MUD BULWARKS 



39 



place and Kuightsbridge. It seems quite likely that, 

 but for the mud of those miscalled "roads," the 

 rebellion would have been successful, and the course 

 of history changed. But Wyatt's soldiers were utterly 

 exhausted with the march ; and when the Londoners 

 saw them, plastered with mud from head to foot, 

 they forgot their own discontent, and laughed at 



HYDE PARK CORNER, 1792. 



their would-be deliverers, calling them " draggle- 

 tails." So, dispirited and contemned, they were 

 easily disposed of by the Queen's troops, who, secure 

 l)ehind their girdle of muck, had only to wait and 

 slay them at leisure. 



The lesson seems not to have been lost upon the 

 authorities, and accordingly we find this defence of 

 dirt in existence up to the year 1842. For nearly 

 three hundred years this "splendid isolation" set an 

 almost impassable gulf between those who wished to 

 get out of London and those who wanted to come in ; 



