Sketches by Boz
by
Charles Dickens
Part 2 out of 15
look brighter, and the brilliantly-lighted shops more splendid,
from the contrast they present to the darkness around. All the
people who are at home on such a night as this, seem disposed to
make themselves as snug and comfortable as possible; and the
passengers in the streets have excellent reason to envy the
fortunate individuals who are seated by their own firesides.
In the larger and better kind of streets, dining parlour curtains
are closely drawn, kitchen fires blaze brightly up, and savoury
steams of hot dinners salute the nostrils of the hungry wayfarer,
as he plods wearily by the area railings. In the suburbs, the
muffin boy rings his way down the little street, much more slowly
than he is wont to do; for Mrs. Macklin, of No. 4, has no sooner
opened her little street-door, and screamed out 'Muffins!' with all
her might, than Mrs. Walker, at No. 5, puts her head out of the
parlour-window, and screams 'Muffins!' too; and Mrs. Walker has
scarcely got the words out of her lips, than Mrs. Peplow, over the
way, lets loose Master Peplow, who darts down the street, with a
velocity which nothing but buttered muffins in perspective could
possibly inspire, and drags the boy back by main force, whereupon
Mrs. Macklin and Mrs. Walker, just to save the boy trouble, and to
say a few neighbourly words to Mrs. Peplow at the same time, run
over the way and buy their muffins at Mrs. Peplow's door, when it
appears from the voluntary statement of Mrs. Walker, that her
'kittle's jist a-biling, and the cups and sarsers ready laid,' and
that, as it was such a wretched night out o' doors, she'd made up
her mind to have a nice, hot, comfortable cup o' tea--a
determination at which, by the most singular coincidence, the other
two ladies had simultaneously arrived.
After a little conversation about the wretchedness of the weather
and the merits of tea, with a digression relative to the
viciousness of boys as a rule, and the amiability of Master Peplow
as an exception, Mrs. Walker sees her husband coming down the
street; and as he must want his tea, poor man, after his dirty walk
from the Docks, she instantly runs across, muffins in hand, and
Mrs. Macklin does the same, and after a few words to Mrs. Walker,
they all pop into their little houses, and slam their little
street-doors, which are not opened again for the remainder of the
evening, except to the nine o'clock 'beer,' who comes round with a
lantern in front of his tray, and says, as he lends Mrs. Walker
'Yesterday's 'Tiser,' that he's blessed if he can hardly hold the
pot, much less feel the paper, for it's one of the bitterest nights
he ever felt, 'cept the night when the man was frozen to death in
the Brick-field.
After a little prophetic conversation with the policeman at the
street-corner, touching a probable change in the weather, and the
setting-in of a hard frost, the nine o'clock beer returns to his
master's house, and employs himself for the remainder of the
evening, in assiduously stirring the tap-room fire, and
deferentially taking part in the conversation of the worthies
assembled round it.
The streets in the vicinity of the Marsh-gate and Victoria Theatre
present an appearance of dirt and discomfort on such a night, which
the groups who lounge about them in no degree tend to diminish.
Even the little block-tin temple sacred to baked potatoes,
surmounted by a splendid design in variegated lamps, looks less gay
than usual, and as to the kidney-pie stand, its glory has quite
departed. The candle in the transparent lamp, manufactured of oil-
paper, embellished with 'characters,' has been blown out fifty
times, so the kidney-pie merchant, tired with running backwards and
forwards to the next wine-vaults, to get a light, has given up the
idea of illumination in despair, and the only signs of his
'whereabout,' are the bright sparks, of which a long irregular
train is whirled down the street every time he opens his portable
oven to hand a hot kidney-pie to a customer.
Flat-fish, oyster, and fruit vendors linger hopelessly in the
kennel, in vain endeavouring to attract customers; and the ragged
boys who usually disport themselves about the streets, stand
crouched in little knots in some projecting doorway, or under the
canvas blind of a cheesemonger's, where great flaring gas-lights,
unshaded by any glass, display huge piles of blight red and pale
yellow cheeses, mingled with little fivepenny dabs of dingy bacon,
various tubs of weekly Dorset, and cloudy rolls of 'best fresh.'
Here they amuse themselves with theatrical converse, arising out of
their last half-price visit to the Victoria gallery, admire the
terrific combat, which is nightly encored, and expatiate on the
inimitable manner in which Bill Thompson can 'come the double
monkey,' or go through the mysterious involutions of a sailor's
hornpipe.
It is nearly eleven o'clock, and the cold thin rain which has been
drizzling so long, is beginning to pour down in good earnest; the
baked-potato man has departed--the kidney-pie man has just walked
away with his warehouse on his arm--the cheesemonger has drawn in
his blind, and the boys have dispersed. The constant clicking of
pattens on the slippy and uneven pavement, and the rustling of
umbrellas, as the wind blows against the shop-windows, bear
testimony to the inclemency of the night; and the policeman, with
his oilskin cape buttoned closely round him, seems as he holds his
hat on his head, and turns round to avoid the gust of wind and rain
which drives against him at the street-corner, to be very far from
congratulating himself on the prospect before him.
The little chandler's shop with the cracked bell behind the door,
whose melancholy tinkling has been regulated by the demand for
quarterns of sugar and half-ounces of coffee, is shutting up. The
crowds which have been passing to and fro during the whole day, are
rapidly dwindling away; and the noise of shouting and quarrelling
which issues from the public-houses, is almost the only sound that
breaks the melancholy stillness of the night.
There was another, but it has ceased. That wretched woman with the
infant in her arms, round whose meagre form the remnant of her own
scanty shawl is carefully wrapped, has been attempting to sing some
popular ballad, in the hope of wringing a few pence from the
compassionate passer-by. A brutal laugh at her weak voice is all
she has gained. The tears fall thick and fast down her own pale
face; the child is cold and hungry, and its low half-stifled
wailing adds to the misery of its wretched mother, as she moans
aloud, and sinks despairingly down, on a cold damp door-step.
Singing! How few of those who pass such a miserable creature as
this, think of the anguish of heart, the sinking of soul and
spirit, which the very effort of singing produces. Bitter mockery!
Disease, neglect, and starvation, faintly articulating the words of
the joyous ditty, that has enlivened your hours of feasting and
merriment, God knows how often! It is no subject of jeering. The
weak tremulous voice tells a fearful tale of want and famishing;
and the feeble singer of this roaring song may turn away, only to
die of cold and hunger.
One o'clock! Parties returning from the different theatres foot it
through the muddy streets; cabs, hackney-coaches, carriages, and
theatre omnibuses, roll swiftly by; watermen with dim dirty
lanterns in their hands, and large brass plates upon their breasts,
who have been shouting and rushing about for the last two hours,
retire to their watering-houses, to solace themselves with the
creature comforts of pipes and purl; the half-price pit and box
frequenters of the theatres throng to the different houses of
refreshment; and chops, kidneys, rabbits, oysters, stout, cigars,
and 'goes' innumerable, are served up amidst a noise and confusion
of smoking, running, knife-clattering, and waiter-chattering,
perfectly indescribable.
The more musical portion of the play-going community betake
themselves to some harmonic meeting. As a matter of curiosity let
us follow them thither for a few moments.
In a lofty room of spacious dimensions, are seated some eighty or a
hundred guests knocking little pewter measures on the tables, and
hammering away, with the handles of their knives, as if they were
so many trunk-makers. They are applauding a glee, which has just
been executed by the three 'professional gentlemen' at the top of
the centre table, one of whom is in the chair--the little pompous
man with the bald head just emerging from the collar of his green
coat. The others are seated on either side of him--the stout man
with the small voice, and the thin-faced dark man in black. The
little man in the chair is a most amusing personage,--such
condescending grandeur, and SUCH a voice!
'Bass!' as the young gentleman near us with the blue stock forcibly
remarks to his companion, 'bass! I b'lieve you; he can go down
lower than any man: so low sometimes that you can't hear him.'
And so he does. To hear him growling away, gradually lower and
lower down, till he can't get back again, is the most delightful
thing in the world, and it is quite impossible to witness unmoved
the impressive solemnity with which he pours forth his soul in 'My
'art's in the 'ighlands,' or 'The brave old Hoak.' The stout man
is also addicted to sentimentality, and warbles 'Fly, fly from the
world, my Bessy, with me,' or some such song, with lady-like
sweetness, and in the most seductive tones imaginable.
'Pray give your orders, gen'l'm'n--pray give your orders,'--says
the pale-faced man with the red head; and demands for 'goes' of gin
and 'goes' of brandy, and pints of stout, and cigars of peculiar
mildness, are vociferously made from all parts of the room. The
'professional gentlemen' are in the very height of their glory, and
bestow condescending nods, or even a word or two of recognition, on
the better-known frequenters of the room, in the most bland and
patronising manner possible.
The little round-faced man, with the small brown surtout, white
stockings and shoes, is in the comic line; the mixed air of self-
denial, and mental consciousness of his own powers, with which he
acknowledges the call of the chair, is particularly gratifying.
'Gen'l'men,' says the little pompous man, accompanying the word
with a knock of the president's hammer on the table--'Gen'l'men,
allow me to claim your attention--our friend, Mr. Smuggins, will
oblige.'--'Bravo!' shout the company; and Smuggins, after a
considerable quantity of coughing by way of symphony, and a most
facetious sniff or two, which afford general delight, sings a comic
song, with a fal-de-ral--tol-de-ral chorus at the end of every
verse, much longer than the verse itself. It is received with
unbounded applause, and after some aspiring genius has volunteered
a recitation, and failed dismally therein, the little pompous man
gives another knock, and says 'Gen'l'men, we will attempt a glee,
if you please.' This announcement calls forth tumultuous applause,
and the more energetic spirits express the unqualified approbation
it affords them, by knocking one or two stout glasses off their
legs--a humorous device; but one which frequently occasions some
slight altercation when the form of paying the damage is proposed
to be gone through by the waiter.
Scenes like these are continued until three or four o'clock in the
morning; and even when they close, fresh ones open to the
inquisitive novice. But as a description of all of them, however
slight, would require a volume, the contents of which, however
instructive, would be by no means pleasing, we make our bow, and
drop the curtain.
CHAPTER III--SHOPS AND THEIR TENANTS
What inexhaustible food for speculation, do the streets of London
afford! We never were able to agree with Sterne in pitying the man
who could travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say that all was
barren; we have not the slightest commiseration for the man who can
take up his hat and stick, and walk from Covent-garden to St.
Paul's Churchyard, and back into the bargain, without deriving some
amusement--we had almost said instruction--from his perambulation.
And yet there are such beings: we meet them every day. Large
black stocks and light waistcoats, jet canes and discontented
countenances, are the characteristics of the race; other people
brush quickly by you, steadily plodding on to business, or
cheerfully running after pleasure. These men linger listlessly
past, looking as happy and animated as a policeman on duty.
Nothing seems to make an impression on their minds: nothing short
of being knocked down by a porter, or run over by a cab, will
disturb their equanimity. You will meet them on a fine day in any
of the leading thoroughfares: peep through the window of a west-
end cigar shop in the evening, if you can manage to get a glimpse
between the blue curtains which intercept the vulgar gaze, and you
see them in their only enjoyment of existence. There they are
lounging about, on round tubs and pipe boxes, in all the dignity of
whiskers, and gilt watch-guards; whispering soft nothings to the
young lady in amber, with the large ear-rings, who, as she sits
behind the counter in a blaze of adoration and gas-light, is the
admiration of all the female servants in the neighbourhood, and the
envy of every milliner's apprentice within two miles round.
One of our principal amusements is to watch the gradual progress--
the rise or fall--of particular shops. We have formed an intimate
acquaintance with several, in different parts of town, and are
perfectly acquainted with their whole history. We could name off-
hand, twenty at least, which we are quite sure have paid no taxes
for the last six years. They are never inhabited for more than two
months consecutively, and, we verily believe, have witnessed every
retail trade in the directory.
