The Project Gutenberg eBook of Household words, No. 16, July 13, 1850
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Title: Household words, No. 16, July 13, 1850
A weekly journal
Editor: Charles Dickens
Release date: March 11, 2026 [eBook #78181]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Bradbury & Evans, 1850
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78181
Credits: Richard Tonsing, Steven desJardins, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD WORDS, NO. 16, JULY 13, 1850 ***
“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.
HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
A WEEKLY JOURNAL.
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.
N^{o.} 16.] SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._
A DAY IN A PAUPER PALACE.
In some states of English existence Ruin is the road to Fortune.
Falstaff threatened to make a commodity of his wounds; the well attested
disaster of a begging letter writer confers upon him an income; the
misfortune of a thief—that of being captured—occasionally ends in a
colonial estate, and a carriage and pair; both the better assured if he
can tell a good story of misfortunes, and is hypocrite enough to
commence as a Pentonville “model.” In Manchester the high road to
fortune is to be born a pauper; should especially orphanhood, either by
death or desertion, ensue.
At the easy distance of five miles from the great Cotton Capital, on the
road to the great Cotton Port, through shady lanes and across verdant
meadows, is the village of Swinton. At its entrance, on a pleasing
elevation, stands a building which is generally mistaken for a wealthy
nobleman’s residence. The structure is not only elegant but extensive;
it is in the Tudor style of architecture, with a frontage of four
hundred and fifty feet. It is studded with more than a hundred windows,
each tier so differing in shape and size from the others as to prevent
monotonous uniformity. Two winding flights of steps in the centre lead
to a handsome entrance hall, above which rise two lofty turrets to break
the outline of the extensive roof. The depth of the edifice is great—its
whole proportions massive. Pleasure-gardens and play-grounds surround
it. In front an acre and a half of flower-beds and grass-plots are
intersected by broad gravel-walks and a carriage-drive. Some more of the
land is laid out for vegetables. Beyond is a meadow, and the whole
domain is about twenty-two acres in extent; all in good, some in
picturesque, cultivation.
The stranger gazing upon the splendid brick edifice, with its
surrounding territory, is surprised when he is told that it is not the
seat of an ancient Dukedom; but that it is a modern palace for pauper
children. He is _not_ surprised when he heard that it cost 60,000_l._
The contemplation of sumptuous arrangements of this nature for the
benefit of helpless penury, naturally engenders an argument:—is it quite
fair to the industrious poor that the offspring of paupers should be
placed in a better position than that of his own?—that these should have
better instruction, be better fed, and better clothed?—that a premium
should thus be put upon the neglect of their children by vicious
parents; while, there is no helping hand held out to the industrious and
virtuous for the proper training of _their_ children: so that the care
of their offspring by the latter is, by comparison, a misfortune; while
desertion or neglect by the former is a blessing to theirs, to whom
Garrick’s paradox can be justly applied, that Their Ruin is the Making
of them.
That is one side of the argument. The other stands thus; ought the
misdeeds of parents to be visited on their innocent children? should
pauper and outcast infants be neglected so as to become pests to
Society, or shall they be so trained as to escape the pauper-spirit, and
make amends to Society for the bad citizenship of their parents, by
their own persevering industry, economy, and prudence in mature life?
Common sense asks, does the State desire good citizens or bad? If good
ones, let her manufacture them; and if she can do so by the agency of
such establishments as that of Swinton, at not too great a cost, let us
not be too critical as to her choice of the raw material.
In order to see whether the Swinton establishment fulfils this mission
we solicited a gentleman qualified for the task to visit it; and from
his information we have drawn up the following account:—
Having, he says, passed through the entrance hall, we chatted for a time
with the chaplain, who is at the head of the establishment. From him we
learnt that there are in the institution six hundred and thirty
children, of whom three hundred and five are orphans, and one hundred
and twenty-four deserted by their parents. Besides the chaplain there is
a head master, a medical officer, a Roman Catholic priest, a governor
and matron, six schoolmasters and four schoolmistresses, with a numerous
staff of subordinate officials, male and female, including six nurses,
and teachers of divers trades. The salaries and wages of the various
officers and servants amount to about 1800_l._ a year, exclusive of the
cost of their board which the greater number enjoy also.
We went into the play-ground of the junior department, where more than a
hundred and fifty children were assembled. Some were enjoying themselves
in the sunshine, some were playing at marbles, others were frisking
cheerfully. These children ranged from four to seven years of age. There
are some as young as a year and a half in the school. The greater number
were congregated at one end of the yard, earnestly watching the
proceedings of the master who was giving fresh water to three starlings
in cages that stood on the ground. One very young bird was enjoying an
airing on the gravel. Two others were perched on a cask. The master
informed us it was a part of his system to instruct his charges in
kindness to animals by example. He found that the interest which the
children took in the animals and in his proceedings towards them, was of
service in impressing lessons of benevolence among them towards each
other. The practical lessons taught by the master’s personal attention
to his feathered favourites, outweighed, he thought, the theoretic
inconsistency of confining birds in cages.
The play-ground is a training school in another particular. On two sides
grew several currant trees, on which the fruit is allowed to ripen
without any protection. Though some of the scholars are very young,
there do not occur above two or three cases of unlawful plucking per
annum. The appropriate punishment of delinquents is for them to sit and
see the rest of their school-fellows enjoy, on a day appointed, a treat
of fresh ripe fruit, whilst they are debarred from all participation.
The personal appearance of the pupils was not prepossessing. Close
cropping the hair may be necessary at the first admission of a boy, but
surely is not needed after children have been for some time trained in
the establishment, in habits of cleanliness. The tailors of the
establishment (its elder inmates), are evidently no respecters of
persons. Measuring is utterly repudiated, and the style in vogue is the
comic or incongruous. The backs of the boys seemed to be Dutch-built;
their legs seemed cased after Turkish patterns; while the front view was
of Falstaffian proportions, some of the trousers are too short for the
legs, and some of the legs too short for the trousers. The girls are
better dressed. Amongst them are some of prepossessing faces,
intelligent appearance, and pleasing manners. Here and there may be
discerned, however, vacancy of look, and inaptness to learn. Among the
boys, sometimes, occurs a face not quite clean enough, and a shirt
collar that seems to have suffered too long a divorce from the wash-tub.
During the time we spent in the play-ground, sundry chubby urchins came
up to the master with small articles which they had found; it being the
practice to impress on each, that nothing found belongs to the finder
unless, after due inquiry, no owner can be discovered. One brought
something looking like liquorice; another produced a halfpenny, which
the master appropriated. Perhaps, the master had dropped the halfpenny
to test the honesty of some of his pupils. One little fellow was made
happy by permission to keep a marble which he had picked up.
The children obeyed the summons to school with pleasing alacrity. This
is owing partly to the agreeable mode of tuition adopted, and in some
measure to the fact that the lessons are not allowed to become tedious
and oppressive. As soon as any parties give unequivocal signs of
weariness, either there is some playful relaxation introduced, or such
children are sent into the play-ground. On the present occasion, as soon
as the master applied his mouth to a whistle, away trooped the children
in glad groups to an ante-room. Here, arranged in five or six rows, boys
and girls intermixed stood with eyes fixed on the master, awaiting his
signals. At the word of command, each alternate row faced to the right,
the others to the left, and filed off, accompanying their march with a
suitable tune; their young voices blending in cheerful harmony, while
they kept time by clapping their hands, and by an occasional emphatic
stamp of the foot.
To enliven the routine of school duties, the master’s cur takes part in
them. He is a humorous dog, with an expressive countenance, and a
significant wag of the tail. In the intervals of lessons, his duty—which
is also his pleasure—consists in jumping over the benches or threading
the labyrinths of little legs under them. Now he darts with wild glee
into a spelling class; now he rushes among an alphabet group, and snarls
a playful “r-r-r-r,” as if to teach the true pronunciation of the canine
letter; now he climbs up behind a seated urchin, puts his forepaws on
the favourite’s shoulders, and, with a knowing look towards the master,
recommends his friend for promotion to a monitorship.
It was surprising to find that the pupils took not the slightest notice
of the antics of the master’s dog. They heeded nothing but their
lessons; but we learned that the dog was a part of the discipline. He
accustomed the children to startling eccentricities and unexpected
sounds: he presented a small, extraneous, but wholesome difficulty in
the pursuit of Knowledge. He, and the currant bush, the pretty
treasure-troves, and other contrivances, were intentional temptations
which the children were trained to resist. We beg very pointedly to
recommend the study of these facts to the attention of the inventors and
advocates of the Pentonville Model system. They involve an important
principle,—and a principle equally applicable to adults as to children.
The morals of the young, or the penitence of the criminal, which result
from a system depriving the pupil of every possible temptation to do
otherwise than right, will assuredly lapse into vice when incentives to
it are presented. Evil exists very plentifully in this world, and it
must be recognised and dealt with; it is not by concealing it from the
young but by teaching him to resist it that we do wise. It must at the
same time be admitted that the principle can be carried too far; and if
the master _did_ intentionally drop the halfpenny, it was exactly there
that he pushed his excellent principle too far.
The teaching of the juniors is conducted mainly _vivâ voce_; for the
mass of them are under six years of age. The class was opened thus:
“What day is this?”
“Monday.”
“What sort of a day is it?”
“Very fine.”
“Why is it a fine day?”
“Because the sun shines, and it does not rain.”
“Is rain a bad thing, then?”
“No.”
“What is it useful for?”
“To make the flowers and the fruit grow.”
“Who sends rain and sunshine?”
“God.”
“What ought we to do in return for his goodness?”
“Praise him!”
“Let us praise him, then,” added the master. And the children, all
together, repeated and then sung a part of the 149th Psalm.—A lesson on
morals succeeded, which evidently interested the children. It was partly
in the form of a tale told by the master. A gentleman who was kind to
the poor, went to visit in gaol a boy imprisoned for crime. The
restraint of the gaol, and the shame of the boy, were so described, as
to impress the children with strong interest. Then the boy’s crime was
traced to disobedience, and the excellence of obedience to teachers and
parents was shown. The fact that punishment comes out of, and follows
our own actions was enforced by another little story.
By this time some of the very young children showed symptoms of
lassitude. One fat little mortal had fallen asleep; and this class was
consequently marshalled for dismissal, and as usual marched out singing,
to play for a quarter of an hour.
A lesson in reading was now administered to a class of older children.
For facilitating this achievement, generally so difficult, the master
has introduced the phonic system, in some degree according to a mode of
his own, by which means even the youngest children make remarkable
progress. We need not discuss it here.
The scene the schoolroom, during the reading lesson, presented, was
remarkable. Groups of four or five little fellows were gathered in
various parts of the room before a reading-card, one acting as monitor;
who was sometimes a girl. It was a pleasing sight to see half-a-dozen
children seated or kneeling in a circle round the same book, their heads
almost meeting in the centre, in their earnestness to see and hear,
while the monitor pointed quickly with the finger to the word which each
in succession was to pronounce. All seemed alert, and the eyes of the
monitors kindled with intelligence. Meanwhile the master was busied in
passing from one class to another, listening to the manner in which the
pronunciation was caught, or the correctness with which the rapid
combination of letters and syllables was made. Sometimes he stayed a few
minutes with a class to give aid, then proceeded to another; and
occasionally, on finding by a few trials, that a boy was quite familiar
with the work of his class, he would remove him to another more
advanced. These transfers were frequent.
In an adjoining room were assembled, under the care of the
schoolmaster’s wife, some of the more advanced scholars. One class in
this room was particularly interesting—a class composed of the monitors
who receive extra instruction in order to fit them for their duties.
After an interval the whole attended a class for general knowledge: in
this the mutual instruction system was adopted. A pupil stood out on a
platform—the observed of all observers—to be questioned and
cross-questioned by his or her schoolfellow, like a witness in a
difficult law case, until supplanted by a pupil who could answer better.
A degree of piquancy was thus imparted to the proceeding, which caused
the attention of the pupils not to flag for a moment. One girl, with red
hair and bright eyes, weathered a storm of questions bravely. A sample
of the queries put by these young inquisitors, will show the range of
subjects necessary to be known about. What are the months of spring?
What animal cuts down a tree, and where does it live? Which are the
Cinque Ports? What planet is nearest the sun? What is the distance from
Manchester to Lancaster? How high is St. Paul’s Cathedral? What are the
names of the common metals? What causes water to rise and become clouds?
One urchin who could scarcely be seen over the head of another, and who
was evidently of a meteorological turn of mind, bawled out in a
peculiarly sedate and measured manner,
“What does the wind do?”
To have answered the question fully would have taken a day, but a single
answer satisfied the querist, and was of a sanitary character.
“The wind,” replied the female Rufus, “cools us in summer and blows away
the bad air.” An agreeable enough answer as we sat in the middle of the
schoolroom on a hot day, when the thermometer was seventy-one degrees in
the shade, and a pleasant breeze stealing through the open windows
occasionally fanned our warm cheeks. This concluded our visit to the
junior department.
Meanwhile, the education of the elder children was proceeding in other
parts of the building. The lessons of the senior sections are conducted
in a much quieter manner than those of the junior classes; even in a way
which some persons would consider tame and uninteresting. This quietude
was, however, more than balanced by another department. As we passed to
the elder boys’ court-yard, the chaplain threw open the door of a room,
where a small music class was practising the fife and the drum. The
class consisted of eight youths, who had not learnt long, but performed
the “Troubadour” in creditable style. When they marched out, they headed
about two hundred boys, who were drawn up in line; the music-master
acting as drill-sergeant and commander-in-chief. After passing through
some drill-exercises, they marched off, drums beating and colours
flying, to dinner.
