About London
by J. Ewing Ritchie · English · Gutenberg #32773 · 341,890 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: About London
Author: J. Ewing Ritchie
Release date: June 11, 2010 [eBook #32773]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32773
Credits: Transcribed from the 1860 William Tinsley edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABOUT LONDON ***
Transcribed from the 1860 William Tinsley edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
ABOUT LONDON.
* * * * *
BY
J. EWING RITCHIE,
Author of "Night Side of London;" "The London Pulpit;"
"Here and There in London," &c.
* * * * *
* * * * *
"The boiling town keeps secrets ill."--AURORA LEIGH.
* * * * *
* * * * *
LONDON:
WILLIAM TINSLEY, 314, STRAND.
1860.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The author of the following pages, must plead as his apology for again
trespassing on the good nature of the public, the success of his other
books. He is aware that, owing to unavoidable circumstances, the volume
here and there bears marks of haste, but he trusts that on the whole it
may be considered reliable, and not altogether unworthy of the public
favour.
* * * * *
FINCHLEY,
_June_ 16_th_, 1860.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE.
NEWSPAPER PEOPLE 1
CHAPTER II.
SPIRITUALISM 12
CHAPTER III.
ABOUT COAL 23
CHAPTER IV.
HIGHGATE 44
CHAPTER V.
TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 60
CHAPTER VI.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY 68
CHAPTER VII.
LONDON CHARITIES 76
CHAPTER VIII.
PEDESTRIANISM 84
CHAPTER IX.
OVER LONDON BRIDGE 92
CHAPTER X.
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE EARLY-CLOSING MOVEMENT 101
CHAPTER XI.
TOWN MORALS 110
CHAPTER XI.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED 121
CHAPTER XII.
LONDON MATRIMONIAL 131
CHAPTER XIII.
BREACH OF PROMISE CASES 141
CHAPTER XIV.
COMMERCIAL LONDON 149
CHAPTER XV.
LONDON GENTS 158
CHAPTER XVI.
THE LONDON VOLUNTEERS 165
CHAPTER XVII.
CRIMINAL LONDON 174
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCERNING CABS 185
CHAPTER XIX.
FREE DRINKING FOUNTAINS 193
CHAPTER XX.
CONCLUSION 203
CHAPTER I.
NEWSPAPER PEOPLE.
What would the Englishman do without his newspaper I cannot imagine. The
sun might just as well refuse to shine, as the press refuse to turn out
its myriads of newspapers. Conversation would cease at once. Brown,
with his morning paper in his hand, has very decided opinions
indeed,--can tell you what the French Emperor is about,--what the Pope
will be compelled to do,--what is the aim of Sardinia,--and what is
Austria's little game. I dined at Jenkins's yesterday, and for three
hours over the wine I was compelled to listen to what I had read in that
morning's _Times_. The worst of it was, that when I joined the ladies I
was no better off, as the dear creatures were full of the particulars of
the grand Rifle Ball. When I travel by the rail, I am gratified with
details of divorce cases--of terrible accidents--of dreadful
shipwrecks--of atrocious murders--of ingenious swindling, all brought to
light by means of the press. What people could have found to talk about
before the invention of newspapers, is beyond my limited comprehension.
They must have been a dull set in those dark days; I suppose the farmers
and country gentlemen talked of bullocks, and tradespeople about trade;
the ladies about fashions, and cookery, and the plague of bad servants.
We are wonderfully smarter now, and shine, though it be with a borrowed
light.
A daily newspaper is, to a man of my way of thinking, one of the most
wonderful phenomena of these latter days. It is a crown of glory to our
land. It is true, in some quarters, a contrary opinion is held. "The
press," Mr. David Urquhart very seriously tells us, "is an invention for
the development of original sin." In the opinion of that amiable cynic,
the late Mr. Henry Drummond, a newspaper is but a medium for the
circulation of gossip; but, in spite of individuals, the general fact
remains that the press is not merely a wonderful organization, but an
enormous power in any land--in ours most of all, where public opinion
rules more or less directly. Our army in the Crimea was saved by the
_Times_. When the _Times_ turned, free-trade was carried. The _Times_
not long since made a panic, and securities became in some cases utterly
unsaleable, and some seventy stockbrokers were ruined. The _Times_ says
we don't want a Reform Bill, and Lord John can scarce drag his measure
through the Commons. But it is not of the power, but of the organization
of the press I would speak. According to geologists, ages passed away
before this earth of ours became fit for human habitation; volcanic
agencies were previously to be in action--plants and animals, that exist
not now, were to be born, and live, and die--tropical climates were to
become temperate, and oceans, solid land. In a similar way, the
newspaper is the result of agencies and antecedents almost equally
wondrous and remote. For ages have science, and nature, and man been
preparing its way. Society had to become intellectual--letters had to be
invented--types had to be formed--paper had to be substituted for
papyrus--the printing-press had to become wedded to steam--the
electric-telegraph had to be discovered, and the problem of liberty had
to be solved, in a manner more or less satisfactory, before a newspaper,
as we understand the word, could be; and that we have the fruit of all
this laid on our breakfast-table every morning, for at the most
five-pence, and at the least one-penny, is wonderful indeed. But,
instead of dwelling on manifest truisms, let us think awhile of a
newspaper-office, and those who do business there. Externally, there is
nothing remarkable in a newspaper-office. You pass by at night, and see
many windows lighted with gas, that is all. By daylight there is nothing
to attract curiosity, indeed, in the early part of the day, there is
little going on at a newspaper-office. When you and I are hard at work,
newspaper people are enjoying their night; when you and I are asleep,
they are hard at work for us. They have a hot-house appearance, and are
rarely octogenarians. The conscientious editor of a daily newspaper can
never be free from anxiety. He has enough to do to keep all to their
post; he must see that the leader-writers are all up to the mark--that
the reporters do their duty--that the literary critic, and the theatrical
critic, and the musical critic, and the city correspondent, and the
special reporter, and the host of nameless contributors, do not
disappoint or deceive the public, and that every day the daily sheet
shall have something in it to excite, or inform, or improve. But while
you and I are standing outside, the editor, in some remote suburb, is, it
may be, dreaming of pleasanter things than politics and papers. One man,
however, is on the premises, and that is the manager. He represents the
proprietors, and is, in his sphere, as great a man as the editor. It is
well to be deferential to the manager. He is a wonder in his
way,--literary man, yet man of business. He must know everybody, be able
at a moment's notice to pick the right man out, and send him, it may be,
to the Antipodes. Of all events that are to come off in the course of
the year, unexpected or the reverse, he must have a clear and distinct
perception, that he may have eye-witnesses there for the benefit of the
British public. He, too, must contrive, so that out-goings shall not
exceed receipts, and that the paper pays. He must be active, wide-awake,
possessed of considerable tact, and if, when an Irish gentleman, with a
big stick, calls and asks to see the editor or manager, he knows how to
knock a man down, so much the better. Of course, managers are not
required for the smaller weeklies. In some of the offices there is very
little subdivision of labour. The editor writes the leaders and reviews,
and the sub-editor does the paste-and-scissors work. But let us return
to the daily paper;--outside of the office of which we have been so rude
as to leave the reader standing all this while.
At present there is no sign of life. It is true, already the postman has
delivered innumerable letters from all quarters of the globe--that the
electric telegraph has sent its messages--that the railways have brought
their despatches--that the publishers have furnished books of all sorts
and sizes for review--and that tickets from all the London exhibitions
are soliciting a friendly notice. There let them lie unheeded, till the
coming man appears. Even the publisher, who was here at five o'clock in
the morning, has gone home: only a few clerks, connected with the
financial department of the paper, or to receive advertisements, are on
the spot. We may suppose that somewhere between one and two the first
editorial visit will be paid, and that then this chaos is reduced to
order; and that the ideas, which are to be represented in the paper of
to-morrow, are discussed, and the daily organs received, and gossip of
all sorts from the clubs--from the house--from the city--collected and
condensed; a little later perhaps assistants arrive--one to cull all the
sweets from the provincial journals--another to look over the files of
foreign papers--another it may be to translate important documents. The
great machine is now getting steadily at work. Up in the composing-room
are printers already fingering their types.
In the law-courts, a briefless barrister is taking notes--in the
police-courts, reporters are at work, and far away in the city, "our city
correspondent" is collecting the commercial news of the hour--and in all
parts of London penny-a-liners, like eagles scenting carrion, are
ferreting out for the particulars of the last "extraordinary elopement,"
or "romantic suicide." The later it grows the more gigantic becomes the
pressure. The parliamentary reporters are now furnishing their quota;
gentlemen who have been assisting at public-dinners come redolent of
post-prandial eloquence, which has to be reduced to sense and grammar.
It is now midnight, and yet we have to wait the arrival of the close of
the parliamentary debate, on which the editor must write a leader before
he leaves; and the theatrical critic's verdict on the new play. In the
meanwhile the foreman of the printers takes stock, being perfectly aware
that he cannot perform the wonderful feat of making a pint bottle hold a
quart. Woe is me! he has already half a dozen columns in excess. What
is to be done? Well, the literature must stand over, that's very clear,
then those translations from the French will do to-morrow, and this
report will also not hurt by delay--as to the rest, that must be cut down
and still further condensed; but quickly, for time is passing, and we
must be on the machine at three. Quickly fly the minutes--hotter becomes
the gas-lit room--wearier the editorial staff. But the hours bring
relief. The principal editor has done his leader and departed--the
assistants have done the same--so have the reporters, only the sub-editor
remains, and as daylight is glimmering in the east, and even fast London
is asleep, he quietly lights a cigar, and likewise departs; the printers
will follow as soon as the forms have gone down, and the movements below
indicate that the machine, by the aid of steam, is printing.
We have thus seen most of the newspaper people off the premises. As we
go out into the open air, we may yet find a few of them scorning an
ignoble repose. For instance, there is a penny-a-liner--literally he is
not a penny-a-liner, as he is generally paid three-farthings a line, and
very good pay that is, as the same account, written on very thin paper,
called flimsy, is left at all the newspaper-offices, which, if they all
insert, they all pay for, and one short tale may put the penny-a-liner in
funds for a week. The penny-a-liner has long been the butt of a
heartless world. He ought to be a cynic, and I fear is but an
indifferent Christian, and very so-so as head of a family. His
appearance is somewhat against him, and his antecedents are eccentric;
his face has a beery appearance; his clothes are worn in defiance of
fashion; neither his hat nor his boots would be considered by a swell as
the correct stilton; you would scarce take him as the representative of
the potent fourth estate. Yet penny-a-liner's rise; one of them is now
the editor of a morning paper; another is the manager of a commercial
establishment, with a salary of almost a thousand a year; but chiefly, I
imagine, they are jolly good fellows going down the hill. Charles Lamb
said he never greatly cared for the society of what are called good
people. The penny-a-liners have a similar weakness; they are true
Bohemians, and are prone to hear the chimes at midnight. Literally, they
take no thought for to-morrow, and occasionally are put to hard shifts.
Hence it is sub-editors have to be on their guard with their dealings
with them. Their powers of imagination and description are great. They
are prone to harrow up your souls with horrors that never existed; and as
they are paid by the line, a harsh prosaic brevity is by no means their
fault. Occasionally they take in the papers. Not long since a most
extraordinary breach of promise case went the round of the evening
papers, which was entirely a fiction of the penny-a-liners. Yet let us
not think disparagingly of them--of a daily newspaper no small part is
the result of their diligent research. And if they do occasionally
indulge in fiction, their fictions are generally founded on fact. The
reader, if he be a wise man, will smile and pass on--a dull dog will take
the matter seriously and make an ass of himself. For instance, only this
very year, there was a serious controversy about Disraeli's literary
piracies, as they were called in the _Manchester Examiner_. It appears a
paragraph was inserted in an obscure London journal giving an account of
an evening party at Mr. Gladstone's, at which Mr. Disraeli had been
present--an event just as probable as that the Bishop of Oxford would
take tea at Mr. Spurgeon's. Mr. Disraeli's remarks were reported, and
the paragraph--notwithstanding its glaring absurdity--was quoted in the
_Manchester Examiner_. Some acute reader remembered to have read a
similar conversation attributed to Coleridge, and immediately wrote to
the _Examiner_ to that effect. The letter was unhandsomely inserted with
a bold heading,--several letters were inserted on the same subject, and
hence, just because a poor penny-a-liner at his wits' end doctored up a
little par, and attributed a very old conversation to Mr. Disraeli, the
latter is believed in Cottonopolis guilty of a piracy, Cottonopolis being
all the more ready to believe this of Mr. Disraeli, as the latter
gentleman is at the head of a party not supposed to be particularly
attached to the doctrines of what are termed the Manchester School.
Really editors and correspondents should be up to these little dodges,
and not believe all they see in print.
I would also speak of another class of newspaper people--the newspaper
boy, agile as a lamp-lighter, sharp in his glances as a cat. The
newspaper boy is of all ages, from twelve to forty, but they are all
alike, very disorderly, and very ardent politicians; and while they are
waiting in the publishing-office for their papers they are prone to
indulge in political gossip, after the manner of their betters at the
west-end clubs. On the trial of Bernard, the excitement among the
newspaper boys was very great. I heard some of them, on the last day of
the trial, confess to having been too excited all that day to do
anything; their admiration of the speech of Edwin James was intense. A
small enthusiast near me said to another, "That ere James is the fellow
to work 'em; didn't he pitch hin to the hemperor?"
"Yes," said a sadder and wiser boy; "yes, he's all werry well, but he'd a
spoke on t'other side just as well if he'd been paid."
"No; would he?"
"Yes, to be sure."
"Well, that's wot I call swindling."
"No, it ain't. They does their best. Them as pays you, you works for."
Whether the explanation was satisfactory I can't say, as the small boy's
master's name was called, and he vanished with "two quire" on his
youthful head. But generally these small boys prefer wit to politics;
they are much given to practical jokes at each other's expense, and have
no mercy for individual peculiarities. Theirs is a hard life, from five
in the morning, when the daily papers commence publishing, to seven in
the evening, when the second edition of the _Sun_ with the _Gazette_
appears. What becomes of them when they cease to be newspaper boys, must
be left to conjecture. Surely such riotous youths can never become
tradesmen in a small way, retailers of greens, itinerant dealers in coal.
Do not offend these gentry if you are a newspaper proprietor. Their
power for mischief is great. At the _Illustrated __News_ office I have
seen a policeman required to reduce them to order.
Finally, of all newspaper people, high or low, let me ask the public to
speak charitably. They are hard-worked, they are not over-paid, and some
of them die prematurely old. Ten years of night-work in the office of a
daily newspaper is enough to kill any man, even if he has the
constitution of a horse; one can't get on without them; and it is a sad
day for his family when Paterfamilias misses his paper. Whigs, tories,
prelates, princes, valiant warriors, and great lawyers, are not so
essential to the daily weal of the public, as newspaper people. In other
ways they are useful--the great British naturalist, Mr. Yarell, was a
newspaper vendor.
CHAPTER II.
SPIRITUALISM.
In the _Morning Star_, a few months since, appeared a letter from William
Howitt, intimating that if the religious public wished to hear a man
truly eloquent and religious, a Christian and a genius, they could not do
better than go and hear the Rev. Mr. Harris. Accordingly, one Sunday in
January, we found ourselves part of a respectable congregation, chiefly
males, assembled to hear the gentleman aforesaid. The place of meeting
was the Music Hall, Store-street; the reverend gentleman occupying the
platform, and the audience filling up the rest of the room. It is
difficult to judge of numbers, but there must have been four or five
hundred persons present. Mr. Harris evidently is an American, is, we
should imagine, between thirty and forty, and with his low black
eye-brows, and black beard, and sallow countenance, has not a very
prepossessing appearance. He had very much of the conventional idea of
the methodist parson. I do not by this imply that the conventional idea
is correct, but simply that we have such a conventional idea, and that
Mr. Harris answers to it. As I have intimated that I believe Mr. Harris
is an American, I need not add that he is thin, and that his figure is of
moderate height. The subject on which he preached was the axe being laid
at the foot of the tree, and at considerable length--the sermon lasted
more than an hour--the reverend gentleman endeavoured to show that men
lived as God was in them, and that we were not to judge from a few
outward signs that God was in them, and, as instances of men filled and
inspired by God's Spirit, we had our Saxon Alfred, Oliver Cromwell, and
Florence Nightingale. In the prayer and sermon of the preacher there was
very little to indicate that he was preaching a new gospel. The
principal thing about him was his action, which, in some respects,
resembled that of the great American Temperance orator, Mr. Gough. Mr.
Harris endeavours as much as possible to dramatise his sermon. He stands
on tiptoe, or he sinks down into his desk, he points his finger, and
shrugs up his shoulders. He has a considerable share of poetical and
oratorical power, but he does not give you an idea of much literary
culture. He does not bear you away "far, far above this lower world, up
where eternal ages roll." You find that it was scarce worth while coming
all the way from New York to London, unless the Rev. Gentleman has much
more to say, and in a better manner, than the sermon delivered in
Store-street. Of course I am not a Spiritualist. I am one of the
profane--I am little better than one of the wicked, though I, and all men
who are not beasts, feel that man is spirit as well as flesh; that he is
made in the image of his Maker; that the inspiration of the Almighty
giveth him understanding. Spiritualism in this sense is old as Adam and
Eve, old as the day when Jehovah, resting from his labours, pronounced
them to be good. But this is not the Spiritualism of Mr. Harris, and of
the organ of his denomination, _The Spiritual Magazine_. That spirits
appear to us--that they move tables--that they express their meaning by
knocks, form the great distinctive peculiarity of Spiritualism, and they
are things which people in our days are many of them more and more
beginning to believe. At any rate the Spiritualists of the new school
ought not to be angry with us. Mr. Howitt writes, "Moles don't believe
in eagles, nor even skylarks; they believe in the solid earth and
earth-worms;--things which soar up into the air, and look full at the
noon sun, and perch on the tops of mountains, and see wide prospect of
the earth and air, of men and things, are utterly incomprehensible, and
therefore don't exist, to moles. Things which, like skylarks, mount also
in the air, to bathe their tremulous pinions in the living aether, and in
the floods of golden sunshine, and behold the earth beneath; the more
green, and soft, and beautiful, because they see the heavens above them,
and pour out exulting melodies which are the fruits and streaming
delights of and in these things, are equally incomprehensible to moles,
which, having only eyes of the size of pins' heads, and no ears that
ordinary eyes can discover, neither _can_ see the face of heaven, nor
hear the music of the spheres, nor any other music. Learned pigs don't
believe in pneumatology, nor in astronomy, but in gastronomy. They
believe in troughs, pig-nuts, and substantial potatoes. Learned pigs
_see_ the wind, or have credit for it--but that other [Greek text], which
we translate SPIRIT, they most learnedly ignore. Moles and learned pigs
were contemporaries of Adam, and have existed in all ages, and,
therefore, they _know_ that there are no such things as eagles, or
skylarks and their songs; no suns, skies, heavens, and their orbs, or
even such sublunary objects as those we call men and things. They _know_
that there is nothing real, and that there are no genuine entities, but
comfortable dark burrows, earthworms, pig-troughs, pig-nuts, potatoes,
and the like substantials." If this be so,--and Mr. Howitt is an old man
and ought to know, especially when he says there are not in London at
this time half-a-dozen literary or scientific men who, had they lived in
Christ's time, would have believed in him--well, there is no hope for us.
Spiritualism is beyond our reach; it is a thing too bright for us. It is
high, we cannot attain unto it. The other Sunday night, Mr. Harris was
very spiritual, at any rate, very impractical and unworldly. At the
close of the service he informed us that some few of his sermons,
containing an outline of his religious convictions, were for sale at the
doors, and would be sold at one penny and a half, a mere insignificant
sum, just sufficient to cover the expense of paper and printing. On
inquiring, we found, of the three sermons, one was published at
three-halfpence, one at twopence, and one at fourpence, prices which, if
we may judge by the copy we purchased, would yield a fair profit, if the
sale were as great as it seemed to be on Sunday night.
But Mr. Harris is a poet--there is not such another in the universe.
_The Golden Age_ opens thus:--
"As many ages as it took to form
The world, it takes to form the human race.
Humanity was injured at its birth,
And its existence in the past has been
That of a suffering infant. God through Christ
Appearing, healed that sickness, pouring down
Interior life: so Christ our Lord became
The second Adam, through whom all shall live.
