Walking day at St Paul’s

Early in June the London streets filled with regiments of charity children, little boys in leather breeches and girls in white aprons, going to church to rehearse their anthems. The rehearsals were for the Thursday the charity schools called walking day, when all the charity children of London, said to be ten thousand strong, assembled under the dome of St Paul’s to sing. Hone’s source thought the sound of those voices the nearest thing on earth to a choir of heaven.