University of Virginia Library

10. [From the Author's Unpublished English Notes.]
PROPERTY IN OPULENT LONDON.

The “City” of London is a mere village,
right in the heart of a vast wilderness of
houses—like a central square of a chess-board;
and as the hordes that inhabit it
daily dwell miles away on the outskirts, it
has a ridiculously small population in the
night compared to what it has in the day
time—800,000 in the day and 50,000 at
night.

Anybody, a mechanic, or anybody else,
who rents or owns a house, has a vote—
that is to say, a man who pays rates, or
taxes—for there is no law here which gives
a useless idler the privilege of disposing
of public moneys furnished by other people.
The “City” has its own police, and its own
government. The rest of the metropolis is
composed of a great hive of once separate
villages which still retain their own names,
(as Charing, Holborn, &c.,) but they are
welded together into a compact mass of
houses now, and no stranger can tell when
he passes out of one of these towns and
into another.

The estates of the nobility are strictly
entailed, and cannot be alienated from the
family. The town property which these
great landlords own, is leased for long
terms—from half a century up to ninety-nine
years (in Scotland nine hundred and
ninety-nine years.) I was visiting a house
in the West End,—the quarter where dwelling
house property is the most valuable.
My host said he bought the lease of the
house he was living in (a three-story brick,
with basement,) twenty years ago, for
$7,500, when it had forty-one and a quarter
years to run. Every year he has to pay
$150 ground rent. But in these days property
has so greatly advanced in value all
over London, and especially at the West
End, that if this lease were for sale now it
would require something like a fortune to
buy it—and the ground rent would be
placed at about $1,000 a year instead of the
$150 the present owner will go on paying
for the next twenty years. The property
belongs to the Duke of Bedford, and when
he reflects upon what that property will
have soared to, ten or fifteen years from
now, and still paying him only the trifle of
$150 a year, he probably wants to go and
dig up his late ancestor and shake him.

This house was one of seventy-five just
like it that surround a beautiful square
containing two or three acres of ground—
ornamental grounds, large old trees, broad,
clean-shaven grass-plots, kept scrupulously
swept free from twigs, fallen leaves, and
all other eye-sores. His grace the Duke
owns all those seventy-five houses, and
he owns the ornamental square in the
midst, also. To each house he leaves a
key that will open any of the numerous
gates (there is iron railing all around) to
the square, and nobody can get in these
but the occupants of the seventy-five
houses and such persons as they choose to
invite. They do a deal of croquet. The
seventy-five pay a small sum yearly to keep
the square in repair.

It was a pleasant day, and we walked
along down the street. Every time we
crossed a new street, my host said,

“This property belongs to the Duke of
Bedford also—all these stately blocks of
buildings—both sides of the street.”

By and by we came to another ornamental
square,—like the other—and surrounded
by large dwellings.

“Who owns this square and these
houses?”

“The Duke of Bedford.”

We turned and walked about a half-mile
in another direction. Still the same.
All the way it was, “This all belongs to the
Duke of Bedford: this ornamental square
is his; all down these radiating streets is
his; this is the statue of the late Duke, all
the smoky statues we have seen represent
Dukes of the line, of former generations.
We are all pretty well tired out by this time,
else we might go on till we could show you
the great Covent Garden Market—one of
the sights of London.”

“Who owns it?”

“The Duke of Bedford.”

“I suspected as much. Does he own
the property around it?”

“He does.”

“Does he own any in the country?”

“Whole counties.”

I took a cab and drove about seventeen
miles, or such a matter, to my hotel. No
candles in my room—no water—no towels.
I said to the landlord. “I have a very
serious notion of complaining to the Duke
of Bedford about the way you keep this
hotel.”

He said, “What has he got to do with
it?”

I said, “He probably has a good deal to
do with it—I suppose he owns it.”

“Well, he don't do anything of the kind
—I own it myself.”

The item was worth something, any
way—and so I entered it in my diary:

“London is owned by the Duke of Bedford
and a one-horse hotel keeper.”

But I found afterward that the Duke of
Portland, the Marquis of Westminster and
other noblemen, own as largely here as
Bedford does. Indeed, Westminster is
much the richest peer in England—perhaps
the richest man in the world. His income
is some $12,000 a day, counting Sundays.
But, what it will be next year or the year
after baffles arithmetic—for the old cheap
leases and ground rents are constantly running
out and the property being let at more
than quadruple prices. The Duke of Portland
owns the huge piece of ground on
which the British Museum stands.

It is no hardship here to own real estate,
for the taxes on it are trifling—as it also is
on foreign wines and other luxuries which
only the well-to-do indulge in. The revenues
come from taxes on the manifold
things which Tom, Dick and Harry of the
great middle and working classes have got
to have and cannot do without. That is
neither just nor generous.