*,*? THE PRINCESS VICTORIA IN 1830 (From the Pictxire by Richard Westall, R.A., at Windsor Castle.) FIFTY YEARS AGO BY WALTER BESANT AUTHOR OF ' ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN ' ETC. PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE By AV alter BE S ANT. ALL IN A GARDEN FAIR. 4to, Pa- per, 20 cents. DOROTHY FORSTER. 4to, Paper, 20 cents. FIFTY YEARS AGO. 8vo, Cloth. [Just Published.) HEKR PAULUS. Svo, Paper, 35 cents. K.\THERINE REGINA. 4to, Paper, 15 cents. LIFE OF COLIGNY. 32mo, Paper, '25 cents. SELF OR BEARER. 4to, Paper, 15 cts. THE WORLD WENT VERY WELL THEN. Ilhistrated. 4to, Paper, 25 cents. THE CHILDREN OF GIBEON. 4t(., Paper, 20 ceiit^. THE HOLY ROSE. 4to, Paper, 20 cents. TO CALL HER MINE. Illustrated. 4to, Paper, 20 cents. UNCLE .lACK AND OTHER STORIES. 12mo, Paper, 25 cents. By WALTER BE S ANT AND JAMES RICE. ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OP MEN. 4lo, Paper, 20 cents. BY CELIA'S ARBOR. Illustrated. Svo, Paper, 50 cents. SHEPHERDS ALL AND MAIDENS FAIR. 32nio, Paper, 25 cents. "SO THEY WERE MARRIED." Il- lustrated. 4to, Paper, 20 cents. SWEET NELLY, MY HEART'S DE- LIGHT. 4to, Paper, 10 cents. THE CHAPLAIN OF THE FLEET^ 4CO, Pa|)er, 20 cents. THE CAPTAIN'S ROOM. 4to, Paper, 10 cents. THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. Svo, Pa- per, 40 cents. 'TWAS IN TRAFALGAR'S BAY. 32mo, Paper, 20 cents. WHEN THE SHIP COMES HOME. 32mo, Paper, 25 cents. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. SW Any of the above ivorks tvill be sent hy mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. SANTA BARBAKA; PREFACE. It has been my desire in the following pages to present a picture of society in this country as it was when the Queen ascended the throne. The book is an enlarge- ment of a paper originally contributed to ' The Graphic' I have written several additional chapters, and have revised all the rest. The chapter on Law and Justice has been written for this volume by my friend Mr. W. Morris Colles, of the Inner Temple. I beg to record my best thanks to that gentleman for his important contribution. I have not seen in any of the literature called forth by the happy event of last year any books or papers which cover the exact ground of this compilation. There are histories of progress and advancement ; there are contrasts ; but there has not been offered any- where, to my knowledge, a picture of life, manners, and society as they were fifty years ago. When the editor of * The Graphic ' proposed that I should write a paper on this subject, I readily con- sented, thinking it would be a light and easy task, and one which could be accomplished in two or three weeks. Light and easy it certainly was in a sense, VI FIFTY YEARS AGO because it was very pleasant work, and the books to be consulted are easily accessible ; but then there are so many : the investigation of a single point sometimes carried one through half-a-dozen volumes. The two oi" three weeks became two or three months. At the very outset of the work I was startled to find how great a revolution has taken place in our opinions and ways of thinking, how much greater than is at first understood. For instance, America was, fifty years ago, practically unknown to the bulk of our people ; American ideas had little or no influence upon us ; our people had no touch with the United States ; if they spoke of a Republic, they still meant the first French Republic, the only EepubHc they knew, with death to kings and tyrants ; while the recollection of the guillotine still preserved cautious and orderly people from Republican ideas. Who now, however, connects a Repubhc with a Reign of Terror and the guillotine ? The American Republic, in fact, has taken the place of the French. Again, though the Reform Bill had been, in 1837, passed already five years, its effects were as yet only beginning to be felt ; we were still, politically, in the eighteenth century. So in the Church, in the Law, in the Services, in Society, we were governed by the ideas of the eighteenth century. PREFACE vu The nineteenth century actually began with steam communication by sea; with steam machinery; with railways; with telegraphs; with the development of the colonies; with the admission of the people to the government of the country; with the opening of the Universities; with the spread of science; with the revival of the democratic spirit. It did not really begin, in fact, till about fifty years ago. When and how will it end ? By what order, by what ideas, will it be followed ? In compiling even such a modest work as the pre- sent, one is constantly attended by a haunting dread ol having forgotten something necessary to complete the picture. I have been adding little things ever since I began to put these scenes together. At this, the very last moment, the Spirit of Memory whispers in my ear, * Did you remember to speak of the high fireplaces, the open chimneys — up which half the heat mounted — the broad hobs, and the high fenders, with the fronts pierced, in front of which people's feet were always cold.^^ Did you remember to note that the pin of the period had its head composed of a separate piece of wire rolled round ; that steel pens were either as yet unknown, or were precious and costly things ; that the quiU was always wanting a fresh nib ; that the wax-match did not exist ; that in the country they still used the old- viii FIFTY YEARS AGO fashioned brimstone match ; that the night-hght of the period was a rush candle stuck in a round tin cyhnder full of holes ; and that all the ladies' dress had hooks and eyes behind ? ' I do not think that I have mentioned any of these points ; and yet, how much food for reflection is afforded by every one ! Eeader, you may perhaps find my pictures imperfect, but you can fill in any one sketch from your own superior knowledge. Meantime, remember this. As nearly as possible, fifty years ago, the eighteenth century passed away. It died slowly ; its end was hardly marked. King William the Fourth is dead. Alas ! how many things were dying with that good old king ! The steam- whistle was already heard across the fields : already in mid-ocean the great steamers were crossing against wind and tide : already the nations were slowly beginning to know each other : Privilege, Patronage, and the Power of Rank were beginning already to tremble, and were afraid : already the working man was heard de- manding his vote : the nineteenth century had begun. We who have lived in it ; we who are full of its ideas ; we who are all swept along upon the full stream of it — we Jjnow not, we cannot see, whither it is carrying us. W. B. CONTENTS. CHAPTEB PAGl I. Great Britain, Ireland, and the Colonies ... 1 II. The Year 1837 .18 III. London in 1837 30 IV. In the Street .45 V. With the People ........ 67 VI. With the Middle-Class 85 VII. In Society 110 VIII. At the Play and the Show 125 IX. In the House 137 X. At School and University 154 XI. The Tavern 160 XII. In Club- and Card-land 175 XIII. With the Wits 188 XIV. Journals and Journalists 209 XV. The Sportsman 214 XVI. In Factory and Mine 224 XVII. With the Men of Science 283 XVIII. Law and Justice . . 237 XIX. Conclusion 258 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PLATES. The Princess Victoria in 1830. From the Picture hy Bichard Westall, E. A., at Windsor Castle Windsor Castle Queen Victoria in 1839. From a Draicing hy B. J. Lane, A.B.A. * . Thomas Carlyle. Frovi the Fraser Gallery . The Queen's First Council — Kensington Palace, June 20, 1837. From the Picture hy Sir David Wilkie, B.A., at Windsor Castle A Show op Twelfth- Cakes. From Cruikshanlc's '■Comic Almanaclc^ ......... Greenwich Park. From CruikshanFs '■Comic Almanach' The Chimney- Sweeps' Annual Holiday. From Cruih- shanVs '■ Comic Almanaclc'' Beating the Bounds. ■ From CriiikshanTcs ' Comic Almanack'' Bartholomew Fair. From CruikshanFs ^ Comic Almajiack^ Vauxhall Gardens. Fro}n Cruikshank''s^ Comic Almanack'' In Fleet Street. Proclaiming the Queen. From Cniik- shank^ s '■ Comic Almanack'' . ...... Leigh Hunt. From the Frasei' Gallery .... John Galt. F7'om the Fraser Gallery The Queen receiving the Sacrament after uer Coro- nation. Westminster Abbey, June 28, 1838. From the Picture hy C. B. Leslie, B.A., at Windsor Castle . Theodore Hook. From the Fraser Gallery . . . . Frontispiece Vignette PACK To face 1 10 18 20 22 24 n 26 )1 28 ?) 30 51 56 )» 64 il 86 94 100 Zll FIFTY YEARS AGO The Couxtess of Bi.essington. From the Fraser Gallery. Count d'Oksay. From the Fraser Gallery ... Sydney Smith. From the Fraser Gallery . John Baldwin Bcckstone. From the Fraser Gallery Thomas Noon Talfourd. From the Fraser Gallery . Mauy Russell Mitford. From the Fraser Gallery Sir Walter Scott. From the Fraser Gallery . Lord Lyndhurst. From the Fraser Gallery . William Cobbett. From the Fraser Gallery liORD John Russell. From the Fraser Gallei'y Edward Lytton Bulwer. From the Fraser Gallery . Benjamin D'Israeh. From the Fraser Gallery Thomas Campbell. From the Fraser Gallery . Samuel Taylor Coleridge. From the Fraser Gallery William Wordsworth. From the Fraser Gallery Rev. William Lisle Bowles. From the Fraser Gallery Pierre-Jean de Beranger. From the Fraser Gallery . James Hogg. From the Fraser Gallery Rkgixa's Maids of Honour. From the Fraser Gallery Harriet Martineau. From the Fraser Gallery . William Harrison Ainsw^orth. From the Fraser Gallery The Fraserians. From the Fraser Gallery John Gibson Lockhart. From the Fraser Gallery Samuel Rogers. From the Fraser Gallery . Thomas Moore. Froni the Fraser Gallery Lord Brougham and Vaux. From the Fraser Gallery Washington Irving. From the Fraser Gallery John Wilson Croker. From the Fraser Gallery Cockney Sportsmen. From Cruikshanlc's ' Comic A Imanaclc Return from the Races. From Cruilcshanlc's '■Comic AlmanacTc'' ......... Sir John C. Hobhouse. From the Fraser Gallery A Point of Law. From Cruilshanlc's '■Comic Almanach Michael Faraday. From the Fraser Gallery PAGE t. To face 110 113 IIG 126 128 i:iO i;$2 1138 140 144 148 150 176 183 184 186 188 190 193 194 196 198 200 203 304 306 208 210 218 230 236 238 258 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS WOODCUTS IN THE TEXT. Xlll PACK Arrivai, of the Coronation Number of 'The Sun* ... 2 Lifeguard, 1837 . . 4 General Postman g Napoleon at Longwood. From a Dratving made in 1820 . . 12 London Street Characters, 1837. From a Drawing by John Leech I4 5 Great Cheyne Kow. The House in which Carhjle lived from 1834 to his Death in 1881 16 The Duchess of Kent, with the Princess Victoria at the Age OF Two. From the Picture by Sir W. Beechey, B.A., at Windsor Castle 17 William TV. From a Drawing by HB 18 Peeler 20 The Spaniards Tavern, Hampstead 22 Sir Egbert Peel 24 A Parish Beadle. From a Draiving by George Cruihshank in ' London Characters ' 26 Evening in Smithfield. From a Drawing made in 1858, at the Gateway leading into Cloth Fair, the Place of Proclamation of Bartholomew Fair 28 Fireman 31 Hackney Coachman. From a Drawing by George Cruihshanh in * London Characters ' 34 The First London Exchange . . . . . , . . 34 The Second London Exchange 35 The Present Eoyal Exchange — Third London Exchange . . 35 Charing Cross in the Present Day. From a Drawing by Frank Murray 37 Temple Bar 38 The Royal Courts of Justice 39 Lyons Inn in 1804. From an Engraving in Herbert's ' History of the Inns of Court ' ......... 41 Kennington Gate — Derby Day 42 xiv FIFTY YEARS AGO PAOB The Old Roman Bath in the Strand 43 London Street Characters, 1827. From a Draiuinrj hij John Leech 46 The King's Mews in 1750. From a Print by I. Maurer . . . 47 Barrack and Old Houses on the Site of Trafalgar Square. From a Drawing made by F, W. Fairholi in 182G . . .48 The Last Cabriolet-Driver. From a Drawing by George Cruil- shank in ' Sketches by Boz ' 49 A Greenwich Pensioner. From a Drawing by George Cruikshank in ' London Characters ' 52 An Omnibus Upset, From Cruikshank's ' Comic Almanack ' . . 53 Exeter Change 64 The Parish Engine. From a Draiving by George Cruikshank in ' Sketches by Boz ' 56 Crockford's Fish Shop. From a Drawing by F. W. FairhoU . 57 Thomas Chatterton . . 60 Third Regiment of Buffs 68 Douglas Jerrold. From the Bust by E. H. Bailey, R.A. ... 64 John Forster. From, a Photograph by Elliott d Fry . , . G") Charles Dickens 66 The Darby Day. From Cruikshank's ' Comic Almanack ' . .76 Newgate — Entrance in the Old Bailey 77 In the Queen's Bench 79 George Eliot. From a Drawing in ' The Graphic ' , 86 La Pastourelle 89 Fashions for August 1836 ' . . . . 98 Fashions for March 1837 98 Watchman. From a Drawing by George Cruikshank in ' London Characters ' 101 A Scene on Blackheath. From a Drawing by ' Phiz ' in Grant's ' Sketches in London ' 105 Maid- Servant. From, a Draiving by George Cruikshank in ' London Characters ' 107 Officer of the Dragoon Guards Ill A Sketch in the Park — The Duke of Wellington and Mrs. Arbuthnot , 115 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv PAGB LiNKMAN 117 William Makepeace Thackeray 123 LiSTON AS ' Paul Pry.' From a Drawing hy George CrtciJcshank . 128 Charles Reade 130 T. P. Cooke in ' Black-eyed Susan ' . . ... 132 Vauxhall Gardens 133 The ' New ' Houses of Parliament, from the River . , . 138 Lord Melbourne 140 Thomas Babington Macaulay 141 Lord Palmerston 142 Burdett, Hume, and O'Connell. From a Drawing by HB. . 143 Daniel O'Connell 14G O'Connell taking the Oaths in the House. From a Drawing by ' Phiz ' in ' Sketches in London ' ...... 147 Edmund Kean as Richard the Third 161 Old Entrance to the Cock, Fleet Street 1G3 The Old Tabard Inn, High Street, Southwark . . . . 173 Sign of the Swan with Two Necks, Carter Lane . . . 174 Sign of the Bolt-in-Tun, Fleet Street 174 Oxford and Cambridge Club, Pall Mall 17G United University Club, Pall Mall 177 Crockford's, St. James's Street 179 Charles Knight. From a Photograph by Hughes d Mullins . 184 Robert Southey 185 Thomas Moore 18G * Vathek ' Beckford. From a Medallion 187 Walter Savage Landor. From a Photograph by H. Watkins . 188 Ralph Waldo Emerson 189 Lord Byron 190 Sir Walter Scott 191 A Fashionable Beauty of 1837. By A. E. Chalon, E.A. . . 193 Lord Tennyson as a Young Man. From the Picture by Sir T. Lawrence, R.A. ........•• 19G Matthew Arnold 200 Charles Darwin 201 xvi FIFTY YEARS AGO Holland House 203 Letting Children down a Coal-Mine. From a Plate in ' The Westminster Review ' 225 Children Working in a Coal-Mine. From a Plate in ' The West. minster Review ' 229 London Street Characters, 1837. From a Drawing by John Leech 231 Marshalsea — The Courtyard. From a Drawing by C. A. Van- derhoof 239 QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1839. (From a Drawing by R. J. Lane, A.R.A.) FIFTY YEARS AGO. CHAPTER I. GEEAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, AND THE COLONIES. I PROPOSE to set before my readers a picture of the country as it was when Queen Victoria (God save the Queen !) ascended the throne, now fifty years ago and more. It will be a picture of a time so utterly passed away and vanished that a young man can hardly under- stand it. I, who am no longer, unhappily, quite so young as some, and whose babyhood heard the cannon of the Coronation, can partly understand this time, because in many respects, and especially in the man- ners of the middle class, customs and habits which went out of fashion in London lingered in the country towns, and formed part of my own early experiences. In the year 1837 — I shall repeat this remark several times, because I wish to impress the fact upon every- body — we were still, to all intents and purposes, in the eighteenth century. As yet the country was untouched 2 FIFTY YEARS AGO by that American influence which is now filHng all peoples with new ideas. Rank was still held in the ancient reverence; religion was still that of the eighteenth-century Church ; the rights of labour were not yet recognised ; there were no trades' unions ; there were no railways to speak of; nobody travelled except AERIVAL OF THE CORONATION NDMBEK OF ' THE SUN ' — ONE PAPER, AND ONE MAN WHO CAN READ IT IN THE TOWN the rich ; their own country was unknown to the people ; the majority of country people could not read or write ; the good old discipline of Father Stick and his children, Cat-o'-Mne-Tails, Eope's-end, Strap, Birch, Ferule, and Cane, was wholesomely maintained ; land- lords, manufacturers, and employers of all kinds did GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, THE COLONIES 3 what they pleased with their own; and the Blue Ribbon was unheard of. There were still some fiery spirits in whose breasts lingered the ideas of the French Revolu- tion, and the Chartists were already beginning to run their course. Beneath the surface there was discon- tent, which sometimes bubbled up. But freedom of speech was limited, and if the Sovereign People had then ventured to hold a meeting in Trafalgar Square, that meeting would have been dispersed in a very swift and surprising manner. The Reform Act had been passed, it is true, but as yet had produced little effect. Elections Avere carried by open bribery ; the Civil Service was full of great men's nominees ; the Church was devoured by pluralists ; there were no competitive examinations ; the perpetual pensions were many and fat ; and for the younger sons and their progeny the State was provided with any number of sinecures. How men contrived to live and to be cheerful in this state of things one knows not. But really, I think it made very little apparent difference to their happiness that this country was crammed full of abuses, and that the Ship of State, to outsiders, seemed as if she were about to capsize and founder. This is to be a short chapter of figures. Figures mean very little unless they can be used for purposes of comparison. When, for instance, one reads that in the Census of 1831 the population of Great Britain was 16,539,318, the fact has Httle significance except when compared with the Census of 1881, which shows FIFTY YEARS AGO tliat the population of the country had increased in fifty years from sixteen milhons to twenty-four milHons. And, again, one knows not whether to rejoice or to weep over tliis fact until it has been ascertained how the condition of these millions has changed for better or for worse, and whether the outlook for the future, if, in the next fifty years, twenty-four become thirty- six, is hopeful or no. Next, when one reads that the population of Ireland was then seven millions and three-quar- ters, and is now less than five millions, and, further, that one Irishman in three was always next door to starving, and that the relative importance of Ire- land to Great Britain was then as one to two, and is now as one to five, one naturally con- gratulates Ireland on getting more elbow-room and Great Britain on the relative decrease in Irish power to do the larger island an injury. The Army and Navy together in 1831 contained no more than 277,017 men, or half their present number. But then the proportion of the English military strength to the French was much nearer one of equality. The relief of the poor in 1831 absorbed 6,875,552/., but this sum in 1844 had dropped to 4,976,090/., the savino; of two millions being due to the new Poor Law. LIFEGtrAED, 1837 GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, THE COLONIES 5 The Stream of emigration had hardly yet begun to flow. Witness the following figures : The number of emigrants in 1820 was 18,984 „ 1825 8,860 „ 1832 103,311 „ „ 1837 72,034 It was not until 1841 that the great, flow of emi- grants began in the direction of New Zealand and Aus- tralia. The emigrants of 1832 chiefly went to Canada, and as yet the United States were practically unaffected by the rush from the old countries. The population of the great towns has for the most part doubled itself in the last fifty years. London had then a million and a half; Liverpool, 200,000; Man- chester, 250,000 ; Glasgow, 250,000 ; Birmingham, 150,000 ; Leeds, 140,000 ; and Bristol, 120,000. Penal settlements were still flourishing. Between 1825 and 1840, when they were suppressed, 48,712 convicts were sent out to Sydney. As regards travel- ling, the fastest rate along the high roads was ten miles an hour. There were 54 four-horse mail coaches in England, and 49 two-horse mails. In Ireland there were 30 four-horse coaches, and 10 in Scotland. There were 3,026 stage coaches in the country, of which 1,507 started from London. There were already 668 British steamers afloat, though the penny steamboat did not as yet ply upon the river. Heavy goods travelled by the canals and navio-able rivers, of which there were 4,000 in Great FIFTY YEARS AGO Britain ; the hackney coach, with its pair of horses, lumbered slowly along tlie street ; the cabriolet was the light vehicle for rapid conveyance, but it was not popular ; the omnibus had only recently been mtro- duced by Mr. Shillibeer ; and there were no hansom cabs. There was a Twopenny Post in London, but no Penny Post as yet. There was no Book Post, no Parcel Post, no London Parcels Deli very Company , If you wanted to send a parcel to anywhere in the country, you confided it to the guard of the coach ; if to a town ad- dress, there were street messengers and the 'cads' about the stage-coach stations ; there were no telegraphs, no telephones, no commissionaires. Fifty years ago the great railways were all begun, but not one of them was completed. A map published in the Athenoeum of January 23, 1836, shows the state of the railways at that date. The line between Liver- pool and Manchester was opened in September, 1830. In 1886 it was carrying 450,000 passengers in the year, and paying a dividend of 9 per cent. The line between Carlisle and Newcastle was very nearly completed ; that between Leeds and Selby was opened in 1834 ; there GENERAL POSTMAN GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, THE COLONIES 7 were many short lines in the coal and mining districts, and little bits of the great lines were already completed. The London and Greenwich line was begun in 1834 and opened in 1837. There were in progress the London and Birmingham, the Birmingham, Stafford, and War- rington, the Great Western as far as Bath and Bristol, and the London and Southampton passing through Basingstoke. It is amazing to think that Portsmouth, the chief naval port and place of embarkation for troops, was left out altogether. There were also a great many lines projected, which afterwards settled down into the present great Trunk lines. As they were projected in 