There is one, whose history is a sample of the rest, in whose fate
we have taken especial interest, having had the pleasure of knowing
it ever since it has been a shop. It is on the Surrey side of the
water--a little distance beyond the Marsh-gate. It was originally
a substantial, good-looking private house enough; the landlord got
into difficulties, the house got into Chancery, the tenant went
away, and the house went to ruin. At this period our acquaintance
with it commenced; the paint was all worn off; the windows were
broken, the area was green with neglect and the overflowings of the
water-butt; the butt itself was without a lid, and the street-door
was the very picture of misery. The chief pastime of the children
in the vicinity had been to assemble in a body on the steps, and to
take it in turn to knock loud double knocks at the door, to the
great satisfaction of the neighbours generally, and especially of
the nervous old lady next door but one. Numerous complaints were
made, and several small basins of water discharged over the
offenders, but without effect. In this state of things, the
marine-store dealer at the corner of the street, in the most
obliging manner took the knocker off, and sold it: and the
unfortunate house looked more wretched than ever.
We deserted our friend for a few weeks. What was our surprise, on
our return, to find no trace of its existence! In its place was a
handsome shop, fast approaching to a state of completion, and on
the shutters were large bills, informing the public that it would
shortly be opened with 'an extensive stock of linen-drapery and
haberdashery.' It opened in due course; there was the name of the
proprietor 'and Co.' in gilt letters, almost too dazzling to look
at. Such ribbons and shawls! and two such elegant young men behind
the counter, each in a clean collar and white neckcloth, like the
lover in a farce. As to the proprietor, he did nothing but walk up
and down the shop, and hand seats to the ladies, and hold important
conversations with the handsomest of the young men, who was
shrewdly suspected by the neighbours to be the 'Co.' We saw all
this with sorrow; we felt a fatal presentiment that the shop was
doomed--and so it was. Its decay was slow, but sure. Tickets
gradually appeared in the windows; then rolls of flannel, with
labels on them, were stuck outside the door; then a bill was pasted
on the street-door, intimating that the first floor was to let
unfurnished; then one of the young men disappeared altogether, and
the other took to a black neckerchief, and the proprietor took to
drinking. The shop became dirty, broken panes of glass remained
unmended, and the stock disappeared piecemeal. At last the
company's man came to cut off the water, and then the linen-draper
cut off himself, leaving the landlord his compliments and the key.
The next occupant was a fancy stationer. The shop was more
modestly painted than before, still it was neat; but somehow we
always thought, as we passed, that it looked like a poor and
struggling concern. We wished the man well, but we trembled for
his success. He was a widower evidently, and had employment
elsewhere, for he passed us every morning on his road to the city.
The business was carried on by his eldest daughter. Poor girl! she
needed no assistance. We occasionally caught a glimpse of two or
three children, in mourning like herself, as they sat in the little
parlour behind the shop; and we never passed at night without
seeing the eldest girl at work, either for them, or in making some
elegant little trifle for sale. We often thought, as her pale face
looked more sad and pensive in the dim candle-light, that if those
thoughtless females who interfere with the miserable market of poor
creatures such as these, knew but one-half of the misery they
suffer, and the bitter privations they endure, in their honourable
attempts to earn a scanty subsistence, they would, perhaps, resign
even opportunities for the gratification of vanity, and an immodest
love of self-display, rather than drive them to a last dreadful
resource, which it would shock the delicate feelings of these
CHARITABLE ladies to hear named.
But we are forgetting the shop. Well, we continued to watch it,
and every day showed too clearly the increasing poverty of its
inmates. The children were clean, it is true, but their clothes
were threadbare and shabby; no tenant had been procured for the
upper part of the house, from the letting of which, a portion of
the means of paying the rent was to have been derived, and a slow,
wasting consumption prevented the eldest girl from continuing her
exertions. Quarter-day arrived. The landlord had suffered from
the extravagance of his last tenant, and he had no compassion for
the struggles of his successor; he put in an execution. As we
passed one morning, the broker's men were removing the little
furniture there was in the house, and a newly-posted bill informed
us it was again 'To Let.' What became of the last tenant we never
could learn; we believe the girl is past all suffering, and beyond
all sorrow. God help her! We hope she is.
We were somewhat curious to ascertain what would be the next stage-
-for that the place had no chance of succeeding now, was perfectly
clear. The bill was soon taken down, and some alterations were
being made in the interior of the shop. We were in a fever of
expectation; we exhausted conjecture--we imagined all possible
trades, none of which were perfectly reconcilable with our idea of
the gradual decay of the tenement. It opened, and we wondered why
we had not guessed at the real state of the case before. The shop-
-not a large one at the best of times--had been converted into two:
one was a bonnet-shape maker's, the other was opened by a
tobacconist, who also dealt in walking-sticks and Sunday
newspapers; the two were separated by a thin partition, covered
with tawdry striped paper.
The tobacconist remained in possession longer than any tenant
within our recollection. He was a red-faced, impudent, good-for-
nothing dog, evidently accustomed to take things as they came, and
to make the best of a bad job. He sold as many cigars as he could,
and smoked the rest. He occupied the shop as long as he could make
peace with the landlord, and when he could no longer live in quiet,
he very coolly locked the door, and bolted himself. From this
period, the two little dens have undergone innumerable changes.
The tobacconist was succeeded by a theatrical hair-dresser, who
ornamented the window with a great variety of 'characters,' and
terrific combats. The bonnet-shape maker gave place to a
greengrocer, and the histrionic barber was succeeded, in his turn,
by a tailor. So numerous have been the changes, that we have of
late done little more than mark the peculiar but certain
indications of a house being poorly inhabited. It has been
progressing by almost imperceptible degrees. The occupiers of the
shops have gradually given up room after room, until they have only
reserved the little parlour for themselves. First there appeared a
brass plate on the private door, with 'Ladies' School' legibly
engraved thereon; shortly afterwards we observed a second brass
plate, then a bell, and then another bell.
When we paused in front of our old friend, and observed these signs
of poverty, which are not to be mistaken, we thought as we turned
away, that the house had attained its lowest pitch of degradation.
We were wrong. When we last passed it, a 'dairy' was established
in the area, and a party of melancholy-looking fowls were amusing
themselves by running in at the front door, and out at the back
one.
CHAPTER IV--SCOTLAND-YARD
Scotland-yard is a small--a very small-tract of land, bounded on
one side by the river Thames, on the other by the gardens of
Northumberland House: abutting at one end on the bottom of
Northumberland-street, at the other on the back of Whitehall-place.
When this territory was first accidentally discovered by a country
gentleman who lost his way in the Strand, some years ago, the
original settlers were found to be a tailor, a publican, two
eating-house keepers, and a fruit-pie maker; and it was also found
to contain a race of strong and bulky men, who repaired to the
wharfs in Scotland-yard regularly every morning, about five or six
o'clock, to fill heavy waggons with coal, with which they proceeded
to distant places up the country, and supplied the inhabitants with
fuel. When they had emptied their waggons, they again returned for
a fresh supply; and this trade was continued throughout the year.
As the settlers derived their subsistence from ministering to the
wants of these primitive traders, the articles exposed for sale,
and the places where they were sold, bore strong outward marks of
being expressly adapted to their tastes and wishes. The tailor
displayed in his window a Lilliputian pair of leather gaiters, and
a diminutive round frock, while each doorpost was appropriately
garnished with a model of a coal-sack. The two eating-house
keepers exhibited joints of a magnitude, and puddings of a
solidity, which coalheavers alone could appreciate; and the fruit-
pie maker displayed on his well-scrubbed window-board large white
compositions of flour and dripping, ornamented with pink stains,
giving rich promise of the fruit within, which made their huge
mouths water, as they lingered past.
But the choicest spot in all Scotland-yard was the old public-house
in the corner. Here, in a dark wainscoted-room of ancient
appearance, cheered by the glow of a mighty fire, and decorated
with an enormous clock, whereof the face was white, and the figures
black, sat the lusty coalheavers, quaffing large draughts of
Barclay's best, and puffing forth volumes of smoke, which wreathed
heavily above their heads, and involved the room in a thick dark
cloud. From this apartment might their voices be heard on a
winter's night, penetrating to the very bank of the river, as they
shouted out some sturdy chorus, or roared forth the burden of a
popular song; dwelling upon the last few words with a strength and
length of emphasis which made the very roof tremble above them.
Here, too, would they tell old legends of what the Thames was in
ancient times, when the Patent Shot Manufactory wasn't built, and
Waterloo-bridge had never been thought of; and then they would
shake their heads with portentous looks, to the deep edification of
the rising generation of heavers, who crowded round them, and
wondered where all this would end; whereat the tailor would take
his pipe solemnly from his mouth, and say, how that he hoped it
might end well, but he very much doubted whether it would or not,
and couldn't rightly tell what to make of it--a mysterious
expression of opinion, delivered with a semi-prophetic air, which
never failed to elicit the fullest concurrence of the assembled
company; and so they would go on drinking and wondering till ten
o'clock came, and with it the tailor's wife to fetch him home, when
the little party broke up, to meet again in the same room, and say
and do precisely the same things, on the following evening at the
same hour.
About this time the barges that came up the river began to bring
vague rumours to Scotland-yard of somebody in the city having been
heard to say, that the Lord Mayor had threatened in so many words
to pull down the old London-bridge, and build up a new one. At
first these rumours were disregarded as idle tales, wholly
destitute of foundation, for nobody in Scotland-yard doubted that
if the Lord Mayor contemplated any such dark design, he would just
be clapped up in the Tower for a week or two, and then killed off
for high treason.
By degrees, however, the reports grew stronger, and more frequent,
and at last a barge, laden with numerous chaldrons of the best
Wallsend, brought up the positive intelligence that several of the
arches of the old bridge were stopped, and that preparations were
actually in progress for constructing the new one. What an
excitement was visible in the old tap-room on that memorable night!
Each man looked into his neighbour's face, pale with alarm and
astonishment, and read therein an echo of the sentiments which
filled his own breast. The oldest heaver present proved to
demonstration, that the moment the piers were removed, all the
water in the Thames would run clean off, and leave a dry gully in
its place. What was to become of the coal-barges--of the trade of
Scotland-yard--of the very existence of its population? The tailor
shook his head more sagely than usual, and grimly pointing to a
knife on the table, bid them wait and see what happened. He said
nothing--not he; but if the Lord Mayor didn't fall a victim to
popular indignation, why he would be rather astonished; that was
all.
They did wait; barge after barge arrived, and still no tidings of
the assassination of the Lord Mayor. The first stone was laid: it
was done by a Duke--the King's brother. Years passed away, and the
bridge was opened by the King himself. In course of time, the
piers were removed; and when the people in Scotland-yard got up
next morning in the confident expectation of being able to step
over to Pedlar's Acre without wetting the soles of their shoes,
they found to their unspeakable astonishment that the water was
just where it used to be.
A result so different from that which they had anticipated from
this first improvement, produced its full effect upon the
inhabitants of Scotland-yard. One of the eating-house keepers
began to court public opinion, and to look for customers among a
new class of people. He covered his little dining-tables with
white cloths, and got a painter's apprentice to inscribe something
about hot joints from twelve to two, in one of the little panes of
his shop-window. Improvement began to march with rapid strides to
the very threshold of Scotland-yard. A new market sprung up at
Hungerford, and the Police Commissioners established their office
in Whitehall-place. The traffic in Scotland-yard increased; fresh
Members were added to the House of Commons, the Metropolitan
Representatives found it a near cut, and many other foot passengers
followed their example.
We marked the advance of civilisation, and beheld it with a sigh.
The eating-house keeper who manfully resisted the innovation of
table-cloths, was losing ground every day, as his opponent gained
it, and a deadly feud sprung up between them. The genteel one no
longer took his evening's pint in Scotland-yard, but drank gin and
water at a 'parlour' in Parliament-street. The fruit-pie maker
still continued to visit the old room, but he took to smoking
cigars, and began to call himself a pastrycook, and to read the
papers. The old heavers still assembled round the ancient
fireplace, but their talk was mournful: and the loud song and the
joyous shout were heard no more.
