The Project Gutenberg eBook of Household words, No. 20, August 10, 1850
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Title: Household words, No. 20, August 10, 1850
A weekly journal
Editor: Charles Dickens
Release date: March 11, 2026 [eBook #78185]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Bradbury & Evans, 1850
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78185
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. 20, AUGUST 10, 1850 ***
“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.
HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
A WEEKLY JOURNAL.
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.
N^{o.} 20.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._
A DETECTIVE POLICE PARTY.
The fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer, with the strange air of
simplicity, began, with a rustic smile, and in a soft, wheedling tone of
voice, to relate the Butcher’s Story, thus:
“It’s just about six years ago, now, since information was given at
Scotland Yard of there being extensive robberies of lawns and silks
going on, at some wholesale houses in the City. Directions were given
for the business being looked into; and Straw, and Fendall, and me, we
were all in it.”
“When you received your instructions,” said we, “you went away, and held
a sort of Cabinet Council together?”
The smooth-faced officer coaxingly replied, “Ye-es. Just so. We turned
it over among ourselves a good deal. It appeared, when we went into it,
that the goods were sold by the receivers extraordinarily cheap—much
cheaper than they could have been if they had been honestly come by. The
receivers were in the trade, and kept capital shops—establishments of
the first respectability—one of ’em at the West End, one down in
Westminster. After a lot of watching and inquiry, and this and that
among ourselves, we found that the job was managed, and the purchases of
the stolen goods made, at a little public-house near Smithfield, down by
Saint Bartholomew’s; where the Warehouse Porters, who were the thieves,
took ’em for that purpose, don’t you see? and made appointments to meet
the people that went between themselves and the receivers. This
public-house was principally used by journeymen butchers from the
country, out of place, and in want of situations; so, what did we do,
but—ha, ha, ha!—we agreed that I should be dressed up like a butcher
myself, and go and live there!”
Never, surely, was a faculty of observation better brought to bear upon
a purpose, than that which picked out this officer for the part. Nothing
in all creation, could have suited him better. Even while he spoke, he
became a greasy, sleepy, shy, good-natured, chuckle-headed,
unsuspicious, and confiding young butcher. His very hair seemed to have
suet in it, as he made it smooth upon his head, and his fresh complexion
to be lubricated by large quantities of animal food.
——“So I—ha, ha, ha!” (always with the confiding snigger of the foolish
young butcher) “so I dressed myself in the regular way, made up a little
bundle of clothes, and went to the public-house, and asked if I could
have a lodging there? They says, ‘yes, you can have a lodging here,’ and
I got a bedroom, and settled myself down in the tap. There was a number
of people about the place, and coming backwards and forwards to the
house; and first one says, and then another says, ‘Are you from the
country, young man?’ ‘Yes,’ I says, ‘I am. I’m come out of
Northamptonshire, and I’m quite lonely here, for I don’t know London at
all, and it’s such a mighty big town?’ ‘It _is_ a big town,’ they says.
‘Oh, it’s a _very_ big town!’ I says. ‘Really and truly I never was in
such a town. It quite confuses of me!’—and all that, you know.
“When some of the Journeymen Butchers that used the house, found that I
wanted a place, they says, ‘Oh, we’ll get you a place!’ And they
actually took me to a sight of places, in Newgate Market, Newport
Market, Clare, Carnaby—I don’t know where all. But the wages was—ha, ha,
ha!—was not sufficient, and I never could suit myself, don’t you see?
Some of the queer frequenters of the house, were a little suspicious of
me at first, and I was obliged to be very cautious indeed, how I
communicated with Straw or Fendall. Sometimes, when I went out,
pretending to stop and look into the shop-windows, and just casting my
eye round, I used to see some of ’em following me; but, being perhaps
better accustomed than they thought for, to that sort of thing, I used
to lead ’em on as far as I thought necessary or convenient—sometimes a
long way—and then turn sharp round, and meet ’em, and say, ‘Oh, dear,
how glad I am to come upon you so fortunate! This London’s such a place,
I’m blowed if I an’t lost again!’ And then we’d go back all together, to
the public-house, and—ha, ha, ha! and smoke our pipes, don’t you see?
“They were very attentive to me, I am sure. It was a common thing, while
I was living there, for some of ’em to take me out, and show me London.
They showed me the Prisons—showed me Newgate—and when they showed me
Newgate, I stops at the place where the Porters pitch their loads, and
says, ‘Oh dear,’ ‘is this where they hang the men! Oh Lor!’ ‘That!’ they
says, ‘what a simple cove he is! _That_ an’t it!’ And then, they pointed
out which _was_ it, and I says ‘Lor!’ and they says, ‘Now you’ll know it
agen, won’t you?’ And I said I thought I should if I tried hard—and I
assure you I kept a sharp look out for the City Police when we were out
in this way, for if any of ’em had happened to know me, and had spoke to
me, it would have been all up in a minute. However, by good luck such a
thing never happened, and all went on quiet: though the difficulties I
had in communicating with my brother officers were quite extraordinary.
“The stolen goods that were brought to the public-house, by the
Warehouse Porters, were always disposed of in a back parlor. For a long
time, I never could get into this parlor, or see what was done there. As
I sat smoking my pipe, like an innocent young chap, by the tap-room
fire, I’d hear some of the parties to the robbery, as they came in and
out, say softly to the landlord, ‘Who’s that? What does _he_ do here?’
‘Bless your soul,’ says the landlord, ‘He’s only a’—ha, ha, ha!—‘he’s
only a green young fellow from the country, as is looking for a
butcher’s sitiwation. Don’t mind _him_!’ So, in course of time, they
were so convinced of my being green, and got to be so accustomed to me,
that I was as free of the parlor as any of ’em, and I have seen as much
as Seventy Pounds worth of fine lawn sold there, in one night, that was
stolen from a warehouse in Friday Street. After the sale, the buyers
always stood treat—hot supper, or dinner, or what not—and they’d say on
those occasions ‘Come on, Butcher! Put your best leg foremost, young
’un, and walk into it!’ Which I used to do—and hear, at table, all
manner of particulars that it was very important for us Detectives to
know.
“This went on for ten weeks. I lived in the public-house all the time,
and never was out of the Butcher’s dress—except in bed. At last, when I
had followed seven of the thieves, and set ’em to rights—that’s an
expression of ours, don’t you see, by which I mean to say that I traced
’em, and found out where the robberies were done, and all about
’em—Straw, and Fendall, and I, gave one another the office, and at a
time agreed upon, a descent was made upon the public-house, and the
apprehensions effected. One of the first things the officers did, was to
collar me—for the parties to the robbery weren’t to suppose yet, that I
was anything but a Butcher—on which the landlord cries out, ‘Don’t take
_him_,’ he says, ‘whatever you do! He’s only a poor young chap from the
country, and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!’ However, they—ha, ha,
ha!—they took me, and pretended to search my bedroom, where nothing was
found but an old fiddle belonging to the landlord, that had got there
somehow or another. But, it entirely changed the landlord’s opinion, for
when it was produced, he says ‘My fiddle! The Butcher’s a pur-loiner! I
give him into custody for the robbery of a musical instrument!’
“The man that had stolen the goods in Friday Street was not taken yet.
He had told me, in confidence, that he had his suspicions there was
something wrong (on account of the City Police having captured one of
the party), and that he was going to make himself scarce. I asked him,
‘Where do you mean to go, Mr. Shepherdson?’ ‘Why, Butcher,’ says he,
‘the Setting Moon, in the Commercial Road, is a snug house, and I shall
hang out there for a time. I shall call myself Simpson, which appears to
me to be a modest sort of a name. Perhaps you’ll give us a look in,
Butcher?’ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘I think I _will_ give you a call’—which I
fully intended, don’t you see, because, of course, he was to be taken! I
went over to the Setting Moon next day, with a brother officer, and
asked at the bar for Simpson. They pointed out his room, upstairs. As we
were going up, he looks down over the bannisters, and calls out,
‘Halloa, Butcher! is that you?’ ‘Yes, it’s me. How do you find
yourself?’ ‘Bobbish,’ he says; ‘but who’s that with you?’ ‘It’s only a
young man, that’s a friend of mine,’ I says. ‘Come along, then,’ says
he; ‘any friend of the Butcher’s is as welcome as the Butcher!’ So, I
made my friend acquainted with him, and we took him into custody.
“You have no idea, Sir, what a sight it was, in Court, when they first
knew that I wasn’t a Butcher, after all! I wasn’t produced at the first
examination, when there was a remand; but I was, at the second. And when
I stepped into the box, in full police uniform, and the whole party saw
how they had been done, actually a groan of horror and dismay proceeded
from ’em in the dock!
“At the Old Bailey, when their trials came on, Mr. Clarkson was engaged
for the defence, and he _couldn’t_ make out how it was, about the
Butcher. He thought, all along, it was a real Butcher. When the counsel
for the prosecution said, ‘I will now call before you, gentlemen, the
Police-officer,’ meaning myself, Mr. Clarkson says, ‘Why Police-officer?
Why more Police-officers? I don’t want Police. We have had a great deal
too much of the Police. I want the Butcher! However, Sir, he had the
Butcher and the Police-officer, both in one. Out of seven prisoners
committed for trial, five were found guilty, and some of ’em were
transported. The respectable firm at the West End got a term of
imprisonment; and that’s the Butcher’s Story!”
The story done, the chuckle-headed Butcher again resolved himself into
the smooth-faced Detective. But, he was so extremely tickled by their
having taken him about, when he was that Dragon in disguise, to show him
London, that he could not help reverting to that point in his narrative;
and gently repeating, with the Butcher snigger, “‘Oh, dear!’ I says, ‘is
that where they hang the men? Oh, Lor!’ ‘_That!_’ says they. ‘What a
simple cove he is!’”
It being now late, and the party very modest in their fear of being too
diffuse, there were some tokens of separation; when Serjeant Dornton,
the soldierly-looking man, said, looking round him with a smile:
“Before we break up, Sir, perhaps you might have some amusement in
hearing of the Adventures of a Carpet Bag. They are very short; and, I
think, curious.”
We welcomed the Carpet Bag, as cordially as Mr. Shepherdson welcomed the
false Butcher at the Setting Moon. Serjeant Dornton proceeded:
“In 1847, I was dispatched to Chatham, in search of one Mesheck, a Jew.
He had been carrying on, pretty heavily, in the bill-stealing way,
getting acceptances from young men of good connexions (in the army
chiefly), on pretence of discount, and bolting with the same.
“Mesheck was off, before I got to Chatham. All I could learn about him
was, that he had gone, probably to London, and had with him—a Carpet
Bag.
“I came back to town, by the last train from Blackwall, and made
inquiries concerning a Jew passenger with—a Carpet Bag.
“The office was shut up, it being the last train. There were only two or
three porters left. Looking after a Jew with a Carpet Bag, on the
Blackwall Railway, which was then the high road to a great Military
Depôt, was worse than looking after a needle in a hayrick. But it
happened that one of these porters had carried, for a certain Jew, to a
certain public-house, a certain—Carpet Bag.
“I went to the public-house, but the Jew had only left his luggage there
for a few hours, and had called for it in a cab, and taken it away. I
put such questions there, and to the porter, as I thought prudent, and
got at this description of—the Carpet Bag.
“It was a bag which had, on one side of it, worked in worsted, a green
parrot on a stand. A green parrot on a stand was the means by which to
identify that—Carpet Bag.
“I traced Mesheck, by means of this green parrot on a stand, to
Cheltenham, to Birmingham, to Liverpool, to the Atlantic Ocean. At
Liverpool he was too many for me. He had gone to the United States, and
I gave up all thoughts of Mesheck, and likewise of his—Carpet Bag.
“Many months afterwards—near a year afterwards—there was a Bank in
Ireland robbed of seven thousand pounds, by a person of the name of
Doctor Dundey, who escaped to America; from which country some of the
stolen notes came home. He was supposed to have bought a farm in New
Jersey. Under proper management, that estate could be seized and sold,
for the benefit of the parties he had defrauded. I was sent off to
America for this purpose.
“I landed at Boston. I went on to New York. I found that he had lately
changed New York paper-money for New Jersey paper-money, and had banked
cash in New Brunswick. To take this Doctor Dundey, it was necessary to
entrap him into the State of New York, which required a deal of artifice
and trouble. At one time, he couldn’t be drawn into an appointment. At
another time, he appointed to come to meet me, and a New York officer,
on a pretext I made; and then his children had the measles. At last, he
came, per steamboat, and I took him, and lodged him in a New York Prison
called the Tombs; which I dare say you know, Sir?”
Editorial acknowledgment to that effect.
“I went to the Tombs, on the morning after his capture, to attend the
examination before the magistrate. I was passing through the
magistrate’s private room, when, happening to look round me to take
notice of the place, as we generally have a habit of doing, I clapped my
eyes, in one corner, on a—Carpet Bag.
“What did I see upon that Carpet Bag, if you’ll believe me, but a green
parrot on a stand, as large as life!
“‘That Carpet Bag, with the representation of a green parrot on a
stand,’ said I, ‘belongs to an English Jew, named Aaron Mesheck, and to
no other man, alive or dead!’
“I give you my word the New York Police-officers were doubled up with
surprise.
“‘How do you ever come to know that?’ said they.
“‘I think I ought to know that green parrot by this time,’ said I; ‘for
I have had as pretty a dance after that bird, at home, as ever I had, in
all my life!’”
“And _was_ it Mesheck’s?” we submissively inquired.
“Was it, Sir? Of course it was! He was in custody for another offence,
in that very identical Tombs, at that very identical time. And, more
than that! Some memoranda, relating to the fraud for which I had vainly
endeavoured to take him, were found to be, at that moment, lying in that
very same individual—Carpet Bag!”
