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Title: Palace and Hovel
Phases of London Life
Author: Daniel Joseph Kirwan
Release Date: October 12, 2017 [eBook #55732]
Language: English
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[Illustration: ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE. (Page 459.)]
[Illustration: GRAND STAIRCASE, BUCKINGHAM PALACE.]
PALACE AND HOVEL:
Or,
Phases of London Life.
Being
Personal Observations of an American in London, by Day and Night; with
Graphic Descriptions of Royal and Noble Personages, Their Residences
and Relaxations; Together with Vivid Illustrations
of the Manners, Social Customs, and Modes of
Living of the Rich and the Reckless, the
Destitute and the Depraved, in the
Metropolis of Great Britain.
With
Valuable Statistical Information,
Collected from the Most Reliable Sources.
by
DANIEL JOSEPH KIRWAN.
Beautifully Illustrated with Two Hundred Engravings, and a finely
executed Map of London.
Published by Subscription Only.
Hartford, Conn.:
Belknap & Bliss.
W. E. Bliss, Toledo, Ohio.--Nettleton & Co., Cincinnati,
Ohio.--Duffield Ashmead, Philadelphia, Pa.
Union Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill.
A. L. Bancroft & Co., San Francisco, Cal.
1870
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by
Belknap & Bliss,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut.
William H. Lockwood,
Electrotyper,
Hartford, Conn.
TO
Samuel L.M. Barlow, Esq.,
OF
NEW YORK CITY,
A
True Gentleman in Every Quality and Duty of Life,
THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED,
AS A
SLIGHT TESTIMONY
TO THE
Unvarying Friendship borne by him for the author
PREFACE.
In offering this volume to the Public, the result of a year's
experience and labor, I must indeed feel gratified, and more than
rewarded, if any of those who may peruse its pages shall find in them
a tithe of the pleasure which I enjoyed in journeying in and about the
nooks, crannies, and curious places, of what may be justly called the
greatest and most populous City of the Modern World.
Believing that a Metropolis of Three and a Half Millions of people
should be observed and described, if observed and described at all, in
a large and comprehensive sense, in order that a thorough knowledge
of it may be obtained by those who will do me the honor of turning
the leaves of this book, I have not hesitated to take my readers
into places which they might shrink from visiting alone, and which
are rarely or ever seen by the stranger, in London. Therefore have I
sketched its Haunts of Vice, Misery, and Crime, as well as its fairer
and brighter aspects, with no faltering in my purpose, so that the
American people might see London as I saw it, and as it exists To-Day.
The material employed in making the book was gathered from personal
observation, while acting as a Special Correspondent of the New York
_World_, in London, and I cannot do less than make an acknowledgment of
the kindness of its Editor, Mr. Manton Marble, by whose permission I
have used some portions of the matter embodied in this work.
DANIEL JOSEPH KIRWAN.
Hartford, August 1st, 1870.
[Illustration:
List of ILLUSTRATIONS
_BY_
Fay & Cox
105 Nassau ST.
N.Y.]
1. One More Unfortunate Frontispiece --
2. Grand Staircase, Buckingham Palace--Illuminated Title-Page. --
3. Bird's-Eye View of London, 17
4. Initial Letter, 17
5. The London Stone, 19
6. "Thank you, Sir," 20
7. The Rock and Chain, Tail Piece, 23
8. Initial Letter, 24
9. Sword, &c., Tail Piece, 27
10. Entrance to Docks, 32
11. "I Don't Think it Will Hurt me," 34
12. Forest, Initial Letter, 42
13. Buckingham Palace (Full Page,) 45
14. Portrait of Queen Victoria, 50
15. John Brown Exercising the Queen, 53
16. Fancy Sketch, Tail Piece, 56
17. Lion on Guard, Initial Letter, 57
18. Purty Bill Showing us in, 61
19. "Wont you Take Something?" 63
20. Snake Swallowing, 67
21. "Bilking Bet takes the Chair," 72
22. "Teddy the Kinchin's Song," 74
23. Explosive Materials, Tail Piece, 75
24. Initial Letter, 76
25. Cogers' Hall, Debating Club, 85
26. Snake in the Grass, Tail Piece, 91
27. Initial Letter, 92
28. Conservative Club House, 99
29. Carlton Club House, 101
30. Oxford and Cambridge Club House, 102
31. United Service Club House, 104
32. Architectural Sketch, Tail Piece, 106
33. Initial Letter, 107
34. Westminster Abbey, 109
35. Shakespeare's Tomb, 115
36. Tomb of Milton, 117
37. Tomb of Mary Queen of Scots, 118
38. Coronation Chair, 121
39. Gauntleted Hand and Sword, Tail Piece, 127
40. Initial Letter, 128
41. Victoria Theatre in the New Cut, (Full Page,) 136
42. Rag Fair, 142
43. A Cell Window, Initial Letter, 145
44. The Last Execution at Newgate, 151
45. Fetters and Chain, Tail Piece, 158
46. Broken Wheel, Initial Letter, 159
47. Doctors' Commons, 162
48. Eagle and Snake, Tail Piece, 166
49. Initial Letter, 167
50. A Bohemian Carouse, 171
51. A Water Scene, Tail Piece, 180
52. Tower of London (Full Page,) 182
53. Initial Letter, 183
54. Traitors' Gate, 189
55. The Crown Jewels, 197
56. Imperial Orb, Ampulla and other Jewels, 199
57. The State Salt-Cellars, 200
58. Cannon, Tail Piece, 206
59. Initial Letter, 207
60. The Cadgers' Meal, 210
61. Raft Timber, Tail Piece, 215
62. The Old Oak, Initial Letter, 216
63. Bathing in Hyde Park, 219
64. The Labyrinth, 221
65. The Crystal Palace, 223
66. The Promenade, Tail Piece, 225
67. Fort and Water Scene, Initial Letter, 226
68. Portrait of the Prince of Wales, 230
69. Prince and Cabman, 234
70. Broken Wagon and Dead Horse, Tail Piece, 239
71. Blood-Hounds in the Leash, Initial Letter, 240
72. Portrait of Lady Mordaunt, 243
73. Portrait of the Duke of Hamilton, 262
74. Portrait of the Marquis of Waterford, 265
75. Portrait of the Marquis of Hastings, 267
76. Mounted Cannon, Initial Letter, 270
77. Houses of Parliament (Full Page,) 272
78. Portrait of William Ewart Gladstone, 274
79. The Legislative Bar-Maid, 279
80. Portrait of John Bright, 281
81. The Student, Tail Piece, 284
82. Initial Letter, 285
83. "Could you Make it a Tanner?" 290
84. The Speaker of the House, 292
85. First Lord of the Admiralty, 298
86. Portrait of Robert E. Lowe, 300
87. Gladstone Speaking in the House of Commons (Full Page,) 307
88. Landscape, Tail Piece, 317
89. Initial Letter, 318
90. The Pocket-Book Game, 324
91. Steam Frigate, Tail Piece, 329
92. A Broadside, Initial Letter, 330
93. The Sewer Hunter, 334
94. Blood-Hound, Tail Piece, 336
95. Island, Initial Letter, 337
96. Cats Receiving Rations, 339
97. The Great Porter Tun, 341
98. Initial Letter, 344
99. The Harvard Crew (Full Page,) 353
100. Bridge, Tail Piece, 361
101. Initial Letter, 362
102. The Oxford Crew, (Full Page,) 369
103. The University Race, (Full Page,) 375
104. Beautiful Craft, Tail Piece, 381
105. Initial Letter, 382
106. Hospital Ship "Dreadnought," 384
107. Jonathan Wild's Skeleton, 389
108. Tail Piece, 390
109. Initial Letter, 391
110. Coke Peddler, 399
111. Bum Boatman, 401
112. "I Gets it for Cigar Stumps," 403
113. Street Acrobats, 405
114. Punch and Judy, 407
115. Initial Letter, 410
116. Nelson's Monument, 416
117. Damaged Tree, Tail Piece, 419
118. Initial Letter, 420
119. Nursery in the Foundling Hospital, 421
120. Washing the Waifs, 427
121. Landscape, Tail Piece, 434
122. Initial Letter, 435
123. Breakfast Stall, Covent Garden Market (Full Page,) 443
124. The Orange Market, 450
125. Going to Market, Tail Piece, 451
126. Fancy Piece, Initial Letter, 452
127. Wild and Desolate, Tail Piece, 460
128. Initial Letter, 461
129. Foreign Cafe in Coventry Street, 462
130. Canteen of the Alhambra, 471
131. The Old Sinner, 473
132. Rough and Ready, Tail Piece, 475
133. In the Haymarket, 482
134. Initial Letter, 486
135. St. Paul's Cathedral, 487
136. Sharp-Shooter, Initial Letter, 493
137. "Beautiful Miss Neilson," 494
138. A Gin Public in the New Cut, 500
139. A Gallery of the "Vic," 502
140. Putting on Airs, Tail Piece, 507
141. Initial Letter, 508
142. An Auction at Billingsgate Fish Market, (Full Page,) 511
143. Initial Letter, 518
144. Lincoln's Inn, 520
145. Fancy Sketch, Tail Piece, 525
146. An English Oak, Initial Letter, 526
147. Bankers' Eating-House, 528
148. The Bank of England, 533
149. "I Began to Perspire," 538
150. Carpet-Bag, Tail Piece, 544
151. London Bridge, (Full Page,) 546
152. Forest Scene, Initial Letter, 547
153. Temple Bar, Fleet Street, 550
154. The New Blackfriars Bridge, 553
155. Bridge and Water Scene, Tail Piece, 555
156. Initial Letter, 556
157. Windsor Castle, 560
158. Tail Piece, 565
159. Initial Letter, 566
160. Loading the Prison Van, 570
161. Detective Irving, 572
162. Before the Lord Mayor, 574
163. Bible and Hand, Initial Letter, 576
164. Portrait of Spurgeon, 577
165. Portrait of Father Ignatius, 578
166. "Lothair" (Marquis of Bute,) 583
167. Ruins, Tail Piece, 586
168. Initial Letter, 587
169. "Scott's" in the Haymarket, 588
170. The Midnight Mission, (Full Page,) 592
171. "Skittles" and the Princess Mary, 595
172. A Row in Cremorne, 596
173. Sword and Purse, Initial Letter, 598
174. Portrait of "Mabel Grey," 602
175. Portrait of "Anonyma," 605
176. Portrait of "Baby Hamilton," 606
177. Mabel Grey at Home, 609
178. Portrait of "Alice Gordon," 613
179. Snake and Dove, Initial Letter, 614
180. A Meal at a Cheap Lodging House, (Full Page,) 617
181. "Damnable Jack," 619
182. Statue of George Peabody, 625
183. Tail Piece, 625
184. Initial Letter, 626
185. Old "Smudge," the Cabby, 627
186. "A Hansom Cab," 628
187. "One Hundred Rats in Nine Minutes," 630
188. The Rat-Catcher, 632
189. "Paddy's Goose," 633
190. Waiting for the Tide, 634
191. Ruins, Tail Piece, 635
192. "The Times" Office, 650
193. The Sub-Editors' Room, "Daily Telegraph" Office, 651
194. Portrait of James Anthony Froude, 639
195. Portrait of Algernon Charles Swinburne, 641
196. Portrait of John Stewart Mill, 643
197. Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli, 644
198. Portrait of John Ruskin, 637
199. Portrait of Charles Kingsley, 645
200. Portrait of Anthony Trollope, 647
201. Tail Piece, 652
202. Initial Letter, 655
203. Half-Penny Soup House, (Full Page,) 653
204. A Pawn-Broker's Shop, 656
205. A Third Class Railway Carriage, 659
206. Tail Piece, 662
207. Map of London, --
[Illustration: Contents]
CHAPTER I.
THE MISTRESS OF THE WORLD.
View from the Cupola of St. Paul's Cathedral--Population of London--Its
Wealth and Poverty--Interesting Statistics, 18
CHAPTER II.
THE SILENT HIGHWAY.
The Thames Embankment--The Tunnel--The Subway--Tunnel Thieves--Pneumatic
Railway, 24
CHAPTER III.
THE DOCKS, SHIPPING, AND COMMERCE.
Custom-House Duties--Immense Wine Vaults under the Docks--Hoisting
and Discharging Cargoes--London and West India Docks--Opposition
to the New Dock System--Dock Laborers, 28
CHAPTER IV.
PALACES OF LONDON.
St. James--Whitehall--Buckingham Palace--Magnificence of the Queen's
Residence--The Grand Staircase--Queen's Library--The Famous _John
Brown_, 42
CHAPTER V.
HIDDEN DEPTHS.
Underground Life--A Friendly Visit among Thieves and Pick-Pockets--The
Midnight Feast, 58
CHAPTER VI.
DEBATING CLUBS AND COGERS' HALL.
Society of Cogers--The Most Worthy Grand--News of the Week--Interesting
Debates--Irish Orator and Scotch Presbyterian--Liberals and
Conservatives--"Where are we now?"--Farce and Tragedy, 76
CHAPTER VII.
CLUBS AND CLUB HOUSES.
Aristocratic Members--Entrance and Subscription Fees--How Managed
and Supported--Architectural Splendor--Choice Wines and Luxurious
Dinners--Interesting Statistics--A Model Kitchen--Heavy Swell
Club, 92
CHAPTER VIII.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Its Dimensions and Architectural Construction--Its Wealth and Immense
Revenues--The Burial-Place of the Kings and Queens--Magnificence of
their Tombs--Tomb of Shakespeare--Tomb of Milton--Tomb of Mary
Queen of Scots--Coronation of William the Conqueror--The Massacre, 107
CHAPTER IX.
THE COSTERMONGERS AND RAG FAIR.
The New Cut--Heathenism of the Costers--Marriage Relation--Old
Clothes District--Petticoat Lane--Congress of Rags--Modus
Operandi of Selling, 128
CHAPTER X.
FROM NEWGATE TO TYBURN.
Dying for an Idea--Execution of Barrett--Man in the Mask--Famous
Criminals--Pestiferous Prison--The Old Bailey Court--Hotel
Regulations--Drinking from St. Giles' Bowl, 145
CHAPTER XI.
DOCTORS' COMMONS.
Marriage Licenses--Divorces--Ecclesiastical Court--High Court of
Admiralty--Paying the Piper--Legal Scoundrelism--The Last Will and
Testaments of Shakespeare, Milton, and of Napoleon Bonaparte--The
Forgotten Sailor, 159
CHAPTER XII.
THE BOHEMIANS OF LONDON.
Carlisle Arms--A Pint of Cooper--Cockerell's Lodgings--Fitz and Dawson,
or the Radical and Conservative Reporter--The Short Hand
Reporter--Dawson's Story--A Song from the Speaker--Beautiful Potato, 167
CHAPTER XIII.
TOWER, PALACE, AND PRISON.
Its History and Dimensions--Council Chamber--Jolly Bishops and Royal
Prisoners--The Traitor's Gate--Anne Boleyn--Princess Elizabeth--Heroism
of Lady Jane Grey upon the Scaffold--The Crown Jewels--What
can be seen for a Sixpence, 183
CHAPTER XIV.
CADGERS OF LONDON BRIDGE.
Under the Arches--Vagrancy and Pauperism--The Family Gathering--The
Cadger's Meal--A Confirmed Vagrant--The Girl Molly--The
Hopeful Son--The Cadger's Story, 207
CHAPTER XV.
THE LUNGS OF LONDON.
Regent's and Hyde Parks--Dimensions of the Public Parks and Gardens--What
they Contain--Bathing in Hyde Park--Richmond Park with its
Forests and Hunting Grounds--Hampton Court Park--Its Labyrinth--The
Crystal Palace--Veteran Musicians--Greenwich Park--Grand Observatory, 216
CHAPTER XVI.
THE RAKES OF THE ROYAL FAMILY.
Vagabonds in Kingly Robes--Prince of Wales and his Personal
Friends--The Prince and the London Brewer as Firemen--Lord Carington
as a Coachman--His Cowardly Assault upon Greenville Murray--The Prince
and Cabman--Infamy of the Prince--A Mad King, 226
CHAPTER XVII.
FAST YOUNG ENGLAND.
Lord Carington--Lady Mordaunt, Divorce Proceedings, and Interesting
Testimony--Love Letters of the Prince--Duke of Hamilton--The Fastest
Young Man in England--The Marquis of Waterford--Marquis of Hastings--Duke
of Newcastle--Earl of Jersey--Lord Clinton and others, 240
CHAPTER XVIII.
LORDS AND COMMONS.
Westminster Palace and Houses of Parliament--Interior of the House of
Commons--Bobbies and Cabbies--Strangers' Gallery--The Legislative
Bar-Maid--William Ewart Gladstone--England's Greatest Commoner
John Bright, 272
CHAPTER XIX.
LORDS AND COMMONS CONTINUED.
Reporters' Gallery--Dr. Johnson taking Notes--The Speaker and his
Wig--Important Personages--First Lord of the Admiralty--Peers in the
Gallery--Gladstone's Early Life--The Eloquence of the Premier--The
Sarcasm of Disraeli--Ducal Houses--Upper House of Parliament--Privileges
of the Peers, 285
CHAPTER XX.
LONDON POLICE AND DETECTIVES.
The Old Jewry--Central Detective's Office--Relics of Crimes--Inspector
Bailey--Experience of Mr. Funnell--The Pocket-Book Game--New
York a Precious bad Place--Police Districts--Expenses Attending
them--River Thieves, 318
CHAPTER XXI.
HUNTING THE SEWERS.
The City Honey-Combed--2,000 Miles of Sewerage--An Unlawful and
Dangerous Business--Prizes Found--The Hunter's Story--Great Battle
with the Rats--Victory at last, 330
CHAPTER XXII.
BACCHUS AND BEER.
The English a Great Beer-Drinking People--Amount of Exports--Barclay and
Perkins--A Princely Firm--Cats on Guard--The House of Hanbury, Buxton
& Co.--Great Porter Tun--Libraries in the Establishments--Quantities
of Beer used in London, 338
CHAPTER XXIII.
HARVARD AGAINST OXFORD.
Police Arrangements--Thomas Hughes, M.P.--Dark Blue and Magenta--On
the Tow-Path--A Frightful Jam--Booths and Shows--Badges and
Rosettes--The Dear Old Flag, 344
CHAPTER XXIV.
STRUGGLE AND VICTORY.
On Board the Press Boat--The Harvard Crew--Loring's Condition--Simmons
the Pride of the Crew--The Oxford Crew--"Little Corpus," the
Coxswain--The Start--Harvard Leads--Burnham's bad Steering--Oxford's
Vengeance Stroke--The Last Desperate Struggle--Beaten by
Six Seconds--Fair Play and Courtesy, 362
CHAPTER XXV.
CURIOSITIES OF LONDON.
"Domesday Book"--Oldest Books in England--Hospital Ship "Dreadnought"--A
Gaudy Show--The Queen's Stage-Coach--Jonathan Wild's
Skeleton--The Lord Mayor's State Coach--Installation of a London
Sheriff, 382
CHAPTER XXVI.
STREET SIGHTS OF LONDON.
Street Hawkers--Venders of Old Boots and Shoes--The Dog Fancier--Bird
Sellers--Coke Peddlers--Bum Boatman--Stock in Trade--How Dick
gets his Porridge--"I Gets it for Cigar-Stumps"--Street Acrobats--Punch
and Judy Show, 391
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND NATIONAL GALLERY.
Its Origin--Laying the Foundation--Reading Room--Departments of the
Museum--The Galleries and Saloons--The Three Libraries--What can
be seen--Nelson's Monument--Pictures and Works of Art in the National
Gallery--The Great Masters--Free to the Working People, 410
CHAPTER XXVIII.
NAKED AND NEEDY.
Infanticide--The Benevolent Captain--Foundling Hospital--Admission of
Children--Great Numbers Received--How they Dine--How they Sleep--Washing
the Waifs--Charitable Institutions--An Interesting Sight--Innumerable
Bequests, 420
CHAPTER XXIX.
MARKETS AND FOOD.
Amount of Food Sold--Inspections--Metropolitan Cattle Market--New
Smithfield Market--Covent Garden Market--Hot Coffee Girl--Vegetable
Market--The Baked Potato Man--The Jews' Orange Market, 435
CHAPTER XXX.
SECRETS OF A RIVER.
Waterloo Bridge--The Pale-Faced Girl--Three O'clock in the
Morning--Weary of Life--A Leap from the Parapet--Fruitless
Attempt to Save--A Sad Sight--The Wages of Sin is Death, 452
CHAPTER XXXI.
INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH.
Leicester Square--Foreign Cafe in Coventry Street--The Abode of Sir
Joshua Reynolds--The Residence of William Hogarth--Royal Alhambra
Palace--The Great Social Evil--"Wotten Wow"--In the Canteen--The
Old Sinner--The Tulip and the Daisy, 461
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE "ARGYLE," "BARNES'" AND "CASINO."
The Haymarket by Night--The Argyle Rooms--Fast Young Men--Paint
and Jewelry--Silks and Satins--Free and Easy--Barnes'--"Holborn
Casino"--A Magnificent Saloon--Good Night, 476
CHAPTER XXXIII.
ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.
Its History and Dimensions--Destruction of Old St. Paul's--Annual
Revenues--Prices of Admission--Monuments to Nelson--Burial-Place of
Wellington--Nelson's Funeral--A Grand Sight--"I am the Resurrection
and the Life," 486
CHAPTER XXXIV.
GOING TO THE PLAY.
Beautiful Miss Neilson--The Lord Chamberlain a Censor--Royal
Victoria Theatre--Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres--A
"Gin Public" in the New Cut--The Gallery of the "Vic"--The
Chorus of "Immensekoff," 493
CHAPTER XXXV.
BILLINGSGATE FISH MARKET.
Profit on Fish--Oyster Boats--Number of Fishing Vessels--The Fish
Woman--The Old Style of Dress--Breakfast at Billingsgate--Capital
Invested--Immense Sales, 508
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE INNS OF COURT.
Number of Students--Gray's Inn--The New Hall of Lincoln's
Inn--Parliament Chamber--How to become a Lawyer--Procuring
Admission--"Hall Dinners"--Cup of "Sack"--The Toast--Irish
Students, 518
CHAPTER XXXVII.
BANK OF ENGLAND AND THE MINT.
Its History--The Riots--Ledgers and Money-Bags--A Powerful
Corporation--Bankers' Eating-House--Great Panic of 1825--In
the Vaults--Making Sovereigns--Marking Room--How the Coin is
Tested--Celebrated Counterfeiters, 526
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
BRIDGES OF LONDON.
History of Old London Bridge--The Fire of 1632--Where Traitors' Heads
were Suspended--Temple Bar--Traffic of London Bridges--Southwark
and Waterloo Bridges--The New Blackfriars Bridge--Suspension
Bridges--Acrobatic Feats--Scott, the American Diver, 547
CHAPTER XXXIX.
WINDSOR CASTLE.
Great number of Apartments--The Round Tower--The Audience
Chamber--Throne Room--Visit to the Queen's Bedroom--An
Elegant Apartment, 556
CHAPTER XL.
BEFORE THE MAGISTRATES.
The "Old Bailey"--Its Jurisdiction--The Lord Mayor's Court--The
Trial of a Young Forger--The Judges' Dinner--Loading the Prison
Van--The Mansion House--Detective Irving--The Forger Harwood--How
Justice is Administered, 566
CHAPTER XLI.
CANTERBURY AND ROME.
Churches and Sects--Bishop of London--Archbishop of
Canterbury--Spurgeon--"Apocalypse Cumming"--Church of
England--Father Ignatius--Roman Catholic Lords--Marquis of Bute, 576
CHAPTER XLII.
LEGION OF THE LOST.
The Great Parade Ground--"Scott's" in the Haymarket--Oysters in every
Style--Prostitutes and Abandoned Women--The Midnight Mission--Rev.
Baptist Noel--Cremorne Gardens at Chelsea--A Row at Cremorne--"Skittles"
and the Princess Mary of Cambridge, 587
CHAPTER XLIII.
SCARLET WOMEN.
Goodwood Races--Men of the Turf--Swarms of People--The Barouche and
Four--Beauty of its Occupants--"Anonyma" and the Chestnut Mare--"Mabel
Grey" and "Baby Hamilton"--The Race for the Goodwood
Cup--The Itinerant Preacher--Mabel Grey at Home--"The Kitten"--Alice
Gordon, 598
CHAPTER XLIV.
CHEAP LODGING HOUSES.
Eve of the Great Derby Race--Visit to Westminster--Lodging House of
Jack Scrag--_Four-Penny_ Beds--Unpleasant Bed-Fellow--Attacking
the Enemy--A Lucky Escape--Crowded Buildings--Eminent
Philanthropists--Model Lodging Houses--Munificent Gifts--George
Peabody's Statue, 615
CHAPTER XLV.
A TRAMP IN THE BY-WAYS.
"Old Smudge," the Cabby--A "Hansom" Cab--Rates of Fares--A Convivial
Pup--The Rat Pit--The Terrier "Skid"--The Match for £50--Skid
Slaughters a Hundred Rats in 8:40--Paddy's "Goose," or "The
White Swan"--Please Excuse me--Waiting for the Tide--Cured of the
Blues, 626
CHAPTER XLVI.
LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM.
Work and Wages--Influence of London Journals--Management of the
Press--Circulation and Delivery of Papers--Celebrated Writers--James
Anthony Froude--Algernon Charles Swinburne--John Stewart
Mill--Benjamin Disraeli--John Ruskin--Charles Kingsley, Anthony
Trollope, and others, 636
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE POOR OF LONDON.
Half-Penny Soup House--The Little Cast-aways and Waifs Provided
for--Visit to the Work-House of St Martin's--The Workers' Uniform--The
Old Pauper--Daily Rations--Schools--Trades--Struggles and Trials of
the London Poor--Pawn-Brokers' Shops--Third Class Railway Carriages, 655
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
THE MISTRESS OF THE WORLD.
IN the civilized world perhaps such another sight cannot be witnessed,
as that which greets the eye from the great Cupola of St. Paul's,
when the view is taken on a bright summer morning, after daybreak has
settled on the leads and huge gilded cross of this, the most mighty of
English Cathedrals.
I saw this vast expanse of brick, stone, and mortar, one delicious, but
hazy September morning, from the outer circle of the dome, and I shall
never forget that peopled metropolis which lay swarming below me like a
vast human hive.
For a radius of ten miles, the roofs and spires of countless religious
edifices, dwelling-houses, banks, the tall cones of storied monuments,
the delicate tracery of a forest of slender masts, and the smoky
chimneys of innumerable breweries, manufactories, and gas-houses, met
my vision, which had already begun to weary long before any of the
individual characteristics of the British metropolis had segregated
themselves from the aggregate mass.
Directly before me, and almost at my feet, lay the turbid Thames,
winding in and out sinuously under bridges, and heaving from the labor
which the paddles of numerous steam craft impressed in its dirty yellow
bosom. These small steamers were of a black and red, mixed, color, and
it was only through a glass that I could discern where the two colors
met and divided. Passing under the huge stone bridges, their smoke
stacks seemed to break in two parts for an instant as they shot under
an arch of the huge spans of London or Waterloo Bridges; gracefully
as a gentleman bows to his partner in a quadrille, and then the black
funnels went back to their original erect but raking position with
great deliberation.
I had secured an eyrie in the top of St. Paul's at an early hour with
the aid of a greasy half crown, which I had slipped to an old toothless
verger with his silver-tipped wand, and he readily gratified my wish
to allow me egress from the Whispering gallery which encircles the
interior dome of the Cathedral, to a point where, giddily, I might lean
out and look all over the great city.
"It's as good as my place is worth, sir," said he, "to let you look
out here. A man who was a little light headed from drinking tumbled
from this window some years ago, and was broken to pieces on the cobble
stones below."
The danger did not prevent me from looking long and greedily at the
splendid coup d'oeil.
[Illustration: THE LONDON STONE.]
Far up the river to the left the queerly shaped toy turrets and massive
ramparts and quadrangles of the Tower broke through the morning haze
in shapely and artistic masses, and at the back of the green spot of
grass which surmounts Tower Hill, the square, solid, and substantial
looking Mint showed where Her Majesty's sworn servants were already
at work employed in making counterfeit presentments of her features
for circulation in trade and commerce. The Norman tower and flanking
buttresses of St. Saviour's, Southwark, next came in range, followed
by the long oval glass roof of the Eastern Railway Terminus, facing
Cannon street, where is erected London Stone, upon which Jack Cade sat
in triumph before the dirty, noisy, rabble, which had followed his
fortunes; and now I can see Guy's Hospital with its hundred windows,
the Corinthian Royal Exchange in Cornhill, the massive Guildhall where
many a bloated Britisher has fed on the fat of the land; the Mansion
House in which the Lord Mayor occasionally does petty offenders the
honor of sentencing them to the Bridewell; and now the view enlarges
to the southward, and the eye takes in the fine Holborn Viaduct,
lately honored by the Queen's presence; Barclay and Perkin's massive
caravanserai for the brewing of beer, and the gray stones of St.
Sepulchre's where the passing bell is always tolled for the condemned
Newgate prisoner just before execution. The square, gray blocks of
this fortress of crime gloom in an unpitying way below me, and there
now is the court yard of Christ's Hospital with the gowned and bare
headed school lads at their morning game of foot ball, and their
shouts peal upward, even up as high as the dome of St. Paul's, like
the chimes of merry music. The great piles of Somerset house and the
Custom House frown down on the busy river, and the sound of the bell
of St. Clement Dane's in the Strand, striking six o'clock, mingles
with the mighty thunder whirr of the incoming train from Dover, which
dashes like a demon over the Charing Cross bridge and into its station.
Structure after structure rises on the retina, the Treasury Buildings
and Horse Guards in Parliament street, Marlborough House, the British
Museum, Buckingham Palace, the University College, the Nelson and York
Monuments, the splendid club houses in Pall Mall and St. James; Apsley
House and Hyde Park with its lakes of silvery water, Westminster Abbey,
the Clock and Victoria Towers surmounting the Parliament Houses which
overhang the Thames, Lambeth Palace, the residence of the Archbishop
of Canterbury, Chief Dignitary of the English State Church and Milbank
Penitentiary down in dusty Westminster, and by the way this prison with
its eight towers looks like a cruet stand and its towers certainly
represent the caster bottles. With its parterre of trees in the central
square, the quadrangles of Chelsea Hospital, and the dome of the Palm
House in Kensington Garden next come under inspection, and finally I
became weary in endeavoring to pierce the haze which the sun had broken
into annoying fragments, and failing to penetrate farther than Vauxhall
bridge, I give up the task and draw in my head after a last look at the
Catherine and West India docks, bewildered and confused by the very
immensity of wealth and population which is centered and aggregated
below, under and in the shadow of St. Paul's, the Mother Church of
Great Britain.
[Illustration: "THANK YOU, SIR."]
The verger says with a weak and wheezy voice:
"This is a werry great city, sir. They do say as how there's more nor
three millions of hooman beings in this 'ere metropolis, and how they
all gets a living is a blessed puzzle to me. I gets an occasional
sixpence, and Americans seem to be more generous than any other
visitors. Thank you, sir."
London is a wonderful city in many ways. The year 1866 brought the
number of the inhabitants to the total of 3,186,000. This is a
population larger than that of Pekin, and as large and a half as that
of London's great rival, Paris. It has a greater number of edifices
devoted to religious worship than the Eternal City, Rome. Its commerce
exceeds that of New York, Glasgow, Cork, Havre, and Bremen in gross.
It sends abroad missionaries of all known sects, to convert the
heathen and blackamoor, and for them and their wives there is a larger
amount of money collected in London than could by any possibility be
subscribed in all the other great cities of the world combined for a
like purpose. It numbers among its population more prostitutes and
unfortunate females than Paris, there being according to a calculation
made by a former bishop of Oxford, 30,000 of this wretched class,
alone, who are strictly professionals.
London has work houses to accommodate 150,000 paupers under the
parochial system, for which the residents or freeholders of every
parish in the metropolitan district are taxed at an annual rate of
fourteen pounds ten shillings per pauper, and yet men, women, and
children die of starvation, weekly, in the slums of St. Giles, Saffron
Hill, Bethnal Green, and Shoreditch.
For a penny the young thief or abandoned street girl can listen to
hoarse fiddling, obscene jests, and the lowest of low slang songs at
some penny "gaff" in Whitechapel, and on a benefit night at Covent
Garden, or the Haymarket, the man who is known in society will have to
pay twenty-five or thirty shillings or from six to ten dollars to hear
the musical warblings of a Patti or a Nillson.
There are one hundred and three hospitals in London in which all the
complaints, frailties, and mishaps of poor human nature are supposed
to be provided for, and yet it will be much easier for a camel to
pass through the eye of a needle, or a rich man to get a free pass
into paradise, than that a poor wretch without friends or influence
should be able to find a bed in an hospital, unless he can succeed by
a miracle in dodging the sentinels which red tape has placed at every
entrance to these vaunted institutions.
Down in the quiet and aristocratic dwellings of Pimlico, you shall find
such ladies as "Nelly Holmes," or "Skittles," and in St. John's Wood a
"Mabel Gray," and in a delicious villa at Fulham, a "Formosa," spending
in one night's Corinthian revelry the yearly salary of a bank clerk,
or hazarding at a game of cards the life-time pittance of a sewing
woman. And with these painted women shall be found night after night
the curled darlings of the Pall Mall clubs, some of them mere youths
who bear names as old as Magna Charta, and once as spotless perhaps as
those of Sidney or Hampden.
At Blanchard's, in Regent street, you may dine for a pound upon the
choicest variety of dishes, cooked by a French _Chef_, who would scorn
a gift of the Order of the Garter were it given to him without the
proper culinary brevet to accompany it; and at a ham and beef shop in
Oxford street you may fill yourself to repletion, taking as a basis a
pork saveloy for a penny, a "penn'orth" of bread as a second layer, a
mutton-pie for "tuppence," a tart for a penny, and a pint of porter
for "tuppence," and then as a relish of a literary kind, you can look
at the great evening paper of London, the _Echo_, written in the most
scholarly English, without any fee. Or you can go down Camden Town way,
or up into Tottenham Court Road and get a kidney pie for two pence, or
an eel stew for two-pence half penny, with a dry bun for a penny, and a
good glass of Bass's ale for three half pence. And then you can go to
Morley's or the Langham Hotel and pick your teeth and no one will be
the wiser.
For other amusements there is the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's
Park, with the amusing elephant, the comic kangaroo, the graceful
hippopotamus, the sleepy alligator, a band of music, lots of very
pretty English girls, a score of impudent waiters in the restaurant to
give you cold dishes when you call for hot ones, and all these delights
may be enjoyed on six-penny days, and when you come out from the wild
beasts, if you be thirsty it will only cost you a half-penny for a
chair in the Regent's Park with its noble avenues of stately trees, and
the little old woman at the little old house which juts off the gate
will hand you a bottle of cooling ginger beer, a popular Cockney drink,
for one penny.
In the National Gallery, a magnificent structure which faces the
Nelson Monument in Trafalgar Square, one of the finest collections
of paintings in the world is hung. Here is the noble Turner Gallery,
bought for the nation and free to all for copying or inspection. Here
are Corregio's, Angelos', Titians, the masterpieces of Velasquez,
Murillo, Paul Veronese, the best things done by Etty, Landseer,
Stanfield, Wilkie, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and nearly all of that glorious
galaxy whose names have been painted too deeply in their grand
canvasses ever to efface. All this is free to the public, poor and rich
alike, but on Sunday, British piety bolts the lofty doors in their
hapless faces.
The Londoners have the finest public parks in the world. The flower
beds in Hyde Park, Battersea Park, Victoria Park, Regent's Park,
Kensington Gardens, and the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, are wonderful
for their beauty and constant freshness, and in the Serpentine, a
clear stream in Hyde Park, there is no hindrance from bathing, though
the stream laves the margin of Piccadilly, one of the principal
thoroughfares of the city, where many of the richest and most powerful
of the nation have their mansions.
This is London in brief. But a rapid and imperfect glance can be given
of the wonderful city in the opening chapter of this book, but it is
my purpose to give such details as I hope may instruct and amuse my
readers, in the chapters that shall follow.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
THE SILENT HIGHWAY.
THE Thames, the great river of England, which enriches London with the
cargoes of its thousand ships, weekly, rises in the southeastern slopes
of the Cotswold Hills. For about twenty miles it belongs wholly to
Gloucestershire, when for a short distance it divides that county from
Wiltshire. It then separates Berkshire first from Oxfordshire, and then
from Buckinghamshire. It afterward divides the counties of Surrey and
Middlesex, and to its mouth those of Kent and Essex.
It falls into the sea at the Nore, which is about one hundred and ten
miles nearly due east from the source, and about twice that distance
measured along the windings of the river.
From having no sandbar at its mouth like the Mersey outside of
Liverpool, it is navigable for sea vessels to London bridge, a distance
of forty-five miles from the Nore, or nearly a fourth of its entire
length. The area of the basin drained by the Thames is estimated at
about six thousand five hundred miles.
The progress of half a century has made wonderful changes in the river.
Wharves have taken the place of trim gardens, and the dirty coal scow
is now found where the nobleman's state barge formerly anchored.
No man, it is said, can count the national debt of England, but who can
give an adequate idea of the number of millions of tons that annually
pass through this highway?
The flow of land water through Teddington Weir is annually 800,000,000
gallons. This is the main body of the river within the metropolitan
area, not counting the additions it receives from rain-falls and other
sources.
Since the removal of the old London Bridge, the tide has been lower
upon an average. Shoals have been brought to light, before unknown, and
the result has been that nothing but a most constant and unremitting
dredging has enabled the Thames Conservancy Board to keep the river
navigable.
It requires but a glance at Blackfriar's Bridge to determine how much
longer it will take to remove all the gravel from the bed of the river,
and leave the solid London clay as its bed.
Every old bridge when removed leaves so many tons of gravel which
eventually finds its way to the mouth of the Thames, and there forms
shoals.
The channel of the river thus deepened, becomes more and more brackish
every year, and it can be but a question of time, as to how and from
what source the inhabitants are to derive their water supply for
drinking purposes.
At the East India Docks the tide falls fourteen inches lower than
formerly, and it is a fact that the low water at London Docks is lower
than the low water at Sheerness, sixty miles below.
At present the tide at London Bridge has a rise of 18 feet. This river
at almost any tide can float the largest ships, being 33 feet in depth
at London Bridge.
The river water when found at low tide near the city is much prized
for its power of self-purification, and is much in requisition for
sea voyages, for the reason that it contains so large a percentage of
organic matter.
There are few or no fish to be found in the Thames in the neighborhood
of the city or below, owing to the impurities prevailing from drainage
and sewage. This fact is particularly to be noticed in the vicinity of
the town of Barking on the Thames, where is located the outfall for
all the sewage of dirty London. Formerly salmon were very plentiful at
the Nore, and the last one there caught sold at fifteen shillings per
pound.
The Thames embankment, which was first proposed by Sir Christopher
Wren, the architect of St. Paul's Cathedral, is now almost completed.
This magnificent roadway, one of the finest in Europe, and which gives
the modern observer some conception of what the Appian Way or Via Sacra
were in the palmy day of ancient Rome, is fifty feet broad, and three
and a half feet above the highest high-water mark. The embankment,
which is constructed of Portland stone, and extends on the Surrey side
from Westminster to Vauxhall bridge, a distance of nearly a mile, and
on the Middlesex shore from Westminster to Blackfriar's bridge, a
distance of fully a mile. The embankment is lined on both sides with
trees which throw a pleasant shade under the summer sun, and serve to
protect the thousands of people of both sexes, who seek in the evening
a breath of fresh air always grateful to the tired and sweltering
citizen.
At different points, on both sides of the river, the embankment has
magnificent stone terraces with stone stairs to enable wayfarers,
who seek transportation up and down the river, to get on and off the
numerous ferry boats that swarm and ply all over the Thames from
Richmond to Rotherhithe.
A description of the Thames tunnel, now closed to the public, may
appropriately be included in this chapter. It was commenced by a
joint stock company in 1824, after designs by Sir Isambard Brunel.
Early in December, 1825, the first horizontal shaft was sunk. The
difficulties encountered in the construction of the great engineering
work can scarcely be overestimated. For a distance of five hundred and
forty-four feet all went well, but at this point the river burst into
the shaft, while the workmen were at labor, filling the excavation
entirely in fifteen minutes, but fortunately no lives were lost. With
great difficulty the water was pumped out and work resumed.
After adding fifty-two feet to the original length of the shaft, the
turbid Thames again broke through.
Six men by this accident were smothered in the rush of angry waters,
the remaining laborers escaping. Thrice again the river broke into the
succeeding excavations, and at length the tunnel was completed to the
Wapping side of the river.
Here a shaft was sunk from the surface to meet it. In sinking this
shaft, three distinct lines of piles, showing the existence of wharves
below the present level of the Thames, were discovered.
March 25, 1843, nineteen years after its commencement, this monument
of British stupidity and dogged obstinacy, the Tunnel, was opened to
the London public. As an investment it has never paid a dollar; as a
convenience it was a swindle on the general public, but for the wild
Arabs of London, and the lowest order of shameful women, it rivaled
the infamous Adelphi Arches as a rendezvous; calling into existence a
distinct class known as "Tunnel Thieves," who, conscious of the fact
that strangers would naturally visit this much lauded work, were always
waiting in secret hiding places to plunder the unsuspecting visitor of
his watch or valuables.
To take the place of this absurd tunnel, a Thames Subway has been
devised, starting at Tower Hill, and continuing under the bed of the
river to a point near Blackfriar's Bridge. The Thames subway is in a
manner similar to the Pneumatic Railway. Shafts are sunk on either side
of the river, and vehicles constructed like a horse railway car, are
used to convey passengers to and fro under the river, for a fare of two
pence per head. These vehicles are lighted by lamps, and a conductor is
attached to each car. Powerful engines at either end furnish the force
which propels these underground vehicles.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
THE DOCKS, SHIPPING, AND COMMERCE OF THE PORT OF LONDON.
IF you leave King William Street just at the foot of London Bridge, and
turn to the left, you will find your way into a grouping of streets,
narrow and steep, a few only of which admit of carriage and horse
traffic.
This is the region of the world-renowned London Docks, the basins which
hold the greatest commerce known to any city on the globe; a commerce
before which the ancient traffic of Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, and Sicily,
the granary of the ancient world, was as nothing.
The lower stories of the houses in this district, which smell of tar,
resin, and other merchantable commodities, are let out as offices, and
the upper as warehouse floors; the pavement is narrow and the roads are
as bad as broken staves and long neglect can make them; dirty boys in
sailor's jackets play at leap frog over the street posts; legions of
wheelbarrows encumber the broader part of these thoroughfares; packing
cases stand at the doors of houses, and iron cranes and levers peep out
from the upper stories.
No man, it has been said, could ever tell how much money lies hidden
away in the vaults of the Bank of England, and it is about as difficult
to count up the tons of produce which London exports and imports
annually.
[Sidenote: CUSTOM HOUSE DUTIES OF LONDON.]
For instance, during one year, (1865), the number of cargoes entered
and cleared coastwise, (which besides British ports includes the shores
from the Elbe to Brest,) was 30,820, and their tonnage, 5,263,565.
As many as fifty thousand ships of all classes enter and leave the
Thames in twelve months, or about seventy vessels per day, exclusive of
all the innumerable kinds of miscellaneous small craft.
The entire French commercial navy consists of twelve thousand vessels,
an aggregate of perhaps one million seven hundred thousand tons,
a little more than a quarter of the number of ships and the same
percentage of tonnage that enters and leaves this world metropolis of
London.
If the ships that move to and fro on the bosom of the Thames be
supposed to average one hundred and fifty feet in length one with
another, they would reach, placed stem and stern together, upward of
thirteen hundred miles, or nearly half way across the Atlantic.
The Custom House duties, with a very low tariff for the port of London,
during one year amounts to sixty-eight millions of dollars in gold,
and the declared real value of exports from London for the same time
amounted to one hundred and seventy millions of dollars in gold. The
declared real value of the imports registered at the huge granite
custom house on the Thames, for the port of London, for 1869, from
foreign and colonial ports, was four hundred millions of dollars in
gold, or as much as the total value of the real estate on New York
island in 1870.
Englishmen are very fond of coffee it seems, for they imported thirty
million pounds of the fragrant berry in 1869. The choleric temper of
the people may find an explanation in the six million pounds of pepper
received in London. London also imported seven million gallons of rum,
although it is supposed to be the great beer drinking city of the
world. Eighty thousand gallons of gin, sixty million pounds of tea,
thirty-eight million pounds of tobacco, nine million six hundred and
fifty-seven thousand and thirty-four gallons of foreign wines, two
million cwts. of raw sugar, and two million seven hundred sixty-two
thousand two hundred and forty-eight gallons of brandy were imported in
1869. These articles of merchandise were all held in bond at the London
Custom House, and from these figures my readers may form some idea of
the magnitude of the commerce of this great city.
Russia sent one thousand three hundred vessels and received three
hundred and ninety-one vessels, Sweden one thousand one hundred and
twenty-one vessels and received five hundred and twenty vessels,
France sent one thousand four hundred and sixteen vessels and received
one thousand three hundred and eighty-two vessels, Holland sent nine
hundred and twenty-four vessels and received seven hundred and fourteen
vessels, Cuba sent three hundred and twelve vessels and received
sixty-two vessels, United States sent four hundred and twelve vessels
and received three hundred and seventeen vessels, China sent two
hundred and eight vessels and received one hundred and thirty vessels
in 1869.
I have not space here to enumerate all the petty nationalities, whose
merchants trade with London, but the above table, obtained from the
custom house authorities and therefore authentic, may serve to indicate
what the trade of London is, and the vast interests which gather there.
The United States does not figure so conspicuously as might be expected
here, the Alabamas and Floridas perhaps have something to do with the
paucity of American commerce with the commercial metropolis of England.
The most wonderful of all the London sights are the huge artificial
basins, bound in masses of masonry and known as the London Docks.
No other city in the world can boast of such magnificent artificial
basins, where millions of tons of shipping can be accommodated. It is
enough to make an American feel humiliated to pay a visit to these
wonderful docks, and to be forced to compare them with the rotten
wooden wharves which environ the great city of New York, and which are
honored with the title of docks.
[Sidenote: THE COMMERCIAL AND LONDON DOCKS.]
The principal docks of London are those which I give below with their
water areas, cost, and the number of vessels which they accommodate:
NO OF VESSELS
WATER AREA. LAND AREA. ACC. COST.
Commercial Docks, 75 acres, 150 acres, 200 £610,000
London Docks, 40 " 100 " 320 900,000
West India Docks, 90 " 295 " 1104 1,600,000
East India Docks, 18 " 31 " 112 380,000
St. Catharine's Docks, 15 " 24 " 160 2,252,000
Surrey Docks and Canal, 71 " 40 " 300 423,000
Victoria Docks, 90 " 1/2 mile frontage, 400 1,072,871
Brentford Dock and Canal, 90 miles long, 16 acres, 2,000,000
Regent's Canal, 8-1/2 miles long, 300
The Commercial Dock is chiefly used by vessels in the oil, corn,
timber, and tobacco trade; and there is floating space for fifty
thousand loads of lumber, and the warehouses afford storage for one
hundred and fifty thousand quarters of corn, while the yards of the
company will hold four million pieces of deals, and staves without
number. The lock in the South Commercial Dock is two hundred and
twenty feet long by forty-eight feet wide, with a depth of twenty-two
feet, and will admit vessels of twenty-six feet draught. Five
hundred thousand tons of shipping have been received here in a year,
representing about one thousand five hundred vessels of various tonnage.
The London Docks extend from East Smithfield to Shadwell and have
twelve thousand four hundred and forty feet of wharf frontage, and are
intended principally for the reception of vessels laden with wines,
brandy, tobacco, and rice.
There are forty warehouses for the storage of merchandise of every
description, convenient in arrangement, and magnificent in design and
execution. The cubical capacity of the warehouses is two hundred and
forty-nine thousand four hundred and thirty tons; two hundred and
thirty-one thousand one hundred and forty-seven for dry goods, and
eighteen thousand two hundred and eighty-three for wet goods.
The tobacco house in these docks sends its very strong odor all over
the Thames, and it is as good as the flavor of a Havana cigar almost to
smell this huge warehouse as you pass by on the river in a steamboat.
This warehouse is the largest of its kind in the world, covering five
acres of ground, and is rented by the government at fourteen thousand
pounds a year of the company, for all the London Docks are owned by
stock companies, and this perhaps explains the economy displayed in
their construction, and their useful adaptability to the commerce of
London.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO DOCKS.]
The tobacco warehouse will contain twenty-four thousand hogsheads
of tobacco, each hogshead holding one thousand two hundred pounds,
the total capacity being equal to thirty thousand tons of general
merchandise.
[Sidenote: THE WINE VAULTS, AND "TASTING PERMITS."]
Under the London Docks are the finest vaults in the world, vast
catacombs of the precious vintages garnered from every famous vineyard
in the globe. The vaults in the London docks cover an area of eighteen
acres, and afford accommodation for eighty thousand pipes of wine. One
of the vaults alone is seven acres in extent, and the tea warehouses
will hold one hundred and twenty thousand chests of that fragrant herb.
To go into these vast wine vaults is indeed a treat. It is like
entering a City of the dead, only that instead of the skeletons of
human beings piled on top of each other, you find an Aceldama of casks,
pipes, barrels, hogsheads, and butts, bonded and stored tier upon tier,
until the eye becomes wearied, and a man wonders how all those costly
vintages can ever be consumed.
There is no difference between night and day in these dim deep recesses
under the London streets. The vaults are only separated from the bed of
the Thames by a thick wall, and at noonday, gas has to be turned on to
light the way to the enormous storehouses of wine and brandy. Passes
are granted by the companies and the owners of liquors on bond, called
"tasting permits," which gives the privilege to the visitor to ask an
attendant for a sample of any wine, or wines and liquors that he may
choose to taste.
Armed with one of these permits I visited the London docks one day with
a friend, and we penetrated the gloomy cavern's entrance, and finally
found our way to a part of the vaults where were stored thousands of
pipes of the delicious golden brown vintage of Xeres de la Frontera.
My friend was one of those wandering Americans you are always sure to
light upon abroad, who makes your acquaintance whether you like it or
not, and who cries out frantically whenever he sees a foreign flag.
"By Gad--Sir, that flag is all good enough in its way--but I _tell you_
it does not come up to our flag of beauty and glory--now I'll put it to
you--does it?"
A grimy looking cellar man who smelled like an old claret bottle that
had long remained uncorked, wearing an apron and carrying a wooden
hammer for tapping, came to us and said, politely, on presentation of
our orders:
"The horders are werry correct, sir. Would you like to try a little old
Sherry, sir, fine as a sovrin and sparkling as the sun?"
"Well, I don't care if I do take a little sherry--I don't think it will
hurt me--do you think it will?" said my friend.
He then took about half a pint of fine golden sherry, and after taking
it he seemed all at once to discover a new beauty in the architecture
of the vaults, although he had condemned the place when he entered it,
as a "chilly, stinking hole, not fit for a dog, by Gad, sir."
While he was delivering himself most eloquently on the merits of the
sherry, I had an opportunity to look about me and examine the place.
[Illustration: "I DON'T THINK IT WILL HURT ME."]
Different parties were going from cask to cask, from hogshead to
hogshead, like my friend, trying each vintage, and tasting brandies,
and gins, and wines to their heart's content.
[Sidenote: HOISTING AND DISCHARGING CARGOES.]
I thought to myself, what a splendid boon these vaults would be to a
New York corner loafer, without restriction and with full liberty to
drink till he died like a soldier, contending to the last against the
enemy which deprives a man of his brains. The attendants here never
object to the amount called for, and a tasting permit admits to all the
privileges.
We were now standing in an arched alcove devoted exclusively to the
wines of Madeira, Teneriffe, and the Canary Islands. Some of these
huge casks held as many as seven hundred gallons, and the rich, old,
musty and fruity odors that came from them were truly revivifying to my
friend, who was loquacious under the influence of the sherry.
"This ere sexshin is for the Madeery," said the bung starter. "Will you
try a little Madeery, sir?" said he.
"Well I _don't_ care if I _do_ take a little Madeira--I don't think it
will hurt me. Now I put it to you this way--I don't think it will hurt
me if I am moderate?"
He seemed to relish this heavy and fruity wine very much, and before he
left the alcove he had "tasted" a good deal of the Canary also smacking
his lips lusciously.
There is considerable skill displayed in the building of the arches
of the range of vaults, and with the dim lights of the sperm lamps,
burning--as it is not deemed safe to have gas in the vaults where
spirits are stored--the vaults very much resemble the crypts under the
cloisters in Westminster Abbey, or the vaults under St. Paul's.
The method for hoisting cargoes from the holds of ships to the grading,
which is level with the opening in the vaults is very perfect. The
opening in the wall of the basin or docks is eighteen feet high, and
large hogsheads can be hoisted and lowered at once into the vaults
instead of being temporarily deposited on the quay.
In the old times before steam had been discovered and these magnificent
docks had been built, an East Indiaman of eight hundred tons took a
month to discharge her cargo, or if of one thousand two hundred tons,
six weeks were required for the labor, and their goods had to be taken
from Blackwall to London Bridge in lighters, when they were placed
on the quay exposed to dock rats and river thieves as goods are in
New York, where the private watchmen on the rotten wooden docks are
generally to be found in league with the thieves.
At St. Katharine's Docks the time occupied on an average in discharging
a vessel of three hundred tons is eight hours, and for one of six
hundred tons two days and a half. In one instance one thousand one
hundred casks of tallow were discharged in six hours, but of course
this was unusually rapid work. One of the cranes in the St. Katharine's
Docks cost about twenty-five thousand dollars, and will raise from
forty to sixty tons at a time.
There is a wharf attached to the St. Katharine Docks, which Parliament
compelled the company to construct at a cost of nearly a million
of dollars, and the warehouses will contain one hundred and ten
thousand tons of goods and merchandise. The depth of water in the St.
Katharine's Docks is twenty-eight feet at spring tide, at dead tide
twenty-four feet, and at low water ten feet, so that vessels of eight
hundred tons register are docked and undocked without the slightest
difficulty. There is a water frontage and quays of one thousand five
hundred feet in the St. Katharine Docks. The wharfage of the London
Docks is one thousand two hundred and sixty feet in length and nine
hundred and sixty feet in breadth. The capital of the London Docks
company is about twenty-five million dollars in gold, and as many as
three thousand laborers are employed in the London Docks in a day.
The walls surrounding the London Docks cost sixty-five thousand pounds
in construction, and all these walls are so high (nearly thirty feet,)
that they present an impregnable barrier to thieves and depredators.
The receipts for one year in the London Docks were over three million
dollars, currency; the salaries and wages amounted to about one million
dollars, and the revenue customs paid about eleven hundred thousand
dollars. These figures show that the company is in a prosperous state,
and gives the municipal governments of our American Atlantic cities the
best reasons, when others which I have already enumerated are combined,
why New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, Savannah and Charleston,
should have stone docks to equal those of London and Liverpool in
magnitude and solidity.
[Sidenote: THE WEST INDIA DOCKS.]
Having made a lengthened inspection of the London Docks I turned to
leave and could not find my friend who had accompanied me. After some
difficulty I discovered him afar off at the other end of the vaults
discussing with the cellarman what liquor he was next to taste.
"Yer honor might just taste a little of the Hennesey Brandy of 1832--it
is very fine and runs down like hile."
"By Gad, sir, the very thing--now that you mention it I will try a
little, just a _leetle_ Hennesey brandy. I'll put it to you in this
way--I don't think it can hurt me--and the cellarman says it's just
like oil. Now I recollect that oil never intoxicates. I will take just
the faintest tint."
He did take the "faintest tint," perhaps a good sized glass-full, and
he became so jolly, and affectionate, and good natured, embracing me
and also the cellarman, that the latter personage had at last to call a
cab into which my friend was carried, and after being propped up he was
driven to his hotel. The cellarman said to me:
"We've two agents as comes 'ere sober, bless 'em, and goes away drunk;
but they hurts nobody but themselves, bless them."
I went from the London Docks to the West India Docks, about a mile and
a half distant, at the Isle of Dogs, a small islet in the Thames near
Blackwall. These numerous basins and warehouses occupy three times
the space of the London Docks, or about two hundred and ninety-five
acres, with a canal three quarters of a mile in length as a feeder. The
Import Dock is five hundred and ten feet in length, and about the same
measurement in width. The Export Dock is about the same length and is
about four hundred feet wide. The docks and warehouse are enclosed by
a wall of masonry five feet thick, that seems as if it would endure as
long as the port of London is open to commerce and merchandise, and the
value of twenty millions of pounds is here stored by its owners.
I gave an employee of the company a shilling to take me through, and he
was not at all backward in showing me the treasures under the care of
the company.
"These are the biggest docks in Lunnun, sir," said he: "say what they
will on the other docks. We will hold two hundred million tons of
merchandise here, sir, and we will not be crowded at all. Why, sir,
I've seen as much as two hundred thousand casks of sugar, five hundred
thousand bags of coffee, fifty thousand pipes of Jimaky rum, ten
thousand pipes of Madeery, twenty-five thousand tons of logwood, and
lots of other things here and we were not full.
"I've seen an acre of 'ogsheads of tibaccy, eight feet high, and piles
of cinnamon, spices, pepper, indigo, salt pork, hides and leather,
Hindian corn, mahogany, and sich like, and no one of us, sir, ever
knows the walley of them, and I suppose Mr. Bright hiself would be more
nor puzzled to tell the walley, and I've heard as how he has got a
preshis head for figgers."
Formerly when steamers employed paddle wheels as a means of locomotion,
the docks were very much crowded, but the use of the universal screw
has given much more space for berthways. There is, however, great risks
in these docks, of fire, from steam vessels, and I believe the rates
are much higher for steam craft than for sailing vessels. Small offices
and compact frame houses for the company's officers, revenue officers,
warehousemen, clerks, engineers, coopers and other petty attachees,
have been provided within the ground area of all these stone basins,
and everything connected with the docks is done in a systematic and
business like way that is truly wonderful. When I recollected that
less than fifty years ago London had no inclosed docks at all, and no
accommodation for shipping but a long and straggling line of private
quays, under the management of firms who had no public interests to
serve, (and in fact when the present system of docks was at first
proposed it met with almost universal opposition, particularly from
the interested parties,) I was amazed at the progress made in a half
century.
There is not such a city in the world, perhaps, for the number of
corporations, guilds, societies, and titled people, who derive and did
derive emolument and income, of one kind or another, from these private
quay and wharfage receipts.
[Sidenote: OPPOSITION TO THE NEW DOCK SYSTEM.]
Therefore when the citizens of London became thoroughly awakened to the
possibility of substituting for these rotten old timber wharves and
tumble down old stone piers, a thorough, efficient, and lasting system
of dockage, the interested people began to clamor most hideously about
their "vested rights." These two words have always stood in England as
a safeguard to protect some oppressive or corporate interest.
The "Tackle House" and City Porter Companies complained that if the
import and export business were removed beyond the city limits, their
right to the exclusive privilege of unloading and delivering all
merchandise imported into the city would be worthless. The carmen who
enjoyed a similar privilege and monopoly made the same complaint, and
they stated that Christ's Hospital, an institution much revered by all
Londoners, derived an income of four thousand pounds a year from the
licenses under which they held their monopoly; the watermen, who were
then numbered by thousands, foretold that the establishment of docks
would deprive one half of their number of bread; the lightermen stated
that they had a capital of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds
invested in tackle and craft, employed to transport merchandise, which
capital would be annihilated if ships were allowed to discharge their
cargoes on quays within docks; the proprietors of the "legal quays" as
they were called, and the "sufferance wharves," or wharves which held
no legal title, all prophesied that the trade of London would be ruined
at once if the new system of docks was established.
However these people differed in some details of their grievances, they
all concurred in stating that unloading ships in closed docks would be
more expensive than discharging them into lighters in the river.
On the other hand the advocates of the new system estimated on paper
that the unloading of five hundred hogsheads of sugar from a vessel
could be done in the new docks for about three hundred and fifty
dollars of American money less than under the old lighterage and open
quay system, to say nothing of the greater safety of the property thus
enclosed in dock walls.
Finally, Parliament passed an act creating the new docks and granting a
compensation of four hundred and eighty-six thousand and eighty-seven
pounds to the proprietors of the legal quays in addition to the sum
of one hundred and thirty-eight thousand seven hundred and ninety-one
pounds which was paid to persons having "vested rights" in the mooring
claims on the river. Altogether the cost of the different London Docks,
including ground purchases, etc., was about thirty millions of dollars.
The West India Docks were the first opened in 1802, and the citizens of
London have, I am sure, no cause to regret the decision which gave them
the finest and safest system of wharfage in the world.
The passenger traffic, by water, which transpires daily between London
and Continental cities and towns is incalculable. This of course does
not include the traffic almost as great between London and American and
Colonial ports.
You can go from London to New York in a splendid stateroom with every
comfort and luxury at sea, for about one hundred and thirty dollars, or
you can take passage in a steerage, herding like a beast as best you
may for about forty dollars, by steam.
I can safely recommend the Inman Line of Steamships which ply between
New York and Liverpool, as the best afloat, the most punctual and the
most comfortable. This line has nineteen fine steamers constantly
plying between Europe and America.
[Sidenote: RATES OF FARES AND DOCK LABORERS.]
From London to Cork the fare, first class, is about twenty-three
English shillings, and to Dublin twelve shillings. From London to
Edinburgh, first class, by sea, fifteen shillings. London to Calais, by
rail and sea, twenty-five shillings, to Havre, eleven shillings. London
to Ostend, Belgium, fifteen shillings; to Antwerp, twenty shillings;
to Hamburg, two pounds; to Rotterdam one pound; to Belfast, forty-five
shillings; to Dundee, twenty shillings. London to Malta twelve pounds;
to Maderia sixteen pounds sixteen shillings; to Oporto, eight pounds
eight shillings; to Marseilles, twelve pounds ten shillings; to Rio
Janeiro, thirty pounds; to St. Petersburg, six pounds six shillings;
to Glasgow, twelve shillings; to Liverpool, twenty shillings; to
Stockholm, eighty-four shillings; to Brussels, forty-eight shillings;
to Genoa, twelve pounds; Leghorn, fifteen pounds; Naples, eighteen
pounds; Christiana, Norway, eighty shillings, and Copenhagen,
sixty-three shillings.
I give these fares as I believe it may be of some use to Americans, who
design to travel, to know the correct rates of Continental travel. It
is much pleasanter to travel to the continent by sea from London than
by rail, the accommodations are better, the views of the best. There
is no hurry, you may get your meals regularly, it is more healthful
and certainly much cheaper, as the above fares are all for first class
passages, and it is easy to obtain second or third class accommodations
for a very great deal less money.
In concluding this chapter on the Port of London, I may say that it is
almost impossible to name a place for which passage cannot be obtained,
by sea from London, and vessels are leaving daily and hourly for their
various destinations, from the many wharves and docks that line the
Thames between London and Westminster bridges, a distance of two miles,
on the river.
Thirty thousand men find employment, daily, as laborers, in the
London Docks. Men who have been reduced by want, misfortune, or by
drunkeness, find in these vast commercial reservoirs, a precarious
means of subsistence, earning from eighteen pence to two shillings a
day, half of which generally goes for beer, or potations of a heavier
and more spirituous kind. This kind of labor is unskilled, and has
for its propulsion mere manual strength, so that, when a man fails in
everything else, he may possibly succeed as a dock laborer. The public
houses frequented by the laborers are situated in the dark alleys and
crowded courts near the river, and all of them partake of the brutal,
low appearance which distinguishes the London coal heaver and dock
lifter.
CHAPTER IV.
PALACES OF LONDON.
LONDON is studded with palaces some of which were constructed by
Royalty itself--some of which were confiscated by royalty, and others
again were bought by royalty from the nobles of England, or from those
persons who had amassed great wealth.
The Court of St. James is a household word among diplomats, and is
used as a threat by ambassadors at Vienna, or perhaps as a phrase
of mediation at Washington, St. Petersburg, or Paris, but generally
this name is used by belligerent envoys with threat and menace at
Constantinople, Athens, Honduras, or Lisbon. English statecraft and
diplomacy always tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and an English
Cabinet never fails to measure the strength of a nation before trying
conclusions with it.
Even the Sultan himself, and he is by common consent supposed to be a
very sick man, could pass the dirty looking pile of St. James palace at
the lower end of Pall Mall, near St. James street, without a tremor,
and the only signs of royalty or power are the bear skin caps and red
coats of a couple of guardsmen, who walk up and down with their muskets
at a support, in a most melancholy and bored manner before the gates.
[Sidenote: ST. JAMES AND WHITEHALL.]
This is one of the chief residences of royalty in the metropolis. In
1532, his majesty by the Grace of God, King Henry the Eighth, cast his
eyes upon St. James Hospital, a place set apart for lepers, fourteen
of whom were residing there at the time, and being convinced of the
healthfulness of the situation, the inmates were driven forth, a small
pension given to each, and on the site of the hospital for physical
lepers, this moral leper erected what is now known as the palace of St.
James, for the reception of the unfortunate but giddy Anne Boleyn.
During the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth the palace was deserted, but
with the advent of the Stuarts, St. James became a royal nursery.
The ill-fated Charles the First had a passionate fondness for this
palace, and on the morning of his execution attended divine service in
the chapel which he had fitted up.
After the restoration, James II furnished St. James at great expense;
and from this period St. James became with hardly an intermission the
abode of royalty. George the Second died here mumbling. George IV was
born, and passed much of his time here. As a royal residence it has
fallen away from its ancient splendor and is now only used on occasions
of state solemnity; yet it is one of the best planned palaces in Europe
for comfort, and possesses a fine gallery of paintings.
Whitehall, or the palace that is known by that name, was formerly
called York House, and for three centuries before the time of Cardinal
Wolsey, was the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
After the death of Wolsey its name was changed to Whitehall, from a
large hall in the building painted entirely white. Wolsey fitted up the
palace in a style of grandeur never equaled, much less excelled by any
other subject of the English crown, and being occupied by the king on
the demise of Wolsey, it was called the King's Palace of Westminster.
When Queen Elizabeth died it was refitted by King James, and
enlarged--but was destroyed by fire in 1619. Immediately after its
destruction James determined to rebuild it, and a portion of the
palace was completed at a cost of fifteen thousand pounds, but such
extravagance could not be allowed in those days, parliament refusing
to grant money to continue the building, and the fanatical monarch,
whose memory has survived because of his hatred of tobacco, was forced
to suspend operations for want of funds.
The ceiling of the banqueting-room, a work of Rubens and for which he
was paid three thousand pounds, is said to be one of the finest efforts
of that most gifted artist's pencil.
In the time of the Protector Cromwell, one of the rarest collections
of paintings ever made in the world, and of immense value--which had
been accumulated here by successive kings, was ordered to be sold
by Cromwell in accordance with the Puritan belief that to possess
paintings or statuary was conducive of image worship in the owner.
Charles the First was really a great admirer of works of art, and had
he lived he would no doubt have made Whitehall the finest palace of
Europe.
Cromwell occupied Whitehall as a residence for his family after
the execution of King Charles I, for butcher as he was, and strict
republican as he pretended to be, he was not above enjoying the good
things of this life, and despite his cadaverous countenance he could
appreciate a soft bed and a tender piece of roast beef with the
jolliest of cavaliers.
On the 10th of April, 1691, a fire broke out in the apartments of the
bad Duchess of Portsmouth who occupied a portion of Whitehall, (this
woman was a mistress of Charles II,) and in 1698 the entire structure
was consumed with the exception of the banqueting-hall, and nothing but
the walls were left standing.
This hall was altered to a chapel by King George II, and since that
time has been used for that purpose, the clergyman always being a royal
chaplain. Over the door is a bust of the founder, and the brilliant
frescos of the ceiling pieces of Rubens are all that is left of the
once magnificent palace of Whitehall.
[Sidenote: BUCKINGHAM PALACE.]
The residence of the Queen, when in London, is generally supposed to be
Buckingham Palace, a long gloomy looking building in St. James Park,
not a stones' throw from the Marble Arch in Hyde Park or Westminster
Abbey. The same big flashy looking soldiers in red coats, and hideous
grenadier bearskins are to be seen marching up and down opposite this
palace gate just as they do about St. James Palace, or at the Horse
Guards in Parliament street.
[Illustration: BUCKINGHAM PALACE.]
St. James Park is a pretty place with fine shady trees, and here in
the mall or wide walk of the park was played a century ago, and still
farther back in the days of paint, powder, and patches, and garden
masquerades, the game of "pell mell."
Buckingham Palace, though much frequented by the Queen, and situated
pleasantly as far as appearances go, is not a healthy place of
residence at all. The Queen frequently has complained of its dampness,
she having often contracted bad colds there. This I have on the
authority of her former chaplain.
George the IV had a Dutch predeliction for low ceilings, and as he
never lived on good terms with his wife, whom he used to call a Fat
Dutch Hog, no accommodations were made for Queen Caroline his spouse,
in Buckingham Palace.
The palace was occupied by this monarch, for whom it was built, in
1825. This king was one of the most profligate of men and a roue--and
yet had the reputation of being the finest gentleman in Europe, but he
never spared man in his rage nor woman in his lust.
John, Duke of Buckingham, lived in a house on the site of the palace,
in 1703, from which circumstance it has derived its name.
I had special permission to visit this palace while the Queen was
absent on her summer tour in Scotland; it being a great favor to be
admitted, and it was only by great perseverance and difficulty that I
obtained entrance to the royal abode.
One bright morning I called about ten o'clock, and after presenting my
order of admittance was allowed to enter.
I was bewildered by its sumptuous magnificence. Fancy a noble hall
surrounded with a double row of marble columns, every one composed of a
single piece of veined Carrara marble, with gilded bases and capitals;
the _tout ensemble_ being a splendid perspective of over one hundred
and fifty feet. The steps of the grand staircase are also of the purest
marble. The Library, Council room, and Sculpture gallery are all most
beautifully decorated.
The Library is used for a waiting room for deputations, which as soon
as the Queen is ready to receive them pass across the Sculpture Gallery
into the hall, and thence ascend by the Grand Stairway, through the
Ante-Room and the Green Drawing-room to the Throne room. The Library
and adjoining rooms are fitted up in a most gaudy fashion, there
being a sad want of taste displayed, either by her Majesty or her
upholsterer, but by which I am not able to say.
The Sculpture Gallery contains the busts of leading statesmen of all
countries, and chief among them I noticed one of Prince Albert, the
late husband of the Queen, mounted on a fine pedestal. Busts of all the
members of the royal family, male and female, are also here. That of
the Princess Louisa is a charming, innocent looking English face; she
is said to be deeply in love with a rich Catholic nobleman of the Duke
of Norfolk's family.
The Picture Gallery has fine skylights so as to throw a shaded light
on the works of art below, and here are to be found the master pieces
of the Dutch and Flemish schools, gems of Reynolds, Watteau, Titian,
Albert Durer, Rembrandt, Teniers, Ostade, Cuyps, Wouvermans, and
others, formerly the collection in great part of George IV.
The Yellow Drawing room, a superb apartment, has a series of paintings
in panels of the royal family, there being full length pictures of
Queen Victoria, looking very fat, with the crown upon her head, and
Prince Albert in his costume of Knight of the Garter, a dress which
is supremely ridiculous in these days when none but priests and
academicians wear such drapery.
[Sidenote: QUEEN'S LIBRARY.]
The Throne Room is a gaudy looking apartment, very large and spacious,
and like all the rooms in Buckingham palace having a very low ceiling,
the prevailing decoration being curtains of striped satin, and the
alcoves are hung in rich crimson velvet relieved or rather bedizened
with an nearly obscured gilding. William IV, the sailor king, hated
this palace for its ugliness and discomfort, and this all the more that
he was used to sleeping in a hammock aboard his own frigate.
The Marble Arch, an immense pile of stone now at the corner of
Piccadilly and Hyde Park, formerly occupied the central position in
this building, and was erected in its present position at a cost of
thirty-one thousand pounds.
When the present Queen had her first child the palace was found so
uncomfortable that she had to have the nursery removed to the attic,
and there, while the royal child was getting its teeth cut, the Lord
Chamberlain of England, who had charge of the improvements, was boiling
glue and making French polish in the basement, so that altogether the
queen of the greatest nation of the earth, subsequent to her honeymoon,
was no better housed than a poor family in New York, dwelling in a
respectable tenement house.
Parliament, however, was kind enough to grant the sum of one hundred
and fifty thousand pounds to alter and repair the building, and
accordingly the palace was made habitable for her Majesty.
The Ball Room is one hundred and thirty-nine feet in length. The
Supper Room is seventy-six by sixty feet--with a promenade gallery
one hundred and nine feet in length, and twenty-one feet wide. There
is a riding school attached, with a mews or stable for horses; here
the state carriages and coaches are kept at an expense, for flunkies,
grooms, masters of the horse, stable boys, feed for horses and labor,
of thirty-six thousand pounds, or over two hundred thousand dollars
annually.
I was allowed as a great favor to inspect the Queen's library, which
is very handsomely fitted up, and wherever the eye rested for a moment
it was sure to find a picture or bust of Prince Albert. There were a
number of small tables of inlaid ivory, mother of pearl, and gold,
covered with handsomely bound volumes of Shakespeare and other English
poets. I also saw a finely bound copy of the Memoirs of the Queen,
which it is supposed was written by her Majesty. This is a mistake,
however, as the entire book was written by a secretary of hers from
some scanty notes provided by her, and from personal recollections.
The Queen was nine months dictating the work before its publication.
The Queen was in the habit of sitting four hours a day giving these
reminiscences of her husband, and during this time she always had a
glass of sherry and a biscuit by her side.
Very little is known of her Majesty outside of the British Isles.
Almost every other female sovereign has publicity given to all her
secret actions, and her private life is discussed with great personal
freedom, in the cafes and clubs. A thousand stories have been set
afloat and circulated in regard to Madam Isabella, lately Queen of
Spain, and but a few of them are true. Rochefort in his papers, "The
Lantern" and the "Marsellaise," has not hesitated to pour columns of
abuse upon the head of the Empress Eugenie, a lady whose principal
fault is a fondness for low necked dresses.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE QUEEN.]
Two women have hitherto escaped this kind of slander, and these two are
the Empress of Austria and Queen Victoria. The reason is palpable in
the case of the Empress of Austria; she is an imperial lady to discuss
whose private life it would be dangerous if done on Austrian territory.
In regard to the Queen of England, the reason why silence is kept in
relation to her private life is because of a sneaking regard for the
manners, customs, and good opinions of titled individuals among most
American travelers.
[Sidenote: QUEEN'S SECLUSION.]
The Queen has been a good wife and mother, but in these two qualities
she is more than equaled by thousands of American women. She is no
better and no worse than the average married woman; has her faults, her
weaknesses, and her good qualities, and it is among her own people that
her failings find their loudest trumpeters.
In honestly dealing with these stories I shall not stop to give the
gross yarns which are spun by the Jenkinses of the press, who make what
they call an honest penny by chronicling all the loose street scandal
that is poured into their ears.
The London Times, the leading paper of England, has on several
occasions soundly berated the Queen for her continued seclusion from
the public, her exalted position being, it is said, her only excuse,
and subsequent to the death of Prince Albert this seclusion was
continued so long that the shopkeepers and tradesmen who profit by the
receptions, festivals, and gaieties of the court, were loud in their
complaints of what they deemed to be an overstrained and extravagant
grief.
Several leading modistes or dress makers were obliged to give up
business, owing to the Queen having closed her drawing rooms; murmuring
loudly that they had been ruined by her Majesty, as their principal
business was to make dresses for the ladies of rank who have nothing
else to do but go to balls, parties, and drawing-room receptions when
invited. Indeed for the past three years there has been a growing
dissatisfaction with her Majesty, and sad stories are told of that
royal lady in the English capital--chiefly the shopkeepers were
enraged--although this class of people are usually the most loyal--then
the Fenian affair came and was added as fuel to the general discontent.
But the worst remains to be told, and it is with no feeling of pleasure
that I am compelled to lift the veil.
The story is everywhere prevalent that the seclusion of the Queen is
owing to her fondness for liquor; this statement has never been openly
promulgated in the papers, but is continually hinted at obscurely in
the more liberal organs. It is boldly spoken of by private individuals
that the temper of her Majesty has of late years become very irascible
and is sometimes ungovernable, and the cause is attributed to drink and
its consequent delirium which has seized upon this unfortunate lady.
I was told by a clergyman who had it direct from the wife of a
former chaplain of her Majesty, that the Queen was in the habit of
drinking half a pint of raw liquor per day. The effects of these
liberal potations are making visible havoc in her once comely face. I
saw her thrice, and her inflamed face and swollen eyes gave her all
the appearance of an inebriate. Perhaps the trouble caused by her
scapegrace of a son, the Prince of Wales, who, without doubt, is as
reckless a scamp as ever existed, has had much to do with his mother's
present condition, and has driven her to drinking.
It is also notorious that the Queen has chosen for her body servant one
John Brown, a raw boned, robust, and coarse Highlander, and clings to
him with more warmth and tenacity than becomes a lady who carried her
sorrow for a deceased husband previously to such an extravagant pitch.
This John Brown whom I saw is over six feet in height, a powerful
looking fellow; but he has a face that would find favor in the eyes of
very few women. He was formerly a body servant of Prince Albert, and
was always an attendant on him in his hunting and fishing excursions.
The Queen took notice of him at Balmoral, her summer residence in
Scotland, and here she made a great pet of him.
After the death of Prince Albert the Queen attached Brown to her
person, and ever since he has constantly attended her.
It is the custom of the Queen to have herself pushed around the grounds
of her lodge at Balmoral in a perambulator or hand carriage when she
visits that charming spot.
The person selected for this duty was the lucky John Brown. Day after
day he might be seen pushing around the spacious lawn, the Majesty of
England.
[Sidenote: LUCKY JOHN BROWN.]
During her hours of idleness Brown is always allowed to converse
with the Queen in a familiar manner, and it is said presumes on her
gracious condescension more than her noblest subject would dare to do.
[Illustration: JOHN BROWN EXERCISING THE QUEEN.]
When the Queen takes her seat in her perambulator it might often occur
that a servant would spring forward with a lowly reverence to assist
the royal lady, but in every instance the unfortunate flunkey would
receive a rebuking frown, and in a moment after might have to undergo
the mortification of a sneering laugh from Brown, who at this crisis
would make his appearance--strolling in a leisurely fashion toward the
perambulator, and stretching his long Celtic legs, his arms full of
warm wraps in which he proceeds to enfold the person of the Queen, with
as much seeming fondness as if he were the husband instead of the low
lackey of royalty, without polish and breeding; then in addition to the
silent rebuke of the Queen the offending servant would hear from Brown
some such remark as "I say my douce laddie, dinna ya offer yer sarvices
till her Majesty asks ya fur them. Dinna ye be sticking yer finger in
till anoother mun's haggis or ye moon be scalded."
"That will do Brown," the Queen would say to prevent a scene which
would be sure to take place were Brown's violent temper not curbed
in time to prevent an explosion, for the tall Highland gillie is no
respecter of persons, and cares very little for royalty except in the
person of its chief representative.
It is a current anecdote in the Pall Mall clubs, that the Queen's
cousin, the Duke of Cambridge, who is also the commander-in-chief of
the British Army, having one day desired an audience with the Queen of
a private nature, waited upon her at Buckingham Palace and presented
his card like any other private citizen. He was desired to wait, and
did so until he became tired, and finally he was admitted to the
presence, and was somewhat astonished to find the servant, John Brown,
in the room.
The Duke being a member of the royal family did not hesitate to say to
her majesty in a respectful way:
"Will your Majesty be so kind as to ask your footman to leave the
saloon, I desire to speak to you on a matter of importance, privately."
"Very well, you may speak without intrusion," said the Queen, turning
her head slightly to the window where her servant stood with his back
turned coolly upon the Queen's cousin, "there is no one here but Brown,
he is very discreet."
[Sidenote: A GOOD STORY.]
Finding that the Highlander could not be prevailed upon to leave the
room, the Duke made a virtue of necessity and proceeded to state the
purport of his visit. The Queen engaged in conversation with her
cousin, and some minutes having elapsed the conversation turned upon
different subjects. The Duke was relating a joke about the Clubs for
the edification of the Queen, in which a noble person was made to
assume a ridiculous position, when all at once he was interrupted
with a peal of coarse and irreverent laughter, which rang through the
apartments, and the Duke turning around with a thrill of horror and
astonishment, heard Brown scream out while he held his sides to contain
his mad mirth:
"Oh! oh! What a d----d fule that fellow must have been."
The Duke for a moment stood petrified with horror, an unpleasant tremor
ran down the small of his back, and then being seized with a sudden
idea, he took his hat and making a low reverence left the apartment as
the Queen said in an irritable tone:
"Oh! never mind, it's only Brown."
The story was too good to keep, and in a few days it was known all over
London.
On the day that the Queen opened Blackfriars bridge she rode in a state
carriage with Brown behind her, and the act was so flagrant that when
the procession passed through the Strand, the Queen was openly hissed
by the people who stood on the sidewalks and saw the burly form of the
Scotsman in the carriage, so close to her Majesty.
I leave facts to speak for themselves, there is no need of comment. The
great rival of Punch is a paper called the Tomahawk, published in Fleet
street, and which is edited with fearless ability. The chief artist is
a Matthew Morgan who excels all others of his craft in London for the
beauty and spirit of his cartoons. Well, one day the Tomahawk appeared
with a large two paged cartoon, in which the queen was pictured in her
perambulator, and the tall form of Brown behind pushing the vehicle,
while he leaned over the back and looked with an affectionate leer into
the face of the sovereign of England. There was no inscription at the
bottom of the picture, but it was so truthful and telling, that every
person who looked, saw the whole scandalous story at a glance. Three
editions of this number of the Tomahawk were sold in a few days, and in
the corner of the picture the daring artist did not hesitate to sign
his initials, "M.M." It is sufficient to state that no proceedings were
taken, nor was a suit of libel brought against the editors who publish
the paper.
I have here only recounted facts well known in England, and I set them
down without malice or extenuation.
The salary or income of Queen Victoria is, I believe, about five
thousand two hundred dollars a day, including Sundays, for which she
also receives her regular stipend. Like other sovereigns, she does not
toil or spin, yet the people must pay the bills all the same. Being
of a very economical and thrifty disposition, it is supposed that
her Majesty will leave a fortune of many millions of pounds to her
scapegrace son when she dies, that is to say, if he has common decency
enough too wait for her decease, and ceases to outrage her feelings to
much.
Queen Victoria was born May 24th, 1819, and is consequently in her
fifty-second year.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
HIDDEN DEPTHS.
FINDING it necessary to have a companion with me who had a perfect
knowledge of the English Metropolis, I paid a visit to the headquarters
of the police in the Old Jewry, and procured from Inspector Bailey, the
Chief of Police, the aid of a detective to accompany me in my nightly
adventures. Shortly after midnight Sergeant Moss and myself passed
through Gracechurch into Fenchurch street, by towering warehouses, and
along Aldgate into High street, Whitechapel. Until we got well up into
Whitechapel we had not met more than three or four persons, and they
were principally individuals who had taken more ale or strong liquor
than was good for their equilibrium. One person, who was evidently
out of his latitude, accosted the detective and demanded of him, in a
menacing but rather ludicrous way:
"I s'ay ole fel', whish ish Goodman's Feelsh? I wansh to go to
Somshseet sthreeths. Goodman's Feelsh, ole boy. Show we waysh and give
shixpensh, ole fel?"
"Go along and turn off to your left, and when you get home eat an
onion, and it will do you good p'raps," said he, as he tried to dodge
the drunken fellow, who seemed well dressed, and had some jewelry on
his person.
"Eesh an onionsh. Sir, yer a gentlesmansh--ole boy. Blesh you. Blesh
you," and he staggered away into the darkness, rolling like a yawl-boat
in the breakers.
We turned off the Whitechapel road into Baker street, up Charles into
Wellington street. The neighborhood was a poor desolate one, and every
building, and every stone in the street, with the offal in the gutters,
spoke of poverty and wretchedness.
Now and then a policeman spoke to us and looked sharply at me, but
always they seemed civil and obliging.
The district we were now traversing was a kind of debatable land
between Whitechapel and Bethnal Green. The streets, or rather lanes,
ran across and along at angles and in circles of a perfect maze tending
to confound ways that were well calculated to puzzle a stranger.
The lanes were, with few exceptions, not more than two or three hundred
feet long, and the odor from the cellars and lodging houses was
miasmatic. Shouts and yells and curses came from drunken male brutes
who passed us, and now and then a wretched looking outcast of a woman,
hideous with filth and bloated with gin, stole like a shadow from some
of the low public houses that were, in accordance with the beer-house
act, putting up their shutters.
A woman passed us with a stone bottle in one hand and a herring in the
other, while we stood looking up and down the narrow street. Her eyes
were bloodshot and her face seamed with dissipation and wretchedness,
while she grasped the stone bottle hard, and seemed ready to defend her
precious property with her life.
"Wot have you got there," said my companion seizing the stone jug and
holding it to his nose. The woman was almost frenzied at this attempt,
as she believed it was, to deprive her of what was far dearer to her
than her life. "Give me back my gin!" she screamed, and dashed forward
like a tigress to claw his eyes out. The sergeant seemed satisfied, and
handed her back the stone vessel with a motion of disgust.
"That'll do, ole lady," said he, "I'd rather you'd drink that White
Satan nor me. I pitys yer precious witles, that's hall, when you drinks
it. Where do you live?"
[Sidenote: AN EXPLORATION.]
"I live's in 'Purty Bill's lodgin.' I'll show it to you for a brown.
Come along." We followed her for a short distance, and now and then,
as we passed the doorways and courts, some low blackguard would vent
a little of his vile or rough humor upon our devoted heads, merely to
keep his intellect in play.
"I say, ye pair of duffers, give us tuppence to get a pot o' beer, wont
ye; come here, and I'll cash yer check hif you 'ave no small change,"
said a cut-throat looking rascal of large build who was lying across a
door that seemed to open into the earth somewhere. He half rose; fell
back on the broken cavern door stupefied with liquor, and began to
snore like a wild beast gorged with blood.
"This is an awful district, sir," said the detective. "They doesn't
stand on ceremony with you here."
We passed further down the dark street, and a very dark street it was.
The atmosphere was very different from that which hung over London
Bridge. The air was noisome, and the collected offal in the gutters
sent up a frightful stench to the heavens. At the end of the street
was a cul de sac, and before we came to it my conductor stopped at a
passage, dim under the midnight sky, which ran back for some distance;
I could not tell how far, owing to the darkness.
We passed into the court, which seemed to yawn wider as one progressed,
between three-storied, tumble-down, dirty brick buildings, and finally
we found ourselves in a yard about a hundred feet square, from the
opposite side of whose buildings clothes lines depended covered with
canvass jackets, ragged highlows, aprons, and two or three sou'westers,
beside a lot of female articles of under-linen. There were barrows,
hand carts, small jackass carts and baskets, with a few empty barrels
piled up in a confused mass in the corner of the yard. Cabbage leaves,
bones of fish and animals, potato skins--the remains of carniverous
appetites--were strewed all round.
The detective had by this time lit a lantern which he had concealed
in his breast, and thus I was enabled to look around me. He said,
"This is a rum spot; but never mind, it's safe enough. Now dy'e see
that cellar--that's where we are a goin' to spend an hour or two. Come
along."
He pointed in the direction of the cellar, or rather an opening in the
ground, at the further corner of the yard, from whose bowels issued
slanting streaks of light, shouts of laughter, and yells indicative of
mad revelry. Groping our way carefully over the heaps of rubbish, and
around the vehicles and barrels, we arrived at the cellar, which had
for an opening an aperture about six feet wide by five feet in length.
The broken wooden stairs leading to the bottom had some fifteen steps.
We descended and found the door at the lowest step barring the
entrance. It was fastened, and had a dirty, impenetrable pane of glass
as a watchhole for the use of those inside, so that nothing could be
seen from the outside of the door. We gave the door a kick, and then
the shouting and laughing seemed to stop very suddenly, and there was a
hustling and running about inside which betokened preparation.
A face appeared at the pane of glass, and, after a scrutiny of a minute
or two, the door went back on its hinges with a grating sound. A big
bullet-head protruded itself, and a voice said:
"Who is that ere? Wot does you want, and who the d----l send you at this
time o' night a disturbin' of honest people in their comfortable beds?"
"Bill, it's 'Faking Johnny' as wants to hold a few moments conversation
with you. The queen has just sent me with a patent of nobility for
you, from Buckingham Palace. You are to be made a barronnight right
hoff when you reforms," said the detective, in a jocular way, as he
descended into the cellar and faced the proprietor of the den, who held
a half-penny candle above his head to get a look at us both.
The master of the mansion finally recognized my companion, but did not
seem at all well pleased with his visit.
"Well," he said, in a very gruff voice, "is hit bizness or pleasure?
Vich? Kase, hif hits bizness you must 'elp yourself."
[Sidenote: "PURTY BILL."]
"Oh, pleasure by all means, Purty Bill," said the sergeant, "myself
and friend here, who is a son of Henry Clay, as was President of the
United States of America, just wants to see how the fun is goin' on
to-night, and as I knew you kept a fust-class place, Bill, I thought
I would bring him around to see you. He has called on the Queen, Mr.
Bright, Mr. Gladstone, the Hemperor of the French, and he expressed a
great desire to see 'Purty Bill;' so here we are."
[Illustration: PURTY BILL SHOWING US IN.]
The hideous vagabond seemed touched by this piece of insidious
flattery, and said in a modified tone:
"Oh, well, that's fair enough. I don't hask hanything better. But ye
see I thought you might ha' wanted some of my lodgers, and so many of
them have been done for lately that they are getting suspicious of my
honesty, and I have to be careful. Come this way," and he held the
half-penny candle over his head, which gave me a chance to observe him.
The man was about six feet two inches in height, and much in form of
shoulders like an ox, with loins like a prize-fighter. The face was
pitted terribly with small-pox, his entire face was seared, and even
the corners of his eyebrows seemed eaten away by the awful disease.
Hence his name of "Purty Bill." His eyes were of a greenish blue, and
his attire was that of a costermonger; a smock of canvass, and knee
breeches and huge shoes, whose heavy nails made rapid incisions in the
clay floor of the long, dark passage through which we had to pass until
we came to still another door. This door was not a door; in fact it was
only a few planks strongly nailed together, and was not more than four
feet high, so that we were all compelled, as "Purty Bill" lifted the
latch, to put our feet in first, and making half circles of our bodies,
we entered, and after descending three or four flagged steps we were
at last in the cellar and establishment proper over which "Purty Bill"
claimed a proprietary interest.
It was one of the strangest sights I ever saw--the interior of this
Wild Beast's Den. It was a huge cellar formerly used as a brewery, of
perhaps a hundred by seventy-five feet in dimension.
The ceiling, or, rather, the rough, unplaned beams which supported
the roof above us, gave an appearance of great strength to the place.
There was a large fireplace in the center of the cellar, around which
fifty or sixty persons sat, of all ages and of both sexes. The floor
was of damp clay, smooth and trodden by the feet of countless thieves,
vagabonds, and prostitutes. The corners of the cellar were buried in
darkness, while the center of the cavern, near the fireplace, was
bright with the flames of a fire of logs, which threw a flickering
light on the wooden beams, the broken chairs and stools, the pewter
pots in the hands of the lodgers, and on many faces stained with dirt
and ploughed up with crime and misery. There were thirty or forty
berths roughly constructed as they are in the emigrant steerage of a
Liverpool packet, and a heap of dirty straw in each indicated that
they were used as beds by the occupants of the apartments. There was
a large black pot hanging from a big hook, which depended from the
brick chimney, and from this pot came a steaming odor of soup, or stew
of some kind. The majority of the lodgers were sitting on the bare
ground, which was dry and hardened near the fire, while at a distance
from its flame the ground was rather damp and the lodgers sat on broken
stools or on ragged pieces of matting, broken pieces of willow ware,
logs of wood, bundles of rags, or any other article, or articles, that
were convertible into seats for the time being.
[Sidenote: "WONT YOU TAKE SOMETHING?"]
The room was lighted by four or five candles, which were stuck in glass
bottles, the bottles being fastened to the joists which supported the
berths in which the lodgers slept. The people nearest the fire had
fragments of food in their hands and were evidently preparing for a
grand midnight feast. Some of them were peeling potatoes, and one old
fellow with rheumy eyes had a piece of bacon of five or six pounds
weight between his crossed knees on a board, which he was cutting
into small square lumps, and as he hacked a piece off he threw it at
random into the large pot. A young girl was engaged in carving a huge
cabbage-head, and her assistant was scraping carrots and parsnips.
Every one seemed interested about the pot, and every one seemed to have
some contribution for the feast, which I found was a co-operative one.
[Illustration: "WONT YOU TAKE SOMETHING?"]
"Purty Bill" bustled about and found two broken stools for myself and
conductor, and placed them near the fire, saying in a hospitable way:
"Gent's, this ere night is werry wet, and you might as well dry
yourselves. Sit up nearer the fire. Won't ye take somethink?" and he
put his huge paws on the detectives knee in a friendly way. "This is
agoin to be a topper of a meal to-night, and all of us will welcome ye
gents to our 'umble board. So make yerselves at 'ome, and peck a bit
when it's biled."
"Wot's the idea of getting up this cram at this time of the morning,
Bill? It's near two o'clock. Won't it interfere with yer lodgers'
precious digestion?"
"Hinterfere with it? Wot, vith one of my lodgers? Rayther! No. Vy
there's Kicking Billy as heats six blessed meals a day, and then he's
all the time a lookin' for sangwiches and pigs trotters a-tween meals.
Urt their digestion hindeed? Vy they 'av got stomax like them ere
hanimals wot performs at Hastleys. You knows Slap-Up Peter. You used
to be a stone swallower in the purfession," and the proprietor touched
a man who was squatted on his haunches, smoking a dirty stump of clay
pipe, with his foot. Slap-Up Peter drew the pipe out of his mouth,
shook the ashes from it, dusted the venerable relic with a greasy red
handkerchief, carefully placed it in his breeches pocket, and said:
"Vy don't ye keep yer big feet to yerself? Wot hanimals do you mean? Do
you mean cammomiles?"
"Yes, them hanimals vith the 'umps on their hugly backs. You see, sir,
Slap-Up Peter has had a good eddycation in his time, and he knows the
names of the hanimals, 'cos he used to travel with the circus afore he
went on the tramp to swallow stones and snakes."
"Peter," said the detective, "you must 'ave quite an 'istry. Could you
tell us somethink about your past life, my boy?"
Slap-Up Peter had a melancholy face. The skin was tanned, the eyes
large, black, and bulging, and the nose like a hawk's. His clothes were
worn and greasy; his face was gaunt, and when he moved his body the
bones seemed to creak and grate as if they had been joined together by
metallic hinges. There was something mournful about the man--some queer
story attached to him, I felt.
[Sidenote: PETER AND JUDY.]
"Tell ye me 'istry, is it? Vell, I don't mind if I do; but them as
hears my story mout give me somethink to drink first, for I ham werry
dry. I lost my woice speaking on the Histablished Church bill tother
night in Parlymint, and I've been 'oarse hever since."
"Well, take a drop, Peter," said Kicking Billy, a one-eyed and
one-legged, and rascally looking fellow, who sat with his crutches
between his knees, toasting his shin at the fire, and he handed a
bottle to Slap-Up Peter, who took it without saying a word, and lifting
it to his mouth, took a deep, deep draught without winking.
"Look at that fellow that they call Kicking Billy--the one-legged
fellow, I mean," said the detective to me. "He's a returned burglar,
that fellow, and has served fourteen years. This place is full of
thieves. They are nearly all thieves, and this is a thieves feast," he
whispered in my ear.
"My name is Peter Wilson, and I've been in the show business for
sixteen years, come Christmas, man and boy. I'm thirty-eight years of
age now, and they called me Slap-Up Peter when I fust began jumpin', as
a hacrobat in the penny gaffs. Cos wy, I had a way of turnin' myself
over a chair and coming back-handed on a somerset that used to take
well, but now so many does it that the haudience don't mind it a bit. I
jumped for four years, and wos counted pretty good in my line until I
dislocated my wrist a doin' of the Pyramids of Hegypt, and then I vos
laid hup and couldn't jump for six months and hover; so I thought I'd
leave the bus'ness and happear in another character. I got married to--"
"More fool you," said Kicking Billy, sententiously, taking a drink.
"Well, hit didn't cost you nothing, no more than it did for the
government to support you in Botany Bay for fourteen years. So you
needn't hinterrupt me again."
"Go hon, Peter, and never mind him, its only 'is chaff."
"Well, as I wos saying," continued Slap-Up Peter, "I got married, and
maybe it was rayther foolish, for when we were spliced, Judy and I--she
wos an Irish gal and a good worker--we went into our cash account and
found that we had only one pun six shillings and height pence, not a
blessed brown more. I said to Judy--she wor a good gal--
"Judy, we can't keep 'ause on twenty-six shillings capital, that's
shure. That's all our fortune in silver and gold, and it won't last
long. So wot will we do?"
"'Well, Peter,' said she, 'I didn't marry you for the dirty money; I
married you cos' you were sich a good jumper and hacrobat, and I'll
stick to you now when you can't jump any more;' for you see, Billy, my
wrist was two years afore it got well."
"'Let us pad the hoof together,' said Judy, 'and we'll do the best we
can. Let us two work the southern counties and we'll get long French
or Hitalyan names, and we'll pick up a shillin here and there.' Cos
you see," said Peter, "Judy had been born and bred in Shoreditch,
and she knew all the wandering play-actors and showmen, and she wor
hup to all their affs. So I next came out as 'Signor Hokenfokos, the
fiery salamander of Naples, and my wife, the Baroness Padila, who had
to leave her country on account of the wiolent love vich the king's
son would persist in making hup to her, and she had to leave all her
property, to the amount of six millions, behind her.' This was a good
lay and we made from three to eight shillings a day down in Devonshire
and Cornwall, wherever we could get a crowd together. I used to swaller
hot iron bars, pokers, and red hot coals, and my wife used to play the
hurdy-gurdy while I was swallerin' the hot coals. I improved at this
werry much in two years, and then, after I had vorked the hot coals
out, Judy said to me one day:
"'Peter, why don't you try and swaller snakes and swords? They are
better than coals, and not so dangerous.'"
[Sidenote: SNAKE SWALLOWING.]
"'Yes, but I don't know how,' I said, 'and I don't like snakes at all,
they are so precious slimy.' You see sir, even then I didn' know what
it was to get used to a thing. Well, I commenced to swallow knives at
first, and I had to oil them--that's the trick you see--with sweet oil
as good as I could find at eighteen pence a pint, and I had to rub
this on with a piece of shammy cloth. This oil lets the knife down
easily, and when I wos well drilled there wos no danger at all--only
I had to be sober. My swallow was hawful bad with the hirritation for
two months, but I got over that; for when I felt my throat sore I took
sugar and lemon juice, and gorgled my throat and that took the soreness
away."
"Tell us about the snakes, Peter," said Purty Bill. "That's a good
story, sir," to the author.
[Illustration: SNAKE SWALLOWING STORY.]
"Ah! that was the most unlikely thing I hever took to. It went aginst
my stomach hawful to swaller the snakes at first, and I don't believe
I'd ever have done it if it hadn't been for Judy, who said to me, when
I kicked agin it,--
"'Wot difference does it make, Peter, whether you swallow red hot coals
or snakes? The snakes has their stings all taken out, and its nothing
more than swallowin' a sausage or pork saveloy.'"
"Well, I went at it with a very bad 'art, and my old woman used to play
'Boney's March Across the Halps,' and the 'Death of Nelson,' whenever I
swallowed a snake. You see I generally took a snake about fourteen or
fifteen inches, or maybe a foot and a half long. The sting is out, you
know, and I takes the head and puts the snake in, and if he doesn't go
down why I pinches his tail, and then he rolls down the throat. It made
me sea-sick at first, and the people in Sussex thought I was the devil
out and out, and a good many hexamined my feet, which were in tights,
to see if I had cloven feet. A goodish lot of people thinks that the
snake goes entirely down the throat, but it stands to reason that the
snake is more frightened than the man, and he does not go down, and hif
he did he would be glad to come up, I can tell you."
"Don't you put somethink in your throat," said a boy of fourteen, who
was known among the confraternity as 'Teddy the Kinchin;' "I mean, to
make the snake sick if he'd go too far."
[Sidenote: SLAP-UP-PETER'S SONG.]
"No, that's no use at all; you see he doesn't go hall the way down.
He is afraid, is the snake, and if you cough he'll come up and draw
himself up and coil in a bunch in your mouth. But the duffers who pay
their money think that the snake is in your stomach. It stands to
reason that he'd get sick. It makes a man retch, and the first snake I
swallowed I threw up and had awful vomits, but the next one I rather
relished it, and it did me a sight o' good, like an oyster does after
ye 'ave been drinkin at night and take's tuppence worth of natives in
the morning. Well, when I began snake-swallowing it was rather new, and
I had it all my own way for a long time, but finally, lots of men began
to swallow snakes, and coal swallowing was not as good as it used to
be; so I took to ballad singing, Judy and I. By this time we had sixty
pounds saved, and we were doing well, but I made the acquaintance of a
lot of Doncaster men, who knew I had the money, and before I could say
'Jack Robinson,' the money was all gone. Judy was in her confinement
then, and she took on so bad about it that she died in child-bed, and
the kid as well, and I've been on the tramp ever since, and now I do
an odd turn at anything that turns up, but mostly I sing ballads, and
make sometimes a shilling a day, and sometimes eightpence and ninepence
a day. Times have changed for me. Worse luck."
Here the snake-swallower's story ended.
"Slap-Up Peter, will you give us a song? and I'll give you a drink, me
oul wiper," said the crippled Kicking Billy to the snake-swallower.
"Well, Billy, I don't mind if I do," said Slap-Up Peter, draining the
tin skillet to the last greasy drop.
The thieves, loafers, and women gathered around the fire in a half
circle, and Purty Bill heaped logs very liberally, while Slap-Up Peter
chanted in a hoarse voice the song, an extract of which I give below,
as near as I remember it with my recollections of the scene, the
choking smoke, the blazing fire, and the band of outcasts and outlaws
in the den in Whitechapel:
'Twas down in Whitechapel that once I used to dwell,
And of all the coves that knocked about, I was the greatest swell,
My highlows were the cheese, with breeches to the knees,
Oh, my toggery was quite correct--my coat was Irish frieze,
My togs from Bond street came, it's a nobby slap-up street,
In a fashionable locality--the swells the girls there meet;
Nicol's my man for shirts, with his I cut a shine,
His shop's in far famed Regent street, he's a pal-o'-mine.
Rum too-rul-um, Happy-go-Bill,
Inyuns and greens who'll buy,
Rum too-rul-um, Happy-go-Bill,
Inyuns and greens who'll buy.
"That's a fine melojous voice of yours," said Purty Bill to the singer.
"He's used to it," said one of the women.
Here's Spuds at Thrums a pound, they're prime 'uns as I've found,
Oh, I've Reds and Dukes and Flukes and Blues, I sells in going my round.
My greens are superfine, full blown and hearty are mine,
Oh, come make a deal with me, my dear; don't wait, you'll find 'em prime.
My inyuns now are new, you'll find what I says is true,
In fact, the Queen, since these she's seen has cartloads just a few;
My carrots are long and red, you'll find they're well bred,
My vegetables are the cheese, bunch for you--penny-a-head.
Rum too-rul-um, &c.
"Now give us the last werse with all the 'armony," said Teddy the
Kinchin, in a piping voice.
"I vill, vith moosh plesh-yar, as the Frenchman said," returned Slap-Up
Peter.
Jerry, my moke's a bird, of him perhaps you've heard,
He knows his way about, he does, to match him's quite absurd;
Just see him cock his eye when grub time's getting nigh,
He likes his feed, he does indeed, he lives on cabbage-pie.
Now any girl that's kind, and a husband wants to find,
I'm ready made and so's my trade, that's if I'm to her mind;
So down to Whitechapel we'll trudge again to dwell,
And of all the coves that knock about I'll be the greatest swell.
Rum too-rul-um, &c.
"That's wot I call a topper of a song. It's so werry sentimental that
it makes a gal peep. The lines are werry touchin'," said a young gal
of sixteen or seventeen years of age, who was not badly dressed nor
bad-looking, and who went by the name of "Bilking Bet." She was a
favorite, and several of them called upon her to sing. She had just the
same mock modesty, this young woman with the brassy face, as if she had
been a fashionable lady at the West End, with a jointure and a coach
and six.
"Wot's that young gal's name, Bill," said the detective to the boss of
the thieves.
He did not seem inclined to tell at first, but said sullenly, "you
don't want her do you? No? Well then that's 'Bilking Bet,' she used to
be a 'coster gal but now she's on the cross."
"Oho!" said Serjeant Moss, "that's the gal as was hup before Mr. Knox
at Marlboro street the other morning for snatching a lady's purse in a
push."
"Yes," said Purty Bill, "but there was no proof aginst the gal. She was
brought out has hinnocent as the new-born baby. She wor."
[Sidenote: THE COSTER GAL.]
"Of course, Bill, you had that done and cooked. One of those nice
little halybi's as you halways 'ave ready just to suit your customers.
'Bilking Bet' was down in Wales a waitin upon her poor sick mother, who
was down with the scarlet fever, and not expected to live. My Heye? Eh,
Bill, one of your old tricks? But, I say, Bill, don't you get ketched,
cos its over the water to Charly with ye hif I ketch ye."
This conversation was carried on in the corner of the room, from which
we could see that the group around the fire were preparing to hear a
song from "Bilking Bet," who cleared her throat twice with a pull at a
gin bottle--no glasses here to annoy a person--and began, in a mellow
and not unpleasing voice, the following slang song which is common
among the London costermongers, but is seldom heard among the thieves.
The song, no doubt, she owed to her early costermonger associations,
before she became a pickpocket. She was now one of the most expert in
London, and was the kept mistress of a well known burglar, who had, two
days before I saw her, broken open a tea shop in the Old Bailey, near
Ludgate Hill.
The song was as follows:
"THE COSTER' GAL."
Some chaps they talk of damsels fine,
Being angels bright and fair,
But they should only see my girl,
She is beyond compare,
She is the finest girl that's out,
Her name is Dinah Denny,
When you are out you'll hear her shout
"New Walnuts, twelve a penny!"
Chorus.--S'help me never none so clever,
As my Dinah Denny,
Can shout about, all round about
"New Walnuts, twelve a penny."
Her voice is like a dove,
And bright is her black eye,
I think she does me truly love,
She looks at me so sly.
She sports the smartest side spring boots,
Eclipse her cannot many,
And shows feet small, while she does call
"New Walnuts, twelve a penny."
Chorus, &c.
Rich noblemen may dress their wives
In silk or satin dress,
But Dinah I like quite as well
In her Manchester print, "Express,"
We're going to be wed, and then
If offspring we have many,
We'll be nuts on, and christen them
"New Walnuts, twelve a penny."
Chorus, &c.
[Illustration: "BILKING BET TAKES THE CHAIR."]
"Now I think that's werry neat and happropriate to the hoccasion,"
said a cockney lodger who had successfully begged two-pence from the
detective to pay for his lodging, which he handed over to "Purty Bill"
as soon as he got the pennies.
"I moves we put Bilking Bet in the cheer? Wot dye say, gentlemen and
ladies hall, to the proposition?"
"Hall right. Bet take the cheer and give us some of yer 'Ouse of
Commons."
"Bilking Bet" was escorted to the middle of the group, placed standing
on a three-legged stool without any visible back, and assuming as
stately an air as she was capable of, the young girl, with the most
perfect sang froid, began:
[Sidenote: "TEDDY THE KINCHIN'S SONG."]
"Me lords and gentlemen, and likewise the ladies. Me noble pickpockets,
gonoffs, blokes, and pinchers. I am with you this hevening, for what
purpose, I hask? FOR WOT PURPOSE I HASK? Why, to be present at the
feast which takes place hannerally among the members of our noble
purfession--shall I say dignified purfession? No; I won't."
"But ye have said it, Bet," said Kicking Billy.
"Hear! hear! Shut up, will ye, and let the gal tork," said Slap-Up
Peter.
"Well," said Bet, broken down in her attempt at a speech, "I move that
we have a song from 'Teddy the Kinchin.' Will he hoblige?"
"He will! he will!" said a dozen voices.
"I am sorry, me blokes, that my woice is so werry much out of tune in
singing at Her Majesty's Hopera in the Haymarket, but howsumbever, as
I have given hup my hengagement at that 'ouse, I'll fake you a few
werses to show wot I wonce wos when I wos in woice," said this cheerful
young blackguard and thief, who had a pair of eyes like a ferret, and
could not have been more than seventeen years of age, as he stood there
dressed in the height of his idea of the fashion, with a flashy velvet
coat and satin scarf, showing a huge pin. He sang, after clearing his
throat with a long drink of gin, as follows:
"TEDDY THE KINCHIN'S SONG."
I am a curious comical cove
Everybody does own O,
Hey ricketty Barlow, Cock-a-doodle-do!
I was born one day when father was out,
And mother she wasn't at home O,
Hey ricketty Barlow, &c.
I went to school and played the fool,
At learning was a shy man.
Hey ricketty Barlow, &c.
The boys they used to hollo out,
"There goes a Simple Simon!"
Hey ricketty Barlow, &c.
Oh lor! oh my! I'm a Simple Simon,
Oh lor! oh my! cock-a-doodle-do!
Where ere I go the folks they know,
And call me "Simple Simon;"
Hey ricketty Barlow, &c.
"Haltogether, please," said the Kinchin.
[Illustration: "TEDDY THE KINCHIN'S SONG."]
I used to "kick" the cobbler out,
And rip up people's pockets,
Hey ricketty Barlow, &c.
And I was very fond of throwing stones
And lumps of mud at coppers,
Hey ricketty Barlow, &c.
But now I'm going to settle down,
Won't I cut a shine O,
Hey ricketty Barlow, &c.
I'll marry a gal with lots of Tin,
And won't I spend her rhino,
Hey ricketty Barlow, &c.
Oh lor! oh my! &c.
"Now, once more, and a good haltogether please," and the young
pickpocket sat down amid thunders of applause from every one in the
cellar belonging to the band of thieves.
[Sidenote: TEDDY THE KINCHIN.]
The thieves stew was now declared ready for consumption by the _chef de
cuisine_, and as I at least felt no appetite for such a rich dish, we
left this underground den of infamy just as a few faint streaks of the
coming dawn began to gild the spire of St. Boldolph's ancient church.
"That Purty Bill is one of the greatest scoundrels in London. He is a
fence, and we've got him once or twice, but he minds himself now, and
we are after his tricks every day. His cellar used to be a brewery,
that's why he's got so much room underground, and his game is to let
out lodgings, at two pence a night, for a blind, and then they can stay
all day at this place until twelve o'clock at night, and if they cannot
pay sure for the next night's lodging in advance, unless they are in
very good circumstances, he clubs them out, and they have got to pad
the hoof until daybreak, and sleep where they can. Good night." And we
parted for that twenty-four hours.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
DEBATING CLUBS AND COGERS'S HALL.
SHOE lane hath a very unromantic sound for a locality. It does not
smell of the aristocracy. It hath not even a slight favor of the Landed
Gentry, and no one could possibly take the trouble to find armorial
bearings or hatchments for Shoe lane. Yet is Shoe lane a most eloquent
place, and there is a little old public house there deemed second only
in point of fame by the admirers of forensic eloquence who frequent it,
to the House of Commons.
The way was long and dreary that Saturday night that I strolled from
Long Acre, whose carriage-shops and leather manufacturers' stalls were
all closed for the day; and the sultry London fog came down, blinding
the pedestrians, as I turned from Lincoln's-Inn-fields into the
better-lighted High Holborn, with the glare from its brassy gin-shops
and dirty-looking old houses, that seemed all of them as if a good
scouring would have done them an incalculable service in the way of a
fresher appearance. I thought that Shoe lane was in a very suspicious
neighborhood.
Turning to the left through Farringdon Market, a huge square seemingly
devoted to the worship of highly odorous vegetables, I came into the
narrow Shoe lane, which runs down at its bottom to Fleet street, just
below where the gray stone arch of Temple bar bisects the Strand and
Fleet street. There is nothing particularly noticeable about this part
of Shoe lane.
[Sidenote: SHOE LANE.]
There is a ham and beef shop, with its layers of cold meat-pies piled
on top of each other in the windows; and across the way there is the
inevitable gin-shop, with its polished brass fender outside to keep off
the boys who have no money to spend in gin, and there are the enticing
signs all over the gin-shop telling of the merits of the brown-stout
there vended, and the Burton ale and somebody's "entire" malt liquors
which the proprietor assures the public are only genuine at his shop.
The lane is narrow here and not more than three or four men could pass
abreast, although there are sidewalks to the lane, or rather apologies
for sidewalks. This narrow lane is one of the few remaining relics of
old London. Below, at the foot of Shoe lane, runs Fleet street--one of
the busiest marts in the world, which is ever jammed and blocked with
drays, cabs, and vehicles of all descriptions crowding to and fro, in
sight of the mighty dome of St. Paul's; and under the pavement of that
street, so famous for its publications and shops, the old River Fleet
once ran in a dirty, hideous current, until it emptied its garnered
filth into the Thames.
Here, opposite Shoe lane, one of the curious old conduits that formerly
supplied old London with water might have been seen about the time
of the wars of the Roses, when the English nobles were hard at work
cutting each other's throats and making and unmaking kings for the want
of something better to do. The cistern erected at the point where Shoe
lane intersects Fleet street, was counted one of the handsomest in
London. Stow--that quaint, old, musty chronicler--says:
"Upon it was a fair tower of stone, garnished with the image of St.
Christopher on the top, and angels lower down, round about, with
sweetly sounding bells before them, whereupon, by an engine placed in
the tower, they, divers hours of the day and night, with hammers chimed
such a hymn as was appointed." Frolicsome Anne Boleyn, the first day
that she was queened, rode through Shoe lane on her way to the sacred
Abbey of Westminster to receive the gilded toy upon her fair forehead,
and pageantry and pomp met her at every step of her palfrey, in
Cornhill, Cheapside, Fleet street, and Shoe lane.
In those days the streets and lanes of London were narrow and
difficult, and the unfortunate queen that was to be might have touched
the over-hanging eaves and gables of the houses in her progress through
the city without leaving her saddle. The conduit in Shoe lane was
grandly gilded over to do her honor, and ran wine for the whole day.
At the base of the conduit a starvling poet sat reciting verses in her
honor as she and her newly made ruffian of a husband passed, and no
doubt this mediæval Mormon was highly pleased with the conceit. There
were towers and turrets erected to do her honor in Shoe lane, and in
one of these towers, according to the chronicler, "was such several
solemn instruments that seemed to be an heavenly noise, and was much
regarded and praised; and, besides this, the conduit ran wine, claret
and white, all the afternoon; so she, with all her company, rode forth
to Temple Bar, which was newly painted and repaired, where stood also
divers singing men and children, till she came to Westminster Hall,
which was richly hanged with cloths of Arras."
While Prince Hal was splitting the skulls of fractious Frenchmen at
Agincourt and fording the passage of the Somme, Sir Robert Ferras de
Chastley held eight cottages in Shoe lane from his king. Here and there
was a garden peeping forth in its floral verdure; and here was also the
town residence of the Bishops of Bangor, powerful and pious prelates in
their day, God wot and odds bodkins; and as early as 1378 they held the
tenure by virtue of the patent of the forty-eighth of Edward the Third,
which says in most barbarous Latin: "_Unum messuag; unam placeam terræ,
unam gardinum cum aliis ædificis in Shoe Lane, London_."
Times have changed since then in Shoe lane. A bishop of Bangor now,
with his train of lances, his men-at-arms, mitre, cross-bearer, and
torches, would be a sight indeed in Shoe lane. How that bright-eyed
bar-maid at the door of the Blue Pig would stare at his lordship! How
the greasy boy in the ham and beef shop would shout at the cope and
silks and velvet housings--taking them, perhaps, in an innocent way,
for a part of the Lord Mayor's show! And as for the conduit running
Claret and Malmsley, the beer-swilling cockneys would not thank
headless Anne Boleyn for such washy foreign stuff. Their fancy could
only be fed by gin. A man-at-arms would be compelled now-a-days to wash
his throat with Bass's bitter beer or brown stout, instead of sack,
hippocras, or mead.
[Sidenote: SOCIETY OF COGERS.]
At last we are in the neighborhood of "Cogers Hall"--the hall of the
Ancient and Honorable Society of Cogers. There is a gin-shop at the
front, with its low doorway and flaring signs. The windows are well
lit, and by the side of the bar is a long, narrow passage conducting
the visitor for twenty or thirty feet to a back room, about forty feet
long and twenty-five feet wide.
Off the passage are a number of small waiting-rooms, noisy and smoky,
with the voices and vile pipes of the occupants. Four rows of tables
run along the room, in which are present fifty or sixty persons all
of the male sex. They are all decently dressed, for, although the
admission is free, yet is the visitor to the Cogers Hall expected to
drink or eat something, and the place, with its tariff of prices,
though moderate enough to an American, would not suit a costermonger or
laborer.
The roof is arched and paneled, done in a feeble imitation of the
style of Sir Christopher Wren, who is popularly supposed to have
built everything in London after the great fire of 1666. A handsome
chandelier depends from an opening in the roof, and is ornamented
with a number of glass globes, which serve to light the apartment and
dissipate the thick clouds of smoke that constantly arise in the room.
There is a large, gaudy sign in the hall, on which are printed these
cabalistic words: "Hot joints are served in this room from one until
five." At the farther end of the room, opposite the entrance, is a
paneling hollowed back in the wall, the entire room being paneled; and
this paneling is shaped like a door, and is gilded. A step from the
floor, in the paneling, is placed a chair of honor, which is occupied
by the Most Worthy Grand, as he is styled; or, in fact, the chairman
of the meeting. Those who are familiar with him go so far in their
irreverence as to call this awful personage "Me Grand," and whispers
have been heard that his name in reality is Tompkins or Noakes.
Directly opposite this dignitary, at the other end of the room, is a
place in the paneling and a chair like to that which I have already
described, and this is occupied by a tall, lean man, with side whiskers
of a grayish pattern, who has the title of Vice Grand.
But the Vice, or Worthy Wice, is of greatly inferior dignity to the
Most Worthy Grand. He is, so to speak, an empty ornament of the feast,
and his duties are simple, and confined to calling out in unison with
the assemblage, "Hear, hear," or "Good." "You are Right," when the
Worthy Grand, in his oracular sentences, is most happy. At other times,
in a loud voice he will call the attention of the waiters, who heartily
detest him for his interference, to the fact that some customer has
drained his beer, or gin and hot water, and needs, therefore, to be
served afresh.
Still this man is human, and will listen, when off his seat of duty,
to any scandal against the Most Worthy Grand with secret pleasure.
In fact, the Worthy Wice, inspired by a generous four-pence worth of
gin and hot water, told me aside, in conversation, that the Worthy
Grand was unfit for his high position. "He his han hass, sir. He
his too Hold. And he 'as no woice watsomever, sir. Bah! that, sir,
for Tompkins"--and the Worthy Wice snapped his fingers in an insane
manner at the air in which his potent imagination had conjured up the
semblance of the Worthy Grand. Sitting down at a table I followed the
custom of the place and called for something. On each table were placed
a couple of long-shanked clay pipes, and a thin-necked, big-paunched,
red-clay jar, which a man sitting near explained to my satisfaction.
"You see," said he in a rather mysterious voice, "we 'aven't much ice
to speak of in England; leastways, it is too dear, and this 'ere red
clay 'as a peculiar wirtue--it keeps the water as cold as if it was in
the waults of Bow Church."
[Sidenote: AT THE TABLES.]
This man was decently dressed, and was, I believe, a drover by
profession. He was very fleshy and very red in the face.
Tissues of fat lay around his eyebrows in layers, and his double chin
was dewlapped like one of his own beeves. He had a heavy red hand, and
was, as I found out, a true Briton in every sense. I asked him why the
place was called Cogers Hall. To this conundrum he confessed himself
unable to answer, but after scratching his head the "Beefy One," as
I shall call him, made a sign for a waiter to come to the table. "I
say," said the Beefy One, "why do you call this place Cogers 'All?" The
waiter could not satisfy him, but said that he would call the Master.
Well, the Master came, a thin-faced, side-whiskered Englishman, with
watery blue eyes and trembling lip. The counterfeit presentment of
the Master hung over the Worthy Grand's chair of state, done in oil,
and it seemed as if the artist had endeavored, in accordance with the
spirit of the Cogers Hall, to give the face an oratorical, Gladstonian
expression, and the cloak was folded around the shoulders of the
Master as the toga is folded around the shoulders of Tully, in classic
pictures. Besides the picture of the Master, several other pictures
of Past Worthy Grands were hung as tokens of their former forensic
abilities. The Master, in answer to the question why the place was
called Cogers Hall, said:
"Well, you see, we calls it Cogers Hall from the Latin _ko-gee_-TO--to
cogitate, to think. Oh, yes, sir, we have been a long time established,
sir; since 1756, sir; a matter of a hundred years or so, sir. You are
han Hamerican, sir. Oh, yes, sir, we've 'ad George Francis Train 'ere,
sir, for many a night, sir; and 'e spoke in that chair, sir; and when
he was arrested, sir, in Ireland, the Home Secretary as wos, sir, wrote
to me to question me if he had spoken treason, sir, or spoke agin the
Queen, sir. Cos ye see, sir, the principle of an Englishman, sir, is to
allow every man liberty to say wot he likes, sir, so long as he does
not speak agin the Queen or speaks treason. That's an Englishman's
principle, sir."
And George Francis Train had spoken in this very room! I could fancy
the feelings of poor Artemus Ward when he stood at the tomb of
Shakespeare at Stratford. These wooden chairs and benches were hallowed
in my eyes henceforward. Men had sat upon those chairs who had
listened to the fervid eloquence of a Train, and perhaps some of these
very men had survived. _Civis Americanus sum._
As the night came on apace, the smoky, old-fashioned, paneled room
began to fill up, and before long nothing could be seen but rows of
men lining the small tables, puffing vigorously from the long clay
pipes, and at intervals taking deep draughts from the large, brightly
burnished metal pots, holding a pint each, or perhaps sipping fourpenny
glasses of hot gin and water. Along with the little jar of hot water
which the waiter brought on demand, were little saucers of sugar--these
little saucers never containing, by any chance, more than three lumps
of sugar, and each of these lumps being equalized in size with a
mathematical nicety. Some of the visitors, more hungry than others,
satisfied their longings with "Welsh Rabbits," at sixpence apiece; or,
when the rabbits had, in addition, two eggs cooked with them, the Welsh
rabbit was called a "Golden Buck," and the waiter, in his greasy tail
coat, raised his demand to eightpence.
In a few minutes the Worthy Vice, a gray-bearded man with a meek face
and in shabby-genteel clothes, took his seat, and all the chairs in
the apartment were turned around by those who occupied them in order
that they might hear and see better. The Worthy Vice, who is sometimes
entered on the bills of the performance as a "Patriot" when he has to
take part in a discussion, read the minutes of the last meeting of
the Ancient and Honorable Society of Cogers, which were listened to
quietly, and then the attention of the audience was turned to the Most
Worthy Grand, who occupied the chair at the other end of the apartment.
This most noble Briton, in a quavering voice, having adjusted his
vest--which had a tendency to leave exposed the lower part of the
shirt-bosom at his stomach where his trousers bisected--opened the
proceedings with much solemnity, imitating by hems and haws, as well
as he could, the manners of the dullest and most common-place orators
of the House of Commons. His business as a specialty was to review the
events of the week.
[Sidenote: NEWS OF THE WEEK.]
"I don't think, gentlemen," said he, "that my task will be a very long
one this hevening in reviewing the hevents of the week. There, aw,
'asn't been much a-doing in furrin parts, ah, this week. There 'as been
'a row in Turkee again, and in, ah, fact we might say there is halways
a row in Turkee, more or less. There's a man in Hegipt whom we call the
Viceroy of that, ah, country, and when he, ah, wos here we gave 'im
fireworks and sich, and made a blessed time about him, as we might say
vulgarly, so to speak. Now, he has been a invitin' of all the sovrins
of Europe on his own hook to see him and his ryal family open the Sooz
Canal. Well, he has been, ah, spendin' sich a lot of money that the
Sultan comes out in a long letter and calls him a Cadivar, which is a
word that I can't understand, being neither Latin nor yet Greek.
"Blessed hif I knowed that ye iver understood Greek or Lating, ither,
Jimmy," said an old man who sat observant of the reviewer in a corner,
drinking beer from a pewter pot.
"I thank ye all the same, Mr. Wilkins, but I don't _like_ to be
interrupted when I'm speaking," answered the Most Worthy Grand.
"You're right, Me Grand. Horder! horder!" shouted several indignant
voices.
"I wos goin' to say," continued the Grand, after taking a deep draught
of the porter which foamed in the pewter pot on the table before
him--"I wos goin' to say that the state of our neighbor, Fronse, just
hover the water, is now a spektikle for mankind. There's a great hadoo
about the Hemperor's 'elth; and I must say as how he is in a bad way
by all accounts. Nobody knows wot his disease is. It may be liver; it
may be kidneys. I might take the liberty of sayin', as a rule, kidneys
is bad. No one knows wot would be the consequences if the Hemperor was
to step out, wulgularly speakin'. It would p'r'aps be the cause of a
general war in Europe. Hengland doesn't want any more wars. We 'ave
'ad enough of them. They does no good for the workin' man. ('Hear!
hear!') We pays the piper when the dancin' is done; but we never dances
ourselves."
