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UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA
ENDOWED BY THE
DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC
SOCIETIES
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This book is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the
last date stamped under “Date Due.” If not on hold it may be
renewed by bringing it to the library.
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NEW LL USTRATED LIBRARY EDITION.
VOLUME XXIX.
SKETCHES BY BOZ.
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SKETCHES BY BOZ
VERY-DAY LIFE AND EVERY-DAY PEOPLE
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CHARLES DICKENS
ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL
BOSTON
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riversive Press, Cambridge
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PREFACE,
—>— _—
Tue whole of these Sketches were written and published,
one by one, when I was a very young man. They were
collected and re-published while I was still a very young
man; and sent into the world with all their imperfections
(a good many) on their heads.
They comprise my first attempts at authorship—with the
exception of certain tragedies achieved at the mature age of
eight or ten, and represented with great applause to over-
flowing nurseries. I am conscious of their often being
extremely crude and ill-considered, and bearing obvious
marks of haste and inexperience; particularly in that section
of the present volume which is comprised under the general
head of Tales.
But as this collection is not originated now, and was very
leniently and favourably received when it was first made, I
have not felt it right either to remodel or expunge, beyond
a few words and phrases here and there.
October, 1850.
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CONTENTS.
—
SEVEN SKETCHES FROM OUR PARISH,
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Tae Beapite. Tue ParisH ENGINE. THE SCHOOLMASTER ee |
CHAPTER II.
THE Curate. THe Ovtp Lapy. THe Harr-pay CAPTAIN. - 6
CHAPTER III
Tue Four SIsters . a ‘ . ‘ n 4 > = - 12
CHAPTER IV.
THe ELECTION FOR BEADLE . = ; > - ° ; - 16
CHAPTER V.
Tne Broxer’s Man . : , é 2 “1 ‘ : . - 23
CHAPTER VI.
Tur Lapirs’ SOCIETIES . 3 : ‘ y é F - 82
CHAPTER VII.
Our NExtT-poor NEIGHBOUR . i ‘ ‘ s hi teen Ce eae
Vili CONTENTS.
SCENES.
CHAPTER IL
Tue StrREETS—MoRNING . “. 5 ; “ ~ ° ° . 45
CHAPTER IL.
THe STREETS—NIGHT . J s a a P ‘ . - 50
CHAPTER IIL
SHOPS AND THEIR TENANTS . : : - 4 ° e . 85
CHAPTER IV.
ScOTLAND-YARD . d : ns e * ; . ° . 59
-CHAPTER V.
SEVEN-DIALS e a e 3 e e c) ao e 4 6 64
CHAPTER VI.
MEDITATIONS IN MONMOUTH-STREET ‘ e &. ® . 68
CHAPTER VIL
HackneEY-coacH STANDS . fs : ; ‘ « ® ‘ . 7
CHAPTER VII.
Docr ORS’ ComMMONS ° ° ° e ° e e e e e 79
Lonpon RECREATIONS ; . . . : ° ° ° - 84
THE RIvER e ® e e e e . e -e e @ e 89
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XI.
AstTLEY’s e e ° e ° ° ° @ e e
CHAPTER XIL
GREENWICH FaIR - > ; é : é 4 é
CHAPTER XIIL
PRIVATE THEATRES . ‘ ; . - ’ 5 :
CHAPTER XIV.
VAUXHALL-GARDENS BY Day . : P d ;
CHAPTER XV.
Earty CoacueEs . ; : . ‘ E - :
OMNIBUSES . 5 : ; é - A P ‘ -
CHAPTER XVIL
Tue Last CaB-DRIVER, AND THE FIRST OMNIBUS-CAD.
CHAPTER XVIII
A PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH . : A ‘ ; é
CHAPTER XIX.
Pusiic DINNERS 7 A - t 5 ° e
CHAPTER XX.
Tue First oF May . ‘ ; - . : “ °
CHAPTER XXI.
BROKERS’ AND MARINE-STORE SHOPS : b Pena
- 102
- 110
. ie
- 127
- 131
- 140
- 151
» 157
- 164
x CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXII.
PAGE
Giw-enors . « «6 ©. « 2s : oe
CHAPTER XXIL
THE PAWNBROKER’s SHOP - 4 - x : . 174
CHAPTER XXIV.
CriminaL Courts. , ; m A - » ‘+ SBh
CHAPTER XXV.
A Visit TO NEWGATE s ‘ P a » ; 2 - . 186
CHARACTERS,
CHAPTER I,
THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE. : - = ; ° ‘ é . 200
CHAPTER IL
A CuristmMas DINNER é * é ° 4 é ; 2 - 205
CHAPTER III.
THe New YEAR. ; : : ; - ’ . e . . 210
CHAPTER IV.
Miss Evans AND THE EAGLE . F ; 3 : 3 ° . 215
CHAPTER V.
THe Partour OratorR . ; ’ - ; > . r - 219
CHAPTER VI.
Tue Hospitat Patient ; | 224
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIL
Tre Mispracep ATTACHMENT OF Mr. JoHN DouNcE .
CHAPTER VIIL
Tue Mistaken MILuINER. A TALE OF AMBITION 3
CHAPTER, IX.
Tue Dancinc ACADEMY . ‘ 3 ; J ; °
CHAPTER X.
SHABBY-GENTEEL PEOPLE. ‘ ‘ ‘ 3 . ‘.
CHAPTER XL
Maxine a NIGHT OF IT . ‘ - ‘ ° ‘ .
CHAPTER XII.
TuE Cetaniccen” Van ° e éicife ¢ 6 e e
Tur BoarpING-HOUSE ; r= P : ‘ ® é
CHAPTER IL
Mr. MINNS AND HIS COUSIN . F B : - :
CHAPTER IIL
SENTIMENT . “ ~ 3 $ P 7 “ : >
CHAPTER IV.
[ne Tueas’s aT RAMSGATE . = - 7 eee
- 284
- 240
« 296
- $17
x1] CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VY.
Hagiric SPARKINS . ; ‘ ‘ F s e
CHAPTER VI.
THE Brack VEIL . ‘ . " : ° °
CHAPTER VIL.
THE Stream Excursion . ; “ } e
CHAPTER VIII.
THe GREAT WINGLEBURY DUEL . ; “ *
CHAPTER IX.
Mrs. JosEPH PoRTER : : ; A “ e
CHAPTER X.
A PAssaGE IN THE LIFE OF Mr. Watkins Torrie
CHAPTER XL
Tur BLoomsBurY CHRISTENING . A , °
CHAPTER XII.
THe DRUNKARD’S DEATH . ; ; = - ‘
PAGE
- 837
- 352
» 364
e 385
« 402
- 412
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
—@—
SKETCHES BY Boz MEN oo Vee ag eee a 6 Frontispiece.
THE PARISH ENGINE ein Sg 6 an Aho or € ares fer Pee Rion, eee
THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE Gi iisgt, ie) ae eee thee tos 20
THE BROKER’s MAN. ° ° ° . ° ° . ° ° - 23
Seeeat-DOOR NEIGHBOURS . .« #« « «* '-6 ee 37
THE STREETS—MORNING . ° ° . . ° ° ° ° - 45
Sr cc $V oteed aarti 59
CCRT Rots) 5 5 belle Cle Ct wt Cl
MonMOUTH STREET Sy eg Sie ee Ge ears Me, abe 0 4h ee 68
Hackney Coacu STANDS aeete Niet Oe TW ed. fein) le ae
Se Ra
a
PRIVATE THEATRES . ° : ° ° ° e-& ° ° 110
VAUXHALL GARDENS BY DAy. . + + © oe eo eo © 116
EARLY COACHES . . ° ° ° ° ° ° atene ° 122
MMIIEGPNCARCDRIVER.§ «6: «©. 0 0 es > 6. eo.) 182
PuBLIc DINNERS ° : ° oa are ° ° ° ° < e 151
THE First or May. aa ° ° SNGkean, ecent « 157
THe GIN-SHOP . . ° ° Hatten ° ° eee » 169
Mem UPAWNBROKER’S SHOP . (. + «+« © « ce ce co 174
A Visir To NEWGATE 7 . ° ° ; 5 - 188
xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE . ; : > ‘
JEMIMA EVANS ; ; ; ; ‘ ° A
A PickrpocKeT IN CUSTODY . .« ce o e
Mr. JouHn Dounce : F ‘ ; ;
THE DANCING ACADEMY . 5 s e e
MaxkinG A NIGHT OF IT ; : : “4 A
THE BoARDING-HOoUSE—No.I.. . 4 . °
THE BOARDING-HOUSE—No. II. . . ° °
Mr. Minns AND HIS COUSIN . « «© «© e
SENTIMENT . : ‘é ; . ; : :
THE Tuaacs’s AT RAMSGATE . : ° ° °
HorATIO SPARKINS 4 : : : : ‘.
Stream Excurston—No. I. ‘ : " °
Srram Excursion—No. II. . r ° ° ;
THE WINGLEBURY DUEL. . ° ° : °
Mrs. JoSEPH PORTER . . ; ° ; “
WATKINS TOTTLE AND Miss LILLERTON A °
THE CoFFEE Room : 5 ‘ ° ° °
THE DECLARATION « ° ° ° ear
BLoomsBuRY CHRISTENING « +» «© «6 e
Tue DrunKARD’s DEATH ; 3 “ : s
SKETCHES BY BOQZ.
OUR PARISH.
——@——
CHAPTER I.
THE BEADLE. THE PARISH ENGINE, THE SCHOOLMASTER.
- How much is conveyed in those two short words—‘ ‘The
Parish!’’ And with how many tales of distress and misery,
of broken fortune and ruined hopes, too often of unrelieved
wretchedness and successful knavery, are they associated! A
poor man with small earnings, and a large family, just
manages to live on from hand to mouth, and to procure food
from day to day; he has barely sufficient to satisfy the
present cravings of nature, and can take no heed of the future.
His taxes are in arrear, quarter day passes by, another quarter
day arrives: he can procure no more quarter for himself, and
is summoned by—the parish. His goods are distrained, his
children are crying with cold and hunger, and the very bed on
which his sick wife is lying, is dragged from beneath her.
What can he do? ‘To whom is he to apply for relief? To
private charity? To benevolent individuals? Certainly not
—there is his parish. There are the parish vestry, the
parish infirmary, the parish surgeon, the parish officers, the
parish beadle. Excellent institutions, and gentle, kind-hearted
men. ‘The woman dies—she is buried by the parish. The
children have no protector—they are taken care of by the
parish. The man first neglects, and afterwards cannot obtain,
work—he is relieved by the parish; and when distress and
drunkenness have done their work upon him, he is maintained.
a harmless babbling idiot, in the parish asylum.
2 SKETCHES BY Boz.
The parish beadle is one of the most, perhaps the most,
important member of the local administration. He is not so
well off as the churchwardens, certainly, nor is he so learned
as the vestry-clerk, nor does he order things quite so much
his own way as either of them. But his power is very great,
notwithstanding; and the dignity of his office is never
impaired by the absence of efforts on his part to maintain it.
The beadle of our parish is a splendid fellow. It is quite
delightful to hear him, as he explains the state of the existing
poor laws to the deaf old women in the board-room-passage
on business nights; and to hear what he said to the senior
churchwarden, and what the senior churchwarden said to him;
and what ‘‘we”’ (the beadle and the other gentlemen) came
to the determination of doing. A miserable-looking woman
is called into the board-room, and represents a case of extreme
destitution, affecting herself—a widow, with six small children.
‘‘ Where do you live?’”’ inquires one of the overseers. “I
rents a two-pair back, gentlemen, at Mrs. Brown’s, Number 3,
Little King William’s-alley, which has lived there this fifteen
year, and knows me to be very hard-working and industrious,
and when my poor husband was alive, gentlemen, as died in
the hospital ’’—‘‘ Well, well,” interrupts the overseer, taking
a note of the address, ‘‘I’ll send Simmons, the beadle, to-
morrow morning, to ascertain whether your story is correct;
and if so, I suppose you must have an order into the House—
Simmons, go to this woman’s the first thing to-morrow
morning, will you?”’ Simmons bows assent, and ushers the
woman out. Her previous admiration of ‘the board” (who
all sit behind great books, and with their hats on) fades into
nothing before her respect for her lace-trimmed conductor;
and her account of what has passed inside, increases—if that
be possible—the marks of respect, shown by the assembled
crowd, to that solemn functionary. As to taking out a
summons, it’s quite a hopeless case if Simmons attends it,
on behalf of the parish. He knows all the titles of the Lord
wfayor by heart; states the case without a single stammer:
and it is even reported that on one occasion he ventured to
make a joke, which the Lord Mayor’s head footman (who
happened to be present) afterwards told an intimate friend,
confidentially, was almost equal to one of Mr. Hobler’s.
See him again on Sunday in his state-coat and cocked-hat,
with a large-headed staff for show in his left hand, and a
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THE BEADLE, 3
small cane for use in his right. How pompously he marshals
the children into their places! and how demurely the little
urchins look at him askance as he surveys them when they
are all seated, with a glare of the eye peculiar to beadles!
The churchwardens and overseers being duly installed in their
curtained pews, he seats himself on a mahogany bracket,
erected expressly for him at the top of the aisle, and divides his
attention between his prayer-book and the. boys. Suddenly,
just at the commencement of the communion service, when
the whole congregation is hushed into a profound silexce,
broken only by the voice of the officiating clergyman, a penny
is heard to ring on the stone floor of the aisle with astounding
clearness. Observe the generalship of the beadle. His
involuntary look of horror is instantly changed into one of
perfect indifference, as if he were the only person present who
had not heard the noise. The artifice succeeds. After putting
forth his right leg now and then, as a feeler, the victim who
dropped the money ventures to make one or two distinct dives
aiter it; and the beadle, gliding softly round, salutes his little
round head, when it again appears above the seat, with divers
double knocks, administered with the cane before noticed, to
the intense delight of three young men in an adjacent pew,
who cough es at intervals until the conclusion of the
sermon. |
Such are a few traits of the importance and gravity of a
parish-beadle—a gravity which has never been disturbed in
any case that has come under our observation, except when
the services of that particularly useful machine, a parish fire-
engine, are required: then indeed all is bustle. Two litle
boys run to the beadle as fast as their legs will carry them,
and report from their own personal observation that some
neighbouring chimney is on fire; the engine is hastily got
out, and a plentiful supply of boys being obtained, and har-
nessed to it with ropes, away they rattle over the pavement,
the beadle, running—we do not exaggerate—running at the
side, until they arrive at some house, smelling strongly of
soot, at the door of which the beadle knocks with considerable
gravity for half an hour. No attention being paid to these
manual applications, and the turn-cock having turned on the
water, the engine turns off amidst the shouts of the boys; it
pulls up once more at the workhouse, and the beadle ‘ pulls
up” the unfortunate householder next day, for the amouut of
B2
4 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
his legal reward. We never saw a parish engine at a regular
fire but once. It came up in gallant style—three miles and a
half an hour, at least; there was a capital supply of water,
and it was first on the spot. Bang went the pumps—the
people cheered—the beadle perspired profusely ; but it was
unfortunately discovered, just as they were going to put the
fire out, that nobody understood the process by which the
engine was filled with water; and that eighteen boys, anda
man, had exhausted themselves in pumping for twenty
minutes, without producing the slightest effect !
The personages next in importance to the beadle, are the
master of the workhouse and the parish schoolmaster. The
vestry-clerk, as everybody knows, is a short, pudgy Little man,
in black, with a thick gold watch-chain of considerable length,
terminating in two large seals anda key. He is an attorney,
and generally in a bustle; at no time more so than when he
is hurrying to some parochial meeting, with his gloves
crumpled up in one hand, and a large red book under the
other arm. As to the churchwardens and overseers, we
exclude them altogether, because all we know of them is, that
they are usually respectable tradesmen, who wear hats with
brims inclined to flatness, and who occasionally testify in
gilt letters on a blue ground, in some conspicuous part of the
church, to the important fact of a gallery having been enlarged
and beautified, or an organ rebuilt.
The master of the workhouse is not, in our parish—nor is
he usually in any other—one of that class of men the better
part of whose existence has passed away, and who drag out
the remainder in some inferior situation, with just enough
thought of the past, to feel degraded by, and discontented
with, the present. We are unable to guess precisely to our
own satisfaction what station the man can have occupied
before; we should think he had been an inferior sort of
attorney’s clerk, or else the master of a national school—what-
ever he was, it is clear his present position is a change for the
better. His income is small certainly, as the rusty black coat
and threadbare velvet collar demonstrate: but then he lives
free of house-rent, has a limited allowance of coals and candles,
and an almost unlimited allowance of authority in his petty
kingdom. He is a tall, thin, bony man; always wears shoes
and black cotton stockings with his surtout; and eyes you, as
you pass his parlour window, as if he wished you were a
THE SCHOOLMASTER. 9)
pauper, just to give you a specimen of his power. He is an
admirable specimen of a small tyrant: morose, brutish, and
ill-tempered ; bullying to his inferiors, cringing to his supe-
riors, and jealous of the influence and authority of the beadle.
Our schoolmaster is just the very reverse of this amiable
official. He has been one of those men one occasionally hears
vf, on whom misfortune seems to have set her mark; nothing
he ever did, or was concerned in, appears to have prospered.
A rich old relation who had brought him up, and openly
announced his intention of providing for him, left him 10,0000.
in his will, and revoked the bequest in a codicil. Thus unex-
pectedly reduced to the necessity of providing for himself, he
procured a situation in a public office. The young clerks
below him, died off as if there were a plague among them;
but the old fellows over his head, for the reversion of whose
places he. was anxiously waiting, lived on and on, as if they
were immortal. He speculated and lost. He speculated
again, and won—but never got his money. His talents were
great; his disposition, easy, generous, aud liberal. His
friends profited by the one, and abused the other. Loss
succeeded loss; misfortune crowded on misfortune; each suc-
cessive day brought him nearer the verge of hopeless penury,
and the quondam friends who had been warinest in their pro-
fessions, grew strangely cold and indifferent. He had children
whom he loved, and a wife on whom he doted. The former
turned their backs on him; the latter died broken-hearted.
He went with the stream—it had ever been his failing, and
he had not courage sufficient to bear up against so many
shocks—he had never cared for himself, and the only being
who had cared for him, in his poverty and distress, was spared
to him no longer. It was at this period that he applied for
parochial relief. Some kind-hearted man who had known
him in happier times, chanced to be churchwarden that year,
and through his interest he was appointed to his present
situation.
He is an old man now. Of the many who once crowded
round him in all the hollow friendship of boon companionship,
some have died, some have fallen like himself, some have
prospered—all have forgotten him. Time and misfortune
have mercifully been permitted to impair his memory, and use
has habituated him to his present condition. Meek, uncom-
plaining, and zealous in the discharge of his duties, he has
6 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
been allowed to hold his situation long beyond the usual
period; and he will no doubt continue to hold it, until
infirmity renders him incapable, or death releases him. As
the grey-headed old man feebly paces up and down the sunny
side of the little court-yard between school hours, it would be
difficult, indeed, for the most intimate of his former friends to
recognise their once gay and happy associate, in the person of
the Pauper Schoolmaster.
CHAPTER IL.
THE CURATE. THE OLD LADY. THE HALF-PAY CAPTAIN,
We commenced our last chapter with the beadle of our parish,
because we are deeply sensible of the importance and dignity
of his office. We will begin the present, with the clergyman.
Our curate is a young gentleman of such prepossessing appear-
ance, and fascinating manners, that within one month after his
first appearance in the parish, half the young-lady inhabitants
were melancholy with religion, and the other half, desponding
with love. Never were so many young ladies seen in our
parish-church on Sunday before; and never had the little
round angels’ faces on Mr. Tomkins’s monument in the side
aisle, beheld such devotion on earth as they all exhibited.
He was about five-and-twenty when he first came to astonish
the parishioners. He parted his hair on the centre of his
forehead in the form of a Norman arch, wore a brilliant of
the first water on the fourth finger of his left hand (which he
always applied to his left cheek when he read prayers), and
had a deep sepulchral voice of unusual solemnity. Innumer-
able were the calls made by prudent mammas on our new
curate, and innumerable the invitations with which he was
assailed, and which, to do him justice, he readily accepted.
If his manner in the pulpit had created an impression in his
favour, the sensation was increased tenfold, by his appearance
in private circles. Pews in the immediate vicinity of the
pulpit or reading-desk rose:in value; sittings in the centre
aisle were at a premium: an inch of room in the front row of
the gallery could not be procured for love or money; and
THE CURATE, 7
some people even went so far as to assert, that the three Miss
Browns, who had an obscure family pew just behind the
churchwardens’, were detected, one Sunday, in the free seats
by the communion-table, actually lying in wait for the curate
as he passed to the vestry! He began to preach extem-
pore sermons, and even grave papas caught the infection.
He got out of bed at half-past twelve o’clock one winter’s
night, to half-baptise a washerwoman’s child in a slop-basin,
and the gratitude of the parishioners knew no bounds—the
very churchwardens grew generous, and insisted on the parish
defraying the expense of the watch-box on wheels which the
new curate had ordered for himself, to perform the funeral
service in, in wet weather. He sent three pints of gruel and
a quarter of a pound of tea to a poor woman who had been
brought to bed of four small children, all at once—the parish
were charmed. He got up a subscription for her—the
woman’s fortune was made. He spoke for one hour and
twenty-five minutes, at an anti-slavery meeting at the Goat
and Boots—the enthusiasm was at its height. A proposal
was set on foot for presenting the curate with a piece of plate,
as a mark of esteem for his valuable services rendered to the
parish. The list of subscriptions was filled up in no time;
the contest was, not who should escape the contribution, but
who should be the foremost to subscribe. A splendid silver
inkstand was made, and engraved with an appropriate inscrip-
tion; the curate was invited to a public breakfast, at the
before-mentioned Goat and Boots; the inkstand was presented
in a neat speech by Mr. Gubbins, the ex-churchwarden, and
acknowledged by the curate in terms which drew tears into
the eyes of all present—the very waiters were melted.
One would have supposed that, by this time, the theme of
universal admiration was lifted to the very pinnacle of popu-
larity. No such thing. The curate began to cough; four
fits of coughing one morning between the Litany and the
Epistle, and five in the afternoon service. Here was a dis-
covery —the curate was consumptive. How interestingly
melancholy! If the young ladies were energetic before, theix
sympathy and solicitude now knew no bounds. Such a man
as the curate—such a dear—such a perfect love—to be con-
sumptive! It was too much. Anonymous presents of black-
currant jam, and lozenges, elastic waistcoats, bosom friends,
‘and warm stockings, poured in upon the curate until he was
8 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
as completely fitted out, with winter clothing, as if he were
on the verge of an expedition to the North Pole: verbal
bulletins of the state of his health were circulated throughout
the parish half-a-dozen times a day; and the curate was im
the very zenith of his popularity.
About this period, a change came over the spirit of the
parish. A very quiet, respectable, dozing old gentleman,
who had officiated in our chapel of ease for twelve years
previously, died one fine morning, without having given any
notice whatever of his intention. This circumstance gave rise
to counter-sensation the first; and the arrival of his successor ~
occasioned counter-sensation the second. He was a pale,
thin, cadaverous man, with large black eyes, and long strag-
gling black hair: his dress was slovenly in the extreme, his
manner ungainly, his doctrines startling; in short, he was in
every respect the antipodes of the curate. Crowds of our
female parishioners flocked to hear him: at first, because he
was so odd-looking, then because his face was so expressive,
then because he preached so well; and at last, because they
really thought that, after all, there was something about him
which it was quite impossible to describe. As to the curate,
he was all very well; but certainly, after all, there was no
denying that—that—in short, the curate wasn’t a novelty,
and the other clergyman was. The inconstancy of public
Opinion is proverbial: the congregation migrated one by one.
The curate coughed till he was black in the face—it was in
vain. He respired with difficulty—it was equally ineffectual
in awakening sympathy. Seats are once again to be had in
any part of our parish church, and the chapel-of-ease is going
to be enlarged, as it is crowded to suffocation every Sunday !
The best known and most respected among our parishioners, .
is an old lady, who resided in our parish long before our
naine was registered in the list of baptisms. Our parish is a
suburban one, and the old lady lives in a neat row of houses
in the most airy and pleasant part of it. The house is her
own; and it, and everything about it, except the old lady
herself, who looks a little older than she did ten years ago,
is in just the same state as when the old gentleman was
living. The little front parlour, which is the old lady’s
ordinary sitting-room, is a perfect picture of quiet neatness:
the carpet is covered with brown Holland, the glass and
picture-frames are carefully enveloped in yellow muslin; the
THE OLD LADY. 9
table-covers are never taken off, except when the leaves are
turpentined and bees’waxed, an operation which is regularly
commenced every other morning at half-past nine o’clock—
and the little nicnacs are always arranged in precisely the
same manner. The greater part of these are presents from
little girls whose parents live in the same row; but some of
them, such as the two old fashioned watches (which never
keep the same time, one being always a quarter of an hour
too slow, and the other a quarter of an hour too fast), the
little picture of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold as
they appeared in the Royal Box at Drury-lane Theatre, and
others of the same class, have been in the old lady’s possession
for many years. Here the old lady sits with her spectacles
on, busily engaged in needlework—near the window in
summer time; and if she sees you coming up the steps, and
you happen to be a favourite, she trots out to open the street
door for you before you knock, and as you must be fatigued
after that hot walk, insists on your swallowing two glasses
of sherry before you exert yourself by talking. If you call
in the evening you will find her cheerful, but rather more
serious than usual, with an open Bible on the table, before
her, of which “Sarah,” who is just as neat and methodical as
her mistress, regularly reads two or three chapters in the
parlour aloud.
The old lady sees scarcely any company, except the little
girls before noticed, each of whom has always a regular fixed
day for a periodical tea-drinking with her, to which the child
looks forward as the greatest treat of its existence. She
seldom visits at a greater distance than the next door but one
on either side; and when she drinks tea here, Sarah runs out
first and knocks a double-knock, to prevent the possibility of
her ‘‘ Missis’s”’ catching cold by having to wait at the door.
She is very scrupulous in returning these little invitations,
and when she asks Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so, to meet Mr. and
Mrs. Somebody-else, Sarah and she dust the urn, and the best
china tea-service, and the Pope Joan board; and the visitors
are received in the drawing-room in great state. She has but
few relations, and they are scattered about in different parts
of the country, and she seldom sees them. She has a son in
India, whom she always describes to you as a fine, handsome
fellow—so like the profile of his poor dear father over the
sideboard, but the old lady adds, with a mournful shake of
10 SKETCHES BY BOZ
the head, that he has always been one of -her greatest trials, |
and that indeed he once almost broke her heart; but it
pleased God to enable her to get the better of it, and she
would prefer your never mentioning the subject to her, again.
She has a great number of pensioners; and on Saturday, after
she comes back from market, there is a regular levee of old
men and women in the passage, waiting for their weekly
gratuity. Her name always heads the list of any benevolent
subscriptions, and hers are always the most liberal donations
to the Winter Coal and Soup Distribution Society. She
subscribed twenty pounds towards the erection of an organ in
our parish church, and was so overcome the first Sunday the
children sang to it, that she was obliged to be carried out by
the pew-opener. Her entrance into church on Sunday is
always the signal for a little bustle in the side aisle, occasioned
by a general rise among the poor people, who bow and curtsy
until the pew-opener has ushered the old lady into her accus-
tomed seat, dropped a respectful curtsy, and shut the door:
and the same ceremony is repeated on her leaving church,
when she walks home with the family next door but one, and
talks about the sermon all the way, invariably opening the
conversation by asking the youngest boy where the text was.
Thus, with the annual variation of a trip to some quiet
place on the sea-coast, passes the old lady’s life. It has
rolled on in the same unvarying and benevolent course for
many years now, and must at no distant period be brought to
its final close. She looks forward to its termination, with
calmness and without apprehension. She has everything to
hope and nothing to fear.
A very different personage, but one who has rendered him-
self very conspicuous in our parish, is one of the old lady’s
next door neighbours. He is an old naval officer on half-pay,
and his bluff and unceremonious behaviour disturbs the old
lady’s domestic economy, not a little. In the first place, he
will smoke cigars in the front court, and when he wants some-
thing to drink with them—which is by no means an un-
common circumstance— he lifts up the old lady’s knocker
with his walking-stick, and demands to have a glass of table
ale, handed over the rails. In addition to this cool proceed-
ing, he is a bit of a Jack of all trades, or to use his own
words, ‘‘ A regular Robinson Crusoe ;”’ and nothing delights
him better than to experimentalise on the old lady’s property.
Nee
THE CAPTAIN, a
One morning he got up early, and planted three or four roots
of full-grown marigolds in every bed of her front garden, to
the inconceivable astonishment of the old lady, who actually
thought when she got up and looked out of the window, that
it was some strange eruption which had come out in the
night. Another time he took to pieces the eight-day clock on
the front landing, under pretence of cleaning the works, which
he put together again by some undiscovered process in 80
wonderful a manner, that the large hand has done nothing
but trip up the little one ever since. Then he took to breed-
ing silk-worms, which he would bring in two or three times a
day, in little paper boxes, to show the old lady, generally
dropping a worm or two at every visit. The consequence was,
that one morning a very stout silk-worm was discovered in the
act of walking up-stairs—probably with the view of inquiring
after his friends, for, on further inspection, it appeared that
some of his companions had already found their way to every
room in the house. The old lady went to the sea-side in
despair, and during her absence he completely effaced the
name from her brass door-plate, in his attempts to polish it
with aqua-fortis.
But all this is nothing to his seditious conduct in public
life. He attends every vestry meeting that is held; always
opposes the constituted authorities of the parish, denounces
the profligacy of the churchwardens, contests legal points
against the vestry-clerk, will make the tax-gatherer call for
his money till he wont call any longer, and then he sends it:
finds fault with the sermon every Sunday, says that the
organist ought to be ashamed of himself, offers to‘back him-
self for any amount to sing the psalms better than all the
children put together, male and female; and, in short, con-
ducts himself in the most turbulent and uproarious manner.
The worst of it is, that having a high regard for the old lady,
he wants to make her a convert to his views, and therefore
walks into her little parlour with his newspaper in his hand,
and talks violent politics by the hour. He is a charitable,
open-hearted old fellow at bottom, after all; so, although he
puts the old lady a little out occasionally, they agree very
well in the main, and she laughs as much at each feat of his
handiwork when it is all over, as anybody else.
12 SKETCHES BY BOZ
CHAPTER IIL.
THE FOUR SISTERS,
THE row of houses in which the old lady and her trouble-
some neighbour reside, comprises, beyond all doubt, a greater
number of characters within its circumscribed limits, than all
the rest of the parish put together. As we cannot, con-
sistently with our present plan, however, extend the number
of our parochial sketches beyond six, it will be better, perhaps,
to select the most peculiar, and to introduce them at once
without further preface.
The four Miss Willises, then, settled in our parish thirteen
years ago. It is a melancholy reflection that the old adage,
“time and tide wait for no man,” applies with equal force to
the fairer portion of the creation; and willingly would we
conceal the fact, that even thirteen years ago, the Miss
Willises were far from juvenile. Our duty as faithful
parochial chroniclers, however, is paramount to every other
consideration, and we are bound to state, that thirtcen years
since, the authorities in matrimonial cases considered the
youngest Miss Willis in a very precarious state, while the
eldest sister was positively given over, as being far beyond all
human hope. Well, the Miss Willises took a lease of the
house ; it was fresh painted and papered from top to bottom :
the paint inside was all wainscoted, the marble all cleaned,
the old grates taken down, and register-stoves, you could see
to dress by, put up; four trees were planted in the back
garden, several small baskets of gravel sprinkled over the
front one, vans of elegant furniture arrived, spring blinds
were fitted to the windcws, carpenters who had been em-
ployed in the various preparations, alterations, and repairs,
made confidential statements to the different maid-servants in
the row, relative to the magnificent scale on which the Miss
Willises were commencing; the maid-servants told their
‘‘ Missises,”’ the Missises told their friends, and vague rumours
were circulated throughout the parish, that No. 25, in Gordon-
place, had been taken by four maiden ladies of immense property.
At last, the Miss Willises moved in; and then the “ calle
THE FOUR SISTERS, 13
ing” bevan. The house was the perfection of neatness—so
were the four Miss Willises. Every thing was formal, stiff,
and cold—so were the four Miss Willises. Not a single chair
of the whole set was ever seen out of its place—not a single
Miss Willis of the whole four was ever seen out of hers.
There they always sat, in the same places, doing precisely the
same things at the same hour. The eldest Miss Willis used
to knit, the second to draw, the two others to play duets on
the piano. They seemed to have no separate existence, but
to have made up their minds just to winter through life
together. They were three long graces in drapery, with the
addition, like a school-dinner of another long grace afterwards
—the three fates with another sister—the Siamese twins
multiplied by two. The eldest Miss Willis grew bilious—the
four Miss Willises grew bilious immediately. The eldest
Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious—the four Miss
Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly. Whatever
the eldest did, the others did, and whatever any body else did,
they all disapproved of; and thus they vegetated—living in
Polar harmony among themselves, and, as they sometimes
went out, or saw company ‘“‘in a quiet-way”’ at home,
occasionally iceing the neighbours. Three years passed over
in this way, when an unlooked for and extraordinary pheno-
menon occurred. The Miss Willises showed symptoms of
summer, the frost gradually broke up; a complete thaw took
place. Was it possible? one of the four Miss Willises was
going to be married !
Now, where on earth the husband came from, by what
feelings the poor man could have been actuated, or by what
process of reasoning the four Miss Willises succeeded in
persuading themselves that it was possible for a man to marry
one of them, without marrying them all, are questions too
profound \for us to resolve: certain it is, however, that the
visits of Mr. Robinson (a gentleman in a public office, with a
good salary and a little property of his own, beside) were
received—that the four Miss Willises were courted in due
form by the said Mr. Robinson—that the neighbours were
perfectly frantic in their anxiety to discover which of the four
Miss Willises was the fortunate fair, and that the difficulty
they experienced in solving the problem was not at all
lessened by the announcement of the eldest Miss Willis,
‘We are going to marry Mr. Robinson.”
~
14 SKETCHES BY BOZ
It was very extraordinary. They were so completely
identified, the one with the other, that the curiosity of the
whole row—even of the old lady herself—was roused almost
beyond endurance. The subject was discussed at every little
card-table and tea-drinking. The old gentleman of silk-worm
notoriety did not hesitate to express his decided opinion that
Mr. Robinson was of Eastern descent, and contemplated
marrying the whole family at once; and the row, generally,
shook their heads with considerable gravity, and declared the
business to be very mysterious. They hoped it might all end
well ;—it certainly had a very singular appearance, but still
it would be uncharitable to express any opinion without good
grounds to go upon, and certainly the Miss Willises were
quite old enough to judge for themselves, and to be sure
people ought to know their own business best, and so forth.
At last, one fine morning, at a quarter before eight o’clock,
A.M., two gilass-coaches drove up to the Miss Willises’ door at
which Mr. Robinson had arrived in a cab ten minutes before,
dressed in a light blue coat and double-milled kersey panta-
loons, white neckerchief, pumps, and dress-gloves, his manner
denoting, as appeared from the evidence of the housemaid at
No. 23, who was sweeping the door-steps at the time, a con-
siderable degree of nervous excitement. It was also hastily
reported on the same testimony, that the cook who opened the
door, wore a large white bow of unusual dimensions, in a much
smarter head-dress than the regulation cap to which the Miss
Willises invariably restricted the somewhat excursive taste of
female servants in general.
The intelligence spread rapidly from house to house. It
was quite clear that the eventful morning had at length
arrived; the whole row stationed themselves behind their first
and second floor blinds, and waited the result in breathless
expectation. .
At last the Miss Willises’ door opened; the door of the
first glass-coach did the same. Two gentlemen and a pair of
ladies to correspond—friends of the family, no doubt; up
went the steps, bang went the door, off went the iirst glass-
coach, and up came the second.
The street-door opened again; the excitement of the whole
row increased—Mr. Robinson and the eldest Miss Willis. “I
thought so,” said the lady at No. 19; ‘I always said it was
Miss Willis!’’—-‘‘ Well, I never!” ejaculated the young lady
THE FOUR SISTERS. 15
at No. 18 to the young lady at No. 17—‘ Did you ever,
dear!’’ responded the young lady at No. 17 to the young
lady at No. 18. ‘‘It’s too ridiculous!” exclaimed a spinster
of an uncertain age, at No. 16, joining in the conversation.
But who shall pourtray the astonishment of Gordon-place,
when Mr. Robinson handed in all the Miss Willises, one after
the other, and then squeezed himself into an acute angle of
the glass-coach, which forthwith proceeded at a brisk pace,
after the other glass-coach, which other glass-coach had itself
proceeded, at a brisk pace, in the direction of the parish
church. Who shall depict the perplexity of the clergyman,
when all the Miss Willises knelt down at the communion
table, and repeated the responses incidental to the marriage
service in an audible voice—or who shall describe the con-
fusion which prevailed, when—even after the difficulties thus
occasioned had been adjusted—all the Miss Willises went into
hysterics at the conclusion of the ceremony, until the sacred
edifice resounded with their united wailings!
As the four sisters and Mr. Robinson continued to occupy
the same house after this memorable occasion, and as the
married sister, whoever she was, never appeared in public
without the other three, we are not quite clear that the neigh-
bours ever would have discovered the real Mrs. Robinson, but
for a circumstance of the most gratifying description, which
will happen occasionally in the best-regulated families. Three
quarter-days elapsed, and the row, on whom a new lght
appeared to have been bursting for some time, began to speak
with a sort of implied confidence on the subject, and to wonder
how Mrs. Robinson—the youngest Miss Willis that was—got
on; and servants might be seen running up the steps, about
nine or ten o’clock every morning, with ‘‘ Missis’s compl-
ments, and wishes to know how Mrs. Robinson finds herself
this morning ?’’ And the answer always was, ‘“‘ Mrs. Robin-
son’s compliments, and she’s in very good spirits, and doesn’t
find herself any worse.’”’ The piano was heard no longer, the
knitting-needles were laid aside, drawing was neglected, and
mantua-making and millinery, on the smallest scale imaginable,
appeared to have become the favourite amusement of the whole
family. The parlour wasn’t quite as tidy as it used to be, and
if you called in the morning, you would see lying on a table,
with an old newspaper carelessly thrown over them, two or
three particularly small caps, rather larger than if they had
16 SKETCHES BY BOZ
been made for a moderate-sized doll, with a small piece of lace,
in the shape of a horse-shoe, let in behind: or perhaps a
white robe, not very large in circumference, but very much
out of proportion in point of length, with a little tucker round
the top, and a frill round the bottom; and once when we
called, we saw a long white roller, with a kind of blue margin
down each side, the probable use of which, we were at a loss
to conjecture. Then we fancied that Mr. Dawson, the surgeon,
&c., who displays a large lamp with a different colour in every
pane of glass, at the corner of the row, began to be knocked
up at night oftener than he used to be; and once we were
very much alarmed by hearing a hackney-coach stop at Mrs.
Robinson’s door, at half-past two o’clock in the morning, out
of which there emerged a fat old woman, in a cloak and night-
cap, with a bundle in one hand, and a pair of pattens in the
other, who looked as if she had been suddenly knocked up out
of bed for some very special purpose.
When we got up in the morning we saw that the knocker
was tied up in an old white kid glove; and we, in our
innocence (we were in a state of bachelorship then), wondered
what on earth it all meant, until we heard the eldest Miss
Willis, in propria persona, say, with great dignity, in answer
to the next inquiry, ‘‘ My compliments, and Mrs. Robinson ’s
doing as well as can be expected, and the little girl thrives
wonderfully.’’ And then, in common with the rest of the row,
our curiosity was satisfied, and we began to wonder it had
never occurred to us what the matter was, before.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE,
A erat event has recently occurred in our parish. A
contest of paramount interest has just terminated; a parochial
convulsion has taken place. It has been succeeded by a
glorious triumph, which the country—or at least the parish—
it is all the same—will long remember. We have had an
election ; an election for beadle. The supporters of the old
beadle system have been defeated in their stronghold, and the
THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE. Meas |
advocates of the great new beadle principles Lave achieved a
proud victory.
Our parish, which, like all other parishes, is a little world
of its own, has long been divided into two parties, whose con-
tentions, slumbering for a while, have never failed to burst
forth with unabated vigour, on any occasion on which they
could by possibility be renewed. Watching-rates, lighting-
rates, paving-rates, sewers’-rates, church-rates, poor’s-rates—
all sorts of rates, have been in their turns the subjects of a
grand struggle; and as to questions of patronage, the asperity
and determination with which they have been contested is
scarcely credible. 7
The leader of the official party—the steady advocate of the
churchwardens, and the unflinching supporter of the overseers
—is an old gentleman who lives in our row. He owns some
half-dozen houses in it, and always walks on the opposite side
of the way, so that he may be able to take in a view of the
whole of his property at once. He is a tall, thin, bony man,
with an interrogative nose, and little restless perking eyes,
which appear to have been given him for the sole purpose
of peeping into other people’s affairs with. He is deeply
impressed with the importance of our parish business, and
prides himself, not a little, on his style of addressing the
parishioners in vestry assembled. His views are rather con-
fined than extensive; his principles more narrow than liberal.
He has been heard to declaim very loudly in favour of the
liberty of the press, and advocates the repeal of the stamp
duty on newspapers, because the daily journals who now have
a monopoly of the public, never give verbatim reports of vestry -
meetings. He would not appear egotistical for the world, but at
the same time he must say, that there are speeches—that cele-
brated speech of his own, on the emoluments of the sexton, and
the duties of the office, for instance—which might be communi-
cated to the public, greatly to their improvement and advantage.
‘His great opponent in public life is Captain Purday, the old
naval officer on half-pay, to whom we have already introduced
cur readers. The captain being a determined opponent of the
constituted authorities, whoever they may chance to be, and
our other friend being their steady supporter, with an equal
disregard of their individual merits, it will readily be supposed,
that occasions for their coming into direct collision are neither
few nor far between. They divided the vestry fourteen times
7 0
18 SKETCHES BY BOZ
on a motion for heating the church with warm water instead
of coals; and made speeches about liberty and expenditure,
and prodigality and hot water, which threw the whole parish
into a state of excitement. Then the captain, when he was on
the visiting committee, and his opponent overseer, brought
forward certain distinct and specific charges relative to the
management of the workhouse, boldly expressed his total want
of confidence in the existing authorities, and moved for ‘a
copy of the recipe by which the paupers’ soup was prepared,
together with any documents relating thereto.’ This the
overseer steadily resisted; he fortified himself by precedent,
appealed to the established usage, and declined to produce the
papers, on the ground of the injity that would be done to the
public service, if documents of a strictly private nature, pass-
ing between the master of the workhouse and the cook, were
to be thus dragged to light on the motion of any individual
member of the vestry. The motion was lost by a majority of
two; and then the captain, who never allows himself to be
defeated, moved for a committee of inquiry into the whole
subject. The affair grew serious: the question was discussed
at meeting after meeting, and vestry after vestry; speeches
were made, attacks repudiated, personal defiances exchanged,
explanations received, and the greatest excitement prevailed,
until at last, just as the question was going to be finally
decided, the vestry found that somehow or other, they had
become entangled in a point of form, from which it was
impossible to escape with propriety. So, the motion was
dropped, and every body looked extremely important, and
seemed quite satisfied with the meritorious nature of the
whole proceeding.
This was the state of affairs in our parish a week or two
since, when Simmons, the beadle, suddenly died. The
lamented deceased had over-exerted himself, a day or two
previously, in conveying an aged female, highly intoxicated,
to the strong room of the workhouse. The excitement thus
occasioned, added to a severe cold, which this indefatigable
officer had caught in his capacity of director of the parish
engine, by anadvertently playing over himself instead of a fire,
proved too much for a constitution already enfeeblel by age;
and the intelligence was conveyed to the Board one evening
that Simmons had died, and left his respects.
The breath was scarcely out of the body of the deveased
THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE, Ris gs 19
functionary, when the field was filled with competitors for the
vacant office, each of whom rested his claims to public support,
entirely on the number and extent of his family, as if the
office of beadle were originally instituted as an encouragement
for the propagation of the human species. ‘‘ Bung for Beadle.
Five small children ! ’’—‘‘ Hopkins for Beadle. Seven small
children !!’’—‘‘ Timkins for Beadle. Nine small children!!!”
Such were the placards in large black letters on a white
zround, which were plentifully pasted on the walls, and
posted in the windows of the principal shops. Timkins’s
success was considered certain: several mothers of families
half promised their votes, and the nine small children would
have run over the course, but for the production of another
placard, announcing the appearance of a still more meritorious
candidate. ‘‘ Spruggins for Beadle. Ten small children (two
of them twins), and a wife!!!” There was no resisting this;
ten small children would have been almost irresistible in
themselves, without the twins, but the touching parenthesis
about that interesting production of nature, and the still more
touching allusion to Mrs. Spruggins, must ensure success.
Spruggins was the favourite at once, and the appearance of his
lady, as she went about to solicit votes (which encouraged
confident hopes of a still further addition to the house of
Spruggins at no remote period), increased the general pre-
possession in his favour. The other candidates, Bung alone
excepted, resigned in despair. The day of election was fixed ;
and the canvass proceeded with briskness and perseverance on
both sides.
The members of the vestry could not be supposed to escape
the contagious excitement inseparable from the occasion. The
majority of the lady inhabitants of the parish declared at once
for Spruggins; and the quondam overseer took the same side,
on the ground that men with large families always had been
elected to the office, and that although he must admit, that, in
other respects, Spruggins was the least-qualified candidate of
the two, still it was an old practice, and he saw no reason why
an old practice should be departed from. This was enough
for the captain. He immediately sided with Bung, canvassed
for him personally in all directions, wrote squibs on Spruggins,
and got his butcher to skewer them up on conspicuous joints in
his shop-front; frightened his neighbour, the old lady, into
a palpitation of the heart, by his awful denunciations of
Ca
20 SKETCHES BY BOZ
Spruggins’s party; and bounced in and out, and up and down,
and backwards and forwards, until all the sober inhabitants
of the parish thought it inevitable that he must die of a brain
fever, long before the election began.
The day of election arrived. It was no longer an individual
struggle, but a party contest between the ins and outs. The
question was, whether the withering influence of the overseers,
the domination of the churchwardens, and the blighting des-
potism of the vestry-clerk, should be allowed to render the
election of beadle a form—a nullity: whether they should
impose a vestry-elected beadle on the parish, to do their
bidding and forward their views, or whether the parishioners,
fearlessly asserting their undoubted rights, should elect an
independent beadle of their own.
The nomination was fixed to take place in the vestry, but so
great was the throng of anxious spectators, that it was found
necessary to adjourn to the church, where the ceremony com-
menced with due solemnity. The appearance of the church-
wardens and overseers, and the ex-churchwardens, and
ex-overseers, with Spruggins in the rear, excited general
attention... Spruggins was a little thin man, in rusty black,
with a long pale face, and a. countenance expressive of care
and fatigue, which might either be attributed to the extent of
his family or the anxiety of his feelings. His opponent
appeared in a cast-off coat of the captain’s—a blue coat with
bright buttons: white trousers, and that description of shoes
familiarly known by the appellation of “high-lows.’’ There
was a serenity in the open countenance of Bung—a kind of
moral:dignity in his confident air—an “I wish you may get
it”’ sort of expression in his eye—which infused animation
into his supporters, and evidently dispirited his opponents. -
The ex-churchwarden rose to propose Thomas Spruggins for
beadle. . He had known him long. He had had his eye upon
him closely for years; he had watched him with twofold
vigilance for months. (A parishioner here suggested that this
might be termed ‘‘ taking a double sight,’’ but the observation
was drowned in loud cries of ‘“ Order!”) He would repeat
that he had had his eye upon him for years, and this he would
say, that a more well-conducted, a more well-behaved, a more
sober, a more quiet man, with a more well-regulated mind he
had never met with. A man with a larger family he had
never known (cheers). The parish required a man who could
{Aa a i eee
' TREE
. a (n pol parr lS Tp nA nll af {flt om
Uporye Grits! vamnlfes * — =
a
THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE. 21
be depended on (‘‘ Hear!’’ from the Spruggins side, answered
by ironical cheers from the Bung party). Such a man he now
proposed (‘‘No,” ‘“ Yes”). He would not allude to indi-
viduals (the ex-churchwarden continued, in the celebrated
negative style adopted by great speakers). He would not
advert to a gentleman who had once held a high rank in the
service of his majesty; he would not say, that that gentleman
was no gentleman; he would not assert, that that man was no
man; he would not say, that he was a turbulent parishioner ;
he would not say, that he had grossly misbehaved himself, not
only on this, but on all former occasions; he would not say,
that he was one of those discontented and treasonable spirits,
who carried confusion and disorder wherever they went; he
would not say, that he harboured in his heart envy, and hatred,
and malice, and all uncharitableness. No! He wished to
have everything comfortable and pleasant, and therefore, he
would say—nothing about him (cheers).
The captain replied in a similar parliamentary style. He
would not say, he was astonished at the speech they had just
heard; he would not say, he was disgusted (cheers). He
would not retort the epithets which had been hurled against
him (renewed cheering); he would not allude to men once in
office, but now happily out of it, who had mismanaged the
workhouse, ground the paupers, diluted the beer, slack-baked
the bread, boned the meat, heightened the work, and lowered
the soup (tremendous cheers). He would not ask what such
men deserved (a voice ‘‘ Nothing a-day, and find themselves!’’).
He would not say, that one burst of general indignation should
drive them from the parish they polluted with their presence
(‘Give it him!”’). He would not allude to the unfortunate
man who had been proposed—he would not say, as the vestry’s
tool, but as Beadle. He would not advert to that individual’s
family; he would not say, that nine children, twins, and a .
wife, were very bad examples for pauper imitation (loud >
cheers). He would not advert in detail to the qualifications
of Bung. The man stood before him, and he would not say
in his presence, what he might be disposed to say of him if
he were absent. (Here Mr. Bung telegraphed to a friend
tear him, under cover of his hat, by contracting his left eye,
und applying his right thumb to the tip of his nose.) It had
been objected to Bung that he had only five children (‘‘ Hear,
hear!” from the opposition). Well; he had yet to learn that
22 SKETCHES BY BOZ
the legislature had affixed any precise amount of infantine
qualification to the office of beadle; but taking it for granted
that an extensive family were a great requisite, he entreated
them to look to facts, and compare data, about which there
could be no mistake. Bung was 35 years of age. Spruggins
—of whom he wished to speak with all possible respect
—was 50. Was it not more than possible—was it not very
probable—that by the time Bung attained the latter age,
he might see around him a family, even exceeding in number
and extent that to which Spruggins at present laid claim
(deafening cheers and waving of handkerchiefs)? The captain
concluded, amidst loud applause, by calling upon the parishi-
oners to sound the tocsin, rush to the poll, free themselves
from dictation, or be slaves for ever.