And what is Scotland-yard now? How have its old customs changed;
and how has the ancient simplicity of its inhabitants faded away!
The old tottering public-house is converted into a spacious and
lofty 'wine-vaults;' gold leaf has been used in the construction of
the letters which emblazon its exterior, and the poet's art has
been called into requisition, to intimate that if you drink a
certain description of ale, you must hold fast by the rail. The
tailor exhibits in his window the pattern of a foreign-looking
brown surtout, with silk buttons, a fur collar, and fur cuffs. He
wears a stripe down the outside of each leg of his trousers: and
we have detected his assistants (for he has assistants now) in the
act of sitting on the shop-board in the same uniform.
At the other end of the little row of houses a boot-maker has
established himself in a brick box, with the additional innovation
of a first floor; and here he exposes for sale, boots--real
Wellington boots--an article which a few years ago, none of the
original inhabitants had ever seen or heard of. It was but the
other day, that a dress-maker opened another little box in the
middle of the row; and, when we thought that the spirit of change
could produce no alteration beyond that, a jeweller appeared, and
not content with exposing gilt rings and copper bracelets out of
number, put up an announcement, which still sticks in his window,
that 'ladies' ears may be pierced within.' The dress-maker employs
a young lady who wears pockets in her apron; and the tailor informs
the public that gentlemen may have their own materials made up.
Amidst all this change, and restlessness, and innovation, there
remains but one old man, who seems to mourn the downfall of this
ancient place. He holds no converse with human kind, but, seated
on a wooden bench at the angle of the wall which fronts the
crossing from Whitehall-place, watches in silence the gambols of
his sleek and well-fed dogs. He is the presiding genius of
Scotland-yard. Years and years have rolled over his head; but, in
fine weather or in foul, hot or cold, wet or dry, hail, rain, or
snow, he is still in his accustomed spot. Misery and want are
depicted in his countenance; his form is bent by age, his head is
grey with length of trial, but there he sits from day to day,
brooding over the past; and thither he will continue to drag his
feeble limbs, until his eyes have closed upon Scotland-yard, and
upon the world together.
A few years hence, and the antiquary of another generation looking
into some mouldy record of the strife and passions that agitated
the world in these times, may glance his eye over the pages we have
just filled: and not all his knowledge of the history of the past,
not all his black-letter lore, or his skill in book-collecting, not
all the dry studies of a long life, or the dusty volumes that have
cost him a fortune, may help him to the whereabouts, either of
Scotland-yard, or of any one of the landmarks we have mentioned in
describing it.
CHAPTER V--SEVEN DIALS
We have always been of opinion that if Tom King and the Frenchman
had not immortalised Seven Dials, Seven Dials would have
immortalised itself. Seven Dials! the region of song and poetry--
first effusions, and last dying speeches: hallowed by the names of
Catnach and of Pitts--names that will entwine themselves with
costermongers, and barrel-organs, when penny magazines shall have
superseded penny yards of song, and capital punishment be unknown!
Look at the construction of the place. The Gordian knot was all
very well in its way: so was the maze of Hampton Court: so is the
maze at the Beulah Spa: so were the ties of stiff white
neckcloths, when the difficulty of getting one on, was only to be
equalled by the apparent impossibility of ever getting it off
again. But what involutions can compare with those of Seven Dials?
Where is there such another maze of streets, courts, lanes, and
alleys? Where such a pure mixture of Englishmen and Irishmen, as
in this complicated part of London? We boldly aver that we doubt
the veracity of the legend to which we have adverted. We CAN
suppose a man rash enough to inquire at random--at a house with
lodgers too--for a Mr. Thompson, with all but the certainty before
his eyes, of finding at least two or three Thompsons in any house
of moderate dimensions; but a Frenchman--a Frenchman in Seven
Dials! Pooh! He was an Irishman. Tom King's education had been
neglected in his infancy, and as he couldn't understand half the
man said, he took it for granted he was talking French.
The stranger who finds himself in 'The Dials' for the first time,
and stands Belzoni-like, at the entrance of seven obscure passages,
uncertain which to take, will see enough around him to keep his
curiosity and attention awake for no inconsiderable time. From the
irregular square into which he has plunged, the streets and courts
dart in all directions, until they are lost in the unwholesome
vapour which hangs over the house-tops, and renders the dirty
perspective uncertain and confined; and lounging at every corner,
as if they came there to take a few gasps of such fresh air as has
found its way so far, but is too much exhausted already, to be
enabled to force itself into the narrow alleys around, are groups
of people, whose appearance and dwellings would fill any mind but a
regular Londoner's with astonishment.
On one side, a little crowd has collected round a couple of ladies,
who having imbibed the contents of various 'three-outs' of gin and
bitters in the course of the morning, have at length differed on
some point of domestic arrangement, and are on the eve of settling
the quarrel satisfactorily, by an appeal to blows, greatly to the
interest of other ladies who live in the same house, and tenements
adjoining, and who are all partisans on one side or other.
'Vy don't you pitch into her, Sarah?' exclaims one half-dressed
matron, by way of encouragement. 'Vy don't you? if MY 'usband had
treated her with a drain last night, unbeknown to me, I'd tear her
precious eyes out--a wixen!'
'What's the matter, ma'am?' inquires another old woman, who has
just bustled up to the spot.
'Matter!' replies the first speaker, talking AT the obnoxious
combatant, 'matter! Here's poor dear Mrs. Sulliwin, as has five
blessed children of her own, can't go out a charing for one
arternoon, but what hussies must be a comin', and 'ticing avay her
oun' 'usband, as she's been married to twelve year come next Easter
Monday, for I see the certificate ven I vas a drinkin' a cup o' tea
vith her, only the werry last blessed Ven'sday as ever was sent. I
'appen'd to say promiscuously, "Mrs. Sulliwin," says I--'
'What do you mean by hussies?' interrupts a champion of the other
party, who has evinced a strong inclination throughout to get up a
branch fight on her own account ('Hooroar,' ejaculates a pot-boy in
parenthesis, 'put the kye-bosk on her, Mary!'), 'What do you mean
by hussies?' reiterates the champion.
'Niver mind,' replies the opposition expressively, 'niver mind; YOU
go home, and, ven you're quite sober, mend your stockings.'
This somewhat personal allusion, not only to the lady's habits of
intemperance, but also to the state of her wardrobe, rouses her
utmost ire, and she accordingly complies with the urgent request of
the bystanders to 'pitch in,' with considerable alacrity. The
scuffle became general, and terminates, in minor play-bill
phraseology, with 'arrival of the policemen, interior of the
station-house, and impressive denouement.'
In addition to the numerous groups who are idling about the gin-
shops and squabbling in the centre of the road, every post in the
open space has its occupant, who leans against it for hours, with
listless perseverance. It is odd enough that one class of men in
London appear to have no enjoyment beyond leaning against posts.
We never saw a regular bricklayer's labourer take any other
recreation, fighting excepted. Pass through St. Giles's in the
evening of a week-day, there they are in their fustian dresses,
spotted with brick-dust and whitewash, leaning against posts. Walk
through Seven Dials on Sunday morning: there they are again, drab
or light corduroy trousers, Blucher boots, blue coats, and great
yellow waistcoats, leaning against posts. The idea of a man
dressing himself in his best clothes, to lean against a post all
day!
The peculiar character of these streets, and the close resemblance
each one bears to its neighbour, by no means tends to decrease the
bewilderment in which the unexperienced wayfarer through 'the
Dials' finds himself involved. He traverses streets of dirty,
straggling houses, with now and then an unexpected court composed
of buildings as ill-proportioned and deformed as the half-naked
children that wallow in the kennels. Here and there, a little dark
chandler's shop, with a cracked bell hung up behind the door to
announce the entrance of a customer, or betray the presence of some
young gentleman in whom a passion for shop tills has developed
itself at an early age: others, as if for support, against some
handsome lofty building, which usurps the place of a low dingy
public-house; long rows of broken and patched windows expose plants
that may have flourished when 'the Dials' were built, in vessels as
dirty as 'the Dials' themselves; and shops for the purchase of
rags, bones, old iron, and kitchen-stuff, vie in cleanliness with
the bird-fanciers and rabbit-dealers, which one might fancy so many
arks, but for the irresistible conviction that no bird in its
proper senses, who was permitted to leave one of them, would ever
come back again. Brokers' shops, which would seem to have been
established by humane individuals, as refuges for destitute bugs,
interspersed with announcements of day-schools, penny theatres,
petition-writers, mangles, and music for balls or routs, complete
the 'still life' of the subject; and dirty men, filthy women,
squalid children, fluttering shuttlecocks, noisy battledores,
reeking pipes, bad fruit, more than doubtful oysters, attenuated
cats, depressed dogs, and anatomical fowls, are its cheerful
accompaniments.
If the external appearance of the houses, or a glance at their
inhabitants, present but few attractions, a closer acquaintance
with either is little calculated to alter one's first impression.
Every room has its separate tenant, and every tenant is, by the
same mysterious dispensation which causes a country curate to
'increase and multiply' most marvellously, generally the head of a
numerous family.
The man in the shop, perhaps, is in the baked 'jemmy' line, or the
fire-wood and hearth-stone line, or any other line which requires a
floating capital of eighteen-pence or thereabouts: and he and his
family live in the shop, and the small back parlour behind it.
Then there is an Irish labourer and HIS family in the back kitchen,
and a jobbing man--carpet-beater and so forth--with HIS family in
the front one. In the front one-pair, there's another man with
another wife and family, and in the back one-pair, there's 'a young
'oman as takes in tambour-work, and dresses quite genteel,' who
talks a good deal about 'my friend,' and can't 'a-bear anything
low.' The second floor front, and the rest of the lodgers, are
just a second edition of the people below, except a shabby-genteel
man in the back attic, who has his half-pint of coffee every
morning from the coffee-shop next door but one, which boasts a
little front den called a coffee-room, with a fireplace, over which
is an inscription, politely requesting that, 'to prevent mistakes,'
customers will 'please to pay on delivery.' The shabby-genteel man
is an object of some mystery, but as he leads a life of seclusion,
and never was known to buy anything beyond an occasional pen,
except half-pints of coffee, penny loaves, and ha'porths of ink,
his fellow-lodgers very naturally suppose him to be an author; and
rumours are current in the Dials, that he writes poems for Mr.
Warren.
Now anybody who passed through the Dials on a hot summer's evening,
and saw the different women of the house gossiping on the steps,
would be apt to think that all was harmony among them, and that a
more primitive set of people than the native Diallers could not be
imagined. Alas! the man in the shop ill-treats his family; the
carpet-beater extends his professional pursuits to his wife; the
one-pair front has an undying feud with the two-pair front, in
consequence of the two-pair front persisting in dancing over his
(the one-pair front's) head, when he and his family have retired
for the night; the two-pair back will interfere with the front
kitchen's children; the Irishman comes home drunk every other
night, and attacks everybody; and the one-pair back screams at
everything. Animosities spring up between floor and floor; the
very cellar asserts his equality. Mrs. A. 'smacks' Mrs. B.'s child
for 'making faces.' Mrs. B. forthwith throws cold water over Mrs.
A.'s child for 'calling names.' The husbands are embroiled--the
quarrel becomes general--an assault is the consequence, and a
police-officer the result.
CHAPTER VI--MEDITATIONS IN MONMOUTH-STREET
We have always entertained a particular attachment towards
Monmouth-street, as the only true and real emporium for second-hand
wearing apparel. Monmouth-street is venerable from its antiquity,
and respectable from its usefulness. Holywell-street we despise;
the red-headed and red-whiskered Jews who forcibly haul you into
their squalid houses, and thrust you into a suit of clothes,
whether you will or not, we detest.
