initial commit of ebook 872HEADmain

15 files changed, 28781 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/872-0.txt b/872-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..61f9e10
--- /dev/null
+++ b/872-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9078 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Reprinted Pieces, by Charles Dickens
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: Reprinted Pieces
+
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 25, 2014  [eBook #872]
+[This file was first posted on February 6, 1997]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REPRINTED PIECES***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1905 Chapman and Hall edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+
+
+
+
+                             Reprinted Pieces
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                PAGE
+_The Long Voyage_                                309
+_The Begging-letter Writer_                      317
+_A Child’s Dream of a Star_                      324
+_Our English Watering-place_                     327
+_Our French Watering-place_                      335
+_Bill-sticking_                                  346
+“_Births_.  _Mrs. Meek_, _of a Son_”             357
+_Lying Awake_                                    361
+_The Ghost of Art_                               367
+_Out of Town_                                    373
+_Out of the Season_                              379
+_A Poor Man’s Tale of a Patent_                  386
+_The Noble Savage_                               391
+_A Flight_                                       397
+_The Detective Police_                           406
+_Three_ “_Detective_” _Anecdotes_                422
+                    _I.—The Pair of
+                    Gloves_
+                    _II.—The Artful
+                    Touch_
+                    _III.—The Sofa_
+_On Duty with Inspector Field_                   430
+_Down with the Tide_                             442
+_A Walk in a Workhouse_                          451
+_Prince Bull_.  _A Fairy Tale_                   457
+_A Plated Article_                               462
+_Our Honourable Friend_                          470
+_Our School_                                     475
+_Our Vestry_                                     481
+_Our Bore_                                       487
+_A Monument of French Folly_                     494
+
+                        [Picture: The long voyage]
+
+
+
+
+THE LONG VOYAGE
+
+
+WHEN the wind is blowing and the sleet or rain is driving against the
+dark windows, I love to sit by the fire, thinking of what I have read in
+books of voyage and travel.  Such books have had a strong fascination for
+my mind from my earliest childhood; and I wonder it should have come to
+pass that I never have been round the world, never have been shipwrecked,
+ice-environed, tomahawked, or eaten.
+
+Sitting on my ruddy hearth in the twilight of New Year’s Eve, I find
+incidents of travel rise around me from all the latitudes and longitudes
+of the globe.  They observe no order or sequence, but appear and vanish
+as they will—‘come like shadows, so depart.’  Columbus, alone upon the
+sea with his disaffected crew, looks over the waste of waters from his
+high station on the poop of his ship, and sees the first uncertain
+glimmer of the light, ‘rising and falling with the waves, like a torch in
+the bark of some fisherman,’ which is the shining star of a new world.
+Bruce is caged in Abyssinia, surrounded by the gory horrors which shall
+often startle him out of his sleep at home when years have passed away.
+Franklin, come to the end of his unhappy overland journey—would that it
+had been his last!—lies perishing of hunger with his brave companions:
+each emaciated figure stretched upon its miserable bed without the power
+to rise: all, dividing the weary days between their prayers, their
+remembrances of the dear ones at home, and conversation on the pleasures
+of eating; the last-named topic being ever present to them, likewise, in
+their dreams.  All the African travellers, wayworn, solitary and sad,
+submit themselves again to drunken, murderous, man-selling despots, of
+the lowest order of humanity; and Mungo Park, fainting under a tree and
+succoured by a woman, gratefully remembers how his Good Samaritan has
+always come to him in woman’s shape, the wide world over.
+
+A shadow on the wall in which my mind’s eye can discern some traces of a
+rocky sea-coast, recalls to me a fearful story of travel derived from
+that unpromising narrator of such stories, a parliamentary blue-book.  A
+convict is its chief figure, and this man escapes with other prisoners
+from a penal settlement.  It is an island, and they seize a boat, and get
+to the main land.  Their way is by a rugged and precipitous sea-shore,
+and they have no earthly hope of ultimate escape, for the party of
+soldiers despatched by an easier course to cut them off, must inevitably
+arrive at their distant bourne long before them, and retake them if by
+any hazard they survive the horrors of the way.  Famine, as they all must
+have foreseen, besets them early in their course.  Some of the party die
+and are eaten; some are murdered by the rest and eaten.  This one awful
+creature eats his fill, and sustains his strength, and lives on to be
+recaptured and taken back.  The unrelateable experiences through which he
+has passed have been so tremendous, that he is not hanged as he might be,
+but goes back to his old chained-gang work.  A little time, and he tempts
+one other prisoner away, seizes another boat, and flies once
+more—necessarily in the old hopeless direction, for he can take no other.
+He is soon cut off, and met by the pursuing party face to face, upon the
+beach.  He is alone.  In his former journey he acquired an inappeasable
+relish for his dreadful food.  He urged the new man away, expressly to
+kill him and eat him.  In the pockets on one side of his coarse
+convict-dress, are portions of the man’s body, on which he is regaling;
+in the pockets on the other side is an untouched store of salted pork
+(stolen before he left the island) for which he has no appetite.  He is
+taken back, and he is hanged.  But I shall never see that sea-beach on
+the wall or in the fire, without him, solitary monster, eating as he
+prowls along, while the sea rages and rises at him.
+
+Captain Bligh (a worse man to be entrusted with arbitrary power there
+could scarcely be) is handed over the side of the Bounty, and turned
+adrift on the wide ocean in an open boat, by order of Fletcher Christian,
+one of his officers, at this very minute.  Another flash of my fire, and
+‘Thursday October Christian,’ five-and-twenty years of age, son of the
+dead and gone Fletcher by a savage mother, leaps aboard His Majesty’s
+ship Briton, hove-to off Pitcairn’s Island; says his simple grace before
+eating, in good English; and knows that a pretty little animal on board
+is called a dog, because in his childhood he had heard of such strange
+creatures from his father and the other mutineers, grown grey under the
+shade of the bread-fruit trees, speaking of their lost country far away.
+
+See the Halsewell, East Indiaman outward bound, driving madly on a
+January night towards the rocks near Seacombe, on the island of Purbeck!
+The captain’s two dear daughters are aboard, and five other ladies.  The
+ship has been driving many hours, has seven feet water in her hold, and
+her mainmast has been cut away.  The description of her loss, familiar to
+me from my early boyhood, seems to be read aloud as she rushes to her
+destiny.
+
+    ‘About two in the morning of Friday the sixth of January, the ship
+    still driving, and approaching very fast to the shore, Mr. Henry
+    Meriton, the second mate, went again into the cuddy, where the
+    captain then was.  Another conversation taking place, Captain Pierce
+    expressed extreme anxiety for the preservation of his beloved
+    daughters, and earnestly asked the officer if he could devise any
+    method of saving them.  On his answering with great concern, that he
+    feared it would be impossible, but that their only chance would be to
+    wait for morning, the captain lifted up his hands in silent and
+    distressful ejaculation.
+
+    ‘At this dreadful moment, the ship struck, with such violence as to
+    dash the heads of those standing in the cuddy against the deck above
+    them, and the shock was accompanied by a shriek of horror that burst
+    at one instant from every quarter of the ship.
+
+    ‘Many of the seamen, who had been remarkably inattentive and remiss
+    in their duty during great part of the storm, now poured upon deck,
+    where no exertions of the officers could keep them, while their
+    assistance might have been useful.  They had actually skulked in
+    their hammocks, leaving the working of the pumps and other necessary
+    labours to the officers of the ship, and the soldiers, who had made
+    uncommon exertions.  Roused by a sense of their danger, the same
+    seamen, at this moment, in frantic exclamations, demanded of heaven
+    and their fellow-sufferers that succour which their own efforts,
+    timely made, might possibly have procured.
+
+    ‘The ship continued to beat on the rocks; and soon bilging, fell with
+    her broadside towards the shore.  When she struck, a number of the
+    men climbed up the ensign-staff, under an apprehension of her
+    immediately going to pieces.
+
+    ‘Mr. Meriton, at this crisis, offered to these unhappy beings the
+    best advice which could be given; he recommended that all should come
+    to the side of the ship lying lowest on the rocks, and singly to take
+    the opportunities which might then offer, of escaping to the shore.
+
+    ‘Having thus provided, to the utmost of his power, for the safety of
+    the desponding crew, he returned to the round-house, where, by this
+    time, all the passengers and most of the officers had assembled.  The
+    latter were employed in offering consolation to the unfortunate
+    ladies; and, with unparalleled magnanimity, suffering their
+    compassion for the fair and amiable companions of their misfortunes
+    to prevail over the sense of their own danger.
+
+    ‘In this charitable work of comfort, Mr. Meriton now joined, by
+    assurances of his opinion, that, the ship would hold together till
+    the morning, when all would be safe.  Captain Pierce, observing one
+    of the young gentlemen loud in his exclamations of terror, and
+    frequently cry that the ship was parting, cheerfully bid him be
+    quiet, remarking that though the ship should go to pieces, he would
+    not, but would be safe enough.
+
+    ‘It is difficult to convey a correct idea of the scene of this
+    deplorable catastrophe, without describing the place where it
+    happened.  The Haleswell struck on the rocks at a part of the shore
+    where the cliff is of vast height, and rises almost perpendicular
+    from its base.  But at this particular spot, the foot of the cliff is
+    excavated into a cavern of ten or twelve yards in depth, and of
+    breadth equal to the length of a large ship.  The sides of the cavern
+    are so nearly upright, as to be of extremely difficult access; and
+    the bottom is strewed with sharp and uneven rocks, which seem, by
+    some convulsion of the earth, to have been detached from its roof.
+
+    ‘The ship lay with her broadside opposite to the mouth of this
+    cavern, with her whole length stretched almost from side to side of
+    it.  But when she struck, it was too dark for the unfortunate persons
+    on board to discover the real magnitude of the danger, and the
+    extreme horror of such a situation.
+
+    ‘In addition to the company already in the round-house, they had
+    admitted three black women and two soldiers’ wives; who, with the
+    husband of one of them, had been allowed to come in, though the
+    seamen, who had tumultuously demanded entrance to get the lights, had
+    been opposed and kept out by Mr. Rogers and Mr. Brimer, the third and
+    fifth mates.  The numbers there were, therefore, now increased to
+    near fifty.  Captain Pierce sat on a chair, a cot, or some other
+    moveable, with a daughter on each side, whom he alternately pressed
+    to his affectionate breast.  The rest of the melancholy assembly were
+    seated on the deck, which was strewed with musical instruments, and
+    the wreck of furniture and other articles.
+
+    ‘Here also Mr. Meriton, after having cut several wax-candles in
+    pieces, and stuck them up in various parts of the round-house, and
+    lighted up all the glass lanthorns he could find, took his seat,
+    intending to wait the approach of dawn; and then assist the partners
+    of his dangers to escape.  But, observing that the poor ladies
+    appeared parched and exhausted, he brought a basket of oranges and
+    prevailed on some of them to refresh themselves by sucking a little
+    of the juice.  At this time they were all tolerably composed, except
+    Miss Mansel, who was in hysteric fits on the floor of the deck of the
+    round-house.
+
+    ‘But on Mr. Meriton’s return to the company, he perceived a
+    considerable alteration in the appearance of the ship; the sides were
+    visibly giving way; the deck seemed to be lifting, and he discovered
+    other strong indications that she could not hold much longer
+    together.  On this account, he attempted to go forward to look out,
+    but immediately saw that the ship had separated in the middle, and
+    that the forepart having changed its position, lay rather further out
+    towards the sea.  In such an emergency, when the next moment might
+    plunge him into eternity, he determined to seize the present
+    opportunity, and follow the example of the crew and the soldiers, who
+    were now quitting the ship in numbers, and making their way to the
+    shore, though quite ignorant of its nature and description.
+
+    ‘Among other expedients, the ensign-staff had been unshipped, and
+    attempted to be laid between the ship’s side and some of the rocks,
+    but without success, for it snapped asunder before it reached them.
+    However, by the light of a lanthorn, which a seaman handed through
+    the skylight of the round-house to the deck, Mr. Meriton discovered a
+    spar which appeared to be laid from the ship’s side to the rocks, and
+    on this spar he resolved to attempt his escape.
+
+    ‘Accordingly, lying down upon it, he thrust himself forward; however,
+    he soon found that it had no communication with the rock; he reached
+    the end of it, and then slipped off, receiving a very violent bruise
+    in his fall, and before he could recover his legs, he was washed off
+    by the surge.  He now supported himself by swimming, until a
+    returning wave dashed him against the back part of the cavern.  Here
+    he laid hold of a small projection in the rock, but was so much
+    benumbed that he was on the point of quitting it, when a seaman, who
+    had already gained a footing, extended his hand, and assisted him
+    until he could secure himself a little on the rock; from which he
+    clambered on a shelf still higher, and out of the reach of the surf.
+
+    ‘Mr. Rogers, the third mate, remained with the captain and the
+    unfortunate ladies and their companions nearly twenty minutes after
+    Mr. Meriton had quitted the ship.  Soon after the latter left the
+    round-house, the captain asked what was become of him, to which Mr.
+    Rogers replied, that he was gone on deck to see what could be done.
+    After this, a heavy sea breaking over the ship, the ladies exclaimed,
+    “Oh, poor Meriton! he is drowned; had he stayed with us he would have
+    been safe!” and they all, particularly Miss Mary Pierce, expressed
+    great concern at the apprehension of his loss.
+
+    ‘The sea was now breaking in at the fore part of the ship, and
+    reached as far as the mainmast.  Captain Pierce gave Mr. Rogers a
+    nod, and they took a lamp and went together into the stern-gallery,
+    where, after viewing the rocks for some time, Captain Pierce asked
+    Mr. Rogers if he thought there was any possibility of saving the
+    girls; to which he replied, he feared there was none; for they could
+    only discover the black face of the perpendicular rock, and not the
+    cavern which afforded shelter to those who escaped.  They then
+    returned to the round-house, where Mr. Rogers hung up the lamp, and
+    Captain Pierce sat down between his two daughters.
+
+    ‘The sea continuing to break in very fast, Mr. Macmanus, a
+    midshipman, and Mr. Schutz, a passenger, asked Mr. Rogers what they
+    could do to escape.  “Follow me,” he replied, and they all went into
+    the stern-gallery, and from thence to the upper-quarter-gallery on
+    the poop.  While there, a very heavy sea fell on board, and the
+    round-house gave way; Mr. Rogers heard the ladies shriek at
+    intervals, as if the water reached them; the noise of the sea at
+    other times drowning their voices.
+
+    ‘Mr. Brimer had followed him to the poop, where they remained
+    together about five minutes, when on the breaking of this heavy sea,
+    they jointly seized a hen-coop.  The same wave which proved fatal to
+    some of those below, carried him and his companion to the rock, on
+    which they were violently dashed and miserably bruised.
+
+    ‘Here on the rock were twenty-seven men; but it now being low water,
+    and as they were convinced that on the flowing of the tide all must
+    be washed off, many attempted to get to the back or the sides of the
+    cavern, beyond the reach of the returning sea.  Scarcely more than
+    six, besides Mr. Rogers and Mr. Brimer, succeeded.
+
+    ‘Mr. Rogers, on gaining this station, was so nearly exhausted, that
+    had his exertions been protracted only a few minutes longer, he must
+    have sunk under them.  He was now prevented from joining Mr. Meriton,
+    by at least twenty men between them, none of whom could move, without
+    the imminent peril of his life.
+
+    ‘They found that a very considerable number of the crew, seamen and
+    soldiers, and some petty officers, were in the same situation as
+    themselves, though many who had reached the rocks below, perished in
+    attempting to ascend.  They could yet discern some part of the ship,
+    and in their dreary station solaced themselves with the hopes of its
+    remaining entire until day-break; for, in the midst of their own
+    distress, the sufferings of the females on board affected them with
+    the most poignant anguish; and every sea that broke inspired them
+    with terror for their safety.
+
+    ‘But, alas, their apprehensions were too soon realised!  Within a
+    very few minutes of the time that Mr. Rogers gained the rock, an
+    universal shriek, which long vibrated in their ears, in which the
+    voice of female distress was lamentably distinguished, announced the
+    dreadful catastrophe.  In a few moments all was hushed, except the
+    roaring of the winds and the dashing of the waves; the wreck was
+    buried in the deep, and not an atom of it was ever afterwards seen.’
+
+The most beautiful and affecting incident I know, associated with a
+shipwreck, succeeds this dismal story for a winter night.  The Grosvenor,
+East Indiaman, homeward bound, goes ashore on the coast of Caffraria.  It
+is resolved that the officers, passengers, and crew, in number one
+hundred and thirty-five souls, shall endeavour to penetrate on foot,
+across trackless deserts, infested by wild beasts and cruel savages, to
+the Dutch settlements at the Cape of Good Hope.  With this forlorn object
+before them, they finally separate into two parties—never more to meet on
+earth.
+
+There is a solitary child among the passengers—a little boy of seven
+years old who has no relation there; and when the first party is moving
+away he cries after some member of it who has been kind to him.  The
+crying of a child might be supposed to be a little thing to men in such
+great extremity; but it touches them, and he is immediately taken into
+that detachment.
+
+From which time forth, this child is sublimely made a sacred charge.  He
+is pushed, on a little raft, across broad rivers by the swimming sailors;
+they carry him by turns through the deep sand and long grass (he
+patiently walking at all other times); they share with him such putrid
+fish as they find to eat; they lie down and wait for him when the rough
+carpenter, who becomes his especial friend, lags behind.  Beset by lions
+and tigers, by savages, by thirst, by hunger, by death in a crowd of
+ghastly shapes, they never—O Father of all mankind, thy name be blessed
+for it!—forget this child.  The captain stops exhausted, and his faithful
+coxswain goes back and is seen to sit down by his side, and neither of
+the two shall be any more beheld until the great last day; but, as the
+rest go on for their lives, they take the child with them.  The carpenter
+dies of poisonous berries eaten in starvation; and the steward,
+succeeding to the command of the party, succeeds to the sacred
+guardianship of the child.
+
+God knows all he does for the poor baby; how he cheerfully carries him in
+his arms when he himself is weak and ill; how he feeds him when he
+himself is griped with want; how he folds his ragged jacket round him,
+lays his little worn face with a woman’s tenderness upon his sunburnt
+breast, soothes him in his sufferings, sings to him as he limps along,
+unmindful of his own parched and bleeding feet.  Divided for a few days
+from the rest, they dig a grave in the sand and bury their good friend
+the cooper—these two companions alone in the wilderness—and then the time
+comes when they both are ill, and beg their wretched partners in despair,
+reduced and few in number now, to wait by them one day.  They wait by
+them one day, they wait by them two days.  On the morning of the third,
+they move very softly about, in making their preparations for the
+resumption of their journey; for, the child is sleeping by the fire, and
+it is agreed with one consent that he shall not be disturbed until the
+last moment.  The moment comes, the fire is dying—and the child is dead.
+
+His faithful friend, the steward, lingers but a little while behind him.
+His grief is great, he staggers on for a few days, lies down in the
+desert, and dies.  But he shall be re-united in his immortal spirit—who
+can doubt it!—with the child, when he and the poor carpenter shall be
+raised up with the words, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of
+these, ye have done it unto Me.’
+
+As I recall the dispersal and disappearance of nearly all the
+participators in this once famous shipwreck (a mere handful being
+recovered at last), and the legends that were long afterwards revived
+from time to time among the English officers at the Cape, of a white
+woman with an infant, said to have been seen weeping outside a savage hut
+far in the interior, who was whisperingly associated with the remembrance
+of the missing ladies saved from the wrecked vessel, and who was often
+sought but never found, thoughts of another kind of travel came into my
+mind.
+
+Thoughts of a voyager unexpectedly summoned from home, who travelled a
+vast distance, and could never return.  Thoughts of this unhappy wayfarer
+in the depths of his sorrow, in the bitterness of his anguish, in the
+helplessness of his self-reproach, in the desperation of his desire to
+set right what he had left wrong, and do what he had left undone.
+
+For, there were many, many things he had neglected.  Little matters while
+he was at home and surrounded by them, but things of mighty moment when
+he was at an immeasurable distance.  There were many many blessings that
+he had inadequately felt, there were many trivial injuries that he had
+not forgiven, there was love that he had but poorly returned, there was
+friendship that he had too lightly prized: there were a million kind
+words that he might have spoken, a million kind looks that he might have
+given, uncountable slight easy deeds in which he might have been most
+truly great and good.  O for a day (he would exclaim), for but one day to
+make amends!  But the sun never shone upon that happy day, and out of his
+remote captivity he never came.
+
+Why does this traveller’s fate obscure, on New Year’s Eve, the other
+histories of travellers with which my mind was filled but now, and cast a
+solemn shadow over me!  Must I one day make his journey?  Even so.  Who
+shall say, that I may not then be tortured by such late regrets: that I
+may not then look from my exile on my empty place and undone work?  I
+stand upon a sea-shore, where the waves are years.  They break and fall,
+and I may little heed them; but, with every wave the sea is rising, and I
+know that it will float me on this traveller’s voyage at last.
+
+
+
+
+THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER
+
+
+THE amount of money he annually diverts from wholesome and useful
+purposes in the United Kingdom, would be a set-off against the Window
+Tax.  He is one of the most shameless frauds and impositions of this
+time.  In his idleness, his mendacity, and the immeasurable harm he does
+to the deserving,—dirtying the stream of true benevolence, and muddling
+the brains of foolish justices, with inability to distinguish between the
+base coin of distress, and the true currency we have always among us,—he
+is more worthy of Norfolk Island than three-fourths of the worst
+characters who are sent there.  Under any rational system, he would have
+been sent there long ago.
+
+I, the writer of this paper, have been, for some time, a chosen receiver
+of Begging Letters.  For fourteen years, my house has been made as
+regular a Receiving House for such communications as any one of the great
+branch Post-Offices is for general correspondence.  I ought to know
+something of the Begging-Letter Writer.  He has besieged my door at all
+hours of the day and night; he has fought my servant; he has lain in
+ambush for me, going out and coming in; he has followed me out of town
+into the country; he has appeared at provincial hotels, where I have been
+staying for only a few hours; he has written to me from immense
+distances, when I have been out of England.  He has fallen sick; he has
+died and been buried; he has come to life again, and again departed from
+this transitory scene: he has been his own son, his own mother, his own
+baby, his idiot brother, his uncle, his aunt, his aged grandfather.  He
+has wanted a greatcoat, to go to India in; a pound to set him up in life
+for ever; a pair of boots to take him to the coast of China; a hat to get
+him into a permanent situation under Government.  He has frequently been
+exactly seven-and-sixpence short of independence.  He has had such
+openings at Liverpool—posts of great trust and confidence in merchants’
+houses, which nothing but seven-and-sixpence was wanting to him to
+secure—that I wonder he is not Mayor of that flourishing town at the
+present moment.
+
+The natural phenomena of which he has been the victim, are of a most
+astounding nature.  He has had two children who have never grown up; who
+have never had anything to cover them at night; who have been continually
+driving him mad, by asking in vain for food; who have never come out of
+fevers and measles (which, I suppose, has accounted for his fuming his
+letters with tobacco smoke, as a disinfectant); who have never changed in
+the least degree through fourteen long revolving years.  As to his wife,
+what that suffering woman has undergone, nobody knows.  She has always
+been in an interesting situation through the same long period, and has
+never been confined yet.  His devotion to her has been unceasing.  He has
+never cared for himself; he could have perished—he would rather, in
+short—but was it not his Christian duty as a man, a husband, and a
+father,—to write begging letters when he looked at her?  (He has usually
+remarked that he would call in the evening for an answer to this
+question.)
+
+He has been the sport of the strangest misfortunes.  What his brother has
+done to him would have broken anybody else’s heart.  His brother went
+into business with him, and ran away with the money; his brother got him
+to be security for an immense sum and left him to pay it; his brother
+would have given him employment to the tune of hundreds a-year, if he
+would have consented to write letters on a Sunday; his brother enunciated
+principles incompatible with his religious views, and he could not (in
+consequence) permit his brother to provide for him.  His landlord has
+never shown a spark of human feeling.  When he put in that execution I
+don’t know, but he has never taken it out.  The broker’s man has grown
+grey in possession.  They will have to bury him some day.
+
+He has been attached to every conceivable pursuit.  He has been in the
+army, in the navy, in the church, in the law; connected with the press,
+the fine arts, public institutions, every description and grade of
+business.  He has been brought up as a gentleman; he has been at every
+college in Oxford and Cambridge; he can quote Latin in his letters (but
+generally misspells some minor English word); he can tell you what
+Shakespeare says about begging, better than you know it.  It is to be
+observed, that in the midst of his afflictions he always reads the
+newspapers; and rounds off his appeal with some allusion, that may be
+supposed to be in my way, to the popular subject of the hour.
+
+His life presents a series of inconsistencies.  Sometimes he has never
+written such a letter before.  He blushes with shame.  That is the first
+time; that shall be the last.  Don’t answer it, and let it be understood
+that, then, he will kill himself quietly.  Sometimes (and more
+frequently) he _has_ written a few such letters.  Then he encloses the
+answers, with an intimation that they are of inestimable value to him,
+and a request that they may be carefully returned.  He is fond of
+enclosing something—verses, letters, pawnbrokers’ duplicates, anything to
+necessitate an answer.  He is very severe upon ‘the pampered minion of
+fortune,’ who refused him the half-sovereign referred to in the enclosure
+number two—but he knows me better.
+
+He writes in a variety of styles; sometimes in low spirits; sometimes
+quite jocosely.  When he is in low spirits he writes down-hill and
+repeats words—these little indications being expressive of the
+perturbation of his mind.  When he is more vivacious, he is frank with
+me; he is quite the agreeable rattle.  I know what human nature is,—who
+better?  Well!  He had a little money once, and he ran through it—as many
+men have done before him.  He finds his old friends turn away from him
+now—many men have done that before him too!  Shall he tell me why he
+writes to me?  Because he has no kind of claim upon me.  He puts it on
+that ground plainly; and begs to ask for the loan (as I know human
+nature) of two sovereigns, to be repaid next Tuesday six weeks, before
+twelve at noon.
+
+Sometimes, when he is sure that I have found him out, and that there is
+no chance of money, he writes to inform me that I have got rid of him at
+last.  He has enlisted into the Company’s service, and is off
+directly—but he wants a cheese.  He is informed by the serjeant that it
+is essential to his prospects in the regiment that he should take out a
+single Gloucester cheese, weighing from twelve to fifteen pounds.  Eight
+or nine shillings would buy it.  He does not ask for money, after what
+has passed; but if he calls at nine, to-morrow morning may he hope to
+find a cheese?  And is there anything he can do to show his gratitude in
+Bengal?
+
+Once he wrote me rather a special letter, proposing relief in kind.  He
+had got into a little trouble by leaving parcels of mud done up in brown
+paper, at people’s houses, on pretence of being a Railway-Porter, in
+which character he received carriage money.  This sportive fancy he
+expiated in the House of Correction.  Not long after his release, and on
+a Sunday morning, he called with a letter (having first dusted himself
+all over), in which he gave me to understand that, being resolved to earn
+an honest livelihood, he had been travelling about the country with a
+cart of crockery.  That he had been doing pretty well until the day
+before, when his horse had dropped down dead near Chatham, in Kent.  That
+this had reduced him to the unpleasant necessity of getting into the
+shafts himself, and drawing the cart of crockery to London—a somewhat
+exhausting pull of thirty miles.  That he did not venture to ask again
+for money; but that if I would have the goodness _to leave him out a
+donkey_, he would call for the animal before breakfast!
+
+At another time my friend (I am describing actual experiences) introduced
+himself as a literary gentleman in the last extremity of distress.  He
+had had a play accepted at a certain Theatre—which was really open; its
+representation was delayed by the indisposition of a leading actor—who
+was really ill; and he and his were in a state of absolute starvation.
+If he made his necessities known to the Manager of the Theatre, he put it
+to me to say what kind of treatment he might expect?  Well! we got over
+that difficulty to our mutual satisfaction.  A little while afterwards he
+was in some other strait.  I think Mrs. Southcote, his wife, was in
+extremity—and we adjusted that point too.  A little while afterwards he
+had taken a new house, and was going headlong to ruin for want of a
+water-butt.  I had my misgivings about the water-butt, and did not reply
+to that epistle.  But a little while afterwards, I had reason to feel
+penitent for my neglect.  He wrote me a few broken-hearted lines,
+informing me that the dear partner of his sorrows died in his arms last
+night at nine o’clock!
+
+I despatched a trusty messenger to comfort the bereaved mourner and his
+poor children; but the messenger went so soon, that the play was not
+ready to be played out; my friend was not at home, and his wife was in a
+most delightful state of health.  He was taken up by the Mendicity
+Society (informally it afterwards appeared), and I presented myself at a
+London Police-Office with my testimony against him.  The Magistrate was
+wonderfully struck by his educational acquirements, deeply impressed by
+the excellence of his letters, exceedingly sorry to see a man of his
+attainments there, complimented him highly on his powers of composition,
+and was quite charmed to have the agreeable duty of discharging him.  A
+collection was made for the ‘poor fellow,’ as he was called in the
+reports, and I left the court with a comfortable sense of being
+universally regarded as a sort of monster.  Next day comes to me a friend
+of mine, the governor of a large prison.  ‘Why did you ever go to the
+Police-Office against that man,’ says he, ‘without coming to me first?  I
+know all about him and his frauds.  He lodged in the house of one of my
+warders, at the very time when he first wrote to you; and then he was
+eating spring-lamb at eighteen-pence a pound, and early asparagus at I
+don’t know how much a bundle!’  On that very same day, and in that very
+same hour, my injured gentleman wrote a solemn address to me, demanding
+to know what compensation I proposed to make him for his having passed
+the night in a ‘loathsome dungeon.’  And next morning an Irish gentleman,
+a member of the same fraternity, who had read the case, and was very well
+persuaded I should be chary of going to that Police-Office again,
+positively refused to leave my door for less than a sovereign, and,
+resolved to besiege me into compliance, literally ‘sat down’ before it
+for ten mortal hours.  The garrison being well provisioned, I remained
+within the walls; and he raised the siege at midnight with a prodigious
+alarum on the bell.
+
+The Begging-Letter Writer often has an extensive circle of acquaintance.
+Whole pages of the ‘Court Guide’ are ready to be references for him.
+Noblemen and gentlemen write to say there never was such a man for
+probity and virtue.  They have known him time out of mind, and there is
+nothing they wouldn’t do for him.  Somehow, they don’t give him that one
+pound ten he stands in need of; but perhaps it is not enough—they want to
+do more, and his modesty will not allow it.  It is to be remarked of his
+trade that it is a very fascinating one.  He never leaves it; and those
+who are near to him become smitten with a love of it, too, and sooner or
+later set up for themselves.  He employs a messenger—man, woman, or
+child.  That messenger is certain ultimately to become an independent
+Begging-Letter Writer.  His sons and daughters succeed to his calling,
+and write begging-letters when he is no more.  He throws off the
+infection of begging-letter writing, like the contagion of disease.  What
+Sydney Smith so happily called ‘the dangerous luxury of dishonesty’ is
+more tempting, and more catching, it would seem, in this instance than in
+any other.
+
+He always belongs to a Corresponding-Society of Begging-Letter Writers.
+Any one who will, may ascertain this fact.  Give money to-day in
+recognition of a begging-letter,—no matter how unlike a common
+begging-letter,—and for the next fortnight you will have a rush of such
+communications.  Steadily refuse to give; and the begging-letters become
+Angels’ visits, until the Society is from some cause or other in a dull
+way of business, and may as well try you as anybody else.  It is of
+little use inquiring into the Begging-Letter Writer’s circumstances.  He
+may be sometimes accidentally found out, as in the case already mentioned
+(though that was not the first inquiry made); but apparent misery is
+always a part of his trade, and real misery very often is, in the
+intervals of spring-lamb and early asparagus.  It is naturally an
+incident of his dissipated and dishonest life.
+
+That the calling is a successful one, and that large sums of money are
+gained by it, must be evident to anybody who reads the Police Reports of
+such cases.  But, prosecutions are of rare occurrence, relatively to the
+extent to which the trade is carried on.  The cause of this is to be
+found (as no one knows better than the Begging-Letter Writer, for it is a
+part of his speculation) in the aversion people feel to exhibit
+themselves as having been imposed upon, or as having weakly gratified
+their consciences with a lazy, flimsy substitute for the noblest of all
+virtues.  There is a man at large, at the moment when this paper is
+preparing for the press (on the 29th of April, 1850), and never once
+taken up yet, who, within these twelvemonths, has been probably the most
+audacious and the most successful swindler that even this trade has ever
+known.  There has been something singularly base in this fellow’s
+proceedings; it has been his business to write to all sorts and
+conditions of people, in the names of persons of high reputation and
+unblemished honour, professing to be in distress—the general admiration
+and respect for whom has ensured a ready and generous reply.
+
+Now, in the hope that the results of the real experience of a real person
+may do something more to induce reflection on this subject than any
+abstract treatise—and with a personal knowledge of the extent to which
+the Begging-Letter Trade has been carried on for some time, and has been
+for some time constantly increasing—the writer of this paper entreats the
+attention of his readers to a few concluding words.  His experience is a
+type of the experience of many; some on a smaller, some on an infinitely
+larger scale.  All may judge of the soundness or unsoundness of his
+conclusions from it.
+
+Long doubtful of the efficacy of such assistance in any case whatever,
+and able to recall but one, within his whole individual knowledge, in
+which he had the least after-reason to suppose that any good was done by
+it, he was led, last autumn, into some serious considerations.  The
+begging-letters flying about by every post, made it perfectly manifest
+that a set of lazy vagabonds were interposed between the general desire
+to do something to relieve the sickness and misery under which the poor
+were suffering, and the suffering poor themselves.  That many who sought
+to do some little to repair the social wrongs, inflicted in the way of
+preventible sickness and death upon the poor, were strengthening those
+wrongs, however innocently, by wasting money on pestilent knaves
+cumbering society.  That imagination,—soberly following one of these
+knaves into his life of punishment in jail, and comparing it with the
+life of one of these poor in a cholera-stricken alley, or one of the
+children of one of these poor, soothed in its dying hour by the late
+lamented Mr. Drouet,—contemplated a grim farce, impossible to be
+presented very much longer before God or man.  That the crowning miracle
+of all the miracles summed up in the New Testament, after the miracle of
+the blind seeing, and the lame walking, and the restoration of the dead
+to life, was the miracle that the poor had the Gospel preached to them.
+That while the poor were unnaturally and unnecessarily cut off by the
+thousand, in the prematurity of their age, or in the rottenness of their
+youth—for of flower or blossom such youth has none—the Gospel was NOT
+preached to them, saving in hollow and unmeaning voices.  That of all
+wrongs, this was the first mighty wrong the Pestilence warned us to set
+right.  And that no Post-Office Order to any amount, given to a
+Begging-Letter Writer for the quieting of an uneasy breast, would be
+presentable on the Last Great Day as anything towards it.
+
+The poor never write these letters.  Nothing could be more unlike their
+habits.  The writers are public robbers; and we who support them are
+parties to their depredations.  They trade upon every circumstance within
+their knowledge that affects us, public or private, joyful or sorrowful;
+they pervert the lessons of our lives; they change what ought to be our
+strength and virtue into weakness, and encouragement of vice.  There is a
+plain remedy, and it is in our own hands.  We must resolve, at any
+sacrifice of feeling, to be deaf to such appeals, and crush the trade.
+
+There are degrees in murder.  Life must be held sacred among us in more
+ways than one—sacred, not merely from the murderous weapon, or the subtle
+poison, or the cruel blow, but sacred from preventible diseases,
+distortions, and pains.  That is the first great end we have to set
+against this miserable imposition.  Physical life respected, moral life
+comes next.  What will not content a Begging-Letter Writer for a week,
+would educate a score of children for a year.  Let us give all we can;
+let us give more than ever.  Let us do all we can; let us do more than
+ever.  But let us give, and do, with a high purpose; not to endow the
+scum of the earth, to its own greater corruption, with the offals of our
+duty.
+
+
+
+
+A CHILD’S DREAM OF A STAR
+
+
+THERE was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of
+a number of things.  He had a sister, who was a child too, and his
+constant companion.  These two used to wonder all day long.  They
+wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and
+blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they
+wondered at the goodness and the power of GOD who made the lovely world.
+
+They used to say to one another, sometimes, Supposing all the children
+upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be
+sorry?  They believed they would be sorry.  For, said they, the buds are
+the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol
+down the hill-sides are the children of the water; and the smallest
+bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely
+be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their
+playmates, the children of men, no more.
+
+There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky before
+the rest, near the church spire, above the graves.  It was larger and
+more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they
+watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window.  Whoever saw it first
+cried out, ‘I see the star!’  And often they cried out both together,
+knowing so well when it would rise, and where.  So they grew to be such
+friends with it, that, before lying down in their beds, they always
+looked out once again, to bid it good night; and when they were turning
+round to sleep, they used to say, ‘God bless the star!’
+
+But while she was still very young, oh, very, very young, the sister
+drooped, and came to be so weak that she could no longer stand in the
+window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when
+he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face on the
+bed, ‘I see the star!’ and then a smile would come upon the face, and a
+little weak voice used to say, ‘God bless my brother and the star!’
+
+And so the time came all too soon! when the child looked out alone, and
+when there was no face on the bed; and when there was a little grave
+among the graves, not there before; and when the star made long rays down
+towards him, as he saw it through his tears.
+
+Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a shining
+way from earth to Heaven, that when the child went to his solitary bed,
+he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a
+train of people taken up that sparkling road by angels.  And the star,
+opening, showed him a great world of light, where many more such angels
+waited to receive them.
+
+All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes upon the
+people who were carried up into the star; and some came out from the long
+rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people’s necks, and kissed
+them tenderly, and went away with them down avenues of light, and were so
+happy in their company, that lying in his bed he wept for joy.
+
+But, there were many angels who did not go with them, and among them one
+he knew.  The patient face that once had lain upon the bed was glorified
+and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all the host.
+
+His sister’s angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to
+the leader among those who had brought the people thither:
+
+‘Is my brother come?’
+
+And he said ‘No.’
+
+She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his arms,
+and cried, ‘O, sister, I am here!  Take me!’ and then she turned her
+beaming eyes upon him, and it was night; and the star was shining into
+the room, making long rays down towards him as he saw it through his
+tears.
+
+From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on the home
+he was to go to, when his time should come; and he thought that he did
+not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, because of his
+sister’s angel gone before.
+
+There was a baby born to be a brother to the child; and while he was so
+little that he never yet had spoken word, he stretched his tiny form out
+on his bed, and died.
+
+Again the child dreamed of the open star, and of the company of angels,
+and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their beaming eyes
+all turned upon those people’s faces.
+
+Said his sister’s angel to the leader:
+
+‘Is my brother come?’
+
+And he said, ‘Not that one, but another.’
+
+As the child beheld his brother’s angel in her arms, he cried, ‘O,
+sister, I am here!  Take me!’  And she turned and smiled upon him, and
+the star was shining.
+
+He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his books when an old servant
+came to him and said:
+
+‘Thy mother is no more.  I bring her blessing on her darling son!’
+
+Again at night he saw the star, and all that former company.  Said his
+sister’s angel to the leader.
+
+‘Is my brother come?’
+
+And he said, ‘Thy mother!’
+
+A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the star, because the mother
+was re-united to her two children.  And he stretched out his arms and
+cried, ‘O, mother, sister, and brother, I am here!  Take me!’  And they
+answered him, ‘Not yet,’ and the star was shining.
+
+He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning grey, and he was sitting in
+his chair by the fireside, heavy with grief, and with his face bedewed
+with tears, when the star opened once again.
+
+Said his sister’s angel to the leader: ‘Is my brother come?’
+
+And he said, ‘Nay, but his maiden daughter.’
+
+And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly lost to him, a
+celestial creature among those three, and he said, ‘My daughter’s head is
+on my sister’s bosom, and her arm is around my mother’s neck, and at her
+feet there is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from her,
+GOD be praised!’
+
+And the star was shining.
+
+Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was
+wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent.  And
+one night as he lay upon his bed, his children standing round, he cried,
+as he had cried so long ago:
+
+‘I see the star!’
+
+They whispered one another, ‘He is dying.’
+
+And he said, ‘I am.  My age is falling from me like a garment, and I move
+towards the star as a child.  And O, my Father, now I thank thee that it
+has so often opened, to receive those dear ones who await me!’
+
+And the star was shining; and it shines upon his grave.
+
+
+
+
+OUR ENGLISH WATERING-PLACE
+
+
+IN the Autumn-time of the year, when the great metropolis is so much
+hotter, so much noisier, so much more dusty or so much more water-carted,
+so much more crowded, so much more disturbing and distracting in all
+respects, than it usually is, a quiet sea-beach becomes indeed a blessed
+spot.  Half awake and half asleep, this idle morning in our sunny window
+on the edge of a chalk-cliff in the old-fashioned watering-place to which
+we are a faithful resorter, we feel a lazy inclination to sketch its
+picture.
+
+The place seems to respond.  Sky, sea, beach, and village, lie as still
+before us as if they were sitting for the picture.  It is dead low-water.
+A ripple plays among the ripening corn upon the cliff, as if it were
+faintly trying from recollection to imitate the sea; and the world of
+butterflies hovering over the crop of radish-seed are as restless in
+their little way as the gulls are in their larger manner when the wind
+blows.  But the ocean lies winking in the sunlight like a drowsy lion—its
+glassy waters scarcely curve upon the shore—the fishing-boats in the tiny
+harbour are all stranded in the mud—our two colliers (our watering-place
+has a maritime trade employing that amount of shipping) have not an inch
+of water within a quarter of a mile of them, and turn, exhausted, on
+their sides, like faint fish of an antediluvian species.  Rusty cables
+and chains, ropes and rings, undermost parts of posts and piles and
+confused timber-defences against the waves, lie strewn about, in a brown
+litter of tangled sea-weed and fallen cliff which looks as if a family of
+giants had been making tea here for ages, and had observed an untidy
+custom of throwing their tea-leaves on the shore.
+
+In truth, our watering-place itself has been left somewhat high and dry
+by the tide of years.  Concerned as we are for its honour, we must
+reluctantly admit that the time when this pretty little semicircular
+sweep of houses, tapering off at the end of the wooden pier into a point
+in the sea, was a gay place, and when the lighthouse overlooking it shone
+at daybreak on company dispersing from public balls, is but dimly
+traditional now.  There is a bleak chamber in our watering-place which is
+yet called the Assembly ‘Rooms,’ and understood to be available on hire
+for balls or concerts; and, some few seasons since, an ancient little
+gentleman came down and stayed at the hotel, who said that he had danced
+there, in bygone ages, with the Honourable Miss Peepy, well known to have
+been the Beauty of her day and the cruel occasion of innumerable duels.
+But he was so old and shrivelled, and so very rheumatic in the legs, that
+it demanded more imagination than our watering-place can usually muster,
+to believe him; therefore, except the Master of the ‘Rooms’ (who to this
+hour wears knee-breeches, and who confirmed the statement with tears in
+his eyes), nobody did believe in the little lame old gentleman, or even
+in the Honourable Miss Peepy, long deceased.
+
+As to subscription balls in the Assembly Rooms of our watering-place now,
+red-hot cannon balls are less improbable.  Sometimes, a misguided
+wanderer of a Ventriloquist, or an Infant Phenomenon, or a juggler, or
+somebody with an Orrery that is several stars behind the time, takes the
+place for a night, and issues bills with the name of his last town lined
+out, and the name of ours ignominiously written in, but you may be sure
+this never happens twice to the same unfortunate person.  On such
+occasions the discoloured old Billiard Table that is seldom played at
+(unless the ghost of the Honourable Miss Peepy plays at pool with other
+ghosts) is pushed into a corner, and benches are solemnly constituted
+into front seats, back seats, and reserved seats—which are much the same
+after you have paid—and a few dull candles are lighted—wind
+permitting—and the performer and the scanty audience play out a short
+match which shall make the other most low-spirited—which is usually a
+drawn game.  After that, the performer instantly departs with maledictory
+expressions, and is never heard of more.
+
+But the most wonderful feature of our Assembly Rooms, is, that an annual
+sale of ‘Fancy and other China,’ is announced here with mysterious
+constancy and perseverance.  Where the china comes from, where it goes
+to, why it is annually put up to auction when nobody ever thinks of
+bidding for it, how it comes to pass that it is always the same china,
+whether it would not have been cheaper, with the sea at hand, to have
+thrown it away, say in eighteen hundred and thirty, are standing enigmas.
+Every year the bills come out, every year the Master of the Rooms gets
+into a little pulpit on a table, and offers it for sale, every year
+nobody buys it, every year it is put away somewhere till next year, when
+it appears again as if the whole thing were a new idea.  We have a faint
+remembrance of an unearthly collection of clocks, purporting to be the
+work of Parisian and Genevese artists—chiefly bilious-faced clocks,
+supported on sickly white crutches, with their pendulums dangling like
+lame legs—to which a similar course of events occurred for several years,
+until they seemed to lapse away, of mere imbecility.
+
+Attached to our Assembly Rooms is a library.  There is a wheel of fortune
+in it, but it is rusty and dusty, and never turns.  A large doll, with
+moveable eyes, was put up to be raffled for, by five-and-twenty members
+at two shillings, seven years ago this autumn, and the list is not full
+yet.  We are rather sanguine, now, that the raffle will come off next
+year.  We think so, because we only want nine members, and should only
+want eight, but for number two having grown up since her name was
+entered, and withdrawn it when she was married.  Down the street, there
+is a toy-ship of considerable burden, in the same condition.  Two of the
+boys who were entered for that raffle have gone to India in real ships,
+since; and one was shot, and died in the arms of his sister’s lover, by
+whom he sent his last words home.
+
+This is the library for the Minerva Press.  If you want that kind of
+reading, come to our watering-place.  The leaves of the romances, reduced
+to a condition very like curl-paper, are thickly studded with notes in
+pencil: sometimes complimentary, sometimes jocose.  Some of these
+commentators, like commentators in a more extensive way, quarrel with one
+another.  One young gentleman who sarcastically writes ‘O!!!’ after every
+sentimental passage, is pursued through his literary career by another,
+who writes ‘Insulting Beast!’  Miss Julia Mills has read the whole
+collection of these books.  She has left marginal notes on the pages, as
+‘Is not this truly touching?  J. M.’  ‘How thrilling!  J. M.’  ‘Entranced
+here by the Magician’s potent spell.  J. M.’  She has also italicised her
+favourite traits in the description of the hero, as ‘his hair, which was
+_dark_ and _wavy_, clustered in _rich profusion_ around a _marble brow_,
+whose lofty paleness bespoke the intellect within.’  It reminds her of
+another hero.  She adds, ‘How like B. L.  Can this be mere coincidence?
+J. M.’
+
+You would hardly guess which is the main street of our watering-place,
+but you may know it by its being always stopped up with donkey-chaises.
+Whenever you come here, and see harnessed donkeys eating clover out of
+barrows drawn completely across a narrow thoroughfare, you may be quite
+sure you are in our High Street.  Our Police you may know by his uniform,
+likewise by his never on any account interfering with anybody—especially
+the tramps and vagabonds.  In our fancy shops we have a capital
+collection of damaged goods, among which the flies of countless summers
+‘have been roaming.’  We are great in obsolete seals, and in faded
+pin-cushions, and in rickety camp-stools, and in exploded cutlery, and in
+miniature vessels, and in stunted little telescopes, and in objects made
+of shells that pretend not to be shells.  Diminutive spades, barrows, and
+baskets, are our principal articles of commerce; but even they don’t look
+quite new somehow.  They always seem to have been offered and refused
+somewhere else, before they came down to our watering-place.
+
+Yet, it must not be supposed that our watering-place is an empty place,
+deserted by all visitors except a few staunch persons of approved
+fidelity.  On the contrary, the chances are that if you came down here in
+August or September, you wouldn’t find a house to lay your head in.  As
+to finding either house or lodging of which you could reduce the terms,
+you could scarcely engage in a more hopeless pursuit.  For all this, you
+are to observe that every season is the worst season ever known, and that
+the householding population of our watering-place are ruined regularly
+every autumn.  They are like the farmers, in regard that it is surprising
+how much ruin they will bear.  We have an excellent hotel—capital baths,
+warm, cold, and shower—first-rate bathing-machines—and as good butchers,
+bakers, and grocers, as heart could desire.  They all do business, it is
+to be presumed, from motives of philanthropy—but it is quite certain that
+they are all being ruined.  Their interest in strangers, and their
+politeness under ruin, bespeak their amiable nature.  You would say so,
+if you only saw the baker helping a new comer to find suitable
+apartments.
+
+So far from being at a discount as to company, we are in fact what would
+be popularly called rather a nobby place.  Some tip-top ‘Nobbs’ come down
+occasionally—even Dukes and Duchesses.  We have known such carriages to
+blaze among the donkey-chaises, as made beholders wink.  Attendant on
+these equipages come resplendent creatures in plush and powder, who are
+sure to be stricken disgusted with the indifferent accommodation of our
+watering-place, and who, of an evening (particularly when it rains), may
+be seen very much out of drawing, in rooms far too small for their fine
+figures, looking discontentedly out of little back windows into
+bye-streets.  The lords and ladies get on well enough and quite
+good-humouredly: but if you want to see the gorgeous phenomena who wait
+upon them at a perfect non-plus, you should come and look at the
+resplendent creatures with little back parlours for servants’ halls, and
+turn-up bedsteads to sleep in, at our watering-place.  You have no idea
+how they take it to heart.
+
+We have a pier—a queer old wooden pier, fortunately without the slightest
+pretensions to architecture, and very picturesque in consequence.  Boats
+are hauled up upon it, ropes are coiled all over it; lobster-pots, nets,
+masts, oars, spars, sails, ballast, and rickety capstans, make a perfect
+labyrinth of it.  For ever hovering about this pier, with their hands in
+their pockets, or leaning over the rough bulwark it opposes to the sea,
+gazing through telescopes which they carry about in the same profound
+receptacles, are the Boatmen of our watering-place.  Looking at them, you
+would say that surely these must be the laziest boatmen in the world.
+They lounge about, in obstinate and inflexible pantaloons that are
+apparently made of wood, the whole season through.  Whether talking
+together about the shipping in the Channel, or gruffly unbending over
+mugs of beer at the public-house, you would consider them the slowest of
+men.  The chances are a thousand to one that you might stay here for ten
+seasons, and never see a boatman in a hurry.  A certain expression about
+his loose hands, when they are not in his pockets, as if he were carrying
+a considerable lump of iron in each, without any inconvenience, suggests
+strength, but he never seems to use it.  He has the appearance of
+perpetually strolling—running is too inappropriate a word to be thought
+of—to seed.  The only subject on which he seems to feel any approach to
+enthusiasm, is pitch.  He pitches everything he can lay hold of,—the
+pier, the palings, his boat, his house,—when there is nothing else left
+he turns to and even pitches his hat, or his rough-weather clothing.  Do
+not judge him by deceitful appearances.  These are among the bravest and
+most skilful mariners that exist.  Let a gale arise and swell into a
+storm, let a sea run that might appal the stoutest heart that ever beat,
+let the Light-boat on these dangerous sands throw up a rocket in the
+night, or let them hear through the angry roar the signal-guns of a ship
+in distress, and these men spring up into activity so dauntless, so
+valiant, and heroic, that the world cannot surpass it.  Cavillers may
+object that they chiefly live upon the salvage of valuable cargoes.  So
+they do, and God knows it is no great living that they get out of the
+deadly risks they run.  But put that hope of gain aside.  Let these rough
+fellows be asked, in any storm, who volunteers for the life-boat to save
+some perishing souls, as poor and empty-handed as themselves, whose lives
+the perfection of human reason does not rate at the value of a farthing
+each; and that boat will be manned, as surely and as cheerfully, as if a
+thousand pounds were told down on the weather-beaten pier.  For this, and
+for the recollection of their comrades whom we have known, whom the
+raging sea has engulfed before their children’s eyes in such brave
+efforts, whom the secret sand has buried, we hold the boatmen of our
+watering-place in our love and honour, and are tender of the fame they
+well deserve.
+
+So many children are brought down to our watering-place that, when they
+are not out of doors, as they usually are in fine weather, it is
+wonderful where they are put: the whole village seeming much too small to
+hold them under cover.  In the afternoons, you see no end of salt and
+sandy little boots drying on upper window-sills.  At bathing-time in the
+morning, the little bay re-echoes with every shrill variety of shriek and
+splash—after which, if the weather be at all fresh, the sands teem with
+small blue mottled legs.  The sands are the children’s great resort.
+They cluster there, like ants: so busy burying their particular friends,
+and making castles with infinite labour which the next tide overthrows,
+that it is curious to consider how their play, to the music of the sea,
+foreshadows the realities of their after lives.
+
+It is curious, too, to observe a natural ease of approach that there
+seems to be between the children and the boatmen.  They mutually make
+acquaintance, and take individual likings, without any help.  You will
+come upon one of those slow heavy fellows sitting down patiently mending
+a little ship for a mite of a boy, whom he could crush to death by
+throwing his lightest pair of trousers on him.  You will be sensible of
+the oddest contrast between the smooth little creature, and the rough man
+who seems to be carved out of hard-grained wood—between the delicate hand
+expectantly held out, and the immense thumb and finger that can hardly
+feel the rigging of thread they mend—between the small voice and the
+gruff growl—and yet there is a natural propriety in the companionship:
+always to be noted in confidence between a child and a person who has any
+merit of reality and genuineness: which is admirably pleasant.
+
+We have a preventive station at our watering-place, and much the same
+thing may be observed—in a lesser degree, because of their official
+character—of the coast blockade; a steady, trusty, well-conditioned,
+well-conducted set of men, with no misgiving about looking you full in
+the face, and with a quiet thorough-going way of passing along to their
+duty at night, carrying huge sou’-wester clothing in reserve, that is
+fraught with all good prepossession.  They are handy fellows—neat about
+their houses—industrious at gardening—would get on with their wives, one
+thinks, in a desert island—and people it, too, soon.
+
+As to the naval officer of the station, with his hearty fresh face, and
+his blue eye that has pierced all kinds of weather, it warms our hearts
+when he comes into church on a Sunday, with that bright mixture of blue
+coat, buff waistcoat, black neck-kerchief, and gold epaulette, that is
+associated in the minds of all Englishmen with brave, unpretending,
+cordial, national service.  We like to look at him in his Sunday state;
+and if we were First Lord (really possessing the indispensable
+qualification for the office of knowing nothing whatever about the sea),
+we would give him a ship to-morrow.
+
+We have a church, by-the-by, of course—a hideous temple of flint, like a
+great petrified haystack.  Our chief clerical dignitary, who, to his
+honour, has done much for education both in time and money, and has
+established excellent schools, is a sound, shrewd, healthy gentleman, who
+has got into little occasional difficulties with the neighbouring
+farmers, but has had a pestilent trick of being right.  Under a new
+regulation, he has yielded the church of our watering-place to another
+clergyman.  Upon the whole we get on in church well.  We are a little
+bilious sometimes, about these days of fraternisation, and about nations
+arriving at a new and more unprejudiced knowledge of each other (which
+our Christianity don’t quite approve), but it soon goes off, and then we
+get on very well.
+
+There are two dissenting chapels, besides, in our small watering-place;
+being in about the proportion of a hundred and twenty guns to a yacht.
+But the dissension that has torn us lately, has not been a religious one.
+It has arisen on the novel question of Gas.  Our watering-place has been
+convulsed by the agitation, Gas or No Gas.  It was never reasoned why No
+Gas, but there was a great No Gas party.  Broadsides were printed and
+stuck about—a startling circumstance in our watering-place.  The No Gas
+party rested content with chalking ‘No Gas!’ and ‘Down with Gas!’ and
+other such angry war-whoops, on the few back gates and scraps of wall
+which the limits of our watering-place afford; but the Gas party printed
+and posted bills, wherein they took the high ground of proclaiming
+against the No Gas party, that it was said Let there be light and there
+was light; and that not to have light (that is gas-light) in our
+watering-place, was to contravene the great decree.  Whether by these
+thunderbolts or not, the No Gas party were defeated; and in this present
+season we have had our handful of shops illuminated for the first time.
+Such of the No Gas party, however, as have got shops, remain in
+opposition and burn tallow—exhibiting in their windows the very picture
+of the sulkiness that punishes itself, and a new illustration of the old
+adage about cutting off your nose to be revenged on your face, in cutting
+off their gas to be revenged on their business.
+
+Other population than we have indicated, our watering-place has none.
+There are a few old used-up boatmen who creep about in the sunlight with
+the help of sticks, and there is a poor imbecile shoemaker who wanders
+his lonely life away among the rocks, as if he were looking for his
+reason—which he will never find.  Sojourners in neighbouring
+watering-places come occasionally in flys to stare at us, and drive away
+again as if they thought us very dull; Italian boys come, Punch comes,
+the Fantoccini come, the Tumblers come, the Ethiopians come; Glee-singers
+come at night, and hum and vibrate (not always melodiously) under our
+windows.  But they all go soon, and leave us to ourselves again.  We once
+had a travelling Circus and Wombwell’s Menagerie at the same time.  They
+both know better than ever to try it again; and the Menagerie had nearly
+razed us from the face of the earth in getting the elephant away—his
+caravan was so large, and the watering-place so small.  We have a fine
+sea, wholesome for all people; profitable for the body, profitable for
+the mind.  The poet’s words are sometimes on its awful lips:
+
+    And the stately ships go on
+       To their haven under the hill;
+    But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand.
+       And the sound of a voice that is still!
+
+    Break, break, break,
+       At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
+    But the tender grace of a day that is dead
+       Will never come back to me.
+
+Yet it is not always so, for the speech of the sea is various, and wants
+not abundant resource of cheerfulness, hope, and lusty encouragement.
+And since I have been idling at the window here, the tide has risen.  The
+boats are dancing on the bubbling water; the colliers are afloat again;
+the white-bordered waves rush in; the children
+
+    Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
+    When he comes back;
+
+the radiant sails are gliding past the shore, and shining on the far
+horizon; all the sea is sparkling, heaving, swelling up with life and
+beauty, this bright morning.
+
+
+
+
+OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE
+
+
+HAVING earned, by many years of fidelity, the right to be sometimes
+inconstant to our English watering-place, we have dallied for two or
+three seasons with a French watering-place: once solely known to us as a
+town with a very long street, beginning with an abattoir and ending with
+a steam-boat, which it seemed our fate to behold only at daybreak on
+winter mornings, when (in the days before continental railroads), just
+sufficiently awake to know that we were most uncomfortably asleep, it was
+our destiny always to clatter through it, in the coupé of the diligence
+from Paris, with a sea of mud behind us, and a sea of tumbling waves
+before.  In relation to which latter monster, our mind’s eye now recalls
+a worthy Frenchman in a seal-skin cap with a braided hood over it, once
+our travelling companion in the coupé aforesaid, who, waking up with a
+pale and crumpled visage, and looking ruefully out at the grim row of
+breakers enjoying themselves fanatically on an instrument of torture
+called ‘the Bar,’ inquired of us whether we were ever sick at sea?  Both
+to prepare his mind for the abject creature we were presently to become,
+and also to afford him consolation, we replied, ‘Sir, your servant is
+always sick when it is possible to be so.’  He returned, altogether
+uncheered by the bright example, ‘Ah, Heaven, but I am always sick, even
+when it is impossible to be so.’
+
+The means of communication between the French capital and our French
+watering-place are wholly changed since those days; but, the Channel
+remains unbridged as yet, and the old floundering and knocking about go
+on there.  It must be confessed that saving in reasonable (and therefore
+rare) sea-weather, the act of arrival at our French watering-place from
+England is difficult to be achieved with dignity.  Several little
+circumstances combine to render the visitor an object of humiliation.  In
+the first place, the steamer no sooner touches the port, than all the
+passengers fall into captivity: being boarded by an overpowering force of
+Custom-house officers, and marched into a gloomy dungeon.  In the second
+place, the road to this dungeon is fenced off with ropes breast-high, and
+outside those ropes all the English in the place who have lately been
+sea-sick and are now well, assemble in their best clothes to enjoy the
+degradation of their dilapidated fellow-creatures.  ‘Oh, my gracious! how
+ill this one has been!’  ‘Here’s a damp one coming next!’  ‘Here’s a pale
+one!’  ‘Oh!  Ain’t he green in the face, this next one!’  Even we ourself
+(not deficient in natural dignity) have a lively remembrance of
+staggering up this detested lane one September day in a gale of wind,
+when we were received like an irresistible comic actor, with a burst of
+laughter and applause, occasioned by the extreme imbecility of our legs.
+
+We were coming to the third place.  In the third place, the captives,
+being shut up in the gloomy dungeon, are strained, two or three at a
+time, into an inner cell, to be examined as to passports; and across the
+doorway of communication, stands a military creature making a bar of his
+arm.  Two ideas are generally present to the British mind during these
+ceremonies; first, that it is necessary to make for the cell with violent
+struggles, as if it were a life-boat and the dungeon a ship going down;
+secondly, that the military creature’s arm is a national affront, which
+the government at home ought instantly to ‘take up.’  The British mind
+and body becoming heated by these fantasies, delirious answers are made
+to inquiries, and extravagant actions performed.  Thus, Johnson persists
+in giving Johnson as his baptismal name, and substituting for his
+ancestral designation the national ‘Dam!’  Neither can he by any means be
+brought to recognise the distinction between a portmanteau-key and a
+passport, but will obstinately persevere in tendering the one when asked
+for the other.  This brings him to the fourth place, in a state of mere
+idiotcy; and when he is, in the fourth place, cast out at a little door
+into a howling wilderness of touters, he becomes a lunatic with wild eyes
+and floating hair until rescued and soothed.  If friendless and
+unrescued, he is generally put into a railway omnibus and taken to Paris.
+
+But, our French watering-place, when it is once got into, is a very
+enjoyable place.  It has a varied and beautiful country around it, and
+many characteristic and agreeable things within it.  To be sure, it might
+have fewer bad smells and less decaying refuse, and it might be better
+drained, and much cleaner in many parts, and therefore infinitely more
+healthy.  Still, it is a bright, airy, pleasant, cheerful town; and if
+you were to walk down either of its three well-paved main streets,
+towards five o’clock in the afternoon, when delicate odours of cookery
+fill the air, and its hotel windows (it is full of hotels) give glimpses
+of long tables set out for dinner, and made to look sumptuous by the aid
+of napkins folded fan-wise, you would rightly judge it to be an
+uncommonly good town to eat and drink in.
+
+We have an old walled town, rich in cool public wells of water, on the
+top of a hill within and above the present business-town; and if it were
+some hundreds of miles further from England, instead of being, on a clear
+day, within sight of the grass growing in the crevices of the
+chalk-cliffs of Dover, you would long ago have been bored to death about
+that town.  It is more picturesque and quaint than half the innocent
+places which tourists, following their leader like sheep, have made
+impostors of.  To say nothing of its houses with grave courtyards, its
+queer by-corners, and its many-windowed streets white and quiet in the
+sunlight, there is an ancient belfry in it that would have been in all
+the Annuals and Albums, going and gone, these hundred years if it had but
+been more expensive to get at.  Happily it has escaped so well, being
+only in our French watering-place, that you may like it of your own
+accord in a natural manner, without being required to go into convulsions
+about it.  We regard it as one of the later blessings of our life, that
+BILKINS, the only authority on Taste, never took any notice that we can
+find out, of our French watering-place.  Bilkins never wrote about it,
+never pointed out anything to be seen in it, never measured anything in
+it, always left it alone.  For which relief, Heaven bless the town and
+the memory of the immortal Bilkins likewise!
+
+There is a charming walk, arched and shaded by trees, on the old walls
+that form the four sides of this High Town, whence you get glimpses of
+the streets below, and changing views of the other town and of the river,
+and of the hills and of the sea.  It is made more agreeable and peculiar
+by some of the solemn houses that are rooted in the deep streets below,
+bursting into a fresher existence a-top, and having doors and windows,
+and even gardens, on these ramparts.  A child going in at the courtyard
+gate of one of these houses, climbing up the many stairs, and coming out
+at the fourth-floor window, might conceive himself another Jack,
+alighting on enchanted ground from another bean-stalk.  It is a place
+wonderfully populous in children; English children, with governesses
+reading novels as they walk down the shady lanes of trees, or nursemaids
+interchanging gossip on the seats; French children with their smiling
+bonnes in snow-white caps, and themselves—if little boys—in straw
+head-gear like bee-hives, work-baskets and church hassocks.  Three years
+ago, there were three weazen old men, one bearing a frayed red ribbon in
+his threadbare button-hole, always to be found walking together among
+these children, before dinner-time.  If they walked for an appetite, they
+doubtless lived en pension—were contracted for—otherwise their poverty
+would have made it a rash action.  They were stooping, blear-eyed, dull
+old men, slip-shod and shabby, in long-skirted short-waisted coats and
+meagre trousers, and yet with a ghost of gentility hovering in their
+company.  They spoke little to each other, and looked as if they might
+have been politically discontented if they had had vitality enough.
+Once, we overheard red-ribbon feebly complain to the other two that
+somebody, or something, was ‘a Robber;’ and then they all three set their
+mouths so that they would have ground their teeth if they had had any.
+The ensuing winter gathered red-ribbon unto the great company of faded
+ribbons, and next year the remaining two were there—getting themselves
+entangled with hoops and dolls—familiar mysteries to the
+children—probably in the eyes of most of them, harmless creatures who had
+never been like children, and whom children could never be like.  Another
+winter came, and another old man went, and so, this present year, the
+last of the triumvirate, left off walking—it was no good, now—and sat by
+himself on a little solitary bench, with the hoops and the dolls as
+lively as ever all about him.
+
+In the Place d’Armes of this town, a little decayed market is held, which
+seems to slip through the old gateway, like water, and go rippling down
+the hill, to mingle with the murmuring market in the lower town, and get
+lost in its movement and bustle.  It is very agreeable on an idle summer
+morning to pursue this market-stream from the hill-top.  It begins,
+dozingly and dully, with a few sacks of corn; starts into a surprising
+collection of boots and shoes; goes brawling down the hill in a
+diversified channel of old cordage, old iron, old crockery, old clothes,
+civil and military, old rags, new cotton goods, flaming prints of saints,
+little looking-glasses, and incalculable lengths of tape; dives into a
+backway, keeping out of sight for a little while, as streams will, or
+only sparkling for a moment in the shape of a market drinking-shop; and
+suddenly reappears behind the great church, shooting itself into a bright
+confusion of white-capped women and blue-bloused men, poultry,
+vegetables, fruits, flowers, pots, pans, praying-chairs, soldiers,
+country butter, umbrellas and other sun-shades, girl-porters waiting to
+be hired with baskets at their backs, and one weazen little old man in a
+cocked hat, wearing a cuirass of drinking-glasses and carrying on his
+shoulder a crimson temple fluttering with flags, like a glorified
+pavior’s rammer without the handle, who rings a little bell in all parts
+of the scene, and cries his cooling drink Hola, Hola, Ho-o-o! in a shrill
+cracked voice that somehow makes itself heard, above all the chaffering
+and vending hum.  Early in the afternoon, the whole course of the stream
+is dry.  The praying-chairs are put back in the church, the umbrellas are
+folded up, the unsold goods are carried away, the stalls and stands
+disappear, the square is swept, the hackney coaches lounge there to be
+hired, and on all the country roads (if you walk about, as much as we do)
+you will see the peasant women, always neatly and comfortably dressed,
+riding home, with the pleasantest saddle-furniture of clean milk-pails,
+bright butter-kegs, and the like, on the jolliest little donkeys in the
+world.
+
+We have another market in our French watering-place—that is to say, a few
+wooden hutches in the open street, down by the Port—devoted to fish.  Our
+fishing-boats are famous everywhere; and our fishing people, though they
+love lively colours, and taste is neutral (see Bilkins), are among the
+most picturesque people we ever encountered.  They have not only a
+quarter of their own in the town itself, but they occupy whole villages
+of their own on the neighbouring cliffs.  Their churches and chapels are
+their own; they consort with one another, they intermarry among
+themselves, their customs are their own, and their costume is their own
+and never changes.  As soon as one of their boys can walk, he is provided
+with a long bright red nightcap; and one of their men would as soon think
+of going afloat without his head, as without that indispensable appendage
+to it.  Then, they wear the noblest boots, with the hugest tops—flapping
+and bulging over anyhow; above which, they encase themselves in such
+wonderful overalls and petticoat trousers, made to all appearance of
+tarry old sails, so additionally stiffened with pitch and salt, that the
+wearers have a walk of their own, and go straddling and swinging about
+among the boats and barrels and nets and rigging, a sight to see.  Then,
+their younger women, by dint of going down to the sea barefoot, to fling
+their baskets into the boats as they come in with the tide, and bespeak
+the first fruits of the haul with propitiatory promises to love and marry
+that dear fisherman who shall fill that basket like an Angel, have the
+finest legs ever carved by Nature in the brightest mahogany, and they
+walk like Juno.  Their eyes, too, are so lustrous that their long gold
+ear-rings turn dull beside those brilliant neighbours; and when they are
+dressed, what with these beauties, and their fine fresh faces, and their
+many petticoats—striped petticoats, red petticoats, blue petticoats,
+always clean and smart, and never too long—and their home-made stockings,
+mulberry-coloured, blue, brown, purple, lilac—which the older women,
+taking care of the Dutch-looking children, sit in all sorts of places
+knitting, knitting, knitting from morning to night—and what with their
+little saucy bright blue jackets, knitted too, and fitting close to their
+handsome figures; and what with the natural grace with which they wear
+the commonest cap, or fold the commonest handkerchief round their
+luxuriant hair—we say, in a word and out of breath, that taking all these
+premises into our consideration, it has never been a matter of the least
+surprise to us that we have never once met, in the cornfields, on the
+dusty roads, by the breezy windmills, on the plots of short sweet grass
+overhanging the sea—anywhere—a young fisherman and fisherwoman of our
+French watering-place together, but the arm of that fisherman has
+invariably been, as a matter of course and without any absurd attempt to
+disguise so plain a necessity, round the neck or waist of that
+fisherwoman.  And we have had no doubt whatever, standing looking at
+their uphill streets, house rising above house, and terrace above
+terrace, and bright garments here and there lying sunning on rough stone
+parapets, that the pleasant mist on all such objects, caused by their
+being seen through the brown nets hung across on poles to dry, is, in the
+eyes of every true young fisherman, a mist of love and beauty, setting
+off the goddess of his heart.
+
+Moreover it is to be observed that these are an industrious people, and a
+domestic people, and an honest people.  And though we are aware that at
+the bidding of Bilkins it is our duty to fall down and worship the
+Neapolitans, we make bold very much to prefer the fishing people of our
+French watering-place—especially since our last visit to Naples within
+these twelvemonths, when we found only four conditions of men remaining
+in the whole city: to wit, lazzaroni, priests, spies, and soldiers, and
+all of them beggars; the paternal government having banished all its
+subjects except the rascals.
+
+But we can never henceforth separate our French watering-place from our
+own landlord of two summers, M. Loyal Devasseur, citizen and
+town-councillor.  Permit us to have the pleasure of presenting M. Loyal
+Devasseur.
+
+His own family name is simply Loyal; but, as he is married, and as in
+that part of France a husband always adds to his own name the family name
+of his wife, he writes himself Loyal Devasseur.  He owns a compact little
+estate of some twenty or thirty acres on a lofty hill-side, and on it he
+has built two country houses, which he lets furnished.  They are by many
+degrees the best houses that are so let near our French watering-place;
+we have had the honour of living in both, and can testify.  The
+entrance-hall of the first we inhabited was ornamented with a plan of the
+estate, representing it as about twice the size of Ireland; insomuch that
+when we were yet new to the property (M. Loyal always speaks of it as ‘La
+propriété’) we went three miles straight on end in search of the bridge
+of Austerlitz—which we afterwards found to be immediately outside the
+window.  The Château of the Old Guard, in another part of the grounds,
+and, according to the plan, about two leagues from the little
+dining-room, we sought in vain for a week, until, happening one evening
+to sit upon a bench in the forest (forest in the plan), a few yards from
+the house-door, we observed at our feet, in the ignominious circumstances
+of being upside down and greenly rotten, the Old Guard himself: that is
+to say, the painted effigy of a member of that distinguished corps, seven
+feet high, and in the act of carrying arms, who had had the misfortune to
+be blown down in the previous winter.  It will be perceived that M. Loyal
+is a staunch admirer of the great Napoleon.  He is an old soldier
+himself—captain of the National Guard, with a handsome gold vase on his
+chimney-piece presented to him by his company—and his respect for the
+memory of the illustrious general is enthusiastic.  Medallions of him,
+portraits of him, busts of him, pictures of him, are thickly sprinkled
+all over the property.  During the first month of our occupation, it was
+our affliction to be constantly knocking down Napoleon: if we touched a
+shelf in a dark corner, he toppled over with a crash; and every door we
+opened, shook him to the soul.  Yet M. Loyal is not a man of mere castles
+in the air, or, as he would say, in Spain.  He has a specially practical,
+contriving, clever, skilful eye and hand.  His houses are delightful.  He
+unites French elegance and English comfort, in a happy manner quite his
+own.  He has an extraordinary genius for making tasteful little bedrooms
+in angles of his roofs, which an Englishman would as soon think of
+turning to any account as he would think of cultivating the Desert.  We
+have ourself reposed deliciously in an elegant chamber of M. Loyal’s
+construction, with our head as nearly in the kitchen chimney-pot as we
+can conceive it likely for the head of any gentleman, not by profession a
+Sweep, to be.  And, into whatsoever strange nook M. Loyal’s genius
+penetrates, it, in that nook, infallibly constructs a cupboard and a row
+of pegs.  In either of our houses, we could have put away the knapsacks
+and hung up the hats of the whole regiment of Guides.
+
+Aforetime, M. Loyal was a tradesman in the town.  You can transact
+business with no present tradesman in the town, and give your card ‘chez
+M. Loyal,’ but a brighter face shines upon you directly.  We doubt if
+there is, ever was, or ever will be, a man so universally pleasant in the
+minds of people as M. Loyal is in the minds of the citizens of our French
+watering-place.  They rub their hands and laugh when they speak of him.
+Ah, but he is such a good child, such a brave boy, such a generous
+spirit, that Monsieur Loyal!  It is the honest truth.  M. Loyal’s nature
+is the nature of a gentleman.  He cultivates his ground with his own
+hands (assisted by one little labourer, who falls into a fit now and
+then); and he digs and delves from morn to eve in prodigious
+perspirations—‘works always,’ as he says—but, cover him with dust, mud,
+weeds, water, any stains you will, you never can cover the gentleman in
+M. Loyal.  A portly, upright, broad-shouldered, brown-faced man, whose
+soldierly bearing gives him the appearance of being taller than he is,
+look into the bright eye of M. Loyal, standing before you in his
+working-blouse and cap, not particularly well shaved, and, it may be,
+very earthy, and you shall discern in M. Loyal a gentleman whose true
+politeness is ingrain, and confirmation of whose word by his bond you
+would blush to think of.  Not without reason is M. Loyal when he tells
+that story, in his own vivacious way, of his travelling to Fulham, near
+London, to buy all these hundreds and hundreds of trees you now see upon
+the Property, then a bare, bleak hill; and of his sojourning in Fulham
+three months; and of his jovial evenings with the market-gardeners; and
+of the crowning banquet before his departure, when the market-gardeners
+rose as one man, clinked their glasses all together (as the custom at
+Fulham is), and cried, ‘Vive Loyal!’
+
+M. Loyal has an agreeable wife, but no family; and he loves to drill the
+children of his tenants, or run races with them, or do anything with
+them, or for them, that is good-natured.  He is of a highly convivial
+temperament, and his hospitality is unbounded.  Billet a soldier on him,
+and he is delighted.  Five-and-thirty soldiers had M. Loyal billeted on
+him this present summer, and they all got fat and red-faced in two days.
+It became a legend among the troops that whosoever got billeted on M.
+Loyal rolled in clover; and so it fell out that the fortunate man who
+drew the billet ‘M. Loyal Devasseur’ always leaped into the air, though
+in heavy marching order.  M. Loyal cannot bear to admit anything that
+might seem by any implication to disparage the military profession.  We
+hinted to him once, that we were conscious of a remote doubt arising in
+our mind, whether a sou a day for pocket-money, tobacco, stockings,
+drink, washing, and social pleasures in general, left a very large margin
+for a soldier’s enjoyment.  Pardon! said Monsieur Loyal, rather wincing.
+It was not a fortune, but—à la bonne heure—it was better than it used to
+be!  What, we asked him on another occasion, were all those neighbouring
+peasants, each living with his family in one room, and each having a
+soldier (perhaps two) billeted on him every other night, required to
+provide for those soldiers?  ‘Faith!’ said M. Loyal, reluctantly; a bed,
+monsieur, and fire to cook with, and a candle.  And they share their
+supper with those soldiers.  It is not possible that they could eat
+alone.’—‘And what allowance do they get for this?’ said we.  Monsieur
+Loyal drew himself up taller, took a step back, laid his hand upon his
+breast, and said, with majesty, as speaking for himself and all France,
+‘Monsieur, it is a contribution to the State!’
+
+It is never going to rain, according to M. Loyal.  When it is impossible
+to deny that it is now raining in torrents, he says it will be
+fine—charming—magnificent—to-morrow.  It is never hot on the Property, he
+contends.  Likewise it is never cold.  The flowers, he says, come out,
+delighting to grow there; it is like Paradise this morning; it is like
+the Garden of Eden.  He is a little fanciful in his language: smilingly
+observing of Madame Loyal, when she is absent at vespers, that she is
+‘gone to her salvation’—allée à son salut.  He has a great enjoyment of
+tobacco, but nothing would induce him to continue smoking face to face
+with a lady.  His short black pipe immediately goes into his breast
+pocket, scorches his blouse, and nearly sets him on fire.  In the Town
+Council and on occasions of ceremony, he appears in a full suit of black,
+with a waistcoat of magnificent breadth across the chest, and a
+shirt-collar of fabulous proportions.  Good M. Loyal!  Under blouse or
+waistcoat, he carries one of the gentlest hearts that beat in a nation
+teeming with gentle people.  He has had losses, and has been at his best
+under them.  Not only the loss of his way by night in the Fulham
+times—when a bad subject of an Englishman, under pretence of seeing him
+home, took him into all the night public-houses, drank ‘arfanarf’ in
+every one at his expense, and finally fled, leaving him shipwrecked at
+Cleefeeway, which we apprehend to be Ratcliffe Highway—but heavier losses
+than that.  Long ago a family of children and a mother were left in one
+of his houses without money, a whole year.  M. Loyal—anything but as rich
+as we wish he had been—had not the heart to say ‘you must go;’ so they
+stayed on and stayed on, and paying-tenants who would have come in
+couldn’t come in, and at last they managed to get helped home across the
+water; and M. Loyal kissed the whole group, and said, ‘Adieu, my poor
+infants!’ and sat down in their deserted salon and smoked his pipe of
+peace.—‘The rent, M. Loyal?’  ‘Eh! well!  The rent!’  M. Loyal shakes his
+head.  ‘Le bon Dieu,’ says M. Loyal presently, ‘will recompense me,’ and
+he laughs and smokes his pipe of peace.  May he smoke it on the Property,
+and not be recompensed, these fifty years!
+
+There are public amusements in our French watering-place, or it would not
+be French.  They are very popular, and very cheap.  The sea-bathing—which
+may rank as the most favoured daylight entertainment, inasmuch as the
+French visitors bathe all day long, and seldom appear to think of
+remaining less than an hour at a time in the water—is astoundingly cheap.
+Omnibuses convey you, if you please, from a convenient part of the town
+to the beach and back again; you have a clean and comfortable
+bathing-machine, dress, linen, and all appliances; and the charge for the
+whole is half-a-franc, or fivepence.  On the pier, there is usually a
+guitar, which seems presumptuously enough to set its tinkling against the
+deep hoarseness of the sea, and there is always some boy or woman who
+sings, without any voice, little songs without any tune: the strain we
+have most frequently heard being an appeal to ‘the sportsman’ not to bag
+that choicest of game, the swallow.  For bathing purposes, we have also a
+subscription establishment with an esplanade, where people lounge about
+with telescopes, and seem to get a good deal of weariness for their
+money; and we have also an association of individual machine proprietors
+combined against this formidable rival.  M. Féroce, our own particular
+friend in the bathing line, is one of these.  How he ever came by his
+name we cannot imagine.  He is as gentle and polite a man as M. Loyal
+Devasseur himself; immensely stout withal; and of a beaming aspect.  M.
+Féroce has saved so many people from drowning, and has been decorated
+with so many medals in consequence, that his stoutness seems a special
+dispensation of Providence to enable him to wear them; if his girth were
+the girth of an ordinary man, he could never hang them on, all at once.
+It is only on very great occasions that M. Féroce displays his shining
+honours.  At other times they lie by, with rolls of manuscript testifying
+to the causes of their presentation, in a huge glass case in the
+red-sofa’d salon of his private residence on the beach, where M. Féroce
+also keeps his family pictures, his portraits of himself as he appears
+both in bathing life and in private life, his little boats that rock by
+clockwork, and his other ornamental possessions.
+
+Then, we have a commodious and gay Theatre—or had, for it is burned down
+now—where the opera was always preceded by a vaudeville, in which (as
+usual) everybody, down to the little old man with the large hat and the
+little cane and tassel, who always played either my Uncle or my Papa,
+suddenly broke out of the dialogue into the mildest vocal snatches, to
+the great perplexity of unaccustomed strangers from Great Britain, who
+never could make out when they were singing and when they were
+talking—and indeed it was pretty much the same.  But, the caterers in the
+way of entertainment to whom we are most beholden, are the Society of
+Welldoing, who are active all the summer, and give the proceeds of their
+good works to the poor.  Some of the most agreeable fêtes they contrive,
+are announced as ‘Dedicated to the children;’ and the taste with which
+they turn a small public enclosure into an elegant garden beautifully
+illuminated; and the thorough-going heartiness and energy with which they
+personally direct the childish pleasures; are supremely delightful.  For
+fivepence a head, we have on these occasions donkey races with English
+‘Jokeis,’ and other rustic sports; lotteries for toys; roundabouts,
+dancing on the grass to the music of an admirable band, fire-balloons and
+fireworks.  Further, almost every week all through the summer—never mind,
+now, on what day of the week—there is a fête in some adjoining village
+(called in that part of the country a Ducasse), where the people—really
+the people—dance on the green turf in the open air, round a little
+orchestra, that seems itself to dance, there is such an airy motion of
+flags and streamers all about it.  And we do not suppose that between the
+Torrid Zone and the North Pole there are to be found male dancers with
+such astonishingly loose legs, furnished with so many joints in wrong
+places, utterly unknown to Professor Owen, as those who here disport
+themselves.  Sometimes, the fête appertains to a particular trade; you
+will see among the cheerful young women at the joint Ducasse of the
+milliners and tailors, a wholesome knowledge of the art of making common
+and cheap things uncommon and pretty, by good sense and good taste, that
+is a practical lesson to any rank of society in a whole island we could
+mention.  The oddest feature of these agreeable scenes is the everlasting
+Roundabout (we preserve an English word wherever we can, as we are
+writing the English language), on the wooden horses of which machine
+grown-up people of all ages are wound round and round with the utmost
+solemnity, while the proprietor’s wife grinds an organ, capable of only
+one tune, in the centre.
+
+As to the boarding-houses of our French watering-place, they are Legion,
+and would require a distinct treatise.  It is not without a sentiment of
+national pride that we believe them to contain more bores from the shores
+of Albion than all the clubs in London.  As you walk timidly in their
+neighbourhood, the very neckcloths and hats of your elderly compatriots
+cry to you from the stones of the streets, ‘We are Bores—avoid us!’  We
+have never overheard at street corners such lunatic scraps of political
+and social discussion as among these dear countrymen of ours.  They
+believe everything that is impossible and nothing that is true.  They
+carry rumours, and ask questions, and make corrections and improvements
+on one another, staggering to the human intellect.  And they are for ever
+rushing into the English library, propounding such incomprehensible
+paradoxes to the fair mistress of that establishment, that we beg to
+recommend her to her Majesty’s gracious consideration as a fit object for
+a pension.
+
+The English form a considerable part of the population of our French
+watering-place, and are deservedly addressed and respected in many ways.
+Some of the surface-addresses to them are odd enough, as when a laundress
+puts a placard outside her house announcing her possession of that
+curious British instrument, a ‘Mingle;’ or when a tavern-keeper provides
+accommodation for the celebrated English game of ‘Nokemdon.’  But, to us,
+it is not the least pleasant feature of our French watering-place that a
+long and constant fusion of the two great nations there, has taught each
+to like the other, and to learn from the other, and to rise superior to
+the absurd prejudices that have lingered among the weak and ignorant in
+both countries equally.
+
+Drumming and trumpeting of course go on for ever in our French
+watering-place.  Flag-flying is at a premium, too; but, we cheerfully
+avow that we consider a flag a very pretty object, and that we take such
+outward signs of innocent liveliness to our heart of hearts.  The people,
+in the town and in the country, are a busy people who work hard; they are
+sober, temperate, good-humoured, light-hearted, and generally remarkable
+for their engaging manners.  Few just men, not immoderately bilious,
+could see them in their recreations without very much respecting the
+character that is so easily, so harmlessly, and so simply, pleased.
+
+
+
+
+BILL-STICKING
+
+
+IF I had an enemy whom I hated—which Heaven forbid!—and if I knew of
+something which sat heavy on his conscience, I think I would introduce
+that something into a Posting-Bill, and place a large impression in the
+hands of an active sticker.  I can scarcely imagine a more terrible
+revenge.  I should haunt him, by this means, night and day.  I do not
+mean to say that I would publish his secret, in red letters two feet
+high, for all the town to read: I would darkly refer to it.  It should be
+between him, and me, and the Posting-Bill.  Say, for example, that, at a
+certain period of his life, my enemy had surreptitiously possessed
+himself of a key.  I would then embark my capital in the lock business,
+and conduct that business on the advertising principle.  In all my
+placards and advertisements, I would throw up the line SECRET KEYS.
+Thus, if my enemy passed an uninhabited house, he would see his
+conscience glaring down on him from the parapets, and peeping up at him
+from the cellars.  If he took a dead wall in his walk, it would be alive
+with reproaches.  If he sought refuge in an omnibus, the panels thereof
+would become Belshazzar’s palace to him.  If he took boat, in a wild
+endeavour to escape, he would see the fatal words lurking under the
+arches of the bridges over the Thames.  If he walked the streets with
+downcast eyes, he would recoil from the very stones of the pavement, made
+eloquent by lamp-black lithograph.  If he drove or rode, his way would be
+blocked up by enormous vans, each proclaiming the same words over and
+over again from its whole extent of surface.  Until, having gradually
+grown thinner and paler, and having at last totally rejected food, he
+would miserably perish, and I should be revenged.  This conclusion I
+should, no doubt, celebrate by laughing a hoarse laugh in three
+syllables, and folding my arms tight upon my chest agreeably to most of
+the examples of glutted animosity that I have had an opportunity of
+observing in connexion with the Drama—which, by-the-by, as involving a
+good deal of noise, appears to me to be occasionally confounded with the
+Drummer.
+
+The foregoing reflections presented themselves to my mind, the other day,
+as I contemplated (being newly come to London from the East Riding of
+Yorkshire, on a house-hunting expedition for next May), an old warehouse
+which rotting paste and rotting paper had brought down to the condition
+of an old cheese.  It would have been impossible to say, on the most
+conscientious survey, how much of its front was brick and mortar, and how
+much decaying and decayed plaster.  It was so thickly encrusted with
+fragments of bills, that no ship’s keel after a long voyage could be half
+so foul.  All traces of the broken windows were billed out, the doors
+were billed across, the water-spout was billed over.  The building was
+shored up to prevent its tumbling into the street; and the very beams
+erected against it were less wood than paste and paper, they had been so
+continually posted and reposted.  The forlorn dregs of old posters so
+encumbered this wreck, that there was no hold for new posters, and the
+stickers had abandoned the place in despair, except one enterprising man
+who had hoisted the last masquerade to a clear spot near the level of the
+stack of chimneys where it waved and drooped like a shattered flag.
+Below the rusty cellar-grating, crumpled remnants of old bills torn down,
+rotted away in wasting heaps of fallen leaves.  Here and there, some of
+the thick rind of the house had peeled off in strips, and fluttered
+heavily down, littering the street; but, still, below these rents and
+gashes, layers of decomposing posters showed themselves, as if they were
+interminable.  I thought the building could never even be pulled down,
+but in one adhesive heap of rottenness and poster.  As to getting in—I
+don’t believe that if the Sleeping Beauty and her Court had been so
+billed up, the young Prince could have done it.
+
+Knowing all the posters that were yet legible, intimately, and pondering
+on their ubiquitous nature, I was led into the reflections with which I
+began this paper, by considering what an awful thing it would be, ever to
+have wronged—say M. JULLIEN for example—and to have his avenging name in
+characters of fire incessantly before my eyes.  Or to have injured MADAME
+TUSSAUD, and undergo a similar retribution.  Has any man a
+self-reproachful thought associated with pills, or ointment?  What an
+avenging spirit to that man is PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY!  Have I sinned in oil?
+CABBURN pursues me.  Have I a dark remembrance associated with any
+gentlemanly garments, bespoke or ready made?  MOSES and SON are on my
+track.  Did I ever aim a blow at a defenceless fellow-creature’s head?
+That head eternally being measured for a wig, or that worse head which
+was bald before it used the balsam, and hirsute afterwards—enforcing the
+benevolent moral, ‘Better to be bald as a Dutch cheese than come to
+this,’—undoes me.  Have I no sore places in my mind which MECHI
+touches—which NICOLL probes—which no registered article whatever
+lacerates?  Does no discordant note within me thrill responsive to
+mysterious watchwords, as ‘Revalenta Arabica,’ or ‘Number One St. Paul’s
+Churchyard’?  Then may I enjoy life, and be happy.
+
+Lifting up my eyes, as I was musing to this effect, I beheld advancing
+towards me (I was then on Cornhill, near to the Royal Exchange), a solemn
+procession of three advertising vans, of first-class dimensions, each
+drawn by a very little horse.  As the cavalcade approached, I was at a
+loss to reconcile the careless deportment of the drivers of these
+vehicles, with the terrific announcements they conducted through the
+city, which being a summary of the contents of a Sunday newspaper, were
+of the most thrilling kind.  Robbery, fire, murder, and the ruin of the
+United Kingdom—each discharged in a line by itself, like a separate
+broad-side of red-hot shot—were among the least of the warnings addressed
+to an unthinking people.  Yet, the Ministers of Fate who drove the awful
+cars, leaned forward with their arms upon their knees in a state of
+extreme lassitude, for want of any subject of interest.  The first man,
+whose hair I might naturally have expected to see standing on end,
+scratched his head—one of the smoothest I ever beheld—with profound
+indifference.  The second whistled.  The third yawned.
+
+Pausing to dwell upon this apathy, it appeared to me, as the fatal cars
+came by me, that I descried in the second car, through the portal in
+which the charioteer was seated, a figure stretched upon the floor.  At
+the same time, I thought I smelt tobacco.  The latter impression passed
+quickly from me; the former remained.  Curious to know whether this
+prostrate figure was the one impressible man of the whole capital who had
+been stricken insensible by the terrors revealed to him, and whose form
+had been placed in the car by the charioteer, from motives of humanity, I
+followed the procession.  It turned into Leadenhall-market, and halted at
+a public-house.  Each driver dismounted.  I then distinctly heard,
+proceeding from the second car, where I had dimly seen the prostrate
+form, the words:
+
+‘And a pipe!’
+
+The driver entering the public-house with his fellows, apparently for
+purposes of refreshment, I could not refrain from mounting on the shaft
+of the second vehicle, and looking in at the portal.  I then beheld,
+reclining on his back upon the floor, on a kind of mattress or divan, a
+little man in a shooting-coat.  The exclamation ‘Dear me’ which
+irresistibly escaped my lips caused him to sit upright, and survey me.  I
+found him to be a good-looking little man of about fifty, with a shining
+face, a tight head, a bright eye, a moist wink, a quick speech, and a
+ready air.  He had something of a sporting way with him.
+
+He looked at me, and I looked at him, until the driver displaced me by
+handing in a pint of beer, a pipe, and what I understand is called ‘a
+screw’ of tobacco—an object which has the appearance of a curl-paper
+taken off the barmaid’s head, with the curl in it.
+
+‘I beg your pardon,’ said I, when the removed person of the driver again
+admitted of my presenting my face at the portal.  ‘But—excuse my
+curiosity, which I inherit from my mother—do you live here?’
+
+‘That’s good, too!’ returned the little man, composedly laying aside a
+pipe he had smoked out, and filling the pipe just brought to him.
+
+‘Oh, you _don’t_ live here then?’ said I.
+
+He shook his head, as he calmly lighted his pipe by means of a German
+tinder-box, and replied, ‘This is my carriage.  When things are flat, I
+take a ride sometimes, and enjoy myself.  I am the inventor of these
+wans.’
+
+His pipe was now alight.  He drank his beer all at once, and he smoked
+and he smiled at me.
+
+‘It was a great idea!’ said I.
+
+‘Not so bad,’ returned the little man, with the modesty of merit.
+
+‘Might I be permitted to inscribe your name upon the tablets of my
+memory?’ I asked.
+
+‘There’s not much odds in the name,’ returned the little man, ‘—no name
+particular—I am the King of the Bill-Stickers.’
+
+‘Good gracious!’ said I.
+
+The monarch informed me, with a smile, that he had never been crowned or
+installed with any public ceremonies, but that he was peaceably
+acknowledged as King of the Bill-Stickers in right of being the oldest
+and most respected member of ‘the old school of bill-sticking.’  He
+likewise gave me to understand that there was a Lord Mayor of the
+Bill-Stickers, whose genius was chiefly exercised within the limits of
+the city.  He made some allusion, also, to an inferior potentate, called
+‘Turkey-legs;’ but I did not understand that this gentleman was invested
+with much power.  I rather inferred that he derived his title from some
+peculiarity of gait, and that it was of an honorary character.
+
+‘My father,’ pursued the King of the Bill-Stickers, ‘was Engineer,
+Beadle, and Bill-Sticker to the parish of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, in the
+year one thousand seven hundred and eighty.  My father stuck bills at the
+time of the riots of London.’
+
+‘You must be acquainted with the whole subject of bill-sticking, from
+that time to the present!’ said I.
+
+‘Pretty well so,’ was the answer.
+
+‘Excuse me,’ said I; ‘but I am a sort of collector—’
+
+‘‘Not Income-tax?’ cried His Majesty, hastily removing his pipe from his
+lips.
+
+‘No, no,’ said I.
+
+‘Water-rate?’ said His Majesty.
+
+‘No, no,’ I returned.
+
+‘Gas?  Assessed?  Sewers?’ said His Majesty.
+
+‘You misunderstand me,’ I replied, soothingly.  ‘Not that sort of
+collector at all: a collector of facts.’
+
+‘Oh, if it’s only facts,’ cried the King of the Bill-Stickers, recovering
+his good-humour, and banishing the great mistrust that had suddenly
+fallen upon him, ‘come in and welcome!  If it had been income, or
+winders, I think I should have pitched you out of the wan, upon my soul!’
+
+Readily complying with the invitation, I squeezed myself in at the small
+aperture.  His Majesty, graciously handing me a little three-legged stool
+on which I took my seat in a corner, inquired if I smoked.
+
+‘I do;—that is, I can,’ I answered.
+
+‘Pipe and a screw!’ said His Majesty to the attendant charioteer.  ‘Do
+you prefer a dry smoke, or do you moisten it?’
+
+As unmitigated tobacco produces most disturbing effects upon my system
+(indeed, if I had perfect moral courage, I doubt if I should smoke at
+all, under any circumstances), I advocated moisture, and begged the
+Sovereign of the Bill-Stickers to name his usual liquor, and to concede
+to me the privilege of paying for it.  After some delicate reluctance on
+his part, we were provided, through the instrumentality of the attendant
+charioteer, with a can of cold rum-and-water, flavoured with sugar and
+lemon.  We were also furnished with a tumbler, and I was provided with a
+pipe.  His Majesty, then observing that we might combine business with
+conversation, gave the word for the car to proceed; and, to my great
+delight, we jogged away at a foot pace.
+
+I say to my great delight, because I am very fond of novelty, and it was
+a new sensation to be jolting through the tumult of the city in that
+secluded Temple, partly open to the sky, surrounded by the roar without,
+and seeing nothing but the clouds.  Occasionally, blows from whips fell
+heavily on the Temple’s walls, when by stopping up the road longer than
+usual, we irritated carters and coachmen to madness; but they fell
+harmless upon us within and disturbed not the serenity of our peaceful
+retreat.  As I looked upward, I felt, I should imagine, like the
+Astronomer Royal.  I was enchanted by the contrast between the freezing
+nature of our external mission on the blood of the populace, and the
+perfect composure reigning within those sacred precincts: where His
+Majesty, reclining easily on his left arm, smoked his pipe and drank his
+rum-and-water from his own side of the tumbler, which stood impartially
+between us.  As I looked down from the clouds and caught his royal eye,
+he understood my reflections.  ‘I have an idea,’ he observed, with an
+upward glance, ‘of training scarlet runners across in the season,—making
+a arbour of it,—and sometimes taking tea in the same, according to the
+song.’
+
+I nodded approval.
+
+‘And here you repose and think?’ said I.
+
+‘And think,’ said he, ‘of posters—walls—and hoardings.’
+
+We were both silent, contemplating the vastness of the subject.  I
+remembered a surprising fancy of dear THOMAS HOOD’S, and wondered whether
+this monarch ever sighed to repair to the great wall of China, and stick
+bills all over it.
+
+‘And so,’ said he, rousing himself, ‘it’s facts as you collect?’
+
+‘Facts,’ said I.
+
+‘The facts of bill-sticking,’ pursued His Majesty, in a benignant manner,
+‘as known to myself, air as following.  When my father was Engineer,
+Beadle, and Bill-Sticker to the parish of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, he
+employed women to post bills for him.  He employed women to post bills at
+the time of the riots of London.  He died at the age of seventy-five
+year, and was buried by the murdered Eliza Grimwood, over in the Waterloo
+Road.’
