The second large house of the parish is apparently of the same date,
but the broad garden in which it formerly stood has been built over
with mean tenement houses. Nothing is known about it; at present
certain Roman Catholic sisters live in it, and carry on some kind of
work.
The third great house is one of the few surviving specimens of the
merchant's warehouse and residence in one. It is now an old and
tumbledown place. Its ancient history I know not. What rich and costly
bales were hoisted into this warehouse; what goods lay here waiting to
be carried down the Stairs, and so on board ship in the Pool; what
fortunes were made and lost here one knows not. Its ancient history is
gone and lost, but it has a modern history. Here a certain man began,
in a small way, a work which has grown to be great; here he spent and
was spent; here he gave his life for the work, which was for the
children of the poor. He was a young physician; he saw in this squalid
and crowded neighbourhood the lives of the children needlessly
sacrificed by the thousand for the want of a hospital; to be taken ill
in the wretched room where the whole family lived was to die; the
nearest hospital was two miles away. The young physician had but
slender means, but he had a stout heart.
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