The inhabitants of Monmouth-street are a distinct class; a
peaceable and retiring race, who immure themselves for the most
part in deep cellars, or small back parlours, and who seldom come
forth into the world, except in the dusk and coolness of the
evening, when they may be seen seated, in chairs on the pavement,
smoking their pipes, or watching the gambols of their engaging
children as they revel in the gutter, a happy troop of infantine
scavengers. Their countenances bear a thoughtful and a dirty cast,
certain indications of their love of traffic; and their habitations
are distinguished by that disregard of outward appearance and
neglect of personal comfort, so common among people who are
constantly immersed in profound speculations, and deeply engaged in
sedentary pursuits.
We have hinted at the antiquity of our favourite spot. 'A
Monmouth-street laced coat' was a by-word a century ago; and still
we find Monmouth-street the same. Pilot great-coats with wooden
buttons, have usurped the place of the ponderous laced coats with
full skirts; embroidered waistcoats with large flaps, have yielded
to double-breasted checks with roll-collars; and three-cornered
hats of quaint appearance, have given place to the low crowns and
broad brims of the coachman school; but it is the times that have
changed, not Monmouth-street. Through every alteration and every
change, Monmouth-street has still remained the burial-place of the
fashions; and such, to judge from all present appearances, it will
remain until there are no more fashions to bury.
We love to walk among these extensive groves of the illustrious
dead, and to indulge in the speculations to which they give rise;
now fitting a deceased coat, then a dead pair of trousers, and anon
the mortal remains of a gaudy waistcoat, upon some being of our own
conjuring up, and endeavouring, from the shape and fashion of the
garment itself, to bring its former owner before our mind's eye.
We have gone on speculating in this way, until whole rows of coats
have started from their pegs, and buttoned up, of their own accord,
round the waists of imaginary wearers; lines of trousers have
jumped down to meet them; waistcoats have almost burst with anxiety
to put themselves on; and half an acre of shoes have suddenly found
feet to fit them, and gone stumping down the street with a noise
which has fairly awakened us from our pleasant reverie, and driven
us slowly away, with a bewildered stare, an object of astonishment
to the good people of Monmouth-street, and of no slight suspicion
to the policemen at the opposite street corner.
We were occupied in this manner the other day, endeavouring to fit
a pair of lace-up half-boots on an ideal personage, for whom, to
say the truth, they were full a couple of sizes too small, when our
eyes happened to alight on a few suits of clothes ranged outside a
shop-window, which it immediately struck us, must at different
periods have all belonged to, and been worn by, the same
individual, and had now, by one of those strange conjunctions of
circumstances which will occur sometimes, come to be exposed
together for sale in the same shop. The idea seemed a fantastic
one, and we looked at the clothes again with a firm determination
not to be easily led away. No, we were right; the more we looked,
the more we were convinced of the accuracy of our previous
impression. There was the man's whole life written as legibly on
those clothes, as if we had his autobiography engrossed on
parchment before us.
The first was a patched and much-soiled skeleton suit; one of those
straight blue cloth cases in which small boys used to be confined,
before belts and tunics had come in, and old notions had gone out:
an ingenious contrivance for displaying the full symmetry of a
boy's figure, by fastening him into a very tight jacket, with an
ornamental row of buttons over each shoulder, and then buttoning
his trousers over it, so as to give his legs the appearance of
being hooked on, just under the armpits. This was the boy's dress.
It had belonged to a town boy, we could see; there was a shortness
about the legs and arms of the suit; and a bagging at the knees,
peculiar to the rising youth of London streets. A small day-school
he had been at, evidently. If it had been a regular boys' school
they wouldn't have let him play on the floor so much, and rub his
knees so white. He had an indulgent mother too, and plenty of
halfpence, as the numerous smears of some sticky substance about
the pockets, and just below the chin, which even the salesman's
skill could not succeed in disguising, sufficiently betokened.
They were decent people, but not overburdened with riches, or he
would not have so far outgrown the suit when he passed into those
corduroys with the round jacket; in which he went to a boys'
school, however, and learnt to write--and in ink of pretty
tolerable blackness, too, if the place where he used to wipe his
pen might be taken as evidence.
A black suit and the jacket changed into a diminutive coat. His
father had died, and the mother had got the boy a message-lad's
place in some office. A long-worn suit that one; rusty and
threadbare before it was laid aside, but clean and free from soil
to the last. Poor woman! We could imagine her assumed
cheerfulness over the scanty meal, and the refusal of her own small
portion, that her hungry boy might have enough. Her constant
anxiety for his welfare, her pride in his growth mingled sometimes
with the thought, almost too acute to bear, that as he grew to be a
man his old affection might cool, old kindnesses fade from his
mind, and old promises be forgotten--the sharp pain that even then
a careless word or a cold look would give her--all crowded on our
thoughts as vividly as if the very scene were passing before us.
These things happen every hour, and we all know it; and yet we felt
as much sorrow when we saw, or fancied we saw--it makes no
difference which--the change that began to take place now, as if we
had just conceived the bare possibility of such a thing for the
first time. The next suit, smart but slovenly; meant to be gay,
and yet not half so decent as the threadbare apparel; redolent of
the idle lounge, and the blackguard companions, told us, we
thought, that the widow's comfort had rapidly faded away. We could
imagine that coat--imagine! we could see it; we HAD seen it a
hundred times--sauntering in company with three or four other coats
of the same cut, about some place of profligate resort at night.
We dressed, from the same shop-window in an instant, half a dozen
boys of from fifteen to twenty; and putting cigars into their
mouths, and their hands into their pockets, watched them as they
sauntered down the street, and lingered at the corner, with the
obscene jest, and the oft-repeated oath. We never lost sight of
them, till they had cocked their hats a little more on one side,
and swaggered into the public-house; and then we entered the
desolate home, where the mother sat late in the night, alone; we
watched her, as she paced the room in feverish anxiety, and every
now and then opened the door, looked wistfully into the dark and
empty street, and again returned, to be again and again
disappointed. We beheld the look of patience with which she bore
the brutish threat, nay, even the drunken blow; and we heard the
agony of tears that gushed from her very heart, as she sank upon
her knees in her solitary and wretched apartment.
A long period had elapsed, and a greater change had taken place, by
the time of casting off the suit that hung above. It was that of a
stout, broad-shouldered, sturdy-chested man; and we knew at once,
as anybody would, who glanced at that broad-skirted green coat,
with the large metal buttons, that its wearer seldom walked forth
without a dog at his heels, and some idle ruffian, the very
counterpart of himself, at his side. The vices of the boy had
grown with the man, and we fancied his home then--if such a place
deserve the name.
We saw the bare and miserable room, destitute of furniture, crowded
with his wife and children, pale, hungry, and emaciated; the man
cursing their lamentations, staggering to the tap-room, from whence
he had just returned, followed by his wife and a sickly infant,
clamouring for bread; and heard the street-wrangle and noisy
recrimination that his striking her occasioned. And then
imagination led us to some metropolitan workhouse, situated in the
midst of crowded streets and alleys, filled with noxious vapours,
and ringing with boisterous cries, where an old and feeble woman,
imploring pardon for her son, lay dying in a close dark room, with
no child to clasp her hand, and no pure air from heaven to fan her
brow. A stranger closed the eyes that settled into a cold
unmeaning glare, and strange ears received the words that murmured
from the white and half-closed lips.
A coarse round frock, with a worn cotton neckerchief, and other
articles of clothing of the commonest description, completed the
history. A prison, and the sentence--banishment or the gallows.
What would the man have given then, to be once again the contented
humble drudge of his boyish years; to have been restored to life,
but for a week, a day, an hour, a minute, only for so long a time
as would enable him to say one word of passionate regret to, and
hear one sound of heartfelt forgiveness from, the cold and ghastly
form that lay rotting in the pauper's grave! The children wild in
the streets, the mother a destitute widow; both deeply tainted with
the deep disgrace of the husband and father's name, and impelled by
sheer necessity, down the precipice that had led him to a lingering
death, possibly of many years' duration, thousands of miles away.
We had no clue to the end of the tale; but it was easy to guess its
termination.
We took a step or two further on, and by way of restoring the
naturally cheerful tone of our thoughts, began fitting visionary
feet and legs into a cellar-board full of boots and shoes, with a
speed and accuracy that would have astonished the most expert
artist in leather, living. There was one pair of boots in
particular--a jolly, good-tempered, hearty-looking pair of tops,
that excited our warmest regard; and we had got a fine, red-faced,
jovial fellow of a market-gardener into them, before we had made
their acquaintance half a minute. They were just the very thing
for him. There was his huge fat legs bulging over the tops, and
fitting them too tight to admit of his tucking in the loops he had
pulled them on by; and his knee-cords with an interval of stocking;
and his blue apron tucked up round his waist; and his red
neckerchief and blue coat, and a white hat stuck on one side of his
head; and there he stood with a broad grin on his great red face,
whistling away, as if any other idea but that of being happy and
comfortable had never entered his brain.
This was the very man after our own heart; we knew all about him;
we had seen him coming up to Covent-garden in his green chaise-
cart, with the fat, tubby little horse, half a thousand times; and
even while we cast an affectionate look upon his boots, at that
instant, the form of a coquettish servant-maid suddenly sprung into
a pair of Denmark satin shoes that stood beside them, and we at
once recognised the very girl who accepted his offer of a ride,
just on this side the Hammersmith suspension-bridge, the very last
Tuesday morning we rode into town from Richmond.
A very smart female, in a showy bonnet, stepped into a pair of grey
cloth boots, with black fringe and binding, that were studiously
pointing out their toes on the other side of the top-boots, and
seemed very anxious to engage his attention, but we didn't observe
that our friend the market-gardener appeared at all captivated with
these blandishments; for beyond giving a knowing wink when they
first began, as if to imply that he quite understood their end and
object, he took no further notice of them. His indifference,
however, was amply recompensed by the excessive gallantry of a very
old gentleman with a silver-headed stick, who tottered into a pair
of large list shoes, that were standing in one corner of the board,
and indulged in a variety of gestures expressive of his admiration
of the lady in the cloth boots, to the immeasurable amusement of a
young fellow we put into a pair of long-quartered pumps, who we
thought would have split the coat that slid down to meet him, with
laughing.
We had been looking on at this little pantomime with great
satisfaction for some time, when, to our unspeakable astonishment,
we perceived that the whole of the characters, including a numerous
corps de ballet of boots and shoes in the background, into which we
had been hastily thrusting as many feet as we could press into the
service, were arranging themselves in order for dancing; and some
music striking up at the moment, to it they went without delay. It
was perfectly delightful to witness the agility of the market-
gardener. Out went the boots, first on one side, then on the
other, then cutting, then shuffling, then setting to the Denmark
satins, then advancing, then retreating, then going round, and then
repeating the whole of the evolutions again, without appearing to
suffer in the least from the violence of the exercise.
Nor were the Denmark satins a bit behindhand, for they jumped and
bounded about, in all directions; and though they were neither so
regular, nor so true to the time as the cloth boots, still, as they
seemed to do it from the heart, and to enjoy it more, we candidly
confess that we preferred their style of dancing to the other. But
the old gentleman in the list shoes was the most amusing object in
the whole party; for, besides his grotesque attempts to appear
youthful, and amorous, which were sufficiently entertaining in
themselves, the young fellow in the pumps managed so artfully that
every time the old gentleman advanced to salute the lady in the
cloth boots, he trod with his whole weight on the old fellow's
toes, which made him roar with anguish, and rendered all the others
like to die of laughing.
We were in the full enjoyment of these festivities when we heard a
shrill, and by no means musical voice, exclaim, 'Hope you'll know
me agin, imperence!' and on looking intently forward to see from
whence the sound came, we found that it proceeded, not from the
young lady in the cloth boots, as we had at first been inclined to
suppose, but from a bulky lady of elderly appearance who was seated
in a chair at the head of the cellar-steps, apparently for the
purpose of superintending the sale of the articles arranged there.