1836, instead of Great Northern, North- western, and Great Eastern, we should have had one line passing through Saffron Walden, Cambridge, Peterborough, Lincoln, York, Appleby, and Carlisle, with another from London to Colchester, Ipswich, Norwich, and Yarmouth ; there was also a projected continuation of the GW.P. line from Bristol to Exeter, and three or four projected lines to Brighton and Dover. The writer of the article on the subject in the Athenceum of that date (January 23, 1836) considers that when these lines are completed, letters and passengers will be conveyed from London to Liverpool in ten hours. * Little attention,' he says, ' has yet been given to calcu- late the effects which must result from the establishment throughout the kingdom of great lines of intercourse traversed at a speed of twenty miles an hour.' Unfor- tunately he had no confidence in himself as a prophet, 8 FIFTY YEARS AGO or we might have had some curious and interesting forecasts. As regards the extent of the British Empire, there has been a very httle contraction and an enormous extension. We have given up the Ionian Islands to gratify the sentiment of Mr. Gladstone, and we have acquired Cyprus, which may perhaps prove of use. We have taken possession of Aden, at the mouth of the Eed Sea. In Hindostan, which in 1837 was still partially ruled by a number of native princes, the flag of Great Britain now reigns supreme ; the whole of Burma is now British Burma ; the little island of Hong Kong, which hardly appears in Arrowsmith's Atlas of 1840, is now a stronghold of the British Empire. Borneo, then wholly unknown, now belongs partially to us ; New Guinea is partly ours ; Fiji is ours. For the greatest change of all, however, we must look at the maps of Australia and New Zealand. In the former even the coast had not been completely surveyed ; Mel- bourne was as yet but a little unimportant township. Between Melbourne and Botany Bay there was not a single village, settlement, or plantation It was not until the year 1851, only thirty-six years ago, that Port Phillip was separated from New South Wales, and created an independent colony under the name of Victoria ; and for a few years it was a very rowdy and noisy colony indeed. In New South Wales, the population of which was about 150,000, convicts were still sent out. In GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, THE COLONIES 9 the year 1840, when the transportation ceased, 21,000 convicts were assigned to private service. There were in Sydney many men, ex-convicts, who had raised them- selves to wealth ; society was divided by a hard lines not to be crossed in that generation by those on the one side whose antecedents were honourable and those on the other who had ' served their time.' Tasmania was also still a penal colony, and, apparently, a place where the convicts did not do so well as in New South Wales. Queensland as a separate colony was not yet in exist- ence, though Brisbane had been begun ; tropical Aus- tralia was wholly unsettled ; Western Australia was, what it still is, a poor and thinly settled country. The map of New Zealand — it was not important enough to have a map all to itself — shows the coast-hne imperfectly surveyed, and not a single town or English settlement upon it ! Fifty years ago that great colony was not yet even founded. The first serious settlement was made in 1839, when a patch of land at Port Nicholson, in Cook Strait, was bought from the natives for the first party of settlers sent out by the recently established New Zealand Company. In North America the whole of the North-West Territory, including Manitoba, Muskoka, British Co- lumbia, and Vancouver's Island, was left to Indians, trappers, buffaloes, bears, and rattlesnakes. South Africa shows the Cape Colony and nothing else. Natal, Orange Free State, the Transvaal, Bechuanaland, Griqua- lo FIFTY YEARS AGO land, Zululand are all part of the great undiscovered continent. Considering that all these lands have now been opened up and settled, so that where was formerly a hundred square miles of forest and prairie there is now the same area covered with plantations, towns, and farms, it will be understood that the British Empire has been increased not only in area, but in wealth, strength, and resources to an extent which would have been con- sidered incredible fifty years ago. It is, in fact, just the difference between owning a barren heath and owning a cultivated farm. The British Empire in 1837 con- tained millions of square miles of barren heath and wild forest, which are now settled land and smiling planta- tions. It boasted of vast countries, with hardly a single European in them, which are now filled with English towns. In 1837, prophets foretold the speedy downfall of an Empire which could no longer defend her vast territories. These territories can now defend them- selves. It may be that we shall have to fight for empire, but the longer the day of battle is put off the better it will be for England, and the greater will be her might. To carry on that war, there are now, scattered over the whole of the British Empire, fifty millions of people speaking the Anglo-Saxon tongue. In fifty years' time there will be two hundred millions in Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, Africa, Asia, New Zealand, and the Isles, with another two hundred millions in the States. If the English-speaking races should decide to unite in a vast confederacy, all the GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, THE COLONIES ii other Powers on the earth combined will not be able to do them an injury. Perhaps after this life we shall be allowed to see what goes on in the world. If so, there is joy in store for the Briton ; if not, we have been born too soon. Next to the extension and development of the Empire comes the opening up of new countries. We have rescued since the year 1837 the third part of Africa from darkness ; we have found the sources of the Nile ; we have traced the great Eiver Congo from its source to its mouth ; we have explored the whole of Southern Africa ; we have rediscovered the great African lakes which were known to the Jesuits in the seventeenth century ; in Australia we have crossed and recrossed the continent ; the whole of North America has been torn from the Eed Indians, and is now settled in almost every part. If the progress of Great Britain has been great, that of the United States has been amazing. Along the Pacific shore, where were fifty years ago sand and rock and snow, where formerly the sluggish Mexican kept his ranch and the Eed Indian hunted the buffalo, great towns and American States now flourish. Arkansas and Missouri were frontier Western States ; Michigan was almost without settlers ; Chicago was a little place otherwise called Port Dearborn. The population of the States was still, except for the negroes, and a few de- scendants of Germans, Dutch, and Swedes, chiefly of pure British descent. As yet there were in America 12 FIFTY YEARS AGO few Irish, Germans (except in Pennsylvania), Nor- wegians, or Italians. Yet the people, much more than now our cousins, held little friendly feehng towards the NAPOLEOK AT LONGWOOD (From a Drawing made in 1820) Mother Country, and lacked the kindly sentiment which has grown up of late years ; they were quite out of touch with us, strangers to us, and yet speaking our GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, THE COLONIES 13 tongue, reading our literature, and governed by our laws. As soon as the battle of Waterloo was fairly fought and Napoleon put away at St. Helena, the Continental professors, historians, political students, and journalists all began with one accord to prophesy the approaching downfall of Great Britain, which some aflected to deplore and others regarded with complacency. Everything conspired, it was evident, not only to bring about this decline, but also to accelerate it. The parallel of Car- thage — England has always been set up as the second Carthage — was freely exhibited, especially in those countries which felt themselves called upon and quali- fied to play the part of Eome. It was pointed out that there was the dreadful deadweight of Ireland, with its incurable poverty and discontent; the approaching decay of trade, which could be only, in the opinion of these keen- sighted philosophers, a matter of a few years ; the enormous weight of the National Debt ; the ruined manufacturers ; the wasteful expenditure of the Govern- ment in every branch ; the corrupting influence of the Poor Laws ; the stain of slavery ; the restrictions of commerce ; the intolerance of the Church ; the narrow- ness and prejudice of the Universities ; the ignorance of the people ; their drinking habits ; the vastness of the Empire. These causes, together with discontent, chartism, repubhcanism, atheism — in fact, all the dis- agreeablisms — left no doubt whatever that England was doomed. Foreigners, in fact, not yet recovered from 14 FIFTY YEARS AGO the extraordinary spectacle of Great Britain's long duel with France and its successful termination, prophesied what they partly hoped out of envy and jealousy, and partly feared from self-interest. Therefore the poli- liONDON STREET CHAEACTEES, 1837 (From a Drawing by Johu Leech) ticians and professors were always looking at this country, writing about it, watcliing it, visiting it. No ; there could be no doubt ; none of these changes and danf]^ers could be denied ; the factories were choked with GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, THE COLONIES 15 excessive production ; poverty stalked through the country ; the towns were filled with ruined women ; the streets were cumbered with drunken men ; the children were growing up in ignorance and neglect in- conceivable ; what could come of all this but ruin? Even — and this was the most wonderful and incredible thing to those who do not understand how long a Briton will go on enduring wrongs and sufiering anomalies — the very House of Commons in this boasted land of freedom did not represent half the people, seats were openly bought and sold, others were filled with nomi- nees of the great men who owned them. What could possibly follow but ruin — swift and hopeless ruin ? What, indeed ? Prophets of disaster always omit one or two important elements in their calculations, and it is through these gaps that the people basely wriggle, instead of fulfilling prophecy as they ought to do. For instance, there is the recuperative power of Man, and there is his individuality. He may be full of moral disease, yet such is his excellent constitution that he presently recovers — he shakes off his evil habits as he shakes the snow ofi" his shoulders, and goes on an altered creature. Again, the mass of men may be in heavy case, but the individual man is patient ; he has strength to sufier and endure until he can pull through the worst ; he has patience to wait for better times ; difficulties only call forth his ingenuity and his resource : disaster stiffens his back, danger finds him brave. Always, to the prophet who knows not Man, the case 3 i6 FIFTY YEARS AGO is hopeless. Always, to one who considers that by gazing into the looking-glass, especially immediately before or after his morning bath, he may perceive his brother as well as himself, things are hopeful. My brother, have things, at your worst, ever been, morally, so bad with you that you have despaired of recovery, seeing that you had only to resolve and you were cured ? Have you ever reflected that while, to the outside world, to your maiden aunts and to your female GREAT CHEYNE ROW (The HousB in which Carlvle lived from 183i to his death in 1881) cousins, you were most certainly drifting to moral wreck and material ruin, you have gone about the world with a hopeful heart, feeling that the future w^as in your own grasp? Even now the outlook of the whole world is truly dark, and the clouds are lowering. Yet surely the outlook was darker, the clouds were blacker, fifty years ago. Eead Carlyle's ' Past and Present,' and compare. Tiiere may be other dangers before us of which we then suspected nothing. ■;/hf/fM^^/^ /V(/f-u^ /^^ 7. Ca^^e^ GREAT BRITAIN, IREIAND, THE COLONIES 17 But if we still preserve the qualities whicli enabled us to stand up, almost alone, against the colossal force of Napoleon, with Europe at his back, and which carried us through the terrible troubles which followed the war, we surely need not despair. THE DUCHESS OF KENT, WITH THE PRINCESS VICTORIA AT THE AOE OP TWO (From the Picture by Sir W. Beechey at Windsor Castle i8 FIFTY YEARS AGO CHAPTER II. THE YEAR 1837, WILLIAM IV. (From a Drawing by HB.) the Lord Mayor and period. The year 1837, except for the death of the old King and the accession of the young Queen, was a tolerably insignificant year. It was on June 20 that the King died. He was buried on the evening of July 9 at St. George's Chapel, Windsor ; on the 10th the Queen dissolved Parliament; on the loth she went to Buckingham Palace ; and on November 9 slie visited the City, where they gave her a magnificent banquet, served in Guildhall at half past five, the Lord Mayor and City magnates humbly taking their modest meal at a lower table. Both the hour appointed for the banquet and the humihty of Aldermen point to a remote THE YEAR 1837 19 The year began with the influenza. Everybody had it. The offices of the various departments of the Civil Service were deserted because all the clerks had influenza. Business of all kinds was stopped because merchants, clerks, bankers, and brokers all had influ- enza; at Woolwich fifty men of the Eoyal Artillery and Engineers were taken into hospital daily, with influenza. The epidemic seems to have broken out suddenly, and suddenly to have departed. Another important event of the year was the establishment of steam communication with India by way of the Eed Sea. The ' Atalanta ' left Bombay on October 2, and arrived at Suez on October 16. The mails were brought into Alexandria on the 20th, and despatched, such was the celerity of the authorities, on November 7 by H.M.S. ' Volcano.' They reached Malta on the 11th, Gibraltar on the 16th, and England on December 4, taking sixty days in all, of which, however, eighteen days were wasted in Alexandria, so that the possible time of transit from Bombay to England was proved to be forty-two days. This was the year of the Greenacre murder. The wretched man was under promise to marry an elderly woman, thinking she had money. One night, while they were drinking together, sh^ confessed that she had none, and had deceived him ; whereupon, seized with wrath, he took up whatever weapon lay to his hand, and smote her on the head so that she fell back- wards dead. Now mark: if this man had gone straight 3—2 20 FIFTY YEARS AGO to the nearest police-office, and confessed the crime of homicide, he would certainly have escaped hanging. But he was so horribly frightened at what had happened, that he tried to hide the thing by cutting up the body and bestowing the fragments in various places, all of them the most likely to be discovered. There was another woman in the case, proved to have been in his confidence, and tried with him, when all the pieces had been recovered, and the murder was brought home to him. He was found guilty and hanged. And never was there a hanging more numer- ously or more fashion- ably attended. The principal performer, however, is said to have disappointed his audience by a pusillanimous shrinking from the gallows when he was brought out. The woman was sent to Australia, where, perhaps, she still survives. There was also, this year, an extremely scandalous action in the High Court of Justice. It was a libel case brought by Lord de Eos, and arose out of a gam- PEELEK THE YEAR 1S37 21 bling quarrel, in which his lordship was accused of cheating at cards. It was said that, under pretence of a bad cough and asthma, he kept diving under the table and fishing up kings and aces, a thing which seems of elementary simplicity, and capable of clear denial. His lordship, in fact, did deny it, stoutly and on oath. Yet the witnesses as stoutly swore that he did do this thing, and the jury found that he did. Whereupon his lordship retired to the Continent, and shortly afterwards died, s.p.^ without ofispring to lament his errors. There was a terrible earthquake this year in the Holy Land. The town of Safed was laid in ruins, and more than four thousand of the people were killed. There was a project against the life of Louis-Philippe, by one Champion, who was arrested. He was base enough to hang himself in prison, so that no one ever knew if he had any accomplices. The news arrived also of a dreadful massacre in New Zealand. There was only one English settlement in the country ; it was at a place called Makuta, in the North Island, where a Mr. Jones, of Sydney, had a llax establishment, consisting of 120 people, men, women, and children. They were attacked by a party of 800 natives, and were all barbarously murdered. A fatal duel was fought on Hampstead Heath, near the Spaniards Tavern. The combatants were a Colonel Haring, of the Pohsh army, and another Polish officer, who was shot. The seconds carried him to the 22 FIFTY YEARS AGO Middlesex Hospital, wliere he died, and nothing more was said about it. The dangers of emigration were iUustrated by the voyage of the good ship ' Diamond,' of Liverpool. She had on board a party of passengers emigrating to New York. In the good old sailing days, the passengers THE SPAISIABDS TAVERN, HAMPSTEAD were expected to lay in their own provisions, the ship carrying water for them. Now the ' Diamond ' met with contrary winds, and was ninety days out, three times as long as was expected. The ship had no more than enough provisions for the crew, and when the passen- gers had exhausted their store their sufferings were terrible. ^^ f^s*- X*'**- XI m m H O I TJ > 3] 7; THE YEAR 1837 23 An embassy from the King of Madagascar arrived this year, and was duly presented at Court. I know not what business they transacted, but the fact has a certain interest for me because it was my privilege, about four-and-twenty years ago, to converse with one of the nobles who had formed part of that embassy, and who, after a quarter of a century, was going again on another mission to the Court of St. James. He was, when I saw him, an elderly man, dark of skin, but, being a Hova, most intelligent and well-informed ; also, being a Hova, anxious to say the thing which would please his hearers. He recalled many incidents connected with the long journey round the Cape in a sailing vessel, the crowds and noise of London, the venerable appearance of King William, and his general kindness to the ambassadors. When he had told us all he could recollect, he asked us if we should like to hear him sing the song which had beguiled many weary hours of his voyage. We begged him to sing it, expecting to hear something national and fresh, something redolent of the Mada- gascar soil, a song sung in the streets of its capital, An- tananarivo, perhaps with a breakdown or a walk round. Alas ! he neither danced a breakdown, nor did he walk round, nor did he sing us a national song at all. He only piped, in a thin sweet tenor, and very correctly, that familiar hymn ' Eock of Ages,' to the familiar tune. I have never been able to believe that this nobleman. His Excellency the Eight Honourable the Lord Eaini- feringalarovo. Knight of the Fifteen Honour, entitled 24 FIFTY YEARS AGO to wear a lamba as highly striped as the}^ are made, commonly reported to be a pagan, with several wives, really comforted his soul, Avhile at sea, with this hymn But he was with Christians, and this was a missionary's hvmn which he had often heard, and it would doubtless please us to hear it sung. Thereupon he sang it, and a dead silence fell upon us. Behold however, the SIB KOBEBT PEEL reason why the record of this simple event, the arrival of the embassy from Madagascar, strikes a chord in the mind of one at least who reads it. There is little else to chronicle in the year. The University of Dur- ham was founded : a truly brilliant success have they made of this learned foundation ! And Sir Eobert Peel was Rector of Glasgow University. For the rest, X m o I < m m -a c > I o r o > -< THE YEAR 1S37 25 boilers burst, coaches were upset, and many books of immense genius were produced, which now repose in the Museum. Yet a year which marked the close of one period and the commencement of another. The steamship ' Atalanta ' carrying the bags to Suez — what does this mean? The massacre in New Zealand of the only white men on the island — what does this portend? The fatal duel at Hampstead ; the noble lord convicted of cheating at cards ; the emigrant ship ninety days out with no food for the passengers — what are these things but illustrations of a time that has now passed away, the passage from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century ? For there are no longer any duels ; noble lords no longer gamble, unless they are very young and foolish ; ships no longer take passengers without food for them ; we have lessened the distance to India by three-fourths, measured by time ; and the Maoris will rise no more, for their land is filled with the white men. In that year, also, there were certain ceremonies observed which have now partly fallen into disuse. For instance, on Twelfth Day it was the custom * for confectioners to make in their windows a brave show of Twelfth-cakes ; it was also the custom of the public to flatten their noses against the windows and to gaze upon the treasures displayed to view. It was, further, the custom — one of the good old annual cus- toms, like beating the bounds — for the boys to pin 26 FIFTY YEARS AGO together those who were thus engaged by their coat- tails, shawls, skirts, sleeves, the ends of comforters, wrappers, and boas, and other outlying portions of raiment. When they discovered the trick — of course tliey only made pretence at being unconscious — by the rending, tearing, and destruction of their garments, they never failed to fall into ecstasies of (pretended) wrath, to the joy of the children, who next year re- A PAEISH BEADLE (From a Drawing by George Cruikshank in ' London Characters *) peated the trick with the same success I think there are no longer any Twelftli-cakes, and I am sure that "' the boys have forgotten that trick. On Twelfth Day the Bishop of London made an offering in the Chapel Eoyal of St. James's in com- memoration