The necessity of cleaning and keeping clean the streets was very much to the front after the scare of the Plague and the Fire. There were projects advanced by ingenious persons for this purpose. Thus one Daniel Nis laid a plan before the King, who sent it on to the Lord Mayor for consideration. He wanted, apparently, to raise the footpath on either side to a “convenient height, evenness, and decency, leaving ample passage for coaches, carts, and horses, and reserving a competent part to be made even and easy in a far more elegant and commodious manner for the convenience of foot passengers, besides a handsome accommodation of water for the continual cleansing of the streets by lead pipes.” [Illustration: WATCHMAN From a print published by John Watson, _temp._ Charles II.] [Illustration: BELLMAN From a rare woodcut, _temp._ James I.] Daniel Nis was before his age, but one feels that when such projects are in the air, reform and improvement are at hand. Unfortunately projectors of this kind never understand the practical side of the question. Now the streets of a great city cannot be revolutionised all at once; no city is rich enough to undertake such a reform; the only thing possible is a gradual reform, taking the most important streets first. And this, in fact, was the way adopted in the City and carried on from the Great Fire to our own time. If we go into the unreformed streets we find the kites and crows still acting as the principal scavengers, the bye-streets unpaved and unlighted—that is to say, not yet even paved with cobbles, but left quite untouched with puddles of liquid filth standing about; there were also masterless dogs by the hundred who devoured the offal. The regulations for the standing of carts were of very early date. Standings were fixed in Tower Street and on Tower Hill in 1479. It must be remembered that most of the streets in the City were too narrow for the passage of wheeled vehicles; it was therefore necessary to regulate the traffic in the streets wide enough for carts to pass. Such Acts were passed and altered in 1586, 1605, 1654, 1658, 1661, 1665, 1667, and 1681. The last Act for licensing and regulating carts was passed in 1838. The Woodmongers’ Company at one time had the management of the carts. In 1605, when Christ’s Hospital had charge of the carts, a single cart was taxed 13s. 4d. a year, together with 4s. for quarterage and no more. The whole number of carts allowed was 400, viz. 100 for Southwark, 200 in the skirts of the City, and 100 in the wood wharves. The watchmen carried bells, not rattles; they rang them as they went along to announce their coming; the thieves in this way secured timely warning and got themselves into safe hiding. But Cosmo, Duke of Tuscany, who came here in 1669, says that the streets were orderly, well lit by lanterns, and that the citizens were not afraid to go about without swords.