On the following day the polling began, and we never he
had such a bustle in our parish since we got up our famous
anti-slavery petition, which was such an important one, that
the House of Commons ordered it to be printed, on the motion
of the member for the district. The captain engaged two
hackney-coaches and a cab for Bung’s people—the cab for the
drunken voters, and the two coaches for the old ladies, the
greater portion of whom, owing to the captain’s impetuosity,
were driven up to the poll and home again, before they
recovered from their flurry sufficiently to know, with any
degree of clearness, what they had been doing. The opposite
party wholly neglected these precautions, and the consequence
was, that a great many ladies who were walking leisurely up
to the church—for it was a very hot day—to vote for Sprug-
gins, were artfully decoyed into the coaches, and voted for
Bung. The captain’s arguments, too, had produced consider-
able effect: the attempted influence of the vestry produced a
greater. A threat of exclusive dealing” was clearly established
against the vestry-clerk—a case of heartless and profligate
atrocity. It appeared that the delinquent had been in the
habit of purchasing six penn’orth of muffins, weekly, from ap
old woman who rents a small house in the parish, and resides
among the original settlers; on her last weekly visit, a
message was conveyed to her through the medium of the cook,
couched in mysterious terms, but indicating with sufficient
clearness, that the vestry-clerk’s appetite for muffins, in future,
depended entirely on her vote on the beadleship. This was
sufficient: the stream had been turning previously, and the
SS
(LT
Corry @ Crwsks hams ha
THE BROKER'S MAN, 23
impulse thus administered directed its final course. The Bung
party ordered one pbabhong s- worth of muffins weekly for the
remainder of the old woman’s natural life; the parishioners
were loud in their exclamations; and the va: of Spruggins
was sealed.
It was in vain that the twins were exhibited i in dresses of
the same pattern, and night-caps to match, at the church
door: the boy in’ Mrs. Spruggins’s right arm, and the girl in
her left—even’ Mrs. Spruggins herself failed to’ be an object
of sympathy any longer. The majority attained by Bung on
the gross poll was four hundred and: twenty-eight, and the
cause of the parishioners triumphed.
CHAPTER V.
THE BROKER’S MAN,
THE excitement of the late election has subsided, and our.
parish being once again restored: to a state of comparative.
tranquillity, we are enabled to devote our attention to those
parishioners who take little share in our party contests or in
the turmoil and bustle of public life. And we feel sincere
pleasure in acknowledging here, that in. collecting materials
for this task we have been are assisted. by Mr. Bung him-
self, who has imposed on usa debt of obligation high we
fear we can never repay. The life of this gentleman has been
one of a very chequered description: he has undergone trans-
itions—not from grave to gay, for he never was grave—not
from lively to severe, for severity forms no part of his
disposition ; his fluctuations have been between poverty in the
extreme, and poverty modified, or, to use his own emphatic
language, ‘‘ between nothing to eat and just half enough.”
He is not, as he forcibly remarks, ‘‘ One of those fortunate
men who, if they were to dive under one side of a barge
stark-naked, would come up on the other with a new suit of
clothes on, and a ticket for soup in the waistcoat-pocket :”
neither is he one of those, whose spirit has been broken
beyond redemption by misfortune and want. He is just one
of the careless, good-for-nothing, happy fellows, who float,
24 SKETCHES BY BOZ
cork-like on the surface, for the world to play at hockey with:
knocked here, and there, and every where: now to the right,
then to the left, again up in the air, and anon to the bottom,
but always re-appearing and bounding with the stream
buoyantly and merrily along. Some few months before he
was prevailed upon to stand a contested election for the office
of beadle, necessity attached him to the service of a broker;
and on the opportunities he here acquired of ascertaining the
condition of most of the poorer inhabitants of the parish, his
patron, the captain, first grounded his claims to public support.
Chance threw the man in our way a short time since. We
were, in the first instance, attracted by his prepossessing
impudence at the election; we were not surprised, on further
acquaintance, to find him a shrewd knowing fellow, with no
inconsiderable power of observation; and, after conversing ©
with him a little, were somewhat struck (as we dare say our
readers have frequently been in other cases) with the power
some men seem to have, not only of sympathising with, but
to all appearance of understanding feelings to which they
themselves are entire strangers. We had been expressing te
the new functionary our surprise that he should ever have
served in the capacity to which we have just adverted, when
we gradually led him into one or two professional anecdotes.
As we are induced to think, on reflection, that they will tell
better in nearly his own words, than with any attempted
embellishments of ours, we will at once entitle them
MR. BUNG’S NARRATIVE.
“It’s very true, as you say, sir,’ Mr. Bung commenced,
“that a broker’s man’s is not a life to be envied; and in
course you know as well as I do, though you don’t say it, that
people hate and scout ’em because they ’re the ministers of
wretchedness, like, to poor people. But what could I do, sir?
The thing was no worse because I did it, instead of somebody
else; and if putting me in possession of a house would put
me in possession of three and sixpence a day, and levying a
distress on another man’s goods would relieve my distress and
that of my family, it can’t be expected but what I’d take the
job and go through with it. I never liked it, God knows; I
always looked out for something else, and the moment I got
other work to do, I left it. If there is anything wrong in
THE BROKER’S MAN 25
being the agent in such matters—not the principal, mind you
—JI’m sure the business, to a beginner like I was, at all
events, carries its own punishment along with it. I wished
again and again that the people would only blow me up, or
pitch into me—that I wouldn’t have minded, it’s all in my
way; but it’s the being shut up by yourself in one room for
five days, without so much-as an old newspaper to look at, or
anything to see out o’ the winder but the roofs and chimneys
at the back of the house, or anything to listen to, but the
ticking, perhaps, of an old Dutch clock, the sobbing of the
missis, now and then, the low talking of friends in the next
room, who speak in whispers, lest ‘the man’ should overhear
them, or perhaps the occasional opening of the door, as a
child peeps in to look at you, and then runs half-frightened
away—lIt’s all this, that makes you feel sneaking somehow,
and ashamed of yourself; and then, if it’s winter time, they ©
just give you fire enough to make you think you’d like more,
and bring in your grub asif they wished it ’ud choke you—
as I dare say they do, for the matter of that, most heartily.
If they ’re very civil, they make you up a bed in the room-at
night, and if they don’t, your master sends one in for you;
but there you are, without being washed or shaved all the
time, shunned by everybody, and spoken to by no one, unless
some one comes in at dinner time, and asks you whether you
want any more, in a tone as much as to say ‘I hope you
don’t,’ or, in the evening, to inquire whether you wouldn’t
rather have a candle, after you’ve been sitting in the dark half
the night. When I was left in this way, I used to sit, think,
think, thinking, till I felt as lonesome as a kitten in a wash-
house copper with the lid on; but I believe the old brokers’
men who are regularly trained to it, never think at all. I have
heard some on ’em say, indeed, that they don’t know how!
““T put in a good many distresses in my time (continued
Mr. Bung), and in course I wasn’t long in finding, that some
people are not as much to be pitied as others are, and that
people with good incomes who get into difficulties, which they
keep patching up day after day, and week after week, get so
used to these sort of things in time, that at last they come
scarcely to feel them at all. I remember the very first place
I was put in possession of, was a gentleman’s house in this
parish here, that every body would suppose couldn’t help
having money if he tried. I went with old Fixem, my old
26 SKETCHES BY BOZ
master, bout half arter eight in the morning; rang the area-
bell; servant in livery opened the door: ‘Governor at home?’
—‘ Yes, he is,’ says the man; ‘but he’s breakfasting just
now. ‘Never mind,’ says Fixem, ‘just you tell him there’s
a gentleman here, as wants to speak to him partickler.’ So.
the servant he opens his eyes, and stares about him always—
looking for the gentleman as it struck me, for [ don’t think
anybody but a man «4s was stone-blind would mistake Fixem
for one; and as for me, I was as seedy as a cheap cowcumber,
Hows’ever, he turns round, and goes to the breakfast-parlour,
which was a little snug sort of room at the end of the passage,
and Fixem (as we always did in that profession), without
waiting to be announced, walks in arter him, and before the
servant could get out—‘ Please, sir, here’s a man as wants to
speak to you,’ looks in at the door as familiar and pleasant as
“may be. ‘Who the devil are you, and how dare you walk
into a gentleman’s house without leave?’ says the master, as
fierce as a bull in fits. ‘My name,’ says Fixem, winking to
the master to send the servant away, and putting the warrant
into his hands folded up like a note, ‘My name’s Smith,’ says
he, ‘and I called from Johnson’s about that business of
Thompson’s’—‘ Oh,’ says the other, quite down on him
directly, ‘How is Thompson?’ says he; ‘ Pray sit down, Mr.
Smith: John, leave the room.’ Out went the servant; and
the gentleman and Fixem looked at one another till they
couldn’t look any longer, and then they varied the amusements
by looking at me, who had been standing on the mat all this
time. ‘Hundred and fifty pounds, I see,’ said the gentleman
at last. ‘Hundred and fifty pound,’ said Fixem, ‘besides cost
of levy, sheriff’s poundage, and all other incidental expenses.’
—‘ Um,’ says the gentleman, ‘I shan’t be able to settle this
before to-morrow afternoon.’—‘ Very sorry; but I shall be
obliged to leave my man here till then,’ replies Fixem,
pretending to look very miserable over it. ‘That’s very
unfort nate,’ says the gentleman, ‘for I have got a large party
here to-night, and I’m ruined if those fellows of mine get an
inkling of the: matter—just step here, Mr. Smith,’ says he,
after a short pause. So Fixem walks with him up to the
window, and after a good deal of whispering, and a little
chinking of suverins, and looking at me, he comes back and
says, ‘ bung, you’re a handy fellow, and very honest I know.
Chis gentleman wants an assistant to clean the plate and wait
THE BROKER'S MAN. 27
at table to-day, and if you’re not particularly engaged,’ says
old Fixem, grinning like mad, and shoving a couple of suverins
into my hand, ‘he’ll be very glad to avail himself of your
services.’ Well, I laughed: and the gentleman laughed, and
we all laughed; and I went home and cleaned myself, leaving
Fixem there, and when I went back, Fixem went away, and
I polished up the plate, and waited at table, and gammoned
the servants, and nobody had the least idea I was in possession,
though it very nearly came out after all; for one of the last
gentlemen who remained, came down stairs into the hall
where I was sitting pretty late at night, and putting half-a-
crown into my hand, says, ‘Here my man,’ says he, ‘run and
get me a coach, will you?’ I thought it was a do, to get me
out of the house, and was just going to say so, sulkily enough,
when the gentleman (who was up to everything) came running
down stairs, as if he was in great anxiety. ‘ Bung,’ says he,
pretending to be in a consuming passion. ‘Sir,’ says I.
‘Why the devil an’t you looking after that plate?’—‘I was
just going to send him for a coach for me,’ says the other
gentleman. ‘And I was just a going to say,’ says I—‘ Any
body else, my dear fellow,’ interrupts the master of the house,
pushing me down the passage to get out of the way—‘ any
body else; but I have put this man in possession of all the
plate and valuables, and I cannot allow him on any con-
sideration whatever, to leave the house. Bung, you scoundrel,
go and count those forks in the breakfast-parlour instantly.’
You may be sure I went laughing pretty hearty when I found
it was all right. The money was paid next day, with the
addition of something else for myself, and that was the best
job that I (and I suspect old Fixem too) ever got in that line.
‘‘ But this is the bright side of the picture, sir, after all,”
resumed Mr. Bung, laying aside the knowing look, and flash
air, with which he had repeated the previous anecdote—‘“‘and
I’m sorry to say, it’s the side one sees very, very, seldom, in
comparison with the dark one. ‘The civility which money will
purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none; and
there ’s a consolation even in being able to patch up one
difficulty, to make way for another, to which very poor people
are strangers. Iwas once put into a house down George’s-
yard—that little dirty court at the back of the gas-works;
and I never shall forget the misery of them people, dear me!
Ut was a distress for half a year’s rent—two pound ten I think
waa |
28 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
There was only two rooms in the house, and as there was no
passage, the lodgers up-stairs always went through the room
of the people of the house, as they passed in and out; and
every time they did so—which, on the average, was about
four times every quarter of an hour—they blowed up quite
frightful: for their things had been seized too, and included
in the inventory. There was a little piece of inclosed dust in
front of the house, with a cinder-path leading up to the door,
and an open rain-water butt on one side. A dirty striped
curtain, on a very slack string, hung in the window, and a
little triangular bit of broken looking-glass rested on the sill
inside. I suppose it was meant for the people’s use, but their
appearance was so wretched, and so miserable, that I’m certain
they never could have plucked up courage to look themselves
in the face a second time, if they survived the fright of doing
so once. There was two or three chairs, that might have
been worth, in their best days, from eightpence to a shilling
a-piece; a small deal table, an old corner cupboard with
nothing in it, and one of those bedsteads which turn up half
way, and leave the bottom legs sticking out for you to knock
your head against, or hang your hat upon; no bed, no
bedding. There was an old sack, by way of rug, before the
fire-place, and four or five children were grovelling about,
among the sand on the floor. The execution was only put in
to get ’em out of the house, for there was nothing to take to
pay the expenses; and here I stopped for three days, though
that was a mere form too: for, in course, I knew, and we all
knew, they could never pay the money. In one of the chairs,
by the side of the place where the fire ought to have been,
was an old ’ooman—the ugliest and dirtiest I ever see—who
sat rocking herself backwards and forwards, backwards and
forwards, without once stopping, except for an instant now
and then, to clasp together the withered hands which, with
these exceptions, she kept constantly rubbing upon her knees,
just raising and depressing her fingers convulsively, in time
to the rocking of the chair. On the other side sat the mother
with an infant in her arms, which cried till it cried itself to
sleep, and when it woke, cried till it cried itself off again.
The old ’ooman’s voice I never heard: she seemed completely
stupified ; and as to the mother’s, it would have been better
if she had heen so too, fur misery had changed her to a devil
If you had heard how she cursed the little naked children ag
THE BROKER'S MAN. 29
was rolling on the floor, and seen how savagely she struck the
infant when it cried with hunger, you’d have shuddered as
much as I did. There they remained all the time: the
children ate a morsel of bread once or twice, and I gave ’em
best part of the dinners my missis brought me, but the woman
ate nothing; they never even laid on the bedstead, nor was
the room swept or cleaned all the time. The neighbours were
all too poor themselves to take any notice of ’em, but from
what I could make out from the abuse of the woman up-
stairs, it seemed the husband had been transported a few weeks
before. When the time was up, the landlord and old Fixem
too, got rather frightened about the family, and so they made
a stir about it, and had ’em taken to the workhouse. They
sent the sick couch for the old ’ooman, and Simmons took
the children away at night. The old ’ooman went into the
infirmary, and very soon died. The children are all in the
house to this day, and very comfortable they are in com-
parison. As to the mother, there was no taming her at all.
She had been a quiet, hard-working woman, I believe, but
her misery had actually drove her wild; so after she had -
been sent to the house of correction half-a-dozen times, for
throwing inkstands at the overseers, blaspheming the church-
wardens, and smashing everybody as come near her, she burst
a blood-vessel one mornin’, and died too; and a happy release
it was, both for herself and the old paupers, male and female,
which she used to tip over in all directions, as if they were so
many skittles, and she the ball.
‘* Now this was bad enough,” resumed Mr. Bung, taking a
half-step towards the door, as if to intimate that he had nearly
concluded. ‘‘ This was bad enough, but there was a sort of
quiet misery—if you understand wltat I mean by that, sir—
about a lady at one house I was put into, as touched me a
good deal more. It doesn’t matter where it was exactly:
indeed, I’d rather not say, but it was the same sort o’ job.
I went with Fixem in the usual way—there was a year’s rent
in arrear; a very small servant-girl opened the door, and
three or four fine-looking little children was in the front
parlour we were shown into, which was very clean, but very
scantily furnished, much like the children themselves. ‘Bung,’
says Fixem to me, in a low voice, when we were left alone for
@ minute, ‘1 know something about this here family, and my
Opinion is, it’s no go.’ ‘Do you think they can’t settle?’
80 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
says I, quite anxiously; for I liked the looks of them children.
Fixem shook his head, and was just about to reply, when the
door opened, and in came a lady, as white as ever I see any
one in my days, except about the eyes, which were red with
crying. She walked in, as firm as I could have done; shut
the door carefully after her, and sat herself down with a face
as composed as if it was made of stone. ‘ What is the matter,
gentlemen ?’ says she, in a surprisin’ steady voice. ‘Js this an
execution ? ’—‘ It is, mum,’ says Fixem. The lady looked at
him as steady as ever: she didn’t seem to have understood
him. ‘Itis, mum,’ says Fixem again; ‘this is my warrant
of distress, mum,’ says he, handing it over as polite as if it
was a newspaper which had been bespoke arter the next
gentleman.
““The lady’s lip trembled as she took the printed paper.
She cast her eye over it, and old Fixem began to explain the
form, but I saw she wasn’t reading it, plain enough, poor
thing. ‘Oh, my God!’ says she, suddenly a-bursting out
crying, letting the warrant fall, and hiding her face in her
hands. ‘Oh, my God! what will become of us!’ The noise
she made, brought in a young lady of about nineteen or
twenty, who, I suppose, had been a-listening at the door, and
who had got a little boy in her arms: she sat him down in
the lady’s lap, without speaking, and she hugged the poor
little fellow to her bosom, and cried over him, ’till even old
Fixem put on his blue spectacles to hide the two tears that
was a-trickling down, one on each side of his dirty face.
‘ Now, dear ma,’ says the young lady, ‘ you know how muck
you have borne. For all our sakes—for pa’s sake,’ says she,
‘don’t give way to this !’—-‘ No, no, I won’t!’ says the lady,
gathering herself up hastily, and drying her eyes; ‘I am
very foolish, but I’m better now—much better.’ And then
she roused herself up, went with us into every room while we
took the inventory, opened all the drawers of her own accord,
sorted the children’s little clothes to make the work easier;
and, except doing every thing in a strange sort of hurry,
seemed as calm and composed as if nothing had happened.
When we came down stairs again, she hesitated a minute or
two, and at last says, ‘ Gentlemen,’ says she, ‘I am afraid I
have done wrong, and perhaps it may bring you into trouble,
I secreted just now,’ she says, ‘ the only trinket I have left in
the world—here it is.’ So she lays down on the table, a
THE BROKER'S MAN, 81
little miniature mounted in gold. ‘It’s a miniature,’ she
says, ‘of my poor dear father! [I little thought once, that I
should ever thank God for depriving me of the original; but
I do, and have done for years back, most fervently. Take it
away, sir,’ she says, ‘it’s a face that never turned from me ~
in sickness or distress, and I can hardly bear to turn from it
now, when, God knows, I suffer both in no ordinary degree.’
I couldn’t say nothing, but I raised my head from the
inventory which I was filling up, and looked at Fixem; the
old fellow nodded to me significantly, so I ran my pen through
the ‘ Mint’ I had just written, and left the miniature on the
table.
“Well, sir, to make short of a long story, I was left in
possession, and in possession I remained; and though I was
an ignorant man, and the master of the house a clever one,
I saw what he never did, but what he would give worlds now
Gif he had ’em) to have seen in time. I saw, sir, that his
wife was wasting away, beneath cares of which she never
complained, and griefs she never told. I saw that she was
dying before his eyes; I knew that one exertion from him
might have saved her, but he never made it. I don’t blame
him ; I don’t think he could rouse himself. She had so long
anticipated all his wishes, and acted for him, that he was a
fost man when left to himself. I used to think when I caught
sight of her, in the clothes she used to wear, which looked
shabby even upon her, and would have been scarcely decent
on any one else, that if I was a gentleman it would wring my
very heart to see the woman that was a smart and merry girl
when I courted her, so altered through her love for me.
Bitter cold and damp weather it was, yet, though her dress
was thin, and her shoes none of the best, during the whola
three days, from morning to night, she was out of doors
running about to try and raise the money. The money was
raised, and the execution was paid out. The whole family
crowded into the room where I was, when the money arrived.
The father was quite happy as the inconvenience was removed
—I daresay he didn’t know how; the children looked merry
and cheerful again; the eldest girl was bustling about, making
preparations for the first comfortable meal they had had since
she distress was put in; and the mother looked pleased to see
them all so. But if ever I saw death in a woman’s face, J
saw it iu hers that night.
$2 SKETCHES BY BOZ
““T was right, sir,” continued Mr. Bung, hurriedly pass-
ing his coat-sleeve over his face, “the family grew more
prosperous, and good fortune arrived. But it was too
late. Those children are motherless now, and their father
would give up all he has since gained—house, home, goods,
money: all that he has, or ever can have, to restore the wife
he has lost.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE LADIES’ SOCIETIES,
Ovr Parish is very prolific in ladies’ charitable institutions,
In winter, when wet feet are common and colds not scarce,
we have the ladies’ soup distribution society, the ladies’ coal
distribution society, and the ladies’ blanket distribution
society ; in summer, when stone fruits flourish and stomach
aches prevail, we have the ladies’ dispensary, and the ladies’
sick visitation committee; and all the year round we have the
ladies’ child’s examination society, the ladies’ bible and
prayer-book circulation society, and the ladies’ childbed-linen
monthly loan society. The two latter are decidedly the most
important ; whether they are productive of more benefit than
the rest, is not for us to say, but we can take upon ourselves
to affirm, with the utmost solemnity, that they create a greater
stir, and more bustle than all the others put together.
We should be disposed to affirm, on the first blush of the
matter, that the bible and prayer-beok society is not so
popular as the childbed-linen society; the bible and prayer-
book society has, however, considerably increased in import-
ance within the last year or two, having derived some
adventitious aid from the factious opposition of the child’s
examination society; which factious opposition originated in
manner following:—When the young curate was popular,
and all the unmarried ladies in the parish took a serious turn,
the charity children all at once became objects of peculiar and
especial interest. The three Miss Browns (enthusiastic
admirers of the curate) taught, and exercised, and examined
and re-examined the unfortunate children, until the boys
THE LADIES’ SOCIETIES, 33
grew pale, and the girls consumptive with study and
fatigue. The three Miss Browns stood it out very well,
because they relieved each other; but the children, having
no relief at all, exhibited decided symptoms of weariness
and care. The unthinking part of the parishioners laughed
at all this, but the more reflective portion of the inhabitants
' abstained from expressing any opinion on the subject until
that of the curate had been clearly ascertained.
The opportunity was not long wanting. The curate
preached a charity sermon on behalf of the charity school,
-and ia the charity sermon aforesaid, expatiated in glowing
terms on the praiseworthy and indefatigable exertions of
certain estimable individuals. Sobs were heard to issue
from the three Miss Browns’ pew; the pew opener of the
division was seen to hurry down the centre aisle to the vestry
door, and to return immediately, bearing a glass of water in
her hand. A low moaning ensued; two more pew-openers
rusied to the spot, and the three Miss Browns, each supported
by a pew-opener, were led out of the church, and led in again
after the lapse of five minutes with white pocket-handkerchiefs
to their eyes, as if they had been attending a funeral in the
churchyard adjoining. If any doubt had for a moment
existed, as to whom the allusion was intended to apply, it was
at once removed. The wish to enlighten the charity children
became universal, and the three Miss Browns were unani-
mously besought to divide the school into classes, and to
assign each class to the superintendence of two young ladies.
A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a little patro-
nage is more so; the three Miss Browns appointed all the
old maids, and carefully excluded the young ones. Maiden
aunts triumphed, mammas were reduced to the lowest depth
of despair, and there is no telling in what act of violence the
general indignation against the three Miss Browns might
have vented itself, had not a perfectly providential occur-
rence changed the tide of public feeling. Mrs. Johnson
Parker, the mother of seven extremely fine girls—all un-
married—hastily reported to several other mammas of several.
other unmarried families, that five old men, six old women, and
children innumerable, in the free seats near her pew, were in
the habit of coming to church every Sunday, without either
bible or prayer-book Was this to be borne in a civilised
souuiry? Could such things be tolerated in a Christian
“a SKETCHES BY BOZ.
land? Never? A ladies’ bible and prayer-book distribution
society was instantly formed: president, Mrs. Johnson Parker;
treasurers, auditors, and secretary, the Misses Johnson Parker:
subscriptions were entered into, books were bought, all the
free-seat people provided therewith, and when the first lesson
was given out, on the first Sunday succeeding these events,
there was such a dropping of books, and rustling of leaves,
that it was morally impossible to hear one word of the service
for five minutes afterwards.
The three Miss Browns, and their party, saw the approach-
ing danger, and endeavoured: to avert it by ridicule and
sarcasm. Neither the old men nor the old women could read
their books now they had got them, said the three Miss
Browns. Never mind; they could learn, replied Mrs. Johnson
Parker. The children could'nt read either, suggested the three
Miss Browns. No matter; they could be taught, retorted
Mrs. Johnson Parker. A balance of parties took place. The
Miss Browns publicly examined—popular feeling inclined to
the child’s examination society. The Miss Johnson Parkers
publicly distributed—a re-action took place in favour of the
prayer-book distribution. A feather would have turned the
scale, and a feather did turn it. A missionary returned from
the West Indies; he was to be presented to the Dissenters’
Missionary Society on his marriage with a wealthy widow.
Overtures were made to the Dissenters by the Johnson
Parkers. Their object was the same, and why not have a
joint meeting of the two societies? The proposition was
accepted. The meeting was duly heralded by public
announcement, and the room was crowded to suffocation.
The missionary appeared on the platform; he was hailed with
enthusiasm. He repeated a dialogue he had heard between
' two negroes, behind a hedge, on the subject of distribution
Societies; the approbation was tumultuous. He gave an
imitation of the two negroes in broken English; the roof
was rent with applause. From that period we date (with one
trifling exception) a daily increase in the popularity of the
distribution society, and an increase of popularity, which the
feeble and impotent opposition of the examination party, has
only tended to augment.
Now, the great points about the childbed-linen monthly
loan society are, that it is less dependent on the fluctuations of
public opinion than either the distribution or the child’s
THE LADIES’ SOCIETIES. 85
examination; and that, come what may, there is never any
lack of objects on which to exercise its benevolence. Our |
parish is a very populous one, and, if anything, contributes,
we should be disposed to say, rather more than its due share
to the aggregate amount of births in the metropolis and its
environs. The consequence is, that the monthly loan society
flourishes, and invests its ber with a most enviable amount
of bustling patronage. The society (whose only notion of
dividing time, would appear to be its allotment into months)
holds monthly tea-drinkings, at which the monthly report is
received, a secretary elected for the month ensuing, and such
of the monthly boxes as may not happen to be out on Joan for
the month, carefully examined.
We were never present at one of these meetings, from all
of which it is scarcely necessary to say, gentlemen are carefully
excluded ; but Mr. Bung has been called before the board
once or twice, and we have his authority for stating, that its
proceedings are conducted with great order and regularity:
not more than four members being allowed to speak at one
time on any pretence whatever. The regular committee is
composed exclusively of married ladies, but a vast number of
young unmarried ladies of from eighteen to twenty-five years
of age, respectively, are admitted as honorary members, partly
because they are very useful in replenishing the boxes,
and visiting the confined; partly because it is highly
desirable that they should be initiated, at an early period,
into the more serious and matronly duties of after-life;
and partly because, prudent mammas have not unfrequently
been known to turn this circumstance to wonderfully good
account in matrimonial speculations.
In addition to the loan of the monthly boxes (which are
always painted blue, with the name of the society in large -
white letters on the lid), the society dispense occasional grants
of beef-tea, and a composition of warm beer, spice, eggs, and
sugar, commonly known by the name of “caudle,” to its
patients. And here again the services of the honorary
members are called into requisition, and most cheerfully
conceded. Deputations of twos or threes are sent out to visit
the patients, and on these occasions there is such a tasting of
caudle and beef-tea, such a stirring about of little messes in
tiny saucepans on the hob, such a dressing and undressing of
infants, such a tying, and folding, and pinning; such a
D2
86 SKETCHES BY BOZ
nursing and warming of little legs and feet before the fire,
such a delightful confusion of talking and cooking, bustle,
importance, and officiousness, as never can be enjoyed in its
full extent but on similar occasions.
In rivalry of these two institutions, and as a last expiring
effort to acquire parochial popularity, the child’s examination
people determined, the other day, on having a grand publie
examination of the pupils; and the large school-room of the
national seminary was, by and with the consent of the parish
authorities, devoted to the purpose. Invitation circulars were
forwarded to all the principal parishioners, including, of
course, the heads of the other two societies, for whose especial
behoof and edification the display was intended; and a large
audience was confidently anticipated on the occasion. The
floor was carefully scrubbed the day before, under the imme-
diate superintendence of the three Miss Browns; forms were
placed across the room for the accommodation of the visitors,
specimens in writing were carefully selected, and as carefully
patched and touched up, until they astonished the children
who had written them, rather more than the company who
read them; sums in compound addition were rehearsed and
re-rehearsed until all the children had the totals by heart;
and the preparations altogether were on the most laborious
and most comprehensive scale. The morning arrived: the
children were yellow-soaped and flannelled, and towelled, till
their faces shone again; every pupil’s hair was carefully
combed into his or her eyes, as the case might be; the girls
were adorned with snow-white tippets, and caps bound round
the head by a single purple ribbon: the necks of the elder
boys were fixed into collars of startling dimensions.
The doors were thrown open, and the Misses Brown and
Co. were discovered in plain white muslin dresses, and caps of
the same—the child’s examination uniform. The room filled:
the greetings of the company were loud and cordial. The
distributionists trembled, for their popularity was at stake.
The eldest boy fell forward, and delivered a propitiatory
address from behind his collar. It was from the pen of Mr.
Henry Brown; the applause was universal, and the Johnson
Parkers were aghast. The examination proceeded with
success, and terminated in triumph. The child’s examination
society gained a momentary victory, and the Johnson Parkera
retreated in despair.
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OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR, 87
A secret council of the distributionists was held that night,
with Mrs. Johnson Parker in the chair, to consider of the best
means of recovering the ground they had lost in the favour of
the parish. What could be done? Another meeting!
Alas! who was to attend it? The Missionary would not do
twice ; and the slaves were emancipated. A bold step must
be taken. The parish must be astonished in some way or
other; but no one was able to suggest what the step should
be. At length, a very old lady was heard to mumble, in
indistinct tones, ‘‘Exeter Hall.” A sudden light broke in
upon the meeting. It was unanimously resolved, that a
deputation of old ladies should wait upon a celebrated orator,
imploring his assistance, and the favour of a speech; and that
the deputation should also wait on two or three other imbecile
old women, not resident in the parish, and entreat their
attendance. The application was successful, the meeting was
held: the orator (an Irishman) came. He talked of green
isles—other shores—vast Atlantic—bosom of the deep—
Christian charity—blood and extermination—mercy in hearts
—arms in hands—altars and homes—household gods. He
wiped his eyes, he blew his nose, and he quoted Latin. The
effect was tremendous—the Latin was a decided hit. Nobody
knew exactly what it was about, but everybody knew it must
be affecting, because even the orator was overcome. The
popularity of the distribution society among the ladies of our
parish is unprecedented; and the child’s examination is going
fast to decay.
CHAPTER VII.
OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR,
We are very fond of speculating, as we walk through a
street, on the character and pursuits of the people who inhabit
it; and nothing so materially assists us in these speculations
as the appearance of the house doors. The various expres-
sions of the human countenance afford a beautiful and interest-
ing study; but there is something in the physiognomy of
atreet-door knockers, almost as characteristic, and nearly as
88 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
infallible. ‘Whenever we visit a man for the first time, we
contemplate the features of his knocker with the greatest,
curiosity, for we well know, that between the man and his
knocker, there will inevitably be a greater or less degree of
resemblance and sympathy.
For instance, there is one description of knocker that used
to be common enough, but which is fast passing away—a
large round one, with the jolly face of a convivial lion smiling
blandly at you, as you twist the sides of your hair into a curl,
or pull up your shirt-collar while you are waiting for the door
to be opened; we never saw that knocker on the door of a
churlish man—so far as our experience is concerned, it
invariably bespoke hospitality and another bottle.
No man ever saw this knocker on the door of a small
attorney or bill-broker; they always patronise the other lion ;
a heavy ferocious-looking fellow, with a countenance expressive
of savage stupidity—a sort of grand master among the
knockers, and a great favourite with the selfish and brutal.
Then there is a little pert Egyptian knocker, with a long
thin face, a pinched up nose, and avery sharp chin; he is
most in vogue with your government-office people, in light
drabs and starched cravats: little spare priggish men, who
are perfectly satisfied with their own opinions, and consider
themselves of paramount importance.
We were greatly troubled afew yearsago, by the innova-
tion of a new kind of knocker, without any face at all, com-
posed of a wreath, depending from a hand or small truncheon.
A little trouble and attention, however, enabled us to over- |
come this difficulty, and to reconcile the new system to our
favourite theory. You will invariably find this knocker on
she doors of cold and formal people, who always ask you why
you don’t come, and never say de.
Everybody knows the brass knocker is common to suburban
villas, and extensive boarding-schools; and having noticed
this genus we have recapitulated all the most prominent and
strongly-defined species.
Some phrenologists affirm, that the agitation of a man’s
brain by different passions, produces corresponding develop-
ments in the form of his skull. Do not let us be understood
as pushing our theory to the length of asserting, that any
alteration in a man’s disposition would produce a visible effect
on the feature of his knocker. Our position merely is, that ip
OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR, «389
such a case, the magnetism which must exist between a man -
and his knocker, would induce the man to remove, and seek
some knocker more congenial to his altered feelings. If you
ever find a man changing his habitation without any reason-
able pretext, depend upon it, that, although he may not be
aware of the fact himself, it is because he and his knocker are
at variance. ‘This is a new theory, but we venture to launch
it, nevertheless, as being quite as ingenious and infallible as
many thousand of the learned speculations which are daily
broached for public good and private fortune-making.
Entertaining these feelings on the subject of knockers, it
will be readily imagined with what consternation we viewed
the entire removal of the knocker from the door of the next
house to the one we lived in, some time ago, and the substi-
tution of a bell. This was a calamity we had never antici-
pated. The bare idea of anybody being able to exist without
a knocker, appeared so wild and visionary, that it had never
for one instant entered our imagination.
We sauntered moodily from the spot, and bent our steps
towards Eaton Square, then just building. What was our
astonishment and indignation to find that bells were fast
becoming the rule, and knockers the exception! Our theory
trembled beneath the shock. We hastened home; and fancying
we foresaw in the swift progress of events, its entire abolition,
resolved from that day forward to vent our speculations on
our next-door neighbours in person. The house adjoining
ours on the left hand was uninhabited, and we had, therefore,
plenty of leisure to observe our next-door neighbours on the
other side.
The house without the knocker was in the occupation of a
ity clerk, and there was a neatly-written bill in the parlour
window intimating that lodgings for a single gentleman were
to be let within.
It was a neat, dull little house, on the shady side of the
way, with new, narrow floorcloth in the passage, and new,
narrow stair-carpets up to the first floor. The paper was
new, and the paint was new, and the furniture was new; and
all three, paper, paint, and furniture, bespoke the limited
means of the tenant. There was a little red and black carpet
in the drawing-room, with a border of flooring all the way
round; a few stained chairs and a pembroke table. A pink
shell was displayed on each of the little sideboards, which,
40 | SKETCHES BY BOZ.
with the addition of a tea-tray and caddy, a few more shells
on the mantelpiece, and three peacock’s feathers tastefully
arranged above them, completed the decorative furniture of
the apartment.
This was the room destined for the reception of the single
gentleman during the day, and a little back room on the same
floor was assigned as his sleeping apartment by night.
The bill had not been long in the window, when a stout
good-humoured looking gentleman, of about five-and-thirty,
appeared as a candidate for the tenancy. ‘Terms were soon
arranged, for the bill was taken down immediately after his
first visit. In a day or two the single gentleman came in,
and shortly afterwards his real character came out.
First of all, he displayed a most extraordinary partiality
for sitting up till three or four o’clock in the morning, drinking
whiskey-and-water, and smoking cigars; then he invited
friends home, who used to come at ten o’clock, and begin to
get happy about the small hours, when they evinced their
perfect contentment by singing songs with half-a-dozen verses
of two lines each, and a chorus of ten, which chorus used to
be shouted forth by the whole strength of the company, in
the most enthusiastic and vociferous manner, to the great
annoyance of the neighbours, and the special discomfort of
another single gentleman overhead.
Now, this was bad enough, occurring as at did three times
a week on the average, but this was not all; for when the
company did go away, instead of walking Getedly down the
street, as anybody else’s company would have done, they
amused themselves by making alarming and frightful noises,
and counterfeiting the shrieks of females in distress; and one
night, a red-faced gentleman in a white hat knocked in the
most urgent manner at the door of the powdered-headed
old gentleman at No. 3, and when the powdered-headed old
gentleman, who thought one of his married daughters must
have been taken ill prematurely, had groped down stairs, and
after a great deal of unbolting and key-turning, opened the
street-door, the red-faced man in the white hat said he hoped
he’d excuse his giving him so much trouble, but he’d feel
obliged if he’d favour him with a glass of cold spring water,
and the loan of a shilling for a cab to take him home, on
which the old gentleman slammed the door and went up
stairs, and threw the contents of his water jug out of window
)
OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR. 41
—very straight, only it went over the wrong man; and the
whole street was involved in confusion.
A joke’s ajoke; and even practical jests are very capital
in their way, if you can only get the other party to see the
fun of them; but the population of our street were so dull of
apprehension, as to be quite lost to a sense of the drollery of
this proceeding; and the consequence was, that our next-door
neighbour was obliged to tell the single gentleman, that
unless he gave up entertaining his friends at home, he really
must be compelled to part with him. The single gentleman
received the remonstrance with great good-humour, and
promised from that time forward, to spend his evenings at a
coffee-house—a determination which afforded general and
unmixed satisfaction.
The next night passed off very well, everybody being
delighted with the change; but on the next, the noises were
renewed with greater spirit than ever. The single gentleman’s
friends being unable to see him in his own house every
alternate night, had come to the determination of seeing him
home every night; and what with the discordant greetings of
the friends at parting, and the noise created by the single
gentleman in his passage up stairs, and his subsequent
struggles to get his boots off, the evil was not to be borne.
So, our next-door neighbour gave the single gentleman, who
was a very good lodger in other respects, notice to quit; and
the single gentleman went away, and entertained his friends
in other lodgings.
The next applicant for the vacant first floor, was of a very
different character from the troublesome single gentleman
who had just quitted it. He was a tall, thin, young gentleman,
with a profusion of brown hair, reddish whiskers, and very
slightly developed mustaches. He wore a braided surtout,
with frogs behind, light gray trousers, and wash-leather
gloves, and had altogether rather a military appearance. So
unlike the roystering single gentleman! Such insinuating
manners, and such a delightful address! So seriously dis-
posed, too! When he first came to look at the lodgings, he
inquired most particularly whether he was sure to be able to
get a seat in the parish church; and when he had agreed to
take them, he requested to have a list of the different local
charities, as he intended to subscribe his mite to the most
deserving among them. Our next-door neighbour was now
baa SKETCHES BY BOZ,
perfectly happy. He had got a lodger at last, of just his own
way of thinking—a serious, well-disposed man, who abhorred
gaiety, and loved retirement. He took down the bill with a
light heart, and pictured in imagination a long series of quiet
Sundays, on which he and his lodger would exchange mutual
civilities and Sunday papers.
The serious man arrived, and his luggage was to arrive
from the country next morning. He borrowed a clean shirt,
and a prayer-book, from our next-door neighbour, and retired
to rest at an early hour, requesting that he might be called
punctually at ten o’clock next morning—not before, as he was
much fatigued.
He was called, and did not answer: he was called again,
but there was no reply. Our next-door neighbour became
alarmed, and burst the door open. The serious man had left
the house mysteriously; carrying with him the shirt, the
prayer-book, a tea-spoon, and the bed-clothes.
Whether this occurrence, coupled with the irregularities of
his former lodger, gave our next-door neighbour an aversion
to single gentlemen, we know not; we only know that the
next bill which made its appearance in the parlour window
intimated generally, that there were furnished apartments to
let on the first floor. The bill was soon removed. The new
lodgers at first attracted our curiosity, and afterwards excited
our interest.
They were a young lad of eighteen or nineteen, and his
mother, a lady of about fifty, or it might be less. The mother
wore a widow’s weeds, and the boy was also clothed in deep
mourning. They were poor—very poor; for their only means
of support arose from the pittance the boy earned, by copying
writings, and translating for booksellers.
They had removed from some country place and settled in
London; partly because it afforded better chances of employ-
ment for the boy, and partly, perhaps, with the natural desire
to leave a place where they had been in better circumstances,
and where their poverty was known. ‘They were proud under
their reverses, and above revealing their wants and privations
to strangers. How bitter those privations were, and how
hard the boy worked to remove them, no one ever knew but
themselves. Night after night, two, three, four hours after
midnight, could we hear the occasional raking up of the
scanty fire, or the hollow and halt-stifled cough, which
OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR. 48
indicated his being still at work; and day after day, could we
see more plainly that nature had set that unearthly light in
his plaintive face, which is the beacon of her worst disease.
Actuated, we hope, by a higher feeling than mere curiosity,
we contrived to establish, first an acquaintance, and then a
close intimacy, with the poor strangers. Our worst fears
were realised; the boy was sinking fast. Through a part of
the winter, and the whole of the following spring and summer,
his labours were unceasingly prolonged: and the mother
attempted to procure needlework embroidery—anything for
bread.
A few shillings now and then, were all she could earn.
The boy worked steadily on; dying by minutes, but never
once giving utterance to complaint or murmur.
One beautiful autumn evening we went to pay our
customary visit to the invalid. His little remaining strength
had been decreasing rapidly for two or three days preceding,
and he was lying on the sofa at the open window, gazing at
the setting sun. His mother had been reading the Bible to
him, for she closed the book as we entered, and advanced to
meet us.
“T was telling William,” she said, “‘that we must manage
to take him into the country somewhere, so that he may get
quite well. He is not ill, you know, but he is not very
strong, and has exerted himself too much lately.” Poor
thing! The tears that streamed through her fingers, as she
turned aside, as if to adjust her close widow’s cap, too plainly
showed how fruitless was the attempt to deceive herself.
We sat down by the head of the sofa, but said nothing, for
we saw the breath of life was passing gently but rapidly from
the young form before us. At every respiration, his heart
beat more slowly.
The boy placed one hand in ours, grasped his mother’s arm
with the other, drew her hastily towards him, and fervently
kissed her cheek. There was a pause. He sunk back upon
his pillow. and looked long and earnestly in his mother’s face.
“William, William !”’ murmured the mother after a long
interval, ‘‘don’t look at me so—speak to me, dear !”
The boy smiled languidly, but an instant afterwards his
features resolved into the same cold, solemn gaze. —
“William, dear William! rouse yourself, dear; don’t look
et me so, love—prey don’t! Oh, my Gol! what shell T do!”
44 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
cried the widow, clasping her hands in agony—“‘my dear
boy! he is dying!”
The boy raised himself by a violent effort, and folded his
hands together—‘‘ Mother! dear, dear mother, bury me in
the open fields—anywhere but in these dreadful streets. I
should like to be where you can see my grave, but not in
these close crowded streets; they have killed me; kiss me
again, mother; put your arm round my neck—”
He fell back, and a strange expression stole upon his
features; not of pain or suffering, but an indescribable fixing
of every line and muscle.
The boy was dead.
THE STREETS—MORNING. “a
SCENES.
Ce.
CHAPTER I.
THE STREETS—MORNING, |
THE appearance presented by the:streets of London an hour
before sun-rise, on a summer’s morning, is most striking even
to the few whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely
less unfortunate pursuits of business, cause them to be well
acquainted with the scene. There is an air of cold, solitary
desolation about the noiseless streets which we are accustomed
to see thronged at other times by'a busy, eager crowd, and
over the quiet, closely-shut buildings, which throughout the
day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive.
The last drunken man, who shall find his way home before
sun-light, has just staggered heavily along, roaring out the
burden of the drinking song of the previous night: the last
houseless vagrant whom penury-and police have left in the
streets, has coiled up his chilly limbs in some paved corner, to -
dream of food and warmth. The drunken, the dissipated, and
the wretched have disappeared; the more sober and orderly
part of the population have not yet awakened to the labours.
of the day, and the stillness of death is over the streets; its —
very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as
they look in the grey, sombre light of daybreak. The coach-
stands in the larger thoroughfares are deserted: the night-
houses are closed; and the chosen promenades of profligate
misery are empty.
An occasional policeman may alone be seen at the street-
corners, listlessly gazing on the deserted prospect before him ;
and now and then a rakish-looking cat runs stealthily across
the road and descends his own area with as much caution and
slyness—bounding first on the water-but, then on the dust-
hole, and then alighting on the flag-stones—as if he were
46 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
conscious that his changes depended on his gallantry of the
preceding night escaping public observation. A partially
opened bedroom-window here and there, bespeaks the heat of
the weather, and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and
the dim scanty flicker of the rush-lght, through the window-
blind, denotes the chamber of watching or sickness. With
“these few exceptions, the streets present no signs of life, nor
the houses of habitation.
An hour wears away; the spires of the churches and roofs
of the principal buildings are faintly tinged with the light
of the rising sun; and the streets, by almost imperceptible
degrees, begin to resume their bustle and animation. Market-
carts roll slowly along: the sleepy waggoner impatiently
urging on his tired horses, or vainly endeavouring to awaken
the boy, who, luxuriously stretched on the top of the fruit-
baskets, forgets, in happy oblivion, his long-cherished curiosity
to behold the wonders of London.
Rough, sleepy-looking animals of strange appearance, some-
thing between ostlers and hackney-coachmen, begin to take
down the shutters of early public-houses; and little deal
tables, with the ordinary preparations for a street breakfast,
make their appearance at the customary stations. Numbers
of men and women (principally the latter), carrying upon
their heads heavy baskets of fruit, toil down the park side of
Piccadilly, on their way to Covent Garden, and, following
each other in rapid succession, form a long straggling line
from thence to the turn of the road at Knightsbridge.
Here and there, a bricklayer’s labourer, with the day’s
dinner tied up in a handkerchief, walks briskly to his work,
and occasionally a little knot of three or four schoolboys on a
stolen bathing expedition rattle merrily over the pavement,
their boisterous mirth contrasting forcibly with the demeanour
of the little sweep, who, having knocked and rung till his
arm aches, and being interdicted by a merciful legislature
from en angering his lungs by calling out, sits patiently down
on the door-step until the housemaid may happen to awake.
Covent Garden market, and the avenues leading to it are
thronged with carts of all sorts, sizes, and descriptions, from
the heavy lumbering waggon, with its four stout horses, to
the jingling costermonger’s cart with its consumptive donkey.
The pavement is already strewed with decayed cabbage-leaves,
broken haybands, and all the indescribable litter of a vegetable
THE STREETS—MORNING. 47
market; men are shouting, carts backing, horses neighing,
boys fighting, basket-women talking, piemen expatiating on the
excellence of their pastry, and donkeys braying. These and a
hundred other sounds form a compound discordant enough to
a Londoner’s ears, and remarkably disagreeable to those of
country gentlemen who are sleeping at the Hummums for the
first time.
Another hour passes away, and the day begins in good
earnest. The servant of all work, who, under the plea of
sleeping very soundly, has utterly disregarded ‘ Missis’s”
ringing for half an hour previously, is warned by Master
(whom Missis has sent up in his drapery to the landing-place
for that purpose) that it’s half-past six, whereupon she
awakes all of a sudden, with well-feigned astonishment, and
goes down stairs very sulkily, wishing, while she strikes a
light, that the principle of spontaneous combustion would
extend itself to coals and kitchen range. When the fire is
lighted, she opens the street-door to take in the milk, when,
by the most singular coincidence in the world, she discovers
that the servant next door has just taken in her milk too, and
that Mr. Todd’s young man over the way, is, by an equally
extraordinary chance, taking down his master’s shutters. The
inevitable consequence is, that she just steps, milk-jug in
hand, as far as next door, just to say “‘good morning,” to
Betsy Clark, and that Mr. Todd’s young man just steps over
the way to say ‘‘ good morning” to both of ’em; and as the
aforesaid Mr. Todd’s young man is almost as good-looking
and fascinating as the baker himself, the conversation quickly
becomes very interesting, and probably would become more
so, if Betsy Clark’s Missis, who always will be a followin’ her
about, didn’t give an angry tap at her bedroom window, on
which Mr. Todd’s young man tries to whistle coolly, as he goes
back to his shop much faster than he came from it; and the
two girls run back to their respective places, and shut their
street-doors with surprising softness, each of them poking
their heads out of the front parlour-window, a minute after-
wards, however, ostensibly with the view of looking at the
mail which just then passes by, but really for the purpose of
catching another glimpse of Mr. Todd’s young man, who being
fond of mails, but more of females, takes a short look at the
mails, and a long look at the girls, much to the satisfaction of
all parties concerned.
48 SKETCHES BY BOZ |
The mail itself goes on to the coach-office in due course, and
the passengers who are going out by the early coach, stare
with astonishment at the passengers who are coming in by the
early coach, who look blue and dismal, and are evidently under
the influence of that odd feeling produced by travelling, which
makes the events of yesterday morning seem as if they had hap-
pened at least six months ago, and induces people to wonder
with considerable gravity whether the friends and relations
they took leave of a fortnight before, have altered much since
they left them. The coach-office is all alive, and the coaches
which are just going out, are surrounded by the usual crowd
of Jews and nondescripts, who seem to consider, Heaven
knows why, that it is quite impossible any man can mount a
coach without requiring at least six-penny-worth of oranges, a
penknife, a pocket-book, a last-year’s annual, a pencil-case, a
piece of sponge, and a small series of caricatures.
Half an hour more, and the sun darts his bright rays cheer-
fully down the still half-empty streets, and shines with suffi-
cient force to rouse the dismal laziness of the apprentice, who
pauses every other minute from his task of sweeping out the
shop and watering the pavement in front of it, to tell another
apprentice similarly employed, how hot it will be to-day, or
to stand with his right hand shading his eyes, and his left
resting on the broom, gazing at the ‘‘ Wonder,’’ or the
“‘ Tally: ho,”’ or the ‘‘ Nimrod,” or some other fast coach, till it
is out of sight, when he re-enters the shop, envying the pas-
sengers on the outside of the fast coach, and thinking of the
old red brick house ‘‘ down in the country,’’ where he went
te school: the miseries of the milk and water, and thick
bread and scrapings, fading into nothing before the pleasant
recollection of the green field the boys used to play in, and
the green pond he was caned for presuming to fall into, and
other schoolboy associations.
