The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient TurnpikeHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
Dover Road (England); England -- Description and travel; England -- Social life and customs
It was understood that Mrs. Cave, who at that time owned a large part of
Tufnell Park, found the money for the tower, selling her property for the
cause. The unfinished tower was seized by the building contractors for
debt, and offered for sale by auctioneers, who stated it "would do for a
lunatic asylum, prison, infirmary, etc." This suggestion failed, and the
contractors, unable to sell the incomplete carcase, let it to the sect
under a lease, which terminated in 1905. There were at that time
Jezreelite workrooms and printing-offices in the basement. An American
Jezreelite then appeared, one Michael Keyfor Mills, calling himself
"Prince Michael," and proposing to complete. The founder's father-in-law,
Edward Rogers, who had rented the place as a wholesale grocery warehouse,
opposed him and secured an injunction against members of the sect who had
supported the idea. Mills died at Gillingham in January, 1922, aged
sixty-five.
In 1908 a company was formed to demolish the building and sell the
materials; but when the upper floors had been taken down the concern
became insolvent. In 1913 it was proposed to convert the building into a
"Picture Palace," but the idea came to nothing; and later, the property
was offered at auction and withdrawn at L3,900.
If there be any surviving Jezreelites of the "New and Latter House of
Israel," who believe that the souls of only those who have lived since
Moses can be saved, they will be able to look with satisfaction on the
remains of their tower, which was built largely with the idea that five
thousand of the elect would gather here at the destruction of the world.
But in its present condition a good many of that number would be left
outside; and there might be expected an unseemly crush to get within, only
that by this time the elect of this particular brand must be a very small
coterie.
XXVI
Little else is to be seen or noted in leaving Chatham for Rainham. The
shop in which that singular old gentleman lived, with whom little David
Copperfield made acquaintance, is not pointed out to the curious, and the
identity of that apostrophizer of his lungs and liver, who exclaimed
"Goroo, goroo," and tearfully asked David if he would go for fourpence,
has been much disputed. "The House on the Brook," to which the Dickens
family removed when Mr. John Dickens' fortunes were low, is still to be
seen, but "the Brook" has changed for the worse, and the visitor to
Chatham who takes up the local papers will discover that it is
pre-eminently the place where the Order of the Black Eye is conferred, on
Saturday nights in especial, but more or less impartially throughout the
week.
[Sidenote: UPCHRUCH WARE]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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