+
+As this was somewhat in the nature of a royal speech, I listened with
+deference and silently.  His Majesty, taking a scroll from his pocket,
+proceeded, with great distinctness, to pour out the following flood of
+information:—
+
+‘“The bills being at that period mostly proclamations and declarations,
+and which were only a demy size, the manner of posting the bills (as they
+did not use brushes) was by means of a piece of wood which they called a
+‘dabber.’  Thus things continued till such time as the State Lottery was
+passed, and then the printers began to print larger bills, and men were
+employed instead of women, as the State Lottery Commissioners then began
+to send men all over England to post bills, and would keep them out for
+six or eight months at a time, and they were called by the London
+bill-stickers ‘trampers,’ their wages at the time being ten shillings per
+day, besides expenses.  They used sometimes to be stationed in large
+towns for five or six months together, distributing the schemes to all
+the houses in the town.  And then there were more caricature wood-block
+engravings for posting-bills than there are at the present time, the
+principal printers, at that time, of posting-bills being Messrs. Evans
+and Ruffy, of Budge Row; Thoroughgood and Whiting, of the present day;
+and Messrs. Gye and Balne, Gracechurch Street, City.  The largest bills
+printed at that period were a two-sheet double crown; and when they
+commenced printing four-sheet bills, two bill-stickers would work
+together.  They had no settled wages per week, but had a fixed price for
+their work, and the London bill-stickers, during a lottery week, have
+been known to earn, each, eight or nine pounds per week, till the day of
+drawing; likewise the men who carried boards in the street used to have
+one pound per week, and the bill-stickers at that time would not allow
+any one to wilfully cover or destroy their bills, as they had a society
+amongst themselves, and very frequently dined together at some
+public-house where they used to go of an evening to have their work
+delivered out untoe ’em.”’
+
+All this His Majesty delivered in a gallant manner; posting it, as it
+were, before me, in a great proclamation.  I took advantage of the pause
+he now made, to inquire what a ‘two-sheet double crown’ might express?
+
+‘A two-sheet double crown,’ replied the King, ‘is a bill thirty-nine
+inches wide by thirty inches high.’
+
+‘Is it possible,’ said I, my mind reverting to the gigantic admonitions
+we were then displaying to the multitude—which were as infants to some of
+the posting-bills on the rotten old warehouse—‘that some few years ago
+the largest bill was no larger than that?’
+
+‘The fact,’ returned the King, ‘is undoubtedly so.’  Here he instantly
+rushed again into the scroll.
+
+‘“Since the abolishing of the State Lottery all that good feeling has
+gone, and nothing but jealousy exists, through the rivalry of each other.
+Several bill-sticking companies have started, but have failed.  The first
+party that started a company was twelve year ago; but what was left of
+the old school and their dependants joined together and opposed them.
+And for some time we were quiet again, till a printer of Hatton Garden
+formed a company by hiring the sides of houses; but he was not supported
+by the public, and he left his wooden frames fixed up for rent.  The last
+company that started, took advantage of the New Police Act, and hired of
+Messrs. Grissell and Peto the hoarding of Trafalgar Square, and
+established a bill-sticking office in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, and
+engaged some of the new bill-stickers to do their work, and for a time
+got the half of all our work, and with such spirit did they carry on
+their opposition towards us, that they used to give us in charge before
+the magistrate, and get us fined; but they found it so expensive, that
+they could not keep it up, for they were always employing a lot of
+ruffians from the Seven Dials to come and fight us; and on one occasion
+the old bill-stickers went to Trafalgar Square to attempt to post bills,
+when they were given in custody by the watchman in their employ, and
+fined at Queen Square five pounds, as they would not allow any of us to
+speak in the office; but when they were gone, we had an interview with
+the magistrate, who mitigated the fine to fifteen shillings.  During the
+time the men were waiting for the fine, this company started off to a
+public-house that we were in the habit of using, and waited for us coming
+back, where a fighting scene took place that beggars description.
+Shortly after this, the principal one day came and shook hands with us,
+and acknowledged that he had broken up the company, and that he himself
+had lost five hundred pound in trying to overthrow us.  We then took
+possession of the hoarding in Trafalgar Square; but Messrs. Grissell and
+Peto would not allow us to post our bills on the said hoarding without
+paying them—and from first to last we paid upwards of two hundred pounds
+for that hoarding, and likewise the hoarding of the Reform Club-house,
+Pall Mall.”’
+
+His Majesty, being now completely out of breath, laid down his scroll
+(which he appeared to have finished), puffed at his pipe, and took some
+rum-and-water.  I embraced the opportunity of asking how many divisions
+the art and mystery of bill-sticking comprised?  He replied,
+three—auctioneers’ bill-sticking, theatrical bill-sticking, general
+bill-sticking.
+
+‘The auctioneers’ porters,’ said the King, ‘who do their bill-sticking,
+are mostly respectable and intelligent, and generally well paid for their
+work, whether in town or country.  The price paid by the principal
+auctioneers for country work is nine shillings per day; that is, seven
+shillings for day’s work, one shilling for lodging, and one for paste.
+Town work is five shillings a day, including paste.’
+
+‘Town work must be rather hot work,’ said I, ‘if there be many of those
+fighting scenes that beggar description, among the bill-stickers?’
+
+‘Well,’ replied the King, ‘I an’t a stranger, I assure you, to black
+eyes; a bill-sticker ought to know how to handle his fists a bit.  As to
+that row I have mentioned, that grew out of competition, conducted in an
+uncompromising spirit.  Besides a man in a horse-and-shay continually
+following us about, the company had a watchman on duty, night and day, to
+prevent us sticking bills upon the hoarding in Trafalgar Square.  We went
+there, early one morning, to stick bills and to black-wash their bills if
+we were interfered with.  We were interfered with, and I gave the word
+for laying on the wash.  It was laid on—pretty brisk—and we were all
+taken to Queen Square: but they couldn’t fine me.  I knew that,’—with a
+bright smile—‘I’d only give directions—I was only the General.’  Charmed
+with this monarch’s affability, I inquired if he had ever hired a
+hoarding himself.
+
+‘Hired a large one,’ he replied, ‘opposite the Lyceum Theatre, when the
+buildings was there.  Paid thirty pound for it; let out places on it, and
+called it “The External Paper-Hanging Station.”  But it didn’t answer.
+Ah!’ said His Majesty thoughtfully, as he filled the glass,
+‘Bill-stickers have a deal to contend with.  The bill-sticking clause was
+got into the Police Act by a member of Parliament that employed me at his
+election.  The clause is pretty stiff respecting where bills go; but he
+didn’t mind where his bills went.  It was all right enough, so long as
+they was his bills!’
+
+Fearful that I observed a shadow of misanthropy on the King’s cheerful
+face, I asked whose ingenious invention that was, which I greatly
+admired, of sticking bills under the arches of the bridges.
+
+‘Mine!’ said His Majesty.  ‘I was the first that ever stuck a bill under
+a bridge!  Imitators soon rose up, of course.—When don’t they?  But they
+stuck ’em at low-water, and the tide came and swept the bills clean away.
+I knew that!’  The King laughed.
+
+‘What may be the name of that instrument, like an immense fishing-rod,’ I
+inquired, ‘with which bills are posted on high places?’
+
+‘The joints,’ returned His Majesty.  ‘Now, we use the joints where
+formerly we used ladders—as they do still in country places.  Once, when
+Madame’ (Vestris, understood) ‘was playing in Liverpool, another
+bill-sticker and me were at it together on the wall outside the Clarence
+Dock—me with the joints—him on a ladder.  Lord!  I had my bill up, right
+over his head, yards above him, ladder and all, while he was crawling to
+his work.  The people going in and out of the docks, stood and
+laughed!—It’s about thirty years since the joints come in.’
+
+‘Are there any bill-stickers who can’t read?’ I took the liberty of
+inquiring.
+
+‘Some,’ said the King.  ‘But they know which is the right side up’ards of
+their work.  They keep it as it’s given out to ’em.  I have seen a bill
+or so stuck wrong side up’ards.  But it’s very rare.’
+
+Our discourse sustained some interruption at this point, by the
+procession of cars occasioning a stoppage of about three-quarters of a
+mile in length, as nearly as I could judge.  His Majesty, however,
+entreating me not to be discomposed by the contingent uproar, smoked with
+great placidity, and surveyed the firmament.
+
+When we were again in motion, I begged to be informed what was the
+largest poster His Majesty had ever seen.  The King replied, ‘A
+thirty-six sheet poster.’  I gathered, also, that there were about a
+hundred and fifty bill-stickers in London, and that His Majesty
+considered an average hand equal to the posting of one hundred bills
+(single sheets) in a day.  The King was of opinion, that, although
+posters had much increased in size, they had not increased in number; as
+the abolition of the State Lotteries had occasioned a great falling off,
+especially in the country.  Over and above which change, I bethought
+myself that the custom of advertising in newspapers had greatly
+increased.  The completion of many London improvements, as Trafalgar
+Square (I particularly observed the singularity of His Majesty’s calling
+that an improvement), the Royal Exchange, &c., had of late years reduced
+the number of advantageous posting-places.  Bill-Stickers at present
+rather confine themselves to districts, than to particular descriptions
+of work.  One man would strike over Whitechapel, another would take round
+Houndsditch, Shoreditch, and the City Road; one (the King said) would
+stick to the Surrey side; another would make a beat of the West-end.
+
+His Majesty remarked, with some approach to severity, on the neglect of
+delicacy and taste, gradually introduced into the trade by the new
+school: a profligate and inferior race of impostors who took jobs at
+almost any price, to the detriment of the old school, and the confusion
+of their own misguided employers.  He considered that the trade was
+overdone with competition, and observed speaking of his subjects, ‘There
+are too many of ’em.’  He believed, still, that things were a little
+better than they had been; adducing, as a proof, the fact that particular
+posting places were now reserved, by common consent, for particular
+posters; those places, however, must be regularly occupied by those
+posters, or, they lapsed and fell into other hands.  It was of no use
+giving a man a Drury Lane bill this week and not next.  Where was it to
+go?  He was of opinion that going to the expense of putting up your own
+board on which your sticker could display your own bills, was the only
+complete way of posting yourself at the present time; but, even to effect
+this, on payment of a shilling a week to the keepers of steamboat piers
+and other such places, you must be able, besides, to give orders for
+theatres and public exhibitions, or you would be sure to be cut out by
+somebody.  His Majesty regarded the passion for orders, as one of the
+most unappeasable appetites of human nature.  If there were a building,
+or if there were repairs, going on, anywhere, you could generally stand
+something and make it right with the foreman of the works; but, orders
+would be expected from you, and the man who could give the most orders
+was the man who would come off best.  There was this other objectionable
+point, in orders, that workmen sold them for drink, and often sold them
+to persons who were likewise troubled with the weakness of thirst: which
+led (His Majesty said) to the presentation of your orders at Theatre
+doors, by individuals who were ‘too shakery’ to derive intellectual
+profit from the entertainments, and who brought a scandal on you.
+Finally, His Majesty said that you could hardly put too little in a
+poster; what you wanted, was, two or three good catch-lines for the eye
+to rest on—then, leave it alone—and there you were!
+
+These are the minutes of my conversation with His Majesty, as I noted
+them down shortly afterwards.  I am not aware that I have been betrayed
+into any alteration or suppression.  The manner of the King was frank in
+the extreme; and he seemed to me to avoid, at once that slight tendency
+to repetition which may have been observed in the conversation of His
+Majesty King George the Third, and—that slight under-current of egotism
+which the curious observer may perhaps detect in the conversation of
+Napoleon Bonaparte.
+
+I must do the King the justice to say that it was I, and not he, who
+closed the dialogue.  At this juncture, I became the subject of a
+remarkable optical delusion; the legs of my stool appeared to me to
+double up; the car to spin round and round with great violence; and a
+mist to arise between myself and His Majesty.  In addition to these
+sensations, I felt extremely unwell.  I refer these unpleasant effects,
+either to the paste with which the posters were affixed to the van: which
+may have contained some small portion of arsenic; or, to the printer’s
+ink, which may have contained some equally deleterious ingredient.  Of
+this, I cannot be sure.  I am only sure that I was not affected, either
+by the smoke, or the rum-and-water.  I was assisted out of the vehicle,
+in a state of mind which I have only experienced in two other places—I
+allude to the Pier at Dover, and to the corresponding portion of the town
+of Calais—and sat upon a door-step until I recovered.  The procession had
+then disappeared.  I have since looked anxiously for the King in several
+other cars, but I have not yet had the happiness of seeing His Majesty.
+
+
+
+
+‘BIRTHS.  MRS. MEEK, OF A SON
+
+
+MY name is Meek.  I am, in fact, Mr. Meek.  That son is mine and Mrs.
+Meek’s.  When I saw the announcement in the Times, I dropped the paper.
+I had put it in, myself, and paid for it, but it looked so noble that it
+overpowered me.
+
+As soon as I could compose my feelings, I took the paper up to Mrs.
+Meek’s bedside.  ‘Maria Jane,’ said I (I allude to Mrs. Meek), ‘you are
+now a public character.’  We read the review of our child, several times,
+with feelings of the strongest emotion; and I sent the boy who cleans the
+boots and shoes, to the office for fifteen copies.  No reduction was made
+on taking that quantity.
+
+It is scarcely necessary for me to say, that our child had been expected.
+In fact, it had been expected, with comparative confidence, for some
+months.  Mrs. Meek’s mother, who resides with us—of the name of Bigby—had
+made every preparation for its admission to our circle.
+
+I hope and believe I am a quiet man.  I will go farther.  I know I am a
+quiet man.  My constitution is tremulous, my voice was never loud, and,
+in point of stature, I have been from infancy, small.  I have the
+greatest respect for Maria Jane’s Mama.  She is a most remarkable woman.
+I honour Maria Jane’s Mama.  In my opinion she would storm a town,
+single-handed, with a hearth-broom, and carry it.  I have never known her
+to yield any point whatever, to mortal man.  She is calculated to terrify
+the stoutest heart.
+
+Still—but I will not anticipate.
+
+The first intimation I had, of any preparations being in progress, on the
+part of Maria Jane’s Mama, was one afternoon, several months ago.  I came
+home earlier than usual from the office, and, proceeding into the
+dining-room, found an obstruction behind the door, which prevented it
+from opening freely.  It was an obstruction of a soft nature.  On looking
+in, I found it to be a female.
+
+The female in question stood in the corner behind the door, consuming
+Sherry Wine.  From the nutty smell of that beverage pervading the
+apartment, I have no doubt she was consuming a second glassful.  She wore
+a black bonnet of large dimensions, and was copious in figure.  The
+expression of her countenance was severe and discontented.  The words to
+which she gave utterance on seeing me, were these, ‘Oh, git along with
+you, Sir, if you please; me and Mrs. Bigby don’t want no male parties
+here!’
+
+That female was Mrs. Prodgit.
+
+I immediately withdrew, of course.  I was rather hurt, but I made no
+remark.  Whether it was that I showed a lowness of spirits after dinner,
+in consequence of feeling that I seemed to intrude, I cannot say.  But,
+Maria Jane’s Mama said to me on her retiring for the night: in a low
+distinct voice, and with a look of reproach that completely subdued me:
+‘George Meek, Mrs. Prodgit is your wife’s nurse!’
+
+I bear no ill-will towards Mrs. Prodgit.  Is it likely that I, writing
+this with tears in my eyes, should be capable of deliberate animosity
+towards a female, so essential to the welfare of Maria Jane?  I am
+willing to admit that Fate may have been to blame, and not Mrs. Prodgit;
+but, it is undeniably true, that the latter female brought desolation and
+devastation into my lowly dwelling.
+
+We were happy after her first appearance; we were sometimes exceedingly
+so.  But, whenever the parlour door was opened, and ‘Mrs. Prodgit!’
+announced (and she was very often announced), misery ensued.  I could not
+bear Mrs. Prodgit’s look.  I felt that I was far from wanted, and had no
+business to exist in Mrs. Prodgit’s presence.  Between Maria Jane’s Mama,
+and Mrs. Prodgit, there was a dreadful, secret, understanding—a dark
+mystery and conspiracy, pointing me out as a being to be shunned.  I
+appeared to have done something that was evil.  Whenever Mrs. Prodgit
+called, after dinner, I retired to my dressing-room—where the temperature
+is very low indeed, in the wintry time of the year—and sat looking at my
+frosty breath as it rose before me, and at my rack of boots; a
+serviceable article of furniture, but never, in my opinion, an
+exhilarating object.  The length of the councils that were held with Mrs.
+Prodgit, under these circumstances, I will not attempt to describe.  I
+will merely remark, that Mrs. Prodgit always consumed Sherry Wine while
+the deliberations were in progress; that they always ended in Maria
+Jane’s being in wretched spirits on the sofa; and that Maria Jane’s Mama
+always received me, when I was recalled, with a look of desolate triumph
+that too plainly said, ‘Now, George Meek!  You see my child, Maria Jane,
+a ruin, and I hope you are satisfied!’
+
+I pass, generally, over the period that intervened between the day when
+Mrs. Prodgit entered her protest against male parties, and the
+ever-memorable midnight when I brought her to my unobtrusive home in a
+cab, with an extremely large box on the roof, and a bundle, a bandbox,
+and a basket, between the driver’s legs.  I have no objection to Mrs.
+Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby, who I never can forget is the
+parent of Maria Jane) taking entire possession of my unassuming
+establishment.  In the recesses of my own breast, the thought may linger
+that a man in possession cannot be so dreadful as a woman, and that woman
+Mrs. Prodgit; but, I ought to bear a good deal, and I hope I can, and do.
+Huffing and snubbing, prey upon my feelings; but, I can bear them without
+complaint.  They may tell in the long run; I may be hustled about, from
+post to pillar, beyond my strength; nevertheless, I wish to avoid giving
+rise to words in the family.
+
+The voice of Nature, however, cries aloud in behalf of Augustus George,
+my infant son.  It is for him that I wish to utter a few plaintive
+household words.  I am not at all angry; I am mild—but miserable.
+
+I wish to know why, when my child, Augustus George, was expected in our
+circle, a provision of pins was made, as if the little stranger were a
+criminal who was to be put to the torture immediately, on his arrival,
+instead of a holy babe?  I wish to know why haste was made to stick those
+pins all over his innocent form, in every direction?  I wish to be
+informed why light and air are excluded from Augustus George, like
+poisons?  Why, I ask, is my unoffending infant so hedged into a
+basket-bedstead, with dimity and calico, with miniature sheets and
+blankets, that I can only hear him snuffle (and no wonder!) deep down
+under the pink hood of a little bathing-machine, and can never peruse
+even so much of his lineaments as his nose?
+
+Was I expected to be the father of a French Roll, that the brushes of All
+Nations were laid in, to rasp Augustus George?  Am I to be told that his
+sensitive skin was ever intended by Nature to have rashes brought out
+upon it, by the premature and incessant use of those formidable little
+instruments?
+
+Is my son a Nutmeg, that he is to be grated on the stiff edges of sharp
+frills?  Am I the parent of a Muslin boy, that his yielding surface is to
+be crimped and small plaited?  Or is my child composed of Paper or of
+Linen, that impressions of the finer getting-up art, practised by the
+laundress, are to be printed off, all over his soft arms and legs, as I
+constantly observe them?  The starch enters his soul; who can wonder that
+he cries?
+
+Was Augustus George intended to have limbs, or to be born a Torso?  I
+presume that limbs were the intention, as they are the usual practice.
+Then, why are my poor child’s limbs fettered and tied up?  Am I to be
+told that there is any analogy between Augustus George Meek and Jack
+Sheppard?
+
+Analyse Castor Oil at any Institution of Chemistry that may be agreed
+upon, and inform me what resemblance, in taste, it bears to that natural
+provision which it is at once the pride and duty of Maria Jane to
+administer to Augustus George!  Yet, I charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and
+abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with systematically forcing Castor Oil on my
+innocent son, from the first hour of his birth.  When that medicine, in
+its efficient action, causes internal disturbance to Augustus George, I
+charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with insanely and
+inconsistently administering opium to allay the storm she has raised!
+What is the meaning of this?
+
+If the days of Egyptian Mummies are past, how dare Mrs. Prodgit require,
+for the use of my son, an amount of flannel and linen that would carpet
+my humble roof?  Do I wonder that she requires it?  No!  This morning,
+within an hour, I beheld this agonising sight.  I beheld my son—Augustus
+George—in Mrs. Prodgit’s hands, and on Mrs. Prodgit’s knee, being
+dressed.  He was at the moment, comparatively speaking, in a state of
+nature; having nothing on, but an extremely short shirt, remarkably
+disproportionate to the length of his usual outer garments.  Trailing
+from Mrs. Prodgit’s lap, on the floor, was a long narrow roller or
+bandage—I should say of several yards in extent.  In this, I SAW Mrs.
+Prodgit tightly roll the body of my unoffending infant, turning him over
+and over, now presenting his unconscious face upwards, now the back of
+his bald head, until the unnatural feat was accomplished, and the bandage
+secured by a pin, which I have every reason to believe entered the body
+of my only child.  In this tourniquet, he passes the present phase of his
+existence.  Can I know it, and smile!
+
+I fear I have been betrayed into expressing myself warmly, but I feel
+deeply.  Not for myself; for Augustus George.  I dare not interfere.
+Will any one?  Will any publication?  Any doctor?  Any parent?  Any body?
+I do not complain that Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby)
+entirely alienates Maria Jane’s affections from me, and interposes an
+impassable barrier between us.  I do not complain of being made of no
+account.  I do not want to be of any account.  But, Augustus George is a
+production of Nature (I cannot think otherwise), and I claim that he
+should be treated with some remote reference to Nature.  In my opinion,
+Mrs. Prodgit is, from first to last, a convention and a superstition.
+Are all the faculty afraid of Mrs. Prodgit?  If not, why don’t they take
+her in hand and improve her?
+
+P.S.  Maria Jane’s Mama boasts of her own knowledge of the subject, and
+says she brought up seven children besides Maria Jane.  But how do _I_
+know that she might not have brought them up much better?  Maria Jane
+herself is far from strong, and is subject to headaches, and nervous
+indigestion.  Besides which, I learn from the statistical tables that one
+child in five dies within the first year of its life; and one child in
+three, within the fifth.  That don’t look as if we could never improve in
+these particulars, I think!
+
+P.P.S. Augustus George is in convulsions.
+
+
+
+
+LYING AWAKE
+
+
+‘MY uncle lay with his eyes half closed, and his nightcap drawn almost
+down to his nose.  His fancy was already wandering, and began to mingle
+up the present scene with the crater of Vesuvius, the French Opera, the
+Coliseum at Rome, Dolly’s Chop-house in London, and all the farrago of
+noted places with which the brain of a traveller is crammed; in a word,
+he was just falling asleep.’
+
+Thus, that delightful writer, WASHINGTON IRVING, in his Tales of a
+Traveller.  But, it happened to me the other night to be lying: not with
+my eyes half closed, but with my eyes wide open; not with my nightcap
+drawn almost down to my nose, for on sanitary principles I never wear a
+nightcap: but with my hair pitchforked and touzled all over the pillow;
+not just falling asleep by any means, but glaringly, persistently, and
+obstinately, broad awake.  Perhaps, with no scientific intention or
+invention, I was illustrating the theory of the Duality of the Brain;
+perhaps one part of my brain, being wakeful, sat up to watch the other
+part which was sleepy.  Be that as it may, something in me was as
+desirous to go to sleep as it possibly could be, but something else in me
+would not go to sleep, and was as obstinate as George the Third.
+
+Thinking of George the Third—for I devote this paper to my train of
+thoughts as I lay awake: most people lying awake sometimes, and having
+some interest in the subject—put me in mind of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, and so
+Benjamin Franklin’s paper on the art of procuring pleasant dreams, which
+would seem necessarily to include the art of going to sleep, came into my
+head.  Now, as I often used to read that paper when I was a very small
+boy, and as I recollect everything I read then as perfectly as I forget
+everything I read now, I quoted ‘Get out of bed, beat up and turn your
+pillow, shake the bed-clothes well with at least twenty shakes, then
+throw the bed open and leave it to cool; in the meanwhile, continuing
+undrest, walk about your chamber.  When you begin to feel the cold air
+unpleasant, then return to your bed, and you will soon fall asleep, and
+your sleep will be sweet and pleasant.’  Not a bit of it!  I performed
+the whole ceremony, and if it were possible for me to be more saucer-eyed
+than I was before, that was the only result that came of it.
+
+Except Niagara.  The two quotations from Washington Irving and Benjamin
+Franklin may have put it in my head by an American association of ideas;
+but there I was, and the Horse-shoe Fall was thundering and tumbling in
+my eyes and ears, and the very rainbows that I left upon the spray when I
+really did last look upon it, were beautiful to see.  The night-light
+being quite as plain, however, and sleep seeming to be many thousand
+miles further off than Niagara, I made up my mind to think a little about
+Sleep; which I no sooner did than I whirled off in spite of myself to
+Drury Lane Theatre, and there saw a great actor and dear friend of mine
+(whom I had been thinking of in the day) playing Macbeth, and heard him
+apostrophising ‘the death of each day’s life,’ as I have heard him many a
+time, in the days that are gone.
+
+But, Sleep.  I will think about Sleep.  I am determined to think (this is
+the way I went on) about Sleep.  I must hold the word Sleep, tight and
+fast, or I shall be off at a tangent in half a second.  I feel myself
+unaccountably straying, already, into Clare Market.  Sleep.  It would be
+curious, as illustrating the equality of sleep, to inquire how many of
+its phenomena are common to all classes, to all degrees of wealth and
+poverty, to every grade of education and ignorance.  Here, for example,
+is her Majesty Queen Victoria in her palace, this present blessed night,
+and here is Winking Charley, a sturdy vagrant, in one of her Majesty’s
+jails.  Her Majesty has fallen, many thousands of times, from that same
+Tower, which I claim a right to tumble off now and then.  So has Winking
+Charley.  Her Majesty in her sleep has opened or prorogued Parliament, or
+has held a Drawing Room, attired in some very scanty dress, the
+deficiencies and improprieties of which have caused her great uneasiness.
+I, in my degree, have suffered unspeakable agitation of mind from taking
+the chair at a public dinner at the London Tavern in my night-clothes,
+which not all the courtesy of my kind friend and host MR. BATHE could
+persuade me were quite adapted to the occasion.  Winking Charley has been
+repeatedly tried in a worse condition.  Her Majesty is no stranger to a
+vault or firmament, of a sort of floorcloth, with an indistinct pattern
+distantly resembling eyes, which occasionally obtrudes itself on her
+repose.  Neither am I.  Neither is Winking Charley.  It is quite common
+to all three of us to skim along with airy strides a little above the
+ground; also to hold, with the deepest interest, dialogues with various
+people, all represented by ourselves; and to be at our wit’s end to know
+what they are going to tell us; and to be indescribably astonished by the
+secrets they disclose.  It is probable that we have all three committed
+murders and hidden bodies.  It is pretty certain that we have all
+desperately wanted to cry out, and have had no voice; that we have all
+gone to the play and not been able to get in; that we have all dreamed
+much more of our youth than of our later lives; that—I have lost it!  The
+thread’s broken.
+
+And up I go.  I, lying here with the night-light before me, up I go, for
+no reason on earth that I can find out, and drawn by no links that are
+visible to me, up the Great Saint Bernard!  I have lived in Switzerland,
+and rambled among the mountains; but, why I should go there now, and why
+up the Great Saint Bernard in preference to any other mountain, I have no
+idea.  As I lie here broad awake, and with every sense so sharpened that
+I can distinctly hear distant noises inaudible to me at another time, I
+make that journey, as I really did, on the same summer day, with the same
+happy party—ah! two since dead, I grieve to think—and there is the same
+track, with the same black wooden arms to point the way, and there are
+the same storm-refuges here and there; and there is the same snow falling
+at the top, and there are the same frosty mists, and there is the same
+intensely cold convent with its ménagerie smell, and the same breed of
+dogs fast dying out, and the same breed of jolly young monks whom I mourn
+to know as humbugs, and the same convent parlour with its piano and the
+sitting round the fire, and the same supper, and the same lone night in a
+cell, and the same bright fresh morning when going out into the highly
+rarefied air was like a plunge into an icy bath.  Now, see here what
+comes along; and why does this thing stalk into my mind on the top of a
+Swiss mountain!
+
+It is a figure that I once saw, just after dark, chalked upon a door in a
+little back lane near a country church—my first church.  How young a
+child I may have been at the time I don’t know, but it horrified me so
+intensely—in connexion with the churchyard, I suppose, for it smokes a
+pipe, and has a big hat with each of its ears sticking out in a
+horizontal line under the brim, and is not in itself more oppressive than
+a mouth from ear to ear, a pair of goggle eyes, and hands like two
+bunches of carrots, five in each, can make it—that it is still vaguely
+alarming to me to recall (as I have often done before, lying awake) the
+running home, the looking behind, the horror, of its following me; though
+whether disconnected from the door, or door and all, I can’t say, and
+perhaps never could.  It lays a disagreeable train.  I must resolve to
+think of something on the voluntary principle.
+
+The balloon ascents of this last season.  They will do to think about,
+while I lie awake, as well as anything else.  I must hold them tight
+though, for I feel them sliding away, and in their stead are the
+Mannings, husband and wife, hanging on the top of Horse-monger Lane Jail.
+In connexion with which dismal spectacle, I recall this curious fantasy
+of the mind.  That, having beheld that execution, and having left those
+two forms dangling on the top of the entrance gateway—the man’s, a limp,
+loose suit of clothes as if the man had gone out of them; the woman’s, a
+fine shape, so elaborately corseted and artfully dressed, that it was
+quite unchanged in its trim appearance as it slowly swung from side to
+side—I never could, by my uttermost efforts, for some weeks, present the
+outside of that prison to myself (which the terrible impression I had
+received continually obliged me to do) without presenting it with the two
+figures still hanging in the morning air.  Until, strolling past the
+gloomy place one night, when the street was deserted and quiet, and
+actually seeing that the bodies were not there, my fancy was persuaded,
+as it were, to take them down and bury them within the precincts of the
+jail, where they have lain ever since.
+
+The balloon ascents of last season.  Let me reckon them up.  There were
+the horse, the bull, the parachute,—and the tumbler hanging on—chiefly by
+his toes, I believe—below the car.  Very wrong, indeed, and decidedly to
+be stopped.  But, in connexion with these and similar dangerous
+exhibitions, it strikes me that that portion of the public whom they
+entertain, is unjustly reproached.  Their pleasure is in the difficulty
+overcome.  They are a public of great faith, and are quite confident that
+the gentleman will not fall off the horse, or the lady off the bull or
+out of the parachute, and that the tumbler has a firm hold with his toes.
+They do not go to see the adventurer vanquished, but triumphant.  There
+is no parallel in public combats between men and beasts, because nobody
+can answer for the particular beast—unless it were always the same beast,
+in which case it would be a mere stage-show, which the same public would
+go in the same state of mind to see, entirely believing in the brute
+being beforehand safely subdued by the man.  That they are not accustomed
+to calculate hazards and dangers with any nicety, we may know from their
+rash exposure of themselves in overcrowded steamboats, and unsafe
+conveyances and places of all kinds.  And I cannot help thinking that
+instead of railing, and attributing savage motives to a people naturally
+well disposed and humane, it is better to teach them, and lead them
+argumentatively and reasonably—for they are very reasonable, if you will
+discuss a matter with them—to more considerate and wise conclusions.
+
+This is a disagreeable intrusion!  Here is a man with his throat cut,
+dashing towards me as I lie awake!  A recollection of an old story of a
+kinsman of mine, who, going home one foggy winter night to Hampstead,
+when London was much smaller and the road lonesome, suddenly encountered
+such a figure rushing past him, and presently two keepers from a madhouse
+in pursuit.  A very unpleasant creature indeed, to come into my mind
+unbidden, as I lie awake.
+
+—The balloon ascents of last season.  I must return to the balloons.  Why
+did the bleeding man start out of them?  Never mind; if I inquire, he
+will be back again.  The balloons.  This particular public have
+inherently a great pleasure in the contemplation of physical difficulties
+overcome; mainly, as I take it, because the lives of a large majority of
+them are exceedingly monotonous and real, and further, are a struggle
+against continual difficulties, and further still, because anything in
+the form of accidental injury, or any kind of illness or disability is so
+very serious in their own sphere.  I will explain this seeming paradox of
+mine.  Take the case of a Christmas Pantomime.  Surely nobody supposes
+that the young mother in the pit who falls into fits of laughter when the
+baby is boiled or sat upon, would be at all diverted by such an
+occurrence off the stage.  Nor is the decent workman in the gallery, who
+is transported beyond the ignorant present by the delight with which he
+sees a stout gentleman pushed out of a two pair of stairs window, to be
+slandered by the suspicion that he would be in the least entertained by
+such a spectacle in any street in London, Paris, or New York.  It always
+appears to me that the secret of this enjoyment lies in the temporary
+superiority to the common hazards and mischances of life; in seeing
+casualties, attended when they really occur with bodily and mental
+suffering, tears, and poverty, happen through a very rough sort of poetry
+without the least harm being done to any one—the pretence of distress in
+a pantomime being so broadly humorous as to be no pretence at all.  Much
+as in the comic fiction I can understand the mother with a very
+vulnerable baby at home, greatly relishing the invulnerable baby on the
+stage, so in the Cremorne reality I can understand the mason who is
+always liable to fall off a scaffold in his working jacket and to be
+carried to the hospital, having an infinite admiration of the radiant
+personage in spangles who goes into the clouds upon a bull, or upside
+down, and who, he takes it for granted—not reflecting upon the thing—has,
+by uncommon skill and dexterity, conquered such mischances as those to
+which he and his acquaintance are continually exposed.
+
+I wish the Morgue in Paris would not come here as I lie awake, with its
+ghastly beds, and the swollen saturated clothes hanging up, and the water
+dripping, dripping all day long, upon that other swollen saturated
+something in the corner, like a heap of crushed over-ripe figs that I
+have seen in Italy!  And this detestable Morgue comes back again at the
+head of a procession of forgotten ghost stories.  This will never do.  I
+must think of something else as I lie awake; or, like that sagacious
+animal in the United States who recognised the colonel who was such a
+dead shot, I am a gone ’Coon.  What shall I think of?  The late brutal
+assaults.  Very good subject.  The late brutal assaults.
+
+(Though whether, supposing I should see, here before me as I lie awake,
+the awful phantom described in one of those ghost stories, who, with a
+head-dress of shroud, was always seen looking in through a certain glass
+door at a certain dead hour—whether, in such a case it would be the least
+consolation to me to know on philosophical grounds that it was merely my
+imagination, is a question I can’t help asking myself by the way.)
+
+The late brutal assaults.  I strongly question the expediency of
+advocating the revival of whipping for those crimes.  It is a natural and
+generous impulse to be indignant at the perpetration of inconceivable
+brutality, but I doubt the whipping panacea gravely.  Not in the least
+regard or pity for the criminal, whom I hold in far lower estimation than
+a mad wolf, but in consideration for the general tone and feeling, which
+is very much improved since the whipping times.  It is bad for a people
+to be familiarised with such punishments.  When the whip went out of
+Bridewell, and ceased to be flourished at the carts tail and at the
+whipping-post, it began to fade out of madhouses, and workhouses, and
+schools and families, and to give place to a better system everywhere,
+than cruel driving.  It would be hasty, because a few brutes may be
+inadequately punished, to revive, in any aspect, what, in so many
+aspects, society is hardly yet happily rid of.  The whip is a very
+contagious kind of thing, and difficult to confine within one set of
+bounds.  Utterly abolish punishment by fine—a barbarous device, quite as
+much out of date as wager by battle, but particularly connected in the
+vulgar mind with this class of offence—at least quadruple the term of
+imprisonment for aggravated assaults—and above all let us, in such cases,
+have no Pet Prisoning, vain glorifying, strong soup, and roasted meats,
+but hard work, and one unchanging and uncompromising dietary of bread and
+water, well or ill; and we shall do much better than by going down into
+the dark to grope for the whip among the rusty fragments of the rack, and
+the branding iron, and the chains and gibbet from the public roads, and
+the weights that pressed men to death in the cells of Newgate.
+
+I had proceeded thus far, when I found I had been lying awake so long
+that the very dead began to wake too, and to crowd into my thoughts most
+sorrowfully.  Therefore, I resolved to lie awake no more, but to get up
+and go out for a night walk—which resolution was an acceptable relief to
+me, as I dare say it may prove now to a great many more.
+
+
+
+
+THE GHOST OF ART
+
+
+I AM a bachelor, residing in rather a dreary set of chambers in the
+Temple.  They are situated in a square court of high houses, which would
+be a complete well, but for the want of water and the absence of a
+bucket.  I live at the top of the house, among the tiles and sparrows.
+Like the little man in the nursery-story, I live by myself, and all the
+bread and cheese I get—which is not much—I put upon a shelf.  I need
+scarcely add, perhaps, that I am in love, and that the father of my
+charming Julia objects to our union.
+
+I mention these little particulars as I might deliver a letter of
+introduction.  The reader is now acquainted with me, and perhaps will
+condescend to listen to my narrative.
+
+I am naturally of a dreamy turn of mind; and my abundant leisure—for I am
+called to the Bar—coupled with much lonely listening to the twittering of
+sparrows, and the pattering of rain, has encouraged that disposition.  In
+my ‘top set’ I hear the wind howl on a winter night, when the man on the
+ground floor believes it is perfectly still weather.  The dim lamps with
+which our Honourable Society (supposed to be as yet unconscious of the
+new discovery called Gas) make the horrors of the staircase visible,
+deepen the gloom which generally settles on my soul when I go home at
+night.
+
+I am in the Law, but not of it.  I can’t exactly make out what it means.
+I sit in Westminster Hall sometimes (in character) from ten to four; and
+when I go out of Court, I don’t know whether I am standing on my wig or
+my boots.
+
+It appears to me (I mention this in confidence) as if there were too much
+talk and too much law—as if some grains of truth were started overboard
+into a tempestuous sea of chaff.
+
+All this may make me mystical.  Still, I am confident that what I am
+going to describe myself as having seen and heard, I actually did see and
+hear.
+
+It is necessary that I should observe that I have a great delight in
+pictures.  I am no painter myself, but I have studied pictures and
+written about them.  I have seen all the most famous pictures in the
+world; my education and reading have been sufficiently general to possess
+me beforehand with a knowledge of most of the subjects to which a Painter
+is likely to have recourse; and, although I might be in some doubt as to
+the rightful fashion of the scabbard of King Lear’s sword, for instance,
+I think I should know King Lear tolerably well, if I happened to meet
+with him.
+
+I go to all the Modern Exhibitions every season, and of course I revere
+the Royal Academy.  I stand by its forty Academical articles almost as
+firmly as I stand by the thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England.
+I am convinced that in neither case could there be, by any rightful
+possibility, one article more or less.
+
+It is now exactly three years—three years ago, this very month—since I
+went from Westminster to the Temple, one Thursday afternoon, in a cheap
+steamboat.  The sky was black, when I imprudently walked on board.  It
+began to thunder and lighten immediately afterwards, and the rain poured
+down in torrents.  The deck seeming to smoke with the wet, I went below;
+but so many passengers were there, smoking too, that I came up again, and
+buttoning my pea-coat, and standing in the shadow of the paddle-box,
+stood as upright as I could, and made the best of it.
+
+It was at this moment that I first beheld the terrible Being, who is the
+subject of my present recollections.
+
+Standing against the funnel, apparently with the intention of drying
+himself by the heat as fast as he got wet, was a shabby man in threadbare
+black, and with his hands in his pockets, who fascinated me from the
+memorable instant when I caught his eye.
+
+Where had I caught that eye before?  Who was he?  Why did I connect him,
+all at once, with the Vicar of Wakefield, Alfred the Great, Gil Blas,
+Charles the Second, Joseph and his Brethren, the Fairy Queen, Tom Jones,
+the Decameron of Boccaccio, Tam O’Shanter, the Marriage of the Doge of
+Venice with the Adriatic, and the Great Plague of London?  Why, when he
+bent one leg, and placed one hand upon the back of the seat near him, did
+my mind associate him wildly with the words, ‘Number one hundred and
+forty-two, Portrait of a gentleman’?  Could it be that I was going mad?
+
+I looked at him again, and now I could have taken my affidavit that he
+belonged to the Vicar of Wakefield’s family.  Whether he was the Vicar,
+or Moses, or Mr. Burchill, or the Squire, or a conglomeration of all
+four, I knew not; but I was impelled to seize him by the throat, and
+charge him with being, in some fell way, connected with the Primrose
+blood.  He looked up at the rain, and then—oh Heaven!—he became Saint
+John.  He folded his arms, resigning himself to the weather, and I was
+frantically inclined to address him as the Spectator, and firmly demand
+to know what he had done with Sir Roger de Coverley.
+
+The frightful suspicion that I was becoming deranged, returned upon me
+with redoubled force.  Meantime, this awful stranger, inexplicably linked
+to my distress, stood drying himself at the funnel; and ever, as the
+steam rose from his clothes, diffusing a mist around him, I saw through
+the ghostly medium all the people I have mentioned, and a score more,
+sacred and profane.
+
+I am conscious of a dreadful inclination that stole upon me, as it
+thundered and lightened, to grapple with this man, or demon, and plunge
+him over the side.  But, I constrained myself—I know not how—to speak to
+him, and in a pause of the storm, I crossed the deck, and said:
+
+‘What are you?’
+
+He replied, hoarsely, ‘A Model.’
+
+‘A what?’ said I.
+
+‘A Model,’ he replied.  ‘I sets to the profession for a bob a-hour.’
+(All through this narrative I give his own words, which are indelibly
+imprinted on my memory.)
+
+The relief which this disclosure gave me, the exquisite delight of the
+restoration of my confidence in my own sanity, I cannot describe.  I
+should have fallen on his neck, but for the consciousness of being
+observed by the man at the wheel.
+
+‘You then,’ said I, shaking him so warmly by the hand, that I wrung the
+rain out of his coat-cuff, ‘are the gentleman whom I have so frequently
+contemplated, in connection with a high-backed chair with a red cushion,
+and a table with twisted legs.’
+
+‘I am that Model,’ he rejoined moodily, ‘and I wish I was anything else.’
+
+‘Say not so,’ I returned.  ‘I have seen you in the society of many
+beautiful young women;’ as in truth I had, and always (I now remember) in
+the act of making the most of his legs.
+
+‘No doubt,’ said he.  ‘And you’ve seen me along with warses of flowers,
+and any number of table-kivers, and antique cabinets, and warious
+gammon.’
+
+‘Sir?’ said I.
+
+‘And warious gammon,’ he repeated, in a louder voice.  ‘You might have
+seen me in armour, too, if you had looked sharp.  Blessed if I ha’n’t
+stood in half the suits of armour as ever came out of Pratt’s shop: and
+sat, for weeks together, a-eating nothing, out of half the gold and
+silver dishes as has ever been lent for the purpose out of Storrses, and
+Mortimerses, or Garrardses, and Davenportseseses.’
+
+Excited, as it appeared, by a sense of injury, I thought he would never
+have found an end for the last word.  But, at length it rolled sullenly
+away with the thunder.
+
+‘Pardon me,’ said I, ‘you are a well-favoured, well-made man, and
+yet—forgive me—I find, on examining my mind, that I associate you
+with—that my recollection indistinctly makes you, in short—excuse me—a
+kind of powerful monster.’
+
+‘It would be a wonder if it didn’t,’ he said.  ‘Do you know what my
+points are?’
+
+‘No,’ said I.
+
+‘My throat and my legs,’ said he.  ‘When I don’t set for a head, I mostly
+sets for a throat and a pair of legs.  Now, granted you was a painter,
+and was to work at my throat for a week together, I suppose you’d see a
+lot of lumps and bumps there, that would never be there at all, if you
+looked at me, complete, instead of only my throat.  Wouldn’t you?’
+
+‘Probably,’ said I, surveying him.
+
+‘Why, it stands to reason,’ said the Model.  ‘Work another week at my
+legs, and it’ll be the same thing.  You’ll make ’em out as knotty and as
+knobby, at last, as if they was the trunks of two old trees.  Then, take
+and stick my legs and throat on to another man’s body, and you’ll make a
+reg’lar monster.  And that’s the way the public gets their reg’lar
+monsters, every first Monday in May, when the Royal Academy Exhibition
+opens.’
+
+‘You are a critic,’ said I, with an air of deference.
+
+‘I’m in an uncommon ill humour, if that’s it,’ rejoined the Model, with
+great indignation.  ‘As if it warn’t bad enough for a bob a-hour, for a
+man to be mixing himself up with that there jolly old furniter that one
+‘ud think the public know’d the wery nails in by this time—or to be
+putting on greasy old ‘ats and cloaks, and playing tambourines in the Bay
+o’ Naples, with Wesuvius a smokin’ according to pattern in the
+background, and the wines a bearing wonderful in the middle distance—or
+to be unpolitely kicking up his legs among a lot o’ gals, with no reason
+whatever in his mind but to show ’em—as if this warn’t bad enough, I’m to
+go and be thrown out of employment too!’
+
+‘Surely no!’ said I.
+
+‘Surely yes,’ said the indignant Model.  ‘BUT I’LL GROW ONE.’
+
+The gloomy and threatening manner in which he muttered the last words,
+can never be effaced from my remembrance.  My blood ran cold.
+
+I asked of myself, what was it that this desperate Being was resolved to
+grow.  My breast made no response.
+
+I ventured to implore him to explain his meaning.  With a scornful laugh,
+he uttered this dark prophecy:
+
+‘I’LL GROW ONE.  AND, MARK MY WORDS, IT SHALL HAUNT YOU!’
+
+We parted in the storm, after I had forced half-a-crown on his
+acceptance, with a trembling hand.  I conclude that something
+supernatural happened to the steamboat, as it bore his reeking figure
+down the river; but it never got into the papers.
+
+Two years elapsed, during which I followed my profession without any
+vicissitudes; never holding so much as a motion, of course.  At the
+expiration of that period, I found myself making my way home to the
+Temple, one night, in precisely such another storm of thunder and
+lightning as that by which I had been overtaken on board the
+steamboat—except that this storm, bursting over the town at midnight, was
+rendered much more awful by the darkness and the hour.
+
+As I turned into my court, I really thought a thunderbolt would fall, and
+plough the pavement up.  Every brick and stone in the place seemed to
+have an echo of its own for the thunder.  The waterspouts were
+overcharged, and the rain came tearing down from the house-tops as if
+they had been mountain-tops.
+
+Mrs. Parkins, my laundress—wife of Parkins the porter, then newly dead of
+a dropsy—had particular instructions to place a bedroom candle and a
+match under the staircase lamp on my landing, in order that I might light
+my candle there, whenever I came home.  Mrs. Parkins invariably
+disregarding all instructions, they were never there.  Thus it happened
+that on this occasion I groped my way into my sitting-room to find the
+candle, and came out to light it.
+
+What were my emotions when, underneath the staircase lamp, shining with
+wet as if he had never been dry since our last meeting, stood the
+mysterious Being whom I had encountered on the steamboat in a
+thunderstorm, two years before!  His prediction rushed upon my mind, and
+I turned faint.
+
+‘I said I’d do it,’ he observed, in a hollow voice, ‘and I have done it.
+May I come in?’
+
+‘Misguided creature, what have you done?’ I returned.
+
+‘I’ll let you know,’ was his reply, ‘if you’ll let me in.’
+
+Could it be murder that he had done?  And had he been so successful that
+he wanted to do it again, at my expense?
+
+I hesitated.
+
+‘May I come in?’ said he.
+
+I inclined my head, with as much presence of mind as I could command, and
+he followed me into my chambers.  There, I saw that the lower part of his
+face was tied up, in what is commonly called a Belcher handkerchief.  He
+slowly removed this bandage, and exposed to view a long dark beard,
+curling over his upper lip, twisting about the corners of his mouth, and
+hanging down upon his breast.
+
+‘What is this?’ I exclaimed involuntarily, ‘and what have you become?’
+
+‘I am the Ghost of Art!’ said he.
+
+The effect of these words, slowly uttered in the thunder-storm at
+midnight, was appalling in the last degree.  More dead than alive, I
+surveyed him in silence.
+
+‘The German taste came up,’ said he, ‘and threw me out of bread.  I am
+ready for the taste now.’
+
+He made his beard a little jagged with his hands, folded his arms, and
+said,
+
+‘Severity!’
+
+I shuddered.  It was so severe.
+
+He made his beard flowing on his breast, and, leaning both hands on the
+staff of a carpet-broom which Mrs. Parkins had left among my books, said:
+
+‘Benevolence.’
+
+I stood transfixed.  The change of sentiment was entirely in the beard.
+The man might have left his face alone, or had no face.
+
+The beard did everything.
+
+He lay down, on his back, on my table, and with that action of his head
+threw up his beard at the chin.
+
+‘That’s death!’ said he.
+
+He got off my table and, looking up at the ceiling, cocked his beard a
+little awry; at the same time making it stick out before him.
+
+‘Adoration, or a vow of vengeance,’ he observed.
+
+He turned his profile to me, making his upper lip very bulky with the
+upper part of his beard.
+
+‘Romantic character,’ said he.
+
+He looked sideways out of his beard, as if it were an ivy-bush.
+‘Jealousy,’ said he.  He gave it an ingenious twist in the air, and
+informed me that he was carousing.  He made it shaggy with his
+fingers—and it was Despair; lank—and it was avarice: tossed it all kinds
+of ways—and it was rage.  The beard did everything.
+
+‘I am the Ghost of Art,’ said he.  ‘Two bob a-day now, and more when it’s
+longer!  Hair’s the true expression.  There is no other.  I SAID I’D GROW
+IT, AND I’VE GROWN IT, AND IT SHALL HAUNT YOU!’
+
+He may have tumbled down-stairs in the dark, but he never walked down or
+ran down.  I looked over the banisters, and I was alone with the thunder.
+
+Need I add more of my terrific fate?  IT HAS haunted me ever since.  It
+glares upon me from the walls of the Royal Academy, (except when MACLISE
+subdues it to his genius,) it fills my soul with terror at the British
+Institution, it lures young artists on to their destruction.  Go where I
+will, the Ghost of Art, eternally working the passions in hair, and
+expressing everything by beard, pursues me.  The prediction is
+accomplished, and the victim has no rest.
+
+
+
+
+OUT OF TOWN
+
+
+SITTING, on a bright September morning, among my books and papers at my
+open window on the cliff overhanging the sea-beach, I have the sky and
+ocean framed before me like a beautiful picture.  A beautiful picture,
+but with such movement in it, such changes of light upon the sails of
+ships and wake of steamboats, such dazzling gleams of silver far out at
+sea, such fresh touches on the crisp wave-tops as they break and roll
+towards me—a picture with such music in the billowy rush upon the
+shingle, the blowing of morning wind through the corn-sheaves where the
+farmers’ waggons are busy, the singing of the larks, and the distant
+voices of children at play—such charms of sight and sound as all the
+Galleries on earth can but poorly suggest.
+
+So dreamy is the murmur of the sea below my window, that I may have been
+here, for anything I know, one hundred years.  Not that I have grown old,
+for, daily on the neighbouring downs and grassy hill-sides, I find that I
+can still in reason walk any distance, jump over anything, and climb up
+anywhere; but, that the sound of the ocean seems to have become so
+customary to my musings, and other realities seem so to have gone aboard
+ship and floated away over the horizon, that, for aught I will undertake
+to the contrary, I am the enchanted son of the King my father, shut up in
+a tower on the sea-shore, for protection against an old she-goblin who
+insisted on being my godmother, and who foresaw at the font—wonderful
+creature!—that I should get into a scrape before I was twenty-one.  I
+remember to have been in a City (my Royal parent’s dominions, I suppose),
+and apparently not long ago either, that was in the dreariest condition.
+The principal inhabitants had all been changed into old newspapers, and
+in that form were preserving their window-blinds from dust, and wrapping
+all their smaller household gods in curl-papers.  I walked through gloomy
+streets where every house was shut up and newspapered, and where my
+solitary footsteps echoed on the deserted pavements.  In the public rides
+there were no carriages, no horses, no animated existence, but a few
+sleepy policemen, and a few adventurous boys taking advantage of the
+devastation to swarm up the lamp-posts.  In the Westward streets there
+was no traffic; in the Westward shops, no business.  The water-patterns
+which the ’Prentices had trickled out on the pavements early in the
+morning, remained uneffaced by human feet.  At the corners of mews,
+Cochin-China fowls stalked gaunt and savage; nobody being left in the
+deserted city (as it appeared to me), to feed them.  Public Houses, where
+splendid footmen swinging their legs over gorgeous hammer-cloths beside
+wigged coachmen were wont to regale, were silent, and the unused pewter
+pots shone, too bright for business, on the shelves.  I beheld a Punch’s
+Show leaning against a wall near Park Lane, as if it had fainted.  It was
+deserted, and there were none to heed its desolation.  In Belgrave Square
+I met the last man—an ostler—sitting on a post in a ragged red waistcoat,
+eating straw, and mildewing away.
+
+If I recollect the name of the little town, on whose shore this sea is
+murmuring—but I am not just now, as I have premised, to be relied upon
+for anything—it is Pavilionstone.  Within a quarter of a century, it was
+a little fishing town, and they do say, that the time was, when it was a
+little smuggling town.  I have heard that it was rather famous in the
+hollands and brandy way, and that coevally with that reputation the
+lamplighter’s was considered a bad life at the Assurance Offices.  It was
+observed that if he were not particular about lighting up, he lived in
+peace; but that, if he made the best of the oil-lamps in the steep and
+narrow streets, he usually fell over the cliff at an early age.  Now, gas
+and electricity run to the very water’s edge, and the South-Eastern
+Railway Company screech at us in the dead of night.
+
+But, the old little fishing and smuggling town remains, and is so
+tempting a place for the latter purpose, that I think of going out some
+night next week, in a fur cap and a pair of petticoat trousers, and
+running an empty tub, as a kind of archæological pursuit.  Let nobody
+with corns come to Pavilionstone, for there are breakneck flights of
+ragged steps, connecting the principal streets by back-ways, which will
+cripple that visitor in half an hour.  These are the ways by which, when
+I run that tub, I shall escape.  I shall make a Thermopylæ of the corner
+of one of them, defend it with my cutlass against the coast-guard until
+my brave companions have sheered off, then dive into the darkness, and
+regain my Susan’s arms.  In connection with these breakneck steps I
+observe some wooden cottages, with tumble-down out-houses, and back-yards
+three feet square, adorned with garlands of dried fish, in one of which
+(though the General Board of Health might object) my Susan dwells.
+
+The South-Eastern Company have brought Pavilionstone into such vogue,
+with their tidal trains and splendid steam-packets, that a new
+Pavilionstone is rising up.  I am, myself, of New Pavilionstone.  We are
+a little mortary and limey at present, but we are getting on capitally.
+Indeed, we were getting on so fast, at one time, that we rather overdid
+it, and built a street of shops, the business of which may be expected to
+arrive in about ten years.  We are sensibly laid out in general; and with
+a little care and pains (by no means wanting, so far), shall become a
+very pretty place.  We ought to be, for our situation is delightful, our
+air is delicious, and our breezy hills and downs, carpeted with wild
+thyme, and decorated with millions of wild flowers, are, on the faith of
+a pedestrian, perfect.  In New Pavilionstone we are a little too much
+addicted to small windows with more bricks in them than glass, and we are
+not over-fanciful in the way of decorative architecture, and we get
+unexpected sea-views through cracks in the street doors; on the whole,
+however, we are very snug and comfortable, and well accommodated.  But
+the Home Secretary (if there be such an officer) cannot too soon shut up
+the burial-ground of the old parish church.  It is in the midst of us,
+and Pavilionstone will get no good of it, if it be too long left alone.
+
+The lion of Pavilionstone is its Great Hotel.  A dozen years ago, going
+over to Paris by South-Eastern Tidal Steamer, you used to be dropped upon
+the platform of the main line Pavilionstone Station (not a junction
+then), at eleven o’clock on a dark winter’s night, in a roaring wind; and
+in the howling wilderness outside the station, was a short omnibus which
+brought you up by the forehead the instant you got in at the door; and
+nobody cared about you, and you were alone in the world.  You bumped over
+infinite chalk, until you were turned out at a strange building which had
+just left off being a barn without having quite begun to be a house,
+where nobody expected your coming, or knew what to do with you when you
+were come, and where you were usually blown about, until you happened to
+be blown against the cold beef, and finally into bed.  At five in the
+morning you were blown out of bed, and after a dreary breakfast, with
+crumpled company, in the midst of confusion, were hustled on board a
+steamboat and lay wretched on deck until you saw France lunging and
+surging at you with great vehemence over the bowsprit.
+
+Now, you come down to Pavilionstone in a free and easy manner, an
+irresponsible agent, made over in trust to the South-Eastern Company,
+until you get out of the railway-carriage at high-water mark.  If you are
+crossing by the boat at once, you have nothing to do but walk on board
+and be happy there if you can—I can’t.  If you are going to our Great
+Pavilionstone Hotel, the sprightliest porters under the sun, whose
+cheerful looks are a pleasant welcome, shoulder your luggage, drive it
+off in vans, bowl it away in trucks, and enjoy themselves in playing
+athletic games with it.  If you are for public life at our great
+Pavilionstone Hotel, you walk into that establishment as if it were your
+club; and find ready for you, your news-room, dining-room, smoking-room,
+billiard-room, music-room, public breakfast, public dinner twice a-day
+(one plain, one gorgeous), hot baths and cold baths.  If you want to be
+bored, there are plenty of bores always ready for you, and from Saturday
+to Monday in particular, you can be bored (if you like it) through and
+through.  Should you want to be private at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel,
+say but the word, look at the list of charges, choose your floor, name
+your figure—there you are, established in your castle, by the day, week,
+month, or year, innocent of all comers or goers, unless you have my fancy
+for walking early in the morning down the groves of boots and shoes,
+which so regularly flourish at all the chamber-doors before breakfast,
+that it seems to me as if nobody ever got up or took them in.  Are you
+going across the Alps, and would you like to air your Italian at our
+Great Pavilionstone Hotel?  Talk to the Manager—always conversational,
+accomplished, and polite.  Do you want to be aided, abetted, comforted,
+or advised, at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel?  Send for the good
+landlord, and he is your friend.  Should you, or any one belonging to
+you, ever be taken ill at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel, you will not
+soon forget him or his kind wife.  And when you pay your bill at our
+Great Pavilionstone Hotel, you will not be put out of humour by anything
+you find in it.
+
+A thoroughly good inn, in the days of coaching and posting, was a noble
+place.  But no such inn would have been equal to the reception of four or
+five hundred people, all of them wet through, and half of them dead sick,
+every day in the year.  This is where we shine, in our Pavilionstone
+Hotel.  Again—who, coming and going, pitching and tossing, boating and
+training, hurrying in, and flying out, could ever have calculated the
+fees to be paid at an old-fashioned house?  In our Pavilionstone Hotel
+vocabulary, there is no such word as fee.  Everything is done for you;
+every service is provided at a fixed and reasonable charge; all the
+prices are hung up in all the rooms; and you can make out your own bill
+beforehand, as well as the book-keeper.
+
+In the case of your being a pictorial artist, desirous of studying at
+small expense the physiognomies and beards of different nations, come, on
+receipt of this, to Pavilionstone.  You shall find all the nations of the
+earth, and all the styles of shaving and not shaving, hair cutting and
+hair letting alone, for ever flowing through our hotel.  Couriers you
+shall see by hundreds; fat leathern bags for five-franc pieces, closing
+with violent snaps, like discharges of fire-arms, by thousands; more
+luggage in a morning than, fifty years ago, all Europe saw in a week.
+Looking at trains, steamboats, sick travellers, and luggage, is our great
+Pavilionstone recreation.  We are not strong in other public amusements.
+We have a Literary and Scientific Institution, and we have a Working
+Men’s Institution—may it hold many gipsy holidays in summer fields, with
+the kettle boiling, the band of music playing, and the people dancing;
+and may I be on the hill-side, looking on with pleasure at a wholesome
+sight too rare in England!—and we have two or three churches, and more
+chapels than I have yet added up.  But public amusements are scarce with
+us.  If a poor theatrical manager comes with his company to give us, in a
+loft, Mary Bax, or the Murder on the Sand Hills, we don’t care much for
+him—starve him out, in fact.  We take more kindly to wax-work, especially
+if it moves; in which case it keeps much clearer of the second
+commandment than when it is still.  Cooke’s Circus (Mr. Cooke is my
+friend, and always leaves a good name behind him) gives us only a night
+in passing through.  Nor does the travelling menagerie think us worth a
+longer visit.  It gave us a look-in the other day, bringing with it the
+residentiary van with the stained glass windows, which Her Majesty kept
+ready-made at Windsor Castle, until she found a suitable opportunity of
+submitting it for the proprietor’s acceptance.  I brought away five
+wonderments from this exhibition.  I have wondered ever since, Whether
+the beasts ever do get used to those small places of confinement; Whether
+the monkeys have that very horrible flavour in their free state; Whether
+wild animals have a natural ear for time and tune, and therefore every
+four-footed creature began to howl in despair when the band began to
+play; What the giraffe does with his neck when his cart is shut up; and,
+Whether the elephant feels ashamed of himself when he is brought out of
+his den to stand on his head in the presence of the whole Collection.
+
+We are a tidal harbour at Pavilionstone, as indeed I have implied already
+in my mention of tidal trains.  At low water, we are a heap of mud, with
+an empty channel in it where a couple of men in big boots always shovel
+and scoop: with what exact object, I am unable to say.  At that time, all
+the stranded fishing-boats turn over on their sides, as if they were dead
+marine monsters; the colliers and other shipping stick disconsolate in
+the mud; the steamers look as if their white chimneys would never smoke
+more, and their red paddles never turn again; the green sea-slime and
+weed upon the rough stones at the entrance, seem records of obsolete high
+tides never more to flow; the flagstaff-halyards droop; the very little
+wooden lighthouse shrinks in the idle glare of the sun.  And here I may
+observe of the very little wooden lighthouse, that when it is lighted at
+night,—red and green,—it looks so like a medical man’s, that several
+distracted husbands have at various times been found, on occasions of
+premature domestic anxiety, going round and round it, trying to find the
+Nightbell.
+
+But, the moment the tide begins to make, the Pavilionstone Harbour begins
+to revive.  It feels the breeze of the rising water before the water
+comes, and begins to flutter and stir.  When the little shallow waves
+creep in, barely overlapping one another, the vanes at the mastheads
+wake, and become agitated.  As the tide rises, the fishing-boats get into
+good spirits and dance, the flagstaff hoists a bright red flag, the
+steamboat smokes, cranes creak, horses and carriages dangle in the air,
+stray passengers and luggage appear.  Now, the shipping is afloat, and
+comes up buoyantly, to look at the wharf.  Now, the carts that have come
+down for coals, load away as hard as they can load.  Now, the steamer
+smokes immensely, and occasionally blows at the paddle-boxes like a
+vaporous whale-greatly disturbing nervous loungers.  Now, both the tide
+and the breeze have risen, and you are holding your hat on (if you want
+to see how the ladies hold their hats on, with a stay, passing over the
+broad brim and down the nose, come to Pavilionstone).  Now, everything in
+the harbour splashes, dashes, and bobs.  Now, the Down Tidal Train is
+telegraphed, and you know (without knowing how you know), that two
+hundred and eighty-seven people are coming.  Now, the fishing-boats that
+have been out, sail in at the top of the tide.  Now, the bell goes, and
+the locomotive hisses and shrieks, and the train comes gliding in, and
+the two hundred and eighty-seven come scuffling out.  Now, there is not
+only a tide of water, but a tide of people, and a tide of luggage—all
+tumbling and flowing and bouncing about together.  Now, after infinite
+bustle, the steamer steams out, and we (on the Pier) are all delighted
+when she rolls as if she would roll her funnel out, and all are
+disappointed when she don’t.  Now, the other steamer is coming in, and
+the Custom House prepares, and the wharf-labourers assemble, and the
+hawsers are made ready, and the Hotel Porters come rattling down with van
+and truck, eager to begin more Olympic games with more luggage.  And this
+is the way in which we go on, down at Pavilionstone, every tide.  And, if
+you want to live a life of luggage, or to see it lived, or to breathe
+sweet air which will send you to sleep at a moment’s notice at any period
+of the day or night, or to disport yourself upon or in the sea, or to
+scamper about Kent, or to come out of town for the enjoyment of all or
+any of these pleasures, come to Pavilionstone.
+
+
+
+
+OUT OF THE SEASON
+
+
+IT fell to my lot, this last bleak Spring, to find myself in a
+watering-place out of the Season.  A vicious north-east squall blew me
+into it from foreign parts, and I tarried in it alone for three days,
+resolved to be exceedingly busy.
+
+On the first day, I began business by looking for two hours at the sea,
+and staring the Foreign Militia out of countenance.  Having disposed of
+these important engagements, I sat down at one of the two windows of my
+room, intent on doing something desperate in the way of literary
+composition, and writing a chapter of unheard-of excellence—with which
+the present essay has no connexion.
+
+It is a remarkable quality in a watering-place out of the season, that
+everything in it, will and must be looked at.  I had no previous
+suspicion of this fatal truth but, the moment I sat down to write, I
+began to perceive it.  I had scarcely fallen into my most promising
+attitude, and dipped my pen in the ink, when I found the clock upon the
+pier—a red-faced clock with a white rim—importuning me in a highly
+vexatious manner to consult my watch, and see how I was off for Greenwich
+time.  Having no intention of making a voyage or taking an observation, I
+had not the least need of Greenwich time, and could have put up with
+watering-place time as a sufficiently accurate article.  The pier-clock,
+however, persisting, I felt it necessary to lay down my pen, compare my
+watch with him, and fall into a grave solicitude about half-seconds.  I
+had taken up my pen again, and was about to commence that valuable
+chapter, when a Custom-house cutter under the window requested that I
+would hold a naval review of her, immediately.
+
+It was impossible, under the circumstances, for any mental resolution,
+merely human, to dismiss the Custom-house cutter, because the shadow of
+her topmast fell upon my paper, and the vane played on the masterly blank
+chapter.  I was therefore under the necessity of going to the other
+window; sitting astride of the chair there, like Napoleon bivouacking in
+the print; and inspecting the cutter as she lay, all that day, in the way
+of my chapter, O!  She was rigged to carry a quantity of canvas, but her
+hull was so very small that four giants aboard of her (three men and a
+boy) who were vigilantly scraping at her, all together, inspired me with
+a terror lest they should scrape her away.  A fifth giant, who appeared
+to consider himself ‘below’—as indeed he was, from the waist
+downwards—meditated, in such close proximity with the little gusty
+chimney-pipe, that he seemed to be smoking it.  Several boys looked on
+from the wharf, and, when the gigantic attention appeared to be fully
+occupied, one or other of these would furtively swing himself in mid-air
+over the Custom-house cutter, by means of a line pendant from her
+rigging, like a young spirit of the storm.  Presently, a sixth hand
+brought down two little water-casks; presently afterwards, a truck came,
+and delivered a hamper.  I was now under an obligation to consider that
+the cutter was going on a cruise, and to wonder where she was going, and
+when she was going, and why she was going, and at what date she might be
+expected back, and who commanded her?  With these pressing questions I
+was fully occupied when the Packet, making ready to go across, and
+blowing off her spare steam, roared, ‘Look at me!’
+
+It became a positive duty to look at the Packet preparing to go across;
+aboard of which, the people newly come down by the rail-road were
+hurrying in a great fluster.  The crew had got their tarry overalls
+on—and one knew what that meant—not to mention the white basins, ranged
+in neat little piles of a dozen each, behind the door of the after-cabin.
+One lady as I looked, one resigning and far-seeing woman, took her basin
+from the store of crockery, as she might have taken a refreshment-ticket,
+laid herself down on deck with that utensil at her ear, muffled her feet
+in one shawl, solemnly covered her countenance after the antique manner
+with another, and on the completion of these preparations appeared by the
+strength of her volition to become insensible.  The mail-bags (O that I
+myself had the sea-legs of a mail-bag!) were tumbled aboard; the Packet
+left off roaring, warped out, and made at the white line upon the bar.
+One dip, one roll, one break of the sea over her bows, and Moore’s
+Almanack or the sage Raphael could not have told me more of the state of
+things aboard, than I knew.
+
+The famous chapter was all but begun now, and would have been quite
+begun, but for the wind.  It was blowing stiffly from the east, and it
+rumbled in the chimney and shook the house.  That was not much; but,
+looking out into the wind’s grey eye for inspiration, I laid down my pen
+again to make the remark to myself, how emphatically everything by the
+sea declares that it has a great concern in the state of the wind.  The
+trees blown all one way; the defences of the harbour reared highest and
+strongest against the raging point; the shingle flung up on the beach
+from the same direction; the number of arrows pointed at the common
+enemy; the sea tumbling in and rushing towards them as if it were
+inflamed by the sight.  This put it in my head that I really ought to go
+out and take a walk in the wind; so, I gave up the magnificent chapter
+for that day, entirely persuading myself that I was under a moral
+obligation to have a blow.
+
+I had a good one, and that on the high road—the very high road—on the top
+of the cliffs, where I met the stage-coach with all the outsides holding
+their hats on and themselves too, and overtook a flock of sheep with the
+wool about their necks blown into such great ruffs that they looked like
+fleecy owls.  The wind played upon the lighthouse as if it were a great
+whistle, the spray was driven over the sea in a cloud of haze, the ships
+rolled and pitched heavily, and at intervals long slants and flaws of
+light made mountain-steeps of communication between the ocean and the
+sky.  A walk of ten miles brought me to a seaside town without a cliff,
+which, like the town I had come from, was out of the season too.  Half of
+the houses were shut up; half of the other half were to let; the town
+might have done as much business as it was doing then, if it had been at
+the bottom of the sea.  Nobody seemed to flourish save the attorney; his
+clerk’s pen was going in the bow-window of his wooden house; his brass
+door-plate alone was free from salt, and had been polished up that
+morning.  On the beach, among the rough buggers and capstans, groups of
+storm-beaten boatmen, like a sort of marine monsters, watched under the
+lee of those objects, or stood leaning forward against the wind, looking
+out through battered spy-glasses.  The parlour bell in the Admiral Benbow
+had grown so flat with being out of the season, that neither could I hear
+it ring when I pulled the handle for lunch, nor could the young woman in
+black stockings and strong shoes, who acted as waiter out of the season,
+until it had been tinkled three times.
+
+Admiral Benbow’s cheese was out of the season, but his home-made bread
+was good, and his beer was perfect.  Deluded by some earlier spring day
+which had been warm and sunny, the Admiral had cleared the firing out of
+his parlour stove, and had put some flower-pots in—which was amiable and
+hopeful in the Admiral, but not judicious: the room being, at that
+present visiting, transcendantly cold.  I therefore took the liberty of
+peeping out across a little stone passage into the Admiral’s kitchen,
+and, seeing a high settle with its back towards me drawn out in front of
+the Admiral’s kitchen fire, I strolled in, bread and cheese in hand,
+munching and looking about.  One landsman and two boatmen were seated on
+the settle, smoking pipes and drinking beer out of thick pint crockery
+mugs—mugs peculiar to such places, with parti-coloured rings round them,
+and ornaments between the rings like frayed-out roots.  The landsman was
+relating his experience, as yet only three nights old, of a fearful
+running-down case in the Channel, and therein presented to my imagination
+a sound of music that it will not soon forget.
+
+‘At that identical moment of time,’ said he (he was a prosy man by
+nature, who rose with his subject), ‘the night being light and calm, but
+with a grey mist upon the water that didn’t seem to spread for more than
+two or three mile, I was walking up and down the wooden causeway next the
+pier, off where it happened, along with a friend of mine, which his name
+is Mr. Clocker.  Mr. Clocker is a grocer over yonder.’  (From the
+direction in which he pointed the bowl of his pipe, I might have judged
+Mr. Clocker to be a merman, established in the grocery trade in
+five-and-twenty fathoms of water.)  ‘We were smoking our pipes, and
+walking up and down the causeway, talking of one thing and talking of
+another.  We were quite alone there, except that a few hovellers’ (the
+Kentish name for ‘long-shore boatmen like his companions) ‘were hanging
+about their lugs, waiting while the tide made, as hovellers will.’  (One
+of the two boatmen, thoughtfully regarding me, shut up one eye; this I
+understood to mean: first, that he took me into the conversation:
+secondly, that he confirmed the proposition: thirdly, that he announced
+himself as a hoveller.)  ‘All of a sudden Mr. Clocker and me stood rooted
+to the spot, by hearing a sound come through the stillness, right over
+the sea, _like a great sorrowful flute or Æolian harp_.  We didn’t in the
+least know what it was, and judge of our surprise when we saw the
+hovellers, to a man, leap into the boats and tear about to hoist sail and
+get off, as if they had every one of ’em gone, in a moment, raving mad!
+But _they_ knew it was the cry of distress from the sinking emigrant
+ship.’
+
+When I got back to my watering-place out of the season, and had done my
+twenty miles in good style, I found that the celebrated Black Mesmerist
+intended favouring the public that evening in the Hall of the Muses,
+which he had engaged for the purpose.  After a good dinner, seated by the
+fire in an easy chair, I began to waver in a design I had formed of
+waiting on the Black Mesmerist, and to incline towards the expediency of
+remaining where I was.  Indeed a point of gallantry was involved in my
+doing so, inasmuch as I had not left France alone, but had come from the
+prisons of St. Pélagie with my distinguished and unfortunate friend
+Madame Roland (in two volumes which I bought for two francs each, at the
+book-stall in the Place de la Concorde, Paris, at the corner of the Rue
+Royale).  Deciding to pass the evening tête-à-tête with Madame Roland, I
+derived, as I always do, great pleasure from that spiritual woman’s
+society, and the charms of her brave soul and engaging conversation.  I
+must confess that if she had only some more faults, only a few more
+passionate failings of any kind, I might love her better; but I am
+content to believe that the deficiency is in me, and not in her.  We
+spent some sadly interesting hours together on this occasion, and she
+told me again of her cruel discharge from the Abbaye, and of her being
+re-arrested before her free feet had sprung lightly up half-a-dozen steps
+of her own staircase, and carried off to the prison which she only left
+for the guillotine.
+
+Madame Roland and I took leave of one another before mid-night, and I
+went to bed full of vast intentions for next day, in connexion with the
+unparalleled chapter.  To hear the foreign mail-steamers coming in at
+dawn of day, and to know that I was not aboard or obliged to get up, was
+very comfortable; so, I rose for the chapter in great force.
+
+I had advanced so far as to sit down at my window again on my second
+morning, and to write the first half-line of the chapter and strike it
+out, not liking it, when my conscience reproached me with not having
+surveyed the watering-place out of the season, after all, yesterday, but
+with having gone straight out of it at the rate of four miles and a half
+an hour.  Obviously the best amends that I could make for this remissness
+was to go and look at it without another moment’s delay.  So—altogether
+as a matter of duty—I gave up the magnificent chapter for another day,
+and sauntered out with my hands in my pockets.
+
+All the houses and lodgings ever let to visitors, were to let that
+morning.  It seemed to have snowed bills with To Let upon them.  This put
+me upon thinking what the owners of all those apartments did, out of the
+season; how they employed their time, and occupied their minds.  They
+could not be always going to the Methodist chapels, of which I passed one
+every other minute.  They must have some other recreation.  Whether they
+pretended to take one another’s lodgings, and opened one another’s
+tea-caddies in fun?  Whether they cut slices off their own beef and
+mutton, and made believe that it belonged to somebody else?  Whether they
+played little dramas of life, as children do, and said, ‘I ought to come
+and look at your apartments, and you ought to ask two guineas a-week too
+much, and then I ought to say I must have the rest of the day to think of
+it, and then you ought to say that another lady and gentleman with no
+children in family had made an offer very close to your own terms, and
+you had passed your word to give them a positive answer in half an hour,
+and indeed were just going to take the bill down when you heard the
+knock, and then I ought to take them, you know?’  Twenty such
+speculations engaged my thoughts.  Then, after passing, still clinging to
+the walls, defaced rags of the bills of last year’s Circus, I came to a
+back field near a timber-yard where the Circus itself had been, and where
+there was yet a sort of monkish tonsure on the grass, indicating the spot
+where the young lady had gone round upon her pet steed Firefly in her
+daring flight.  Turning into the town again, I came among the shops, and
+they were emphatically out of the season.  The chemist had no boxes of
+ginger-beer powders, no beautifying sea-side soaps and washes, no
+attractive scents; nothing but his great goggle-eyed red bottles, looking
+as if the winds of winter and the drift of the salt-sea had inflamed
+them.  The grocers’ hot pickles, Harvey’s Sauce, Doctor Kitchener’s Zest,
+Anchovy Paste, Dundee Marmalade, and the whole stock of luxurious helps
+to appetite, were hybernating somewhere underground.  The china-shop had
+no trifles from anywhere.  The Bazaar had given in altogether, and
+presented a notice on the shutters that this establishment would re-open
+at Whitsuntide, and that the proprietor in the meantime might be heard of
+at Wild Lodge, East Cliff.  At the Sea-bathing Establishment, a row of
+neat little wooden houses seven or eight feet high, I saw the proprietor
+in bed in the shower-bath.  As to the bathing-machines, they were (how
+they got there, is not for me to say) at the top of a hill at least a
+mile and a half off.  The library, which I had never seen otherwise than
+wide open, was tight shut; and two peevish bald old gentlemen seemed to
+be hermetically sealed up inside, eternally reading the paper.  That
+wonderful mystery, the music-shop, carried it off as usual (except that
+it had more cabinet pianos in stock), as if season or no season were all
+one to it.  It made the same prodigious display of bright brazen
+wind-instruments, horribly twisted, worth, as I should conceive, some
+thousands of pounds, and which it is utterly impossible that anybody in
+any season can ever play or want to play.  It had five triangles in the
+window, six pairs of castanets, and three harps; likewise every polka
+with a coloured frontispiece that ever was published; from the original
+one where a smooth male and female Pole of high rank are coming at the
+observer with their arms a-kimbo, to the Ratcatcher’s Daughter.
+Astonishing establishment, amazing enigma!  Three other shops were pretty
+much out of the season, what they were used to be in it.  First, the shop
+where they sell the sailors’ watches, which had still the old collection
+of enormous timekeepers, apparently designed to break a fall from the
+masthead: with places to wind them up, like fire-plugs.  Secondly, the
+shop where they sell the sailors’ clothing, which displayed the old
+sou’-westers, and the old oily suits, and the old pea-jackets, and the
+old one sea-chest, with its handles like a pair of rope ear-rings.
+Thirdly, the unchangeable shop for the sale of literature that has been
+left behind.  Here, Dr. Faustus was still going down to very red and
+yellow perdition, under the superintendence of three green personages of
+a scaly humour, with excrescential serpents growing out of their
+blade-bones.  Here, the Golden Dreamer, and the Norwood Fortune Teller,
+were still on sale at sixpence each, with instructions for making the
+dumb cake, and reading destinies in tea-cups, and with a picture of a
+young woman with a high waist lying on a sofa in an attitude so
+uncomfortable as almost to account for her dreaming at one and the same
+time of a conflagration, a shipwreck, an earthquake, a skeleton, a
+church-porch, lightning, funerals performed, and a young man in a bright
+blue coat and canary pantaloons.  Here, were Little Warblers and
+Fairburn’s Comic Songsters.  Here, too, were ballads on the old ballad
+paper and in the old confusion of types; with an old man in a cocked hat,
+and an arm-chair, for the illustration to Will Watch the bold Smuggler;
+and the Friar of Orders Grey, represented by a little girl in a hoop,
+with a ship in the distance.  All these as of yore, when they were
+infinite delights to me!
+
+It took me so long fully to relish these many enjoyments, that I had not
+more than an hour before bedtime to devote to Madame Roland.  We got on
+admirably together on the subject of her convent education, and I rose
+next morning with the full conviction that the day for the great chapter
+was at last arrived.
+
+It had fallen calm, however, in the night, and as I sat at breakfast I
+blushed to remember that I had not yet been on the Downs.  I a walker,
+and not yet on the Downs!  Really, on so quiet and bright a morning this
+must be set right.  As an essential part of the Whole Duty of Man,
+therefore, I left the chapter to itself—for the present—and went on the
+Downs.  They were wonderfully green and beautiful, and gave me a good
+deal to do.  When I had done with the free air and the view, I had to go
+down into the valley and look after the hops (which I know nothing
+about), and to be equally solicitous as to the cherry orchards.  Then I
+took it on myself to cross-examine a tramping family in black (mother
+alleged, I have no doubt by herself in person, to have died last week),
+and to accompany eighteenpence which produced a great effect, with moral
+admonitions which produced none at all.  Finally, it was late in the
+afternoon before I got back to the unprecedented chapter, and then I
+determined that it was out of the season, as the place was, and put it
+away.
+
+I went at night to the benefit of Mrs. B. Wedgington at the Theatre, who
+had placarded the town with the admonition, ‘DON’T FORGET IT!’  I made
+the house, according to my calculation, four and ninepence to begin with,
+and it may have warmed up, in the course of the evening, to half a
+sovereign.  There was nothing to offend any one,—the good Mr. Baines of
+Leeds excepted.  Mrs. B. Wedgington sang to a grand piano.  Mr. B.
+Wedgington did the like, and also took off his coat, tucked up his
+trousers, and danced in clogs.  Master B. Wedgington, aged ten months,
+was nursed by a shivering young person in the boxes, and the eye of Mrs.
+B. Wedgington wandered that way more than once.  Peace be with all the
+Wedgingtons from A. to Z.  May they find themselves in the Season
+somewhere!
+
+
+
+
+A POOR MAN’S TALE OF A PATENT
+
+
+I AM not used to writing for print.  What working-man, that never labours
+less (some Mondays, and Christmas Time and Easter Time excepted) than
+twelve or fourteen hours a day, is?  But I have been asked to put down,
+plain, what I have got to say; and so I take pen-and-ink, and do it to
+the best of my power, hoping defects will find excuse.
+
+I was born nigh London, but have worked in a shop at Birmingham (what you
+would call Manufactories, we call Shops), almost ever since I was out of
+my time.  I served my apprenticeship at Deptford, nigh where I was born,
+and I am a smith by trade.  My name is John.  I have been called ‘Old
+John’ ever since I was nineteen year of age, on account of not having
+much hair.  I am fifty-six year of age at the present time, and I don’t
+find myself with more hair, nor yet with less, to signify, than at
+nineteen year of age aforesaid.
+
+I have been married five and thirty year, come next April.  I was married
+on All Fools’ Day.  Let them laugh that will.  I won a good wife that
+day, and it was as sensible a day to me as ever I had.
+
+We have had a matter of ten children, six whereof are living.  My eldest
+son is engineer in the Italian steam-packet ‘Mezzo Giorno, plying between
+Marseilles and Naples, and calling at Genoa, Leghorn, and Civita
+Vecchia.’  He was a good workman.  He invented a many useful little
+things that brought him in—nothing.  I have two sons doing well at
+Sydney, New South Wales—single, when last heard from.  One of my sons
+(James) went wild and for a soldier, where he was shot in India, living
+six weeks in hospital with a musket-ball lodged in his shoulder-blade,
+which he wrote with his own hand.  He was the best looking.  One of my
+two daughters (Mary) is comfortable in her circumstances, but water on
+the chest.  The other (Charlotte), her husband run away from her in the
+basest manner, and she and her three children live with us.  The
+youngest, six year old, has a turn for mechanics.
+
+I am not a Chartist, and I never was.  I don’t mean to say but what I see
+a good many public points to complain of, still I don’t think that’s the
+way to set them right.  If I did think so, I should be a Chartist.  But I
+don’t think so, and I am not a Chartist.  I read the paper, and hear
+discussion, at what we call ‘a parlour,’ in Birmingham, and I know many
+good men and workmen who are Chartists.  Note.  Not Physical force.
+
+It won’t be took as boastful in me, if I make the remark (for I can’t put
+down what I have got to say, without putting that down before going any
+further), that I have always been of an ingenious turn.  I once got
+twenty pound by a screw, and it’s in use now.  I have been twenty year,
+off and on, completing an Invention and perfecting it.  I perfected of
+it, last Christmas Eve at ten o’clock at night.  Me and my wife stood and
+let some tears fall over the Model, when it was done and I brought her in
+to take a look at it.
+
+A friend of mine, by the name of William Butcher, is a Chartist.
+Moderate.  He is a good speaker.  He is very animated.  I have often
+heard him deliver that what is, at every turn, in the way of us
+working-men, is, that too many places have been made, in the course of
+time, to provide for people that never ought to have been provided for;
+and that we have to obey forms and to pay fees to support those places
+when we shouldn’t ought.  ‘True,’ (delivers William Butcher), ‘all the
+public has to do this, but it falls heaviest on the working-man, because
+he has least to spare; and likewise because impediments shouldn’t be put
+in his way, when he wants redress of wrong or furtherance of right.’
+Note.  I have wrote down those words from William Butcher’s own mouth.
+W. B. delivering them fresh for the aforesaid purpose.
+
+Now, to my Model again.  There it was, perfected of, on Christmas Eve,
+gone nigh a year, at ten o’clock at night.  All the money I could spare I
+had laid out upon the Model; and when times was bad, or my daughter
+Charlotte’s children sickly, or both, it had stood still, months at a
+spell.  I had pulled it to pieces, and made it over again with
+improvements, I don’t know how often.  There it stood, at last, a
+perfected Model as aforesaid.
+
+William Butcher and me had a long talk, Christmas Day, respecting of the
+Model.  William is very sensible.  But sometimes cranky.  William said,
+‘What will you do with it, John?’  I said, ‘Patent it.’  William said,
+‘How patent it, John?’  I said, ‘By taking out a Patent.’  William then
+delivered that the law of Patent was a cruel wrong.  William said, ‘John,
+if you make your invention public, before you get a Patent, any one may
+rob you of the fruits of your hard work.  You are put in a cleft stick,
+John.  Either you must drive a bargain very much against yourself, by
+getting a party to come forward beforehand with the great expenses of the
+Patent; or, you must be put about, from post to pillar, among so many
+parties, trying to make a better bargain for yourself, and showing your
+invention, that your invention will be took from you over your head.’  I
+said, ‘William Butcher, are you cranky?  You are sometimes cranky.’
+William said, ‘No, John, I tell you the truth;’ which he then delivered
+more at length.  I said to W. B. I would Patent the invention myself.
+
+My wife’s brother, George Bury of West Bromwich (his wife unfortunately
+took to drinking, made away with everything, and seventeen times
+committed to Birmingham Jail before happy release in every point of
+view), left my wife, his sister, when he died, a legacy of one hundred
+and twenty-eight pound ten, Bank of England Stocks.  Me and my wife never
+broke into that money yet.  Note.  We might come to be old and past our
+work.  We now agreed to Patent the invention.  We said we would make a
+hole in it—I mean in the aforesaid money—and Patent the invention.
+William Butcher wrote me a letter to Thomas Joy, in London.  T. J. is a
+carpenter, six foot four in height, and plays quoits well.  He lives in
+Chelsea, London, by the church.  I got leave from the shop, to be took on
+again when I come back.  I am a good workman.  Not a Teetotaller; but
+never drunk.  When the Christmas holidays were over, I went up to London
+by the Parliamentary Train, and hired a lodging for a week with Thomas
+Joy.  He is married.  He has one son gone to sea.
+
+Thomas Joy delivered (from a book he had) that the first step to be took,
+in Patenting the invention, was to prepare a petition unto Queen
+Victoria.  William Butcher had delivered similar, and drawn it up.  Note.
+William is a ready writer.  A declaration before a Master in Chancery was
+to be added to it.  That, we likewise drew up.  After a deal of trouble I
+found out a Master, in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, nigh Temple
+Bar, where I made the declaration, and paid eighteen-pence.  I was told
+to take the declaration and petition to the Home Office, in Whitehall,
+where I left it to be signed by the Home Secretary (after I had found the
+office out), and where I paid two pound, two, and sixpence.  In six days
+he signed it, and I was told to take it to the Attorney-General’s
+chambers, and leave it there for a report.  I did so, and paid four
+pound, four.  Note.  Nobody all through, ever thankful for their money,
+but all uncivil.
+
+                 [Picture: A poor man’s tale of a patent]
+
+My lodging at Thomas Joy’s was now hired for another week, whereof five
+days were gone.  The Attorney-General made what they called a
+Report-of-course (my invention being, as William Butcher had delivered
+before starting, unopposed), and I was sent back with it to the Home
+Office.  They made a Copy of it, which was called a Warrant.  For this
+warrant, I paid seven pound, thirteen, and six.  It was sent to the
+Queen, to sign.  The Queen sent it back, signed.  The Home Secretary
+signed it again.  The gentleman throwed it at me when I called, and said,
+‘Now take it to the Patent Office in Lincoln’s Inn.’  I was then in my
+third week at Thomas Joy’s living very sparing, on account of fees.  I
+found myself losing heart.
+
+At the Patent Office in Lincoln’s Inn, they made ‘a draft of the Queen’s
+bill,’ of my invention, and a ‘docket of the bill.’  I paid five pound,
+ten, and six, for this.  They ‘engrossed two copies of the bill; one for
+the Signet Office, and one for the Privy-Seal Office.’  I paid one pound,
+seven, and six, for this.  Stamp duty over and above, three pound.  The
+Engrossing Clerk of the same office engrossed the Queen’s bill for
+signature.  I paid him one pound, one.  Stamp-duty, again, one pound,
+ten.  I was next to take the Queen’s bill to the Attorney-General again,
+and get it signed again.  I took it, and paid five pound more.  I fetched
+it away, and took it to the Home Secretary again.  He sent it to the
+Queen again.  She signed it again.  I paid seven pound, thirteen, and
+six, more, for this.  I had been over a month at Thomas Joy’s.  I was
+quite wore out, patience and pocket.
+
+Thomas Joy delivered all this, as it went on, to William Butcher.
+William Butcher delivered it again to three Birmingham Parlours, from
+which it got to all the other Parlours, and was took, as I have been told
+since, right through all the shops in the North of England.  Note.
+William Butcher delivered, at his Parlour, in a speech, that it was a
+Patent way of making Chartists.
+
+But I hadn’t nigh done yet.  The Queen’s bill was to be took to the
+Signet Office in Somerset House, Strand—where the stamp shop is.  The
+Clerk of the Signet made ‘a Signet bill for the Lord Keeper of the Privy
+Seal.’  I paid him four pound, seven.  The Clerk of the Lord Keeper of
+the Privy Seal made ‘a Privy-Seal bill for the Lord Chancellor.’  I paid
+him, four pound, two.  The Privy-Seal bill was handed over to the Clerk
+of the Patents, who engrossed the aforesaid.  I paid him five pound,
+seventeen, and eight; at the same time, I paid Stamp-duty for the Patent,
+in one lump, thirty pound.  I next paid for ‘boxes for the Patent,’ nine
+and sixpence.  Note.  Thomas Joy would have made the same at a profit for
+eighteen-pence.  I next paid ‘fees to the Deputy, the Lord Chancellor’s
+Purse-bearer,’ two pound, two.  I next paid ‘fees to the Clerk of the
+Hanapar,’ seven pound, thirteen.  I next paid ‘fees to the Deputy Clerk
+of the Hanaper,’ ten shillings.  I next paid, to the Lord Chancellor
+again, one pound, eleven, and six.  Last of all, I paid ‘fees to the
+Deputy Sealer, and Deputy Chaff-wax,’ ten shillings and sixpence.  I had
+lodged at Thomas Joy’s over six weeks, and the unopposed Patent for my
+invention, for England only, had cost me ninety-six pound, seven, and
+eightpence.  If I had taken it out for the United Kingdom, it would have
+cost me more than three hundred pound.
+
+Now, teaching had not come up but very limited when I was young.  So much
+the worse for me you’ll say.  I say the same.  William Butcher is twenty
+year younger than me.  He knows a hundred year more.  If William Butcher
+had wanted to Patent an invention, he might have been sharper than myself
+when hustled backwards and forwards among all those offices, though I
+doubt if so patient.  Note.  William being sometimes cranky, and consider
+porters, messengers, and clerks.
+
+Thereby I say nothing of my being tired of my life, while I was Patenting
+my invention.  But I put this: Is it reasonable to make a man feel as if,
+in inventing an ingenious improvement meant to do good, he had done
+something wrong?  How else can a man feel, when he is met by such
+difficulties at every turn?  All inventors taking out a Patent MUST feel
+so.  And look at the expense.  How hard on me, and how hard on the
+country if there’s any merit in me (and my invention is took up now, I am
+thankful to say, and doing well), to put me to all that expense before I
+can move a finger!  Make the addition yourself, and it’ll come to
+ninety-six pound, seven, and eightpence.  No more, and no less.
+
+What can I say against William Butcher, about places?  Look at the Home
+Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Patent Office, the Engrossing Clerk,
+the Lord Chancellor, the Privy Seal, the Clerk of the Patents, the Lord
+Chancellor’s Purse-bearer, the Clerk of the Hanaper, the Deputy Clerk of
+the Hanaper, the Deputy Sealer, and the Deputy Chaff-wax.  No man in
+England could get a Patent for an Indian-rubber band, or an iron-hoop,
+without feeing all of them.  Some of them, over and over again.  I went
+through thirty-five stages.  I began with the Queen upon the Throne.  I
+ended with the Deputy Chaff-wax.  Note.  I should like to see the Deputy
+Chaff-wax.  Is it a man, or what is it?
+
+What I had to tell, I have told.  I have wrote it down.  I hope it’s
+plain.  Not so much in the handwriting (though nothing to boast of
+there), as in the sense of it.  I will now conclude with Thomas Joy.
+Thomas said to me, when we parted, ‘John, if the laws of this country
+were as honest as they ought to be, you would have come to
+London—registered an exact description and drawing of your invention—paid
+half-a-crown or so for doing of it—and therein and thereby have got your
+Patent.’
+
+My opinion is the same as Thomas Joy.  Further.  In William Butcher’s
+delivering ‘that the whole gang of Hanapers and Chaff-waxes must be done
+away with, and that England has been chaffed and waxed sufficient,’ I
+agree.
+
+
+
+
+THE NOBLE SAVAGE
+
+
+TO come to the point at once, I beg to say that I have not the least
+belief in the Noble Savage.  I consider him a prodigious nuisance, and an
+enormous superstition.  His calling rum fire-water, and me a pale face,
+wholly fail to reconcile me to him.  I don’t care what he calls me.  I
+call him a savage, and I call a savage a something highly desirable to be
+civilised off the face of the earth.  I think a mere gent (which I take
+to be the lowest form of civilisation) better than a howling, whistling,
+clucking, stamping, jumping, tearing savage.  It is all one to me,
+whether he sticks a fish-bone through his visage, or bits of trees
+through the lobes of his ears, or bird’s feathers in his head; whether he
+flattens his hair between two boards, or spreads his nose over the
+breadth of his face, or drags his lower lip down by great weights, or
+blackens his teeth, or knocks them out, or paints one cheek red and the
+other blue, or tattoos himself, or oils himself, or rubs his body with
+fat, or crimps it with knives.  Yielding to whichsoever of these
+agreeable eccentricities, he is a savage—cruel, false, thievish,
+murderous; addicted more or less to grease, entrails, and beastly
+customs; a wild animal with the questionable gift of boasting; a
+conceited, tiresome, bloodthirsty, monotonous humbug.
+
+Yet it is extraordinary to observe how some people will talk about him,
+as they talk about the good old times; how they will regret his
+disappearance, in the course of this world’s development, from such and
+such lands where his absence is a blessed relief and an indispensable
+preparation for the sowing of the very first seeds of any influence that
+can exalt humanity; how, even with the evidence of himself before them,
+they will either be determined to believe, or will suffer themselves to
+be persuaded into believing, that he is something which their five senses
+tell them he is not.
+
+There was Mr. Catlin, some few years ago, with his Ojibbeway Indians.
+Mr. Catlin was an energetic, earnest man, who had lived among more tribes
+of Indians than I need reckon up here, and who had written a picturesque
+and glowing book about them.  With his party of Indians squatting and
+spitting on the table before him, or dancing their miserable jigs after
+their own dreary manner, he called, in all good faith, upon his civilised
+audience to take notice of their symmetry and grace, their perfect limbs,
+and the exquisite expression of their pantomime; and his civilised
+audience, in all good faith, complied and admired.  Whereas, as mere
+animals, they were wretched creatures, very low in the scale and very
+poorly formed; and as men and women possessing any power of truthful
+dramatic expression by means of action, they were no better than the
+chorus at an Italian Opera in England—and would have been worse if such a
+thing were possible.
+
+Mine are no new views of the noble savage.  The greatest writers on
+natural history found him out long ago.  BUFFON knew what he was, and
+showed why he is the sulky tyrant that he is to his women, and how it
+happens (Heaven be praised!) that his race is spare in numbers.  For
+evidence of the quality of his moral nature, pass himself for a moment
+and refer to his ‘faithful dog.’  Has he ever improved a dog, or attached
+a dog, since his nobility first ran wild in woods, and was brought down
+(at a very long shot) by POPE?  Or does the animal that is the friend of
+man, always degenerate in his low society?
+
+It is not the miserable nature of the noble savage that is the new thing;
+it is the whimpering over him with maudlin admiration, and the affecting
+to regret him, and the drawing of any comparison of advantage between the
+blemishes of civilisation and the tenor of his swinish life.  There may
+have been a change now and then in those diseased absurdities, but there
+is none in him.
+
+Think of the Bushmen.  Think of the two men and the two women who have
+been exhibited about England for some years.  Are the majority of
+persons—who remember the horrid little leader of that party in his
+festering bundle of hides, with his filth and his antipathy to water, and
+his straddled legs, and his odious eyes shaded by his brutal hand, and
+his cry of ‘Qu-u-u-u-aaa!’ (Bosjesman for something desperately insulting
+I have no doubt)—conscious of an affectionate yearning towards that noble
+savage, or is it idiosyncratic in me to abhor, detest, abominate, and
+abjure him?  I have no reserve on this subject, and will frankly state
+that, setting aside that stage of the entertainment when he counterfeited
+the death of some creature he had shot, by laying his head on his hand
+and shaking his left leg—at which time I think it would have been
+justifiable homicide to slay him—I have never seen that group sleeping,
+smoking, and expectorating round their brazier, but I have sincerely
+desired that something might happen to the charcoal smouldering therein,
+which would cause the immediate suffocation of the whole of the noble
+strangers.