"True as the gospel, Jimmy," from a beer drinker.
"Now, there's another question which we all 'ave heard of a good deal,
and that's the Halabama claims. They are in a precious muddle, to be
sure. They may be right and they may be wrong. But I must say that I
don't see where the money is to come from to pay them."
"We'll never pay them. We aint got the "dibs;" leastways, I won't pay
any of it," says an irreverent young man whose face was quite flushed
with strong drink.
"Well, as far as that goes, if they are to be paid, we know it will
come from the pockets of just such people as ourselves in the way of
taxes. Its taxes halways."
"I differ from the gentleman who preceded me altogether. Prussia must
'ave the left bank of the Rhine, and I'll put sixteen bullets in the
Pope's heart. I tell ye, gentlemen, the Ekumenikal Council will be
the downfall of the Romish religion. I'll put sixteen bullets in the
Pope's heart," cried out a tall, thin-faced man in a half-clerical suit
of black, who got on his feet, and while in the act of energetically
expressing his feeling, by a wave of his right hand carried away a
glass globe shading the gaslight above his head. The man was very drunk
apparently, but by his language seemed to be a person of education. The
"Beefy One," who sat by my side, and who had reached his third bottle
of beer, whispered to me:
"I say, yon is a fine fellow when he's sober, and can talk poetry by
the yard, but he is very drunk, and when he's fuddled he will talk a
man blind about the Pope. Will you have some beer? Do take a pot."
It was with some trouble that the fiery Scotch orator was induced to
sit down and defer his assault upon the Pope until a more fitting
occasion.
At this moment the Beefy One pointed out to me a tall, martial-looking
person in black clothes, who seemed to be very restive and looked as
if he wanted to speak. He was of large frame, about sixty years of
age, and was apparently a man of considerable stamina and backbone.
His white whiskers and neat dress gave him the look of a justice of
the peace who had dropped in to take a look at the assemblage from
curiosity, and to see that the public morals and the constitution were
properly taken care of.
[Illustration: COGERS HALL.]
While the Worthy Grand was making a series of remarks on the health
of the Emperor Napoleon and the menacing attitude of Prussia towards
France in a gentle, slipshod way, the stranger looked up at times from
the four-penn'orth of gin which he ordered when he came in to give an
incredulous, doubting smile to a few of the coterie who sat around him
and were evident admirers of his. The Beefy One whispered to me--
"That ole gentlemun is the finest orator as ever was. I tell ye,
sir, he _can_ talk when he's agoing. There's no end to his beautiful
sentiments, I do say it, although he's a Hirishman. Oh, 'e is a great
horator is the Ole One."
[Sidenote: LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES.]
After the review of the week's public events by the Worthy Grand,
debate was in order on the topics reviewed by him. I found that the
debaters who jumped to their feet one after the other in a manner
worthy of the most dignified legislative assemblage, were divided
into two parties, liberals and conservatives. The Liberals were the
most logical, strange to say; the Tories were most dogmatic and
violent. The Liberals--one of them at least--wished to do away with
all monarchies and established churches; while the Conservatives,
principally belonging to the shopkeeping element, in the audience, were
strenuously opposed to the eight-hour law and to the trades-unions. One
liberal orator would liked to have seen, as he expressed it, all the
kings, barons, prime ministers, and other like despots, placed in one
old rotten hulk of a vessel, and then the vessel was to be scuttled
on the Goodwin Sands. "And who," said the eloquent orator, "would not
say that it would not be a benefit to the human race? Who would not
exclaim with me," and here he looked around on his eager audience in a
threatening manner, "the more of sich cattle in the rotten old hulk the
better?" There was a general grunt of acquiescence from the advanced
Liberals at this possibility and a deprecatory shake of the head from
one Conservative with a great clay pipe.
Finally, the Irish orator got a chance, and then it was wonderful
to see how, in a sarcastic tone, he humbugged his hearers for half
an hour by allusions to the good time coming, when every man should
have a vote, and every Irish tenant should give up the graceful and
sportsmanlike habit of potting from behind the Tipperary hedges all
landlords who were in the way of a freehold system. The orator waxed
wroth and became pathetic at times as he reviewed the past glories of
the Isle of Saints and her present degraded position among nations. Yet
in that he was skilful enough, in speaking of the Fenians, to deprecate
their acts mildly, but, at the same time, he told his English audience,
in the most forcible tones, of the abuses and tyranny that had led to
the organization of Fenianism.
"Oh, I say, O'Brien, you are a humbugging of hus with that here gammon
habout '98, ye know."
"I give yes me word, me Worthy Grand and gentlemen, that I do not
advocate Fenianism at all, at all; but when yes dhrive min to madness
by oppression, by acts of oppression such as the world has never seen,
can yes blame the wu-r-rum if it turns on yes and bites."
[Sidenote: THE SCOTCH PRESBYTERIAN.]
No one could reply to this with the exception of the Scotch
Presbyterian, who, again rising from his seat, denounced the Pope and
Dr. Cumming as accomplices, and declared that at the first opportunity
he would cheerfully encounter martyrdom to be able to "put sixteen
bullets into the Pope's carcass," as he politely and charitably
expressed himself. "I didn't care about your Ekumenikul Council," said
he; "it will be the downfall of popishness and prelacy, and those who
may go there are welcome; but as for me I would be burned to have him
under my pistol."
"Oh, Mac, yer not so bad as yer purtend in yer talk. I'll engage, if
his Holiness would give ye the chance, ye'd only be too glad to kiss
his toe."
This raised a laugh at the Scotchman's expense, but he violently
disclaimed for himself, as a true disciple of John Knox, any intention
of submitting to such a degrading act of spiritual submission. The
debate continued as the night waned, and at eleven o'clock, when I left
the hall of discussion in Shoe lane, the subjects of vaccination, land
laws, and coinage were yet to be touched upon by the speakers.
I have given but a glance at this place, which is the oldest
established of its kind among a number of discussion halls and forums,
whose sign-boards meet the stranger's eye in different parts of the
city where most thickly populated. There is invariably a pot-house
attached to these debating places, or rather the debating halls are
attached to the pot-houses.
The better class of artisans and shopkeepers in a small way are
principally the frequenters of the discussion halls. Mechanics with a
gift of the gab, and who have five or six shillings a week to spend out
of twenty-five or thirty, are to be found here in large numbers. The
Most Worthy Grand and the Vice Grand are paid a fixed salary for their
stated eloquence, and it is principally their duty to read all the
cheap weeklies and dailies, not forgetting the _Times_, which is very
often quoted by them as a sort of a clincher in the argument brought
up. A place like this will take in five pounds of a night, and the
wages paid to the bar-maids is about sixteen shillings a week. There
were two here, and four waiters, who receive sixteen pounds a year and
their "grub," as they call it. A small paper of rough-cut tobacco is
furnished to each customer for a penny, and the consumption of this
narcotic and Welsh Rabbits is encouraged, as they are quite certain to
make the customers dry, and this dryness, as a matter of course, leads
to the imbibition of plenteous beer and gin and water. These shops are
licensed to sell spirits under the new Beer act, and they are compelled
to shut off the debate at midnight. As a general thing the most
advanced liberalism prevails in these places, and religious sentiments
are below par with the audience. Very often it is possible to hear a
well educated or scientific man debating in these halls, but, on closer
survey, his accent will betray him to be some impoverished French or
German physician, or reduced savan, who has no occupation in the hours
of the evening, and can, therefore, afford to dispense wisdom to the
thick-headed audience, gratis.
About a week after my visit to Cogers Hall I went, accompanied by Mr.
Marsh, a member of the Daily Morning Telegraph's staff, and another
gentleman connected with the editorial management of the Pall Mall
Gazette, to take a look at another debating hall which is situated
at No. 16 Fleet street. This place is quite famous in London for the
virulence of its debates and the high flavor of its gin. Its Brown
Stout is also above reproach.
As usual in all such places there is a public bar here, and this is
located at the entrance, and is attended by the inevitable bar-maid,
smiling and bedizined in all the glory of a two guinea silk dress,
bought perhaps in Regent street or the Oxford Circus.
[Sidenote: "WHERE ARE WE NOW."]
The room here was not so large a one as that at Cogers Hall in which
the orators were in the habit of haranguing their auditors. There
were a dozen small tables, around which chairs were placed in a most
picturesque confusion. Small white placards printed in blue ink were
posted on the walls with the following announcement:
TEMPLE
DISCUSSION FORUM.
ADMISSION FREE.
STRANGERS ARE PARTICULARLY INVITED TO TAKE PART
IN THE DISCUSSION AND TO INTRODUCE SUBJECTS
FOR DEBATE.
THE QUESTION THIS WEDNESDAY EVENING WILL BE
"THE POPE'S MODEL LETTER,"
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
TO BE OPENED BY "A PROTESTANT."
CHAIR TO BE TAKEN AT NINE O'CLOCK.
SUPPER FROM EIGHT TILL TWELVE.
BEDS. PRIVATE SITTING-ROOMS.
There was a venerable looking old fellow in the chair when we entered
the Discussion Forum, who lifted a pair of gold rimmed spectacles from
his nose to take a look at us. This was the chairman of the meeting,
and shortly after we sat down he cried out to a tall person with a
short grey raglan coat who was speaking and perspiring at the same time.
"Mister Chowley I will and cannot allow you, sir, to trample on the
religious feelings of any man present in this harmonious meeting. We
are all brothers here, sir, and the individual who disturbs our peace
and quietness, should be to us all as the 'Eathen and the publican,
sir." (Hear, hear.)
The tall man with the raglan, who did not like to be suppressed so
easily, had taken his seat for a moment much against his will, but now
he arose slowly and scornfully looking around him, spoke, with one
hand leaning on a chair behind him, and another hand in his breast, as
follows:
"Gentlemen, this his an age of science if it is an age of hanythink.
Wot does my honorable and noble Roman Catholic friend wish to advance
has an argument. Does he mean to tell ME, with my heyes hopen in
this here blessed Nineteenth Century, which we are all so proud
of, and whose blessed light is the moving cause of so much mental
brilliancy--does he mean to tell me for a moment that the miracle of
the transposition of water into wine at the wedding of Cana wos han
hactual fact. Why gents it his altogether impossible--and no reasonable
man in this Nineteenth century can for a moment believe it possible.
Wot would Galileo, Kepler, Faraday or sich bright lights of the
Nineteenth century say to sich stories? Why gents, there is a chemical
change which would have to take place before such a translation,
and this chemical transformation could not take place without the
assistance of other substances. (Hear, hear.) And gents, as far as the
infallibility of the Pope is concerned, why I have only to say in the
words of the poet, hand I mention no names, that a piece of fat pork
might stick in his gullet as soon as it would stick in mine, and that's
all I think of infallibility and fat pork, with the blessed light of
the nineteenth century before me." (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Chowley here sat down, thoroughly satisfied with himself and
auditory, who applauded him to the echo. Then a member of the Roman
Catholic persuasion answered him in a long and splendid oration, which
seemed to thoroughly convince every one present that the Catholic side
was right, and the Protestant one a most diabolical doctrine. After
each man had done his little speech, it was curious, nay amusing, to
hear the adherents of either party comment upon the previous argument.
"Oh! I say," said a Presbyterian, "didn't he smash the old Pope
neither."
"And wot a blessing he gave His Grace, Archbishop Manning, though?"
"Well," said an ardent Irishman, "I niver heard such a lambeastin as
the heretics got to night."
"You might well say that, Pether, and didn't he scald Martin Luther
with the holy wather, though," said an honest looking, hard working
fellow who sat smoking a pipe.
[Sidenote: FARCE AND TRAGEDY.]
One thing struck me in all this wilderness of argument and polemic
discussion. While the two principals nearly argued their jaws off
in the heat of discussion, they failed miserably to convert any of
the opposite party, who sat the debate out with a heroic stupidity,
understanding with much difficulty about one-third of what was said,
and perhaps caring very little for the matter in hand, but sticking
to their prejudices to the last, with a partisan fidelity not to be
convinced by all the harangues that will take place from that night
until the Day of Judgment.
And yet I could not enter a place of this kind in all London, from
Temple Bar to Hammersmith, without hearing this same everlasting
religious warfare of controversy.
And to add to the joke, hardly one of five of these persons who attend
such discussions, were ever in a church of either the Catholic or
Protestant persuasion.
Such is life--part farce, part tragedy.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII.
THE CLUBS AND CLUB HOUSES OF LONDON.
WE cannot conceive of any greater contrast than that which exists
between the wretchedness and squalor of the lodging houses, and the
splendor and refined elegance, combined with comfort of the Club houses
of London, which are chiefly situated in Pall Mall, St. James street,
and the neighborhood of lower Regent street.
Club life has attained its greatest perfection in London. No city upon
the Continent can compare with it for the number of its club houses,
the splendor of their architecture, their luxurious furniture, and the
standing in society of their members.
[Sidenote: INTERESTING STATISTICS.]
There are, I believe, upward of fifty clubs in London, in which all the
professions, and all the stations of life find representation, with a
roll of perhaps 45,000 members. The following are the principal clubs
with the cost of ground and construction: Army and Navy Club, George's
street, St. James' square, 1,450 members, £100,000; the Conservative
Club, St. James' street, 1,500 members, £81,000; Garrick Club, King
street, Convent Garden, 500 members, £25,000; Junior United Service
Club, corner of Charles and Regent streets, 1,500 members, £75,000;
Oxford and Cambridge Club, Pall Mall, 1,200 members, £100,000; Reform
Club, 1,400 members, £120,000; University Club, Pall Mall East, 500
members, £20,000; Wyndham Club, St. James' square, 600 members,
£30,000; Westminster Club, Albemarle street, 560 members, £15,000;
Athenæum, Pall Mall, 1,200 members, £60,000; Carlton, Pall Mall,
800 members, £100,000; Guards Club, Pall Mall, 500 members, £40,000;
Oriental, Hanover square, 800 members, £30,000; Traveler's, Pall Mall,
700 members, £30,000; Union, Cockspur street, 1,000 members, £25,000;
United Service Club, Pall Mall, 1,500 members, £70,000; White's Club,
St. James' street, 550 members, £20,000; Boodles, St. James' street,
500 members, £15,000; Cavendish Club, 307 Regent street, 500 members,
£15,000; and Civil Service Club, 86 St. James' street, 1,000 members,
£45,000.
Besides the before-mentioned clubs there are the following, which rank
nearly but not quite as high among Club men:
MEMBERS. COST.
Albert Club, 15 George street, Hanover square, 500 £10,000
Alpine Club, Trafalgar square, 600 18,000
Arlington Club, 4 Arlington street, 400 16,000
Arts Club, 17 Hanover square, 500 16,000
Arundel Club, 12 Salisbury street, Strand, 600 52,000
City of London Club, 19 old Broad street, (merchants,) 1,000 50,000
Gresham Club, City, (bankers, &c.,) 1,000 60,000
Junior Athenæum Club, 29 King street, St. James, 800 30,000
Junior Carlton Club, 14 Regent street, 800 40,000
New Carlton Club, Albemarle street, 800 25,000
New University Club, 57 St. James' street, 600 29,000
Portland Club, Stratford Place, Oxford street, 400 18,000
Smithfield Club, Half-Moon street, Piccadilly 300 12,000
St. James' Club, 54 St. James' street, 500 23,000
Whitehall Club, Parliament street, 500 9,000
Whittington Club, 37 Arundel street, 1,600 40,000
Clarendon Club, 86 St. James' street, 900 36,000
Junior Reform Club, Albemarle street, 800 40,000
Brooks' Club, 60 St. James' street, 575 20,000
Arthur's Club, 69 St. James' street, 600 18,000
Law Society, Chancery Lane, 1,000 68,000
National, Whitehall-Gardens, 400 17,000
Prince's Racket and Tennis Club, Hans Place, Chelsea, 300 11,000
United University, corner Suffolk street and Pall Mall, 500 33,000
Beefsteak Society, Lyceum Theatre, 250 5,000
Club Chambers, Regent street, 400 31,000
" " St. James' square, 300 17,000
Ambassador's, 106 Piccadilly, 200 16,000
Erectheum, St. James's square, 300 20,000
In these several clubs each member is elected by ballot, and pays an
entrance on admission, and afterward an annual subscription, which
varies like entrance fees in different clubs.
Thus, in the Athenæum, the entrance fee is £26.5s., annual
subscription, £6.6s. Arthur's, entrance £21, subscription, £10 10s.
Brooks, entrance, £9 9s., subscription, £11 11s. Carlton, entrance,
£15 15s., annual subscription, £10 10s. Conservative Club, £28 7s.,
subscription, £8 8s. Garrick Club, entrance, £21, subscription, £6
6s. Junior United Service, entrance, £30, subscription £6. Oxford and
Cambridge Club, entrance, £21 5s., subscription, £6 6s. Reform Club,
entrance, £21 5s., subscription, £10 10s. Travelers' Club, entrance,
£31 10s. Union, entrance, £38 10s., subscription, £6 6s. United Service
Club, entrance, £36, subscription, £6. Whittington, entrance, £10 10s.,
subscription, ladies £1, gentlemen, £2 2s. Wyndham, entrance, £27 6s.,
subscription, £8.
When clubs were first started they were regarded with much hostility
as being most antagonistic to domestic life, and the ladies displayed
an intense spirit against them. The clubs, however, survived and
flourished under their enmity, and it was found that they discouraged
coarse drunkenness, the prevalent vice of Englishmen; encouraged social
intercourse--of which ladies partook of elsewhere; refined the manners
of the members, constituted courts of honor, and tended most materially
to the manufacture of gentlemen.
The London clubs are private hotels on a vast and magnificent scale.
They have billiard rooms, coffee rooms, nine-pin rooms, splendid
libraries, saloons, and furniture, and plate of the costliest and
rarest description.
[Sidenote: LUXURIOUS DINNER--LADIES EXCLUDED.]
All the refreshment which a member has, whether breakfast, dinner,
supper, or wine, are furnished to him at the _market cost_ price,
all other expenses being defrayed from the annual subscriptions. For
a few pounds a year, advantages are to be had, which no incomes but
the most ample could procure. The Athenæum, which consists of twelve
hundred members, can be taken as a good example of the rest. Among
the members can be reckoned a large proportion of the most eminent
persons in England--civil, military, and ecclesiastical, peers,
spiritual and temporal, commoners, men of the learned professions,
those connected with the sciences and arts, and commerce, as well as
the distinguished who do not belong to any particular class, and who
have nothing to do but live on their means, bore their tailors, and
admire their family genealogy, and their own figures. These men are
to be met with day after day at the clubs, living with more freedom
and nonchalance than they could at their own houses. For six or eight
guineas a year every member has the command of an excellent library,
with maps, the daily London papers, English and foreign periodicals,
and every material for writing, with a flock of gorgeous flunkies, in
powder and epaulettes, to attend at the nod of a member, and a host
of youthful pages in buttons and broadcloths. The club is a sort of a
palace with the comfort of a private dwelling, and every member is a
master without having the trouble of a master. He can have whatever
meat or refreshment he desires served up at all hours, with luxury
and dispatch. There is a fixed place for everything, and it is not
customary to remain long at table. You can dine alone, or you can
invite a dozen persons to dine with you, females being excluded. From
an account kept at the Athenæum for one year, it appears that 17,323
dinners cost on an average 2s. 9-3/4d. each, and the average quantity
of wine drank by each person at these dinners was a small fraction more
than a pint for each. The bath accommodations are the finest that can
be imagined.
The kitchen of the London clubs cannot be equaled in the world, and
the chief cooks who have charge of the kitchens, have each an European
fame. Alexis Soyer, the greatest cook since Ude or Vatel, had, for
a long time, the charge of the kitchen of the Reform Club, and the
kitchen of this club, of which John Bright, and all the leaders of the
English liberals are members, is the finest in London.
A description of this kitchen will in a measure answer for that of any
other London club, and I will give it here for the information of those
who are curious in such matters.
The kitchen, properly so called, is an apartment of moderate size,
surrounded on all four sides by smaller rooms, which form the pastry,
the poultry, the butchery, the scullery, and other subordinate offices.
There are doorways but no doors, between the different rooms, all
of which are formed in such a manner that the chief cook, from one
particular spot, can command a view of the whole. In the centre of
the kitchen is a table and a hot closet, where various knicknacks are
prepared and kept to a desired heat, the closet being brought to any
required temperature by admitting steam beneath it. Around the hot
closet is a bench or table, fitted with drawers and other conveniences
for culinary operations. A passage going around the four sides of this
table separates it from the various cooking apparatus, which involve
all that modern ingenuity has brought to bear on the cuisine.
In the first place there are two enormous fireplaces for roasting, each
of which would, in sober truth, roast a whole sheep. The screens placed
before these fires are so arranged as to reflect back almost the entire
heat which falls upon them, and effectually shields the kitchen from
the intense heat which would be otherwise thrown out. Then again, these
screens are so provided with shelves and recesses as to bring into
profitable use the radiant heat which would be otherwise wasted.
[Sidenote: MODEL KITCHEN.]
Along two sides of the room are ranges of charcoal fires for broiling
and stewing, and other apparatus for other varieties of cooking. These
are at a height of about three feet from the ground. The broiling fires
are a kind of open pot or pan, throwing upward a fierce but blazeless
heat; behind them is a framework by which gridirons may be fixed at any
height above the fire, according to the intensity of the heat. Other
fires open only at the top, are adapted for various kinds of pans and
vessels; and in some cases a polished tin-reflector is so placed as
to reflect back to the viands the heat. Under and behind and over and
around, are pipes, tanks, and cisterns, in abundance, containing water
to be heated, or to be used more directly in the processes of cooking.
A boiler adjacent to the kitchen is expressly appropriated to the
supply of steam for "steaming," for heating the hot closets, the hot
iron plates and other apparatus. In another small room the meat is
kept, chopped, cut, and otherwise prepared for the kitchen. There are
also in the pastry room all the necessary appliances for preparing the
lightest and most luscious triumphs of the art. In another room there
are drawers in the bottoms of which blocks of ice are laid, and above
these are placed articles of undressed food, which must necessarily be
kept cool.
There is a cheerful air, an air of magnificence about these superb
kitchens, which would charm a good housewife. Here all the genius that
can be brought to bear upon cookery is concentrated, and the head cook
would not deign to notice any person of less rank than a baronet, while
in superintendence. Although there are twelve hundred members or over,
yet he is not responsible to any individual one, and the only authority
in the club to which he has to bow is the eight or ten members of the
House Committee, whose decrees even to this great being are arbitrary.
The pots and pans are of an exceeding brightness, and the entire
system is perfect. In one corner of the kitchen is a little stall or
counting-house, at a desk in which sits the "Clerk of the Kitchen."
Every day the chief cook provides, besides ordinary provisions which
are certain to be required, a selected list which he inserts in his
bill of fare--a list which is left to his judgment and skill.
Say three or four gentlemen, members of the club, determine to dine
there at a given hour, they select from the bill of fare, or make a
separate "order" if preferred, or leave the dinner altogether to the
intellect of the _chef_, who is sure to be flattered by this dependence
on his judgment. A little slip of paper on which is written the
names of the dishes and the hour of dining, is hung on a hook in the
kitchen on a black board, where there are a number of hooks devoted to
different hours of the day or evening. The cooks proceed with their
avocations, and by the time the dinner is ready the clerk of the
kitchen has calculated and entered the exact value of every article
composing it, which entry is made out in the form of a bill--the cost
price being that by which the charge is regulated--nothing is ever
charged for the cooking. Immediately at the elbow of the clerk are
bells and speaking tubes, by which he can communicate with the servants
in the other parts of the building.
Meanwhile a steam engine is "serving up" the dinner. In one corner
of the kitchen is a recess, on opening a door in which we see a
small platform, square-shaped, calculated to hold an ordinary sized
tray. This platform is connected with the shaft of a steam engine by
bands and wheels, so as to be elevated through a kind of vertical
trunk leading to the upper part of the building; and here are the
white-aproned servants or waiters ready to take out the hot and
luscious smelling viands from the platform, to the member or members of
the club who are anxiously awaiting dinner.
Architecturally speaking the club houses are the finest buildings
in London, and in the west end of the town, and in the vicinity of
the parks they do much to beautify the city; these massive, richly
decorated, and pillared palaces of exclusiveness.
The "Heavy Swell" Club of all London is the "Guards" in Pall Mall.
There are three or four regiments of the Queen's Household Brigade
stationed always in London to guard the sacred person of the Queen,
and it is from the officers of these crack regiments that the members
of the club are balloted for. These fellows are supposed to bathe
in champagne, and dine off rose water; they are afraid to carry an
umbrella thicker than a walking stick, they hate "low people," and
devote their existence to killing time, yet are withal sensitive,
honorable in many things, (except paying their grocers, wine and
haberdashing bills,) and will fight as becomes the descendants of the
men who dyed the sands at Hastings with their blood, to bequeath a rich
and fruitful kingdom to those who now inherit it.
[Sidenote: THE CONSERVATIVE AND GARRICK CLUBS.]
The Conservative Club is frequented by those athletic and slow going
squires and gentlemen who are always ready to applaud Mr. Disraeli in
the House of Commons, and are willing to serve as special constables
on days when the English democracy become restive and open their eyes
to the fact of their being plundered and robbed every day of their
lives. It was from the Conservative Club that Mr. Granville Murray was
expelled by the secret influence of the moral Prince of Wales, simply
because following his duty as a journalist he had told the hereditary
regulators of England that they were out of place in the nineteenth
century.
[Illustration: CONSERVATIVE CLUB HOUSE.]
The Garrick Club is, as its name indicates, made up of artists,
dramatists, actors, newspaper writers, and authors. It numbers among
its members Charles Reade, Tom Taylor, Charles Dickens, Bulwer, Wilkie
Collins, Anthony Trollope, Andrew Halliday, George Augustus Sala, Mr.
Delane of the Times, H. Sutherland Edwards, William Howard Russell,
Edward Dicey, Thornton Hunt, Editor of the _Telegraph_, John Ruskin,
and I believe Thomas Carlyle's name was proposed as an honorary member;
Charles Kean, Thackeray, Charles Matthews, Sr., who founded the club,
W.H. Ainsworth, the novelist, the Blanchards, the Mayhews, Samuel
Lover, Charles Lever, John Oxenford, Louis Blanc, Walter Thornbury,
Lascelles Wraxall, Edmund Yates, John Hollingshead, formerly critic of
the _Daily News_, James Greenwood, Frederick Greenwood, Brough, Dudley
Costello, Lord William Lennox, Thomas Miller, Cyrus Redding, and other
well known literary men belong to or have at some period or another
been members of this club. American authors, artists, and actors, are
always welcomed here, and among the habitues of the Garrick may be
found Lester Wallack, H.E. Bateman, and others. The Garrick is noted
for its famous gin punch which is a specialty here, and for which the
following ingredients are necessary to composition; pour half a pint of
gin on the outer peel of a lemon, then a little lemon juice, a glass of
maraschino, a pint and a quarter of water, and two bottles of iced soda
water. This is a most fragrant punch and not very intoxicating. The
collection of pictures at the Garrick is very fine, and embraces nearly
all the people, both male and female, who have made themselves famous
in English histrionic art, among whom may be noticed Elliston, Macklin,
Peg Woffington, Nell Gwynne, Colley Cibber, Mrs. Bracegirdle, Garrick
as Richard III, John Phillip and Charles Kemble, Charles Mathews,
Mrs. Siddons, Macready, Miss Inchbald, Edmund Kean, Kitty Clive, Mrs.
Billington, and various others. Some of these portraits have been
painted by the first of English artists. This gallery is only rivalled
by that in Evan's Supper House in Convent Garden, where there is a fine
and similar collection.
The Reform Club has among its members John Bright, W. E. Gladstone,
Lord Hatherley, the present Lord Chancellor of England, the Duke of
Argyll, W.E. Forster, Lord Dufferin, and other well known liberal
nobles. About a year ago John Bright and W.E. Forster, his able
aide-camp, resigned from the membership of the Reform Club, owing to
the fact that a correspondent of an American journal, proposed by them,
had had been black-balled in the Reform Club. This correspondent was
Geo. W. Smalley of the _New York Tribune_. I believe that the club
reconsidered their decision and admitted Mr. Smalley, and Mr. Bright
and Mr. Forster are now members of the club. Sir Charles Wentworth
Dilke, editor of the _Athenæum_, is a member of the Reform Club.
[Sidenote: CARLTON CLUB.]
The Carlton Club ranks high among the Tory or anti-liberal clubs of
London, has a very rich proprietary and a magnificent edifice in Pall
Mall. The Right Hon. Spencer Horatio Walpole, one of the members
for Cambridge University, and Alexander Beresford Hope, one of the
proprietors of the _Saturday Review_, who was a member of Parliament
during the American Civil War, and a bitter foe of the North, are both
members of the Carlton Club, as is also Lord John Manners, a prominent
Conservative noble, and fifth son of the Duke of Rutland. John Laird,
M.P. for Liverpool, the builder of the _Alabama_, is also a member of
the Carlton Club.
Lord Cole, a son of the Earl of Enskillen, and a chief accomplice with
the Prince of Wales in the Lady Mordaunt scandal, is a member of the
Carlton.
[Illustration: CARLTON CLUB HOUSE.]
Gregory, the member for Galway, also a sympathizer with the
Slaveholder's Rebellion, belongs to the Carlton. To be brief, this
Carlton Club, essentially aristocratic and inimical to democracy
all over the world, contributed more individual moneyed and social
influence and support to Jeff. Davis than all the London Clubs put
together.
I might state here that Bass, the great East India Pale Ale man, is a
member of the Reform Club, while Sir Arthur Guiness, the Dublin Brown
Stout man, Bass's great rival, is a member of the National Club, which
is pseudo liberal. Jonathan Pim, the rich Irish Quaker, a member for
Dublin City like Guiness, does not belong to any London club and keeps
away from the flesh pots of Egypt. John Francis Maguire, M.P. for Cork,
is a member of the Stafford Club, which numbers some of the Catholic
families in its roll of membership. Sir Patrick O'Brien, an amusing
Irishman who frequents the Cremorne a good deal, belongs to the Reform
Club. The present Earl of Derby, late Lord Stanley, who was expected to
lead the liberals in the House of Lords, but does not give much promise
of doing so while he is an active member of the Carlton Club.
The Right Hon. George Goschen, a Jewish merchant, who is President
of the Poor Law Board, yet quite a young man and promising, has his
name inscribed on the lists of the Reform and Athenæum Clubs, and
Robert Lowe, the witty, sarcastic, and clear-headed Chancellor of
Exchequer, are lights in the Reform Club. Edward Sullivan, the Irish
Attorney General, may be seen at the Reform, and George Henry Moore,
a countryman of his, and an apologist for the Fenians, is a habitue
of Brook's Club in St. James street. Sir John Evelyn Dennison, the
Speaker of the House of Commons, while in town during the session, when
dinner time comes, always doffs his gown and wig and toddles around
to the Reform Club for a chop or steak, and a glass of wine. Vernon
Harcourt, who signs himself in the _Times_ "Historicus," represents
Oxford Borough in the House of Commons, and is a member of the Oxford
and Cambridge University Club. A good story is told of "Historicus."
Three heavy swells of the Guards were dining at the Star and Garter at
Richmond, and all three made a wager that they each could boast of the
biggest bore in London as an acquaintance. The discussion wore high,
and they agreed to test it by bringing each his bore to dine on a set
day, and at a set hour, at the "Star and Garter." When the day came
two close carriages were drawn up to the "Star and Garter," and out of
each leaped one of the gentlemen who had made the wager. They were both
disappointed in their bores, and came without them as they had previous
engagements. A third carriage drove up, and out of it leaped the third
Swell who had made the wager, with a tall gentleman in a cloak. As soon
as the stranger uncovered and presented the smiling countenance of
"Historicus," the two swells cried out in astonishment,
"By J-a-a-v ye knaw, that's not f-eh-ah--_he's got our bo-a-h_!"
[Illustration: OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE CLUB HOUSE.]
[Sidenote: BEEFSTEAK CLUB.]
Whalley, the religious madman, belongs to the Reform Club, and so does
the Right Hon. Hugh Childers, First Lord of the Admiralty.
Kinglake, the historian, who bribed his way into the House of Commons,
and afterwards testified to it without shame, is a member of Brooks,
the Travelers, the Athenæum, and the Oxford and Cambridge Clubs.
Sir Robert Peel, the member for Farnsworth, is to be found at
Brook's and Boodle's. Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, formerly ambassador
at Washington, at the Reform Club. Layard, the Nineveh discoverer
and now English ambassador at Madrid, belongs to the Athenæum Club.
The O'Donoughue at the Stafford and Reform Clubs, while young Mr.
Gladstone, son to the Premier, modestly drinks his wine at the New
University Club. Lord Carrington, a boon companion of the Prince of
Wales, is a member of the Guards Club, and Sir Francis Crossley, the
great Yorkshire manufacturer, may be seen nightly during the session
passing his hours in the Reform and Brook's Clubs.
Queer and strange reminiscences cling to the London Clubs like
barnacles to a packet ship. At the Alfred Club, George Canning, one of
the greatest men ever known in England, used to take a steak and onions
alongside of Lord Byron, who was always partial to Madeira negus.
Louis Napoleon, in his cheerless and hard up days, ate his
eighteenpenny dinner at the Army and Navy Club in silence, while
aristocratic Englishmen sat around chaffing and joking and taking no
part in the sorrows of the exiled nephew of his Uncle. Since then
dynasties have changed, and now a magnificent piece of Gobelin tapestry
work, the "Sacrifice of Diana," worthy to be the gift of a sovereign,
hangs in the club house of which he was once a member. The Emperor
presented it to the Club.
The stock of wine in the cellars of the Athenæum is worth about
$30,000, and is never allowed to run down or deteriorate, and its
yearly revenue amounts to about $50,000.
The Beefsteak Club is a coterie of choice spirits who meet over the
Lyceum Theatre to eat beefsteaks and drink tobys of ale, each member
bringing his own beefsteak and furnishing his own jokes. Several
noblemen belong to it, and the President wears as his emblem of office,
a golden gridiron. Peg Woffington was at one time a member of this club.
[Illustration: UNITED SERVICE CLUB.]
The Duke of Wellington was in the habit of dining at the United Service
Club, in Pall Mall, off the roast joint of beef or mutton, and one
day he was charged 1s. 3d. for his plate of meat instead of 1s., the
proper charge. He declared he would not pay the extra three-pence, and
denounced the swindle until the three-pence was deducted, when the old
soldier became satisfied and said that he would have paid the extra
charge, but that he did not wish to establish an unjust precedent
whereby others might suffer.
Just one hundred years ago a man dropped down at the door of White's
Club, which is still flourishing in St. James' St., and the crowd of
loungers in the bow windows immediately began to lay wagers whether the
man was dead or not. A charitable person suggested that he be bled, but
those who had wagered refused to allow it, saying that it would affect
the fairness of the bet. In 1814, a banquet was given to the allied
sovereigns at White's, which cost over $50,000 of American money, and
the next year after a banquet was given to the Duke of Wellington
which cost £2,480 10s. 9d. George IV, and Chesterfield, the master of
politeness, were members of White's Club.
During the hard winter of 1844, the aristocratic clubs of London
contributed to the starving poor of the metropolis, 3,104 pounds of
broken bread, 4,556 pounds of broken meat, 1,147 pints of tea-leaves,
and 1,158 pints of coffee-grounds. Otherwise these leavings might have
been given to swine to fatten them.
[Sidenote: DEMOCRATIC CLUB.--LADIES ADMITTED.]
Gambling was carried on to a very high pitch at one time in the London
clubs, but many have mended within twenty years. Crockford's Club
House, No. 50 St. James' street, was known all over the world, and
kings, princes, ambassadors, and statesmen, were inscribed upon its
rolls as members. It no longer exists, however.
Crockford started in life as a fishmonger, in the old bulk-shop
next door to Temple Bar Without, which he quitted for "play" in St.
James'. He began by taking Watier's old club-house, where he set up a
hazard-bank, and won a great deal of money; he then separated from his
partner, who had a bad year, and failed. Crockford now removed to St.
James' street, had a good year, and built the magnificent club house
which bore his name; the decorations alone are said to have cost him
£94,000. The election of the club members was vested in a committee;
the house appointments were superb, and Ude was engaged as _maître
d'hôtel_. "Crockford's" now became the high fashion. Card-tables
were regularly placed, and whist was played occasionally; but the
aim, end, and final cause of the whole was the hazard-bank, at which
the proprietor took his nightly stand, prepared for all comers. His
speculation was eminently successful. During several years, everything
that anybody had to lose and cared to risk was swallowed up; and
Crockford became a _millionaire_. He retired in 1840, "much as an
Indian chief retires from a hunting-country when there is not game
enough left for his tribe;" and the Club then tottered to its fall.
After Crockford's death, the lease of the club-house (thirty-two years,
rent £1,400) was sold for £2,900.
The Whittington Club is the only democratic club in London. It was
started twenty-four years ago by Douglas Jerrold, who became its first
president. It combines a literary society, with a club house, upon an
economical scale, and contains dining and coffee rooms, library and
reading rooms, smoking and chess rooms, and a large hall for balls,
concerts, and soirees. Lectures are given here, and classes are held
for the higher branches of education, fencing, dancing, etc. Ladies
have all the privileges of gentlemen or members in the restaurant,
and in balloting, while their dues and subscriptions is half that of
the male members. This is the largest club in London, and combines
all classes, having a roll of 1,700 members, all of whom are to be
considered active. The Whittington Club is the only one in London where
a person may be proposed without having a crest, or without belonging
to a "good family," which means to loaf or idle a life away, and live
upon the bread which is furnished by the blood and sweat of what these
dandy Club men call the "lowah closses."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ABBEY-CHURCH OF WESTMINSTER.
THIS is the Pantheon of England's Greatest Dead. As I stand here under
the groined roof of this vast and glorious Nave, with the sunbeams
streaming in through rose windows, and falling softly on sculptured
figures and tombs of Kings and Queens long mouldering in the dust,
their bodies recumbent in monumental brass, their hands clasped as in
prayer, with heroes, and poets, and statesmen, law-givers, and royal
murderers, lying silently around me on either hand, and under my feet
beneath the worn and antique stones which form the pavement, I realize
that I am in the Valhalla of the Anglo-Norman Race, a race that has
been prolific of strong wills, great minds, and heroic deeds.
This is the most sacred spot in all Great Britain, this spot enclosed
by the four walls of Westminster Abbey. It does not seem an edifice
raised by human hands, rather would it appear, as I look to the roof,
supported by most marvelous pillars, resembling an interlaced avenue of
royal forest trees, that it had been constructed by beings of another
world.
It was a grand faith that inspired Westminster Abbey, a faith that
believed in sacrificing all earthly aspirations for the honor and glory
of God.
Thus musing I am interrupted by a tap on the shoulder, as I stand
leaning against a pillar in the gloom of the vast pile.
"Would you like to see the Habbey, sir?--its sixpence to see the
Chapels--there's nine on 'em: the Hambulatory, the Nave, Transept,
Choir, Chapels, and Cloisters, are free--beautiful sights--only
sixpence, sir."
I turned, and saw a man in a black fustian gown, bareheaded, with a
tall thin stick in his right hand; he was old, and seemed to need its
frail support. This was a prebendary's "Verger," a sort of a porter
or Abbey guide, whose main object was to collect as many sixpences
as possible, but ostensibly he was a cicerone of the monuments and
architectural beauties of the Cathedral Church of St. Peter's,
Westminster.
Numbers of visitors were straying in and out of the Abbey, looking at
the monuments, criticising the works of art, the mural tablets, or
gossiping over the ashes of dead Kings, as if they were in a concert
room, while here and there might be seen some scholar or learned man
delving for facts, and poring over the musty Latin of the crumbling
tombs.
In Westminster Abbey rival statesmen rest in peace, the tongue of
the orator is mute, side by side rest the Crowned head and the
Chancellor with his great seal, the Archbishop and the Play-actor, the
philanthropist and the seaman, who died by his guns on the deck of
the vessel of war, the divine and the physician, the Princess and the
Soubrette, all mingle common dust together.
In Westminster Abbey, the powerful, spiritual, Roman Catholic prelate
has celebrated High Mass with more than Eastern magnificence, the
Introit has issued forth from his lips, and the acolytes have answered
his "Dominus Vobiscum" with their "Amen;" and here the stern Puritan
has knelt in his less formal prayer.
Here the dread sentence of excommunication has been launched forth in
all its terrors from the lips of Papal legates, enthroned, and in Abbot
John Estney's room Caxton printed the first English Bible.
Here the magnificence and pomps of the coronation of a King have been
followed by the solemn and beautiful burial service for the dead, and
the pealing organ, and the swelling choir, reverberating through the
lofty grey-grown aisles, have chained men's minds to the power of
Almighty God.
[Sidenote: DIMENSIONS OF THE ABBEY.]
Westminster Abbey is the finest and noblest specimen of Gothic
architecture in all England.
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
Its dimensions are:
FEET.
Exterior.--Length from east to west, including walls, but exclusive of
Henry VII's Chapel, 416
Height of the West Tower to top of pinnacles, 225
Interior.--Length within the walls to the piers of Henry VII's Chapel, 383
Breadth at the Transept, 203
Nave.--Length, 166
Breadth, 38
Height, 102
Breadth of each Aisle, 17
Extreme breadth of nave and its aisles, 72
Choir.--Length, 156
Breadth, 31
Height, 102
THE DIMENSIONS OF HENRY VII'S CHAPEL ARE--
Exterior.--Length from east to west, including the walls, 115
Breadth, including the walls, 80
Height of the Octagonal Towers, 71
Height to the apex of the roof, 86
Height to the top of Western Turrets, 102
Nave.--Length, 104
Breadth, 36
Height, 61
Breadth of each Aisle, 17
In a fine vault, under Henry VII's Chapel, is the burying-place of the
Royal family, erected by George II, but not now used.
The cost of Henry VII's Chapel was originally about £200,000 of the
present money, but since then £50,000 in addition have been expended
in repairs. The roof is the most beautiful piece of work of its
kind in the world, and is not excelled by any Saracenic or Moorish
ornamentation known.
No living being has ever computed the cost of the Abbey itself, but the
sum, altogether, since the foundations were built, must be very great.
The "Lord Abbot of Westminster" was one of the most powerful barons in
England, and sat in Parliament as a great spiritual peer.
The Abbey Church, formerly arose a magnificent apex to a Royal palace,
surrounded on all sides by its greater and lesser sanctuaries, (where
no criminal could be arrested,) and its almonries, where a profusion of
food was daily delivered to the poor, and raiment to the naked. It had
its bell-towers, the principal one being 72 feet 6 inches square, with
walls 20 feet thick; chapel, gate towers, boundary walls, and a train
of other buildings, of which we can at the present day scarcely form an
idea.
[Sidenote: A WEALTHY SOCIETY.]
In addition to all the land around it, extending from the Thames
to Oxford Street, and from Vauxhall bridge to the Church of St.
Mary-le-Strand, in a demesne of three square miles, on what is now the
most valuable part of London, the Abbey of St. Peter's, Westminster,
possessed besides, _ninety-seven towns and villages, seventeen hamlets,
and two hundred and sixteen manors_. Its officers fed hundreds
of persons daily, and one of its priests, who was not an Abbot,
entertained at his Pavillion at Tothill, a King and Queen of England,
with so large a retinue that seven hundred dishes did not suffice for
the first table, and the Abbey butler, in the reign of Edward III,
rebuilt, at his own expense, the stately gate-house which gave entrance
to Tothill Street, and a portion of the wall remains to this day.
During the long ages, while men of noble Norman birth monopolized
nearly every office of emolument and trust in the kingdom, nearly all
the Lord Abbots of Westminster were of Norman birth or extraction. To
be chosen Lord Abbot of Westminster, it was necessary for the Monks,
headed by the prior, to select the Abbot "per Viam Compromissi,"
that is, the Monks met in a body and selected a chosen few, who, in
their turn, selected the Lord Abbot. Then there was the method "per
Viam Spiritus Sancti," which means by the special influence of the
Holy Ghost, or all the Monks of the Abbey concurring unanimously in
the election. After that the assent of the King had to be got, and
the assent of the Lord Bishop of the Diocese, and even then all was
not secure, for the newly elected Abbot was often forced to make
the long and tedious journey to Rome and get the investiture of the
Abbey from the Pontiff, in person, and sometimes this cost money,
and trouble, that a person would hardly credit in these days. Abbot
Richard de Kedyington, who had been prior of Sudbury, a cell subject to
Westminster Abbey, on his election made the journey to Avignon, where
the Pope was, for confirmation, and was three years there before he
obtained investiture, and then it cost him eight thousand florins,--a
large sum of money in those days--to obtain it. In 1321, when 5,500
florins had been paid, Pope John XXII remitted the remaining 2,500
florins of the debt.
Abbot Richard de Crokesley, together with a number of other nobles, and
Poitevins, who had incurred the enmity of a powerful party who were
opposed to court favoritism, were poisoned by the steward of William,
Earl of Clare, and Crokesley died July 1258, of the effects of the
poison.
Phillip de Lewisham, who was elected to succeed Crokesley, was so gross
and fat that he procured a dispensation, so that he would not have
to go to Rome to be confirmed. An able deputation of monks went in
his place, and when they returned with the Pope's confirmation, after
having to pay 800 marks to certain Cardinals, who opposed it, they
found that Abbot de Lewisham had died during their absence.
Gislebertus Crispinus, a monk, of the abbey of Bec, in Normandy, and
belonging to one of the noblest families in that duchy, was chosen
abbot in 1082. He was a very learned man, and held a great disputation
at Mentz, in Germany, with a deeply versed Jew, on the "Faith of the
Church against the Jews."
Gervase de Blois, an illegitimate son of King Stephen, was made
abbot in 1141. This man was not fit to be a priest, being insolent,
arbitrary, and unjust, and, instead of attending to his duties as
head of the abbey, he was often in armor, depredating, or hunting, or
hawking. He dissipated the manors, livings, tithes, vestments, and
ornaments of the abbey, and was finally admonished to behave himself by
Pope Innocent, but the abbot disregarded the admonition of the Pope and
was then deposed by King Henry II, in 1159. He died in a year after.
The Lord Abbot Laurentius, his successor, was a wise, just, and prudent
man, much trusted by King Henry II, and the Empress Maud. It was Abbot
Laurentius who first obtained for himself and successors the privilege
of wearing the mitre, ring, and gloves, until then the symbols of
Episcopacy, and only allowed to the Bishops by the Pope. The wearing of
these symbols gave the mitred abbots of Westminster, and other abbeys,
the right to sit as peers in parliament, the same as bishops to whom
the right belonged exclusively, before Abbot Laurentius obtained the
grant.
[Sidenote: REVENUES OF ABBEY IN 1540.]
Simon Langham was one of the greatest abbots that ever wore the mitre
in the abbey. He was made Lord Chancellor of England, and Archbishop of
Canterbury, Bishop of Ely, and Lord Treasurer of the Kingdom by Edward
III. It was this prelate who deprived John Wickliffe of the mastership
of Canterbury Hall, Oxford, which was the first cause of Wickliffe's
investigating the scriptures.
On the 16th of January, 1540, the Abbey of Westminster, which had been
established for more than nine hundred years, having been founded by
King Sebert, a Saxon monarch, and his wife Ethelgoda, in honor of
St. Peter who was said to have appeared to the King in a dream, was
dissolved by order of Henry VIII, and the abbey was surrendered to the
King by Abbot Benson and twenty-four monks. The annual revenue, which
included the gross receipts, amounted to £3,977, equal to twenty times
the same amount of English money of to-day.
Westminster was made a bishopric, the abbey was advanced to the dignity
of a Cathedral, with an establishment of a bishop, (Thomas Thirleby,
dean of the King's Chapel,) a dean, twelve prebendaries, and inferior
officers. Abbot Benson, who was always on the winning side, was made
dean of the Abbey, five of the monks were chosen prebendaries, four
other monks were made minor canons, and four more were elected to be
King's students in the University. The other twelve monks who did not
approve of the change were dismissed, with pensions of from ten pounds
a year to five marks. A revenue of £586 a year, and the Abbot's house
was allotted to the Bishop. Dean Benson died in an unhappy state from
the repeated attempts made by the rapacious nobles and courtiers to
deprive him of the lands of his deanery. He was buried in the abbey,
but the inscription on his tomb was obliterated. The bishopric of
Westminster lasted only ten years, and was then suppressed and reunited
to that of London, to which it has since belonged. Numerous attempts
were made by the partisans of the See of London to rob and deprive
the abbey of its lands and revenues, and hence arose the saying of
"robbing Peter to pay Paul," which is explained by the fact that the
patron saint of the See of London was St. Paul, while St. Peter was the
guardian of the Abbey of Westminster.
In 1556, Queen Mary being on the throne, the Church of Westminster
again became an abbey by order of the Queen, and John Feckenham was
made abbot of Westminster. He was held in general esteem for his
learning, charity, and piety, and he was continually engaged in doing
good offices for the Protestants who suffered by the laws of the realm
for their faith. Three years after, Mary having died, the monastery was
again suppressed by order of Queen Elizabeth, and the abbot and monks
were again turned out of the abbey. In 1560 the abbey, by enactment,
was made a collegiate church, which it remains to this day, and was
endowed with the lands which had belonged to the abbot and monastery.
Since that time Westminster Abbey has been governed by a dean and
chapter, and has had thirty-three deans in regular succession of the
Protestant faith.
The Abbey has the following large clerical staff for its government:
One Dean, eight Prebendaries, one of whom is a Lord, and another a
Bishop; a sub-Dean, an Archdeacon, a Precentor, five minor Canons,
eleven Lay Clerks, two Sacrists, a Dean's Verger, a Prebendary's
Verger, a High Steward, who is a Duke, a Deputy High Steward, a
Coroner, a High Bailiff, Searcher and Bailiff of the Sanctuary, a
High Constable, a Head Master of Westminster School, Second Master,
forty Queen's Scholars on the Foundation, a Steward of the Manorial
Court, two Joint Receiver's General, a Chapter Clerk and Registrar,
an Auditor, a Commissory and Official Principal, a Registrar of the
Consistory Court, and a Deputy Registrar, an Organist and Master of
the Choristers, twelve Almsmen, four Bell-ringers, two Organ-blowers,
an Abbey Surveyor, a Clerk of the Works, a Beadle of the Sanctuary,
and last of all a College Porter and four Probationary Choristers, in
all a staff of eighty persons, a very slight reduction upon the old
administration of the Abbots of Westminster. These different office
holders, in all, receive salaries of about one hundred thousand pounds
a year, and the cost of the school, and the repairs of the abbey, make
the sundries amount to about twenty thousand pounds a year additional.
[Sidenote: TOMB OF SHAKESPEARE.]
In the general plunder of monasteries and church property, which
distinguished the reign of Henry VIII, Westminster Abbey suffered
severely, but it was still worse treated by the Puritans in the great
civil war, the abbey being used as a barrack for the soldiers, by the
Parliament, who wantonly destroyed many of the tombs and monuments
that adorned the various chapels, the altars in the chapels dedicated
to the different saints being thrown down, the images broken, and the
richly stained windows shattered into fragments. The restoration of the
edifice was intrusted to Sir Christopher Wren, who built St. Paul's,
but he made a very botching piece of work in the additions which he
gave to the towers at the west end.
The imitation of the Gothic style in Wren's additions are wretched and
out of place in such an edifice as the Abbey. The front of the Abbey
has no columns or pierced works of carving, to which the Gothic style
owes so much of its lightness and elegance, and there is a mixture of
ornamentation such as the broken scrolls, masques, and festoons over
the grand entrance, which gives it a very heavy, flat appearance.
[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE'S TOMB.]
The Abbey is very rich in monuments of all kinds, some of which are
very fine works of art. All along the walls, in the transepts and
aisles, in the Nave, in the chapels, in the flooring of the Abbey, and
everywhere around me I saw tablets, tombs, inscriptions, and medallions.
Among the most noticeable are those of Ben Johnson, John Milton,
Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry and first poet buried
in the Abbey, A.D. 1400, Dryden, Thomas Campbell, William Shakespeare,
Oliver Goldsmith, Joseph Addison, Handel the musician, Richard Brinsley
Sheridan, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Sir William Davenant, and Robert Southey,
in the "Poet's Corner," which is situated in the south transept. They
are all richly ornamented with busts, effigies of the deceased, or
allegorical designs in marble, or brass, or bronze.
The tomb of Shakespeare is of marble, with a full length figure of the
great poet leaning on his left elbow, and has the following epitaph
written by John Milton, who was best fitted to write it:
What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones,
The labor of an age in piled stones,
Or that his hallow'd relics should be hid
Under a star-y pointing pyramid!
Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name,
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a live-long monument,
For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavoring art
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;
Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
Milton's epitaph is as follows:
"Three great poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy and England did adorn;
The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd.
The next in majesty--in both the last.
The force of Nature could no farther go,
To make the third, she joined the former two."--
John Gay, the author of the "Beggar's Opera," wrote his own epitaph,
which is on his tomb;
"Life is a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once; but now I know it."
[Sidenote: THE LAST CATHOLIC FUNERAL.]
There is a sarcophagus to Major John Andre who was executed as a spy by
order of George Washington. It has a representation of a flag of truce,
and Britannia in tears.
[Illustration: TOMB OF MILTON.]
Mrs. Oldfield, the actress who coquetishly ordered that she should
be buried in a fine Holland chemise, with a tucker, and a double
ruffle of lace, and a pair of white kid gloves, has a monument with
an inscription by Pope. Isaac Newton has also a very fine monument,
and William Pitt's monument cost £6,000. Henry Grattan, Robert Peel,
Charles James Fox, William Wilberforce, George Canning, and Lord
Palmerston also have monuments.
Mary Queen of Scots, and the Queen who slew her, have magnificent
monuments near each other, and similar in style. The funeral of Queen
Mary, sister of Queen Elizabeth, was the last one which was celebrated
in the Abbey with the ceremonial of the Roman Catholic Church. She died
in 1558, and her body was brought from St. James Palace with great pomp
to the Abbey, on a splendid chariot. It was met at the great entrance
of the abbey by four bishops and Lord Abbott Feckenham in mitre, robes,
and with crozier. The body lay all night under the hearse, with a guard
of nobles and pages to watch it. On the fourteenth day of December it
was interred in the vault, and a plain black tablet was erected to be
placed over it by King James I, with the inscription:
ET MARIA SORORES
IN SPES RESVRRECTIONIS.
James II, who sought to re-establish the Roman Catholic Faith in
England, (like Queen Mary,) died at St. Germain En-Laye, in France,
and has no tomb in the Abbey. His intestines were given to the Irish
College, in Paris, the brains to the Scotch College, and the heart to
the Convent of Chaillot.
Admiral Kempenfeldt, who was drowned on the man-of-war Royal George,
which sunk with eight hundred men, all of whom were lost, off Spithead,
in 1782, is also buried here, with the epitaph on his tomb, written by
Cowper the poet:
"Toll, toll, for the brave--
Brave Kempenfeldt is gone;
His last sea-fight is fought;
His work of glory done.
His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfeldt went down,
With twice four hundred men."--
[Illustration: TOMB OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.]
The Chapel of Edward the Confessor, who founded the Abbey, is full
of dead Kings and Queens, so full that a poet has written of the
commingled Royal dust that is here reposing:
"Think how many royal bones,
Sleep within these heaps of stones.
Here they lie, had realms and lands,
Who now want strength to lift their hands.
Where, from their pulpit sealed with dust,
They preach, 'In greatness is no trust!'
Here's an acre, sown indeed,
With the richest, royalest seed,
That the earth did e'er suck in,
Since the first man died for sin."
[Sidenote: INTERMENTS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.]
Here lies buried Edward the Confessor, before whose tomb was kept
continually burning a silver lamp. On one side stood an image of the
Virgin, in silver, adorned with two jewels of immense value, presented
by Eleanor, Queen to Henry III; on the other side stood an image of
the Virgin, carved in ivory, presented by Thomas a-Becket. Edward I
offered the Scotch regalia and the antique stone on which the Kings of
Scotland were crowned at Scone; this latter relic is still preserved.
This shrine was composed of various colored stones, in Mosaic work;
but it is so dilapidated that very little idea can be formed of its
original beauty and grandeur.
Queen Editha, Queen Maud, Edward I, Henry III, Elizabeth Tudor,
daughter of Henry VII, Queen Eleanor, Henry V, the victor of Agincourt,
Queen Phillippa, Edward III--with his sword, seven feet long and
weighing eighteen pounds, together with his enormous shield, hanging to
his tomb,--Margaret of York, Richard II, and a host of others, are here
buried. Their tombs are of magnificent workmanship, with full length
figures lying recumbent and their hands clasped in prayer.
The Abbots and Priors of the abbey are buried in the walks of the
Cloisters, and I stood on three of these mural slabs, and looked at the
worn, full length effigies of the dead abbots, in full abbatical robes,
ring on finger, mitre on head, and crozier in hand, their Latinized
names almost worn away by the footsteps of the hundreds of thousands
of men and women who had paced the Cloisters since they were interred,
seven hundred years ago. And yet these tombs in Westminster Cloisters
are but as yesterday, when compared with the Pyramids of Egypt, or a
geological formation.
It was in Westminster Abbey that all the Kings and Queens of England
have been crowned, and when a monarch had been crowned previously, as
in the case of Henry III, whose coronation took place at Gloucester, it
was thought proper to have the ceremony again performed at Westminster,
in the presence of the nobles and the chief ecclesiastical dignitaries
of the land; the Archbishop of Canterbury always officiating in the
august ceremonial.
What wondrous scenes this proud old Abbey has witnessed! I can but
enumerate a few of these however. One day in the middle of Lent, 1176,
the King and his son came to London, while a Convocation of the Clergy
was being held in Westminster Abbey. The Papal Legate was present,
and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York were also present. Thomas
a-Becket had been murdered by order of the reigning King Henry II.
Becket had been Archbishop of Canterbury. In the Convocation the then
Archbishop of Canterbury, as Primate of the Kingdom, sat on the right
hand of the Papal Legate. The Archbishop of York seeing this, when
he entered the Abbey, came in a rude manner and pushing between the
Primate and the Legate, as if disdaining to sit on the left hand of
anybody, thrust himself into the lap of the Primate in a swash-buckling
manner. The Primate would not move, and no sooner had the insult been
offered than the Bishops and Chaplains in the Abbey ran to the dais
and pulled my Lord of York down and threw him to the ground, and
began to beat him severely. The Archbishop of Canterbury then sought
to save him, and when he, the Archbishop of York, got on his feet,
he straightway went to the King whom he had advised to murder Thomas
a-Becket, and made complaint of the outrage which had been offered him.
The King laughed at him for his pains. As he left the Abbey the monks,
and priests, and bishops, with a loud shout cried out at him, "Go,
traitor, thou didst betray the holy man Thomas a-Becket; go get thee
hence, thy hands yet stink of blood."
When the news reached the Archbishop of York (previously) that the
Archbishop of Canterbury (Becket) had been assassinated on the steps
of the Altar, he ascended his pulpit and announced the fact to his
congregation as an act of Divine vengeance, saying that Becket had
perished in his pride and guilt like Pharaoh.
In 1297, Edward I offered at the shrine of Edward the Confessor, the
famous stone, crown, and sceptre of the Scottish Sovereigns, together
with the Coronation Chair, now in the Abbey, on which all English
monarchs have to sit to be crowned. This chair was taken from the Abbey
of Scone, in Scotland, by Edward, having been brought to Scotland by
King Fergus from Ireland, three centuries before the Christian Era.
Before that period, it is said to have been used for many hundred years
by the Irish Kings for a like purpose.
[Sidenote: CORONATION OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.]
The Scots were very eager to get the stone back for the reason that
a legend existed that whoever possessed the stone should rule
Scotland. This old stone chair, or rather oaken chair with a stone
seat,--twenty-six inches in length, sixteen inches and three quarters
in breadth, and ten and a half inches in thickness--has seen many
strange changes in dynasties, for every king since Edward I, has sat in
it on his coronation day.
The ceremonies of coronation were very grand in the olden time and much
of their splendor has passed away or has become obsolete.
[Illustration: CORONATION CHAIR.]
One of the grandest sights ever witnessed in the Abbey was when Aldred,
Archbishop of York, crowned William the Conqueror, King of England.
The mail clad bodies of Norman soldiery lined every part of old London
to keep down the Saxons, while William, superbly mounted, and followed
by a train of two hundred and sixty barons, lords and knights, entered
the Abbey. When the multitude reached the high altar, Geoffrey, Bishop
of Coutances, asked the Normans if they were willing to have the Duke
crowned King of England, and the nobles, knights, and priests, among
whom the English lordships and abbeys were already parceled out, cried
aloud with one voice that they were. The Norman horsemen without the
walls of the abbey hearing the shout, fancied that the Saxons within
had attacked their countrymen, and immediately they set fire to the
houses around the abbey, and in a few minutes the abbey was deserted of
friend and foe alike with the exception of William and a few priests
who stood firm, although the Duke trembled violently as the crown was
placed upon his head. He declared that he would treat the English
people as well as the best of their kings had done, vowing by the
Splendor of God, his usual oath.
The coronation of Richard I, the Lion Heart as he was called, was
attended with great pomp.
On the third of September, 1189, the Archbishops of Canterbury, Rouen,
Treves in Germany, and Dublin, arrayed in silken copes, and preceded
by a body of clergy bearing the cross, holy water, censers and tapers,
met Richard at the door of his privy chamber in Westminster Palace,
and proceeded with him to the Abbey. In the midst of a numerous body
of bishops and ecclesiastics, marched four barons, each with a golden
candlestick and taper, then in succession--Geoffrey de Lacey with the
royal cap, John the Marshal with the royal spurs of gold, and William,
Earl of Striguil and Pembroke, with the golden Rod and Dove. Then
came David, brother to the King of Scotland, and present as Earl of
Huntington, and Robert, Earl of Leicester, supporting John the King's
brother, the three bearing upright swords in richly gilded scabbards.
Following them came six barons bearing a chequered table, upon which
were the King's robes and regalia, and now was seen approaching the
central object of this gorgeous picture--Richard himself, under a
gorgeous canopy stretched by six lances, borne by as many nobles,
having immediately before him the Earl of Albemarle with the crown, and
a bishop on each side. The ground on which he walked was spread with
rich cloths of Tyrian dye.
[Sidenote: THE MASSACRE.]
At the foot of the altar, Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury,
administered the oath, by which Richard undertook to bear peace, honor,
and reverence to God and Holy Church, to exercise right, justice, and
law, and to abrogate all wicked laws and customs. He then put off all
his garments from the middle upwards, like a modern prize fighter,
except his shirt, which was open at the shoulders, and he was annointed
on the head, breast, and arms, with oil, signifying glory, fortitude,
and wisdom. He then covered his head with a fine linen cloth and set
the cap thereon, placed the surcoat of velvet and dalmatica over his
shoulders, and took the sword of the Kingdom from the Archbishop to
subdue the enemies of the Catholic Church, and then put on the golden
sandals and the royal mantle, which last was splendidly embroidered,
and was led to the altar, where the Archbishop charged him on God's
behalf, not to presume to take this dignity upon him unless he were
resolved to keep inviolably the vows he had made; to which the king
replied:
"By God, His grace, I will faithfully keep them all: Amen." The crown
was then handed to the Archbishop, by Richard himself, in token that
he held it only from God, when the Archbishop placed it on the King's
head; he also gave the sceptre into his right hand, and the royal rod
into his left.
At the close of this part of the ceremony Richard was led back to the
throne, and High Mass being performed with grand pomp, Richard offered
as was usual, a mark of pure gold to the altar.
While the coronation was going on inside massacre and arson reigned
outside of the Abbey. Before the ceremony, Richard, by proclamation
had forbidden all Jews to be present at Westminster, either within or
without the Abbey, but some members of that persecuted race had rashly
ventured within the walls, and a hue and cry being set up at what was
deemed a sacrilege, the populace ejected a prominent Israelite and
beat him with sticks and stones. In a few minutes a report spread that
the King had ordered the destruction of the Jews, and the furious mob
spread all over the city, burning the houses and destroying the lives
of the miserable Jews. Men, women, and children of tender age were
burned alive in their domiciles, where resistance was made to the mob,
and the cries of the murdered children blended discordantly with the
sounds of the shaums, and jongleurs, and the shouts of the rabble, who
were celebrating the coronation. The riot became so formidable that at
last Richard, who was at dinner in Westminster Hall, ordered the Chief
Justiciary of the Kingdom, Ranulf de Glanville, to go and quell it, but
this was more easy to order than to perform, and the King's officers
were driven back to the Hall.
Through all that night and day the pillage, arson, and massacre
continued, and the next day the King hanged three of the rabble as an
atonement.
At the coronation of Henry IV, Sir John Dymoke, the Champion of
England, rode into the Hall of Westminster Palace, where dinner was
being served to the King, on horseback in complete armor, with a knight
before him bearing his spear, and his sword and dagger by his side, and
presented a label to the king on which had been written a challenge to
any knight, squire, or gentleman, who dared declare that Henry was not
rightful King of England. He then had a trumpet blown, and cried out
that he was ready to fight in the quarrel. The label was then taken and
cried by the heralds in six places in the town of Westminster, but no
person seemed ready to fight although Richard II had been deposed by
Henry IV and was then in a neighboring dungeon.
That most atrocious medieval fraud, Richard III, when about to be
crowned King, walked barefoot from Westminster Hall to the Abbey, a
distance of about six hundred feet, to let the crowds witness his
resignation and humility.
When Edward VI, a boy of sixteen, was about to be crowned, he laid
himself down upon the steps of the altar on his stomach while Cranmer,
Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, opened his shirt and rubbing the oil
between his shoulder blades, anointed him.
James I, who hated tobacco and witches, forbade the people to come to
Westminster to witness his Coronation, as the plague was then raging,
and James did not wish to catch the distemper.
[Sidenote: OMEN OF ILL LUCK.]
Charles I was crowned February 2, 1626, and his Queen, Henrietta,
being a Catholic, was not a sharer in the Coronation, nor was she a
spectator, and she would not accept the place fitted up for her in
the Abbey, but stood at the window of the Palace gates to look at the
crowd and procession, while her retinue of French ladies, nobles and
servants, were dancing within. When Charles walked up to the altar to
ascend the throne, Laud, who was Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Duke
of Buckingham, Lord High Constable of England, offered him their hands
on either side to ascend the throne, but the King smilingly refused
their hands and said:
"I have as much need to help you, as you have to assist me."
Then Laud presented the King to the great crowd of Nobles and people,
and said, in an audible voice, "My masters and friends, I am here come
to present unto you your King: King Charles, to whom the crown of
his ancestors and predecessors is now devolved by lineal right; and
therefore I desire you by your general acclamation, to testify your
consent and willingness thereunto."
Not a voice answered, and there was a stillness as of the grave through
the vast spaces of the Abbey. It was a bad omen of a reign, which ended
so disastrously, for the listening monarch.
At last the Earl-Marshal, Lord Arundel and Howard, said to the
spectators present: "Good people, I pray thee, why call ye not right
lustily, 'God save King Charles?'"
Thus admonished, they with one voice exclaimed, "God save Charles, our
King." In the adjoining hall, Oliver Cromwell was inaugurated Lord
Protector of England, with a quiet ceremonial, attended by ushers, life
guards, State coaches, the Long Parliament, and several troops of horse.
When James II was crowned, the Royal bauble tottered on his head, and
this was supposed to be a prophetic omen of ill luck.
When George III was made King, with great pomp and circumstance, there
was present, unknown to the crowd, a young man who must have witnessed
the placing of the Golden Circlet on the brow of this fat, Hanoverian
Prince, with strange emotions. He could have said with truth, "My place
should have been by that chair; my father should have been sitting in
it," for it was the young Pretender, Charles Stuart; the last of his
royal and unfortunate race.
At all the late Coronations, the magnificent pomp and ceremonial
of the Middle Ages have been omitted, and the last time that these
Ceremonies were carried out was at the Coronation of George IV, when
the Celebration was a very fine one.
The wood-work of the Choir was removed and boxes erected, affording
an uninterrupted view of the Nave and Chancel, showing the Peers and
Peeresses in all their magnificence of robes, of satins and silks,
and head-dresses of feathers and diamonds. To these were added the
brilliantly illuminated surcoats of the Heralds and Kings-at-arms,
while the King himself sat in the royal Chair of State, which is over
two thousand years old, and there received homage from the great
officers of State, and Peers of the Realm, the Crown on his head and
Sceptre in his hand, the Garter and George around his neck, and the
velvet robes enfolding his body, which was then scorbutic from disease
and dissipation.
The challenge of the Champion of England was at this ceremony delivered
for the last time. After the banquet was over, at which seventeen
thousand pounds of meat, three thousand fowls, one thousand dozen of
wine, ten thousand plates, and seventeen thousand knives and forks,
were among the items, came the challenge to all who dared to dispute
the right of George to the throne of England.
It was an imposing sight, as the Duke of Wellington, with his Ducal
Coronet ornamented with strawberry leaves, on his head, and in his
flowing Peer's robes walked down the hall, cheered by the officers of
the Life Guards, who were present. He shortly afterwards returned,
mounted, and accompanied by the Marquis of Anglesey, the one-legged
cavalry officer of Waterloo, and Howard, Duke of Norfolk, the
Hereditary Earl Marshal of England.
[Sidenote: THE BANQUET AND CHALLENGE.]
The three Nobles rode gracefully to the foot of the throne, paid their
homage, and then backed their horses down the lofty hall. The hall
doors of the Palace opened again, and outside, in the twilight, a man
in complete armor of Milan proof, appeared on horseback, outlined
against the shining sky. He then moved, passed into darkness, and under
the massive arch, and suddenly Howard, Wellington, and Anglesey, stood
in full view of the vast assemblage, with the palace doors closed
behind them. This was the finest sight of the day, as the Herald read
the challenge, a glove was thrown down by a gauntleted hand as a token
of defiance, which was taken up instantly by Wellington, and then they
all proceeded to the throne, trumpets blowing, people shouting, and
flower-girls strewing the way with baskets of flowers.
The funerals of Lady Palmerston and George Peabody were the last that
have taken place in Westminster Abbey, and at the funeral of the former
a London reporter, in his eagerness to get an item, fell into the grave
of Lady Palmerston and nearly frightened a young lady mourner out of
her senses. Such is the story of this Mausoleum of Royalty and Heroism.
Westminster Abbey is only equaled for the antiquity and grandeur of
its mortal remains by the Abbey of St. Denis, in France, and those
world-old cemeteries, the Pyramids of Egypt.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX.
THE COSTERMONGERS AND RAG FAIR.
THERE is a wide, short street, or rather road, in the heart of London.
The buildings are mean, the people who cluster against their doorways
and in the alleys and courts that branch from this short, wide
street, are wretched in appearance; their garments are patched and in
piecemeal, and when untorn they are greasy and besmeared with filth.
In this street, crowded at night--on Saturday night it is almost
impassable--children of a tender age may be seen begging for coppers
and soliciting assistance from those of more mature years, but to the
full as wretched as themselves. Vice is in every glance of their eyes.
Crime has already made its graven lines in their young faces, and their
language or dialect, (for it is not a language), is a combination of
uncouth sounds, obscene imagery, and slang corruptions of the English
tongue.
[Sidenote: ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY'S GARDENS.]
This street, or road, is called the "New Cut," and is situated in
Lambeth on the Surrey side of the Thames. It is reached from the City
by Waterloo Bridge and the Waterloo road, and from the West End by
Lambeth and Vauxhall bridges. Thousands are born, baptized, many beget
children and die within the municipality of the Great Metropolis, and
yet have never seen the New Cut--nay, have never even heard of it, or
if they did, the word would have as much meaning to them as the plains
of El Ghizeh, or the source of the Nile to a Bow Cockney. Yet there are
thousands who are born here in this New Cut who live and die in it
and make a living for themselves, after a fashion, who, if not content
with, are certainly unaware of any method of changing or bettering
their lot in this life.
Narrow, dark, and mean streets run contiguous to the New Cut, and
branch from it in a winding, snaky way. A decently-dressed man is not
safe in this street, and the only sound of civilization to cheer him,
once lost in the mazes of these festering lanes and alleys, teeming
with low pot-houses, tap-rooms, and wild-looking children, bold,
bad-looking desperadoes of men, and reckless, obscene women, is the
low, rumbling sound coming like the approaching thunder to his ears
every few minutes as the loaded passenger trains dash to and fro on the
Northwestern and Southeastern Railways.
The New Cut runs into the Lower Marsh and is flanked by Wootton, White
Horse, Collingwood, Eaton, Marlboro streets, and the Broad Wall. To
the west are Thomas, Isabella, and Granby streets, and from all this
misery and destitution of a quarter where the inhabitants are packed
like rabbits in a well-stocked warren, the road leads through the
Upper Marsh down to the rare pleasaunce or garden of the palace of
the Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the most sumptous ecclesiastical
retreats in England. The Archbishop's gardens, although located in the
heart of a populous city, cover as much ground, it is calculated, as
gives sleeping and eating room to 11,000 human beings in the New Cut
district.
It is true that the river rolls sluggishly five or six hundred yards
below the New Cut, and those who are tired of dog's meat, rotten
vegetables, and the offal of the street markets for their common food,
and of sleeping eight in a room on straw which is not even clean, can
at any time deliver their bodies from further pain and starvation, and
their minds from a daily never-ending struggle as to how the dog's meat
and decayed offal may be procured, by a quick plunge in the river, near
by.
This quarter is the principal resort of the "costermongers" of
London. The word "costermonger" has an equivalent which is better
known as "peddler." All those who vend or hawk vegetables, fruit,
carrion meat, game, fowl, ginger beer, nuts, or, in fact, any of the
numerous articles or commodities of refuse merchandise found on the
barrows and wagons of the London peddlers, are called by the London
term "costermongers." The word is an old one used by Shakespeare,
and therefore has, if none other, the merit of antiquity of the most
genuine kind.
There are in London proper, embracing its suburbs, of both
sexes--including men, women, and children--according to information
which I had procured from the police and physicians, who have means of
knowing, about 23,000 costermongers. These people are from daybreak
until midnight in the open air, I might say, for their marketing is
done as early as four or five o'clock in the morning; and then, after
an hour or so spent in marketing, comes the cheap, scanty breakfast,
consisting of a pound of bread, a "saveloy," which is a sort of a
sausage, at a penny a piece, about four inches long and two inches in
circumference, quite succulent to the costermonger's palate, or perhaps
a piece of beef or bacon of the kind that is vended from barrows in the
London streets at two pence a pound, the refuse of the butchers' shops
and pieces unfit for a ready sale.
Among these refuse pieces are small portions of ham, shoulders, and
pork, fragments of bacon, "snag" pieces, and mutton, and a very
suspicious veal, which is often sold by these same hawkers in the
suburbs to old maids for cats' meat. Sometimes the "coster" will take
a pint of sloppy coffee, which he gets for three half-pence, with his
brief breakfast; at other times he prefers a quartern of gin "neat,"
at two-pence; and again he will be satisfied with a mug of beer at
two-pence. As early as 7 o'clock in the morning the hideous noises,
which can only come from the throat of a costermonger, are heard in the
London streets, awakening those who wish to sleep late, and, to make
matters worse, no person, unless the costermonger himself, can by any
application ever understand the exact words of their cries. They are
only to be recognized by sound, and, therefore, it is always necessary
to appear at a window or doorway in order to discover the precise
article which the coster wishes you to buy.
[Sidenote: SALE OF WATER CRESSES.]
I visited the New Cut on a Saturday night, which is the great market
night, when traffic is at its height in the neighborhood. The wide,
short street, which runs into a half circle at its end, was filled
with people. The noise was of that indefinite kind which is hardly to
be described. Stands, barrows, and wagons, having ponies and asses
attached, were placed along the gutters, with smoky lamps fed with a
disagreeable smelling oil, from which a dusky flame was shed over the
street, showing the faces of the venders as they gave tongue to many
different cries.
"Whelks," a small shell-fish, like the American mussel, were heaped in
thousands on the heads of barrels and tables, and ham sandwiches, at
a penny apiece, and boiled potatoes, with sheeps' trotters, oysters,
fried fish, oranges, apples, plums, and, in fact, every kind of fruit
and vegetable were for sale. Little ragged boys and girls, their feet
bare and dirty, ran hither and thither, importuning the passers-by
to purchase their matches and water-cresses. Here water-cresses and
radishes are sold together in bunches at a penny a handful. Some of
these small children are up as early as five o'clock in the morning,
to purchase the water-cresses at Farringdon market, and from that time
until midnight, or until the theatres close, they are crying their
water-cresses, which they carry with them through the London streets in
a basket.
The whelks are sold at two a penny, and are accounted a delicacy by the
poor of London, when properly seasoned with pepper, salt, and vinegar.
They are very much relished in the pot-houses of the metropolis by
hard drinkers when pickled in this fashion, and in any tap-room of a
Saturday night it is not uncommon to find men or women peddling these
shell-fish to those who have been drinking freely. The costermongers
are universally great gamblers, and earning during the week from
twelve to thirty shillings, as their luck may run with the purchasing
community, yet it is not an uncommon occurrence for them to gamble away
as much as fifty per cent. of their week's earnings in various games of
chance.
These people have no religious belief whatever, and do not know
anything even of the rudiments of religious instruction. To them God is
some indefinite being whose attributes are unknown, and whose immutable
laws are disregarded simply from utter ignorance. They never darken
a church door, and tracts are received by them with the most supreme
disgust.
A number of missionaries have labored among them in vain for any great
result, chiefly dissenting clergymen, and, although they will listen to
them patiently enough, yet they look upon them as the representatives
of wealth and intelligence, and they cannot tell the difference between
a Wesleyan minister who holds forth on a Sunday morning, with a big
banner, calling upon them to repent, in the dark alleys of Bethnal
Green and Whitechapel, and the richly beneficed divine of the Church
of England who rolls by in a carriage, totally heedless of their
condition, bodily or spiritual. All men who wear white neck-cloths are
called parsons, and are disliked by the "costers." Besides, they have
not learned to read, and tracts are useless to them, were they willing
to study their contents.
The marriage relation is utterly ignored among them, and, if what
the police told me be true, not ten per cent. of the costermongers
who live with women and vend their goods in common are married. At
fifteen years of age the young costermonger leaves father and mother
to cleave to a girl of his own age, also the child of a costermonger,
bred in the gutters of the metropolis, and, having purchased a barrow
for ten shillings, and an ass for perhaps £2, the pair begin the world
practically man and wife, but without ever dreaming of calling in the
assistance of the minister to bind them together in the bonds of lawful
wedlock.
[Sidenote: HEATHENISM OF THE COSTERS.]
A marriage certificate in a costermonger's den would, indeed, be a
curious and unusual relic, as would also the marriage ring, which is
looked upon in civilized society as the seal and confirmation of the
wedding ceremony. They say that they cannot afford to pay a minister's
fee, and as their code of morals is beneath mention they do not see
the necessity of the expenditure. Their children grow up in the same
way, bred, as their parents have been, to hawk and cry from dawn until
darkness, and thus the costermongers increase, more savage in their
usages than the American aborigines.
Mind, I am now speaking of the English costermongers, for, with the
Irish costermongers, both male and female, who are still lower in the
social scale as far as the goods of this world go, it is different.
While the English coster cares not for the visits of the minister
of the Protestant faith, the Catholic priest is ever welcome among
his wretched and degraded flock in Whitechapel, in the New Cut, in
St. Giles, or Lambeth, and he is beloved by them in their own rude,
reckless way. The Irish costermonger believes most firmly in the
sanctity of the marriage ceremony. With a few exceptions, their
children, however wretched and miserable their lot may be in the future
life, are born in wedlock, and the slur of illegitimacy cannot be
thrown up at them. They will always have a few coppers to give their
priests to help those more miserable than themselves, and, though these
children but rarely receive the benefits of a common English schooling,
they are more eager to learn and more ready to seek instruction than
the children of their English neighbors.
I inquired of one of these costermongers, who had a fried-fish stand
in the New Cut, and sold sprats all cooked and ready for eating, if he
could read. He seemed rather an intelligent fellow, in his way, and had
by no means the uncouth, ruffianly look that I noticed in many of the
men's faces who were engaged in selling vegetables, fish, whelks, and
periwinkles in the street. He had a little smoky lamp depending from a
sort of gallows over his cart, and he spoke cheerfully:
"Well, I'm not much of a reader, like you gentlefolks be; but I picked
up a little book schoolin' at the Ragged schools by night, when I had
four puns saved, last winter. The letters wor a cruel bother to me at
first, and I most guv it hup at the beginning, sort o' faint-hearted;
but the teacher, as wos a Miss Spencer, she wos a good gal, and she
says to me (about Christmas it wor), 'Jimmy, you'll never learn to read
hif you don't persewere, and I know, Jimmy, you _can_ persewere hif
you want to.' Ye see, sir, I had just gived the blessed book a kick
into a corner of the room, like mad; cos vy, the blessed letters wor so
cranky and they wor all so mixed hup together that I lost my 'ead as it
wor, and I couldn't make nothink hout of their shapes. But that gal,
Miss Spencer, she wor a topper and no mistake. She guv me a kind of a
smile, and bless me hif she didn't go to the corner of the room and she
takes hup the book as I had flung down, with 'er pretty little fingers,
and vith that she puts hit into my 'and, hand then I 'adn't the 'art
to refuse the gal; and that wos the way as I larned to read; and now I
reads _Reynold's Weekly_ hevery Sunday mornin' to my maty, the boiled
potato man, which is 'ere to speak for 'isself, sir."
The boiled potato man was advanced in years--a hardy, rugged-looking
fellow, who seemed as if he would like to read like his "maty," but
could not muster up courage to begin so late in life. I mentioned
casually to him that a great Latin grammarian had, at an early stage
of the world's history, made the attempt to learn Greek, being then
seventy years of age. His characteristic reply made me see that my
remark had struck him in the wrong place.
"Well," said he, "hif that blessed hold Latting, as ye calls 'im, had
to 'awk biled pertaters from mornin' till night in the New Cut, and go
'ome to three kids vith, maybe, honly sevenpence for 'is day's vork,
I'm blessed hif 'ee'd a-bother'd 'is precious hold soul a-learnin'
Greek, or hany other lingo. I finds henuff to do vith the mealys,
vithout a-troublin' myself habout the books as I see heverywhere I
goes. N-i-c-e 'ot pertaties--hall smokin' 'ot--a-penny apiece!"
[Illustration: VICTORIA THEATRE--NEW CUT.]
I bought a hot potato and a sprat, and left the two wondering if
I had been "gaffing" or "larkin'" on 'em; and passing through the
crowded street, past butchers standing at their doors in dirty aprons,
sharpening their knives in a business like manner; past water-cress
and match girls, who seemed to spring out of the gutters, so thick
were they; past drunken, noisy women, staggering home to their
miasmatic dens, with bunches of vegetables or chunks of meat in
their arms, wrapped in coarse brown papers, dirty children following
their footsteps, gaunt and shadowy-like; past reeking, greasy
coffee-shops, the very sign-boards of which were redolent of eel pies,
kidney stews, and all the abominations which are devoured in this
neighborhood daily and nightly, by the poor people who are forced to
eat this food, the refuse of the slaughter-houses of mighty, populous
London, from that stern, blind necessity which knows no law, and I
came upon a crowd of the working people--costermongers, peddlers,
match-women, and young lads and girls--who find habitations in the
dusky lanes and frightful courts of the neighborhood. I stood before a
large, dark-looking building, which seemed like a prison, its frowning,
dirty facade being no evidence that it was a place of amusement. But it
was a place of amusement, or, rather, a place of torture. This was the
"Royal Victoria Theatre," New Cut, Lambeth.
[Sidenote: THE NEW CUT.]
The Victoria Theatre, or the "Vick," as it is called by its patrons,
is one of the most democratic places of amusement, if not the most
democratic in London. In another place I will attempt to describe
the strange sights which I saw inside of its walls, but at present I
shall confine myself to giving my readers a view of the "Old Clothes"
district, which is chiefly inhabited by the lower class of the London
Jew peddlers or hawkers.
Dick Ralph was a patrolman bold, who did duty in the "H," or Smithfield
Division of the City of London police, and was rewarded for his
vigilance and attention to duty by being promoted to the office of
"special," under probation, in the old Jewry squad of detectives.
Dick had lately married and was the proprietor of a fine chubby boy of
fifteen months old, who resembled his father in every respect, having
the same red flush in the cheeks, the same black eyes, which sparkled
like diamonds, and the same little chubby nose. The family lived back
of St. Paul's towering pile, in a little lane or court which ran around
the old sheds that formed a part of the Old Market or Newgate shambles,
and was the principal fresh meat mart before the New Smithfield Market
had been built.
Ralph had been detailed by Inspector Bailey to visit Petticoat lane,
Houndsditch, Bevis Marks, and the Minories with me, and we were to
go together to the Sunday market in this district, which is almost
entirely inhabited by Jews, although a greater part of the out-door
trade and costermongering is done by Christian Cockneys.
I found Ralph living up a two-pair back, in one of the queerest,
old-fashioned wooden houses in the Newgate shambles. Directly over my
head was the dome of St. Paul's, with the morning fog clearing away
from its peak, and the sun was gradually appearing to gild the tall
cross on the apex, and the tower of St. Faith's, under St. Paul's. The
stairs were ricketty and dark, and the wainscotting quite fanciful. A
woman of twenty-five or six years of age, rather tidy in appearance,
I saw holding the big chubby baby, the pride of the Ralph family. The
family were at breakfast, and had been busy discussing fresh plaice and
soles from Billingsgate. The baby was allowed to tumble all over the
floor and bite its fingers.
"How are you this morning, sir," said patrolman Ralph; "it promises to
be a pertickelerly fine Sunday does this, and a nice one for stroll to
see the sights."
Ralph took down his hat and overcoat from a nail, and bidding his wife
good-bye affectionately, we strolled out into the streets.
We took a walk up Newgate street to Cheapside, through the Poultry,
through Cornhill, passing the Bank and Mansion House on our way,
and finally opposite the Aldgate Church, with its curious old Sir
Christopher Wren spire, we found ourselves standing against the railing
which encloses a little green square of grass belting the church.
"Now, sir," said Dick Ralph, "we are just going into one of the worst
places in London. There's a regular mob here all the time, and hits
just as much as a man can do to pass the peddlers without having his
'at and coat taken hoff him by the Sheenies who are selling of hall
sorts of things on the Sunday market. You can buy hanything from a
gimlet here in Petticoat lane to a suit of clothes in Rag Fair."
[Sidenote: PETTICOAT LANE.]
Houndsditch is a wide street which runs down from the Aldgate High
street to Bishopsgate street. At the other end is the street called
the Minories, going in the direction of the Tower, which frowns upon
the river. Here, also, is the district called "Petticoat lane," which
embraces a number of short streets, courts, lanes, and filthy alleys,
with such characteristic names as "Sandy's Row," "Frying Pan alley,"
"Little Love court," "Catharine Wheel alley," "Hebrew Place," "Fisher's
alley," "Tripe yard," "Gravel lane," "Harper's alley," "Boar's Head
yard," "Stoney lane," "Swan court," and "Borer's lane."
These are only a few of the choice thoroughfares in this locality,
and all of them are dirty and swarming with a class who obtain their
living in the streets. There are, it is calculated, living and doing
business in Petticoat lane and its lesser tributaries of streets and
alleys, about six thousand men, women, and children who profess the
Jewish faith, and are in humble circumstances, who have to struggle and
compete with the Irish of the poorer class in the street trades, though
the Jews have a monopoly of the old clothes' trade.
Houndsditch is in every way superior to the other streets which
surround it. It is wider, the shops are of a better order, and it is
noticeable that very few of their doors are open on a Sunday morning.
As the detective and I passed through the street I noticed such names
as "Abrams & Son," "L. Benjamin," "Isaacs & Co.," "Moses & Son," "Hyams
& Co.," and other like names over the doors of fruit shops, jeweller
shops, mercer shops, clothiers, and in one or two instances, over the
doors of small publics. It is, however, not a common thing to find a
Jewish name over a liquor shop door in London.
"We are in the very nick of time to see the show," said Ralph to me--it
was nearly nine o'clock of the Sunday morning, and we had gone down
Houndsditch about three of our New York blocks.
"The market is from eight o'clock Sunday morning until about two in the
hafternoon, and the business is as brisk as can be all that time," said
Ralph.
The houses were all old, and all of them had a slouching, mean look,
with funny gables, grimy windows in the upper stories, and queerly
peaked and stunted roofs, overhung by tubular red chimneys, which
stood up like rows of corn in a field when seen from a distance.
The people whom we met in the streets had an Eastern look, with
peculiarly brilliant, almond-shaped eyes, and prominent noses. Some
others had the Celtic features and spoke to each other with the
unmistakable brogue. The policemen that we met, too, seemed to partake
of the characteristics of the place, and I fancied that I could trace a
resemblance in their faces to those by whom they were surrounded.
Crossing the street, we went through a court about a hundred feet wide,
that seemed to lead into a covered shed, from which came a din and
clamor of voices that was almost deafening.
There was a wooden building like a market covered over, to to which we
ascended by a flight of three steps.
"This is the Rag Fair, sir; I suppose you heard on't before. It's a
werry strange place, Rag Fair. But don't stop to look at anythink, or
them as keeps the stands will tear you to pieces to make you buy."
[Sidenote: A CONGRESS OF RAGS.]
Although I took as much heed as possible of the injunction, it was
impossible not to look. It was a very queer place in more senses than
one. To get an idea of it take a section of Washington Market, New
York, with its stalls and blocks, and buyers and sellers; and on the
walls where the pork, mutton, and beef are hung to be inspected and
sold, and, instead of the flesh of the cow, pig, and peaceful sheep,
hang hundreds upon hundreds of pairs of trousers--trousers that have
been worn by young men of fashion, trousers without a wrinkle or just
newly scoured, trousers taken from the reeking hot limbs of navies
and pot boys, trousers from lumbering men-of-war's men, from spruce
young shop boys, trousers that have been worn by criminals executed
at Newgate, by patients in fever hospitals; waistcoats that were the
pride of fast young brokers in the city, waistcoats flashy enough to
have been worn by the Marquis of Hastings at a race-course, or the
Count D'Orsay at a literary assemblage; take thousands of spencers,
highlows, fustian jackets, some greasy, some unsoiled, shooting-coats,
short-coats, and cutaways; coats for the jockey and the dog-fighter,
for the peer and the pugilist, pilot-jackets and sou-westers, drawers
and stockings, the latter washed and hung up in all their appealing
innocence, there being thousands of these garments that I have
enumerated, and thousands of others that none but a master cutter could
think of without a softening of the brain, take two hundred men, women,
and children, mostly of the Jewish race, with here and there a burly
Irishman sitting placidly smoking a pipe amid the infernal din; and
shake all these ingredients up well, and you have a faint idea of what
I saw in Rag Fair.
Take five thousand pair of shoes, boots, gaiters, bootees, brogans,
watermen's boots, shoes of criminals, and suspicious-looking boots,
taken from the feet of thieves, flashy-looking women's gaiters and
cordovans purchased from prostitutes and wretched women in garrets, who
had sold them to buy food or a drink of gin.
Take all these articles, scatter them around, hang them on nails and
hooks depending from greasy stalls ascending to the old tumble down
roof, and then the reader will have a dose offered to him such as I got
when I fell on Rag Fair, Petticoat lane.
It was by far the strangest scene I had ever looked upon. London has
nothing like it elsewhere, and New York, which is really destitute
of any specially salient characteristic, could not in fifty years'
time organize and bring together such a mass of old clothes, grease,
patches, tatters, and remnants of decayed prosperity and splendor.
In every old tattered trousers there was an unwritten epic; in every
gaudily fashioned waistcoat there was a tale perhaps of sorrow and
sadness and want, if any one could but point it out.
The patches and rents that were botched up and mended, showed the
hasty repairs in the old coats that hung in platoons and files from
the niches; the jagged sewing and frayed edges in each of these old
garments, could they speak, would tell an astonishing tale, or furnish
the groundwork of a plot for a popular drama.
The stalls were in rows, and the men and women and boys who did
business there kept running about all the time I remained in the fair,
shouting and screaming like possessed beings. Their great aim and
object was to catch some unfortunate visitor by the lappel of his coat
or snatch his elbow, his coat-tail, or any other available part of his
clothing, hold on to him, shake an old waistcoat in his face, and if
he didn't want a waistcoat, shake a dirty old pair of trousers in his
face, talking all the time in an imploring, or may be a trembling tone,
until the man would be compelled to break away by sheer force or call
the police, who seemed to have enough to do in this place.
[Illustration: RAG FAIR.]
I stopped for a moment to look at a stall where about a hundred
pairs of boots and shoes were displayed in rows, the thick-soled
heavy-looking brogans of the laborer ranged next to the
nicely-fashioned gaiter of the elegant, with their well-turned toes
and arching insteps, and the man, a sharp-featured Hebrew, who was
proprietor, seized me and thrust a second-hand pair of boots in my
face, saying at the same time:
[Sidenote: MODUS OPERANDI OF SELLING.]
"You wan'sh a nish pair o' bootsh? S'help, I shells you thish pair for
two shillings, and they wash never made lesh than a guinea and a half!
Don't you want to buy these sphlendid bootsh; s'help me, I only makes'h
two pensh?"
I tried to get away, but he held to my arm and kept shaking the boots,
while his sharp, black eyes glittered like sword points at the prospect
of losing a sale. At last the detective, losing patience, jerked him
away, and we passed on to the next slop stand.
This was kept by an old Irish woman. The Jew was all mercantile
acerbity and sharpness. This old humbug of a female Celt was all
treacle and honey.
"Ah, then, it's the foine gentleman that ye are. It's easy to see
the good dhrop is in ye. May be it's a likin' ye'd be taking to this
sphlindid waistcoat; that's all the fashion now, and it's well it 'id
look on yer fine figger. And don't ye want nothing at all to wear?
And shure ye wouldn't be afther goin' naked like an omaudhaun in the
streets and havin' the people shoutin' after ye?"
"How much rent d'ye pay for this stall," said I to her, to get her off
a topic by which she made her living.
"Is't the durty rint ye mane? Well, it's enouff for the ould hole. I
pay sixpence a day in advance, and the devil resave the penny I've
turned yet, this blessed mornin."
"Have you any one to support beside yourself?"
"Well, indade, I have two childher, and its small comfort they are to
me. One of thim, the eldest, is down wud scarlet favir, and the docthor
says it tin to one if she'll ever recover."
"You see sir," said the detective, "the people who rent stands from
the men as own this place, they have to pay sixpence a day to 'old the
stand. But those fellows as you see running around like lunatics, and a
borin of every one, they pays two pence a day rents--cos why they 'ave
no stands and honly walk habout with the clothes hon their harms."
"Yis, and I wish you'd sind them to the divil, the haythens--they niver
give an honest woman a chance to make a penny be hook or be crook, wud
thim runnin all over the fair."
"Halso, we never allows the 'awker as has no stands to stay in one
place," said Dick Ralph, "cos hif we did, that would ruin the business
of the people as pays rent for the stands. So we keeps them a movin'
hon, and they doesn't like it, but we have got to do it, or else they
would have rows hall the Sunday through with the nobs as keeps the
stands. You see, the wery minute one of the 'awkers gets hopposite
a stand, he collects a crowd and--now, there goes one now;" and he
pointed to a fellow with a pair of trousers, who was bawling his goods
out while a policeman had him by the neck shoving him along by main
force.
"Oh, some of these lads are precious 'ard coves, I tell you, to manage.
Some of them will fight and curse at you like as hif they wor made of
brass. But we never talks long to them, 'cos hif we did Rag Fair would
be too much for the force."
"How much a day do the hawkers make on an average?" I asked Ralph.
"Well, I can't tell, because they are sich werry 'ardened liars. I axed
one the werry last Sunday as I wos 'ere. Says I, 'old Benjamin, how
much do you take in on a day's work on a haverage?'"
"Oh! blesh your 'art," sez he, "some days I hash two pounds profit, and
some days I makes a shillin' by 'ard vork."
"Now ye see," said Ralph, "I knew he was of gaffin me, for he was not
worth two pounds, body and soul, and I don't suppose he never made more
than half a crown in a day and do his best. Then Old Benjamin spends it
hall in fish. The Jew peddlers here are wery fond of fish on Saturdays.
They would go without a meal in three days to have a fresh mackerel on
Sunday. And they are werry pertikler as to who kills the meat before
they buys it."
Determining to make another attempt to see Petticoat Lane on a week
day, I bade the polite policeman and the highly odorous quarter of the
Old Clothes sellers, a very good day.
CHAPTER X.
FROM NEWGATE TO TYBURN.
LET us look at Newgate. This stern old pile of stones heaped upon
stones, grey and grim, the burden of whose sighs afflict the weary
skies above.
The strangest kind of a fascination hung over me as I looked at its
Gate, cut in the deep wall like the entrance to a rocky cave. The
spiked sill spoke of gibbets, the bars and locks and bolts of a felon
gang, who dragged their blind life away, day following day, for them
without hope, the outside world vacant, dumb and blank as the Ages, to
their crime begotten souls, whose only music was the clank of fetters
and the hoarse grating of iron hinges.
The building itself, covering half an acre, seemed sealed like a
sepulchre. There was nothing to be gotten out of it, one way or the
other. No one can have even looked at this terrible prison of Newgate
without a shudder of despair for his kind.
Only on certain recurring Black Mondays did it yawn like a grave in
the face of a great swearing mob, to put forth something into the
open in the shadow of St. Sepulchre's, that was half dead; to take
it back after an hour quite dead; and then it relapsed into its old,
inscrutable dumbness.
Now Gate of Ivory, now Gate of Horn--now a porch above which might be
inscribed the despairing legend of the Inferno, now a wicket at which
the charitable might tap gently, fraught with messages of mercy to the
fallen creatures within--the portal of Newgate could assume chameleon
hues, not always hopeless.
Next to the spikes of Newgate, the visitor must always mark for lasting
remembrance, the stones of Newgate doorsteps. They are not perhaps
more than eighty years old, but they look more worn than the jambs of
Temple bar--more decayed than the wheel windows of the Cloisters of
Westminster Abbey. They are ancient through use, and not through time.
The Hall of the Lost Footsteps at Versailles is but an empty name, but
the millions of footsteps that have worn Newgate stones, must make it
an abiding reality. Here have united all the crooked roads. Here have
fallen the last steps on the stones of the ford of the Black River.
Beyond the steps has loomed the City of Dis.
How many footsteps! how many!
Lord George Gordon, after the riots and burnings of 1780, wrecked and
crazy, totters feebly up Newgate steps to die in the prison which his
murderous associates had attempted to burn. Desperate Thistlewood,
fresh from the loft in Cato street, where his fellow conspirators were
dragged--reeking from the murder of Smithers, whose ghost followed him
to the gallows, is brought here heavily chained from the Tower Dungeon,
in which the ministry with frantic fear had at first immured him.
He and his gang will leave Newgate no more save by the Debtor's Door,
where the Man in the Mask--one of the few unsolved mysteries of the
Nineteenth century--will do his horrible office upon them and hold up
to the populace five severed heads, who at first shudder, but growing
hardened by the dripping sight of blood, will cry as the clumsy butcher
lets the last head fall--
"Hallo, butter-fingers!"
Down Newgate steps at dead of night, how many corpses of uncoffined
wretches have been borne in sacks, to be dissected at Old Surgeon's
Hall, over the narrow causeway which skirts the prison.
[Sidenote: EXECUTION OF BARRETT.]
The dread gaol keeps its secret better now. No grapnel hauls forth the
dishonored carcass of the dead criminal for exposition at the Gemonian
steps.
The place is doubly a Golgotha, and murder is buried on the spot where
it has been slain.
Here died brave hearted Michael Barrett, the victim of the last public
execution which will ever take place in Newgate, just three short years
ago. How the huge metropolis seethed and boiled like a world-cauldron
that day of days!
Condemned to die as a Fenian conspirator, he gave his life gallantly
for his native land, and in his last hour frightened England more than
a hundred living Barretts could have done.
I stood before Newgate with a member of the Old Jewry force who had
seen the execution of Barrett. From the fact that the government, after
that day, has prohibited any more public executions, his description of
the scene will be worthy of recounting to my readers. The detective was
a young man, and intelligent beyond his class. We were standing outside
of the prison gate.
The lane or street of the Old Bailey, which begins at Ludgate Hill,
one block below St. Paul's Cathedral, runs toward Newgate street,
parallel with Giltspur street which it enters, and forms before ending
a triangular space of about two acres square measurement. At the angle,
formed by the Holborn Viaduct, which ends here, (Giltspur street and
Newgate street,) is the old Church of St. Sepulchre. To the right and
behind us, we could just trace the ornamented and beautiful facade
of Christ Church Hospital. To our left and below us was the Sessions
Court in the Old Bailey, a place in some respects like the Tombs Court
and the Court of General Sessions in New York, were both courts to be
combined. I am thus particular in order to show my readers where and
how Michael Barrett, the last Newgate victim, died.
"Well, you see, Sir," said my Old Jewry friend to me, "the week as
Barrett wos hung wos a busy week with us. Up all night sometimes and
all day, searching the holes and corners and dark places of the city
for Fenians. We got information that they wos going to blow up St.
Pauls, one day--another day we hears that they had a plot to bust
hup the Bank of Hingland--then they were to burn down the Tower and
the 'Oss Guards, and then somebody told us that they meant to send
Westminster Habbey and Buckingham Palace sky high--and this way and
that way we wos worrited to death with hinformation. One night I
was detailed to St. Paul's to watch the crypts or vaults under the
Cathedral, where the Fenians intended to put a lot of gunpowder to blow
it hup. I staid there all night with some more of the men detailed,
and a precious cold job it wos, we hiding among the vaults snapping
our fingers and shivering like geese in a pond, and not a Fenian
within three miles of us. That wos a lark, and the newspapers laughed
at us, and had comic picters of us standing in the cold, for their
hedification."
"Another night we hexpected them to set fire to the 'Ouses of
Parlyment, and a blessed shame it would have been to have destroyed
sich a fine hedifice, and there I wos night after night, a-playing hide
and seek among the galleries and Towers of the 'Ouse, watching for
Fenians and hexpecting to get a stab in the back, and all the time I
wos wishing as how I could get relief, so as to get a pot o' beer in
the King's Arms in Parlyment street."
[Sidenote: DYING FOR AN IDEA.]
"Well, Sir, at last came the busting and blowing up of Clerkenwell
Prison, and a nice row that made all through England--and while the
fellows as did it walked off quite cooly--Barrett and a few more who
wos suspected, and who wos as I believe really hinnocent--of the
Clerkenwell affair--wos taken and tried right over here in the Sessions
Court (pointing with his hand over the wall of the Old Bailey Court),
and he stood up in the dock that day as he wos found guilty, and I must
say he was as brave a man as I ever saw--and defied the big wigs and
all on them, and said he was not afraid to die, and then he told them
that if it was twenty lives he would give it for "dear Ireland,"--thems
just the words he said, and although I don't like Fenians or Fenianism,
I must say for him that he was no more afraid than I was, that is if
you can judge from a man's face at such a hawful minute.
"The night afore his execution I was in his cell; I was let in by a
friend of mine the turnkey, and I spoke to him kindly, cos you see I
didn't feel exactly like as if he wos a man who had committed a common
murder or robbed for a living, cos why, you see, a lawyer told me as
how he was dying for an idea, like Russell or Hampden or some others of
them Big Guns.
"I sez to him:
"How do you feel Mr. Barrett?"
"I feel well, thank you said he;" one of the turnkeys wos watching him,
sitting up with him, and he had a light in his cell--he was ironed.
"They are putting up the scaffold," said he to me without a bit of fear.
"Yes, and I'm sorry for it," said I, "Mr. Barrett--is there anything I
can do for you."
"Nothing," says he, standing up and turning down the book which he was
reading, his chains clanking around his legs--"Nothing--but you see
me the night before I die--tell those who employed you that Michael
Barrett has made his peace with God--and is not afraid to die. Tell
them," and he commenced reciting poetry like, with his eyes on the
ceiling of his cell:
"Whither on the scaffold high
Or in the battle's van;
The fittest place for man to die
Is where he dies for man."
"Them's the lines as near as I can remember, for I saw them in a book
after, and that made me recollect them.
"During the night they were busy in putting up the scaffold, and three
or four thousand special constables were sworn in by the magistrates,
cos why, they were afraid that the Fenians would rescue Barrett, and I,
as well as every other man, wos armed with a six-barrelled revolver.
When the morning came there must have been a hundred thousand people
in the streets and all around here. Hundreds staid up all night to
get a chance for a good place to look at him, and there was more than
three thousand women, and as many children in the crowd around the
scaffold. The top of the scaffold, I mean the frame, was about twelve
feet above the street, and the platform was about six feet high, so
that hevery one was able to see him. Fifteen hundred police in uniform
were drawn hup around Newgate, and to prevent the crowds from pushing
or rescuing the prisoner, a barricade of trees was built at a distance
of two hundred feet from the scaffold hevery way. Five hundred police
in plain clothes were among the crowds armed with revolvers, and troops
were stationed at all the barracks in the city so as to be ready for
any attempt to save his life. The crowd Sir, was for all the world
like a surging sea, and people were buying and selling of histers, and
liquors, ginger beer, whelks, fruit and cigars, just the same as if
they were at a fair, and men and boys were crying ballads and singing,
and some of them were peddling Barrett's printed confession. Now you
see, Sir, that was a humbug, becos Barrett never made no confession,
but they sold just as well as if he had made one, at a penny a piece.
"Well, when St. Sepulchre's bell struck eight, which is always the
signal, they brought him ought, and although the air was cold and some
of us were shivering from standing up so long without anything to eat
or drink, he never trembled at all, but looked at every man and woman
of all that wos there with a smile, and a steady look.
"'He's a game un,' I heard many a man say, and our fellows who had
such hard work watching the Fenians by night and by day, had no hard
feelings agin the brave fellow then. The women around the scaffold
waved their handkerchiefs to him, you see, Sir, the women, bless them,
are always up to such blessed games, and there was some man in the
crowd when the rope was put around his neck, who wore a fur coat, and
seemed like an American, who cried out as loud as he could--
"Good heart--Michael Barrett--this day. All is not lost while one drop
of Irish blood remains."
[Sidenote: THE PESTIFEROUS PRISON.]
"I saw the man, and I made a jump for him with two of my pals, but the
crowd opened and let him pass through,--it seemed a purpose like, and
just then I heard a roar and a great convulsive sob, and the crowd
pushed this way and crushed that way, almost smothering me, and I
nearly fainted from the awful squeezing I got, and I picked up a little
girl from atween my feet, and when I looked up Barrett's body was a
swinging to and fro from a rope, and all was over, and believe me, Sir,
I was glad of it when it was over."
[Illustration: THE LAST EXECUTION AT NEWGATE.]
It was high noon when I arrived at Newgate, and my visit was paid
chiefly to that part of the prison devoted to the subsistence of the
prisoners. I passed through the corridors and passages, and door after
door, and hinge after hinge grated as I advanced with a companion. All
around the prison are the high walls of the neighboring buildings,
and attached to them are precipitous sheds with spikes to prevent the
escape of prisoners who may succeed in getting as far as the yard.
On top of the prison is a huge circular fan which revolves and gives
ventilation to the interior of the jail. This improvement was the
result of the labors of the great philanthropist John Howard.
In the old days Newgate was a hell upon earth. During the Eighteenth
century prisoners endured the tortures of the damned here. Jail birds
were shackled to the floor to prevent their escape, and mouldy bread
and stinking water was given them to drink until their stomachs loathed
the appearance of food. Their beds were of stinking straw, the rain
from the heavens dripped through the roof upon them, the frost and cold
eat into their bones; they festered in dirt, disease, and destitution,
till their limbs broke out in horrible blains, and ulcers and all kinds
of agues and dysenteries swept down upon them. Then in this terrible
state, after rotting for months awaiting a trial, they came into the
dock at the Old Bailey with the jail fevers upon them to slay with the
pestiferous miasma which exhaled from their bodies, judge, jury, and
pettifogging attorneys.
The prisoners were so crowded together in dark dungeons, that the air
becoming corrupted by the stench, occasioned a disease called the
"goal distemper," of which they died by dozens every day. Cartloads
of dead bodies were carried out of the prison and thrown in a pit in
the burying-ground of Christ's Church without ceremony. The effluvia
in the year 1750 was so horrible that it made a pestilence in the
whole district. Four judges who sat in the Session, a Lord Mayor,
several aldermen, and other civic dignitaries were carried off by the
distemper, together with a number of lawyers and jurors present at the
trials of Newgate criminals.
[Sidenote: GETTING WEAK IN THE BACK.]
Then at last the prison was cleansed, and a system of ventilation
introduced, which made some improvement in the condition of the
prisoners. Still, Newgate was a disgrace to Christendom, and
just one hundred years ago Parliament made a grant of £50,000 to
construct a prison. Beckford, author of Vathek, and then Lord Mayor
of London, laid the first stone. In 1780, Lord George Gordon, with
his No-Popery rioters, burned down that part of the prison which had
been constructed, and set at liberty three hundred of the prisoners
confined there. £40,000 in addition had to be granted before the
building was completed.
On an average there are between two and three hundred prisoners held in
durance in Newgate, and twelve sessions are held during the year at the
adjoining Old Bailey Court for their trial. This is called the Central
Criminal Court, and it is here, in this very court, that Jack Sheppard,
Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, Sixteen String Jack, Tom King, and all the
other heroes of the yellow covered literature, were tried, condemned,
taken in fetters to Newgate, and from thence to Tyburn Tree to hang by
the neck until they were dead.
The Judges of the Old Bailey Court are the Lord Mayor, Aldermen,
Recorder, and Common Sergeant of London, and the Judges of the Courts
at Westminster Hall, who sit here by rotation to assist, by their
superior legal knowledge, the inferior local magistrates.
The prison is divided into a male and female side, but beyond this
there is little classification; the pickpocket, the swindler, the
embezzler, the murderer, are all associated together; while the
hardened offender and the one who is merely suspected of crime, but too
often share the same cell, and feed at the same board.
There are separate cells, so that every one averse to society may dwell
alone if he or she chooses, but in conversation with the turnkeys, I
learned that the privilege was rarely claimed.
"Why, Lord bless your heart, Sir," said a turnkey to me, "there isn't
one of the birds in this ere cage that wouldn't go down on his blessed
knees and beg hoff if he was to be locked up alone for forty-eight
hours. Ye see, sir, it sickens them, it does, to be alone and hear
no one's voice but their own. There's a few of the high 'uns at
first, when they come here, are werry hoffish and have a sort of a
"how-dare-you-look-or-speak-to-me-air," but before three days they gets
weak in the back and then they'll give a guinea a minute to look at a
face if it only wor a monkey's dirty mug."
When prisoners become refractory, solitary confinement, for a
few days, is the punishment, and it never fails to tame the most
intractable. The beds of the prisoners are in tiers one above the
other, like the berths on an emigrant ship, only that they are clean
almost to painfulness. The beds consist of a hard mattress and coarse
coverings, sufficient in all seasons to keep them comfortably warm.
A plain deal table and bench constitute the only furniture of the
place, and these, with the floor, are daily scrubbed into a state of
scrupulous cleanliness by the inmates of the cells. There are paved
court yards in which the prisoners may walk and breathe the small
quantity of pure air that can circulate between those high and gloomy
walls, surmounted by formidable spikes to impede the climber.
I went into the kitchen of Newgate and found it to be a commodious and
well-fitted apartment, very like the kitchen of the Reform Club, only
not so luxurious, from its want of French dishes, and I found here
boilers, stoves, ranges, saucepans, kettles, and all that a chef could
need for his cuisine. This was not the kitchen of the Old Newgate of
which Ainsworth delights to tell, where the hangman used to seethe in a
cauldron of molten pitch the heads and quarters of victims executed for
treason, whose several members were afterwards affixed to the spikes of
Temple Bar or London Bridge.
I saw the rations of each prisoner served out in tin panikins and
platters, and the bread served was as white as any I ever ate. There
were three large and beautiful potatoes allotted to each one, and three
ounces of boiled beef, good and tender and free from bone, just of the
same quality which I had seen served a few days before in the barracks
of the Grenadier Guards down in Westminster. The meat might not have
all the accessories and sauces which a Delmonico or a Blanchard could
provide, but it was palatable and tender to the taste.
On "off" days they have soup and thick gruel for breakfast, and sixteen
ounces of bread per day. They never get beer, butter, milk, cheese,
cabbage, tea, coffee, or eggs.
[Sidenote: HOTEL REGULATIONS.]
So, after I had seen all this "bee bread," the hunks of meat duly
weighed out, the potatoes and lumps of bread packed in their panniers
and delivered out from door to door--the chief warder and I began to
ascend a very Mont Blanc of iron staircases, and visited, one after the
other, the cells of the wicked hive; in which, God knows, there was
no honey making, but only wax, bitter as the book which the Apostle
swallowed.
The original "comb," many stories high, had been built in one of the
former yards of the gaol. The space between the different tiers of
cells was quite sufficient for ventilation; but the architects had of
necessity trusted more to height than to breadth, and this increased
the hive-like appearance of the place. But when I came down again, the
remembrance of what I had seen fresh upon me, all these iron staircases
and galleries, all these shining locks, bars, numbers, plates, and
"inspection holes," all these recrossing and crossing pillars, trusses,
and girders, made me think that I had just left some great, bad
exhibition of products of the devil's industry. One cell was, in all
save its occupant, twin brother to its neighbor on either side; and so
on, tier above tier, until the whole nest had been explored. I forgot
to ask how many feet broad, by how many feet long, was each dungeon.
But here is one--the type of all the rest. It is as large say, as a
_cabinet particulier_, to hold four, at Vachett's or the Moulin Rouge;
but it is given up to the occupancy of one man. It is a hundred times
cleaner than ever was _cabinet_ in Paris restaurant; and here the
lodger eats, reads, and sleeps. His bedding lies on a shelf on the
right corner as you enter the cell. It is a pile of rugs, matting,
mattress, or some other kind of bedding, packed and folded up with
mathematical accuracy, with an assortment of straps and hooks disposed
in corresponding order. These hooks will, by and bye, at eight o'clock,
be inserted in rings in the whitewashed cell, when the prisoner will
make his bed and sleep athwart his cell.
There are his gas-pipe, his basin, and mug; there is a little
desk-formed table, which he can prop up with a wooden support, to eat
his meals upon; there are his tin panikin and wooden spoon, his Bible,
prayer-book, and hymn-book, his comb, his salt-cellar, with a neat
cover of blue paper. Everything shines, glistens, sparkles, almost
as bravely as the gew-gaws in Mr. Benson's shop outside. The floor
is of shining asphalte. The covered ceiling is without a flaw. The
walls are unsmirched. A neat copy of the regulations enforced in this
"hotel"--the code of discipline framed by the Sheriffs--are hung up
for the prisoner's guidance. He has a ventilator, by means of which he
can regulate the temperature of his cell; and I noticed that the chief
warder had to tell almost every prisoner that he was keeping his cell
too warm.
Among the many afflicting scenes that have taken place in the vicinity
of Newgate, was that of February 23, 1807, when two men, named Haggerty
and Holloway, were hanged for the murder of Mr. Steele, on Hounslow
Heath. The greatest interest had been excited by the trial of these two
men, and an immense crowd assembled to witness their execution.
By five o'clock in the morning every avenue was blocked up; every
window that communicated a view of the place was crammed, and wagons,
arranged in rows, groaned under the weight of the eager multitude. The
pressure of the assemblage was tremendous; and when the criminals had
been turned off--when they had given their last death struggle--the
mass of the people began to move. But there was no room for them to
move in.
Immediately rose the shrieks of affrighted women in the crowd, which
but increased the alarm, and made each individual struggle to get out
of the multitude. Hundreds were trodden under foot, and the furious and
frightened crowd passed over them.
At last the confusion ceased a little, and the ground became
comparatively clear.
[Sidenote: DRINKING FROM ST. GILES' BOWL.]
Some who had been thrown down arose but with little damage, and went
home, but forty-two were found insensible, of this number twenty-seven
were quite dead, of whom three were women. Of the other fifteen many
had their legs or arms broken, and some of them afterward died. Since
that occurrence barriers have been erected and executions have taken
place without loss of life. The system of hanging in chains has also
been abolished, and Newgate may one day hope, like its brother of the
Bastille, for the light of freedom to break in upon its hell-holes,
and show to humanity how like devils are men clad with a little brief
authority.
Eighty-three years ago, the last victim, taken from Newgate to Tyburn
Tree, was hung there upon the gallows in chains. The name of the
criminal was John Austin. Tyburn was anciently a manor and village
some miles west of London, and on this fated spot, in 1330, Roger de
Mortimer was hanged, drawn, disemboweled, and quartered, for high
treason. The gallows was a triangle upon three legs. Long years ago,
when Dan Chaucer wrote his lays, criminals were taken to Tyburn, and
hung from a lofty elm tree, which overshadowed a brook or "burn," hence
the term of "Tyburn Tree." The gallows, in after years, stood on a
small eminence at the corner of the Edgeware Road, where a tool-house
was subsequently erected.
Beneath this spot, where the gallows formerly stood, the bones of
Bradshaw, Ireton, and others, who had voted for the death of Charles
I, repose, their remains, having been taken from their graves, after
the Restoration, and thrown here. Around the gibbet were erected
open galleries, like those at a modern race-course, from whence many
thousand people, of both sexes, were wont to feast their eyes on the
dying struggles of the condemned. "Mamma Douglas," an old toothless
woman, held the keys of these seats, and she was, facetiously, called
the Tyburn "pew opener." Prices of seats to witness the sport, varied
from one and sixpence to three shillings, and in one instance, a
reprieve having arrived for the prisoner in time to save his life, the
mob became enraged at their disappointment, and tore up the benches.
The criminal was conveyed in a cart to Tyburn, the parson chanting
prayer and hymn on the route, and in passing through the quarter of St.
Giles, a bowl of ale was always offered to the condemned to drink, the
procession of Sheriffs, Stavesmen, and Constables, halting on the way
for the purpose. Among the famous criminals executed here were Perkin
Warbeck, for plotting his escape from the Tower, 1534; the Holy Maid of
Kent, and her associates, 1535; the last Prior of the Charter House,
same year; Southwell, the poet, 1615; Mrs. Turner, hanged in a yellow
starched ruff, for the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, 1628; John
Felton, assassin of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, 1600; and in 1662
five persons who had signed the death warrant of Charles I; 1684, Sir
Thomas Armstrong (Rye House Plot); 1705, John Smith, a burglar, having
been hung for fifteen minutes, a reprieve arrived, and he was cut and
bled, which saved his life. Jack Sheppard was hung in 1724; Jonathan
Wild, the thief taker, in 1725, and Catharine Hayes was burnt alive
here in 1726, for the murder of her husband, as the indignant mob would
not suffer the hangman to strangle her, as was usual, before the fire
was kindled. In 1760, Earl Ferrars, who had murdered his steward, rode
from the Tower to Tyburn, in his open landau, drawn by six horses, and
was hanged with a silken rope, the hangman and the mob fighting for
the rope, while the latter tore the black cloth on the scaffold to
pieces. Oliver Cromwell's body was taken up and here, long years after
he had died, hung from the tree, while his head was set on a spike of
Westminster Hall. The other famous hangings were as follows: 1767,
Mrs. Browning, for murder; 1774, John Rann (Sixteen-Stringed Jack),
highwayman; 1775, the two Perraus, for forgery; 1777, Rev. Dr. Dodd,
forgery; 1779, Rev. James Hackman, assassination of Miss Reay: he was
taken from Newgate in a mourning coach. 1783, Ryland, the engraver, for
forgery. 1783, John Austin, the last person executed at Tyburn.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XI.
DOCTOR'S COMMONS.
ONE of the queerest old rookeries in London is the little old edifice
in Great Knight-Rider street, just back of St. Paul's Churchyard, with
its nest of courts and its ancient quadrangle, where people go to get
licenses to marry--or to have divorces granted them, or to examine
or prove wills--or perhaps to have a suite entered for salvage or
flotsam, or jetsam,--where David Copperfield paid a thousand pounds to
receive his matriculation as a proctor. This curious old relic of Roman
Catholic England, where the wills of the British nation are preserved,
is known as Doctors' Commons.
It is a college of civil, canon, and maritime law, and here all cases
that belong to these three divisions of English law, as also divorce
suits, are entered, argued, and decided.
The lawyers who practice here are all well to do, snug, aristocratic
old fellows, and enjoy good living and nothing to do as no other
disciples of the legal profession can.
It is called Doctor's Commons because the doctors or students at law
used to eat in common, or dine together in a hall in the old days when
the Archbishop of Canterbury acknowledged the supremacy of the See of
St. Peter.
In the Doctors' Commons are--the Court of Arches, named from having
been formerly kept in Bow Church, Cheapside, originally built upon
arches, and the Supreme Ecclesiastical Court of the Province of
Canterbury--the other English Ecclesiastical Province being that of
York; the Prerogative Court, where all contentions arising out of
testamentary causes, are tried; the Consistory Court of the Bishop of
London; and the High Court of Admiralty; all these courts hold their
sittings in the college hall, the walls of which are covered with the
richly-emblazoned coats of arms of all the doctors who have practiced
here for two hundred years past.
The Court of Arches has a jurisdiction over thirteen parishes, or
"peculiars," which form a "Deanery," exempt from the authority of the
Bishop of London, and attached to the Province of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, who is Primate of England. This court decides, as in the
days of Wolsey, in all cases of usury, simony, heresy, sacrilege,
blasphemy, apostacy from Christianity, adultery, fornication, bastardy,
partial and entire divorce, and many exploded offenses, which in the
Nineteenth century become farcical when tried in an ecclesiastical
court. Fighting or brawling in church or vestry are also offenses under
the jurisdiction of this absurd old court, but they are seldom or ever
brought up in these days, as the newspapers are sure to seize upon such
trials as subjects for derision and satire. Still the statutes are in
existence and will probably never be repealed until the Established
Church of England is abolished.
There are several Registries in Doctors' Commons, under the
jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops. Some of
the very old documents connected with them are deposited for security
in St. Paul's Cathedral and Lambeth Palace. At the Bishop of London's
Registry, and the Registry for the Commission of Surrey, wills are
proved for the respective dioceses, and marriage licences are granted.
At the Vicar-General's Office and the Faculty Office, marriage licences
are granted for any part of England. The Faculty Office also grants
Faculties to notaries public, and dispensations to the clergy; and
formerly granted privilege to eat flesh on prohibited days. At the
Vicar-General's Office, records are kept of the confirmation and
consecration of bishops.
[Sidenote: MARRIAGE LICENSES.]
Marriage licences, when required by persons who profess the faith of
the Established Church of England, are always procured in Doctors'
Commons upon personal application to one of these old fogy Proctors,
whom I saw running around the quaint quadrangle, like a hen on a hot
griddle, with a roll of papers in his fleshy, fat hands. A residence of
fifteen days is necessary to either bride or bridegroom, in the parish
in which the marriage is to be solemnized, or not much longer than it
takes a repeater to become a useful if not a legal voter in New York
City. This little antique court of Doctors' Commons is in fine one of
the pious swindles that the English people delight in perpetuating and
groaning under, while the sinecurists make pots of money, and laugh and
grow fat on the pious plunder. There are all kinds of little dodges in
Doctors Commons, so that when a suitor enters here it is like a dip
into chancery litigation; the victim being plucked before he leaves.
Even to get married is very expensive in Doctors' Commons. The expense
of an ordinary license is £2 12s. 6d.; but if either party is a minor,
there is 10s. 6d. further charge; and if the party appearing swears
that he has obtained the consent of the proper person having authority
in law to give it, there is no necessity for either parents or minor
to attend. A special license for marriage is issued after a fiat or
consent has been obtained from the Archbishop, and is granted only to
persons of rank, judges, and members of parliament, the Archbishop
having a right to exercise his own discretion.
The expense of a Special License is usually twenty-eight guineas. This
gives privilege to marry at any time or place, in private residence, or
at any church or chapel situate in England; but the ceremony must be
performed by a priest in holy orders, and of the Established Church.
With the marriages of Dissenters, including Roman Catholics, Jews,
and Quakers, the Commons has nothing to do, their licenses being
obtainable of the Superintendent-Registrar. A Divorce when sought is
carried through one of the courts in this profession (according to the
diocese), and is conducted by a proctor; the evidence of witnesses
is taken privately before an examiner of the court, and neither the
husband, wife, nor any of the witnesses, need appear personally in
court. A suit is seldom conducted at an expense less than £200.
Then there is the High Court of Admiralty, a "precious old swindle," as
a seafaring man told me it had proved to him. He was a seaman before
the mast, and to get a sum of eight pounds six and four-pence, he was
compelled to pay eleven pounds of costs and fees. It comprises the
"Instance Court," and the "Prize Court," where the famous Lord Stowell,
in one year, adjudicated upon 2,206 cases connected with the high seas.
[Illustration: DOCTOR'S COMMONS.]
The Instance Court has a criminal and civil jurisdiction; to the former
belong piracy and other indictable offences on the high seas, which are
now tried at the Old Bailey; to the latter, suits arising from ships
running foul of each other, disputes about seamen's wages, bottomry,
and salvage. The Prize Court applies to naval captures in war, proceeds
of captured slave-vessels, &c. A silver oar is carried before the
Judge as an emblem of his office. The business is very onerous, as in
embargoes and the provisional detention of vessels, when incautious
decision might involve the country in war; the right of search is
another weighty question.
[Sidenote: PAYING THE PIPER.]
The practitioners in this court are advocates (D.D.C.L.) or counsel,
and proctors or solicitors. The judge and advocates wear in court,
if of Oxford, scarlet robes and hoods lined with taffety; and if of
Cambridge, white minever and round black velvet caps. The proctors wear
black robes and hoods lined with fur.
