The two old views of the "Elephant and Castle" reproduced here, show the relative importance of the place at different periods. The first was in existence until 1824, and the larger house was built two years later. A dreadful relic of the barbarous practice by which suicides were buried in the highways, at the crossing of the roads, was discovered, some few years since, under the roadway opposite the "Elephant and Castle," during the progress of some alterations in the paving. The mutilated skeleton of a girl was found, which had apparently been in that place for considerably over a hundred years. Local gossips at once rushed to the conclusion that this had been some undiscovered murder, but the registers of St. George's Church, Southwark, probably afford a clue to the mystery. The significant entry occurs--"1666: Abigall Smith, poisoned herself: buried in the highway neere the Fishmongers' Almshouses." No one has come forward to explain the reason of this particular sign being selected. "Y{t} is call'd y{e} Elephaunt and Castell," says an old writer, "and this is y{e} cognizaunce of y{e} Cotelers, as appeareth likewise off y{e} Bell Savage by Lud Gate;" but this was never the property of the Cutlers' Company, while the site of "Belle Sauvage" is still theirs, and is marked by an old carved stone, bearing the initials "J. A.," with a jocular-looking elephant pawing the ground and carrying a castle. When the first "Elephant and Castle" was built on this site, the land to the westward as far as Lambeth and Kennington was quite rustic, and remained almost entirely open until the end of last century. Lambeth and Kennington were both villages, difficult of access except by water, and this tract of ground, now covered with the crowded houses of an old suburb, was known as St. George's Fields. It was low and flat, and was traversed by broad ditches, generally full of stagnant water. Roman and British remains have been found here, and it seems likely that some prehistoric fighting was performed on this site, but as all this took place a very long while before the Portsmouth Road was thought of, I shall not propose to go back to the days of Ostorius Scapula or of Boadicea to determine the facts. Instead, I will pass over the centuries until the times of King James I., when there stood in the midst of St. George's Fields, and on the site of Bethlehem Hospital, a disreputable tavern known as the "Dog and Duck," at which no good young man of that period who held his reputation dear would have been seen for worlds. [Illustration: "DOG AND DUCK" TAVERN.]