+
+There is at present a party of Zulu Kaffirs exhibiting at the St.
+George’s Gallery, Hyde Park Corner, London.  These noble savages are
+represented in a most agreeable manner; they are seen in an elegant
+theatre, fitted with appropriate scenery of great beauty, and they are
+described in a very sensible and unpretending lecture, delivered with a
+modesty which is quite a pattern to all similar exponents.  Though
+extremely ugly, they are much better shaped than such of their
+predecessors as I have referred to; and they are rather picturesque to
+the eye, though far from odoriferous to the nose.  What a visitor left to
+his own interpretings and imaginings might suppose these noblemen to be
+about, when they give vent to that pantomimic expression which is quite
+settled to be the natural gift of the noble savage, I cannot possibly
+conceive; for it is so much too luminous for my personal civilisation
+that it conveys no idea to my mind beyond a general stamping, ramping,
+and raving, remarkable (as everything in savage life is) for its dire
+uniformity.  But let us—with the interpreter’s assistance, of which I for
+one stand so much in need—see what the noble savage does in Zulu
+Kaffirland.
+
+The noble savage sets a king to reign over him, to whom he submits his
+life and limbs without a murmur or question, and whose whole life is
+passed chin deep in a lake of blood; but who, after killing incessantly,
+is in his turn killed by his relations and friends, the moment a grey
+hair appears on his head.  All the noble savage’s wars with his
+fellow-savages (and he takes no pleasure in anything else) are wars of
+extermination—which is the best thing I know of him, and the most
+comfortable to my mind when I look at him.  He has no moral feelings of
+any kind, sort, or description; and his ‘mission’ may be summed up as
+simply diabolical.
+
+The ceremonies with which he faintly diversifies his life are, of course,
+of a kindred nature.  If he wants a wife he appears before the kennel of
+the gentleman whom he has selected for his father-in-law, attended by a
+party of male friends of a very strong flavour, who screech and whistle
+and stamp an offer of so many cows for the young lady’s hand.  The chosen
+father-in-law—also supported by a high-flavoured party of male
+friends—screeches, whistles, and yells (being seated on the ground, he
+can’t stamp) that there never was such a daughter in the market as his
+daughter, and that he must have six more cows.  The son-in-law and his
+select circle of backers screech, whistle, stamp, and yell in reply, that
+they will give three more cows.  The father-in-law (an old deluder,
+overpaid at the beginning) accepts four, and rises to bind the bargain.
+The whole party, the young lady included, then falling into epileptic
+convulsions, and screeching, whistling, stamping, and yelling
+together—and nobody taking any notice of the young lady (whose charms are
+not to be thought of without a shudder)—the noble savage is considered
+married, and his friends make demoniacal leaps at him by way of
+congratulation.
+
+When the noble savage finds himself a little unwell, and mentions the
+circumstance to his friends, it is immediately perceived that he is under
+the influence of witchcraft.  A learned personage, called an Imyanger or
+Witch Doctor, is immediately sent for to Nooker the Umtargartie, or smell
+out the witch.  The male inhabitants of the kraal being seated on the
+ground, the learned doctor, got up like a grizzly bear, appears, and
+administers a dance of a most terrific nature, during the exhibition of
+which remedy he incessantly gnashes his teeth, and howls:—‘I am the
+original physician to Nooker the Umtargartie.  Yow yow yow!  No connexion
+with any other establishment.  Till till till!  All other Umtargarties
+are feigned Umtargarties, Boroo Boroo! but I perceive here a genuine and
+real Umtargartie, Hoosh Hoosh Hoosh! in whose blood I, the original
+Imyanger and Nookerer, Blizzerum Boo! will wash these bear’s claws of
+mine.  O yow yow yow!’  All this time the learned physician is looking
+out among the attentive faces for some unfortunate man who owes him a
+cow, or who has given him any small offence, or against whom, without
+offence, he has conceived a spite.  Him he never fails to Nooker as the
+Umtargartie, and he is instantly killed.  In the absence of such an
+individual, the usual practice is to Nooker the quietest and most
+gentlemanly person in company.  But the nookering is invariably followed
+on the spot by the butchering.
+
+Some of the noble savages in whom Mr. Catlin was so strongly interested,
+and the diminution of whose numbers, by rum and smallpox, greatly
+affected him, had a custom not unlike this, though much more appalling
+and disgusting in its odious details.
+
+The women being at work in the fields, hoeing the Indian corn, and the
+noble savage being asleep in the shade, the chief has sometimes the
+condescension to come forth, and lighten the labour by looking at it.  On
+these occasions, he seats himself in his own savage chair, and is
+attended by his shield-bearer: who holds over his head a shield of
+cowhide—in shape like an immense mussel shell—fearfully and wonderfully,
+after the manner of a theatrical supernumerary.  But lest the great man
+should forget his greatness in the contemplation of the humble works of
+agriculture, there suddenly rushes in a poet, retained for the purpose,
+called a Praiser.  This literary gentleman wears a leopard’s head over
+his own, and a dress of tigers’ tails; he has the appearance of having
+come express on his hind legs from the Zoological Gardens; and he
+incontinently strikes up the chief’s praises, plunging and tearing all
+the while.  There is a frantic wickedness in this brute’s manner of
+worrying the air, and gnashing out, ‘O what a delightful chief he is!  O
+what a delicious quantity of blood he sheds!  O how majestically he laps
+it up!  O how charmingly cruel he is!  O how he tears the flesh of his
+enemies and crunches the bones!  O how like the tiger and the leopard and
+the wolf and the bear he is!  O, row row row row, how fond I am of him!’
+which might tempt the Society of Friends to charge at a hand-gallop into
+the Swartz-Kop location and exterminate the whole kraal.
+
+When war is afoot among the noble savages—which is always—the chief holds
+a council to ascertain whether it is the opinion of his brothers and
+friends in general that the enemy shall be exterminated.  On this
+occasion, after the performance of an Umsebeuza, or war song,—which is
+exactly like all the other songs,—the chief makes a speech to his
+brothers and friends, arranged in single file.  No particular order is
+observed during the delivery of this address, but every gentleman who
+finds himself excited by the subject, instead of crying ‘Hear, hear!’ as
+is the custom with us, darts from the rank and tramples out the life, or
+crushes the skull, or mashes the face, or scoops out the eyes, or breaks
+the limbs, or performs a whirlwind of atrocities on the body, of an
+imaginary enemy.  Several gentlemen becoming thus excited at once, and
+pounding away without the least regard to the orator, that illustrious
+person is rather in the position of an orator in an Irish House of
+Commons.  But, several of these scenes of savage life bear a strong
+generic resemblance to an Irish election, and I think would be extremely
+well received and understood at Cork.
+
+In all these ceremonies the noble savage holds forth to the utmost
+possible extent about himself; from which (to turn him to some civilised
+account) we may learn, I think, that as egotism is one of the most
+offensive and contemptible littlenesses a civilised man can exhibit, so
+it is really incompatible with the interchange of ideas; inasmuch as if
+we all talked about ourselves we should soon have no listeners, and must
+be all yelling and screeching at once on our own separate accounts:
+making society hideous.  It is my opinion that if we retained in us
+anything of the noble savage, we could not get rid of it too soon.  But
+the fact is clearly otherwise.  Upon the wife and dowry question,
+substituting coin for cows, we have assuredly nothing of the Zulu Kaffir
+left.  The endurance of despotism is one great distinguishing mark of a
+savage always.  The improving world has quite got the better of that too.
+In like manner, Paris is a civilised city, and the Théâtre Français a
+highly civilised theatre; and we shall never hear, and never have heard
+in these later days (of course) of the Praiser there.  No, no, civilised
+poets have better work to do.  As to Nookering Umtargarties, there are no
+pretended Umtargarties in Europe, and no European powers to Nooker them;
+that would be mere spydom, subordination, small malice, superstition, and
+false pretence.  And as to private Umtargarties, are we not in the year
+eighteen hundred and fifty-three, with spirits rapping at our doors?
+
+To conclude as I began.  My position is, that if we have anything to
+learn from the Noble Savage, it is what to avoid.  His virtues are a
+fable; his happiness is a delusion; his nobility, nonsense.
+
+We have no greater justification for being cruel to the miserable object,
+than for being cruel to a WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE or an ISAAC NEWTON; but he
+passes away before an immeasurably better and higher power than ever ran
+wild in any earthly woods, and the world will be all the better when his
+place knows him no more.
+
+
+
+
+A FLIGHT
+
+
+WHEN Don Diego de—I forget his name—the inventor of the last new Flying
+Machines, price so many francs for ladies, so many more for
+gentlemen—when Don Diego, by permission of Deputy Chaff-wax and his noble
+band, shall have taken out a Patent for the Queen’s dominions, and shall
+have opened a commodious Warehouse in an airy situation; and when all
+persons of any gentility will keep at least a pair of wings, and be seen
+skimming about in every direction; I shall take a flight to Paris (as I
+soar round the world) in a cheap and independent manner.  At present, my
+reliance is on the South-Eastern Railway Company, in whose Express Train
+here I sit, at eight of the clock on a very hot morning, under the very
+hot roof of the Terminus at London Bridge, in danger of being ‘forced’
+like a cucumber or a melon, or a pine-apple.  And talking of pine-apples,
+I suppose there never were so many pine-apples in a Train as there appear
+to be in this Train.
+
+Whew!  The hot-house air is faint with pine-apples.  Every French citizen
+or citizeness is carrying pine-apples home.  The compact little
+Enchantress in the corner of my carriage (French actress, to whom I
+yielded up my heart under the auspices of that brave child, ‘MEAT-CHELL,’
+at the St. James’s Theatre the night before last) has a pine-apple in her
+lap.  Compact Enchantress’s friend, confidante, mother, mystery, Heaven
+knows what, has two pine-apples in her lap, and a bundle of them under
+the seat.  Tobacco-smoky Frenchman in Algerine wrapper, with peaked hood
+behind, who might be Abd-el-Kader dyed rifle-green, and who seems to be
+dressed entirely in dirt and braid, carries pine-apples in a covered
+basket.  Tall, grave, melancholy Frenchman, with black Vandyke beard, and
+hair close-cropped, with expansive chest to waistcoat, and compressive
+waist to coat: saturnine as to his pantaloons, calm as to his feminine
+boots, precious as to his jewellery, smooth and white as to his linen:
+dark-eyed, high-foreheaded, hawk-nosed—got up, one thinks, like Lucifer
+or Mephistopheles, or Zamiel, transformed into a highly genteel
+Parisian—has the green end of a pine-apple sticking out of his neat
+valise.
+
+Whew!  If I were to be kept here long, under this forcing-frame, I wonder
+what would become of me—whether I should be forced into a giant, or
+should sprout or blow into some other phenomenon!  Compact Enchantress is
+not ruffled by the heat—she is always composed, always compact.  O look
+at her little ribbons, frills, and edges, at her shawl, at her gloves, at
+her hair, at her bracelets, at her bonnet, at everything about her!  How
+is it accomplished?  What does she do to be so neat?  How is it that
+every trifle she wears belongs to her, and cannot choose but be a part of
+her?  And even Mystery, look at _her_!  A model.  Mystery is not young,
+not pretty, though still of an average candle-light passability; but she
+does such miracles in her own behalf, that, one of these days, when she
+dies, they’ll be amazed to find an old woman in her bed, distantly like
+her.  She was an actress once, I shouldn’t wonder, and had a Mystery
+attendant on herself.  Perhaps, Compact Enchantress will live to be a
+Mystery, and to wait with a shawl at the side-scenes, and to sit opposite
+to Mademoiselle in railway carriages, and smile and talk subserviently,
+as Mystery does now.  That’s hard to believe!
+
+Two Englishmen, and now our carriage is full.  First Englishman, in the
+monied interest—flushed, highly respectable—Stock Exchange, perhaps—City,
+certainly.  Faculties of second Englishman entirely absorbed in hurry.
+Plunges into the carriage, blind.  Calls out of window concerning his
+luggage, deaf.  Suffocates himself under pillows of great-coats, for no
+reason, and in a demented manner.  Will receive no assurance from any
+porter whatsoever.  Is stout and hot, and wipes his head, and makes
+himself hotter by breathing so hard.  Is totally incredulous respecting
+assurance of Collected Guard, that ‘there’s no hurry.’  No hurry!  And a
+flight to Paris in eleven hours!
+
+It is all one to me in this drowsy corner, hurry or no hurry.  Until Don
+Diego shall send home my wings, my flight is with the South-Eastern
+Company.  I can fly with the South-Eastern, more lazily, at all events,
+than in the upper air.  I have but to sit here thinking as idly as I
+please, and be whisked away.  I am not accountable to anybody for the
+idleness of my thoughts in such an idle summer flight; my flight is
+provided for by the South-Eastern and is no business of mine.
+
+The bell!  With all my heart.  It does not require me to do so much as
+even to flap my wings.  Something snorts for me, something shrieks for
+me, something proclaims to everything else that it had better keep out of
+my way,—and away I go.
+
+Ah!  The fresh air is pleasant after the forcing-frame, though it does
+blow over these interminable streets, and scatter the smoke of this vast
+wilderness of chimneys.  Here we are—no, I mean there we were, for it has
+darted far into the rear—in Bermondsey where the tanners live.  Flash!
+The distant shipping in the Thames is gone.  Whirr!  The little streets
+of new brick and red tile, with here and there a flagstaff growing like a
+tall weed out of the scarlet beans, and, everywhere, plenty of open sewer
+and ditch for the promotion of the public health, have been fired off in
+a volley.  Whizz!  Dust-heaps, market-gardens, and waste grounds.
+Rattle!  New Cross Station.  Shock!  There we were at Croydon.
+Bur-r-r-r!  The tunnel.
+
+I wonder why it is that when I shut my eyes in a tunnel I begin to feel
+as if I were going at an Express pace the other way.  I am clearly going
+back to London now.  Compact Enchantress must have forgotten something,
+and reversed the engine.  No!  After long darkness, pale fitful streaks
+of light appear.  I am still flying on for Folkestone.  The streaks grow
+stronger—become continuous—become the ghost of day—become the living
+day—became I mean—the tunnel is miles and miles away, and here I fly
+through sunlight, all among the harvest and the Kentish hops.
+
+There is a dreamy pleasure in this flying.  I wonder where it was, and
+when it was, that we exploded, blew into space somehow, a Parliamentary
+Train, with a crowd of heads and faces looking at us out of cages, and
+some hats waving.  Monied Interest says it was at Reigate Station.
+Expounds to Mystery how Reigate Station is so many miles from London,
+which Mystery again develops to Compact Enchantress.  There might be
+neither a Reigate nor a London for me, as I fly away among the Kentish
+hops and harvest.  What do _I_ care?
+
+Bang!  We have let another Station off, and fly away regardless.
+Everything is flying.  The hop-gardens turn gracefully towards me,
+presenting regular avenues of hops in rapid flight, then whirl away.  So
+do the pools and rushes, haystacks, sheep, clover in full bloom delicious
+to the sight and smell, corn-sheaves, cherry-orchards, apple-orchards,
+reapers, gleaners, hedges, gates, fields that taper off into little
+angular corners, cottages, gardens, now and then a church.  Bang, bang!
+A double-barrelled Station!  Now a wood, now a bridge, now a landscape,
+now a cutting, now a—Bang! a single-barrelled Station—there was a
+cricket-match somewhere with two white tents, and then four flying cows,
+then turnips—now the wires of the electric telegraph are all alive, and
+spin, and blurr their edges, and go up and down, and make the intervals
+between each other most irregular: contracting and expanding in the
+strangest manner.  Now we slacken.  With a screwing, and a grinding, and
+a smell of water thrown on ashes, now we stop!
+
+Demented Traveller, who has been for two or three minutes watchful,
+clutches his great-coats, plunges at the door, rattles it, cries ‘Hi!’
+eager to embark on board of impossible packets, far inland.  Collected
+Guard appears.  ‘Are you for Tunbridge, sir?’  ‘Tunbridge?  No.  Paris.’
+‘Plenty of time, sir.  No hurry.  Five minutes here, sir, for
+refreshment.’  I am so blest (anticipating Zamiel, by half a second) as
+to procure a glass of water for Compact Enchantress.
+
+Who would suppose we had been flying at such a rate, and shall take wing
+again directly?  Refreshment-room full, platform full, porter with
+watering-pot deliberately cooling a hot wheel, another porter with equal
+deliberation helping the rest of the wheels bountifully to ice cream.
+Monied Interest and I re-entering the carriage first, and being there
+alone, he intimates to me that the French are ‘no go’ as a Nation.  I ask
+why?  He says, that Reign of Terror of theirs was quite enough.  I
+ventured to inquire whether he remembers anything that preceded said
+Reign of Terror?  He says not particularly.  ‘Because,’ I remark, ‘the
+harvest that is reaped, has sometimes been sown.’  Monied Interest
+repeats, as quite enough for him, that the French are revolutionary,—‘and
+always at it.’
+
+Bell.  Compact Enchantress, helped in by Zamiel (whom the stars
+confound!), gives us her charming little side-box look, and smites me to
+the core.  Mystery eating sponge-cake.  Pine-apple atmosphere faintly
+tinged with suspicions of sherry.  Demented Traveller flits past the
+carriage, looking for it.  Is blind with agitation, and can’t see it.
+Seems singled out by Destiny to be the only unhappy creature in the
+flight, who has any cause to hurry himself.  Is nearly left behind.  Is
+seized by Collected Guard after the Train is in motion, and bundled in.
+Still, has lingering suspicions that there must be a boat in the
+neighbourhood, and will look wildly out of window for it.
+
+Flight resumed.  Corn-sheaves, hop-gardens, reapers, gleaners,
+apple-orchards, cherry-orchards, Stations single and double-barrelled,
+Ashford.  Compact Enchantress (constantly talking to Mystery, in an
+exquisite manner) gives a little scream; a sound that seems to come from
+high up in her precious little head; from behind her bright little
+eyebrows.  ‘Great Heaven, my pine-apple!  My Angel!  It is lost!’
+Mystery is desolated.  A search made.  It is not lost.  Zamiel finds it.
+I curse him (flying) in the Persian manner.  May his face be turned
+upside down, and jackasses sit upon his uncle’s grave!
+
+Now fresher air, now glimpses of unenclosed Down-land with flapping crows
+flying over it whom we soon outfly, now the Sea, now Folkestone at a
+quarter after ten.  ‘Tickets ready, gentlemen!’  Demented dashes at the
+door.  ‘For Paris, sir?  No hurry.’
+
+Not the least.  We are dropped slowly down to the Port, and sidle to and
+fro (the whole Train) before the insensible Royal George Hotel, for some
+ten minutes.  The Royal George takes no more heed of us than its namesake
+under water at Spithead, or under earth at Windsor, does.  The Royal
+George’s dog lies winking and blinking at us, without taking the trouble
+to sit up; and the Royal George’s ‘wedding party’ at the open window (who
+seem, I must say, rather tired of bliss) don’t bestow a solitary glance
+upon us, flying thus to Paris in eleven hours.  The first gentleman in
+Folkestone is evidently used up, on this subject.
+
+Meanwhile, Demented chafes.  Conceives that every man’s hand is against
+him, and exerting itself to prevent his getting to Paris.  Refuses
+consolation.  Rattles door.  Sees smoke on the horizon, and ‘knows’ it’s
+the boat gone without him.  Monied Interest resentfully explains that
+_he_ is going to Paris too.  Demented signifies, that if Monied Interest
+chooses to be left behind, he don’t.
+
+‘Refreshments in the Waiting-Room, ladies and gentlemen.  No hurry,
+ladies and gentlemen, for Paris.  No hurry whatever!’
+
+Twenty minutes’ pause, by Folkestone clock, for looking at Enchantress
+while she eats a sandwich, and at Mystery while she eats of everything
+there that is eatable, from pork-pie, sausage, jam, and gooseberries, to
+lumps of sugar.  All this time, there is a very waterfall of luggage,
+with a spray of dust, tumbling slantwise from the pier into the
+steamboat.  All this time, Demented (who has no business with it) watches
+it with starting eyes, fiercely requiring to be shown his luggage.  When
+it at last concludes the cataract, he rushes hotly to refresh—is shouted
+after, pursued, jostled, brought back, pitched into the departing steamer
+upside down, and caught by mariners disgracefully.
+
+A lovely harvest-day, a cloudless sky, a tranquil sea.  The piston-rods
+of the engines so regularly coming up from below, to look (as well they
+may) at the bright weather, and so regularly almost knocking their iron
+heads against the cross beam of the skylight, and never doing it!
+Another Parisian actress is on board, attended by another Mystery.
+Compact Enchantress greets her sister artist—Oh, the Compact One’s pretty
+teeth!—and Mystery greets Mystery.  _My_ Mystery soon ceases to be
+conversational—is taken poorly, in a word, having lunched too
+miscellaneously—and goes below.  The remaining Mystery then smiles upon
+the sister artists (who, I am afraid, wouldn’t greatly mind stabbing each
+other), and is upon the whole ravished.
+
+And now I find that all the French people on board begin to grow, and all
+the English people to shrink.  The French are nearing home, and shaking
+off a disadvantage, whereas we are shaking it on.  Zamiel is the same
+man, and Abd-el-Kader is the same man, but each seems to come into
+possession of an indescribable confidence that departs from us—from
+Monied Interest, for instance, and from me.  Just what they gain, we
+lose.  Certain British ‘Gents’ about the steersman, intellectually
+nurtured at home on parody of everything and truth of nothing, become
+subdued, and in a manner forlorn; and when the steersman tells them (not
+exultingly) how he has ‘been upon this station now eight year, and never
+see the old town of Bullum yet,’ one of them, with an imbecile reliance
+on a reed, asks him what he considers to be the best hotel in Paris?
+
+Now, I tread upon French ground, and am greeted by the three charming
+words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, painted up (in letters a little too
+thin for their height) on the Custom-house wall—also by the sight of
+large cocked hats, without which demonstrative head-gear nothing of a
+public nature can be done upon this soil.  All the rabid Hotel population
+of Boulogne howl and shriek outside a distant barrier, frantic to get at
+us.  Demented, by some unlucky means peculiar to himself, is delivered
+over to their fury, and is presently seen struggling in a whirlpool of
+Touters—is somehow understood to be going to Paris—is, with infinite
+noise, rescued by two cocked hats, and brought into Custom-house bondage
+with the rest of us.
+
+Here, I resign the active duties of life to an eager being, of
+preternatural sharpness, with a shelving forehead and a shabby
+snuff-coloured coat, who (from the wharf) brought me down with his eye
+before the boat came into port.  He darts upon my luggage, on the floor
+where all the luggage is strewn like a wreck at the bottom of the great
+deep; gets it proclaimed and weighed as the property of ‘Monsieur a
+traveller unknown;’ pays certain francs for it, to a certain functionary
+behind a Pigeon Hole, like a pay-box at a Theatre (the arrangements in
+general are on a wholesale scale, half military and half theatrical); and
+I suppose I shall find it when I come to Paris—he says I shall.  I know
+nothing about it, except that I pay him his small fee, and pocket the
+ticket he gives me, and sit upon a counter, involved in the general
+distraction.
+
+Railway station.  ‘Lunch or dinner, ladies and gentlemen.  Plenty of time
+for Paris.  Plenty of time!’  Large hall, long counter, long strips of
+dining-table, bottles of wine, plates of meat, roast chickens, little
+loaves of bread, basins of soup, little caraffes of brandy, cakes, and
+fruit.  Comfortably restored from these resources, I begin to fly again.
+
+I saw Zamiel (before I took wing) presented to Compact Enchantress and
+Sister Artist, by an officer in uniform, with a waist like a wasp’s, and
+pantaloons like two balloons.  They all got into the next carriage
+together, accompanied by the two Mysteries.  They laughed.  I am alone in
+the carriage (for I don’t consider Demented anybody) and alone in the
+world.
+
+Fields, windmills, low grounds, pollard-trees, windmills, fields,
+fortifications, Abbeville, soldiering and drumming.  I wonder where
+England is, and when I was there last—about two years ago, I should say.
+Flying in and out among these trenches and batteries, skimming the
+clattering drawbridges, looking down into the stagnant ditches, I become
+a prisoner of state, escaping.  I am confined with a comrade in a
+fortress.  Our room is in an upper story.  We have tried to get up the
+chimney, but there’s an iron grating across it, imbedded in the masonry.
+After months of labour, we have worked the grating loose with the poker,
+and can lift it up.  We have also made a hook, and twisted our rugs and
+blankets into ropes.  Our plan is, to go up the chimney, hook our ropes
+to the top, descend hand over hand upon the roof of the guard-house far
+below, shake the hook loose, watch the opportunity of the sentinels
+pacing away, hook again, drop into the ditch, swim across it, creep into
+the shelter of the wood.  The time is come—a wild and stormy night.  We
+are up the chimney, we are on the guard-house roof, we are swimming in
+the murky ditch, when lo!  ‘Qui v’là?’ a bugle, the alarm, a crash!  What
+is it?  Death?  No, Amiens.
+
+More fortifications, more soldiering and drumming, more basins of soup,
+more little loaves of bread, more bottles of wine, more caraffes of
+brandy, more time for refreshment.  Everything good, and everything
+ready.  Bright, unsubstantial-looking, scenic sort of station.  People
+waiting.  Houses, uniforms, beards, moustaches, some sabots, plenty of
+neat women, and a few old-visaged children.  Unless it be a delusion born
+of my giddy flight, the grown-up people and the children seem to change
+places in France.  In general, the boys and girls are little old men and
+women, and the men and women lively boys and girls.
+
+Bugle, shriek, flight resumed.  Monied Interest has come into my
+carriage.  Says the manner of refreshing is ‘not bad,’ but considers it
+French.  Admits great dexterity and politeness in the attendants.  Thinks
+a decimal currency may have something to do with their despatch in
+settling accounts, and don’t know but what it’s sensible and convenient.
+Adds, however, as a general protest, that they’re a revolutionary
+people—and always at it.
+
+Ramparts, canals, cathedral, river, soldiering and drumming, open
+country, river, earthenware manufactures, Creil.  Again ten minutes.  Not
+even Demented in a hurry.  Station, a drawing-room with a verandah: like
+a planter’s house.  Monied Interest considers it a band-box, and not made
+to last.  Little round tables in it, at one of which the Sister Artists
+and attendant Mysteries are established with Wasp and Zamiel, as if they
+were going to stay a week.
+
+Anon, with no more trouble than before, I am flying again, and lazily
+wondering as I fly.  What has the South-Eastern done with all the
+horrible little villages we used to pass through, in the _Diligence_?
+What have they done with all the summer dust, with all the winter mud,
+with all the dreary avenues of little trees, with all the ramshackle
+postyards, with all the beggars (who used to turn out at night with bits
+of lighted candle, to look in at the coach windows), with all the
+long-tailed horses who were always biting one another, with all the big
+postilions in jack-boots—with all the mouldy cafés that we used to stop
+at, where a long mildewed table-cloth, set forth with jovial bottles of
+vinegar and oil, and with a Siamese arrangement of pepper and salt, was
+never wanting?  Where are the grass-grown little towns, the wonderful
+little market-places all unconscious of markets, the shops that nobody
+kept, the streets that nobody trod, the churches that nobody went to, the
+bells that nobody rang, the tumble-down old buildings plastered with
+many-coloured bills that nobody read?  Where are the two-and-twenty weary
+hours of long, long day and night journey, sure to be either
+insupportably hot or insupportably cold?  Where are the pains in my
+bones, where are the fidgets in my legs, where is the Frenchman with the
+nightcap who never _would_ have the little coupé-window down, and who
+always fell upon me when he went to sleep, and always slept all night
+snoring onions?
+
+A voice breaks in with ‘Paris!  Here we are!’
+
+I have overflown myself, perhaps, but I can’t believe it.  I feel as if I
+were enchanted or bewitched.  It is barely eight o’clock yet—it is
+nothing like half-past—when I have had my luggage examined at that
+briskest of Custom-houses attached to the station, and am rattling over
+the pavement in a hackney-cabriolet.
+
+Surely, not the pavement of Paris?  Yes, I think it is, too.  I don’t
+know any other place where there are all these high houses, all these
+haggard-looking wine shops, all these billiard tables, all these
+stocking-makers with flat red or yellow legs of wood for signboard, all
+these fuel shops with stacks of billets painted outside, and real billets
+sawing in the gutter, all these dirty corners of streets, all these
+cabinet pictures over dark doorways representing discreet matrons nursing
+babies.  And yet this morning—I’ll think of it in a warm-bath.
+
+Very like a small room that I remember in the Chinese baths upon the
+Boulevard, certainly; and, though I see it through the steam, I think
+that I might swear to that peculiar hot-linen basket, like a large wicker
+hour-glass.  When can it have been that I left home?  When was it that I
+paid ‘through to Paris’ at London Bridge, and discharged myself of all
+responsibility, except the preservation of a voucher ruled into three
+divisions, of which the first was snipped off at Folkestone, the second
+aboard the boat, and the third taken at my journey’s end?  It seems to
+have been ages ago.  Calculation is useless.  I will go out for a walk.
+
+The crowds in the streets, the lights in the shops and balconies, the
+elegance, variety, and beauty of their decorations, the number of the
+theatres, the brilliant cafés with their windows thrown up high and their
+vivacious groups at little tables on the pavement, the light and glitter
+of the houses turned as it were inside out, soon convince me that it is
+no dream; that I am in Paris, howsoever I got there.  I stroll down to
+the sparkling Palais Royal, up the Rue de Rivoli, to the Place Vendôme.
+As I glance into a print-shop window, Monied Interest, my late travelling
+companion, comes upon me, laughing with the highest relish of disdain.
+‘Here’s a people!’ he says, pointing to Napoleon in the window and
+Napoleon on the column.  ‘Only one idea all over Paris!  A monomania!’
+Humph!  I THINK I have seen Napoleon’s match?  There was a statue, when I
+came away, at Hyde Park Corner, and another in the City, and a print or
+two in the shops.
+
+I walk up to the Barrière de l’Etoile, sufficiently dazed by my flight to
+have a pleasant doubt of the reality of everything about me; of the
+lively crowd, the overhanging trees, the performing dogs, the
+hobby-horses, the beautiful perspectives of shining lamps: the hundred
+and one enclosures, where the singing is, in gleaming orchestras of azure
+and gold, and where a star-eyed Houri comes round with a box for
+voluntary offerings.  So, I pass to my hotel, enchanted; sup, enchanted;
+go to bed, enchanted; pushing back this morning (if it really were this
+morning) into the remoteness of time, blessing the South-Eastern Company
+for realising the Arabian Nights in these prose days, murmuring, as I
+wing my idle flight into the land of dreams, ‘No hurry, ladies and
+gentlemen, going to Paris in eleven hours.  It is so well done, that
+there really is no hurry!’
+
+
+
+
+THE DETECTIVE POLICE
+
+
+WE are not by any means devout believers in the old Bow Street Police.
+To say the truth, we think there was a vast amount of humbug about those
+worthies.  Apart from many of them being men of very indifferent
+character, and far too much in the habit of consorting with thieves and
+the like, they never lost a public occasion of jobbing and trading in
+mystery and making the most of themselves.  Continually puffed besides by
+incompetent magistrates anxious to conceal their own deficiencies, and
+hand-in-glove with the penny-a-liners of that time, they became a sort of
+superstition.  Although as a Preventive Police they were utterly
+ineffective, and as a Detective Police were very loose and uncertain in
+their operations, they remain with some people a superstition to the
+present day.
+
+On the other hand, the Detective Force organised since the establishment
+of the existing Police, is so well chosen and trained, proceeds so
+systematically and quietly, does its business in such a workmanlike
+manner, and is always so calmly and steadily engaged in the service of
+the public, that the public really do not know enough of it, to know a
+tithe of its usefulness.  Impressed with this conviction, and interested
+in the men themselves, we represented to the authorities at Scotland
+Yard, that we should be glad, if there were no official objection, to
+have some talk with the Detectives.  A most obliging and ready permission
+being given, a certain evening was appointed with a certain Inspector for
+a social conference between ourselves and the Detectives, at The
+Household Words Office in Wellington Street, Strand, London.  In
+consequence of which appointment the party ‘came off,’ which we are about
+to describe.  And we beg to repeat that, avoiding such topics as it might
+for obvious reasons be injurious to the public, or disagreeable to
+respectable individuals, to touch upon in print, our description is as
+exact as we can make it.
+
+The reader will have the goodness to imagine the Sanctum Sanctorum of
+Household Words.  Anything that best suits the reader’s fancy, will best
+represent that magnificent chamber.  We merely stipulate for a round
+table in the middle, with some glasses and cigars arranged upon it; and
+the editorial sofa elegantly hemmed in between that stately piece of
+furniture and the wall.
+
+It is a sultry evening at dusk.  The stones of Wellington Street are hot
+and gritty, and the watermen and hackney-coachmen at the Theatre
+opposite, are much flushed and aggravated.  Carriages are constantly
+setting down the people who have come to Fairy-Land; and there is a
+mighty shouting and bellowing every now and then, deafening us for the
+moment, through the open windows.
+
+Just at dusk, Inspectors Wield and Stalker are announced; but we do not
+undertake to warrant the orthography of any of the names here mentioned.
+Inspector Wield presents Inspector Stalker.  Inspector Wield is a
+middle-aged man of a portly presence, with a large, moist, knowing eye, a
+husky voice, and a habit of emphasising his conversation by the aid of a
+corpulent fore-finger, which is constantly in juxtaposition with his eyes
+or nose.  Inspector Stalker is a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman—in
+appearance not at all unlike a very acute, thoroughly-trained
+schoolmaster, from the Normal Establishment at Glasgow.  Inspector Wield
+one might have known, perhaps, for what he is—Inspector Stalker, never.
+
+The ceremonies of reception over, Inspectors Wield and Stalker observe
+that they have brought some sergeants with them.  The sergeants are
+presented—five in number, Sergeant Dornton, Sergeant Witchem, Sergeant
+Mith, Sergeant Fendall, and Sergeant Straw.  We have the whole Detective
+Force from Scotland Yard, with one exception.  They sit down in a
+semi-circle (the two Inspectors at the two ends) at a little distance
+from the round table, facing the editorial sofa.  Every man of them, in a
+glance, immediately takes an inventory of the furniture and an accurate
+sketch of the editorial presence.  The Editor feels that any gentleman in
+company could take him up, if need should be, without the smallest
+hesitation, twenty years hence.
+
+The whole party are in plain clothes.  Sergeant Dornton about fifty years
+of age, with a ruddy face and a high sunburnt forehead, has the air of
+one who has been a Sergeant in the army—he might have sat to Wilkie for
+the Soldier in the Reading of the Will.  He is famous for steadily
+pursuing the inductive process, and, from small beginnings, working on
+from clue to clue until he bags his man.  Sergeant Witchem, shorter and
+thicker-set, and marked with the small-pox, has something of a reserved
+and thoughtful air, as if he were engaged in deep arithmetical
+calculations.  He is renowned for his acquaintance with the swell mob.
+Sergeant Mith, a smooth-faced man with a fresh bright complexion, and a
+strange air of simplicity, is a dab at housebreakers.  Sergeant Fendall,
+a light-haired, well-spoken, polite person, is a prodigious hand at
+pursuing private inquiries of a delicate nature.  Straw, a little wiry
+Sergeant of meek demeanour and strong sense, would knock at a door and
+ask a series of questions in any mild character you choose to prescribe
+to him, from a charity-boy upwards, and seem as innocent as an infant.
+They are, one and all, respectable-looking men; of perfectly good
+deportment and unusual intelligence; with nothing lounging or slinking in
+their manners; with an air of keen observation and quick perception when
+addressed; and generally presenting in their faces, traces more or less
+marked of habitually leading lives of strong mental excitement.  They
+have all good eyes; and they all can, and they all do, look full at
+whomsoever they speak to.
+
+We light the cigars, and hand round the glasses (which are very
+temperately used indeed), and the conversation begins by a modest amateur
+reference on the Editorial part to the swell mob.  Inspector Wield
+immediately removes his cigar from his lips, waves his right hand, and
+says, ‘Regarding the swell mob, sir, I can’t do better than call upon
+Sergeant Witchem.  Because the reason why?  I’ll tell you.  Sergeant
+Witchem is better acquainted with the swell mob than any officer in
+London.’
+
+Our heart leaping up when we beheld this rainbow in the sky, we turn to
+Sergeant Witchem, who very concisely, and in well-chosen language, goes
+into the subject forthwith.  Meantime, the whole of his brother officers
+are closely interested in attending to what he says, and observing its
+effect.  Presently they begin to strike in, one or two together, when an
+opportunity offers, and the conversation becomes general.  But these
+brother officers only come in to the assistance of each other—not to the
+contradiction—and a more amicable brotherhood there could not be.  From
+the swell mob, we diverge to the kindred topics of cracksmen, fences,
+public-house dancers, area-sneaks, designing young people who go out
+‘gonophing,’ and other ‘schools.’  It is observable throughout these
+revelations, that Inspector Stalker, the Scotchman, is always exact and
+statistical, and that when any question of figures arises, everybody as
+by one consent pauses, and looks to him.
+
+When we have exhausted the various schools of Art—during which discussion
+the whole body have remained profoundly attentive, except when some
+unusual noise at the Theatre over the way has induced some gentleman to
+glance inquiringly towards the window in that direction, behind his next
+neighbour’s back—we burrow for information on such points as the
+following.  Whether there really are any highway robberies in London, or
+whether some circumstances not convenient to be mentioned by the
+aggrieved party, usually precede the robberies complained of, under that
+head, which quite change their character?  Certainly the latter, almost
+always.  Whether in the case of robberies in houses, where servants are
+necessarily exposed to doubt, innocence under suspicion ever becomes so
+like guilt in appearance, that a good officer need be cautious how he
+judges it?  Undoubtedly.  Nothing is so common or deceptive as such
+appearances at first.  Whether in a place of public amusement, a thief
+knows an officer, and an officer knows a thief—supposing them,
+beforehand, strangers to each other—because each recognises in the other,
+under all disguise, an inattention to what is going on, and a purpose
+that is not the purpose of being entertained?  Yes.  That’s the way
+exactly.  Whether it is reasonable or ridiculous to trust to the alleged
+experiences of thieves as narrated by themselves, in prisons, or
+penitentiaries, or anywhere?  In general, nothing more absurd.  Lying is
+their habit and their trade; and they would rather lie—even if they
+hadn’t an interest in it, and didn’t want to make themselves
+agreeable—than tell the truth.
+
+From these topics, we glide into a review of the most celebrated and
+horrible of the great crimes that have been committed within the last
+fifteen or twenty years.  The men engaged in the discovery of almost all
+of them, and in the pursuit or apprehension of the murderers, are here,
+down to the very last instance.  One of our guests gave chase to and
+boarded the emigrant ship, in which the murderess last hanged in London
+was supposed to have embarked.  We learn from him that his errand was not
+announced to the passengers, who may have no idea of it to this hour.
+That he went below, with the captain, lamp in hand—it being dark, and the
+whole steerage abed and sea-sick—and engaged the Mrs. Manning who was on
+board, in a conversation about her luggage, until she was, with no small
+pains, induced to raise her head, and turn her face towards the light.
+Satisfied that she was not the object of his search, he quietly
+re-embarked in the Government steamer along-side, and steamed home again
+with the intelligence.
+
+When we have exhausted these subjects, too, which occupy a considerable
+time in the discussion, two or three leave their chairs, whisper Sergeant
+Witchem, and resume their seat.  Sergeant Witchem, leaning forward a
+little, and placing a hand on each of his legs, then modestly speaks as
+follows:
+
+‘My brother-officers wish me to relate a little account of my taking
+Tally-ho Thompson.  A man oughtn’t to tell what he has done himself; but
+still, as nobody was with me, and, consequently, as nobody but myself can
+tell it, I’ll do it in the best way I can, if it should meet your
+approval.’
+
+We assure Sergeant Witchem that he will oblige us very much, and we all
+compose ourselves to listen with great interest and attention.
+
+‘Tally-ho Thompson,’ says Sergeant Witchem, after merely wetting his lips
+with his brandy-and-water, ‘Tally-ho Thompson was a famous horse-stealer,
+couper, and magsman.  Thompson, in conjunction with a pal that
+occasionally worked with him, gammoned a countryman out of a good round
+sum of money, under pretence of getting him a situation—the regular old
+dodge—and was afterwards in the “Hue and Cry” for a horse—a horse that he
+stole down in Hertfordshire.  I had to look after Thompson, and I applied
+myself, of course, in the first instance, to discovering where he was.
+Now, Thompson’s wife lived, along with a little daughter, at Chelsea.
+Knowing that Thompson was somewhere in the country, I watched the
+house—especially at post-time in the morning—thinking Thompson was pretty
+likely to write to her.  Sure enough, one morning the postman comes up,
+and delivers a letter at Mrs. Thompson’s door.  Little girl opens the
+door, and takes it in.  We’re not always sure of postmen, though the
+people at the post-offices are always very obliging.  A postman may help
+us, or he may not,—just as it happens.  However, I go across the road,
+and I say to the postman, after he has left the letter, “Good morning!
+how are you?”  “How are _you_?” says he.  “You’ve just delivered a letter
+for Mrs. Thompson.”  “Yes, I have.”  “You didn’t happen to remark what
+the post-mark was, perhaps?”  “No,” says he, “I didn’t.”  “Come,” says I,
+“I’ll be plain with you.  I’m in a small way of business, and I have
+given Thompson credit, and I can’t afford to lose what he owes me.  I
+know he’s got money, and I know he’s in the country, and if you could
+tell me what the post-mark was, I should be very much obliged to you, and
+you’d do a service to a tradesman in a small way of business that can’t
+afford a loss.”  “Well,” he said, “I do assure you that I did not observe
+what the post-mark was; all I know is, that there was money in the
+letter—I should say a sovereign.”  This was enough for me, because of
+course I knew that Thompson having sent his wife money, it was probable
+she’d write to Thompson, by return of post, to acknowledge the receipt.
+So I said “Thankee” to the postman, and I kept on the watch.  In the
+afternoon I saw the little girl come out.  Of course I followed her.  She
+went into a stationer’s shop, and I needn’t say to you that I looked in
+at the window.  She bought some writing-paper and envelopes, and a pen.
+I think to myself, “That’ll do!”—watch her home again—and don’t go away,
+you may be sure, knowing that Mrs. Thompson was writing her letter to
+Tally-ho, and that the letter would be posted presently.  In about an
+hour or so, out came the little girl again, with the letter in her hand.
+I went up, and said something to the child, whatever it might have been;
+but I couldn’t see the direction of the letter, because she held it with
+the seal upwards.  However, I observed that on the back of the letter
+there was what we call a kiss—a drop of wax by the side of the seal—and
+again, you understand, that was enough for me.  I saw her post the
+letter, waited till she was gone, then went into the shop, and asked to
+see the Master.  When he came out, I told him, “Now, I’m an Officer in
+the Detective Force; there’s a letter with a kiss been posted here just
+now, for a man that I’m in search of; and what I have to ask of you, is,
+that you will let me look at the direction of that letter.”  He was very
+civil—took a lot of letters from the box in the window—shook ’em out on
+the counter with the faces downwards—and there among ’em was the
+identical letter with the kiss.  It was directed, Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post
+Office, B—, to be left till called for.  Down I went to B— (a hundred and
+twenty miles or so) that night.  Early next morning I went to the Post
+Office; saw the gentleman in charge of that department; told him who I
+was; and that my object was to see, and track, the party that should come
+for the letter for Mr. Thomas Pigeon.  He was very polite, and said, “You
+shall have every assistance we can give you; you can wait inside the
+office; and we’ll take care to let you know when anybody comes for the
+letter.”  Well, I waited there three days, and began to think that nobody
+ever would come.  At last the clerk whispered to me, “Here!  Detective!
+Somebody’s come for the letter!”  “Keep him a minute,” said I, and I ran
+round to the outside of the office.  There I saw a young chap with the
+appearance of an Ostler, holding a horse by the bridle—stretching the
+bridle across the pavement, while he waited at the Post Office Window for
+the letter.  I began to pat the horse, and that; and I said to the boy,
+“Why, this is Mr. Jones’s Mare!”  “No.  It an’t.”  “No?” said I.  “She’s
+very like Mr. Jones’s Mare!”  “She an’t Mr. Jones’s Mare, anyhow,” says
+he.  “It’s Mr. So and So’s, of the Warwick Arms.”  And up he jumped, and
+off he went—letter and all.  I got a cab, followed on the box, and was so
+quick after him that I came into the stable-yard of the Warwick Arms, by
+one gate, just as he came in by another.  I went into the bar, where
+there was a young woman serving, and called for a glass of
+brandy-and-water.  He came in directly, and handed her the letter.  She
+casually looked at it, without saying anything, and stuck it up behind
+the glass over the chimney-piece.  What was to be done next?
+
+‘I turned it over in my mind while I drank my brandy-and-water (looking
+pretty sharp at the letter the while), but I couldn’t see my way out of
+it at all.  I tried to get lodgings in the house, but there had been a
+horse-fair, or something of that sort, and it was full.  I was obliged to
+put up somewhere else, but I came backwards and forwards to the bar for a
+couple of days, and there was the letter always behind the glass.  At
+last I thought I’d write a letter to Mr. Pigeon myself, and see what that
+would do.  So I wrote one, and posted it, but I purposely addressed it,
+Mr. John Pigeon, instead of Mr. Thomas Pigeon, to see what that would do.
+In the morning (a very wet morning it was) I watched the postman down the
+street, and cut into the bar, just before he reached the Warwick Arms.
+In he came presently with my letter.  “Is there a Mr. John Pigeon staying
+here?”  “No!—stop a bit though,” says the barmaid; and she took down the
+letter behind the glass.  “No,” says she, “it’s Thomas, and he is not
+staying here.  Would you do me a favour, and post this for me, as it is
+so wet?”  The postman said Yes; she folded it in another envelope,
+directed it, and gave it him.  He put it in his hat, and away he went.
+
+‘I had no difficulty in finding out the direction of that letter.  It was
+addressed Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post Office, R—, Northamptonshire, to be
+left till called for.  Off I started directly for R—; I said the same at
+the Post Office there, as I had said at B—; and again I waited three days
+before anybody came.  At last another chap on horseback came.  “Any
+letters for Mr. Thomas Pigeon?”  “Where do you come from?”  “New Inn,
+near R—.”  He got the letter, and away he went at a canter.
+
+‘I made my inquiries about the New Inn, near R—, and hearing it was a
+solitary sort of house, a little in the horse line, about a couple of
+miles from the station, I thought I’d go and have a look at it.  I found
+it what it had been described, and sauntered in, to look about me.  The
+landlady was in the bar, and I was trying to get into conversation with
+her; asked her how business was, and spoke about the wet weather, and so
+on; when I saw, through an open door, three men sitting by the fire in a
+sort of parlour, or kitchen; and one of those men, according to the
+description I had of him, was Tally-ho Thompson!
+
+‘I went and sat down among ’em, and tried to make things agreeable; but
+they were very shy—wouldn’t talk at all—looked at me, and at one another,
+in a way quite the reverse of sociable.  I reckoned ’em up, and finding
+that they were all three bigger men than me, and considering that their
+looks were ugly—that it was a lonely place—railroad station two miles
+off—and night coming on—thought I couldn’t do better than have a drop of
+brandy-and-water to keep my courage up.  So I called for my
+brandy-and-water; and as I was sitting drinking it by the fire, Thompson
+got up and went out.
+
+‘Now the difficulty of it was, that I wasn’t sure it was Thompson,
+because I had never set eyes on him before; and what I had wanted was to
+be quite certain of him.  However, there was nothing for it now, but to
+follow, and put a bold face upon it.  I found him talking, outside in the
+yard, with the landlady.  It turned out afterwards that he was wanted by
+a Northampton officer for something else, and that, knowing that officer
+to be pock-marked (as I am myself), he mistook me for him.  As I have
+observed, I found him talking to the landlady, outside.  I put my hand
+upon his shoulder—this way—and said, “Tally-ho Thompson, it’s no use.  I
+know you.  I’m an officer from London, and I take you into custody for
+felony!”  “That be d-d!” says Tally-ho Thompson.
+
+‘We went back into the house, and the two friends began to cut up rough,
+and their looks didn’t please me at all, I assure you.  “Let the man go.
+What are you going to do with him?”  “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do
+with him.  I’m going to take him to London to-night, as sure as I’m
+alive.  I’m not alone here, whatever you may think.  You mind your own
+business, and keep yourselves to yourselves.  It’ll be better for you,
+for I know you both very well.”  _I_’d never seen or heard of ’em in all
+my life, but my bouncing cowed ’em a bit, and they kept off, while
+Thompson was making ready to go.  I thought to myself, however, that they
+might be coming after me on the dark road, to rescue Thompson; so I said
+to the landlady, “What men have you got in the house, Missis?”  “We
+haven’t got no men here,” she says, sulkily.  “You have got an ostler, I
+suppose?”  “Yes, we’ve got an ostler.”  “Let me see him.”  Presently he
+came, and a shaggy-headed young fellow he was.  “Now attend to me, young
+man,” says I; “I’m a Detective Officer from London.  This man’s name is
+Thompson.  I have taken him into custody for felony.  I am going to take
+him to the railroad station.  I call upon you in the Queen’s name to
+assist me; and mind you, my friend, you’ll get yourself into more trouble
+than you know of, if you don’t!”  You never saw a person open his eyes so
+wide.  “Now, Thompson, come along!” says I.  But when I took out the
+handcuffs, Thompson cries, “No!  None of that!  I won’t stand _them_!
+I’ll go along with you quiet, but I won’t bear none of that!”  “Tally-ho
+Thompson,” I said, “I’m willing to behave as a man to you, if you are
+willing to behave as a man to me.  Give me your word that you’ll come
+peaceably along, and I don’t want to handcuff you.”  “I will,” says
+Thompson, “but I’ll have a glass of brandy first.”  “I don’t care if I’ve
+another,” said I.  “We’ll have two more, Missis,” said the friends, “and
+confound you, Constable, you’ll give your man a drop, won’t you?”  I was
+agreeable to that, so we had it all round, and then my man and I took
+Tally-ho Thompson safe to the railroad, and I carried him to London that
+night.  He was afterwards acquitted, on account of a defect in the
+evidence; and I understand he always praises me up to the skies, and says
+I’m one of the best of men.’
+
+This story coming to a termination amidst general applause, Inspector
+Wield, after a little grave smoking, fixes his eye on his host, and thus
+delivers himself:
+
+‘It wasn’t a bad plant that of mine, on Fikey, the man accused of forging
+the Sou’-Western Railway debentures—it was only t’other day—because the
+reason why?  I’ll tell you.
+
+‘I had information that Fikey and his brother kept a factory over yonder
+there,’—indicating any region on the Surrey side of the river—‘where he
+bought second-hand carriages; so after I’d tried in vain to get hold of
+him by other means, I wrote him a letter in an assumed name, saying that
+I’d got a horse and shay to dispose of, and would drive down next day
+that he might view the lot, and make an offer—very reasonable it was, I
+said—a reg’lar bargain.  Straw and me then went off to a friend of mine
+that’s in the livery and job business, and hired a turn-out for the day,
+a precious smart turn-out it was—quite a slap-up thing!  Down we drove,
+accordingly, with a friend (who’s not in the Force himself); and leaving
+my friend in the shay near a public-house, to take care of the horse, we
+went to the factory, which was some little way off.  In the factory,
+there was a number of strong fellows at work, and after reckoning ’em up,
+it was clear to me that it wouldn’t do to try it on there.  They were too
+many for us.  We must get our man out of doors.  “Mr. Fikey at home?”
+“No, he ain’t.”  “Expected home soon?”  “Why, no, not soon.”  “Ah!  Is
+his brother here?”  “I’m his brother.”  “Oh! well, this is an
+ill-conwenience, this is.  I wrote him a letter yesterday, saying I’d got
+a little turn-out to dispose of, and I’ve took the trouble to bring the
+turn-out down a’ purpose, and now he ain’t in the way.”  “No, he ain’t in
+the way.  You couldn’t make it convenient to call again, could you?”
+“Why, no, I couldn’t.  I want to sell; that’s the fact; and I can’t put
+it off.  Could you find him anywheres?”  At first he said No, he
+couldn’t, and then he wasn’t sure about it, and then he’d go and try.  So
+at last he went up-stairs, where there was a sort of loft, and presently
+down comes my man himself in his shirt-sleeves.
+
+‘“Well,” he says, “this seems to be rayther a pressing matter of yours.”
+“Yes,” I says, “it _is_ rayther a pressing matter, and you’ll find it a
+bargain—dirt cheap.”  “I ain’t in partickler want of a bargain just now,”
+he says, “but where is it?”  “Why,” I says, “the turn-out’s just outside.
+Come and look at it.”  He hasn’t any suspicions, and away we go.  And the
+first thing that happens is, that the horse runs away with my friend (who
+knows no more of driving than a child) when he takes a little trot along
+the road to show his paces.  You never saw such a game in your life!
+
+‘When the bolt is over, and the turn-out has come to a standstill again,
+Fikey walks round and round it as grave as a judge—me too.  “There, sir!”
+I says.  “There’s a neat thing!”  “It ain’t a bad style of thing,” he
+says.  “I believe you,” says I.  “And there’s a horse!”—for I saw him
+looking at it.  “Rising eight!” I says, rubbing his fore-legs.  (Bless
+you, there ain’t a man in the world knows less of horses than I do, but
+I’d heard my friend at the Livery Stables say he was eight year old, so I
+says, as knowing as possible, “Rising eight.”)  “Rising eight, is he?”
+says he.  “Rising eight,” says I.  “Well,” he says, “what do you want for
+it?”  “Why, the first and last figure for the whole concern is
+five-and-twenty pound!”  “That’s very cheap!” he says, looking at me.
+“Ain’t it?” I says.  “I told you it was a bargain!  Now, without any
+higgling and haggling about it, what I want is to sell, and that’s my
+price.  Further, I’ll make it easy to you, and take half the money down,
+and you can do a bit of stiff {415} for the balance.”
+
+“Well,” he says again, “that’s very cheap.”  “I believe you,” says I;
+“get in and try it, and you’ll buy it.  Come! take a trial!”
+
+‘Ecod, he gets in, and we get in, and we drive along the road, to show
+him to one of the railway clerks that was hid in the public-house window
+to identify him.  But the clerk was bothered, and didn’t know whether it
+was him, or wasn’t—because the reason why?  I’ll tell you,—on account of
+his having shaved his whiskers.  “It’s a clever little horse,” he says,
+“and trots well; and the shay runs light.”  “Not a doubt about it,” I
+says.  “And now, Mr. Fikey, I may as well make it all right, without
+wasting any more of your time.  The fact is, I’m Inspector Wield, and
+you’re my prisoner.”  “You don’t mean that?” he says.  “I do, indeed.”
+“Then burn my body,” says Fikey, “if this ain’t too bad!”
+
+‘Perhaps you never saw a man so knocked over with surprise.  “I hope
+you’ll let me have my coat?” he says.  “By all means.”  “Well, then,
+let’s drive to the factory.”  “Why, not exactly that, I think,” said I;
+“I’ve been there, once before, to-day.  Suppose we send for it.”  He saw
+it was no go, so he sent for it, and put it on, and we drove him up to
+London, comfortable.’
+
+This reminiscence is in the height of its success, when a general
+proposal is made to the fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer, with
+the strange air of simplicity, to tell the ‘Butcher’s Story.’
+
+The fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer, with the strange air of
+simplicity, began with a rustic smile, and in a soft, wheedling tone of
+voice, to relate the Butcher’s Story, thus:
+
+‘It’s just about six years ago, now, since information was given at
+Scotland Yard of there being extensive robberies of lawns and silks going
+on, at some wholesale houses in the City.  Directions were given for the
+business being looked into; and Straw, and Fendall, and me, we were all
+in it.’
+
+‘When you received your instructions,’ said we, ‘you went away, and held
+a sort of Cabinet Council together!’
+
+The smooth-faced officer coaxingly replied, ‘Ye-es.  Just so.  We turned
+it over among ourselves a good deal.  It appeared, when we went into it,
+that the goods were sold by the receivers extraordinarily cheap—much
+cheaper than they could have been if they had been honestly come by.  The
+receivers were in the trade, and kept capital shops—establishments of the
+first respectability—one of ’em at the West End, one down in Westminster.
+After a lot of watching and inquiry, and this and that among ourselves,
+we found that the job was managed, and the purchases of the stolen goods
+made, at a little public-house near Smithfield, down by Saint
+Bartholomew’s; where the Warehouse Porters, who were the thieves, took
+’em for that purpose, don’t you see? and made appointments to meet the
+people that went between themselves and the receivers.  This public-house
+was principally used by journeymen butchers from the country, out of
+place, and in want of situations; so, what did we do, but—ha, ha, ha!—we
+agreed that I should be dressed up like a butcher myself, and go and live
+there!’
+
+Never, surely, was a faculty of observation better brought to bear upon a
+purpose, than that which picked out this officer for the part.  Nothing
+in all creation could have suited him better.  Even while he spoke, he
+became a greasy, sleepy, shy, good-natured, chuckle-headed, unsuspicious,
+and confiding young butcher.  His very hair seemed to have suet in it, as
+he made it smooth upon his head, and his fresh complexion to be
+lubricated by large quantities of animal food.
+
+‘—So I—ha, ha, ha!’ (always with the confiding snigger of the foolish
+young butcher) ‘so I dressed myself in the regular way, made up a little
+bundle of clothes, and went to the public-house, and asked if I could
+have a lodging there?  They says, “yes, you can have a lodging here,” and
+I got a bedroom, and settled myself down in the tap.  There was a number
+of people about the place, and coming backwards and forwards to the
+house; and first one says, and then another says, “Are you from the
+country, young man?”  “Yes,” I says, “I am.  I’m come out of
+Northamptonshire, and I’m quite lonely here, for I don’t know London at
+all, and it’s such a mighty big town.”  “It _is_ a big town,” they says.
+“Oh, it’s a _very_ big town!” I says.  “Really and truly I never was in
+such a town.  It quite confuses of me!” and all that, you know.
+
+‘When some of the journeymen Butchers that used the house, found that I
+wanted a place, they says, “Oh, we’ll get you a place!”  And they
+actually took me to a sight of places, in Newgate Market, Newport Market,
+Clare, Carnaby—I don’t know where all.  But the wages was—ha, ha, ha!—was
+not sufficient, and I never could suit myself, don’t you see?  Some of
+the queer frequenters of the house were a little suspicious of me at
+first, and I was obliged to be very cautious indeed how I communicated
+with Straw or Fendall.  Sometimes, when I went out, pretending to stop
+and look into the shop windows, and just casting my eye round, I used to
+see some of ’em following me; but, being perhaps better accustomed than
+they thought for, to that sort of thing, I used to lead ’em on as far as
+I thought necessary or convenient—sometimes a long way—and then turn
+sharp round, and meet ’em, and say, “Oh, dear, how glad I am to come upon
+you so fortunate!  This London’s such a place, I’m blowed if I ain’t lost
+again!”  And then we’d go back all together, to the public-house, and—ha,
+ha, ha! and smoke our pipes, don’t you see?
+
+‘They were very attentive to me, I am sure.  It was a common thing, while
+I was living there, for some of ’em to take me out, and show me London.
+They showed me the Prisons—showed me Newgate—and when they showed me
+Newgate, I stops at the place where the Porters pitch their loads, and
+says, “Oh dear, is this where they hang the men?  Oh Lor!”  “That!” they
+says, “what a simple cove he is!  _That_ ain’t it!”  And then, they
+pointed out which was it, and I says “Lor!” and they says, “Now you’ll
+know it agen, won’t you?”  And I said I thought I should if I tried
+hard—and I assure you I kept a sharp look out for the City Police when we
+were out in this way, for if any of ’em had happened to know me, and had
+spoke to me, it would have been all up in a minute.  However, by good
+luck such a thing never happened, and all went on quiet: though the
+difficulties I had in communicating with my brother officers were quite
+extraordinary.
+
+‘The stolen goods that were brought to the public-house by the Warehouse
+Porters, were always disposed of in a back parlour.  For a long time, I
+never could get into this parlour, or see what was done there.  As I sat
+smoking my pipe, like an innocent young chap, by the tap-room fire, I’d
+hear some of the parties to the robbery, as they came in and out, say
+softly to the landlord, “Who’s that?  What does he do here?”  “Bless your
+soul,” says the landlord, “he’s only a”—ha, ha, ha!—“he’s only a green
+young fellow from the country, as is looking for a butcher’s sitiwation.
+Don’t mind him!”  So, in course of time, they were so convinced of my
+being green, and got to be so accustomed to me, that I was as free of the
+parlour as any of ’em, and I have seen as much as Seventy Pounds’ Worth
+of fine lawn sold there, in one night, that was stolen from a warehouse
+in Friday Street.  After the sale the buyers always stood treat—hot
+supper, or dinner, or what not—and they’d say on those occasions, “Come
+on, Butcher!  Put your best leg foremost, young ‘un, and walk into it!”
+Which I used to do—and hear, at table, all manner of particulars that it
+was very important for us Detectives to know.
+
+‘This went on for ten weeks.  I lived in the public-house all the time,
+and never was out of the Butcher’s dress—except in bed.  At last, when I
+had followed seven of the thieves, and set ’em to rights—that’s an
+expression of ours, don’t you see, by which I mean to say that I traced
+’em, and found out where the robberies were done, and all about
+’em—Straw, and Fendall, and I, gave one another the office, and at a time
+agreed upon, a descent was made upon the public-house, and the
+apprehensions effected.  One of the first things the officers did, was to
+collar me—for the parties to the robbery weren’t to suppose yet, that I
+was anything but a Butcher—on which the landlord cries out, “Don’t take
+him,” he says, “whatever you do!  He’s only a poor young chap from the
+country, and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!”  However, they—ha, ha,
+ha!—they took me, and pretended to search my bedroom, where nothing was
+found but an old fiddle belonging to the landlord, that had got there
+somehow or another.  But, it entirely changed the landlord’s opinion, for
+when it was produced, he says, “My fiddle!  The Butcher’s a purloiner!  I
+give him into custody for the robbery of a musical instrument!”
+
+‘The man that had stolen the goods in Friday Street was not taken yet.
+He had told me, in confidence, that he had his suspicions there was
+something wrong (on account of the City Police having captured one of the
+party), and that he was going to make himself scarce.  I asked him,
+“Where do you mean to go, Mr. Shepherdson?”  “Why, Butcher,” says he,
+“the Setting Moon, in the Commercial Road, is a snug house, and I shall
+bang out there for a time.  I shall call myself Simpson, which appears to
+me to be a modest sort of a name.  Perhaps you’ll give us a look in,
+Butcher?”  “Well,” says I, “I think I will give you a call”—which I fully
+intended, don’t you see, because, of course, he was to be taken!  I went
+over to the Setting Moon next day, with a brother officer, and asked at
+the bar for Simpson.  They pointed out his room, up-stairs.  As we were
+going up, he looks down over the banister, and calls out, “Halloa,
+Butcher! is that you?”  “Yes, it’s me.  How do you find yourself?”
+“Bobbish,” he says; “but who’s that with you?”  “It’s only a young man,
+that’s a friend of mine,” I says.  “Come along, then,” says he; “any
+friend of the Butcher’s is as welcome as the Butcher!”  So, I made my
+friend acquainted with him, and we took him into custody.
+
+‘You have no idea, sir, what a sight it was, in Court, when they first
+knew that I wasn’t a Butcher, after all!  I wasn’t produced at the first
+examination, when there was a remand; but I was at the second.  And when
+I stepped into the box, in full police uniform, and the whole party saw
+how they had been done, actually a groan of horror and dismay proceeded
+from ’em in the dock!
+
+‘At the Old Bailey, when their trials came on, Mr. Clarkson was engaged
+for the defence, and he couldn’t make out how it was, about the Butcher.
+He thought, all along, it was a real Butcher.  When the counsel for the
+prosecution said, “I will now call before you, gentlemen, the
+Police-officer,” meaning myself, Mr. Clarkson says, “Why Police-officer?
+Why more Police-officers?  I don’t want Police.  We have had a great deal
+too much of the Police.  I want the Butcher!”  However, sir, he had the
+Butcher and the Police-officer, both in one.  Out of seven prisoners
+committed for trial, five were found guilty, and some of ’em were
+transported.  The respectable firm at the West End got a term of
+imprisonment; and that’s the Butcher’s Story!’
+
+The story done, the chuckle-headed Butcher again resolved himself into
+the smooth-faced Detective.  But, he was so extremely tickled by their
+having taken him about, when he was that Dragon in disguise, to show him
+London, that he could not help reverting to that point in his narrative;
+and gently repeating with the Butcher snigger, ‘“Oh, dear,” I says, “is
+that where they hang the men?  Oh, Lor!”  “_That_!” says they.  “What a
+simple cove he is!”’
+
+It being now late, and the party very modest in their fear of being too
+diffuse, there were some tokens of separation; when Sergeant Dornton, the
+soldierly-looking man, said, looking round him with a smile:
+
+‘Before we break up, sir, perhaps you might have some amusement in
+hearing of the Adventures of a Carpet Bag.  They are very short; and, I
+think, curious.’
+
+We welcomed the Carpet Bag, as cordially as Mr. Shepherdson welcomed the
+false Butcher at the Setting Moon.  Sergeant Dornton proceeded.
+
+‘In 1847, I was despatched to Chatham, in search of one Mesheck, a Jew.
+He had been carrying on, pretty heavily, in the bill-stealing way,
+getting acceptances from young men of good connexions (in the army
+chiefly), on pretence of discount, and bolting with the same.
+
+‘Mesheck was off, before I got to Chatham.  All I could learn about him
+was, that he had gone, probably to London, and had with him—a Carpet Bag.
+
+‘I came back to town, by the last train from Blackwall, and made
+inquiries concerning a Jew passenger with—a Carpet Bag.
+
+‘The office was shut up, it being the last train.  There were only two or
+three porters left.  Looking after a Jew with a Carpet Bag, on the
+Blackwall Railway, which was then the high road to a great Military
+Depôt, was worse than looking after a needle in a hayrick.  But it
+happened that one of these porters had carried, for a certain Jew, to a
+certain public-house, a certain—Carpet Bag.
+
+‘I went to the public-house, but the Jew had only left his luggage there
+for a few hours, and had called for it in a cab, and taken it away.  I
+put such questions there, and to the porter, as I thought prudent, and
+got at this description of—the Carpet Bag.
+
+‘It was a bag which had, on one side of it, worked in worsted, a green
+parrot on a stand.  A green parrot on a stand was the means by which to
+identify that—Carpet Bag.
+
+‘I traced Mesheck, by means of this green parrot on a stand, to
+Cheltenham, to Birmingham, to Liverpool, to the Atlantic Ocean.  At
+Liverpool he was too many for me.  He had gone to the United States, and
+I gave up all thoughts of Mesheck, and likewise of his—Carpet Bag.
+
+‘Many months afterwards—near a year afterwards—there was a bank in
+Ireland robbed of seven thousand pounds, by a person of the name of
+Doctor Dundey, who escaped to America; from which country some of the
+stolen notes came home.  He was supposed to have bought a farm in New
+Jersey.  Under proper management, that estate could be seized and sold,
+for the benefit of the parties he had defrauded.  I was sent off to
+America for this purpose.
+
+‘I landed at Boston.  I went on to New York.  I found that he had lately
+changed New York paper-money for New Jersey paper money, and had banked
+cash in New Brunswick.  To take this Doctor Dundey, it was necessary to
+entrap him into the State of New York, which required a deal of artifice
+and trouble.  At one time, he couldn’t be drawn into an appointment.  At
+another time, he appointed to come to meet me, and a New York officer, on
+a pretext I made; and then his children had the measles.  At last he
+came, per steamboat, and I took him, and lodged him in a New York prison
+called the Tombs; which I dare say you know, sir?’
+
+Editorial acknowledgment to that effect.
+
+‘I went to the Tombs, on the morning after his capture, to attend the
+examination before the magistrate.  I was passing through the
+magistrate’s private room, when, happening to look round me to take
+notice of the place, as we generally have a habit of doing, I clapped my
+eyes, in one corner, on a—Carpet Bag.
+
+‘What did I see upon that Carpet Bag, if you’ll believe me, but a green
+parrot on a stand, as large as life!
+
+‘“That Carpet Bag, with the representation of a green parrot on a stand,”
+said I, “belongs to an English Jew, named Aaron Mesheck, and to no other
+man, alive or dead!”
+
+‘I give you my word the New York Police Officers were doubled up with
+surprise.
+
+‘“How did you ever come to know that?” said they.
+
+‘“I think I ought to know that green parrot by this time,” said I; “for I
+have had as pretty a dance after that bird, at home, as ever I had, in
+all my life!”’
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+‘And was it Mesheck’s?’ we submissively inquired.
+
+‘Was it, sir?  Of course it was!  He was in custody for another offence,
+in that very identical Tombs, at that very identical time.  And, more
+than that!  Some memoranda, relating to the fraud for which I had vainly
+endeavoured to take him, were found to be, at that moment, lying in that
+very same individual—Carpet Bag!’
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Such are the curious coincidences and such is the peculiar ability,
+always sharpening and being improved by practice, and always adapting
+itself to every variety of circumstances, and opposing itself to every
+new device that perverted ingenuity can invent, for which this important
+social branch of the public service is remarkable!  For ever on the
+watch, with their wits stretched to the utmost, these officers have, from
+day to day and year to year, to set themselves against every novelty of
+trickery and dexterity that the combined imaginations of all the lawless
+rascals in England can devise, and to keep pace with every such invention
+that comes out.  In the Courts of Justice, the materials of thousands of
+such stories as we have narrated—often elevated into the marvellous and
+romantic, by the circumstances of the case—are dryly compressed into the
+set phrase, ‘in consequence of information I received, I did so and so.’
+Suspicion was to be directed, by careful inference and deduction, upon
+the right person; the right person was to be taken, wherever he had gone,
+or whatever he was doing to avoid detection: he is taken; there he is at
+the bar; that is enough.  From information I, the officer, received, I
+did it; and, according to the custom in these cases, I say no more.
+
+These games of chess, played with live pieces, are played before small
+audiences, and are chronicled nowhere.  The interest of the game supports
+the player.  Its results are enough for justice.  To compare great things
+with small, suppose LEVERRIER or ADAMS informing the public that from
+information he had received he had discovered a new planet; or COLUMBUS
+informing the public of his day that from information he had received he
+had discovered a new continent; so the Detectives inform it that they
+have discovered a new fraud or an old offender, and the process is
+unknown.
+
+Thus, at midnight, closed the proceedings of our curious and interesting
+party.  But one other circumstance finally wound up the evening, after
+our Detective guests had left us.  One of the sharpest among them, and
+the officer best acquainted with the Swell Mob, had his pocket picked,
+going home!
+
+
+
+
+THREE ‘DETECTIVE’ ANECDOTES
+
+
+I.—THE PAIR OF GLOVES
+
+
+‘IT’S a singler story, sir,’ said Inspector Wield, of the Detective
+Police, who, in company with Sergeants Dornton and Mith, paid us another
+twilight visit, one July evening; ‘and I’ve been thinking you might like
+to know it.
+
+‘It’s concerning the murder of the young woman, Eliza Grimwood, some
+years ago, over in the Waterloo Road.  She was commonly called The
+Countess, because of her handsome appearance and her proud way of
+carrying of herself; and when I saw the poor Countess (I had known her
+well to speak to), lying dead, with her throat cut, on the floor of her
+bedroom, you’ll believe me that a variety of reflections calculated to
+make a man rather low in his spirits, came into my head.
+
+‘That’s neither here nor there.  I went to the house the morning after
+the murder, and examined the body, and made a general observation of the
+bedroom where it was.  Turning down the pillow of the bed with my hand, I
+found, underneath it, a pair of gloves.  A pair of gentleman’s dress
+gloves, very dirty; and inside the lining, the letters TR, and a cross.
+
+‘Well, sir, I took them gloves away, and I showed ’em to the magistrate,
+over at Union Hall, before whom the case was.  He says, “Wield,” he says,
+“there’s no doubt this is a discovery that may lead to something very
+important; and what you have got to do, Wield, is, to find out the owner
+of these gloves.”
+
+‘I was of the same opinion, of course, and I went at it immediately.  I
+looked at the gloves pretty narrowly, and it was my opinion that they had
+been cleaned.  There was a smell of sulphur and rosin about ’em, you
+know, which cleaned gloves usually have, more or less.  I took ’em over
+to a friend of mine at Kennington, who was in that line, and I put it to
+him.  “What do you say now?  Have these gloves been cleaned?”  “These
+gloves have been cleaned,” says he.  “Have you any idea who cleaned
+them?” says I.  “Not at all,” says he; “I’ve a very distinct idea who
+didn’t clean ’em, and that’s myself.  But I’ll tell you what, Wield,
+there ain’t above eight or nine reg’lar glove-cleaners in London,”—there
+were not, at that time, it seems—“and I think I can give you their
+addresses, and you may find out, by that means, who did clean ’em.”
+Accordingly, he gave me the directions, and I went here, and I went
+there, and I looked up this man, and I looked up that man; but, though
+they all agreed that the gloves had been cleaned, I couldn’t find the
+man, woman, or child, that had cleaned that aforesaid pair of gloves.
+
+‘What with this person not being at home, and that person being expected
+home in the afternoon, and so forth, the inquiry took me three days.  On
+the evening of the third day, coming over Waterloo Bridge from the Surrey
+side of the river, quite beat, and very much vexed and disappointed, I
+thought I’d have a shilling’s worth of entertainment at the Lyceum
+Theatre to freshen myself up.  So I went into the Pit, at half-price, and
+I sat myself down next to a very quiet, modest sort of young man.  Seeing
+I was a stranger (which I thought it just as well to appear to be) he
+told me the names of the actors on the stage, and we got into
+conversation.  When the play was over, we came out together, and I said,
+“We’ve been very companionable and agreeable, and perhaps you wouldn’t
+object to a drain?”  “Well, you’re very good,” says he; “I shouldn’t
+object to a drain.”  Accordingly, we went to a public-house, near the
+Theatre, sat ourselves down in a quiet room up-stairs on the first floor,
+and called for a pint of half-and-half, apiece, and a pipe.
+
+‘Well, sir, we put our pipes aboard, and we drank our half-and-half, and
+sat a-talking, very sociably, when the young man says, “You must excuse
+me stopping very long,” he says, “because I’m forced to go home in good
+time.  I must be at work all night.”  “At work all night?” says I.  “You
+ain’t a baker?”  “No,” he says, laughing, “I ain’t a baker.”  “I thought
+not,” says I, “you haven’t the looks of a baker.”  “No,” says he, “I’m a
+glove-cleaner.”
+
+‘I never was more astonished in my life, than when I heard them words
+come out of his lips.  “You’re a glove-cleaner, are you?” says I.  “Yes,”
+he says, “I am.”  “Then, perhaps,” says I, taking the gloves out of my
+pocket, “you can tell me who cleaned this pair of gloves?  It’s a rum
+story,” I says.  “I was dining over at Lambeth, the other day, at a
+free-and-easy—quite promiscuous—with a public company—when some
+gentleman, he left these gloves behind him!  Another gentleman and me,
+you see, we laid a wager of a sovereign, that I wouldn’t find out who
+they belonged to.  I’ve spent as much as seven shillings already, in
+trying to discover; but, if you could help me, I’d stand another seven
+and welcome.  You see there’s TR and a cross, inside.”  “_I_ see,” he
+says.  “Bless you, _I_ know these gloves very well!  I’ve seen dozens of
+pairs belonging to the same party.”  “No?” says I.  “Yes,” says he.
+“Then you know who cleaned ’em?” says I.  “Rather so,” says he.  “My
+father cleaned ’em.”
+
+‘“Where does your father live?” says I.  “Just round the corner,” says
+the young man, “near Exeter Street, here.  He’ll tell you who they belong
+to, directly.”  “Would you come round with me now?” says I.  “Certainly,”
+says he, “but you needn’t tell my father that you found me at the play,
+you know, because he mightn’t like it.”  “All right!”  We went round to
+the place, and there we found an old man in a white apron, with two or
+three daughters, all rubbing and cleaning away at lots of gloves, in a
+front parlour.  “Oh, Father!” says the young man, “here’s a person been
+and made a bet about the ownership of a pair of gloves, and I’ve told him
+you can settle it.”  “Good evening, sir,” says I to the old gentleman.
+“Here’s the gloves your son speaks of.  Letters TR, you see, and a
+cross.”  “Oh yes,” he says, “I know these gloves very well; I’ve cleaned
+dozens of pairs of ’em.  They belong to Mr. Trinkle, the great
+upholsterer in Cheapside.”  “Did you get ’em from Mr. Trinkle, direct,”
+says I, “if you’ll excuse my asking the question?”  “No,” says he; “Mr.
+Trinkle always sends ’em to Mr. Phibbs’s, the haberdasher’s, opposite his
+shop, and the haberdasher sends ’em to me.”  “Perhaps you wouldn’t object
+to a drain?” says I.  “Not in the least!” says he.  So I took the old
+gentleman out, and had a little more talk with him and his son, over a
+glass, and we parted excellent friends.
+
+‘This was late on a Saturday night.  First thing on the Monday morning, I
+went to the haberdasher’s shop, opposite Mr. Trinkle’s, the great
+upholsterer’s in Cheapside.  “Mr. Phibbs in the way?”  “My name is
+Phibbs.”  “Oh!  I believe you sent this pair of gloves to be cleaned?”
+“Yes, I did, for young Mr. Trinkle over the way.  There he is in the
+shop!”  “Oh! that’s him in the shop, is it?  Him in the green coat?”
+“The same individual.”  “Well, Mr. Phibbs, this is an unpleasant affair;
+but the fact is, I am Inspector Wield of the Detective Police, and I
+found these gloves under the pillow of the young woman that was murdered
+the other day, over in the Waterloo Road!”  “Good Heaven!” says he.
+“He’s a most respectable young man, and if his father was to hear of it,
+it would be the ruin of him!”  “I’m very sorry for it,” says I, “but I
+must take him into custody.”  “Good Heaven!” says Mr. Phibbs, again; “can
+nothing be done?”  “Nothing,” says I.  “Will you allow me to call him
+over here,” says he, “that his father may not see it done?”  “I don’t
+object to that,” says I; “but unfortunately, Mr. Phibbs, I can’t allow of
+any communication between you.  If any was attempted, I should have to
+interfere directly.  Perhaps you’ll beckon him over here?”  Mr. Phibbs
+went to the door and beckoned, and the young fellow came across the
+street directly; a smart, brisk young fellow.
+
+‘“Good morning, sir,” says I.  “Good morning, sir,” says he.  “Would you
+allow me to inquire, sir,” says I, “if you ever had any acquaintance with
+a party of the name of Grimwood?”  “Grimwood!  Grimwood!” says he.  “No!”
+“You know the Waterloo Road?”  “Oh! of course I know the Waterloo Road!”
+“Happen to have heard of a young woman being murdered there?”  “Yes, I
+read it in the paper, and very sorry I was to read it.”  “Here’s a pair
+of gloves belonging to you, that I found under her pillow the morning
+afterwards!”
+
+‘He was in a dreadful state, sir; a dreadful state I “Mr. Wield,” he
+says, “upon my solemn oath I never was there.  I never so much as saw
+her, to my knowledge, in my life!”  “I am very sorry,” says I.  “To tell
+you the truth; I don’t think you are the murderer, but I must take you to
+Union Hall in a cab.  However, I think it’s a case of that sort, that, at
+present, at all events, the magistrate will hear it in private.”
+
+‘A private examination took place, and then it came out that this young
+man was acquainted with a cousin of the unfortunate Eliza Grimwood, and
+that, calling to see this cousin a day or two before the murder, he left
+these gloves upon the table.  Who should come in, shortly afterwards, but
+Eliza Grimwood!  “Whose gloves are these?” she says, taking ’em up.
+“Those are Mr. Trinkle’s gloves,” says her cousin.  “Oh!” says she, “they
+are very dirty, and of no use to him, I am sure.  I shall take ’em away
+for my girl to clean the stoves with.”  And she put ’em in her pocket.
+The girl had used ’em to clean the stoves, and, I have no doubt, had left
+’em lying on the bedroom mantelpiece, or on the drawers, or somewhere;
+and her mistress, looking round to see that the room was tidy, had caught
+’em up and put ’em under the pillow where I found ’em.
+
+That’s the story, sir.’
+
+
+
+II.—THE ARTFUL TOUCH
+
+
+‘One of the most beautiful things that ever was done, perhaps,’ said
+Inspector Wield, emphasising the adjective, as preparing us to expect
+dexterity or ingenuity rather than strong interest, ‘was a move of
+Sergeant Witchem’s.  It was a lovely idea!
+
+‘Witchem and me were down at Epsom one Derby Day, waiting at the station
+for the Swell Mob.  As I mentioned, when we were talking about these
+things before, we are ready at the station when there’s races, or an
+Agricultural Show, or a Chancellor sworn in for an university, or Jenny
+Lind, or anything of that sort; and as the Swell Mob come down, we send
+’em back again by the next train.  But some of the Swell Mob, on the
+occasion of this Derby that I refer to, so far kidded us as to hire a
+horse and shay; start away from London by Whitechapel, and miles round;
+come into Epsom from the opposite direction; and go to work, right and
+left, on the course, while we were waiting for ’em at the Rail.  That,
+however, ain’t the point of what I’m going to tell you.
+
+‘While Witchem and me were waiting at the station, there comes up one Mr.
+Tatt; a gentleman formerly in the public line, quite an amateur Detective
+in his way, and very much respected.  “Halloa, Charley Wield,” he says.
+“What are you doing here?  On the look out for some of your old friends?”
+“Yes, the old move, Mr. Tatt.”  “Come along,” he says, “you and Witchem,
+and have a glass of sherry.”  “We can’t stir from the place,” says I,
+“till the next train comes in; but after that, we will with pleasure.”
+Mr. Tatt waits, and the train comes in, and then Witchem and me go off
+with him to the Hotel.  Mr. Tatt he’s got up quite regardless of expense,
+for the occasion; and in his shirt-front there’s a beautiful diamond
+prop, cost him fifteen or twenty pound—a very handsome pin indeed.  We
+drink our sherry at the bar, and have had our three or four glasses, when
+Witchem cries suddenly, “Look out, Mr. Wield! stand fast!” and a dash is
+made into the place by the Swell Mob—four of ’em—that have come down as I
+tell you, and in a moment Mr. Tatt’s prop is gone!  Witchem, he cuts ’em
+off at the door, I lay about me as hard as I can, Mr. Tatt shows fight
+like a good ‘un, and there we are, all down together, heads and heels,
+knocking about on the floor of the bar—perhaps you never see such a scene
+of confusion!  However, we stick to our men (Mr. Tatt being as good as
+any officer), and we take ’em all, and carry ’em off to the station.’
+The station’s full of people, who have been took on the course; and it’s
+a precious piece of work to get ’em secured.  However, we do it at last,
+and we search ’em; but nothing’s found upon ’em, and they’re locked up;
+and a pretty state of heat we are in by that time, I assure you!
+
+‘I was very blank over it, myself, to think that the prop had been passed
+away; and I said to Witchem, when we had set ’em to rights, and were
+cooling ourselves along with Mr. Tatt, “we don’t take much by _this_
+move, anyway, for nothing’s found upon ’em, and it’s only the
+braggadocia, {426} after all.”  “What do you mean, Mr. Wield?” says
+Witchem.  “Here’s the diamond pin!” and in the palm of his hand there it
+was, safe and sound!  “Why, in the name of wonder,” says me and Mr. Tatt,
+in astonishment, “how did you come by that?”  “I’ll tell you how I come
+by it,” says he.  “I saw which of ’em took it; and when we were all down
+on the floor together, knocking about, I just gave him a little touch on
+the back of his hand, as I knew his pal would; and he thought it WAS his
+pal; and gave it me!”  It was beautiful, beau-ti-ful!
+
+‘Even that was hardly the best of the case, for that chap was tried at
+the Quarter Sessions at Guildford.  You know what Quarter Sessions are,
+sir.  Well, if you’ll believe me, while them slow justices were looking
+over the Acts of Parliament, to see what they could do to him, I’m blowed
+if he didn’t cut out of the dock before their faces!  He cut out of the
+dock, sir, then and there; swam across a river; and got up into a tree to
+dry himself.  In the tree he was took—an old woman having seen him climb
+up—and Witchem’s artful touch transported him!’
+
+
+
+III.—THE SOFA
+
+
+‘What young men will do, sometimes, to ruin themselves and break their
+friends’ hearts,’ said Sergeant Dornton, ‘it’s surprising!  I had a case
+at Saint Blank’s Hospital which was of this sort.  A bad case, indeed,
+with a bad end!
+
+‘The Secretary, and the House-Surgeon, and the Treasurer, of Saint
+Blank’s Hospital, came to Scotland Yard to give information of numerous
+robberies having been committed on the students.  The students could
+leave nothing in the pockets of their great-coats, while the great-coats
+were hanging at the hospital, but it was almost certain to be stolen.
+Property of various descriptions was constantly being lost; and the
+gentlemen were naturally uneasy about it, and anxious, for the credit of
+the institution, that the thief or thieves should be discovered.  The
+case was entrusted to me, and I went to the hospital.
+
+‘“Now, gentlemen,” said I, after we had talked it over; “I understand
+this property is usually lost from one room.”
+
+‘Yes, they said.  It was.
+
+‘“I should wish, if you please,” said I, “to see the room.”
+
+‘It was a good-sized bare room down-stairs, with a few tables and forms
+in it, and a row of pegs, all round, for hats and coats.
+
+‘“Next, gentlemen,” said I, “do you suspect anybody?”
+
+‘Yes, they said.  They did suspect somebody.  They were sorry to say,
+they suspected one of the porters.
+
+‘“I should like,” said I, “to have that man pointed out to me, and to
+have a little time to look after him.”
+
+‘He was pointed out, and I looked after him, and then I went back to the
+hospital, and said, “Now, gentlemen, it’s not the porter.  He’s,
+unfortunately for himself, a little too fond of drink, but he’s nothing
+worse.  My suspicion is, that these robberies are committed by one of the
+students; and if you’ll put me a sofa into that room where the pegs
+are—as there’s no closet—I think I shall be able to detect the thief.  I
+wish the sofa, if you please, to be covered with chintz, or something of
+that sort, so that I may lie on my chest, underneath it, without being
+seen.”
+
+‘The sofa was provided, and next day at eleven o’clock, before any of the
+students came, I went there, with those gentlemen, to get underneath it.
+It turned out to be one of those old-fashioned sofas with a great
+cross-beam at the bottom, that would have broken my back in no time if I
+could ever have got below it.  We had quite a job to break all this away
+in the time; however, I fell to work, and they fell to work, and we broke
+it out, and made a clear place for me.  I got under the sofa, lay down on
+my chest, took out my knife, and made a convenient hole in the chintz to
+look through.  It was then settled between me and the gentlemen that when
+the students were all up in the wards, one of the gentlemen should come
+in, and hang up a great-coat on one of the pegs.  And that that
+great-coat should have, in one of the pockets, a pocket-book containing
+marked money.
+
+‘After I had been there some time, the students began to drop into the
+room, by ones, and twos, and threes, and to talk about all sorts of
+things, little thinking there was anybody under the sofa—and then to go
+up-stairs.  At last there came in one who remained until he was alone in
+the room by himself.  A tallish, good-looking young man of one or two and
+twenty, with a light whisker.  He went to a particular hat-peg, took off
+a good hat that was hanging there, tried it on, hung his own hat in its
+place, and hung that hat on another peg, nearly opposite to me.  I then
+felt quite certain that he was the thief, and would come back by-and-by.
+
+‘When they were all up-stairs, the gentleman came in with the great-coat.
+I showed him where to hang it, so that I might have a good view of it;
+and he went away; and I lay under the sofa on my chest, for a couple of
+hours or so, waiting.
+
+‘At last, the same young man came down.  He walked across the room,
+whistling—stopped and listened—took another walk and whistled—stopped
+again, and listened—then began to go regularly round the pegs, feeling in
+the pockets of all the coats.  When he came to the great-coat, and felt
+the pocket-book, he was so eager and so hurried that he broke the strap
+in tearing it open.  As he began to put the money in his pocket, I
+crawled out from under the sofa, and his eyes met mine.
+
+                   [Picture: Dective story.  The Sofa]
+
+‘My face, as you may perceive, is brown now, but it was pale at that
+time, my health not being good; and looked as long as a horse’s.  Besides
+which, there was a great draught of air from the door, underneath the
+sofa, and I had tied a handkerchief round my head; so what I looked like,
+altogether, I don’t know.  He turned blue—literally blue—when he saw me
+crawling out, and I couldn’t feel surprised at it.
+
+‘“I am an officer of the Detective Police,” said I, “and have been lying
+here, since you first came in this morning.  I regret, for the sake of
+yourself and your friends, that you should have done what you have; but
+this case is complete.  You have the pocket-book in your hand and the
+money upon you; and I must take you into custody!”
+
+‘It was impossible to make out any case in his behalf, and on his trial
+he pleaded guilty.  How or when he got the means I don’t know; but while
+he was awaiting his sentence, he poisoned himself in Newgate.’
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+We inquired of this officer, on the conclusion of the foregoing anecdote,
+whether the time appeared long, or short, when he lay in that constrained
+position under the sofa?
+
+‘Why, you see, sir,’ he replied, ‘if he hadn’t come in, the first time,
+and I had not been quite sure he was the thief, and would return, the
+time would have seemed long.  But, as it was, I being dead certain of my
+man, the time seemed pretty short.’
+
+
+
+
+ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD
+
+
+HOW goes the night?  Saint Giles’s clock is striking nine.  The weather
+is dull and wet, and the long lines of street lamps are blurred, as if we
+saw them through tears.  A damp wind blows and rakes the pieman’s fire
+out, when he opens the door of his little furnace, carrying away an eddy
+of sparks.
+
+Saint Giles’s clock strikes nine.  We are punctual.  Where is Inspector
+Field?  Assistant Commissioner of Police is already here, enwrapped in
+oil-skin cloak, and standing in the shadow of Saint Giles’s steeple.
+Detective Sergeant, weary of speaking French all day to foreigners
+unpacking at the Great Exhibition, is already here.  Where is Inspector
+Field?
+
+Inspector Field is, to-night, the guardian genius of the British Museum.
+He is bringing his shrewd eye to bear on every corner of its solitary
+galleries, before he reports ‘all right.’  Suspicious of the Elgin
+marbles, and not to be done by cat-faced Egyptian giants with their hands
+upon their knees, Inspector Field, sagacious, vigilant, lamp in hand,
+throwing monstrous shadows on the walls and ceilings, passes through the
+spacious rooms.  If a mummy trembled in an atom of its dusty covering,
+Inspector Field would say, ‘Come out of that, Tom Green.  I know you!’
+If the smallest ‘Gonoph’ about town were crouching at the bottom of a
+classic bath, Inspector Field would nose him with a finer scent than the
+ogre’s, when adventurous Jack lay trembling in his kitchen copper.  But
+all is quiet, and Inspector Field goes warily on, making little outward
+show of attending to anything in particular, just recognising the
+Ichthyosaurus as a familiar acquaintance, and wondering, perhaps, how the
+detectives did it in the days before the Flood.
+
+Will Inspector Field be long about this work?  He may be half-an-hour
+longer.  He sends his compliments by Police Constable, and proposes that
+we meet at St. Giles’s Station House, across the road.  Good.  It were as
+well to stand by the fire, there, as in the shadow of Saint Giles’s
+steeple.
+
+Anything doing here to-night?  Not much.  We are very quiet.  A lost boy,
+extremely calm and small, sitting by the fire, whom we now confide to a
+constable to take home, for the child says that if you show him Newgate
+Street, he can show you where he lives—a raving drunken woman in the
+cells, who has screeched her voice away, and has hardly power enough left
+to declare, even with the passionate help of her feet and arms, that she
+is the daughter of a British officer, and, strike her blind and dead, but
+she’ll write a letter to the Queen! but who is soothed with a drink of
+water—in another cell, a quiet woman with a child at her breast, for
+begging—in another, her husband in a smock-frock, with a basket of
+watercresses—in another, a pickpocket—in another, a meek tremulous old
+pauper man who has been out for a holiday ‘and has took but a little
+drop, but it has overcome him after so many months in the house’—and
+that’s all as yet.  Presently, a sensation at the Station House door.
+Mr. Field, gentlemen!
+
+Inspector Field comes in, wiping his forehead, for he is of a burly
+figure, and has come fast from the ores and metals of the deep mines of
+the earth, and from the Parrot Gods of the South Sea Islands, and from
+the birds and beetles of the tropics, and from the Arts of Greece and
+Rome, and from the Sculptures of Nineveh, and from the traces of an elder
+world, when these were not.  Is Rogers ready?  Rogers is ready, strapped
+and great-coated, with a flaming eye in the middle of his waist, like a
+deformed Cyclops.  Lead on, Rogers, to Rats’ Castle!
+
+How many people may there be in London, who, if we had brought them
+deviously and blindfold, to this street, fifty paces from the Station
+House, and within call of Saint Giles’s church, would know it for a not
+remote part of the city in which their lives are passed?  How many, who
+amidst this compound of sickening smells, these heaps of filth, these
+tumbling houses, with all their vile contents, animate, and inanimate,
+slimily overflowing into the black road, would believe that they breathe
+_this_ air?  How much Red Tape may there be, that could look round on the
+faces which now hem us in—for our appearance here has caused a rush from
+all points to a common centre—the lowering foreheads, the sallow cheeks,
+the brutal eyes, the matted hair, the infected, vermin-haunted heaps of
+rags—and say, ‘I have thought of this.  I have not dismissed the thing.
+I have neither blustered it away, nor frozen it away, nor tied it up and
+put it away, nor smoothly said pooh, pooh! to it when it has been shown
+to me?’
+
+This is not what Rogers wants to know, however.  What Rogers wants to
+know, is, whether you _will_ clear the way here, some of you, or whether
+you won’t; because if you don’t do it right on end, he’ll lock you up!
+‘What!  _You_ are there, are you, Bob Miles?  You haven’t had enough of
+it yet, haven’t you?  You want three months more, do you?  Come away from
+that gentleman!  What are you creeping round there for?’
+
+‘What am I a doing, thinn, Mr. Rogers?’ says Bob Miles, appearing,
+villainous, at the end of a lane of light, made by the lantern.
+
+‘I’ll let you know pretty quick, if you don’t hook it.  WILL you hook
+it?’
+
+A sycophantic murmur rises from the crowd.  ‘Hook it, Bob, when Mr.
+Rogers and Mr. Field tells you!  Why don’t you hook it, when you are told
+to?’
+
+The most importunate of the voices strikes familiarly on Mr. Rogers’s
+ear.  He suddenly turns his lantern on the owner.
+
+‘What!  _You_ are there, are you, Mister Click?  You hook it too—come!’
+
+‘What for?’ says Mr. Click, discomfited.
+
+‘You hook it, will you!’ says Mr. Rogers with stern emphasis.
+
+Both Click and Miles _do_ ‘hook it,’ without another word, or, in plainer
+English, sneak away.
+
+‘Close up there, my men!’ says Inspector Field to two constables on duty
+who have followed.  ‘Keep together, gentlemen; we are going down here.
+Heads!’
+
+Saint Giles’s church strikes half-past ten.  We stoop low, and creep down
+a precipitous flight of steps into a dark close cellar.  There is a fire.
+There is a long deal table.  There are benches.  The cellar is full of
+company, chiefly very young men in various conditions of dirt and
+raggedness.  Some are eating supper.  There are no girls or women
+present.  Welcome to Rats’ Castle, gentlemen, and to this company of
+noted thieves!
+
+‘Well, my lads!  How are you, my lads?  What have you been doing to-day?
+Here’s some company come to see you, my lads!—_There’s_ a plate of
+beefsteak, sir, for the supper of a fine young man!  And there’s a mouth
+for a steak, sir!  Why, I should be too proud of such a mouth as that, if
+I had it myself!  Stand up and show it, sir!  Take off your cap.  There’s
+a fine young man for a nice little party, sir!  An’t he?’
+
+Inspector Field is the bustling speaker.  Inspector Field’s eye is the
+roving eye that searches every corner of the cellar as he talks.
+Inspector Field’s hand is the well-known hand that has collared half the
+people here, and motioned their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, male
+and female friends, inexorably to New South Wales.  Yet Inspector Field
+stands in this den, the Sultan of the place.  Every thief here cowers
+before him, like a schoolboy before his schoolmaster.  All watch him, all
+answer when addressed, all laugh at his jokes, all seek to propitiate
+him.  This cellar company alone—to say nothing of the crowd surrounding
+the entrance from the street above, and making the steps shine with
+eyes—is strong enough to murder us all, and willing enough to do it; but,
+let Inspector Field have a mind to pick out one thief here, and take him;
+let him produce that ghostly truncheon from his pocket, and say, with his
+business-air, ‘My lad, I want you!’ and all Rats’ Castle shall be
+stricken with paralysis, and not a finger move against him, as he fits
+the handcuffs on!
+
+Where’s the Earl of Warwick?—Here he is, Mr. Field!  Here’s the Earl of
+Warwick, Mr. Field!—O there you are, my Lord.  Come for’ard.  There’s a
+chest, sir, not to have a clean shirt on.  An’t it?  Take your hat off,
+my Lord.  Why, I should be ashamed if I was you—and an Earl, too—to show
+myself to a gentleman with my hat on!—The Earl of Warwick laughs and
+uncovers.  All the company laugh.  One pickpocket, especially, laughs
+with great enthusiasm.  O what a jolly game it is, when Mr. Field comes
+down—and don’t want nobody!