The College has a good library in civil law and history, bequeathed by
an ancestor of Sir John Gibson, judge of the Prerogative Court; and
every bishop at his consecration makes a present of books.
After a case has been worked slowly through one of these ecclesiastical
courts, it is then transferred to another, and after bowling the cause
about for years it is just possible that it will be lost for the
suitor. Suits are brought in Doctors' Commons for the most ridiculous
and trivial causes, and once a man gets into the Commons, he is made
to pay the piper while the sleek, fat proctors, dance right merrily to
the music paid for by their unhappy victims. A case in point I will
mention. The cause had just been tried in the Archdeacon's Court, at
Totness, and from thence an appeal had been sought in the Court at
Exeter, thence it went to the Court of Arches, and from there to the
Court of Delegates, and after all this fuss and expense, the question
in discussion was to know which of two persons had the legal right to
hang a hat on a certain peg! This is sober truth, and no exaggeration.
But the great perfection of legal scoundrelism was, in a case where
a man, named Russell, whose wife's character had been impugned by a
person named Bentham, at Yarmouth, was tried. This gentleman could
find no remedy in Common Law for the defamation, so he must needs go
to Doctors' Commons and the Ecclesiastical Courts. The Proctor's bill
amounted to £700 after the case had gone through several courts, and
finally each party had to pay his own costs after the case had been
continued six or seven years; the special beauty of Ecclesiastical
Courts being, that once a victim brings a suit, he is never allowed to
withdraw it until it has gone the rounds of every court, thus giving
fees to a score of persons, one-half of whom never hear of the case
until they make up their minds to send in a bill for money. Finally,
after seven years of this pious warfare, Mr. Russell, being a poor man,
was ruined, and his wife's character was not half as good as when he
began the suit.
The Prerogative Will Office is, however, the busiest and most
interesting place in Doctor's Commons. Wills are always to be found
here at half an hour's notice, and generally in a few minutes. They are
kept in a fire-proof, strong room. The original wills begin with the
year 1483, and the copies date from 1383. The latter are on parchment,
strongly bound, with brass clasps. Here I saw the will of Shakespeare,
on three folios of paper, each with his signature, and with the
inter-lineation in his own handwriting: "I give unto my wife my brown,
best bed, with the furniture." There is kept, also, the will of Milton,
which was written when the poet was blind, and set aside by a decree
of Sir Leoline Jenkins. And I saw alongside of Milton's will, the last
testament of the soldier of democracy, Napoleon Bonaparte, made at St.
Helena, April, 1821.
In one year 40,000 searches were made here for wills, and 7,000
extracts were made from testaments. There were, also, 5,000 commissions
issued for the country. Some of the entries of wills made by the early
Monks are beautiful specimens of illumination, the colors remaining
fresh to this day.
Let us take a look into the Will Office, and give a glance to one of
the most interesting phases of the drama of human life.
[Sidenote: THE FORGOTTEN SAILOR.]
People are passing rapidly in and out of the narrow court, their bustle
alone disturbing the marked quiet of the neighborhood. At the end
of the court, we ascend a few steps and open a door, when the scene
exhibited in the sketch is before us. All seems hurry and confusion,
the solicitors turning over the leaves of bulky volumes and folios at
the desks, long practice having taught them to discover at a glance the
object of their search; rapidly to and fro move those who are bringing
the tomes and taking them back to the shelves where they belong, and as
rapidly glide the pens of the numerous copyists who are transcribing or
making extracts from wills, in all their little boxes, along both sides
of the room.
But as we begin to look a little more closely into the densely packed
occupants' faces, we see persons who are certainly not solicitors'
clerks, nor officials of Doctor's Commons, but parties whose interests
in a worldly point of view may be materially benefited or damaged by
the investigations they are ordering to be made.
Even the weather-beaten sailor, whose rugged face one would take to be
proof against any fortune, betrays a good deal of sensibility. He has
just returned probably from some long voyage, and one can fancy him to
have come to Doctor's Commons to see whether the relative, whom the
newspapers have informed him is dead, has left him, as he expected, the
means to settle down quietly in a little box at Deptford, Greenwich, or
Camberwell, or some other sailor's paradise.
He steps up to the box on the right hand as directed, pays his
shilling, and gets a ticket, with a direction to the calendar, in
which he is to search for the name of his deceased relative. He must
surely be spelling every name in that page he has turned over--ah,
there it is at last; and now he hurries off, as directed to, with the
calendar, to the person pointed out to him as the Clerk of Searches. A
volume from one of the shelves is laid before him, the place is found,
and there lies the object of his hopes and fears--the great hopeful
or threatening will. Line by line his face begins to grow darker--a
ghastly grin at last appears--he has not been forgotten--there is
a ring perhaps, or five pounds to buy one, or some such trifle; he
closes the book with a bang and a curse, and the sailor hurries back
to his ship and to storm and danger on the deep, deprived of all the
contentment that had so long made him satisfied with his hard lot.
But here is another picture. A lady dressed in a style of the most
gorgeous splendor, whose business is of a more important kind than
a mere search--she is probably an executrix of a will--and is just
leaving the office, when she meets at the door another lady, to whom
she makes a low courtesy, with an expression of decided malice on her
showy countenance. The successful legatee can be seen in her face,
while blank and startled disappointment appears in the other woman's
features.
Such is Doctors' Commons--and Such is Life.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XII.
THE BOHEMIANS OF LONDON.
GOING east through Oxford street, when you get near High Holborn, there
is a narrow thoroughfare called Dean street. Turn down this and it will
bring you to Carlisle street, a short and dark lane, a street only
in name. This short street brings you to Soho Square, famous for its
sauces and pickles all over the world from Calcutta to New York.
The neighborhood is a very quiet one, as by its peculiar exits and
passages it is cut off from the busiest part of London on either side
of it, and leaving the Holborn or Oxford street, with their crowded
traffic, shops, busses, and cabs, in a moment you are in this quiet
square, with its little dot of green, fresh grass; that seems a relief
after the arid business waste which you have just left. Just opposite
is Greek street, which leads to St. Martin's lane, where a nest of
small dealers in milk, butter, eggs, and groceries herd together, and
where the poor, mean chop-houses form a perfect rookery, from which
comes the fumes of hot coffee, muffins, mutton chops, and kidneys
all the long day. Little dirty, rosy-cheeked children play here in
the gutters right merrily all the day through, and the noises of the
peddlers' cries, and the joyous mirth of the children "glorious at
their games," are the only sounds that break the remarkable stillness
of the noonday hour.
When the gray in the sky begins to deepen, and the shades of night fall
over and around this quiet square, then the scene changes, and life
and bustle and noisy interchange of voices fill the solitary place,
which the shabby gentility of the neighborhood cannot repress or keep
down. Then the coffee-shops become vocal, the pot-houses are once
more vivacious, and streams of thirsty and hungry men and women pour
into these places, and come out refreshed with beer and replete with
cheap but plenteous food. This neighborhood is savory with macaroni
and oils, betokening the presence of the Italian element, who flock
to Soho Square in great numbers when they arrive in London. There are
"albergos" and wine-shops where you may obtain a quarter of a fowl
for ninepence, and a bottle of Marsala, which is only a darker and
stronger sherry under another name, and you can get olives and brandied
cherries, at dessert, for a few pence. The women who attend in these
places are fat, jolly-looking persons, with rounded forms, finely
shaped faces, and magnificent black hair, done up in massive bands,
and they sit many hours of the day knitting on low stools at the doors
of these foreign-looking inns. The customers who frequent these places
are wealthy organ-grinders, men who cast figures from potters' clay and
plaster of Paris, musicians and porters in the Italian warehouses along
the docks, medical students, Bohemians, and the riff raff in general.
One of the clay figure men wanted to sell me a well executed full
length figure of Thackeray, with his spectacled, kindly face, at 7s.
6d., for which I was asked a guinea in Drury Lane, the workmanship and
material being fully as good in every essential.
In the heart of Soho Square is this little dark Carlisle street, and in
the centre of Carlisle street is a small, dingy public-house, called
the "Carlisle Arms," which is one of the resorts of the Bohemians of
London.
[Sidenote: COCKERELL'S LODGINGS.]
This old place has been from time immemorial frequented by them,
and here I was brought one cool September evening by the head clerk
of one of the leading publishing houses of London. This clerk was
still a young man, but he had the best knowledge of books and general
literature that I have ever found in a man of his position. He knew
at a glance how much a book would bring, who wrote it, when it was
published, and how many copies were to be got, were they to be dug out
of the mustiest book-stall in London. He had a familiar acquaintance
with all the members of that strange tribe of litterateurs who
contribute to the magazines and weekly and daily press of this the
greatest newspaper city in the world. He knew who it was who wrote the
last flash novel, how much he got for it, and whether he had drunk the
proceeds or not. Every first and fourth class reporter in London, all
the dramatic witlings and punsters, the great short-hand guns of the
House of Commons, the book reviewers, and the dramatic and musical
critics, were to him everyday acquaintances, and they all in turn paid
him a cordial respect for his universal knowledge. I shall call him
Cockerell, this marvel of booksellers' clerks.
At 8 o'clock I called at Cockerell's lodgings, which were in Rupert
street, near Holborn. He lived quietly in a nice, cosy room, filled
with rare and curious editions of the works of which he was most fond,
and everything around the place, from the brass andirons to the quaint
clock in the chimney place, betokened a steady-going, well-informed
man. The "Newgate Calendar," "Cruikshank's Almanacs," for twenty
years, finely illustrated, "The Slang Dictionary," "The Streets and
Antiquities of London," "A History of Signboards," "Hansard's Debates,"
a folio "Shakespeare," "The Heads of the People," illustrated by Kenny
Meadows, "Debrett's Peerage," "The Lords and Commons," several volumes
of Balzac, a volume with the wills and autographs of the Doges of
Venice, "Macaulay's Lays," some of "Sala's Sketches," a bound series
of the _Saturday Review_, and some volumes of "Punch," were among his
collection, besides a complete collection of the British plays, and
a number of Gilray's sketches, framed, hung from the walls. "Show me
a man's library, and I will tell you what he is," somebody has said,
and I believe the above works, picked out of a large library, best
explain the character of the head clerk who was to be my companion
for the night's adventure. Putting on his collar, gloves, and an old
slouch-hat, Cockerell and I reached the hall, where the maid-servant,
looking suspiciously at the writer, inquired from her master what time
he would be home.
"I don't know, Jenny, exactly," said he, "but it will be some time
before the cocks crow."
Having arrived at the "Carlisle Arms," we walked in, passing the bar,
and found our way through a low passage into a back room about twelve
feet wide by fifteen in length. The ceiling was low, and there was
no ornament to be seen with the exception of a steel engraving of
the Duke of Wellington on horseback, surrounded by a mounted staff,
and surveying through a field-glass the broken columns of the first
Bonaparte from an elevation on the plain of Waterloo. There were but
three persons in the room, which had a round oaken table in the centre,
and a quadrangle of wooden benches,--when I entered. My well-informed
friend was saluted with hearty greetings by all present, and was asked
what he would have to drink. This is an anachronism in English customs,
for the people of this tight little island generally allow a friend to
pay for his own drink, as a custom which has long ago been endorsed by
the best authorities. There is no such folly known here as may be seen
in every American public house, where the free and independent electors
stand at a bar each hour in every day, treating one and the other with
a promiscuous and reckless generosity. But among Bohemians all over
the world it is different. If they cannot pay for a drink, they will
call for it and treat each other with a liberality which is, to say the
least, a most praiseworthy trait.
[Sidenote: A PINT OF COOPER.]
I forgot to mention that there were two vases, with faded artificial
flowers, on the rusty old chimney-piece, and these flowers seemed to
the Bohemians like the waters of an oasis in the desert to a party of
Bedouins. All else was a blighted, sandy waste of small talk, tobacco
smoke, and weak gin and water. The principal spokesman of the party,
who was quite bald-headed and had but two or three teeth, rang the bell
behind the door, and presently the pot-boy appeared. In the lowest of
London publics the pot-boy waits upon the customers, washes the pewter
pots, and cleans the tables with a dish-cloth, for a stipend of ten
shillings a week in British coin. The pot-boy had not more than made
his appearance when in came the bar-maid, with natural light hair, one
of the first bar-maids I had seen in London whose hair was not dyed.
[Illustration: A BOHEMIAN CAROUSE.]
The bar-maid surveyed the room and its occupants calmly, then asked
for the orders. The pot-boy, feeling that he was only a subordinate,
retired in disgust, with his dish-cloth on his left arm. One man called
for "sherry weak," another for "gin and water," and a third for a "pint
of cooper." The cooper was brought in a metal mug, with hoops girding
it, and for this reason, I believe, the mug is called a "cooper."
Pretty soon the room began to fill with stray Bohemians, who dropped in
one by one and took their seats as if they feared no eviction.
In half an hour there were a dozen present, and the room was so
crowded that two of them had to stand up. One or two were dandies,
and wore heavy scarfs and pins, and talked French because, forsooth,
they had been on the Continent. Some of them were artists on the half
score of comic weeklies which are to be seen in the windows of every
news-shop in London. Some were wood-engravers, some were painters
in a small way, and there were correspondents of the Birmingham,
Manchester, and Liverpool papers also present. All were in the literary
or artistic line, and a few had been in the gallery of the House of
Commons as reporters, doing short-hand work, and there was one really
clever artist, who had illustrated books by some of the best authors
in England. This man was a little scant of hair on the top of the
forehead, and had a light moustache. He had been to many prize-fights,
and had gloated over many a frightful murder, through his sketches in
the weekly illustrated newspapers. He was a merry, good-natured fellow,
with a genuine fund of pleasant anecdote and a liking for Burton ale.
There was another man very quiet in appearance, and wearing a gray
mixed sack coat, with his bosom open in the style of Walt Whitman.
He puzzled me when I first looked at him, but after a while I found
that he was a German by birth, very recondite,--from Lower Prussia,
domiciled in London for many years, who had written a work with the
mystical title of "Entities of God." None of his intimates had ever
even read this book; with the exception of one man, (a dear friend,)
who was in his debt, and had honored his friendship so far as to read
the preface, but could not get any farther for a different reason from
that assigned by the Heidelberg student, who, after reading a work of
John Stuart Mill, threw down the book in disgust, saying that "it was
too clear;" yet he was respected in this mixed assemblage of topers
and clever fellows, because he had written a book that no one could
understand. Such is the force of intellect.
There were two Irishmen present who sat in a corner together, drank
together, gave each other a light for the pipes which they smoked, and
quarreled with a fraternal regard.
[Sidenote: THE RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE.]
One was an old man with a grey moustache, an Orangeman, who had been
in America in the old days when Virginia and South Carolina ruled the
Senate of the republic, and since then he had been a correspondent by
turns for some of the London newspapers abroad, and again a literary
hack for the shabby sheets that are read in the obscure holes of the
city. His friend was a much younger man, full blooded, and a thorough
Irish Nationalist, although he disclaimed Fenianism. He was a reporter,
and had an extensive knowledge of his professional associates on the
London press. His name was Fitzgerald, and his venerable friend was
known as Dawson. The German of the profound intellect was called Meyer,
or Herr Meyer. The names of the French dandies I have forgotten; they
were but poor specimens, and did not furnish any entertainment during
the evening.
There were two reporters of the morning press at this feast of reason
and flow of beer, but they did not contribute much amusement to the
party, as they were discussing the respective rates of salaries on the
_Daily Bludgeon_ and the _Morning Budget_ during the entire evening's
conversation. The two Irishmen were perpetually at loggerheads about
politics, "Fitz" being a Radical, Dawson a Conservative Churchman of
the old school. Occasionally they gave each other the lie, and then I
expected to see them striking out at each other; but in three minutes
after they would vow eternal friendship, and shake each other's hand
with great warmth. The name of the artist was Sullivan. Sullivan hailed
the head clerk with great feeling, and as he sat down there was a drink
all around.
"Well, old Cockerell," said the vivacious Fitz, "how is Slogger's book
getting on with yeer people?"
"It 'ill soon be published. We have it on hand now, and expect to sell
twenty thousand copies. The pictures will sell it alone, although, I
must say, Slogger's text is very good for his subject. We are getting
all the trade now. Every fellow that thinks he can scribble comes to
us, and the big fish are also in our net. Murray must have been cut
up pretty bad to find Gladstone leaving him and going to McMillan. It
all comes of having a magazine. A publishing house that can command
the columns of a well circulated magazine can print as many books as
they like, and, what is better, they can sell them. Our house does the
heavy flash business, and it pays well. Old 'Swoslam' is a keen blade,
and is always on the lookout for a novelty. McMillan has sold, I'm
told, four editions of their magazines having the Byron article. Well,
old fellow, how are you (to Sullivan), and what are you doing?"
"I'm fhoine, me dharling, and me appetite is just as good as ever, but
me powers of dhrinking are failing fast. As for what I'm doing, Miss
Sthabber has got me to make pictures for her new novel, which she got a
hundred and fifty pounds for in the 'Thames Mag.,' and now she is going
to publish it in book form. It's a nice title she has for it, 'The Red
Divil of the Yallow Mountin; or, the Ghost of the Place de Greve.' I
sometimes think the woman is going crazy whin she sinds for me in the
mornin' to talk to her about her new books down Brompton way, where
she lives. I generally find her in bed with a decanther of brandy,
a pot of coffee, and a square box of cigarettes by her bedside on a
table. 'Soolivan,' said she, 'I want two Convent scenes in the sixth
chapter; a rocky pass, with a skeleton standing in the middle of the
gap, his grisly arms outstretched, for the ninth chapter; and in the
fifteenth chapter you must give me a powerful tableoo where the chief
butler is discovered in the room off the banquetting hall poisoning his
misthresses's wine.
"'For the details I'll trust to your powerful Irish imagination; and
now, Soolivan, you low blackguard, turn your back and help yourself to
the brandy while I'm putting on me wrapper, as I don't wan't you to be
making fancy pictures of 'Vanus going to the Bath,' or any such gammon
as that, for pot-houses, with the great female London novelist--I
believe that's what they call me, isn't it, Soolivan?--as an original.'
Indade, I think that Miss Sthabber is more nor half mad, but I must say
that she is the divil at plots and incidents, and she drinks excellent
brandy."
[Sidenote: THE SHORT-HAND REPORTER.]
"Stabber is a clever woman," said Cockerell, the head clerk. "Whackem &
Co., Paternoster Row, sold thirty-two thousand copies of her 'Blue-Eyed
Demon' in three months, and she refused £950 for it from an Edinburgh
house, so Whackem must have given her more. By the way, do any of
your fellows know the name of this man who has written the last new
novel 'Girded with Steel?' I fancy he must be one of your newspaper
fellows, because he has a lot of stuff in it about 'leader writing,'
'my note-book,' 'two columns is more than earthquake should be allowed
in a newspaper,' and there are, besides, the details of editorial life
which an outsider could not know. Who is he?"
"Oh, he's a young reporter on the _Omniverous Clam_, but I could
not give his name on a pint of honor," said Fitz. "He's a clever
chap, though, and will make his way. He's only been two years in the
professhion, and he's the best short-hand man on the _Clam_ now, so
maybe you know who I mean now."
"It's Billingsgate," said one.
"No, it's Gravelly," said another.
"Boys, ye are not right; it's Goby, and he's five hundred and fifty
pounds the betther of it, which is a nice little lump for a reporther
who gets five guineas a week, and has to work like a horse for that in
the session," said Fitzgerald.
"Reporthers have harder work now then they had whin I first went in
the Gallery," said old Dawson. "Me father, as yez know, boys, was a
reporther before me; and I might say it runs in the family. Ah! thim
were good times, boys, when the ould man did his short-hand wurruk. He
knew all the great reporthers of the day; and fine fellows they were,
too. There was William Radcliffe, the husband of the woman who wrote
all the bloodthirsty novels. Radcliffe was a mimry reporther, and he'd
go to the House and sit the debates out, and nivir take a note at all,
at all. Then he'd go to the office and dictate two different articles
at a time to the juniors who took it all down, and out it came,
sphick-and-sphan, in the morning, without a flaw.
"Then there was another grate fellow, ould Billy Woodfall, who had a
paper of his own called the _Diary_; and that was before the House
allowed the reporthers to take notes during the debates. They used
to call him "Mimory Woodfall," because he'd never forget anything
that he had heard; and when strangers would come from the country to
visit the House the first questions they would ask would be, 'Which
is Woodfall?' 'Which is the Sphaker?' Me fawther told me many a story
about him. He had a fashion of bringing hard-boiled eggs with him,
which he carried in his hat, and whin he came to the House he'd take
off his hat carefully, put it between his knees, take the eggs out,
keeping his head well down for fear the Sargint-at-Arrums would see him
eating, and then he'd brake the shells and eat the eggs with as great
relish as if they were game pies. A reporther on an opposition paper
wanted to play a joke on Billy one night, and when he laid his hat down
he took the two hard-boiled eggs out and put two in the hat that had
nivir been boiled at all, and when Billy wint to crack the shells the
yoke sphattered all over his breeches, bedad, so it did. Billy nivir
forgave the joke until the day of his death. Woodfall did all his own
reporthin', and the _Diary_ did well for a time, until the _Morning
Chronicle_ started in opposition, with Perry at the head of it. Perry
hired a lot of reporthers to take notes of the debates and write them
out, and by the time that Woodfall had his notes written out, the
_Chronicle_ was selling in every sthreet in London; and that was what
took all the wind out of poor Billy's sails."
"Perry was a foine reporther himself, and when the House was thrying
Admiral Palliser and Admiral Keppel for their loives, Perry'd send in
eight or ten colyums every week of the debates, without any assistance;
but, bedad, we wouldn't think much of that now. Woodfall used to say,
in a joking way, that 'he had been fined by the House of Commons,
confined by the House of Lords, fined and confined by the Coort of
King's Binch, and indicted in the Ould Bailey,' for his offinces. Oh,
them were foine times, bedad, whin you could go in and get yer nice
chop and yer glass of sherry, or a sweet little sthake fresh from the
rump, and maybe have the Juke of Wellington and George Canning sitting
at the same table wid ye; and they'd be at the chops and sthakes too."
[Sidenote: A SONG FROM THE SPEAKER.]
"Dawson, me boy, tell us about Mark Supple and the Quaker, and take
another jugfull of beer to wet yer whistle," said the artist, who had
just withdrawn his nose from the pewter pot which he was now sadly
contemplating in its mournful emptiness.
"Oh! is it Supple ye mane, Jimmy. I'll tell ye all about him, yer
riverence, and I'll take a pint of sthout to strinthin' me nerves afore
I begin. Ye see," said Dawson, after he had taken a long pull at the
mug, "Mark was fondher of a joke than he was of his breakfast. He was a
good reporther, too, and liked a little dhrop now and thin, like more
of his counthrymin, God forgive thim. One night Mark was in the gallery
reporthing for the _Morning Chronicle_, when Mr. Addington was the
Sphaker. Mark was a big, raw-boned native of sweet Tipperary, and was
fond of hearing a song at all times. He used to take a glass of wine
or two in Bellamy's, and thin go up in the gallery and take out his
note-book and whack away with the pot-hooks and colophons. Mark was a
foine scholar and a janius. They say he'd dhress up a mimbir's speech,
and put retterick and flowers and poethry into a dull six-mile oration,
and it used to puzzle the mimbirs so that they would hardly know their
own words again. Of course, they all liked Mark, and he sometimes took
a good dale of freedom with thim.
"He had a mighthy quare style intirely with him, and an English mimbir
who was fond of a joke, like Mark's self, said that Mark's style
of reporthin' was 'a mixture of the hyperbolical, with a vane of
Orientalism and a dash of the bog-throtter.' They are quick enough, God
knows, to sneer about the poor bog-throtters. Well, this night was a
quiet one in the House. A number of the mimbirs were asleep, some were
nodding, some were at their dinners; and when Mark looked down from the
gallery the Sphaker, Mr. Addington, had nothing to do, and there was a
silence in the House so that you might have heard a pin dhrop. All at
once Mark called out in a reckless loud voice:
"'A song from Mr. Sphaker.'
"You can imagine the horror of Mr. Addington as he stood up, his tall,
thin figure stretched to its full linth, and his peevish eyes scanning
the House from top to bottom. Every one roared out laughing, and
William Pitt had the tears sthraming down his ould, withered cheeks.
After a while the House recovered its gravity, or rather its stupidity,
and the Sarjint-at-Arrums began his search for the man who had hallooed
in the sacred place. He went up among the reporthers, who all knew the
offindhir; but none of the boys would tell on Mark, who was well liked;
and, bedad, the Sarjint-at-Arrums was bursting his skin with rage.
Seeing that he could not get any information, he turned to Mark, who
was looking as solemn as a toomstone, and asked him if he knew who had
called for a song.
"Mark purtended that he was very busy with his pencils, and, nivir
sayin' a wurd, pointed his finger to a fat Quaker who sat asleep, two
or three seats off, with his hands clasped quietly over the pit of
his stomach. The Quaker was seized in a minute, and given into the
custody of the House, vainly declaring his innocence, and was kept
in confinement two hours, until Mark, in a manly way, acknowledged
his crime, and was put in the Quaker's place, to meditate on his
foolishness. He was brought to the Bar of the House thin, and let off,
whin he promised to do betther in the future, and nivir call upon the
Sphaker for another song."
"Tell us about Supple and Wilberforce, Dawson," said Fitzgerald to the
veteran.
"Oh, that wasn't Supple that played the thrick on Wilberforce: that was
Pether Finnerty," said Dawson. "Pether was on the _Chronicle_; and one
night, when the House was full of business, Pether sat drinking too
long in Bellamy's and lost his turn. When he got into the House, he
asked some of the boys, who had been sphakin'? One of them who had been
present told Pether that Wilberforce had been sphakin' for an hour.
"'What did he say?' says Pether.
"'Take out yer book, and I'll give it to ye, me boy, in a jiffy,' says
the other. Pether was so far gone that he would have made Wilberforce
say anything, however ridiculous, and when the other reporther began as
follows, he did not see the joke:
[Sidenote: THE BEAUTIFUL POTATO.]
"'Potatoes make men healthy, vigorous, and active; but, what is still
more in their favor, they make men tall'--
"Did he say that, the jewel?" said Pether, who was touched with this
tribute to the esculent of his native isle.
"I'll give you my word, he said it,--'and when I look around this
house, and see before me such fine, vigorous specimens of Irish
manhood, all reared on the potato, and think of my own stunted, weak
figure and attenuated frame, I must always regret and lament that my
parents did not foster me on that fragrant and genial vegetable, the
beautiful potato.'"
"'Oh! murther!' said Pether; 'but Wilberforce is the fine fellow to use
such poetical language;' and off he wint to the _Chronicle_ office to
write out his notes. And the next morning there it was--the thribute
to the potato and all the rest of it--and all London was laughing at
Wilberforce, and every one believed that he was drunk when he spoke the
words. The next day Pether was brought before the bar of the House to
stand his trial, and Wilberforce rose and said:
"'Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen: Were I capable of using such language
as was attributed to me in a morning journal, in its reports of
yesterday's debates, I would be unworthy of the attention which I now
claim from this House and unfit to occupy a seat in this honorable
body. Rather would I be worthy of a straight-jacket in a lunatic
asylum, where I might learn better sense of the dignity of this House.'
Pether was let off, like Mark Supple, and he was ever afterwards very
careful in his reports. But the joke stuck to Wilberforce's coat for
many a long day afther."
By this time the greater part of the Bohemians had left for their
homes, and after a song and a few more stories from Fitz and Sullivan,
the erratic band broke up, and the tap-room was deserted. Such was
the scene--a singular one--which occurs in the old dingy Public House
night after night among the wandering journalists and penny-a-liners
of the London press and their associates of kindred professions. The
old, haunted Public could tell many a ludicrous story of a like kind
had it a tongue to speak--of the amusing, wandering, never-do-well Free
Lances, of the Press, who find food and clothing, and a good deal to
drink, by their ephemeral contributions to the journalistic and light
literature of England's metropolis.
In addition to the "Carlisle Arms" there is another resort of the
higher class of writers, authors, and artists, in the neighborhood
of the theatres, and this place is known to those who frequent it as
the "Albion." At the Albion, there is an excellent restaurant, and
well-cooked viands, and wines of the best quality, may be obtained
there at reasonable prices. Choice little dinners, illuminated by wit
and humor, are given here by journalists to each other.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIII.
TOWER, PALACE, AND PRISON.
THE sun has risen and set for a thousand years on its gray walls; the
grime and verdure of a thousand years have cemented its hoary stones;
nations have grown and decayed; dynasties have been founded and wrecked
irretrievably; a New World has been discovered, and inventive genius
has almost changed the face of the earth and yet the Tower of London,
(cemented by the blood of beasts, as the fable has it,) which saw the
beginning and progress of these changes, still endures, and will no
doubt endure to the end of time.
[Illustration: TOWER OF LONDON.]
It seems a long, long time ago, that bleak Christmas day of the year
800, when the Pope of Rome placed the Iron Crown of Lombardy upon the
annointed head of Charlemagne under the dome of St. Peter's, amid the
huzzas of the multitude of Frankish warriors and barons who witnessed
the sacred ceremony, and yet far back in that nearly barbarous age, the
chroniclers tell us in their scholastic volumes of the monasteries,
that a Tower existed in London and on the same spot where now the
wardens patrol in their red tunics and explain historical conundrums to
dull Cockneys.
And some of the chroniclers go farther back and profess to believe that
the Tower is as old as the Roman occupation of Britain, and do not
hesitate to say that Julius Cæsar, who has been accused of so many good
and bad deeds, was the founder of the old forbidding pile of masonry.
Be that as it may, it is old enough to have earned a lasting infamy,
only once deserved in history by another grim fortress,--its twin
brother and accomplice in blood and oppression, the Bastile Of Paris.
That foul excresence on the fair face of the Earth has been swept away
by the stormy sea of a people's vengeance, while the Tower of London
still remains as a lesson of tradition, to tell of the crimes that God
has permitted kings and dwellers in high places to perpetrate against
the people, who have suffered and died and made no sign.
The charge to see the Tower of London is only sixpence in these days,
and for a sixpence a visitor may see everything; dungeon and trap door,
axe and scaffold, crown jewels and prison bars, the cages and the
dungeons and graves of those who suffered and died here during the long
night of centuries,--and all this for a paltry sixpence.
Amid the tramp and thunder of a hundred battles it has stood unshaken;
it is too strong for the destroying hand of man; and time, as if in
reverence, has trod lightly as he has stepped over its massive walls.
I saw its towers; four of them, standing up against the sky, bellshaped
and surmounted by weather vanes, one day from London Bridge, and having
a curiosity to see a structure, which even more than Westminster Abbey
is coeval with authentic history, I walked slowly to Tower Hill, passed
along the firm drawbridge, paid a sixpence and entering under the
spiked portcullis, I found myself in the Lion Tower which stands at the
corner of the moat or Tower ditch facing the Thames.
[Sidenote: DELIVERING THE KEYS.]
The extent of the Tower within the walls is twelve acres and five
roods. The exterior circuit of the ditch--now a garden, or rather an
apology for a garden--surrounding it, is three thousand one hundred
and fifty-six feet. On the river side is a broad and handsome wharf or
graveled terrace, separated by the ditch from the fortress and mounted
with sixty pieces of ordnance, which are fired on the royal birthdays,
or in celebration of any remarkable event. From the wharf into the
Tower is an entrance by a drawbridge. Near it is a cut or short canal
connecting the river with the ditch, having a water entrance called
the "Traitor's Gate,"--State Prisoners having been formerly conveyed
by this passage to Westminster, where the two Houses of Parliament now
sit, for trial. Over the Traitor's Gate is a building containing the
waterworks which supply the interior with water.
Within the walls of the fortress are several streets. The principal
buildings which it contains are the White or principal Tower, the
ancient Chapel of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, the Ordnance-Office, the Record
Office, the Jewel's House, the Stone Armory, the Grand Storehouse,
and the Small Armory, besides the house belonging to the Constable
of the Tower and other officers, the barracks of the garrison, and
the sutler's shops, commonly used by the soldiers. It is generally a
regiment of the line which serves as a garrison for the tower.
The principal entrance to the Tower is to the west. It consists of two
gates on the outside of the ditch, a stone bridge built over the ditch,
and a gate at the end of the bridge.
These gates are opened every morning with a strange, and for the
Nineteenth century, a very fantastical ceremony.
The Yeoman-Porter with a sergeant and six men march to the Governor's
house for the keys.
Having received them, he proceeds to the innermost gate, and passing
that, it is again shut. He then opens the three outermost gates at
each of which the guards rest their firelocks while the keys pass and
repass. The gravity with which the guards perform this ceremony, and
the nice precision with which they manoeuvre, is calculated to make
everybody but an Englishman laugh.
On the return of the Yeoman-Porter to the innermost gate, he calls to
the warden on duty to take the Queen's keys, when they open the gates,
and the keys are placed in the warden's hall.
At night the same formality is used in shutting the gates; and as the
Yeoman-Porter and the guard, return with the keys to the Governor's
house the main guard which, with its officers, is under arms,
challenges him saying:
"Who comes there?"
He answers:
"The Keys."
The challenger replies:
"Pass Keys."
The guards by order rest their firelocks and the Yeoman-Porter says:
"God save the Queen."
The soldiers then answer back:
"Amen."
The bearer of the keys then proceeds to the Governor's house and there
leaves them.
After they are deposited with the Governor no person can enter or leave
the Tower without the watchword for the night. If any person obtains
permission to pass, the Yeoman-Porter attends him and the same ceremony
is repeated.
The Tower is governed by its constable, called the Constable of the
Tower, and the Chief Nobleman or principal person next to the blood
royal, not including the Archbishop of Canterbury, is chosen to hold
this office by the Queen. At coronations and other state ceremonies
this officer has the custody of and is responsible for the regalia.
Under him is a lieutenant, deputy-lieutenant, commonly called governor,
a fort-major, gentleman porter, yeoman porter, gentleman gaoler, four
quarter-gunners, and forty warders. The warder's uniform is the same as
that of the Queen's Guards, or Beef Eaters.
It is rarely that the Tower is used as a State Prison, in these days.
When prisoners are detained here, by application to the Privy Council
they are usually permitted to walk on the inner platform during part of
the day, accompanied by a warder.
[Sidenote: IN THE LION'S MOUTH.]
The fire which took place toward the winter of 1841 destroyed a great
portion of the grand armory, and materially altered the features of
the Tower. The armory, said to have been the largest in Europe, was
three hundred and forty-five feet in length, and was formerly used as
a storehouse for the artillery train, until the stores were removed
to Woolwich. A very large number of chests with arms ready for any
emergency were in a part of the room which had been partitioned off;
and in the other part a variety of arms were arranged in elegant and
fanciful devices.
A fearful destruction of property, at once curious and valuable, took
place in this department; but one beautiful piece of workmanship being
preserved.
This was the famous brass gun taken from Malta by the French in 1798,
and sent with eight banners which hung over the gun, to the French
Directory by General Bonaparte, in _La Sensible_, from which vessel it
was captured by the English man-of-war, _Seahorse_.
In the Lion Tower, at the entrance, were kept the wild beasts in the
olden times, for the amusement of such monarchs as James I, who was too
cowardly to look upon any strife but that of chained or caged animals.
Here were kept lions, tigers, bears and bulls, wild boars, dogs and
fighting cocks. About one hundred and fifty years ago a young girl who
was employed as servant by one of the keepers, being of a rather bold
and courageous temper, she took pleasure now and then in feeding the
lions, and with great imprudence one day ventured to be a little more
familiar than usual with the king of beasts, relying upon his gratitude
because she was in the habit of feeding the animals. This time she went
too close to the cage of the lion, who caught hold of her arm and tore
it from the shoulder like a shred of rotten cloth, and before any one
could come to her assistance, he gave her a terrible gripe and killed
her instantly.
Another individual who had charge of the lions and fed them had a very
narrow escape from their claws, and he has related his story as follows:
"'Twas our custom," he says, "when we cleansed the lion's den to drive
them down over night into a lower place in order to rise early in the
morning and refresh their day apartments by cleaning them out; and
having through a mistake, and not forgetfulness, left one of the trap
doors unbolted which I thought I had carefully secured, I came down
in the morning before daylight, with my candle and lantern fastened
before me to my button, with my implements in my hands to despatch
my business, as was usual, and going carelessly into one of the dens,
a lion had returned through the trap door, and lay couchant in the
corner of the den, with his head toward me. The sudden surprise of
this terrible sight brought me under such dreadful apprehension of the
danger I was in, that I stood fixed like a statue, without the power
of motion, with my eyes steadfast upon the lion and his likewise fixed
upon mine.
"I expected nothing but to be torn to pieces every moment, and was
fearful to attempt one step back, lest my endeavor to shun him might
have made him the more eager to hasten my destruction. At last he
roused himself, as though to have a breakfast off me; yet, by the
assistance of Providence, I had the presence of mind to keep steady in
my posture, for the reasons before mentioned.
"He moved toward me, but without expressing in his countenance either
greediness or anger; but, on the contrary, wagged his tail, signifying
nothing but friendship in his fawning behavior; and after he had stared
me a little in the face, he raises himself up on his two hindmost feet,
and laying his two fore paws upon my shoulders, without hurting me,
fell to licking my face, as a further instance of his gratitude for
my feeding him, as I afterwards conjectured; though then I expected
every moment that he would have stripped my skin, as a poulterer does a
rabbit, and have cracked my head between his teeth, as a monkey does a
walnut.
"His tongue was so very rough, that with the few favorite kisses he
gave me, it made my cheeks almost as rough as a pork griskin, which
I was very glad to take in good part without a bit of grumbling, and
when he had thus saluted me and given me his sort of welcome to his
den, he returned to his place and laid him down, doing me no further
damage; which unexpected deliverance occasioned me to take courage,
that I shrunk back by degrees till I recovered the trap door, through
which I jumped and pulled it after me, thus happily through an especial
Providence, I escaped the fury of so dangerous a creature."
[Sidenote: THE BISHOP OF DURHAM A PRISONER.]
The Tower was for many hundreds of years an object of suspicion to the
good citizens of London, who deemed the massive fortress a standing
threat against their rights and privileges. Whenever a monarch wished
to wrest concessions from the Londoners, to wring a large sum of
money from their fears, or commit some other act of despotism, it
was customary, just previous to the attempt against the people, to
strengthen the Tower in its weakest part, and a ditch, or a wall, or
a bastion was constructed, to enable the Governor or Constable of the
Tower to hold the fortress for his Lord the King, in case the citizens
should resist the attempt on their purses or their liberties.
How little the gaping Cockneys and bulbous-eyed rustics, who stroll
around through the different apartments of this mighty castle, know or
even dream of the great deeds, terrible crimes, and high resolves of
those who have inhabited this Tower of London during a thousand years
of its most eventful and troubled history.
[Illustration: TRAITOR'S GATE.]
One dark night during the first years of the reign of Henry I, before
the Traitor's Gate had attained such a terrible fame as it afterward
obtained from the number of the victims who have passed under its grimy
arch, never to pass out except to the block on Tower Hill, a shallop
with two men whose arms lie between their feet at the bottom of the
boat, and a third whose arms are bound, stops at the wall where the
Water Gate is now shown, and in reply to the summons of one of the
armed men, the portcullis is hoisted, and Ralph Flambard, the fighting,
choleric, and rebellious Bishop of Durham, passes under the arch a
prisoner to the King, and the massive iron gates, rusty even then, are
shut firmly ere the sound of the boat's oars have been heard by the
wardens in the Inner Tower.
In a few days he makes a number of friends among the officials of the
Tower by his merry temperament, and as state prisoners were always
allowed to furnish their own tables in the fortress, the jolly bishop
has many a heavy carouse. Tun after tun of hippocras, canary, and sack
is conveyed to him, and he dispenses those medieval beverages to the
knights and men-at-arms--pages and guards, with no stinted measure.
One evening the Bishop receives a long and strong coil of rope in a
puncheon of Malmsley, and that very night, after he had drank all the
knights, men-at-arms and wardens under the oaken tables, the jolly
bishop flies to the ramparts, lowers himself down into the ditch, and
like the plucky prelate that he was, escapes from Henry's wrath.
One fine summer day when Henry III is King of England, Cardinal
Pandulph, the Legate of the Pope, presents himself and a long train of
attendants, with sumpter and service mules, at the land postern of the
Tower, and after a loud flourish of trumpets to announce his arrival,
the Cardinal is admitted to the presence of the King; and throws a bag
of Rose nobles on the table before the young monarch, for in those
days the Majesty of Britain did not scorn to borrow 200 marks of
Cardinal Pandulph, and one hundred marks of Henry, Abbot of St. Albans.
The money market was very tight in those days, and Kings often held
dealings with pawn-brokers, for we find Henry VIII pledging or melting
down nearly all the crown regalia to satisfy his creditors.
[Sidenote: COUNCIL CHAMBER OF THE TOWER.]
There is an apartment of very large and fine proportions in the third
story of the White or Main Tower, supported by two rows of beams. The
timber ceiling is flat, and the walls are pierced with windows on one
side and heavy arches appear on the other side; the whole structure
being of the rudest construction, yet grand looking withal; and this
is the great Council Chamber of the Tower, in which some of the most
startling and memorable scenes in English history have occurred.
It is Monday, September 29, 1399. The day, which was overcast in the
early morning, has turned out fair and bright, and the Council Chamber
and all the approaches to it are crowded with the highest nobles,
temporal and spiritual, in the land; steel clad knights, mitred abbots,
proud bishops, grave judges in cap and ermine, peers and lackeys, stand
on the stairs and in the ante-rooms, to catch a word or get a look at
the coming grand historical farce which is to end at last in a terrible
tragedy.
It is the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, and as the sun streams
through the stained glass of the oriel windows, and the shouts of the
London prentices at their games of ball, are wafted to the warder on
the battlements, who carries his partisan to and fro; a deputation
from each house of Parliament, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and other great Nobles, enters the
Council Chamber to hold a conference with the reigning Monarch Richard
II, now about to resign his Crown to the Protector Bolingbroke, who
afterward as Henry IV, will encounter more vicissitudes and suffering
than the monarch he is about so cruelly to depose.
The nobles seat themselves, the Protector enthrones himself, and a
ghastly figure, that of Richard II, stalks moodily into the Chamber,
clad in kingly robes, his sceptre in his hand, the Crown upon his head,
and there is silence for a moment among all present. Then Richard
says in a broken voice, but distinctly, "I have been King of England,
Duke of Aquitaine, and Lord of Ireland about twenty-one years, which
Seigneury, Royalty, Sceptre, Crown and Heritage, I now clearly resign
here to my cousin, Henry of Lancaster, and I desire him here, in
this open presence, in entering of the same possession, to take the
sceptre;" "and so," says Froissart, "he delivered it to the Duke, who
took it," and kept it, also, he might have added.
Before a year had elapsed the unfortunate monarch was put to death in
Pontefract Castle by order of his successor, Henry IV.
On a May day, in 1471, the streets of London resound with music, and
the populace are all in holiday attire to welcome Edward IV, who
returns victorious from the battle of Barnet, where he has slain, in
cold blood, Prince Edward, son to Henry VI, who is a prisoner in the
Tower. Next day Henry dies in a suspicious manner, and Edward has
leisure for a little while to found the Order of the Garter.
Edward dies, and he is not cold in his tomb before Richard III ascends,
or rather usurps the throne.
Edward has left two boys, the eldest of whom is lawful heir to the
Crown, by Elizabeth Wydville, his wife.
One dark night, the wind soughs in the trees and moans around the
battlements of the fortress, as two men, Miles Forest and John Dighton,
hired assassins, enter the sleeping chamber of the two young princes.
They steal to the bed, and having covered the mouths of the lads with
the bed-clothes and pillows, they throw their heavy bodies across the
couch. There are some faint, stifled moans, for a few minutes, and
then all is still but the mournful music of the storm without, for the
murderers have done their work but too well.
Sir James Tyrrell, who has been in waiting outside to see that the
bloody deed is accomplished, walks in, looks at the distorted features
of the children, gives an order in a whisper, and the still warm bodies
are carried out, and down a dark stone staircase, and are buried there
beneath a heap of stones to moulder till the Resurrection.
Here comes William Wallace, patriot and hero, to the Traitor's Gate, in
the year 1305, and after languishing in prison for months he is tied
to horses' tails and dragged forth, through Cheapside, and thence to
Smithfield, to die the death of a dog, his mutilated body being torn to
pieces in the presence of a noisy and hostile rabble.
[Sidenote: IMPRISONMENT OF ANNE BOLEYN.]
From this place, Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, is also dragged forth
to St. Giles, in the Fields, and having been hung up over a slow fire
by a chain from the middle of his body for two hours he is slowly
roasted to death. He was a follower of Wickliffe.
The Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV, is hurried to his death
in the Tower by Richard III, who orders him to be drowned in a huge
hogshead of sweet wine! A mode of death chosen, it is said, by the
victim himself in preference to any other.
The good and pious Sir Thomas Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, eighty years
of age, is imprisoned here, and is left to starve and rot in a dungeon
of this place of infamy. His misery is such that the man of God has
to write Secretary Cromwell, minister of Henry VIII: "Furthermore I
beseech you to be good, Master, in my necessity, for I have neither
shirt, nor yet other clothes, that are necessary for me to wear, but
that be ragged and rent too shamefully. Notwithstanding, I might easily
suffer that if they would keep my body warm. But God knoweth, also, how
slender my diet is at many times. And now, in mine old age, my stomach
may rot away but with a few kinds of meat, which if I want, I decay
forthwith."
When this God-fearing man was taken out to be beheaded, his bones
showed through his skin, and women wept and fell fainting at the cruel
sight.
In the Beauchamp Tower, at the very bottom or foundation, is a
subterraneous cell known as the "Rats' Dungeon," a hideous hell-hole,
below low-water mark, and dark as the despair of the human souls who
were confined there in the days when men were fond of cutting each
others' throats for conscience sake. At high water, thousands of rats
sought shelter in this dungeon until the floods subsided. Woe be to the
poor wretches there confined when the rats swarmed in, screaming like
human beings in agony.
In this den, prisoners were starved when the rack had failed to wring a
confession from them. Here all their shrieks and struggles were drowned
deep in this infernal hole with only the eye of the Almighty to look
upon the maddening horrors which the wretched prisoners had to endure
before Death came to relieve them.
One night with the rats was enough,--at break of day only a heap of
gnawed bones remained to tell the tale.
In one of the upper stories of the Tower there is an apartment with one
grated window and a rough oaken planked floor, where Anne Boleyn was
confined when her royal paramour had determined to send her neck to the
axe. The unhappy woman, as she passed through the Traitor's Gate, read
her fate in its dread aspect, and as she passed beneath its arch she
rose in the barge, fell on her knees and prayed God to have mercy on
her, and defend her from her Royal lover's rage. When she was shown her
apartment, its naked and forbidding aspect terrified her sore, and she
cried out in a maniacal frenzy, "It's too good for me, Jesu have mercy
upon me." Then she knelt down weeping and laughing like a mad woman.
When her head lay on the block the executioner was afraid to strike off
her head, as she refused to have her eyes bandaged, and at last he had
to take off his shoes, and cause another person to approach her while
he came from behind and clumsily hacked off her head.
When the Marchioness of Salisbury, an aged and venerable lady, was led
to execution, she stoutly declared she was not a traitor, and refused
to lay her head on the block, and the headsman was compelled to follow
her all around the scaffold, striking at her as if she was a bullock,
until finally her gray head was hacked off.
The Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of that name, having been
suspected of complicity in the hasty insurrection of Sir Thomas Wyatt,
she was committed to the Tower by order of her sister, Queen Mary.
As she passed under the Traitor's Gate, through which her mother, Anne
Boleyn, and Wyatt (who had fought for her) had preceded her, the proud
heart of Elizabeth failed her and she burst into tears. At first she
refused to get out of the boat, but seeing that force would be used,
she cried out to the rowers--
"Here landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed at
these stairs; and before Thee, oh God, I speak it, having no other
friend than Thee."
Proceeding up the stairs she seated herself, and being pressed by the
Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Thomas Brydges, to rise, she answered:
"Better sit here than on a worse place: for God knoweth and not I,
whither you will bring me."
She lived to be Queen of England, and the mercy which was shown to her
she refused to many a poor wretch, whose bones Elizabeth allowed to be
gnawed clean and bare in the "Rat's Dungeon."
One more scene of horror.
[Sidenote: LADY JANE GREY ON THE SCAFFOLD.]
As Lady Jane Gray passed out of the Tower by the postern gate to Tower
Hill, she beheld the headless corpse of her husband (who had just been
decapitated) carried out on a cart to be buried in the Tower chapel of
St. Peter-ad-Vincula.
"All, Guilford, Guilford," said she, "the ante-past is not so bitter
that thou hast tasted, and which I soon shall taste, as to make my
flesh tremble; it is nothing compared to the feast of which we shall
this day partake in Heaven."
Then she passed on to the scaffold.
When on the scaffold she turned to the crowd and said:
"And now good people all, while I am yet alive, I pray of you to assist
me with your prayers."
Then she knelt, and turning to Father Feckenham, the Queen's chaplain,
asked him:
"Shall I say this psalm?"
And Father Feckenham, who was afterwards Lord Abbot of Westminster,
answered:
"Yea."
Then she said the psalm _Miserere Mei Deus_ and stood up and gave her
book, gloves, and handkerchief to her two attendant ladies; and she
commenced to untie her gown.
The executioner said:
"Shall I assist you to disrobe, Lady Jane?"
She answered him quickly:
"Nay, leave me in peace," and her two ladies advanced and disrobed her.
The headsman then desired her to stand on the straw, after her ladies
had tied a kerchief about her eyes, and as she complied with his
request, she asked him:
"Will you dispatch me quickly? Will you take it off before I lay me
down?"
"No, Madam," said he to the last question.
Then Lady Jane felt for the block, her eyes being bandaged, and
groping, she said:
"Where is it? Where is it?"
Laying her head on the block, she said slowly:
"Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit," and at that instant, her
neck being bared, there was a glitter of steel, a dull thud, and her
head rolled in the sawdust.
The Jewels and Royal Regalia are kept in a glass case, well guarded by
a warden, who is never allowed to leave the apartment for an instant,
unless when relieved. There is a charge of sixpence extra to see the
Jewel House, and a constant stream of visitors may be found in this
part of the Tower, the ladies particularly taking a great interest in
the splendor of the royal treasures.
St. Edward's Crown, first worn by Charles II, has since his time been
worn by all the monarchs who have ascended the throne of Great Britain.
This is the identical crown stolen by the daring Col. Blood, and the
one which was placed on the head of Queen Victoria when she was crowned
in Westminster Abbey, nearly two hundred years after it was stolen. It
is a very magnificent one, surmounted with a cross of diamonds. The new
crown, made purposely for her Majesty, is also here, and is made of
purple velvet, hooped with silver, and richly adorned with diamonds.
The ruby in it is said to have been worn by Edward, the Black Prince,
five hundred years ago, and the sapphire in it is considered to be of
great value; the crown altogether is estimated to be worth £100,000.
King Edward's Crown is supposed to be worth at least £200,000.
[Sidenote: THE CROWN JEWELS.]
The Prince of Wales' Crown is formed of pure gold, without many
jewels, while that of the Queen's Consort, formerly worn by Prince
Albert, is enriched with pearls, diamonds and other precious stones,
and is worth about £80,000.
[Illustration: 1. Queen's Diadem. 2. Prince of Wales' Crown. 3. Old
Imperial Crown. 4. Queen's Crown. 5. Queen's Coronation Bracelets. 6.
Temporal Sceptre. 7. Spiritual Sceptre.]
The Queen's Diadem, valued at £75,000, was made for Maria d'Este, the
unfortunate Queen of James II, who stood cowering in the rain and
sleet, under the walls of Lambeth Church, that awful night when her
husband abdicated, and William, Prince of Orange, landed at Torbay.
Before James crossed the river at Westminster, to join his wife in
their flight from England, he threw the Great Seal of Britain into the
Thames.
St. Edward's Staff, a part of the regalia, is four feet seven inches
long, bearing at the top an Orb and Cross, the orb containing, it is
said, a portion of the Cross on which our Saviour died.
The Staff is made of beaten gold, to the bottom of which is fixed a
steel spike, no doubt intended for defence, as a strong arm would be
able to drive it through any assailant. Nothing is known authentically
of the history of this Staff, but it is supposed to date back as far as
the time of the Crusades, on account of the portion of the cross which
it is said to contain.
The Royal Sceptre is of gold, ornamented with precious stones; also
with the rose, shamrock, and thistle, emblematical of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, all in gold; the cross is richly jewelled, and
contains a large diamond in the centre; the length of the Sceptre is
two feet nine inches, and it is valued at £40,000.
The other jewelled articles of the regalia are valued at £300,000, and
are as follows:
The Rod of Equity is three feet seven inches in length, and is made
of gold set with diamonds. The Orb at the top is encircled with rose
diamonds, and in the cross, which surmounts it, stands the figure of
a dove with wings expanded. This is sometimes called the Sceptre with
the Dove. Another sceptre called the Queen's Sceptre with the Cross,
though much smaller, is very beautiful in design, and thickly set with
precious stones.
[Sidenote: IVORY SCEPTRE AND SWORDS OF JUSTICE.]
The Ivory Sceptre was made for Maria d' Este, and another sceptre,
found behind the wainscotting in the apartment in which the regalia was
kept, is said to have been made for the Queen of William III.
[Illustration: 1. Imperial Orb. 2. Golden Salt Cellar of State. 3.
Anointing Spoon. 4. Ampulla.]
There are also two other Orbs, well worthy of observation, as are also
the Swords of Justice, the Ecclesiastical and Temporal; and the Sword
of Mercy or the Curtana, as it is called. This is pointless, as so is
its title, which could have no point when the sword was wielded by an
English monarch.
Then there is the Ampulla, to hold the Holy Oil for anointing the
foreheads and palms of the hands and necks of sovereigns. It is said
that Queen Victoria dispensed with the anointing of her royal neck,
fearing that it might soil a very costly lace chemisette which she
wore at her coronation. The Ampulla is made in the shape of an eagle,
and the base holds the oil. Besides the jewels already mentioned,
there are several others, among which are the Armillae, or Coronation
Bracelets, made of gold and rimmed with pearls; the Coronation Spoon,
for pouring out the oil, which is very ancient; and the Golden Salt
Cellar, shaped like a castle, with Norman turrets, windows and doors.
Then there are other salt cellars, a baptismal font, where the royal
children are baptised, a silver wine fountain, and many other valuables
which I have not room or desire to enumerate. Altogether, the crowns,
diadems, sceptres and other articles of the regalia, are worth about
seven millions of dollars, and they are of no use whatever, excepting
for show.
[Illustration: STATE SALT CELLARS.]
It must be remembered that hundreds of people die annually of
starvation in London, while these jewels, valued at seven millions of
dollars, are growing rusty, and every shilling which bought these
jewels was wrung from the blood, labor, and misery of the ancestors of
the radical voters who compose the English Trade Unions, and follow the
standard of John Bright. A just and honest Parliament would order the
sale of these Crown jewels, and the sum realized might find many happy
homes in the New World for those who now starve in the rookeries and
lanes of London.
[Sidenote: A DESPERATE ADVENTURE.]
There is only one attempt to steal the English Crown Jewels, mentioned
in history, and that was a most audacious one, and planned with a skill
worthy of the man who made the attempt.
The robbery was committed by Col. Thomas Blood, in 1673.
He was a native of Ireland, born in 1628.
In his twentieth year he married the daughter of a gentleman of
Lancashire; then returned to his native country, and having served
there as a Lieutenant in the Parliamentary forces, received a grant of
land instead of pay, and was, by Henry Cromwell, son to Oliver, made
a Justice of the Peace. On the Restoration of Charles II, the Act of
Settlement, which deprived Blood of his possessions, made him at once
discontented and desperate. He first signalized himself by his conduct
during an insurrection set on foot to surprise Dublin Castle and seize
the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. This insurrection he
joined and became its leader; but it was discovered on the very eve of
execution, and was rendered futile.
Blood, who was neither afraid of man or devil, escaped the gallows, the
fate of some of his associates, and concealing himself among the native
Irish patriots in the mountains, and ultimately he escaped to Holland,
where he was favorably received by Admiral de Ruyter, the Dutch Nelson.
Always ready for battle and spoil, we next find him engaged with
the Covenanters in their rebellion in Scotland in 1666, when being
once more on the side of the losing party, he saved his life only by
stratagem.
Thenceforward Col. Blood appears only in the light of a mere
adventurer, bold and capable enough to do anything his passions might
instigate, and prepared to seize fortune where-ever he might find her,
without the slightest scruple as to the means employed. The death of
his friends in the Irish insurrection, seems to have left in Blood's
mind a great thirst for personal vengeance on the Duke of Ormond, whom
accordingly he seized on the night of December 6th, 1676, tied him on
horseback to one of his associates, and but for the timely aid of the
Duke's servant, would have hanged the astonished and paralyzed noble on
Tyburn Tree, where he attempted to convey him. The plan failed, but so
admirably had it been contrived that Blood remained totally unsuspected
as its author, although a reward of one thousand pounds was offered by
King Charles for the discovery of the attempted assassins.
He now opened to the same associates an equally daring but much more
profitable scheme, had it been successful: to carry off the Crown
Jewels. It was thus carried out--Blood one day came to see the Regalia,
dressed as a parson, and accompanied by a woman whom he called his
wife; the latter professing to be suddenly taken ill, was invited by
the keeper's wife into the adjoining apartment. Thus an intimacy was
formed which was so well improved by Blood, that he arranged a match
between a nephew of his and the keeper's daughter, and a day was
appointed for the young people to meet. At the appointed hour came
the pretended parson, the pretended nephew, and two others, armed
with rapier blades in their canes, daggers and pocket pistols--a nice
wedding party indeed.
[Sidenote: FAILURE TO GET A CROWN.]
One of the number made some pretence for staying at the door as a
watch, while the others passed into the Jewel house, the parson having
expressed a desire that the Regalia should be shown to his friends,
while they were waiting for the approach of Mrs. Edwards, the keeper's
wife, and her daughter. No sooner was the door closed than a cloak was
thrown over the old man and a gag was forced into his mouth; and thus
secured they told him their object, telling him at the same time that
he was safe if he kept quiet. The poor old man, however, faithful to
the trust imposed in him, exerted himself to the utmost in spite of the
blows they dealt him, till he was stabbed and became senseless. Blood
now slipped the Crown under his cloak, another secreted the Orb, and a
third, with great industry, was engaged in filing the Sceptre into two
parts, when one of those coincidences, which a novelist would hardly
dare to use, much less to invent, gave a new turn to the proceedings.
The keeper's son, who had been in Flanders, returned at this critical
moment. At the door he was met by an accomplice, stationed there as
a sentinel, who asked him with whom he would speak. Young Edwards
replied, "I belong to the house," and hurried upstairs; and the
sentinel, I suppose, not knowing how to prevent the catastrophe he must
have feared otherwise than by a warning to his friends, gave the alarm.
A general flight ensued, amidst which the robbers heard the voice of
the old keeper once more loudly shouting, "Treason! murder," which,
being heard by the young lady, who was waiting anxiously to see her
lover, she ran out into the open air, reiterating the same cry. The
alarm became general and outstripped the conspirators.
A warder first attempted to stop them, but being very fat, at the
charge of a pistol which was fired, he fell down without waiting to
know if he was hurt, and so they passed his post. At the next door,
Sill, a sentinel, not to be outdone in prudence, offered no opposition,
and they passed the drawbridge.
At St. Katharine's Gate their horses were waiting for them; and as they
ran along the Tower wharf they joined in the cry of "Stop the rogues,"
and so passed on unsuspected till Captain Beckman, a brother-in-law of
young Edwards, overtook the party.
Blood fired a pistol but missed the Captain, and was immediately made
prisoner.
The Crown was found under his cloak, which, prisoner as he was, he
would not yield without a struggle.
"It was a gallant attempt, however unsuccessful," were the witty and
ambitious fellow's first words; "it was for a Crown!"
Not the least extraordinary part of this affair was the subsequent
treatment of Col. Blood. Whether it was that Blood had frightened
Charles II, by his audacious threats of being revenged by his numerous
associates, in case of his death on the scaffold, or else captivated
him by his brilliant audacity and flattery combined, it is certain that
Blood, instead of being punished as he should have been, was rewarded
with place, power, and influence, at court. Instead of being sent to
the gallows, he was taken into especial favor, and all applications
through him to the King, for favors, were successful.
It is said that Blood had told the King that he had been engaged to
kill his Majesty, from among the reeds by the Thames' side, above where
Battersea Bridge now spans the river, but was deterred from the crime
by the air of Majesty which shone in the King's countenance.
What more delicate flattery could be administered to a King than this?
Blood died peaceably in his bed in the year 1680.
It was not to be expected that the notorious favoritism of the
King toward Blood should escape satirical comment, and the Earl of
Rochester, a shameless scoundrel himself, wrote, on the attempt to
steal the Crown:
"Blood, that wears treason in his face,
Villian complete in parson's gown,
How much he is at Court in grace
For stealing Ormond and the Crown!
Since loyalty does no man good
Let's steal the King, and outdo Blood."
Edwards and his son were awarded £300 by a not over generous
Parliament, but the delay in payment of the sum was such that Mr.
Edwards was compelled to sell his claim for £120 to a Jew. In this case
virtue had its own reward, but no other.
[Sidenote: BIRTH-PLACE OF WILLIAM PENN.]
On the neighboring Tower Hill, which is now covered by fine mansions,
and where the shaft has just been sunk, giving admission to the
Thames Subway under the River, in the old days of violence and blood,
many a noble head was brought to be hewed off by the executioner's
shining axe. Lady Raleigh lived here on Tower Hill after she had been
forbidden to visit her husband in the Tower. William Penn was born in
a little old house in a little old dusty court on Tower Hill, and it
was here that he first imbibed his horror of bloodshed and capital
punishment. At the "Bull," a public house on Tower Hill, on April 14,
1685, died Otway the poet, of starvation, and around the corner in a
cutler's shop, which is numbered with the things that were, Felton
bought a large jack-knife for ten-pence, with which he assassinated
the magnificent Duke of Buckingham. At No. 48 Great Tower street, is
situated the Tavern called the "Czar's Head," built on the site of
an old pot-house, in which the Emperor Peter the Great, and some low
companions, used to meet to drink fiery potations of brandy and smoke
clay pipes.
In the very same spot, where the scaffold was formerly erected, and
where the gouts of blood fell dripping from the severed necks of
victims of the axe, marine stores are now sold, and sea-biscuits,
pea-jackets, hour-glasses, and quadrants are offered for sale.
The scaffold was generally built on four strong posts with a platform,
five feet high, and in the centre of the platform was placed the block.
The victim was generally bound, unless by desire the binding was
omitted.
For the gratification of those curious in such matters, it may be
as well to give the bloody head roll of the most illustrious of the
victims executed on Tower Hill, and the date of their decapitation.
June 22, 1535, Bishop Fisher; July 6, 1535, Sir Thomas Moore; July 28,
1540, Cromwell, Earl of Essex; May 27, 1541, Margaret Pole, Countess of
Shrewsbury; Jan. 20, 1547, Earl of Surrey, the poet; March 20, 1549,
Thomas Lord Seymour, of Sudeley, by order of his brother, the Protector
Somerset, who was beheaded Jan. 22, 1552; Feb. 12, 1553-4, Lord
Guildford Dudley; April 11, 1554, Sir Thomas Wyatt; May 12, 1641, Earl
of Strafford; Jan. 10, 1644-5, Archbishop Laud; Dec. 29, 1680, William
Viscount Stafford, "insisting on his innocence to the very last;"
Dec. 7, 1683, Algernon Sydney; July 15, 1685, the Duke of Monmouth;
Feb. 24, 1716, Earl of Derwentwater and Lord Kenmuir; Aug. 18, 1746,
Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino; Dec. 8, 1746, Mr. Radcliffe, who had
been, with his brother, Lord Derwentwater, convicted of treason in
the Rebellion of 1715, when Derwentwater was executed; but Radcliffe
escaped, and was identified by the barber who, thirty-one years before,
had shaved him in the Tower. Mr. Chamberlain Clark, who died in 1831,
aged 92, well remembered (his father then residing in the Minories)
seeing the glittering of the executioner's axe in the sun as it fell
upon Mr. Radcliffe's neck. April 9, 1747, Simon Lord Lovat, the last
beheading in England, and the last execution upon Tower Hill, when a
scaffolding, built near Barking-alley, fell with nearly 1,000 persons
on it, and twelve were killed.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CADGERS OF LONDON BRIDGE.
AFTER leaving the Old Jewry Lane and passing up Cheapside, we came into
the Poultry just as the rain had ceased, and as great rifts in the
masses of fog were breaking through the opaque atmosphere. The Poultry
is a short street which runs up to the Mansion House, and during the
noon of the day is nearly impassable from the amount of traffic done
there. Now the shops were all closed, and the bell of St. Paul's rang
out for midnight, the echoes stealing over the city and the river in
a ghostly way that thrilled through the hearts of the pedestrians who
were darkness-bound in the streets. We passed through the Poultry into
King William street, and on past Cannon street, with its warehouses and
retail stores, by East Cheap, until we could see London Bridge, in all
its vastness, looming up like a sleeping giant, the dark arches girding
the river in seemingly everlasting bands.
The detective said: "Let's go down the stairs of the bridge and see
some of the characters that find board and lodging down the steps.
They're a hawful set, some on 'em."
The Thames lay at our feet, spread out like a map. The sky was
clearing, and the river was very quiet. Now and then the sullen waters,
driven in an eddy against the huge piers, could be heard plashing in
a secret, stealthy manner, and anon they would recede and come back
again, plash! plash! plash! All about us was so still; not a sound to
be heard as we leaned over one of the alcoves in the bridge. Below us,
to the left, the Catharine Docks, full of shipping; the London Docks,
full of shipping; Shadwell lined with lighter craft--all so still, and
the million of masts looking ghostly in the holy light of the midnight.
Over on the right, Bermondsey-way, more shipping--countless spars
pointing up to the midnight skies; the Pool choked with shipping--coal
barges, eel-boats, East India vessels, brigs and schooners, barks and
black-hulled packets, lying high in the water; flat-bottomed barges
for carrying sand and for dredging; the gray coping stones of the
Tower hanging over the water, and the stillness of death on noisy
Rotherhithe, and a pall over the immense West India docks.
This great river, this river of all the nations of the world, with
their tributes laid at her docks and their gifts on her broad
bosom--how quiet it is just now. A matchless stream for its congregated
wealth. Miles of warehouses, miles of stone docks, miles of shipping,
and thousands of seamen. And yet a dirty and turbid and ungrateful
river at times, when it overflows the fish-stalls, when it overflows
the high street in Wapping and drowns myriads of rats in Upper and
Lower Thames street.
[Sidenote: VAGRANCY AND PAUPERISM.]
We went down the "London Stairs." Every bridge that spans the Thames
has four stairs or flights of stone-steps running down to the water's
edge. These stone stairs are generally twenty or twenty-five feet
wide, and they run down, for a hundred broad, massive and capacious
steps, to where the tide comes in. There are turns in the stairs, and
stone platforms--where the magnificent stone embankment has not been
completed, as it is at Westminster Bridge down the river--under whose
vast arches hundreds of human beings find shelter from the inclemency
of the weather. I may say here that there is not such a city in the
world as London for vagrancy and vagabondism of the worst kind despite
the fact that there are 7,000 police in the metropolitan district;
and besides this force for prevention, the work-houses in the West
District, composing Kensington, Fulham, Paddington, Chelsea, St.
George's, Hanover Square, St. Margaret, and St. John, and Westminster,
furnish in and out door relief to 18,000 persons. Marylebone,
Hampstead, St. Pancras, Islington, and Hackney, in the North District,
provide for 24,820 persons. St. Giles, St. George, Bloomsbury, the
Strand, Holborn, and City of London, in the Central District, provide
for 19,127 persons. Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, St. George
in the East, Stepney, Mile End Town, and Poplar, provide for 28,713
persons, in the East District. In the Southern District, St. Saviour,
Southwark, Rotherhithe, and Bermondsey; in St. Olave's, Lambeth,
Wandsworth, and Clapham, Camberwell, Greenwich, Woolwich, and Lewisham,
there is provision for 38,487 persons. Here we have a total of 128,880
men, women, and children, occupants of the union work-houses of the
metropolis of London, with a population of less than three and a half
millions. Besides this number, there are thousands of casuals who
receive lodgings in the work-houses; and outside this fearful aggregate
there are roaming in and about London at least 15,000 vagrants--or, as
they would be called in America, "bummers"--who do not frequent the
work-houses from various reasons, and consequently have to "bunk out,"
as we would call it in New York.
At the bottom of some of the bridges there are heaps of rubbish and old
rotting planking, some of which rubbish is carried off when the tide
leaves the stones of the bridges. Then there are old boat-houses, and
rows of long, stout-built boats for hire; but at night there are no
persons to watch these boats, and they are used as berths to sleep in
by the vagrant vagabonds who haunt the recesses of the bridges. When
the tide recedes in the Thames, it generally leaves a space of twenty
to two hundred feet of the inshore bottom of the river bare on the
Surrey side, and this is generally a soft, drab-looking mud, with a
treacherous look, where man or beast might be swallowed up without any
warning. When the detective and I went down into the dark recesses of
London Bridge, that night, the river was at the flood, and the rubbish
was being carried away by the incoming tide. This was on the Surrey
side of the river. There were about a dozen persons beneath the first
archway, making, in fact, a perfect gypsy encampment. Eight of these
persons were of the male sex, and beside these there were two old
haggard-looking women and a grown girl of twenty years or thereabouts,
and a child of ten years, in all the glory of rags and destitution.
The oldest man in the party might have been fifty years of age, and
the others were younger, one of them being a stout, able-bodied young
fellow of eighteen or nineteen. Some of the party were asleep, and were
snoring most comfortably, as the rain did not penetrate to their place
of sleeping; but every few minutes a gust of wind came howling down the
river and burst through the arches with a mad fury, making the sleepers
turn uneasily on the stone steps.
[Illustration: THE CADGER'S MEAL.]
The old fellow, who seemed to be a confirmed vagrant, from his slouchy
look and greasy, unpatched clothes, had built a small fire of the
refuse which abounded in the arches, and he was drying pieces of
driftwood that had floated from the scaffolding on the new Blackfriar's
Bridge down the river. He was warming his hands and slapping them, and
the little girl of ten years was stooped over the fire, toasting an
enormous potato on the end of a splinter of wood.
[Sidenote: THE LOST GIRL.]
"What are you herding here for, Prindle," said the detective to the old
fellow, who looked up in a morose way and muttered something under his
teeth which sounded like "D----n the bobbies."
"I'm a trying to get somethink to heat. Vy vill yer foller a cove
everywheres as wants to get a mouthful to heat. I haint done nothink as
should bring you here arter me. I'm not hon the pad now hany more."
"I don't want yer pertikler, I don't; but stop yer jaw and keep a civil
tongue in yer head, will ye," said the sergeant. "Whose gal is that ere
a toasting the taty with the skiver?"
"I'm blessed hif I knows whose gal it his. Ye don't suppose that I'm
the man as makes the Post-hoffice Di-rek-te-ree. She haint mine, I
know, cos I'm not a fool, nor never vos, to have any children. I must
say she is werry 'andy at the taties when a feller wants to get some
winks. But, I say, you got nothink aginst me from the Beak, 'ave you?"
"No, I have nothing against you just at this partickler moment, but
I dunno how soon I'll have," said the sergeant. "But I have brought
a gentleman here who wants to get some information about this 'ere
precious family of yours, and how you contrive to live, and I want you
to answer him civilly, or I may find something against you that would
hurt your tender feelings, you know."
"He wants some hinformation habout me and my family, does he? That's
a precious lark, that is. Why doesn't he stay in his bleeding bed and
cover his nose hup in the sheets. I never asked 'im about his familee,
as I knows on. Wot a werry pecoolier taste he has, to be sure. Maybe
he's one of them rummaging Paper chaps as is halways a torkin about
the rights and dooties of the vorkin' classes, and is a-ruinin' of the
country's blessed prosperity?"
"Father, answer the man civilly, will ye. Yer halways a-making trouble
for yourself by yer bad tongue, and it does other people harm as well
as yourself. Tell him wot you have got to tell, and he'll go away."
This was said by the young girl, who now came forward and stood looking
at the old man eagerly. She was robed in an old calico gown, rather
tattered at the bottom, and quite besmirched with the washings of the
Thames mud which had clung to the stone stairs of the bridge. The girl
was well formed and tall, and her dress hung from a good figure. Her
eyes were black and glittering, and her bold, coarse, handsome face
was seared with the traces of evil passions, hardship, and reckless
despair. The girl's face told her story before she had spoken.
Childhood and girlhood reeking with the foulness of the gutters, and
then the matured woman a castaway in the deadly miasma of the London
slums.
"There, aint that a precious daughter for a loving father like me. Oh,
she's a comfort to me in me hold hage, so she is. And she talks of
wirtue and gets on the 'igh 'orse with her poor old father sometimes,
and makes him veep. Oh, vot an ungrateful family I've got, to be sure.
She's no better than she ought to be, anyhow."
"Oh, stop that bloody talk, old man," said the stout, able-bodied
young fellow, who seemed to be a person of influence in the out-door
establishment. "W'ats the use of throwin' sich things in the gal's
face. Molly's a gal jest like any one else's gal when she can't get
anything to eat. I don't blame her a bit."
[Sidenote: THE YOUNG CADGER'S STORY.]
"If I am bad, Jem," burst out the girl, raging with passion, and her
eyes filled with tears, "who made me so? Who kept chiming into my ears
that I had a pretty face and that I ought to sell it? Who, I say? Who
was it," continued the girl, clenching her hands, and her face blazing
with excitement, "that struck me last Christmas night, come two years,
and pitched me out of the hole that we lived in on Saffron Hill? And
then I had to seek a livin' in the streets, and when I was hungry I
took money and sold myself to perdition; and then I had a father who
used to steal it from me when I'd come home to sleep, and he'd take the
few shillings that I earned by my shame, to go and drink it, and none
of ye were ashamed to live on the money that lost my poor soul. Not one
of ye." Here the girl, utterly exhausted, sat down on the stones and
wept as if her heart was going to break, while the ragged child, who
had by this time succeeded in burning her fingers a number of times,
looked on in wonder at the sudden turmoil of vagabondism. The son, a
powerfully built fellow, looked up and said:
"Molly, I wish your devilish trap ud shut. Wot good does this do any
of ye, I'd like to know. Here I've been hon the aggrawatin' tramp for
two weeks, and I hexpected to see yes all comfortable like, when I kum
home, in Saffron Hill, down St. Giles way, and here I finds yes hall
a-living hunder London Bridge by night, and a-beggin, or doin' wuss, in
the day time. Hits enuff to make a saint swear at his blessed liver."
"Wuss luck, Jem; wuss luck, Jem; I halways knew as how it would come
to this, a-sooner or a-later," said an old crone in the corner of the
archway, who was smoking a pipe and whom I believed to be fast asleep.
"Well, sir, if ye'v got no hobjection," said the stout young man, "I'll
tell you our story. It isn't much of a story to tell, after all. The
old man there went to be a navvy and got two shillings a day until he
took to drink; when he had work on the Great Western. They used to
swindle him in the Tommy shops. Them's the shops, you see, where a
contractor who 'as the job to bulk it, keeps the groceries and grub for
the navvies. They skin the navvies so terribly, do these Tommy shops,
and when his week is up, a man has nothing left out of his vages, cos',
you see, they halways manages to run up the bill as high as the week's
vages. Oh! they are precious scoundrels!"
"Don't call them scoundrels, Jem. Hit's too good a name for them
haltogether," said the old man, who was beginning to doze.
"Will you shut up?" savagely said the hopeful son; and then he
continued, when he had taken a whiff at the pipe: "Well, by and by the
old man got to drinking so much beer that the whole of the wages was
drawn for lush, and he had nothing to eat during the week excepting
what the other men gave him for charity."
"Hevery word of that's a lie, Jem. Wot a precious talent you have, to
be sure, for habusin of your poor old fayther."
"Will you shut up, d----n you?" said the dutiful son, who was fast losing
his temper at being interrupted so often by his fond parent. "I wos
away at sea down on a Cardiff coaster, when the old man came home, and
the gal, there, Molly, was a lace-maker, and wos making eight shillings
a week, and the old woman used to make penny baskets to carry fish home
from the markets, and she got, I suppose, as much as--how much did you
make on them ere baskets, mother?"
"Two and sevenpence ha'penny a week, Jem, and some of the stuff wos
rotten has an egg, Jem, and I halways had bad hies, Jem--you know I
had--a-crying for you when you wos a blessed baby."
"There, stop that bell-clapper of yours, will ye? Yez are all crazy, I
think. Well, the short and the long of it wos, that the old man came
home and began to drink everything that he could put his hands on, and
Molly lost her place because the old un _would_ come haround her place
of business, in Tottenham Court road, and her hemployer as was said as
'ow he's blessed if he'd stand hit hany longer, 'aving such a drunken
old bloke a-comin around his shop; and then the gal took to the street,
and she got two months in the Bridewell for wagrancy, and when she came
hout she was wuss nor ever, and then the family got put hout cos' they
could not pay the rent in Saffron Hill, four bob and a tanner a week;
and it all comes of that hold man a-drinking like a swine that we are
here to-night hunder London Bridge."
"How _can_ you tell sich voppers, Jem, about yer poor old fayther? Ven
you was about two hinches 'igh I used to dandle ye hon me knee, and now
look at yer hingratitude to the hauthor of your beink."
[Sidenote: TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED CADGERS.]
"Guv us a taty, Jenny," said the son to the little girl, who was now
engaged in pulling three or four from the dying embers of the fire;
and he snatched one and tore a piece out of it eagerly, hot ashes
and all. Just then a low steamer went past, with her red signal light
shining like a huge glow-worm out upon the surface of the dark river,
and as she went under the bridge her whistle shrieked out on the night
air like a demon, and at the same moment the bell of St. Saviour's in
Southwark, on the Surrey side of the river, tolled in a brazen tone the
hour of one o'clock, and Sergeant Scott suggested to me that we might
as well go about our business and leave the Cadgers to themselves.
"Cadger" is a Cockney term for people who will not work and have no
habitation, but go from one place to another, roaming loosely, picking
up anything they can get, honestly if they can get it that way, and
if not they will not hesitate to steal for a living, or beg when they
find people charitable enough and willing to commiserate their supposed
sufferings.
There are about 2,500 of this class in and around London, continually
changing their places of residence, and to this class the hopeful
family under London Bridge belonged.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XV.
THE LUNGS OF LONDON.
THE Lungs of London, through which her large masses of population find
respiration and ventilation, are her parks, gardens, and pleasure
grounds.
The city is admirably provided with these oases, which occur frequently
in the great desert of brick and mortar.
Nothing can be more grateful to the eye of the stranger sojourning in
the English metropolis, than the frequent views which he encounters
of smooth bits of lawn, upon which large numbers of sheep browse
peacefully; acres of flower beds, in the care of the most celebrated
florists; sheets of water in which nude bathers are disporting
with perfect freedom; or long and wide expanses of green trees and
shrubbery, enclosed by high iron railings, but free to all the citizens
to enjoy and to hold forever.
[Sidenote: REGENT'S AND HYDE PARKS.]
Beside the parks and gardens, London has an infinity of squares,
commons, and crescents, which are surrounded by private residences and
inclosed by railings and walls--such as Trafalgar Square (public),
Bedford, Cavendish, St. George's, Grosvenor, Leicester, Soho, Belgrave,
Euston, Finsbury, Fitzroy, Portman, Russell, Wellclose, Hanover,
Brunswick, Eaton, Berkeley, Golden, Mecklenburg, Red Lion, Tavistock,
and a great number of other squares which I do not now call to mind.
The majority of these places have plots of grass and trees, with
fountains and flower-beds, varying in size from a quarter of an acre
to three acres in extent. Then again others have not a blade of grass
or a single shrub to dignify their lonely aridness, and the hum of
cartwheels and the noise of brawling men and women, are heard all day
and into the night ascending from them. Half a dozen of them, like
Belgrave, Grosvenor, and Berkeley Squares, are hemmed in on all sides
by the gloomy and palatial dwellings of the governing class of England,
who seek to absorb even a stray blade of grass, or the leaves of a
scantily clothed tree, sooner than allow the poor and degraded to enjoy
them.
And so we have green spots, like Golden and Soho, and Wellclose
Squares, exhibiting the various gradations from squalid poverty to
shabby gentility; and in Belgrave and Grosvenor Squares we have all
the indications of refinement, wealth, perfumery, silks, and satins,
combined with a resolve which says to Golden and Wellclose Squares,
"You are of a different nature from us. We belong to a class which
knows you not, and with whom you can never mingle--never. You are
polluted and degraded. We are the salt of the earth. We lock the iron
gates of our private squares, and you must not enter them; and yet we
have parks and preserves, and Swiss Chalets, and villas at Mentone and
Rome, and spas at Hombourg and Baden."
And accordingly and most dutifully misery shrinks by high iron walls in
the heart of London, or at most will only peer furtively through the
iron grating of Grosvenor and Belgrave Squares.
But the public parks belong to the people, and by the people they
are enjoyed most thoroughly. Children, old and young, gray-beard and
adolescent, all flock to these parks; and Regent's Park or Hyde Park,
on a summer Sunday afternoon is a splendid sight, and a similar one
cannot be obtained anywhere else but in Paris pleasure grounds, on a
Sunday, and it was Paris that first taught London to respire through
these public lungs of hers.
The dimensions of the public parks and gardens of London are as follows:
Battersea Park, 200 acres.
Kensington Gardens, 380 "
Finsbury Park (in progress), 300 "
Green Park, 71 "
Regent's Park, 450 "
Victoria Park, 290 "
Primrose Hill Park (Cricket Grounds), 50 "
St. James Park, 83 "
Hyde Park, 395 "
Southwark Park (not completed), 120 "
Kensington Oval, (for Cricket Ground), 12 "
Cremorne Garden, 10 "
Botanic Garden, Chelsea, 12 "
Royal Botanic Garden (Regent's Park), 20 "
Horticultural Gardens (Cheswick), 35 "
Kew Gardens, 60 "
Buckingham Palace Gardens, 40 "
Temple Gardens, 7 "
Zoological Gardens, 18 "
Greenwich Park, 200 "
Richmond Park, 2,253 "
-----
5,006 "
Here are five thousand acres of parks, pleasure grounds, gardens, and
cricket fields, all in fine order, and under careful and economical
supervision. Surely London is well provided for in the way of open
air amusement. Besides, bands play in the different parks and squares
almost daily. In St. James Park, Regent's Park, and Hyde Park, bands
play every afternoon in inclosures set apart for that purpose. Some of
these bands are formed of old musicians and veterans who have served in
the Crimean and Indian wars. There is a body of men distributed over
London, who wear a uniform of semi-military fashion, and are called
the "Corps of Commissionaires," who can be sent on errands, with or
for packages or letters, and from this body two full bands have been
formed, who earn a decent subsistence by playing in St. James Park and
Regent's Park, every pleasant afternoon during summer.
[Sidenote: WHAT THE PARKS CONTAIN.]
In the inclosures, where these bands furnish music, chairs are
arranged, and all persons who enter and take seats are expected to
contribute two-pence toward the musicians for the pleasure of hearing
the music.
[Illustration: BATHING IN HYDE PARK.]
There are also sheets of water in Regent's Park, Victoria Park,
Battersea Park, St. James' Park, and Kensington Gardens. The sheet of
water, or stream, in Hyde Park, is known as the "Serpentine River,"
from its sinuous course. This is quite a large sheet of water, and is
much frequented for free bathing, on warm days in the heated term.
Here, thousands of people may be seen on a sultry afternoon, plunging
to and fro in the cool waters, and in case of any accident--for the
water is deep--the boats, ropes and drags of the Royal Humane Society's
Life Saving Apparatus, are always ready for immediate use, and numbers
of people are rescued and taken from the Serpentine, and resuscitated.
When the winter months come, and the Serpentine becomes frozen over,
the Londoners congregate there in great numbers to skate, or play at
golf or curling.
There is a large lake in the Regent's Park ornamented with small,
well-wooded islands, and in Kensington Gardens there is one of the
finest museums of art, science, and curiosities, in the world. There
are rocky dells, and grounds for sham fights, in Hyde Park, there are
the rarest exotics in the Palm House at Kew, and every known species of
bird, beast, reptile, and fowl, may be found in the Zoological Gardens,
which comprises eighteen acres of space in the Regent's Park.
In Richmond Park, which is ten miles distant from the London Post
Office Centre, there are two thousand three hundred acres of hill,
dale, plain, and forest, and here are to be found deer-parks, rabbit
warrens, romantic foot-paths, ancient oaks, horse-chestnuts, and thorny
ridges, with a variety of sequestered spots for pic-nics and pleasure
parties. This noble park can be reached by a sail of fifteen miles on
the River Thames, which is skirted by Richmond Park for some distance.
There is a grand Observatory for scientific purposes in Greenwich Park,
which is noted all the world over for its correct calculations, and all
the watches and clocks in Great Britain are set by Greenwich time.
[Sidenote: THE WORLD'S FAIR.]
Bushy Park, at Hampton Court, where there is a splendid gallery
of ancient and foreign paintings and sculpture, the property of
the nation, and free to the people, was formerly the residence of
Cardinal Wolsey. This royal palace and park is to London what St.
Cloud is to Paris. The palace stands on the banks of the Thames, and
when completed, in 1526, for the great Cardinal, it contained 282
apartments, and as many beds. The Great Hall is inferior to none in
England, and is ornamented with stained-glass windows, stags' heads,
spears, flags, trophies, figures of men-at-arms, and other medieval
ornaments, and the walls are hung with tapestry, depicting the story of
the Patriarch Abraham's life. The largest grape-vine in the world grows
in the park, and extends over a space of 3,000 feet. This vine was
planted one hundred years ago, and produces, every year, about 2,000
bunches of black, sweet grapes, which are reserved for the Queen's
private table. An attendent, showing the royal vine to me, informed
the writer that it was high treason to steal the grapes, and I have no
doubt that he believed what he said. The Queen has, also, a bed-room
here, which she wisely refrains from sleeping in, as, I have no doubt,
she would catch influenza from the draughts.
But the great curiosity of Hampton Court Park, is the "Maze," an
intricate complication of pathways, that wind in and out, and which
have served as a standing conundrum and riddle from time immemorial,
for the amusement of the Cockneys. Any one who enters this maze without
a guide cannot leave it again, so intricate and puzzling are the
foot-paths, which are overshadowed, embowered, and interlaced with
young trees and umbrageous shrubbery. By fastidious Londoners this maze
is called the "Labyrinth."
[Illustration: THE LABYRINTH.]
One of the most popular places of rural resort in the vicinity of
London, is the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, a suburb of the metropolis,
and about ten miles from the city.
It is no exaggeration to say, that next to St. Peter's, at Rome, this
is the most wonderful structure in the world, and equals in point of
magnificence, some of the creations of the Arabian Nights.
When the great World's Fair of 1851 ended, there was a general desire
among all Englishmen, that this magnificent structure, which had held
the great cosmopolitan show, should not be destroyed. A committee of
some nine gentlemen was formed, by whose direction it was taken to
pieces for the purpose of reconstruction. This committee had purchased
the building, and a company was chartered with a capital of £500,000,
in shares of £5, and so confident were the Londoners of the success of
the new scheme, that the shares were quickly taken up and the operation
of removing the vast building to Sydenham, its present site, was
commenced.
[Sidenote: THE CRYSTAL PALACE.]
The new structure was begun, and the first column raised, on the 5th of
August, 1852; and, immediately after, several gentlemen were despatched
to the principal cities on the Continent for the purpose of bringing
to England casts of the finest pieces of sculpture in existence, and
other specimens of the fine arts. The splendid Park, Winter Garden,
and Conservatories were committed to the management of the late Sir
Joseph Paxton, who invented the architectural part of the Palace of
1851. The arrangements of the various other departments were assigned
to men of eminence and skill, in whose hands the structure grew, until
it quickly attained its present splendor, and the New Crystal Palace
was at length opened to the public on the 10th of June, 1854. Some
idea of the magnitude and extent of the operations carried on in the
fitting up of this enormous house of glass may be gathered from the
fact, that at one time there were no fewer than 6,400 men employed in
carrying out the designs of the directors. The edifice is completely
transparent, being composed entirely, roof and walls, of clear glass,
supported by an iron framework; and it is said that these materials
are more durable than either marble or granite, and, if properly cared
for, will utterly defy the ravages of time. The extreme length of the
Palace, including the wings, is 2,756 feet; which, with the colonnade
leading from the railway-station to the wings, gives a total length
of 3,476 feet, or nearly three-quarters of a mile. The width of the
great central transept is 120 feet; and its height, from the garden
front to the top of the louvre, is 208 feet, or six feet higher than
the Monument on Fish Hill. It consists of a basement floor, above which
rise a magnificent central nave, two side-aisles, two main galleries,
three transepts, and two wings. In order to avoid sameness and monotony
in such an immense surface of glass, pairs of columns and girders
are advanced eight feet into the nave at every seventy-two feet. An
arched roof covers the nave, and the centre transept towers into the
air in fairy-like lightness and brilliancy. There are also recesses
twenty-four feet deep in the garden fronts of all the transepts, which
throw fine shadows, and relieve the continuous surface of the plain
glass walls; and the whole building is otherwise agreeably broken
into parts by the low square towers at the junction of the nave and
transepts, the open galleries toward the garden front, and the long
wings on either side. The building is heated to the genial temperature
of Madeira, by an elaborate system of hot-water pipes, and the supply
of water is drawn from an Artesian well. The Tropical Department,
once a great feature of the Palace, has ceased to exist; having been
destroyed by fire about three years ago.
[Illustration: THE CRYSTAL PALACE.]
There are large and beautiful pleasure grounds all around the Crystal
Palace, and all the great national fetes, concerts, and open air
demonstrations, take place here. Patti, Nillson, and Sims Reeves, sing
here in benefits for charitable associations, and for a shilling, a
person may listen to ballads on Saturday afternoons, at these concerts,
sung by the greatest living English tenor. Then there are acres of
restaurants and dining saloons inside and outside of the Crystal
Palace, and apparatus and cooking utensils are on the premises, whereby
ten thousand people may find dinner, all at one time, and sit down to
tables in five minutes after dinner has been ordered. During the long
summer evenings, promenade concerts are held at the Crystal Palace, and
fireworks are let off in the presence of great crowds, who enjoy the
sports and junketings much as a New York crowd may do on a Fourth of
July night, in the City Hall, or Madison Park.
The contents of the Palace itself are calculated to puzzle the brains
of a philosopher. Everything wonderful, curious, precious, or difficult
to find at any other place, may be found at the Crystal Palace.
Specimens of architecture, sculpture of all ages, tombs, temples,
busts, statues, capitals, hieroglyphs, from Greece, Rome, Egypt, and
Italy, portions and entire courts from the glorious Alhambra, gigantic
relics and ruins from the Palaces of Babylon, Susa, and Nineveh;
fragments of the Christian temples of Italy, the castles and churches
of Germany, the Chateaux of Belgium and France, and the Cathedrals and
Mansions of England, from the earliest ages to the present time, all of
which are arranged in "courts" in the most systematic order.
Beside these there are many Industrial "Courts" containing the most
wonderful and useful inventions of the genius and scholar. Then there
are gigantic models of the tremendous animals who existed before the
flood, with models of huge and hideous reptiles, and saurians, who did
their level best in the same period.
[Sidenote: COST OF GROUNDS AND BUILDING.]
Some sunny Saturdays as many as fifty thousand people pay visits to
the Crystal Palace, and to see and enjoy all these wonders, the
charge is only one shilling, including concerts, music, fireworks, and
flirtations.
The last time I was there it was on the occasion of the Royal Dramatic
Fete, for the benefit of the profession, and fully a hundred thousand
persons were present, including the Prince and Princess of Wales, and
many of the nobility.
The entire cost of grounds and building, with works of art and
curiosities, was seven million dollars. There were 15,000,000 of
bricks, 6,000 tons of iron, 20,000 loads of timber, 300,000 superficial
feet of glass, 1,200 iron columns, one mile and a half of clerstory
windows, and other materials in proportion, used in the construction
of the edifice, and the space of ground enclosed under the transparent
roof is twenty-five acres, being one-fifth greater than the area of the
base of the Great Pyramid.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XVI.
THE RAKES OF THE ROYAL FAMILY.
ENGLAND has been singularly unfortunate in her Royal Families.
York and Lancaster, Plantagenet and Tudor, Stuarts or Hanoverians,
they have been, with here and there an odd exception, a very bad lot,
morally speaking.
It is a curious history of crime and bloodshed, of dishonor, perjury,
and harlotry, this history of the Monarchs of England, since the
days of William the Norman, who had three illegitimate children, and
massacred thousands of his Saxon subjects every year, down to the days
of George IV, the most gentlemanly blackguard of his time and of Europe.
[Sidenote: VAGABONDS IN KINGLY ROBES.]
Roll back the hoary gates of the past, and look at Richard Crookback,
who reveled in blood, and died in Bosworth Ditch, a death only a little
better than that of Edward IV, whose children Richard basely murdered,
and we find succeeding him a scoundrel like the Eighth Henry, a brutal
fiend, with his six successive wives, all of whom perished miserably,
but the first and last wives, Catharine of Arragon and Catharine Parr;
and then we find his two children--Mary, an honest fanatic, burning
human beings for the honor of God; and next comes Elizabeth, who has
been facetiously styled the Virgin Queen--with her paramours and
favorites. Follow this hideous old spinster to the yawning verge of
the tomb, and she is still to be seen with her parchment visage and
grey hairs, seeking new lovers, or butchering the unfortunate Queen
of Scots, until at last the dread moment of all approaches, when she
tells her horrified chaplain that she will give millions of money for
a moment of time. Then we have a pusillanimous monarch, James I, who
spends his best years discovering witches and writing fantastical
and forgotten treatises against tobacco, or permitting a man like
Bacon--whose life was worth that of a thousand Kings, to be degraded
and made miserable, till at last his great, far seeing eyes are closed
in a final sleep--his heart having broken to pieces in the meridian of
his genius.
Then comes Charles I, a good man in his mild way, a patron of the arts,
a good husband and father, but withal he is doomed to the block.
Vainly he endeavors, in battle and statecraft, to stem the onward march
of the people who are determined to hurl all obstacles from their path
which stand in the way of their new ideas.
And now comes up the Brewer, Oliver Cromwell, one of Carlyle's heroes,
(and by the way, all of Carlyle's heroes are dripping with blood,) a
most accomplished and unrelenting butcher, one who thanks God for his
"precious mercies" when a thousand men, women, and children are driven
over a bridge into a deep river beneath, impelled by the pikes of his
ruffianly soldiery. Then he dies, and Charles II, a dissolute royal
scamp succeeds, and he of course has to dig up the crumbling skeleton
of Cromwell to hang it on Tyburn tree, that all men may see what manner
of divinity it is that should hedge around a King.
Think of this royal vagabond, who has for his mistress a Stewart,
a Duchess of Cleveland, a Louise de Queroailles, who also becomes
a Duchess of Portsmouth, and last but not least, poor simple, soft
hearted Mistress Nelly Gwynne, who left to the nation Greenwich
Hospital to atone for her lost soul.
It might be expected that in these days of the daily newspapers and
telegraph wires, of railroads, female suffrage and personal journalism,
that royalty, and notably, English royalty, would improve, from a
slight sense of decency and a proper regard for public opinion, if for
no other cause. Let us see.
Ten years ago I vainly endeavored to penetrate the dense masses who
lined Broadway, New York, and filled the air with their shouts, as an
open barouche, containing the then Mayor of the chief city of America,
sitting on the back seat, and a fair faced youth with flabby skin and
retreating chin, clad in a scarlet uniform and having an Order of the
Garter pendant from his breast, passed up the thronged thoroughfare
between two lines of citizen soldiery, whose bayonets, bright as
silver, reflected back the many hues of the excited and surging masses.
Five hundred thousand people of both sexes had turned out in holiday
attire, that ever memorable day, to do honor to a foreign prince,
whose government, since that thoughtless hour, sought during the
terrible confusion of a civil war, by every means in its power, by
money, influence, by Alabama pirates, by unceasing and bitterly hostile
journalistic attacks, by speeches in and out of Parliament--through the
pulpit and the rostrum, to destroy the Republic of the West. In fact
that government moved Heaven and Earth to annihilate and obliterate the
liberty, union, and might of the American people.
Such a reception had not been given, twenty-five years before, to
the gallant, noble-minded, and chivalric Lafayette, the companion of
George Washington, one of the finest characters in all history, or the
unwritten records of mankind.
This fair-faced, flabby-skinned youth, in the lobster colored and laced
coat, who stood up in the open carriage, (hired from the New York
Corporation hack-driver-in-chief, and charged for in the bill afterward
rendered, at five times the real price,) was no less a personage than
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Fellow of Trinity
House, Colonel of a Regiment of Foot, a General in the British Army,
(like Captain Jinks,) Baron Renfrew, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Dublin,
and eldest son of Queen Victoria that is, and in the future to be King
of England and Defender of the Faith, by the Grace of God and the
permission of the Radical English Trades Unions.
[Sidenote: A CHANGE FOR THE WORSE.]
He was not a very bad looking lad of nineteen or twenty, that
sunny afternoon, as he bowed repeatedly and raised his Generals'
chapeau, with its plume of feathers, and doffed it to the radiant
republican female faces, and curtesied like a backward school boy,
in acknowledgement of the wild shouts which pealed upward in the
clear atmosphere, although no spectator there could have accused
him of having an intellectual or cultured face. How well we can all
now remember, to our shame, the manner in which he was petted, and
caressed, and toadied, and dined, and wined, until in the estimation
of his toadies he had almost attained the stature of a God, this boy
with the retreating chin and imbecile face--this hope and pride of the
Guelph family.
Still with all the marked and inherent imbecility of a descendant of
George III in his features, the young scion of royalty had not, at that
time when I first saw him, developed the seeds of immorality, want of
honor, meanness, and utter sottishness which have since made his name
infamous among his subjects, and despised by the princes of Europe.
The young lad for whom America could not do too much honor in feteing
and feasting, has since surrounded himself with pimps, panders,
parasites, and blackguards, of the lowest kind.
His name is a bye word of scorn in the British metropolis, and for a
lady of rank or position to be seen three times in his neighborhood, is
certain dishonor to her and her relatives.
It was nearly ten years after that bright sunny day, in Broadway, with
its shouting multitudes and noisy cheers, before I again saw His Royal
Highness Albert-Edward Prince of Wales.
One night, in going through High Holborn, and being without any settled
purpose as to where and how I should spend the evening, I accidentally
noticed the blazing gas lamps of the "Casino," a well-known dancing
hall, frequented by the loose livers and aristocratic idlers of the
English Capital.
After a moment's hesitation I entered and found the place--as is
usual on summer evenings at all the London dancing halls--pretty well
crowded.
Scores of couples, of both sexes, were whirling frantically in the
Old-World Teutonic waltz, and in the flushed faces and excited gestures
of the gyrating dancers I could notice a total forgetfulness of modesty
and decorum.
From the alcoves came the sounds of the clinking of wine-glasses, the
rattle of Moselle bottles, the pop, pop, of champagne corks, and songs,
choruses, and loud shouts of laughter, together with a Babel-jabber of
many confused tongues.
My attention was attracted while listening to the music from the fine
band, to a group that occupied a position which partially screened them
from the glances of the larger portion of the audience and dancers,
sitting and standing back as they did in an alcove.
[Illustration: PRINCE OF WALES.]
There were a dozen persons, perhaps, in the party, of both sexes, five
or six men fashionably attired, and as many women, in all the grandeur
and magnificence of harlotry--open and defiant--but well-bred harlotry.
There were two central figures conversing in this group, and I could
see that they were listened to with attention while speaking, one of
them, particularly, a slightly bald-headed man, having secured the ears
of his audience.
The other central figure was a woman, beautiful, but of that beauty
which is leprous to the sight, and fatal to those who encounter it as
the shade of the Upas Tree.
"Who is that man?" said I to an usher, nodding in the direction of the
bald-headed person.
[Sidenote: THE PRINCE AND HIS FRIENDS.]
"That _man_" said the flunkey, "why, that's not a _man_, that's His
Royal 'Ighness the Prince of Wales,--and long may he reign over us."
And this worn, blase, sottish and almost brutally stupid-looking person
in the Scotch tweed suit, with drooping eye-lids and sore eyes,--as if
he seldom went to bed, and then did not stay long in it, looking to be
forty-five years of age; prematurely bald, and without a particle of
that apparent divinity which, it is said, doth hedge a monarch, was the
self-same young lad of twenty, whom I had seen environed by bayonets in
Broadway, ten years before.
But how changed he was! Long nights of dissipation and debauchery
had seamed the once youthful and unwrinkled features, and the under
part of the face hung in heavy, adipose folds, like the dewlaps of a
bullock. His figure was stout and without grace, and to me he seemed
like a beer-drinking bagman or commercial peddler, half John Bull, half
Hanoverian. The tweed suit, a material which he affects very much, was
not at all calculated to set off or adorn his figure, and the great
grandson of George III looked very undignified indeed as he leaned over
the painted harlot resplendent in silks, and glistening with jewels,
who is known to all wild London scapegraces, and young men about town,
by the name of Mabel Gray, a name assumed for a purpose--to hide her
identity with the gutters from which she has sprung.
The Prince of Wales, despite all the counsels and admonitions of the
Queen (of whom whatever may be said, the merit cannot be denied her of
being a good mother), has, I regret to say, the reputation of being a
very sorry scamp.
His intimates are, generally, the worst and most abandoned roues of the
Clubs, the lowest turf blackguards and swindlers, and when he chooses
a companion who is not a swindler or a blackguard, a debauchee, or a
decoy, he is sure to be a fool.
The young man standing by the side of the Prince of Wales when I
entered the dancing hall, was Charles, Lord Carington, whose mother was
of the great family of d'Eresby, the head of which is Lord Willoughby
d'Eresby, Lord High Chamberlain of England, to whom is entrusted the
duty of looking after the morals of the English people and the sanctity
of the British drama. It is he who gives passes to the House of Lords
on Saturdays, on slips of blue paper which the unwashed are very eager
to obtain; and it is also the duty of the Lord High Chamberlain to
watch every new burlesque when produced, in order that the skirts of
the ballet girls and blondes may be of the proper length, and not too
short for the proprieties.
Lord Carington's grandfather was a rich man named Smith, who was
ennobled for some reason or another, and his large fortune and title
has descended to the present possessor, who is known to be one of the
wildest and most rakehelly young noblemen in London. He is a lieutenant
in the Guards of the Queen's Household Brigade, and one of the boon
companions of the Prince of Wales. The latter is constantly to be found
in company with this "Charley Carington," as he is called, who was the
perpetrator of a most cowardly outrage upon the person of Mr. Grenville
Murray, an aged gentleman who was supposed to be proprietor and editor
of the "Queen's Messenger," a satirical weekly journal, in which Mr.
Murray was said to have written several scathing articles upon the
"Hereditary Legislators" of England. In one of these articles a sketch
was given of Lord Carington, under the title of "Bob Coachington, Lord
Jarvey," in which the practice of driving a mail coach and four horses
to and fro between London and its environs and taking up passengers for
money, a favorite pastime of Lord Carington, was referred to in no very
flattering terms. For this supposed affront, without any positive proof
to warrant the outrage, the gallant Lord Carington, aged 25 years,
set upon Mr. Murray, as he was coming out of the Conservative Club,
of which he was a member, and beat him badly. Mr. Murray is about 60
years of age, and was of course not able to defend himself, and when
he sought justice in the usual way at the Marlborough Street Police
Station, of the magistrate, Mr. Knox, he found the Prince of Wales and
a number of titled ruffians sitting on the bench along side of the
dispenser of justice!
[Sidenote: TWO IMBECILES.]
Of course Mr. Murray received no justice in that Court, and not only
was he refused satisfaction, but in addition an attack was made upon
the person of his counsel, when a libel suit had been preferred against
the "Queen's Messenger," by the aristocratic friends of Lord Carington
and the Prince of Wales, who did this to intimidate him from writing
farther in his journal of the scandalous conduct of the Queen's
relations and the rottenness of the higher nobility.
In addition to this Mr. Murray was expelled from the Conservative Club
by a ballot of one hundred and ninety votes, only ten members of the
Club having the personal courage to withstand the influence and threats
brought to bear against them by the Prince of Wales, Lord Carington,
and their minor satellites.
Lord Carington is fond of driving his coach and four and taking up
passengers in the outskirts of London, charging them a nominal fare.
While sitting on the box or seat of the coach he usually holds to his
lips a huge horn, which he toots like a raving maniac, much to his own
satisfaction and the edification of the floating community, who with
the fondness of all Englishmen for a live Lord, smile benignantly if
not affectionately upon this imbecile young nobleman.
In the words of the song, the "Prince of Wales goes everywhere to see
the sights of town" with Carington, and at the Dramatic fete at the
Crystal Palace in 1869, while his beautiful, good, and neglected wife
sat on a dais and received the donations for the Dramatic College, the
Prince manifested in public his intimacy with Carington by laughing
and conversing with him, arm-in-arm, much to the horror of all the
pious old dowagers who were present and had heard wild stories of Lord
Carington.
Mabel Grey, who has ruined scores of young aristocrats and brought
them to beggary, is the reputed mistress of Lord Carington, and has
made several visits with him to Paris, Baden, and other places on the
Continent. It is said that he has already squandered twenty thousand
pounds upon this well-bred harlot, and it is the current talk in London
that the Prince of Wales has also been on terms of an improper intimacy
with Mabel Grey. At all events he is not ashamed to be seen speaking
to her in Casinos or addressing her in public places, and the dear
Prince has on several occasions been seen drinking champagne with her
in the music halls and dancing rooms of the English capital. This is a
very bad business for a bald-headed father of five children.
[Illustration: PRINCE AND CABMAN.]
The Prince of Wales, with all his immense riches, is mean and very
penurious in money matters. He will argue for fifteen minutes with a
cabman in the street about an over-charge of a sixpence, and has been
known to get into an altercation with ticket sellers in the box offices
of places of amusement for the sake of a shilling or half a crown, in a
most undignified way. One night when getting out of a cab at Cremorne
the driver attempted to charge the Prince four shillings for a ride
when he should have charged him but two-and-sixpence. The Prince, who
was a little intoxicated, refused to pay the over-charge. The London
cabbies are the most impudent, brassy set of fellows I ever saw, and
this cabman was more than usually pugnacious. The Prince attempted to
go into the Garden, and had presented his ticket, when the cabman with
a yell clutched his coat, and tore away the skirt in the struggle to
get more fare. The Prince was recognized by some of the attendants of
the place, and the horrified cabman was handed over to the police for
assault on the blood royal. Fearing the ridicule of the London press,
the Prince told the policeman to release poor Cabby, who was only too
happy to escape transportation for life.
[Sidenote: INFAMY OF THE PRINCE.]
For the past seven years the Prince of Wales has been a prominent
actor in almost every scene of aristocratic dissipation and debauchery
which has been enacted in the English metropolis. He is well known
in the coulisses of the Opera, and has openly maintained scandalous
relations with ballet dancers and chorus singers. Even the shame of
the thing would not restrain him from loudly and familiarly applauding
and clapping his hands, whenever any of these female favorites of his
came on the stage, while the strains of Beethoven or Rossini could not
elicit from him as much as a smile of gratified approbation. The taste
of the Prince for music may be imagined from the fact that "Champagne
Charley," and "Not for Joseph," are his two most cherished melodies.
His relations with Mademoiselle Helena Schneider, the opera bouffe
singer, were most notorious, and he has been known to leave the bed
side of his wife in her illness to hasten to Paris at the summons of
this notorious woman of Darkness, and Sin, and Shame.
Among his special female favorites, are many of the better known
soubrettes of the London and Parisian theatres, and notably he was an
admirer of Finette, the famous Can-can danseuse of the Alhambra.
He is flippant, shallow, and heartless, and the record of his life thus
far has caused many a scalding tear to fall from the eyes of his royal
mother.
The London _Lancet_, the highest medical authority in England, found
it necessary, some eighteen months ago, to deny the charge that was
made openly against the Prince, which if true, would stamp him with
infamy. The Princess of Wales, who is a good and noble lady in every
sense--and a long suffering one in some respects--during the summer of
1869, visited the baths of Wildbad, in Germany, for the benefit of her
health, which had been sadly impaired. I dare not in these pages insult
my readers by giving the cause of her ill-health, which is more than
whispered about in English society.
The Prince has, I believe, five handsome children--their good looks
coming to them from their vigorous Norse mother, but it will not be
from any precaution taken by their father, if they do not hereafter
suffer from the results of his early indiscretions and follies, in the
Haymarket and the purlieus of Paris.
In a good many respects the Prince of Wales resembles another Prince
of Wales--one who succeeded his father as King. I mean George IV. Like
him, Albert Edward is already a broken debauchee, and like George IV
Albert Edward has a vicious way of making his wife suffer through his
follies and disgraceful behaviour. Unless the Prince is predestined to
experience a sudden and speedy conversion, it is more than probable
that the next King of England will excel and put to shame the open acts
of profligacy which made George IV so notorious.
One thing could be said for George IV which cannot be said for the
Prince of Wales. The former was a gentleman in manner if not one at
heart--but this Prince, while being thoroughly heartless and "stingy,"
has the breeding of a waiter in a lager beer saloon. He is heavy, slow,
unready, hesitating, and flabby, without a spark of culture or a trace
of the refinement which belongs to his station.
[Sidenote: PRINCE AND BREWER AS FIREMEN.]
His Royal Highness has a great passion for running with the "masheen,"
as a New York rowdy would term it, and Captain Shaw, of the London Fire
Brigade, is greatly admired by the Prince for his gallant management
of that very efficient Corps. The latter has often taken a ride on a
fire engine through the London streets. The Prince, while on a visit
to Brighton some years ago, made the acquaintance of a rich young
London brewer, who had more money than brains. This was just the sort
of a man to suit the Prince, being very fond of rich young men, who in
many cases are only too happy to have the honor of paying the bills
contracted by his Royal Highness. This eminent young brewer had, with
the Prince, a similar taste for fire engines, and it was suggested by
the future King of England that the brewer, who had a fund of good
nature, should send to London for a fire engine, at his own expense,
and have it transported to Brighton, where in course of time the
Prince hoped it might afford them much amusement. The brewer of course
complied with the Prince's request, and before long one of those
grotesque looking fire machines, that are every now and then to be seen
darting through the London streets, made its appearance at Brighton.
Night after night the Prince and the brewer made the quiet villas and
the Parade of Brighton resound with their shrieks and howls, as they
drove at headlong speed through the watering place, the two maniacs
sitting astride of the apparatus which was drawn by two horses; and
finally the thing became such a nuisance to the residents of Brighton,
and so many complaints reached the Queen's ears of the Prince's riotous
conduct, that at last he was sent for and severely reprimanded by her
Majesty, and for a few days he kept on his good behavior, to relapse
again like a fever patient.
It is useless to conjecture as to the probability of the Prince
succeeding to the throne, but if ever he does, he will no doubt revive
the days of Charles II and his dissolute court. His beautiful and
virtuous wife will perhaps fall into the place which Catharine, of
Braganza, was compelled to accept as the consort of that rakehelly
monarch, and Albert Edward will, no doubt, find in Lord Carington
material for a successor to Sir Charles Sedley, and in the Duke of
Hamilton a scamp, worthy of the reputation borne by the Earl of
Rochester.
It is a mistake to think, moreover, that the Prince of Wales is alone
among his family, in his vicious course, or that he has not numerous
imitators among the nobles bearing some of the proudest names in
England. Although he is yet but a young man of thirty years of age, he
has those around him who ape his immorality and copy his disregard for
the usages of society.
Still, the Prince cannot be blamed for the follies of his relations.
The Duke of Cambridge, cousin to the Queen, and old enough to be the
father of the Prince, has as bad if not a worse reputation, than the
Prince of Wales.
George Frederick William Charles, Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Tipperary,
and Baron of Culloden, is a first cousin of Queen Victoria, a Field
Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the English Army.
This Prince is about fifty years of age, and lives in an unlawful
way with a Miss Fairbrother, by whom he has had several children, I
believe. It might be expected, of a prince so closely related to the
Queen, and occupying such a high position as chief of the British Army,
that he would set a good example to the younger branches of the royal
family. On the contrary, the Duke is well known, everywhere, as a royal
rake, and his shameless amours are beyond number. The old prince is
slightly bald from his course of early piety, and suffers so dreadfully
from the gout, the result of early dissipation, that he is nothing but
a wreck, being compelled annually to pay a visit to the mineral baths
of Germany, and American travelers upon the continent at Baden, Ems,
and Hombourg, will occasionally encounter an old, broken, and bloated
personage, limping on a stick, who will quarrel with a waiter, in
Hanoverian Deutsch, for the sake of a kreutzer, and when once excited
it is very difficult to calm his rage, which, sometimes, degenerates
into a helpless imbecility. This is the Duke of Cambridge.
[Sidenote: A MAD KING.]
From his illicit connection with the lady to whom I have referred, the
mock-title of "Duke of Fairbrother," has been given to this illustrious
Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Fancy such a Duke of Cambridge holding
the baton of Wellington, and leading such soldiers as Havelock, Outram,
Colin Campbell, and Napier of Magdala. And this very same imbecile Duke
has had command of the English Army, and notably at the Alma, in the
Crimean campaign, his conduct was such as to make the spectators doubt
whether he was a madman or a coward. In the heat of the fight, the Duke
lost all management of him self, and began to make strange noises,
and to act in a strange manner, until he was carried from the field,
kicking and biting in a maniacal fashion.
For the taint is in the blood of the English Royal Family, and may
never be eradicated. The Duke of Cambridge is a lineal descendant of
George III, who, by his inherent madness, lost half of the British
Empire, and who was in the habit of answering reasonable questions,
with such replies as,--
"What, what, who, who, where, where, why, why--BLIM!" Should the Prince
of Wales hereafter behave himself in an unseemly fashion, his tainted
blood may, to a certain extent, be blamed for the outbreak.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XVII.
FAST YOUNG ENGLAND.
WHY Londoners should presume to sneer at the morality of the volatile
Parisians, has always been a sore puzzle to me. During the past
fifteen years, sharp observers of society in the English Capital have
been appalled by the visible and marked progress of moral and social
deterioration among the people who affect to give tone, and breeding,
and refinement, to all that they do or say, as leaders of society.
Polite London Society has always plumed itself upon being superior, in
a moral sense, to the corresponding class in the French Capital, but
it must strike those who have held such views, that there is no basis
for the belief any longer, when the notorious fact is offered to them,
that two of the highest personages in England are men who lead lives of
immorality--I refer to the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge.
I have however said enough of those two loose gentlemen, and I shall
proceed to consider the subject in its larger bearings.
I boldly assert, that English Society, of the highest class, is to-day
as rotten in every sense, as were the French nobility, with their
mistresses and their "little establishments," before the whirlwind of
the Revolution of 1793 swept away all that was of hideous corruption
and infamy, never to rise again.
The proudest names among the English nobility are those which have some
moral or dishonorable taint affixed to their titles, by their conduct
in life. [Sidenote: MISS HARRIET MONCRIEFFE.]
Many of my readers must recollect the termination of the famous
Mordaunt case, in which the Prince of Wales was implicated, and it
will also be remembered that the few facts which were developed on the
trial, despite the attempt of Lord Penzance, (acting under pressure of
the Throne,) to hush them up, had the effect of shaking England to the
centre, socially speaking.
Miss Harriet Sarah Moncrieffe, now Lady Mordaunt, is a daughter of Sir
Thomas Moncrieffe, a baronet of one of the oldest families in Scotland.
The family seat is at Earn, in Perthshire, and the mansion and grounds
are among the finest in North Britain. The family was a large one,
four sons and six daughters being born to Sir Thomas and his wife, who
was a daughter of the Earl of Kinnoul. Lady Harriet's eldest sister is
married to the Duke of Athole, one of the richest and most powerful
of the Scotch nobles. Then she has a sister married to the Earl of
Dudley, and another to a Mr. Forbes, of a wealthy Scotch family,
into which, if I be not mistaken, Lady Douglas-Hamilton, a sister of
the Duke of Hamilton, is married. One of the sisters--the Duchess of
Athole, has for her mother-in-law the Dowager-Duchess of Athole--who
is a tried and trusted friend of Queen Victoria, being, as I believe,
a Lady-in-waiting, or a Lady-of-the-bed-chamber to the Queen, or
something of that sort. Altogether the family and its connections are
among the very thickest cream of English aristocratic society.
In December, 1866, Lady Harriet Sarah Moncrieffe, then eighteen years
of age, and surpassingly beautiful in person, and most graceful
in manner, was married to Sir Charles Mordaunt, of Walton Hall,
Warwickshire, who was then twenty-nine years of age, and a very wealthy
bachelor, possessing one of the finest country seats, with mansion and
grounds, in all England. The main buildings alone were erected at an
expense of over $350,000 of American money, and to this most delightful
and picturesque spot the young bride was taken to spend the honeymoon.
Everything that the heart of a fashionably bred woman could desire was
hers, she had troops of servants, a fine old baronial mansion, a large
stable full of horses, a yacht, a gallery of paintings, a villa on the
Continent, equippages, diamonds, ladies'-maids, and a town house in
London. And beside her lightest word was law to her loving husband.
She had been presented to the Queen, and in her life-pathway sunshine
fell and gladdened her young spirit. But there was a canker in the
bud--a skeleton in the closet--as there always is. Lady Mordaunt had
loved below her station before she married Sir Charles, and had sought
to marry the object of her affection, but her mother, who was a very
worldly minded woman, was determined that she should marry the rich Sir
Charles Mordaunt, who had houses and lands, while "poor Robin Adair"
had to go about his business.
Of course the natural consequences had to come. Sir Charles had a
yacht, and now and then went on cruises to Norway and up the Baltic,
and ran his craft from Erith to the Nore, and on many a sunny day the
snowy jib-sail of his boat was seen from afar by those nautical minded
people who frequent the breakwater at Cherbourg. When he was at home he
was either hunting with the Warwickshire hounds, or looking for plover
and grouse on Scotch moors. Any other spare time he had was taken up
in his parliamentary duties, for he had the ineffable honor of signing
"M.P." after his name.
And the young, gay, beautiful, and high spirited Lady Mordaunt--how
was it with her? Being left very much alone, she developed herself.
She delighted in balls, the Italian--yes, and the Bouffe Opera, she
liked Croquet parties, garden parties, Crystal Palace concerts, and
flirtations, and one evening, in company with Captain Farquhar, an
officer of the Guards, she visited the "Alhambra," a celebrated dancing
hall, which is supported by the London demi-monde.
[Sidenote: IN BAD COMPANY.]
She was young, thoughtless, and very beautiful, and to be brief, she
fell among wolves, as many a woman has before. She had for escort
to different places, the Prince of Wales, Sir Frederick Johnstone,
Viscount Cole (eldest son of the Earl of Enniskillen), Lord Newport,
Captain Farquhar, the Marquis of Blandford, and among her acquaintances
were the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Jersey, the Marquis of
Waterford, and other young gentlemen, whose company or friendship alone
would be enough to destroy the character of the most spotless married
woman. And by the by, all these fast young noblemen are friends and
boon companions of the Prince of Wales. Lady Mordaunt also knew Lord
Carington, although his name did not appear in the trial for divorce.
All of these titled gentlemen whom I have mentioned, are of that class
which is denominated "fast young men"--in England. They are all of
good families, and are of the salt of the earth, being hereditary
legislators for the English people. They gamble, own fast horses,
make tremendous bets, keep mistresses, and yachts, and among this
set to dishonor a young and unsuspecting married woman, and cover
with disgrace an old family name, is indeed an achievement of which
they feel very proud, a woman's weakness and folly being a subject
for joking in their clubs, and affording much amusement to the
young blackguards at covert side and in many a yacht cruise in the
Mediteranean and the Baltic Seas.
[Illustration: LADY MORDAUNT.]
Lady Mordaunt had fallen among a pack of masculine wolves. Her two
sisters, the Duchess of Athole and the Countess of Dudley, vainly
endeavored to save their foolish sister, and her mother, Lady Louisa
Moncrieffe, and her young sister, who was engaged privately to
Viscount Cole--(Miss Frances Moncrieffe), and Miss Blanche Moncrieffe,
used all their powers of persuasion, but Lady Mordaunt had met already
with the fate of all those who frequent bad company. She was corrupted,
and her only desire was now to become deserving of the title of "fast."
Lady Mordaunt soon became the leader of the "fast" feminine set in
London. No lady could drive such "fast" ponies as she. None could equal
her for "fast" or "slangy" talk. Her highly colored attire was voted
the "fastest" in London. Her male companions who were in her company
and who escorted her, were all "fast," particularly the Prince of
Wales, who enjoys the proud distinction of being "fast." Lady Mordaunt
never accompanied her husband anywhere--he being very often absent, and
besides, he was not "fast."
And Lady Mordaunt is not alone among her aristocratic sisters of
London. She has a number of imitators, who talk "fast," ride "fast"
horses, frequent the company of "fast" men, and visit with these last,
"fast" places of amusement. This "fast" woman has now become typical in
England. She dyes her hair, she paints her face, she wears flaunting
and unbecoming costumes after the style of the loose living blondes
who appear in burlesque; in short, she apes the manners and the attire
of that hapless class of women of whom she once spoke, when she spoke
of them at all--with a shuddering thrill of mingled horror and pity.
A famous female English novelist--whose heroines, by the way, are
all of the light-hair-dye and "fast" type--speaking of these "fast"
society-women, pertinently asks:--
[Sidenote: SLANG WOMEN AND "MRS. JOHNSON."]
"Who taught the girls of England this hateful slang? who showed
them--nay, obtruded upon and paraded before them these odious women?
who, indeed, but the men, who recoil from their own work of their
own hands, and cry out upon the consequences of their own conduct?
It was not till the young Englishman learned to ridicule everything
virtuous as "spoony," and everything domestic as "slow," that the
women took pains to master the slang of the race-course, and to
model their dress upon the costumes of the women whom they saw from
their carriage windows dimly athwart the mists of midnight flitting
across the Haymarket, as they were driven away from the Opera-house.
Be sure society decayed, like the tree to which poor Swift pointed
with sad prophetic certainty, "_first at top_." It was not till the
moral deterioration of the modern young man had become a fact but
too obvious, that any fatal change was perceived in the modern young
woman; it was not until a contemptuous and disrespectful demeanor to
parents, newly denominated governors, relieving-officers, paters,
maters, maternals; a scornful avoidance of sisters as muffs and
dowdies; an utter irreverence for age, and a disdainful treatment of
all woman kind,--had become distinguishing characteristics of young
Mr. Bull, that poor, giddy, mistaken Miss Bull, too anxious to please
the young cub, whose moral being and real interests had best been
served by a judicious course of cat-o'-nine-tails, began to dye her
pretty hair and paint her fresh young cheeks; it was not till the
British lords flocked to the sale of a bankrupt courtesan's effects,
and gave unheard-of sums for the tawdry crockery-ware of a courtesan's
bedchamber, that British ladies began to slide downwards upon that
fatal incline which their masters had smoothed for them."
"In the early days of the music-halls, before the nameless Captain
had begun to cultivate his too famous whiskers, or the insatiable
thirst of the convivial Charley had become a fact so painfully
notorious,--when the prudent Joseph was yet unknown, and the Strand
not yet renowned as the dweling-place of Nancy,--there was sung a song
called "Mrs. Johnson," in which the singer, in a tipsy solemnity,
bewailed the fact that the tastes and manners of his amiable wife were
but too identical with his own. "And so does Mrs. Johnson,"--that
was the ever recurring refrain. "I drink, I smoke, I swear, I stop
out to unholy hours of the night," sings this Mr. Johnson of the
music-halls, "and so, unhappily, does Mrs. Johnson. I am altogether a
fast and disreputable individual, and I consider it very delightful
to be fast and disreputable; but--and here, I confess, the shoe
pinches--so does Mrs. Johnson. This midnight rioting, this hunting up
of dancing-gardens and quaffing of perennial champagne, is my very
ideal of man's existence; but I recoil aghast with horror before the
idea of the same predilections in Mrs. Johnson." It is only a vulgar
music-hall ditty; but I think there is a moral hanging to it, which
our modern Juvenals would do well to consider."
"It is the story of Adam and Eve over again--"the woman tempted me,
and I did eat." The historian of the future, studying the social
aspects of this century from a file of _Saturday Reviews_, would
have fair ground for believing it was because of modest women that
outraged Englishmen fled to the denizens of St. John's-wood; that it
was the slang and fastness of our girls that drove our men to the
race-course and the betting-ring; the women tempted them. What cowards
and hypocrites men must be, when they can turn upon and assail the
helpless woman who has meekly and dutifully copied the model they
have set up before her eyes, and at whose shrine she has seen them
prostrate and worshipping!"
"The modern young man, with a selfishness as short-sighted
as--selfishness, which is always short-sighted, has desired _all_ the
delights of life. He likes the society of the venal Cynthia of the
minute, as his forefathers have done before him, but it has seemed
too him too much trouble to disguise that liking, in deference to the
feelings of purer Cynthias, as his forefathers did before him. When
Junius wished to brand the Duke of Grafton with ineffable shame, he
charged him with having flaunted Miss Parsons before the offended
eyes of royalty; now-a-days such a reproach would seem the emptiest
oratorical truism. The royalty of virtuous womanhood is offended every
day by a procession of Miss Parsonses. Everywhere Miss Parsons is
followed and worshipped. At covert-side, on parade of Brighton, or in
lamplit gardens of Scarborough, in opera-house and on race-course,
abroad or at home--the Parsonian worship is still going on. Miss
Parsons has her matins and her vespers, her choral services at five
o'clock, her gatherings at all hours and all places. The bells are
always pealing that call the faithful of the Parsonian creed. And
woman's poor little stock of logic only enables her to frame one fatal
syllogism:
Miss Parsons is admired;
Miss Parsons is beloved;
Therefore to be like Miss Parsons is to be admirable and loveable."