This is our faith. The world shall yet become
The home of that great second Adam's seed;
Christ-forms, both male and female, who from Him
Derive their ever-growing perfectness,
Eventually shall possess the earth,
And speak the rythmic language of the skies,
And mightier miracles than His perform;
They shall remove all sickness from the race,
Cast out all devils from the church and state,
And hurl into oblivion's hollow sea
The mountains of depravity. Then earth,
From the Antarctic to the Arctic Pole,
Shall blush with flowers; the isles and continents
Teem with harmonic forms of bird and beast,
And fruit, and glogious shapes of art more fair
Than man's imagination yet conceived,
Adorn the stately temples of a new
Divine religion. Every human soul
A second Adam, and a second Eve,
Shall dwell with its pure counterpart, conjoined
In sacramental marriage of the heart.
God shall be everywhere, and not, as now,
Guessed at, but apprehended, felt and known."--p. 1.
I will take, says Mr. Howitt, as a fair specimen of the poetry and broad
Christian philosophy of this spiritual epic, the recipe for writing a
poem. In this, we see how far the requirements of Spiritualism are
beyond the standard of the requirements of the world in poetry. They
include the widest gatherings of knowledge, and still wider and loftier
virtues and sympathies.
"To write a poem, man should be as pure
As frost-flowers; every thought should be in tune
To heavenly truth, and Nature's perfect law,
Bathing the soul in beauty, joy, and peace.
His heart should ripen like the purple grape;
His country should be all the universe;
His friends the best and wisest of all time.
He should be universal as the light,
And rich as summer in ripe-fruited love.
He should have power to draw from common things
Essential truth!--and, rising o'er all fear
Of papal devils and of pagan gods,
Of ancient Satans, and of modern ghosts,
Should recognise all spirits as his friends,
And see the worst but harps of golden strings
Discordant now, but destined at the last
To thrill, inspired with God's own harmony,
And make sweet music with the heavenly host.
He should forget his private preference
Of country or religion, and should see
All parties and all creeds with equal eye;
His the religion of true harmony;
Christ the ideal of his lofty aim;
The viewless Friend, the Comforter, and Guide,
The joy in grief, whose every element
Of life received in child-like faith,
Becomes a part of impulse, feeling, thought--
The central fire that lights his being's sun.
He should not limit Nature by the known;
Nor limit God by what is known of him;
Nor limit man by present states and moods;
But see mankind at liberty to draw
Into their lives all Nature's wealth, and all
Harmonious essences of life from God,
And so, becoming god-like in their souls,
And universal in their faculties,
Informing all their age, enriching time,
And blinding up the temple of the world
With massive structures of eternity.
He shall not fail to see how infinite
God is above humanity, nor yet
That God is throned in universal man,
The greater mind of pure intelligence,
Unlimited by states, moods, periods, creeds,
Self-adequate, self-balanced in his love,
And needing nothing and conferring all,
And asking nothing and receiving all,
Akin by love to every loving heart,
By nobleness to every noble mind,
By truth to all who look through natural forms,
And feel the throbbing arteries of law
In every pulse of nature and of man."
The peculiar doctrine of the Spiritualists seems to be the belief in
Spiritual intercourse, and in mediums; as _The Spiritual Magazine_ tells
us "the only media we know accessible to the public are Mrs. Marshal and
her niece, of 22, Red Lion-street, Holborn," we need not give ourselves
much trouble about them. Concerning intercourse with departed spirits,
an American Judge writes, "The first thing demonstrated to us is that we
can commune with the spirits of the departed; that such communion is
through the instrumentality of persons yet living; that the fact of
mediumship is the result of physical organization; that the kind of
communion is affected by moral causes, and that the power, like our other
faculties, is possessed in different degrees, and is capable of
improvement by cultivation," and from this doctrine the believers gather
comfortable assurances. The Judge adds, "These things being established,
by means which show a settled purpose and an intelligent design, they
demonstrate man's immortality, and that in the simplest way, by appeals
alike to his reason, to his affections, and to his senses. They thus
show that they whom we once knew as living on earth do yet live, after
having passed the gates of death, and leave in our minds the irresistible
conclusion, that if they thus live we shall. This task Spiritualism has
already performed on its thousands and its tens of thousands--more,
indeed, in the last ten years than by all the pulpits in the land--and
still the work goes bravely on. God speed it; for it is doing what man's
unaided reason has for ages tried in vain to do, and what, in this age of
infidelity, seemed impossible to accomplish. Thus, too, is confirmed to
us the Christian religion, which so many have questioned or denied. Not,
indeed, that which sectarianism gives us, nor that which descends to us
from the dark ages, corrupted by selfishness or distorted by ignorance,
but that which was proclaimed through the spiritualism of Jesus of
Nazareth in the simple injunction--'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This
is the first and great commandment; and the second is like unto it--Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all
the law and the prophets.'"
In the case of Mr. Harris, it seems to us, he lays his stress upon these
peculiar doctrines, and rather aims at a universal Christianity; in all
sects he sees goodness, and he would combine them all into his own. He
and his disciples have found what all the rest are seeking after. His
Christianity is the faith which all good spirits own, which all angels
reverence. Christ came to reveal this faith: the whole world is but an
expression of it; the whole universe but an illustration of it; and as we
become Christ-like, in the renunciation of self, and the acceptance of
the great law of service in the Lord and to the Lord, more and more we
attain to an internal perception of the verities of that faith. The Word
is opened before us, and the natural universe is perceived to be its
outward illustration. The new church takes its stand upon this
fundamental doctrine of regeneration, and it is to the putting forth of
this in art, science, literature, poetry, preaching, in all the uses of
an ordered life, that the energy of the true churchman is continually, in
the Divine Providence, directed. And to those thus regenerated it is
given to become mediums. Mr. Harris, in his sermon preached at the
Marylebone Literary and Scientific Institution, May 29, 1859, says: "Any
man, good or bad, can become a medium for spirits. I have seen the
vilest and the most degraded made the organs through which spirits
utterly lost, yet with something of the beams of the fallen archangel's
faded brightness lingering in the intellect--I say I have seen such, as
well as others, earnest, sincere, and worthy, become the organs of
communication between the visible and invisible spirits. But no man can
become a medium, an organ or oracle for the Spirit, for the Word made
flesh, giving to every man according to his will, until he hath passed
through the door of penitence--until he hath gone up through the gateway
of a sincere conversion, or turning from his evil--until he hath
consecrated himself to the great law of right--until he hath voluntarily
taken up all the burdens which God in his providence, whether social, or
domestic, or moral, has imposed upon him--until, at any cost or any
hazard, he hath sought to do, in his daily life, those things which God
in His word doth most authoritatively and continually command. All such
may, all such do, become, all such are, the _mediums_ of the Lord Christ,
omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal, walking, as the Divine Man, in the
midst of the paradise of the angels. Breathing forth His breath, and so
vivifying the very air which the angels respire and live, He breathes
down that great _aura_ upon us continually. In prayer, and in the good
self-sacrificing life, we drink in that _aura_. The breath of God
inflows into the lungs; the thought of God streams into consciousness;
the energies of God are directed to the will; man, weak, becomes strong;
man, ignorant, becomes wise; man, narrow, becomes broad; man, sectarian,
becomes catholic and liberal; man, self-conceited, becomes reverent and
humble; man, transformed from the image of the tiger, the ape, the
serpent, takes upon himself, in Christ, the angels' image. And as we
drink in more and more of this Divine Spirit, our path in life--the path
of humble uses (not the path of self-seeking ambition; not the path of
prying curiosity), groweth brighter and brighter unto the perfect day."
CHAPTER III.
ABOUT COAL.
I am sitting by my sea-coal fire, and, from the clear way in which it
burns, and the peculiarly pleasant warmth it seems to give out, I have
every reason to believe that the thermometer is below the freezing point,
that the ground is hard as iron, and that before to-morrow's sun rises,
Jack Frost will not only have lavishly strewn the earth with pearls, but
have sketched fairy landscapes innumerable on my window-panes. Ah, well,
it matters little to me:
"The storm without might rain and ristle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle."
The respected partner of my joys and sorrows has retired to roost, far
away in the nursery the maternal pledges of our affection have done
ditto. Unless an amorous member of that inestimable class of public
servants--the metropolitan police--be at this moment engaged in a furtive
flirtation with the cook, I have no reason to believe that, beside
myself, any of my limited establishment is awake. My boots are off--I
have an old coat on--I have done my day's work--I don't owe anybody any
money (the reader need not believe this)--I poke the fire--I light a
cigar--and think there is nothing like a good fire after all.
I am thankful I am not in Paris now: I take down my French Pocket
Dictionary, published by Orr in 1850, and cannot find the French for
fire-place; I find firearms, fire-ball, fire-brand, fire-brush,
fire-cross, fire-lock, but no fire-place. Ah, here it is (fire-side,
_foyer_--substantive, masculine); but, to make quite sure, I turn to the
French-English, and I turn up _foyer_ there; and, here, I find it means,
"heat, tiring-room, green-room," and so on. Well, am I not right? there
is nothing like an English fire-place after all. The Germans are not
much better off than the French; the German porcelain stove, for
instance, standing in the middle of the room, like a monument, and nearly
filling it, is not for a second to be compared with a jolly English fire;
besides, it is very dangerous, and, when the flue gets stopped is, I was
going to write, as great a murderer as a medical man. Can I ever forget
how when I lived in the Kirchen Strasse of a far-famed and delightful
city, distant about 700 miles from where I write, how one morning I came
down-stairs to have my _fruhstuck_, and how, in the very middle of my
meal, I felt an uncomfortable sensation, as a gigantic Dane was reading
to me a memorial he was about to address to the British government? May
I tell the reader how at first I thought the document to which I have
referred might have something to do with it? Will he forgive me, if I
narrate how, at length, I gradually came to the conclusion that the cause
was in the atmosphere, which seemed to be splitting my head, and swelling
out my body to the point of bursting? can he imagine my deplorable
situation when I became insensible, and when I recovered consciousness
found that I had been poisoned by the fumes of charcoal, and that I
should then and there have shuffled off this mortal coil, had not my
Danish friend, for a wonder, lifted up his eyes from his precious
document, and, seeing me go off, thrown open the window, and, in a
polyglottic way, called for help? Truly, then, may I say, that, for
comfort, and for safety, and for warmth, if you can have it pretty nearly
all to yourself, and do one side thoroughly first before you roast the
other, there is nothing like an English fireplace in the world.
Woe is me! the present generation,--a generation most assuredly wise in
its own eyes, can never know what I, and others verging on forty,
know--the real luxury of an English fire after travelling all night as an
outside passenger on the top, say, for instance, of the Royal London and
Yarmouth mail. Pardon my emotion, but I must shut my eyes, and endeavour
to recall the past. It is six o'clock on a night cold as that in which I
now write; I am at the ancient hostelry, now gone to the dogs, known as
the White Horse, Fetter Lane, on the top of the mail aforesaid. The
many-caped coachman, has clambered up into his seat; I sit by his side,
perched somewhat like a mummy; outside and in we are full of passengers.
The red-coated guard blows cheerily on the far-resounding horn. "Let
them go," says the coachman, and four faultless greys, impatient of
restraint, rush forth with their living load: in a twinkling we stoop
under the ancient gateway, and turn into Fetter Lane; now we cautiously
descend Holborn Hill, skilfully we are steered through Cheapside, past
the Mansion House, through Cornhill, along dark and sullen Leadenhall,
Whitechapel, all glaring with gas and butcher's meat; our driver gives
the horses their heads, and our pace becomes pleasant. We pass Bow
Church, and the bridge at Stratford, and now we have left the gaslights
far behind, above us is the grand dome of heaven studded with its myriads
of stars. Hedge and field far and near are covered with a mantle of
virgin snow. The traffic on the road has trodden it into firmness, and
on we speed till we reach Romford, not then as now known all over London
for its ales. I believe these ales are the occasion of an anecdote,
which I may here repeat:--Two friends went into a public-house and were
regaled plentifully with them, but not finding them so strong as they
wished were much disgusted, and rose to go; however, they had not gone
far before the ale began to tell; one traveller soon found himself in a
ditch on one side of the road, while his friend was prostrate in another.
"Holloa," said the one to the other, "that ale war'nt so bad as I
thought." "No, no," was the reply of his now apparently-satisfied
friend. But here we are at Romford. Fresh cattle are standing ready to
take the place of the four who have gallantly drawn us hither. But there
is time to jump down, and "have a drop of summut short," to catch a
glimpse from the most glorious of fires, and to feel for the buxom
landlady, and her clean and rosy-cheeked Hebes, very strong feelings of
personal regard. "All ready," cries the ostler, and away we rush from
this fairy land, as it seems to us, out into the cold dark night; the
guard blows his horn; curtains are drawn on one side as we pass, that,
out of warm rooms, curious eyes may look on us. The pikekeeper bids us,
for him, an unusually cheerful good-night, and by this time some of the
old pilots returning to Southwold, or Lowestoft, or Yarmouth, after
having been with vessels up the Thames, cheered by the contents of
various libations, wake the dull ear of night with songs occasionally
amatory, but chiefly of a nautical character; and if there is a
chorus,--why, we can all join in that; are we not jolly companions, every
one? Does not this beat railway travelling? "I believe you, my boys."
I say the present race of men have no conception of this. Why, look at a
London omnibus; for nine months out of the twelve a cockney can't ride,
even from the Bank to Pimlico, without getting inside. A friend of mine,
one of the good old sort, rides into town winter and summer outside a
distance of about nine miles. "Of course you wear a respirator," said a
young cockney to him. My friend only laughed. When the Royal Yarmouth
Mail ran its gay career, there were no respirators then. What if the
night were cold--what if snow laid heavily on the ground--what if railway
rugs were not; did we not sit close together and keep each other
warm--did we not smoke the most fragrant of weeds--did we not, while the
coach changed horses, jump down, and, rushing into the cosiest of
bar-parlours (forgive us, J. B. Gough), swallow brandy-and-water till our
faces were as scarlet peonies, and we tingled, down to the very soles of
our feet, with an unwonted heat? A coal fire then was a sight to cheer
the cockles of one's heart, to look forward to for one long stage, and to
think of for another. But times change, and we with them. The other day
I met one of our mail-coachmen ingloriously driving a two-pair buss
between the City and Norwood; he looked down at his horses and then up at
us with an expression Robson might have envied. Let me return to coal.
Gentle reader, did you ever go down a coal-pit?--I once did, and I think,
with Sheridan, it is hardly worth while going down one, when you might
just as well say you had been. I was a stranger then to coal-pits and
collieries, rather greener then than I am now, and had on a bran-new suit
of clothes and patent-leather boots, and thus accoutred I was let down
into the bowels of the earth, wandered along little ways in beds of coal,
past little nooks where black men were at work, or resting on lumps of
coal dining on bread-and-bacon, and drinking cold tea; and then there
were tramways, and horses drawing the coal to the mouth of the pit, and
boys to drive the horses, and boys to hold lamps, and all around you was
black coal, save where it shone with the reflection of your light, and
beneath you trod in mud, all made of coal-dust and water, of a character
to ruin patent-leather for ever. I was not sorry, I assure you, when I
left the lower regions, and was hauled up to the light of day. Once upon
a time, an exciseman at Merthyr Tydvil was overcome by liquor (for
excisemen are but men) and fell asleep. Excisemen are not generally a
very popular class of Her Majesty's subjects, and there are many who owe
them a grudge. This was the case with our hero. Accordingly, the enemy,
in the shape of half-a-dozen dusky colliers, made their appearance, and
deposited their unconscious prize,
"Full many a fathom deep,"
as Mr. Campbell says, in a coal pit. Alas! the inspiration of wine is
but short-lived. From his glorious dreams of marble halls the exciseman
awoke; wonderingly he opened his eyes and looked around. Where was he?
To what dark and dolorous shades had he been conveyed? That conscience
which does make cowards of us all answered the question:--he had been for
his sins conveyed to that fearful locality which a popular clergyman once
told his hearers he would not shock their feelings by naming in so
well-bred and respectable an assembly; there he was, far away from the
light of the sun and the haunts of men. Everything around him was dark
and drear. At length a faint glimmer of light appeared in the distance.
It came nearer and nearer, by its light he saw a form he thought
resembled the human, but of that he was not quite sure. The exciseman
felt with Hamlet:
"Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned.
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee."
Accordingly he spoke, and very naturally asked the new-corner, "Who are
you?" "Why, I was when I lived on earth an exciseman, but now I am--"
"You don't say so," exclaimed the interrogator, as sober as he ever was
in his life. But the joke had now been carried far enough, and the
exciseman gladly returned to the light of day, and the society of his
fellow-man.
A coal pit, or rather a coal country, such as that you see around Merthyr
Tydvil, or as you speed on by the Great Northern to Newcastle, does not
give you a bad idea of Pandemonium. A coal pit is generally situated by
the side of some bleak hill where there are but few signs of life. A
cloud of smoke from the engine, or engines, hangs heavily all round. The
workmen, of whom there may be hundreds, with the exception of a few boys,
who stand at the mouth of the pit to unload the coal waggons as they come
up, or to run them into the tram-road that connects them with the
neighbouring railroad, or canal, are all under-ground. If you descend, a
lighted candle is put into your hand, and you must grope your way as best
you can. If the vein of coal be a pretty good one you will be able to
walk comfortably without much trouble, but you must mind and not be run
over by the coal waggons always passing along. As you proceed you will
observe numerous passages on each side which lead to the stalls in which
the men work, and hard work it is, I can assure you: a great block is
first undermined, and then cut out by wedges driven into the solid coal;
I believe the work is chiefly contracted for at so much a ton. In these
little stalls the men sit, and dine, and smoke. Little else is to be
seen in a coal pit. There are doors by which the air is forced along the
different passages; there are engines by which the water is drained off;
there is constant communication between the upper and the lower world,
all going on with a methodical exactness which can only be violated with
loss of life. Let the engines cease, and possibly in a couple of hours
the pit may be filled with water. Let a workman, as is too often the
case, enter his stall with a candle instead of with a safety lamp, and an
explosion may occur which may be attended with the loss of many lives;
but the rule is care and regularity, each man doing his part in a general
whole. The mortality in coal mining is still unusually great. It is
ascertained that of the total number of 220,000 persons employed as
colliers, 1000 are killed annually--that is to say, the poor collier has
1000 more chances of being killed at his work than any one of the whole
travelling public has of being killed or injured on English railways.
Dr. Philip Holland read a paper on the subject at a recent meeting of the
Society of Arts. He stated that out of 8015 deaths by accidents in eight
years, 1984 (or about one-fourth) were caused by explosions. Remarkable
it is, that in the northern counties of Durham and Northumberland (in
which one-fourth of the coal is raised, and one-fifth of the collier
population employed) the average deaths per annum from explosions do not
exceed 21 out of 248; and as the average of such deaths for the whole
country, including the Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Staffordshire
districts, is 105, so 143 lives yearly are lost because the precautions
against explosion proved to be effectual in the extreme north are
neglected in all the other districts. Equally remarkable it is that
falls of roof have caused nearly 1000 more deaths in the eight years than
explosions, although the latter chiefly excite public feeling. Here,
again, the extreme northern district affords a gratifying contrast with
the others, as, out of an average of 371 such accidents yearly, only 49
occur there. It is suggested that the comparative immunity of the north
from this cause of accident is attributable to the fact, that one man in
six belongs to the safety staff, who are charged with the superintendence
of ventilation, road, and prop making, &c. In other parts no such person
is employed, and the men in their anxiety to get coal neglect these
salutary means of safety. The next greatest number of fatal accidents
occurs in the shafts, 1734 in the eight years. Here, again, the cautious
north exhibits its superiority, its proportion of fatalities from this
source not being more than a fifth part of the proportion throughout the
country. Other fatalities there are, principally the result of bad
discipline, the employment of too large a proportion of boys under
fifteen years, the use of machinery where hand-pulling would be
preferable, the narrowness of the galleries, and such like. Dr. Holland
notices that the system of government inspection has, in the southern
coal districts, led to the discontinuance of the services of "viewers,"
or mine engineers, to direct the operations, which it never was intended
to do. Either these viewers must, as a rule, be reinstated, or the
government system of inspection must be enormously increased. Among the
means suggested to prevent accidents is that of making the coal owner
civilly responsible for accidents caused by the obvious neglect of
reasonable precautions in the working. In the course of the discussion
which followed, it was urged that the workers should no more be exempted
from the penal consequences of neglect than the employers.
