day butchers, it would seem, were the
predominate species of humanity, while to-day Jewish "sweat-shops" are in
the ascendant, a sufficiently fine distinction to render it recognizable
to any dweller in a large city, whatever his nationality.

The fleur-de-lis and royal blazonings are no longer seen, and such good
old Anglo-Saxon names as Stiles, Stiggins, and Stodges are effectually
obliterated from shop signs. How changed this ancient neighbourhood is
from what it must once have been! Crosby Hall, in Bishopsgate Street, not
far distant, the _ci-devant_ palace of Richard II., is now a mere
eating-house, albeit a very good one. And as for the other noble houses,
they have gone the way of all fanes when once encroached upon by the
demands of business progress.

Baynard Castle, where Henry VII. received his ambassadors, and in which
the crafty Cecil plotted against Lady Jane Grey, almost before the ink
was dry with which he had solemnly registered his name to serve her, has
long ago been numbered amongst the things that were. The archers of
Mile-end, with their chains of gold, have departed: the spot on which the
tent stood, where bluff Hal regaled himself after having witnessed their
sports, is now covered with mean-looking houses: as one has said, "the
poetry of ancient London is well-nigh dead."

The voice of the stream is for ever hushed that went murmuring before the
dwellings of our forefathers, along Aldgate and down Fenchurch Street, and
past the door of Sir Thomas Gresham's house, in Lombard Street, until it
doubled round by the Mansion House and emptied itself into the river.
There is still the sound of rushing waters by the Steam-Packet Wharf, at
London Bridge; but how different to the "brawling brook" of former days is
the "evil odour" which arises from the poisonous sewers of to-day.

And to what have these old-world splendours given place? Splendid
gin-shops, plate-glass palaces, into which squalor and misery rush and
drown the remembrance of their wretchedness in drowsy and poisonous
potations of an inferior quality of liquor. Such splendour and squalor is
the very contrast which makes thinking men pause, and pause again.

[Illustration: WHITECHAPEL.]

The Whitechapel butcher was of the old school. He delighted in a blue
livery, and wore his "steel" with as much satisfaction as a young ensign
does his sword. He neither spurned the worsted leggins nor duck apron; but
with bare muscular arms, and kn