of the Wise Men from the East. Is that offering made still ? and, if so, what does his lordship offer? and with what prayers, or hopes, or expecta- tions, is that offering made ? CD m > H Z Q -I I m CD o c o to THE YJiAK 1837 27 At the commencement of Hilary Term the judges took breakfast with the Lord Chancellor, and after- wards drove in state to Westminster. On January 30, King Charles's Day, the Lords went in procession to Westminster Abbey and the Commons to St. Margaret's, both Houses to hear the Service of Commemoration. Where is that service now ? On Easter Sunday the Eoyal Family attended Divine Service at St. James's, and received the Sacrament. On Easter Monday the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, and Aldermen went in state to Christ Church, formerly the Church of the Grey Friars, and heard service. In the evening there was a great banquet, with a ball. A fatiguing day for my Lord Mayor. Easter Monday was also the day of the Epping Hunt. Greenwich Fair was held on that and the two following days. And in Easter week the theatres played pieces for children. On the first Sunday in Easter the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs went in state to St. Paul's, and had a banquet afterwards. On May Day the chimney-sweeps had their annual holiday. On Ascension Day they made a procession of parish functionaries and parochial schools, and beat the bounds, and, to mark them well in the memory of all, they beat the charity children who attended the beadle, and they beat all the boys they caught on the wa]^ and they banged against the boundaries all the strangers who 28 FIFTY YEARS AGO passed within their reach. When it oame to bancrincr the strangers, they had a high old time. On the Queen's Birthday there was a splendid pro- cession of stage coaches from Piccadilly to the Post Office. Lastly, on September 3, Bartholomew Fair was EVENING IN SMITHFIELD (Prom a Drawing made in 1858, at the gateway leading into Cloth Paii-, the place of proclamation of Bartholomew Fair) opened by the Lord Mayor, and then followed what our modern papers are wont to call a carnival, but what the papers of 1837 called, without any regard to pic- turesque writing, a scene of unbridled profligacy, licentiousness, and drunkenness, with fighting, both of CD > XI H X O r o m THE YEAR 1837 29 fists and cudgels, pumping on pickpockets, robbery and cheating, noise and shouting, the braying of trumpets and the banging of drums. If you want to know what this ancient fair was like, go visit the Agricultural Hall at Christmas. They have the foolish din and noise of it, and if the people were drunk, and there were no police, and everybody was ready and most anxious to fight, and the pickpockets, thieves, bullies, and black guards were doing what they pleased, you would have Bartholomew Fair complete. FIFTY YEARS AGO CHAPTER m. LONDON IN 1837. The extent of London in 1837, that is to say, of close and continuous London, may be easily understood by drawing on the map a red line a little above the south side of Regent's Park. This line must be prolonged west until it strikes the Edgware Road, and eastward until it strikes the Regent's Canal, after which it follows the Canal until it falls into the Regent's Canal Docks. This is, roughly speaking, the boundary of the great city on the north and east. Its western boundary is the lower end of the Edgware Road, Park Lane, and a line drawn from Hyde Park Corner to Westminster Bridge. The river is its southern boundary, but if you wish to include the Borough, there will be a narrow fringe on the south side. This was the whole of London proper, that is to say, not the City of London, or London with her suburbs, but continuous London. If you look at Mr Loftie's excellent map of London,^ showing the extent built upon at different periods, you will find a greater area than this ascribed to London at this period. That is because Mr. Loftie has chosen to include many parts which at this time were suburbs of one street, * Loftie's History of London. Stanford, 1884. LONDON IN 1837 31 straggling houses, with fields, nurseries, and market- gardens. Thus Kennington, Brixton, and Camberwell are included. But these suburban places were not in any sense part of continuous London. Open fields and gardens were lying behind the roads ; at the north end of Kennington Common — then a dreary expanse uncared for and down-trodden — lay open ponds and fields ; there were fields between VauxhalL Gardens and the Oval. If we look at the north of London, there were no houses round Prim- rose Hill ; fields stretched north and east ; to tlie west one or two roads were already pushing out, such as the Abbey Road and Avenue Eoad ; through the pleasant fields of Kil- burn, where still stood the pictur- esque fragments of Kilburn Priory, the Bayswater rivulet ran pleasantly ; it was joined by two other brooks, one rising in St. John's Wood, and flowincr throucrh what are now called Craven Gardens into tlie Serpentine. On Haverstock Hill were a few villas ; Chalk Farm still had its farm buildings ; Belsize House, with its park and lake, was the nearest house to Primrose Hill. A few houses showed the site of Kentish Town, while Camden Town was then a village, clustered about its High Street in the Hampstead Road. Even the York and Albany Tavern looked out back and front on fields ; Mornington Crescent gazed across its garden FIEEMAN 32 FIFTY YEARS AGO upon open fields and farms ; the great burial-ground of St. James's Church had fields at the back ; behind St. Pancras' Churchyard stretched ' Mr. Agar's Farm ; * IsKngton was httle more than a single street, with houses on either side ; Bagnigge Wells — it stood at the north-east of St. Andrew's Burying-ground in Gray's Inn Eoad — was still in full swing ; Hoxton had some of its old houses still standing, with the Haberdashers' Almshouses ; the rest was laid out in nurseries and gardens. King's Cross was Battle Bridge ; and Penton- ville was only in its infancy. Looking at this comparatively narrow area, consider the enormous growth of fifty years. What was Bow ? A little village. What was Stratford, now a town of 70,000 people? There was no Stratford. Bromley was a waste ; Dalston, Clapham, Hackney, Tottenham, Canonbury, Barnsbury — these were mere villages ; now they are great and populous towns. But perhaps the change is more remarkable still when one considers the West End. All that great cantlet lying between Mary- lebone Eoad and Oxford Street was then much in the same state as now, though with some difference in detail; thus, one is surprised to find that the south of Blandford Square was occupied by a great nursery. But west of Edgware Eoad there was next to nothing. Cdnnaught Square was already built, and the ground between the Grand Junction Eoad and the Bayswater Eoad was just laid out for building ; but the great burying-ground of St. George's, now hidden from view and built round. LONDON IN 1837 33 was in fields. The whole length of the Bayswater Road ran along market-gardens ; a few houses stood in St. Petersburg Place; Westbourne Green had hardly a cottage on it ; Westbourne Park was a green enclosure ; there were no houses on Notting Hill ; Campden Hill had only one or two great houses, and a field-path led pleasantly from Westbourne Green to the Kensington Gravel Pits. On the west and south-west the Neat Houses, with their gardens, occupied the ground west of Vauxhall Bridge. Earl's Court, with its great gardens and mound, stood in the centre of the now crowded and dreary suburb; south of the Park stood many great houses, such as Eutland House, now destroyed and replaced by terraces and squares. But though London was then so small compared with its present extent, it was already a most creditable city. Those who want more figures will be pleased to read that at the census of 1831 London contained 14,000 acres, or nearly twenty-two square miles. This area was divided into 153 parishes, con- taining 10,000 streets and courts and 250,000 houses. Its population was 1,646,288. Fifty years before it was half that number, fifty years later it was double that number. We may take the population of the year 1837 as two millions. More figures. There were 90,000 passengers across London Bridge every day, there were 1,200 cabriolets, 600 hackney coaches, and 400 omnibuses ; there were 30,000 deaths annually. The visitors every year were 34 FIFTY YEARS AGO estimated at 12,000. Among the residents were 130,000 Scotchmen, 200,000 Irish, and 30,000 French. These figures convey to my own mind very Kttle meaning, but they look big, and so I have put them down. Speaking roughly, London fifty years ago was twice as big as Paris is now, or the present New York. As for the buildings of Lon- don proper, fifty years have Avitnessed many changes, and have brought many losses — more losses, perhaps, than gains. The Eoyal Exchange, built by Edward Jerman in place of Sir Thomas Gresham's of 1570, was burnt to the ground on January 10, 1838. The present building, designed by Sir William Tite, was opened by the Queen HACKNEY COACHJIAN (From a Drawing by George Cruik- shank iu ' London Characters') THE FIKST LONDON EXCHANGE in person on October 28, 1844. Jerman's Exchange was a quadrangular building, with a clock-tower of timber LONDON IN 1837 35 on the Cornliill side. It had an inner cloister and a ' pawn,' or gallery, above for the sale of fancy goods. It was decorated by a series of statues of the Kings, from THE SECOND LONDON EXCHANGE Edward I. to Georsre V^ . Sion Collegfe, which until the r- ' other day stood in the street called London Wall, was THE PRESENT ROTAIj EXCHANGE (THIRD LONDON EXCHANGE) not yet wantonly and wickedly destroyed by those who should have been its natural and official protectors, the London clero-y. 36 I'lFrV YEARS AGO Things happen so quickly that one easily forgets ; yet let me pay a farewell tribute and drop a tear to the memory of the most delightful spot in the whole of London. The building was not of extreme age, but it stood upon the ancient site of Elsinge Spital, which itself stood upon the site of the old Cripple- gate Nunnery ; it was founded in 1623 by the will of one Dr. Thomas White, Vicar of St. Dunstan's-in- the-West ; the place was damaged by the Great Fire, and little of the building was older, I believe, than 1690, or thereabouts. But one stepped out of the noise and hurry of the very heart of London into a courtyard where the air was instantly hushed ; on the right hand were the houses of the almsmen and women, though 1 believe they had of late ceased to occupy them. Above the almshouses was the long narrow library crammed with books, the sight and fragrance of which filled the grateful soul with joy. On the left side of the court was the Hall used for meetings, and open all day to the London clergy for reading the magazines, reviews, and papers. A quiet, holy place. Fuller wrote his ' Church History ' in this college ; the illustrious Psalma- nazar wrote here his ' Universal History ' — it was after he repented of his colossal lies, and had begun to live cleanly. Two hundred and fifty years have witnessed a long succession of London clergymen, learned and devout most of them, reading in this library and meet- ing in this hall. Now it is pulled down, and a huge ware- house occupies its place. The London clergy them- LONDON IN 1837 37 I — selves, for the sake of gain, have sold it. And, as for the garish thing they have stuck up on the Embank- ment, they may call it what they like, but it is not Sion College. Another piece of wanton wickedness was the de- struction of Northumberland House. It is, of course, absurd to say that its removal was required. The re- moval of a great historic house can never be required. It was the last of the great houses, with the exception -if A, I — -.f««..m,™.i-,r.-iirg3jsj>s2==s^--*'~~J|l '■'v='«^>t'Sjg^ -^ r^^:ii5i^ -"^ia^^i .-^^^'Esr;: CHAKING CROSS IN THE PRESENT DAT of Somerset House, and that is nearly all modern, having been erected in 1776-17S6 on the site of the old palace. The Strand, indeed, is very much altered since the year 1837. At the west end the removal of Xorthum- berland House has been followed by the building of the 38 FIFTY YEARS AGO Grand Hotel, and the opening of the Northumberland Avenue : the Chariuir Cross Station and Hotel have been erected : two or three new theatres have been added : Temple Bar has been taken down — in any other country the old gate would have been simply left stand- ing, because it was an ancient historical monument ; they would have spared it and made a roadway oh either side ; the rookeries which formerly stood on the TEMPLE BAR north side close to the Bar have been swept away, and the Law Courts stand in their place — where the rooks are gone it is impossible to say. I myself dimly remember a labyrinth of lanes, streets, and courts on this site. They were inhabited, I believe, by low-class solicitors, money-lenders, racing and betting men, and by all kinds of adventurers. Did not Mr. Altamont have chambers here, when he visited Captain Costigan LONDON IN 1837 ' 39 in Lyons Inn ? Lyons Inn itself is pulled down, and on its site is the Globe Theatre. As for churches, there has been such an enormous increase of churches in the last fifty years, that it seems churlish to lament the loss of half a dozen. But this half-dozen belongs to the City : they were churches built, for the most part, by Wren, on the site of ancient churches destroyed in the Fire ; they were all hal- THE ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE lowed by old and sacred associations ; many of them were interesting and curious for their architecture : in a w^ord, they ought not to have been pulled down in order to raise hideous warehouses over their site. Greed of gain prevailed ; and they are gone. People found out that their number of worshippers was small, and argued that there was no longer any use for them. So 40 FIFTY YEARS AGO they are gone, and can never be replaced. As for their names, they were the churches of Allh allows, Broad Street ; St. Benet's, Gracechurch Street ; St. Dionis Backchurch ; St. Michael's, Queenhithe ; St. Antholin's, Budge Row ; St. Bene't Fink ; St. Mary Somerset ; St. Mary Magdalen ; and St. Matthew, Friday Street. The church of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, in which was the grave of Sir WiUiam Walworth, disappeared in the year 1831 ; those of St Bartholomew by Eastcheap, and of St. Christopher-le-Stock, which stood on either side of the Bank, were taken down in the years 1802 and 1781 respectively. The site of these old churches is generally marked by a small enclosure, grown over with thin grass, containing one, or at most two, tombs. It is about the size of a dining-room table, and you may read of it that tlie burying-ground of Saint So-and- so is still preserved. Indeed ! Were the City church- yards of such dimensions ? The ' preservation ' of the burial-grounds is like the respect which used to be paid to the First Day of the week in the early lustra of the Victorian Age by the tobacconist. He kept one shutter up. So the desecrators of the City churchyards, God's acre, the holy ground filled with the bones of dead citizens, measured off a square yard or tvro, kept one tomb, and built their warehouses over all the rest. All round London the roads were blocked everywhere by turnpikes. It is difficult to understand the annoy- ance of being stopped continually to show a pass or to pay the pike. Thus, there \vere two or three turnpikes LONDON IN 1837 41 in what is now called the Euston Road, and was then the New Eoad ; one of them was close to Great Portland Street, anotlier at Gow^er Street. At Battle Bridge, which is now King's Cross, there w^ere two, one on the east, and one on the west ; there was a pike in St. John Street, Clerkenwell. There were two in the City Road, LYONS INN IN IStJl (From an Engraring ia Herbert's 'History of the Inns of Court') and one in New North Road, Hoxton ; one at Shoreditch, one in Bethnal Green Road, one in Commercial Road. No fewer than three in East India Dock Road, three in the Old Kent Road, one in Bridge Street, Vauxhall ; one in Great Surrey Street, near the Obelisk ; one at Kenning- ton Church — what man turned of forty cannot remember 42 FIFTY YEARS AGO the scene at tlie turnpike on Derby Day, when hundreds of carriages would be stopped while the pikeman was fighting for his fee ? There was a turnpike named after Tyburn, close to Marble Arch ; another at the beginning of Kensington Gardens ; one at St. James's Church, Hampstead Road. Ingenious persons knew how to avoid the pike by making a long detour. The turnpike has gone, and the pikeman with his KENNINGTON GATE — DKRBY DAY apron has gone — nearly everybody's apron has gone too — and the gates have been removed. That is a clear gain. But there are also losses. What, for instance, has become of all the baths? Surely we have not, as a nation, ceased to desire cleanliness ? Yet in readingr the list of the London baths fifty years ago one cannot choose but ask the question. St. Annice-le-Clair used to be a medicinal spring, considered efficacious in LONDON IN 1837 43 rheumatic cases. Who stopped that spring and buih upon its site ? The Peerless Pool close beside it was the best swimming bath in all London. When was that filled up and built over ? Where are St. Chad's Wells now ? Formerly they were in Gray's Inn Pioad, near 'Battle Bridge,' which is now King's Cross, and their waters saved many an apothecary's bill. There ^^4^>^V K i w I THE OLD ROMAN BATH IN THE STRAND were swimming baths in Shepherdess Walk, near the almshouses. When were they destroyed ? There was another in Cold Bath Fields ; the spring, a remarkably cold one, still runs into a bath of marble slabs, repre- sented to have been laid for Mistress Nell Gwjame in the days of the Merry Monarch. Curiously, the list from which I am quoting does not mention the most 44 FIFTY YEARS AGO delightful bath of all— the old Roman Bath in the Strand. I remember making the acquaintance of this bath long ago, in the fifties, being then a student at King's. The water is icy cold, but fresh and bright, and always running. The place is never crowded ; hardly anybody seems to know that here, in the heart of London, is a monument of Eoman times, to visit which, if it were at Aries or Avignon, people would go all the way from London. Some day, no doubt, we shall hear that it has been sold and destroyed, like Sion College, and the spring built over. CHAPTER IV. IN THE STREET. Let us, friend Eighty-seven, take a walk down the Strand on this fine April afternoon of Thirty-seven. First, however, you must alter your dress a little. Put on this swallow-tail coat, with the high velvet collar — it is more becoming than the sporting coat in green bulging out over the hips ; change your light tie and masher collar for this beautiful satin stock and this double breastpin ; put on a velvet waistcoat and an under-waistcoat of cloth ; thin Cossack trousers with straps will complete your costume ; turn your shirt cuffs back outside the coat sleeve, carry your gloves in youi hand., and take your cane. You are now, dear Eighty-seveUj transformed into the dandy of fifty years ago, and will not excite any attention as we walk along the street. We will start from Charing Cross and will walk towards the City. You cannot remember, Eighty-seven, the King's Mews that stood here on the site of Trafalgar Square. When it is completed, with the National Gallery on the north side^ the monument and statue of Nelson, the fountains and statues that they talk about, there will be a very fine square. And we have cer- 46 FIFTY YEARS AGO tainlj got rid of a group of mean and squalid streets to make room for the square. It is lucky that they have left Northumberland House, the last of the great palaces that once Imed the Strand. LONDON STREET CHAKACTKllS, 1827 (From a Drawing by John Leecli) The Strand looks very much as it will in your time, though the shop fronts are not by any means so fine. There is no Charing Cross Station or Northumberland Avenue ; most of the shops have bow windows and IN THE STREET 47 there is no plate-glass, but instead, small panes such as you will only see here and there in your time. The people, however, have a surprisingly different appear- ance. The ladies, because the east wind is cold, still keep to their fur tippets, their thick shawls, and have their necks wrapped round witli boas, the ends of which hang down to their skirts, a fashion revived by THE king's mews IN l^a'-* (From a Print by I. Maurer) yourself; their bonnets are remarkable structures, like an ornamental coal-scuttle of the Thirty-seven, not the Eighty-seven, period, and some of them are of sur- prising dimensions, and decorated with an amazing pro- fusion of ribbons and artificial flowers. Their sleeves are shaped like a leg of mutton ; their shawls are like a dining-room carpet of the time — not like your dining-room carpet, Eighty-seven, but a carpet of 6 48 FIFTY YEARS AGO flaunting colour, crimson and scarlet which would o-ive you a headache. But the curls of the younger ladies are not without their charms, and their eyes are as bright as those of their grandchildren, are they not? Let us stand still awhile and watch the throng where the tide of life, as Johnson said, is the fullest. BARBACK AND OLD HOUSES ON THE SITE OP TKA.FAL6AE SQUARE (Prom a Drawing made by F. W. Fairholt in 1826) Here comes, with a roll intended for a military swagger, the cheap dandy. I know not wliat he is by trade ; he is too old for a medical student, not shabby enough for an attorney's clerk, and not respectable enough for a City clerk. Is it possible that he is a young gentleman of very small fortune which he is runninfT throuiih ? He wears a tall hat broader at the IN THE STREET 49 top than at the bottom, he carries white thread gloves, sports a cane, has his trousers tightly strapped, wears a tremendously high stock, with a sham diamond pin, a coat with a velvet collar, and a double-breasted waist- coat. His right hand is stuck — it is an ao-crressive attitude — in his coat-tail pocket. The little old gentle- man who follows him, in black shorts and white silk stockings, will be gone before your time ; so will .--.