Fancy--I can do it easily, over my sea-coal fire--fancy the coal dug out
of the pit, put into a waggon, that waggon put on a railway--travelling,
it may be, some distance, and depositing its precious burden in a
collier's hold; imagine this collier put to sea, and safely arrived in
the Thames. As Mr. Cobden said, "What next, and next?" Here a new
agency comes into play, the coal cannot come right to my fire. We leave
the collier at Gravesend and land, let us say, at Billingsgate--never
mind the fish, nor the porters, nor the fair dealers in marine products.
Come right away into Thames Street--cross it if you can, for this street,
of all London streets, bears away the palm for being blocked up at all
times and seasons, and this morning there has been a block lasting a
couple of hours; but the people here are used to it, and do not think it
worth while to have recourse to hard words, nor to repeat sounds very
much like oaths, nor to grow red in the face and threaten each other, as
is the case with the angry Jehus of Cheapside and Holborn Hill. We enter
a handsome building by a semi-circular portico, with Roman Doric columns,
and a tower 106 feet high. A beadle in magnificent livery, and of an
unusually civil character--for beadledom is generally a terror to our
species--meets us. We wish to see our friend; right into the middle of a
busy group of coal dealers and factors the beadle rushes, and repeats the
name of our friend; up one story, and then another, and then another, the
sound ascends; our friend hears it, and, rapidly descending, gives us a
welcome as warm as his own fire-side. We begin our voyage of
discovery:--first we descend and examine a Roman well, in excellent
preservation, discovered in excavating the foundation of the new
building. The water looks thick and muddy, but they tell you it is
clear: but the fact that it ebbs and flows seems to connect it with the
Thames; and Thames water, when taken opposite Billingsgate, is not
generally considered clear. We again ascend to the ground-floor, which
is a rotunda sixty feet in diameter, covered by a glazed dome
seventy-four feet from the floor. This circular hall has three tiers of
projecting galleries running round it; the floor is composed of 4000
pieces of inlaid wood, in the form of a mariner's compass; in the centre
is the city shield, anchor, &c., the dagger blade in the arms being a
piece of mulberry tree, planted by Peter the Great when he worked as a
shipwright in Deptford Dockyard. The place is worth coming to
see--country cousins ought to look at it; the entrance vestibule, Mr.
Timbs, in his "Curiosities of London," informs us, is richly embellished
with vases of fruit, arabesque foliage, terminal figures, &c. In the
rotunda, between the Raphaelesque scroll-supports, are panels painted
with impersonations of the coal-bearing rivers of England--the Thames,
Mersey, Severn, Trent, Humber, Aire, Tyne, &c.: and above them, within
flower borders, are figures of Wisdom, Fortitude, Vigilance, Temperance,
Perseverance, Watchfulness, Justice, and Faith. The arabesques in the
first story are views of coal mines--Wallsend, Percy, Pit Main, Regent's
Pit, &c. The second and third storey panels are painted with miners at
work; and the twenty-four ovals at the springing of the dome have, upon a
turquoise blue ground, figures of fossil plants found in coal formations.
The minor ornamentation is flowers, shells, snakes, lizards, and other
reptiles, miners' tools and nautical subjects;--there you can see all the
process of coal mining, without troubling yourself to go down a mine, and
in a small museum, too small for such a grand building and such a wealthy
trade, curious specimens of fossil products and coal will make the
observer still more learned; but let us look at the living mass beneath.
Some of the men below are famous city names. There sometimes you may see
Sir James Duke, who came to London a clerk, poor and under-paid, on board
a man-of-war, and who on this Coal Exchange has made a colossal fortune,
and who was made a baronet, he being at the time Lord Mayor, when the New
Exchange was opened by Prince Albert, on the 29th Oct., 1849, accompanied
by the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal. Here oftener you may see
Hugh Taylor, M.P., who began life as a cabin-boy, then became a captain,
then was developed into a coal-owner, and who is said to be a perfect
Midas, and possesses an art, very much, thought of by city people, of
turning everything he touches into gold. On a door just below where we
stand is inscribed the name of Lord Ward, for even noblemen don't mind
sullying their fingers with vulgar trade, if anything is to be made by
it. And there is the name of a Welsh coal-owner, who, some fifty years
back, was a clerk in a certain timber merchant's, at a guinea a week, and
who now, I believe, can raise and ship a couple of thousand tons of coal
a day. Depend upon it there is some money made by these black diamonds,
and the corporation of London know it, for they have managed to get a tax
levied of one penny on every ton of coals, whether brought by sea or rail
within thirty miles of where we stand. What they do with the enormous
sum thus collected it is impossible to say; it is true they built this
handsome Exchange, at a cost altogether of 91,167 pounds 11s. 8d., but
that is a small part of their receipts. When the tax was first levied it
did not much matter; about the year 1550 one or two ships sufficed for
the coal trade of London. On Friday, December 2nd, 1859, the number of
ships with cargoes for sale on that day was not less than 340--and on an
average each ship employed in the coal trade carries 300 tons of coal.
In the month of October alone there were brought into the London markets
283,849 tons by sea, and by rail 95,195 tons and three-quarters. Of
course in winter time the trade is very brisk. The retail dealers in the
metropolis will tell you that a few cold days make an enormous difference
in the sale of coals, and the large dealers are driven to their wits' end
as to how they can find enough waggons and horses to enable them to
supply their customers. In the large coal-yards in the winter time the
men are at work from five in the morning till late, very late, at night.
I am thankful for their industry, I hope they are well paid.
But I have not yet said how the business at the Coal Exchange is carried
on. There are two classes of men connected with the place,--the factors,
who have a handsomely furnished room up above, and who elect each other
by ballot,--and the merchants, who have a room below, to which they pay
so much a year, and to the use of which they also are elected by ballot.
On the topmost story of all are the offices of the gentlemen who collect
the city dues, and render themselves useful in similar ways. When the
colliers arrive at Gravesend, a messenger is sent up with their names and
the number of coals on board, and so on. Each ship is consigned to a
London factor, and in the official room is a large case full of
pigeon-holes, in which the papers for each factor are deposited; these
papers are collected by the factor's clerks, and with these the factor
goes into the market to sell; for if he does not sell--unless the charter
party permit him to wait for a second market day--he has to pay a
demurrage of three-halfpence a ton, a demurrage, however, often submitted
to rather than the coals should be sold at a loss of a shilling per ton.
A bell rings at twelve, and all at once you see, by the sudden apparition
of merchants and factors from the surrounding offices, that business has
commenced; however, little is done till towards the close at two, the
factors till then holding out for high prices, and the merchants holding
back. I may add that there is very little speculation in this trade, all
is fair and above-board. In the rooms of the factors, as well as of the
merchants, is a daily list of what vessels have arrived at Gravesend,
with what amount of cargo, and what vessels are on their way, and how
many are going up to the north in ballast; thus the buyer knows as much
about the state of the trade as the seller--and as he thinks the factor
must sell before the market is over, he waits till the very last before
he concludes his bargain. At the end of the market, when there is a
heavy sale, people get a little excited. They are also rather more
numerous and noisy than when you first entered, and, besides the regular
dealers, a good many others are present: sailors out of curiosity,
captains who want to know who are the purchasers of their coals, and
where they are to deliver them to; general dealers, who do not belong
either to the Factor's Society or that of the Coal Merchants'; and here
and there a lady may be seen gazing with curious eyes on the groups
below. When the sales are effected, the broker pays the city dues--for
bulk must not be broken till then under a penalty of five hundred
pounds--and a gentleman attests the purchases, and publishes them in a
list, sent that evening to all subscribers as the real authenticated
state of the markets for that day. I may as well say that the
market-days are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. By way of compendium, I
add, that the price of coals, as given in the daily newspapers, is the
price up to the time when the coals are _whipped_ from the ship to the
merchants' barges. It includes, 1st, the value of the coals at the pit's
mouth; 2nd, the expense of transit from the pit to the ship; 3rd, the
freight of the ship to London; 4th, the dues; and 5th, the whipping. The
public then has to pay, 6th, the merchant for taking it to his wharf and
keeping it there, and his profit; and, 7th, the retailer for fetching it
from the merchant's, and bringing it to their doors. Of course you may
save something by going at once to the merchant's. The poor cannot do
this, and have to pay an extra price on this, as on almost everything
they consume.
And now once more I am by my sea-coal fire, burning up cheerily in this
bleak winter night. Let me light up another cigar, and indulge in a
reverie. I am in a Welsh port on the Bristol Channel. Yesterday it was
a small borough, with an ancient castle, and an appearance of dirt, and
poverty, and age. To-day its moors have become docks, or covered with
iron roads, its few streets, but lately deserted, now stretch far away
and are teeming with busy life. Where the heron flew with heavy
wings,--where the sportsman wandered in search of fowl,--where idle boys
played, thousands of habitations and warehouses have been planted. There
the snort of the iron horse is heard morning, noon, and night. There the
ships of almost every country under heaven float. There you meet German,
and French, and Dane, and American, and Italian, and Greek. What
collects that many-coloured and many-language-speaking crowd? Where has
come the money to build those big warehouses, to excavate those capacious
docks, to plant those iron rails, to make on this ancient desert a Babel
busier and more populous than Tyre or Sidon of old? The answer is soon
given. Up those bleak hills, a few miles away, are the coal-works, a
little further still are more, a little further still are more, beyond
them are the iron-works, and thus we go on, coal and iron everywhere, all
fast being changed by magic industry into gold. Nature has destined
England to be the workshop of the world. She sent here the Saxon race,
she filled the bowels of the land with ores more valuable than those of
Potosi. To France and Spain she gave wine; to the countries lying on the
Baltic, timber and grain; to Russia, hemp and tallow; to Lombardy, its
rich silk; to Calabria, its oil; to Ceylon, its spices; to Persia, its
pearls; to America, its cotton; to China, its tea; to California, its
glittering gold; but she has given us the iron and the coal--without
which all her other gifts were vain--and with which all the others can be
bought. To the rank we take amidst the nations of the earth, from the
first we were destined. Ours is not the blue sky of Italy, nor the warm
breath of the sunny south, but it is an atmosphere that fits man for
persevering industry and daily toil. Let us, then, brace ourselves up
for our mission. Let us proclaim the dignity of labour--its beneficent
effects--its more than magical results. Let us honour the workman,
whether he stand at the loom or plough the field--or sail
"--Beyond the sunset
Or the baths of all the western stars,"
or labour in the dark and dangerous recesses of the mine. Thus shall we
build up a barricade against the murderous art of war, teach all the
world the advantages of peace, and make manifest to the nations how to
live.
One word more--don't let the reader go away with the idea that there is
likely to be a dearth of coals in his time. Let him make merry by his
own fireside, and not vex his small brain about what the world will be
when the years have died away. A writer in the _Times_, of May 24th,
1860, says, "As a good deal of anxiety has been recently shown regarding
the probable extinction of the resources of steam coal in Wales, it may
be interesting to state that, by the successful results of the
prosecution for the last five years of the operations of the Navigation
Works at Aberdare, near Merthyr, all fears upon the subject may be
discarded. This pit is the largest in the world, being 18 feet in
diameter and 370 yards in depth. The estimate of its workings is 1000
tons per day. The expenses thus far have been 130,000 pounds, exclusive
of the value of waggons, &c.--35,000 pounds. The ground is of a most
difficult nature, the layers often extending 15 feet without a bed,
crack, fissure, or any opening whatever. The rock had all to be blasted
with gunpowder. The resources of the seam are comparatively boundless,
the property extending seven miles from Taff up to Cwm Neal, and three
miles in width, covering 4000 to 5000 acres of '4 foot coal.' The
royalty is for 99 years, and is held by a firm, composed of Mr. John
Nixon, the well-known colliery proprietor at Merthyr; Mr. Hugh Taylor,
M.P. for Tynemouth; and Mr. W. Cory, the large coal contractor of London.
The commencement of the use of this smokeless coal afloat began about
1840, on board the Thames steamboats, to work Penn's engines. In the
same year a cargo was shipped to Nantes, and given away to the French for
trial, with the sole condition that the engineer should throw it into the
furnaces and leave it alone to stoke itself. Next, the sugar refiners
adopted it, as they suffered considerably if the steam was not kept up to
a pressure of 50lbs., and if allowed to fall below that rate their works
were completely stopped. With the Welsh coal they cleaned out their
fires but once instead of twice, and thereby effected a saving in the
working day of three hours and a half. The French river steamers
followed, and here the only objection raised was, that without the long
trail of smoke from the funnel their customers would not be able to see
their vessels approaching from a distance. The French Government then
became convinced of its efficiency, and, adopting it, have adhered to its
exclusive use ever since. Other Governments have likewise profited by
its advantages: but, although it is consumed in the Peninsular and
Oriental Company's fleet, the Royal Mail, Cunard's, and others, the
English Government has not hitherto availed itself of it. The embryo
town of Mountain Ash, with already a population of 5,000, has recently
been the scene of great rejoicings, as the 'winning' or striking of so
enormous a seam it is expected will bring with it additional prosperity
and considerable increase to its neighbourhood."
CHAPTER IV.
HIGHGATE.
If I were inclined to be dull, I would say Highgate is a village to the
north of London, with an ancient history, a great deal of which the
reader, if he be not a fool, can imagine, and with a very fine geological
formation, indicative of salt-water where it is now very difficult to
find fresh. In order, also, that I may not weary my reader, and
establish a cheap reputation for a great deal of learning, I will frankly
confess that Highgate, means High Gate, and nothing more. In old times,
right away from Islington Turnpike-Gate to Enfield Chase, there was a
magnificent forest, and part of this forest extended as far as Highgate.
Down in the very heart of it, in Hornsey, the Bishop of London had a
castle, and of the Park attached to it Highgate formed a part. When the
old road to the north was found impassable, a new one was formed over the
hill, and through the Bishop's Park. In those days pious bishops levied
toll; to collect this toll a gate was erected, and here was Highgate, and
truly does it deserve the name. It is said the hill is 400 feet above
the top of St. Paul's. Be this as it may, near London, a lovelier spot
is rarely to be met with. Artists, poets, parties in search of the
picturesque, cannot do better than visit Highgate. At every turn you
come to the most beautiful prospects. When London will consume its own
smoke, if that time ever does arrive, the view from Highgate, across the
great city, will be the grandest in the world. On a clear day, standing
in the Archway Road--that road esteemed such a wonder of engineering in
its day, and forming such a disastrous property for its shareholders (the
50 pounds shares may be bought at about 18s. a share)--you may see across
the valley of the Thames as far as the Kent and Surrey hills looming
obscurely in the distance. Close to the Archway Tavern, but on the other
side of the road, is a lofty old-fashioned brick mansion, said to have
been inhabited by Marshal Wade, the military hero who did so much for the
wars of Scotland, and whose memory is still preserved in the following
very remarkable couplet:
"Had you seen these roads before they were made,
You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade."
Well, from the top of this mansion you can see no less than seven English
counties. The number seems almost fabulous, and if, in accordance with a
well-established rule in such cases, we only believe half we hear, enough
is left to convince us that the view is one of no common kind; all that
is wanted to make the scene perfect is a little bit of water. From every
part of the hill, in spite of builders and buildings, views of exquisite
beauty may be obtained. Going down towards Kentish Town, the hill where
her Majesty was nearly dashed to pieces by the running away of the horses
of her carnage (her royal arms on a public-house still preserves the
tradition and the memory of the man who saved her at the peril of his
life), past where Mr. Bodkin the Barrister lives, past where William and
Mary Howitt live, past where the rich Miss Burdett Coutts has a stately
mansion, which, however, to the great grief of the neighbourhood, she
rarely adorns with her presence, what pleasant views we have before us.
It is the same going down past St. Joseph's Retreat to Holloway; and in
Swain's Lane, another lane leading back to Kentish Town, you might fancy
you were in Arcady itself. Again, stand on the brow of the hill, with
your backs to London, looking far away to distant Harrow, or ancient
Barnet, what a fair plain lies at your feet, clothed with cheerful
villas, and looking bright and warm. "Upon this hill," says Norden, "is
most pleasant dwelling, yet not so pleasant as healthful, for the expert
inhabitants there report that divers who have been long visited with
sicknesse not curable by physicke, have in a short time repaired their
health by that sweet salutary air." In 1661, the Spanish Ambassador,
Count Gondomar, excuses his absence from the English court on the plea
that he had gone to his retreat in Highgate "to take the fresh aire."
The associations connected with Highgate are of the most interesting
character. It was coming up Highgate Hill that Dick Whittington heard
the bells prophesying that if he would return he would be Lord Mayor of
London; a public-house still marks the spot. It was at the bottom of
Highgate Hill that the great Bacon--the wisest and not the meanest of
mankind, that lie is at length exploded, and must disappear from
history--caught the cold of which he died. "The cause of his Lordship's
death," writes Aubrey, who professed to have received the information
from Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, "was trying an experiment as he was
taking the air in the coach with Dr. Winterbourne, a Scotchman, physician
to the king. Towards Highgate snow lay on the ground, and it came into
my Lord's thoughts why flesh might not be preserved in snow as in salt.
They were resolved they would try the experiment presently. They
alighted out of the coach, and went into a poor woman's house at the
bottom of Highgate Hill, and bought a hen and stuffed the body with snow,
and my Lord did help to do it himself. The snow so chilled him that he
immediately fell so ill that he could not return to his lodgings, but
went to the Earl of Arundel's house at Highgate, where they put him into
a good bed warmed with a pan, but it was a damp bed, that had not been
laid in for about a year before, which gave him such a cold, that in two
or three days, as I remember, he (Hobbes) told me he died of
suffocation." The Arundel house here referred to does not seem to be the
Arundel House still existing in Highgate, on the left-hand side as you
come up the main road from Islington. The house now bearing that name is
said to have been a residence of Nell Gwynne, and during that period was
visited by the merry monarch himself. The creation of the title of Duke
of St. Albans, which is related to have been obtained by Nell Gwynne in
so extraordinary a manner from King Charles, is said to have taken place
at this house. A marble bath, surrounded by curious and antique
oak-work, is there associated with her name. As the house is now in the
possession of a celebrated antiquarian, the Rev. James Yates, M.A., it is
to be hoped that it will be as little modernised as possible. More
hallowed memories appertain to the next house we come to.
Andrew Marvel, patriot, was born, 1620, at Kingston-upon-Hull. After
taking his degree of B.A. at Trinity College, Cambridge, he went abroad,
and at Rome he wrote the first of those satirical poems which obtained
him such celebrity. In 1635, Marvel returned to England, rich in the
friendship of Milton, who a couple of years after, thus introduced him to
Bradshaw: "I present to you Mr. Marvel, laying aside those jealousies and
that emulation which mine own condition might suggest to me by bringing
in such a coadjutor." "It was most likely," writes Mrs. S. C. Hall,
"during this period that he inhabited the cottage at Highgate, opposite
to the house in which lived part of the family of Cromwell." How Marvel
became M.P. for his native town--how he was probably the last
representative paid by his constituents, (a much better practice that
than ours of representatives paying their constituents)--how his
"Rehearsal Transposed," a witty and sarcastic poem, not only humbled
Parker, but, in the language of Bishop Burnet, "the whole party, for from
the king down to the tradesman the book was read with pleasure,"--how he
spurned the smiles of the venal court, and sleeps the sleep of the just
in St. Giles-in-the-Fields, are facts known to all. Mason has made
Marvel the hero of his "Ode to Independence," and thus alludes to his
incorruptible integrity:
"In awful poverty his honest muse
Walks forth vindictive through a venal land;
In vain corruption sheds her golden dews,
In vain oppression lifts her iron hand,--
He scorns them both, and armed with truth alone,
Bids lust and folly tremble on the throne."
