The prisoners for debt, as well as those who were imprisoned for crime, regained their freedom when the prisons were burned down. Could the debts be proved against them when the papers were all destroyed? The tenant whose rent was in arrears was safe, for who could prove that he had not paid? All debts were wiped clean off the slate. There were no more mortgages, no more promissory bills to meet, no more drafts of honor. Debts as well as property were all destroyed together. The money-lender and the borrower were destroyed together. The schools were closed--for how long? The almshouses were burned down--what became of the poor old bedesmen and bedeswomen? The City charities were suspended--what became of the poor? The houses were destroyed--what became of rents and tithes and taxes? [Illustration: OLD GROCERS' HALL, USED FOR BANK OF ENGLAND] The Fire is out at last; the rain has quenched the last sparks; the embers have ceased to smoke; those walls which have not fallen totter and hang trembling ready to fall. I see men standing about singly; the tears run down their cheeks; two hundred years ago, if we had anything to cry about, we were not ashamed to cry without restraint; they are dressed in broadcloth, the ruffles are of lace, they look like reputable citizens. Listen--one draws near another. "Neighbor," he says, "a fortnight ago, before this stroke, whether of God or of Papist, I had a fair shop on this spot." "And I also, good friend," said the other, "as you know." "My shop," continued the first, "was stocked with silks and satins, kid gloves, lace ruffles and neckties, shirts, and all that a gentleman or a gentlewoman can ask for. The stock was worth a thousand pounds. I turned it over six or seven times a year at least. And my profit was four hundred pounds." "As for me," said the other, "I was in a smaller way, as you know. Yet such as it was, my fortune was all in it, and out of my takings I could call two hundred pounds a year my own." "Now is it all gone," said the first. "All gone," the other repeated, fetching a sigh. "And now, neighbor, unless the company help, I see nothing for it but we must starve." "Must starve," the other repeated. And so they separated, and went divers ways, and whether they starved or whether they received help, and rose from the ashes with new house and newly stocked shop, I know not. Says Dryden on the Fire: "Those who have homes, when home they do repair To a last lodging call their wandering friends: Their short uneasy sleeps are broke with care To look how near their own destruction tends. "Those who have none sit round where it was And with full eyes each wonted room require: Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place, As murdered men walk where they did expire.