We need say no more of this pleasing ceremony than that it was heartily
performed. The viands were relished in strong illustration of Dr.
Johnson’s emphatic remark, “Sir, I like to dine.”
After dinner, we visited the workshops—a very active scene. The living
tableaux were formed chiefly by young tailors and cobblers. A strict
account is kept of all manufactured articles and of their cost; and we
learnt that a boy’s suit of fustian (labour included) costs 4_s._
10½_d._; a girl’s petticoat 12¾_d._; and that the average weekly cost of
clothing worn by the children was estimated at 3½_d._ per head—making
15_s._ 2_d._ for the wearing apparel of each child per year. This may be
taken as a commentary on the “slop work” prices to which public
attention has been so forcibly drawn of late.
In all the industrial sections, the children are occupied alternately at
their work and in school—labouring for one afternoon and next morning,
and then attending their classes in school for the next afternoon and
morning. This is a decided improvement on the Mettray system. In that
agricultural colony, the boys only attend school once a week, and work
at handicrafts, or on the farm, during the other five. There is,
however, something defective in the Swinton plan, as applicable to
advanced pupils; perhaps they are not stimulated sufficiently; but it
happens that no pupil-teacher had ever passed a government examination;
although last year the grant of money, by the Committee of Privy Council
for the educational departments of the Swinton school, amounted to
531_l._ Those among the scholars who have gone into other lines of life,
have generally conducted themselves well; and when absorbed into the
masses of society, have become a help and a credit instead of a bane to
it. Indeed, having been brought up at the Pauper Palace appears a safe
certificate with the public, who are eager for the girls of this school
as domestic servants. Both boys and girls, on leaving the institution,
are furnished with two complete sets of clothes, and their subsequent
behaviour is repeatedly inquired into.
As we descended the steps of the school we scanned the prospect seen
from it. The foreground of the landscape was dotted with rural
dwellings, interspersed with trees. In the distance rose the spires and
tall chimneys of Manchester, brightened by the rays of the evening sun,
while a sea of smoke hung like a pall over the great centre of
manufacturing activity, and shut out the view beyond. It typified the
dark cloud of pauperism which covers so large a portion of the land, and
which it is hoped such institutions as the Swinton Industrial Schools is
destined to dispel. The centre of manufacturing activity is also the
centre of practical and comprehensive education. Why does this activity
continue to revolve so near its centre? Why has it not radiated over the
length and breadth of the land? The Swinton Institution is a practical
illustration of what can be done with even the humblest section of the
community; and if it have a disadvantage, that is precisely because it
succeeds too well. It places the child-pauper above the child of the
industrious. Narrow minds advocate the levelling of the two, by
withdrawing the advantage from the former. Let us, however, hope that no
effort will relax to bring out, in addition to Pauper Palaces,
Educational Palaces for all classes and denominations.
Thus ended our visit to the “Pauper Palace.” As we issued from the iron
gate into the open road we met a long line of the elder girls,
accompanied by a master, returning from a walk which they had taken,
after school hours and before supper, for the benefit of their health.
The glad smile of recognition, and the cheerful salutation with which
they greeted us as we bade them good evening, were a touch of that
gentle nature which “makes the whole world kin.” It refreshed us like a
parting blessing from well-known friends.
HOW WE WENT HUNTING IN CANADA.
After his disasters in New Ireland, our friend Blungle could not be
prevailed upon to go fishing again.[1] The sport was conducted under
circumstances which deprived it of all attraction to him. He could
understand fishing in the Thames,—sitting all day in a comfortable
arm-chair in a punt, moored off Ditton, with a stock of brandy and water
and mild Havannahs. This was true sport; but digging holes in the ice to
catch fish was neither sportsman-like nor exciting. Under the
circumstances, he was not to be reasoned with; so we only laughed at
him,—Perroque advising him, on his return to St. Pancras, to try his
luck in a parlour fishbowl. This put him on his mettle,—and to show that
he was ready to “rough it” with any man, he challenged us to go hunting
with him. Perroque, who was as great an adept on snow-shoes as on
skates, gave him no time to retract, and a hunt after Moose was at once
determined upon.
Footnote 1:
See page 243.
Our accoutrements consisted of snow-shoes (which, when slung over the
shoulders, looked not unlike a pair of large wings), a rifle, an
“Arkansas toothpick,” and a flask. We started without delay, and on the
afternoon of the second day were once more in the township of Leeds,
which we had fixed upon as the scene of our operations.
Archibald McQuaigh was an old Highlander who had emigrated from
Strathtoddy, and who prided himself greatly on his ancestry, and on
having been the man who “felled the first tree in Leeds,” in 1817; since
which time the township had made marvellous strides in advancement and
prosperity, and McQuaigh was fond of saying that the crash of the first
victim to the axe was still ringing in his ears. He had pushed his way
boldly into the woods, with nothing but an axe, a set of bagpipes, a
peck of oatmeal, and a bottle of whiskey,—the last two being the remains
of the stock of provisions which he had taken on board with him at
Glasgow. With this scanty outfit he began the hardy life of a
settler,—borrowing flour and pork from his neighbours, the nearest of
whom was fifteen miles off, until the gathering of his first crop, when
he became an independent man. Years, although not without a fight for
it, had produced their effect even on McQuaigh. He had shrunk somewhat
in all his proportions, but his skin and flesh looked like plastic horn,
which seemed to bid defiance to decay. Blungle felt qualmish, when first
presented to him, for he had still a very fiery look, calculated to
affect the nervous,—his hair, which was becoming grey at the tips, now
looking like so many red-hot wires elevated to a white heat at the
points. His manly activity had not yet forsaken him, his frame being
still well knit and compact, and there were few in the township who
would even then venture to wrestle with him. He had been originally a
deer-keeper to the Marquis of Glen-Fuddle, and his early vocation gave
him a taste for the chase which never forsook him, and it was in the
double capacity of an enthusiastic sportsman and a hospitable man, that
we carried letters of introduction to him.
We were received with true Highland hospitality, after the old style.
After dinner McQuaigh repeated half of “Ossian” in the original to us,
giving us incidentally to understand that the poet belonged to a younger
branch of his family. He spoke English as a convenience, but had great
contempt for it as a language. Indeed, he used to call it, sneeringly,
“a tongue,” and maintained that Gaelic was the only real language on
earth.
The next morning at breakfast, McQuaigh announced that in five minutes
after that meal was disposed of, we should be on our way for the part of
the forest which was to be the scene of our operations. A Moose deer is
a great prize, which is not often secured, and the appearance of one
makes quite a noise in a neighbourhood. For some days back a rumour had
been rife throughout the township that one had been seen at a point
about three miles distant from McQuaigh’s residence; and it was only on
the evening before our arrival, that that worthy had been himself
informed by a man who had come from a neighbouring settlement that he
had crossed its track on the way. This accounted for a somewhat high
state of fever in which we found him on arrival; and our appearance gave
him great relief, by furnishing him at once with an excuse for a hunt,
and companions in his sport.
Having plentifully provided ourselves with creature comforts from
McQuaigh’s larder and whiskey-cask, we started in a common farm sleigh,
in which we had all to stand upright, for the point at which we were to
push into the forest. McQuaigh had secured the attendance of a French
Canadian named Jean Baptiste, who was a servant on an adjoining farm,
and who was as expert a Moosehunter as any man in the province.
Having gained the summit of a steep hill, the gillie was sent back with
the sleigh, and we prepared to diverge into the bush. The snow lay fully
five feet deep around us; and before leaving the beaten track, our first
care was to adjust our snow-shoes, which are indispensable to Canadian
winter sport. Each shoe is about the size of a large kite, which it also
resembles in shape. The outer frame is made of light cedar, bent and
bound together by two slender bars, placed about equidistant from both
ends. The thin spaces contained between the outer frame and the bars,
are filled up with a network composed of a substance resembling cat-gut.
The toe is attached to the snow-shoe close to the front bar, the heel
being left at liberty: so that when it is raised in the act of dragging
the foot forward, the snow-shoe is not raised with it, being dragged
horizontally upon the surface. The object of the snow-shoe is to prevent
the pedestrian from sinking in the soft snow, which it effects by giving
him a far broader basis to rest upon than Nature has provided him. Thus
accoutred, a man will pass rapidly, and in safety over the deepest
deposits—having to take much longer strides than usual, in order that
the snow-shoes may clear one another. The exercise is somewhat
fatiguing, and requires some practice to be perfect in it. Blungle was
not an adept, and before he had proceeded ten paces, he was prostrate on
his face, and fully three feet beneath the surface. His plight in
somewhat resembled that of the boy who had let the inflated
bladders—with the aid of which he attempted to swim—slip down to his
feet, which they elevated to the surface, keeping his head, however,
under water. The only thing discernible for the moment, of our
fellow-companion, was his snow-shoes, which were moving convulsively to
and fro, near the surface. Encumbered by them, he would never have risen
again but for our aid; and it was some time ere he succeeded in getting
his mouth, ears, and nose, emptied of the snow; he was more cautious
afterwards in the management of his feet, although his inexperience
somewhat retarded our progress.
We were soon in the very depths of the forest, and lonely indeed are
these Canadian woods in the dreary winter time. All under foot was
enveloped in snow, from which as from a white sea, rose like so many
colossal columns, the stately trunks of the trees, through the leafless
boughs of which, as through an extended trellis-work, the blue sky was
discernible over head. The undulations of the surface pleasantly
diversified a scene which would otherwise have been monotonous; and we
made our way merrily over hill and valley, but ever through the unbroken
forest, in the deep dells of which we now and then crossed a streamlet,
whose course had been arrested, and whose voice had been hushed for
months by the relentless frost.
We had been thus occupied for about three hours, when we at length came
upon the track of the game:—a deep furrow had been made in the snow;
bespeaking the labour which the animal must have had in ploughing his
way through it. We stopped; and McQuaigh, giving vent to a long
expiration, half between a whistle and a sigh, exclaimed, wiping the
perspiration from his horny features, “We have him as sure as a gun, if
nobody else has got scent of him; and you see,” he added, pointing to
the untrodden snow around, “there’s not the track of a living soul after
him.”
“But what chance have we?” I asked, “seeing that it must be more than
two days at least since the Moose passed this spot?”
“Give a deer any reasonable start in the winter time,” replied McQuaigh,
“and a man on his snow-shoes will run him down. We have only to follow
his track, and depend on’t we’ll go over more ground than he will in a
day.” So saying, he led off in the direction which our prey had
evidently taken. Blungle did not like the possibility of being for a
week on the track of one deer; but he put the best face on it, and
laboured to keep up with us.
We had not gone far, ere, like the confluence of a small with a larger
stream, we found the track of an ordinary deer converge upon that of the
Moose. From the point of junction, the follower, as affording him an
easier passage through the snow, had kept to the track of his more
powerful leader.
“Let’s hurry, and we’ll have the two of them,” said McQuaigh, and he
doubled the length of his strides. Blungle groaned, but laboured on.
We thus pursued the now double track, until the shades of evening stole
over the forest, and imparted a mysterious solemnity to the lonely
solitudes, which we had invaded. After a hard day’s work, we looked out
for a spot in which to rest for the night. We resolved to bivouac by a
huge elm, whose hollow trunk rose without branch or twig to break its
symmetry, for nearly sixty feet from the ground. We dug a hole in the
snow, more than four feet deep, spreading our blankets on the bottom of
it. On one side we were sheltered by the elm; on the other three by our
snowy circumvallation. Our next care was to light a blazing fire, which
we did in the hollow of the tree; after which we laid ourselves down to
sleep, Jean Baptiste having orders to keep the first watch, and to awake
any of us, whom he might find getting stiff. In five minutes Blungle was
snoring as comfortably as if he were reposing on his own pillow in
Bloomsbury.
I was about turning the corner of consciousness, when McQuaigh, who was
stretched beside me, and who never seemed to shut more than one eye at a
time, started suddenly to his feet, and seizing the axe which was
resting against the tree, raised it to his shoulder, and stood intently
watching the hollow in which the fire was burning. He was quite a
picture, standing out, as he did, in fine relief from the surrounding
darkness, as the crackling flames threw their ruddy glare on his brawny
frame and furrowed visage. But his sudden movement indisposing me for
the artistic mood, I was at once on my feet beside him, and it was not
till then that I heard sounds proceed from the hollow trunk, which gave
me some clue to what had so suddenly called him into action. I had but
brief time for consideration, for, in a moment or two afterwards, down
came a heavy body into the fire, scattering the faggots about in all
directions. Blungle, who was still asleep, was aroused by one of the
blazing embers grazing his nose, and on jumping up precipitated himself
into the embrace of a shaggy bear, which was about to treat him to a
fatal hug, when McQuaigh’s axe descended with terrific force upon its
skull, which it cleft in twain. The slaughtered brute fell on its side
carrying Blungle along with it, who, when he was removed, was nearly as
insensible as the bear.
“There’s never two of them in a tree,” said McQuaigh, “so we may go to
sleep now.” We did so, and I slept soundly for two or three hours, Jean
Baptiste kept watch as before, employing himself, until his turn came
for sleeping, in dressing the carcass of the bear, from which, in the
morning, we were supplied with hot chops for breakfast. If we did not
consider them unsavory, it was perhaps because our appetites were too
good to be very discriminating. We could not persuade Blungle to touch
them. He was possessed of an abstract idea that it was unchristian to
eat a bear. At first he positively refused to accompany us any further,
but on McQuaigh expressing a friendly hope that he would get safe out of
the woods if he attempted to return alone, he made up his mind that the
lesser of two evils was to stick to the party. He made a solemn vow,
however, that should he ever live to see the Zoological Gardens again,
he would carefully avoid even a glance at the bears.