On the other side of the way is an old stately red-brick building, now a
school, and well known as Cromwell House. I don't find that Cromwell
lived there, but assuredly his son-in-law, Ireton, did. His arms are
elaborately carved on the ceiling of the state-rooms, the antique
stair-case and apartments retain their originality of character, and the
mansion is altogether one of very great interest. Mr. Prickett, in his
History of Highgate, tells us Cromwell House is supposed to have been
built by the Protector, whose name it bears, about the year 1630, as a
residence for General Ireton, who married his daughter, and was one of
the commanders of his army; it is, however, said to have been the
residence of Oliver Cromwell himself, but no mention is made, either in
history or his biography, of his ever having lived at Highgate.
Tradition states there was a subterraneous passage from this house to the
Mansion House, which stood where the new church now stands, but of its
reality no proof has hitherto been adduced. Cromwell House was evidently
built and internally ornamented in accordance with the taste of its
military occupant. The staircase, which is of handsome proportions, is
richly decorated with oaken carved figures, supposed to have been of
persons in the General's army, in their costumes, and the balustrades
filled in with devices emblematical of warfare. From the platform on the
top of the mansion may be seen a perfect panorama of the surrounding
country.
On the hill was the house of Mr. Coniers, Bencher and Treasurer of the
Middle Temple, from which, on the 3rd of June, 1611, the Lady Arabella
escaped. Her sin was that she had married Mr. Seymour, afterwards
Marquis of Hertford. Her fate was sad; she was recaptured and died in
the Tower. Sir Richard Baker, author of "The Chronicles of the Kings of
England," resided at Highgate. Dr. Sacheverel, that foolish priest, died
at Highgate. But a greater man than any we have yet named lived here. I
speak of S. T. Coleridge, who lived in a red-brick house in the "Grove"
twenty years, with his biographer, Mr. Gillman, which house is now
inhabited by Mr. Blatherwick, surgeon. It is much to be regretted that
Gillman's Life was never completed, but a monument in the new church, and
a grave in the old churchyard, mark the philosopher's connection with
Highgate. Carlyle has given us a description of what he calls
Coleridge's philosophical moonshine. I met a lady who remembers the
philosopher well, as a snuffy old gentleman, very fond of stroking her
hair, and seeing her and another little girl practise their dancing
lessons. On one occasion Irving came with the philosopher. As the great
man's clothes were very shabby, and as he took so much snuff as to make
her sneeze whenever she went near him, my lady informant had rather a
poor opinion of the author of "Christabel" and the "Ancient Mariner." A
contemporary writer, more akin in philosophy to Coleridge than Thomas
Carlyle, and more able to appreciate the wondrous intellect of the man
than the little lady to whom I have already referred, says, "I was in his
company about three hours, and of that time he spoke during two and
three-quarters. It would have been delightful to listen as attentively,
and certainly as easy for him to speak just as well, for the next
forty-eight hours. On the whole, his conversation, or rather monologue,
is by far the most interesting I ever read or heard of. Dr. Johnson's
talk, with which it is obvious to compare it, seems to me immeasurably
inferior. It is better balanced and squared, and more ponderous with
epithets, but the spirit and flavour and fragrance, the knowledge and the
genius, are all wanting. The one is a house of brick, the other a quarry
of jasper. It is painful to observe in Coleridge, that with all the
kindness and glorious far-seeing intelligence of his eye, there is a
glare in it, a light half-unearthly and morbid. It is the glittering eye
of the Ancient Mariner. His cheek too shows a flush of over-excitement,
the ridge of a storm-cloud at sunset. When he dies, another, and the
greatest of their race, will rejoin the few immortals, the ill-understood
and ill-requited, who have walked this earth." Had Coleridge ever a more
genial visitant than the farmer-looking, but eloquent and philanthropic
Chalmers, who in 1839 came from Scotland to London, and of course clomb
up Highgate Hill to pay a visit to Coleridge, he says--"Half-an-hour with
Coleridge was filled up without intermission by one continuous flow of
eloquent discourse from that prince of talkers. He began, in answer to
the common inquiries as to his health, by telling of a fit of
insensibility in which, three weeks before, he had lain for thirty-five
minutes. As sensibility returned, and before he had opened his eyes, he
uttered a sentence about the fugacious nature of consciousness, from
which he passed to a discussion of the singular relations between the
soul and the body. Asking for Mr. Irving, but waiting for no reply, he
poured out an eloquent tribute of his regard, mourning pathetically that
such a man should be throwing himself away. Mr. Irving's book on the
'Human Nature of Christ' in his analysis was minute to absurdity; one
would imagine that the pickling and preserving were to follow, it was so
like a cookery-book. Unfolding then his own scheme of the
Apocalypse--talking of the mighty contrast between its Christ and the
Christ of the Gospel narrative, Mr. Coleridge said that Jesus did not
come now as before, meek and gentle, healing the sick and feeding the
hungry, and dispensing blessings all around; but he came on a white
horse, and who were his attendants?--Famine and War and Pestilence."
The poets have always been partial to Highgate. William and Mary Howitt
live there at this day. Florence Nightingale has also there taken up her
abode. The German religious reformer, Ronge, lives at the foot of
Highgate Hill. Nicholas Rowe was educated there. It was in one of the
lanes leading to Highgate that Coleridge met Keats and Hunt. "There is
death in the hand," said he to Hunt, as he shook hands with the author of
Endymion. Painters and artists have also been partial to Highgate.
George Morland would stay at the Bull, an inn still existing, weeks at a
time, and, we may be sure, ran up very handsome scores. An incident that
occurred to Hogarth while at Highgate made an artist of him. The tale is
thus told by Walpole--"During his apprenticeship he set out one Sunday
with two or three companions on an excursion to Highgate. The weather
being very hot, they went into a public-house, where they had not been
long before a quarrel arose between some persons in the same room; one of
the disputants struck the other on the head with a quart pot and cut him
very much; the blood running down the man's face, together with the agony
of the wound, which had distorted the features into a most hideous grin,
presented Hogarth, who showed himself thus early apprised of the mode
nature had intended he should pursue, with a subject too laughable to be
overlooked. He drew out his pencil, and produced on the spot one of the
most ludicrous figures that was ever seen. What rendered the piece the
more valuable was, that it exhibited an exact likeness of the man, with
the portrait of his antagonist, and the figures in caricature of the
principal persons gathered around him." One of the names associated with
Highgate I find to be that of Hogarth's enemy, Wilkes, patriot or
demagogue. In his Life I read, "Mr. Wilkes was of the Established
Church, but after he was married he often went to Meeting. He lived in a
splendid style, and kept a very elegant and sumptuous table for his
friends. Among the numerous persons who visited this family were Mr.
Mead, an eminent drysalter on London Bridge, with his wife and daughter,
who, being also Dissenters, frequently went to the Meeting-house in
Southwood Lane, Highgate, in Mr. Wilkes's coach, which was always drawn
by six horses, such was his love of external appearance." Going still
further back, more renowned characters appear on Highgate Hill. After
the memorable battle of Bosworth Field, in which the usurper, Richard,
had been slain, it was at Highgate that the victorious Richmond was met
by the citizens of London on his triumphal approach to the metropolis.
"He was met," writes Lambert, "by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in scarlet
robes, with a great number of citizens on horseback." The Gunpowder Plot
is also connected with this interesting locality. It is said, while that
old villain, Guy Fawkes, was preparing "to blow up king and parliament,
with Jehu and Powdire," the rest of the conspirators had assembled on
Highgate Hill to witness the catastrophe; indeed, a driver of the Barnet
mail--I fear not the best authority in the world on antiquarian
matters--went so far on one occasion as to point out to the writer a bit
of an old wall, a little beyond Marvel's house on the same side of the
way, as a part of the identical house in which those very evil-disposed
gentlemen met. A subterraneous way is also said to have existed from the
site of the present church to Cromwell House, and thence to Islington.
To me the story seems somewhat doubtful, but the reader is at full
liberty to believe it or not as he likes. Let us now speak of the
institutions of Highgate: the most modern is the cemetery, which was
consecrated by the Lord Bishop of London in May, 1839, and has therefore
the merit of being one of the first, as it is undoubtedly one of the most
beautiful in situation, of any near London. It contains about twenty
acres of ground on the side of the hill facing the metropolis. The
approach to it through Swain's Lane conducts the visitor by a green lane
rising gradually to the Gothic building which forms the entrance.
Entering the grounds, the eye is struck by the taste everywhere
displayed. Broad gravel paths on either side wind up the steep slope to
the handsome new church of St. Michael's, which is seen to great
advantage from almost every part of the grounds. An hour may be very
well spent here musing on the dead. Good and bad, rogue and honest man,
saint and sinner, here sleep side by side. John Sadleir, but too well
known as M.P., and chairman of the London and County Bank, is buried
here. Indeed all sects, and callings, and professions, have here their
representative men. General Otway has one of the handsomest monuments in
the grounds. One of the most tasteful is that of Lillywhite, the
cricketer, erected by public subscription. Wombwell, known and admired
in our childish days for his wonderful menagerie, reposes under a massive
lion. One grave has a marble pillar bearing a horse all saddled and
bridled. The inscription under commemorates the death of a lady, and
commences thus,
"She's gone, whose nerve could guide the swiftest steed."
On inquiry we found the lady was the wife of a celebrated knacker, well
skilled in the mysteries of horseflesh and the whip. Holman, the blind
traveller, is buried in Highgate Cemetery, and very near him are the
mortal remains of that prince of newspaper editors and proprietors,
Stephen Rintoul. On the other side the cemetery is buried Bogue, the
well-known publisher of Fleet Street. In the Catacombs are interred
Liston, the greatest operator of his day, and Pierce Egan, a man as
famous in his way. It was only a few months since Sir W. Charles Ross,
the celebrated miniature painter, was buried here. Frank Stone sleeps in
the same cemetery, as also does that well-remembered actress, Mrs.
Warner. Haydn, well-known for his Dictionary of Dates, and Gilbert a
Beckett, still remembered for his comic powers, are amongst the literary
men that here await the resurrection morn. A fairer place in which to
sleep it would be difficult to choose, in spite of the monstrous trophies
of affectation, or ostentation, or affection all round,--in spite of the
reminiscences of Cornhill and Cheapside, suggested by every other grave.
As a ride, you had better pass by monuments unlooked at, they do but
enumerate the virtues of the illustrious obscure, and the wealth of their
survivors.
Of the past we now recall another relic, Lord Byron, in "Childe Harold,"
writes,
"Some o'er thy Thamis row the ribbon'd fair,
Others along the safer turnpike fly;
Some Richmond-hill ascend, some scud to Ware,
And many to the steep of Highgate hie.
Ask ye, Boeotian shades! the reason why?
'Tis to the worship of the solemn Horn,
Grasped in the holy hand of Mystery,
In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn,
And consecrate the oath with draught, and dance till mom."
In the note from whence the above extract is taken, Lord Byron says he
alludes to a ridiculous custom which formerly prevailed in Highgate of
administering a burlesque oath to all travellers of the middling rank who
stopped there. The party was sworn on a pair of horns fastened, never to
kiss the maid when he could the mistress; never to eat brown bread when
he could get white; never to drink small beer when he could get strong;
with many other injunctions of the kind, to all which was added the
saving clause, "unless you like it best." Lambert tells us, "the oath
formerly was tendered to every person stopping at any of the
public-houses of the village, which are very numerous, and mostly
distinguished by a large pair of horns placed over the signs." I need
not add, no horns are seen now. When a person consented to be sworn, he
laid his hand on a pair of horns fixed to a long staff, and the oath was
administered. This ridiculous ceremony being over, the juror was to kiss
the horns and pay a shilling for the oath, to be spent among the company
to which he or she belonged. To complete the incongruous character of
the ceremony, the father, for such was the style of the person
administering the oath, officiated in a wig and gown, with the addition
of a mask. The origin of this custom is completely lost, but it was so
common at one time, that one man is said to have sworn one hundred and
fifty in a day. It appears to have been the fashion to make up parties
to Highgate for the purpose of taking the oath, and as a prerequisite for
admission to certain convivial societies now no more, the freedom of
Highgate was indispensable. The father facetiously said if the son, as
the individual sworn was termed, was too poor to pay for wine himself, he
was recommended to call for it at the first inn, and to place it to his
father's score, "and now, my good son," the formula continued, "I wish
you a safe journey through Highgate and this life." If the father's good
wishes were realized, one is almost inclined to regret that the ceremony
exists no longer. Another ancient institution is the grammar school,
founded in 1562 by Sir Roger Cholmeley, Lord Chief Baron of the
Exchequer, and after that Chief Justice of the King's Bench.
But we must leave Highgate, now the retreat of the wealthy citizen, and
the great North Road, along which coaches galloped almost every minute,
and along which lords and ladies posted, ere that frightful leveller, the
railroad had been formed. By the Favourite omnibuses it is but a
sixpenny ride to Highgate from the Bank, but in the good old times, the
fare by the stage was half-a-crown. It would do aldermen good to go up
its hill, and the city clerk or shopman cannot frequent it too much.
Highgate has much the air of a provincial town. It has its Literary
Institution, and its police office, and water-works, and gas, its
seminaries for ingenious youth of either sex, and its shops filled with
miscellaneous wares. The great city is creeping up the hill, and seeking
to encircle it with its chains of brick, but it resists lustily, and with
its quaint old houses, and fine old trees, will not assume a cockney
appearance. I honour it for its obstinacy, and trust that it will be
long before it shall have the wicked, busy, towny appearance of the
Modern Babylon.
CHAPTER V.
TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND.
Barry Cornwall tells us that when he was a little boy he was told that
the streets of London were all paved with gold; and it must be admitted
that, to the youthful mind in general, the metropolis is a sort of Tom
Tiddler's ground, where gold and silver are to be picked up in handfuls
any day. There is a good deal of exaggeration in this, undoubtedly. To
many, London is dark and dismal as one of its own fogs, cold and stony as
one of its own streets. The Earl of Shaftesbury, a few years back,
calculated there were 30,000 ragged, houseless, homeless children in our
streets. The number of persons who died last year in the streets of
London, from want of the necessaries of life, would shock a Christian.
Last year the total number of casual destitute paupers admitted into the
workhouses of the metropolitan districts amounted to 53,221 males, 62,622
females, and 25,710 children. We cannot wonder at this when we remember
that it is said 60,000 persons rise every morning utterly ignorant as to
the wherewithal to feed and maintain themselves for the day. Wonderful
are the shifts, and efforts, and ingenuities of this class. One
summer-day, a lady-friend of the writer was driving in one of the
pleasant green lanes of Hornsey, when she saw a poor woman gathering the
broad leaves of the horse-chestnut. She asked her why she did so. The
reply was that she got a living by selling them to the fruiterers in
Covent Garden, who lined the baskets with them in which they placed their
choicest specimens. One day it came out in evidence at a police-court,
that a mother and her children earned a scanty subsistence by rising
early in the morning, or rather late at night, and tearing down and
selling as waste-paper, the broad sheets and placards with which the dead
walls and boardings of our metropolis abound. The poor sick needlewomen,
stitching for two-and-six-pence a-week, indicate in some quarters how
hard is the London struggle for life. But one of the worst sights, I
think, is that of women (a dozen may be seen at a time), all black and
grimy, sifting the cinders and rubbish collected by the dustmen from
various parts, and shot into one enormous heap.
The last dodge exposed for making money is amusing. A writer in the
_Times_ wanted to know how it was we see advertisements in London papers
for a million of postage-stamps. A writer in reply says all the stories
about severe papas, who will not let their daughters marry till they have
papered a room with them, are false. He says if the reader will go to
some of the purlieus of the Borough (leaving his watch and purse at home)
he will very possibly be enlightened. He will be accosted by a
hook-nosed man, who will pull out a greasy pocket-book, and produce some
apparently new postage-stamps, not all joined together, but each one
separate, and will offer them for sale at about 2d. a dozen. If the
enterprising stranger looks very closely, indeed, into these stamps, he
may perhaps detect a slight join in the middle. They are made by taking
the halves which are unobliterated of two old stamps and joining them,
regumming the backs and cleaning the faces. This practice is, it is
said, carried on to a great extent, in the low neighbourhoods of
Ratcliff-highway, and the Borough.
During the year 1858 it appears 10,004 persons died in the public
institutions of London: 5,535 in the workhouses, 57 in the prisons, and
4,412 in hospitals. Of the latter number 317 belong to the Greenwich and
the Chelsea hospitals, 211 to the military and naval hospitals. About
one in six of the inhabitants of the metropolis dies in the public
institutions, nearly one in eleven dies in the workhouses. Only think of
the population of London. In 1857 that was estimated by the
Registrar-General at 2,800,000; since then the population has gone on
steadily increasing, and it may be fairly estimated that the London of
to-day is more than equal to three Londons of 1801. Now, amidst this
teeming population, what thousands of vicious, and rogues, and fools
there must be; what thousands suddenly reduced from affluence to poverty;
what thousands plunged into distress by sickness or the loss of friends,
and parents, and other benefactors; to such what a place of pain, and
daily mortification, and trial London must be!
But, on the other hand, from the time of Whittington and his cat, London
has abounded with instances showing how, by industry and intelligence,
and--let us trust--honesty, the poorest may rise to the possession of
great wealth and honour. Indeed all the great city houses abound with
examples. Poor lads have come up to town, friendless and moneyless, have
been sober and steady, and firm against London allurements and vices,
have improved the abilities and opportunities God has given them, and are
now men of note and mark. The late Lord Mayor was but an office-lad in
the firm of which he is now the head. Mr. Herbert Ingram, M.P. for
Boston, and proprietor of the _Illustrated News_, blackened the shoes of
one of his constituents. Mr. Anderson, of the Oriental Steam Navigation
Company, and formerly M.P. for the Orkneys, rose in a similar manner.
Sir Peter Laurie was originally in a humble position in life, so was Mr.
Dillon, of the house of Dillon and Co. Our great Lord Chancellor, when
employment was scarce and money ditto, held a post as reporter and
theatrical critic on the _Morning Chronicle_ newspaper. Mr. Chaplin, the
late Salisbury M.P., was an extraordinary instance of a man rising from
the humblest rank. Before railways were in operation Mr. Chaplin had
succeeded in making himself one of the largest coach proprietors in the
kingdom. His establishment, from small beginnings, grew till, just
before the opening of the London and North Western line, he was
proprietor of sixty-four stage-coaches, worked by fifteen hundred horses,
and giving yearly returns of more than half a million sterling. Mr.
Cobden began life in a very subordinate position in a London warehouse.
Sir William Cubitt when a lad worked at his father's flour-mill. Michael
Faraday, England's most eminent chemist, was the son of a poor
blacksmith. Sir Samuel Morton Peto worked for seven years as a
carpenter, bricklayer, and mason, under his uncle, Mr. Henry Peto. The
well-known Mr. Lindsay, M.P. for Sunderland, was a cabin boy. The editor
of one morning paper rose quite from the ranks, and the editor of another
well known journal used to be an errand-boy in the office before, by
gigantic industry and perseverance, he attained his present high
position. Mr. J. Fox, the eloquent M.P. for Oldham, and the "Publicola"
of the _Weekly Dispatch_, worked in a Norwich factory. The great
warehouses in Cheapside and Cannon-street, and elsewhere, are owned by
men who mostly began life without a rap. Go to the beautiful villas at
Norwood, at Highgate, at Richmond, and ask who lives there, and you will
find that they are inhabited by men whose wealth is enormous, and whose
career has been a marvellous success. Fortunes in London are made by
trifles. I know a man who keeps a knacker's yard, who lives out of town
in a villa of exquisite beauty, and who drives horses which a prince
might envy. Out of the profits of his vegetable pills Morrison bought
himself a nice estate. Mrs. Holloway drives one of the handsomest
carriages you shall meet in the Strand. Sawyer and Strange, who the
other day were respectable young men unknown to fame, paid the Crystal
Palace Company upwards of 12,000 pounds, as per contract, for the liberty
to supply refreshments for a few months. In the city there, at this
time, may be seen the proprietor of a dining-room, who drives a handsome
mail-phaeton and pair daily to town in the morning to do business, and
back at night. Thackeray has a tale of a gentleman who married a young
lady, drove his cab, and lived altogether in great style. The gentleman
was very silent as to his occupation; he would not even communicate the
secret to his wife. All that she knew was what was patent to all his
neighbours--that he went in his Brougham in the morning, and returned at
night. Even the mother-in-law, prying as she was, was unable to solve
the mystery. At length, one day the unfortunate wife, going with her
dear mamma into the city, in the person of a street sweeper clothed in
rags, and covered with dirt, she recognised her lord and master, who
decamped and was never heard of more. The story is comic, but not
improbable, for London is so full of wealth, you have only to take your
place, and it seems as if some of the golden shower must fall into your
mouth. Mr. Thwaites, when examined before the Parliamentary Committee on
the Embankment of the Thames, said, "The metropolis contributes very
largely to the taxation of the country. The value of the property
assessed under Schedule A, is 22,385,350 pounds, whilst the sum for the
rest of the kingdom is 127,994,288 pounds; under Schedule D the
metropolis shows 37,871,644 pounds, against 86,077,676 pounds. The gross
estimated rental of the property of the metropolis assessed to the poor
rates is 16,157,320 pounds, against 86,077,676 pounds from the rest of
the kingdom." The speculations on the Stock Exchange embrace a national
debt of 800 millions, railway shares to the extent of 300 millions,
besides foreign stock, foreign railway shares, and miscellaneous
investments of all kinds. Land has been sold in the neighbourhood of the
Exchange and the Bank at the rate of a million pounds an acre. The
rateable value of the property assessed to the poor rates in the
districts of the metropolis in 1857 amounted to 11,167,678 pounds. A
Parliamentary Return shows that the total ordinary receipts of the
Corporation of the city for the year 1857 amounted to 905,298 pounds, the
largest item being the coal duty, 64,238 pounds. The London omnibuses
pay government a duty of no less than 70,200 pounds a year. The Thames
even, dirty and stinking as it is, is full of gold. One fact will place
its commercial value in the clearest light. In 1856 the Customs' duties
entered as collected from all parts of the United Kingdom were 19,813,622
pounds, and of this large sum considerably more than half was collected
in the port of London,--the Customs' duties paid in the port of London
alone being 12,287,591 pounds, a much larger sum than paid by all the
remaining ports of the United Kingdom put together. No wonder that the
Londoners are proud of the Thames. Why, even the very mudlarks--the boys
who prowl in its mud on behalf of treasure-trove--earn, it is said, as
much as 2,000 to 3,000 pounds by that miserable employment in the course
of a year.
