Hanway Street, Oxford Street A Handbook for London 1849

Holywell Street, Strand. A narrow dirty lane, extending, parallel with the Strand,…

Andrew’s (St.) Hill. A street so called from the church of St.

Wych Street, Drury lane. The old name for Drury-lane was Via de…

York Buildings, Strand. A general name for the streets and houses erected…

All Hallows, London Wall is an Ancient Parish in the county of…

The London Police. Before the year 1829, when the present excellent Police Force (for which London is wholly indebted to Sir Robert Peel) was first introduced, the watchmen, familiarly called “Charlies,” who guarded the streets of London, were often incompetent and feeble old men, totally unfitted for their duties. The Police is now composed of young and active men, and the force that has proved perfectly effective for the metropolis (having saved it more than once from Chartist and other rioters, and from calamities such as befel Bristol in 1831), has since been introduced with equal success nearly throughout the kingdom.
The streets of London were long ago infested with a set of disorderly debauchees, unthrifts of the Inns of Court and Chancery, who, under the various cant names of nickers, scowrers, mohocks, &c., insulted passengers and attacked the watch. Shadwell’s comedy of The Scowrers affords a striking picture of the streets of London at night, in the reign of Charles II., and the mohocks are well described in the Spectator and in Swift’s Journal:—
“Who has not heard the Scowrer’s midnight fame ?
Who has not trembled at the Mohock’s name?”—Gray.