half-past twelve at night in the gas-polluted air of a showy public-house, rather than play the games that contented the people of a generation or two ago. Gravesend was at one time a place remarkable alike for its tilt-boats and its waterside taverns. The one involved the other, for the boats brought travellers here from London, and here, in the days of bad roads and worse conveyances, they judged it prudent to stay overnight, commencing their journey to. Rochester the following morning. To the town of Gravesend belonged the monopoly of conveying passengers to and from London by water, and it was not until steamboats began to ply up and down the reaches of the Thames that this privilege became obsolete. Thus it will be seen that, besides being a place of call for ships, either outward bound or proceeding home, Gravesend was in receipt of much local traffic. The railway has, naturally, taken away a large proportion of this, but has brought it back, tenfold, in the shape of holiday trippers, and the continued growth of the town is sufficient evidence of its prosperity. One first hears of Gravesend in the pages of Domesday Book, where it is called "Gravesham"; but the difficulty of distinctly pronouncing the name led, centuries ago, to the corrupted termination of "end "being adopted, first in speech, and, by insensible degrees, in writing. It has an interesting history, commencing from the time when the compilers of Domesday Book found only a "hythe," or landing-place, here, and progressing through the centuries with records of growth, and burnings by the French; with tales of Cabot's sailing hence in 1553, followed by Frobisher in 1576, to the incorporation of the town in 1568, and the flight of James the Second, a hundred and twenty years later. Gravesend was not, in the sixteenth century, a model town. Its inhabitants paved, lighted, and cleansed their streets, accordingly as individual preferences, industry, or laziness dictated. Spouts, pipes, and projecting eaves poured dirty water on pedestrians who were rash enough to walk those streets in rainy weather, and people threw away out of window anything they wished to get rid of, quite regardless of who might be passing underneath; and so, whether fine or wet, those who picked their way carefully along the unpaved thoroughfares, stood an excellent chance of being drenched with something unpleasant. An open gutter ran down the middle of the street, full of rotting refuse; every tradesman hung out signs which sometimes fell down and killed people, and in the night, when the wind blew strong, a concert of squeaking music filled, with sounds not the most pleasant, the ears of people who wanted to go to sleep. Things were but little less medieval in the middle of the seventeenth century, although the trade and importance of Gravesend had greatly increased. Troubles arose then on account of the disorderly hackmen, "foreigners and strangers"-any one not a freeman or a burgess was a "foreigner"-who plied between Gravesend and Rochester, and took away the custom that belonged of right to members of Gravesend guilds. Two years later the Corporation of Gravesend was distinctly Roundhead in its MUNICIPAL REVELRY 119 sympathies, for in 1649 we find the town mace being altered, the Royal arms removed, and those of the Commonwealth substituted, at a cost of £23 10s. Od. In 1660, things wore a very different complexion, for in that year the Gravesend people welcomed Charles the Second with every demonstration of joy. They had the mace restored to its former condition at a cost, this time, of £17 10s. Od., and allowed the mayor and another £2 5s. 7d. for going up to London to see that the work was done properly. They paid £3 10s. Od. for painting the king's arms; 14s. to one John Phettiplace for "trumpeters and wigs"; and 5s. to Will Charley "for sounding about the country." Having done this, they all got gloriously drunk at a total cost of £12 15s. 8d., of which sum £10 7s. 8d. was for wine, and £2 8s. Od. for beer. It was, indeed, during this latter half of the seventeenth century that Gravesend experienced one of its great periods of prosperity; and so the loyalty was well rewarded. Of this date are many of the fine old red-brick mansions in the older part of the town, together with the Admiralty House, official residence of the Duke of York when Lord High Admiral. To Gravesend he came as James the Second, a prisoner. Embarking from Whitehall, on December 18, 1688, he reached here as late as nine o'clock at night. The next morning he was conducted hence to Rochester in the charge of a hundred of the Prince of Orange's Dutch Guards, and a melancholy journey it must have been for him, if his memory took him back to |