But we stop. The magnitude of Loudon wealth and even crime can never be
fully estimated. It is a boundless ocean, in which the brave, sturdy,
steady swimmer--while the weak are borne away rapidly to destruction--may
pick up precious pearls.
CHAPTER VI.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
On Monday, Jan. 9, 1860, we formed part of a crowd who had assembled in
the Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, to view the burial of the only man
of our generation who, by means of his literary and oratorical efforts,
has won for his brow a coronet. Of Babington Macaulay, as essayist,
poet, orator, historian, statesman, we need not speak. What he was, and
what he did, are patent to all the world. Born in 1800, the son of
Zachary Macaulay, one of the brilliant band of anti-slavery agitators of
which Mr. Wilberforce was the head, young Babington commenced life under
favourable circumstances. At Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was
educated, the world first heard of his wondrous talent. In 1830 he was
returned by Lord Lansdowne for his borough of Calne; the Reform agitation
was then at its height, and how bitterly, and fiercely, and eloquently
Macaulay spoke we remember at this day. Then, in 1834, commenced his
Indian exile, at the end of which he returned to Parliament with a
competency. His Essays in the Edinburgh Review and his History were the
chief business of his life. He might have shone as a poet had he not
betaken himself to prose; but in this department he remained unrivalled,
and the result was riches and fame. On one occasion, it is said, his
publisher gave him a cheque for 20,000 pounds, and he was made by the
Whigs a peer. His burial at Westminster Abbey, at the foot of Addison,
was a fitting climax to his career of wondrous achievement and gorgeous
success. Men most distinguished in literature--in science--in law--in
statesmanship--in divinity--in rank--were present. The funeral was not
as touching as might have been expected. It may be that the choral
service itself interferes with the inner feeling of sadness the death of
such a man arouses in every mind; it may be that the human voice is
inadequate to express the power, and pathos, and majesty of the form of
words used on such occasions; and it is certain that the many ladies
present were dressed in the most unbefitting costumes, and that ribbons,
and bonnets, and dresses of all the colours of the rainbow were quite out
of keeping with the place and the occasion. The saddest sight, the one
most suggestive of deep feeling, was that of one or two ladies, high up
in a recess above the grave. They were real mourners. Indeed, it was
said one of them was the sister of the deceased peer. Lord John Russell
also exhibited an emotion for which the general public will scarce give
him credit. At the grave he was so much overcome, that it seemed as if
he would have fallen had not the Duke of Argyle held him up. Well might
his Lordship be moved to tears. Could he keep from thinking, while
standing there, how soon his own turn would come, and how well and
worthily he, who slept the sleep of death in the plain coffin at his
feet, had fought the battle of the Whigs in their palmy days? We looked
back, as we stood there, to other days. We saw a theatre in Gower Street
filled with intelligent youths. A winter session had been closed: all
its work and competition were over; to the successful candidates prizes
were to be awarded. The fathers and mothers, the friends and sisters of
such had come together from far and near. Seated in a chair was a stout,
mild, genial man, with face somewhat pale, and hair scant and inclined to
grey. He rose, and was received with rapturous applause; he spoke in
plain language--with little action, with a voice rather inclined to be
harsh--of the bright future which rises before the rapt eye of youth. He
spoke--and as he did so, as he mounted from one climax to another, every
young heart filled and warmed with the speaker's theme. That was
Macaulay, just come from India, with an honourable competence, to
consummate the fame as a man he had acquired in younger years. Again, we
thought of that last speech in the House of Commons, when, at an early
hour on a beautiful summer evening, the Parks, and Clubs, and Rotten Row
had been deserted, for it had gone forth to the world that Macaulay was
about to speak. Poor Joseph Hume had moved the adjournment of the
debate, and, as a matter of right, was in possession of the House; but
the calls for Macaulay on all sides were so numerous, that even that most
good-natured of men, as Hume was, grew a little angry and remonstrated;
but it was in vain that he sought the attention of the House: all were
anxious for the next speaker, and no sooner had Hume sat down than
Macaulay delivered, in his hurried feverish way, one of those speeches
which not merely delight, but which influence men's votes and opinions,
and may be read with delight when the occasion which gave rise to them
has long since passed away. We have heard much in favour of competition
in the civil service, at home and in India, since then, but never was the
argument more clearly put--more copiously illustrated, more clothed in
grace and beauty; and then came a few short years of infirmity of body,
of labour with the pen, and sudden death, and the burial at Westminster
Abbey. Out of the thousands standing by the grave, few could ever expect
to see the career of such another genius. He is gone, and we may not
hope to see his work finished. In vain we call up him--
"Who left untold,
The story of Cambuscan bold."
Since then another public funeral has taken place in Westminster Abbey;
only the other day we saw deposited there the ashes of Sir Charles Barry,
and here, as year by year passes over our heads, richer, and dearer, and
wider are the associations which cluster around that venerable pile. I
don't envy the man who can point a sneer at Westminster Abbey; how placid
and beautiful is the outside, how eloquently it speaks to the ambitious
lawyer, the busy merchant, the statesman bent on fame, the beauty armed
for conquest; what a testimony it bears to the religious spirit of the
age which witnessed its erection, and of the brain or brains which
conceived its magnificent design.
The Abbey is open to public inspection between the hours of eleven and
three daily, and also in the summer months between four and six in the
afternoon. The public are not admitted to view the monuments on Good
Friday, Christmas Day, or fast days, or during the hours of Divine
Service. The nave, transept, and cloisters are entirely free. The
charge for admission to the rest of the Abbey, through which you are
accompanied by a guide, is sixpence each person. The entrance is at the
south transept, better known as Poet's Corner. It will do you good to
walk in there any Sunday during Divine Service. The appearance of the
place is singularly striking. The white-robed choristers; the benches
filled with well-dressed people the dark religious columns; the lofty and
fretted roof; the marble monuments and busts looking down on you from
every wall and corner; the gleams of mellow sunlight streaming in from
richly painted windows--all tend to produce an effect such as you can
find nowhere else--an effect of which you must be sensible if you care
not for the rich notes of the organ, or sleep while the parson preaches.
The Abbey, originally a Benedictine monastery--the Minster west of St.
Paul's London--was founded originally in what was called Thorney Island,
by Sebert, King of the East Saxons, 616. The patron Saint, Peter
himself, is said to have consecrated it by night, and in a most
miraculous manner. Till the time of Edward the Confessor the Abbey does
not seem to have made much way; but the meek-minded Prince was led to
give the Abbey a patronage which led to the building becoming what it is.
It seems the Prince had been ill, and vowed to take a journey to the Holy
Land if he should recover. But, as often is the case with vows made in
sickness, the Prince, when well, found it exceedingly inconvenient to
fulfil his vow. The only course left for him was to appeal to the Pope.
The Holy Father, of course, was appealed to, and freed the pious king
from his vow on one condition--that he should spend the money that the
journey would have cost him in some religious building. The Prince, too
happy to be freed from the consequences of this foolish vow, gladly
promised to do so; and, whilst he was considering as to what building he
should favour with his royal patronage, one of the monks of
Westminster--rather an artful man, we imagine--was reported to have had a
wonderful dream, in which no less a personage than St. Peter himself
appeared to him, and charged him to take a message to the King, to the
effect that his celestial saintship hoped he would not overlook the
claims of Westminster. Of course, to so pious a prince as Edward, the
saintly wish was law; and on Westminster were lavished the most princely
sums. Succeeding kings followed in the same steps. Henry III. and his
son, Edward I., rebuilt it nearly as we see it now. It is difficult to
say what the building must have cost its royal patrons. In our own time,
its repairs have amounted to an enormous sum.
As the last resting place of the great, Westminster Abbey must always be
dear to Englishmen. It was a peerage or Westminster Abbey that urged
Nelson on. Old Godfrey Kneller did not rate the honour of lying in
Westminster Abbey quite so highly. "By God," exclaimed the old painter,
"I will not be buried in Westminster! They do bury fools there." It is
difficult to say on what principle the burials there take place. Byron's
monument was refused, though Thorwaldsen was the sculptor; and yet Prior
has a staring one to himself--that Prior whose Chloe was an alehouse
drab, and who was as far inferior to Byron in genius as a farthing
rushlight to the morning star.
Another evil, to which public attention should be drawn, is the expense
attending a funeral there. When Tom Campbell (would that he were alive
to write war lyrics now!) was buried, the fees to the Dean and Chapter
amounted to somewhere between five and six hundred pounds. Surely it
ought not to be so. The Dean and Chapter are well paid enough as it is.
If, reader, pausing on the hallowed ground, you feel inclined to think of
the past, remember that beneath you sleep many English
statesmen,--Clarendon, the great Lord Chatham, Pitt, Fox, and Canning;
that there
"The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
'Twill trickle to his rival's bier."
Remember that--
"Bacon there
Gives more than female beauty to a stone,
And Chatham, eloquence to marble life;"
that of poets; Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Congreve, Addison,
Sheridan, and Campbell, and others, there await the sound of the last
trumpet; that old Sam Johnson there finds rest; that there the brain of a
Newton has crumbled into dust; and, as if to shew that all distinctions
are levelled by death, Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and other
favourites of the stage, are buried there. As a burial place Westminster
Abbey resembles the world. We jostle one another precisely so in real
life. "The age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so
near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe."
CHAPTER VII.
LONDON CHARITIES.
When Guizot visited London the principal thing that struck him was the
nature and the extent of London Charities. Undoubtedly the English are a
more charitable people than the French. When the ruinously low prices of
the Funds forbade a loan, the loyalty-loan brought forth the name of a
Lancashire cotton-spinner, the father of the lamented statesman, Sir
Robert Peel, who subscribed 60,000 pounds; and when George the Third sent
the Minister Pitt to compliment him on this truly loyal and patriotic
subscription, he simply replied that another 60,000 pounds would be
forthcoming if it was wanted for the defence of the country. Did
Napoleon, or any French monarch, ever possess such a patriotic subject?
The spirit is still the same. What sums the nation subscribed for the
relief of the wives and widows and orphans of the Crimean heroes. What
an amount was raised at once for the victims of the Indian mutiny. An
Englishman likes to make money, and makes many a sacrifice to do it; but
then how lavishly and with what a princely hand he gives it. And in this
respect the Londoner is a thorough Englishman--his charity covers a
multitude of sins. I am aware some of this charity is of a doubtful
character. A draper, for instance, may subscribe to the funds--of such
an institution as that for early closing--a very handsome sum, merely as
a good business advertisement; other tradesmen may and undoubtedly do the
same. There is also a spirit of rivalry in these matters--if Smith saw
Jones' name down for 50 pounds, he, thinking he was as good as Smith any
day, and perhaps a good deal better, puts his name down for 100 pounds.
Somehow or other we can scarce do good things without introducing a
little of the alloy of poor human nature; but London charities
undoubtedly cover a multitude of sins.
Associations for the voluntary relief of distress, the reclamation of the
criminal, and diffusion of Christian truth, are a noble characteristic of
the English people. There is no city in the world possessing an equal
number of charitable institutions to those of the British capital.
Taking the whole of London, and not exempting, from their distance, such
as may be correctly classed as metropolitan institutions, as Greenwich
Hospital, &c., we find there are no less than 526 charitable
institutions, exclusive of mere local endowments and trusts, parochial
and local schools, &c.
According to Mr. Low, the charities comprise--
12 General medical hospitals.
50 Medical charities for special purposes.
35 General dispensaries.
12 Societies and institutions for the preservation of life and
public morals.
18 Societies for reclaiming the fallen, and staying the
progress of crime.
14 Societies for the relief of general destitution and
distress.
35 Societies in connection with the Committee of the
Reformatory and Refuge Unions.
12 Societies for relief of specific description.
14 Societies for aiding the resources of the industrious
(exclusive of loan funds and savings' banks).
11 Societies for the deaf and dumb, and the blind.
103 Colleges, hospitals, and institutions of almhouses for the
aged.
16 Charitable pension societies.
74 Charitable and provident societies, chiefly for specified
classes.
31 Asylums for orphan and other necessitous children.
10 Educational foundations.
4 Charitable modern ditto.
40 School societies, religious books, Church aiding and
Christian visiting societies.
35 Bible and missionary societies.
526 (This includes parent societies only, and is quite
exclusive of the numerous "auxiliaries," &c.)
These charities annually disburse in aid of their respective objects the
extraordinary amount of 1,764,733 pounds, of which upwards of 1,000,000
pounds is raised annually by voluntary contributions; the remainder from
funded property, sale of publications, &c.
The facility with which money can be raised in London for charitable
purposes is very astonishing. A short time back it was announced that
the London Hospital had lost about 1,500 pounds a year by the falling in
of annuities. It was, therefore, necessary, if the Hospital was to
continue its charities to the same extent as heretofore, that additional
funds should be raised. In an incredibly short space of time 24,000
pounds were collected. The _Times_ makes an appeal about Christmas time
for the refuges of the destitute in the metropolis, and generally it
raises somewhere about 10,000 pounds--a nice addition to the regular
income of the societies. The Bishop of London, since he has been
connected with his diocese, has consecrated 29 new churches,
accommodating 90,000 persons, erected by voluntary subscriptions. We may
depend upon it the various sects of dissenters are equally active in
their way. During last year the Field Lane Refuge supplied 30,302
lodgings to 6,785 men and boys, who received 101,193 either six or eight
ounce loaves of bread. At the same time 840 women were admitted during
the year, to whom were supplied 10,028 lodgings, averaging 11 nights
shelter to each person, by whom 14,755 loaves were consumed. On the
whole it appears that 10,000 persons annually participate in the
advantages of this institution, and 1,222 of the most forlorn and
wretched creatures in London were taken from the streets and placed in a
position where they might earn their own bread, and all this at the cost
of 3s. 6d. each per annum. In 1851 the original Shoeblack Society sent
five boys into the street to get an honest living by cleaning boots
rather than by picking and stealing, and now their number is about 350.
Mr. Mayhew calculates the London charities at three millions and a half
per annum. In estimating London charities we must not be unmindful of
those required by law. According to a return published a couple of years
since, I find, in the districts of the metropolis, the average amount
expended for the relief of the poor was 1s. 6.75d. in the pound. The
total number of casual destitute paupers admitted into the workhouses of
the metropolitan districts during the year amounted to 53,221 males,
62,622 females, and 25,716 children. The quantity of food supplied to
these paupers varies much in the several districts, as also the nature of
the work required. In some cases no work at all is exacted from the
casual poor, but where it is, the demand appears to be chiefly for
picking oakum and breaking stones. In some cases the dietary includes
bread and cheese, with gruel, and sometimes even the luxury of butter is
added. In other cases bread and water (very meagre fare, and
insufficient to support life for any length of time), are all that is
allowed. Women suckling infants are supplied tea, broth, or gruel in
lieu of water; we can scarce wonder the poor prefer going to jail. I
have seen in jails, and convict establishments, dinners better served
than are earned even by many of the industrious poor. I find during the
last year the 339 agents of the London City Mission had paid 1,528,162
visits during the year; 117,443 of these visits being to the sick and
dying. By their means a large number of Bibles and Tracts had been
distributed, 11,200 children had been sent to school, and 580 fallen
females restored to virtue. At the annual meeting of the Ragged School
Union it was stated that in 170 Ragged School institutions, there were
199 Sunday Schools, with 24,860 scholars; 146 day schools with 15,380
scholars, and 215 evening schools, with 9,050 scholars: of teachers 400
were paid, and 9,690 were voluntary. There were fifteen refuges in which
600 inmates were fed, lodged, clothed, and educated. The midnight
meeting movement, of which we have heard so much, and respecting which
opinions so much differ, according to its report, has been very
successful; through the instrumentality of the committee seven meetings
had been called; 1700 women had been addressed; 7500 scriptural cards and
books had been circulated; and 107 had been reclaimed and placed in
homes, through the agency of which, they would, it was hoped, be restored
to society. In addition to these five had been restored to their
friends, one to her husband, two placed in situations, and one had been
married. In the general charities of England London has its share. It
not merely takes the initiative but it subscribes by far the larger part.
When the Crimean war broke out a fund was raised for the wives and
families of the soldiers engaged in it, amounting to 121,139 pounds;
260,000 pounds were subscribed for the relief of the victims of the
Indian mutiny. Well it was in London that the most liberal donations
were made. Again, look at the Religious Societies. In last year the
income of the Church Missionary Society was 163,629 pounds 1s. 4d.; of
the Bible Society 162,020 pounds 13s. 5d. Of the Wesleyan Missionary
Society, 141,000 pounds 5s. 11d. Of the London Missionary Society,
93,000 pounds. Thus gigantic and all-persuading are the charities of
London. The almshouses erected by private individuals or public
subscriptions are too numerous to be described, except we refer to the
London Almshouses erected at Brixton to commemorate the passing of the
Reform Bill; nor would I forget the Charter House with its jovial and
grateful chorus:--
"Then blessed be the memory
Of good old Thomas Sutton,
Who gave us lodging, learning,
And he gave us beef and mutton."
Nor Christ's Hospital, with its annual income of 50,000 pounds; nor the
Foundling Hospital, with its 500 children; nor Alleyn's magnificent gift
of Dulwich; nor the Bethlehem Hospital, with its income of nearly 30,000
pounds a year; nor the Magdalene. But we must say a few words about the
Hospitals; of the more than 500 Charitable Institutions of the
metropolis, one quarter consists of general medical hospitals, medical
charities for special purposes, dispensaries, &c. In 1859, in
Bartholomew's, I find there were patients admitted, cured, and
discharged, 5,865 in, 86,480 out; in St. Thomas's 4,114 in, 44,744 out;
the Charing Cross Hospital has, I believe, on an average 1,000
inpatients, 17,000 out. Guy's, with its annual income of 30,000 pounds,
has an entire average of in and outpatients of 50,000. But we stop, the
list is not exhausted, but we fear the patience of the reader is.
CHAPTER VIII.
PEDESTRIANISM.
