Digitised Manuscripts and Books

enjoy the best possible view of the festivities and pareants which then took place . The first street to be doomed by the present mania for sanitation and improvement, was the old ‘Jew's Street' ; which, in former times was closed at night with heavy chains , no Jew being permitted to leave it after dark . The house of my an- f cestors , alone , has been respected, but as it stood in the way when the street was being pulled down to be widened , it was carefully taken to pieces to be re-erected farther back . It now looks stransely incongruous beside its new and saudy neishbours, and an erroneous impression is conveyed of its for- mer appearance and proportions . Though outwardly one house it is really divided into two , only one-half having been inhab- * her died in it ited by my ancestors . My Great-Grandmot e 5) ee 1 ] centenarian , in 1849 , and though she long survived her hus- band , and her sons and daughters were living amid luxurious surroundings , she abided all her life in the small } dwelling in fulfilment of a promise to her husband that she > would never leave the home of their youth . I can still see } her , resting on a couch in her dark little sitting-room,folded in a thick , white shawl, her deeply-furrowed face enclosed in a full and heavily-ribboned white cap , and a genial smile beaming from her bright eyes as she bade me partake of some favourite small aniseed cakes. at all time ihe Zeiliewas a lively street Bandvme -etiil ae 169] ra famous for its shops and hotels. lts’ length 2s about that of the Haymarket , but, children having no sense of proportion tO me it appeared a thoroughfare of extraordinary imensions and