John Holdsworth, Chief Mate eBook

Excerpt: "In a period of English history which graybeards call the good old times - the fine old times; that is to say, when Parliament was horribly corrupt, and the Poor Laws as barbarous as the Inquisition; when it took fifteen hours to go from London to Dover and when at least one-half of the conveniences which we now very reasonably call the necessities of life had no existence Southbourne was a small straggling village, and, by reason of the quaint and primitive aspect of its houses, something, even in those good old times, like an anachronism on the face of the land. What is now a well-looking street, fairly paved, and decorated with a number of showy shop-windows, was then an uneven road, with great Spaces of grassy land, dusty and closely nibbled by goats, between the houses whilst the houses themselves were mostly gable-roofed, with latticed win dows, which served excellently to exclude the light, and which gave a blank and lack-lustre look to the edifices, as though they were weary to death of the View over the way."