I am a great advocate of Pedestrianism, and take it to be a very honest
way of getting through the world. If you ride in a carriage you may be
upset; if you throw your leg across a horse's back you may meet with the
fate of Sir Robert Peel; and as to getting into a railway carriage, the
fearful consequences of that require for their description a more
vigorous pen than mine. I like to see a good walker; how delightful his
appetite, how firm his muscle, how healthy his cheek, how splendid his
condition. Has he a care, he walks it off; is ruin staring him in the
face, only let him have a couple of hour's walk, and he is in a condition
to meet the great enemy of mankind himself. Has his friend betrayed
him--are his hopes of fame, of wealth, of power blighted?--is his love's
young dream rudely broken? Let him away from the circles of men out on
the green turf, with the blue sky of heaven above, and in a very little
while the agony is over, and "Richard's himself again." Were it only for
the sake of the active exercise it inculcates and requires I would
say--Long live the Rifle Corps movement. The other day a gallant little
band in my own immediate neighbourhood set out for an evening's march.
They were in capital spirits; they were dressed in their Sunday best;
they had a band playing at their head; a miscellaneous crowd, chiefly
juvenile, with a few occasional females behind, brought up the rear. A
deputy of the London Corporation and his brother formed part of the
devoted troop. Gaily and amidst cheers they marched from the bosoms of
their families, leaving "their girls behind them." On they went, up-hill
and down-hill, many a mile, amidst Hornsey's pleasant green lanes, till
at length the London deputy turned pale, and intimated--while his limbs
appeared to sink beneath him, and his whole body was bathed in
sweat--that he could stand it no longer. The spirit was willing, but the
flesh was weak. A halt was ordered--beer was sought for for the London
deputy, and with considerable difficulty they got the martial hero home.
Had that gallant man been a good pedestrian, would he not have scorned
the beer, and laughed at the idea of rest? Look at Charles Dickens--I am
sure he will forgive me the personality, as no harm is intended--why is
he ever genial, ever fresh--as superior to the crowd who imitate his
mannerism, but fail to catch his warm, sunny, human spirit, as the
Koh-i-noor to its glass counterfeit, but because no man in town walks
more than he? What a man for walking was the great Liston, foremost
operator of his age. The late Lord Suffield, who fought all the Lords,
including the bench of Bishops, in order to win emancipation for the
slave, was one of the most athletic men of his day. On one occasion he
ran a distance of ten miles before the Norwich mail as a casual frolic,
without any previous training, and he assured Sir George Stephen that he
never experienced any inconvenience from it. When we talk of a man being
weak on his pins, what does it imply but that he has been a rake, or a
sot, or a fool who has cultivated the pocket or the brain at the expense
of that machine, so fearfully and wonderfully made, we call man. The
machine is made to wear well, it is man's fault if it does not. The
pedestrian alone keeps his in good repair; our long livers have mostly
been great walkers. Taylor, the water-poet, says of old Parr--
"Good wholesome labour was his exercise,
Down with the lamb, and with the lark would rise,
In mire and toiling sweat he spent the day,
And to his team he whistled time away."
People are getting more fond of physical exercise than they were. We may
almost ask--Are we returned back to the days of the Iliad and the
Odyssey? The gentlemen of the Stock Exchange greet Tom Sayers as if he
were an emperor, and, it is said, peers and clergymen think it right to
assist at a "mill." We have heard so much about muscular
Christianity--so much stress has been laid upon the adjective--that we
seem in danger of forgetting the Christianity altogether. Undoubtedly
our fathers are to blame in some respect for this. Good Christians,
thinking more of the next world than of this, merchants, and tradesmen,
and even poor clerks, hastening to be rich, scholars aiming at fame, and
mothers of a frugal turn, have set themselves against out-door life and
out-door fun, and have done with sports and pastimes--as Rowland Hill
said the pious had done with the tunes--_i.e._ let the devil have all the
good ones. In vain you war with nature, she will have her revenge, the
heart is true to its old instincts. Man is what he was when the Greek
pitched his tent by the side of the much-sounding sea, and before the
walls of Troy; when Alexander sighed for fresh worlds to conquer; when
the young Hannibal vowed deathless hate to Rome; when the rude ballad of
"Chevy Chase," sung in baronial hall, stirred men as if it were the sound
of a trumpet; when Nelson swept the seas, and when Wellington shattered
the mighty hosts of France. Thus is it old physical sports and pastimes
never die, and perhaps nowhere are they more encouraged and practised
than by the population of our cities and towns.
The other day some considerable interest was excited in the peculiar
circles given to the study of _Bell's Life_, by the fact that Jem Pudney
was to run Jem Rowan for 50 pounds a-side, at the White Lion, Hackney
Wick. The winner was to have the Champion's Cup. Far and near had
sounded and resounded the name of Pudney the swift-footed--how he had
distanced all his competitors--how he had done eleven miles under the
hour--were facts patent to all sporting England; but against him was this
melancholy reality, that he was getting old--he was verging on
thirty-two. However, when, after a weary pilgrimage through mud, and
sleet, and rain, we found ourselves arrived at the classic spot. The
betting was very much in Pudney's favour. The race was to have commenced
at five, but it did not begin before six. We had plenty of time to look
around. Outside we had passed a motley multitude. There were cabs, and
Hansoms, and Whitechapel dog-carts in abundance. Monday is an off-day as
regards many of the operatives and mechanics of London, and they were
thronging round the door, or clambering up the pales, or peeping through
the boards, or climbing some neighbouring height, to command a view of
the race on strictly economical principles. Several owners of horses and
carts, with their wives and families, were indulging in a similar
amusement; an admission fee of one shining enabled us to penetrate the
enclosure. We pay our money and enter. The scene is not an inviting
one. Perhaps there are about a thousand of us present, and most of us
are of a class of society we may denominate rough and ready. Even the
people who have good clothes do not look like gentlemen. They have very
short hair, very flat and dark faces; have a tremendous development of
the lower jaw, and, while they are unnaturally broad about the chest,
seem unnaturally thin and weak as regards their lower extremities. Most
of the younger ones are in good sporting condition, and would be very
little distressed by a little set-to, whether of a playful or a business
nature, and could bear an amount of punishment which would be fatal to
the writer of this article, and, I dare say, to the reader as well. Time
passes slowly. Jones hails Brown, and offers him seven to four. (After
the race had terminated, I saw Jones cash up a 100 pounds fresh
bank-note, which I thought might have been more usefully invested.)
Robinson bets Smith what he likes that he does not name the winner; and
one gent, with an unpleasing expression of countenance, offers to do a
little business with me, which I decline, for reasons that I am not
particularly desirous to communicate to my new acquaintance. I am glad
to see a policeman or two present, for one likes to know the protection
of the law may be invoked in an extremity, and I keep near its manifest
and outward sign. The White Lion is doing a fine business; there is an
active demand for beer and tobacco; and a gentleman who deals in fried
fish soon clears off his little stock of delicacies, as likewise does a
peripatetic vendor of sandwiches of a mysterious origin. The heroes of
the night slowly walk up and down the course, wearing long great coats,
beneath which we may see their naked legs, and feet encased in light
laced shoes. Their backers are with them, and a crowd watches with
curious eyes. At length the course is cleared, a bell is rung, and they
are off. Six times round the course is a mile--six times ten are sixty.
Sixty times must they pass and repass that excited mob. The favourite
takes the lead at a steady running; he maintains it some time; he is
longer than his opponent, but the latter is younger, and looks more
muscular in his thighs. Both men, with the exception of a cloth round
the loins, are naked as when born; and as they run they scatter the mud,
which mud thus scattered descends upon them in a by no means refreshing
shower. As round after round is run the excitement deepens; the
favourite is greeted with cheers; but when at the end of the third mile
he is passed by his competitor excites an enthusiasm which is intense.
Now the bettors tremble; the favourite attempts to get his old position;
he gains on his foe--they are now neck and neck--cheer, boys, cheer--"Go
it, Jem!" is the cry on many sides. Jem the winner does go it; but,
alas! Jem the loser cannot. It is in vain he seeks the lead. Fortune
has declared against him, and in a little while he gives up--no longer
the swiftest and fleetest of England's sons--no longer the holder of the
Champion's Cup. One involuntarily feels for fallen greatness, and as
Pudney was led away utterly beaten, I could not find it in my heart to
rejoice. I left a crowd still on the grounds. I left Rowan still
running, as he was bound to do, till he had completed his ten miles: and
I left the White Lion, in-doors and out, doing a very considerable
business. It seemed to me the White Lion was not such a fool as he
looked, and that he felt, let who will win or lose, he with his beer and
brandy would not come off second best. This, undoubtedly, was the worst
part of the business. The race over, for further excitement, the
multitude would rush to the White Lion--the losers to drown their sorrow,
the winners to spend their gains; the many, who were neither winners nor
losers, merely because others did so; and thus, as the hours pass, would
come intoxication, anger, follies, and, perhaps, bitterness of heart for
life.
May I here enumerate the heroes of pedestrianism? Let me name Robert
Skipper, who walked a thousand miles in a thousand successive
half-hours--let me not forget Captain Barclay, who walked a thousand
miles in a thousand successive hours--let me record the fame of Captain
John T. G. Campbell, of the 91st, who, accoutred in the heavy marching
order of a private soldier, on the Mallow and Fermoy road, did ten miles
in 107.25 minutes. All honour be to such! long may their memories be
green! Let me beg the considerate reader not to forget West, who ran
forty miles in five hours and a half. Ten miles an hour is done by all
the best runners. It is said West accomplished 100 miles in 18 hours. I
read in a certain work devoted to manly exercises, "at the rate of four
miles an hour a man may walk any length of time." The writer begs to
inform the reader that he doubts this very much.
CHAPTER IX.
OVER LONDON BRIDGE.
Mr. Commissioner Harvey is particularly fond of figures. The other day
he caused an account to be taken of the number of persons entering the
city within a given period. The result shows that the amazing number of
706,621 individuals passed into the city by various entrances during the
24 hours tested; and as the day selected, we are told, was free from any
extraordinary attraction to the city, there can be no doubt that the
return furnishes a fair estimate of the average daily influx. Of this
large number it appears only one-fourteenth, or 49,242, entered the city
in the night--that is, between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. Now this
enormous population in very large numbers patronises London Bridge for
many reasons--the principle argument with them in its favour undoubtedly
is, that it is the shortest way from their homes to their places of
business, or _vice versa_. Last year, for instance, the North London
Railway carried nearly six millions of passengers; the London and South
Western more than four millions; the Blackwall nearly five millions;
while 13,500,000 passengers passed through the London Bridge Station.
Mr. Commissioner Harvey, however, makes the importance of London Bridge
still clearer. On the 17th of March last year he had a man engaged in
taking notes of the traffic, and he furnished Mr. Commissioner Harvey
with the following figures:--In the course of the twenty-four hours it
appears 4,483 cabs, 4,286 omnibuses, 9,245 wagons and carts, 2,430 other
vehicles, and 54 horses led or ridden, making a total of 20,498, passed
over the bridge. The passengers in the same period were, in vehicles
60,836, on foot 107,074, total, 167,910. As we may suppose this traffic
is an increasing one. The traffic across the old bridge in one July day,
1811, was as follows:--89,640 persons on foot, 769 wagons, 2,924 carts
and drays, 1,240 coaches, 485 gigs and taxed carts, and 764 horses. We
must recollect that in 1811 the bridges across the Thames were fewer.
There was then no Waterloo Bridge, no Hungerford Suspension Bridge, no
bridge at Southwark, no penny steamboats running every quarter of an hour
from Paul's Wharf to the Surrey side, and London Bridge was far more
important than now. The figures we have given also throw some light on
the manners and customs of the age. Where are the gigs now, then the
attribute of respectability? What has become of the 1,240 coaches, and
what a falling off of equestrianism--the 764 horses of 1811 have dwindled
down (in 1859) to the paltry number of 54. Are there no night
equestrians in London now. It is early morn and we stand on London
Bridge, green are the distant Surrey hills, clear the blue sky, stately
the public buildings far and near. Beneath us what fleets in a few hours
about to sail, with passengers and merchandize to almost every
continental port. Surely Wordsworth's Ode written on Westminster Bridge
is not inapplicable:--
"Earth has not anything to show more fair.
Dull would he be of sense who could pass by,
A sight so touching in its majesty;
This city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Shops, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air;
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, arch, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep,
The river glideth at his own sweet will,
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep
And all that mighty heart is lying still!"
Of the traffic by water visible from London Bridge as you look towards
Greenwich, the best idea may be gathered by a few figures. A
Parliamentary Return has been issued, showing that the amount of tonnage
cleared from the port of London was in 1750, 796,632 tons, in 1800 the
tonnage entered was 796,632; and that cleared was 729,554. In 1857 the
tonnage entered had risen to 2,834,107, and that cleared to 2,143,884.
The traffic on London Bridge may be considered as one of the sights of
London. A costermonger's cart, laden with cabbages for Camberwell,
breaks down, and there is a block extending back almost all the way to
the Mansion House. Walk back and look at the passengers thus suddenly
checked in their gay career. Omnibuses are laden with pleasure seekers
on their way to the Crystal Palace. Look, there is "affliction sore"
displayed on many a countenance and felt in many a heart. Mary Anne, who
knows she is undeniably late, and deserves to be left behind, thinks that
her young man won't wait for her. Little Mrs. B. sits trembling with a
dark cloud upon her brow, for she knows Mr. B. has been at the station
since one, and it is now past two. Look at the pale, wan girl in the
corner, asking if they will be in time to catch the train for Hastings.
You may well ask, poor girl. Haste is vain now. Your hours are
numbered--the sands of your little life are just run--your bloodless lip,
your sunken eye, with its light not of this world--your hectic cheek,
from which the soft bloom of youth has been rudely driven, make one feel
emphatically in your case that "no medicine, though it oft' can cure, can
always balk the tomb." What have you been--a dressmaker, stitching
fashionable silks for beauty, and at the same time a plain shroud for
yourself? What have you been--a governess, rearing young lives at the
sacrifice of your own? What have you been--a daughter of sin and shame?
Ah, well, it is not for me to cast a stone at you. Hasten on, every
moment now is worth a king's ransom, and may He who never turned a
daughter away soften your pillow and sustain your heart in the dark hour
I see too plainly about to come. What is this, a chaise and four greys.
So young Jones has done it at last. Is he happy, or has he already found
his Laura slow, and has she already begun to suspect that her Jones may
turn out "a wretch" after all. I know not yet has the sound of his
slightly vinous and foggy eloquence died away; still ring in his ears the
applause which greeted his announcement that "the present is the proudest
of my life," and his resolution, in all time to come, in sunshine and in
storm, to cherish in his heart of hearts the lovely being whom he now
calls his bride; but as he leans back there think you that already he
sees another face--for Jones has been a man-about-town, and sometimes
such as he get touched. This I know--
"Feebly must they have felt
Who in old time attired with snakes and whips
The vengeful furies."
And even Jones may regret he married Laura and quarrelled with Rose,
"A rosebud set with little wilful thorns
And sweet as English air could make her."
What a wonderful thing it is when a man finds himself married, all the
excitement of the chase over. Let all Jones' and Laura's and persons
about to marry see well that they are really in love before they take the
final plunge. But hear that big party behind in a Hansom, using most
improper language. Take it easy, my dear sir, you may catch the Dover
train, you may cross to Calais, you may rush on to Paris, but the
electric telegraph has already told your crime, and described your
person. Therefore be calm, there is no police officer dogging you, you
are free for a few hours yet. And now come our sleek city men, to
Clapham and Norwood, to dine greatly in their pleasant homes. The world
goes well with them, and indeed it ought, for they are honest as the
times go: are they slightly impatient, we cannot wonder at it, the salmon
may be overboiled, just because of that infernal old coster's cart.
Hurra! it moves, and away go busses, and carriages, and broughams, and
hansoms, and a thousand of Her Majesty's subjects, rich and poor, old and
young, saint and sinner, are in a good temper again, and cease to break
the commandments. Stand here of a morning while London yet slumbers;
what waggons and carts laden with provisions from the rich gardens of
Surrey and Kent, come over London Bridge. Later, see how the clerks, and
shopmen, and shopwomen, hurry. Later still, and what trains full of
stockbrokers, and commission agents, and city merchants, from a circle
extending as far as Brighton, daily are landed at the London Bridge
Stations, and cross over. Later still, and what crowds of ladies from
the suburbs come shopping, or to visit London exhibitions. If we were
inclined to be uncharitable, we might question some of these fair dames;
I dare say people connected with the divorce courts might insinuate very
unpleasant things respecting some of them; but let us hope that they are
the exception, and that if Mrs. C. meets some one at the West End who is
not Captain C., and that if the Captain dines with a gay party at Hampton
Court, when he has informed his wife that business will detain him in
town; or that if that beauty now driving past in a brougham has no
business to be there, that these sickly sheep do not infect the flock,
and, in the language of good Dr. Watts, poison all the rest. Yet there
are tales of sin and sorrow connected with London Bridge. Over its stony
parapets, down into its dark and muddy waters, have men leaped in
madness, and women in shame; there, at the dead of night, has slunk away
the wretch who feared what the coming morrow would bring forth, to die.
And here woman--deceived, betrayed, deserted, broken in heart, and
blasted beyond all hope of salvation--has sought repose. A few hours
after and the sun has shone brightly, and men have talked gaily on the
very spot from whence the poor creatures leapt. Well may we exclaim--
"Sky, oh were are thy cleansing waters
Earth, oh where will thy wonders end."
The Chronicles of Old London Bridge are many and of eternal interest.
When Sweyn, king of Denmark, on plunder and conquest bent, sailed up the
Thames, there was a London Bridge with turrets and roofed bulwarks. From
994 to 1750, that bridge, built and rebuilt many times, was the sole land
communication between the city and the Surrey bank of the Thames. In
Queen Elizabeth's time the bridge had become a stately one. Norden
describes it as adorned with "sumptuous buildings and statelie, and
beautiful houses on either syde," like one continuous street, except
"certain wyde places for the retyre of passengers from the danger of
cars, carts, and droves of cattle, usually passing that way." Near the
drawbridge, and overhanging the river, was the famed Nonsuch House,
imported from Holland, built entirely of timber, four stories high,
richly carved and gilt. At the Southwark end was the Traitor's Gate,
where dissevered and ghastly heads were hung suspended in the air. In
1212, the Southwark end caught fire, and 3000 persons perished miserably
in the flames. In 1264 Henry III. was repulsed here by Simon de
Mountfort, earl of Leicester. Thundering along this road to sudden death
rushed Wat Tyler, in 1381. Here came forth the citizens, in all their
bravery, ten years after, to meet Richard II. Henry V. passed over this
bridge twice, once in triumph, and once to be laid down in his royal
tomb. In 1450, we hear a voice exclaiming: "Jack Cade hath gotten London
Bridge, and the citizens fly and forsake their houses;" and thus the
chronicle goes on. Nor must we forget the maid servant of one Higges, a
needle-maker, who, in carelessly placing some hot coals under some
stairs, set fire to the house, and thus raised a conflagration which
appears to have been of the most extensive character. On London Bridge
lived Holbein and Hogarth. Swift and Pope used to visit Arnold the
bookseller on this bridge. From off this bridge leaped an industrious
apprentice to save the life of his master's infant daughter, dropped into
the river by a careless nursemaid; the father was Lord Mayor of London.
The industrious apprentice married the daughter, and the great-grandson
of the happy pair was the first duke of Leeds. On the first of August,
1831, New London Bridge was opened with great pomp by King William IV.,
and since then the stream of life across the bridge has rushed without
intermission on.
CHAPTER X.
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE EARLY-CLOSING MOVEMENT.
When is common sense to reign over man? According to Dr. Cumming, in a
few years we are to have the Millennium. Will it be then? I fear not.
At any rate, I am certain it will not be before.
