Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/115

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BRITISH COMMERCE.
113

tions, are at present, and for some years past have been, so miry and foul as is not only very noisome, dangerous, and inconvenient to the inhabitants thereabouts, but to all the king's liege people riding and travelling to and from the said cities." The following "common highways and new-built streets" are particularly ordered to be immediately repaired, new-paved, or otherwise amended:—namely, "the street or way from the end of Petty France to St. James's House, and one other street from St. James's House up to the Highway (the present St. James's-street), and one other street in St. James's Fields, commonly called the Pall Mall, and also one other street beginning from the Mews up to Piccadilly (the present Haymarket), and from thence towards the Stone Bridge to the furthermost building near the Bull, at the corner of Air-street." The number of hackney-coaches now allowed to be licensed, it appears from another clause of the act, was four hundred, or one hundred more than in 1654. Another clause, on the ground that "great quantities of sea-coal ashes, dust, dirt, and other filth, of late times have been and daily are thrown into the streets, lanes, and alleys" of the capital, directs the inhabitants to sweep the streets before their respective houses twice a week, under a penalty of 3s. 4d. for every instance of neglect. Every person whose house fronted the street was also ordered to "hang out candles or lights in lanterns or otherwise in come part of his house next the street" every night, between Michaelmas and Lady-day, from dark until nine o'clock in the evening, under the penalty of 1s. So that at this time the streets of London were not lighted at all during the summer months, and not after nine o'clock even in winter. Finally, a list is given of streets which the lord mayor and city authorities are authorized to receive subscriptions for repairing, as being "so narrow that they are incommodious to coaches, carts, and passengers, and prejudicial to commerce and trading:" these were, "the street or passage at or near the Stocks in London, the street and passage from Fleet Conduit to St. Paul's Church in London, the passage through the White Hart