Such are the curious coincidences and such is the peculiar ability,
always sharpening and being improved by practice, and always adapting
itself to every variety of circumstances, and opposing itself to every
new device that perverted ingenuity can invent, for which this important
social branch of the public service is remarkable! For ever on the
watch, with their wits stretched to the utmost, these officers have,
from day to day and year to year, to set themselves against every
novelty of trickery and dexterity that the combined imaginations of all
the lawless rascals in England can devise, and to keep pace with every
such invention that comes out. In the Courts of Justice, the materials
of thousands of such stories as we have narrated—often elevated into the
marvellous and romantic, by the circumstances of the case—are dryly
compressed into the set phrase, “in consequence of information I
received, I did so and so.” Suspicion was to be directed, by careful
inference and deduction, upon the right person; the right person was to
be taken, wherever he had gone, or whatever he was doing to avoid
detection: he is taken; there he is at the bar; that is enough. From
information I, the officer, received, I did it; and, according to the
custom in these cases, I say no more.
These games of chess, played with live pieces, are played before small
audiences, and are chronicled nowhere. The interest of the game supports
the player. Its results are enough for Justice. To compare great things
with small, suppose LEVERRIER or ADAMS informing the public that from
information he had received he had discovered a new planet; or COLUMBUS
informing the public of his day that from information he had received,
he had discovered a new continent; so the Detectives inform it that they
have discovered a new fraud or an old offender, and the process is
unknown.
Thus, at midnight, closed the proceedings of our curious and interesting
party. But one other circumstance finally wound up the evening, after
our Detective guests had left us. One of the sharpest among them, and
the officer best acquainted with the Swell Mob, had his pocket picked,
going home!
HEALTH BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT.
There was a story current in the city of Mosul, about the time that the
first edition of “The Hundred and One Nights” began to be popular in
Oriental society, of a certain Prince who was taken ill of the plague.
Though his retinue was large, he was the only person who was in imminent
danger. The Court physician was also at death’s door, and a strange
doctor was sent for, who pronounced the Great Man to be in a fearful
state of debility, but retired without prescribing. The Prince waited
long and anxiously for remedies, but in vain. He clapped his hands to
summon a slave. “Where,” he exclaimed, “is the physic?”
“Sun of the Earth,” exclaimed the Nubian, “it is all taken!”
“And who has dared to swallow the medicine designed for the anointed of
Allah?”
“As it is written by the Prophet,” returned Hassan, “‘when the sheik
sickens, his slaves droop.’ Thy whole household was sick, and clamoured
for medicine; and, lo, the man of drugs straightway drenched them
therewith, ordering us all, on pain of the Prophet’s curse, not to give
thee so much as a single grain of rhubarb.”
“Breath of Mahomet,” ejaculated his Mightiness; “am I then to die, and
are my slaves to live?”
When a Mussulman is puzzled what to say, he invariably exclaims, “Allah
is merciful;” which was Hassan’s consolation.
“Let the wretched mediciner appear!” commanded the Prince.
The doctor came. “Illustrious father of a hundred generations!” said the
general practitioner, “thine own physician only could cure thee, and he
lies on his pallet a helpless being. _I_ may not so much as look at thy
transcendant tongue, or feel thine omnipotent pulse.”
“Wherefore? O licenciate of the Destroyer!”
“Inasmuch as I may not infringe the _vested rights_ of thine own special
and appointed physician. The law—even that of the Medes and Persians,
which never altereth—forbids me. Thy slaves I _may_ heal, seeing that no
vested rights in them exist; but——”
Here the Prince interrupted the speaker with a hollow groan, and sank on
his pillow in despair.
The Arabic manuscript, from which this affecting incident was
translated, ends with these words—“and the Prince died.”
This story is evidently a foreshadowing of what has recently happened in
reference to the metropolis of this country and the Public Health Act.
London was _in extremis_ from the effects of density of population,
filth, bad air, bad water, the window-tax, and deficient drainage. It
called in certain sanitary doctors—the regular consulting body, namely,
the Government, being too weak to afford the slightest assistance. The
result was, that a prescription, in the form of the Public Health Act,
was concocted,—but was made applicable to every other member of the
great retinue of towns, _except_ to the Imperial City; which was
exempted in consequence of the existing Vested Rights in crowded houses,
deadly stenches, putrid water, foggy courts, and cesspools. “Although,”
in the words of a resolution, passed at the meeting which formed the
Metropolitan Sanitary Association, “the strenuous efforts made in the
metropolitan districts to procure a sanitary enactment mainly
contributed to the passing of the Public Health Act; yet these districts
were the only parts excluded from the benefits of that enactment. This
exclusion has led to much misery and a great sacrifice of life.”
This exception was so monstrous, that even the Corporation of the City
of London took powers under their own Sewers’ Act for the preservation
of the health of the people dwelling within the City boundary,—who
number no more than one hundred and twenty-five thousand out of the two
millions of us who are congregated in civic and suburban London. The
remaining one million eight hundred thousand are left to be stifled or
diseased at the good pleasure of Vested Interests. Indeed, it is
ascertained that a quarter of a million of individuals absolutely _do_
die every year from the want of such a sanitary police as the Public
Health Act, amended by some few additional powers, would establish. What
number of persons are really sent out of the world from preventable
causes. It is also true that those causes can be efficiently removed for
about a halfpenny per head a week; or threepence per week per house; or
about eight times less than those who die unnecessarily cost the public
in hospitals, poor’s rates, and burial. In the “Journal of Public
Health” for November, 1848, and August, 1849, it is shown by elaborate
tables, that the direct cost of, and estimated money loss through,
typhus fever alone in the metropolis, amounted during the four years,
1843–1847, to one million three hundred and twenty-eight thousand
pounds, or two hundred and sixty-five thousand, six hundred pounds
annually. This sum is exclusive of the amounts contributed for the
purchase and maintenance of fever hospitals. For 1848, when the
mortality from typhus had increased to three thousand five hundred and
sixty-nine, the direct cost and money loss was estimated at four hundred
and forty thousand pounds.
This cold-blooded way of putting the really appalling state of the case
is, alas! the only successful mode of appealing to that hard-headed,
though sometimes soft-hearted, periphrasis, John Bull, when he is under
no special exciting cause of dread. His heart is only reached through
his pocket, except when put in a state of alarm. Cry “Cholera!” or any
other frightful conjuration, and he bestirs himself. To cholera we owe
the few sanitary measures now in force; but which were passed by the
House—as a coward may seem courageous—in its agonies of fright. The
moment, however, Cholera bulletins ceased to be issued, John buttoned up
his pockets tighter than ever, and Parliament was dumb regarding public
health, except to undo one or two good things it had done. The inflated
promises of the legislature collapsed into thin air, on the very day the
danger was withdrawn. It was the legend over again of the nameless
gentleman who, when he was sick, swore he would turn a monk; but when he
got well “the devil a monk was he.” Ever since, sanitary legislation has
been as much a dead letter in the Metropolis, as if the deadly condition
of some of its districts had never been whispered between the wind and
the nobility of Westminster, in Parliament assembled.
It has no effect upon unreasoning John Bull to tell him that, on an
average, cholera does not devour a tithe of the victims which fever,
consumption, and other preventible diseases make away with. Cholera
comes upon him like an ogre, eating its victims all at once, and he
quakes with terror; the daily, deadly destruction of human beings by
“every-day” diseases, he takes no heed of. Take him, however, a slate
and pencil; count costs to him; show that cholera costs so much; that
ordinary, contagious, but preventible diseases, cost so much more; and
that prevention is so many hundred per cent. cheaper than the cheapest
cures, he begins to be amenable to reason. Nothing but pocket
arithmetic, terror, or melo-dramatic appeals to his soft-hearted
sympathy, moves John Bull.
In order to supply the best of these exercitations by the accumulation
of carefully sifted, and well authenticated facts, and sound reasonings;
the results of scientific investigations, and of a large range of
pathological statistics, the Metropolitan Sanitary Association has been
for some months—like another “Ole Joe”—knocking at the door of Old John.
Whether the heavy old gentleman will soon open it to conviction and
improvement depends, we think, very much upon the energy and liberality
with which that society is supported and seconded by the public; for
whose sole benefit it was called into existence. To the exertions of
many of its leading members, if not to the collective body itself, John
Bull has responded, by admitting into his premises the Extra-Mural
Interment Bill, and we think he is just now holding his door a-jar to
catch the Water Supply Bill, which it is hoped he will admit, and pass
through That House next session. Meantime we, in common with the
association aforesaid, beg his attention to a few other points of
improvement:—
The adage “as free as air,” has become obsolete by Act of Parliament.
Neither air nor light have been free since the imposition of the
window-tax. We are obliged to pay for what nature supplies lavishly to
all, at so much per window per year; and the poor who cannot afford the
expense, are stinted in two of the most urgent necessities of life. The
effects produced by a deprivation of them are not immediate, and are
therefore unheeded. When a poor man or woman in a dark, close, smoky
house is laid up with scrofula, consumption, water in the head, wasting,
or a complication of epidemic diseases, nobody thinks of attributing the
illness to the right cause;—which may be a want of light and air. If he
or she were struck down by a flash of lightning, there would be an
immediate outcry against the authorities, whoever they may be, for not
providing proper lightning conductors; but because the poison—generated
by the absence of light and air—is not seen at work, the victim dies
unheeded, and the window-tax, which shuts out the remedies, is continued
without a murmur. In illustration of these facts, we may quote a little
information respecting the tadpole, an humble animal, which—if the
author of “Vestiges of Creation” be any authority and the theory of
development be more than a childish dream—was the progenitor of man
himself. The passage is from the report of the half-fledged Health of
Towns’ Commission:—
“If the young of some of the lower tribes of creatures are supplied with
their proper food, and if all the other conditions necessary for their
nourishment are maintained, while at the same time light is wholly
excluded from them, their development is stopped; they no longer undergo
the metamorphosis through which they pass from imperfect into perfect
beings; the tadpole, for example, is unable to change its
water-breathing apparatus, fitted for its first stage of existence, into
the air-breathing apparatus, with the rudiment of which it is furnished,
and which is intended to adapt it for a higher life, namely, for
respiration in air. In this imperfect state it continues to live; it
even attains an enormous bulk, for such a creature in its state of
transition, but it is unable to pass out of its transitional state; it
remains permanently an imperfect being, and is doomed to pass a
perpetual life in water, instead of attaining maturity and passing its
mature life in air.”
It may give some support to the theory of tadpole development above
mentioned, to add, that the same cause produces the very same effects
upon human beings; upon human mothers, and upon human children. Human
mothers living in dark cellars produce an unusual proportion of
defective children. Go into the narrow streets, and the dark lanes,
courts, and alleys of our splendid cities, there you will see an unusual
number of deformed people, men, women, and children, but particularly
children. In some cells under the fortifications of Lisle, a number of
poor people took up their abode; the proportion of defective infants
produced by them became so great, that it was deemed necessary to issue
an order commanding these cells to be shut up. The window duties
multiply cells like those of the fortifications of Lisle, in London, in
Liverpool, in Manchester, in Bristol, and in every city and town in
England by hundreds and by thousands, and with the same result; but the
cells here are not shut up, nor is the cause that produces them removed.
Even in cases in which the absence of light is not so complete as to
produce a result thus definite and striking, the effects of the
privation are still abundantly manifest in the pale and sickly
complexion, and the enfeebled and stunted frame; nor can it be
otherwise, since, from the essential constitution of organised beings,
light is as necessary to the development of the animal as it is to the
growth of the plant. The diseases the want of it produces are of long
continuance, and waste the means of life before death results; they may
therefore be characterised as pauperising diseases. As to death itself,
it has been calculated that nearly ten thousand persons perish annually
in London alone from diseases solely produced by an impeded circulation
of air and admission of light.
This prodigal waste of health, strength, and of life itself, falls much
more heavily on the poor, than the mere fiscal burden, imposed by the
tax, falls on the richer classes. Inasmuch, then, as health is the
capital of the working man, whatever be the necessities of the state,
_nothing_ can justify a tax affecting the health of the people, and
especially the health of the labouring community, whose bodily strength
constitutes their wealth, and oftentimes their only possession. In
conclusion we may say, without wishing to libel any respectable Act of
Parliament, that the Window-Tax kills countless human beings in tens of
thousands every year.
The next improvement which must speedily be pushed under John Bull’s
very nose, is the removal of the nuisances which abound in crowded
neighbourhoods from Land’s End to John o’Groats. The back-yards of
houses in poor neighbourhoods are so many gardens, sown broadcast with
the seeds of disease, and but too plentifully manured for abundant and
continual crops. When rain falls on the surface of these parterres of
poison, and is afterwards evaporated by the heat of the sun, there rises
a malaria, intensified by decomposing refuse, which, inhaled into human
lungs, engenders consumption, ending in the parish workhouse and death.
It is a fact that the surfaces of some of the back-yards in London have
been raised six feet by successive accumulations of vegetable and animal
refuse. We must have no more such accumulations; offal of every kind
must be removed daily by Act of Parliament.
Ill-kept stables, which cause horses to become blind, and men to die of
typhus, must be reformed; cow-feeding sheds, which produce diseased milk
and offensive refuse, must be abolished, and milk supplied per railway
from the country; disgusting and noxious manufactures, such as are
carried on a few yards west of Lambeth Palace, on the river’s bank, must
be removed to consort with knackers’ yards, in places remote from human
habitations.
The strong bar which John Bull opposes to such improvements is the dread
of the Centralisation, which, he says, carrying them into effect would
occasion. Local Government, he insists, is the great bulwark of the
British Constitution. No bill is ever brought into Parliament for the
good of the people,—that is well known,—but is passed for the sake of
the places it creates, and the patronage it gives. Now, if we allow a
practicable bill for the removal of these nuisances to pass, a swarm of
commissioners, secretaries, clerks, inspectors, inquisitors, dustmen,
and scavengers will be let loose upon the contented public, to supersede
snug, comfortable, local boards, and to ruin innocent contractors. “Is,”
John asks vehemently, “this to be borne?” and answers himself with equal
emphasis, “Decidedly not. We prefer the nuisances.” But common sense
steps in to reply, that as nuisances are a matter of taste, if every
board could confine its own nuisances to its own parish so as not to
take its neighbours by the nose, there would, perhaps, be no harm in
letting it doze and wallow in its own filth as long as its taste would
dictate. But as this is impossible, centralisation or no centralisation,
Government, or somebody else, _must_ interfere to protect the
extra-parochial lieges from destruction, by upsetting the Board and
removing the rest of the nuisances.