Look, for instance, at the House of Commons: the Lords meet for debate a
little after five, p.m., and separate generally a little before six,
p.m., and it is perfectly astonishing what an immense amount of business
they get through; but the Commons meet at four, p.m., and sit till one or
two, a.m.; the consequence is, that very little business is done: that we
have a great deal too much talking; that really conscientious members,
who will not forsake their duties, but remain at their posts, are knocked
up, and have to cut Parliament for a time; and that what business is done
is often performed in the most slovenly and unsatisfactory manner. A few
minutes' reflection will make this clear. A bill is introduced, or,
rather, leave is given to a member to bring it in. It is read a first
time. To the first reading of a bill generally little opposition is
made. The member who introduces it makes a long speech in its favour,
and little discussion takes place. The real fight is when it is read a
second time. There are many ways of throwing out a bill without the
discourtesy of a positive rejection. The first of these means consists
in giving a preference to other "orders;" the second is, moving "the
previous question." Another is, moving "that the second reading take
place this day six months." If the bill get over the second reading, it
then goes into committee, when objectionable clauses are struck out and
fresh ones added, till the original proposer of the bill can hardly
recognise his offspring. The bill is then read a third time, and
afterwards sent up to the Lords. Possibly the Lords object to some parts
of it; a conference with the Commons is then desired, which accordingly
takes place, the deputation of the Commons standing with uncovered heads,
while the Lords, with hats on, retain their seats. The matter being
amicably arranged, and a disagreeable collision avoided, the bill is
passed through the Lords, where it usually creates a far more orderly and
less passionate debate than it has done in the Commons. The Lords being
assembled in their own House, the Sovereign, or the Commissioners,
seated, and the Commons at the bar, the titles of the several bills which
have passed both Houses are read, and the King or Queen's answer is
declared by the clerk of the Parliaments in Norman-French. To a bill of
supply the assent is given in the following words:--"_Le roy_ (or, _la
reine_) _remercie ses loyal subjects_, _accepte leur benevolence et ainsi
le veut_." To a private bill it is thus declared:--"_Soit fait comme il
est desire_." And to public general bills it is given in these
terms:--"_Le roy_ (or, _la reine_) _le vent_." Should the Sovereign
refuse his assent, it is in the gentle language of "_Le roy_ (or, _la
reine_) _s'aviser_." As acts of grace and amnesty originate with the
Crown, the clerk, expressing the gratitude of the subject, addresses the
throne as follows:--"_Les prelats_, _seigneurs_, _et commons_, _en ce
present Parliament assembles_, _au nom de tout vous autres subjects_,_
remercient tres-humblement votre majeste_, _et prient a Dieu vous donner
en sante bonne vie et longue_." The moment the royal assent has been
given, that which was a bill becomes an Act, and _instantly_ has the
force and effect of law, unless some time for the commencement of its
operation should have been specially appointed. Occasionally a bill is
introduced in the form of a motion, at other times as a resolution, but
generally the bill is the favourite form. Any bill which the Lords can
originate may be introduced and laid on the table by any individual peer,
without the previous permission of the house; but in the Commons, no bill
can be brought in unless a motion for leave be previously agreed to. Mr.
Dodd tells us, "During the progress of a bill the House _may_ divide on
the following questions:--1. Leave to bring it in. 2. When brought in,
whether it shall then be read a first time, and if not, when? 3. On the
first reading. 4. On the second reading. 5. That it be committed. 6.
On the question that the Speaker do leave the chair, for the house to
resolve itself into such committee. 7. That the report of the committee
be received. 8. That the bill be re-committed. 9. That it be engrossed.
10. That it be read a third time. 11. That it do pass. 12. The title of
the bill. These are quite exclusive of any divisions concerning the
particular days to be appointed for proceeding with any stage of the
measure, or of any proceedings in committee, or any amendments, or any
clauses added to or expunged from the measure in or out of committee."
Thus it is Acts of Parliament often made in one sense are ruled by the
judges to have another, and we have Acts to amend Acts in endless
succession. Tom Moore tells us of an Act of Parliament referring to a
new prison, in which it was stated that the new one should be built with
the materials of the old, and that the prisoners were to remain in the
old prison till the new one was ready. This is an extreme case, but
blunders equally absurd are made every day.
What is the remedy? Why, none other than the panacea recommended by Mr.
Lilwall as applicable to every earthly ill--the Early-closing Movement.
Early closing in the House of Commons would shut up the lawyers, who want
to make long speeches--the diners-out, who enter the House ofttimes in a
state of hilarity more calculated to heighten confusion than to promote
business--the young swells, to whom the House of Commons is a club, and
nothing more. We should have a smaller house, but one more ready to do
business; and if we should lose a few lawyers on promotion, and,
consequently, very industrious, very active, and very eloquent, that loss
would be compensated by the addition to the House of many men of great
talent and political capacity, who cannot stand the late hours and the
heated atmosphere, and the frightfully lengthy speeches, and the furious
partisanship of the House as at present constituted.
I have seen it suggested that a large board should be placed behind the
Speaker's chair; and that when any member makes a point, or advances an
argument, the point or argument, whether for or against the measure,
should be noted down and numbered; that a speaker, instead of repeating
the point or argument, as is now the case, should simply mention the No.
1, 2, or 3, as the case may be, and say, "I vote for the bill because of
No. 1," and so on. We should then have no vain repetitions; business
would be done better, and more speedily; members would not be confused;
the reporters would not have so much trouble as now; and the patient
public would be spared the infliction in their daily organs of column
after column of parliamentary debate. The advantage of the Early-closing
Movement in the House of Commons would be, that it would compel the House
to adopt some measure of the kind. It is curious to trace the increase
of late hours. In Clarendon's time "the House met always at eight
o'clock and rose at twelve, which were the old parliamentary hours, that
the committees, upon whom the great burden of the business lay, might
have the afternoon for their preparation and despatch." Sometimes the
House seems to have met at cock-crowing. In the journals and old orders
of the House we find such entries as the following:--"March 26, 1604.
Having obtained permission of her Majesty to attend at eight, the Commons
previously met at six to treat on what shall be delivered tending the
reason of their proceedings." Again, "May 31, 1614. Ordered, that the
House shall sit every day at seven o'clock in the morning, and to begin
to read bills for the first time at ten." The journals record that on
Sunday, August 8, 1641, at six o'clock a.m., the Commons go down to St.
Margaret's, and hear prayers and a sermon, returning to the House at
nine. This, however, was occasioned by the eagerness of the members to
prevent the king's journey to Scotland, and a minute was made that it
should not be considered as a precedent. The Long Parliament resolved,
"that whosoever shall not be here at prayers every morning at eight
o'clock shall pay one shilling to the poor." James I. mentioned as an
especial grievance, that the Commons brought the protestation concerning
their liberties into the House _at six o'clock at night_, _by
candle-light_! "I move," said Serjeant Wylde, "against sitting in the
afternoon. This council is a grave council and sober, and ought not to
do things in the dark." Sir A. Haselrigge said he never knew good come
of candles. Sir William Waddington brought in two from the clerk against
the direction of the House, and was committed to the Tower next morning.
Having sat on the occasion till seven, Sir H. Vane complained, "We are
not able to hold out sitting thus in the night." After the Revolution
matters got worse. Bishop Burnet complains that the House did not meet
till twelve; and in the next generation Speaker Onslow adds, "This is
grown shamefully of late, even to two of the clock." In the time of Pitt
and Fox the evil reached its climax. The motion for the Speaker leaving
the chair on Fox's India Bill was put to the vote at half-past four in
the morning. During the Westminster scrutiny the House sometimes sat
till six a.m. Pitt, speaking on the slave-trade, introduced his
beautiful quotation relative to the sun as it was then just bursting on
his audience. Sir Samuel Romilly tells us that he would not unfrequently
go to bed at his usual time, and rising next morning somewhat earlier
than usual would go down to be present at the division. I think it was
during the Reform debates that an hon. M.P., having been present at the
discussion the previous night, and being desirous to secure a good place
the next evening, went down to the House early in the morning for that
special purpose, and found the debate, at the commencement of which he
had been present, and which he thought had long been over, proceeding
hotly and furiously. In the last session of parliament the house sinned
greatly in this respect. I am told this state of things is for the
advantage of the lawyers, who otherwise would not be able to attend in
the House at all; but it may be questioned whether this is such a benefit
as some suppose, and certainly the midnight hour, especially after mind
and body have alike been jaded by the strain of a long debate, is not the
best for passing measures of a legislative character; and yet it is in
the small hours, when members are weary, or, we fear, in some cases
slightly vinous, or indifferent and apathetic, that most of the real
business of the nation is performed. Now against this bad habit for many
years Mr. Brotherton waged an incessant but unsuccessful war. As soon as
ever midnight arrived the hon. gentleman was on his legs, warning
honourable members of its arrival, and of the injury which late hours
must necessarily occasion to their own health, and to the satisfactory
progress of public business. In his attempts Mr. Brotherton then was
aiming as much at the good of the nation as well as the advantage of the
members of the House. Many were the scenes occasioned by Mr.
Brotherton's importunity. Mr. Grant says, "I have seen one look him most
imploringly in the face, and heard him say, in tones and with a manner as
coaxing as if the party had been wooing his mistress, 'Do not just yet,
Mr. Brotherton; wait one half hour until this business be disposed of.'
I have seen a second seize him by the right arm, while a third grasped
him by the left, with the view of causing him to resume his seat, and
when his sense of duty overcame all these efforts to seduce or force him
from its path, I have seen a fourth honourable gentleman rush to the
assistance of the others, and taking hold of the tail of his coat,
literally press him to his seat. I have seen Mr. Brotherton, with a
perseverance beyond all praise, in his righteous and most patriotic
cause, suddenly start again to his feet in less than five minutes, and
move a second time the adjournment of the House, and I have again had the
misfortune to see physical force triumph over the best moral purposes.
Five or six times have I witnessed the repetition of this in one night.
On one occasion, I remember seeing an honourable member actually clap his
hand on Mr. Brotherton's mouth, in order to prevent his moving the
dreaded adjournment." Constant ill-success damped Mr. Brotherton's
ardour. There was a time when his object seemed attained, but in the
last session he attended the Commons were as bad as ever. Mr. Brotherton
having made a futile attempt when the session was young, in favour of the
Early-closing Movement, abandoned his position in despair. The call for
Brotherton ceased to be a watchword with our less hopeful senators, and
Mr. Bouverie's view, that more business was got through after twelve
o'clock at night than before, appeared to be generally acquiesced in,
with a species of reluctant despair which was unanswerable. Still it is
true that early to bed and early to rise will make the Commons more
healthy and wise, though the general practice seems to be the other way.
CHAPTER XI.
TOWN MORALS.
Have you seen Charles Matthews in "Used Up?" Sir Charles Coldstream
represents us all. We are everlastingly seeking a sensation, and never
finding it. Sir Charles's valet's description of him describes us
all:--"He's always sighing for what he calls excitement--you see,
everything is old to him--he's used up--nothing amuses him--he can't
feel." And so he looks in the crater of Vesuvius and finds nothing in
it, and the Bay of Naples he considers inferior to that of Dublin--the
Campagna to him is a swamp--Greece a morass--Athens a bad
Edinburgh--Egypt a desert--the pyramids humbugs. The same confession is
on every one's lips. The boy of sixteen, with a beardless chin, has a
melancholy _blase_ air; the girl gets wise, mourns over the vanity of
life, and laughs at love as a romance; a heart--unless it be a bullock's,
and well cooked,--is tacitly understood to be a mistake; and conscience a
thing that no one can afford to keep. Our young men are bald at
twenty-five, and woman is exhausted still sooner. I am told Quakers are
sometimes moved by the spirit. I am told mad Ranters sing, and preach,
and roar as if they were in earnest. I hear that there is even
enthusiasm amongst the Mormons; but that matters little. We are very few
of us connected with such _outre_ sects, and the exceptions but prove the
rule.
But a truce to generalities. Let us give modern instances. Look at
Jenkins, the genteel stockbroker. In autumn he may be seen getting into
his brougham, which already contains his better-half and the
olive-branches that have blessed their mutual loves. This brougham will
deposit the Jenkinses, and boxes of luggage innumerable, at the Brighton
Railway Terminus, whence it is their intention to start for that crowded
and once fashionable watering-place. Jenkins has been dying all the
summer of the heat. Why, like the blessed ass as he is, did he stop in
town, when for a few shillings he might have been braced and cooled by
sea breezes, but because of that monotony which forbids a man consulting
nature and common sense. Jenkins only goes out of town when the
fashionable world goes; he would not for the life of him leave till the
season was over.
Again, does ever the country look lovelier than when the snows of winter
reluctantly make way for the first flowers of spring? Is ever the air
more balmy or purer than when the young breath of summer, like a tender
maiden, kisses timidly the cheek, and winds its way, like a blessing from
above, to the weary heart? Does ever the sky look bluer, or the sun more
glorious, or the earth more green, or is ever the melody of birds more
musical, than then? and yet at that time the _beau monde_ must resort to
town, and London drawing-rooms must emit a polluted air, and late hours
must enfeeble, and bright eyes must become dull, and cheeks that might
have vied in loveliness with the rose, sallow and pale.
It is a fine thing for a man to get hold of a good cause; one of the
finest sights that earth can boast is that of a man or set of men
standing up to put into action what they know to be some blessed God-sent
truth. A Cromwell mourning the flat Popery of St. Paul's--a Luther,
before principalities and powers, exclaiming, "Here stand I and will not
move, so help me God!"--a Howard making a tour of the jails of Europe,
and dying alone and neglected on the shores of the Black Sea--a Henry
Martyn leaving the cloistered halls of Cambridge, abandoning the golden
prospects opening around him, and abandoning what is dearer still, the
evils of youth, to preach Christ, and Him crucified, beneath the burning
and fatal sun of the East--or a Hebrew maiden, like Jepthah's daughter,
dying for her country or her country's good,--are sights rare and
blessed, and beautiful and divine. All true teachers are the same, and
are glorious to behold. For a time no one regards their testimony. The
man stands by himself--a reed, but not shaken by the wind--a voice crying
in the wilderness--a John the Baptist nursed in the wilds, and away from
the deadening spell of the world. Then comes the influence of the
solitary thinker on old fallacies; the young and the enthusiastic rush to
his side, the sceptic and the scoffer one by one disappear, and the world
is conquered; or if it be not so, if he languishes in jail like Galileo,
or wanders on the face of the earth seeking rest and finding none, like
our Puritan forefathers; or die, as many an hero has died, as the Christ
did, when the power of the Prince of Darkness prevailed, and the veil of
the Temple was rent in twain; still there is for him a resurrection, when
a coming age will honour his memory, collect his scattered ashes, and
build them a fitting tomb. Yet even this kind of heroism has come to be
but a monotonous affair.
Now-a-days the thing can be done, and in one way--a meeting at Exeter
Hall, a dinner at Freemasons' tavern, Harker for toast-master, a few
vocalists to sing between the pieces, and for chairman a lord by all
means; if possible, a royal duke. The truest thing about us is our
appetite. Our appreciation of a hero is as our appreciation of a coat; a
saviour of a nation and a Soyer we class together, and do justice to both
at the same time. We moderns eat where our fathers bled. Our powers we
show by the number of bottles of wine we can consume; our devotion is to
our dinners; the sword has made way for the carving-knife; our battle is
against the ills to which gluttonness and wine-bibbing flesh is heir; the
devil that comes to us is the gout; the hell in which we believe and
against which we fight is indigestion; our means of grace are blue pill
and black draught. All art and science and lettered lore, all the
memories of the past and the hopes of the future--
"All thoughts, all passions, all delights--
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,"
now-a-days, tend to dinner. Our sympathy with the unfortunate females,
or the indigent blind, with the propagation of the Gospel in foreign
parts, or with the diffusion of useful knowledge at home--with the Earl
of Derby or Mr. Cobden--with Lord John Russell or Mr. Disraeli--with the
soldier who has blustered and bullied till the world has taken him for a
hero--with the merchant who has bound together in the peaceful pursuits
of trade hereditary foes--with the engineer who has won dominion over
time and space--with the poet who has sat
"In the light of thought
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy, with hopes and joys it heeded not,"
finds a common mode of utterance, and that utterance to all has a common
emphasis. Even the Church apes the world in this respect; and even that
section which calls itself non-conforming, conforms here. When dinner is
concerned, it forgets to protest, and becomes dumb. Dr. Watts might
sing,
"Lord, what a wretched land is this
That yields us no supplies;"
but his successors do not. I read of grand ordination dinners, of grand
dinners when a new chapel is erected or an old pastor retires. But
lately I saw one reverend gentleman at law with another. Most of my
readers will recollect the case. It was that of Tidman against Ainslie.
Dr. Tidman triumphs, and the Missionary Society is vindicated. What was
the consequence?--a dinner to Dr. Tidman at the Guildhall Coffee-house,
at which all the leading ministers of the denomination to which he
belonged were present.
The Queen is the fountain of honour. What has been the manner of men
selected for royal honour? The last instance is Lord Dudley, who has
been made an earl. Why? Is it that he lent Mr. Lumley nearly 100,000
pounds to keep the Haymarket Opera House open? because really this is all
the general public knows about Lord Dudley. The other day Lord Derby was
the means of getting a peerage for a wealthy and undistinguished
commoner. Is it come to this, then, that we give to rich men, as such,
honours which ought to be precious, and awarded by public opinion to the
most gifted and the most illustrious of our fellows. If in private life
I toady a rich swell, that I may put my feet under his mahogany, and
drink his wine, besides making an ass of myself, I do little harm; but if
we prostitute the honours of the nation, the nation itself suffers; and,
as regards noble sentiments and enlightened public spirit, withers and
declines.
Guizot says--and if he had not said it somebody else would--that our
civilization is yet young. I believe it. At present it is little better
than an experiment. If it be a good, it is not without its
disadvantages. It has its drawbacks. Man gives up something for it.
One of its greatest evils perhaps is its monotony, which makes us curse
and mourn our fate--which forces from our lips the exclamation of
Mariana, in the "Moated Grange"--
"I'm a aweary, aweary--
Oh, would that I were dead;"
or which impels us, with the "Blighted Being" of Locksley Hall, to long
to "burst all bonds of habit and to wander far away." Do these lines
chance to attract the attention of one of the lords of creation--of one
who,
"Thoughtless of mamma's alarms,
Sports high-heeled boots and whiskers,"
--what is it, we would ask, most magnanimous Sir, in the most delicate
manner imaginable, that keeps you standing by the hour together, looking
out of the window of your club in Pall Mall, in the utter weariness of
your heart, swearing now at the weather, now at the waiter, and, anon,
muttering something about your dreaming that you dwelt in marble halls,
but that very monotony of civilization which we so much deprecate? Were
it not for that, you might be working in this working world--touching the
very kernel and core of life, instead of thus feeding on its shell. And
if it be that the soft eye of woman looks down on what we now write, what
is it, we would ask, O peerless paragon, O celestial goddess, but the
same feeling that makes you put aside the last new novel, and, in
shameless defiance of the rules taught in that valuable publication and
snob's _vade mecum_--"Hints on the Etiquette and the Usages of Society,"
actually yawn--aye, yawn, when that gold watch, hanging by your most
fairy-like and loveliest of forms, does not tell one hour that does not
bear with it from earth to heaven some tragedy acted--some villainy
achieved--some heroic thing done: aye, yawn, when before you is spread
out the great _role_ of life, with its laughter and tears--with its
blasts from hell--with its odours coming down from heaven itself. A
brave, bold, noble-hearted Miss Nightingale breaks through this monotony,
and sails to nurse the wounded or the dying of our army in the East, and
"Common Sense" writes in newspapers against such a noble act; and a
religious paper saw in it Popery at the very least. What a howl has
there been in some quarters because a few clergymen have taken to
preaching in theatres! Even, woman's heart, with its gushing sympathies,
has become dead and shrivelled up, where that relentless scourge--that
demon of our time, the monotony of civilization--has been suffered to
intrude. It is owing to that, that when we look for deeds angels might
love to do, our daughters, and sisters, and those whom we most
passionately love, scream out Italian songs which neither they nor we
understand, and bring to us, as the result of their noblest energies, a
fancy bag or a chain of German wool. Such is the result of what Sir W.
Curtis termed the three R's and the usual accomplishments. Humanity has
been stereotyped. We follow one another like a flock of sheep. We have
levelled with a vengeance; we have reduced the doctrine of human equality
to an absurdity--we live alike, think alike, die alike. A party in a
parlour in Belgrave Square, "all silent and all d---d," is as like a
party in a parlour in Hackney as two peas. The beard movement was a
failure; so was the great question of hat reform, and for similar
reasons. We still scowl upon a man with a wide-a-wake, as we should upon
a pick-pocket or a cut-throat. A leaden monotony hangs heavy on us all.