^ yonder still more ancient gentleman in powdered hair and pigtail who walks slowly along. Pigtails in your time will be clean forgotten as well as black silk shorts. Do you see that thin, spare gentleman in tlie cloak, riding slowly along the street followed by a mounted servant ? The people all take off their hats respectfully to him, and country folk gaze upon him curiously. That is the Duke. There is only one Duke to the ordinary Briton. It is the Duke with the hook nose — the Iron Duke — the Duke of WeUington. The new-fashioned cabriolet, with a seat at the side for the driver and a high hood for the fare, is light and swift, but it is not beautiful nor is it popular. The THE LAST CABEIOLET DRIVER (From tlie Drawing by George Cruikshank in ' Sketches by Boz ') 5° FIFTY YEARS AGO wheels are too high and the machine is too narrow. It is always upsetting, and bringing its passengers to grief. Here is one of the new pohce, with blue swallow- tail coat tightly buttoned, and white trousers. They are reported to be mightily unpopular with the light- fingered gentry, with whose pursuits they are always interfering in a manner unknown to the ancient Charley. Here comes a gentleman, darkly and mysteriously clad in a fur-lined cloak, fastened at his neck by a brass buckle, and falling to his feet, such a cloak as in your time will only be used to enwrap the villains in a burlesque. But here no one takes any notice of it. There goes a man who may have been an ofl[icer, an actor, a literary man, a gambler — anything ; whatever he was, he is now broken-down — his face is pale, his gait is shuffling, his elbows are gone, his boots are giving at the toes, and— see— the stout red-faced man with the striped waistcoat and the bundle of seals hanging at his fob has tapped him on the shoulder. That is a sheriff's ofiicer, and he will now be conducted, after certain formahties, to the King's Bench or the Fleet, and in this happy retreat he will probably pass the remainder of his days. Here comes a middle-aged gentleman who looks almost like a coachman in his coat with many capes and his purple cheeks. That is the famous coaching baronet, than whom no better w^hip has ever been seen upon the road. Here come a IN THE STREET 51 pair of young bloods who scorn cloaks and greatcoats. How bravely do they tread in their tight trousers, bright-coloured waistcoats, and high satin stocks ! with what a jaunty air do they tilt their low-crowned hats over their long and waving locks — you can smell the bear's grease across the road ! with what a flourish do they bear their canes ! Here comes swaggering along the pavement a military gentleman in a coat much be- frogged. He has the appearance of one who knows Chalk Farm, which is situated among meadows where the morning air has been known to prove suddenly fatal to many gallant gentlemen. How he swings his shoulders and squares his elbows ! and how the peaceful passengers make room for him to pass ! He is, no doubt, an old Peninsular ; there are still many like unto him ; he is the rufiling Captain known to Queen EUza- beth's time ; in the last century he took the wall and shoved everybody into the gutter. Presently he will turn into the Cigar Divan — he learned to smoke cigars in Spain — in the rooms of what was once the Repository of Art ; we breathe more freely when he is gone. Here comes a great hulking sailor ; his face beams with honesty, he rolls in his gait, he hitches up his wide trousers, he wears his shiny hat at the back of his head ; his hair hangs in ringlets ; he chews a quid ; under his arm is a parcel tied in red bandanna. He looks as if he were in some perplexity. Sighting one who appears to be a gentleman recently from the country, he bears down upon him. 52 FIFTY YEARS AGO ' Noble captain,' he wliispers hoarsely, ' if yon like, here's a chance that doesn't come everyday. For whyP I've got to go to sea again, and though they're smuggled — I smuggled them myself, your honour — and worth their weight in gold, you sliall have the box for thirty shiliin'. Say the word, my cap- tain, and come round the corner with me.' Honest tar ! Shall we meet him to-morrow with another parcel tied in the same ban- danna, his face screwed up with the same perplexity and anxiety to get rid of his valu- able burden? You yourself, Eighty-seven, will have your A GRKENWICH PENSIONEK (From a Drawing by George Cruik- shauk in ' London Characters '> confidence trick. your rmff- dropper, your thimble- an d-pea, your fat partridge-seller, even though the bold smuggler be no more. In the matter of street music we of Thirty-seven are perhaps in advance of you of Eighty- seven. We have not, it is true, the pianoforte-organ, but we have al- ready the other two varieties — the Eiimbling Droner and the Light Tinkler. We have not yet the street nigger, or the banjo, or the band of itinerant blacks, or Christy's Minstrels. The negro minstrel does not exist in any form. But the ingenious Mr. Eice is at this very moment studying the plantation songs of IN THE STREET 53 South Carolina, and we can already witness his humor- ous personation of ' Jump, Jim Crow,' and his pathetic ballad of ' Lucy JSTeal.' (He made his first appearance at the Adelphi as Jim Crow in 1836.) We have, like you, the Christian family in reduced circumstances, creeping slowly, hand in hand, along the streets, sing- ing a hymn the while for the consolation it affords. They have not yet invented Moody and Sankey, and therefore they cannot sing ' Hold the Fort ' or ' Dare to be a Daniel,' but there are hymns in every collection •t- ^D AN OMNIBUS UPSET (From Cruiksliiuik's ' Comic Almanack') which suit the Gridler. We have also the ballad- singer, who warbles at the door of the gin-palace. His favourite song just now is ' All round my Hat.' We have the lady (or gentleman) who takes her (or his) place upon the kerb witli a guitar, adorned with red ribbon, and sings a sentimental song, such as ' Speed on, my Mules, for Leila waits for me,' or ' Gaily the Troubadour ; ' there is the street seller of ballads at a penny each, a taste of which he gives the delighted listener ; there are the horns of stage -coach and of 54 FIFTY YEARS AGO omnibus, blown with zeal ; there is the bell of the crier, exercised as religiously as that of the railway-porter ; the Pandean pipes and the drum walk, not only with Punch, but also with the dancing bear. The perform- ing dogs, the street acrobats, and the fantoccini ; the KXETER CHANGE noble Highlander not only stands outside the tobac- conist's, taking a pinch of snuff, but he also parades the street, blowing a most patriotic tune upon his bag- pipe ; the butcher serenades his young mistress with the cleaver and the bones ; the Italian boy delights all the ears of those who hear with his hurdy-gurdy. IN THE STREET 55 Here comes the Paddington omnibus, the first omni- bus of all, started seven years ago by Mr. Shillibeer, the father of all those which have driven the short stages off the road, and now ply in every street. You will not fail to observe that the knifeboard has not yet been in- vented. There are twelve passengers inside and none out. The conductor is already remarkable for his truthfulness, his honesty, and his readiness to take up any lady and to deposit her within ten yards of wher- ever she wishes to be. The fare is sixpence, and you must wait for ten years before you get a twopenny 'bus. Now let us resume our walk. The Strand is very little altered, you think. Already Exeter Change is gone ; Exeter Hall is already built ; the shops are less splendid, and plate glass is as yet unknown ; in Holy- well Street I can show you one or two of the old signs still on the house walls ; Butcher Eow, behind St. Cle- ment Danes, is pulled down and the street widened ; on the north side there is standing a nest of rookeries and mean streets, where you will have your Law Courts ; here is Temple Bar, which you will miss ; close to Temple Bar is the little fish shop which once belonged to Mr. Crockford, the proprietor of the famous club ; the street messengers standing about in their white aprons will be gone in your time ; for that matter, so will the aprons ; at present every other man in the street wears an apron. It is a badge of his rank and station ; the apron marks the mechanic or the servin""- 5<5 FIFTY YEARS AGO man ; some wear white aprons and some wear leather aprons ; I am afraid you will miss the apron. Fleet Street is much more picturesque than the 'VAVX.Vr§i^rx^.^K^SJfnV': • ~ THE PARISH ENGINE (From a Drawing by George Cruikshauk in Sketches by Boz ') Strand, is it not? Even in your day, Eighty-seven, when so many old houses will have perished, Fleet Street will still be the most picturesque street in all London. m m tn H 33 m m a: O o CD I m -c-iyr-i ■c^ AT THE FLAY AND THE SHOW 129 the Haymarket they had Farren, Webster, Buckstone, Mrs. Glover, and Mrs. Humby. At the Olympic, Ellis- ton, Liston, and Madame Vestris. Helen Faiicit made her first appearance in 1835 ; Miss Fanny Kemble hers in 1830. Charles Mathews, Harley, Macready, and Charles Kean were all playing. I hardly think that in fifty years' time so good a fist will be made of actors of the present day whose memory has lasted so long as those of 1837. The salaries of actors and singers varied greatly, of course. Malibran received 125Z. a niglit, Charles Kean 50/. a night, Macready 30^ a week, Farren 20/. a week, and so on, down to the humble chorister — they then called her a figurante — with her 125. or I85. a week. As for the national drama, I suppose it had never before been in so wretched a state. Talfourd's play of ' Ion ' was produced about this time ; but one good play — supposing ' Ion ' to be a good play — is hardly enough to redeem the character of the age There were also tragedies by Miss Mitford and Miss Baillie — strange that no woman has ever written even a tolerable play — but these failed to keep the stage. One Mr. Maturin, now dying out of recollection, also wrote tragedies. The comedies and farces were written by Planche, Reynolds, Peake, Theodore Hook, Dibdin, Leman Eede, Poole, Maddison Morton, and MoncriefF. A really popular writer, we learn with envy and astonishment, would make as much as 30/., or even 40/., by a good piece. Think of making 30/. or 40/. by a good piece at the 130 FIFTY YEARS AGO .^^■ theatre ! Was not that noble encouragement for the playwrights ? Thirty pounds for one piece ! It takes one's breath away. Would not Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Wills, and Mr. George Sims be proud and happy men if they could get 30/. — a whole lump of 30/. — for a single piece ? We can ima- gine the tears of joy running down their cheeks. The decline of the drama was attributed by Kilumer to the entire absence of any protec- tion for the dramatist. This is no doubt partly true ; but the dramatist was protected, to a certain extent, by the difficulty of getting copies of his work. Shorthand writers used to try — they still try — to take down, unseen, the dialogue. Generally, however, they are detected in the act and desired to withdraw. As a rule, if the dramatist did not print the plays, he was safe, except from treachery on the part of the prompter. The low prices paid for dramatic work were the chief causes of the decline — say, rather, the dreadful decay, dry rot, and galloping consumption — of the drama fifty years ago. Who, for instance, would ever expect good fiction to be produced if it was ■« AT THE PLAY AND THE SHOW 131 rewarded at the rate of no more than 30/., or even 300/., a novel ? Great prizes are incentives for good work. Good craftsmen will no longer work if the pay is bad ; or, if they work at all, they will not throw their hearts into the work. The great success of Walter Scott was the cause wliy Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Charles Eeade, and the many second-rate novelists chose fiction rather than the drama for their energies. One or two of them, Dickens and Reade, for instance, were always hankerincr after the stase. Had dramatists received the same treatment in England as in France, many of these writers would have seriously turned their attention to the theatre, and our modern dramatic literature would have been as rich as our work in fiction. The stage now offers a great fortune, a far greater fortune, won much more swiftly than can be got by fiction, to those who succeed. As for the pieces actually produced about this period, they were chiefly adaptations from novels. Thus, we find ' Esmeralda ' and ' Quasimodo,' two plays from Victor Hugo's ' Hunchback of Notre Dame ; ' * Lucillo,' from ' The Pilgrims of the Rhine,' by Lytton ; Bulwer, indeed, was continually being dramatised ; ' Paul Clifford ' and 'Rienzi,' among others, making their appear- ance on the stage. For other plays there were ' Zampa ' or ' The Corsair,' due to Byron ; ' The Waterman,' ' The Irish Tutor,' ' My Poll and my Partner Joe,' with T. P. Cooke, at the Surrey Theatre. The comedy of the time is very well illustrated by Lytton's * Money,' stagey and 132 FIFTY YEARS AGO unreal. The scenery, dresses, and general mise- en-scene would now be considered contemptible. Apart from the Italian Opera, music was very well supported. There were concerts in great numbers : the Philharmonic, the Vocal Society, and the Royal Academy of Music gave their concerts at the King's Ancient Con- cert Eooms, Han- over Square. Willis's Rooms were also used for music ; and the Cecilia Society gave its concerts in Moor- gate Street. There were many other shows, apart from the well-known sights of town. Madame Tussaud's Gallery in Baker Street, the Hippo- drome at Bayswater, the Colosseum, the Diorama in Regent's Park, the Panorama in Leicester Square — where you could see ' Peru and the Andes, or the Village engulfed by the Avalanche ' — and the Panorama in Regent Street attracted the less frivolous and those T. P. COOKE IX ' BLACK-EYED SUSAN ' AT THE FLAY AND THE SHOW 133 who came to town for the improvement of their minds. For Londoners themselves there were the Vauxhall Gardens first and foremost — the most dehghtful places of amusement that London ever possessed except, perhaps, Belsize. Everybody went to Vauxhall ; those who were respectable and those who were not. Far more beautiful than the electric lights in the Gardens VAUXHALL GAKDENS of the ' Colonies ' were the two hundred thousand variegated oil lamps, festooned among the trees of Vauxhall ; there was to be found music, singing, act- ing, and dancing. Hither came the gallant and golden youth from the West End ; here were seen sober and honest merchants with their wives and daughters ; here were ladies of doubtful reputation and ladies about whose reputation there could be no doubt ; here there 134 FIFTY YEARS AGO were painted arbours wliere they brought you the famous Vauxhall ham — ' shced cobwebs; 'the famous Vauxhall beef — ' book musUn, pickled and boiled ; ' and the famous Vauxhall punch — Heavens ! how the honest folk did drink that punch ! I have before me an account of an evening spent at Vauxhall about this time by an eminent drysalter of the City, his partner, a certain Tom, and two ladies, the dry- salter's wife and his daughter Lydia ; ' a laughter-loving lass of eighteen, who dearly loved a bit of gig.' Do you know, gentle reader, what is a ' bit of gig ' ? This young lady laughs at everything, and cries, ' What a bit of gig ! ' There was singing, of course, and after the singing there were fireworks, and after the fireworks an ascent on the rope. ' The ascent on the rope, which Lydia had never before witnessed, was to her particularly mteresting. For the first time during the evening she looked serious, and as the mingled rays of the moon (then shining gloriously in the dark blue heavens, attended by her twinkling handmaidens, the stars), which ever and anon shot down as the rockets mounted upwards, mocking the mimic pyrotechnia of man, and the flashes of red fire played upon her beautiful white brow and ripe lips — blushing like a cleft cherry — we thought for a moment that Tom was a happy blade. While we were gazing on her fine face, her eye suddenly assumed its wonted levity, and she exclaimed in a laughing tone — " Now, if the twopenny postman of the rockets were to mistake one of the directions and dehver it among the AT THE FLAY AND THE SHOW 135 crowd so as to set fire to six or seven muslin dresses, what a bit of gig it would be ! " * Another delightful place was the Surrey Zoological Gardens, which occupied fifteen acres, and had a large lake in the middle, very useful for fireworks and the showing off of the Mount Vesuvius they stuck up on one side of it. The carnivorous animals were kept in a single building, under a great glazed cupola, but the elephants, bears, monkeys, &c., had separate buildings of their own. Flower shows, balloon ascents, fireworks, and all kinds of exciting things went on at the Surrey Zoo. The Art Galleries opened every year, and, besides the National Gallery, there were the Society of British Artists, the Exhibition of Water Colours, and the British Institution in Pall Mall. At the Eoyal Academy of 1837, Turner exhibited his 'Juliet,' Etty a ' Psyche and Venus,' Landseer a 'Scene in Ohillingham Park,' Wilkie the ' Peep 0' Day Boy's Cabin,' and Eoberts the ' Chapel of Ferdinand and Isabella at Granada.' There were Billiard Eooms, where a young man from the country who prided himself upon his play could get very prettily handled. There were Cigar Divans, but as yet only one or two, for the smoking of cigars was a comparatively new thing — in fact, one who wrote in the year 1829 thought it necessary to lay down twelve solemn rules for the right smoking of a cigar ; there were also Gambling Hells, of which more anon. 13 136 FIFTY YEARS AGO Fifty years ago, in short, we amused ourselves very well. We were fond of shows, and there were plenty of them ; we liked an al fresco entertainment, and we could have it ; we were not quite so picksome in the matter of company as we are now, and therefore we endured the loud vulgarities of the tradesman and his family, and shut our eyes when certain fashionably dressed ladies passed by showing their happiness by the loudness of their laughter ; we even sat with our daughter in the very next box to that in which young Lord Tomnoddy was entertaining these young ladies with cold chicken and pink champagne. It is, we know, the privilege of rank to disregard morals in public as well as in private. Then we had supper and a bowl of punch, and so home to bed. Those who are acquainted with the doings of Corin- thian Tom and Bob Logic are acquainted with the Night Side of London as it was a few years before 1837. Suffice it to say that it was far darker, far more vicious, far more dangerous fifty years ago than it is now. Heaven knows that we have a Night Side still, and a very ugly side it is, but it is earlier by many hours than it used to be, and it is comparatively free from gambling-houses, from bullies, blackmailers, and sharks. CHAPTER DC. IN THE HOUSE. On November 20, 1837, the young Queen opened her first Parliament in person. The day was brilhant with sunshine, the crowds from Buckingham Palace to the House were immense, the House of Lords was crammed with Peers and the gallery with Peeresses, who oc- cupied every seat, and even ' rushed ' the reporters' gallery, three reporters only having been fortunate enough to take their places before the rush.^ When Her Majesty arrived and had taken her place, there was the rush from the Lower House. ' Her Majesty having taken the oath against Popery, which she did in a slow, serious, and audible manner, proceeded to read the Royal Speech ; and a specimen of more tasteful and effective elocution it has never been my fortune to hear. Her voice is clear, and her enunciation distinct in no ordinary degree. Her utter- ance is timed with admirable judgment to the ear : it is the happy medium between too slow and too rapid. ' I am indebted for the whole of this chapter to Random Recollections 0/ the Lords and Commons, 1838. 138 FIFTY YFARS AGO Nothing could be more accurate than her pronuncia- tion ; while the musical intonations of her voice im- parted a pecuhar charm to the other attributes of her THE * KEW ' HOUSES OF PAELLUIEXT, FBOM THE RIVER (First stone laid 1840. Sir Charles Barry, architect) IN THE HOUSE 139 elocution. The most perfect stillness reigned through the place while Her Majesty was reading her Speech. Not a breath was to be heard : had a person, unblessed with the power of vision, been suddenly taken within hearing of Her Majesty, while she was reading her Speech, he might have remained some time under the impression that there was no one present but herself. Her self-possession was the theme of universal admira- tion. * In person Her Majesty is considerably below the average height. Her figure is good ; rather inclined, as far as one could judge from seeing her in her robes of state, to the slender form. Every one who has seen her must have been struck with her singularly fine bust. Her complexion is clear, and has all the indica- tions of excellent health about it. Her features are small, and partake a good deal of the Grecian cJist. Her face, without being strikingly handsome, is remark- ably pleasant, and is indicative of a mild and amiable disposition.' In the House of Lords the most prominent figures were, I suppose, those of Lord Brougham and the Duke of Wellington. The debates in the Upper House, enlivened by the former, and by Lords Melbourne, Lyndhurst, and others, were lively and animated, com- pared with the languor of the modern House. The Duke of Eutland, the Marquis of Bute, the Marquis of Camden (who paid back into the Treasury every year the salary he received as Teller of the Exchequer), the 140 FIFTY YEARS AGO Earls of Stanhope, Devon, Falmouth, Lords Strangford, Eolls, Alvanley, and Eedesdale were the leaders of the Conservatives. The Marquis of Sligo, the Marquis of Northampton, the Earls of Eosebery, Gosford, Minto, Shrewsbury, and Lichfield, Lords Lynedoch and Portman were the leaders of the Liberals. With the LORD MELBOUBNE exceptions of Wellington, Brougham, Melbourne, and Eedesdale, it is melancholy to consider that these illustrious names are nothing? more than names, and convey no associations to the present generation. Among^ the members of the Lower House were many more who have left behind them memories w^hich are not likely to be soon forgotten. Sir Eobert Peel, IN THE HOUSl 141 Loi'd Stanley, Thomas Macaulay, Cobbett, Lord John Russell, Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Lord Palmerston, Sir Francis Burdett, Hume, Roebuck, O'Connell, Lytton Bulwer, Benjamin DTsraeli, and last sole survivor, William Ewart Gladstone, were all in the Parliaments THOMAS BABINGTON JIACAULAY immediately before or immediately after the Queen's Accession. If you would like to know how these men impressed their contemporaries, read the following extracts from Grant's ' Random Recollections.' ' Mr. Thomas Macaulay, the late member for Leeds, and now a member of Council in Lidia, could boast of 142 FIFTY YEARS AGO a brilliant, if not a very long Parliamentary career. He was one of those men who at once raised himself to the first rank in the Senate. His maiden speech elec- trified the House, and called forth the highest com- pliments to the speaker from men of all parties. He was careful to preserve the laurels he had thus so easily and suddenly won. He was a man of shrewd LOKD PALMEESTON mind, and knew that if he spoke often, the probability was he would not speak so well ; and that consequently there could be no more likely means of lowering him from the elevated station to which he had raised him- self, than frequently addressing the House. 