Cabs, with trunks and band-boxes between the drivers’ legs
and outside the apron, rattle briskly up and down the streets
on their way to the coach-offices or steam-packet wharfs; and
the cab-drivers and hackney-coachmen who are on the stand
polish up the ornamental part of their dingy vehicles—the
former wondering how people can prefer ‘them wild beast
cariwans of homnibuses, to a riglar cab with a fast trotter,”
and the latter admiring how people can trust their necks into ~
one of ‘them crazy cabs, when they can have a ’spectable
THE STREETS—MORNING. 49
’ackney cotche with a pair of ’orses as von’t run away with no
vun;’ a consolation unquestionably founded on fact, seeing
that a hackney coach-horse never was known to run at all,
‘‘ except,’ as the smart cabman in front of the rank observes,
“‘except one, and he run back’ards.”
The shops are now completely opened, and apprentices and
shopmen are busily engaged in cleaning and decking the
windows for the day. ‘The bakers’ shops in town are filled
with servants and children waiting for the drawing of the
first batch of rolls—an operation which was performed a full
hour ago in the suburbs; for the early clerk population of
Somers and Camden towns, Islington, and Pentonville, are
fast pouring into the city, or directing their steps towards
Chancery-lane and the Inns of Court. Middle-aged men,
whose salaries have by no means increased in the same pro-
portion as their families, plod steadily along, apparently with
no object in view but the counting-house; knowing by sight
almost everybody they meet or overtake, for they have seen
them every morning (Sundays excepted) during the last twenty
years, but speaking to no one. If they do happen to overtake
a personal acquaintance, they just exchange a hurried saluta-
tion, and keep walking on either by his side, or in front of
him, as his rate of walking may chance to be. As to stopping
to shake hands, ov to take the friend’s arm, they seem to think
that as it is not included in their salary, they have no right to
do it. Small office lads in large hats, who are made men
before they are boys, hurry along in pairs, with their first
coat carefully brushed, and the white trousers of last Sunday
plentifully besmeared with dust and ink. It evidently
requires a considerable mental struggle to avoid investing
part of the day’s dinner-money in the purchase ef the stale
tarts so temptingly exposed in dusty tins at the pastry-cook’s
doors; but a consciousness of their own importance and the
receipt of seven shillings a-week, with the prospect of an early .
rise to eight, comes to their aid, and they accordingly put
their hats a little more on one side, and look under the
bonnets of all the milliners’ and staymakers’ apprentices they
meet—poor girls!—the hardest worked, the worst paid, and
too often, the worst used class of the community.
Eleven o’clock, and a new set of people fill the streets. The
goods in the shop-windows are invitingly arranged; the shop-
men in their white neekerchiefs and spruce ccats, look as if
R
50 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
they couldn’t clean a window if their lives depended on it; the
carts have disappeared from Covent Garden; the waggoners “
have returned, and the costermongers repaired to their
ordinary ‘‘ beats”’ in the suburbs; clerks are at their offices,
and gigs, cabs, omnibuses, and saddle-horses, are conveying
their masters to the same destination. The streets are
thronged with a vast concourse of people, gay and shabby,
rich and poor, idle and industrious; and we come to the heat,
bustle, and activity of Noon.
CHAPTER I.
THE STREETS —NIGHT.
But the streets of London, to be beheld in the very height
of their glory, should be seen on a dark, dull, murky winter’s
night, when there is just enough damp gently stealing down
to make the pavement greasy, without cleansing it of any of
its impurities; and when the heavy lazy mist, which hangs
over every object, makes the gas-lamps 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 them-
selves 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 per.
THE STREETS—NIGHT, 51
spective could possibly inspire, and drags the boy back by
main firce, 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 just 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 determina-
tion 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 Jamp, manufactured of oil-paper, embellished
B2
52 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
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 venders 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 the cheesemonger’s, where great
flaring gas-lights, unshaded by any glass, display huge piles
of bright red, and pale yellow cheeses, mingled with little
five-penny 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 in-
clemency of the night; and the policeman, with his oil-skin
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 melanckely 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 duting the whole day, are rapidly dwindling away; and
the noise of shouting and quarrelling which issues from the
THE STREETS—NIGHT, 53
public-houses, is almost the only sound that breaks the melan-
choly 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
54 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
‘‘ professional gentlemen” at the top of the centre table, une
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’men—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.
That 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 par-
ticularly gratifying. ‘‘Gen’lmen,” says the little pompous
man, accompanying the word with a knock of the president’s
hammer on the table—‘‘ Gen’I’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-rol chorus at the end of
every verse, much longer than the verse itself. It is recezved
with unbounded applause, and after some aspiring genius hag
SHOPS AND THEIR TENANTS, 55
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 knock-
ing one or two stout glusses off their legs—a humorous
device; but one which frequently occasions some slight alter-
cation 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.
Waar 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 commisera-
tion 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
56 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
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-lght, is the admira-
tion 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 especiai 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 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
SHOPS AND THEIR TENANTS, 52
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 neck-cloth, 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 pre-
sentiment that the shop was doomed—and so it was. Its
decay was slow, but sure. Tickets gradually appeared in the
windows; then rolls of flannels, 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 linendraper 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 morn-
ing 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 miser-
able market of poor creatures such as these, knew but one
half of the misery they suffer, and the bitter privations they
58 SKETCHES BY BOZ © Rs
endure, in their honourable attempts to earn a scanty sub
sistence, 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, im-
pudent, 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
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SCOTLAND-YARD. 59
Jandlord, 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 green-grocer, 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
ScoTiAND-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 Scotlaud-yard
60 SKETCHES BY BOZ
regularly every morning, about five or six o'clock, to fill
heavy waggons with coal, with which they proceeded te
distant places up the country, and supplied the inhabitants
with fuel. When they had emptied their waggons, they
again returned fora fresh supply; and this trade was con-
tinued 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 wainscotted-
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, hut
%
SCOTLAND-YARD, 61
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 Svotland-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 con-
templated 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 tc 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
& 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
62 SKETCHES BY BOZ..
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 frem 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
asigh. 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
\alk 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 em-
blazon its exterior, and the poet’s art has been called inte
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 buttuns, 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 announce-
ment. 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 gray 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
vf 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.
64 SKETCHES BY BOZ
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
_ gong, and capital punishment be unknown!
Look at the construction-of the place. ~ The gordi 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 mix-
ture 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, ond 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, uncer-
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tain 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 haying 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 adjoiming, 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, unbe-
known 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 aé 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 pro-
miscuously ‘ Mrs. Sulliwin’, says I fs
“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 consider-
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66 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
able alacrity. The scuffle became general, and terminates in
minor play-bill phraseology, with “‘ arrival of the policemen,
interior of the station-house, and impressive dénouement.”
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 resem-
blance each one bears to its neighbour, by no means tends to
decrease the bewilderment in which the unexperienced way-
farer 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-pro-
portioned 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 hand-
some 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
SEVEN DIALS, 67
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 battle-
dores, 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 acquaint-
ance 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 firewood and hearth-stone line, or any other ine 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, ‘‘ abear 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 fire-place, 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 any body 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!
¥2
68 SKETCHES BY BOA
the man in the shop illtreats his family; the carpet-beater
extends his professional pursuits to his wife ; the one-pair fron
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 every body; and the one pair back
screams at every thing. 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. forth-
with 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-oflicer
the result.
CHAPTER VI.
MEDITATIONS IN MONMOUTH-STREET,
_ Wer have Anee: entertained.a particular attachment tower
‘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 forthe
most part in deep cellars, or small back parlours, and who
seldom come: forth into the world, except in the dusk and
coolness of 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, 80 common among people who are constantly
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MEDITATIONS IN MONMOUTH-STREE*. 69
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
fiaps, 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, Mon
mouth-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 waist-
coat, upon some being of our own conjuring up, and endea-
vouring 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 Mon-
mouth-street, and of no slight suspicion to the policeman at
the opposite street corner.
We were occupied in this manner the other day, endea-
vouring to fit a pair of lace-up half-boots on an ideal per-
sonage, 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 imme-
diately 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
70 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
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
tub 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 dis-
guising, 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, how-
ever, 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 »e a man his old
MEDITATIONS IN MONMOUTH STREET. 71
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 mere 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 any body 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 theu—if such a place deserve the name.
v2 | SKETCHES BY BOZ.
We saw the bare and miserable room, destivate of furniture,
erowded 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, implor-
ing 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, com-
pleted 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 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 heart-
felt 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 jully, 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 were his huge
fat legs bulging over the tops, and fitting them too tight to
MEDITATIONS IN MONMOUTH-STREET. 73
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 morn-
ing we rode into town from Richmond.
A very smart female, in a showy bonnet, stepped into a
pair of gray cloth boots, with black frmge and binding, that
were studiously pointing out their toes on the other side of
_the top-boots, and seemed very anxious to engage his atten-
tion, 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 astonish-
ment, we perceived that the whole of the characters, including
@ numerous corps de ballet of boots and shoes in the back-
ground, into which we had been hastily thrusting as many
feet as we could press into the service, were arranging them-
selves in order for dancing; and some music striking up at
the moment, to it they went without delay. It was perfectly
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“4 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
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 appear-
ing 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 trie 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 super-
intending 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 adjacewt “ Dials.”
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HACKNEY-COACH STANDS. 15
CHAPTER VII.
HACKNEY-COACH STANDS,
We maintain that hackney-coaches, properly so called,
belong solely to the metropvlis. We may be told, that there
are hackney-coach stands in: Edinburgh; and not to go quite
so far for a contradiction tojour 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 i in pene
of stands, drivers, or cattle; we indignantly deny.
Take a peeular pondexonid rickety, London Radhaes tonal .
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 Meonifly 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 seme. 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, anda
different size. These are innovations, and, like other mis-
called improvements, awful signs of the Fostlessness 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 con-
tent 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
76 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
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
costerinonger notoriety, and yet we never ride. We keep no
horse, but a clothes-horse; enjoy no saddle so much as @
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 lke 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
HACKNEY-COACH STANDS. 77
they can possibly go, is dancing the ‘‘ double shufile,” 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 forth-
with 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 acommotion! 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 stand still.
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
78. SKETCHES BY BOZ.
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 Totten-
ham-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. .the curtain—opulent
country managers looking out for recruits; a representation
which Mr. Nathan, the dresser, who is in the manager’s
interest, and has just arrived with the costumes, offers to
confirm upon oath if required—corroborative evidence, how-
ever, is quite unnecessary, for the gulls believe it at once.
The stout Jewess, who has just entered, is the mother of
the pale bony little girl with the necklace of blue glass beads
sitting by her; she is being brought up to ‘‘ the profession.”
Pantomime is to be her line, and she is coming out to-night,
in a hornpipe after the tragedy. The short thin man beside
Mr. St. Julian, whose white face is so deeply seared with the
small-pox, and whose dirty shirt-front is inlaid with open-
work, and embossed with coral studs like lady-birds, is the
iow comedian and comic singer of the establishment. The
remainder of the audience—a tolerably numerous one by this
time—are a motley group of dupes and blackguards.
The footlights have just made their appearance: the wicks
of the six little oil lamps round the only tier of boxes are being
turned up, and the additional light thus afforded serves to show
the presence of dirt, and absence of paint, which forms a pro-
minent feature in the audience part of the house. As these
preparations, however, announce the speedy commencement of
the play, let us take a peep ‘ behind,” previous to the
ringing-up.
PRIVATE THEATRES, 115
The little narrow passages beneath the stage are neither
especially clean nor too brilliantly lighted; and the absence
of any flooring, together with the damp mildewy smell which
pervades the place, does not conduce in any great degree to
their comfortable appearance. Don’t fall over this plate-
basket—it’s one of the “‘ properties”—the caldron for the
witches’ cave; and the three uncouth-looking figures, with
broken clothes-props in their hands, who are drinking gin-—
and-water out of a pint pot, are the weird sisters. This
miserable room, lighted by candles in sconces placed at
lengthened intervals round the wall, is the dressing-room,
common to the gentlemen performers, and the square hole in
the ceiling is the trap-door of the stage above. You will
observe that the ceiling is ornamented with the beams that
support the boards, and tastefully hung with cobwebs.
The characters in the tragedy are all dressed, and their own
clothes are scattered in hurried confusion over the wooden
dresser which surrounds the room. That snuff-shop-looking
figure, in front of the glass, is Banquo: and the young lady
with the liberal display of legs, who is kindly painting his
face with a hare’s foot, is dressed for Fleance. The large
woman, who is consulting the stage directions in Cumberland’s
edition of Macbeth, is the Lady Macbeth of the night; she is
always selected to play the part, because she is tall and stout,
and looks a little like Mrs. Siddons—at a considerable distance.
That stupid-looking milksop, with light hair and bow legs—a
kind of man whom you can warrant town-made—is fresh
caught; he plays Malcolm to night, just to accustom himself
to an audience. He will get on better by degrees; he will —
play Othello in a month, and in a month more, will very
probably be apprehended on a charge of embezzlement. The
black-eyed female with whom he is talking so earnestly, is
dressed for the “gentlewoman.” It is her first appearance, ©
too—in that character. The boy of fourteen, who is having
nis eyebrows smeared with soap and whitening, is Duncan,
King of Scotland; and the two dirty men with the corked
countenances, in very old green tunics, and dirty drab boots,
are the ‘‘ army.”
“ook sharp below there, gents,” exclaims the dresser, a
red-headed and red-whiskered Jew, calling through the trap,
‘they ’re a-going to ring up. The flute says he’ll be blowed
if he plays any more, and they’re getting precious noisy in
12
116 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
front.” A general rush immediately takes place to the half-
dozen little steep steps leading to the stage, and the hetero-
geneous group are soon assembled at the side scenes, in
breathless ety and motley confusion.
“Now,” cries the manager, consulting the’ written list
which hangs behind the first P. S.: wing, ‘Scene 1, open
-éountry—lamps down—thunder and lightning—all ready,
White?” [This-is addressed to one of the army.] ‘All
ready.”—-“ Very well. Scene 2, front chamber. Is:the front
chamber down? ’’—‘ Yes.’’—‘‘ Very well.”—‘“ Jones” [to
the other army who is up in the flies].. ‘‘ Hallo!” —‘“‘ Wind
up the open country when we ring up.”—‘‘I’ll take care.” —
‘Scene 8, back perspective with practical: bridge. Bridge
ready, White? Got the tressels:there?’’?—“ All right.”
_ “Very well. © Clear the stage,” cries the manager, hastily
packing every member of the. company into the Tittle space
there is between the wings and the wall, and one wing and
another. ‘Places, places. Now then, Witches—Duncan—
Malcolm—bleeding officer—where’s the bleeding officer ? ””—
“‘Here!”’ replies the officer, who has been rose-pinking for
the character. ‘‘Get ready, then;. now, White, ring the
second music-bell.’”’ -The actors who are to be discovered, are
hastily arranged, and the actors who are not to be discovered
place themselves, in their anxiety to peep at the house, just
where the whole audience can see them. The bell rings, and
the orchestra, in acknowledgment of. the call, play three
distinct chords. The bell Pigs s te tragedy (!) opens—and
our description closes.
CHAPTER XIV.
VAUXHALI-GARDENS BY DAY,
THERE was a time when if a man ventured to wonder how
Vauxhall-gardens would look by day, he was hailed with a
shout of derision at the absurdity of the idea. Vauxhall by
daylight! A porter-pot without porter, the House of Commons
without the Speaker, a gas-lamp without the gas—pooh,
nonsense, the thing was not to be thought of. It was
i
VAUXHALL-GARDENS BY DAY. 117
rumoured, too, in those times, that Vauxhall-gardens by day,
were the scene of secret and hidden experiments; that there,
carvers were exercised in the mystic art of cutting a moderate-
sized ham into slices thin enough to pave the whole of the
grounds; that beneath the shade of the tall trees, studious
men were constantly engaged in chemical experiments, with
the view of discovering how much water a bowl of negus
could possibly bear; and that in some retired nooks, appro-
priated to the study of ornithology, other sage and learned
men were, by a process known only to themselves, incessantly
employed in reducing fowls to a mere combination of skin
and bone.
Vague rumours of this kind, together with many others of
- @ similar nature, cast over Vauxhall-gardens an air of deep
mystery; and as there is a great deal in the mysterious, there
is no doubt that to a good many people, at all events, the
pleasure they afforded was not a little enhanced by this very:
circumstance.
_ Of this class of people we confess to having made one. We
loved to wander among these illuminated groves, thinking of
the patient and laborious researches which had been carried
on there during the day, and witnessing their results in the
suppers which were served up beneath the light of lamps and
to the sound of music, at night. The temples and saloons
and cosmoramas and fountains glittered and sparkled before
our eyes; the beauty of the lady singers and the elegant
deportment of the gentlemen, captivated our hearts; a few
hundred thousand of additional lamps dazzled our senses; a
bowl or two of reeking punch bewildered our brains; and we
were happy.
In an evil hour, the proprietors of Vauxhall-gardens took
fo opening them by day. We regretted this, as rudely and
harshly disturbing that veil of mystery which had hung about
the property for many years, and which none but the noonday
sun, and the late Mr. Simpson, had ever penetrated. We
shrunk from going; at this moment we scarcely know why.
Perhaps a morbid consciousness of approaching disappoint-
ment—perhaps a fatal presentiment—perhaps the weather;
whatever it was, we did not go until the second or third
announcement of a race between two balloons tempted us,
and we went.
We paid our shilling at the gate, and then we saw for the |
118 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
first time, that the entrance, if there had ever been any magi¢
about it at all, was now decidedly disenchanted, being, in fact, -
nothing more nor Jess than a combination of very roughly-
painted boards and sawdust. We glanced at the orchestra
and supper-room as we hurried past—we just recognised
them, and that was all. We bent our steps to the firework-
- ground; there, at least, we should not be disappointed. We
reached it, and stood rooted to the spot with mortification and
astonishment. That the Moorish tower—that wooden shed
with a door in the centre, and daubs of crimson and yellow all
round, like a gigantic watch-case! That the place where
night after night we had beheld the undaunted Mr. Blackmore
make his terrific ascent, surrounded by flames of fire, and
peals of artillery, and where the white garments of Madame
Somebody (we forget even her name now), who nobly devoted
her life to the manufacture of fireworks, had so often been
seen fluttering in the wind, as she called up a red, blue, or
party-coloured light to illumine her temple! That the
but at this moment the bell rung; the people scampered
away, pell-mell, to the spot from whence the sound proceeded ;
and we, from the mere force of habit, found ourself running
among the first, as if for very life.
It was for the concert in the orchestra. A small party of
dismal men in cocked hats were “‘ executing’ the overture to
Tancredi, and a numerous assemblage of ladies and gentlemen,
with their families, had rushed from their half-emptied stout
mugs in the supper boxes, and crowded to the spot. Intense
was the low murmur of admiration when a particularly small
gentleman, in a dress coat, led on a particularly tall lady in a
blue sarcenet pelisse and bonnet of the same, ornamented with
large white feathers, and forthwith commenced a plaintive
duet.
We knew the small gentleman well; we had seen a litho-
graphed semblance of him, on many a piece of music, with
his mouth wide open as if in the act of singing; a wine-
glass in his hand; and a table with two decanters and four
pine-apples on it in the background. The tall lady, too, we
had gazed on, lost in raptures of admiration, many and many
a time—how different people do look by daylight, and without
punch, to be sure! It was a beautiful duet: first the small
gentleman asked a question, and then the tall lady answered
it; then the small gentleman and the tall lady sang together
VAUXHALL-GARDENS BY DAY, 119
most melodiously; then the small gentleman went through a
little piece of vehemence by himself, and got very tenor
indeed, in the excitement of his feelings, to which the tall
lady responded in a similar manner; then the small gentleman
had a shake or two, after which the tall lady had the same,
and then they both merged imperceptibly into the original
air: and the band wound themselves up to a pitch of fury,
and the small gentleman handed the tall lady out, and the
applause was rapturous.
The comic singer, however, was the especial favourite; we
really thought that a gentleman, with his dinner in a pocket-
handkerchief, who stood near us, would have fainted with
excess of joy. A marvellously facetious gentleman that comic
singer is; his distinguishing characteristics are, a wig
approaching to the flaxen, and an aged countenance, and he
bears the name of one of the English counties, if we recollect
right. He sang avery good song about the seven ages, the
first half-hour of which afforded the assembly the purest
delight; of the rest we can make no report, as we did not
Stay to hear any more,
We walked about, and met with a disappointment at every
turn; our favourite views were mere patches of paint; the
fountain that had sparkled so showily by lamp-light, presented
very much the appearance of a water-pipe that had burst; all
the ornaments were dingy, and all the walks gloomy. There
was a spectral attempt at rope-dancing in the little open
theatre. The sun shone upon the spangled dresses of the
performers, and their evolutions were about as inspiriting and
appropriate as a country-dance in a family-vault. So we
retraced our steps to the firework-ground, and mingled with
the little crowd of people who were contemplating Mr. Green.
Some half-dozen men were restraining the impetuosity of
one of the balloons, which was completely filled, and had the
car already attached; and as rumours had gone abroad that a
Lord was ‘‘ going up,” the crowd were more than usually
anxious and talkative. There was one little man in faded
black, with a dirty face and a rusty black neckerchief with a
red border, tied in a narrow wisp round his neck, who entered
into conversation with every body, and had something to say
upon every remark that was made within his hearing. He
was standing with his arms folded, staring up at the balloon,
aud every now and ilen vented his feclings of reverence for
120 SKETCHES BY BOZ
the aéronaut, by saying, as he looked round to catch some-
body’s eye, ‘“‘He’s a rum ’un is Green; think o’ this here
being up’ards of his two hundredth ascent; ecod the man as
is ekal to Green never had the toothache yet, nor won’t have
within this hundred year, and that’s all about it. When you
meets with real talent, and native, too, encourage it, that’s
what I say;’’ and when he had delivered himself to this effect,
he would fold his arms with more determination than ever,
and stare at the balloon with a sort of admiring defiance of
any other man alive, beyond himself and Green, that impressed
the crowd with the opinion that he was an oracle.
‘““ Ah, you’re very right, sir,” said another gentleman, with
his wife, and children, and mother, and wife’s sister, and a ~
host of female friends, in all the gentility of white pocket-
handkerchiefs, frills, and spencers, ‘‘ Mr. Green is a steady
hand, sir, and there’s no fear about him.”
“Fear !’’ said the little man: ‘‘isn’t it a lovely thing to
see him and his wife a going up in one balloon, and his own
son and his wife a jostling up against them in another, and all
of them going twenty or thirty mile in three hours or so, and
then coming back in pochayses? I don’t know where this
here science is to stop, mind you; that’s what bothers me.”
Here there was a considerable talking among the females
in the spencers.
‘““What’s the ladies a laughing at, sir?” inquired the
little man, condescendingly.
“It’s only my sister Mary,” said one of the girls, “as says
she hopes his lordship won’t be frightened when he’s in the
car, and want to come out again.”
‘‘Make yourself easy about that there, my dear,” replied
the little man. ‘If he was so much as to move a inch
without leave, Green would jist fetch him a crack over the
head with the telescope, as would send him into the bottom of
the basket in no time, and stun him till they come down
again.”
“Would he, though ?”’ inquired the other man.
‘Yes, would he,” replied the little one, ‘‘ and think nothing
of it, neither, if he was the king himself. Green’s presence
of mind is wonderful.”
Just at this moment all eyes were directed to the prepara-
tions which were being made for starting. The car was
attached to the second balloon, the two were brought pretty —
VAUXHALL-GARDENS BY DAY. 121
close together, and a military band commenced playing, with
a zeal and fervour which would render the most timid man in
existence but too happy to accept any means of quitting that
particular spot of earth on which they were stationed. Then
Mr. Green, sen., and his noble companion entered one car,
and Mr. Green, jun., and his companion the other; and then
the balloons went up, and the aérial travellers stood up, and
the crowd outside roared with delight, and the two gentlemen
who had never ascended before, tried to wave their flags, as if
they were not nervous, but held on very fast all the while;
and the balloons were wafted gently away, our little friend
solemnly protesting, long after they were reduced to mere
specks in the air, that he could still distinguish the white hat
of Mr. Green. The gardens disgorged their multitudes, boys
ran up and down screaming “‘bal-loon;”’ and in all the
crowded thoroughfares people rushed out of their shops into
the middle of the road, and having: stared up in the air at two
little black objects till they almost dislocated their necks,
walked slowly in again, perfectly satisfied.
The next day there was a grand account of the ascent in
the morning papers, and the public were informed how it was
the finest day but four in Mr. Green’s remembrance; how
they retained sight of the earth till they lost it behind the
clouds; and how the reflection of the balloon on the undu-
lating masses of vapour was gorgeously picturesque; together
with a little science about the refraction of the sun’s rays, and
some mysterious hints respecting atmospheric heat and eddying
currents of air.
There was also an interesting account how a man in a boat
was distinctly heard by Mr. Green, jun., to exclaim, ‘“‘My
eye!” which Mr. Green, jun., attributed to his voice rising to
the balloon, and the sound being thrown back from its surface
into the car; and the whole concluded with a slight allusion
to another ascent next Wednesday, all of which was very
instructive and very amusing, as our readers will see if they
look to the papers. If we have forgotten to mention the date,
they have only to wait till next summer, and take the account
of the first ascent, and it will answer the purpose equally
well,
122 SKETCHES BY BOZ
CHAPTER XY.
EARLY COACHES.
We have often wondered how many months’ incessant
travelling in a post-chaise, it would take to killa man; and
wondering by analogy, we should very much like to know how
many months of constant travelling in a succession of early
coaches, an unfortunate mortal could endure. Breaking a
man alive upon the wheel, would be nothing to breaking his
rest, his peace, his heart—everything but his fast—upon four;
and the punishment of Ixion (the only practical person, by
the by, who has discovered the secret of the perpetual motion)
would sink into utter insignificance before the one we have
suggested. If we had been a powerful churchman in those
good times when blood was shed as freely as water and men
were mowed down-like grass, in the sacred cause of religion,
‘we would have lain: by very quietly till we got hold of some
especially obstinate miscreant, who positively refused to be
converted to our faith, and then we would have booked him
for an inside. place in a small coach, which travelled day and
night: and securing the remainder of the places for stout
men -with a slight tendency to coughing and spitting, we
would have started him forth on his last travels: leaving him
mercilessly to all the tortures which the waiters, landlords,
coachmen, guards, boots, chambermaids, and other familiars
on his line of .road, might think proper to inflict.
Who has not experienced the miseries inevitably consequent
upon a summons to undertake a hasty journey? You receive
an intimation from your place of business—wherever that
may be, or whatever you may be—that it will be necessary to
leave town without delay. You and your family are forthwith
thrown into a state of tremendous excitement; an express
is immediately despatched to the washerwoman’s; every
body is in a bustle; and you, yourself, with a feeling of
dignity which you cannot altogether conceal, sally forth to
the booking-office to secure your place. Here a painful
consciousness of your own unimportance first rushes on your
mind—-the people are as cool and collected as if nobody were
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to hesitate for an instant. It was only for an instant; his
resolve was soon taken.
“Youll pull me up, will you?” said our friend.
““] will,” rejoined the little gentleman, with even greater
vehemence than before.
“‘ Very well,” said our friend, tucking up his shirt-sleeves
very calmly. ‘‘There’ll be three veeks for that. Wery good;
that’ll bring me up to the middle o’ next month. Three
veeks more would carry me on to my birthday, and then I’ve
got ten pound to draw. I may as well get board, lodgin’,
and washin’, till then, out of the county, as pay for it myself;
consequently here goes! ”’
So, without more ado, the red-cab-driver knocked the little
gentleman down, and then called the police to take himself
into custody, with all the civility in the world.
A story is nothing without the sequel; and therefore we
may state, that to our certain knowledge, the board, lodging,
and washing, were all provided in due course. We happen to
know the fact, for it came to our knowledge, thus: We went
over the House of Correction for the county of Middlesex
shortly after, to witness the operation of the silent system ;
and looked on all the ‘‘ wheels” with the greatest anxiety, in
search of our long-lost friend. He was nowhere to be seen,
however, and we began to think that the little gentleman in
the green coat must have relented, when as we were traversing
the kitchen-garden, which lies in a sequestered part of the
prison, we were startled by hearing a voice, which apparently
proceeded from the wall, pouring forth its soul in the plain-
tive air of ‘‘all round my hat,” which was then just beginning
to form a recognised portion of our national music.
We started.—‘‘ What voice is that?” said we.
The Governor shook his head.
‘Sad fellow,” he replied, ‘very sad. He _ positively
refused to work on the wheel; so, after many trials, I was
compelled to order him into solitary confinement. He says
he likes it very much though, and I am afraid he does, for
he lies on his back on the floor, and sings comic songs all
day!” ,
Shall we add that our heart had not deceived us; and that
the comic singer was no other than our eagerly-sought friend,
the red-cab-driver ?
We have never seen him since, but we have strong reason
186 SKETCHES BY BOZ
to suspect that this noble individual was a distant relative of
a waterman of our acquaintance, who, on one occasion, when
we were passing the coach-stand over which he presides, after
standing very quietly to see a tall man struggle into a cab,
ran up very briskly when it was all over (as his brethren
invariably do), and, touching his hat, asked, as a matter of
course, for ‘‘ a copper for the waterman.’’ Now, the fare was
by no means a handsome man; and, waxing very indignant
at the demand, he replied—‘‘ Money! What for? Coming
up and looking at me, I suppose ?””—‘ Vell, sir,” rejoined
the waterman, with a smile of immoveable complacency,
‘¢ That’s worth twopence.”’
This identical waterman afterwards attained a very pro-
minent station in society; and.as we know something of his
life, and have often thought of telling what we do know,
perhaps we shall never have a better opportunity than the
present.
Mr. William Barker, then, for that was the gentleman’s
name, Mr. William Barker was born but why need we
relate where Mr. William Barker was born, or when? Why
scrutinise the entries in parochial ledgers, or seek to penetrate
the Lucinian mysteries of lying-in hospitals? Mr. William
Barker was born, or he had never been. There is a son—
there was a father. There is an effect—there was a cause.
Surely this is sufficient information for the most Fatima-lke
curiosity; and, if it be not, we regret our inability to supply
any further evidence on the point. Can there be a more satis-
factory, or more strictly parliamentary course? Impossible.
We at once avow a similar inability to record at what
precise period, or by what particular process, this gentleman’s
patronymic of William Barker became corrupted into ‘ Bill
Boorker.”” Mr. Barker acquired a high standing, and no
inconsiderable reputation, among the members of that pro-
ression to which he more peculiarly devoted his energies; and
to them he was generally known, either by the familiar appel-
lation of ‘Bill Boorker,” or the flattering designation of
*‘Ageerawatin Bill,” the latter being a playful and expressive
sobriquet, illustrative of Mr. Barker’s great talent in “‘ aggera-
watin ”’ and rendering wild such subjects of her Majesty as
are conveyed from place to place, through the instrumentality
of omnibuses. Of the early life of Mr. Barker little is known,
and even that little is involved in considerable doubt and
THE FIRST OMNIBUS CAD, 187
obscurity. A want of application, a restlessness of purpose,
a thirsting after porter, a love of all that is roving and cadger-
like in nature, shared in common with many other great
geniuses, appear to have been his leading characteristics.
The busy hum of a parochial free-school, and the shady
repose of a county gaol, were alike inefficacious in producing
the slightest alteration in Mr. Barker’s disposition. His
feverish attachment to change and variety, nothing could
repress ; his native daring no punishment could subdue.
If Mr. Barker can be fairly said to have had any weakness
in his earlier years, it was an amiable one—love; love in its
most comprehensive form—a love of ladies, liquids, and
pocket-handkerchiefs. It was no selfish feeling; it was not
confined to his own possessions, which but too many men
regard with exclusive complacency. No; it was a nobler
love—a general principle. It extended itself with equal force
to the property of other people.
There is something very affecting in this. It is still more
affecting to know, that such philanthropy is but imperfectly
rewarded. Bow-street, Newgate, and Mill-bank, are a poor
return for general benevolence, evincing itself in an irre-
pressible love for all created objects. Mr. Barker felt it so.
After a lengthened interview with the highest legal authorities,
he quitted his ungrateful country, with the consent, and at the
expense of its Government; proceeded to a distant shore; and
there employed himself, like another Cincinnatus, in clearing
and cultivating the soil—a peaceful pursuit, in which a term
of seven years glided almost imperceptibly away.
Whether, at the expiration of the period we have just
mentioned, the British Government required Mr. Barker’s
presence here, or did not require his residence abroad, we
have no distinct means of ascertaining. We should be in-
clined, however, to favour the latter position, inasmuch as
we do not find that he was advanced to any other public post
on his return, than the post at the corner of the Haymarket,
where he officiated as assistant-waterman to the hackney-
coach stand. Seated, in this capacity, on a couple of tubs
near the curb-stone, with a brass-plate and number suspended
round his neck by a massive chain, and his ankles curiously
enveloped in haybands, he is supposed to have made those
wbservations on human nature which exercised so material an
influence over all his proceedings in later lite.
138 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
Mr. Barker had not officiated for many months in this
capacity, when the appearance of the first omnibus caused
the public mind to go in a new direction, and prevented a
great many hackney-coaches from going in any direction at
all. The genius of Mr. Barker at once perceived the whole
extent of the injury that would be eventually inflicted on cab
and coach stands, and, by consequence, on watermen also, by
the progress of the system of which the first omnibus was a
part. He saw, too, the necessity of adopting some more
profitable profession; and his active mind at once perceived
how much might be done in the way of enticing the youthful
and unwary, and shoving the old and helpless, into the wrong
buss, and carrying them off, until, reduced to despair, they
ransomed themselves by the payment of sixpence a-head, or,
to adopt his own figurative expression in all its native beauty,
‘till they was rig’ larly done over, and forked out the stumpy.”’
An opportunity for realising his fondest anticipations soon
presented itself. Rumours were rife on the hackney-coach
stands, that a buss was building, to run from Lisson-grove to
the Bank, down Oxford-street and Holborn; and the rapid
increase of busses on the Paddington-road, encouraged the
idea. Mr. Barker secretly and cautiously inquired in the
proper quarters. The report was correct; the ‘ Royal
Wiliam” was to make its first journey on the following
Monday. It was a crack affair altogether. An enterprising
young cabman, of established reputation as a dashing whip—
for he had compromised with the parents of three scrunched
children, and just ‘“‘ worked out” his fine for knocking down
an old lady—was the driver; and the spirited proprietor,
knowing Mr. Barker’s qualifications, appointed him to’ the
vacant office of cad on the very first application. The buss
began to run, and Mr. Barker entered into a new suit of
clothes, and on a new sphere of action.
To recapitulate all the improvements introduced by this
extraordinary man, into the omnibus system — gradually,
indeed, but surely—would occupy a far greater space than we
are enabled to devote to this imperfect memoir. To him is
universally assigned the original suggestion of the practice
which afterwards became so general—of the driver of a second
buss keeping constantly behind the first one, and driving the
pole of his vehicle either into the door of the other, every
tame it was opened, or through the body of any lady or
THE FIRST OMNIBUS CAD, 139
gentleman who might make an attempt to get into it; a
humorous and pleasant invention, exhibiting all that origin-
ality of idea and fine bold flow of spirits so conspicuous in
every action of this great man.
Mr. Barker had opponents of course; what man in Pibic
life has not? But even his worst enemies cannot deny that he
has taken more old ladies and gentlemen to Paddington who
wanted to go to the Bank, and more old ladies and gentlemen
to the Bank who wanted to go to Paddington, than any six
men on the road; and however much malevolent spirits may
pretend to doubt the accuracy of the statement, they well
know it to be an established fact, that he has forcibly con-
veyed a variety of ancient persons of either sex, to both places,
who had not the slightest or most distant intention of going
any where at all.
Mr. Barker was the identical cad who nobly distinguished
himself, some time since, by keeping a tradesman on the step
—the omnibus going at full speed all the time—till he had
thrashed him to his entire satisfaction, and finally throwing
him away when he had quite done with him. Mr. Barker
it ought to have been, who honestly indignant at being igno-
miniously ejected from a house of public entertainment, kicked
the landlord in the knee, and thereby caused his death. We
say it ought to have been Mr. Barker, because the action was
not a common one, and could have emanated from no ordinary
mind.
It has now become matter of history; it is recorded in the
Newgate Calendar; and we wish we could attribute this piece
of daring heroism to Mr. Barker. We regret being compelled
to state that it was not performed by him. Would, for the
family credit we could add, that it was achieved by his
brother !
It was in the exercise of the nicer details of his profession,
that Mr. Barker’s knowledge of human nature was beautifully
displayed. He could tell at a glance where a passenger wanted
to go to, and would shout the name of the place accordingly,
without the slightest reference to the real destination of the
vehicle. He knew exactly the kind of old lady that would be
too much fiurried by the process of pushing in, and pulling
out of the caravan, to discover where she had been pnt down,
until too late; had an intuitive perception of what was passing
in a passenger's mind, when he inwardly resolved to “ pull
140 SKETCHES BY BOZ
that cad up to-morrow morning ;’’ and never failed to make
himself agreeable to female servants, whom he would place
next the door, and talk to all the way.
Human judgment is never infallible, and it would occasion-
ally happen that Mr. Barker experimentalised with the timidity
or forbearance of the wrong person, in which case a summons
to a police-office, was, on more than one occasion, followed by
a committal to prison. It was not in the power of trifles such
as these, however, to subdue the freedom of his spirit. As
soon as they passed away, he resumed the duties of his pro-
fession with unabated ardour.
We have spoken of Mr. Barker and of the red-cab-driver
in the past tense. Alas! Mr. Barker has again become an
absentee; and the class of men to which they both belonged
are fast disappearing. Improvement has peered beneath the
aprons of our cabs, and penetrated to the very innermost
recesses of our omnibuses. Dirt and fustian will vanish
before cleanliness and livery. Slang will be forgotten when
civility becomes general: and that enlightened, eloquent,
sage, and profound body, the Magistracy of London, will be
deprived of half their amusement, and half their occupation.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH.
WE hope our readers will not be alarmed at this rather
ominous title. We assure them that we are not about to
become political, neither have we the slightest intention of
being more prosy than usual—if we can help it. It has
occurred to us that a slight sketch of the general aspect of
‘*the House,” and the crowds that resort to it on the night
of an important debate, would be productive of some amuse-
ment; and as we have made some few calls at the aforesaid
house in our time—have visited it quite often enough for our
purpose, and a great deal too often for our own personal
peace and comfort—-we have determined to attempt the
description. Dismissing from our minds, therefore, all that
feeling of awe, which vague ideas of breaches of privilege,
ee SS eS
a oe ee ne rr
‘
A PARLIAMENTARY SKETOH, 141
Serjeant-at-Arms, heavy denunciations, and still heavier fees,
are calculated to awaken, we enter at once into the building,
and upon our subject.
Half-past four o’clock—and at five the mover of the Address
will be ‘‘on his legs,” as the newspapers announce sometimes
by way of novelty, as if speakers were occasionally in the
habit of standing on their heads. The members are pouring
‘in, one after the other, in shoals. The few spectators who
can obtain standing-room in the passages, scrutinise them as
they pass, with the utmost interest, and the man who can
identify a member occasionally, becomes a person of great
importance. Every now and then you hear earnest whispers
of ‘“ That’s Sir: John Thomson.” ‘‘ Which? him with the
gilt order round his neck?” ‘No, no; that’s one of the
messengers—that other with the yellow gloves, is Sir John
(ehomeon.’ ~ *‘Here’s Mr. Smith.” “Lor!” ‘Yes, how
d’ ye do, sir ?—(He is our new member)—How do you do,
sir?” Mr. Smith stops: turns round, with an air of enchant-
ing urbanity (for the rumour of an intended dissolution has
been very extensively circulated this morning); seizes both
the hands of his gratified constituent, and, after greeting him
with the most enthusiastic warmth, darts into the lobby with
an extraordinary display of ardour in the public cause, leaving
an immense impression in his favour on the mind of his
“‘ fellow-townsman.”’
The arrivals increase in number, and the heat and noise
increase in very unpleasant proportion. The livery servants
form a complete lane on either side of the passage, and you
reduce yourself into the smallest possible space to avoid being
turned out. You see that stout man with the hoarse voice, in
the blue coat, queer crowned, broad-brimmed hat, white
corduroy breeches, and great boots, who has been talking
incessantly for half an hour past, and whose importance has
occasioned no small quantity of mirth among the strangers.
That is the great conservator of the peace of Westminster.
You cannot fail to have remarked the grace with which he
saluted the noble Lord who passed just now, or the excessive
dignity of his air, as he expostulates with the crowd. He is
rather out of temper now, in consequence of the very irreverent °
behaviour of those two young fellows behind him, who have
fone nothing but laugh all the time they have been here.
“Will they divide to-night, do you think, Mr. e”
a
142 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
timidly inquires a little thin man in the crowd, hoping to
conciliate the man of office.
‘How can you ask such questions, sir ?”’ replies the fune-
tionary, in an incredibly loud key, and pettishly grasping the
thick stick he carries in his right hand. ‘‘ Pray do not, sir,
I beg of you; pray do not, sir.” The little man looks
*remarkably out of his element, and the uninitiated part of
the throng are in positive convulsions of laughter.
Just at this moment, some unfortunate individual appears,
with a very smirking air, at the bottom of the long passage.
He has managed to elude the vigilance of the special con-
stable down stairs, and is evidently congratulating himself on
having made his way so far.
‘Go back, sir—you must not come here,” shouts the hoarse
one, with tremendous emphasis of voice and gesture, the
moment the offender catches his eye.
The stranger pauses.
“Do you hear, sir—will you go back?” continues the
official dignitary, gently pushing the intruder some half-dozen
yards.
“‘Come, don’t push me,” replies the stranger, turning
angrily round.
oT will sir.”
‘¢' You won’t, sir.”
** Go out, sir.”
‘‘Take your hands off me, sir.”
‘Go out off the passage, sir.”’
‘‘You ’re a Jack-in-office, sir.”
‘A what?” ejaculates he of the boots,
‘“‘ A Jack-in-office, sir, and a very insolent fellow,” reiterates
the stranger, now completely in a passion.
‘Pray do not force me to put you out, sir,” retorts the
other—‘‘ pray do not—my instructions are to keep this
passage clear—it’s the Speaker’s orders, sir.”
‘‘ —n the Speaker, sir!” shouts the intruder.
‘Here, Wilson !—Collins!” gasps the officer, actually
paralysed at this insulting expression, which in his mind is all
but high treason; ‘“ take this man out—take him out, I say!
How dare you, sir?”’ and down goes the unfortunate man
five stairs at a time, turning round at every stoppage, to come
back again, and denouncing bitter vengeance against the
sommander-in-chief, and all his supernumeraries,
A PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH. 149
** Make way, gentlemen,—pray make way for the Members,
I beg of you!” shouts the zealous officer, turning back, and
preceding a whole string of the liberal and independent.
You see this ferocious-looking gentleman, with a complexion
almost as sallow as his linen, and whose large black moustache
would give him the appearance of a figure in a hair-dresser’s
window, if his countenance possessed the thought which is
communicated to those waxen caricatures of the human face
divine. He is a militia-officer, and the most amusing person
in the House. Can anything be more exquisitely absurd than
the burlesque grandeur of his air, as he strides up to the lobby,
his eyes rolling like those of a Turk’s head in a cheap Dutch
clock? He never appears without that bundle of dirty papers
which he carries under his left arm, and which are generally
supposed to be the miscellaneous estimates for 1804, or some
equally important documents. He is very punctual in his
attendance at the House, and his self-satisfied ‘‘ He-ar-He-ar,”
is not unfrequently the signal for a general titter.
This is the gentleman who once actually sent a messenger
up to the Strangers’ gallery in the old House of Commons, to
inquire the name of an individual who was using an eye-glass,
in order that he might complain to the Speaker that the person
in question was quizzing him! On another occasion, he is
reported to have repaired to Bellamy’s kitchen—a refreshment
room, where persons who are not Members are admitted on
sufferance, as it were—and perceiving two or three gentlemen
at supper, who he was aware were not Members, and could
not, in that place, very well resent his behaviour, he indulged
in the pleasantry of sitting with his booted leg on the table at
which they\were supping! He is generally harmless, though,
and always amusing.
By dint of patience, and some little interest with our friend
the constable, we have contrived to make our way to the
Lobby, and you can just manage to catch an occasional
glimpse of the House, as the door is opened for the admission
of Members. It is tolerably full already, and little groups of
Members are congregated together here, discussing the inter-
esting topics of the day. .
‘That smart-looking fellow in the black coat with velvet
facings and cuffs, who wears his D’Orsay hat so rakishly, is
*‘ Honest Tom,”’ a metropolitan representative; and the large
man in the cloak with the white lining—not the man by the
144 SKETCHES BY BOZ
pillar; the other with the light hair hanging over his coat
collar behind,—is his colleague, The quiet gentlemanly-
looking man in the blue surtout, gray trousers, white necker-
chief, and gloves, whose closely-buttoned coat displays his
manly figure and broad chest to great advantage, is a very
well-known character. He has fought a great many battles
in his time, and conquered like the heroes of old, with no
other arms than those the gods gave him. The old hard-
featured man who is standing near him, is really a good
specimen of a class of men now nearly extinct. He is a county
Member, and has been from time whereof the memory of man
is not to the contrary. Look at his loose, wide, brown coat,
with capacious pockets on each side; the knee-breeches and
boots, the immensely long waistcoat, and silver watch-chain
dangling below it, the wide-brimmed brown hat, and the
white handkerchief tied in a great bow, with straggling ends
sticking out beyond his shirt-frill. It is a costume one seldom
sees nowadays, and when the few who wear it have died off,
it will be quite extinct. He can tell you long stories of Fox,
Pitt, Sheridan, and Canning, and how much better the House
was managed in those times, when they used to get up at
eight or nine o’clock, except on regular field days, of which
every body was apprised beforehand. He has a great con-
tempt for all young Members of Parliament, and thinks it
quite impossible that a man can say any thing worth hearing,
unless he has sat in the House for fifteen years at least, with-
out saying anything at all. He is of opinion that ‘ that
young Macaulay” was a regular impostor; he allows, that
Lord Stanley may do something one of these days, but ‘“‘ he’s
too young, sir—too young.” He is an excellent authority on
points of precedent, and when he grows talkative, after his
wine, will tell you how Sir Somebody Something, when he
was whipper-in for the Government, brought four men out of
their beds to vote in the majority, three of whom died on their
way home again; how the House once divided on the ques-
tion, that fresh candles be now brought in; how the Speaker
was once upon a time left in the chair by accident, at the con- —
clusion of business, and was obliged to sit in the House by
himself for three hours, till some Member could be knocked
up and brought back again, to move the adjournment; and a
great mapy other anecdotes of a similar description.
There he stands, leaning on his stick; looking at the throng
2 ~ 5 Pied gs
Ag ey
A PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH. 145
of Exquisites around him with most profound contempt; and
conjuring up, before his mind’s eye, the scenes he beheld in
the old House in days gone by, when his own feelings were
fresher and brighter, and when, as he imagines, wit, talent,
and patriotism flourished more brightly too.
You are curious to know who that young man in the rough
great-coat is, who has accosted every Member who has entered
the House since we have been standing here. He is nota
Member ; he is only an “hereditary bondsman,” or, in other
words, an Irish correspondent of an Irish newspaper, who has
just procured his forty-second frank from a Member whom he
never saw in his life before. There he goes again—another!
Bless the man, he has his hat and pockets full already.
We will try our fortune, at the Strangers’ gallery, though
the nature of the debate encourages very little hope of success.
What on earth are you about? Holding up your order as if
it were a talisman at whose command the wicket would fly
open? Nonsense. Just preserve the order for an autograph,
if it be worth keeping at all, and make your appearance at
the door with your thumb and forefinger expressively inserted
in your waistcoat-pocket. This tall stout man in black is the
door-keeper. ‘‘ Any room ?’’—‘‘ Not an inch—two or three
dozen gentlemen waiting down stairs on the chance of some-
body’s going out.” Pull out your purse—‘ Are you quite
sure there’s no room?”—‘T’ll go and look,’ replies the
door-keeper, with a wistful glance at your purse, “‘ but I’m
afraid there’s not.” He returns, and with real feeling assures
you that it is morally impossible to get near the gallery. It
is of no use waiting. When you are refused admission into
the Strangers’ gallery at the House of Commons, under such
circumstances, you may return home thoroughly satisfied that
the place must be remarkably full indeed.*
Retracing our steps through the long passage, descending
the stairs, and crossing Palace-yard, we halt at a small tempo-
rary door-way adjoining the King’s entrance to the House of
Lords. The order of the serjeant-at-arms will admit you into
the Reporters’ gallery, from whence you can obtain a tolerably
good view of the House. ‘Take care of the stairs, they are
none of the best; through this little wicket—there. As soon
* This paper was written before the practice of exhibiting Members of
Parliament, like other curiosities, for the small charge of half-a-crown, was
abolished,
t
146 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
as your eyes become a little used to the mist of the place, and
the glare of the chandeliers below you, you will see that some
unimportant personage on the Ministerial side of the House
(to your right hand) is speaking, amidst a hum of voices and
confusion which would rival Babel, but for the circumstance
of its being all in one language.
The ‘‘ hear, hear,’’ which occasioned that laugh, proceeded
from our warlike friend with the moustache; he is sitting on
the back seat against the wall, behind the Member who is
speaking, looking as ferocious and intellectual as usual. Take
one look around you, and retire! The body of the House and
the side galleries are full of Members; some, with their legs
on the back of the opposite seat; some, with theirs stretched
out to their utmost length on the floor; some going out,
others coming in; all talking, laughing, lounging, coughing,
O-ing, questioning, or groaning; presenting a conglomeration
of noise and confusion, to be met with in no other place in
existence, not even excepting Smithfield on a market-day, or
a cockpit in its glory.
But let us not omit to notice Bellamy’s kitchen, or, in other
words, the refreshment-room, common to both Houses of
Parliament, where Ministerialists and Oppositionists, Whigs
and Tories, Radicals, Peers, and Destructives, strangers from the
gallery, and the more favoured strangers from below the bar,
are alike at liberty to resort; where divers honourable Mem-
bers prove their perfect independence by remaining during the
whole of a heavy debate, solacing themselves with the creature
comforts; and whence they are summoned by whippers-in,
when the House is on the point of dividing; either to give
their ‘‘conscientious votes” on questions of which they are
conscientiously innocent of knowing anything whatever, or to
find a vent for the playful exuberance of their wine-inspired
fancies, in boisterous shouts of ‘‘ Divide,” occasionally varied
with a little howling, barking, crowing, or other ebullitions
of senatorial pleasantry.
