At the corner of Silver Street was a little butcher’s shop, and next door a brush shop, the proprietor of which was a most intelligent man, but a “Chartist,” and a great friend of Fergus O’Connor. He was the principal mover in erecting a monument at Kensal Green over the remains of that gentleman, who seems, by the present condition of that monument, to have been forgotten by this generation, although he tried hard to get every working man a small portion of the land of his birth as a means of acquiring independency. Many tried it, but they found they could earn more by labour than they could grow in an acre of the best soil. Close by where the Notting Hill Gate Station now is stood in those days the _Village Pump_, concerning the removal of which sundry indignation meetings were held and fierce threats made of law proceedings. It was said at these meetings that no such pure water could be obtained any where else, but as I once lived near _Aldgate Pump_ and used to hear the same, and drank of that water with relish until the horrid chemists analized it and said it was full of organic matter, percolating from Aldgate Churchyard, where the bodies of hundreds had been buried at the time of the plague, I had ceased to have faith in city or village pumps, and rejoiced to see an arrangement made by which pure water could be supplied from the Water Companies’ pipes through a tap. For years this tap existed in front of No. 71 or 73, High Street, but I find it has been removed. I think, however, there should have been an inscription there— “Here stood the Village Pump.” There should likewise be another Tablet by Farm Street, stating— “Here stood the Village Pound.” In which pound I have seen many a disconsolate donkey, horse, or goat. I never saw the Village Stocks, perhaps the villagers of Notting Hill were always a sober, law-abiding people, and had no need of such civilizing structures. I remember, however, seeing a man in the stocks at Lewisham, placed there for being drunk. As he was being well supplied with beer by his companions, I think it probable the result of the punishment was that he was more drunken after than before. In 1844 there were only two shops in the village above one story high. The exceptions are now numbered 150, 152; the latter house was then, as now, a cheesemonger’s. The shop windows were principally common glass. Plate glass had not come into fashion. Some of the shops were lighted with oil lamps, and, I think, some with candles. I cannot speak for the intelligence of all the tradesmen of that time, but remember a serious conversation with one who, at the conclusion, very gravely remarked, “I suppose publicans in the time of the Saviour were a bad sort of people. I go every night to the ‘Coach and Horses’ to have one glass and a pipe, and the landlord is not a bad sort of a man, but in old times publicans seem always somehow mixed up with sinners.”