A barrel-organ, which had been in full force close behind us,
ceased playing; the people we had been fitting into the shoes and
boots took to flight at the interruption; and as we were conscious
that in the depth of our meditations we might have been rudely
staring at the old lady for half an hour without knowing it, we
took to flight too, and were soon immersed in the deepest obscurity
of the adjacent 'Dials.'
CHAPTER VII--HACKNEY-COACH STANDS
We maintain that hackney-coaches, properly so called, belong solely
to the metropolis. We may be told, that there are hackney-coach
stands in Edinburgh; and not to go quite so far for a contradiction
to our position, we may be reminded that Liverpool, Manchester,
'and other large towns' (as the Parliamentary phrase goes), have
THEIR hackney-coach stands. We readily concede to these places the
possession of certain vehicles, which may look almost as dirty, and
even go almost as slowly, as London hackney-coaches; but that they
have the slightest claim to compete with the metropolis, either in
point of stands, drivers, or cattle, we indignantly deny.
Take a regular, ponderous, rickety, London hackney-coach of the old
school, and let any man have the boldness to assert, if he can,
that he ever beheld any object on the face of the earth which at
all resembles it, unless, indeed, it were another hackney-coach of
the same date. We have recently observed on certain stands, and we
say it with deep regret, rather dapper green chariots, and coaches
of polished yellow, with four wheels of the same colour as the
coach, whereas it is perfectly notorious to every one who has
studied the subject, that every wheel ought to be of a different
colour, and a different size. These are innovations, and, like
other miscalled improvements, awful signs of the restlessness of
the public mind, and the little respect paid to our time-honoured
institutions. Why should hackney-coaches be clean? Our ancestors
found them dirty, and left them so. Why should we, with a feverish
wish to 'keep moving,' desire to roll along at the rate of six
miles an hour, while they were content to rumble over the stones at
four? These are solemn considerations. Hackney-coaches are part
and parcel of the law of the land; they were settled by the
Legislature; plated and numbered by the wisdom of Parliament.
Then why have they been swamped by cabs and omnibuses? Or why
should people be allowed to ride quickly for eightpence a mile,
after Parliament had come to the solemn decision that they should
pay a shilling a mile for riding slowly? We pause for a reply;--
and, having no chance of getting one, begin a fresh paragraph.
Our acquaintance with hackney-coach stands is of long standing. We
are a walking book of fares, feeling ourselves, half bound, as it
were, to be always in the right on contested points. We know all
the regular watermen within three miles of Covent-garden by sight,
and should be almost tempted to believe that all the hackney-coach
horses in that district knew us by sight too, if one-half of them
were not blind. We take great interest in hackney-coaches, but we
seldom drive, having a knack of turning ourselves over when we
attempt to do so. We are as great friends to horses, hackney-coach
and otherwise, as the renowned Mr. Martin, of costermonger
notoriety, and yet we never ride. We keep no horse, but a clothes-
horse; enjoy no saddle so much as a saddle of mutton; and,
following our own inclinations, have never followed the hounds.
Leaving these fleeter means of getting over the ground, or of
depositing oneself upon it, to those who like them, by hackney-
coach stands we take our stand.
There is a hackney-coach stand under the very window at which we
are writing; there is only one coach on it now, but it is a fair
specimen of the class of vehicles to which we have alluded--a
great, lumbering, square concern of a dingy yellow colour (like a
bilious brunette), with very small glasses, but very large frames;
the panels are ornamented with a faded coat of arms, in shape
something like a dissected bat, the axletree is red, and the
majority of the wheels are green. The box is partially covered by
an old great-coat, with a multiplicity of capes, and some
extraordinary-looking clothes; and the straw, with which the canvas
cushion is stuffed, is sticking up in several places, as if in
rivalry of the hay, which is peeping through the chinks in the
boot. The horses, with drooping heads, and each with a mane and
tail as scanty and straggling as those of a worn-out rocking-horse,
are standing patiently on some damp straw, occasionally wincing,
and rattling the harness; and now and then, one of them lifts his
mouth to the ear of his companion, as if he were saying, in a
whisper, that he should like to assassinate the coachman. The
coachman himself is in the watering-house; and the waterman, with
his hands forced into his pockets as far as they can possibly go,
is dancing the 'double shuffle,' in front of the pump, to keep his
feet warm.
The servant-girl, with the pink ribbons, at No. 5, opposite,
suddenly opens the street-door, and four small children forthwith
rush out, and scream 'Coach!' with all their might and main. The
waterman darts from the pump, seizes the horses by their respective
bridles, and drags them, and the coach too, round to the house,
shouting all the time for the coachman at the very top, or rather
very bottom of his voice, for it is a deep bass growl. A response
is heard from the tap-room; the coachman, in his wooden-soled
shoes, makes the street echo again as he runs across it; and then
there is such a struggling, and backing, and grating of the kennel,
to get the coach-door opposite the house-door, that the children
are in perfect ecstasies of delight. What a commotion! The old
lady, who has been stopping there for the last month, is going back
to the country. Out comes box after box, and one side of the
vehicle is filled with luggage in no time; the children get into
everybody's way, and the youngest, who has upset himself in his
attempts to carry an umbrella, is borne off wounded and kicking.
The youngsters disappear, and a short pause ensues, during which
the old lady is, no doubt, kissing them all round in the back
parlour. She appears at last, followed by her married daughter,
all the children, and both the servants, who, with the joint
assistance of the coachman and waterman, manage to get her safely
into the coach. A cloak is handed in, and a little basket, which
we could almost swear contains a small black bottle, and a paper of
sandwiches. Up go the steps, bang goes the door, 'Golden-cross,
Charing-cross, Tom,' says the waterman; 'Good-bye, grandma,' cry
the children, off jingles the coach at the rate of three miles an
hour, and the mamma and children retire into the house, with the
exception of one little villain, who runs up the street at the top
of his speed, pursued by the servant; not ill-pleased to have such
an opportunity of displaying her attractions. She brings him back,
and, after casting two or three gracious glances across the way,
which are either intended for us or the potboy (we are not quite
certain which), shuts the door, and the hackney-coach stand is
again at a standstill.
We have been frequently amused with the intense delight with which
'a servant of all work,' who is sent for a coach, deposits herself
inside; and the unspeakable gratification which boys, who have been
despatched on a similar errand, appear to derive from mounting the
box. But we never recollect to have been more amused with a
hackney-coach party, than one we saw early the other morning in
Tottenham-court-road. It was a wedding-party, and emerged from one
of the inferior streets near Fitzroy-square. There were the bride,
with a thin white dress, and a great red face; and the bridesmaid,
a little, dumpy, good-humoured young woman, dressed, of course, in
the same appropriate costume; and the bridegroom and his chosen
friend, in blue coats, yellow waist-coats, white trousers, and
Berlin gloves to match. They stopped at the corner of the street,
and called a coach with an air of indescribable dignity. The
moment they were in, the bridesmaid threw a red shawl, which she
had, no doubt, brought on purpose, negligently over the number on
the door, evidently to delude pedestrians into the belief that the
hackney-coach was a private carriage; and away they went, perfectly
satisfied that the imposition was successful, and quite unconscious
that there was a great staring number stuck up behind, on a plate
as large as a schoolboy's slate. A shilling a mile!--the ride was
worth five, at least, to them.
What an interesting book a hackney-coach might produce, if it could
carry as much in its head as it does in its body! The
autobiography of a broken-down hackney-coach, would surely be as
amusing as the autobiography of a broken-down hackneyed dramatist;
and it might tell as much of its travels WITH the pole, as others
have of their expeditions TO it. How many stories might be related
of the different people it had conveyed on matters of business or
profit--pleasure or pain! And how many melancholy tales of the
same people at different periods! The country-girl--the showy,
over-dressed woman--the drunken prostitute! The raw apprentice--
the dissipated spendthrift--the thief!
Talk of cabs! Cabs are all very well in cases of expedition, when
it's a matter of neck or nothing, life or death, your temporary
home or your long one. But, besides a cab's lacking that gravity
of deportment which so peculiarly distinguishes a hackney-coach,
let it never be forgotten that a cab is a thing of yesterday, and
that he never was anything better. A hackney-cab has always been a
hackney-cab, from his first entry into life; whereas a hackney-
coach is a remnant of past gentility, a victim to fashion, a
hanger-on of an old English family, wearing their arms, and, in
days of yore, escorted by men wearing their livery, stripped of his
finery, and thrown upon the world, like a once-smart footman when
he is no longer sufficiently juvenile for his office, progressing
lower and lower in the scale of four-wheeled degradation, until at
last it comes to--A STAND!
CHAPTER VIII--DOCTORS' COMMONS
Walking without any definite object through St. Paul's Churchyard,
a little while ago, we happened to turn down a street entitled
'Paul's-chain,' and keeping straight forward for a few hundred
yards, found ourself, as a natural consequence, in Doctors'
Commons. Now Doctors' Commons being familiar by name to everybody,
as the place where they grant marriage-licenses to love-sick
couples, and divorces to unfaithful ones; register the wills of
people who have any property to leave, and punish hasty gentlemen
who call ladies by unpleasant names, we no sooner discovered that
we were really within its precincts, than we felt a laudable desire
to become better acquainted therewith; and as the first object of
our curiosity was the Court, whose decrees can even unloose the
bonds of matrimony, we procured a direction to it; and bent our
steps thither without delay.
Crossing a quiet and shady court-yard, paved with stone, and
frowned upon by old red brick houses, on the doors of which were
painted the names of sundry learned civilians, we paused before a
small, green-baized, brass-headed-nailed door, which yielding to
our gentle push, at once admitted us into an old quaint-looking
apartment, with sunken windows, and black carved wainscoting, at
the upper end of which, seated on a raised platform, of
semicircular shape, were about a dozen solemn-looking gentlemen, in
crimson gowns and wigs.
At a more elevated desk in the centre, sat a very fat and red-faced
gentleman, in tortoise-shell spectacles, whose dignified appearance
announced the judge; and round a long green-baized table below,
something like a billiard-table without the cushions and pockets,
were a number of very self-important-looking personages, in stiff
neckcloths, and black gowns with white fur collars, whom we at once
set down as proctors. At the lower end of the billiard-table was
an individual in an arm-chair, and a wig, whom we afterwards
discovered to be the registrar; and seated behind a little desk,
near the door, were a respectable-looking man in black, of about
twenty-stone weight or thereabouts, and a fat-faced, smirking,
civil-looking body, in a black gown, black kid gloves, knee shorts,
and silks, with a shirt-frill in his bosom, curls on his head, and
a silver staff in his hand, whom we had no difficulty in
recognising as the officer of the Court. The latter, indeed,
speedily set our mind at rest upon this point, for, advancing to
our elbow, and opening a conversation forthwith, he had
communicated to us, in less than five minutes, that he was the
apparitor, and the other the court-keeper; that this was the Arches
Court, and therefore the counsel wore red gowns, and the proctors
fur collars; and that when the other Courts sat there, they didn't
wear red gowns or fur collars either; with many other scraps of
intelligence equally interesting. Besides these two officers,
there was a little thin old man, with long grizzly hair, crouched
in a remote corner, whose duty, our communicative friend informed
us, was to ring a large hand-bell when the Court opened in the
morning, and who, for aught his appearance betokened to the
contrary, might have been similarly employed for the last two
centuries at least.
The red-faced gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles had got
all the talk to himself just then, and very well he was doing it,
too, only he spoke very fast, but that was habit; and rather thick,
but that was good living. So we had plenty of time to look about
us. There was one individual who amused us mightily. This was one
of the bewigged gentlemen in the red robes, who was straddling
before the fire in the centre of the Court, in the attitude of the
brazen Colossus, to the complete exclusion of everybody else. He
had gathered up his robe behind, in much the same manner as a
slovenly woman would her petticoats on a very dirty day, in order
that he might feel the full warmth of the fire. His wig was put on
all awry, with the tail straggling about his neck; his scanty grey
trousers and short black gaiters, made in the worst possible style,
imported an additional inelegant appearance to his uncouth person;
and his limp, badly-starched shirt-collar almost obscured his eyes.
