The legislation against vagabonds, tramps, and sturdy beggars, and their punishment by whipping, branding, etc., are too well known to need comment.  But considerable provision was made for the unfortunate and deserving poor—­poorhouses were built for them, and collections taken up.  Only sixty years before Harrison wrote there were few beggars, but in his day he numbers them at ten thousand; and most of them were rogues, who counterfeited sores and wounds, and were mere thieves and caterpillars on the commonwealth.  He names twenty-three different sorts of vagabonds known by cant names, such as “ruffers,” “uprightmen,” “priggers,” “fraters,” “palliards,” “Abrams,” “dummerers “; and of women, “demanders for glimmer or fire,” “mortes,” “walking mortes,” “doxes,” “kinching coves.”

London was esteemed by its inhabitants and by many foreigners as the richest and most magnificent city in Christendom.  The cities of London and Westminster lay along the north bank in what seemed an endless stretch; on the south side of the Thames the houses were more scattered.  But the town was mostly of wood, and its rapid growth was a matter of anxiety.  Both Elizabeth and James again and again attempted to restrict it by forbidding the erection of any new buildings within the town, or for a mile outside; and to this attempt was doubtless due the crowded rookeries in the city.  They especially forbade the use of wood in house-fronts and windows, both on account of the danger from fire, and because all the timber in the kingdom, which was needed for shipping and other purposes, was being used up in building.  They even ordered the pulling down of new houses in London, Westminster, and for three miles around.  But all efforts to stop the growth of the city were vain.

London, according to the Venetian Busino, was extremely dirty.  He did not admire the wooden architecture; the houses were damp and cold, the staircases spiral and inconvenient, the apartments “sorry and ill connected.”  The wretched windows, without shutters, he could neither open by day nor close by night.  The streets were little better than gutters, and were never put in order except for some great parade.  Hentzner, however, thought the streets handsome and clean.  When it rained it must have been otherwise.  There was no provision for conducting away the water; it poured off the roofs upon the people below, who had not as yet heard of the Oriental umbrella; and the countryman, staring at the sights of the town, knocked about by the carts, and run over by the horsemen, was often surprised by a douche from a conduit down his back.  And, besides, people had a habit of throwing water and slops out of the windows, regardless of passers-by.