5° 



THE BATH ROAD 



some sort of charity school, and it was as dismal a 

 place as all charitable institutions were apt to be in 

 om" grandfathers' time, when it was criminal to be 

 poor, and eleemosynary establishments, in conse- 

 quence, were designed as much like prisons as might 

 well be. 



At the time of which I speak it was quite necessary 

 to go to London to do any save the most ordinary 

 shopping, and if one had told the " oldest inhabitant" 



that a time was presently coming 

 when it would be possible not only 

 to order, but to purchase and take 

 away on the instant, from Ken- 

 sington shops the rarest and most 

 costly things that the heart of man 

 (or woman either, for that matter) 

 could desire, that ancient.individual 

 would have thouo;ht he was bein^ 

 told fairy talcs. 



I knew that oldest inhabitant, who 

 has been lonsj since o^athered to his 

 fathers. His was a quaint figure, and 

 he was stored with many reminis- 

 cences. He could "mind the time " 

 when Gore House was occupied by the Countess of 

 Blessington, and when Louis Ncxpoleon, then a young 

 man about town, was a frequent visitor to that 

 somewhat Bohemian establishment. Also he remem- 

 bered the first 'bus to make its appearance in Ken- 

 sington. For myself, I certainly remember the time 

 here when omnibuses were few and far between. 

 Now there are generally half a dozen waiting at 



" OLDEST INHABITANT.' 