When you have ascended the narrow staircase which, in the
present temporary House of Commons, leads to the place we
are describing, you will probably observe a couple of rooms
on your right hand, with tables spread for dining. Neither
of these is the kitchen, although they are both devoted to the
Same purpose; the kitchen is further on to our left, up these
half-dozen stairs. Before we ascend the staircase, however,
A PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH. 147
we must request you to pause in front of this little bar-place
with the sash-windows; and beg your particular attention to
the steady honest-looking old fellow in black, who is its sole
occupant. Nicholas (we do not mind mentioning the old
fellow’s name, for if Nicholas be not a public man, who is ?—
and public men’s names are public property)—Nicholas is the
Butler of Bellamy’s, and has held the same place, dressed
exactly in the same manner, and said precisely the same
things, ever since the oldest of its present visitors can remem-
ber. An excellent servant Nicholas is—an unrivalled com-
pounder of salad-dressing—an admirable preparer of soda-
water and lemon—a special mixer of cold grog and punch—
and, above all, an unequalled judge of cheese. If the old
man have such a thing as vanity in his composition, this is
certainly his pride; and if it be possible to imagine that any
thing in this world could disturb his impenetrable calmness,
we should say it would be the doubting his judgment on this
important point.
We needn’t tell you all this, however, for if you have an
atom of observation, one glance at his sleek, knowing-looking
head and face—his prim white neckerchief, with the wooden tie
into which it has been regularly folded for twenty years past,
merging by imperceptible degrees into a small-plaited shirt-
frill—and his comfortable-looking form encased in a well-
brushed suit of black—would give you a better idea of his real
character than a column of our poor description could convey.
Nicholas is rather out of his element now; he cannot see
the kitchen as he used to in the old House; there, one window
of his glass-case opened into the room, and then, for the edifi-
cation and behoof of more juvenile questioners, he would stand
for an hour together, answering deferential questions about
Sheridan, and Perceval, and Castlereagh, and Heaven knows
who beside, with manifest delight, always inserting a
‘* Mister ’”’ before every commoner’s name.
Nicholas, like all men of his age and standing, has a great
idea of the degeneracy of the times. He seldom expresses
any political opinions, but we managed to ascertain, just
before the passing of the Reform Bill, that Nicholas was a
thorough Reformer. What was our astonishment to discover
shortly after the meeting of the first reformed Parliament,
that he was a most inveterate and decided Tory! It was very
odd: some men change their opinions from necessity, others
3
48 Ct SKETCHES BY BOZ, ;
from expediency, others from inspiration; but that Nicholas
should undergo any change in any respect, was an event we
had never contemplated, and should have considered impos-
sible. His strong opinion against the clause which empowered
the metropolitan districts to return Members to Parliament,
too, was perfectly unaccountable.
We discovered the secret at last; the metropolitan Members
always dined at home. The rascals! As for giving additional
Members to Ireland, it was even worse—decidedly uncon-
stitutional. Why, sir, an Irish Member would go up there,
and eat more dinner than three English Members put together.
He took no wine; drank table-beer by the half-gallon; and
went home to Manchester-buildings, or Milbank-street, for his
whiskey-and-water. And what was the consequence? Why
the concern lost—actually lost, sir—by his patronage.
A queer old fellow is Nicholas, and as completely a part of
the building as the house itself. We wonder he ever left the
old place, and fully expected to see in the papers, the morning
after the fire, a pathetic account of an old gentleman in black,
of decent appearance, who was seen at one of the upper
windows when the flames were at their height, and declared
his resolute intention of falling with the floor. He must
have been got out by force. However, he was got out—here
he is again, looking as he always does, as if he had been in a
bandbox ever since the last session. There he is, at his old
post every night, just as we have described him: and, as
characters are scarce, and faithful servants scarcer, long may
he be there say we!
Now, when you have taken your seat in the kitchen, and
duly noticed the large fire and roasting-jack at one end of the
room—the little table for washing glasses and draining jugs
at the other—the clock over the window opposite St. Mar-
garet’s Church—the deal tables and wax candles—the damask
table-cloths and bare floor—the plate and china on the tables,
and the gridiron on the fire; and a few other anomalies
peculiar to the place—we will point out to your notice two or
three of the people present, whose station or absurdities render
them the most worthy of remark.
It is half-past twelve o’clock, and as the division is not
expected for an hour or two, a few Members are lounging
away the time here, in preference to standing at the bar of the
House, or sleeping in one of the side galleries. That singularly
A PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH. 149
awkward and ungainly-looking man, in the brownish-white
hat, with the straggling black trousers which reach about
half-way down the leg of his boots, who is leaning against
the meat-screen, apparently deluding himself into the belief
that he is thinking about something, is a splendid sample
of a Member of the House of Commons concentrating in his
own person the wisdom of a constituency. Observe the wig,
of a dark hue but indescribable colour, for if it be naturally
brown, it has acquired a black tint by long service, and if it
be naturally black, the same cause has imparted to it a tinge
of rusty brown; and remark how very materially the great
blinker-like spectacles assist the expression of that most
“intelligent face. Seriously speaking, did you ever see a coun-
tenance so expressive of the most hopeless extreme of heavy
dulness, or behold a form so strangely put together? He is
no great speaker: but when he does address the House, the
effect is absolutely irresistible.
The small gentleman with the sharp nose, who has just
saluted him, is a Member of Parliament, an ex-Alderman,
and a sort of amateur fireman. He, and the celebrated fire-
man’s dog, were observed to be remarkably active at the con-
flagration of the two Houses of Parliament—they both ran
up and down, and in and out, getting under people’s feet, and
into everybody’s way, fully impressed with the belief, that
they were doing a great deal of good, and barking tremen-
dously. The dog went quietly back to his kennel with the
engine, but the gentleman kept up such an incessant noise for
some weeks after the occurrence, that he became a positive
nuisance., As no more parliamentary fires have occurred,
however, and as he has consequently had no more opportu-
nities of writing to the newspapers to relate how, by way of
preserving pictures, he cut them out of their frames, and per-
formed other great national services, he has gradually relapsed
into his old state of calmness.
That female in black—not the one whom the Lord’s-Day-
Bill Baronet has just chucked under the chin; the shorter of
the two—is ‘“‘Jane:” the Hebe of Bellamy’s. Jane is as
great a character as Nicholas, in her way. Her leading
features are a thorough contempt for the great majority of
her visitors; her predominant quality, love of admiration, as
you cannot fail to observeyif you mark the glee with which
she listens to something the young Member near her mutters
J
150 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
somewhat unintelligibly in her ear (for his speech is rather
thick from some cause or other), and how playfully she digs
the handle of a fork into the arm with which he detains her,
by way of reply.
Jane is no bad hand at repartees, and showers them about,
with a degree of liberality and total absence of reserve or con-
straint, which occasionally excites no small amazement in the
minds of strangers. She cuts jokes with Nicholas, too, but
looks up to him with a great deal of respect; the immoveable
solidity with which Nicholas receives the aforesaid jokes, and
looks on at certain pastoral friskings and rompings (Jane’s
only recreations, and they are very innocent too) which occa-
sionally take place in the passage, is not the least amusing
part of his character.
The two persons who are seated at the table in the corner,
at the farther end of the room, have been constant guests
here, for many years past; and one of them has feasted
within these walls, many a time, with the most brilliant
characters of a brilliant period. He has gone up to the other
House since then; the greater part of his boon companions
have shared Yorick’s fate, and his visits to Bellamy’s are
comparatively few. | |
If he really be eating his supper now, at what hour can he
possibly have dined! A second solid mass of rump-steak has
disappeared, and he eat the first in four minutes and three
quarters, by the clock over the window. Was there ever such
a personification of Falstaff! Mark the air with which he
gloats over that Stilton as he removes the napkin which has
been placed beneath his chin to catch the superfluous gravy
of the steak, and with what gusto he imbibes the porter
which has been fetched, expressly for him, in the pewter pot.
Listen to the hoarse sound of that voice, kept down as it is
by layers of solids, and deep draughts of rich wine, and tell
us if you ever saw such a perfect picture of a regular gour-
mand ; and whether he is not exactly the man whom you
would pitch upon as having been the partner of Sheridan’s
parliamentary carouses, the volunteer driver of the hackney-
coach that took him home, and the involuntary upsetter of
he whole party ?
What an amusing contrast between his voice and appear-
ance, and that of the spare, squeaking old man, who sits at
the same table, and who elevating a little cracked bantam
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PUBLIC DINNERS, | 15)
sort of voice to its highest pitch, invokes damnation upon his
Own eyes or somebody else’s at the commencement of every
sentence he utters. ‘‘The Captain,” as they call him, is a
very old frequenter of Bellamy’s; much addicted to stopping
‘‘after the House is up’”’ (an inexpiable crime in Jane’s eyes),
and a complete walking reservoir of spirits and water.
The old Peer—or rather, the old man—jor his peerage is
of comparatively recent date—has a huge tumbler of hot
punch brought him; and the other damns and drinks, and
drinks and damns, and smokes. Members arrive every
moment in a great bustle to report that ‘‘The Chancellor of
the Exchequer’s up,”’ and’ to get glasses of brandy-and-water
to sustain them during the division; people who have ordered
supper, countermand it, and prepare to go down stairs, when
suddenly a bell is heard to ring with tremendous violence,
and a cry of ‘‘ Di-vi-sion!”’ is heard in the passage. This is
enough ; away rush the members pell-mell. The room is
cleared in an instant; the noise rapidly dies away; you hear
the creaking of the last boot on the last stair, and are left
alone with the leviathan of rump-steaks.
CHAPTER XIX.
PUBLIC DINNERS.
Att public dinners in London, from the Lord Mayor’s
annual banquet at Guildhall, to the Chimney-sweepers’ anni-
versary at’ White Conduit House; from:the Goldsmiths’ to —
the Butchers’, from the Sheriffs’-to the Licensed Victuallers’ ;_
are amusing scenes. Of all entertainments of this description,
however, we think the annual dinner of some public charity
is the most amusing. At a Company’s dinner, the people are
nearly all alike—regular old stagers, who make it a matter of
business, and a thing not to be laughed at. At a politieal
_dinner, everybody is disagreeable, and inclined to speechify—
much the same thing, by the by; but at a charity dinner you
see people of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions. The wine
may not be remarkably special, to be sure, and we have heard
some hard-hearted monsters grumble at the collection; but
152 SKETCHES BY BOZ
we really think the amusement to be derived from the occa-
sion, sufficient to counterbalance, even these disadvantages.
Let us suppose you are induced to attend a dinner of this
description——“‘ Indigent Orphans’ Friends’ Benevolent Institu-
tion,” we think it is. The name of the charity is a line or
two longer, but never mind the rest. You have a distinct
recollection, however, that you purchased a ticket at the
solicitation of some charitable friend: and you deposit your-
self in a hackney-coach, the driver of which—no doubt that
you may do the thing in style—turns a deaf ear to your
earnest entreaties to be set down at the corner of Great Queen-
street, and persists in carrying you to the very door of the
Freemasons’, round which a crowd of people are assembled to
witness the entrance of the indigent orphans’ friends. You
hear great speculations as you pay the fare, on the possibility
of your being the noble Lord who is announced to fill the
chair on the occasion, and are highly gratified to hear it even-
tually decided that you are only a “‘ wocalist.”’
The first thing that strikes you, on your entrance, is the
astonishing importance of the committee. You observe a
door on the first landing, carefully guarded by two waiters,
in and out of which stout gentlemen with very red faces keep
running, with a degree of speed highly unbecoming the
gravity of persons of their years and corpulency. You pause,
quite alarmed at the bustle, and thinking, in your innocence,
that two or three people must have been carried out of the
dining-room in fits, at least. You are immediately undeceived
by the waiter—‘‘ Up stairs, if you please, sir; this is the
committee-room.”’ Up stairs you go, accordingly; wondering,
as you mount, what the duties of the committee can be, and
whether they ever do anything beyond confusing each other,
and running over the waiters.
Having deposited your hat and cloak, and received a re-
markably small scrap of pasteboard in exchange (which, as a
matter of course, you lose, before you require it again), you
enter the hall, down which there are three long tables for the
less distinguished guests, with a cross table on a raised plat-
form at the upper end for the reception of the very particular
friends of the indigent orphans. Being fortunate enough to
find a plate without anybody’s card in it, you wisely seat
yourself at once, and have a little leisure to look about you,
Waiters, with wine-baskets in their hands, are placing
PUBLIC DINNERS, 1538
decanters of sherry down the tables, at very respectable dis-
tances ; melancholy-looking saitcellars, and decayed vinegar-
' eruets, which might have belonged to the parents of the
indigent orphans in their time, are scattered at distant inter-
vals on the cloth; and the knives and forks look as if they
had done duty at every public dinner in London since the
accession of George the First. The musicians are scraping
and grating and screwing tremendously—-playing no notes
but notes of preparation; and several gentlemen are gliding
along the sides of the tables, looking into plate after plate
with frantic eagerness, the expression of their countenances
growing more and more dismal as they meet with everybody’s
card but their own.
You turn round to take a look at the table behind you, and
—not being in the habit of attending public dinners—are
somewhat struck by the appearance of the party on which
your eyes rest. One of its principal members appears to be
a little man, with a long and rather infiamed face, and gray
hair brushed bolt upright in front; he wears a wisp of black
suk round his neck, without any stiffener, as an apology for
a neckerchief, and is addressed by his companions by the
familiar appellation of ‘‘ Fitz,” or some such monosyllable.
Near him is a stout man in a white neckerchief and buff
waistcoat, with shining dark hair, cut very short in front, and
a great round healthy-looking face, on which he studiously
preserves a half-sentimental simper. Next him, again, is a
large-headed man, with black hair and bushy whiskers; and
opposite them are two or three others, one of whom is a little
round-faced person, in a dress-stock and blue under-waistcoat.
There is something peculiar in their air and manner, though
you could hardly describe what it is; you cannot divest your-
self of the idea that they have come for some other purpose
than mere eating and drinking. You have no time to debate
the matter, however, for the waiters (who have been arranged
in lines down the room, placing the dishes on table), retire to
the lower end; the dark man in the blue coat and bright
buttons, who has the direction of the music, looks up to the
gallery, and calls out ‘‘ band” in a very loud voice; out
burst the orchestra, up rise the visitors, in march fourteen
stewards, each with a long wand in his hand, like the evil
genius in a pantomime; then the chairman, then the titled
visitors; they all make their way up the room, as fast as they
154 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
van, bowing, and smiling, and smirking, and looking remark-
ably amiable. The applause ceases, grace is said, the clatter -
of plates and dishes begins; and every one appears highly
gratified, either with the presence of the distinguished visitors,
or the commencement of the anxiously expected dinner.
As to the dinner itself—the mere dinner—it goes off much
the same everywhere. Tureens of soup are emptied with
awful rapidity—waiters take plates of turbot away, to get
lobster-sauce, and bring back plates of lobster-sauce without
turbot ; people who can carve poultry, are great fools if they
own it, and people who can’t, have no wish to learn. The
knives and forks form a pleasing accompaniment to Auber’s
music, and Auber’s music would form a pleasing accompani-
ment to the dinner, if you could hear anything besides the
cymbals. The substantials disappear—moulds of jelly vanish
like lightning—hearty eaters wipe their foreheads, and appear
rather overcome with their recent exertions—people who have
looked very cross hitherto, become remarkably bland, and ask
you to take wine in the most friendly manner possible—old
gentlemen direct your attention to the ladies’ gallery, and
take great pains to impress you with the fact that the charity
is always peculiarly favoured in this respect—every one
appears disposed to become talkative—and the hum of con-
versation is loud and general.
‘“‘Pray, silence, gentlemen, if you please, for Non nobis!”
shouts the toast-master with stentorian lungs—a toast-master’s
shirt-front, waistcoat, and neckerchief, by the by, always ex-
hibit three distinct shades of cloudy-white-—“ Pray, silence,
gentlemen, for Non nobis!’’ The singers, whom you discover
to be no other than the very party that excited your curiosity
at first after ‘‘ pitching ”’ their voices immediately begin too-
tooing most dismally, on which the regular old stagers burst
into occasional cries of —‘‘Sh—Sh—waiters!—Silence, waiters
—stand still, waiters—keep back, waiters,’’ and other exor-
cisms, delivered in a tone of indignant remonstrance. The
grace is soon concluded, and the company resume their seats.
The uninitiated portion of the guests applaud Non nobis as
vehemently as if it were a capital comic song, greatly to the
scandal and indignation of the regular diners, who imme-
diately attempt to quell this sacrilegious approbation, by cries
of ‘‘Hush, hush!”’ whereupon the others, mistaking these
sounds for hisses, applaud more tumultuously than before
PUBLIC DINNERS. 155
and, by way of placing their approval beyond the possibility
of doubt, shout ‘ Encore!” most vociferously.
The moment the noise ceases, up starts the toast-master :—
‘* Gentlemen, charge your glasses, if you please!’’ Decanters
having been handed about, and glasses filled, the toast-master
proceeds, in a regular ascending scale ;— ‘‘ Gentlemen—air—
you—all charged? Pray—silence— gentlemen — for — the
cha--i—r!” The chairman rises, and, after stating that he
feels it quite unnecessary to preface the toast he is about to
propose with any observations whatever, wanders into a maze
ef sentences, and flounders about in the most extraordinary
manner, presenting a lamentable spectacle of mystified
humanity, until. he arrives at the words, “constitutional
sovereion of these realms,’ at which elderly gentlemen
exclaim ‘‘ Bravo!” and hammer the table tremendously with
their knife-handles. ‘‘ Under any circumstances, it would
give him the greatest pride, it would give him the greatest
pleasure—he might almost say, it would afford him satis-
faction [cheers] to propose that toast. What must be his
feelings, then, when he has the gratification of announcing,
that he has received her Majesty’s commands to apply to the
Treasurer of her Majesty’s Household, for her Majesty’s
annual donation of 25/., in aid of the funds of this charity!”
This announcement (which has been regularly made by every
chairman, since the first foundation of the charity, forty-two.
years ago) calls forth the most vociferous applause; the toast
is drunk with a great deal of cheering and knocking; and
“God save the Queen ”’ is sung by the “professional gentle-
men;’’ the unprofessional gentlemen joining in the chorus,
and giving the national anthem an effect which the news-
papers, with great justice, describe as “‘ perfectly electrical.”
The other ‘loyal and patriotic” toasts having been drunk
with all due enthusiasm, a comic song having been well sung
by the gentleman with the small neckerchief, and a senti-
mental one by the second of the party, we come to the most
important toast of the evening—“ Prosperity to the charity.”
Here again we are compelled to adopt newspaper phraseology,
and to express our regret at being ‘‘ precluded from giving
even the substance of the noble lord’s observations.” Suffice
it to say, that the speech, which is somewhat of the longest,
is rapturously received; and the toast having been drunk, the
stewards (looking more important than ever) leave the room,
156 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
and presently return, heading a procession of indigent
vrphans, boys and girls, who walk round the 190m, curtsey-
ing, and bowing, and treading on each other’s heels, and
looking very much as if they would like a glass of wine
apiece, to the high gratification of the company generally, and
especially of the lady patronesses in the gallery. Hzxeunt
children, and re-enter stewards, each with a blue plate in his
hand. The band plays a lively air; the majority of the
company put their hands in their pockets and look rather
serious; and the noise of sovereigns, rattling on crockery, is
heard from all parts of the room.
After a short interval, occupied in singing and toasting, the
secretary puts on his spectacles, and proceeds to read the
report and list of subscriptions, the latter being listened to
with great attention. ‘‘ Mr. Smith, one guinea—Mr. Tomp- ~
kins, one guinea—Mr. Wilson, one guinea—Mr. Hickson, one
guinea—Mr, Nixon, one guinea—Mr. Charles Nixon, one
guinea—{ hear, hear!|—Mr. James Nixon, one guinea—Mr.
Thomas Nixon, one pound one [tremendous applause]. Lord
Fitz Binkle, the chairman of the day, in addition to an annual
donation of fifteen pounds—thirty guineas {prolonged knock-
ing: several gentlemen knock the stems off their wine-glasses,
in the vehemence of their approbation]. Lady Fitz Binkle,
in addition to an annual donation of ten pound—twenty
pound ”’ [ protracted knocking and shouts of ‘“‘ Bravo!” ]. The
list being at length concluded, the chairman rises and proposes
the health of the secretary, than whom he knows no more
zealous or estimable individual. The secretary, in returning
thanks, observes that he knows no more excellent individual
than the chairman—except the senior officer of the charity,
whose health he begs to propose. The senior officer in return-
ing thanks, observes that he knows no more worthy man than
the secretary—except Mr. Walker, the auditor, whose health
he begs to propose. Mr. Walker, in returning thanks, dis-
covers some other estimable individual, to whom alone the
senior officer is inferior—and so they go on toasting and
lauding and thanking: the only other toast of importance
being ‘‘ The Lady Patronesses now present!” on which all the
gentlemen turn their faces towards the ladies’ gallery, shout-
ing tremendously; and litt priggish men, who have imbibed
more wine than usual, kiss their hands and exhibit distressing
contortions of visage.
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THE FIRST OF- MAY, 157
We have protracted our dinner to so great a length, that
we have hardly time to add one word by way of grace. We
can only entreat our readers not to imagine, because we have
attempted to extract some amusement from a charity dinner,
that we are at all disposed to underrate, either the excellence
of the benevolent institutions with which London abounds, or
the estimable motives of those who support them.
CHAPTER XX,
THE FIRST OF MAY,
** Now ladies, up in the sky-parlour : only once a year, if you please {”
Youne Lapy witn Brass LApuR,
‘* Sweep—sweep—sw-e-ep !” |
InuugaL WATCHWoORD.
= Tux first of May! There is a merry freshnéss in the sound,
_~ calling to our minds a thousand thoughts of all that is pleasant
and beautiful in nature, in her most delightful form. What
man is there, over whose mind a bright spring morning does
_ not exercise a magic influence—carrying him back to the days
of his childish sports, and conjuring up before him the old
green field with its gently-waving trees, where the birds sang
as he has never heard them since— where the butterfly
fluttered far more gaily than he ever sees him now, in all his
ramblings—where the sky seemed bluer,-and the sun shone
more brightly—where the air blew more freshly over greener
grass, and sweeter-smelling flowers—where every thing wore
a richer and more brilliant hue than it is ever dressed in now!
Such are the deep feelings of childhood, and such are the
impressions -which every lovely object stamps upon its heart!
The hardy traveller wanders through the maze of thick and
pathless woods, where the sun’s rays never shone, and heayven’s
pure air never played; he stands on the brink of the roaring
waterfall, and, giddy and bewildered, watches the foaming
mass as it leaps from stone to stone, and from crag to crag ;
he lingers in the fertile plains of a land of perpetual sunshine,
and revels in the luxury of their balmy breath. But what
are the deep forests, or the thundering waters, or the richest
158 SKETCHES BY BOZ
landscapes that bounteous nature ever spread, to charm the
eyes, and captivate the senses of man, compared with the
recollection of the old scenes of his early youth? Magic
scenes indeed, for the fancies of childhood dressed them in
colours brighter than the rainbow, and almost as fleeting!
In former times, spring brought with it not only such
associations as these, connected with the past, but sports and
games for the present—merry dances round rustic pillars,
adorned with emblems of the season, and reared in honour of
its coming. Where are they now! Pillars we have, but they
are no longer rustic ones; and as to dancers, they are used to
rooms, and lights, and would not show well in the open air.
Think of the immorality, too! What would your sabbath
enthusiasts say, to an aristocratic ring encircling the Duke of
York’s column in Cariton-terrace—a grand poussette of the
middle classes, round Alderman Waithman’s monument in
Fleet-street,—or a general hands-four-round of ten-pound
householders, at the foot of the Obelisk in St. George’s-fields ¢
Alas! romance can make no head against the riot act; and
pastoral simplicity is not understood by the police.
Well; many years ago we began to be a steady and matter-
of-fact sort of people, and dancing in spring being beneath
our dignity, we gave it up, and in course of time it descended
to the sweeps—a fall certainly, because, though sweeps are
very good fellows in their way, and moreover very useful in a
civilised community, they are not exactly the sort of people to
give the tone to the little elegances of society. The sweeps,
however, got the dancing to themselves, and they kept it up,
and handed it down. This was a severe blow to the romance
of spring-time, but, it did not entirely destroy it, either; for
a portion of it descended to the sweeps with the dancing, and
rendered them objects of great interest. A mystery hung
over the sweeps in those days. Legends were in existence of
wealthy gentlemen who had lost children, and who, after
many years of sorrow and suffering, had found them in the
character of sweeps. Stories were related of a young boy
who, having been stolen from his parents in his infancy, and
devoted to the occupation of chimney-sweeping, was sent, in
the course of his professional career, to sweep the chimney of
his mother’s bedroom; and how, being hot and tired when he
came out of the chimney, he got into the bed he had so often
slept in as an infant, and was discovered and recognised
THE FIRST OF MAY. 159
therein by his mother, who once every year of her life, there-
after, requested the pleasure of the company of every London
sweep, at half-past one o’clock, to roast beef, plum-pudding,
porter, and sixpence.
Such stories as these, and there were many such, threw an
air of mystery round the sweeps, and produced for them some
of those good effects which animals derive from the doctrine
_ of the transmigration of souls. No one (except the masters)
thought of ill-treating a sweep, because no one knew who he .
might be, or what nobleman’s or gentleman’s son he might
turn out. Chimney-sweeping was, by many believers in the
marvellous, considered as a sort of probationary term, at an
earlier or later period of which, divers young noblemen were
to come into possession of their rank and titles; and the
profession was held by them in great respect accordingly.
We remember, in our young days, a little sweep about our
own age, with curly hair and white teeth, whom we devoutly
and sincerely believed to be the lost son and heir of some
illustrious personage—an impression which was resolved into
an unchangeable conviction on our infant mind, by the subject
of our speculations informing us, one day, in reply to our
question, propounded a few moments before his ascent to the
summit of the kitchen chimney, ‘“‘ that he believed he’d been
born in the vurkis, but he’d never know’d his father.”” We
felt certain, from that time forth, that he would one day be
owned by a lord; and we never heard the church-bells ring,
or saw a flag hoisted in the neighbourhood, without thinking
that the happy event had at last occurred, and that his long-
lost parent had arrived in a coach and six, to take him home
to Grosvenor-square. He never came, however; and, at the
present moment, the young gentleman in question is settled
down as a master sweep in the neighbourhood of Battle-
bridge, his distinguishing characteristics being a decided
antipathy to washing himself, and the possession of a pair of
legs very inadequate to the support of his unwieldy and
corpulent body.
The romance of spring having gone out before our time,
we were fain to console ourselves as we best could with the
uncertainty that enveloped the birth and parentage of its
attendant dancers, the sweeps; and we did console ourselves
with it, for many years. But, even this wretched source of
vomiort received a shock, from which it has never recovered
160 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
—a shock, which has been, in reality, its death-blow. We
could not disguise from ourselves the fact that whole families
of sweeps were regularly born of sweeps, in the rural districts
of Somers Town and Camden Town—that the eldest son
succeeded to the father’s business, that the other branches
assisted him therein, and commenced on their own account;
that their children again, were educated to the profession;
and that about their identity there could be no mistake what-
.ever. We could not be blind, we say, to this melancholy
truth, but we could not bring ourselves to admit it, neverthe-
less, and we lived on for some years in a state of voluntary
ignorance. We were roused from our pleasant slumber by
certain dark insinuations thrown out by a friend of ours, to .
the effect that children in the lower ranks of life were begin-
ning to choose chimney-sweeping as their particular walk;
that applications had been made by various boys to the con-
stituted authorities, to allow them to pursue the object of
their ambition with the full concurrence and sanction of the
law ; that the affair, in short, was becoming one of mere legal
contract. We turned a deaf ear to these rumours at first, but
slowly and surely they stole upon us. Month after month,
week after week, nay, day after day, at last, did we meet with
accounts of similar applications. The veil was removed, all
mystery was at an end, and chimney-sweeping had become a
favourite and chosen pursuit. There is no longer any occasion
to steal boys; for boys flock in crowds to bind themselves.
The romance of the trade has fled, and the chimney-sweeper
of the present day, is no more like unto him of thirty years
ago, than is a Fleet-street pickpocket to a Spanish brigand, or
Paul Pry to Caleb Williams.
This gradual decay and disuse of the practice of leading
noble youths into captivity, and compelling them to ascend
chimneys, was a severe blow, if we may so speak, to the
romance of chimney-sweeping, and to the romance of spring
at the same time. But even this was not all, for some few
years ago the dancing on May-day began to decline; small
sweeps were observed to congregate in twos or threes, unsup-
ported by a ‘‘ green,” with no ‘‘ My Lord” to act as master of
the ceremonies, and no ‘My Lady” to preside over the
exchequer. Even in companies where there was a “‘ green”
it was an absolute nothing—a mere sprout—and the instru-
mental accompaniments rarely extended beyond the shovels
ieee
i
THE FIRST OF MAY. 161
and a set of Pan-pipes, better known to the many, as a
“ mouth-organ.”’
These were signs of the times, portentous omens of a
coming change; and what was the result which they shadowed
forth? Why, the master sweeps, influenced by a restless
spirit of innovation, actually interposed their authority, in
opposition to the dancing, and substituted a dinner—an
anniversary dinner at White Conduit House—where clean
faces appeared in lieu of black ones smeared with rose pink ;
and knee cords and tops superseded nankeen drawers and
rosetted shoes.
Gentlemen who were in the habit of riding shy horses; and
steady-going people, who have no vagrancy in their souls,
lauded this alteration to the skies, and the conduct of the
master sweeps was described as beyond the reach of praise.
But how stands the real fact? Let any man deny, if he can,
that when the cloth had been removed, fresh pots and pipes
laid upon the table, and the customary loyal and patriotic
toasts proposed, the celebrated Mr. Sluffen, of Adam-and-Lve-
court, whose authority not the most malignant of our oppo-
nents can call in question, expressed himself in a manner
following: ‘‘That now he’d cotcht the cheerman’s hi, he
vished he might be jolly vell blessed, if he worn’t a goin’ to
have his innings, vich he vould say these here obserwashuns—
that how some mischeevus coves as know’d nuffin about the
consarn, had tried to sit people agin the mas’r swips, and
take the shine out o’ their bis’nes, and the bread out o’ the
traps o’ their preshus kids, by a’ makin’ o’ this here remark,
as chimblies could be as vell svept by ’sheenery as by boys;
and that the makin’ use o’ boys for that there purpuss vos
babareous; vereas, he ’ad been a chummy—he begged the
cheerman’s parding for usin’ such a wulgar hexpression—
more nor thirty year—he might say he’d been born in a
chimbley—and he know’d uncommon vell as ’sheenery vos
vus nor o’ no use: and as to kerhewelty to the boys, every
body in the chimbley line know’d as vell as he did, that they
liked the climbin’ better nor nuffin as vos.” From this day,
we date the total fall of the last lingering remnant of May-day
dancing, among the élite of the profession: and from this
_ period we commence a new era in that portion of our spring
associations, which relates to the 1st of May.
We are aware that the unthinking part of the population
u
162 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
will meet us here, with the assertion, that dancing on May-
day still continues—that ‘‘ greens”’ are annually seen to roll
along the streets—that youths in the garb of clowns, precede
them, giving vent to the ebullitions of their sportive fancies;
and that lords and ladies follow in their wake.
Granted. We are ready to acknowledge that in outward
show, these processions have greatly improved: we do not
deny the introduction of solos on the drum; we will even go
so far as to admit an occasional fantasia on the triangle, but
here our admissions end. We positively deny that the sweeps
have art or part in these proceedings. We distinctly charge
the dustmen with throwing what they ought to clear away,
into the eyes of the public. We accuse scavengers, brick-
makers, and gentlemen who devote their energies to the
costermongering line, with obtaining money once a-year, under
false pretences. We cling with peculiar fondness to the custom
of days gone by, and have shut out conviction as long as we
could, but it has forced itself upon us; and we now proclaim
to a deluded public, that the May-day dancers are not sweeps.
The size of them, alone, is sufficient to repudiate the idea. It
is a notorious fact that the widely-spread taste for register-
stoves has materially increased the demand for small boys;
whereas the men, who, under a fictitious character, dance
about the streets on the first of May nowadays, would be a
tight fit in a kitchen flue, to say nothing of the parlour. This
is strong presumptive evidence, but we have positive proof—
the evidence of our own senses. And here is our testimony.
Upon the morning of the second of the merry month of
May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
thirty-six, we went out for a stroll, with a kind of forlorn
hope of seeing something or other which might induce us to
believe that it was really spring, and not Christmas. After
wandering as far as Copenhagen House, without meeting any
thing calculated to dispel our impression that there was a
mistake in the almanacks, we turned back down Maiden-lane,
with the intention of passing through the extensive colony
lying between it and Battle-bridge, which is inhabited by
proprietors of donkey-carts, boilers of horseflesh, makers of
tiles, and sifters of cinders; through which colony we should
have passed, without stoppage or interruption, if a little crowd
gathered round a shed had not attracted our attention, and
induced us to pause.
THE FIRST OF MAY. 163
When we say a “‘shed,’’ we do not mean the conservatory
sort of building, which, according to the old song, Love
tenanted when he was a young man, but a wooden house with
windows stuffed with rags and paper, and a small yard at the
side, with one dust-cart, two baskets, a few shovels, and little
heaps of cinders, and fragments of china and tiles, scattered
about it. Before this inviting spot we paused; and the
longer we looked, the more we wondered what exciting
circumstance it could be, that induced the foremost members
of the crowd to flatten their noses against the parlour window,
in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of what was going on
inside. After staring vacantly about us for some minutes, we
appealed, touching the cause of this assemblage, to a gentleman
in a suit of tarpauling, who was smoking his pipe on our
right hand; but as the only answer we obtained was a playful.
inquiry whether our mother had disposed of her mangle, we
determined to await the issue in silence.
Judge of our virtuous indignation, when the street door of
the shed opened, and a party emerged therefrom, clad in the
costume and emulating the appearance, of May-day sweeps!
The first person who appeared was ‘‘my lord,” habited in
a blue coat and bright buttons, with gilt paper tacked over
the seams, yellow knee-breeches, pink cotton stockings, and
shoes; a cocked hat, ornamented with shreds of various-
coloured paper, on his head, a bouquet, the size of a prize
cauliflower in his button-hole, a long Belcher handkerchief in
his right hand, and a thin cane in his left. A murmur of
applause ran through the crowd (which was chiefly composed
of his lordship’s personal friends), when this graceful figure
made his appearance, which swelled into a burst of applause
as his fair partner in the dance bounded forth to join him.
Her ladyship was attired in pink crape over bed-furniture,
with a low body and short sleeves. The symmetry of her
ankles was partially concealed by a very perceptible pair of
frilled trousers; and the inconvenience which might have
resulted from the circumstance of her white satin shoes being
a few sizes too large, was obviated by their being firmly
attached to her legs with strong tape sandals.
Her head was ornamented with a profusion of artificial
flowers; and in her hand she bore a large brass ladle,
wherein to receive what she figuratively denominated ‘“‘ the
tin.” The other characters were a young gentleman in girl’s
M
164 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
clothes and a widow’s cap; two clowns who walked upon their
hands in the mud, to the immeasurable delight of all the
spectators; a man with a drum; another man with a
flageolet; a dirty woman in a large shawl, with a box under
her arm for the money,—and last, though not least, the
‘green,’ animated by no less a personage than our identical
friend in the tarpauling suit.
The man hammered away at the drum, the flageolet
squeaked, the shovels rattled, the ‘“‘green” rolled about,
pitching first on one side and then on the other; my lady
threw her right foot over her left ankle, and her left foot over
her right ankle, alternately; my lord ran a few paces forward,
and butted at the ‘‘ green,” and then a few paces backward
upon the toes of the crowd, and then went to the right, and
then to the left, and then dodged my lady round the “ green ;”
and finally drew her arm through his, and called upon the
boys to shout, which they did lustily—for this was the
dancing.
We passed the same group, accidentally, in the evening.
We never saw a ‘‘ green” so drunk, a lord so quarrelsome
(no: not even in the house of peers after dinner), a pair of
clowns so melancholy, a lady so muddy, or a party so
miserable.
How has May-day decayed!
CHAPTER XXI.
BROKERS AND MARINE-STORE SHOPS,
WueEn we affirm that brokers’ shops are strange places,
and that if an authentic history of their contents could be
procured, it would furnish many a page of amusement, and
many a melancholy tale, it is necessary to explain the class of
shops to which we allude. Perhaps when we make use of the
term ‘‘ Brokers’ Shop,” the minds of our readers will at once
picture large, handsome warehouses, exhibiting a long per-
spective of French-polished dining-tables, rosewood chiffoniers,
und mahogany wash-hand-stands, with an occasional vista of
a four-post bedstead and hangings, and an appropriate fore-
ie ee ee
BROKERS’ AND MARINE-STORE SHOPS. 165
ground of dining-room chairs. Perhaps they will imagine
that we mean an humble class of second-hand furniture re-
positories. Their imagination will then naturally lead them
to that street at the back of Long-acre, which is composed
almost entirely of brokers’ shops; where you walk through
groves of deceitful, showy-looking furniture, and where the
prospect is occasionally enlivened by a bright red, blue, and
yellow heartli-rug, embellished with the pleasing device of a
mail-coach at full speed, or a strange animal, supposed to have
been originally intended for a dog, with a mass of worsted-
work in his mouth, which conjecture has likened to a basket
of flowers.
This, by the by, is a tempting article to young wives in the
humbler ranks of life, who have a first floor-front to furnish
—they are lost in admiration, and hardly know which to
admire most. The dog is very beautiful, but they have a dog
already on the best tea-tray, and two more on the mantel-
piece. Then, there is something so genteel about that mail-
coach; and the passengers outside (who are all hat) give it
such an air of reality!
The goods here are adapted to the taste, or rather to the
means, of cheap purchasers. There are some of the most
beautiful looking Pembroke tables that were ever beheld: the
wood as green as the trees in the Park, and the leaves almost
as certain to fall off in the course of a year. There is alsoa
most extensive assortment of tent and turn-up bedsteads, made
of stained wood; and innumerable specimens of that base
imposition on society—a sofa bedstead.
A turn-up bedstead is a blunt, honest piece of furniture; it
may be slightly disguised with a sham drawer; and some-
times a mad attempt is even made to pass it off for a book-
case; ornament it as you will, however, the turn-up bedstead
seems to defy disguise, and to insist on having it distinctly
understood that he is a turn-up bedstead, and nothing else—
that he is indispensably necessary, and that being so useful,
he disdains to be ornamental.
How different is the demeanour of a sofa bedstead!
Ashamed of its real use, it strives to appear an article of
luxury and gentility—an attempt in which it miserably fails
[t has neither the respectability of a sofa, nor the virtues of a
hed; every man who keeps a sofa bedstead in his house,
becomes a party to a wilful and desiguicg fraud—we question
i @
166 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
whether you could insult him more, than by insinuating that
you entertain the least suspicion of its real use.
To return from this digression, we beg to say, that neither
of these classes of brokers’ shops, form the subject of this
sketch. The shops to which we advert, are immeasurably
inferior to those on whose outward appearance we have
slightly touched. Our readers must often have observed in
some by-street, in a poor neighbourhood, a small dirty shop,
- exposing for sale the most extraordinary and confused jumble
of old, worn-out, wretched articles, that can well be imagined.
Our wonder at their ever having been bought, is only to be
equalled by our astonishment at the idea of their ever being
sold again. On a board, at the side of the door, are placed
about twenty books—all odd volumes; and as many wine-
glasses—all different patterns; several locks, an old earthen-
ware pan, full of rusty keys; two or three gaudy chimney-
ornaments—cracked, of course; the remains of a lustre,
without any drops; a round frame like a capital O, which has
once held a mirror; a flute, complete with the exception of
the middle joint; a pair of curling-irons; and a tinder-box.
In front of the shop-window, are ranged some half-dozen high-
backed chairs, with spinal complaints and wasted legs; a
corner cupboard; two or three very dark mahogany tables
with flaps like mathematical problems; some pickle-jars,
some surgeons’ ditto, with gilt labels and without stoppers;
an unframed portrait of some lady who flourished about the
beginning of the thirteenth century, by an artist who never
flourished at all; an incalculable host of miscellanies of every
description, including bottles and cabinets, rags and bones,
fenders and street-door knockers, fire-irons, wearing-apparel
and bedding, a hall-lamp, and a room-door. Imagine, in
addition to this incongruous mass, a black doll in a white
frock, with two faces—one looking up the street, and the
other looking down, swinging over the door; a board with the
squeezed-up inscription ‘‘ Dealer in marine stores,” in lanky
white letters, whose height is strangely out of proportion to
their width; and you have before you precisely the kind of
shop to which we wish to direct your attention.
Although the same heterogeneous mixture of things will be
foun, at all these places, it is curious to observe how truly
and accurately some of the minor articles which are exposed
for sale—articles of wearing-apparel, for mstance—mark the
BROKERS AND MARINE-STORE SHOPS. 167
character of the neighbourhood. Take Drury-lane and Covent-
garden for example.
This is essentially a theatrical neighbourhood. There is
not a potboy in the vicinity who is not, to a greater or less
extent, a dramatic character. The errand-boys and chandler’s-
shop-keepers’ sons, are all stage-struck: they ‘‘ get up’’ plays
in back kitchens hired for the purpose, and will stand before a
shop-window for hours, contemplating a great staring portrait
of Mr. somebody or other, of the Royal Coburg Theatre, ‘‘ as
he appeared in the character of Tongo the Denounced.” The
consequence is, that there is not a marine-store shop in the
neighbourhood, which does not exhibit for sale some faded
articles of dramatic finery, such as three or four pairs of soiled
buff boots with turn-over red tops, heretofore worn by a
‘fourth robber,” or “fifth mob;” a pair of rusty broad-
swords, a few gauntlets, and certain resplendent ornaments,
which, if they were yellow instead of white, might be taken
for insurance plates of the Sun Fire-office. There are several
of these shops in the narrow streets and dirty courts, of which
there are so many near the national theatres, and they all
have tempting goods of this description, with the addition,
perhaps, of a lady’s pink dress covered with spangles; white
wreaths, stage shoes, and a tiara like a tin lamp reflector
They have been purchased of some wretched supernumeraries,
or sixth-rate actors, and are now offered for the benefit of the
rising generation, who, on condition of making certain weekly
payments, amounting in the whole to about ten times their
value, may avail themselves of such desirable bargains.
Let us take a very different quarter, and apply it to the
same test. Look at a marine-store dealer’s, in that reservoir
of dirt, drunkenness, and drabs: thieves, oysters, baked
potatoes, and pickled salmon—Ratcliff-highway. Here, the
wearing-apparel is all nautical. Rough blue jackets, with
mother-of-pearl buttons, oil-skin hats, coarse checked shirts,
and large canvass trousers that look as if they were made for
a pair of bodies instead of a pair of legs, are the staple com-
modities. Then, there are large bunches of cotton pocket-
handkerchiefs, in colour and pattern unlike any, one ever saw
before, with the exception of those on the backs of the three
young ladies without bonnets who passed just now. The
furniture is much the same as elsewhere, with the addition of
one or two models of ships, an] some old prints of naval
:
168 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
engagements in still older frames. In the window, are a few
compasses, a small tray containing silver watches in clumsy
thick cases; and tobacco-boxes, the lid of each ornamented
with a ship, or an anchor, or some such trophy. A sailor
generally pawns or sells all he has before he has been long
ashore, and if he does not, some favoured companion kindly
saves him the trouble. In either case, it is an even chance
that he afterwards unconsciously repurchases the same things
at a higher price than he gave for them at first.
Again: pay a visit with a similar object, to a part of
London, as unlike both of these as they are to each other.
Cross over to the Surrey side, and look at such shops of this
description as are to be found near the King’s Bench prison,
and in “the Rules.” How different, and how strikingly
illustrative of the decay of some of the unfortunate residents
in this part of the metropolis! Imprisonment and neglect
have done their work. There is contamination in the profli-
gate denizens of a debtor’s prison; old friends have fallen off;
the recollection of former prosperity has passed away; and
with it all thoughts for the past, all care for the future.
First, watches and rings, then cloaks, coats, and all the more
expensive articles of dress, have found their way to the pawn-
broker’s. That miserable resource has failed at last, and the
sale of some trifling article at one of these shops, has been
the only mode left of raising a shilling or two, to meet the
urgent demands of the moment. Dressing-cases and writing-
desks, too old to pawn but too good to keep; guns, fishing-
rods, musical instruments, all in the same condition; have
first been sold, and the sacrifice has been but slightly felt.
But, hunger must be allayed, and what has already become a
habit, is easily resorted to, when an emergency arises. Light
articles of clothing, first of the ruined man, then of his wife,
at last of their children, even of the youngest, have been
parted with, piecemeal. There they are, thrown carelessly
together until a purchaser presents himself, old, and patched
and repaired, it is true; but the make and materials tell of
better days; and the older they are, the greater the misery
and destitution of those whom they once adorned. |
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GIN-SHOPS. 3 169
CHAPTER XXII
GIN-SHOPS.
Ir is a remarkable circumstance, that different trades appear
to partake of the disease to which elephants and dogs are
especially lable, and to run stark, staring, raving mad,
periodically. The great distinction between the animals and
the trades, is, that the former run mad with a certain degree
of propriety—they are very regular in their irregularities.
We know the period at which the emergency will arise, and
provide against it accordingly. If an elephant run mad, we
are all ready for him—kill or cure—pills or bullets—calomel
in conserve of roses, or lead in a musket-barrel. If a dog
happen to look unpleasantly warm in the summer months,
and to trot about the shady side of the streets with a quarter
of a yard of tongue hanging out of his mouth, a thick leather
muzzle, which has been previously prepared in compliance
with the thoughtful injunctions of the Legislature, is instantly
clapped over his head, by way of making’ him cooler, and he
either looks remarkably unhappy for the next six weeks, or
becomes legally insane, and goes mad, as it were, by act of
Parliament. But these trades are as eccentric as comets;
nay, worse, for no one can calculate on the recurrence of the
strange appearances which betoken the disease. Moreover,
the contagion is general, and the quickness with which it
diffuses itself, almost incredible.
We will cite two or three cases in illustration of our
meaning. Six or eight years ago, the epidemic began to
display itself among the linen-drapers and haberdashers.
The primary symptoms were an inordinate love of plate- olass,
and a passion for ons lehts and gilding. The disease gradu-
ally progressed, and at nga attained a fearful height. Quiet
dusty old shops in different parts of town, were pulled down ,
spacious premises with stuccoed fronts and gold letters, were
erected instead; floors were covered with Turkey carpets;
roofs, supported by massive pillars; doors, knocked inte
windows; a dozen squares of glass into one; one shopman
into a dozen; and there is no knowing what would have been
170 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
done, if it had not been fortunately discovered, just in time,
that the Commissioners of Bankrupt were as competent to
decide such cases as the Commissioners of Lunacy, and that
9, little confinement and gentle examination did wonders. The
disease abated. It died away. A year or two of comparative
tranquillity ensued. Suddenly it burst out again among the
chemists; the symptoms were the same, with the addition of
a strong desire to stick the royal arms over the shop-door, and
a great rage for mahogany, varnish, and expensive floor-cloth.
Then, the hosiers were infected, and began to pull down their
shop-fronts with frantic recklessness. The mania again died
away, and the public began to congratulate themselves on its
entire disappearance, when it burst forth with ten-fold violence
among the publicans, and keepers of ‘‘ wine-vaults.” From
that moment it has spread among them with unprecedented
rapidity, exhibiting a concatenation of all the previous
symptoms; onward it has rushed to every part of town,
knocking down all the old public-houses, and depositing
splendid mansions, stone balustrades, rosewood fittings,
immense lamps, and illuminated clocks, at the corner of
every street.
The extensive scale on which these places are established,
and the ostentatious manner in which the business of even
the smallest among them is divided into branches, is amusing.
A handsome plate of ground glass in one door directs you
‘“‘To the Counting-house;”’ another to the ‘‘ Bottle Depart-
ment;’’ a third to the ‘‘ Wholesale Department ;”’ a fourth
to ‘‘The Wine Promenade;’”’ and so forth, until we are in
daily expectation of meeting with a ‘‘ Brandy Bell,” or a
‘‘ Whiskey Entrance.” Then, ingenuity is exhausted in
devising attractive titles for the different descriptions of gin;
and the dram-drinking portion of the community as they gaze
upon the gigantic black and white announcements, which are
only to be equalled in size by the figures beneath them, are
left in a state of pleasing hesitation between ‘‘ The Cream of
the Valley,” ‘‘The Out and Out,” ‘The No Mistake,” ‘‘ The
Good for Mixing,” ‘‘The real Knock-me-down,” ‘ The cele-
brated Butter Gin,” “The regular Flare-up,” and a dozen
dther equally inviting and wholesome liqueurs. Although
places of this description are to be met with in every second
street, they are invariably numerous and splendid in precise
proportion to the dirt and poverty of the surrounding neigh
GIN-SHOPS. 17]
bourhood. The gin-shops in and near Drury-lane, Holborn,
St. Giles’s, Covent-garden, and Clare-market, are the hand-
somest in London. ‘There is more of filth and squalid misery
near those great thoroughfares than in any part of this
mighty city.
We will endeavour to sketch the bar of a large gin-shop,
and its ordinary customers, for the edification of such of our
readers as may not have had opportunities of observing such
scenes; and on the chance of finding one well suited to our
purpose, we will make for Drury-lane, through the narrow
streets and dirty courts which divide it from Oxford-street,
and that classical spot adjoining the brewery at the bottom
of Tottenham-court-road, best known to the initiated as the
** Rookery.”
The filthy and miserable appearance of this part of London
can hardly be imagined by those (and there are many such)
who have not witnessed it. Wretched houses with broken
windows patched with rags and paper: every room let out to
a different family, and in many instances to two or even three
—fruit and ‘‘sweet-stuff’’ manufacturers in the cellars, barbers
and red-herring venders in the front parlours, cobblers in the
back; a bird-fancier in the first floor, three families on the
second, starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a
“musician? in the front kitchen, and a charwoman and five
hungry children in the back one—filth everywhere—a gutter
before the houses, and a drain behind—clothes drying and
slops emptying, from the windows; girls of fourteen or fifteen
with matted hair, walking about barefoot, and in white great-
coats, almost their only covering; boys of all ages, in coats of
all sizes and no coats at all; men and women, in every variety
of scanty and dirty apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking,
smoking, squabbling, fighting, and swearing.
You turn the corner. Whatachange! All is light and
brilliancy. The hum of many voices issues from that splendid
gin-shop which forms the commencement of the two streets
opposite; and the gay building with the fantastically orna-
mented parapet, the illuminated clock, the plate-glass windows
surrounded by stucco rosettes, and its profusion of gas-lights
in richly-gilt burners, is perfectly dazzling when contrasted
with the darkness and dirt we have just left. The interior is
even gayer than the exterior. A bar of French-polished
mahogany, elegantly carved, extends the whole width of the
172 SKETCHES BY BOZ
place; and thore are two side-aisles of great casks, painted
green and gold, enclosed within a ight brass rail, and bearing
such inscriptions as ‘“‘ Old Tom, 549;” “ Young Tom, 360 ;”
‘“‘Samson, 1421’’—the figures agreeing, we presume, with
‘‘oallons,” understood. Beyond the bar is a lofty and spacious
saloon, full of the same enticing vessels, with a gallery running
round it, equally well furnished. On the counter, in addition
to the usual spirit apparatus, are two or three little baskets
of cakes and biscuits, which are carefully sccured at top with
wicker-work, to prevent their contents being unlawfully ab-
stracted. Behind it, are two showily-dressed damsels with
large necklaces, dispensing the spirits and ‘‘ compounds.”