When the season ended it was customary for Sir Charles Mordaunt to
rejoin his wife at Walton Hall, and it might have been believed that
after the gaieties of the winter revels, the mistress of the mansion
would seek a little rest and the quiet of the country. But no. The
country seat was always full of "fast" ladies and "fast" gentlemen.
Sporting men and people of loose characters, whom no sensible man
would admit to the presence of his wife, became the intimates of Lady
Mordaunt. In fine, the Coles, Farquhars, Johnstones, Waterfords,
Hamiltons, and the like, were "doing Lady Mordaunt's business for her,"
as I heard a London barrister express it. People began to talk about
her, and she lost the respect of her friends, who dropped off one by
one. Her poor old father, Sir Thomas Moncrieffe, while sitting in
White's Club (the only club of which the Prince of Wales is an active
member), hears his daughter's name mentioned in a very odious manner,
and that of the Prince of Wales occurs in the connection. The "Pwince,"
says one of these small wits, "is very devoted--ah--Lady Mowdaant--I
heah," and so the scandal flies. Sir Thomas is enraged, threatens the
puppy, and tells Sir Charles of the thunder in the air. Poor old man!
It is openly stated in the club that Viscount Cole and Sir Frederick
Johnstone,--the former twenty-two, and the latter thirty-two years of
age, are constant visitors to her boudoir,--as often as three times
in a day--so says Madame Scandal. Sir Frederick Johnstone is known to
be the greatest libertine in England. He is rich, of a good family,
and yet no woman will marry him, for it is whispered in society,--even
among ladies--that he has become so enervated and palsied from his long
course of debauchery, as to be unfit for the marriage bed--and Lord
Cole is a fit rival to Lord Carington for wildness and blackguardism. I
saw this same Sir Frederick Johnstone slapped in the face a dozen times
at the Cremorne Gardens one night, by a fashionably attired Cyprian
who had been his mistress, and who had been deserted by him, but not a
blush warmed his cheek under the stinging slaps of her hand. Luxury and
debauchery had emasculated him. He was no longer a man--he was a frame
covered over by a handsome evening dress.
[Sidenote: A GIDDY WOMAN.]
During all this time, while Lady Mordaunt was sowing the wind to
eventually reap the whirlwind, her husband was ignorant of these
most damnatory facts against her reputation,--which afterward became
known to him. At last the scandal was bruited about so much that
Sir Charles Mordaunt found it necessary to enter proceedings in the
Divorce Court, at Westminster, for a separation from his wife. All
England was, socially, turned upside down with amazement, when it was
ascertained that the Prince of Wales was implicated. The Queen sent for
Sir Charles, and begged of him to withdraw from the case, in order to
secure her son's reputation from the contempt which was sure to fall
upon his Royal Highness when the developments were made public. The
entreaties of the Queen did not avail, however, with Sir Charles, who,
with a dogged English pluck, was resolved to have justice. Then an
attempt was made to bribe him, and a peerage was offered him to keep
him quiet, but this did not serve, as Sir Charles refused to compromise
with dishonor and shame.
Lady Mordaunt's husband had ordered her not to receive the Prince of
Wales at his house while he was absent, or at any other time, but the
unfortunate woman had disobeyed him. She also refused to accompany Sir
Charles on a fishing excursion to Norway, as she preferred to stay at
home and associate with disreputable characters. He also ordered her
not to receive Viscount Cole, or Sir Frederick Johnstone, but, as in
the other case, the husband was disobeyed, and his house was used by
them against his will during his absence. On the 27th of February,
1868, Lady Mordaunt was prematurely confined of a child which was
afflicted in the eyes with a hideous disease. The first question asked
by Lady Mordaunt immediately after her confinement, was of the nurse.
She asked, "Is the child diseased?" The nurse answered, "My Lady, you
mean deformed;" and Lady Mordaunt answered, "No, you know what I mean."
This question was repeated five or six times, and, during the night,
she said to her sister, Mrs. Forbes, "If you do not let me talk I will
go mad," meaning thereby that she desired to make a confession. The
nurse asked if she should fetch Sir Charles to her, and she said "no,"
but added, "This child is not Sir Charles's at all--but Lord Cole's."
She then stated that she had behaved improperly with Lord Cole in June,
1867, at her husband's house. This was testified to by the nurse, and
the occurrence took place at Walton Hall. She was afraid that the baby
would be blind--the disease being an incurable one.
The suit for divorce was opened in the Westminster Divorce Court
February 16th, 1869, and some of the most eminent and aristocratic
personages in England attended. The Prince of Wales was ashamed to be
present until sent for, but as he was very anxious about the result
he sent his private Secretary, Sir W. Knollys, to watch the case.
That gentleman was present every day, and manifested great interest
in the testimony, which was very filthy, but not so filthy but that
the Pall Mall Gazette and London Times, with other leading journals,
should print every line of it, day by day, as it transpired in the
Court. The trial continued seven days, Lord Penzance presiding, and it
created as great an interest in London as the McFarland and Richardson
case did in New York. No ladies were admitted to the Court, but two
thousand, the majority of whom were of the cultivated and respectable
class, sought admission during the first three days of the trial.
All the relatives, of both parties, who could attend were present.
The Dowager-Lady Mordaunt, mother of Sir Charles, testified strongly
against her daughter-in-law, whom she accused of shamming insanity to
hide her crime and dishonor. The plea of insanity was the defence set
up by Sir Thomas Moncrieffe, father of Lady Mordaunt. The testimony was
very contradictory. Some of the physicians swore that Lady Mordaunt was
perfectly sane, but that she feigned insanity to screen herself, while
others testified that she was not in a sound condition of mind.
[Sidenote: A TREACHEROUS WIFE.]
But the evidence was very clear against Lady Mordaunt despite of all
endeavors to save her, or rather to save the Prince of Wales, through
the unfortunate lady. Testimony was adduced, that, one evening in
November, 1868, Lady Mordaunt absented herself from Walton Hall and
went to London in company with Captain Farquhar, one of her "fast"
young male friends, and that while there she stopped a whole night with
him at the Palace Hotel. To blind her husband she wrote the following
note to him:
Palace Hotel, Buckingham Gate, Nov. 8.
My Darling Charlie--One line to say I shall not be able to reach home
by twelve o'clock train, but will come by the one which reaches at
3.50. Send carriage to meet me. I felt horribly dull by myself all
yesterday evening. I have not had much time as yet to-day. I have seen
Priestly and will tell you all about it when I come home.
Your affectionate wife,
HARRIET MORDAUNT.
Frederick Johnson, a footman of Lady Mordaunt, testified as follows:
Frederick Johnson testified:--I was formerly footman to Sir C.
Mordaunt. While Captain Farquhar was staying at Walton, in the autumn
of 1867, I took a note, I believe, from Mrs. Cadogan, into Lady
Mordaunt's sitting-room. The captain was there. They had carving tools
before them. The rest of the party were out shooting. I did not knock
before entering. Lady Mordaunt told me I ought not to come in without
knocking. She had not told me so before. I went with Lady Mordaunt,
in the spring of 1868, to the Alhambra. Captain Farquhar was there.
Lady Kinnoul (with whom Lady Mordaunt was staying) went, too, in her
own carriage, and Lady Mordaunt in a hired one. Lady Mordaunt left
about twelve. The Captain rode part of the way home with her. I have
posted three or four letters from Lady Mordaunt to him, and have also
delivered a letter to him. The Prince of Wales called once in 1867; I
did not see him at the house again. He also called on Lady Mordaunt
while she was staying with Lady Kinnoul. I have taken letters from her
Ladyship addressed to the Prince; some I took to Marlborough House,
and others I posted.
Cross-examined.--Letters were given me by her Ladyship, her maid, and
the butler. I posted a great many. The Prince called at Lady Kinnoul's
to see Lady Mordaunt just after she had got better. She had been
confined to her room.
Re-examined.--I took two or three letters to Marlborough House; two I
am positive, and I think I posted three to the Prince of Wales within
three days.
The strongest testimony against Lady Mordaunt was given by Miss
Jessie Clark, lady's maid to the wretched woman. It was full and
comprehensive, and I give it here from the official report, cooked up
by the Prince of Wales' friends, with extenuating notes, which I omit.
[Sidenote: THE PRINCE OF WALES CALLS OFTEN.]
Jessie Clarke was then called, and deposed,--I was lady's-maid to Lady
Mordaunt from her marriage till she left Walton. In the autumn of 1867
Captain Farquhar came on a visit, and stayed about a week. He and Lady
Mordaunt were very much together.
In November, 1867, Lady Mordaunt went up to London, and I accompanied
her. We stayed at the Palace Hotel, Buckingham Gate, and remained two
nights. We arrived at the hotel about 5 p.m., and about half-past ten
I saw Captain Farquhar on the landing outside the sitting-room with
Lady Mordaunt. The bed-room was a short distance off. I did not see
him come or leave. Her ladyship went to bed about a quarter to eleven,
and I called her the next morning at half-past eight. I had arranged
the bed-room for her. In the morning I noticed that the books had
been moved, though her ladyship never used to move anything that I
arranged. The next day she was out the greater part of the day, and
went out again about six. She had not returned about ten, when I went
to bed, and she told me not to sit up, as she would not want me.
After returning to Walton she was taken suddenly ill in the night,
and was confined to her room for a week. She then got into her
sitting-room. In arranging her toilet-table I found a letter, not in
an envelope, under a pincushion. I read it. [Notice to produce the
letter was here proved, Dr. Deane stating that he knew nothing of
it.] I replaced it, and a few days afterwards showed it to the butler,
then putting it back again. I afterwards saw her ladyship take it and
put it into the fire. It was dated from "The Tower, Saturday," and
said, "Darling, I arrived here this morning about a quarter to nine,
very tired and sleepy, as you may suppose." It added that he had seen
his name inserted in the _Post_ as Farmer instead of Farquhar, and
said, "So it's all right, darling, as I was afraid Charles would be
suspicious if he saw my name in the arrivals at the hotel with yours."
The letter was signed "Yours, Arthur." I found it the day after she
left the bed-room. She seemed surprised when she found it, and said
she did not think there were any letters about, and then burnt it.
In September, 1868, I had occasion one evening to go into her
ladyship's bed-room, and Captain Farquhar came in. Her ladyship was
not there, and the Captain did not know I was there. He walked to
the table, took some flowers up, and left. During the season in 1867
and 1868, Sir Charles and Lady Mordaunt were in town. Sir Charles
usually went out in the afternoon to his Parliamentary duties. The
Prince of Wales called two or three times in 1867 at that time of
the day, and in 1868 more frequently. In 1868 he usually came about
four in the afternoon, and stayed from one to one and a half or two
hours. Her ladyship was always at home and saw him. No one was in
the drawing-room at the time. The Prince did not come in his private
carriage. I do not remember that Sir Charles was ever at home when the
Prince called in 1868.
Lord _Penzance_.--Sir Charles himself has told us that he was at home
on one occasion, three weeks before he left for Norway.
Examination continued.--The Prince came about once a week. In March,
1868, I attended Lady Mordaunt while on a visit to Lady Kinnoul, in
Belgrave-square, Sir Charles being then at Walton. The Prince came
there one Sunday, for I met him leaving as I was coming in. Lady
Mordaunt showed me a letter from the Prince before she was married,
and I have delivered letters to her in the same hand writing; six or
seven times, perhaps, in 1868. I also received two or three letters
from her addressed to the Prince, which I gave the footman (Johnson)
to post. During the summer of 1868, Lord Cole used to call twice or
thrice a week in the afternoon, more frequently when Sir Charles was
out. Lady Mordaunt was then at home. She told me we were to go home
in a week after Sir Charles went to Norway [15th of June], but we did
not go till the 7th of July. During that interval Lord Cole used to
call, and on the 27th of June he dined there with another gentleman
and lady, whom I do not know. They had not left at half-past twelve,
when I went to bed. Her ladyship invariably told me not to sit up for
her after twelve. We went to Paddington to take the train, Lord Cole
met her there, and took the tickets, giving me mine, and handing Lady
Mordaunt into a first-class empty compartment. He stood by the door
till the train was starting, and then got in. He left at Reading, the
first stopping station. The other servants came down on the 10th,
and Lord Cole also; he remained till the 14th, and the next day Sir
Charles returned.
In December, 1868, I was staying with Lady Mordaunt at the Alexandra
Hotel, Knightsbridge. The Duke and Duchess of Athole stayed there
with her. The day after they left Sir F. Johnstone came, and left her
ladyship's sitting-room about midnight. I was at Walton during her
confinement, and until she left. After the nurse left, on the 27th of
March, I attended on her. The note produced I found soon after the
10th of April in one of her ladyship's pockets in a dress which she
had recently worn. [This was the letter read yesterday addressed to
the nurse, and bidding her say nothing more about the nonsense the
writer had uttered.] About the 25th of April I noticed in the paper
the death of the Countess of Bradford. I showed it to Lady Mordaunt,
who said, "Poor thing, I'm so sorry," and said she would have to
go into mourning. I provided temporary mourning, and her ladyship
directed me to get two mourning dresses, as she would not be going
about much. She also selected mourning jewelry. On the 6th of May
I saw her before the physicians came. She was conversing with Mrs.
Forbes, who asked for some brandy and soda water, and while she was
drinking it Lady Mordaunt laughed, and said, "Helen, if you drink all
that I'm sure you'll be tipsy." The same evening Mrs. Cadogan called,
and I took a photograph in. They were talking very comfortably. On
the 12th of May, while dressing her ladyship, she remarked on the
dress Lady Kinnoul wore, and said, "What a larky old thing she is." I
told her Mrs. Forbes admired a certain dress of hers, and she replied
that she wore it a long time at Yowle [Mrs. Forbes' residence]. Her
ladyship looked at the newspapers until the time of her leaving, the
15th of May. Down to that day I constantly attended on her. I have
never seen her since. I never saw anything indicative of unsound mind.
She was perfectly rational and sensible, and appeared to understand
everything.
Henry Bird, an old servant of the family, and butler, testified in a
candid, frank way, to what he knew, as follows:
[Sidenote: FARQUHAR AND JOHNSTONE.]
Henry Bird.--I am butler to Sir C. Mordaunt, and have been in the
service of the family thirty years. Lord Cole, Captain Farquhar,
and Sir F. Johnstone visited Walton Hall. In the autumn of 1867
I accompanied Sir Charles and Lady Mordaunt to Scotland. Captain
Farquhar was staying at the same place, and I noticed that he and her
ladyship were often together. Lady Mordaunt was more frequently with
him than with other people. A few days after we returned to Walton
he came to visit. He was often in her sitting room, generally alone
with her. Sir Charles was frequently out shooting at the time. Jessie
Clarke made a communication to me, and showed me a letter. That was
about ten days after Lady Mordaunt's return to London. It was in
Captain Farquhar's writing. I read it and returned it to Clarke. It
was dated at the Tower, and said, "Darling, I got home here, tired
and weary, as you may suppose. I have read the _Morning Post_, and
have seen that they have inserted my name as Farmer. If they had
inserted it Farquhar, Sir Charles would have been suspicious." There
was also an allusion to having attended a play, and the persons they
had seen there. Clarke did not tell me where she had found it. I
referred to the _Post_ of November 7 and 9, 1867; Sir Charles took
it in. I referred to it before I saw the letter, on account of what
Clarke told me, and I put aside the two papers in my cupboard. On the
7th, among the arrivals at the Palace Hotel, Buckingham-gate, Lady
Mordaunt's name is given, and on the 9th Captain Farmer's. In January,
1868, Captain Farquhar visited Walton, and staid about a week. There
were other visitors, and there was not so much opportunity for him
and Lady Mordaunt to be together. I once found them together in the
billiard-room, standing close together near the billiard-table; they
seemed startled, and I apologised and left. In 1867 and 1868 the
Prince of Wales called at Sir Charles's London house--in 1868 about
once a week; but one week twice. He came about four p.m., and stayed
from one to two hours. I received him. Sir Charles was then at the
House of Commons, or out pigeon-shooting. Lady Mordaunt gave me
directions that when the Prince called no one else was to be admitted.
After Sir Charles left for Norway the Prince took luncheon there once,
with a sister of Lady Mordaunt and a gentleman. The last two went away
together, but the Prince remained about twenty minutes alone with Lady
Mordaunt. Lord Cole visited the house two or three times a week--more
frequently when Sir Charles was out and after he had left for Norway.
Sir Charles was seldom at home in the afternoon. Lord Cole and two
others dined with Lady Mordaunt after Sir Charles's departure. The two
others left about eleven, but Lord Cole stayed in the drawing-room
till about a quarter to one. I knew this by hearing the front door
bang, and by observing that his hat and coat were gone. I went down to
Walton on the 10th of July; Lord Cole arrived the same day, and left
the day before Sir Charles's return. Sir F. Johnstone, when he stayed
at Walton, was often in her ladyship's sitting-room while the rest of
the party were shooting or hunting. I left Walton with Sir Charles on
the 5th of April, 1869. After her confinement Lady Mordaunt used to
take the papers from me, and once proposed to go fishing, as she had
done before; but I said it was too cold. She seemed quite rational. I
went on the 20th of August to Worthington in order to accompany her
to Bickley. She shook hands with me. I told her Sir Charles had gone
to Scotland, and that Taylor, the gamekeeper, had gone with him. She
laughed and said, "Only think of Taylor's going." She referred to the
death of the Dowager-Lady Mordaunt's son, Mr. Arthur Smith, and said
how sorry his father must be to lose his only son. I remained five or
seven minutes.
A package of letters, a love valentine, and some flowers, which the
Prince of Wales had sent Lady Mordaunt, were found by Miss Jessie
Clarke, and were given to Sir Charles Mordaunt by her. It has been
stated there were other letters from the Prince of Wales to Lady
Mordaunt, which were destroyed in time to save the Prince from the
reputation of a dastard. The letters which were found were produced in
court, but were not read in the early stage of the proceedings, until
the leading newspapers had by some stratagem succeeded in getting
copies, which they published, to the great indignation of Lord Penzance
and other toadies of the Prince. These letters I give as specimens of
the style of writing, amusement, and companions, which the dear Prince
affects. They are ungrammatical, silly, and slangy, and show a vivid
dearth of ideas in the heir to a great kingdom.
I.--She Sends Him Muffetees.
"Sandringham, King's Lynn, January 13, 1867.
"My dear Lady Mordaunt,--I am quite shocked never to have answered
your kind letter, written some time ago, and for the very pretty
muffetees, which are very useful this cold weather. I had no idea
where you had been staying since your marriage, but Francis Knollys
told me that you are in Warwickshire. I suppose you will be up in
London for the opening of Parliament, when I hope I may perhaps have
the pleasure of seeing you and making the acquaintance of Sir Charles.
I was in London for only two nights, and returned here Saturday. The
rails were so slippery that we thought we should never arrive here.
There has been a heavy fall of snow here, and we are able to use our
sledges, which is capital fun.
"Believe me, yours ever sincerely,
"Albert Edward."
II.--Would Like to See Her Again.
"Monday.
"My Dear Lady Mordaunt,--I am sure you will be glad to hear that the
Princess was safely delivered of a little girl this morning and that
both are doing very well. I hope you will come to the Oswald and
St. James's Hall this week. There would, I am sure, be no harm your
remaining till Saturday in town. I shall like to see you again.
"Ever yours most sincerely,
"Albert Edward."
III.--She Brings Him an Umbrella.
"Marlborough House, May 7, 1867.
"My dear Lady Mordaunt,--Many thanks for your letter, and I am very
sorry that I should have given you so much trouble looking for the
ladies' _umbrella_ for me at Paris. I am very glad to hear that you
enjoyed your stay there. I shall be going there on Friday next, and
as the Princess is so much better, shall hope to remain a week there.
If there is any commission I can do for you there it will give me the
greatest pleasure to carry it out. I regret very much not to have been
able to call upon you since your return, but hope to do so when I come
back from Paris, and have an opportunity of making the acquaintance of
your husband.
"Believe me yours very sincerely,
"Albert Edward."
IV.--Hamilton's Wife is Good Looking.
"Marlborough House, Oct. 13.
[Sidenote: SAM BUCKLEY IN HIS KILT.]
"My dear Lady Mordaunt,--Many thanks for your kind letter, which I
received just before we left Dunrobin, and I have been so busy here
that I have been unable to answer it before. I am glad to hear that
you are flourishing at Walton, and hope your husband has had good
sport with the partridges. We had a charming stay at Dunrobin--from
the 19th of September to the 7th of this month. Our party consisted
of the Sandwiches, Grosvenors (only for a few days), Sumners, Bakers,
F. Marshall, Albert, Ronald Gower, Sir H. Pelly, Oliver, who did
not look so bad in a kilt as you heard; Lacelles, Falkner, and Sam
Buckley, who looked first-rate in his kilt. I was also three or four
days in the Reay Forest with the Grosvenors. I shot four stags. My
total was twenty-one. P. John thanks you very much for your photo;
and I received two very good ones, accompanied by a charming epistle,
from your sister. We are all delighted with Hamilton's marriage,
and I think you are rather hard on the young lady, as, although not
exactly pretty, she is very nice looking, has charming manners, and
is very popular with every one. From his letter he seems to be very
much in love--a rare occurrence now-a-days. I will see what I can do
in getting a presentation for the son of Mrs. Bradshaw for the Royal
Asylum of London, St. Ann's Society. Francis will tell you result.
London is very empty, but I have plenty to do, so time does not go
slowly, and I go down shooting to Windsor and Richmond occasionally.
On the 26th I shall shoot with General Hall at Newmarket, the
following week at Knowlsley, and then at Windsor and Sandringham
before we go abroad. This will be probably on the 18th or 19th of next
month. You told me when I last saw you that you were probably going
to Paris in November, but I suppose you have given it up. I saw in
the papers that you were in London on Saturday. I wish you had let me
know, as I would have made a point of calling. There are some good
plays going on, and we are going the rounds of them. My brother is
here, but at the end of the month he starts for Plymouth on his long
cruise of nearly two years. Now I shall say good-by, and hoping that
probably we may have a chance of seeing you before we leave,
"I remain, yours most sincerely,
"Albert Edward."
V.--Don't Know the Height of the Ponies.
"White's, Nov. 1.
"My dear Lady Mordaunt,--Many thanks for your letter, which I received
this morning. I cannot tell you at this moment the exact height of the
ponies in question, but I think they are just under fourteen hands,
but as soon as I know for certain I shall not fail to let you know. I
would be only too happy if they would suit you, and have the pleasure
of seeing them in your hands. It is quite an age since I have seen or
heard anything of you, but I trust you had a pleasant trip abroad,
and I suppose you have been in Scotland since. Lord Dudley has kindly
asked me to shoot with him at Buckenham on the 9th of next mouth, and
I hope I may, perhaps, have the pleasure of seeing you there.
"Believe me, yours ever sincerely,
"Albert Edward."
VI.--The "Great" Oliver is Coming.
"Sandringham, King's Lynn, Nov. 30.
"My dear Lady Mordaunt,--I was very glad to hear from Colonel
Kingscote the other day that you had bought my two ponies. I also
trust that they will suit you, and that you will drive them for many
a year. I have never driven them myself, so I don't know whether they
are easy to drive or not. I hope you have had some hunting, although
the ground is so hard that in some parts of the country it is quite
stopped. We had our first shooting party this week, and got 809 head
one day, and twenty-nine woodcocks. Next week the great Oliver is
coming. He and Blandford had thought of going to Algiers; but they
have now given it up, and I don't know to what foreign clime they
are going to betake themselves. I saw Lady Dudley at Onwallis, and I
thought her looking very well. I am sorry to hear that you won't be
at Buckenham when I go there, as it is such an age since I have seen
you. If there is anything else (besides horses) that I can do for you,
please let me know, and
"I remain, yours ever sincerely,
"Albert Edward."
VII.--Sorry to Hear That She Has Been Seedy.
"Sandringham, King's Lynn, Dec. 5.
"My dear Lady Mordaunt,--Many thanks for your letter, which I received
this evening, and am very glad to hear that you like the ponies, but
I hope they will be well driven before you attempt to drive them, as
I know they are fresh. They belonged originally to the Princess Mary,
who drove them for some years, and when she married, not wanting them
just then, I bought them from her. I am not surprised that you have
had no hunting lately, as the frost has made the ground as hard as
iron. We hope, however, to be able to hunt to-morrow, as a thaw has
set in. We killed over a thousand head on Tuesday, and killed forty
woodcocks to-day. Oliver has been in great force, and as bumptious
as ever. Blandford is also here, so you can imagine what a row goes
on. On Monday next I go to Buckenham, and I am indeed very sorry that
we shall not meet there. I am very sorry to hear that you have been
seedy, but hope that you are now all right again.
"Ever yours very sincerely,
"Albert Edward."
VIII.--He is Anxious.
"Thursday.
"My dear Lady Mordaunt,--I am sorry to find by the letter that I
received from you this morning that you are unwell, and that I shall
not be able to pay you a visit to-day, to which I had been looking
forward with so much pleasure. To-morrow and Saturday I shall be
hunting in Nottinghamshire, but if you are still in town, may I come
to see you about five on Sunday afternoon? And hoping you will soon be
yourself again,
"Believe me, yours ever sincerely,
"Albert Edward."
IX.--He Had the Measles.
"Sunday.
[Sidenote: THE PRINCE HAS THE MEASLES.]
"My dear Lady Mordaunt,--I cannot tell you how distressed I am to
hear from your letter that you have got the measles, and that I shall
in consequence not have the pleasure of seeing you. I have had the
measles myself a long time ago, and I know what a tiresome complaint
it is. I trust you will take great care of yourself, and have a good
doctor with you. Above all, I should not read at all, as it is very
bad for the eyes, and I suppose you will be forced to lay up for a
time. The weather is very favorable for your illness, and wishing you
a very speedy recovery,
"Believe me, yours most sincerely,
"Albert Edward."
X.--Anxious Again.
"Sunday.
"My dear Lady Mordaunt,--Many thanks for your kind letter. I am so
glad to hear that you have made so good a recovery, and to be able
soon to go to Hastings, which is sure to do you a great deal of good.
I hope that perhaps on your return to London I may have the pleasure
of seeing you.
"Believe me, yours very sincerely,
"Albert Edward."
XI.--The "Great" Francis is to Arrive.
Sandringham, King's Lynn, Nov. 16.
"My dear Lady Mordaunt,--I must apologise for not having answered
your last kind letter, but accept my best thanks for it now. Since
the 10th I have been here at Sir William Knollys' house, as I am
building a totally new one. I am here _en garcon_, and we have had
very good shooting. The Duke of Cambridge, Lord Suffield, Lord Alfred
Paget, Lord de Grey, Sir Frederick Johnstone, Chaplin, General Hall,
Captain (Sam) Buckley, Major Grey, and myself, composed the party;
and the great Francis arrived on Saturday, but he is by no means a
distinguished shot. Sir Frederick Johnstone tells me he is going to
stay with you to-morrow for the Warwick races, so he can give you
the best account of us. This afternoon, after shooting, I return to
London, and to-morrow night the Princess, our three eldest children,
and myself, start for Paris, where we shall remain a week, and then go
straight to Copenhagen, where we spend Christmas, and the beginning of
January we start on a longer trip. We shall go to Venice, and then by
sea to Alexandria, and up the Nile as far as we can get; and later to
Constantinople, Athens, and home by Italy, and I don't expect we shall
be back again before April. I fear, therefore, I shall not see you for
a long time, but trust to find you, perhaps, in London on our return.
If you should have time, it will be very kind to write me sometimes.
Letters to Marlborough House, to be forwarded, will always reach me. I
hope you will remain strong and well, and wishing you a very pleasant
winter,
"I remain, yours most sincerely,
"Albert Edward."
On the afternoon of the fifth day of the trial, the Prince of Wales,
who had been driven by his royal mother to take the step, much against
his will, appeared in court to testify, nominally at his own request,
but really from a fear of public opinion. The presiding judge of the
Divorce Court, Lord Penzance, when he heard that the Prince desired
to testify in his own behalf, exerted himself in such an extreme
fashion, as to call down the ridicule and scorn of the London press
for his servile proceedings. Having been informed that the Prince was
about to appear in court, this flunkey judge, who had been created
a peer for something that he had done as a lawyer, was most eager,
painfully eager, in fact, to accommodate his Royal Highness. The latter
was treated by the judge with a respect which was a combination of
profundity, enthusiasm, and excitement. One journal suggested to the
learned judge, that while the Prince was in attendance on the trial,
it was the duty of the magistrate to have a smoking room fitted up for
the special use of the Prince, while another claimed that a billiard
table should be provided for the amusement of the Prince between the
intervals of the evidence, and asked Lord Penzance to be careful
and open court daily at an hour to suit the convenience of the Heir
Apparent, who is I believe, a late riser. It is a rule of British law,
that the members of the Royal family cannot be called upon to testify
in any case, unless of their own free will, and then they are not
asked to swear to the evidence which they may give, as their simple
affirmation is deemed to be sufficient. The Prince of Wales on this
occasion, however, thought it necessary to be sworn, and he testified
that he knew Sir Charles and Lady Mordaunt, and that Lady Mordaunt had
been an acquaintance of his before his marriage to the Princess of
Wales. He also testified that he was fond of riding in hansom cabs, and
lastly, he swore that there never had been any improper familiarity or
criminal act between himself and Lady Mordaunt. This statement, in open
court, was a great relief to the Queen, who it is said, at once upon
hearing of it sent for the Prince to come to Buckingham Palace, and on
his arrival he was welcomed warmly by his mother.
[Sidenote: SIR FREDERICK JOHNSTONE TESTIFIES.]
The next witness examined was Sir Frederick Johnstone, who testified
that he had gone to dine with Lady Mordaunt at the Alexandra Hotel,
in obedience to a request which she made by letter, to that effect.
The dinner was a tete-a-tete one, (no one being present but Sir
Frederick and Lady Mordaunt) in a private room, and it lasted from four
o'clock in the afternoon until twelve o'clock at night. Sir Frederick
acknowledged that the dinner took place without the knowledge of Sir
Charles Mordaunt, and that he never told the latter of the circumstance
afterward, although a visitor at Walton Hall. This closed the case
on evidence. A paper had been found in Lady Mordaunt's handwriting,
with the memoranda "280 days from June 29--April 3d," referring,
as it was supposed, to her first meeting with Viscount Cole. Sir
Charles Mordaunt, in his affidavit, alleged the marriage on the 6th of
December, 1866, at St. John's Episcopal Church, Perth; cohabitation
at Walton Hall, and at 6 Belgrave-square; and adultery with Viscount
Cole in May, June, and July, 1868, at Chesham-place, and in July, 1868,
and January, 1869, at Walton Hall; and adultery with Sir Frederick
Johnstone, in November and December, 1868, at Walton Hall, and in
December, 1868, at the Alexandra Hotel, Knightsbridge; and adultery
also with some person between the 15th of June, 1868, and the 28th of
February, 1869.
The English aristocracy never have had such a blow dealt at their
corrupt social system, as the developments of this suit impelled
against them. "Reynolds' Newspaper," a London journal with a
circulation of 280,000 copies weekly, spoke in thunder tones as
follows, to its readers, the workingmen of London:
"THE PRINCE OF WALES IN THE DIVORCE COURT.
The great social scandal to which we have frequently alluded, has
now become blazoned to the world through the instrumentality of the
Divorce Court. Nothing was left undone that might hush it up, so
that the Prince of Wales' name should not figure in so discreditable
a business. Every effort was made to silence Sir Charles Mordaunt.
A peerage was, we believe, offered him. Any place of emolument he
asked for would willingly have been given him. All the honors and
dignities the crown and government have it in their power to bestow
would readily have been prostituted to insure his silence. Lord
Penzance, at the last moment, earnestly strove to keep the name of
the Prince from coming before the public. Sir Charles Mordaunt,
however, was deaf to every persuasion, and, like a noble minded
man and high spirited gentleman, scouted all attempts to shut his
mouth; and, with contemptuous indifference to the entreaties of the
judge, and disregarding the course adopted by his own counsel, at
once told the whole story of his supposed dishonor, without blinking
facts or concealing names. He told the court that he forbade his
wife continuing her acquaintance with the Prince of Wales on account
of his character. He intimated to the Prince that his visits should
cease. He, however, alleges that, despite this intimation, they were
surreptitiously continued; that letters of a compromising character
were found; and that other circumstances occurred leading him to
suppose that an improper intimacy existed between, the Prince and his
wife. It should be borne in mind that when all this is said to have
occurred the Prince of Wales was a married man himself, and the father
of a family. The question, therefore, remains to be solved, is he an
adulterer or not? Can he disprove the apparently damnatory allegations
of Sir C. Mordaunt? Of course we do not wish to prejudge the case. We
hope, for his own and for his wife's sake, that he can completely
refute the heavy accusation laid to his charge, and that he will do so
at the earliest opportunity. But we have no hesitation in declaring
that if the Prince of Wales is an accomplice in bringing dishonor
to the homestead of an English gentleman; if he has deliberately
debauched the wife of an Englishman; if he has assisted in rendering
an honorable man miserable for life; if unbridled sensuality and lust
have led him to violate the laws of honor and of hospitality--then
such a man, placed in the position he is, should not only be expelled
from decent society, but is utterly unfit and unworthy to rule over
this country or even sit in its legislature."
[Sidenote: THE FASTEST MAN IN ENGLAND.]
I don't see how any writer could make a stronger case against Royalty,
(however hostile his spirit,) than this fearless exposition by the
English journal of wide circulation, to which I have referred. The
evidence of Sir Frederick Johnstone, which I have omitted, was too
disgraceful to appear in this work, although the English papers printed
every line of it. Well, the case went to the jury at last, after Lord
Penzance had properly and carefully manipulated them, and a verdict was
brought by them "that Lady Mordaunt being of unsound mind, was totally
unfit to instruct her attorneys," and thus Sir Charles Mordaunt, having
been dishonored and his domestic happiness destroyed by a conspiracy
of titled persons, had to be satisfied with the verdict. In these days
the plea of insanity is always a convenient one, and is very useful in
a desperate case. Sir Charles was not daunted, however, and appealed
his case, but met with defeat again, and thus the matter rests, and
will rest. It is the intention of the injured husband to visit America,
as he is an admirer of our institutions. I do not wish to offer any
comment whatever on the state of society in which such corruption
exists. The facts must speak for themselves.
The "fastest" young man in England is undoubtedly, William Alexander,
Louis, Stephen, Douglas-Hamilton, Duke of Hamilton, Marquis of
Hamilton, Marquis of Douglas, Earl of Angus, Earl of Arran, Earl
of Lanark, Baron Hamilton, Aven, Polmont, Macanshire, Innerdale,
Abernethey and Jedburgh Forest, and premier Duke and Peer in the
Peerage of Scotland, Duke of Brandon (Suffolk), and Baron Dutton in the
Peerage of Great Britain, Duke of Chatherault in France, Hereditary,
Keeper of the Holyrood House, and Deputy Lieutenant of some county with
an unpronounceable name in Scotland.
Possibly some of my readers, in going over this long line of titles,
will recall the days of Bruce and Douglas, of "proud Angus," whom
Marmion bearded in his hall, and of that Douglas who carried the heart
of Bruce, like a Paladin, amid the lances of Spain; or perhaps the
picture of Chevy Chase, and Douglas, and Percy, in armed fight, will
be evoked with thoughts of the greatest historical House in Europe.
Nobler descent, or more genuine historical honor, cannot be claimed by
the holder of any lordly or royal title, than that which belongs to the
present Duke of Hamilton, who is as yet only twenty-seven years of age.
He is a first cousin of the Emperor of France by his mother, Stephanie,
Duchess of Baden, a noble, beautiful, and good woman,--who married the
old Duke of Hamilton; and one of his sisters is married to the Prince
of Monaco, a sovereign in his own right. Two other sisters of the
present Duke are nuns, having been educated in the Roman Catholic faith
by their mother. The fourth sister is married to a private gentleman of
large fortune.
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF HAMILTON.]
[Sidenote: INSULTS THE EMPEROR.]
The old Duke was in every sense a gentleman and a man of honor, but his
two male descendants, the present Duke of Hamilton, and his brother,
Lord Churchill Hamilton, are sad scapegraces--indeed I doubt if a
rougher name would not be more appropriate. The young Duke, as soon as
he came of age, fell heir to an income of £300,000 a year, and eight
or nine country seats and residences. He had no sooner entered into
possession of his estate, than he was surrounded by betting men, turf
blackguards, spendthrifts, abandoned women, and dissolute noblemen of
his own age. Every shilling of his gigantic fortune was squandered in
three or four years, and his proud old name became a by-word of scorn
and reproach when it was found that his debts amounted to £130,000. He
had for his associates the Earl of Jersey, the Marquis of Waterford,
the Prince of Wales, Lord Carington, the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl of
Winchelsea, the Earl of Westmoreland, and other bankrupt and dissolute
nobles. For a long time polite society tolerated the Duke of Hamilton,
because of his family, birth, and fortune, but when he lost the latter,
those who formerly laughed at his wild actions and peccadilloes, now
began to frown upon him as an _enfant perdu_. He was sowing too much
wild oats, and his friends began to desert him in disgust. A bad set
of men who had control of the Duke, did not hesitate to drag his proud
name and title through the gutters. At last his fellow noblemen,
thoroughly ashamed of him, determined to give him a lesson. His name
was put up for membership in the Jockey Club, and he was black-balled
with great unanimity. The Duke of an almost royal family was treated
in this ignominious way by the fathers of families, and brothers of
girls of stainless birth, as a caution to him. The Duke being both
bankrupt and disgraced, left England for the Continent, to avoid his
thousand and one creditors, who cursed him bitterly when he departed.
Passing through Paris, his cousin, the Emperor, invited him to dine at
the Tuilleries. The Duke returned a curt verbal answer to his imperial
relative, that he could not accept the invitation, "for he had neither
clothes nor manners in which to appear at the Emperor's table." That
same evening he appeared in a private box at the opera, dressed in a
short double-breasted shooting jacket, in company with two or three of
the turfites (broken down betting men, who hung on to him for what they
could get), and afterwards presided at a supper of which the less that
is said the better, concerning the "ladies," who composed one-half of
the twenty-four persons who sat down to table.
After the Duke left England for the Continent, a sale of his effects
was had. Hundreds of purchasers attended the sale out of curiosity,
as they had attended the sale of "Skittle's" furniture, or as the
Parisian dandies and lorettes attended the sale of the household gods
of Marguerite Gautier, afterwards known as the "Dame aux Camelias."
Every article belonging to the Duke realized a value of more than two
or three hundred per cent. over its original value. Crowds of "snobs"
and "cads" bought whips and pipes, riding jackets, cigar cases, canes,
gloves, and boots, pictures of French dancers and German soubrettes,
as well as articles of crockery, at the most extravagant prices,
simply because they had once been in the possession of a real live
Duke, although he was a scamp. One miserable little tea-broker gave
twenty-five pounds for a worn, poorly bound copy of the "Kisses of
Johannes Secundus," with the idea that he was getting something very
immoral--but he was disappointed of course.
I saw him twice, this Duke of Hamilton, once in a low cabaret in Paris,
which had for a name the strange and I thought very inappropriate title
of the "Groves of the Evangelists."
It was in a little street, or rather lane, called the Rue Belle-Cuisse,
which is in the Quartier Breda.
It was a low dingy little hole, this "Groves of the Evangelist," and
the people present were chiefly infantry privates of some of the line
regiments, who serve as a part of the garrison of Paris. They were a
hard-drinking, ruffianly lot, and the women who sat on their laps were
of all the obscene birds of night that I encountered in Paris, the very
worst and most abandoned.
A little girl, with a bold face and wearing a slatternly, torn dress,
with a brazen pair of steely blue eyes, acted as bar-girl in this
place, and measured out to the customers, petit verres of fiery Nantes
brandy.
Two men, young, and fashionably dressed, sat at a table, who appeared
to be strangers in Paris, although they conversed fluently enough, in
French, with each other.
One of these was a fair, girlish-faced, young gentleman, with hair
which is always termed auburn by the poets, while, as a contradiction
it is generally denominated, in police returns--"red hair." This was
the Duke of Hamilton.
[Sidenote: VILLAINY OF THE MARQUIS OF WATERFORD.]
The second person at the table was a tall, athletic, and
handsome-looking fellow, of twenty-four or five years of age, with a
smooth face, daring, black eyes, and a massive head well set upon a
pair of broad shoulders.
This individual was John De La Poer Beresford, Marquis of Waterford,
Earl of Tyrone, Viscount Tyrone, and a Baron five times over in England
and Ireland, a relation of the Archbishop of Armagh, Protestant Primate
of Ireland, and having an income of about half a million dollars,
annually, in his own right.
[Illustration: MARQUIS OF WATERFORD.]
This young Marquis of Waterford, did a most dastardly thing when he
seduced the wife of his bosom friend, the Hon. J.C.P. Vivian, M.P., a
Junior Lord of the Treasury, who had placed the utmost confidence in
the Marquis. He took Mrs. Vivian with him to Paris, and there lived
with her in open adultery for some time until he became tired of his
victim and then he ordered her with great coolness to return to her
dishonored husband. To make the matter worse she was the mother of two
lovely children. Her married sister, the Honorable Mrs. Somebody, went
to Paris to attempt to reclaim her, held an interview with her, and
begged of her to return to her husband. She blankly refused to do so,
giving as her reason that she loved "John" too much,--"John," I need
not say, being the Marquis of Waterford.
Mr. Vivian having commenced a suit for divorce, the utter villainy of
the Marquis appeared when the letters of that nobleman to his quondam
friend Vivian were read, in which the great trust reposed by Mr. Vivian
in Waterford was most publicly made manifest.
This young nobleman is a grandson of the second Marquis of Waterford,
who was distinguished as a companion to the Prince Regent, and as well
for breaking off door-knockers and bell-handles--a complaint that was
chronic with him, and that seems to run in the family.
The Marquis of Waterford is not quite so impoverished through his
excesses as some of his friends, but I understand that his debts at one
time amounted to £60,000.
My readers may recollect that, during the visit of the Prince of Wales
to America, he had in the suite which accompanied him, a certain Duke
of Newcastle, a young nobleman, who married, some years ago, a daughter
of the great banker, Hope, who brought her husband an immense fortune.
Beside these advantages there were few noblemen in England as highly
connected, or as wealthy, as the Duke of Newcastle. Well, Miss Hope
only served to stay the waning fortunes of this spendthrift for a short
time, as he is now a bankrupt, and has to reside out of England to
avoid the Sheriff's officers. While the execution was being levied in
the magnificent mansion of the Duke, and before his wife could leave
the premises, the Duke had gambled away thirteen thousand pounds, the
last remnant of his once princely fortune. This hopeful Duke has always
been very intimate with the Prince of Wales.
Another of the same reckless unprincipled set is the young Earl of
Jersey, who was left an income of £50,000 a year, every shilling of
which is gone. This young fool, who is endowed with the manners of a
cabman, and who has a pot-house air in everything that he says or does,
was deeply in debt at sixteen years of age, and before he left school
he had borrowed £25,000 from the Jews, who now own him body and soul.
His grand-mother, the Countess of Jersey, was, I believe, a mistress of
George IV.
[Sidenote: THE MARQUIS OF HASTINGS.]
The Marquis of Hastings, who died about two years ago, was also one of
this same set of spendthrift, young harum-scarum, unprincipled scions
of the Bluest Blood of which England can boast. All his magnificent
fortune went in horses, and women, and yachts, and at last, when
he died, at the age of 26, he had squandered some three or four
millions of dollars, and, I believe, the title created as far back as
1389, became in the direct line, extinct. The Marquis lost one day
at the Derby race on Lady Elizabeth, a favorite horse of his, the
enormous sum of $150,000 in gold. He married a beautiful and wealthy
girl, and her fortune went in the general crash after his death. He
owned a magnificent yacht, and was in the habit of cruising in the
Mediterranean with a coterie of dissolute young aristocrats like
himself, and on board of this yacht scenes took place that might have
made the cheek of Sardanapalus to blush--that is, provided that that
bloated Assyrian ever blushed.
[Illustration: THE MARQUIS OF HASTINGS.]
Prince Christian of Schleswig, a beggarly little German kinglet, who
was allowed to marry the Princess Helena, a daughter of Queen Victoria,
and a very good girl, is said to be rather wild in his ways, but his
allowance, £10,000 a year from Parliament, has to satisfy him whether
he likes it or not. But in 1869 Prince Christian and the Duchess of
Mecklenburg-Strelitz had occasion to journey from Dover to Calais, and
the little German had the impudence to send a bill of sixty eight
pounds expenses to Parliament, despite the fact that he received his
allowance regularly. Professor Fawcett, a liberal member of Parliament,
who brought in bills to abolish religious distinctions in Dublin
University, and in favor of woman suffrage, demanded the items of
the bill, and failing to get them, moved that the Prince Christian's
bill be struck out of the estimates. To show what is thought of such
unbridled extravagance--the fare being only about two pounds from Dover
to Calais--I give the satire and comments of the _Queen's Messenger_
of August 5, 1869, upon the matter. This paper is a weekly organ,
published in London.
"Happily there are always two ways of looking at a question, else the
following bill, which was presented last week to Parliament, might
have suggested puzzling reflections:
DUE FROM BRITISH TAXPAYER TO BRITISH GOVERNMENT:
For cost of presents made by Duke of Edinburgh during voyage
to Cape and Australia, £3,374 14 0
For conveyance of Prince Christian and Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
from Dover to Calais, 68 0 0
For royal present to Peter, king of Congo, as reward for act
of Christian charity, 0 12 6
For luncheon to Prince William of Hesse, 13 0 0
For providing food for inhabitants of Cephalonia after the
island had been injured by earthquake, 10 9 6
For rigging-out a pier at Antwerp for reception of Prince of
Wales, 2 1 0
For robes, collars, and badges for certain persons who had received
honor of knighthood, 1,000 0 0
For maintenance of Congo, pirate chief, at Ascension, 38 3 0
Cost of presents to King of Masaba, by Captain of H.M. ship
Investigator, 2 0 4
========
£4,509 0 4
Thus it costs 13l. to give a luncheon to Prince William of Hesse,
and only 10l. to relieve an island full of people who are dying of
famine. It requires 2l. to lay down red cloth for the Prince of Wales
to walk on, and only 12s. 6d. to reward King Peter for an act of
Christian charity. These are facts worth knowing. The only thing we
regret is that Government should have withheld information as to the
precise nature of the gift with which King Peter was gratified. Did
this mighty Empire present him with six pairs of cotton socks, or
request him to accept a gingham umbrella second-hand? And the King of
Masaba, who figures anonymously, what did he get for 2l. 0s. 4d.? Was
it a pair of boots and some pocket-handkerchiefs, or a few pots of
Scotch marmalade and a dozen pints of Bass? As to the other items of
the bill, it is so obviously right that the country should be made to
pay 68l. every time Prince Christian crosses the Channel, that we can
only wonder anybody should ever have thought otherwise, and moved, as
Mr. Fawcett did, that the sum be struck out of the estimates. We live
in strange times, forsooth, when a prince cannot charge the cost of
his railway-tickets on to the national purse without being made the
subject of unmannered comments!"
[Sidenote: LORD ARTHUR CLINTON.]
And now having given as brief a resume as I possibly could of the
salient characteristics of the "fast" young English aristocracy--having
shown how extravagant, useless, dishonorable and unprincipled many
of them are, I will close by mentioning that it is not long since
the English journals were filled with the evidence on the trial of
two young men who were arrested in London for dressing and appearing
in public as females. They were frequently seen at the Opera, the
race course, and in other public places, in company with Lord
Arthur Clinton, a well-known young nobleman. Their apartments were
searched, and waterfalls, chignons, puffs, and all the articles of
the female toilet and female wearing apparel, were found in their
possession. Brought before a magistrate, they manifested a strange and
unmanly behavior, and bore without shame the details of the medical
examination. Lord Clinton, in company with some other friends, had been
paying their addresses to these hybrid creatures, and following in the
footsteps of some of the disgusting court favorites, of which Juvenal
and the Satirists of the Lower Empire speak, he was jealous of another
young Lord, the cause being a rivalry for the affections of one of
these hybrid things in a woman's clothes!
CHAPTER XVIII.
LORDS AND COMMONS.
"WHY, Sir, I do think the times 'ave changed a great deal, but I
am afeered they will change wuss nor ever agin. They do say as how
Gladstone has, wen he likes, a will of his own to overturn the Crown
itself. And I know 'is son--'a past eight-and-twenty years the young
one is. He is just a bit of a curate in yon church of St. Mary's,
Lambith; and I can say for 'im as he is a hard-working man--it's no
bed of ease, the parish--and 'is father, who is now more than the
Queen herself, might have given young Gladstone the richest living in
Ingland, and nobody to say boo to him for the favor. Yisar, I'm sixty
past, last Miklemas, and man and boy I've lived in Lambeth; and now I'm
broke down with the parlyatics--but I once was a good man on the river,
and could pull a wherry or waterman's tub with the best on 'em."
The murky beams of an August sun were falling slantingly on the muddy
waters beneath my feet as I leaned over the stone balustrades of
Westminster Bridge, which connects the ancient borough of Westminster
with the Surrey side of the River Thames. Far down the river, I could
see craft of every description lying in the stone docks, the pride and
boast of all Englishmen. Bridge after bridge loomed up in the sun's
hazy beams. Waterloo, Charing Cross, Blackfriars, Vauxhall, and Lambeth
Bridges, crowded with traffic and swarming with the wild, heedless,
ever-bustling life of the greatest city of the modern world. Under
the piers of this grand bridge, nearly a thousand feet long, swept coal
barges, wherries bearing noisy cockney watermen, who halloed to each
other from roast-beef stomachs and brown-stout lungs, and every minute
the paddling, roaring steamboats, peculiar to the Thames,--each boat
about sixty feet long, their clean black hulls set off to advantage by
the narrow streaks of red paint that served as an ornament to their
keels, dashed to and fro, in and out of the bridge, conveying homeward
clerks, shop boys, barristers, solicitors, M. P.'s, business men from
the city, physicians, and here and there a stray white neck-clothed
curate of the Established Church, disgusted with the latest work
of Parliament, while, within a few feet of him, scarcely conscious
of the visible triumph that shone over his face, sat a Dissenting
preacher reading Bright's last effort in the Commons on behalf of
Disestablishment.
[Illustration: HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.]
On either side of the Thames, beginning at one end and ceasing at the
other end of the Houses of Parliament, the magnificent embankment of
hewn granite stone stretches, thirty or forty feet in width, for a mile
each way, thousands of foot passengers traversing its massive blocks,
each man and woman busy with his or her thoughts, or preoccupied with
the passing vagaries of the hour.
[Sidenote: VIEW FROM WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.]
On my right is Westminster Palace and the Houses of Parliament, the
finest modern gothic buildings in the world. The dozen towers and
belfries of this truly glorious edifice, gilded over with brass,
glisten with the refulgent hues of the dying sunset,--for nine hundred
and forty feet on the river, these massive, brown buildings, (that, on
the first view, bring up memories of some grand, old Gothic Cathedral,)
stretch away with tower, buttress, and pinnacle, presenting a river
facade which cannot be equaled by any other edifice for legislative
purposes in the world.
Beyond, to the left, on the Surrey side, I can see Lambeth Palace, with
its faded reddish-brown brick piled up to the clouds, where resides
his Grace, the high and puissant spiritual prince, the Archbishop of
Canterbury and Primate of England. The feverish broil and confusion
of the great city are all round me, and are present in, and to an
extent pervade, the air above me. The whistling and puffing of the
locomotives may be heard night and day as they sweep to and fro,
conveying passengers and freight to and from all parts of England and
the Continent, over Charing Cross Bridge. The old man by my side on
the bridge, with whom I have been conversing for half an hour, is an
intelligent artisan of the conservative class, benumbed and enfeebled
by illness, and his poor old watery, dazed utterances confess to his
astonishment at the marvelous rapidity with which one of the great
strongholds of every Englishman's belief,--the Established Church, has
been over-turned by the now foremost man in Britain--William Ewart
Gladstone. The old man has relations in America, somewhere,--he thinks,
near Cincinnati, and he asks after their health and well-being with the
most implicit trust that I should know all about them, believing that
the Queen City is only a few miles distant by rail from New York. Yet
the relatives of his youth and manhood have been absent over twenty
years, and are possibly all dead and dust by this time.
[Illustration: WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.]
As I have a desire to pay a visit to the House of Commons, and be a
witness of the proceedings of that dignified body of legislators, I bid
the Old Man of Lambeth a very good day, which he acknowledges in his
own fashion, and I stroll across the Bridge and down Bridges street
toward the Commons. As I pass the huge and massive Clock Tower, said
to be four hundred feet in height, and of most beautiful design, I am
warned by what I see all around me, that I am in the close vicinity
of that edifice which contains within its walls annually the chosen
wisdom and supposed best talent of England. Directly before me is the
magnificent fane of Westminster Abbey, holding within its thousand
storied urns, the ashes of the bravest, most intellectual, and most
renowned, as well as the most wretched and unfortunate of Britain's
dead. I can see, as I cross the bridge, the back portion of the
Chapel of Henry the Seventh, with its superb and intricate net-work
of tower, cornice, buttress, groined and fillagree stone-work. Cabs,
four-wheelers, and open carriages, with coachmen and footmen attired in
gorgeous liveries, their wigs powdered and frizzed, are driving hither
and thither, the occupants of some in full dress going to dinner, or to
listen to the debates which are to take place to-night in the Lords or
Commons.
[Sidenote: "BOBBIES" AND "CABBIES."]
These magnificent flunkies wear a contemptuous look of ennui
on their faces, and they survey all foot-passengers with blase
glances of indifferent serenity, which I find almost impossible to
describe justly. The court-yard directly opposite St. Margaret's, of
Westminster, is in a hollow below the grading of the approach to the
bridge, and is surrounded by a very handsome gilded iron railing,
which is in turn surmounted by a row of lamps which encircle the House
of Commons at night like a belt of fire. Within this enclosure are
continually stationed fifty or sixty hansom cabs for the convenience of
the members who may need them in the intervals of debate, and on top of
these cabs are to be found the cabbies who delight to bark and bite at
the unsophisticated and verdant stranger.
There are half a dozen of policemen, or "bobbies," as the cockney, in
his refined slang, chooses to term them, wearing dark blue uniforms
with silver gilt buttons, and the letter and number of their division
on their close coat collars. The thick cloth-board hats, of a helmeted
shape, that these poor fellows are compelled to wear, even in hot
weather, are heavy enough to excite the compassion of the most
hard-hearted person, An inspector of hacks, always on duty in the
Palace Yard, may be seen moving to and fro, giving instructions to the
malicious cabbies, who are listening to his scoldings with the most
provoking indifference, real or assumed, as the case may be.
Not being aware of the regulations, which do not permit a stranger or
visitor to enter the House of Commons without being possessed of the
written order of a member, I find myself notified at the splendidly
arched gothic doorway that I cannot pass. Here is a difficulty I had
not counted on. A friend from America, however, shows an order, which
I afterwards discover only admitted one person. We pass in under the
groined roof of one of the finest halls, architecturally considered, in
Europe. In this hall, over six hundred years ago on a New Year's day, a
monarch of the Plantagenet line fed six thousand poor people, and one
may well believe the legend of old prosy Abbot Ingulph, of Croyland, as
he looks around and above him at the grand dimensions of the stately
hall. On either side as one enters are marble statues, life-size, of
Hampden, Falkland, Walpole, Fox, Pitt, Burke, Grattan, and others,--the
work of England's greatest sculptors, placed on pedestals of stone.
We are told by the policeman who attends at one of the inner doorways
to seat ourselves on a stone bench in an alcove, and wait our turn as
is the custom here. The Stranger's Gallery will not hold more than a
hundred persons when crowded; and when a heavy debate is in progress,
on a great public measure, the gallery is sure to be full. Five persons
are admitted to the gallery at a time as soon as a gap is made in the
benches by the departure of an equal number of spectators. Should a man
leave his seat in the alcove for an instant he is certain to lose his
turn, and he will be compelled to go to the bottom place and begin over
again. As soon as there is room, the policeman makes a sign to those
in waiting, and he marshals the five persons who have tickets, and
they follow him through several passages and halls to the Lobby of the
Commons--a large, square hall, beautifully decorated, and, turning to
the left, they all ascend a winding stair to the ante-room, where the
tickets are examined by an old, white-haired gentleman who sits in a
chair in evening dress, and, if correct, the batch are admitted to the
Stranger's Gallery, which is on the same floor, at the end of another
dark passage.
[Sidenote: BILL OF FARE.]
Before I leave the Lobby of the Commons, let me describe it briefly
together with the Lunch Counter of the house, which even the greatest
public men find it necessary to visit occasionally. It is a large
square hall of lofty proportions, almost every inch of the walls and
ceiling being ornamented in relief with the insignia of the Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland.
A score of the members are in the Lobby talking with one another, in
an animated but not loud tone, or mayhap to some of their favored
constituents who have admission. To the right is a counter running
across an angle of the Lobby, at which ices, sandwiches, a glass of
sherry, a glass of port, or a glass of brandy--all of a good quality,
can be obtained by those of the members who do not wish to spoil a
dinner by a hearty luncheon, or who do not wish to spend the time in
going down stairs into a cosy suite of rooms, which I almost fancied
were carved out of the beautiful oak paneling, and where a dinner
nearly as good as may be found in England can be obtained at the prices
and at the hours which I give in the Bill of Fare: One o'clock--Soups:
Jardiniere, 1s.; Calf's Tail, 1s. Joints: Shoulder of Mutton, 2s.;
Steak, stewed, 2s. Entrees: Hashed Venison, 3s.; Filet Boeuf au Vin,
2s.; Mutton Cutlets piquante, 2s.; Lamb Chop, 1s. 3d. Five o'clock to
6.30--Salmon, 1s. 6d.; Sole, 1s.; White Bait, 1s.; Saddle of Mutton,
2s.; Cold Roast Beef, 1s. 3d.; Cold Boiled Beef, 1s. 3d.; Cold Lamb,
2s.; Cold Ham, 1s. 3d.; Lobster, 1s. 3d.; Ribs of Beef, 2s. At 7
o'clock, same prices. Puddings, 6d.; Tarts, 6d.; Wine Jelly, 6d.;
French Beans, 6d.; Green Peas, 6d.; Salad, 6d.; Cheese, 4d. This is the
bill of fare, for one day only, of the steward, Mr. Nicoll, who purveys
for the Lords and Commons of England in both Houses.
I give the prices as a curiosity, showing on what nutriment heroes,
statesmen, and orators are fed while attending St. Stephens, and
how much they are taxed for their food. This may be trivial to some
persons, but I contend the sum of human existence is made up of
trifles, and in England, particularly, of such substantial trifles as I
have given above. Wellington gained the battle of Waterloo because his
troops were well fed, while the raw levies, and even the Old Guard of
Napoleon, had been fighting for three days at Ligny and Quatre Bras,
and had to lie the night before Waterloo in a wet morass, hungry and
exhausted. The articles of food that I have named are to be procured
here at a cheaper rate and of better quality than anywhere else in
London, only that to enjoy the luxuries which I have enumerated at
moderate prices, it is first necessary to gain admittance to the Houses
of Parliament, which can only be done through a member's order. The
chops and steaks here are truly magnificent, and on a scale of grandeur
commensurate with the architectural pretensions of Westminster Palace.
Besides all this, away down below the bustle and eloquence of the
Commons, in those dark, quaint oak passages enclosed by marvelous
paneling, the visitor is certain to find one of the most beautiful
bar-maids in London to wait upon him--and hand him cold sherry at
sixpence a glass.
This comely damsel had some tickets to sell. Her uncle--I think it was
her uncle--it was who had broken his leg. He belonged to the Noble
Order of Foresters, and it was necessary that the public should be
called upon to make up a purse to have the uncle's leg set. I had a
benevolent American along with me who knew not what to do with his
newly cashed sovereigns, and he listened with a compassionate ear to
the tale of distress. The result was a small contribution of a half
sovereign to the uncle.
[Sidenote: MR. BRUCE AND HIS STEAKS.]
The bar-maid said, in presence of two of her country friends--they came
from Ilfracombe, down in the country: "I am so much obliged to you,
sir. My uncle is very bad. Will you have soda and brandy, sir, or will
you have a little bitter beer? The bitter beer is very good after a
mutton-chop and potatoes. Mr. Bright always prefers a glass of sherry
when he comes down here, but Mr. Disraeli takes brandy and soda. The
Hirish members, they are so jolly, and they do carry on so, and they
make such jokes with us girls. I likes Lord Stanley, the member for
Lynn, least of them all. Somehow, you can't joke with him. He looks
awfully sewere, and whenever he speaks it's just like a father for all
the world. You know, sir, he's got the hold Darby blood hintoo 'im, and
he is a great man."
"Who do you like best in the House of Commons, sissy?" said my
frolicsome American friend to the joyous bar-maid.
[Illustration: THE LEGISLATIVE BAR-MAID.]
"Well, sir, I likes Mr. Bruce, the 'Ome Sekretary, the best of hall
of them. He has sich a hinfluence. When he comes down here he always
takes a steak, and he is hawful pertikler habout it as how it is to be
cooked. He halways likes to have one side raw and the other side burnt.
Oh, I have been so worrited about Mr. Bruce and 'is steaks--the waiters
always comes to me and says, 'I say, wot kind of a man is this 'ere
'Ome Sekretary, he ought to get some silk binding on to his steaks, he
is so werry pertikler.' But he always drops 'em a sixpence and that
makes it hup."
The door of the members' entrance to the Commons is guarded by two
persons in evening dress, who are dignified enough in presence and
feature to sit in the Senate of the United States. At each side is
a handsomely carved, oaken box, shaped like a sentry's hut in camp,
and in the sides of these boxes are placed notches or racks where all
messages and letters for the members are left in the charge of the
doorkeepers, as no outsiders whatever are permitted to penetrate this
entrance excepting the Lords or distinguished foreigners, and the
latter only by invitation of the House itself.
There are also telegraph offices in the corners of the lobby, with
stained glass windows, from whence telegrams can be sent without
delay to the Mediterranean, to Paris, St. Petersburg, New York,
Washington, San Francisco, Madrid, Pekin, or any place in the bounds of
civilization. As I turn from the contemplation of these offices, and
from the benches where a number of messengers and smart-looking and
handsomely-uniformed pages are in readiness to rush to the clubs in
Pall Mall, to the Opera, or to the private residences of the members
of the House, in obedience to the beck or nod of the "whip" of the
government, (Sir Henry Brand,) in case of a division, I see before
me in the doorway a magnificently attired gentleman, in black silk
stockings, buckled shoes, and powdered hair and ruffles, wearing a
bright sword at his hip. He looks like a picture stepped out of a frame
of the period which Thackeray loved to dwell upon--when George the
Third was king.
This gentleman is none other than the Sergeant-At-Arms of the House of
Commons, Lord Charles James Fox Russell, a scion of the great house of
Bedford, of which Earl Russell is a member. How different he looks from
the sergeant-at-arms of some of our State Legislatures, or even of the
National Houses of Congress. Here is no promoted bar-keeper or reformed
rowdy, but a gentleman bearing one of the proudest names in England,
and befitting by position and character the elevated office which he
holds. It is more than easy to believe that a slung-shot or revolver
could not be pulled upon this gorgeous and venerated being while in the
performance of his august duties. The most malicious derringer would be
silent in his awful presence, and no slung-shot, however moulded, could
ever impinge that hereditary forehead.
[Sidenote: THE GREAT COMMONER.]
A story is told of a man who once penetrated even to the floor of
the House itself, and sat there on the benches, being taken for some
new member by his colleagues who was yet to be sworn in. But before
the morning broke, the House having sat all night, the horror of his
position had so paralyzed him that his jetty hair had turned white.
Stay, as I have no ticket I will throw myself upon the country and
abide the issue. I sent in to the Hon. John Francis Maguire, M.P., my
card, with the written desire that I should be admitted to the gallery,
and then I awaited the issue, whether for the Tower or the House.
While I waited, strolling about the gallery, a gentleman came out of
the door of the Commons, upon whom every eye was turned, and walked
in an upright, John Bull fashion towards the refreshment counter. A
whisper went round the lobby, "That is John Bright," and then I knew
that for the first time I stood in the presence of England's greatest
Commoner, the apostle of the Manchester school and Tribune of the
people. I who had seen so many caricatures of the great orator in
Punch, which has always depicted him as a fat, pursy, vulgar-looking
person, sans breeding, sans ceremonie, failed at the first glance
to identify the noble-looking old man in evening dress, with an
irreproachable white neck-tie, and a decidedly polished exterior, who
halted at the refreshment bar to slowly sip a strawberry ice after the
heat of the debate.
[Illustration: JOHN BRIGHT.]
Every inch this was a man, as I looked at him, and a king among men,
if the outward shell can serve at all to indicate what is concealed
within. And he has a princely following too. For around him I can see
a number of men whose names are known wherever the English language is
spoken, and wherever English newspapers are printed and read,--eager
to get a word or a look from him, plain John Bright, once the best
hated man in England, and now, by sheer force of will and dogged
pluck, enshrined forever in the admiration, if not the love, of his
countrymen. I have as yet only been waiting a few minutes when I see
approaching me a messenger of the House, who points the writer out to
a stout, compact-looking man in evening dress, of advanced years, fair
complexion, and with a keen look in his face which serves as a front
to a large, solid head, well set on strong shoulders. This is the Hon.
John Francis Maguire, M.P. for Cork, author of "Rome and its Rulers,"
"The Life of Father Matthew," "The Irish in America," and editor of the
Cork _Examiner_, a man well known in Ireland and America, and one of
the Irish leaders of the Liberal side in the House.
Mr. Maguire has taken the trouble to leave his seat in the House
during debate to oblige the writer of this book, and I must here make
my acknowledgment for the courtesy done. Mr. Maguire hands me a slip
of paper which he has procured for me from the Right Honorable John
Evelyn Denison, Bart., Speaker of the House, and this order entitles
me to a reserved seat on the front bench of the Gallery. I now pass
the dignitary in the black stockings and buckles, who smiles most
graciously at me out of the respect to the Speaker's order, and, after
traversing a narrow stair, emerge into the Speaker's Gallery, and find
myself at last inside the English House of Commons, of which I have
heard so much and so often.
It is now after dusk, and I can hear the silvery chime of "Big Ben" in
the huge clock tower of St. Stephen's, as it peals the hour of eight
through the corridors and galleries. There is just now a recess among
the members for consultation, and but few are on the floor of the
House, the majority being in the lobby button-holing each other, and
the rest, with the exception of fifteen or twenty on the seats behind
the Treasury Bench, are at dinner.
[Sidenote: HALL OF THE COMMONS.]
There are fifty or sixty persons in the Gallery, behind and above
me, the place where I sit being reserved for those whose names have
been inscribed on the list of the Speaker. The Commons' Galleries run
lengthwise on either side of the House, for nearly a hundred feet,
having an upper and lower bench, covered with green leather. The House
is about forty-five feet wide, and one hundred feet long, and the
ceiling is over forty feet from the ground floor, where the debates
are held. It is impossible for me to convey an idea of the richness
and splendor of this Hall of the Commons. Suffice to say that there
is nothing to compare with it in America for architectural effect and
compactness.
From above in the ceiling a flood of mellow light pours through
sixty-four stained glass windows, and on either side of the House the
windows are gorgeous in their designs of shields and coats of arms,
indicating the living presence of the monarchy of Great Britain and
Ireland. The numerous gas jets are concealed at the top of the glass
panelling of the ceiling, throwing a brilliant but subdued light
upon the Speaker as he sits in his high, over-hanging oak chair; on
the members; on the spectators, and on the ladies who are assembled
behind the glass screen at the back of and above the Speaker's chair.
Beneath the Ladies' Gallery, and also behind the Speaker's chair, is
the Reporters' Gallery, so arranged that each member, as he faces
the Speaker, shall also face the numerous corps of reporters who are
in attendance to note down whatever wheat may develop itself in the
wilderness of chaff spoken in this House.
The lowest bench on the right hand of the Speaker is devoted to the
Ministry, and on this side, immediately above, the supporters of the
government congregate within hearing distance of the Premier, night
after night, during the sessions. Whenever the Ministerial side is
thin of speakers, Mr. Gladstone simply turns around, and a nod or look
will bring upon his feet whatever member he thinks will best fill the
gap. Underneath the Strangers' gallery is placed a special seat for
the august Sergeant-at-Arms or his deputy, who is, if I mistake not,
a baronet. The walls and ceiling all round are of stone of a peculiar
color, which is neither brown, white, grey, nor yellow, but is a
combination of all four; and I can best describe the tone of color by
likening it to the hue of the bronchial troches or lozenges that are
sold in the druggists' shops in America. Otherwise I might call it a
brownish-grey, of which John Ruskin has examples enough and to spare in
his "Stones of Venice."
It is certainly a very rich color, and admirably adapted to the damp
and foggy atmosphere of London. Wherever the eye may choose to rest
in the Houses of Parliament, it is sure to be confronted with the
emblazoning of royal and princely cognizances. On both sides of the
House are the Division lobbies, where the members go to be counted by
the tellers, when a division is called for. That on the west side is
for the "ayes," and on the opposite side is the lobby for the "noes."
There are also libraries, residences for all the officers of the House,
on a scale of the most princely magnificence, and more than a score
of committee-rooms abutting off the longest corridors of any public
building in the world, not excepting the Escurial in Spain. Everywhere
you may see acres of polished oak above and around you.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIX.
LORDS AND COMMONS.--CONTINUED.
DIRECTLY in front of the gallery where I am sitting, is the Reporter's
Gallery. There are fifteen boxes for their use to take notes in, each
reporter sitting separately from his comrade, and writing characters
for dear life. These boxes resemble private boxes in our New York Opera
House, with the difference that they have no roofs above them, and
are open to the public gaze. Behind these fifteen boxes are seats for
twenty more reporters, to take the place of those in the boxes in turn.
Each reporter takes short-hand notes for a space of ten to fifteen
minutes time, and is then relieved by his colleague, waiting above him,
who steps into his place as the other retires to the Reporter's Room,
in the corridor, to write out his notes, and thence to take them to
the newspaper office, or else, if he chooses, he may send them by the
small boys waiting in the gallery, who are employed by the newspapers
at a salary of from eight to twelve British shillings a week to act
as messengers. Late at night, it is customary for the reporter who
has notes of a very important speech--which he desires to get to the
composing-rooms of his journal, to take a cab from the Palace Yard,
where there are dozens of them always waiting, and thus dash off to be
in time for the press. The _Times_ keeps thirteen reporters constantly
in the gallery during the session, and the _Standard_ as many more,
if I am not mistaken. These men are all expert short-hand reporters,
and receive from five to eight guineas per week, according to their
capability. There is also a man who remains late to get the gist of
what is said and done in debate, and from his notes he makes up a
clear and comprehensive summary for the morning edition. Then there is
the "leader-writer," "the editor" proper, and a "special reporter,"
who receive cards of admission to that part of the house under the
Reporter's Gallery, and consequently on the floor of the House behind
the Speaker's chair. This is a high favor, and only granted most
sparingly, and with discretion.
There are generally to be found about twenty reporters in the gallery,
but this number is greatly increased on a "field night," when it is
usual to find as many as thirty-five or forty journalists in the
gallery. From what I have seen of these parliamentary reporters they
seem to be very deliberate in their movements, and they do not allow
anything to hurry them. They are nearly all, however, very pleasant
gentlemen, and with few exceptions, men of experience and scholarly
attainments, two-thirds of them being men who have taken honors at
the universities, or at Harrow, Eton, or Rugby, and in not a few
instances they have begun life by taking minor orders in the church,
and having toyed with journalism for some time they were unable at
last to resist its feverish fascination. Some few of them are in the
Inns of Court--embryo barristers during the day, and at night they
practise short-hand, earn a respectable living, and gain experience
from England's chosen representatives up in their secluded nooks in
the gallery of the House. It was not always that the press and its
reporters had such privileges as they now possess in the House of
Commons.
[Sidenote: DR. JOHNSON TAKING NOTES.]
Before the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, there were no
satisfactory records of the debates in the House. The fierce contests
between Walpole, Windham, Pulteney, and others had, indeed, for some
time before 1740, attracted attention to the proceedings of the House,
and they had been regularly reported in a confused long-hand sort of
fashion every month in the _Gentleman's_ and _London Magazine_, the
former publication commencing the debates in January, 1731, the latter
in April, 1732, but no attempt can be said to have been made to convey
more than the substance of the speeches until that department of the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ was intrusted to gruff old Samuel Johnson, in
November, 1740. This is the commencement of the era of parliamentary
reporting in England. Short-hand, before that time is involved in
chaos, and it is doubtful if Johnson knew anything more than the
rudiments of the then crude system of stenography.
Indeed, Johnson appears to have given more of his own eloquence than of
what had actually been uttered in Parliament; but still, what he did
was, in all probability, only to substitute one kind of eloquence for
another--a better for a worse; or, it might be, sometimes, a worse for
a better--and therefore, on the whole, the speeches written by him,
though less true to the letter than those given by his predecessors,
may be received as a more living, and, as such, a truer representation
of the real debates than had ever before been produced.
He would not take the trouble to or be guilty of the absurdity of
expending his lofty rhetoric upon the version of a debate or speech
which had not really attracted attention by that quality, but I
suppose he reserved his strength for occasions on which those who had
heard, or heard of, the original oration, would look for something
more brilliant than usual. It was not, however, until after a long
and severe struggle, with a desperate fight at the close, that the
right of reporting the debates of Parliament was gained by the English
press of that day. It is only about one hundred and thirty years ago,
(in the old days of the Hanoverian and Pretender's troubles), since
anything spoken in the House was allowed to be printed until after the
session was dissolved. The House, in its wisdom, denounced any earlier
publication of the eloquence of the honorable members as a daring act
of illegality.
On the 13th of April, 1738, the House resolved "that it is an high
indignity to, and a notorious breach of the privilege of this House,
for any news matter or letters, or other papers, as minutes, or under
any other denomination, or for any printer or publisher of any printed
newspaper of any denomination to presume to insert in the said letters
or papers, or to give therein any account of, the debates or other
proceedings of this House, or any committee thereof, _as well during
the recess as the sitting of Parliament_, and that this House will
proceed with the utmost severity against such offenders." The House of
Commons, it is needless to say, has progressed somewhat since that day.
The monthly magazines, notwithstanding the resolution of the House,
still continued to print the debates, although for some time they took
the necessary precaution of indicating the speakers by fictitious
names, to which they furnished their readers with a key when the House
became dissolved. But it was not until the year 1771, nearly a century
ago, that the debates began to be given to the public day by day as
they occurred, and then the attempt gave rise to a contest between the
House and the newspapers, which occupied the House, to the exclusion of
all other business, for three weeks, when a committee was appointed,
whose report, when it was read two months after, suggested whether it
might not be expedient to order that the offending parties should be
taken into the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. Edmund Burke compared
the decision, in his own brilliant manner, to the resolution of the
bewildered convocation of mice,--that the cat, to prevent her doing
future destruction, should have a bell hung to her neck, but forgot to
say how the rash act was to be performed. Well, that is all past and
gone now, and the only complaint made in these busy days by members of
Parliament against the score of daily newspapers, published in London,
is that they err in not printing enough of the speeches to satisfy each
individual representative.
[Sidenote: THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.]
I noticed that the majority of the parliamentary reporters in the
Gallery were considerably advanced in age, many of them wearing gray
hairs, and fully sixty per cent. of the whole number that I saw were
above forty years of age. Some of these gentlemen, by careful saving
and strict attention to their arduous professional duties, have amassed
comfortable competencies, and some of them own, in the environs of
the city, snug little houses, with snug little libraries, and in some
of them, I can certainly say, are to be found pleasant tables and
home-comforts rarely possessed by their brethren of the note-book and
pencil in America. There are, to be sure, many improvident ones in
London, as elsewhere, and here Bohemianism has a lower depth than it
ever was known to have in America, for it is here that the really
depraved and abandoned Bohemian confines himself exclusively to the
consumption of gin--raw and simple gin. A low London Bohemian is a
mere animal, and will beg a copper from you in the same breath that he
professes his willingness to translate a Greek tragedy--to oblige the
giver of the copper, or else he will favor you with an account of his
days at Oxford or Trinity, when he was a "first honor" man or a B.A.
But one thing I have not found as yet in London on the press, and that
is an illiterate or badly taught man, such as can be met with by the
score on the American press.
The House to-night is in a Committee of the Whole on the Scottish
Education bill. The Ministerial benches are pretty well filled, while
the Opposition benches, to the left of the Speaker's chair, are but
thinly populated. Fronting the Speaker's chair of state is a table
of polished mahogany, the surface of which is about ten feet wide by
fifteen feet long. Directly before the chair of the Right Honorable
Speaker are two low-seated chairs of less pretension, occupied by
the Clerk of the House of Commons, Sir Denis Le Marchant, and his
assistant, Sir Thomas Erskine May, K.C.B. The former is a smooth-faced
man, having the inevitable wig upon his head, which gives him a much
older appearance than his years would warrant. His shoulders are
enveloped in an ample black silk gown, and a blank book of large
dimensions is open before him upon whose leaves he is supposed to
enter the minutes of the House. This person has a magnificent suite
of apartments in a wing of the Parliament House, beside a very large
salary, and is as comfortably housed as if he belonged to the royal
blood of Britain. Sir Thomas Erskine May, K.C.B., seated upon his
left, is a clean-shaved gentleman in evening dress, who also has
apartments in the palace, and a good salary. He has nothing remarkable
about his person or manner, with the exception of a very drawling
voice and a hesitancy in announcing motions made by the members, or
in calling a division when the House so wills it. He is the author
of the continuation of Hallam's Constitutional History of England.
Beside these high officials there are four "Principal Clerks," one
of whom, like Sir Thomas May, enjoys the high dignity of a Knight
Companion of the Bath, &c. Then there are twelve "Assistant Clerks"
and twelve "Junior Clerks," with an "Accountant," an "Assistant
Accountant," a "Private Secretary to the Chairman of Ways and
Means;" a "Sergeant-at-Arms," who is a Lord; two "Deputy Sergeants;"
a "Chaplain," no less a man than Canon Merivale, the accomplished
Roman historian, who has the good sense to make his prayers at the
commencement of the proceedings very short; a "Secretary to the
Speaker;" a "Librarian," a poor cadet of the great overshadowing family
of Howard; an "Assistant Librarian," with an Irish name; two "Examiners
of Petitions for Private Bills," one of whom is Mr. R.D.F. Palgrave,
of whom Americans have heard, and finally a "Taxing Officer," beside
innumerable servants, of superfine bearing, correct evening dress, and
consummate self-possession. I asked one of these ponderous servants,
whom at first sight I took to be the "Juke of Linsther," as an Irish
reporter pronounced it, if he was not awed by the dignity of the house.
[Illustration: COULD YOU MAKE IT A TANNER?]
"Aw," said he, in a gracious manner, "you er, I preeszhume, en
Eemireken. This sawt of thing boaws me 'orrid; it does. I hev dun hit
for heit yeers. I wish they wud adjoan, and I wud go to my CLUB."
[Sidenote: THE SPEAKER AND HIS WIG.]
Timidly I offered this gorgeous being four-pence, expecting to be
rebuked in a dignified manner for my presumption by the personage who
talked so fluently of "'is club." He never turned around, but, gazing
steadily at the Speaker's chair, as if he was desirous of catching the
Right Honorable Gentleman's eye, thrust his hand behind him, counted
the pennies with his fingers, and said to the writer in a stage whisper:
"Would your 'onor pleese to make it a 'tanner'? We 'ave no perkisites
in the Commons, pleese." Let me here state that a "tanner" is the slang
term for sixpence, and a "bob" is a shilling among the London cockneys,
servants, bar-boys, and wild children of the thousand streets and lanes
of London.
When the House is in committee it is not the custom for the Speaker
to be present. When the House is in open session, then the Speaker is
arrayed in wig and gown, and he sits far back in the recesses of his
chair, like some dried-up mummy, so closely is he swathed and covered.
It is pretty hard work for a member to actually catch his eye, being
so muffled up as to defy recognition by a casual observer. Yet it is a
part and parcel of the British Constitution, that this Right Honorable
John Evelyn Dennison should be smothered in this huge box and gown and
wig on a warm August night like this. During committee proceedings the
Speaker may walk out, doff his wig and gown, and dine as he has done
to-night, and then come back, and finding the House still in committee,
he will seat himself in his chair without his legal vesture. I have
been in this House four nights, and this is the first time that I have
seen the Speaker's legs--palpably. He lolls back without any of that
reverence that I have heard so much of, as belonging to the Commons,
and he has at last gone to sleep, like Mr. Greeley under Dr. Chapin's
sermons. In the meantime, the bill, which has twenty-five clauses or
sections, is being canvassed and considered by the members who stream
in, now that the dinner hour has passed.
While the Speaker slumbers in a quiet way, the chief and assistant
clerks of the House conduct the business, the assistant taking up the
bill, and repeating as he reads each clause in detail: "It is moved,"
or "it is proposed that a substitute," or that the "word ---- instead
of ----," and so on, in soporific tones, for two long hours. A number
of people in the gallery are gently dozing, and visibly many of the
messengers are relapsing into a blissful repose.
The Speaker's table is covered with reports, large bound and gilt
volumes, books of reference, pamphlets, newspapers, costly ink-horns,
and other clerical paraphernalia of the state service. The huge gilded
mace of the Speaker, which lies on the further end of the table below
his chair, when the House is not in committee, is now pendant under
the table on a rack, to show that it is not an open session for the
introduction of new measures or for the making of set speeches.
[Illustration: THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE.]
Out of six hundred and seventy or eighty members of the House, there
are not present to-night more than one hundred and fifty. Many of the
remaining members are scattered all over the Continent in nooks and
corners. A large number may be found on the Parisian boulevards; some
are at Fontainebleau; some in the Pyrenees, swallowing chalybeate
waters; many are yachting in the Mediterranean, or wasting their time
with the peasant girls in Isles of the Greek Archipelago; not a few are
off at the races at Goodwood or Brighton; some are at Rome, burning,
fuming, and cursing the garlic and salads; dozens of them are at
Constantinople, at St. Petersburg, or climbing the Alps out of a sheer
love of danger and the reckless fondness of physical excitement inborn
in the Englishman; and probably as many as could be numbered on the
fingers of the hand are scattered over the American Continent in search
of novelty. There are also a number of City members absent, in their
out-of-town residences, compelled to forego forensic honors, at the
command of wife and daughters who are packing and poking preparatory to
a flight to the Rhine and Germany. The ministerial benches show a good
front for the late season; first, because the government has a great
deal of unfinished business on its hands, which must be transacted
before Parliament is closed; and secondly, because the exertions of the
government whip have been most arduous in hunting up Mr. Gladstone's
supporters, and compelling them to remain in their seats, while there
is work to be done by them.
[Sidenote: DIGNITY OF THE HOUSE.]
With a great number of Americans, that have not visited England,
there is in some way or another an abiding impression that the House
of Commons is the most stately and dignified legislative body in the
world. To be disabused of this notion it is only necessary for an
American to sit during a night session in the gallery of the House,
with a proviso that he has been a visitor at some time or another to
the Senate Chamber or the House of Representatives at Washington. When
a member of this House rises to claim the attention of the Speaker,
it is common to find half a dozen of his fellow members rising also
with him for the same purpose. A member of the government gets on his
honorable legs with his face turned toward the Speaker. If on the
lower bench, he will walk a little forward to the table, and if he is
accustomed to speak from notes, it is more than possible that he will
lay one hand on the table and with the other turn the leaves of his
manuscript. If he speaks extemporaneously, he will probably lean in a
lounging position forward, his two hands resting on the Speaker's table.
Many of the members who are best known to the public have this fashion,
and it is most unpleasant to hear them drawl forth sentence after
sentence as if they were dragged from their honorable throats by sheer
force. It has often been reported by English writers that American
legislators have a bad fashion of elevating their legs and laying back
in an irreverent attitude while listening to a debate. Also, that they
expectorate freely. Well, I have seen the most distinguished statesman
at present in England--I mean Mr. Gladstone--lounge and disperse his
limbs, while within ten feet of the Speaker, in a fashion that would
bring shouts of laughter from a crowded theatre, were the same thing
done in a farce or low comedy.
Each member of the Commons, as he walks into the House, to-night, has
his hat on his head. As he passes the Speaker's chair, he doffs it
for an instant, but when he takes his seat the hat is replaced upon
his head as before. As a general thing, a member who speaks without
notes, addresses the Speaker, with his hat in one hand. They all seem
to conclude whatever remarks they have to make with a jerk, and as
soon as they sit down the hat is again replaced, or rather slapped on
the head, with a vehement motion that seems impelled by some hidden
mechanical power. Then they have a fashion of lounging in and out in
a free-and-easy way during debate, that is highly suggestive of a
bar-room in a frontier town.
There is rarely, or never--in the House of Commons--an exhibition of
the nervous, impassioned speaking which may be heard all over America
or in the Corps Legislatif. When there is a clear or telling speech
made, (as far as the manner of delivery goes,)--mind, I do not speak of
its effect practically--or if the eloquence is of a florid description,
it will be surely spoken by one of the one hundred and five Irish
members. Certainly, when Whalley or Newdegate get on their legs, to
smash the Pope or to recount horrible but dramatic stories about
the mysteries and child massacres of convents, there is no lack of
vehemence and buncombe. But this style of oratory is confined to a few
of the members who have hobbies to ride, and who cannot be driven from
them even at the point of the bayonet.
[Sidenote: AMBASSADOR LAYARD.]
Physically speaking, a majority of the members are gallant-looking
fellows, and they are all dressed simply, but with the taste always
observed by a gentleman in the selection of articles of clothing. A
small number of them wear white beaver hats, and their trowsers are cut
widely at the bottom in the now prevailing fashion. With the exception
of a few of the younger and more fashionable members, who frequent
the race-courses, the Opera,--go to hear Schneider, lounge into the
Cremorne after eleven o'clock at night, or frequent the society of such
famous demi-reps as "Mabel Grey," "Baby Hamilton," "Baby Thornell," or
other women who have beggared and ruined hundreds of those young men
about town who have a disposition to be fast, there is a total absence
of showy or loud colors in their apparel. A great many of the "fast"
young men attend the session--occasionally--for the sake of common
decency, or because their constituencies compel it, as in the case of
a City borough the other day, where a member was rebuked by a public
resolution of condemnation and asked to resign, for absence from his
seat. Younger sons of noble lords look upon the House of Commons as
a necessary evil, which must be "done," like an occasional visit to
church, or to Richmond, or Greenwich, to eat fish.
As the members come in one by one and take their places on the benches,
I find opportunities to observe and note their peculiarities and looks.
That gentleman who comes in so slowly and so quietly, dressed in dark
clothes, and having a head, whiskers, and general resemblance to our
Longfellow, is the Right Honorable Austin H. Layard, Commissioner of
Public Works, one of the Ministers, but not a member of the Cabinet,
and lately appointed English Ambassador to Spain. You would take him
for a literary man or a thinker, anywhere, by reason of his long,
flowing, white hair and thoughtful look. Mr. Layard is the author of
the celebrated book on Nineveh. He receives attention in the House
always when he rises to speak of Eastern affairs. He was at one time an
attache of the English embassy to the Porte, and was Under Secretary
for Foreign Affairs in the administration of Earl Granville. Mr. Layard
has the reputation of being rather hot tempered in debate, and at one
time he earned the ill-will of the aristocratic faction in the House
by his persevering liberalism, but at present he is popular enough, and
no one can look at his bright dark-blue eye and general appearance,
without feeling that he is in the presence of a man who possesses a
considerate and calmly philosophical spirit, broken at times by a
sudden flash of the scholar's enthusiasm.
That gentleman with the exquisitely carved face and very red hair, with
a slight dimple in his chin, and clear, frank eyes, is the Secretary
of State for War, the Right Honorable Edward Cardwell, M.P. for Oxford
City, and an old follower of Sir Robert Peel. He has in his time held
various offices of trust under different administrations, and in June,
1866, when the forces of Col. William R. Roberts, President of the
Fenian Brotherhood, invaded the Canadas, Mr. Cardwell, as Secretary
for the Colonies, had his hands full of a rather difficult business,
which he managed as well as the very annoying circumstances--for a
British Crown Minister--would permit. I like to hear Mr. Cardwell
speak. He is always ready, yet deliberate, and with these qualities he
possesses a happy and easy manner in argument. The most difficult job
of Mr. Cardwell's life was the management of the Governor Eyre-Jamaica
business, which at its crisis covered the English administration with
shame and ignominy. Mr. Cardwell had, while at Oxford, a very good
reputation, which he has not as yet contradicted by his course in
Parliament, of which body he was returned as a member as early as 1842.
Thackeray once ran against him and was defeated.
[Sidenote: LORNE AND CHILDERS.]
That really handsome young gentleman, who is said to have the
best-shaped leg in the House, as well as the friendship of the
most charming female members of the aristocracy, as he certainly
is the owner of a most beautiful head of hair, of the hue of a new
guinea, such as is seen in Carlo Dolce's Virgins--is the member for
Argyllshire, the Marquis of Lorne, heir presumptive to George Douglas
Campbell, eighth Duke of Argyll, the Liberal Secretary of State for
India in the Gladstone Cabinet, a Privy Counsellor, and a Knight of the
Thistle. The young marquis, at twenty-five, has the face and skin of a
maiden of twenty, and I could not but observe that his trowsers were of
a fashion superior to any other known trowsers in the House of Commons.
I do not know whether the handsome Marquis inherits the Covenanting
piety of the Argyll-Campbells, his ancestors; but he bears a wonderful
resemblance to his father, the Duke, and among the frescoes in the
corridors of the House there is one by Copely, entitled the "Sleep of
Argyll," and I was astonished to notice the strong likeness of the
young Marquis--who passed the fresco at the moment--to the face of his
illustrious ancestor of two hundred years ago, as it was depicted by
the artist--lying on a prison pallet. The Marquis of Lorne, while I
was in the gallery, sat behind Mr. Gladstone, on an upper bench, as a
Liberal, like his father who sits in the Lords. When the hereditary
Campbell got up on his well-shaped legs to speak as a Scotch member on
the Parochial Schools bill, he did it quietly, and in a clear, musical
voice, that seemed to attract attention.
The Marquis of Lorne has a very ready delivery, though he is not as yet
of great account in debate, and he is I believe, from all reports, a
marvelously proper young man, compelled to exist upon about £25,000 a
year, which amount will be largely augmented when the present Duke is
committed to the family vaults.
That big, bulky six-footer, of great shoulders and massive limb,
wearing tightly fitting clothes, his forehead overshadowed with dark,
reddish-brown hair, and his whole manner indicative of pluck and a
contest against life-long odds, is the Right Honorable H.C.E. Childers,
member for Pontefract, and First Lord of the Admiralty, an office that
in England somewhat resembles the position of Secretary of the Navy of
the United States, having this difference only--that the First Lord,
while in his place on the Treasury or Cabinet benches in the House of
Commons, is compelled to reply to all attacks on the management of the
Navy, and to defend the expenditure and estimates of that department.
He is now giving facts from a pamphlet which he holds in one hand,
while he rests his body on his other hand across the table in a
negligent manner, as if he were more used to roughing it in the bush
than supporting a minister by a recapitulation of dreary statistics in
the House.
Mr. Childers was at one time, I believe, a fellow-member with Mr.
Robert Lowe, of the Parliament of Victoria, after both of them had
exiled themselves voluntarily to the antipodes. Mr. Childers only
became a member of the House in 1860, and his rise to eminence was
achieved with more than American rapidity, in a country where it is a
cardinal principle that a man should not receive emolument, honor, or
position, until he has grown the gray hair of sixty years.
Mr. Childers is the chairman and director also of at least threescore
of corporations and foundations of charity of one kind or another, and
is said to be very good in figures--a necessary gift in a Lord of the
Admiralty. If his mind is half as big as his whiskers, he is certainly
a genius. The hard work of defending the Gladstone administration in
detail is usually given to Mr. Childers, to W.E. Foster, M.P. for
Bradford, or to Mr. Bruce, the Home Secretary. In all Irish matters,
Mr. Chichester Fortescue, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, is expected
to stand by his leader, Mr. Gladstone, and he has been of great service
to him in the Irish Land Bill legislative measures. Mr. Childers, like
the young Marquis of Lorne, is a Trinity College, Cambridge, man, but
not an Eton boy like the former.
[Illustration: FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY.]
The next noticeable person on the ministerial bench, and by all
acknowledged to be one of the ablest men in Parliament, is the Right
Honorable Robert Lowe, member for London University, an Oxford man, and
son of a Church of England clergyman. London University, which Mr. Lowe
represents, is the most liberal educational institution in England, and
grants University degrees to students, irrespective of their religious
belief. A short time ago the Queen opened the new London University
buildings, which are, I believe, unequaled in the metropolis for beauty
of design and commodious comfort. Mr. Lowe is now in his fiftieth
year, and is a member of the Gladstone Cabinet, and Chancellor of the
Exchequer--the office formerly held by his illustrious chief, and one
of the greatest trust and responsibility in England.
[Sidenote: THE SATIRICAL LOWE.]
As an orator Lowe has few equals, and stands in the following order
of precedence: Gladstone,--Bright,--Disraeli,--Lowe,--according to
the best judges. By many he is said to be superior to Disraeli in
satirical power, although not his equal in vehement philippic, and
not a few consider him equal in logical force to Bright. Yet, with
all his ability and power, he is one of the best-hated public men in
all England, and this is said to be the result of his unfortunate
proclivity for satire, and for a certain unpleasant gruffness, that,
spite of his education and inward natural courtesy, will break out, and
in a minute demolish the labor of a year of statesmanship. I might call
Mr. Lowe a pure-blooded Albino, as he is first noticeable by his bushy
white eyebrows, white hair of great length, and rather pinkish eye-lids.
He has a positive, firm chin, a clear eye, and, from the abutment
of his nostril to the corner of his lower lip on either side deep
ridges extend, giving him in that part of the face the look of a _bon
vivant_. The eye is very steady, and looks at a stranger of doubtful
appearance with a sneering way that seems to say: "I have to be
polite; but if I choose to think you an idiot, it is my own business."
The ears are large, and seem to be buttoned back, as if ready for a
row on the slightest provocation. Mr. Lowe is quite near-sighted,
and it is said that to this defect he owed his release from holy
orders, having studied for the Church at University College, Oxford.
He certainly would have made a very unpleasant sort of a clergyman
for some of the lax and rather immoral public men who illuminate the
House occasionally. He is a man of many edges, bristling all over
with sharp and hard angles, and is in every way an aggressive person.
Lord Palmerston, who was with every other member of the House--on the
footing of a jolly good fellow, could never be brought to like Robert
Lowe. Lowe never laughed at the veteran Premier's jokes.
Mr. Lowe owes his first important advancement from an ordinary station
in life to the fact that when he returned to England from Sydney, he
had the good fortune to contribute a smashing article to the _Times_,
and since that time Mr. Lowe, it is understood, has been a regular
outside contributor of that journal, with great good luck to back him.
Mr. Lowe has also the reputation of being a very quick and facile
"leader" writer upon the topics with which he is best acquainted.
[Illustration: ROBERT E. LOWE.]
Mr. Lowe once had his head well smashed by the roughs at an election
row, and it is said that the memory of it has stuck to him ever since,
like the caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks, and, like that
episode, it has served to keep old fires burning. In the memorable
debates of 1866, upon the suffrage question, Mr. Lowe shone with his
greatest force. With such rivals as Bright, Disraeli, Gladstone, Hardy,
and Milner Gibson, it was no joke to keep on the top of the tide,
but Lowe never faltered in his career. The more pitiless were his
adversaries in argument, the more pitiless became Robert Lowe.
[Sidenote: THE MARQUIS OF HARTINGTON.]
The fancy, the vigor, the antithesis, the irony, wit, force, energetic
subtlety, and strength of his speeches during that stormy session of
1866, are not likely to be forgotten soon, by friend or adversary, in
the House of Commons. Lowe is, I believe, the only instance of a man
who has at one and the same time a dimpled chin and a bad temper.
That mild-looking, dark-faced man, with neat attire and jeweled
fingers, who comes in almost stealthily from behind the Speaker's
chair, and takes his seat upon the Ministerial Bench, is Goschen,
who represents London, and is a member of the Cabinet, President
of the Poor Law Board, and son of a Leipsic bookseller of moderate
circumstances.
Mr. Goschen is evidently of Jewish origin, and his rise to power has
been speedy. He is still a young man--of polished manners, and more
than any other member in Parliament represents the moneyed interests
of the great city for which he sits. He is a Rugby and Oriel College
man, and was at one time Vice-President of the Board of Trade, and
afterwards Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Yet he is scarcely
developing the statesmanlike power which was predicted for him by
his friends who had watched his career as a Director in the Bank of
England, and as the author of essays and treatises on some topics of
political economy.
The middle-sized gentleman, inclined to baldness, wearing a brown
coat and a mixed trousers, with straps at the bottom of the latter,
and who has a slight fringe of whiskers and a round bright eye, is no
less a personage than the Marquis of Hartington, Postmaster-General, a
member of the Cabinet, heir presumptive to the Dukedom of Devonshire,
the Earldom of Burlington, Baron Cavendish in Derbyshire and Baron
Cavendish in York, chiefly celebrated for his advocacy of the
Confederacy in Parliament, and a man of not exceedingly great calibre
as a debater or thinker; but from the possessions which he will one
day inherit in this broad and merry England, a man of most decided
influence and power. He has for his family motto, "Secure in Caution,"
and generally sticks to it in the House.
In his young days, it is hinted that the Marquis of Hartington was in
the habit of going home very late with his night key in his coat-tail
pocket, and at one time it is said that the notorious "Skittles,"
(since dead,) had emblazoned on her handsome brougham--presented her
by the Marquis--the crest of the now steady and religiously inclined
Postmaster-General of Great Britain. He is just now conversing with a
tall, black-whiskered man, of sharp features and equally sharp accent,
in drab clothing. This is George Armistead, M.P. for Dundee, formerly a
Russia merchant, and said to be a good man on committees.
A medium-sized, dark-faced, and portly person in black clothes walks
in slowly by the Speaker and seats himself, with his hat bent forward
over his eyes, and having a book, whose leaves he is cutting, in his
hand. This is Alexander James Beresford-Hope, one of the two M.P.'s for
Cambridge University--the other being the Right Hon. Spencer Horatio
Walpole, whose mother was Countess of Egmont.
Mr. Beresford-Hope is part proprietor of that well known weekly
and satirical journal, the _Saturday Review_, and is or has been
a writer for the same sheet. During the Civil War in America, Mr.
Beresford-Hope spoke early and often in support of the Confederacy
while in Parliament, and also wrote a book favoring Jefferson Davis
and his cause. In this course he had no more ardent colleague than the
gentleman who now approaches him with his head moving from right to
left, in a nervous fashion--I mean William Henry Gregory, member for
Galway.
[Sidenote: PEERS IN THE GALLERY.]
Mr. Hope is no doubt a good liver, and is a member of the Carlton,
Athenæum, University, Oxford and Cambridge, and New University Clubs,
where, possibly, he has a great opportunity to study cookery as a fine
art. His fellow member from Cambridge, who stands toying with his watch
chain and drumming on the floor, bears the imposing name of Spencer
Walpole, and has no decided individuality in the House. Both Hope
and Walpole are Conservatives, and are sadly shocked at the continued
majorities of Mr. Gladstone.
The man just now speaking from notes is Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Robert
Anstruther, of the Grenadier Guards, member for Fifeshire, a Harrow
man, and an earnest liberal of the Scotch stamp.
The little old man in evening dress, pale face, and having a circle
of white beard around his throat, who is playing with his fingers
nervously, is The O'Conor Don, member for Roscommon, who is looked up
to by all the Irish members.
The slender young gentleman, not yet in his twenty-fifth year, and
very fashionably dressed, leaning up against the back of the Speaker's
chair in conversation, is Henry George, Earl Percy, son of the Duke of
Northumberland, who married the eldest daughter of the Duke of Argyll,
and will one day be the proprietor of the second proudest title in
England as well as of half a dozen castles, a score of manors, and
three or four baronies. This young man was sent to the House of Commons
by his father, the Duke of Northumberland, as a Conservative, but it
is rarely that he takes the trouble to open his lips in debate. He has
a very great reputation for driving tandem, and is known to be a judge
of boquets and claret--young as he is as a legislator in the House of
Commons--but he bears a good reputation, and has not done anything to
dishonor the proud name of Percy as yet.
That young gentleman with the pointed yellow moustache and goatee of
the Vandyke type, is Sir David Wedderburn, of an old Scotch family,
and quite an active working young member of the opposition when led
by Disraeli. Very often the peers of the Upper House may be found in
the Commons, from motives of curiosity or to get intelligence of the
birth of new bills before they are sent to the Upper House. They have a
gallery of their own, these peers, and hardly ever trouble the floor of
the House.
Occasionally a prelate of the English Established Church may be found
in the Peers' Gallery of the House of Commons, listening to the
debates, and to-night there are two bishops in the gallery, one of
whom is Dr. Fraser, Bishop of Manchester, who is said to be the most
practical minded prelate in England. Dr. Fraser has a well outlined
face and a very compact head, with a clear, firm eye. He is big with a
scheme for the education of the working classes, and looks to be deeply
interested in the debate. His companion is the Bishop of Peterborough,
who is acknowledged to be the ablest speaker and clearest thinker in
the English Episcopate. Viscount Bury is now on his legs. The Viscount
is of all the speakers I have heard, the very dullest. He reads from
notes which he takes page for page from his hat, and I am certain
that I never listened to such a dreadful monotone as his voice. The
Viscount dresses plainly, and yet he has a Dundreary look, the light
side whiskers which he wears giving him an affected appearance. The
Viscountess Bury is a daughter of Sir Allan McNab, and in her younger
days was a celebrated beauty, and was a toast in fashionable society.
That young gentleman with the slight, downy moustache and gloriously
handsome face, leaning over the side of the Peers' Gallery, is the
Marquis of Huntley, a member of the House of Lords, and is the first
Marquis in rank of the Scottish peerage. He is only twenty-three years
of age, and was married a short time since in Westminster Abbey, the
Prince of Wales acting as his best man, and all the notabilities of the
court attending. The old, soldierly-looking man who is conversing with
him and having a white rose in his button-hole, whose hair is cropped
quite close, is the Earl of Fingall, who was formerly an officer in the
8th Hussars, and a hero of the Crimean war.
[Sidenote: LORD STANLEY AND THE O'DONOGHUE.]
The medium sized gentleman with the thoroughly English face, wavy hair,
and plain and unostentatious attire, who passes behind the Speaker's
Chair for a moment, and then whispers to that awful dignitary, is the
Duke of Richmond, the leader of the Conservative party in the House
of Lords. The Duke is quite popular in England, and has a magnificent
park and castle at Goodwood, where a race takes place every year, for
a prize called the "Goodwood Cup." Under the administration of Mr.
Disraeli the Duke held the position now occupied by John Bright, who is
President of the Board of Trade.
There was for some time a warm rivalry between the Duke of Richmond,
Lord Cairns, and the Marquis of Salisbury, as to which of the three
should lead in the House of Lords, and at one time, I believe after the
death of the lion-like Earl of Derby, Lord Cairns, who used to be an
Irish lawyer before he was ennobled, had the best chance from his great
ability, but the high position and family of the Duke carried the day.
That plain looking man who with a slight inclination to the Speaker
and doffing his hat, passes out to the Division Lobby, is Lord
Stanley--now Earl Derby, since the death of his father. Lord Stanley,
who is now in the House of Lords, was one of the ablest members of
the House of Commons, a forcible debater, a logical reasoner, and a
thorough gentleman in all respects. Lord Stanley entered political
life very early, and has filled various offices of trust, being
successively--Under Secretary of Foreign affairs in 1852; Secretary
for the Colonies in 1858; Secretary of State for India in 1858-9, and
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1866-8.
The tall, dark-haired and handsome looking member who has followed
Viscount Bury in debate, and who speaks so fluently without notes,
and whose language and gestures are not without a certain grace and
elegance, is The O'Donoghue member from Tralee, who was going to
marry an Earl's daughter in order to pay his debts--but didn't. The
O'Donoghue challenged Sir Robert Peel to fight a duel a few years ago,
having been offended by some unparliamentary language of Peel's in
the House, but the latter backed out of the row in a very undignified
manner.
Lord Stanley having forgot something, comes back to find it, and
searches the bench behind the spot where The O'Donoghue is speaking
from, which rather confuses the Irish orator a little--but Lord Stanley
apologises at once. By the way, Earl Derby is said to be engaged to
the Marchioness of Salisbury, whose husband died a year ago. This
will be a late marriage for both parties, the intended bride being
forty-six years of age with five children, the youngest of whom is a
daughter twenty-two years of age, while Earl Derby is forty-four years
of age, and very common-place and prosaic in his domestic habits. The
Marchioness is, I believe, a daughter of Earl De La Warr.
Three men now enter the House and take seats--two in the galleries,
who are soon joined by a third. This last man is the richest noble
in England. He is an old man on the brink of the grave, and yet he
could buy up a dozen of the members of Parliament who are fuming and
fidgeting below in the freshness of good health. It is the Marquis
of Westminster, who owns half of the borough from which he takes his
title, and his income I have been told is something like four hundred
thousand pounds a year. The Marquis is very charitable, and has
spent over £100,000 in erecting model tenements for poor people in
London. Beside the title of Marquis, he also bears that of Sir Richard
Grosvenor, which is supposed to be derived from the French of Gros
Veneur--"Great Huntsman,"--some of the ancestors of the family having
acted in that capacity to the Norman Dukes at a remote period.
The other gentlemen are Earl Spencer, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
a big man with a big head, a big whisker and a big look in the face,
wearing a big tweed coat; and the Hon. Robert Wellesley Grosvenor, one
of the members for Westminster, a Captain in the 1st Life Guards, and
belonging to the family of the old Marquis of Westminster. He has for
his colleague who now takes his seat, William Henry Smith, the other
member for Westminster, who owns the largest news agency in the world,
at No. 186 Strand.
[Illustration: GLADSTONE SPEAKING IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.]
And now the Premier is on his legs at last. I had heard of Gladstone
so often that I was curious to hear his voice and look upon his face.
Imagine a tall man, six feet in his stockings, with a massive head, a
good strong body, sparse side whiskers just whitening with years, a
pair of dark eyes, deep as an abyss, with the thoughts and struggles of
a mighty spirit welling up--firm lips and cavernous eyebrows, a massive
and persistent under jaw, the lines of the face strongly marked
and indicating by their rigidness the conflict that has been going
on inwardly for years, and dress that figure up in deep black upper
garments and mixed trousers, and you have something like the Premier
of Great Britain as I saw him in his seat on the end of the Treasury
benches in Parliament. One leg is thrown over another in a negligent
and thoughtful attitude, the head being bowed forward on the breast,
while every few minutes he raises his eyes with a wonderful mystery
glittering in them, to the face of the member who has the floor, as
if he were taking the mental measurement of the speaker. The face
represents a fierce enthusiasm which can kindle into great deeds, or
express with a glance great thoughts.
[Sidenote: MR. GLADSTONE'S EARLY LIFE.]
This wonderful man started in life as a High Churchman and Tory,
believing that all bishops should know Greek and acknowledge the
Apostolic Succession, and now he is an advanced Liberal, but opposes
woman's suffrage as a dangerous measure. In religion Gladstone sticks
to his Oxford teachings, and this is best proved by his Episcopal
appointments, nearly all of whom are High Churchmen.
How grandly the sentences roll from the lips of the scholarly Premier,
as he stands up to reply to some attack on the administration. Every
sentence is rounded, full, concise, and flowing, and every phrase
seems chosen with elegance. He is a marvelously brilliant speaker,
but it is better to hear him than to read his speeches, which though
perfect literary compositions, are yet, in type, brilliant and dry
abstractions, while the contrary may be said of Bright's speeches,
whose productions sound better in a report than they do when they are
delivered.
And now he has done, and sits down, slamming his hat on his head, and
reclining back, with his eyes glued on his shirt bosom; and from the
Opposition benches at the other side of the House, a tall, massive
figure, which is radiant with jewelry and surmounted by a poll of black
curly hair, rises to answer Mr. Gladstone. The face is corrugated,
the nose like an eagle's beak--curved--like those on Roman coins, or
just such a nose as Titus encountered by the thousand, under piercing,
almond-shaped black eyes, in the Court of the Holy of Holies, when the
Chosen People fell in heaps behind their shields, only glad to die for
Jerusalem.
Yes, here is one of that same wonderful, plucky race, which has
survived hundreds of years' of war, pestilence, famine, persecution,
and contumely, and now finds its best representative in Benjamin
Disraeli, the author of "Tancred," "Coningsby," "Henrietta Temple,"
and "Lothair," that book of books. This is the same Jew whom
O'Connell thundered at thirty years ago, and whom he denounced as the
lineal descendant of the impenitent thief who died upon the Cross.
Thirty-three years ago this man entered Parliament and made his maiden
speech, or attempted to make it,--as a member from Maidstone. The
crowded House laughed at him that night,--men who were used to Canning,
and Henry Brougham; to that consummate orator, Daniel O'Connell, and to
the brilliant fireworks of Richard Lalor Sheil,--laughed at the young
member with the Jewish beak and profile, and he sat down discomfited,
but not beaten, crying out to the House, which was indulging in
cock-crowing and geese-cackling at his expense, "You will not hear me
now, but you shall hear me yet."
He is an older man now, and success in everything he has attempted,
such as has never been given to any living man but Louis Napoleon,
has rewarded his efforts. Hear how he dashes into Gladstone's
eloquent sentences with his biting, withering words of sarcasm,--how
he overthrows the airy edifice which the Liberals were just now
contemplating,--listen to the fiery words of this master of wit and
trenchant, cutting invective--invective that spares no feeling or
cherished opinion, but bares the breast of the Minister like the
surgeon's hand to plunge still deeper the scalpel in the roots of the
wound.
Now he has done, and he sits down, and members crowd around him and
congratulate him, but he receives their incense with a wearied,
indifferent air, that seems to say, "I have been Premier myself, and I
think it to be a small place for a man of ability."
[Sidenote: DANIEL O'CONNELL.]
And so the night passes on in the House, member after member getting
upon his honorable legs, and the small hours come on apace, and the
small talk continues, and the Speaker comes in and goes out, yet still
the House remains in Committee--a very wearisome night it is, and hot
and close in the galleries, and many sleep the sleep of exhaustion in
the legislative arena--while off in green fields and on grassy meads,
by lakes and rivers, the dew falls heavily, and the English Moon shines
with a soft light all over the broad land.
It is amusing to see the Speaker of the House settle a point of order
when members become obstreperous, with his little cocked hat in his
hand, or to see him reprimand a member who crosses the horizon of a
member who is addressing the House. This last offence is considered
a great breach of etiquette, and the Speaker always instructs the
offender that he should have made a tour around the House to avoid
giving offence to the orator. Sometimes a tired member will notice that
there is not a sufficient number of members in the House to transact
business, and if he wishes to escape a threatened monstrous debate, he
must notify the Speaker that there is not a quorum present. Perhaps the
Speaker may desire to rush some business through, and he will therefore
have to be notified several times before he will take warning to count
the members, which he does at last with slow reluctance.
It has been the privilege of any member (from time immemorial,) to
inform the Speaker that there are strangers in the gallery, meaning
ladies, reporters, or any one who is not a member of Parliament. When
so notified, the Speaker, by this musty old rule, is compelled to order
the strangers to leave the House. Thirty years ago Daniel O'Connell
quarreled with the London _Times_, and that paper in revenge would not
print his speeches. O'Connell determined to be even with the journal,
and whenever he saw a _Times'_ reporter in the gallery, he would cry
out, "Mr. Speaker, I beg to call your attention to the fact that
there are strangers in the gallery." Then the Speaker would order the
galleries cleared, and the _Times'_ reporters had to take their note
books and march off disgusted. It was not long before the _Times_ gave
in and stopped the fight, and O'Connell's speeches were reported with
fidelity. This has always been regarded as a joke of O'Connell's, but I
see that lately a Scotch member named Craufurd, who represents the town
of Ayr, and is also editor of the _Legal Examiner_, has been putting
O'Connell's joke in practice.
Miss Florence Nightingale, Miss Lydia Beckett, and Miss Harriett
Martineau, as well as many other well known ladies, have been for
some time working with great zeal for the repeal of the act which
licenses prostitution in garrison towns. Many members of the House are
opposed to the repeal of the act, and consequently when the question
of repealing it came up in the House, and just as the debate had
opened, the member for Ayr, Mr. Craufurd, rose and said, "Mr. Speaker,
I beg to call your attention to the fact that there are strangers in
the gallery," pointing to the gallery where a few ladies had placed
themselves, for the purpose of hearing a question of so much moment to
their sex, discussed. The Speaker and many members urged Mr. Craufurd
not to look that way, and to permit the obnoxious persons to stay where
they were; but with Scotch obstinacy he insisted, and Mr. Bouverie
upheld him in it, saying, "I believe it is an undoubted rule of the
House, sir, that if an honorable member does notice the presence of
strangers, the galleries are cleared." Accordingly they were cleared;
the reporters, as well as the ladies, were put out, and then the debate
went on for several hours. At the close of this, the Prime minister,
Mr. Gladstone, got up and lectured Mr. Craufurd for his ill-timed
modesty, telling him that the feeling of the whole House was against
him. The debate was therefore adjourned, by a strong vote of 229 to 88,
to come up again in the presence of reporters, and most likely, of such
strangers of either sex as may choose to come in.
[Sidenote: DUCAL HOUSES.]
The House of Lords is the Upper House of Parliament; in England all
bills that are born in the Commons have to be confirmed by the Lords
and signed by the Queen, before they become part of the statutory law
of the land. There are about four hundred of these legislators in the
House of Peers, for it must be understood that every nobleman does not
sit by right in the House of Lords. In many families the privilege is
hereditary, and generation after generation a family is represented by
the oldest son, who, on the death of his father, takes the seat made
vacant in the Lords. The highest rank of nobility in England is that of
Duke. There are eighteen nobles who enjoy the Ducal dignity in England,
two in Ireland, and six in Scotland. They are as follows:
English Dukes.--Norfolk, Somerset, Richmond and Lennox, Grafton,
Beaufort, St. Albans, Leeds, Bedford, Devonshire, Marlborough, Rutland,
Manchester, Newcastle, Northumberland, Wellington, Buckingham and
Chandos, Sutherland, and Cleveland.
Irish Dukes.--Leinster, Abercorn.
Scotch Dukes.--Hamilton and Brandon, Buccleuch, Argyll, Athole,
Montrose, and Roxburghe.
There is only one Duchess in her own right--the Duchess of Inverness,
which is a Scotch title. On state occasions Dukes wear velvet robes and
ducal caps of state, with strawberry leaves in gold.
A stranger addressing one of these Dukes, has to begin his letter as
follows:
"My Lord Duke, may it please your Grace." And in state proceedings a
Duke is styled "High, Puissant, and Noble Prince." There are Dukes
and Dukes. Dukes of the royal blood are still higher in rank than the
noble Dukes. The eldest son of the reigning monarch always bears the
title of "Prince of Wales." The eldest daughter is called the "Princess
Royal." This princess is married to the Crown Prince of Prussia. These
two dignitaries, according to court etiquette, are served by the
attendants, when at table, on bended knees with uncovered heads. Those
admitted to kiss their hands must also kneel. In the House of Lords,
when the Queen is present, the Prince of Wales, as heir apparent, sits
on the right hand of Her Majesty, while Prince Albert always sat on her
left hand. The younger sons of the Queen, when they are Peers, sit on
the left hand of the throne, but after the father dies, they sit below
the Wool Sack, (a huge fiery red bed-tick full of wool, on which the
Lord Chancellor takes it easy when the Lords are in session,) on the
bench assigned to the other Dukes.
The Prince of Wales, when on his throne, wears a robe of ermine, a
cape of ermine, and a red velvet cap, with a gold tassel over a gold
crown, ornamented with pearls. The younger sons and daughters have no
diamonds, pearls, or crosses surmounting their diadems--unlike the
Prince of Wales.
The three highest subjects after the Queen and the Royal Family in
England, are: First, The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Second, The
Lord High Chancellor of England. Third, The Lord Archbishop of York.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, who is Primate of England, is styled in
public documents, and he also writes himself, "The most Reverend Father
in God, the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, by Divine Providence." The
Archbishop of York signs himself, "By Divine Permission," as do all the
other Bishops. There are only two Ecclesiastical Provinces in England,
those of York and Canterbury, and two Archbishops. In the House of
Lords the Archbishops and Bishops, (excepting the Irish Bishops now
disfranchised,) sit as Spiritual Peers, and the two Archbishops wear
Ducal Coronets--the Bishops wearing fillets of gold on their heads,
with pearls and jewels. The Bishop of Sodor and Man, and the junior
Bishops have no seats in the House of Lords. A Bishop ranks next to a
Viscount. The nobility of Great Britain own three-fifths of the landed
property of the Kingdom, while starvation and want run riot in the land.
England is studded with parks, villas, castles, game preserves, rabbit
warrens, trout streams and deer parks, all of which are held by right
of primogeniture. No poor man can enter these beautiful ancestral
domains, and the severest penal punishments are meted out to those poor
wretches who dare to infringe on the game laws.
The English nobility are not cowardly or treacherous, but many of the
younger members are very corrupt, extravagant, and reckless, and no
doubt in time their order will pass away, for they are out of place in
this century.
[Sidenote: PRIVILEGES OF THE PEERS.]
England has nineteen Dukes, seventeen Marquises, one hundred and
three Earls, one Countess (widow of an Earl), nineteen Viscounts, one
Viscountess, and one hundred and fifty-two Barons.
Ireland has two Dukes, twelve Marquises, sixty-four Earls, and sixty
Barons, besides twelve Viscounts. When three Irish Peers die in
succession without issue, one other Irish Peer is created to fill the
gap.
Scotland has seven Dukes, four Marquises, forty-four Earls, five
Viscounts, and twenty-five Barons. The wife of a Duke is entitled
"Duchess," the wife of a Marquis "Marchioness," the wife of an Earl is
a "Countess," the wife of a Viscount is called a "Viscountess," and
the wife of a Baron enjoys the title of "Baroness." The better-half
of a Baronet, which is a title bestowed upon fat aldermen and rich
manufacturers--being a cheap order of knighthood, conferred by the
Queen, is called "My Lady This," or "My Lady That," as the case may be.
The people of England are heartily tired of their nobility, and the
success of American principles upon this continent has a tendency
to cause the destruction of this social outrage upon the Nineteenth
Century.
Peers, or members of the House of Lords, have many privileges which
others of noble blood do not enjoy. A Peer can only be tried for High
Treason or murder by his Peers, who compose the House of Lords, and the
trial takes place in a session of that body specially convened for that
purpose, after the fashion here described.
The Peers having taken their seats in full, flowing robes, the Lord
Chancellor seats himself on the Woolsack in the middle of the House of
Lords, the Garter-King-at-Arms, in his gorgeous surcoat and tabard,
makes proclamation of the offences against the culprit Peer. The Lord
High Steward puts the question to each peer in his seat, after the
evidence has been heard;
"Is the prisoner at the Bar Guilty or Not Guilty?"
Then each Peer, rising, says, "Guilty," or, "Not Guilty upon my Honor,"
as the case may be. A Peer cannot be taken into custody unless for
an indictable offence. This is also a parliamentary privilege of the
members of the House of Commons, who cannot be arrested for debt while
the House is in session, or while attending the proceedings, or going
to or from Parliament. An old custom of England allows a Peer, going to
or from Parliament, the privilege of killing one or two deer belonging
to the Sovereign, after he has blown a horn. This is very seldom done
now-a-days. A Peer cannot be bound over to keep the peace, excepting
in the Court of Queen's Bench. Slander against a Peer is known in the
courts as _scan. mag._ and is severely punishable.
A Peer cannot lose his title of nobility excepting by death, or when
he has been attainted for High Treason. He is allowed to answer to a
bill in Chancery upon his word, and is not required to take an oath.
The Sovereign may degrade a Peer from his rank for wasting his estate,
as in the case of George Neville, Duke of Bedford, who had led a
dissolute life and had squandered all his fortune. He was deprived of
his title, honors, and possessions, by Edward IV, the latter being
forfeited to the Crown. If that precedent was followed in these times,
a great number of scampish young nobles would lose their titles and the
remnants of princely estates.
Lately, I believe, Parliament has ordered it so that a Peer may be
proceeded against for debt, as in the case of the bankrupt Duke of
Newcastle. Besides all these manifold privileges, which exist for
the benefit of the nobility, the Diplomatic Service is chiefly for
their support, and here, as in the Foreign Office, fat sinecures are
available at all times, for the improvident and spendthrift nobles.
Some idea of the rich prizes of the Diplomatic Service may be got from
the following list of salaries of the different Ambassadors, Ministers,
and Charges d'Affaires, at the principal countries with which Great
Britain holds intercourse. The salaries I give are those of the
Ministers alone, not including the salaries of attaches, and they are
thus enumerated:
[Sidenote: SALARIES OF AMBASSADORS.]
France, £10,000; Turkey, £8,000; Russia, £7,800; Austria, £8,000;
Prussia, £7,000; Spain, £5,000; United States, £5,000; Portugal,
£4,000; Brazil, £4,000; Netherlands, £3,600; Belgium, £3,480; Italy,
£5,000; Bavaria, £3,600; Denmark, £3,600; Sweden, £3,000; Greece,
£3,500; Switzerland, £2,500; Wirtemberg, £2,000; Argentine Republic,
£3,000; Central American Republics, £2,000; Chili, £2,000; Peru,
£2,000; Columbia, £2,000; Venezuela, £2,000; Ecuador, £1,400; Coburg,
£400; Dresden, £500; Darmstadt, £500; Rome, £800; Persia, £5,000;
China, £6,000; and Japan, £4,000.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XX.
THE LONDON POLICE AND DETECTIVES.
ABOUT ten o'clock in the evening, the rain, which had been gathering
all day, came down in bucketfuls. The gutters ran like little rivers,
and on Lothbury and the Poultry, and on all the buildings behind the
Bank and over London Bridge there came down a hot steaming fog that
almost blinded, as the rain poured against the faces of those who had
to encounter the storm. The rain was hot, and the fog had a fetid,
sticky odor, that seemed like the breath of a graveyard, or a festering
corpse in an old vault on a hot July day.
Down below, on the river, all was quiet among the noisy Wapping
boatmen, and the river below London Bridge looked gloomy and vast and
dangerous as the entrance to the shades of the Inferno. Now and then,
through the dense darkness and gloom which hung like a tissue over the
river, came a whistle, eldritch-like, from the funnel of some Greenwich
or Chelsea steamer, as she grated against the fishermen's barges, that
lay like huge floating carcasses out on the bosom of the dark river;
and anon came the hoarse, drunken shout of some intoxicated oyster
or herring navigator, who lay in the shadow of Billingsgate Market,
returned from some Flemish or Scotch port with a precious cargo of eels
or sprats. London, or the City, seemed deserted and lonely. The portal
of the Bank was as solemn as a churchyard.
[Sidenote: THE OLD JEWRY.]
The insurance offices in Bishopsgate and Broad streets, the
money-changers' and money-brokers' haunts in Leadenhall street, and
the merchants' desks in Cornhill and Gracechurch street, were forsaken.
A footfall seemed like an echo of past years, and while the water ran
in torrents in the gutters, and while misery haunted doorsteps and dark
passages, seeking shelter with dripping rags to hide its shame, the
stolid policemen walked their rounds and looked sharply through the
thick fog as cabs dashed by, for the West End, and the noise of the
horses' feet died away under the arch of Temple Bar.
Where the Poultry, Bucklersbury, and Cheapside, form a junction, just
below the Mansion House, there is a little, narrow, and short street.
This street is called the "Old Jewry," and it has its outlet in Coleman
street and Moorgate street, which run in the direction of Finsbury
square. Behind the Old Jewry is Basinghall street, the Aldermanbury,
and Finsbury square. Then there are Milk street, Wood street, Botolph
street, Pudding lane, Fish street, Mark lane, Lime street, and Love
lane. In all these narrow causeways, dark passages, and crooked
sinuosities of brick, stone, and mortar, untold and uncounted wealth is
hidden away, safely behind bolts and bars.
These tall, lowering warehouses, with their treasures of spices and
silks, ingots and bars of yellow metal, where guineas are shoveled
about all day as if they were plentiful as cherry-pits--have a dismal
effect this sloppy, stormy night. Then the Old Jewry has its memories,
some sorrowful and sad enough. Its very name a synonym for persecution
and torture, a relic of steel-clad days and roystering and merciless
nights, when the tribes of Israel were the playthings of the Gentiles
and unbelievers.
Here, in this narrow lane, stood the proudest synagogue in all England
until the year of grace 1291, when the Jews were, by edict, expelled
the kingdom; and here came the Brothers of the Sack, a mendicant
order of friars, to take possession of the deserted temple, one sunny
May afternoon, when the orchards were blooming, and the linnets were
singing in Cheapside--now a mart of all the nations of mankind. And
then, in the natural order of things, came Sir Robert Fitzwalter on
another sunny afternoon, to dispossess the Brothers of the Sack; and
this doughty knight, having the ear of the then King, turned the monks
out, and they, invoking the displeasure of the Maker of all things
upon Knight Fitzwalter, banner-bearer to the city and the Lord Mayor
of London, left the convent and dispersed themselves severally and
sorrowfully, all over the by-paths and sequestered roads and nooks of
merry Old England.
