Victorian England - Articles and Stories

THE RACE FOR WEALTH. CHAPTER I.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "GEORGE GEITH," "MAXWELL DREWITT," &c.

CHAPTER I.

DUE EAST.

Many years ago, in the dull cold light of a February afternoon, a stranger in London wended his way Due East through the city.

He was very young; he was very hopeful; he was very confident of himself; very sanguine as to his own future; he had entered the great Metropolis not an hour before, with the intention of conquering it, if such an expression be sufficiently intelligible; in the pages that are to come will be found the tale of his failures and his successes, of his faults and virtues, of his errors and repentance. Whatever of interest this book may contain will be centered in him and his; and for all these reasons it is fitting that the story which has still to be written should commence as he sets foot in London for the first time, and follow his steps till the chronicle is ended and the volume closed.

It is a strange home which he is seeking; a singular locality in which he is about to pitch his tent — East, due East, in the Christian Babylon, in that great city whose inhabitants are as the sands of the seashore.

Will you trace his route on paper, most courteous reader? The way is not hard to find, even although your knowledge of London extend no further east than Grace church Street.

Perhaps, however, it is assuming too much to imagine that you can know anything of a street which is always full of vans and omnibuses; probably you have merely a vague recollection that the landmark I have chosen is somewhere in the city. Let me, therefore, refresh your memory as to its whereabouts.

From Charing Cross east you will find (if you consult a Directory map) a continuous line of streets running parallel with the river for a distance of a couple of miles or so; thus commencing at the point above indicated, and marking out the way, child-fashion, with the tip of your finger, you have first the Strand; secondly, Fleet Street; thirdly, Ludgate Hill and Ludgate Street; then a sweep round St. Paul's; after that Cannon Street, the handsomest thoroughfare in London, though it M in the City; while, at the extreme end of Cannon Street, comes King William Street, which we cross at the statue, and which brings us at once into Grace church Street.

Were we to continue our route up it we should, in due time, get into a truly delectable neighbourhood, bordered on the right hand by Spitalfields and Bethnal Green, and on the left by that strange land lying to the north of Barbican, and all about Moor Lane and Curtain Road. As it is, however, we turn our faces southward, and speak more fully of the territory in which we find ourselves.

Down there you perceive, slanting to the river, is Fish Street Hill, at the bottom of which runs Lower Thames Street, a classic spot rendered sacred by Billingsgate, in which men knock up against the passers-by, with big baskets of fish and bigger boxes of oranges; where the air is literally foul with the smell of foreign fruits, for in Lower Thames Street oranges are more plentiful even than salt haddocks and fresh cod, and the side paths are lined with open shops, that seem overflowing into the dirty gutters, with nuts, and shaddocks, and lemons.

Yes, my dear madam, it is indeed from Thames Street, by Billingsgate, that many of the fruits you have at dessert, and the delicate lemons wherewith you season your pud dings, are originally procured; it is from Thames Street that the cod-liver oil which the great Doctor Belgravia declares your consumptive daughter must either take or die, is to be had in its integrity; it is from Thames Street that the lemon juice and the lime water which you find so valuable in a sick room, make their way into genteel society; and it is from Thames Street that the bloaters the Londoners eat at breakfast, and the oysters they swallow for supper, and the salmon milor has at a fabulous price per pound, and the turbot you order from your suburban fishmonger, are all had " first hand," as it is called.