'His speeches were always most carefully studied, and committed to memory, exactly as he dehvered IN THE HOUSE 143 them, beforehand. He bestowed a world of labour on their preparation ; and, certainly, never was labour BUBDETT, HUME, AND o'CONNELL (From a Drawing bj' IB.) bestowed to more purpose. In every sentence you saw the man of genius — the profound scholar — the deep 144 FIFTY YEARS AGO thinker — the close and powerful reasoner. You scarcely knew which most to admire — the beauty of his ideas, or of the language in which they were clothed.' ' Lord John Eussell is one of the worst speakers in the House, and but for his excellent private character, his family connections, and his consequent influence in the pohtical world, would not be tolerated. There are many far better speakers, who, notwithstanding their innumerable efforts to catch the Speaker's eye in the course of important debates, hardly ever succeed ; or, if they do, are generally put down by the clamour of honourable members. His voice is weak and his enunciation very imperfect. He speaks in general in so low a tone as to be inaudible to more than one-half of the House. His style is often in bad taste, and he stammers and stutters at every fourth or fifth sentence. When he is audible he is always clear ; there is no mistaking his meaning. Generally his speeches are feeble in matter as well as manner ; but on some great occasions I have knoAvn him make very able speeches, more distinguished, however, for the clear and forcible way in which he put the arguments which would most naturally suggest themselves to a reflecting mind, than for any striking or comprehensive views of the sub ject.' ' Of Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary, and member for Tiverton, I have but little to say. The situation he fills in the Cabinet gives him a certain degree of prominence in the eyes of the country, which [N THE HOUSE 145 he certainly does not possess in Parliament. His talents are by no means of a high order. He is very irregular in his attendance on his Parliamentary duties, and, when in the House, is by no means active in defence either of his principles or his friends. Scarcely anything calls him up except a regular attack on him- self, or on the way in which the department of the public service Avith which he is entrusted is ad- ministered. * In person, Lord Palmerston is tall and handsome. His face is round, and is of a darkish hue. His hair is black, and always exhibits proofs of the skill and attention of the perruquier. His clothes are in the extreme of fashion. He is very vain of his personal appearance, and is generally supposed to devote more of his time in sacrificing to the Graces than is consistent with the duties of a person who has so much to do with the destinies of Europe. Hence it is that the " Times " newspaper has fastened on him the sobriquet of Cupid.' 'Mr. O'Connell is a man of the highest order of genius. There is not a member in the House who, in this respect, can for a moment be put in comparison with him. You see the greatness of his genius in almost every sentence he utters. There are others — Sir Eobert Peel, for example — who have much more tact and greater dexterity in debate ; but in point of genius none approach to him. It ever and anon bursts forth with a brilliancy and effect which are quite over- whelming. You have not well recovered from the 14 146 FIFTY YEARS AGO overpowering surprise and admiration caused by one of his brilliant effusions, when another flashes upon you and produces the same effect. You have no time, nor are you in a condition, to weigh the force of his arguments ; you are taken captive wherever the speaker chooses to lead you from beginning to end.' . BYBON The drop in poetry was even more terrible than that of novels. Suddenly, and without any warning, the people of Great Britain left off reading poetry. To be sure, they had been flooded with a prodigious quantity of trash. One anonymous ' popular poet,' whose name will never now be recovered, received 100/. for his last poem from a publisher who thought, no doubt, that the WITH THE WITS 191 ' boom ' was going to last. Of this popular poet's work he sold exactly fifty copies. Another, a ' humorous ' bard, who also received a large sum for his immortal poem, showed in the unhappy pubhsher's books no more than eighteen copies sold. This was too ridiculous, and from SIB WALTER SCOTT that day to this the trade side of poetry has remained under a cloud. That of novelist has, fortunately for some, been redeemed from contempt by the enormous success of Dickens, Thackeray , George Eliot, and by the solid, though substantial, success of the lesser lights. Poets have now to pay for the publication of their own works, but nove- 192 FIFTY YEARS AGO lists — some of them — command a price ; those, namely, who do not have to pay for the production of their works. The popular taste, thus cloyed with novels and poetry, turned to books on popular science, on statistics, on health, and on travel. Barry Cornwall's ' Life of Kean,' Campbell's ' Life of Siddons,' the Lives of Sale, Sir Thomas Picton, and Lord Exmouth, for example, were all well received. So Eoss's ' Arctic Seas,' Lamar- tine's ' Pilgrimage,' Macfarlane's ' Travels in the East,' Holman's ' Round the World,' and Quin's 'Voyage down the Danube,' all commanded a sale of 1,000 copies each at least Works of religion, of course, always suc- ceed, if they are written with due regard to the rehgious leaning of the moment. It shows how religious fash- ions change when we find that the copyright of the works of Robert Hall realised 4,000/. and that of Charles Simeon's books 5,000/. ; while of the Rev. Alexander Fletcher's ' Book of Family Devotions,' published at 245., 2,000 copies were sold on the day of publication. I dare say the same thing would happen again to-day if another Mr. Fletcher were to hit upon another happy thought in the way of a rehgious book. I think that one of the causes of the decay of trade as regards poetry and fiction may have been the bad- ness of the annuals. You will find in any old-fashioned library copies of the ' Keepsake,' the ' Forget-me-Not,' the ' Book of Beauty,' ' Flowers of Loveliness,' Finden's * Tableaux,' 'The Book of Gems,' and others of that now extinct tribe. They were beautifully printed on the XI m > o o I o z o c 33 - ' ^^,1^ -^s^'t WITH THE WITS 193 finest paper ; they were illustrated with the most lovely steel engravings, the like of which could not now be A FASHIOXABLK BKALTY OF 1837 (By A. E. Chalon, R.A.) had 'at any price; they were bound in brown and crimson watered silk, most fascinationg to look upon ; and 194 FIFTY YEARS AGO they were published at a guinea. As for their contents, they were, to begin with, written ahnost entirely by ladies and gentlemen with handles to their names, each number containing in addition two or three papers by commoners — mere literary commoners — just to give a flavouring of style. In the early Thirties it was fashion- able for lords and ladies to dash off these trifles. Byron was a gentleman ; Shelley was a gentleman ; nobody else, to be sure, among the poets and wits was a gentle- man — yet if Byron and Shelley condescended to bid for fame and bays, why not Lord Eeculver, Lady Juliet de Dagenham, or the Hon. Lara Clonsilla? I have before me the 'Keepsake ' for the year 1831. Among the authors are Lord Morpeth, Lord Nugent, Lord Por- chester, Lord John Eussell, the Hon. George Agar Ellis, the Hon. Henry Liddell, the Hon. Charles Phipps, the Hon. Eobert Craddock, and the Hon. Grantley Berkeley. Among the ladies are the Countess of Blessington, *L. E. L.,' and Agnes Strickland. Theodore Hook supplies the professional part. The illustrations are engraved from pictures and drawings by Eastlake, Corbould, Westall, Turner, Smirke, Flaxman, and other great artists. The result, from the literary point of view, is a collection much lower in point of interest and abihty than the worst number of the worst shillinji maj^azine of the present day. I venture to extract certain immortal lines contributed by Lord John Eussell, who is not gene- rally known as a poet. They are ' written at Kinneil, the residence of the late Mr. Dugald Stewart.' ^^^2. -v*^?^=:^<-^ WITH THE WITS 195 To distant worlds a guide amid the night, To nearer orbs the source of life and light ; Each star resplendent on its radiant throne Gilds other systems and supports its own. Thus we see Stewart, in his fame reclined, Enlighten all the universe of mind ; To some for wonder, some for joy appear, Admired when distant and beloved when near. 'Twas he gave rules to Fancy, grace to Thought, Taught Virtue's laws, and practised what he taught. Dear me ! Something similar to the last line one remembers written by an earlier bard. In the same way Terence has been accused of imitating the old Eton Latin Grammar. Somewhere about the year 1837 the world began to kick at the ' Keepsakes," and they gradually got ex- tinguished. Then the lords and the countesses put away their verses and dropped into prose, and, to the infinite loss of mankind, wrote no more until editors of great monthlies, anxious to show a Hst of illustrious names, beoan to ask them attain. As for the general literature of the day, there must have been a steady demand for new works of all kinds, for it was estimated that in 1836 there were no fewer than four thousand persons living by literary work. Most of them, of course, must have been simple publishers' hacks. But seven hundred of them in London were journalists. At the present day there are said to be in London alone fourteen thousand men and women who live by writing. And of this number I should think that thirteen thousand are in some way or other con- 196 FIFTY YEARS AGO nected with journalism. Publishers' hacks still exist — that is to say, the unhappy men who, without genius or natural aptitude, or the art of writing pleasantly, are eternally engaged in compiling, stealing, arranging, and putting together books which may be palmed offuj^on an uncritical pubHc for prize books and presents. But they are far fewer in proportion than they w^ere, and perhaps the next generation may live to see them extinct. What did they write, this regiment of 3,300 litterateurs ? Novehsts, as we have learned, had fallen -^—. -,—— ^ upon evil times ; poetry was I jalpll^ . I what it still continues to be, a drug in tlie market ; but there was the whole range of the sciences, there were morals, theology, education, travels, biography, liistory, the literature of Art in all its branches, archaeology, an- (From the Picture by Sir T. I^wreuce) ^.^^^^ ^^^^ modcm hteraturC, criticism, and a hundred other things. Yet, making allowance for everything, I cannot but think that the 3,300 must have had on tlie whole an idle and im- profitable time. However, some books of the year may be recorded. First of all, in the ' Annual Eegister ' for 1837 there appears a poem by Alfred Tennyson. I have copied a portion of it : — Oh ! that 'twere possible, After long grief and pain, To find the arms of my true love LORD TENNYSON AS A YOUNG MAN Round me once again ! .^^ ^v^-^^s- WITH THE WITS 197 When I was wont to meet her In the silent woody places Of the land that gave me birth, We stood tranced in long embraces, Mixt with kisses sweeter, sweeter Than anything on earth. A shadow flits before me — Not thee but like to thee. Ah God ! that it were possible For one short hour to see The souls we loved that they might tell us What, and where they be. It leads me forth at evening, It lightly winds and steals. In a cold white robe before me, When all my spirit reels At the shouts, the leagues of lights. And the roaring of the wheels. • • • • Then the broad light glares and beats. And the sunk eye flits and fleets. And will not let me be. I loathe the squares and streets And the faces that one meets, Hearts with no love for me. Always I long to creep To some still cavern deep, And to weep and weep and weep My whole soul out to thee. Books, indeed, there were in plenty. Lady Bles- sington produced her ' Victims of Society ' and ' Sunday at the Zoo ; ' ]\Ir. Lytton Bulwer his ' Diichesse de la Valliere,' ' Ernest Maltravers,' and ' Athens, its Else and Fall ; ' Miss Mitford her ' Country Stories ; ' Cottle his ' Eecollections of Coleridge ; ' Harrison Ainsworth, * Crichton ; ' Disraeli, ' Venetia ; ' Talfourd, ' The Life 198 FIFTY YEARS AGO and Letters of Charles Lamb ; ' Babbage, a * Bridgwater Treatise ; ' Hook, ' Jack Brag ; ' Haynes Bay ley, his * Weeds of Witchery ' — a thing as much forgotten as the weeds in last year's garden; James, his 'Attila' and ' Louis XIV. ; ' Miss Martineau, her book on 'American Society.' I find, not in the book, which I have not read, but in a review of it, two stories, which I copy. One is of an American traveller who had been to Eome, and said of it, ' Eome is a very fine city, sir, but its public buildings are out of repair.' The other is the following : ' Few men,' said the preacher in his sermon, ' when they build a house, remember that there must some day be a coffin taken downstairs.* * Ministers,' said a lady who had been present, ' have got into the strangest way of choosing subjects. True, wide staircases are a great convenience, but Christian ministers might find better subjects for their discourses than narrow staircases.' In addition to the above. Hartley Coleridge wrote the ' Lives of Northern Worthies ; ' the complete poeti- cal works of Southey appeared — he himself died at the beginning of 1842 ; Dion Boucicault produced his first play, being then fii'teen years of age ; Carlyle brought out his ' French Eevolution ; ' Lockhart his * Life of Scott ; ' Martin Tupper the first series of the * Proverbial Philosophy ; ' Hallam his ' Literature of Europe ; ' there were the usual travels in Arabia, Armenia, Italy, and Ireland ; with, no doubt, the annual avalanche of sermons, pamphlets, and the rest. Above WITH THE WITS 199 all, however, it must be remembered that to this time belong the ' Sketches by " Boz " ' (1836) and the ' Pick- wick Papers ' (1837-38). Of the latter, the Athencpum not unAvisely remarked that they were made up of * three pounds of Smollett, three ounces of Sterne, a handful of Hook, a dash of a grammatical Pierce Egan ; the incidents at pleasure, served with an original sauce piquante We earnestly hope and trust that nothing we have said will tend to refine Boz.' One could hardly expect a critic to be ready at once to acknowledge that here was a genius, original, totally unlike any of his predecessors, who knew the great art of drawing from life, and depicting nothing but what he knew. As for Thackeray, he was still in the chrysalis stage, though his likeness appears with those of the contributors to Frasers Ma(jazine in the portrait group of Fraserians published in 1839. Ilis first independently published book, I think, was the ' Paris Sketch Book,' which was not issued until the yeai- 1840. Here, it will be acknowledged, is not a record to be quite ashamed of, with Carlyle, Talfourd, Hallam, and Dickens to adorn and illustrate the year. After all, it is a great thing for any year to add one enduring book to English Literature, and it is a great deal to show so many works which are still read and remembered. Lytton's ' Ernest Maltravers,' though not his best novel, is still read by some; Talfourd's 'Charles Lamb' re- mains ; Disraeli's ' Yenetia ; ' Lockhart's ' Life of Scott ' 200 FIFTY YEARS AGO is the best biography of the novehst and poet; Carlyle's ' French Eevohition ' shows no sign of being forgotten. Between tlie first and the fiftieth years of Victoria's reio-n there arose and fiourished and died a new gene- ration of great men. Dickens, Thackeray, Lytton, in his later and better style ; George Eliot, Charles Eeade, George Meredith, Natlianiel Hawthorne, stand in the very front rank of novelists ; in the second line are Charles Kingsley, Mrs. Gaskell, Lever, TroUope, and a few living men and women. Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne, Matthew Arnold, are the new poets. Carlyle, Freeman, Fronde, Stiibbs, Green, Lecky, Buckle, have founded a new school of history ; Maurice has broadened the old theology ; Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Lockyer, and many others have advanced the boundaries of science ; philology has become one of the exact sciences ; a great school of political economy has arisen, flourished. ^-r:? ' WITH THE WITS 20I and decayed. As to the changes that have come upon the literature of the country, the new points of view, the new creeds, these belong to another chapter. There has befallen literature of late years a grievous, even an irreparable blow. It has lost the salon. There are no longer grandes dames de par le monde, who CHAKLES DARWIN attract to their drawing-rooms the leaders and the lesser Hghts of literature ; there are no longer, so far as I know, any places at all, even any clubs, which are recognised centres of literature ; there are no longer any houses where one will be sure to find great talkers, and to hear them talking all nig-ht long. There are no longer any great talkers — that is to say, many men 202 FIFTY YEARS AGO there are who talk well, but there are no Sydney Smiths or Macaulays, and in houses where the Sydney Smith of the day would go for his talk, he would not be encouraged to talk much after midnight. In the same way, there are clubs, like the Athenaaum and the Savile, where men of letters are among the members, but they do not constitute the members, and they do not give altogether its tone to the club. Fifty years ago there were two houses which, each in its own way, were recognised centres of literature. Every man of letters went to Gore House, which was open to all ; a,nd every man of letters who could get there went to Holland House. The former establishment was presided over by the Countess of Blessington, at this time a widow, still young and still attractive, though beginning to be burdened with the care of an estabhshment too ex- pensive for her means. She was the author of a good many novels, now almost forgotten — it is odd how well one knows the name of Lady Blessington, and how little is generally known about her history, hterary or per- sonal — and she edited every year one of the ' Keep- sakes ' or ' Forget-me-Nots.' From certain indications, the bearing of which her biographer, Mr. Madden, did not seem to understand, I gather that her novels did not prove to the pubhshers the literary success which they expected, and I also infer — from the fact that she w^as always changing them — that a dinner at Gore House and the society of all the wits after dinner were WITH THE WITS 203 not always attractions strong enough to loosen their purse-strings. This lady, whose maiden name was Power, was of an Irish family, her father being engaged, when he was not shooting rebels, in unsuccessful trade. Her life was adventurous and also scandalous. She was married at sixteen to a Captain Farmer, from whom she speedily separated, and came over to London, where she lived for some years — her biographer does not ex- plain how she got money — a grass widow. When Lord HOLLAND HOUSE Blessinfjton lost his wife, and Mrs. Farmer lost her husband — the gallant Captain got drunk, and fell out of a window — they were married, and went abroad traveUing in great state, as an EngHsh milor of those days knew how to travel, with a train of half-a-dozen carriages, his own cook and valet, the Countess's women, a whole hatterie de cuisine^ a quantity of furni- ture, couriers, and footmen, and his own great carriage. With them went the Count d'Orsay, then about two- 204 FIFTY YEARS AGO and-twenty, and young Charles Mathews, then about twenty, a 'protege of Lord Blessington, who was a friend and patron of the drama. After Lord Blessington died it was arranged that Count d'Orsay should marry his daughter. But the Count separated from his wife a week or two after the wedding, and returned to the widow, whom he never afterwards left, always taking a lodging near her house, and forming part of her household. The Countess d'Orsay, one need not explain, did not visit her step- mother at Gore House. Here, however, you would meet Tom Moore, the two Bulwers, Campbell, Talfourd, James and Horace Smith, Landseer, Theodore Hook, Disraeli the elder and the younger, Eogers, Washington Irving, N, P. Willis, Marryat, Macready, Charles Dickens, Albert Smith, Forster, Walter Savage Landor, and, in short, nearly every one who had made a reputation, or was likely to make it. Hither came also Prince Louis Napoleon, in whose fortunate star Count d'Orsay always firmly beheved. The conversation was lively, and the even- ings were prolonged. As for ladies, there were few ladies who went to Gore House. Doubtless they had their reasons. The outer circle, so to speak, consisted of such men as Lord Abinger, Lord Durham, Lord Strangford, Lord Porchester, Lord Nugent, writers and poetasters who 'contributed their illustrious names and their beautiful productions to Lady Blessington's ' Keep- sakes.' Thackeray was one of the ' intimates ' at Gore WITH THE WITS 205 House, and when the crash came in 1849, and the place was sold up by the creditors, it is on record that the author of ' Vanity Fair ' was the only person who showed emotion. ' Mr. Thackeray also came,' wrote the Countess's valet to his mistress, who had taken refuge in Paris, ' and he went away with tears in his eyes ; he is