After breakfast, we resumed our course, keeping close to the track as on
the preceding day. We had not gone far when, on descending a steep bank,
we heard a rustling sound proceed from a thicket on the margin of a
tolerably sized stream which lay across our path.
“It’s but the little one,” said McQuaigh, whose keen eye caught a
momentary sight of a deer, which was immediately lost again to him in
the thicket. “Make ready for action.”
We were, of course, all excitement, and Blungle obeyed the injunction by
deliberately levelling his rifle at Jean Baptiste, who was a little in
advance of us, with a view to driving the deer from his hiding place.
McQuaigh, observing this movement, with a sudden wave of his arm
elevated the muzzle into the air, just as Blungle drew the trigger, and
the ball went whistling through the trees, cutting off several twigs in
its course.
“To take a man when there’s venison in the way,” said McQuaigh, who
seemed to impute Blungle’s aim solely to a want of taste, “who ever
heard of such a thing?” Blungle could not have been more frightened, had
he pointed his rifle against himself, and, for some time afterwards, he
apostrophised the adverse character of his fate, in terms not the most
suited for delicate ears. The discharge of the rifle startled the deer,
which bounded at once in full sight from the thicket. A ball from
Perroque wounded him in the flank, McQuaigh’s trigger was drawn in an
instant, but his piece missed fire, much to his annoyance, and as he
said himself, “for the first time in its life.” I fired too—but to this
day I have not the slightest idea what became of the ball—the wounded
animal plunged wildly towards the stream, which he endeavoured to cross.
But it was rapid at that particular point, and the ice which was but
imperfectly formed gave way with him. He struggled hard to keep himself
on the surface, until a ball from McQuaigh’s rifle took effect on his
head, and he was at once dragged under by the impetuous current. A
little further on, the stream plunged down several rocky ledges in
foaming rapids, which bade defiance to the frost. We gained this point
just in time to see the body of the deer emerge from beneath the ice; it
was immediately afterwards carried over a cataract and precipitated
amongst masses of ice, which rose from the chasm like a cluster of
basaltic columns and inverted stalactites.
As it would have taken too much time to recover it, we left the mangled
body of the deer in the icy crevice into which it had fallen, and
ascending to a point above the rapids, crossed the river, where the ice
was strong. We then recovered the track, which we followed for the rest
of the day, passing several small settlements in the woods, all of which
had been carefully avoided by the Moose. In the evening we bivouacked as
before, but this time in the neighbourhood of a solid tree. Blungle
struck it all round with the axe to assure himself that it was not
hollow, and expressed his satisfaction that it rung sound. Next morning
we plunged deeper and deeper into the forest wilds. About mid-day,
Blungle, whose patience was well nigh exhausted, began to be seriously
offended at the non-appearance of our prey, and confidentially hinted to
Perroque and myself that wild goose rhymed to wild Moose. But, at that
moment, Baptiste who was in advance, was observed to fling his arms into
the air, and then to direct our attention to a point a little to the
right of us, where we caught the first sight of the object of pursuit.
The Moose was at some distance from us, buried to the belly in snow, and
scraping the green bark from a young tree. Being too far off to fire
with effect, we glided silently towards him over the snow, concealing
ourselves as much as possible by going from tree to tree. He was a
full-grown animal, and, for some time, was not aware of our approach;
but, as we came within doubtful shot of him, he looked anxiously around,
exhibiting symptoms of agitation and alarm.
“Bang at him,” said McQuaigh, “or we may lose our chance.” He had
scarcely uttered the words, when our four rifles were simultaneously
discharged. The Moose gave a tremendous bound and plunged through the
snow, endeavouring to escape us. We made after him at once, reloading
our rifles as we proceeded. When we came up to the spot occupied by him,
it was evident that he had been seriously wounded, from the extent to
which the snow was stained with blood. We soon observed that his efforts
to escape became fainter and fainter, and, as he was staggering and
about to fall, a ball from McQuaigh’s rifle took effect in his heart,
and he sank in the snow.
The Moose deer’s nose is considered a great dainty by both civilised man
and savage. Blungle, although well provided in that facial department
himself, was almost petrified at its size. “It looked,” he said, “as if
the animal carried a small carpet-bag in front in which to keep his
provender.” Having cut the nose off, we confided it to the care of Jean
Baptiste.
“Look out for blazes,” said McQuaigh, as we prepared to return.
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Blungle, raising his rifle to his
shoulder as if he expected an attack from another bear. But there was
nothing the matter, “blazes” being the term applied to the marks left by
the surveyors on certain trees, to denote the lines of the different
townships, as they are cleared from the woods. By means of these marks
the woodsman can readily direct himself to a settlement—to find which
was now McQuaigh’s object. Dragging the body of the deer after us, we
proceeded for about two hours guided by the blazes, and, at last, came
to a small settlement, where we procured a couple of sleighs, one for
Jean Baptiste and the slaughtered Moose, and the other for ourselves. At
a late hour of the night we gained McQuaigh’s residence, considerably
fatigued after our exertions.
We spent two days more with our eccentric but warm-hearted host, after
which he let us depart reluctantly. We reached Quebec on the following
day, and soon regaled a party of friends on our valuable trophy, the
Moose deer’s nose.
THE MODERN SCIENCE OF THIEF-TAKING.
If thieving be an Art (and who denies that its more subtle and delicate
branches deserve to be ranked as one of the Fine Arts?), thief-taking is
a Science. All the thief’s ingenuity; all his knowledge of human nature;
all his courage; all his coolness; all his imperturbable powers of face;
all his nice discrimination in reading the countenances of other people;
all his manual and digital dexterity; all his fertility in expedients,
and promptitude in acting upon them; all his Protean cleverness of
disguise and capability of counterfeiting every sort and condition of
distress; together with a great deal more patience, and the additional
qualification, integrity, are demanded for the higher branches of
thief-taking.
If an urchin picks your pocket, or a bungling “artist” steals your watch
so that you find it out in an instant, it is easy enough for any private
in any of the seventeen divisions of London Police to obey your panting
demand to “Stop thief!” But the tricks and contrivances of those who
wheedle money out of your pocket rather than steal it; who cheat you
with your eyes open; who clear every vestige of plate out of your pantry
while your servant is on the stairs; who set up imposing warehouses, and
ease respectable firms of large parcels of goods; who steal the
acceptances of needy or dissipated young men;—for the detection and
punishment of such impostors a superior order of police is requisite.
To each division of the Force is attached two officers, who are
denominated “detectives.” The staff, or head-quarters, consists of six
sergeants and two inspectors. Thus the Detective Police, of which we
hear so much, consists of only forty-two individuals, whose duty it is
to wear no uniform, and to perform the most difficult operations of
their craft. They have not only to counteract the machinations of every
sort of rascal whose only means of existence is avowed rascality, but to
clear up family mysteries, the investigation of which demands the utmost
delicacy and tact.
One instance will show the difference between a regular and a detective
policeman. Your wife discovers on retiring for the night, that her
toilette has been plundered; her drawers are void; except the ornaments
she now wears, her beauty is as unadorned as that of a quakeress: not a
thing is left; all the fond tokens you gave her when her prenuptial
lover, are gone; your own miniature, with its setting of gold and
brilliants; her late mother’s diamonds; the bracelets “dear papa”
presented on her last birth-day; the top of every bottle in the
dressing-case brought from Paris by Uncle John, at the risk of his life,
in February 1848, are off—but the glasses remain. Every valuable is
swept away with the most discriminating villainy; for no other thing in
the chamber has been touched; not a chair has been moved; the costly
pendule on the chimney-piece still ticks; the entire apartment is as
neat and trim as when it had received the last finishing sweep of the
housemaid’s duster. The entire establishment runs frantically up stairs
and down stairs; and finally congregates in my Lady’s Chamber. Nobody
knows anything whatever about it; yet everybody offers a suggestion,
although they have not an idea “who ever did it.” The housemaid bursts
into tears; the cook declares she thinks she is going into hysterics;
and at last you suggest sending for the Police; which is taken as a
suspicion of, and insult on the whole assembled household, and they
descend into the lower regions of the house in the sulks.
X 49 arrives. His face betrays sheepishness, combined with mystery. He
turns his bull’s-eye into every corner, and upon every countenance
(including that of the cat), on the premises. He examines all the locks,
bolts, and bars, bestowing extra diligence on those which enclosed the
stolen treasures. These he declares have been “Wiolated;” by which he
means that there has been more than one “Rape of the Lock.” He then
mentions about the non-disturbance of other valuables; takes you
solemnly aside, darkens his lantern, and asks if you suspect any of your
servants, in a mysterious whisper, which implies that _he_ does. He then
examines the upper bedrooms, and in that of the female servants he
discovers the least valuable of the rings, and a cast-off silver
toothpick between the mattresses. You have every confidence in your
maids; but what _can_ you think? You suggest their safe custody; but
your wife intercedes, and the policeman would prefer speaking to his
inspector before he locks anybody up.
Had the whole matter remained in the hands of X 49, it is possible that
your troubles would have lasted you till now. A train of legal
proceedings—actions for defamation of character and suits for
damages—would have followed, which would have cost more than the value
of the jewels, and the entire execration of all your neighbours and
every private friend of your domestics. But, happily, the Inspector
promptly sends a plain, earnest-looking man, who announces himself as
one of the two Detectives of the X division. He settles the whole matter
in ten minutes. His examination is ended in five. As a connoisseur can
determine the painter of a picture at the first glance, or a wine-taster
the precise vintage of a sherry by the merest sip; so the Detective at
once pounces upon the authors of the work of art under consideration, by
the style of performance; if not upon the precise executant, upon the
“school” to which he belongs. Having finished the toilette branch of the
inquiry, he takes a short view of the parapet of your house, and makes
an equally cursory investigation of the attic window fastenings. His
mind is made up, and most likely he will address you in these words:—
“All right, Sir. This is done by one of ‘The Dancing School!’”
“Good Heavens!” exclaims your plundered partner. “Impossible, why _our_
children go to Monsieur Pettitoes, of No. 81, and I assure you he is a
highly respectable professor. As to his pupils, I—”
The Detective smiles and interrupts. “Dancers,” he tells her, “is a name
given to the sort of burglar by whom she had been robbed; and every
branch of the thieving profession is divided into gangs, which are
termed ‘Schools.’ From No. 82 to the end of the street the houses are
unfinished. The thief made his way to the top of one of these, and
crawled to your garret—”
“But we are forty houses distant, and why did he not favour one of my
neighbours with his visit?” you ask.
“Either their uppermost stories are not so practicable, or the ladies
have not such valuable jewels.”
“But how do they know that?”
“By watching and inquiry. This affair may have been in action for more
than a month. Your house has been watched; your habits ascertained; they
have found out when you dine—how long you remain in the dining-room. A
day is selected; while you are busy dining, and your servants busy
waiting on you, the thing is done. Previously, many journeys have been
made over the roofs, to find out the best means of entering your house.
The attic is chosen; the robber gets in, and creeps noiselessly, or
‘dances’ into the place to be robbed.”
“Is there _any_ chance of recovering our property?” you ask anxiously,
seeing the whole matter at a glance.
“I hope so. I have sent some brother officers to watch the Fences’
houses.”
“Fences?”
“Fences,” explains the Detective, in reply to your innocent wife’s
inquiry, “are purchasers of stolen goods. Your jewels will be forced out
of their settings, and the gold melted.”
The lady tries, ineffectually, to suppress a slight scream.
“We shall see, if, at this unusual hour of the night, there is any
bustle in or near any of these places; if any smoke is coming out of any
one of their furnaces, where the melting takes place. _I_ shall go and
seek out the precise ‘garretter’—that’s another name these plunderers
give themselves—whom I suspect. By his trying to ‘sell’ your domestics
by placing the ring and toothpick in their bed, I think I know the man.
It is just in his style.”
The next morning, you find all these suppositions verified. The
Detective calls, and obliges you at breakfast—after a sleepless
night—with a complete list of the stolen articles, and produces some of
them for identification. In three months, your wife gets nearly every
article back; her damsels’ innocence is fully established; and the thief
is taken from his “school” to spend a long holiday in a penal colony.
This is a mere common-place transaction, compared with the achievements
of the staff of the little army of Detective policemen at head-quarters.
Sometimes they are called upon to investigate robberies; so executed,
that no human ingenuity appears to ordinary observers capable of finding
the thief. He leaves not a trail or a trace. Every clue seems cut off;
but the experience of a Detective guides him into tracks quite invisible
to other eyes. Not long since, a trunk was rifled at a fashionable
hotel. The theft was so managed, that no suspicion could rest on any
one. The Detective sergeant who had been sent for, fairly owned, after
making a minute examination of the case, that he could afford no hope of
elucidating the mystery. As he was leaving the bed-room, however, in
which the plundered portmanteau stood, he picked up an ordinary
shirt-button from the carpet. He silently compared it with those on the
shirts in the trunk. It did not match them. He said nothing, but hung
about the hotel for the rest of the day. Had he been narrowly watched,
he would have been set down for an eccentric critic of linen. He was
looking out for a shirt-front or wristband without a button. His search
was long and patient; but at length it was rewarded. One of the inmates
of the house showed a deficiency in his dress, which no one but a
Detective would have noticed. He looked as narrowly as he dared at the
pattern of the remaining fasteners. It corresponded with that of the
little tell-tale he had picked up. He went deeper into the subject, got
a trace of some of the stolen property, ascertained a connexion between
it and the suspected person, confronted him with the owner of the trunk,
and finally succeeded in convicting him of the theft.—At another
hotel-robbery, the blade of a knife, broken in the lock of a
portmanteau, formed the clue. The Detective employed in that case was
for some time indefatigable in seeking out knives with broken blades. At
length he found one belonging to an under-waiter, who proved to have
been the thief.