Not more does one man or woman differ from another than does policeman A1
differ from policeman A 999. Individuality seems gone: independent life
no longer exists. Our very thought and inner life is that of Buggins,
who lives next door. The skill of the tailor has made us all one, and
man, as God made him, cuts but a sorry figure by the side of man as his
tailor made him. This is an undeniable fact: it is not only true but
_the_ truth. One motive serves for every variety of deed--for dancing
the polka or marrying a wife--for wearing white gloves or worshipping the
Most High. "At any rate, my dears," said a fashionable dame to her
daughters when they turned round to go home, on finding that the crowded
state of the church to which they repaired would not admit of their
worshipping according to Act of Parliament,--"At any rate, my dears, we
have done the genteel thing." By that mockery to God she had made
herself right in the sight of man. Actually we are all so much alike
that not very long since in Madrid a journeyman tailor was mistaken for a
Prince. It is not always that such extreme cases happen; but the
tendency of civilization, as we have it now, is to work us all up into
one common, unmeaning whole--to confound all the old distinctions by
which classes were marked--to mix up the peasant and the prince, more by
bringing down the latter than elevating the former; and thus we all
become unmeaning, and monotonous, and common-place. The splendid livery
in which "Jeames" rejoices may show that he is footman to a family that
dates from the Conquest: it may be that he is footman to the keeper of
the ham and beef shop near London Bridge. The uninitiated cannot tell
the difference. A man says he is a lord; otherwise we should not take
him for one of the nobles of the earth. A man puts on a black gown, and
says he is a religious teacher: otherwise we should not take him for one
who could understand and enlighten the anxious yearnings of the human
heart. The old sublime faith in God and heaven is gone. We have had
none of it since the days of old Noll: it went out when Charles and his
mistresses came in. But instead, we have a world of propriety and
conventionalism. We have a universal worshipping of Mrs. Grundy. A
craven fear sits in the hearts of all. Men dare not be generous,
high-minded, and true. A man dares not act otherwise than the class by
which he is surrounded: he must conform to their regulations or die;
outside the pale there is no hope. If he would not be as others are, it
were better that a millstone were hung round his neck and that he were
cast into the sea. If, as a tradesman, he will not devote his energies
to money-making--if he will not rise up early and sit up late--if he will
not starve the mind--if he will not violate the conditions by which the
physical and mental powers are sustained--he will find that in Christian
England, in the nineteenth century, there is no room for such as he. The
externals which men in their ignorance have come to believe essential to
happiness, he will see another's. Great city "feeds"--white-bait dinners
at Blackwall, and "genteel residences," within a few miles of the Bank or
the bridges--fat coachmen and fiery steeds--corporation honours and
emoluments,--a man may seek in vain if he will not take first, the ledger
for his Gospel, and mammon for his God. It is just the same with the
professions. Would the "most distinguished counsel" ever have a brief
were he to scorn to employ the powers God has given him to obtain
impunity for the man whose heart's life has become polluted with crime
beyond the power of reform. Many a statesman has to thank a similar
laxity of conscience for his place and power.
CHAPTER XI.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
I am not in the best of humours. The wind and weather of the last few
months have been bad enough to vex the temper and destroy the patience of
a saint. I wish the papers would write a little more about reforms at
home, and not trouble themselves about the Emperor of the French. I wish
country gentlemen, when airing their vocabularies at agricultural
dinners, would not talk so much of our friends across the water being
desirous to avenge the disgrace of Waterloo, as if there were any
disgrace to France, after having been a match, single-handed, for all
Europe for a generation, in being compelled to succumb at last. I wish
we could be content with trading with China, without sending ambassadors
to Pekin, and endeavouring by fair means or foul to make that ancient
city, as regards red-tapeism and diplomatic quarrels, as great a nuisance
as Constantinople is now. I wish Mr. George Augustus Sala, with that
wonderful talent of his for imitating Dickens and Thackeray, would quite
forget there was such gentlemen in the world, and write independently of
them. And I wish the little essayists, who copy Mr. George Augustus
Sala, and are so very smart and facetious by his aid, would either swim
without corks, or not swim at all. Thank heaven, none of them are
permanent, and most of them speedily sink down into limbo. Where are the
gaudily-covered miscellanies, and other light productions of this class?
if not dead, why on every second-hand book-stall in London, in vain
seeking a sale at half-price, and dear at the money. But the spirit of
which they are the symptom, of which they are the outward and visible
sign, lives. Directly you take up one of these books, you know what is
coming. But after all, why quarrel with these butterflies, who, at any
rate, have a good conceit of themselves, if they have but a poor opinion
of others? Fontaine tells of a motherly crab, who exclaimed against the
obliquity of her daughter's gait, and asked whether she could not walk
straight. The young crab pleaded, very reasonably, the similarity of her
parent's manner of stepping, and asked whether she could be expected to
walk differently from the rest of the family?
This fable throws me back on general principles; our writers--our
preachers--our statesmen, are fearful, and tremble at the appearance of
originality. The age overrules us all, society is strong, and the
individual is consequently weak. We have no patrons now, but, instead,
we have a mob. Attend a public meeting,--the speaker who is the most
applauded, is the man most given to exaggeration. Listen to a popular
preacher,--is he not invariably the most commonplace, and in his sermons
least suggestive, of men? When a new periodical is projected, what care
is taken that it shall contain nothing to offend, as if a man or writer
were worth a rap that did not come into collision with some prejudices,
and trample on some corns. In describing some ceremony where beer had
been distributed, a teetotal reporter, writing for a teetotal public,
omitted all mention of the beer. This is ridiculous, but such things are
done every day in all classes. Society exercises a censorship over the
press of the most distinctive character. The song says,
"Have faith in one another."
I say, have faith in yourself. This faith in oneself would go far to put
society in a better position than it is. A common complaint in
everybody's mouth is the want of variety in individual character--the
dreary monotony we find everywhere pervading society. Men and women,
lads and maidens, boys and girls, if we may call the little dolls dressed
up in crinoline and flounces, and the young gentlemen in patent-leather
boots, such, are all alike. Civilization is a leveller of the most
destructive kind. Man is timid, imitative, and lazy. Hence, it is to
the past we must turn, whenever we would recall to our minds how sublime
and great man, in his might and majesty, may become. Hence it is we can
reckon upon but few who dare to stand alone in devotedness to truth and
human right. Most men are enslaved by the opinions of the little clique
in which they move; they can never imagine that beyond their little
circle there can exist anything that is lovely or of good report. We are
the men, and wisdom will die with us, is the burden of their song. We
judge not according to abstract principles, but conventional ideas. Ask
a young lady, of average intelligence, respecting some busy hive of
industry, and intelligence, and life. "Oh!" she exclaims, "there is no
society in such a place." Ask an evangelical churchman as to a certain
locality, and he will reply, "Oh it is very dark, dark, indeed;" as if
there was a spot on this blessed earth where God's sun did not shine.
The dancing Bayaderes, who visited London some fifteen years back, were
shocked at what they conceived the immodest attire of our English dames,
who, in their turn, were thankful that they did not dress as the
Bayaderes. All uneducated people, or rather all unreflective people, are
apt to reason in this way; orthodoxy is my doxy, heterodoxy, yours. But
we English, especially, are liable to this fallacy, on account of our
insular position, and the reserve and phlegm of our national character.
Abroad people travel more, come more into collision with each other,
socially are more equal. We can only recognize goodness and greatness in
certain forms. People must be well-dressed, must be of respectable
family, must go to church, and then they may carry on any rascality. Sir
John Dean Paul, Redpath, and others, were types of this class. Hence it
is society stagnates--such is a description of a general law, illustrated
in all history, especially our own. Society invariably sets itself
against all great improvements in their birth. Society gives the cold
shoulder to whatever has lifted up the human race--to whatever has
illustrated and adorned humanity--to whatever has made the world wiser
and better. Our fathers stoned the prophets, and we continue the amiable
custom. Our judgment is not our own, but that of other people. We think
what will other people think? our first question is not, Is a course of
action right or wrong? but; What will Mr. Grundy say? Here is the great
blunder of blunders. John the Baptist lived in a desert. "If I had read
as much as other men," said Hobbes, "I should have been as ignorant as
they." "When I began to write against indulgences," says Luther, "I was
for three years entirely alone; not a single soul holding out the hand of
fellowship and cooperation to me." Of Milton, Wordsworth writes, "his
soul was like a star, and dwelt apart."
The great original thinker of the last generation, John Foster, actually
fled the face of man. What a life of persecution and misrepresentation
had Arnold of Rugby to endure, and no wonder, when we quote against the
conclusions of common sense the imaginary opinions of an imaginary
scarecrow we term society. This deference to the opinion of others is an
unmitigated evil. In no case is it a legitimate rule of action. The
chances are that society is on the wrong side, as men of independent
thought and action are in the minority, and even if society be right; it
is not from a desire to win her smile or secure her favour that a man
should act. It is not the judgment of others that a man must seek, but
his own; it is by that he must act--by that he must stand or fall--by
that he must live--and by that he must die. All real life is internal,
all honest action is born of honest thought; out of the heart are the
issues of life. The want of exercising one's own understanding has been
admirably described by Locke. It is that, he says, which weakens and
extinguishes this noble faculty in us. "Trace it, and see whether it be
not so; the day labourer in a country village has commonly but a small
pittance of knowledge, because his ideas and notions have been confined
to the narrow bounds of a poor conversation and employment; the low
mechanic of a country town does somewhat outdo him--porters and cobblers
of great cities surpass him. A country gentleman, leaving Latin and
Learning in the University, who returns thence to his mansion-house, and
associates with his neighbours of the same strain, who relish nothing but
hunting and a bottle; with these alone he spends his time, with these
alone he converses, and can away with no company whose discourses go
beyond what claret and dissoluteness inspire. Such a patriot, formed in
this happy day of improvement, cannot fail, we see, to give notable
decisions upon the bench at quarter sessions, and eminent proofs of his
skill in politics, when the strength of his purse, and party, have
advanced him to a more auspicious situation. * * * To carry this a little
further: here is one muffled up in the zeal and infallibility of his own
sect, and will not touch a book, or enter into debate, with a person that
will question any of those things which, to him, are sacred." People
wonder now-a-days why we have so many societies--the cause is the same.
Men cannot trust themselves; to do that requires exercise of the
understanding. A man must take his opinions from society; he can do no
battle with the devil unless he have an association formed to aid him.
At Oxford the example of an individual, Dr. Livingstone, created a
generous enthusiasm. A society was formed under distinguished patronage,
subscription lists were opened, a public meeting was held, and the most
renowned men of the day--the Bishop of Oxford and Mr. Gladstone--lent to
the meeting not merely the attraction of their presence, but the charm of
their oratorical powers. The result is a very small collection, and a
talk of sending out six missionaries to christianize Africa. When
societies are formed there is no end to the absurdities they are guilty
of. Just think of the men of science at Aberdeen, all rushing over hill
and dale to Balmoral, where they were permitted, not to converse with
majesty (that were too great an act of condescension), but to have lunch
in an apartment of the royal residence. Then, again, what murmurs were
there at Bradford, because, at the close of the meeting, the younger
members of the Social Reform Congress were not permitted to dance the
polka. If old Columbus were alive now a new world would never have been
discovered. We should have had a limited liability company established
for the purpose. A board of lawyers, and merchants, and M.P.'s, as
directors, would have been formed. Some good-natured newspaper editors
would have inserted some ingenious puffs,--the shares would have gone up
in the market,--the directors would have sold out at a very fair rate of
profit. Columbus would have made one or two unsuccessful voyages--the
shares would have gone down--the company would have been wound up--and no
western continent, with its vast resources, would ever have been heard
of. I like the old plan best; I like to see a man. If I go into the
House of Commons I hear of men, somewhat too much talk of men is there;
on one side of the house Pitt is quoted, on another Fox, or Peel, or
Canning. If Pitt, and Fox, and Canning, and Peel had done so depend upon
it we should never have heard their names. It is a poor sign when our
statesmen get into this habit; it is a mutual confession of inability to
act according to the wants and necessities of the age. They quote great
men to hide their littleness. They imagine that by using the words of
great statesmen they may become such, or, at any rate, get the public to
note them for such themselves. They use the names of Pitt and Fox as
corks, by means of which they may keep afloat. Well, I must fain do the
same; while I rail against custom, I must e'en follow her.
"He seems to me," said old Montaigne, "to have had a right and true
apprehension of the power of custom, who first invented the story of a
country-woman who, having accustomed herself to play with and carry a
young calf in her arms, and daily continuing to do so as it grew up
obtained this by custom, that when grown to a great ox she was still able
to bear it. For, in truth, custom is a violent and treacherous
schoolmistress. She by little and little, slyly and unperceived, slips
in the foot of her authority, but having by this gentle and humble
beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then
unmasks a furious and tyrannical countenance, against which we have no
more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes. We see it
at every turn forcing and violating the rules of nature. _Usus
efficacissimus rerum omnium magister_. Custom is the greatest master of
all things."
And now I finish with a fable. A knight surprised a giant of enormous
size and wickedness sleeping, his head lying under the shade of a big
oak. The knight prayed to heaven to aid his strength, and lifting his
battle-axe dashed it with all his might on the giant's forehead. The
giant opened his eyes, and drowsily passing his hand over his eyes,
murmured, "The falling leaves trouble my rest," and straight he slumbered
again. The knight summoned his energies for another stroke, again
whirled his axe in the air, and furiously dashed it to the utter
destruction of the giant's scull. The latter merely stirred, and said,
"The dropping acorns disturb my sleep." The knight flung down his axe
and fled in despair from an enemy who held his fiercest blows and his
vaunted and well-tried might but as falling leaves and dropping acorns.
Reader, so do I. My hardest blows shall seem but as leaves and acorns to
the giant with whom I am at war, and would fain destroy.
CHAPTER XII.
LONDON MATRIMONIAL.
Last year 25,924 couples were married in the metropolis. The
Registrar-General tells us the increase of early marriages chiefly occurs
in the manufacturing and mining districts.
In London 2.74 of the men and 12.11 of the women who married were not of
full age. There is an excess of adults in the metropolis at the marrying
ages over 21; and there are not apparently the same inducements to marry
early, as exist in the Midland counties.
Sir Cresswell Cresswell must have but a poor opinion of matrimony. At
the very moment of my writing, I am told there are six hundred divorce
cases in arrear; that is, after the hundreds whose chains he has
loosened, there are, it appears, already twelve hundred more of injured
wives and husbands eager to be free. The evil, such as it is, will
extend itself. Under the old system there was, practically speaking, no
redress, and a man and woman tied together would endeavour to make the
best of it; now, if they feel the more they quarrel and disagree with
each other, the better chance they have of being at liberty, it is to be
feared, in some cases, husband and wife will not try so heartily to
forget and forgive, as husbands and wives ought to do. I do not say
there ought not to be liberty, where all love has long since died out,
and been followed by bad faith and cruelty, and neglect. I believe there
should be, and that the Divorce Act was an experiment imperatively
required. Where mutual love has been exchanged for mutual hate, it is
hard that human law should bind together, in what must be life-long
misery--misery perhaps not the less intense that it has uttered no word
of complaint, made no sign, been unsuspected by the world, yet all the
while dragging its victim to an early or premature grave. But human
nature is a poor weak thing, and many a silly man or silly woman may
think that Sir Cresswell Cresswell may prove a healing physician, when
their malady was more in themselves than they cared to believe. I hear
of one case where a lady having 15,000 pounds a-year in her own right,
has run off with her footman. Would she have done that if there had been
no Sir Cresswell? I fancy not. Again, another married lady, with
100,000 pounds settled on her, runs off with the curate. Had it not
occurred to her that Sir Cresswell Cresswell would, in due time, dissolve
her union with her legitimate lord, and enable her to follow the bent of
her passions, would she not have fought with them, and in the conquest of
them won more true peace for herself, than she can ever hope for now? I
believe so. In the long commerce of a life, there must be times, when we
may think of others we have known, when we may idly fancy we should have
been happier with others; but true wisdom will teach us that it is
childish to lament after the event, that it were wiser to take what
comfort we can find, and that, after all, it is duty, rather than
happiness, that should be the pole-star of life. Southey told Shelley a
man might be happy with any woman, and certainly a wise man, once
married, will try to make the best of it. But to return to Sir Cresswell
Cresswell, I wish that he could give relief without stirring up such a
pool of stinking mud. Who is benefitted by the disgusting details? It
is a fine thing for the penny papers. They get a large sale, and so reap
their reward. The _Times_, also, is generally not very backward when
anything peculiarly revolting and indecent is to be told; but are the
people, high or low, rich or poor, the better? I find it hard to believe
they are. How husbands can be false, how wives can intrigue, how
servants can connive, we know, and we do not want to hear it repeated.
If Prior's Chloe was an ale-house drab, if the Clara of Lord Bolingbroke
sold oranges in the Court of Requests, if Fielding kept indifferent
company, we are amused or grieved, but still learn something of genius,
even from its errors; but of the tribe Smith and Brown I care not to
hear--ever since the Deluge the Smiths and Browns have been much the
same. What am I the better for learning all the rottenness of domestic
life? Is that fit reading for the family circle? I suppose the
newspapers think it is, but I cannot come to that opinion. Can it have a
wholesome effect on the national feeling? Can it heighten the reverence
for Nature's primary ordinance of matrimony?
In the Book of Common Prayer I read that matrimony is "holy;" that it was
instituted of God in the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the
mystical union that is between Christ and his Church, which holy estate
Christ adorned and beautified with his presence and first miracle that he
wrought in Cana of Galilee; and is commended of St. Paul to be honourable
among all men, and, therefore, is not by any to be enterprised, "nor
taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men's carnal
lusts or appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but
reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God, duly
considering the causes for which matrimony was ordained."
Alas! our age is not a marrying age; and, therefore, I fear it is an
unholy one: neither our young men nor our young maidens honestly fall in
love and marry now-a-days. I don't know that the Registrar-General's
report says such. I know that many of his marriages are affairs of
convenience; unions of businesses, or thousands, or broad lands; not
marriages "holy," in the sense of the prayer-book and of God. A man who
marries simply for love, exposes himself to ridicule; the modern
ingenuous youth is not so green as all that; if he marries at all, it
must be an heiress, or, at any rate, one well dowered. The last thing
your modern well-bred beauty does, is to unite her fate with that of a
man in the good old-fashioned way. She has learnt to set her heart upon
the accidents of life,--the fine house, the establishment; and if these
she cannot have, she will even die an old maid. The real is sacrificed
to the imaginary; the substance, to the shadow; the present, to the
morrow that never comes. A man says he will become rich; he will
sacrifice everything to that; and the chances are he becomes poor in
heart and purse. The maiden--
With the meek brown eyes,
In whose orb a shadow lies,
Like the dusk in evening skies--
loses all her divinity, and pines away, and becomes what I care not to
name; and the world--whose wisdom is folly--sanctions all this. It calls
it prudence, foresight. A man has no business to marry till he can keep
a wife, is the cuckoo cry; which would have some meaning if a wife was a
horse or a dog, and not an answer to a human need, and an essential to
success in life. The world forgets that man is not an automaton, but a
being fearfully and wonderfully framed. No machine, but a lyre
responsive to the breath of every passing passion: now fevered with
pleasure; now toiling for gold; anon seeking to build up a lofty fame;
and that the more eager and passionate and daring he is--the more eagle
is his eye, and the loftier his aim, the more he needs woman--the
comforter and the helpmeet--by his side. Our fathers did not ignore
this, and they succeeded. Because the wife preserved them from the
temptations of life; because she, with her words and looks of love,
assisted them to bear the burdens and fight the battles of life; because
she stood by her husband's side as his helpmeet; bone of his bone, flesh
of his flesh; soothing each sorrow; aiding each upward aim: it was thus
they became great; and it is because we do not thus, we pale before them.
It is not good for man to be alone. Man has tried to disobey the divine
law, and lived alone; and what has been the result?--even when tried by
men of superior sanctity, as in the case of the Romish Church, has the
world gained in happiness or morality? I trow not. Take the limited
experience of our own age, and fathers and mothers know, to their bitter
cost, I am right. The manhood, brave and generous, much of it wrecked in
our great cities, will bear me out. But matrimony is more than this. It
spite of the hard matter-of-fact, sceptical, and therefore sensual
character of the passing day, will it not be confessed that the union of
man and woman, as husband and wife, is the greatest earthly need, and is
followed by the greatest earthly good? Unhappy marriages there may be;
imprudent ones there may be; but such are not the rule; and very properly
our legislators
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