A practical example of the impossibility of confining noxious nuisances
to the boundaries whence they originate, is afforded in the immediate
neighbourhood of one of the most beautiful parts of the metropolis. In a
neighbourhood studded thickly with elegant villas and mansions—namely,
Bayswater and Notting Hill, in the parish of Kensington—is a plague spot
scarcely equalled for its insalubrity by any other in London: it is
called the Potteries. It comprises some seven or eight acres, with about
two hundred and sixty houses (if the term can be applied to such
hovels), and a population of nine hundred or one thousand. The
occupation of the inhabitants is principally pig-fattening; many
hundreds of pigs, ducks, and fowls are kept in an incredible state of
filth. Dogs abound for the purpose of guarding the swine. The atmosphere
is still further polluted by the process of fat-boiling. In these hovels
discontent, dirt, filth, and misery, are unsurpassed by anything known
even in Ireland. Water is supplied to only a small proportion of the
houses. There are foul ditches, open sewers, and defective drains,
smelling most offensively, and generating large quantities of poisonous
gases; stagnant water is found at every turn, not a drop of _clean_
water can be obtained,—all is charged to saturation with putrescent
matter. Wells have been sunk on some of the premises, but they have
become, in many instances, useless from organic matter soaking into
them; in some of the wells the water is perfectly black and fetid. The
paint on the window frames has become black from the action of
sulphuretted hydrogen gas. Nearly all the inhabitants look unhealthy,
the women especially complain of sickness, and want of appetite; their
eyes are shrunken, and their skin shrivelled.
The poisonous influence of this pestilential locality extends far and
wide. Some twelve or thirteen hundred feet off there is a row of clean
houses, called Crafter Terrace; the situation, though rather low, is
open and airy. On Saturday and Sunday, the 8th and 9th of September,
1849, the inhabitants complained of an intolerable stench, the wind then
blowing directly upon the Terrace from the Potteries. Up to this time,
there had been no case of cholera among the inhabitants; but the next
day the disease broke out virulently, and on the following day, the 11th
of September, a child died of cholera at No. 1. By the 22nd of the same
month, no less than seven persons in the Terrace lost their lives by
this fatal malady.
It would be thought, that such a state of things could not have been
permitted to remain undisturbed, but merely required to be brought to
light to be remedied. The medical officers have, time after time,
reported the condition of the place to the Board of Guardians. Fifteen
medical men have testified to the unhealthy state of the Potteries. The
inspector of nuisances has done the same. The magistrates have
repeatedly granted orders for the removal of the pigs. The General Board
of Health have given directions that all the nuisances should be
removed, yet nothing, or next to nothing, has been done. The inspector
of nuisances has been dismissed, the guardians have signified their
intention to inspect the districts themselves, yet things remain in
_statu quo_.
Is there then no possibility of cleansing this more than Augean stable?
None: the single but insurmountable difficulty being that some of the
worst parts of the district are the property of one of the guardians!
Surely the force of self-government can no farther go. Another word in
defence of centralisation—the great bugbear of the self-conceited parish
orator—would be wasted.
In conclusion, we earnestly call on the public to second and support the
efforts of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association to get the evils we
have adverted to lessened or wholly removed. The rapid increase of the
population demands additional exertion and additional arrangements for
their well-being. At present, retrogression instead of improvement
assails us. It is an appalling fact, that the number of persons dying of
the class of diseases called preventible has been steadily increasing.
Mr. Farr, of the Registrar-General’s office, has declared there could be
no question that the health of London is becoming worse every year. In
1846, the number of persons dying of zymotic or epidemic diseases was
about nineteen per cent. of the total mortality; in 1847, it was
twenty-eight per cent.; in 1848, thirty-four per cent.; and last year it
increased to forty-one per cent.; thus showing that nearly one-half of
the mortality of London was more or less owing to preventible causes.
To reverse this state of things the people of this country must not wait
for another great and fatal Fright. We know that typhus fever and
consumption, like open drains and stinking water, are mean, commonplace,
unexciting instruments of death, which do not get invested with dramatic
interest; yet they kill as unerringly as the knife or the bullet of the
assassin; only they murder great multitudes instead of single
individuals. If, therefore, he will only fix his eyes on the victims of
the diseases which can be easily prevented, it is well worth John Bull’s
while to consider whether substantially it is not as sound a policy to
save a million or two of lives per annum, as to hang the hero and
heroine of a Bermondsey murder.
WHAT THERE IS IN THE ROOF OF THE COLLEGE OF SURGEONS.
Perhaps no one of the London Squares is more full of interesting
associations, and certainly no one of them is more fresh and pleasant to
look upon, than Lincoln’s Inn Fields. In the centre of its green Lord
William Russell was beheaded; upon the old wall that used to run along
its eastern side Ben Jonson, it is said, worked as a bricklayer; amongst
its north range of buildings stands the thin sandwich of a house that
holds the manifold artistic gems of the Soane Museum; its west side was
the scene of some of Lord George Gordon’s riotings; whilst on its south
side stands the noble-looking Grecian fronted building dedicated to the
purposes of the English College of Surgeons.
This building has many uses, and many points challenging general
admiration and approval, the chief of them being its possession of the
museum made by John Hunter; afterwards purchased, and now supported, by
the nation; and open freely, not only to medical men of all countries,
but to the public at large. The visitor who passes under its handsome
portico, up the steps and enters its heavy mahogany and plate-glass
doors, finds himself in a large hall. On his right is a staid-looking,
black-robed porter, who requires him to enter his name in the visitor’s
book—a preliminary which members equally with strangers have to go
through. On his left are the doors leading to the secretary’s office,
where students may, from time to time, be seen going in to register
their attendance upon the prescribed lectures, and, later in their
career, passing through the same portals big with the desperate
announcement that they are ready to submit to the examinations that must
be passed before they can get a diploma. Facing the entrance door is a
second enclosed hall, with a roof supported by fluted columns, and on
the left of this a broad stately architectural stone staircase leading
to the library and the council-chamber—the scene of those dreadful
ordeals, the examinations, where Hospital Surgeons sit surrounded by
crimson and gold, and marble busts, and noble pictures, to _operate_
upon sweating and stuttering and hesitating students who, two by two,
are seated in large chairs to be passed or _plucked_.
The library is a noble, large room, of excellent proportions, occupying
the whole length of the building in front, having tall plate-glass
embayed windows, each with its table and chair; and in each of which the
passersby in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, may generally see a live surgeon
framed and glazed, busily occupied with his books, or still more busily
helping to keep up the tide of gossip for which the place is celebrated.
For some twenty feet from the floor on all sides, the walls are lined
with books, telling in various languages about all kinds of maladies and
all sorts of plans for cure. Above this, and just under the handsomely
panelled roof, hang portraits of old surgeons, each famous in his time,
and now enjoying a sort of quiet renown amongst their successors in the
art and science of chirurgery. All we have seen thus far, betokens the
quiet repose of wealth, dignity, and learned leisure and ease. No
bustle, no noise, no trace of urgent labour is heard or seen. Such of
the officers of the place as may be encountered, have a look of
somnolent if not sleek sufficiency, and seem to claim a share of the
consideration which all are ready to concede, as due to the character of
the spot. Returning to the hall, another door, facing that of the
secretary, leads to the great attraction and pride of the place—the
Hunterian Museum—a collection of skeletons and glittering rows of
bottles full of evidences how “fearfully and wonderfully” all living
creatures are made. On all sides we see the bony relics of defunct men
and animals—giants, dwarfs, both human and quadruped, challenging
attention. The huge megatherium, the bones of poor Chuny, the elephant
shot in Exeter ’Change, the skeleton of O’Brien the Irish giant, who
walked about the world eight feet high, and near him all that remains of
the form of the Sicilian dwarf, who when alive was not taller than
O’Brien’s knee. On the walls tier after tier of bottles are ranged, till
the eye following them up towards the top of the building, fatigued by
their innumerable abundance, and the variety of their contents, again
seeks the ground and its tables, there to encounter an almost equal
crowd of curious things collected from the earth, the air, and the sea,
to show how infinite the varieties in which Nature indulges, and how
almost more than infinite the curious ways in which life varies the
tenement it inhabits. But with this multiplicity of things we see no
confusion, or trace of carelessness or poverty. All is neatness, order,
and repose. Not a particle of dirt offends the eye; not a film of dust
dims the brilliancy of the regiments of bottles drawn up in long files
upon the shelves, to salute the visitor. The place is a very
drawing-room of science, all polished and set forth in trim order for
the reception of the public. It is the best room in the house kept for
the display of _the results_ of the labours of the physiologist,—a spot
devoted to the revelations of anatomy, without the horrifying
accompaniments of the dissecting-room.
Thus far we have passed through what are in truth the public portions of
the College of Surgeons, just glancing at its museum, unequalled as a
physiological collection by any other in the world. In their surprise at
the curious things it contains, there are many, no doubt, who wonder
also where the things all came from; and what patient men have gone on
since John Hunter’s time, adding to his museum where it was deficient
and keeping all its parts in their present admirable state. Such a
question, if put to the officials, would most likely obtain a very vague
and misty reply; but a glance behind the scenes at the College will
afford an ample and curious explanation, and show how one section of the
Searchers for Facts, silently and unheeded, work on in their
self-chosen, quiet, scientific path—undisturbed by the noises and the
bustle, the excitements and the strife of the modern Babylon, that
heaves and throbs around them.
Leave the handsome rooms, with their clear light, and polish, and air of
neatness, and come with us up the side stair that leads to the unshown
recesses, where, high up in the roof, the workers in anatomy carry on
their strange duties. As we open the side door that leads towards these
secret chambers, we should go from daylight to darkness, were it not for
the gas that is kept burning there. Up the stairs we go, and as we
ascend, the way becomes lighter and lighter as we rise, but the stone
steps soon change for wooden ones, and at length bring us from the
silent stairs to a silent and gloomy-looking passage, having three doors
opening into it, and some contrivances overhead for letting in a little
light, and letting out certain odours that here abound,—greatly to the
discomfort of the novice who first inhales them. We are now in the roof
of the building, and on getting a glimpse through a window, we may see
the housetops are below us, the only companions of our elevation being a
number of neighbouring church-spires.
The feeling of the spot is one of almost complete isolation from the
world below, and a neighbourhood to something startling if not almost
terrible. Like Fatima in Bluebeard’s Tower, impelled by an overbearing
curiosity, we turn the lock of the centre door, and enter the chamber. A
strange sight is presented. The room is large, with the sloping
roof-beams above, and a stained and uncovered floor below. The walls all
round are crowded with shelves, covered with bottles of various sizes
full of the queerest-looking of all queer things. Many are of a bright
vermilion colour; others yellow; others brown; others black; whilst
others again display the opaque whiteness of bloodless death. Three
tables are in the room, but these are as crowded as the walls. Cases of
instruments, microscopes, tall jars, cans, a large glass globe full of
water-newts, hydras, and mosses; small cases of drawers filled with
microscopic objects, and a thousand other odds and ends. Here is a long
coil of snake’s eggs, just brought from a country stable-yard; there
some ears of diseased wheat, sent by a noble landlord who studies
farming; beside them lies part of a leaf of the gigantic water-lily, the
Victoria Regia, and near that a portion of a vegetable marrow is
macerating in a saucer to separate some peculiar vessels for exhibition
under the microscope. There are two windows to the room, besides some
ventilators in the roof; and before one of these, where the light is
best, are ranged microscopes complete and ready for use, and round about
them all sorts of scraps of glass and glaziers’ diamonds, and
watch-glasses, and forceps, and scissors, and bottles of marine-glue,
and of gold-size,—these being the means and appliances of the
microscopic observer. Before the second window is a sink, in which stand
jars of frogs and newts, and other small creatures. A lathe, a desk, and
writing utensils, the model of a whale cast ashore in the Thames, an old
stiff-backed wooden chair, once the seat of the Master of the Worshipful
Company of Surgeons, a few cases of stuffed birds and animals, and some
tall glass-stoppered bottles that went twice round the world with
Captain Cook and Dr. Solander, make up the catalogue of the chief
contents of an apartment, which, at first glance, has the look of an
auctioneer’s room filled with the sold-off stock of a broken down
anatomical teacher. A closer inspection, however, shows that though
there is so great a crowd of objects, there is little or no confusion,
and the real meaning of the place, its intention, and labours, reveal
themselves.
We are in a storeroom of the strange productions of all corners of the
earth, from the air above and from the waters below. Every particle in
every bottle that looks perhaps to the uninitiated eye only a mass of
bad fish preserved in worse pickle, has its value. A thin slice of it
taken out and placed under the microscope, illustrates some law of the
animal economy, or displays, perhaps, some long undiscovered fact, or
shows to the surprise of the gazer, a series of lines beautifully
arranged, or perhaps curiously mingled, and rich in their figured
combinations as the frozen moisture of a window-frame on a winter’s
morning. To this room as to a general centre come contributions from all
corners of the earth; the donors being chiefly medical men employed on
expeditions, or in the public service, though other medicos, who go to
seek fortune in strange lands, often remember their alma mater, and pack
up a bottle of curious things “to send to the College.” Doctors on
shipboard, doctors with armies, doctors in Arctic ships, or on Niger
expeditions; in the far regions of Hindûstan, and in the fogs and storms
of Labrador, think now and then of their “dissecting days,” and of the
noble collection in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which every true student feels
bound to honour, and to help to make complete. Many, when going forth
into distant countries, are supplied from this place with bottles
specially adapted to receive objects in request, and receive also a
volume of instructions, how the specimens may be best preserved. “When a
quadruped is too large to be secured whole, cut off the portion of the
head containing the teeth,” says one direction. “If no more can be
done,” says another, “preserve the heart and great blood-vessels.” “Of a
full-grown whale,” says a third of these notes, “send home the eyes with
the surrounding skin, their muscles and fat in an entire mass.” “When
many specimens of a rare and curious bird are procured, the heads of a
few should be taken off and preserved in spirit.” “When alligators and
crocodiles are too large to be preserved whole, secure some part. The
bones of such things are especially desirable. Secure also the eggs in
different stages.” “Snakes may be preserved whole, or in part,
especially the heads, for the examination of their teeth and fangs.”