perhaps the only person I have seen really affected at your departure.' In 1837 he was twenty-six years of age, but he had still to wait for twelve years before he was to take his real place in literature, and even then and until the day of his death there were many who could not understand his greatness. As regards Lady Blessington, her morals may have been deplorable, but there must have been something singularly attractive about her manners and conversa- tion. It is not by a stupid or an unattractive woman that such success as hers was attained. Her novels, so far as I have been able to read them, show no remark- able ability, and her portrait shows amiability rather than cleverness ; yet she must have been both clever and amiable to get so many clever men around her and to fix them, to make them come again, come often, and regard her drawing-room and her society as altogether charming, and to write such verses upon her as the following : — Mild Wilberforce, by all beloved, Once owned this hallowed spot, Whose zealous eloquence improved The fettered Negro's lot, 2o6 FIFTY YEARS AGO Yet here still slavery attacks Whom Blessington invites ; The chains from which he freed the blacks She rivets on the whites. The following lines are in another strain, more artificial, with a false ring, and curiously unUke any style of the present day. They are by N. P. Willis, who, in his ' Pencillings,' describes an evening at Gore House : — 1 gaze upon a face as fair As ever made a lip of Heaven Falter amid its music — prayer : The first-lit star of summer even Springs scarce so softly on the eye, Nor grows with watching half so bright, Nor 'mid its sisters of the sky So seems of Heaven the dearest light. Men murmur where that shape is seen ; My .youth's angelic dream was of that face and mien. Gore House was a place for men ; there was more than a touch of Bohemia in its atmosphere. The fair chatelaine distinctly did not belong to any noble house, though she was fond of talking of her ancestors; the constant presence of Count d'Orsay, and the absence of Lady Harriet, his wife ; the coldness of ladies as regards the place ; the whispers and the open talk ; these things did not, perhaps, make the house less delightful, but they placed it outside society, Holland House, on the other hand, occupied a different position. The circle was wide and the hos- pitable doors were open to all who could procure an introduction ; but it was presided over by a lady the WITH THE WITS 207 opposite to Lr.dy Blessington in every respect. Slie ruled as well as reigned ; those who went to Holland House were made to feel her power. The Princess Marie Liechtenstein, in her book on Holland House, has given a long list of those who were to be found there between the years 1796 and 1840. Among them were Sydney Smith, Macaulay, Byron, 'Monk' Lewis, Lord Jeffrey, Lords Eldon, Thurlow, Brougham, and Lynd- hurst, Sir Humphry Davy, Count Eumford, Lords Aberdeen, Moira, and Macartney, Grattan, Curran, Sir Samuel Eomilly, Washington Irving, Tom Moore, Calonne, Lally Tollendal, Talleyrand, the Duke of Clarence, the Due d'Orleans, Metternich, Canova, the two Erskines, Madame de Stael, Lord John Eussell, and Lord Houghton. There was no such agreeable house in Europe as Holland House. ' There was no profes- sional claqueur ; no mutual puffing ; no exchanged support. There, a man was not unanimously applauded because he was known to be clever, nor was a woman accepted as clever because she was known to receive clever people.' The conditions of life and society are so much changed that there can never again be another Holland House. For the first thing which strikes one who con- siders the history of this place, as well as Gore House, is that, though the poets, wits, dramatists, and novelists go to these houses, their wives do not. In these days a man who respects himself will not go to a house where his wife is not asked. Then, again, London is so much 2o8 FIFTY YEARS AGO greater in extent, and people are so much scattered, that it would be difficult now to get together a circle con- sisting of literary people who lived near enough to frequent the house. And another thing : people no longer keep such late hours. They do not sit up talk- ing all night. That is, perhaps, because there are no wits to talk with ; but I do not know : I think that towards midnight the rit cilice of Count d'Orsay in draw- ing out the absurd points in the guests, the rollicking fun of Tom Moore, or his sentimental songs, the repartee of James Smith, and the polished talk of Lytton Bulwer, all collar, cuff, diamond pin, and wavy hair, would have begun to pall upon me, and when nobody was taking any notice of so obscure an individual, I should have stolen down the stairs, and so out into the open air beneath the stars. For the wits were very witty, but they must have been very fatiguing. ' Quite enough of that, Macaulay,' Lady Holland would say, tapping her fan upon the table. 'Now tell us about something else.' '^-'-t^^,^^^^^Z^ J^^*-^^ CHAPTER XIV. JOUEXALS AND JOURNALISTS. There was no illustrated paper in 18o7 : there was no Punch. On tlie other hand, there were as many London papers as there are to-day, and nearly as many magazines and reviews. The limes, which is reported to have then had a circulation not exceeding 10,000 a day, was already the leading paper. It defended Queen Caroline, and advocated the Eeform Bill, and was reported to be ready to incur any expense for early news. Thus, in 1834, on the occasion of a great dinner given to Lord Durham, the Times spent 200/. in having an early report, and that up from the North by special mes- sencrer. This is not much in comparison with the enterprise of telegraph and special correspondents, but it was a great step in advance of other journals. The other morning papers were the Morning Herald, the Morning Chronicle, the Morning Post, of which Cole- ridge was once on the staff, the Morning Advertiser, which already represented the interest of which it is still the organ, and the old Public Ledger, for which Goldsmith had once written. 2IO FIFTY YEARS AGO The evening papers were the Glohe^ which had absorbed six other evening papers ; the Courier ; the Standard^ once edited by Dr. Maginn ; and the True Sun. The weeklies were the Examiner, edited by the two Hunts and Albany Fonblanque ; the Spectator^ whose price seems to have varied from ninepence to a shilling ; the Atlas ; Observer ; BeWs Life ; BeWs WeeUy Messenger ; John Bull, which Theodore Hook edited ; the New Weekly Messenger ; the Sunday Times ; the Age ; the Satirist ; the Mark Lane Express ; the County Chronicle ; the Weekly Dispatch, sometimes sold for ^\d., sometimes for M. ; the Patriot ; the Christian Advocate ; the Watchman ; the Court Journal ; the Naval and Military Gazette ; and the United Service Gazette. Among the reporters who sat in the Gallery, it is remarkable that two-thirds did not write shorthand ; they made notes, and trusted to their memories ; Charles Dickens sat with them in the year 1836. The two great Quarterlies still continue to exist, but their power has almost gone ; nobody cares any more what is said by either, yet they are as well written as ever, and their papers are as interesting, if they are not so forcible. The Edinburgh Review is said to have had a circulation of 20,000 copies; the Quarterly is said never to have reached anything like that number. Among those who wrote for the latter fifty years ago, or thereabout, were Southey, Basil Hall, John Wilson Croker, Sir Francis Head, Dean Milman, Justice Cole ridge, Henry Taylor, and Abraham Hay ward. The West- ^i::(g^^^S^?=^^' JOURNALS AND JOURNALISTS 211 minster, which also inchided the London, was supported by such contributors as the two Mills, father and son, Southwood Smith, and Roebuck. There was also the Foreign Quarterly, for which Scott, Southey, and Carlyle wrote. The monthlies comprised the Gentleman s (s\a\[ living), the Monthly Review ; the Monthly Magazine ; the Eclectic ; the New Monthly ; Fraser ; the Metropolitan ; the Monthly Repository ; the Lady's ; the Court ; the Asiatic Journal ; the East Jndia Review ; and the United Ser- vice Journal. The weekly magazines were the Literary Gazette ; the Parthenon — absorbed in the Literary in 1842 ; the AthenoBum, which Mr. Dilke bought of Buckingham, reducing the price from 8 c^ u^i JN FACTORY AND MINE 227 Observe that nothing — not the light of pubhcity, not public opinion, not common humanity, not pity towards the tender children — nothing but Law had any power to stop this daily massacre of the innocents. Yet, no doubt, the manufacturers were subscribing for all kinds of good objects, and reviling the Yankees con- tinually for the institution of Slavery. What happened next ? Greed of gain, seeing the factory closed, looked round, and saw wide open — not the gates of Hell — but the mouth of the Pit, and they flung the children down into the darkness, and made them work among the narrow passages and galleries of the coal mines. They took the child — boy or girl — at six years of age ; they carried the little thing away from the light of heaven, and lowered it deep down into the black and gloomy pit ; they placed it behind a door, and ordered it to pull this open to let the corves, or trucks, come and go, and to keep it shut when they were not passing. The child was set at the door in the dark — at first they gave it a candle, which would burn for an hour or two and then go out. Think of taking a child of six — your child, Madam ! — and putting it all alone down the dark mine ! They kept the little creature there for tw^elve interminable hours. If the child cried, or went to sleep, or neglected to pull the door open, they beat that child. The work began at four in the morning, and it was not brought out of the pit until four, or perhaps later, in the evening, so that in the winter the children never saw 228 FIFTY YEARS AGO dnyli^lit at all. The evidence given before the Eoyal Commission showed that the children, when they were brought up to the pit's mouth, were heavy and stupefied, and cared for little when they had taken their supper but to go to bed. And yet the men who owned these collieries had children of their own ! And they would have gone on to this very day starving the children of lifj-ht and loading them with work, stuntin^y their growth, and suffering them to grow up in ignorance all their days, but for Lord Shaftesbury. This is what is written of the children and their work by one who visited the mines: — To ascertain the nature of the employment of these ciiiklren, I went down a pit. . . . Descending a shaft, 600 feet deep, T went some distance along a subterranean road whicli, I was told, was three miles in length. To the right and left of one of these roads or ways are low galleries, called workings, in wliich the hewers are employed, in a state of almost perfect nudity, on account of the great heat, digging out the coal. To these galleries there are traps, or doors, which are kept shut, to guard against the ingress or egress of inflammable air, and to prevent counter-currents disturbing the ventilation. The use of a child, six years of age, is to open and shut one of these doors when the loaded corves, or coal trucks, pass and repass. For this object the child is trained to sit by itself in a dark gallery for the number of hours I have described. The older boys drive horses and load the corves, but the little children are always trap-keepers. When first taken down they have a candle given them, but, gradually getting accustomed to the gloom of the place, they have to do wdthout, and sit therefore literally in the dark the whole time of their imprisonment. When a child grew strong enough, he or she — boy or girl — was promoted to the post of drawer, or thrutcher. The drawer, boy or girl alike, clad in a IN FACTORY AND MINE 22Q short pair of trousers and nothing else, had a belt tied round the waist and a chain attached by one end to the belt and the other to the corve, or truck, which he dragged along the galleries to the place where it was loaded for the mouth, the chain passing'between his legs ; on account of the low height of the galleries he had generally to go on all-fours. Those who were the thrutchers pushed the truck along with their lieads and liands. They wore a thick cap, but the work CHILDREN WORKING IN A COAL MINE (Prom a Plate ia tlie Westminster Review') made them bald on the top of the head. When the boys grew up they became hewers, but the women, if they stayed in the pit, remained drawers or thrutchers, continuing to the end of the day to push or drag the truck dressed in nothing but the pair of short trousers. This w^s a beautiful kind of life for Christian women and children to be leadmg. So many children were wanted, that in one colliery employing 400 hands there were 100 under twenty and 56 under thirteen. In another, where there was an inundation, there were 44 230 FIFTY YEARS AGO children, of whom 26 were drowned; of these 11 were girls and 15 boys ; 9 were under ten years of age. Again, in the year 1838, there were 38 children under thirteen killed by colliery accidents and 62 young people under eio-hteen. D When men talk about the interference of the State and the regulation of hours, let us always remember this history of the children in the Pit. Yet there were men in plenty who denounced the action of the Government: some of them were leaders in the philanthropic world ; some of them were religious men : some of them humane men ; but they could not bear to think that any limit should be imposed upon the power of the employer. In point of fact, when one considers the use which the employer has always made of his power, how every consideration has been always set aside which might interfere with the acquisition of wealth, it seems as if the chief business of the Legislature should be the protection of the employed. Again, take the story of the chimney-sweep. Fifty years ago the master went his morning rounds accom- panied by his climbing boys. It is difficult now to understand how much time and trouble it took to convince people that the climbing boy was made to endure an extraordinary amount of suffering quite needlessly, because a brush would do the work quite as well. Consider : the poor httle wretch's hands, elbows, and knees were constantly being torn by the bricks ; sometimes he stuck going up, sometimes IN FACTORY AND MINE 231 coming down ; sometimes the chimney-pot at the top fell off, the child with it, so that he was killed. He was beaten and kicked unmercifully ; his master would sometimes light a fire underneath so as to force him to £ ^^^'«- LONDON STREET CHARACTEES, 1837 (From a Drawing by John Leech) come down quickly. The boy's life was intolerable to him. He was badly fed, badly clothed, and never washed, though his occupation demanded incessant cleanliness — the neglect of which was certain to bring on a most dreadful disease. And all this because his 22 232 FIFTY YEARS AGO master would not use a broom. It was not until 1841 that the children were protected by Acts of Parliament. The men have shown themselves able to protect themselves. The improvement in their position is due wholly to their own combination. That it will still more improve no one can for a moment doubt. If we were asked to forecast the future, one thing would be safe to prophesy — namely, that it will become, day by day, increasingly difficult to get rich. Meanwhile, let us remember that we have with us still the women and the children, who cannot combine. We have 'protected the latter ; how — oh I my brothers — how shall we protect the former? / CHAPTER XVn. WITU TUE MEN OF SCIENCE. On the science of fifty 3^ears ago, much might be written but for a single reason — namely, that I know very little indeed about the condition of science in that remote period, and very little about science of to-day. There were no telegraph wires, but there were semaphores talking to each other all day long ; there was no prac- tical application of electricity at all ; there was no tele- phone — I wish there were none now ; there were no anesthetics ; there were no — but why go on ? Schools had no Science Masters ; universities no Science Tripos ; Professors of Science were a feeble folk. I can do no better for this chapter than to reproduce a report of a Scientific Meeting first published in Tilt's Annual, to which Hood, Thackeray, and other eminent professors of science contributed, for the year 1836 : — Extracts from the Proceedings op the Association op British Illuminati, at their Annual Meeting, held in Dublin, August, 1835. Dr. Hoaxum read an interesting paper on the conversion of moonbeams into substance, and rendering shadows permanent, both of which he had recently exemplified in the establishment of some public companies, whose prospectuses he laid upon the table. 234 FIFTY YEARS AGO Mr. Babble produced his calculating machine, and its wonderful powers were tested in many ways by the audience. It supplied to Captain Sir John North an accurate computation of the distance between a quarto volume and a cheesemonger's shop ; and solved a curious question as to the decimal proportions of cunning and credulity, which, worked by the rule of allegation, would produce a product of 10,000^. Professor Von Hammer described his newly discovered process for breaking stones by an algebraic fraction. Mr. Crowsfoot read a paper on the natural history of the Rook. He defended their caws with great effect, and proved that there is not a grain of truth in the charges against them, which only arise from Grub Street malice. The Rev. Mr. Groper exhibited the skin of a toad, which he dis- covered alive in a mass of sandstone. The animal was found engaged on its autobiography, and died of fright on having its house so suddenly broken into, being probably of a nervous habit from passing so much time alone. Some extracts from its memoir were read, and found exceedingly interesting. Its thoughts on the ' silent system ' of prison discipline, though written in the dark, strictly agreed with those of our most enlightened political economists. Dr. Deady read a scientific paper on the manufacture of Hydro gin, which greatly interested those of the association who were members of Temperance Societies. Mr. Croak laid on the table an essay from the Cabinet Makers' Society, on the construction oi frog -stools. Professor Parley exhibited his speaking machine, which distinctly articulated the words ' Repale I Resale 1 ' to the great delight of many of the audience. The learned Professor stated that he was engaged on another, for the use of his Majesty's Ministers, which would already say, ' My Lords and Gentlemen ; ' and he doubted not, by the next meeting of Parliament, would be able to pronounce the whole of the opening speech. Mr. Multiply produced, and explained the principle of, his ex- aggerating machine. He displayed its amazing powers on the mathematical point, which, with little trouble, was made to appear as large as a coach-wheel. He demonstrated its utility in all the rela- tions of society, as applied to the failings of the absent — the growth of a tale of scandal — the exploits of travellers, &c. &c. The Author of the * Pleasures of Hope ' presented, through a to WITH THE MEN OF SCIENCE 235 member, a very amusing Essay on the gratification arising from the throttling of crying children ; but as the ladies would not leave the room, it could not be read. Captain North exhibited some shavings of the real Pole, and a small bottle which, he asserted, contained scintillations of the Aurora Borealis, from which, he stated, he had succeeded in extracting pure gold. He announced that his nephew was preparing for a course of similar experiments, of which he expected to know the result in October, The gallant Captain then favoured the company with a dissertation on phrenology, of which, he said, he had been a believer for thirty years. He stated that he had made many valuable verifications of that science on the skulls of the Esquimaux ; and that, in his recent tour in quest of subscribers to his book, his great success had been mainly attributable to his phrenological skill ; for that, whenever he had an opportunity of feeling for soft places in the heads of the public, he knew in a moment whether he should eet a customer or not. He said that whether in the examination of to ships' heads or sheep's heads — in the choice of horses or housemaids, he had found the science of pre-eminent utility. He related the following remarkable phrenological cases : — A man and woman were executed in Scotland for murder on presumptive evidence ; but another criminal confessed to the deed, and a reprieve arrived the day after the execution. The whole country was horrified "; but Captain North having examined their heads, he considered, from the extraordinary size of their destructive organs, that the sentence was prospectively just, for they must have become murderers, had they escaped hanging then. Their infant child, of six months old, was brought to him, and, perceiving on its head the same fatal tendencies, he determined to avert the evil ; for which purpose, by means of a pair of moulds, he so compressed the skull in its vicious propensities, and enlarged it in its virtuous ones, that the child grew up a model of perfection. The second instance was of a married couple, whose lives were a continued scene of discord till they parted. On examining their heads scientifically, he discovered the elementary causes of their unhappiness. Their skulls were un- fortunately too thick to be treated as in the foregoing case ; but, causing both their heads to be shaved, he by dint of planing down in some places, and laying on padding in others, contrived to produce all the requisite phrenological developments, and they were then living, a perfect pattern of conjugal felicity, ' a thing which could 236 FIFTY YEARS AGO not have happened without phi-enology.' (This dissertation was received witli loud applauses from the entire assembly, whose phreno- logical organs becoming greatly excited, and developed in an amazing degree by the enthusiasm of the subject, they all fell to examining each other's bumps with such eagerness that the meeting dissolved in confusion.) CHAPTEE XVIII. LAW AND JUSTICE. Five thousand three hundred ant) forty-foue enact- ments have been added to the Statute Book since the Queen came to the throne, and the figures throw a :tlood of Ught upon the ' progress ' of the Victorian