The Old Jewry is about two hundred and fifty feet long. Short passages,
that cannot be dignified by the title of lanes, jut off this narrow
street. High buildings loom up to the sky above the heads of the
passers-by, and the dome of mighty St. Paul's is hid away from the
vision.
In this Old Jewry is a court-yard hidden away. There are jewelers'
shops, silk-mercers' shops, and chop-houses of the better class on
either side, and a man, in a blue cloth uniform of heavy fabric, walks
up and down, day and night, with a pasteboard helmet on his head. His
wrists are trimmed with bands of crimson and white flannel, and one row
of gilt brass buttons bifurcate his blue, close-fitting coat, and meet
to part no more at his throat and waist. The face of the man is homely,
and his black eyes burn under his helmet of a hat, and in the glare of
the street lamp. Not a soul stirring in the Old Jewry to-night but this
silent patrolman, who looks up and down the lane, now to Cheapside,
now over the roofs as if he would like to get a glimpse of St. Paul's,
whose bell booms with an affrighting suddenness and energy on the air,
through the beating rain and blinding fog.
"Is this the Central Detectives' Office?" I ask of the helmeted patrol.
"Yes, sir. This 'ere is the Central Hoffis of the City of Lunnun; the
hother hoffis is down Scotland-yard way in Parliament street, hopposite
the Hadmiralty and the 'Oss Gy-a-ads."
I find my way past the patrol, and around me I can see a court-yard
fifty by a hundred feet in size, and at either side a gas-lamp burns
dimly, and the wind whistles down from above, and the rain patters
unceasingly.
[Sidenote: RELICS OF CRIME.]
It is like a play-ground or school-yard, but there is in it the
quietness of a deserted church. Turning to the right, I ascend two
steps and enter a hall, where another morose-looking patrolman demands
my business.
"Who do you want to see, sir? Oh, Hinspector Bailey. Well, sir, he is
werry busy just now; got a precious 'ard case to desect; but I'll take
your card and I'll try wot I can do."
In a few minutes I am ushered into the presence of the chief detective
officer of the chief city of England. He sits in a room secluded from
the main rooms, and as I pass through a number of these chambers a
squad of men, who are sitting on chairs and lounges, look up at me
quietly for a second, and, not recognizing any one whom they "want,"
drop their eyes immediately. The room in which Inspector Bailey sits
is not a large one, and there is no superfluity of furniture, but the
walls are covered with placards offering rewards for the apprehension
and conviction of criminals, murderers, forgers, and other runaways
from justice. Some of these are so curious that I must give a few of
them:
RING STOLEN--£1 REWARD.
A reward of £1 will be paid for information that shall lead to the
discovery of a gold ring, the setting in which was originally arranged
for a round stone, with about five small teeth or holders to fix the
same; the original stone having been lost it was replaced by an oval
or pear-shaped rose diamond, which was loose in the setting.
The said ring was stolen from a warehouse in the city, on the 14th
inst.; and it is requested that any person hereafter offering it, for
pledge or sale, may be detained until the police are informed.
Information to Inspector Bailey, City of London Police, Detective
Office, 26 Old Jewry: or to the officers on duty at any of the city or
metropolitan stations.
£1 10s. REWARD.
TO CAB-DRIVERS, ATTENDANTS, AND OTHERS.
INFORMATION WANTED.
On Saturday, the 17th of April, 1869, about 4.45 in the afternoon, a
four-wheeled cab, took up at Messrs. Smith, Payne & Co.'s Bank, at
the end of King William street, near the Mansion House, a gentleman,
48 years of age, 5 feet 8-1/2 inches high, dark brown hair, fresh
complexion, scanty whiskers, square build, and moderately stout; with
a dark-brown portmanteau, which was put inside. He told the driver
to take him to Finsbury square and he would tell him the number
afterwards. £1 10s. reward will be paid on the required information
(as to his destination) being given to Inspector Bailey, City of
London Police, Detective Department, Old Jewry, E.C.
London, 8th May, 1869.
£200 Reward.
EMBEZZLEMENT.
Absconded, on Friday, the 5th inst., from the employment of the Great
Central Gas Company, 28 Coleman street, London, Benjamin Higgs, late
of Tide-End House, Teddington, Middlesex. Description.--About 35 years
of age, 5 feet 9 or 10 inches high, black hair, mustache, whiskers,
and beard, pale complexion, slender build, gentleman-like appearance.
Generally dressed in black or dark clothes and brown overcoat. Had a
large-sized dark green-colored leather bag and a small black bag.
The said Benjamin Higgs is charged on a warrant with embezzling
a large sum of money belonging to the above company: and notice
is hereby given, that a reward of £100 will be paid to any person
who will give such information as shall lead to his apprehension;
and a further reward of £100 on recovery of the monies embezzled.
A photograph of Benjamin Higgs may be seen on application at the
principal police stations.
Information to be given to Messrs. Davidson, Carr, and Bannister,
Solicitors, 22 Basinghall street, E.C., or to Inspector Bailey, City
of London Police, Detective Department, 26 Old Jewry, E.C.
London, 18th March, 1869.
"So you would like to see London under its most unfavorable aspects.
You would like to scour it by day and night, Sir. Well, you have a big
job on hand, let me tell you, Sir," said a cheery voice which came from
behind a low desk. This was Inspector Bailey, a very English-looking
gentleman, with a ruddy oval face, reddish whiskers,--thick and neatly
trimmed, and wearing a dark-mixed suit of clothes. He had clear blue
eyes, this cheery-voiced inspector, and did not in any way give the
idea of a detective, he looked so jolly and well-fed, and there was
such a humorous, good-natured, twinkle in his eyes.
[Sidenote: MR. FUNNELL'S SECRET.]
"Well," said he, "let us see what's best to do for you, sir. I'll give
you the best men I have, and I can do no more. I suppose you want
to see St. Giles? Well, St. Giles is not what it once was. You see
they have been rooting up the worst holes, and the parish authorities
are quite active, and three new streets have been opened, and a
great change has come over the place. But there's a terrible lot of
destitution and crime and misery in the City of London still, and you
can see it all if you have the heart for it. Send up Sergeant Moss,"
said the Inspector to a messenger.
Sergeant Moss came up from below stairs, a dark-eyed, thick-whiskered,
good-looking fellow of thirty-five years, dressed like a dissenting
minister, and trying to look very meek. Butter would not have melted in
Sergeant Moss's mouth. He wasn't "fly" to what was going on neither.
Oh, no!
"Sergeant Moss, you will take this gentleman through Ratcliffe Highway
and Wapping, and show him the sailors' dens and the thieves who haunt
Lower Thames street. Give him the best chances you can, and look out
for Bill Blokey. He's down that way to-night, more nor likely, and if
you brought him in it would be no particular harm to him or you. We got
the trunk that he broke open and left behind. That will be your detail.
Send me Funnell up stairs."
Mr. Funnell came. Mr. Funnell had a very huge beard, which hung down
on his chest like a door-mat, and a sharp eye for business. In fact,
he was all business, this cheerful Mr. Funnell. He was a first-class
detective in London. But he had hard feelings against New York. It was
no place for Mr. Funnell. Mr. Funnell confided to me a secret which I
will now give to my readers.
"I wos wonst over in New York. That's a good many years ago. _That_ was
a long time ago. Yes, a very long time ago, in Bob Bowyer's time, when
Bob was the topper, as we say. He wos the 'Awkshaw of the period, wos
Bob. I wos awfully innocent then, and Bob didn't take the right care of
me, and I fell into the hands of the Philistines. I went down one day
to Fulton Market; I think it's just opposite some ferry where you go
across, just like Southwark, and you can get very big oysters there.
Well, as I wos saying, I wos werry innocent, and as I wos walking
along, thinking of a good many things, when one of these fellows I
believe you call the gentry on your side 'heelers'--dropped a big fat
pocket-book at my feet.
"Now, mind you, I did not see him drop it, and that's where I was taken
in. That made the trouble for me. I had never seen anything of that
kind done in England, and of course the 'heeler' naturally insisted
that the pocket-book wos mine. I tried to argue with him that the
pocket-book wos not mine, but the more I argued that way the more he
persewered the other way. Well, I wos perswaded against my own ideas
that, perhaps, I might have lost a pocket-book, and the fellow wos
so blessed positive about it too. So I fell a wictim to the infernal
scoundrel, and gave him some money for the pocket-book, and, of course,
the money wos worth nothink, and Bob Bowyer could do nothing for me.
Ah, New York is a precious bad place.--So it is."
[Illustration: THE POCKET-BOOK GAME.]
"Well, now, Mr. Funnell, as you have done relating your sad
experiences, you will please do as I tell you. You will report to
our American friend, or, rather, he will report to you early in the
morning, and you will take him and show him Billingsgate Market before
daybreak. You are the best man for Billingsgate, I think, and you had
better attend to that detail."
[Sidenote: "PIPING OFF."]
"I will meet him there or at the Fish Hill monument, at 5 o'clock in
the morning, if that will do, Sir."
"That will do very well," said the Inspector. "And now we want a man
for Smithfield. Who is a good man for Smithfield? Let me see," and the
Inspector tapped his forehead. "I think Ralfe will do for that. He
knows the Smithfield Market best, and he will show you everything, with
a knowledge of what he is doing. Let Ralfe come up, and Sergeant Scott
and Webb. I want to speak to them."
Ralfe, or Dick Ralfe, as he was called, was a good-looking young
Englishman, who had not been long on the force, and who was in capital
health and spirits, having lately been detailed, for his quickness, to
special duty from the patrol to the Old Jewry.
"Mr. Ralfe, you are good on Smithfield Market. Take this gentleman
there at 4 o'clock to-morrow morning. Meet him at the Smithfield
Police Station at 4 o'clock in the morning, and time your inspection
so that you will be able to catch Funnell at the Fish Hill Monument at
5 o'clock in the morning, so as to have him see the fish come in at
Billingsgate. And now, Sergeant Scott, you will show this gentleman
the Minories, Petticoat Lane, Bevis Marks, Houndsditch, and the Jews'
Quarters, but those you will have to take on another day, as you have
already a hard day's work before you. You had better see the market on
Sunday morning, one of the greatest sights in the world, sir, I assure
you, and the Rag Fair is also a grand show of the kind, I also assure
you; and now, Sergeant Webb, I will give our friend in your charge
when he has got through with the rest of them, and you and he can work
the City, I think. You will do the Bank and the Mansion House and
Newgate; and, let me see,--Funnell can take him to the Sessions and the
Old Bailey Courts; and he will have to go to Scotland-yard to do the
Borough of Westminster, as that is not in our jurisdiction. And now,
Sir, good morning, and don't carry a watch with you in the places where
you are going, for some of the people are not very moral or very pious
to get a look at. Good morning, Sir. Smithfield at 4 o'clock, Ralfe."
Sergeant Webb was a tall, well-built man, in the prime of life, with
ruddy cheeks, and a look that resembled the expression usually worn by
Mr. Seward before he lost all chances for the presidency. His face was
smoothly shaved, and he looked as if he could assist with great dignity
at a banquet.
Sergeant Scott was a man just above the middle height, with light brown
whiskers, and an easy, good-natured manner, who had a memory well
stored with anecdotes of "blokes," and "wires," and "dummies." He had,
also, choice stories of distinguished people who had, during their
lives, been known in the "faking" line, and could have pointed me out a
number of pals who were celebrated in the "kinchin lay" for snatching
"wipes" and "grabbing tanners" and "browns" from little children when
they were sent to the shops for bread or milk.
At the back of the apartment in which the detectives were assembled
to receive orders, stood a short, thick-set looking young man, with
an amber moustache and goatee. His eyes were blue and his complexion
very fair. He was dressed in a quiet manner, and nodded to each of the
detectives as they passed out into the court of the Old Jewry. This
was Jim Irving, the celebrated American detective, who had apprehended
Clement Harwood, the great forger, just as he was about to land in New
York, and he was now waiting the trial of the accused which was to take
place at the Mansion House.
"Jim" was already quite familiar with the City of London, although he
had been in it but a few days. He was, of course, rather astonished,
at the quiet, old-fashioned way, that the English detectives had with
them of waiting for a thief until he came and gave himself up. But he
was very much charmed with a gorgeous seal-skin vest, for which he gave
five guineas.
[Sidenote: POLICE DIVISIONS.]
Seventy-five years ago, London had not more than sixty-eight policemen
or constables, and the present admirable system of Police is all owing
to the clear head and sagacious mind of Sir Robert Peel, who first
organized it about thirty-five years ago. The old local watch of the
city consisted of the Bow street force of sixty-eight men, and the
parish beadles, constables, headboroughs, street keepers, and watchmen,
in the several wards of the City, and in many cases these so-called
officers of the peace were rascals of the worst description, in league
with thieves and prostitutes.
It is said that a Mr. George Vincent Dowling, (who was editor of
"Bell's Life" at the time,) gave Sir Robert Peel the first idea of
the present organization, which consists of a Board of three Police
Commissioners, a chief Superintendent, 25 Sub-Superintendents, 136
Inspectors, 700 sergeants, and over 7,000 policemen. 4,000 men are on
duty in the day-time and 3,000 in the night time. During the day they
are never allowed to cease patrolling, being forbidden even to sit
down. They wear dark-blue pilot woven short frock coats, buttoned up to
the neck, trousers of the same material, with brass buttons on the coat
and a pasteboard helmet covered with black rough felt.
The Police Districts are mapped out into divisions, the divisions
into sub-divisions, the sub-divisions into sections, and the sections
into beats, all being numbered and carefully defined. To every beat,
certain policemen are detailed, specifically, and they are provided
with little slips of pasteboard, on which are printed the routes they
are to take. So thoroughly has this management been perfected, that
every street, lane, road, alley, and court, within the Metropolitan
District--that is, the whole of the metropolis--(excepting that part in
a radius of three-quarters of a mile from St. Paul's, which is called
the City of London Proper)--including the County of Middlesex, and all
the parishes, 220 in number, in the Counties of Surrey, Kent, Essex,
and Hertfordshire, which are not more than 15 miles from Charing Cross
in any direction, comprising an area of about 700 square miles, and 90
miles in circumference, and with a population of 3,500,000,--is visited
constantly, day and night, by some of the police. Within a circle
of six miles from St. Paul's, the beats are traversed in periods of
time varying from twenty to fifty minutes, and there are some points,
such as the Bank, the Mint, the Cathedral of St. Paul, the Abbey of
Westminster, the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, the Horse
Guards, and the Inns of Court, which are never free from inspection for
a single moment.
There are 130 police stations in the metropolis, and by a telegraph
signal a Police Commissioner at White Hall, in Parliament street, which
is contiguous to Scotland Yard,--the headquarters of the Metropolitan
Detective force, who are separated in their duties from the Old Jewry
or City of London Detective force,--can concentrate in an hour and a
half as many as 6,000 men for instant duty. This vast force, each man
receiving but three shillings to three and sixpence a day, is really
under a wonderful control. Each officer has to walk twenty miles a day
in his rounds beside attending the police courts, which is equal to
five miles in addition. 98,000 persons were arrested in one year--1869,
of which number 40,000 were discharged. The cost of the Metropolitan
Police for one year was about £525,000, and the City Police, for the
same term, £60,000--the City Police numbering 700, the Metropolitan
force nearly 7,000.
The expenses of the Police Courts, for 1869, was £88,240, including the
salary of one Magistrate at £1,500 a year, and thirty other Magistrates
at £1,200 a year, each. Sixty pounds and six shillings were expended
for rattles, swords, and clubs, in the same time. The City Corporation
are allowed, by act of Parliament, to have their own Police and
Commissioners in the heart of the metropolis, or City proper. There
is, besides, a "Horse Patrol" for public occasions; eight hundred
of which were on duty on the day of the Oxford and Harvard race; a
"Thames River" Police, the "Westminster Constabulary," and a "Police
Office Agency," for recovery of stolen goods. Before the establishment
of the Thames Police, in 1797, the annual loss by robberies alone
on the river, was £750,000 a year, the depredators having various,
curious names, such as "River Pirates," "Light" and "Heavy Horsemen,"
"Mud-larks," "Capemen," and "Scuffle-hunters."
[Sidenote: RIVER THIEVES.]
They were frequently known to weigh a ship's anchor, hoist it with
the cable into a boat, and when discovered, to hail the captain, tell
him of his loss, and row away cheerily. They also would cut shipping
and lighters adrift, run them ashore and then clean them out. Many of
the "Light Horsemen" cleared as much as thirty pounds a night, and
an apprentice to a "mock-waterman" often kept his saddle horse and
country seat. During the first year of the Thames Police, the saving to
the West India merchants alone amounted to £150,000, and 2,200 river
thieves were convicted during that time, of misdemeanor.
In those days, the magnificent docks which are now the chief ornament
of London, had not been built with their high walls to keep out the
swarming thieves who haunted the shipping.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXI.
HUNTING THE SEWERS.
HIDDEN in the bosoms of the sewers of every Great City lies a world of
romance. The secrets of thousands of human beings, with their hopes
and aspirations, their defeats and disappointments, are garnered, in
the relics of myriad households, whose rubbish is shot through drains,
to be imbedded in the accumulated masses at the bottom of the soggy
sewerage.
London has two thousand miles of bricked sewers, and the entire
metropolis is honey-combed by these effluvious passages.
These sewers are, of course, choked with refuse and swarming with rats
and other pestiferous vermin, by night and day, and are pervaded with
noxious gases, which, when inhaled, cause almost instantaneous death.
The rats grow as big as kittens in the sewers, and will face strong,
healthy men, and give them combat--in legions. The rats feed on offal
from the butchers' slaughter houses, which is poured into the sewers,
and they also subsist on the grain which comes from the breweries, in
different parts of the city.
Twenty years ago, the main sewers of London, having their outlets on
the river side, were completely open, and it was lawful to enter them
to search for valuables, but since then so many people have died of
the gases, or have lost themselves in their noxious recesses, that
a law was at last passed, by which persons entering the sewers to
explore them, unless they were employed as workmen, became amenable to
imprisonment, and at present the law is strictly enforced.
[Sidenote: SEWER HUNTERS.]
Formerly, when the spring tides in the Thames began, it was of common
occurrence for the waters to dash into the sewers, sweeping everything
in their way, and very often engulfing the workmen, or others engaged
illegally in searching the sewers; and days after one of these tidal
floods had occurred bodies of drowned and disfigured men would be
vomited from the mouths of the sewers.
Now, however, this is changed, and hanging iron doors, with hinges, are
affixed to the mouths of the sewers, and are so arranged that when the
tides are low the iron doors are forced open by the rubbish and wet
refuse which is emptied into the Thames, and when the tides rise the
volume of water forces the doors back, and the river cannot enter the
sewers.
There are two or three hundred men in London, who earn a living by
working in the sewers. These men, though there is a law against the
practice, search the sewers, night and day, for old iron, rope,
metal, money, or whatever is of value to the finder. They are called
"Toshers," or "Shore-men," and are, in some things, very like the
"mud-larks," who frequent the river sides.
Some of these men are very fortunate at times, and succeed in obtaining
good prizes from the black, stinking mud of the sewers. Gold watches,
silver milk-jugs, breast-pins, bracelets, and gold rings, are obtained
by them. These sewer hunters, however, do not trouble themselves to
collect coal, wood, or chips, as is the case with the mud-larks. There
are better prizes for them, and accordingly, they do not waste their
time on such trifles.
The Sewer-Hunter, before penetrating a sewer, provides himself with
a pair of canvas trousers, very thick and coarse, and a pair of old
shoes, or high-topped boots--the higher the legs the better. The coat
may be of any material, only it must be of heavy fabric, and there are
large pockets in the sides, where articles may be crammed at will.
They carry a bag on their backs, these sewer-hunters, and in their hand
a pole, seven or eight feet long, on one end of which is fastened a
large iron hoe to rake up rubbish.
Whenever they think the ground is unsafe, or treacherous, they test it
with the rake, and steady their steps with the staff.
Should a Sewer-Hunter find himself sinking in a quag-mire, he
immediately throws out the long pole, armed with the hoe, and seizes
the first object in the sewer, to hold himself up. In some places, had
the searcher no pole, he would sink, and the more he tried to extricate
his person, the deeper he would imbed his body.
Use is made of the pole to rake the mud for iron, copper, or bones, and
occasionally the rake turns up the remains of a human being, who may
have perished in those fetid cells. Great skill is necessary in the
hunter, to know always when the tide leaves and comes, so as to enable
him to find articles at certain points.
The brick work in many parts is rotten, especially in old sewers, and
there is great risk in traversing the channels, as sometimes, when the
sewers are being flooded from the dams erected at stated intervals,
the passage is flooded to a height of three feet, very suddenly, and
if the Sewer-Hunter be not notified the first intimation of his danger
is given by a thundering, rushing sound, and before he can escape the
waters are upon him, and he is enveloped by them or hurled down with
tremendous force, and swept along for miles in darkness, and filth, and
despair, cut off from all human aid, no ear to hear his shouts, and no
hand stretched forth to save.
In some places where the arches are unsafe, he will not dare to touch
any part of the roof of the sewers, or the sides, fearing that he may
be buried beneath the ruins. The main sewers are generally five feet
high from floor to ceiling, but the branch sewers are much lower, and
it is necessary to crawl on hands and knees to proceed. In the main
sewers, there are niches built in the brick walls of some depth, with a
raised platform, and the hunters always step into one of those when the
sewers are being flooded, to clean them.
[Sidenote: AN UNLAWFUL BUSINESS.]
Rats, unless in great numbers, will not attack a man if he passes them
quietly, but if driven to a corner they will fly at the intruder's
face and legs in hundreds. A bite from one of these rats will swell a
man's face or arms to an enormous size. The men who are employed as
"flushers" to clean the sewers wear leather boots, the legs of which
come up to the hips, and of thick leather, and when the rats make
an attack on these men, they always flash their lanterns, which are
fastened to leather belts around their waists, and this frightens the
vermin away, as they are not accustomed to light, and will flee from
it if not molested. The big leather boots of the "flushers" cannot be
bitten through by the rats.
The trenches or water-tanks for the cleansing of the sewers, are
chiefly on the south side of the Thames, and as a proof of the great
danger incurred by sewer-hunters from these floods of water suddenly
let in on them, I am told that when a ladder was put down a sewer from
the street some years ago, on which a hod-carrier was descending with a
hod of brick, the rush of water from the sluice struck the ladder, and
instantly, ladder, hod-carrier, and all, were swept away, and afterward
the poor man was found at the mouth of the sewer, all battered, torn,
bruised, and dead.
Whenever a Sewer-Hunter passes through a sewer under a street grating,
he is compelled to close his lantern, else the reflection of the
light through the grating would call the attention of the police, and
he would be taken before a magistrate. Dogs are never taken through
the sewers, for the same reason, as their barking would be noticed,
although they would be an excellent defense against the rats.
Occasionally skeletons of unfortunate cats have been found in the
sewers, their bones completely cleared of flesh, and nothing but a
little fur remaining. I should pity the cat that strayed into a sewer,
as they do occasionally from house-drains and cesspools.
As the Sewer-Hunters go along in the sewers, they often pick money from
between the crevices of the brick-work, and now and then a handful of
sovereigns have been taken from these crevices. Sometimes a small pick
is needed to recover metals or money from the crevices where they are
wedged.
One man told me that he found a small leather bag with two hundred
sovereigns and some shillings in it, that had no doubt been washed out
from a drain. He said that he had often found money, and that he was
well satisfied with his luck in general. He had been for twenty years
searching the sewers, and had amassed considerable property. He told me
his story as follows:
[Illustration: THE SEWER-HUNTER.]
[Sidenote: A RAT STORY.]
"The first night, ye know, that I went into a sewer, I had a pal with
me, as is dead now. Steve Williams was his name--God rest his soul. I
felt afeered when I went in and got lost two or three times, but Steve
allers found me agin by hollering at me. I got the greatest fright
that night I ever got in my life. We were somewhere in a sewer in old
Smithfield, and there must have been a distillery somewhere there, for
when I turned out of the main sewer into a branch one, I saw by the
light of the lantern a thick steam beyond me. I was a little ahead of
Steve, who had just got a haul of two silver table-knives and a watch
chain of goold, and he was looking at the haul he made when I saw the
steam a fillin of the sewer. I went along, when I got near it my head
begun to get dizzy, and I fell back on my shoulders into the sewer. I
got drunk in the steam from the distillery,--that's what ailed me--and
it was so sudden like, that I would have lost my life if Steve hadn't
been there.
"Well, Steve saved my life agin the same night. We were pretty near
the mouth of the sewer on the Thames, near Wapping, where we had a
boat to take us off, for in those times the peelers never meddled with
us like they does now.
"Well, there was one place very ticklish in the sewer, that Steve had
cautioned me about, and this place was all broken and in holes, and
it was chuck full of rats. When we came by I was foolish enough to
turn the light of my lantern on the broken place in the sewer, and
sure enough, there was a reglar colony o' rats in a room--keeping
house,--about two thousand of them--with a hall-way and a room gnawed
out of the bricks, as large as the room I live in at home. There they
were, all stuck together, with their eyes a glarin at me like winkin,
and they all in a heap as big as a horse and cart. I never seed
such a sight in my life. Steve told me to come on, and I was going,
for the rats never said a word all the time, but looked at me and
squealed--but just as I was turning around after Steve my foot slipped
and I fell, and the lantern dropped into a pool and went out.
"I must have frightened the rats, for there was an awful squealing
and scampering--but they didn't all run away, for I found a hundred of
them fastened on my hands, legs, face, and body, when I fell. You may
be sure I hollowed and yelled, for I wasn't used to these vermin then,
and the more I hollowed and beat them, the more they squealed and bit
me.
"In a few minutes Steve came running back with his lantern, and seeing
I was down and couldn't get up, he drove at them with his pole and
killed half a dozen of them, and then they left me and jumped at him.
Then we went at it for a couple of minutes, battling for our lives,
and when we did beat them off we were bitten all over our bodies. I am
sure if it warnt for Steve and his lantern that time, I should have
been eaten up by the rats. You see, Sir, they thought when I stumbled
and fell that I attacked them, for I found out since that they never
begin first if they can help it."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXII.
BACCHUS AND BEER.
IT is an undeniable fact, that the English are the greatest
beer-drinking people in the world. The assertion may be disputed in
favor of the Germans (and their beverage, lager bier,) but who can
compare the thin resinous beer of Munich and Vienna with the heavy
bodied, soporific, and sinewy London pale ale, Edinburgh ale, or
Guiness Brown Stout, that has ever drank the latter malt liquors.
To believe in his native beer is a necessary part of the Englishman's
religion, and it is with the proverbial Briton a trite saying, when an
exile at Chicago, New Orleans, New York, Madrid, Constantinople, St.
Petersburg, or Calcutta,
"You cawnt get a glass of hale in this blessed country--you knaw. You
hawvent got the 'ops you knaw, and ye cawnt make it ye knaw."
English literature and English poetry are full of beer and redolent of
malt and hops, from Chaucer and Shakespeare down to the present day.
Tom Jones, Roderick Random, the Spectator, the Tatler, the Guardian,
Fielding, Hume, Smollett, Pope, Addison, Dryden, Goldsmith, and Samuel
Johnson, never let slip a chance to prove the virtues and efficacy of
beer, and 'Alf and 'Alf.
It was in a room in Barclay & Perkins' brewery in Southwark, then owned
by Mr. Thrale, that Samuel Johnson, (who, if he was an obstinate,
dogged, and overbearing old rascal,--yet was the father of modern
English,) wrote the famous English Dictionary, and when Mr. Thrale
died, Johnson being one of his executors, the property was sold to the
Barclay & Perkins of that day for the sum of £135,000. The present
brewery encloses fifteen acres of buildings and vats, and is the
largest in the world but one.
The tribes that came from India and settled in Germany, to which
Tacitus refers, were the first to introduce beer into Europe. The
descendants of these long haired, fair skinned tribes, were long after,
(in the sixteenth century,) the first to teach the English brewers the
use of hops, for the people of England, of that day, made their beer
after the manner of the ancient Egyptians, by the admixture of herbs,
broom, and berries of the bay and ivy.
In 1585, there were twenty-six brewers in London and Westminster, who
brewed in that year 648,960 barrels of beer, and, six years after, they
exported 24,000 barrels of beer to the Low Countries and Dieppe. In
1643, the first excise duty was imposed on beer. In 1722, the brewers
stored their beer to keep it mellow, for the first time, and sold it
to all house-keepers to be retailed at three-pence a pot--holding over
a pint. In 1869, 500,000 barrels of beer, valued at £1,800,000, were
exported from London to foreign places, being one-fourth of the total
amount that was exported during the same time from other ports in
England.
British India took 201,000 barrels, Australia and New Zealand, 148,000
barrels, China, 35,000 barrels, Cape of Good Hope, 15,000, British West
Indies, 30,000 barrels, Spain took 209 barrels, Brazil, 15,000 barrels,
Russia, 6,000, and France 7,000 barrels.
Barclay and Perkins employ a capital of £2,000,000 annually in their
trade, and 300 huge horses, brought from Flanders, at a cost of from
£60 to £100 each. These horses consume 9,000 quarter hundreds of oats,
beans, or other grain, 900 tons of clover, and 290 tons of straw for
litter. The manure hops that are spent, and other refuse, are taken
by a Railway Company. There are five partners in the house; the firm
being worth £8,000,000, and the head brewer receives a salary of £2,000
a year.
[Sidenote: CATS ON GUARD.]
The water used for brewing purposes is that of the Thames, pumped by
a steam engine, on the same ground where Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
stood three hundred years ago. One hundred and fifty thousand gallons
of beer can be brewed from this water, daily. There are two engines
of 100 horse power each, which are nearly a hundred years old. The
furnace shaft is 19 feet below the surface and 110 above it. The malt
is carried from barges at the river-side, by porters, and deposited in
enormous bins, each of the height and depth of a three-story house.
Rats are fond of malt, but to keep them off a staff of sixty large cats
are constantly employed on the premises, and all these cats are under
the supervision of a big-headed or chief cat, with a long moustache and
Angola blood.
[Illustration: CATS RECEIVING RATIONS.]
It is quite a sight to witness the anxious solicitude of this Chief
Cat for the honor of the house of Barclay & Perkins, and for the
discipline of his subordinate cats, the chief being a Thomas of the
purest breed.
Thirty-six tons of coal per day are used here for brewing purposes, and
the malt is stored in a huge room, with light windows, called the Great
Brewhouse, built entirely of iron and brick. There is no continuous
floor, but looking upwards, whenever the steaming vapor rises, there
may be seen, at various heights, stages, platforms, and flights of
stairs, all occupied by the Cyclopean piles of brewing vessels.
There are also huge buildings next to the brewhouse, with cooling
floors, into which is pumped the "hot Wort," as it is called, or beer.
The surface of the floor in one of these buildings is 10,000 feet
square, and I saw men with gigantic wooden shoes swimming about in this
beer, which looked like a vast lake. The beer is sometimes cooled by
passing it through a refrigerator which has contact with a stream of
cold spring water. The cold beer is then allowed to ferment in vast
rooms or squares, as large as an ordinary block of houses,--which are
made to hold 2,000 barrels. It is a strange sight to look at one of
these lakes of beer, the yeast rising in masses like coral reefs in
a southern sea,--upon the surface of the water, and these rock-like
elevations yield, after the force of the yeast is spent, to the
slightest wind, giving it the appearance of a vast ocean of beer in a
storm. There is one huge vat for porter that will hold 5,000 gallons,
which at selling price is worth £12,000. The Great Tun of Heidelberg
holds but half of this quantity. One thousand quarter-hundreds of malt
are brewed daily by Barclay & Perkins.
[Sidenote: THE GREAT PORTER TUN.]
The great rival house to that of Barclay & Perkins, is that of Hanbury,
Buxton & Co., in Brick-Lane, Spitalfields, covering eight acres; in
which 275,000 gallons of water are used daily, obtained from a well 530
feet deep;--600,000 barrels of beer are brewed here annually. There are
150 vats, the largest of which contains 3,000 barrels, or about 100,000
gallons of beer. There are eight brewing coppers, three of which are
capable of containing 800 barrels each. 700 quarters of malt can be
mashed at one time in six mash tubs;--10,000 tons of coal are used
annually, and there are 200 huge horses, each horse consuming 42 pounds
of food per day, or about 2,500,000 pounds per annum.
There is a library with 5,000 volumes, a billiard-room, reading-room,
and savings-bank, on the premises, with a benefit Club for the workmen,
each member paying sixpence a week, and receiving fourteen shillings
a week in case of sickness; and on the death of his wife, £8, and in
the event of his own death the family receives £18. Two companies of
volunteers were raised from the 800 employees of the firm, and the men
are allowed one holiday in a fortnight.
The brewery of Mr. Salt, at Burton-on-Trent, has been established for
eighty years, and brews annually 25,000 barrels of that peculiarly
strong and bitter ale.
[Illustration: THE GREAT PORTER TUN.]
In London it is calculated that about 6,500,000 barrels of ale, beer,
and porter, are brewed annually, valued at about £20,000,000, and I
think I am therefore correct in calling the English a beer-drinking
people.
Everybody drinks beer in London. You can see laborers and dockmen
sitting on benches outside of public houses, swilling what they call
swipes, at two pence a pot. So if you drink at a Club you will see men
as eminent as Mr. Bright, or Mr. Disraeli, calling for a "pint of Bass'
East India Ale," or "a bottle of Stout." Even in work-houses beer is
kept on tap, and were the paupers to be deprived of their beer, they
would, I believe, rise and annihilate their masters. A quart bottle of
good beer or porter can be got anywhere in London for sixpence, and
of all the beverages that I have ever tasted, I never found anything
to equal in fragrance a drink of good London "Brown Stout" on a warm
summer day. A man may procure as much good beer as he can drink at a
draught, for three pence, in London, at any public house or restaurant,
and it is the common custom with the Cockneys to have it at every meal,
and also between meals.
They have also a fashion in large parties among the working and middle
classes, of ordering what is called a "Queen Ann," which is simply
three pints of beer in a large, brightly burnished metal pot with a
handle, and the man who calls for it having paid, takes a drink, then
wipes the edge of the pot with the cuff of his coat-sleeve, to remove
the foam from his lips,--then passes it to his wife, sweetheart or
his eldest child, who each in turn drink and wipe the edge of the
measure; then it is passed to the stranger, and all around the board,
each person being careful to wipe the "pewter" in the same fashion.
This custom seems rather strange and savage at the first sight to an
American, but it is the custom of the country, and therefore cannot be
quarreled with.
Benjamin Franklin, as we learn by his diary, was disgusted by the
beer-swilling Londoners. When a journeyman printer in London before
1776, he says--"I drank only water; the other workmen, near fifty in
number, were drinkers of beer. We had an alehouse boy who attended
always in the house to supply workmen. My companion at the press drank
every day, a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread
and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a
pint in the afternoon about six o'clock, and another pint when he had
done his work. I thought it a detestable custom, but it was necessary,
he supposed, to drink _strong_ beer, that he might be _strong_ himself.
He had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every week for
the detestable liquor."
This is pretty strong testimony from Franklin, and I find that
although he frequented alehouses in London, where all the men of wit
and learning of the time were to be found, yet he never indulged in
beer.
[Sidenote: QUANTITY DRANK IN LONDON.]
Any foreigner passing through a London street which is inhabited by
working men and their families, or in the neighborhood of factories or
other industrial establishments, if the period of the day be between
twelve and one o'clock, or just after twelve, cannot fail to notice
a sudden commotion and rush of men, women, and half naked children,
with jugs, pewter measures, tin cans, and earthen vessels, to the
neighboring tap-room or beer-house. All this large multitude are in
quest of beer for the noonday meal.
At noon and night the pot boys of the innumerable beer-shops may be
seen carrying out the quarts and pints daily received by those families
who do not choose to lay in a stock or store of their own beer, or the
mothers and children of the same families, to whom the half-penny given
to the pot boy is a matter of consequence, may be seen journeying to
the beer-conduits themselves, and the drinking goes on from morning
until night, among truckmen, coal heavers, street pavers, mechanics in
the "skittle grounds," medical students in the hospitals, law students
in the Inns of Court, and "swells" in taverns.
From the gray of the morning until the hour of dark, you may see in
the London streets those large drays, larger horses, huge draymen, and
large casks of beer, ever present and never absent from the Londoner's
eyes. Go down to the Strand, that street which borders the river, and
you will see the same drays and Flemish horses emerging from the huge
brewery gates, preparatory to carrying barrels of beer to tap-houses,
and nine-gallon casks, the weekly allowance of a private London family,
to dwelling-houses.
A competent authority has estimated that each and every inhabitant of
London will drink, averaging young and old--80 gallons of beer in the
year. The population is 3,500,000.
Therefore, Great is Beer, and Barclay and Perkins are its prophets.
CHAPTER XXIII.
HARVARD AGAINST OXFORD.
SELDOM--perhaps not twice in a hundred years, had such a night of
excitement been known in London as that which ushered in the morning
of the Twenty-Seventh of August, 1869, the ever-memorable day on which
a million of half-crazy people were to witness the Great University
Boat Race between Oxford and Harvard. This race, it was universally
declared, would forever settle the mooted question of British pluck
and American endurance, by twenty-five minutes hard pulling in two
four-oared boats on the River Thames, between Putney and Mortlake.
The boasted phlegm of the English race had, as it were, disappeared
before the touchstone of national rivalry, and prince, peer, peasant,
and cabman alike felt that the honor of England was in the hands of Mr.
Darbishire's Oxford crew.
For weeks before the race came off, the London shopkeepers, mercers,
haberdashers, and drapers, had illuminated windows and doorways with
neck-ties, scarfs, shoe-buckles, ribbons, silks, and hosiery, and with
the greatest commercial impartiality, these articles that I have named,
with a hundred others that I cannot recollect, had been made to assume
the modest hues of the Oxford Dark Blue, and the blazing brilliancy of
the Harvard Magenta. The merits of the men of both Universities had
undergone the severest mental and conversational scrutiny in every part
of the metropolis.
[Sidenote: POLICE ARRANGEMENTS.]
In a great city with a population of over three millions of Englishmen,
it was but natural and just that Oxford should hold high ascendancy,
and that Oxford favors should be worn almost exclusively, and that the
superiority of Oxford rowing, should be with high and low a question of
orthodoxy. Night settled down on the myriad roofs and church steeples
of London, and ten young lads, down at the little village of Putney,
with its narrow streets and old-fashioned church, braced themselves,
before going to sleep, for the greatest athletic conflict that the
Nineteenth century has known.
The sun broke over the London housetops on that eventful Friday
morning, the Twenty-Seventh of August, with unusual brilliancy for an
English sun. The weather had not been of the most promising kind for
some days previous, and it was feared that the day might turn out a
foggy or a rainy nuisance, and thus interfere with the pleasure which
so many countless thousands had promised themselves in witnessing the
race. London was astir at an early hour, and great crowds filled the
streets in the direction of the railroad stations on the Surrey side
of the river, and in the vicinity of the numerous steamboat wharves,
for the purpose of securing an early transportation to the scene of the
conflict.
At 9 o'clock the stations of the Northwestern, the Metropolitan,
and the London and Northwestern Railways--at Waterloo, Vauxhall,
Clapham Junction, Wadsworth, Putney, Ludgate Hill, London and
Blackfriars Bridges, Euston, Chalk Farm, Hammersmith, Paddington, and
Westminster--were swarming with masses of men, women, and children,
vainly endeavoring, struggling, pushing, and trying to obtain
precedence of each other, in order to get tickets to be carried to
the boat race. The different railway companies of London, in order to
accommodate the tremendous number of spectators, had suspended their
regular traffic and agreed to run excursion trains all day steadily
until an hour before the race.
The Thames Conservancy Board, which has the power to clear the river
and prevent obstructions from delaying the race, had worked manfully,
and by great exertions had succeeded in making every steamboat captain
and owner on the river know that he would be compelled by force to
remain above Putney Bridge, where the race was to begin, on penalty of
£20 fine; and if rash enough to run the risk of fine, the police were
to seize the offending steamer and quench her fires, and thus prevent
further locomotion.
One steamboat speculator had been selling tickets at two guineas a head
for the steamer Venus, and had declared openly that he would pay the
fine of £20 and run the boat anyhow, despite the authorities of the
river and the police who swarmed, in hundreds of small boats and tiny
steam launches, all over the broad surface of the Thames.
When the steamer Venus came down to Putney Bridge, however, she was
stopped very quickly, and her cheated passengers were forced to remain
on board and witness the start, but the steamer was fastened at anchor
and could no farther go. Passengers by this unlucky boat, who were
unable to stand the broiling sun for four or five hours, debarked at
Putney, and consoled themselves with mutton chops and bitter beer at
the Star and Garter. Formerly, at the University races between Oxford
and Cambridge, there was not only danger that the race itself would be
interrupted, or perhaps lost, by the reckless rushing to and fro of the
innumerable steamers that were sure to follow the progress of the boats
towards Mortlake, but it was also very unsafe for passengers in small
boats, wherries, or launches, to venture on the river, owing to the
manner in which the steamers dashed to and fro at the bidding of the
eager captains.
But the assertions in some of the American newspapers, that the Harvard
crew would meet with foul-play from some scoundrel or other who might
employ money to influence a master of one of those vessels, had aroused
a determined energy among the members of the Thames Conservancy
Board, and the result was a clear river, in one sense, from Putney to
Mortlake, for the two crews.
When I say in one sense, I mean that the channel of the river was
kept clear of steamboats and skiffs alike; but, while the steamers
were not allowed inside of the chains stretched across at Putney and
Mortlake, thousands of every description of small craft lined the river
for a space of five miles on both sides, on the Surrey and Middlesex
shores,--but out of the path where the race-boats were to make the
essay for superiority.
[Sidenote: THOMAS HUGHES, M.P.]
But two steamboats were allowed to follow the crews, and one of these
was the steamer Lotus, engaged to carry the referee, Mr. Thomas Hughes,
M.P., author of "Tom Brown at Oxford," "School Days at Rugby," and
other well-known and popular books--Besides the umpire for each crew,
the judge of the race, Sir Aubrey Paul, and a number of ladies and
gentlemen specially invited. Besides this boat there was also the
steamboat Sunflower, chartered for the use of the press of London and
for the benefit of American correspondents in London, by one of the
editors of _Bell's Life_. These two boats were never more than fifty
yards to the rear of the Oxford and Harvard shells during the progress
of the race.
At half past 1 o'clock the press boat had been advertised to leave
the Temple Pier for the scene of the race. Taking a cab at the head
of Regent street, I had a good opportunity to observe the streets and
shops and numerous vehicles. Of the six or seven thousand cabs which
are to be found at the different stands all over London, hardly one
this morning but is in some way decorated for the festival. These
sharp-eyed, cunning-looking cabbies, in their careless attire, each
with a brass medal depending from his breast, giving his number and
license, have an eye to the main chance. Their long whips are tipped
with short bows of blue ribbon in the greater number, while a few have
magenta ties. Out of respect for the Yankees, they will charge them
to-day a shilling a head more than they dare ask from an Englishman.
The great clumsy busses, that look more like advertising vans than
vehicles for the purpose of carrying passengers, are splendid this day
with decoration. They are made, as the sign above each tells you, to
carry twelve inside and sixteen outside. The drivers of the busses have
a more respectable look and are more profound in their wit than the
cabbies. They have a solid British look that tells plainly of roast
beef and careful usage. The cabbies are to the buss drivers a sort of
gypsies, and are looked upon by them with suspicion. Every omnibus is
crowded with passengers this cheerful, sunny day.
All London seems going to the race. Dry goods clerks, licensed
victualers, "cads," grocers, public-house keepers, bar-boys,
stable-boys, bar-maids, servant-maids, well-to-do tradesmen and their
wives and children, apothecaries' assistants, golden-haired milliners
nicely gloved, dressmakers' apprentices, pickpockets, peers of the
United Kingdom, University men in cap and gown, Charter House boys
with yellow stockings on their legs, and dark-blue frocks fastened
at their waists with leather straps, wandering Americans displaying
large diamonds and shocking bad hats, Westminster schoolboys on the
foundation of Elizabeth, the Dean of St. Paul's in his shovel hat,
city men, brokers and bankers, watermen from the Thames, professional
oarsmen, Jew and Gentile;--they are all interested and will all see the
race or a part of it.
I never saw anything like this great crowd before. It is believed that
two hundred and fifty thousand people is the average number that are in
the habit of witnessing a Cambridge and Oxford boat-race, but Cambridge
has been beaten so often that the interest does not compare at one of
these races with the tumultuous, all-pervading feeling that is borne in
every man's bosom as he hurries along to-day. It is not so very certain
that Harvard will be beaten, although it is rumored here and there that
Loring, the stroke of the crew, is unwell, which rumor only tends to
increase the odds on Oxford.
The Temple Pier is reached at last. We pass through an arched gateway
at the bottom of a narrow street opening on the Thames. This spot is
more historic even than Westminster Abbey. There before us is the
Church of the Temple, seven hundred years old and black with time. All
the ground around us belonged, in the old bygone days, to the Knights
of the Order of the Temple. Now the place is the resort of attorneys
and barristers, and in it legal people have chambers. Right in the
shadows of the old Norman towers and battlements of the ancient church,
Jack Cade's followers rose from a swinish, drunken sleep to turn their
weapons against each other, hundreds falling in the conflict.
[Sidenote: DARK BLUE AND MAGENTA.]
Here in these chambers resided Chaucer, Gower, Spenser, Clarendon,
Coke, Plowden, Selden, Beaumont, Congreve, Wycherley, Edmund Burke,
Cowper, Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Pope, Eldon, Erskine, and
others equally famous. Here they slept, joked, read, ate, and drank.
Surely, if this ground be not hallowed, none other is. In company
with a well-known American journalist, Mr. George Wilkes, I find my
way to the Press boat, which is lying at the foot of the Temple Pier,
off the Embankment. She is a long, double-ender, with a red streak
on the upper part of her keel, and a black hull. Her steam funnel is
made to be lowered at the base, working on hinges, when going under a
bridge. Like all Thames boats to-day, there are two flags hoisted on
her twin flag-staffs--the American and English. There is no awning, no
upper-deck, to shade us from the August sun, which is now beginning to
burn with an intensity peculiarly un-English.
There are, perhaps, about fifty persons on the boat, of whom two-thirds
are English; the remainder Americans. They are not all newspaper men,
though it was understood, before the tickets were sold, that none but
newspaper men would be allowed on board.
The Englishmen wear blue scarfs and bows; the Americans sport the
magenta all over their clothes. The sun falls on the broad, muddy river
in slanting beams of kindling gold, making the old warehouses on both
banks of the stream, with their yellow brick gables, to stand out in
bold relief.
Above us is London Bridge, lowering in its immensity, and to the
right is Billingsgate Market and Paul's wharf. Close upon our stern
is Blackfriars Bridge, the Temple Gardens, Kings College--a massive,
dirty gray structure, running along the river bank; Somerset House, the
government building where all the clerical work of the administration
is done, and where well-fed and well-paid clerks enjoy sinecures of the
kind which the Barnacle family were so fond of. Before us is Waterloo
Bridge, Cecil, Duke, Salisbury, Surrey, Buckingham, Villiers, and other
streets called after the mansions once inhabited by the favorites of
Charles, James, and William of Blessed Memory.
At a little before two o'clock the Sunflower steams off on her journey
up the river. The course of the steamer is impeded at almost every foot
by small craft of all descriptions, en route to Putney and the race.
We pass, on our way down, Waterloo Bridge, Charing Cross Bridge, with
its huge railroad trains thundering over our heads, bound to Dover,
with passengers for the Continent; Westminster Bridge and the Houses of
Parliament, with their gilt vanes, towers, and battlements glistening
in the sun; Lambeth Bridge and Lambeth Palace, the residence of the
Primate of England, with its gardens and red brick towers; St. Thomas
Hospitals, in process of construction; Millbank Penitentiary, a gloomy,
six-sided fortress of crime; Vauxhall Bridge; Pimlico Pier, where
we stop a moment; the Nine Elms Road, Chelsea Bridge, and Chelsea
Hospital, where a number of frisky, one-legged and one-armed veterans
are disporting themselves on its smooth, grassy lawn; the Botanic
Garden on the right, and the green fields and trees and silvery lake of
Battersea Park on the left; Albert Bridge, Cadogan Pier, Chelsea Pier,
Battersea Bridge, and the Cremorne Gardens, with its kiosks, captive
balloon, statues, shady walks, fountains, and flower beds; and now we
are opposite Fulham and Brompton, where the splendid and extravagant
Formosas of the metropolis enjoy their ill-gotten gains in pleasant
villas and cozy little houses.
We are now getting away from the thickly populated districts of London,
and the bridges that cross the river are fewer and farther between,
and, being generally of wood, are more rickety.
During the entire passage we are continually stopped by small craft of
all kinds. The river is alive with them.
[Sidenote: ON THE TOWING PATH.]
There are huge yawls, of broad bottom and clumsy construction,
containing family parties, with their provender--bread, cheese, and
beer, ham pies, and beef pies, kidneys and tongues--spread out in the
bottom of the boats on white cloths or in open baskets; there are long
shells with crews of eight and four, carrying coxswains; single sculls,
double sculls, wherries, watermen's boats, small steam launches,
lighters, watermen's barges, small sloops and schooners with dirty
sails and unseemly rudders, pleasure yachts, and craft of such queer
shape and rig as are never seen on our American rivers.
All are bent on pleasure, and in many of the boats they are singing
the slang songs of the London streets; and now and then are warbled
the cheering chants of the boatmen immortalized by Dibdin and Taylor,
the water poets. A couple of miles more and we are in sight of Putney
Bridge, which towers aloft, rickety, worn, and decayed, thousands
crossing to and fro on its frail planks to get positions for the race.
And now the full grandeur of a sight such as is seldom or ever seen
bursts upon every one on board the Press boat, and even the Londoners
admit, in an easy way, that the Derby Day is eclipsed by the great
number of people who line the banks of the river for miles on the
Surrey and Middlesex shores.
To the left, above the old bridge, is the village of Putney, with its
narrow streets and noisome lanes, its green fields, festering pools,
eccentric-looking mansions and houses of an humbler kind, the steeples
of St. John's and St. Mary's, with their quaint clock-towers; and to
the left, on the Middlesex bank, are Fulham and the Bishop of London's
palace, the long grass on the Bishop's lawn waving in the breeze, and
upon whose surface were stretched pic-nickers eating and drinking.
The Star and Garter at Putney, a famous hostelry, where the crew
of Harvard had lodged when they first came to England, was covered
all over its surface toward the river with the flags of America and
England. The old wooden balconies were crowded with ladies wearing
favors in their bosoms; the passages and lanes leading to the
towing-path on the river swarmed with foot passengers, all having one
determination and one sole object. The "Bell Inn," a rival to the Star
and Garter, was also glorious with colors, and all the house-owners
for miles along the river had let their windows and seats on their
roofs for various sums, varying from five shillings to five guineas per
head.
One generous American "lady" had advertised in the _Times_ that she
would let seats in her windows to her countrymen at the modest price of
two guineas per head, and she found that she had not half room enough
for her compatriots. An innkeeper on the towing-path had let the front
of his house for £40 to a speculator, who realized a profit of £25 on
the venture. The Leander Boat-house, belonging to a well-known boating
club, had a scaffolding erected fronting the river for the members and
their ladies, which was covered with Union Jack bunting, the structure
being the place where the Oxford crew had housed their race-boat.
Close to it was the boat-house of the London Rowing Club, an
association of four hundred gentlemen, who had proved themselves
warm and steady friends of the Harvard crew since their arrival
here. The Harvard boat was housed here, and the staging and platform
were decorated with American colors. A number of ladies, wearing red
rosettes, were seated upon this balcony.
A few yards below was the modest stone house where the Harvard crew
were sleeping two hours before the race. This place was enclosed by
a stone wall, breast high, and shaded by green trees. Platforms were
erected behind this wall, and on them I noticed seated the American
Minister, Mr. Motley, the Hon. S.S. Cox, "Tom Hughes," Charles Reade,
the novelist--a bluff-looking, hearty Englishman, in gray clothes--and
a number of ladies, just before the race began.
[Sidenote: A FRIGHTFUL JAM.]
Back from this house ran the High street, and, I believe, the only
street of Putney, and in this street was located the unpretending
place of residence of the Oxford men. The towing-path on the Surrey
side of the river runs along for miles away beyond Mortlake, and on
the Middlesex bank there is also a path, and on both of these paths it
is customary on a race day for thousands of harmless maniacs to run
along, hats and coats in hand, vainly endeavoring to keep up with
race-boats going at a speed greater than a mile every five minutes.
[Illustration: THE HARVARD CREW.]
Of course, they soon lose sight of the boats after the start; yet they
will still run, hallooing, cheering, and shouting like madmen. To
furnish sport and amusement for the myriads of Cockneys who come by
rail, steamboat, or on foot, from London and its environs, there are
not wanting sharpers, players, peddlers, fighting-men, showmen, venders
of all kinds of fruit, vegetables, meats, pies, drinks, ices, and all
kinds of knick-knacks--things useful and useless; and these people and
their wares combined make up a kind of a Bartholomew's fair on a grand
scale.
The fair and its accessories covered the towing-path for three miles,
and rendered the passage most difficult on this occasion for the many
pedestrians. Dresses were torn, buttons pulled off, hats smashed,
bonnets rumpled, hoops irretrievably wrecked, children trod on, women
half suffocated and rendered faint and sick; yet, back from the river,
for fifty or sixty feet, for a distance of three miles, the uproar and
sale of questionable merchandise and doubtful provender never ceased
for an instant.
It was a scene such as is displayed once in a man's life-time, to
remain indelibly engraved on his mind ever after. One thousand
policemen lined both banks of the river to keep order, but most of them
were on the Surrey, or most thronged bank of the stream. A large number
of those were mounted on huge black horses, and but for them many lives
would have been lost on this most eventful day of days.
At the boat-houses, where the shells of the rival crews were concealed
from the gaze of the crowds, outside, the jam was frightful, and very
dangerous, as the police every few moments had to back their horses
into the crowd to keep a passage-way clear, and on several occasions
were compelled to charge the dense masses of men, women, and children.
Some time before the race came off, I made my way along the towing-path
as well as I could through the swaying, surging crowds, for the purpose
of taking a look at the amusements they were enjoying.
There was a large crowd around a man who stood before a circular
table, the top of which revolved on a pivot. The surface was painted
and divided into four triangles by colored lines. In each angle was
painted the name of some famous horse, such as "Formosa," "Pretender,"
"Blue Gown," and "Lady Elizabeth." An indicator, like the hand of an
eight-day clock, swung on a pivot in the centre of the circle.
A spectator being invited to place sixpence on the name of some
favorite horse, the proprietor of the show gave the circular board
a spin, and if the indicator stopped opposite the name of the horse
where he had placed his money, he gained a shilling. The fellow who had
this machine in operation was a hard-looking case, in a greasy cutaway
velvet coat. His oratory was to the point and business-like.
"Down vith yer sixpence; and make yer bets, gentlemen. My hindicator is
sure as the clock of St. Paul's and twice as waluable ha hacquisition.
I don't care vether it is Formosy or Purtendir that yer bets yer bob
hon. Yer take Hoxford or ye take 'Avard--
Hi gives 'er a spin
Han lets yer vin;
vich is poetry, and if ye dosn't vin, I gits the tin; vich is po-e-try
agin, and is halso a favrite hexpression of the Chanselur of the
Hexcheckever ven he piles hon the blessed taxis has 'as made me sell
hall my property to havoid a bust hup. Try yer luck agin; thank ye sir.
Formosy, sir, sure to vin or lose."
Close by this amusing blackguard is the stand of the root-beer,
ginger-beer, and bitter-beer seller, who is crying out from behind his
little cart:
[Sidenote: BOOTHS AND SHOWS.]
"Valk hup and try this ere de-lee-shus bewerage, honly tuppence a
bottle. If ye don't like it I gives ye yer money back, and no 'arm
done. The Prinse of Vales alvays buys 'is beer hof me ven 'e isnt
travelin, for the good of 'is 'ealth. Valk hup and don't be ashamed;
the no-bil-e-tee and gen-te-ree hall patronizes me. Ginger-beer,
ginger-beer, and may the best man win, as my vife says, ven she sees
two pickpockets a fightin' for a shillin'."
"Trick-hat-the-loop, ring the nail, and ye gets three h'apens. Ring the
nail and ye gets three h'apens. And 'ow much does ye hinvest. Vy honly
ha'apenny. A man von two hundred pun hof me last veek, and there 'e
his just now agoin to bet hit all on the Hoxford crew, and ef ye don't
believe me just hax 'im 'isself," said a seedy looking wretch, with a
handful of small iron rings in his hand, directing his index finger
to some indistinct personage in the crowd, whom no one present could
recognize.
The number of apple, pear, goosberry, plum, pie, and ice-cream stands
that line the path are almost incalculable to think of. Pies square,
round, and triangular of shape, in all the varied stages of decay, are
for sale at a penny a piece. Tarts, cheese cakes, mutton pot-pies,
ham pies, suet puddings, whelks, a sort of odorous shell-fish, at
half-penny apiece, green gages, and "sandviches" are shouted on every
side of us.
There are all kinds of games in progress. There is the ancient and
honorable game of "cockshie," and "cocoa-nut." The latter is curious.
Three cocoa-nuts, hollowed out, are placed on the top of as many
sticks, which are stuck upright in the ground, and the game, costing
a penny, is to knock off those cocoa-nuts at three strokes, when you
can claim three pence--providing, of course, that you knock off all
three cocoa-nuts; which, of course, can only be done by the princely
proprietor himself after hard training.
There is one noisy fellow on a little hillock, pockmarked and
ferret-eyed, in a greasy woolen duster, who has drawn a large crowd
around him by his peculiar and quack-like oratory. This fellow is a
gem, in his way, of purest ray serene. He is a merchant of penny scarf
and finger rings.
"Now," says he, elevating a scarf ring on one finger and a wedding ring
on another, in sight of the wondering crowd, "hif hi was to tell you
good people that these beuty-_fool_ rings wor pure goold, vot vould
you say? Vy, you vould say, in the most hexitibel and hunmistakabel
langvidge has could come from your blessed traps, 'ee his a harrant
himposter.
"Could hi blame yer for hexpressing yer feelinks in sich langvidge? No.
Hi vould say to my disturbed conscience, has was at that very moment
a tearing my hinsides to pieces, 'you, Villiam Bowsley, have forsaken
the good karraktir has was 'anded down to yer by hancestors who 'ad
their hown hestates, 'osses, and kerridges; Villiam Bowsley, you 'ave
been han harrant himpostor, and deserves to be 'ung.' Vell, does I tell
ye that these ere rings is goold? No; on the contreery, I says they
are brass. Vell, may be ye don't care so much for brass harticles. Ham
hi a friend of brass? No, agin. But I ham a friend of Hart. I asks ye
to look at this ere image of Mr. Glads_tun_, as is now hour blessed
Pri-_meer_. Wos hever anything so beau-ty-fool? Look at the insinivatin
smile on 'is sveet feetyures. Ven I last dined vith Mr. Glads_tun_--ye
needn't laff, cos ye knows, perhaps, the story in the Good Book of the
bad children 'oo chaffed the old Profits and wus heat hup by bares--ven
I last dined vith Glads_tun_, hour blessed Pri-_meer_, he says,
'Bill'--he calls me 'Bill' ven 'ee his friendly--'Bill, them pictures
on them ere kam-e-o-s as you sells is my likeness just like twins. Cos,
vy,' said he, 'my maiden haunt reckignized them, and fainted avay ven
she seed vun.'"
Passing along a few feet I am attracted by the noise of a loud, rough
voice, that is shouting over the thickly packed heads of another crowd:
"Step hup gentlemen and take a look hat the noble hart of Self-Defence
has his practised in the Royal Tent. This vay gentlemen, honly tuppens.
Brisket Bill and the 'Ackney Vick Cove is a goin' to set-too. Step hup."
[Sidenote: THE BOXING TENT.]
There is a large tent back from the path covered all over with
representations of half-naked boxers in the act of defending
themselves, or mauling or beating each other to pieces, and the master
pugilist stands on a high bench to attract the crowd, while at the
same time he can look inside of the tent and direct the ceremonies by
calling time and announcing the names of the combatants. Two wretched,
miserable looking women, their features furrowed with want, their
eyes bleared with gin, and their general appearance indicative of hard
luck, cruel treatment and filth, hold each a sheet of the tent in their
hands, and one of them puts out her hand to take the two pence which is
the price of admission.
I pass in to the tent and find twenty or thirty hard-looking cases
circling around "Brisket Bill" and the "Hackney Wick Cove," who are
stripped to their waists, their features inflamed with passion, their
hair cropped short, and boxing gloves on their hands. There are half a
dozen burly, big soldiers in the tent belonging to different arms of
the Queen's service, and two of them wear the red shell jackets and
army fatigue caps of the Life Guards. Brisket Bill is a low-sized,
compact, thick witted brute in corduroys and heavy hob-nailed shoes,
who has been probably "starring" in the provinces, and the Hackney
Cove is a tall, well-made, fresh-faced-looking young fellow, who is
quite lively on his feet, and seems to rather like the punishment which
Brisket gives him every now and then in the chest and face.
A ruffianly-faced scoundrel offers me a ticket to go to his boxing
benefit on the next Monday night, which is declined, and at the next
moment the Hackney Cove knocks Brisket Bill, with a tremendous blow,
kicking at my feet, while cheers greet the feat from the Life Guards,
roughs, thieves, and clodhoppers in the tent, and the Master Pugilist
cries from the top of the tent outside:
"Vind hup, Brisket; 'it 'im 'ard and be done vith your larking. Give
these gentlemen the vorth of their tupence. Vind hup, I say, and stop
'im."
Going down the towing path I found the crowd increasing every moment,
and all streaming from the direction of London. A great number of
soldiers were present all in bright uniform, without side-arms,
and all carrying jaunty canes--lancers, foot guards, riflemen,
artillery drivers, men of the siege train, heavy cavalry, dragoons,
and light-infantry men. The majority of these warriors bold were
accompanied by their sweethearts, pretty, clear-skinned English girls
in their best bibs and tuckers, and of course they all wore the Oxford
blue on their persons. Hundreds of small dirty-faced and ragged boys
swarmed in and out of the numerous tents, and many grown men were
endeavoring by bawling loudly, to dispose of badges and rosettes. Some
of them had pieces of wide dark blue ribbon with the words cribbed from
the famous ballad of Tommy Dodd a little altered, inscribed in gilt
type on them:
"Now boys, let's all go in;
Oxford--Oxford sure to win,
Tommy Dodd."
Others sold small rosettes with the words "Oxford Laurels" engraved,
and Harvard badges made of red, white, and blue lutestring, bearing the
arms of the United States, the eagle rampant, and screaming fiercely,
while one costermonger's cart had elevated on canvas in bold letters,
the words of Nelson at Trafalgar, forever classic in the English tongue:
"ENGLAND EXPECTS THIS DAY THAT EVERY MAN SHALL DO HIS DUTY."
Almost every person who passed this costermonger cart cheered or
approved of the legend in some way, while as a counter irritant a party
of Americans who had hired a whole house, had the Star Spangled Banner
displayed with the following couplet underneath, in glaring type, and
which attracted very considerable attention:
"Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: In God be our trust!"
I saw numbers of Americans, during the great excitement of that
memorable day, pass and repass the sacred symbol of their country
just for the sake of lifting their hats to the dear old flag. Blood
_is_ thicker than water--even if it was only a boat race. One young
fellow who had been for four years studying his profession at Halle, in
Germany, and had not seen the Gridiron during that time, doffed his hat
twice and was cheered from the balcony in return; and when he came to
me and spoke, his eyelashes were humid, and, when I asked him what was
the matter, he answered in a polyglot of Deutsch and English:
[Sidenote: THE DEAR OLD FLAG.]
"Ach Gott! I've been having a blamed good cry at the sight of the Stars
and Stripes."
And thus the day passed, and the sun declined in force and fell in
strips of silver and gold and purple on Putney church and steeple,
and on all that mad, roaring, shouting, gambling, eating, and
drinking multitude, that lined both banks of the river from Putney to
Mortlake--a million human beings in all--to witness ten lads struggle
for less than half an hour in two frail boats.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXIV.
STRUGGLE AND VICTORY.
AS I passed down the towing path toward the stone house where the
Harvard crew were resting, I saw the blue blades of four slender oars
elevated above the crowd, and passing through the closely wedged
ranks. The men who carried them, the Oxford Four, appeared on the
river's bank--four fine looking young fellows, with the coxswain, a
mere lad, in their rowing suits. They were going to take a paddle
preparatory to the race, for half a mile up the Thames toward the Duke
of Devonshire's. They looked well, and were loudly cheered as they got
into their boat. They paddled up the river.
As I passed the gate of the stone house I saw the Chevalier Wykoff and
George Wilkes standing together and spoke to them both. Just at this
moment the face of Loring, the stroke of the Harvard crew, appeared
looking out toward the river, which was packed with boats full of
people. There was something in the man's face that I did not like. I
had not seen him for a few days previous. He had a huge boil under his
right chin in his neck, with a white crust on the top of it; his eyes
seemed wild, his manner anxious and hurried, and altogether he seemed
very unsteady. I shook hands with him and asked him how he felt.
[Sidenote: ON BOARD THE PRESS BOAT.]
He said slowly, "Pretty well," and after we talked a few minutes he
went in to prepare for the struggle. I stepped back to the towing path
and spoke to Mr. Wilkes, who asked of me "Who is that? Is not that
Mr. Loring, the Stroke of Harvard?" I answered in the affirmative. Mr.
Wilkes then asked me, "What did he say? Does he feel well?" I answered,
"He says he feels pretty well?" Wilkes burst out, "Pretty well! He
doesn't look like it. That man's sick." and in an instant he dashed
into the crowd to find some one and I lost him for the time being.
I walked down to the "Star and Garter" inn slowly, thinking of the last
look I had at Loring, and I felt astonished that he should be ready
to pull a race in his condition. The man was evidently in a state of
exhaustion; he looked overworked, overstrained, and out of condition
for a four mile and three furlong race--he who had, when at his best,
only been used to pull a three mile race, turning at a stake of a mile
and a half distance.
Warned by the noise and rapid movements of the crowd that something
was astir, I made my way by the Star and and Garter, out of whose
windows men were handing porter bottles to their friends beneath, and,
walking to the river's bank, I hailed a boat with two Thames watermen
in it, who pulled me through the line of Police boats to the Press boat
Sunflower, which had her steam up and was getting ready.
Getting on the deck I took a look around me. Above and at our back was
the old Putney Bridge, thick with human beings of both sexes. Beneath
were countless steamboats and small craft, wedged together in a dense
mass, covering the river behind the bridge for acres, and at our stern
a huge iron chain of Vulcanic links stretched from the Star and Garter
to a point off Fulham on the Middlesex shore. The chain in the middle
of the river was under water, but near both shores it was visible to
all the passengers on the steamboats behind Putney Bridge, but also
impassable to them, however they might rage, fume, and curse at their
ill-luck and guineas thrown away.
By the side of the Press boat, the Umpire's boat--a craft similar in
build and appearance--was anchored, many of the passengers wearing
the rival colors; the Americans drinking brandy and soda to refresh
themselves, and the Englishmen giving odds on Oxford with great good
will and humor.
The picture on the river was a most striking one, and worthy of a
master's brush, with its vivid color, the striking dresses of the
crowds, the flags and bunting from housetops and steam funnels; the
green-leaved trees, their branches covered with human fruit, and the
hot August sun, just losing its intensity, as a cool breeze came down
from the direction of Mortlake to ruffle the surface of the river, its
eddies and wavelets sparkling and dancing like diamonds of price.
It was now within a few minutes of five o'clock. There was a sudden
hum above on the river, at a place called the Crab Tree, as the Oxford
crew got into their boat, and the hum became distinct and swelled into
a pronounced noise, and the noise became a great solid, full cheer from
a hundred thousand throats, as the bright blue blades of the Oxford
Four were dipped in the water, and they came paddling down the stream
in their narrow shell to take position by the Umpire's boat near the
bridge. They paddled easily, and took position with a quiet look in
their fair English faces that impressed every American favorably.
Then there was another hum as before, when the Harvard crew came down
from the boat-house of the London Rowing Club, and a tremendous cheer
as their boat came up to the Middlesex shore--in among the seedy long
grass.
And now let us look for a moment at the two crews as they sit there
passively awaiting the order to "go." The Harvard boat is long, narrow,
and the frail cedar wood timbers that compose it are polished like a
steel mirror. Its nose and bow are sharp as a lancet, and amidships it
is but a few inches out of the water. So frail, and yet to carry the
good or bad fortune of a mighty nation's hope.
[Sidenote: LORING'S CONDITION.]
The Harvard crew wore white flannel shirts, the sleeves cut away at
the shoulders, with white drawers shortened above the ankles, and
white fillets bound around their temples to save their heads from
the sun's rays. To a spectator they looked magnificent--all of them
bronzed as they sat well forward in the boat, their skins like a new
guinea. Burnham, the coxswain, had his back to the steamer and faced
the stroke, Mr. Loring. Burnham looked stout, massive, and in good
condition. His broad back, rather too broad for a coxswain, gave an
idea of endurance and "staying" more useful in a stroke than a "cox."
His face was tanned, and his quick, restless eyes scanned the broad
Thames with a short, momentary glance, and then they rested on Simmons,
the hope of the American boat.
Burnham wore a Vandyke tuft at his chin, and a stiff, bristling
mustache of sandy hue. He looked old enough to be father to the Oxford
coxswain. Loring sat with both hands grasping the stroke-oar on the
right side of the boat. His face was turned also, and his dark eyes had
something nervous and flitting in them that I did not like. His body
was as lean as a greyhound's--in fact, he was too lean for a long race.
But the muscles and sinews stood out in bold relief, and the cords of
flesh between the shoulder-blades were hard, and, Loring being slightly
round in the shoulders, it gave him a look of great strength, more
fictitious than real.
He wore a mustache and goatee--not quite so artistic in shape as
Burnham's--and the hair was cropped close to his ears. His face,
however, did not satisfy the Americans, who watched him closely. There
was something that was indefinite, something unstrung, in the lines
that should have been set and hardened like steel bars. He had a
feverish look as he sat forward, with his long, massive arms, grasping
the oars.
Simmons, the pride of the crew, sat behind Loring, his perfect physical
form astounding the Englishmen by its massive and beautiful outline.
The face was gravely handsome, the chin round yet firm, the shoulders
grand in their proportions, and the loins like the waist of an oak
trunk. His naked arms were marble for their shape and purity of skin,
and the neck, proudly resting upon his shoulders, could not have
disgraced the Sun God.
Take him altogether, I never saw such a perfect specimen of manhood
and physical beauty as he looked that day in the Harvard boat. And yet
his eyes, usually intense and piercing, and bluish gray, which always
looked a man in the face, were to-day yellowish and overcast. That
lion heart, which could hardly think of defeat, was torn in a struggle
to maintain composure. He and Loring for four days had been gradually
weakening almost to the point of exhaustion, and these two men, upon
whom the race principally depended, were perfectly aware that their
form was not good, and they were well aware, also, that without their
strength and health the race was lost before it began.
Simmonds towered above all his companions, and he held the wrist of his
oar calmly as he could, while behind him sat Lyman, a grave, austere
looking young gentleman, with a well cut face, mouth, and chin, dark
hair, a resolute look, and a well shaped body; of modest, but athletic
look and determination.
Lyman seemed in very good shape, though a little anxious--as was
no more than natural--about Loring and Simmonds, while the most
insouciant, daring looking man in the boat to-day, is that haughty,
imperious looking fellow who sits in the bow, Joseph Story Fay, a man
of proud will, self confidence, and great endurance. He sits seeming
a careless observer of the preparatory and technical part of the
programme, but those keen, watchful eyes, that seem to stab like a
knife, are bent with no little solicitude on the Oxford boat, which is
almost stationary a few yards distant.
The Harvard crew had a manly, bold look, taking them in a mass, and a
sombre, matured appearance, their bodies and faces stained deep yellow,
like a crew of Indians, and they also sat, if I may use the word,
taller in their boat than the Oxford crew did in theirs.
[Sidenote: CONDITION OF THE MEN.]
The Oxford crew were boyish, fresh-faced fellows, compared with
them, their light skins and hair making them look more juvenile in
appearance, and beside, they had not such an ascetic look as the
Harvards, who had lived more like monks than athletes, without any
amusement or even beer--for weeks training themselves to death, and
working body and mind too much. The Harvard crew seemed anxious and
careworn, when their faces were studied, and they were certainly not in
good training condition for the race.
Loring had worked like a horse, pulling long distances in broiling
suns; and the crew when together had a bad fashion of rowing the whole
course, while the Oxford men contented themselves with a pull of a
couple of miles at a time, being careful not to overdo the business.
Then, on Sunday the Oxford men always went down to the sea-shore at
Brighton, and drank beer moderately and ate fruit in a jolly sort of
a way, and plenty of roast meats, while the Harvard men lived to some
extent on farinaceous food and porridge and figs and mutton, a favorite
dish of theirs when roasted--and to be brief, they were too anxious to
win, and the consequence came in the shape of a fidgetty, nervous, and
overtrained condition.
Besides, the stroke of the Harvard crew was too labored and fiery and
energetic to last, for the amount of powder belonging to them. The arms
were with them the great impelling power, and the recover was too high
up in the chest, while the Oxford men recovered a little above the pit
of the stomach, which is less wearisome and distressing. In catching
the oar forward they expended too much force, and spent a great deal of
strength in dropping it, while their strength would have been better
used in holding the water just before the recovery.
The coxswain, too, was naturally uncertain of his Stroke and Simmonds,
both men being in poor condition; and Loring told him before the race,
in case that he flagged to sprinkle his face and that of Simmonds, with
water. This alone was enough to make Burnham rather shaky, and not a
little doubtful of his crew. A few lengths lost by wild steering or
nervousness, and it would be of course impossible to win in the case of
two crews so very closely matched otherwise. I say all this advisedly,
and I am sure the conclusion will bear out my premises. In addition,
they had tried half a dozen boats while in training, and displaced two
of their crew. Whether it was wise to make this change or not, I have
no means of knowing, and cannot say.
The Oxford crew having paddled their boat a little nearer the Press
steamer, I now had a good look at them. They all had a fresh, fair,
English look, and were not, as far as I could see, at all fagged before
going into the race. Darbishire, the Stroke, was the first man who
caught my eye. He did not look at all burly in frame, and his figure
was lower in the thwarts of the boat by a head, than that of the
gigantic-framed Cornwall Celt, Mr. Tinne.
Darbishire had a merry blue eye and a turn-up nose, indicating good
humor. His body was well set, his shoulders compact, and his hair,
though short, had a proclivity to curl and kink. He had a broad
forehead, a mouth a little turned down at the corners and arching, and
his chin was moderately firm.
Yarborough was far more determined in his look, and sported a pair of
thin, mutton-chop whiskers. He was the darkest-skinned and darkest-eyed
man in the Oxford boat, besides being a fine oarsman and a victor
of many college matches. His nose was of the snub order, and the
chin dimpled, the forehead being broad and white, and the hair, like
Darbishire's, inclined to curl. He was what would be a "big small" man,
and was as compact and tough as a hickory nut.
Tinne was, however, the giant of the crew. I never saw a more glorious
looking fellow than this clear-skinned, handsome Cornwall lad, with his
splendid clearly cut profile, frank, merry face, laughing eyes, and
thoroughbred look.
It was worth a day's walk to see Tinne pull. He was a man a good deal
after the style of our own Simmonds, but not so gravely reserved. He
was not as tall as Simmonds, but a great deal heavier, and looked as if
he could pull a man-of-war's gig in a race, with those grand shoulders
and hips broad as a barrel of beer. Yet, with all his great physique,
his gait was as light as a girl's, and the feather of his oar when
taken from the water was artistic in itself.
[Sidenote: HALL, THE COXSWAIN.]
This huge fellow, weighing 192 pounds on the day of the race, was
formidable enough to intimidate the boldest betting American of us
all. Tinne, like his friend Willan, the bow oar, had been president of
the Oxford University Boat Club, and had never known defeat. Willan,
the Bow, looked as if the matter was mere play, while he amused himself
with the oar and watched Walter Brown, who held the nose of the Harvard
boat from a launch, with a keen alert look. His white Guernsey shirt
was open at the neck, and it showed a wonderfully muscular but white
throat. His shoulders were broad across, and his fingers grasped the
oar as if they were riveted with steel nails to the frail shaft.
[Illustration: THE OXFORD CREW.]
The most innocent looking boy I ever saw in a boat was Hall, a slight,
frail, girlish looking lad, and coxswain of the Oxford crew. Weighing
one hundred pounds on the day of the race, and being about seventeen
years of age, he was the last person that a man would choose for a
coxswain, who knew nothing of the mysteries and science of the art
of rowing as practiced in England. His skin was light and almost
transparent, the blue veins in his face being very prominent. His hair
was very light, and his eyes blue as the sky. A handsomer lad could not
be found, but he seemed delicate enough to be blown away with a breath.
The face was weak, and the mouth of a curious shape, the corners being
drawn down, and giving him a soft, credulous look.
Looking at him there in his dark-blue jacket of thin flannel--all the
rest of the crew were in white shirts cut away at the elbows, and white
drawers shortened at the ankles--he looked so innocent and lady-like,
that it needed but a crinoline and silk skirt to transform him into a
pretty English girl of the period.
And yet that delicate boy had a great trust, and "Little Corpus," as
he was called from his college at Oxford, well deserved it all, for
his knowledge of the river was unrivaled, and his steering was simply
perfection. Nothing could be finer. A New York betting-man, who lost
heavily, declared that he was a "young weasel" for sagacity and cool
nerve.
By the time I had taken a good look at both crews, the arrangements had
all been made, and the two boats had been brought by their coxswains
up to a line stretched across the river, and the crews now lay in their
boats, with bodies bent forward, their faces set, their oars grasped
with energy, the coxswains with the ropes in both hands, and the stroke
of each boat having his oar blade poised a few feet above the water.
Walter Brown held the nose of the Harvard boat, and John Phelps, a
rugged looking Thames waterman, had his grip fastened on the Oxford
boat, waiting for the word to go. Loring's eyes are blazing with
unwonted fire; Darbishire seems confident and easy, with his ears
dilated like a pointer, and a death-like silence reigns all over that
swarming river--just now the noise was deafening; the Americans have
ceased to drink any more brandy and soda; Tom Hughes looks up the river
to see if all is clear; Mr. Lord, of the Thames Conservancy, reports
all clear--and the bulky figure of Blakey, the starter of the race, is
seen to ascend the paddle-box of the Lotus steamer, and his voice rings
over the water, and is heard with a thrill, for the decisive moment has
come at last.
"I shall ask," says Blakey, "are you _Ready_--are you _Ready_, and if
you do not stop me I shall give the word Go, after which God speed you
both."
"Are you ready?"
"No!" shouts Darbishire.
"Are you ready?"
"No!" again, distinct and clear, from Darbishire.
"Are you _Ready_?" No answer this time from either crew.
"GO!"
A hundred thousand throats, as if made of cast-iron, bellow forth: a
hundred thousand eyes are dazzled for a moment as the diamond drops
fall from the upraised blue blades of Oxford and the white blades of
Harvard. Walter Brown executes a war dance in an instant after he has
sent the Harvard shell a full length on its way. The 'Rah, 'Rah, 'Rah,
of Harvard pierces the air; the masses on the banks of the river begin
to show incipient symptoms of madness. Both boats are off, Harvard
pulling like demons, and Oxford has just got into her careless, easy
swing, pumping away like machines. The two steamers start on a
helter-skelter race, and the greatest boat race the world ever saw has
just begun for better or for worse.
[Sidenote: HARVARD'S LIGHTNING STROKE.]
No man that day who witnessed the start of the two boats--the terrific
spring of the Harvard crew, and the cool, rythmical measure of the
Oxford stroke--can ever forget that moment of moments, unless, indeed,
his blood be thinner than water and his pulse of ice. The Harvard crew
caught the water first, and were well on their way before the crowds
were recovered from the shock. Loring swept away like a tiger after his
prey, and Burnham--who had won the toss for choice of position, steered
in on the Middlesex shore, the Oxford crew having won a blank, and
having to keep in, consequently, on the Surrey side--showing very good
judgment at first, and keeping his boat well under way. It was but a
minute, and Harvard was a full length clear in the water of the Oxford
boat, Loring pulling forty-two strokes a minute, and Simmond's elbows
going backward and forward like a steam engine.
The Oxford crew, after a pause, recovered from their slight surprise,
and fell into stroke as if a piece of mechanism were propelling their
narrow shell. Darbishire is now rowing beautifully, and has settled
down to hard work, while Tinne's great shoulders, bob up and down with
superhuman energy, his glorious chest expanded to its full power,
and he pulls with the magnificence of incarnate force, while "Little
Corpus," the coxswain, is as quiet as a mouse, watching every stroke of
the Harvard crew, as he sets in the stern sheets of the Oxford shell.
Oxford has started with thirty-eight strokes, and now, when Mr.
Darbishire sees Loring putting on the steam at forty-four, he quickens
his stroke to thirty-nine, and Hall gets the boat headed a little
toward the Middlesex shore.
The Star and Garter is fast disappearing from the stern of the Press
boat, and the Umpire's boat follows closely, neck and neck almost.
The crowds at a place called the "Creek," where a little stream runs
tributary to the Thames, are shouting "Oxford" all their might and
main. Fay, in the bow of the Harvard boat, seems to hear the taunt,
and begins to show evidence of his strength, by pulling the bow-side
around slightly, which compels Burnham to put his rudder down and keep
off from the Oxford boat.
At Simmond's boat-house the jam is tremendous, and the crowd cheers
Harvard as she sweeps by a length ahead; and Oxford going a few
feet wild at this point, the Harvard men on the two steamers shout
themselves hoarse, and one man with a Magenta-ribbon takes off a new
hat, carefully inspects it for a moment, and then in a delirium of
frenzy kicks the crown of it in, and presents it skyward as a peace
offering.
The people on the Surrey towing-path seem all mad, Oxford is not
showing speed enough for them, and the stands and shows and booths are
deserted as if they had never been in existence, the crowds pressing
forward to the bank of the river wildly. Passing the "Willows," a
pleasant little grove of trees, with a quaint stone house nestled in
their bosom, a loud cheer is given as the Oxonians spurt a little,
while at the same time the water falls, or rather dashes from Loring's
oar with increased vehemence, for Harvard is now pulling at the
tremendous pace of 45 strokes a minute, a thing unheard of before in an
English boat race.
At "Craven Cottage" Oxford gains slightly, but the fact is hardly
noticed by the Harvard men, who can see but one thing, and that is
the Harvard boat, now ahead by a length and a half. I never imagined
that Loring could do the work he is now doing, which is superhuman,
and therefore cannot last. At the "Soap Works," a crazy old place,
Darbishire seems to be creeping up, and his stroke is most assuredly
telling on the Harvard energy and fire. Oxford is now pulling 40, and
the cheers are deafening from the shore, while cries and exclamations
and yells of encouragement come from the countless wherries, stationary
barges, and craft of all kinds that line the Surrey side.
[Illustration: THE UNIVERSITY RACE.]
"Well pulled, Willan. Nobly done for Exeter," shouts an excited Oxford
University man from a small boat. "You are sure to win."
[Sidenote: BURNHAM'S BAD STEERING.]
"Oh, _go_ it Harvard; _go_ it Harvard. 'Rah--'Rah--'Rah--'Rah. Hit her
up, Loring."
"Keep your steam on, Burnham. Don't get frightened."
"What's the matter with Harvard, now," says a Harvard man to a
dignified English gentleman on the Press boat.
"Wonderful stroke, sir; 'fraid it can't last. Great power, sir, in the
Oxford crew," says the old gentleman rather curtly.
"Well done, Simmonds, you are the man for my money," cries a Western
man who has a bottle of soda water in his hand, and has been betting
heavily all the way down the river on the boat.
Opposite the "Doves," Harvard goes away splendidly from Oxford; but
now the Harvard men on the steamboats begin to notice something queer
in the steering of Burnham. Briefly, he is steering wide of his race,
and very badly, and his nerve seems to be going, for the boat looks
quite unsteady and veers in the water more than she ought to. Now
we are rounding a bend in the river, and the great, single span of
Hammersmith Bridge looms up before us. Every coigne of vantage on this
immense pile, from one side of the river to the other, is covered
with vehicles, broughams, carriages, 'busses, and at least thirty
thousand people are clustered and hanging on to the structure in a most
astonishing manner. It was a mad sight, that bridge, with the great
swaying masses, pushing, shouting, and fighting to get a look at the
boats.
Cries of "Hoxford," "Hoxford," come down from above our heads as we
near the bridge, and the excitement is perfectly terrific. We have
already passed a quarter of a million of people, to estimate them in
the rough, and still they line the banks above us in impenetrable
masses. The waving of handkerchiefs and shouting is enough to make a
man lose his senses, if the race did not claim so much attention from
the spectators.
Harvard prepares to shoot under the bridge, being still a length and a
half ahead, but Loring is not doing his work so stoutly now, although
the Harvard boat glides through the water at 46 strokes a minute. The
pace is too hard and it will not and cannot last five minutes longer.
Oxford steers out from the Surrey bank to shoot the bridge, and
"Little Corpus" makes a circuit to avoid an eddy where the tide is
bad, while Burnham is mad enough to go away from the race by giving
room to Darbishire's boat, whose coxswain never loses an inch by weak
or ill-judged steering, Burnham going out of his way too much to
accommodate Oxford, instead of keeping on and taking Oxford's water in
a direct line. It was at this place that Harvard lost the race, wholly
by Burnham's bad steering and Loring's nervousness.
"Oh, my God! what are you doing Burnham, why do you steer so?" shouts
an excited Yale man in the Press boat thinking vainly that Burnham
will hear him; but Harvard is too far on our bow to hear the warning
voice, and here she loses a full half length. The excitement is now
beyond description. From all the vast stagings that are erected on the
Surrey side, decorated with English bunting and covered with thousands
of people, comes a glad swell of triumph, borne on the breeze, and
striking despair to every American heart.
Now, at this moment, after shooting Hammersmith bridge, Loring's oar
seems to hang loosely from the gunwale of the boat, and his head is
bent forward as if he were about to faint. In an instant the coxswain,
Burnham, dashes water into his face and chest, and repeats the ablution
five or six times, throwing the water also on Simmonds, who is weakened
from the pace he has been pulling.
The Harvard stroke now goes down to 42, to 41, and to 40; for Loring is
knocked up, and the pulling is being done by Fay, on the bow side, in
despair. Elliott, the boat-builder, standing on the paddle-box of the
Lotus, is black in the face from shouting, "Harvard! Harvard!" "Pull up
Harvard!"
[Sidenote: OXFORD'S VENGEANCE STROKE.]
There goes that same steady, wonderful, glorious stroke of Oxford,
like the knell of doom, not to be stopped until victory perches on her
gallant crew. At Chiswick Island Loring spurted and made a despairing
effort; but the man is sick and gone for the race, and it is no use
hallooing now, for Oxford forges past the Harvard boat with a will
and power that calls forth a shout from the assembled multitude, which
rings in the ears of Loring's crew like a sentence of death.
Still the gallant fellows struggle on, inspired by an agony which none
may describe in such a race, and they never falter for an instant, but
pull as if they were determined to win. During the first mile and a
half of the race, Burnham received the back wash of the Oxford boat, by
keeping all the time in a line behind Darbishire's crew with a seeming
blunder that actually called tears of rage to the eyes of Americans on
the steamboats. Getting along by Chiswick Church, which was crowded
with people, the Oxford crew pulling 40, their boat was a length ahead
of the Harvard bow oar, and Hall, the coxswain, took care that no
ground should be lost by his steering. Then Darbishire spoke the word
to his crew, and throwing all the powder they could into their backs,
they gave Harvard only the alternative of pulling to Barnes's Bridge
for an honorable defeat.
Never for a moment did Oxford flag, but kept the stroke as if grim
death was at their heels, yet all the time throughout the race they
seemed easy in their style, and regular as the pendulum of an eight-day
clock.
The want of time and catch in the Harvard stroke was very noticeable at
Barnes's Bridge, and here the same immense crowds were gathered as at
the bridge at Hammersmith, and now the Oxford boat being positively a
length and a half ahead, and no mistake, the cries and shouts were most
appalling. Past the green fields in the Duke of Devonshire's meadows a
large crowd was gathered, who hailed the appearance of the Oxford crew
with great and significant pleasure.
The race was now lost, virtually. Harvard was out of time--knocked
up--and the men in her boat were laboring like oxen in chains. The
morale of the Harvard crew was gone a mile below Barnes's Bridge, when
Loring's oar hung loose for the first time, and nothing human could now
give old Massachusetts a victory. It was a gallant struggle, too, and
nobly waged. Passing the "White Cottage" and the "White Hart" in the
race for the Ship Tavern at Mortlake, the Harvard crew, in the last
quarter of a mile, put on a desperate spurt and rowing for a minute and
a half at 44 strokes, they gained ground on Oxford, whose crew seemed
as fresh as when they began.
Now is the last desperate struggle. Pull, Harvard; you cannot hope to
win. Pull, Harvard, and pluck the sting from defeat! Both crews go at
it for a minute, and Loring's last spark of fire is given to drive his
boat through the water. There is a shout from the Ship Tavern, where
the American flag is displayed. Oxford comes by with that terrible
vengeance stroke, the terror of many a gallant Cantab oarsman. There is
a shout which splits the clouds almost, a report of a gun, and Oxford
has struck the tow line, a boat and a half's length ahead, (not three
lengths ahead as was reported,) the race is lost and won, by about 65
feet, and the most gallant display ever seen on the Thames is over, and
the dark blue swarms go home triumphant at heart. Bridges, river bank,
and church steeple are deserted, as the Oxford crew paddle their boat
along side of the Harvard crew, and, raising their hands in air, give
the defeated oarsmen a hearty English cheer and shake hands with them,
and the Harvard boys cheer back, and Charles Reade, who stands on the
deck of the steamer Lotus, lifts his straw hat in respect to Loring,
who smiles back sadly at him, and all is over. The children's children
of those two crews will yet tell of that day's struggle, which for one
hour served to call back the Homeric days of Greece.
The distance pulled by the Harvard and Oxford crews was four miles and
three furlongs, without any turning at a stake boat. The day was a very
warm one, the thermometer being at 87° Fahrenheit--in the shade.
The names and weight of the crews were as follows:
OXFORD UNIVERSITY. HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
1. Darbishire, (stroke) 160 lbs. 1. Loring, (stroke) 154 lbs.
2. Yarborough, 170 " 2. Simmonds, 170 "
3. Tinne, 192 " 3. Lyman, 155 "
4. Willan, (bow) 166 " 4. Fay, (bow) 155 "
Hall, coxswain, 100 " Burnham, coxswain, 112 "
____ ____
788 746
[Sidenote: BEATEN BY EIGHT SECONDS.]
The time occupied by both crews in pulling the race was as follows:
Oxford, 22 minutes 20 seconds.
Harvard, 22 " 26 "
Both crews did their best, but the Oxford style of rowing, and their
form, was superior to that of Harvard. Rowing with a coxswain will
one day supersede the Harvard bow-steering. The Harvard crew received
perfect fair-play and courtesy, and all the stories to the contrary
which have been circulated are untrue.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXV.
THE CURIOSITIES OF LONDON.
A MOST venerable relic--none more so in London--is the Domesday Book,
which I was allowed to inspect one day while sauntering through the
Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. This hoary volume is called the
"Domesday Book," or, "Register of the Lands of England," and was made
in the year 1086, almost in the morning of English history.
There are two volumes of the "Domesday Book," one being a folio and the
other a quarto. A fee of a shilling is charged strangers, to inspect
the musty old tomes, with their illuminated characters, which detail
the various "messuages," "folkmotes," "carucates," and "hydes," of
land, which were divided among Norman William's mail clad barons, by
right of conquest, nearly a thousand years ago.
These volumes are the oldest in England, although I have been informed
that there are, in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, two books, in Greek
characters, which were saved from the destruction of the Alexandrian
Library in the Ninth Century.
[Sidenote: THE DREADNOUGHT.]
One of the Domesday volumes is a very large folio, the other is a
quarto. The quarto is written on 382 double pages of vellum, in one
and the same hand, in small but plain characters, each page having
double columns. Some of the capital letters and principal pages are
touched with black ink, and others are crossed with lines of red ink.
The second volume, in folio, is written in 450 pages of vellum, but in
single columns, occupying each page, and in a large, fair character.
At the end of the second volume is the following memorial, in capital
letters, of the time of its completion:
"Anno Millesimo Octogesimo Sexto ab Incarnatione Domini, vigesimo vero
regni Willielmi, facta est ista Descriptio, non solum per hos tres
Comitatus, sed etiam per alios."
These books, until the year 1696, or for over six hundred years, were
carried innumerable times from place to place, through England, under
strong guards, within the jurisdiction of the various Lord Chancellors,
and Courts, to settle disputes and verify local records and documents,
in regard to the transmission of real estate, for every acre of land
owned to-day in England is held by the original tenure, given in
Domesday Book.
Since 1696 the book has been kept with the King's Seal, at Westminster,
in the Exchequer, under three locks and keys in the charge of the
Auditor, the Chamberlain, and Deputy Chamberlains of the Exchequer.
It is kept in a vaulted porch never warmed by fire. For eight hundred
years it has never felt or seen a fire, and yet the pages are bright,
sound, and perfect as ever. In making searches, or transcripts from the
volume, the text must not be touched, and this has always been the rule
from forgotten days. All the cities, towns, and villages of England
are recorded in this book, with their value, location, and boundaries,
their castles, fortresses, marches, and the religious houses of the
Kingdom, as they stood twenty years after Duke William, of Normandy,
reined in his war horse from the slaughter of Hastings' dread field.
The Hospital Ship "Dreadnought," (soon to be broken up and sold,) which
lies moored off Greenwich, in the dirty Thames, is another of the
curious sights of London. An hospital for the sick and diseased seamen
of all nations arriving in the port of London, was established on board
of the "Grampus," a 50 gun frigate, in 1821, but the "Grampus" did not
prove large enough for the purpose, and the next vessel chosen was the
104 gun three-decker "Dreadnought," which was fitted up in 1831, as an
Hospital Ship. This old hulk has glorious memories for all Englishmen,
who, as they look at her rotting timbers, can imagine that they see her
coming out of the smoke of Trafalgar fight, after capturing the Spanish
three-decker, "San Juan," which had, two hours before, beaten off the
English frigates, "Bellerophon" and "Defiance."
[Illustration: HOSPITAL SHIP, DREADNOUGHT.]
The establishment on board of the "Dreadnought" consists of a
Superintendent, two Surgeons, an Apothecary, Visiting Physicians, and
a Chaplain. The ship is moored contiguous to the bulk of the shipping
in the docks, and in the river, and is the only place in London for the
reception of sick seamen arriving from abroad, or to whom accidents may
happen between the mouth of the river and London Bridge. Sick seamen of
every nation, on presenting themselves alongside, are immediately and
kindly received without any recommendatory letters, and ship-wrecked
sailors, and vagrant seamen, are admitted, if deserving. In 1869, 2,463
patients were received on board, and 1,836 seamen were attended to as
out patients.
[Sidenote: A GAUDY SHOW.]
The Emperor of Russia subscribes annually £150, the Queen of Spain
£100, the King of Italy £100, the Emperor of France £200, the Sultan
of Turkey £100, the King of Denmark £50, and the King of Prussia £100.
I heard nothing of a contribution from the American Government, but it
is probable that the American Consul may, in some way, provide for the
destitute seamen of his country.
The patients are ranged upon the lower decks, the portholes affording
a sort of ventilation, such as it is--the breeze coming in from the
putrid Thames' river, and in the cabin are all the implements of
surgery, so that a leg or arm can be whipped off at a moment's notice,
or an abscess, or ulcer, may be punctured equally quick.
Visitors can inspect the "Dreadnought" on any day of the week,
excepting Sunday--between the hours of eleven and three.
The number of seamen cared for in this floating hospital, for the past
thirty years, with their different places of nativity, is as follows:
Englishmen, 84,600; Scotchmen, 18,960; Irishmen, 17,325; Frenchmen,
3,911; Germans, 2,800; Russians, 2,230; Prussians, 1,840; Hollanders,
480; Danes, 1,600; Swedes, 2,117; Norwegians, 1,604; Italians, 1,208;
Portuguese, 706; Spaniards, 801; East Indians, 2,014; West Indians,
3,212; British Americans, 1,582; United States, 3,316; South Americans,
712; Africans, 1,200; Turks, 174; Greeks, 295; New Zealanders, 98;
Australians, 307; South Sea Islanders, 80; Chinese, 347; born at sea,
206.
Generally there are about two hundred patients in the floating Hospital
at a time, and it is kept pretty full, from the fact that a poor sailor
will perish afloat sooner than enter a land hospital, and seamen often
travel from the most distant parts of England, Ireland, and Scotland,
to be received in the Dreadnought.
One day, while standing on Cheapside looking at the busy thoroughfare,
which much resembles Broadway, New York, in its main features, I saw a
queerly-shaped, but magnificent vehicle dash by, embellished in gold
and silver, and hung with crimson velvet.
I asked a bystander what it was, and he answered with proper British
pride:
"Why, don't you know? That's the Queen's State Kerridge a-goin to the
Tower to be repaired."
I afterward saw this vehicle in all its glory and detail, and for the
benefit of Americans who may desire to get up a gorgeous equipage, I
will do my best to describe it.
The carriage is composed of four Sea Tritons, who support the body
by cables; the two placed on the front, as it were, bear the driver,
(a most magnificent flunkey in powder and velvet,) and are sounding
shells, and those on the back part carry the bundles of Lictors rods
which are seen on Roman monuments and medals. The foot board on which
the driver rests his noble feet, is a large scallop shell, supported
by marine plants of different kinds. The pole resembles a bundle of
lances, and the wheels are made in imitation of the war chariots which
once rolled around classic arenas in the Games. The body of the coach
is composed of eight palm trees, which, branching out at the top,
sustain the roof, and at each angle are trophies of English battles by
land and sea.
On the top of the roof are three little figures of fairies representing
England, Ireland, and Scotland, supporting a golden crown, and holding
the sceptre, the sword of state, and insignia of knighthood, and from
their bodies fall festoons of laurel to the four corners of the roof.
On the right and left doors, and on the back and front pannels, are
painted allegorical designs in splendid style, representing Britannia
on a Throne, Religion, Wisdom, Justice, Valor, Fortitude, Commerce,
Plenty, Victory, and all the other virtues and acquisitions which all
Englishmen flatter themselves can only be found in "Britain ye knaw."
[Sidenote: THE QUEEN'S STATE COACH.]
Inside the State Coach it is simply magnificent. The body is lined with
scarlet embossed velvet, superbly laced and embroidered with the Star,
enameled by the Collar of the Order of the Garter, and surmounted by
the crown with the George and Dragon pendant. St. George, St. Michael,
and even St. Patrick, get a show here, although the latter has very
little show from the Queen in his own country.
The hammer cloth is of scarlet velvet, with gold badges, ropes, and
tassels. The length of the carriage and body is 24 feet, width 8
feet 3 inches, height 12 feet, length of pole 12 feet, weight four
tons. So that the Queen, when she desires a state airing, is carted
around for the amusement of her subjects, in a four-ton vehicle. The
painting of the panels cost £800, or about $4,000 greenbacks. The
eight horses which are employed to draw this magnificent carriage on
state occasions, are valued at £2,000, and the expense for grooms,
drivers, coachmen, and boys, of this equipage, which is not used more
than once in five years, (and when not used being chiefly of service
in showing off the manly proportions of John Brown,) is for every year
over $25,000, or as much as the salary of the President of the United
States. The Queen's coach is one hundred and eight years old, and is
kept in the Royal Mews or Stables at Pimlico.
The bill which a loyal people had to pay when it was sent in for this
coach, was as follows:
Coachmaker (including Wheelwright and Smith), £1637 15 0
Carver, 2500 0 0
Gilder, 935 14 0
Painter, 315 0 0
Laceman, 737 10 7
Chaser, 665 4 6
Harnessmaker, 385 15 0
Mercer, 202 5 10-1/2
Beltmaker, 99 6 6
Milliner, 31 3 4
Saddler, 10 16 6
Woollendraper, 4 3 6
Covermaker, 3 9 6
----------
£7528 4 3-1/2
There was an awful row about the size of the bill, which was at first
£8,000, but after a great argument it was cut down to the amount paid,
£7,528 4 3-1/2. The maker refused to take off the three-half pence,
and declared that he had been "skinned and robbed," but I imagine it
was the poor miserable wretches who died of starvation and cold and
exposure in the London streets that had the best right to complain.
The Lord Mayor's State Coach, which was built in 1757, is almost as
magnificent as the Queen's, and is designed in fully as good or bad
taste, I do not know which to call it.
To show how the people of England tolerate the most outrageous humbugs
on the face of the earth, I will give some of the items in regard to
the cost of the Lord Mayor's coach. When the coach was built, one
hundred and thirteen years ago, each alderman in the city subscribed
£60 towards its construction; then each alderman who was afterward
sworn into office, was forced to contribute £60 on taking the oath.
And each Lord Mayor also gave £100 on entering his office, to keep the
coach in order. In 1768 the entire expense of keeping the coach fell
on the Lord Mayor, who had to pay £300 during that year, and twenty
years after its construction, the coach cost in 1787, £355 to keep it
in order for that twelve months. During seven years of this present
century, the cost for repairs was per annum--£115, and in 1812 it was
newly lined and gilt for the benefit of the gaping London crowds, at
an expense of £600, and a new seat cloth was furnished for £90; and
again in 1821, this costly vehicle devoured the bread which ought to
have been eaten by the starving poor, to the tune of £206 for another
relining. In 1812 a carriage-making firm agreed to keep the coach in
order for ten years at an expense to the city of £48 a year, which
offer was accepted. The real amount of money swallowed up in this old
lumbering vehicle is incalculable. Six horses are required to draw
it, valued at £200 a piece, and the coach weighs 7,600 pounds. A Lord
Mayor, when well fed and taken care of, weighs, I believe, about 312
pounds. The harnesses for each of the six horses weighs 106 pounds, or
636 pounds in all.
The State Coach belonging to the Speaker of the House of Commons, was
built for Oliver Cromwell, and is drawn by two horses.
[Sidenote: JONATHAN WILD'S SKELETON.]
The two sheriffs of London have also State Coaches, burnished and
blazoned with gold, and hung with silks and velvets, and although they
only receive £1,000 for their year's services, the expense of state
coaches, horses, liveries, and drivers, never falls below 2,500 guineas
for their term. They are not allowed to serve if they swear themselves
to be worth over £15,000, or $75,000.
The ceremony of installing a London sheriff I am afraid would make a
New York Sheriff howl, and much profanity would result were the ancient
ceremonies to become necessary at the City Hall of New York. I give the
curious form of installation of a Sheriff of London.
[Illustration: JONATHAN WILD'S SKELETON.]
The sheriffs are chosen by the Livery Companies or Trade Associations
of London, on the morning of the Feast of St. Michael, and are
presented in the Court of Exchequer, accompanied by the Lord Mayor
and all the Aldermen, when the Recorder of London introduces the
two sheriffs, one for London proper, and the other for Middlesex
County, and the Chief Judge in his red robes, signifies the Queen's
assent, handing the sheriff's "roll"--a sheet of paper which has had
the names of the sheriffs pricked in by the Queen's own hand, the
writs and appliances are read and filed, and the sheriffs and senior
under-sheriffs take the oaths; when the late sheriffs present their
accounts. The crier of the court then makes proclamation for one who
does homage for the sheriffs of London to "stand forth and do his
duty;" when the senior alderman below the chair rises, the usher of the
court hands him a bill-hook, and holds in both hands a small bundle of
sticks, which the alderman cuts asunder, and then cuts another bundle
with a hatchet. Similar proclamation is then made for the sheriff of
Middlesex, when the alderman counts six horse-shoes lying upon the
table, and sixty-one hob-nails handed in a tray; and the numbers are
declared twice.
The sticks are thin peeled twigs tied in a bundle at each end with red
tape; the horse-shoes are of large size, and very old; the hob-nails
are supplied fresh every year. By the first ceremony the alderman does
suit and service for the tenants of a manor in Shropshire, the chopping
of sticks betokening the custom of the tenants supplying their lord
with fuel. The counting of the horse-shoes and nails is another suit
and service of the owners of a forge in St. Clement Danes, Strand,
which formerly belonged to the city, but no longer exists. Sheriff
Hoare, in his MS. journal of his shrievalty, 1740-41, says, "where
the tenements and lands are situated no one knows, nor doth the city
receive any rents or profits thereby."
In the Town Hall or Guildhall of London, some very strange relics are
preserved, but none can be more strange than the yellow faded parchment
shown me on which was written the humble petition of that notorious
rascal and thief-taker, Jonathan Wild, who had first trained Jack
Sheppard to thievery, after which he entrapped and hung him. Well, this
very virtuous old gentleman had the audacity to send a petition to the
Court of Aldermen in the year 1724, praying for the freedom of the City
in view of the benefit he had conferred on it by the apprehension of so
many thieves who had returned from transportation.
One day while paying a visit to a celebrated surgeon, whose residence
is at Windsor, I was invited to look into his closets, in which were
stored a number of curiosities. Suddenly a door in a recess of the
chamber flew open, and out popped a skeleton on wires, with a ghastly,
grinning jaw, and its ribs all open like the timbers of a wrecked ship.
"That's the skeleton of Jonathan Wild," said the surgeon, "It has been
in our family for a hundred years, I believe."
CHAPTER XXVI.
STREET SIGHTS OF LONDON.
VERY strange sights are seen in London. No city that I have ever
visited will compare with London for the number of its street peddlers,
hawkers, booth proprietors, open-air performers, ballad singers,
mountebanks, and other street itinerants.
From daybreak until dark, and long into the night, in the ramification
of Streets and Lanes, Squares, Mews, and Ovals, the ear of the stranger
is saluted with the harshest and most discordant sounds which emanate
from the throats of a street-selling population of both sexes, large
enough alone to make the population of a fifth-rate city.
The London Cockney who has heard the same grating sounds from the days
of his earliest childhood, never stops in his walk to listen to the
cries, but the stranger in London is compelled by the very want of
melody or intelligibility in the hawker's cries to listen, yet it is
useless for him to attempt to solve the meaning of their uncouth and
barbarous gibberage.
For these seventy-five thousand men, women, and boys, as well as
girls, many of a tender age--have their several dialects, and signals,
and patois, which it would be madness to try to understand without
a thorough schooling in the rudiments of their language and several
occupations.
In another part of this work I have taken a glance at the London
Costermongers and their habits and amusements, such as they are.
Beside this, the largest and most hard-working class of street hawkers,
there are a hundred other branches of street merchandise, and all these
different branches have their followers, who navigate every quarter of
the metropolis, trying to pick up a shilling here and there from the
sale of their commodities, as luck or energy may chance to send the
shilling their way.
It is calculated that the gross receipts of the street peddlers of
London amount to as much as £5,000,000 a year. This would make an
average of £70 a year, or nearly $500 for each person engaged in street
peddling. Of course in this aggregate I must include all those who keep
stands or booths of a greater or lesser magnitude.
Some of these poor wretches may earn in good weeks about fifteen to
twenty shillings, while at other seasons when green stuff is scarce, it
is rarely that they exceed more than eight shillings on an average for
the same amount of labor and hawking.
Ten shillings, however, is a fair week's earning if that amount be
realized during the current year. It may be calculated that the profits
will average as high as £1,500,000 where the gross receipts for sales
are as high as £5,000,000.
A bitter hostility exists between the tradesmen who occupy shops and
pay what they consider to be exorbitant rents, and the street sellers.
No sooner has a street seller made a round of custom for himself and
advertised his wares sufficiently, than the blue-coated policeman is
sure to appear, armed with the authority which cannot be disobeyed, and
he is compelled to move his stand or barrow.
The hawker or peddler is forced to pay four or five pounds a year for
a license to sell in this precarious way, and yet in London he has no
legal right to occupy a stand or booth. He has always to move on, like
the boy Joe in Bleak House.
It is more than wonderful to think of the shifts made by the poor
classes of London to make a living.
[Sidenote: SECOND-HAND BOOTS AND SHOES.]
The rich man passes by objects in the crowded streets every day with
scorn or loathing, which serve to yield a sustenance to the indigent
population, and even the offal of the streets will bring a price when
offered for sale. The work of the class who gather this material is
generally done before daybreak, and in some cases their earnings are
considerable.
The second-hand metal and tool sellers are to be found chiefly as
proprietors of booths or barrows in the vicinity of Petticoat and
Rosemary Lanes. The street trade of the city is, to a great extent,
done by those who have barrows, and as it is convenient for them to
move their barrows from place to place, the costermongers are found all
over the metropolis.
I made it my business to go almost incessantly among those street
hawkers, and I got from them a vast amount of useful information, and a
great many statistics.
Some of them tell curious stories, and have considerable wit of
a coarse kind, but to the wandering American they are, with few
exceptions, very civil, and will relate their checkered life-histories
with great eagerness.
There are hundreds of old boot and shoe shops and stands, where a great
business is carried on in the mending, patching, and vending of old
shoes and boots.
In one branch of the street trade alone, it will be interesting to give
some statistics which may be deemed reliable, as having been collected
by Mr. Henry Mayhew. There are shops and stands included in this trade
alone--
In Drury Lane and streets adjacent, 50 shops.
Seven Dials, " " 100 "
Monmouth Street, " " 40 "
Hanway Court, Oxford Street, 4 "
Lisson-grove, " " 100 "
Paddington, " " 30 "
Petticoat Lane, " " 200 "
Somerstown, 50 "
Field Lane, Saffron Hill, 40 "
Clerkenwell, 50 "
Bethnal Green, Spitalfields, 100 "
Rosemary Lane and vicinity, 30 "
----
744 shops.
About two thousand five hundred men are employed mending and patching
shoes. Then there are hundreds of poor men and women who gain
subsistence, but barely subsistence, by collecting the old material of
all articles that are made of leather, and selling it to those who keep
shops or stands.
I visited the lodgings of a man, in Cutler street, who paid his
landlord a weekly rent of 1s. 8d. for the use of one bare room, which
had no furniture with the exception of a three-legged chair upon which
he sat--and a heap of straw and dirty rags, which served him as a bed.
On the bare mantel-piece was a broken loaf of brown-bread, and a cooked
kidney, with a broken mustard-pot.
The man was named Ferguson, and had only one eye, the other having
been obliterated by the small pox. He was a cheerful old fellow, this
peddler of second-hand boots and shoes, and seemed to take the world as
it came without thought of the morrow. I told him that I was in search
of information, and statistics in regard to the working people of
London, and he offered me very politely his only stool. I declined the
courtesy and sat on the heap of rags while he told his story.
"Ye need not be afeered of the bugs, yer honor, in the bed. The place
is not warm enough for them to stay here.
"Stistiks ye want is it? Well, I don't know how I can give ye stistiks,
but I can tell you my own story.
"I began life a shoemaker's apprentice, in Edinburgh, although I am by
birth an Englishman. My master's name was Mac Donald, and when he drank
whiskey his temper generally ruz, and the divil couldn't stand him or
get the better of him. So I listed for a soldier and went to furrin
parts, and after I sarved my time I came back a good deal wiser but not
a penny richer of it all.
[Sidenote: THE DOG FANCIER.]
"I had my ups and downs when I came back, but I didn't marry, as it
was too bad to bring another person into poverty besides myself. I've
smoked a pipe when I was troubled in mind and could not get a bite to
eat, or a drop of gin to drink, but how would it be if I had a young
daughter? What good would it do to smoke if she wos hungry and I had
nothing to eat for her. I used to sell cherries and strawberries, and
then I gave that up and went into the old shoe trade. It paid better,
but sometimes I hadn't a penny-piece for two days at a time, and I
would have to sell my stock to get my grub.
"The regular sort of men's shoes are not a werry good sale. I gets from
ten-pence to five shillings a pair, but the high priced ones is always
soled or heeled and covered with mud. I gets from one shilling to
two-and-sixpence for cloth in the shoes, when they are in decent trim.
Blucher's brings two shillings and upwards, and Wellington's about the
same. I have sold children's shoes as low as three-pence and as high
as one and sixpence. I carry a wooden seat with me so that a man who
wants to buy from me can sit down and try on a pair anywhere. People
who havn't got any money to throw away generally likes to get their
second-hand boots or shoes as big as you have them, cos wy, when they
take them in the rain if they are a tight fit they can't put them on."
On an average the one-eyed boot and shoe seller informed me that he
made about four to seven shillings a week, and he called it a very good
week when he managed to make ten shillings profit.
Dog-sellers, of whom there are about two hundred in London, always
choose the most public places for their stations.
Down in Parliament street, opposite the Horse Guards, in Trafalgar
square, at the base of Nelson's Monument, in Upper Regent street by the
Coliseum, on the steps of the Bank and the Royal Exchange, on Waterloo
Bridge and along the Thames Embankment, and in fact wherever a large
open space may be found, or a well known public building located, the
dog-fancier may be noticed with a poodle between his legs, a black and
tan under one arm and a spaniel under the other, and by his side, it is
more than probable that a basket will be placed full of live, kicking,
and sagacious pups, of different colors and of as many breeds.
These dog-sellers are the keenest street traders to be found in London,
and dramatists and playwrights are never weary of making sketches and
amusing characters of dog fanciers.
Some years ago, two rascals, bearing the names of "Ginger" and
"Carrots," made themselves famous for the number of dogs stolen by
them. At last it was impossible for any canine to escape these fellows,
and so industrious did they become in the pursuit of them that they
were arrested by the police and sent to the House of Correction for
six months, which is the penalty for stealing one dog, yet "Ginger"
and "Carrots" had, in their career, stolen thousands of unsuspecting
yelpers from their owners.
In one year 60 dogs were reported lost, 606 stolen, 38 persons were
charged with dog stealing, 18 of whom were convicted, and 20 discharged.
It is a fact worth noting, that, excepting in rare cases, the
dog stealers do not affiliate with or frequent the company of
house-breakers, or thieves of any other class. Dog stealing among
professionals is looked upon as a noble science, and deserving of long
and arduous practice.
On wet days, when pedestrians may be forced by the suddenness of the
rain gusts to seek refuge in some arcade or colonade, like those in
Piccadilly or the Regents' Quadrant, it is then that the dog fancier
suddenly emerges from his hibernation, and knowing that he will have
the attention of a group of people who are without occupation while in
shelter, he may be certain to dispose of his dogs to advantage. It is
upon old and timid ladies that these dog venders are sure to practice
their tricks.
Let an old maid but look longingly at some hairy poodle or woolly King
Charles,--then woe be to her if she attempt to escape without buying.
"Wot," said one heartless villain of a dog fancier to a spinster
wearing gold spectacles, who was trying to make her escape from his
alarming language, as he stood in the Strand with a pet poodle in his
arms, "does ye keep me 'ere a torkin for three blessed hours and then
ye goes hoff without buying this beutifool dorg as is dirt cheap at
twenty pounds and I hoffers it to ye for five sovs. I say, do take it
with ye and make a muff of hit, the precious dear. All ye have to do
is to get its legs and tail cut off, and get its insides scooped out,
and ye'll have a splendid muff. Wot, ye won't buy, hey? Pir-leece,
Pir-leece," and the fellow began to scream for the police as if the
poor frightened old maid had intended to rob him.
[Sidenote: WHO KEEP BIRDS.]
Bird-Sellers frequent the New Cut, Lambeth, Bermondsey, Whitechapel,
Billingsgate, and Smithfield, as well as the different streets of
Southwark and Blackfriars.
There are hundreds of these bird-sellers to be found hawking their
birds all over the city. They are shrewd, speculative men, and can tell
a bird's age and power of singing almost at a glance.
The smallest cage costs sixpence, and a thrush and cage of a common
kind is valued at 2s. 6d. A canary that sings well may fetch about
3s. The hens or female birds do not have a large sale, and the trade
in pigeons is decreasing, owing to the emigration of many of the
Spitalfield weavers, who had a great love for pigeons and were the
principal breeders of that bird in England.
The poorer the family, the more likely that a bird will be found in the
house; and stable boys, laborers, and the humbler class of artisans,
are in the habit of keeping birds in their dwellings.
It is also curious to notice the love formed by women who lead an
abandoned life, for all kinds of birds, chiefly, however, for those
that will sing. I noticed, in making a tour of inspection with the
police among the Slums of the Haymarket, that nearly every woman of
foreign extraction and of dissolute life had a linnet, canary, or
blackbird, in her room. Frenchwomen of this class are very fond of
canaries. Poor, lonely, forsaken wretches, it is the instinct of
deprived maternity which demands that they should have something to
love and make a pet of.
Sailors, who have returned from long voyages, will stop in the street
when they see a bird-seller's stand, look at it for a moment with open
mouth, and taking out a handful of silver, will give the bird-fancier
any price he chooses to ask for a sweet singing bird. The bird will
serve as a gift to some female relative, a wife, or as, in many cases,
some woman of the town will receive the cage and its occupant as a gift
from the drunken Jack-Tar.
About five thousand parrots are imported and sold annually in London.
They are chiefly brought from Africa, and a fine parrot will bring as
high as a pound. Quite a number of these birds die on the homeward
voyage, and this makes the price of parrots very high. Birds' nests are
also sold in the streets by Italian and Savoyard boys in great numbers.
Squirrels, rabbits, and gold and silver fish may be also found for sale
in the streets, the latter being bought to keep in glass globes as
ornaments.
At every railroad station, in and outside of London, a person can be
weighed for a penny. A man named Read has at least one hundred weighing
chairs, which he rents out to men and boys at a certain rate of the
gross receipts. On the different bridges cripples and retired soldiers
may be found with brass instruments for testing the lungs and power of
a man's arms, and also machines are to be found in front of well-known
public houses, and in the parks and squares, for measuring the height
of pedestrians.
There was one old fellow with whom I became acquainted, who kept a
measuring and a weighing machine.
His station was on the Middlesex side of the Waterloo Bridge. He told
me that he had been a pot-boy in a cheap eating house for five years,
and then was a helper in a gentleman's stable for six years. One of his
arms was rendered useless from an attack of paralysis, and finding that
he could not any longer work as a helper, he borrowed enough money to
purchase the weighing and measuring machines.
Having some curiosity to know the average weight and height of his many
customers, I made a bargain with him, as he could read and write, to
keep a record of his experience for three days of the physique of those
who patronized his machines.
His patrons were chiefly laboring men on the new Thames Embankment,
boatmen plying on the river, clerks going and coming to their business
over Waterloo Bridge, and soldiers.
[Sidenote: COKE SELLERS.]
His largest income was on Saturday nights, when the laboring people
were flush of copper pennies, and as nearly every third man was sure
to be drunk going over the bridge on Saturday night, he was certain to
reap a good harvest from their generous pockets.
In three days he had weighed one hundred and thirty-two persons of the
male sex, and eight women. The average weight of each person I found
was, including the women, one hundred and fifty-five pounds. The number
of persons measured for their height was sixty-four, and the average
tallness of each person, among which number was only one female, was
five feet eight inches. The soldiers were of course the tallest. These
figures speak well for the London Cockneys. One of the women, a cook,
measured six feet, and weighed one hundred and ninety-eight lbs. I gave
the venerable statistician a shilling and bade him good-bye, but not
before I had received his blessing in fervent tones.
[Illustration: COKE PEDDLER.]
The consumption of coke purchased from the various gas houses of the
city by peddlers and hawkers is enormous.
There are about two thousand persons concerned in this street trade,
one hundred of whom are women, and the aggregate includes boys. The
various gas companies realize a yearly sum equal to six million of
dollars from the sale of the coke. The peddlers distribute the coke to
their customers in large vans, wheelbarrows, donkey carts, hand carts,
and some of these strong limbed, broad chested fellows, carry the
coke from door to door in large sacks. A few of the women own routes,
and hire boys or men to sell the coke, giving them eight to twelve
shillings a week, according to their merits and enterprise as hawkers.
Coke is bought by these hawkers at the gas houses at from three to four
pence per bushel, and is sold by them again at eight pence per bushel.
In giving the rates which I will have occasion to quote from time to
time in this work, I shall generally give the prices in British money.
Salt is also vended in carts and wheelbarrows like coke, and some of
the peddlers of that much desired article for seasoning and preserving
food, sell in one day as much as five hundred pounds. The wholesale
price to the hawkers is about 2s. 6d. per hundred pounds, and it is
sold by them to the poor people in thickly populated districts, at a
penny a pound, or sometimes cheaper.
Sand is sold in large quantities to the keepers of publics and small
shops, and to those keeping stalls in the old markets, at twenty
shillings a load, and the sand peddlers pay a license of two pounds per
annum. In fact all the London peddlers pay a tax or license of some
kind or another.
One of the strangest sights in London is the "Bum Boat" of a "Purl,"
or warm beer seller, who may be found now and then of a dark foggy day
plying his vocation on the Thames.
Formerly there were hundreds of these beer peddlers upon the river, but
I believe that there are but a few, perhaps not more than five or six,
who still follow this occupation.
One day while pulling around the shipping below London bridge in a
small boat, I came across one of the "Bum Boat" men, who might, I
believe, be taken as a very fair specimen of his class, or calling,
once numerous, but now only a scattered remnant of their former numbers.
[Sidenote: STOCK IN TRADE.]
This fellow, a sun-browned-looking man of thirty years of age or
thereabout, was impelling a craft, a strongly constructed, broad
bottomed barge or yawl, in and out among the smoky looking coal
barges, fish and oyster craft and coasting steamers. He wore a dark
blue guernsey shirt and a yellow oil-skin jacket, with heavy water
boots which encased his large legs from the knees downward. An immense
"Sou'-wester" shaded his broad face, and he was trying to drive the fog
away by smoking a dreadful black clay pipe.
At the stern of the boat was a rough canvas awning, and under this the
"Purl" man told me that he slept for weeks and months, while his boat
lay at anchorage in some of the nooks of the busy river.
[Illustration: BUM BOAT MAN.]
He seldom or ever went ashore, excepting when necessity compelled him
to debark for the purpose of laying in beer and other stock for his
customers.
In the bottom of the boat were heaps of fresh onions, a bag of
potatoes, a couple of bushels of Swedish turnips, parsnips, carrots,
some packages of tea and coffee in small square brown parcels, tied
with white string, a tin box full of mutton chops and beef steaks, cut
ready for sale, and other articles of food that would be most relished
by seafaring men on their return from a voyage.
There were also in the boat a small patent sheet-iron furnace, two
little casks of beer, each containing about four gallons of that
beverage, a can with a gallon of gin of the cheap and fiery brand,
and two tin pannikins in which he warmed the beer, or "Purl," as it
is called, upon the small sheet-iron stove. This he sold hot to the
sailors, oystermen, and coal bargees, at four pence a pint. It was
most wonderful to see the dexterous manner in which this Bum Boat man
passed in and out between the numerous craft, paddling and ringing a
hand bell the while, without any collision or trouble, and then to hear
through the fog, the answering cries from the sailors who recognized
his welcome bell:
"Boat ahoy!"
"Bell ah-o-o-y!"
"P-i-n-t o' P-u-r-l a-h-o-o-y!"
Then for an instant the bell would cease, and the dark shapes of the
"Bum Boat" and its proprietor would be seen, as the latter stood up
to reach a noggin of gin to a bargee, or a pewter pint of foaming hot
"Purl" to some thirsty soul of a tar just arrived from Greenwich,
Glasgow, or Cork.
The "Bum Boat" man is one of the most picturesque sights of that most
picturesque of cities, London. The few who still ply their avocation
on the river, are in pretty comfortable circumstances, and their lives
are as happy as can be imagined, much more so, I have no doubt, than
they were when there were hundreds of them paddling about the river and
impoverishing themselves by a ruinous competition.
[Sidenote: HOW DICK GETS HIS PORRIDGE.]
I have often noticed miserable, wan, and half naked looking little
children, in and around the Regent's Circus, and in the neighborhood of
the Cafés and Pall Mall, with small bags made from the material used in
potato sacks, collecting cigar ends and crusts of bread from ash heaps
and dust bins. Wondering what use could be made of these disgusting
fragments, I one day accosted a lad of twelve years or thereabouts,
who was busily engaged in searching a dust bin near Simpson's Tavern
in the Strand, which is a resort for fashionable diners out.
I said to him, after giving him a penny, which will always unclose the
lips of the sauciest London street boy:
"Child, why do you collect these fragments of crusts and cigar ends?"
"Mister," said the half frightened child, who took me at the first
glance for a detective in plain clothes--and by the way, it seems as if
every poorly clad and hungry man and woman in London were suspicious
of the police, for the reason that they are poorly clad, and for that
reason alone--
[Illustration: "I GETS IT FOR CIGAR STUMPS."]
"Mister," said the hungry child, whose face was prematurely aged, "I
aint doing nothink; I was only grabbing the crusts for porridge."
"For porridge,--how do you make the porridge, my lad?"
"My mother--she is down in Milbank street, and has got the small pox,
but before she was sick she used to bile the crusts in hot water and
put a pennorth o' oat meal in the pot. She borrowed the pot from Mrs.
Clarke, she did."
"Who makes the porridge now, boy," said I to him.
"A gal--me big sister Mag--she makes ladies' shoes for a shop, and
wacks me when she's mad and I aint got no money for gin. I likes
porridge, and Mag she makes it so preshis 'ot. My name's Dick."