They are assisted by the ostensible proprietor of the concern,
a stout coarse fellow in a fur cap, put on very much on one
side to give him a knowing air, and to gee his sandy
whiskers to the best advantage.
The two old washerwomen, who are seated on the little
bench to the left of the bar, are rather overcome by the head-
dresses and haughty didmestions of the young ladies who
officiate. They receive their half-quartern of gin and pepper-
mint with considerable deference, prefacing a request for “‘one
of them soft biscuits,” with a ‘“ Jist be good enough, ma’am.”
They are quite astonished at the impudent air of the young
fellow in a brown coat and bright buttons, who, ushering in
his two companions, and walking up to the bar in as careless
a manner as if he had been used to green and gold ornaments
all his life, winks at one of the young ladies with singular
coolness, and calls for a ‘‘kervorten and a three-out glass,”
just as if the place were his own. ‘“‘ Gin for you, sir?” says
the young lady when she has drawn it: carefully looking
every way but the right one, to show that the wink had no
effect upon her. ‘‘ For me, Mary, my dear,’’ replies the
gentleman in brown. ‘‘ My name ain’t Mary, as it happens,”
says the young girl, rather relaxing as she delivers the change.
“Well, if it an’t, it ought to be,” responds the irresistible
one; ‘‘all the Marys as ever I see, was handsome gals.”
Here the young lady, not precisely remembering how blushes
ere managed in such cases, abruptly ends the flirtation by
addressing the female in the faded feathers who has just
entered, and who, after stating explicitly, to prevent any
subsequent misunderstanding, that ‘this gentleman pays,”
calls for ‘a glass of port wine and a bit of sugar.”
a ee
GIN-SHOPS. 173
Those two old men who came in “just to have a drain,”
finished their third quartern a few seconds ago; they have
made themselves crying drunk; and the fat comfortable-
looking elderly women, who had ‘a glass of rum srub’’
each, having chimed in with their complaints, on the hardness
of the times, one of the women has agreed to stand a glass
round, jocularly observing that ‘‘ grief never mended no
broken bones, and as good people’s wery scarce, what I says
is, make the most on ’em, and that’s all about it!” a senti-
ment which appears to afford unlimited satisfaction to those
who have nothing to pay.
It is growing late, and the throng of men, women, and
children, who have been constantly going in and out, dwindles
down to two or three occasional stragglers—cold, wretched-
looking creatures, in the last stage of emaciation and disease.
The knot of Irish labourers at the lower end of the place, who
have been alternately shaking hands with, and threatening
the life of each other, for the last hour, become furious in
their disputes, and finding it impossible to silence one man,
who is particularly anxious to adjust the difference, they resort
to the expedient of knocking him down and jumping on him
afterwards. The man in the fur-cap and the pot-boy rush
out; a scene of riot and confusion ensues; half the Irishmen
get shut out, and the other half get shut in; the pot-boy is
knocked among the tubs in no time; the landlord hits every-
body, and everybody hits the landlord; the barmaids scream ;
the police come in; the rest is a confused mixture of arms,
legs, staves, torn coats, shouting, and struggling. Some of
the party are borne off to the station-house, and the remainder
slink home to beat their wives for complaining, and kick the
children for daring to be hungry.
We have sketched this subject very slightly, not only heck
our limits compel us to do so, but because, if it were pursued
farther, it would be painful and repulsive. Well-disposed
gentlemen, and charitable ladies, would alike turn with cold-
ness and disgust from a description of the drunken besotted
men, and wretched broken-down miserable women, who form:
ho inconsiderable portion of the frequenters of these haunts ;
forgetting, in the pleasant consciousness of their own rectitude,
the poverty of the one, and the temptation of the other. Gin-
drinking is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt
are a greater; and until you improve the homes of the poor,
174 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
or persuade a half-famished wretch not to seek relief in the
temporary oblivion of his own misery, with the pittance which,
divided among his family, would furnish a morsel of bread
for each, gin-shops will increase-in number and splendour.
If Temperance Societies would suggest an antidote against
hunger, filth, and foul air, or'could establish dispensaries for
the gratuitous distribution of bottles of Lethe-water, gin-
palaces would: be numbered among the things that were.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE PAWNBROKERS SHOP.
Or the numerous receptacles for misery and distress with
which the streets of London unhappily abound, there are,
perhaps, none which present«such striking scenes as the
pawnbrokers’. shops. The very nature and description of
these places occasions their being but little known, except
to the unfortunate beings whose profligacy or misfortune
drives them to seek the temporary relief they offer. The
subject may appear, at first sight, to be anything but an
inviting one, but we venture on it nevertheless, in the hope
that, as far as the limits of our present paper are concerned,
it will present nothing to disgust, even the most fastidious
reader. As
There are some pawnbrokers’ shops of a very superior
description. There are grades in pawning as in everything
else, and distinctions must be observed even in poverty. The
aristocratic Spanish cloak and the plebeian calico shirt, the
silver fork, and the flat iron, the muslin cravat and the
Belcher neckerchief, would but ill assort together; so, the
better sort of pawnbroker calls himself a silversmith, and
decorates his shop with handsome trinkets and expensive
jewellery, while the more humble money-lender boldly ad-
vertises his calling, and invites observation. It is with pawn-
brokers’ shops of the latter class, that we have to do. We
have selected one for our purpose, and will endeavour to
describe it.
The pawnbroker’s shop is situated near Drury-lane, at the
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Ve ANON
THE PAWNBROKER’S SHOP. 195
corner of a court, which affords a side entrance for the accom-
modation of such customers as may be desirous of avoiding
the observation of the passers-by, or the chance of recognition
in the public street. It is a low, dirty-looking, dusty shop,
the door of which stands always doubtfully, a little way open.
half inviting, half repelling the hesitating visitor, who, if he
be as yet uninitiated, examines one of the old garnet brooches
in the window for a minute or two with affected eagerness, as
if he contemplated making a purchase, and then looking
cautiously round to ascertain that no one watches him, hastily
slinks in; the door closing of itself after him, to just its
former width. The shop front and the window frames bear
evident marks of having been once painted; but, what the
colour was originally, or at what date it was probably laid on,
are at this remote period questions which may be asked, but
cannot be answered. ‘Tradition states that the transparency in
the front door which displays at night three red balls on a
blue ground, once bore also, inscribed in graceful waves, the
words ‘‘Money advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel,
and every description of property,” but a few illegible hiero-
glyphics are all that now remain to attest the fact. The plate
and jewels would seem to have disappeared, together with the
announcement, for the articles of stock, which are displayed
in some profusion in the window, do not include any very
valuable luxuries of either kind. A few old china cups;
sume. modern vases, adorned with paltry paintings of three
Spanish cavaliers playing three Spanish guitars; or a party
of boors carousing: each boor with one leg painfully elevated
in the air, by way of expressing his perfect freedom and
gaiety ; several sets of chessmen, two or three flutes, a few
fiddles, a round-eyed portrait staring in astonishment from a
very dark ground; some gaudily-bound prayer-books and
testaments, two rows of silver watches quite as clumsy and
almost as large as Ferguson’s first; numerous old-fashioned
table and tea spoons, displayed, fan-like, in _half-dozens ;
strings of coral with great broad gilt snaps; cards of rings
and brooches, fastened and labelled separately, like the insects
in the British Museum; cheap silver penholders and snuff-
boxes, with a masonic star, complete the jewellery department,
while five or six beds in smeary clouded ticks, strings of
blankets and sheets, silk and cotton handkerchiefs, and wear-
ing apparel of every description, form the more useful, though
176 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
even less ornamental, part, of the articles exposed for sale,
An extensive collection of planes, chisels, saws, and other car-
penters’ tools, which have been pledged, and never redeemed,
form the foreground of the picture; while the large frames
full of ticketed bundles, which are dimly seen through the
dirty casement up stairs—the squalid neighbourhood—the
adjoining houses, straggling, shrunken, and rotten, with one or
two filthy, unwholesome-looking heads, thrust out of every
window, and old red pans and stunted plants exposed on the
tottering parapets, to the manifest hazard of the heads of the
passers-by—the noisy men loitering under the archway at the
corner of the court, or about the gin-shop next door—
and their wives patiently standing on the curb-stone, with
large baskets of cheap vegetables slung round them for sale,
are its immediate auxiliaries.
If the outside of the pawnbroker’s shop, be calculated to
attract the attention, or excite the interest, of the speculative
pedestrian, its interior cannot fail to produce the same effect
in an increased degree. The front door, which we have before
noticed, opens into the common shop, which is the resort of
all those customers whose habitual acquaintance with such
scenes renders them indifferent to the observation of their
companions in poverty. ‘The side door opens into a small
passage from which some half-dozen doors (which may be
secured on the inside by bolts) open into a corresponding
number of little dens, or closets, which face the counter,
Here, the more timid or respectable portion of the crowd
shroud themselves from the notice of the remainder, and
patiently wait until the gentleman behind the counter, with
the curly black hair, diamond ring, and double silver watch-
guard shall feel disposed to favour them with his notice—a
consummation which depends considerably on the temper of
the aforesaid gentleman for the time being.
At the present moment, this elegantly-attired individual is
in the act of entering the duplicate he has just made out, in a
thick book; a process from which he is diverted occasionally,
by a conversation he is carrying on with another young man
similarly employed at a little distance from him, whose allu-
sions to “that last bottle of soda-water last night,’’ and ‘‘ how
regularly round my hat he felt himself when the young ’ooman
gave ’em in charge,” would appear to refer to the conse-
quences of some stolen joviality of the preceding evening,
THE PAWNBROKER’S SHOP. 177
The customers generally, however, seem unable to participate
in the amusement derivable from this source, for an old
sallow-looking woman, who has been leaning with both arms
on the counter with a small bundle before her, for half an
hour previously, suddenly interrupts the conversation by
addressing the jewelled shopman—‘‘ Now, Mr. Henry, do
make haste, there’s a good soul, for my two grandchildren’s
locked up at home, and I’m afeer’d of the fire.’ The shop-
man slightly raises his head, with an air of deep abstraction,
and resumes his entry with as much deliberation as if he were
engraving. ‘‘You’re in a hurry, Mrs. Tatham, this ev’nin’,
ant you?” is the only notice he deigns to take, after the
lapse of five minutes or so. ‘‘ Yes, I am indeed, Mr. Henry;
now, do serve me next, there’s a good creetur. I wouldn’t
worry you, only it’s all along o’ them botherin’ children.”
“What have you got here?” inquires the shopman, unpin-
ning the bundle—“ old concern, I suppose—pair o’ stays and
a petticut. You must look up somethin’ else, old ’ooman; I
can’t lend you anything more upon them, they ’re completely
worn out by this time, if it’s only by putting in, and taking
out again, three times a week.” ‘Oh! you’re a rum un,
you are,”’ replies the old woman, laughing extremely, as in
duty bound; “‘I wish I’d got the gift of the gab like you;
see if I ’d be up the spout so often then! No, no; it an’t
the petticut ; it’s achild’s frock and a beautiful silk-ankecher,
as belongs to my husband. He gave four shillin’ for it; the
werry same blessed day as he broke his arm.” ‘‘ What do
you want upon these?” inquires Mr. Henry, slightly glancing
at the articles, which in all probability are old acquaintances.
“What do you want upon these ?’’—‘ Eighteen-pence.”—
‘Lend you ninepence.’’—‘‘ Oh, make it a shillin’; there’sa
dear—do now !”’—‘‘ Not another farden.”—“ Well, I suppose
I must take it.” The duplicate is made out, one ticket pinned
on the parcel, the other given to the old woman; the parcel
is flung carelessly down into a corner, and some other
sustomer prefers his claim to be served without further delay.
The choice falls on an unshaven, dirty, sottish-looking fellow,
whose tarnished paper-cap, stuck negligently over one eye,
comaunicates an additionally repulsive expression to his very
uninviting countenance. He was enjoying a little relaxation
from his sedentary pursuits a quarter of an hour ago, in
kicking his wife up the court. He has come to redeem some
N
$75.0" SKETCHES BY BOZ.
tools :—probably to complete a job with, on account of which
he has already received some money, if his inflamed counten-
ance and drunken stagger, may be taken as evidence of the
fact. Having waited some little time, he makes his presence
known by venting his ill-humour on a ragged urchin, who,
being unable to bring his face on a level with the counter by
any other process, has employed himself in climbing up, and
then hooking himself on with his elbows—an uneasy perch,
from which he has fallen at intervals, generally alighting on the
toes of the person in his immediate vicinity. In the present
case, the unfortunate little wretch has received a cuff which
sends him reeling to the door; and the donor of the blow is
immediately the object of general indignation.
‘‘ What do you strike the boy for, you brute?’’ exclaims a
slip-shod woman, with two flat irons in a little basket. ‘‘ Do
you think he’s your wife, you willin?’”—‘‘Go and hang
yourself!’’ replies the gentleman addressed, with a drunken
look of savage stupidity, aiming at the same time a blow at
the woman which fortunately misses its object. ‘‘Go and
hang yourself; and wait till I come and cut you down.’”’—-
‘Cut you down,” rejoins the woman, ‘‘I wish I had the
cutting of you up, you wagabond ! (loud.) Oh! you precious
wagabond! (rather louder.) Where’s your wife, you wiliin?
(louder still; women of this class are always sympathetic, and
work themselves into a tremendous passion on the shortest
notice.) Your poor dear wife as you uses worser nor a dog—
strike a woman—you a man! (very shrill;) I wish I had you
—I’d murder you, I would, if I died for it!’’—‘‘ Now be
civil,’ retorts the man fiercely. ‘‘Be civil, you wiper!”
ejaculates the woman contemptuously, “ An’t it shocking?”
she continues, turning round, and appealing to an old woman
who is peeping out of one of the little closets we have before
described, and who has not the slightest objection to join in
the attack, possessing, as she does, the comfortable conviction
that she is bolted in. ‘‘ An’t it shocking, ma’am ? (Dreadful!
says the old woman in a parenthesis, not exactly knowing what
the question refers to.) He’s got a wife, ma’am, as takes in
mangling, and is as ’dustrious and hard-working a young
*ooman as can be, (very fast) as lives in the back-parlour of
our ’ous, which my husband and me lives in the front one
(with great rapidity)—and we hears him a beaten’ on her
sometimes when he comes home drunk, the whole night
THE PAWNBROKER’S SHOP. ee 5
through, and not only a beaten’ her, but beaten’ his own
child too, to make her more miserable—ugh, you beast!
and she, poor creater, won’t swear the peace agin him, nor
do nothin’, because she likes the wretch arter all—worse
luck!”’ Here as the woman has completely run herself out
of breath, the pawnbroker himself, who has just appeared
behind the counter in a gray dressing-gown, embraces the
favourable opportunity of putting in a word :—‘‘ Now I won’t
have none of this sort of thing on my premises !”’ he inter-
poses with an air of authority. ‘ Mrs. Mackin, keep yourself
to yourself, or you don’t get fourpence for a flat iron here;
and Jinkins, you leave your ticket here till you’re sober, and
send your wife for them two planes, for I won’t have you in
my shop at no price; so make yourself scarce, before I make
you scarcer.”
This eloquent address produces any thing but the effect
desired; the women rail in concert; the man hits about him
in all directions, and is in the act of establishing an indis-
putable claim to gratuitous lodgings for the night, when the
entrance of his wife, a wretched worn-out woman, apparently
in the last stage of consumption, whose face bears evident
marks of recent ill-usage, and whose strength seems hardly
equal to the burden—light enough God knows !—of the thin
sickly child she carries in her arms, turns his cowardly rage
in a safer direction. ‘‘ Come home, dear,’’ cries the miserable
creature, in an imploring tone; ‘‘do come home, there’s a
good fellow, and go to bed.’”’—‘‘Go home yourself,” rejoins
the furious ruffian. ‘‘ Do come home quietly,” repeats the
wife, bursting into tears. ‘‘Go home yourself,” retorts the
husband again, enforcing his argument by a blow which sends
the poor creature flying out of the shop. Her ‘‘ natural pro-
tector’ follows her up the court, alternately venting his rage
in accelerating her progress, and in knocking the little scanty
blue bonnet of the unfortunate child over its still more scanty
and faded-looking face.
In the last box, which is situated in the darkest and most
obscure corner of the shop, considerably removed from either
of the gas-lights, are a young delicate girl of about twenty,
and an elderly female, evidently her mother from the resem-
blance between them, who stand at some distance back, as if
to avoid the observation even of the shopman. It is not their
first visit to a pawnbroker’s shop, for they answer without a
u2
180 - SKETCHES BY BOZ.
moment’s hesitation the usual questions, put in a rather
respectful manner, and in a much lower tone than usual, of
‘‘ What name shall I say ?—Your own property, of course ?—
Where do you live ?—-Housekeeper or lodger?’’ They
bargain, too, for a higher loan than the shopman is at first
inclined to offer, which a perfect stranger would be little dis-
posed to do; and the elder female urges her daughter on, in
scarcely audible whispers, to exert her utmost powers of per-
suasion to obtain an advance of the sum, and expatiate on the
value of the articles they have brought to raise a present
supply upon. They are a small gold chain and a “ Forget me
not’’ ring: the girl’s property, for they are both too small
for the mother; given her in better times; prized, perhaps,
once, for the giver’s sake, but parted with now without a
struggle; for want has hardened the mother, and her example
has hardened the girl, and the prospect of receiving money,
coupled with a recollection of the misery they have both
endured from the want of it—the coldness of old friends—the
stern refusal of some, and the still more galling compassion
of others—appears to have obliterated the consciousness of
self-humiliation, which the idea of their present situation
would once have aroused.
In the next box, is a young female, whose attire, miserably
poor, but extremely gaudy, wretchedly cold, but extravagantly
fine, too plainly bespeaks her station. The rich satin gown
with its faded trimmings, the worn-out thin shoes, and pink
silk stockings, the summer bonnet in winter, and the sunken
face, where a daub of rouge only serves as an index to the
ravages of squandered health never to be regained, and lost
happiness never to be restored, and where the practised smile
3s a wretched mockery of the misery of the heart, cannot be
mistaken. There is something in the glimpse she has just
eaught of her young neighbour, and in the sight of the little
trinkets she has offered in pawn, that seems to have awakened
in this woman’s mind some slumbering recollection, and to
have changed, for an instant, her whole demeanour. Her
first hasty impulse was to bend forward as if to scan more
minutely the appearance of her half-concealed companions ;
her next on seeing them involuntarily shrink from her, to
retreat to the back of the box, cover her face with her hands,
and burst into tears.
_ There are strange chords in the human heart, which wil)
Pee 2 ra “a
CRIMINAL COURTS. 181
fie dormant through years of depravity and wickedness, but
which will vibrate at last to some slight circumstance appa-
rently trivial in itself, but connected by some undefined and
indistinct association, with past days that can never be
recalled, and with bitter recollections from which the most
degraded creature in existence cannot escape.
There has been another spectator, in the person of a woman
in the common shop; the lowest of the low; dirty, unbonneted,
flaunting, and slovenly. Her curiosity was at first attracted
by the little she could see of the group; then her attention.
The half intoxicated leer changed to an expression of some-
thing like interest, and a feeling similar to that we have
described, appeared for a moment, and only a moment, to
extend itself even to her bosom.
Who shall say how soon these women may change places ?
The last has but two more stages—the hospital and the grave.
How many females situated as her two companions are, and as
she may have been once, have terminated the same wretched
course, in the same wretched manner. One is already tracing
her footsteps with frightful rapidity. How soon may the
other follow her example! How many have done the samo!
CHAPTER XXIV.
CRIMINAL COURTS.
We shall never forget the mingled feelings of awe and
respect with which we used to gaze on the exterior of New-
gate in our schoolboy days. How dreadful its rough heavy
walls, and low massive doors, appeared to us—the latter
looking as if they were made for the express purpose of letting
people in, and never letting them out agam. Then the fetters
over the debtors’ door, which we used to think were a boné
fide set of irons, just hung up there for convenience sake, ready
to be taken down at a moment’s notice, and riveted on the
limbs of some refractory felon! We were never tired of
wondering how the hackney-coachmen on the opposite stand
zould cut jokes in the presence of such horrors, and drink pots
of half-and-half so near the last drop.
182 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
Often have we strayed here, in sessions time, to catch @
glimpse of the whipping-place, and that dark building on one
_ pide of the yard, in which is kept the gibbet with all its
dreadful apparatus, and on the door of which we half expected
to see a brass plate, with the inscription “Mr. Ketch; ” for
we never imagined that the distinguished functionary could
by possibility live anywhere else! The days of these childish
dreams have passed away, and with them many other boyish
ideas of a gayer nature. But we still retain so much of our
original feeling, that to this hour we never pass the building
without something like a shudder.
What London pedestrian is there who has not, at some time
or other, cast a hurried glance through the wicket at which
prisoners are admitted into this gloomy mansion, and surveyed
the few objects he could discern, with an indescribable feeling
of curiosity? The thick door, plated with iron and mounted
with spikes, just low enough to enable you to see, leaning over
them, an ill-looking fellow, in a broad-brimmed hat, belcher
handkerchief and top-boots: with a brown coat, something
between a great-coat and a ‘‘sporting”’ jacket, on his back,
and an immense key in his left hand. Perhaps you are lucky
enough to pass, just as the gate is being opened; then, you
see on the other side of the lodge, another gate, the image of
its predecessor, and two or three more turnkeys, who look like
multiplications of the first one, seated round a fire which just
lights up the whitewashed apartment sufficiently to enable you
to catch a hasty glimpse of these different objects. We have
a great respect for Mrs. Fry, but she certainly ought to have
written more romances than Mrs. Radcliffe. |
We were walking leisurely down the Old Bailey, some time
ago, when, as we passed this identical gate, it was opened by
the officiating turnkey. -We turned quickly round, as a
matter of course, and saw two persons descending the steps.
We could not help stopping and observing them.
They were an elderly woman of decent appearance, though
evidently poor, and a boy of about fourteen or fifteen. The
woman was crying bitterly ; she carried a small bundle in her
hand, and the boy followed at a short distance behind her.
Their little history was obvious. The boy was her son, to
whose early comfort she had perhaps sacrificed her own—for
whose sake she had borne misery without’ repining, and
poverty without a murmur—looking steadily forward to the
CRIMINAL COURTS. 188
time, when he who had so long witnessed her struggles for
himself, might be enabled to make some exertions for their
joint support. He had formed dissolute connexions; idleness
had led to crime; and he had been committed to take hig
trial for some petty theft. He had been long in prison,
and, after receiving some trifling additional punishment, had
been ordered to be discharged that morning. It was his
first offence, and his poor old mother, still hoping to reclaim
him, had been waiting at the gate to implore him to return
home.
We cannot forget the boy; he descended the steps with a
dogged look, shaking his head with an air of bravado and
obstinate determination. They walked a few paces, and
paused. The woman put her hand upon his shoulder in an
agony of entreaty, and the boy sullenly raised his head as if
in refusal. It was a brilliant morning, and every object
looked fresh and happy in the broad, gay sun-light; he gazed
round him for a few moments, bewildered with the brightness
of the scene, for it was long since he had beheld anything
save the gloomy walls of a prison. Perhaps the wretchedness
of his mother made some impression on the boy’s heart;
perhaps some undefined recollection of the time when he was
a happy child, and she his only friend, and best companion,
crowded on him—he burst into tears; and covering his face
with one hand, and hurriedly placing the other in his mother’s,
walked away with her.
Curiosity has occasionally led us into both Courts at the
Old Bailey. Nothing is so likely to strike the person who
enters them for the first time, as the calm indifference with
which the proceedings are conducted; every trial seems a
mere matter of business. There isa great deal of form, but
no compassion; considerable interest, but no sympathy. Take
the Old Court for example. There sit the Judges, with whose
great dignity every body is acquainted, and of whom there-
Sore we need say no more. Then, there is the Lord Mayor in
the centre, looking as cool as a Lord Mayor can look, with an
immense bouguet before him, and habited in all the splendour
of his office. Then, there are the Sheriffs, who are almost as
dignified as the Lord Mayor himself; and the Barristers, who
are quite dignified enough in their own opinion; and the
spectators, who having paid for their admission, look upon
the whole scene as if it were got up especially for their
184 SKETCHES BY BOZ.:
amusement. Look upon the whole group in the body of the
Court—some wholly engrossed in the morning papers, others
carelessly conversing in low whispers, and others, again, quietly
dozing away an hour—and you can scarcely believe that the
result of the trial is a matter of life or death to one wretched
being present. But turn your eyes to the dock; watch the
prisoner attentively for a few moments; and the fact is before
you, in all its painful reality. Mark how restlessly he has
been engaged for the last ten minutes, in forming all sorts of
fantastic figures with the herbs which are strewed upon the
ledge Lefore him; observe the ashy paleness of his face when
a particular witness appears, and how he changes his position
and wipes his clammy forehead, and feverish hands, when the
case tor the prosecution is closed, as if it were a relief to him
to feel that the jury knew the worst.
The defence is concluded; the judge proceeds to sum up
the evidence; and the prisoner watches the countenances of
the jury, as a dying man, clinging to life to the very last,
vainly looks in the face of his physician for a slight ray of
hope. They turn round to consult; you can almost hear the
man’s heart beat, as he bites the stalk of rosemary, with a
desperate effort to appear composed. They resume their
places—a dead silence prevails as the foreman delivers in the
verdict—‘‘ Guilty!” A shriek bursts from a female in the
gallery; the prisoner casts one look at the quarter from
whence the noise proceeded; and is immediately hurried from
the dock by the gaoler. The clerk directs one of the officers
of the court to “‘ take the woman ovut,’”’ and fresh business is
proceeded with, as if nothing had eccurred.
No imaginary contrast to a care like this, could be as com-
plete as that which is constantly presented in the New Court,
the gravity of which is frequently disturbed in no small
degree, by the cunning ard pertinacity of juvenile offenders.
A boy of thirteen is tried, say for picking the pocket of some
subject of ner Majesty, and the offence is-about as clearly
proved as an offence can be. He is called upon for his de-
fence, and contents himself with a little declamation about the
yurymen aad his eountry—asserts that all the witnesses have
committed perjury, and hints that the police force generally
have entered into a conspiracy “again”? him. However pro-
bable this statement may be, it fails to convince the Court,
and some such scene as the following then takes place:
CRIMINAL COURTS. 185
Court: Have you any witnesses to speak to your character,
boy ?
Baa : Yes, my Lord; fifteen gen’lm’n is a vaten outside,
and vos a vaten all day yesterday, vich they told me the night
afore my trial vos a comin’ on.
Court : Inquire for these witnesses.
Here, a stout beadle runs out, and vociferates for the
witnesses at the very top of his voice; for you hear his cry
grow fainter and fainter as he descends the steps into the
court-yard below. After an absence of five minutes, he
returns, very warm and hoarse, and informs the Court of what
it knew perfectly well before—namely, that there are no such
witnesses in attendance. Hereupon the boy sets up a most
awful howling; screws the lower part of the palms of his
hands into the corners of his eyes; and endeavours to look
the picture of injured innocence. The jury at once find him
‘guilty,’ and his endeavours to squeeze out a tear or two
are redoubled. The governor of the gaol then states, in reply
to an inquiry from the bench, that the prisoner has been
under his care twice before. This the urchin resolutely denies
in some such terms as—‘‘S’elp me, gen’lm’n, I never vos in
trouble afore—indeed, my Lord, I never vos. It’s all a
howen to my having a twin brother, vich has wrongfully got
into trouble, and vich is so exactly ike me, that no vun ever
knows the difference atween us.’
This representation, like the defence, fails in producing the
desired effect, and the boy is sentenced, perhaps, to seven years’
transportation. Finding it impossible to excite compassion,
he gives vent to his feelings in an imprecation bearing
reference to the eyes of ‘“‘old big vig!” and as he declines to
take the trouble of walking from the dock, is forthwith carried
out, congratulating himself on having succeeded in giving
everybody as much trouble as possible.
186 SKETCHES BY BOZ
CHAPTER XXvV.
- A VISIT TO NEWGATE.
“THE force of habit” is a trite phrase in every body’s
mouth; and it is not a little remarkable that those who use
it most as applied to others, unconsciously afford in their own
persons singular examples of the power which habit and custom
exercise over the minds of’men, and of the little reflection they
are apt to bestow on subjects with which every day’s expe-
rience has rendered them familiar. If Bedlam could be
suddenly removed like another Aladdin’s palace, and set down
on the space now occupied by Newgate, scarcely one man out
of a hundred, whose road to business every morning lies
through Newgate-street, or the Old ‘Bailey, would pass the
building without bestowing a hasty glance on its small, grated
windows, and a transient thought upon the condition of the
unhappy beings immured in its dismal cells; and yet these
same men, day by day, and hour by hour, pass and repass
this gloomy depository of the guilt and misery of London, in
one perpetual stream of life and bustle, utterly unmindful of
the throng of wretched creatures pent up within it—nay, not
even knowing, or if they do, not heeding, the fact, that as
they pass one particular angle of the massive wall with a
light laugh or a merry whistle, they stand within one yard of
a fellow-creature, bound and helpless, whose hours are num-
bered, from whom the last feeble ray of hope has fled for ever,
and whose miserable career will shortly terminate in a violent
and shameful death. Contact with death even in its least
terrible shape, is solemn and appalling. How much more
awful is it to reflect on this near vicinity to the dying—to
men in full health and vigour, in the flower of youth or the
prime of life, with all their faculties and perceptions as acute
and perfect as your own; but dying, nevertheless—dying as
surely—with the hand of death imprinted upon them as
indelibly—as if mortal disease had wasted their frames to
shadows, and corruption had already begun!
It was with some such thoughts as these that we determined,
not many weeks since, te visit the interior of Newgate—in an
A VISIT TO NEWGATE. 187
amateur capacity, of course; and, having carried our intention
into effect, we proceed to lay its results before our readers, in
the hope—founded more upon the nature of the subject, than
on any presumptuous confidence in our own descriptive powers
—that this paper may not be found wholly devoid of interest.
We haye only to premise, that we do not intend to fatigue the
reader with any statistical accounts of the prison ; they will be
found at length in numerous reports of numerous committees,
and a variety. of authorities of equal weight. We took no
notes, made no memoranda, measured none of the yards,
ascertained the exact number of inches in no particular room:
are unable even to report of how ey apartments the gaol is
composed.
We saw the prison, and saw the prisoners; and what we
did see, and what we thought, we will tell at once in our own
way.
Having delivered our credentials to the servant who
answered our knock at the door of the governor’s house, we
were ushered into the ‘‘ office;”’ a little room, on the right-
_ hand side as you ‘enter, with two windows looking into the
Old Bailey: fitted up like an ordinary attorney’s office, or
merchant's counting-house, with the usual fixtures—a wains-
coted partition, a shelf or two, a desk, a couple of stools, a pair
of clerks, an almanack, a clock, and a few maps. After a
little delay, occasioned by sending into the interior of the
prison for the officer whose duty it was to conduct us, that
functionary arrived; a respectable-looking man of about two
or three and fifty, in a broad-brimmed hat, and full suit of
black, who, but for his keys, would have looked quite as
much like a clergyman as a turnkey. We were disappointed ;
he had not even top-boots on. Following our conductor by a
door opposite to that at which we had entered, we arrived at
a small room, without any other furniture than a little desk,
with a book for visitors’ autographs, and a shelf, on which
were a few boxes for papers, and casts of the heads and faces
of the two notorious murderers, Bishop and Williams; the
former, in particular, exhibiting a style of head and set of
features, which might have afforded sufficient moral grounds
for his instant execution at any time, even had there been no
other evidence against him. Leaving this room also, by an
opposite door, we found ourself in the lodge which opens on
the Old Bailey; one side of which is plentifully garnished
ee
188 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
with a choice collection of heavy sets of irons, including those
worn by the redoubtable Jack Sheppard—genuine; and those
said to have been graced by the sturdy limbs of the no less
celebrated Dick Turpin—doubtful. From this lodge, a heavy
oaken gate, bound with iron, studded with nails of the same
material, and guarded by another turnkey, opens on a few
steps, if we remember right, which terminate in a narrow and
dismal stone passage, running parallel with the Old Bailey,
and leading to. the different yards, through a number of
tortuous‘ and intricate windings, guarded in’ their turn by
huge gates and gratings, whose appearance is sufficient to
dispel at.once.the slightest hope of escape that any new comer
may have entertained; and the very recollection of which, on
eventually traversing the ‘place again, involves one in a maze
of confusion.
It is necessary to explain here, that the buildings in the
prison, or in other words the different wards—form a square,
of which the four sides abut respectively on the Old Bailey,
the old College of Physicians (now forming a part of Newgate-
market), the Sessions-house, and Newgate-street. The inter-
mediate space is divided into several paved yards, in which
the prisoners take such air and exercise as can be had in
such a place. These yards, with the exception of that in
which prisoners under sentence of death are confined (of which
we shall presently give a more detailed description), run
parallel with Newgate-street, and consequently from the Old
Bailey, as it were, to Newgate- market. The women’s side is
in the right wing of the prison nearest the Sessions-house.
As we were introduced into this part of the building first
we will adopt the same order, and introduce our readers to it
also.
‘Turning to the right, then, down the passage to which we
just now adverted, omitting any mention of intervening gates
—for if we noticed every gate that was unlocked for us to
pass through, and locked again as soon as we had passed, we
should require a gate at every comma—we came to a door
composed of thick bars of wood, through which were discern-
ible, passing to and fro in a narrow yard, some twenty women:
the majority of whom, however, as soon as they were aware
of the presence of strangers, retreated to their wards, One
side of this yard is railed off at a considerable distance, and
formed into a kind of iron cage, about five feet ten inches in
4
1)
My
y
iE
A VISIT TO NEWGATS. 189
height, roofed at the top, and defended in front by iron bars,
from which the friends of the female prisoners communicate
with them. In one corner of this singular-looking den, was a
yellow, haggard, decrepit old woman in a tattered gown that
had once been black, and the remains of an old straw bonnet,
with faded ribbon of the same hue, in earnest conversation
with a young girl—a prisoner, of course—of about two-and-
twenty. It is impossible to imagine a more poverty-stricken
object, or a creature so borne down in soul and body, by
excess of misery and destitution as the old woman. The girl
was a good-looking robust female, with a profusion of hair
streaming about in the wind—for she had no bonnet on—and
a man’s silk pocket-handkerchief loosely thrown over a most
ample pair of shoulders. The old woman was talking in that
low, stifled tone of voice which tells so forcibly of mental
anguish; and every now and then burst into an irrepressible
sharp, abrupt cry of grief, the most distressing sound that
ears can hear. The girl was perfectly unmoved. Hardened
beyond all hope of redemption, she listened doggedly to her
mother’s entreaties, whatever they were: and, beyond enquir-
ing after ‘‘Jem,” and eagerly catching at the few halfpence
her miserable parent had brought her, took no more apparent
interest in the conversation than the most unconcerned
spectators. Heaven knows there were enough of them, in the
persons of the other prisoners in the yard, who were no more
concerned by what was passing before their eyes, and within
their hearing, than if they were blind and deaf. Why should
they be? Inside the prison, and out, such scenes were too
familiar to them, to excite even a passing thought, unless of
ridicule or contempt for feelings which they had long since
forgotten.
A little farther on, a squalid-looking woman in a slovenly
_thick-bordered cap, with her arms muffled ‘in a large red
shawl, the fringed ends of which straggled nearly to the
bottom of a dirty white apron, was communicating some
instructions to her visitor—her daughter evidently. The gil
was thinly clad, and shaking with the cold. Some ordinary
word of recognition passed between her and her mother when
She appeared at the grating, but neither hope, condolence,
regret, nor affection was expressed on either side. The
mother whispered her instructions, and the girl received them
with her pinched-up half-starved features twisted into an.
190 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
expression of careful cunning. It was some scheme for the
woman’s defence that she was disclosing, perhaps; and a
sullen smile came over the girl’s face for an instant, as if she
were pleased: not so much at the probability of her mother’s
liberation, as at the chance of her “‘ getting off” in spite of
her prosecutors. The dialogue was soon concluded; and
with the same careless indifference with which they had
approached each other, the mother turned towards the imner
end of the yard, and the girl to the gate at which she had
entered.
The girl belonged to a class—unhappily but too extensive
—the very existence of which, should make men’s hearts
bleed. Barely past her childhood, it required but a glance to
discover that she was one of those children, born and bred in
neglect and vice, who have never known what childhood is:
who have never been taught to love and court a parent’s
smile, or to dread a parent’s frown. The thousand nameless
endearments of childhood, its gaiety and its innocence, are
alike unknown to them. They have entered at once upon the
stern realities and miseries of life, and to their better nature .
it is almost hopeless to appeal in aftertimes, by any of the
references which will awaken, if it be only for a moment,
some good feeling in ordinary bosoms, however corrupt they —
may have become. Talk to them of parental solicitude, the
happy days of childhood, and the merry games of infancy!
Tell them of hunger and the streets, beggary and stripes, the
gin-shop, the station-house, and the pawnbroker’s, and they
will understand you.
Two or three women were standing at different parts of the
grating, conversing with their friends, but a very large pro-
portion of the prisoners appeared to have no friends at all,
beyond such of their old companions as might happen to be
within the walls. So, passing hastily down the yard, and
pausing only for an instant to notice the little incidents we
have just recorded, we were conducted up a clean and well-
lighted fight of stone stairs to one of the wards. There are
several in this part of the building, but a description of one ig
a description of the whole.
It was a spacious, bare, whitewashed apartment, lighted of
course, by windows looking into the interior of the prison,
but far more light and airy than one could reasonably expect
to find in such a situation. There was a large fire with a
A VISIT TO NEWGATE. 191
deal table before it, round which ten or a dozen women were |
seated on wooden forms at dinner. Along both sides of the
room ran a shelf; below it, at regular intervals, a row of
large hooks were fixed in the wall, on each of which was hung
the sleeping-mat of a prisoner: her rug and blanket being
folded up, and placed on the shelf above. At night, these
mats are placed on the floor, each beneath the hook on which
it hangs during the day; and the ward is thus made to answer
the purposes both of a day-room and sleeping apartment.
Over the fire-place, was a large sheet of pasteboard, on which
were displayed a variety of texts from Scripture, which were
also scattered about the room in scraps about the size and
shape of the copy-slips which are used in schools. On the
table was a sufficient provision of a kind of stewed beef and
brown bread, in pewter dishes, which are kept perfectly
bright, and displayed on shelves in great order and regularity
when they are not in use.
The women rose hastily, on our entrance, and retired in a
hurried manner to either side of the fireplace. They were all
cleanly—many of them decently—attired, and there was
nothing peculiar, either in their appearance or demeanour.
One or two resumed the needlework which they had probably
laid aside at the commencement of their meal; others gazed
at the visitors with listless curiosity ; and a few retired behind
their companions to the very end of the room, as if desirous
to avoid even the casual observation of the strangers. Some
old Irish women, both in this and other wards, to whom the
thing was no novelty, appeared perfectly indifferent to our
presence, and remained standing close to the seats from which
they had just risen; but the general feeling among the
females seemed to be one of uneasiness during the period of
our stay among them: which was very brief. Not a word
was uttered during the time of our remaining, unless, indeed,
by the wardswoman in reply to some question which we put
to the turnkey who accompanied us. -In every ward on the
female side, a wardswoman is appointed to preserve order, and
a similar regulation is adopted among the males. The wards-
men and wardswomen are all prisoners, selected for good
conduct. They alone are allowed the privilege of sleeping on
bedsteads ; a small stump bedstead being placed in every ward
for that purpose. On both sides of the gaol, is a small
recelving-room, to which prisoners are conducted on their first
192 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
reception, and whence they cannot be removed until they have
been examined by the surgeon of the prison.*
Retracing our steps to the dismal passage in which we
found ourselves at first (and which, by the by, contains three
or four dark cells for the accommodation of refractory
prisoners), we were led through a narrow yard to the
‘“school”’—a portion of the prison set apart for boys under
fourteen years of age. In a tolerable-sized room, in which
were writing-materials and some copy-books, was the school-
master, with a couple of his pupils; the remainder having
been fetched from an adjoining apartment, the whole were
drawn up in line for our inspection. There were fourteen of
them in all, some with shoes, some without; some in pinafores
without jackets, others in jackets without pinafores, and one
in scarce anything at all. The whole number, without an
exception we believe, had been committed for trial on charges
of packet-picking; and fourteen such terrible little faces we
never beheld.—There was not one redeeming feature among
them—not a glance of honesty—not a wink expressive of any-
thing but the gallows and the hulks, in the whole collection.
As to anything like shame or contrition, that was entirely out
of the question. They were evidently quite gratified at being
thought worth the tiouble of looking at; their idea appeared
to be, that we had come to see Newgate as a grand affair, and
that they were an indispensable part of the show; and every
boy as he ‘‘fell in” to the line, actually seemed as pleased
and important as if he had done something excessively meri-
torious in getting there at all. We never looked upon a more
disagreeable sight, because we never saw fourteen such
hopeless creatures of neglect, before. .
On either side of the school-yard is a yard for men, in one
of which—that towards Newgate-street—prisoners of the
more respectable class are confined. Of the other, we have
little description to offer, as the different wards necessarily
partake of the same character. They are provided, like the
wards on the women’s side, with mats and rugs, which are
disposed of in the same manner during the day; the only
very striking difference between their appearance and that
* The regulations of the prison relative to the confinement of prisoners
during the day, their sleeping at night, their taking their meals, and other
matters of gaol ecopomy, have been all altered—greatly for the betver—sincs
this sketch was first published.
- Salih
a b
et a ae es ee
A VISIT TO NEWGATR, 192
of the wards inhabited by the females, is the utter absence of
any employment. Huddled together on two opposite forms,
by the fireside, sit twenty men perhaps; here, a boy in livery ;
there, a man in a rough great-coat and top-boots; farther on,
a desperate-looking fellow in his shirt sleeves, with an old
Scotch cap upon his shaggy head; near him again, a tall
ruffian, in a smock-frock; next to him, a miserable being of
distressed appearance, with his head resting on his hand ;—
all alike in one respect, all idle and listless. When they do
leave the fire, sauntering moodily about, lounging in the
window, or leaning against the wall, vacantly swinging their
bodies to and fro. With the exception of a man reading an
old newspaper, in two or three instances, this was the case in
every ward we entered.
The only communication these men have with their friends,
is through two close iron gratings, with an intermediate space
of about a yard in width between the two, so that nothing can
be handed across, nor can the prisoner have any communi-
eation by touch with the person who visits him. The married
men have a separate grating, at which to see their wives, but
its construction is the same.
The prison chapel is situated at the back of the governor’s
house: the latter having no windows looking into the interior
of the prison. Whether the associations connected with the
place—the knowledge that here a portion of the burial service
is, on some dreadful occasions, performed over the quick and
not upon the dead—cast over it a still more gloomy and
sombre air than art has imparted to it, we know not, but its
appearance is very striking. There is something in a silent
and deserted place of worship, solemn and impressive at any
time ; and the very dissimilarity of this one from any we have
been accustomed to, only enhances the impression. The
meanness of its appointments—the bare and scanty pulpit,
with the paltry painted pillars on either side—the women’s
gallery with its great heavy curtain—the men’s with its
unpainted benches and dingy front—the tottering little talile
at the altar, with the commandments on the wall above it,
scarcely legible through lack of paint, and dust and damp—
80 unlike the velvet and gilding, the marble and wood, of a
modern church—are strange and striking. There is one
object, too, which rivets the attention and fascinates the gaze,
_and from which we may turn horror-stricken in vain, for the
194 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
recollection of it will haunt us, waking and sleeping, for a
long time afterwards. Immediately below the reading-desk,
on the floor of the chapel, and forming the most conspicuous
object in its little area, is the condemned pew; a huge black
pen, in which the wretched people, who are singled out for
death, are placed, on the Sunday preceding their execution, in
sight of all their fellow-prisoners, from many of whom they
may have been separated but a week before, to hear prayers
for their own souls, to join in the responses of their own
burial service, and to listen to an address, warning their
recent companions to take example by their fate, and urging
themselves, while there is yet time—nearly four-and-twenty
hours—to ‘turn, and flee from the wrath to come!”
Imagine what have been the feelings of the men whom that
fearful pew has enclosed, and of whom, between the gailows
and the knife, no mortal remnant may now remain! Think
of the hopeless clinging to life to the last, and the wild
despair, far exceeding in anguish the felon’s death itself, by
which they have heard the certainty of their speedy trans-
mission to another world, with all their crimes upon their
heads, rung into their ears by the officiating clergyman !
At one time—and at no distant period either—the coffins
of the men about to be executed, were placed in that pew,
upon the seat by their side, during the whole service. It may
seem incredible, but it is true. Let us hope that the increased
spirit of civilisation and humanity which abolished this fright-
ful and degrading custom, may extend itself to other usages
equally barbarous; usages which have not even the plea of
utility in their defence, as every year’s experience has shown
them to be more and more inefficacious.
Leaving the chapel, descending to the passage so frequently
alluded to, and crossing the yard before noticed as bemg
allotted to prisoners of a more respectable description than the
generality of men confined here, the visitor arrives at a thick
iron gate of great size and strength. Having been admitted
through it by the turnkey on duty, he turns sharp round to
the left, and pauses before another gate; and, having passed
this last barrier, he stands in the most terrible part of this
gloomy building—the condemned ward.
The press-yard, well known by name to newspaper readers,
from its frequent mention in accounts of executions, is at the
corner of the building, and next to the ordinary’s house, in
a.
A VISIT TO NEWGATE. 195
- Newgate-street: running from Newgate-street, towards the
centre of the prison, parallel with Newgate-market. It isa
long, narrow court, of which a portion of the wall in New-
gate-street forms one end, and the gate the other. At the
upper end, on the left-hand—that is, adjoining the wall in
Newgate-street—is a cistern of water, and at the bottom a
double grating (of which the gate itself forms a part) similar
to that before described. Through these grates the prisoners
are allowed to see their friends; a turnkey always remaining
in the vacant space between, during the whole interview.
Immediately on the right as you enter, is a building contain-
ing the press-room, day-room, and cells; the yard is on every
side surrounded by lofty walls guarded by chevaua de frise ;
and the whole is under the constant inspection of vigilant and
experienced turnkeys.
In the first apartment into which we were conducted—
which was at the top of a staircase, and immediately over the
press-room—were five-and-twenty or thirty prisoners, all under
sentence of death, awaiting the result of the recorder’s report
—men of all ages and appearances, from a hardened old
offender with swarthy face and grizzly beard of three days’
growth, to a handsome boy, not fourteen years old, and of
singularly youthful appearance even for that age, who had
been condemned for burglary. There was nothing remarkable
in the appearance of these prisoners. One or two decently
dressed men were brooding with a dejected air over the fire ;
several little groups of two or three had been engaged in
conversation at the upper end of the room, or in the windows;
and the remainder were crowded round a young man seated
at a table, who appeared to be engaged in teaching the
younger ones to write. The room was large, airy, and clean.
There was very little anxiety or mental suffering depicted in
the countenance of any of the men;—they had all been sen-
tenced to death, it is true, and the recorder’s report had not
yet been made; but, we question whether there was a man
among them, notwithstanding, who did not know that although
he had undergone the ceremony, it never was intended that
his life should be sacrificed. On the table lay a Testament,
but there were no tokens of its having been in recent use. —
In the press-room below, were three men, the nature of
whose offence rendered it necessary to separate them, even
from their companions in guilt. It is a long, sombre room,
02
¥ Pei ee f-
~~ * ‘ e) _ eA
Nd
SAS Ao
196 | SKETCHES BY BOZ.
with two windows sunk into the stone wall, and here the ~
wretched men are pinioned on the morning of their execution,
before moving towards the scaffold. The fate of one of these
prisoners was uncertain; some mitigatory circumstances having
come to light since his trial, which had been humanely repre-
sented in the proper quarter. The other two had nothing to
expect from the mercy of the crown; their doom was sealed ;
no plea could be urged in extenuation of their crime, and they
well knew that for them there was no hope in this world.
‘‘The two short ones,” the turnkey whispered, ‘‘ were dead
men.”
The man to whom we have alluded as entertaining some
hopes of escape, was lounging at the greatest distance he
could place between himself and his companions, in the
window nearest to the door. He was probably aware of our
approach, and had assumed an air of courageous indifference ;
his face was purposely averted towards the window, and he
stirred not an inch while we were present. The other two
men were at the upper end of the room. One of them, who
was imperfectly seen in the dim light, had his back towards
us, and was stooping over the fire, with his right arm on the
mantelpiece, and his head sunk upon it. The other, was
leaning on the sill of the farthest window. The light fell full
upon him, and communicated to his pale, haggard face, and
disordered air, an appearance which, at that distance, was
ghastly. His cheek rested upon his hand; and, with his face
a little raised, and his eyes widely staring before him, he
seemed to be unconsciously intent on counting the chinks in
the opposite wall. We passed this room again afterwards.
The first man was pacing up and down the court with a firm
military step—he had been a soldier in the foot-guards—and
a cloth cap jauntily thrown on one side of his head. He
bowed respectfully to our conductor, and the salute was
returned. The other two still remained in the positions we
have described, and were as motionless as statues.*
A few paces up the yard, and forming a continuation of the
building, in which are the two rooms we have just quitted, lie
the condemned cells. The entrance is by a narrow and
obscure staircase leading to a dark passage, in which a char-
coal stove casts a lurid tint over the objects in its immediate
* These two men were executed shortly afterwards. The other was respited
during her majesty's pleasure.
A VISIT TO NEWGATE. 197
vicinity, and diffuses something like warmth around, From
the left-hand side of this passage, the massive door of every
cell on the story opens; and from it alone can they be
approached. There are three of these passages, and three of
these ranges of cells, one above the other; but in size,
furniture, and appearance, they are all precisely alike. Prior
to the recorder’s report being made, all the prisoners under
sentence of death are removed from the day-room at five
o'clock in the afternoon, and locked up in these cells, where
they are allowed a candle until ten o’clock; and here they
remain until seven next morning. When the warrant for a
prisoner’s execution arrives, he is removed to the cells and
confined in one of them until he leaves it for the scaffold. He
is at liberty to walk in the yard; but, both in his walks and
in his cell, he is constantly attended by a turnkey who never
leaves him on any pretence.