“Eyes of fishes are proper objects of preservation.” Such are a few of
the hints sent forth to their medical disciples by the College, and the
fruits of the system are a bountiful supply. Never a week passes but
something rare or curious makes its appearance in Lincoln’s Inn Fields;
sometimes from one quarter, sometimes from another, but there is always
something coming, either by messenger or parcel-cart. Apart from these
foreign sources, there are other contributaries to the general stock.
Country doctors and hospital surgeons, from time to time, send in their
quota; the Zoological Society likewise contribute all their dead
animals. When the elephant died at the Regent’s Park Gardens, a College
student and an assistant were busily occupied for days dissecting the
huge animal. When the rhinoceros expired at the same place, a portion of
its viscera was hailed as a prize; and when the whale was cast, not long
ago, upon the shores of the Thames, the watermen who claimed it as their
booty, steamed off to the College to find a customer for portions of the
unwieldy monster; nor were they disappointed. Beyond all these, there
still remains another searcher out of materials for the scalpel and the
microscope. He is a character in his way. By trade, half
cattle-slaughterer half-oysterman, he is by choice a sort of dilettante
anatomist. One day he is killing oxen and sheep in Clare Market, and the
next is scouring the same market for morbid specimens “for Mr. Quickett,
at the College.” He knows an unhealthy sheep by its looks, and watches
its post mortem with the eye of a savant. Many a choice specimen has he
caught up in his time from amongst the offal and garbage of that
fustiest of markets in the fustiest of neighbourhoods. Indeed, through
him, all that is unusual in ox, calf, sheep, fish, or fowl, found within
the confines of Clare Market, finds its way to the “work shop” of the
College to be investigated by scalpel and microscope. When a butcher is
known to have any diseased sheep, our collector hovers about his
slaughter-house, and that which is bad food for the public, often
affords him and his patron a prize. He is a sort of jackal for the
anatomists—a kind of cadger in the service of science—a veritable
snatcher-up of ill-conditioned trifles.
Returning to the room in the College roof, where the general cornucopia
of strange things is emptied, we find its presiding genius in Mr.
Quekett, a quiet enthusiast in his way, who goes on from month to month
and year to year, watching, working, and chronicling such facts as can
be made out. When a novelty comes in, it is examined, described,
investigated by the microscope; and, if worthy, is sketched on stone for
printing. It is then catalogued, and placed in spirit for
preservation—minute portions, perhaps, being mounted on glass as objects
for the microscope. Thus disposed of, it becomes a “store preparation.”
From this store the lectures at the College are illustrated by examples;
and from it also are the bright bottles in the Hunterian Museum kept
complete. From time to time something very rare comes to hand, and then
there is quite an excitement in the place. It is turned about, examined,
and discussed, with as much zest as a lady would display when first
opening a present of jewels, or first criticising a new ball-dress. If
the new acquisition be an animal but recently dead, a drop of its blood
is sought and placed under the microscope to see the diameter of its
globules; if it has a coat of fur, perhaps one of the hairs are next
submitted to the same test; and then a fine section of its bone passes a
similar ordeal. Its brain is investigated, weighed, and placed in spirit
for preservation. Its general characteristics are then gone over, and a
description of them written down. If worthy of a place in the Museum,
this description goes to make a paragraph in the catalogues of the
Collection—fine quarto volumes, of which there are many now complete,
containing more exact anatomical and physiological descriptions of
objects, than perhaps any other work extant.
The last contribution to the series of Catalogues was made in the room
we have been examining. Its production was the constant labour of two
years; and the volume contains exact particulars of many facts never
before noticed. Amongst other things, for instance, made out with
certainty in this place by Mr. Quekett, after months of patient
investigation, was the elementary differences in the character of bone.
To the common eye and common idea, all bone is simply bone; and for
common purposes the word indicates closely enough what the speaker would
describe. Not so to the naturalist and the physiologist; and so scalpel
and microscope went to work: the sea, the land, and the air, lent each
their creatures peculiar to itself, and the labour of the search was at
length rewarded by a discovery that each great class of living things
has an elementary difference in the bones upon which its structure is
built up. Hence, when a particle of bony matter is now placed under the
microscope, come whence it may—from a geological strata, or from the
depths of the sea, or from within the cere-cloth of a mummy—the
observer, guided by Mr. Quekett’s observations, knows whether it
belonged in life to bird, beast, or fish.
Glancing round this anatomical workshop, we find, amongst other things,
some preparations showing the nature of pearls. Examine them, and we
find that there are dark and dingy pearls, just as there are handsome
and ugly men; the dark pearl being found on the dark shell of the fish,
the white brilliant one upon the smooth inside shell. Going further in
the search, we find that the smooth glittering lining upon which the
fish moves, is known as the _nacre_, and that it is produced by a
portion of the animal called _the mantle_: and for explanation sake we
may add, that gourmands practically know the mantle as _the beard_ of
the oyster. When living in its glossy house, should any foreign
substance find its way through the shell to disturb the smoothness so
essential to its ease, the fish coats the offending substance with
nacre, and a pearl is thus formed. The pearl is, in fact, a little globe
of the smooth glossy substance yielded by the oyster’s beard; yielded
ordinarily to smooth the narrow home to which his nature binds him, but
yielded in round drops—real pearly tears—if he is hurt. When a beauty
glides proudly among a throng of admirers, her hair clustering with
pearls, she little thinks that her ornaments are products of pain and
diseased action, endured by the most unpoetical of shell-fish.
Leaving the centre-room of the three in the College roof, let us just
glance at the other two apartments. Upon entering one we see the walls
lined with boxes, something like those in a milliner’s shop, but,
instead of holding laces and ribands, we find them labelled “Wolf,”
“Racoon,” “Penguin,” “Lion,” “Albatross,” and so on with names of birds,
and beasts, and fishes. On lifting a lid, we find the boxes filled with
the bones of the different creatures named; not a complete skeleton of
any one, perhaps, but portions of half-a-dozen. In this room, the two
students attached to the College carry on dissections, under the
directions of the superior authorities. What they do is entered in a
book kept posted up, and this affords another source for reference as to
anatomical facts. When they have laboured here for three years, they
have the option of a commission as Assistant Surgeon in the Army, Navy,
or East India Company’s service, as a reward for their College work.
If the atmosphere of the two apartments we have investigated was bad,
that of the third room was infinitely worse, though windows and
ventilators are constantly open. In this place large preparations are
kept, and all the specimens are here put into the bottles required for
exhibition in the Museum. This third room, like the first, has a
curiously characteristic look. It would make a fine original for a
picture of an alchemist’s study. On one side is a large structure of
brickwork with pipes and taps, conveying the idea of a furnace and
still, or of an oven. Alongside it is a bath and a table, and the
purpose of the whole is for _injecting_ large animals. This is a very
difficult operation, the object being to drive a kind of hot liquid
sealing-wax into every artery of the body, even the most minute. All
things brought here, and capable of it, are injected somewhat after this
fashion before they pass under the scalpel. Besides this oven-looking
structure there are pans, and tubs, and casks; one containing a small
dromedary, another being “a cask of camel.” A painter’s easel stands
there ready for use, and on the floor are some bones of a megatherium;
the tables are covered with bottles and jars, and the walls are
similarly decorated. Strings of bladders hang about, and under foot we
see thin sheets of lead coated with tin-foil; these latter being used
for tying down the preparation bottles so that they may for years remain
air-tight; a tedious and somewhat difficult operation. In this place
every year they use scores, sometimes hundreds of gallons of alcohol;
one fact which helps to show that museums on a large scale are expensive
establishments.
Here, as elsewhere, however, in our establishments, whatever may be
expended on materials, the men who do the work of science are but
indifferently paid. But lucre is not their sole reward. No mere money
payment could compensate (for instance) a man for spending a lifetime in
this College of Surgeons’ roof. Forget the object in view; ignore the
charm that science has for its votaries; and this place becomes a
literal inferno, filled with pestilential fumes, and surrounded by
horrible sights. But they who fix the salaries know how much the pursuit
of science is a labour of love; and so they pay the man of science
badly, not here alone, but in all the scientific branches of the public
service. But the science-worker though he may feel the injustice, yet
moves on his way rejoicing, pleased with his unceasing search into the
secret workings of nature, and exhilarated from time to time by some
discovery, or by the confirmation of some cherished notion. And though
the glittering prizes of life be bestowed on strivers in far different
walks, the student of nature holds on his cheerful and philosophic way,
rewarded by the glimpses he gets of the power that made and sustains all
terrestrial things, and rewarded, moreover, by the holy contact with
that infinite wisdom seen at work in the construction, the adaptation,
and the continuance of the marvellous and illimitably varied works it is
the business of his life to investigate.
CHIPS.
NICE WHITE VEAL.
We shudder at the cruelties practised upon Strasbourg geese to produce
the celebrated _pâtés de foie ǧras_; but remorse would assuredly afflict
the amateurs of veal with indigestion, if they reflected on the tortures
to which calves are subjected to cause the very unnatural colour of the
meat which they so much prize. The natural and wholesome tint of veal is
not white, but pink. An ancient French traveller in England (1690) says
that the English veal has not the “beautiful red colour of the French.”
Dr. Smollett, in “Peregrine Pickle,” upbraids epicures, on the scores
both of cruelty and unwholesomeness, saying that our best veal is like a
“fricassee of kid gloves,” and the sauce of “melted butter” is rendered
necessary only by the absence of the juices drained out of the
unfortunate animal before death.
The process of killing a calf is a refinement of cruelty worthy of a
Grand Inquisitor. The beast is, while alive, bled several times; in
summer, during several hours of the night, and frequently till it
faints; when a plug is put into the orifice till “next time.” But the
lengthened punishment of the most unoffending of animals is at the
actual “killing.” It is tied together, neck and heels, much as a dead
animal when packed in a basket and slung up by a rope, with the head
downwards. A vein is then opened, till it lingeringly bleeds to death.
Two or three “knocks” are given to it with the pole-axe whilst it hangs
loose in the air, and the flesh is beaten with sticks, technically
termed “dressing” it, some time before feeling has ceased to exist. All
this may be verified by those who insist on seeing the penetralia of the
slaughter-houses; or the poor animal may be seen moaning and writhing—by
a mere glance—on many days of the week, in Warwick Lane, Newgate Street.
This mode of bleaching veal is not only a crime, but a blunder. The
flesh would be more palatable and nutritious killed speedily and
mercifully. But were it otherwise, and had it been twenty times more a
luxury, who, professing to honour the common Creator, would, for the
sensual gratification of the palate, cause the calf to be thus tortured?
“ALL THINGS IN THE WORLD MUST CHANGE.”
Would’st thou have it always Spring,
Though she cometh flower-laden?
Though sweet-throated birds do sing?
Thou would’st weary of it, Maiden.
Dost thou never feel desire
That thy womanhood were nearer?
Doth thy loving heart ne’er tire,
Longing yet for something dearer?
Would’st have Summer ever stay—
Droughty Summer—bright and burning?
Dost thou not, oft in the day,
Long for still, cool, night’s returning?
Dost thou not grow weary, Youth,
Of thy pleasures, vain though pleasant—
Thinking Life has more of Truth
Than the satiating present?
Would’st have Autumn never go?
(Autumn, Winter’s wealthy neighbour),
Stacks would rise, and wine-press flow
Vainly, did’st thou always labour.
When thy child is on thy knee
And thy heart with love’s o’erflowing,
Dost thou never long to see
What is in the future’s showing?
When old Winter, cold and hoar,
Cometh, blowing his ten fingers,
Hanging ice-drops on the door
Whilst he at the threshold lingers,
Would’st thou ever vigil keep
With a mate so full of sorrow?
Better to thy bed and sleep,
Nor wake till th’ Eternal morrow!
THE LAST OF A LONG LINE.
IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER II.
In Great Stockington there lived a race of paupers. From the year of the
42nd of Elizabeth, or 1601, down to the present generation, this race
maintained an uninterrupted descent. They were a steady and unbroken
line of paupers, as the parish books testify. From generation to
generation their demands on the parish funds stand recorded. There were
no _lacunæ_ in their career; there never failed an heir to these
families; fed on the bread of idleness and legal provision, these people
flourished, increased, and multiplied. Sometimes compelled to work for
the weekly dole which they received, they never acquired a taste for
labour, or lost the taste for the bread for which they did not labour.
These paupers regarded this maintenance by no means as a disgrace. They
claimed it as a right,—as their patrimony. They contended that one-third
of the property of the Church had been given by benevolent individuals
for the support of the poor, and that what the Reformation wrongfully
deprived them of, the great enactment of Elizabeth rightfully—and only
rightfully—restored.
Those who imagine that all paupers merely claimed parish relief because
the law ordained it, commit a great error. There were numbers who were
hereditary paupers, and that on a tradition carefully handed down, that
they were only manfully claiming their own. They traced their claims
from the most ancient feudal times, when the lord was as much bound to
maintain his villein in gross, as the villein was to work for the lord.
