, for it looks like a giant gate over the river. Close to it is the Tower, of which you must often have read in your history books--the grim Tower where so many people who were not wicked at all were imprisoned, and where some of them were beheaded because, in the time when they lived, there were no laws such as there are now safeguarding people's lives. The Tower will have a chapter to itself later on.

This is all I am going to tell you at present about the City and the East End, because it is quite impossible to tell everything. In the West End, too, there are many interesting things, and the most interesting of them must have chapters to themselves; for instance, the palaces belonging to the King, and the hospitals which are entirely for children. But there are other things which belong to the whole of London, and must be mentioned here. There is, for instance, the Embankment--rather a long word, but not a difficult one. It means the wall which was built for miles along beside the river to make a road and to prevent the river flooding right up to the houses. In old days, when people had their houses on the water's edge, when there came a high tide or a strong wind, the water washed up over them, and did a great deal of damage; so it was decided to build a strong wall beside the river, which the water, even in the highest tide, could not leap over. It was a wonderful piece of work. It is difficult to think of the number of cartloads of solid earth and stone that had to be put down into the water to make a firm foundation, and when that was done the wall had to be built on the top. But though the river had been banked up it could still make itself disagreeable. In 1928, driven by strong winds and high tides, after much rain, it flowed up over the Embankment in some places and broke through in others. It flooded many houses, and some people were drowned. The river also helps to cause fog; it seems as though it had gone to the smoke demon to find out what they could do to be spiteful, and they had agreed they could not do anything each by himself, but that together they could be very nasty. So every now and then the damp air which rises from the river, and the heavy smoke which comes out of the hundreds of chimneys, join together and make a thick black veil, and hang over London and come down into the streets so that people can't see where they are going, and when they breathe their noses and mouths are filled with nasty, dirty s.m.u.ts. You who are London children know Mr. Fog-fiend very well. When you wake on a morning in November and find the room still dark, and are told it is time to get up when it looks like the middle of the night, then you know the fog has come; and he visits rich and poor alike. There is no keeping him in the East End.

With all her money and her cleverness London has never found out anything good enough to tempt Mr. Fog-fiend to go right away. No, he comes often, and stays, perhaps, for weeks together, and the eyes of children smart and their throats feel thick, and they find it so dull to do lessons by artificial light; and when the time comes for the daily walk they cannot go out, because they might get run over, not being able to see. And everything is very quiet, for the omnibuses and taxi-cabs have to go at a walking pace for fear they might run into something.

And it is no wonder sometimes that children get cross and tired when they cannot see the sun, which may be shining brightly in the country all day long. Mr. Fog-fiend has many dresses; sometimes he puts on a white one instead of a black one, and that is not so bad, because it is quite light, but just as if soft white shawls were hung in front of your eyes so that you couldn't see. But it is even more dangerous to try to cross the road in a white fog than in a black one. It is like living inside a big white cloud. Then there is a yellow dress, which is the ugliest of all. It is like yellow smoke, and it gets into people's throats and makes them cough, and it steals into all the rooms so that even the lamp across the room looks quite dim; and the air is full of it, and you taste it in all your food. But it is lucky that there are not always fogs in London, or no one could live; they only come in the last months of the year or the very early ones, and in the summer London children do not see fogs any more than country children do, though perhaps the sun does not shine always quite so brightly in London as it does in the country.

Close to the river are the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, both very wonderful. I have not told you about Westminster yet, because I was afraid of confusing you with too many things at once, but you ought to know now. You can tell for yourselves which side of London it is on from the name--that is, if you are not very stupid. Yes, Westminster is on the west side of the City, but what is rather odd is that once Westminster and London were two separate places with long green fields and hedges lying between them, but the houses grew and grew until they met. Westminster is very proud, and though now she is mixed up with London, she says, 'I will be a city, too.' And so she is a city within London, but there is no difference that you could tell between the two; the houses run on just the same, and no one could find out, merely by looking, where Westminster begins.

Well, this is enough for one chapter, and in the next we will see some more things about this wonderful town of London, which can swallow a whole city like Westminster and allow her still to be a city, and yet not feel any indigestion!