now, with small diamond-paned windows, low
ceilings, and little or no display; as for the
shopkeepers, I don't suppose there was a more self-
opinionated, self-important set to be found. Every
night they met at the Holly-Bush or the Castle,
and settled the affairs of the parish and of Europe
over their pipes. Whether the soldiers were
right in firing upon the mob at Queen
Caroline's funeral; whether the ruin brought on the
country in 1822 was really caused by allowing
paper-money; the real value of emigration,
which began to make a noise after the panic;
the disasters and bloodshed which all good
Protestants said would follow upon Catholic
emancipation; the long retirement and death of King
George; O'Connell's rent; the riots when the
Duke of Wellington was mobbed about reform,
and King William was afraid of going into the
City to dine with the Lord Mayor; the new
police established by Sir Robert Peel; these
topics were all discussed at the tavern meetings
in my early days; but discussed in a distant
provincial sort of way, and with less direct
knowledge and more unreasoning obstinacy than
you'd find in a remote country-town now.

"The Holly-Bush was what you might call the
aristocratic tradesman's tavern, and the whole
of the parish and vestry business used to be
settled at the nightly meeting there. Who was
to be overseer or churchwarden, which street or
road ought to be repaired, and whose son or
brother was to have the job, those were the sort
of topics there; for Hampstead was then just a
little world in itself, and its inhabitants thought
it quite as important as London. In fact, it's
difficult to make you understand now, how
thoroughly primitive some of the people were.
One old tradesman, a bachelor, who managed
his establishment with the aid of a housekeeper
and a boy, but whose successor now keeps
more than a dozen assistants in his flourishing
shop, was never further from home than
Whitechapel until he was more than sixty years of
age, and I don't think he was looked upon as
exceptional.

"This parish was joined to Edmonton in those
days; we'd only two representatives from
Hampstead to sit for us at the union board,
who were men of no position; and our
affairs were muddled finely. We succeeded in
being divorced from Edmonton about the time
that the number of resident gentry began to
increase, and from then until now I don't think
there's been a better board of guardians, or a
parish more fairly managed, than ours. Not a
word that's written in the newspapers against
poor-law guardians applies to Hampstead, for
we're liberal and kind to our poor, and the
entire board's made up of gentlemen who'd
rather put their hands in their own pockets
than let any one suffer for want of proper help
and comforts in time of sickness or distress.
I'm not saying, mind you, that there's more
charity or neighbourliness than in the old days,
when everybody knew everybody; but with five
hundred new houses on one estate—or four
hundred and ninety-nine and a church, for
that's what Belzize Park's really made into
according to the map—and with a large city of
good houses, as you may say, in the old footpad
haunts, the whole character of Hampstead has
changed, and a totally different society, with
other influences, interests, and claims, has
sprung up; and it's satisfactory to know that
the arrangements for relieving the poor have not
really suffered in consequence.

"Change, sir, change; different times, different
manners, as we learnt at school, that's what it
comes to. And what we may call 'the whole hog'
party haven't been idle through it all. Little
by little, by dint of insisting upon a sham
right here, and exercising an improper
privilege there, by dint of claiming what
was too paltry to resist, and exacting from
those who had neither power nor inclination to
stand out, a series of petty imposts and curtailments
have been effected, upon the strength of
which it is intended to strive for ' the bristles '
now. Ever since that public meeting eighteen
years ago, when the copyholders' proposal
was rejected so insolently, Sir Thomas
Wilson's active agent has been residing here,
and it's astonishing how much one man
can do for evil when it's nobody's business
in particular to resist it. Within a few years
any one could turn their donkeys on the Heath
without question or remark; now, a toll of some
pence per week is levied for each donkey. I know,
too, of at least one old man who used to keep
his cow and horse, and graze them on the common
land near his cottage at North-end; while
it can't be more than thirty years ago that old
Mrs. Herbert kept her flock of geese down in
the Vale of Health, and turned them on to the
Heath to pick up their living, as a thing of
course. If, too, any one had as much as hinted
in my early days at a charge for being allowed to
hang up clothes to dry, he'd have been laughed
out of the place, and perhaps ducked first in the
washing-tubs; now, if you please, the lord of the
manor makes a claim of so many pennies a post
before a clothes-line can be put up. The shows,
too, which plant themselves down at Easter
and such times, have been laid under contribution,
and made to pay toll for the privilege of
pitching on the Heath; and if your garden
fence abuts on it, and is insecure, a fine of so
much a spur is exacted before you are allowed
to prop it up. You see these things have not
been done all at once, or there'd have been
indignation meetings and appeals to the public, or
to parliament. They've come on as gradually
as the other changes I've told you of, and, being
insignificant in themselves, no one has thought
it worth while formally to dispute their justice.
Besides, how could a poor donkey-man, or an
old woman taking in washing or keeping geese,
or how could a showman from Whitechapel or
Seven Dials, fight a question of abstract right with
Sir Thomas Wilson's agent? For it must be
remembered that the people I've told you of
turned their animals to graze, and hung up
clothes upon the Heath, not as copyholders, but
as part of the general public using a common
privilege upon common land. You've asked me
what the poor copyholders have to say upon the