These paupers were, in fact, or claimed to be, the original _adscripti
glebæ_, and to have as much a claim to parish support as the landed
proprietor had to his land. For this reason, in the old Catholic times,
after they had escaped from villenage by running away and remaining
absent from their hundred for a year and a day, dwelling for that period
in a walled town, these people were amongst the most diligent attendants
at the Abbey doors, and when the Abbeys were dissolved, were, no doubt,
amongst the most daring of these thieves, vagabonds, and sturdy rogues,
who, after the Robin Hood fashion, beset the highways and solitary farms
of England, and claimed their black mail in a very unceremonious style.
It was out of this class that Henry VIII. hanged his seventy-two
thousand during his reign, and, as it is said, without appearing
materially to diminish their number.
That they continued to “increase, multiply, and replenish the earth,”
overflowing all bounds, overpowering by mere populousness all the severe
laws against them of whipping, burning in the hand, in the forehead or
the breast, and hanging, and filling the whole country with alarm, is
evident by the very act itself of Elizabeth.
Amongst these hereditary paupers who, as we have said, were found in
Stockington, there was a family of the name of Deg. This family had
never failed to demand and enjoy what it held to be its share of its
ancient inheritance. It appeared from the parish records, that they had
practised in different periods the crafts of shoemaking, tailoring, and
chimney-sweeping; but since the invention of the stocking-frame, they
had, one and all of them, followed the profession of stocking weavers,
or as they were there called, stockingers. This was a trade which
required no extreme exertion of the physical or intellectual powers. To
sit in a frame, and throw the arms to and fro, was a thing that might
either be carried to a degree of extreme diligence, or be let down into
a mere apology for idleness. An “idle stockinger” was there no very
uncommon phrase, and the Degs were always classed under that head.
Nothing could be more admirably adapted than this trade for building a
plan of parish relief upon. The Degs did not pretend to be absolutely
without work, or the parish authorities would soon have set them to some
real labour,—a thing that they particularly recoiled from, having a very
old adage in the family, that “hard work was enough to kill a man.” The
Degs were seldom, therefore, out of work, but they did not get enough to
meet and tie. They had but little work if times were bad, and if they
were good, they had large families, and sickly wives or children. Be
times what they would, therefore, the Degs were due and successful
attendants at the parish pay-table. Nay, so much was this a matter of
course, that they came at length not even to trouble themselves to
receive their pay, but sent their young children for it; and it was duly
paid. Did any parish officer, indeed, turn restive, and decline to pay a
Deg, he soon found himself summoned before a magistrate, and such pleas
of sickness, want of work, and poor earnings brought up, that he most
likely got a sharp rebuke from the benevolent but uninquiring
magistrate, and acquired a character for hardheartedness that stuck to
him.
So parish overseers learnt to let the Degs alone; and their children
regularly brought up to receive the parish money for their parents, were
impatient as they grew up to receive it for themselves. Marriages in the
Deg family were consequently very early, and there were plenty of
instances of married Degs claiming parish relief under the age of
twenty, on the plea of being the parent of two children. One such
precocious individual being asked by a rather verdant officer why he had
married before he was able to maintain a family, replied, in much
astonishment, that he had married in order to maintain himself by parish
assistance. That he never had been able to maintain himself by his
labour, nor ever expected to do it; his only hope, therefore, lay in
marrying, and becoming the father of two children, to which patriarchal
rank he had now attained, and demanded his “pay.”
Thus had lived and nourished the Degs on their ancient patrimony, the
parish, for upwards of two hundred years. Nay, we have no doubt whatever
that, if it could have been traced, they had enjoyed an ancestry of
paupers as long as the pedigree of Sir Roger Rockville himself. In the
days of the most perfect villenage, they had, doubtless, eaten the bread
of idleness, and claimed it as a right. They were numerous, improvident,
ragged in dress, and fond of an alehouse and of gossip. Like the blood
of Sir Roger, their blood had become peculiar through a long persistence
of the same circumstances. It was become pure pauper blood. The Degs
married, if not entirely among Degs, yet amongst the same class. None
but a pauper would dream of marrying a Deg. The Degs, therefore, were in
constitution, in mind, in habit, and in inclination, paupers. But a pure
and unmixed class of this kind does not die out like an aristocratic
stereotype. It increases and multiplies. The lower the grade, the more
prolific, as is sometimes seen on a large and even national scale. The
Degs threatened, therefore, to become a most formidable clan in the
lower purlieus of Stockington, but luckily there is so much virtue even
in evils, that one, not rarely cures another. War, the great evil,
cleared the town of Degs.
Fond of idleness, of indulgence, of money easily got, and as easily
spent, the Degs were rapidly drained off by recruiting parties during
the last war. The young men enlisted, and were marched away; the young
women married soldiers that were quartered in the town from time to
time, and marched away with them. There were, eventually, none of the
once numerous Degs left except a few old people, whom death was sure to
draft off at no distant period with his regiment of the line which has
no end. Parish overseers, magistrates, and master manufacturers,
felicitated themselves at this unhoped-for deliverance from the ancient
family of the Degs.
But one cold, clear, winter evening, the east wind piping its sharp
sibilant ditty in the bare shorn hedges, and poking his sharp fingers
into the sides of well broad-clothed men by way of passing jest, Mr.
Spires, a great manufacturer of Stockington, driving in his gig some
seven miles from the town, passed a poor woman with a stout child on her
back. The large ruddy-looking man in the prime of life, and in the great
coat and thick worsted gloves of a wealthy traveller, cast a glance at
the wretched creature trudging heavily on, expecting a pitiful appeal to
his sensibilities, and thinking it a bore to have to pull off a glove
and dive into his pocket for a copper; but to his surprise there was no
demand, only a low curtsey, and the glimpse of a face of singular
honesty of expression, and of excessive weariness.
Spires was a man of warm feelings; he looked earnestly at the woman, and
thought he had never seen such a picture of fatigue in his life. He
pulled up and said,
“You seem very tired, my good woman.”
“Awfully tired, Sir.”
“And are you going far to night?”
“To Great Stockington, Sir, if God give me strength.”
“To Stockington!” exclaimed Mr. Spires. “Why you seem ready to drop.
You’ll never reach it. You’d better stop at the next village.”
“Ay, Sir, it’s easy stopping, for those that have money.”
“And you’ve none, eh?”
“As God lives, Sir, I’ve a sixpence, and that’s all.”
Mr. Spires put his hand in his pocket, and held out to her the next
instant, half-a-crown.
“There stop, poor thing—make yourself comfortable—it’s quite out of the
question to reach Stockington. But stay—are your friends living in
Stockington—what are you?”
“A poor soldier’s widow, Sir. And may God Almighty bless you!” said the
poor woman, taking the money, the tears standing in her large brown eyes
as she curtsied very low.
“A soldier’s widow,” said Mr. Spires. She had touched the softest place
in the manufacturer’s heart, for he was a very loyal man, and vehement
champion of his country’s honour in the war. “So young,” said he, “how
did you lose your husband?”
“He fell, Sir,” said the poor woman; but she could get no further; she
suddenly caught up the corner of her grey cloak, covered her face with
it, and burst into an excess of grief.
The manufacturer felt as if he had hit the woman a blow by his careless
question; he sate watching her for a moment in silence, and then said,
“Come, get into the gig, my poor woman; come, I must see you to
Stockington.”
The poor woman dried her tears, and heavily climbed into the gig,
expressing her gratitude in a very touching and modest manner. Spires
buttoned the apron over her, and taking a look at the child, said in a
cheerful tone to comfort her, “Bless me, but that is a fine thumping
fellow, though. I don’t wonder you are tired, carrying such a load.”
The poor woman pressed the stout child, apparently two years old, to her
breast, as if she felt it a great blessing and no load: the gig drove
rapidly on.
Presently Mr. Spires resumed his conversation.
“So you are from Stockington?”
“No Sir, my husband was.”
“So: what was his name?”
“John Deg, Sir.”
“Deg?” said Mr. Spires. “Deg, did you say?”
“Yes, Sir.”
The manufacturer seemed to hitch himself off towards his own side of the
gig, gave another look at her, and was silent. The poor woman was
somewhat astonished at his look and movement, and was silent too.
After awhile Mr. Spires said again, “And do you hope to find friends in
Stockington? Had you none where you came from?”
“None Sir, none in the world!” said the poor woman, and again her
feelings seemed too strong for her. At length she added, “I was in
service, Sir, at Poole, in Dorsetshire, when I married; my mother only
was living, and while I was away with my husband, she died. When—when
the news came from abroad—that—when I was a widow, Sir, I went back to
my native place, and the parish officers said I must go to my husband’s
parish lest I and my child should become troublesome.”
“You asked relief of them?”
“Never; Oh, God knows, no, never! My family have never asked a penny of
a parish. They would die first, and so would I, Sir; but they said I
might do it, and I had better go to my husband’s parish at once—and they
offered me money to go.”
“And you took it, of course?”
“No, sir; I had a little money, which I had earned by washing and
laundering, and I sold most of my things, as I could not carry them, and
came off. I felt hurt, Sir; my heart rose against the treatment of the
parish, and I thought I should be better amongst my husband’s
friends—and my child would, if anything happened to me; I had no friends
of my own.”
Mr. Spires looked at the woman in silence. “Did your husband tell you
anything of his friends? What sort of a man was he?”
“Oh, he was a gay young fellow, rather, Sir; but not bad to me. He
always said his friends were well off in Stockington.”
“He did!” said the manufacturer, with a great stare, and as if bolting
the words from his heart in a large gust of wonder.
The poor woman again looked at him with a strange look. The manufacturer
whistled to himself, and giving his horse a smart cut with the whip,
drove on faster than ever. The night was fast settling down; it was
numbing cold; a grey fog rose from the river as they thundered over the
old bridge; and tall engine chimneys, and black smoky houses loomed
through the dusk before them. They were at Stockington.
As they slackened their pace up a hill at the entrance of the town, Mr.
Spires again opened his mouth.
“I should be sorry to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Deg,” he said, “but I
have my fears that you are coming to this place with false expectations.
I fear your husband did not give you the truest possible account of his
family here.”
“Oh, Sir! What—what is it?” exclaimed the poor woman; “in God’s name,
tell me!”
“Why, nothing more than this,” said the manufacturer, “that there are
very few of the Degs left here. They are old, and on the parish, and can
do nothing for you.”
The poor woman gave a deep sigh, and was silent.
“But don’t be cast down,” said Mr. Spires. He would not tell her what a
pauper family it really was, for he saw that she was a very feeling
woman, and he thought she would learn that soon enough. He felt that her
husband had from vanity given her a false account of his connections;
and he was really sorry for her.
“Don’t be cast down,” he went on, “you can wash and iron, you say; you
are young and strong: those are your friends. Depend on them, and
they’ll be better friends to you than any other.”
The poor woman was silent, leaning her head down on her slumbering
child, and crying to herself; and thus they drove on, through many long
and narrow streets, with gas flaring from the shops, but with few people
in the streets, and these hurrying shivering along the pavement, so
intense was the cold. Anon they stopped at a large pair of gates; the
manufacturer rung a bell, which he could reach from his gig, and the
gates presently were flung open, and they drove into a spacious yard,
with a large handsome house, having a bright lamp burning before it, on
one side of the yard, and tall warehouses on the other.
“Show this poor woman and her child to Mrs. Craddock’s, James,” said Mr.
Spires, “and tell Mrs. Craddock to make them very comfortable; and if
you will come to my warehouse to-morrow,” added he, addressing the poor
woman, “perhaps I can be of some use to you.”
The poor woman poured out her heartfelt thanks, and, following the old
man servant, soon disappeared, hobbling over the pebbly pavement with
her living load, stiffened almost to stone by her fatigue and her cold
ride.
We must not pursue too minutely our narrative. Mrs. Deg was engaged to
do the washing and getting up of Mr. Spire’s linen, and the manner in
which she executed her task insured her recommendations to all their
friends. Mrs. Deg was at once in full employ. She occupied a neat house
in a yard near the meadows below the town, and in those meadows she
might be seen spreading out her clothes to whiten on the grass, attended
by her stout little boy. In the same yard lived a shoemaker, who had two
or three children of about the same age as Mrs. Deg’s child. The
children, as time went on, became playfellows. Little Simon might be
said to have the free run of the shoemaker’s house, and he was the more
attracted thither by the shoemaker’s birds, and by his flute, on which
he often played after his work was done.
Mrs. Deg took a great friendship for this shoemaker: and he and his
wife, a quiet, kindhearted woman, were almost all the acquaintances that
she cultivated. She had found out her husband’s parents, but they were
not of a description that at all pleased her. They were old and infirm,
but they were of the true pauper breed, a sort of person, whom Mrs. Deg
had been taught to avoid and to despise. They looked on her as a sort of
second parish, and insisted that she should come and live with them, and
help to maintain them out of her earnings. But Mrs. Deg would rather her
little boy had died than have been familiarised with the spirit and
habits of those old people. Despise them she struggled hard not to do,
and she agreed to allow them sufficient to maintain them on condition
that they desisted from any further application to the parish. It would
be a long and disgusting story to recount all the troubles, annoyance,
and querulous complaints, and even bitter accusations that she received
from these connections, whom she could never satisfy; but she considered
it one of her crosses in her life, and patiently bore it, seeing that
they suffered no real want, so long as they lived, which was for years;
but she would never allow her little Simon to be with them alone.
The shoemaker neighbour was a stout protection to her against the greedy
demands of these old people, and of others of the old Degs, and also
against another class of inconvenient visitors, namely, suitors, who saw
in Mrs. Deg a neat and comely young woman with a flourishing business,
and a neat and soon well-furnished house, a very desirable acquisition.
But Mrs. Deg had resolved never again to marry, but to live for her boy,
and she kept her resolve in firmness and gentleness.
The shoemaker often took walks in the extensive town meadows to gather
groundsell and plantain for his canaries and gorse-linnets, and little
Simon Deg delighted to accompany him with his own children. There
William Watson, the shoemaker, used to point out to the children the
beauty of the flowers, the insects, and other objects of nature; and
while he sate on a stile and read in a little old book of poetry, as he
often used to do, the children sate on the summer grass, and enjoyed
themselves in a variety of plays.