"Well, Dick, how do you get the 'pennorth' of oat meal for the
porridge?"
"I gets it for cigar stumps. I finds a lot on 'em and sells 'em, and
I gets ten browns for a pound on 'em. The tibbaccy man buys 'em, but
he wont buy the short ones, cause he says they are all wet and the
tibbaccy is all gone from them. I makes tuppence a day sometimes."
There are, I am told, fifty or sixty persons, men and boys, some of
whom are Irish, engaged in this branch of the Street Finders' vocation.
It would be tedious to give an account of all the different branches
of street selling and buying in London. Their number is legion, and
it would be the work of weeks to merely recapitulate all the strange
ways and means whereby wretchedness exists in the heart of surrounding
splendor, and what would seem to be, but is not--an all-pervading
charity.
But I cannot close this chapter without glancing at the street
performers--street "Peep" Shows, Reciters, Showmen, Strong Men, Dancing
boys and men, Tom Tom players, Street Clowns and Acrobats, Bagpipe
players, Negro Serenaders, Street Bands, Punch and Judy shows, and
other street folk, who are almost if not as numerous as the hawkers and
collectors.
There is to be seen on Saturday nights, in the vicinity of Farringdon
and the old London markets, now and then a stray Peep Show man, who
frequents the most crowded districts, where the poorer people have
money to spend. These Peep Shows are conveyed through the streets on
a low four wheeled wagon, sometimes by the performer or proprietor
in person, at other times by a donkey. Donkeys cost from two to five
pounds in London, according to their breed and tractability.
On the wagon a square box is generally placed, having a large glass
front, which is covered with green baize or a dirty velvet curtain.
[Illustration: STREET ACROBATS.]
This screen conceals the automaton figures that are set in motion
by the man in charge. Sometimes there is a hurdy gurdy, or hand
organ, attached, and while the exhibitor turns a crank to allow the
spectators to look at the revolving pictures of the "Capture of the
Malakoff," the "Death of Nelson," "Napoleon at Waterloo," or some
other historic picture, the hurdy gurdy will play "Old Dog Tray," "The
Lancashire Lass," or some other popular ditty. Representations of the
most horrible murders, or executions of well known criminals, are much
relished by the London mobs, and are well patronized. One of these men
told me that he was accustomed to take three and four shillings on
Saturday nights in Farringdon market or the New Cut, while during the
week he might not make four shillings altogether.
[Sidenote: STREET ACROBATS.]
Street acrobats, or posturers, are often met with in London. They are
to be found usually in streets which have one end closed, or near
the river. Thus the traffic is not impeded, owing to the absence of
vehicles; and a street like those which run off the Strand toward the
river will be quiet as the grave all day long until near the dusk,
when all at once, as if by magic, a curious crowd of men, women, and
children will collect around a man and boy or boys, who will in the
most business like fashion proceed to divest themselves of their
outward clothing, which of course is of a rather shabby kind, and
in a few moments they will appear in all the glory of flesh-colored
tights, just as they may be seen standing in the sawdust of a circus
arena. Their foreheads are glorious with silver tinsel or silk ribbon
fillets, their loins girt with strips of velvet, and their whole rig
of a theatrical character. Some of the children are really handsome,
and most exquisitely shaped, the results of athletic exercise and free
fresh air. But the men, poor devils, have all of them a haggard, worn,
fretful look, with hollowed cheek and straggling gray hair.
Having placed a piece of carpet, rather threadbare in appearance, in
the middle of the street, after selecting the cleanest spot for it,
these fellows (who are soon in the centre of a ring of people, from
whom coppers are collected while the acrobats are bounding in air), go
to work, and for half an hour will amaze, delight, edify, and instruct
the grown children, larking street boys, and nursery maids of the
neighborhood, and having collected perhaps ten pence or a shilling,
they will gather up the carpet, don their sober, shabby garments, and
find another quarter to do their trapeze, pyramid, and dancing feats.
Nearly all these street acrobats are bruised, or are in some way
injured, and many die young from falls.
Occasionally they will disappear from the crowded London streets, in
search of a scanty existence in some miserable provincial barn of
a theatre or music hall, and years may perhaps elapse before their
pinched cheeks and hungry eyes will again be encountered in the shabby
chop houses and dark, lanes of London. Six shillings a week is as much
as these poor wanderers, soiled by the glare of tallow candles in
crazy barns and sheds, can expect to make in the provincial towns and
villages. Therefore London, with all its misery, is very dear to them,
for with much less toil and labor they can realize twelve to fifteen
shillings per week in the Capital.
[Sidenote: PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW.]
But the great and lasting attraction among the multifarious street
scenes of London, is the Punch and Judy show, the delight of joyous
children, of the rich and poor, whether in Belgravia or St. Giles. And
indeed, Punch and Judy shows reap more profit in a poor and squalid
district than they will in the aristocratic quarters.
[Illustration: PUNCH AND JUDY.]
It is rarely that the police will disturb these street shows, unless
that householders should prefer a complaint that they were annoyed,
and then of course they are driven away. I have myself looked and
listened for many an hour to these absurdly humorous shows, to Punch
and Judy, the Dog, the Clown, and some negro characters selected for
the exhibition. Usually there is a man, his wife, and a boy to collect
the pennies thrown from windows or given by the crowd which assembles
to witness the performance.
The man plays the pipes, fastened at his breast, and the drum with his
elbow; and the woman keeps the figures in motion on the miniature
stage, the back of which is hidden by a green curtain or tent, placed
in the cart. Behind this screen the woman conceals herself and talks
for the little automaton figures. There is a set dialogue in which the
figures are supposed to converse, and as it is seldom changed, I give
the following portion of a comedy of conversation, as that chiefly used
for many years by the London Punch and Judy shows:
Enter Judy.
_Punch._ What a sweet creature! what a handsome nose and chin! (He
pats Judy on the face lovingly.)
_Judy._ Keep quiet, do! (Slapping him wickedly.)
_Punch._ Don't be cross, my ducky, but give me a kiss.
_Judy._ Oh, to be sure, my love. (They embrace and kiss.)
_Punch._ Bless your sweet lips. (Hugging her.) These are melting
moments. I'm very fond of my wife, I must have a dance.
_Judy._ Agreed. (Dancing.)
_Punch._ Get out of the way, you don't dance well enough for me. (Hits
her on the nose.) Go and fetch the baby, and mind and take care of it
and not hurt it. (Judy goes off.)
Judy. (Coming back with the baby.)
Take care of the baby while I go and cook the dumplings.
_Punch._ (Striking Judy with his hand.) Get out of the way! I'll take
care of the baby (and Judy goes out).
Punch. (Sits down and sings to the baby.)
"Hush a-bye baby on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock;
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
Down comes the baby, cradle and all."
(The baby cries and Punch throws it up and down violently.)
_Punch._ What a cross child! I can't abear cross children. (Shakes the
baby and pretends that he is about to kill it, and finally throws it
out of the window.)
Enter Judy.
_Judy._ Where is the baby?
[Sidenote: PUNCH IS EXECUTED.]
_Punch._ (In a lemoncholy tone.) I have had a misfortune; the
child was so terrible cross I throwed it out of the window, I did.
(Lamentation of Judy for her dear child. She goes into asterisks, and
then excites and fetches a cudgel, and commences beating Punch over
the head.)
_Punch._ Don't be cross, my dear, I didn't go to do it.
_Judy._ I'll pay yer for a throwin' the child out of the winder. (She
keeps a beatin him on the blessed head with the stick, but Punch
snatches the stick away, and commences a smashin of her blessed head.)
_Judy._ (Screaming like hanythink.) I'll go to the Constable and have
you locked up.
_Punch._ Go to the devil. I don't care where you go. Get out of the
way. (Judy goes hoff, and Punch sings, "Par Excellence," or, "Ten
Little Indians." N.B. All before is sentimental, but this here's
comic. Punch goes through his roo-too-to-rooey, and in comes the
Beadle hall in red.)
Then the "Clown" and "Jim Crow," the "Doctor," "Jack Ketch," the
hangman, with various characters, follow each other in quick succession
and enact their absurdities to the intense delight of the "juveniles,"
as the showman, in his printed book of the play calls the children.
Punch is tried and convicted of murder, and being sentenced to death,
is finally hung by Jack Ketch, at Newgate, as a punishment for his
crimes, and is then placed in a coffin and given to be dissected.
All through these performances I have frequently noticed that the child
spectators sympathized with Punch,--who is certainly a most notorious
criminal if we are to judge by his actions on the stage of the Punch
and Judy show,--and they always applauded when the Beadle got the worst
of the fight.
It is a strange instinct, that which rises and glows in the breast of a
child,--this resistance to the spirit or personification of authority.
The same instinct in the full-grown man, draws a mob of ragged blouses
after a Rochefort, in the streets of Paris, and builds barricades from
which they fire upon the hireling soldiery of a Bonaparte.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND NATIONAL GALLERY.
ON Great Russell street, Bloomsbury square, is the British Museum, one
of the chief glories of the English metropolis, and an institution of
which every Londoner is deservedly proud. There is, perhaps, no finer
collection of curiosities and antiquities, and the nation has been
for a century gathering the tributes of Science, Art, and Antiquity
together in this vast building, which covers, with grounds and
outbuildings, an area of seven acres.
The first purchase for the collection was made in 1750, when Sir Hans
Sloane, a great collector and scientific man, died, leaving a will, in
which he suggested that his collection which cost him £50,000 should be
bought by Parliament for £20,000. This offer was accepted, and an act
was passed purchasing Sir Hans Sloane's "library of books, drawings,
manuscripts, prints, medals, seals, cameos, and intaglios, precious
stones, agates, jaspers, vessels of agate, crystals, mathematical
instruments, pictures, &c." Thus was laid the first foundation of the
now world famous British Museum. By the same act a purchase was made of
the Harleian Library of about 7,000 rare volumes of rolls, charters,
and manuscripts, to which were added the Cottonian Library, and the
library of Major Arthur Edwards. A lottery was devised, from which
£100,000 was realized, and the collections were paid for from this
fund, as well as the sum of £10,250 which was paid to Lord Halifax for
Montague House, in which the museum was then located, and on which
site the present building has been erected. The additional sum of
£12,873 was paid for the repairs of Montague House, and a fund was also
set apart for its taxes, salaries of officers, and Trustees, who were
chosen from the best and noblest in the land, and in 1759 the Museum
was opened to the public.
[Sidenote: THE READING ROOM AND ITS OCCUPANTS.]
The present lofty and imposing building was thirty years in
construction, although the Museum was all that time open to the public,
the building being erected piecemeal. The main buildings form a
quadrangle with spacious and lofty galleries and courts. The entrances
to the buildings are by magnificent staircases of stone, and the
portico is adorned with giant figures and groups of sculpture.
Even in the old Egyptian days, no greater masses of stone were ever
used than those which have been placed in the grand flight of steps
of the main facade. There are twelve stone steps, 120 feet in width,
terminating with pedestals, on which are the groups of sculpture. There
are 800 huge stones in the edifice, weighing from five to nine tons
each.
In the pediment, on the main front, are typified in storied stone,
Man, Religion, Paganism, Music, the Drama, Poetry, the Patriarchs,
Civilization, Science, Mathematics, and other allegorical figures. The
entire buildings have cost upward of £1,000,000. The principal doorway
is really majestic, being twenty-four feet high and ten feet wide.
The Reading-Room of the Library contains 1,250,000 cubic feet of space,
the dome being 140 feet in diameter and 106 feet high. In this vast
room an echo is heard like the sound of a trumpet, and on its shelves,
and in contiguous alcoves, are 800,000 volumes of books upon every
known subject and in every known language. This room cost £150,000.
4,200 tons of iron were used in the construction of the dome alone.
There is accommodation for 300 readers, each person having a desk and
table in a space of four feet three inches.
There is a great silence in this vast room where every one seems bent
on study. The very doorkeepers who take your hat and umbrella, have a
studious look. Every visitor presents his ticket of admission, and is
registered for the benefit of the statistics of the Kingdom. Scores of
men who have a taste for literature and reading, and no money to buy
books, come here, and, during lunch-hours, those who are anxious to
study, and do not wish to leave their seats, may be seen taking from
under their tables light luncheons, kidney-pies, and sandwiches, of
which they partake with that peculiar shamefacedness which is always
observable in people who eat in public places.
There is a member of Parliament in his natty suit, and with a heavy
watch-chain, who has gotten him down an old rusty tome, from which he
is cramming with great earnestness for the next debate. Last night he
had never heard of the subject of which he is reading, and just now he
is full of it, and so puzzled with the wealth of the material before
him that he does not know at which end to begin.
There is an old gentleman, in threadbare clothes, and worn cuffs, who
has a very mild and placid face, and blue bulbous eyes. The table
before him is strewn with old, worn volumes, bound with parchment and
sheep-skin covers, and every time he turns a leaf a cloud of powdered
dust ascends to his nostrils, and he is nearly suffocated. It is easy
to see from this man's soft and fixed look that he is a monomaniac upon
some subject, and that he is now settled for the day. Ah! what a sigh
of relief from the old codger. He has, after great trouble, secured in
his mind the point in dispute, and now he is at work rapidly scratching
away at his notes. Looking over his shoulder I can see that the old
fellow has a number of works on the subject of Heraldry before him, and
he is, of course, tracing some mystic pedigree to the Flood, or further
back, perhaps for the satisfaction of a butcher or tailor who may be in
want of an escutcheon and a bar sinister in his shield.
In 1827, Sir Joseph Banks presented his botanical collection, and
66,000 valuable volumes. In 1837, the Prints and Drawings, the Geology
and Zoology departments were formed, and in 1857, the Department of
Mineralogy. The Museum is divided into departments of Printed Books,
Manuscripts, Antiquities, Art, Botany, Prints, and Drawings, Zoology,
Paleontology, Mineralogy, and Sculpture, each under the charge of an
"Under-Librarian."
[Sidenote: THE MAGNIFICENT LIBRARIES.]
There are five Zoological galleries or saloons, embracing everything
in the schedule of serpents, monkeys, lizards, tortoises, crocodiles,
toads, antelopes, rhinoceri, elephants, and hippopotami, giraffes,
buffaloes, oxen, lions, tigers, bears, otters, kangaroos, apes,
squirrels, whales, sharks, porpoises, and all kinds of fish and
mollusca.
There is also a gallery of Fossils, Zoological and Geological, and
a Gallery of Minerals. In these galleries are eight saloons. Then
follow the Departments of Botany, and the Department of Antiquities,
containing vases, terra cottas, bronzes, coins, and medals. There are
also three saloons of Anglo-Roman Antiquities, of Roman Iconography,
three Greco-Roman saloons, the Greco-Roman Basement Room, the Lyceum
Gallery, and the Elgin Rooms, in which are the splendid marbles
collected by Lord Elgin at Athens, and which were bought for £35,000 by
Parliament.
There are also the Hellenic Galleries of Marbles, the second Elgin
Room, the Assyrian Galleries, 300 feet in length, and thirty other
galleries, and innumerable saloons crowded with the most wonderful and
valuable objects of art and science.
There is a Newspaper Saloon with the finest collection of newspapers
in England. The catalogues of the libraries and collections of the
Museum alone amount to 620 volumes. The collections are valued at
£15,000,000. By act of Parliament, a copy of every book, pamphlet,
sheet of letter-press, sheet of music, chart, plan or map, issued in
Queen Victoria's dominions must be delivered to the British Museum.
There are three libraries in the Museum: the King's Library, presented
by George IV, consisting of 80,000 volumes; the Greenville Library,
21,000 volumes; and the General Library of 730,000 volumes, and which
is inferior only to those of Munich and Paris.
Magna Charta, if not the original, a copy made when King John's seal
was affixed to it, was acquired by the British Museum with the
Cottonian Library. It was nearly destroyed in the fire of Westminster
in 1731; the parchment is much shriveled and mutilated, and the seal is
reduced to an almost shapeless mass of wax. The MS. was carefully lined
and mounted; and in 1733 an excellent _fac-simile_ of it was published
by John Pine, surrounded by inaccurate representations of the armorial
ensigns of the twenty-five barons appointed as securities for the due
performance of Magna Charta.
An impression of this _fac-simile_, printed on vellum, with the
arms carved and gilded, is placed opposite the Cottonian original
of the Great Charter, which is now secured under glass. It is about
two feet square, is written in Latin, and is quite illegible. It
is traditionally stated to have been bought for four-pence, by Sir
Robert Cotton, of a tailor, who was about to cut up the parchment into
measures! But this anecdote, if true, may refer to another copy of
the Charter preserved at the British Museum, in a portfolio of royal
and ecclesiastical instruments, marked Augustus II, art. 106; and the
original Charter is believed to have been presented to Sir Robert
Cotton by Sir Edward Dering, Lieut.-Governor of Dover Castle; and to be
that referred to in a letter dated May 10, 1630, extant in the Museum
Library, in the volume of Correspondence, Julius C. III. fol. 191.
In the Museum, also, is the original Bull, in Latin, of Pope Innocent
III, receiving the kingdoms of England and Ireland under his
protection, and granting them in fee to King John and his successors,
dated 1214, and reciting King John's charter of fealty to the Church
of Rome, dated 1213. Also, the original Bull, in Latin, of Pope Leo X,
conferring the title of Defender of the Faith upon Henry VIII.
[Sidenote: ADMISSION TO THE MUSEUM.]
The Reading Room is open every day, except on Sundays, on Ash
Wednesdays, Good Fridays, Christmas-day, and on any Fast or
Thanksgiving days ordered by authority; except also between the 1st
and 7th of May, the 1st and 7th of September, and the 1st and 7th of
January, inclusive. The hours are from 9 till 7 during May, June,
July, and August (except on Saturdays, at 5), and from 9 till 4 during
the rest of the year. To obtain admission, persons are to send their
applications in writing, specifying their Christian and surnames, rank
or profession, and places of abode, to the principal Librarian; or,
in his absence, to the Secretary; or, in his absence, to the senior
Under-Librarian; who will either immediately admit such persons, or lay
their applications before the next meeting of the Trustees.
Every person applying is to produce a recommendation satisfactory to
a Trustee or an officer of the establishment. Applications defective
in this respect will not be attended to. Permission will in general
be granted for six months, and at the expiration of this term fresh
application is to be made for a renewal. The tickets given to readers
are not transferable, and no person can be admitted without a ticket.
Persons under eighteen years of age are not admissible.
The Reader having ascertained from the Catalogue the book he requires,
transcribes literally into a printed form the press-mark, title of the
work wanted, size, place, and date, and signs the same. Readers, before
leaving the room, are to return the books or MSS. they have received to
an attendant, and are to obtain the corresponding ticket, the reader
being responsible for such books or MSS. so long as the ticket remains
uncanceled. Readers are allowed to make one or more extracts from any
printed book or MS.; but no whole or greater part of a MS. is to be
transcribed without a particular permission from the Trustees. The
transcribers are not to lay the papers on which they write on any part
of the book or MS. they are using, nor are any tracings allowed without
special leave of the Trustees. No person is, on any pretence whatever,
to write on any part of a printed book or MS. belonging to the Museum.
The persons whose recommendations are accepted are Peers of the Realm,
Members of Parliament, Judges, Queen's Counsel, Masters in Chancery or
any of the great law-officers of the Crown, any one of the forty-eight
Trustees of the British Museum, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London,
rectors of parishes in the metropolis, principals or heads of colleges,
eminent physicians and surgeons, and Royal Academicians, or any
gentleman in superior position to an ordinary clerk in any of the
public offices.
Some idea of the magnitude of this great Museum may be formed when
I state that the clerical and literary force connected with the
institution is larger than that of any similar foundation in Europe but
one--the Imperial Library at Paris.
There is first a Principal Librarian, a Secretary, fifteen keepers
of departments, beside a little army of attendants, messengers,
bookbinders, watchmen, and doorkeepers, numbering over one hundred
persons. Beside there are fifty or sixty persons of literary eminence
and celebrity connected with the Museum, and employed to perfect the
collection, to collate and arrange the books and to classify subjects.
In this way alone the expenses of the establishment amount to £40,000
yearly.
The average number of visitors to the Museum yearly is over one
million, and the galleries are entirely free to the public.
[Illustration: NELSON'S MONUMENT.]
Next to the British Museum, the most frequented place in London is the
National Gallery of Art, in Trafalgar Square, facing Nelson's Monument.
This lofty monument fills the eye of the spectator as it takes in the
range of one of the finest squares in Europe. The column is a circular
one, 145 feet high, and the figure of the great naval hero, Nelson,
on the top, is 17 feet high. The monument was built in 1840-43, and
is placed on an elevated pedestal of granite. The Emperor Nicholas of
Russia gave £500 toward the erection of the monument, and the rest was
raised by public subscription. The two immense lions of bronze who lie
couchant at the base of the monument, were modeled in iron from visits
made by Sir Edwin Landseer to the live lions at the Zoological Gardens.
[Sidenote: THE NATIONAL GALLERY.]
There are also statues of Sir Henry Havelock and of Sir Charles Napier,
on each side of the inclosure which fronts the Nelson column, twelve
feet high and of bronze, and just below in an angle of the square is a
bronze statue of George IV, which cost £10,000. These three statues,
which are all equestrian, were paid for by public subscription.
On one side of the square is the church of St. Martin, an imposing
looking building, built by Wren, and on the lofty steps of this church
the crossing sweepers and bootblacks of the Metropolis have their daily
rendezvous, and here divide their earnings with each other.
The National Gallery is, therefore, in a most commanding site, and from
its broad steps a very fine view can be obtained of the Strand, Charing
Cross, Parliament Street, and the Houses of Parliament.
The edifice was finished in 1838, and is 461 feet in length, and
its greatest width across the saloons of painting is 56 feet. The
stones were taken to construct it entirely from the King's Stables or
Mews, and the building has a peculiarly sombre and solid effect. In
it are a range of spacious galleries, whose walls are covered with
the greatest works of the old masters and modern painters. It is the
chief collection of paintings in the British Islands, and the number
of subjects amount to 1,600. The number of pictures in the National
Gallery, as compared with the number in the Continental galleries, is
as follows: National Gallery, 1,600; Dresden Gallery, 2,000; Madrid,
1,833; Louvre, 2,500; Vienna, 1,500; The Vatican, 37; the Capitol,
Rome, 250; Bologna, 280; Milan, 503; Turin, 563; Venice, 688; Naples,
700; Frankfort, 380; Berlin, 1,350; Munich, 1,300; Florence, 1,200;
Pitti Palace, 500; Amsterdam, 386; Hague, 304; Brussels, 400; and
Versailles, 4,000.
The pictures in the National Gallery are divided into the British and
Foreign Schools. Of the British School there are 795 paintings of
various artists, and of various degrees of merit, in which the names of
every English painter of consequence is included by his works.
The chief collection in this division is that of Turner, the great
colorist, and here are exhibited in a saloon by themselves the finest
specimens of that great painter's works, in all numbering over one
hundred subjects, which, together with a large collection of drawings
and water colors, he bequeathed to the English people.
The Foreign School is sub-divided into the Italian, Spanish, Flemish,
and French Schools, and these schools embrace 797 fine pictures, in
which the old masters chiefly predominate. Three of Corregio's pictures
in this gallery cost £15,000, and the latest acquisition is a Michael
Angelo valued at £30,000.
The Gallery is open to the public on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and
Saturdays; and on Thursdays and Fridays to students only. It is open
from Ten to Five from October until April 30, inclusive; and from Ten
to Six from April until the middle of September. It is wholly closed
during the month of October.
Daily this free gallery of art is thrown open to the working people
who enjoy the paintings, excepting on the days specified. There is no
charge whatever excepting for catalogues of the British and Foreign
Schools, which cost a shilling each.
The question of opening the Galleries on Sunday has been much agitated
of late, but I question if the British public, particularly the
working or artisan class, care much for paintings. The lower classes
of Englishmen are not, as a rule, very esthetical in their views or
ideas, and I think the British masses are best calculated to shine at a
cattle-show. There is nothing in this world so capable of striking an
average Englishman's fancy as a huge ox or a mountain of moving beef.
Corregio's master pieces, Turner's flaming colors, or Claude's
landscapes do not move him at all; but take him to a cattle-show, and
behold he is all life and animation, and give him a pot of beer in his
red fist, and he becomes positively witty, and capable of conversation.
[Sidenote: WANT OF TASTE AMONG THE ENGLISH.]
One thing struck me as I wandered hour after hour through these
galleries, and that was the total lack of education in the commonest
rudiments of art, and the complete ignorance manifested in the remarks
of the boors who gave the greatest works of their countrymen but a
passing glance, and walked on in stupid stolidity. At Versailles or
Florence, there was life, enthusiasm, and criticism of a very fair kind
noticeable in the remarks of delight or disapproval which came from
groups around a famous painting or a daub, but at the National Gallery
the cattle-show and the pot of beer was still uppermost in all the
looks and phrases of the spectators who used the place as a show room
to pass an hour away.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXVIII.
NAKED AND NEEDY.
ONE hundred and thirty years ago, infanticide and desertion of
children, were twin crimes, very prevalent among English women of
the humbler and lower classes. The dull, twaddling, gossip-monging
newspapers of that day were often the vehicle through which the public
ascertained that infants were found in dust-bins and dark alleys, and
on dung-hills, there exposed by their miserable and heartless mothers
to starvation and storm. Twenty or thirty children per week were
exposed, in London, after this fashion, and the evil grew to such an
extent that it served to awaken the benevolence of God-fearing men and
women, and among those was one Capt. Coram, a seafaring man who, by his
long and repeated voyages and wanderings over many lands and in many
strange waters, had accumulated a large sum of money.
I fancy I can see that brave old fellow now in his closely buttoned-up
tunic, his three-cornered mariner's hat set askew, his eyes beaming
with kindness and compassion, picking his steps through the worst
holes and quarters of Old London, the London of Queen Anne and of
Bolingbroke, of conspiracies, of Hanoverian Successions, of Highwaymen
and Newgate, and of all the faded memories of that olden time which
enthrall sense and memory, when we try to recall that which we can
only see as Macaulay saw it by the light of old newspaper scraps,
chronicles, and by the memoirs and diaries, of the then insignificant
but to-day useful people, like Evelyn and Pepys.
[Sidenote: THE FATHER OF THE FOUNDLING.]
Who will not bless that noble old sailor, as I did, the May evening I
stood in the principal dormitory of the Foundling Hospital, in which
were comfortably housed over fifty of the devoted lambs, sleeping
with warm clothes covering their little bodies, and their infantile
chirpings seeming like a chorus of angels, whose visits are alas--few
but far between.
[Illustration: NURSERY IN THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL.]
There was the row of cots, and the kind-hearted women attending
to their wants, and when I gave one of them an orange, the little
twelve-pounder seemed as glad as if it had descended from the loins of
a Tudor or a Stuart, instead of being, as it was, both fatherless and
motherless.
I can see him who was to be father of the first Foundling Hospital in
England, losing his way purposely, night after night, among those dark
and badly lighted and unpaved streets and lanes that fringed the Thames
River in those days, and from which issued nightly shouts of murder
and rapine, and the boisterous but less deadly revelry of bacchanalian
seafaring men, in trunk hose and canvas tunics. I can see the link
boys with their smoky torches passing to and fro as in a fevered
dream and the bearers of sedan chairs,--the porters shouting at the
brave-hearted grim seaman, who turns his kindly old eyes aside from
the flashing glance of beauty shot at him in dumb wonder by the damsel
on her way to Vauxhall, Ranelagh, or a Rout, and Captain Coram the
meanwhile chatting and bestowing pennies upon the beggar's offspring
or forsaken child. His heart was large as the seas which he had sailed
over, and his happiest moment was when he had rescued from the gutters
and death some poor foundling who had been thrown on the world to make
its way.
He had first embarked in the Newfoundland trade, and after some time
spent in ploughing the waters between England and the Colonies, he
set up at Taunton, Massachusetts, as a shipwright, where he prospered
apace. Then we find him, after some years, in Boston, where, by his
enterprise, the manufacture of tar was established in the then infant
Colonies. Home to Old England again after thirty years of wandering,
and on landing at Cuxhaven the brave old man was set upon by thieves
and ruffians and plundered of all his earnings. Then the Government,
in 1732, appoints him as a trustee for the settlement of Georgia, and
subsequently he is engaged in the colonization of Nova Scotia. Finally
he came home to project and carry out the idea of his life, which was
the establishment of a Foundling Hospital in London.
Never was there a more indefatigable or tireless philanthropist than
this bluff old sailor. Insult, contumely, and humiliation he cheerfully
underwent to carry out his cherished plan.
One cold, stinging, December day, in the year 1737, Thomas Coram,--who
had been advised that the Princess Amelia was a charitable and well
disposed lady, and would be, perhaps, favorable to an application for
the scheme he had in view--started for St. James' Palace, the then
residence of royalty--with his three-cornered hat well planted upon
his head, and his coat buttoned up, and offered a petition for the
formation of a foundling hospital through Lady Isabella Finch, the lady
of the Bed Chamber in waiting, who turned upon Coram when he presented
her the paper, like a vixen, and bade him begone with cutting words and
sneers. The poor old fellow, with rage in his heart, strode from the
doors of royalty and never troubled the Princess Amelia again.
[Sidenote: ADMISSION OF CHILDREN--HOW OBTAINED.]
Finally, George II became interested so far as to give a charter on
the application of John, Duke of Bedford, the Master of the Rolls,
the Chief Justice, the Chief Baron, the Speaker of the Commons, and
the Solicitor and Attorney's General. Hogarth, who also became deeply
interested in the charity, and ever afterward continued its benefactor,
painted a shield for the Hospital, and on the 26th of October, 1740,
the old house in Hatton Garden was thrown open to nameless and homeless
children.
The charter was signed by twenty-one ladies, of birth and distinction,
and stated that "no expedient has been found out for preventing the
frequent murders of poor infants at their birth, or of suppressing the
custom of exposing them to perish in the streets, or putting them out
to nurses, who, undertaking to bring them up for small sums, suffered
them to starve, or, if permitted to live, either turned them out to beg
or steal, or hired them out to persons by whom they were trained up in
that way of living, and sometimes blinded or maimed, in order to move
pity, and thereby become fitter instruments of gain to their employers.
In order to redress this shameful grievance, the memorialists express
their willingness to erect and support a hospital for all helpless
children as may be brought to it, 'in order that they may be made good
servants, or, when qualified, be disposed of to the sea or land service
of His Majesty the King.'"
The children who are maintained by this charity are admitted on
application of their mothers only, whose application to the governors
must take place within twelve months of the birth of the child.
The petition is read to the governors assembled in committee; and
the petitioner is called in and examined as to her allegations; and
then the steward of the hospital (with the petitioner's permission)
is instructed to make secret inquiries as to the truth of the
case. If the admission be ordered, it takes place on the Saturday
fortnight after the order (a small weekly allowance being made in the
interim, if necessary, to the mother), when the child is examined
by the apothecary, and if found perfect in eyes, limbs, and health,
is received into the Institution. Its mother is presented with a
certificate of its reception--with a certain letter on the margin, by
which her infant pledge may be subsequently identified if necessary;
but in all probability she never sees the child again.
It has a particular number assigned to it, which is sewn to its
clothes, and becomes a property and chattel of the hospital. It is at
once sent to the matron's room, and delivered to a wet-nurse previously
engaged; and on the following day, being Sunday, it is baptised in
the chapel of the institution--some common name, such as Smith or
Jones, being given to it out of a list approved by the committee. On
the same night, or following day, it is sent with its nurse into the
country, who carries it to her own residence--she being generally
the wife of some agricultural laborer--and reared there, under the
occasional supervision of inspectors, for five years, when it returns
to town for its education at the hospital. The number attached to its
clothes remains so attached thoughout that time. At fourteen, the boys,
at fifteen, the girls, are apprenticed, but still looked after by
inspectors from the hospital until they are twenty-one years of age,
when they are supposed to be able to take care of themselves. Deserving
adults, however, are not lost sight of by the governors, and in case of
incurable infirmities preventing apprenticeship, the Hospital does not
desert its children to the end.
That the child be illegitimate is of course the most essential
regulation, but an exception is made if the father be a soldier or
sailor killed in the service of his country. Immediately after the
battle of Waterloo, it was enacted that fifteen children of each sex
should be forthwith admitted, the offspring of those who fell in that
action; but to the honor of the soldiers' wives, it is recorded that
only two mothers gave way to the temptation, and accepted the offer. No
legitimate child has been admitted into the hospital for the last ten
years.
[Sidenote: A RUSH OF BABIES.]
The other conditions of admission are: that the petitioner shall not
have applied for parish relief; that she shall have borne a good
character previous to her misfortune; and that the father shall have
_bonâ fide_ deserted his offspring, and be not forthcoming. The child
acquires stronger claims for admission, if, First: the petitioner has
no relations able to maintain the child; Second: if her shame is known
to few persons (the express wish of the founder being that she might,
if possible, recover her lost position); and, Thirdly: that in the
event of the child's being received, the petitioner has a prospect of
obtaining an honest livelihood.
The manner of admission was originally based upon that pursued "in
France, Holland, and other Christian countries," as the wording of the
quaint old charter went. The applicant came in at the outward door,
rung the bell at the inward door, and presented her child; no questions
whatever were asked of her, nor did "any servant of the hospital
presume to endeavor to discover who such person was, on pain of being
dismissed." When the narrow limit of accommodation was reached, the
notice, "The house is full," was affixed over the door.
In October, 1745, the western wing of the present building was opened;
but so many more children were brought than the place could hold, that
there were frequently a hundred women with children at the door, when
only twenty could be admitted. The ballot was then resorted to: all the
women were admitted into the court-room, and drew balls out of a bag;
but it was still stipulated that if any desired to be concealed, the
bag might be carried to them, or the matron was empowered to draw for
them.
In 1754, the hospital authorities had six hundred children to support,
the cost of which exceeded their income fourfold. They therefore
appealed to Parliament, who voted them ten thousand pounds on the
condition that _all_ applicants under twelve months old should be
received. This wholesale scheme of charity, which was largely assisted
by more public grants, only lasted for four years. On the very first
general reception-day, 117 infants were taken in, and 1,800 before the
half-year was out; while in the ensuing year 3,727 were admitted. The
consequences are described to be lamentable. Immorality was greatly
encouraged by the unlimited facility for thus disposing of its fruits,
and the children themselves--though "the Foundling" had then branch
establishments in many country places--could not be supported in such
vast numbers.
Of the 15,000 children received in those four years, no less than
10,000 perished in their infancy. Parish officers, with local cunning,
sent to the Foundling the legitimate children of paupers, in order to
relieve their constituents; parents brought their own children, when
dying, in order that the hospital should pay for their interment; and
surgeons were even employed by parents to convey their children to this
Alma Mater, at so so much per head, like pigs, or other cattle.
Parliament withdrew its grant from this formidable charity in 1759,
although it humanely provided for the maintenance of all whom its too
lavish charity had already admitted, and the branch country hospitals
were discontinued. There were at that time 6,000 children in the
institution under five years of age, and it was not until 1769, that
by apprenticing all who were fit to be placed out, their number was
reduced below 1,000. At the present time the yearly admissions average
32, and the total number maintained by the Hospital is 430.
As years sped by the spirit of the institution changed with its
succeeding governors, and children were received without any inquiry,
with whom a hundred pounds were paid down.
The Court Room of the Foundling Hospital has probably witnessed as
painful scenes as any chamber in Great Britain, and though mothers
may abandon their illicit offspring to the tender mercies of a public
company, they cannot do it without great pain, and many an after pang
of agony.
[Sidenote: AN AGED FOUNDLING.]
These scenes are renewed again when the children at five years of age
are brought up to London from the places they have been farmed out like
young goats, and they are then separated from their foster mothers.
Even the foster fathers are sometimes greatly affected by the parting,
while the grief of their wives is most excessive; and the children
themselves so pine after their supposed parents that they are humored
by holidays and treats, for a day or two after their arrival, in order
to mitigate the change.
Though infants received into the hospital are never again seen by their
parents, save in peculiar cases, a kind of intercourse with them is
still permitted. Mothers are allowed to come every Monday and ask after
their children's health, but are allowed no further information. On an
average about eight women a week avail themselves of this privilege,
and there are some who come regularly every fortnight.
I was present in one of the rooms of the Foundling Hospital while a
stout red faced matron was engaged in washing one of these dear little
babes of misfortune, and it was indeed an affecting spectacle, to hear
the little motherless waif cry and watch its infantile kickings and
splurgings in the wash tub.
[Illustration: WASHING THE WAIF.]
Even when application is made by mothers for the return of their child,
it is frequently refused; when it is apprenticed, and no intercourse is
permitted between them, unless master and mistress, as well as parent
and child, approve of it; nor when it has attained maturity, unless the
child as well as the mother demand it.
Thus a woman, who was married from the hospital, and had borne seven
children, once requested to know her parents, on the ground that
"there was money belonging to her," and her application was refused.
But in November of the same year the name of a certain Foundling was
revealed upon the application of a solicitor, and his setting forth
that money had been invested for its use by the dead mother; the
governors granting this request upon the ground that the mother herself
had disclosed the secret, which they were otherwise bound to keep
inviolable. Again, in 1833, a Foundling, seventy-six years of age, was
permitted, for certain good reasons, to become acquainted with his own
name, though, as one may imagine, not with his parent. It is a wise
child in the Foundling who even knows its own mother.
Sometimes notes are found attached to the infant's garments, beseeching
the nurse to tell the mother her name and residence, that the latter
may visit her child during its stay in the country; and they have been
even known to follow the van on foot which conveys their little one
to its new home. They will also attend the baptism in the chapel, in
the hope of hearing the name conferred upon the infant; for, if they
succeed in identifying the child during its stay at nurse, they can
always preserve the identification during its subsequent abode in the
hospital, since the children appear in chapel twice on Sunday, and dine
in public on that day, which gives opportunities of seeing them from
time to time, and preserving the recollection of their features.
In these attempts at discovery, mistakes, however, are often committed,
and attention lavished on the wrong child; instances have even occurred
of mothers coming in mourning attire to the hospital to return thanks
for the kindness bestowed upon their deceased offspring, only to be
informed that they are alive and well.
It is stated that children who are discovered by the mother are spoiled
by indulgence--and I can imagine that efforts to make up for the past
would be lavish enough in such cases--and rarely turn out well.
[Sidenote: HOW THEY DINE.]
One exception to the rule of non-intercourse is related, where a
medical attendant certified that the sanity of one unhappy woman might
be affected unless she was allowed to see her child.
Twice or thrice in the year the boys are permitted to take an excursion
to Primrose Hill; but at other times (except when sent on errands),
and the girls at all times--are kept within the hospital walls. This
confinement so affects their growth, that few of either sex attain to
the average height of men and women.
It is a curious old place, this hospital for Foundlings, and full
of memories. Here are some of Hogarth's best efforts as a portrait
painter, and it was for this hospital that Handel wrote his glorious
oratorio of the "Messiah." The organ, so magnificent in tone, which is
placed in the chapel, was also the gift of Handel.
The high old-fashioned reading desk, from whence the chaplain expounds
the scriptures; the side galleries in the style of George I, and
the pillars that seem to tell of the days of Addison and Sterne and
Swift, and all the rest of that galaxy who made the Augustan age of
England--the rows of high backed benches such as are to be met with in
all the London churches, built after the architectural period of Wren
and Inigo Jones--combined with the low full toned voices of the boys
and girls, as they raise the Anthem, seem to make the place a haven of
rest and an abode of happiness for the poor world outcasts.
Then there is the girls' dining-room, hung with some fine paintings and
works of art. The girls enter and take their stand, each in her proper
place, against the long row of tables that extends from end to end of
the room, the crowds forming a lane on either side.
A moment's pause, and a sweet voice is heard saying grace: the utterer
being that modest looking girl at the centre of the table, who from her
superior height and appearance seems chosen as one of the oldest among
her companions. Scarcely has she finished before another girl, at the
end of the table, dispenses with the ease and rapidity of habit, from
the large dishes of baked meat and vegetables before her, the dinners
of the expectant children, plate following plate with marvelous
rapidity, till all are satisfied.
This room occupies a great portion of one side of the edifice.
In the boys' room the evolutions of the lads preparatory to taking
dinner are most interesting. The change at once, and without blunder,
hesitation, or want of concert, from a two deep to a three deep line,
then they beat time, march, turn and turn again, until the welcome
word is given for the final march to the dinner table. Thousands of
the citizens of London visit this hospital yearly, and ladies are
particularly interested in all that pertains to its welfare.
It has been enriched by innumerable bequests, and has a revenue of over
£120,000 a year from rents, stock, and other sources.
The charities of London are incalculable in their extent, and it is my
belief that no other city in the world--excepting Paris--possesses so
many and such various institutions where the sick, naked, and needy
are taken in and cared for. And yet with all this benevolence, there
is a pharisaical spirit of ostentation at the bottom of every pound
that is given, and the pupils of the beneficed schools, the inmates
of the almshouses, the patients in the various hospitals, and the
vagrants and lost ones in reformatories, refuges, and model lodging
houses are drilled, uniformed, preached at, exhibited to the public,
and ventilated in the newspapers, while the donations of those who
have established the charities are be-puffed and be-lauded until the
stranger is astonished at the mountains of cant which smother the work
of so many generously benevolent people.
However, there is a vast amount of charity in London, and incalculable
good is done those who are in need of it.
I can only give the aggregate of all these charities, hospitals and
almshouses, as I have not space for details.
[Sidenote: INCOME OF CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS.]
The incomes and receipts of the various Metropolitan Charitable
Institutions amount to about twelve millions of dollars annually, much
of which is contributed voluntarily, and this vast sum does not include
contributions to police courts for the use of prisoners, amounting to
£50,000 a year, or the erection and endowment of schools, and other
similar gifts by individuals, deeds which are impossible to classify,
from their isolation. Besides the regular incomes, as below, the
proceeds of former legacies amounts to £841,373, or nearly six million
dollars of United States money.
This large amount of nearly eighteen millions of dollars, double the
entire sum realized from poor rates obtained in London, is divided
among 640 institutions, of which 144 have been founded during the last
ten years, 279 during the first half of the century, 114 during the
Eighteenth Century, and 103 before that period.
The classification--generally speaking--and aggregate incomes are as
follows:
INSTITUTIONS. ANNUAL INCOME.
14 General Hospitals, £174,858
66 Hospitals and Institutions for Special Medical purposes, 155,025
39 Dispensaries, 23,877
12 Institutions for the Preservation of Life, Health, and Morals, 46,230
1 Foundling Hospital, 20,200
22 Hospitals, Penitentiaries, and 16 Reformatories--total, 93,981
29 Relief Institutions, 64,720
21 Homes, for both sexes, and all ages, 18,200
9 Benevolent Pension Funds, 26,000
20 Poor Clergymen's Benefit Funds, 49,508
72 Professional and Trade Benevolent Funds, 125,051
24 City Company and Parochial Trust Funds, 40,820
4 Special National Funds, 53,000
124 Colleges, Almshouses, and Asylums, for the Aged, 103,063
1 Cripple's Charity, 7,215
16 Deaf and Dumb Institutions, 43,521
35 General Educational Funds, 112,600
16 Asylums, educating 2,400 orphans, 80,634
24 Educational Asylums for 3,700 children, 120,000
60 Home Missionary Societies, 413,171
30 Foreign Missionary Societies, 642,217
19 Jewish Charities, Hospitals, Schools, Almshouses, and Refuges, 163,000
3 Grammar Schools, on original Foundations, 862,000
2 Educational Establishments,8 parochial schools, libraries,
lectures, and miscellaneous societies, of a charitable or benevolent
character, 732,000
Some of these hospitals are not equaled by any in the world excepting
those of Paris, and have splendid beds and the best of medical Staffs.
Guy's Hospital is called after a London Alderman and Member of
Parliament, who made a fortune, in Oliver Cromwell's time, selling
Bibles, buying sailors' pawn-tickets, and in the South Sea Speculation
Bubble. It has 22 wards and 600 beds, and averages, yearly, 6,000
in-door and 55,000 out-door beds, with 24 professors and 250 students.
The legacies left to this hospital amount to £500,000, and its annual
income is over £30,000. Kings' College Hospital has 180 beds, and about
2,000 in-door and 40,000 out-door patients, annually. Its income is
about £5,000 a year. The London Hospital has 500 beds.
Bartholomew's Hospital, founded by a Catholic monk, in the hoary past,
is the oldest and largest hospital in London, as its students are the
wildest and most reckless in the metropolis. The number of in-door
patients is 7,000; out-door, 100,000, annually, and the yearly income
is £32,000. There are 700 beds, 36 professors, and 500 students.
The St. Thomas' Hospitals, now in process of construction at the Surrey
Side of the Thames, in Lambeth, opposite the Houses of Parliament,
will combine a number of hospitals for Special Diseases, and will
accommodate about 2,000 patients, with as many beds, and will have an
income of £50,000 a year, or more.
It is impossible to think of any disease, complaint, deformity, or
injury to any member or organ of the body, which has not its special
hospital or institution for relief or cure, in the English metropolis.
There are homes for distressed widows, for Asiatics, Africans, and
South Sea Islanders, a Benevolent Society of Female Musicians, one for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a Life-Boat Society, Homes for
Teaching the Blind to read, for Governesses, a Shoe-Black Society, and,
in fact, all classes of indigent and impoverished persons are provided
for.
[Sidenote: INTERESTING SIGHT.]
The Sick Children's Hospital is one of the best and most needed
institutions in London. This hospital was opened eighteen years ago,
and has among its patrons the excessively pious Prince of Wales, and
the lady whom he admired so much--the wife of Sir Charles Mordaunt, as
also the highest ecclesiastical authority in England, the Archbishop of
Canterbury. This Hospital for Sick Children is situated at No. 49 Great
Ormond street, Bloomsbury, in an old-fashioned house built in the time
of Queen Anne. The annual income of this hospital is about £25,000 a
year, with 100 beds, including about a dozen at Highgate and Margate,
the latter for those children who require sea air. It has about 600
in-door and 12,000 out-door patients, annually.
A sick child among the rich has, at least, solace in its sickness,
besides every chance for its recovery that money can supply. A sick
child among the poor may have attendance or not, as the case may be,
but its father and its mother in London have but little time to bestow
upon its sufferings. It is, perhaps, uncared for and all but abandoned
to battle with disease without help. It is for the children of the
needy poor that this hospital is established and is carried on.
No child suffering from small pox is admitted into the house, nor are
any cases of rickets, hip joint or scrofulous disease of the spine
or joint. They are refused for three reasons: because they are quite
incurable, because they require nothing but rest for many months, and
because good diet and fresh air, continued for months or years, are
essential to improvement.
Glad children's laughter may be heard within those old walls, and
pretty little voices murmuring to each other, as the tiny sick people
chatter to their next bedside friends and neighbors. Sometimes a little
tired one, wearied from weakness, lies still watching the blue scroll
on the ceiling, or trying to make out what all the pink-cheeked and
powdered ladies are doing upon the frescoes of the old-fashioned walls.
Each child has its cot to itself, and besides those in the house
myriads of children are brought each year, by their mothers, to be
seen by the doctors and nurses. In the room where mothers bring their
children is a box, affixed to the wall, with a printed solicitation
for pence, and fifty pounds a year is collected in this way, which
is devoted to sending children to the watering places who are getting
convalescent and need sea air.
The Queen, and other members of her family, are accustomed to send
yearly donations of toys and jimcracks for the amusement of the
children; and proud ladies may be seen daily moving among the sick beds
with all kinds of gifts and childish luxuries, and who shall say that
the faces of these beautiful girls, and the toys they bring, do not
help most signally to establish convalescence, for what sick child ever
suffered without appreciating a kindly smile, a wooden horse, a cart, a
Punch, or a Noah's ark.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXIX.
MARKETS AND FOOD.
THE aggregate of time, labor, and expenditure, necessary to provide
three millions and a half of inhabitants with food, in a city like
London, is something beyond comprehension. In getting at the food
statistics of this great City, I found more trouble than in procuring
material and detail for any other portion of this book. And yet there
cannot be anything of more interest to the public than to know how,
when, and from where, a great city derives the food which subsists its
citizens.
The London markets are well built, well ventilated, well situated, and
well regulated. The markets of London are a credit to the city and
people. The markets of New York are a scandal and a shame to that great
city.
Some idea may be formed of the amount of food needed to subsist London
from the figures which I will give.
The Metropolitan Cattle Market, in Caledonian Road, Islington, is the
largest market in London, covering fifteen acres, and having three
acres of slaughter houses. This market cost one million four hundred
and sixty thousand pounds, and cannot be surpassed by any other market
in the world. The yearly receipts at this market was as follows:
360,000 beef cattle, 36,000 calves, 1,900,000 sheep, and 37,650 pigs.
Besides this vast amount of meat there was nearly as much more received
at the Newgate, Leadenhall, and Whitechapel meat markets.
The other articles of food, brought to the London markets, are
estimated by those who profess to have nearly accurate information,
as follows: Seven million head of game and poultry, six hundred and
fifty million pounds of fish, two hundred and fifty million barrels of
oysters, and two hundred and fifty million cubic feet of eggs. This
last item rather staggered me, but the other estimated quantities are,
I am assured, rather below than above the aggregate annual consumption.
The inspections of the London markets are made very rigidly, and I do
not wonder at the necessity for a strict watchfulness, when I find
that, in 1868, 160,340 pounds of meat, and 1,963 head of game and
poultry, were seized by the officers as being unfit for human food.
This amount consisted in part of 1,200 sheep, 186 pigs, 73 calves,
1,100 quarters of beef, 762 joints of meat, 462 tame fowls, 121 wild
fowl, 300 geese, 290 ducks, 316 pigeons, 15 lambs, and only thirty
pounds of sausages. There were also 239 rabbits, 111 hares, 75 haunches
and quarters of venison, 84 partridges, and four pounds of pickled
pork. It will be seen that there was a very great deal of beef and
mutton to a very little pickled pork and sausage. All of the game, and
most of the poultry seized, was putrid, and of the meat 108,000 pounds
were diseased, while 21,000 pounds were stinking; 36,240 pounds of meat
being taken from animals that had died of natural causes. As soon as
the meat is seized it is sprinkled with creosote of coal tar, which
checks putrefaction, and at the same time prevents it from being used
as food, after which it is sent to the bone-boilers and destroyed.
Besides the enormous amount of food received at the markets already
enumerated, there was also received at the Borough Market, Southwark,
Smithfield New Market, Newport Market, Cumberland, Portman, Clare, and
the Potato Markets, by railway, in the same year, 17,000 tons of meat
of all kinds, 100,000 tons of potatoes, 14,000 tons of fish, 15,000
tons of vegetables, and 60,000 tons of grain, wherewith to feed the
Londoners.
[Sidenote: THE SMITHFIELD POLICE STATION.]
Before daybreak is the best time to see the Markets of London in all
their bustle and brisk traffic, and one summer morning I accordingly
took a cab from the Langham Hotel and told the sleepy driver to take me
to the New Smithfield Market, which is convenient to Newgate Prison.
We dashed madly in the gray of the morning (it was not yet more than
four o'clock) through Regent street, up Oxford street, over the Holborn
Viaduct, and so on to the Smithfield Police Station, which is situated
at a few rods distant from the place where the Cock Lane Ghost was
first discovered.
I had been directed by Inspector Bailey, of the Old Jewry office, to
call at this police station, and he informed me that I should find a
special policeman there at my disposal to show me the markets, and
procure me any information I might desire in regard to them.
The Smithfield Police Station is like most London police stations,
a very quiet and not pretentious edifice, just in the shadow of
Smithfield New Market.
There was a little desk and a little railing, behind which sat a little
man in a blue uniform of pilot cloth, and behind the little man were
hung upon the plainly whitewashed walls a collection of handcuffs,
pistols, and knives, all of which were deodands to the law. There were
also placards, offering rewards for all kinds of offenders, thieves,
forgers, murderers, and embezzlers, and giving detailed descriptions
of their persons and clothing when last seen. These placards covered
the walls, but did not add much to the appearance of the apartment.
On producing my letter of introduction from Inspector Bailey to the
Sergeant in command--who treated me with much civility, a bell was
rung by the latter, and a policeman in uniform appeared, my old friend
Ralfe, whom the Sergeant addressed as follows:
"Ralfe, you are to take this gentleman all through Smithfield Market,
and show him the sights, and then you can transfer him to some one
else to have him taken through Billingsgate Market, and after that he
may take a look at Covent Garden Market, if he so desires. Show him
everything that you can, then report to me back again."
"Yesir," said Mr. Ralfe, touching his hat, although he was not in
uniform, and in another instant we were in the London streets, which
were very drear and damp, the gas lamps yet burning with a feeble
light, and the daybreak as yet not having revealed itself.
The way was murky and dark, and the vicinity of the market was
sufficiently indicated by the peculiar raw, fresh smell, with which
newly killed meat greets the nasal organs.
Smithfield Market is built on a large, open square, and being on high
ground commands a good view of the City of London proper. The site of
the New Market which was opened a year ago, was formerly covered by
the Cattle Market, which is now removed to Islington, in the suburbs.
The building is of mixed stone and brick, and the cost was about half
a million pounds. The ground on which it is built is also nearly as
valuable as the building. The market is about four hundred feet in
length and a hundred and fifty in width. The roof is of iron, and a
vast avenue, high, broad, and spacious in every way, runs through the
entire building.
[Sidenote: THE HOT COFFEE GIRL.]
When I reached the market with my friend, the policeman, the gas was
still burning, and the long rows of stalls situated on the wide avenues
of the market, were covered with beef and mutton, the stalls averaging
thirty to forty feet in height. There was a confused hum of many
voices, and coarse rough looking fellows in smalls and canvas smocks,
with broad, scoop-shaped hats, rushed hither and thither with immense
loins and quarters of beef on their brawny shoulders. Over each stall,
and inside of the market beneath the roof, the proprietor or lessee of
the stall has a small wooden edifice, with doors and windows and places
to sleep for two or three persons. At each corner of the market is a
lofty tower, a hundred feet high, and in these towers are board-rooms
and dining-rooms, and reading rooms for select parties, and at the base
or bottom floor of each tower is a bar where liquors and hot coffee,
bread, butter, and tea, and other refreshments are sold during the
early hours of the morning, to those who need sustainment. Two or three
pretty girls were behind each of these stalls, and were serving with
great dilligence and taste, the knots of butchers' helpers, cartmen,
butchers' boys, and market officials who stood in their vicinity.
There are at least half a dozen meat inspectors in each market, and
these men are paid one hundred pounds a year to examine and decide as
to the wholesomeness of each and every pound or carcass of meat brought
into the markets.
To one of these I spoke and asked him if he had much trouble with the
butchers in regard to putrid meat.
"Trouble--Lord bless you sir, we have no trouble here to speak on. Ye
see, sir, the class of butchers as sells meat here in Smithfield Market
allers sells on commission. All this meat that you see a hanging on
these ere hooks doesn't belong to the butchers. It is sent to them to
sell on commission by the Railway Companies, and they do not own the
stalls themselves either. They pays one pound ten shilling and sixpence
a week for five square feet of ground--that's about the rate they pays,
and the City owns the markit. Lord bless you, Sir," said the loquacious
inspector, who was dressed like a butcher, having an apron, and stood
leaning against a large quarter of beef. "I don't know where all the
blessed meat comes from, but I knows that the pigs come from Hireland,
and a goodish bit of the beef from Devonshire. It comes to the city by
the Underground Railway, and you can see the place down stairs where
all the meat comes in the mornin'."
At the breakfast stalls I noticed that nearly every one called for "two
pennorth of bread and butter," and drank with it a bowl of hot tea or
a smoking cup of coffee. The girls who served the coffee were chatty
and lively, and desired information of me in regard to America. One of
them, a little black brunette, queried:
"They say, sir, as how that a young leedy in Hamerica can get married
on nothink--if she's good looking and can cook. Is it so, sir?"
I had no means of satisfying her as to that question, and I left her as
she was preparing a sandwich for a hungry clodhopper, whose eyes were
bulbous with hunger and expectation, and went below to the basement
story, which opens by arches on the depot of the Underground Railway,
and I found the entire earthen floor cut up by rails and platforms, on
to which the meat from incoming trains is shunted and delivered. All
meat delivered at Smithfield is of course dead, and no slaughtering is
carried on in this market. Millions of pounds worth of meat finds its
way here day after day, and thousands of men--porters and helpers and
butchers' assistants--find employment here, their wages ranging from
ten to thirty-five shillings a week.
Each helper is paid so much for every carcass which he carries into
the market on his shoulders, and broad shoulders they have to be to
carry these huge quarters of beef from the wagons which are drawn up in
dense masses in and around the open spaces outside of the market walls.
When this market was opened by the Mayor of London and other city
dignitaries, sixteen hundred officials, connected with the market and
the municipal government, dined in the central avenue, and two hundred
barrels of ale were drank. This is a sample of a municipal British
feast.
Outside of the building are little houses or market lodges, built of
stone, in which are weighing machines, where men are constantly in
attendance as weighers of beef and mutton. For this service they are
paid one hundred and twenty pounds a year. The weighing machine in the
little house connects under the middle of the street, where a platform
is constructed, level with the surface of the pavement, and when a
cart-load of beef is to be weighed, horse, cart, and beef are weighed
together, and the total is placed on a slate, and when the helpers
have carried all the meat into the stalls in the market to be sold
wholesale, (for it is not a retail market,) the horse and cart are
again weighed, and then their united weight having been deducted from
the gross weight, the actual weight of the meat is thus ascertained by
this simple and easy process. I think that the Smithfield Market is the
finest I ever saw, and its ventilation and perfect system cannot be
surpassed anywhere.
[Sidenote: THE VEGETABLE MARKET.]
From Smithfield Market I went to Covent Garden Market, which is a
couple of miles distant, in Russell street, forming quite a spacious
area. This is the great vegetable and flower market of London. There is
a market held every morning in summer, but in winter, markets are held
only on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. The market is owned
by the Duke of Bedford, and was built at a cost of £30,000 by a former
Duke of that family, forty years ago.
It has a colonade running around the entire building on the exterior,
under which are shops having apartments in the upper stories. Joined
to the back of these is another row of shops facing the inner courts,
and through the centre runs a passage with shops on either side, in
which are exposed for sale herbs and flowers, and the most magnificent
bouquets can be procured here on a fine morning in summer. Scarce
and delicate plants and flowers are here found in abundance, and
around these stands I noticed numbers of male servants and pages in
the liveries of some of the best known families among the London
aristocracy, barganing for bouquets for their mistresses' tables. The
noise and hub-bub around the open spaces in this market was perfectly
deafening. It was now about four o'clock in the morning, and all the
open areas were thronged with market-men and women and boys, carrying
baskets and flowers in their arms, to and fro, chaffing each other or
cursing and swearing with great good will.
Immense vans and market-carts loaded down with cabbages, onions, peas,
cauliflowers, turnips, beans, parsley, greens, cucumbers, lettuce,
apples, pears, parsnips, and other vegetables and fruits, are moving
to and fro, some of them blocked in with the increasing traffic, the
drivers, great big hulking fellows, mopping their perspiring foreheads
and shouting at each other, as is usual among all cartmen. Women are
hurrying hither and thither, making bargains and chaffering about the
prices of vegetables, and meanwhile, it is almost impossible to hear or
understand anything that is said. The police who are scattered here and
there with their tall helmets, goodnaturedly push and shove those who
block the passage ways, and frown sternly at the impudent young rascals
who excite crowds and gather small knots of boys against the breakfast
stalls outside the market.
Here and there around these coffee stalls, which are generally kept
by old men or dilapidated and ancient women, you will see a couple of
drunken or half sober roysterers, who have been on the tramp all night,
and have at this early hour of the morning reached Covent Garden to get
a cup of hot coffee in the market, which will clear the fumes of the
liquor away, before they stagger home to a fond and anxious wife or an
unrelenting landlady.
Wagons and carts have been arriving from a very early hour, and five
o'clock seems to be the busiest time in Covent Garden. The houses of
refreshment around the market are open at half past one in summer, and
little tables are placed against the wooden pillars of the market by
the tea and coffee venders, from which porters and carters make hearty
breakfasts. There is no need to resort to exciting liquors, as the
coffee is good and hot, and a baked potato, fresh and smoking from the
oven, costs only one penny.
Every few minutes, through all the roaring and shouting, singing,
talking, whistling, and laughing, I could hear the clear voice of the
Baked Potato man, vending his smoking tubers and shouting:
[Illustration: BREAKFAST STALL, COVENT GARDEN MARKET.]
"Tates hot!--all 'ot, 'ot! Taters all 'ot." His can with its steam
pipe, from which issues forth a fragrant odor on the morning air, is
already surrounded by young street boys, who will run an errand for
a penny, hold your horse, catch a flying hat, steal a cabbage or a
pocket full of potatoes from the stalls with equal impartiality and
energy. These markets are the worst places in London for young lads,
as there is always some excuse for their presence in the vicinity,
under pretence of earning a penny or picking up the refuse and odds
and ends of a vegetable market. Observe this young rascal now, who is
surveying the Baked Potato man with an assumption of scorn combined
with a profound look of wisdom in his features. His hands are in his
pockets, his trousers are ragged to the knees, and his linen is nowhere
visible--a miserable London street boy--and yet you would imagine,
to look at him as he steps up to negotiate for a potato, that he was
the agent of the Rothschilds about to make arrangements for a loan.
His age does not exceed fifteen years, and he has been sleeping in
the purlieus of the market all night, as his ragged and soiled coat
testify, and his hair is full of slimy straws which he has accumulated
while reclining his head on a market gardener's basket. The Baked
Potato man eyes him with distrust and timidity, for he is well aware
that there is no profit to be made from him, and that he is about to
"chaff" him. The young rascals who stand around are all wide awake, and
await the contest with solicitude in their countenances.
[Sidenote: THE POTATO MAN GETS ANGRY.]
"Taters all 'ot--taters all 'ot--'ot--'ot," cries the Potato Man.
"Well, guv'nor, I see you're a keepin the steam up as usual. Vot's
the werry lowest figger you names for the werry best taters, takin a
lot--takin a quantity? I feels like patronizin you, I does."
"Penny a-piece, all 'ot--'ot."
"A penny a-piece for _baked taters_, and the Funds agoin down like
winkin! Vy, I 'ad a pine apple myself out of a Garden this mornin for
two-pence. Trade's unkimmon bad, guv'nor."
"Penny apiece--all 'ot--all 'ot--I say, keep your dirty fingers away
from the can. You doesn't buy anythink, I know."
"I doesn't buy hanythink, eh? There's a hopposition can, too, started
by a gentleman of my acquaintance"--here the young scamp put his
thumbs in his waistcoat armholes and inflated himself after the
supposed aristocratic fashion--"in the 'Aymarket. He calls the can the
'Gladstone,' and it's a werry spicy concern, I tell ye. Don't he give
prime taters neither? They're real nobby ones, and plenty o' butter,
and pepper, and salt. Oh! not at all! And its so werry respectable for
a cove comin from the Hopera to stop and have a bit of supper on his
road home. My heye, and haint the pro-pre-i-e-tor a makin of his fortin
neither? Of course not! Oh, no. But there 'ill be fun when he returns
to his willa with a postchay in Belgrawey in a few years."
By this time the Baked Potato man is pretty mad, between the
pertinacity of his young tormentor and the highly colored picture of
his rival's prosperity, as depicted by the boy, and he tells him in an
angry way to "move hon, hif 'e doesn't want 'is preshis neck stretched."
"Wot, wiolence to one of her Majesty's subjecks, and hin the hopen day,
too? Move hon, hey? Oh, werry likely. I'm a standin 'ere on my Sovrin's
kerbstone--a Briton's 'Ouse is 'is castle, and when an Englishman
hexpresses his hopinion hon the subjeck of baked taters he's to move
hon, is he? Consekevently I'll stay here."
The "Baked Tater" man is now almost foaming at the mouth with rage,
which is not lessened by the cheers of the spectators, who are, of
course, on the side of the young orator.
He is about to lay down his can and pitch into his tormentor, when
all at once that young gentleman assumes a pacific attitude, after
displaying so much public spirit, and says:
"I don't want money nor credit, so look sharp ole feller and pick me a
stunner from the Can."
At this moment the Potato Man's countenance relaxes, as the boy
produces a penny-piece, and while he extracts a mealy potato from his
can, the boy proceeds to amuse his audience further by going through
a series of sleight of hand tricks, such as shaking the coin out of
his cap after having swallowed it, or thrusting it into his eye and
bringing it out of his ear, assuring the spectators the while that he
had spent £20,000 in learning these tricks, and now, when the potato is
handed to him, smoking hot, he expresses his indignation at the fact
that the butter is "shaved too thin," and demands that what he loses in
butter shall be made up to him by an extra shake of the pepper-box. At
last he goes off to eat the potato, as the gray dawn breaks, and the
man at the Can says:
"Oh, my eye--_he is a_ precious leary cove for such a young von."
This market, as well as all the other London markets, is haunted with
beggars who appeal to the charity of strangers with great effect.
[Sidenote: FRUIT AND VEGETABLES.]
One of these sat up behind a pile of empty baskets, and I saw that his
trousers had rotted away at the bottom from long use and dirt. His
face was that of a prematurely aged young man, and his torn shirt and
worn features bespoke real misery. He was deaf and dumb it seemed, and
the manner in which he solicited alms was by pointing to the following
sentence, written on the flag-stone before him with a piece of chalk:
+-------------------------+
| I am Starving. Help me. |
+-------------------------+
A rental of about £26,000 a year is derived from Covent Garden Market
by its proprietor, the Duke of Bedford, and the shops and stalls
rent at from two to four hundred pounds a year. In the immediate
neighborhood is Covent Garden Theatre, and all the little old rookeries
of chop houses in this quarter have the smell of the greenroom and the
rehearsal lingering about them. Here was, formerly, the garden of the
Convent of Westminster.
Before the construction of the present market this was one of the
most dangerous places in London with its tumble-down and crazy old
structures, where abounded people of both sexes herded together like
pigs. The Convent has become a play-house, and the monks and nuns have
been transposed into actors and actresses. Where the salad was cut for
the Lady Abbess in past times, drunkards now brawl and attack each
other, and the flowers that would have been in the olden time plucked
to adorn the statues of the Virgin or St. Peter, are now chosen to
grace the marble mantel of some proud dame of Belgravia, or some gaudy
and painted courtezan of Pimlico. The foreign fruit trade of Covent
Garden is very extensive in pine apples, melons, cherries, apples, and
plums. Pine apples were first cried in the London streets at "a penny
a slice," twenty-five years ago. To supply this market with vegetables
alone, 25,000 acres are required to be cultivated, and about 10,000
acres of trees are necessary to supply its annual demand for fruit. The
trade in water-cresses is immense and they are chiefly hawked about
the markets by little girls, although, of course, every stall has
its own stock of cresses. They supply the same want as a relish for
the Londoners' table that the small red radishes do to an American's
appetite.
A man, curious in such things, has estimated as follows the yearly
sales of this appetizing little green relish:
Covent Garden Market, 2,000,000 bunches, Farringdon Market, 15,000,000
bunches, Borough Market, (Southwark), 1,000,000 bunches, Spitalfield's
Market, 500,000 bunches, Portman Market, 260,000 bunches, and Oxford
Market, 200,000 bunches. It will be seen that Cockneys relish greens
very much.
A little of everything can be procured at Covent Garden. Here are
peddlers of account books, lead pencils, watch chains, dog-collars,
whips, chains, curry-combs, pastry, money-bags, tissue-paper for the
tops of strawberry-pottles, and horse-chestnut leaves for garnishing
fruit-stalls; coffee-stalls, and stalls of pea-soup and pickled eels;
basket-makers; women making up nosegays; and girls splitting huge
bundles of water-cresses into little bunches.
Here are fruits and vegetables from all parts of the world; peas,
and asparagus, and new potatoes, from the south of France, Belgium,
Holland, Portugal, and the Bermudas, are brought in steam-vessels.
Besides Deptford onions, Battersea cabbages, Mortlake asparagus,
Chelsea celery, and Charlton peas, immense quantities are brought by
railway from Cornwall and Devonshire, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and
Jersey, the Kentish and Essex banks of the Thames, the banks of the
Humber, the Mersey, the Orwell, the Trent, and the Ouse.
The Scilly Isles send early articles by steamer to Southampton, and
thence to Covent Garden by railway. Strawberries are sent from gardens
about Bath. The money paid annually for fruits and vegetables sold in
this market is estimated at three millions sterling: for 6 or 700,000
pottles of strawberries; 40,000,000 cabbages; 2,000,000 cauliflowers;
300,000 bushels of peas; 750,000 lettuces; and 500,000 bushels of
onions. In Centre-row, hot-house grapes are sold at 25s. per pound,
British Queen and Black Prince strawberries at 1s. per ounce, slender
French beans at 3s. per hundred, peas at a guinea a quart, and new
potatoes at 4s. 6d. per pound; a moss-rose for half-a-crown, and
bouquets of flowers from one shilling to two guineas each.
Green peas have been sold here at Christmas when they are deemed a
luxury, for three pounds a quart, and asparagus has brought, in the
same season, a pound, and rhubarb, a pound and five shillings a bunch.
The cries of the children peddling violets are sometimes almost
heartrending, as these little waifs are very often fasting for a whole
day before they can realize a few pennies to buy their food, to say
nothing of food for those who have sent them to peddle the violets.
There is an Artesian well under Covent Garden Market, 280 feet deep,
which supplies 1,600 gallons an hour, sufficient for the needs of
the market people, most of which is consumed in watering flowers
and vegetables, or in giving horses to drink. There are elegant
conservatories over the colonnades of the market fifteen feet broad and
fifteen feet high, for the preservation of the more costly and delicate
plants and flowers. From this market nearly all the button-hole flowers
which are vended at from a penny to four-pence a piece are obtained for
the use of the London "swells."
[Sidenote: THE JEWS' ORANGE MARKET.]
One of the most curious places in London is the Orange and Nut Market,
in Houndsditch. This market is chiefly in the hands of the lowest
kind of Jews, men in greasy garments, and having frightfully hooked
noses. The Costermongers come here for oranges, nuts, and lemons, to
sell or hawk them around the suburbs or slums of London. The market is
called Dukes'-Place Market. There is a big, massive, Synagogue, a lot
of ancient-looking houses, the oranges themselves have a cob-webbed
appearance, and the people are all dingy here. The nuts are for sale
in sacks, and the baskets have a dilapidated look. The Jews, in all
countries, are an industrious and economical people, and in London,
as elsewhere, they monopolize the most profitable and least laborious
occupations. They are represented by lawyers, members of Parliament,
great bankers, like Rothschild, merchants, like Solomons, and men of
liberal taste, like Sir Francis Goldsmid. The number of Jews in London
is estimated at 48,000.
[Illustration: THE ORANGE MARKET.]
Each dwelling around this Orange Market seems as if it had been
partially consumed by fire, for not one of the shops have a window,
and they are comparatively empty, save where a crate of oranges, or a
bag of nuts, are exposed for sale. A few sickly fowls, looking as if
they were dyspeptic, wander here picking up crumbs among the orange
baskets and nut sacks, and dirty, ragged little Jewish children, play
around with great equanimity among the rubbish. The disputes among the
loud-voiced Costermongers who come here with their little wagons and
jackasses, to draw their fruit, and the Jews who have all glib-toned,
smooth voices,--at some times, when the oranges are changing hands from
sellers to buyers--are very amusing.
There I saw slatternly-looking girls sorting the good from the bad
fruit, and one big, tall Jewish wench, was engaged over a barrel
of common black grapes, plunging her dirty arms down in the barrel
and pulling up the decayed fruit which she gave to a little child
who stood by her, and ate of them greedily from her hand. Some of
these Jewish fruit-traders take in as much as £200 in a day's sale of
oranges, from Costermongers. Most of these oranges are sent to the Jews
on commission. Years ago the Jew boys had a monopoly of the orange
peddling trade, but now the monopoly is in the hands of Irish boys, who
are more eloquent, more aggressive, and more popular, than the Jews,
and consequently sell they more fruit.
[Sidenote: FARRINGDON MARKET.]
Farringdon Market, near the Strand, on the sloping surface of the hill,
upon which the Holborn and Fleet street stand, is one of the principal
markets in London, though it covers but an acre and a half. The ground
and buildings cost about £200,000. The market building is 480 feet long
at the centre, 41 feet high, and 48 feet broad, and has a court-yard
in the centre of which the wagons, and baskets, and market lumber, are
placed. The court, or, as it is called, the quadrangle, is generally
filled with vegetables and fruit.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXX.
SECRETS OF A RIVER.
IT had been a stormy night in the London streets. In the Strand the
shopkeepers' assistants were hurriedly fastening the shutters upon the
windows of their masters' shops, eager to escape the hurricane of rain
which swept over the London housetops, and tore through the lanes of
brick and mortar like an enraged fiend. Thirsty souls who were draining
huge mugs of malt liquor in the many publics along Thames street,
looked out with scared faces on the river which was beating its sides
angrily against the shipping and lesser craft.
The waters of the Thames ran high and wild, and down in the Pool and by
Limehouse Reach, huge ships bearing the colors of many nations at their
peaks, swung and rocked in the seething tides, while black night and
the angry shades of the coming storm gathered around their twinkling
red and blue signal lamps, which lazily danced from their yards over
the surface of the river, leaving faint streaks of light that were
ever and anon swallowed by the angry waters. Boatmen were anxiously
securing wherries and fastening them under bridges and by water-stairs,
and all the while the clouds above lowered, and the sweeping gusts of
rain stung the faces of those who were unfortunate enough to be in the
streets without shelter. Shutters slapped and banged in and out, and
chimney pots were whirled about by the fierce and howling winds.
I had been on a tour of inspection, with a friend and a police
sergeant, through London during the night, and had left the Alhambra
at midnight for Evan's Supper Rooms, in Covent Garden, where we passed
an hour listening to the music of the glee and madrigal boys, and on
leaving Evan's at one o'clock in the morning, my friend had parted with
me to go to bed, and I left him at the corner of Wellington street and
the Strand, he going westward to his residence in Westminster, while
the police Sergeant and myself called a cab, as I had a desire to see
London in the small hours, and Sergeant Scott had insinuated that a
stormy night was the best for seeing strange sights. He little thought
at the time how truly he spoke.
After some discussion between this veteran of the Old Jewry office and
myself, it was decided that we should visit some of the thieves' haunts
in the Borough of Southwark, as it was about the hour when these night
birds came home to roost, and of a consequence the best time to see
their places of residence.
The first place chosen for a visit was a den in the New Kent Road, and
to get there it was necessary for us to cross Waterloo Bridge.
[Sidenote: THE STRANGER AT WATERLOO BRIDGE.]
To cross some of the bridges in London it is necessary to pay a
trifling toll, which goes toward the repairs of the bridge. The charge
for each pedestrian on Westminster and Waterloo Bridges is half a penny
each--for a horse one penny. As the cab dashed up to the turnstile at
Waterloo Bridge, the toll keeper came out to take his dues, a gruff
looking fellow wrapped up in a big hairy coat. He took the two pence
grumblingly, and just at that moment I noticed a woman coming up to the
toll-house in a gaudy looking silk dress, and having a soiled velvet
wrapper about her shivering shoulders. The light from the toll-house
shone on her face, which was very pale, the eyes burning with a strange
light, and the garments which hung to her figure were dripping with the
rain.
"Please let me pass," said she to the gruff toll keeper, with an
imploring glance, "I have not a penny in the world--please let me cross
the bridge?"
"Please let yer cross the bridge--yer 'aint got a penny? Well wot
d'ye want ter cross the bridge for then? If yer 'aint got a h'apenny I
thinks yer as well on the one side of the bridge as the other? Well go
on with ye, I don't mind a h'apenny, and go to bed as soon as ye can,"
the toll keeper shouted through the storm after the wretched woman as
she dashed through the turnstile on the bridge, and was lost in the
storm and darkness of the night.
As she fled into the night, my companion caught sight of her face, and
a hasty exclamation escaped his lips.
"My God, that's Mag S----, that we saw to-night at the Alhambra! D'ye
remember that pale faced girl who asked you to give her some liquor in
the Canteen?"
"The woman who seemed out of her senses or crazed, and who danced and
swore?" I asked.
"Yes sir, the same--well that's her, and what she can be doing here on
this bridge at this time I don't know. She used to be a highflyer once,
did Mag, but her fancy man has left her, and I'm afraid she's dead
broke now, at times. My eye, wot a temper she has to be sure, when she
blazes hup."
By this time we had reached the end of the bridge at the Southwark
side, and the cab dashed madly by a female figure cowering in an alcove
of the structure, the cabby swearing an oath as the horse shied at it
going by.
As the night advanced, it blew harder and harder, and the storm raged
with great violence. The waters under the bridge rebounded against
the base of the stone arches, but the rain had ceased. We were now on
our route back to the city, having inspected the dens of thievery to
my great satisfaction. While going and coming, until we reached the
bridge again, the mind of my companion, Sergeant Scott, seemed ill at
ease in regard to the woman whom we had met upon the bridge before
we had crossed. He was anxious and uneasy, and talked of the meeting
incessantly, to my surprise.
"Some'ow or anuther I don't like meeting that gal on the bridge, Sir,"
said he. "She looked a little desperate, and when they looks that way I
don't like to see 'em near water. Its touch and go with 'em then."
"Do you fear that the girl will attempt to commit suicide?" said I to
him.
"I do, Sir. You see there's twelve hundred suicides in London every
year, and half of 'em or more drowns themselves. The gals are more
fonder of the water than the men. A man will blow his brains out or
take pison, but a gal allers takes to the water. Why, bless you,
Sir, we have as many as a hundred and twenty suicides hoff this here
Waterloo Bridge every year. And this is their favorite bridge, this
Waterloo Bridge. When they haven't got a penny in the world, and no
friends, then they leap hoff the battelmints."
By this time we had reached the toll gate again, and the cab horse was
walking slowly over the stone floor of the bridge, making echoes with
his feet. The bridge was quite dark, yet I could see the buildings and
spires on the London side piercing the skies, and the railway depot
at Charing Cross Bridge, the towers of the Parliament Houses, and the
square roofs of the St. Thomas' Hospitals rising vaguely and in shadows
above the river.
There are stone alcoves on all the London bridges, which bulge out in
a semi-circular form over the water on either side, and they will each
accommodate a dozen persons, should such a number wish to sit down and
look at the river. There are eight of these alcoves on Waterloo Bridge,
and a raised sidewalk runs along on each side of the road, of solid and
smooth flagging. The middle of the bridge is taken up by a causeway
fifty or sixty feet wide, and this causeway is paved with a sort of
Russ, or rather large Belgian pavement.
The cabby had stopped his horse to give me an opportunity to take a
look at the river.
[Sidenote: THREE O'CLOCK.]
One boom--two booms--three booms! The bell in the Clock Tower at
Westminster rolled out over the river. Three o'clock of a stormy
morning, and all London asleep. It was a grand and impressive sight,
the dark river, with bridge after bridge girdling it, and nothing to
be heard but the champing of the horse in the awful stillness of that
lone hour. Hark! There are voices on the bridge, voices passionate and
imploring, that seem to shudder over the water and to creep through
the arches of the bridge.
"Let us get out of the cab and see what it is, Sir, if you please.
There's some cadgers a bunking in this vicinity, I imagines," said the
police officer.
We walked along the bridge for a hundred feet or so, but could see
nothing, although we heard the voices still.
"There's something wrong a-goin' on, but I don't know wot it is," said
he again.
We advanced still further, and could see a woman's figure half hidden
by the alcove which was across on the other side of the bridge from us.
The woman was in earnest conversation with a man, who spoke in a clear,
manly voice to her.
"This is the woman that begged the toll-gate man to let her cross
to-night cos she hadn't a tanner," said the officer to me. "Let's watch
'em," said he; and feeling that it was an adventure of some sort, I
silently acquiesced. We concealed ourselves in an alcove or embrasure.
"Keep quiet, now, and we'll see something, sure," said the Sergeant.
And we kept very quiet for a few minutes. The man was talking earnestly
with the woman, who seemed half crazy with drink or excitement,
we could not tell which, as we could only hear snatches of the
conversation now and then.
It was the man's voice which we now heard.
"Come home, for God's sake, Margaret, and all will be well. You will be
forgiven, and nothing will ever be cast up to you. I'll pledge you my
word to that. Your mother is in the city, and your father is dead. She
has come up from Glastonbury to see you, and I've spent eight nights
walking for you, and hoping to get a sight of a face that was once
dearer to me than life, and is now even still dear to me, if it only
was to see you reformed, poor, unfortunate girl. Come home, for God's
sake. Make the attempt, and it will be all well once more."
[Sidenote: WEARY OF LIFE.]
The girl was sobbing now very hard. The man seemed to implore her by
all that had ever been sacred or dear to the lost girl, and she was
evidently moved by his tone and earnestness, and the recollections that
he had called forth.
"He's doin' of his best, and we can't do any think more--hany of us,"
said the Sergeant, who seemed a little touched.
"You talk to me of my mother, Harry? Why, I have not heard that name
in three years. I thought I'd never hear it again. I have thought of
her, too. But it's too late, Harry. The girl that my mother expects to
see is the bright little Maggie, the school-girl who never had a hard
word or an unkind look from her. I had an innocent face then, and was
not afraid to meet her kind old eyes. But now, to meet her in this
garb"--and she shook her flaunting silks--"I dare not--I dare not.
Harry, I tell you it is too late. Too late. Too late."
"It's never too late, poor girl," said the stranger, "come home at
once, or if you'll wait here a moment I'll go and call a cab and take
you home to your mother at once. Wait here a moment and I will get a
cab. Wait a moment, Maggie, only a moment:" and the stranger ran across
the bridge, up King William street, and in the direction of the Bank,
where he expected to find a cab.
The lost girl was left alone. Alone with night and solitude. Alone
with naught but her past life, which arose from the waters like a
shadow to keep her company. Alone and miserable, with the cruel sky
darkling above her as if to shut out all hope, while the river yawned
and gaped beneath, seeking an offering. God unheeded, her bosom cold as
a stone; no prayer to conquer her anguish; with memories of promises
broken and tender words unsaid; the passionate love of a fond mother
given in vain; and at last an atonement is to be made. The old, old
story--betrayal, dishonor, and the grave.
We crept nearer by some unknown impulse, to where she stood, and could
hear her talking to herself, though we could not see her features, or
anything definite, but a weird figure looming up like a shadow against
the balustrade of the bridge. Her voice, which had fallen to a murmur
almost, was like some forgotten music, the strains of which are heard
in a dream. Who was this lone, wretched girl, and why came she here at
this hour?
"My God, why should I go back to shame my poor old mother? I never
will. I cannot do it. The sight of her would blast me. And Charley, for
whom I lost all, where is he? In India, and no one here to-night, and
I alone with my black thoughts on this spot. Why am I here? What do I
live for? My life has been wretched enough. Why prolong it any longer?
I will settle the matter now and forever. Good-by, Mother," said the
wretched girl, looking up at the sky, and before she could be stopped
in her fearful purpose, she had mounted the parapet by the embrasure,
and leaped with a shriek into the devouring river beneath.
"By Heavens," said the Sergeant, darting forward and making an effort
to catch at her clothes as her figure disappeared, "she has made a hole
in the water with herself." At this moment a patrolman, hearing the
girl scream and the shouts of the policeman, appeared upon the parapet.
All three of us dashed down the stairs of the old bridge, and it was
the work of a moment only to get a boat out, which, fortunately, had
the oars inside. In a minute we were all out on the river, and the tide
running very fast in the direction of the Pool--after pulling towards
the middle arch the Sergeant cried out:
"Steady your rudder, there; what's that bobbing up and down on the
water? That's a woman's head, sure; she's got hoops, too; that's lucky.
Pull away, for your lives!"
In a few moments we were alongside of the dark, floating object, and
the patrolman, drawing his lantern out, threw its reflection over the
waters, while the head of the boat was kept well up to the dismal
object.
The policeman leaned over the gunwale of the skiff and caught at the
dress, and dragged in what he supposed to be a woman's body, but was
only a bundle of rags and straw, the refuse of some lodging-house bed.
This was a severe disappointment to all in the boat, and we looked at
each other without speaking, for a minute. The Sergeant had a scared
look, and said aloud:
[Sidenote: SADLY IMPORTUNATE.]
"I'm afraid poor Mag's gone. She must have struck the bottom of the
arches when she went down, and if she did, all's over and settled. The
tide's running fast, too, and we will have hard work to find her."
For half an hour the most diligent search was made for her body, but no
traces could be found of it but a bonnet and shawl, which were caught
in some floating wood below the bridge.
We left the bridge, and the cab was driven home slowly, after the
nearest police station had been notified of the poor girl's death or
disappearance. The Sergeant of the Police District said that he would
have another search in the morning, and I remained at the station to
accompany the police in their visit.
A little after daybreak we were on Waterloo bridge again, and even at
that hour a small assemblage had gathered around some object at the
Southwark end of the bridge, where we could see the tall helmets of two
policemen in the midst of the crowd of carters and market gardeners,
who were en route to Covent Garden Market, and had stopped to look upon
the body of a woman who had been fished up from the river.
Yes, there lay the body of the girl whose toll to eternity had been
paid by her own rash act--stretched out on the cold stones, her
garments dripping, her fingers clinched, and her eyes stark wide open.
A young woman she was, but oh, how worn! The face was pinched, and the
long, silken lashes sunk into the eyebrows.
The day was breaking in the East, but the policemen held their
lanterns, which they had not yet extinguished, over the poor, pale
features, and the grimy garments, revealing the long, matted, and
tangled hair, and the stark, cold body, which had once held an Immortal
Soul, but was now all that remained of the gay, merry-hearted,
lost girl, who had fully reaped the harvest of vice--the Wages of
Sin--called by the Evangelist, Death.
Last year, the number of suicides in London amounted to 1,160, and of
this number 415 committed self-destruction by drowning. The Thames
Watermen fish many a ghastly body from the River, and for each
carcass--the result of their terrible trolling, they receive three
pounds from the City authorities.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXXI.
INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH.
VERY singular is the appearance of Leicester square, where are the
resorts and lodgings of the foreign colonists of London. It is the
dirtiest and darkest square in the city, with the exception of some of
the fields in the outer suburbs. On every side you may behold traces
of the foreign element which centres here. The people whom you meet in
Leicester square, if you ask them a question, will be sure to answer
you in a strange tongue, or else in a strange gibberish of English or
Continental patois. There is an acre or two of sickly grass in the
middle of the square which is guarded from the footsteps of pedestrians
by a rickety and worn iron railing. In the middle of this patch of
scanty grass is an equestrian statue of one of the Georges on an iron
horse, the nose of which has been broken or has rotted off, and its
appearance is in keeping with the buildings that tower all round it.
The streets leading to and from the square are filled with foreign
restaurants, and they are narrow and from them all issue forth smells
such as the olfactories of a traveler encounter in the back slums of
Paris or Vienna.
The buildings are shabby, the windows are shabby, and the people
sitting at the tables, whom you may see through the dusty windows,
rattling dominoes and playing cards at little tables, are shabby.
Were it not for the statue in the middle of the square, it might
be taken for the Gross Platz of a Continental town. Houses with
strange names rise on every side, having signs in their windows of
"Restaurant a la Carte," "Table d'hote a cinq heures," and are passed
in quick succession, and the linen-drapers and other shopkeepers in
the neighborhood take especial pains to inform all the passers-by that
their employees can speak German, French, and Italian, and occasionally
Spanish or Portuguese.
[Illustration: FOREIGN CAFE IN COVENTRY STREET.]
The loungers in the square give visible and olfactory demonstration
that they are not Cockneys; their tanned skins, long moustachios,
military coats, and brigand-like hats, their polite and impressive
bows,--all show the Frenchman, the Spaniard, the Polish exile, the
Italian revolutionist, and the Greek wine merchant. The mingled fumes
of tobacco and garlic, the peddlers who make desperate attempts to sell
you copies of the _Internationale_, _Patrie_, _Journal Pour Rire_, and
_Diritto_, all give ample evidence that you are in a strange quarter
of London. The lodging-houses here are on the Parisian plan, and are
let at five to ten shillings a week to mysterious men, who rise late,
and are away all day in the cafés or gaming-houses to come home singing
operatic airs at a late hour of the morning. Polish exiles, Italian
supernumeraries of the opera, French figurantes of the inferior grades,
German musicians, teachers and translators of languages, touters for
gambling-dens--all congregate here. This is their Arcadia--their place
of meeting, eating, drinking and sleeping--and for a hundred years past
it has been frequented by such parasites.
[Sidenote: LEICESTER SQUARE.]
Here in this very square in one of the houses which form the "Hotel
Sabloniere," lived Peter the Great and his boon companion, the Marquis
of Carmaerthen; and in this square they have reeled home night after
night; the master of all the Russias half-crazy with his potations of
strong brandy and red pepper, of which he was passionately fond. Up
yonder stairs passed Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, in her powder,
hoops, and patches, her train glistening under the glaring lights of
the link boys who preceded her sedan chair, to the wedding of John
Spencer, first Earl Spencer, and Miss Poyntz--bearing a case of jewels
valued at £100,000, and a pair of shoe buckles valued at £30,000, for
presentation to the beautiful bride.
The old-fashioned house opposite was the abode of Sir Joshua Reynolds,
and the one at the corner of Sydney's Alley was the residence of
William Hogarth, the bitterest and yet the truest caricaturist of
his day. Here nightly came Samuel Johnson with his huge bulk and big
walking-stick, to dogmatize with Reynolds, and with him came his toady,
Boswell; and here came Goldsmith to read his "Deserted Village" to
his coterie of choice spirits--and here Frederick, the "Good Prince
of Wales," as he has been called to distinguish him from all the rest
of his title, came to die of a bad cold which he caught walking in
Kew Gardens in 1751; and here resided John Hunter, in the house now
occupied by a humbug keeping a Turkish bath. It is a place of strange,
quaint memories of good and brave, base and ignoble men and women in
the past; it is now the Alcedama of licensed vice, the festering spot
of all London.
It is now a place where wantons expose their shame; where social
rottenness, winked at by the authorities, eats at the heart of a people
who publish and read books condemning the depravity of Paris; who, in a
pharisaical way, talk of the Mabille and the Quartier Breda, and yet in
this very square is the "Royal Alhambra Palace," as it is called in the
huge colored posters; and in the daily advertisements in all of the
morning and evening papers of the metropolis, you may read such notices
as these:
"The Alhambra--This evening at 8 o'clock, 'Pierrot,' the grand ballet,
by Mr. Harry Boleno and troupe.
"The Alhambra--At 9 o'clock, the Christy Minstrels, by Riviere.
"The Alhambra--At 10 o'clock, the magnificent spectacular ballet, 'The
Spirit of the Deep;' 10:15, Pitteri, the graceful and world-renowned
danseuse, in a new grand pas seul; 10:30, 'The Home of the Naiads;'
11:15, grand Spanish ballet, 'Pepita.' 'God Save the Queen' at 11:45.
Prices: Promenade, 1s.; stall and balcony, 2s.; gallery, 6d.; reserved
seats, 4s.; new tier of private boxes, 2 guineas, 31s. 6d., and 21s.
Closes at 12."
It was a rainy, unpleasant night--such a night as is often met with in
London--when I first paid a visit to the Alhambra. The streets were
deserted, and few persons were out of their houses, and those who were
out took to cover in the cabs, which went madly dashing by, or in the
busses, with their advertising signs, that were visible as they passed
a lamp--the horses steaming and sweating, and the passengers inside
grumbling and cursing their luck because of the bad air within and
worse weather without.
[Sidenote: THE ROYAL ALHAMBRA PALACE.]
Nothing in the streets looked pleasant or cheerful, excepting the
windows of the gin-shops with their bright brass and metal pumps, and
the gaudy placards giving a list of the beverages for sale in the
"publics," where men and women of the humbler class were consuming
large quantities of beer and spirits. Passing through the Haymarket,
I went down Coventry street, and in a few minutes stood before the
gorgeous, gilded façade of the Alhambra. The building is about five
stories high, painted of a cream-color, with minarets and gilt vanes
and turrets in imitation of the manner of Owen Jones. The attempt to
copy the Moresco style is rather absurd in the midst of common-place
London. Indeed, it would be hard to find a Court of Lions in the
building, and those who look for that most beautiful feature of the
real Alhambra will go away disappointed. There is, however, a Court of
Female Tigresses in the gallery up stairs which will compensate the
curious for the absence of the Court of Lions. Though the streets were
deserted, a large number of cabs stood at the front of the building and
crowds of people were getting in and getting out of them.
The moon peeped just then from a bank of cloud, its rays breaking over
the disfigured statue in the square, and threw a faint dead glare on
the flaunting women who filled the passage leading to the Alhambra;
the helmeted policemen; the porters in their black caps trimmed with
red bands; the noisy, swearing cabmen disputing about their fares; the
horses champing and biting, and the beggar boys and match-women who
solicited languid swells to purchase their wares. It is the custom
to give a penny to the men or boys who eagerly rush to open the door
of your cab, and should you neglect them, they will follow until by
wearying you they have achieved their object. There was a little hole
in the wall, and a counter or desk, behind which was a sharp-looking
young man, whose face seemed hard and cynical under the glare of the
gas-jet over his head. Handing this man a shilling, I received a huge
circular piece of tin, with a hole and letters punched in its surface.
This was the ticket of admission, which I surrendered at the door to a
big man in a red uniform, who looked like a Life Guardsman, his breast
being all covered with service medals, but for what service I could not
tell, or where performed.
Passing a wooden barrier, I caught a glimpse of lights, a stage, and
legs of ballet-girls--a noise of many voices came by my ears, a number
of young ladies smoking cigarettes opened a way for me to pass, and I
stood inside of the Alhambra. I found myself in the promenade, which
encircled the ground floor of the house, leaving a large space which
was railed in for the wives and families of decent people who wanted to
hear the music and see the dancing and pantomime. To walk in and around
the promenade costs one shilling. To go inside of the railing in the
space--which corresponds with the parquette at Niblo's, only that the
whole floor is level and there is no descent here--will cost another
shilling.
I saw a bar and a bar-maid before I got actually into the place from
whence the stage could be seen; there was a bar and three bar-maids
half-way down the promenade, and there was a bar and two bar-maids down
before me in the alcove leading to the Canteen, with a corresponding
number of bars and bar-maids in the same positions on the other side of
the house.
All these bars had splendid bottles, with various fluids in them,
arranged with an eye to effect, making it look like a vast apothecary's
window, and there were bright brass beer-pumps all in a row, and pewter
and silver and metal pots and tankards, and oval glass frames with
pies, sandwiches, and all kinds of lunches to satisfy the thirst and
appetites of the audience. The promenade was choked with men and women,
walking past each other, looking at the stage, drinking at the bars,
chaffing each other in a rough way, and laughing loudly. Although the
night was stormy without, the revelry was high within.
Perhaps in this audience of three thousand people, who filled the
ground floor and galleries, standing and sitting, and eating and
drinking, there might have been fifteen hundred women, all well, and
many of them fashionably, dressed and gloved. A sergeant of police with
me said:
"If there are 1,500 women here to-night, as I believe there are, you
may be sure that there are 1,200 women of the town among that number,
Sir."
Twelve hundred unfortunate women in one place of amusement--and half a
dozen other places like this, but of an inferior class, are open this
rainy, unpleasant night, with a like complement of wretched females
recklessly passing the hours that intervene before the dens close at
midnight. The crash of sixty pieces of fine music falls on the ear, the
glare, the gas, the tinsel on the stage, the well-dressed, fine-faced
women around cannot shut out my thoughts of the "Legion of the Lost"
who are so merry, so thoughtless, so careless of the morrow--deep in
the fallacies of sin and despair.
[Sidenote: THE SOCIAL EVIL.]
The men who are conversing with these women seem to be of a good class,
and spend a good deal of money in refreshments and liquor upon their
fair, frail acquaintances. These last are not allowed to go inside
of the railing on the ground floor alone, but they do not care for
that privilege, as there is plenty to drink outside and more of the
company of the male gender. Whenever a woman on the stage capers more
vigorously, or flings her leg higher than the others, the applause is
loud, long, and continued, and pewter and metal pots are dented in the
surfaces of the tables that are ranged before each red-cushioned seat.
The comic singers are the favorites of the audience, however, and are
always encored with vociferous enthusiasm. These singers get in a place
like the Alhambra as much as ten pounds a week, as the proprietors
know well the value of their services. The pantomimes are of the very
best kind I ever saw; the dancing is, of its kind, good; the orchestra
excellent and full in numbers, the acrobatic performances very fine,
and the picture at the close of the pantomime is really superb.
Yet with all these excellences combined, if the Alhambra and every
Music-Hall-Hell like it in London were suddenly scorched up by a fire
from Heaven, it would be the most incomparable benefit ever bestowed
upon the English metropolis, and a saving grace to thousands of young
English men and women--both in body and soul.
And the reason for this is that women are allowed admission at the door
on payment of the price, without the escort of a man. Consequently it
is, with the exception of the Argyle, and Holborn Casino, the greatest
place of infamy in all London. It is convenient, in a central location,
and were women not admitted alone the business of the place would break
up. The men under twenty-five years of age, who comprise the largest
part of the male audience, would not come were these Formosas debarred
from admission. The performance--a first-class one--is not heeded. The
chief attraction is the women.
And are these women calculated, by their manner, dress or appearance,
to shock or warn people by their degradation? On the contrary they are
cheerful, pleasant-looking girls, of quite fair breeding, and of a far
better taste in their dress than the honest wives and sweethearts of
the mechanics and shopkeepers, who sit in the place of virtue, within
the painted railing. These women are satisfied with their lot, and do
not repine so long as they have male acquaintances or "friends," as
they call them, to give them champagne, moselle, and late suppers of
game and native oysters in the Café de l'Europe, or at Barnes's in the
Haymarket. Despite the arguments of those who have sought to eradicate
the evil, these women, to any great number, never forsake their calling
for the life of an honest working-woman. They laugh at such an idea,
and will tell you that they could not do without wine, rich food, and
costly dresses, even at the fearful price they have given to obtain
them.
Besides, there is no field open to them, and suspicion follows every
effort for reformation made by the few who have left the life of
prostitution to go to hard work or service. They look down upon
shop-girls and bar-maids with contempt, and many of them keep servants
from the gains of their infamy. Whenever one of these girls happens to
notice a stranger who does not seem to know the place, she will not
hesitate to walk up to him, take his arm, and ask him: "Come, won't you
give me my liquor?"
Many of these women have had no education whatever; still they manage
to conceal the fact as much as possible, while others will tell you
that they came originally from the workhouse, where they were sent as
children, and being thrown on the streets when grown up, had no means
of making a living but that which they were compelled to adopt. I spoke
to one lady-like girl who seemed to be rather abstracted, and asked her
if she were not tired of her present life, and anxious to leave it.
"Tired of my life? You may believe it that I am; but what of that. No
one would take me by the hand after leaving this life. I am not such a
fool as to jump from the frying pan into the fire. I get tight about
twice a week, and then I come here and talk and drink more, and that
serves to pass away the time. My friend is in Paris, and he sends me
money when I want it. My mother is dead and my father is in America. I
don't know where, and I don't care much, for he never bothered himself
about me. Are you going to treat?"
I saw this girl walk up to the bar ten minutes after, pushing her way
through the crowd, and saw her toss off nearly half a pint of raw gin,
or "gin neat," as it is called here, without winking. Such is life.
The detective told me that the girl had been one of the flashiest and
best-dressed women who visited the Alhambra until a few months before,
when she began drinking, and rapidly descended, when she had to pawn
all her jewelry.
[Sidenote: "WOTTEN WOW."]
The songs sung in the Alhambra are not quite as low as those heard in
some of the music-halls, and chiefly derive their short popularity from
the fact that there is a comic vein in each one. Sentimental songs are
not so popular, and do not receive so many encores as the comic ones.
A man came on the stage, dressed in the exaggerated costume of a Pall
Mall lounger, who sang a song, of which the following is a verse, with
a very affected voice and lisp, keeping his body bent in a painful
position the while:
THE BEAU OF WOTTEN WOW.
Now evewy sumwah's day
I always pass my time away;
Arm in arm with fwiends I go,
And stwoll awound sweet Wotten Wow;
For that's the place, none can deny,
To see blooming faces and laughing eye;
And if your hawts with love would glow,
Why, patwonize sweet Wotten Wow.
_Chorus_:
So come young gents and dont be slow,
But stylish dwess and each day go,
And view the beauties to and fwo,
Who dwive and wide wound Wotten Wow.
The chief merit in the singing of this song to the audience--was the
affected lisp and farcical airs of the singer, who did his best to
imitate the swells who lean over the railings in Rotten Row, when that
fashionable drive is crowded with equestrians and foot passengers in
the regular London season. The mob liked the satire on the aristocrats
and relished all the local hits of the speech and the dress of the
ideal do-nothing. Something of a more grotesque nature, and more
broadly funny, which was cheered to the echo, was a nonsensical song
called the "Royal Beast Show," that seemed to please the men and
women in the audience. This song was sung by a man in a blood-red
scarf, a pea-green body coat, and green glass goggles. The costume was
indicative of nothing under heaven or earth that I ever saw before,
but the song was exactly suited to the comprehension of the people, as
their shouts of laughter testified:
THE ROYAL BEAST SHOW.
Come, stand aside, good people all, and hear vot I've got to say,
But let the little dears come hup, wot's going for to pay.
At all the coorts in Europe, we are reckoned quite the go:
Then pay yer sixpences, and see the Royal Wild Beast Show.
_Chorus._
The cammomiles, the crockodiles, and all that you could wish;
The mice and rats, and tabby cats, and other kinds of fish;
A dozen sphinxes hupside down and standing hin a row;
Hits only sixpence heach to see the Royal Wild Beast Show.
The first one is the Kangaroo, you ought to see him jump;
The next one is the Ippopotymus, you ought to see 'is hump;
The third one is the Halligator, and he's such a one to crow,
He wakes hus hevery morning in the Royal Wild Beast Show.
The Donkey in the corner, with the Tiger hon 'is harm,
Comes from Hass-iriya, vere once his father kept a farm;
That Billy-Goat that's dressed in Pink and valking rayther slow,
He's wery _Horn_-imental in a Royal Wild Beast show.
The cammomiles, &c.
After these choice ballads had been sung, there was a ballet in which
about fifty young ladies capered and pranced in a Bower of Angels,
with a lot of dolphins, just like dolphins and angels in their mutual
festivities in the other world: and then the detective who accompanied
me, said:
[Sidenote: IN THE CANTEEN.]
"Would you like to see the Canteen? That's a werry 'igh old game is the
Canteen; sort of priveet like."
[Illustration: CANTEEN OF THE ALHAMBRA.]
The Canteen of the Alhambra is situated on the lower floor of the
building, under the stage, and has a dark entrance through a door
which is supported on swinging hinges. The descent is by a spiral
flight of stone steps, and on going through this door, the stranger
receives the idea that he is going behind the scenes, which is a great
mistake. The proprietors have made the entrance as dark and mysterious
as possible, in order to throw a kind of greenroom air about it, which
captivates simple people, and induces them to spend more money than
they would otherwise. It is, in fact (this Canteen), nothing more than
a subterranean bar-room, where men treat to Champagne wine and Moselle
cup, the ballet-girls who come down, wrapped in travelling-cloaks;
and after each ballet is concluded, flirt, drink, and make eligible
acquaintances. The bar is in the form of a half circle, and two very
largely framed women were behind it this night, serving the customers,
who sit around on wooden benches. The ceiling is supported by rude
posts, and everything is as uncouth as possible; and this gives it an
additional charm to countrymen. They feel that they are doing something
sinful, something indiscreet, which they would not like to have their
wives or relations hear of, and, with the natural perversity of human
nature, it is enjoyable to a corresponding degree. The waiters who
bring the drinks and cigars from the bar, wear black dress-coats and
red plush waist coats.
When I descended to the Canteen, the ballet was still on above us, and
I could hear the tramping of the feet of the dancers as they bounded to
and fro on the stage boards over my head. There were no ballet girls in
the Canteen, but in a few minutes the strains of the dance music died
away and down came the coryphees, trooping by twos and threes, their
faces painted and chalked, and their white slippers and tights peeping
out from the bottoms of the gray waterproof cloaks which they wore.
They took their seats in the room on the wooden benches, and it was
not long until each ballet girl found her male affinity, and of course
the male affinity treated her to whatever the dear creature called
for--however expensive. In such a moment, when these angels in tissue
condescend to talk to mortals, who could think of expense.
There were a number of soldiers in the room, wearing the uniforms of
different regiments, chiefly of the Household troops, with here and
there a line private in buff and blue; a rifleman in dark green, or
an artilleryman, with his gorgeous red facings and trimmings. But the
angels of the ballet never wasted their time on such low people as
common soldiers. Their game was much higher, and if they could not
get a drink from an officer holding her Majesty's commission, they
were content with stray Americans, who have a reputation for reckless
liberality. In fact, Americans rank above par in the Canteen market,
and are received with due honor.
[Sidenote: THE OLD SINNER.]
I saw one old gentleman, fully six feet high, with a venerable face
and white whiskers, evidently of a respectable position in society,
with his arm around the chalked neck of a girl of fifteen, whose light
brown curls fell in masses over her shoulders, and, while he talked
with her, he supplied her quickly-emptied glass with a sparkling wine.
The detective said, in explanation of the scene, to me:
[Illustration: THE OLD SINNER.]
"You see, sir, these gals as is down here in the Canteen only gets ten
to sixteen shillin' a week for their night's work, and that isn't much.
They is only the figurantys, and can't dance a bit; but they gets a bad
fashion from the swells who go behind the scenes a drinkin' champagne
and sich like, and that fashion leads them to wuss nor hannything that
you'll see 'ere. They comes down here and drinks between the balley,
and then goes hup on to the stage and dances again, and comes down
hagain after the next balley, and by the time the Alhambra closes
they are so blessed tight that they are ready for hanythink. I means,
of course, the gals as is innocent yet; but the old hands are werry
knowin' cards, so they is, bless you."
"That little gal as is just now a takin' that gentleman's address is a
werry downy gal, she is. They calls her the 'Daisy,' because she has a
fondness for bokays, and she is hup to all sorts of games. She 'ad some
kind of a heddykation, when she was a little gal, and I thinks she was
a governess or sich like once, and went to the dogs through somebody's
fault; and she writes a beautiful hand, she does, and her little game
is to send letters to strangers who visit London for the first time and
don't know what to do with their money, and full of affekshun and such
gammon--and tells them, in the writin' as 'ow she seed better days and
axes their parding for givin' so much trouble--and 'opes they won't
think the wuss of her for such freedom or liberty; and then she gets a
few pun from the spooney, and she goes on a habsolutely hawful drunk
for a few days and doesn't come to the rehearsal--and when the money is
all spent she writes more letters and 'umbugs some other spoon. Oh, she
_is werry_ deep, is the 'Daisy.'"
The "Tulip," the other young girl, according to the story of the
policeman, was famous for her aptitude in swearing and drinking
"Stout"; otherwise there was nothing of special interest in her
character, and her face, though a pretty one, was strongly marked
with lines of dissipation. By the time that I was ready to leave the
Canteen, having seen all that was worth seeing in the den (for it is
a den, and nothing else) which has been the cause of many a promising
youth's ruin, it was nearly eleven o'clock.
[Sidenote: THE SIX PENNY GALLERY.]
We paid another shilling to go up in the "Gallery," where there is not
the slightest disguise in the conduct of the females who throng the
place. Back of the gallery, in the corridors, where the performance
can be seen over the heads of the men who stand in front, are ranged
a number of bars, and at each end of this place, which forms a kind
of saloon, small tables with marble tops. At these tables a number of
men and women sat and drank and laughed, and told each other anecdotes
more pointed than polished in their application. The clamor and the
smoke made the place unbearable, and the strains of music from the
orchestra, playing Weber's "Last Waltz," filled the vast building with
its circular galleries, that were heaped one upon another, to the
ceiling. Up in the highest gallery of all, where the admittance is
only sixpence, the riff-raff were collected. When a woman goes to the
six-penny gallery in the Alhambra she is indeed lost beyond all hope of
rescue.
I came down disgusted, and on going below stairs to the first tier I
found there a kid glove, fan, and bouquet stand. It is the fashion for
the young men of this pious city of London, who have more money than
brains, when they visit the Alhambra, to buy kid gloves or fans for
the unfortunates who throng the place. Quite a trade is done in this
way, as some of the swells are not satisfied, when intoxicated, unless
they can prevail upon their feminine friends to accept of a slight
trifle of their esteem in the shape of a dozen pairs of fine kids in
a gilt box. The man at the glove stand told me that business in the
season--when people came home from the Continent--was very brisk, and
he said that in one night he had sold as many as nineteen dozen kids to
be presented to the Formosas of the place.
The detective said to me as we went down stairs: "Suppose we go to the
Argyle, in the 'Aymarket, and then finish with the Casino and Barnes's;
they'll be very lively just now, I warrant ye, and the fun grows
furious near midnight." I assented to this proposal, and we took a cab
and went to the Argyle Rooms. The cabby put his tongue in his cheek
when I said "Argyle Rooms," and drove us there. I gave him eighteen
pence, and he desired to know if I didn't want to borrow the price of
admission, because I refused to give him half a crown for a ride of a
thousand feet.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE "ARGYLE," "BARNES'S," AND "CASINO."
IT is a quarter past eleven o'clock and the Haymarket is full of
people--men and women jostling each other, many of both sexes being
intoxicated; and beggars solicit us at every crossing, doffing their
greasy caps and thrusting their dirty paws under our noses in their
persistency. The cafes are overflowing with Gauls from across the
channel, and when the crowds become too thick to leave the sidewalks
passable, the policemen, who are in great numbers here, have to
interfere to quell rows every few minutes. They clear the streets in a
mild, civil way, very different from the manner of the New York police
in like contingencies.
A stranger cannot help being astonished at the vast, almost
incalculable, number of unfortunate women who haunt the London streets
in this quarter as the hour of midnight approaches. There must be a
great rottenness in Denmark where such a state of things can exist, and
exist without any surprise on the part of those who witness such scenes
nightly. I paid a shilling to enter the Argyle Rooms, and received a
tin check, which was given up at the door, as in the Alhambra. The
Argyle has not such high architectural pretensions as the Alhambra, but
the class of visitors are better in the sense of dress and position.
I entered through a side door, and found myself in a carpeted room,
handsomely and tastefully furnished and decorated.
[Sidenote: THE "ARGYLE ROOMS."]
The saloon is nearly as large as Irving Hall, in New York, but lit up
in a splendid manner with handsome chandeliers, which depend from the
lofty ceiling, the gas jets burning in a deep glow through the shining
metal stalactites that ornament the chandeliers. A splendid band of
fifty instruments is stationed in the gallery at the further end of
the room, and the music is of the best kind. The leader is attired in
full evening dress, as is also every fiddler in the band, and the wave
of the chef's baton is as graceful as that of Julien, when he was in
his prime. Women, dressed in costly silks and satins and velvets, the
majority of them wearing rich jewels and gold ornaments, are lounging
on the plush sofas in a free and easy way, conversing with men whose
dress betoken that they are in respectable society. A number of these
are in full evening dress, wearing their overcoats, and a few of them
have come from the clubs, a few from dinner parties, and a greater
number from the theatres or opera.
They are not ashamed to be seen here by their acquaintances--far from
it; they think this is a nice and clever thing to do, and, as no
virtuous woman ever enters this place, there is no danger of meeting
those who own a sisterly or still dearer tie, and who might cause a
blush to redden the cheeks of these charming young men. Across the
lower end of the room an iron railing is stretched, and this keeps the
vulgar herd from mingling with the elite of the abandoned women who
frequent the Argyle. Three-fourths of the ground space is devoted to
dancing, and inside this railing sets are formed at a signal from the
band above.
The charge for admission below, where I stand with the detective
surveying this strange scene, is but a shilling, while the entrance fee
to the gallery is two shillings, and this admits, as I am told by a
servant, to all the privileges of the place whatever they may be. Even
in vice the "horrid spirit of caste" prevails. It is chiefly clerks and
tradesmen who are dancing in the shilling place, and at the end of each
dance, be it waltz or quadrille, the man who has danced is expected
to refresh his partner with a copious draught of beer, or a glass of
plain gin. These women all take their gin without water, and smoke
cigarettes if some one will pay for them. Inside the railing it is
different.
The bars here are furnished with great splendor, and the calls for
champagne are incessant. The women call champagne "fizz," and ale
"swill." All around the room cushioned seats or benches are placed so
that those who have done dancing may rest themselves and drink. There
are liquor counters in every corner of the room, and a good business
is done, the bar-maids being kept actively employed all the time
while the music is playing. Upstairs there is another gallery and a
fine bar, and here the really fast women congregate, to look over the
balconies, but never condescending to mix among the vulgar dancers,
excepting when their reason is gone through intoxication. These women
all carry expensive fans, and their trains are as long as the train of
a Countess in a reception at St. James's. There is a handsomely fitted
up alcove to the right of the bar, and this alcove is ornamented with
panels, on which are painted such pictures as "Europa and the Bull,"
"Leda," "Bacchus and Silenus;" and here are a number of women and men
with Venetian goblets foaming full of champagne before them. Standing
at the entrance to the alcove, is a stout, florid-faced woman, vulgar
in appearance, with incipient moustachios at the corners of her lips.
She is covered with jewelry, and her fingers, fat, red, and unshapely,
glitter with diamonds.
This is the famous "Kate Hamilton," who was at one time the reigning
beauty of her class, and has now degenerated into a vile pander. She
is surrounded by a cluster of girls, and they are all in an animated
discussion with her. The detective introduces me to this famous, or
rather infamous, Messalina, and her first question is, "Will you stand
some 'Sham?'" The next is to make inquiry about a number of New York
politicians and sporting men who have patronized her den, somewhere in
the Haymarket, while doing the foreign tour. She is most business-like
and brief, this fetid old wretch, and has a speaking acquaintance with
every man in the saloon.
[Sidenote: THE HAYMARKET BY NIGHT.]
While we are standing looking at her and her friends, the room
is darkened, the gas being almost extinguished, and a chemical,
light-colored flame irradiates the room like a twilight at sea, and
the entire female population rush below to join in the last, wild,
mad shadow-dance of the night. Around and around they go in each
other's arms, whirling in the dim, uncertain, graveyard light, these
unclean things of the darkness, shouting and shrieking, totally lost
to shame--their gestures wanton as the movements of an Egyptian Almee
and mad as the capers of a dancing dervish. Then the hall is darkened,
the band ceases playing, the waiters finish the remains of the uncorked
champagne bottles, the women dash madly down the carpeted stairs and
into the streets with their male companions, and are whirled away with
the cabs, which wait in long rows before the entrance of the Argyle, to
the purlieus of Pimlico and the sensual shades of St. John's Wood, at
Brompton.
The night has closed, a full English moon floats silently in the
heavens, white snowy powder hangs over our heads like a film of
lace--the clock-tower at Westminster Palace booms out the hour of
midnight over the dark surface of the Thames, and we escape from the
bustle of that vile dancing hall with gladness.
"Now," said my conductor, "let's go down in the Haymarket to Barnes's,
and look at that for a few minutes, and then we will go to the Casino,
in the Holborn, for a finish, if you please, sir."
Down through Coventry street, past the cafés again, which are preparing
to close, and now we are in the Haymarket, one of the worst quarters of
London. This street is wide, beginning at Coventry street and running
down for a distance of about 1,400 feet to the "bottom," ending at the
line where Pall Mall begins. They always say the "bottom" or "top" of a
street in London, never "east" or "west." If there be a place in London
that is deserving of notice, it is the Haymarket. Hundreds of years
ago, the washerwomen of the village of Charing, just below us, and now
one of the great business centres of London, used to bring their dirty
linen here to cleanse it, and then dry it on the green fields in the
Haymarket.
The green fields of the Haymarket have long ago been covered over
with theatres, opera-houses and palatial shops, and now not all the
washerwomen in England could cleanse the immoral sewage that streams
through the Haymarket night after night--through the snows of winter,
the heated nights of July, and August, and the fragrance of May. Here,
at this chemist's door, formerly a tennis court, Charles II., his
brother, the Duke of York, Sedley, Rochester, and the rest of the wild,
reckless lot, used to come to play their favorite game; and here sat
Mistress Gwynne, Portsmouth, Mrs. Hyde, Louise de Queroailles, Frances
Stewart, and other dissolute beauties of the merry monarch's court,
applauding the feats of skill performed by their lovers. In the theatre
formerly standing on the site of the present Haymarket Theatre, and
opposite to Her Majesty's Opera House, with its long, drab colonnades
and dark shops imbedded in the arcades, Foote and glorious Garrick woke
the passions of all who were intellectual and noble in the Addisonian
age of England.
Here was the public house kept by Broughton, the champion of England,
who has been forever immortalized by Hogarth--just off Cockspur street;
and here was his swinging sign-board, having a portrait of himself,
battered and bruised, in a cocked hat and wig, with the legend on the
sign-board--
"Hic Victor Cæstus artemque repono."
Think of a modern prize buffer attempting to quote from the classics.
Cibber wrote a show-bill for Broughton once, which I reproduce, as a
specimen of advertising skill:
"At The New Theatre
"In the Haymarket, on Wednesday. The 29th of This Instant April,
"The Beauty of the Science of Defence will be shown in a Trial of Skill
between the following Masters, viz., Whereas, there was a battle fought
on the 18th of March last, between Mr. Johnson, from Yorkshire, and
Mr. Sherlock, from Ireland, in which engagement they came so near as to
throw each other down. Since that rough battle the said Sherlock has
challenged Johnson to fight him, strapt down to the stage, for twenty
pounds; to which the said Johnson has agreed; and they are to meet at
the time and place above mentioned, and fight in the following manner,
viz., to have their left feet strapt down to the stage, within reach
of each other's right leg; and the most bleeding wounds to decide the
wager. N.B.--The undaunted young James, who is thought the bravest of
his age in the manly art of boxing, fights himself the stout-hearted
George Gray for ten pounds, who values himself for fighting at
Tottenham Court. Attendance to be _given at ten, and the Masters mount
at twelve_. Cudgel-playing and boxing to _divert_ the _gentlemen_ until
the battle begins.
"N.B.--Frenchmen are requested to bring smelling bottles."
Think only of these wigged nobles and their clients, the boxers, in
knee-breeches and wigs, going to a battle, and think of the Frenchmen
who were compelled to bring smelling-bottles to keep their stomachs in
order, and who will not say that even in prize-fighting the Nineteenth
century has brought progress, as in every other scientific matter?
[Sidenote: AT "BARNES'S."]
We are now at Barnes's, a famous night house, or, rather, an infamous
night house, in the Haymarket. When the dancing places and music-halls
of the metropolis close, this door remains open to catch all stray
night birds who can find no other resting place. The place is an
ordinary drinking saloon, with a confectionery and pastry counter, and
the attendants are five or six over-dressed young ladies, all of whom
have their hair dyed of a light color, and are very free and chatty in
their manner. These girls are well supplied with jewelry and lockets.
Their salary is not large enough to furnish them with the trinkets,
as they only get one pound five shillings a week; yet they manage to
dress expensively, and Champagne is so common to their palates that
they have become indifferent to it and it absolutely palls upon them.
Yet there is a percentage on every bottle that is consumed here, and
consequently they do their best to sell Moet & Chandon at ten shillings
a bottle to the customers--and will even drink with them.
[Illustration: IN THE HAYMARKET.]
This is a great place for rump-steaks and native oysters--late at
night, and a good business is done here in those articles of food. The
oysters are small, black, and have a bitter, copperish taste. A New
Yorker, used to Sounds and East Rivers, would leave them in disgust;
but Englishmen, whose throats are parched with the liquors they get
at the Argyle and in the Haymarket, prefer them to the most luscious
Saddle Rocks. There is a large screen in the center of the room, the
bar glitters with costly mirrors, and behind the screen are a number
of small boxes partitioned off, and having red plush seats. In these
are several noisy women, inflamed with liquor, eating and drinking and
hallooing at their male companions. One girl, in a black silk dress,
with her hair hanging down in disorder, is crying drunk at one of the
tables, and has just spilled a bottle of wine over her handsome dress.
She is cursing the waiter, who is also drunk, with much earnestness of
purpose, and as soon as she sees the detective she halloos at him in a
harsh voice:
[Sidenote: THE "HOLBORN CASINO."]
"I say, Bobby, you don't want me, do you?" I 'avent done nothink,
although I wos wonst in Newgate for taking a swell's watch, which he
guv to me for my wedding present, as was just four year ago, come
Micklemas Goose. I wish I could throw meself in the Thames, but I
'aven't got the 'art--
"'Hoh, my 'art is in the 'Ighlands
A follerin the vild roe.
My 'art is in the 'Ighlands,
Wheresomdever I--go--I go."
"Ah! that's a rum customer," said the policeman; "she's fly to
heverythink. Now, hif that gal ain't watched this night, she is jest as
likely to go to London Bridge and throw her blessed body hoff into the
dirty water as not. They always goes to Lunnun Bridge when they want to
make way with themselves--it's so lively like."
"Now," said the policeman, "I would hadvise you to make the finish at
the 'Casino,' in the 'Olborn, afore you go to your hotel, sir, and
then you may say you've seen the best of the bad places of Lunnun. The
Casino is hopen till one o'clock to-night, I think, and we'll just be
in time for the best dance."
We took a cab again, which dashed up Coventry street, through
Cranbourne street, into Long acre, and up Drury Lane, past the old
theatre of that name, and in a few minutes we descended in the wide,
open space of the Holborn, before the entrance of the Casino, the
fashionable dance-house of London. The street was lined with cabs, and
policemen were thick in the vicinity of the entrance, ordering the men
and women just coming out to pass on, and keep the street clear, a duty
which gained for them a great deal of abuse from the intoxicated women,
who did not want to pass on by any means. The entrance to this place is
through a gaudy, gilded vestibule and down a descent of four or five
steps to a spacious marble floor, which was covered with dancers. The
whole interior was gilded, gold leaf and white predominating above all
other colors.
The band, as at the other places of evil resort, was placed in the
farthest end gallery, and was an excellent one. The leader wore white
kids and the musicians white vests, and the crash of the instruments
was almost deafening, filling the large space with a wild and not
unpleasing harmony. Attendants in evening dress were on the floor,
making up sets and soliciting the habitues of the place to dance
with the female partners, which were easily found for them. A high
balcony ran all round the hall, which is 100 feet by 75 in dimension,
and in the corners of the saloon, up and down stairs, were cafés and
refreshment bars, which were crowded with customers. The entrance to
this place is only one shilling, and the class of visitors is of a
superior kind to those who go to any other dance-house in London.
The saloon was really a magnificent one, rich and tasteful in its
decoration, and the women were well and neatly dressed, and very
quiet and well-behaved in their manner. Every woman wore nice gloves,
high-heeled boots, and all of them had the lace frill or ruff now
prevalent in London around their necks. They also wore charms and
lockets and gold watches, and every one was attended by a cavalier. The
men were smoking cigars and flirting, and a number of foreigners were
present and danced incessantly, just as they would at the Mabille or
any Continental garden. In fact, this is the only place in London, with
the exception of Cremorne Gardens, that in any way approaches the mad
gaiety of the Mabille.
Still, there is a certain English decorum observed here, and any girl
who would get drunk or lift her skirts too high would be expelled
instantly by the master of ceremonies, assisted by the policemen who
are to be found scattered all over the place. Some of the girls will
go up and ask for partners to dance with them, and then, if the latter
wish to give them liquor,--well and good, but they will not solicit
it, because these women affect the fashionable lady as much as their
limited resources will allow.
[Sidenote: GOOD NIGHT.]
They are generally the mistresses of men of leisure, and when the
season is at its height a great number of men about town may be
seen here, as spectators, who come from the clubs or the Houses of
Parliament, bored by the ennui of the reading rooms at one place, or
the prosy speeches of members of the other. Some of the men dance with
cigars in their mouths, and whirl around in such a wild manner as to
cause collision with the other couples. Occasionally you will see two
girls waltzing, and men who have sat too long at the dinner-table will,
once in an evening, get up together and dance a "stag dance." But this
is not encouraged by the master of ceremonies, as the dancing of a pair
of male bipeds is not calculated to help the business of the place, and
it is instantly suppressed, amid cheers and laughter.
The music strikes up for the last gallop, and there is a rush
for partners; the balconies and alcoves and luxurious seats and
marble tables are deserted, and in a moment everything is in a wild
hurly-burly and a confusion and uproar; men and women galloping and
bounding and yelling to the right, and to the left, and as the last
crash of the big drum beats on the ear the passages and doorways are
thronged with the dancers, every man crying for a cab to take himself
and partner somewhere, perhaps they care not where--it is no matter;
and now the place is in darkness, and the policemen having seen the
last of the women leave the doorway, begin their patrol duty, which
will last until day breaks and the stars fall from the London sky,
telling them that they are relieved from their night's watch.
The detective shakes hand with and leaves me, he to go eastward to
Temple Bar, and I to bed in a remote quarter of the great Babylon,
whose noises and turmoil are now hushed into silence, excepting where a
solitary street-walker, famishing from hunger, or a drunken pedestrian
bars the way, and makes the night resound with insane shouts.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.
THE best expression of Protestant Ecclesiastical art in England, and
perhaps in the world, is manifested in St. Paul's Cathedral, London. It
is a stupendous temple rather than a church, and the religious effect
is lost in the interior by the number of tombs erected to admirals,
generals, colonels, and other military and naval heroes.
When Nelson ordered the decks of the Victory cleared for action at
Trafalgar, he cried out to his lieutenant, Hardy:
"Now for a peerage or Westminster Abbey."
But Nelson lies in St. Paul's, and the tomb of England's greatest
soldier--Wellington, is quite near his, under the same lofty nave.
All the great Cathedrals and Abbies of England were built before the
Reformation, and, consequently, St. Paul's is the best and truest proof
of Protestant art in England.
