Nothing is more curious in London than these
ancient localities and customs of the City Companies,--each trade and
profession having its own hall, and its own institutions. The keeper
next showed us the plate which is used at the banquets.
I should like to be present at one of these feasts. I saw also an old
vellum manuscript, in black-letter, which appeared to be a record of the
proceedings of the company; and at the end there were many pages ruled
for further entries, but none had been made in the volume for the last
three or four hundred years.
I think it was in the neighborhood of Barber-Surgeons' Hall, which stands
amid an intricacy of old streets, where I should never have thought of
going, that I saw a row of ancient almshouses, of Elizabethan structure.
They looked wofully dilapidated. In front of one of them was an
inscription, setting forth that some worthy alderman had founded this
establishment for the support of six poor men; and these six, or their
successors, are still supported, but no larger number, although the value
of the property left for that purpose would now suffice for a much larger
number.
Then Mr. Bennoch took me to Cripplegate, and, entering the door of a
house, which proved to be a sexton's residence, we passed by a side
entrance into the church-porch of St. Giles, of which the sexton's house
seems to be an indivisible contiguity. This is a very ancient church,
that escaped the great fire of London.
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