era. In order to reahse where we were in 1837 we have only to obhterate this enormous mass of legislation In the realm of law there seems then to be little left. All our procedure — equitable, legal, and criminal — much of the substance of equity, law, and justice, as we un- derstand the words, is gone. ' Law 'had a different meaning fifty years ago ; ' equity ' hardly had any mean- ing at all ; 'justice ' had an ugly sound. The ' local habitation' of the Courts, it is true, was then much the same as it remained for the next forty- five years. The network of gloomy little rooms, con- nected with narrow winding passages, which Sir John Soane built in 1820-1825, on the west side of West- minster Hall, on the site of the old Exchequer Cham- ber, with an exterior in imitation of Palladio's basilica at Vicenza, but outrageously out of keeping with the 238 FIFTY YEARS AGO dorious vestibule of William Rufus, was then the home of law. The Court of Chancery met in a gloomy httle apartment near the southern end of the hall. Here the Lord Chancellor sat in term time — there were then four terms of three weeks each — with the mace and crimson silk bag, embroidered with gold, in which was deposited the silver pair of dies of the Great Seal, and a large nosegay of flowers before him. It was, in those days, only in the vacations that the Chancellor sat at Lincoln's Inn. The Master of the Eolls and the Vice-Chancellor of England also sat at Westminster duriniz the sittin^xs, while in the intervals the former presided over the Rolls Court in Rolls Yard and the latter over the Court which had been built for him on the west side of Lincoln's Inn Hall. The three Com- mon Law Courts, moreover, during term time, sat twelve days at Westminster and twelve days at the Guildhall, while the Assizes were chiefly held during the vacations. The High Court of Admiralty held its sittings at Doctors' Commons, in both the Instance Court and the Prize Court, practically throughout the legal year, and su did the Ecclesiastical Courts. The Bankruptcy Court was in Basinghall Street ; the Insolvent Debtors' Court in Lincoln's Inn Fields, with an entrance from Portugal Street. There were then no County Courts. The ancient Hundred and County Courts, with their primitive procedure, had long been disused. Certain * Courts of Conscience ' or ' Courts of Request ' had, it is true, been established for particular localities at LA W AND JUSTICE 239 the express request of the inhabitants, and these were still being constituted in some of the large towns. Then in London there were local Courts with a pecuHar juris- diction, such as the City Courts, which would fill a chapter by themselves, and of which it is enough to JIARSHALSEA — THE COnRTYAUD name the Lord Mayor's Court, the Sheriff's Courts of Poultry Compter and Giltspur Street Compter, both afterwards merged into the City of London Court. Li Great Scotland Yard there was the Palace Court, with the Knight Marshal for judge, which anciently had 240 FIFTY YEARS AGO exclusive jurisdiction in matters connected with the Royal Household, but now was a minor court of record for actions for debt within Westminster and twelve miles round. The Court had its own prison in High Street, Southwark — the Marshalsea of 'Little Dorrit,' not the old historic Marshalsea, which was demolished at the beginning of the century — that stood farther north, occupying the site of No. 119 High Street — but a new Marshalsea, built in 1811 on the site of the old White Lyon, once a hostelry, but since the end of the sixteenth century itself a prison. The Palace Court came to a sudden end in 1849, owing to 'Jacob Omnium ' being sued in it. Thackeray tells the story in ' Jacob Homnium's Hoss : ' — Pore Jacob went to Court, A Counsel for to fix. And choose a barrister out of the four, And an attorney of the six. And there he sor these men of lor, And watched them at their tricks. • ••••• • a weary day was that For Jacob to oro through ; The debt was two seventeen (Which he no mor owed than you), And then there was the plaintives costs. Eleven pound six and two. And then there was his own, Which the lawyers they did fix At the wery moderit figgar Of ten pound one and six. Now Evins bless the Pallis Court, And all its bold ver-dicks ! LA W AND JUSTICE 241 The sittings of the Central Criminal Court, which was founded in 1834, were held, as they are still held, in the Sessions House in the Old Bailey. Rebuilt in 1809 on the site of the old Sessions House which was de- stroyed in the No-Popery riots of 1780, and of the old Surgeons' Hall — where the bodies of the malefactors executed in Newgate were dissected — the building, although sufficiently commodious for holding the sessions of London and Middlesex, for which it was originally intended, as the centre of the criminal juris- diction of the kingdom, was never anything but a makeshift. Since, however, its dingy Courts ha^e re- mained the same down to our own times, we can the better realise the surround inc^s of the criminal trials of those days. It was here that Greenacre was tried in 1837. Bow Street was then in the zenith of its fame, and was practically the centre of the police arrange- ments of London. Those were the palmy days of the Court of Chancery. Eeform was, as it had been for centuries, in the air, and there, notwithstanding the efforts of Lord Lyndhurst, it seemed likely to remain. Practically nothing had been done to carry into effect the recom- mendations of the Commission of 1826. At the time of her Majesty's accession there were nearly a thousand causes waiting to be heard by the Lord Chancellor, the Master of the Rolls, and the Vice-Chancellor of England. It was verily a ' dead sea of stagnant litigation.' ' The load of business now before the Court,' remarked Sir 242 FIFTY YEARS AGO Lancelot Shaclwell, 'is so great that three angels could not get through it.' Think what this meant ! Many of these suits had endured for a quarter of a century, some for half a century ; ' the lawyers,' to use the current, if incorrect, phrase of the time, ' tossing the balls to each other.' One septuagenarian suitor, goaded to madness by the • ' law's delay,' had, a few years before, thrust his way into the presence of Lord Eldon, and begged for a decision in a cause waiting for judgment which had been before the Court ever since the Lord Chancellor, then nearly eighty, was a schoolboy. Everyone remembers 'Miss Flite,' who expected a judgment — ' on the Day of Judgment,* and Gridley ' the man from Shropshire : ' both are true t3rpes of the Chancery suitors of fifty, thirty, twenty years ago. It would be wearisome indeed to detail the stages through which a Chancery suit dragged its slow length along. The ' eternal ' bills, with which it began — and ended — cross bills, answers, interrogatories, replies, rejoinders, injunctions, decrees, references to masters, masters' reports, exceptions to masters' reports, were veritably ' a mountain of costly nonsense.' And when we remember that the intervals between the various stages were often measured by years — that every death made a bill of review, or, worse still, a supple- mental suit, necessary — we can realise the magnitude of the evil. The mere comparison of the ' bills ' in Chancery with the ' bills of mortality ' shows that with proper management a suit need never have come to an LA W AND JUSTICE 243 end. There is a story for which the late Mr. Chitty is responsible, that an attorney on the marriage of his son handed him over a Chancery suit with some common law actions. A couple of years afterwards the son asked his father for some more business. ' Why, I gave you that capital Chancery suit,' replied his father ; ' what more can you want ? ' ' Yes, sir,' said the son ; ' but I have wound up the Chancery suit and given my chent great satisfaction, and he is in possession of the estate.' ' What, you improvident fool ! ' rejoined the father indignantly. 'That suit was in my family for twenty-five years, and would have continued so for so much longer if I had kept it. I shall not encourage such a fellow.' As in Butler's time it might still be said : — So lawyers, lest the Bear defendant, And plaintiff Dog, should make an end on't, Do stave and tail with writ of error, Reverse of judgment, and demurrer, To let them breathe awhile, and then Cry Whoop ! and set them on again. In fact, like ' Jarndyce and Jarndyce,' hundreds of suits struggled on until they expired of inanition, the costs having swallowed up the estate. Such were the inevitable delays fifty years ago, that no one could enter into a Chancery suit with the least prospect of being alive at its termination. It was no small part of the duty of the respectable members of the legal profession to keep their clients out of Chancery. It 244 FIFTY YEARS AGO was, perhaps, inevitable that this grievance should have been made the shuttlecock of party, that personalities should have obscured it, that, instead of the system, the men who were almost as much its victims as the suitors should have been blamed. Many successive Lord Chancellors in this way came in for much unde- served obloquy. The plain truth was, they were over- worked. Besides their political functions, they had to preside in the Lords over appeals from themselves, the Master of the Eolls, and the yice-Chancellor ; they had some heavy work in bankruptcy and lunacy. The number of days that could be devoted to sitting as a Chancery judge of first instance was, therefore, ne- cessarily small. That this was the keynote of the difficulty was shown by the marked improvement which followed upon the appointment of two additional Vice-Chancellors in 18-Jl. In that year, too, another scandal was done away with by the abolition of the Six Clerks' office — a characteristic part of the unwieldy machine. The depositaries of the practice of the Court, the Six Clerks and their underlings, the 'Clerks in Court,' were responsible for much of the delay which arose. The ' Six Clerks ' were paid by fees, and their places were worth nearly two thousand a year, for which they did practically nothing, all their duties being dis- charged by deputy. No one, it was said, ever saw one of the 'Six Clerks.' Even in their office they were not known. The Masters in Chancery were, too, in those days almost as important functionaries as the judges them- LA W AND JUSTICE 245 selves. Judges' Chambers were not then in existence, and much of the work which now comes before the judges was disposed of by a master, as well as such business as the investigation of titles, the taking of accounts, and the purely administrative functions of the Court. All these duties they discharged with closed doors and free from any supervision worth talking about. They, too, were paid by fees, their receipts amounting to an immense sum, and it was to them that the expense of proceedings was largely due. The agitation for their aboHtion, although not crowned with success until fifteen years later, was in full blast fifty years ago. At law, matters were little better. ' Justice was strangled in the nets of form.' The Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer were not only at conflict with Equity, but in a lesser degree with each other. The old fictions by which they ousted each other's jurisdiction lasted down to 1831, when, by statute, a uniformity of process was established. It seems now- adays to savour of the Middle Ages, that in order to bring an action in the King's Bench it should have been necessary for the writ to describe the cause of action to be ' trespass,' and then to mention the real cause of action in an ac etiam clause. The reason for this absurd formality was that, ' trespass ' still being an offence of a criminal nature, the defendant was constructively in the custody of the Marshal of the Marshalsea, and therefore within the jurisdiction of the King's Bench. In the 23 246 FIFTY YEARS AGO same way a civil matter was brought before the Court of Exchequer by the pretence that the plaintiff was a debtor to the King, and was less able to pay by reason of the defendant's conduct. The statement, although in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a mere fiction, was not allowed to be contradicted. But the fact that the jurisdiction of the Court of Common Pleas was thus entrenched upon was less serious than it might have been, since in that court the Serjeants still had exclusive audience ; and, distinguished as were the members of the Order of the Coif, it is easy to understand that the pubhc preferred to have their pick of the Bar. But a much more serious matter was the block in the Courts. This perennial grievance seems to have then been chiefly due to the shortness of the terms during which alone legal questions could be decided. Niai prius trials only could be disposed of in the vaca- tions. Points of law or practice, however, cropped up in those days in even the simplest matter, and, since these often had to stand over from term to term, the luckless litigants were fortunate indeed if they had not to. wait for years before the question in dispute was finally disposed of. The Common Law Procedure, moreover, literally bristled with technicalities. It was a system of solemn juggling. The real and imaginary causes of action were so mixed up together, the ' plead- ings ' required such a mass of senseless falsehood, that it is perfectly impossible that the parties to the action could have the least apprehension of what they were LA IV AND JUSTICE 247 doincr. Then no two different causes of action could be joined, but each had to be prosecuted separately through all its stages. None of the parties interested were compe- tent to give evidence. It was not until 1851 that the plaintiff and the defendant, often the only persons who could give any account of the matter, could go into the witness-box. IMistakes in such a state of things were, of course, of common occurrence, and in those days mistakes were fatal. Proceedings by way of appeal were equally hazardous and often impracticable. The Exchequer Chamber could only take cognisance of ' error ' raised by a ' bill of exceptions ; ' and even at this time the less that is said about that triumph ol' special pleading the better. The House of Lords could only sit as a Court of Error upon points which had run the gauntlet of the Exchequer Chamber. But perhaps the crowning grievance of all — a grievance felt equally keenly by suitors at law and in equity — arose from the limited powers of the Courts. If there were a remedy at law for any given wrong, for instance, the Court of Chancery could give no relief. In the same way, if it turned out, as it often did, that a plaintiff should have sued in equity instead of proceeding at law, he was promptly nonsuited. Law could not grant an injunc- tion ; equity could not construe an Act of Parliament. There were then, as we have said, no County Courts. The Courts of Eequests, of which there were not a hun- dred altogether, only had jurisdiction for the recovery of debts under 40^. We have already given an illustra- 248 FIFTY YFARS AGO lion of the methods of Palace Court, which may serve as a type of these minor courts of record. Indeed, with the exception of the City of London, which was before the times in this respect, there was throughout the kingdom a denial of iustice. Those who could not afford to pay the Westminster price had to go without. For in those days all matters intended to be heard at the Assizes were in form prepared for trial at West- minster. The 'record' was delivered to the officers of the King's Bench, Common Pleas, or Exchequer, and the cause was set down for trial at Westminster, n%8% prius in the meantime the judges happened to go on circuit into the county in which the cause of action arose, — in which event one of them would take down the record, try the action with a jury of the county, pronounce judgment according to the verdict, and bring back verdict and judgment, to be enrolled in due course at Westminster. In equity, things were even worse. There was, except in the counties palatine of Durham and Lancaster, no local equitable jurisdic- tion. And it was commonly said, and said with obvious truth, that no sum of less than 500/. was worth suing for or defending in the Court of Chancery. Divorce was then the ' luxury of the wealthy.' An action for the recovery of damages against the co-re- spondent, and a suit in the Ecclesiastical Courts for a separation ' from bed and board,' themselves both tedious and costly, after having been successfully pro- secuted, had to be followed by a Divorce Bill, which LA W AND JUSTICE 249 had to pass througli all its stages in both Lords and Commons, before a divorce a vinculo matrimonii could be obtained. There is a hoary anecdote which usefully illustrates how this pressed upon the poor. ' Prisoner at the bar,' said a judge to a man who had just been convicted of bigamy, his wife having run away with another man, ' the institutions of your country have provided you with a remedy. You should have sued the adulterer at the Assizes, and recovered a verdict against him, and then taken proceedings by your proctor in the Ecclesiastical Courts. After their suc- cessful termination you might have applied to Parlia- ment for a Divorce A.ct, and your counsel would have been heard at the Bar of the House.' * But, my lord,' said the disconsolate bigamist, *I cannot afford to bring actions or obtain Acts of Parliament ; I am only a very poor man.' 'Prisoner,' rejoined the judge, with a twinkle in his eye, ' it is the glory of the law of Eng- land that it knows no distinction between rich and poor.' Yet it was not until twenty years after the Queen came to the throne that the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes was created. Probate, too, and all matters and suits relating to testacy and intestacy, were disposed of in the Ecclesias- tical Courts, — tribunals were attached to the arch- bishops, bishops, and archdeacons. The Court of Arches, the supreme Ecclesiastical Court for the Pro- vince of Canterbury, the Prerogative Court, where all contentious testamentary causes were tried, as well as 250 FIFTY YEARS AGO the Admiralty Courts, were held at Doctors' Commons. It was a curious mixture of spiritual and legal func- tions. The judges and officers of the Court were often clergy without any knowledge of the law'. They were paid by fees, and, according to the common practice of those days, often discharged their duties by deputy. The advocates who practised before them were, too, anything but 'learned in the law.' They wore in Court, if of Oxford, scarlet robes and hoods lined with taffety, and if of Cambridge, white miniver and round black velvet caps. The proctors wore black robes and hoods hned with fur. The procedure was similar to that in vogue in the Common Law Courts, but the nomencla- ture was entirely different. The substitute for punish- ment was ' penance,' and the consequence of non-sub- mission ' excommunication,' which, in addition to spiri- tual pains, incapacitated the delinquent from bringing any action, and at the end of forty days rendered him liable to imprisonment by the Court of Chancery. The practical result was that both penance and excommu- nication were indirect methods of extracting money payments. But the whole system was full of abuses, and when, twenty years later, these courts were shorn of all their important functions, it was with the uni- versal concurrence of the public. Until then there were many who shared the opinion of De Foe's intelli- gent foreigner, that ' England was a fine country, but a man called Doctors' Commons was the devil, for there was no getting out of his clutches, let one's cause be LA W AND JUSTICE 25 1 never so good, without paying a great deal ot money.' In bankruptcy, a severity which was simply ferocious prevailed. Traders owing more than 300/., and a little later all traders, could obtain a discharge upon full disclosure and surrender of all their property ; but even then the proceedings were protracted to an almost interminable length. The machinery was both cum- brous and costly. Down to 1831 the bankruptcy law in London was administered by Commissioners appointed separately for each case by the Lord Chancellor. In that year a Court of Eeview was established, with a chief judge and two minor judges ; and this to some extent controlled and supervised the proceedings of the Commissioners, now a permanent body. In the country, however, the old procedure prevailed ; but the amount of business done was ridiculously small, creditors preferring, as they always probably will do, to write off the bad debts rather than to attempt to recover them by the aid of the bankruptcy law. The system, more- over, bristled with pains and penalties. If a bankrupt, as alleged, did not surrender to his commission within forty-two days of notice ; nor make discovery of his estate and effects ; nor deliver up his books and papers, he was to be deemed a felon and liable to be transported for life. An adjudication — the first stage in the pro- ceedings — was granted upon the mere affidavit of a creditor, a fiat was issued, the Commissioners held a meeting, and, without hearing the debtor at all, declared 252 FIFTY YEARS AGO him a bankrupt. It was thus quite possible for a trader to find himself in the Gazette^ and ultimately in prison, although perfectly solvent. He had his remedies, it is true. He could bring an action of trespass or false imprisonment against the Commissioners. He could make things uncomfortable for the assignee, by im- peaching the validity of the adjudication. But in any case a delay extending perhaps over many years was inevitable before the matter was decided. ' Insolvent debtors,' as those not in trade were dis- tinguished, were in yet worse case. Imprisonment on ' mesne process ' or, in plain English, on the mere affi- davit of a creditor, was the leading principle of this branch of the bankruptcy law ; and in prison the debtor remained until he found security or paid. The anomaly which exempted real estate from the payment of debts had been removed in 1825 ; and, since then, a debtor, actually in prison, could obtain a release from confine- ment by a surrender of all his real and personal property, although he remained liable for all the unpaid portion of his debts whenever the Court should be satisfied of his ability to pay them. Everything, moreover, depended upon the creditor. He still had an absolute option, after verdict and judgment, of taking the body