The swell mob—the London branch of which is said to consist of from one
hundred and fifty to two hundred members—demand the greatest amount of
vigilance to detect. They hold the first place in the “profession.”
Their cleverness consists in evading the law; the most expert are seldom
taken. One “swell,” named Mo. Clark, had an iniquitous career of a
quarter of a century, and never was captured during that time. He died a
“prosperous gentleman” at Boulogne, whither he had retired to live on
his “savings,” which he had invested in house property. An old hand
named White lived unharmed to the age of eighty; but he had not been
prudent, and existed on the contributions of the “mob,” till his old
acquaintances were taken away, either by transportation or death, and
the new race did not recognise his claims to their bounty. Hence he died
in a workhouse. The average run of liberty which one of this class
counts upon is four years.
The gains of some of the swell mob are great. They can always command
capital to execute any especial scheme. Their travelling expenses are
large; for their harvests are great public occasions, whether in town or
country. As an example of their profits, the exploits of four of them at
the Liverpool Cattle Show some seven years ago, may be mentioned. The
London Detective Police did not attend, but one of them waylaid the
rogues at the Euston Station. After an attendance of four days, the
gentlemen he was looking for appeared, handsomely attired, the occupants
of first-class carriages. The Detective, in the quietest manner
possible, stopped their luggage; they entreated him to treat them like
“gentlemen.” He did so, and took them into a private room, where they
were so good as to offer him fifty pounds to let them go. He declined,
and over-hauled their booty; it consisted of several gold pins, watches,
(some of great value,) chains and rings, silver snuffboxes, and
bank-notes of the value of one hundred pounds! Eventually, however, as
owners could not be found for some of the property, and some others
would not prosecute, they escaped with a light punishment.
In order to counteract the plans of the swell mob, two of the sergeants
of the Detective Police make it their business to know every one of them
personally. The consequence is, that the appearance of either of these
officers upon any scene of operations is a bar to anything or anybody
being “done.” This is an excellent characteristic of the Detectives, for
they thus become as well a Preventive Police. We will give an
illustration:—
You are at the Oxford commemoration. As you descend the broad stairs of
the Roebuck to dine, you overtake on the landing a gentleman of foreign
aspect and elegant attire. The variegated pattern of his vest, the jetty
gloss of his boots, and the exceeding whiteness of his gloves—one of
which he crushes in his somewhat delicate hand—convince you that he is
going to the grand ball, to be given that evening at Merton. The glance
he gives you while passing, is sharp, but comprehensive; and if his eye
does rest upon any one part of your person and its accessories more than
another, it is upon the gold watch which you have just taken out to see
if dinner be “due.” As you step aside to make room for him, he
acknowledges the courtesy with “Par-r-r-don,” in the richest Parisian
_gros parle_, and a smile so full of intelligence and courtesy, that you
hope he speaks English, for you set him down as an agreeable fellow, and
mentally determine that if he dines in the Coffee-room, you will make
his acquaintance.
On the mat at the stair-foot there stands a man. A plain, honest-looking
fellow, with nothing formidable in his appearance, or dreadful in his
countenance; but the effect his apparition takes on your friend in
perspective, is remarkable. The poor little fellow raises himself on his
toes, as if he had been suddenly overbalanced by a bullet; his cheek
pales, and his lip quivers, as he endeavours ineffectually to suppress
the word “_coquin!_” He knows it is too late to turn back (he evidently
would, if he could), for the man’s eye is upon him. There is no help for
it, and he speaks first; but in a whisper. He takes the new comer aside,
and all you can overhear is spoken by the latter, who says he insists on
Monsieur withdrawing his “School” by the seven o’clock train.
You imagine him to be some poor wretch of a schoolmaster in
difficulties; captured, alas, by a bailiff. They leave the inn together,
perhaps for a sponging house. So acute is your pity, that you think of
rushing after them, and offering bail. You are, however, very hungry,
and, at this moment, the waiter announces that dinner is on table.
In the opposite box there are covers for four, but only three convives.
They seem quiet men—not gentlemen, decidedly, but well enough behaved.
“What has become of Monsieur?” asks one. None of them can divine.
“Shall we wait any longer for him?”
“Oh, no—Waiter—Dinner!”
By their manner, you imagine that the style of the Roebuck is a “cut
above them.” They have not been much used to plate. The silver forks are
so curiously heavy, that one of the guests, in a dallying sort of way,
balances a prong across his fingers, while the chasing of the castors
engages the attention of a second. This is all done while they talk.
When the fish is brought, the third casts a careless glance or two at
the dish cover, and when the waiter has gone for the sauce, he taps it
with his nails, and says enquiringly to his friend across the table,
“Silver?”
The other shakes his head, and intimates a hint that it is _only_
plated. The waiter brings the cold punch, and the party begin to enjoy
themselves. They do not drink much, but they mix their drinks rather
injudiciously. They take sherry upon cold punch, and champagne upon
that, dashing in a little port and bottled stout between. They are
getting merry, not to say jolly, but not at all inebriated. The amateur
of silver dish-covers has told a capital story, and his friends are
revelling in the heartiest of laughs, when an apparition appears at the
end of the table. You never saw such a change as his presence causes,
when he places his knuckles on the edge of the table and looks at the
diners _seriatim_; the courtiers of the sleeping beauty suddenly struck
somniferous were nothing to this change. As if by magic, the loud laugh
is turned to silent consternation. You now, most impressively,
understand the meaning of the term “dumbfoundered.” The mysterious
stranger makes some enquiry about “any cash?”
The answer is “Plenty.”
“All square with the landlord, then?” asks the same inflexible voice
as—to my astonishment—that which put the Frenchman to the torture.
“To a penny,” the reply.
“_Quite_ square?” continues the querist, taking with his busy eye a
rapid inventory of the plate.
“S’ help me——”
“Hush!” interrupts the dinner spoiler, holding up his hand in a
cautionary manner. “Have you done anything to-day?”
“Not a thing.”
Then there is some more in a low tone; but you again distinguish the
word “school,” and “seven o’clock train.” They are too old to be the
Frenchman’s pupils; perhaps they are his assistants. Surely they are not
all the victims of the same _capias_ and the same officer!
By this time the landlord, looking very nervous, arrives with his bill:
then comes the head waiter, who clears the table; carefully counting the
forks. The reckoning is paid, and the trio steal out of the room with
the man of mystery behind them,—like sheep driven to the shambles.
You follow to the Railway station, and there you see the Frenchman, who
complains bitterly of being “sold for noting” by his enemy. The other
three utter a confirmative groan. In spite of the evident omnipotence of
their persevering follower, your curiosity impels you to address him.
You take a turn on the platform together, and he explains the whole
mystery. “The fact is,” he begins, “I am Sergeant Witchem, of the
Detective police.”
“And your four victims are?”—
“Members of a crack school of swell mobsmen.”
“What do you mean by ‘school?’”
“Gang. There is a variety of gangs—that is to say, of men who ‘work’
together, who play into one another’s hands. These gentlemen hold the
first rank, both for skill and enterprise, and had they been allowed to
remain would have brought back a considerable booty. Their chief is the
Frenchman.”
“Why do they obey your orders so passively?”
“Because they are sure that if I were to take them into custody, which I
could do, knowing what they are, and present them before a magistrate,
they would all be committed to prison for a month, as rogues and
vagabonds.”
“They prefer then to have lost no inconsiderable capital in dress and
dinner, to being laid up in jail.”
“Exactly so.”
The bell rings, and all five go off into the same carriage to London.
This is a circumstance that actually occurred; and a similar one
happened when the Queen went to Dublin. The mere appearance of one of
the Detective officers before a “school” which had transported itself in
the Royal train, spoilt their speculation; for they all found it more
advantageous to return to England in the same steamer with the officer,
than to remain with the certainty of being put in prison for fourteen or
twenty-eight days as rogues and vagabonds.
So thoroughly well acquainted with these men are the Detective officers
we speak of, that they frequently tell what they have been about by the
expression of their eyes and their general manner. This process is aptly
termed “reckoning them up.” Some days ago, two skilful officers, whose
personal acquaintance with the swell mob is complete, were walking along
the Strand on other business, when they saw two of the best dressed and
best mannered of the gang enter a jeweller’s shop. They waited till they
came out, and, on scrutinising them, were convinced, by a certain
conscious look which they betrayed, that they had stolen something. They
followed them, and in a few minutes something was passed from one to the
other. The officers were convinced, challenged them with the theft, and
succeeded in eventually convicting them of stealing two gold
eye-glasses, and several jewelled rings. “The eye,” said our informant,
“is the great detector. We can tell in a crowd what a swell-mobsman is
about by the expression of his eye.”
It is supposed that the number of persons who make a trade of thieving
in London is not more than six thousand; of these, nearly two hundred
are first-class thieves or swell mobsmen; six hundred “macemen,” and
trade swindlers, bill-swindlers, dog-stealers, &c.; About forty
burglars, “dancers,” “garretteers,” and other adepts with the
skeleton-keys. The rest are pickpockets, “gonophs—” mostly young thieves
who sneak into areas, and rob tills—and other pilferers.
To detect and circumvent this fraternity, is the science of
thief-taking. Here, it is, however, impossible to give even an imperfect
notion of the high amount of skill, intelligence, and knowledge,
concentrated in the character of a clever Detective Policeman. We shall
therefore furnish the sketch in another paper.
THE BALLAD OF RICHARD BURNELL.
From his bed rose Richard Burnell
At the early dawn of day,
Ere the bells of London City
Welcomed in the morn of May.
Early on that bright May morning
Rose the young man from his bed,
He, the happiest man in London,—
And blithely to himself he said:
“‘When the men and maids are dancing,
And the folk are mad with glee,
In the Temple’s shady gardens
Let me walk and talk with thee!’
“Thus my Alice spake last even,
Thus with trembling lips she spake,
And those blissful words have kept me
Through the live-long night awake.
“’Tis a joy beyond expression,
When we first, in truth, perceive
That the love we long have cherished
Will not our fond hearts deceive!
“Never dared I to confess it,
Deeds of homage spoke instead;
True love is its own revealer,
She must know it! oft, I said.
“All my words, and all my actions,
But one meaning could impart;
Love can love’s least sign interpret,
And she reads my inmost heart.
“And her good, old merchant father,
—Father he has been to me—
Saw the love growing up between us,
Saw—and was well-pleased to see.
“Seven years I truly served him,
Now my time is at an end—
Master is he now no longer,
Father will be—has been friend.
“I was left betimes an orphan,
Heir unto great merchant-wealth,
But the iron rule of kinsfolk
Dimmed my youth, and sapped my health.
“Death had been my early portion
Had not my good guardian come;
He, the father of my Alice,
And conveyed me to his home.
“Here began a new existence,
—Then how new the love of friends!
And for all the child’s afflictions,
Each one strove to make amends.
“Late my spring-time came, but quickly
Youth’s rejoicing currents run,
And my inner life unfolded
Like a flower before the sun.
“Hopes, and aims, and aspirations,
Grew within the growing boy;
Life had new interpretation;
Manhood brought increase of joy.
“In and over all was Alice,
Life-infusing, like the spring;
My soul’s soul! even joy without her
Was a poor and barren thing!
“And she spoke last eve at parting,
‘When the folk are mad with glee,
In the Temple’s pleasant gardens
Let me walk and talk with thee!’
“As she spoke, her sweet voice trembled—
Love such tender tones can teach!
And those words have kept me waking,
And the manner of her speech!
“For such manner has deep meaning,”
Said young Burnell, blithe and gay;—
And the bells of London City
Pealed a welcome to the May.
· · · · ·
Whilst the folk were mad with pleasure,
’Neath the elm-tree’s vernal shade,
In the Temple’s quiet gardens
Walked the young man and the maid.
On his arm her hand was resting,
And her eyes were on the ground;
She was speaking, he was silent;
Not a word his tongue had found.
“Friend beloved,” she thus addressed him,
“I have faith, and hope in thee!
Thou canst do what no one else can—
Thou canst be a friend to me!
“Richard, we have lived together
All these years of happy youth;
Have, as sister and as brother,
Lived in confidence and truth.
“Thou from me hast hid no feelings,
Thy whole heart to me is known;
I—I only have kept from thee
One dear, little thought alone.
“Have I wronged thee in so doing,
Then forgive me! but give ear,
’Tis to bare my heart before thee
That I now am with thee here.
“Well thou know’st my father loves thee;
’Tis his wish that we should wed,—
I shame not to speak thus frankly—
Wish, or _will_ more justly said.
“But this cannot be, my brother,
Cannot be—’twere nature’s wrong!—
I have said so to my father,—
But thou know’st his will is strong.”
Not a word spake Richard Burnell;
Not a word came to his lips;
Like one tranced he stood and listened;
Life to him was in eclipse.
In a lower tone she murmured,
Murmured like a brooding dove,
“Know thou,—Leonard Woodvil loves me,—
And—that he has won my love.”
—Came a pause. The words she uttered
Seemed to turn him into stone,
Pale he stood and mute beside her,
And with blushes she went on.