[Sidenote: WHEN ERECTED AND THE ARCHITECT.]
The yearly revenues of this Cathedral are £23,422. This does not
include the salaries of the Bishop of London, the Dean of St. Paul's,
four Canons, a Precentor, a Chancellor, Treasurer, Archdeacon of
London, Archdeacon of Middlesex, 29 Canons who do nothing but draw
their salaries, a Divinity Lecturer, a Sub-Dean, 12 Minor Canons,
among whom are a Succentor, Sacrist, Gospeller, Epistolar, Librarian,
Almoner, and Warden, a Commissary, a Registrar and Chapter Clerk, a
Deputy Registrar, a Receiver and Steward, six Vicars, a Choral, and an
Organist; five Bishops' Chaplains, an Examining Chaplain, a Chancellor
of the Diocese, a Secretary to the Bishop of London, and a Registrar
to the Bishop of London at the Cathedral. Altogether about eighty
ecclesiastics who receive salaries from the Cathedral, besides a swarm
of vergers, choristers, and servants of all kinds the salaries of whom
amount to at least £50,000 a year.
[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.]
Sir Christopher Wren was the architect of St. Paul's, and the first
stone of the new Cathedral was laid on the site of the old St.
Paul's (which had been destroyed by fire in 1666), in June 1671, and
thirty-nine years afterward, the last stone was laid at the top of the
lantern in 1710, by the son of Sir Christopher Wren, who had succeeded
his father as the architect.
As St. Peter's at Rome is considered to be the chief temple of Catholic
Christendom, so is St. Paul's entitled to hold the first place in
Protestant Christendom. The whole expense of rebuilding St. Paul's
was £736,752 2s. 3d. for the Cathedral, and £11,202 0s. 6d. for the
stone wall and railings around the Cathedral. The architect received
a beggarly £200 a year during its construction, for his services. The
same architect afterwards designed fifty churches to take the place of
those burnt down in the Great Fire, and they are all standing to-day, I
believe.
The dimensions of St. Paul's as compared with St. Peter's at Rome, are
as follows:
St. Paul's. St. Peter's.
Feet. Feet.
Length within 500 669
Breadth at entrance 100 226
Front without 180 395
Breadth at cross 223 442
Cupola clear 108 139
Cupola and lantern high 330 432
Church high 110 146
Pillars in front 40 91
Superficial area 84,025 227,069
The diameter of the gilt ball is 6 feet 2 inches; the weight 5,600
lbs., and will contain eight persons; the weight of the cross is 3,360
lbs.
The ground on which the present Cathedral stands has, from time
immemorial, been sacred to Divine Worship. There was a Christian church
here as early as the Second century, built, as it is supposed, by the
Romans, which was destroyed during the persecutions of Diocletian, and
again rebuilt, and in the Sixth century it was desecrated by the Pagan
Saxons, who celebrated their Heathenish mysteries in the church.
It was afterwards richly endowed with lordships by Athelstan, Edgar,
Ethelred, Canute, and Edward the Confessor. The Norman barons, when
they came, made a raid on the property of the church as they did upon
everything they saw in England, and the Saxon priests, half frightened
to death by such violence, had their property returned them by Duke
William, who gave it a charter on his coronation day, cursing all those
who should molest the property of St. Paul's, and blessing those who
should augment its revenues.
[Sidenote: DESTRUCTION OF OLD ST. PAUL'S.]
The enumeration of the jewels, and precious stones, and gold and silver
ornaments presented to St. Paul's by its various pious benefactors,
takes up twenty-eight pages of Dugdale's Monasticon.
The dimensions of Old St. Paul's in the year 1315 were:
Feet.
Length 690
Breadth 130
Height of nave 102
Length of nave 150
The height of the gilt ball on the top of the dome, (which was large
enough to hold ten bushels of corn inside) from the ground, was 520
feet and it supported a cross, which made the entire height to the top
of the cross, 534 feet. The area occupied by the edifice of Old St.
Paul's was three and a half acres, one and one-half rood and 6 perches.
The walls of the present Cathedral are 1,500 feet in circuit, and
enclose five-eighths of an acre, or about one-fifth of the space of the
old St. Paul's. In fine, the present Cathedral is in every way inferior
to the old one, and in some places it is very tawdy in decoration,
while the Old St. Paul's was in many respects a finer cathedral than
St. Peter's, and twenty feet deeper.
In 1561 the steeple of Old St. Paul's was burnt down, a few years after
Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne, and it was subsequently decided
to rebuild the Cathedral, and Inigo Jones, a far superior architect
to Wren, was chosen for the task. In 1633, Archbishop Laud laid the
first stone of Inigo Jones's Cathedral, which was destroyed by fire in
1666. In 1643 the building was finished at an expense of £100,000. This
Cathedral was architecturally and in every way superior to that built
afterward by Wren, but was as much inferior to the old Cathedral of the
Middle Ages, which Wren sought to improve upon.
It is believed that modern European Freemasonry was first founded
among the workmen who were employed in rebuilding St. Paul's, from the
fact of a number of the stone masons meeting together during the work
in a social fashion, and from this casual association it is stated
that the Lodge of Antiquity, of which Sir Christopher Wren was Master,
originated, the occasion being the laying of the highest or lantern
stone of the Cathedral in 1710--and it is stated that from this Lodge
of Antiquity all the other Lodges of modern Europe have sprung.
The Cathedral contains monuments to Nelson, who is buried in a wooden
coffin taken from the mainmast of the French Admiral's ship captured at
the battle of the Nile the very same ship in which the boy Casabianca,
the Admiral's son, "stood on the burning deck, whence all but him had
fled." Nelson lies close to Wellington, and other illustrious men. His
coffin is enclosed in a sarcophagus made by order of Cardinal Wolsey
for Henry VIII.
Wellington is buried in the crypt of the Cathedral, in a sarcophagus
made of Cornish porphyry, and near him is his old subordinate, the
Irish Sir Thomas Picton, who commanded the Fighting Fifth Division at
Waterloo. Queen Anne, who used to come to St. Paul's in great state
and procession to thank God for the victories won for her by the Duke
of Marlborough, and whom she afterwards betrayed--has a bronze statue
erected in the pediment of the Cathedral.
Besides these worthies, the tombs of Collingwood, Nelson's friend,
Wren, Rennie, the builder of London Bridge, and Mylne, of Waterloo
Bridge, Dr. Samuel Johnson, who expected to be buried in Westminster
Abbey, and was disappointed, like many others, Sir William Jones, Sir
Astley Cooper, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Turner, the greatest colorist
England has ever produced, Fuseli, Barry, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Opie,
West and other famous painters, John, of Gaunt, Vandyke, Dr. Donne, Sir
C. Hatton, Dean Colet, founder of St. Paul's School, and Sir Nicholas
Bacon are buried in the crypt under St. Faith's--the parish church of
St. Paul's--which is quite contiguous to the latter.
There are monuments to Bishop Heber, Lord Cornwallis, Nelson, Reynolds,
Johnson, Sir John Moore, Elliott, who defended Gibraltar, Lord Howe,
Rodney, Ponsonby, Admiral Dundas, and a large number beside of their
country's defenders in the Cathedral.
[Sidenote: PRICES OF ADMISSION.]
To speak plainly the interior does not look like a church of God at
all. It is simply a huge Pantheon, with monumental effigies, and slabs
indicating the virtues, heroism, gallantry and acts in battle of
innumerable soldiers and sailors who have fought for Britain in times
gone by. The vast Rotunda and the gigantic Dome do not give the idea of
a church, and the pillars and cornices have little in their aspect to
make a spectator feel that he stands in the presence of the Almighty.
Yet the monuments and the vastness of the Cathedral are worthy of
inspection, though the exterior of the Cathedral is far more imposing
than the interior, owing to the fact that the real height of the walls
of the body of the edifice is marked by a double row of pillars, which
are ranged on top of each other, giving to the spectator an impression
that the Cathedral walls to the roof, exclusive of the dome and cupola,
are twice as high as they are in reality.
The following are the charges to see the different places in the
Cathedral:--to the body of the church, 2d.; to the Whispering Gallery
and the outside galleries around the dome, 6d.; to the Library, the
Model Room, the Geometrical Staircase in the south turret, and the
Great Bell, which weighs 12,000 pounds, 1s.; to the Ball at the top,
1s. 6d.; to the clock, 2d., and to the vaults 1s., in all 4s. 4d. from
each visitor; which is nothing less than a downright robbery. This is
playing Barnum with a vengeance.
It was the great bell of St. Paul's which a soldier on the ramparts at
Windsor, twenty miles away, heard striking thirteen strokes one night,
instead of twelve. He was tried for sleeping on his post, found guilty,
and sentenced to death, and would have suffered had it not been for his
stout heart, and his persistent assertion that he heard the bell strike
thirteen instead of twelve strokes. It was proved that the bell did
strike thirteen on the night in question, by the mistake of the ringer,
and thus the soldier was exonerated.
It was for this same bell that Henry VIII. and a dissolute nobleman
named Partridge, rattled the dice one night; and finally Henry lost the
stake. Partridge having won, died in the same year in an unfortunate
manner, just before he had made up his impious mind to have the bell
melted down. This was looked upon as a judgment of God, for in those
days judgments of God were of common occurrence.
The grandest sight ever seen under the dome of St. Paul's was the
funeral of Nelson, which took place January 9, 1806. The body was
brought through the streets from Whitehall Stairs, with the King,
Lord Mayor, the Lords of the Admiralty, the Princes of the Blood, the
nobles, prelates and civic companies following, through densely packed
streets, which were almost impassable, for all England was there in
heart, if not in body. The bands played the "Dead March in Saul" during
the afternoon, and minute guns were fired from the Tower and along
the wharves as the body passed. Hardy, Nelson's post-captain, and
forty-eight sailors, who had seen the hero die, surrounded the corpse,
and when the body was taken from the hearse into the vast Cathedral, a
clear space was formed amid all that great sea of faces by the Highland
soldiers of Abercromby, who had been with Nelson in Egypt and at
Aboukir. Above was the immense dome, and from its dark and impenetrable
depths depended a huge octagonal lantern, encircled by innumerable
lamps.
Then came the words from the lips of the prelate who officiated:
"I am the Resurrection and the Life, and he who believeth in me
though he were dead, yet shall he rise again," the mighty organ
bursting forth--and out of all that vast multitude went forth a great,
tremendous sob as the body was lowered into the grave enshrouded by the
oak which came from the enemies' ship, and Nelson's flag, which he had
borne at his masthead in victory so often was also about to be lowered,
when suddenly the forty-eight sailors of his vessel, some of whom had
carried his lifeless body from the deck to the cockpit--as if moved by
one impulse, closed around the grave, rent the flag in pieces, each man
securing a piece of the sacred emblem upon his person, as a testament
of the greatest hero England ever saw, or ever will see again.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
GOING TO THE PLAY.
THERE can be no doubt but that London is a city much given to
amusement, and I question if there can be found another city which
spends more money and with a better grace, to support music and the
drama.
It is very true that in a great degree the cheap amusement halls of
London are of the very lowest kind to be found anywhere, but then the
reader must understand that the greater number of theatre going and
music-loving people never enter these haunts, which have won so much
infamy among strangers. I refer, of course, to such places as the
Argyle, the Alhambra, Cremorne, the Casino, and other resorts of the
kind.
I think that the Londoners as compared with the Parisians, give a great
deal more money for the amusements which they attend than the Parisians
do for theirs.
Lately the French government has been compelled to build for the
delectation of the Parisians, a splendid opera house, and besides
the cost of this structure, which was two million of dollars, the
government of France pays the following annual subventions or donations
for opera alone: to the Italian Opera 120,000 francs, French Opera
900,000 francs and 250,000 francs to the Opera Comique, beside 200,000
francs annually to the Conservatoire, where music is taught.
In London, however, the support of such places is voluntary, and no
state interference is dreamed of, save that of the Lord Chamberlain
who is a sort of censor, and whose duty is chiefly to see that the
ballet-girls do not abbreviate their skirts too much.
[Illustration: "BEAUTIFUL MISS NEILSON."]
The most popular and lady-like actress in London is Miss Neilson, who
performs at the Lyceum, the Princess's and Queen's Theatres. This young
and charming actress is a favorite with all classes, owing to her
perfect skill as an artiste, and her reputation is without reproach.
She is known as "Beautiful Miss Neilson," and is of medium height,
with dark, languishing eyes, in which the fire of genius burns, with a
steady flame. Miss Kate Bateman, now Mrs. Dr. Crowe, is also a great
favorite with the Londoners, and most deservedly so, for she has not
her equal on the English stage in her distinctive line of characters.
Who that ever saw the last act of "Leah," or the "Prison Scene" in
"Mary Warner," will deny her terrible power as an actress. The English
capital is divided into two camps as to the merits of the rival
comedians--Lawrence, Toole and John Baldwin Buckstone. Alfred Wigan,
and our own "Dundreary Sothern," stand high in the ranks of their
profession, and no English comedian ever met with a more successful
triumph in his own land than that earned by John S. Clarke at the
Strand Theatre in 1869-70. French plays are very well received at the
St. James Theatre--and I had the pleasure of listening to Schneider, in
"Barbe Bleue" and "Orphee aux Enfer," who was supported by Dupuis, the
celebrated tenor. Having visited many theatres in England, I can safely
avow that I never saw an English comedy, or a play dealing with English
characters and English homes, performed in better taste, or with more
fidelity, than I have seen like plays produced at Wallack's Theatre, in
New York City.
[Sidenote: FULL DRESS REQUIRED.]
Nearly all London theatres except the Queen's, in Long Acre, are dark
and gloomy, and in the opera houses, the old style of erecting the
private boxes or loges tier over tier and then hanging them with red
velvet, gives a peculiarly heavy look to the interiors. Besides, prices
for reserved seats are awfully high, and unless a man is the possessor
of a pretty large private fortune, he cannot think of indulging in
opera at all. As a proof of this I will here subjoin the prices at
the Haymarket Opera House or "Her Majesty's," as it is called. The
performances were Italian, German, and French, Grand Opera, and ballet:
Tariff of prices for private boxes: Pit boxes, 150 guineas for
the season; grand tier, 200 guineas; one pair, 150 guineas; two
pair, 100 guineas; orchestra stalls, 25 guineas; pit tickets, 10s.
6d.; amphitheatre stalls, 5s.; gallery, 2s. 6d. Opera on Tuesdays,
Thursdays, and Saturdays, and special extra nights. No extra charge
for booking places. Evening dress to boxes, stalls and pit. Gratuities
to boxkeepers optional. Doors open at eight; performance commences at
half-past eight.
These prices, it will be seen, are simply frightful. Then, unless you
go in the gallery, you must be in full dress swallowtail and white
choker, which is not relished by Americans, and particularly by those
from the back-woods, who are not very familiar with evening dress
coats. Of course the large sums are the subscriptions for a season of
perhaps thirty nights.
At the Covent Garden Opera House, the tariff of prices is as follows:
Private boxes: Second tier, 2-1/2 guineas; first tier, near the stage,
3 guineas; ditto, at the side, 4 guineas; ditto, in the centre, 5
guineas; grand tier, 6 guineas; pit tier, 5 guineas; pit stalls, 21s.;
pit, 7 s.; amphitheatre, 2s. 6d.; amphitheatre stalls, front row,
10s. 6d.; second row 7s.; all other rows, 5s. No extra charge for
booking places. Evening dress to all parts except the amphitheatre and
amphitheatre stalls. No gratuities allowed to boxkeepers. Doors open at
eight; performance commences at half-past eight.
In most of the theatres in London hideous old women or shabby looking
men attend in the lobbies, and wait upon the people who have need for
their services during the night, demanding a fee for every trifling
errand, and in a first-class place of amusement, a boxkeeper would be
insulted if offered less than a shilling for turning a key.
And then there are terrible young blackguards who insist upon the
stranger's buying oranges, walnuts or apples from them, or else he must
take their chaff as it is given.
But the biggest swindle of all is, that a man must pay two pence for
the programme of the play, or three pence or four pence, as the case
may be, and yet I have heard Englishmen tell me with audacity that they
lived in a free country.
And now before I proceed to tell anything of the London theatres, I
will give a table of the prices and the time of opening doors, with the
location of each place of amusement for the benefit of those who may
visit London:
[Sidenote: ASTLEY'S AMPHITHEATRE.]
The Adelphi, 411 Strand; admission, seven o'clock--6s., 5s., 3s., 2s.,
1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.; Astley's, Westminster Road, Lambeth; seven
o'clock--5s., 3s., 2s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.; Britannia, Hoxton Old
Town, will hold 3,400 persons; half-past six o'clock--2s., 1s., 6d.,
and 3d.; City of London, 36 Norton Folgate; seven o'clock--2s., 1s.,
and 6d.; Covent Garden, Bow street; eight o'clock--7s., 5s., 3s., 2s.
6d., 2s., and 1s. It was built in 1849, with Floral Hall adjoining.
Its size, 240 feet by 123 feet, and 100 feet high, equals that of La
Scala, the largest in Europe. Drury Lane, seven o'clock--7s., 5s., 2s.,
1s., and 6d.; Grecian, City Road, seven o'clock--1s., 6d., and 3d.;
Haymarket, seven o'clock--7s. 5s., 3s., 2s., and 1s.; Her Majesty's,
corner of Haymarket, eight o'clock--7s., 5s., 3s., 2s. 6d., 2s.,
and 1s.; Holborn, High Holborn, nearly opposite Chancery Lane, seven
o'clock--6s., 4s., 2s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.; Lyceum, Strand, seven
o'clock--6s., 5s., 3s., 2s., and 1s.; Olympic, Wych street, Drury
Lane, half-past seven o'clock--6s., 4s., 2s., 1s.; Marylebone, Portman
Market, seven o'clock--3s., 2s., 1s., and 6d.; Pavilion, Whitechapel,
half-past six o'clock--2s., 1s., and 6d.; Prince of Wales, Tottenham
Court Road, seven o'clock--6s., 3s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.; Princess's,
Oxford street, seven o'clock--6s., 5s., 4s., 2s., and 1s.; Queen's,
Long Acre, formerly St. Martin's Hall, seven o'clock--6s., 5s., 4s.,
2s. 6d., 2s., and 1s.; Royalty or Soho, Dean street, Oxford street,
half-past seven o'clock--5s., 3s., 1s., and 6d.; Royal Amphitheatre,
High Holborn, west of Red Lion street, seven o'clock--4s., 2s., 1s.
6d., and 1s.; Sadler's Wells, Clerkenwell, seven o'clock--3s., 2s.,
1s., and 6d.; Standard, Shoreditch, half-past six o'clock--3s., 1s.
6d., 1s., 6d., and 3d., burnt down in 1866, is rebuilding; St. James's,
King street, St. James's Square, half-past seven o'clock--4s., 3s.,
2s., and 6d.; Strand, Strand, seven o'clock--5s., 3s., 1s. 6d., and 6.;
Surrey, Blackfriar's Road, seven o'clock--3s., 2s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and
6d.; Victoria, New Cut, Lambeth, half-past six o'clock--1s. 6d., 1s.,
6d., and 3d.
Drury Lane, which was built in 1812, will seat 1,700 persons, and its
vestibule and saloons are as fine as any in Europe. Private boxes in
the London theatres range in price for a single seat at from one guinea
to four pounds, or from $5 to $20 a night. The Olympic seats 2,000; the
Adelphi 1,500; Astley's Circus 4,000, and the gallery of the Victoria
will seat 2,000, while the Pit of the Pavilion, a murderous hole in
Whitechapel, seats 1,500 roughs.
Astley's is a sort of Hippodrome for spectacles, and is much loved
by young London for the prancing of its horses and its grand shows.
Astley's is at Lambeth, on the Surrey side of the Thames, and is in
the heart of the democratic quarter of London. The present building
is the fourth erected upon this site. The first was one of the
nineteen theatres built by Philip Astley, and was opened in 1773,
burnt in 1794; rebuilt 1795, burnt 1803; rebuilt 1804, burnt June 8,
1841, within two hours, the house being principally constructed from
old ship-timber. It was rebuilt, and opened April 17, 1843, and has
since been enlarged. There is only one other theatre in London for
equestrianism; and the stud of trained horses numbers from fifty to
sixty.
Philip Astley, originally a cavalry soldier, commenced horsemanship in
1763, in an open field at Lambeth. He built his first theatre partly
with £60, the produce of an unowned diamond ring which he found on
Westminster Bridge. Andrew Ducrow, subsequently proprietor of the
Amphitheatre, was born at the Nag's Head, Borough, in 1793, when his
father, Peter Ducrow, a native of Bruges, was "the Flemish Hercules"
at Astley's. The fire in 1841 arose from ignited wadding, such as
caused the destruction of the old Globe Theatre in 1613, and Covent
Garden Theatre in 1808. Andrew Ducrow died January 26, 1842, of mental
derangement and paralysis, produced by the above catastrophe.
Covent Garden theatre is the second one built on its site,--it being
a strange fact that nearly all the theatres in London have been burnt
down from time to time. It was here that the "O.P.," or "Old Prices,"
riots took place in 1804, and continued for seventy-seven nights, the
management having made an attempt to raise the prices, but at last they
had to back down before the popular storm. Incledon, Charles Kemble,
Mrs. Glover, George Frederick Cooke, Miss O'Neill, Macready, Farren,
Fanny Kemble, Adelaide Kemble and Edmund Kean have strutted their brief
hours on its stage, but now the house is entirely devoted to opera.
Drury Lane Theatre, or "Old Drury," as it is sometimes known, and was
at one time called the "Wilderness" by Mrs. Siddons, is situated in
one of the lowest quarters of London, where vice, crime, poverty and
drunkenness abound, but still it is frequented by the best classes of
the play-going public. Here, one night in August, 1869, I saw "Formosa"
played to a very full house, the excitement about the Harvard and
Oxford race having culminated about this time. It was then under the
direction of Mr. Dion Boucicault, who has made and lost two or three
fortunes in the management of theatres. All the famous disciples of
the histrionic art who live in English dramatic history, have appeared
during the last two hundred years on the boards of Old Drury.
In 1799 sixteen persons were trodden to death in an alarm which took
place at the Haymarket theatre.
There is a little theatre called the Adelphi, in the Strand, near Cecil
street where I had rooms for some time, and this little dirty theatre,
which has a vestibule like the entrance to a New York lager bier
saloon, has been very much frequented by Her Majesty, Queen Victoria.
This royal lady has some queer tastes, and among them is a fondness for
broad farce or low comedy. She is also fond of the piano, which she
learned from a Mrs. Anderson, and sometimes when she plays she likes
to be accompanied by two or three of the most distinguished violinists
that can be procured. The Queen used to sing, and in the old days,
when the world was new to her and before she had been widowed, it was
the custom at the nice little private parties which she gave, to have
Prince Albert sing with her, while the Hon. Mrs. Grey, wife of her
Secretary (and a lady who had a good deal of work in helping to compose
the Queen's memoirs), performed on the piano.
In every place of amusement in London, be it high or low, there is
a place set apart for the Queen's family, so that should she take a
notion to visit the most out of the way place, she may be certain of
being able to secure a secluded nook or loge where she will not be
intruded upon.
[Sidenote: A GIN PUBLIC IN THE NEW CUT.]
In the vicinity of all the theatres of the lower grade in and about
London, I found nests of cheap public houses or drinking bars, and
toward nine or ten o'clock, while the performances are at the height of
dramatic agony, these resorts are crowded, with persons of both sexes,
who have slipped out of the amusement halls to get a pint of beer or
"tuppence" worth of "gin neat." Gin "neat" is gin without water or
sugar, and this drink is very popular among women of the lowest class
in London.
[Illustration: A GIN PUBLIC IN THE NEW CUT.]
In Waterloo Road, close upon the Victoria theatre, I saw one of
these "gin publics," the doors of which were choked with customers
passing in and out from the adjoining theatre. There were negroes,
Malays and Chinamen, with an overflowing majority of Cockneys, in the
"public," all of whom were busily engaged in assuaging their thirst,
or firing up their stomach furnaces. Not a little puzzled was I, to
see women with small children in their arms, drinking alongside of
sooty coal-bargemen--negroes, and young children, who had been driven
by their miserable parents to beg coppers wherewith to procure them
gin. It was a dreadful scene to witness, and the smiling fiend behind
the bar was positively fat and enjoying the haggardness in some of his
customers' faces.
[Sidenote: IN THE GALLERY OF THE "VIC."]
I had been told that there was a theatre on the Surrey side of the
river, in which, if I visited it, I might find all the unwashed
elements of the London democracy at home, and one evening I found
myself before its door, after a long journey.
This was the "Royal Victoria Theatre," New Cut, Lambeth. The Bowery, in
its palmiest and most glorious days, could not hold a candle to this
histrionic temple. Its tragedies and dramas of the highway robber and
George Barnewell apprentice school are not, perhaps, to be equaled in
any theatre in the world. The Porte St. Martin, in Paris, is a mere
training-school of horror compared with this, the most bloodthirsty of
places of amusement. There were two entrances--one for the aristocracy
of Lambeth, the other for the underfed plough-holders, or, rather,
for the Costermongers. The aristocratic entrance had a dark, dirty
box-office, illumined by a pair of gas-jets that could hardly find air
to flutter in, so strong was the stench of men and filthy materialism.
Over the door of the box-office was a sign, "Pit, 6d.; gallery, 3d.;
private stage boxes, 2s." The crowds pushed hard and fast to get an
entrance. They came in swarms of fustian and corduroys, with unkempt
hair, the bosoms of some of the costerwomen almost laid bare with
the shoving and crushing; the lads and men wearing heavy hob-nailed
shoes, such shoes as are never seen in America excepting on the feet
of emigrants, who stream through the gates of Castle Garden from the
waste of Atlantic waters--and these heavy hob-nailed shoes did wonders
in hurrying the progress of the front ranks, by repeated applications
to the calves and ankles of those who had the good or bad luck to stand
nearest the door of the theatre.
After a severe struggle, in which some greasy corduroys are ripped and
several caps lost, and a number of babies squeezed--who are in the
arms of girls hardly old enough, one would think, to be their lawful
mothers--we get clear of the mob, shouting, screaming, and whistling,
and pass up the dirty, rickety stairs to the three-penny Gallery of
the "Vic," as the theatre is called by the class who frequent it; and
now a sight presents itself to the writer such as is seldom seen, and
never in any city but London.
[Illustration: THE GALLERY OF THE "VIC."]
I lost my hat on the stairs, and in the crush I discovered it in the
hands of a mutinous boy, about a dozen steps below me, who threatened
if I did not give him a sixpence "to kick the brains hout hof hit." I
give the truly amusing boy sixpence and the hat is flung up to me much
the worse for wear, while a young girl with a dowdy bonnet and a face
swelled with gin asks me in chaff if I am fond of "periwinkles."
The gallery of the Victoria is one of the largest in the world, and
will hold, on a modest computation, 2,200 people.
[Sidenote: THE CHORUS OF "IMMENSEKOFF."]
Five minutes after I found myself in the gallery; it was crowded and
not a seat could be had, for these people gather at the theatre doors,
and fill the surrounding streets and lanes for an hour before the place
is advertised to be open.
As I have no seat and look rather out of place, several cheerful young
ladies offer to let me sit in their laps, and facetious remarks are
made on the different articles of apparel which I have on me. Being
a very warm evening, nearly all of the males, men and boys, are in
their shirt-sleeves, and it grieves one to think that many of these
shirts are sadly in need of washing, and not a few want repairing. The
boys and men are hardly seated when they fall into something like the
Old Bowery tramp--only that here they all seem to be acquainted with
the same slang song, and it is sung by them in a loud, full, and not
unmelodious chorus, with a vehemence that shakes the old timbers of the
house.
In the well-ordered pit of the Bowery theatre in other days, if I
remember right, such truly scandalous conduct would have instantly been
suppressed by the strong arm and heavy stinging cane of the brawny
fellow who stood with his back to the stage, immediately behind the
orchestra; his watchful eyes surveying every rugged face in the pit,
and ready with his powerful arm to rain blows like a storm on the
shoulders of the brawler.
I should like to see a man with a brawny arm and cane try the same
thing on the audience in the gallery of the "Vic." I am sure he
would be thrown over the rail into the lower part of the theatre,
particularly if he were to interrupt a chorus. Many of the men and
lads, who have their entire week's earnings in their pockets, are
very drunk already, though it is only half-past seven o'clock of the
Saturday night. The chorus which they are singing is that of a popular
street and music-hall song, which every one is now humming in London.
They sung it as follows:
"Ha! my dear frens, pray 'ow de doo,
Hi 'opes I sees yer well,
Peer'aps yer don't know 'oo I is;
Well, then, I'm the Heastern swell.
My chambers is in Shoreditch,
And I fancy I'm a Toff;
From top to toe I _really_ think
I looks--Immensekoff.
Immensekoff--Immensekoff,
Behold me a Shoreditch Toff--
A toff, a toff, a Shoreditch Toff,
Hand I thinks myself--Immensekoff."
"Come hup there, ye lazy fiddlers, and give us our thrip-pence worth,"
shouts an irate lad to the orchestra, who are scraping and rosining
their instruments.
"Yes, give us moosic for our money, old bald head," shouts another
young ruffian to the despised leader of the orchestra, who responds
with a wave, and then we have "God Save the Queen," done after the
style popular in the New Cut.
When this is over a red-headed fellow, with his arms bare and
perspiring like the lower animal that he is, cries out loudly, "Now
for the next varse, and give us a good chorious," and then they all
commence again:
"Vith the fair sec', bless 'em, need I say--
That hi am 'number Von;'
Hits _really_ quite a bore to me
The way the gals do run--
Not away from me--but hafter me.
Hah--you may laugh and scoff,
But I can tell yer--that the gals
Think me--Immensekoff.
Immensekoff--Immensekoff."
And so on for five mortal verses the whole mad swarm of dirty, ignorant
wretches, keeping time with hands and feet until my head ached, and
I went down the narrow stairs, while a number of polite young ladies
inquired as I passed, "if I had been sea-sick." The descent to the
lower part of the theatre was about forty-feet, down a dimly lighted
stairs, and I found myself in the family circle, as it would be called
in America, the seats being of planed planks without cushions, while
the aisles were crowded with people, as above in the three-penny
gallery.
[Sidenote: THE "TERROR OF LONDON."]
Here the admission was, I think, a shilling, and the audience was a
little more select, yet not enough to cause remark from a stranger.
The doorkeeper told me he could get me a seat in a private box on the
stage for two shillings, and I followed him through another dirty, dark
passage, my feet crushing the shells of walnuts and filberts, which
here take the place of the old time peanuts.
I was solicited to buy sandwiches of a very ancient aspect by several
men, and pigs' feet and sheep's trotters by a number of women, at a
penny and "tuppence" apiece; and a boy with a large flat basket offered
me a pint of periwinkles for "three ha'pence," "all fresh, sir;" and
finally I got into the box on the stage, which gave me a very good view
of the entire theatre and its sweltering audience. Pit, circle, and
"three-penny" gallery were packed with human heads, tier upon tier, in
a manner that seemed to defy description.
The walls were rough, and in some places but poorly papered, and in
the corners of the upper gallery, flirtation, small-talk, and chaff
went on so audibly that I could hear almost what was spoken, or rather
cried out from the gallery, although I was at the other extremity of
the building. Great anxiety was manifested to have the curtain hoisted
by the unruly audience, and not a little shouting was done to make the
fiddlers hurry up their overture.
The piece was called the "Terror of London," and it depicted the life
of an apprentice who had departed from the ways of honesty to take up
with bad companions in pot-houses, and was in four acts. The apprentice
was of course the hero of the drama, and the author of the piece
played the character of the abused apprentice. Whenever the apprentice
kicked a policeman or threw one of his pursuers down a dark trap-door,
there was great applause of his dexterity; but when the villain of the
piece, a snaky-looking wretch, unworthy to breathe the "a-i-r-r-r of
heving," slapped his hands after the commission of a fresh crime, he
was received with derisive shouts and yells, which he, however, took as
compliments to his histrionic skill.
The heroine of the piece was in love with the unfortunate and
dissipated apprentice, and did nothing but clasp her hands and tear her
hair at his "goings on." But at last she was roused to fury when the
villain of the play followed the dishonest apprentice to his mother's
grave to give him up to the police. The apprentice was discovered lying
across a painted marble tombstone, and when the police entered, led on
by the heavy villain, the heroine threw her body between him and his
enemies, and drawing her form to its full height, she declaimed thus:
"The fust m-a-n who places his polyuted touch on the form of my nobil
up-e-r-en-tis, though he were doubly armed with the king's authority,
shall find his fate on the point of this pon-yard."
After this necessary outburst several more people were killed, and the
whole concluded with the dying scene at Tyburn, the gallows, and the
culprit, the bowl of ale, and the apprentice asking his friends if they
would not prevent him from dying a disgraceful death. Here he makes an
attempt to escape, and is pistoled admirably by the villain, who is
convenient, and who is in turn pistoled by the apprentice's sweetheart,
she being also ready at the proper moment for action. Then the curtain
went down, and a stout girl, with fat legs and a green pair of tights,
danced a hornpipe, which was loudly encored, the young lady being
encouraged by such remarks as:
"Do you want some kidney pies?"
"Kick up, Miss Jenny."
"Don't mind the shoes; we pays for that."
"Tell the fiddlers to give it to yer 'otter--vy, yer not dancing at
all!"
[Sidenote: "DO YOU WANT SOME KIDNEY PIES?"]
Every one in the theatre seemed to be on speaking terms with each
and all of the performers, and, in some instances, the latter would
answer the chaff back merrily, an incessant fire of replies and
counter-replies being kept up that was amusing, if not edifying. While
the dancing was going on an old woman made her entrance into the box
where I was sitting, and asked if "I didn't want some porter or kidney
pies." At the "Vic" it is the custom to eat during the performance, and
drink porter or beer, which is brought by old women and boys between
the acts, and sold at four-pence a bottle. Then the dancing girl
retired gracefully amid great applause. She was succeeded by a comic
singer, who sang, in a green coat and kerseys, a song, the burden of
which was:
"Wait for the turn of the tide, boys,
For Rome wasn't built in a day:
Whatever through life may betide, boys,
Why, wait for the turn of the tide."
This concluded the performance, and the curtain went down, and the
lights in the dirty lamps being extinguished, the roughest audience of
the roughest play-house in London wandered right and left, up and down
the New Cut to their homes, or else they stopped to drink and drain in
the pot-houses, or choke the thoroughfare to buy in the street market,
which was now--eleven o'clock--at the height of commercial prosperity.
Eleven o'clock tolled from St. Paul's as I repassed Waterloo Bridge
back to the city, and the Thames swam and bubbled calmly against the
stone piers of the massive bridge.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXXV.
BILLINGSGATE FISH MARKET.
WHEN a foot passenger crossing London Bridge looks down the river to
the left, he cannot help noticing a little cluster of masts tapering
upward from a series of small hulks and craft which lie quite near to
each other, in the shadow of a long building of part brick and stone,
the river side of which is open and crowded with people of both sexes
from an early hour of the morning.
This is the famous Billingsgate Fish Market, which has given or
originated a synonym for blackguardism and low abuse all the world over.
The market for many years consisted of a collection of wooden pent
houses, rude sheds, and benches, and the business formerly commenced
at three o'clock in the summer and at five in winter. In the latter
season it was a strange scene, its large, flaming lamps of oil, showing
a crowd of fish venders and fish buyers struggling amid a Babel din of
vulgar tongues, which has rendered Billingsgate a by-word for abuse
and foul-mouthed language. Addison has referred to the Billingsgate
fish-wives and to their quarrels as "the debates which frequently arise
among ladies of the British fishery."
[Sidenote: PROFIT ON FISH.]
The old style Billingsgate fish-woman wore a strong, stiff gown tucked
up, with a large quilted petticoat; her hair, cap and bonnet flattened
into a mass from carrying fish baskets upon her head; her coarse
cracked voice, her bloated face and her large brawny limbs completing
the picture of the old Billingsgate "fish fag."
This virago has disappeared and a new market building was erected in
1849. A stone river-wall was constructed where an old mud bank formerly
existed and the surface was filled in and levelled to equalize the
grade in Thames street on which the market has its frontage. Within,
the ground was excavated and formed into a lower market, which has
two subterranean openings on the river, for the sale of shell-fish,
oysters, muscles, prawns, periwinkles, and whelks. These shell-fish are
kept in large half puncheons bound with iron hoops. The market has a
superficial area of 2,700 feet, but the drainage in the lower market
is very bad as it is below the level of the river. The upper market is
open to the public through two large arched apertures, 400 feet wide,
and below it is bounded by eighteen dark arches which are used by the
salesmen as depositories for their goods. These arches are entirely
without ventilation and even the market itself, thronged as it is for
twelve hours of the day, receives no air but that which comes in a
chance way from the already vitiated atmosphere of the neighborhood.
The market is covered on the side next to London Bridge by a roof of
rough glass. The light iron columns which serve to support the roof,
also serve to divide the market into a series of narrow gangways, and
within these gangways the dealers take their stand to vend and auction
the fish every morning, book and pencil in hand, and their aprons
hanging from their chests to their knees. There is a clock tower on
the building and a bell which is rung at five o'clock every morning to
announce the opening of the market, and then is witnessed a general
rush like the retreat of an army. The railways alone carry to this
market annually, 15,000 tons of fish, besides the amount which is
brought by water.
Five hundred years ago this market produced a rental of forty-six
pounds per annum; to-day there is a firm which has a small stall whose
profits on fish amount to £10,000 a year, and the good-will of one
fish merchant in the market, I believe, was purchased last year for
the large sum of £30,000. About the same time that the market rental
was forty-six pounds a year, the best soles sold for three pence per
dozen, the best turbot for six pence each, the best mackerel one penny
each, the best pickled herrings one penny the score; fresh oysters
two pennies a gallon, and the best eels two pennies per quarter of a
hundred. William Wallace, the Scottish hero, was then a prisoner in the
Tower, and Bannockburn had not been won by Bruce, and the ink on the
Magna Charta was hardly dry.
In 1548, although the king of England was a Protestant, and the
government a Protestant one, yet an act was passed which imposed a
penalty on those who ate flesh on fish days. This was to protect the
trade in the fisheries, however, and not to interfere with the private
religious opinions of the people. The consumption of fish in the
household of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, in the year 1314, was 6,800
stock fish, consisting of ling, haberdine, &c., besides six barrels of
sturgeon, the whole valued at £60 of the money of that period.
It is four o'clock of a summer morning at Billingsgate market and all
London is as yet solitary, and the streets are unpeopled by traffic
or pedestrians. The sight from London Bridge is magnificent on such a
morning. In the words of the poet who looked upon this same scene:
"This city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie,
Open unto the fields and to the sky
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at its own sweet will;
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep,
And all that mighty heart is still."
Riot, profligacy, want and misery have retired, and labor has scarcely
risen. As we approach Billingsgate, the profound silence of the dawn is
now and then broken by the wheels of the fishmonger's light cart, which
is proceeding to the market.
[Illustration: AN AUCTION AT BILLINGSGATE FISH MARKET.]
The whole area of the market, brilliantly lighted with streaming
flames of gas, comes into view. One might fancy that the stalls were
dressed for a feast. The tables of the salesmen, which are arranged
from one side of the covered area to the other, afford ample space
for clustering throngs of buyers around each. The stalls appear to
form one table, but the portion assigned to each is nine feet by six.
Each salesman sits with his back to another, and between them is a
wooden shelf, so that they are apparently enclosed in a recess, but
by this arrangement they escape having their pockets picked, a common
occurrence where there is a large crowd. There are about 200 fish
salesmen in London and half of that number have stalls in this market
for which a pretty good rent is paid.
Proceeding to the bottom of the market, we perceive the masts of the
fishing boats rising out of the fog which envelopes the river. The
boats lie considerably below the level of the market, and the descent
is by several ladders to a floating wharf, which rises and falls with
the tide, and is therefore always on the same level with the boats.
About fifty of these craft are moored alongside of each other.
[Sidenote: THE OYSTER BOATS.]
The oyster boats are crowded together by themselves. The buyer goes on
board the oyster boat, as oysters are not sold in the ordinary, morning
market. The fishermen and porters are busily engaged in arranging their
cargoes for quick delivery as soon as the market begins. Two or three
minutes before five the salesmen take their seats in the enclosed
recesses, watching each other eagerly. The porters with their dirty
canvass aprons and their huge scooped hats stand ready with their
baskets on their heads, but not one of them is allowed, however, to
have the advantage of his fellows by an unfair start, or to overstep
a line marked out by the clerk of the market. The instant the clock
strikes the melee commences and then woe to the bystander who blocks up
the way--he is knocked down and trampled on, and fish of all sizes are
spilled over his prostrate body, while his eyes, hands, limbs and other
members, are blessed with great fervor by the porters.
Each porter now rushes at his utmost speed to the respective salesman
to whom his basket is consigned. The largest codfish are brought in
baskets which contain four; those somewhat smaller are brought in
boxes; and smaller sizes in dozens, and still larger numbers, but
always in baskets. All fish are sold by the "tail," or by number
excepting salmon, which are sold by weight, and oysters and shell-fish
by measure. The baskets are instantly emptied on the tables, and the
porters hasten for a fresh supply. It is the fisherman's interest to
bring his whole cargo into the market as soon as possible, for if the
quantity brought to market be large, prices will fall the more quickly,
and if they are high, buyers purchase less freely, and he may miss the
sale. As, for example, a boat load of mackerel from Brighton sold at
Billingsgate for forty guineas per hundred, or seven shillings each,
an extraordinary price--while the next boat load produced but thirteen
guineas per hundred.
The majority of the fishing vessels are sloops and schooners under
fifty tons each, and of this number the greater part belong to ports on
the coast as follows:
Yarmouth 630
Faversham 416
Brighton 60
Dartmouth 357
Southampton 193
Maldon 218
Rochester 363
Colchester 318
Dover 180
Rye 80
Ramsgate 170
Salmon is conveyed by rail in large boxes, covered with pounded ice,
which preserves them fresh for six days, and sometimes in the summer
months as many as 3,000 boxes of salmon are received at Billingsgate
in a day. The salmon are sent to agents to be sold on commission at
a profit of five to ten per cent., the agent taking the risk of bad
debts, and the price varies from fivepence to a shilling a pound,
according to the supply in market.
[Sidenote: BREAKFAST AT BILLINGSGATE.]
The best time to see Billingsgate is of a Friday morning between six
and seven o'clock. The regular fish merchants come first and are served
first, and then their places are taken by the Costermongers, or street
pedlars, who buy the refuse, or what is left. Lower Thames street,
above and below London Bridge, is sure to be crammed full of fish carts
and fish porters running hither and thither with baskets of fish upon
their shoulders, and it is noticeable that the lower part of every
building is open and the spaces filled with fish of all kinds, chiefly
smoked and preserved fish, which are exposed in large baskets and boxes
for sale. The proprietors of these places, some of whom do business in
salted and smoked fish with every part of the civilized globe, stand
at the doors of their wholesale shops with large aprons upon them,
although their bank accounts may amount to scores of thousands of
pounds.
Up Fish street as far as the monument are long lines of carts waiting
for fish, drawn by asses and horses, and around the monument may be
seen a perfect circle of carts guarded by ragged boys, some of whom
contract to take care of a dozen carts at a time for a penny a cart,
while the Costers are purchasing the fish.
Formerly the consumption of spirits here among the buyers of fish was
very great, but now at a very early hour in the morning a hot cup of
coffee with a slice of bread and butter can be procured at any of the
numerous coffee stalls for twopence-halfpenny.
The men and women are shouting and hallooing at each other as if they
were mad. Old gentlemen who have a good appetite and come here to make
a market for their families, are very often seen to enter the tavern
called the "Three Tuns," which is in the market enclosure, and at which
a fish dinner or fish breakfast of three dishes can be procured for
eighteen pence. It is very puzzling at first to understand the cries,
which come hard and fast from the mouths of salesmen and hucksters,
costers and pedlars of newspapers, frequenters of coffee stands, and
other trades people.
"Now, you mussel buyers," shouts one, "come along--come along--now's
your time for fine, fat, greasy, mussels."
"All alive! al-ive oh--alive oh! Han-some cod! best in the market. All
alive oh!"
"Y-e-o--y-e-o! Y-e-o--here's your fine Yarmouth Bloaters! Who's the
buyer?"
"Here you are, guv'-ner; splendid whiting! some of the right sort."
"M-o-rning _T-e-l-e-graph_, one penny. _Standard_ and _Times_."
"Turbot! all alive--turbot."
"Glass o' nice peppermint! this cold morning--ha'penny a glass!"
"Here you are at yer hown price! Fine soles, Oh!"
"W-oy, w-o-y! Now's your time--preguzzling sprouts--all large and no
small 'uns."
"H-u-l-l-o, h-u-l-l-o, here, I say--bewteeful lobsters--good and
cheap--fine cock crabs, all alive, hoh."
"Never mind 'im, guvner; he'll cheat yer; look at this 'ere
turbot--have that lot for a pound--come and see--now don't go away,
guvner--the're preshis cheap, and filling at the price."
"Had-had-had-had-haddick--all fresh and good."
"Here, this way--this way for splendid Skate--Skate O--Skate O."
"Currant and meat puddin's, a penny each and werry 'ot." "Here's food
for the belly and clothes for the back, but I sell food for the mind"
(shouts the newspaper vender). "Here's smelt O!" "Here ye are, fine
Finney haddick!" "Hot soup! nice pea soup! a-all hot! hot! Ahoy! ahoy
here! live plaice! all alive O! Now or never! whelk! whelk! whelk!
whelk! Who'll buy brill O! brill O! Capes! waterproof capes! sure to
keep the wet out! a shilling a piece! Eels O! eels O! Alive! alive
O!" "Fine flounders, a shilling a lot! Who'll buy this prime lot of
flounders? Shrimps! shrimps! fine shrimps! Wink! wink! wink! Hi! hi-i!
here you are, just eight eels left, only eight! O ho! O ho! this
way--this way--this way! Fish alive! alive! alive O!"
[Sidenote: THE CAPITAL INVESTED.]
"Fresh do you call these?" says one who finds the price of a lot of
sprats too high for him. "Look a-how they rolls hup the vites of their
heyes, as hif they vanted a little rain. I should say they hadn't a
blessed smell of water for a week past."
"Think I've been a robbin' of somebody?" says another. "Vy, bless you,
all the whole bilin' of my customers hasn't got so much among 'em as
would buy the lot--no, not if they sold their veskits."
As many as two thousand persons breakfast at the coffee houses in the
neighborhood of Billingsgate every morning, all of whom are engaged in
the fish business.
The following estimate has been made of the gross amount of fish of
different kinds, sold at Billingsgate market in the course of the year:
Salmon 750,000
Live Codfish 600,000
Haddock 3,000,000
Flounders 420,000
Eels 12,000,000
Yarmouth Bloaters 200,000,000
Red Herrings 75,000,000
Sprats 1,200,000,000
Crabs 1,000,000
Oysters 500,000,000
Periwinkles 400,000,000
Whiting 60,000,000
Mackerel 30,000,000
Shrimps 600,000,000
Soles 120,000,000
Lobsters 2,500,000
The capital embarked in this trade is something enormous to think of.
Salmon when scarce, have sold for twenty shillings a pound. The market
is the property of the Municipality of London associated with the
Company of Fishmongers, one of the most powerful and wealthy corporate
societies in London. Fifty per cent. of the gross amount of fish
received at Billingsgate market is purchased by the Costermongers and
sold from carts in the streets, at a small profit to the pedlars.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE INNS OF COURT.
THEREe are four Inns of Court in London and thirteen Inns of Chancery.
The Inns of Court are the Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln's Inn,
and Gray's Inn. The Inns of Chancery are Barnard's Inn, Holborn;
Clement's Inn, Strand; Clifford's Inn, Fleet street; Furnival's Inn,
between Brook street and Leather lane; Lyon's Inn, Strand; New Inn,
Wych street; Sergeant's Inn, Chancery lane; Staple Inn, Holborn;
Sergeant's Inn, Fleet street; Symond's Inn, Chancery Inn, and Thavie's
Inn, 56 and 57 Holborn Hill.
These Inns of Court and Chancery are large boarding-houses or hotels;
and in the middle ages, they were called "inns" or "hostels," where
students in law and Chancery were taught the legal science and ate
their meals while living as students at a common table as in college.
This is called "dining in hall," and certain rules and regulations are
prescribed so that the aspiring student may not expect to have the
license of the American boarding-house, being in fact in a state of
pupilage as was intended by the founders of the splendid (for I cannot
use any other term) Inns of Court.
In the old days of the York and Lancaster factions, the Sergeants and
"apprentices at law," as the students were called, each had their
pillars in Old St. Paul's, and at the foot of the pillar the student,
half kneeling, heard his client's case and jotted down the points on
his tablet.
[Sidenote: GRAY'S INN GARDENS.]
The four Inns of Court were frequented by sons of wealthy commoners and
the nobility, while the Inns of Chancery had for pupils and boarders,
the sons of merchants and tradesmen, who had not the means of paying
the expenses of the Inns of Court which amounted to twenty marks,
annually, a large sum in those days.
About 8,000 students attend the Inns of Court and Chancery in London,
and it is a very strange sight to see the dark chambers in some of
these ancient Inns with their old fashioned, mediæval architecture,
parapets, gate-ways, unillumined windows, courts, and passages, amidst
one of the very busiest spots in London.
Go inside of one of these courts and you shall no longer hear the
sullen roar of the city, or the clatter of the omnibusses, nor the
incessant and deafening din of hawkers and street pedlars. A monastic
silence reigns, and in the grass-grown square of Lincoln's Inn, all
is silent as the grave, and in the dim passages of Clifford's and
Clement's Inns, it is very difficult to believe that the densely-packed
Strand and thronged Fleet street are so near.
During Elizabeth's reign, alms were distributed twice a week at the
gate of Gray's Inn, and James I. signified that none but gentlemen of
descent and blood should be admitted to matriculate. The "Reader," a
lazy official of Gray's had a liberal allowance of wine and venison
for which sixpence and eightpence were paid per mess, and eggs and
green sauce were breakfast dishes on Lenten day. Beer was then only
six shillings a barrel. Caps were worn at supper by order, and hats
and boots and spurs, and standing with the back to the fire in the
hall were forbidden the students under penalty. Dice and cards were
only allowed at Christmas. Two students slept in a bed and Coke and
Littleton are said to have been at one time bed-fellows.
Gray's Inn Gardens was one of the most pleasant places in London in
the old days long agone, and during the reign of Charles I., it was
frequented as a place of assignation. The principal entrance to Gray's
Inn is from Holborn by a gateway, a fine specimen of brick-work of
1542. The hall of Lincoln's Inn has an open oak roof, divided into
seven bays by gothic arched ribs, the spandrils and pendants richly
carved; in the centre is an open louvre, which is pinnacled externally.
The interior is richly wainscoted, decorated with Tuscan columns, and
the windows are of stained glass, gorgeously emblazoned. The library 80
feet long, 40 feet wide, and 44 feet high has an open oak roof, with
separate apartments for study, and iron balconies running around the
book-cases. There are in this apartment five stained glass windows, and
a collection of valuable law books and MSS. to the number of 25,000.
[Illustration: LINCOLN'S INN.]
On either side of the dais of the dining hall beneath the lofty oriel
window in Lincoln's Inn, is a sideboard for the upper or "benchers"
table who are the high authorities of the place; the other tables are
arranged in graduation, two crosswise and five along the hall for
the barristers and students who dine here every day during term; the
average number is 200; and of those who dine on one day or another
during the term "keeping commons," there are about 500 students.
[Sidenote: LINCOLN'S INN.]
The new hall of Lincoln's Inn, just completed and equal to anything in
England, is situated on the site of the old hall, between Middle Temple
Cloister and Crown Office-row. It is of the Perpendicular Gothic style,
faced externally with Portland stone and internally with Bath. The
building projects towards the gardens 14 feet more than the old hall,
which measured 70 feet by 29 feet; the new hall being 93 feet by 41
feet. Its floor above the pavement-level, and the basement is occupied
by the various offices required for the officials. In rebuilding
their hall, the "Benchers" have availed themselves of the opportunity
to extend and improve the domestic offices; to provide commodious
robing-rooms, and lavatories for the use of members and of students and
to obtain better clerks' offices.
New offices have also been built for the treasurer, and the Parliament
Chamber has been increased in size. The interior of the hall is
panelled, to the height of nine feet, with a very handsome wainscot
dado; the panels with cinquefoil cusp heads, surmounted by an embattled
cornice--a magnificent specimen of joiner's work. The Parliament
Chamber, attached to the hall eastward, has been considerably altered
and improved--this is what may be called the drawing-room attached
to the hall, where the "Benchers" retire for dessert. The kitchen
is attached at the west end, and fitted up with the latest modern
appliances. The hall is to be heated with hot water and lighted with
sun-burners, and very handsome ornamental gas-brackets have also been
introduced on the side walls.
Lincoln's Inn occupied the site of the Convent of Blackfriars, which
was built by Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. Among the famous students of the
Middle Temple, were Edmund Burke, Bulstrode Whitelocke, Wycherley and
Congreve, Sir William Blackstone, Lord Chancellors Eldon and Stowell,
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Oliver Goldsmith.
The number of students in the reign of Henry VI. were: Four Inns of
Court, each 200--800; ten Inns of Chancery, each 100--1000; total 1800.
To-day there are in the four Inns of Court alone, 4500 students.
In Gray's Inn lived Dr. Rawlinson, "Tom Folio" of the "Tatler," who
stuffed four chambers so full of books that he was compelled to sleep
in the passage.
How to become a lawyer is the only science studied in the Inns of
Court, and the manner of doing it is as I shall describe. The four
Inns of Court, viz.: the Middle and Inner Temples, Lincoln's Inn, and
Gray's Inn, have exclusively the power of conferring the degree of
Barrister-at-Law, requsite for practising as an advocate or counsel in
the superior courts. Lincoln's Inn is generally preferred by students
who contemplate the Equity Bar; it being the locality of Equity Counsel
and Conveyancers, and of Equity Courts or Courts of Chancery. If the
student design to practise the common law, either immediately as an
advocate at Westminster, the assizes, and sessions, or as a special
pleader (a learned person who, having kept his terms, is allowed to
draw legal forms and pleadings, though not actually at the bar), his
choice lies usually between the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, and
Gray's Inn, though he may adopt Lincoln's Inn. The Inner Temple, from
its formerly insisting on a classical examination before admission,
became more exclusive than the Middle Temple or Gray's Inn. Gray's Inn
is numerously attended by Irish students, and has produced some of the
greatest luminaries at the Irish Bar, including Daniel O'Connell.
To procure admission to either of these Inns, the student must obtain
the certificate of two barristers, coupled in the Middle Temple with
that of a Bencher, to the effect that the applicant is a fit person to
be received into the Inn, for the purpose of being called to the Bar.
Once admitted, the student has the use of the library, and is entitled
to a seat in the church or chapel of the Inn, and to have his name set
down for chambers.
[Sidenote: "DINNER IN HALL"]
He is then required to keep "commons," by dining in the hall for
twelve terms (four terms occur each year), on commencing which, he
must deposit with the treasurer £100, to be retained with interest
until he is "called"; but members of the Universities are exempt from
this deposit. The student must also sign a bond with sureties for the
payment of his commons and term-fees. In all the Inns no person can be
called unless he is above twenty-one years of age and of three years'
standing as a student. The "call" is made by the Benchers in council;
after which the student becomes a barrister, and takes the usual oath
at Westminster. In certain Inns, however, the student must, before his
call, attend certain lectures, which are a revival of the old readings,
without their festivities.
To witness one of the "Hall Dinners" is enough to bring back the days
of chivalry to one's mind. There is the lofty, grand Gothic roof, the
long tables, the grace before meat, which is offered by the "Reader,"
the magnificent windows of stained glass, which project a thousand
varied hues on the faces of the students, and the grave features of the
Benchers who sit aloft on the dais.
At five or half-past five o'clock, the barristers, students and other
members, in their gowns, having assembled in the hall, the Benchers
enter in procession to the dais; the steward strikes the table three
times, grace is said by the treasurer or senior Bencher present, and
the dinner commences; the Benchers observe somewhat more style at
their table than the other members do at theirs; the general repast
is a tureen of soup, a joint of meat, a tart, and cheese, to each
mess consisting of four persons; each mess is also allowed a bottle
of port-wine. The dinner over, the Benchers, after grace, retire to
their own apartments. At the Inner Temple, on May 29, a gold cup of
"sack" is handed to each member, who drinks to the happy restoration of
Charles II. At Gray's Inn a similar custom prevails, but the toast is
the memory of Queen Elizabeth. The Inner Temple Hall waiters are called
"panniers," from "pan-arii" who attended the Knights Templars. At both
Temples the form of the dinner resembles the repasts of the military
monks; the Benchers on the dais representing the "knights;" the
barristers the "freres," or brethren; and the students, the "novices."
The Middle Temple still bears the arms of the Knights Templars, viz.,
the figure of the Holy Lamb.
The entrance expenses at the Inner Temple (the average of the costs at
other Inns), are £40 11s. 5d., of which £25 1s. 3d. is for the stamp;
on call, £82 12s., of which £52 2s. 6d. is for the stamp; total, £123
3s. The commons bill is about £12 annually.
Of Clement's Inn in the Strand which is just the same Clement's Inn as
it was when Shakspeare lived, that poet speaks as follows in the second
part of Henry IV.:
_Shallow._ I was once of Clement's Inn, where, I think, they will talk
of mad Shallow yet.
_Silence._ You were called lusty Shallow, then, cousin.
_Shallow._ By the mass, I was called any thing; and I would have done
any thing indeed, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of
Staffordshire, and Black George Barnes of Staffordshire, and Francis
Pickbone, and Will Squele, a Cotswold man; you had not four such
swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again.
Then Shallow tells of Sir John Falstaff breaking "Skogan's head at the
court-gate when he was a crack not thus high; and the very same day did
I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn."
_Shallow._ Oh, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the
Windmill in St. George's Fields?
_Falstaff._ We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
_Shallow._ I remember at Mile-End Green (when I lay at Clement's Inn),
I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's Show.
Then Falstaff says of Shallow: "I do remember him at Clement's Inn,
like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring."
Before a student can enter an Inn of Court and eat his first dinner,
he must deposit £100 as security that he will pay for the rest of his
dinners. No student is allowed to keep a "term" unless he has been
three days in "hall" when grace is said at dinner.
[Sidenote: IRISH STUDENTS.]
No person in trade or in deacon's orders, or one who has been a
conveyancer's clerk, can be admitted at all, so strict are the rules.
No gentleman can be called to the bar by any of these Inns which are
corporate and chartered bodies, before having been a member or student
of his Inn for five years, unless that he is a Bachelor of Laws, or a
Master of Arts of the Universities of Oxford, Dublin, or Cambridge,
when three years is the period required. No one can be called to the
bar until his name and description have been put up on the screen in
the hall of the Inn to which he belongs for a fortnight previous to his
call, and communicated to all the other societies.
Irish students must keep eight terms in one of the English Inns, as
well as nine in the King's Inns, Dublin, before they can be called to
the Irish bar.
Irish students may keep terms in London and Dublin alternately, or in
any other order they may think proper. Gray's Inn is the favorite Inn
of Irish students, for the reason that discipline is not so strict
as in the Inner or Middle Temple, or Lincoln's Inn, and, besides, no
charge is made for "absent commons," or being away from the dinners,
while in the other Inns the student is charged for his meals in any
case.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE BANK OF ENGLAND AND THE MINT.
THE Bank of England is the greatest moneyed institution in the world.
It is situated in the very heart of the City of London, opposite the
Royal Exchange and the Mansion House, and is composed of an insulated
mass of stone buildings and courts covering four acres of ground,
bounded by Princes's street, west; Lothbury, north; Bartholomew Lane,
east; and Threadneedle street, south. Its exterior measurements are 365
feet south, 410 feet north, 245 feet east, and 440 feet west.
Within this area are nine open courts, a magnificent Rotunda, numerous
public offices, court and committee rooms, an armory, engraving and
printing offices, a library, apartments for officers' servants,
beadles, detectives, porters, and messengers.
During the No-Popery riots of 1780, the Bank was attacked by the
mob, when Wilkes rushed out of the building and seized some of
the ringleaders. The Bank was defended by the regulars, the City
Volunteers, and the Clerks of the establishment, who melted their
leaden inkstands into bullets. For ninety years since that terrible
night, the bank has been guarded by a company of foot soldiers,
detailed in regular rotation from the Horse Guards, under command of
one officer, for whom a sumptuous table is set every night, with the
privilege of inviting two friends, while servants are provided for him.
[Sidenote: THE BANK ESTABLISHED.]
In the political tumult of November, 1830, provisions were made at the
Bank for a state of siege, and when the Chartists made their great
demonstrations in 1848, the roof of the Bank was fortified by a company
of sappers and miners, cannon were planted, and a strong garrison held
every court and passage in the interior.
The number of clerks and porters and other employees who are retained
by the Bank, is one thousand or more, and their salaries amount to half
a million of pounds, or two and a half millions of dollars annually.
In 1808 an arrangement was made by the English Government with the
Bank, by which the latter undertook the management of the English
national Debt, at a rate of £340 for each million of the debt up to 600
millions of pounds, and £300 for every additional million.
The Bank of England was established (1694) chiefly by Mr. William
Paterson, the projector of the Scotch Colony of Darien, who commenced
by founding a National Bank, 1691. To carry on the war with France
(1694) Government required a loan of £1,200,000, and imposed new taxes,
expected to yield a million and a half. The subscribers to the loan
were incorporated under the title of the Governor and Company of the
Bank of England, and empowered to buy land, to deal in gold and silver,
and in bills of exchange. The interest on the loan was 8 per cent.,
besides which Government agreed to pay £4,000 a year for the cost of
management, or £100,000 in all.
In the vicinity of the Bank of England there is a dense traffic, and
it is necessary that suitable provender should be found for the large
number of bankers and bankers' clerks, who, living in cosy little
villas at Brompton, Paddington, and Maida Hill, and are compelled to
eat their warm lunches in the city during business hours.
The Poultry, Bucklersbury, King William, Prince and Leadenhall streets,
are lined with these comfortable, pleasant looking eating-houses and
dining-rooms, where the moneyed men and their smart looking clerks sit
back in easy little boxes, with turtle soup, salad, and juicy rump
steaks before them, and long necked wine bottles in ice coolers between
their feet, chatting about stocks and Change and Turkish Loans.
In the parlor lobby of the Bank is a portrait of Mr. David Race, who
was in the service of the institution over fifty years, during which
time he amassed a fortune of £200,000.
[Illustration: BANKERS' EATING HOUSE.]
The Bullion Office, on the western side of the Bank, consists of a
public chamber and two vaults--one for the open deposit of bullion free
of charge, unless weighed, the other for the private stock of the Bank.
Here are employed a Principal, Deputy Principal, Clerk, Assistant
Clerk, and porters.
The gold is kept in solid bars, each bar weighing 16 pounds and valued
at £800, or $4,000, and the silver in pigs and bars, while the dollars
are kept in bags.
The value of the gold in the vaults of the Bank in 1869 was about
twenty millions of pounds, or one hundred millions of dollars.
One day I received an order which was sent me by a friend, giving
me full authority to visit the Bank of England. I had not a little
curiosity to satisfy, and accordingly I arrived at the Bank as early as
eleven o'clock in the day.
[Sidenote: LEDGERS AND MONEY-BAGS.]
Passing through the central entrance, which is opposite the Mansion
House, I found myself in a spacious court well flagged, and here were
two boxes in which sat a brace of Old Jewry detectives, who are on duty
in this spot from one end of the year to the other. These men receive
gratuities from the Bank beside their regular pay. There were also in
the yard two big fat beadles in red coats and leggings, their garments
being covered with tinsel. These fat, logy looking fellows are the
footmen of the Bank, who are employed to watch for suspicious strangers
and to guide any visitors who may come.
While an attendant was reading the order which I handed him, I could
hear the musical jingle of sovereigns and silver coins, being rattled
up and down in the interior of the building.
I was taken by the guide into a large vaulted room with a cupola, in
which were a perfect army of clerks, some young and brisk, others old,
gray, and ponderous, ranged in long rows behind the desks, making up
accounts, weighing gold and paying it over the counters, or writing in
huge ledgers.
Outside the circular railings, which run all around this very large
room, were stationed a vast crowd of depositors, men and women, or
persons drawing money in gold or silver. Continually from the throats
of the clerks arose the words:
"How will you have it. Gold or silver? Sovereigns or halves?"
Here is a lady who has traveled very far, perhaps, for her dividends.
She has taken a seat and a number of curious eyes are gazing at her as
she slowly takes a wing of a chicken and a piece of snowy white bread
from a napkin and commences to eat, in the midst of all this wealth and
confusion of the richest city in the world.
The number of ledgers and account books behind these bars are enough
to frighten one. When the day's business is done all these huge books
are stowed away by the porters in the fire-proof room under ground, and
brought up again in the morning, for they are fully as valuable as the
large sums inscribed on their leaves.
Machinery has been perfected so that these bulky account books may be
hoisted and lowered every day.
Look at that young man with his banking case chained under his arm; the
rolls of checks and notes he holds in his hands will probably amount to
thousands of pounds; he catches the eyes of one of the clerks, calls
out the amount, hands the bulky bundle over the brass mounted railing
and quits the room, leaving the sum to be counted over at leisure.
See how carelessly the cashier handles that heavy bag of gold; he has
no time to count it, but throws it into the scale as a coal heaver
would a sack of coals--so long as it is right weight, that's all he
cares about; he then shoots it into his large drawer and throws the bag
aside as if he did not mind whether a sovereign stuck in the bag or not.
He counts sovereigns by twos and threes at a time; you feel confident
that he must have given you either too many or too few, he appears so
negligent; you count them, and there they are quite correct, and no
mistake whatever.
The guide says to me: "Sometimes, Sir, the clerks are kept in the Bank
for hours when there's a sixpence wrong in the balance, and they have
to go over and over the books until they make the sixpence right. It's
awful work, to have to go over them long columns of figures and no
chance of getting away until everything is correct."
"Was there ever any great forgery committed on the Bank?" I asked the
guide, who seemed to be a very intelligent man, having been in the Bank
forty years.
"Ah, yes Sir, there was two great ones. In old times a great many men
were hanged for forging Bank of England notes. In one year, I think it
was 1820, there was over a hundred persons convicted of forgery, and
nearly nine hundred were convicted for having forged notes in their
pockets. Why, Sir, when I was a boy I remember as many as twenty-four
hanged in one year for forgery on the Bank. I think the year was 1818.
In 1803 there was a great forgery, committed by Mr. Astlett, who was
one of the chief cashiers of the Bank. The amount was so large it
frightened every body. Astlett done his work so well, by re-issuing
Exchequer bills, that he defrauded the Bank out of £320,000 before they
knew it. You may imagine what a row there was when it was found out.
The old Governor nearly went mad."
"Was any other great forgery ever attempted?" said I, curious to hear
those details of forgotten crime.
"Oh yes Sir," said the old man, "the biggest forgery of all was
Fauntleroy's, in 1816, that was a great deal bigger than Astlett's, for
it was for £360,000, and the way of it was this: You see Mr. Fauntleroy
was the head partner of a bank in Berners street that had dealing with
the Bank of England, and the bank that he belonged to was in a bad
state, so what does Fauntleroy do to keep up its credit, but he goes to
work quite cooly and forges powers of attorney of a lot of nobs and he
sells out their funds, and all the time he was a-working in the dark
this way, he wos a payin' of the divydends to them. Then the crash
came at last, and before he was caught, when the police broke into his
house, they found a note and on the note was written:--
"The Bank first began to refuse to discount our acceptances, and to
destroy the credit of our house; and by G--d the Bank shall smart for
it."
"So, that's the way he did it, but he was hanged for it, and I saw him
swing. I never saw so many people in my life as was at that hanging.
All London was there, Sir, and when he got off the cart you would have
thought he was going to a party, he was so blessed cool."
[Sidenote: THE GREAT PANIC OF 1825.]
There was a "Great Panic" in the Bank of England in December, 1825,
caused by the redemption of interest on £215,000,000 of stock held by
the public. The Bank of England was acting as banker for the Nation,
and offered to advance money to holders of stock to pay off their
principal investment. This was an era of mad speculation, and no less
than £372,000,000 was invested in all kinds of bogus stock projects. In
some of these schemes shares of £100 on which only £5 had been paid,
rose to a premium of £40, yielding a profit of eight times the amount
of money paid. Everything went merry as a marriage bell for a time, and
large sums had been withdrawn from the Bank of England, reducing the
gold in its vaults from £8,750,000, in October, 1824, to £3,624,320 in
February, 1825.
The panic began on the 5th of December, 1825, when a London bank
failed, at which the agency of above forty country banks was
transacted, and such a re-action was the necessary result of the
previous madness of speculation. Lombard street, and the vicinity of
the Bank, were filled with excited men and women, who were waiting
eagerly to withdraw their investments. Next day, a number of other
banks failed. The rush on the Bank of England was terrific, but the
clerks kept paying away gold in bags of twenty-five sovereigns each.
From nine until five, each day, twenty-five clerks were engaged,
counting out gold, and as it would take that number of clerks to count
out £50,000 in sovereigns, if counted by hand, a plan was made by
which the tellers counted 25 sovereigns into one scale and 25 into
another, and if the scales balanced, they continued until there were
200 sovereigns in each scale. In this way £1,000 were paid out in a few
minutes, the weight of one thousand sovereigns being 21 pounds, while
512 bank notes only weigh one pound. In this way £307,000, in gold, was
paid out in nine hours to the clamorous people.
[Sidenote: THE PANIC CEASES.]
Instead of contracting their issues the Directors of the Bank boldly
extended them. In one day they discounted 4,200 bills. December 8th,
the discounts at the Bank amounted to £7,500,000; on the 15th, they
were £11,500,000, and on the 29th, £15,000,000. December 3d, the
circulation of the Bank was £17,500,000, and the day before Christmas,
December 24th, it was £25,500,000, or, $127,500,000. Any kind of paper
that was not absolutely worthless, was discounted. Tremendous advances
on deposits of bills of exchange were made by the Bank, stock was
entered as security, and exchequer bills were purchased. The gallant
old institution weathered the storm, and, on the 26th of December, gold
began to come in slowly. During the latter part of the panic week a
forgotten box of one-pound notes, containing £700,000, was discovered,
and these were immediately issued, and the Directors acknowledged
that the forgotten box saved the commercial credit of the Bank and
of England. There was only £601,000 in bullion and £426,000 in coin
when the rush stopped. In February, 1797, when the Bank suspended cash
payments, there was £1,086,170 in coin and bullion remaining in the
vaults.
[Illustration: THE BANK OF ENGLAND.]
I saw, in a glass case, a bank note for one million of pounds
(canceled,) which had passed between the Bank and the government in
some transaction or another. Think of it, a piece of paper five by two
and a half inches in size, which was good on its face any place in
the world for Five Millions of Dollars. I saw also here, several other
bank bills for large amounts, such as ten, fifty, one hundred, and two
hundred and fifty thousand pounds each. These were the most valuable
strips of printed paper I ever saw.
It must be recollected, that inside of the walls of the Bank of
England, which covers four acres, as I have observed, everything is
made, excepting the paper of which the bank notes are manufactured.
The gold, of course, is coined in the Mint on Tower Hill, but
everything else is done inside of the Bank walls, including paper
staining, engraving, making the steel plates from which the notes are
transferred, and other useful arts. Printer's ink is also made, the ink
having to be of a peculiar shade so as to prevent counterfeiting. Then
there are book binderies, where the ledgers and accounts are bound, and
a number of other rooms devoted to various purposes.
It is a noticeable fact, that every Bank official whom we meet on our
journey through all these lofty apartments, halls and saloons, wears
full evening dress though it is not yet noonday. Swallow-tail coats,
white neck-cloths, and white vests, of the most spotless hues, seem to
be the Bank uniform.
And what pleasant surprises there are in this institution. Now the
guide leading, and I following, we emerge into an open court-yard, of
very good size, which has lawns, shrubberies, and dainty little grass
plots, with the most cheering flower-beds, the colors of which are
very refreshing to the eye. Here are well-shaded and sanded paths, and
lofty, leafy trees, and all these rural delights are concentrated in
a space of one and a half acres, the dimensions of the grounds walled
in by the Bank. Here, in the heart of mighty London, is a green oasis,
like a diamond set in a pig's nose.
These detached buildings, with white steps leading to their doors, and
neatly-ornamented porticoes, are the residences of the Governor and
Directors, and here they hold receptions, and levees, and the questions
and inquiries of angry stockholders are heard and answered at quarterly
meetings. The guide asks me if "I would like to see the workshops of
the Bank." I agree at once to his proposition, and on ascending a
flight of narrow stone steps, we find ourselves in a large room which
is used by the Bank mechanics to prepare the steel plates upon which
the Bank notes are engraved.
A very powerful steam engine, which is used for other mechanical and
artistic purposes in the Bank, is the motive power by which the work
is done in this room. I can hear the sharp steel wedge scraping and
polishing the already bright sheets of steel, and the noise is a most
disagreeable one. All the workman has to do, however, is simply to
place the plate and spindle in the exact spot, when the machine, like a
stroke of vengeance seizes it, and in a second it is bright as silver.
[Sidenote: MAKING INK FOR BANK NOTES.]
Now we are in the room in which the printer's ink is manufactured with
which the Bank notes are printed. The ink has to be of a very peculiar
black shade, as counterfeiting would be easy were the materials used to
be the same as in other inks.
Masses of black matter are being ground into a fine powder by rollers,
I think that the guide told me it was nutgalls; large lumps are placed
beneath the rollers, the cylinder revolves, and the powder is crushed
to a fine paste.
The guide says, "If there's a bit of sand left in the paste, why then
the grinding hasn't been done right." The rollers are of strong steel,
and the smallest substance would be ground under them. A grain of sand
will cause the two rollers as they meet to recede from each other, so
sensitive are they to the finest hard substance.
Now we are out in a court again and we can see the engine room,
and the huge coal fires burning, and the big boiler sweltering and
steaming away at a great rate. The man who attends the engine is in
his shirt-sleeves, and a little blackened, and I believe that, not
excepting the Beadle, this was the only man whom I saw inside of the
Bank who was not in full dress.
Here is a large room where the Bank-paper is cut to the proper size for
notes, and a thousand pound note is exactly the same size as one for
five pounds, which is the smallest denomination issued by the Bank.
Then there is the room for the compositors and binders, and in the
latter apartment, all the account books which the vast business of the
Bank make necessary, are paged, lined, and bound. Of ledgers alone, one
thousand are used yearly, in this fountain head of finance, and check
books innumerable are also printed and bound here.
Now I am again in the court-yard, which is paved very neatly--but no, I
have not been here before. This fact I recognize as I look around me.
This _another_ court-yard.
"This is the Library, Sir," said the guide.
I began to think that the Bank officials were indeed a very literary
set of people, who could find time in business hours to read books, but
I was presently made aware of my mistake.
The guide knocks quietly at a small iron door, which revolves on its
hinges with a noise, and a man in that same inevitable dress-coat,
cravat, and neck-tie, opens the door, and I gain an entrance to a place
which looks to me very like the casemate of a Monitor, or a sally-port
in a stone fortress. Iron doors, iron hinges, and iron windows, shaped
in a circular form, and embayed in the wall, are the most significant
signs around me.
Although it is broad daylight outside, there is utter darkness within,
but for the single gas jet which burns as if suffering from some defect
in the pipe.
I feel that some mystery is to be explained, or some strange sight
shown me--or else why this change from sunlight to this cribbed and
dungeon-like casemate.
It would be impossible to break into this room; and to get out of it,
if the doors were locked, would be equally difficult, I imagine.
Now the gentleman who has opened the door goes behind an iron railing,
and says:
"This is the Library of the Bank, Sir, and these are the volumes
that compose the Library," he says to the writer, at the same time
taking a large package of notes from a shelf--on which there are many
hundred packages of like description--"we keep here the canceled notes
which are called in, and therefore they can never be used again. We
keep these old notes for twenty-five years, in case a forgery has
been committed, and when it becomes necessary to produce the notes
for evidence--why, here they are--we have notes here for millions of
pounds," said he, turning over bundle after bundle of ragged looking
papers, that had once been of incalculable value.
These notes, after a certain time, are reduced to pulp, and again are
made into paper, from which in turn fresh bank notes are made, so that
these old rags have the property which Ponce de Leon's fountain gave,
of renewing their youth.
Into another room now, where the notes are printed from the plates, and
to insure honesty in the printer--the machine registers the number of
each note printed--the registering being done in a distant part of the
establishment.
[Sidenote: IN THE VAULTS.]
And now we are in the Vaults, where the precious metals are kept, and
where I saw and handled riches such as would have bewildered Pizzaro,
or Cortez, even in their wildest imaginings.
Here are the Bullion Vaults, in which are kept bars of gold and silver.
The gold bars weigh sixteen pounds each, while the silver bar varies.
The Bank pays for gold seventy-eight shillings an ounce, while silver
is generally valued at about five shillings and two pence an ounce.
It is enough to dazzle the eyes of a miser, or render him blind, to
look at the show of gold bars piled up behind the railings, in those
large glass presses. Thousands of them! And they are piled up just as I
have often seen the stacks of solder in a plumber or gas-fitter's shop
in America, without any seeming care as to how they are laid.
Here a couple of men entered with kegs, and one of them, stepping up to
me, asks:
"Would you like to handle a large sum of money, Sir?"
"I don't care if I do," I said; and the very polite gentleman went to a
safe in the corner and opening one of the numerous black doors of iron
which ornament every portion of the room, he brought forth four medium
sized packages, and laid them on the counter before me, saying:
"Please to hold open your hand. Now, Sir, there are four packages of
Bank of England notes, all ready for delivery, and in each package is
_one million of pounds_."
[Illustration: "I BEGAN TO PERSPIRE."]
I began to perspire and lose my sight and hearing. "Can there be," I
said, "so much money in the world?" and then I heard him say again:
"Please to examine the packages--_one--two--three--four--millions_."
I cried out, "stop, stop--give me breath--do you mean to say," said I,
"that there are four million of pounds in these four packages--_twenty
million_ of dollars?"
"That is what I mean," said the polite official, and he smiled slightly
at the excitement which he saw in my features.
At that moment I did not envy C. Vanderbilt, and I despised Jim Fisk.
Dim thoughts of murder flashed across my brain--and yet, no--I banished
it from my mind. Twenty million of dollars! But then, the Tower!
Ha-ha--away, fell design.
In one week the issue of bank notes amount to twenty-five million of
pounds, or one hundred and twenty-five million of dollars. During the
last twelve months the Bank has purchased three million and a half
pounds' worth of gold bars, and one million eight hundred pounds' worth
of silver bars. During the same period it sold six million pounds'
worth of gold bars, and a quarter of a million pounds' worth of silver'
bars.
[Sidenote: MAKING SOVEREIGNS.]
In the Weighing Office, established in 1842, to detect light gold, is
the ingenious machine invented by Mr. W. Cotton, then Deputy-Governor
of the Bank. About 80 or 100 light and heavy sovereigns are placed
indiscriminately in a round tube; as they descend on the machinery
beneath, those which are light receive a slight touch, which moves them
into their proper receptacle, and those which are of legitimate weight
pass into their appointed place. The light coins are then defaced by a
machine, 200 in a minute; and by the weighing-machinery 35,000 may be
weighed in one day. There are six of these machines, which from 1844 to
1849 weighed upwards of 48,000,000 pieces without any inaccuracy. The
average amount of gold tendered in one year is nine millions, of which
more than a quarter is light. The silver is put up into bags, each of
one hundred pounds value, and the gold into bags of a thousand; and
then these bagsful of bullion are sent through a strongly guarded door,
or rather window, into the Treasury, a dark, gloomy apartment, fitted
up with iron presses, supplied with huge locks and bolts.
And now I was to behold the process. After leaving the Treasury vaults,
where I was shown the Bank notes, I was taken to a very large room on
an upper floor, in which was a small and elegant steam engine, with
other intricate machines, for weighing and defacing, or marking coins.
There was a large table with a number of coin shovels, and its entire
surface was covered with sovereigns, heaped a foot high, the table
having a raised rim all around it.
They were weighing these sovereigns--these officials with the finely
starched shirts and white neck-ties; and this was the manner of it:
There were two open square boxes, which had connections with a number
of wheels and revolving cylinders, and from each of these boxes
projected the mouth of a scoop or highly polished funnel. A roll of
sovereigns passed into this box, sliding slowly down through the mouth,
and thence into a larger box below on the floor.
The attendants fill the tubes, and at the lower end of the scoop the
work is done. Whenever a sovereign of light weight touches this spot in
the lower part of the tube, a small brass plate jumps out and pushes
the light sovereign into the left-hand aperture, while the full-weight
pieces drop without hindrance into the right-hand box. The small brass
plate does the business very quietly.
The light sovereigns are then gathered, placed in a bag, and sent back
to the Mint to be re-coined. The man who was working the machine pulled
a crank and a number, perhaps a thousand, of these marked sovereigns
fell into the box. I took some of them in my hand, and found them
almost totally defaced, and a number had been slit in two halves by the
process, but no gold dust is lost the operation is performed so cleanly.
On the very same spot where once stood the Monastery of the Cistercian
Monks, or Gray Friars, the Royal Mint of England is now located, and
here all the money in use in England is coined by the "Company of
Moneyers," as they are called. The building is situated on Tower Hill,
the Mint having for a thousand years been carried on in the Tower
itself.
For many hundreds of years the coinage of England had been debased
by succeeding money-makers, who were entrusted by the Kings with the
coinage, and in the reign of King Edward I, 280 Jews, of both sexes,
were charged by this monarch with having debased the silver and
gold coins, and were hung in London for the offence. King John, in
1212, ordered all the prisoners in his custody, among whom were some
ecclesiastics, to be brought before him for instant judgment, at the
same time summoning Cardinal Pandulph, the Papal Legate, to appear also
to witness the judgment. Pandulph appeared, and King John thinking to
frighten that haughty prelate who had often humbled him, ordered a
priest among the prisoners, who had counterfeited money, to be hanged.
Pandulph stepped forward and said:
"Lord King, who so dares lay finger on yon clerk, though he were of
royal blood, him shall I excommunicate, and he shall be anathema of
Holy Church."
Pandulph, who was indeed a very energetic person, left the apartment
to get a candle, so that he might curse John in due form, and the King
having been thoroughly frightened, delivered the priest to Pandulph
to have that prelate do justice on him, but the legate immediately
liberated the offender.
During the reign of the Saxon Edgar, the penny had become scarcely
equal to a half-penny in weight, and St. Dunstan, who was a bishop and
confessor to the King, became so outraged at the debasement of the
coinage, that on Whit-Sunday he refused to celebrate the mass before
the King until justice had been done on three officials, or as they
were called "moneyers." They were at once taken out of the Church and
had their right hands struck off by order of the King.
In those days even the gold coins were of square, longitudinal, and all
sorts of irregular and uncouth shapes.
One of the prophecies of the Sage Merlin was to the effect that when
the money of England should become round, the Prince of Wales would be
crowned in London. Edward I, having ascertained that such a prophecy
was believed among the Welsh people, caused the head of their last
native Prince, Llewellyn, to be cut off and sent to the Tower in
London, where it was crowned with willows in mockery of the prophecy,
and since then no native Welshman has held the title of Prince of
Wales, with England's consent.
[Sidenote: HENRY VIII A COUNTERFEITER.]
Henry VIII, among his many acts of scoundrelism, was guilty of debasing
the coinage of his kingdom, and when his illegitimate daughter, Queen
Elizabeth, called in £638,000 of silver and gold money for the purpose
of re-coining it, she ascertained on going to the Mint in person,
(where she coined with her own hands several pieces of money) that
these monies, whose current value on the face had been £638,000, were
then only worth in reality £244,000.
On the day that George the Third's first son and successor was
born--afterwards George IV--the captured treasure of the Spanish vessel
"Hermione," amounting to sixty-five tons of silver and one bag full
of gold, was carried in triumphant procession through the streets of
London--amid the acclamation of the citizens--borne by twenty wagons.
The value of the treasure was one million of pounds. This money was
taken to the Mint to be coined.
In 1804 the English Government having determined to declare war against
Spain, some private parties under the leadership of a Captain Moore,
fitted out four ships to intercept some Spanish vessels on their way
home from the Indies with treasure, and this infamous act of piracy was
performed before the capturers of the Spanish galleons had heard of the
impending declaration of war, and in fact before war was declared.
Some hundreds of persons were blown up in the Spanish Admiral's vessel,
and one rich Spanish merchant who was returning on one of the vessels
with his wife and daughters--having accumulated a great fortune--lost
their lives by this act of treachery.
In 1804 the ransom payable to the British Government from the Chinese
Nation, amounting to sixty-five tons of silver, or two millions of
Chinese dollars, the price which China had to pay for not taking her
opium quietly, was brought home and transferred to the Mint to be
coined.
The money paid by France to Charles II of England for the town of
Dunkirk, an immense treasure, was spent by that monarch in the worst
kind of debauchery, and the face of Britannia which remains to this day
upon English coins, is the likeness of Miss Frances Stewart, afterward
Duchess of Richmond, and at one time a mistress of this dissolute King.
Guineas, which are valued at twenty-one shillings, while the sovereign
is valued at a pound or twenty shillings, were first coined from the
gold brought by the African Company from Guinea, and the coins had an
elephant stamped on them.
In the same reign were struck the five guinea, the two guinea piece
and the half guinea pieces. The coinage of this monarch's reign, who
was only fitted to be the keeper of a bagnio, was so much depreciated,
that in the reign of William and Mary, when 572 bags of silver coin
were called in of Charles II's reign, it was found to weigh only 9,480
pounds, although the proper weight should have been 18,450 pounds.
The gold quarter guinea was coined by George I, and this coin is
remarkable for bearing for the first time the letters "F.D." (_Fidei
Defensor_,) or "Defender of the Faith." George III, an old blockhead as
the First George was an old blackguard, coined seven shilling pieces,
but these have been withdrawn, as have also the guineas and half
guineas, which are now replaced by the sovereign, half sovereign, and
crown, which latter coin is valued at five shillings.
When the bad money of Henry VIII was called in, the workmen in the Mint
declared that it contained arsenic, and many of them "became sick to
death with the savor." For this sickness some venerable idiot ordered
them to drink from dead men's skulls, and a warrant was actually
obtained whereby the heads of several Catholic priests, which then
decorated London Bridge, were taken down and drinking cups were made
from them for the workmen.
The present building in use by the Company of Moneyers for a Mint,
was erected in 1811 on Tower Hill, and cost with the construction
of machinery two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. If one hundred
thousand pounds worth of gold bars are sent into the Mint one morning,
on the next they will be ready for delivery in sovereigns.
[Sidenote: HOW TO MAKE MONEY.]
The gold is melted in pots made of black lead, which will not break
in annealing, and then the alloy of copper is added (to gold one
part in twelve; to silver eighteen pennyweights to a pound), and the
mixed metal cast into small bars. The bars then in a heated state
are first passed through the rollers, which are of tremendous power,
these reducing them to one fourth of their former thickness and
increasing them proportionally in length. Then the sheets of metal are
passed through the cold rollers, which laminates them to the required
thickness of coin.
Now comes the work of the cutting-out machines. There are fifteen of
these elegant engines in the same basement, set apart for them.
The bars having been cut into the required strips and thickness,
the protecting rim is next raised in the "Marking Room," and after
blanching and annealing, they are ready for coining.
There are twelve presses for this purpose, each of which makes a
hundred strokes a minute, and at each stroke, above and below, a blank
is made into a perfect coin, stamped on both sides and milled at the
edge, each press coining about ten thousand pieces of money in one
hour. One little boy is alone needed to feed a press with blanks.
The coin is tested before the Lord Chancellor or Chancellor of the
Exchequer and a jury of twelve goldsmiths, who are sworn to give a
fair judgment, once a year--this being a trial between the Company
of Coiners and the Government who own the coin. In a late trial of
two hundred pounds weight of gold coin, the bulk weighed just one
pennyweight and fifteen grains less than was correct--which is pretty
good workmanship.
In a period of eighteen years the amount of money coined by the Company
was as follows:
Gold, £55,000,000
Silver, 12,000,000
Copper, 250,000
-----------
Total, £67,250,000
Profit to the Company for coinage of above amount £214,000.
Amount charged for coining £67,250,000--by the Company of
Moneyers--£421,000.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: LONDON BRIDGE.]
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE BRIDGES OF LONDON.
LONDON may well be proud of her bridges. Fifteen of the finest
structures of their kind in the world span with mighty and enduring
arches, the surface of the Thames; in a distance of seven miles on the
river from London Bridge, to the Suspension Bridge, at Hammersmith.
Paris alone can rival London in her super-aqueous structures, but in
massiveness and grandeur there is no bridge covering the Seine, and
having such a magnificent roadway and arches as Waterloo Bridge.
Of all the bridges which span the Thames, none have a history like
that of London Bridge; although the present structure dates only from
1825. The history of old London Bridge is that of London itself, for
the bridge was coeval with the overthrow of the Saxon dynasty, and the
death of Richard Coeur de Lion.
The first bridge erected on the site of the present London Bridge,
was a wooden one by Ethelred III., in 994, and the tolls were paid by
boats bringing fish to "Bylingsgate," which was then a water-gate of
the city. The next bridge here was constructed by the pious brothers of
St. Mary, Southwark, which house was originally a convent, established
by a young girl named Mary, daughter to a ferryman, who plied at this
point, and from the profits of the ferry the bridge was constructed.
This bridge was almost totally destroyed by the Norwegian King Olave in
1008, and was rebuilt by Canute in 1016, swept away by a flood 1091,
rebuilt 1097, burnt 1136, and a new one was erected of elm timber in
1163 by Peter, a priest and chaplain of St. Mary's, Colechurch, in the
Poultry.
This bridge did not satisfy the pious architect, however, and he began
with great zeal to build a stone one, the first in England, a little to
the westward of the timber bridge in 1176, when Henry II. gave toward
the construction the proceeds of a tax on wool, from which originated
the saying, "London Bridge was built on woolpacks," a phrase that has
often been taken in its literal meaning. Priest Peter died in 1205 and
the bridge was finished in 1209.
This bridge consisted of a stone platform 926 feet long, and 40
feet wide, standing about 60 feet above the level of the water, and
comprehended a draw bridge and nineteen pointed arches, with massive
piers raised upon strong oak and elm piles covered by thick planks
bolted together, so that after all, the famous stone bridge had a
wooden platform. There was a gate-house, with turrets and battlements
at either end, and toward the centre, on the east side, was built
a beautiful gothic chapel of stone to the memory of St. Thomas (à
Becket), of Canterbury. In a crypt of the chapel was placed a stone
tomb over the body of Priest Peter, the founder of the bridge. This
bridge, in the time of Elizabeth, is described as having "sumptuous
buildings, and stately and beautiful houses on either side," making
one continuous street from end to end and having an archway under
the houses and dwellings through which vehicles, sedan-chairs, and
pedestrians passed. The river could be seen at intervals in the gaps of
masonry, and, in fact, this bridge was as much of a thoroughfare and
causeway besides, having all the characteristics of a street on solid
ground, as any open space in London. Some of the buildings had shops
and beer-houses in the lower stories.
The chronicles of this stone bridge during six centuries, form,
perhaps, the most interesting episodes in the history of London.
The scenes of fire, siege, insurrection, and popular vengeance, of
national rejoicing, and of the pageant victories of man and of death,
of fame or funeral, which have transpired on and about the bridge, it
were vain for me to attempt to describe. In 1212, four years after the
completion of the structure, a terrific conflagration took place on
the bridge, and 3000 persons perished in the flames, both ends being
on fire at the same time. De Montfort repulsed Henry III., on this
bridge, and the populace attacked and stoned his Queen in her barge as
she prepared to shoot the bridge. Wat Tyler, the popular rebel entered
London by this road to be struck down by Sir William Walworth in 1381.
Richard II. was received here by the citizens in 1392. In 1415 Henry
V., fresh from Agincourt, passed the bridge, and seven years after his
corpse was carried over it to be buried at Westminster Abbey. In 1450
Jack Cade attempted to storm London Bridge, but he was defeated and
his head placed on a pole over the gate-house. In 1477 the Bastard of
Falconbridge attacked the bridge, and fired several houses. In 1554 Sir
Thomas Wyatt crossed the bridge at the head of 2000 men, to dethrone
Queen Mary, and lost his head for it. In 1632 more than one-third of
the houses on the bridge were destroyed by fire, and in 1666 the whole
labyrinth of dwellings, shops, and edifices, were swept away by the
Great Fire; the entire street being rebuilt within twenty years after.
The houses were entirely removed and parapets and balustrades were
erected on each side in 1732, and one hundred years after, in 1832,
the venerable structure was demolished to make way for the new London
Bridge now standing. Holbein, the painter, lived on the bridge, book
publishers occupied shops on it, and the London tradesmen believed
it to be one of the Seven Wonders of the world. Hogarth lodged here,
and Swift and Pope visited Tucker, a bookseller who had a shop on the
bridge.
[Sidenote: GRINNING SKULLS.]
The most terrible reminiscence of the bridge is connected with the fact
that its gate-houses at either end were garnished for many hundreds
of years by the heads of many great and good men as well as of bad
and depraved villains, whose skulls were exposed on spikes to dry and
bleach in the sun.
The heads of Sir William Wallace, 1305; Simon Frisel, 1306; four
traitor knights, 1397; Lord Bardolf, 1308; Bolingbroke, 1440; Jack Cade
and his rebels, 1451; the Cornish traitors of 1497, and of Fisher,
Bishop of Rochester (displaced in fourteen days after by that of Sir
Thomas More, 1335), have adorned this ghostly bridge. From 1578 to
1605, it was a common sight to see the heads of Roman Catholic priests
exposed on this bridge, their offence being that they sought to preach
their doctrines in London. Finally, in the reign of Charles II., this
display of bare, grinning skulls was transferred to Temple Bar.
[Illustration: TEMPLE BAR, FLEET STREET.]
Temple Bar, as it is called, is a large, gray archway, which spans
Fleet street in its busiest traffic and jam. The archway was formerly
the limit of the City of London, and when a sovereign came westward
from Westminster, or eastward from the Tower, to make a formal entry,
the Lord Mayor and the City Councils, in robes of state, were present
under its historic archway to offer the keys and admit the Sovereign.
The rusty gates were then rolled back, and on such occasions the
pageants were very fine.
For over a hundred years the London traders and shopkeepers, and the
students of the Temple, were regaled with the daily and ghastly sight
of a row of grinning and socketless skulls, which were ranged in lines
on cruel spikes above the architrave of Temple Bar. There is an empty
room in the upper story which has a terrible history, for here heads
were boiled in pitch before being exposed.
In 1737, Eustace Budgell, a cousin of Addison and a contributor to the
Spectator, when reduced to poverty, took a boat at Somerset Stairs, and
ordering the waterman to row down the river, threw himself into the
flood as the boat shot London Bridge. He had filled his pockets with
stones, and he left behind him a slip of paper on which was written,
"What Cato did and Addison approved cannot be wrong." This was a great
puff for Addison's tragedy. Edward Osborne, an apprentice of Sir
William Hewet, afterwards Lord Mayor, jumped from the window of one of
the bridge houses, in 1536, to save his master's daughter, an infant,
and years afterwards he was rewarded with her hand in marriage, and
became Lord Mayor himself. The grandson of the apprentice became Duke
of Leeds and the founder of the present ducal house of that name. No
bridge ever constructed had such a history as that of Old London Bridge.
[Sidenote: THE TRAFFIC ON LONDON BRIDGES.]
The flow of traffic on some of the principal bridges by actual
computation during twelve hours, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., was:
Pedestrians, London Bridge, 96,080; Southwark Bridge, 2,500;
Blackfriars Bridge, 48,095; Waterloo Bridge, 12,000; Westminster
Bridge, 38,015. Equestrian traffic: London Bridge, 211; Southwark
Bridge, 93; Blackfriars, 91; Waterloo, 38; Westminster Bridge, 311.
Vehicular traffic: London Bridge, 26,800; Southwark Bridge, 516;
Blackfriars Bridge, 6,384; Waterloo Bridge, 2,603; Westminster Bridge,
7,300. From these figures it will be seen that the traffic on London
Bridge which leads from the heart of the business portion of the city,
and is toll free, exceeded that on all of the others put together. Some
of the bridges are owned by companies and a toll of half a penny per
passenger is taken for revenue by them.
London Bridge was designed by Sir John Rennie and built by his son.
The first pile was driven March 15th, 1824, government contributing
£200,000 toward the undertaking. Altogether the bridge cost £2,000,000
before it was finished. It is built on coffer-dams, and the bridge has
five semi-elliptical arches. The centre arch has a span of 152 feet,
and a rise above high water mark of 24 feet 6 inches; the two arches
next the centre are 140 feet span, and the two abutment arches have 130
feet of span. There is a parapet four feet high and the length between
the abutments is 782 feet, while the width between the parapets is 53
feet. The bridge was nearly eight years in construction, and 120,000
tons of stone were used in its erection.
Southwark Bridge is constructed of iron with three colossal arches, and
was built by Rennie. The middle arch has a span of 240 feet and a rise
of 24 feet. Its height above low-water mark to the roadway is 55 feet.
The cost was £800,000 and the bridge was opened in 1819. Its length is
700 feet, and the roadway is 42 feet wide.
The new Blackfriars Bridge is 1,000 feet long, 42 feet wide, and the
cost will be £300,000.
Waterloo Bridge is the finest in the world. Its dimensions are: Length
between abutments 2,456 feet, water-way, 1,326 feet. The carriage-way
is 28 feet wide with a pathway on each side of seven feet. There are
nine arches, each of which are 120 feet in span with a rise of 35 feet.
Waterloo Bridge has a level grade from one end to the other. Canova,
the sculptor, said of this bridge, "It was alone worth a journey from
Rome to London to see it." The cost was £1,000,000.
[Sidenote: WATERLOO BRIDGE.]
As a set-off to what Macaulay has prophesied in regard to London Bridge
and the future New Zealander, Baron Charles Dupin, the great French
publicist, speaks of Waterloo Bridge as follows:
[Illustration: THE NEW BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE.]
"If from the incalculable effect of the revolutions which empires
undergo, the nations of a future age should demand one day what was
formerly the New Sidon, and what has become of the Tyre of the West,
which covered with her vessels every sea?--most of the edifices
devoured by a destructive climate will no longer exist to answer the
curiosity of man by the voice of monuments; But Waterloo Bridge, built
in the centre of the commercial world, will exist to tell the most
remote generations--'here was a rich, industrious, and powerful city.'
The traveller, on beholding this superb monument, will suppose that
some great prince wished, by many years of labor, to consecrate forever
the glory of his life by this imposing structure. But if tradition
instruct the traveller that six years sufficed for the undertaking
and finishing the work--if he learns that an association of a number
of private individuals was rich enough to defray the expense of this
colossal monument, worthy of Sesostris and the Cæsars--he will admire
still more the nation in which similar undertakings could be the fruit
of the efforts of a few obscure individuals, lost in the crowd of
industrious citizens."
Charing Cross is the next bridge on the Thames, being built of iron and
used by a railway company. It was built by Brunel, and is a graceful
structure, but does not permit of pedestrian traffic.
Westminster Bridge is nearly level in its grade, and has seven arches.
It is 1,220 feet long. The cost was £400,000.
Lambeth Bridge is of iron with three arches, each of 280 feet span, and
the width is 54 feet. Cost, £100,000.
Vauxhall Bridge is of iron with nine arches of equal span--each 78 feet
wide. The breadth of the roadway is 36 feet, and the total length of
the bridge is 840 feet.
Pimlico Railway Bridge is built of iron, with four openings or spans of
175 feet each. The bridge is 900 feet in length, and has a width of 24
feet.
Chelsea Chain Suspension Bridge is 922 feet long and 45 feet wide.
Cost, £75,000.
Hammersmith Suspension Bridge is 841 feet long and 32 feet wide. Cost,
£180,000.
Scott, the American diver, lost his life while performing acrobatic
feats on Waterloo Bridge. The season he chose for diving from a
height of twenty feet above the parapet of the highest London bridge
was during an intense frost, when the river was full of ice, and the
enormous masses floating with the tide scarcely appeared to leave a
space for his reckless plunge into the river or his rise therefrom. He
watched his moment, and the feat was performed over and over again with
perfect safety. But he had been told that the Londoners wanted novelty.
It was not enough that he should do day after day what no man had ever
ventured to do before.
[Sidenote: DEADLY ACROBATICS.]
To leap off the parapets of the Southwark and Waterloo bridges into
the half-frozen river had become a common thing; and so the poor
fellow must have a scaffold put up, and he must suspend himself from
its cross bars by his arm, his leg and his neck, in succession. Twice
was the last experiment repeated; but on the third attempt the body
hung motionless. The applause and laughter that death could be so
counterfeited was tumultuous; but a cry of terror went forth that the
man was dead. He perished for catering to a morbid public appetite.
Every one who saw this voluntary hanging went away degraded and
disgusted at the terrible result of the show.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXXIX.
AT WINDSOR CASTLE.
FROM Windsor Castle the view is one of the finest in England. A vast
panorama extending as far as the eye can reach. All flat--the faint,
bare, blue horizontal line, scarcely discernible from the clouds, so
distant is it, as straight as the boundary of a calm sea--and yet how
infinitely varied! What would such an expanse of land be in any other
country but England, which is, in itself, a huge landscape garden?
A lovely river, to which the hackneyed illustration of "a stream
of molten gold" might well be applied, from the silent roll of its
glittering waters, as if impeded by their own rich weight, now flashing
like a strip of the sun's self, through broad meadows, whose green
is scarcely less dazzling--now lost in shady nooks of wondrous and
refreshing coolness.
Trees of various species and growth, singly, in clumps, and in rows,
are everywhere. Little bright-looking villages, with their white
spires, or grey towers, are dotted all over the scene. Beyond where
I stand, on the ramparts of the Castle, I can see the Gothic turrets
and spires of Eton College, founded by Henry of Lancaster, flanked by
oak and birch trees, and above us, on this delightful day in autumn,
the banner of St. George is floating right saucily, denoting that this
Martial Keep is a royal fortress and a hereditary residence of the
Sovereigns of England.
[Sidenote: THE DEMON HUNTSMAN.]
Everything seems in perfect harmony around us, as the sun falls in
slanting and roseate beams on grass, tree, flower, castle, and river.
There are not many hours, in one's life, such as I enjoyed that
pleasant evening in September. The gentle hum of human life reaching me
from the distance, is no more injurious to the effect than the rustling
of the trees, or the chirping of the birds. The quiet bustle down at
the stone bridge, the shouts of the bargemen--heard several seconds
after their utterance,--the plashing of the oars of stray boats, the
cricketers over there in their play-ground, where reposes some of the
dust of Arthur's blood; all these have a charm for the drowsy senses.
The sleepy-looking chimneys of the old, royal town, immediately beneath
me, fill up their place in the picture famously; even steam--that most
implacable enemy of romance--appears on the scene without injuring
it. The little toy-house-looking railway station, which I can see
from where I stand, on the battlements, is a harmless, nay a pleasing
object; and to watch the lilliputian train that has just left it,
disappearing fussily among the old trees, is a perfect delight.
Windsor Castle has been the abode of royalty from the time of the
Saxon Kings. It was while King John lived at Windsor, that the barons
obtained from him Magna Charta. Cromwell has held his republican courts
in Windsor, and Charles I lies buried in its Chapel Royal.
James, the Royal poet and King of Scotland, has visited here, and
David, another Scottish monarch, was a prisoner in its gloomy towers.
Here was instituted the Order of the Garter by Edward, who was "every
inch a King," and some of the most splendid pageantries and courtly
ceremonies of history have been enacted within the walls of Windsor
Castle. In its vast forests, Herne, the Diabolical Hunter, has chased
the Phantom Deer to the tally-ho of unearthly horns. This forest, or,
as it was called, "Windsor Great Forest," was of enormous extent, and
comprehended a circumference of one hundred and twenty miles. In the
time of James I, this great area had been reduced to seventy-seven and
a half miles. There were then three thousand head of deer, and fifteen
walks, in the forest, each about three miles long. The next reduction
of its size left the Forest only fifty-six miles in circumference, and
in 1814 an act of Parliament was passed to enclose its boundaries.
Since then villages, and detached buildings, and private residences,
have encroached upon this once magnificent demesne, until but 6,000
acres of wood and dell have been left of all the great medieval acreage.
Edward, the Confessor, held a court here, and assigned the Manor of
Windsor to the Abbot and Monks of Westminster. William de Wykeham, the
great philanthropist and scholar, who founded Winchester School and the
New College at Oxford, was appointed Clerk of the Works at Windsor to
superintend the reconstruction of the Castle, in 1356, and his fee from
Edward III for the service was one shilling a day while he remained in
the town, and two shillings a day when he went elsewhere upon business.
The Castle is divided into a great number of apartments, many of which
are memorable for their historical recollections, and among them are
St. George's Chapel, Beaufort Chapel, the Round Tower, the North
Terrace, the Audience Chamber, the Vandyck Gallery, the Queen's Drawing
Room, the State Ante-Room, the Grand Vestibule, the Waterloo Chamber,
the Grand Ball Room, St. George's Hall, the Guard Chamber, the Queen's
Presence Chamber, the King's Closet, the Queen's Private Closet, the
King's Drawing Room, the Throne Room, the State Apartments, and the
Private Apartments. The Home Park attached to the Castle is a private
garden in which the Queen walks or rides while residing at Windsor. The
Queen seldom rides on horseback of late years, as she has become so fat
and pursy that she is in constant dread that she will have to take any
such exercise as walking in the open air, or even promenading upon the
Grand Terrace of Windsor.
In St. George's Chapel, a beautiful little edifice, are hung the
banners of the Knights of the Order of the Garter, and under each
banner is the carved stall, made of wood, on which each Knight of the
Chapter sits, at the installation of a new member, or when any grand
ceremony may make their presence necessary. In the groined roof above
the banners, are worked the arms of Edward the Black Prince, Henry
VI, Edward IV, Henry VII, and the succeeding English Sovereigns. The
helmets, swords, and mantles of the Knights, together with the brass
plates, recording their titles, are also to be seen here. In this
Chapel is buried the crumbled dust of poor Jane Seymour, one of Henry
VIII's unfortunate wives and the mother of Edward VI, who reformed the
Prayer Book and Liturgy of the Church of England. The body of Charles
I also lies here, but he was more fortunate than Jane Seymour, whose
memory is almost forgotten.
In the Beaufort Chapel is the family tomb of that perverse old idiot
of a king, George III, in which repose the ashes of his children and
Queen; the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, Princess Charlotte,
William IV, uncle to Queen Victoria, the royal blackguard and scoundrel
George IV, the Princess Augusta, who was believed to have been insane,
and Queen Adelaide.
It is in the Beaufort Chapel that the Poor or Military Knights of St.
George's College, assemble to pray and beseech the Almighty for the
health and welfare of the Queen of England, and for the Most Noble
Companions of the Order of the Garter, to whom the Poor Knights cling
as a species of indigent parasites. The Order of Poor Knights was
established by act of Parliament of Edward IV, in the name of the
"Poor Knights of St. George's College," and was to consist of a Dean,
12 Secular Canons, 13 Priests, 4 Clerks, 6 Choristers, and 24 "Alms
Knights."
[Sidenote: PRAYING FOR CHEESE AND BEER.]
At divine service in the Beaufort Chapel, these old, broken-down
looking men may be seen, on every festival, and on all occasions when
services are held, praying for the reigning Sovereign of England. For
this service they receive bread, cheese, beer, and meat, ten times a
week. I saw these worn, meek-looking men, who seemed to glide rather
than walk during service, but it seemed to me that very little prayers
were uttered by them for the Sovereign, as they all had a vacant,
absent look, with the exception of one or two who had the regular fixed
John Bull stare, and were evidently awaiting the hour when bread,
cheese, and beer, were to be announced.
[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE.]
In the Round Tower, which is 295 feet high, there were confined nearly
all the State prisoners whom despotism found it necessary to secure
in its dungeons, from Edward III to Charles II, and in the "Audience
Chamber," which is hung with Gobelin Tapestry, representing the story
of Queen Esther, are paintings of Mary, Queen of Scots, and William,
Prince of Orange. This is an "Audience Chamber" only in name, for the
Queen very seldom holds levees in this big, desolate-looking room.
The "Waterloo Chamber" is 47 feet in length and 45 in height, and has
a gallery of magnificent portraits, by Lawrence, all of whom were, in
some fashion, connected either in the closets of diplomacy, or the
fields of strife, with the downfall of Napoleon; hence the name of
"Waterloo Gallery." Here are life-size portraits of Wellington, Lord
Castlereagh, Humboldt, Alexander I, Count Nesselrode, Capo d'Istria,
Prince Schwartzenburg, Archduke Charles, Blucher, Platoff, the Marquis
of Anglesea, Francis II, of Austria, Pope Pius VII, and others equally
famous.
In the Grand Chamber is a piece of ordnance, taken from Tippo Saib,
at Seringapatam, a table made from the wreck of the Royal George, and
an elaborately worked shield of silver, inlaid with gold, made by
Benvenuto Cellini, which was presented by Francis I, of France, to
Henry VIII, of England, at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
The Throne Room has a fine ceiling, ornamented with the different
emblems of the Order of the Garter. Here the Queen sits enthroned on
occasions of State, and receives her guests habited in a scarlet velvet
mantle, trimmed with miniver. On one occasion, when her Majesty took
her seat here, her costume, including the jewels and Crown, was valued
at £150,000, a vast sum to be thrown away on such heartless vanities,
when it is recollected that myriads of people were dying of want and
starvation in her Kingdom at the time.
The Throne is a very fine piece of work, and is covered with heavy
hangings of red velvet, and is ornamented with the rose, shamrock and
thistle.
[Sidenote: IN THE QUEEN'S CHAMBER.]
By special permission I had the pleasure of beholding the Queen's
bed-room, or Private Closet. This is a favor seldom shown to any
but foreign noblemen, or Embassadors, but by diligent efforts I had
succeeded in getting permission to look at this sacred place.
On the day that I visited Windsor Castle, it luckily happened that
very few visitors had called, and as I had a note from a most high
personage, with permission to see the private apartments of Her
Majesty, I was glad that there was not a crowd to witness the result of
my mission. As a point of honor, I find it impossible to mention the
name of the great personage who gave me permission to visit the Queen's
Chamber, as I fear it might give him trouble, and perhaps deprive him
of his lofty position.
Even the attendant, to whom I showed the note, was afraid to allow me
to enter the apartments, as the Queen had only left them early that
same morning to take a drive, and was expected back during the evening.
It was now two o'clock in the afternoon, and I began to fear that I
would not see the private saloons of her Majesty.
The attendant said, in answer to my request:
"I tell you, Sir, I'll lose my place and perkisites if I show the
hapartments to you. I dare not do it."
"But," said I, "there is an order from Lord ----, will not that be
sufficient?"
"Yes," said he, "his Lordship is a great friend of the Queen, but
I'm afraid this order is a mistake, and only refers to the public
apartments, which I have no hobjection, Sir, to your seeing."
I began to think I would fail if I did not find a weak spot in the
gorgeous flunkey.
Suddenly a thought struck me. I asked myself "who has been the most
popular and best loved American in England?"
Echo answered, "George Peabody."
And "why," the inward monitor asked.
Echo answered again, "because he gave so much money away," for I was
positive that the English (servants at least) did not care for any of
his less showy virtues, in comparison with that of bestowing millions
from his private purse! Why, the Queen herself give him her portrait.
Did she not?
The flunkey seemed to read my soul the while that I communed with
myself.
I felt that I must throw myself in the breach. Suddenly I slipped a
bright new sovereign into the man's hand. His fingers closed on the
shining gold coin like the teeth of a vise and his eyes glistened. I
knew then from his look that I would have to pistol the flunkey on the
spot before I could get back my sovereign. We were going toward the
private apartments of her Britannic Majesty, who is also Defender of
the Faith.
A long corridor lay before us, and the flunkey stopped and said to me:
[Sidenote: THE SECRETS OF ROYALTY.]
"I'll try it, Sir. You are indeed very generous, and I honor you for
it, but I don't know whether we can pass the Yeoman of the Guard. They
are always about here guarding Her Majesty's private apartments. This
is the Queen's Closet."
He pointed to a lofty doorway, and I saw a big, bloated Britisher,
walking up and down with something on his shoulder that looked like a
meat-axe fastened upon a clothes-pole. He had a red tunic, and wore a
round flat hat, and his legs which were very noble and imposing, were
clad in red hose.
The flunkey, who was also in tights, went up to him and spoke, and I
assumed a business-like air. He was telling the red-faced Beef-Eater,
as I afterwards ascertained, that I came to make some repairs in the
closet, but the Beef-Eater did not seem willing to admit any one; but
by some moral suasion he obviated his scruples, and I was allowed to
enter. I think he divided the sovereign with him.
The flunkey beckoned to me, and I approached. The Beef-Eater--noble
fellow--looked the other way, as I entered the imposing apartment.
The flunkey stood in silent awe, as I looked around on the splendors of
the lofty room.
A magnificent bed stood in a corner of the apartment, hung with red
velvet and yellow silk. The arms of Great Britain were emblazoned on
the heavy red velvet, and the Lions and Unicorns, disported playfully
all over the room in their usual attitudes. There were large oil
paintings of George IV, King William IV, the Duke of Kent, father of
Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales as a Colonel of the British army,
and the Princess Louise, a marriageable daughter of Queen Victoria.
The bed was large and would have held three persons of the size
of Queen Victoria. Elegant lounges were arranged around the lofty
apartment, covered with damask satin. A faint and delicious odor filled
the room, and I seemed to sink in the soft and luxuriant carpets.
Mystery, silence, and enchantment prevailed, and I trembled to think
that I stood in the presence of Royalty unbidden, and without the
permission of the Queen.
There was a sideboard of most intricate carving at one end of the
room, with some green Venetian glasses on one of its shelves, but I saw
no decanters. The room was filled with a glory and power, reflected
in the possessor of three Kingdoms. From without, through the deeply
embayed windows, also hung with satin of the color of a morning sky,
I could hear the tramp of the sentinels on the battlements, and
the hoarse cry of the warders, going their rounds, demanding the
counter-sign of strangers.
The charmed silence was broken by the voice of the flunkey in answer to
my enquiry as to how the aromatic odors of the chamber were procured.
"Her Majesty is werry fond of perfumes, Sir," said he. "The carpets has
Cologne shook on them every morning, and if you will come here to the
bed, you will also get the smell of Patshooly."
I walked to the bed and I found that there was an odor of cologne,
otter of roses, and musk, proceeding from the counterpane, which
was bordered with purple velvet and gold lace, and had the royal
arms embroidered in the centre. The pillow slips had trimmings of
Valenciennes lace, half a yard wide, hanging from their open ends.
The counterpane was of quilted blue and pink satin, and inside of the
velvet canopy that covered the bed, was a lining of blue and white
satin, from which hung down heavy folds of Mechlin lace.
A little table of ivory, inlaid with gold and lapis lazuli, stood a
few feet from the bed, supported by a tripod elegantly worked in solid
silver.
The flunkey explained to me the use of this table. "Sometimes Her
Majesty takes her breakfast in bed," said he, "when she is indisposed.
Her Majesty is werry fond of coffee, and often takes two cups of a
morning when she is stopping at Windsor. She is fond of veal cutlets,
well done, and sweet breads, for breakfast. Yes, Sir, I have heard
that Her Majesty, God bless her, when she had a good appetite, before
Prince Albert died, would eat a pound of veal at breakfast. The lady in
waiting places her coffee on that small table, and after handing Her
Majesty her breakfast in bed, she stands off at a respectful distance,
and waits until she is called again to offer Her Majesty a favorite
dish. The Duchess of Athole, who is a relation of Lady Mordaunt, is
greatly liked by Her Majesty, and when she waits on the Queen, Her
Majesty allows her to sit down, but all the other ladies in waiting,
excepting Lady Dianna Beauclerk, has to stand up. Sometimes, when
the Prince of Wales comes here, God bless him, he is awfully screwed
(drunk), and then the Queen makes a preshis row, and she wont speak to
him for a week after.
[Sidenote: "WOT A PEOPLE THE HAMERICANS ARE."]
"You are the only American ever was allowed to enter this ere room,
Sir; but I have heard that one of your countrymen once strayed in here,
and was astonished to find that there was no 'spittoons,' I think he
called them, in the Queen's bed-room. A preshis thing that would be,
to have sich things as 'spittoons' in the Queen's bed-room," said the
indignant and loyal flunkey.
I informed the man that the story was incredible, and that my
countrymen were not such savages as he believed them to be. When I
informed him that in the old times in America, any free and unwashed
citizen might have inspected the President's bed-room at the White
House at Washington, he was greatly astonished, and said:
"My God, what a strange people the Hamericans are! And they allowed
them to look at his bed, did they? My heyes, wot a people!"
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XL.
BEFORE THE MAGISTRATES.
THERE are two places well worth seeing in London. One is the Central
Criminal Court or "Old Bailey" as it is usually called, situated next
door to Newgate, and the "Lord Mayor's" Court, in the Mansion House.
The Old Bailey is a famous criminal Court, and has had an eventful
history. The magistrates who sit here, are the Lord Mayor, who opens
the Court, the sheriffs of Middlesex and London, the Lord Chancellor,
who is never present excepting in a State trial, the Judges, Aldermen,
and Recorder, the Common Sergeant of London, the Judge of the Sheriff's
Court, or City Commissions, and others whom the Crown may appoint to
assist them. Of these dignitaries the Recorder and Common Sergeant
of London are most generally to be found presiding, as the common
law judges only assist when knotty points are to be decided, or when
conviction may affect the life of the prisoner.
At the Old Bailey are tried crimes of every kind, from treason to
petty larceny, and even offences committed upon the high seas. The
jurisdiction comprises every part of the metropolis of London, together
with the county of Middlesex; the parishes of Richmond and Mortlake in
Surrey, and the greater part of Essex county, adjoining Middlesex.
[Sidenote: THE "OLD BAILEY" COURT.]
The Old Bailey Court is a square hall with a gallery for visitors,
below which is a large clock, that ticks in the prisoner's ears, like
a bell of doom. Below it is the dock for the culprits, with stairs
descending to the covered passage, by which they are conveyed to and
from Newgate. Opposite the dock in which the wretched prisoner stands
up to plead for mercy, is the bench for the judges, and here may be
seen day after day the Recorder of London sitting to try offenders,
in his blue cloth gown, with furred borders, and his neck encircled
with a gold chain, listening listlessly to the testimony, and now and
then making notes on a square piece of paper, while from the open
window comes the chirruping of birds; and before him are arraigned poor
wretches in rags and squalor, on trial for offences which may peril
their lives, reputation and happiness.
There are three large square windows in this Court, through which
appear the ridge of the gloomy walls of Newgate, having on their left
a gallery close to the ceiling, with projecting boxes, and on the
right the Bench extending the whole length of the wall, with desks
at intervals, for the use of the judges, whilst in the body of the
Court are the witness-box and the jury-box, below the windows of the
Court, an arrangement that allows the jury to look clearly, and without
turning, on the faces of the witnesses and the prisoners. The strong
light from the windows enables the witness to identify the prisoner,
who stands shivering in the dock, at the same time that it permits the
judges on the Bench and the counsel below in the hollow space of the
Court to keep jury, witnesses and prisoners all at once within the same
perspective line.
In the upper seats are the double rows of reporters, smart,
well-looking and well-dressed fellows, the majority of whom look bored
and disgusted, as well they may, when it is taken into account that
they have to sit here day after day, to look at the same horse-hair
wigs of the jabbering lawyers, the same gowns, the same blank ceiling,
the same stupid, harsh faced jurymen, and the same hard looking or
wobegone wretches who stand up in the dock to listen to sentence or
acquittal. Occasionally there is a little amusement for them when some
ass of an alderman attempts in a pompous way, to show the bearing
of a statute in a criminal case, and only succeeds in exposing his
turtle-fed ignorance to the merriment of the knowing ones.
Look there now. A youth well-dressed and cleanly-looking is brought
into the dock and placed for trial on a charge of forgery on his
employer, for the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds. The young fellow
has a weak, pallid face, and seems rather dazed at all the preparation
and mysterious jabber on his account. A dozen of the counsel, in black
stuff gowns and with white wigs of horse-hair look around for a minute
at the dock, where the prisoner stands, merely out of curiosity, as if
he were a sheep or a calf brought in for slaughter. Their curiosity
satisfied, they turn away from him and dismiss his pale face from their
thoughts almost instantaneously. The judge on the bench--who is flanked
by a fat alderman on each side, in red robes--sits, looking at some
documents, with a far-away, abstracted look, as if the prisoner at the
bar was a thousand miles distant, and a free man.
And meanwhile the case progresses, the counsel for the Crown opening
indignantly on the side of virtue and the law, and witness after
witness is called up and kisses the book, and there is much making of
affidavit and counter-affidavit, and through all this maze of swearing
and mist of statement, it appears that the young lad at the bar has
been wild and reckless, and has signed his master's name, beyond all
doubt, to a check, which he had cashed, the proceeds of which were
spent in the haunts of vice and shame. The case goes to the jury, who
pronounce him guilty without leaving their seats, and the sun streams
through the windows on the despairing face of the youth, and I am
awakened from a sort of a trance into which I have fallen, to hear the
voice of the Recorder of the good city of London, drone out at the
prisoner:
"In this case I can find no extenuating circumstances. You are of age
to know better, and the sentence of the Court is, therefore, that you
suffer penal servitude, with hard labor, for the space of twelve years."
Good God! twelve years! He is not yet eighteen, and the twelve best
years of his life are erased from his span of existence, by the breath
of the man in blue cloth gown and the fur tippet, and now the latter
goes up stairs to eat his dinner, the jury are dismissed, and a young
girl falls fainting in the Court as the prisoner is led out--however it
is only his sister. There is a little stir among the horse-hair-wigged
counsel and a buzz in the audience, and in three minutes another case
comes on to excite new interest, and make us forget the convict and his
sobbing, fair-haired sister.
Upon the front of the dock is placed a sprig of rue, which dissipates
any infection that may proceed from the clothes of the prisoner, should
he be suffering from illness. The origination of this custom is worthy
of note.
In 1750, when the jail fever raged in Newgate, the effluvia entering
the Court, caused the death of Baron Clarke, Sir Thomas Abney, the
judge of the Common Pleas; and Pennant's "respected kinsman," Sir
Samuel Pennant, Lord Mayor; besides members of the bar and of the jury,
and other persons. This disease was also fatal to several persons in
1772. Since that time a sprig of rue has always been kept in the dock
to drive away contagion.
[Sidenote: THE JUDGES' DINNER.]
Above the old Court is a stately dining-room, wherein, during the Old
Bailey sittings, the dinners are given by the sheriffs to the judges
and aldermen, the Recorder, Common Sergeant, city pleaders, and a few
visitors. Marrow-puddings and rump-steaks are always provided. Two
dinners, exact duplicates, are served each day, at 3 and 5 o'clock; and
the judges relieve each other, but aldermen have eaten both dinners;
and a chaplain, who invariably presided at the lower end of the table,
thus ate two dinners a day for ten years. Theodore Hook admirably
describes a Judges' Dinner in his _Gilbert Gurney_. In 1807-8, the
dinners for three sessions, nineteen days, cost Sheriff Phillips £35
per day--£665; 145 dozen of wine, consumed at the above dinners, £450:
total £1,115. The amount is now considerably greater, as the sessions
are held monthly.
Outside in the lobbies and hall rooms, passages and corridors adjacent
to and connected with the Old Bailey Court there is always a crowd
of lawyers, policemen, hangers-on, countrymen, cadgers, and persons
anxious to become spectators, females of the poorer class, members
of the aristocratic swell mob, sneak thieves and pickpockets, all
curious to know how matters are going on inside with their friends or
associates in crime or misfortune, and among them all, rushing hither
and thither, chatting and joking, conferring with his clients, and
nodding familiarly to the police and the officers of the Court, may
be seen the sharpest legal bird in the world. I mean the regular Old
Bailey practitioner, who could take a penny from a dead man's eyes, rob
an altar, or cheat the widow and orphan, and still prove to his own
satisfaction that it was done for a good and laudable purpose.
[Illustration: LOADING THE PRISON VAN.]
A not uncommon sight in the vicinity of police offices and petty
Courts, in London, is the noisy, brawling discharge of prisoners,
who are turned out on the streets in the morning, after having been
locked up all night for trifling offences, or disorderly conduct and
intoxication.
Their unlucky companions, who have received sentences of imprisonment,
are taken from the Courts to the places of confinement in which they
are to pay the penalty of their indiscretion or crime. Every morning
there is a dreadful row and confusion at the Bow street police office,
when the prisoners are brought out to be placed in the prison wagon or
"van," in which they are transported to Holloway, Milbank or Newgate
prisons. A large crowd assembles daily to witness the embarkation of
these poor wretches for their new residences. Fighting women, squalling
children, patient policemen, and drunken blackguards are among the
details of these assemblages. There is a strong able bodied virago,
with her dress hanging to her form in shreds, who has just tossed her
soiled bonnet madly among the crowd, with a series of shrieks, and
three policemen are hardly sufficient to restrain her, while she is
being helped into the "Van." At last she is locked up with other unruly
personages inside of the iron door, in a dark box, where she may swear
away to her heart's content for a ride of five to ten miles.
[Sidenote: THE MANSION HOUSE.]
And now let us take a look at the Justice Room of the Mansion House,
which is only a few rods distant from the Old Bailey.
