Some affirming that youth by marrying too soon do nothing to
profit the countrie; but fill it full of beggars, to the hurte and utter
undooing, they say, of the common wealth. The better minded doo forsake
the realme for altogether, complaining of _no room to be left for them
at home_." If there was no room in Elizabeth's time, what must be our
present situation? Indeed the present crowded state of the metropolis,
and the general closeness of the buildings, has frequently been a
subject for regret, as tending to render it unhealthy and impure; but
on referring to its state, when in comparison it was but a village, the
old writers state that in the city, and all round it were a great number
of pits and ditches, and sloughs, which were made the receptacle of all
kind of filth, dead and putrid horses, and cattle, &c. In the time of
Henry VIII. many parts are described as "exceedingly foul and full of
pits and sloughs, and very noisome," and some years after (1625) in a
tract, the author says, "Let not carkasses of horses, dogs, cats, &c.
lye rotting and poisoning the aire, as they have done in _More_ and
_Finsbury_ Fields, and elsewhere round about the cittie. Let the
ditches towards Islington, Olde-street, and towards Shoreditch and
Whitechapel, be well cleansed." In another tract published in 1665, it
states, that "there are all sorts of unsavoury stenches, proceeding
either from carrion, ditches, rotten dung-hills, vaults, sinks, nasty
kennels, and streets, (strewed with all manner of filth) seldom
cleansed.
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