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away from the road, and retired modestly a few paces from the
footpath The house itself appeared at the first glance
to be three parts roof; but beneath that homely crust the wayworn
traveller found order and cleanliness, wholesome fare, the
whitest linen, ready and cheerful service, and all at an honest
price Next to the inn, if, indeed, it ought not to rank
before it, the most remarkable feature in our metropolitan
village, was the shop. Of what goes to the constitution of the
village shop, such as it was in our day, and such as multitudes
are at the present hour in remote country districts, the Londoner,
born within the sound of Bow Bells, has not for the most part
the remotest idea It is grocer and tea dealer, and
stationer and bookseller, and draper and haberdasher, and
chemist and druggist, and jeweller and ironmonger, and seedsman
and toyman, and egg merchant and butterman in short
it does the work of Cheapside, Holborn, and the Strand all
under one roof. Such was the shop of our village."
After pourtraying the village baker, "who was nothing
but a baker," the butcher, "who was nothing but a
butcher," the dressmaker, the tailor, and the blacksmith,
who might be heard "on a Sunday afternoon hammering
out upon a set of pendant bells the psalm tunes he has
heard at Westminster Abbey in the morning," the writer
quoted proceeds :—
"Our village, in appearance, does not much resemble the rest
of the brick and mortar paradise of London. Properly speaking,
there are no regular streets in it; rows of houses, chiefly
cottages, there are; but they do not stand face to face, like the
two sides of a street proper, but face to back, like the ranks of
soldiers in a regiment; and it is thought that, like a regiment,
they will be marched off the ground some day. There are little,
odd-shaped, and triangular pieces of ground here and there,
which might perhaps by a stretch of courtesy be called streets ;
but nobody calls them streets—they are Palmer's Village, all of
them, and nothing else; the postmaster and the postman lump
them all together, and the latter has to learn the whereabouts of
each inhabitant We cannot say much in favour of the
pigs: they are voted a nuisance, and seem to be conscious that
they are not in good odour; but they are learned in their way,
and know the map of Westminster as well as the postman.
They invade Petty France, which is not half-a-mile off, every
morning, and amidst the ineffable filth of that indescribably
filthy district they growl and grunt and snufile through the
livelong day. We have met the village pig before now as far
north as the Broad Sanctuary; but we never knew of his losing
his way, or failing to return at night to his supper or his sty."