. The history and antiquities of London, Westminster, Southwark, and parts adjacent. given in trust,to the same persons, for the neighbouring poor. Except, therefore,that of maintaining an unnecessary number of monks and otherreligieuse, might be considered an evil, these superstitious oblations,as they are now deemed, were of signal service to the many widows had pined in want, how many orphans hadperished for lack of nourishment; how many aged and sick hadbeen left to the chilling blasts of penury and disease had not thesepractices been so prevalent, at a period when the poor h
. The history and antiquities of London, Westminster, Southwark, and parts adjacent. given in trust,to the same persons, for the neighbouring poor. Except, therefore,that of maintaining an unnecessary number of monks and otherreligieuse, might be considered an evil, these superstitious oblations,as they are now deemed, were of signal service to the many widows had pined in want, how many orphans hadperished for lack of nourishment; how many aged and sick hadbeen left to the chilling blasts of penury and disease had not thesepractices been so prevalent, at a period when the poor had no pro-vision for their support, except what piety, humanity, (or, if itmust be so) superstition, and ignorance might induce the opulentvoluntarily to But, alas for the wretched ! a casual fire, in the year 1452, an-ticipating, by nearly a century, the more cruel and extensive devas-* Stowe. t Nightingale. 100 HISTORY OF LONDON. tatioDs of Henry VIII. consumed this little wooden friend of litepoor, destroying at the same time, the chapel and all its preciouarreasures!. Clock Tower. The Clock Tower, or Bell House, stood opposite the hall gale,amd is said to have been erected on the following occasion ; • Acertain poor man, in an action of debt, being fined the sum of thir-teen and fourpence, in the reign of Henry III. Radulphus de Ing-ham, lord chief justice of the Kings Bench, commiserating hiscase, caused the court-roll to be erased, and the fine to be reducedto six shillings and eight pence, which, being soon after discovered,the judge was amerced in a pecuniary mulct of eight hundred marks,and that sum was employed in erecting the Bell Tower, whereinwas placed a bell and a clock, which striking hourly, was to remindthe judges in the hall of the fate of their brother. The tower was not demolished till the year 1715, when the greatbell was granted to the clock of the new cathedral of St. Pauls,London, whither it was removed, and stood under a shed in thechurch yar
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