We shall never be able to claim any credit as a physiognomist
again, for, after a careful scrutiny of this gentleman's
countenance, we had come to the conclusion that it bespoke nothing
but conceit and silliness, when our friend with the silver staff
whispered in our ear that he was no other than a doctor of civil
law, and heaven knows what besides. So of course we were mistaken,
and he must be a very talented man. He conceals it so well though-
-perhaps with the merciful view of not astonishing ordinary people
too much--that you would suppose him to be one of the stupidest
dogs alive.
The gentleman in the spectacles having concluded his judgment, and
a few minutes having been allowed to elapse, to afford time for the
buzz of the Court to subside, the registrar called on the next
cause, which was 'the office of the Judge promoted by Bumple
against Sludberry.' A general movement was visible in the Court,
at this announcement, and the obliging functionary with silver
staff whispered us that 'there would be some fun now, for this was
a brawling case.'
We were not rendered much the wiser by this piece of information,
till we found by the opening speech of the counsel for the
promoter, that, under a half-obsolete statute of one of the
Edwards, the court was empowered to visit with the penalty of
excommunication, any person who should be proved guilty of the
crime of 'brawling,' or 'smiting,' in any church, or vestry
adjoining thereto; and it appeared, by some eight-and-twenty
affidavits, which were duly referred to, that on a certain night,
at a certain vestry-meeting, in a certain parish particularly set
forth, Thomas Sludberry, the party appeared against in that suit,
had made use of, and applied to Michael Bumple, the promoter, the
words 'You be blowed;' and that, on the said Michael Bumple and
others remonstrating with the said Thomas Sludberry, on the
impropriety of his conduct, the said Thomas Sludberry repeated the
aforesaid expression, 'You be blowed;' and furthermore desired and
requested to know, whether the said Michael Bumple 'wanted anything
for himself;' adding, 'that if the said Michael Bumple did want
anything for himself, he, the said Thomas Sludberry, was the man to
give it him;' at the same time making use of other heinous and
sinful expressions, all of which, Bumple submitted, came within the
intent and meaning of the Act; and therefore he, for the soul's
health and chastening of Sludberry, prayed for sentence of
excommunication against him accordingly.
Upon these facts a long argument was entered into, on both sides,
to the great edification of a number of persons interested in the
parochial squabbles, who crowded the court; and when some very long
and grave speeches had been made pro and con, the red-faced
gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles took a review of the
case, which occupied half an hour more, and then pronounced upon
Sludberry the awful sentence of excommunication for a fortnight,
and payment of the costs of the suit. Upon this, Sludberry, who
was a little, red-faced, sly-looking, ginger-beer seller, addressed
the court, and said, if they'd be good enough to take off the
costs, and excommunicate him for the term of his natural life
instead, it would be much more convenient to him, for he never went
to church at all. To this appeal the gentleman in the spectacles
made no other reply than a look of virtuous indignation; and
Sludberry and his friends retired. As the man with the silver
staff informed us that the court was on the point of rising, we
retired too--pondering, as we walked away, upon the beautiful
spirit of these ancient ecclesiastical laws, the kind and
neighbourly feelings they are calculated to awaken, and the strong
attachment to religious institutions which they cannot fail to
engender.
We were so lost in these meditations, that we had turned into the
street, and run up against a door-post, before we recollected where
we were walking. On looking upwards to see what house we had
stumbled upon, the words 'Prerogative-Office,' written in large
characters, met our eye; and as we were in a sight-seeing humour
and the place was a public one, we walked in.
The room into which we walked, was a long, busy-looking place,
partitioned off, on either side, into a variety of little boxes, in
which a few clerks were engaged in copying or examining deeds.
Down the centre of the room were several desks nearly breast high,
at each of which, three or four people were standing, poring over
large volumes. As we knew that they were searching for wills, they
attracted our attention at once.
It was curious to contrast the lazy indifference of the attorneys'
clerks who were making a search for some legal purpose, with the
air of earnestness and interest which distinguished the strangers
to the place, who were looking up the will of some deceased
relative; the former pausing every now and then with an impatient
yawn, or raising their heads to look at the people who passed up
and down the room; the latter stooping over the book, and running
down column after column of names in the deepest abstraction.
There was one little dirty-faced man in a blue apron, who after a
whole morning's search, extending some fifty years back, had just
found the will to which he wished to refer, which one of the
officials was reading to him in a low hurried voice from a thick
vellum book with large clasps. It was perfectly evident that the
more the clerk read, the less the man with the blue apron
understood about the matter. When the volume was first brought
down, he took off his hat, smoothed down his hair, smiled with
great self-satisfaction, and looked up in the reader's face with
the air of a man who had made up his mind to recollect every word
he heard. The first two or three lines were intelligible enough;
but then the technicalities began, and the little man began to look
rather dubious. Then came a whole string of complicated trusts,
and he was regularly at sea. As the reader proceeded, it was quite
apparent that it was a hopeless case, and the little man, with his
mouth open and his eyes fixed upon his face, looked on with an
expression of bewilderment and perplexity irresistibly ludicrous.
A little further on, a hard-featured old man with a deeply-wrinkled
face, was intently perusing a lengthy will with the aid of a pair
of horn spectacles: occasionally pausing from his task, and slily
noting down some brief memorandum of the bequests contained in it.
Every wrinkle about his toothless mouth, and sharp keen eyes, told
of avarice and cunning. His clothes were nearly threadbare, but it
was easy to see that he wore them from choice and not from
necessity; all his looks and gestures down to the very small
pinches of snuff which he every now and then took from a little tin
canister, told of wealth, and penury, and avarice.
As he leisurely closed the register, put up his spectacles, and
folded his scraps of paper in a large leathern pocket-book, we
thought what a nice hard bargain he was driving with some poverty-
stricken legatee, who, tired of waiting year after year, until some
life-interest should fall in, was selling his chance, just as it
began to grow most valuable, for a twelfth part of its worth. It
was a good speculation--a very safe one. The old man stowed his
pocket-book carefully in the breast of his great-coat, and hobbled
away with a leer of triumph. That will had made him ten years
younger at the lowest computation.
Having commenced our observations, we should certainly have
extended them to another dozen of people at least, had not a sudden
shutting up and putting away of the worm-eaten old books, warned us
that the time for closing the office had arrived; and thus deprived
us of a pleasure, and spared our readers an infliction.
We naturally fell into a train of reflection as we walked
homewards, upon the curious old records of likings and dislikings;
of jealousies and revenges; of affection defying the power of
death, and hatred pursued beyond the grave, which these
depositories contain; silent but striking tokens, some of them, of
excellence of heart, and nobleness of soul; melancholy examples,
others, of the worst passions of human nature. How many men as
they lay speechless and helpless on the bed of death, would have
given worlds but for the strength and power to blot out the silent
evidence of animosity and bitterness, which now stands registered
against them in Doctors' Commons!
CHAPTER IX--LONDON RECREATIONS
The wish of persons in the humbler classes of life, to ape the
manners and customs of those whom fortune has placed above them, is
often the subject of remark, and not unfrequently of complaint.
The inclination may, and no doubt does, exist to a great extent,
among the small gentility--the would-be aristocrats--of the middle
classes. Tradesmen and clerks, with fashionable novel-reading
families, and circulating-library-subscribing daughters, get up
small assemblies in humble imitation of Almack's, and promenade the
dingy 'large room' of some second-rate hotel with as much
complacency as the enviable few who are privileged to exhibit their
magnificence in that exclusive haunt of fashion and foolery.
Aspiring young ladies, who read flaming accounts of some 'fancy
fair in high life,' suddenly grow desperately charitable; visions
of admiration and matrimony float before their eyes; some
wonderfully meritorious institution, which, by the strangest
accident in the world, has never been heard of before, is
discovered to be in a languishing condition: Thomson's great room,
or Johnson's nursery-ground, is forthwith engaged, and the
aforesaid young ladies, from mere charity, exhibit themselves for
three days, from twelve to four, for the small charge of one
shilling per head! With the exception of these classes of society,
however, and a few weak and insignificant persons, we do not think
the attempt at imitation to which we have alluded, prevails in any
great degree. The different character of the recreations of
different classes, has often afforded us amusement; and we have
chosen it for the subject of our present sketch, in the hope that
it may possess some amusement for our readers.
If the regular City man, who leaves Lloyd's at five o'clock, and
drives home to Hackney, Clapton, Stamford-hill, or elsewhere, can
be said to have any daily recreation beyond his dinner, it is his
garden. He never does anything to it with his own hands; but he
takes great pride in it notwithstanding; and if you are desirous of
paying your addresses to the youngest daughter, be sure to be in
raptures with every flower and shrub it contains. If your poverty
of expression compel you to make any distinction between the two,
we would certainly recommend your bestowing more admiration on his
garden than his wine. He always takes a walk round it, before he
starts for town in the morning, and is particularly anxious that
the fish-pond should be kept specially neat. If you call on him on
Sunday in summer-time, about an hour before dinner, you will find
him sitting in an arm-chair, on the lawn behind the house, with a
straw hat on, reading a Sunday paper. A short distance from him
you will most likely observe a handsome paroquet in a large brass-
wire cage; ten to one but the two eldest girls are loitering in one
of the side walks accompanied by a couple of young gentlemen, who
are holding parasols over them--of course only to keep the sun off-
-while the younger children, with the under nursery-maid, are
strolling listlessly about, in the shade. Beyond these occasions,
his delight in his garden appears to arise more from the
consciousness of possession than actual enjoyment of it. When he
drives you down to dinner on a week-day, he is rather fatigued with
the occupations of the morning, and tolerably cross into the
bargain; but when the cloth is removed, and he has drank three or
four glasses of his favourite port, he orders the French windows of
his dining-room (which of course look into the garden) to be
opened, and throwing a silk handkerchief over his head, and leaning
back in his arm-chair, descants at considerable length upon its
beauty, and the cost of maintaining it. This is to impress you--
who are a young friend of the family--with a due sense of the
excellence of the garden, and the wealth of its owner; and when he
has exhausted the subject, he goes to sleep.
There is another and a very different class of men, whose
recreation is their garden. An individual of this class, resides
some short distance from town--say in the Hampstead-road, or the
Kilburn-road, or any other road where the houses are small and
neat, and have little slips of back garden. He and his wife--who
is as clean and compact a little body as himself--have occupied the
same house ever since he retired from business twenty years ago.
They have no family. They once had a son, who died at about five
years old. The child's portrait hangs over the mantelpiece in the
best sitting-room, and a little cart he used to draw about, is
carefully preserved as a relic.
In fine weather the old gentleman is almost constantly in the
garden; and when it is too wet to go into it, he will look out of
the window at it, by the hour together. He has always something to
do there, and you will see him digging, and sweeping, and cutting,
and planting, with manifest delight. In spring-time, there is no
end to the sowing of seeds, and sticking little bits of wood over
them, with labels, which look like epitaphs to their memory; and in
the evening, when the sun has gone down, the perseverance with
which he lugs a great watering-pot about is perfectly astonishing.
The only other recreation he has, is the newspaper, which he
peruses every day, from beginning to end, generally reading the
most interesting pieces of intelligence to his wife, during
breakfast. The old lady is very fond of flowers, as the hyacinth-
glasses in the parlour-window, and geranium-pots in the little
front court, testify. She takes great pride in the garden too:
and when one of the four fruit-trees produces rather a larger
gooseberry than usual, it is carefully preserved under a wine-glass
on the sideboard, for the edification of visitors, who are duly
informed that Mr. So-and-so planted the tree which produced it,
with his own hands. On a summer's evening, when the large
watering-pot has been filled and emptied some fourteen times, and
the old couple have quite exhausted themselves by trotting about,
you will see them sitting happily together in the little
summerhouse, enjoying the calm and peace of the twilight, and
watching the shadows as they fall upon the garden, and gradually
growing thicker and more sombre, obscure the tints of their gayest
flowers--no bad emblem of the years that have silently rolled over
their heads, deadening in their course the brightest hues of early
hopes and feelings which have long since faded away. These are
their only recreations, and they require no more. They have within
themselves, the materials of comfort and content; and the only
anxiety of each, is to die before the other.