“This is known unto my father;—
Leonard is well known to thee,
Thou hast praised him, praised him often—
Oh, how dear such praise to me!
“But my father, stern and stedfast,
Will not list to Leonard’s prayer;—
And ’tis only thou canst move him,—
Only thou so much canst dare.
“Tell my father firmly, freely,
That we only love each other—
’Tis the truth, thou know’st it, Richard,
As a sister and a brother!
“Tell my father, if we wedded,
Thou and I, it would be guilt!—
Thus it is that thou canst aid us,—
And thou wilt—I know thou wilt!
“Yes, ’tis thus that thou must aid us,
And thou wilt!—I say no more!—
We’ve been friends, but this will make us
Better friends than heretofore!”
Yet some moments he was silent;
His good heart was well nigh broke;
She was blinded to his anguish;—
And “I will!” at length he spoke.
· · · · ·
They were wedded. ’Twas a wedding
That had far and nigh renown,
And from morning until even
Rang the bells of London town.
Time went on: the good, old merchant
Wore a cloud upon his brow:
“Wherefore this?” his friends addressed him,
“No man should be blithe as thou!”
“In my old age I am lonely,”
Said the merchant; “she is gone;—
And young Burnell, he I nurtured,
He who was to me a son;
“He has left me!—I’m deserted—
E’en an old man feels such woe!
’Twas but natural _she_ should marry,
But _he_ should not have served me so?
“’Twas not that which I expected!—
He was very dear to me,—
And I thought no London merchant
Would have stood as high as he!
“He grew very strange and moody,
What the cause I cannot say;—
And he left me when my daughter,
My poor Alice went away!
“This I felt a sore unkindness;—
Youth thinks little, feels still less!—
Burnell should have stayed beside me,
Stayed to cheer my loneliness!
“I had been a father to him,
He to me was like a son;
Young folks should have more reflection,—
’Twas what _I_ could not have done!
“True, he writes me duteous letters;
Calls me father, tells me all
That in foreign parts are doing:—
But young people write so small,
“That I’m often forced to leave them,
Pleasant letters though they be,
Until Alice comes from Richmond,
Then she reads them out to me.
“Alice fain would have me with her;
Leonard well deserves my praise—
But he’s not my Richard Burnell,
Knows not my old wants and ways!
“No, my friends, I’ll not deny it,
It has cut me to the heart,
That the son of my adoption
Thus has played a cruel part!”
So the merchant mourned and murmured;
And all foreign charms unheeding,
Dwelt the lonely Richard Burnell,
With his bruiséd heart still bleeding.
· · · · ·
Time went on, and in the spring-tide,
When the birds begun to build,
And the heart of all creation
With a vast delight was filled.
Came a letter unto Alice—
Then a babe lay on her breast—
’Twas the first which Richard Burnell
Unto Alice had addressed.
Few the words which it contained,
But each word was like a sigh;
“I am sick and very lonely;—
Let me see thee ere I die!
“In this time of tribulation
Thou wilt be a friend to me:
Therefore in the Temple Gardens
Let me once more speak with thee.”
Once more in the Temple Gardens
Sat they ’neath the bright blue sky,
With the leafage thick around them,
And the river rolling by.
Pale and weak was Richard Burnell,
Gone all merely outward grace,
Yet the stamp of meek endurance
Gave sad beauty to his face.
Silent by his side sat Alice,
Now no word her tongue could speak,
All her soul was steeped in pity,
And large tears were on her cheek.
Burnell spake; “Within these Gardens
Thy commands on me were laid,
And although my heart was breaking
Yet were those commands obeyed.
“What I suffered no one knoweth,
Nor shall know, I proudly said,
And, when grew the grief too mighty,
Then—there was no help—I fled.
“Yes, I loved thee, long had loved thee,
And alone the God above,
He, who at that time sustained me,
Knows the measure of my love!
“Do not let these words displease thee;
Life’s sore battle will soon cease;
I have fallen amid the conflict,
But within my soul is peace.
“It has been a fiery trial,
But the fiercest pang is past;
Once more I am come amongst you—
Oh, stand by me at the last!
“Leonard will at times come to me,
And thy father, I will try
To be cheerful in his presence,
As I was in days gone by.
“Bitter had it been to leave him,
But in all my heart’s distress,
The great anguish which consumed me,
Seemed to swallow up the less.
“Let me go! my soul is wearied,
No fond heart of me has need,
Life has no more duties for me;—
I am but a broken reed!
“Let me go, ere courage faileth,
Gazing, gazing thus on thee!—
But in life’s last awful moment,
Alice! thou wilt stand by me!”
From her seat rose Alice Woodvil,
And in stedfast tones began,
Like a strong yet mourning angel,
To address the dying man.
“Not in death alone, my brother,
Would I aid thee in the strife,
I would fain be thy sustainer,
In the fiercer fight of life.
“With the help of God, thy spirit
Shall not sink an easy prey.
Oh, my friend, prayer is a weapon
Which can turn whole hosts away!
“God will aid thee! We will hold thee
By our love!—thou shalt not go!—
And from out thy wounded spirit,
We will pluck the thorns of woe.
“Say not life has no more duties
Which can claim thee! where are then,
All the sinners; the neglected;
All the weeping sons of men?
“Ah, my friend, hast thou forgotten
All our dreams of early days?
How we would instruct poor children,
How we would the fallen raise!
“God has not to me permitted,
Such great work of human love,
He has marked me out a lower
Path of duty where to move.
“But to thee, His chosen servant,
Is this higher lot allowed;
He has brought thee through deep waters,
Through the furnace, through the cloud;
“He has made of thee, a mourner
Like the Christ, that thou may’st rise,
To a purer height of glory,
Through the pangs of sacrifice!
“’Tis alone of his appointing,
That thy feet on thorns have trod;
Suffering, woe, renunciation,
Only bring us nearer God.
“And when nearest Him then largest
The enfranchised heart’s embrace:—
It was Christ, the man rejected,
Who redeemed the human race.
“Say not then thou hast no duties;—
Friendless outcasts on thee call,
And the sick and the afflicted,
And the children, more than all.
“Oh, my friend, rise up and follow,
Where the hand of God shall lead;
He has brought thee through affliction,
But to fit thee for his need!”
—Thus she spoke, and as from midnight,
Springs the opal-tinted morn,
So, within his dreary spirit,
A new day of life was born.
Strength sublime may rise from weakness,
Groans be turned to songs of praise,
Nor are life’s divinest labours,
Only told by length of days.
Young he died: but deeds of mercy,
Beautified his life’s short span,
And he left his worldly substance,
To complete what he began.
A FEW FACTS ABOUT MATRIMONY.
Modern science is invading all the old realms of whims and fancies,
charms and witchcrafts, prejudices and superstitions. No kind of
ignorance seems sacred from attack. The wise men of our generation are
evidently bent beyond recall on finding out all things that may by
possibility be discoverable, no matter what pains the search may impose.
Not content with making lightning run messages, chemistry polish boots,
and steam deliver parcels and passengers, the _savants_ are superseding
the astrologers of old days, and the gipsies and wise women of modern
ones, by finding out and revealing the hitherto hidden laws which rule
that charming mystery of mysteries—that lode star of young maidens and
gay bachelors—matrimony.
In our fourteenth number we gave a description of the facts made out by
the returns of the Registrar-General on the subject of life and death in
London and the Country. The office of that official has some other
duties, however, beyond that of chronicling the business of mortality
and birth in this land of ours. There is a third great heading in his
tables, under which there are long lists of serious looking figures, and
they tell, not in units, or in _fews_, like the back page of a
newspaper, but in tens of thousands, how many marriages take place in
England. And besides the mere number of these interesting events, these
figures reveal what are found to be the laws regulating their frequency
and other circumstances connected with them, such as how many couples
are joined by the costly and unusual mode of special license; how many
by ordinary license; how many (and they are the great majority) by the
old English fashion of “out-asking” by banns; how many by the new
systems introduced for the union of various classes of dissenters, at
Registrars’ offices, in registered places of worship; how many between
Quakers and between Jews; and, beyond all these particulars, how many
young folks, hot of heart and full of courage, take the awful plunge
into matrimony whilst “not of full age;” how many men reject the advice
of Sir Roger de Coverley, and marry widows; and how many widows, like
the wife of Bath, love matrimony so well that when once released from
its bonds they tie themselves up in them again. The history of this
registration of marriages is soon told. This plan of recording the
matrimonial engagements of the country commenced in 1745, when the
marriage act came into operation. Before that date marriages were
performed clandestinely, and by such extraordinary persons that any
correct record of their number was impossible. “Fleet marriages” are
thus noticed by Smollett:—“There was a band of profligate miscreants,
the refuse of the clergy, dead to every sentiment of virtue, abandoned
to all sense of decency and decorum, for the most part prisoners for
debt or delinquency, and indeed the very outcasts of human society, who
hovered about the verge of the Fleet Prison to intercept customers,
plying like porters for employment, and performed the ceremony of
marriage without license or question, in cellars, garrets, or alehouses,
to the scandal of religion, and the disgrace of that order which they
professed. The ease with which this ecclesiastical sanction was
obtained, and the vicious disposition of those wretches open to the
practices of fraud and corruption, were productive of polygamy,
indigence, conjugal infidelity, prostitution, and every curse that could
embitter the married state. A remarkable case of this nature having
fallen under the cognizance of the Peers (in 1753) in an appeal from an
inferior tribunal, that House ordered the judges to prepare a new Bill
for preventing such abuses; and one was accordingly framed, under the
auspices of Lord Hardwick, at that time Lord High Chancellor of
England.”
“It underwent a great number of alterations and amendments, which were
not effected without violent contest and altercation; at length,
however, it was floated through both houses on the tide of a great
majority, and steered into the safe harbour of royal approbation.”
For seventy-seven years after the passing of this bill the number of
marriages was collected with tolerable accuracy, and published in the
Parish Register Abstracts. No other country has so valuable an abstract
of tables. Since that time the Registrar-General’s office has made this
branch of our national statistics almost accurate.
Premising that the documents from which our statements are derived are
the Annual Reports of the Registrar-General, of Births, Deaths, and
Marriages, in England, issued—not for a short term, but during the last
six years—that the observations extend over a still longer period—we may
proceed to cull out what appear to be the economical laws regulating
matrimony, with any peculiarities characterising their operation amongst
us. We would say the _general_ laws—for individual peculiarities will,
of course, influence individual matches. One young lady will secure the
youth of her choice by force of beauty, or by mere weight of purse;
managing mothers will get husbands for their girls, whatever wind may
blow, or however trade or politics may influence the less fortunate or
less clever world. The great beauty, the great talents, and the great
wealth are the exceptions in the lottery of life. In speaking of
matrimonial prospects we, like the Registrar-General, mean the prospects
of the great family of twenty millions of souls that make up the
population of this land we live in.
About a century ago, the marriages in London were under six thousand a
year—they are now four times as many. In all the country, the increase
has been most remarkable in the Metropolis and in Manchester. In
particular localities the proportion is found to differ. Thus Yorkshire,
the seat of the Woollen manufactures and of prosperous agriculturists,
appears to be the most marrying district of all England; Lancashire and
Cheshire, the Cotton districts, coming next; and London third.
Staffordshire and Worcestershire, Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire
stand next, followed by other counties more or less blessed by the
presence of Hymen, but descending gradually till we reach the
matrimonial zero which is found in the agricultural parts of Middlesex.
The average annual number of weddings is about one hundred and
twenty-three thousand. It would help a winter night’s amusement to
decide how many pounds weight of Californian produce must be wanted for
the rings? How many garlands of orange blossoms for the hair and bonnets
of the brides? The probabilities of marriage, of course, vary; but the
rule seems to hold, that about one in seventeen unmarried women, between
the ages of fifteen and forty-five, are married in a year throughout the
country. Marriages have their seasons. They are least numerous in
winter, and most numerous after harvest in the December quarter; the
births and deaths, on the contrary, are most numerous in the winter
quarter ending in March, and least numerous in the summer quarter ending
September. War diminishes marriages by taking great numbers of
marriageable men away from their homes; whilst a return of peace
increases marriages, when soldiers and sailors with small pensions are
discharged. Trade and manufactures have also become more active in
England on the cessation of wars, and the employment and wages thus
induced, have contributed still more to add to the numbers of those
entering the married state. The establishment of new, or the extension
of old, employments promotes marriages: the cotton manufactures, the
canals of the last century, the railways of the present day, are
examples. Indeed, an increase of their incomes, is taken by the
generality of the people for the beginning of perennial prosperity, and
is followed by a multitude of marriages. There are only about fifteen
persons married annually, for the first time, out of a thousand living.
There are about five children born in wedlock to every marriage. The
births now exceed the deaths in England, in about the proportion of
three to two—three young subjects present themselves for Queen Victoria,
in place of every two that pass away. “The number of marriages in a
nation,” says the Registrar, “perhaps fluctuates independently of
external causes; but it is a fair deduction from the facts, that the
marriage returns in England point to periods of prosperity, little less
distinctly than the funds measure the hopes and fears of the money
market. If the one is the barometer of credit, the other is the
barometer of prosperity—a prosperity partly in possession, and still
more in hope.” The year 1845 was a great matrimonial year, the
proportion of persons married being more than had been known in England
for ninety years before. It was a season of great speculation, activity,
and temporary prosperity. Three years before, in 1842, on the contrary,
there was a great diminution in the number of weddings. It was a year of
difficulty and high prices. Rather more than ten per cent. of the
persons married in 1845, had been married more than once. When food is
dear, as in 1839, marriages are few; as food becomes cheap, as in 1845,
marriages are many. When a cheap food year indicates a year of “marrying
and giving in marriage,” another sign is generally found; the price of
consols indicates a condition of national affairs much more conducive to
matrimonial arrangements, than young ladies would imagine. In what may
be called the great English matrimonial period, the three per cents.
were about par, instead of being about 88, as they were in the
unfavourable season a short time before. When employment is plenty,
trade active, and money _easy_, Doctors Commons becomes brisk, clergymen
have long lists of banns to declare, and the Registrar’s column of
marriages fills up.