+
+So, you are here, too, are you, you tall, grey, soldierly-looking, grave
+man, standing by the fire?—Yes, sir.  Good evening, Mr. Field!—Let us
+see.  You lived servant to a nobleman once?—Yes, Mr. Field.—And what is
+it you do now; I forget?—Well, Mr. Field, I job about as well as I can.
+I left my employment on account of delicate health.  The family is still
+kind to me.  Mr. Wix of Piccadilly is also very kind to me when I am hard
+up.  Likewise Mr. Nix of Oxford Street.  I get a trifle from them
+occasionally, and rub on as well as I can, Mr. Field.  Mr. Field’s eye
+rolls enjoyingly, for this man is a notorious begging-letter writer.—Good
+night, my lads!—Good night, Mr. Field, and thank’ee, sir!
+
+Clear the street here, half a thousand of you!  Cut it, Mrs. Stalker—none
+of that—we don’t want you!  Rogers of the flaming eye, lead on to the
+tramps’ lodging-house!
+
+A dream of baleful faces attends to the door.  Now, stand back all of
+you!  In the rear Detective Sergeant plants himself, composedly
+whistling, with his strong right arm across the narrow passage.  Mrs.
+Stalker, I am something’d that need not be written here, if you won’t get
+yourself into trouble, in about half a minute, if I see that face of
+yours again!
+
+Saint Giles’s church clock, striking eleven, hums through our hand from
+the dilapidated door of a dark outhouse as we open it, and are stricken
+back by the pestilent breath that issues from within.  Rogers to the
+front with the light, and let us look!
+
+Ten, twenty, thirty—who can count them!  Men, women, children, for the
+most part naked, heaped upon the floor like maggots in a cheese!  Ho!  In
+that dark corner yonder!  Does anybody lie there?  Me sir, Irish me, a
+widder, with six children.  And yonder?  Me sir, Irish me, with me wife
+and eight poor babes.  And to the left there?  Me sir, Irish me, along
+with two more Irish boys as is me friends.  And to the right there?  Me
+sir and the Murphy fam’ly, numbering five blessed souls.  And what’s
+this, coiling, now, about my foot?  Another Irish me, pitifully in want
+of shaving, whom I have awakened from sleep—and across my other foot lies
+his wife—and by the shoes of Inspector Field lie their three eldest—and
+their three youngest are at present squeezed between the open door and
+the wall.  And why is there no one on that little mat before the sullen
+fire?  Because O’Donovan, with his wife and daughter, is not come in from
+selling Lucifers!  Nor on the bit of sacking in the nearest corner?  Bad
+luck!  Because that Irish family is late to-night, a-cadging in the
+streets!
+
+They are all awake now, the children excepted, and most of them sit up,
+to stare.  Wheresoever Mr. Rogers turns the flaming eye, there is a
+spectral figure rising, unshrouded, from a grave of rags.  Who is the
+landlord here?—I am, Mr. Field! says a bundle of ribs and parchment
+against the wall, scratching itself.—Will you spend this money fairly, in
+the morning, to buy coffee for ’em all?—Yes, sir, I will!—O he’ll do it,
+sir, he’ll do it fair.  He’s honest! cry the spectres.  And with thanks
+and Good Night sink into their graves again.
+
+Thus, we make our New Oxford Streets, and our other new streets, never
+heeding, never asking, where the wretches whom we clear out, crowd.  With
+such scenes at our doors, with all the plagues of Egypt tied up with bits
+of cobweb in kennels so near our homes, we timorously make our Nuisance
+Bills and Boards of Health, nonentities, and think to keep away the
+Wolves of Crime and Filth, by our electioneering ducking to little
+vestrymen and our gentlemanly handling of Red Tape!
+
+Intelligence of the coffee-money has got abroad.  The yard is full, and
+Rogers of the flaming eye is beleaguered with entreaties to show other
+Lodging Houses.  Mine next!  Mine!  Mine!  Rogers, military, obdurate,
+stiff-necked, immovable, replies not, but leads away; all falling back
+before him.  Inspector Field follows.  Detective Sergeant, with his
+barrier of arm across the little passage, deliberately waits to close the
+procession.  He sees behind him, without any effort, and exceedingly
+disturbs one individual far in the rear by coolly calling out, ‘It won’t
+do, Mr. Michael!  Don’t try it!’
+
+After council holden in the street, we enter other lodging-houses,
+public-houses, many lairs and holes; all noisome and offensive; none so
+filthy and so crowded as where Irish are.  In one, The Ethiopian party
+are expected home presently—were in Oxford Street when last heard
+of—shall be fetched, for our delight, within ten minutes.  In another,
+one of the two or three Professors who drew Napoleon Buonaparte and a
+couple of mackerel, on the pavement and then let the work of art out to a
+speculator, is refreshing after his labours.  In another, the vested
+interest of the profitable nuisance has been in one family for a hundred
+years, and the landlord drives in comfortably from the country to his
+snug little stew in town.  In all, Inspector Field is received with
+warmth.  Coiners and smashers droop before him; pickpockets defer to him;
+the gentle sex (not very gentle here) smile upon him.  Half-drunken hags
+check themselves in the midst of pots of beer, or pints of gin, to drink
+to Mr. Field, and pressingly to ask the honour of his finishing the
+draught.  One beldame in rusty black has such admiration for him, that
+she runs a whole street’s length to shake him by the hand; tumbling into
+a heap of mud by the way, and still pressing her attentions when her very
+form has ceased to be distinguishable through it.  Before the power of
+the law, the power of superior sense—for common thieves are fools beside
+these men—and the power of a perfect mastery of their character, the
+garrison of Rats’ Castle and the adjacent Fortresses make but a skulking
+show indeed when reviewed by Inspector Field.
+
+Saint Giles’s clock says it will be midnight in half-an-hour, and
+Inspector Field says we must hurry to the Old Mint in the Borough.  The
+cab-driver is low-spirited, and has a solemn sense of his responsibility.
+Now, what’s your fare, my lad?—O you know, Inspector Field, what’s the
+good of asking me!
+
+Say, Parker, strapped and great-coated, and waiting in dim Borough
+doorway by appointment, to replace the trusty Rogers whom we left deep in
+Saint Giles’s, are you ready?  Ready, Inspector Field, and at a motion of
+my wrist behold my flaming eye.
+
+This narrow street, sir, is the chief part of the Old Mint, full of low
+lodging-houses, as you see by the transparent canvas-lamps and blinds,
+announcing beds for travellers!  But it is greatly changed, friend Field,
+from my former knowledge of it; it is infinitely quieter and more subdued
+than when I was here last, some seven years ago?  O yes!  Inspector
+Haynes, a first-rate man, is on this station now and plays the Devil with
+them!
+
+Well, my lads!  How are you to-night, my lads?  Playing cards here, eh?
+Who wins?—Why, Mr. Field, I, the sulky gentleman with the damp flat
+side-curls, rubbing my bleared eye with the end of my neckerchief which
+is like a dirty eel-skin, am losing just at present, but I suppose I must
+take my pipe out of my mouth, and be submissive to _you_—I hope I see you
+well, Mr. Field?—Aye, all right, my lad.  Deputy, who have you got
+up-stairs?  Be pleased to show the rooms!
+
+Why Deputy, Inspector Field can’t say.  He only knows that the man who
+takes care of the beds and lodgers is always called so.  Steady, O
+Deputy, with the flaring candle in the blacking-bottle, for this is a
+slushy back-yard, and the wooden staircase outside the house creaks and
+has holes in it.
+
+Again, in these confined intolerable rooms, burrowed out like the holes
+of rats or the nests of insect-vermin, but fuller of intolerable smells,
+are crowds of sleepers, each on his foul truckle-bed coiled up beneath a
+rug.  Holloa here!  Come!  Let us see you!  Show your face!  Pilot Parker
+goes from bed to bed and turns their slumbering heads towards us, as a
+salesman might turn sheep.  Some wake up with an execration and a
+threat.—What! who spoke?  O!  If it’s the accursed glaring eye that fixes
+me, go where I will, I am helpless.  Here!  I sit up to be looked at.  Is
+it me you want?  Not you, lie down again! and I lie down, with a woful
+growl.
+
+Whenever the turning lane of light becomes stationary for a moment, some
+sleeper appears at the end of it, submits himself to be scrutinised, and
+fades away into the darkness.
+
+There should be strange dreams here, Deputy.  They sleep sound enough,
+says Deputy, taking the candle out of the blacking-bottle, snuffing it
+with his fingers, throwing the snuff into the bottle, and corking it up
+with the candle; that’s all _I_ know.  What is the inscription, Deputy,
+on all the discoloured sheets?  A precaution against loss of linen.
+Deputy turns down the rug of an unoccupied bed and discloses it.  STOP
+THIEF!
+
+To lie at night, wrapped in the legend of my slinking life; to take the
+cry that pursues me, waking, to my breast in sleep; to have it staring at
+me, and clamouring for me, as soon as consciousness returns; to have it
+for my first-foot on New-Year’s day, my Valentine, my Birthday salute, my
+Christmas greeting, my parting with the old year.  STOP THIEF!
+
+And to know that I _must_ be stopped, come what will.  To know that I am
+no match for this individual energy and keenness, or this organised and
+steady system!  Come across the street, here, and, entering by a little
+shop and yard, examine these intricate passages and doors, contrived for
+escape, flapping and counter-flapping, like the lids of the conjurer’s
+boxes.  But what avail they?  Who gets in by a nod, and shows their
+secret working to us?  Inspector Field.
+
+Don’t forget the old Farm House, Parker!  Parker is not the man to forget
+it.  We are going there, now.  It is the old Manor-House of these parts,
+and stood in the country once.  Then, perhaps, there was something, which
+was not the beastly street, to see from the shattered low fronts of the
+overhanging wooden houses we are passing under—shut up now, pasted over
+with bills about the literature and drama of the Mint, and mouldering
+away.  This long paved yard was a paddock or a garden once, or a court in
+front of the Farm House.  Perchance, with a dovecot in the centre, and
+fowls peeking about—with fair elm trees, then, where discoloured
+chimney-stacks and gables are now—noisy, then, with rooks which have
+yielded to a different sort of rookery.  It’s likelier than not,
+Inspector Field thinks, as we turn into the common kitchen, which is in
+the yard, and many paces from the house.
+
+Well, my lads and lasses, how are you all?  Where’s Blackey, who has
+stood near London Bridge these five-and-twenty years, with a painted skin
+to represent disease?—Here he is, Mr. Field!—How are you, Blackey?—Jolly,
+sa!  Not playing the fiddle to-night, Blackey?—Not a night, sa!  A sharp,
+smiling youth, the wit of the kitchen, interposes.  He an’t musical
+to-night, sir.  I’ve been giving him a moral lecture; I’ve been a talking
+to him about his latter end, you see.  A good many of these are my
+pupils, sir.  This here young man (smoothing down the hair of one near
+him, reading a Sunday paper) is a pupil of mine.  I’m a teaching of him
+to read, sir.  He’s a promising cove, sir.  He’s a smith, he is, and gets
+his living by the sweat of the brow, sir.  So do I, myself, sir.  This
+young woman is my sister, Mr. Field.  _She’s_ getting on very well too.
+I’ve a deal of trouble with ’em, sir, but I’m richly rewarded, now I see
+’em all a doing so well, and growing up so creditable.  That’s a great
+comfort, that is, an’t it, sir?—In the midst of the kitchen (the whole
+kitchen is in ecstasies with this impromptu ‘chaff’) sits a young,
+modest, gentle-looking creature, with a beautiful child in her lap.  She
+seems to belong to the company, but is so strangely unlike it.  She has
+such a pretty, quiet face and voice, and is so proud to hear the child
+admired—thinks you would hardly believe that he is only nine months old!
+Is she as bad as the rest, I wonder?  Inspectorial experience does not
+engender a belief contrariwise, but prompts the answer, Not a ha’porth of
+difference!
+
+There is a piano going in the old Farm House as we approach.  It stops.
+Landlady appears.  Has no objections, Mr. Field, to gentlemen being
+brought, but wishes it were at earlier hours, the lodgers complaining of
+ill-conwenience.  Inspector Field is polite and soothing—knows his woman
+and the sex.  Deputy (a girl in this case) shows the way up a heavy,
+broad old staircase, kept very clean, into clean rooms where many
+sleepers are, and where painted panels of an older time look strangely on
+the truckle beds.  The sight of whitewash and the smell of soap—two
+things we seem by this time to have parted from in infancy—make the old
+Farm House a phenomenon, and connect themselves with the so curiously
+misplaced picture of the pretty mother and child long after we have left
+it,—long after we have left, besides, the neighbouring nook with
+something of a rustic flavour in it yet, where once, beneath a low wooden
+colonnade still standing as of yore, the eminent Jack Sheppard
+condescended to regale himself, and where, now, two old bachelor brothers
+in broad hats (who are whispered in the Mint to have made a compact long
+ago that if either should ever marry, he must forfeit his share of the
+joint property) still keep a sequestered tavern, and sit o’ nights
+smoking pipes in the bar, among ancient bottles and glasses, as our eyes
+behold them.
+
+How goes the night now?  Saint George of Southwark answers with twelve
+blows upon his bell.  Parker, good night, for Williams is already waiting
+over in the region of Ratcliffe Highway, to show the houses where the
+sailors dance.
+
+I should like to know where Inspector Field was born.  In Ratcliffe
+Highway, I would have answered with confidence, but for his being equally
+at home wherever we go.  _He_ does not trouble his head as I do, about
+the river at night.  _He_ does not care for its creeping, black and
+silent, on our right there, rushing through sluice-gates, lapping at
+piles and posts and iron rings, hiding strange things in its mud, running
+away with suicides and accidentally drowned bodies faster than midnight
+funeral should, and acquiring such various experience between its cradle
+and its grave.  It has no mystery for him.  Is there not the Thames
+Police!
+
+Accordingly, Williams leads the way.  We are a little late, for some of
+the houses are already closing.  No matter.  You show us plenty.  All the
+landlords know Inspector Field.  All pass him, freely and
+good-humouredly, wheresoever he wants to go.  So thoroughly are all these
+houses open to him and our local guide, that, granting that sailors must
+be entertained in their own way—as I suppose they must, and have a right
+to be—I hardly know how such places could be better regulated.  Not that
+I call the company very select, or the dancing very graceful—even so
+graceful as that of the German Sugar Bakers, whose assembly, by the
+Minories, we stopped to visit—but there is watchful maintenance of order
+in every house, and swift expulsion where need is.  Even in the midst of
+drunkenness, both of the lethargic kind and the lively, there is sharp
+landlord supervision, and pockets are in less peril than out of doors.
+These houses show, singularly, how much of the picturesque and romantic
+there truly is in the sailor, requiring to be especially addressed.  All
+the songs (sung in a hailstorm of halfpence, which are pitched at the
+singer without the least tenderness for the time or tune—mostly from
+great rolls of copper carried for the purpose—and which he occasionally
+dodges like shot as they fly near his head) are of the sentimental sea
+sort.  All the rooms are decorated with nautical subjects.  Wrecks,
+engagements, ships on fire, ships passing lighthouses on iron-bound
+coasts, ships blowing up, ships going down, ships running ashore, men
+lying out upon the main-yard in a gale of wind, sailors and ships in
+every variety of peril, constitute the illustrations of fact.  Nothing
+can be done in the fanciful way, without a thumping boy upon a scaly
+dolphin.
+
+How goes the night now?  Past one.  Black and Green are waiting in
+Whitechapel to unveil the mysteries of Wentworth Street.  Williams, the
+best of friends must part.  Adieu!
+
+Are not Black and Green ready at the appointed place?  O yes!  They glide
+out of shadow as we stop.  Imperturbable Black opens the cab-door;
+Imperturbable Green takes a mental note of the driver.  Both Green and
+Black then open each his flaming eye, and marshal us the way that we are
+going.
+
+The lodging-house we want is hidden in a maze of streets and courts.  It
+is fast shut.  We knock at the door, and stand hushed looking up for a
+light at one or other of the begrimed old lattice windows in its ugly
+front, when another constable comes up—supposes that we want ‘to see the
+school.’  Detective Sergeant meanwhile has got over a rail, opened a
+gate, dropped down an area, overcome some other little obstacles, and
+tapped at a window.  Now returns.  The landlord will send a deputy
+immediately.
+
+Deputy is heard to stumble out of bed.  Deputy lights a candle, draws
+back a bolt or two, and appears at the door.  Deputy is a shivering shirt
+and trousers by no means clean, a yawning face, a shock head much
+confused externally and internally.  We want to look for some one.  You
+may go up with the light, and take ’em all, if you like, says Deputy,
+resigning it, and sitting down upon a bench in the kitchen with his ten
+fingers sleepily twisting in his hair.
+
+Halloa here!  Now then!  Show yourselves.  That’ll do.  It’s not you.
+Don’t disturb yourself any more!  So on, through a labyrinth of airless
+rooms, each man responding, like a wild beast, to the keeper who has
+tamed him, and who goes into his cage.  What, you haven’t found him,
+then? says Deputy, when we came down.  A woman mysteriously sitting up
+all night in the dark by the smouldering ashes of the kitchen fire, says
+it’s only tramps and cadgers here; it’s gonophs over the way.  A man
+mysteriously walking about the kitchen all night in the dark, bids her
+hold her tongue.  We come out.  Deputy fastens the door and goes to bed
+again.
+
+Black and Green, you know Bark, lodging-house keeper and receiver of
+stolen goods?—O yes, Inspector Field.—Go to Bark’s next.
+
+Bark sleeps in an inner wooden hutch, near his street door.  As we parley
+on the step with Bark’s Deputy, Bark growls in his bed.  We enter, and
+Bark flies out of bed.  Bark is a red villain and a wrathful, with a
+sanguine throat that looks very much as if it were expressly made for
+hanging, as he stretches it out, in pale defiance, over the half-door of
+his hutch.  Bark’s parts of speech are of an awful sort—principally
+adjectives.  I won’t, says Bark, have no adjective police and adjective
+strangers in my adjective premises!  I won’t, by adjective and
+substantive!  Give me my trousers, and I’ll send the whole adjective
+police to adjective and substantive!  Give me, says Bark, my adjective
+trousers!  I’ll put an adjective knife in the whole bileing of ’em.  I’ll
+punch their adjective heads.  I’ll rip up their adjective substantives.
+Give me my adjective trousers! says Bark, and I’ll spile the bileing of
+’em!
+
+Now, Bark, what’s the use of this?  Here’s Black and Green, Detective
+Sergeant, and Inspector Field.  You know we will come in.—I know you
+won’t! says Bark.  Somebody give me my adjective trousers!  Bark’s
+trousers seem difficult to find.  He calls for them as Hercules might for
+his club.  Give me my adjective trousers! says Bark, and I’ll spile the
+bileing of ’em!
+
+Inspector Field holds that it’s all one whether Bark likes the visit or
+don’t like it.  He, Inspector Field, is an Inspector of the Detective
+Police, Detective Sergeant is Detective Sergeant, Black and Green are
+constables in uniform.  Don’t you be a fool, Bark, or you know it will be
+the worse for you.—I don’t care, says Bark.  Give me my adjective
+trousers!
+
+At two o’clock in the morning, we descend into Bark’s low kitchen,
+leaving Bark to foam at the mouth above, and Imperturbable Black and
+Green to look at him.  Bark’s kitchen is crammed full of thieves, holding
+a conversazione there by lamp-light.  It is by far the most dangerous
+assembly we have seen yet.  Stimulated by the ravings of Bark, above,
+their looks are sullen, but not a man speaks.  We ascend again.  Bark has
+got his trousers, and is in a state of madness in the passage with his
+back against a door that shuts off the upper staircase.  We observe, in
+other respects, a ferocious individuality in Bark.  Instead of ‘STOP
+THIEF!’ on his linen, he prints ‘STOLEN FROM Bark’s!’
+
+Now, Bark, we are going up-stairs!—No, you ain’t!—You refuse admission to
+the Police, do you, Bark?—Yes, I do!  I refuse it to all the adjective
+police, and to all the adjective substantives.  If the adjective coves in
+the kitchen was men, they’d come up now, and do for you!  Shut me that
+there door! says Bark, and suddenly we are enclosed in the passage.
+They’d come up and do for you! cries Bark, and waits.  Not a sound in the
+kitchen!  They’d come up and do for you! cries Bark again, and waits.
+Not a sound in the kitchen!  We are shut up, half-a-dozen of us, in
+Bark’s house in the innermost recesses of the worst part of London, in
+the dead of the night—the house is crammed with notorious robbers and
+ruffians—and not a man stirs.  No, Bark.  They know the weight of the
+law, and they know Inspector Field and Co. too well.
+
+We leave bully Bark to subside at leisure out of his passion and his
+trousers, and, I dare say, to be inconveniently reminded of this little
+brush before long.  Black and Green do ordinary duty here, and look
+serious.
+
+As to White, who waits on Holborn Hill to show the courts that are eaten
+out of Rotten Gray’s Inn, Lane, where other lodging-houses are, and where
+(in one blind alley) the Thieves’ Kitchen and Seminary for the teaching
+of the art to children is, the night has so worn away, being now
+
+                 almost at odds with morning, which is which,
+
+that they are quiet, and no light shines through the chinks in the
+shutters.  As undistinctive Death will come here, one day, sleep comes
+now.  The wicked cease from troubling sometimes, even in this life.
+
+
+
+
+DOWN WITH THE TIDE
+
+
+A VERY dark night it was, and bitter cold; the east wind blowing bleak,
+and bringing with it stinging particles from marsh, and moor, and
+fen—from the Great Desert and Old Egypt, may be.  Some of the component
+parts of the sharp-edged vapour that came flying up the Thames at London
+might be mummy-dust, dry atoms from the Temple at Jerusalem, camels’
+foot-prints, crocodiles’ hatching-places, loosened grains of expression
+from the visages of blunt-nosed sphynxes, waifs and strays from caravans
+of turbaned merchants, vegetation from jungles, frozen snow from the
+Himalayas.  O!  It was very, very dark upon the Thames, and it was
+bitter, bitter cold.
+
+‘And yet,’ said the voice within the great pea-coat at my side, ‘you’ll
+have seen a good many rivers, too, I dare say?’
+
+‘Truly,’ said I, ‘when I come to think of it, not a few.  From the
+Niagara, downward to the mountain rivers of Italy, which are like the
+national spirit—very tame, or chafing suddenly and bursting bounds, only
+to dwindle away again.  The Moselle, and the Rhine, and the Rhone; and
+the Seine, and the Saone; and the St. Lawrence, Mississippi, and Ohio;
+and the Tiber, the Po, and the Arno; and the—’
+
+Peacoat coughing as if he had had enough of that, I said no more.  I
+could have carried the catalogue on to a teasing length, though, if I had
+been in the cruel mind.
+
+‘And after all,’ said he, ‘this looks so dismal?’
+
+‘So awful,’ I returned, ‘at night.  The Seine at Paris is very gloomy
+too, at such a time, and is probably the scene of far more crime and
+greater wickedness; but this river looks so broad and vast, so murky and
+silent, seems such an image of death in the midst of the great city’s
+life, that—’
+
+That Peacoat coughed again.  He _could not_ stand my holding forth.
+
+We were in a four-oared Thames Police Galley, lying on our oars in the
+deep shadow of Southwark Bridge—under the corner arch on the Surrey
+side—having come down with the tide from Vauxhall.  We were fain to hold
+on pretty tight, though close in shore, for the river was swollen and the
+tide running down very strong.  We were watching certain water-rats of
+human growth, and lay in the deep shade as quiet as mice; our light
+hidden and our scraps of conversation carried on in whispers.  Above us,
+the massive iron girders of the arch were faintly visible, and below us
+its ponderous shadow seemed to sink down to the bottom of the stream.
+
+We had been lying here some half an hour.  With our backs to the wind, it
+is true; but the wind being in a determined temper blew straight through
+us, and would not take the trouble to go round.  I would have boarded a
+fireship to get into action, and mildly suggested as much to my friend
+Pea.
+
+‘No doubt,’ says he as patiently as possible; ‘but shore-going tactics
+wouldn’t do with us.  River-thieves can always get rid of stolen property
+in a moment by dropping it overboard.  We want to take them with the
+property, so we lurk about and come out upon ’em sharp.  If they see us
+or hear us, over it goes.’
+
+Pea’s wisdom being indisputable, there was nothing for it but to sit
+there and be blown through, for another half-hour.  The water-rats
+thinking it wise to abscond at the end of that time without commission of
+felony, we shot out, disappointed, with the tide.
+
+‘Grim they look, don’t they?’ said Pea, seeing me glance over my shoulder
+at the lights upon the bridge, and downward at their long crooked
+reflections in the river.
+
+‘Very,’ said I, ‘and make one think with a shudder of Suicides.  What a
+night for a dreadful leap from that parapet!’
+
+‘Aye, but Waterloo’s the favourite bridge for making holes in the water
+from,’ returned Pea.  ‘By the bye—avast pulling, lads!—would you like to
+speak to Waterloo on the subject?’
+
+My face confessing a surprised desire to have some friendly conversation
+with Waterloo Bridge, and my friend Pea being the most obliging of men,
+we put about, pulled out of the force of the stream, and in place of
+going at great speed with the tide, began to strive against it, close in
+shore again.  Every colour but black seemed to have departed from the
+world.  The air was black, the water was black, the barges and hulks were
+black, the piles were black, the buildings were black, the shadows were
+only a deeper shade of black upon a black ground.  Here and there, a coal
+fire in an iron cresset blazed upon a wharf; but, one knew that it too
+had been black a little while ago, and would be black again soon.
+Uncomfortable rushes of water suggestive of gurgling and drowning,
+ghostly rattlings of iron chains, dismal clankings of discordant engines,
+formed the music that accompanied the dip of our oars and their rattling
+in the rowlocks.  Even the noises had a black sound to me—as the trumpet
+sounded red to the blind man.
+
+Our dexterous boat’s crew made nothing of the tide, and pulled us
+gallantly up to Waterloo Bridge.  Here Pea and I disembarked, passed
+under the black stone archway, and climbed the steep stone steps.  Within
+a few feet of their summit, Pea presented me to Waterloo (or an eminent
+toll-taker representing that structure), muffled up to the eyes in a
+thick shawl, and amply great-coated and fur-capped.
+
+Waterloo received us with cordiality, and observed of the night that it
+was ‘a Searcher.’  He had been originally called the Strand Bridge, he
+informed us, but had received his present name at the suggestion of the
+proprietors, when Parliament had resolved to vote three hundred thousand
+pound for the erection of a monument in honour of the victory.
+Parliament took the hint (said Waterloo, with the least flavour of
+misanthropy) and saved the money.  Of course the late Duke of Wellington
+was the first passenger, and of course he paid his penny, and of course a
+noble lord preserved it evermore.  The treadle and index at the
+toll-house (a most ingenious contrivance for rendering fraud impossible),
+were invented by Mr. Lethbridge, then property-man at Drury Lane Theatre.
+
+Was it suicide, we wanted to know about? said Waterloo.  Ha!  Well, he
+had seen a good deal of that work, he did assure us.  He had prevented
+some.  Why, one day a woman, poorish looking, came in between the hatch,
+slapped down a penny, and wanted to go on without the change!  Waterloo
+suspected this, and says to his mate, ‘give an eye to the gate,’ and
+bolted after her.  She had got to the third seat between the piers, and
+was on the parapet just a going over, when he caught her and gave her in
+charge.  At the police office next morning, she said it was along of
+trouble and a bad husband.
+
+‘Likely enough,’ observed Waterloo to Pea and myself, as he adjusted his
+chin in his shawl.  ‘There’s a deal of trouble about, you see—and bad
+husbands too!’
+
+Another time, a young woman at twelve o’clock in the open day, got
+through, darted along; and, before Waterloo could come near her, jumped
+upon the parapet, and shot herself over sideways.  Alarm given, watermen
+put off, lucky escape.—Clothes buoyed her up.
+
+‘This is where it is,’ said Waterloo.  ‘If people jump off straight
+forwards from the middle of the parapet of the bays of the bridge, they
+are seldom killed by drowning, but are smashed, poor things; that’s what
+they are; they dash themselves upon the buttress of the bridge.  But you
+jump off,’ said Waterloo to me, putting his fore-finger in a button-hole
+of my great-coat; ‘you jump off from the side of the bay, and you’ll
+tumble, true, into the stream under the arch.  What you have got to do,
+is to mind how you jump in!  There was poor Tom Steele from Dublin.
+Didn’t dive!  Bless you, didn’t dive at all!  Fell down so flat into the
+water, that he broke his breast-bone, and lived two days!’
+
+I asked Waterloo if there were a favourite side of his bridge for this
+dreadful purpose?  He reflected, and thought yes, there was.  He should
+say the Surrey side.
+
+Three decent-looking men went through one day, soberly and quietly, and
+went on abreast for about a dozen yards: when the middle one, he sung
+out, all of a sudden, ‘Here goes, Jack!’ and was over in a minute.
+
+Body found?  Well.  Waterloo didn’t rightly recollect about that.  They
+were compositors, _they_ were.
+
+He considered it astonishing how quick people were!  Why, there was a cab
+came up one Boxing-night, with a young woman in it, who looked, according
+to Waterloo’s opinion of her, a little the worse for liquor; very
+handsome she was too—very handsome.  She stopped the cab at the gate, and
+said she’d pay the cabman then, which she did, though there was a little
+hankering about the fare, because at first she didn’t seem quite to know
+where she wanted to be drove to.  However, she paid the man, and the toll
+too, and looking Waterloo in the face (he thought she knew him, don’t you
+see!) said, ‘I’ll finish it somehow!’  Well, the cab went off, leaving
+Waterloo a little doubtful in his mind, and while it was going on at full
+speed the young woman jumped out, never fell, hardly staggered, ran along
+the bridge pavement a little way, passing several people, and jumped over
+from the second opening.  At the inquest it was giv’ in evidence that she
+had been quarrelling at the Hero of Waterloo, and it was brought in
+jealousy.  (One of the results of Waterloo’s experience was, that there
+was a deal of jealousy about.)
+
+‘Do we ever get madmen?’ said Waterloo, in answer to an inquiry of mine.
+‘Well, we _do_ get madmen.  Yes, we have had one or two; escaped from
+‘Sylums, I suppose.  One hadn’t a halfpenny; and because I wouldn’t let
+him through, he went back a little way, stooped down, took a run, and
+butted at the hatch like a ram.  He smashed his hat rarely, but his head
+didn’t seem no worse—in my opinion on account of his being wrong in it
+afore.  Sometimes people haven’t got a halfpenny.  If they are really
+tired and poor we give ’em one and let ’em through.  Other people will
+leave things—pocket-handkerchiefs mostly.  I have taken cravats and
+gloves, pocket-knives, tooth-picks, studs, shirt-pins, rings (generally
+from young gents, early in the morning), but handkerchiefs is the general
+thing.’
+
+‘Regular customers?’ said Waterloo.  ‘Lord, yes!  We have regular
+customers.  One, such a worn-out, used-up old file as you can scarcely
+picter, comes from the Surrey side as regular as ten o’clock at night
+comes; and goes over, _I_ think, to some flash house on the Middlesex
+side.  He comes back, he does, as reg’lar as the clock strikes three in
+the morning, and then can hardly drag one of his old legs after the
+other.  He always turns down the water-stairs, comes up again, and then
+goes on down the Waterloo Road.  He always does the same thing, and never
+varies a minute.  Does it every night—even Sundays.’
+
+I asked Waterloo if he had given his mind to the possibility of this
+particular customer going down the water-stairs at three o’clock some
+morning, and never coming up again?  He didn’t think that of him, he
+replied.  In fact, it was Waterloo’s opinion, founded on his observation
+of that file, that he know’d a trick worth two of it.
+
+‘There’s another queer old customer,’ said Waterloo, ‘comes over, as
+punctual as the almanack, at eleven o’clock on the sixth of January, at
+eleven o’clock on the fifth of April, at eleven o’clock on the sixth of
+July, at eleven o’clock on the tenth of October.  Drives a shaggy little,
+rough pony, in a sort of a rattle-trap arm-chair sort of a thing.  White
+hair he has, and white whiskers, and muffles himself up with all manner
+of shawls.  He comes back again the same afternoon, and we never see more
+of him for three months.  He is a captain in the navy—retired—wery
+old—wery odd—and served with Lord Nelson.  He is particular about drawing
+his pension at Somerset House afore the clock strikes twelve every
+quarter.  I have heerd say that he thinks it wouldn’t be according to the
+Act of Parliament, if he didn’t draw it afore twelve.’
+
+Having related these anecdotes in a natural manner, which was the best
+warranty in the world for their genuine nature, our friend Waterloo was
+sinking deep into his shawl again, as having exhausted his communicative
+powers and taken in enough east wind, when my other friend Pea in a
+moment brought him to the surface by asking whether he had not been
+occasionally the subject of assault and battery in the execution of his
+duty?  Waterloo recovering his spirits, instantly dashed into a new
+branch of his subject.  We learnt how ‘both these teeth’—here he pointed
+to the places where two front teeth were not—were knocked out by an ugly
+customer who one night made a dash at him (Waterloo) while his (the ugly
+customer’s) pal and coadjutor made a dash at the toll-taking apron where
+the money-pockets were; how Waterloo, letting the teeth go (to Blazes, he
+observed indefinitely), grappled with the apron-seizer, permitting the
+ugly one to run away; and how he saved the bank, and captured his man,
+and consigned him to fine and imprisonment.  Also how, on another night,
+‘a Cove’ laid hold of Waterloo, then presiding at the horse-gate of his
+bridge, and threw him unceremoniously over his knee, having first cut his
+head open with his whip.  How Waterloo ‘got right,’ and started after the
+Cove all down the Waterloo Road, through Stamford Street, and round to
+the foot of Blackfriars Bridge, where the Cove ‘cut into’ a public-house.
+How Waterloo cut in too; but how an aider and abettor of the Cove’s, who
+happened to be taking a promiscuous drain at the bar, stopped Waterloo;
+and the Cove cut out again, ran across the road down Holland Street, and
+where not, and into a beer-shop.  How Waterloo breaking away from his
+detainer was close upon the Cove’s heels, attended by no end of people,
+who, seeing him running with the blood streaming down his face, thought
+something worse was ‘up,’ and roared Fire! and Murder! on the hopeful
+chance of the matter in hand being one or both.  How the Cove was
+ignominiously taken, in a shed where he had run to hide, and how at the
+Police Court they at first wanted to make a sessions job of it; but
+eventually Waterloo was allowed to be ‘spoke to,’ and the Cove made it
+square with Waterloo by paying his doctor’s bill (W. was laid up for a
+week) and giving him ‘Three, ten.’  Likewise we learnt what we had
+faintly suspected before, that your sporting amateur on the Derby day,
+albeit a captain, can be—‘if he be,’ as Captain Bobadil observes, ‘so
+generously minded’—anything but a man of honour and a gentleman; not
+sufficiently gratifying his nice sense of humour by the witty scattering
+of flour and rotten eggs on obtuse civilians, but requiring the further
+excitement of ‘bilking the toll,’ and ‘Pitching into’ Waterloo, and
+‘cutting him about the head with his whip;’ finally being, when called
+upon to answer for the assault, what Waterloo described as ‘Minus,’ or,
+as I humbly conceived it, not to be found.  Likewise did Waterloo inform
+us, in reply to my inquiries, admiringly and deferentially preferred
+through my friend Pea, that the takings at the Bridge had more than
+doubled in amount, since the reduction of the toll one half.  And being
+asked if the aforesaid takings included much bad money, Waterloo
+responded, with a look far deeper than the deepest part of the river, he
+should think not!—and so retired into his shawl for the rest of the
+night.
+
+Then did Pea and I once more embark in our four-oared galley, and glide
+swiftly down the river with the tide.  And while the shrewd East rasped
+and notched us, as with jagged razors, did my friend Pea impart to me
+confidences of interest relating to the Thames Police; we, between
+whiles, finding ‘duty boats’ hanging in dark corners under banks, like
+weeds—our own was a ‘supervision boat’—and they, as they reported ‘all
+right!’ flashing their hidden light on us, and we flashing ours on them.
+These duty boats had one sitter in each: an Inspector: and were rowed
+‘Ran-dan,’ which—for the information of those who never graduated, as I
+was once proud to do, under a fireman-waterman and winner of Kean’s Prize
+Wherry: who, in the course of his tuition, took hundreds of gallons of
+rum and egg (at my expense) at the various houses of note above and below
+bridge; not by any means because he liked it, but to cure a weakness in
+his liver, for which the faculty had particularly recommended it—may be
+explained as rowed by three men, two pulling an oar each, and one a pair
+of sculls.
+
+Thus, floating down our black highway, sullenly frowned upon by the
+knitted brows of Blackfriars, Southwark, and London, each in his lowering
+turn, I was shown by my friend Pea that there are, in the Thames Police
+Force, whose district extends from Battersea to Barking Creek,
+ninety-eight men, eight duty boats, and two supervision boats; and that
+these go about so silently, and lie in wait in such dark places, and so
+seem to be nowhere, and so may be anywhere, that they have gradually
+become a police of prevention, keeping the river almost clear of any
+great crimes, even while the increased vigilance on shore has made it
+much harder than of yore to live by ‘thieving’ in the streets.  And as to
+the various kinds of water-thieves, said my friend Pea, there were the
+Tier-rangers, who silently dropped alongside the tiers of shipping in the
+Pool, by night, and who, going to the companion-head, listened for two
+snores—snore number one, the skipper’s; snore number two, the
+mate’s—mates and skippers always snoring great guns, and being dead sure
+to be hard at it if they had turned in and were asleep.  Hearing the
+double fire, down went the Rangers into the skippers’ cabins; groped for
+the skippers’ inexpressibles, which it was the custom of those gentlemen
+to shake off, watch, money, braces, boots, and all together, on the
+floor; and therewith made off as silently as might be.  Then there were
+the Lumpers, or labourers employed to unload vessels.  They wore loose
+canvas jackets with a broad hem in the bottom, turned inside, so as to
+form a large circular pocket in which they could conceal, like clowns in
+pantomimes, packages of surprising sizes.  A great deal of property was
+stolen in this manner (Pea confided to me) from steamers; first, because
+steamers carry a larger number of small packages than other ships; next,
+because of the extreme rapidity with which they are obliged to be unladen
+for their return voyages.  The Lumpers dispose of their booty easily to
+marine store dealers, and the only remedy to be suggested is that marine
+store shops should be licensed, and thus brought under the eye of the
+police as rigidly as public-houses.  Lumpers also smuggle goods ashore
+for the crews of vessels.  The smuggling of tobacco is so considerable,
+that it is well worth the while of the sellers of smuggled tobacco to use
+hydraulic presses, to squeeze a single pound into a package small enough
+to be contained in an ordinary pocket.  Next, said my friend Pea, there
+were the Truckers—less thieves than smugglers, whose business it was to
+land more considerable parcels of goods than the Lumpers could manage.
+They sometimes sold articles of grocery and so forth, to the crews, in
+order to cloak their real calling, and get aboard without suspicion.
+Many of them had boats of their own, and made money.  Besides these,
+there were the Dredgermen, who, under pretence of dredging up coals and
+such like from the bottom of the river, hung about barges and other
+undecked craft, and when they saw an opportunity, threw any property they
+could lay their hands on overboard: in order slyly to dredge it up when
+the vessel was gone.  Sometimes, they dexterously used their dredges to
+whip away anything that might lie within reach.  Some of them were mighty
+neat at this, and the accomplishment was called dry dredging.  Then,
+there was a vast deal of property, such as copper nails, sheathing,
+hardwood, &c., habitually brought away by shipwrights and other workmen
+from their employers’ yards, and disposed of to marine store dealers,
+many of whom escaped detection through hard swearing, and their
+extraordinary artful ways of accounting for the possession of stolen
+property.  Likewise, there were special-pleading practitioners, for whom
+barges ‘drifted away of their own selves’—they having no hand in it,
+except first cutting them loose, and afterwards plundering
+them—innocents, meaning no harm, who had the misfortune to observe those
+foundlings wandering about the Thames.
+
+We were now going in and out, with little noise and great nicety, among
+the tiers of shipping, whose many hulls, lying close together, rose out
+of the water like black streets.  Here and there, a Scotch, an Irish, or
+a foreign steamer, getting up her steam as the tide made, looked, with
+her great chimney and high sides, like a quiet factory among the common
+buildings.  Now, the streets opened into clearer spaces, now contracted
+into alleys; but the tiers were so like houses, in the dark, that I could
+almost have believed myself in the narrower bye-ways of Venice.
+Everything was wonderfully still; for, it wanted full three hours of
+flood, and nothing seemed awake but a dog here and there.
+
+So we took no Tier-rangers captive, nor any Lumpers, nor Truckers, nor
+Dredgermen, nor other evil-disposed person or persons; but went ashore at
+Wapping, where the old Thames Police office is now a station-house, and
+where the old Court, with its cabin windows looking on the river, is a
+quaint charge room: with nothing worse in it usually than a stuffed cat
+in a glass case, and a portrait, pleasant to behold, of a rare old Thames
+Police officer, Mr. Superintendent Evans, now succeeded by his son.  We
+looked over the charge books, admirably kept, and found the prevention so
+good that there were not five hundred entries (including drunken and
+disorderly) in a whole year.  Then, we looked into the store-room; where
+there was an oakum smell, and a nautical seasoning of dreadnought
+clothing, rope yarn, boat-hooks, sculls and oars, spare stretchers,
+rudders, pistols, cutlasses, and the like.  Then, into the cell, aired
+high up in the wooden wall through an opening like a kitchen plate-rack:
+wherein there was a drunken man, not at all warm, and very wishful to
+know if it were morning yet.  Then, into a better sort of watch and ward
+room, where there was a squadron of stone bottles drawn up, ready to be
+filled with hot water and applied to any unfortunate creature who might
+be brought in apparently drowned.  Finally, we shook hands with our
+worthy friend Pea, and ran all the way to Tower Hill, under strong Police
+suspicion occasionally, before we got warm.
+
+
+
+
+A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE
+
+
+ON a certain Sunday, I formed one of the congregation assembled in the
+chapel of a large metropolitan Workhouse.  With the exception of the
+clergyman and clerk, and a very few officials, there were none but
+paupers present.  The children sat in the galleries; the women in the
+body of the chapel, and in one of the side aisles; the men in the
+remaining aisle.  The service was decorously performed, though the sermon
+might have been much better adapted to the comprehension and to the
+circumstances of the hearers.  The usual supplications were offered, with
+more than the usual significancy in such a place, for the fatherless
+children and widows, for all sick persons and young children, for all
+that were desolate and oppressed, for the comforting and helping of the
+weak-hearted, for the raising-up of them that had fallen; for all that
+were in danger, necessity, and tribulation.  The prayers of the
+congregation were desired ‘for several persons in the various wards
+dangerously ill;’ and others who were recovering returned their thanks to
+Heaven.
+
+Among this congregation, were some evil-looking young women, and
+beetle-browed young men; but not many—perhaps that kind of characters
+kept away.  Generally, the faces (those of the children excepted) were
+depressed and subdued, and wanted colour.  Aged people were there, in
+every variety.  Mumbling, blear-eyed, spectacled, stupid, deaf, lame;
+vacantly winking in the gleams of sun that now and then crept in through
+the open doors, from the paved yard; shading their listening ears, or
+blinking eyes, with their withered hands; poring over their books,
+leering at nothing, going to sleep, crouching and drooping in corners.
+There were weird old women, all skeleton within, all bonnet and cloak
+without, continually wiping their eyes with dirty dusters of
+pocket-handkerchiefs; and there were ugly old crones, both male and
+female, with a ghastly kind of contentment upon them which was not at all
+comforting to see.  Upon the whole, it was the dragon, Pauperism, in a
+very weak and impotent condition; toothless, fangless, drawing his breath
+heavily enough, and hardly worth chaining up.
+
+When the service was over, I walked with the humane and conscientious
+gentleman whose duty it was to take that walk, that Sunday morning,
+through the little world of poverty enclosed within the workhouse walls.
+It was inhabited by a population of some fifteen hundred or two thousand
+paupers, ranging from the infant newly born or not yet come into the
+pauper world, to the old man dying on his bed.
+
+In a room opening from a squalid yard, where a number of listless women
+were lounging to and fro, trying to get warm in the ineffectual sunshine
+of the tardy May morning—in the ‘Itch Ward,’ not to compromise the
+truth—a woman such as HOGARTH has often drawn, was hurriedly getting on
+her gown before a dusty fire.  She was the nurse, or wardswoman, of that
+insalubrious department—herself a pauper—flabby, raw-boned,
+untidy—unpromising and coarse of aspect as need be.  But, on being spoken
+to about the patients whom she had in charge, she turned round, with her
+shabby gown half on, half off, and fell a crying with all her might.  Not
+for show, not querulously, not in any mawkish sentiment, but in the deep
+grief and affliction of her heart; turning away her dishevelled head:
+sobbing most bitterly, wringing her hands, and letting fall abundance of
+great tears, that choked her utterance.  What was the matter with the
+nurse of the itch-ward?  Oh, ‘the dropped child’ was dead!  Oh, the child
+that was found in the street, and she had brought up ever since, had died
+an hour ago, and see where the little creature lay, beneath this cloth!
+The dear, the pretty dear!
+
+The dropped child seemed too small and poor a thing for Death to be in
+earnest with, but Death had taken it; and already its diminutive form was
+neatly washed, composed, and stretched as if in sleep upon a box.  I
+thought I heard a voice from Heaven saying, It shall be well for thee, O
+nurse of the itch-ward, when some less gentle pauper does those offices
+to thy cold form, that such as the dropped child are the angels who
+behold my Father’s face!
+
+In another room, were several ugly old women crouching, witch-like, round
+a hearth, and chattering and nodding, after the manner of the monkeys.
+‘All well here?  And enough to eat?’  A general chattering and chuckling;
+at last an answer from a volunteer.  ‘Oh yes, gentleman!  Bless you,
+gentleman!  Lord bless the Parish of St. So-and-So!  It feed the hungry,
+sir, and give drink to the thusty, and it warm them which is cold, so it
+do, and good luck to the parish of St. So-and-So, and thankee,
+gentleman!’  Elsewhere, a party of pauper nurses were at dinner.  ‘How do
+you get on?’  ‘Oh pretty well, sir!  We works hard, and we lives
+hard—like the sodgers!’
+
+In another room, a kind of purgatory or place of transition, six or eight
+noisy madwomen were gathered together, under the superintendence of one
+sane attendant.  Among them was a girl of two or three and twenty, very
+prettily dressed, of most respectable appearance and good manners, who
+had been brought in from the house where she had lived as domestic
+servant (having, I suppose, no friends), on account of being subject to
+epileptic fits, and requiring to be removed under the influence of a very
+bad one.  She was by no means of the same stuff, or the same breeding, or
+the same experience, or in the same state of mind, as those by whom she
+was surrounded; and she pathetically complained that the daily
+association and the nightly noise made her worse, and was driving her
+mad—which was perfectly evident.  The case was noted for inquiry and
+redress, but she said she had already been there for some weeks.
+
+If this girl had stolen her mistress’s watch, I do not hesitate to say
+she would have been infinitely better off.  We have come to this absurd,
+this dangerous, this monstrous pass, that the dishonest felon is, in
+respect of cleanliness, order, diet, and accommodation, better provided
+for, and taken care of, than the honest pauper.
+
+And this conveys no special imputation on the workhouse of the parish of
+St. So-and-So, where, on the contrary, I saw many things to commend.  It
+was very agreeable, recollecting that most infamous and atrocious
+enormity committed at Tooting—an enormity which, a hundred years hence,
+will still be vividly remembered in the bye-ways of English life, and
+which has done more to engender a gloomy discontent and suspicion among
+many thousands of the people than all the Chartist leaders could have
+done in all their lives—to find the pauper children in this workhouse
+looking robust and well, and apparently the objects of very great care.
+In the Infant School—a large, light, airy room at the top of the
+building—the little creatures, being at dinner, and eating their potatoes
+heartily, were not cowed by the presence of strange visitors, but
+stretched out their small hands to be shaken, with a very pleasant
+confidence.  And it was comfortable to see two mangy pauper
+rocking-horses rampant in a corner.  In the girls’ school, where the
+dinner was also in progress, everything bore a cheerful and healthy
+aspect.  The meal was over, in the boys’ school, by the time of our
+arrival there, and the room was not yet quite rearranged; but the boys
+were roaming unrestrained about a large and airy yard, as any other
+schoolboys might have done.  Some of them had been drawing large ships
+upon the schoolroom wall; and if they had a mast with shrouds and stays
+set up for practice (as they have in the Middlesex House of Correction),
+it would be so much the better.  At present, if a boy should feel a
+strong impulse upon him to learn the art of going aloft, he could only
+gratify it, I presume, as the men and women paupers gratify their
+aspirations after better board and lodging, by smashing as many workhouse
+windows as possible, and being promoted to prison.
+
+In one place, the Newgate of the Workhouse, a company of boys and youths
+were locked up in a yard alone; their day-room being a kind of kennel
+where the casual poor used formerly to be littered down at night.  Divers
+of them had been there some long time.  ‘Are they never going away?’ was
+the natural inquiry.  ‘Most of them are crippled, in some form or other,’
+said the Wardsman, ‘and not fit for anything.’  They slunk about, like
+dispirited wolves or hyænas; and made a pounce at their food when it was
+served out, much as those animals do.  The big-headed idiot shuffling his
+feet along the pavement, in the sunlight outside, was a more agreeable
+object everyway.
+
+Groves of babies in arms; groves of mothers and other sick women in bed;
+groves of lunatics; jungles of men in stone-paved down-stairs day-rooms,
+waiting for their dinners; longer and longer groves of old people, in
+up-stairs Infirmary wards, wearing out life, God knows how—this was the
+scenery through which the walk lay, for two hours.  In some of these
+latter chambers, there were pictures stuck against the wall, and a neat
+display of crockery and pewter on a kind of sideboard; now and then it
+was a treat to see a plant or two; in almost every ward there was a cat.
+
+In all of these Long Walks of aged and infirm, some old people were
+bedridden, and had been for a long time; some were sitting on their beds
+half-naked; some dying in their beds; some out of bed, and sitting at a
+table near the fire.  A sullen or lethargic indifference to what was
+asked, a blunted sensibility to everything but warmth and food, a moody
+absence of complaint as being of no use, a dogged silence and resentful
+desire to be left alone again, I thought were generally apparent.  On our
+walking into the midst of one of these dreary perspectives of old men,
+nearly the following little dialogue took place, the nurse not being
+immediately at hand:
+
+‘All well here?’
+
+No answer.  An old man in a Scotch cap sitting among others on a form at
+the table, eating out of a tin porringer, pushes back his cap a little to
+look at us, claps it down on his forehead again with the palm of his
+hand, and goes on eating.
+
+‘All well here?’ (repeated).
+
+No answer.  Another old man sitting on his bed, paralytically peeling a
+boiled potato, lifts his head and stares.
+
+‘Enough to eat?’
+
+No answer.  Another old man, in bed, turns himself and coughs.
+
+‘How are you to-day?’  To the last old man.
+
+That old man says nothing; but another old man, a tall old man of very
+good address, speaking with perfect correctness, comes forward from
+somewhere, and volunteers an answer.  The reply almost always proceeds
+from a volunteer, and not from the person looked at or spoken to.
+
+‘We are very old, sir,’ in a mild, distinct voice.  ‘We can’t expect to
+be well, most of us.’
+
+‘Are you comfortable?’
+
+‘I have no complaint to make, sir.’  With a half shake of his head, a
+half shrug of his shoulders, and a kind of apologetic smile.
+
+‘Enough to eat?’
+
+‘Why, sir, I have but a poor appetite,’ with the same air as before; ‘and
+yet I get through my allowance very easily.’
+
+‘But,’ showing a porringer with a Sunday dinner in it; ‘here is a portion
+of mutton, and three potatoes.  You can’t starve on that?’
+
+‘Oh dear no, sir,’ with the same apologetic air.  ‘Not starve.’
+
+‘What do you want?’
+
+‘We have very little bread, sir.  It’s an exceedingly small quantity of
+bread.’
+
+The nurse, who is now rubbing her hands at the questioner’s elbow,
+interferes with, ‘It ain’t much raly, sir.  You see they’ve only six
+ounces a day, and when they’ve took their breakfast, there can only be a
+little left for night, sir.’
+
+Another old man, hitherto invisible, rises out of his bed-clothes, as out
+of a grave, and looks on.
+
+‘You have tea at night?’  The questioner is still addressing the
+well-spoken old man.
+
+‘Yes, sir, we have tea at night.’
+
+‘And you save what bread you can from the morning, to eat with it?’
+
+‘Yes, sir—if we can save any.’
+
+‘And you want more to eat with it?’
+
+‘Yes, sir.’  With a very anxious face.
+
+The questioner, in the kindness of his heart, appears a little
+discomposed, and changes the subject.
+
+‘What has become of the old man who used to lie in that bed in the
+corner?’
+
+The nurse don’t remember what old man is referred to.  There has been
+such a many old men.  The well-spoken old man is doubtful.  The spectral
+old man who has come to life in bed, says, ‘Billy Stevens.’  Another old
+man who has previously had his head in the fireplace, pipes out,
+
+‘Charley Walters.’
+
+Something like a feeble interest is awakened.  I suppose Charley Walters
+had conversation in him.
+
+‘He’s dead,’ says the piping old man.
+
+Another old man, with one eye screwed up, hastily displaces the piping
+old man, and says.
+
+‘Yes!  Charley Walters died in that bed, and—and—’
+
+‘Billy Stevens,’ persists the spectral old man.
+
+‘No, no! and Johnny Rogers died in that bed, and—and—they’re both on ’em
+dead—and Sam’l Bowyer;’ this seems very extraordinary to him; ‘he went
+out!’
+
+With this he subsides, and all the old men (having had quite enough of
+it) subside, and the spectral old man goes into his grave again, and
+takes the shade of Billy Stevens with him.
+
+As we turn to go out at the door, another previously invisible old man, a
+hoarse old man in a flannel gown, is standing there, as if he had just
+come up through the floor.
+
+‘I beg your pardon, sir, could I take the liberty of saying a word?’
+
+‘Yes; what is it?’
+
+‘I am greatly better in my health, sir; but what I want, to get me quite
+round,’ with his hand on his throat, ‘is a little fresh air, sir.  It has
+always done my complaint so much good, sir.  The regular leave for going
+out, comes round so seldom, that if the gentlemen, next Friday, would
+give me leave to go out walking, now and then—for only an hour or so,
+sir!—’
+
+Who could wonder, looking through those weary vistas of bed and
+infirmity, that it should do him good to meet with some other scenes, and
+assure himself that there was something else on earth?  Who could help
+wondering why the old men lived on as they did; what grasp they had on
+life; what crumbs of interest or occupation they could pick up from its
+bare board; whether Charley Walters had ever described to them the days
+when he kept company with some old pauper woman in the bud, or Billy
+Stevens ever told them of the time when he was a dweller in the far-off
+foreign land called Home!
+
+The morsel of burnt child, lying in another room, so patiently, in bed,
+wrapped in lint, and looking steadfastly at us with his bright quiet eyes
+when we spoke to him kindly, looked as if the knowledge of these things,
+and of all the tender things there are to think about, might have been in
+his mind—as if he thought, with us, that there was a fellow-feeling in
+the pauper nurses which appeared to make them more kind to their charges
+than the race of common nurses in the hospitals—as if he mused upon the
+Future of some older children lying around him in the same place, and
+thought it best, perhaps, all things considered, that he should die—as if
+he knew, without fear, of those many coffins, made and unmade, piled up
+in the store below—and of his unknown friend, ‘the dropped child,’ calm
+upon the box-lid covered with a cloth.  But there was something wistful
+and appealing, too, in his tiny face, as if, in the midst of all the hard
+necessities and incongruities he pondered on, he pleaded, in behalf of
+the helpless and the aged poor, for a little more liberty—and a little
+more bread.
+
+
+
+
+PRINCE BULL.  A FAIRY TALE
+
+
+ONCE upon a time, and of course it was in the Golden Age, and I hope you
+may know when that was, for I am sure I don’t, though I have tried hard
+to find out, there lived in a rich and fertile country, a powerful Prince
+whose name was BULL.  He had gone through a great deal of fighting, in
+his time, about all sorts of things, including nothing; but, had
+gradually settled down to be a steady, peaceable, good-natured,
+corpulent, rather sleepy Prince.
+
+This Puissant Prince was married to a lovely Princess whose name was Fair
+Freedom.  She had brought him a large fortune, and had borne him an
+immense number of children, and had set them to spinning, and farming,
+and engineering, and soldiering, and sailoring, and doctoring, and
+lawyering, and preaching, and all kinds of trades.  The coffers of Prince
+Bull were full of treasure, his cellars were crammed with delicious wines
+from all parts of the world, the richest gold and silver plate that ever
+was seen adorned his sideboards, his sons were strong, his daughters were
+handsome, and in short you might have supposed that if there ever lived
+upon earth a fortunate and happy Prince, the name of that Prince, take
+him for all in all, was assuredly Prince Bull.
+
+But, appearances, as we all know, are not always to be trusted—far from
+it; and if they had led you to this conclusion respecting Prince Bull,
+they would have led you wrong as they often have led me.
+
+For, this good Prince had two sharp thorns in his pillow, two hard knobs
+in his crown, two heavy loads on his mind, two unbridled nightmares in
+his sleep, two rocks ahead in his course.  He could not by any means get
+servants to suit him, and he had a tyrannical old godmother, whose name
+was Tape.
+
+She was a Fairy, this Tape, and was a bright red all over.  She was
+disgustingly prim and formal, and could never bend herself a hair’s
+breadth this way or that way, out of her naturally crooked shape.  But,
+she was very potent in her wicked art.  She could stop the fastest thing
+in the world, change the strongest thing into the weakest, and the most
+useful into the most useless.  To do this she had only to put her cold
+hand upon it, and repeat her own name, Tape.  Then it withered away.
+
+At the Court of Prince Bull—at least I don’t mean literally at his court,
+because he was a very genteel Prince, and readily yielded to his
+godmother when she always reserved that for his hereditary Lords and
+Ladies—in the dominions of Prince Bull, among the great mass of the
+community who were called in the language of that polite country the Mobs
+and the Snobs, were a number of very ingenious men, who were always busy
+with some invention or other, for promoting the prosperity of the
+Prince’s subjects, and augmenting the Prince’s power.  But, whenever they
+submitted their models for the Prince’s approval, his godmother stepped
+forward, laid her hand upon them, and said ‘Tape.’  Hence it came to
+pass, that when any particularly good discovery was made, the discoverer
+usually carried it off to some other Prince, in foreign parts, who had no
+old godmother who said Tape.  This was not on the whole an advantageous
+state of things for Prince Bull, to the best of my understanding.
+
+The worst of it was, that Prince Bull had in course of years lapsed into
+such a state of subjection to this unlucky godmother, that he never made
+any serious effort to rid himself of her tyranny.  I have said this was
+the worst of it, but there I was wrong, because there is a worse
+consequence still, behind.  The Prince’s numerous family became so
+downright sick and tired of Tape, that when they should have helped the
+Prince out of the difficulties into which that evil creature led him,
+they fell into a dangerous habit of moodily keeping away from him in an
+impassive and indifferent manner, as though they had quite forgotten that
+no harm could happen to the Prince their father, without its inevitably
+affecting themselves.
+
+Such was the aspect of affairs at the court of Prince Bull, when this
+great Prince found it necessary to go to war with Prince Bear.  He had
+been for some time very doubtful of his servants, who, besides being
+indolent and addicted to enriching their families at his expense,
+domineered over him dreadfully; threatening to discharge themselves if
+they were found the least fault with, pretending that they had done a
+wonderful amount of work when they had done nothing, making the most
+unmeaning speeches that ever were heard in the Prince’s name, and
+uniformly showing themselves to be very inefficient indeed.  Though, that
+some of them had excellent characters from previous situations is not to
+be denied.  Well; Prince Bull called his servants together, and said to
+them one and all, ‘Send out my army against Prince Bear.  Clothe it, arm
+it, feed it, provide it with all necessaries and contingencies, and I
+will pay the piper!  Do your duty by my brave troops,’ said the Prince,
+‘and do it well, and I will pour my treasure out like water, to defray
+the cost.  Who ever heard ME complain of money well laid out!’  Which
+indeed he had reason for saying, inasmuch as he was well known to be a
+truly generous and munificent Prince.
+
+When the servants heard those words, they sent out the army against
+Prince Bear, and they set the army tailors to work, and the army
+provision merchants, and the makers of guns both great and small, and the
+gunpowder makers, and the makers of ball, shell, and shot; and they
+bought up all manner of stores and ships, without troubling their heads
+about the price, and appeared to be so busy that the good Prince rubbed
+his hands, and (using a favourite expression of his), said, ‘It’s all
+right!’  But, while they were thus employed, the Prince’s godmother, who
+was a great favourite with those servants, looked in upon them
+continually all day long, and whenever she popped in her head at the door
+said, How do you do, my children?  What are you doing here?’  ‘Official
+business, godmother.’  ‘Oho!’ says this wicked Fairy.  ‘—Tape!’  And then
+the business all went wrong, whatever it was, and the servants’ heads
+became so addled and muddled that they thought they were doing wonders.
+
+Now, this was very bad conduct on the part of the vicious old nuisance,
+and she ought to have been strangled, even if she had stopped here; but,
+she didn’t stop here, as you shall learn.  For, a number of the Prince’s
+subjects, being very fond of the Prince’s army who were the bravest of
+men, assembled together and provided all manner of eatables and
+drinkables, and books to read, and clothes to wear, and tobacco to smoke,
+and candies to burn, and nailed them up in great packing-cases, and put
+them aboard a great many ships, to be carried out to that brave army in
+the cold and inclement country where they were fighting Prince Bear.
+Then, up comes this wicked Fairy as the ships were weighing anchor, and
+says, ‘How do you do, my children?  What are you doing here?’—‘We are
+going with all these comforts to the army, godmother.’—‘Oho!’ says she.
+‘A pleasant voyage, my darlings.—Tape!’  And from that time forth, those
+enchanting ships went sailing, against wind and tide and rhyme and
+reason, round and round the world, and whenever they touched at any port
+were ordered off immediately, and could never deliver their cargoes
+anywhere.
+
+This, again, was very bad conduct on the part of the vicious old
+nuisance, and she ought to have been strangled for it if she had done
+nothing worse; but, she did something worse still, as you shall learn.
+For, she got astride of an official broomstick, and muttered as a spell
+these two sentences, ‘On Her Majesty’s service,’ and ‘I have the honour
+to be, sir, your most obedient servant,’ and presently alighted in the
+cold and inclement country where the army of Prince Bull were encamped to
+fight the army of Prince Bear.  On the sea-shore of that country, she
+found piled together, a number of houses for the army to live in, and a
+quantity of provisions for the army to live upon, and a quantity of
+clothes for the army to wear: while, sitting in the mud gazing at them,
+were a group of officers as red to look at as the wicked old woman
+herself.  So, she said to one of them, ‘Who are _you_, my darling, and
+how do _you_ do?’—‘I am the Quartermaster General’s Department,
+godmother, and _I_ am pretty well.’  Then she said to another, ‘Who are
+you, my darling, and how do you do?’—‘I am the Commissariat Department,
+godmother, and I am pretty well!  Then she said to another, ‘Who are you,
+my darling, and how do you do?’—‘I am the Head of the Medical Department,
+godmother, and _I_ am pretty well.’  Then, she said to some gentlemen
+scented with lavender, who kept themselves at a great distance from the
+rest, ‘And who are _you_, my pretty pets, and how do _you_ do?’  And they
+answered, ‘We-aw-are-the-aw-Staff-aw-Department, godmother, and we are
+very well indeed.’—‘I am delighted to see you all, my beauties,’ says
+this wicked old Fairy, ‘—Tape!’  Upon that, the houses, clothes, and
+provisions, all mouldered away; and the soldiers who were sound, fell
+sick; and the soldiers who were sick, died miserably: and the noble army
+of Prince Bull perished.
+
+When the dismal news of his great loss was carried to the Prince, he
+suspected his godmother very much indeed; but, he knew that his servants
+must have kept company with the malicious beldame, and must have given
+way to her, and therefore he resolved to turn those servants out of their
+places.  So, he called to him a Roebuck who had the gift of speech, and
+he said, ‘Good Roebuck, tell them they must go.’  So, the good Roebuck
+delivered his message, so like a man that you might have supposed him to
+be nothing but a man, and they were turned out—but, not without warning,
+for that they had had a long time.
+
+And now comes the most extraordinary part of the history of this Prince.
+When he had turned out those servants, of course he wanted others.  What
+was his astonishment to find that in all his dominions, which contained
+no less than twenty-seven millions of people, there were not above
+five-and-twenty servants altogether!  They were so lofty about it, too,
+that instead of discussing whether they should hire themselves as
+servants to Prince Bull, they turned things topsy-turvy, and considered
+whether as a favour they should hire Prince Bull to be their master!
+While they were arguing this point among themselves quite at their
+leisure, the wicked old red Fairy was incessantly going up and down,
+knocking at the doors of twelve of the oldest of the five-and-twenty, who
+were the oldest inhabitants in all that country, and whose united ages
+amounted to one thousand, saying, ‘Will you hire Prince Bull for your
+master?—Will you hire Prince Bull for your master?’  To which one
+answered, ‘I will if next door will;’ and another, ‘I won’t if over the
+way does;’ and another, ‘I can’t if he, she, or they, might, could,
+would, or should.’  And all this time Prince Bull’s affairs were going to
+rack and ruin.
+
+At last, Prince Bull in the height of his perplexity assumed a thoughtful
+face, as if he were struck by an entirely new idea.  The wicked old
+Fairy, seeing this, was at his elbow directly, and said, ‘How do you do,
+my Prince, and what are you thinking of?’—‘I am thinking, godmother,’
+says he, ‘that among all the seven-and-twenty millions of my subjects who
+have never been in service, there are men of intellect and business who
+have made me very famous both among my friends and enemies.’—‘Aye,
+truly?’ says the Fairy.—‘Aye, truly,’ says the Prince.—‘And what then?’
+says the Fairy.—‘Why, then,’ says he, ‘since the regular old class of
+servants do so ill, are so hard to get, and carry it with so high a hand,
+perhaps I might try to make good servants of some of these.’  The words
+had no sooner passed his lips than she returned, chuckling, ‘You think
+so, do you?  Indeed, my Prince?—Tape!’  Thereupon he directly forgot what
+he was thinking of, and cried out lamentably to the old servants, ‘O, do
+come and hire your poor old master!  Pray do!  On any terms!’
+
+And this, for the present, finishes the story of Prince Bull.  I wish I
+could wind it up by saying that he lived happy ever afterwards, but I
+cannot in my conscience do so; for, with Tape at his elbow, and his
+estranged children fatally repelled by her from coming near him, I do
+not, to tell you the plain truth, believe in the possibility of such an
+end to it.
+
+
+
+
+A PLATED ARTICLE
+
+
+PUTTING up for the night in one of the chiefest towns of Staffordshire, I
+find it to be by no means a lively town.  In fact, it is as dull and dead
+a town as any one could desire not to see.  It seems as if its whole
+population might be imprisoned in its Railway Station.  The Refreshment
+Room at that Station is a vortex of dissipation compared with the extinct
+town-inn, the Dodo, in the dull High Street.
+
+Why High Street?  Why not rather Low Street, Flat Street, Low-Spirited
+Street, Used-up Street?  Where are the people who belong to the High
+Street?  Can they all be dispersed over the face of the country, seeking
+the unfortunate Strolling Manager who decamped from the mouldy little
+Theatre last week, in the beginning of his season (as his play-bills
+testify), repentantly resolved to bring him back, and feed him, and be
+entertained?  Or, can they all be gathered to their fathers in the two
+old churchyards near to the High Street—retirement into which churchyards
+appears to be a mere ceremony, there is so very little life outside their
+confines, and such small discernible difference between being buried
+alive in the town, and buried dead in the town tombs?  Over the way,
+opposite to the staring blank bow windows of the Dodo, are a little
+ironmonger’s shop, a little tailor’s shop (with a picture of the Fashions
+in the small window and a bandy-legged baby on the pavement staring at
+it)—a watchmakers shop, where all the clocks and watches must be stopped,
+I am sure, for they could never have the courage to go, with the town in
+general, and the Dodo in particular, looking at them.  Shade of Miss
+Linwood, erst of Leicester Square, London, thou art welcome here, and thy
+retreat is fitly chosen!  I myself was one of the last visitors to that
+awful storehouse of thy life’s work, where an anchorite old man and woman
+took my shilling with a solemn wonder, and conducting me to a gloomy
+sepulchre of needlework dropping to pieces with dust and age and shrouded
+in twilight at high noon, left me there, chilled, frightened, and alone.
+And now, in ghostly letters on all the dead walls of this dead town, I
+read thy honoured name, and find that thy Last Supper, worked in Berlin
+Wool, invites inspection as a powerful excitement!
+
+Where are the people who are bidden with so much cry to this feast of
+little wool?  Where are they?  Who are they?  They are not the
+bandy-legged baby studying the fashions in the tailor’s window.  They are
+not the two earthy ploughmen lounging outside the saddler’s shop, in the
+stiff square where the Town Hall stands, like a brick and mortar private
+on parade.  They are not the landlady of the Dodo in the empty bar, whose
+eye had trouble in it and no welcome, when I asked for dinner.  They are
+not the turnkeys of the Town Jail, looking out of the gateway in their
+uniforms, as if they had locked up all the balance (as my American
+friends would say) of the inhabitants, and could now rest a little.  They
+are not the two dusty millers in the white mill down by the river, where
+the great water-wheel goes heavily round and round, like the monotonous
+days and nights in this forgotten place.  Then who are they, for there is
+no one else?  No; this deponent maketh oath and saith that there is no
+one else, save and except the waiter at the Dodo, now laying the cloth.
+I have paced the streets, and stared at the houses, and am come back to
+the blank bow window of the Dodo; and the town clocks strike seven, and
+the reluctant echoes seem to cry, ‘Don’t wake us!’ and the bandy-legged
+baby has gone home to bed.
+
+If the Dodo were only a gregarious bird—if he had only some confused idea
+of making a comfortable nest—I could hope to get through the hours
+between this and bed-time, without being consumed by devouring
+melancholy.  But, the Dodo’s habits are all wrong.  It provides me with a
+trackless desert of sitting-room, with a chair for every day in the year,
+a table for every month, and a waste of sideboard where a lonely China
+vase pines in a corner for its mate long departed, and will never make a
+match with the candlestick in the opposite corner if it live till
+Doomsday.  The Dodo has nothing in the larder.  Even now, I behold the
+Boots returning with my sole in a piece of paper; and with that portion
+of my dinner, the Boots, perceiving me at the blank bow window, slaps his
+leg as he comes across the road, pretending it is something else.  The
+Dodo excludes the outer air.  When I mount up to my bedroom, a smell of
+closeness and flue gets lazily up my nose like sleepy snuff.  The loose
+little bits of carpet writhe under my tread, and take wormy shapes.  I
+don’t know the ridiculous man in the looking-glass, beyond having met him
+once or twice in a dish-cover—and I can never shave _him_ to-morrow
+morning!  The Dodo is narrow-minded as to towels; expects me to wash on a
+freemason’s apron without the trimming: when I asked for soap, gives me a
+stony-hearted something white, with no more lather in it than the Elgin
+marbles.  The Dodo has seen better days, and possesses interminable
+stables at the back—silent, grass-grown, broken-windowed, horseless.
+
+This mournful bird can fry a sole, however, which is much.  Can cook a
+steak, too, which is more.  I wonder where it gets its Sherry?  If I were
+to send my pint of wine to some famous chemist to be analysed, what would
+it turn out to be made of?  It tastes of pepper, sugar, bitter-almonds,
+vinegar, warm knives, any flat drinks, and a little brandy.  Would it
+unman a Spanish exile by reminding him of his native land at all?  I
+think not.  If there really be any townspeople out of the churchyards,
+and if a caravan of them ever do dine, with a bottle of wine per man, in
+this desert of the Dodo, it must make good for the doctor next day!
+
+Where was the waiter born?  How did he come here?  Has he any hope of
+getting away from here?  Does he ever receive a letter, or take a ride
+upon the railway, or see anything but the Dodo?  Perhaps he has seen the
+Berlin Wool.  He appears to have a silent sorrow on him, and it may be
+that.  He clears the table; draws the dingy curtains of the great bow
+window, which so unwillingly consent to meet, that they must be pinned
+together; leaves me by the fire with my pint decanter, and a little thin
+funnel-shaped wine-glass, and a plate of pale biscuits—in themselves
+engendering desperation.
+
+No book, no newspaper!  I left the Arabian Nights in the railway
+carriage, and have nothing to read but Bradshaw, and ‘that way madness
+lies.’  Remembering what prisoners and ship-wrecked mariners have done to
+exercise their minds in solitude, I repeat the multiplication table, the
+pence table, and the shilling table: which are all the tables I happen to
+know.  What if I write something?  The Dodo keeps no pens but steel pens;
+and those I always stick through the paper, and can turn to no other
+account.
+
+What am I to do?  Even if I could have the bandy-legged baby knocked up
+and brought here, I could offer him nothing but sherry, and that would be
+the death of him.  He would never hold up his head again if he touched
+it.  I can’t go to bed, because I have conceived a mortal hatred for my
+bedroom; and I can’t go away, because there is no train for my place of
+destination until morning.  To burn the biscuits will be but a fleeting
+joy; still it is a temporary relief, and here they go on the fire!  Shall
+I break the plate?  First let me look at the back, and see who made it.
+COPELAND.
+
+Copeland!  Stop a moment.  Was it yesterday I visited Copeland’s works,
+and saw them making plates?  In the confusion of travelling about, it
+might be yesterday or it might be yesterday month; but I think it was
+yesterday.  I appeal to the plate.  The plate says, decidedly, yesterday.
+I find the plate, as I look at it, growing into a companion.
+
+Don’t you remember (says the plate) how you steamed away, yesterday
+morning, in the bright sun and the east wind, along the valley of the
+sparkling Trent?  Don’t you recollect how many kilns you flew past,
+looking like the bowls of gigantic tobacco-pipes, cut short off from the
+stem and turned upside down?  And the fires—and the smoke—and the roads
+made with bits of crockery, as if all the plates and dishes in the
+civilised world had been Macadamised, expressly for the laming of all the
+horses?  Of course I do!
+
+And don’t you remember (says the plate) how you alighted at Stoke—a
+picturesque heap of houses, kilns, smoke, wharfs, canals, and river,
+lying (as was most appropriate) in a basin—and how, after climbing up the
+sides of the basin to look at the prospect, you trundled down again at a
+walking-match pace, and straight proceeded to my father’s, Copeland’s,
+where the whole of my family, high and low, rich and poor, are turned out
+upon the world from our nursery and seminary, covering some fourteen
+acres of ground?  And don’t you remember what we spring from:—heaps of
+lumps of clay, partially prepared and cleaned in Devonshire and
+Dorsetshire, whence said clay principally comes—and hills of flint,
+without which we should want our ringing sound, and should never be
+musical?  And as to the flint, don’t you recollect that it is first burnt
+in kilns, and is then laid under the four iron feet of a demon slave,
+subject to violent stamping fits, who, when they come on, stamps away
+insanely with his four iron legs, and would crush all the flint in the
+Isle of Thanet to powder, without leaving off?  And as to the clay, don’t
+you recollect how it is put into mills or teazers, and is sliced, and
+dug, and cut at, by endless knives, clogged and sticky, but
+persistent—and is pressed out of that machine through a square trough,
+whose form it takes—and is cut off in square lumps and thrown into a vat,
+and there mixed with water, and beaten to a pulp by paddle-wheels—and is
+then run into a rough house, all rugged beams and ladders splashed with
+white,—superintended by Grindoff the Miller in his working clothes, all
+splashed with white,—where it passes through no end of machinery-moved
+sieves all splashed with white, arranged in an ascending scale of
+fineness (some so fine, that three hundred silk threads cross each other
+in a single square inch of their surface), and all in a violent state of
+ague with their teeth for ever chattering, and their bodies for ever
+shivering!  And as to the flint again, isn’t it mashed and mollified and
+troubled and soothed, exactly as rags are in a paper-mill, until it is
+reduced to a pap so fine that it contains no atom of ‘grit’ perceptible
+to the nicest taste?  And as to the flint and the clay together, are they
+not, after all this, mixed in the proportion of five of clay to one of
+flint, and isn’t the compound—known as ‘slip’—run into oblong troughs,
+where its superfluous moisture may evaporate; and finally, isn’t it
+slapped and banged and beaten and patted and kneaded and wedged and
+knocked about like butter, until it becomes a beautiful grey dough, ready
+for the potter’s use?
+
+In regard of the potter, popularly so called (says the plate), you don’t
+mean to say you have forgotten that a workman called a Thrower is the man
+under whose hand this grey dough takes the shapes of the simpler
+household vessels as quickly as the eye can follow?  You don’t mean to
+say you cannot call him up before you, sitting, with his attendant woman,
+at his potter’s wheel—a disc about the size of a dinner-plate, revolving
+on two drums slowly or quickly as he wills—who made you a complete
+breakfast-set for a bachelor, as a good-humoured little off-hand joke?
+You remember how he took up as much dough as he wanted, and, throwing it
+on his wheel, in a moment fashioned it into a teacup—caught up more clay
+and made a saucer—a larger dab and whirled it into a teapot—winked at a
+smaller dab and converted it into the lid of the teapot, accurately
+fitting by the measurement of his eye alone—coaxed a middle-sized dab for
+two seconds, broke it, turned it over at the rim, and made a
+milkpot—laughed, and turned out a slop-basin—coughed, and provided for
+the sugar?  Neither, I think, are you oblivious of the newer mode of
+making various articles, but especially basins, according to which
+improvement a mould revolves instead of a disc?  For you must remember
+(says the plate) how you saw the mould of a little basin spinning round
+and round, and how the workmen smoothed and pressed a handful of dough
+upon it, and how with an instrument called a profile (a piece of wood,
+representing the profile of a basin’s foot) he cleverly scraped and
+carved the ring which makes the base of any such basin, and then took the
+basin off the lathe like a doughy skull-cap to be dried, and afterwards
+(in what is called a green state) to be put into a second lathe, there to
+be finished and burnished with a steel burnisher?  And as to moulding in
+general (says the plate), it can’t be necessary for me to remind you that
+all ornamental articles, and indeed all articles not quite circular, are
+made in moulds.  For you must remember how you saw the vegetable dishes,
+for example, being made in moulds; and how the handles of teacups, and
+the spouts of teapots, and the feet of tureens, and so forth, are all
+made in little separate moulds, and are each stuck on to the body
+corporate, of which it is destined to form a part, with a stuff called
+‘slag,’ as quickly as you can recollect it.  Further, you learnt—you know
+you did—in the same visit, how the beautiful sculptures in the delicate
+new material called Parian, are all constructed in moulds; how, into that
+material, animal bones are ground up, because the phosphate of lime
+contained in bones makes it translucent; how everything is moulded,
+before going into the fire, one-fourth larger than it is intended to come
+out of the fire, because it shrinks in that proportion in the intense
+heat; how, when a figure shrinks unequally, it is spoiled—emerging from
+the furnace a misshapen birth; a big head and a little body, or a little
+head and a big body, or a Quasimodo with long arms and short legs, or a
+Miss Biffin with neither legs nor arms worth mentioning.
+
+And as to the Kilns, in which the firing takes place, and in which some
+of the more precious articles are burnt repeatedly, in various stages of
+their process towards completion,—as to the Kilns (says the plate,
+warming with the recollection), if you don’t remember THEM with a
+horrible interest, what did you ever go to Copeland’s for?  When you
+stood inside of one of those inverted bowls of a Pre-Adamite
+tobacco-pipe, looking up at the blue sky through the open top far off, as
+you might have looked up from a well, sunk under the centre of the
+pavement of the Pantheon at Rome, had you the least idea where you were?
+And when you found yourself surrounded, in that dome-shaped cavern, by
+innumerable columns of an unearthly order of architecture, supporting
+nothing, and squeezed close together as if a Pre-Adamite Samson had taken
+a vast Hall in his arms and crushed it into the smallest possible space,
+had you the least idea what they were?  No (says the plate), of course
+not!  And when you found that each of those pillars was a pile of
+ingeniously made vessels of coarse clay—called Saggers—looking, when
+separate, like raised-pies for the table of the mighty Giant Blunderbore,
+and now all full of various articles of pottery ranged in them in baking
+order, the bottom of each vessel serving for the cover of the one below,
+and the whole Kiln rapidly filling with these, tier upon tier, until the
+last workman should have barely room to crawl out, before the closing of
+the jagged aperture in the wall and the kindling of the gradual fire; did
+you not stand amazed to think that all the year round these dread
+chambers are heating, white hot—and cooling—and filling—and emptying—and
+being bricked up—and broken open—humanly speaking, for ever and ever?  To
+be sure you did!  And standing in one of those Kilns nearly full, and
+seeing a free crow shoot across the aperture a-top, and learning how the
+fire would wax hotter and hotter by slow degrees, and would cool
+similarly through a space of from forty to sixty hours, did no
+remembrance of the days when human clay was burnt oppress you?  Yes.  I
+think so!  I suspect that some fancy of a fiery haze and a shortening
+breath, and a growing heat, and a gasping prayer; and a figure in black
+interposing between you and the sky (as figures in black are very apt to
+do), and looking down, before it grew too hot to look and live, upon the
+Heretic in his edifying agony—I say I suspect (says the plate) that some
+such fancy was pretty strong upon you when you went out into the air, and
+blessed God for the bright spring day and the degenerate times!
+
+After that, I needn’t remind you what a relief it was to see the simplest
+process of ornamenting this ‘biscuit’ (as it is called when baked) with
+brown circles and blue trees—converting it into the common crockery-ware
+that is exported to Africa, and used in cottages at home.  For (says the
+plate) I am well persuaded that you bear in mind how those particular
+jugs and mugs were once more set upon a lathe and put in motion; and how
+a man blew the brown colour (having a strong natural affinity with the
+material in that condition) on them from a blowpipe as they twirled; and
+how his daughter, with a common brush, dropped blotches of blue upon them
+in the right places; and how, tilting the blotches upside down, she made
+them run into rude images of trees, and there an end.
+
+And didn’t you see (says the plate) planted upon my own brother that
+astounding blue willow, with knobbed and gnarled trunk, and foliage of
+blue ostrich feathers, which gives our family the title of ‘willow
+pattern’?  And didn’t you observe, transferred upon him at the same time,
+that blue bridge which spans nothing, growing out from the roots of the
+willow; and the three blue Chinese going over it into a blue temple,
+which has a fine crop of blue bushes sprouting out of the roof; and a
+blue boat sailing above them, the mast of which is burglariously sticking
+itself into the foundations of a blue villa, suspended sky-high,
+surmounted by a lump of blue rock, sky-higher, and a couple of billing
+blue birds, sky-highest—together with the rest of that amusing blue
+landscape, which has, in deference to our revered ancestors of the
+Cerulean Empire, and in defiance of every known law of perspective,
+adorned millions of our family ever since the days of platters?  Didn’t
+you inspect the copper-plate on which my pattern was deeply engraved?
+Didn’t you perceive an impression of it taken in cobalt colour at a
+cylindrical press, upon a leaf of thin paper, streaming from a
+plunge-bath of soap and water?  Wasn’t the paper impression daintily
+spread, by a light-fingered damsel (you know you admired her!), over the
+surface of the plate, and the back of the paper rubbed prodigiously
+hard—with a long tight roll of flannel, tied up like a round of hung
+beef—without so much as ruffling the paper, wet as it was?  Then (says
+the plate), was not the paper washed away with a sponge, and didn’t there
+appear, set off upon the plate, _this_ identical piece of Pre-Raphaelite
+blue distemper which you now behold?  Not to be denied!  I had seen all
+this—and more.  I had been shown, at Copeland’s, patterns of beautiful
+design, in faultless perspective, which are causing the ugly old willow
+to wither out of public favour; and which, being quite as cheap,
+insinuate good wholesome natural art into the humblest households.  When
+Mr. and Mrs. Sprat have satisfied their material tastes by that equal
+division of fat and lean which has made their _ménage_ immortal; and
+have, after the elegant tradition, ‘licked the platter clean,’ they
+can—thanks to modern artists in clay—feast their intellectual tastes upon
+excellent delineations of natural objects.
+
+This reflection prompts me to transfer my attention from the blue plate
+to the forlorn but cheerfully painted vase on the sideboard.  And surely
+(says the plate) you have not forgotten how the outlines of such groups
+of flowers as you see there, are printed, just as I was printed, and are
+afterwards shaded and filled in with metallic colours by women and girls?
+As to the aristocracy of our order, made of the finer clay-porcelain
+peers and peeresses;—the slabs, and panels, and table-tops, and tazze;
+the endless nobility and gentry of dessert, breakfast, and tea services;
+the gemmed perfume bottles, and scarlet and gold salvers; you saw that
+they were painted by artists, with metallic colours laid on with
+camel-hair pencils, and afterwards burnt in.
+
+And talking of burning in (says the plate), didn’t you find that every
+subject, from the willow pattern to the landscape after Turner—having
+been framed upon clay or porcelain biscuit—has to be glazed?  Of course,
+you saw the glaze—composed of various vitreous materials—laid over every
+article; and of course you witnessed the close imprisonment of each piece
+in saggers upon the separate system rigidly enforced by means of
+fine-pointed earthenware stilts placed between the articles to prevent
+the slightest communication or contact.  We had in my time—and I suppose
+it is the same now—fourteen hours’ firing to fix the glaze and to make it
+‘run’ all over us equally, so as to put a good shiny and unscratchable
+surface upon us.  Doubtless, you observed that one sort of glaze—called
+printing-body—is burnt into the better sort of ware _before_ it is
+printed.  Upon this you saw some of the finest steel engravings
+transferred, to be fixed by an after glazing—didn’t you?  Why, of course
+you did!
+
+Of course I did.  I had seen and enjoyed everything that the plate
+recalled to me, and had beheld with admiration how the rotatory motion
+which keeps this ball of ours in its place in the great scheme, with all
+its busy mites upon it, was necessary throughout the process, and could
+only be dispensed with in the fire.  So, listening to the plate’s
+reminders, and musing upon them, I got through the evening after all, and
+went to bed.  I made but one sleep of it—for which I have no doubt I am
+also indebted to the plate—and left the lonely Dodo in the morning, quite
+at peace with it, before the bandy-legged baby was up.
+
+
+
+
+OUR HONOURABLE FRIEND
+
+
+WE are delighted to find that he has got in!  Our honourable friend is
+triumphantly returned to serve in the next Parliament.  He is the
+honourable member for Verbosity—the best represented place in England.
+
+Our honourable friend has issued an address of congratulation to the
+Electors, which is worthy of that noble constituency, and is a very
+pretty piece of composition.  In electing him, he says, they have covered
+themselves with glory, and England has been true to herself.  (In his
+preliminary address he had remarked, in a poetical quotation of great
+rarity, that nought could make us rue, if England to herself did prove
+but true.)
+
+Our honourable friend delivers a prediction, in the same document, that
+the feeble minions of a faction will never hold up their heads any more;
+and that the finger of scorn will point at them in their dejected state,
+through countless ages of time.  Further, that the hireling tools that
+would destroy the sacred bulwarks of our nationality are unworthy of the
+name of Englishman; and that so long as the sea shall roll around our
+ocean-girded isle, so long his motto shall be, No surrender.  Certain
+dogged persons of low principles and no intellect, have disputed whether
+anybody knows who the minions are, or what the faction is, or which are
+the hireling tools and which the sacred bulwarks, or what it is that is
+never to be surrendered, and if not, why not?  But, our honourable friend
+the member for Verbosity knows all about it.
+
+Our honourable friend has sat in several parliaments, and given bushels
+of votes.  He is a man of that profundity in the matter of vote-giving,
+that you never know what he means.  When he seems to be voting pure
+white, he may be in reality voting jet black.  When he says Yes, it is
+just as likely as not—or rather more so—that he means No.  This is the
+statesmanship of our honourable friend.  It is in this, that he differs
+from mere unparliamentary men.  You may not know what he meant then, or
+what he means now; but, our honourable friend knows, and did from the
+first know, both what he meant then, and what he means now; and when he
+said he didn’t mean it then, he did in fact say, that he means it now.
+And if you mean to say that you did not then, and do not now, know what
+he did mean then, or does mean now, our honourable friend will be glad to
+receive an explicit declaration from you whether you are prepared to
+destroy the sacred bulwarks of our nationality.
+
+Our honourable friend, the member for Verbosity, has this great
+attribute, that he always means something, and always means the same
+thing.  When he came down to that House and mournfully boasted in his
+place, as an individual member of the assembled Commons of this great and
+happy country, that he could lay his hand upon his heart, and solemnly
+declare that no consideration on earth should induce him, at any time or
+under any circumstances, to go as far north as Berwick-upon-Tweed; and
+when he nevertheless, next year, did go to Berwick-upon-Tweed, and even
+beyond it, to Edinburgh; he had one single meaning, one and indivisible.
+And God forbid (our honourable friend says) that he should waste another
+argument upon the man who professes that he cannot understand it!  ‘I do
+NOT, gentlemen,’ said our honourable friend, with indignant emphasis and
+amid great cheering, on one such public occasion.  ‘I do NOT, gentlemen,
+I am free to confess, envy the feelings of that man whose mind is so
+constituted as that he can hold such language to me, and yet lay his head
+upon his pillow, claiming to be a native of that land,
+
+    Whose march is o’er the mountain-wave,
+    Whose home is on the deep!
+
+(Vehement cheering, and man expelled.)
+
+When our honourable friend issued his preliminary address to the
+constituent body of Verbosity on the occasion of one particular glorious
+triumph, it was supposed by some of his enemies, that even he would be
+placed in a situation of difficulty by the following comparatively
+trifling conjunction of circumstances.  The dozen noblemen and gentlemen
+whom our honourable friend supported, had ‘come in,’ expressly to do a
+certain thing.  Now, four of the dozen said, at a certain place, that
+they didn’t mean to do that thing, and had never meant to do it; another
+four of the dozen said, at another certain place, that they did mean to
+do that thing, and had always meant to do it; two of the remaining four
+said, at two other certain places, that they meant to do half of that
+thing (but differed about which half), and to do a variety of nameless
+wonders instead of the other half; and one of the remaining two declared
+that the thing itself was dead and buried, while the other as strenuously
+protested that it was alive and kicking.  It was admitted that the
+parliamentary genius of our honourable friend would be quite able to
+reconcile such small discrepancies as these; but, there remained the
+additional difficulty that each of the twelve made entirely different
+statements at different places, and that all the twelve called everything
+visible and invisible, sacred and profane, to witness, that they were a
+perfectly impregnable phalanx of unanimity.  This, it was apprehended,
+would be a stumbling-block to our honourable friend.
+
+The difficulty came before our honourable friend, in this way.  He went
+down to Verbosity to meet his free and independent constituents, and to
+render an account (as he informed them in the local papers) of the trust
+they had confided to his hands—that trust which it was one of the
+proudest privileges of an Englishman to possess—that trust which it was
+the proudest privilege of an Englishman to hold.  It may be mentioned as
+a proof of the great general interest attaching to the contest, that a
+Lunatic whom nobody employed or knew, went down to Verbosity with several
+thousand pounds in gold, determined to give the whole away—which he
+actually did; and that all the publicans opened their houses for nothing.
+Likewise, several fighting men, and a patriotic group of burglars
+sportively armed with life-preservers, proceeded (in barouches and very
+drunk) to the scene of action at their own expense; these children of
+nature having conceived a warm attachment to our honourable friend, and
+intending, in their artless manner, to testify it by knocking the voters
+in the opposite interest on the head.
+
+Our honourable friend being come into the presence of his constituents,
+and having professed with great suavity that he was delighted to see his
+good friend Tipkisson there, in his working-dress—his good friend
+Tipkisson being an inveterate saddler, who always opposes him, and for
+whom he has a mortal hatred—made them a brisk, ginger-beery sort of
+speech, in which he showed them how the dozen noblemen and gentlemen had
+(in exactly ten days from their coming in) exercised a surprisingly
+beneficial effect on the whole financial condition of Europe, had altered
+the state of the exports and imports for the current half-year, had
+prevented the drain of gold, had made all that matter right about the
+glut of the raw material, and had restored all sorts of balances with
+which the superseded noblemen and gentlemen had played the deuce—and all
+this, with wheat at so much a quarter, gold at so much an ounce, and the
+Bank of England discounting good bills at so much per cent.!  He might be
+asked, he observed in a peroration of great power, what were his
+principles?  His principles were what they always had been.  His
+principles were written in the countenances of the lion and unicorn; were
+stamped indelibly upon the royal shield which those grand animals
+supported, and upon the free words of fire which that shield bore.  His
+principles were, Britannia and her sea-king trident!  His principles
+were, commercial prosperity co-existently with perfect and profound
+agricultural contentment; but short of this he would never stop.  His
+principles were, these,—with the addition of his colours nailed to the
+mast, every man’s heart in the right place, every man’s eye open, every
+man’s hand ready, every man’s mind on the alert.  His principles were
+these, concurrently with a general revision of something—speaking
+generally—and a possible readjustment of something else, not to be
+mentioned more particularly.  His principles, to sum up all in a word,
+were, Hearths and Altars, Labour and Capital, Crown and Sceptre, Elephant
+and Castle.  And now, if his good friend Tipkisson required any further
+explanation from him, he (our honourable friend) was there, willing and
+ready to give it.
+
+Tipkisson, who all this time had stood conspicuous in the crowd, with his
+arms folded and his eyes intently fastened on our honourable friend:
+Tipkisson, who throughout our honourable friend’s address had not relaxed
+a muscle of his visage, but had stood there, wholly unaffected by the
+torrent of eloquence: an object of contempt and scorn to mankind (by
+which we mean, of course, to the supporters of our honourable friend);
+Tipkisson now said that he was a plain man (Cries of ‘You are indeed!’),
+and that what he wanted to know was, what our honourable friend and the
+dozen noblemen and gentlemen were driving at?
+
+Our honourable friend immediately replied, ‘At the illimitable
+perspective.’
+
+It was considered by the whole assembly that this happy statement of our
+honourable friend’s political views ought, immediately, to have settled
+Tipkisson’s business and covered him with confusion; but, that implacable
+person, regardless of the execrations that were heaped upon him from all
+sides (by which we mean, of course, from our honourable friend’s side),
+persisted in retaining an unmoved countenance, and obstinately retorted
+that if our honourable friend meant that, he wished to know what _that_
+meant?
+
+It was in repelling this most objectionable and indecent opposition, that
+our honourable friend displayed his highest qualifications for the
+representation of Verbosity.  His warmest supporters present, and those
+who were best acquainted with his generalship, supposed that the moment
+was come when he would fall back upon the sacred bulwarks of our
+nationality.  No such thing.  He replied thus: ‘My good friend Tipkisson,
+gentlemen, wishes to know what I mean when he asks me what we are driving
+at, and when I candidly tell him, at the illimitable perspective, he
+wishes (if I understand him) to know what I mean?’—‘I do!’ says
+Tipkisson, amid cries of ‘Shame’ and ‘Down with him.’  ‘Gentlemen,’ says
+our honourable friend, ‘I will indulge my good friend Tipkisson, by
+telling him, both what I mean and what I don’t mean.  (Cheers and cries
+of ‘Give it him!’)  Be it known to him then, and to all whom it may
+concern, that I do mean altars, hearths, and homes, and that I don’t mean
+mosques and Mohammedanism!’  The effect of this home-thrust was terrific.
+Tipkisson (who is a Baptist) was hooted down and hustled out, and has
+ever since been regarded as a Turkish Renegade who contemplates an early
+pilgrimage to Mecca.  Nor was he the only discomfited man.  The charge,
+while it stuck to him, was magically transferred to our honourable
+friend’s opponent, who was represented in an immense variety of placards
+as a firm believer in Mahomet; and the men of Verbosity were asked to
+choose between our honourable friend and the Bible, and our honourable
+friend’s opponent and the Koran.  They decided for our honourable friend,
+and rallied round the illimitable perspective.
+
+It has been claimed for our honourable friend, with much appearance of
+reason, that he was the first to bend sacred matters to electioneering
+tactics.  However this may be, the fine precedent was undoubtedly set in
+a Verbosity election: and it is certain that our honourable friend (who
+was a disciple of Brahma in his youth, and was a Buddhist when we had the
+honour of travelling with him a few years ago) always professes in public
+more anxiety than the whole Bench of Bishops, regarding the theological
+and doxological opinions of every man, woman, and child, in the United
+Kingdom.
+
+As we began by saying that our honourable friend has got in again at this
+last election, and that we are delighted to find that he has got in, so
+we will conclude.  Our honourable friend cannot come in for Verbosity too
+often.  It is a good sign; it is a great example.  It is to men like our
+honourable friend, and to contests like those from which he comes
+triumphant, that we are mainly indebted for that ready interest in
+politics, that fresh enthusiasm in the discharge of the duties of
+citizenship, that ardent desire to rush to the poll, at present so
+manifest throughout England.  When the contest lies (as it sometimes
+does) between two such men as our honourable friend, it stimulates the
+finest emotions of our nature, and awakens the highest admiration of
+which our heads and hearts are capable.
+
+It is not too much to predict that our honourable friend will be always
+at his post in the ensuing session.  Whatever the question be, or
+whatever the form of its discussion; address to the crown, election
+petition, expenditure of the public money, extension of the public
+suffrage, education, crime; in the whole house, in committee of the whole
+house, in select committee; in every parliamentary discussion of every
+subject, everywhere: the Honourable Member for Verbosity will most
+certainly be found.
+
+
+
+
+OUR SCHOOL
+
+
+WE went to look at it, only this last Midsummer, and found that the
+Railway had cut it up root and branch.  A great trunk-line had swallowed
+the playground, sliced away the schoolroom, and pared off the corner of
+the house: which, thus curtailed of its proportions, presented itself, in
+a green stage of stucco, profilewise towards the road, like a forlorn
+flat-iron without a handle, standing on end.
