It will not be unentertaining if we give a description of the city as it appeared about this time. The houses were mostly built of wood, and thatched with straw or reeds, which was the occasion of very frequent fires; and the city was supplied with water by men who brought it in carriages from the Thames, and from the brooks which ran through many of the principal streets. Thus the river of Wells, so called from many springs or wells uniting to supply its stream, arose in the north west part of the city, and ran into Fleet Ditch, at the bottom of Holborn hill. This small river, or brook, supplied several water mills, and at length from thence obtained the name of Turnmill Brook. The Olborn, or Holborn, which arose where Middle row now stands, and flowed down the hill, also fell into Fleet Ditch; and a few houses on its banks were called a village, and distinguished by the name of this rivulet. While the Fleet ran down Fleet street, and also fell into Fleet Ditch. Wall brook entered the city through the wall between Bishopsgate and Moorgate, and after many turnings emptied itself into the Thames at Dowgate. The brook Langbourn rose near the east end of Fenchurch street, where mixing with the soil, it rendered it marshy; but ran from thence with a swift current to Sherborne lane, and then dividing into several rills, was lost in the Wall brook on Dowgate hill. The springs from whence all these streams arose were pretty numerous, and several of them at their source formed deep ponds; particularly there was a large pond in Smithfield, supplied by its own spring; and near Cripplegate a deep and dangerous pool, formed by Crowder’s Well. At length the citizens being deprived of their usual supplies of water from the above brooks, by the encroachments of buildings, and other ways, water was brought from six springs in the town of Tyburn, by a leaden pipe of a six-inch bore, which was made to supply leaden cisterns castellated with stone. The first and largest of these conduits was erected in West-cheap, in the year 1285, and afterwards the number of these conduits were increased to about twenty. Mr. Stow informs us, that it was customary for the Lord Mayor, accompanied by the Aldermen, and principal citizens on horseback, to visit the heads from whence the conduits were supplied, on the 18th of September, when they hunted a hare before dinner, and a fox after it, in the fields beyond St. Giles’s. About this time the city was divided into twenty four wards, under the government of the Aldermen; and each ward chose some of the inhabitants as Common Council men, who were sworn into their office; these were to be consulted by the Aldermen, and their advice followed, in all public affairs relating to the city.