Be it known to all my readers that the Mansion House, or Guildhall,
is to London what the City Hall is to New York--the Hotel de Ville to
Paris or Brussels--and the Stadt Haus to Amsterdam. It is here that
the Lord Mayor of London lives and here he deals out justice to his
constituents. The Guildhall or Mansion House of London is one of the
finest public buildings in the city, and has a noble gallery, dining
hall, and a service of municipal gold and silver plate, which is used
by the Lord Mayor on state occasions, besides a splendid collection of
paintings.
But it is of the Justice Court, a small room in the Mansion House, that
we have to speak on this occasion, and not of the plate, or of the Lord
Mayor's annual show.
The Mansion House is just opposite the Bank of England and the Royal
Exchange, in the very heart of moneyed London, Lombard street being
but a very short distance around the corner, with its horde of money
changers, bill discounters brokers, and bankers.
This Court is not opened before noonday, as the Lord Mayor of London is
too mighty a magnate to be hurried in his daily duties for any command
or Court of Justice.
Accordingly at noon, I find myself below the steps leading to the
Mansion House, and presently I begin to ascend the broad staircase
of stone, with a small crowd of policemen, officers of the Court,
witnesses, and lawyers. I am questioned as to my business by an officer
at the door, but being in company with detective Irving, of New York
City (who is about to appear before the Lord Mayor, in the case of
Clement Harwood, the celebrated forger, whom the former had captured
at New York on board of an English steamer, before she had touched her
dock, and had him brought back to London for trial), I am admitted,
and after one or two turnings, find myself in a well-lighted room of
moderate size, with a high ceiling and two windows looking out on the
Poultry and Threadneedle street.
[Illustration: DETECTIVE IRVING.]
Between those two windows is a throne or dais, gorgeous enough for
a monarch, and behind the throne are emblazoned the municipal mace
and sword, and the motto of the City of London, "Domine Dirige Nos,"
surmounted by the lion and unicorn, the arms of Great Britain. This
is the Lord Mayor's Chair of Justice, but the awful being to whom it
appertains has not yet made his appearance, and I have leisure to look
around me.
There are two rows of desks, for the reporters, and behind them sit
representatives of the _Times_, _Daily News_, _Daily Telegraph_,
_Standard_, _Morning Advertiser_, and other leading journals, the
evening papers, with the exception of the _Echo_, _Pall Mall Gazette_
and _Globe_ not being represented, the others always copying their
police reports from the morning journals.
[Sidenote: THE RICH RASCAL.]
There are two or three high desks in the centre of the room, a square
iron railing, and a number of police waiting to make charges, but
the prisoners are kept below in the lockup and will presently appear
through a trap door in the floor when they are called to answer to the
charges on the sheet.
The American detective has just finished his business regarding
Harwood's case, and saunters in carelessly with his hat in his hand to
take a look around him.
Presently there is a bustle and commotion, and a man looking like a
drum major of a band, with scarlet and gold facings on his coat, whom
I am informed enjoys the dignity of Mayor's Marshal, marches into the
room like a peacock, with his big staff of office, and cries out:
"Make way there, for the Right Honorable the Lud Mayor."
Then enters the awful being himself, in a furred robe of heavy cloth,
like one of Rembrandt's burgomasters, a blazing gold chain depending
from his neck and covering his waistcoat, and having taken his seat,
the charge sheet is examined by him in a dignified way, and the first
case is called.
This is the case of the forger Harwood, a young man, the son of the
senior partner of one of the largest banking firms in London, who has
forged his father's name for the amount of £15,000.
The trap door opens and discloses a fashionably-dressed and
good-looking young fellow, with a police officer on each side. The case
had excited great interest in London, and the prisoner having fled to
New York was captured before the steamer got to her dock, and brought
back to London. Harwood had been brought to justice because the junior
member of the firm, to protect its interests, had been compelled to the
unwilling task of making the charge against his partner's son.
[Illustration: BEFORE THE "LORD MAYOR."]
Harwood has the air of a languid and haughty "swell," or exquisite,
and is most fashionably dressed. There is no flinching in his blonde
and whiskered face as he is brought up for sentence, having been
previously convicted. Out of £15,000, detective Irving recovered over
£11,000 from the forger, and it seems the charge is to be hushed up.
The father of the culprit is a wealthy citizen, and the counsel for the
prisoner makes his point that the greater part of the money having been
recovered, and the prisoner having "suffered much anguish of mind" for
his crime, has offered to go to America if released, and make amends
for his "fault" by leading a new and repentant life.
I looked at the exquisite, who stood there as cool as a cucumber, and
it seemed to me rather doubtful that he had suffered much anguish of
mind. I also doubted if he would be willing to lead a very virtuous
life in America. As he stood there with his assured and rather
contemptuous look and insolent face, he was quite a contrast to the
pale, weak-looking lad, who stood the day before in the dock of the
Old Bailey to receive with trembling lips his sentence of twelve long
years penal servitude, and just as the thought struck me, Irving, the
detective, whispered to me:
[Sidenote: THE POOR RASCAL.]
"He looks very sorry, don't he? Of course! Cheese things."
Then the Lord Mayor plucked up a proper spirit, threw back his
furred sleeves, put on a look of profound wisdom, consulted with the
prisoner's counsel, and making up his judicial mind that Harwood had
"suffered enough,"--poor young man--the forger was released and set
at liberty in order to allow him to become a virtuous citizen of the
United States. Nothing was said about the deficit of two or three
thousand pounds; the young man's family was wealthy and respectable.
But who is this poor rascal at the bar now, who appears as the friends
of the wealthy forger gather in a knot to congratulate him. Why it
is a low ruffian of a pickpocket who has been caught in the act of
abstracting a lady's reticule valued at fourteen shillings. The
villain! He has no wealthy friends, so let him take eighteen months
imprisonment at Hollaway prison, and there let him repent while on the
treadmill.
I left the Lord Mayor's Court with mixed feelings, and the remarks of
the detective failed to reassure me as to the honesty of the method of
administering justice by his Worship, the Lord Mayor of London.
CHAPTER XLI.
TWO RIVALS--CANTERBURY AND ROME.
METROPOLITAN Life has its religious phases, also. London contains about
410,000 dwelling-houses, places of business, and public buildings, and
in this vast agglomeration of brick, stone, and mortar--there are about
seven hundred edifices devoted to public worship. In this number are
comprised places of worship for all sects: Roman Catholics, Protestants
of the Established Church of England, Baptists, Presbyterians,
Independents, Jews, Greeks, Moravians, Quakers, Socinians,
Wesleyan-Methodists, and even Hindoos, who have a temple of their own.
There are two hundred and eighteen parishes in the Metropolis, under
the jurisdiction of vestries and parochial bodies who, in turn, are
subject to the Bishop of London, sitting as a temporal and spiritual
peer in the House of Lords. He is Provincial Dean of Canterbury, and
Dean of the Chapels Royal at Whitehall and the Savoy.
The Bishop of London ranks next to the Archbishop of York and
Canterbury, and has an income of £10,000, annually, and the free gift
of one hundred and nine livings, ranging in value from £2,000 to £30 a
year. As Dean of Canterbury his income amounts to £2,000 a year. The
clergymen of the Established Church receiving the largest salaries in
the City of London, whose livings are in the gift of the Bishop of
London, are those of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, £2,290, St. Olave's,
Hart street, Bloomsbury, £1,891, and St. Giles, Cripplegate, £1,580.
The smallest salary is that received by the pastor of St. Bartholomew
the Less, who only gets £30 a year, although his work is far harder
than that of the Dean of Westminster, who receives £4,000 a year. The
salary of the Archbishop of Canterbury is £20,000, and he has half a
dozen palaces throughout the country. The Archbishop of York receives
about £15,000 a year, and has two Episcopal and palatial residences.
[Sidenote: SPURGEON AND "APOCALYPSE" CUMMING.]
Spurgeon, the great Baptist divine, who ranks somewhat like Henry Ward
Beecher, receives a salary of $18,000 a year for his preaching, and his
congregation, in 1860, erected for him a grand tabernacle at Newington,
on the Surrey side of the Thames near the Elephant and Castle, and in
one of the roughest districts of London, at a cost of £25,000. The
design is simple; the dimensions 85 by 174 feet, and here, every Sunday
evening, nearly six thousand persons assemble to listen to the vehement
eloquence of Spurgeon, who has his congregation drilled like a company
of infantry, and can move them to tears or laughter, as he chooses.
[Illustration: SPURGEON.]
In Crown Court, Strand, is the Free Church of Scotland, a well-built
and commodious edifice, where the Scottish Presbyterians attend. The
pastor of this church is known all over the world by his writings and
his prophetic denunciations of the coming destruction of the world,
as "Apocalypse" Cumming. Thousands of pages have been written by this
eminent divine, and hundreds of sermons have been preached by him, in
which he has identified the Pope of Rome with the "Scarlet Woman" and
the "Beast," having the mark on her forehead, yet at the call of the
Ecumenical Council, he was the first Protestant divine in England, who,
in a manner acknowledged the Pope's jurisdiction by writing to him for
admission to the Council as a Priest or "Presbyter." Dr. Cumming is a
very energetic preacher, and his services are always well attended by
the disciples of his church, as well as by strangers, in London, who
manifest a great desire to hear the illustrious Scotch divine.
[Illustration: FATHER IGNATIUS.]
One of the most talked-about people in London is the famous "Father
Ignatius," whose design is to bring over English Episcopalians to the
Roman Catholic Church, although he does not say so ostensibly. This
man is evidently sincere in his efforts to bring back the English
Church to the place of its departure, for the Reformation--as far as
the ceremonial goes. It is very little different, that old-fashioned
church of St. Mary-le-Strand--where I saw Father Ignatius officiating
one Sunday afternoon, in the midst of incense, ringing of silver
bells, and kneeling worshippers, who went through all the most devout
genuflections of Roman Catholicism--from the Mother Church, in its
ceremonial. Father Ignatius wore a vestment, with a huge cross down
the back, his head was shaved on the top like that of a monk, and
his face and eyes, as he descended the steps of the altar, which was
surmounted with a Gothic cross, covered with flowers, and blazing
with lights, had an ascetic aspect, which is not commonly seen in
the features or eyes of a clergyman of the State Church. At every
motion of the body he made a low reverence to the Crucifix over the
altar. This Father Ignatius does not believe in a married Clergy, or
in Lay or Congregational administration of a Church--in fact he does
everything that a Roman Catholic Priest does, including the hearing of
confessions, yet he dares not acknowledge the Supremacy of the Bishop
of Rome, excepting in a negative sense. He is an advanced soldier of a
large and growing party in the Church of England, who gravitate with
tremendous strides daily towards the Church of Rome, but do not know
that they are thus gravitating, or knowing, will not acknowledge the
fact. This puny, slab-faced, and livid-looking Priest, has suffered,
too, with steadiness, has been stoned and mobbed by angry crowds, yet
he perseveres in his work, and has many thousand followers, male and
female, among the brightest, best, bravest, and most cultivated of
England's aristocracy.
[Sidenote: THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.]
It is a strange, old-fashioned, and conservative Church, this State
Church of Great Britain. It has lasted three hundred years, with its
feasts and fasts, its liturgy, its prelates, spiritual peers, and
Thirty-Nine Articles.
Englishmen have always, until of late days, been conservative, and
this old-fashioned Church, with its grave ceremonial, its Canons, and
Deaneries, with its Westminster Abbey, its St. Paul's Cathedral, and
its Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, has, in every way, satisfied
the English people--at any rate, it has served the purposes of the
ruling classes.
But the Church of England, like all other things in this world, has
received some heavy blows in the course of its existence.
First came the Great Civil War, in which Charles I lost his head,
and with him the Church of England lost its revenues, and its great
prestige departed when Laud ascended the scaffold.
Then came the Restoration, which brought with it a dissolute King,
a dissolute nobility, and worst of all a dissolute clergy. The
horse-riding, beer-drinking, and gambling parsons of the reigns of
Queen Anne, William, and the Georges, such as Thackeray has so well
described, in his Parson Sampson, were morally unfit to join issue,
in a spiritual encounter, with such earnest, plucky, and aggressive
Christians as Wesley, Whitfield, and Bunyan, proved themselves, and
consequently the Established Church lost its hold on half of the
working men and the agricultural classes of England toward the first
decade of the Nineteenth century. In particular, the manufacturing
towns lost all respect for the faith of the King and court, and such
places as Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, and Birmingham, became
strongholds of Dissent, while the pews of the rural churches, where
the poor of the parishes had never been welcome, since the days of the
dissolution of the monasteries, by Henry VIII, were left untenanted,
and a brutal ignorance took the place of implicit faith among the
English masses.
And to cap the climax, a year ago a bill was brought into Parliament
for the destruction of the Established Church of Ireland, a church
which never had been accepted by the Irish people, and though the
English Churchmen, the Ministers, and the Tory party, rallied to save
the doomed edifice, yet it was swept away in a night, despite the
maneuvers of the leaders of the House of Lords, who wisely fought the
bill as long as they could, believing it to be the first great blow
delivered at the Established Church and the English aristocracy since
Catholic Emancipation in 1829.
At present there is a terrific struggle going on in the Established
Church. One half of the clergy, among whom are the best educated and
most scholarly divines, secretly lean to the Catholic Church, and
belong to the "Ritualistic" party, with its incense, flowers, banners,
and Protestant Sisters of Mercy and Nuns; and the other half are again
divided into those who doubt the inspiration of the Scriptures, and
openly denounce the entire books of the Bible as a tissue of fables,
with Colenso, and a third party, who having sprung from the people, and
having no connection with any of the great beneficed Church families,
and being incumbents of £100 livings, or less, cannot support their
families or educate their children properly. This last faction is a
growing one, and though less educated than the other two parties, they
are equally earnest, and eagerly await the day when they can join the
ranks of the Baptists, Independents, Presbyterians, Wesleyans, or
Methodists, for the purpose of forming a "Liberal" or "Broad" English
Church, such as Dean Stanley is supposed to represent in his theories.
[Sidenote: ROMAN CATHOLIC STATISTICS.]
In the mean time the Roman Catholic Clergy are sleepless,
indefatigable, and aggressive in their movements, and as they do not
hope to convert the middle classes of the English people, who are all
staunch Protestants, they have laid siege to the souls of the two
extreme bodies, the aristocracy and the very poor and destitute, as
well as the working classes. And they are making great progress--in
fact alarming progress, as I will show here.
In 1380, when England and Wales had been Catholic countries for more
than seven hundred and fifty years, there were more than 14,000 parish
churches, and 2,000 religious houses in the kingdom; there was one
parish church to every four square miles throughout the kingdom, and
one religious house to every thirty square miles; and there were 40,000
priests, monks, and friars. The whole of these churches and convents
were taken away or destroyed during the Reformation; and, as I have
said, when the church was at last again set free, she had to commence
her work anew. In the half century since her hands were fully untied,
she has built more than 1,000 churches and chapels, and something
like 300 monasteries and convents, and she has over 1,700 priests
ministering at her altars. If this be the work of fifty years, how much
less is it, proportionately, than the work accomplished by the same
church in the first seven hundred and fifty years of her life.
Therefore, the Roman Catholics, while they held supreme sway in
England, built 14,000 churches, which is less than twenty in each year,
while during the last fifty years they have built 1,000 churches,
which is also twenty in each year; but during this period, it must
be remembered that the public sentiment of Great Britain had been
overwhelmingly Protestant, while in the previous period referred to, a
Protestant was unknown.
And now for the social status and influence of the Romanists in
England.
There are, in the first place, 33 Catholic peers, 48 Catholic baronets,
and 36 Catholic members of Parliament. There are lords and lords,
and one lord differeth from another in glory as one star differeth
from another. It is unquestionably true that the Roman Catholic peers
and baronets are the representatives of the oldest, most noble, and
most influential families in the kingdom. The reigns of Edward VI,
Elizabeth, James I, and William and Mary, were marked by the extinction
of the greater part of the Roman Catholic houses. The nobles, who clung
to the ancient faith, were slain by the axe of the executioner, driven
into exile, or beggared by the confiscation of their estates, which
passed into the hands of the comparatively mushroom aristocracy that
sprang up upon the ruins of these illustrious families. But a few of
the old nobility contrived to escape the fate of the majority.
There are in the United Kingdom 27 dukes, 32 marquises, 194 earls,
55 viscounts, and 220 barons--in all, 528 noblemen. But as I have
ascertained by dint of patiently reading through Burke's peerage, 228
of these are the holders of titles which are the "creations" of the
present century; 163 date back only to the eighteenth century; 89
to the seventeenth century; 17 to the sixteenth century; 20 to the
fifteenth century; 3 to the fourteenth century; 4 to the thirteenth
century; and 1 to the twelfth century. This last is Baron Kingsale,
whose title dates from 1181, and who is the twenty-ninth of his name.
The most ancient dukedom is that of the Duke of Norfolk, created in
1483. The Norfolks, throughout all their history, remained faithful to
the Roman Catholic church. The present Duke is the fifteenth of the
name, and is "Earl Marshal, Premier Duke, and Earl of England." Of the
three nobles whose creation dates back to the fourteenth century, two
are Roman Catholics; of the twenty who date from the fifteenth century,
six are of that religion; and of the seventeen who date from the
sixteenth century, three are of the old faith. Out of the four hundred
and eighty whose titles are less than 270 years old, only twenty-two
are Catholics. And of the forty-eight Roman Catholic baronets, about
half of the number are the descendants of gentlemen to whom this
hereditary rank was given in the early part of the seventeenth century.
The ancient Roman Catholic hierarchy in England ended in 1584, with
the death of Thomas Watson, Bishop of Lincoln, who died in prison in
that year. The hierarchy was not restored until Sept. 9, 1850, when the
present Pope erected it by establishing all England as the "Province
of Westminster," embracing thirteen dioceses, and presided over by
an Archbishop. During this interval of 266 years, the Roman Catholic
Clergy in England were at first under the direction of an Archpriest.
In Scotland the hierarchy has not yet been restored. It ended with the
death of the last Archbishop of Glasgow, who died in exile at Paris in
1603. Since then the Catholic Church in Scotland has been under the
charge of Vicars-apostolic.
[Sidenote: A SKETCH OF "LOTHAIR."]
The greatest conquest made by the Roman Catholic clergy, of late years,
is that of the young Marquis of Bute, the original of Mr. Disraeli's
"Lothair," in his social and politico-religious novel of that name.
This young and noble lord was born on the 12th of September, 1847,
and is now in his twenty-third year. His father, the second Marquis
of Bute, married Lady Maria North, eldest daughter and co-heir of
George Augustus, third Earl of Guilford. This estimable lady died
childless, in 1841, and the old Marquis married again in 1845, Lady
Sophia-Frederica-Christina Hastings, second daughter of the first
Marquis of Hastings. The young Marquis was unfortunate in losing his
mother when he was in his twelfth year. Lord Bute has been a great
traveler for a man of his age, and being an only child he has had the
best of tutors that Europe could afford.
[Illustration: "LOTHAIR," (MARQUIS OF BUTE.)]
Nearly every young lady of wealth and rank in England set her cap for
the young Marquis when he attained his majority; but this nobleman is
very unlike the Marquis of Waterford or the Duke of Hamilton, who by
the way are distant relatives of his. He is not fond of dissipation,
and since his boyish days he has been of a reflective turn of mind,
with deep religious yearnings--yet withal he is not guilty of cant, and
does not bore one with his religious views. He is good looking, but
is not showy in his dress, and just now he is the lion of fashionable
Europe from the fame which attends him everywhere as the hero of
Disraeli's novel. The Marquis was reared a Presbyterian with decided
Church of England leanings, and was converted one year ago, to the
Roman Catholic faith through the efforts of Monsigneur Capel, who has
also a niche in "Lothair," under the title of Monsigneur Catesby. He
is a most accomplished ecclesiastic, who unites with a fascinating
exterior the greatest ability and perseverance.
[Sidenote: BUTE, MANNING, AND NEWMAN.]
The income of the Marquis is about £380,000 annually, and he has
decided to give one year's income, which is nearly two millions of
dollars, toward the construction of a Catholic Cathedral at Oxford, in
which all the glories of the Medieval Gothic shall be renewed. The roll
of this young nobleman's titles is enough to startle an American. They
are as follows: John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, Marquis of Bute, Earl of
Windsor, Viscount Mountjoy in the Isle of Wight, Baron Mount-Stuart of
Wortley and Baron of Cardiff Castle, Wales, in the Peerage of Great
Britain. He is also Earl of Dumfries and Bute, Viscount of Ayr and
Kingarth, Baron Crichton, Lord Crichton of Sanquhar, Lord Mount-Stuart
of Cumbrae and Inchmarnock, and Hereditary Keeper of Rothesay Castle
(formerly a Royal residence). Besides, he is a Baronet of Nova Scotia
among the Blue-Noses.
Through his mother he is a Crichton, which is a royal House, and by his
father he comes of the equally royal House of Stuart, and he holds the
title of "Lord of the Isles." The motto of his family is "_Avito viret
honore_." (He flourishes in an honorable ancestry.) The motto of the
Hastings family, with which Lord Bute is connected, is "Trust warrants
troth."
The most beautiful woman of the English nobility is Lady Victoria-Maria
Louisa Hastings, who is now in her thirty-third year. This lady was
a great pet of Queen Victoria, and when a child Her Royal Highness,
the Duchess of Kent, the mother of the Queen, held the pretty baby
in her arms as sponsor at the baptismal font, for the sake of a dear
friend, Lady Victoria's mother, who was Stephanie, Duchess of Baden,
and a relation of the Emperor Napoleon. The young girl grew up, and is
now the wife of John Forbes-Stratford Kirwan, Esq., of Moyne, County
Galway, Ireland.
The Marquis of Bute is a relation of the late Baron Stuart de Rothesay,
for many years English Ambassador at Paris.
It has been variously hinted and rumored that the Marquis of
Bute was at one time engaged to the Lady Albertina Hamilton, a
daughter of the Duke of Abercorn, and also to a young lady of the
Sutherland-Leveson-Gower family, which has for its head the Duke of
Sutherland. It is said that the "Lady Corisande" of "Lothair," is none
other than a daughter of the Duchess of Sutherland, the former firm
friend of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe.
If the Marquis of Bute was indeed a suitor for the hand of a daughter
of the Duke of Abercorn, I am quite sure that he might have succeeded
in his endeavor, for I believe that that worthy nobleman has been
blessed with ten daughters and four stalwart sons, who can all answer
to the Slogan of the Hamiltons.
The young Marquis has residences and castles, and immense domains,
at Mt. Stuart; Isle of Bute, at Cardiff Castle, Glamorganshire, at
Dumfries House, and he has a town house in London; besides, his name is
inscribed on the registers of four London and three Parisian Clubs.
The ablest man in the English Roman Catholic Church is Archbishop
Manning, who has been such a firm supporter of the Papal Infallibility
in the Ecumenical Council. In due time, no doubt, this prelate will
have the Cardinal's red hat conferred upon him for his services.
The greatest scholar in the Roman Catholic Church, in England, is Dr.
J.H. Newman, the celebrated Oxford Tractarian, or Puseyite, who became
a convert to Catholicism, with Manning, and since 1840 has devoted his
brains to the service of his new Mother Church with great learning and
zeal. His picture shows one of the most spiritual faces in England--it
is almost weird in its nature.
There is a monument erected to a man named Dow, in St. Botolph's Church
(Church of England) Aldgate, who bequeathed a sum of money to the
clerk of the church, to pay him for ringing a bell at midnight, on the
occasion of the execution of a criminal at Newgate. This was to call
the attention of the condemned man to his soul.
It was this same Robert Dow who left, by will, in the year 1612, the
sum of £1 6s. 8d., annually, as a fee to the Sexton of St. Sepulchres,
which is just opposite Newgate Prison, for pronouncing two solemn
exhortations to condemned criminals on the night preceding and on the
morning of their execution, as they passed the church-door on their way
to Tyburn-Tree.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XLII.
THE LEGION OF THE LOST.
VERY different estimates have been made as to the extent of the Social
Evil in London, but that made some fifteen months ago by the Right
Reverend Dr. Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, from facts and figures
furnished him by medical men, the police returns, and the minor clergy,
places the number of abandoned or public women in London, at the
startling aggregate of eighty thousand unfortunates.
This estimate of Vice and Sin is certainly calculated to intimidate and
terrify the Christian people of England, were it not for the fact that
a hundred agencies are constantly at work, upheld and supported by good
men and women, to lessen the number of these fair and frail members of
the Legion of the Lost.
The great parade ground of the abandoned women of London, is the
Haymarket, when all London is at rest--when bed-room blinds are drawn
down, and street doors locked and chained--when lights are rarely seen
but in the windows of the sick wards of hospitals--then the Haymarket
is in its glory, gay and lively as a ball-room, and swarming with
gaudily dressed women sauntering and flaunting up and down its broad
pavements, crowding them as on an illumination night. The dissolute and
idle, the debauchee and the debauched, pour into this market of sin,
this Exchange of Vice and Harlotry, like moths attracted by the glare
that must sooner or later utterly destroy them. This street is always
at night full of cabs, drunken men, noisy women, jugglers, and thieves.
The Haymarket is the Republic of Vice, where all who enter are hale
fellows well met, for every one knows why the other has come here, and
caution being cast off for the time, all ranks and stations mingle.
[Sidenote: "SCOTT'S" IN THE HAYMARKET.]
Outside the tavern doors are gathered clusters of swells talking to the
poor souls, who, disguised by some flash dressmaker, have hidden the
figure of the servant-maid under the toilette of the mistress. The heir
to a title stands bowing to some pretty faced girl, who mixes her bad
grammar with oaths. The door of a public house swings back to let the
hope of a family enter, who is about to sip wine at the counter with
the chip bonnet at his side.
[Illustration: "SCOTT'S" IN THE HAYMARKET.]
Let us enter "Scott's" in the Haymarket. "Scott's" is the great Oyster
House of London. It is a little cosy, crowded place, and not more
than fifty feet deep by half as many feet in width. At any hour of
the night and until two o'clock in the morning, it is possible to get
oysters, fried, roasted or raw, at "Scott's." They are also cooked
with cracker dust, which makes them taste as if they had been broiled
in sawdust. Oysters are quite dear at "Scott's," and will cost three
shillings a dozen, raw, which is a very high rate when compared with
the price of our American oysters. They are small and bitter, and
black, and the best of the bivalves come from Ostend in Belgium.
There is a counter at the front of the shop, and behind this counter
are exposed all kinds of shell-fish, lobsters, prawns, crabs,
periwinkles or "winkles," and oysters, as well as mussels. The bounding
clam is unknown in England, however, and is not found amongst the
edibles. Behind this counter the proprietor and his wife, and three
or four male assistants in white aprons, are busily engaged opening
oysters and serving up lobsters and dressed lettuce, to the customers
who prefer to eat standing. To eat standing, however, is not the
common custom in England, and the majority who wish to eat oysters
take seats in the little stalls behind in the back room, which are
exactly like our American oyster stalls, only that they are furnished
with plush cushions. In these stalls are clerks, swells, men about
town, Englishmen and foreigners, eating oysters and drinking Stout,
or supping on lobsters and champagne, and as it is now after eleven
o'clock, nearly every man in these stalls has a girl of a certain class
with him, who is of course eating supper at his expense.
Upstairs there is a room somewhat similar to the one below, which
is now densely crowded; but the upper room is more select. I went
upstairs, and here I found a number of couples lounging in a free and
easy manner, and some were calling loudly upon the waiters for brandy
and water. Seated in one of these stalls is a pink-faced boy, fresh
from his country home, helping with delicate attention the painted
woman beside him to costly viands.
She laughs noisily as a man, flinging her arms about, and as the
Champagne foams in her glass, she tosses her head like a Bacchante.
But an action that by daylight would seem disgusting to the boy, is
charming in the blaze of the Haymarket gaslight, and the lad looks with
admiration upon the companion whom on the morrow he would pass without
a nod of recognition.
The police returns for the year 1868-9, give the following figures as
to the number of public women, or prostitutes, who are known to the
police in the metropolitan district of London:
Brothels.
Prostitutes.
Within the districts of Westminster, Brompton, and
Pimlico, there are, 153 524
St. James, Regent-street, Soho, Leicester-square, 152 318
Marylebone, Paddington, St. John's-wood, 139 526
Oxford-street, Portland-place, New-road, Gray's-inn-lane, 194 546
Covent-garden, Drury-lane, St. Giles's, 45 480
Clerkenwell, Pentonwell, City-road, Shoreditch, 152 349
Spitalfields, Houndsditch, Whitechapel, Ratcliff, 471 1,803
Bethnal-green, Mile-end, Shadwell to Blackwall, 419 965
Lambeth, Blackfriars, Waterloo-road, 377 802
Southwark, Bermondsey, Rotherhithe, 178 667
Islington, Hackney, Homerton, 185 445
Camberwell, Walworth, Peckham, 65 228
Deptford and Greenwich, 148 401
Kilburn, Portland, Kentish, and Camden Towns, 88 231
Kensington, Hammersmith, Fulham, 12 106
Waltham-green, Chelsea, Cremorne, 47 209
---- ----
2,825 8,600
For the one public woman here registered there are five who do not
reside in brothels, but live alone, hiring lodgings for which they
pay from eight shillings to five guineas a week, according to the
manner in which the apartments are furnished, and the character of the
neighborhood in which they are situated, so that it is calculated that
there are seventy to eighty thousand women in London whose names do not
appear in the official list of the Lost, yet lead immoral lives, and
whose sin is as great in the sight of God, but less in the sight of
man, as their infamy is not of that nature that the law can punish them
for it.
[Illustration: THE MIDNIGHT MISSION.]
[Sidenote: "MIDNIGHT MISSION."]
God knows it is from no persistent desire to uncover the sores and
ulcers of the huge city, that I state these facts.
Great and unceasing efforts are being made by the clergy and
philanthropic citizens of London to diminish this terrible Traffic in
Souls, which is the distinguishing mark of infamy that clings to the
Haymarket.
For some years past these unfortunate women have been collected
together while plying their avocation, in an apartment in the vicinity
of the Haymarket, in which some slight refreshments are prepared for
them, ices and cooling but temperate drinks being served up gratis to
all who will attend and listen to the words of repentance and hope from
the mouths of clergymen who visit this place nightly for the purpose of
reclaiming these Lost Ones. This is called the "Midnight Mission," or
"Meeting," and the girls are gathered by having circulars presented to
them in the street as the hour nears midnight. A great number attend,
and they generally listen with patience and decorum. This Mission was
founded by the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel, who first preached to the
unfortunate girls.
A high officer of the London police informed me that there were in
that city about seven thousand lost women who are always well dressed,
well gloved, and well shod, who live comfortably, and many of them
elegantly. These women, of course, are all Free Lances, and prey upon
the fashionable young men of London and strangers who visit the great
Babylon.
Of this number, he stated that three thousand five hundred were what
is called under protection, or kept mistresses. The remainder have
hired lodgings for themselves in Pimlico, Fitzroy square, Portman
street, Howard street, Winchester street, Sutherland street, Gloucester
street, and other respectable localities of the metropolis, paying two
or three sovereigns a week for a suite of apartments, and furnishing
them at their own expense. This latter class, as a general thing, live
individually apart from each other, and keep each a servant of all
work, to do their cooking and washing.
Some of these girls have furnished their apartments at a cost of
from two to five hundred pounds, ordering the most costly articles
of furniture with the extravagance and profusion peculiar to their
class. Pictures, etageres, buffets, mirrors, ormolu clocks, tapestry
carpets, and the most luxurious articles of bijouterie and the
toilet are to be found in their apartments; and, unlike their frail
sisters in New York and Paris, these London girls act with complete
independence of their landladies, who in the cities mentioned, as a
rule, treat the unfortunate women placed in their power more like
dogs than human beings. In London, these girls are in the strictest
sense their own mistresses, and therefore do not come under any police
regulations; nor can they receive the designation of professionals,
as they never solicit men on the street, or live in what is called a
house of ill-fame. The persons who rent apartments to these girls in
the districts which I have thus enumerated, are not supposed to know
anything about the occupation or business of tenants, and they never,
by any possibility, attempt to interfere with them.
One of the most frequented resorts of Lost Women in London is the
Cremorne Gardens at Chelsea, on the Thames river bank, and distant
about four miles from the Post Office and St. Paul's Cathedral.
These Gardens comprise about four acres, which are covered with trees,
and ornamented with fountains, flower-beds, and statues. This is the
maddest place in London, after ten o'clock in the evening. Until that
hour, the middle class of London citizens, shopkeepers, tradesmen,
and clerks, and their wives and sweethearts, have possession of the
Gardens; but at that hour they leave the place, and from thence until
one and two o'clock in the morning Cremorne is in the possession of
Lost Women and their male friends and abettors.
The Cremorne is in many respects very like the Mabille at Paris, but
decency is better enforced, and the women at Cremorne have not such a
debased look as their unfortunate sisters of the Mabille.
At Cremorne there is a circular platform on which a band of music
is constantly stationed during the evening, and here the dancing is
principally done. Between the dances the girls promenade, or take
supper with their male friends in the numerous restaurants, which
are always crowded to excess by noisy people of both sexes, drinking
Champagne and Moselle, or eating lobster or devilled kidneys. Cold
suppers are provided for the girls in an upper saloon, for which they
are charged two shillings and sixpence a piece, without wine. Then
there are fireworks, two or three theatres and music halls, Japanese
jugglers, bowling alleys, shooting galleries, and other modes of
diversion and amusement.
Swarms of young fashionables from the Opera, where they have been
listening to the enchanting strains of a Tietjens, a Nillson, or a
Patti, in evening dress with thin overcoats, may be seen here of a warm
night, or perhaps they may have come from the clubs in St. James or
Piccadilly, to kill time.
[Illustration: "SKITTLES" AND THE PRINCESS MARY.]
[Sidenote: "SKITTLES" AND THE PRINCESS MARY.]
"Skittles," now dead, who was at one time the most famous woman of her
class in London, was very fond of attending Cremorne, where she was in
the habit of drinking large quantities of Champagne. "Skittles" was
at one time a great personage in London, and bore on her brougham the
crest of a Marquis. This audacious woman had the temerity to dispute
the way with the Princess Mary of Cambridge, while that member of the
Royal family was riding in Rotten Row. "Skittles" was on horseback,
being in full riding dress, and the Princess Mary was also on
horseback, when they met, and it is said that "Skittles" lifted her
dainty little riding whip at the astonished Princess, and demanded that
she should give her precedence in the Ride.
Cremorne is a great place for rows between the women and the fast
young men who attend the amusements there. While promenading around
the Dancing Ring one evening, I noticed a crowd gathering, and heard
a female voice uttering screams of distress. The young lady with the
unearthly voice I ascertained was a habitue of the place, known as "Mad
Rose," and the offending biped was a certain fast baronet named Sir
Frederick Johnstone, who has since figured in the Mordaunt Divorce Suit.
[Illustration: A ROW AT CREMORNE.]
It seems that this "Mad Rose" had been at one time under the baronet's
protection, and the afternoon before the rencontre he had met her in
the Park, and passed her without recognition, although she sought it
from him. She was determined to have her revenge for this, besides
some old scores she had to settle with him; or it was that he had not
settled some old scores with her.
The girl was tall, elegantly shaped, and dressed in a tasteful and rich
manner, becoming her blonde hair and complexion. Seeing the baronet
with his friends, she stepped up to him, and singling him out, struck
him across the face with her gloved hand, which was glittering with
diamonds.
[Sidenote: A ROW AT CREMORNE.]
Then she uttered a scream of feminine distress, and a crowd of swells
gathered around her. Then she knocked off his hat and screamed again.
The baronet uttered no remonstrance, but backed up against a railing,
his hat lying on the ground. Attempting to pick it up, she knocked
it off again and screamed. This thing went on for the space of ten
minutes, the girl, in a passion--whether fictitious or not, I cannot
tell--slapping the exquisite in the face at intervals, knocking off
his hat and screaming, but not forgetting to pour volleys of abuse
upon the baronet's head in the meanwhile. A great crowd collected and
enjoyed the fun. But I noticed that not a man in the assemblage offered
to interfere, and the baronet's friends refused to molest her, with
the exception of one, who caught hold of her wrists, and he had to let
go his hold of her in an instant, as he was attacked in a body by the
other girls, who put him to flight immediately. The baronet begged for
mercy, but got none; and, finally, a grand charge was made on the crowd
by the Cremorne police, and it was dispersed.
This movement relieved the baronet from further persecution, and the
mad woman was taken away. One fact was noticeable--not a man in the
crowd even attempted to raise his hand to the girl during her repeated
assaults. Had it been in America, I am certain she would, under such
circumstances, have met with very rough, if not brutal treatment.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XLIII.
SCARLET WOMEN.
WE were standing on the smooth, grassy lawn, at Goodwood, a wandering
American and the writer, strangers in a strange land, with the bustle
and uproar which are always adjuncts to a Race Course in any country,
and the Babel exclamations of a multitudinous assemblage sounding in
our ears.
[Sidenote: GOODWOOD RACES.]
It was the first day of the annual races, which are run for three days
in every year, at Goodwood, the princely residence and grounds of the
Duke of Richmond. This is the most aristocratic race meeting held in
England, and it is always frequented by the nobles and people of high
social position, with their wives, daughters, and lady friends.
The meeting is divided into three separate days running, each day
having a distinctive title, and known to those familiar with equine
sport, as the "Stakes Day," the "Cup Day," and the "Duke's Plate Day."
It was a beautiful and unclouded English July noon, and the smell of
the hawthorn hedges, and the faint breath of the hollyhocks made a
perfume in the air, which banished all humors and sulkiness from the
crowds of well dressed and well bred people who had been waiting to
hear the saddling bell rung before the start. Lithe and sinewy little
jockeys, clad in parti-colored silk shirts, and wearing kaleidoscopic
caps of the same material, walked the fresh-looking, silken-maned, and
symmetrical-limbed horses, up and down the velvety green sward, to give
the high bred English girls an opportunity to inspect their favorites,
whose colors predominated in the shades of their gloves, parasols, and
gracefully-hung robes, which rustled around their supple and elegant
figures.
Under high, sheltering greenwood trees, cosy seats were arranged for
the ladies, who made the Lawn picturesque with their bright colored
dresses that shone with splendor as their owners gathered in brilliant
patches on the velvety turf, gossiping and chatting while Guardsmen,
and Clubmen, Heavy Swells, and noisy boys, from Eton and Harrow,
gamboled and shouted as if at cricket, and sedate gownsmen from
Cambridge, and Double Firsts, and Wranglers, from Oxford, made wagers,
and drew from their coat-pockets small betting books to record the sums
invested.
The Embankment, a high, long, and well-kept mound of grass-covered
earth, was swarming with the fair sex, all of whom had their swan-like
necks encircled with white lace ruffs, which serve so well as a setting
for a well-shaped and milk-white throat.
Afar off we could observe, through yawning gaps in the ancient and
stately trees, which were pierced by the ruddy beams of sunlight, the
tall towers and fair proportions of Goodwood House, the magnificent
mansion of the Duke of Richmond. Twenty to twenty-five thousand people
were gathered in the noble old Park whose vistas stretched off into
dells, copses, and woodland nooks, for thousands of acres.
Here were gathered all the well-known aristocratic patrons of the turf
in England, men who would hardly be seen at Newmarket or Epsom, and
here again were the racing men, whose names are met with everywhere
in England, where the warning bell is rung to saddle, and where
thousands may be lost and won in an hour--the Westmorelands, the
Savilles, Chaplins, Anneslies, Prince Soltykoff, Count de Lagrange,
who owned "Gladiateur," Lord Vivian, Sir Frederick Johnstone, Lord
Roseberry, Sir Joseph Hawley, Admiral Rous, Captain Hall, Lord Wilton,
Lord St. Vincent, Lord Ailesbury, Sir C. Legard, Baron Rothschild,
the Duke of Beaufort, Mr. W.S. Crawfurd, Lord Poulett, Lord Falmouth,
Lord Calthorpe, Mr. E. Brayley, Lord Strafford, Mr. Bromsgrove, and
many others, titled and untitled, who are leaders among the racing
aristocracy. The Marquis of Hastings, and the Duke of Newcastle, that
day, were absent--the first in his grave, the other beggared by his
extravagance, and an outcast among his peers.
As the day grew apace, the swarms of people became more densely packed
until all classes of the sporting multitude were represented. There
was the "Welcher," who makes bets and does not pay when he loses, a
low-sized, stumpy fellow, in cutaway frock coat and drab beaver hat, a
huge horse's head pin sticking out of his gaudy, blue scarf, which is
dotted with small white balls, and wearing a shaggy moustache, which he
twists with the head of his cane, that has for a knob a nag's head, in
bone-work.
Yonder, stopping to ask for a noggin of gin from one of the proprietors
of the numerous ginger beer and refreshment stands, is the London prize
fighter--a model, in his way--thick set, broad in the loins, and having
a murderous forehead and a battered face, from some recent encounter,
one of those dangerous-looking, suspicious fellows, whom you may meet
with any night wandering about the docks in Wapping, or lounging at the
notched doorway of a tavern in Shoreditch, or Whitechapel.
Sauntering this way, where I stand in a shady spot with my American
friend, are two "heavy swells," dressed in the height of fashion, and
mincing their vowels in a feminine manner; yet effeminate as their
language sounds, they are both massive-looking fellows, and now I
recollect having seen both leaning out of the bow window of the Guard's
Club, in Pall Mall, and one of the pair I have also noticed trooping
his company at St. James' Palace, at the unusually early hour--for
him--of nine o'clock, of a summer's morning.
Men are gambling, and singing, and eating, and drinking, and betting
shillings and sovereigns all around us, and my companion seems stunned
by the noise and uproar which rises and swells in an indistinct way
this hot July day, as we move from place to place seeking a quiet nook
where we may commune together.
[Sidenote: ENGLISH MINSTRELSY.]
There is suddenly a discordant hum and a party of strolling minstrels
halt before a carriage and commence to serenade the fair lady
listeners, who fling sixpences to them languidly. These minstrels have
their faces blacked, and are appareled in hideous check coats with very
small bodies, and have very large buttons sewed to the skirts, which
are ornamented with ridiculously long tails. The songs generally sung
by those wretched minstrels, are slangy, and sound senseless to an
American's ear, as witness the following stanza which they chant with
wide-mouthed refrain:--
"Button up your waistcoat, button up your shoes,
Have another liquor and throw away the blues,
Be like me and good for a spree,
From now till the day is dawning.
For I am a member of the Rollicking Rams,
Come and be a member of the Rollicking Rams,
The only boys to make a noise,
From now till the day is dawning."
The course was lined and packed with every known manner of vehicle and
equipage. There were drags, four-in-hands, dog-carts, landaus, tandem
teams, ladies' pony chaises, phætons, carryalls, clarences, broughams,
and open barouches. Many of the turn-outs were adorned with the crests
of noble families, and some few bore the princely cognizances of great
Continental houses.
One of these large, roomy, and handsomely-constructed, open barouches,
drawn by four grey horses, served as a focus for many glances drawn
toward it. Some of the glances bestowed on the female occupants of the
handsome barouche were very unfriendly--and when some proud patrician
girl rode by, her eyes shot fire at the borrowed splendor of the three
Scarlet Women, who reclined lazily upon the softly-cushioned seats, and
no less hostile were the glances thrown on the graceful wavy figure of
the handsome girl who sat her thoroughbred and silken-eared and shapely
chestnut bay mare by the side of the barouche, and who bent over like
a reed to chat with the principal female figure leaning back on the
cushions.
I looked at these four gaily dressed, handsome women, with their loud
chatty manners, their indescribably bold flashes of the eye, their
familiar and free conversation with the titled fools and giddy young
lordlings, and baronets and rich young commoners, and as I looked I
saw that these four women represented the Great Social Plague Spot of
England. While I looked, a police inspector, from London, who had come
down to this ordinarily quiet, Sussex town, to keep an eye on some
distinguished pickpockets who were to attend the races, sauntered to
where I stood with my friend, and as I had made his acquaintance in the
English capital he was not long in informing me as to the character of
the magnificently attired women.
"They are the four gayest women in England, Sir," said he, "Those four
ladies--_we_ call them _ladies_ because we dare not call them anything
else, they have so many protectors of rank and influence--are "Mabel
Grey," "Anonyma," "Baby Hamilton," and "Alice Gordon."
"Mabel Gray?" said my friend enquiringly, "I think I've heard of her
before--which is she?"
[Illustration: "MABEL GREY."]
"That's her, Sir, as is sitting back in the front seat with a plate of
chicken on her lap, with the golden butterflies in her lace bonnet,
and the splendid diamond cross hanging from her neck--that's the gal
with the blue eyes and auburn hair. The gal that's holding the long
necked green glass for that swell to pour champagne into it, is "Baby
Hamilton"--ah, she is a wild one--many's the thousand pounds the young
Jook of Hamilton squandered on her, and so did the poor Marquis of
Hastings, poor fellow--wuss for him. The finest looking gal of all is
that "Anonyma" gal as some of these fellows that has book eddication
has called her--they say it means "No Name," but I know she has a
name, for it used to be Kate Bellingham when she came to London first.
Oh, she's a high blooded one--just look at how she sits that chestnut
mare--I'll warrant you that mare would bring six hundred guineas at
Tattersall's--if she'd bring a pound--ye won't ketch her drinking in
public, she's too proud of herself to do that--no, Sir, she wouldn't
be seen taking a drink from the Prince of Wales himself at a public
place like the Race Course. Now there's Alice Gordon," added the police
officer, who began to grow loquacious in his description of these fair
but frail and giddy beauties, "she's a quiet, orderly, young creature,
and as pretty as a peach, poor little thing--God help her--she never
knew a mother's care, and she was lost for want of a kind word and a
loving heart to guide her young steps."
[Sidenote: "THEY ARE OFF."]
Now the saddling bell has rung amid the greatest excitement, and the
multitude who have been flirting, eating, and drinking, betting, and
playing at divers games of chance, become suddenly hushed, and a great
quiet comes over the populated fields, stands, and tents, as the
jockeys ride forth to the starting point, five famous horses held in
the leash and straining their necks with avidity and equine eagerness
for the race. The ladies of the demi-monde settled themselves well
forward in their seats. "Anonyma" swept by on her chestnut to get a
good position for a look at the horses. "Mabel Grey" allowed her knife
and fork, which she had been using on the unoffending chicken, to fall
into her plate, and the tangled curls of "Baby Hamilton" reclined on
her shoulders as a fool of a Guardsman gave her his arm to assist her
to stand up in the drag, and handed her his glass to sweep the field.
The stately looking footman who is bustling among the dishes and wine
bottles, assisting "Anonyma's" butler in preparation for the coming
feast, stops in his occupation to listen to the thundering roar of the
crowd, and to look at the gallant animals as they come forward to the
stand. The butler, who is a grave and elderly personage, receives his
orders from "Anonyma," with dignity, and he is lost to sight among
the game-hampers and the champagne bottles, and Moselle flasks, for a
moment.
Listen to that cheer and long-continued shout! They are off, they are
off; and the whole vast swarm of human beings is aroused. The ladies
clap their hands and utter weak sounds of joy or distress, and the
cadgers, tramps, and more polished pickpockets, are now beginning to
reap their harvest in the midst of the excitement and momentary frenzy.
The race is a two-mile stretch, and only five horses are entered. The
prize is the Goodwood Cup, valued at three hundred sovereigns.
Two of the horses entered are four-year-olds, and the others are
three-year-olds. The great Jewish banker and member of Parliament,
Baron Rothschild, has entered "Restitution," a four year old, who is
ridden by Daley, an Irish jockey of fame. Sir Frederick Johnstone's
entry is "Brigantine," a three year old. Mr. Saville's "Blueskin," Lord
Calthorpe's "Robespierre," and Lord Strafford's "Rupert," make up the
number of horses who have darted by the Grand Stand in the storm of
wild huzzas.
[Sidenote: "ANONYMA."]
"Anonyma," whose chestnut was pawing the turf in a frisky manner,
grips the bridle of the blooded mare, and pulls hardily at her mouth.
A number of roughs around a booth salute her with not very choice
language, for she is known at the races, and the blood mantles in
her cheek and the crimson tide surges up to her temples as a coarse
blackguard repeats an opprobious epithet, and before he can draw
back she lays his cheek open with her dainty riding-whip, and giving
the mare more rope, the crowd opens wide for her with a cheer, and
she dashes across the Course on a canter, just as the Rothschild's
jockey, with his head bent down to the mane of "Restitution," and his
silken cap flying in the hot wind, sweeps by, "Blueskin" following
fast, and the great banker's jockey swerving aside from his course,
wins, by a miracle; "Restitution" having been for a moment blinded by
the long skirts of "Anonyma," in her mad canter across the turf, and
now there is a huzza, and a rending, wild hurricane of applause, as
Rothschild's colors go forward to the Weighing Stand, and "Restitution"
is pronounced winner of the Goodwood Cup of 1869, "Robespierre" being a
bad fourth, and "Rupert" coming in last of the field.
Now the principal race of the day is ended, and great acclaim having
been given to the victor, the crowds disintegrate and separate into
little knots for refreshments, and hard-faced fellows, in flashy
costumes, may be seen pulling from capacious pockets, greasy wallets,
to settle their debts of "honor," and much beer is drank among the
humble people, and floods of costly wines are poured out in drags and
dog-carts, and bright eyes and smiling lips meet one everywhere, and
there is a clatter of knives and forks, and a popping of corks in the
vicinity of the carriages occupied by the Scarlet Women of London, who
are here to-day in swarms, and who are caressed and welcomed as if
their position was assured and the dark shadow of a Shameful Life had
not fallen upon them.
[Illustration: "ANONYMA."]
Leaning over the side of the drag, and talking to Mabel Grey, are three
of the "fastest" young men in England, Lord Arthur Pelham Clinton
(since dead), Courtenay, Earl of Devon, and the Duke of Newcastle,
brother to Lord Arthur. All three are bankrupt in fortune as well as
in morality. Lord Arthur's mother, a daughter of the former Duke of
Hamilton, dishonored her husband, and there seems to be a taint in the
blood of the young noble, who has been living on his wits for years. He
is a languid-looking fellow, and does not look as if he could fall-to
and saw a load of wood.
Mabel Grey says to Lord Arthur, with a lisp: "Clinton, do take a bit of
chicken and a glass of fizz. No? Well then, take a glass of hock, like
a dear good boy. You look awfully cut. What can be the matter with the
man?"
Just under the shadow of the wide-spreading beech-tree, where the drag
is stationed, an itinerant preacher is about to commence a phillipic
against Vice and Crime. He could not have chosen a better location than
this, where the ears of these Painted Women may be filled by him with
some truths that they seldom seek after.
[Illustration: "ALICE GORDON."]
"Alice Gordon," the fair-haired blonde, with the deep blue eyes,
condescends to bestow a glance at the preacher, who, now that he is
beginning to draw a crowd by his fiery invective, and denunciatory
language, directs a look of scorn and pity at the Lost Women in the
drag. The crowd, who naturally dislike women of the class of Lais and
Aspasia, give encouragement to the squat-figured and harshly-spoken
Boanerges. The swells around the drag, who are now joined by Sir
Frederick Johnstone, advise the Scarlet Women to tell the coachman
to whip up the horses and "dwive the dwag away from that beastly
preacher--the howid little boah."
The preacher thunders at them, "Go, you gaudy libertines, with your
harlots and your women of Sodom, England is cursed with such as you.
But God will punish you all, and will smite you in your hour of pride.
For what says the Book, whose pages you never open:
"_The ungodly are forward, even from their mother's womb; as soon as
they are born they go astray, and speak lies._
"_They are venomous as the poison of a serpent, even like the deaf
adder, that stoppeth her ears._
"_Break their teeth, O God, in their mouths; smite the jaw-bones of the
Lions, O Lord; let them fall away like water that runneth apace; and
when they shoot their arrows let them be rooted out._"
"Baby Hamilton," one of the women in the drag, shudders at these
Inspired Words and grows pale, while "Anonyma," who canters up easily
on her chestnut, asks Sir Frederick Johnstone:
"Did you pull off a pot of money on "Brigantine," Sir Frederick?"
"No, the doose of it was I lost two thousand on my own horse. But I
hedged and took 'Restitution' against the field, so I am not so badly
plucked."
And this is the entertainment and conversation of some of the
hereditary rulers of England. Pardon me, reader, if I have brought you
into such loose and unprincipled company. I did it to show you who are
the female companions of a majority of the young English nobility. It
is this class of young men who patronise these Social Pariahs, and look
with contempt upon the manners of a respectable girl, and vote the
conversation of virtuous women as a bore.
[Sidenote: "MABEL GREY."]
That woman with the sunny smile, laying back in the drag, toying with
her fan--Mabel Grey--was, five years ago, a wretchedly-paid working
girl, who eked out an existence as a shoe-binder, in a shop in Oxford
street, London, on a pittance of seven shillings a week. Now, the
diamonds on her fingers would purchase a comfortable villa, and around
her throat, which is white as alabaster, is a necklace of pearls, that
cost the Prince of Wales five thousand pounds, it is said. She rides
every day in Rotten Row, the famous ride and fashionable drive in
Hyde Park, and her skirts often touch the garments of the Princess of
Wales as they pass each other in the crowded Row. And certainly the
Princess has no reason to look pleasantly at Mabel Grey. Mother to five
children, and daughter of the Vikings, with clear, unsullied Norse
blood in her veins, she may well question herself, when alone, "Why did
I marry a profligate and blackguard?"
Mabel Grey is the original of Boucicault's "Formosa," and it was she
who gave a name to Dan Godfrey's famous "Mabel Waltz." Godfrey is the
leader of the Guard's band, and the musician thought that it would be
received as a delicate compliment by his aristocratic patrons, to call
a delicious piece of dance music by the Christian name of the chief of
England's Hetairæ.
In every shop-window the features of Mabel Grey are flaunted at one
along with the portraits of Nillson, Patti, the Queen, the Princess
of Wales, and other virtuous and good women. You may meet her and
"Anonyma" at the Opera, at the Chiswick Flower Show, at Kensington
Gardens, and other fashionable resorts, mingling unrebuked among
the noblest ladies in the land. She has a sumptous villa at St.
John's Wood, Brompton, a suburb of London, and in her stables are
constantly kept twelve to fifteen blooded animals for the saddle or
for driving--these horses being the gifts of her numerous aristocratic
admirers. She dines off dishes of silver and gold, and has a host of
servants. At Ascot she induced the Prince of Wales to bet on a certain
horse, whereby he lost the nice little sum of $100,000, or £20,000.
And it is this bold, brazen, and bad woman, who divides the heart of
the Prince of Wales with the Princess Alexandra, his lawful wife and
the mother of his children, the other half being owned by Mabel Grey,
together with his pocket-book, which he is most apt to keep closed to
all others.
She was the cause of the ruin of Captain Milbanke, of the Guards--a
distant relation of the deceased wife of Lord Byron, I believe--and she
has destroyed dozens of young men in their fortunes, social position,
and masculine character.
[Sidenote: "MABEL GREY AT HOME."]
And here, I suppose, I may be pardoned for giving a pen and ink
description of the interior of her palatial residence at St. John's
Wood, Brompton, where she resides, by one who saw and conversed with
her there:
[Illustration: "MABEL GREY AT HOME."]
The salon was about sixty feet long by thirty wide, and the ceiling
was probably fifteen feet from the velvet carpet. Velvet decorated
the walls, hanging in crimson folds somewhat like the arras hangings
that I had seen in some of the mildewed chateaux of the French nobles.
There was, in the front of the salon, an immense mirror framed in gold,
and inside of the golden frame was a sub-frame of crimson velvet. The
lounges, chairs, ottomans, and buffets, were trimmed with velvet of the
same warm color. The carpet on the floor was a Gobelin, in which was
worked a pictured design of the port of Marseilles, at a cost of two
thousand pounds. There were richly carved statues of Parian, bronzes,
antique and richly-painted vases, shells standing on golden tripods,
caricatures of dogs' heads, tigers' heads, and the bodies of serpents,
with glistening eyes--all of which articles had more or less of the
precious metals in their composition. Pictures of Diana of Poictiers,
Margaruite de Valois, Theroigne de Mericourt, Anna Boleyn, Louisa de
Valliere, and a supposed mistress of John Wilkes Booth, of whom I had
never before heard, adorned the walls of the salon.
These were all done in oil, well painted, and magnificently framed.
The place of honor, however, was reserved for Ninon de l'Enclos, the
mistress of one of the Bourbon Kings. This picture was a beautiful
work of art, and represented the famous beauty of the old French
Court, reclining opposite a mirror. There was a small figure piece by
Meissonier, and a statue of Minerva of pure marble, from whose spear
head depended a small but richly chased gas-chandelier, of six burners,
that spread a flood of light all over the salon. A hundred thousand
dollars would not have purchased the furniture, carpets, statues,
paintings, and ornaments, in this gorgeous apartment, to say nothing of
the diamonds which covered the neck and arms of the beautiful but frail
mistress of the mansion.
And now for Mabel herself. This distinguished personage, as she lounged
on the tiger-skin, looked to me a little above the medium height of
women; her hair, of a rich, silky brown, full and lustrous, was looped
in coils at the top of the back of her head a la Grecque, and was
trimmed with small red flowers. From her ears were pendant long, oval,
diamond ear-rings, and from her snowy neck was hung a necklace, of
pearl shells interwoven with diamonds, worth a monarch's ransom. Her
arms were bare and rounded, and her shoulders were decollete. She was
attired in a loosely flowing robe of pink velvet--the only thing pink
I saw in the apartment--and at her waist was a plain thin cincture of
gold. She wore her dress without hoops, which allowed the folds of her
costly robe to fall over her shapely limbs in studied yet artistic
confusion. On the different fingers of both hands were rings of topaz,
sapphire, ruby, emerald, amethyst, and opal, fastened by golden
keepers. She had crimson slippers, embroidered in gold, and in her
right hand she waved lazily, to and fro, a fan of costly feathers. The
woman herself was a magnificent animal to look at, with a spice of the
tiger shining out of her clear, lustrous eyes.
[Sidenote: PERSONNEL.]
The neck was well poised and finely cut, as were the face and
shoulders. The mouth was large and full of good, white, regular teeth,
which she displayed often during the conversation to advantage. The
nose was irregular, pert, and snubbish, and her chin was like the cone
of a ripe peach. Something there was brazen in this woman's face,
despite the magnificence reigning in the apartment. Her voice was loud
and sharp, and her gestures were unladylike, though she endeavored to
atone for these defects by a studied ease which occasionally lapsed
into a masculine freedom. She was continually showing her rings, her
fan, and her slippers--and seemed careless of the little prudential
details that go to make up the manner of a virtuous woman.
"Anonyma" is, in many respects, a different woman from Mabel Grey. This
celebrated Lorette, unlike her frail sisters, has a taste, or perhaps
affects to have a taste, for literature. Originally a clergyman's
daughter, and born and bred in Sussex, she had, when she came first to
London, all the charms of a fresh country girl, and, although exposed
for a long time to temptation in her station as a governess in the
family of a rich commoner, whose name is now often before the public,
she held on her way firmly as she could, and would have succeeded had
not she met a man who outraged her by a false or mock marriage.
The poor girl, whose real name is Brandling, when she found that she
was deserted with a few pounds in her pocket, went almost mad. But she
had to starve or else become what she is now. Her father, overworked
in his curacy at £150 a year, and having a family of five children,
refused to admit her to his home, and gave as a reason that it would be
setting a bad example to his parishioners, which he, as a minister of
the Gospel could not do. Driven from her birthplace, with despair in
her heart, she fled to London, and, sinking at once into the slough of
iniquity, was not heard of for a year, when she emerged in grandeur at
the opera in the company of a wealthy banker, who has since failed and
fled the country.
The girl, from her reticent disposition, her lady-like manner, and
the mystery attending her appearance in the world--no one being able
to tell her exact position--received the name of "Anonyma" from the
_Saturday Review_. Unlike the other women of her sex, this girl was
never formerly seen in the company of any woman whose position was
affected by the slightest breath of reproach. In the Park she never
made acquaintances, and all notes sent to her were sent back to the
writers. To become acquainted with "Anonyma," though the seeker
after her intimacy were a prince, it was necessary to have a formal
introduction to the lady.
The "Kitten" is a young lady well known at the Cremorne Gardens for
her expensive suppers, loud voice, and magnificent pony carriage,
before which she drives sometimes a brace of Shetland ponies, three in
a tandem. At the Cremorne she always puts ice-cream in her champagne,
and never drinks any light or thin wines, as she says that they do not
agree with her constitution. I saw her at the Ascot Races in company
with Mabel Grey, the "Kitten" being mounted on a splendid roan, which
she managed with the skill of an old army officer, and a dozen men
belonging to the best known clubs in London were clustering about her,
and assisting her to luncheon, looking after the wine, or doing a
hundred little errands which women of her character always find for men
to do in a public place. The "Kitten" is a blonde, with black eyes, a
pretty, babyish face, a dimpled chin, a profusion of golden hair which
is not dyed, and a capital seat in the saddle. She is always gloved
to a nicety, and her ensemble is of the best kind. She has a pert
fashion of saying sharp or impudent things, and this seems to be the
chief accomplishment of all this class of shameless women. They know
the stable-talk and the slang of the betting ring, and of the hunt,
but nothing more. The "Kitten," five years ago--she is now 22--was a
coryphee in the ballet of a London theatre, at the magnificent salary
of fifteen shillings a week, and now she has an annuity of £2,000
settled upon her by a young fool of a lord, who has no better use for
his money.
The wardrobe of Alice Gordon, another of the Hetairæ, is valued at
£12,000. She is a brilliant horse woman.
[Illustration: "BABY HAMILTON."]
[Sidenote: "BABY HAMILTON."]
"Baby Hamilton" is another celebrity of the Half-World. Many stories
are told about the recklessness of this girl. She forced her way to
a meeting in one of the shires when the hounds were all assembled,
and followed the hunt, despite the remonstrances of the master, and
regardless of the fact that more than half the ladies who were present
left the field on her appearance in a hunting costume. She made a bet
while in Paris with a wild young duke that she would get a recognition
from the Empress Eugenie. The stake was a thoroughbred of the young
duke's which she desired to have for her own use. The bet was made, and
while the Empress was riding in the Bois, the "Baby," magnificently
dressed and mounted, placed herself in the way of the Empress, and
bowed quite reverentially. The Empress looked at her for an instant,
and, thinking that it was some English lady of rank, bowed very
graciously in return. The young duke--who is, by the way, a relative of
the Empress by marriage--saw the salutation. It was too good to keep,
and accordingly, before the next night, the "Baby" had to leave Paris,
by order of the Prefect of Police.
CHAPTER XLIV.
CHEAP LODGING HOUSES.
ONE night, having made an appointment with one of the Scotland Yard
detectives, I met him as I had promised, punctually, at the India
House, which is situated at the junction of Victoria and Dean streets,
Westminster.
Be it remembered, that Westminster is a borough, and sends two Members
of Parliament, yet it is a part and a portion of the metropolis of
London.
He came muffled in his coat, and, having saluted me, asked me if I
was ready to accompany him, to visit some of the low lodgings houses
that abound in a certain part of Westminster, at the back of Millbank
Prison, which fronts the river between Vauxhall and Lambeth Bridges.
It was the night before the great Derby Race, at which nearly all
England is represented, peer and peasant, tradesman, beggar, burglar,
and pickpocket. On such a night all the London lodging-houses were sure
to be full of tramps.
Briefly, I said I was ready to accompany him and without further
conversation we penetrated to the darkest recesses of the borough of
Westminster, going down Dean into Orchard street, through Orchard
street into New-Pye street, down Great Peter street, through Holland
street, and so into a short, dark street, called Medway street, at the
back of the Greycoats School.
All these streets which I have named have low lodging houses, and
were filled this night with tramps, vagrants, peddlers, itinerant
showmen, vagabonds, and thieves. Great Peter street is so called to
distinguish it from Little Peter street, and both streets being within
a stone's throw of the Abbey of Westminster, derive their names from
the dedicatory title of the ancient and world-renowned abbey which was
called, at one time, and is yet known in official documents, as the
"Abbey Church of St. Peter's, Westminster."
Medway street leads into the Horseferry Road, which is at one end a
continuation of Lambeth Bridge, and at the other end is flanked by
Holland street.
My blue-coated friend said to me, after pulling out a small dark
lantern, which he used in these dark rookeries and streets by the water
side:
[Sidenote: THE WESTMINSTER SLUMS.]
"The worst place I can take you to in Westminster, and perhaps in
London, Sir, barrin always 'Paddy's Goose,' in Ratcliffe Highway, is
the lodging house kept by 'Jack Scrag,' or 'Damnable Jack,' as he is
called on account of his swearin'--in Medway street. I can't guarantee
that you will bring your watch or pocket-book back, but I will save
your life if you get in a row, and that will be as much as I can do. If
there are any thieves there they will be afraid of me, but the roughs
and tramps, who are out of the law's reach, are up to anything, and
will break your leg or arms, or mine either, without talking twice
about it."
On our way to the Slums of Westminster I entered a cheap lodging house,
in which the lodgers were preparing their evening meal, for which they
paid four-pence to the proprietor. A potato was given each person with
a small junk of broiled or fried meat, and a tin-skittle full of washy
tea or coffee, such as is given to steerage passengers at sea, was
handed to the tramps and beggars, who frequented the place.
The room was large and lofty, with smoky rafters, and a number of men,
women, and boys, were sitting, standing, and reclining on the floor
or on chairs, but nearly all were eating like ravenous beasts from
tin-plates or earthen-ware platters.
A man might purchase a herring for a half-penny at any of the refuse
sales in the markets, and bring it here and toast it over the huge
fire for an additional half-penny, and many of the occupants of this
gipsy-looking place were employed in the pleasing occupation of cooking
as we left the place on our journey after an adventure.
Medway street, as I have before mentioned, is quite short, and
therefore it was not long before I saw a light of more brilliancy than
those around it, bursting from the window of the first story of a brick
building, the bricks being set off about the windows with trimmings of
dark blue stone. Above the door were painted the emblems of the Lion
and the Unicorn, which are everywhere displayed in English cities,
and a lamp of a square shape projected from the doorway, throwing a
dead and unwholsome-like light upon the street and sidewalk. In the
window a sign was painted, indicating that lodgings were to be had for
four-pence a night for single persons, and also a notification that
"boiling water" was "always ready."
The house was probably a hundred years old, as near as I could tell
by its old beams, which were bare, the besmeared and notched lintels
on which names, effigies, and initials, had been carved, from time
immemorial, by lodgers, thieves, and cadgers. There was a bar, and
glistening beer-pumps, and pewter noggins, and copper measures, were
hung up behind the counter. Against the walls, which were environed by
brass railing to keep intruders from making too free or breaking the
glasses if a fight should occur, was inscribed on a tin plate of greasy
hue the words:
John Scragg & Co.,
Wine and Liquor Merchants.
Beds, 4d. a Night.
The proprietor, a fellow with beetle brows, a furzy black beard, and a
fustian jacket well greased, sat on a worn bench near the beer pump.
"Good evenin, Mr. Scragg," said the detective to the rascally-looking
fellow.
[Illustration: A MEAL AT A CHEAP LODGING HOUSE.]
[Sidenote: AT MR. SCRAGG'S.]
"Good evenin--the same to you, Bobby--are you lookin for lodgins
to-night?" said he in reply.
"Well, not exzackly--I came with a friend o' mine to take a look at the
Crib--have you many lodgers to-night, Jack?"
[Illustration: "DAMNABLE JACK."]
"Mayhap a matter o' fifty or more. So you wants to look at the Crib,
do ye? Well, I ha' no hobjections so as ye don't disturb my lodgers.
They are a precious set o' lambs, and belong to the best families in
the Kingdom, so I keeps heverythink quiet, sort a like, as they have a
great deal a money bet on the races at the Darby, to-morrow."
"Could you give my friend a bed, to-night, and he'll pay you well. He
doesn't want to go back to his hotel it's so far at the West End, and
he might lose hiself in this big city.
"Give yer friend a bed? D----n my heyes, I should think I could! A
dozen beds if he likes--and yourself, too, me hearty."
"But no pocket-picking, Jack--no 'plant' agin him. Keep hoff yer
'Bug-hunters,' or ye'll get in trouble for it, Jack."
"Do I look like a man 'ud permit sich goings on in my 'Ouse," said
Damnable Jack, indignantly, and looking with an injured face at the
policeman, "Wot, in my 'ouse, vich is patronized by the Nobility and
Gentry? I hopes not. Ye'll not find a man or woman 'ere as would 'crack
a case', or 'break a drum,' and the 'Kidsmen' are, all on them, as
perlite as young Swells, they is, on me 'onor."
I followed Mr. Scragg through an unpaved hall-way or passage, and into
a small court, from which the lodging house keeper diverged to the
right, and knocking at a door in an extension of the main building,
it was opened to us, and we entered the apartment. The apartment had
a low roof, and the stench from the place was most terrible. In a
room about fifty feet long by thirty in width, at least sixty persons
were sleeping, or sitting up on their coarse, common flock beds, some
smoking, others eating and drinking, and a few were playing cards.
There was a high, old-fashioned fireplace, in the apartment, without
coals, and the walls of plaster were very dirty, and broken in many
places, showing the bare laths.
Prints of highwaymen adorned the walls, among which was conspicuous
Claude Duval leaping a five-barred gate on horseback, and a posse of
constables, in bobwigs, in full chase. There was also a daub of paint
representing the execution of a wife-murderer, at Newgate, and a copy
of the murderer's last speech, framed alongside of the other print.
These, with a cheap engraving of Sir Robert Peel, completed the list of
works of art in the place.
There was a murmur which grew into quite a hub-bub as I entered the
apartment, and not a few of the lodgers vented their surprise or
disgust at my appearance, jointly with that of the "Peeler," as they
called the policeman.
[Sidenote: THE DIRTY CADGER.]
"Wot the blazes does that Swell want in 'ere," said an old cadger, who
was reclining on a bed on the floor, trimming his toe-nails with a
jack-knife preparatory to going to bed, much to the edification of a
young girl who sat by his side on the bed, and could not have been more
than fifteen years of age.
"Mebbe he's a swell pickpocket, or fogle-hunter (handkerchief thief,)"
said the innocent young creature.
"Hit stands to reason he can't be a fogle hunter, 'cos he's with the
blessed Peeler," said the Cadger.
"Well, mebbe he's wiring for the perlice," said the young girl, "and
wants to ketch some on us for a 'dummy.'"
"Never mind, Moll, he doesn't want us, and we'll go to sleep, cos we've
got to be on the tramp, early in the morning, for the Darby."
This man was forty years of age, and the young girl, not more than
fifteen years old, was his mistress, as I afterward learned.
The policeman signified to the proprietor, "Damnable Jack," that he
wanted to get a bed where we might sleep together for the night.
"I hardly got a bed left but one and ye's are welcome to it, and for
that matter it will hold five men and women, if I wanted to put 'em in
it. Come here Phil, and give these gents a bed--they wants to taste the
blessed sweets of lodgin house life. Give them their fill of it. Put
them in the 'Lord Chancellor's' bed. Its the best in the house."
Let it be understood, that all the beds in the apartment were placed
upon the bare floor, and that the mattresses were filled with dirty
straw, which bulged out of their sides, or rags, and gave the room a
close, fetid odor. For covering, there were dirty canvass quilts, made
of the same stuff from which sails or potato sacks are fashioned. There
were no sheets whatever, and the pillows and bolsters were stuffed as
were the mattresses with rags or straw.
Near the fireplace was a bare space of smoothly laid brick, without
any pretence of bedding at all, which was chalked out in a number
of compartments, and each of these compartments was chalked out for
a human being to sleep upon. By reposing on the bare, cold floor,
the lodger saved a penny and got his bed for three-pence instead of
four-pence.
Among the sixty persons present, there were at least twenty-five women,
composed of female tramps, vagrants, prostitutes, coster-girls, and
peddlers of different kinds of commodities, which they had to leave
in an adjoining room that was locked up by the Deputy Lodging Master
until the time of leaving their beds early in the morning, when the
merchandise was delivered to its owners.
It was by the advice of an Inspector of Police that I made this essay
to sleep in a cheap lodging house. He informed me that it was the only
method of obtaining a clear knowledge of the habits and practices of
the lodgers.
The "Lord Chancellor's" bed, as Damnable Jack called it, facetiously,
was the best, from its appearance, in the room, and was at the farthest
corner. It was generally used by the Deputy Lodging Master, and had
a little chintz screen around it, and the bed itself, which had
comparatively clean sheets and bed-furniture, was elevated a few feet
from the floor on a sort of trestle work.
The charge for this bed was a shilling to each of us, and the policeman
and myself laid down upon it in our clothes, the policeman having a
revolver in his side pocket, upon which he kept his right hand during
the night, whether he slept or had his eyes open.
I could not sleep in the terrible hole for several hours, and, in fact,
did not think of doing so, as I was eager to watch the proceedings of
the Scum of London, of which the lodgers were composed.
Many of the young girls had not retired when we came in, and a few of
them now began to divest themselves of their clothing, without shame
or compunction on their part, or surprise on the part of their fellow
lodgers, excepting that now and then some low-bred ruffian would pour
forth a torrent of obscenity when some of the female lodgers exposed
portions of their filthy bodies.
The place was swarming with vermin, bed-bugs, roaches, and body
parasites, in countless numbers, and this was one reason why many
of the female lodgers stripped themselves to lie down, for some
of the beds were so thickly packed that it was impossible for the
Deputy Lodging Master to pass through the room without treading upon
an exposed hand or foot, and in such a case, blasphemous and vile
execrations were heaped upon his devoted head by the lodgers. This he
bore with the greatest indifference as if he had never heard a word of
it. The lodgers hoped by stripping naked to avoid having any of the
vermin cling to their clothing--a wise precaution, as I found.
[Sidenote: THE SCUM OF LONDON.]
Men, women, and children, without regard to age, sex, condition, or
kindred, slept together in this room, and as the night advanced the
stench from their hot, loathsome bodies, rose like a hellish incense
and nearly smothered me with its fumes. There the breath of each lodger
was worse than the odor of a charnel house, so that I deemed it a
wonder as I sat up in bed looking through a rent in the chintz curtain
which enclosed our bed, a lamp burning faintly on a table the while,
that sixty of God's creatures could sleep this way night after night,
summer and winter, and yet be able to eat, drink, sleep, marry, beget
children, and still thrive like deadly nightshade, to poison London and
its neighborhood with their reeking effluvia.
About three o'clock in the morning I heard a hammering, squashing
sound, and looking from under the chintz curtain, I was first
astonished and then disgusted to see a wan-looking, cadaverous
personage, from whom the most frightful snoring had proceeded during
the early part of the night, hammering with the heel of his shoe at
some dark moving objects, which he, every moment, scraped from his bed
and placing them on the floor smashed at them in a raging and furious
way with his shoe heel, taking care the while to keep up a steady
stream of curses from his lips. He saw me looking at him and said:
"Well, neighbor, wot d'ye think of this. I pays four-pence for my
bed, and here I am a-fighting to keep off the blessed bugs, for my
life. I got myself gloriously drunk last night, to sleep, so that the
wipers might not wake me up, but all the gin in Lunnon couldn't make
a man sleep while the wermin are in the bed-clothes. I have took out
and killed a bushel, more or less, of 'em, in the last half hour, but
there's plenty more of 'em, Lord bless you."
This was the keystone of the edifice of my disgust. Too much of a good
thing is said to be of no practical benefit to any one, and there was
such a richness of bed-bugs and body parasites to be found in "Damnable
Jack's" lodging house, that I thought I would not farther trouble his
hospitality, and touching the guardian of the place upon the shoulder,
who started up in a frightened way as if he were attacked, I left Mr.
Scragg's lodgings, and took a walk in the cool morning air as far
as Westminster Bridge, where I sat until daybreak, looking at the
Parliament House, and the silent river with its numerous craft.
Before I left the accursed place, the policeman pointed to a pail of
foul water standing in a corner, that had been fresh over night, and
which had now had a thick scum on its top produced by so many poisonous
lungs.
It is needless to say that I took a good warm bath early that morning,
more than satisfied with my experience of the previous night.
Of this class of lodging houses, there are, in London, I believe, about
seventy-five, capable of accommodating any number of lodgers that the
proprietors may see fit to stow away in their dens.
Some idea may be formed of the manner in which the poorer classes of
the London artisans are herded together from the fact that in the
Inner Ward of St. George's Parish the number of families apportioned
to the dwellings are so largely in excess of the room which they ought
to occupy that all kinds of frightful distempers are common in these
hell-dens. I give a table to show how human beings are crowded in this
district:
Dwellings. No. of Families. | Beds. No. of Families.
Single room to each family, 929 | One bed to each family, 623
Two rooms to ditto, 408 | Two " " 638
Three " " 94 | Three " " 154
Four " " 17 | Four " " 21
Five " " 8 | Five " " 8
Six " " 4 | Six " " 3
Seven " " 1 | Seven " " 1
Eight " " 1 | Dwellings without a bed, 7
Not ascertained, 3 | Not ascertained, 10
----- | -----
1,465 | 1,465
[Sidenote: TEN IN A BED.]
Among the most munificent philanthropists who have built model lodging
houses, for the poor and needy, I may enumerate Miss Burdett Coutts,
and George Peabody. The former has expended nearly £500,000 in erecting
model lodging houses for the poor, and the amount which was donated
for the same purpose by Mr. Peabody exceeded a million and a half of
dollars.
[Illustration: STATUE OF GEORGE PEABODY.]
In speaking of Mr. Peabody, I must not omit to state the fact that the
Londoners, to show their appreciation of his philanthropy, have erected
to him a magnificent bronze statue at the rear of the Royal Exchange in
their city, which was publicly uncovered by the Prince of Wales during
the life-time of the late philanthropist.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XLV.
A TRAMP IN THE BY-WAYS.
GREAT as London may believe itself to be in works of benevolence and
philanthropy, there are spots in that mighty city which no one should
visit without an officer of the law in his company, to warn him from
the pitfalls and dangers which will beset his pathway.
One evening, feeling rather dispirited and uncomfortable, while
sitting in the coffee-room of the Langham Hotel, a thought struck me
that I might find amusement or novelty in some way by taking a tour
through the city, and accordingly I called a cabman from the stand, in
Upper Regent street, and, determining to make an effort to dissipate
the blues, I jumped into the "hansom" and told the driver, an old
weather-beaten looking fellow, with a buttoned-up coat and dirty
neck-cloth, and wearing a black silk hat, which had once been quite
respectable, but was now utterly wrecked--to "drive me anywhere in
London--I don't care where as long as I can see something to interest
me."
The driver, a well known character, who bore the title of "Old Smudge"
among his brethren on the cab stand, and who was always in trouble with
the police, replied:
"Where shall I take you, Sir? Would you like to take a look at the
river? Or, mayhap you might wish to see a dog fight, or a ratting
match--the Americans are partial to ratting matches--I know some on 'em
are!"
[Sidenote: THE LONDON CABBIES.]
"Take me anywhere," said I from the recesses of the cab in which I had
ensconsced myself.
These London Cabbies are, as a general thing, the most provoking and
abusive fellows in the world, but their usefulness cannot be denied by
any person who has experienced the delight of having a cab to hail when
attacked suddenly by the often recurring rain storms, which serve to
keep the atmosphere of Great Britain's capital in a state of perpetual
moisture. There are two kinds of Cabs--the "hansom," a two wheeled
vehicle, which falls back on its wheels, and is drawn by a single
horse, the cabman sitting over your head with the reins elevated in his
hands, and stretching through a metal ring in the roof to the collar of
the horse. Then there are folding doors which can be closed to keep mud
and dust from entering the cab, and a movable window fastened to the
interior of the roof that can be hoisted or let down at will, and is
most serviceable in case of rain or other inclement weather.
[Illustration: "OLD SMUDGE"--THE CABBY.]
Then there is the "four wheeler," as it is called, a cab which is also
drawn by one horse, but is built something after the fashion of the
American coupe or brougham. This vehicle has four wheels, and is more
comfortable and roomy than the "Hansom." The rates for transportation
are higher, however, and the four-wheelers are used by a better
class of people. There are six thousand one-horse cabs registered in
London, of which number 2,352 are "six day" cabs, whose proprietors
do not allow of their use on Sundays; and of "seven day" cabs, which
are constantly traversing the streets, there are as many as 3,366.
These cabs are all licensed, and their owners pay, annually, into the
Municipal Treasury as large a sum as £10,000. The legal rate of fare in
a "hansom," is sixpence a mile, and for a "four-wheeler," one shilling
per mile, but the cabbies charge strangers any fare they can get.
[Illustration: "A HANSOM CAB."]
"Leave me alone, Sir, and I'll show you some of the sights of Lunnon
town," said "Old Smudge," in a hoarse voice from the top of the cab in
reply to my anxious enquiry as to where we were traveling. We were then
some distance from the West End of the City, and from the noises which
every few minutes attracted our attention, I fancied that the cab was
being driven in the direction of the Thames. I saw, dimly, the masts of
the shipping and the Docks, with their adamantine fronts frowning down
upon me.
The cab was stopped suddenly, and the horse was brought up on its
hind legs by a jerk of the reins from "Old Smudge," who was already in
conversation at the door of a beer shop, which was illuminated, and
had a large number of rough-mannered customers standing around its
entrance. They were a sufficiently hard looking set to make a stranger
think of his safety.
"This is 'Jack Barley's "Convivial Pup,"' Sir," said the cabman to
me as I climbed out of the "hansom." "This is the finest rat-pit in
Lunnon, Sir."
[Sidenote: A SOIREE AT A RAT PIT.]
I had often heard of Mr. Barley before, and now I saw him face to face,
a most villainous and repulsive looking beast with a scarcely healed
cicatrice in his jaw, and a couple of bleary holes under his black
brows, miscalled eyes. Mr. Barley was famous in his way, and enjoyed
distinction among a certain class. None could tell the breed of a
dog, the age of a spaniel, the pluck of a terrier, or the gouging and
milling abilities of a middle weight bruiser, with Professor Barley.
In such matters his judgment was final and conclusive along the Thames
bank for some distance.
The proprietor escorted us through a small bar, which was ornamented
with the usual sporting emblems found in low London tap rooms, and
after descending a stone stairs, I found myself in a room beneath the
ground floor, with small circular benches ranged in a cramped fashion
to the ceiling. On these seats about one hundred men, of all grades
in the sporting class, were seated. There were a few "gentlemen,"
God save the mark, a brace of attorney's clerks, an officer of some
line regiment, and the rest of the audience were of a miscellaneous
character.
There was a rat pit below the benches, a square enclosure with a board
fence about four feet high, enclosing it, the boards being whitewashed,
and the flooring of the pit having sawdust scattered over it.
The only light in this dreary and subterraneous den came from six
greasy, unvarnished tin lanterns, in which half a dozen of cheap tallow
candles were fixed, and these flickered and sputtered with great
malevolence on the rascally faces of the men who swarmed around the
pit.
I heard a squealing noise, and I saw a lad bring in a long and huge
flat wire cage, which was swarming with gray, black, and brown rats.
Way was made for the youth to enter the pit with his cage of live
rodents. Jumping in he opened the cage, and thrusting his forearm
fearlessly through the door he drew forth, one by one, over fifty large
and ferocious rats and threw them in a heap in the pit. These animals
ran about in a confused way for a few minutes, and looked with an
almost human and beseeching look into the murderous faces which were
gathered around the pit. Then another cage was handed to the young man,
and the same ceremony was performed again until there were one hundred
and five rats in the centre of the pit.
[Illustration: "ONE HUNDRED RATS IN NINE MINUTES."]
There was to be a match for fifty pounds, the proprietor of the pit
having matched his dog "Skid," a wiry and ferret-eyed little terrier,
to kill one hundred rats in nine minutes. Bets were now made against
and for the dog, that he would or would not kill the rats in the time
named, and the excitement ran high as the little venomous dog was
placed in the pit carefully by his master amid considerable applause
from the roughs.
[Sidenote: "SKID'S" BATTLE WITH THE RATS.]
It was simply disgusting to witness that dreadful little terrier run
at each rat, shake him for a second or two in the air and then drop
him quite dead on the floor of the pit, while the roughs encouraged
him to his work with shouts when the rat was destroyed quickly, but
occasionally when a big and ferocious rat was attacked and showed fight
in return, and when the terrier seemed to hang back for a moment,
a perfect storm of curses and obscene epithets were rained on the
unfortunate canine. Before five minutes had elapsed the whitewashed
board sides and flooring of the Rat Pit were daubed with splashes of
blood, and the little terrier was foaming at the lips, and his glossy
hide was flecked with dark smudgy stains. When eight minutes and forty
seconds had elapsed, "Skid" snapped the neck of the last rat, and now
there was nothing left in the pit but a large pool of blood on which
sawdust was quickly heaped, and a bleeding mass of heaving and dying
rats.
Great cheering rewarded the efforts of "Skid," who was taken up
tenderly, almost lovingly by his master; and now being very sick at the
stomach from the disgusting sight I left the place and took the cab,
cogitating the while on what I had seen.
Disgusting as the sight of the rat butchery had proved, I afterwards
learned that some two hundred men earn a living in London, and its
suburbs, in catching rats alive for the use of the rat-pits. Of this
number a great many, however, are paid extra by persons who wish to
drive the vermin from their dwellings, and have no means of doing so
but by calling in professional rat-catchers.
Some fifteen or twenty of these professional rat-catchers pursue their
dangerous calling in the London sewers, preferring to catch those found
in drains to the house rats, who are not as ferocious as the former.
Beside, the sewer rat will fight a terrier longer and more savagely
than a house rat, and as this affords good sport, the sewer rat is at a
premium in the market.
[Illustration: THE RAT CATCHER.]
These rat-catchers traverse the sewers by night, and carry lanterns
and a long wire basket with lids and a handle of the same material.
They use ointment which they rub on their hands and with this same
composition they cover their arms, which is very distasteful to the
rats, who will not bite at any human flesh that is anointed with this
preparation. These men wear large slouch hats, and pursue their calling
in all seasons, to make a living. Often they have terrible battles with
the enraged colonies of rats, and not a few of the rat-catchers have
been over-powered in the sewers when attacked, and their bones whiten
many of the brick beds and slimy crevices of these dark and dismal
underground passages.
[Sidenote: "PADDY'S GOOSE," RATCLIFFE HIGHWAY.]
The cab driver now desired to know if I would like to visit "Paddy's
Goose," a den in "Ratcliffe Highway," one of the worst of the bad
districts of London. This place is frequented by sailors of all
nations, who visit the spot to dance with the abandoned women, that
are hired by the proprietors of these resorts to entice the foolish
seafaring men just discharged from their vessels, with more money than
they are able to take care of.
[Illustration: "PADDY'S GOOSE."]
"Paddy's Goose," or the "White Swan," as it is called by its owner, is
perhaps the most frightful hell-hole in London. The very sublimity of
vice and degradation is here attained, and the noisy scraping of wheezy
fiddles, and the brawls of intoxicated sailors are the only sounds
heard within its walls. It is an ordinary dance house, with a bar and
glasses, and a dirty floor on which scores of women of all countries
and shades of color may be found dancing with Danes, Americans,
Swedes, Spaniards, Russians, Negroes, Chinese, Malays, Italians, and
Portuguese, in one wild hell-medley of abomination.
The proprietor of this den is undoubtedly the most desperate villain
I ever saw outside of a prison gate, a man whose face is scarred and
corrugated by the foot-prints of the Devil, whose servant he has
been for many years, and yet I was informed that this scoundrel was
tolerated, nay, encouraged by the government, from the fact that he
had great influence among English seamen. This man during the Crimean
War hired steamers, with bands of music, and served the Admiralty as a
"crimp" for enlisting sailors, or rather for trapping them by drugging
them first and then "burking" them off to the men-of-war, which needed
fresh complements of seamen.
I did not stay long in this Devil's-Tavern, and I am sure my readers
will excuse me from going into particular mention of the beastliness
and orgies I saw there.
[Illustration: "WAITING FOR THE TIDE."]
Dismissing "Old Smudge" with a fee that seemed to meet his approbation,
I turned my steps in the direction of the river, not doubting for a
moment but that I should find further food for reflection. I came upon
the Thames suddenly as a vision, and saw it stretching out in all its
dark and terrible beauty, just above Shadwell. I had taken my seat on
an old dismasted hulk that lay some distance off in the river, and
which I had reached with considerable difficulty by clambering from
bowsprit to bowsprit among the silent shipping, on whose masts and
canvas God's silent stars shone brightly down.
[Sidenote: WAITING FOR THE TIDE.]
I had not been sitting long there when a clumsy-looking and
broad-bottomed boat passed me, directly below the hulk, one man pulling
in the boat while another leaned over and seemed to support something,
dark and bulky in shape, from the stern of the wherry.
A chill came over me, and in a faint voice I asked the man what he had
in the skiff?
"Oh, yer honor, we were Waiting for the Tide below Bridge. We goes out
every night, me and Tim, to look for bodies--we gets twenty shillings
a-piece for them, and all we can find, and Tim's got a dead 'un now,
and 'praps he's got a good haul, for there's a sparkling ring on Its
finger,--mayhap yer honor would like to buy it."
Trailing slowly in the water was a lifeless corpse, and the boatman was
tearing a bright object from its stiff forefinger.
Hastily I rose and turned my face away from the River which had given
up its dead in this startling manner.
I went home thoroughly cured of the blues, and saw no more "sights"
that night.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XLVI.
ENGLISH LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM.
ENGLISH literature is one of the mainstays of our present civilization.
Wherever the English language is spoken or understood, or wherever
English thought predominates, English books are read, and the names of
English authors are held in reverence. And second only to the power
of English books is the power of the English press, which immediately
after French journalism, represents the most trained culture and best
talent employed in the Fourth Estate of our times.
London ranks, as I have said, in the second place, as far as her
journalism is concerned. London journalists have not yet attained that
high influence, both social and political, in the State, which is
freely yielded to young and middle-aged men whose services are known to
be of value on the Parisian journals of ability and circulation.
But the men who think for England, and who write its books, do not need
to fear comparison with the same class in any other land in breadth of
thought or influence on the masses of mankind. I shall make but a brief
mention of a few of England's worthies in the paths of literature, and
shall only speak of those who are best known by their works in America.
[Illustration: JOHN RUSKIN--ART CRITIC.]
Twenty-eight years ago, articles of wonderful force, beauty, and
breadth of tone, began to appear from some unknown pen, in the
literary journals of London. These articles attracted notice from the
best minds as they advocated a new and startling theory in art--the
theory of Pre-Raphaelitism, as it has since been called. The author of
these articles was John Ruskin--since become so famous--then in his
twenty-fourth year. Ruskin was the son of a wealthy London merchant,
and, unlike most men of genius he has never known any of the bitter
struggles of poverty. From his boyhood he has been accustomed to
elegance and plenty, the society of refined men and women, and his
mind has been enlarged by almost incessant and instructive travel. He
was very fond of the true and beautiful in Nature, and it is recorded
of him, that when a child he had one favorite spot--Friar's Crag, in
Derwentwater, which overhung a lake,--and here he was brought daily
by his fond nurse, who secretly gratified the child's taste for the
picturesque by allowing him to hang over the brow of the cliff, and
when permitted to do so he would gaze for hours with intense joy and
mingled awe into the depths of the dark waters below, hanging on by
the grassy roots which bloomed on the surface of the cliff. He had
always a feeling of awe and heart hunger in the presence of mountains,
and, at fifteen years of age, he had ascended the summits of the most
elevated hills in England. A landscape delighted him, while belle
lettres and mathematics only wearied his retrospective soul. At twenty,
his reflective and practical powers had increased by the incessant
traveling which he undertook, having visited every European city of
note, but in all these travels Venice always remained dear to his
heart. At Oxford he was a gentleman-commoner of Christ Church, where
he carried off the Newdigate prize for a poem called "Salsette and
Elephanta," a fragment now forgotten, and was graduated double fourth
class in 1842. Among his teachers in landscape painting, which he loved
with all his great heart, he had such men as Copely Fielding, Harding
and Prout. His great admiration was for Turner, however, and this love
led him to the field of art criticism, in defence of that eminent
painter.
[Sidenote: RUSKIN'S LOVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL.]
In 1843, the first volume of Ruskin's "Modern Painters" appeared,
and created the greatest sensation. No art critic had yet appeared
with such a wealth of language, and such an affluence of imaginative
ideas combined with the most striking powers of observation, and
an earnestness bordering on enthusiasm. Never thinking beforehand
of the subject, his philosophy and criticism consists mostly of
brilliant invective, and he is continually involving himself by his
inconsistencies, yet, so great was his power, a new school in art
was founded by him, with such disciples as Millais, Holman Hunt, and
others, equally well known.
He is sometimes diffuse and discursive, and is far behind Henri
Taine for perspicuity of style, though far more solid, concentrated,
and vigorous, in his blows. The first volumes of Ruskin's "Lamps of
Architecture" made their appearance in 1849, and were followed by the
first volume of "The Stones of Venice," in 1851, the illustrations in
the latter provoking much hostility, but displaying to great advantage
his artistic powers. Ruskin has lectured and written on Manufactures,
Gothic Architecture, and Painting, and he has said to have realized, by
his works the sum of £95,000. He has a careworn face, sloped shoulders,
and wavy silken hair. His habits are simple, and it is said that he is
Brahminical in his tastes, never touching butcher's meat. His large
private fortune enables him to extend his benevolence to struggling
students, and others who are in need of assistance. Ruskin has taken up
the cause of the workingmen of England with great zeal, and is now in
his forty-ninth year.
[Sidenote: FROUDE, THE HISTORIAN.]
Since the death of Macaulay, England has had no successor to that
eminent and great man in the field of history, until of late years
James Anthony Froude has risen like a meteor to irradiate the dark
places and bloody scenes of English history. The author of the "History
of England from the Fall of Wolsey," may well claim a niche among the
loftiest names who have searched the archives of empire and statecraft.
James Anthony Froude comes of a High Church clerical family, and was
born at Dartington, Devonshire, April 23, 1818. His father, the late
Venerable R.H. Froude, was Archdeacon of Totnes, and young Froude went
to Westminster School, the most aristocratic of its kind in England,
and afterwards was graduated with high classical honors at Oriel
College, Oxford, obtaining the Chancellor's prize for an essay on
"Political Economy," and was elected Fellow of Exeter College in 1842.
[Illustration: JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.]
For some time he was connected with the High Church party led by the
Rev. J.H. Newman, and so much was he imbued by its doctrines, that he
wrote the "Lives of the English Saints," and took deacon's orders in
1844. He has also written "The Shadows of the Clouds," 1847, and "The
Nemesis of Faith," in 1849, both of which works had to undergo the
severest condemnation of the University authorities, for the Puseyite
opinions broached in their pages.
In 1850, Froude laid the foundation-stone of his fame by a series of
articles, chiefly on English History, which were contributed to the
_Westminster Review_ and _Frazer's Magazine_, and in 1856 he published
the two first volumes of his "History of England." This is his
greatest work, in ten volumes, and for clearness of thought, powerful
intensity, and acute understanding of those stormy periods of Henry
VIII, Elizabeth and Mary, there are few passages in written history to
equal Froude's descriptions of the age, and his grand delineations of
character. He is, however, prejudicial in many things, and his view
of the characters of Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth, is
altogether different from the view which all modern historians have
taken of these two women.
In 1867, a work entitled "Short Studies on Great Subjects," was
published by Mr. Froude, and the historical sketches in this volume
are of the most masterly kind in English literature. Mr. Froude is
now Editor of _Frazer's Magazine_, whose pages his powerful genius
illuminated some twenty years ago. This magazine had formerly for its
contributors some of the finest scholars and best thinkers in Britain.
_Frazer's Magazine_ is issued by Longmans, Green & Co., Paternoster
Row, one of the great publishing houses, and whose business is only
rivaled by that of John Murray, McMillan, Sampson, Low & Son, and Smith
& Elder, among London booksellers.
Among the contributors to _Frazer_ are Max Muller, F.W. Newman, E.
Lynn Linton, Jean Ingelow, Shirley Brooks, R. A. Proctor, Moncure D.
Conway, a Massachusetts man, and a personal and intimate friend of
Carlyle,--I believe he is to write the biography of that dogmatic old
thinker, who has failed to prevent the earth from revolving on its
axis, when he is gathered to his fathers, in the little churchyard
in Dumfriesshire. William Howard Russell, James Spedding, Frederick
Denison Maurice, a liberal clergyman and a professor in London
University, and others whom I do not recollect, are contributors to
_Frazer_. This magazine contains 134 double-column pages of large
print, on fine white paper, and is sold for two shillings and sixpence.
The same matter and workmanship could not be sold in America for less
than one dollar and twenty-five cents, I am informed. Miss Ingelow, one
of its contributors, is by no means a Miss in her teens, being now in
her forty-first year, but it is tolerably certain that such delightful
verse as hers could not have been written by one who had not endured
sorrow and trial. The several editions of her poems have realized
for Miss Ingelow the comfortable sum of £8,500, and I was told by a
leading London bookseller, that Mr. Froude, whose last article was on
"Salmon Fishing in Ireland," sold the copyright on four of his books
for £39,000. Miss Ingelow is a Suffolk girl, and rumor says has never
married because of a blighted affection in early life.
[Illustration: ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE--POET.]
A worthy successor to Lord Byron, in my opinion, is Algernon Charles
Swinburne, the most passionate English poet who has lived for one
hundred years. Swinburne is in his twenty-eighth year, and at that
early age he has attained for himself a position among the poets of his
native land, surpassed by none. For wealth of language, beauteous and
fervent passion, and gorgeousness of imagery, Keats alone is his peer.
Swinburne is an earnest republican, and sympathizes with revolution in
every land. He is a great admirer of Italy. For a poem of one page in
an English magazine he received two hundred and fifty pounds, a larger
price than was ever paid before in England for a poetical fragment.
[Sidenote: SWINBURNE'S BOYISH DAYS.]
Swinburne, though a republican in sentiment, belongs to one of the
oldest Roman Catholic families of Northumberland, and comes from
ancestors who have followed the Percy in plate armor against the fierce
barons of the House of Douglas. I am sorry to say, however, that the
poet does not look like a man who would wear a steel jerkin and hang a
battle-axe at his saddle bow. He has long curling hair, a pair of weird
fascinating eyes, a loose and slender frame, and a face which does not
impress one favorably at first. Take him altogether he seems like a
man who might like to recline on a bed of roses, with an Amphora of
Falernian by his couch, and half a dozen Syrian damsels to wait on him
and hand him flowing bumpers of golden wine.
His boyish days were spent at Eton, and here he was noticed only for
his utter dislike to athletic sports, including the darling amusement
of every Etonian--I mean the cricket field. He was finished at Oxford,
but did not receive his degree from Alma Mater. From the University
he went to Florence, and there he contracted a warm friendship for
that great gothic and rough-angled character, Walter Savage Landor,
which was ardently reciprocated by the latter. Returning to England
in 1861 he published the "Queen Mother," and "Rosamond," neither of
which attracted much attention. His first great and decided success
was in that classic poem "Atalanta in Calydon," published in 1864,
when Swinburne had attained his twenty-first year. This poem took the
cultivated minds of England by storm, and was followed by "Chastelard,"
"Poems and Ballads," "Laus Veneris," and a biography of "William
Blake," the painter, in quick succession. Since then his copy-rights
have amounted to £27,000, so rapid has been the sale of his books.
This moneyed success does not, however, prevent the poet from being
afflicted with a very penurious spirit, and it is said that he is in
the habit of giving waiters and servants sixpences for the pleasure of
taking the gifts back.
[Sidenote: JOHN STUART MILL.]
The greatest publicist in England, at this juncture, and the man whose
views demand most attention from press and people, after Carlyle,
is John Stuart Mill, the eminent writer on Political Economy, who
was formerly a clerk in the India House, like Charles Lamb, as his
father had been before him. Mr. Mill is now sixty-six years of age,
and has lately taken up the cudgel for the Woman's Suffrage party, in
England, along with Miss Harriet Martineau, after having exhausted
Utilitarianism, Political Economy, Parliamentary Reform, Logical
Systems, Auguste Comte, Positivism, Philosophy, and other light and
airy subjects. Yet all his great powers of thought did not prevent
him from being badly beaten by a Mr. Smith, a news agent, for the
representation of the Borough of Westminster, in the late parliamentary
elections. Mr. Mill has a grand broad forehead, a pair of deep
steadfast eyes, a firm mouth, and is of studious habits. Like all
students his oratory in Parliament, when first elected, was more ornate
and logical than impressive or forcible. His English is vigorous and
sterling, and it must be said of this venerable old man, that his whole
life has been devoted to an idea.
[Illustration: JOHN STUART MILL--POLITICAL ECONOMIST.]
The very opposite of John Stuart Mill is Benjamin F. Disraeli, who
was born in Bradenham, Buckinghamshire, Dec. 21, 1805. It is more
than positive that Mr. Disraeli has never sacrificed any thing for an
idea. Mr. Isaac Disraeli, his father, was a Christian, and an author,
who had written the "Curiosities of Literature," and the "Amenities
of Literature," the latter being a book in which the misfortunes and
failings of authors occupy a large space. The grandfather of the
great politician was a Jew of the Jews, I believe, and he who is now
leader of the Conservative party in the House of Commons, and who was
Lord Chancellor of England, has ever had a deep feeling for and faith
in Judaism, although he has been for many years the Champion of the
Anglican Church. At twenty years of age, Disraeli, who was then as
fond of velvet shooting jackets and jewelry as he is now in his old
age, or as Dickens was in his prime, began to write novels, and from
1825 to 1881 he had written "Vivian Grey," "The Young Duke," "Henrietta
Temple," "Contarini Fleming," "Venetia," "Alroy," and "Coningsby."
[Illustration: BENJAMIN DISRAELI--POLITICIAN.]
In 1837, he entered Parliament, and made a miserable failure as a
speaker and was laughed down, but he was not of the stuff to be
frightened. Since then he has filled the greatest offices of trust
that it is possible for a commoner to fill in England, and at times a
radical revolutionist, and then again a most staunch monarchist, he
has had greatness of soul enough to refuse a title offered him by the
Queen, when he retired from the Cabinet in which he was Prime Minister.
The honor tendered him was politely refused with many thanks, but
he accepted the title of Viscountess Beaconsfield for his noble and
devoted wife, who enriched and has sustained him in all his severest
struggles.
It is told of this brave lady, that while accompanying her husband in
a carriage to the House one night, Disraeli became lost in thought
about a great speech which he was going to make, and the carriage door
having closed on one of her fingers, she never uttered a sound of pain
until the equippage drove into the Palace yard at Westminster, when the
footman jumped down, and she fainted in her husband's arms. One hundred
and fifty thousand copies of Disraeli's "Lothair" have been sold, and
it is more than probable that the sale will not stop short of 250,000
copies. The bitterest article in review of this book was written in
_Blackwood's Magazine_, by Lawrence Oliphant, author of the "Piccadilly
Papers by a Peripatetic," in London Society. Mr. Oliphant deserted
fashionable London society to found a Communistic association on the
shores of Lake Erie, and having accumulated a secretion of gall and
wormwood there he went back to England and poured it out on the head of
Disraeli.
[Illustration: CHARLES KINGSLEY--NOVELIST.]
[Sidenote: CHARLES KINGSLEY.]
The Rev. Charles Kingsley, formerly rector of Eversley and Chaplain
in Ordinary to the Queen, and now Dean of Rochester, is the defender
of Muscular Christianity in English literature. He is the son of a
clergyman, and is descended from the ancient Saxon family of the
Kingsleys, of Kingsley, in the Forest of Delamere. He was educated at
Kings College, London, and Magdalen College, Cambridge, and is nearly
fifty years of age. From his advocacy of the cause of the workingmen he
has been called the "Chartist Parson." His chief works are, "Hypatia,
or New Foes with Old Faces," "Alexandria and Her Schools," "Westward,
Ho," "Two Years ago," and "Hereward, Last of the Saxons." He delivered
the "Roman and Teuton Lectures" while professor of Modern History at
Cambridge University. He has also written a series of children's books
on historical subjects, which are very popular in England. His brother,
Henry Kingsley, a novelist of considerable reputation, is eleven
years younger, and is a contributor to the _Gentleman's Magazine_,
the oldest periodical of its kind in England, which is sold for one
shilling.
Anthony Trollope, the most voluminous English novelist now living, was
born in 1815, and comes of a literary family, his mother having made
a certain sort of fame by her book of American travels which did not
redound to her credit. Many years after the issue of Mrs. Trollope's
book, her son visited America and sought to redeem the unfavorable
impression made by his parent's villification of our people, in his
"North America," published in 1861. Anthony Trollope was educated at
Winchester and Harrow, and at thirty-two years of age wrote his first
novel, "The McDermotts of Ballycloran," a picture of Irish middle class
life. Since then he has furnished to the publishers of his works enough
material to fill a small library. Many of his genial novels appeared
in the _Cornhill Magazine_, which was edited by Thackeray at one time,
and subsequently by Frederick Greenwood, who was, during the former's
management, a proof reader on the Cornhill, and is now the editor of
the _Pall Mall Gazette_, the establishment of which journal was the
realization of the dream of Thackeray's life.
James Greenwood, the "Amateur Casual," a brother of Frederick
Greenwood, has written a number of books of adventure of the most
stirring kind, and was attached to the London _Morning Star_, a penny
morning paper, which advocated the cause of the North during the Civil
War, and local sketches every alternate day were furnished by him to
its columns, for which he received sixteen guineas a week.
Mr. John Morley, whom I have to thank for much courtesy, was editor
of the _Star_ during my sojourn in London. He is now editor of the
_Fortnightly Review_, with which he was formerly connected. The _Star_
suspended publication about six months ago. I believe John Bright held
a stockholding interest in the _Star_ previous to its suspension, and
had, on some occasions, directed its editorial opinions.
[Sidenote: THE MAGAZINES.]
Mr. Trollope has an eminently literary look, and wears huge large
shaggy whiskers, and a pair of spectacles. His pictures of Irish middle
class society and English clerical characters, are the best and
truest ever drawn by an British novelist, his Irish characters being
infinitely superior to those of Charles Lever, whose heroes swagger
and strut in a most atrocious manner. Anthony Trollope has a brother,
Thomas Adolphus Trollope, who is also a literary man of considerable
note, and is five years the junior of Anthony. Adolphus Trollope
resides chiefly in Florence, and has written several works of fiction
connected with the very romantic history of that city. The younger
Trollope has been twice married. His first wife was an authoress, named
Miss Garrow, who died in 1865, and eight months after her decease he
was again married to a Miss Ternan, who is now living. That was what
an unprejudiced mind might call quick work for a novelist. Anthony
Trollope is the editor, and also, I believe, the proprietor of _St.
Paul's Magazine_, which is sold for one shilling a number.
[Illustration: ANTHONY TROLLOPE--NOVELIST.]
The circulation of the numerous London magazines and periodicals is
only to be computed by millions. Of course the cheap magazines have the
largest circulation, and the cheapest are not by any means the worst
edited. The _Temple Bar_ magazine, which was established by George
Augustus Sala, a well known correspondent of the _Morning Telegraph_,
sells for a shilling, and has among its contributors Mrs. Edwards,
Florence Maryatt, Miss Harriet Martineau, who is also a contributor
to the _Daily News_, H. Sutherland Edwards, John Holingshead, who was
formerly the dramatic critic of the _Daily News_, and is now manager
of a London Theatre. The _Brittania Magazine_ is well edited and has
original stories and sketches, and sells for sixpence. _Bow Bells
Magazine_ is a good local periodical, selling for eightpence, and
_Belgravia_, edited by Miss Braddon, sells for one shilling, as does
the _St. James_, which is well known for its clever Parliamentary
sketches. Cyrus Redding, the famous octogenarian writer on wine
culture, was for many years a constant contributor to _Colburn's
Monthly_, in which many of William Harrison Ainsworth's sensation
serial stories have appeared. Louisa Stuart Costello and her brother
Dudley Costello, and Mrs. Ward, for many years contributed to the pages
of _Colburn's Monthly_. _Blackwood's Magazine_ is too well known to
need any enumeration of its famous writers. _Blackwood's_ sells at
two-and-sixpence the number.
_McMillan's Magazine_ is issued at one shilling a number by the
publishing house of McMillan & Co., Bedford street, Covent Garden,
having 78 double column pages of matter. Among its contributors are
Frederick W.H. Myers, Edward Nolan, S. Greg, Thomas A. Lindsay, Dr.
Boyce, Edward A. Freeman, Charles Kingsley, Jean Ingelow, Menella Bute
Smedley, Mrs. Brotherton, F. Napier Broome, Thomas Hughes, Godfrey
Turner, T.W. Robinson, and F.W. Newman. _Cornhill_ is published by
Smith, Elder & Co. _All the Year Round_ is edited by Chas. Dickens,
Jr., who is rated very high as a sketch writer, and is also well
known as a rowing and yachting man. _The London Society Magazine_ is
published at 217 Piccadilly, and the most aristocratic of all the
London magazines, being beautifully illustrated, and having excellent
social, club, and fashionable sketches. The _London Society_ is sold
for a shilling, and has a number of lady artists who make drawings for
its pages. Watson, W. Brunton, Lionel Henley, Adelaide Claxton, H.
Tuck, A. Thompson, and F. Walker, are among the best known artists on
this magazine. Walter Thornbury, author of "Haunted London," Lawrence
Oliphant, Edmund Yates, and Lascelles Wraxall, are contributors to the
_London Society_. The "_Graphic_," the finest illustrated weekly ever
published in London, is edited by Arthur Lockyer, who has succeeded
its former editor--H. Sutherland Edwards. The circulation of the
different magazines is computed as follows:
_Cornhill_, 36,000; _McMillan_, 28,000; _Blackwood_, 39,000; _London
Society_, 24,000; _Frazer_, 17,000; _Colburn's Monthly_, 7,500; _Temple
Bar_, 19,000; _St. Paul's_, 16,000; _Gentleman's Magazine_, 25,000;
_Britannia Magazine_, 26,000; _St. James'_, 15,000, and _Belgravia_,
16,000.
[Illustration: DELIVERING THE "TIMES."]
The circulation of the principal critical Weeklies is: _Saturday
Review_, sixpence, 38,000; _Spectator_, sixpence, 22,000; _Athenæum_,
sixpence, 29,600; _Examiner and London Review_, 13,000. The _Saturday
Review_ has forty pages of double-column matter, large print, twelve
of which are devoted to advertisements, the remaining pages being
taken up with editorials, book reviews, notices of the drama and fine
arts. The _Athenæum_ has twenty-two quarto pages of three columns
each, ten of which are taken up by advertisements, and the remainder
by book reviews, and dramatic, fine art, and scientific notes. The
editor of this journal is Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, M.P., who wrote
an excellent book of travel, entitled "Greater Britain." Ruskin and
Huxley have been contributors to the _Athenæum_. The _Spectator_ has
twenty-eight pages folio, and is chiefly noticeable for its valuable
historical studies, and its short and spicy paragraphs on the first
four pages of the paper. Any of these weeklies will be sent abroad for
the additional cost of a penny stamp.
[Sidenote: THE LONDON TIMES.]
The first number of the _London Times_ was printed January 1, 1788, by
John Walter, and the first newspaper printed by steam in Europe was the
_Times_ of November 29, 1814. Applegarth and Cowper's four cylindered
presses, printing five to eight thousand sheets an hour, were in use by
the _Times_ for many years. These were succeeded by Hoe's press with
Whithworth's improvement, and now the Bullock press modified, which
prints on an endless sheet, is used by the _Times_. The circulation
of this, the leading journal of Europe, varies from 57,000 to 65,000
copies a day, and the owner is Mr. Walter, the son of its founder. John
Thaddeus Delane, the son of William F.A. Delane, the former financial
manager, who has been succeeded by Mowbray Morris, is the editor of
the _Times_. He is an Oxford man, and was admitted to the bar in 1847.
Since 1839 he has been connected with the _Times_, to whose editorship
he succeeded in 1841, on the decease of its then famous editor, Mr.
Thomas Barnes. The value of the _Times_ newspaper property has been
estimated at three million pounds, or fifteen million dollars. As
Thackeray said, its ambassadors are everywhere; one may be seen pricing
potatoes at Covent Garden, while another is committing to paper the
Cabinet intrigues at Berlin. Among its most celebrated writers have
been Barnes, Sterling, Horace Twiss, William Howard Russell, Thackeray,
Thomas Noon Talfourd, Baron Alderson, Louis J. Jennings, the American
correspondent, now editor of the New York _Times_, and others. Southey
was offered the editorial management at a salary of £2,000 a year, and
the same offer was made to Thomas Moore, the poet, but both declined
acceptance. The _Times_, with supplement, has seventy-two columns of
matter, on sixteen pages, and 2,250 advertisements have been inserted
in one day's issue, seven tons of paper, with a surface of thirty
acres, and seven tons of type, being used.
[Sidenote: CIRCULATION OF JOURNALS.]
The circulation and prices of the leading London journals, are as
follows: _Times_, 65,000, four pence; _Daily News_, 48,000, one penny;
_Daily Telegraph_, 175,000, one penny; _Morning and Evening Standard_,
80,000, one penny; _Morning Advertiser_ (rumseller's organ), 35,000,
one penny; _Pall Mall Gazette_ (evening), 30,000, one penny; _Echo_
(evening), 75,000, one penny; _Globe_ (evening), 8,000, one penny;
_Punch_ (weekly), 55,000, six pence; _Illustrated London News_, 60,000,
four pence; _Graphic_, 80,000, six pence; _Bell's Life_ (sporting),
Wednesday and Saturday, 66,000, one penny; _The Field_ (sporting,
weekly), 18,000, six pence; _Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper_ (Sunday),
140,000, one penny; _Weekly Times_ (Sunday)--owned by _London Journal_,
which has a circulation of 200,000--110,000, one penny; _Cassell's
Weekly Magazine_, 90,000, _Weekly Dispatch_ (Sunday), 215,000, two
pence; _Reynold's Newspaper_ (Sunday), 280,000, one penny; _Jewish
Record_ (weekly), one penny, 7,500; _Tablet_ (Catholic weekly), four
pence, 36,000.
[Illustration: SUB-EDITOR'S ROOM, "TELEGRAPH" OFFICE.]
The _Morning Telegraph_ is the most popular daily newspaper in the
world. During periods of great excitement its circulation increases
to over 200,000 copies a day, and it takes four ten-cylinder, and
four six-cylinder Hoe's presses, to strike off its daily editions.
The correspondent of the _Telegraph_ at Paris, Mr. Whitehurst, is
hand and glove with Napoleon, and his salary amounts to £10,000,
with a horse and brougham thrown in. The editor of the _Telegraph_
is Thornton Hunt, son of Leigh Hunt, who was for twenty years on the
staff of the _Spectator_. The sub-editor of the _Telegraph_, for
they have no managing editors in England, is Mr. Ralph Harrison, to
whom I am much indebted for courtesies received. The owner of the
_Telegraph_ is a Hebrew gentleman named Levy. The _Daily News_ is owned
by the Liberation Society, a Dissenters' association, and is edited I
believe, by Mr. Edward Dicey, formerly a special correspondent of the
_Telegraph_, who went to Suez for that journal. Tom Hood, son of the
poet, was editor of the _Tomahawk_ formerly, and lately of the _Latest
News_, a penny Saturday paper, and Arthur A. Becket has edited _Fun_.
James Grant is now editor of the _Morning Advertiser_, at a salary of
fifty pounds a week, and Blanchard Jerrold receives £800 a year for
editing _Lloyds' Weekly_. The salaries of editors on the London press
vary from fifteen to fifty pounds a week, according to the ability
displayed, and the circumstances of the journal on which they are
employed.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: HALF PENNY SOUP HOUSE.]
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE POOR OF LONDON.
BEYOND comparison London exceeds all other cities of Europe for
the number of its poor, and the misery and suffering of those who
individually make up the gross totals in work-houses, back slums, and
miasmatic tenements.
One of the most interesting--if not the most curious and cheerful
scenes in the metropolis--may be witnessed any day by a visit to the
East London "Half-Penny Soup House," an institution established by good
and merciful people, whereby the poor little castaways and waifs of the
city are provided with a dish of soup, a piece of meat, and a small
loaf of bread, once in each twenty-four hours.
The children are gathered from the promiscuous juvenile assemblages
that may be, at any time, found in the London streets, and are taken
to the Soup House where large and steaming dishes of soup are given
them, by charitable ladies, after which they are dismissed until the
next twenty-four hours have elapsed, when again they assemble to
partake of the same plentiful and grateful food. This nourishment costs
but a half-penny per head, all the attendance and time being given
gratuitously by the good ladies who seek the little ones for their own
merciful purpose.
The struggles of the London poor to keep soul and body together,
are very wonderful to understand or relate. Out of every five poor
families in London--it is known that at least three are compelled,
between Easter and Christmas, to denude their households of all the
most necessary articles of clothing and furniture, to take them to the
pawnbroker's shops in order that bread and meat may be procured for
their little ones. And what terrible scenes are witnessed in these
pawnbroker's shops, on Saturday nights when the goods are reclaimed by
dint of economy and hard scraping? None but God, the police, and the
pawnbroker, ever see such struggles.
[Illustration: A PAWNBROKER'S SHOP.]
One day I paid a visit to the Workhouse of St. Martin's, in the Fields,
which is not far distant from Trafalgar square. This workhouse looks
like a vast prison, stern, gloomy, and frowning, in the very busiest
quarter of the city. Opposite to its entrance was the barracks of some
regiment of infantry, and round the doors, were talking and smoking,
half-a-dozen of long-legged and slim-waisted private soldiers, in red
shell jackets, whose chief occupation seemed to be that of switching
their manly calves with slender rods which they jauntily carried in
their hands.
[Sidenote: THE MASTER OF THE WORKHOUSE.]
The workhouse door was shown to me by a squad of small boys who were at
play in the adjoining gutters, clad in a pauper's uniform of blue, and
on whose heads were dirty but comfortable caps of plaid pilot cloth.
"Yes, master, there is the Workus, over yander. Will ye give us a
penny? We are all Workus," said they in chorus.
I entered the low entrance and stood in a small vestibule, where stood
a shelf, or stand, upon which was placed an open blank or visitors'
book, in which each caller was to inscribe his name and residence,
together with his object for visiting the workhouse. On the opposite
page were blank spaces, on which an attendant entered the hours when a
visitor called and when he left the institution.
A miserable, worm-eaten looking old man, devoid of teeth, and shambling
in his gait, a perfect wreck, shuffled up to me with a deprecating look
in his eye, as if he were asking pardon for being alive. Heavens! how
the iron of poverty, and the bitterness of dependence, must have eaten
away that poor wretch's soul before such enduring lines of degradation
could have been impressed on his features.
This old pauper was detailed to wait upon the visitors, and to see that
their names were inscribed, with the warning that he should not attempt
to ask for or receive any gratuity.
He faintly said in a childish voice:
"What can I do for you, Sir? Do you wish to see the Workus? Ah, yes, of
course, a goodish bit of people comes to see the poor paupers, now and
then, but we are never allowed to take anything, Sir. No never, never.
Poor paupers, poor paupers," and so he mumbled away until the Master of
the workhouse was announced by his footsteps that came in echoes as I
sat in the little, poverty-stricken ante-room.
To the Master, who is the supreme authority in the workhouse, under
the direction of the Board of Guardians of the parish, I explained my
motives for visiting the paupers' residence, and he welcomed me with
much politeness, offering me every facility to inspect the place.
He was a medium sized man, of middle age, plainly dressed, and after
having issued orders to several of the inmates of the establishment
he prepared to accompany me through the premises. Here and there, in
the walks and corridors, and courts of the workhouse, we met with an
occasional pauper, the males in a grey, rough, shoddy uniform, and the
women in check or plaid gowns, of a coarse cotton material, and wearing
caps of a faded whiteness upon their heads.
They all had a vacant, listless look, and seemed lost in astonishment
to see a stranger with the Master, to whom they made the most servile
of salutations.
I had seen, in my travels on the English railways, when I sought
the not very wholesome refuge of the third class carriages to study
character--just such poor, faded-looking people, among the families
journeying wearily to their various destinations, as these poor old
relics, who were now clustering around the workhouse tea tables. Oh,
God! how lonely they looked, and distant from all human kind. The same
wan, woe-begone faces, but more quiet and reserved than those I saw in
the close railway cars devoted to poor people.
Smoking is a common thing in these crowded and close carriages, and
delicate women, and puny, weak children, are forced to travel for
hundreds of miles in these cattle boxes--I cannot call them aught
else--until they are sometimes known to vomit from the bad air and
worse stenches.
Making inquiries of this gentleman as I went through the buildings,
I may as well give his explanations of workhouse life, and of the
condition of the poor and destitute of London. I freely admitted to him
that I had heard very strange stories in regard to the treatment, food,
and medical attendance of the paupers in the Unions, and that I would
be obliged to him if he could clear up my reasonable doubts on many
points.
[Sidenote: SUGAR AND TEA.]
In answer to one of these doubts the Master took me into a large, long
and clean-looking room, in which were about forty female paupers. These
women were engaged in getting supper for themselves, and were all
above middle age, and haggard-looking.
[Illustration: A THIRD CLASS RAILWAY CARRIAGE.]
"Now, Sir," said he to me, "you, of course, can see something of which
you speak, for yourself. Here is one of the busy wards of the Union.
Each of these old women is allowed an ounce of dry tea per day, and
enough sugar to moderately sweeten four cups of tea, which they make in
their own tea-caddies, or, sometimes they mess together--three or four
in a mess--and those who do not care for sugar will trade their surplus
sugar for the surplus dry tea with some other paupers."
All the women arose from their low seats or benches, some of them being
clustered around a grate in which were a moderate stock of burning
coals, and bowed to the Master, who waved his hand and told them to sit
down again, which they did with courtesies and many feeble expressions
of thanks.
"That old woman over there in the corner," said the Master, pointing
to a female of sixty years of age, who sat alone rubbing her bare
arms, and chatting to herself senselessly, "has lost her wits. She is
here forty-five years, and will die here in all probability. We have
about 400 in-door paupers in this workhouse, and perhaps twice as many
out-door poor, whom the parochial authorities assist as well as they
can. Every pauper whom we support in this house costs the rate-payers
of this parish about seventeen pounds six and ten-pence per head, which
does not include charge for rent, taking the interest of the value
of the property. For the children we have a school, and they get the
rudiments and that's all. It is an idea with some, and I am afraid,
with many poor people, "once a pauper always a pauper." The children
who are born in this place, would never become independent of the
parish if it were not that as soon as they grow up we send them to
schools of an industrial kind outside of London, where they learn a
trade, or are taught some occupation, such as gardening, blacksmithing,
carpentering, or, in fact, anything that will enable them to make a
living. The feeding and schooling of the children, with the nursing,
&c., costs more per head for them, strange to say, than it does for a
grown person's subsistence and clothing in London.
[Sidenote: WORKHOUSE RATIONS.]
"In this parish alone we have to take care of 478 children, and in some
of the London parishes in Bethnal Green, and Hackney, or Stepney, they
sometimes have to provide for from 1,500 to 2,000 children, of both
sexes. Of course, in the very large parishes they cannot afford to
educate the children, but have to content themselves with feeding and
clothing as many as they can inside the workhouse, while the majority
receive, with their parents, out-door relief, but the large and heavy
parishes could not afford to have such fine schools as we have in the
suburbs, with grounds attached, and sometimes goodish pieces of land,
where farming and gardening can be taught the children. It costs the
rate-payers of this parish twenty pounds a year to support and educate
the parish children, and, along with all the rest of the taxes, it is
no wonder that the people are grumbling and asking why we do not send
the beggars to America or Australia."
"And why do you not?" said I to him, "if the sustenance of a pauper,
together with his clothing, costs the parish £21 annually."
"Because, the people of London have an idea somehow or other, that the
Americans will not receive paupers, and then again, if £21 was given to
a pauper to go to America, they would raise a row in Parliament that
too much money was going out of the country. Why," said he, "down at
Birkenhead, near Liverpool, schools were built for paupers at a cost of
£15,000, with bath-rooms and fine dining-rooms, and the people there
raised an awful row because the cost to the rate-payers came to ten
shillings per head per annum to every inhabitant in the place. They
didn't want to give them bath-rooms or fine dining-rooms. They turned
a man away there who was frozen, and he had to lose all of his toes on
account of their neglect. In some of the work-houses, in the North of
England, they are beginning to let the children out to board by the
week, with farmers and families who can afford to take them, the parish
authorities allowing, for each child, three shillings per week for
board, with an outfit on leaving the workhouse, and six shillings and
sixpence a quarter for mending and repairing their clothes, an offer
which has been very cheerfully accepted by many families who are in
decent circumstances."
"A 'Casual,'" said the Master, "is a pauper who is house-less and
destitute in a different parish from which he has lived. When he finds
himself in a strange place, as in London, he has to apply at the Police
Station for a ticket, which is given him as a reference to ask for one
night's lodging at the workhouse in the district. The ticket is shown
to the Master, who receives him, and I will send him down here, but
before he is sent down he gets a loaf of bread, weighing a pound and a
quarter. He must apply to the House for lodgings before ten o'clock at
night, or we will not let him in. Then he takes the loaf of bread and
eats half of it for his supper, and the other half he saves for his
breakfast. We give him, with the remaining half loaf of bread in the
morning, a half pint of coffee or tea. But before he goes he has got to
earn the breakfast which we give him, and is compelled to pick oakum
from six o'clock in the morning until nine, when he leaves the House."
Before I left the workhouse the Master allowed me to inspect the beef,
bread, butter, and beer, which are served out daily to the paupers.
Each grown man and woman receives a twelve ounce loaf of bread, a pint
of the best beer, an ounce of butter, daily, and five days in the week
they receive six ounces of fresh meat, the other days being especially
devoted to beans, and a liquid compound known to seafaring men as
"skillagelee."
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