The effect of these walks, and the shoemaker’s conversation on little
Simon Deg was such as never wore out of him through his whole life, and
soon led him to astonish the shoemaker by his extraordinary conduct. He
manifested the utmost uneasiness at their treading on the flowers in the
grass; he would burst with tears if they persisted in it; and when asked
why, he said they were so beautiful, and that they must enjoy the
sunshine, and be very unhappy to die. The shoemaker was amazed, but
indulged the lad’s fancy. One day he thought to give him a great treat,
and when they were out in the meadows, he drew from under his coat a bow
and arrow, and shot the arrow high up in the air. He expected to see him
in an ecstacy of delight: his own children clapped their hands in
transport, but Simon stood silent, and as if awestruck. “Shall I send up
another?” asked the shoemaker.
“No, no,” exclaimed the child, imploringly. “You say God lives up there,
and he mayn’t like it.”
The shoemaker laughed, but presently he said, as if to himself, “There
is too much imagination there. There will be a poet, if we don’t take
care.”
The shoemaker offered to teach Simon to read, and to solidify his mind,
as he termed it, by arithmetic, and then to teach him to work at his
trade. His mother was very glad; and thought shoemaking would be a good
trade for the boy; and that with Mr. Watson she should have him always
near her. He was growing now a great lad, and was especially strong, and
of a frank and daring habit. He was especially indignant at any act of
oppression of the weak by the strong, and not seldom got into trouble by
his championship of the injured in such cases amongst the boys of the
neighbourhood.
He was now about twelve years of age; when, going one day with a basket
of clothes on his head to Mr. Spires’s for his mother, he was noticed by
Mr. Spires himself from his counting-house window. The great war was
raging; there was much distress amongst the manufacturers; and the
people were suffering and exasperated against their masters. Mr. Spires,
as a staunch tory, and supporter of the war, was particularly obnoxious
to the workpeople, who uttered violent threats against him. For this
reason his premises were strictly guarded, and at the entrance of his
yard, just within the gates, was chained a huge and fierce mastiff, his
chain allowing him to approach near enough to intimidate any stranger,
though not to reach him. The dog knew the people who came regularly
about, and seemed not to notice them, but on the entrance of a stranger,
he rose up, barked fiercely, and came to the length of his chain. This
always drew the attention of the porter, if he were away from his box,
and few persons dared to pass till he came.
Simon Deg was advancing with the basket of clean linen on his head, when
the dog rushed out, and barking loudly, came exactly opposite to him,
within a few feet. The boy, a good deal startled at first, reared
himself with his back against the wall, but at a glance perceiving that
the dog was at the length of his tether, he seemed to enjoy his
situation, and stood smiling at the furious animal, and lifting his
basket with both hands above his head, nodded to him, as if to say,
“Well, old boy, you’d like to eat me, wouldn’t you?”
Mr. Spires, who sate near his counting-house window at his books, was
struck with the bold and handsome bearing of the boy, and said to a
clerk, “What boy is that?”
“It is Jenny Deg’s,” was the answer.
“Ha! that boy! Zounds! how boys do grow! Why that’s the child that Jenny
Deg was carrying when she came to Stockington: and what a strong,
handsome, bright-looking fellow he is now!”
As the boy was returning, Mr. Spires called him to the counting-house
door, and put some questions to him as to what he was doing and
learning, and so on. Simon, taking off his cap with much respect,
answered in such a clear and modest way, and with a voice that had so
much feeling and natural music in it, that the worthy manufacturer was
greatly taken with him.
“That’s no Deg,” said he, when he again entered the counting-house, “not
a bit of it. He’s all Goodrick, or whatever his mother’s name was, every
inch of him.”
The consequence of that interview was, that Simon Deg was very soon
after perched on a stool in Mr. Spires’ counting-house, where he
continued till he was twenty-two. Mr. Spires had no son, only a single
daughter; and such were Simon Deg’s talents, attention to business, and
genial disposition, that at that age Mr. Spires gave him a share in the
concern. He was himself now getting less fond of exertion than he had
been, and placed the most implicit reliance on Simon’s judgment and
general management. Yet no two men could be more unlike in their
opinions beyond the circle of trade. Mr. Spires was a staunch tory of
the staunch old school. He was for Church and King, and for things
remaining for ever as they had been. Simon, on the other hand, had
liberal and reforming notions. He was for the improvement of the people,
and their admission to many privileges. Mr. Spires was, therefore, liked
by the leading men of the place, and disliked by the people. Simon’s
estimation was precisely in the opposite direction. But this did not
disturb their friendship; it required another disturbing cause—and that
came.
Simon Deg and the daughter of Mr. Spires, grew attached to each other;
and, as the father had thought Simon worthy of becoming a partner in the
business, neither of the young people deemed that he would object to a
partnership of a more domestic description. But here they made a
tremendous mistake. No sooner was such a proposal hinted at, than Mr.
Spires burst forth with the fury of all the winds from the bag of
Ulysses.
“What! a Deg aspire to the hand of the sole heiress of the enormously
opulent Spires?”
The very thought almost cut the proud manufacturer off with an apoplexy.
The ghosts of a thousand paupers rose up before him, and he was black in
the face. It was only by a prompt and bold application of leeches and
lancet, that the life of the great man was saved. But there was an end
of all further friendship between himself and the expectant Simon. He
insisted that he should withdraw from the concern, and it was done.
Simon, who felt his own dignity deeply wounded too, for dignity he had,
though the last of a long line of paupers—his own dignity, not his
ancestors’—took silently, yet not unrespectfully, his share—a good,
round sum, and entered another house of business.
For several years there appeared to be a feud and a bitterness between
the former friends; yet it showed itself in no other manner than by a
careful avoidance of each other. The continental war came to an end; the
manufacturing distress increased exceedingly. There came troublous
times, and a fierce warfare of politics. Great Stockington was torn
asunder by rival parties. On one side stood pre-eminent, Mr. Spires; on
the other towered conspicuously, Simon Deg. Simon was grown rich, and
extremely popular. He was on all occasions the advocate of the people.
He said that he had sprung from, and was one of them. He had bought a
large tract of land on one side of the town; and intensely fond of the
country and flowers himself, he had divided this into gardens, built
little summer-houses in them, and let them to the artisans. In his
factory he had introduced order, cleanliness, and ventilation. He had
set up a school for the children in the evenings, with a reading-room
and conversation-room for the workpeople, and encouraged them to bring
their families there, and enjoy music, books, and lectures. Accordingly,
he was the idol of the people, and the horror of the old school of the
manufacturers.
“A pretty upstart and demagogue I’ve nurtured,” said Mr. Spires often,
to his wife and daughter, who only sighed, and were silent.
Then came a furious election. The town, for a fortnight, more resembled
the worst corner of Tartarus than a Christian borough. Drunkenness,
riot, pumping on one another, spencering one another, all sorts of
violence and abuse ruled and raged till the blood of all Stockington was
at boiling heat. In the midst of the tempest were everywhere seen,
ranged on the opposite sides, Mr. Spires, now old and immensely
corpulent, and Simon Deg, active, buoyant, zealous, and popular beyond
measure. But popular though he still was, tho other and old tory side
triumphed. The people were exasperated to madness; and, when the
chairing of the successful candidate commenced, there was a terrific
attack made on the procession by the defeated party. Down went the
chair, and the new member, glad to escape into an inn, saw his friends
mercilessly assailed by the populace. There was a tremendous tempest of
sticks, brickbats, paving-stones, and rotten eggs. In the midst of this,
Simon Deg, and a number of his friends, standing at the upper window of
an hotel, saw Mr. Spires knocked down, and trampled on by the crowd. In
an instant, and, before his friends had missed him from amongst them,
Simon Deg was seen darting through the raging mass, cleaving his way
with a surprising vigour, and gesticulating, and no doubt shouting
vehemently to the rioters, though his voice was lost in the din. In the
next moment, his hat was knocked off, and himself appeared in imminent
danger: but, another moment, and there was a pause, and a group of
people were bearing somebody from the frantic mob into a neighbouring
shop. It was Simon Deg, assisting in the rescue of his old friend and
benefactor, Mr. Spires.
Mr. Spires was a good deal bruised, and wonderfully confounded and
bewildered by his fall. His clothes were one mass of mud, and his face
was bleeding copiously; but when he had had a good draught of water, and
his face washed, and had time to recover himself, it was found that he
had received no serious injury.
“They had like to have done for me though,” said he.
“Yes, and who saved you?” asked a gentleman.
“Ay, who was it? who was it?” asked the really warm-hearted
manufacturer; “let me know? I owe him my life.”
“There he is!” said several gentlemen, at the same instant, pushing
forward Simon Deg.
“What, Simon!” said Mr. Spires, starting to his feet. “Was it thee, my
boy?” He did more, he stretched out his hand: the young man clasped it
eagerly, and the two stood silent, and, with a heartfelt emotion, which
blended all the past into forgetfulness, and the future into a union
more sacred than esteem.
A week hence, and Simon Deg was the son-in-law of Mr. Spires. Though Mr.
Spires had misunderstood Simon, and Simon had borne the aspect of
opposition to his old friend, in defence of conscientious principle, the
wife and daughter of the manufacturer had always understood him, and
secretly looked forward to some day of recognition and re-union.
Simon Deg was now the richest man in Stockington. His mother was still
living to enjoy his elevation. She had been his excellent and wise
housekeeper, and she continued to occupy that post still.
Twenty-five years afterwards, when the worthy old Spires was dead, and
Simon Deg had himself two sons attained to manhood; when he had five
times been Mayor of Stockington, and had been knighted on the
presentation of a loyal address; still his mother was living to see it;
and William Watson, the shoemaker, was acting as the sort of orderly at
Sir Simon’s chief manufactory. He occupied the Lodge, and walked about,
and saw that all was safe, and moving on as it should do.
It was amazing how the most plebeian name of Simon Deg had slid, under
the hands of the Heralds, into the really aristocratical one of Sir
Simon Degge. They had traced him up a collateral kinship, spite of his
own consciousness, to a baronet of the same name of the county of
Stafford, and had given him a coat of arms that was really astonishing.
It was some years before this, that Sir Roger Rockville had breathed his
last. His title and estate had fallen into litigation. Owing to two
generations having passed without any issue of the Rockville family
except the one son and heir, the claims, though numerous, were so
mingled with obscuring circumstances, and so equally balanced, that the
lawyers raised quibbles and difficulties enough to keep the property in
Chancery, till they had not only consumed all the ready money and
rental, but had made frightful inroads into the estate itself. To save
the remnant, the contending parties came to a compromise. A neighbouring
squire, whose grandfather had married a Rockville, was allowed to secure
the title, on condition that the rest carried off the residuum of the
estate. The woods and lands of Rockville were announced for sale!
It was at this juncture that old William Watson reminded Sir Simon Degge
of a conversation in the great grove of Rockville, which they had held
at the time that Sir Roger was endeavouring to drive the people thence.
“What a divine pleasure might this man enjoy,” said Simon Deg to his
humble friend, “if he had a heart capable of letting others enjoy
themselves.”
“But we talk without the estate,” said William Watson, “what might we do
if we were tried with it?”
Sir Simon was silent for a moment; then observed that there was sound
philosophy in William Watson’s remark. He said no more, but went away;
and the next day announced to the astonished old man that he had
purchased the groves and the whole ancient estate of Rockville!
Sir Simon Degge, the last of a long line of paupers, was become the
possessor of the noble estate of Sir Roger Rockville of Rockville, the
last of a long line of aristocrats!
The following summer when the hay was lying in fragrant cocks in the
great meadows of Rockville, and on the little islands in the river, Sir
Simon Degge, Baronet, of Rockville,—for such was now his title—through
the suggestion of a great lawyer, formerly Recorder of the Borough of
Stockington, to the crown—held a grand fête on the occasion of his
coming to reside at Rockville Hall, henceforth the family seat of the
Degges. His house and gardens had all been restored to the most
consummate order. For years Sir Simon had been a great purchaser of
works of art and literature, paintings, statuary, books, and articles of
antiquity, including rich armour and precious works in ivory and gold.
First and foremost he gave a great banquet to his wealthy friends, and
no man with a million and a half is without them—and in abundance. In
the second place, he gave a substantial dinner to all his tenantry, from
the wealthy farmer of five hundred acres to the tenant of a cottage. On
this occasion he said, “Game is a subject of great heart-burning and of
great injustice to the country. It was the bane of my predecessor: let
us take care it is not ours. Let every man kill the game on the land
that he rents—then he will not destroy it utterly, nor allow it to grow
into a nuisance. I am fond of a gun myself, but I trust to find enough
for my propensity to the chace in my own fields and woods—if I
occasionally extend my pursuit across the lands of my tenants, it shall
not be to carry off the first-fruits of their feeding, and I shall still
hold the enjoyment as a favour.”
We need not say that this speech was applauded most vociferously.
Thirdly, and lastly, he gave a grand entertainment to all his
workpeople, both of the town and the country. His house and gardens were
thrown open to the inspection of the whole assembled company. The
delighted crowd admired immensely the pictures and the pleasant gardens.
On the lawn, lying between the great grove and the hall, an enormous
tent was pitched, or rather a vast canvas canopy erected, open on all
sides, in which was laid a charming banquet; a military band from
Stockington barracks playing during the time. Here Sir Simon made a
speech as rapturously received as that to the farmers. It was to the
effect, that all the old privileges of wandering in the grove, and
angling, and boating on the river were restored. The inn was already
rebuilt in a handsome Elizabethan style, larger than before, and to
prevent it ever becoming a fane of intemperance, he had there posted as
landlord, he hoped for many years to come, his old friend and
benefactor, William Watson. William Watson should protect the inn from
riot, and they themselves the groves and river banks from injury.