We entered the first cell. It was a stone dungeon, eight
feet long by six wide, with a bench at the upper end, under
which were a common rug, a bible, and prayer-book. An
iron candlestick was fixed into the wall at the side; and a small
high window in the back admitted as much air and light as
could struggle in between a double row of heavy, crossed iron
bars. It contained no other furniture of any description.
Conceive the situation of a man, spending his last night on
earth in this cell. Buoyed up with some vague and undefined
hope of reprieve, he knew not why—indulging in some wild
and visionary idea of escaping, he knew not how—hour after
hour of the three preceding days allowed him for preparation,
has fled with a speed which no man living would deem
possible, for none but this dying man can know. He has
wearied his friends with entreaties, exhausted the attendants
with importunities, neglected in his feverish restlessness the
timely warnings of his spiritual consoler; and, now that the
illusion is at last dispelled, now that eternity is before him
and guilt behind, now that his fears of death amount almost
to madness, and an overwhelming sense of his helpless,
hopeless state rushes upon him, he is lost and stupified, and
has neither thoughts to turn to, nor power to call upon, the
Almighty Being, from whom alone he can seek mercy and
forgiveness, and before whom his repentance can alone avail.
Hours have glided by, and still ke sits upon the same stone
bench with folded arms, heedless slike of the fast-decreasing
198 SKETCHES BY BOZ
time before him, and the urgent entreaties of the good man at
his side. The feeble light is wasting gradually, and the
deathlike stillness of the street without, broken only by the
rumbling of some passing vehicle which echoes mournfully
through the empty yards, warns him that the night is waning
fast away. ‘The deep bell of St. Paul’s strikes—one! He
heard it; it has roused him. Seven hours left! He paces
the narrow limits of his cell with rapid strides, cold drops of
terror starting on his forehead, and every muscle of his frame
quivering with agony. Seven hours! He suffers himself to
be led to his seat, mechanically takes the bible which is
placed in his hand, and tries to read and listen. No: his
thoughts will wander. The book is torn and soiled by use—
and like the book he read his lessons in, at school, just forty
years ago! He has never bestowed a thought upon it,
perhaps, since he left it as a child: and yet the place, the
time, the room—nay, the very boys he played with, crowd as
vividly before him as if they were scenes of yesterday; and
some forgotten phrase, some childish word, rings in his ears
like the echo of one uttered but a minute since. The voice of
the clergyman recals him to himself. He is reading from
the sacred book its solemn promises of pardon for repentance,
and its awful denunciation of obdurate men. He falls upon
his knees and clasps his hands to pray. Hush! what sound
was that? He starts upon his feet. It cannot be two yet.
Hark! Two quarters have struck ;—the third—the fourth.
It is! Six hours left. Tell him not of repentafice! Six
hours’ repentance for eight times six years of guilt and sin:
He buries his face in his hands, and throws himself on the
bench.
Worn with watching and excitement, he sleeps, and the
same unsettled state of mind pursues him in his dreams. An
insupportable load is taken from his breast; he is walking
with his wife in a pleasant field, with the bright sky above
them, and a fresh and boundless prospect on every side—how
different from the stone walls of Newgate! She is looking—
not as she did when he saw her for the last time in that
dreadful place, but as she used when he loved her—long,
long ago, before misery and ill-treatment had altered her
looks, and vice had changed his nature, and she is leaning
upon his arm, and looking up into his face with tenderness
‘and afiection—-and he does not strike her now, nor rudely
A VISIT TO NEWGATE. 199
shake her from him. And oh! how glad he is to tell her all
he had forgotten in that last hurried interview, and to fall on
his knees before her and fervently beseech her pardon for all
the unkindness and cruelty that wasted her form and broke
her heart! The scene suddenly changes. He is on his trial
again: there are the judge and jury, and prosecutors, and
witnesses, just as they were before. How full the court is—
what a sea of heads—with a gallows, too, and a scaffold—and
how all those people stare at him! Verdict, ‘“‘Guilty.” No
matter; he will escape.
The night is dark and cold, the gates have been left open,
and in an instant he is in the street, flying from the scene of
his imprisonment like the wind. The streets are cleared, the
open fields are gained and the broad wide country lies before
him. Onward he dashes in the midst of darkness, over hedge
and ditch, through mud and pool, bounding from spot to spot
with a speed and lightness, astonishing even to himself. At
length he pauses; he must be safe from pursuit now; he will
stretch himself on that bank and sleep till sunrise.
A period of unconsciousness succeeds. He wakes, cold and
wretched. ‘The dull gray light of morning is stealing into the
cell, and falls upon the form of the attendant turnkey. Con-
fused by his dreams, he starts from his uneasy bed in
momentary uncertainty. It is but momentary. Every object
in the narrow cell is too frightfully real to admit of doubt or
mistake. He is the condemned felon again, guilty and de
spairing; and in two hours more will be dead.
0 ne re
ae eth ies
200 ' SKETCHES BY BOZ
CHARACTERS,
————_4+——-
CHAPTER L
THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE.
Ir is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent,
@ man may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy
in the breast of any single person; his existence is a matter
of interest to no one save himself; he cannot be said to be
forgotten when he dies, for no one remembered him when he
was alive. There is a numerous class of people in this great
metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and whom
nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity
in the first instance, they have resorted to London in search of
employment, and the means of subsistence. It is hard, we
know, to break the ties which bind us to our homes and
friends, and harder still to efface the thousand recollections of
happy days and old times, which have been slumbering in our
bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind, to bring
before it associations connected with the friends we have left,
the scenes we have beheld too probably for the last time, and
the hopes we once cherished, but may entertain no more,
These men, however, happily for themselves, have long for-
gotten such thoughts. Old country friends have died or
emigrated; former correspondents have become lost, lke
themselves, in the crowd and turmoil of some busy city; and
they have gradually settled down into mere passive creatures
of habit and endurance.
We were seated in the enclosure of St. James’s Park the
other day, when our attention was attracted by a man whom
we immediately put down in our own mind as one of this
class. He was a tall, thin, pale person, in a black coat,
scanty gray trousers, little pinched-up gaiters, and brown
beaver gloves. He had an umbrella in his hand—not for
ANY
THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE. 201
use, for the day was fine—but, evidently, because he always
carried one to the office in the morning. He walked up and
down before the little patch of grass on which the chairs are
placed for hire, not as if he were doing it for pleasure or
recreation, but as if it were a matter of compulsion, just as he
would walk to the office every morning from the back settle-
ments of Islington. It was Monday; he had escaped for
four-and-twenty hours from the thraldom of the desk; and
was walking here for exercise and amusement—perhaps for
the first time in his life. We were inclined to think he had
never had a holiday before, and that he did not know what-to
do with himself. Children were playing on the grass;
groups of people were loitering about, chatting and laughing;
but the man walked steadily up and down, unheeding and
unheeded, his spare pale face looking as if it were incapable
of bearing the expression of curiosity or interest.
There was something in the man’s manner and appearance
which told us, we fancied, his whole life, or rather his whole
day, for a man of this sort has no variety of days. We
thought we almost saw the dingy little back office into which
he walks every morning, hanging his hat on the same peg,
and placing his legs beneath the same desk: first, taking off
that black coat which lasts the year through, and putting on
the one which did duty last year, and which he keeps in his
desk to save the other. There he sits till five o’clock,
working on, all day, as regularly as the dial over the mantel-
piece, whose loud ticking is as monotonous as his whole
existence: only raising his head when some one enters the
counting-house, or when, in the midst of some difficult
calculation, he looks up to the ceiling as if there were inspi-
ration in the dusty skylight with a green knot in the centre
of every pane of glass. About five, or half-past, he slowly
dismounts from his accustomed stool, and again changing his
coat, proceeds to his usual dining-place, somewhere near
Bucklersbury. The waiter recites the bill of fare in a rather
confidential manner—for he is a regular customer—and after
inquiring ‘‘ What’s in the best cut?” and ‘‘ What was up
last ?”’ he orders a small plate of roast beef, with greens, and
half-a-pint of porter. He has a small plate to-day, because
greens are a penny more than potatoes, and he had ‘two
breads” yesterday, with the additional enormity of ‘a cheese’
the day before. This important point settled, he hangs up
202 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
his hat—he took it off the moment he sat down—and bespeaks
the paper after the next gentleman. If he can get it while he
is at dinner, he eats with much greater zest; balancing it
against the water-bottle, and eating a bit of beef, and reading
a line or two, alternately. Exactly at five minutes before the
hour is up, he produces a shilling pays the reckoning, care-
fully deposits the change in his waistcoat-pocket (first deducting
a penny for the waiter), and returns to the office, from which,
if it is not foreign post night, he again sallies forth, in about
half an hour. He then walks home, at his usual pace, to his
little back room at Islington, where he has his tea; perhaps
solacing himself during the meal with the conversation of his
Jandlady’s little boy, whom he occasionally rewards with a
penny, for solving problems in simple addition. Sometimes,
there is a letter or two to take up to his employer's, in
Russell-square; and then, the wealthy man of business,
hearing his voice, calls out from the dining-parlour,—‘‘ Come
in, Mr. Smith;” and Mr. Smith, putting his hat at the feet
of one of the hall chairs, walks timidly in, and being con-
descendingly desired to sit down, carefully tucks his legs
under his chair, and sits at a considerable distance from the
table while he drinks the glass of sherry which is poured out
for him by the eldest boy, and after drinking which, he backs
and slides out of the room, in a state of nervous agitation
from which he does not perfectly recover, until he finds him-
self once more in the Islington-road. Poor, harmless crea-
tures such men are; contented but not happy; broken-spirited
and humbled, they may feel no pain, but they never know
pleasure.
Compare these men with another class of beings who, like
them, have neither friend nor companion, but whose position
in society is the result of their own choice. These are generally
old fellows with white heads and red faces, addicted to port
wine and Hessian boots, who from some cause, real or
imaginary—generally the former, the excellent reason being
that they are rich, and their relations poor—grow suspicious
of every body, and do the misanthropical in chambers, taking
great delight in thinking themselves unhappy, and making
every body they come near, miserable. You may see such
men as these, any where; you will know them at coffee-houses
by their discontented exclamations and the luxury of their
dinners; at theatres, by their always sitting in the same place
THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE, 208
and looking with a jaundiced eye on all the young people near
them; at church, by the pomposity with which they enter,
and the loud tone in which they repeat the responses; at
parties, by their getting cross at whist and hating music. An
old fellow of this kind will have his chambers splendidly
furnished, and collect books, plate, and pictures about him in
profusion; not so much for his own gratification, as to be
superior to those who have the desire, but not the means, to
compete with him. He belongs to two or three clubs, and is
envied, and flattered, and hated by the members of them all.
Sometimes he will be appealed to by a poor relation—a
married nephew perhaps—for some little assistance: and then
he will declaim with honest indignation on the improvidence
of young married people, the worthlessness of a wife, the
insolence of having a family, the atrocity of getting into debt
with a hundred and twenty-five pounds a-year, and other
unpardonable crimes; winding up his exhortations with a
complacent review of his own conduct, and a delicate allusion
to parochial relief. He dies, some day after dinner, of
apoplexy, having bequeathed his property to a Public Society,
and the Institution erects a tablet to his memory, expressive
of their admiration of his Christian conduct in this world, and
their comfortable conviction of his happiness in the next.
But, next to our very particular friends, hackney-coachmen,
cabmen and cads, whom we admire in proportion to the
extent of their cool impudence and perfect self-possession,
there is no class of people who amuse us more than London
apprentices. They are no longer an organised body, bound
down by solemn compact to terrify his majesty’s subjects
whenever it pleases them to take offence in their heads and
staves in their hands. They are only bound, now, by inden-
tures; and, as to their valour, it is easily restrained by the
wholesome dread of the New Police, and a perspective view
of a damp station-house, terminating in a police-office and a
reprimand. ‘They are still, however, a peculiar class, and not
the less pleasant for being inoffensive. Can any one fail tu
have noticed them in the streets on Sunday? And were there
ever such harmless efforts at the grand and magnificent as
the young fellows display! We walked down the Strand, a
Sunday or two ago, behind a little group; and they furnished
food for our amusement the whole way. They had come out
of some part of the city; it was between three and four
204 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
o’clock in the afternoon; and they were on their way to the
Park. There were four of them, all arm-in-arm, with white
kid gloves like so many bridegrooms, light trousers of un
precedented patterns, and coats for which the English language
has yet no name—a kind of cross between a great-coat and a
surtout, with the collar of the one, the skirts of the other, and
pockets peculiar to themselves.
Each of the gentlemen carried a thick stick, with a large
tassel at the top, which he occasionally twirled gracefully
round; and the whole four, by way of looking easy and un-
concerned, were walking with a paralytic swagger irresistibly
ludicrous. One of the party had a watch about the size and
shape of a reasonable Ribstone pippin, jammed into his waist-
coat-pocket, which he carefully compared with the clocks at
St. Clement’s and the New Church, the illuminated clock at
Exeter ’Change, the clock of St. Martin’s Church, and the
clock of the Horse Guards. When they at last arrived in St.
James’s Park, the member of the party who had the best
made boots on, hired a second chair expressly for his feet,
and flung himself on this two-pennyworth of sylvan luxury
with an air which levelled all distinctions between Brookes’s
and Snooks’s, Crockford’s and Bagnigge Wells.
We may smile at such people, but they can never excite
our anger. They are usually on the best terms with them-
selves, and it follows almost asa matter of course, in good
humour with every one about them. Besides, they are always
the faint reflection of higher lights; and, if they do displiy a
little occasional foolery in their own proper persons, it is surely
more tolerable than precocious puppyism in the Quadrant,
whiskered dandyism in Regent-street and Pall-mall, or gal-
lantry in its dotage any where.
A CHRISTMAS DINNER, 205
CHAPTER II.
A CHRISTMAS DINNER,
Curistmas time! That man must be a misanthrope
indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not
roused—in whose mind some pleasant associations are not
awakened—by the recurrence of Christmas. There are people
who will tell you that Christmas is not to them what it used
to be; that each succeeding Christmas has found some
cherished hope, or happy prospect, of the year before, dimmed
or passed away; that the present only serves to remind them
of reduced circumstances and straightened incomes—of the
feasts they once bestowed on hollow friends, and of the cold
looks that meet them now, in adversity and misfortune. Never
heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few men who
have lived long enough in the world, who cannot call up such
thoughts any day in the year. Then do not select the merriest
of the three hundred and sixty-five, for your doleful recollec-
tions, but draw your chair nearer the blazing fire—fill the
glass and send round the song—and if your room be smaller
than it was a dozen years ago, or if your glass be filled with
reeking punch, instead of sparkling wine, put a good face on
the matter, and empty it off-hand, and fill another, and troll
off the old ditty you used to sing, and thank God it’s no
worse. Look on the merry faces of your children (if you
have any) as they sit round the fire. One little seat may be
empty; one slight form that gladdened the father’s heart,
and roused the mother’s pride to look upon, may not be
there. Dwell not upon the past; think not that one short
year ago, the fair child now resolving into dust, sat before
you, with the bloom of health upon its cheek, and the gaiety
of infancy in its joyous eye. Reflect upon your present
blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past
misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill your glass
‘again, with a merry face and contented heart. Our life on
t, but your Christmas shall be merry, and your new year a
happy one!
Who can be insensible to the out-pourings of good feeling,
206 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
and the honest interchange of affectionate attachment, which
abound at this season of the year? .A Christmas family-
party! We know nothing in nature more delightful! There
seems a magic in the very name of Christmas. Petty jealousies
and discurds are forgotten; social feelings are awakened, in
bosoms to which they have long been strangers; father and
son, or brother and sister, who have met and passed with
averted gaze, or a look of cold recognition, for months before,
proffer and return the cordial embrace, and bury their past
animosities in their present happiness. Kindly hearts that
have yearned towards each other, but have been withheld by
false notions of pride and self-dignity, are again reunited, and
all is kindness and benevolence! Would that Christmas
lasted the whole year through (as it ought), and that the
prejudices and passions which deform our better nature, were
never called into action among those to whom they should
ever be strangers!
The Christmas family-party that we mean, is not a mere
assemblage of relations, got up at a week or two’s notice,
originating this year, having no family precedent in the last,
and not likely to be repeated in the next. No. It is an
annual gathering of all the accessible members of the family,
young or old, rich or poor; and all the children look forward
to it, for two months beforehand, in a fever of anticipation.
Formerly, it was held at grandpapa’s; but grandpapa getting
old, and grandmamma getting old too, and rather infirm,
they have given up housekeeping, and domesticated them-
“selves with uncle George; so, the party always takes place at
uncle George’s house, but grandmamma sends in most of the
good things, and grandpapa always wide toddle down, all the
way to Newgate-market, to buy the turkey, which he engages
@ porter to bring home behind him in triumph, always in-
sisting on the man’s being rewarded with a glass of spirits,
over and above his hire, to drink ‘‘a merry Christmas and a
happy new year” to aunt George. As to grandmamma, she
is very secret and mysterious for two or three days before-
hand, but not sufficiently so to prevent rumours getting afloat
that she has purchased a beautiful new cap with pink ribbons
for each of the servants, together with sundry books, and
pen-knives, and pencil-cases, for the younger branches; to
say nothing of divers secret additions to the order originally
given by aunt George at the pastry-cook’s, such as another
A CHRISTMAS DINNER. 207
dozen of mince-pies for the dinner, and a large plum-cake for
the children. .
On Christmas-eve, grandmamma is always in excellent
spirits, and after employing all the children, during the day,
in stoning the plums, and all that, insists, regularly every
year, on uncle George coming down into the kitchen, taking
off his coat, and stirring the pudding for half an hour or so,
which uncle George good-humouredly does to the vociferous
deiight of the children and servants. The evening concludes
with a glorious game of blind-man’s-buff, in an early stage of
which grandpapa takes great care to be caught, in order that
he may have an opportunity of displaying his dexterity.
On the following morning, the old couple, with as many of
the children as the pew will hold, go to church in great state:
leaving aunt George at home dusting decanters and filling
castors, and uncle George carrying bottles into the dining-
parlour, and calling for cork-screws, and getting into every-
body’s way.
When the church-party return to lunch, grandpapa pro-
duces a small sprig of misletoe from his pocket, and tempts
the boys to kiss their little cousins under it—a proceeding
which afiords both the boys and the old gentleman unlimited
satisfaction, but which rather outrages grandmamma’s ideas
of decorum, until grandpapa says, that when he was just
thirteen years and three months old, he kissed grandmamma
under a misletoe too, on which the children clap their hands,
and laugh very heartily, as do aunt George and uncle George;
and grandmamma looks pleased, and says, with a benevolent
stnile, that grandpapa was an impudent young dog, on which
the children laugh very heartily again, and grandpapa more
heartily than any of them.
But all these diversions are nothing to the subsequent
excitement when grandmamma in a high cap, and slate-
coloured silk gown; and grandpapa with a beautifully plaited
shirt-frill, and white neckerchief; seat themselves on one side
of the drawing-room fire, with uncle George’s children and
little cousins innumerable, seated in the front, waiting the
arrival of the expected visitors. Suddenly a hackney-coach is
heard to stop, and uncle George, who has been looking out of
the wiudow, exclaims ‘“‘ Here’s Jane!” on which the children
tush to the door, and helter-skelter down stairs; and uncle
_ Robert and aunt Jane, and the dear little baby, and the
208 SKETCHES BY BOZ
nurse, and the whole party, are ushered up stairs amidst
tumultuous shouts of ‘‘Oh, my!” from the children, and
frequently repeated warnings not to hurt baby from the nurse.
And grandpapa takes the child, and grandmamma kisses her
daughter, and the confusion of this first entry has scarcely
subsided, when some other aunts and uncles with more cousins
arrive, and the grown-up cousins flirt with each other, and
so do the little cousins too, for that matter, and nothing is
to be heard but a confused din of talking, laughing, and
merriment.
A hesitating double knock at the street-door, heard during
a momentary pause in the conversation, excites a general
inquiry of ‘‘Who’s that?” and two or three children, who
have been standing at the window, announce in a low voice,
that it’s ‘poor aunt Margaret.” Upon which, aunt George
leaves the room to welcome the new comer; and grandmamma
draws herself up, rather stiff and stately; for Margaret
married a poor man without her consent, and poverty not
being a sufficiently weighty punishment for her offence, has
been discarded by her friends, and debarred the society of her
dearest relatives. But Christmas has come round, and the
unkind feelings that have struggled against better dispositions
during the year, have melted away before its genial influence,
like half-formed ice beneath the morning sun. It is not
difficult in a moment of angry feeling for a parent to denounce
a disobedient child; but, to banish her at a period of general
good will and hilarity, from the hearth, round which she has
sat on sO many anniversaries of the same day, expanding by
slow degrees from infancy to girlhood, and then bursting,
almost imperceptibly, into a woman, is widely different. The
air of conscious rectitude, and cold forgiveness, which the old
lady has assumed, ‘Sits ill upon her; and when the poor girl
is led in by her sister, pale in looks and broken in hope-——not
from poverty, for that she could bear, but from the conscious-
uess of undeserved neglect, and unmerited unkindness—it is
easy to see how much of it is assumed. A momentary pause
succeeds; the girl breaks suddenly from her sister and throws
herself, sobbing, on her mother’s neck. The father steps
hastily forward, and takes her husband’s hand. Friends
crowd round to offer their hearty congratulations, and happi-
cess and harmony again prevail.
As to the dinner, it’s perfectly delightful—nothing goes
A CHRISTMAS DINNER, ee 209
wrong, and everybody is in the very best of spirits, and dis-
posed to please and be pleased. Grandpapa relates a circum-
stantial account of the purchase of the turkey, with a slight
digression relative to the purchase of previous turkeys, on
former Christmas-days, which grandmamma corroborates in
the minutest particular. Uncle George tells stories, and
carves poultry, and takes wine, and jokes with the children
‘at the side-table, and winks at the cousins that are making
love, or being made love to, and exhilarates everybody with
his good humour and hospitality ; and when, at last, a stout
servant, staggers in with a gigantic pudding, with a sprig of
holly in the top, there is such a laughing, and shouting, and
clapping of little chubby hands, and kicking up of fat dumpy
legs, as can only be equalled by the applause with which the
astonishing feat of pouring lighted brandy into mince-pies, is
received by the younger visitors. Then the dessert!—and the
wine !—and the fun! Such beautiful speeches, and such
songs, from aunt Margaret’s husband, who turns out to be
such a nice man, and so attentive to grandmamma! Even
grandpapa not only sings ‘this annual song with unprecedented
vigour, but on being honoured with an unanimous encore,
according to annual custom, actually comes out with a new
one which nobody but grandmamma ever heard before; and
a young scape-grace of a cousin, who has been in some dis-
grace with the old people, for certain heinous sins of omission
and commission—neglecting to call, and persisting in drink-
ing Burton ale—astonishes everybody into convlusions of
laughter by volunteering the most extraordinary comic songs
that ever were heard. And thus the evening passes, in a
strain of rational good-will and cheerfulness, doing more to
awaken the sympathies of every member of the party in be-
half of his neighbour, and to perpetuate their good feeling
during the ensuing year, than half the homilies that have
ever been written, by half the Divines that have ever lived,
210 SKETCHES BY BOZ
CHAPTER IIT.
THE NEW YEAR.
Next to Christmas-day, the most pleasant annual epoch in
existence is the advent of the New Year. There are a
lachrymose set of people who usher in the New Year with
watching and fasting, as if they were bound to attend as chief
mourners at the obsequies of the old one. Now, we cannot
but think it a great deal more complimentary, both to the old
year that has rolled away, and to the New Year that is just
beginning to dawn upon us, to see the old fellow out, and the
hew one in, with gaiety and glee.
There must have been some few occurrences in the past
year to which we can look back, with a smile of cheerful
recollection, if not with a feeling of heartfelt thankfulness.
And we are bound by every rule of justice and equity to give
the New Year credit for being a good one, until he proves
himself unworthy the confidence we repose in him.
This is our view of the matter; and entertaining it, not-
withstanding our respect for the old year, one of the few
remaining moments of whose existence passes away with every
word we write, here we are, seated by our fireside on this last
night of the old year, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-
s1x, penning this article with as jovial a face as if nothing
extraordinary had happened, or was about to happen, to
disturb our good humour.
Hackney-coaches and carriages keep rattling up the street
and down the street in rapid succession, conveying, doubtless,
smartly-dressed coachfuls to crowded parties ; loud and re-
peated double knocks at the house with green blinds, oppo-
site, announce to the whole neighbourhood that there’s one
large party in the street at all events; and we saw through
the window, and through the fog too, till it grew so thick that
we rung for candles, and drew our curtains, pastrycooks’ mey
with green boxes on their heads, and rout-furniture-warehouse-
carts, with cane seats and French lamps, hurrying to the
numerous houses where an annual festival is held in honour
of the occasion.
THE NEW YEAR. 211
We can fancy one of these parties, we think, as well as if
we were duly dress-coated and pumped, and had just been
announced at the drawing-room door.
Take the house with the green blinds for instance. We
know it is a quadrille party, because we saw some men taking
up the front drawing-room carpet while we sat at breakfast
this morning, and if further evidence be required, and we
must tell the truth, we just now saw one of the young ladies
“‘doing’”’ another of the young ladies’ hair, near one of the
bed-room windows, in an unusual style of splendour, which
nothing else but a quadrille party could possibly justify.
The master of the house with the green blinds is in a
public office; we know the fact by the cut of his coat, the tie
of his neckcloth, and the self-satisfaction of his gait—-the very
green blinds themselves have a Somerset-House air about
them.
Hark!—a cab! That’s a junior clerk in the same office;
a tidy sort of young man, with a tendency to cold and corns,
who comes in a pair of boots with black cloth fronts, and
brings his shoes in his coat-pocket, which shoes he is at this
very moment putting on in the hall. Now, he is announced
by the man in the passage to another man in a blue coat, who
is a disguised messenger from the office.
The man on the first landing precedes him to the drawing-
room door. ‘‘ Mr. Tupple!” shouts the messenger. ‘‘ How
are you, Tupple?” says the master of the house, advancing
from the fire, before which he has been talking politics and
airing himself. ‘‘ My dear, this is Mr. Tupple (a courteous
salute from the lady of the house); Tupple, my eldest
daughter; Julia, my dear, Mr. Tupple; Tupple, my other
daughters; my son, sir;”’ Tupple rubs his hands very hard,
and smiles as if it were all capital fun, and keeps constantly
bowing and turning himself round, till the whole family have
been introduced, when he glides inte a chair at the corner of
the sofa, and opens a miscellaneous conversation with the
young ladies upon the weather, and the theatres, and the old
year, and the last new murder, and the balloon, and the ladies’
sleeves, and the festivities of the season, and a great many
other topics of small talk.
More double knocks! what an extensive party; what an
incessant hum of conversation and general sipping of coffee!
We see Tupple now, in our mind’s eye, in the height of his
P22
<4
212 SKETCHES BY BQZ.
glory. He has just handed that stout old lady’s cup to the
servant; and now, he dives among the crowd of young men
by the door, to intercept the other servant, and secure the
muffin-plate for the old lady’s daughter, before he leaves the
room; and now, as he passes the sofa on his way back, he
bestows a glance of recognition and patronage upon the young
ladies, as condescending and familiar as if he had known
them from infancy.
Charming person Mr. Tupple—perfect ladies’ man—such a
delightful companion, too! Laugh !—nobody ever understood
papa’s jokes half so well as Mr. Tupple, who laughs himself
into convulsions at every fresh burst of facetiousness. Most
delightful partner! talks through the whole set! and although
he does seem at first rather gay and frivolous, so romantic and
with so much feeling! Quite a love. No great favourite
with the young men, certainly, who sneer at, and affect to
despise him; but every body knows that’s only envy, and
they needn’t give themselves the trouble to depreciate his
merits at any rate, for Ma says he shall be asked to every
future dinner-party, if it’s only to talk to people between the
courses, and distract their attention when there’s any unex:
pected delay in the kitchen.
At supper, Mr. Tupple shows to still greater advantage
than he has done throughout the evening, and when Pa
requests every one to fill their glasses for the purpose of
drinking happiness throughout the year, Mr. Tupple is so
droll: insisting on all the young ladies having their glasses
filled, notwithstanding their repeated assurances that they
never can, by any possibility, think of emptying them: and
subsequently begging permission to say a few words on the
sentiment which has just been uttered by Pa—when he makes
one of the most brilliant and poetical speeches that can
possibly be imagined, about the old year and new one. After
the toast has been drunk, and when the ladies have retired,
Mr. Tupple requests that every gentleman will do him the
favour of filling his glass, for he has a toast to propose: on
which all the gentlemen cry ‘‘ Hear! hear!” and pass the
decanters accordingly: and Mr. Tupple being informed by the
master of the house that they are all charged, and waiting for
his toast, rises, and begs to remind the gentlemen present,
how much they have been delighted by the dazzling array of
elegance and beauty which the drawing-room has exhibited
THE NEW YEAR, 218
that night, and how their senses have been charmed, and their
hearts captivated, by the bewitching concentration of female
loveliness which that very room has so recently displayed.
(Loud cries of ‘‘Hear!”) Much as he (Tupple) would be
disposed to deplore the absence of the ladies, on other grounds,
he cannot but derive some consolation from the reflection that
the very circumstance of their not being present, enables him
to propose a toast, which he would have otherwise been
prevented from giving—that toast he begs to say is—‘‘ The
Ladies!’’ (Great applause.) The Ladies! among whom the
fascinating daughters of their excellent host are alike con-
spicuous for their beauty, their accomplishments, and their
elegance. He begs them to drain a bumper to ‘‘ The Ladies,
and a happy new year to them!” (Prolonged approbation ;
above which the noise of the ladies dancing the Spanish dance
among themselves, over head, is distinctly audible.)
The applause consequent on this toast, has scarcely sub-
sided, when a young gentleman in a pink under-waistcoat,
sitting towards the bottom of the table, is observed to grow
very restless and fidgety, and to evince strong indications of
some latent desire to give vent to his feelings in a speech,
which the wary Tupple at once perceiving, determines to
forestal by speaking himself. He, therefore, rises again, with
an air of solemn importance, and trusts he may be permitted
to propose another toast (unqualified approbation, and Mr.
Tupple proceeds). He is sure they must all be deeply
impressed with the hospitality—he may say the splendour—
with which they have been that night received by their worthy
host and hostess. (Unbounded applause.) Although this
is the first occasion on which he has had the pleasure and
delight of sitting at that board, he has known his friend
Dobble long and intimately; he has been connected with him
in business—he wishes every body present knew Dobble as
well as he does. (A cough from the host.) He (Tupple)
an lay his hand upon his (Tupple’s) heart, and declare his
confident belief that a better man, a better husband, a better
father, a better brother, a better son, a better relation in any
relation of life, than Dobble, never existed. (Loud cries of
‘‘Hear!”’) They have seen him to-night in the peaceful
bosom of his family: they should see him in the morning,
in the trying duties of his office. Calm in the perusal of
the morning papers, uncompromising in the signature of his
vu Wy i 7 ee 79 Se ee
214 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
name, dignified in his replies to the inquiries of stranger
applicants, deferential in his behaviour to his superiors,
majestic in his deportment to the messengers. (Cheers.)
When he bears this merited testimony to the excellent
qualities of his friend Dobble, what can he say in approaching
such a subject as Mrs. Dobble? Is it requisite for him to
expatiate on the qualities of that amiable woman? No; he
will spare his friend Dobble’s feelings; he will spare the
feelings of his friend—if he will allow him to have the honour
of calling him so—Mr. Dobble, junior. (Here Mr. Dobble,
janior, who has been previously distending his mouth to a
considerable width, by thrusting a particularly fine orange
into that feature, suspends operations, and assumes a proper
appearance of intense melancholy.) He will simply say—and
he is quite certain it is a sentiment in which all who hear him
will readily concur—that his friend Dobble is as superior to
any man he ever knew, as Mrs. Dobble is far beyond any
woman he ever saw (except her daughters); and he will
conclude by proposing their worthy “‘ Host and Hostess, and
may they live to enjoy many more new years!”
The toast is drunk with acclamation; Dobble returns
thanks, and the whole party rejoin the ladies in the drawing-
room. Young men who were too bashful to dance before
supper, find tongues and partners; the musicians exhibit
unequivocal symptoms of having drunk the new year in, while
the company were out; and dancing is kept up, until far in
the first morning of the new year.
We have scarcely written the last word of the previous
sentence, when the first stroke of twelve, peals from the
neighbouring churches. There certainly—we must confess it
now—is something awful in the sound. Strictly speaking, it
may not be more impressive now, than at any other time; for
the hours steal as swiftly on, at other periods, and their flight
is little heeded. But, we measure man’s life by years, and it
is a solemn knell that warns us we have passed another of the
landmarks which stand between us and the grave. Disguise
it as we may, the reflection will force itself on our minds, that
when the next bell announces the arrival of a new year, we
may be insensible alike of the timely warning we have so
often neglected, and of all the warm feelings that glow within
ls NOW.
YWUYY
Vf); :
MISS EVANS AND THE KAGLE 215
CHAPTER IV.
MISS EVANS AND THE EAGLE
Mr. Samvet WILKINS was a carpenter, a journeyman
carpenter of small dimensions, decidedly below the middle
size—bordering, perhaps, upon the dwarfish. His face was
round and shining, and his hair carefully twisted into the
outer corner of each eye, till it formed a variety of that
description of semi-curls, usually known as ‘“ aggerawators.”
His earnings were all-sufficient for his wants, varying from
eighteen shillings to one pound five, weekly—his manner
undeniable—his sabbath. waistcoats dazzling. No wonder
that, with these qualifications, Samuel Wilkins found favour
in the eyes of the other sex: many women have been capti-
vated by far less substantial qualifications. But, Samuel was
proof against their blandishments, until at length his eyes
rested on those of a Being for whom, from that time forth, he
felt fate had destined him. He came, and conquered—pro-
posed, and was accepted—loved, and was beloved. Mr.
Wilkins ‘‘ kept company” with Jemima Evans.
Miss Evans (or Ivins, to adopt the pronunciation most in
vogue with her circle of acquaintance) had adopted in early
life the useful- pursuit of shoe-binding, to which she had
afterwards superadded the occupation of a straw-bonnet maker.
Herself, her maternal parent, and two sisters, formed an
harmonious quartett in the most secluded portion of Camden-
town; and here it was that Mr. Wilkins presented himself,
one Monday afternoon, in his best attire, with his face more
shining and his waistcoat more bright than either had ever
appeared before. The family were just going to tea, and
were so glad to see him. It was quite a little feast; two
ounces of seven-and-sixpenny green, and a quarter of a pound
of the best fresh; and Mr. Wilkins had brought a pint of
shrimps, neatly folded up in a clean belcher, to give a zest to
jhe meal, and propitiate Mrs. Ivins. Jemima was “ cleaning
herself’ up-stairs; so Mr. Samuel Wilkins sat down and
talked domestic economy with Mrs. Ivins, whilst the twe
youngest Miss Ivinses poked bits of lighted brown paper
216 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
detsveen the bars under the kettle to make the water boil for
tea.
“JT wos. a thinking,” said Mr. Samuel Wilkins, during a
pause in the conversation—‘‘I wos a thinking of taking
Jmima to the Eagle to-night.”—-“O my!” exclaimed Mrs,
Ivins. ‘‘ Lor! how nice!” said the youngest Miss Ivins.
“Well, I declare!’’ added the youngest Miss Ivins but one.
“Tell J’mima to put on her white muslin, Tilly,” screamed
Mrs. Ivins, with motherly anxiety; and down came J’mima
herself soon afterwards in a white muslin gown carefully
hooked and eyed, a little red shawl, plentifully pinned, a
white straw bonnet trimmed with red ribbons, a small neck-
lace, a large pair of bracelets, Denmark satin shoes, and
open-worked stockings; white cotton gloves on her fingers,
and a cambric pocket-handkerchief, carefully folded up, in
her hand—all quite genteel and ladylike. And away went
Miss Jemima Ivins and Mr. Samuel Wilkins, and a dress cane,
with a gilt knob at the top, to the admiration and envy of the
street in general, and to the high gratification of Mrs. Ivins,
and the two youngest Miss Ivinses in particular. They had
no sooner turned into the Pancras road, than who should Miss
J’mima Ivins stumble upon, by the most fortunate accident in
the world, but a young lady as she knew, with her young
man !—And it is so strange how things do turn out sometimes
—they were actually going to the Eagle too. So Mr. Samuel
Wilkins was introduced to Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young
man, and they all walked on together, talking, and laughing,
and joking away like anything; and when they got as far as
Pentonville, Miss Ivins’s friend’s young man would have the
ladies go into the Crown, to taste some shrub, which, after a
great blushing and giggling, and hiding of faces in elaborate
pocket-handkerchiefs, they consented to do. Having tasted it
once, they were easily prevailed upon to taste it again; and
they sat out in the garden tasting shrub, and looking at the
Busses alternately, till it was just the proper time to go to the
Eagle; and then they resumed their journey, and walked very
fast, for fear they should lose the beginning of the concert in
the rotunda.
“How ev’nly!”’ said Miss Jemima Ivins, and Miss Jemima
Ivins’s friend, both at once, when they had passed the gate
and were fairly inside the gardens. There were the walks,
beautifully gravelled and planted—and the refreshment-boxes,
MISS EVANS AND THE EAGLE, 217
painted and ornamented like so many snuff-boxes—and the
variegated lamps shedding their rich hght upon the company’s
heads—and the place for dancing ready chalked for the com-
pany’s feet—and a Moorish band playing at one end of the
gardens—and an opposition military band playing away at
the other. Then, the waiters were rushing to and fro with
glasses of negus, and glasses of brandy-and-water, and bottles
of ale, and bottles of stout; and ginger-beer was going off
in one place, and practical jokes were going on in another;
and people were crowding to the door of the Rotunda; and
in short the whole scene was, as Miss J’mima Ivins, inspired
by the novelty, or the shrub, or both, observed—‘ one of
dazzling excitement.” As to the concert-room, never was
anything half so splendid. There was an orchestra for the
singers, all paint, gilding, and plate-gless; and such an
ergan! Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man whispered
it had cost ‘‘four hundred pound,” which Mr. Samuel Wilkins
said was “‘ not dear neither;’’ an opinion in which the ladies
perfectly coincided. The audience were seated on elevated
benches round the room, end crowded into every part of it;
and everybody was eating and drinking as comfortably as
possible. Just before the concert commenced, Mr. Samuel
Wilkins ordered two glasses of rum-and-water ‘‘warm with—”
and two slices of lemon, for himself and the other young man,
together with ‘‘a pint o’ sherry wine for the ladies, and some
sweet carraway-seed biscuits;’? and they would have been
quite comfortable and happy, only a strange gentleman with
large whiskers would stare at Miss J’mima Ivins, and another
gentleman in a plaid waistcoat would wink at Miss J’mima
Ivins’s friend; on which Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young
man exhibited symptoms of boiling over, and began to mutter
about ‘‘ people’s imperence,” and ‘‘swells out o’ luck;”’ and
to intimate, in oblique terms, a vague intention of knocking
somebody’s head off; which he was only prevented from
announcing more emphatically, by both Miss J’mima Ivins and
her friend threatening to faint away on the spot if he said
another word. .
The concert commenced—overture on the organ. ‘‘ How
solemn!’ exclaimed Miss J’mima Ivins, glancing, perhaps
unconsciously, at the gentleman with the whiskers. Mr.
Samuel Wilkins, who had been muttering apart for some time
past, as if he were holding a confidential conversation with
218 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
the gilt knob of the dress cane, breathed hard—breathing
vengeance, perhaps,—but said nothing. ‘‘ The soldier tired,”’
Miss Somebody in white satin. ‘“‘ Ancore!” cried Miss
J’mima Ivins’s friend. ‘‘ Ancore!’’ shouted the gentleman
in the plaid waistcoat immediately, hammering the table with
a stout-bottle. Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man eyed
the man behind the waistcoat from head to foot, and cast a
look of interrogative contempt towards Mr. Samuel Wilkins.
Comic song, accompanied on the organ. Miss J’mima Ivins
was convulsed with laughter—so was the man with the
whiskers. Every thing the ladies did, the plaid waistcoat
and whiskers did, by way of expressing unity of sentiment
and congeniality of soul; and Miss J’mima Ivins, and Miss
J’mima Ivins’s friend, grew lively and talkative, as Mr.
Samuel Wilkins, and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young
man, grew morose and surly in inverse proportion.
Now, if the matter had ended here, the httle party might
soon have recovered their former equanimity; but Mr. Samuel
Wilkins and his friend began to throw looks of defiance upon
the waistcoat and whiskers. And the waistcoat and whiskers,
by way of intimating the slight degree in which they were
affected by the looks aforesaid, bestowed glances of increased
admiration upon Miss J’mima Ivins and friend. The concert
and vaudeville concluded, they promenaded the gardens. The
waistcoat and whiskers did the same; and made divers
remarks complimentary to the ankles of Miss J’mima Ivins
and friend, in an audible tone. At length, not satisfied with
these numerous atrocities, they actually came up and asked
Miss J°*mima Ivins, and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend to dance,
without taking no more notice of Mr. Samuel Wilkins, and
Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man, than if they was
nobody!
“What do you mean by that, scoundrel?” exclaimed Mr.
Samuel Wilkins, grasping the gilt-knobbed dress-cane firmly
in his right hand. ‘ What’s the matter with you, you little
humbug?’ replied the whiskers. ‘‘ How dare you insult me
aud my friend?” inquired the friend’s young man. ‘‘ You
and your friend be hanged!” responded the waistcoat. ‘Take
that,” exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins. The ferrule of the
gilt-knobbed dress-cane was visible for an instant, and then
the light of the variegated lamps shone brightly upon it as it
whirled into the air, cane and all. “Give it him,” said the
THE PARLOUR ORATOR, 219
waistcoat. ‘‘ Horficer !”’ screamed the ladies. Miss J’mima
Ivins’s beau, and the friend’s young man, lay gasping on the
gravel, and the waistcoat and whiskers were seen no more.
Miss J’mima Ivins and friend being conscious that the
affray was in no slight degree attributable to themselves, of
course went into hysterics forthwith; declared themselves the
most injured of women; exclaimed, in incoherent ravings,
that they had been suspected—wrongfully suspected—oh!
that they should ever have lived to see the day—and so forth;
suffered a relapse every time they opened their eyes and saw
their unfortunate little admirers; and were carried to their
respective abodes in a hackney-coach, and a state of insensi-
bility, compounded of shrub, sherry, and excitement.
CHAPTER V.
THE PARLOUR ORATOR.
We had been lounging one evening, down Oxford-street,
Holborn, Cheapside, Coleman-street, Finsbury-square, and so
on, with the intention of returning westward, by Pentonville
and the New-road, when we began to feel rather thirsty, and
disposed to rest for five or ten minutes. So, we turned back
towards an old, quiet, decent public-house, which we remem-
bered to have passed but a moment before (it was not far
from the City-road), for the purpose of solacing ourself with
a glass of ale. The house was none of your stuccoed, French-
polished, illuminated palaces, but a modest public-house of
the old school, with a little old bar, and a little old landlord,
who, with a wife and daughter of the same pattern, was com-
fortably seated in the bar aforesaid—a snug little room with
a cheerful fire, protected by a large screen: from behind
which the young lady emerged on our representing our
inclination for a glass of ale.
“‘Won’t you walk into the parlour, sir?” said the young
lady, in seductive tones.
‘‘ You had better walk into the parlour, sir,” said the little
old landlord, throwing his chair back, and looking round one
side of the screen, to survey our appearance.
220 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
‘¢ You had much better step into the parlour, sir,” said the
little old lady, popping out her head, on the other side of the
screen.
We cast a slight glance around, as if to express our
ignorance of the locality so much recommended. The little
old landlord observed it; bustled out of the small door of the
small bar; and forthwith ushered us into the parlour itself.
It was an ancient, dark-looking room, with oaken wains-
coting, a sanded floor, and a high mantelpiece. The walls
were ornamented with three or four old coloured prints in
black frames, each print representing a naval engagement,
with a couple of men-of-war banging away at each other
most vigorously, while another vessel or two were blowing up
in the distance, and the foreground presented a miscellaneous
collection of broken masts and blue legs sticking up out of
the water. Depending from the ceiling in the centre of the
room, were a gas-light and bell-pull; on each side were three
or four long narrow tables, behind which was a thickly-
planted row of those slippery, shiny-looking wooden chairs,
peculiar to hostelries of this description. The monotonous
appearance of the sanded boards was relieved by an occasional
spittoon; and a triangular pile of those useful articles adorned
the two upper corners of the apartment.
At the furthest table, nearest the fire, with his face towards
the door at the bottom of the room, sat a stoutish man of
about forty, whose short, stiff, black hair curled closely round
a broad high forehead, and a face to which something besides
water and exercise had communicated a rather inflamed
appearance. He was smoking a cigar, with his eyes fixed
on the ceiling, and had that confident oracular air which
marked him as the leading politician, general authority, and
universal anecdote-relater, of the place. He had evidently
just delivered himself of something very weighty; for the
remainder of the company were puffing at their respective
pipes and cigars in a kind of solemn abstraction, as if quite
overwhelmed with the magnitude of the subject recently under
discussion.
On his right hand sat an elderly gentleman with a white
head, and broad-brimmed brown hat; on his left, a sharp-
nosed light-haired man in a brown surtout reaching nearly to
his heels, who took a whiff at his pipe, and an admiring
glance at the red-faced man, alternately.
age
un en :
Ea ee ee ee ee ae a ae ee,
THE PARLOUR ORATOR, 221
“‘ Very extraordinary!’ said the light-haired man after a
pause of five minutes. A murmur of assent ran through the
company.
‘*Not at all extraordinary—not at all,” said the red-faced
man, awakening suddenly from his reverie, and turning upon
the light-haired man, the moment he had spoken.
“Why should it be extraordinary ?—why is it extraordi-
nary ?’—prove it to be extraordinary! ”
“Oh, if you come to that—”’ said the light-haired man,
meekly.
“Come to that!’ ejaculated the man with the red face;
‘but we must come to that. We stand, in these times, upon
a calm elevation of intellectual attainment, and not in the
dark recess of mental deprivation. Proof, is what I require
—proof, and not assertions, in these stirring times. Every
gen lem’n that knows me, knows what was the nature and
effect of my observations, when it was in the contemplation
of the Old-street Suburban Representative Discovery Society,
to recommend a candidate for that place in Cornwall there—I
forget the name of it. ‘Mr. Snobee,’ said Mr. Wilson, ‘ is a
fit and proper person to represent the borough in Parliament.’
‘Prove it,’ says I. ‘He is a friend to Reform,’ says Mr.
Wilson. ‘ Prove it,’ says I. ‘The abolitionist of the national
debt, the unflinching opponent of pensions, the uncompro-
mising advocate of the negro, the reducer of sinecures and
the duration of Parliaments; the extender of nothing but the
suffrages of the people,’ says Mr. Wilson. ‘ Prove it,’ says I.
‘His acts prove it,’ says he. ‘Prove them,’ says I.
“And he could not prove them,” said the red-faced man,
looking round triumphantly ; ‘“‘and the borough didn’t have
him; and if you carried this principle to the full extent,
- youd have no debt, no pensions, no sinecures, no negroes, no
nothing. And then, standing upon an elevation of intellectual
attainment, and having reached the summit of popular pro-
sperity, you might bid defiance to the nations of the earth,
and erect yourselves in the proud confidence of wisdom and
superiority. This is my argument—this always has been my |
argument—and if I was a Member of the House of Commons
to-morrow, I’d make ’em shake in their shoes with it.” And
the red-faced man, having struck the table very hard with his
clenched fist, to add weight to the declaration, smoked away
like a brewery.
222 SKETCHES BY BUa.
“Well!” said the sharp-nosed man, in a very slow and
soft voice, addressing the company in general, ‘I always do
say, that of all the gentlemen I have the pleasure of meeting
in this room, there is not one whose conversation I like to
hear so much as Mr. Rogers’s, or who is such improving
company.”
‘“‘Improving company!” said Mr. Rogers, for that, it
seemed, was the name of the red-faced man, ‘“‘ You may say
I am improving company, for I’ve improved you all to some
purpose; though as to my conversation being as my friend
Mr. Ellis here describes it, that is not for me to say anything
about. You, gentlemen, are the best judges on that point ;
but this I will say, when I came into this parish, and first
used this room, ten years ago, I don’t believe there was one
man in it who knew he was a slave—and now you all know
it, and writhe under it. Inscribe that upon my tomb, and I
am. satisfied.”
“Why, as to inscribing it on your tomb,” said a little
greengrocer with a chubby face, ‘‘of course you can have
anything chalked up, as you likes to pay for, so far as it
relates to yourself and your affairs; but, when you come to
talk about slaves and that there abuse, you’d better keep it
in the family, ’cos I for one don’t like to be called them names,
night after night.”
‘You are a slave,”’ said the red-faced man, ‘‘ and the most
pitiable of all slaves.”
“ Werry hard if I am,’ interrupted the greengrocer, ‘‘ for
I got no good out of the twenty million that was paid for
’mancipation, any how.”
‘‘ A willing slave,” ejaculated the red-faced man, getting
more red with eloquence, and contradiction—‘“ resigning the
dearest birthright of your children—neglecting the sacred
call of Liberty——who, standing imploringly before you,
appeals to the warmest feelings of your heart, and points to
your helpless infants but in vain.”
*‘ Prove it,” said the greengrocer.
‘‘ Prove it!”’ sneered the man with the red face. ‘‘ What!
bending beneath the yoke of an insolent and factious
oligarchy; bowed down by the domination of cruel laws;
groaning beneath tyranny and oppression on every hand, at
every side, and in every corner. Prove it?—’ The red-
faced man abruptly broke off, sneered melo-dramatically, and
THE PARLOUR ORATOR. 223
buried his countenance and his indignation together, in a
quart pot. | ;
*‘ Ah, to be sure, Mr. Rogers,” said a stout broker in a
large waistcoat, who had kept his eyes fixed on this luminary
all the time he was speaking. ‘‘ Ah, to be sure,” said the
broker with a sigh, ‘‘ that’s the point.”
“Of course, of course,” said divers members of the com-
pany, who understood almost as much about the matter as the
broker himself.
‘You had better let him alone, Tommy,” said the broker,
by way of advice to the little greengrocer, ‘‘he can tell what’s
o'clock by an eight-day, without looking at the minute hand,
he can. Try it on, on some other suit; it won’t do with him,
Tommy.” |
“What isa man?” continued the red-faced specimen of
the species, jerking his hat indignantly from its peg on the
wall. ‘What is an Englishman? Is he to be trampled
upon by every oppressor? Is he to be knocked down at
everybody’s bidding? What’s freedom? Not a standing
army. What’s a standing army? Not freedom. What’s
general happiness? Not universal misery. Liberty ain’t the
window-tax, is it? The Lords ain’t the Commons, are they?”
