Page:The George Inn, Southwark.djvu/25

 The history of Parliament clocks is worthy of noting here:— ""In 1797 a tax of five shillings was put on clocks by Pitt, which caused a great diminution in the sale, and many clock-makers were thrown out of work. Many of the Inns of the period put up clocks for the benefit of the public. These were known as 'Act of Parliament clocks,' and appear to be of one pattern, with black faces and white hands.""

The George clock is one of these.

Inside the coffee-room a busy scene can be witnessed at lunch time when the votaries of the Hop Exchange take their mid-day meal and smoke afterwards round the fire, seated in tavern chairs of which Dr. Johnson spoke as being "the throne of human felicity." Often visitors from all parts of the world come and join the company and enjoy a well-cooked meal in the surroundings of the old days.

In The Amateur Gentleman, by Jeffrey Farnol, the George is named as the Inn where Barnabas put up on his arrival in London. The author describes the coffee-room as a longish, narrowish, dullish chamber, with a row of windows that look out upon the yard; and it was in this Inn that the scenes and incidents in Chapter XXVII. and XXVIII. were enacted, and in its yard that Barnabas bought the horse for fifty pounds which proved so rampageous, but which, however, he eventually mastered.

Beyond the coffee-room is another small apartment where little parties of "Ramblers" so often resort for tea; and, like all the rooms in the Inn is provided with mahogany tables, chairs and sideboards. Indeed, mahogany old dark polished mahogany predominates everywhere one goes; in bedrooms, sitting rooms, passages.