scribing his place of residence ; for the word " stone " in its secondary 

 sense was used to signify a stone-house, and it had the same accepta- 

 tion m medieval Germany. Indeed, it is claimed that the early refer- 

 ence I have before given to the use of « London Stone " as a boundary, 

 in Anglo-Saxon times, referred to a stone-house, and that such mean- 

 ing was still in use in Fitz-Aylwin's days. But why should his house 

 be called " London"? This is accounted for by the fact that before 

 the great fire in London, during King Stephen's reign, which de- 

 stroyed almost the whole city, all the houses were built of wood, 

 and the citizens warned by this calamity began, as far as they were 

 able, the erection of stone-houses, and that Fitz-Aylwin's was the 

 first or the largest which was built after this disastrous fire; so that 

 the conclusion arrived at is, that London Stone, as we now see it, is 

 a portion of the stone-house of its first mayor, Henry Fitz-Aylwin, 

 and that it is endeared to the people because of the high municipal 

 privilege they obtained in being permitted to elect a mayor from 

 among themselves. 



I have now presented you with all the theories showing what Lon- 

 don Stone is : that it is the altar stone of the temple of Diana, 

 brought by Brutus from Troy ; that it is the central milestone of 

 the Roman roads of Britain ; and that it is a piece of the house of 

 London's first mayor. Whichever theory you choose to adopt, you 

 have the satisfaction of knowing that there are arguments in favor 

 of it. 



But I prefer to go further than any of these theories, and leaving 

 undecided the question as to what it is, found the title to the reverence 

 in which it is held upon its connection with the open air assemblies of 

 the Britains, the primitive folk-moots of the people; and in this view 

 we will consider it simply as an old monument. And first of all it 

 must be admitted that there is no positive record that any meetings 

 were held in the open air ; the records of the assemblies and councils 

 are given, but nothing is said as to where they were held, or the 

 form and ceremonies connected with them. There is no view of 

 English history so primitive as to show us these open-air meetings in 

 full force and with their true surroundings ; and upon reflection this 

 will not appear strange. In our daily reports of the meeting of the 

 legislature, nothing is said as to where the legislature meets ; it is un- 

 necessary, every one knows it ; nor does our national legislature men- 

 tion in its record the building where it holds its sessions. And some 

 twenty centuries from now, when our State Capitol may be in ruins, it 

 may be difficult to show — if we leave the written history of the time 

 out of the question — except as the records of the legislature make 



