London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History -- 18th century
The burgesses are sixteen in number, seven for the city and nine for the
liberties of Westminster, appointed by the high steward or his deputy,
every one of whom has his assistant, and has particular wards or
districts: out of these burgesses are chosen two chief burgesses, one for
the city, the other for the liberties. The dean, high steward, or his
deputy, the bailiffs and burgesses, or a quorum of them, are empowered to
make bye-laws, and take cognisance of small offences, within the city and
liberties of Westminster. But I look upon it that the justices of peace
for Westminster have in a great measure superseded the authority of the
burgesses (except as to weights, measures, and nuisances), by virtue of
whose warrants all petty offenders almost are apprehended and sent to
Tothill Fields Bridewell; and for higher offences, the same justices
commit criminals to Newgate, or the Gatehouse, who receive their trials
before commissioners of _oyer_ and _terminer_ at the Old Bailey, as
notorious criminals in the City of London do; and so far the two united
cities may be said to be under the same government.
The precinct of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, in London, is deemed a part of the
city of Westminster, and the inhabitants vote in the elections of members
of Parliament for Westminster.
The ecclesiastical government of the city of Westminster is in the dean,
and chapter, whose commissary has the jurisdiction in all ecclesiastical
causes, and the probate of wills; from whom there lies no appeal to the
Archbishop of Canterbury or other spiritual judge, but to the King in
Chancery alone, who upon such appeal issues a commission under the Great
Seal of England, constituting a court of delegates to determine the cause
finally.
I next proceed to survey the out-parishes in the Counties of Middlesex
and Surrey which are comprehended within the bills of mortality, and
esteemed part of this great town. And first, St. Giles’s in the Fields
contains these chief streets and places: Great Lincoln’s Inn Fields, part
of Lincoln’s Inn Garden, Turnstile, Whetstone Park, part of High Holborn,
part of Duke Street, Old and New Wild Street, Princes Street, Queen
Street, part of Drury Lane, Brownlow Street, Bolton Street, Castle
Street, King Street, the Seven Dials, or seven streets comprehending Earl
Street, Queen Street, White Lion Street, and St. Andrew’s Street,
Monmouth Street, the east side of Hog Lane, Stedwell Street, and Staig
Street.
Great Lincoln’s Inn Fields or Square contains about ten acres of ground,
and is something longer than it is broad, the longest sides extending
from east to west. The buildings on the west and south generally make a
grand figure.
In the parish of St. Sepulchre, which is without the liberties of the
City of London, we meet with Hicks’s Hall and the Charter House.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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