And the red faced man, gradually bursting into a radiating
sentence, in which such adjectives as “‘ dastardly,” ‘‘ oppres-
sive,” “violent,” and ‘sanguinary,”’ formed the most con-
b)
_ spicuous words, knocked his hat indignantly over his eyes,
“8
left the room, and slammed the door after him.
“Wonderful man!” said he of the sharp nose.
‘¢ Splendid speaker !”? added the broker.
“Great power!” said every body but the greengrocer.
And as they said it, the whole party shook their heads
mysteriously, and one by one retired, leaving us alone in the
old parlour. If we had followed the established precedent in
all such instances, we should have fallen into a fit of musing,
without delay. The ancient appearance of the room—the old
panelling of the wall—the chimney blackened with smoke
and age—would have carried us back a hundred years at
least, and we should have gone dreaming on, until the pewter-
pot on the table, or the little beer-chiller on the fire, had
started into life, and addressed to us a long story of days
gonr by. But, by some means or other, we were not in a
romantic humour; and although we tried very hard to invest
224 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
the furniture with vitality, it remained perfectly unmoved,
obstinate, and sullen. . Being thus reduced to the unpleasant
necessity of musing about ordinary matters, our thoughts
reverted to the red-faced man, and his oratorical display.
A numerous race are these red-faced men; there is nota
parlour, or club-room, or benefit society, or humble party of
any kind, without its red-faced man. Weak-pated dolts they
are, and a great deal of mischief they do to their cause, how-
ever good. So, just to hold a pattern one up, to know the
others by, we took his likeness at once, and put him in here, —
And that is the reason why we have written this paper.
CHAPTER VI.
THE HOSPITAL PATIENT.
In our rambles through the streets of London after evening
has set in, we often pause beneath the windows of some public
hospital, and picture to ourselves the gloomy and mournful
scenes that are passing within. The sudden moving of a
taper as its feeble ray shoots from window to window, until its
light gradually disappears, as if it were carried farther back
into the room to the bedside of some suffering patient, is
enough to awaken a whole crowd of reflections: the mere
glimmering of the low-burning lamps, which, when all other
habitations are wrapped in darkness and slumber, denote the
chamber where so many forms are writhing with pain, or
wasting with disease, is sufficient to check the most boisterous
merriment.
Who can tell the anguish of those weary hours, when the
only sound the sick man hears, is the disjointed wanderings of
some feverish slumberer near him, the low moan of pain, or
perhaps the muttered, long-forgotten prayer of a dying man ?
Who, but they who have felt it, can imagine the sense of
loneliness and desolation which must be the portion of those
who in the hour of dangerous illness are left to be tended by
strangers ; for what hands, be they ever so gentle, can wipe
the clammy brow, or smooth the restless bed, like those of
mother, wife, or child?
My
~
n
Jy
ghee
THE HOSPITAL PATIENT. 225
Impressed with these thoughts, we have turned away,
through the nearly deserted streets; and the sight of the few
miserable creatures still hovering about them, has not tended
to lessen the pain which such meditations awaken. The
hospital is a refuge and resting-place for hundreds, who but
Yor such institutions must die in the streets and doorways;
but what can be the feelings of some outcasts when they are
stretched on the bed of. sickness with scarcely a hope of
recovery? The wretched woman who lingers about the pave-
ment, hours after midnight, and the miserable shadow of a
man—the ghastly remnant that want and drunkenness have
lefi—-which crouches beneath a window-ledge, to sleep where
there is some shelter from the rain, have little to bind them
to life, but what. have they to look -back upon, in death ?
What are the unwonted comforts of a roof and a bed, to
them, when the recollections of a whole life of debasement
stalk before them; when reperiagee seems a mockery, and
sorrow comes too late?
About a tweivemonth ago, as we were. strolling through
Covent garden, (we had been thinking: about these things
overnight) we ‘were -attracted. by the very prepossessing
appearance of a pickpocket, who. haying declined to take the
trouble of walking to. the. Police-office, on the ground that he
hadn’t the slightest wish to go there at all, was being con-
veyed thither in a wheelbarow, to the huge be of. a
crowd. 3
Somehow, we never can resist joining a crowd, so we turned
back with \the mob, and entered: the office, in company with
our friend the pickpocket, a couple of policemen, and as many
dirty-faced spectators as could squeeze their way in.
There was a powerful, ill-looking young fellow at the bar,
who was undergoing an examination, on the very common
charge of having, on the previous night, ill-treated a
woman, with whom he lived in some court hard by. Several
witnesses bore testimony to acts of the grossest brutality ;
and a certificate was read from the house-surgeon of a
neighbouring hospital, describing the nature of the injuries
the woman had received, and intimating that her recovery
was extremely doubtful.
Some question appeared to have been raised about the
identity of the prisoner; for when it was agreed that the two
magistrates should visit the hospital at eight o’clock that
a
226 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
evening, to take her deposition, it was settled that the man
should be taken there also. He turned pale at this, and we
saw him clench the bar very hard when the order was given.
He was removed directly afterwards, and he spoke not a word.
We felt an irrepressible curiosity to witness this interview, .
although it is hard to tell why, at this instant, for we knew it
must be a painful one. It was no very difficult matter for us
to gain permission, and we obtained it.
The prisoner, and the officer who had him in custody, were
already at the hospital when we reached it, and waiting the
arrival of the magistrates in a small room below stairs. The
man was handcuffed, and his hat was pulled forward over his
eyes. It was easy to see, though, by the whiteness of his
countenance, and the constant twitching of the muscles of his
face, that he dreaded what was to come. After a short
interval, the magistrates and clerk were bowed in by the house-
surgeon and a couple of young men who smelt very strong of
tobacco-smoke—they were introduced as
after one magistrate had complained bitterly of the cold, and
the other of the absence of any news in the evening paper, it
was announced that the patient was prepared; and we were
conducted to the ‘‘ casualty ward ”’ in which she was lying.
The dim light which burnt in the spacious room, increased
rather than diminished the ghastly appearance of the hapless
creatures in the beds, which were ranged in two long rows on
either side. In one bed, lay a child enveloped in bandages,
with its body half consumed by fire; in another, a female,
rendered hideous by some dreadful accident, was wildly
beating her clenched fists on the coverlet, in pain; on a third,
there lay stretched a young girl, apparently in the heavy
stupor often the immediate precursor of death: her face was
stained with blood, and her breast and arms were bound up in
folds of linen. Two or three of the beds were empty, and
their recent occupants were sitting beside them, but with faces
so wan, and eyes so bright and glassy, that it was fearful to
meet their gaze. On every face was stamped the expression
of anguish and suffering.
The object of the visit, was lying at the upper end of the
room. She was a fine young woman of about two or three
and twenty. Her long black hair which had been hastily cut
from near the wounds on her head, streamed over the pillow
in jagged and matted locks. Her face bore deep marks of the
THE HOSPITAL PATIENT, 227
ill-usage she had received: her hand was pressed upon her
side, as if her chief pain were there; her breathing was short
and heavy; and it was plain to see that she was dying fast.
' She murmured a few words in reply to the magistrate’s
inquiry whether she was in great pain; and, having been
raised on the pillow by the nurse, looked vacantly upon the
strange countenances that surrounded her bed. The magis-
trate nodded to the officer, to bring the man forward. He
did so, and stationed him at the bedside. The girl looked on,
with a wild and troubled expression of face; but her sight
was dim, and she did not know him.
“Take off his hat,” said the magistrate. The officer did
as he was desired, and the man’s features were disclosed.
The girl started up, with an energy quite preternatural; the
fire gleamed in her heavy eyes, and the blood rushed to her
pale and sunken cheeks. It was a convulsive effort. She
fell back upon her pillow, and covering her scarred and
bruised face with her hands, burst into tears. The man cast
an anxious look towards her, but otherwise appeared wholly
unmoved. After a brief pause the nature of their errand was
explained, and the oath tendered.
““Oh, no, gentlemen,” said the girl, raising herself once
more, and folding her hands together; ‘‘no gentlemen, for
God’s sake! I did it myself—it was nobody’s fault—it was
an accident. He didn’t hurt me; he wouldn’t for all the
world. Jack, dear Jack, you know you wouldn’t!”
Her sight was fast failing her, and her hand groped over
the bedclothes in search of his. Brute as the man was, he
was not prepared for this. He turned his face from the bed,
and sobbed. The girl’s colour changed, and her breathing
grew more difficult. She was evidently dying.
*“We respect the feelings which prompt you to this,” said
the gentleman who had spoken first, ‘‘ but let me warn you,
not to persist in what you know to be untrue, until it is too
late. It cannot save him.”
‘“« Jack,” murmured the girl, laying her hand upon his arm,
‘‘they shall not persuade me to swear your life away. He
didn’t do it, gentlemen. He never hurt me.” She grasped
his arm tightly, and added, in a broken whisper, ‘‘I hope
God Almighty will forgive me all the wrong I have done, and
the life I have led. God bless you, Jack. Some kind gentle-
man take my love to my poor old father. Five years ago, he
Q2
228 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
said he wished I had died a child. Oh, I wish I had! I wish
I had!”
The nurse bent over the girl for a few seconds, and then
drew the sheet over her face. It covered a corpse.
CHAPTER VIL.
THE MISPLACED ATTACHMENT OF MR. JOHN DOUNOE.
Ir we had to make a classification ‘of society, there are a
. particular kind of men whom we should immediately, set
down, under the head of “ Old-Boys;”’ and a column of most
extensive dimensions the old- boys would require. To what
precise causes the. rapid advance of old boy population is to be
traced, we are unable to determine. It would be an interest-
os ae and curious. speculation, but, as we have not sufficient
es Space ‘to.devote to it here, we simply state the fact that the
ie ‘numbers of the old boys have been. gradually augmenting
. “within: the last few years, and that: they are at. this moment
~ alarmingly on the increase.
Upon a general review of the subi ect, and without consider-
ing it minutely in detail, we should be disposed to subdivide
the old boys into two distinct classes—the gay old boys, and
__ the steady old boys. The gay old boys, are paunchy old men
~ in the disguise of young ones, who frequent the Quadrant and
_ Regent-street in the day-time: the theatres (especially theatres
‘ander lady. management) at night; and who assume all the
foppishness and levity of boys, without the excuse of youth or
inexperience. The steady old boys are certain stout old gen-
tlemen of clean appearance, who are always to be seen in the
same taverns, at the same hours every evening, smoking and
drinking in the same company.
There was once a fine collection of old boys to be seen
round the circular table at Offley’s every night, between the
hours of half-past eight and half-past eleven. We have lost
sight of them for some time. There were, and may be still,
for aught we know, two splendid specimens in full blossom at
the Rainbow Tavern in Fleet-street, who always used to sit in
the box nearest the fire-place, and smoked long cherry-stick
| Rut
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:
MISPLACED ATTACHMENT OF MR. JOHN DOUNCE. 229
pipes which went under the table, with the bowls resting on
the floor. Grand old boys they were—fat, red-faced, white-
headed, old fellows—always there—one on one side the table,
and the other opposite—pufing and drinking away in great
state. Everybody knew them, and it was supposed by some
people that they were both immortal.
Mr. John Dounce was an old boy of the latter class (we
don’t mean immortal, but steady), a retired glove and braces
maker, a widower, resident with three daughters—all grown
up, and all unmarried —in Cursitor-street, Chancery-lane.
He was a short, round, large faced, tubbish sort of man, with
a broad-brimmed hat, and a square coat; and had that grave,
but confident, kind of roll, peculiar to old boys in general.
Regular as clock-work—breakfast at nine—dress and tittivate
a littlek—down to the Sir Somebody’s Head—glass of ale and
the paper—come back again, and take daughters out for a
walk—dinner at three—glass of grog and pipe—nap—tea—
little walk—Sir Somebody’s Head again—capital house—
delightful evenings. There were Mr. Harris the law-stationer,
and Mr. Jennings, the robe-maker (two jolly young fellows
like himself), and Jones, the barrister’s clerk—rum fellow
that Jones—capital company—full of anecdote !—and there
they sat every night till just ten minutes before twelve, drink-
ing their brandy-and-water, and smoking their pipes, and
telling stories, and enjoying themselves with a kind of solemn
joviality particularly edifying.
Sometimes Jones would propose a half-price visit to Drury
Lane or Covent Garden, to see two acts of a five-act play, and
a new farce, perhaps, or a ballet, on which occasions the
whole four of them went together; none of your hurrying and
nonsense, but having their brandy-and-water first, comfort-
ably, and ordering a steak and some oysters for their supper
against they came back, and then walking coolly into the pit,
when the “rush” had gone in, as all sensible people do, and
did when Mr. Dounce was a young man, except when the
celebrated Master Betty was at the height of his popularity,
and then, sir,—then—Mr. Dounce perfectly well remembered
getting a holiday from business; and going to the pit doors
at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, and waiting there, till six
in the afternoon, with some sandwiches in a pocket-handker-
chief and some wine in a phial; and fainting after all, with
the heat and fatigue before the play began; in which situation
280 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
he was lifted out of the pit, into one of the dress boxes, sir,
by five of the finest women of that day, sir, who compassion-
ated his situation and administered restoratives, and sent a
black servant, six foot high, in blue and silver livery, next
morning with their compliments, and to know how he found
himself, sir—by G—! Between the acts Mr. Dounce and
Mr. Harris, and Mr. Jennings, used to stand up, and look
round the house, and Jones—knowing fellow that Jones—
knew everybody, pointed out the fashionable and celebrated
lady So-and-So in the boxes, at the mention of whose name
Mr. Dounce, after brushing up his hair, and adjusting his
neckerchief, would inspect the aforesaid lady So-and-So
through an immense glass, and remark, either, that she was
a ‘“‘fine woman—very fine woman, indeed,” or that ‘there
might be a little more of her,—eh, Jones?” just as the case
might happen to be. When the dancing began, John Dounce
and the other old boys were particularly anxious to see what
was going forward on the stage, and Jones—wicked dog that
Jones—whispered little critical remarks into the ears of John
Dounce, which John Dounce retailed to Mr. Harris, and Mr.
Harris to Mr. Jennings; and then they all four laughed,
until the tears ran down, out of their eyes.
When the curtain fell, they walked back together, two and
two, to the steaks and oysters; and when they came to the
second glass of brandy-and-water, Jones—hoaxing scamp,
that Jones—used to recount how he had observed a lady in
white feathers, in one of the pit boxes, gazing intently on Mr.
Dounce all the evening, and how he had caught Mr. Dounce,
whenever he thought no one was looking at him, bestowing
ardent looks of intense devotion on the lady in return; on
which Mr. Harris and Mr. Jennings used to laugh very
heartily, and John Dounce more heartily than either of them,
acknowledging, however, that the time had been when he
might have done such things; upon which Mr. Jones used to
poke him in the ribs, and tell him he had been a sad dog in
his time, which John Dounce, with chuckles confessed. And
after Mr. Harris and Mr. Jennings had preferred their claims
to the character of having been sad dogs too, they separated
harmoniously, and trotted home.
The decrees of Fate, and the means by which they are
brought about, are mysterious and inscrutable. John Dounce
had led this life for twenty years and upwards, without wish
MISPLACED ATTACHMENT OF MR. JOHN DOUNCE. 231
for change, or care for variety, when his whole social system
was suddenly upset, and turned completely topsy-turvy—not
by an earthquake, or some other dreadful convulsion of nature,
as the reader would be inclined to suppose, but by the simple
agency of an oyster; and thus it happened.
Mr. John Dounce was returning one night from the Sir
Somebody’s Head, to his residence in Cursitor-street—not
tipsy, but rather excited, for it was Mr. Jennings’s birthday,
and they had had a brace of partridges for supper, and a
brace of extra glasses afterwards, and Jones had been more
than ordinarily amusing—when his eyes rested on a newly
opened oyster-shop, on a magnificent scale, with natives laid,
one deep, in circular marble basins in the windows, together
with little round barrels of oysters directed to Lords and
Baronets, and Colonels and Captains, in every part of the
habitable globe.
Behind the natives were the barrels, and behind the barrels
was a young lady of about five-and-twenty, all in blue, and
all alone—splendid creature, charming face, and lovely figure!
It is difficult to say whether Mr. John Dounce’s red coun-
tenance, illuminated as it was by the flickering gas-light in
the window before which he paused, excited the lady’s
risibility, or whether a natural exuberance of animal spirits
proved too much for that staidness of demeanour which the
forms of society rather dictatorially prescribe. But certain it
is, that the lady smiled; then put her finger upon her lip,
with a striking recollection of what was due to herself; and
finally retired, in oyster-like bashfulness, to the very back of
the counter. The sad-dog sort of feeling came strongly upon
John Dounce: he lingered—the lady in blue made no sign.
He coughed—-still she came not. He entered the shop.
“Can you open me an oyster, my dear?” said Mr. John
Dounce.
“Dare say I can, sir,” replied the lady in blue, with
playfulness. And Mr. John Dounce eat one oyster, and then
looked at the young lady, and then eat another, and then
squeezed the young lady’s hand as she was opening the third,
and so forth, until he had devoured a dozen of those at eight-
pence in less than no time.
‘“‘Can you open me half-a-dozen more, my dear?”’ inquired
Mr. John Dounce.
‘‘T’ll see what I can do for you, sir,” replied the young
233 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
lady in blue, even more bewitchingly than before; and
Mr. John Dounce ate half-a-dozen more of those at eight-
pence.
‘You couldn’t manage to get me a glass of brandy-and-
water, my dear, I suppose?” said Mr. John Dounce, when
he had finished the oysters; in a tone which clearly implied
his supposition that she could.
“T’ll see, sir,” said the young lady: and away she ran
out of the shop, and down the street, her long auburn ringlets
shaking in the wind in the most enchanting manner; and
back she came again, tripping over the coal-cellar lids like
a whipping-top, with a tumbler of brandy-and-water, which
Mr. John Dounce insisted on her taking a share of, as it
was regular ladies’ grog—hot, strong, sweet, and plenty
of it.
So, the young lady sat down with Mr. John Dounce, in a
little red box with a green curtain, and took a small sip of the
brandy-and-water, and a small look at Mr. John Dounce, and
then turned her head away, and went through various other
serio-pantomimic fascinations which forcibly reminded Mr.
John Dounce of the first time he courted his first wife, and
which made him feel more affectionate than ever; in pursu-
ance of which affection, and actuated by which feeling, Mr.
John Dounce sounded the young lady on her matrimonial
engagements, when the young lady denied having formed any
such engagements at all—she couldn’t abear the men, they
were such deceivers; thereupon Mr. John Dounce inquired
whether this sweeping condemnation was meant to include
other than very young men; on which the young lady blushed
deeply—at least she turned away her head, and said Mr. John
Dounce had made her blush, so of course she did blush—and
Mr. John Dounce was a long time drinking the brandy-and-
water; and, at last, John Dounce went home to bed, and
dreamed of his first wife, and his second wife, and the young
lady, and partridges, and oysters, and brandy-and-water, and
disinterested attachments.
The next morning, John Dounce was rather feverish with
the extra brandy-and-water of the previous night; and partly
in the hope of cooling himself with an oyster, and partly with
the view of ascertaining whether he owéd the young lady any
thing, or not, went back to the oyster-shop. If the young
lady had appeared beautiful by night, she was perfectly
a
oe afi
Re
MISPLACED ATTACHMENT OF MR. JOHN DOUNCE. 283:
irresistible by day; and, from this time forward, a change
came over the spirit of John Dounce’s dream. He bought
shirt-pins; wore a ring on his third finger; read poetry;
bribed a cheap miniature-painter to perpetrate a faint resem~
blance to a youthful face, with a curtain over his head, six
large books in the background, and an open country in the
distance (this he called his portrait); ‘“‘ went on” altogether
in such an uproarious manner, that the three Miss Dounces
went off on small pensions, he having made the tenement in
Cursitor-street too warm to contain them; and in short,
comported and demeaned himself in every respect like an
unmitigated old Saracen, as he was.
As to his ancient friends, the other old boys, at the Sir
Somebody’s Head, he dropped off from them by gradual
degrees: for, even when he did go there, Jones—vulgar fellow
that Jones—persisted in, asking ‘“‘ when it was to be?” and
‘““whether he was to have any gloves?” together with other
inquiries of an equally offensive nature: at which not only
Harris laughed, but Jennings also; so, he cut the two, alto-
gether, and attached himself solely to the blue young lady at
the smart oyster-shop.
Now comes the moral of the story—for it has a moral after
all. The last mentioned young lady, having derived sufficient
profit and emolument from John Dounce’s attachment, not
only refused, when matters came to a crisis, to take him for
better for worse, but expressly declared, to use her own
forcible words, that she ‘‘wouldn’t have him at no price;”
and John Dounce, having lost his old friends, alienated his
relations, and rendered himself ridiculous to everybody, made
offers successively to a schoolmistress, a landlady, a feminine
tobacconist, and a housekeeper; and, being directly rejected
py each and every of them, was accepted by his cook, with
whom he now lives, a henpecked husband, a melancholy
monument of antiquated misery, and a living warning to all
uxorious old boys.
234 - §KETCHES BY BOZ
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MISTAKEN MILLINER,. A TALE OF AMBITION,
Miss Ameria Martin was pale, tallish, thin, and two-and-
thirty—what ill-natured people would call plain, and police
reports interesting. She was a milliner and dressmaker,
living on her business and not above it. If you had been a
young lady in service, and had wanted Miss Martin, as a great
many young ladies in service did, you would just have stepped
up, in the evening, to number forty-seven, Drummond-street,
George-street, Euston-square, and after casting your eye on a
brass door-plate, one foot ten by one and a half, ornamented
with a great brass knob at each of the four corners, and
bearing the inscription ‘‘ Miss Martin; millinery and dress-
making, in all its branches;” you’d just have knocked two
loud knocks at the street-door; and down would have come
Miss Martin herself, in a merino gown of the newest fashion,
black velvet bracelets on the genteelest principle, and other
little elegances of the most approved description.
If Miss Martin knew the young lady who called, or if the
young lady who called had been recommended by any other
young lady whom Miss Martin knew, Miss Martin would
forthwith show her up-stairs into the two pair front, and chat
she would—so kind, and so comfortable—it really wasn’t like
a matter of business, she was so friendly; and, then Miss
Martin, after contemplating the figure and general appearance
of the young lady in service with great apparent admiration,
would say how well she would look, to-be-sure, in a low dress
with short sleeves: made very full in the skirts, with four
tucks in the bottom; to which the young lady in service
would reply in terms expressive of her entire concurrence in
the notion, and of the virtuous indignation with which she
reflected on the tyranny of “ Missis,” who wouldn’t allow a
young girl to wear a short sleeve of an arternoon—no, nor
nothing smart, not even a pair of ear-rings; let alone hiding
people’s heads of hair under them frightful caps. At the
termination of this complaint, Miss Amelia Martin would
distantly suggest certain dark suspicions that some people
THE MISTAKEN MILLINER, 235
were jealous on account of their own daughters, and were
obliged to keep their servants’ charms under, for fear they
should get married first, which was no uncommon circum-
stance—leastways she had known two or three young ladies
in service, who had married a great deal better than their
mississes, and they were not very good-looking either; and
then the young lady would inform Miss Martin, in confidence,
that how one of their young ladies was engaged to a young
man and was a-going to be married, and Missis was so proud
about it there was no bearing of her; but how she needn’t
hold her head quite so high neither, for, after all, he was only
a clerk. And, after expressing due contempt for clerks in
general, and the engaged clerk in particular, and the highest
opinion possible of themselves and each other, Miss Martin
and the young lady in service would bid each other good
night, in a friendly but perfectly genteel manner: and the
one went back to her “place,” and the other, to her room on
the second-floor front.
There is no saying how long Miss Amelia Martin might
have continued this course of life; how extensive a connexion
she might have established among young ladies in service; or
what amount her demands upon their quarterly receipts might
have ultimately attained, had not an unforeseen train of cir-
cumstances directed her thoughts to a sphere of action very
different from dressmaking or millinery.
A friend of Miss Martin’s who had long been keeping
company with an ornamental painter and decorator’s journey-
man, at last consented (on being at last asked to do so) to
name the day which would make the aforesaid journeyman a
happy husband. It was a Monday that was appointed for the
velebration of the nuptials, and Miss Amelia Martin was
invited, among others, to honour the wedding-dinner with her
presence. It was a charming party; Somers’ town the
locality, and a front parlour the apartment. The ornamental
painter and decorator’s journeyman, had taken a house—no
lodgings nor vulgarity of that kind, but a house—-four beau-
tiful rooms, and a delightful little washhouse at the end of the
passage—-which was the most convenient thing in the world,
for the bridesmaids could sit in the front parlour and receive
the company, and then run into the little washhouse and see
how the pudding and boiled pork were getting on in the
copper, and then pop back into the parlour again, as snug and
236 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
comfortable as possible. And such a parlour as it was!
Beautiful Kidderminster carpet—six bran-new cane-bottomed
stained chairs—three wine-glasses and a tumbler on each
sideboard—farmer’s girl and farmer’s boy on the mantelpiece:
girl tumbling over a stile, and boy spitting himself, on the
handle of a pitchfork—long white dimity curtains in the
window—and, in short, every thing on the most genteel scale
imaginable.
Then, the dinner. There was baked leg of mutton at the
top, boiled leg of mutton at the bottom, pair of fowls and leg
of pork in the middle; porter-pots at the corners; pepper,
mustard, and vinegar in the centre; vegetables on the floor;
and plum-pudding and apple-pie and tartlets without number :
to say nothing of cheese, and celery, and water-cresses, and all
that sort of thing. As to the company! Miss Amelia Martin
herself declared, on a subsequent occasion, that, much as she
had heard of the ornamental painter’s journeyman’s con-
nexion, she never could have supposed it was half so genteel
There was his father, such a funny old gentleman—and his
mother, such a dear old lady—and his sister, such a charming
girl—and his brother, such a manly-looking young man—
with such a eye! But even all these were as nothing when
compared with his musical friends, Mr. and Mrs. Jennings
Rodolph, from White Conduit, with whom the ornamental
painter’s journeyman had been fortunate enough to contract
an intimacy while engaged in decorating the concert-room of
that noble institution. To hear them sing separately, was
divine, but when they went through the tragic duet of “‘ Red
Ruffian, retire!” it was, as Miss Martin afterwards remarked,
“thrilling.”’ And why (as Mr. Jennings Rodolph observed)
why were they not engaged at one of the patent theatres ?
If he was to be told that their voices were not powerful
enough to fill the House, his only reply was, that he would
back himself for any amount to fill Russell-square—a state-
ment in which the company, after hearing the duet, expressed
their full belief; so they all said it was shameful treatment ;
and both Mr. and Mrs. Jennings Rodolph said it was shameful
too; and Mr. Jennings Rodolph looked very serious, and said
he knew who his malignant opponents were, but they had
better take care how far they went, for if they irritated him
too much he had not quite made up his mind whether he
wouldn’t bring the subject before Parliament; and they all
THE MISTAKEN MILLINER. 7 237
agreed that it “’ud serve ’em quite right, and it was very
proper that such people should be made an example of.”’ So
Mr. Jennings Rodolph said he ’d think of it.
When the conversation resumed its former tone, Mr
Jennings Rodolph claimed his right to call upon a lady, and
the right being conceded, trusted Miss Martin would favour
the company—a proposal which met with unanimous appro-
bation, whereupon Miss Martin, after sundry hesitatings and
coughings, with a preparatory choke or two, and an intro-
ductory declaration that she was frightened to death to attempt
it before such great judges of the art, commenced a species of
treble chirruping containing frequently allusions to some
young gentleman of the name of Hen-e-ry, with an occasional
reference to madness and broken hearts. Mr. Jennings
Rodolph frequently interrupted the progress of the song, by
ejaculating ‘ Beautiful! ’’—‘‘ Charming !””—‘“ Brilliant !”’—
“‘Oh! splendid,” &c.; and at its close the admiration of
himself, and his lady, knew no bounds.
‘‘Did you ever hear so sweet a voice, my dear ?”’ inquired
Mr. Jennings Rodolph of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph.
““Never; indeed I never did, love;’’ replied Mrs. Jennings
. Rodolph.
‘Don’t you think Miss Martin, with a little cultivation,
would be very like Signora Marra Boni, my dear ?”’ asked
Mr. Jennings Rodolph.
“Just exactly the very thing that struck me, my love,”
answered Mrs. Jennings Rodolph.
And thus the time passed away; Mr. Jennings Rodolph
played tunes on a walking-stick, and then went behind the
parlour-door and gave his celebrated imitations of actors,
edge-tools, and animals; Miss Martin sang several other songs
with increased admiration every time; and even the funny
old gentleman began singing. His song had_ properly seven
verses, but as he couldn’t recollect more than the first one he
sang that over, seven times, apparently very much to his own
personal gratification. And then all the company sang the
national anthem with national independence—each for him-
self, without reference to the other—and finally separated:
all declaring that they never had spent so pleasant an evening:
and Miss Martin inwardly resolving to adopt the advice of
Mr. Jennings Rodolph, and to “‘come out”’ without delay.
Now “coming out,” either in acting, or singing, or society,
238 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
or facetiousness, or any thing else, is all very well, and
remarkably pleasant to the individual principally concerned,
if he or she can but manage to come out with a burst, and
being out, to keep out, and not go in again; but, it does
unfortunately happen that both consummations are extremely
difficult to accomplish, and that the difficulties, of getting out -
at all in the first instance, and if you surmount them, of
keeping out in the second, are pretty much on a par, and no
slight ones either—and so Miss Amelia Martin shortly dis-
covered. It is a singular fact (there being ladies in the case)
that Miss Amelia Martin’s principal foible was vanity, and the
leading characteristic of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph an attach-
ment to dress. Dismal wailings were heard to issue from the
second floor front, of number forty-seven, Drummond-street,
George-street, Euston-square; it was Miss Martin practising.
Half-suppressed murmurs disturbed the calm dignity of the
White Conduit orchestra at the commencement of the season.
It was the appearance of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph in full dress,
that occasioned them. Miss Martin studied incessantly—the
practising was the consequence. Mrs. Jennings Rodolph taught
gratuitously now and then—the dresses were the result.
Weeks passed away; the White Conduit season had begun,
had progressed, and was more than half over. The dress-
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HORATIO SPARKINS. 337
“Water!” exclaimed Joseph Tuggs—and Mr. Cymon
Tuggs and all the ladies forthwith fainted away, and formed a
tableau.
Most willingly would we conceal the disastrous termination
of the six weeks’ acquaintance. A troublesome form, and an
arbitrary custom, however, prescribe that a story should have
a conclusion, in addition to a commencement; we have therefore
no alternative. Lieutenant Slaughter. brought amessage—
the captain brought an action. Mr. Joseph Tuggs interposed
—the lheutenant. negotiated. When Mr. Cymon Tuges
recovered from the nervous disorder into which misplaced
affection, and exciting circumstances had plunged him, he
found that his family had lost their. pleasant acquaintance ;
that his father was minus fifteen hundred pounds; and the
captain plus the precise sum. . The money.was paid to hush
the matter up, but it got abroad notwithstanding ; and there
are not wanting some who affirm that three designing im-
postors never found more easy dupes, than did Captain Waters,
Mrs. Waters, and Lieutenant Slaughter, in the Tuggs’s at
Ramsgate.
CHAPTER. V.
HORATIO SPARKINS.
“InprED, my love, he paid Teresa very great attention on
the last assembly night,” said Mrs. Malderton, addressing her
spouse, who, after the fatigues of the day in the City, was
sitting with a silk handkerchief -over his head, and his feet on
the fender, drinking his port;—‘‘very great attention; and
I say again, every possible encouragement ought to be given
him. He positively must be asked down here to dine.”
“Who must?” inquired Mr. Malderton.
“Why, you know whom I mean, my dear—the young man
with the black whiskers and the white cravat, who has just
come out at our assembly, and whom all the girls are talking
about. Young dear me! what’s his name ?—Marianne
what is his name?” continued Mrs. Malderton, addressing
her youngest daughter, who was engage/l in netting a purse
and looking sentimental.
338 SKETCHES BY BOZ
“Mr. Horatio Sparkins, ma” replied Miss Marianne, with
@ sigh.
“Oh! yes, to be sure—Horatio Sparkins,” said Mrs.
Malderton. ‘‘ Decidedly the most gentleman-like young man
I ever saw. I am sure, in the heautifully made coat he wore
the other night, he looked like—like a
‘‘ Like Prince Leopold, ma—so noble, so full of sentiment!”
suggested Marianne, ir. a tone of enthusiastic admiration.
‘You should recollect, my dear,’”’ resumed Mrs. Malderton,
“that Teresa is now eight-and-twenty; and that it really is
very important that something should be done.”
Miss Teresa Malderton was a very little girl, rather fat,
with vermilion cheeks, but good-humoured, and still dis-
engaged, although to do her justice, the misfortune arose
from no iack of perseverance on her part. In vain, had she
flirted for ten years; in vain, had Mr. and Mrs. Malderton
assiduously kept up an extensive acquaintance among the
young eligible bachelors of Camberwell, and even of Wands-
worth and Brixton; to say nothing of those who “ dropped
in” from town. Miss Malderton was as well known as the
lion on the top of Northumberland House, and had an equal
chance of “ going off.”
““T am quite sure you’d like him,’
Malderton ; “he is so gentlemanly !”
“So clever !”’ said Miss Marianne.
*‘ And has such a flow of language!” added Miss Teresa.
“‘He has a great respect for you, my dear,” said Mrs.
Malderton to her husband. Mr. Malderton coughed, and
looked at the fire.
‘Yes, I’m sure he’s very much attached to pa’s society,”
said Miss Marianne.
“No doubt of it,’ echoed Miss Teresa.
‘‘ Indeed, he said as much to me in confidence,” observed
Mr-. Malderton.
* Well, well,” returned Mr. Malderton, somewhat flattered ;
“Tf I see him at the assembly to-morrow, perhaps I’ll ask
him down. I hope he knows we live at Oak Lodge, Camber-
well, my dear?”
‘Of course—and that you keep a one-horse carriage.”
“T°ll sce about it,’ said Mr. Malderton, composing himself
for a nap; ‘“I’ll see about it.”
Mr. Malderton was a man whose whole scope of ideas was
’ continued Mrs.
HORATIO SPARKINS. 339
limited to Lloyd’s, the Exchange, the India House, and the
Bank. A few successful speculations had raised him from a
situation of obscurity and comparative poverty, to a state of
affluence. As frequently happens in such cases, the ideas of
himself and his family became elevated to an extraordinary
pitch as their means increased; they affected fashion, taste,
and many other fooleries, in imitation of their betters, anl
had a very decided and becoming horror of anything which
could, by possibility, be considered low. He was hospitable
from ostentation, illiberal from ignorance, and prejudiced
from conceit. Egotism and the love of display induced him
to keep an excellent table: convenience, and a love of good
things of this life, ensured him plenty of guests. He liked to
have clever men, or what he considered such, at his table,
because it was a great thing to talk about; but he never
could endure what he called ‘“‘sharp fellows.’ Probably, he
cherished this feeling out of compliment to his two sons, who
gave their respected parent no uneasiness in that particular.
The family were ambitious of forming acquaintances and
‘connexions in some sphere of society superior to that in which
they themselves moved ; and one of the necessary consequences
of this desire, added to their utter ignorance of the world
beyond their own small circle, was, that any one who could
lay claim to an acquaintance with people of rank and title,
had a sure passport to the table at Oak Lodge, Camberwell.
The appearance of Mr. Horatio Sparkins at the assembly
had excited no small degree of surprise and curiosity among
its regular frequenters. Who could he be? He was evidently
reserved, and apparently melancholy. Was he a clergyman?
—lie danced too well.
860, SKETCHES BY BOZ.
‘¢ Walk in, sir,’’ he said in a low tone.
The surgeon did so, and the man, having secured the door
again, by the chain, led the way to a small back parlour at
the extremity of the passage.
“Am I in time?”
“Too soon!” replied the man. The surgeon turned hastily
round, with a gesture of astonishment not unmixed with alarm,
which he found it impossible to repress.
“Tf you’ll step in here, sir,” said the man, who had
evidently noticed the action—‘‘if you’ll step in here, siz,
you won’t be detained five minutes, I assure you.”
The surgeon at once walked into the room. The man
closed the door, and left him alone.
It was a little cold room, with no other furniture than two
deal chairs, and a table of the same material. had been a free agent, he would have allowed no
one to leave the room on any pretence, except himself, As it
MR. WATKINS TOTTLE, 441
~ was, however, he was obliged to look cheerful when Parsons
guitted the apartment.
He had scarcely left, when Martha put her head into the
room, with—‘“ Please, ma’am, you’re wanted.”
Mrs. Parsons left the room, shut the door carefully after
her, and Mr. matin: Tottle was left alone with Miss
Tallerton.
Watkins Tottle was cue how he should ae and Miss
Lillerton appeared to be thinking of nothing. The fire was
burning low; Mr. Watkins Tottle stirred it, and put some
coals on.
“Hem!” coughed Miss Lillerton; Mr. Watkins Tottle
thought the fair creature had spoken. ‘‘I beg your pardon,”
said he.
66 Eh ? 9”?
‘*T thought you spoke.”
‘? No.”
GOs
‘‘There are some books on the sofa, Mr. Totile, if you
would like to look at them,” said Miss Lillerton, after the
lapse of another five minutes.
‘No, thank you,” returned Watkins: and then he added,
with a courage which was perfectly astonishing, even to
himself, ““Madam, that is Miss Lillerton, I wish to speak
to you.”
‘““To me!” said Miss Lillerton, letting the silk drop from
her hands, and sliding her chair back a few paces.—‘‘ Speak
—to me!”
“To you, madam—and on the subject of the state of your
affections.” The lady hastily rose, and would have left the
room; but Mr. Watkins Tottle gently detained her by the
hand, and holding it as far from him as the joint length of
their arms would permit, he thus proceeded: ‘‘ Pray do not
misunderstand me, or suppose that I am led to address you,
after so short an acquaintance, by any feeling of my own
merits—for merits I have none which could give me a claim
to your hand. I hope you will acquit me of any presumption
when I explain that I have been acquainted through Mrs.
Parsons, with the state—that is, that Mrs. Parsons has told
me—at least, not Mrs. Parsons, but——” here Watkins
began to wander, but Miss Lillerton relieved him.
442 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
‘Am I to understand, Mr. Tottle, that Mrs. Parsons has
acquainted you with my feeling—my affection—I mean my
respect for an individual of the opposite sex ?”’
‘“ She has.’
‘‘Then, what?” inquired Miss Lillerton, averting her face,
with a girlish air, ‘‘ what could induce you to seek such an
interview as this? What can your object be? How can I
promote your happiness, Mr. Tottle ?”
Here was the time for ‘a flourish—‘‘ By allowing me,”
replied Watkins, falling bump on his knees, and breaking two
brace-buttons and a waistcoat-string, in the act—“ By allowing
me to be your slave, your servant—in short, by unreservedly
making me the confidant of your heart’s feelings—may I say,
for the promotion of your own happiness—may I say, in
order that you may become the wife of a kind and affectionate
husband ?”
‘‘ Disinterested creature !’’ exclaimed Miss Lillerton, hiding
her face in a white pocket-handkerchief with an eyelet-hole
border. '
Mr. Watkins Tottle thought that if the lady knew all, she
might possibly alter her opinion on this last point. He raised
the tip of her middle finger ceremoniously to his lips, and got
off his kneés as gracefully as he could. ‘‘My information
was correct?” he tremulously inquired, when he was once
more on his eee
“Tt was.” Watkins elevated his hands and looked up to
the ornament in the centre of the ceiling, which had been
made for a lamp, by way of expressing his rapture.
“Our situation, Mr. Tottle,” resumed the lady, glancing at
him through one of the eyelet-holes, ‘‘ is a most peculiar and
delicate one.’
‘It is,” said Mr. Tottle.
“Our acquaintance has been of so short duration,” said
Miss Lillerton.
‘Only a week,” assented Watkins Tottle.
“Oh! more than that,’ exclaimed the lady, in a tone of
surprise.
‘““Indeed!”’ said Tottle.
‘More than a month—more than two months!” said Miss
Lillerton.
‘‘ Rather odd, this,” thought Watkins.
“Qh!” he said, recollecting Parsons’s assurance that she
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MR. WATKINS TOTTLE. 443
had known him from report, ‘‘I understand. But, my dear
madam, pray consider. The longer this acquaintance. has
existed, the less reason is there for delay now. Why not at
once fix a period for gratifying the hopes of your devoted
admirer ?”’
- “Tt has been represented to me again and again that this |
is the course I ought to pursue,” replied Miss Lillerton, ‘‘ but
pardon my feelings of delicacy, Mr. Tottle—pray excuse this
embarrassment—I have peculiar ideas on such subjects, and I
am quite sure that I never could summon up fortitude enough
to name the day to my future husband.”
‘Then allow me to name it,’’ said Tottle eagerly.
*‘T should like to fix it myself,” replied Miss Lillerton,
bashfully, ‘‘ but I cannot do so without at once resorting to a
third party.” 3
“A third party!” thought Watkins Tottle; ‘who the
deuce is that to be, I wonder!”’
“Mr. Tottle,” continued Miss Lillerton, ‘‘ you have made
me a most disinterested and kind offer—that offer I accept.
Will you at once be the bearer of a note from me to—to Mr.
Timson ?”’
‘‘Mr. Timson!” said Watkins.
‘‘ After what has passed between us,” responded Miss
Lillerton, still averting her head, ‘“‘you must understand
whom I mean; Mr. Timson, the—the—clergyman.”’
‘Mr. Timson, the clergyman!” ejaculated Watkins Tottle,
in a state of inexpressible beatitude, and positive wonder at his
own success. ‘‘ Angel! Certainly—this moment!”
‘«T’ll prepare it immediately,” said Miss Lillerton, making
for the door; ‘‘the events of this day have flurried me so
much, Mr. Tottle, that I shall not leave my room again this
evening; I will send you the note by the servant.”
‘“« Stay—stay,” cried Watkins Tottle, still keeping a most
respectful distance from the lady; ‘‘when shall we meet
again ?”’
“Oh! Mr. Tottle,” replied Miss Lillerton, coquettishly,
‘‘ when we are married, I can never see you too often, nor thank
you too much;” and she left the room.
Mr. Watkins Tottle flung himself into an arm-chair, and
indulged in the most delicious reveries of future bliss, in
which the idea of ‘‘ Five hundred pounds per annum, with an
uncontrolled power of. disposing of it by her last will and
444 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
testament,” was somehow or other the foremost. We had
gone through the interview so well, and it had terminated se
admirably, that he almost began to wish he had expressly
stipulated for the settlement of the annual five hundred on
himself.
‘‘May I come in?” said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, peeping in
at the door.
‘‘ You may,” replied Watkins.
“Well, have you done it?” anxiously inquired Gabriel.
“Have I done it!’’ said Watkins Tottle, ‘‘ Hush—I’m
going to the clergyman.” .
‘“No!” said Parsons, ‘ How well you have managed it!”
“Where does Timson live ?”’ inquired Watkins.
** At his uncle’s,” replied Gabriel, ‘‘just round the lane.
He’s waiting for a living, and has been assisting his uncle
here for the last two or three months. But how well you have
done it—I didn’t think you could have carried it off so!”
Mr. Watkins Tottle was proceeding to demonstrate that the
Richardsonian principle was the best on which love could
possibly be made, when he was interrupted by the entrance
of Martha, with a little pink note folded like a fancy cocked-
hat.
“ Miss Lillerton’s compliments,’’ said Martha, as she delivered
it into Tottle’s hands, and vanished.
‘“Do you observe the delicacy ?”’ said Tottle, appealing to
Mr. Gabriel Parsons. ‘‘ Compliments not love, by the servant,
eh?” .
Mr. Gabriel Parsons didn’t exactly know what reply to
make, so he poked the forefinger of his right hand between
the third and fourth ribs of Mr. Watkins Tottle.
‘“ Come,” said Watkins, when the explosion of mirth con-
sequent on this practical jest, had subsided, “‘ well be off at
»nce—let’s lose no time.”
‘* Capital!’’ echoed Gabriel Parsons; and in five minutes
they were at the garden-gute of the villa tenanted by the uncle
of Mr. Timson. |
‘‘Is Mr. Charles Timson at home?” inquired Mr. Watkins
Tottle of Mr. Charles Timson’s uncle’s man. .
‘‘Mr. Charles is at home,” replied the man stammering;
“but. he desired me to say he couldn’t be interrupted, sir, by
any of the parishioners.”
_ “Tam not a parishioner,” replied Watkins.
MR. WATKINS TOTTLE. ‘448
' “Ts Mr. Charles writing a sermon, Tom?” inquired
Parsons, thrusting himself forward.
‘No, Mr. Parsons, sir; he’s not exactly writing a sermon,
but he is practising the violoncello in his own bedroom, and
gave strict orders not to be disturbed.”
“‘ Say I’m here.” replied Gabriel, leading the way across the :
garden; ‘‘Mr. Parsons and Mr. Tottle, on private and particular
business.”
They were shown into the parlour, and the servant departed
to deliver his message. The distant groaning of the violon-
cello ceased; footsteps were heard on the stairs; and Mr.
Timson presented himself, and shook hands with Parsons
with the utmost cordiality.
“How do you do, sir?” said Watkins Tottle, with great
solemnity.
“How do you do, sir?” replied Timson, with as much
coldness as if it were a matter of perfect indifference to him
how he did, as it very likely was.
“TI beg to deliver this note to you,” said Watkins Tottle,
producing the cocked hat.
** From Miss Lillerton!” said Timson, suddenly changing
colour. ‘‘ Pray sit down.”
Mr. Watkins Tottle sat down; and while Timson perused
the note, fixed his eyes on an oyster-sauce-coloured portrait of
the Archbishop of Canterbury, which hung over the fireplace.
Mr. Timson rose from his seat when he had concluded the
note, and looked dubiously at Parsons—‘‘ May I ask,” he
inquired, appealing to Watkins Tottle, “whether our friend
here is acquainted with the object of your visit ?”
“Our friend is in my confidence,” replied Watkins, with
considerable importance.
“Then, sir,” said Timson, seizing both Tottle’s hands,
‘** allow me in his presence to thank you most unfeignedly and
cordially, for the noble part you have acted in this affair.”
‘He thinks I recommended him,” thought Tottle. ‘‘ Con-
found these fellows! they never think of anything but their
fees.”’ '
“‘T deeply regret having misunderstood your intentions, my
flear sir,” continued Timson. “ Disinterésted and manly,
indeed! There are very few men who would have acted as
you have done.”
Mr. Watkins Tottle could not help thinking that this last
446, SKETCHES BY BOZ -
remark: was anything but complimentary. He. therefore
inquired, rather hastily, ‘‘ When is it to be?”
“On Thur sday,’’ replied Timson,—‘“‘ on Thursday OEM
at half-past eight.”
s sicommanls early,” observed Watkins Tottle, with an
air of triumphant self-denial. ‘I shall hardly be able to get
down here by that hour.” (This was intended for a joke.)
‘‘ Never mind, my dear fellow,’ replied Timson, all suavity,
shaking hands with Tottle again most heartily, ‘‘so long as
we see you to breakfast, you know—— ”
“Eh!” said Parsons, with one of the most extraordinary
expressions of countenance that ever appeared in a human
face.
“What!” ejaculated Watkins Tottle, at the same moment.
““T say that so long as we see you to breakfast,” repeated
Timson, ‘‘ we will excuse your being absent from the ceremony,
though of course your presence at it would give us the utmost
pleasure.”
Mr. Watkins Tottle staggered against the wall, and fc
his eyes on Timson with appalling perseverance.
‘‘Timson,”’ said Parsons, prea brushing his hat with
his left arm, ‘‘ when you say ‘us,’ whom do you mean ?”’
Mr. Timson looked foolish in his turn, when he replied,
‘‘Why—Mrs. Timson that will be this day week: Miss
Lillerton that is—”
‘““Now don’t stare at that idiot in the corner,” angrily
exclaimed Parsons, as the extraordinary convulsions of
Watkins Tottle’s countenance excited the wondering gaze of
Timson,—‘‘ but have the goodness to tell me in three words
the contents of that note.”
‘‘This note,” replied Timson, ‘‘is from Miss Lillerton, to
whom I have been for the last five weeks regularly engaged.
Her singular scruples and strange feeling on some points have
hitherto prevented my bringing the engagement to that
termination which I so anxiously desire. She informs me
here, that she sounded Mrs. Parsons with the view of making
her her confidant and go-between, that Mrs. Parsons informed
this elderly gentleman, Mr. Tottle, of the circumstance, and
that he, in the most kind and delicate terms, offered to assist
us in any way, and even undertnok to convey this note, which
contains the promise I have long sought in vain---an act of
kindness for which I can never be sufficiently grateful.”
MR. WATKINS TOTTLE, 447
* €@ood night, Timson,” said Parsons, hurrying off, and
carrying the bewildered Tottle with him.
- “ Won't you stay—and have something?” said Timson.
*‘ No, thank ye,” replied Parsons; ‘I’ve had quite
enough;”’ and away he went, followed by Watkins Tottle in
a state of stupefaction.
Mr. Gabriel Parsons whistled until they had walked some
quarter of a mile past his own gate, when he suddenly stopped,
and said—
‘You are a clever fellow, Tottle, ain’t you?”
**T don’t know,”’ said the unfortunate Watkins.
“‘T suppose you’ll say this is Fanny’s fault, won’t you?”
inquired Gabriel.
“‘T don’t know anything about it,” replied the bewildered
Tottle.
“Well,” said Parsons, turning on his heel to go home,
“‘the next time you make an offer, you had better speai
plainly, and don’t throw a chance away. And the next time
you ’re locked up in a spunging-house, just wait there till I
come and take you out, there’s a good fellow.”
How, or at what hour, Mr. Watkins Tottle returned to
Cecil-street is unknown. His boots were seen outside his
bedroom-door next morning ; but we have the authority of his
landlady for stating that he neither emerged therefrom nor
accepted sustenance for four-and-twenty hours. At the
expiration of that period, and when a council of war was
being held in the kitchen on the propriety of summoning the
parochial beadle to break his door open, he rang his bell, and
demanded a cup of milk-and-water. The next morning he
went through the formalities of eating and drinking as usual,
but a week afterwards, he was seized with a relapse, while
perusing the list of marriages in a morning paper, from which
he never perfectly recovered.
A few weeks after the last-named occurrence, the body of a
gentleman unknown, was found in the Regent’s canal. In
the trousers-pockets were four shillings and threepence half-
penny; a matrimonial advertisement from a lady, which
appeared to have been cut out of a Sunday paper; a tooth-
pick, and a card-case, which it is confidently believed would
have led to the identification of the unfortunate gentleman,
but for the circumstance of there being none but blank
zards in if, Mr. Watkins Tottle absented himself from his
€48 SKETCHES BY BOZ, ©
lodgings shortly before. A bill, which has not been taken
up, was presented next morning; and a bill, which has not:
been taken down, was soon afterwards affixed in his parlour
window. |
CHAPTER XI.
THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING.
(The Author may be permitted to observe that this sketch was published some
time before the Farce entitled ‘‘The Christening” was first represented.
Mr. Nicopemus Dumps, or, as his acquaintance called '
him, ‘‘long Dumps,” was a bachelor, six feet high, and fifty
years old; cross, cadaverous, odd, and ill-natured. He was:
never happy but when he was miserable; and always miser-
able when he had the best reason to be happy. The only real
comfort of his existence was to make everybody about him
wretched—then he might be truly said to enjoy life. He was
afflicted with a situation in the Bank worth five hundred a
year, and he rented a ‘first-floor furnished,’ at Pentonville,
which he originally took because it commanded a dismal pro-
spect of an adjacent churchyard. He was familiar with the
face of every tombstone, and the burial service seemed to.
excite his strongest sympathy. His friends said he was surly
—he insisted he was nervous; they thought him a lucky dog,
but he protested that he was ‘‘the most unfortunate man in
the world.”? Cold as he was, and wretched as he declared
himself to be, he was not wholly unsusceptible of attachments.
He revered the memory of Hoyle, as he was himself an
admirable and imperturbable whist-player, and he chuckled
with delight at a fretful end impatient adversary. He adored
Kang Herod for his massacre of the innocents; and if he
hated one thing more than another, it was a child. However,
he could hardly be said to hate anything in particular, because
he disliked everything in general; but perhaps his greatest
antipathies were cabs, old women, doors that would not shut,
musical amateurs, and omnibus cads. He subscribed to the
‘Society for the Suppression of Vice,’ for the pleasure of
vutting a stop to any harmless amusements; and he con-
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THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING, 449
tributed largely towards the support of two itinerant methodist
parsons, in the amiable hope that if circumstances rendered
any people happy in this world, they might perchance be
reudered miserable by fears for the next.
' Mr. Dumps had a nephew who had been married about a
year, and who was somewhat of a favourite with his uncle,
because he was an admirable subject to exercise his misery-
creating powers upon. Mr. Charles Kitterbell was a small,
sharp, spare man, with a very large head, and a broad, good-
humoured countenance. He looked like a faded giant, with
the head and face partially restored; and he had a cast in his
eye which rendered it quite impossible for any one with
whom he conversed to know where he was looking. His eyes”
appeared fixed on the wall, and he was staring you out of
countenance; in short, there was no catching his eye, and
perhaps it is a merciful dispensation of Providence that such
eyes are not catching. In addition to these characteristics, it
may be added that Mr. Charles Kitterbell was one of the most
credulous and matter-of-fact little personages that ever took
to himself a wife, and for himself a house in Great Russell-
street, Bedford-square. (Uncle Dumps always dropped the
“ Bedford-square,” and inserted in lieu thereof the dreadful
words ‘‘'lottenham-court-road.’’)
“No, but uncle, pon my life you must—you must promise
to be godfather,” said Mr. Kitterbell, as he sat in conversation
with his respected relative one morning.
‘T cannot, indeed I cannot,” returned Dumps.
“Well, but why not? Jemima will think it very unkind.
It’s very little trouble.”’
‘‘ As to the trouble,” rejoined the most unhappy man in
existence, ‘‘I don’t mind that; but my nerves are in that
state—I cannot yo through the ceremony. You know I don’t
like going out.—For God’s sake, Charles, don’t fidget with
that stool so; you’ll drive me mad.” Mr. Kitierbell, quite
regardlyuss of his uncle’s nerves, had occupied himself for
some ten minutes in describing a circle on the floor with one
leg of the office-stool on which he was seated, keeping the
other three up in the air, and holding fast on by the desk.
‘“‘T beg your pardon, uncle,” said Kitterbell, quite abashed,
suddenly releasing his hold of the desk, and bringing the
three wandering legs back to the floor, with a force sufficient
to drive tlie through it.
Ga
459. _ SKETCHES BY® BOZ, :
“But come, don’t refuse. If it’s a boy, you know, we
must have two godfathers.”’
“Tf it’s a boy!” said Dumps; ‘why can’t you say at
onco whether it ts a boy or not?”
‘J should be very happy to tell you, but it’s impossible I
can undertake to say whether it’s a girl or a boy, if the child
isn’t born yet.”
‘“‘Not born yet!” echoed Dumps, with a gleam of hope
lighting up his lugubrious visage. ‘‘Oh, well, it may be a
girl, and then you won’t want me; or if it is a boy, it may
die before it is christened.”
. “T hope not,” said the father that expected to be, looking
very grave.
‘“I hope not,” acquiesced Dumps, evidently pleased with
the subject. He was beginning to get happy. ‘‘J hope not, »
but distressing cases frequently occur during the first two or
three days of a child’s life; fits, I am told, are exceedingly
common, and alarming convulsions are almost matters of
course.”
‘‘ Lord, uncle,” ejaculated little Kitterbell, gasping for
breath. !
‘* Yes; my landlady was confined—let me see—last Tues-
day: an uncommonly fine boy. On the Thursday night
the nurse was sitting with him upon her knee before the
fire, and he was as well as possible. Suddenly he became
black in the face, and alarmingly spasmodic. . The medical
man was instantly sent for, and every remedy was tried,
but— ”
‘How frightful!” interrupted the horror-stricken Kit- |
terbell.
“The child died. of course. However, your child may -
not die; and if it should be a boy, and should live to be
christened, why 1 suppose I must be one of the sponsors.”
Dumps was evidently good-natured on the faith of his antici-
pations.
‘‘Thank you, uncle,” said his agitated nephew, grasping
his hand as warmly as if he had done him some essential
service. ‘‘ Perhaps I had better not tell Mrs. K. what you
have mentioned.”
“Why, if she’s low spirited, perhaps you had better not
mention the melancholy case to her,” returned Dumps, who ©
of course had invented the whole story; ‘‘ though perhaps it
THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING. 461
would be but doing your duty as a husband to prepare her for
the worst.”
A day or two afterwards, as Dumps was perusing a morning ©
paper at the chop-house which he regularly frequented, the
following paragraph met his eye :—
‘* Births, —On Saturday, the 18th inst., in Great Russell-street, the an of
Charles Kitterbell, Esq., of a son.”
“Tt is a boy!” he exclaimed, dashing down the paper, to
the astonishment of the waiters. ‘It is a boy!” But he
speedily regained his composure as his eye rested on a para- -
graph quoting the number of infant deaths from the bills of
mortality.
Six weeks passed away, and as no communication had been
received from the Kitterbells, Dumps was beginning to flatter
himself that the child was dead, when the following note
painfully resolved his doubts :—
“ Great Russell street,
‘* Monday morning.
‘Dear Uncrz,—You will be delighted to hear that my
dear Jemima has left her room, and that your future godson
is getting on capitally. He was very thin at first, but he is
getting much larger, and nurse says he is filling out every
day. He cries a good deal, and is a very singular colour,
which made Jemima and me rather uncomfortable; but as
nurse says it’s natural, and as of course we know nothing
about these things yet, we are quite satisfied with what nurse
says. We think he will be a sharp child; and nurse says.
she’s sure he will, because he never goes to sleep. You will
readily believe that we are all very happy, only we’re a little
worn out for want of rest, as he keeps us awake all night;
but this we must expect, nurse says, for the first six or eight
months. He has been vaccinated, but in consequence of the
operation being rather awkwardly performed, some small
particles of glass were introduced into the arm with the
matter.: Perhaps this may in some degree account for his
being rather fractious; at least, so nurse says. We propose
to have him christened at twelve o’clock on Friday, at Saint
George’s church, in Hart-street, by the name of Frederick
Charles William. Pray don’t be later than a quarter before
twelve. We shall have a very few friends in the evening.
452. SKETCHES BY BOZ
when of course we shall see you. Iam sorry to say that the
dear boy appears rather restless oe uneasy to-day: the cause,
I fear, is fever.
« Believe me, deat Uncle,
“Yours affectionately,
‘‘CHARLES KITTERBELL.
«¢ P.S.—I open this note to say that we have just discovered
the cause of little Frederick’s restlessness. It is not fever, as
I apprehended, but a small pin, which nurse accidentally
stuck in his leg yesterday evening. We have taken it out,
and he appears more composed, though he still sobs a good
deal.”
It is almost unnecessary to say that the perusal of the above
interesting statement was no great relief to the mind of the
hypochondriacal Dumps. It was impossible to recede, how-
ever, and so he put the best face—that is to say, an uncom-
monly miserable one—upon the matter; and purchased a
handsome silver mug for the infant Kitterbell, upon which he
ordered the initials ‘‘F. C. W. K.” with the customary untrained
grape-vine-looking flourishes, and a large full stop, to be
engraved forthwith.
Monday was a fine day, Tuesday was delightful, Wednesday
was equal to either, and Thursday was finer than ever; four
successive fine days in London! Hackney-coachmen became
revolutionary, and crossing-sweepers began to doubt the
existence of a First Cause. The Morning Herald informed its
readers that an old woman in Camden Town had _ been heard
to say that the fineness of the season was ‘“ unprecedented in
the memory of the oldest inhabitant;’’ and Islington clerks,
with large families and small salaries, left off their black
gaiters, disdained to carry their once green cotton umbrellas,
and walked to town in the conscious pride of white stockings —
and cleanly brushed Bluchers. Dumps beheld all this with
an eye of supreme contempt—his triumph was at hand. He
knew that if it had been fine for four weeks instead of four
days, it would rain when he went out; he was lugubriously
happy in the conviction that Friday would be a wretched day
—and so it was. ‘‘I knew how it would be,” said Dumps, as
he turned round opposite the Mansion-house at half-past eleven
v’elock on the Friday morning. ‘I knew how it would be; Jam
THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING. 453
concerned, and that ’s enough ;”’—and certainly the appearance
of the day was sufficient to depress the spirits of a much more
buoyant-hearted individual than himself. It had rained,
without a moment’s cessation, since eight o'clock; everybody
that passed up Cheapside, and down Cheapside, ‘looked wet,
cold, and dirty. All sorts of forgotten and long- concéaled
umbrellas had been put into requisition, Cabs whisked about,
with the “ fare” as carefully boxed up behind two glazed calico
curtains as any mysterious picture in any one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s
castles; omnibus horses smoked like steam-engines; nobody
thought of ‘‘standing up” under doorways or arches; they
were painfully convinced it was a hopeless case; and so every-
body went hastily along, jumbling and jostling, and swearing
and perspiring, and slipping about, like amateur skaters
behind wooden chairs on the Serpentine on a frosty Sunday.
Dumps paused ; he could not think of walking, being rather
smart for the christening. If he took a cab he was sure to be
spilt, and a hackney coach was too expensive for his economical
ideas. An omnibus was waiting at the opposite corner—it
was a desperate case—he had never heard of an omnibus
upsetting or running away, and if the cad did knock hin
down, he could “pull him up”’ in return.
‘Now, sir!” cried the young gentleman who officiated as
“cad”’ to the ‘“‘ Lads of the Village,’ which was the name cf
the machine just noticed. Dumps crossed.
“This vay, sir!”’ shouted the driver of the ‘‘ Hark-away,”
pulling up his vehicle immediately across the door of the
opposition—‘“‘ This vay, sir—he’s full.” Dumps hesitated,
whereupon the ‘‘ Lads of the Village’? commenced pouring
out a torrent of abuse against the ‘‘Hark-away;’’ but the
conductor of the ‘‘ Admiral Napier” settled the contest in a
most satisfactory manner for all parties, by seizing Dumps
round the waist, and thrusting him into the middle of his .
vehicle which had just come up and only wanted the sixteenth
inside.
“All right,” said the ‘“ Admiral,” and off the thing
thundered, like a fire-engine at full gallop, with the kid-
uapped customer inside, standing in the position of a half
doubled up bootjack, and falling about with every jerk of the.
machine, first on the one side and then on the other hkea
*« Jack-in-the-green ”’ on May-day, setting to the oe wae a
brass ladle.
rr]
454) -\' SKETCHES BY BOOZ |
‘‘ For Heaven’s sake, where am I to sit?” inquired the
miserable man of an old gentleman, into whose stomach he:
had just fallen for the fourth time
‘‘ Any where but on my chest, sir,”’ replied the old gentle-
man in a surly tone.
‘‘Perhaps the box would suit the gentleman better,’ sug-
gested a very damp lawyer’s clerk, in a pink shirt, and a
smirking countenance.
After a great deal of struggling and falling about, Dumps
at last managed to squeeze himself into a seat, which in
addition to the slight disadvantage of being between a window
that would not shut, and a door that must be open, placed him
in close contact with a passenger who had been walking about
all the morning without an umbrella, and who looked as if he
had spent the day in a full water-butt—only wetter.
‘Don’t bang the door so,’”’ said Dumps to the conductor, as
he shut it, after letting out four of the passengers; ‘“‘I am
very nervous—it destroys me.” |
‘‘Did any gen’lm’n say anythink?” replied the cad,
thrusting in his head, and trying to look as if he didn’t under-
stand the request.
“TI told you not to bang the door so!” repeated Dumps,
with an expression of countenance like the knave of clubs, in
convulsions. :
“Oh! vy, it’s rather a sing’ ler circumstance about this here
door, sir, that it von’t shut without banging,’’ replied the con-
ductor; and he opened the door very wide, and shut it again”
with a terrific bang, in proof of the assertion.
‘‘T beg your pardon, sir,’ said a little prim, wheezing old
gentleman, sitting opposite Dumps, ‘‘I beg your pardon; but
have you ever observed, when you have been in an omnibus
un a wet day, that four people out of five always come in with
large cotton umbrellas, without a handle at the top, or the brass
spike at the bottom ?”
‘‘ Why, sir,’’ returned Dumps, as he heard the clock strike
twelve, ‘‘it never struck me before; but now you mention it,
I—Hollo! hollo!’’ shouted the persecuted individual, as the
omnibus dashed past Drury-lane, where he had directed to ba
set down.—‘‘ Where is the cad ?”’
“I think he’s on the box, sir,” said the young gentleman
before noticed in the pink shirt, which looked like a white’
one ruled with red ink.
=
THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING, 455
**T want to be set down!” said Dumps in a faint voice,
Overcome by his previous efforts.
‘‘T think these cads want to be set down,” returned the
attorney's clerk, chuckling at his sally.
** Hollo!” cried Dumps again.
“Hollo!” echoed the passengers. The omnibus passed St.
Giles’s church.
“Hold hard!” said the conductor; ‘I’m blowed if we
ha’n’t forgot the gen’lm’n as vas to be set down at Doory-
lane.—Now, sir, make haste, if you please,” he added, opening
the door, and assisting Dumps out with as much coolness as
if it was ‘all right. ° Dumps’s indignation was for once
getting the better of his cynical equanimity. ‘‘ Drury-lane!”’
he gasped, with the voice of a boy in a cold bath for the first
time.
‘“‘ Doory-lane, sir ?—yes, sir,—third turning on the right-
hand side, sir.”
Dumps’s passion was paramount; he clutched his umbrella,
and was striding off with the firm determination of not paying
the fare. The cad; by a remarkable coincidence, happened to
entertain a directly contrary opinion, and Heaven knows how
far the altercation would have proceeded, if it had not been
most ably and satisfactorily brought to a close by the driver.
“Hollo!” said that respectable person, standing up on the
box, and leaning with one hand on the roof of the omnibus.
“‘Hollo, Tom! tell the gentleman if so be as he feels
agerieved, we will take him up to the Edge-er (Edgeware)
Road for nothing, and set him down at Doory-lane when we
comes back. He can’t reject that, anyhow.”
The argument was irresistible: Dumps paid the disputed
sixpence, and in a quarter of an hour was on the staircase of
No. 14, Great Russell-street.
Hvery thing indicated that preparations were making for
the reception of ‘‘a few friends’”’ in the evening. Two dozen
extra tumblers, and four ditto pene lnaaees bole anything ~
but transparent, with little bits of straw in them—were on
the slab in the passage, just arrived. There was a great
smell of nutmeg, port wine, and almonds, on the staircase ;
the covers were taken off the stair-carpet, and the figure of
Venus on the first landing looked as if she were ashamed of
the composition-candle in her right hand, which contrasted
beautifully with the lamp-blacked drapery of the goddess of
456 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
love. The female servant (who looked very warm and bust-
ling) ushered Dumps into a front drawing-room, very prettily
furnished, with a plentiful sprinkling of little baskets, paper
table-mats, china watchmen, pink and gold albums, and
rainbow-bound little books on the different tables.
‘‘ Ah, uncle!” said Mr. Kitterbell, “how d’ye do? Allow
me—Jemima, my dear—my uncle. I think you’ve seen
Jemima before, sir ?”’
‘‘Have had the pleasure,” returned big Dumps, his tone
and look making it doubtful whether in his life he had ever
experienced the sensation. —
‘“‘I’m sure,” said Mrs. Kitterbell, with a languid smile,
and a slight cough. “I’m sure—hem—any friend—of
Charles’s—hem—nmuch less a relation, is ”
“IT knew you’d say so, my love,” said little Kitterbell,
who, while he appeared to be gazing on the opposite houses,
was looking at his wife with a most affectionate air: “ Bless
you!’’ The last two words were accompanied with a simper,
and a squeeze of the hand, which stirred up all Uncle
Dumps’s bile.
‘“‘Jane, tell nurse to bring down baby,” said Mrs. Kitter-
bell, addressing the servant. Mrs. Kitterbell was a tall, thin
young lady, with very light hair, and a particularly white
face—one of those young women who almost invariably,though
one hardly knows why, recal to one’s mind the idea of a cold
fillet of veal. Out went the servant, and in came the nurse,
with a remarkably small parcel in her arms, packed up in a
blue mantle trimmed with white fur.—-This was the baby.
“‘Now, uncle,” said Mr. Kitterbell, lifting up that part of
the mantle which covered the infant’s face, with an air of
great triumph, ‘‘ Who do you think he’s like?”
“He! he! Yes, who?’ said Mrs. K., putting her arm
through her husband’s, and looking up into Dumps’s face
with an expression of as much interest as she was capable of
displaying.
‘‘Good God, how small he is!” cried the amiable uncle,
starting back with well-feigned surprise; ‘remarkably small
indeed.”
“Do you think so?’’ inquired poor little Kitterbell, rather
alarmed. ‘‘He’s a monster to what he was—ain’t he,
nurse ?”
‘“‘He’s a dear” said the nurse, squeezing the child, and
b]
THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING, 4b?
evadiug the question—not because she scrupled to disguise
the fact, but because she couldn’t afford to throw away the
chance of Dumps’s half-crown.
‘Well, but who is he like?” inquired little Kitterbell.
Dumps looked at the little pink heap before him, and only
thought at the moment of the best mode of mortifying the
youthful parents.
“T really don’t know who he’s like,” he answered, very
well knowing the reply expected of him.
“Don’t you think he’s like me?” inquired his nephew
with a knowing air.
“Oh, decidedly not!” returned Dumps, with an emphasis
not to be misunderstood. ‘‘ Decidedly not like you.—Oh,
certainly not.”
“Like Jemima?” asked Kitterbell, faintly.
““Oh dear, no; not in the least. I’m no judge, of course,
in such cases; but I really think he’s more like one of those
little carved representations that one sometimes sees blowing
a trumpet on a tombstone!’”’ The nurse stooped down over
the child, and with great difficulty prevented an explosion of
mirth. Pa and ma looked almost as miserable as their
amiable uncle.
“Well!”’ said the disappointed little father, ‘“‘you’ll be
better able to tell what he’s like by-and-by. You shall see
him this evening with his mantle off.”’
“Thank you,” said Dumps, feeling particularly grateful.
‘“Now my love,” said Kitterbell to his wife, ‘it’s time
we were uff. We’re to meet the other godfather, and the
godmother at the church, uncle,—Mr. and Mrs. Wilson from
over the way—uncommonly nice people. My love, are you
well wrapped up ?”
“Yes, dear.”
“« Are you sure you won’t have another shawl?” inquired
the anxious husband.
‘“No, sweet,” returned the charming mother, accepting
Dumps’s proffered arm; and the little party entered the
hackney coach that was to take them to the church; Dumps
amusing Mrs. Kitterbell by expatiating largely on the danger
of measles, thrush, teeth-cutting, and other interesting diseases
to which children are subject.
The ceremony (which occupied about five minutes) passed
off without anything particular occurring. ‘The clergyman
453. | SKETCHES BY BOZ,
had to dine some distance from town, and had two churchings,’
three christenings, and a funeral to perform in something less.
than an hour. The godfathers and godmother, therefore, :
promised to renounce the devil and all his works—‘“ and all —
that sort of thing ’’—as little Kitterbell said—‘‘in less than
no time;”’ and, with the exception of Dumps nearly letting:
the child fall into the font when he handed it to the clergy-;
man, the whole affair went off in the usual business-like and
matter-of-course manner, and Dumps re-entered the Bank-’
gates at two o'clock with a heavy heart, and the painful
conviction that he was regularly booked for an evening party.
Evening came—and so did Dumps’s pumps, black silk
stockings, and white cravat which he had ordered to be for-
warded, per boy, from Pentonville. The depressed godfather
dressed himself at a friend’s counting-house, from wheuce,
with his spirits fifty degrees below proof, he sallied forth—as
the weather had cleared up, and the evening was tolerably
fine—to walk to Great Russell-street. Slowly he paced up
Cheapside, Newgate-street, down Snow-hill, and up Holborn
ditto, looking as grim as the figure head of a man-of-war, and
finding out fresh causes of misery at every step. As he was
crossing the corner of Hatton-garden, a man apparently in-
toxicated, rushed against him, and would have knocked him
down, had he not been providentially caught by a very genteel
young man, who happened to be close to him at the time.
The shock so disarranged Dumps’s nerves, as well as his
dress, that he could hardly stand. The gentleman took his
arm, and in the kindest manner walked with him as far as
Furnival’s Inn, Dumps, for about the first time in his life,
felt grateful and polite; and he and the gentlemanly-looking
young man parted with mutual expressions of good will.
‘‘'There are at least some well-disposed men in the world,”
ruminated the misanthropical Dumps, as he proceeded towards
his destination. |
Rat—tat—ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-rat—knocked a hackney-coachman
at Kitterbell’s door, in imitation of a gentleman’s servant, just
as Dumps reached it; and out came an old lady in a large
toque, and an old gentleman in a blue coat, and three female
copies of the old lady in pink dresses, and shoes to match.
‘It’s a large party,” sighed the unhappy godfather, wiping.
the perspiration from his forehead, and leaning against the
area-railings. It was some time before the miserable man
THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING. 459
could mustvr up courage to knock at the door, and when he
did, the smart appearance of a neighbouring greengrocer
(who had been hired to wait for seven and sixpence, and:
whose calves alone were worth double the money), the lamp
in the passage, and the Venus on the landing, added to the
hum of many voices, and the sound of a harp and two violins,
painfully convinced him that his surmises were but too well
founded.
‘““How are you?” said little Kitterbell, in a greater bustle
than ever, bolting out of the little back parlour with a cork-
screw in his hand, and various particles of sawdust, looking
like so many inverted commas, on his inexpressibles.
‘Good God!” said Dumps, turning into the aforesaid
parlour to put his shoes on which he had brought in his coat-
pocket, and still more appalled by the sight of seven fresh-
drawn corks, and a corresponding number of decanters.
‘‘How many people are there up-stairs ? ”
_ “Oh, not above thirty-five. We’ve had the carpet taken
up in the back drawing-room, and the piano and the card-
tables are in the front. Jemima thought we’d better have
a regular sit-down supper in the front parlour, because of the
speechifying, and all that. But, Lord! uncle, what’s the
matter ?’’ continued the excited little man, as Dumps stood
with one shoe on, rummaging his pockets with the most
frightful distortion of visage. ‘‘ What have you lost? Your
pocket-book ?”
‘“No,” returned Dumps, diving first into one pocket and
then into the other, and speaking in a voice like Desdemona
with the pillow over her mouth.
‘Your card-case? snutf-box? the key of your lodgings ?”
continued Kitterbell, pouring question on question with the
rapidity of lightning.
““No! no!” ejaculated Dumps, still diving eagerly into his
empty pocket.
~ “ Not—-not—the mug you spoke of this morning ?”
“Yes, the mug /”’ replied Dumps, sinking into a chair.
- **How could you have done it?” inquired Kitterbell.
‘¢ Are you sure you brought it out?”
«Yes! yes! I see it all’? said Dumps, eeaniinie up as the
idea flashed across his mind; ‘‘ miserable dog that I am—I
was Lorn to suffer. I see it all; it was the gentlemanly-look-
img young man!”
660. SKETCHES BY BOZ.
“Mr. Dumps!” shouted the greengrocer in a stentorian,
voice, as he ushered the somewhat recovered godfather into
the drawing-room half an hour after the above declaration.
‘Mr. Dumps !’’—everybody looked at the door, and in came
Dumps, feeling about as much out of place as a salmon might
be supposed to be on a gravel-walk.
‘‘Happy to see you again,” said Mrs. Kitterbell, quite un-
conscious of the unfortunate man’s confusion and misery;
‘you must allow me to introduce you to a few of our friends:
—my mamma, Mr. Dumps—my papa and sisters.” Dumps:
seized the hand of the mother as warmly as if she was his
own parent, bowed to the young ladies, and against a gentle-
man behind him, and took no notice whatever of the father,
who had been bowing incessantly for three minutes and a
quarter.
‘““Uncle,”’ said little Kitterbell, after Dumps had been intro-
duced to a select dozen or two, ‘‘ you must let me lead you
to the other end of the room, to introduce you to my friend
Danton. Such a splendid fellow !—I’m sure you ’ll like him
—-this way,’’—Dumps followed as tractably as a tame bear.
Mr. Danton was a young man of about five-and-twenty,
with a considerable stock of impudence, and a very small
share of ideas: he was a great favourite, especially with
young ladies of from sixteen to twenty-six years of age, both
inclusive. He could imitate the French-horn to admiration,
sang comic songs most inimitably, and had the most in-
sinuating way of saying impertinent nothings to his doting
female admirers. He had acquired, somehow or other, the
reputation of being a great wit, and accordingly, whenever he
opened his mouth, everybody who knew him laughed very
heartily.
The introduction took place in due form. Mr. Danton
bowed, and twirled a lady’s handkerchief, which he held in
his hand, in a most comic way. Everybody smiled.
““Very warm,’ said Dumps, feeling it necessary to say
something.
“Yes. It was warmer yesterday,” returned the brilliant
Mr. Danton.—A general laugh.
“‘T have great pleasure in congratulating you on your first
appearance in the character of a father, sir,” he continued,
addressing Dumps—“‘ godfather, I mean.”—-The young ladies
were convulsed, and the gentlemen in ecstacies.
THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING., 461
A general hum of admiration interrupted the conversation,
and announced the entrance of nurse with the baby. An
universal rush of the young ladies immediately took place.
(Girls are always so fond of babies in company.)
“Oh, you dear!” said one.
«“ How sweet!” cried another, in a low tone of the most
enthusiastic admiration. 7
“‘Heavenly!” added a third.
“Oh! what dear little arms!” said a fourth, holding up
an arm and fist about the size and shape of the leg of a fowl ~
cleanly picked.
‘Did you ever!’?—-said a little coquette with a large
bustle, who looked like a French lithograph, appealing to a
gentleman in three waistcoats—‘‘ Did you ever !”’
““ Never, in my life,’ returned her admirer, pulling up his
collar.
““Oh! do let me take it, nurse,” cried another young lady.
“The love!”
“Can it open its eyes, nurse?” inquired another, affecting
the utmost innocence.—Suflice it to say, that the single ladies
unanimously voted him an angel, and that the married ones,
nem. con., agreed that he was decidedly the finest baby they
had ever beheld—except their own.
The quadrilles were resumed with great spirit. Mr. Danton
was universally admitted to be beyond himself, several young
ladies enchanted the company and gained admirers by singing
“We met’”’—‘‘I saw her at the Fancy Fair’’—and other
equally sentimental and interesting ballads. ‘The young
men,” as Mrs. Kitterbell said, ‘‘ made themselves very agree-
able ;” the girls did not lose their opportunity ; and the even-
ing promised to go off excellently. Dumps didn’t mind it:
he had devised a plan for himself—a little bit of fun in his
own way—and he was almost happy! He played a rubber
and lost every point. Mr. Danton said he could not have lost
every point, because he made a point of losing: everybody
laughed tremendously. Dumps retorted with a better joke,
and nobody smiled, with the exception of the host, who
seemed to consider it his duty to laugh till he was black in
the face, at everything. There was only one drawback—the
musicians did not play with quite as much spirit as could
have been wished. The cause, however, was satisfactorily
explained ; for it appeared, on the testimony of a gentleman
462 _ SKETCHES BY BOZ
who had come up from Gravesend in the afternoon, that they
had been engaged on board a steamer all day, and had played
almost without cessation all the way to Gravesend, and all
the way back again.
The ‘sit-down supper” was excellent; there were four
barley-sugar temples on the table, which would have looked
beautiful if they had not melted away when the supper began;
and a water-mill, whose only fault was that instead of going
round it ran over the table-cloth. Then there were fewls,
and tongue, and trifle, and sweets, and lobster salad, and
potted beef—and every thing. And little Kitterbell kept
calling out for clean plates, and the clean plates did not
vome; and then the gentlemen who wanted the plates said
they didn’t mind, they’d take a lady’s; and then Mrs.
Kitterbell applauded their gallantry, and the greengrocer ran
about till he thought his seven and sixpence was very hardly
earned; and the young ladies didn’t eat much for fear it
shouldn’t look romantic, and the married ladies eat as much
as possible, for fear they shouldn’t have enough; and a great
deal of wine was drunk, and everybody talked and laughed
considerably.
‘‘Hush! hush!” said Mr. Kitterbell, rising and looking
very important. ‘‘ My love (this was addressed to his wife at
the other end of the table), take care of Mrs. Maxwell, and
your mamma and the rest of the married ladies; the gentle-
men will persuade the young ladies to fill their glasses, I am
gure.”
‘‘Ladies and gentlemen,” said long Dumps, in a very
sepulchral voice and rueful accent, rising from his chair like
’ the ghost in Don Juan, ‘ will you have the kindness to charge
your glasses? I am desirous of proposing a toast.”
A dead silence ensued, and the glasses were filled—
everybody looked serious.
‘‘ Ladies and gentlemen,” slowly continued the ominous
Dumps, ‘‘I”’—(here Mr. Danton imitated two notes from the
Irench-horn, in a very loud key, which electziced the nervous
toast-proposer, and convulsed his audience).
‘‘Order! order!’’ said little Kitterbell, endeavouring to
suppress his laughter.
‘‘Order!” said the gentlemen.
_ “Danton, be quiet,’ said a particular friend on the opposite
side of the table. i
THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING, 463
“Tadies and gentlemen,” resumed Dumps, somewhat
recovered, and not much disconcerted, for he was always a
pretty good hand at a speech—‘‘ In accordance with what is,
I believe, the established usage on these occasions, I, as one
of the gcdfathers of Master Frederick Charles William
Kitterbell—(here the speaker’s voice faltered, for he remem-
bered the mug)—venture to rise to propose a toast. I need
hardly say that it is the health and prosperity of that young
gentleman, the particular event of whose early life we are
- here met to celebrate—(applause). Ladies and gentlemen, it
is impossible to suppose that our friends here, whose sincere
well-wishers we all are, can pass through lfe without some
trials, considerable suffering, severe affliction, and heavy
losses !””—Here the arch traitor paused, and slowly drew forth
a long, white pocket-handkerchief—his example was followed
by several ladies. ‘‘That these trials may be long spared
them is my most earnest prayer, my most fervent wish (a dis-
tinct sob from the grandmother). I hope and trust, ladies
and gentlemen, that the infant whose christening we have
this evening met to celebrate, may not be removed from the
arms of his parents by premature decay (several cambrics
were in requisition); that his young and now apparently
healthy form, may not be wasted by lingering disease.
(Here Dumps cast a sardonic glance around, for a great sen-
sation was manifest among the married ladies.) You, I am
sure, will concur with me in wishing that he may live to be a
comfort and a blessing to his parents. (‘ Hear, hear!’ and
an audible sob from Mr. Kitterbell.) But should he not be
what we could wish— should he forget in after times the duty
which he owes to them—should they unhappily experience
that distracting truth, ‘how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it
is to have a thankless child.’’’—Here Mrs. Kitterbell, with
her handkerchief to her eyes, and accompanied by several
ladies, rushed from the room, and went into violent hysterics
‘in the passage, leaving her better half in almost as bad a con-
dition, and a general impression in Dumps’s favour; for
people like sentiment, after all.
{t need hardly be added, that this occurrence quite puta
stop to the harmony of the evening. Vinegar, hartshorn, and
cold water, were now as much in request as negus, rout-cakes,
and bon-bons had been a short time before. Mrs. Kitterbell
was immediately conveyed to her apartment, the musicians
464 SKETCHES BY BO’
were silenced, flirting ceased, and the company slowly
departed. Dumps left the house at the commencement of the
bustle, and walked home with a light step, and (for him) a
cheerful heart. His landlady who slept in the next room,
has offered to make oath that she heard him laugh, in his
peculiar manner, after he had locked his door. ‘The assertion, -
however, is so improbable, and bears on the face of it such
strong evidence of untruth, fore it a never obtained credence
to this hour.
The family of Mr. Kitterbell has considerably increased
since the period to which we have referred; he has now two
sons and a daughter; and as he expects, at no distant period,
to have another addition to his blooming progeny, he is
anxious to secure an eligible godfather for the occasion. He
is determined, however, to impose upon him two conditions.
He must bind himself, by a solemn obligation, not to make
any speech after ‘ssuppér, and it is indispensable that he
should. be in no way connected with ‘‘ the most miserable man
in the world.”
“CHAPTER XIL
THE DRUNKARD'S DEATH.
We will be bold to say, that there is scarcely a man in the
constant habit of walking, day after day, through any of the
crowded thoroughfares of London, who cannot recollect among
the people whom he ‘knows by sight,” to use a familiar
phrase, some being of abject and wretched appearance whom
he remembers to have seen in a very different condition, whom
he has observed sinking lower and lower, by almost imper-
ceptible degrees, and the shabbiness and utter destitution of
whese appearance, at last, strike forcibly and painfully upon
him, as he passes by. Is there any man who has mixed:
much with society, or whose avocations have caused him to
mingle, at one time or other, with a great number of people,
who cannot call to mind the time when some shabby, miser-
able wretch, in rags and filth, who shuffles past him now in
all the squalor of disease and poverty, was a respectable
tradesman, or a clerk, or a man following some thriving
THE DRUNKARD’S DEATH, 455
pursuit, with good prospects, and decent means ?—or cannot
any of our readers call to mind from among the list of their
quondam acquaintance, some fallen and degraded man, who
lingers about the pavement in hungry misery—-from whom
every one turns coldly away, and who preserves himself from
sheer starvation, nobody knows how? Alas! such cases are
of too frequent occurrence to be rare items in any man’s
experience; and but too often arise from one cause—drunken-
ness—that fierce rage for the slow, sure poison, that oversteps
-every other consideration; that casts aside wife, children,
friends, happiness, and station; and hurries its victims madly
on to degradation and death.
Some of these men have been impelled, by misfortune and
misery, to the vice that has degraded them. The ruin of
worldly expectations, the death of those they loved, the sorrow
that slowly consumes, but will not break the heart, has driven
-them wild; and they present the hideous spectacle of mad-
-men, slowly dying by their own hands. But by far the
greater part have wilfully, and with open eyes, plunged into
the gulf from which the man who once enters it never rises
‘more, but into which he sinks deeper and deeper down, until
_recovery is hopeless.
_ Such a man as this once stood by the bed-side of his dying
wife, while his children knelt around, and mingled low bursts
of grief with their innocent prayers. The room was scantily
and meanly furnished ; and it needed but a glance at the pale
form from which the light of life was fast passing away, to
know that grief, and want, and anxious care, had been busy
at the heart for many a weary year. An elderly female, with
her face bathed in tears, was supporting the head of the dying
woman—her daughter—on her arm. But it was not towards
her that the wan face turned; it was not her hand that
the cold and trembling fingers clasped; they pressed the
husband’s arm; the eyes so soon to be closed in death rested
on his face, and the man shook beneath their gaze. His dress
was slovenly and disordered, his face inflamed, his eyes blood-
shot and heavy. He had been summoned from some wild
debauch to the bed of sorrow and death.
A shaded lamp by the bed-side cast a dim light on the
figures around, and left the remainder of the room in thick,
deep shadow. The silence of night prevailed without the
house, and the stillness of death was in the chamber. A
HB
466 ~ SKETCHES BY BOZ.
watch hung over the mantel-shelf; its low ticking was the
only sound that broke the profound quiet, but it was a solemn
one, for well they knew who heard it, that before it had
recorded the passing of another hour, it would beat the knell
of a departed spirit.
It is a dreadful thing to wait and watch for the approach of
death; to know that hope is gone, and recovery impossible ;
and to sit and count the dreary hours through long, long,
nights—such nights as only watchers by the bed of sickness
know. It chills the blood to hear the dearest secrets of the
heart—the pent-up, hidden secrets of many years—poured
forth by the unconscious helpless being before you; and to
think how little the reserve and cunning of a whole life will
avail, when fever and delirium tear off the mask at last.
Strange tales have been told in the wanderings of dying men ;
tales so full of guilt and crime, that those who stood by the
sick person’s couch have fled in horror and affright, lest they
should be scared to madness by what they heard and saw;
and many a wretch has died alone, raving of deeds the very
name of which has driven the boldest man away.
But no such ravings were to be heard at the bed-side by
which the children knelt. Their half-stifled sobs and moan-
ings alone broke the silence of the lonely chamber. And
when at last the mother’s grasp relaxed, and, turning one
look from the children to their father, she vainly strove to
speak, and fell backward on the pillow, all was so calm and
tranquil that she seemed to sink to sleep. They leant over
her; they called upon her name, softly at first, and then
in the loud and piercing tones of desperation. But there was
no reply. They listened for her breath, but no sound came.
They felt for the palpitation of the heart, but no faint throb
responded to the touch. That heart was broken, and she was
dead ! f
The husband sunk into a chair by the bed-side, and clasped
his hands upon his burning forehead. He gazed from child
to child, but when a weeping eye met his, he quailed beneath
its look. No word of comfort was whispered in his ear, no
leok of kindness lighted on his face. All shrunk from and
avoided him; and when at last he staggered from the room,
no one sought to follow or console the widower.
The time had been when many a friend would have crowded
round him in his affliction, and many a heartfelt condolence
THE DRUNKARD’S DEATH. 467
would have met him in his grief. Where were they now?
One by one, friends, relations, the commonest acquaintance
even, had fallen off from and deserted the drunkard. His
wife alone had clung to him in good and evil, in sickness and
poverty; and how had he rewarded her? He had reeled
from the tavern to her bed-side, in time to see her die.
He rushed from the house, and walked swiftly through the
streets. Remorse, fear, shame, all crowded on his mind.
Stupified with drink, and bewildered with the scene he had
just witnessed, he re-entered the tavern he had quitted shortly
before. Glass succeeded glass. His blood mounted, and his
brain whirled round. Death! Every one must die, and why
not she. She was too good for him; her relations had often
told him so. Curses on them! Had they not deserted her,
and left her to whine away the time at home? Well—she
was dead, and happy perhaps. It was better as it was.
Another glass—one more! Hurrah! It was a merry life
while it lasted; and he would make the most of it.
Time went on; the three children who were left to him,
- grew up, and were children no longer. The father remained
the same—poorer, shabbier, and more dissolute-looking, but
the same confirmed and irreclaimable drunkard. The boys
had, long ago, run wild in the streets, and left him; the girl
alone remained, but she worked hard, and words or blows
could always procure him something for the tavern. So he
went on in the old course, and a merry life he led.
One night, as early as ten o’clock—for the girl had been
sick for many days, and there was, consequently, little to
spend at the public-house—he bent his steps homewards,
bethinking himself that if he would have her able to earn
money, it would be as well to apply to the parish surgeon, or,
at all events, to take the trouble of inquiring what ailed her,
which he had not yet thought it worth while to do. It was
a wet December night; the wind blew piercing cold, and the
rain poured heavily down. He begged a few halfpence from
a passer-by, and having bought a small loaf (for it was his
interest to keep the girl alive, if he could), he shuffled
onwards as fast as the wind and rain would let him.
At the back of Fleet-street, and lying between it and the
_water-side, are several mean and narrow courts, which form a
portion of Whitefriars; it was to one of these that he directed
his steps.
q
~P
468 SKETCHES BY BOZ.
The alley into which he turned, might, for filth and misery,
have competed with the darkest corner of this ancient
sanctuary in its dirtiest and most lawless time. The houses,
varying from two stories in height to four, were stained with
every indescribable hue that long exposure to the weather,
damp, and rottenness can impart to tenements composed
originally of the roughest and coarsest materials. The
windows were patched with paper, and stuffed with the foulest
rags; the doors were falling from their hinges; poles with
lines on which to dry clothes, projected from every casement,
and sounds of quarrelling or drunkenness issued from every
room.
The solitary oil lamp in the centre of the court had been
blown out, either by the violence of the wind or the act of
some inhabitant who had excellent reasons for objecting to
his residence being rendered too conspicuous; and the only
light which fell upon the broken and uneven pavement, was
derived from the miserable candles that here and there twin-
kled in the rooms of such of the more fortunate residents as
could afford to indulge in so expensive a luxury. A gutter
ran down the centre of the alley—all the sluggish odours of
which had been called forth by the rain; and as the wind
whistled through the old houses, the doors and shutters
creaked upon their hinges, and the windows shook in their
frames, with a violence which every moment seemed to
threaten the destruction of the whole place.
The man whom we have followed into this den, walked on
in the darkness, sometimes stumbling into the main gutter,
and at others into some branch repositories of garbage which
had been formed by the rain, until he reached the last house
in the court. The door, or rather what was left of it, stood
ajar, for the convenience of the numerous lodgers; and he
proceeded to grope his way up the old and broken stair, to
the attic story.
He was within a step or two of his room door, when it
opened, and a girl, whose miserable and emaciated appearance
was only to be equalled by that of the candle which she
shaded with her hand, peeped anxiously out.
“Is that you, father?” said the girl.
‘Who else should it be?” replied the man gruffly. ‘‘ What
are you trembling at? It’s little enough that I’ve had to
drink to-day, for there’ sno drink without money, and no
THE DRUNKARD’S DEATH. 469
money without work. What the devil’s the matter with
the girl ?”’
““T am not well, father—not at all well,” said the girl,
bursting into ‘tears. |
‘‘ Ah!” replied the man, in the tone of a person who is
compelled to admit a very unpleasant fact, to which he would
rather remain blind, if he could. ‘‘ You must get better
somehow, for we must have money. You must go to the
parish doctor, and make him give you some medicine. They ’re
paid for it, damn’em. What are you standing before the
door for? Let me come in, can’t you?”
“« Father,”’ whispered the girl, shutting the door behind her,
and placing herself before it, ‘‘ William has come back.”
“Who!” said the man with a start.
“Hush,” replied the girl, ‘‘ William; brother William.”
‘“¢And what does he want?” said the man, with an effort
at composure—‘‘ money ? meat? drink? He’s come to the
wrong shop for that, if he does. Give me the candle—give
me the candle, fool—I ain’t going to hurt him.”” He snatched
the candle from her hand, and walked into the room.
Sitting on an old box, with his head resting on his hand,
and his eyes fixed on a wretched cinder fire that was smould-
ering on the hearth, was a young man of about two-and-
twenty, miserably clad in an old coarse jacket and trousers.
He started up when his father entered.
‘‘ Fasten the door, Mary,’’ said the young man hastily—
* Fasten the door. You look as if you didn’t know me,
father. It’s long enough, since you drove me from home;
you may well forget me.”
“And what do you want here, now?” said the father,
seating himself on a stool, on the other side of the fireplace
‘* What do you want here, now ?”’
‘‘ Shelter,” replied the son, ‘‘ I’m in trouble; that’s enough.
If I’m caught I shall swing; that’s certain. Caught I shall
be, unless I stop here; that’s as certain. And there’s an
end of it.”
““You mean to say, you’ve been robbing, or murdering,
then ?”’ said the father. .
““Yes I do,” replied the son. ‘‘ Does it surprise you,
father?” He looked steadily in the man’s face, but he with-
drew his eyes, and bent them on the ground.
‘Where ’s your brothers?’’ he said, after a long pause,
470 SKETCHES BY BOZ,
‘““Where they'll never trouble you,” replied his son?
‘John ’s gone to America, and Henry’s dead.”
‘‘ Dead!” said the father, with a shudder, which even he
could not repress.
‘‘Dead,” replied the young man. ‘He died in my arms
—shot like a dog, by a gamekeeper. He staggered back, I
caught him, and his blood trickled down my hands. It
poured out from his side like water. He was weak, and it
blinded him, but he threw himself down on his knees, on the
grass, and prayed to God, that if his mother was in heaven,
He. would hear her prayers for pardon for her youngest son,
‘I was her favourite boy, Will,’ he said, ‘and I am glad to
think, now, that when she was dying, though I was a very
young child then, and my little heart was almost bursting, I
knelt down at the foot of the bed, and thanked God for
having made me so fond of her as to have never once done
anything to bring the tears into her eyes. O Will, why was
she taken away, and father left!’ There’s his dying words,
father,” said the young man; “‘ make the best you can of ’em.
You struck him across the face, in a drunken fit, the morning
we ran away; and here’s the end of it!”
The girl wept aloud; and the father, sinking his head upon
his knees, rocked himself to and fro.
“If I am taken,” said the young man, ‘‘I shall be carried
back into the country, and hung for that man’s murder.
They cannot trace me here, without your assistance, father.
For aught I know, you may give me up to justice; but unless
you do, here I stop, until I can venture to escape abroad.”
For two whole days, all three remained in the wretched
room, without stirring out. On the third evening, however,
the girl was worse than she had been yet, and the few scraps
of food they had were gone. It was indispensably necessary
that somebody should go out; and as the girl was too weak
and ill, the father went, just at nightfall.
He got some medicine for the girl, and a trifle in the way
uf pecuniary assistance. On his way back, he earned six-
pence by holding a horse; and he turned homewards with
enough money to supply their most pressing wants for two or
three days to come. He had to pass the public-house. He
lingered for an instant, walked past it, turned back again,
lingered once more, and finally slunk in. Two men whom he
had not observed, were on the watch. They were on the
THE DRUNKARD’S DEATH, 471
point of giving up their search in despair, when his loitering
attracted their attention; and when he entered the Mn Bis
house, they followed nae
“You ‘ll drink with me, master,” said one of them, prof-
fering him a glass of liquor.
“‘And me too,” said the other, replenishing the glass as
8 gen as it was drained of its contents.
' The man thought of his hungry children, and his son’s
danger. But they were nothing to the drunkard. He did
drink; and his reason left him.
““ A wet night, Warden,” whispered one of the men in his
ear, as he at length turned to go away, after spending in
liquor one-half of the money on which, perhaps, his daughter’s
life depended.
“The right sort of night for our friends in hiding, Master
Warden,” whispered the other.
“‘ Sit down here,”’ said the one who had spoken first, draw-
ing him into a corner. ‘‘ We have been looking arter the
young un. We came to tell him, it’s all right now, but we
couldn’t find him, ’cause we hadn’t got the precise direction.
But that ain’t strange, for I don’t think he know’d it himself,
when he come to London, did he ?”’
‘“No, he didn’t,”’ replied the father.
The two men exchanged glances.
‘““' There ’s a vessel down at the docks, to sail at midnight,
when it’s high water,’ resumed the first speaker, ‘“‘and we’ll
put him on board. His passage is taken in another name,
and what’s better than that, it’s paid for. It’s lucky we
met you.”
“‘Very,”’ said the second.
“Capital luck,” said the first, with a wink to his com-
panion.
“‘ Great,” replied the second, with a slight nod of intelli-
gence.
“Another glass here; quick ’’—-said the first speaker. And
in five minutes more, the father had unconsciously yielded up
his own son into the hangman’s hands.
Slowly and heavily the time dragged along, as the brother
and sister, in their miserable Hiine ralaes Listened 4 in anxious
suspense to the slightest sound. At length, a heavy footstep
was heard upon the stair; it approached nearer; it reached
the landing: and the father staggered into the room.
9?
472 | SKETCHES BY BOZ
The girl saw that he was intoxicated, and advanced with
the candle in her hand to meet him; she stopped short, gave
a loud scream, and fell senseless on the ground. She had
caught sight of the shadow of a man reflected on the floor.
They both rushed in, and in another instant the young man
was a prisoner, and handcuffed.
‘Very quietly done,” said one of the men to his companion,
‘thanks to the old man. Lift up the girl, Tom—come, come,
it’s no use crying, young woman. It’s all over now, and —
can't be helped.”
The young man stooped for an instant over the girl, and
then turned fiercely round upon his father, who had reeled
against the wall, and was gazing on the group with drunken
stupidity.
‘‘ Listen to me, father,” he said, in a tone that made the
drunkard’s flesh creep. ‘‘ My brother’s blood, and mine, is
on your head: I never had kind look, or word, or care, from
you, and, alive or dead, I never will forgive you. Die when
you will, or how, I will be with you. I speak as a dead man
now, and I warn you, father, that as surely as you must one
day stand before your Maker, so surely shall your children be
there, hand in hand, to ery for judgment against you.” He
raised his manacled hands in a threatening attitude, fixed his
eyes on his shrinking parent, and slowly left the room; and
neither father nor sister ever beheld him more, on this side of
the grave.
When the dim and misty light of a winter’s morning pene-
trated into the narrow court, and struggled through the
begrimed window of the wretched room, Warden awoke from
his heavy sleep, and found himself alone. He rose, and
looked round him; the old flock mattress on the floor was
undisturbed; everything was just as he remembered to have .
seen it last: and there were no signs of any one, save himself,
having occupied the room during the night. He inquired og
the other lodgers, and of the neighbours; but his daughtei
had not been seen or heard of. He rambled through thej
streets, and scrutinised each wretched face among the crowds i
that thronged them, with anxious eyes. But his search was
fruitless, and he returned to his garret when night came on,; —
desolate and weary. y,
For many days he occupied himself in the same manner,
but no trace of his daughter did he meet with, and no word
;
q
wf
THE DRUNKARD’S DEATH. 473
of her reached his ears. At length he gave up the pursuit
as hopeless. He had long thought of the probability of her
leaving him, and endeavouring to gain her bread in quiet,
elsewhere. She had left him at last to starve alone. He
ground his teeth, and cursed her !
He begged his bread from door to door. Every halfpenny
he could wring from the pity or credulity of those to whom
he addressed himself, was spent in the old way.