Long and loud were the applauses which this announcement occasioned. The
young people turned out upon the green for a dance, and in the evening,
after an excellent tea—the whole company descended the river to
Stockington in boats and barges decorated with boughs and flowers, and
singing a song made by William Watson for the occasion, called “The
Health of Sir Simon, last and first of his Line!”
Years have rolled on. The groves and river banks and islands of
Rockville are still greatly frequented, but are never known to be
injured: poachers are never known there, for four reasons.—First, nobody
would like to annoy the good Sir Simon; secondly, game is not very
numerous there; thirdly, there is no fun in killing it, where there is
no resistance; and fourthly, it is vastly more abundant in other
proprietors’ demesnes, and _it is_ fun to kill it there, where it is
jealously watched, and there is a chance of a good spree with the
keepers.
And with what different feelings does the good Sir Simon look down from
his lofty eyrie, over the princely expanse of meadows, and over the
glittering river, and over the stately woods to where Great Stockington
still stretches farther and farther its red brick walls, its red-tiled
roofs, and its tall smoke-vomiting chimneys. There he sees no haunts of
crowded enemies to himself or any man. No upstarts, nor envious
opponents, but a vast family of human beings, all toiling for the good
of their families and their country. All advancing, some faster, some
slower, to a better education, a better social condition, a better
conception of the principles of art and commerce, and a clearer
recognition of their rights and their duties, and a more cheering faith
in the upward tendency of humanity.
Looking on this interesting scene from his distant and quiet home, Sir
Simon sees what blessings flow—and how deeply he feels them in his own
case—from a free circulation, not only of trade, but of human relations.
How this corrects the mischiefs, moral and physical, of false systems
and rusty prejudices;—and he ponders on schemes of no ordinary beauty
and beneficence yet to reach his beloved town through them. He sees
lecture halls and academies, means of sanitary purification, and
delicious recreation, in which baths, wash-houses, and airy homes figure
largely: while public walks extend all round the great industrial hive,
including wood, hills, meadow, and river in their circuit of many miles.
There he lived and laboured; there live and labour his sons: and there
he trusts his family will continue to live and labour to all future
generations: never retiring to the fatal indolence of wealth, but aiding
onwards its active and ever-expanding beneficence.
Long may the good Sir Simon live and labour to realise these views. But
already in a green corner of the pleasant churchyard of Rockville may be
read this inscription on a marble headstone:—“Sacred to the Memory of
Jane Deg, the mother of Sir Simon Degge, Bart., of Rockville. This stone
is erected in honour of the best of Mothers by the most grateful of
sons.”
TWO LETTERS FROM AUSTRALIA.
Correspondents, to whom emigration is a subject of vital
importance—inasmuch as they appear to be resolved to leave kindred and
home for “pastures new”—have written to us, with a hope that we will
continue to give, as we have done hitherto, the dark as well as the
light side of the Colonial picture. Not a few of the dangers and
privations of Australian life we have already laid before them. We now
are enabled to furnish some idea of how new localities are colonised, by
such enterprising pioneers as the author of the letters from which we
take the following extracts.
It must be remarked, that the perils he describes were self-sought, and
are by no means incidental to the career of an ordinary emigrant. His
adventures occurred beyond the limits of the colony as defined by the
British Government which, it would appear, he was in some degree
instrumental in extending.
We give the “round unvarnished tale” precisely as we received it, and as
it was communicated by the author to a relative in Cheshire:—
When we separated from our partner, Mr. W., it became necessary to look
for stations outside the limits of the colony, for the only station we
then possessed was much too small for our stock. R. and I first took the
stock up to the station on the Murray, and having heard that a fine
district of country had just been discovered on the Edward, we followed
it down and discovered our present runs, and, I must say, they are
equal—for grazing purposes, at least—to anything I have seen in the
colony. It was necessary that one of us should remain at our station on
the Murray, and R. very kindly gave me the option of either remaining or
going down the Edward. I preferred going and forming new stations on the
Edward, while he agreed to continue where he was, which indeed he
preferred. I therefore lost no time in removing the stock before the
winter rains should set in, and the waters rise to an unnatural height,
which the rivers down here invariably do at this period of the year,
overflowing their banks, in places, for miles. It was too late,—for just
as we started it commenced raining, and continued, without ceasing, for
a month. It was with the greatest difficulty we got down, as, from
continued exposure to wet, and what with driving the cattle by day and
watching them by night, we were, as you may suppose, so completely
fagged, as to be almost “_hors de service_.” But there is an end to
everything,—in this world at least,—and so there was to our journey. It
excited in me at the time, I well recollect, strange and indescribable
sensations, as I rode over the runs, exploring the different nooks and
crannies all so lonely and still, with not a sound to be heard, save now
and then the wild shriek of the native Companion (a large bird), or the
howl of the native dog, or the still more thrilling yell of the black
native, announcing to others the arrival of white men.
We were now about fifty miles from any other white habitation, about six
hundred from Sydney, and two hundred from Melbourne. The country down
here is almost a dead level,—not a single hill to be seen, unless you
choose to honour with the name a few miserable mounds of sand which rise
to an elevation of some twenty or thirty feet. The plains are very
extensive; there is one which extends from our door right across to the
Murrum-bridge, a distance of sixty-five miles, with scarcely a tree on
it.
The Murray—of which the Edward is a branch—takes its rise in the
Australian Alps, and is supplied by springs and snow from these. Some of
the highest mountains of this range retain perpetual snow on their
summits, but on the lesser ones it melts about the beginning of spring,
causing great floods in the Murray and Edward, and our runs, being
particularly low, are flooded from one to three miles on either side of
the river. It is necessary to state this, to enable you to understand
the “secrets I am about to unfold.” We had built one hut on the south
side (ycleped Barratta), but before we could get one up on the south
side (Wirrai), the floods came, and I was obliged to substitute a bark
one instead. I divided the cattle into two herds, and put a steady
stock-keeper, along with a hutkeeper, in charge of one herd on the
Wirrai station, while I, with a hutkeeper and another man (we were only
five altogether) looked after the other on this side. We were badly
supplied with arms and ammunition, and by no means prepared to fight a
strong battle should the Blacks be inclined for mischief. The natives
did not show up at the huts for two or three weeks after our arrival,
but kept reconnoitring at a distance, and we could sometimes see them
gliding stealthily among the trees not far off us. By degrees, two or
three of them came up and made friends, and then more and more, until we
had seen from forty to fifty of them, but it was remarkable that only
old men, boys, and women showed themselves, and none of the warriors.
Although I had heard that kindness was of no avail, I never could be
brought to believe it, and determined, therefore, to do all in my power
to propitiate them by trifling gifts, kind treatment, and avoiding
everything that could hurt their feelings. It was of no use; no
kindness—nothing, in fact—will teach them the law of _meum_ and _tuum_
but the white man’s gun and his superior courage. We had been down about
three months, the waters were at their highest, and our huts on both
sides of the river were surrounded by water, through which we had to
wade every morning to look after the cattle. I was obliged to put the
huts within hearing of gunshot, on account of mutual protection, for
what, after all, are two or three men alone, without a chance of
assistance, against a body of two or three hundred black warriors,
painted and armed, as I have seen them, in all the panoply of savage
warfare.
We had not seen a single Black for nearly six weeks, for, as I
afterwards learned, they had all gone over to a station on the Murray,
about fifty miles from us, where they succeeded in driving the whites
out after killing one man, and from three to four hundred head of
cattle, without the slightest check or resistance; and having brought
their work to a conclusion there, and emboldened by the success of their
expedition, they now turned their eyes towards us, and gathering both
numbers and courage, came pouring down on our devoted station. We had
heard nothing of these depredations then, and were therefore quite
unprepared for them. One day about twenty Blacks come up to the huts for
the purpose, I suppose, of reconnoitring the nakedness of the land, and
we killed for them a bullock, thinking thereby to propitiate them. In
this, however, I was most woefully mistaken, for before they had half
finished it, they went among the cattle on both sides of the river, and
by next morning there was not a single head left within forty miles,
with the exception of a few they had killed at either station. The
Wirrai stock-keeper went on the tracks of his herd, and I followed those
of mine, and by a week’s time we had recovered the greatest part of
both, but there were spears sticking in the sides of many of them, which
wanton piece of cruelty occasioned several deaths in a short time. Not
being strong enough to punish the Blacks, and unwilling to begin a
quarrel which might cause loss of life perhaps on both sides, and still
hoping that they would cease their depredations, I contented myself with
giving them to understand that, if they attempted in future to touch
either man or beast among us, they should be severely punished; they
said it was not them but some _Wild Blacks_, an excuse they always make
when they steal. In a fortnight afterwards, however, they acted the same
play over again; and again we had the same trouble in recovering the
cattle. They did not show after this except at a respectable distance,
when it would be with a flourish of spears, or a wave of their
tomahawks, accompanied with gesticulations of anything but a friendly
character. Still I did not believe that they would attempt our lives,
until I very nearly paid with mine the forfeit of my incredulity. I
should mention that the communication with the Wirrai station was, at
this time, carried on by means of bark canoes, which we paddled with
long poles; the distance by water was about three miles, and by land
straight across, a mile and a half.
One day I had gone over to Wirrai in a canoe, to see how the stockman
was getting on, and on my return was humming a tune and thinking of you,
dear William (for I was humming your old favorite “Flow on, thou shining
River”), when I fancied I heard a slight noise: I stopped and listened,
but could hear nothing; I went a little further and heard it again; I
stopped again and peered about the bank, when suddenly about twenty
Blacks sprung up from behind trees, and reeds, and long grass, only one
of whom I had ever seen before; I was about fifty yards from the nearest
of them, and just at the entrance of a creek about ten yards wide, lined
on both sides with thick reeds. When they first appeared they did not
show any weapons, and spoke in a friendly strain; “Budgery Master always
gibit bullock along im Black fellow,” asked if I wanted any fish? As I
had a good double-barrel gun on my knees I did not so much care about
them, but not exactly liking their appearance I stopped at about thirty
yards. The Blacks by this time were jabbering to more down the creek,
and I could see that the one side was lined with them. Seeing that I
would not come any nearer, they suddenly picked up their spears and
altered their tone, and began calling all sorts of names, and threatened
to break my head with their “Nella nellas” (clubs). Quick as lightning
they shipped their spears, but not quicker than I levelled my gun; the
instant they saw which (they have a great respect for powder,) they
betook themselves behind trees, and, in truth, I thought it best to
follow their example; so, keeping the gun to my shoulder the while, I
began as well as I could to paddle the canoe with one hand; perceiving
my object, they stood out to thwart it, and I knowing that if they sent
their spears, though none of them should hit me, they must inevitably
shiver the canoe to pieces, determined to get on terra firma as quickly
as possible, the water being only knee deep. In stepping out I
unfortunately got into a stump-hole, and the next moment was soused over
head and ears in water! This was decidedly unpleasant, and for the first
time a thrill of fear came over me; however, I jumped up again, and
having been very particular in loading my gun, I thought it might still
go off. By this time the Blacks had gathered in great numbers on the
other side of the creek and were pressing on in a body; seeing this I
now levelled my piece, and took as deliberate an aim as I could at the
foremost of them (a huge brute, for whose capture a hundred pounds
reward had been offered by Government for a murder committed by him on
the Murrum-bridge), but the gun hung fire and the ball dropped into the
water. Finding that there was no dependence to be placed in the gun, the
only course left me was to retreat, and to attempt this I now resolved;
taking courage at this, a number of them jumped into the water, again I
faced them, and again they took to trees—are they not rank cowards? I
was beginning to think that my only chance was to take to my legs—which
indeed would have been almost certain death—when at this crisis I was,
as you may imagine, agreeably surprised by the welcome “Halloo” of the
stockman and hutkeeper, who, having heard the report of the gun and the
yells of the savages, knew that something was up, and arrived at the
nick of time to my rescue. After giving me some dry ammunition we made a
rush after them, but could not overtake the black legs which were now
plying at a particularly nimble rate, and which they especially do when
getting out of the reach of a gun. This was the first attempt they had
made on any of our lives, and their manœuvres showed that they were
under the impression that, if they could “_do for_” the master, they
might easily finish the men. But I made it a rule that never less than
two were to go out on foot or in canoes, and with never less than twenty
rounds of ball cartridge. We did not see anything of the Blacks for a
fortnight after this, during which interval, as they afterwards told us,
they were preparing for a grand attack on the Wirrai station.
About two hours before sundown the following day the stockman went out,
as usual, to see that the cattle were safe. The Wirrai hut, I should
mention, was at this time on a kind of island about a mile and a half in
diameter, formed by the Wirrai Lagoon and a deep creek,—so that the
cattle were feeding almost within sight of the hut. All was quiet; the
cattle did not seem to betray any symptoms of fear, which they generally
will do when the Blacks are near. He had not returned more than half an
hour, when we saw the poor beasts coming rushing towards the hut—as if
for protection—as hard as they could lay legs to the ground. On going
among them, we found many with spears sticking in their bodies. We
immediately mounted horses—(I bareback, as I had left my saddle at
Barratta)—and gallopped as hard as we could in the direction the cattle
had come from for about a mile, when, not seeing anything, we stopped
and listened. There was a small, dense shrub before us, and, as we
approached it, the awful yell that greeted our ears I shall not forget
in a hurry. You can have no idea of the effect it has on one
unaccustomed to the sound, for it is like nothing earthly that I can
compare it to, but more like what one might imagine a lot of fiends
would set up while performing their jubilee over the soul of some
defunct mortal lately arrived at the “prison-house.” We gallopped
through the shrub. Before us was a space bounded by two creeks, forming
at their junction an angle on the plain beyond. Arranged in a semicircle
in this space were some two hundred warriors, painted and armed, and
drawn up in battle array. Between us and them four or five bullocks were
writhing in their death agony, while the other side of the creek, beyond
the warriors, was black with old men, women, and children looking on,
and yelling at a most fearful rate. We gallopped within gunshot, and I
then ordered the stockman to fire on them—(I had no gun myself, and had
enough to do to sit the young spirited horse I was on), but he refused,
saying that my horse would be sure to throw me, and that nothing then
could save me from certain death. By this time the Blacks were trying to
surround us, so as to hem us in between themselves and the creek, and
cut off our retreat to the hut where we had left the hutkeeper in
charge, and we soon found it necessary to put our horses into a
gallop—they following at our heels—in order to get there in time enough
to prepare for a defence. It was their intention, as they afterwards
kindly informed us, to have killed every man jack of us. We had just got
everything ready, when on they came yelling like so many fiends. We
stood out from the hut awaiting their onset. Although the odds against
us, as regarded numbers, was fearful, I was confident that if we could
only make sure of three or four of the foremost of them, it would go far
to intimidate the rest; so, as soon as they came within range of our
guns, we gave them three rounds, which, however, only wounded one of
them; still it made the others check their paces and hesitate awhile,
seeing especially that we were determined to sell our lives dearly at
this crisis; they betook themselves behind trees, protected by which
they crept nearer and nearer to us, we taking every opportunity of
firing, but with small effect. It being now nearly dark, we were obliged
to take to the hut, and defend ourselves there as best we could. When
inside, they threw a great many spears through the tarpaulin, very
fortunately with no other effect than that of one of them just grazing
my head. This kind of siege was carried on about four hours, we firing a
shot now and then when we thought we could perceive the dim outline of
one of them gliding through the dark, and they sending an occasional
spear, and giving a yell. What we most feared was their making an
attempt to set the hut on fire, for if successful in this (and the day
having been very warm, our tarpaulin would have burned like so much
paper) it would have been all up with us.