This is no ideal sketch. There USED to be many old people of this
description; their numbers may have diminished, and may decrease
still more. Whether the course female education has taken of late
days--whether the pursuit of giddy frivolities, and empty nothings,
has tended to unfit women for that quiet domestic life, in which
they show far more beautifully than in the most crowded assembly,
is a question we should feel little gratification in discussing:
we hope not.
Let us turn now, to another portion of the London population, whose
recreations present about as strong a contrast as can well be
conceived--we mean the Sunday pleasurers; and let us beg our
readers to imagine themselves stationed by our side in some well-
known rural 'Tea-gardens.'
The heat is intense this afternoon, and the people, of whom there
are additional parties arriving every moment, look as warm as the
tables which have been recently painted, and have the appearance of
being red-hot. What a dust and noise! Men and women--boys and
girls--sweethearts and married people--babies in arms, and children
in chaises--pipes and shrimps--cigars and periwinkles--tea and
tobacco. Gentlemen, in alarming waistcoats, and steel watch-
guards, promenading about, three abreast, with surprising dignity
(or as the gentleman in the next box facetiously observes, 'cutting
it uncommon fat!')--ladies, with great, long, white pocket-
handkerchiefs like small table-cloths, in their hands, chasing one
another on the grass in the most playful and interesting manner,
with the view of attracting the attention of the aforesaid
gentlemen--husbands in perspective ordering bottles of ginger-beer
for the objects of their affections, with a lavish disregard of
expense; and the said objects washing down huge quantities of
'shrimps' and 'winkles,' with an equal disregard of their own
bodily health and subsequent comfort--boys, with great silk hats
just balanced on the top of their heads, smoking cigars, and trying
to look as if they liked them--gentlemen in pink shirts and blue
waistcoats, occasionally upsetting either themselves, or somebody
else, with their own canes.
Some of the finery of these people provokes a smile, but they are
all clean, and happy, and disposed to be good-natured and sociable.
Those two motherly-looking women in the smart pelisses, who are
chatting so confidentially, inserting a 'ma'am' at every fourth
word, scraped an acquaintance about a quarter of an hour ago: it
originated in admiration of the little boy who belongs to one of
them--that diminutive specimen of mortality in the three-cornered
pink satin hat with black feathers. The two men in the blue coats
and drab trousers, who are walking up and down, smoking their
pipes, are their husbands. The party in the opposite box are a
pretty fair specimen of the generality of the visitors. These are
the father and mother, and old grandmother: a young man and woman,
and an individual addressed by the euphonious title of 'Uncle
Bill,' who is evidently the wit of the party. They have some half-
dozen children with them, but it is scarcely necessary to notice
the fact, for that is a matter of course here. Every woman in 'the
gardens,' who has been married for any length of time, must have
had twins on two or three occasions; it is impossible to account
for the extent of juvenile population in any other way.
Observe the inexpressible delight of the old grandmother, at Uncle
Bill's splendid joke of 'tea for four: bread-and-butter for
forty;' and the loud explosion of mirth which follows his wafering
a paper 'pigtail' on the waiter's collar. The young man is
evidently 'keeping company' with Uncle Bill's niece: and Uncle
Bill's hints--such as 'Don't forget me at the dinner, you know,' 'I
shall look out for the cake, Sally,' 'I'll be godfather to your
first--wager it's a boy,' and so forth, are equally embarrassing to
the young people, and delightful to the elder ones. As to the old
grandmother, she is in perfect ecstasies, and does nothing but
laugh herself into fits of coughing, until they have finished the
'gin-and-water warm with,' of which Uncle Bill ordered 'glasses
round' after tea, 'just to keep the night air out, and to do it up
comfortable and riglar arter sitch an as-tonishing hot day!'
It is getting dark, and the people begin to move. The field
leading to town is quite full of them; the little hand-chaises are
dragged wearily along, the children are tired, and amuse themselves
and the company generally by crying, or resort to the much more
pleasant expedient of going to sleep--the mothers begin to wish
they were at home again--sweethearts grow more sentimental than
ever, as the time for parting arrives--the gardens look mournful
enough, by the light of the two lanterns which hang against the
trees for the convenience of smokers--and the waiters who have been
running about incessantly for the last six hours, think they feel a
little tired, as they count their glasses and their gains.
CHAPTER X--THE RIVER
'Are you fond of the water?' is a question very frequently asked,
in hot summer weather, by amphibious-looking young men. 'Very,' is
the general reply. 'An't you?'--'Hardly ever off it,' is the
response, accompanied by sundry adjectives, expressive of the
speaker's heartfelt admiration of that element. Now, with all
respect for the opinion of society in general, and cutter clubs in
particular, we humbly suggest that some of the most painful
reminiscences in the mind of every individual who has occasionally
disported himself on the Thames, must be connected with his aquatic
recreations. Who ever heard of a successful water-party?--or to
put the question in a still more intelligible form, who ever saw
one? We have been on water excursions out of number, but we
solemnly declare that we cannot call to mind one single occasion of
the kind, which was not marked by more miseries than any one would
suppose could be reasonably crowded into the space of some eight or
nine hours. Something has always gone wrong. Either the cork of
the salad-dressing has come out, or the most anxiously expected
member of the party has not come out, or the most disagreeable man
in company would come out, or a child or two have fallen into the
water, or the gentleman who undertook to steer has endangered
everybody's life all the way, or the gentlemen who volunteered to
row have been 'out of practice,' and performed very alarming
evolutions, putting their oars down into the water and not being
able to get them up again, or taking terrific pulls without putting
them in at all; in either case, pitching over on the backs of their
heads with startling violence, and exhibiting the soles of their
pumps to the 'sitters' in the boat, in a very humiliating manner.
We grant that the banks of the Thames are very beautiful at
Richmond and Twickenham, and other distant havens, often sought
though seldom reached; but from the 'Red-us' back to Blackfriars-
bridge, the scene is wonderfully changed. The Penitentiary is a
noble building, no doubt, and the sportive youths who 'go in' at
that particular part of the river, on a summer's evening, may be
all very well in perspective; but when you are obliged to keep in
shore coming home, and the young ladies will colour up, and look
perseveringly the other way, while the married dittos cough
slightly, and stare very hard at the water, you feel awkward--
especially if you happen to have been attempting the most distant
approach to sentimentality, for an hour or two previously.
Although experience and suffering have produced in our minds the
result we have just stated, we are by no means blind to a proper
sense of the fun which a looker-on may extract from the amateurs of
boating. What can be more amusing than Searle's yard on a fine
Sunday morning? It's a Richmond tide, and some dozen boats are
preparing for the reception of the parties who have engaged them.
Two or three fellows in great rough trousers and Guernsey shirts,
are getting them ready by easy stages; now coming down the yard
with a pair of sculls and a cushion--then having a chat with the
'Jack,' who, like all his tribe, seems to be wholly incapable of
doing anything but lounging about--then going back again, and
returning with a rudder-line and a stretcher--then solacing
themselves with another chat--and then wondering, with their hands
in their capacious pockets, 'where them gentlemen's got to as
ordered the six.' One of these, the head man, with the legs of his
trousers carefully tucked up at the bottom, to admit the water, we
presume--for it is an element in which he is infinitely more at
home than on land--is quite a character, and shares with the
defunct oyster-swallower the celebrated name of 'Dando.' Watch
him, as taking a few minutes' respite from his toils, he
negligently seats himself on the edge of a boat, and fans his broad
bushy chest with a cap scarcely half so furry. Look at his
magnificent, though reddish whiskers, and mark the somewhat native
humour with which he 'chaffs' the boys and 'prentices, or cunningly
gammons the gen'lm'n into the gift of a glass of gin, of which we
verily believe he swallows in one day as much as any six ordinary
men, without ever being one atom the worse for it.
But the party arrives, and Dando, relieved from his state of
uncertainty, starts up into activity. They approach in full
aquatic costume, with round blue jackets, striped shirts, and caps
of all sizes and patterns, from the velvet skull-cap of French
manufacture, to the easy head-dress familiar to the students of the
old spelling-books, as having, on the authority of the portrait,
formed part of the costume of the Reverend Mr. Dilworth.
This is the most amusing time to observe a regular Sunday water-
party. There has evidently been up to this period no
inconsiderable degree of boasting on everybody's part relative to
his knowledge of navigation; the sight of the water rapidly cools
their courage, and the air of self-denial with which each of them
insists on somebody else's taking an oar, is perfectly delightful.
At length, after a great deal of changing and fidgeting, consequent
upon the election of a stroke-oar: the inability of one gentleman
to pull on this side, of another to pull on that, and of a third to
pull at all, the boat's crew are seated. 'Shove her off!' cries
the cockswain, who looks as easy and comfortable as if he were
steering in the Bay of Biscay. The order is obeyed; the boat is
immediately turned completely round, and proceeds towards
Westminster-bridge, amidst such a splashing and struggling as never
was seen before, except when the Royal George went down. 'Back
wa'ater, sir,' shouts Dando, 'Back wa'ater, you sir, aft;' upon
which everybody thinking he must be the individual referred to,
they all back water, and back comes the boat, stern first, to the
spot whence it started. 'Back water, you sir, aft; pull round, you
sir, for'ad, can't you?' shouts Dando, in a frenzy of excitement.
'Pull round, Tom, can't you?' re-echoes one of the party. 'Tom
an't for'ad,' replies another. 'Yes, he is,' cries a third; and
the unfortunate young man, at the imminent risk of breaking a
blood-vessel, pulls and pulls, until the head of the boat fairly
lies in the direction of Vauxhall-bridge. 'That's right--now pull
all on you!' shouts Dando again, adding, in an under-tone, to
somebody by him, 'Blowed if hever I see sich a set of muffs!' and
away jogs the boat in a zigzag direction, every one of the six oars
dipping into the water at a different time; and the yard is once
more clear, until the arrival of the next party.
A well-contested rowing-match on the Thames, is a very lively and
interesting scene. The water is studded with boats of all sorts,
kinds, and descriptions; places in the coal-barges at the different
wharfs are let to crowds of spectators, beer and tobacco flow
freely about; men, women, and children wait for the start in
breathless expectation; cutters of six and eight oars glide gently
up and down, waiting to accompany their proteges during the race;
bands of music add to the animation, if not to the harmony of the
scene; groups of watermen are assembled at the different stairs,
discussing the merits of the respective candidates; and the prize
wherry, which is rowed slowly about by a pair of sculls, is an
object of general interest.
Two o'clock strikes, and everybody looks anxiously in the direction
of the bridge through which the candidates for the prize will come-
-half-past two, and the general attention which has been preserved
so long begins to flag, when suddenly a gun is heard, and a noise
of distant hurra'ing along each bank of the river--every head is
bent forward--the noise draws nearer and nearer--the boats which
have been waiting at the bridge start briskly up the river, and a
well-manned galley shoots through the arch, the sitters cheering on
the boats behind them, which are not yet visible.
'Here they are,' is the general cry--and through darts the first
boat, the men in her, stripped to the skin, and exerting every
muscle to preserve the advantage they have gained--four other boats
follow close astern; there are not two boats' length between them--
the shouting is tremendous, and the interest intense. 'Go on,
Pink'--'Give it her, Red'--'Sulliwin for ever'--'Bravo! George'--
'Now, Tom, now--now--now--why don't your partner stretch out?'--
'Two pots to a pint on Yellow,' &c., &c. Every little public-house
fires its gun, and hoists its flag; and the men who win the heat,
come in, amidst a splashing and shouting, and banging and
confusion, which no one can imagine who has not witnessed it, and
of which any description would convey a very faint idea.