+
+It seems as if our schools were doomed to be the sport of change.  We
+have faint recollections of a Preparatory Day-School, which we have
+sought in vain, and which must have been pulled down to make a new
+street, ages ago.  We have dim impressions, scarcely amounting to a
+belief, that it was over a dyer’s shop.  We know that you went up steps
+to it; that you frequently grazed your knees in doing so; that you
+generally got your leg over the scraper, in trying to scrape the mud off
+a very unsteady little shoe.  The mistress of the Establishment holds no
+place in our memory; but, rampant on one eternal door-mat, in an eternal
+entry long and narrow, is a puffy pug-dog, with a personal animosity
+towards us, who triumphs over Time.  The bark of that baleful Pug, a
+certain radiating way he had of snapping at our undefended legs, the
+ghastly grinning of his moist black muzzle and white teeth, and the
+insolence of his crisp tail curled like a pastoral crook, all live and
+flourish.  From an otherwise unaccountable association of him with a
+fiddle, we conclude that he was of French extraction, and his name
+_Fidèle_.  He belonged to some female, chiefly inhabiting a back-parlour,
+whose life appears to us to have been consumed in sniffing, and in
+wearing a brown beaver bonnet.  For her, he would sit up and balance cake
+upon his nose, and not eat it until twenty had been counted.  To the best
+of our belief we were once called in to witness this performance; when,
+unable, even in his milder moments, to endure our presence, he instantly
+made at us, cake and all.
+
+Why a something in mourning, called ‘Miss Frost,’ should still connect
+itself with our preparatory school, we are unable to say.  We retain no
+impression of the beauty of Miss Frost—if she were beautiful; or of the
+mental fascinations of Miss Frost—if she were accomplished; yet her name
+and her black dress hold an enduring place in our remembrance.  An
+equally impersonal boy, whose name has long since shaped itself
+unalterably into ‘Master Mawls,’ is not to be dislodged from our brain.
+Retaining no vindictive feeling towards Mawls—no feeling whatever,
+indeed—we infer that neither he nor we can have loved Miss Frost.  Our
+first impression of Death and Burial is associated with this formless
+pair.  We all three nestled awfully in a corner one wintry day, when the
+wind was blowing shrill, with Miss Frost’s pinafore over our heads; and
+Miss Frost told us in a whisper about somebody being ‘screwed down.’  It
+is the only distinct recollection we preserve of these impalpable
+creatures, except a suspicion that the manners of Master Mawls were
+susceptible of much improvement.  Generally speaking, we may observe that
+whenever we see a child intently occupied with its nose, to the exclusion
+of all other subjects of interest, our mind reverts, in a flash, to
+Master Mawls.
+
+But, the School that was Our School before the Railroad came and
+overthrew it, was quite another sort of place.  We were old enough to be
+put into Virgil when we went there, and to get Prizes for a variety of
+polishing on which the rust has long accumulated.  It was a School of
+some celebrity in its neighbourhood—nobody could have said why—and we had
+the honour to attain and hold the eminent position of first boy.  The
+master was supposed among us to know nothing, and one of the ushers was
+supposed to know everything.  We are still inclined to think the
+first-named supposition perfectly correct.
+
+We have a general idea that its subject had been in the leather trade,
+and had bought us—meaning Our School—of another proprietor who was
+immensely learned.  Whether this belief had any real foundation, we are
+not likely ever to know now.  The only branches of education with which
+he showed the least acquaintance, were, ruling and corporally punishing.
+He was always ruling ciphering-books with a bloated mahogany ruler, or
+smiting the palms of offenders with the same diabolical instrument, or
+viciously drawing a pair of pantaloons tight with one of his large hands,
+and caning the wearer with the other.  We have no doubt whatever that
+this occupation was the principal solace of his existence.
+
+A profound respect for money pervaded Our School, which was, of course,
+derived from its Chief.  We remember an idiotic goggle-eyed boy, with a
+big head and half-crowns without end, who suddenly appeared as a
+parlour-boarder, and was rumoured to have come by sea from some
+mysterious part of the earth where his parents rolled in gold.  He was
+usually called ‘Mr.’ by the Chief, and was said to feed in the parlour on
+steaks and gravy; likewise to drink currant wine.  And he openly stated
+that if rolls and coffee were ever denied him at breakfast, he would
+write home to that unknown part of the globe from which he had come, and
+cause himself to be recalled to the regions of gold.  He was put into no
+form or class, but learnt alone, as little as he liked—and he liked very
+little—and there was a belief among us that this was because he was too
+wealthy to be ‘taken down.’  His special treatment, and our vague
+association of him with the sea, and with storms, and sharks, and Coral
+Reefs occasioned the wildest legends to be circulated as his history.  A
+tragedy in blank verse was written on the subject—if our memory does not
+deceive us, by the hand that now chronicles these recollections—in which
+his father figured as a Pirate, and was shot for a voluminous catalogue
+of atrocities: first imparting to his wife the secret of the cave in
+which his wealth was stored, and from which his only son’s half-crowns
+now issued.  Dumbledon (the boy’s name) was represented as ‘yet unborn’
+when his brave father met his fate; and the despair and grief of Mrs.
+Dumbledon at that calamity was movingly shadowed forth as having weakened
+the parlour-boarder’s mind.  This production was received with great
+favour, and was twice performed with closed doors in the dining-room.
+But, it got wind, and was seized as libellous, and brought the unlucky
+poet into severe affliction.  Some two years afterwards, all of a sudden
+one day, Dumbledon vanished.  It was whispered that the Chief himself had
+taken him down to the Docks, and re-shipped him for the Spanish Main; but
+nothing certain was ever known about his disappearance.  At this hour, we
+cannot thoroughly disconnect him from California.
+
+Our School was rather famous for mysterious pupils.  There was another—a
+heavy young man, with a large double-cased silver watch, and a fat knife
+the handle of which was a perfect tool-box—who unaccountably appeared one
+day at a special desk of his own, erected close to that of the Chief,
+with whom he held familiar converse.  He lived in the parlour, and went
+out for his walks, and never took the least notice of us—even of us, the
+first boy—unless to give us a deprecatory kick, or grimly to take our hat
+off and throw it away, when he encountered us out of doors, which
+unpleasant ceremony he always performed as he passed—not even
+condescending to stop for the purpose.  Some of us believed that the
+classical attainments of this phenomenon were terrific, but that his
+penmanship and arithmetic were defective, and he had come there to mend
+them; others, that he was going to set up a school, and had paid the
+Chief ‘twenty-five pound down,’ for leave to see Our School at work.  The
+gloomier spirits even said that he was going to buy us; against which
+contingency, conspiracies were set on foot for a general defection and
+running away.  However, he never did that.  After staying for a quarter,
+during which period, though closely observed, he was never seen to do
+anything but make pens out of quills, write small hand in a secret
+portfolio, and punch the point of the sharpest blade in his knife into
+his desk all over it, he too disappeared, and his place knew him no more.
+
+There was another boy, a fair, meek boy, with a delicate complexion and
+rich curling hair, who, we found out, or thought we found out (we have no
+idea now, and probably had none then, on what grounds, but it was
+confidentially revealed from mouth to mouth), was the son of a Viscount
+who had deserted his lovely mother.  It was understood that if he had his
+rights, he would be worth twenty thousand a year.  And that if his mother
+ever met his father, she would shoot him with a silver pistol, which she
+carried, always loaded to the muzzle, for that purpose.  He was a very
+suggestive topic.  So was a young Mulatto, who was always believed
+(though very amiable) to have a dagger about him somewhere.  But, we
+think they were both outshone, upon the whole, by another boy who claimed
+to have been born on the twenty-ninth of February, and to have only one
+birthday in five years.  We suspect this to have been a fiction—but he
+lived upon it all the time he was at Our School.
+
+The principal currency of Our School was slate pencil.  It had some
+inexplicable value, that was never ascertained, never reduced to a
+standard.  To have a great hoard of it was somehow to be rich.  We used
+to bestow it in charity, and confer it as a precious boon upon our chosen
+friends.  When the holidays were coming, contributions were solicited for
+certain boys whose relatives were in India, and who were appealed for
+under the generic name of ‘Holiday-stoppers,’—appropriate marks of
+remembrance that should enliven and cheer them in their homeless state.
+Personally, we always contributed these tokens of sympathy in the form of
+slate pencil, and always felt that it would be a comfort and a treasure
+to them.
+
+Our School was remarkable for white mice.  Red-polls, linnets, and even
+canaries, were kept in desks, drawers, hat-boxes, and other strange
+refuges for birds; but white mice were the favourite stock.  The boys
+trained the mice, much better than the masters trained the boys.  We
+recall one white mouse, who lived in the cover of a Latin dictionary, who
+ran up ladders, drew Roman chariots, shouldered muskets, turned wheels,
+and even made a very creditable appearance on the stage as the Dog of
+Montargis.  He might have achieved greater things, but for having the
+misfortune to mistake his way in a triumphal procession to the Capitol,
+when he fell into a deep inkstand, and was dyed black and drowned.  The
+mice were the occasion of some most ingenious engineering, in the
+construction of their houses and instruments of performance.  The famous
+one belonged to a company of proprietors, some of whom have since made
+Railroads, Engines, and Telegraphs; the chairman has erected mills and
+bridges in New Zealand.
+
+The usher at Our School, who was considered to know everything as opposed
+to the Chief, who was considered to know nothing, was a bony,
+gentle-faced, clerical-looking young man in rusty black.  It was
+whispered that he was sweet upon one of Maxby’s sisters (Maxby lived
+close by, and was a day pupil), and further that he ‘favoured Maxby.’  As
+we remember, he taught Italian to Maxby’s sisters on half-holidays.  He
+once went to the play with them, and wore a white waistcoat and a rose:
+which was considered among us equivalent to a declaration.  We were of
+opinion on that occasion, that to the last moment he expected Maxby’s
+father to ask him to dinner at five o’clock, and therefore neglected his
+own dinner at half-past one, and finally got none.  We exaggerated in our
+imaginations the extent to which he punished Maxby’s father’s cold meat
+at supper; and we agreed to believe that he was elevated with wine and
+water when he came home.  But, we all liked him; for he had a good
+knowledge of boys, and would have made it a much better school if he had
+had more power.  He was writing master, mathematical master, English
+master, made out the bills, mended the pens, and did all sorts of things.
+He divided the little boys with the Latin master (they were smuggled
+through their rudimentary books, at odd times when there was nothing else
+to do), and he always called at parents’ houses to inquire after sick
+boys, because he had gentlemanly manners.  He was rather musical, and on
+some remote quarter-day had bought an old trombone; but a bit of it was
+lost, and it made the most extraordinary sounds when he sometimes tried
+to play it of an evening.  His holidays never began (on account of the
+bills) until long after ours; but, in the summer vacations he used to
+take pedestrian excursions with a knapsack; and at Christmas time, he
+went to see his father at Chipping Norton, who we all said (on no
+authority) was a dairy-fed pork-butcher.  Poor fellow!  He was very low
+all day on Maxby’s sister’s wedding-day, and afterwards was thought to
+favour Maxby more than ever, though he had been expected to spite him.
+He has been dead these twenty years.  Poor fellow!
+
+Our remembrance of Our School, presents the Latin master as a colourless
+doubled-up near-sighted man with a crutch, who was always cold, and
+always putting onions into his ears for deafness, and always disclosing
+ends of flannel under all his garments, and almost always applying a ball
+of pocket-handkerchief to some part of his face with a screwing action
+round and round.  He was a very good scholar, and took great pains where
+he saw intelligence and a desire to learn: otherwise, perhaps not.  Our
+memory presents him (unless teased into a passion) with as little energy
+as colour—as having been worried and tormented into monotonous
+feebleness—as having had the best part of his life ground out of him in a
+Mill of boys.  We remember with terror how he fell asleep one sultry
+afternoon with the little smuggled class before him, and awoke not when
+the footstep of the Chief fell heavy on the floor; how the Chief aroused
+him, in the midst of a dread silence, and said, ‘Mr. Blinkins, are you
+ill, sir?’ how he blushingly replied, ‘Sir, rather so;’ how the Chief
+retorted with severity, ‘Mr. Blinkins, this is no place to be ill in’
+(which was very, very true), and walked back solemn as the ghost in
+Hamlet, until, catching a wandering eye, he called that boy for
+inattention, and happily expressed his feelings towards the Latin master
+through the medium of a substitute.
+
+There was a fat little dancing-master who used to come in a gig, and
+taught the more advanced among us hornpipes (as an accomplishment in
+great social demand in after life); and there was a brisk little French
+master who used to come in the sunniest weather, with a handleless
+umbrella, and to whom the Chief was always polite, because (as we
+believed), if the Chief offended him, he would instantly address the
+Chief in French, and for ever confound him before the boys with his
+inability to understand or reply.
+
+There was besides, a serving man, whose name was Phil.  Our retrospective
+glance presents Phil as a shipwrecked carpenter, cast away upon the
+desert island of a school, and carrying into practice an ingenious
+inkling of many trades.  He mended whatever was broken, and made whatever
+was wanted.  He was general glazier, among other things, and mended all
+the broken windows—at the prime cost (as was darkly rumoured among us) of
+ninepence, for every square charged three-and-six to parents.  We had a
+high opinion of his mechanical genius, and generally held that the Chief
+‘knew something bad of him,’ and on pain of divulgence enforced Phil to
+be his bondsman.  We particularly remember that Phil had a sovereign
+contempt for learning: which engenders in us a respect for his sagacity,
+as it implies his accurate observation of the relative positions of the
+Chief and the ushers.  He was an impenetrable man, who waited at table
+between whiles, and throughout ‘the half’ kept the boxes in severe
+custody.  He was morose, even to the Chief, and never smiled, except at
+breaking-up, when, in acknowledgment of the toast, ‘Success to Phil!
+Hooray!’ he would slowly carve a grin out of his wooden face, where it
+would remain until we were all gone.  Nevertheless, one time when we had
+the scarlet fever in the school, Phil nursed all the sick boys of his own
+accord, and was like a mother to them.
+
+There was another school not far off, and of course Our School could have
+nothing to say to that school.  It is mostly the way with schools,
+whether of boys or men.  Well! the railway has swallowed up ours, and the
+locomotives now run smoothly over its ashes.
+
+    So fades and languishes, grows dim and dies,
+    All that this world is proud of,
+
+- and is not proud of, too.  It had little reason to be proud of Our
+School, and has done much better since in that way, and will do far
+better yet.
+
+
+
+
+OUR VESTRY
+
+
+WE have the glorious privilege of being always in hot water if we like.
+We are a shareholder in a Great Parochial British Joint Stock Bank of
+Balderdash.  We have a Vestry in our borough, and can vote for a
+vestryman—might even _be_ a vestryman, mayhap, if we were inspired by a
+lofty and noble ambition.  Which we are not.
+
+Our Vestry is a deliberative assembly of the utmost dignity and
+importance.  Like the Senate of ancient Rome, its awful gravity
+overpowers (or ought to overpower) barbarian visitors.  It sits in the
+Capitol (we mean in the capital building erected for it), chiefly on
+Saturdays, and shakes the earth to its centre with the echoes of its
+thundering eloquence, in a Sunday paper.
+
+To get into this Vestry in the eminent capacity of Vestryman, gigantic
+efforts are made, and Herculean exertions used.  It is made manifest to
+the dullest capacity at every election, that if we reject Snozzle we are
+done for, and that if we fail to bring in Blunderbooze at the top of the
+poll, we are unworthy of the dearest rights of Britons.  Flaming placards
+are rife on all the dead walls in the borough, public-houses hang out
+banners, hackney-cabs burst into full-grown flowers of type, and
+everybody is, or should be, in a paroxysm of anxiety.
+
+At these momentous crises of the national fate, we are much assisted in
+our deliberations by two eminent volunteers; one of whom subscribes
+himself A Fellow Parishioner, the other, A Rate-Payer.  Who they are, or
+what they are, or where they are, nobody knows; but, whatever one
+asserts, the other contradicts.  They are both voluminous writers,
+indicting more epistles than Lord Chesterfield in a single week; and the
+greater part of their feelings are too big for utterance in anything less
+than capital letters.  They require the additional aid of whole rows of
+notes of admiration, like balloons, to point their generous indignation;
+and they sometimes communicate a crushing severity to stars.  As thus:
+
+                             MEN OF MOONEYMOUNT.
+
+    Is it, or is it not, a * * * to saddle the parish with a debt of
+    £2,745 6_s._ 9_d._, yet claim to be a RIGID ECONOMIST?
+
+    Is it, or is it not, a * * * to state as a fact what is proved to be
+    _both a moral and a_ PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY?
+
+    Is it, or is it not, a * * * to call £2,745 6_s._ 9_d._ nothing; and
+    nothing, something?
+
+    Do you, or do you _not_ want a * * * TO REPRESENT YOU IN THE VESTRY?
+
+    Your consideration of these questions is recommended to you by
+
+                                                     A FELLOW PARISHIONER.
+
+It was to this important public document that one of our first orators,
+MR. MAGG (of Little Winkling Street), adverted, when he opened the great
+debate of the fourteenth of November by saying, ‘Sir, I hold in my hand
+an anonymous slander’—and when the interruption, with which he was at
+that point assailed by the opposite faction, gave rise to that memorable
+discussion on a point of order which will ever be remembered with
+interest by constitutional assemblies.  In the animated debate to which
+we refer, no fewer than thirty-seven gentlemen, many of them of great
+eminence, including MR. WIGSBY (of Chumbledon Square), were seen upon
+their legs at one time; and it was on the same great occasion that
+DOGGINSON—regarded in our Vestry as ‘a regular John Bull:’ we believe, in
+consequence of his having always made up his mind on every subject
+without knowing anything about it—informed another gentleman of similar
+principles on the opposite side, that if he ‘cheek’d him,’ he would
+resort to the extreme measure of knocking his blessed head off.
+
+This was a great occasion.  But, our Vestry shines habitually.  In
+asserting its own pre-eminence, for instance, it is very strong.  On the
+least provocation, or on none, it will be clamorous to know whether it is
+to be ‘dictated to,’ or ‘trampled on,’ or ‘ridden over rough-shod.’  Its
+great watchword is Self-government.  That is to say, supposing our Vestry
+to favour any little harmless disorder like Typhus Fever, and supposing
+the Government of the country to be, by any accident, in such ridiculous
+hands, as that any of its authorities should consider it a duty to object
+to Typhus Fever—obviously an unconstitutional objection—then, our Vestry
+cuts in with a terrible manifesto about Self-government, and claims its
+independent right to have as much Typhus Fever as pleases itself.  Some
+absurd and dangerous persons have represented, on the other hand, that
+though our Vestry may be able to ‘beat the bounds’ of its own parish, it
+may not be able to beat the bounds of its own diseases; which (say they)
+spread over the whole land, in an ever expanding circle of waste, and
+misery, and death, and widowhood, and orphanage, and desolation.  But,
+our Vestry makes short work of any such fellows as these.
+
+It was our Vestry—pink of Vestries as it is—that in support of its
+favourite principle took the celebrated ground of denying the existence
+of the last pestilence that raged in England, when the pestilence was
+raging at the Vestry doors.  Dogginson said it was plums; Mr. Wigsby (of
+Chumbledon Square) said it was oysters; Mr. Magg (of Little Winkling
+Street) said, amid great cheering, it was the newspapers.  The noble
+indignation of our Vestry with that un-English institution the Board of
+Health, under those circumstances, yields one of the finest passages in
+its history.  It wouldn’t hear of rescue.  Like Mr. Joseph Miller’s
+Frenchman, it would be drowned and nobody should save it.  Transported
+beyond grammar by its kindled ire, it spoke in unknown tongues, and
+vented unintelligible bellowings, more like an ancient oracle than the
+modern oracle it is admitted on all hands to be.  Rare exigencies produce
+rare things; and even our Vestry, new hatched to the woful time, came
+forth a greater goose than ever.
+
+But this, again, was a special occasion.  Our Vestry, at more ordinary
+periods, demands its meed of praise.
+
+Our Vestry is eminently parliamentary.  Playing at Parliament is its
+favourite game.  It is even regarded by some of its members as a chapel
+of ease to the House of Commons: a Little Go to be passed first.  It has
+its strangers’ gallery, and its reported debates (see the Sunday paper
+before mentioned), and our Vestrymen are in and out of order, and on and
+off their legs, and above all are transcendently quarrelsome, after the
+pattern of the real original.
+
+Our Vestry being assembled, Mr. Magg never begs to trouble Mr. Wigsby
+with a simple inquiry.  He knows better than that.  Seeing the honourable
+gentleman, associated in their minds with Chumbledon Square, in his
+place, he wishes to ask that honourable gentleman what the intentions of
+himself, and those with whom he acts, may be, on the subject of the
+paving of the district known as Piggleum Buildings?  Mr. Wigsby replies
+(with his eye on next Sunday’s paper) that in reference to the question
+which has been put to him by the honourable gentleman opposite, he must
+take leave to say, that if that honourable gentleman had had the courtesy
+to give him notice of that question, he (Mr. Wigsby) would have consulted
+with his colleagues in reference to the advisability, in the present
+state of the discussions on the new paving-rate, of answering that
+question.  But, as the honourable gentleman has NOT had the courtesy to
+give him notice of that question (great cheering from the Wigsby
+interest), he must decline to give the honourable gentleman the
+satisfaction he requires.  Mr. Magg, instantly rising to retort, is
+received with loud cries of ‘Spoke!’ from the Wigsby interest, and with
+cheers from the Magg side of the house.  Moreover, five gentlemen rise to
+order, and one of them, in revenge for being taken no notice of,
+petrifies the assembly by moving that this Vestry do now adjourn; but, is
+persuaded to withdraw that awful proposal, in consideration of its
+tremendous consequences if persevered in.  Mr. Magg, for the purpose of
+being heard, then begs to move, that you, sir, do now pass to the order
+of the day; and takes that opportunity of saying, that if an honourable
+gentleman whom he has in his eye, and will not demean himself by more
+particularly naming (oh, oh, and cheers), supposes that he is to be put
+down by clamour, that honourable gentleman—however supported he may be,
+through thick and thin, by a Fellow Parishioner, with whom he is well
+acquainted (cheers and counter-cheers, Mr. Magg being invariably backed
+by the Rate-Payer)—will find himself mistaken.  Upon this, twenty members
+of our Vestry speak in succession concerning what the two great men have
+meant, until it appears, after an hour and twenty minutes, that neither
+of them meant anything.  Then our Vestry begins business.
+
+We have said that, after the pattern of the real original, our Vestry in
+playing at Parliament is transcendently quarrelsome.  It enjoys a
+personal altercation above all things.  Perhaps the most redoubtable case
+of this kind we have ever had—though we have had so many that it is
+difficult to decide—was that on which the last extreme solemnities passed
+between Mr. Tiddypot (of Gumption House) and Captain Banger (of
+Wilderness Walk).
+
+In an adjourned debate on the question whether water could be regarded in
+the light of a necessary of life; respecting which there were great
+differences of opinion, and many shades of sentiment; Mr. Tiddypot, in a
+powerful burst of eloquence against that hypothesis, frequently made use
+of the expression that such and such a rumour had ‘reached his ears.’
+Captain Banger, following him, and holding that, for purposes of ablution
+and refreshment, a pint of water per diem was necessary for every adult
+of the lower classes, and half a pint for every child, cast ridicule upon
+his address in a sparkling speech, and concluded by saying that instead
+of those rumours having reached the ears of the honourable gentleman, he
+rather thought the honourable gentleman’s ears must have reached the
+rumours, in consequence of their well-known length.  Mr. Tiddypot
+immediately rose, looked the honourable and gallant gentleman full in the
+face, and left the Vestry.
+
+The excitement, at this moment painfully intense, was heightened to an
+acute degree when Captain Banger rose, and also left the Vestry.  After a
+few moments of profound silence—one of those breathless pauses never to
+be forgotten—Mr. Chib (of Tucket’s Terrace, and the father of the Vestry)
+rose.  He said that words and looks had passed in that assembly, replete
+with consequences which every feeling mind must deplore.  Time pressed.
+The sword was drawn, and while he spoke the scabbard might be thrown
+away.  He moved that those honourable gentlemen who had left the Vestry
+be recalled, and required to pledge themselves upon their honour that
+this affair should go no farther.  The motion being by a general union of
+parties unanimously agreed to (for everybody wanted to have the
+belligerents there, instead of out of sight: which was no fun at all),
+Mr. Magg was deputed to recover Captain Banger, and Mr. Chib himself to
+go in search of Mr. Tiddypot.  The Captain was found in a conspicuous
+position, surveying the passing omnibuses from the top step of the
+front-door immediately adjoining the beadle’s box; Mr. Tiddypot made a
+desperate attempt at resistance, but was overpowered by Mr. Chib (a
+remarkably hale old gentleman of eighty-two), and brought back in safety.
+
+Mr. Tiddypot and the Captain being restored to their places, and glaring
+on each other, were called upon by the chair to abandon all homicidal
+intentions, and give the Vestry an assurance that they did so.  Mr.
+Tiddypot remained profoundly silent.  The Captain likewise remained
+profoundly silent, saying that he was observed by those around him to
+fold his arms like Napoleon Buonaparte, and to snort in his
+breathing—actions but too expressive of gunpowder.
+
+The most intense emotion now prevailed.  Several members clustered in
+remonstrance round the Captain, and several round Mr. Tiddypot; but, both
+were obdurate.  Mr. Chib then presented himself amid tremendous cheering,
+and said, that not to shrink from the discharge of his painful duty, he
+must now move that both honourable gentlemen be taken into custody by the
+beadle, and conveyed to the nearest police-office, there to be held to
+bail.  The union of parties still continuing, the motion was seconded by
+Mr. Wigsby—on all usual occasions Mr. Chib’s opponent—and rapturously
+carried with only one dissentient voice.  This was Dogginson’s, who said
+from his place ‘Let ’em fight it out with fistes;’ but whose coarse
+remark was received as it merited.
+
+The beadle now advanced along the floor of the Vestry, and beckoned with
+his cocked hat to both members.  Every breath was suspended.  To say that
+a pin might have been heard to fall, would be feebly to express the
+all-absorbing interest and silence.  Suddenly, enthusiastic cheering
+broke out from every side of the Vestry.  Captain Banger had risen—being,
+in fact, pulled up by a friend on either side, and poked up by a friend
+behind.
+
+The Captain said, in a deep determined voice, that he had every respect
+for that Vestry and every respect for that chair; that he also respected
+the honourable gentleman of Gumpton House; but, that he respected his
+honour more.  Hereupon the Captain sat down, leaving the whole Vestry
+much affected.  Mr. Tiddypot instantly rose, and was received with the
+same encouragement.  He likewise said—and the exquisite art of this
+orator communicated to the observation an air of freshness and
+novelty—that he too had every respect for that Vestry; that he too had
+every respect for that chair.  That he too respected the honourable and
+gallant gentleman of Wilderness Walk; but, that he too respected his
+honour more. ‘Hows’ever,’ added the distinguished Vestryman, ‘if the
+honourable and gallant gentleman’s honour is never more doubted and
+damaged than it is by me, he’s all right.’  Captain Banger immediately
+started up again, and said that after those observations, involving as
+they did ample concession to his honour without compromising the honour
+of the honourable gentleman, he would be wanting in honour as well as in
+generosity, if he did not at once repudiate all intention of wounding the
+honour of the honourable gentleman, or saying anything dishonourable to
+his honourable feelings.  These observations were repeatedly interrupted
+by bursts of cheers.  Mr. Tiddypot retorted that he well knew the spirit
+of honour by which the honourable and gallant gentleman was so honourably
+animated, and that he accepted an honourable explanation, offered in a
+way that did him honour; but, he trusted that the Vestry would consider
+that his (Mr. Tiddypot’s) honour had imperatively demanded of him that
+painful course which he had felt it due to his honour to adopt.  The
+Captain and Mr. Tiddypot then touched their hats to one another across
+the Vestry, a great many times, and it is thought that these proceedings
+(reported to the extent of several columns in next Sunday’s paper) will
+bring them in as church-wardens next year.
+
+All this was strictly after the pattern of the real original, and so are
+the whole of our Vestry’s proceedings.  In all their debates, they are
+laudably imitative of the windy and wordy slang of the real original, and
+of nothing that is better in it.  They have head-strong party
+animosities, without any reference to the merits of questions; they tack
+a surprising amount of debate to a very little business; they set more
+store by forms than they do by substances:—all very like the real
+original!  It has been doubted in our borough, whether our Vestry is of
+any utility; but our own conclusion is, that it is of the use to the
+Borough that a diminishing mirror is to a painter, as enabling it to
+perceive in a small focus of absurdity all the surface defects of the
+real original.
+
+
+
+
+OUR BORE
+
+
+IT is unnecessary to say that we keep a bore.  Everybody does.  But, the
+bore whom we have the pleasure and honour of enumerating among our
+particular friends, is such a generic bore, and has so many traits (as it
+appears to us) in common with the great bore family, that we are tempted
+to make him the subject of the present notes.  May he be generally
+accepted!
+
+Our bore is admitted on all hands to be a good-hearted man.  He may put
+fifty people out of temper, but he keeps his own.  He preserves a sickly
+solid smile upon his face, when other faces are ruffled by the perfection
+he has attained in his art, and has an equable voice which never travels
+out of one key or rises above one pitch.  His manner is a manner of
+tranquil interest.  None of his opinions are startling.  Among his
+deepest-rooted convictions, it may be mentioned that he considers the air
+of England damp, and holds that our lively neighbours—he always calls the
+French our lively neighbours—have the advantage of us in that particular.
+Nevertheless he is unable to forget that John Bull is John Bull all the
+world over, and that England with all her faults is England still.
+
+Our bore has travelled.  He could not possibly be a complete bore without
+having travelled.  He rarely speaks of his travels without introducing,
+sometimes on his own plan of construction, morsels of the language of the
+country—which he always translates.  You cannot name to him any little
+remote town in France, Italy, Germany, or Switzerland but he knows it
+well; stayed there a fortnight under peculiar circumstances.  And talking
+of that little place, perhaps you know a statue over an old fountain, up
+a little court, which is the second—no, the third—stay—yes, the third
+turning on the right, after you come out of the Post-house, going up the
+hill towards the market?  You _don’t_ know that statue?  Nor that
+fountain?  You surprise him!  They are not usually seen by travellers
+(most extraordinary, he has never yet met with a single traveller who
+knew them, except one German, the most intelligent man he ever met in his
+life!) but he thought that YOU would have been the man to find them out.
+And then he describes them, in a circumstantial lecture half an hour
+long, generally delivered behind a door which is constantly being opened
+from the other side; and implores you, if you ever revisit that place,
+now do go and look at that statue and fountain!
+
+Our bore, in a similar manner, being in Italy, made a discovery of a
+dreadful picture, which has been the terror of a large portion of the
+civilized world ever since.  We have seen the liveliest men paralysed by
+it, across a broad dining-table.  He was lounging among the mountains,
+sir, basking in the mellow influences of the climate, when he came to
+_una piccola chiesa_—a little church—or perhaps it would be more correct
+to say _una piccolissima cappella_—the smallest chapel you can possibly
+imagine—and walked in.  There was nobody inside but a _cieco_—a blind
+man—saying his prayers, and a _vecchio padre_—old friar-rattling a
+money-box.  But, above the head of that friar, and immediately to the
+right of the altar as you enter—to the right of the altar?  No.  To the
+left of the altar as you enter—or say near the centre—there hung a
+painting (subject, Virgin and Child) so divine in its expression, so pure
+and yet so warm and rich in its tone, so fresh in its touch, at once so
+glowing in its colour and so statuesque in its repose, that our bore
+cried out in ecstasy, ‘That’s the finest picture in Italy!’  And so it
+is, sir.  There is no doubt of it.  It is astonishing that that picture
+is so little known.  Even the painter is uncertain.  He afterwards took
+Blumb, of the Royal Academy (it is to be observed that our bore takes
+none but eminent people to see sights, and that none but eminent people
+take our bore), and you never saw a man so affected in your life as Blumb
+was.  He cried like a child!  And then our bore begins his description in
+detail—for all this is introductory—and strangles his hearers with the
+folds of the purple drapery.
+
+By an equally fortunate conjunction of accidental circumstances, it
+happened that when our bore was in Switzerland, he discovered a Valley,
+of that superb character, that Chamouni is not to be mentioned in the
+same breath with it.  This is how it was, sir.  He was travelling on a
+mule—had been in the saddle some days—when, as he and the guide, Pierre
+Blanquo: whom you may know, perhaps?—our bore is sorry you don’t, because
+he’s the only guide deserving of the name—as he and Pierre were
+descending, towards evening, among those everlasting snows, to the little
+village of La Croix, our bore observed a mountain track turning off
+sharply to the right.  At first he was uncertain whether it _was_ a track
+at all, and in fact, he said to Pierre, ‘_Qu’est que c’est donc_, _mon
+ami_?—What is that, my friend?  ‘_Où_, _monsieur_?’ said Pierre—‘Where,
+sir?’  ‘_Là_!—there!’ said our bore.  ‘_Monsieur_, _ce n’est rien de
+tout_—sir, it’s nothing at all,’ said Pierre.  ‘_Allons_!—Make haste.
+_Il va neiget_—it’s going to snow!’  But, our bore was not to be done in
+that way, and he firmly replied, ‘I wish to go in that direction—_je veux
+y aller_.  I am bent upon it—_je suis déterminé_.  _En avant_!—go ahead!’
+In consequence of which firmness on our bore’s part, they proceeded, sir,
+during two hours of evening, and three of moonlight (they waited in a
+cavern till the moon was up), along the slenderest track, overhanging
+perpendicularly the most awful gulfs, until they arrived, by a winding
+descent, in a valley that possibly, and he may say probably, was never
+visited by any stranger before.  What a valley!  Mountains piled on
+mountains, avalanches stemmed by pine forests; waterfalls, chalets,
+mountain-torrents, wooden bridges, every conceivable picture of Swiss
+scenery!  The whole village turned out to receive our bore.  The peasant
+girls kissed him, the men shook hands with him, one old lady of
+benevolent appearance wept upon his breast.  He was conducted, in a
+primitive triumph, to the little inn: where he was taken ill next
+morning, and lay for six weeks, attended by the amiable hostess (the same
+benevolent old lady who had wept over night) and her charming daughter,
+Fanchette.  It is nothing to say that they were attentive to him; they
+doted on him.  They called him in their simple way, _l’Ange Anglais_—the
+English Angel.  When our bore left the valley, there was not a dry eye in
+the place; some of the people attended him for miles.  He begs and
+entreats of you as a personal favour, that if you ever go to Switzerland
+again (you have mentioned that your last visit was your twenty-third),
+you will go to that valley, and see Swiss scenery for the first time.
+And if you want really to know the pastoral people of Switzerland, and to
+understand them, mention, in that valley, our bore’s name!
+
+Our bore has a crushing brother in the East, who, somehow or other, was
+admitted to smoke pipes with Mehemet Ali, and instantly became an
+authority on the whole range of Eastern matters, from Haroun Alraschid to
+the present Sultan.  He is in the habit of expressing mysterious opinions
+on this wide range of subjects, but on questions of foreign policy more
+particularly, to our bore, in letters; and our bore is continually
+sending bits of these letters to the newspapers (which they never
+insert), and carrying other bits about in his pocket-book.  It is even
+whispered that he has been seen at the Foreign Office, receiving great
+consideration from the messengers, and having his card promptly borne
+into the sanctuary of the temple.  The havoc committed in society by this
+Eastern brother is beyond belief.  Our bore is always ready with him.  We
+have known our bore to fall upon an intelligent young sojourner in the
+wilderness, in the first sentence of a narrative, and beat all confidence
+out of him with one blow of his brother.  He became omniscient, as to
+foreign policy, in the smoking of those pipes with Mehemet Ali.  The
+balance of power in Europe, the machinations of the Jesuits, the gentle
+and humanising influence of Austria, the position and prospects of that
+hero of the noble soul who is worshipped by happy France, are all easy
+reading to our bore’s brother.  And our bore is so provokingly
+self-denying about him!  ‘I don’t pretend to more than a very general
+knowledge of these subjects myself,’ says he, after enervating the
+intellects of several strong men, ‘but these are my brother’s opinions,
+and I believe he is known to be well-informed.’
+
+The commonest incidents and places would appear to have been made
+special, expressly for our bore.  Ask him whether he ever chanced to
+walk, between seven and eight in the morning, down St. James’s Street,
+London, and he will tell you, never in his life but once.  But, it’s
+curious that that once was in eighteen thirty; and that as our bore was
+walking down the street you have just mentioned, at the hour you have
+just mentioned—half-past seven—or twenty minutes to eight.  No!  Let him
+be correct!—exactly a quarter before eight by the palace clock—he met a
+fresh-coloured, grey-haired, good-humoured looking gentleman, with a
+brown umbrella, who, as he passed him, touched his hat and said, ‘Fine
+morning, sir, fine morning!’—William the Fourth!
+
+Ask our bore whether he has seen Mr. Barry’s new Houses of Parliament,
+and he will reply that he has not yet inspected them minutely, but, that
+you remind him that it was his singular fortune to be the last man to see
+the old Houses of Parliament before the fire broke out.  It happened in
+this way.  Poor John Spine, the celebrated novelist, had taken him over
+to South Lambeth to read to him the last few chapters of what was
+certainly his best book—as our bore told him at the time, adding, ‘Now,
+my dear John, touch it, and you’ll spoil it!’—and our bore was going back
+to the club by way of Millbank and Parliament Street, when he stopped to
+think of Canning, and look at the Houses of Parliament.  Now, you know
+far more of the philosophy of Mind than our bore does, and are much
+better able to explain to him than he is to explain to you why or
+wherefore, at that particular time, the thought of fire should come into
+his head.  But, it did.  It did.  He thought, What a national calamity if
+an edifice connected with so many associations should be consumed by
+fire!  At that time there was not a single soul in the street but
+himself.  All was quiet, dark, and solitary.  After contemplating the
+building for a minute—or, say a minute and a half, not more—our bore
+proceeded on his way, mechanically repeating, What a national calamity if
+such an edifice, connected with such associations, should be destroyed
+by—A man coming towards him in a violent state of agitation completed the
+sentence, with the exclamation, Fire!  Our bore looked round, and the
+whole structure was in a blaze.
+
+In harmony and union with these experiences, our bore never went anywhere
+in a steamboat but he made either the best or the worst voyage ever known
+on that station.  Either he overheard the captain say to himself, with
+his hands clasped, ‘We are all lost!’ or the captain openly declared to
+him that he had never made such a run before, and never should be able to
+do it again.  Our bore was in that express train on that railway, when
+they made (unknown to the passengers) the experiment of going at the rate
+of a hundred to miles an hour.  Our bore remarked on that occasion to the
+other people in the carriage, ‘This is too fast, but sit still!’  He was
+at the Norwich musical festival when the extraordinary echo for which
+science has been wholly unable to account, was heard for the first and
+last time.  He and the bishop heard it at the same moment, and caught
+each other’s eye.  He was present at that illumination of St. Peter’s, of
+which the Pope is known to have remarked, as he looked at it out of his
+window in the Vatican, ‘_O Cielo_!  _Questa cosa non sara fatta_, _mai
+ancora_, _come questa_—O Heaven! this thing will never be done again,
+like this!’  He has seen every lion he ever saw, under some remarkably
+propitious circumstances.  He knows there is no fancy in it, because in
+every case the showman mentioned the fact at the time, and congratulated
+him upon it.
+
+At one period of his life, our bore had an illness.  It was an illness of
+a dangerous character for society at large.  Innocently remark that you
+are very well, or that somebody else is very well; and our bore, with a
+preface that one never knows what a blessing health is until one has lost
+it, is reminded of that illness, and drags you through the whole of its
+symptoms, progress, and treatment.  Innocently remark that you are not
+well, or that somebody else is not well, and the same inevitable result
+ensues.  You will learn how our bore felt a tightness about here, sir,
+for which he couldn’t account, accompanied with a constant sensation as
+if he were being stabbed—or, rather, jobbed—that expresses it more
+correctly—jobbed—with a blunt knife.  Well, sir!  This went on, until
+sparks began to flit before his eyes, water-wheels to turn round in his
+head, and hammers to beat incessantly, thump, thump, thump, all down his
+back—along the whole of the spinal vertebræ.  Our bore, when his
+sensations had come to this, thought it a duty he owed to himself to take
+advice, and he said, Now, whom shall I consult?  He naturally thought of
+Callow, at that time one of the most eminent physicians in London, and he
+went to Callow.  Callow said, ‘Liver!’ and prescribed rhubarb and
+calomel, low diet, and moderate exercise.  Our bore went on with this
+treatment, getting worse every day, until he lost confidence in Callow,
+and went to Moon, whom half the town was then mad about.  Moon was
+interested in the case; to do him justice he was very much interested in
+the case; and he said, ‘Kidneys!’  He altered the whole treatment,
+sir—gave strong acids, cupped, and blistered.  This went on, our bore
+still getting worse every day, until he openly told Moon it would be a
+satisfaction to him if he would have a consultation with Clatter.  The
+moment Clatter saw our bore, he said, ‘Accumulation of fat about the
+heart!’  Snugglewood, who was called in with him, differed, and said,
+‘Brain!’  But, what they all agreed upon was, to lay our bore upon his
+back, to shave his head, to leech him, to administer enormous quantities
+of medicine, and to keep him low; so that he was reduced to a mere
+shadow, you wouldn’t have known him, and nobody considered it possible
+that he could ever recover.  This was his condition, sir, when he heard
+of Jilkins—at that period in a very small practice, and living in the
+upper part of a house in Great Portland Street; but still, you
+understand, with a rising reputation among the few people to whom he was
+known.  Being in that condition in which a drowning man catches at a
+straw, our bore sent for Jilkins.  Jilkins came.  Our bore liked his eye,
+and said, ‘Mr. Jilkins, I have a presentiment that you will do me good.’
+Jilkins’s reply was characteristic of the man.  It was, ‘Sir, I mean to
+do you good.’  This confirmed our bore’s opinion of his eye, and they
+went into the case together—went completely into it.  Jilkins then got
+up, walked across the room, came back, and sat down.  His words were
+these.  ‘You have been humbugged.  This is a case of indigestion,
+occasioned by deficiency of power in the Stomach.  Take a mutton chop in
+half-an-hour, with a glass of the finest old sherry that can be got for
+money.  Take two mutton chops to-morrow, and two glasses of the finest
+old sherry.  Next day, I’ll come again.’  In a week our bore was on his
+legs, and Jilkins’s success dates from that period!
+
+Our bore is great in secret information.  He happens to know many things
+that nobody else knows.  He can generally tell you where the split is in
+the Ministry; he knows a great deal about the Queen; and has little
+anecdotes to relate of the royal nursery.  He gives you the judge’s
+private opinion of Sludge the murderer, and his thoughts when he tried
+him.  He happens to know what such a man got by such a transaction, and
+it was fifteen thousand five hundred pounds, and his income is twelve
+thousand a year.  Our bore is also great in mystery.  He believes, with
+an exasperating appearance of profound meaning, that you saw Parkins last
+Sunday?—Yes, you did.—Did he say anything particular?—No, nothing
+particular.—Our bore is surprised at that.—Why?—Nothing.  Only he
+understood that Parkins had come to tell you something.—What about?—Well!
+our bore is not at liberty to mention what about.  But, he believes you
+will hear that from Parkins himself, soon, and he hopes it may not
+surprise you as it did him.  Perhaps, however, you never heard about
+Parkins’s wife’s sister?—No.—Ah! says our bore, that explains it!
+
+Our bore is also great in argument.  He infinitely enjoys a long humdrum,
+drowsy interchange of words of dispute about nothing.  He considers that
+it strengthens the mind, consequently, he ‘don’t see that,’ very often.
+Or, he would be glad to know what you mean by that.  Or, he doubts that.
+Or, he has always understood exactly the reverse of that.  Or, he can’t
+admit that.  Or, he begs to deny that.  Or, surely you don’t mean that.
+And so on.  He once advised us; offered us a piece of advice, after the
+fact, totally impracticable and wholly impossible of acceptance, because
+it supposed the fact, then eternally disposed of, to be yet in abeyance.
+It was a dozen years ago, and to this hour our bore benevolently wishes,
+in a mild voice, on certain regular occasions, that we had thought better
+of his opinion.
+
+The instinct with which our bore finds out another bore, and closes with
+him, is amazing.  We have seen him pick his man out of fifty men, in a
+couple of minutes.  They love to go (which they do naturally) into a slow
+argument on a previously exhausted subject, and to contradict each other,
+and to wear the hearers out, without impairing their own perennial
+freshness as bores.  It improves the good understanding between them, and
+they get together afterwards, and bore each other amicably.  Whenever we
+see our bore behind a door with another bore, we know that when he comes
+forth, he will praise the other bore as one of the most intelligent men
+he ever met.  And this bringing us to the close of what we had to say
+about our bore, we are anxious to have it understood that he never
+bestowed this praise on us.
+
+
+
+
+A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY
+
+
+IT was profoundly observed by a witty member of the Court of Common
+Council, in Council assembled in the City of London, in the year of our
+Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty, that the French are a
+frog-eating people, who wear wooden shoes.
+
+We are credibly informed, in reference to the nation whom this choice
+spirit so happily disposed of, that the caricatures and stage
+representations which were current in England some half a century ago,
+exactly depict their present condition.  For example, we understand that
+every Frenchman, without exception, wears a pigtail and curl-papers.
+That he is extremely sallow, thin, long-faced, and lantern-jawed.  That
+the calves of his legs are invariably undeveloped; that his legs fail at
+the knees, and that his shoulders are always higher than his ears.  We
+are likewise assured that he rarely tastes any food but soup maigre, and
+an onion; that he always says, ‘By Gar! Aha! Vat you tell me, sare?’ at
+the end of every sentence he utters; and that the true generic name of
+his race is the Mounseers, or the Parly-voos.  If he be not a
+dancing-master, or a barber, he must be a cook; since no other trades but
+those three are congenial to the tastes of the people, or permitted by
+the Institutions of the country.  He is a slave, of course.  The ladies
+of France (who are also slaves) invariably have their heads tied up in
+Belcher handkerchiefs, wear long earrings, carry tambourines, and beguile
+the weariness of their yoke by singing in head voices through their
+noses—principally to barrel-organs.
+
+It may be generally summed up, of this inferior people, that they have no
+idea of anything.
+
+Of a great Institution like Smithfield, they are unable to form the least
+conception.  A Beast Market in the heart of Paris would be regarded an
+impossible nuisance.  Nor have they any notion of slaughter-houses in the
+midst of a city.  One of these benighted frog-eaters would scarcely
+understand your meaning, if you told him of the existence of such a
+British bulwark.
+
+It is agreeable, and perhaps pardonable, to indulge in a little
+self-complacency when our right to it is thoroughly established.  At the
+present time, to be rendered memorable by a final attack on that good old
+market which is the (rotten) apple of the Corporation’s eye, let us
+compare ourselves, to our national delight and pride as to these two
+subjects of slaughter-house and beast-market, with the outlandish
+foreigner.
+
+The blessings of Smithfield are too well understood to need
+recapitulation; all who run (away from mad bulls and pursuing oxen) may
+read.  Any market-day they may be beheld in glorious action.  Possibly
+the merits of our slaughter-houses are not yet quite so generally
+appreciated.
+
+Slaughter-houses, in the large towns of England, are always (with the
+exception of one or two enterprising towns) most numerous in the most
+densely crowded places, where there is the least circulation of air.
+They are often underground, in cellars; they are sometimes in close back
+yards; sometimes (as in Spitalfields) in the very shops where the meat is
+sold.  Occasionally, under good private management, they are ventilated
+and clean.  For the most part, they are unventilated and dirty; and, to
+the reeking walls, putrid fat and other offensive animal matter clings
+with a tenacious hold.  The busiest slaughter-houses in London are in the
+neighbourhood of Smithfield, in Newgate Market, in Whitechapel, in
+Newport Market, in Leadenhall Market, in Clare Market.  All these places
+are surrounded by houses of a poor description, swarming with
+inhabitants.  Some of them are close to the worst burial-grounds in
+London.  When the slaughter-house is below the ground, it is a common
+practice to throw the sheep down areas, neck and crop—which is exciting,
+but not at all cruel.  When it is on the level surface, it is often
+extremely difficult of approach.  Then, the beasts have to be worried,
+and goaded, and pronged, and tail-twisted, for a long time before they
+can be got in—which is entirely owing to their natural obstinacy.  When
+it is not difficult of approach, but is in a foul condition, what they
+see and scent makes them still more reluctant to enter—which is their
+natural obstinacy again.  When they do get in at last, after no trouble
+and suffering to speak of (for, there is nothing in the previous journey
+into the heart of London, the night’s endurance in Smithfield, the
+struggle out again, among the crowded multitude, the coaches, carts,
+waggons, omnibuses, gigs, chaises, phaetons, cabs, trucks, dogs, boys,
+whoopings, roarings, and ten thousand other distractions), they are
+represented to be in a most unfit state to be killed, according to
+microscopic examinations made of their fevered blood by one of the most
+distinguished physiologists in the world, PROFESSOR OWEN—but that’s
+humbug.  When they _are_ killed, at last, their reeking carcases are hung
+in impure air, to become, as the same Professor will explain to you, less
+nutritious and more unwholesome—but he is only an _un_common counsellor,
+so don’t mind _him_.  In half a quarter of a mile’s length of
+Whitechapel, at one time, there shall be six hundred newly slaughtered
+oxen hanging up, and seven hundred sheep—but, the more the merrier—proof
+of prosperity.  Hard by Snow Hill and Warwick Lane, you shall see the
+little children, inured to sights of brutality from their birth, trotting
+along the alleys, mingled with troops of horribly busy pigs, up to their
+ankles in blood—but it makes the young rascals hardy.  Into the imperfect
+sewers of this overgrown city, you shall have the immense mass of
+corruption, engendered by these practices, lazily thrown out of sight, to
+rise, in poisonous gases, into your house at night, when your sleeping
+children will most readily absorb them, and to find its languid way, at
+last, into the river that you drink—but, the French are a frog-eating
+people who wear wooden shoes, and it’s O the roast beef of England, my
+boy, the jolly old English roast beef.
+
+It is quite a mistake—a newfangled notion altogether—to suppose that
+there is any natural antagonism between putrefaction and health.  They
+know better than that, in the Common Council.  You may talk about Nature,
+in her wisdom, always warning man through his sense of smell, when he
+draws near to something dangerous; but, that won’t go down in the City.
+Nature very often don’t mean anything.  Mrs. Quickly says that prunes are
+ill for a green wound; but whosoever says that putrid animal substances
+are ill for a green wound, or for robust vigour, or for anything or for
+anybody, is a humanity-monger and a humbug.  Britons never, never, never,
+&c., therefore.  And prosperity to cattle-driving, cattle-slaughtering,
+bone-crushing, blood-boiling, trotter-scraping, tripe-dressing,
+paunch-cleaning, gut-spinning, hide-preparing, tallow-melting, and other
+salubrious proceedings, in the midst of hospitals, churchyards,
+workhouses, schools, infirmaries, refuges, dwellings, provision-shops
+nurseries, sick-beds, every stage and baiting-place in the journey from
+birth to death!
+
+These _un_common counsellors, your Professor Owens and fellows, will
+contend that to tolerate these things in a civilised city, is to reduce
+it to a worse condition than BRUCE found to prevail in ABYSSINIA.  For
+there (say they) the jackals and wild dogs came at night to devour the
+offal; whereas, here there are no such natural scavengers, and quite as
+savage customs.  Further, they will demonstrate that nothing in Nature is
+intended to be wasted, and that besides the waste which such abuses
+occasion in the articles of health and life—main sources of the riches of
+any community—they lead to a prodigious waste of changing matters, which
+might, with proper preparation, and under scientific direction, be safely
+applied to the increase of the fertility of the land.  Thus (they argue)
+does Nature ever avenge infractions of her beneficent laws, and so surely
+as Man is determined to warp any of her blessings into curses, shall they
+become curses, and shall he suffer heavily.  But, this is cant.  Just as
+it is cant of the worst description to say to the London Corporation,
+‘How can you exhibit to the people so plain a spectacle of dishonest
+equivocation, as to claim the right of holding a market in the midst of
+the great city, for one of your vested privileges, when you know that
+when your last market holding charter was granted to you by King Charles
+the First, Smithfield stood IN THE SUBURBS OF LONDON, and is in that very
+charter so described in those five words?’—which is certainly true, but
+has nothing to do with the question.
+
+Now to the comparison, in these particulars of civilisation, between the
+capital of England, and the capital of that frog-eating and wooden-shoe
+wearing country, which the illustrious Common Councilman so sarcastically
+settled.
+
+In Paris, there is no Cattle Market.  Cows and calves are sold within the
+city, but, the Cattle Markets are at Poissy, about thirteen miles off, on
+a line of railway; and at Sceaux, about five miles off.  The Poissy
+market is held every Thursday; the Sceaux market, every Monday.  In
+Paris, there are no slaughter-houses, in our acceptation of the term.
+There are five public Abattoirs—within the walls, though in the
+suburbs—and in these all the slaughtering for the city must be performed.
+They are managed by a Syndicat or Guild of Butchers, who confer with the
+Minister of the Interior on all matters affecting the trade, and who are
+consulted when any new regulations are contemplated for its government.
+They are, likewise, under the vigilant superintendence of the police.
+Every butcher must be licensed: which proves him at once to be a slave,
+for we don’t license butchers in England—we only license apothecaries,
+attorneys, post-masters, publicans, hawkers, retailers of tobacco, snuff,
+pepper, and vinegar—and one or two other little trades, not worth
+mentioning.  Every arrangement in connexion with the slaughtering and
+sale of meat, is matter of strict police regulation.  (Slavery again,
+though we certainly have a general sort of Police Act here.)
+
+But, in order that the reader may understand what a monument of folly
+these frog-eaters have raised in their abattoirs and cattle-markets, and
+may compare it with what common counselling has done for us all these
+years, and would still do but for the innovating spirit of the times,
+here follows a short account of a recent visit to these places:
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+It was as sharp a February morning as you would desire to feel at your
+fingers’ ends when I turned out—tumbling over a chiffonier with his
+little basket and rake, who was picking up the bits of coloured paper
+that had been swept out, over-night, from a Bon-Bon shop—to take the
+Butchers’ Train to Poissy.  A cold, dim light just touched the high roofs
+of the Tuileries which have seen such changes, such distracted crowds,
+such riot and bloodshed; and they looked as calm, and as old, all covered
+with white frost, as the very Pyramids.  There was not light enough, yet,
+to strike upon the towers of Notre Dame across the water; but I thought
+of the dark pavement of the old Cathedral as just beginning to be
+streaked with grey; and of the lamps in the ‘House of God,’ the Hospital
+close to it, burning low and being quenched; and of the keeper of the
+Morgue going about with a fading lantern, busy in the arrangement of his
+terrible waxwork for another sunny day.
+
+The sun was up, and shining merrily when the butchers and I, announcing
+our departure with an engine shriek to sleepy Paris, rattled away for the
+Cattle Market.  Across the country, over the Seine, among a forest of
+scrubby trees—the hoar frost lying cold in shady places, and glittering
+in the light—and here we are—at Poissy!  Out leap the butchers, who have
+been chattering all the way like madmen, and off they straggle for the
+Cattle Market (still chattering, of course, incessantly), in hats and
+caps of all shapes, in coats and blouses, in calf-skins, cow-skins,
+horse-skins, furs, shaggy mantles, hairy coats, sacking, baize, oil-skin,
+anything you please that will keep a man and a butcher warm, upon a
+frosty morning.
+
+Many a French town have I seen, between this spot of ground and Strasburg
+or Marseilles, that might sit for your picture, little Poissy!  Barring
+the details of your old church, I know you well, albeit we make
+acquaintance, now, for the first time.  I know your narrow, straggling,
+winding streets, with a kennel in the midst, and lamps slung across.  I
+know your picturesque street-corners, winding up-hill Heaven knows why or
+where!  I know your tradesmen’s inscriptions, in letters not quite fat
+enough; your barbers’ brazen basins dangling over little shops; your
+Cafés and Estaminets, with cloudy bottles of stale syrup in the windows,
+and pictures of crossed billiard cues outside.  I know this identical
+grey horse with his tail rolled up in a knot like the ‘back hair’ of an
+untidy woman, who won’t be shod, and who makes himself heraldic by
+clattering across the street on his hind-legs, while twenty voices shriek
+and growl at him as a Brigand, an accursed Robber, and an
+everlastingly-doomed Pig.  I know your sparkling town-fountain, too, my
+Poissy, and am glad to see it near a cattle-market, gushing so freshly,
+under the auspices of a gallant little sublimated Frenchman wrought in
+metal, perched upon the top.  Through all the land of France I know this
+unswept room at The Glory, with its peculiar smell of beans and coffee,
+where the butchers crowd about the stove, drinking the thinnest of wine
+from the smallest of tumblers; where the thickest of coffee-cups mingle
+with the longest of loaves, and the weakest of lump sugar; where Madame
+at the counter easily acknowledges the homage of all entering and
+departing butchers; where the billiard-table is covered up in the midst
+like a great bird-cake—but the bird may sing by-and-by!
+
+A bell!  The Calf Market!  Polite departure of butchers.  Hasty payment
+and departure on the part of amateur Visitor.  Madame reproaches
+Ma’amselle for too fine a susceptibility in reference to the devotion of
+a Butcher in a bear-skin.  Monsieur, the landlord of The Glory, counts a
+double handful of sous, without an unobliterated inscription, or an
+undamaged crowned head, among them.
+
+There is little noise without, abundant space, and no confusion.  The
+open area devoted to the market is divided into three portions: the Calf
+Market, the Cattle Market, the Sheep Market.  Calves at eight, cattle at
+ten, sheep at mid-day.  All is very clean.
+
+The Calf Market is a raised platform of stone, some three or four feet
+high, open on all sides, with a lofty overspreading roof, supported on
+stone columns, which give it the appearance of a sort of vineyard from
+Northern Italy.  Here, on the raised pavement, lie innumerable calves,
+all bound hind-legs and fore-legs together, and all trembling
+violently—perhaps with cold, perhaps with fear, perhaps with pain; for,
+this mode of tying, which seems to be an absolute superstition with the
+peasantry, can hardly fail to cause great suffering.  Here, they lie,
+patiently in rows, among the straw, with their stolid faces and
+inexpressive eyes, superintended by men and women, boys and girls; here
+they are inspected by our friends, the butchers, bargained for, and
+bought.  Plenty of time; plenty of room; plenty of good humour.
+‘Monsieur Francois in the bear-skin, how do you do, my friend?  You come
+from Paris by the train?  The fresh air does you good.  If you are in
+want of three or four fine calves this market morning, my angel, I,
+Madame Doche, shall be happy to deal with you.  Behold these calves,
+Monsieur Francois!  Great Heaven, you are doubtful!  Well, sir, walk
+round and look about you.  If you find better for the money, buy them.
+If not, come to me!’  Monsieur Francois goes his way leisurely, and keeps
+a wary eye upon the stock.  No other butcher jostles Monsieur Francois;
+Monsieur Francois jostles no other butcher.  Nobody is flustered and
+aggravated.  Nobody is savage.  In the midst of the country blue frocks
+and red handkerchiefs, and the butchers’ coats, shaggy, furry, and hairy:
+of calf-skin, cow-skin, horse-skin, and bear-skin: towers a cocked hat
+and a blue cloak.  Slavery!  For _our_ Police wear great-coats and glazed
+hats.
+
+But now the bartering is over, and the calves are sold.  ‘Ho! Gregoire,
+Antoine, Jean, Louis!  Bring up the carts, my children! Quick, brave
+infants!  Hola!  Hi!’
+
+The carts, well littered with straw, are backed up to the edge of the
+raised pavement, and various hot infants carry calves upon their heads,
+and dexterously pitch them in, while other hot infants, standing in the
+carts, arrange the calves, and pack them carefully in straw.  Here is a
+promising young calf, not sold, whom Madame Doche unbinds.  Pardon me,
+Madame Doche, but I fear this mode of tying the four legs of a quadruped
+together, though strictly à la mode, is not quite right.  You observe,
+Madame Doche, that the cord leaves deep indentations in the skin, and
+that the animal is so cramped at first as not to know, or even remotely
+suspect that he _is_ unbound, until you are so obliging as to kick him,
+in your delicate little way, and pull his tail like a bell-rope.  Then,
+he staggers to his knees, not being able to stand, and stumbles about
+like a drunken calf, or the horse at Franconi’s, whom you may have seen,
+Madame Doche, who is supposed to have been mortally wounded in battle.
+But, what is this rubbing against me, as I apostrophise Madame Doche?  It
+is another heated infant with a calf upon his head.  ‘Pardon, Monsieur,
+but will you have the politeness to allow me to pass?’  ‘Ah, sir,
+willingly.  I am vexed to obstruct the way.’  On he staggers, calf and
+all, and makes no allusion whatever either to my eyes or limbs.
+
+Now, the carts are all full.  More straw, my Antoine, to shake over these
+top rows; then, off we will clatter, rumble, jolt, and rattle, a long row
+of us, out of the first town-gate, and out at the second town-gate, and
+past the empty sentry-box, and the little thin square bandbox of a
+guardhouse, where nobody seems to live: and away for Paris, by the paved
+road, lying, a straight, straight line, in the long, long avenue of
+trees.  We can neither choose our road, nor our pace, for that is all
+prescribed to us.  The public convenience demands that our carts should
+get to Paris by such a route, and no other (Napoleon had leisure to find
+that out, while he had a little war with the world upon his hands), and
+woe betide us if we infringe orders.
+
+Drovers of oxen stand in the Cattle Market, tied to iron bars fixed into
+posts of granite.  Other droves advance slowly down the long avenue, past
+the second town-gate, and the first town-gate, and the sentry-box, and
+the bandbox, thawing the morning with their smoky breath as they come
+along.  Plenty of room; plenty of time.  Neither man nor beast is driven
+out of his wits by coaches, carts, waggons, omnibuses, gigs, chaises,
+phaetons, cabs, trucks, boys, whoopings, roarings, and multitudes.  No
+tail-twisting is necessary—no iron pronging is necessary.  There are no
+iron prongs here.  The market for cattle is held as quietly as the market
+for calves.  In due time, off the cattle go to Paris; the drovers can no
+more choose their road, nor their time, nor the numbers they shall drive,
+than they can choose their hour for dying in the course of nature.
+
+Sheep next.  The sheep-pens are up here, past the Branch Bank of Paris
+established for the convenience of the butchers, and behind the two
+pretty fountains they are making in the Market.  My name is Bull: yet I
+think I should like to see as good twin fountains—not to say in
+Smithfield, but in England anywhere.  Plenty of room; plenty of time.
+And here are sheep-dogs, sensible as ever, but with a certain French air
+about them—not without a suspicion of dominoes—with a kind of flavour of
+moustache and beard—demonstrative dogs, shaggy and loose where an English
+dog would be tight and close—not so troubled with business calculations
+as our English drovers’ dogs, who have always got their sheep upon their
+minds, and think about their work, even resting, as you may see by their
+faces; but, dashing, showy, rather unreliable dogs: who might worry me
+instead of their legitimate charges if they saw occasion—and might see it
+somewhat suddenly.
+
+The market for sheep passes off like the other two; and away they go, by
+_their_ allotted road to Paris.  My way being the Railway, I make the
+best of it at twenty miles an hour; whirling through the now high-lighted
+landscape; thinking that the inexperienced green buds will be wishing,
+before long, they had not been tempted to come out so soon; and wondering
+who lives in this or that château, all window and lattice, and what the
+family may have for breakfast this sharp morning.
+
+After the Market comes the Abattoir.  What abattoir shall I visit first?
+Montmartre is the largest.  So I will go there.
+
+The abattoirs are all within the walls of Paris, with an eye to the
+receipt of the octroi duty; but, they stand in open places in the
+suburbs, removed from the press and bustle of the city.  They are managed
+by the Syndicat or Guild of Butchers, under the inspection of the Police.
+Certain smaller items of the revenue derived from them are in part
+retained by the Guild for the payment of their expenses, and in part
+devoted by it to charitable purposes in connexion with the trade.  They
+cost six hundred and eighty thousand pounds; and they return to the city
+of Paris an interest on that outlay, amounting to nearly six and a-half
+per cent.
+
+Here, in a sufficiently dismantled space is the Abattoir of Montmartre,
+covering nearly nine acres of ground, surrounded by a high wall, and
+looking from the outside like a cavalry barrack.  At the iron gates is a
+small functionary in a large cocked hat. ‘Monsieur desires to see the
+abattoir?  Most certainly.’  State being inconvenient in private
+transactions, and Monsieur being already aware of the cocked hat, the
+functionary puts it into a little official bureau which it almost fills,
+and accompanies me in the modest attire—as to his head—of ordinary life.
+
+Many of the animals from Poissy have come here.  On the arrival of each
+drove, it was turned into yonder ample space, where each butcher who had
+bought, selected his own purchases.  Some, we see now, in these long
+perspectives of stalls with a high over-hanging roof of wood and open
+tiles rising above the walls.  While they rest here, before being
+slaughtered, they are required to be fed and watered, and the stalls must
+be kept clean.  A stated amount of fodder must always be ready in the
+loft above; and the supervision is of the strictest kind.  The same
+regulations apply to sheep and calves; for which, portions of these
+perspectives are strongly railed off.  All the buildings are of the
+strongest and most solid description.
+
+After traversing these lairs, through which, besides the upper provision
+for ventilation just mentioned, there may be a thorough current of air
+from opposite windows in the side walls, and from doors at either end, we
+traverse the broad, paved, court-yard until we come to the
+slaughter-houses.  They are all exactly alike, and adjoin each other, to
+the number of eight or nine together, in blocks of solid building.  Let
+us walk into the first.
+
+It is firmly built and paved with stone.  It is well lighted, thoroughly
+aired, and lavishly provided with fresh water.  It has two doors opposite
+each other; the first, the door by which I entered from the main yard;
+the second, which is opposite, opening on another smaller yard, where the
+sheep and calves are killed on benches.  The pavement of that yard, I
+see, slopes downward to a gutter, for its being more easily cleansed.
+The slaughter-house is fifteen feet high, sixteen feet and a-half wide,
+and thirty-three feet long.  It is fitted with a powerful windlass, by
+which one man at the handle can bring the head of an ox down to the
+ground to receive the blow from the pole-axe that is to fell him—with the
+means of raising the carcass and keeping it suspended during the
+after-operation of dressing—and with hooks on which carcasses can hang,
+when completely prepared, without touching the walls.  Upon the pavement
+of this first stone chamber, lies an ox scarcely dead.  If I except the
+blood draining from him, into a little stone well in a corner of the
+pavement, the place is free from offence as the Place de la Concorde.  It
+is infinitely purer and cleaner, I know, my friend the functionary, than
+the Cathedral of Notre Dame.  Ha, ha!  Monsieur is pleasant, but, truly,
+there is reason, too, in what he says.
+
+I look into another of these slaughter-houses.  ‘Pray enter,’ says a
+gentleman in bloody boots.  ‘This is a calf I have killed this morning.
+Having a little time upon my hands, I have cut and punctured this lace
+pattern in the coats of his stomach.  It is pretty enough.  I did it to
+divert myself.’—‘It is beautiful, Monsieur, the slaughterer!’  He tells
+me I have the gentility to say so.
+
+I look into rows of slaughter-houses.  In many, retail dealers, who have
+come here for the purpose, are making bargains for meat.  There is
+killing enough, certainly, to satiate an unused eye; and there are
+steaming carcasses enough, to suggest the expediency of a fowl and salad
+for dinner; but, everywhere, there is an orderly, clean,
+well-systematised routine of work in progress—horrible work at the best,
+if you please; but, so much the greater reason why it should be made the
+best of.  I don’t know (I think I have observed, my name is Bull) that a
+Parisian of the lowest order is particularly delicate, or that his nature
+is remarkable for an infinitesimal infusion of ferocity; but, I do know,
+my potent, grave, and common counselling Signors, that he is forced, when
+at this work, to submit himself to a thoroughly good system, and to make
+an Englishman very heartily ashamed of you.
+
+Here, within the walls of the same abattoir, in other roomy and
+commodious buildings, are a place for converting the fat into tallow and
+packing it for market—a place for cleansing and scalding calves’ heads
+and sheep’s feet—a place for preparing tripe—stables and coach-houses for
+the butchers—innumerable conveniences, aiding in the diminution of
+offensiveness to its lowest possible point, and the raising of
+cleanliness and supervision to their highest.  Hence, all the meat that
+goes out of the gate is sent away in clean covered carts.  And if every
+trade connected with the slaughtering of animals were obliged by law to
+be carried on in the same place, I doubt, my friend, now reinstated in
+the cocked hat (whose civility these two francs imperfectly acknowledge,
+but appear munificently to repay), whether there could be better
+regulations than those which are carried out at the Abattoir of
+Montmartre.  Adieu, my friend, for I am away to the other side of Paris,
+to the Abattoir of Grenelle!  And there I find exactly the same thing on
+a smaller scale, with the addition of a magnificent Artesian well, and a
+different sort of conductor, in the person of a neat little woman with
+neat little eyes, and a neat little voice, who picks her neat little way
+among the bullocks in a very neat little pair of shoes and stockings.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Such is the Monument of French Folly which a foreigneering people have
+erected, in a national hatred and antipathy for common counselling
+wisdom.  That wisdom, assembled in the City of London, having distinctly
+refused, after a debate of three days long, and by a majority of nearly
+seven to one, to associate itself with any Metropolitan Cattle Market
+unless it be held in the midst of the City, it follows that we shall lose
+the inestimable advantages of common counselling protection, and be
+thrown, for a market, on our own wretched resources.  In all human
+probability we shall thus come, at last, to erect a monument of folly
+very like this French monument.  If that be done, the consequences are
+obvious.  The leather trade will be ruined, by the introduction of
+American timber, to be manufactured into shoes for the fallen English;
+the Lord Mayor will be required, by the popular voice, to live entirely
+on frogs; and both these changes will (how, is not at present quite
+clear, but certainly somehow or other) fall on that unhappy landed
+interest which is always being killed, yet is always found to be
+alive—and kicking.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+{415}  Give a bill
+
+{426}  Three months’ imprisonment as reputed thieves.
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REPRINTED PIECES***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 872-0.txt or 872-0.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/8/7/872
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
+States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
+specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
+eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
+for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
+performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
+away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
+not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
+trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
+person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
+1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
+Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country outside the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
+on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
+  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
+  are located before using this ebook.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
+other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
+Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+provided that
+
+* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
+  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+  Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
+  works.
+
+* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+  receipt of the work.
+
+* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
+Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
+www.gutenberg.org 
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary 
+Archive Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
+mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
+volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
+locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
+Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
+date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
+official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+
+    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+    Chief Executive and Director
+    gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
diff --git a/872-0.zip b/872-0.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..33401b8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/872-0.zip
diff --git a/872-h.zip b/872-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fe6f571
--- /dev/null
+++ b/872-h.zip
diff --git a/872-h/872-h.htm b/872-h/872-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..96db970
--- /dev/null
+++ b/872-h/872-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,10142 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html
+     PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+     "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" />
+<title>Reprinted Pieces, by Charles Dickens</title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+    P {  margin-top: .75em;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+         }
+    P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;}
+    P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; }
+    .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; }
+    H1, H2 {
+         text-align: center;
+		margin-top: 2em;
+		margin-bottom: 2em;
+         }
+    H3, H4, H5 {
+	text-align: center;
+	margin-top: 1em;
+	margin-bottom: 1em;
+	}
+    BODY{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+ table { border-collapse: collapse; }
+table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;}
+    td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;}
+    td p { margin: 0.2em; }
+    .blkquot  {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */
+
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+    .pagenum {position: absolute;
+               left: 92%;
+               font-size: small;
+               text-align: right;
+		font-weight: normal;
+               color: gray;
+               }
+    img { border: none; }
+    img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; }
+    p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; }
+    div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; }
+    div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} 
+    div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%;
+                  border-top: 1px solid; }
+    div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%;
+		  border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;}
+     div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%;
+                  margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid;
+                  border-bottom: 1px solid; }
+    div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%;
+                  margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid;
+                  border-bottom: 1px solid;}
+    div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%;
+		  border-top: 1px solid; }
+    .citation {vertical-align: super;
+               font-size: .8em;
+               text-decoration: none;}
+    img.floatleft { float: left;
+			margin-right: 1em;
+			margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; }
+    img.floatright { float: right;
+			margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em;
+			margin-bottom: 0.5em; }
+    img.clearcenter {display: block;
+			margin-left: auto;
+			margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em;
+			margin-bottom: 0.5em}
+    -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Reprinted Pieces, by Charles Dickens
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: Reprinted Pieces
+
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 25, 2014  [eBook #872]
+[This file was first posted on February 6, 1997]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REPRINTED PIECES***
+</pre>
+<p>Transcribed from the 1905 Chapman and Hall edition by David
+Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
+<h1>Reprinted Pieces</h1>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>The Long Voyage</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page309">309</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>The Begging-letter Writer</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page317">317</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>A Child&rsquo;s Dream of a Star</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page324">324</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Our English Watering-place</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page327">327</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Our French Watering-place</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page335">335</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Bill-sticking</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page346">346</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p>&ldquo;<i>Births</i>.&nbsp; <i>Mrs. Meek</i>,
+<i>of a Son</i>&rdquo;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page357">357</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Lying Awake</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page361">361</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>The Ghost of Art</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page367">367</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Out of Town</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page373">373</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Out of the Season</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page379">379</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>A Poor Man&rsquo;s Tale of a Patent</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page386">386</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>The Noble Savage</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page391">391</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>A Flight</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page397">397</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>The Detective Police</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page406">406</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Three</i> &ldquo;<i>Detective</i>&rdquo;
+<i>Anecdotes</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page422">422</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>I.&mdash;The Pair of Gloves</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>II.&mdash;The Artful Touch</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>III.&mdash;The Sofa</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>On Duty with Inspector Field</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page430">430</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Down with the Tide</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page442">442</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>A Walk in a Workhouse</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page451">451</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Prince Bull</i>.&nbsp; <i>A Fairy
+Tale</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page457">457</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>A Plated Article</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page462">462</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Our Honourable Friend</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page470">470</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Our School</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page475">475</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Our Vestry</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page481">481</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>Our Bore</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page487">487</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>A Monument of French Folly</i></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page494">494</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/fpb.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The long voyage"
+title=
+"The long voyage"
+ src="images/fps.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2><a name="page309"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 309</span>THE
+LONG VOYAGE</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> the wind is blowing and the
+sleet or rain is driving against the dark windows, I love to sit
+by the fire, thinking of what I have read in books of voyage and
+travel.&nbsp; Such books have had a strong fascination for my
+mind from my earliest childhood; and I wonder it should have come
+to pass that I never have been round the world, never have been
+shipwrecked, ice-environed, tomahawked, or eaten.</p>
+<p>Sitting on my ruddy hearth in the twilight of New Year&rsquo;s
+Eve, I find incidents of travel rise around me from all the
+latitudes and longitudes of the globe.&nbsp; They observe no
+order or sequence, but appear and vanish as they
+will&mdash;&lsquo;come like shadows, so depart.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+Columbus, alone upon the sea with his disaffected crew, looks
+over the waste of waters from his high station on the poop of his
+ship, and sees the first uncertain glimmer of the light,
+&lsquo;rising and falling with the waves, like a torch in the
+bark of some fisherman,&rsquo; which is the shining star of a new
+world.&nbsp; Bruce is caged in Abyssinia, surrounded by the gory
+horrors which shall often startle him out of his sleep at home
+when years have passed away.&nbsp; Franklin, come to the end of
+his unhappy overland journey&mdash;would that it had been his
+last!&mdash;lies perishing of hunger with his brave companions:
+each emaciated figure stretched upon its miserable bed without
+the power to rise: all, dividing the weary days between their
+prayers, their remembrances of the dear ones at home, and
+conversation on the pleasures of eating; the last-named topic
+being ever present to them, likewise, in their dreams.&nbsp; All
+the African travellers, wayworn, solitary and sad, submit
+themselves again to drunken, murderous, man-selling despots, of
+the lowest order of humanity; and Mungo Park, fainting under a
+tree and succoured by a woman, gratefully remembers how his Good
+Samaritan has always come to him in woman&rsquo;s shape, the wide
+world over.</p>
+<p>A shadow on the wall in which my mind&rsquo;s eye can discern
+some traces of a rocky sea-coast, recalls to me a fearful story
+of travel derived from that unpromising narrator of such stories,
+a parliamentary blue-book.&nbsp; A convict is its chief figure,
+and this man escapes with other prisoners from a penal
+settlement.&nbsp; It is an island, and they seize a boat, and get
+to the main land.&nbsp; Their way is by a rugged and precipitous
+sea-shore, and they have no earthly hope of ultimate escape, for
+the party of soldiers despatched by an easier course to cut them
+off, must inevitably arrive at their distant bourne long before
+them, and retake them if by any hazard they survive the horrors
+of the way.&nbsp; Famine, as they all must have foreseen, besets
+them early in their course.&nbsp; Some of the party die and are
+eaten; some are murdered by the rest and eaten.&nbsp; This one
+awful creature eats his fill, and sustains his strength, and
+lives on to be recaptured and taken back.&nbsp; The unrelateable
+experiences through which he has passed have been so tremendous,
+that he is not hanged as he might be, but goes back to his old
+chained-gang work.&nbsp; A little time, and he tempts one other
+prisoner away, seizes another boat, and flies once
+more&mdash;necessarily in the old hopeless direction, for he can
+take no other.&nbsp; He is soon cut off, and met by the pursuing
+party face to face, upon the beach.&nbsp; He is alone.&nbsp; In
+his former journey he acquired an inappeasable relish for his
+dreadful food.&nbsp; He urged the new man away, expressly to kill
+him and eat him.&nbsp; In the pockets on one side of his coarse
+convict-dress, are portions of the man&rsquo;s body, on which he
+is regaling; in the pockets on the other side is an untouched
+store of salted pork (stolen before he left the island) for which
+he has no appetite.&nbsp; He is taken back, and he is
+hanged.&nbsp; But I shall never see that sea-beach on the wall or
+in the fire, without him, solitary monster, eating as he prowls
+along, while the sea rages and rises at him.</p>
+<p>Captain Bligh (a worse man to be entrusted with arbitrary
+power there could scarcely be) is handed over the side of the
+Bounty, and turned adrift on the wide ocean in an open boat, by
+order of Fletcher Christian, one of his officers, at this very
+minute.&nbsp; Another flash of my fire, and &lsquo;Thursday
+October Christian,&rsquo; five-and-twenty years of age, son of
+the dead and gone Fletcher by a savage mother, leaps aboard His
+Majesty&rsquo;s ship Briton, hove-to off Pitcairn&rsquo;s Island;
+says his simple grace before eating, in good English; and knows
+that a pretty little animal on board is called a dog, because in
+his childhood he had heard of such strange creatures from his
+father and the other mutineers, grown grey under the shade of the
+bread-fruit trees, speaking of their lost country far away.</p>
+<p>See the Halsewell, East Indiaman outward bound, driving madly
+on a January night towards the rocks near Seacombe, on the island
+of Purbeck!&nbsp; The captain&rsquo;s two dear daughters are
+aboard, and five other ladies.&nbsp; The ship has been driving
+many hours, has seven feet water in her hold, and her mainmast
+has been cut away.&nbsp; The description of her loss, familiar to
+me from my early boyhood, seems to be read aloud as she rushes to
+her destiny.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&lsquo;About two in the morning of Friday the
+sixth of January, the ship still driving, and approaching very
+fast to the shore, Mr. Henry Meriton, the second mate, went again
+into the cuddy, where the captain then was.&nbsp; Another
+conversation taking place, Captain Pierce expressed extreme
+anxiety for the preservation of his beloved daughters, and
+earnestly asked the officer if he could devise any method of
+saving them.&nbsp; On his answering with great concern, that he
+feared it would be impossible, but that their only chance would
+be to wait for morning, the captain lifted up his hands in silent
+and distressful ejaculation.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;At this dreadful moment, the ship struck, with such
+violence as to dash the heads of those standing in the cuddy
+against the deck above them, and the shock was accompanied by a
+shriek of horror that burst at one instant from every quarter of
+the ship.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Many of the seamen, who had been remarkably inattentive
+and remiss in their duty during great part of the storm, now
+poured upon deck, where no exertions of the officers could keep
+them, while their assistance might have been useful.&nbsp; They
+had actually skulked in their hammocks, leaving the working of
+the pumps and other necessary labours to the officers of the
+ship, and the soldiers, who had made uncommon exertions.&nbsp;
+Roused by a sense of their danger, the same seamen, at this
+moment, in frantic exclamations, demanded of heaven and their
+fellow-sufferers that succour which their own efforts, timely
+made, might possibly have procured.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The ship continued to beat on the rocks; and soon
+bilging, fell with her broadside towards the shore.&nbsp; When
+she struck, a number of the men climbed up the ensign-staff,
+under an apprehension of her immediately going to pieces.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Mr. Meriton, at this crisis, offered to these unhappy
+beings the best advice which could be given; he recommended that
+all should come to the side of the ship lying lowest on the
+rocks, and singly to take the opportunities which might then
+offer, of escaping to the shore.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Having thus provided, to the utmost of his power, for
+the safety of the desponding crew, he returned to the
+round-house, where, by this time, all the passengers and most of
+the officers had assembled.&nbsp; The latter were employed in
+offering consolation to the unfortunate ladies; and, with
+unparalleled magnanimity, suffering their compassion for the fair
+and amiable companions of their misfortunes to prevail over the
+sense of their own danger.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;In this charitable work of comfort, Mr. Meriton now
+joined, by assurances of his opinion, that, the ship would hold
+together till the morning, when all would be safe.&nbsp; Captain
+Pierce, observing one of the young gentlemen loud in his
+exclamations of terror, and frequently cry that the ship was
+parting, cheerfully bid him be quiet, remarking that though the
+ship should go to pieces, he would not, but would be safe
+enough.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It is difficult to convey a correct idea of the scene
+of this deplorable catastrophe, without describing the place
+where it happened.&nbsp; The Haleswell struck on the rocks at a
+part of the shore where the cliff is of vast height, and rises
+almost perpendicular from its base.&nbsp; But at this particular
+spot, the foot of the cliff is excavated into a cavern of ten or
+twelve yards in depth, and of breadth equal to the length of a
+large ship.&nbsp; The sides of the cavern are so nearly upright,
+as to be of extremely difficult access; and the bottom is strewed
+with sharp and uneven rocks, which seem, by some convulsion of
+the earth, to have been detached from its roof.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The ship lay with her broadside opposite to the mouth
+of this cavern, with her whole length stretched almost from side
+to side of it.&nbsp; But when she struck, it was too dark for the
+unfortunate persons on board to discover the real magnitude of
+the danger, and the extreme horror of such a situation.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;In addition to the company already in the round-house,
+they had admitted three black women and two soldiers&rsquo;
+wives; who, with the husband of one of them, had been allowed to
+come in, though the seamen, who had tumultuously demanded
+entrance to get the lights, had been opposed and kept out by Mr.
+Rogers and Mr. Brimer, the third and fifth mates.&nbsp; The
+numbers there were, therefore, now increased to near fifty.&nbsp;
+Captain Pierce sat on a chair, a cot, or some other moveable,
+with a daughter on each side, whom he alternately pressed to his
+affectionate breast.&nbsp; The rest of the melancholy assembly
+were seated on the deck, which was strewed with musical
+instruments, and the wreck of furniture and other articles.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Here also Mr. Meriton, after having cut several
+wax-candles in pieces, and stuck them up in various parts of the
+round-house, and lighted up all the glass lanthorns he could
+find, took his seat, intending to wait the approach of dawn; and
+then assist the partners of his dangers to escape.&nbsp; But,
+observing that the poor ladies appeared parched and exhausted, he
+brought a basket of oranges and prevailed on some of them to
+refresh themselves by sucking a little of the juice.&nbsp; At
+this time they were all tolerably composed, except Miss Mansel,
+who was in hysteric fits on the floor of the deck of the
+round-house.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;But on Mr. Meriton&rsquo;s return to the company, he
+perceived a considerable alteration in the appearance of the
+ship; the sides were visibly giving way; the deck seemed to be
+lifting, and he discovered other strong indications that she
+could not hold much longer together.&nbsp; On this account, he
+attempted to go forward to look out, but immediately saw that the
+ship had separated in the middle, and that the forepart having
+changed its position, lay rather further out towards the
+sea.&nbsp; In such an emergency, when the next moment might
+plunge him into eternity, he determined to seize the present
+opportunity, and follow the example of the crew and the soldiers,
+who were now quitting the ship in numbers, and making their way
+to the shore, though quite ignorant of its nature and
+description.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Among other expedients, the ensign-staff had been
+unshipped, and attempted to be laid between the ship&rsquo;s side
+and some of the rocks, but without success, for it snapped
+asunder before it reached them.&nbsp; However, by the light of a
+lanthorn, which a seaman handed through the skylight of the
+round-house to the deck, Mr. Meriton discovered a spar which
+appeared to be laid from the ship&rsquo;s side to the rocks, and
+on this spar he resolved to attempt his escape.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Accordingly, lying down upon it, he thrust himself
+forward; however, he soon found that it had no communication with
+the rock; he reached the end of it, and then slipped off,
+receiving a very violent bruise in his fall, and before he could
+recover his legs, he was washed off by the surge.&nbsp; He now
+supported himself by swimming, until a returning wave dashed him
+against the back part of the cavern.&nbsp; Here he laid hold of a
+small projection in the rock, but was so much benumbed that he
+was on the point of quitting it, when a seaman, who had already
+gained a footing, extended his hand, and assisted him until he
+could secure himself a little on the rock; from which he
+clambered on a shelf still higher, and out of the reach of the
+surf.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Mr. Rogers, the third mate, remained with the captain
+and the unfortunate ladies and their companions nearly twenty
+minutes after Mr. Meriton had quitted the ship.&nbsp; Soon after
+the latter left the round-house, the captain asked what was
+become of him, to which Mr. Rogers replied, that he was gone on
+deck to see what could be done.&nbsp; After this, a heavy sea
+breaking over the ship, the ladies exclaimed, &ldquo;Oh, poor
+Meriton! he is drowned; had he stayed with us he would have been
+safe!&rdquo; and they all, particularly Miss Mary Pierce,
+expressed great concern at the apprehension of his loss.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The sea was now breaking in at the fore part of the
+ship, and reached as far as the mainmast.&nbsp; Captain Pierce
+gave Mr. Rogers a nod, and they took a lamp and went together
+into the stern-gallery, where, after viewing the rocks for some
+time, Captain Pierce asked Mr. Rogers if he thought there was any
+possibility of saving the girls; to which he replied, he feared
+there was none; for they could only discover the black face of
+the perpendicular rock, and not the cavern which afforded shelter
+to those who escaped.&nbsp; They then returned to the
+round-house, where Mr. Rogers hung up the lamp, and Captain
+Pierce sat down between his two daughters.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The sea continuing to break in very fast, Mr. Macmanus,
+a midshipman, and Mr. Schutz, a passenger, asked Mr. Rogers what
+they could do to escape.&nbsp; &ldquo;Follow me,&rdquo; he
+replied, and they all went into the stern-gallery, and from
+thence to the upper-quarter-gallery on the poop.&nbsp; While
+there, a very heavy sea fell on board, and the round-house gave
+way; Mr. Rogers heard the ladies shriek at intervals, as if the
+water reached them; the noise of the sea at other times drowning
+their voices.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Mr. Brimer had followed him to the poop, where they
+remained together about five minutes, when on the breaking of
+this heavy sea, they jointly seized a hen-coop.&nbsp; The same
+wave which proved fatal to some of those below, carried him and
+his companion to the rock, on which they were violently dashed
+and miserably bruised.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Here on the rock were twenty-seven men; but it now
+being low water, and as they were convinced that on the flowing
+of the tide all must be washed off, many attempted to get to the
+back or the sides of the cavern, beyond the reach of the
+returning sea.&nbsp; Scarcely more than six, besides Mr. Rogers
+and Mr. Brimer, succeeded.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Mr. Rogers, on gaining this station, was so nearly
+exhausted, that had his exertions been protracted only a few
+minutes longer, he must have sunk under them.&nbsp; He was now
+prevented from joining Mr. Meriton, by at least twenty men
+between them, none of whom could move, without the imminent peril
+of his life.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;They found that a very considerable number of the crew,
+seamen and soldiers, and some petty officers, were in the same
+situation as themselves, though many who had reached the rocks
+below, perished in attempting to ascend.&nbsp; They could yet
+discern some part of the ship, and in their dreary station
+solaced themselves with the hopes of its remaining entire until
+day-break; for, in the midst of their own distress, the
+sufferings of the females on board affected them with the most
+poignant anguish; and every sea that broke inspired them with
+terror for their safety.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;But, alas, their apprehensions were too soon
+realised!&nbsp; Within a very few minutes of the time that Mr.