As an instance of the influence of the price of food and want of
employment upon the number of marriages, let us take an illustration
from the Registrar as to the period from 1792 to 1798. The weather was
bad, the funds low, and bread excessively dear, and upon particular
districts a change of fashion made the burthen fall with still
additional weight. The “Church and King” riots broke out in July, 1791,
in Birmingham; and the mob burnt Dr. Priestley’s library, several
houses, and some dissenting chapels; in May, 1792, they again rose, but
the magistrates this time evinced some vigour, and put a stop to the
outrages. A staple manufacture of Birmingham had been subject to one of
the mutations of fashion, which caused great distress; for it is
recorded, that, on December 21st, 1791, “several respectable
buckle-manufacturers from Birmingham, Walsall, and Wolverhampton, waited
upon His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, with a petition setting
forth the distressed situation of thousands in the different branches of
the buckle manufacture, from the fashion now, and for some time back, so
prevalent, of wearing shoe-strings instead of buckles. His Royal
Highness graciously promised his utmost assistance by his example and
influence.” After the recovery of George III. from his first illness, in
1789, an immense number of buckles were manufactured about Birmingham;
Walsall among other places invested the greater part of its available
wealth in the speculation. The king unfortunately went in the state
procession to St. Paul’s without buckles: and Walsall was nearly ruined.
Shoe-strings gradually supplied the place of straps. The effect of this
freak of fashion and speculation on the marriages of Birmingham was to
reduce them most seriously; and it had probably more to do with the
licentious Birmingham riots, than the more patent political agitation of
the day. The disuse of wigs, buckles, buttons, and leather breeches at
the close of the eighteenth century, is supposed to have affected the
business of a million of people. In 1765, the peace of London had been
disturbed by the periwig-makers, who went in procession to petition the
young king, “submitting to His Majesty’s goodness and wisdom, whether
his own example was not the only means of rescuing them from their
distress, as far as it was occasioned by so many people wearing their
own hair.” When change of fashions influence unfavourably the employment
of the people, and when, at the same time, influenced or increased by
lack of work, their poverty increases, matrimony is at a discount. It is
not simply the poorer classes, dependent on weekly wages for their
support, who feel the influence of times of business activity, and allow
it to impel them to matrimony. When the workman is busy, the trader
makes profits, the landlord gets his rents, and all sections of the
community feel the beneficial influence of a prosperous season. The
number of those persons entirely removed from such social sympathies is
very few; indeed, as a great rule, when the workmen are prosperous, all
classes above them are thriving too: and when the one section of the
great English family is influenced to matrimony in an unusual degree,
the others feel the influence of the same law. When the reaction, a
period of depression, arrives, the number of marriages declines, but
they have never fallen back to their original numbers. A time of
prosperity lifts up the total in a remarkable manner, and when the happy
time ceases, the number falls—but not equal to the level from which it
sprung. It is to a certain degree a permanent increase.
As to the mode in which marriages are performed, it appears that nine
out of ten take place according to the rites of the established church.
The marriages by banns are about six times as numerous as those by
license. Upon these weddings, by aid of Doctors Commons, there is, it
seems, a vast sum of money spent; but who are the lucky men receiving
it, does not appear very clearly, and the services they render for the
cash is still more doubtful. There are about eighteen thousand licenses
granted by Doctors Commons and by country surrogates every year. The
usual cost of the license at Doctors Commons is 2_l._ 12_s._ 6_d._ There
is 10_s._ 6_d._ additional for minors; and in the country, surrogates,
it is said, obtain higher fees. At only 2_l._ 12_s._ 6_d._, the tax on
eighteen thousand licenses is 47,250_l._ a year. The stamps on each
license are 12_s._ 6_d._ Deducting this sum, the licenses to marry yield
at least 36,000_l._ a year. The expense of granting licenses in a manner
the most useful and convenient to the public would not be considerable;
and it is not easy to see why the surplus revenue derivable from the
tax, should not go into the public treasury, when a portion of the
expenses of the registration of births, deaths, and marriages, is paid
out of the Consolidated Fund. The aggregate amount of charges for the
General Register Office, at which all the returns of the country are
examined, indexed, and analysed, and the Act is administered, was
13,794_l._ in 1846; and the six hundred and twenty-one superintendent
registrars received 9097_l._ for examining certified copies. After
discharging the expenses of the civil registration, defrayed by the
Consolidated Fund, and the cost of the decennial census, a large surplus
would be left, out of 47,250_l._ for licenses, to go to the public
revenue of the country. And this would not interfere in the slightest
degree with the marriage fees; which would continue to be paid to the
officiating clergy. In the places of worship registered by Dissenters,
there were not quite ten thousand marriages in one year; nearly four
thousand in the same year took place in the Superintendant Registrar’s
offices; one hundred and eighty-four according to the rites of the Jews;
and seventy-four marriages between Quakers. The only fortuneteller who
can henceforth be believed, is the one who answers the question, “When
will the wedding take place?” by saying, “When trade flourishes, and
when bread is cheap.”
CHIPS.
FROM MR. THOMAS BOVINGTON.
Long Hornets, June, 1850.
SIR,
I want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Conductor. In the first
place—What am I to do with my beasts? Those I got back from Smithfield,
after two months’ care and no small expense, have come round again, and
I’ve got a few others ready for market; but _what_ market? Country
markets don’t suit me, for I can’t get my price at them; and, as you
know, I would rather kill the cattle myself than send them to
Smithfield.
Again,—What is the Royal Commission about? They have reported against
Smithfield, and why don’t Government shut it up? Isn’t there Islington?
Everything is ready there to open a market to-morrow. I can answer for
that, for I was there yesterday and went over it. I inquired
particularly about the drainage, for, if you remember, Brumpton told me
they could not drain it. Well, perhaps they could not very conveniently
when he was last there, but now they tell me that a thousand pounds
would do the entire job. I’ll tell you how:—You see the market stands
about fifty-one feet above the Trinity highwater mark of the Thames.
Well, close by, in the Southgate road, there is a new sewer, that runs
into a regular system of sewers which drain Hoxton, Spitalfields, and
all that part down to London bridge—and the cattle market being eighteen
feet above the level of the Southgate sewer, it will only be requisite
to cut a culvert into it, for the entire space to be drained out and
out.
Now, my last question is this: Why don’t the people belonging to the
Islington market make the necessary sewer at once? If they did, what
excuse could government have for not shutting up Smithfield, and moving
the cattle market to Islington?
I am, Sir,
Yours to command,
T. BOVINGTON.
THE OLD CHURCHYARD TREE.
A PROSE POEM.
There is an old yew tree which stands by the wall in a dark quiet corner
of the churchyard.
And a child was at play beneath its wide-spreading branches, one fine
day in the early spring. He had his lap full of flowers, which the
fields and lanes had supplied him with, and he was humming a tune to
himself as he wove them into garlands.
And a little girl at play among the tombstones crept near to listen; but
the boy was so intent upon his garland, that he did not hear the gentle
footsteps, as they trod softly over the fresh green grass. When his work
was finished, and all the flowers that were in his lap were woven
together in one long wreath, he started up to measure its length upon
the ground, and then he saw the little girl, as she stood with her eyes
fixed upon him. He did not move or speak, but thought to himself that
she looked very beautiful as she stood there with her flaxen ringlets
hanging down upon her neck. The little girl was so startled by his
sudden movement, that she let fall all the flowers she had collected in
her apron, and ran away as fast as she could. But the boy was older and
taller than she, and soon caught her, and coaxed her to come back and
play with him, and help him to make more garlands; and from that time
they saw each other nearly every day, and became great friends.
Twenty years passed away. Again, he was seated beneath the old yew tree
in the churchyard.
It was summer now; bright, beautiful summer, with the birds singing, and
the flowers covering the ground, and scenting the air with their
perfume.
But he was not alone now, nor did the little girl steal near on tiptoe,
fearful of being heard. She was seated by his side, and his arm was
round her, and she looked up into his face, and smiled as she whispered:
“The first evening of our lives we were ever together was passed here:
we will spend the first evening of our wedded life in the same quiet,
happy place.” And he drew her closer to him as she spoke.
The summer is gone; and the autumn; and twenty more summers and autumns
have passed away since that evening, in the old churchyard.
A young man, on a bright moonlight night, comes reeling through the
little white gate, and stumbling over the graves. He shouts and he
sings, and is presently followed by others like unto himself, or worse.
So, they all laugh at the dark solemn head of the yew tree, and throw
stones up at the place where the moon has silvered the boughs.
Those same boughs are again silvered by the moon, and they droop over
his mother’s grave. There is a little stone which bears this
inscription:-
“HER HEART BRAKE IN SILENCE.”
But the silence of the churchyard is now broken by a voice—not of the
youth—nor a voice of laughter and ribaldry.
“My son!—dost thou see this grave? and dost thou read the record in
anguish, whereof may come repentance?”
“Of what should I repent?” answers the son; “and why should my young
ambition for fame relax in its strength because my mother was old and
weak?”
“Is this indeed our son?” says the father, bending in agony over the
grave of his beloved.
“I can well believe I am not;” exclaimeth the youth. “It is well that
you have brought me here to say so. Our natures are unlike; our courses
must be opposite. Your way lieth here—mine yonder!”
So the son left the father kneeling by the grave.
Again a few years are passed. It is winter, with a roaring wind and a
thick grey fog. The graves in the Churchyard are covered with snow, and
there are great icicles in the Church-porch. The wind now carries a
swathe of snow along the tops of the graves, as though the “sheeted
dead” were at some melancholy play; and hark! the icicles fall with a
crash and jingle, like a solemn mockery of the echo of the unseemly
mirth of one who is now coming to his final rest.
There are two graves near the old yew tree; and the grass has overgrown
them. A third is close by; and the dark earth at each side has just been
thrown up. The bearers come; with a heavy pace they move along; the
coffin heaveth up and down, as they step over the intervening graves.
Grief and old age had seized upon the father, and worn out his life; and
premature decay soon seized upon the son, and gnawed away his vain
ambition, and his useless strength, till he prayed to be borne, not the
way yonder that was most opposite to his father and his mother, but even
the same way they had gone—the way which leads to the Old Churchyard
Tree.
SABBATH PARIAHS.
We are overwhelmed with “Chips” from letter-writers, letter-senders,
letter-receivers, letter-sorters, and post-office clerks. Our own office
has become a post-office. It would seem as if all the letters that ought
to have been written for delivery on several previous Sundays in the
ordinary course, and by the agency of the great establishment in St.
Martin’s-le-Grand, have only not been indited in order that we might be
the sufferers. Doubtless, the other channels of public information have
equally received in the course of each week the surplus of what would
have been, but for the Plumptre and Ashley obstruction, Sunday letters.
The public are in arms, and every arm has a pen at the end; every pen is
dipped in the blackest ink of indignation, or is tinged with the milder
tint of remonstrance.
Our most desperate remonstrants are provincial post-office clerks; for
it would appear that Lord Ashley’s outcasts from Sunday society have a
worse chance of being received into it now than ever. Their labours are
in many cases so heavy on Saturday nights, that they are obliged to lie
in bed during the whole of church time on Sunday, to recover from their
fatigues.
We select one from the heap, for publication. The writer gives a clear
account of the hardships of a provincial post-office clerk before he was
relieved from Sunday duty by the Royal mandate.
“Sir,
“For three years I was what you are pleased to call in your article on
the ‘Sunday Screw’ a Post-Office Pariah, at an office in a most
‘corresponding’ town; my Sunday duties were as follows:—at four I
rose, sorted my letters and newspapers, delivered them to the
messengers, sorted and stamped (both sides) the letters for the
cross-country mails, swept out and dusted the place, then I went to my
room again, had a nap, rose, washed, and dressed in my best; I came
down to breakfast at eight, took a walk, till Church time, and amused
myself till five in the afternoon, when I attended at the office and
received letters till half-past six.
“I usually attended divine service; at eight I sorted and stamped the
letters and dispatched the mails; at nine I had done my work; all this
I did myself and never dreamed of being assisted. The rush of business
is now, I understand, so great on the arrival of the Saturday
afternoon mails, that every assistant and Post-Office clerk will wish
Lord Ashley safely imprisoned in the Whited Sepulchres.
“Your, very obediently,
“EX-PARIAH.”
Judging from the tone in which the earnest remonstrances from all kinds
of people that pile our tables are couched, we fear that, during the
last few Sundays, the bulk of the disappointed public in the provinces
has benefited very little by the change in a moral point of view.
Vexation has, we fear, taken the place of that religious, calm, and
beneficent state of mind in which the Sabbath ought to be passed. The
object, therefore, of the promoters of the measure—increased veneration
for the first day of the week—has failed; for of course their whole and
sole object in the affair has been the furtherance of the cause of
religion, and not a desire to get quits with Mr. Rowland Hill for the
calm, manly, triumphant manner in which he caused truth to vanquish them
in the recent agitation on the same question.
DUST;
OR UGLINESS REDEEMED.