One of the most amusing places we know is the steam-wharf of the
London Bridge, or St. Katharine's Dock Company, on a Saturday
morning in summer, when the Gravesend and Margate steamers are
usually crowded to excess; and as we have just taken a glance at
the river above bridge, we hope our readers will not object to
accompany us on board a Gravesend packet.
Coaches are every moment setting down at the entrance to the wharf,
and the stare of bewildered astonishment with which the 'fares'
resign themselves and their luggage into the hands of the porters,
who seize all the packages at once as a matter of course, and run
away with them, heaven knows where, is laughable in the extreme. A
Margate boat lies alongside the wharf, the Gravesend boat (which
starts first) lies alongside that again; and as a temporary
communication is formed between the two, by means of a plank and
hand-rail, the natural confusion of the scene is by no means
diminished.
'Gravesend?' inquires a stout father of a stout family, who follow
him, under the guidance of their mother, and a servant, at the no
small risk of two or three of them being left behind in the
confusion. 'Gravesend?'
'Pass on, if you please, sir,' replies the attendant--'other boat,
sir.'
Hereupon the stout father, being rather mystified, and the stout
mother rather distracted by maternal anxiety, the whole party
deposit themselves in the Margate boat, and after having
congratulated himself on having secured very comfortable seats, the
stout father sallies to the chimney to look for his luggage, which
he has a faint recollection of having given some man, something, to
take somewhere. No luggage, however, bearing the most remote
resemblance to his own, in shape or form, is to be discovered; on
which the stout father calls very loudly for an officer, to whom he
states the case, in the presence of another father of another
family--a little thin man--who entirely concurs with him (the stout
father) in thinking that it's high time something was done with
these steam companies, and that as the Corporation Bill failed to
do it, something else must; for really people's property is not to
be sacrificed in this way; and that if the luggage isn't restored
without delay, he will take care it shall be put in the papers, for
the public is not to be the victim of these great monopolies. To
this, the officer, in his turn, replies, that that company, ever
since it has been St. Kat'rine's Dock Company, has protected life
and property; that if it had been the London Bridge Wharf Company,
indeed, he shouldn't have wondered, seeing that the morality of
that company (they being the opposition) can't be answered for, by
no one; but as it is, he's convinced there must be some mistake,
and he wouldn't mind making a solemn oath afore a magistrate that
the gentleman'll find his luggage afore he gets to Margate.
Here the stout father, thinking he is making a capital point,
replies, that as it happens, he is not going to Margate at all, and
that 'Passenger to Gravesend' was on the luggage, in letters of
full two inches long; on which the officer rapidly explains the
mistake, and the stout mother, and the stout children, and the
servant, are hurried with all possible despatch on board the
Gravesend boat, which they reached just in time to discover that
their luggage is there, and that their comfortable seats are not.
Then the bell, which is the signal for the Gravesend boat starting,
begins to ring most furiously: and people keep time to the bell,
by running in and out of our boat at a double-quick pace. The bell
stops; the boat starts: people who have been taking leave of their
friends on board, are carried away against their will; and people
who have been taking leave of their friends on shore, find that
they have performed a very needless ceremony, in consequence of
their not being carried away at all. The regular passengers, who
have season tickets, go below to breakfast; people who have
purchased morning papers, compose themselves to read them; and
people who have not been down the river before, think that both the
shipping and the water, look a great deal better at a distance.
When we get down about as far as Blackwall, and begin to move at a
quicker rate, the spirits of the passengers appear to rise in
proportion. Old women who have brought large wicker hand-baskets
with them, set seriously to work at the demolition of heavy
sandwiches, and pass round a wine-glass, which is frequently
replenished from a flat bottle like a stomach-warmer, with
considerable glee: handing it first to the gentleman in the
foraging-cap, who plays the harp--partly as an expression of
satisfaction with his previous exertions, and partly to induce him
to play 'Dumbledumbdeary,' for 'Alick' to dance to; which being
done, Alick, who is a damp earthy child in red worsted socks, takes
certain small jumps upon the deck, to the unspeakable satisfaction
of his family circle. Girls who have brought the first volume of
some new novel in their reticule, become extremely plaintive, and
expatiate to Mr. Brown, or young Mr. O'Brien, who has been looking
over them, on the blueness of the sky, and brightness of the water;
on which Mr. Brown or Mr. O'Brien, as the case may be, remarks in a
low voice that he has been quite insensible of late to the beauties
of nature, that his whole thoughts and wishes have centred in one
object alone--whereupon the young lady looks up, and failing in her
attempt to appear unconscious, looks down again; and turns over the
next leaf with great difficulty, in order to afford opportunity for
a lengthened pressure of the hand.
Telescopes, sandwiches, and glasses of brandy-and-water cold
without, begin to be in great requisition; and bashful men who have
been looking down the hatchway at the engine, find, to their great
relief, a subject on which they can converse with one another--and
a copious one too--Steam.
'Wonderful thing steam, sir.' 'Ah! (a deep-drawn sigh) it is
indeed, sir.' 'Great power, sir.' 'Immense--immense!' 'Great
deal done by steam, sir.' 'Ah! (another sigh at the immensity of
the subject, and a knowing shake of the head) you may say that,
sir.' 'Still in its infancy, they say, sir.' Novel remarks of
this kind, are generally the commencement of a conversation which
is prolonged until the conclusion of the trip, and, perhaps, lays
the foundation of a speaking acquaintance between half-a-dozen
gentlemen, who, having their families at Gravesend, take season
tickets for the boat, and dine on board regularly every afternoon.
CHAPTER XI--ASTLEY'S
We never see any very large, staring, black Roman capitals, in a
book, or shop-window, or placarded on a wall, without their
immediately recalling to our mind an indistinct and confused
recollection of the time when we were first initiated in the
mysteries of the alphabet. We almost fancy we see the pin's point
following the letter, to impress its form more strongly on our
bewildered imagination; and wince involuntarily, as we remember the
hard knuckles with which the reverend old lady who instilled into
our mind the first principles of education for ninepence per week,
or ten and sixpence per quarter, was wont to poke our juvenile head
occasionally, by way of adjusting the confusion of ideas in which
we were generally involved. The same kind of feeling pursues us in
many other instances, but there is no place which recalls so
strongly our recollections of childhood as Astley's. It was not a
'Royal Amphitheatre' in those days, nor had Ducrow arisen to shed
the light of classic taste and portable gas over the sawdust of the
circus; but the whole character of the place was the same, the
pieces were the same, the clown's jokes were the same, the riding-
masters were equally grand, the comic performers equally witty, the
tragedians equally hoarse, and the 'highly-trained chargers'
equally spirited. Astley's has altered for the better--we have
changed for the worse. Our histrionic taste is gone, and with
shame we confess, that we are far more delighted and amused with
the audience, than with the pageantry we once so highly
appreciated.
We like to watch a regular Astley's party in the Easter or
Midsummer holidays--pa and ma, and nine or ten children, varying
from five foot six to two foot eleven: from fourteen years of age
to four. We had just taken our seat in one of the boxes, in the
centre of the house, the other night, when the next was occupied by
just such a party as we should have attempted to describe, had we
depicted our beau ideal of a group of Astley's visitors.
First of all, there came three little boys and a little girl, who,
in pursuance of pa's directions, issued in a very audible voice
from the box-door, occupied the front row; then two more little
girls were ushered in by a young lady, evidently the governess.
Then came three more little boys, dressed like the first, in blue
jackets and trousers, with lay-down shirt-collars: then a child in
a braided frock and high state of astonishment, with very large
round eyes, opened to their utmost width, was lifted over the
seats--a process which occasioned a considerable display of little
pink legs--then came ma and pa, and then the eldest son, a boy of
fourteen years old, who was evidently trying to look as if he did
not belong to the family.
The first five minutes were occupied in taking the shawls off the
little girls, and adjusting the bows which ornamented their hair;
then it was providentially discovered that one of the little boys
was seated behind a pillar and could not see, so the governess was
stuck behind the pillar, and the boy lifted into her place. Then
pa drilled the boys, and directed the stowing away of their pocket-
handkerchiefs, and ma having first nodded and winked to the
governess to pull the girls' frocks a little more off their
shoulders, stood up to review the little troop--an inspection which
appeared to terminate much to her own satisfaction, for she looked
with a complacent air at pa, who was standing up at the further end
of the seat. Pa returned the glance, and blew his nose very
emphatically; and the poor governess peeped out from behind the
pillar, and timidly tried to catch ma's eye, with a look expressive
of her high admiration of the whole family. Then two of the little
boys who had been discussing the point whether Astley's was more
than twice as large as Drury Lane, agreed to refer it to 'George'
for his decision; at which 'George,' who was no other than the
young gentleman before noticed, waxed indignant, and remonstrated
in no very gentle terms on the gross impropriety of having his name
repeated in so loud a voice at a public place, on which all the
children laughed very heartily, and one of the little boys wound up
by expressing his opinion, that 'George began to think himself
quite a man now,' whereupon both pa and ma laughed too; and George
(who carried a dress cane and was cultivating whiskers) muttered
that 'William always was encouraged in his impertinence;' and
assumed a look of profound contempt, which lasted the whole
evening.
The play began, and the interest of the little boys knew no bounds.
Pa was clearly interested too, although he very unsuccessfully
endeavoured to look as if he wasn't. As for ma, she was perfectly
overcome by the drollery of the principal comedian, and laughed
till every one of the immense bows on her ample cap trembled, at
which the governess peeped out from behind the pillar again, and
whenever she could catch ma's eye, put her handkerchief to her
mouth, and appeared, as in duty bound, to be in convulsions of
laughter also. Then when the man in the splendid armour vowed to
rescue the lady or perish in the attempt, the little boys applauded
vehemently, especially one little fellow who was apparently on a
visit to the family, and had been carrying on a child's flirtation,
the whole evening, with a small coquette of twelve years old, who
looked like a model of her mamma on a reduced scale; and who, in
common with the other little girls (who generally speaking have
even more coquettishness about them than much older ones), looked
very properly shocked, when the knight's squire kissed the
princess's confidential chambermaid.
When the scenes in the circle commenced, the children were more
delighted than ever; and the wish to see what was going forward,
completely conquering pa's dignity, he stood up in the box, and
applauded as loudly as any of them. Between each feat of
horsemanship, the governess leant across to ma, and retailed the
clever remarks of the children on that which had preceded: and ma,
in the openness of her heart, offered the governess an acidulated
drop, and the governess, gratified to be taken notice of, retired
behind her pillar again with a brighter countenance: and the whole
party seemed quite happy, except the exquisite in the back of the
box, who, being too grand to take any interest in the children, and
too insignificant to be taken notice of by anybody else, occupied
himself, from time to time, in rubbing the place where the whiskers
ought to be, and was completely alone in his glory.
We defy any one who has been to Astley's two or three times, and is
consequently capable of appreciating the perseverance with which
precisely the same jokes are repeated night after night, and season
after season, not to be amused with one part of the performances at
least--we mean the scenes in the circle. For ourself, we know that
when the hoop, composed of jets of gas, is let down, the curtain
drawn up for the convenience of the half-price on their ejectment
from the ring, the orange-peel cleared away, and the sawdust
shaken, with mathematical precision, into a complete circle, we
feel as much enlivened as the youngest child present; and actually
join in the laugh which follows the clown's shrill shout of 'Here
we are!' just for old acquaintance' sake. Nor can we quite divest
ourself of our old feeling of reverence for the riding-master, who
follows the clown with a long whip in his hand, and bows to the
audience with graceful dignity. He is none of your second-rate
riding-masters in nankeen dressing-gowns, with brown frogs, but the
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