+Rogers gained the rock, an universal shriek, which long vibrated
+in their ears, in which the voice of female distress was
+lamentably distinguished, announced the dreadful
+catastrophe.&nbsp; In a few moments all was hushed, except the
+roaring of the winds and the dashing of the waves; the wreck was
+buried in the deep, and not an atom of it was ever afterwards
+seen.&rsquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The most beautiful and affecting incident I know, associated
+with a shipwreck, succeeds this dismal story for a winter
+night.&nbsp; The Grosvenor, East Indiaman, homeward bound, goes
+ashore on the coast of Caffraria.&nbsp; It is resolved that the
+officers, passengers, and crew, in number one hundred and
+thirty-five souls, shall endeavour to penetrate on foot, across
+trackless deserts, infested by wild beasts and cruel savages, to
+the Dutch settlements at the Cape of Good Hope.&nbsp; With this
+forlorn object before them, they finally separate into two
+parties&mdash;never more to meet on earth.</p>
+<p>There is a solitary child among the passengers&mdash;a little
+boy of seven years old who has no relation there; and when the
+first party is moving away he cries after some member of it who
+has been kind to him.&nbsp; The crying of a child might be
+supposed to be a little thing to men in such great extremity; but
+it touches them, and he is immediately taken into that
+detachment.</p>
+<p>From which time forth, this child is sublimely made a sacred
+charge.&nbsp; He is pushed, on a little raft, across broad rivers
+by the swimming sailors; they carry him by turns through the deep
+sand and long grass (he patiently walking at all other times);
+they share with him such putrid fish as they find to eat; they
+lie down and wait for him when the rough carpenter, who becomes
+his especial friend, lags behind.&nbsp; Beset by lions and
+tigers, by savages, by thirst, by hunger, by death in a crowd of
+ghastly shapes, they never&mdash;O Father of all mankind, thy
+name be blessed for it!&mdash;forget this child.&nbsp; The
+captain stops exhausted, and his faithful coxswain goes back and
+is seen to sit down by his side, and neither of the two shall be
+any more beheld until the great last day; but, as the rest go on
+for their lives, they take the child with them.&nbsp; The
+carpenter dies of poisonous berries eaten in starvation; and the
+steward, succeeding to the command of the party, succeeds to the
+sacred guardianship of the child.</p>
+<p>God knows all he does for the poor baby; how he cheerfully
+carries him in his arms when he himself is weak and ill; how he
+feeds him when he himself is griped with want; how he folds his
+ragged jacket round him, lays his little worn face with a
+woman&rsquo;s tenderness upon his sunburnt breast, soothes him in
+his sufferings, sings to him as he limps along, unmindful of his
+own parched and bleeding feet.&nbsp; Divided for a few days from
+the rest, they dig a grave in the sand and bury their good friend
+the cooper&mdash;these two companions alone in the
+wilderness&mdash;and then the time comes when they both are ill,
+and beg their wretched partners in despair, reduced and few in
+number now, to wait by them one day.&nbsp; They wait by them one
+day, they wait by them two days.&nbsp; On the morning of the
+third, they move very softly about, in making their preparations
+for the resumption of their journey; for, the child is sleeping
+by the fire, and it is agreed with one consent that he shall not
+be disturbed until the last moment.&nbsp; The moment comes, the
+fire is dying&mdash;and the child is dead.</p>
+<p>His faithful friend, the steward, lingers but a little while
+behind him.&nbsp; His grief is great, he staggers on for a few
+days, lies down in the desert, and dies.&nbsp; But he shall be
+re-united in his immortal spirit&mdash;who can doubt
+it!&mdash;with the child, when he and the poor carpenter shall be
+raised up with the words, &lsquo;Inasmuch as ye have done it unto
+the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>As I recall the dispersal and disappearance of nearly all the
+participators in this once famous shipwreck (a mere handful being
+recovered at last), and the legends that were long afterwards
+revived from time to time among the English officers at the Cape,
+of a white woman with an infant, said to have been seen weeping
+outside a savage hut far in the interior, who was whisperingly
+associated with the remembrance of the missing ladies saved from
+the wrecked vessel, and who was often sought but never found,
+thoughts of another kind of travel came into my mind.</p>
+<p>Thoughts of a voyager unexpectedly summoned from home, who
+travelled a vast distance, and could never return.&nbsp; Thoughts
+of this unhappy wayfarer in the depths of his sorrow, in the
+bitterness of his anguish, in the helplessness of his
+self-reproach, in the desperation of his desire to set right what
+he had left wrong, and do what he had left undone.</p>
+<p>For, there were many, many things he had neglected.&nbsp;
+Little matters while he was at home and surrounded by them, but
+things of mighty moment when he was at an immeasurable
+distance.&nbsp; There were many many blessings that he had
+inadequately felt, there were many trivial injuries that he had
+not forgiven, there was love that he had but poorly returned,
+there was friendship that he had too lightly prized: there were a
+million kind words that he might have spoken, a million kind
+looks that he might have given, uncountable slight easy deeds in
+which he might have been most truly great and good.&nbsp; O for a
+day (he would exclaim), for but one day to make amends!&nbsp; But
+the sun never shone upon that happy day, and out of his remote
+captivity he never came.</p>
+<p>Why does this traveller&rsquo;s fate obscure, on New
+Year&rsquo;s Eve, the other histories of travellers with which my
+mind was filled but now, and cast a solemn shadow over me!&nbsp;
+Must I one day make his journey?&nbsp; Even so.&nbsp; Who shall
+say, that I may not then be tortured by such late regrets: that I
+may not then look from my exile on my empty place and undone
+work?&nbsp; I stand upon a sea-shore, where the waves are
+years.&nbsp; They break and fall, and I may little heed them;
+but, with every wave the sea is rising, and I know that it will
+float me on this traveller&rsquo;s voyage at last.</p>
+<h2><a name="page317"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 317</span>THE
+BEGGING-LETTER WRITER</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> amount of money he annually
+diverts from wholesome and useful purposes in the United Kingdom,
+would be a set-off against the Window Tax.&nbsp; He is one of the
+most shameless frauds and impositions of this time.&nbsp; In his
+idleness, his mendacity, and the immeasurable harm he does to the
+deserving,&mdash;dirtying the stream of true benevolence, and
+muddling the brains of foolish justices, with inability to
+distinguish between the base coin of distress, and the true
+currency we have always among us,&mdash;he is more worthy of
+Norfolk Island than three-fourths of the worst characters who are
+sent there.&nbsp; Under any rational system, he would have been
+sent there long ago.</p>
+<p>I, the writer of this paper, have been, for some time, a
+chosen receiver of Begging Letters.&nbsp; For fourteen years, my
+house has been made as regular a Receiving House for such
+communications as any one of the great branch Post-Offices is for
+general correspondence.&nbsp; I ought to know something of the
+Begging-Letter Writer.&nbsp; He has besieged my door at all hours
+of the day and night; he has fought my servant; he has lain in
+ambush for me, going out and coming in; he has followed me out of
+town into the country; he has appeared at provincial hotels,
+where I have been staying for only a few hours; he has written to
+me from immense distances, when I have been out of England.&nbsp;
+He has fallen sick; he has died and been buried; he has come to
+life again, and again departed from this transitory scene: he has
+been his own son, his own mother, his own baby, his idiot
+brother, his uncle, his aunt, his aged grandfather.&nbsp; He has
+wanted a greatcoat, to go to India in; a pound to set him up in
+life for ever; a pair of boots to take him to the coast of China;
+a hat to get him into a permanent situation under
+Government.&nbsp; He has frequently been exactly
+seven-and-sixpence short of independence.&nbsp; He has had such
+openings at Liverpool&mdash;posts of great trust and confidence
+in merchants&rsquo; houses, which nothing but seven-and-sixpence
+was wanting to him to secure&mdash;that I wonder he is not Mayor
+of that flourishing town at the present moment.</p>
+<p>The natural phenomena of which he has been the victim, are of
+a most astounding nature.&nbsp; He has had two children who have
+never grown up; who have never had anything to cover them at
+night; who have been continually driving him mad, by asking in
+vain for food; who have never come out of fevers and measles
+(which, I suppose, has accounted for his fuming his letters with
+tobacco smoke, as a disinfectant); who have never changed in the
+least degree through fourteen long revolving years.&nbsp; As to
+his wife, what that suffering woman has undergone, nobody
+knows.&nbsp; She has always been in an interesting situation
+through the same long period, and has never been confined
+yet.&nbsp; His devotion to her has been unceasing.&nbsp; He has
+never cared for himself; he could have perished&mdash;he would
+rather, in short&mdash;but was it not his Christian duty as a
+man, a husband, and a father,&mdash;to write begging letters when
+he looked at her?&nbsp; (He has usually remarked that he would
+call in the evening for an answer to this question.)</p>
+<p>He has been the sport of the strangest misfortunes.&nbsp; What
+his brother has done to him would have broken anybody
+else&rsquo;s heart.&nbsp; His brother went into business with
+him, and ran away with the money; his brother got him to be
+security for an immense sum and left him to pay it; his brother
+would have given him employment to the tune of hundreds a-year,
+if he would have consented to write letters on a Sunday; his
+brother enunciated principles incompatible with his religious
+views, and he could not (in consequence) permit his brother to
+provide for him.&nbsp; His landlord has never shown a spark of
+human feeling.&nbsp; When he put in that execution I don&rsquo;t
+know, but he has never taken it out.&nbsp; The broker&rsquo;s man
+has grown grey in possession.&nbsp; They will have to bury him
+some day.</p>
+<p>He has been attached to every conceivable pursuit.&nbsp; He
+has been in the army, in the navy, in the church, in the law;
+connected with the press, the fine arts, public institutions,
+every description and grade of business.&nbsp; He has been
+brought up as a gentleman; he has been at every college in Oxford
+and Cambridge; he can quote Latin in his letters (but generally
+misspells some minor English word); he can tell you what
+Shakespeare says about begging, better than you know it.&nbsp; It
+is to be observed, that in the midst of his afflictions he always
+reads the newspapers; and rounds off his appeal with some
+allusion, that may be supposed to be in my way, to the popular
+subject of the hour.</p>
+<p>His life presents a series of inconsistencies.&nbsp; Sometimes
+he has never written such a letter before.&nbsp; He blushes with
+shame.&nbsp; That is the first time; that shall be the
+last.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t answer it, and let it be understood that,
+then, he will kill himself quietly.&nbsp; Sometimes (and more
+frequently) he <i>has</i> written a few such letters.&nbsp; Then
+he encloses the answers, with an intimation that they are of
+inestimable value to him, and a request that they may be
+carefully returned.&nbsp; He is fond of enclosing
+something&mdash;verses, letters, pawnbrokers&rsquo; duplicates,
+anything to necessitate an answer.&nbsp; He is very severe upon
+&lsquo;the pampered minion of fortune,&rsquo; who refused him the
+half-sovereign referred to in the enclosure number two&mdash;but
+he knows me better.</p>
+<p>He writes in a variety of styles; sometimes in low spirits;
+sometimes quite jocosely.&nbsp; When he is in low spirits he
+writes down-hill and repeats words&mdash;these little indications
+being expressive of the perturbation of his mind.&nbsp; When he
+is more vivacious, he is frank with me; he is quite the agreeable
+rattle.&nbsp; I know what human nature is,&mdash;who
+better?&nbsp; Well!&nbsp; He had a little money once, and he ran
+through it&mdash;as many men have done before him.&nbsp; He finds
+his old friends turn away from him now&mdash;many men have done
+that before him too!&nbsp; Shall he tell me why he writes to
+me?&nbsp; Because he has no kind of claim upon me.&nbsp; He puts
+it on that ground plainly; and begs to ask for the loan (as I
+know human nature) of two sovereigns, to be repaid next Tuesday
+six weeks, before twelve at noon.</p>
+<p>Sometimes, when he is sure that I have found him out, and that
+there is no chance of money, he writes to inform me that I have
+got rid of him at last.&nbsp; He has enlisted into the
+Company&rsquo;s service, and is off directly&mdash;but he wants a
+cheese.&nbsp; He is informed by the serjeant that it is essential
+to his prospects in the regiment that he should take out a single
+Gloucester cheese, weighing from twelve to fifteen pounds.&nbsp;
+Eight or nine shillings would buy it.&nbsp; He does not ask for
+money, after what has passed; but if he calls at nine, to-morrow
+morning may he hope to find a cheese?&nbsp; And is there anything
+he can do to show his gratitude in Bengal?</p>
+<p>Once he wrote me rather a special letter, proposing relief in
+kind.&nbsp; He had got into a little trouble by leaving parcels
+of mud done up in brown paper, at people&rsquo;s houses, on
+pretence of being a Railway-Porter, in which character he
+received carriage money.&nbsp; This sportive fancy he expiated in
+the House of Correction.&nbsp; Not long after his release, and on
+a Sunday morning, he called with a letter (having first dusted
+himself all over), in which he gave me to understand that, being
+resolved to earn an honest livelihood, he had been travelling
+about the country with a cart of crockery.&nbsp; That he had been
+doing pretty well until the day before, when his horse had
+dropped down dead near Chatham, in Kent.&nbsp; That this had
+reduced him to the unpleasant necessity of getting into the
+shafts himself, and drawing the cart of crockery to
+London&mdash;a somewhat exhausting pull of thirty miles.&nbsp;
+That he did not venture to ask again for money; but that if I
+would have the goodness <i>to leave him out a donkey</i>, he
+would call for the animal before breakfast!</p>
+<p>At another time my friend (I am describing actual experiences)
+introduced himself as a literary gentleman in the last extremity
+of distress.&nbsp; He had had a play accepted at a certain
+Theatre&mdash;which was really open; its representation was
+delayed by the indisposition of a leading actor&mdash;who was
+really ill; and he and his were in a state of absolute
+starvation.&nbsp; If he made his necessities known to the Manager
+of the Theatre, he put it to me to say what kind of treatment he
+might expect?&nbsp; Well! we got over that difficulty to our
+mutual satisfaction.&nbsp; A little while afterwards he was in
+some other strait.&nbsp; I think Mrs. Southcote, his wife, was in
+extremity&mdash;and we adjusted that point too.&nbsp; A little
+while afterwards he had taken a new house, and was going headlong
+to ruin for want of a water-butt.&nbsp; I had my misgivings about
+the water-butt, and did not reply to that epistle.&nbsp; But a
+little while afterwards, I had reason to feel penitent for my
+neglect.&nbsp; He wrote me a few broken-hearted lines, informing
+me that the dear partner of his sorrows died in his arms last
+night at nine o&rsquo;clock!</p>
+<p>I despatched a trusty messenger to comfort the bereaved
+mourner and his poor children; but the messenger went so soon,
+that the play was not ready to be played out; my friend was not
+at home, and his wife was in a most delightful state of
+health.&nbsp; He was taken up by the Mendicity Society
+(informally it afterwards appeared), and I presented myself at a
+London Police-Office with my testimony against him.&nbsp; The
+Magistrate was wonderfully struck by his educational
+acquirements, deeply impressed by the excellence of his letters,
+exceedingly sorry to see a man of his attainments there,
+complimented him highly on his powers of composition, and was
+quite charmed to have the agreeable duty of discharging
+him.&nbsp; A collection was made for the &lsquo;poor
+fellow,&rsquo; as he was called in the reports, and I left the
+court with a comfortable sense of being universally regarded as a
+sort of monster.&nbsp; Next day comes to me a friend of mine, the
+governor of a large prison.&nbsp; &lsquo;Why did you ever go to
+the Police-Office against that man,&rsquo; says he,
+&lsquo;without coming to me first?&nbsp; I know all about him and
+his frauds.&nbsp; He lodged in the house of one of my warders, at
+the very time when he first wrote to you; and then he was eating
+spring-lamb at eighteen-pence a pound, and early asparagus at I
+don&rsquo;t know how much a bundle!&rsquo;&nbsp; On that very
+same day, and in that very same hour, my injured gentleman wrote
+a solemn address to me, demanding to know what compensation I
+proposed to make him for his having passed the night in a
+&lsquo;loathsome dungeon.&rsquo;&nbsp; And next morning an Irish
+gentleman, a member of the same fraternity, who had read the
+case, and was very well persuaded I should be chary of going to
+that Police-Office again, positively refused to leave my door for
+less than a sovereign, and, resolved to besiege me into
+compliance, literally &lsquo;sat down&rsquo; before it for ten
+mortal hours.&nbsp; The garrison being well provisioned, I
+remained within the walls; and he raised the siege at midnight
+with a prodigious alarum on the bell.</p>
+<p>The Begging-Letter Writer often has an extensive circle of
+acquaintance.&nbsp; Whole pages of the &lsquo;Court Guide&rsquo;
+are ready to be references for him.&nbsp; Noblemen and gentlemen
+write to say there never was such a man for probity and
+virtue.&nbsp; They have known him time out of mind, and there is
+nothing they wouldn&rsquo;t do for him.&nbsp; Somehow, they
+don&rsquo;t give him that one pound ten he stands in need of; but
+perhaps it is not enough&mdash;they want to do more, and his
+modesty will not allow it.&nbsp; It is to be remarked of his
+trade that it is a very fascinating one.&nbsp; He never leaves
+it; and those who are near to him become smitten with a love of
+it, too, and sooner or later set up for themselves.&nbsp; He
+employs a messenger&mdash;man, woman, or child.&nbsp; That
+messenger is certain ultimately to become an independent
+Begging-Letter Writer.&nbsp; His sons and daughters succeed to
+his calling, and write begging-letters when he is no more.&nbsp;
+He throws off the infection of begging-letter writing, like the
+contagion of disease.&nbsp; What Sydney Smith so happily called
+&lsquo;the dangerous luxury of dishonesty&rsquo; is more
+tempting, and more catching, it would seem, in this instance than
+in any other.</p>
+<p>He always belongs to a Corresponding-Society of Begging-Letter
+Writers.&nbsp; Any one who will, may ascertain this fact.&nbsp;
+Give money to-day in recognition of a begging-letter,&mdash;no
+matter how unlike a common begging-letter,&mdash;and for the next
+fortnight you will have a rush of such communications.&nbsp;
+Steadily refuse to give; and the begging-letters become
+Angels&rsquo; visits, until the Society is from some cause or
+other in a dull way of business, and may as well try you as
+anybody else.&nbsp; It is of little use inquiring into the
+Begging-Letter Writer&rsquo;s circumstances.&nbsp; He may be
+sometimes accidentally found out, as in the case already
+mentioned (though that was not the first inquiry made); but
+apparent misery is always a part of his trade, and real misery
+very often is, in the intervals of spring-lamb and early
+asparagus.&nbsp; It is naturally an incident of his dissipated
+and dishonest life.</p>
+<p>That the calling is a successful one, and that large sums of
+money are gained by it, must be evident to anybody who reads the
+Police Reports of such cases.&nbsp; But, prosecutions are of rare
+occurrence, relatively to the extent to which the trade is
+carried on.&nbsp; The cause of this is to be found (as no one
+knows better than the Begging-Letter Writer, for it is a part of
+his speculation) in the aversion people feel to exhibit
+themselves as having been imposed upon, or as having weakly
+gratified their consciences with a lazy, flimsy substitute for
+the noblest of all virtues.&nbsp; There is a man at large, at the
+moment when this paper is preparing for the press (on the 29th of
+April, 1850), and never once taken up yet, who, within these
+twelvemonths, has been probably the most audacious and the most
+successful swindler that even this trade has ever known.&nbsp;
+There has been something singularly base in this fellow&rsquo;s
+proceedings; it has been his business to write to all sorts and
+conditions of people, in the names of persons of high reputation
+and unblemished honour, professing to be in distress&mdash;the
+general admiration and respect for whom has ensured a ready and
+generous reply.</p>
+<p>Now, in the hope that the results of the real experience of a
+real person may do something more to induce reflection on this
+subject than any abstract treatise&mdash;and with a personal
+knowledge of the extent to which the Begging-Letter Trade has
+been carried on for some time, and has been for some time
+constantly increasing&mdash;the writer of this paper entreats the
+attention of his readers to a few concluding words.&nbsp; His
+experience is a type of the experience of many; some on a
+smaller, some on an infinitely larger scale.&nbsp; All may judge
+of the soundness or unsoundness of his conclusions from it.</p>
+<p>Long doubtful of the efficacy of such assistance in any case
+whatever, and able to recall but one, within his whole individual
+knowledge, in which he had the least after-reason to suppose that
+any good was done by it, he was led, last autumn, into some
+serious considerations.&nbsp; The begging-letters flying about by
+every post, made it perfectly manifest that a set of lazy
+vagabonds were interposed between the general desire to do
+something to relieve the sickness and misery under which the poor
+were suffering, and the suffering poor themselves.&nbsp; That
+many who sought to do some little to repair the social wrongs,
+inflicted in the way of preventible sickness and death upon the
+poor, were strengthening those wrongs, however innocently, by
+wasting money on pestilent knaves cumbering society.&nbsp; That
+imagination,&mdash;soberly following one of these knaves into his
+life of punishment in jail, and comparing it with the life of one
+of these poor in a cholera-stricken alley, or one of the children
+of one of these poor, soothed in its dying hour by the late
+lamented Mr. Drouet,&mdash;contemplated a grim farce, impossible
+to be presented very much longer before God or man.&nbsp; That
+the crowning miracle of all the miracles summed up in the New
+Testament, after the miracle of the blind seeing, and the lame
+walking, and the restoration of the dead to life, was the miracle
+that the poor had the Gospel preached to them.&nbsp; That while
+the poor were unnaturally and unnecessarily cut off by the
+thousand, in the prematurity of their age, or in the rottenness
+of their youth&mdash;for of flower or blossom such youth has
+none&mdash;the Gospel was <span class="GutSmall">NOT</span>
+preached to them, saving in hollow and unmeaning voices.&nbsp;
+That of all wrongs, this was the first mighty wrong the
+Pestilence warned us to set right.&nbsp; And that no Post-Office
+Order to any amount, given to a Begging-Letter Writer for the
+quieting of an uneasy breast, would be presentable on the Last
+Great Day as anything towards it.</p>
+<p>The poor never write these letters.&nbsp; Nothing could be
+more unlike their habits.&nbsp; The writers are public robbers;
+and we who support them are parties to their depredations.&nbsp;
+They trade upon every circumstance within their knowledge that
+affects us, public or private, joyful or sorrowful; they pervert
+the lessons of our lives; they change what ought to be our
+strength and virtue into weakness, and encouragement of
+vice.&nbsp; There is a plain remedy, and it is in our own
+hands.&nbsp; We must resolve, at any sacrifice of feeling, to be
+deaf to such appeals, and crush the trade.</p>
+<p>There are degrees in murder.&nbsp; Life must be held sacred
+among us in more ways than one&mdash;sacred, not merely from the
+murderous weapon, or the subtle poison, or the cruel blow, but
+sacred from preventible diseases, distortions, and pains.&nbsp;
+That is the first great end we have to set against this miserable
+imposition.&nbsp; Physical life respected, moral life comes
+next.&nbsp; What will not content a Begging-Letter Writer for a
+week, would educate a score of children for a year.&nbsp; Let us
+give all we can; let us give more than ever.&nbsp; Let us do all
+we can; let us do more than ever.&nbsp; But let us give, and do,
+with a high purpose; not to endow the scum of the earth, to its
+own greater corruption, with the offals of our duty.</p>
+<h2><a name="page324"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 324</span>A
+CHILD&rsquo;S DREAM OF A STAR</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was once a child, and he
+strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of
+things.&nbsp; He had a sister, who was a child too, and his
+constant companion.&nbsp; These two used to wonder all day
+long.&nbsp; They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they
+wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at
+the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and
+the power of <span class="smcap">God</span> who made the lovely
+world.</p>
+<p>They used to say to one another, sometimes, Supposing all the
+children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the
+water, and the sky be sorry?&nbsp; They believed they would be
+sorry.&nbsp; For, said they, the buds are the children of the
+flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the
+hill-sides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright
+specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely
+be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to
+see their playmates, the children of men, no more.</p>
+<p>There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the
+sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the
+graves.&nbsp; It was larger and more beautiful, they thought,
+than all the others, and every night they watched for it,
+standing hand in hand at a window.&nbsp; Whoever saw it first
+cried out, &lsquo;I see the star!&rsquo;&nbsp; And often they
+cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and
+where.&nbsp; So they grew to be such friends with it, that,
+before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once
+again, to bid it good night; and when they were turning round to
+sleep, they used to say, &lsquo;God bless the star!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>But while she was still very young, oh, very, very young, the
+sister drooped, and came to be so weak that she could no longer
+stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out
+by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to
+the patient pale face on the bed, &lsquo;I see the star!&rsquo;
+and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little weak
+voice used to say, &lsquo;God bless my brother and the
+star!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>And so the time came all too soon! when the child looked out
+alone, and when there was no face on the bed; and when there was
+a little grave among the graves, not there before; and when the
+star made long rays down towards him, as he saw it through his
+tears.</p>
+<p>Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a
+shining way from earth to Heaven, that when the child went to his
+solitary bed, he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying
+where he was, he saw a train of people taken up that sparkling
+road by angels.&nbsp; And the star, opening, showed him a great
+world of light, where many more such angels waited to receive
+them.</p>
+<p>All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes
+upon the people who were carried up into the star; and some came
+out from the long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the
+people&rsquo;s necks, and kissed them tenderly, and went away
+with them down avenues of light, and were so happy in their
+company, that lying in his bed he wept for joy.</p>
+<p>But, there were many angels who did not go with them, and
+among them one he knew.&nbsp; The patient face that once had lain
+upon the bed was glorified and radiant, but his heart found out
+his sister among all the host.</p>
+<p>His sister&rsquo;s angel lingered near the entrance of the
+star, and said to the leader among those who had brought the
+people thither:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Is my brother come?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>And he said &lsquo;No.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out
+his arms, and cried, &lsquo;O, sister, I am here!&nbsp; Take
+me!&rsquo; and then she turned her beaming eyes upon him, and it
+was night; and the star was shining into the room, making long
+rays down towards him as he saw it through his tears.</p>
+<p>From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on
+the home he was to go to, when his time should come; and he
+thought that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the
+star too, because of his sister&rsquo;s angel gone before.</p>
+<p>There was a baby born to be a brother to the child; and while
+he was so little that he never yet had spoken word, he stretched
+his tiny form out on his bed, and died.</p>
+<p>Again the child dreamed of the open star, and of the company
+of angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with
+their beaming eyes all turned upon those people&rsquo;s
+faces.</p>
+<p>Said his sister&rsquo;s angel to the leader:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Is my brother come?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>And he said, &lsquo;Not that one, but another.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>As the child beheld his brother&rsquo;s angel in her arms, he
+cried, &lsquo;O, sister, I am here!&nbsp; Take me!&rsquo;&nbsp;
+And she turned and smiled upon him, and the star was shining.</p>
+<p>He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his books when an
+old servant came to him and said:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Thy mother is no more.&nbsp; I bring her blessing on
+her darling son!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Again at night he saw the star, and all that former
+company.&nbsp; Said his sister&rsquo;s angel to the leader.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Is my brother come?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>And he said, &lsquo;Thy mother!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the star, because
+the mother was re-united to her two children.&nbsp; And he
+stretched out his arms and cried, &lsquo;O, mother, sister, and
+brother, I am here!&nbsp; Take me!&rsquo;&nbsp; And they answered
+him, &lsquo;Not yet,&rsquo; and the star was shining.</p>
+<p>He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning grey, and he was
+sitting in his chair by the fireside, heavy with grief, and with
+his face bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again.</p>
+<p>Said his sister&rsquo;s angel to the leader: &lsquo;Is my
+brother come?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>And he said, &lsquo;Nay, but his maiden daughter.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly
+lost to him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said,
+&lsquo;My daughter&rsquo;s head is on my sister&rsquo;s bosom,
+and her arm is around my mother&rsquo;s neck, and at her feet
+there is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from
+her, <span class="smcap">God</span> be praised!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>And the star was shining.</p>
+<p>Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face
+was wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back
+was bent.&nbsp; And one night as he lay upon his bed, his
+children standing round, he cried, as he had cried so long
+ago:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I see the star!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>They whispered one another, &lsquo;He is dying.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>And he said, &lsquo;I am.&nbsp; My age is falling from me like
+a garment, and I move towards the star as a child.&nbsp; And O,
+my Father, now I thank thee that it has so often opened, to
+receive those dear ones who await me!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>And the star was shining; and it shines upon his grave.</p>
+<h2><a name="page327"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 327</span>OUR
+ENGLISH WATERING-PLACE</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the Autumn-time of the year,
+when the great metropolis is so much hotter, so much noisier, so
+much more dusty or so much more water-carted, so much more
+crowded, so much more disturbing and distracting in all respects,
+than it usually is, a quiet sea-beach becomes indeed a blessed
+spot.&nbsp; Half awake and half asleep, this idle morning in our
+sunny window on the edge of a chalk-cliff in the old-fashioned
+watering-place to which we are a faithful resorter, we feel a
+lazy inclination to sketch its picture.</p>
+<p>The place seems to respond.&nbsp; Sky, sea, beach, and
+village, lie as still before us as if they were sitting for the
+picture.&nbsp; It is dead low-water.&nbsp; A ripple plays among
+the ripening corn upon the cliff, as if it were faintly trying
+from recollection to imitate the sea; and the world of
+butterflies hovering over the crop of radish-seed are as restless
+in their little way as the gulls are in their larger manner when
+the wind blows.&nbsp; But the ocean lies winking in the sunlight
+like a drowsy lion&mdash;its glassy waters scarcely curve upon
+the shore&mdash;the fishing-boats in the tiny harbour are all
+stranded in the mud&mdash;our two colliers (our watering-place
+has a maritime trade employing that amount of shipping) have not
+an inch of water within a quarter of a mile of them, and turn,
+exhausted, on their sides, like faint fish of an antediluvian
+species.&nbsp; Rusty cables and chains, ropes and rings,
+undermost parts of posts and piles and confused timber-defences
+against the waves, lie strewn about, in a brown litter of tangled
+sea-weed and fallen cliff which looks as if a family of giants
+had been making tea here for ages, and had observed an untidy
+custom of throwing their tea-leaves on the shore.</p>
+<p>In truth, our watering-place itself has been left somewhat
+high and dry by the tide of years.&nbsp; Concerned as we are for
+its honour, we must reluctantly admit that the time when this
+pretty little semicircular sweep of houses, tapering off at the
+end of the wooden pier into a point in the sea, was a gay place,
+and when the lighthouse overlooking it shone at daybreak on
+company dispersing from public balls, is but dimly traditional
+now.&nbsp; There is a bleak chamber in our watering-place which
+is yet called the Assembly &lsquo;Rooms,&rsquo; and understood to
+be available on hire for balls or concerts; and, some few seasons
+since, an ancient little gentleman came down and stayed at the
+hotel, who said that he had danced there, in bygone ages, with
+the Honourable Miss Peepy, well known to have been the Beauty of
+her day and the cruel occasion of innumerable duels.&nbsp; But he
+was so old and shrivelled, and so very rheumatic in the legs,
+that it demanded more imagination than our watering-place can
+usually muster, to believe him; therefore, except the Master of
+the &lsquo;Rooms&rsquo; (who to this hour wears knee-breeches,
+and who confirmed the statement with tears in his eyes), nobody
+did believe in the little lame old gentleman, or even in the
+Honourable Miss Peepy, long deceased.</p>
+<p>As to subscription balls in the Assembly Rooms of our
+watering-place now, red-hot cannon balls are less
+improbable.&nbsp; Sometimes, a misguided wanderer of a
+Ventriloquist, or an Infant Phenomenon, or a juggler, or somebody
+with an Orrery that is several stars behind the time, takes the
+place for a night, and issues bills with the name of his last
+town lined out, and the name of ours ignominiously written in,
+but you may be sure this never happens twice to the same
+unfortunate person.&nbsp; On such occasions the discoloured old
+Billiard Table that is seldom played at (unless the ghost of the
+Honourable Miss Peepy plays at pool with other ghosts) is pushed
+into a corner, and benches are solemnly constituted into front
+seats, back seats, and reserved seats&mdash;which are much the
+same after you have paid&mdash;and a few dull candles are
+lighted&mdash;wind permitting&mdash;and the performer and the
+scanty audience play out a short match which shall make the other
+most low-spirited&mdash;which is usually a drawn game.&nbsp;
+After that, the performer instantly departs with maledictory
+expressions, and is never heard of more.</p>
+<p>But the most wonderful feature of our Assembly Rooms, is, that
+an annual sale of &lsquo;Fancy and other China,&rsquo; is
+announced here with mysterious constancy and perseverance.&nbsp;
+Where the china comes from, where it goes to, why it is annually
+put up to auction when nobody ever thinks of bidding for it, how
+it comes to pass that it is always the same china, whether it
+would not have been cheaper, with the sea at hand, to have thrown
+it away, say in eighteen hundred and thirty, are standing
+enigmas.&nbsp; Every year the bills come out, every year the
+Master of the Rooms gets into a little pulpit on a table, and
+offers it for sale, every year nobody buys it, every year it is
+put away somewhere till next year, when it appears again as if
+the whole thing were a new idea.&nbsp; We have a faint
+remembrance of an unearthly collection of clocks, purporting to
+be the work of Parisian and Genevese artists&mdash;chiefly
+bilious-faced clocks, supported on sickly white crutches, with
+their pendulums dangling like lame legs&mdash;to which a similar
+course of events occurred for several years, until they seemed to
+lapse away, of mere imbecility.</p>
+<p>Attached to our Assembly Rooms is a library.&nbsp; There is a
+wheel of fortune in it, but it is rusty and dusty, and never
+turns.&nbsp; A large doll, with moveable eyes, was put up to be
+raffled for, by five-and-twenty members at two shillings, seven
+years ago this autumn, and the list is not full yet.&nbsp; We are
+rather sanguine, now, that the raffle will come off next
+year.&nbsp; We think so, because we only want nine members, and
+should only want eight, but for number two having grown up since
+her name was entered, and withdrawn it when she was
+married.&nbsp; Down the street, there is a toy-ship of
+considerable burden, in the same condition.&nbsp; Two of the boys
+who were entered for that raffle have gone to India in real
+ships, since; and one was shot, and died in the arms of his
+sister&rsquo;s lover, by whom he sent his last words home.</p>
+<p>This is the library for the Minerva Press.&nbsp; If you want
+that kind of reading, come to our watering-place.&nbsp; The
+leaves of the romances, reduced to a condition very like
+curl-paper, are thickly studded with notes in pencil: sometimes
+complimentary, sometimes jocose.&nbsp; Some of these
+commentators, like commentators in a more extensive way, quarrel
+with one another.&nbsp; One young gentleman who sarcastically
+writes &lsquo;O!!!&rsquo; after every sentimental passage, is
+pursued through his literary career by another, who writes
+&lsquo;Insulting Beast!&rsquo;&nbsp; Miss Julia Mills has read
+the whole collection of these books.&nbsp; She has left marginal
+notes on the pages, as &lsquo;Is not this truly touching?&nbsp;
+J. M.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;How thrilling!&nbsp; J. M.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Entranced here by the Magician&rsquo;s potent spell.&nbsp;
+J. M.&rsquo;&nbsp; She has also italicised her favourite traits
+in the description of the hero, as &lsquo;his hair, which was
+<i>dark</i> and <i>wavy</i>, clustered in <i>rich profusion</i>
+around a <i>marble brow</i>, whose lofty paleness bespoke the
+intellect within.&rsquo;&nbsp; It reminds her of another
+hero.&nbsp; She adds, &lsquo;How like B. L.&nbsp; Can this be
+mere coincidence?&nbsp; J. M.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>You would hardly guess which is the main street of our
+watering-place, but you may know it by its being always stopped
+up with donkey-chaises.&nbsp; Whenever you come here, and see
+harnessed donkeys eating clover out of barrows drawn completely
+across a narrow thoroughfare, you may be quite sure you are in
+our High Street.&nbsp; Our Police you may know by his uniform,
+likewise by his never on any account interfering with
+anybody&mdash;especially the tramps and vagabonds.&nbsp; In our
+fancy shops we have a capital collection of damaged goods, among
+which the flies of countless summers &lsquo;have been
+roaming.&rsquo;&nbsp; We are great in obsolete seals, and in
+faded pin-cushions, and in rickety camp-stools, and in exploded
+cutlery, and in miniature vessels, and in stunted little
+telescopes, and in objects made of shells that pretend not to be
+shells.&nbsp; Diminutive spades, barrows, and baskets, are our
+principal articles of commerce; but even they don&rsquo;t look
+quite new somehow.&nbsp; They always seem to have been offered
+and refused somewhere else, before they came down to our
+watering-place.</p>
+<p>Yet, it must not be supposed that our watering-place is an
+empty place, deserted by all visitors except a few staunch
+persons of approved fidelity.&nbsp; On the contrary, the chances
+are that if you came down here in August or September, you
+wouldn&rsquo;t find a house to lay your head in.&nbsp; As to
+finding either house or lodging of which you could reduce the
+terms, you could scarcely engage in a more hopeless
+pursuit.&nbsp; For all this, you are to observe that every season
+is the worst season ever known, and that the householding
+population of our watering-place are ruined regularly every
+autumn.&nbsp; They are like the farmers, in regard that it is
+surprising how much ruin they will bear.&nbsp; We have an
+excellent hotel&mdash;capital baths, warm, cold, and
+shower&mdash;first-rate bathing-machines&mdash;and as good
+butchers, bakers, and grocers, as heart could desire.&nbsp; They
+all do business, it is to be presumed, from motives of
+philanthropy&mdash;but it is quite certain that they are all
+being ruined.&nbsp; Their interest in strangers, and their
+politeness under ruin, bespeak their amiable nature.&nbsp; You
+would say so, if you only saw the baker helping a new comer to
+find suitable apartments.</p>
+<p>So far from being at a discount as to company, we are in fact
+what would be popularly called rather a nobby place.&nbsp; Some
+tip-top &lsquo;Nobbs&rsquo; come down occasionally&mdash;even
+Dukes and Duchesses.&nbsp; We have known such carriages to blaze
+among the donkey-chaises, as made beholders wink.&nbsp; Attendant
+on these equipages come resplendent creatures in plush and
+powder, who are sure to be stricken disgusted with the
+indifferent accommodation of our watering-place, and who, of an
+evening (particularly when it rains), may be seen very much out
+of drawing, in rooms far too small for their fine figures,
+looking discontentedly out of little back windows into
+bye-streets.&nbsp; The lords and ladies get on well enough and
+quite good-humouredly: but if you want to see the gorgeous
+phenomena who wait upon them at a perfect non-plus, you should
+come and look at the resplendent creatures with little back
+parlours for servants&rsquo; halls, and turn-up bedsteads to
+sleep in, at our watering-place.&nbsp; You have no idea how they
+take it to heart.</p>
+<p>We have a pier&mdash;a queer old wooden pier, fortunately
+without the slightest pretensions to architecture, and very
+picturesque in consequence.&nbsp; Boats are hauled up upon it,
+ropes are coiled all over it; lobster-pots, nets, masts, oars,
+spars, sails, ballast, and rickety capstans, make a perfect
+labyrinth of it.&nbsp; For ever hovering about this pier, with
+their hands in their pockets, or leaning over the rough bulwark
+it opposes to the sea, gazing through telescopes which they carry
+about in the same profound receptacles, are the Boatmen of our
+watering-place.&nbsp; Looking at them, you would say that surely
+these must be the laziest boatmen in the world.&nbsp; They lounge
+about, in obstinate and inflexible pantaloons that are apparently
+made of wood, the whole season through.&nbsp; Whether talking
+together about the shipping in the Channel, or gruffly unbending
+over mugs of beer at the public-house, you would consider them
+the slowest of men.&nbsp; The chances are a thousand to one that
+you might stay here for ten seasons, and never see a boatman in a
+hurry.&nbsp; A certain expression about his loose hands, when
+they are not in his pockets, as if he were carrying a
+considerable lump of iron in each, without any inconvenience,
+suggests strength, but he never seems to use it.&nbsp; He has the
+appearance of perpetually strolling&mdash;running is too
+inappropriate a word to be thought of&mdash;to seed.&nbsp; The
+only subject on which he seems to feel any approach to
+enthusiasm, is pitch.&nbsp; He pitches everything he can lay hold
+of,&mdash;the pier, the palings, his boat, his house,&mdash;when
+there is nothing else left he turns to and even pitches his hat,
+or his rough-weather clothing.&nbsp; Do not judge him by
+deceitful appearances.&nbsp; These are among the bravest and most
+skilful mariners that exist.&nbsp; Let a gale arise and swell
+into a storm, let a sea run that might appal the stoutest heart
+that ever beat, let the Light-boat on these dangerous sands throw
+up a rocket in the night, or let them hear through the angry roar
+the signal-guns of a ship in distress, and these men spring up
+into activity so dauntless, so valiant, and heroic, that the
+world cannot surpass it.&nbsp; Cavillers may object that they
+chiefly live upon the salvage of valuable cargoes.&nbsp; So they
+do, and God knows it is no great living that they get out of the
+deadly risks they run.&nbsp; But put that hope of gain
+aside.&nbsp; Let these rough fellows be asked, in any storm, who
+volunteers for the life-boat to save some perishing souls, as
+poor and empty-handed as themselves, whose lives the perfection
+of human reason does not rate at the value of a farthing each;
+and that boat will be manned, as surely and as cheerfully, as if
+a thousand pounds were told down on the weather-beaten
+pier.&nbsp; For this, and for the recollection of their comrades
+whom we have known, whom the raging sea has engulfed before their
+children&rsquo;s eyes in such brave efforts, whom the secret sand
+has buried, we hold the boatmen of our watering-place in our love
+and honour, and are tender of the fame they well deserve.</p>
+<p>So many children are brought down to our watering-place that,
+when they are not out of doors, as they usually are in fine
+weather, it is wonderful where they are put: the whole village
+seeming much too small to hold them under cover.&nbsp; In the
+afternoons, you see no end of salt and sandy little boots drying
+on upper window-sills.&nbsp; At bathing-time in the morning, the
+little bay re-echoes with every shrill variety of shriek and
+splash&mdash;after which, if the weather be at all fresh, the
+sands teem with small blue mottled legs.&nbsp; The sands are the
+children&rsquo;s great resort.&nbsp; They cluster there, like
+ants: so busy burying their particular friends, and making
+castles with infinite labour which the next tide overthrows, that
+it is curious to consider how their play, to the music of the
+sea, foreshadows the realities of their after lives.</p>
+<p>It is curious, too, to observe a natural ease of approach that
+there seems to be between the children and the boatmen.&nbsp;
+They mutually make acquaintance, and take individual likings,
+without any help.&nbsp; You will come upon one of those slow
+heavy fellows sitting down patiently mending a little ship for a
+mite of a boy, whom he could crush to death by throwing his
+lightest pair of trousers on him.&nbsp; You will be sensible of
+the oddest contrast between the smooth little creature, and the
+rough man who seems to be carved out of hard-grained
+wood&mdash;between the delicate hand expectantly held out, and
+the immense thumb and finger that can hardly feel the rigging of
+thread they mend&mdash;between the small voice and the gruff
+growl&mdash;and yet there is a natural propriety in the
+companionship: always to be noted in confidence between a child
+and a person who has any merit of reality and genuineness: which
+is admirably pleasant.</p>
+<p>We have a preventive station at our watering-place, and much
+the same thing may be observed&mdash;in a lesser degree, because
+of their official character&mdash;of the coast blockade; a
+steady, trusty, well-conditioned, well-conducted set of men, with
+no misgiving about looking you full in the face, and with a quiet
+thorough-going way of passing along to their duty at night,
+carrying huge sou&rsquo;-wester clothing in reserve, that is
+fraught with all good prepossession.&nbsp; They are handy
+fellows&mdash;neat about their houses&mdash;industrious at
+gardening&mdash;would get on with their wives, one thinks, in a
+desert island&mdash;and people it, too, soon.</p>
+<p>As to the naval officer of the station, with his hearty fresh
+face, and his blue eye that has pierced all kinds of weather, it
+warms our hearts when he comes into church on a Sunday, with that
+bright mixture of blue coat, buff waistcoat, black neck-kerchief,
+and gold epaulette, that is associated in the minds of all
+Englishmen with brave, unpretending, cordial, national
+service.&nbsp; We like to look at him in his Sunday state; and if
+we were First Lord (really possessing the indispensable
+qualification for the office of knowing nothing whatever about
+the sea), we would give him a ship to-morrow.</p>
+<p>We have a church, by-the-by, of course&mdash;a hideous temple
+of flint, like a great petrified haystack.&nbsp; Our chief
+clerical dignitary, who, to his honour, has done much for
+education both in time and money, and has established excellent
+schools, is a sound, shrewd, healthy gentleman, who has got into
+little occasional difficulties with the neighbouring farmers, but
+has had a pestilent trick of being right.&nbsp; Under a new
+regulation, he has yielded the church of our watering-place to
+another clergyman.&nbsp; Upon the whole we get on in church
+well.&nbsp; We are a little bilious sometimes, about these days
+of fraternisation, and about nations arriving at a new and more
+unprejudiced knowledge of each other (which our Christianity
+don&rsquo;t quite approve), but it soon goes off, and then we get
+on very well.</p>
+<p>There are two dissenting chapels, besides, in our small
+watering-place; being in about the proportion of a hundred and
+twenty guns to a yacht.&nbsp; But the dissension that has torn us
+lately, has not been a religious one.&nbsp; It has arisen on the
+novel question of Gas.&nbsp; Our watering-place has been
+convulsed by the agitation, Gas or No Gas.&nbsp; It was never
+reasoned why No Gas, but there was a great No Gas party.&nbsp;
+Broadsides were printed and stuck about&mdash;a startling
+circumstance in our watering-place.&nbsp; The No Gas party rested
+content with chalking &lsquo;No Gas!&rsquo; and &lsquo;Down with
+Gas!&rsquo; and other such angry war-whoops, on the few back
+gates and scraps of wall which the limits of our watering-place
+afford; but the Gas party printed and posted bills, wherein they
+took the high ground of proclaiming against the No Gas party,
+that it was said Let there be light and there was light; and that
+not to have light (that is gas-light) in our watering-place, was
+to contravene the great decree.&nbsp; Whether by these
+thunderbolts or not, the No Gas party were defeated; and in this
+present season we have had our handful of shops illuminated for
+the first time.&nbsp; Such of the No Gas party, however, as have
+got shops, remain in opposition and burn tallow&mdash;exhibiting
+in their windows the very picture of the sulkiness that punishes
+itself, and a new illustration of the old adage about cutting off
+your nose to be revenged on your face, in cutting off their gas
+to be revenged on their business.</p>
+<p>Other population than we have indicated, our watering-place
+has none.&nbsp; There are a few old used-up boatmen who creep
+about in the sunlight with the help of sticks, and there is a
+poor imbecile shoemaker who wanders his lonely life away among
+the rocks, as if he were looking for his reason&mdash;which he
+will never find.&nbsp; Sojourners in neighbouring watering-places
+come occasionally in flys to stare at us, and drive away again as
+if they thought us very dull; Italian boys come, Punch comes, the
+Fantoccini come, the Tumblers come, the Ethiopians come;
+Glee-singers come at night, and hum and vibrate (not always
+melodiously) under our windows.&nbsp; But they all go soon, and
+leave us to ourselves again.&nbsp; We once had a travelling
+Circus and Wombwell&rsquo;s Menagerie at the same time.&nbsp;
+They both know better than ever to try it again; and the
+Menagerie had nearly razed us from the face of the earth in
+getting the elephant away&mdash;his caravan was so large, and the
+watering-place so small.&nbsp; We have a fine sea, wholesome for
+all people; profitable for the body, profitable for the
+mind.&nbsp; The poet&rsquo;s words are sometimes on its awful
+lips:</p>
+<blockquote><p>And the stately ships go on<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; To their haven under the hill;<br />
+But O for the touch of a vanish&rsquo;d hand.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; And the sound of a voice that is still!<br />
+<br />
+Break, break, break,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; At the foot of thy crags, O sea!<br />
+But the tender grace of a day that is dead<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Will never come back to me.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Yet it is not always so, for the speech of the sea is various,
+and wants not abundant resource of cheerfulness, hope, and lusty
+encouragement.&nbsp; And since I have been idling at the window
+here, the tide has risen.&nbsp; The boats are dancing on the
+bubbling water; the colliers are afloat again; the white-bordered
+waves rush in; the children</p>
+<blockquote><p>Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him<br />
+When he comes back;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>the radiant sails are gliding past the shore, and shining on
+the far horizon; all the sea is sparkling, heaving, swelling up
+with life and beauty, this bright morning.</p>
+<h2><a name="page335"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 335</span>OUR
+FRENCH WATERING-PLACE</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Having</span> earned, by many years of
+fidelity, the right to be sometimes inconstant to our English
+watering-place, we have dallied for two or three seasons with a
+French watering-place: once solely known to us as a town with a
+very long street, beginning with an abattoir and ending with a
+steam-boat, which it seemed our fate to behold only at daybreak
+on winter mornings, when (in the days before continental
+railroads), just sufficiently awake to know that we were most
+uncomfortably asleep, it was our destiny always to clatter
+through it, in the coup&eacute; of the diligence from Paris, with
+a sea of mud behind us, and a sea of tumbling waves before.&nbsp;
+In relation to which latter monster, our mind&rsquo;s eye now
+recalls a worthy Frenchman in a seal-skin cap with a braided hood
+over it, once our travelling companion in the coup&eacute;
+aforesaid, who, waking up with a pale and crumpled visage, and
+looking ruefully out at the grim row of breakers enjoying
+themselves fanatically on an instrument of torture called
+&lsquo;the Bar,&rsquo; inquired of us whether we were ever sick
+at sea?&nbsp; Both to prepare his mind for the abject creature we
+were presently to become, and also to afford him consolation, we
+replied, &lsquo;Sir, your servant is always sick when it is
+possible to be so.&rsquo;&nbsp; He returned, altogether uncheered
+by the bright example, &lsquo;Ah, Heaven, but I am always sick,
+even when it is impossible to be so.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The means of communication between the French capital and our
+French watering-place are wholly changed since those days; but,
+the Channel remains unbridged as yet, and the old floundering and
+knocking about go on there.&nbsp; It must be confessed that
+saving in reasonable (and therefore rare) sea-weather, the act of
+arrival at our French watering-place from England is difficult to
+be achieved with dignity.&nbsp; Several little circumstances
+combine to render the visitor an object of humiliation.&nbsp; In
+the first place, the steamer no sooner touches the port, than all
+the passengers fall into captivity: being boarded by an
+overpowering force of Custom-house officers, and marched into a
+gloomy dungeon.&nbsp; In the second place, the road to this
+dungeon is fenced off with ropes breast-high, and outside those
+ropes all the English in the place who have lately been sea-sick
+and are now well, assemble in their best clothes to enjoy the
+degradation of their dilapidated fellow-creatures.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Oh, my gracious! how ill this one has been!&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s a damp one coming next!&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s a pale one!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh!&nbsp;
+Ain&rsquo;t he green in the face, this next one!&rsquo;&nbsp;
+Even we ourself (not deficient in natural dignity) have a lively
+remembrance of staggering up this detested lane one September day
+in a gale of wind, when we were received like an irresistible
+comic actor, with a burst of laughter and applause, occasioned by
+the extreme imbecility of our legs.</p>
+<p>We were coming to the third place.&nbsp; In the third place,
+the captives, being shut up in the gloomy dungeon, are strained,
+two or three at a time, into an inner cell, to be examined as to
+passports; and across the doorway of communication, stands a
+military creature making a bar of his arm.&nbsp; Two ideas are
+generally present to the British mind during these ceremonies;
+first, that it is necessary to make for the cell with violent
+struggles, as if it were a life-boat and the dungeon a ship going
+down; secondly, that the military creature&rsquo;s arm is a
+national affront, which the government at home ought instantly to
+&lsquo;take up.&rsquo;&nbsp; The British mind and body becoming
+heated by these fantasies, delirious answers are made to
+inquiries, and extravagant actions performed.&nbsp; Thus, Johnson
+persists in giving Johnson as his baptismal name, and
+substituting for his ancestral designation the national
+&lsquo;Dam!&rsquo;&nbsp; Neither can he by any means be brought
+to recognise the distinction between a portmanteau-key and a
+passport, but will obstinately persevere in tendering the one
+when asked for the other.&nbsp; This brings him to the fourth
+place, in a state of mere idiotcy; and when he is, in the fourth
+place, cast out at a little door into a howling wilderness of
+touters, he becomes a lunatic with wild eyes and floating hair
+until rescued and soothed.&nbsp; If friendless and unrescued, he
+is generally put into a railway omnibus and taken to Paris.</p>
+<p>But, our French watering-place, when it is once got into, is a
+very enjoyable place.&nbsp; It has a varied and beautiful country
+around it, and many characteristic and agreeable things within
+it.&nbsp; To be sure, it might have fewer bad smells and less
+decaying refuse, and it might be better drained, and much cleaner
+in many parts, and therefore infinitely more healthy.&nbsp;
+Still, it is a bright, airy, pleasant, cheerful town; and if you
+were to walk down either of its three well-paved main streets,
+towards five o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon, when delicate odours
+of cookery fill the air, and its hotel windows (it is full of
+hotels) give glimpses of long tables set out for dinner, and made
+to look sumptuous by the aid of napkins folded fan-wise, you
+would rightly judge it to be an uncommonly good town to eat and
+drink in.</p>
+<p>We have an old walled town, rich in cool public wells of
+water, on the top of a hill within and above the present
+business-town; and if it were some hundreds of miles further from
+England, instead of being, on a clear day, within sight of the
+grass growing in the crevices of the chalk-cliffs of Dover, you
+would long ago have been bored to death about that town.&nbsp; It
+is more picturesque and quaint than half the innocent places
+which tourists, following their leader like sheep, have made
+impostors of.&nbsp; To say nothing of its houses with grave
+courtyards, its queer by-corners, and its many-windowed streets
+white and quiet in the sunlight, there is an ancient belfry in it
+that would have been in all the Annuals and Albums, going and
+gone, these hundred years if it had but been more expensive to
+get at.&nbsp; Happily it has escaped so well, being only in our
+French watering-place, that you may like it of your own accord in
+a natural manner, without being required to go into convulsions
+about it.&nbsp; We regard it as one of the later blessings of our
+life, that <span class="smcap">Bilkins</span>, the only authority
+on Taste, never took any notice that we can find out, of our
+French watering-place.&nbsp; Bilkins never wrote about it, never
+pointed out anything to be seen in it, never measured anything in
+it, always left it alone.&nbsp; For which relief, Heaven bless
+the town and the memory of the immortal Bilkins likewise!</p>
+<p>There is a charming walk, arched and shaded by trees, on the
+old walls that form the four sides of this High Town, whence you
+get glimpses of the streets below, and changing views of the
+other town and of the river, and of the hills and of the
+sea.&nbsp; It is made more agreeable and peculiar by some of the
+solemn houses that are rooted in the deep streets below, bursting
+into a fresher existence a-top, and having doors and windows, and
+even gardens, on these ramparts.&nbsp; A child going in at the
+courtyard gate of one of these houses, climbing up the many
+stairs, and coming out at the fourth-floor window, might conceive
+himself another Jack, alighting on enchanted ground from another
+bean-stalk.&nbsp; It is a place wonderfully populous in children;
+English children, with governesses reading novels as they walk
+down the shady lanes of trees, or nursemaids interchanging gossip
+on the seats; French children with their smiling bonnes in
+snow-white caps, and themselves&mdash;if little boys&mdash;in
+straw head-gear like bee-hives, work-baskets and church
+hassocks.&nbsp; Three years ago, there were three weazen old men,
+one bearing a frayed red ribbon in his threadbare button-hole,
+always to be found walking together among these children, before
+dinner-time.&nbsp; If they walked for an appetite, they doubtless
+lived en pension&mdash;were contracted for&mdash;otherwise their
+poverty would have made it a rash action.&nbsp; They were
+stooping, blear-eyed, dull old men, slip-shod and shabby, in
+long-skirted short-waisted coats and meagre trousers, and yet
+with a ghost of gentility hovering in their company.&nbsp; They
+spoke little to each other, and looked as if they might have been
+politically discontented if they had had vitality enough.&nbsp;
+Once, we overheard red-ribbon feebly complain to the other two
+that somebody, or something, was &lsquo;a Robber;&rsquo; and then
+they all three set their mouths so that they would have ground
+their teeth if they had had any.&nbsp; The ensuing winter
+gathered red-ribbon unto the great company of faded ribbons, and
+next year the remaining two were there&mdash;getting themselves
+entangled with hoops and dolls&mdash;familiar mysteries to the
+children&mdash;probably in the eyes of most of them, harmless
+creatures who had never been like children, and whom children
+could never be like.&nbsp; Another winter came, and another old
+man went, and so, this present year, the last of the triumvirate,
+left off walking&mdash;it was no good, now&mdash;and sat by
+himself on a little solitary bench, with the hoops and the dolls
+as lively as ever all about him.</p>
+<p>In the Place d&rsquo;Armes of this town, a little decayed
+market is held, which seems to slip through the old gateway, like
+water, and go rippling down the hill, to mingle with the
+murmuring market in the lower town, and get lost in its movement
+and bustle.&nbsp; It is very agreeable on an idle summer morning
+to pursue this market-stream from the hill-top.&nbsp; It begins,
+dozingly and dully, with a few sacks of corn; starts into a
+surprising collection of boots and shoes; goes brawling down the
+hill in a diversified channel of old cordage, old iron, old
+crockery, old clothes, civil and military, old rags, new cotton
+goods, flaming prints of saints, little looking-glasses, and
+incalculable lengths of tape; dives into a backway, keeping out
+of sight for a little while, as streams will, or only sparkling
+for a moment in the shape of a market drinking-shop; and suddenly
+reappears behind the great church, shooting itself into a bright
+confusion of white-capped women and blue-bloused men, poultry,
+vegetables, fruits, flowers, pots, pans, praying-chairs,
+soldiers, country butter, umbrellas and other sun-shades,
+girl-porters waiting to be hired with baskets at their backs, and
+one weazen little old man in a cocked hat, wearing a cuirass of
+drinking-glasses and carrying on his shoulder a crimson temple
+fluttering with flags, like a glorified pavior&rsquo;s rammer
+without the handle, who rings a little bell in all parts of the
+scene, and cries his cooling drink Hola, Hola, Ho-o-o! in a
+shrill cracked voice that somehow makes itself heard, above all
+the chaffering and vending hum.&nbsp; Early in the afternoon, the
+whole course of the stream is dry.&nbsp; The praying-chairs are
+put back in the church, the umbrellas are folded up, the unsold
+goods are carried away, the stalls and stands disappear, the
+square is swept, the hackney coaches lounge there to be hired,
+and on all the country roads (if you walk about, as much as we
+do) you will see the peasant women, always neatly and comfortably
+dressed, riding home, with the pleasantest saddle-furniture of
+clean milk-pails, bright butter-kegs, and the like, on the
+jolliest little donkeys in the world.</p>
+<p>We have another market in our French watering-place&mdash;that
+is to say, a few wooden hutches in the open street, down by the
+Port&mdash;devoted to fish.&nbsp; Our fishing-boats are famous
+everywhere; and our fishing people, though they love lively
+colours, and taste is neutral (see Bilkins), are among the most
+picturesque people we ever encountered.&nbsp; They have not only
+a quarter of their own in the town itself, but they occupy whole
+villages of their own on the neighbouring cliffs.&nbsp; Their
+churches and chapels are their own; they consort with one
+another, they intermarry among themselves, their customs are
+their own, and their costume is their own and never
+changes.&nbsp; As soon as one of their boys can walk, he is
+provided with a long bright red nightcap; and one of their men
+would as soon think of going afloat without his head, as without
+that indispensable appendage to it.&nbsp; Then, they wear the
+noblest boots, with the hugest tops&mdash;flapping and bulging
+over anyhow; above which, they encase themselves in such
+wonderful overalls and petticoat trousers, made to all appearance
+of tarry old sails, so additionally stiffened with pitch and
+salt, that the wearers have a walk of their own, and go
+straddling and swinging about among the boats and barrels and
+nets and rigging, a sight to see.&nbsp; Then, their younger
+women, by dint of going down to the sea barefoot, to fling their
+baskets into the boats as they come in with the tide, and bespeak
+the first fruits of the haul with propitiatory promises to love
+and marry that dear fisherman who shall fill that basket like an
+Angel, have the finest legs ever carved by Nature in the
+brightest mahogany, and they walk like Juno.&nbsp; Their eyes,
+too, are so lustrous that their long gold ear-rings turn dull
+beside those brilliant neighbours; and when they are dressed,
+what with these beauties, and their fine fresh faces, and their
+many petticoats&mdash;striped petticoats, red petticoats, blue
+petticoats, always clean and smart, and never too long&mdash;and
+their home-made stockings, mulberry-coloured, blue, brown,
+purple, lilac&mdash;which the older women, taking care of the
+Dutch-looking children, sit in all sorts of places knitting,
+knitting, knitting from morning to night&mdash;and what with
+their little saucy bright blue jackets, knitted too, and fitting
+close to their handsome figures; and what with the natural grace
+with which they wear the commonest cap, or fold the commonest
+handkerchief round their luxuriant hair&mdash;we say, in a word
+and out of breath, that taking all these premises into our
+consideration, it has never been a matter of the least surprise
+to us that we have never once met, in the cornfields, on the
+dusty roads, by the breezy windmills, on the plots of short sweet
+grass overhanging the sea&mdash;anywhere&mdash;a young fisherman
+and fisherwoman of our French watering-place together, but the
+arm of that fisherman has invariably been, as a matter of course
+and without any absurd attempt to disguise so plain a necessity,
+round the neck or waist of that fisherwoman.&nbsp; And we have
+had no doubt whatever, standing looking at their uphill streets,
+house rising above house, and terrace above terrace, and bright
+garments here and there lying sunning on rough stone parapets,
+that the pleasant mist on all such objects, caused by their being
+seen through the brown nets hung across on poles to dry, is, in
+the eyes of every true young fisherman, a mist of love and
+beauty, setting off the goddess of his heart.</p>
+<p>Moreover it is to be observed that these are an industrious
+people, and a domestic people, and an honest people.&nbsp; And
+though we are aware that at the bidding of Bilkins it is our duty
+to fall down and worship the Neapolitans, we make bold very much
+to prefer the fishing people of our French
+watering-place&mdash;especially since our last visit to Naples
+within these twelvemonths, when we found only four conditions of
+men remaining in the whole city: to wit, lazzaroni, priests,
+spies, and soldiers, and all of them beggars; the paternal
+government having banished all its subjects except the
+rascals.</p>
+<p>But we can never henceforth separate our French watering-place
+from our own landlord of two summers, M. Loyal Devasseur, citizen
+and town-councillor.&nbsp; Permit us to have the pleasure of
+presenting M. Loyal Devasseur.</p>
+<p>His own family name is simply Loyal; but, as he is married,
+and as in that part of France a husband always adds to his own
+name the family name of his wife, he writes himself Loyal
+Devasseur.&nbsp; He owns a compact little estate of some twenty
+or thirty acres on a lofty hill-side, and on it he has built two
+country houses, which he lets furnished.&nbsp; They are by many
+degrees the best houses that are so let near our French
+watering-place; we have had the honour of living in both, and can
+testify.&nbsp; The entrance-hall of the first we inhabited was
+ornamented with a plan of the estate, representing it as about
+twice the size of Ireland; insomuch that when we were yet new to
+the property (M. Loyal always speaks of it as &lsquo;La
+propri&eacute;t&eacute;&rsquo;) we went three miles straight on
+end in search of the bridge of Austerlitz&mdash;which we
+afterwards found to be immediately outside the window.&nbsp; The
+Ch&acirc;teau of the Old Guard, in another part of the grounds,
+and, according to the plan, about two leagues from the little
+dining-room, we sought in vain for a week, until, happening one
+evening to sit upon a bench in the forest (forest in the plan), a
+few yards from the house-door, we observed at our feet, in the
+ignominious circumstances of being upside down and greenly
+rotten, the Old Guard himself: that is to say, the painted effigy
+of a member of that distinguished corps, seven feet high, and in
+the act of carrying arms, who had had the misfortune to be blown
+down in the previous winter.&nbsp; It will be perceived that M.
+Loyal is a staunch admirer of the great Napoleon.&nbsp; He is an
+old soldier himself&mdash;captain of the National Guard, with a
+handsome gold vase on his chimney-piece presented to him by his
+company&mdash;and his respect for the memory of the illustrious
+general is enthusiastic.&nbsp; Medallions of him, portraits of
+him, busts of him, pictures of him, are thickly sprinkled all
+over the property.&nbsp; During the first month of our
+occupation, it was our affliction to be constantly knocking down
+Napoleon: if we touched a shelf in a dark corner, he toppled over
+with a crash; and every door we opened, shook him to the
+soul.&nbsp; Yet M. Loyal is not a man of mere castles in the air,
+or, as he would say, in Spain.&nbsp; He has a specially
+practical, contriving, clever, skilful eye and hand.&nbsp; His
+houses are delightful.&nbsp; He unites French elegance and
+English comfort, in a happy manner quite his own.&nbsp; He has an
+extraordinary genius for making tasteful little bedrooms in
+angles of his roofs, which an Englishman would as soon think of
+turning to any account as he would think of cultivating the
+Desert.&nbsp; We have ourself reposed deliciously in an elegant
+chamber of M. Loyal&rsquo;s construction, with our head as nearly
+in the kitchen chimney-pot as we can conceive it likely for the
+head of any gentleman, not by profession a Sweep, to be.&nbsp;
+And, into whatsoever strange nook M. Loyal&rsquo;s genius
+penetrates, it, in that nook, infallibly constructs a cupboard
+and a row of pegs.&nbsp; In either of our houses, we could have
+put away the knapsacks and hung up the hats of the whole regiment
+of Guides.</p>
+<p>Aforetime, M. Loyal was a tradesman in the town.&nbsp; You can
+transact business with no present tradesman in the town, and give
+your card &lsquo;chez M. Loyal,&rsquo; but a brighter face shines
+upon you directly.&nbsp; We doubt if there is, ever was, or ever
+will be, a man so universally pleasant in the minds of people as
+M. Loyal is in the minds of the citizens of our French
+watering-place.&nbsp; They rub their hands and laugh when they
+speak of him.&nbsp; Ah, but he is such a good child, such a brave
+boy, such a generous spirit, that Monsieur Loyal!&nbsp; It is the
+honest truth.&nbsp; M. Loyal&rsquo;s nature is the nature of a
+gentleman.&nbsp; He cultivates his ground with his own hands
+(assisted by one little labourer, who falls into a fit now and
+then); and he digs and delves from morn to eve in prodigious
+perspirations&mdash;&lsquo;works always,&rsquo; as he
+says&mdash;but, cover him with dust, mud, weeds, water, any
+stains you will, you never can cover the gentleman in M.
+Loyal.&nbsp; A portly, upright, broad-shouldered, brown-faced
+man, whose soldierly bearing gives him the appearance of being
+taller than he is, look into the bright eye of M. Loyal, standing
+before you in his working-blouse and cap, not particularly well
+shaved, and, it may be, very earthy, and you shall discern in M.
+Loyal a gentleman whose true politeness is ingrain, and
+confirmation of whose word by his bond you would blush to think
+of.&nbsp; Not without reason is M. Loyal when he tells that
+story, in his own vivacious way, of his travelling to Fulham,
+near London, to buy all these hundreds and hundreds of trees you
+now see upon the Property, then a bare, bleak hill; and of his
+sojourning in Fulham three months; and of his jovial evenings
+with the market-gardeners; and of the crowning banquet before his
+departure, when the market-gardeners rose as one man, clinked
+their glasses all together (as the custom at Fulham is), and
+cried, &lsquo;Vive Loyal!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>M. Loyal has an agreeable wife, but no family; and he loves to
+drill the children of his tenants, or run races with them, or do
+anything with them, or for them, that is good-natured.&nbsp; He
+is of a highly convivial temperament, and his hospitality is
+unbounded.&nbsp; Billet a soldier on him, and he is
+delighted.&nbsp; Five-and-thirty soldiers had M. Loyal billeted
+on him this present summer, and they all got fat and red-faced in
+two days.&nbsp; It became a legend among the troops that
+whosoever got billeted on M. Loyal rolled in clover; and so it
+fell out that the fortunate man who drew the billet &lsquo;M.
+Loyal Devasseur&rsquo; always leaped into the air, though in
+heavy marching order.&nbsp; M. Loyal cannot bear to admit
+anything that might seem by any implication to disparage the
+military profession.&nbsp; We hinted to him once, that we were
+conscious of a remote doubt arising in our mind, whether a sou a
+day for pocket-money, tobacco, stockings, drink, washing, and
+social pleasures in general, left a very large margin for a
+soldier&rsquo;s enjoyment.&nbsp; Pardon! said Monsieur Loyal,
+rather wincing.&nbsp; It was not a fortune, but&mdash;&agrave; la
+bonne heure&mdash;it was better than it used to be!&nbsp; What,
+we asked him on another occasion, were all those neighbouring
+peasants, each living with his family in one room, and each
+having a soldier (perhaps two) billeted on him every other night,
+required to provide for those soldiers?&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Faith!&rsquo; said M. Loyal, reluctantly; a bed, monsieur,
+and fire to cook with, and a candle.&nbsp; And they share their
+supper with those soldiers.&nbsp; It is not possible that they
+could eat alone.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;And what allowance do they
+get for this?&rsquo; said we.&nbsp; Monsieur Loyal drew himself
+up taller, took a step back, laid his hand upon his breast, and
+said, with majesty, as speaking for himself and all France,
+&lsquo;Monsieur, it is a contribution to the State!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>It is never going to rain, according to M. Loyal.&nbsp; When
+it is impossible to deny that it is now raining in torrents, he
+says it will be
+fine&mdash;charming&mdash;magnificent&mdash;to-morrow.&nbsp; It
+is never hot on the Property, he contends.&nbsp; Likewise it is
+never cold.&nbsp; The flowers, he says, come out, delighting to
+grow there; it is like Paradise this morning; it is like the
+Garden of Eden.&nbsp; He is a little fanciful in his language:
+smilingly observing of Madame Loyal, when she is absent at
+vespers, that she is &lsquo;gone to her
+salvation&rsquo;&mdash;all&eacute;e &agrave; son salut.&nbsp; He
+has a great enjoyment of tobacco, but nothing would induce him to
+continue smoking face to face with a lady.&nbsp; His short black
+pipe immediately goes into his breast pocket, scorches his
+blouse, and nearly sets him on fire.&nbsp; In the Town Council
+and on occasions of ceremony, he appears in a full suit of black,
+with a waistcoat of magnificent breadth across the chest, and a
+shirt-collar of fabulous proportions.&nbsp; Good M. Loyal!&nbsp;
+Under blouse or waistcoat, he carries one of the gentlest hearts
+that beat in a nation teeming with gentle people.&nbsp; He has
+had losses, and has been at his best under them.&nbsp; Not only
+the loss of his way by night in the Fulham times&mdash;when a bad
+subject of an Englishman, under pretence of seeing him home, took
+him into all the night public-houses, drank
+&lsquo;arfanarf&rsquo; in every one at his expense, and finally
+fled, leaving him shipwrecked at Cleefeeway, which we apprehend
+to be Ratcliffe Highway&mdash;but heavier losses than that.&nbsp;
+Long ago a family of children and a mother were left in one of
+his houses without money, a whole year.&nbsp; M.
+Loyal&mdash;anything but as rich as we wish he had been&mdash;had
+not the heart to say &lsquo;you must go;&rsquo; so they stayed on
+and stayed on, and paying-tenants who would have come in
+couldn&rsquo;t come in, and at last they managed to get helped
+home across the water; and M. Loyal kissed the whole group, and
+said, &lsquo;Adieu, my poor infants!&rsquo; and sat down in their
+deserted salon and smoked his pipe of peace.&mdash;&lsquo;The
+rent, M. Loyal?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Eh! well!&nbsp; The
+rent!&rsquo;&nbsp; M. Loyal shakes his head.&nbsp; &lsquo;Le bon
+Dieu,&rsquo; says M. Loyal presently, &lsquo;will recompense
+me,&rsquo; and he laughs and smokes his pipe of peace.&nbsp; May
+he smoke it on the Property, and not be recompensed, these fifty
+years!</p>
+<p>There are public amusements in our French watering-place, or
+it would not be French.&nbsp; They are very popular, and very
+cheap.&nbsp; The sea-bathing&mdash;which may rank as the most
+favoured daylight entertainment, inasmuch as the French visitors
+bathe all day long, and seldom appear to think of remaining less
+than an hour at a time in the water&mdash;is astoundingly
+cheap.&nbsp; Omnibuses convey you, if you please, from a
+convenient part of the town to the beach and back again; you have
+a clean and comfortable bathing-machine, dress, linen, and all
+appliances; and the charge for the whole is half-a-franc, or
+fivepence.&nbsp; On the pier, there is usually a guitar, which
+seems presumptuously enough to set its tinkling against the deep
+hoarseness of the sea, and there is always some boy or woman who
+sings, without any voice, little songs without any tune: the
+strain we have most frequently heard being an appeal to
+&lsquo;the sportsman&rsquo; not to bag that choicest of game, the
+swallow.&nbsp; For bathing purposes, we have also a subscription
+establishment with an esplanade, where people lounge about with
+telescopes, and seem to get a good deal of weariness for their
+money; and we have also an association of individual machine
+proprietors combined against this formidable rival.&nbsp; M.
+F&eacute;roce, our own particular friend in the bathing line, is
+one of these.&nbsp; How he ever came by his name we cannot
+imagine.&nbsp; He is as gentle and polite a man as M. Loyal
+Devasseur himself; immensely stout withal; and of a beaming
+aspect.&nbsp; M. F&eacute;roce has saved so many people from
+drowning, and has been decorated with so many medals in
+consequence, that his stoutness seems a special dispensation of
+Providence to enable him to wear them; if his girth were the
+girth of an ordinary man, he could never hang them on, all at
+once.&nbsp; It is only on very great occasions that M.
+F&eacute;roce displays his shining honours.&nbsp; At other times
+they lie by, with rolls of manuscript testifying to the causes of
+their presentation, in a huge glass case in the red-sofa&rsquo;d
+salon of his private residence on the beach, where M.
+F&eacute;roce also keeps his family pictures, his portraits of
+himself as he appears both in bathing life and in private life,
+his little boats that rock by clockwork, and his other ornamental
+possessions.</p>
+<p>Then, we have a commodious and gay Theatre&mdash;or had, for
+it is burned down now&mdash;where the opera was always preceded
+by a vaudeville, in which (as usual) everybody, down to the
+little old man with the large hat and the little cane and tassel,
+who always played either my Uncle or my Papa, suddenly broke out
+of the dialogue into the mildest vocal snatches, to the great
+perplexity of unaccustomed strangers from Great Britain, who
+never could make out when they were singing and when they were
+talking&mdash;and indeed it was pretty much the same.&nbsp; But,
+the caterers in the way of entertainment to whom we are most
+beholden, are the Society of Welldoing, who are active all the
+summer, and give the proceeds of their good works to the
+poor.&nbsp; Some of the most agreeable f&ecirc;tes they contrive,
+are announced as &lsquo;Dedicated to the children;&rsquo; and the
+taste with which they turn a small public enclosure into an
+elegant garden beautifully illuminated; and the thorough-going
+heartiness and energy with which they personally direct the
+childish pleasures; are supremely delightful.&nbsp; For fivepence
+a head, we have on these occasions donkey races with English
+&lsquo;Jokeis,&rsquo; and other rustic sports; lotteries for
+toys; roundabouts, dancing on the grass to the music of an
+admirable band, fire-balloons and fireworks.&nbsp; Further,
+almost every week all through the summer&mdash;never mind, now,
+on what day of the week&mdash;there is a f&ecirc;te in some
+adjoining village (called in that part of the country a Ducasse),
+where the people&mdash;really the people&mdash;dance on the green
+turf in the open air, round a little orchestra, that seems itself
+to dance, there is such an airy motion of flags and streamers all
+about it.&nbsp; And we do not suppose that between the Torrid
+Zone and the North Pole there are to be found male dancers with
+such astonishingly loose legs, furnished with so many joints in
+wrong places, utterly unknown to Professor Owen, as those who
+here disport themselves.&nbsp; Sometimes, the f&ecirc;te
+appertains to a particular trade; you will see among the cheerful
+young women at the joint Ducasse of the milliners and tailors, a
+wholesome knowledge of the art of making common and cheap things
+uncommon and pretty, by good sense and good taste, that is a
+practical lesson to any rank of society in a whole island we
+could mention.&nbsp; The oddest feature of these agreeable scenes
+is the everlasting Roundabout (we preserve an English word
+wherever we can, as we are writing the English language), on the
+wooden horses of which machine grown-up people of all ages are
+wound round and round with the utmost solemnity, while the
+proprietor&rsquo;s wife grinds an organ, capable of only one
+tune, in the centre.</p>
+<p>As to the boarding-houses of our French watering-place, they
+are Legion, and would require a distinct treatise.&nbsp; It is
+not without a sentiment of national pride that we believe them to
+contain more bores from the shores of Albion than all the clubs
+in London.&nbsp; As you walk timidly in their neighbourhood, the
+very neckcloths and hats of your elderly compatriots cry to you
+from the stones of the streets, &lsquo;We are Bores&mdash;avoid
+us!&rsquo;&nbsp; We have never overheard at street corners such
+lunatic scraps of political and social discussion as among these
+dear countrymen of ours.&nbsp; They believe everything that is
+impossible and nothing that is true.&nbsp; They carry rumours,
+and ask questions, and make corrections and improvements on one
+another, staggering to the human intellect.&nbsp; And they are
+for ever rushing into the English library, propounding such
+incomprehensible paradoxes to the fair mistress of that
+establishment, that we beg to recommend her to her
+Majesty&rsquo;s gracious consideration as a fit object for a
+pension.</p>
+<p>The English form a considerable part of the population of our
+French watering-place, and are deservedly addressed and respected
+in many ways.&nbsp; Some of the surface-addresses to them are odd
+enough, as when a laundress puts a placard outside her house
+announcing her possession of that curious British instrument, a
+&lsquo;Mingle;&rsquo; or when a tavern-keeper provides
+accommodation for the celebrated English game of
+&lsquo;Nokemdon.&rsquo;&nbsp; But, to us, it is not the least
+pleasant feature of our French watering-place that a long and
+constant fusion of the two great nations there, has taught each
+to like the other, and to learn from the other, and to rise
+superior to the absurd prejudices that have lingered among the
+weak and ignorant in both countries equally.</p>
+<p>Drumming and trumpeting of course go on for ever in our French
+watering-place.&nbsp; Flag-flying is at a premium, too; but, we
+cheerfully avow that we consider a flag a very pretty object, and
+that we take such outward signs of innocent liveliness to our
+heart of hearts.&nbsp; The people, in the town and in the
+country, are a busy people who work hard; they are sober,
+temperate, good-humoured, light-hearted, and generally remarkable
+for their engaging manners.&nbsp; Few just men, not immoderately
+bilious, could see them in their recreations without very much
+respecting the character that is so easily, so harmlessly, and so
+simply, pleased.</p>
+<h2><a name="page346"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+346</span>BILL-STICKING</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">If</span> I had an enemy whom I
+hated&mdash;which Heaven forbid!&mdash;and if I knew of something
+which sat heavy on his conscience, I think I would introduce that
+something into a Posting-Bill, and place a large impression in
+the hands of an active sticker.&nbsp; I can scarcely imagine a
+more terrible revenge.&nbsp; I should haunt him, by this means,
+night and day.&nbsp; I do not mean to say that I would publish
+his secret, in red letters two feet high, for all the town to
+read: I would darkly refer to it.&nbsp; It should be between him,
+and me, and the Posting-Bill.&nbsp; Say, for example, that, at a
+certain period of his life, my enemy had surreptitiously
+possessed himself of a key.&nbsp; I would then embark my capital
+in the lock business, and conduct that business on the
+advertising principle.&nbsp; In all my placards and
+advertisements, I would throw up the line <span
+class="smcap">Secret Keys</span>.&nbsp; Thus, if my enemy passed
+an uninhabited house, he would see his conscience glaring down on
+him from the parapets, and peeping up at him from the
+cellars.&nbsp; If he took a dead wall in his walk, it would be
+alive with reproaches.&nbsp; If he sought refuge in an omnibus,
+the panels thereof would become Belshazzar&rsquo;s palace to
+him.&nbsp; If he took boat, in a wild endeavour to escape, he
+would see the fatal words lurking under the arches of the bridges
+over the Thames.&nbsp; If he walked the streets with downcast
+eyes, he would recoil from the very stones of the pavement, made
+eloquent by lamp-black lithograph.&nbsp; If he drove or rode, his
+way would be blocked up by enormous vans, each proclaiming the
+same words over and over again from its whole extent of
+surface.&nbsp; Until, having gradually grown thinner and paler,
+and having at last totally rejected food, he would miserably
+perish, and I should be revenged.&nbsp; This conclusion I should,
+no doubt, celebrate by laughing a hoarse laugh in three
+syllables, and folding my arms tight upon my chest agreeably to
+most of the examples of glutted animosity that I have had an
+opportunity of observing in connexion with the Drama&mdash;which,
+by-the-by, as involving a good deal of noise, appears to me to be
+occasionally confounded with the Drummer.</p>
+<p>The foregoing reflections presented themselves to my mind, the
+other day, as I contemplated (being newly come to London from the
+East Riding of Yorkshire, on a house-hunting expedition for next
+May), an old warehouse which rotting paste and rotting paper had
+brought down to the condition of an old cheese.&nbsp; It would
+have been impossible to say, on the most conscientious survey,
+how much of its front was brick and mortar, and how much decaying
+and decayed plaster.&nbsp; It was so thickly encrusted with
+fragments of bills, that no ship&rsquo;s keel after a long voyage
+could be half so foul.&nbsp; All traces of the broken windows
+were billed out, the doors were billed across, the water-spout
+was billed over.&nbsp; The building was shored up to prevent its
+tumbling into the street; and the very beams erected against it
+were less wood than paste and paper, they had been so continually
+posted and reposted.&nbsp; The forlorn dregs of old posters so
+encumbered this wreck, that there was no hold for new posters,
+and the stickers had abandoned the place in despair, except one
+enterprising man who had hoisted the last masquerade to a clear
+spot near the level of the stack of chimneys where it waved and
+drooped like a shattered flag.&nbsp; Below the rusty
+cellar-grating, crumpled remnants of old bills torn down, rotted
+away in wasting heaps of fallen leaves.&nbsp; Here and there,
+some of the thick rind of the house had peeled off in strips, and
+fluttered heavily down, littering the street; but, still, below
+these rents and gashes, layers of decomposing posters showed
+themselves, as if they were interminable.&nbsp; I thought the
+building could never even be pulled down, but in one adhesive
+heap of rottenness and poster.&nbsp; As to getting in&mdash;I
+don&rsquo;t believe that if the Sleeping Beauty and her Court had
+been so billed up, the young Prince could have done it.</p>
+<p>Knowing all the posters that were yet legible, intimately, and
+pondering on their ubiquitous nature, I was led into the
+reflections with which I began this paper, by considering what an
+awful thing it would be, ever to have wronged&mdash;say M. <span
+class="smcap">Jullien</span> for example&mdash;and to have his
+avenging name in characters of fire incessantly before my
+eyes.&nbsp; Or to have injured <span class="smcap">Madame
+Tussaud</span>, and undergo a similar retribution.&nbsp; Has any
+man a self-reproachful thought associated with pills, or
+ointment?&nbsp; What an avenging spirit to that man is <span
+class="smcap">Professor Holloway</span>!&nbsp; Have I sinned in
+oil?&nbsp; <span class="smcap">Cabburn</span> pursues me.&nbsp;
+Have I a dark remembrance associated with any gentlemanly
+garments, bespoke or ready made?&nbsp; <span
+class="smcap">Moses</span> and <span class="smcap">Son</span> are
+on my track.&nbsp; Did I ever aim a blow at a defenceless
+fellow-creature&rsquo;s head?&nbsp; That head eternally being
+measured for a wig, or that worse head which was bald before it
+used the balsam, and hirsute afterwards&mdash;enforcing the
+benevolent moral, &lsquo;Better to be bald as a Dutch cheese than
+come to this,&rsquo;&mdash;undoes me.&nbsp; Have I no sore places
+in my mind which <span class="smcap">Mechi</span>
+touches&mdash;which <span class="smcap">Nicoll</span>
+probes&mdash;which no registered article whatever
+lacerates?&nbsp; Does no discordant note within me thrill
+responsive to mysterious watchwords, as &lsquo;Revalenta
+Arabica,&rsquo; or &lsquo;Number One St. Paul&rsquo;s
+Churchyard&rsquo;?&nbsp; Then may I enjoy life, and be happy.</p>
+<p>Lifting up my eyes, as I was musing to this effect, I beheld
+advancing towards me (I was then on Cornhill, near to the Royal
+Exchange), a solemn procession of three advertising vans, of
+first-class dimensions, each drawn by a very little horse.&nbsp;
+As the cavalcade approached, I was at a loss to reconcile the
+careless deportment of the drivers of these vehicles, with the
+terrific announcements they conducted through the city, which
+being a summary of the contents of a Sunday newspaper, were of
+the most thrilling kind.&nbsp; Robbery, fire, murder, and the
+ruin of the United Kingdom&mdash;each discharged in a line by
+itself, like a separate broad-side of red-hot shot&mdash;were
+among the least of the warnings addressed to an unthinking
+people.&nbsp; Yet, the Ministers of Fate who drove the awful
+cars, leaned forward with their arms upon their knees in a state
+of extreme lassitude, for want of any subject of interest.&nbsp;
+The first man, whose hair I might naturally have expected to see
+standing on end, scratched his head&mdash;one of the smoothest I
+ever beheld&mdash;with profound indifference.&nbsp; The second
+whistled.&nbsp; The third yawned.</p>
+<p>Pausing to dwell upon this apathy, it appeared to me, as the
+fatal cars came by me, that I descried in the second car, through
+the portal in which the charioteer was seated, a figure stretched
+upon the floor.&nbsp; At the same time, I thought I smelt
+tobacco.&nbsp; The latter impression passed quickly from me; the
+former remained.&nbsp; Curious to know whether this prostrate
+figure was the one impressible man of the whole capital who had
+been stricken insensible by the terrors revealed to him, and
+whose form had been placed in the car by the charioteer, from
+motives of humanity, I followed the procession.&nbsp; It turned
+into Leadenhall-market, and halted at a public-house.&nbsp; Each
+driver dismounted.&nbsp; I then distinctly heard, proceeding from
+the second car, where I had dimly seen the prostrate form, the
+words:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;And a pipe!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The driver entering the public-house with his fellows,
+apparently for purposes of refreshment, I could not refrain from
+mounting on the shaft of the second vehicle, and looking in at
+the portal.&nbsp; I then beheld, reclining on his back upon the
+floor, on a kind of mattress or divan, a little man in a
+shooting-coat.&nbsp; The exclamation &lsquo;Dear me&rsquo; which
+irresistibly escaped my lips caused him to sit upright, and
+survey me.&nbsp; I found him to be a good-looking little man of
+about fifty, with a shining face, a tight head, a bright eye, a
+moist wink, a quick speech, and a ready air.&nbsp; He had
+something of a sporting way with him.</p>
+<p>He looked at me, and I looked at him, until the driver
+displaced me by handing in a pint of beer, a pipe, and what I
+understand is called &lsquo;a screw&rsquo; of tobacco&mdash;an
+object which has the appearance of a curl-paper taken off the
+barmaid&rsquo;s head, with the curl in it.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I beg your pardon,&rsquo; said I, when the removed
+person of the driver again admitted of my presenting my face at
+the portal.&nbsp; &lsquo;But&mdash;excuse my curiosity, which I
+inherit from my mother&mdash;do you live here?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;That&rsquo;s good, too!&rsquo; returned the little man,
+composedly laying aside a pipe he had smoked out, and filling the
+pipe just brought to him.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Oh, you <i>don&rsquo;t</i> live here then?&rsquo; said
+I.</p>
+<p>He shook his head, as he calmly lighted his pipe by means of a
+German tinder-box, and replied, &lsquo;This is my carriage.&nbsp;
+When things are flat, I take a ride sometimes, and enjoy
+myself.&nbsp; I am the inventor of these wans.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>His pipe was now alight.&nbsp; He drank his beer all at once,
+and he smoked and he smiled at me.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It was a great idea!&rsquo; said I.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Not so bad,&rsquo; returned the little man, with the
+modesty of merit.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Might I be permitted to inscribe your name upon the
+tablets of my memory?&rsquo; I asked.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;There&rsquo;s not much odds in the name,&rsquo;
+returned the little man, &lsquo;&mdash;no name particular&mdash;I
+am the King of the Bill-Stickers.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Good gracious!&rsquo; said I.</p>
+<p>The monarch informed me, with a smile, that he had never been
+crowned or installed with any public ceremonies, but that he was
+peaceably acknowledged as King of the Bill-Stickers in right of
+being the oldest and most respected member of &lsquo;the old
+school of bill-sticking.&rsquo;&nbsp; He likewise gave me to
+understand that there was a Lord Mayor of the Bill-Stickers,
+whose genius was chiefly exercised within the limits of the
+city.&nbsp; He made some allusion, also, to an inferior
+potentate, called &lsquo;Turkey-legs;&rsquo; but I did not
+understand that this gentleman was invested with much
+power.&nbsp; I rather inferred that he derived his title from
+some peculiarity of gait, and that it was of an honorary
+character.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;My father,&rsquo; pursued the King of the
+Bill-Stickers, &lsquo;was Engineer, Beadle, and Bill-Sticker to
+the parish of St. Andrew&rsquo;s, Holborn, in the year one
+thousand seven hundred and eighty.&nbsp; My father stuck bills at
+the time of the riots of London.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;You must be acquainted with the whole subject of
+bill-sticking, from that time to the present!&rsquo; said I.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Pretty well so,&rsquo; was the answer.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Excuse me,&rsquo; said I; &lsquo;but I am a sort of
+collector&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&lsquo;Not Income-tax?&rsquo; cried His Majesty,
+hastily removing his pipe from his lips.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;No, no,&rsquo; said I.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Water-rate?&rsquo; said His Majesty.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;No, no,&rsquo; I returned.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Gas?&nbsp; Assessed?&nbsp; Sewers?&rsquo; said His
+Majesty.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;You misunderstand me,&rsquo; I replied,
+soothingly.&nbsp; &lsquo;Not that sort of collector at all: a
+collector of facts.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Oh, if it&rsquo;s only facts,&rsquo; cried the King of
+the Bill-Stickers, recovering his good-humour, and banishing the
+great mistrust that had suddenly fallen upon him, &lsquo;come in
+and welcome!&nbsp; If it had been income, or winders, I think I
+should have pitched you out of the wan, upon my soul!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Readily complying with the invitation, I squeezed myself in at
+the small aperture.&nbsp; His Majesty, graciously handing me a
+little three-legged stool on which I took my seat in a corner,
+inquired if I smoked.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I do;&mdash;that is, I can,&rsquo; I answered.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Pipe and a screw!&rsquo; said His Majesty to the
+attendant charioteer.&nbsp; &lsquo;Do you prefer a dry smoke, or
+do you moisten it?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>As unmitigated tobacco produces most disturbing effects upon
+my system (indeed, if I had perfect moral courage, I doubt if I
+should smoke at all, under any circumstances), I advocated
+moisture, and begged the Sovereign of the Bill-Stickers to name
+his usual liquor, and to concede to me the privilege of paying
+for it.&nbsp; After some delicate reluctance on his part, we were
+provided, through the instrumentality of the attendant
+charioteer, with a can of cold rum-and-water, flavoured with
+sugar and lemon.&nbsp; We were also furnished with a tumbler, and
+I was provided with a pipe.&nbsp; His Majesty, then observing
+that we might combine business with conversation, gave the word
+for the car to proceed; and, to my great delight, we jogged away
+at a foot pace.</p>
+<p>I say to my great delight, because I am very fond of novelty,
+and it was a new sensation to be jolting through the tumult of
+the city in that secluded Temple, partly open to the sky,
+surrounded by the roar without, and seeing nothing but the
+clouds.&nbsp; Occasionally, blows from whips fell heavily on the
+Temple&rsquo;s walls, when by stopping up the road longer than
+usual, we irritated carters and coachmen to madness; but they
+fell harmless upon us within and disturbed not the serenity of
+our peaceful retreat.&nbsp; As I looked upward, I felt, I should
+imagine, like the Astronomer Royal.&nbsp; I was enchanted by the
+contrast between the freezing nature of our external mission on
+the blood of the populace, and the perfect composure reigning
+within those sacred precincts: where His Majesty, reclining
+easily on his left arm, smoked his pipe and drank his
+rum-and-water from his own side of the tumbler, which stood
+impartially between us.&nbsp; As I looked down from the clouds
+and caught his royal eye, he understood my reflections.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;I have an idea,&rsquo; he observed, with an upward glance,
+&lsquo;of training scarlet runners across in the
+season,&mdash;making a arbour of it,&mdash;and sometimes taking
+tea in the same, according to the song.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I nodded approval.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;And here you repose and think?&rsquo; said I.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;And think,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;of
+posters&mdash;walls&mdash;and hoardings.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>We were both silent, contemplating the vastness of the
+subject.&nbsp; I remembered a surprising fancy of dear <span
+class="smcap">Thomas Hood&rsquo;s</span>, and wondered whether
+this monarch ever sighed to repair to the great wall of China,
+and stick bills all over it.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;And so,&rsquo; said he, rousing himself,
+&lsquo;it&rsquo;s facts as you collect?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Facts,&rsquo; said I.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The facts of bill-sticking,&rsquo; pursued His Majesty,
+in a benignant manner, &lsquo;as known to myself, air as
+following.&nbsp; When my father was Engineer, Beadle, and
+Bill-Sticker to the parish of St. Andrew&rsquo;s, Holborn, he
+employed women to post bills for him.&nbsp; He employed women to
+post bills at the time of the riots of London.&nbsp; He died at
+the age of seventy-five year, and was buried by the murdered
+Eliza Grimwood, over in the Waterloo Road.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>As this was somewhat in the nature of a royal speech, I
+listened with deference and silently.&nbsp; His Majesty, taking a
+scroll from his pocket, proceeded, with great distinctness, to
+pour out the following flood of information:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;The bills being at that period mostly
+proclamations and declarations, and which were only a demy size,
+the manner of posting the bills (as they did not use brushes) was
+by means of a piece of wood which they called a
+&lsquo;dabber.&rsquo;&nbsp; Thus things continued till such time
+as the State Lottery was passed, and then the printers began to
+print larger bills, and men were employed instead of women, as
+the State Lottery Commissioners then began to send men all over
+England to post bills, and would keep them out for six or eight
+months at a time, and they were called by the London
+bill-stickers &lsquo;trampers,&rsquo; their wages at the time
+being ten shillings per day, besides expenses.&nbsp; They used
+sometimes to be stationed in large towns for five or six months
+together, distributing the schemes to all the houses in the
+town.&nbsp; And then there were more caricature wood-block
+engravings for posting-bills than there are at the present time,
+the principal printers, at that time, of posting-bills being
+Messrs. Evans and Ruffy, of Budge Row; Thoroughgood and Whiting,
+of the present day; and Messrs. Gye and Balne, Gracechurch
+Street, City.&nbsp; The largest bills printed at that period were
+a two-sheet double crown; and when they commenced printing
+four-sheet bills, two bill-stickers would work together.&nbsp;
+They had no settled wages per week, but had a fixed price for
+their work, and the London bill-stickers, during a lottery week,
+have been known to earn, each, eight or nine pounds per week,
+till the day of drawing; likewise the men who carried boards in
+the street used to have one pound per week, and the bill-stickers
+at that time would not allow any one to wilfully cover or destroy
+their bills, as they had a society amongst themselves, and very
+frequently dined together at some public-house where they used to
+go of an evening to have their work delivered out untoe
+&rsquo;em.&rdquo;&rsquo;</p>
+<p>All this His Majesty delivered in a gallant manner; posting
+it, as it were, before me, in a great proclamation.&nbsp; I took
+advantage of the pause he now made, to inquire what a
+&lsquo;two-sheet double crown&rsquo; might express?</p>
+<p>&lsquo;A two-sheet double crown,&rsquo; replied the King,
+&lsquo;is a bill thirty-nine inches wide by thirty inches
+high.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Is it possible,&rsquo; said I, my mind reverting to the
+gigantic admonitions we were then displaying to the
+multitude&mdash;which were as infants to some of the
+posting-bills on the rotten old warehouse&mdash;&lsquo;that some
+few years ago the largest bill was no larger than
+that?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The fact,&rsquo; returned the King, &lsquo;is
+undoubtedly so.&rsquo;&nbsp; Here he instantly rushed again into
+the scroll.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;Since the abolishing of the State Lottery all
+that good feeling has gone, and nothing but jealousy exists,
+through the rivalry of each other.&nbsp; Several bill-sticking
+companies have started, but have failed.&nbsp; The first party
+that started a company was twelve year ago; but what was left of
+the old school and their dependants joined together and opposed
+them.&nbsp; And for some time we were quiet again, till a printer
+of Hatton Garden formed a company by hiring the sides of houses;
+but he was not supported by the public, and he left his wooden
+frames fixed up for rent.&nbsp; The last company that started,
+took advantage of the New Police Act, and hired of Messrs.
+Grissell and Peto the hoarding of Trafalgar Square, and
+established a bill-sticking office in Cursitor Street, Chancery
+Lane, and engaged some of the new bill-stickers to do their work,
+and for a time got the half of all our work, and with such spirit
+did they carry on their opposition towards us, that they used to
+give us in charge before the magistrate, and get us fined; but
+they found it so expensive, that they could not keep it up, for
+they were always employing a lot of ruffians from the Seven Dials
+to come and fight us; and on one occasion the old bill-stickers
+went to Trafalgar Square to attempt to post bills, when they were
+given in custody by the watchman in their employ, and fined at
+Queen Square five pounds, as they would not allow any of us to
+speak in the office; but when they were gone, we had an interview
+with the magistrate, who mitigated the fine to fifteen
+shillings.&nbsp; During the time the men were waiting for the
+fine, this company started off to a public-house that we were in
+the habit of using, and waited for us coming back, where a
+fighting scene took place that beggars description.&nbsp; Shortly
+after this, the principal one day came and shook hands with us,
+and acknowledged that he had broken up the company, and that he
+himself had lost five hundred pound in trying to overthrow
+us.&nbsp; We then took possession of the hoarding in Trafalgar
+Square; but Messrs. Grissell and Peto would not allow us to post
+our bills on the said hoarding without paying them&mdash;and from
+first to last we paid upwards of two hundred pounds for that
+hoarding, and likewise the hoarding of the Reform Club-house,
+Pall Mall.&rdquo;&rsquo;</p>
+<p>His Majesty, being now completely out of breath, laid down his
+scroll (which he appeared to have finished), puffed at his pipe,
+and took some rum-and-water.&nbsp; I embraced the opportunity of
+asking how many divisions the art and mystery of bill-sticking
+comprised?&nbsp; He replied, three&mdash;auctioneers&rsquo;
+bill-sticking, theatrical bill-sticking, general
+bill-sticking.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The auctioneers&rsquo; porters,&rsquo; said the King,
+&lsquo;who do their bill-sticking, are mostly respectable and
+intelligent, and generally well paid for their work, whether in
+town or country.&nbsp; The price paid by the principal
+auctioneers for country work is nine shillings per day; that is,
+seven shillings for day&rsquo;s work, one shilling for lodging,
+and one for paste.&nbsp; Town work is five shillings a day,
+including paste.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Town work must be rather hot work,&rsquo; said I,
+&lsquo;if there be many of those fighting scenes that beggar
+description, among the bill-stickers?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well,&rsquo; replied the King, &lsquo;I an&rsquo;t a
+stranger, I assure you, to black eyes; a bill-sticker ought to
+know how to handle his fists a bit.&nbsp; As to that row I have
+mentioned, that grew out of competition, conducted in an
+uncompromising spirit.&nbsp; Besides a man in a horse-and-shay
+continually following us about, the company had a watchman on
+duty, night and day, to prevent us sticking bills upon the
+hoarding in Trafalgar Square.&nbsp; We went there, early one
+morning, to stick bills and to black-wash their bills if we were
+interfered with.&nbsp; We were interfered with, and I gave the
+word for laying on the wash.&nbsp; It was laid on&mdash;pretty
+brisk&mdash;and we were all taken to Queen Square: but they
+couldn&rsquo;t fine me.&nbsp; I knew that,&rsquo;&mdash;with a
+bright smile&mdash;&lsquo;I&rsquo;d only give directions&mdash;I
+was only the General.&rsquo;&nbsp; Charmed with this
+monarch&rsquo;s affability, I inquired if he had ever hired a
+hoarding himself.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Hired a large one,&rsquo; he replied, &lsquo;opposite
+the Lyceum Theatre, when the buildings was there.&nbsp; Paid
+thirty pound for it; let out places on it, and called it
+&ldquo;The External Paper-Hanging Station.&rdquo;&nbsp; But it
+didn&rsquo;t answer.&nbsp; Ah!&rsquo; said His Majesty
+thoughtfully, as he filled the glass, &lsquo;Bill-stickers have a
+deal to contend with.&nbsp; The bill-sticking clause was got into
+the Police Act by a member of Parliament that employed me at his
+election.&nbsp; The clause is pretty stiff respecting where bills
+go; but he didn&rsquo;t mind where his bills went.&nbsp; It was
+all right enough, so long as they was his bills!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Fearful that I observed a shadow of misanthropy on the
+King&rsquo;s cheerful face, I asked whose ingenious invention
+that was, which I greatly admired, of sticking bills under the
+arches of the bridges.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Mine!&rsquo; said His Majesty.&nbsp; &lsquo;I was the
+first that ever stuck a bill under a bridge!&nbsp; Imitators soon
+rose up, of course.&mdash;When don&rsquo;t they?&nbsp; But they
+stuck &rsquo;em at low-water, and the tide came and swept the
+bills clean away.&nbsp; I knew that!&rsquo;&nbsp; The King
+laughed.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What may be the name of that instrument, like an
+immense fishing-rod,&rsquo; I inquired, &lsquo;with which bills
+are posted on high places?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The joints,&rsquo; returned His Majesty.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Now, we use the joints where formerly we used
+ladders&mdash;as they do still in country places.&nbsp; Once,
+when Madame&rsquo; (Vestris, understood) &lsquo;was playing in
+Liverpool, another bill-sticker and me were at it together on the
+wall outside the Clarence Dock&mdash;me with the joints&mdash;him
+on a ladder.&nbsp; Lord!&nbsp; I had my bill up, right over his
+head, yards above him, ladder and all, while he was crawling to
+his work.&nbsp; The people going in and out of the docks, stood
+and laughed!&mdash;It&rsquo;s about thirty years since the joints
+come in.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Are there any bill-stickers who can&rsquo;t
+read?&rsquo; I took the liberty of inquiring.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Some,&rsquo; said the King.&nbsp; &lsquo;But they know
+which is the right side up&rsquo;ards of their work.&nbsp; They
+keep it as it&rsquo;s given out to &rsquo;em.&nbsp; I have seen a
+bill or so stuck wrong side up&rsquo;ards.&nbsp; But it&rsquo;s
+very rare.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Our discourse sustained some interruption at this point, by
+the procession of cars occasioning a stoppage of about
+three-quarters of a mile in length, as nearly as I could
+judge.&nbsp; His Majesty, however, entreating me not to be
+discomposed by the contingent uproar, smoked with great
+placidity, and surveyed the firmament.</p>
+<p>When we were again in motion, I begged to be informed what was
+the largest poster His Majesty had ever seen.&nbsp; The King
+replied, &lsquo;A thirty-six sheet poster.&rsquo;&nbsp; I
+gathered, also, that there were about a hundred and fifty
+bill-stickers in London, and that His Majesty considered an
+average hand equal to the posting of one hundred bills (single
+sheets) in a day.&nbsp; The King was of opinion, that, although
+posters had much increased in size, they had not increased in
+number; as the abolition of the State Lotteries had occasioned a
+great falling off, especially in the country.&nbsp; Over and
+above which change, I bethought myself that the custom of
+advertising in newspapers had greatly increased.&nbsp; The
+completion of many London improvements, as Trafalgar Square (I
+particularly observed the singularity of His Majesty&rsquo;s
+calling that an improvement), the Royal Exchange, &amp;c., had of
+late years reduced the number of advantageous
+posting-places.&nbsp; Bill-Stickers at present rather confine
+themselves to districts, than to particular descriptions of
+work.&nbsp; One man would strike over Whitechapel, another would
+take round Houndsditch, Shoreditch, and the City Road; one (the
+King said) would stick to the Surrey side; another would make a
+beat of the West-end.</p>
+<p>His Majesty remarked, with some approach to severity, on the
+neglect of delicacy and taste, gradually introduced into the
+trade by the new school: a profligate and inferior race of
+impostors who took jobs at almost any price, to the detriment of
+the old school, and the confusion of their own misguided
+employers.&nbsp; He considered that the trade was overdone with
+competition, and observed speaking of his subjects, &lsquo;There
+are too many of &rsquo;em.&rsquo;&nbsp; He believed, still, that
+things were a little better than they had been; adducing, as a
+proof, the fact that particular posting places were now reserved,
+by common consent, for particular posters; those places, however,
+must be regularly occupied by those posters, or, they lapsed and
+fell into other hands.&nbsp; It was of no use giving a man a
+Drury Lane bill this week and not next.&nbsp; Where was it to
+go?&nbsp; He was of opinion that going to the expense of putting
+up your own board on which your sticker could display your own
+bills, was the only complete way of posting yourself at the
+present time; but, even to effect this, on payment of a shilling
+a week to the keepers of steamboat piers and other such places,
+you must be able, besides, to give orders for theatres and public
+exhibitions, or you would be sure to be cut out by
+somebody.&nbsp; His Majesty regarded the passion for orders, as
+one of the most unappeasable appetites of human nature.&nbsp; If
+there were a building, or if there were repairs, going on,
+anywhere, you could generally stand something and make it right
+with the foreman of the works; but, orders would be expected from
+you, and the man who could give the most orders was the man who
+would come off best.&nbsp; There was this other objectionable
+point, in orders, that workmen sold them for drink, and often
+sold them to persons who were likewise troubled with the weakness
+of thirst: which led (His Majesty said) to the presentation of
+your orders at Theatre doors, by individuals who were &lsquo;too
+shakery&rsquo; to derive intellectual profit from the
+entertainments, and who brought a scandal on you.&nbsp; Finally,
+His Majesty said that you could hardly put too little in a
+poster; what you wanted, was, two or three good catch-lines for
+the eye to rest on&mdash;then, leave it alone&mdash;and there you
+were!</p>
+<p>These are the minutes of my conversation with His Majesty, as
+I noted them down shortly afterwards.&nbsp; I am not aware that I
+have been betrayed into any alteration or suppression.&nbsp; The
+manner of the King was frank in the extreme; and he seemed to me
+to avoid, at once that slight tendency to repetition which may
+have been observed in the conversation of His Majesty King George
+the Third, and&mdash;that slight under-current of egotism which
+the curious observer may perhaps detect in the conversation of
+Napoleon Bonaparte.</p>
+<p>I must do the King the justice to say that it was I, and not
+he, who closed the dialogue.&nbsp; At this juncture, I became the
+subject of a remarkable optical delusion; the legs of my stool
+appeared to me to double up; the car to spin round and round with
+great violence; and a mist to arise between myself and His
+Majesty.&nbsp; In addition to these sensations, I felt extremely
+unwell.&nbsp; I refer these unpleasant effects, either to the
+paste with which the posters were affixed to the van: which may
+have contained some small portion of arsenic; or, to the
+printer&rsquo;s ink, which may have contained some equally
+deleterious ingredient.&nbsp; Of this, I cannot be sure.&nbsp; I
+am only sure that I was not affected, either by the smoke, or the
+rum-and-water.&nbsp; I was assisted out of the vehicle, in a
+state of mind which I have only experienced in two other
+places&mdash;I allude to the Pier at Dover, and to the
+corresponding portion of the town of Calais&mdash;and sat upon a
+door-step until I recovered.&nbsp; The procession had then
+disappeared.&nbsp; I have since looked anxiously for the King in
+several other cars, but I have not yet had the happiness of
+seeing His Majesty.</p>
+<h2><a name="page357"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+357</span>&lsquo;BIRTHS.&nbsp; MRS. MEEK, OF A SON</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">My</span> name is Meek.&nbsp; I am, in
+fact, Mr. Meek.&nbsp; That son is mine and Mrs.