On a murky morning in November, wind north-east, a poor old woman with a
wooden leg was seen struggling against the fitful gusts of the bitter
breeze, along a stony zigzag road full of deep and irregular cart-ruts.
Her ragged petticoat was blue, and so was her wretched nose. A stick was
in her left hand, which assisted her to dig and hobble her way along;
and in her other hand, supported also beneath her withered arm, was a
large rusty iron sieve. Dust and fine ashes filled up all the wrinkles
in her face; and of these there were a prodigious number, for she was
eighty-three years old. Her name was Peg Dotting.
About a quarter of a mile distant, having a long ditch and a broken-down
fence as a foreground, there rose against the muddled-grey sky, a huge
Dust-heap of a dirty black colour,—being, in fact, one of those immense
mounds of cinders, ashes, and other emptyings from dust-holes and bins,
which have conferred celebrity on certain suburban neighbourhoods of a
great city. Towards this dusky mountain old Peg Dotting was now making
her way.
Advancing towards the Dust-heap by an opposite path, very narrow and
just reclaimed from the mud by a thick layer of freshly broken flints,
there came at the same time Gaffer Doubleyear, with his bone-bag slung
over his shoulder. The rags of his coat fluttered in the east-wind,
which also whistled keenly round his almost rimless hat, and troubled
his one eye. The other eye, having met with an accident last week, he
had covered neatly with an oyster-shell, which was kept in its place by
a string at each side, fastened through a hole. He used no staff to help
him along, though his body was nearly bent double, so that his face was
constantly turned to the earth, like that of a four-footed creature. He
was ninety-seven years of age.
As these two patriarchal labourers approached the great Dust-heap, a
discordant voice hallooed to them from the top of a broken wall. It was
meant as a greeting of the morning, and proceeded from little Jem
Clinker, a poor deformed lad whose back had been broken when a child.
His nose and chin were much too large for the rest of his face, and he
had lost nearly all his teeth from premature decay. But he had an eye
gleaming with intelligence and life, and an expression at once patient
and hopeful. He had balanced his misshapen frame on the top of the old
wall, over which one shrivelled leg dangled, as if by the weight of a
hob-nailed boot that covered a foot large enough for a ploughman.
In addition to his first morning’s salutation of his two aged friends,
he now shouted out in a tone of triumph and self-gratulation, in which
he felt assured of their sympathy—“Two white skins, and a tor’shell-un.”
It may be requisite to state that little Jem Clinker belonged to the
dead-cat department of the Dust-heap, and now announced that a prize of
three skins, in superior condition, had rewarded him for being first in
the field. He was enjoying a seat on the wall in order to recover
himself from the excitement of his good fortune.
At the base of the great Dust-heap the two old people now met their
young friend—a sort of great-grandson by mutual adoption—and they at
once joined the party who had by this time assembled as usual, and were
already busy at their several occupations.
But besides all these, another individual, belonging to a very different
class, formed a part of the scene, though appearing only on its
outskirts. A canal ran along at the rear of the Dust-heap, and on the
banks of its opposite side, slowly wandered by—with hands clasped and
hanging down in front of him, and eyes bent vacantly upon his hands—the
forlorn figure of a man in a very shabby great-coat, which had evidently
once belonged to one in the position of a gentleman. And to a gentleman
it still belonged—but in _what_ a position? A scholar, a man of wit, of
high sentiment, of refinement, and a good fortune withal—now by a sudden
“turn of law” bereft of the last only, and finding that none of the
rest, for which (having his fortune) he had been so much admired,
enabled him to gain a livelihood. His title-deeds had been lost or
stolen, and so he was bereft of everything he possessed. He had talents,
and such as would have been profitably available had he known how to use
them for this new purpose; but he did not; he was misdirected; he made
fruitless efforts, in his want of experience; and he was now starving.
As he passed the great Dust-heap, he gave one vague, melancholy gaze
that way, and then looked wistfully into the canal. And he continued to
look into the canal as he slowly moved along, till he was out of sight.
A Dust-heap of this kind is often worth thousands of pounds. The present
one was very large and very valuable. It was in fact a large hill, and
being in the vicinity of small suburb cottages, it rose above them like
a great black mountain. Thistles, groundsel, and rank grass grew in
knots on small parts which had remained for a long time undisturbed;
crows often alighted on its top, and seemed to put on their spectacles
and become very busy and serious; flocks of sparrows often made
predatory descents upon it; an old goose and gander might sometimes be
seen following each other up its side, nearly midway; pigs routed round
its base,—and, now and then, one bolder than the rest would venture some
way up, attracted by the mixed odours of some hidden marrow-bone
enveloped in a decayed cabbage-leaf—a rare event, both of these articles
being unusual oversights of the Searchers below.
The principal ingredient of all these Dust-heaps is fine cinders and
ashes; but as they are accumulated from the contents of all the
dust-holes and bins of the vicinity, and as many more as possible, the
fresh arrivals in their original state present very heterogeneous
materials. We cannot better describe them, than by presenting a brief
sketch of the different departments of the Searchers and Sorters, who
are assembled below to busy themselves upon the mass of original matters
which are shot out from the carts of the dustmen.
The bits of coal, the pretty numerous results of accident and servants’
carelessness, are picked out, to be sold forthwith; the largest and best
of the cinders are also selected, by another party, who sell them to
laundresses, or to braziers (for whose purposes coke would not do so
well); and the next sort of cinders, called the _breeze_, because it is
left after the wind has blown the finer cinders through an upright
sieve, is sold to the brickmakers.
Two other departments, called the “software” and the “hard-ware,” are
very important. The former includes all vegetable and animal
matters—everything that will decompose. These are selected and bagged at
once, and carried off as soon as possible, to be sold as manure for
ploughed land, wheat, barley, &c. Under this head, also, the dead cats
are comprised. They are, generally, the perquisites of the women
searchers. Dealers come to the wharf, or dust-field, every evening; they
give sixpence for a white cat, fourpence for a coloured cat, and for a
black one according to her quality. The “hard-ware” includes all broken
pottery,—pans, crockery, earthenware, oyster-shells, &c., which are sold
to make new roads.
“The bones” are selected with care, and sold to the soap-boiler. He
boils out the fat and marrow first, for special use, and the bones are
then crushed and sold for manure.
Of “rags,” the woollen rags are bagged and sent off for hop-manure; the
white linen rags are washed, and sold to make paper, &c.
The “tin things” are collected and put into an oven with a grating at
the bottom, so that the solder which unites the parts melts, and runs
through into a receiver. This is sold separately; the detached pieces of
tin are then sold to be melted up with old iron, &c.
Bits of old brass, lead, &c., are sold to be melted up separately, or in
the mixture of ores.
All broken glass vessels, as cruets, mustard-pots, tumblers,
wine-glasses, bottles, &c., are sold to the old-glass shops.
As for any articles of jewellery,—silver spoons, forks, thimbles, or
other plate and valuables, they are pocketed off-hand by the first
finder. Coins of gold and silver are often found, and many “coppers.”
Meantime, everybody is hard at work near the base of the great
Dust-heap. A certain number of cart-loads having been raked and searched
for all the different things just described, the whole of it now
undergoes the process of sifting. The men throw up the stuff, and the
women sift it.
“When I was a young girl,” said Peg Dotting—
“That’s a long while ago, Peggy,” interrupted one of the sifters: but
Peg did not hear her.
“When I was quite a young thing,” continued she, addressing old John
Doubleyear, who threw up the dust into her sieve, “it was the fashion to
wear pink roses in the shoes, as bright as that morsel of ribbon Sally
has just picked out of the dust; yes, and sometimes in the hair, too, on
one side of the head, to set off the white powder and salve-stuff. I
never wore one of these head-dresses myself—don’t throw up the dust so
high, John—but I lived only a few doors lower down from those as _did_.
Don’t throw up the dust so high, I tell ’ee—the wind takes it into my
face.”
“Ah! There! What’s that?” suddenly exclaimed little Jem, running, as
fast as his poor withered legs would allow him, towards a fresh heap,
which had just been shot down on the wharf from a dustman’s cart. He
made a dive and a search—then another—then one deeper still. “I’m _sure_
I saw it!” cried he, and again made a dash with both hands into a fresh
place, and began to distribute the ashes and dust and rubbish on every
side, to the great merriment of all the rest.
“What did you see, Jemmy?” asked old Doubleyear, in a compassionate
tone.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the boy, “only it was like a bit of something
made of real gold!”
A fresh burst of laughter from the company assembled followed this
somewhat vague declaration, to which the dustmen added one or two
elegant epithets, expressive of their contempt of the notion that _they_
could have overlooked a bit of anything valuable in the process of
emptying sundry dust-holes, and carting them away.
“Ah,” said one of the sifters, “poor Jem’s always a-fancying something
or other good—but it never comes.”
“Didn’t I find three cats this morning!” cried Jem, “two on ’em white
’uns! How you go on!”
“I meant something quite different from the like o’ that,” said the
other; “I was a-thinking of the rare sights all you three there have
had, one time and another.”
The wind having changed and the day become bright, the party at work all
seemed disposed to be more merry than usual. The foregoing remark
excited the curiosity of several of the sifters, who had recently joined
the “company,” the parties alluded to were requested to favour them with
the recital; and though the request was made with only a half-concealed
irony, still it was all in good-natured pleasantry, and was immediately
complied with. Old Doubleyear spoke first.
“I had a bad night of it with the rats some years ago—they run’d all
over the floor, and over the bed, and one on ’em come’d and guv a squeak
close into my ear—so I couldn’t sleep comfortable. I wouldn’t ha’ minded
a trifle of it; but this was too much of a good thing. So, I got up
before sun-rise, and went out for a walk; and thinking I might as well
be near our work-place, I slowly come’d down this way. I worked in a
brickfield at that time, near the canal yonder. The sun was just arising
up behind the Dust-heap as I got in sight of it; and soon it rose above,
and was very bright; and though I had two eyes then, I was obligated to
shut them both. When I opened them again, the sun was higher up; but in
his haste to get over the Dust-heap, he had dropped something. You may
laugh. I say he had dropped something. Well—I can’t say what it was, in
course—a bit of his-self, I suppose. It was just like him—a bit on him,
I mean—quite as bright—just the same—only not so big. And not up in the
sky, but a-lying and sparkling all on fire upon the Dust-heap. Thinks
I—I was a younger man then by some years than I am now—I’ll go and have
a nearer look. Though you be a bit o’ the sun, maybe you won’t hurt a
poor man. So, I walked towards the Dust-heap, and up I went, keeping the
piece of sparkling fire in sight all the while. But before I got up to
it, the sun went behind a cloud—and as he went out-like, so the young
’un he had dropped, went out arter him. And I had my climb up the heap
for nothing, though I had marked the place vere it lay very percizely.
But there was no signs at all on him, and no morsel left of the light as
had been there. I searched all about; but found nothing ’cept a bit o’
broken glass as had got stuck in the heel of an old shoe. And that’s my
story. But if ever a man saw anything at all, I saw a bit o’ the sun;
and I thank God for it. It was a blessed sight for a poor ragged old man
of three score and ten, which was my age at that time.”
“Now, Peggy!” cried several voices, “tell us what you saw. Peg saw a bit
o’ the moon.”
“No,” said Mrs. Dotting, rather indignantly; “I’m no moon-raker. Not a
sign of the moon was there, nor a spark of a star—the time I speak on.”
“Well—go on, Peggy—go on.”
“I don’t know as I will,” said Peggy.
But being pacified by a few good-tempered, though somewhat humorous,
compliments, she thus favoured them with her little adventure.
“There was no moon, nor stars, nor comet, in the ’versal heavens, nor
lamp nor lantern along the road, when I walked home one winter’s night
from the cottage of Widow Pin, where I had been to tea, with her and
Mrs. Dry, as lived in the almshouses. They wanted Davy, the son of Bill
Davy the milkman, to see me home with the lantern, but I wouldn’t let
him ’cause of his sore throat. Throat!—no, it wasn’t his throat as was
rare sore—it was—no, it wasn’t—yes, it was—it was his toe as was sore.
His big toe. A nail out of his boot had got into it. I _told_ him he’d
be sure to have a bad toe, if he didn’t go to church more regular, but
he wouldn’t listen; and so my words come’d true. But, as I was a-saying,
I wouldn’t let him light me with the lantern by reason of his sore
throat—_toe_, I mean—and as I went along, the night seemed to grow
darker and darker. A straight road, though, and I was so used to it by
day-time, it didn’t matter for the darkness. Hows’ever, when I come’d
near the bottom of the Dust-heap as I had to pass, the great dark heap
was so zackly the same as the night, you couldn’t tell one from t’other.
