232 FOTHERGILL AS PHILANTHROPIST CHAP. 



If he had not Franklin's singular power of persuading 

 his fellows, he effected at least something, and in the 

 reactionary pleasure-loving epoch in which he lived put 

 forward reforms, some of which had to wait long for their 

 fulfilment. 



He wrote many articles in the public journals, especi- 

 ally in the Gazetteer, unsigned, as was his wont, urging the 

 improvement of the metropolis. Much of his own time 

 was lost through stops and delays in the streets. Wisdom, 

 he said, consists not in deploring accidents when they 

 happen, but in preventing their causes by foreseeing them. 

 He regretted that the opportunity of the great fire had 

 not been taken to widen the thoroughfares on an ample 

 scale ; and when fires took place he laboured, too often 

 in vain, to have the new-built houses set back from their 

 former sites. He proposed that surveys should be made 

 of the city, and that parliament should vest power in a 

 commission to purchase houses and ground when leases 

 expired, or to do this compulsorily within a time limit, in 

 order to widen the chief streets. He would place a tax 

 on wheels 2os. on coaches, less on other vehicles to 

 raise the necessary funds. In not a few parts of the city, 

 he said plaintively, there was no street that would admit 

 two coaches abreast ; a stationary dust-cart occasioned 

 inconceivable delays. He entered into a detailed review 

 of the crooked ways surrounding the Tower of London. 

 Aldgate he would not remove, but would add another 

 arch to the gate ; it was a majestic ornament, decus et 

 tutamen, and inspired visitors to the city with respect : 

 " changing gates into jails I abhor." 



Not alone improved communication but safety from 

 fire and advantage to the police of the town would result 

 from widening the narrow streets. The two chief avenues 

 into London from the north were then Smithfield and 

 Bishopsgate Street, and there was no cross communication 

 between them save by the narrowest lanes. Fothergill 

 would have run an ample road from Moorfields to the 

 Mansion House, and another from the village of Islington 

 to Blackfriars Bridge, then a recent and much admired 