of the debtor in satisfaction, and the early records of the Court for the Eelief of Insolvent Debtors show how weak and impotent were the remedies provided by the Legis- lature. It was not until twenty years later that the full benefits of bankruptcy were extended to persons who LAW AND JUSTICE 253 had become indebted without fraud or culpable negh- gence. Enough has already been said of the state of the debtors' prisons. It is sufficient to add here that in the second year of the Queen nearly four thousand per- sons were arrested for debt in London alone, and of these nearly four hundred remained permanently in prison. It was, however, in the administration of the criminal law that the harsh temper of the times reached its zenith. Both as regards procedure and penalties, justice then dealt hardly indeed with persons accused of crimes. In cases of felony, for instance, the prisoner could not, down to 1836, be defended by counsel, and had, there- fore, to speak for himself. Now think what this meant ! The whole proceedings, from arrest to judgment, were for the matter of that they still are — highly artificial and technical. The prisoner, often poor and uneducated, was generally unaccustomed to sustained thought. The indictment, which was only read over to him, was often almost interminable in length, with a separate count for each offence, and all the counts mixed and varied in every way that a subtle ingenuity could suggest. Defences depended as largely for their success upon the prisoner taking advantage of some technical flaw (which, in many cases, had to be done before pleading to the indictment), as upon his establishing his innocence upon the facts. But what chance had an illiterate prisoner of detecting even a fundamental error when he was not allowed a copy of the document ? In fact, in the words of Mr. Justice Stephen, the most eminent living authority upon 254 FIFTY YEARS AGO ihe history of our criminal law, ' it is scarcely a parody Lo say that from the earliest times down to our own days the law relating to indictments was much the same as if some small proportion of the prisoners con- victed had been allowed to toss-up for their liberty.' There might, further, be the grossest errors of law, as laid down by the judge to the jury, or of fact upon the evidence, without the prisoner having any remedy. Neither the evidence nor the judge's directions appeared upon the face of the ' record,' and it was only for some irregularity upon the record that a writ of error would lie. A curious practice, however, gradually sprang up, whereby substantial miscarriage of justice was often averted. If a legal point of any difficulty arose in any criminal case heard at the Assizes, or elsewhere, the judge respited the prisoner, or postponed judgment, and reported the matter to the judges. The point reserved was then argued before the judges by counsel, not in court, but at Serjeants' Inn, of which all the judges were members. If it was decided that the prisoner had been improperly convicted, he received a free pardon. It was this tribunal which was in 1848 erected into the Court for Crown Cases Eeserved. The outcry against capital punishment for minor felonies was still in full blast. The history of this legislation is extremely curious. The value of human life was slowly raised. It had, thanks to the noble efforts of Sir Samuel Romilly, ceased to be a capital offence to steal from a shop to the amount of 55. ; LA W AND JUSTICE 255 but public opinion was still more enlightened than the laws. A humane judge compelled to pass sentence of death upon a woman convicted of stealing from a dweinno--house to the value of 4.0s., shocked when the wretched victim fainted away, cried out, ' Good woman, good woman, I don't mean to hang you. I don't mean to hang you. Will nobody tell her I don't mean to hang her?' Jurors perjured themselves rather than subject anybody to this awful penalty. In 1833 Lord Suffield, in the House of Lords, declared, ' I hold in my hand a list of 555 perjured verdicts delivered at the Old Bailey in jfifteen years, for the single offence of steahng from dwelling-houses ; the value stolen being in these cases sworn above the value of 405. *, but the verdicts returned being to the value of 39s. only.' Human life was, then, appraised at 5Z. But juries were equal to the occasion. Disregarding the actual amount stolen, they substituted for the old verdict ' Guilty of stealing to the value of 39s.' — ' Guilty of stealing to the value of U. 19s.' Here is an illustration. A man was convicted at the Old Bailey of robbing his employers to the amount of 1,000/. The evidence was overwhelming. Property worth 200Z. was found in his own room ; 300Z. more was traced to the man to whom he had sold it. The jury found him guilty of steahng to the amount of 4/. 19s. He was again indicted for stealing 25/., and again convicted of stealing less than 5/. In the remaining indictments the prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty to the same extent. In ttie same way, 256 FIFTY YEARS AGO for years prior to 1832, when the death penalty for forgery was abohshed — except in the cases of wills and powers of attorney relating to the pubhc funds — juries refused to convict. 'Prisoner at the bar,' said Chief Baron Richards to a man acquitted at Carnarvon Assizes for forging Bank of England notes, ' although you have been acquitted by a jury of your country- men of the crime of forgery, I am as convinced of your guilt as that two and two make four.' And the jury privately admitted that they were of the same opinion. In short, the severity of the penal code was a positive danger to the community. Professed thieves made a rich harvest by getting themselves indicted capi- tally, because they then felt sure of escape. The sentence, moreover, could not be carried out. It became usual in all cases except murder to merely order it to be recorded, which had the effect of a reprieve. Here are some figures. In the three years ended December 31, 1833, there were 896 commitments in London and Middlesex on capital offences and only twelve exe- cutions. In 1834, 1835, and 1836 there were 823 commitments and no executions. With the first year of the Queen a more merciful regime was begun. Six offences — forgery in all cases ; rioting ; rescuing mur- derers ; inciting to mutiny ; smuggling with arms ; and kidnapping slaves — were declared not capital. But it was not until 1861 that all these blots were finally erased from the Statute Book. Among other mediaeval barbarities, the dissection LAW AND JUSTICE 257 of a murderer's body was not abolished until 1861, but it was made optional in 1832.' Hanging in chains was done away with in 1834. The pillory, a punish- ment hmited to perjury since 1816, was altogether abolished in 1837. The stocks had been generally su- perseded by the treadmill ten years earlier. Common assaults and many misdemeanours were, on the other hand, much more leniently dealt with in those days than they are in our own. As late as 1847 a case occurred in which a ruffian pounded his Avife with his fists so that she remained insensible for three days. Yet, since he used no weapon, he could only be con- victed of a common assault and imprisoned without hard labour. But it was not perhaps an unmixed evil that the powers of the magistrates were then very hmited. The ' Great Unpaid,' as they were then universally known, were a bye-word. Their proceedings, both at Petty and Quarter Sessions, were disgraced bj igno- rance, rashness, and class prejudice. Summary juris- diction was then, fortunately, only in its infancy. 25 S FIFTY YEARS AGO CHAPTER XIX. CONCLUSION. The consideration of the country as it was would not be complete without some comparison with the country as it is. But I will make this comparison as brief as possible. In the Church, the old Calvinism is well-nigh dead : even the Low Church of the present day would have seemed, fifty years ago, a kind of veiled Popery. And the Church has grown greater and stronger. She will be greater and stronger still when she enlarges her borders to admit the great bodies of Nonconformists. The old grievances exist no longer: there are no phiralists : there is no non-resident Vicar : the small benefices are improved : Church architecture has re- vived : the Church services are rendered vdth loving and jealous care : the old reproaches are no longer hurled at the clergy : fat and lazy shepherds they certainly are not : careless and perfunctory they can- not now be called : even if they are less scholarly, which must be sorrowfully admitted, they are more earnest. CONCLUSION 259 The revival of the Church services has produced its effect also upon Dissent. Its ministers are more learned and more cultured : their congregations are no loncrer confined to the humbler trading-class : their leaders belong to society : their writers are among the best litterateurs of the day. That the science of warfare, by sea and land, has also changed, is a doubtful advantage. Yet wars are short, which is, in itself, an immeasurable gain. The thin red hne will be seen no more : nor the splendid great man-o'-war, with a hundred guns and a crew of a thousand men. The Universities, which, fifty years ago, belonged wholly to the Church, are now thrown open. The Fellowships and Scholarships of the Colleges were then mostly appropriated : they are now free, and the range of studies has been immensely widened. As for the advance in physical and medical science I am not qualified to speak. But everybody knows that it has been enormous : while, in surgery, the discovery of angesthetics has removed from life one of its most appalling horrors. In hterature, though new generations of writers have appeared and passed away, we have still with us the two great poets who, fifty years ago, had already begun their work. The Victorian era can boast of such names as Carlyle, Macaulay, Thackeray, Dickens, Tennyson, and Browning, in the first rank of men of letters ; those of Darwin, Faraday, and Huxley in 26o FIFTY YEARS AGO science. Besides these there has been an immense crowd of men and women who belong to the respect- able second rank — to enumerate whom would take pages. Who can say if any of them will live beyond the century, and if any will be remembered in a hundred years ? We have all grown richer, much richer. 'The poor,' says Mr. George, ' have grown poorer.' That is most distinctly and emphatically untrue. Nothing could be more untrue. The poor — that is to say, the working classes — have grown distinctly better off. They are better housed ; they are better fed ; they are more cheaply fed ; they are better dressed ; they have a thou- sand luxuries to which they were formerly strangers ; their children are educated ; in most great towns they have free libraries ; they have their own clubs ; they are at liberty to combine and to hold pubhc meetings ; they have the Post Office Savings Bank ; and, as for political power, they have all the power there is, because you cannot give any man more than his vote. Formerly they demanded the Six Points of the Charter, and thought that universal happiness would follow on their acquisition. We have now got most of the Six Points, and we do not care much about the rest. Yet happiness is not by any means universal. Some there are who still think that by more tinkering of the machinery the happiness of the people will be assured. Others there are who consider that political and social wisdom, on the possession of which by our CONCLUSION 261 rulers the welfare of the people does mainly depend, is outside and independent of the machinery. Is it nothing, again, that the people have found out their own country ? Formerly their lives were spent wholly in the place where they were born ; they knew no other. Now the railways carry them cheaply every- where. In one small town of Lancashire the factory- hands alone spend 30,000/. a year in excursions. The railways, far more than the possession of a vote, had given the people a knowledge of their strength. The civil service of the country is no longer in the patronage of the Government. There are few spoils left to the victors ; there are no sinecures left ; except in the Crown Colonies, there are few places to be given away. It is, however, very instructive to remark that, wherever there is a place to be given away, it is inva- riably, just as of old, and without the least difference of party, whether Conservatives or Liberals are in power, filled up by jobbery, favouritism, and private interest. You have been told how they have introduced vast reforms in Law. Prisons for debt have been abolished ; yet men are still imprisoned for debt. Happily I know httle about the administration of Law. Some time a^^o, however, I was indirectly interested in an action in the High Court of Justice, the conduct and result of which gave me much food for reflection. It was an action for quite a small sum of money. Yet a year and a half elapsed between the commencement of the action and its hearinsj. The verdict carried costs. Tlie costs 262 FIFTY YEARS AGO amounted to three times the sum awarded to the plaintiff. That seems to be a delightful condition of tilings when you cannot get justice to listen to you for a year and a half, and when it may cost a defendant three times the amount disputed in order to defend what he knows — though his counsel may fail to make a jury under- stand the case — to be just and right. I humbly sub- mit, as the next reform in Law, that Justice shall have no holidays, so as to expedite actions, and that the verdict shall in no case carry costs, so as to cheapen them. As for our recreations, we no longer bawl comic songs at taverns, and there is no Vauxhall. On tlie other hand, the music-hall is certainly no improvenient on the tavern ; the ' Colonies ' was perhaps a more respectable Vauxhall ; the comic opera may be better than the old extravaganza, but I am not certain that it is ; there are the Crystal Palace, the Aquarium, and the Albert Hall also in place of Vauxhall ; and there are outdoor amusements unknown fifty years ago — lawn tennis, cycling, rowing, and athletics of all kinds. There has been a great upward movement of the professional class. New professions have come into existence, and the old professions are more esteemed. It was formerly a poor and beggarly thing to belong to any other than the three learned professions ; a barrister would not shake hands with a solicitor, a Nonconformist minister was not met in any society. Artists, writers, journalists, were considered Bohemians. CONCLUSION 263 The teaching of anything was held in contempt; to become a teacher was a confession of the direst poverty — there were tlioiisands of poor girls eating out their hearts because they had to ' go out ' as gover- nesses. There were no High Schools for girls ; there were no colleiies for them. Slavery has gone. There are now no slaves in Christendom, save in the island of Cuba. Fifty years ago an American went mad if you threw in his teeth the ' Institution ; ' either he defended it with zeal, or else he charged England with having introduced it into the country : in the Southern States it was as much as a man's life was worth to say a word again^^t it; travellers went South on purpose that they might see slaves put up to auction, mothers parted from their children, and all the stock horrors. Then they came home and wrote about it, and held up their hands and cried, 'Oh, isn't it dreadful?' The negro slavery is gone, and now there is only left the slavery of the Avomen who work. When will that go too ? And how can it be swept away ? Public executions gone : pillory gone — the last man pilloried was in the year 1830 : no more flogging in the army : the Factory Acts passed : all these are great gains. A greater is the growth of sympathy with all those who suffer, whether wrongfully or by misfortune, or through their own misdoings. This growth of sympathy is due especially to the works of certain novelists belonging to the Victorian age. It is pro- 264 FIFTY YEARS AGO ducing all kinds of good works — the unselfish devotion of men and women to work among the poor : teaching of every description : philanthropy which does not stop short with the cheque : charity which is organ- ised : measures for prevention : support of hospitals and convalescent homes : the introduction of Art and Music to the working classes. All these changes seem to be gains Have there been no losses ? In the nature of things there could not fail to be losses. Some of the old politeness has been lost, though there are still men with the fine manners of our grandfathers : the example of the women who speak, who write, who belong to professions, and are, gene- rally, aggressive, threatens to change the manners of all women : they have already become more assured, more self-reliant, less deferent to men's opinion — the old deference of men to women was, of course, merely conventional. They no longer dread the necessity of working for themselves ; they plunge boldly into the arena prepared to meet with no consideration on the sC'jre of sex. If a woman writes a bad book, for instance, no critic hesitates to pronounce it bad be- cause a woman has written it. Whatever work man does woman tries to do. They boldly deny any in- feriority of intellect, though no woman has ever pro- duced any work which puts her anywhere near the highest intellectual level. They claim a complete equahty which they have hitherto failed to prove. CONCLUSION 265 Some of them even secretly whisper of natural superiority. They demand their vote. Perhaps, be- fore long, they will be in both Houses, and then man will be speedily relegated to his proper place, which will be that of the executive servant. Oh ! happy, happy time ! It is said that we have lost the old leisure of life. As for that, and the supposed drive and hurry of modern life, I do not believe in it. That is to say, the compe- tition is fierce and the struggle hard. But these are no new things. It is a commonplace to talk of the leisure and calm of the eighteenth century — it cannot be too often repeated that in 1837 we were still in that century — I declare that in all my reading about social life in the eighteenth century I have failed to discover that leisure. From Queen Anne to Queen Vi3toria I have searched for it, and I cannot find it. The leisure of the eighteenth century exists, in fact, only in the brain of painter and poet. Life was hard ; labour was in- cessant, and lasted the whole day long ; the shopmen lived in the shop — they even slept in it ; the mill people worked all day long and far into the night. If I look about the country, I see in town and village the poor man oppressed and driven by his employer : I see the labourer in a blind revenge settingr fire to the ricks ; I see the factory hand destroying the ma- chinery ; I see everywhere discontent, poverty, privi- lege, patronage, and profligacy; I hear the shrieks of the wretches flogged at the cart tail, the screams of the 266 FIFTY YEARS AGO women floixsred at Bridewell. I see the white faces of the poor creatures brought out to be hung up in rows for stealing bread ; I see the fighting of the press gang ; I see the soldiers and sailors flogged into sullen obedi- ence ; I see hatred of the Church, hatred of the govern- ing class, hatred of the rich, hatred of employers — where, with all these things, is there room for leisure? Leisure means peace, contentment, plenty, wealth, and ease. What peace, what contentment was there in those days? The decay of the great agricultural interest is a calamity which has been coming upon us slowly, though with a continually accelerated movement. This is the reason, I suppose, why the country regards it with so strange an apathy. It is not only that the landlords are rapidly encountering ruin, that the farmers are losing all their capital, and that labourers are daily turned out of w^ork and driven away to the great towns ; the very existence of the country towns is threatened ; the investments which depend on rent and estates are threatened ; colleges and chanties are losing their endowments ; worst of all, the rustic, the back- bone and support of the country, who has always supplied all our armies with all our soldiers, is fast disappearing from the land. I confess that, if some- thing does not happen to stay the ruin of agriculture in these Islands, I think the end of their greatness will not be far off. Perhaps I think and speak as a fool ; but it seems to me that a cheap loaf is dearly bought CONCLUSION 267 if, among other blessings, it deprives the countryside of its village folk, strong and healthy, and the empire of its stalwart soldiers. As for the House of Lords and the English aristocracy, they cannot survive the day when the farms cannot even support the hands that till the soil, and are left untilled and uncultivated. There are, to make an end, two changes especially for which we can never be sufficiently thankful. The first is the decay of the old Calvinism ; that gone, the chief terror of life is gone too ; the chief sting of death is gone ; the terrible, awful question which reasoning man could not refrain from asking is gone too. The second change is the transference of the power to the people. All the power that there is we have given to the people, who are now waiting for a prophet to teach, them how best to use it. I trust I am under no illusions ; Democracy has many dangers and many evils ; but these seem to me not so bad as those others which we have shaken off. One must not expect a Millennium ; mistakes will doubtless be committed, and those bad ones. Besides, a change in the machinery does not change the people who run that machinery. There will be the tyranny of the Caucus to be faced and trampled down ; we must endure, with all his vices and his demagogic arts, the professional politician whose existence depends on his party ; we must expect — and ceaselessly fight against — bribery and Avholesale corrup- tion when a class of these professional politicians, poor, i 268 FIFTY YEARS AGO unscrupulous, and grasping, will be continually, by every evil art, by every lying statement, by every creeping baseness, endeavouring to climb unto power — such there are already among us ; we shall have to awaken from apathy, and keep awake, those who are anxious to avoid the arena of politics, yet, by educa- tion, position, and natural abilities, are called upon to lead. 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