We had almost given up all hopes of life, and a sort of stubborn, dogged
desperation seized me such as I never before felt, and such as I trust I
never may again feel. We were reduced to nearly a dozen rounds of
ammunition which we resolved to save for the rush. About midnight I was
horribly startled by the stock-keeper announcing that on his side of the
hut (we each of us guarded one side) he thought he could distinguish a
fire-stick at some distance, and, on looking, we could plainly perceive
it approaching nearer and nearer, until it came within what we
considered safe gunshot, when I told the stockman, who was the best
shot, to take good aim. He fired, and the fire-stick dropped on the
ground. A good deal of yelling followed, but they did not again venture
to show fire.
Everything after an hour remained quiet; the cattle had long since been
rushed off the island, and the Blacks, we supposed, had gone to rest,
preparatory to an attack at daybreak. Towards dawn, being faint and weak
through anxiety and fasting,—for we had had nothing for twenty-four
hours,—we determined on having some tea; but before it could be got
ready we again heard the Blacks yelling most furiously. The stockman and
hutkeeper thereupon gave it as their opinion, that our only hope of
escape was in immediately quitting the hut, and attempting, if possible,
to get across to Barratta; so, instantly decamping, we crossed the
lagoon in a canoe, which we then dragged across a few hundred yards of
land to the river. This we also quickly crossed. Just as we reached the
Barratta bank, we heard a most awful hullabaloo at Wirrai, in which
noises our friends the Blacks were giving vent to their feelings of
disgust and disappointment at not finding us at home. Before they could
overtake us, we were safe at Barratta. “To be continued in our next,” as
the Editors of periodicals often say.
In a Second Letter the Narrative is resumed.
I could see plainly depicted in the faces of the two men who were in
charge of the Barratta station, a considerable degree of suspicion as to
the extent of our courage in the Wirrai affair. They were both plucky
men, but their notions underwent a great change the next day. The day we
escaped, we heard nothing more of the natives, except now and then their
distant yells; so I sent up a man on horseback to the next station for
assistance, to help us to find and recover the cattle. But the
superintendent either would not or could not give us any, although all
his servants, to a man, volunteered to go. I was obliged, therefore, to
allow my four men to proceed alone. I think I mentioned that I had
burned my foot very severely, and by this time, from the work I had had
to undergo, I was in great agony from it. But I offered the men, if any
one of them objected to it, he could remain in the hut, and I would go
in his place. They all, however, readily agreed to go, for, in truth,
remaining behind was by far the most dangerous post, inasmuch as the
Blacks, from their numbers, could easily circumvent the men, or keep
them at bay, while they attacked the hut, and I could have done little
myself, in the way of defence, with only an old lockless piece, to
discharge which it was necessary to use a fire-stick. Before they left,
the stockman took me aside, and, with much kindness, implored me
earnestly, for my own safety, to take a horse, and stop out on the
plain. He told me, at the same time, that he did not expect to come back
alive; “but,” said he, “it does not matter a straw what becomes of us,
for not one of us would be missed.” This disinterestedness struck me not
a little, as showing a high trait of fine feeling, coming as it did from
an old convict who had been transported for life, and had once been
condemned to be hanged. However, I resolved to take my chance in the
hut, and very glad I was that I did so afterwards, as I should have
looked very foolish, when my men returned, seated on a horse, and ready
to make a bolt. I had waited about an hour with my old gun and
fire-stick in hand, without hearing a sound to break the horrid
stillness which seemed at that particular time to reign paramount around
me, when a distant volley of gunshot burst upon my ear, and then a faint
volley of yells. In a short time the sounds were repeated; again and
again, but nearer and nearer, and more and more distinct, a shot or two
at a time, with horrible yells filling up the interlude until I could
distinguish my men retreating with an immense semicircle of natives
trying to encompass them and cut them off from the hut. My men retreated
to the water’s edge in capital order, and then faced round to the enemy,
for it would have been sure death to have attempted to cross in the face
of so many of the foe. After a good deal of skirmishing at this point, a
very old Black took a green bough, and standing a little out from the
rest, made a long harangue to the white men in his own language, which
of course was just so much Hebrew to them; but being anxious for a truce
they ceased firing. Another Black who could talk a little English now
came forward, and after a good deal of jabber, concluded a peace, one
condition of which was that they were to give up everything they had
taken from the Wirrai hut. Of course we well knew, or at least fully
expected, that this treaty was all hollow on their side, and like
lovers’ vows, made only to be broken; but the truth was, we were glad
enough to get a little respite even though for ever so short a time.
After restoring most of the things they had stolen, the Blacks drew off
in a body to the other side of the river.
The stockman informed me, that, when they started on their search, they
first crossed the river, and then made away over to the Collegian, where
they soon espied a few Blacks, apparently reconnoitring, who, when they
perceived the white men, made signals to other Blacks beyond them, and
who, in like manner, signalled others still further away: presently they
saw slowly approaching them a dense black body which the two men who had
not been at Wirrai the day before took to be the cattle they were in
search of, but which the more experienced stockman at once declared to
be a vast body of the Blacks. The two men at first laughed at this idea
as a good joke, but were soon confirmed as to its correctness, when they
changed their tone, and began to think it high time to return. On,
however, they came in a dense body, and when nearly within gunshot,
spread themselves out, or deployed—as our military brother would I
suppose call it—and pressing on in a large semicircle, endeavoured so to
manœuvre, as to cut off the escape of the retreating _army_ in the
direction of the hut as before related.
The truce, as we had anticipated, proved a very short one, as you will
presently see. The day following the above incidents, I sent the
stockman and another, to see after the surviving cattle which our black
friends informed us had got out of the island and gone across the
country to the Murray, which was true. The men had been gone about three
hours, when about a hundred of the warriors came up to the hut—without
their spears, but with plenty of tomahawks—pretending to be good
friends. I told the two men who were working outside, to keep a sharp
lookout, as I suspected their friendship was not of that description I
most coveted or admired; and being myself scarcely able to move, I sat
down in a corner of the hut by a table, with a gun close by me, a brace
of pistols in my belt, and another on the table. I told the Blacks to
keep outside the hut; but they, gradually edging their way in, soon
nearly filled it: and seeing that there was no chance of keeping them
out, except by proceeding to extremities, I contented myself with
watching their motions with all the coolness I could command. They began
talking very quietly at first, and I noticed the gentleman I mentioned
who could talk a little English, edging by little and little towards me,
sometimes talking to his companions and sometimes addressing me. I
pretended not to notice him particularly, though at the same
time—without looking directly at him—I could see his eyes rolling from
the direction of mine to the fire-arms like a revolving lamp. Soon the
jabbering became louder and louder (they were talking themselves into a
rage), and I thought I could hear the names of some of those who had
fallen, made use of. All the while the above-mentioned black fellow was
shuffling closer and closer to me, until i’ faith I thought it was high
time to act my part in the scene, or give up all thoughts of life. With
all the calmness I was master of, I took up a pistol from the table, and
taking my English friend by the arm, pointed it at his head, and told
him to order all his companions to quit the hut; he shook like an aspen
leaf, and turned as white as a Black well can, and ordered them to go
out, which they immediately did without a word; I then led him after
them, and bade them leave the place, and return to their camp, which
they likewise did.
I look upon that as about the narrowest escape I ever had; for the
Blacks have since told me that they were on the point of making a rush
upon us, when it was providentially stopped by the timely proceeding
mentioned. Had they done so, nothing of course could have saved us. Next
day three or four hundred of them passed the hut in dead silence; and
not one of them called. They were all fully armed and painted with red
ochre (their uniform for war), and I conjectured they were up to some
mischief, but what I could not tell.
In about a week we again had the pleasure of seeing them coming in great
numbers, and camping in an island about a mile off. From certain signs
which experience had taught us, we were well assured that they intended
making a grand attack upon our hut. I had no one living at Wirrai then;
and as there were only four of us at Barratta, viz., H., (who had just
arrived), myself and two men, (the two who had been sent after the
cattle, were still away,) and wishing to give the Blacks a severe
lesson, we sent to the next station for as many men as they could spare.
The man we sent had only just reached the station, when the Commissioner
of the district chanced also to arrive there. Now the Commissioner in
those days was a man of great authority; in fact, altogether more like a
little king, than any less lordly personage: so, instead of coming down
himself with his police to our assistance, he allowed the superintendent
to send six of his men, while he himself remained where he was “otium
cum” for in truth the old fellow—to say nothing of his love of ease, was
of old Falstaff’s opinion touching the advisable predominance of a
certain quality in the exercise of valour. The men arrived in great
silence at midnight, and the Blacks fortunately knew nothing of their
arrival; for if they had, they would have deferred their attack until a
more seasonable opportunity when we were not so well prepared for their
reception.
Daylight came, and in the distance we could see their dusky figures
crossing the lagoon to one side. They had only three canoes, so that it
was a considerable time before all were landed. They then gathered
together in a clump in dead silence, and held a council of war, thinking
themselves unobserved all the time. At sunrise they slowly approached,
and only those of us whom they expected to see showed out to them, and
without arms; they appeared to have no other arms than their tomahawks;
but every man of them was dragging a large jagged spear with their toes
through the long grass. When, by the way, one of these spears enters a
man’s body, it is impossible to get it out again, except by cutting the
flesh all round it, or pushing it right through to the other side. As
they advanced nearer, they spoke, and continued talking to us all the
time in the most friendly strains, until within about twenty yards; when
just as they (at a signal given by one of them) were stooping to pick up
their spears to make a rush, the men in the hut let drive through
loopholes right among them; and we all made a simultaneous rush, and put
them to rout in a manner that would have given the Old Duke intense
satisfaction had he been looking on. How many fell, I cannot say, as
they always try to drag their dead from the field, and all around us,
except on the water-side, was long grass and reeds; two were left dead,
and these we buried.
To detail all the skirmishes and the Parthian description of fighting
with the Blacks for the eighteen months which ensued, would only weary
you. Where, little more than three years ago, ours was the only station
in this direction, being five miles beyond any other, there are now
stations formed a hundred miles below us, and even ladies grace the
river forty miles down, one of them married to an old school-fellow of
ours, viz., Brougham, nephew of Lord Brougham. Among other diversions, I
have been employing myself in making a flower-garden, for independently
of my love of flowers, I think their contemplation, and engagement in
their cultivation, has a humanising, or, if you will, a civilising
effect on the mind, such as I can assure you we require in the Bush.
SUPPOSING.
Supposing a Royal Duke were to die. Which is not a great stretch of
supposition,
For golden lads and lasses must,
Like chimney-sweepers, come to dust:
Supposing he had been a good old Duke with a thoroughly kind heart, and
a generous nature, always influenced by a sincere desire to do right,
and always doing it, like a man and a gentleman, to the best of his
ability:
And supposing, this Royal Duke left a son, against whom there was no
imputation or reproach, but of whom all men were disposed to think well,
and had no right or reason to think otherwise:
And supposing, this Royal Duke, though possessed of a very handsome
income in his lifetime, had not made provision for this son; and a
rather accommodating Government (in such matters) were to make provision
for him, at the expense of the public, on a scale wholly unsuited to the
nature of the public burdens, past, present, and prospective, and
bearing no proportion to any kind of public reward, for any sort of
public service:
I wonder whether the country could then, with any justice, complain,
that the Royal Duke had not himself provided for his son, instead of
leaving his son a charge upon the people!
I should think the question would depend upon this:—Whether the country
had ever given the good Duke to understand, that it, in the least
degree, expected him to provide for his son. If it never did anything of
the sort, but always conveyed to him, in every possible way, the
rapturous assurance that there was a certain amount of troublesome Hotel
business to be done, which nobody but a Royal Duke could by any
possibility do, or the business would lose its grace and flavor, then, I
should say, the good Duke aforesaid might reasonably suppose that he
made sufficient provision for his son, in leaving him the Hotel
business; and that the country would be a very unreasonable country, if
it made any complaint.
Supposing the country _did_ complain, though, after all. I wonder what
it would still say, in Committee, Sub Committee, Charitable Association,
and List of Stewards, if any ungenteel person were to propose ignoble
chairmen!
Because I should like the country to be consistent.
* * * * *
Monthly Supplement of “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,”
Conducted by CHARLES DICKENS.
_Price 2d., Stamped, 3d._,
THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
OF
CURRENT EVENTS.
_The Number, containing a history of the past month, was issued with
the Magazines._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
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