D—n his eyes, whoever tries To rob a poor man of his beer, in effect says the working man of the Corbett Estate, and, to show his independence on those occasions when he journeys a weariful distance across the boundary of this drinkless district in order to get his supper beer, takes more than he ordinarily would, returning home a discredit to the good people who want to dragoon him into an avoidance of Bung and all his vats, in preparation for their new Heaven and new Earth. The net result, and one wholly unlooked for, is that this prohibition policy has practically conferred an immense endowment upon the inns of Rushey Green, which, once modest enough, have blossomed forth as immense public-houses, doing a roaring trade with the unregenerate. The road, coming to South End, comes really and truly to the end of London and its suburbs, and is at present prettily rural. Only those who know the district well are aware that, a short way off to the right hand, there is a little Erebus at Bell Green, where the gasworks are. If our old vituperative Cobbett were back again, taking his rural rides, I have no doubt he would call the place Hell Green, and he would not be altogether unjustified in doing so. But for my own part, I prefer to dwell rather upon South End, and feel inclined to curse the exploratory activity that led me to discover that awful place at the back of the road; so abject, so unutterably vile. South End owes much—almost everything, in fact—to the beneficent Ravensbourne, which flows beside the road, and long ago was enlarged into a lake at this point. It is a pretty lake, the prettier because unexpected, and there are those who actually fish in it; not for the lordly salmon, nor even for grayling or dace. No, it is rather the humble “tiddler” who makes sport for the small boy with a twig, a piece of cotton and a pickle-bottle; and I declare that no fisherman in india-rubber waders, up to his thighs in the middle of a stream and at grips with a salmon, experiences a wilder ardour than that of these sportsmen of the neighbouring streets. I feel sorry, however, for the tiddlers, thus slain in their thousands. They do not long survive the water of the pickle-bottle, and presently, giving up the ghost, collapse and develop those extraordinary spikinesses which, I suppose, give them their proper name of “sticklebacks.” VII It is a long, long rise from South End to Bromley, which stands among the breezy heights near Keston and Hayes. Half way up it there are still traces of the deep dingle that gave the spot the name “Holloway,” by which it was known to the road-books of the coaching age. [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE WIDOWS’ COLLEGE.]