boys" and "80 poor men." Thackeray's Colonel Newcomb was one of the "poor boys." The school occupied the buildings until 1872 when it was transferred to Surrey, and the place is now an almshouse for the "poor men" and for the Charterhouse School of the ancient Merchant Taylors' Company.

Gothic St. John's Gate, a mediæval survival in St. John's Lane out of Clerkenwell Road, is all that remains of a priory which was the chief English seat of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and which was erected in 1504. Dr. Johnson lived in a room over the old gateway in 1731, and did hack work for Cave, the founder of the "Gentleman's Magazine," whose office was here also. Nowadays the building is headquarters for the Order of St. John which is engaged in hospital work.

The church of St. John in nearby St. John's Square, was built upon a crypt which was part of the old priory church of the Knights of St. John. The crypt is still to be seen, and it was

here that the final exposure of the Cock Lane Ghost was made by Dr. Johnson.

Delightful memories of Dickens' folk crowd strong upon the journeyer into Goswell Road beyond St. John's Square, for it was in this thoroughfare that Mr. Pickwick lodged with Mrs. Bardell.

TWO

ON THE WAY TO GREAT ST. HELEN'S

HE eastern section of the General Post

TH

Office stands on the site of the ancient church and sanctuary of St. Martin's, commemorated in the street of St. Martin's-le-Grand. This sanctuary was the outcome of a very old custom-a place consecrated, where criminals who sought refuge within its precincts were protected from all law. The Sanctuary of St. Martin's was founded in the days of Edward the Confessor, and came to have a most unsavoury reputation, for the rights of sanctuary brought a great gathering of criminals of every sort and people of the lowest degree. Within the shelter of the Sanctuary of St. Martin's, Miles Forest, one of the murderers of the princes in the Tower, took refuge and finally died.