in one of them.
The large pile of buildings built by Mr. Richards for Laing and Co., and
now occupied by Messrs. Manton, the Bodega Company, and others, is the
most important variation from the High Street of forty years ago. The
narrow footpaths and contracted roadway were as inconveniently crowded
as they are to-day. The house now occupied by Innes, Smith, and Co. was
then a grocer's shop, and the inscription over the door was "Dakin and
Ridgway," two names which now, in London, are known to everybody as
those of the most important retail tea dealers in the metropolis. Mr.
Ridgway established the large concern in King William Street, and Mr.
Dakin was the founder of "No. 1, St. Paul's Churchyard."

New Street is greatly altered. At that time it was not much more lively
than Newhall Street is now. The Grammar School is just as it was; the
Theatre, externally, is not much altered; "The Hen and Chickens" remains
the same; the Town Hall, though not then finished, looked the same from
New Street; and the portico of the Society of Artists' rooms stood over
the pavement then. With these exceptions I only know one more building
that has not been pulled down, or so altered as to be unrecognisable.
The exemption is the excrescence called Christ Church, which still
disfigures the very finest site in the whole town.

Hyam and Co. had removed from the opposite side of the street, and had
just opened as a tailor's shop the queer old building known as the
"Pantechnetheca," and the ever-youthful Mr. Holliday was at "Warwick
House." The recollections of what the "House" was then makes me smile as
I write. It had originally been two private houses. The one abutted upon
the footway, and the other stood some thirty feet back, a pretty garden
being in the front. The latter had been occupied by Mr. James Busby,
who carried on the business of a wire-worker at the rear. The ground
floor frontages of both had been taken out. A roof had been placed over
the garden, two hideous small-framed bay windows fronted New Street, and
a third faced what is now "Warwick House Passage." The whole place had a
curious "pig-with-one-ear" kind of aspect, the portion which had been
the garden having no upper floors, while the other was three storeys
high. The premises had been "converted" by a now long-forgotten
association, called the "Drapery Company," and as this had not been
successful, Mr. Holliday and his then partner, Mr. Merrett, had become
its succes