+Meek&rsquo;s.&nbsp; When I saw the announcement in the Times, I
+dropped the paper.&nbsp; I had put it in, myself, and paid for
+it, but it looked so noble that it overpowered me.</p>
+<p>As soon as I could compose my feelings, I took the paper up to
+Mrs. Meek&rsquo;s bedside.&nbsp; &lsquo;Maria Jane,&rsquo; said I
+(I allude to Mrs. Meek), &lsquo;you are now a public
+character.&rsquo;&nbsp; We read the review of our child, several
+times, with feelings of the strongest emotion; and I sent the boy
+who cleans the boots and shoes, to the office for fifteen
+copies.&nbsp; No reduction was made on taking that quantity.</p>
+<p>It is scarcely necessary for me to say, that our child had
+been expected.&nbsp; In fact, it had been expected, with
+comparative confidence, for some months.&nbsp; Mrs. Meek&rsquo;s
+mother, who resides with us&mdash;of the name of Bigby&mdash;had
+made every preparation for its admission to our circle.</p>
+<p>I hope and believe I am a quiet man.&nbsp; I will go
+farther.&nbsp; I know I am a quiet man.&nbsp; My constitution is
+tremulous, my voice was never loud, and, in point of stature, I
+have been from infancy, small.&nbsp; I have the greatest respect
+for Maria Jane&rsquo;s Mama.&nbsp; She is a most remarkable
+woman.&nbsp; I honour Maria Jane&rsquo;s Mama.&nbsp; In my
+opinion she would storm a town, single-handed, with a
+hearth-broom, and carry it.&nbsp; I have never known her to yield
+any point whatever, to mortal man.&nbsp; She is calculated to
+terrify the stoutest heart.</p>
+<p>Still&mdash;but I will not anticipate.</p>
+<p>The first intimation I had, of any preparations being in
+progress, on the part of Maria Jane&rsquo;s Mama, was one
+afternoon, several months ago.&nbsp; I came home earlier than
+usual from the office, and, proceeding into the dining-room,
+found an obstruction behind the door, which prevented it from
+opening freely.&nbsp; It was an obstruction of a soft
+nature.&nbsp; On looking in, I found it to be a female.</p>
+<p>The female in question stood in the corner behind the door,
+consuming Sherry Wine.&nbsp; From the nutty smell of that
+beverage pervading the apartment, I have no doubt she was
+consuming a second glassful.&nbsp; She wore a black bonnet of
+large dimensions, and was copious in figure.&nbsp; The expression
+of her countenance was severe and discontented.&nbsp; The words
+to which she gave utterance on seeing me, were these, &lsquo;Oh,
+git along with you, Sir, if you please; me and Mrs. Bigby
+don&rsquo;t want no male parties here!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>That female was Mrs. Prodgit.</p>
+<p>I immediately withdrew, of course.&nbsp; I was rather hurt,
+but I made no remark.&nbsp; Whether it was that I showed a
+lowness of spirits after dinner, in consequence of feeling that I
+seemed to intrude, I cannot say.&nbsp; But, Maria Jane&rsquo;s
+Mama said to me on her retiring for the night: in a low distinct
+voice, and with a look of reproach that completely subdued me:
+&lsquo;George Meek, Mrs. Prodgit is your wife&rsquo;s
+nurse!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I bear no ill-will towards Mrs. Prodgit.&nbsp; Is it likely
+that I, writing this with tears in my eyes, should be capable of
+deliberate animosity towards a female, so essential to the
+welfare of Maria Jane?&nbsp; I am willing to admit that Fate may
+have been to blame, and not Mrs. Prodgit; but, it is undeniably
+true, that the latter female brought desolation and devastation
+into my lowly dwelling.</p>
+<p>We were happy after her first appearance; we were sometimes
+exceedingly so.&nbsp; But, whenever the parlour door was opened,
+and &lsquo;Mrs. Prodgit!&rsquo; announced (and she was very often
+announced), misery ensued.&nbsp; I could not bear Mrs.
+Prodgit&rsquo;s look.&nbsp; I felt that I was far from wanted,
+and had no business to exist in Mrs. Prodgit&rsquo;s
+presence.&nbsp; Between Maria Jane&rsquo;s Mama, and Mrs.
+Prodgit, there was a dreadful, secret, understanding&mdash;a dark
+mystery and conspiracy, pointing me out as a being to be
+shunned.&nbsp; I appeared to have done something that was
+evil.&nbsp; Whenever Mrs. Prodgit called, after dinner, I retired
+to my dressing-room&mdash;where the temperature is very low
+indeed, in the wintry time of the year&mdash;and sat looking at
+my frosty breath as it rose before me, and at my rack of boots; a
+serviceable article of furniture, but never, in my opinion, an
+exhilarating object.&nbsp; The length of the councils that were
+held with Mrs. Prodgit, under these circumstances, I will not
+attempt to describe.&nbsp; I will merely remark, that Mrs.
+Prodgit always consumed Sherry Wine while the deliberations were
+in progress; that they always ended in Maria Jane&rsquo;s being
+in wretched spirits on the sofa; and that Maria Jane&rsquo;s Mama
+always received me, when I was recalled, with a look of desolate
+triumph that too plainly said, &lsquo;Now, George Meek!&nbsp; You
+see my child, Maria Jane, a ruin, and I hope you are
+satisfied!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I pass, generally, over the period that intervened between the
+day when Mrs. Prodgit entered her protest against male parties,
+and the ever-memorable midnight when I brought her to my
+unobtrusive home in a cab, with an extremely large box on the
+roof, and a bundle, a bandbox, and a basket, between the
+driver&rsquo;s legs.&nbsp; I have no objection to Mrs. Prodgit
+(aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby, who I never can forget is the
+parent of Maria Jane) taking entire possession of my unassuming
+establishment.&nbsp; In the recesses of my own breast, the
+thought may linger that a man in possession cannot be so dreadful
+as a woman, and that woman Mrs. Prodgit; but, I ought to bear a
+good deal, and I hope I can, and do.&nbsp; Huffing and snubbing,
+prey upon my feelings; but, I can bear them without
+complaint.&nbsp; They may tell in the long run; I may be hustled
+about, from post to pillar, beyond my strength; nevertheless, I
+wish to avoid giving rise to words in the family.</p>
+<p>The voice of Nature, however, cries aloud in behalf of
+Augustus George, my infant son.&nbsp; It is for him that I wish
+to utter a few plaintive household words.&nbsp; I am not at all
+angry; I am mild&mdash;but miserable.</p>
+<p>I wish to know why, when my child, Augustus George, was
+expected in our circle, a provision of pins was made, as if the
+little stranger were a criminal who was to be put to the torture
+immediately, on his arrival, instead of a holy babe?&nbsp; I wish
+to know why haste was made to stick those pins all over his
+innocent form, in every direction?&nbsp; I wish to be informed
+why light and air are excluded from Augustus George, like
+poisons?&nbsp; Why, I ask, is my unoffending infant so hedged
+into a basket-bedstead, with dimity and calico, with miniature
+sheets and blankets, that I can only hear him snuffle (and no
+wonder!) deep down under the pink hood of a little
+bathing-machine, and can never peruse even so much of his
+lineaments as his nose?</p>
+<p>Was I expected to be the father of a French Roll, that the
+brushes of All Nations were laid in, to rasp Augustus
+George?&nbsp; Am I to be told that his sensitive skin was ever
+intended by Nature to have rashes brought out upon it, by the
+premature and incessant use of those formidable little
+instruments?</p>
+<p>Is my son a Nutmeg, that he is to be grated on the stiff edges
+of sharp frills?&nbsp; Am I the parent of a Muslin boy, that his
+yielding surface is to be crimped and small plaited?&nbsp; Or is
+my child composed of Paper or of Linen, that impressions of the
+finer getting-up art, practised by the laundress, are to be
+printed off, all over his soft arms and legs, as I constantly
+observe them?&nbsp; The starch enters his soul; who can wonder
+that he cries?</p>
+<p>Was Augustus George intended to have limbs, or to be born a
+Torso?&nbsp; I presume that limbs were the intention, as they are
+the usual practice.&nbsp; Then, why are my poor child&rsquo;s
+limbs fettered and tied up?&nbsp; Am I to be told that there is
+any analogy between Augustus George Meek and Jack Sheppard?</p>
+<p>Analyse Castor Oil at any Institution of Chemistry that may be
+agreed upon, and inform me what resemblance, in taste, it bears
+to that natural provision which it is at once the pride and duty
+of Maria Jane to administer to Augustus George!&nbsp; Yet, I
+charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with
+systematically forcing Castor Oil on my innocent son, from the
+first hour of his birth.&nbsp; When that medicine, in its
+efficient action, causes internal disturbance to Augustus George,
+I charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with
+insanely and inconsistently administering opium to allay the
+storm she has raised!&nbsp; What is the meaning of this?</p>
+<p>If the days of Egyptian Mummies are past, how dare Mrs.
+Prodgit require, for the use of my son, an amount of flannel and
+linen that would carpet my humble roof?&nbsp; Do I wonder that
+she requires it?&nbsp; No!&nbsp; This morning, within an hour, I
+beheld this agonising sight.&nbsp; I beheld my son&mdash;Augustus
+George&mdash;in Mrs. Prodgit&rsquo;s hands, and on Mrs.
+Prodgit&rsquo;s knee, being dressed.&nbsp; He was at the moment,
+comparatively speaking, in a state of nature; having nothing on,
+but an extremely short shirt, remarkably disproportionate to the
+length of his usual outer garments.&nbsp; Trailing from Mrs.
+Prodgit&rsquo;s lap, on the floor, was a long narrow roller or
+bandage&mdash;I should say of several yards in extent.&nbsp; In
+this, I <span class="GutSmall">SAW</span> Mrs. Prodgit tightly
+roll the body of my unoffending infant, turning him over and
+over, now presenting his unconscious face upwards, now the back
+of his bald head, until the unnatural feat was accomplished, and
+the bandage secured by a pin, which I have every reason to
+believe entered the body of my only child.&nbsp; In this
+tourniquet, he passes the present phase of his existence.&nbsp;
+Can I know it, and smile!</p>
+<p>I fear I have been betrayed into expressing myself warmly, but
+I feel deeply.&nbsp; Not for myself; for Augustus George.&nbsp; I
+dare not interfere.&nbsp; Will any one?&nbsp; Will any
+publication?&nbsp; Any doctor?&nbsp; Any parent?&nbsp; Any
+body?&nbsp; I do not complain that Mrs. Prodgit (aided and
+abetted by Mrs. Bigby) entirely alienates Maria Jane&rsquo;s
+affections from me, and interposes an impassable barrier between
+us.&nbsp; I do not complain of being made of no account.&nbsp; I
+do not want to be of any account.&nbsp; But, Augustus George is a
+production of Nature (I cannot think otherwise), and I claim that
+he should be treated with some remote reference to Nature.&nbsp;
+In my opinion, Mrs. Prodgit is, from first to last, a convention
+and a superstition.&nbsp; Are all the faculty afraid of Mrs.
+Prodgit?&nbsp; If not, why don&rsquo;t they take her in hand and
+improve her?</p>
+<p>P.S.&nbsp; Maria Jane&rsquo;s Mama boasts of her own knowledge
+of the subject, and says she brought up seven children besides
+Maria Jane.&nbsp; But how do <i>I</i> know that she might not
+have brought them up much better?&nbsp; Maria Jane herself is far
+from strong, and is subject to headaches, and nervous
+indigestion.&nbsp; Besides which, I learn from the statistical
+tables that one child in five dies within the first year of its
+life; and one child in three, within the fifth.&nbsp; That
+don&rsquo;t look as if we could never improve in these
+particulars, I think!</p>
+<p>P.P.S. Augustus George is in convulsions.</p>
+<h2><a name="page361"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+361</span>LYING AWAKE</h2>
+<p>&lsquo;<span class="smcap">My</span> uncle lay with his eyes
+half closed, and his nightcap drawn almost down to his
+nose.&nbsp; His fancy was already wandering, and began to mingle
+up the present scene with the crater of Vesuvius, the French
+Opera, the Coliseum at Rome, Dolly&rsquo;s Chop-house in London,
+and all the farrago of noted places with which the brain of a
+traveller is crammed; in a word, he was just falling
+asleep.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Thus, that delightful writer, <span class="smcap">Washington
+Irving</span>, in his Tales of a Traveller.&nbsp; But, it
+happened to me the other night to be lying: not with my eyes half
+closed, but with my eyes wide open; not with my nightcap drawn
+almost down to my nose, for on sanitary principles I never wear a
+nightcap: but with my hair pitchforked and touzled all over the
+pillow; not just falling asleep by any means, but glaringly,
+persistently, and obstinately, broad awake.&nbsp; Perhaps, with
+no scientific intention or invention, I was illustrating the
+theory of the Duality of the Brain; perhaps one part of my brain,
+being wakeful, sat up to watch the other part which was
+sleepy.&nbsp; Be that as it may, something in me was as desirous
+to go to sleep as it possibly could be, but something else in me
+would not go to sleep, and was as obstinate as George the
+Third.</p>
+<p>Thinking of George the Third&mdash;for I devote this paper to
+my train of thoughts as I lay awake: most people lying awake
+sometimes, and having some interest in the subject&mdash;put me
+in mind of <span class="smcap">Benjamin Franklin</span>, and so
+Benjamin Franklin&rsquo;s paper on the art of procuring pleasant
+dreams, which would seem necessarily to include the art of going
+to sleep, came into my head.&nbsp; Now, as I often used to read
+that paper when I was a very small boy, and as I recollect
+everything I read then as perfectly as I forget everything I read
+now, I quoted &lsquo;Get out of bed, beat up and turn your
+pillow, shake the bed-clothes well with at least twenty shakes,
+then throw the bed open and leave it to cool; in the meanwhile,
+continuing undrest, walk about your chamber.&nbsp; When you begin
+to feel the cold air unpleasant, then return to your bed, and you
+will soon fall asleep, and your sleep will be sweet and
+pleasant.&rsquo;&nbsp; Not a bit of it!&nbsp; I performed the
+whole ceremony, and if it were possible for me to be more
+saucer-eyed than I was before, that was the only result that came
+of it.</p>
+<p>Except Niagara.&nbsp; The two quotations from Washington
+Irving and Benjamin Franklin may have put it in my head by an
+American association of ideas; but there I was, and the
+Horse-shoe Fall was thundering and tumbling in my eyes and ears,
+and the very rainbows that I left upon the spray when I really
+did last look upon it, were beautiful to see.&nbsp; The
+night-light being quite as plain, however, and sleep seeming to
+be many thousand miles further off than Niagara, I made up my
+mind to think a little about Sleep; which I no sooner did than I
+whirled off in spite of myself to Drury Lane Theatre, and there
+saw a great actor and dear friend of mine (whom I had been
+thinking of in the day) playing Macbeth, and heard him
+apostrophising &lsquo;the death of each day&rsquo;s life,&rsquo;
+as I have heard him many a time, in the days that are gone.</p>
+<p>But, Sleep.&nbsp; I will think about Sleep.&nbsp; I am
+determined to think (this is the way I went on) about
+Sleep.&nbsp; I must hold the word Sleep, tight and fast, or I
+shall be off at a tangent in half a second.&nbsp; I feel myself
+unaccountably straying, already, into Clare Market.&nbsp;
+Sleep.&nbsp; It would be curious, as illustrating the equality of
+sleep, to inquire how many of its phenomena are common to all
+classes, to all degrees of wealth and poverty, to every grade of
+education and ignorance.&nbsp; Here, for example, is her Majesty
+Queen Victoria in her palace, this present blessed night, and
+here is Winking Charley, a sturdy vagrant, in one of her
+Majesty&rsquo;s jails.&nbsp; Her Majesty has fallen, many
+thousands of times, from that same Tower, which I claim a right
+to tumble off now and then.&nbsp; So has Winking Charley.&nbsp;
+Her Majesty in her sleep has opened or prorogued Parliament, or
+has held a Drawing Room, attired in some very scanty dress, the
+deficiencies and improprieties of which have caused her great
+uneasiness.&nbsp; I, in my degree, have suffered unspeakable
+agitation of mind from taking the chair at a public dinner at the
+London Tavern in my night-clothes, which not all the courtesy of
+my kind friend and host <span class="smcap">Mr. Bathe</span>
+could persuade me were quite adapted to the occasion.&nbsp;
+Winking Charley has been repeatedly tried in a worse
+condition.&nbsp; Her Majesty is no stranger to a vault or
+firmament, of a sort of floorcloth, with an indistinct pattern
+distantly resembling eyes, which occasionally obtrudes itself on
+her repose.&nbsp; Neither am I.&nbsp; Neither is Winking
+Charley.&nbsp; It is quite common to all three of us to skim
+along with airy strides a little above the ground; also to hold,
+with the deepest interest, dialogues with various people, all
+represented by ourselves; and to be at our wit&rsquo;s end to
+know what they are going to tell us; and to be indescribably
+astonished by the secrets they disclose.&nbsp; It is probable
+that we have all three committed murders and hidden bodies.&nbsp;
+It is pretty certain that we have all desperately wanted to cry
+out, and have had no voice; that we have all gone to the play and
+not been able to get in; that we have all dreamed much more of
+our youth than of our later lives; that&mdash;I have lost
+it!&nbsp; The thread&rsquo;s broken.</p>
+<p>And up I go.&nbsp; I, lying here with the night-light before
+me, up I go, for no reason on earth that I can find out, and
+drawn by no links that are visible to me, up the Great Saint
+Bernard!&nbsp; I have lived in Switzerland, and rambled among the
+mountains; but, why I should go there now, and why up the Great
+Saint Bernard in preference to any other mountain, I have no
+idea.&nbsp; As I lie here broad awake, and with every sense so
+sharpened that I can distinctly hear distant noises inaudible to
+me at another time, I make that journey, as I really did, on the
+same summer day, with the same happy party&mdash;ah! two since
+dead, I grieve to think&mdash;and there is the same track, with
+the same black wooden arms to point the way, and there are the
+same storm-refuges here and there; and there is the same snow
+falling at the top, and there are the same frosty mists, and
+there is the same intensely cold convent with its
+m&eacute;nagerie smell, and the same breed of dogs fast dying
+out, and the same breed of jolly young monks whom I mourn to know
+as humbugs, and the same convent parlour with its piano and the
+sitting round the fire, and the same supper, and the same lone
+night in a cell, and the same bright fresh morning when going out
+into the highly rarefied air was like a plunge into an icy
+bath.&nbsp; Now, see here what comes along; and why does this
+thing stalk into my mind on the top of a Swiss mountain!</p>
+<p>It is a figure that I once saw, just after dark, chalked upon
+a door in a little back lane near a country church&mdash;my first
+church.&nbsp; How young a child I may have been at the time I
+don&rsquo;t know, but it horrified me so intensely&mdash;in
+connexion with the churchyard, I suppose, for it smokes a pipe,
+and has a big hat with each of its ears sticking out in a
+horizontal line under the brim, and is not in itself more
+oppressive than a mouth from ear to ear, a pair of goggle eyes,
+and hands like two bunches of carrots, five in each, can make
+it&mdash;that it is still vaguely alarming to me to recall (as I
+have often done before, lying awake) the running home, the
+looking behind, the horror, of its following me; though whether
+disconnected from the door, or door and all, I can&rsquo;t say,
+and perhaps never could.&nbsp; It lays a disagreeable
+train.&nbsp; I must resolve to think of something on the
+voluntary principle.</p>
+<p>The balloon ascents of this last season.&nbsp; They will do to
+think about, while I lie awake, as well as anything else.&nbsp; I
+must hold them tight though, for I feel them sliding away, and in
+their stead are the Mannings, husband and wife, hanging on the
+top of Horse-monger Lane Jail.&nbsp; In connexion with which
+dismal spectacle, I recall this curious fantasy of the
+mind.&nbsp; That, having beheld that execution, and having left
+those two forms dangling on the top of the entrance
+gateway&mdash;the man&rsquo;s, a limp, loose suit of clothes as
+if the man had gone out of them; the woman&rsquo;s, a fine shape,
+so elaborately corseted and artfully dressed, that it was quite
+unchanged in its trim appearance as it slowly swung from side to
+side&mdash;I never could, by my uttermost efforts, for some
+weeks, present the outside of that prison to myself (which the
+terrible impression I had received continually obliged me to do)
+without presenting it with the two figures still hanging in the
+morning air.&nbsp; Until, strolling past the gloomy place one
+night, when the street was deserted and quiet, and actually
+seeing that the bodies were not there, my fancy was persuaded, as
+it were, to take them down and bury them within the precincts of
+the jail, where they have lain ever since.</p>
+<p>The balloon ascents of last season.&nbsp; Let me reckon them
+up.&nbsp; There were the horse, the bull, the
+parachute,&mdash;and the tumbler hanging on&mdash;chiefly by his
+toes, I believe&mdash;below the car.&nbsp; Very wrong, indeed,
+and decidedly to be stopped.&nbsp; But, in connexion with these
+and similar dangerous exhibitions, it strikes me that that
+portion of the public whom they entertain, is unjustly
+reproached.&nbsp; Their pleasure is in the difficulty
+overcome.&nbsp; They are a public of great faith, and are quite
+confident that the gentleman will not fall off the horse, or the
+lady off the bull or out of the parachute, and that the tumbler
+has a firm hold with his toes.&nbsp; They do not go to see the
+adventurer vanquished, but triumphant.&nbsp; There is no parallel
+in public combats between men and beasts, because nobody can
+answer for the particular beast&mdash;unless it were always the
+same beast, in which case it would be a mere stage-show, which
+the same public would go in the same state of mind to see,
+entirely believing in the brute being beforehand safely subdued
+by the man.&nbsp; That they are not accustomed to calculate
+hazards and dangers with any nicety, we may know from their rash
+exposure of themselves in overcrowded steamboats, and unsafe
+conveyances and places of all kinds.&nbsp; And I cannot help
+thinking that instead of railing, and attributing savage motives
+to a people naturally well disposed and humane, it is better to
+teach them, and lead them argumentatively and
+reasonably&mdash;for they are very reasonable, if you will
+discuss a matter with them&mdash;to more considerate and wise
+conclusions.</p>
+<p>This is a disagreeable intrusion!&nbsp; Here is a man with his
+throat cut, dashing towards me as I lie awake!&nbsp; A
+recollection of an old story of a kinsman of mine, who, going
+home one foggy winter night to Hampstead, when London was much
+smaller and the road lonesome, suddenly encountered such a figure
+rushing past him, and presently two keepers from a madhouse in
+pursuit.&nbsp; A very unpleasant creature indeed, to come into my
+mind unbidden, as I lie awake.</p>
+<p>&mdash;The balloon ascents of last season.&nbsp; I must return
+to the balloons.&nbsp; Why did the bleeding man start out of
+them?&nbsp; Never mind; if I inquire, he will be back
+again.&nbsp; The balloons.&nbsp; This particular public have
+inherently a great pleasure in the contemplation of physical
+difficulties overcome; mainly, as I take it, because the lives of
+a large majority of them are exceedingly monotonous and real, and
+further, are a struggle against continual difficulties, and
+further still, because anything in the form of accidental injury,
+or any kind of illness or disability is so very serious in their
+own sphere.&nbsp; I will explain this seeming paradox of
+mine.&nbsp; Take the case of a Christmas Pantomime.&nbsp; Surely
+nobody supposes that the young mother in the pit who falls into
+fits of laughter when the baby is boiled or sat upon, would be at
+all diverted by such an occurrence off the stage.&nbsp; Nor is
+the decent workman in the gallery, who is transported beyond the
+ignorant present by the delight with which he sees a stout
+gentleman pushed out of a two pair of stairs window, to be
+slandered by the suspicion that he would be in the least
+entertained by such a spectacle in any street in London, Paris,
+or New York.&nbsp; It always appears to me that the secret of
+this enjoyment lies in the temporary superiority to the common
+hazards and mischances of life; in seeing casualties, attended
+when they really occur with bodily and mental suffering, tears,
+and poverty, happen through a very rough sort of poetry without
+the least harm being done to any one&mdash;the pretence of
+distress in a pantomime being so broadly humorous as to be no
+pretence at all.&nbsp; Much as in the comic fiction I can
+understand the mother with a very vulnerable baby at home,
+greatly relishing the invulnerable baby on the stage, so in the
+Cremorne reality I can understand the mason who is always liable
+to fall off a scaffold in his working jacket and to be carried to
+the hospital, having an infinite admiration of the radiant
+personage in spangles who goes into the clouds upon a bull, or
+upside down, and who, he takes it for granted&mdash;not
+reflecting upon the thing&mdash;has, by uncommon skill and
+dexterity, conquered such mischances as those to which he and his
+acquaintance are continually exposed.</p>
+<p>I wish the Morgue in Paris would not come here as I lie awake,
+with its ghastly beds, and the swollen saturated clothes hanging
+up, and the water dripping, dripping all day long, upon that
+other swollen saturated something in the corner, like a heap of
+crushed over-ripe figs that I have seen in Italy!&nbsp; And this
+detestable Morgue comes back again at the head of a procession of
+forgotten ghost stories.&nbsp; This will never do.&nbsp; I must
+think of something else as I lie awake; or, like that sagacious
+animal in the United States who recognised the colonel who was
+such a dead shot, I am a gone &rsquo;Coon.&nbsp; What shall I
+think of?&nbsp; The late brutal assaults.&nbsp; Very good
+subject.&nbsp; The late brutal assaults.</p>
+<p>(Though whether, supposing I should see, here before me as I
+lie awake, the awful phantom described in one of those ghost
+stories, who, with a head-dress of shroud, was always seen
+looking in through a certain glass door at a certain dead
+hour&mdash;whether, in such a case it would be the least
+consolation to me to know on philosophical grounds that it was
+merely my imagination, is a question I can&rsquo;t help asking
+myself by the way.)</p>
+<p>The late brutal assaults.&nbsp; I strongly question the
+expediency of advocating the revival of whipping for those
+crimes.&nbsp; It is a natural and generous impulse to be
+indignant at the perpetration of inconceivable brutality, but I
+doubt the whipping panacea gravely.&nbsp; Not in the least regard
+or pity for the criminal, whom I hold in far lower estimation
+than a mad wolf, but in consideration for the general tone and
+feeling, which is very much improved since the whipping
+times.&nbsp; It is bad for a people to be familiarised with such
+punishments.&nbsp; When the whip went out of Bridewell, and
+ceased to be flourished at the carts tail and at the
+whipping-post, it began to fade out of madhouses, and workhouses,
+and schools and families, and to give place to a better system
+everywhere, than cruel driving.&nbsp; It would be hasty, because
+a few brutes may be inadequately punished, to revive, in any
+aspect, what, in so many aspects, society is hardly yet happily
+rid of.&nbsp; The whip is a very contagious kind of thing, and
+difficult to confine within one set of bounds.&nbsp; Utterly
+abolish punishment by fine&mdash;a barbarous device, quite as
+much out of date as wager by battle, but particularly connected
+in the vulgar mind with this class of offence&mdash;at least
+quadruple the term of imprisonment for aggravated
+assaults&mdash;and above all let us, in such cases, have no Pet
+Prisoning, vain glorifying, strong soup, and roasted meats, but
+hard work, and one unchanging and uncompromising dietary of bread
+and water, well or ill; and we shall do much better than by going
+down into the dark to grope for the whip among the rusty
+fragments of the rack, and the branding iron, and the chains and
+gibbet from the public roads, and the weights that pressed men to
+death in the cells of Newgate.</p>
+<p>I had proceeded thus far, when I found I had been lying awake
+so long that the very dead began to wake too, and to crowd into
+my thoughts most sorrowfully.&nbsp; Therefore, I resolved to lie
+awake no more, but to get up and go out for a night
+walk&mdash;which resolution was an acceptable relief to me, as I
+dare say it may prove now to a great many more.</p>
+<h2><a name="page367"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 367</span>THE
+GHOST OF ART</h2>
+<p>I <span class="GutSmall">AM</span> a bachelor, residing in
+rather a dreary set of chambers in the Temple.&nbsp; They are
+situated in a square court of high houses, which would be a
+complete well, but for the want of water and the absence of a
+bucket.&nbsp; I live at the top of the house, among the tiles and
+sparrows.&nbsp; Like the little man in the nursery-story, I live
+by myself, and all the bread and cheese I get&mdash;which is not
+much&mdash;I put upon a shelf.&nbsp; I need scarcely add,
+perhaps, that I am in love, and that the father of my charming
+Julia objects to our union.</p>
+<p>I mention these little particulars as I might deliver a letter
+of introduction.&nbsp; The reader is now acquainted with me, and
+perhaps will condescend to listen to my narrative.</p>
+<p>I am naturally of a dreamy turn of mind; and my abundant
+leisure&mdash;for I am called to the Bar&mdash;coupled with much
+lonely listening to the twittering of sparrows, and the pattering
+of rain, has encouraged that disposition.&nbsp; In my &lsquo;top
+set&rsquo; I hear the wind howl on a winter night, when the man
+on the ground floor believes it is perfectly still weather.&nbsp;
+The dim lamps with which our Honourable Society (supposed to be
+as yet unconscious of the new discovery called Gas) make the
+horrors of the staircase visible, deepen the gloom which
+generally settles on my soul when I go home at night.</p>
+<p>I am in the Law, but not of it.&nbsp; I can&rsquo;t exactly
+make out what it means.&nbsp; I sit in Westminster Hall sometimes
+(in character) from ten to four; and when I go out of Court, I
+don&rsquo;t know whether I am standing on my wig or my boots.</p>
+<p>It appears to me (I mention this in confidence) as if there
+were too much talk and too much law&mdash;as if some grains of
+truth were started overboard into a tempestuous sea of chaff.</p>
+<p>All this may make me mystical.&nbsp; Still, I am confident
+that what I am going to describe myself as having seen and heard,
+I actually did see and hear.</p>
+<p>It is necessary that I should observe that I have a great
+delight in pictures.&nbsp; I am no painter myself, but I have
+studied pictures and written about them.&nbsp; I have seen all
+the most famous pictures in the world; my education and reading
+have been sufficiently general to possess me beforehand with a
+knowledge of most of the subjects to which a Painter is likely to
+have recourse; and, although I might be in some doubt as to the
+rightful fashion of the scabbard of King Lear&rsquo;s sword, for
+instance, I think I should know King Lear tolerably well, if I
+happened to meet with him.</p>
+<p>I go to all the Modern Exhibitions every season, and of course
+I revere the Royal Academy.&nbsp; I stand by its forty Academical
+articles almost as firmly as I stand by the thirty-nine Articles
+of the Church of England.&nbsp; I am convinced that in neither
+case could there be, by any rightful possibility, one article
+more or less.</p>
+<p>It is now exactly three years&mdash;three years ago, this very
+month&mdash;since I went from Westminster to the Temple, one
+Thursday afternoon, in a cheap steamboat.&nbsp; The sky was
+black, when I imprudently walked on board.&nbsp; It began to
+thunder and lighten immediately afterwards, and the rain poured
+down in torrents.&nbsp; The deck seeming to smoke with the wet, I
+went below; but so many passengers were there, smoking too, that
+I came up again, and buttoning my pea-coat, and standing in the
+shadow of the paddle-box, stood as upright as I could, and made
+the best of it.</p>
+<p>It was at this moment that I first beheld the terrible Being,
+who is the subject of my present recollections.</p>
+<p>Standing against the funnel, apparently with the intention of
+drying himself by the heat as fast as he got wet, was a shabby
+man in threadbare black, and with his hands in his pockets, who
+fascinated me from the memorable instant when I caught his
+eye.</p>
+<p>Where had I caught that eye before?&nbsp; Who was he?&nbsp;
+Why did I connect him, all at once, with the Vicar of Wakefield,
+Alfred the Great, Gil Blas, Charles the Second, Joseph and his
+Brethren, the Fairy Queen, Tom Jones, the Decameron of Boccaccio,
+Tam O&rsquo;Shanter, the Marriage of the Doge of Venice with the
+Adriatic, and the Great Plague of London?&nbsp; Why, when he bent
+one leg, and placed one hand upon the back of the seat near him,
+did my mind associate him wildly with the words, &lsquo;Number
+one hundred and forty-two, Portrait of a gentleman&rsquo;?&nbsp;
+Could it be that I was going mad?</p>
+<p>I looked at him again, and now I could have taken my affidavit
+that he belonged to the Vicar of Wakefield&rsquo;s family.&nbsp;
+Whether he was the Vicar, or Moses, or Mr. Burchill, or the
+Squire, or a conglomeration of all four, I knew not; but I was
+impelled to seize him by the throat, and charge him with being,
+in some fell way, connected with the Primrose blood.&nbsp; He
+looked up at the rain, and then&mdash;oh Heaven!&mdash;he became
+Saint John.&nbsp; He folded his arms, resigning himself to the
+weather, and I was frantically inclined to address him as the
+Spectator, and firmly demand to know what he had done with Sir
+Roger de Coverley.</p>
+<p>The frightful suspicion that I was becoming deranged, returned
+upon me with redoubled force.&nbsp; Meantime, this awful
+stranger, inexplicably linked to my distress, stood drying
+himself at the funnel; and ever, as the steam rose from his
+clothes, diffusing a mist around him, I saw through the ghostly
+medium all the people I have mentioned, and a score more, sacred
+and profane.</p>
+<p>I am conscious of a dreadful inclination that stole upon me,
+as it thundered and lightened, to grapple with this man, or
+demon, and plunge him over the side.&nbsp; But, I constrained
+myself&mdash;I know not how&mdash;to speak to him, and in a pause
+of the storm, I crossed the deck, and said:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What are you?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>He replied, hoarsely, &lsquo;A Model.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;A what?&rsquo; said I.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;A Model,&rsquo; he replied.&nbsp; &lsquo;I sets to the
+profession for a bob a-hour.&rsquo;&nbsp; (All through this
+narrative I give his own words, which are indelibly imprinted on
+my memory.)</p>
+<p>The relief which this disclosure gave me, the exquisite
+delight of the restoration of my confidence in my own sanity, I
+cannot describe.&nbsp; I should have fallen on his neck, but for
+the consciousness of being observed by the man at the wheel.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;You then,&rsquo; said I, shaking him so warmly by the
+hand, that I wrung the rain out of his coat-cuff, &lsquo;are the
+gentleman whom I have so frequently contemplated, in connection
+with a high-backed chair with a red cushion, and a table with
+twisted legs.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I am that Model,&rsquo; he rejoined moodily, &lsquo;and
+I wish I was anything else.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Say not so,&rsquo; I returned.&nbsp; &lsquo;I have seen
+you in the society of many beautiful young women;&rsquo; as in
+truth I had, and always (I now remember) in the act of making the
+most of his legs.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;No doubt,&rsquo; said he.&nbsp; &lsquo;And you&rsquo;ve
+seen me along with warses of flowers, and any number of
+table-kivers, and antique cabinets, and warious
+gammon.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Sir?&rsquo; said I.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;And warious gammon,&rsquo; he repeated, in a louder
+voice.&nbsp; &lsquo;You might have seen me in armour, too, if you
+had looked sharp.&nbsp; Blessed if I ha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t stood in
+half the suits of armour as ever came out of Pratt&rsquo;s shop:
+and sat, for weeks together, a-eating nothing, out of half the
+gold and silver dishes as has ever been lent for the purpose out
+of Storrses, and Mortimerses, or Garrardses, and
+Davenportseseses.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Excited, as it appeared, by a sense of injury, I thought he
+would never have found an end for the last word.&nbsp; But, at
+length it rolled sullenly away with the thunder.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Pardon me,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;you are a
+well-favoured, well-made man, and yet&mdash;forgive me&mdash;I
+find, on examining my mind, that I associate you with&mdash;that
+my recollection indistinctly makes you, in short&mdash;excuse
+me&mdash;a kind of powerful monster.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It would be a wonder if it didn&rsquo;t,&rsquo; he
+said.&nbsp; &lsquo;Do you know what my points are?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;No,&rsquo; said I.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;My throat and my legs,&rsquo; said he.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;When I don&rsquo;t set for a head, I mostly sets for a
+throat and a pair of legs.&nbsp; Now, granted you was a painter,
+and was to work at my throat for a week together, I suppose
+you&rsquo;d see a lot of lumps and bumps there, that would never
+be there at all, if you looked at me, complete, instead of only
+my throat.&nbsp; Wouldn&rsquo;t you?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Probably,&rsquo; said I, surveying him.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Why, it stands to reason,&rsquo; said the Model.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Work another week at my legs, and it&rsquo;ll be the same
+thing.&nbsp; You&rsquo;ll make &rsquo;em out as knotty and as
+knobby, at last, as if they was the trunks of two old
+trees.&nbsp; Then, take and stick my legs and throat on to
+another man&rsquo;s body, and you&rsquo;ll make a reg&rsquo;lar
+monster.&nbsp; And that&rsquo;s the way the public gets their
+reg&rsquo;lar monsters, every first Monday in May, when the Royal
+Academy Exhibition opens.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;You are a critic,&rsquo; said I, with an air of
+deference.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;m in an uncommon ill humour, if that&rsquo;s
+it,&rsquo; rejoined the Model, with great indignation.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;As if it warn&rsquo;t bad enough for a bob a-hour, for a
+man to be mixing himself up with that there jolly old furniter
+that one &lsquo;ud think the public know&rsquo;d the wery nails
+in by this time&mdash;or to be putting on greasy old &lsquo;ats
+and cloaks, and playing tambourines in the Bay o&rsquo; Naples,
+with Wesuvius a smokin&rsquo; according to pattern in the
+background, and the wines a bearing wonderful in the middle
+distance&mdash;or to be unpolitely kicking up his legs among a
+lot o&rsquo; gals, with no reason whatever in his mind but to
+show &rsquo;em&mdash;as if this warn&rsquo;t bad enough,
+I&rsquo;m to go and be thrown out of employment too!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Surely no!&rsquo; said I.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Surely yes,&rsquo; said the indignant Model.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;<span class="smcap">But I&rsquo;ll grow
+one</span>.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The gloomy and threatening manner in which he muttered the
+last words, can never be effaced from my remembrance.&nbsp; My
+blood ran cold.</p>
+<p>I asked of myself, what was it that this desperate Being was
+resolved to grow.&nbsp; My breast made no response.</p>
+<p>I ventured to implore him to explain his meaning.&nbsp; With a
+scornful laugh, he uttered this dark prophecy:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;<span class="smcap">I&rsquo;ll grow one</span>.&nbsp;
+<span class="smcap">And</span>, <span class="smcap">mark my
+words</span>, <span class="smcap">it shall haunt
+you</span>!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>We parted in the storm, after I had forced half-a-crown on his
+acceptance, with a trembling hand.&nbsp; I conclude that
+something supernatural happened to the steamboat, as it bore his
+reeking figure down the river; but it never got into the
+papers.</p>
+<p>Two years elapsed, during which I followed my profession
+without any vicissitudes; never holding so much as a motion, of
+course.&nbsp; At the expiration of that period, I found myself
+making my way home to the Temple, one night, in precisely such
+another storm of thunder and lightning as that by which I had
+been overtaken on board the steamboat&mdash;except that this
+storm, bursting over the town at midnight, was rendered much more
+awful by the darkness and the hour.</p>
+<p>As I turned into my court, I really thought a thunderbolt
+would fall, and plough the pavement up.&nbsp; Every brick and
+stone in the place seemed to have an echo of its own for the
+thunder.&nbsp; The waterspouts were overcharged, and the rain
+came tearing down from the house-tops as if they had been
+mountain-tops.</p>
+<p>Mrs. Parkins, my laundress&mdash;wife of Parkins the porter,
+then newly dead of a dropsy&mdash;had particular instructions to
+place a bedroom candle and a match under the staircase lamp on my
+landing, in order that I might light my candle there, whenever I
+came home.&nbsp; Mrs. Parkins invariably disregarding all
+instructions, they were never there.&nbsp; Thus it happened that
+on this occasion I groped my way into my sitting-room to find the
+candle, and came out to light it.</p>
+<p>What were my emotions when, underneath the staircase lamp,
+shining with wet as if he had never been dry since our last
+meeting, stood the mysterious Being whom I had encountered on the
+steamboat in a thunderstorm, two years before!&nbsp; His
+prediction rushed upon my mind, and I turned faint.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I said I&rsquo;d do it,&rsquo; he observed, in a hollow
+voice, &lsquo;and I have done it.&nbsp; May I come in?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Misguided creature, what have you done?&rsquo; I
+returned.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll let you know,&rsquo; was his reply,
+&lsquo;if you&rsquo;ll let me in.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Could it be murder that he had done?&nbsp; And had he been so
+successful that he wanted to do it again, at my expense?</p>
+<p>I hesitated.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;May I come in?&rsquo; said he.</p>
+<p>I inclined my head, with as much presence of mind as I could
+command, and he followed me into my chambers.&nbsp; There, I saw
+that the lower part of his face was tied up, in what is commonly
+called a Belcher handkerchief.&nbsp; He slowly removed this
+bandage, and exposed to view a long dark beard, curling over his
+upper lip, twisting about the corners of his mouth, and hanging
+down upon his breast.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What is this?&rsquo; I exclaimed involuntarily,
+&lsquo;and what have you become?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I am the Ghost of Art!&rsquo; said he.</p>
+<p>The effect of these words, slowly uttered in the thunder-storm
+at midnight, was appalling in the last degree.&nbsp; More dead
+than alive, I surveyed him in silence.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The German taste came up,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;and
+threw me out of bread.&nbsp; I am ready for the taste
+now.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>He made his beard a little jagged with his hands, folded his
+arms, and said,</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Severity!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I shuddered.&nbsp; It was so severe.</p>
+<p>He made his beard flowing on his breast, and, leaning both
+hands on the staff of a carpet-broom which Mrs. Parkins had left
+among my books, said:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Benevolence.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I stood transfixed.&nbsp; The change of sentiment was entirely
+in the beard.&nbsp; The man might have left his face alone, or
+had no face.</p>
+<p>The beard did everything.</p>
+<p>He lay down, on his back, on my table, and with that action of
+his head threw up his beard at the chin.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;That&rsquo;s death!&rsquo; said he.</p>
+<p>He got off my table and, looking up at the ceiling, cocked his
+beard a little awry; at the same time making it stick out before
+him.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Adoration, or a vow of vengeance,&rsquo; he
+observed.</p>
+<p>He turned his profile to me, making his upper lip very bulky
+with the upper part of his beard.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Romantic character,&rsquo; said he.</p>
+<p>He looked sideways out of his beard, as if it were an
+ivy-bush.&nbsp; &lsquo;Jealousy,&rsquo; said he.&nbsp; He gave it
+an ingenious twist in the air, and informed me that he was
+carousing.&nbsp; He made it shaggy with his fingers&mdash;and it
+was Despair; lank&mdash;and it was avarice: tossed it all kinds
+of ways&mdash;and it was rage.&nbsp; The beard did
+everything.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I am the Ghost of Art,&rsquo; said he.&nbsp; &lsquo;Two
+bob a-day now, and more when it&rsquo;s longer!&nbsp;
+Hair&rsquo;s the true expression.&nbsp; There is no other.&nbsp;
+I <span class="smcap">said I&rsquo;d grow it</span>, <span
+class="smcap">and I&rsquo;ve grown it</span>, <span
+class="smcap">and it shall haunt you</span>!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>He may have tumbled down-stairs in the dark, but he never
+walked down or ran down.&nbsp; I looked over the banisters, and I
+was alone with the thunder.</p>
+<p>Need I add more of my terrific fate?&nbsp; <span
+class="smcap">It has</span> haunted me ever since.&nbsp; It
+glares upon me from the walls of the Royal Academy, (except when
+<span class="smcap">Maclise</span> subdues it to his genius,) it
+fills my soul with terror at the British Institution, it lures
+young artists on to their destruction.&nbsp; Go where I will, the
+Ghost of Art, eternally working the passions in hair, and
+expressing everything by beard, pursues me.&nbsp; The prediction
+is accomplished, and the victim has no rest.</p>
+<h2><a name="page373"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 373</span>OUT
+OF TOWN</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Sitting</span>, on a bright September
+morning, among my books and papers at my open window on the cliff
+overhanging the sea-beach, I have the sky and ocean framed before
+me like a beautiful picture.&nbsp; A beautiful picture, but with
+such movement in it, such changes of light upon the sails of
+ships and wake of steamboats, such dazzling gleams of silver far
+out at sea, such fresh touches on the crisp wave-tops as they
+break and roll towards me&mdash;a picture with such music in the
+billowy rush upon the shingle, the blowing of morning wind
+through the corn-sheaves where the farmers&rsquo; waggons are
+busy, the singing of the larks, and the distant voices of
+children at play&mdash;such charms of sight and sound as all the
+Galleries on earth can but poorly suggest.</p>
+<p>So dreamy is the murmur of the sea below my window, that I may
+have been here, for anything I know, one hundred years.&nbsp; Not
+that I have grown old, for, daily on the neighbouring downs and
+grassy hill-sides, I find that I can still in reason walk any
+distance, jump over anything, and climb up anywhere; but, that
+the sound of the ocean seems to have become so customary to my
+musings, and other realities seem so to have gone aboard ship and
+floated away over the horizon, that, for aught I will undertake
+to the contrary, I am the enchanted son of the King my father,
+shut up in a tower on the sea-shore, for protection against an
+old she-goblin who insisted on being my godmother, and who
+foresaw at the font&mdash;wonderful creature!&mdash;that I should
+get into a scrape before I was twenty-one.&nbsp; I remember to
+have been in a City (my Royal parent&rsquo;s dominions, I
+suppose), and apparently not long ago either, that was in the
+dreariest condition.&nbsp; The principal inhabitants had all been
+changed into old newspapers, and in that form were preserving
+their window-blinds from dust, and wrapping all their smaller
+household gods in curl-papers.&nbsp; I walked through gloomy
+streets where every house was shut up and newspapered, and where
+my solitary footsteps echoed on the deserted pavements.&nbsp; In
+the public rides there were no carriages, no horses, no animated
+existence, but a few sleepy policemen, and a few adventurous boys
+taking advantage of the devastation to swarm up the
+lamp-posts.&nbsp; In the Westward streets there was no traffic;
+in the Westward shops, no business.&nbsp; The water-patterns
+which the &rsquo;Prentices had trickled out on the pavements
+early in the morning, remained uneffaced by human feet.&nbsp; At
+the corners of mews, Cochin-China fowls stalked gaunt and savage;
+nobody being left in the deserted city (as it appeared to me), to
+feed them.&nbsp; Public Houses, where splendid footmen swinging
+their legs over gorgeous hammer-cloths beside wigged coachmen
+were wont to regale, were silent, and the unused pewter pots
+shone, too bright for business, on the shelves.&nbsp; I beheld a
+Punch&rsquo;s Show leaning against a wall near Park Lane, as if
+it had fainted.&nbsp; It was deserted, and there were none to
+heed its desolation.&nbsp; In Belgrave Square I met the last
+man&mdash;an ostler&mdash;sitting on a post in a ragged red
+waistcoat, eating straw, and mildewing away.</p>
+<p>If I recollect the name of the little town, on whose shore
+this sea is murmuring&mdash;but I am not just now, as I have
+premised, to be relied upon for anything&mdash;it is
+Pavilionstone.&nbsp; Within a quarter of a century, it was a
+little fishing town, and they do say, that the time was, when it
+was a little smuggling town.&nbsp; I have heard that it was
+rather famous in the hollands and brandy way, and that coevally
+with that reputation the lamplighter&rsquo;s was considered a bad
+life at the Assurance Offices.&nbsp; It was observed that if he
+were not particular about lighting up, he lived in peace; but
+that, if he made the best of the oil-lamps in the steep and
+narrow streets, he usually fell over the cliff at an early
+age.&nbsp; Now, gas and electricity run to the very water&rsquo;s
+edge, and the South-Eastern Railway Company screech at us in the
+dead of night.</p>
+<p>But, the old little fishing and smuggling town remains, and is
+so tempting a place for the latter purpose, that I think of going
+out some night next week, in a fur cap and a pair of petticoat
+trousers, and running an empty tub, as a kind of
+arch&aelig;ological pursuit.&nbsp; Let nobody with corns come to
+Pavilionstone, for there are breakneck flights of ragged steps,
+connecting the principal streets by back-ways, which will cripple
+that visitor in half an hour.&nbsp; These are the ways by which,
+when I run that tub, I shall escape.&nbsp; I shall make a
+Thermopyl&aelig; of the corner of one of them, defend it with my
+cutlass against the coast-guard until my brave companions have
+sheered off, then dive into the darkness, and regain my
+Susan&rsquo;s arms.&nbsp; In connection with these breakneck
+steps I observe some wooden cottages, with tumble-down
+out-houses, and back-yards three feet square, adorned with
+garlands of dried fish, in one of which (though the General Board
+of Health might object) my Susan dwells.</p>
+<p>The South-Eastern Company have brought Pavilionstone into such
+vogue, with their tidal trains and splendid steam-packets, that a
+new Pavilionstone is rising up.&nbsp; I am, myself, of New
+Pavilionstone.&nbsp; We are a little mortary and limey at
+present, but we are getting on capitally.&nbsp; Indeed, we were
+getting on so fast, at one time, that we rather overdid it, and
+built a street of shops, the business of which may be expected to
+arrive in about ten years.&nbsp; We are sensibly laid out in
+general; and with a little care and pains (by no means wanting,
+so far), shall become a very pretty place.&nbsp; We ought to be,
+for our situation is delightful, our air is delicious, and our
+breezy hills and downs, carpeted with wild thyme, and decorated
+with millions of wild flowers, are, on the faith of a pedestrian,
+perfect.&nbsp; In New Pavilionstone we are a little too much
+addicted to small windows with more bricks in them than glass,
+and we are not over-fanciful in the way of decorative
+architecture, and we get unexpected sea-views through cracks in
+the street doors; on the whole, however, we are very snug and
+comfortable, and well accommodated.&nbsp; But the Home Secretary
+(if there be such an officer) cannot too soon shut up the
+burial-ground of the old parish church.&nbsp; It is in the midst
+of us, and Pavilionstone will get no good of it, if it be too
+long left alone.</p>
+<p>The lion of Pavilionstone is its Great Hotel.&nbsp; A dozen
+years ago, going over to Paris by South-Eastern Tidal Steamer,
+you used to be dropped upon the platform of the main line
+Pavilionstone Station (not a junction then), at eleven
+o&rsquo;clock on a dark winter&rsquo;s night, in a roaring wind;
+and in the howling wilderness outside the station, was a short
+omnibus which brought you up by the forehead the instant you got
+in at the door; and nobody cared about you, and you were alone in
+the world.&nbsp; You bumped over infinite chalk, until you were
+turned out at a strange building which had just left off being a
+barn without having quite begun to be a house, where nobody
+expected your coming, or knew what to do with you when you were
+come, and where you were usually blown about, until you happened
+to be blown against the cold beef, and finally into bed.&nbsp; At
+five in the morning you were blown out of bed, and after a dreary
+breakfast, with crumpled company, in the midst of confusion, were
+hustled on board a steamboat and lay wretched on deck until you
+saw France lunging and surging at you with great vehemence over
+the bowsprit.</p>
+<p>Now, you come down to Pavilionstone in a free and easy manner,
+an irresponsible agent, made over in trust to the South-Eastern
+Company, until you get out of the railway-carriage at high-water
+mark.&nbsp; If you are crossing by the boat at once, you have
+nothing to do but walk on board and be happy there if you
+can&mdash;I can&rsquo;t.&nbsp; If you are going to our Great
+Pavilionstone Hotel, the sprightliest porters under the sun,
+whose cheerful looks are a pleasant welcome, shoulder your
+luggage, drive it off in vans, bowl it away in trucks, and enjoy
+themselves in playing athletic games with it.&nbsp; If you are
+for public life at our great Pavilionstone Hotel, you walk into
+that establishment as if it were your club; and find ready for
+you, your news-room, dining-room, smoking-room, billiard-room,
+music-room, public breakfast, public dinner twice a-day (one
+plain, one gorgeous), hot baths and cold baths.&nbsp; If you want
+to be bored, there are plenty of bores always ready for you, and
+from Saturday to Monday in particular, you can be bored (if you
+like it) through and through.&nbsp; Should you want to be private
+at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel, say but the word, look at the
+list of charges, choose your floor, name your figure&mdash;there
+you are, established in your castle, by the day, week, month, or
+year, innocent of all comers or goers, unless you have my fancy
+for walking early in the morning down the groves of boots and
+shoes, which so regularly flourish at all the chamber-doors
+before breakfast, that it seems to me as if nobody ever got up or
+took them in.&nbsp; Are you going across the Alps, and would you
+like to air your Italian at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel?&nbsp;
+Talk to the Manager&mdash;always conversational, accomplished,
+and polite.&nbsp; Do you want to be aided, abetted, comforted, or
+advised, at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel?&nbsp; Send for the
+good landlord, and he is your friend.&nbsp; Should you, or any
+one belonging to you, ever be taken ill at our Great
+Pavilionstone Hotel, you will not soon forget him or his kind
+wife.&nbsp; And when you pay your bill at our Great Pavilionstone
+Hotel, you will not be put out of humour by anything you find in
+it.</p>
+<p>A thoroughly good inn, in the days of coaching and posting,
+was a noble place.&nbsp; But no such inn would have been equal to
+the reception of four or five hundred people, all of them wet
+through, and half of them dead sick, every day in the year.&nbsp;
+This is where we shine, in our Pavilionstone Hotel.&nbsp;
+Again&mdash;who, coming and going, pitching and tossing, boating
+and training, hurrying in, and flying out, could ever have
+calculated the fees to be paid at an old-fashioned house?&nbsp;
+In our Pavilionstone Hotel vocabulary, there is no such word as
+fee.&nbsp; Everything is done for you; every service is provided
+at a fixed and reasonable charge; all the prices are hung up in
+all the rooms; and you can make out your own bill beforehand, as
+well as the book-keeper.</p>
+<p>In the case of your being a pictorial artist, desirous of
+studying at small expense the physiognomies and beards of
+different nations, come, on receipt of this, to
+Pavilionstone.&nbsp; You shall find all the nations of the earth,
+and all the styles of shaving and not shaving, hair cutting and
+hair letting alone, for ever flowing through our hotel.&nbsp;
+Couriers you shall see by hundreds; fat leathern bags for
+five-franc pieces, closing with violent snaps, like discharges of
+fire-arms, by thousands; more luggage in a morning than, fifty
+years ago, all Europe saw in a week.&nbsp; Looking at trains,
+steamboats, sick travellers, and luggage, is our great
+Pavilionstone recreation.&nbsp; We are not strong in other public
+amusements.&nbsp; We have a Literary and Scientific Institution,
+and we have a Working Men&rsquo;s Institution&mdash;may it hold
+many gipsy holidays in summer fields, with the kettle boiling,
+the band of music playing, and the people dancing; and may I be
+on the hill-side, looking on with pleasure at a wholesome sight
+too rare in England!&mdash;and we have two or three churches, and
+more chapels than I have yet added up.&nbsp; But public
+amusements are scarce with us.&nbsp; If a poor theatrical manager
+comes with his company to give us, in a loft, Mary Bax, or the
+Murder on the Sand Hills, we don&rsquo;t care much for
+him&mdash;starve him out, in fact.&nbsp; We take more kindly to
+wax-work, especially if it moves; in which case it keeps much
+clearer of the second commandment than when it is still.&nbsp;
+Cooke&rsquo;s Circus (Mr. Cooke is my friend, and always leaves a
+good name behind him) gives us only a night in passing
+through.&nbsp; Nor does the travelling menagerie think us worth a
+longer visit.&nbsp; It gave us a look-in the other day, bringing
+with it the residentiary van with the stained glass windows,
+which Her Majesty kept ready-made at Windsor Castle, until she
+found a suitable opportunity of submitting it for the
+proprietor&rsquo;s acceptance.&nbsp; I brought away five
+wonderments from this exhibition.&nbsp; I have wondered ever
+since, Whether the beasts ever do get used to those small places
+of confinement; Whether the monkeys have that very horrible
+flavour in their free state; Whether wild animals have a natural
+ear for time and tune, and therefore every four-footed creature
+began to howl in despair when the band began to play; What the
+giraffe does with his neck when his cart is shut up; and, Whether
+the elephant feels ashamed of himself when he is brought out of
+his den to stand on his head in the presence of the whole
+Collection.</p>
+<p>We are a tidal harbour at Pavilionstone, as indeed I have
+implied already in my mention of tidal trains.&nbsp; At low
+water, we are a heap of mud, with an empty channel in it where a
+couple of men in big boots always shovel and scoop: with what
+exact object, I am unable to say.&nbsp; At that time, all the
+stranded fishing-boats turn over on their sides, as if they were
+dead marine monsters; the colliers and other shipping stick
+disconsolate in the mud; the steamers look as if their white
+chimneys would never smoke more, and their red paddles never turn
+again; the green sea-slime and weed upon the rough stones at the
+entrance, seem records of obsolete high tides never more to flow;
+the flagstaff-halyards droop; the very little wooden lighthouse
+shrinks in the idle glare of the sun.&nbsp; And here I may
+observe of the very little wooden lighthouse, that when it is
+lighted at night,&mdash;red and green,&mdash;it looks so like a
+medical man&rsquo;s, that several distracted husbands have at
+various times been found, on occasions of premature domestic
+anxiety, going round and round it, trying to find the
+Nightbell.</p>
+<p>But, the moment the tide begins to make, the Pavilionstone
+Harbour begins to revive.&nbsp; It feels the breeze of the rising
+water before the water comes, and begins to flutter and
+stir.&nbsp; When the little shallow waves creep in, barely
+overlapping one another, the vanes at the mastheads wake, and
+become agitated.&nbsp; As the tide rises, the fishing-boats get
+into good spirits and dance, the flagstaff hoists a bright red
+flag, the steamboat smokes, cranes creak, horses and carriages
+dangle in the air, stray passengers and luggage appear.&nbsp;
+Now, the shipping is afloat, and comes up buoyantly, to look at
+the wharf.&nbsp; Now, the carts that have come down for coals,
+load away as hard as they can load.&nbsp; Now, the steamer smokes
+immensely, and occasionally blows at the paddle-boxes like a
+vaporous whale-greatly disturbing nervous loungers.&nbsp; Now,
+both the tide and the breeze have risen, and you are holding your
+hat on (if you want to see how the ladies hold their hats on,
+with a stay, passing over the broad brim and down the nose, come
+to Pavilionstone).&nbsp; Now, everything in the harbour splashes,
+dashes, and bobs.&nbsp; Now, the Down Tidal Train is telegraphed,
+and you know (without knowing how you know), that two hundred and
+eighty-seven people are coming.&nbsp; Now, the fishing-boats that
+have been out, sail in at the top of the tide.&nbsp; Now, the
+bell goes, and the locomotive hisses and shrieks, and the train
+comes gliding in, and the two hundred and eighty-seven come
+scuffling out.&nbsp; Now, there is not only a tide of water, but
+a tide of people, and a tide of luggage&mdash;all tumbling and
+flowing and bouncing about together.&nbsp; Now, after infinite
+bustle, the steamer steams out, and we (on the Pier) are all
+delighted when she rolls as if she would roll her funnel out, and
+all are disappointed when she don&rsquo;t.&nbsp; Now, the other
+steamer is coming in, and the Custom House prepares, and the
+wharf-labourers assemble, and the hawsers are made ready, and the
+Hotel Porters come rattling down with van and truck, eager to
+begin more Olympic games with more luggage.&nbsp; And this is the
+way in which we go on, down at Pavilionstone, every tide.&nbsp;
+And, if you want to live a life of luggage, or to see it lived,
+or to breathe sweet air which will send you to sleep at a
+moment&rsquo;s notice at any period of the day or night, or to
+disport yourself upon or in the sea, or to scamper about Kent, or
+to come out of town for the enjoyment of all or any of these
+pleasures, come to Pavilionstone.</p>
+<h2><a name="page379"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 379</span>OUT
+OF THE SEASON</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> fell to my lot, this last bleak
+Spring, to find myself in a watering-place out of the
+Season.&nbsp; A vicious north-east squall blew me into it from
+foreign parts, and I tarried in it alone for three days, resolved
+to be exceedingly busy.</p>
+<p>On the first day, I began business by looking for two hours at
+the sea, and staring the Foreign Militia out of
+countenance.&nbsp; Having disposed of these important
+engagements, I sat down at one of the two windows of my room,
+intent on doing something desperate in the way of literary
+composition, and writing a chapter of unheard-of
+excellence&mdash;with which the present essay has no
+connexion.</p>
+<p>It is a remarkable quality in a watering-place out of the
+season, that everything in it, will and must be looked at.&nbsp;
+I had no previous suspicion of this fatal truth but, the moment I
+sat down to write, I began to perceive it.&nbsp; I had scarcely
+fallen into my most promising attitude, and dipped my pen in the
+ink, when I found the clock upon the pier&mdash;a red-faced clock
+with a white rim&mdash;importuning me in a highly vexatious
+manner to consult my watch, and see how I was off for Greenwich
+time.&nbsp; Having no intention of making a voyage or taking an
+observation, I had not the least need of Greenwich time, and
+could have put up with watering-place time as a sufficiently
+accurate article.&nbsp; The pier-clock, however, persisting, I
+felt it necessary to lay down my pen, compare my watch with him,
+and fall into a grave solicitude about half-seconds.&nbsp; I had
+taken up my pen again, and was about to commence that valuable
+chapter, when a Custom-house cutter under the window requested
+that I would hold a naval review of her, immediately.</p>
+<p>It was impossible, under the circumstances, for any mental
+resolution, merely human, to dismiss the Custom-house cutter,
+because the shadow of her topmast fell upon my paper, and the
+vane played on the masterly blank chapter.&nbsp; I was therefore
+under the necessity of going to the other window; sitting astride
+of the chair there, like Napoleon bivouacking in the print; and
+inspecting the cutter as she lay, all that day, in the way of my
+chapter, O!&nbsp; She was rigged to carry a quantity of canvas,
+but her hull was so very small that four giants aboard of her
+(three men and a boy) who were vigilantly scraping at her, all
+together, inspired me with a terror lest they should scrape her
+away.&nbsp; A fifth giant, who appeared to consider himself
+&lsquo;below&rsquo;&mdash;as indeed he was, from the waist
+downwards&mdash;meditated, in such close proximity with the
+little gusty chimney-pipe, that he seemed to be smoking it.&nbsp;
+Several boys looked on from the wharf, and, when the gigantic
+attention appeared to be fully occupied, one or other of these
+would furtively swing himself in mid-air over the Custom-house
+cutter, by means of a line pendant from her rigging, like a young
+spirit of the storm.&nbsp; Presently, a sixth hand brought down
+two little water-casks; presently afterwards, a truck came, and
+delivered a hamper.&nbsp; I was now under an obligation to
+consider that the cutter was going on a cruise, and to wonder
+where she was going, and when she was going, and why she was
+going, and at what date she might be expected back, and who
+commanded her?&nbsp; With these pressing questions I was fully
+occupied when the Packet, making ready to go across, and blowing
+off her spare steam, roared, &lsquo;Look at me!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>It became a positive duty to look at the Packet preparing to
+go across; aboard of which, the people newly come down by the
+rail-road were hurrying in a great fluster.&nbsp; The crew had
+got their tarry overalls on&mdash;and one knew what that
+meant&mdash;not to mention the white basins, ranged in neat
+little piles of a dozen each, behind the door of the
+after-cabin.&nbsp; One lady as I looked, one resigning and
+far-seeing woman, took her basin from the store of crockery, as
+she might have taken a refreshment-ticket, laid herself down on
+deck with that utensil at her ear, muffled her feet in one shawl,
+solemnly covered her countenance after the antique manner with
+another, and on the completion of these preparations appeared by
+the strength of her volition to become insensible.&nbsp; The
+mail-bags (O that I myself had the sea-legs of a mail-bag!) were
+tumbled aboard; the Packet left off roaring, warped out, and made
+at the white line upon the bar.&nbsp; One dip, one roll, one
+break of the sea over her bows, and Moore&rsquo;s Almanack or the
+sage Raphael could not have told me more of the state of things
+aboard, than I knew.</p>
+<p>The famous chapter was all but begun now, and would have been
+quite begun, but for the wind.&nbsp; It was blowing stiffly from
+the east, and it rumbled in the chimney and shook the
+house.&nbsp; That was not much; but, looking out into the
+wind&rsquo;s grey eye for inspiration, I laid down my pen again
+to make the remark to myself, how emphatically everything by the
+sea declares that it has a great concern in the state of the
+wind.&nbsp; The trees blown all one way; the defences of the
+harbour reared highest and strongest against the raging point;
+the shingle flung up on the beach from the same direction; the
+number of arrows pointed at the common enemy; the sea tumbling in
+and rushing towards them as if it were inflamed by the
+sight.&nbsp; This put it in my head that I really ought to go out
+and take a walk in the wind; so, I gave up the magnificent
+chapter for that day, entirely persuading myself that I was under
+a moral obligation to have a blow.</p>
+<p>I had a good one, and that on the high road&mdash;the very
+high road&mdash;on the top of the cliffs, where I met the
+stage-coach with all the outsides holding their hats on and
+themselves too, and overtook a flock of sheep with the wool about
+their necks blown into such great ruffs that they looked like
+fleecy owls.&nbsp; The wind played upon the lighthouse as if it
+were a great whistle, the spray was driven over the sea in a
+cloud of haze, the ships rolled and pitched heavily, and at
+intervals long slants and flaws of light made mountain-steeps of
+communication between the ocean and the sky.&nbsp; A walk of ten
+miles brought me to a seaside town without a cliff, which, like
+the town I had come from, was out of the season too.&nbsp; Half
+of the houses were shut up; half of the other half were to let;
+the town might have done as much business as it was doing then,
+if it had been at the bottom of the sea.&nbsp; Nobody seemed to
+flourish save the attorney; his clerk&rsquo;s pen was going in
+the bow-window of his wooden house; his brass door-plate alone
+was free from salt, and had been polished up that morning.&nbsp;
+On the beach, among the rough buggers and capstans, groups of
+storm-beaten boatmen, like a sort of marine monsters, watched
+under the lee of those objects, or stood leaning forward against
+the wind, looking out through battered spy-glasses.&nbsp; The
+parlour bell in the Admiral Benbow had grown so flat with being
+out of the season, that neither could I hear it ring when I
+pulled the handle for lunch, nor could the young woman in black
+stockings and strong shoes, who acted as waiter out of the
+season, until it had been tinkled three times.</p>
+<p>Admiral Benbow&rsquo;s cheese was out of the season, but his
+home-made bread was good, and his beer was perfect.&nbsp; Deluded
+by some earlier spring day which had been warm and sunny, the
+Admiral had cleared the firing out of his parlour stove, and had
+put some flower-pots in&mdash;which was amiable and hopeful in
+the Admiral, but not judicious: the room being, at that present
+visiting, transcendantly cold.&nbsp; I therefore took the liberty
+of peeping out across a little stone passage into the
+Admiral&rsquo;s kitchen, and, seeing a high settle with its back
+towards me drawn out in front of the Admiral&rsquo;s kitchen
+fire, I strolled in, bread and cheese in hand, munching and
+looking about.&nbsp; One landsman and two boatmen were seated on
+the settle, smoking pipes and drinking beer out of thick pint
+crockery mugs&mdash;mugs peculiar to such places, with
+parti-coloured rings round them, and ornaments between the rings
+like frayed-out roots.&nbsp; The landsman was relating his
+experience, as yet only three nights old, of a fearful
+running-down case in the Channel, and therein presented to my
+imagination a sound of music that it will not soon forget.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;At that identical moment of time,&rsquo; said he (he
+was a prosy man by nature, who rose with his subject), &lsquo;the
+night being light and calm, but with a grey mist upon the water
+that didn&rsquo;t seem to spread for more than two or three mile,
+I was walking up and down the wooden causeway next the pier, off
+where it happened, along with a friend of mine, which his name is
+Mr. Clocker.&nbsp; Mr. Clocker is a grocer over
+yonder.&rsquo;&nbsp; (From the direction in which he pointed the
+bowl of his pipe, I might have judged Mr. Clocker to be a merman,
+established in the grocery trade in five-and-twenty fathoms of
+water.)&nbsp; &lsquo;We were smoking our pipes, and walking up
+and down the causeway, talking of one thing and talking of
+another.&nbsp; We were quite alone there, except that a few
+hovellers&rsquo; (the Kentish name for &lsquo;long-shore boatmen
+like his companions) &lsquo;were hanging about their lugs,
+waiting while the tide made, as hovellers will.&rsquo;&nbsp; (One
+of the two boatmen, thoughtfully regarding me, shut up one eye;
+this I understood to mean: first, that he took me into the
+conversation: secondly, that he confirmed the proposition:
+thirdly, that he announced himself as a hoveller.)&nbsp;
+&lsquo;All of a sudden Mr. Clocker and me stood rooted to the
+spot, by hearing a sound come through the stillness, right over
+the sea, <i>like a great sorrowful flute or &AElig;olian
+harp</i>.&nbsp; We didn&rsquo;t in the least know what it was,
+and judge of our surprise when we saw the hovellers, to a man,
+leap into the boats and tear about to hoist sail and get off, as
+if they had every one of &rsquo;em gone, in a moment, raving
+mad!&nbsp; But <i>they</i> knew it was the cry of distress from
+the sinking emigrant ship.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>When I got back to my watering-place out of the season, and
+had done my twenty miles in good style, I found that the
+celebrated Black Mesmerist intended favouring the public that
+evening in the Hall of the Muses, which he had engaged for the
+purpose.&nbsp; After a good dinner, seated by the fire in an easy
+chair, I began to waver in a design I had formed of waiting on
+the Black Mesmerist, and to incline towards the expediency of
+remaining where I was.&nbsp; Indeed a point of gallantry was
+involved in my doing so, inasmuch as I had not left France alone,
+but had come from the prisons of St. P&eacute;lagie with my
+distinguished and unfortunate friend Madame Roland (in two
+volumes which I bought for two francs each, at the book-stall in
+the Place de la Concorde, Paris, at the corner of the Rue
+Royale).&nbsp; Deciding to pass the evening
+t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te with Madame Roland, I derived, as
+I always do, great pleasure from that spiritual woman&rsquo;s
+society, and the charms of her brave soul and engaging
+conversation.&nbsp; I must confess that if she had only some more
+faults, only a few more passionate failings of any kind, I might
+love her better; but I am content to believe that the deficiency
+is in me, and not in her.&nbsp; We spent some sadly interesting
+hours together on this occasion, and she told me again of her
+cruel discharge from the Abbaye, and of her being re-arrested
+before her free feet had sprung lightly up half-a-dozen steps of
+her own staircase, and carried off to the prison which she only
+left for the guillotine.</p>
+<p>Madame Roland and I took leave of one another before
+mid-night, and I went to bed full of vast intentions for next
+day, in connexion with the unparalleled chapter.&nbsp; To hear
+the foreign mail-steamers coming in at dawn of day, and to know
+that I was not aboard or obliged to get up, was very comfortable;
+so, I rose for the chapter in great force.</p>
+<p>I had advanced so far as to sit down at my window again on my
+second morning, and to write the first half-line of the chapter
+and strike it out, not liking it, when my conscience reproached
+me with not having surveyed the watering-place out of the season,
+after all, yesterday, but with having gone straight out of it at
+the rate of four miles and a half an hour.&nbsp; Obviously the
+best amends that I could make for this remissness was to go and
+look at it without another moment&rsquo;s delay.&nbsp;
+So&mdash;altogether as a matter of duty&mdash;I gave up the
+magnificent chapter for another day, and sauntered out with my
+hands in my pockets.</p>
+<p>All the houses and lodgings ever let to visitors, were to let
+that morning.&nbsp; It seemed to have snowed bills with To Let
+upon them.&nbsp; This put me upon thinking what the owners of all
+those apartments did, out of the season; how they employed their
+time, and occupied their minds.&nbsp; They could not be always
+going to the Methodist chapels, of which I passed one every other
+minute.&nbsp; They must have some other recreation.&nbsp; Whether
+they pretended to take one another&rsquo;s lodgings, and opened
+one another&rsquo;s tea-caddies in fun?&nbsp; Whether they cut
+slices off their own beef and mutton, and made believe that it
+belonged to somebody else?&nbsp; Whether they played little
+dramas of life, as children do, and said, &lsquo;I ought to come
+and look at your apartments, and you ought to ask two guineas
+a-week too much, and then I ought to say I must have the rest of
+the day to think of it, and then you ought to say that another
+lady and gentleman with no children in family had made an offer
+very close to your own terms, and you had passed your word to
+give them a positive answer in half an hour, and indeed were just
+going to take the bill down when you heard the knock, and then I
+ought to take them, you know?&rsquo;&nbsp; Twenty such
+speculations engaged my thoughts.&nbsp; Then, after passing,
+still clinging to the walls, defaced rags of the bills of last
+year&rsquo;s Circus, I came to a back field near a timber-yard
+where the Circus itself had been, and where there was yet a sort
+of monkish tonsure on the grass, indicating the spot where the
+young lady had gone round upon her pet steed Firefly in her
+daring flight.&nbsp; Turning into the town again, I came among
+the shops, and they were emphatically out of the season.&nbsp;
+The chemist had no boxes of ginger-beer powders, no beautifying
+sea-side soaps and washes, no attractive scents; nothing but his
+great goggle-eyed red bottles, looking as if the winds of winter
+and the drift of the salt-sea had inflamed them.&nbsp; The
+grocers&rsquo; hot pickles, Harvey&rsquo;s Sauce, Doctor
+Kitchener&rsquo;s Zest, Anchovy Paste, Dundee Marmalade, and the
+whole stock of luxurious helps to appetite, were hybernating
+somewhere underground.&nbsp; The china-shop had no trifles from
+anywhere.&nbsp; The Bazaar had given in altogether, and presented
+a notice on the shutters that this establishment would re-open at
+Whitsuntide, and that the proprietor in the meantime might be
+heard of at Wild Lodge, East Cliff.&nbsp; At the Sea-bathing
+Establishment, a row of neat little wooden houses seven or eight
+feet high, I saw the proprietor in bed in the shower-bath.&nbsp;
+As to the bathing-machines, they were (how they got there, is not
+for me to say) at the top of a hill at least a mile and a half
+off.&nbsp; The library, which I had never seen otherwise than
+wide open, was tight shut; and two peevish bald old gentlemen
+seemed to be hermetically sealed up inside, eternally reading the
+paper.&nbsp; That wonderful mystery, the music-shop, carried it
+off as usual (except that it had more cabinet pianos in stock),
+as if season or no season were all one to it.&nbsp; It made the
+same prodigious display of bright brazen wind-instruments,
+horribly twisted, worth, as I should conceive, some thousands of
+pounds, and which it is utterly impossible that anybody in any
+season can ever play or want to play.&nbsp; It had five triangles
+in the window, six pairs of castanets, and three harps; likewise
+every polka with a coloured frontispiece that ever was published;
+from the original one where a smooth male and female Pole of high
+rank are coming at the observer with their arms a-kimbo, to the
+Ratcatcher&rsquo;s Daughter.&nbsp; Astonishing establishment,
+amazing enigma!&nbsp; Three other shops were pretty much out of
+the season, what they were used to be in it.&nbsp; First, the
+shop where they sell the sailors&rsquo; watches, which had still
+the old collection of enormous timekeepers, apparently designed
+to break a fall from the masthead: with places to wind them up,
+like fire-plugs.&nbsp; Secondly, the shop where they sell the
+sailors&rsquo; clothing, which displayed the old
+sou&rsquo;-westers, and the old oily suits, and the old
+pea-jackets, and the old one sea-chest, with its handles like a
+pair of rope ear-rings.&nbsp; Thirdly, the unchangeable shop for
+the sale of literature that has been left behind.&nbsp; Here, Dr.
+Faustus was still going down to very red and yellow perdition,
+under the superintendence of three green personages of a scaly
+humour, with excrescential serpents growing out of their
+blade-bones.&nbsp; Here, the Golden Dreamer, and the Norwood
+Fortune Teller, were still on sale at sixpence each, with
+instructions for making the dumb cake, and reading destinies in
+tea-cups, and with a picture of a young woman with a high waist
+lying on a sofa in an attitude so uncomfortable as almost to
+account for her dreaming at one and the same time of a
+conflagration, a shipwreck, an earthquake, a skeleton, a
+church-porch, lightning, funerals performed, and a young man in a
+bright blue coat and canary pantaloons.&nbsp; Here, were Little
+Warblers and Fairburn&rsquo;s Comic Songsters.&nbsp; Here, too,
+were ballads on the old ballad paper and in the old confusion of
+types; with an old man in a cocked hat, and an arm-chair, for the
+illustration to Will Watch the bold Smuggler; and the Friar of
+Orders Grey, represented by a little girl in a hoop, with a ship
+in the distance.&nbsp; All these as of yore, when they were
+infinite delights to me!</p>
+<p>It took me so long fully to relish these many enjoyments, that
+I had not more than an hour before bedtime to devote to Madame
+Roland.&nbsp; We got on admirably together on the subject of her
+convent education, and I rose next morning with the full
+conviction that the day for the great chapter was at last
+arrived.</p>
+<p>It had fallen calm, however, in the night, and as I sat at
+breakfast I blushed to remember that I had not yet been on the
+Downs.&nbsp; I a walker, and not yet on the Downs!&nbsp; Really,
+on so quiet and bright a morning this must be set right.&nbsp; As
+an essential part of the Whole Duty of Man, therefore, I left the
+chapter to itself&mdash;for the present&mdash;and went on the
+Downs.&nbsp; They were wonderfully green and beautiful, and gave
+me a good deal to do.&nbsp; When I had done with the free air and
+the view, I had to go down into the valley and look after the
+hops (which I know nothing about), and to be equally solicitous
+as to the cherry orchards.&nbsp; Then I took it on myself to
+cross-examine a tramping family in black (mother alleged, I have
+no doubt by herself in person, to have died last week), and to
+accompany eighteenpence which produced a great effect, with moral
+admonitions which produced none at all.&nbsp; Finally, it was
+late in the afternoon before I got back to the unprecedented
+chapter, and then I determined that it was out of the season, as
+the place was, and put it away.</p>
+<p>I went at night to the benefit of Mrs. B. Wedgington at the
+Theatre, who had placarded the town with the admonition,
+&lsquo;<span class="smcap">Don&rsquo;t forget
+it</span>!&rsquo;&nbsp; I made the house, according to my
+calculation, four and ninepence to begin with, and it may have
+warmed up, in the course of the evening, to half a
+sovereign.&nbsp; There was nothing to offend any one,&mdash;the
+good Mr. Baines of Leeds excepted.&nbsp; Mrs. B. Wedgington sang
+to a grand piano.&nbsp; Mr. B. Wedgington did the like, and also
+took off his coat, tucked up his trousers, and danced in
+clogs.&nbsp; Master B. Wedgington, aged ten months, was nursed by
+a shivering young person in the boxes, and the eye of Mrs. B.
+Wedgington wandered that way more than once.&nbsp; Peace be with
+all the Wedgingtons from A. to Z.&nbsp; May they find themselves
+in the Season somewhere!</p>
+<h2><a name="page386"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 386</span>A
+POOR MAN&rsquo;S TALE OF A PATENT</h2>
+<p>I <span class="GutSmall">AM</span> not used to writing for
+print.&nbsp; What working-man, that never labours less (some
+Mondays, and Christmas Time and Easter Time excepted) than twelve
+or fourteen hours a day, is?&nbsp; But I have been asked to put
+down, plain, what I have got to say; and so I take pen-and-ink,
+and do it to the best of my power, hoping defects will find
+excuse.</p>
+<p>I was born nigh London, but have worked in a shop at
+Birmingham (what you would call Manufactories, we call Shops),
+almost ever since I was out of my time.&nbsp; I served my
+apprenticeship at Deptford, nigh where I was born, and I am a
+smith by trade.&nbsp; My name is John.&nbsp; I have been called
+&lsquo;Old John&rsquo; ever since I was nineteen year of age, on
+account of not having much hair.&nbsp; I am fifty-six year of age
+at the present time, and I don&rsquo;t find myself with more
+hair, nor yet with less, to signify, than at nineteen year of age
+aforesaid.</p>
+<p>I have been married five and thirty year, come next
+April.&nbsp; I was married on All Fools&rsquo; Day.&nbsp; Let
+them laugh that will.&nbsp; I won a good wife that day, and it
+was as sensible a day to me as ever I had.</p>
+<p>We have had a matter of ten children, six whereof are
+living.&nbsp; My eldest son is engineer in the Italian
+steam-packet &lsquo;Mezzo Giorno, plying between Marseilles and
+Naples, and calling at Genoa, Leghorn, and Civita
+Vecchia.&rsquo;&nbsp; He was a good workman.&nbsp; He invented a
+many useful little things that brought him
+in&mdash;nothing.&nbsp; I have two sons doing well at Sydney, New
+South Wales&mdash;single, when last heard from.&nbsp; One of my
+sons (James) went wild and for a soldier, where he was shot in
+India, living six weeks in hospital with a musket-ball lodged in
+his shoulder-blade, which he wrote with his own hand.&nbsp; He
+was the best looking.&nbsp; One of my two daughters (Mary) is
+comfortable in her circumstances, but water on the chest.&nbsp;
+The other (Charlotte), her husband run away from her in the
+basest manner, and she and her three children live with us.&nbsp;
+The youngest, six year old, has a turn for mechanics.</p>
+<p>I am not a Chartist, and I never was.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t mean
+to say but what I see a good many public points to complain of,
+still I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s the way to set them
+right.&nbsp; If I did think so, I should be a Chartist.&nbsp; But
+I don&rsquo;t think so, and I am not a Chartist.&nbsp; I read the
+paper, and hear discussion, at what we call &lsquo;a
+parlour,&rsquo; in Birmingham, and I know many good men and
+workmen who are Chartists.&nbsp; Note.&nbsp; Not Physical
+force.</p>
+<p>It won&rsquo;t be took as boastful in me, if I make the remark
+(for I can&rsquo;t put down what I have got to say, without
+putting that down before going any further), that I have always
+been of an ingenious turn.&nbsp; I once got twenty pound by a
+screw, and it&rsquo;s in use now.&nbsp; I have been twenty year,
+off and on, completing an Invention and perfecting it.&nbsp; I
+perfected of it, last Christmas Eve at ten o&rsquo;clock at
+night.&nbsp; Me and my wife stood and let some tears fall over
+the Model, when it was done and I brought her in to take a look
+at it.</p>
+<p>A friend of mine, by the name of William Butcher, is a
+Chartist.&nbsp; Moderate.&nbsp; He is a good speaker.&nbsp; He is
+very animated.&nbsp; I have often heard him deliver that what is,
+at every turn, in the way of us working-men, is, that too many
+places have been made, in the course of time, to provide for
+people that never ought to have been provided for; and that we
+have to obey forms and to pay fees to support those places when
+we shouldn&rsquo;t ought.&nbsp; &lsquo;True,&rsquo; (delivers
+William Butcher), &lsquo;all the public has to do this, but it
+falls heaviest on the working-man, because he has least to spare;
+and likewise because impediments shouldn&rsquo;t be put in his
+way, when he wants redress of wrong or furtherance of
+right.&rsquo;&nbsp; Note.&nbsp; I have wrote down those words
+from William Butcher&rsquo;s own mouth.&nbsp; W. B. delivering
+them fresh for the aforesaid purpose.</p>
+<p>Now, to my Model again.&nbsp; There it was, perfected of, on
+Christmas Eve, gone nigh a year, at ten o&rsquo;clock at
+night.&nbsp; All the money I could spare I had laid out upon the
+Model; and when times was bad, or my daughter Charlotte&rsquo;s
+children sickly, or both, it had stood still, months at a
+spell.&nbsp; I had pulled it to pieces, and made it over again
+with improvements, I don&rsquo;t know how often.&nbsp; There it
+stood, at last, a perfected Model as aforesaid.</p>
+<p>William Butcher and me had a long talk, Christmas Day,
+respecting of the Model.&nbsp; William is very sensible.&nbsp;
+But sometimes cranky.&nbsp; William said, &lsquo;What will you do
+with it, John?&rsquo;&nbsp; I said, &lsquo;Patent
+it.&rsquo;&nbsp; William said, &lsquo;How patent it,
+John?&rsquo;&nbsp; I said, &lsquo;By taking out a
+Patent.&rsquo;&nbsp; William then delivered that the law of
+Patent was a cruel wrong.&nbsp; William said, &lsquo;John, if you
+make your invention public, before you get a Patent, any one may
+rob you of the fruits of your hard work.&nbsp; You are put in a
+cleft stick, John.&nbsp; Either you must drive a bargain very
+much against yourself, by getting a party to come forward
+beforehand with the great expenses of the Patent; or, you must be
+put about, from post to pillar, among so many parties, trying to
+make a better bargain for yourself, and showing your invention,
+that your invention will be took from you over your
+head.&rsquo;&nbsp; I said, &lsquo;William Butcher, are you
+cranky?&nbsp; You are sometimes cranky.&rsquo;&nbsp; William
+said, &lsquo;No, John, I tell you the truth;&rsquo; which he then
+delivered more at length.&nbsp; I said to W. B. I would Patent
+the invention myself.</p>
+<p>My wife&rsquo;s brother, George Bury of West Bromwich (his
+wife unfortunately took to drinking, made away with everything,
+and seventeen times committed to Birmingham Jail before happy
+release in every point of view), left my wife, his sister, when
+he died, a legacy of one hundred and twenty-eight pound ten, Bank
+of England Stocks.&nbsp; Me and my wife never broke into that
+money yet.&nbsp; Note.&nbsp; We might come to be old and past our
+work.&nbsp; We now agreed to Patent the invention.&nbsp; We said
+we would make a hole in it&mdash;I mean in the aforesaid
+money&mdash;and Patent the invention.&nbsp; William Butcher wrote
+me a letter to Thomas Joy, in London.&nbsp; T. J. is a carpenter,
+six foot four in height, and plays quoits well.&nbsp; He lives in
+Chelsea, London, by the church.&nbsp; I got leave from the shop,
+to be took on again when I come back.&nbsp; I am a good
+workman.&nbsp; Not a Teetotaller; but never drunk.&nbsp; When the
+Christmas holidays were over, I went up to London by the
+Parliamentary Train, and hired a lodging for a week with Thomas
+Joy.&nbsp; He is married.&nbsp; He has one son gone to sea.</p>
+<p>Thomas Joy delivered (from a book he had) that the first step
+to be took, in Patenting the invention, was to prepare a petition
+unto Queen Victoria.&nbsp; William Butcher had delivered similar,
+and drawn it up.&nbsp; Note.&nbsp; William is a ready
+writer.&nbsp; A declaration before a Master in Chancery was to be
+added to it.&nbsp; That, we likewise drew up.&nbsp; After a deal
+of trouble I found out a Master, in Southampton Buildings,
+Chancery Lane, nigh Temple Bar, where I made the declaration, and
+paid eighteen-pence.&nbsp; I was told to take the declaration and
+petition to the Home Office, in Whitehall, where I left it to be
+signed by the Home Secretary (after I had found the office out),
+and where I paid two pound, two, and sixpence.&nbsp; In six days
+he signed it, and I was told to take it to the
+Attorney-General&rsquo;s chambers, and leave it there for a
+report.&nbsp; I did so, and paid four pound, four.&nbsp;
+Note.&nbsp; Nobody all through, ever thankful for their money,
+but all uncivil.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p388b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"A poor man&rsquo;s tale of a patent"
+title=
+"A poor man&rsquo;s tale of a patent"
+ src="images/p388s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>My lodging at Thomas Joy&rsquo;s was now hired for another
+week, whereof five days were gone.&nbsp; The Attorney-General
+made what they called a Report-of-course (my invention being, as
+William Butcher had delivered before starting, unopposed), and I
+was sent back with it to the Home Office.&nbsp; They made a Copy
+of it, which was called a Warrant.&nbsp; For this warrant, I paid
+seven pound, thirteen, and six.&nbsp; It was sent to the Queen,
+to sign.&nbsp; The Queen sent it back, signed.&nbsp; The Home
+Secretary signed it again.&nbsp; The gentleman throwed it at me
+when I called, and said, &lsquo;Now take it to the Patent Office
+in Lincoln&rsquo;s Inn.&rsquo;&nbsp; I was then in my third week
+at Thomas Joy&rsquo;s living very sparing, on account of
+fees.&nbsp; I found myself losing heart.</p>
+<p>At the Patent Office in Lincoln&rsquo;s Inn, they made
+&lsquo;a draft of the Queen&rsquo;s bill,&rsquo; of my invention,
+and a &lsquo;docket of the bill.&rsquo;&nbsp; I paid five pound,
+ten, and six, for this.&nbsp; They &lsquo;engrossed two copies of
+the bill; one for the Signet Office, and one for the Privy-Seal
+Office.&rsquo;&nbsp; I paid one pound, seven, and six, for
+this.&nbsp; Stamp duty over and above, three pound.&nbsp; The
+Engrossing Clerk of the same office engrossed the Queen&rsquo;s
+bill for signature.&nbsp; I paid him one pound, one.&nbsp;
+Stamp-duty, again, one pound, ten.&nbsp; I was next to take the
+Queen&rsquo;s bill to the Attorney-General again, and get it
+signed again.&nbsp; I took it, and paid five pound more.&nbsp; I
+fetched it away, and took it to the Home Secretary again.&nbsp;
+He sent it to the Queen again.&nbsp; She signed it again.&nbsp; I
+paid seven pound, thirteen, and six, more, for this.&nbsp; I had
+been over a month at Thomas Joy&rsquo;s.&nbsp; I was quite wore
+out, patience and pocket.</p>
+<p>Thomas Joy delivered all this, as it went on, to William
+Butcher.&nbsp; William Butcher delivered it again to three
+Birmingham Parlours, from which it got to all the other Parlours,
+and was took, as I have been told since, right through all the
+shops in the North of England.&nbsp; Note.&nbsp; William Butcher
+delivered, at his Parlour, in a speech, that it was a Patent way
+of making Chartists.</p>
+<p>But I hadn&rsquo;t nigh done yet.&nbsp; The Queen&rsquo;s bill
+was to be took to the Signet Office in Somerset House,
+Strand&mdash;where the stamp shop is.&nbsp; The Clerk of the
+Signet made &lsquo;a Signet bill for the Lord Keeper of the Privy
+Seal.&rsquo;&nbsp; I paid him four pound, seven.&nbsp; The Clerk
+of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal made &lsquo;a Privy-Seal
+bill for the Lord Chancellor.&rsquo;&nbsp; I paid him, four
+pound, two.&nbsp; The Privy-Seal bill was handed over to the
+Clerk of the Patents, who engrossed the aforesaid.&nbsp; I paid
+him five pound, seventeen, and eight; at the same time, I paid
+Stamp-duty for the Patent, in one lump, thirty pound.&nbsp; I
+next paid for &lsquo;boxes for the Patent,&rsquo; nine and
+sixpence.&nbsp; Note.&nbsp; Thomas Joy would have made the same
+at a profit for eighteen-pence.&nbsp; I next paid &lsquo;fees to
+the Deputy, the Lord Chancellor&rsquo;s Purse-bearer,&rsquo; two
+pound, two.&nbsp; I next paid &lsquo;fees to the Clerk of the
+Hanapar,&rsquo; seven pound, thirteen.&nbsp; I next paid
+&lsquo;fees to the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper,&rsquo; ten
+shillings.&nbsp; I next paid, to the Lord Chancellor again, one
+pound, eleven, and six.&nbsp; Last of all, I paid &lsquo;fees to
+the Deputy Sealer, and Deputy Chaff-wax,&rsquo; ten shillings and
+sixpence.&nbsp; I had lodged at Thomas Joy&rsquo;s over six
+weeks, and the unopposed Patent for my invention, for England
+only, had cost me ninety-six pound, seven, and eightpence.&nbsp;
+If I had taken it out for the United Kingdom, it would have cost
+me more than three hundred pound.</p>
+<p>Now, teaching had not come up but very limited when I was
+young.&nbsp; So much the worse for me you&rsquo;ll say.&nbsp; I
+say the same.&nbsp; William Butcher is twenty year younger than
+me.&nbsp; He knows a hundred year more.&nbsp; If William Butcher
+had wanted to Patent an invention, he might have been sharper
+than myself when hustled backwards and forwards among all those
+offices, though I doubt if so patient.&nbsp; Note.&nbsp; William
+being sometimes cranky, and consider porters, messengers, and
+clerks.</p>
+<p>Thereby I say nothing of my being tired of my life, while I
+was Patenting my invention.&nbsp; But I put this: Is it
+reasonable to make a man feel as if, in inventing an ingenious
+improvement meant to do good, he had done something wrong?&nbsp;
+How else can a man feel, when he is met by such difficulties at
+every turn?&nbsp; All inventors taking out a Patent <span
+class="GutSmall">MUST</span> feel so.&nbsp; And look at the
+expense.&nbsp; How hard on me, and how hard on the country if
+there&rsquo;s any merit in me (and my invention is took up now, I
+am thankful to say, and doing well), to put me to all that
+expense before I can move a finger!&nbsp; Make the addition
+yourself, and it&rsquo;ll come to ninety-six pound, seven, and
+eightpence.&nbsp; No more, and no less.</p>
+<p>What can I say against William Butcher, about places?&nbsp;
+Look at the Home Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Patent
+Office, the Engrossing Clerk, the Lord Chancellor, the Privy
+Seal, the Clerk of the Patents, the Lord Chancellor&rsquo;s
+Purse-bearer, the Clerk of the Hanaper, the Deputy Clerk of the
+Hanaper, the Deputy Sealer, and the Deputy Chaff-wax.&nbsp; No
+man in England could get a Patent for an Indian-rubber band, or
+an iron-hoop, without feeing all of them.&nbsp; Some of them,
+over and over again.&nbsp; I went through thirty-five
+stages.&nbsp; I began with the Queen upon the Throne.&nbsp; I
+ended with the Deputy Chaff-wax.&nbsp; Note.&nbsp; I should like
+to see the Deputy Chaff-wax.&nbsp; Is it a man, or what is
+it?</p>
+<p>What I had to tell, I have told.&nbsp; I have wrote it
+down.&nbsp; I hope it&rsquo;s plain.&nbsp; Not so much in the
+handwriting (though nothing to boast of there), as in the sense
+of it.&nbsp; I will now conclude with Thomas Joy.&nbsp; Thomas
+said to me, when we parted, &lsquo;John, if the laws of this
+country were as honest as they ought to be, you would have come
+to London&mdash;registered an exact description and drawing of
+your invention&mdash;paid half-a-crown or so for doing of
+it&mdash;and therein and thereby have got your Patent.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>My opinion is the same as Thomas Joy.&nbsp; Further.&nbsp; In
+William Butcher&rsquo;s delivering &lsquo;that the whole gang of
+Hanapers and Chaff-waxes must be done away with, and that England
+has been chaffed and waxed sufficient,&rsquo; I agree.</p>
+<h2><a name="page391"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 391</span>THE
+NOBLE SAVAGE</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">To</span> come to the point at once, I beg
+to say that I have not the least belief in the Noble
+Savage.&nbsp; I consider him a prodigious nuisance, and an
+enormous superstition.&nbsp; His calling rum fire-water, and me a
+pale face, wholly fail to reconcile me to him.&nbsp; I
+don&rsquo;t care what he calls me.&nbsp; I call him a savage, and
+I call a savage a something highly desirable to be civilised off
+the face of the earth.&nbsp; I think a mere gent (which I take to
+be the lowest form of civilisation) better than a howling,
+whistling, clucking, stamping, jumping, tearing savage.&nbsp; It
+is all one to me, whether he sticks a fish-bone through his
+visage, or bits of trees through the lobes of his ears, or
+bird&rsquo;s feathers in his head; whether he flattens his hair
+between two boards, or spreads his nose over the breadth of his
+face, or drags his lower lip down by great weights, or blackens
+his teeth, or knocks them out, or paints one cheek red and the
+other blue, or tattoos himself, or oils himself, or rubs his body
+with fat, or crimps it with knives.&nbsp; Yielding to whichsoever
+of these agreeable eccentricities, he is a savage&mdash;cruel,
+false, thievish, murderous; addicted more or less to grease,
+entrails, and beastly customs; a wild animal with the
+questionable gift of boasting; a conceited, tiresome,
+bloodthirsty, monotonous humbug.</p>
+<p>Yet it is extraordinary to observe how some people will talk
+about him, as they talk about the good old times; how they will
+regret his disappearance, in the course of this world&rsquo;s
+development, from such and such lands where his absence is a
+blessed relief and an indispensable preparation for the sowing of
+the very first seeds of any influence that can exalt humanity;
+how, even with the evidence of himself before them, they will
+either be determined to believe, or will suffer themselves to be
+persuaded into believing, that he is something which their five
+senses tell them he is not.</p>
+<p>There was Mr. Catlin, some few years ago, with his Ojibbeway
+Indians.&nbsp; Mr. Catlin was an energetic, earnest man, who had
+lived among more tribes of Indians than I need reckon up here,
+and who had written a picturesque and glowing book about
+them.&nbsp; With his party of Indians squatting and spitting on
+the table before him, or dancing their miserable jigs after their
+own dreary manner, he called, in all good faith, upon his
+civilised audience to take notice of their symmetry and grace,
+their perfect limbs, and the exquisite expression of their
+pantomime; and his civilised audience, in all good faith,
+complied and admired.&nbsp; Whereas, as mere animals, they were
+wretched creatures, very low in the scale and very poorly formed;
+and as men and women possessing any power of truthful dramatic
+expression by means of action, they were no better than the
+chorus at an Italian Opera in England&mdash;and would have been
+worse if such a thing were possible.</p>
+<p>Mine are no new views of the noble savage.&nbsp; The greatest
+writers on natural history found him out long ago.&nbsp; <span
+class="smcap">Buffon</span> knew what he was, and showed why he
+is the sulky tyrant that he is to his women, and how it happens
+(Heaven be praised!) that his race is spare in numbers.&nbsp; For
+evidence of the quality of his moral nature, pass himself for a
+moment and refer to his &lsquo;faithful dog.&rsquo;&nbsp; Has he
+ever improved a dog, or attached a dog, since his nobility first
+ran wild in woods, and was brought down (at a very long shot) by
+<span class="smcap">Pope</span>?&nbsp; Or does the animal that is
+the friend of man, always degenerate in his low society?</p>
+<p>It is not the miserable nature of the noble savage that is the
+new thing; it is the whimpering over him with maudlin admiration,
+and the affecting to regret him, and the drawing of any
+comparison of advantage between the blemishes of civilisation and
+the tenor of his swinish life.&nbsp; There may have been a change
+now and then in those diseased absurdities, but there is none in
+him.</p>
+<p>Think of the Bushmen.&nbsp; Think of the two men and the two
+women who have been exhibited about England for some years.&nbsp;
+Are the majority of persons&mdash;who remember the horrid little
+leader of that party in his festering bundle of hides, with his
+filth and his antipathy to water, and his straddled legs, and his
+odious eyes shaded by his brutal hand, and his cry of
+&lsquo;Qu-u-u-u-aaa!&rsquo; (Bosjesman for something desperately
+insulting I have no doubt)&mdash;conscious of an affectionate
+yearning towards that noble savage, or is it idiosyncratic in me
+to abhor, detest, abominate, and abjure him?&nbsp; I have no
+reserve on this subject, and will frankly state that, setting
+aside that stage of the entertainment when he counterfeited the
+death of some creature he had shot, by laying his head on his
+hand and shaking his left leg&mdash;at which time I think it
+would have been justifiable homicide to slay him&mdash;I have
+never seen that group sleeping, smoking, and expectorating round
+their brazier, but I have sincerely desired that something might
+happen to the charcoal smouldering therein, which would cause the
+immediate suffocation of the whole of the noble strangers.</p>
+<p>There is at present a party of Zulu Kaffirs exhibiting at the
+St. George&rsquo;s Gallery, Hyde Park Corner, London.&nbsp; These
+noble savages are represented in a most agreeable manner; they
+are seen in an elegant theatre, fitted with appropriate scenery
+of great beauty, and they are described in a very sensible and
+unpretending lecture, delivered with a modesty which is quite a
+pattern to all similar exponents.&nbsp; Though extremely ugly,
+they are much better shaped than such of their predecessors as I
+have referred to; and they are rather picturesque to the eye,
+though far from odoriferous to the nose.&nbsp; What a visitor
+left to his own interpretings and imaginings might suppose these
+noblemen to be about, when they give vent to that pantomimic
+expression which is quite settled to be the natural gift of the
+noble savage, I cannot possibly conceive; for it is so much too
+luminous for my personal civilisation that it conveys no idea to
+my mind beyond a general stamping, ramping, and raving,
+remarkable (as everything in savage life is) for its dire
+uniformity.&nbsp; But let us&mdash;with the interpreter&rsquo;s
+assistance, of which I for one stand so much in need&mdash;see
+what the noble savage does in Zulu Kaffirland.</p>
+<p>The noble savage sets a king to reign over him, to whom he
+submits his life and limbs without a murmur or question, and
+whose whole life is passed chin deep in a lake of blood; but who,
+after killing incessantly, is in his turn killed by his relations
+and friends, the moment a grey hair appears on his head.&nbsp;
+All the noble savage&rsquo;s wars with his fellow-savages (and he
+takes no pleasure in anything else) are wars of
+extermination&mdash;which is the best thing I know of him, and
+the most comfortable to my mind when I look at him.&nbsp; He has
+no moral feelings of any kind, sort, or description; and his
+&lsquo;mission&rsquo; may be summed up as simply diabolical.</p>
+<p>The ceremonies with which he faintly diversifies his life are,
+of course, of a kindred nature.&nbsp; If he wants a wife he
+appears before the kennel of the gentleman whom he has selected
+for his father-in-law, attended by a party of male friends of a
+very strong flavour, who screech and whistle and stamp an offer
+of so many cows for the young lady&rsquo;s hand.&nbsp; The chosen
+father-in-law&mdash;also supported by a high-flavoured party of
+male friends&mdash;screeches, whistles, and yells (being seated
+on the ground, he can&rsquo;t stamp) that there never was such a
+daughter in the market as his daughter, and that he must have six
+more cows.&nbsp; The son-in-law and his select circle of backers
+screech, whistle, stamp, and yell in reply, that they will give
+three more cows.&nbsp; The father-in-law (an old deluder,
+overpaid at the beginning) accepts four, and rises to bind the
+bargain.&nbsp; The whole party, the young lady included, then
+falling into epileptic convulsions, and screeching, whistling,
+stamping, and yelling together&mdash;and nobody taking any notice
+of the young lady (whose charms are not to be thought of without
+a shudder)&mdash;the noble savage is considered married, and his
+friends make demoniacal leaps at him by way of
+congratulation.</p>
+<p>When the noble savage finds himself a little unwell, and
+mentions the circumstance to his friends, it is immediately
+perceived that he is under the influence of witchcraft.&nbsp; A
+learned personage, called an Imyanger or Witch Doctor, is
+immediately sent for to Nooker the Umtargartie, or smell out the
+witch.&nbsp; The male inhabitants of the kraal being seated on
+the ground, the learned doctor, got up like a grizzly bear,
+appears, and administers a dance of a most terrific nature,
+during the exhibition of which remedy he incessantly gnashes his
+teeth, and howls:&mdash;&lsquo;I am the original physician to
+Nooker the Umtargartie.&nbsp; Yow yow yow!&nbsp; No connexion
+with any other establishment.&nbsp; Till till till!&nbsp; All
+other Umtargarties are feigned Umtargarties, Boroo Boroo! but I
+perceive here a genuine and real Umtargartie, Hoosh Hoosh Hoosh!