So, thinks I to myself—_what_ was I thinking of at this moment?—for the
life o’ me I can’t call it to mind; but that’s neither here nor there,
only for this,—it was a something that led me to remember the story of
how the devil goes about like a roaring lion. And while I was a-hoping
he might not be out a roaring that night, what should I see rise out of
one side of the Dust-heap, but a beautiful shining star of a violet
colour. I stood as still—as stock-still as any I don’t-know-what! There
it lay, as beautiful as a new-born babe, all a-shining in the dust! By
degrees I got courage to go a little nearer—and then a little nearer
still—for, says I to myself, I’m a sinful woman, I know, but I have
repented, and do repent constantly of all the sins of my youth, and the
backslidings of my age—which have been numerous; and once I had a very
heavy back-sliding—but that’s neither here nor there. So, as I was
a-saying, having collected all my sinfulness of life, and humbleness
before heaven, into a goodish bit of courage, forward I steps—a little
furder—and a leetle furder more—_un_-til I come’d just up to the
beautiful shining star lying upon the dust. Well, it was a long time I
stood a-looking down at it, before I ventured to do, what I arterwards
did. But _at_ last I did stoop down with both hands slowly—in case it
might burn, or bite—and gathering up a good scoop of ashes as my hands
went along, I took it up, and began a-carrying it home, all shining
before me, and with a soft blue mist rising up round about it. Heaven
forgive me!—I was punished for meddling with what Providence had sent
for some better purpose than to be carried home by an old woman like me,
whom it has pleased heaven to afflict with the loss of one leg, and the
pain, expanse, and inconvenience of a wooden one. Well—I _was_ punished;
covetousness had its reward; for, presently, the violet light got very
pale, and then went out; and when I reached home, still holding in both
hands all I had gathered up, and when I took it to the candle, it had
turned into the red shell of a lobsky’s head, and its two black eyes
poked up at me with a long stare,—and I may say, a strong smell,
too,—enough to knock a poor body down.”
Great applause, and no little laughter, followed the conclusion of old
Peggy’s story, but she did not join in the merriment. She said it was
all very well for young folks to laugh, but at her age she had enough to
do to pray; and she had never said so many prayers, nor with so much
fervency, as she had done since she received the blessed sight of the
blue star on the Dust-heap, and the chastising rod of the lobster’s head
at home.
Little Jem’s turn now came; the poor lad was, however, so excited by the
recollection of what his companions called “Jem’s Ghost,” that he was
unable to describe it in any coherent language. To his imagination it
had been a lovely vision,—the one “bright consummate flower” of his
life, which he treasured up as the most sacred image in his heart. He
endeavoured, in wild and hasty words, to set forth, how that he had been
bred a chimney-sweep; that one Sunday afternoon he had left a set of
companions, most on ’em sweeps, who were all playing at marbles in the
churchyard, and he had wandered to the Dust-heap, where he had fallen
asleep; that he was awoke by a sweet voice in the air, which said
something about some one having lost her way!—that he, being now wide
awake, looked up, and saw with his own eyes a young Angel, with fair
hair and rosy cheeks, and large white wings at her shoulders, floating
about like bright clouds, rise out of the Dust! She had on a garment of
shining crimson, which changed as he looked upon her to shining gold,
then to purple and gold. She then exclaimed, with a joyful smile, “I see
the right way!” and the next moment the Angel was gone!
As the sun was just now very bright and warm for the time of year, and
shining full upon the Dust-heap in its setting, one of the men
endeavoured to raise a laugh at the deformed lad, by asking him if he
didn’t expect to see just such another angel at this minute, who had
lost her way in the field on the other side of the heap; but his jest
failed. The earnestness and devout emotion of the boy to the vision of
reality which his imagination, aided by the hues of sunset, had thus
exalted, were too much for the gross spirit of banter, and the speaker
shrunk back into his dust-shovel, and affected to be very assiduous in
his work as the day was drawing to a close.
Before the day’s work was ended, however, little Jem again had a glimpse
of the prize which had escaped him on the previous occasion. He
instantly darted, hands and head foremost into the mass of cinders and
rubbish, and brought up a black mash of half-burnt parchment, entwined
with vegetable refuse, from which he speedily disengaged an oval frame
of gold, containing a miniature, still protected by its glass, but half
covered with mildew from the damp. He was in ecstasies at the prize.
Even the white cat-skins paled before it. In all probability some of the
men would have taken it from him “to try and find the owner,” but for
the presence and interference of his friends Peg Dotting and old
Doubleyear, whose great age, even among the present company, gave them a
certain position of respect and consideration. So all the rest now went
their way, leaving the three to examine and speculate on the prize.
These Dust-heaps are a wonderful compound of things. A banker’s cheque
for a considerable sum was found in one of them. It was on Herries and
Farquhar, in 1847. But banker’s cheques, or gold and silver articles,
are the least valuable of their ingredients. Among other things, a
variety of useful chemicals are extracted. Their chief value, however,
is for the making of bricks. The fine cinder-dust and ashes are used in
the clay of the bricks, both for the red and grey stacks. Ashes are also
used as fuel between the layers of the clump of bricks, which could not
be burned in that position without them. The ashes burn away, and keep
the bricks open. Enormous quantities are used. In the brickfields at
Uxbridge, near the Drayton Station, one of the brickmakers alone will
frequently contract for fifteen or sixteen thousand chaldron of this
cinder-dust, in one order. Fine coke or coke-dust, affects the market at
times as a rival; but fine coal, or coal-dust, never, because it would
spoil the bricks.
As one of the heroes of our tale had been originally—before his
promotion—a chimney-sweeper, it may be only appropriate to offer a
passing word on the genial subject of soot. Without speculating on its
origin and parentage, whether derived from the cooking of a Christmas
dinner, or the production of the beautiful colours and odours of exotic
plants in a conservatory, it can briefly be shown to possess many
qualities both useful and ornamental.
When soot is first collected, it is called “rough soot,” which, being
sifted, is then called “fine soot,” and is sold to farmers for manuring
and preserving wheat and turnips. This is more especially used in
Herefordshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, &c. It is rather a costly article,
being fivepence per bushel. One contractor sells annually as much as
three thousand bushels; and he gives it as his opinion, that there must
be at least one hundred and fifty times this quantity (four hundred and
fifty thousand bushels per annum) sold in London. Farmer Smutwise, of
Bradford, distinctly asserts that the price of the soot he uses on his
land is returned to him in the straw, with improvement also to the
grain. And we believe him. Lime is used to dilute soot when employed as
a manure. Using it pure will keep off snails, slugs, and caterpillars,
from peas and various other vegetables, as also from dahlias just
shooting up, and other flowers; but we regret to add that we have
sometimes known it kill, or burn up, the things it was intended to
preserve from unlawful eating. In short, it is by no means so safe to
use for any purpose of garden manure, as fine cinders and wood-ashes,
which are good for almost any kind of produce, whether turnips or roses.
Indeed, we should like to have one fourth or fifth part of our
garden-beds composed of excellent stuff of this kind. From all that has
been said, it will have become very intelligible why these Dust-heaps
are so valuable. Their worth, however, varies not only with their
magnitude (the quality of all of them is much the same), but with the
demand. About the year 1820, the Marylebone Dust-heap produced between
four thousand and five thousand pounds. In 1832, St. George’s paid Mr.
Stapleton five hundred pounds a year, not to leave the Heap standing,
but to carry it away. Of course he was only too glad to be paid highly
for selling his Dust.
But to return. The three friends having settled to their satisfaction
the amount of money they should probably obtain by the sale of the
golden miniature-frame, and finished the castles which they had built
with it in the air, the frame was again enfolded in the sound part of
the parchment, the rags and rottenness of the law were cast away, and up
they rose to bend their steps homeward to the little hovel where Peggy
lived, she having invited the others to tea that they might talk yet
more fully over the wonderful good luck that had befallen them.
“Why, if there isn’t a man’s head in the canal!” suddenly cried little
Jem. “Looky there!—isn’t that a man’s head?—Yes; it’s a drowndedd man?”
“A drowndedd man, as I live!” ejaculated old Doubleyear.
“Let’s get him out, and see!” cried Peggy. “Perhaps the poor soul’s not
quite gone.”
Little Jem scuttled off to the edge of the canal, followed by the two
old people. As soon as the body had floated nearer, Jem got down into
the water, and stood breast-high, vainly measuring his distance with one
arm out, to see if he could reach some part of the body as it was
passing. As the attempt was evidently without a chance, old Doubleyear
managed to get down into the water behind him, and holding him by one
hand, the boy was thus enabled to make a plunge forward as the body was
floating by. He succeeded in reaching it; but the jerk was too much for
the weakness of his aged companion, who was pulled forwards into the
canal. A loud cry burst from both of them, which was yet more loudly
echoed by Peggy on the bank. Doubleyear and the boy were now struggling
almost in the middle of the canal with the body of the man swirling
about between them. They would inevitably have been drowned, had not old
Peggy caught up a long dust-rake that was close at hand—scrambled down
up to her knees in the canal—clawed hold of the struggling group with
the teeth of the rake, and fairly brought the whole to land. Jem was
first up the bank, and helped up his two heroic companions; after which,
with no small difficulty, they contrived to haul the body of the
stranger out of the water. Jem at once recognised in him the forlorn
figure of the man who had passed by in the morning, looking so sadly
into the canal, as he walked along.
It is a fact well known to those who work in the vicinity of these great
Dust-heaps, that when the ashes have been warmed by the sun, cats and
kittens that have been taken out of the canal and buried a few inches
beneath the surface, have usually revived; and the same has often
occurred in the case of men. Accordingly the three, without a moment’s
hesitation, dragged the body along to the Dust-heap, where they made a
deep trench, in which they placed it, covering it all over up to the
neck.
“There now,” ejaculated Peggy, sitting down with a long puff to recover
her breath, “he’ll lie very comfortable, whether or no.”
“Couldn’t lie better,” said old Doubleyear, “even if he knew it.”
The three now seated themselves close by, to await the result.
“I thought I’d a lost him,” said Jem, “and myself too; and when I pulled
Daddy in arter me, I guv us all three up for this world.”
“Yes,” said Doubleyear, “it must have gone queer with us if Peggy had
not come in with the rake. How d’ yee feel, old girl; for you’ve had a
narrow escape too. I wonder we were not too heavy for you, and so pulled
you in to go with us.”
“The Lord be praised!” fervently ejaculated Peggy, pointing towards the
pallid face that lay surrounded with ashes. A convulsive twitching
passed over the features, the lips trembled, the ashes over the breast
heaved, and a low moaning sound, which might have come from the bottom
of the canal, was heard. Again the moaning sound, and then the eyes
opened, but closed almost immediately. “Poor dear soul!” whispered
Peggy, “how he suffers in surviving. Lift him up a little. Softly. Don’t
be afeared. We’re only your good angels, like—only poor
cinder-sifters—don’tee be afeared.”
By various kindly attentions and manœuvres such as these poor people had
been accustomed to practise on those who were taken out of the canal,
the unfortunate gentleman was gradually brought to his senses. He gazed
about him, as well he might—now looking in the anxious, though begrimed,
faces of the three strange objects, all in their “weeds” and dust—and
then up at the huge Dust-heap, over which the moon was now slowly
rising.
“Land of quiet Death!” murmured he, faintly, “or land of Life, as dark
and still—I have passed from one into the other; but which of ye I am
now in, seems doubtful to my senses.”
“Here we are, poor gentleman,” cried Peggy, “here we are, all friends
about you. How did ’ee tumble into the canal?”
“The Earth, then, once more!” said the stranger, with a deep sigh. “I
know where I am, now. I remember this great dark hill of ashes—like
Death’s kingdom, full of all sorts of strange things, and put to many
uses.”
“Where do you live?” asked Old Doubleyear; “shall we try and take you
home, Sir?”
The stranger shook his head mournfully. All this time, little Jem had
been assiduously employed in rubbing his feet and then his hands; in
doing which the piece of dirty parchment, with the miniature-frame,
dropped out of his breast-pocket. A good thought instantly struck Peggy.
“Run, Jemmy dear—run with that golden thing to Mr. Spikechin, the
pawnbroker’s—get something upon it directly, and buy some nice
brandy—and some Godfrey’s cordial—and a blanket, Jemmy—and call a coach,
and get up outside on it, and make the coachee drive back here as fast
as you can.”
But before Jemmy could attend to this, Mr. Waterhouse, the stranger
whose life they had preserved, raised himself on one elbow, and extended
his hand to the miniature-frame. Directly he looked at it, he raised
himself higher up—turned it about once or twice—then caught up the piece
of parchment, and uttering an ejaculation, which no one could have
distinguished either as of joy or of pain, sank back fainting.
In brief, this parchment was a portion of the title-deeds he had lost;
and though it did not prove sufficient to enable him to recover his
fortune, it brought his opponent to a composition, which gave him an
annuity for life. Small as this was, he determined that these poor
people, who had so generously saved his life at the risk of their own,
should be sharers in it. Finding that what they most desired was to have
a cottage in the neighbourhood of the Dust-heap, built large enough for
all three to live together, and keep a cow, Mr. Waterhouse paid a visit
to Manchester Square, where the owner of the property resided. He told
his story, as far as was needful, and proposed to purchase the field in
question.
The great Dust-Contractor was much amused, and his daughter—a very
accomplished young lady—was extremely interested. So the matter was
speedily arranged to the satisfaction and pleasure of all parties. The
acquaintance, however, did not end here. Mr. Waterhouse renewed his
visits very frequently, and finally made proposals for the young lady’s
hand, she having already expressed her hopes of a propitious answer from
her father.
“Well, Sir,” said the latter, “you wish to marry my daughter, and she
wishes to marry you. You are a gentleman and a scholar, but you have no
money. My daughter is what you see, and she has no money. But I have;
and therefore, as she likes you, and I like you, I’ll make you both an
offer. I will give my daughter twenty thousand pounds,—or you shall have
the Dust-heap. Choose!”
Mr. Waterhouse was puzzled and amused, and referred the matter entirely
to the young lady. But she was for having the money, and no trouble. She
said the Dust-heap might be worth much, but they did not understand the
business. “Very well,” said her father, laughing, “then, there’s the
money.”
This was the identical Dust-heap, as we know from authentic information,
which was subsequently sold for forty thousand pounds, and was exported
to Russia to rebuild Moscow.
* * * * *
Monthly Supplement of ‘HOUSEHOLD WORDS,’
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