For ages the Mint in the Borough has gained an unenviable name, not only as the happy hunting-ground of the disreputable, the prostitute, the thief, the outcast, the most wretched and the lowest of the poor, yet there was a time when it was great and famous. There that brave and accomplished courtier, the Duke of Suffolk, brought his royal bride, the handsome sister of our Henry VIII. It was there poor Edward VI. came on a visit all the way from Hampton Court. It was the goodly gift of Mary the unhappy and ill-fated to the Archbishop of York. Somehow or other Church property seems to be detrimental to the respectability of a neighbourhood, hence the truth of the old adage, “The nearer the church, the farther from God.” At any rate this was the case as regards the Mint in the Borough, which in Gay’s time had sunk so low that he made it the scene of his “Beggar’s Opera,” and there still law may be said to be powerless, and there still they point out the house in which lived Jonathan Wild. In the reign of William, our Protestant hero, and George I., our Hanoverian deliverer, a desperate attempt was made to clear the place of the rogues and vagabonds to whom it afforded shelter and sanctuary; but somehow or other in vain, though all debtors under fifty pounds had their liabilities wiped off by royal liberality. The place was past mending, and so it has ever since remained. It is not a neighbourhood for a lady at any time, but to inhabit it all that is requisite is that, by fair means or foul (in the Mint they are as little particular as to the way in which money is made as they are in the City or on the Stock Exchange), you have fourpence to pay for a night’s lodging. All round the place prices may be described as low, to suit the convenience of the customer. You are shaved for a penny. Your hair is cut and curled for twopence. The literature for sale may be termed sensational, and the chandlers’ shops, which are of the truest character if I may judge by the contents, do a trade which may be described as miscellaneous.