"Daniel Defoe lived in a house on this site" proclaims the tablet, high on the wall of a Wine and spirit stores. Feeling like Crusoe when he saw the footprint, you look at a neighbouring name plate and find that this is "Defoe-road," states the "Morning Post,"
A marble bust of Defoe graces'the local Library. Beyond, in the park, a parrot—possibly one of the "abundance" from Crusoe's island—greets you with a testy scream. A doe pokes a languid nose through the railings; more deer rise among the grassy hummocks, "I want the kangaroos," a boy is wailing behind you.
This, in a suburban park in North London! With a new-minted respect for the Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington (area, 863 acres; population, 51,215) you capture a seat and stare at the spire of St. Mary's Church. Near you a cedar casts its darkling shadow; children of Crusoe's borough splash resolutely through their paddling pool; others, leaning from a bridge, fish with unwavering concentration in the New River.
Priestley's Mr. Smeeth, of Angel Pavement, knew Clissold well He lived, you will recall, in a six-roomed house (with bath) in Chaucer-road, Stoke Newington—probably near the bilious bricks of Milton-road—and he would go now and again to Clissold Park to see the flash of some "green and scarlet wing from the Orinoco."
It did not occur to Mr. Smeeth, man of peace, that he lived in a surprising suburb. It is a small, retiring place, crushed away in the North between Islington and Hackney, which seem, on the map, to be fighting for it like lion and unicorn. Posters neither urge nor implore you to visit Stoke Newington, The deer and the Kangaroos and the parrots have only a local fame, and you are left to cover the Two Churches for yoursel
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.