Commerce was developing, and the roads, with the heavy and cumbrous waggons, were insufficient for the growing trade. Railways, of course, were not yet, so their precursors, and present rivals, the canals, were made, in order to afford a cheap, and expeditious, means of intercommunication. In July, 1800, the Grand Junction Canal was opened from the Thames at Brentford, to Fenny Stratford in Buckinghamshire. A year afterwards, on the 10th of July, 1801, the Paddington Canal was opened for trade, with a grand aquatic procession, and some idea may be formed of the capital employed on these undertakings, when we find that even in January, 1804, the Grand Junction Canal had a paid-up capital of £1,350,000, and this, too, with land selling at a cheaper proportional rate than now. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXIV. Condition of the streets of London—Old oil lamps—Improvement in lamps—Gas—Its introduction by Murdoch—Its adoption in London by Winsor—Opposition to it—Lyceum and other places lit with it—Its gradual adoption—The old tinder box—Improvements thereon. [Illustration: LAMPLIGHTER—1805.] LONDON was considered the best paved city in the world, and most likely it was; but it would hardly commend itself to our fastidious tastes. The main thoroughfares were flagged, and had kerbs; sewers under them, and gratings for the water to run from the gutters into them—but turn aside into a side street, and then you would find a narrow _trottoir_ of “kidney” stones on end, provocative of corns, and ruinous to boots; no sewers to carry off the rain, which swelled the surcharged kennels until it met in one sheet of water across the road. Cellar flaps of wood, closed, or unclosed, and, if closed, often rotten, made pitfalls for all except the excessively wary. Insufficient scavenging and watering, and narrow, and often tortuous, streets, did not improve matters, and when once smallpox, or fever, got hold in these back streets, death held high carnival. Wretchedly lit, too, at night, by poor, miserable, twinkling oil lamps, flickering with every gust, and going out altogether with anything like a wind, always wanting the wicks trimming, and fresh oil, as is shown in the following graphic illustration. [Illustration: LAMPLIGHTER—1805.]