There were almshouses--eight of them--in the Woolstaple, which is now Cannon Street; they looked out upon the river, and the bedesmen turned an honest penny by letting them in lodgings for Parliament men. There were other almshouses founded by Henry VII., outside the Gatehouse in Tothill Street. There was an almshouse for women founded by Lady Margaret in the Almonry. But these were ancient things. Perhaps they disappeared with the Dissolution; perhaps they were “consolidated” the other day. Of the modern almshouses with schools attached, the most important was Emanuel College, a lovely House of Refuge, which stood until yesterday in James Street on the way from Buckingham Gate to Victoria. After leaving the great mansions near the Park one came suddenly upon the low red-brick quadrangle open at one side, with its chapel in the middle and its broad smooth lawn and flower-beds in front--as peaceful a spot as could be found anywhere. It made one glad to think that Dives had really remembered Lazarus; it made one reflect that perhaps money can be put to no better use than to consecrate it to the maintenance of age. And now that College is taken down; soon the site will be covered with residential flats, and Lazarus will retire to his place upon the doorstep. Lazarus is old and worn out in the service of Dives; he ought to be in an almshouse; he has got rheumatism in all his joints; he wants a warm place and a quiet place to lie down and rest in. While this venerable Hospital stood, the world--the world of fashion, the world of pleasure--was reminded of Lazarus. It has disappeared; this means that Lazarus is shoved aside, put out of sight, forgotten; he spends his strength and his skill in the service of the rich man, who knows and thinks nothing about him, and when his strength and his skill fail there is nothing to remind his master that thus and thus should he deal with his old and faithful servant. All the romance of Westminster City lay in its almshouses and schools. The City of London was fighting the battle of civic freedom; the City of London was finding money to fill the King’s Treasury; the City of London was sending its sails out to the uttermost parts of the earth. This other City, which was not really a city, but only a collection of houses, under the rule of Abbot and of Dean,--which had no trade, which had no municipality, which was a gathering of riffraff and Sanctuary rabble,--presented a continual spectacle of poverty, misery, and crime, lying at the very gate of Abbey and of King’s House. Lazarus, actual or prospective, lived in every house. The Dean [Illustration: MILTON’S HOUSE IN PETTY FRANCE.]