[21] It may be added that the difficulties in getting admission to see old monuments in London seem insuperable. As a general rule they are rarely open--or open at awkward hours. No one about appears to know where the person in charge is to be found, and he is usually “out,” being busy with other functions. The old City Halls are jealously guarded, and we recall how shocked the old lady housekeeper was at one of these places when admission was proposed. Application must be made to high officials, who, however, are gracious enough in according permission. The result, however, is long delay and loss of opportunity. [22] It was thus that passing by St. Magnus’s on one Sunday afternoon, the door open, the organ pealing out, we expected the usual “Sunday service” in the City, with its dozen or so of congregation--the few old women, the sleeping old men, who had turned in for the purpose. Who could have thought of realizing so perfectly the traditional Swift story of “Dearly Beloved Roger”? For there was literally the minister and his clerk, reading and responding, the pew-opener sitting by the door, and not a soul besides! The pew-opener rose, making a piteously imploring, despairing appeal to remain; the incumbent glanced over, half-ashamed--but the intruder fled! [23] Some time ago there was a controversy in the papers as to the propriety of opening the churches, City and others, “for private prayer.” Mr. Brook, the rector of this pretty church of St. Mary Woolnoth, gave his experiences of an experiment he made in this way. “The abuse,” he said, “of the privilege had been very great, though certainly, by reason of constant watchfulness, not as bad as it used to be. Your readers will scarcely believe it when I mention that dozens and dozens of times men and women have actually made a public convenience of the sacred building; others have come in and stripped themselves nearly naked in the darker corners, for what reason no one can say; others come for the sole purpose of altercation with the attendant, and one lately even struck and seriously hurt her; indeed, if it were not for the friendly policeman on the neighbouring point, such incidents would be of daily occurrence. It was only a few weeks since a child was born on the mat in the entrance of the church, though this is not so common as it used to be in days gone by; and when I first became rector of the parish the church, between one and two o’clock, was regularly used as a luncheon room.” [24] This relic is now on the eve of being demolished. [25] All his visions therefore faded away: the “cloud-capp’d towers and gorgeous palaces” dwindled gradually and shrank: prose, and questions of convenience, took the place of this baseless fabric of a vision.