+in whose blood I, the original Imyanger and Nookerer, Blizzerum
+Boo! will wash these bear&rsquo;s claws of mine.&nbsp; O yow yow
+yow!&rsquo;&nbsp; All this time the learned physician is looking
+out among the attentive faces for some unfortunate man who owes
+him a cow, or who has given him any small offence, or against
+whom, without offence, he has conceived a spite.&nbsp; Him he
+never fails to Nooker as the Umtargartie, and he is instantly
+killed.&nbsp; In the absence of such an individual, the usual
+practice is to Nooker the quietest and most gentlemanly person in
+company.&nbsp; But the nookering is invariably followed on the
+spot by the butchering.</p>
+<p>Some of the noble savages in whom Mr. Catlin was so strongly
+interested, and the diminution of whose numbers, by rum and
+smallpox, greatly affected him, had a custom not unlike this,
+though much more appalling and disgusting in its odious
+details.</p>
+<p>The women being at work in the fields, hoeing the Indian corn,
+and the noble savage being asleep in the shade, the chief has
+sometimes the condescension to come forth, and lighten the labour
+by looking at it.&nbsp; On these occasions, he seats himself in
+his own savage chair, and is attended by his shield-bearer: who
+holds over his head a shield of cowhide&mdash;in shape like an
+immense mussel shell&mdash;fearfully and wonderfully, after the
+manner of a theatrical supernumerary.&nbsp; But lest the great
+man should forget his greatness in the contemplation of the
+humble works of agriculture, there suddenly rushes in a poet,
+retained for the purpose, called a Praiser.&nbsp; This literary
+gentleman wears a leopard&rsquo;s head over his own, and a dress
+of tigers&rsquo; tails; he has the appearance of having come
+express on his hind legs from the Zoological Gardens; and he
+incontinently strikes up the chief&rsquo;s praises, plunging and
+tearing all the while.&nbsp; There is a frantic wickedness in
+this brute&rsquo;s manner of worrying the air, and gnashing out,
+&lsquo;O what a delightful chief he is!&nbsp; O what a delicious
+quantity of blood he sheds!&nbsp; O how majestically he laps it
+up!&nbsp; O how charmingly cruel he is!&nbsp; O how he tears the
+flesh of his enemies and crunches the bones!&nbsp; O how like the
+tiger and the leopard and the wolf and the bear he is!&nbsp; O,
+row row row row, how fond I am of him!&rsquo; which might tempt
+the Society of Friends to charge at a hand-gallop into the
+Swartz-Kop location and exterminate the whole kraal.</p>
+<p>When war is afoot among the noble savages&mdash;which is
+always&mdash;the chief holds a council to ascertain whether it is
+the opinion of his brothers and friends in general that the enemy
+shall be exterminated.&nbsp; On this occasion, after the
+performance of an Umsebeuza, or war song,&mdash;which is exactly
+like all the other songs,&mdash;the chief makes a speech to his
+brothers and friends, arranged in single file.&nbsp; No
+particular order is observed during the delivery of this address,
+but every gentleman who finds himself excited by the subject,
+instead of crying &lsquo;Hear, hear!&rsquo; as is the custom with
+us, darts from the rank and tramples out the life, or crushes the
+skull, or mashes the face, or scoops out the eyes, or breaks the
+limbs, or performs a whirlwind of atrocities on the body, of an
+imaginary enemy.&nbsp; Several gentlemen becoming thus excited at
+once, and pounding away without the least regard to the orator,
+that illustrious person is rather in the position of an orator in
+an Irish House of Commons.&nbsp; But, several of these scenes of
+savage life bear a strong generic resemblance to an Irish
+election, and I think would be extremely well received and
+understood at Cork.</p>
+<p>In all these ceremonies the noble savage holds forth to the
+utmost possible extent about himself; from which (to turn him to
+some civilised account) we may learn, I think, that as egotism is
+one of the most offensive and contemptible littlenesses a
+civilised man can exhibit, so it is really incompatible with the
+interchange of ideas; inasmuch as if we all talked about
+ourselves we should soon have no listeners, and must be all
+yelling and screeching at once on our own separate accounts:
+making society hideous.&nbsp; It is my opinion that if we
+retained in us anything of the noble savage, we could not get rid
+of it too soon.&nbsp; But the fact is clearly otherwise.&nbsp;
+Upon the wife and dowry question, substituting coin for cows, we
+have assuredly nothing of the Zulu Kaffir left.&nbsp; The
+endurance of despotism is one great distinguishing mark of a
+savage always.&nbsp; The improving world has quite got the better
+of that too.&nbsp; In like manner, Paris is a civilised city, and
+the Th&eacute;&acirc;tre Fran&ccedil;ais a highly civilised
+theatre; and we shall never hear, and never have heard in these
+later days (of course) of the Praiser there.&nbsp; No, no,
+civilised poets have better work to do.&nbsp; As to Nookering
+Umtargarties, there are no pretended Umtargarties in Europe, and
+no European powers to Nooker them; that would be mere spydom,
+subordination, small malice, superstition, and false
+pretence.&nbsp; And as to private Umtargarties, are we not in the
+year eighteen hundred and fifty-three, with spirits rapping at
+our doors?</p>
+<p>To conclude as I began.&nbsp; My position is, that if we have
+anything to learn from the Noble Savage, it is what to
+avoid.&nbsp; His virtues are a fable; his happiness is a
+delusion; his nobility, nonsense.</p>
+<p>We have no greater justification for being cruel to the
+miserable object, than for being cruel to a <span
+class="smcap">William Shakespeare</span> or an <span
+class="smcap">Isaac Newton</span>; but he passes away before an
+immeasurably better and higher power than ever ran wild in any
+earthly woods, and the world will be all the better when his
+place knows him no more.</p>
+<h2><a name="page397"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 397</span>A
+FLIGHT</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Don Diego de&mdash;I forget
+his name&mdash;the inventor of the last new Flying Machines,
+price so many francs for ladies, so many more for
+gentlemen&mdash;when Don Diego, by permission of Deputy Chaff-wax
+and his noble band, shall have taken out a Patent for the
+Queen&rsquo;s dominions, and shall have opened a commodious
+Warehouse in an airy situation; and when all persons of any
+gentility will keep at least a pair of wings, and be seen
+skimming about in every direction; I shall take a flight to Paris
+(as I soar round the world) in a cheap and independent
+manner.&nbsp; At present, my reliance is on the South-Eastern
+Railway Company, in whose Express Train here I sit, at eight of
+the clock on a very hot morning, under the very hot roof of the
+Terminus at London Bridge, in danger of being
+&lsquo;forced&rsquo; like a cucumber or a melon, or a
+pine-apple.&nbsp; And talking of pine-apples, I suppose there
+never were so many pine-apples in a Train as there appear to be
+in this Train.</p>
+<p>Whew!&nbsp; The hot-house air is faint with pine-apples.&nbsp;
+Every French citizen or citizeness is carrying pine-apples
+home.&nbsp; The compact little Enchantress in the corner of my
+carriage (French actress, to whom I yielded up my heart under the
+auspices of that brave child, &lsquo;<span
+class="smcap">Meat-chell</span>,&rsquo; at the St. James&rsquo;s
+Theatre the night before last) has a pine-apple in her lap.&nbsp;
+Compact Enchantress&rsquo;s friend, confidante, mother, mystery,
+Heaven knows what, has two pine-apples in her lap, and a bundle
+of them under the seat.&nbsp; Tobacco-smoky Frenchman in Algerine
+wrapper, with peaked hood behind, who might be Abd-el-Kader dyed
+rifle-green, and who seems to be dressed entirely in dirt and
+braid, carries pine-apples in a covered basket.&nbsp; Tall,
+grave, melancholy Frenchman, with black Vandyke beard, and hair
+close-cropped, with expansive chest to waistcoat, and compressive
+waist to coat: saturnine as to his pantaloons, calm as to his
+feminine boots, precious as to his jewellery, smooth and white as
+to his linen: dark-eyed, high-foreheaded, hawk-nosed&mdash;got
+up, one thinks, like Lucifer or Mephistopheles, or Zamiel,
+transformed into a highly genteel Parisian&mdash;has the green
+end of a pine-apple sticking out of his neat valise.</p>
+<p>Whew!&nbsp; If I were to be kept here long, under this
+forcing-frame, I wonder what would become of me&mdash;whether I
+should be forced into a giant, or should sprout or blow into some
+other phenomenon!&nbsp; Compact Enchantress is not ruffled by the
+heat&mdash;she is always composed, always compact.&nbsp; O look
+at her little ribbons, frills, and edges, at her shawl, at her
+gloves, at her hair, at her bracelets, at her bonnet, at
+everything about her!&nbsp; How is it accomplished?&nbsp; What
+does she do to be so neat?&nbsp; How is it that every trifle she
+wears belongs to her, and cannot choose but be a part of
+her?&nbsp; And even Mystery, look at <i>her</i>!&nbsp; A
+model.&nbsp; Mystery is not young, not pretty, though still of an
+average candle-light passability; but she does such miracles in
+her own behalf, that, one of these days, when she dies,
+they&rsquo;ll be amazed to find an old woman in her bed,
+distantly like her.&nbsp; She was an actress once, I
+shouldn&rsquo;t wonder, and had a Mystery attendant on
+herself.&nbsp; Perhaps, Compact Enchantress will live to be a
+Mystery, and to wait with a shawl at the side-scenes, and to sit
+opposite to Mademoiselle in railway carriages, and smile and talk
+subserviently, as Mystery does now.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s hard to
+believe!</p>
+<p>Two Englishmen, and now our carriage is full.&nbsp; First
+Englishman, in the monied interest&mdash;flushed, highly
+respectable&mdash;Stock Exchange, perhaps&mdash;City,
+certainly.&nbsp; Faculties of second Englishman entirely absorbed
+in hurry.&nbsp; Plunges into the carriage, blind.&nbsp; Calls out
+of window concerning his luggage, deaf.&nbsp; Suffocates himself
+under pillows of great-coats, for no reason, and in a demented
+manner.&nbsp; Will receive no assurance from any porter
+whatsoever.&nbsp; Is stout and hot, and wipes his head, and makes
+himself hotter by breathing so hard.&nbsp; Is totally incredulous
+respecting assurance of Collected Guard, that
+&lsquo;there&rsquo;s no hurry.&rsquo;&nbsp; No hurry!&nbsp; And a
+flight to Paris in eleven hours!</p>
+<p>It is all one to me in this drowsy corner, hurry or no
+hurry.&nbsp; Until Don Diego shall send home my wings, my flight
+is with the South-Eastern Company.&nbsp; I can fly with the
+South-Eastern, more lazily, at all events, than in the upper
+air.&nbsp; I have but to sit here thinking as idly as I please,
+and be whisked away.&nbsp; I am not accountable to anybody for
+the idleness of my thoughts in such an idle summer flight; my
+flight is provided for by the South-Eastern and is no business of
+mine.</p>
+<p>The bell!&nbsp; With all my heart.&nbsp; It does not require
+me to do so much as even to flap my wings.&nbsp; Something snorts
+for me, something shrieks for me, something proclaims to
+everything else that it had better keep out of my way,&mdash;and
+away I go.</p>
+<p>Ah!&nbsp; The fresh air is pleasant after the forcing-frame,
+though it does blow over these interminable streets, and scatter
+the smoke of this vast wilderness of chimneys.&nbsp; Here we
+are&mdash;no, I mean there we were, for it has darted far into
+the rear&mdash;in Bermondsey where the tanners live.&nbsp;
+Flash!&nbsp; The distant shipping in the Thames is gone.&nbsp;
+Whirr!&nbsp; The little streets of new brick and red tile, with
+here and there a flagstaff growing like a tall weed out of the
+scarlet beans, and, everywhere, plenty of open sewer and ditch
+for the promotion of the public health, have been fired off in a
+volley.&nbsp; Whizz!&nbsp; Dust-heaps, market-gardens, and waste
+grounds.&nbsp; Rattle!&nbsp; New Cross Station.&nbsp;
+Shock!&nbsp; There we were at Croydon.&nbsp; Bur-r-r-r!&nbsp; The
+tunnel.</p>
+<p>I wonder why it is that when I shut my eyes in a tunnel I
+begin to feel as if I were going at an Express pace the other
+way.&nbsp; I am clearly going back to London now.&nbsp; Compact
+Enchantress must have forgotten something, and reversed the
+engine.&nbsp; No!&nbsp; After long darkness, pale fitful streaks
+of light appear.&nbsp; I am still flying on for Folkestone.&nbsp;
+The streaks grow stronger&mdash;become continuous&mdash;become
+the ghost of day&mdash;become the living day&mdash;became I
+mean&mdash;the tunnel is miles and miles away, and here I fly
+through sunlight, all among the harvest and the Kentish hops.</p>
+<p>There is a dreamy pleasure in this flying.&nbsp; I wonder
+where it was, and when it was, that we exploded, blew into space
+somehow, a Parliamentary Train, with a crowd of heads and faces
+looking at us out of cages, and some hats waving.&nbsp; Monied
+Interest says it was at Reigate Station.&nbsp; Expounds to
+Mystery how Reigate Station is so many miles from London, which
+Mystery again develops to Compact Enchantress.&nbsp; There might
+be neither a Reigate nor a London for me, as I fly away among the
+Kentish hops and harvest.&nbsp; What do <i>I</i> care?</p>
+<p>Bang!&nbsp; We have let another Station off, and fly away
+regardless.&nbsp; Everything is flying.&nbsp; The hop-gardens
+turn gracefully towards me, presenting regular avenues of hops in
+rapid flight, then whirl away.&nbsp; So do the pools and rushes,
+haystacks, sheep, clover in full bloom delicious to the sight and
+smell, corn-sheaves, cherry-orchards, apple-orchards, reapers,
+gleaners, hedges, gates, fields that taper off into little
+angular corners, cottages, gardens, now and then a church.&nbsp;
+Bang, bang!&nbsp; A double-barrelled Station!&nbsp; Now a wood,
+now a bridge, now a landscape, now a cutting, now a&mdash;Bang! a
+single-barrelled Station&mdash;there was a cricket-match
+somewhere with two white tents, and then four flying cows, then
+turnips&mdash;now the wires of the electric telegraph are all
+alive, and spin, and blurr their edges, and go up and down, and
+make the intervals between each other most irregular: contracting
+and expanding in the strangest manner.&nbsp; Now we
+slacken.&nbsp; With a screwing, and a grinding, and a smell of
+water thrown on ashes, now we stop!</p>
+<p>Demented Traveller, who has been for two or three minutes
+watchful, clutches his great-coats, plunges at the door, rattles
+it, cries &lsquo;Hi!&rsquo; eager to embark on board of
+impossible packets, far inland.&nbsp; Collected Guard
+appears.&nbsp; &lsquo;Are you for Tunbridge, sir?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Tunbridge?&nbsp; No.&nbsp; Paris.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Plenty of time, sir.&nbsp; No hurry.&nbsp; Five minutes
+here, sir, for refreshment.&rsquo;&nbsp; I am so blest
+(anticipating Zamiel, by half a second) as to procure a glass of
+water for Compact Enchantress.</p>
+<p>Who would suppose we had been flying at such a rate, and shall
+take wing again directly?&nbsp; Refreshment-room full, platform
+full, porter with watering-pot deliberately cooling a hot wheel,
+another porter with equal deliberation helping the rest of the
+wheels bountifully to ice cream.&nbsp; Monied Interest and I
+re-entering the carriage first, and being there alone, he
+intimates to me that the French are &lsquo;no go&rsquo; as a
+Nation.&nbsp; I ask why?&nbsp; He says, that Reign of Terror of
+theirs was quite enough.&nbsp; I ventured to inquire whether he
+remembers anything that preceded said Reign of Terror?&nbsp; He
+says not particularly.&nbsp; &lsquo;Because,&rsquo; I remark,
+&lsquo;the harvest that is reaped, has sometimes been
+sown.&rsquo;&nbsp; Monied Interest repeats, as quite enough for
+him, that the French are revolutionary,&mdash;&lsquo;and always
+at it.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Bell.&nbsp; Compact Enchantress, helped in by Zamiel (whom the
+stars confound!), gives us her charming little side-box look, and
+smites me to the core.&nbsp; Mystery eating sponge-cake.&nbsp;
+Pine-apple atmosphere faintly tinged with suspicions of
+sherry.&nbsp; Demented Traveller flits past the carriage, looking
+for it.&nbsp; Is blind with agitation, and can&rsquo;t see
+it.&nbsp; Seems singled out by Destiny to be the only unhappy
+creature in the flight, who has any cause to hurry himself.&nbsp;
+Is nearly left behind.&nbsp; Is seized by Collected Guard after
+the Train is in motion, and bundled in.&nbsp; Still, has
+lingering suspicions that there must be a boat in the
+neighbourhood, and will look wildly out of window for it.</p>
+<p>Flight resumed.&nbsp; Corn-sheaves, hop-gardens, reapers,
+gleaners, apple-orchards, cherry-orchards, Stations single and
+double-barrelled, Ashford.&nbsp; Compact Enchantress (constantly
+talking to Mystery, in an exquisite manner) gives a little
+scream; a sound that seems to come from high up in her precious
+little head; from behind her bright little eyebrows.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Great Heaven, my pine-apple!&nbsp; My Angel!&nbsp; It is
+lost!&rsquo;&nbsp; Mystery is desolated.&nbsp; A search
+made.&nbsp; It is not lost.&nbsp; Zamiel finds it.&nbsp; I curse
+him (flying) in the Persian manner.&nbsp; May his face be turned
+upside down, and jackasses sit upon his uncle&rsquo;s grave!</p>
+<p>Now fresher air, now glimpses of unenclosed Down-land with
+flapping crows flying over it whom we soon outfly, now the Sea,
+now Folkestone at a quarter after ten.&nbsp; &lsquo;Tickets
+ready, gentlemen!&rsquo;&nbsp; Demented dashes at the door.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;For Paris, sir?&nbsp; No hurry.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Not the least.&nbsp; We are dropped slowly down to the Port,
+and sidle to and fro (the whole Train) before the insensible
+Royal George Hotel, for some ten minutes.&nbsp; The Royal George
+takes no more heed of us than its namesake under water at
+Spithead, or under earth at Windsor, does.&nbsp; The Royal
+George&rsquo;s dog lies winking and blinking at us, without
+taking the trouble to sit up; and the Royal George&rsquo;s
+&lsquo;wedding party&rsquo; at the open window (who seem, I must
+say, rather tired of bliss) don&rsquo;t bestow a solitary glance
+upon us, flying thus to Paris in eleven hours.&nbsp; The first
+gentleman in Folkestone is evidently used up, on this
+subject.</p>
+<p>Meanwhile, Demented chafes.&nbsp; Conceives that every
+man&rsquo;s hand is against him, and exerting itself to prevent
+his getting to Paris.&nbsp; Refuses consolation.&nbsp; Rattles
+door.&nbsp; Sees smoke on the horizon, and &lsquo;knows&rsquo;
+it&rsquo;s the boat gone without him.&nbsp; Monied Interest
+resentfully explains that <i>he</i> is going to Paris too.&nbsp;
+Demented signifies, that if Monied Interest chooses to be left
+behind, he don&rsquo;t.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Refreshments in the Waiting-Room, ladies and
+gentlemen.&nbsp; No hurry, ladies and gentlemen, for Paris.&nbsp;
+No hurry whatever!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Twenty minutes&rsquo; pause, by Folkestone clock, for looking
+at Enchantress while she eats a sandwich, and at Mystery while
+she eats of everything there that is eatable, from pork-pie,
+sausage, jam, and gooseberries, to lumps of sugar.&nbsp; All this
+time, there is a very waterfall of luggage, with a spray of dust,
+tumbling slantwise from the pier into the steamboat.&nbsp; All
+this time, Demented (who has no business with it) watches it with
+starting eyes, fiercely requiring to be shown his luggage.&nbsp;
+When it at last concludes the cataract, he rushes hotly to
+refresh&mdash;is shouted after, pursued, jostled, brought back,
+pitched into the departing steamer upside down, and caught by
+mariners disgracefully.</p>
+<p>A lovely harvest-day, a cloudless sky, a tranquil sea.&nbsp;
+The piston-rods of the engines so regularly coming up from below,
+to look (as well they may) at the bright weather, and so
+regularly almost knocking their iron heads against the cross beam
+of the skylight, and never doing it!&nbsp; Another Parisian
+actress is on board, attended by another Mystery.&nbsp; Compact
+Enchantress greets her sister artist&mdash;Oh, the Compact
+One&rsquo;s pretty teeth!&mdash;and Mystery greets Mystery.&nbsp;
+<i>My</i> Mystery soon ceases to be conversational&mdash;is taken
+poorly, in a word, having lunched too miscellaneously&mdash;and
+goes below.&nbsp; The remaining Mystery then smiles upon the
+sister artists (who, I am afraid, wouldn&rsquo;t greatly mind
+stabbing each other), and is upon the whole ravished.</p>
+<p>And now I find that all the French people on board begin to
+grow, and all the English people to shrink.&nbsp; The French are
+nearing home, and shaking off a disadvantage, whereas we are
+shaking it on.&nbsp; Zamiel is the same man, and Abd-el-Kader is
+the same man, but each seems to come into possession of an
+indescribable confidence that departs from us&mdash;from Monied
+Interest, for instance, and from me.&nbsp; Just what they gain,
+we lose.&nbsp; Certain British &lsquo;Gents&rsquo; about the
+steersman, intellectually nurtured at home on parody of
+everything and truth of nothing, become subdued, and in a manner
+forlorn; and when the steersman tells them (not exultingly) how
+he has &lsquo;been upon this station now eight year, and never
+see the old town of Bullum yet,&rsquo; one of them, with an
+imbecile reliance on a reed, asks him what he considers to be the
+best hotel in Paris?</p>
+<p>Now, I tread upon French ground, and am greeted by the three
+charming words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, painted up (in
+letters a little too thin for their height) on the Custom-house
+wall&mdash;also by the sight of large cocked hats, without which
+demonstrative head-gear nothing of a public nature can be done
+upon this soil.&nbsp; All the rabid Hotel population of Boulogne
+howl and shriek outside a distant barrier, frantic to get at
+us.&nbsp; Demented, by some unlucky means peculiar to himself, is
+delivered over to their fury, and is presently seen struggling in
+a whirlpool of Touters&mdash;is somehow understood to be going to
+Paris&mdash;is, with infinite noise, rescued by two cocked hats,
+and brought into Custom-house bondage with the rest of us.</p>
+<p>Here, I resign the active duties of life to an eager being, of
+preternatural sharpness, with a shelving forehead and a shabby
+snuff-coloured coat, who (from the wharf) brought me down with
+his eye before the boat came into port.&nbsp; He darts upon my
+luggage, on the floor where all the luggage is strewn like a
+wreck at the bottom of the great deep; gets it proclaimed and
+weighed as the property of &lsquo;Monsieur a traveller
+unknown;&rsquo; pays certain francs for it, to a certain
+functionary behind a Pigeon Hole, like a pay-box at a Theatre
+(the arrangements in general are on a wholesale scale, half
+military and half theatrical); and I suppose I shall find it when
+I come to Paris&mdash;he says I shall.&nbsp; I know nothing about
+it, except that I pay him his small fee, and pocket the ticket he
+gives me, and sit upon a counter, involved in the general
+distraction.</p>
+<p>Railway station.&nbsp; &lsquo;Lunch or dinner, ladies and
+gentlemen.&nbsp; Plenty of time for Paris.&nbsp; Plenty of
+time!&rsquo;&nbsp; Large hall, long counter, long strips of
+dining-table, bottles of wine, plates of meat, roast chickens,
+little loaves of bread, basins of soup, little caraffes of
+brandy, cakes, and fruit.&nbsp; Comfortably restored from these
+resources, I begin to fly again.</p>
+<p>I saw Zamiel (before I took wing) presented to Compact
+Enchantress and Sister Artist, by an officer in uniform, with a
+waist like a wasp&rsquo;s, and pantaloons like two
+balloons.&nbsp; They all got into the next carriage together,
+accompanied by the two Mysteries.&nbsp; They laughed.&nbsp; I am
+alone in the carriage (for I don&rsquo;t consider Demented
+anybody) and alone in the world.</p>
+<p>Fields, windmills, low grounds, pollard-trees, windmills,
+fields, fortifications, Abbeville, soldiering and drumming.&nbsp;
+I wonder where England is, and when I was there last&mdash;about
+two years ago, I should say.&nbsp; Flying in and out among these
+trenches and batteries, skimming the clattering drawbridges,
+looking down into the stagnant ditches, I become a prisoner of
+state, escaping.&nbsp; I am confined with a comrade in a
+fortress.&nbsp; Our room is in an upper story.&nbsp; We have
+tried to get up the chimney, but there&rsquo;s an iron grating
+across it, imbedded in the masonry.&nbsp; After months of labour,
+we have worked the grating loose with the poker, and can lift it
+up.&nbsp; We have also made a hook, and twisted our rugs and
+blankets into ropes.&nbsp; Our plan is, to go up the chimney,
+hook our ropes to the top, descend hand over hand upon the roof
+of the guard-house far below, shake the hook loose, watch the
+opportunity of the sentinels pacing away, hook again, drop into
+the ditch, swim across it, creep into the shelter of the
+wood.&nbsp; The time is come&mdash;a wild and stormy night.&nbsp;
+We are up the chimney, we are on the guard-house roof, we are
+swimming in the murky ditch, when lo!&nbsp; &lsquo;Qui
+v&rsquo;l&agrave;?&rsquo; a bugle, the alarm, a crash!&nbsp; What
+is it?&nbsp; Death?&nbsp; No, Amiens.</p>
+<p>More fortifications, more soldiering and drumming, more basins
+of soup, more little loaves of bread, more bottles of wine, more
+caraffes of brandy, more time for refreshment.&nbsp; Everything
+good, and everything ready.&nbsp; Bright, unsubstantial-looking,
+scenic sort of station.&nbsp; People waiting.&nbsp; Houses,
+uniforms, beards, moustaches, some sabots, plenty of neat women,
+and a few old-visaged children.&nbsp; Unless it be a delusion
+born of my giddy flight, the grown-up people and the children
+seem to change places in France.&nbsp; In general, the boys and
+girls are little old men and women, and the men and women lively
+boys and girls.</p>
+<p>Bugle, shriek, flight resumed.&nbsp; Monied Interest has come
+into my carriage.&nbsp; Says the manner of refreshing is
+&lsquo;not bad,&rsquo; but considers it French.&nbsp; Admits
+great dexterity and politeness in the attendants.&nbsp; Thinks a
+decimal currency may have something to do with their despatch in
+settling accounts, and don&rsquo;t know but what it&rsquo;s
+sensible and convenient.&nbsp; Adds, however, as a general
+protest, that they&rsquo;re a revolutionary people&mdash;and
+always at it.</p>
+<p>Ramparts, canals, cathedral, river, soldiering and drumming,
+open country, river, earthenware manufactures, Creil.&nbsp; Again
+ten minutes.&nbsp; Not even Demented in a hurry.&nbsp; Station, a
+drawing-room with a verandah: like a planter&rsquo;s house.&nbsp;
+Monied Interest considers it a band-box, and not made to
+last.&nbsp; Little round tables in it, at one of which the Sister
+Artists and attendant Mysteries are established with Wasp and
+Zamiel, as if they were going to stay a week.</p>
+<p>Anon, with no more trouble than before, I am flying again, and
+lazily wondering as I fly.&nbsp; What has the South-Eastern done
+with all the horrible little villages we used to pass through, in
+the <i>Diligence</i>?&nbsp; What have they done with all the
+summer dust, with all the winter mud, with all the dreary avenues
+of little trees, with all the ramshackle postyards, with all the
+beggars (who used to turn out at night with bits of lighted
+candle, to look in at the coach windows), with all the
+long-tailed horses who were always biting one another, with all
+the big postilions in jack-boots&mdash;with all the mouldy
+caf&eacute;s that we used to stop at, where a long mildewed
+table-cloth, set forth with jovial bottles of vinegar and oil,
+and with a Siamese arrangement of pepper and salt, was never
+wanting?&nbsp; Where are the grass-grown little towns, the
+wonderful little market-places all unconscious of markets, the
+shops that nobody kept, the streets that nobody trod, the
+churches that nobody went to, the bells that nobody rang, the
+tumble-down old buildings plastered with many-coloured bills that
+nobody read?&nbsp; Where are the two-and-twenty weary hours of
+long, long day and night journey, sure to be either insupportably
+hot or insupportably cold?&nbsp; Where are the pains in my bones,
+where are the fidgets in my legs, where is the Frenchman with the
+nightcap who never <i>would</i> have the little
+coup&eacute;-window down, and who always fell upon me when he
+went to sleep, and always slept all night snoring onions?</p>
+<p>A voice breaks in with &lsquo;Paris!&nbsp; Here we
+are!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I have overflown myself, perhaps, but I can&rsquo;t believe
+it.&nbsp; I feel as if I were enchanted or bewitched.&nbsp; It is
+barely eight o&rsquo;clock yet&mdash;it is nothing like
+half-past&mdash;when I have had my luggage examined at that
+briskest of Custom-houses attached to the station, and am
+rattling over the pavement in a hackney-cabriolet.</p>
+<p>Surely, not the pavement of Paris?&nbsp; Yes, I think it is,
+too.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know any other place where there are all
+these high houses, all these haggard-looking wine shops, all
+these billiard tables, all these stocking-makers with flat red or
+yellow legs of wood for signboard, all these fuel shops with
+stacks of billets painted outside, and real billets sawing in the
+gutter, all these dirty corners of streets, all these cabinet
+pictures over dark doorways representing discreet matrons nursing
+babies.&nbsp; And yet this morning&mdash;I&rsquo;ll think of it
+in a warm-bath.</p>
+<p>Very like a small room that I remember in the Chinese baths
+upon the Boulevard, certainly; and, though I see it through the
+steam, I think that I might swear to that peculiar hot-linen
+basket, like a large wicker hour-glass.&nbsp; When can it have
+been that I left home?&nbsp; When was it that I paid
+&lsquo;through to Paris&rsquo; at London Bridge, and discharged
+myself of all responsibility, except the preservation of a
+voucher ruled into three divisions, of which the first was
+snipped off at Folkestone, the second aboard the boat, and the
+third taken at my journey&rsquo;s end?&nbsp; It seems to have
+been ages ago.&nbsp; Calculation is useless.&nbsp; I will go out
+for a walk.</p>
+<p>The crowds in the streets, the lights in the shops and
+balconies, the elegance, variety, and beauty of their
+decorations, the number of the theatres, the brilliant
+caf&eacute;s with their windows thrown up high and their
+vivacious groups at little tables on the pavement, the light and
+glitter of the houses turned as it were inside out, soon convince
+me that it is no dream; that I am in Paris, howsoever I got
+there.&nbsp; I stroll down to the sparkling Palais Royal, up the
+Rue de Rivoli, to the Place Vend&ocirc;me.&nbsp; As I glance into
+a print-shop window, Monied Interest, my late travelling
+companion, comes upon me, laughing with the highest relish of
+disdain.&nbsp; &lsquo;Here&rsquo;s a people!&rsquo; he says,
+pointing to Napoleon in the window and Napoleon on the
+column.&nbsp; &lsquo;Only one idea all over Paris!&nbsp; A
+monomania!&rsquo;&nbsp; Humph!&nbsp; I <span
+class="GutSmall">THINK</span> I have seen Napoleon&rsquo;s
+match?&nbsp; There was a statue, when I came away, at Hyde Park
+Corner, and another in the City, and a print or two in the
+shops.</p>
+<p>I walk up to the Barri&egrave;re de l&rsquo;Etoile,
+sufficiently dazed by my flight to have a pleasant doubt of the
+reality of everything about me; of the lively crowd, the
+overhanging trees, the performing dogs, the hobby-horses, the
+beautiful perspectives of shining lamps: the hundred and one
+enclosures, where the singing is, in gleaming orchestras of azure
+and gold, and where a star-eyed Houri comes round with a box for
+voluntary offerings.&nbsp; So, I pass to my hotel, enchanted;
+sup, enchanted; go to bed, enchanted; pushing back this morning
+(if it really were this morning) into the remoteness of time,
+blessing the South-Eastern Company for realising the Arabian
+Nights in these prose days, murmuring, as I wing my idle flight
+into the land of dreams, &lsquo;No hurry, ladies and gentlemen,
+going to Paris in eleven hours.&nbsp; It is so well done, that
+there really is no hurry!&rsquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page406"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 406</span>THE
+DETECTIVE POLICE</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> are not by any means devout
+believers in the old Bow Street Police.&nbsp; To say the truth,
+we think there was a vast amount of humbug about those
+worthies.&nbsp; Apart from many of them being men of very
+indifferent character, and far too much in the habit of
+consorting with thieves and the like, they never lost a public
+occasion of jobbing and trading in mystery and making the most of
+themselves.&nbsp; Continually puffed besides by incompetent
+magistrates anxious to conceal their own deficiencies, and
+hand-in-glove with the penny-a-liners of that time, they became a
+sort of superstition.&nbsp; Although as a Preventive Police they
+were utterly ineffective, and as a Detective Police were very
+loose and uncertain in their operations, they remain with some
+people a superstition to the present day.</p>
+<p>On the other hand, the Detective Force organised since the
+establishment of the existing Police, is so well chosen and
+trained, proceeds so systematically and quietly, does its
+business in such a workmanlike manner, and is always so calmly
+and steadily engaged in the service of the public, that the
+public really do not know enough of it, to know a tithe of its
+usefulness.&nbsp; Impressed with this conviction, and interested
+in the men themselves, we represented to the authorities at
+Scotland Yard, that we should be glad, if there were no official
+objection, to have some talk with the Detectives.&nbsp; A most
+obliging and ready permission being given, a certain evening was
+appointed with a certain Inspector for a social conference
+between ourselves and the Detectives, at The Household Words
+Office in Wellington Street, Strand, London.&nbsp; In consequence
+of which appointment the party &lsquo;came off,&rsquo; which we
+are about to describe.&nbsp; And we beg to repeat that, avoiding
+such topics as it might for obvious reasons be injurious to the
+public, or disagreeable to respectable individuals, to touch upon
+in print, our description is as exact as we can make it.</p>
+<p>The reader will have the goodness to imagine the Sanctum
+Sanctorum of Household Words.&nbsp; Anything that best suits the
+reader&rsquo;s fancy, will best represent that magnificent
+chamber.&nbsp; We merely stipulate for a round table in the
+middle, with some glasses and cigars arranged upon it; and the
+editorial sofa elegantly hemmed in between that stately piece of
+furniture and the wall.</p>
+<p>It is a sultry evening at dusk.&nbsp; The stones of Wellington
+Street are hot and gritty, and the watermen and hackney-coachmen
+at the Theatre opposite, are much flushed and aggravated.&nbsp;
+Carriages are constantly setting down the people who have come to
+Fairy-Land; and there is a mighty shouting and bellowing every
+now and then, deafening us for the moment, through the open
+windows.</p>
+<p>Just at dusk, Inspectors Wield and Stalker are announced; but
+we do not undertake to warrant the orthography of any of the
+names here mentioned.&nbsp; Inspector Wield presents Inspector
+Stalker.&nbsp; Inspector Wield is a middle-aged man of a portly
+presence, with a large, moist, knowing eye, a husky voice, and a
+habit of emphasising his conversation by the aid of a corpulent
+fore-finger, which is constantly in juxtaposition with his eyes
+or nose.&nbsp; Inspector Stalker is a shrewd, hard-headed
+Scotchman&mdash;in appearance not at all unlike a very acute,
+thoroughly-trained schoolmaster, from the Normal Establishment at
+Glasgow.&nbsp; Inspector Wield one might have known, perhaps, for
+what he is&mdash;Inspector Stalker, never.</p>
+<p>The ceremonies of reception over, Inspectors Wield and Stalker
+observe that they have brought some sergeants with them.&nbsp;
+The sergeants are presented&mdash;five in number, Sergeant
+Dornton, Sergeant Witchem, Sergeant Mith, Sergeant Fendall, and
+Sergeant Straw.&nbsp; We have the whole Detective Force from
+Scotland Yard, with one exception.&nbsp; They sit down in a
+semi-circle (the two Inspectors at the two ends) at a little
+distance from the round table, facing the editorial sofa.&nbsp;
+Every man of them, in a glance, immediately takes an inventory of
+the furniture and an accurate sketch of the editorial
+presence.&nbsp; The Editor feels that any gentleman in company
+could take him up, if need should be, without the smallest
+hesitation, twenty years hence.</p>
+<p>The whole party are in plain clothes.&nbsp; Sergeant Dornton
+about fifty years of age, with a ruddy face and a high sunburnt
+forehead, has the air of one who has been a Sergeant in the
+army&mdash;he might have sat to Wilkie for the Soldier in the
+Reading of the Will.&nbsp; He is famous for steadily pursuing the
+inductive process, and, from small beginnings, working on from
+clue to clue until he bags his man.&nbsp; Sergeant Witchem,
+shorter and thicker-set, and marked with the small-pox, has
+something of a reserved and thoughtful air, as if he were engaged
+in deep arithmetical calculations.&nbsp; He is renowned for his
+acquaintance with the swell mob.&nbsp; Sergeant Mith, a
+smooth-faced man with a fresh bright complexion, and a strange
+air of simplicity, is a dab at housebreakers.&nbsp; Sergeant
+Fendall, a light-haired, well-spoken, polite person, is a
+prodigious hand at pursuing private inquiries of a delicate
+nature.&nbsp; Straw, a little wiry Sergeant of meek demeanour and
+strong sense, would knock at a door and ask a series of questions
+in any mild character you choose to prescribe to him, from a
+charity-boy upwards, and seem as innocent as an infant.&nbsp;
+They are, one and all, respectable-looking men; of perfectly good
+deportment and unusual intelligence; with nothing lounging or
+slinking in their manners; with an air of keen observation and
+quick perception when addressed; and generally presenting in
+their faces, traces more or less marked of habitually leading
+lives of strong mental excitement.&nbsp; They have all good eyes;
+and they all can, and they all do, look full at whomsoever they
+speak to.</p>
+<p>We light the cigars, and hand round the glasses (which are
+very temperately used indeed), and the conversation begins by a
+modest amateur reference on the Editorial part to the swell
+mob.&nbsp; Inspector Wield immediately removes his cigar from his
+lips, waves his right hand, and says, &lsquo;Regarding the swell
+mob, sir, I can&rsquo;t do better than call upon Sergeant
+Witchem.&nbsp; Because the reason why?&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll tell
+you.&nbsp; Sergeant Witchem is better acquainted with the swell
+mob than any officer in London.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Our heart leaping up when we beheld this rainbow in the sky,
+we turn to Sergeant Witchem, who very concisely, and in
+well-chosen language, goes into the subject forthwith.&nbsp;
+Meantime, the whole of his brother officers are closely
+interested in attending to what he says, and observing its
+effect.&nbsp; Presently they begin to strike in, one or two
+together, when an opportunity offers, and the conversation
+becomes general.&nbsp; But these brother officers only come in to
+the assistance of each other&mdash;not to the
+contradiction&mdash;and a more amicable brotherhood there could
+not be.&nbsp; From the swell mob, we diverge to the kindred
+topics of cracksmen, fences, public-house dancers, area-sneaks,
+designing young people who go out &lsquo;gonophing,&rsquo; and
+other &lsquo;schools.&rsquo;&nbsp; It is observable throughout
+these revelations, that Inspector Stalker, the Scotchman, is
+always exact and statistical, and that when any question of
+figures arises, everybody as by one consent pauses, and looks to
+him.</p>
+<p>When we have exhausted the various schools of Art&mdash;during
+which discussion the whole body have remained profoundly
+attentive, except when some unusual noise at the Theatre over the
+way has induced some gentleman to glance inquiringly towards the
+window in that direction, behind his next neighbour&rsquo;s
+back&mdash;we burrow for information on such points as the
+following.&nbsp; Whether there really are any highway robberies
+in London, or whether some circumstances not convenient to be
+mentioned by the aggrieved party, usually precede the robberies
+complained of, under that head, which quite change their
+character?&nbsp; Certainly the latter, almost always.&nbsp;
+Whether in the case of robberies in houses, where servants are
+necessarily exposed to doubt, innocence under suspicion ever
+becomes so like guilt in appearance, that a good officer need be
+cautious how he judges it?&nbsp; Undoubtedly.&nbsp; Nothing is so
+common or deceptive as such appearances at first.&nbsp; Whether
+in a place of public amusement, a thief knows an officer, and an
+officer knows a thief&mdash;supposing them, beforehand, strangers
+to each other&mdash;because each recognises in the other, under
+all disguise, an inattention to what is going on, and a purpose
+that is not the purpose of being entertained?&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp;
+That&rsquo;s the way exactly.&nbsp; Whether it is reasonable or
+ridiculous to trust to the alleged experiences of thieves as
+narrated by themselves, in prisons, or penitentiaries, or
+anywhere?&nbsp; In general, nothing more absurd.&nbsp; Lying is
+their habit and their trade; and they would rather lie&mdash;even
+if they hadn&rsquo;t an interest in it, and didn&rsquo;t want to
+make themselves agreeable&mdash;than tell the truth.</p>
+<p>From these topics, we glide into a review of the most
+celebrated and horrible of the great crimes that have been
+committed within the last fifteen or twenty years.&nbsp; The men
+engaged in the discovery of almost all of them, and in the
+pursuit or apprehension of the murderers, are here, down to the
+very last instance.&nbsp; One of our guests gave chase to and
+boarded the emigrant ship, in which the murderess last hanged in
+London was supposed to have embarked.&nbsp; We learn from him
+that his errand was not announced to the passengers, who may have
+no idea of it to this hour.&nbsp; That he went below, with the
+captain, lamp in hand&mdash;it being dark, and the whole steerage
+abed and sea-sick&mdash;and engaged the Mrs. Manning who was on
+board, in a conversation about her luggage, until she was, with
+no small pains, induced to raise her head, and turn her face
+towards the light.&nbsp; Satisfied that she was not the object of
+his search, he quietly re-embarked in the Government steamer
+along-side, and steamed home again with the intelligence.</p>
+<p>When we have exhausted these subjects, too, which occupy a
+considerable time in the discussion, two or three leave their
+chairs, whisper Sergeant Witchem, and resume their seat.&nbsp;
+Sergeant Witchem, leaning forward a little, and placing a hand on
+each of his legs, then modestly speaks as follows:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;My brother-officers wish me to relate a little account
+of my taking Tally-ho Thompson.&nbsp; A man oughtn&rsquo;t to
+tell what he has done himself; but still, as nobody was with me,
+and, consequently, as nobody but myself can tell it, I&rsquo;ll
+do it in the best way I can, if it should meet your
+approval.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>We assure Sergeant Witchem that he will oblige us very much,
+and we all compose ourselves to listen with great interest and
+attention.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Tally-ho Thompson,&rsquo; says Sergeant Witchem, after
+merely wetting his lips with his brandy-and-water,
+&lsquo;Tally-ho Thompson was a famous horse-stealer, couper, and
+magsman.&nbsp; Thompson, in conjunction with a pal that
+occasionally worked with him, gammoned a countryman out of a good
+round sum of money, under pretence of getting him a
+situation&mdash;the regular old dodge&mdash;and was afterwards in
+the &ldquo;Hue and Cry&rdquo; for a horse&mdash;a horse that he
+stole down in Hertfordshire.&nbsp; I had to look after Thompson,
+and I applied myself, of course, in the first instance, to
+discovering where he was.&nbsp; Now, Thompson&rsquo;s wife lived,
+along with a little daughter, at Chelsea.&nbsp; Knowing that
+Thompson was somewhere in the country, I watched the
+house&mdash;especially at post-time in the morning&mdash;thinking
+Thompson was pretty likely to write to her.&nbsp; Sure enough,
+one morning the postman comes up, and delivers a letter at Mrs.
+Thompson&rsquo;s door.&nbsp; Little girl opens the door, and
+takes it in.&nbsp; We&rsquo;re not always sure of postmen, though
+the people at the post-offices are always very obliging.&nbsp; A
+postman may help us, or he may not,&mdash;just as it
+happens.&nbsp; However, I go across the road, and I say to the
+postman, after he has left the letter, &ldquo;Good morning! how
+are you?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;How are <i>you</i>?&rdquo; says
+he.&nbsp; &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve just delivered a letter for Mrs.
+Thompson.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes, I have.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t happen to remark what the post-mark was,
+perhaps?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;No,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;I
+didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; says I,
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be plain with you.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m in a small
+way of business, and I have given Thompson credit, and I
+can&rsquo;t afford to lose what he owes me.&nbsp; I know
+he&rsquo;s got money, and I know he&rsquo;s in the country, and
+if you could tell me what the post-mark was, I should be very
+much obliged to you, and you&rsquo;d do a service to a tradesman
+in a small way of business that can&rsquo;t afford a
+loss.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I do
+assure you that I did not observe what the post-mark was; all I
+know is, that there was money in the letter&mdash;I should say a
+sovereign.&rdquo;&nbsp; This was enough for me, because of course
+I knew that Thompson having sent his wife money, it was probable
+she&rsquo;d write to Thompson, by return of post, to acknowledge
+the receipt.&nbsp; So I said &ldquo;Thankee&rdquo; to the
+postman, and I kept on the watch.&nbsp; In the afternoon I saw
+the little girl come out.&nbsp; Of course I followed her.&nbsp;
+She went into a stationer&rsquo;s shop, and I needn&rsquo;t say
+to you that I looked in at the window.&nbsp; She bought some
+writing-paper and envelopes, and a pen.&nbsp; I think to myself,
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;ll do!&rdquo;&mdash;watch her home
+again&mdash;and don&rsquo;t go away, you may be sure, knowing
+that Mrs. Thompson was writing her letter to Tally-ho, and that
+the letter would be posted presently.&nbsp; In about an hour or
+so, out came the little girl again, with the letter in her
+hand.&nbsp; I went up, and said something to the child, whatever
+it might have been; but I couldn&rsquo;t see the direction of the
+letter, because she held it with the seal upwards.&nbsp; However,
+I observed that on the back of the letter there was what we call
+a kiss&mdash;a drop of wax by the side of the seal&mdash;and
+again, you understand, that was enough for me.&nbsp; I saw her
+post the letter, waited till she was gone, then went into the
+shop, and asked to see the Master.&nbsp; When he came out, I told
+him, &ldquo;Now, I&rsquo;m an Officer in the Detective Force;
+there&rsquo;s a letter with a kiss been posted here just now, for
+a man that I&rsquo;m in search of; and what I have to ask of you,
+is, that you will let me look at the direction of that
+letter.&rdquo;&nbsp; He was very civil&mdash;took a lot of
+letters from the box in the window&mdash;shook &rsquo;em out on
+the counter with the faces downwards&mdash;and there among
+&rsquo;em was the identical letter with the kiss.&nbsp; It was
+directed, Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post Office, B&mdash;, to be left
+till called for.&nbsp; Down I went to B&mdash; (a hundred and
+twenty miles or so) that night.&nbsp; Early next morning I went
+to the Post Office; saw the gentleman in charge of that
+department; told him who I was; and that my object was to see,
+and track, the party that should come for the letter for Mr.
+Thomas Pigeon.&nbsp; He was very polite, and said, &ldquo;You
+shall have every assistance we can give you; you can wait inside
+the office; and we&rsquo;ll take care to let you know when
+anybody comes for the letter.&rdquo;&nbsp; Well, I waited there
+three days, and began to think that nobody ever would come.&nbsp;
+At last the clerk whispered to me, &ldquo;Here!&nbsp;
+Detective!&nbsp; Somebody&rsquo;s come for the
+letter!&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Keep him a minute,&rdquo; said I, and
+I ran round to the outside of the office.&nbsp; There I saw a
+young chap with the appearance of an Ostler, holding a horse by
+the bridle&mdash;stretching the bridle across the pavement, while
+he waited at the Post Office Window for the letter.&nbsp; I began
+to pat the horse, and that; and I said to the boy, &ldquo;Why,
+this is Mr. Jones&rsquo;s Mare!&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;No.&nbsp; It
+an&rsquo;t.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;No?&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s very like Mr. Jones&rsquo;s Mare!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;She an&rsquo;t Mr. Jones&rsquo;s Mare, anyhow,&rdquo; says
+he.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Mr. So and So&rsquo;s, of the Warwick
+Arms.&rdquo;&nbsp; And up he jumped, and off he went&mdash;letter
+and all.&nbsp; I got a cab, followed on the box, and was so quick
+after him that I came into the stable-yard of the Warwick Arms,
+by one gate, just as he came in by another.&nbsp; I went into the
+bar, where there was a young woman serving, and called for a
+glass of brandy-and-water.&nbsp; He came in directly, and handed
+her the letter.&nbsp; She casually looked at it, without saying
+anything, and stuck it up behind the glass over the
+chimney-piece.&nbsp; What was to be done next?</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I turned it over in my mind while I drank my
+brandy-and-water (looking pretty sharp at the letter the while),
+but I couldn&rsquo;t see my way out of it at all.&nbsp; I tried
+to get lodgings in the house, but there had been a horse-fair, or
+something of that sort, and it was full.&nbsp; I was obliged to
+put up somewhere else, but I came backwards and forwards to the
+bar for a couple of days, and there was the letter always behind
+the glass.&nbsp; At last I thought I&rsquo;d write a letter to
+Mr. Pigeon myself, and see what that would do.&nbsp; So I wrote
+one, and posted it, but I purposely addressed it, Mr. John
+Pigeon, instead of Mr. Thomas Pigeon, to see what that would
+do.&nbsp; In the morning (a very wet morning it was) I watched
+the postman down the street, and cut into the bar, just before he
+reached the Warwick Arms.&nbsp; In he came presently with my
+letter.&nbsp; &ldquo;Is there a Mr. John Pigeon staying
+here?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;No!&mdash;stop a bit though,&rdquo;
+says the barmaid; and she took down the letter behind the
+glass.&nbsp; &ldquo;No,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s
+Thomas, and he is not staying here.&nbsp; Would you do me a
+favour, and post this for me, as it is so wet?&rdquo;&nbsp; The
+postman said Yes; she folded it in another envelope, directed it,
+and gave it him.&nbsp; He put it in his hat, and away he
+went.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I had no difficulty in finding out the direction of
+that letter.&nbsp; It was addressed Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post
+Office, R&mdash;, Northamptonshire, to be left till called
+for.&nbsp; Off I started directly for R&mdash;; I said the same
+at the Post Office there, as I had said at B&mdash;; and again I
+waited three days before anybody came.&nbsp; At last another chap
+on horseback came.&nbsp; &ldquo;Any letters for Mr. Thomas
+Pigeon?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Where do you come from?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;New Inn, near R&mdash;.&rdquo;&nbsp; He got the letter,
+and away he went at a canter.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I made my inquiries about the New Inn, near R&mdash;,
+and hearing it was a solitary sort of house, a little in the
+horse line, about a couple of miles from the station, I thought
+I&rsquo;d go and have a look at it.&nbsp; I found it what it had
+been described, and sauntered in, to look about me.&nbsp; The
+landlady was in the bar, and I was trying to get into
+conversation with her; asked her how business was, and spoke
+about the wet weather, and so on; when I saw, through an open
+door, three men sitting by the fire in a sort of parlour, or
+kitchen; and one of those men, according to the description I had
+of him, was Tally-ho Thompson!</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I went and sat down among &rsquo;em, and tried to make
+things agreeable; but they were very shy&mdash;wouldn&rsquo;t
+talk at all&mdash;looked at me, and at one another, in a way
+quite the reverse of sociable.&nbsp; I reckoned &rsquo;em up, and
+finding that they were all three bigger men than me, and
+considering that their looks were ugly&mdash;that it was a lonely
+place&mdash;railroad station two miles off&mdash;and night coming
+on&mdash;thought I couldn&rsquo;t do better than have a drop of
+brandy-and-water to keep my courage up.&nbsp; So I called for my
+brandy-and-water; and as I was sitting drinking it by the fire,
+Thompson got up and went out.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Now the difficulty of it was, that I wasn&rsquo;t sure
+it was Thompson, because I had never set eyes on him before; and
+what I had wanted was to be quite certain of him.&nbsp; However,
+there was nothing for it now, but to follow, and put a bold face
+upon it.&nbsp; I found him talking, outside in the yard, with the
+landlady.&nbsp; It turned out afterwards that he was wanted by a
+Northampton officer for something else, and that, knowing that
+officer to be pock-marked (as I am myself), he mistook me for
+him.&nbsp; As I have observed, I found him talking to the
+landlady, outside.&nbsp; I put my hand upon his
+shoulder&mdash;this way&mdash;and said, &ldquo;Tally-ho Thompson,
+it&rsquo;s no use.&nbsp; I know you.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m an officer
+from London, and I take you into custody for felony!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;That be d-d!&rdquo; says Tally-ho Thompson.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;We went back into the house, and the two friends began
+to cut up rough, and their looks didn&rsquo;t please me at all, I
+assure you.&nbsp; &ldquo;Let the man go.&nbsp; What are you going
+to do with him?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what
+I&rsquo;m going to do with him.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m going to take him
+to London to-night, as sure as I&rsquo;m alive.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m
+not alone here, whatever you may think.&nbsp; You mind your own
+business, and keep yourselves to yourselves.&nbsp; It&rsquo;ll be
+better for you, for I know you both very well.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+<i>I</i>&rsquo;d never seen or heard of &rsquo;em in all my life,
+but my bouncing cowed &rsquo;em a bit, and they kept off, while
+Thompson was making ready to go.&nbsp; I thought to myself,
+however, that they might be coming after me on the dark road, to
+rescue Thompson; so I said to the landlady, &ldquo;What men have
+you got in the house, Missis?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;We
+haven&rsquo;t got no men here,&rdquo; she says, sulkily.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;You have got an ostler, I suppose?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Yes, we&rsquo;ve got an ostler.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Let me
+see him.&rdquo;&nbsp; Presently he came, and a shaggy-headed
+young fellow he was.&nbsp; &ldquo;Now attend to me, young
+man,&rdquo; says I; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a Detective Officer from
+London.&nbsp; This man&rsquo;s name is Thompson.&nbsp; I have
+taken him into custody for felony.&nbsp; I am going to take him
+to the railroad station.&nbsp; I call upon you in the
+Queen&rsquo;s name to assist me; and mind you, my friend,
+you&rsquo;ll get yourself into more trouble than you know of, if
+you don&rsquo;t!&rdquo;&nbsp; You never saw a person open his
+eyes so wide.&nbsp; &ldquo;Now, Thompson, come along!&rdquo; says
+I.&nbsp; But when I took out the handcuffs, Thompson cries,
+&ldquo;No!&nbsp; None of that!&nbsp; I won&rsquo;t stand
+<i>them</i>!&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll go along with you quiet, but I
+won&rsquo;t bear none of that!&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Tally-ho
+Thompson,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m willing to behave as a
+man to you, if you are willing to behave as a man to me.&nbsp;
+Give me your word that you&rsquo;ll come peaceably along, and I
+don&rsquo;t want to handcuff you.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+will,&rdquo; says Thompson, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;ll have a glass of
+brandy first.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care if
+I&rsquo;ve another,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have
+two more, Missis,&rdquo; said the friends, &ldquo;and confound
+you, Constable, you&rsquo;ll give your man a drop, won&rsquo;t
+you?&rdquo;&nbsp; I was agreeable to that, so we had it all
+round, and then my man and I took Tally-ho Thompson safe to the
+railroad, and I carried him to London that night.&nbsp; He was
+afterwards acquitted, on account of a defect in the evidence; and
+I understand he always praises me up to the skies, and says
+I&rsquo;m one of the best of men.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>This story coming to a termination amidst general applause,
+Inspector Wield, after a little grave smoking, fixes his eye on
+his host, and thus delivers himself:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It wasn&rsquo;t a bad plant that of mine, on Fikey, the
+man accused of forging the Sou&rsquo;-Western Railway
+debentures&mdash;it was only t&rsquo;other day&mdash;because the
+reason why?&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll tell you.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I had information that Fikey and his brother kept a
+factory over yonder there,&rsquo;&mdash;indicating any region on
+the Surrey side of the river&mdash;&lsquo;where he bought
+second-hand carriages; so after I&rsquo;d tried in vain to get
+hold of him by other means, I wrote him a letter in an assumed
+name, saying that I&rsquo;d got a horse and shay to dispose of,
+and would drive down next day that he might view the lot, and
+make an offer&mdash;very reasonable it was, I said&mdash;a
+reg&rsquo;lar bargain.&nbsp; Straw and me then went off to a
+friend of mine that&rsquo;s in the livery and job business, and
+hired a turn-out for the day, a precious smart turn-out it
+was&mdash;quite a slap-up thing!&nbsp; Down we drove,
+accordingly, with a friend (who&rsquo;s not in the Force
+himself); and leaving my friend in the shay near a public-house,
+to take care of the horse, we went to the factory, which was some
+little way off.&nbsp; In the factory, there was a number of
+strong fellows at work, and after reckoning &rsquo;em up, it was
+clear to me that it wouldn&rsquo;t do to try it on there.&nbsp;
+They were too many for us.&nbsp; We must get our man out of
+doors.&nbsp; &ldquo;Mr. Fikey at home?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;No, he
+ain&rsquo;t.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Expected home soon?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Why, no, not soon.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Ah!&nbsp; Is his
+brother here?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m his
+brother.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh! well, this is an
+ill-conwenience, this is.&nbsp; I wrote him a letter yesterday,
+saying I&rsquo;d got a little turn-out to dispose of, and
+I&rsquo;ve took the trouble to bring the turn-out down a&rsquo;
+purpose, and now he ain&rsquo;t in the way.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;No, he ain&rsquo;t in the way.&nbsp; You couldn&rsquo;t
+make it convenient to call again, could you?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Why, no, I couldn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; I want to sell;
+that&rsquo;s the fact; and I can&rsquo;t put it off.&nbsp; Could
+you find him anywheres?&rdquo;&nbsp; At first he said No, he
+couldn&rsquo;t, and then he wasn&rsquo;t sure about it, and then
+he&rsquo;d go and try.&nbsp; So at last he went up-stairs, where
+there was a sort of loft, and presently down comes my man himself
+in his shirt-sleeves.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;this seems to be
+rayther a pressing matter of yours.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I says, &ldquo;it <i>is</i> rayther a pressing
+matter, and you&rsquo;ll find it a bargain&mdash;dirt
+cheap.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;I ain&rsquo;t in partickler want of a
+bargain just now,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;but where is
+it?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; I says, &ldquo;the
+turn-out&rsquo;s just outside.&nbsp; Come and look at
+it.&rdquo;&nbsp; He hasn&rsquo;t any suspicions, and away we
+go.&nbsp; And the first thing that happens is, that the horse
+runs away with my friend (who knows no more of driving than a
+child) when he takes a little trot along the road to show his
+paces.&nbsp; You never saw such a game in your life!</p>
+<p>&lsquo;When the bolt is over, and the turn-out has come to a
+standstill again, Fikey walks round and round it as grave as a
+judge&mdash;me too.&nbsp; &ldquo;There, sir!&rdquo; I says.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a neat thing!&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;It
+ain&rsquo;t a bad style of thing,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+believe you,&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;And there&rsquo;s a
+horse!&rdquo;&mdash;for I saw him looking at it.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Rising eight!&rdquo; I says, rubbing his fore-legs.&nbsp;
+(Bless you, there ain&rsquo;t a man in the world knows less of
+horses than I do, but I&rsquo;d heard my friend at the Livery
+Stables say he was eight year old, so I says, as knowing as
+possible, &ldquo;Rising eight.&rdquo;)&nbsp; &ldquo;Rising eight,
+is he?&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Rising eight,&rdquo; says
+I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;what do you want for
+it?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Why, the first and last figure for the
+whole concern is five-and-twenty pound!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s very cheap!&rdquo; he says, looking at
+me.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ain&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; I says.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+told you it was a bargain!&nbsp; Now, without any higgling and
+haggling about it, what I want is to sell, and that&rsquo;s my
+price.&nbsp; Further, I&rsquo;ll make it easy to you, and take
+half the money down, and you can do a bit of stiff <a
+name="citation415"></a><a href="#footnote415"
+class="citation">[415]</a> for the balance.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he says again, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s very
+cheap.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;I believe you,&rdquo; says I;
+&ldquo;get in and try it, and you&rsquo;ll buy it.&nbsp; Come!
+take a trial!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Ecod, he gets in, and we get in, and we drive along the
+road, to show him to one of the railway clerks that was hid in
+the public-house window to identify him.&nbsp; But the clerk was
+bothered, and didn&rsquo;t know whether it was him, or
+wasn&rsquo;t&mdash;because the reason why?&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll tell
+you,&mdash;on account of his having shaved his whiskers.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a clever little horse,&rdquo; he says,
+&ldquo;and trots well; and the shay runs light.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Not a doubt about it,&rdquo; I says.&nbsp; &ldquo;And now,
+Mr. Fikey, I may as well make it all right, without wasting any
+more of your time.&nbsp; The fact is, I&rsquo;m Inspector Wield,
+and you&rsquo;re my prisoner.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t
+mean that?&rdquo; he says.&nbsp; &ldquo;I do,
+indeed.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Then burn my body,&rdquo; says Fikey,
+&ldquo;if this ain&rsquo;t too bad!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Perhaps you never saw a man so knocked over with
+surprise.&nbsp; &ldquo;I hope you&rsquo;ll let me have my
+coat?&rdquo; he says.&nbsp; &ldquo;By all means.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Well, then, let&rsquo;s drive to the factory.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Why, not exactly that, I think,&rdquo; said I;
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been there, once before, to-day.&nbsp; Suppose
+we send for it.&rdquo;&nbsp; He saw it was no go, so he sent for
+it, and put it on, and we drove him up to London,
+comfortable.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>This reminiscence is in the height of its success, when a
+general proposal is made to the fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced
+officer, with the strange air of simplicity, to tell the
+&lsquo;Butcher&rsquo;s Story.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer, with the strange
+air of simplicity, began with a rustic smile, and in a soft,
+wheedling tone of voice, to relate the Butcher&rsquo;s Story,
+thus:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s just about six years ago, now, since
+information was given at Scotland Yard of there being extensive
+robberies of lawns and silks going on, at some wholesale houses
+in the City.&nbsp; Directions were given for the business being
+looked into; and Straw, and Fendall, and me, we were all in
+it.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;When you received your instructions,&rsquo; said we,
+&lsquo;you went away, and held a sort of Cabinet Council
+together!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The smooth-faced officer coaxingly replied,
+&lsquo;Ye-es.&nbsp; Just so.&nbsp; We turned it over among
+ourselves a good deal.&nbsp; It appeared, when we went into it,
+that the goods were sold by the receivers extraordinarily
+cheap&mdash;much cheaper than they could have been if they had
+been honestly come by.&nbsp; The receivers were in the trade, and
+kept capital shops&mdash;establishments of the first
+respectability&mdash;one of &rsquo;em at the West End, one down
+in Westminster.&nbsp; After a lot of watching and inquiry, and
+this and that among ourselves, we found that the job was managed,
+and the purchases of the stolen goods made, at a little
+public-house near Smithfield, down by Saint Bartholomew&rsquo;s;
+where the Warehouse Porters, who were the thieves, took &rsquo;em
+for that purpose, don&rsquo;t you see? and made appointments to
+meet the people that went between themselves and the
+receivers.&nbsp; This public-house was principally used by
+journeymen butchers from the country, out of place, and in want
+of situations; so, what did we do, but&mdash;ha, ha, ha!&mdash;we
+agreed that I should be dressed up like a butcher myself, and go
+and live there!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Never, surely, was a faculty of observation better brought to
+bear upon a purpose, than that which picked out this officer for
+the part.&nbsp; Nothing in all creation could have suited him
+better.&nbsp; Even while he spoke, he became a greasy, sleepy,
+shy, good-natured, chuckle-headed, unsuspicious, and confiding
+young butcher.&nbsp; His very hair seemed to have suet in it, as
+he made it smooth upon his head, and his fresh complexion to be
+lubricated by large quantities of animal food.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&mdash;So I&mdash;ha, ha, ha!&rsquo; (always with the
+confiding snigger of the foolish young butcher) &lsquo;so I
+dressed myself in the regular way, made up a little bundle of
+clothes, and went to the public-house, and asked if I could have
+a lodging there?&nbsp; They says, &ldquo;yes, you can have a
+lodging here,&rdquo; and I got a bedroom, and settled myself down
+in the tap.&nbsp; There was a number of people about the place,
+and coming backwards and forwards to the house; and first one
+says, and then another says, &ldquo;Are you from the country,
+young man?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I says, &ldquo;I
+am.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m come out of Northamptonshire, and I&rsquo;m
+quite lonely here, for I don&rsquo;t know London at all, and
+it&rsquo;s such a mighty big town.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;It
+<i>is</i> a big town,&rdquo; they says.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh,
+it&rsquo;s a <i>very</i> big town!&rdquo; I says.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Really and truly I never was in such a town.&nbsp; It
+quite confuses of me!&rdquo; and all that, you know.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;When some of the journeymen Butchers that used the
+house, found that I wanted a place, they says, &ldquo;Oh,
+we&rsquo;ll get you a place!&rdquo;&nbsp; And they actually took
+me to a sight of places, in Newgate Market, Newport Market,
+Clare, Carnaby&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know where all.&nbsp; But the
+wages was&mdash;ha, ha, ha!&mdash;was not sufficient, and I never
+could suit myself, don&rsquo;t you see?&nbsp; Some of the queer
+frequenters of the house were a little suspicious of me at first,
+and I was obliged to be very cautious indeed how I communicated
+with Straw or Fendall.&nbsp; Sometimes, when I went out,
+pretending to stop and look into the shop windows, and just
+casting my eye round, I used to see some of &rsquo;em following
+me; but, being perhaps better accustomed than they thought for,
+to that sort of thing, I used to lead &rsquo;em on as far as I
+thought necessary or convenient&mdash;sometimes a long
+way&mdash;and then turn sharp round, and meet &rsquo;em, and say,
+&ldquo;Oh, dear, how glad I am to come upon you so
+fortunate!&nbsp; This London&rsquo;s such a place, I&rsquo;m
+blowed if I ain&rsquo;t lost again!&rdquo;&nbsp; And then
+we&rsquo;d go back all together, to the public-house,
+and&mdash;ha, ha, ha! and smoke our pipes, don&rsquo;t you
+see?</p>
+<p>&lsquo;They were very attentive to me, I am sure.&nbsp; It was
+a common thing, while I was living there, for some of &rsquo;em
+to take me out, and show me London.&nbsp; They showed me the
+Prisons&mdash;showed me Newgate&mdash;and when they showed me
+Newgate, I stops at the place where the Porters pitch their
+loads, and says, &ldquo;Oh dear, is this where they hang the
+men?&nbsp; Oh Lor!&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;That!&rdquo; they says,
+&ldquo;what a simple cove he is!&nbsp; <i>That</i> ain&rsquo;t
+it!&rdquo;&nbsp; And then, they pointed out which was it, and I
+says &ldquo;Lor!&rdquo; and they says, &ldquo;Now you&rsquo;ll
+know it agen, won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;&nbsp; And I said I thought
+I should if I tried hard&mdash;and I assure you I kept a sharp
+look out for the City Police when we were out in this way, for if
+any of &rsquo;em had happened to know me, and had spoke to me, it
+would have been all up in a minute.&nbsp; However, by good luck
+such a thing never happened, and all went on quiet: though the
+difficulties I had in communicating with my brother officers were
+quite extraordinary.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The stolen goods that were brought to the public-house
+by the Warehouse Porters, were always disposed of in a back
+parlour.&nbsp; For a long time, I never could get into this
+parlour, or see what was done there.&nbsp; As I sat smoking my
+pipe, like an innocent young chap, by the tap-room fire,
+I&rsquo;d hear some of the parties to the robbery, as they came
+in and out, say softly to the landlord, &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s
+that?&nbsp; What does he do here?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Bless your
+soul,&rdquo; says the landlord, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s only
+a&rdquo;&mdash;ha, ha, ha!&mdash;&ldquo;he&rsquo;s only a green
+young fellow from the country, as is looking for a
+butcher&rsquo;s sitiwation.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t mind
+him!&rdquo;&nbsp; So, in course of time, they were so convinced
+of my being green, and got to be so accustomed to me, that I was
+as free of the parlour as any of &rsquo;em, and I have seen as
+much as Seventy Pounds&rsquo; Worth of fine lawn sold there, in
+one night, that was stolen from a warehouse in Friday
+Street.&nbsp; After the sale the buyers always stood
+treat&mdash;hot supper, or dinner, or what not&mdash;and
+they&rsquo;d say on those occasions, &ldquo;Come on,
+Butcher!&nbsp; Put your best leg foremost, young &lsquo;un, and
+walk into it!&rdquo;&nbsp; Which I used to do&mdash;and hear, at
+table, all manner of particulars that it was very important for
+us Detectives to know.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;This went on for ten weeks.&nbsp; I lived in the
+public-house all the time, and never was out of the
+Butcher&rsquo;s dress&mdash;except in bed.&nbsp; At last, when I
+had followed seven of the thieves, and set &rsquo;em to
+rights&mdash;that&rsquo;s an expression of ours, don&rsquo;t you
+see, by which I mean to say that I traced &rsquo;em, and found
+out where the robberies were done, and all about
+&rsquo;em&mdash;Straw, and Fendall, and I, gave one another the
+office, and at a time agreed upon, a descent was made upon the
+public-house, and the apprehensions effected.&nbsp; One of the
+first things the officers did, was to collar me&mdash;for the
+parties to the robbery weren&rsquo;t to suppose yet, that I was
+anything but a Butcher&mdash;on which the landlord cries out,
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t take him,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;whatever you
+do!&nbsp; He&rsquo;s only a poor young chap from the country, and
+butter wouldn&rsquo;t melt in his mouth!&rdquo;&nbsp; However,
+they&mdash;ha, ha, ha!&mdash;they took me, and pretended to
+search my bedroom, where nothing was found but an old fiddle
+belonging to the landlord, that had got there somehow or
+another.&nbsp; But, it entirely changed the landlord&rsquo;s
+opinion, for when it was produced, he says, &ldquo;My
+fiddle!&nbsp; The Butcher&rsquo;s a purloiner!&nbsp; I give him
+into custody for the robbery of a musical instrument!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The man that had stolen the goods in Friday Street was
+not taken yet.&nbsp; He had told me, in confidence, that he had
+his suspicions there was something wrong (on account of the City
+Police having captured one of the party), and that he was going
+to make himself scarce.&nbsp; I asked him, &ldquo;Where do you
+mean to go, Mr. Shepherdson?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Why,
+Butcher,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;the Setting Moon, in the
+Commercial Road, is a snug house, and I shall bang out there for
+a time.&nbsp; I shall call myself Simpson, which appears to me to
+be a modest sort of a name.&nbsp; Perhaps you&rsquo;ll give us a
+look in, Butcher?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; says I,
+&ldquo;I think I will give you a call&rdquo;&mdash;which I fully
+intended, don&rsquo;t you see, because, of course, he was to be
+taken!&nbsp; I went over to the Setting Moon next day, with a
+brother officer, and asked at the bar for Simpson.&nbsp; They
+pointed out his room, up-stairs.&nbsp; As we were going up, he
+looks down over the banister, and calls out, &ldquo;Halloa,
+Butcher! is that you?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s
+me.&nbsp; How do you find yourself?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Bobbish,&rdquo; he says; &ldquo;but who&rsquo;s that with
+you?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s only a young man,
+that&rsquo;s a friend of mine,&rdquo; I says.&nbsp; &ldquo;Come
+along, then,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;any friend of the
+Butcher&rsquo;s is as welcome as the Butcher!&rdquo;&nbsp; So, I
+made my friend acquainted with him, and we took him into
+custody.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;You have no idea, sir, what a sight it was, in Court,
+when they first knew that I wasn&rsquo;t a Butcher, after
+all!&nbsp; I wasn&rsquo;t produced at the first examination, when
+there was a remand; but I was at the second.&nbsp; And when I
+stepped into the box, in full police uniform, and the whole party
+saw how they had been done, actually a groan of horror and dismay
+proceeded from &rsquo;em in the dock!</p>
+<p>&lsquo;At the Old Bailey, when their trials came on, Mr.
+Clarkson was engaged for the defence, and he couldn&rsquo;t make
+out how it was, about the Butcher.&nbsp; He thought, all along,
+it was a real Butcher.&nbsp; When the counsel for the prosecution
+said, &ldquo;I will now call before you, gentlemen, the
+Police-officer,&rdquo; meaning myself, Mr. Clarkson says,
+&ldquo;Why Police-officer?&nbsp; Why more Police-officers?&nbsp;
+I don&rsquo;t want Police.&nbsp; We have had a great deal too
+much of the Police.&nbsp; I want the Butcher!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+However, sir, he had the Butcher and the Police-officer, both in
+one.&nbsp; Out of seven prisoners committed for trial, five were
+found guilty, and some of &rsquo;em were transported.&nbsp; The
+respectable firm at the West End got a term of imprisonment; and
+that&rsquo;s the Butcher&rsquo;s Story!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The story done, the chuckle-headed Butcher again resolved
+himself into the smooth-faced Detective.&nbsp; But, he was so
+extremely tickled by their having taken him about, when he was
+that Dragon in disguise, to show him London, that he could not
+help reverting to that point in his narrative; and gently
+repeating with the Butcher snigger, &lsquo;&ldquo;Oh,
+dear,&rdquo; I says, &ldquo;is that where they hang the
+men?&nbsp; Oh, Lor!&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;<i>That</i>!&rdquo; says
+they.&nbsp; &ldquo;What a simple cove he is!&rdquo;&rsquo;</p>
+<p>It being now late, and the party very modest in their fear of
+being too diffuse, there were some tokens of separation; when
+Sergeant Dornton, the soldierly-looking man, said, looking round
+him with a smile:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Before we break up, sir, perhaps you might have some
+amusement in hearing of the Adventures of a Carpet Bag.&nbsp;
+They are very short; and, I think, curious.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>We welcomed the Carpet Bag, as cordially as Mr. Shepherdson
+welcomed the false Butcher at the Setting Moon.&nbsp; Sergeant
+Dornton proceeded.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;In 1847, I was despatched to Chatham, in search of one
+Mesheck, a Jew.&nbsp; He had been carrying on, pretty heavily, in
+the bill-stealing way, getting acceptances from young men of good
+connexions (in the army chiefly), on pretence of discount, and
+bolting with the same.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Mesheck was off, before I got to Chatham.&nbsp; All I
+could learn about him was, that he had gone, probably to London,
+and had with him&mdash;a Carpet Bag.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I came back to town, by the last train from Blackwall,
+and made inquiries concerning a Jew passenger with&mdash;a Carpet
+Bag.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The office was shut up, it being the last train.&nbsp;
+There were only two or three porters left.&nbsp; Looking after a
+Jew with a Carpet Bag, on the Blackwall Railway, which was then
+the high road to a great Military Dep&ocirc;t, was worse than
+looking after a needle in a hayrick.&nbsp; But it happened that
+one of these porters had carried, for a certain Jew, to a certain
+public-house, a certain&mdash;Carpet Bag.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I went to the public-house, but the Jew had only left
+his luggage there for a few hours, and had called for it in a
+cab, and taken it away.&nbsp; I put such questions there, and to
+the porter, as I thought prudent, and got at this description
+of&mdash;the Carpet Bag.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It was a bag which had, on one side of it, worked in
+worsted, a green parrot on a stand.&nbsp; A green parrot on a
+stand was the means by which to identify that&mdash;Carpet
+Bag.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I traced Mesheck, by means of this green parrot on a
+stand, to Cheltenham, to Birmingham, to Liverpool, to the
+Atlantic Ocean.&nbsp; At Liverpool he was too many for me.&nbsp;
+He had gone to the United States, and I gave up all thoughts of
+Mesheck, and likewise of his&mdash;Carpet Bag.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Many months afterwards&mdash;near a year
+afterwards&mdash;there was a bank in Ireland robbed of seven
+thousand pounds, by a person of the name of Doctor Dundey, who
+escaped to America; from which country some of the stolen notes
+came home.&nbsp; He was supposed to have bought a farm in New
+Jersey.&nbsp; Under proper management, that estate could be
+seized and sold, for the benefit of the parties he had
+defrauded.&nbsp; I was sent off to America for this purpose.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I landed at Boston.&nbsp; I went on to New York.&nbsp;
+I found that he had lately changed New York paper-money for New
+Jersey paper money, and had banked cash in New Brunswick.&nbsp;
+To take this Doctor Dundey, it was necessary to entrap him into
+the State of New York, which required a deal of artifice and
+trouble.&nbsp; At one time, he couldn&rsquo;t be drawn into an
+appointment.&nbsp; At another time, he appointed to come to meet
+me, and a New York officer, on a pretext I made; and then his
+children had the measles.&nbsp; At last he came, per steamboat,
+and I took him, and lodged him in a New York prison called the
+Tombs; which I dare say you know, sir?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Editorial acknowledgment to that effect.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I went to the Tombs, on the morning after his capture,
+to attend the examination before the magistrate.&nbsp; I was
+passing through the magistrate&rsquo;s private room, when,
+happening to look round me to take notice of the place, as we
+generally have a habit of doing, I clapped my eyes, in one
+corner, on a&mdash;Carpet Bag.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What did I see upon that Carpet Bag, if you&rsquo;ll
+believe me, but a green parrot on a stand, as large as life!</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;That Carpet Bag, with the representation of a
+green parrot on a stand,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;belongs to an
+English Jew, named Aaron Mesheck, and to no other man, alive or
+dead!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I give you my word the New York Police Officers were
+doubled up with surprise.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;How did you ever come to know that?&rdquo; said
+they.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;I think I ought to know that green parrot by
+this time,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;for I have had as pretty a dance
+after that bird, at home, as ever I had, in all my
+life!&rdquo;&rsquo;</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>&lsquo;And was it Mesheck&rsquo;s?&rsquo; we submissively
+inquired.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Was it, sir?&nbsp; Of course it was!&nbsp; He was in
+custody for another offence, in that very identical Tombs, at
+that very identical time.&nbsp; And, more than that!&nbsp; Some
+memoranda, relating to the fraud for which I had vainly
+endeavoured to take him, were found to be, at that moment, lying
+in that very same individual&mdash;Carpet Bag!&rsquo;</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Such are the curious coincidences and such is the peculiar
+ability, always sharpening and being improved by practice, and
+always adapting itself to every variety of circumstances, and
+opposing itself to every new device that perverted ingenuity can
+invent, for which this important social branch of the public
+service is remarkable!&nbsp; For ever on the watch, with their
+wits stretched to the utmost, these officers have, from day to
+day and year to year, to set themselves against every novelty of
+trickery and dexterity that the combined imaginations of all the
+lawless rascals in England can devise, and to keep pace with
+every such invention that comes out.&nbsp; In the Courts of
+Justice, the materials of thousands of such stories as we have
+narrated&mdash;often elevated into the marvellous and romantic,
+by the circumstances of the case&mdash;are dryly compressed into
+the set phrase, &lsquo;in consequence of information I received,
+I did so and so.&rsquo;&nbsp; Suspicion was to be directed, by
+careful inference and deduction, upon the right person; the right
+person was to be taken, wherever he had gone, or whatever he was
+doing to avoid detection: he is taken; there he is at the bar;
+that is enough.&nbsp; From information I, the officer, received,
+I did it; and, according to the custom in these cases, I say no
+more.</p>
+<p>These games of chess, played with live pieces, are played
+before small audiences, and are chronicled nowhere.&nbsp; The
+interest of the game supports the player.&nbsp; Its results are
+enough for justice.&nbsp; To compare great things with small,
+suppose <span class="smcap">Leverrier</span> or <span
+class="smcap">Adams</span> informing the public that from
+information he had received he had discovered a new planet; or
+<span class="smcap">Columbus</span> informing the public of his
+day that from information he had received he had discovered a new
+continent; so the Detectives inform it that they have discovered
+a new fraud or an old offender, and the process is unknown.</p>
+<p>Thus, at midnight, closed the proceedings of our curious and
+interesting party.&nbsp; But one other circumstance finally wound
+up the evening, after our Detective guests had left us.&nbsp; One
+of the sharpest among them, and the officer best acquainted with
+the Swell Mob, had his pocket picked, going home!</p>
+<h2><a name="page422"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+422</span>THREE &lsquo;DETECTIVE&rsquo; ANECDOTES</h2>
+<h3>I.&mdash;THE PAIR OF GLOVES</h3>
+<p>&lsquo;<span class="smcap">It&rsquo;s</span> a singler story,
+sir,&rsquo; said Inspector Wield, of the Detective Police, who,
+in company with Sergeants Dornton and Mith, paid us another
+twilight visit, one July evening; &lsquo;and I&rsquo;ve been
+thinking you might like to know it.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s concerning the murder of the young woman,
+Eliza Grimwood, some years ago, over in the Waterloo Road.&nbsp;
+She was commonly called The Countess, because of her handsome
+appearance and her proud way of carrying of herself; and when I
+saw the poor Countess (I had known her well to speak to), lying
+dead, with her throat cut, on the floor of her bedroom,
+you&rsquo;ll believe me that a variety of reflections calculated
+to make a man rather low in his spirits, came into my head.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;That&rsquo;s neither here nor there.&nbsp; I went to
+the house the morning after the murder, and examined the body,
+and made a general observation of the bedroom where it was.&nbsp;
+Turning down the pillow of the bed with my hand, I found,
+underneath it, a pair of gloves.&nbsp; A pair of
+gentleman&rsquo;s dress gloves, very dirty; and inside the
+lining, the letters <span class="smcap">Tr</span>, and a
+cross.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, sir, I took them gloves away, and I showed
+&rsquo;em to the magistrate, over at Union Hall, before whom the
+case was.&nbsp; He says, &ldquo;Wield,&rdquo; he says,
+&ldquo;there&rsquo;s no doubt this is a discovery that may lead
+to something very important; and what you have got to do, Wield,
+is, to find out the owner of these gloves.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I was of the same opinion, of course, and I went at it
+immediately.&nbsp; I looked at the gloves pretty narrowly, and it
+was my opinion that they had been cleaned.&nbsp; There was a
+smell of sulphur and rosin about &rsquo;em, you know, which
+cleaned gloves usually have, more or less.&nbsp; I took &rsquo;em
+over to a friend of mine at Kennington, who was in that line, and
+I put it to him.&nbsp; &ldquo;What do you say now?&nbsp; Have
+these gloves been cleaned?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;These gloves have
+been cleaned,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Have you any idea who
+cleaned them?&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; says
+he; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a very distinct idea who didn&rsquo;t clean
+&rsquo;em, and that&rsquo;s myself.&nbsp; But I&rsquo;ll tell you
+what, Wield, there ain&rsquo;t above eight or nine reg&rsquo;lar
+glove-cleaners in London,&rdquo;&mdash;there were not, at that
+time, it seems&mdash;&ldquo;and I think I can give you their
+addresses, and you may find out, by that means, who did clean
+&rsquo;em.&rdquo;&nbsp; Accordingly, he gave me the directions,
+and I went here, and I went there, and I looked up this man, and
+I looked up that man; but, though they all agreed that the gloves
+had been cleaned, I couldn&rsquo;t find the man, woman, or child,
+that had cleaned that aforesaid pair of gloves.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What with this person not being at home, and that
+person being expected home in the afternoon, and so forth, the
+inquiry took me three days.&nbsp; On the evening of the third
+day, coming over Waterloo Bridge from the Surrey side of the
+river, quite beat, and very much vexed and disappointed, I
+thought I&rsquo;d have a shilling&rsquo;s worth of entertainment
+at the Lyceum Theatre to freshen myself up.&nbsp; So I went into
+the Pit, at half-price, and I sat myself down next to a very
+quiet, modest sort of young man.&nbsp; Seeing I was a stranger
+(which I thought it just as well to appear to be) he told me the
+names of the actors on the stage, and we got into
+conversation.&nbsp; When the play was over, we came out together,
+and I said, &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been very companionable and
+agreeable, and perhaps you wouldn&rsquo;t object to a
+drain?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;re very good,&rdquo;
+says he; &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t object to a drain.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Accordingly, we went to a public-house, near the Theatre, sat
+ourselves down in a quiet room up-stairs on the first floor, and
+called for a pint of half-and-half, apiece, and a pipe.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, sir, we put our pipes aboard, and we drank our
+half-and-half, and sat a-talking, very sociably, when the young
+man says, &ldquo;You must excuse me stopping very long,&rdquo; he
+says, &ldquo;because I&rsquo;m forced to go home in good
+time.&nbsp; I must be at work all night.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;At
+work all night?&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;You ain&rsquo;t a
+baker?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he says, laughing, &ldquo;I
+ain&rsquo;t a baker.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;I thought not,&rdquo;
+says I, &ldquo;you haven&rsquo;t the looks of a
+baker.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;No,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a
+glove-cleaner.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I never was more astonished in my life, than when I
+heard them words come out of his lips.&nbsp; &ldquo;You&rsquo;re
+a glove-cleaner, are you?&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo;
+he says, &ldquo;I am.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Then, perhaps,&rdquo;
+says I, taking the gloves out of my pocket, &ldquo;you can tell
+me who cleaned this pair of gloves?&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a rum
+story,&rdquo; I says.&nbsp; &ldquo;I was dining over at Lambeth,
+the other day, at a free-and-easy&mdash;quite
+promiscuous&mdash;with a public company&mdash;when some
+gentleman, he left these gloves behind him!&nbsp; Another
+gentleman and me, you see, we laid a wager of a sovereign, that I
+wouldn&rsquo;t find out who they belonged to.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve
+spent as much as seven shillings already, in trying to discover;
+but, if you could help me, I&rsquo;d stand another seven and
+welcome.&nbsp; You see there&rsquo;s <span
+class="smcap">Tr</span> and a cross, inside.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;<i>I</i> see,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp; &ldquo;Bless you,
+<i>I</i> know these gloves very well!&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve seen
+dozens of pairs belonging to the same party.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;No?&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Then you know who cleaned &rsquo;em?&rdquo; says I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Rather so,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;My father cleaned
+&rsquo;em.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;Where does your father live?&rdquo; says
+I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Just round the corner,&rdquo; says the young man,
+&ldquo;near Exeter Street, here.&nbsp; He&rsquo;ll tell you who
+they belong to, directly.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Would you come
+round with me now?&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo;
+says he, &ldquo;but you needn&rsquo;t tell my father that you
+found me at the play, you know, because he mightn&rsquo;t like
+it.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;All right!&rdquo;&nbsp; We went round to
+the place, and there we found an old man in a white apron, with
+two or three daughters, all rubbing and cleaning away at lots of
+gloves, in a front parlour.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh, Father!&rdquo; says
+the young man, &ldquo;here&rsquo;s a person been and made a bet
+about the ownership of a pair of gloves, and I&rsquo;ve told him
+you can settle it.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Good evening, sir,&rdquo;
+says I to the old gentleman.&nbsp; &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the gloves
+your son speaks of.&nbsp; Letters <span class="smcap">Tr</span>,
+you see, and a cross.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh yes,&rdquo; he says,
+&ldquo;I know these gloves very well; I&rsquo;ve cleaned dozens
+of pairs of &rsquo;em.&nbsp; They belong to Mr. Trinkle, the
+great upholsterer in Cheapside.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Did you get
+&rsquo;em from Mr. Trinkle, direct,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;if
+you&rsquo;ll excuse my asking the question?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;Mr. Trinkle always sends
+&rsquo;em to Mr. Phibbs&rsquo;s, the haberdasher&rsquo;s,
+opposite his shop, and the haberdasher sends &rsquo;em to
+me.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Perhaps you wouldn&rsquo;t object to a
+drain?&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Not in the least!&rdquo; says
+he.&nbsp; So I took the old gentleman out, and had a little more
+talk with him and his son, over a glass, and we parted excellent
+friends.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;This was late on a Saturday night.&nbsp; First thing on
+the Monday morning, I went to the haberdasher&rsquo;s shop,
+opposite Mr. Trinkle&rsquo;s, the great upholsterer&rsquo;s in
+Cheapside.&nbsp; &ldquo;Mr. Phibbs in the way?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;My name is Phibbs.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh!&nbsp; I believe
+you sent this pair of gloves to be cleaned?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Yes, I did, for young Mr. Trinkle over the way.&nbsp;
+There he is in the shop!&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh! that&rsquo;s him
+in the shop, is it?&nbsp; Him in the green coat?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;The same individual.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Well, Mr. Phibbs,
+this is an unpleasant affair; but the fact is, I am Inspector
+Wield of the Detective Police, and I found these gloves under the
+pillow of the young woman that was murdered the other day, over
+in the Waterloo Road!&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Good Heaven!&rdquo;
+says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a most respectable young man,
+and if his father was to hear of it, it would be the ruin of
+him!&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very sorry for it,&rdquo; says
+I, &ldquo;but I must take him into custody.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Good Heaven!&rdquo; says Mr. Phibbs, again; &ldquo;can
+nothing be done?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; says
+I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Will you allow me to call him over here,&rdquo;
+says he, &ldquo;that his father may not see it done?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t object to that,&rdquo; says I; &ldquo;but
+unfortunately, Mr. Phibbs, I can&rsquo;t allow of any
+communication between you.&nbsp; If any was attempted, I should
+have to interfere directly.&nbsp; Perhaps you&rsquo;ll beckon him
+over here?&rdquo;&nbsp; Mr. Phibbs went to the door and beckoned,
+and the young fellow came across the street directly; a smart,
+brisk young fellow.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;Good morning, sir,&rdquo; says I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Good morning, sir,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Would you
+allow me to inquire, sir,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;if you ever had
+any acquaintance with a party of the name of
+Grimwood?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Grimwood!&nbsp; Grimwood!&rdquo;
+says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;No!&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;You know the
+Waterloo Road?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh! of course I know the
+Waterloo Road!&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Happen to have heard of a
+young woman being murdered there?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes, I read
+it in the paper, and very sorry I was to read it.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s a pair of gloves belonging to you, that I
+found under her pillow the morning afterwards!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;He was in a dreadful state, sir; a dreadful state I
+&ldquo;Mr. Wield,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;upon my solemn oath I
+never was there.&nbsp; I never so much as saw her, to my
+knowledge, in my life!&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;I am very
+sorry,&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;To tell you the truth; I
+don&rsquo;t think you are the murderer, but I must take you to
+Union Hall in a cab.&nbsp; However, I think it&rsquo;s a case of
+that sort, that, at present, at all events, the magistrate will
+hear it in private.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;A private examination took place, and then it came out
+that this young man was acquainted with a cousin of the
+unfortunate Eliza Grimwood, and that, calling to see this cousin
+a day or two before the murder, he left these gloves upon the
+table.&nbsp; Who should come in, shortly afterwards, but Eliza
+Grimwood!&nbsp; &ldquo;Whose gloves are these?&rdquo; she says,
+taking &rsquo;em up.&nbsp; &ldquo;Those are Mr. Trinkle&rsquo;s
+gloves,&rdquo; says her cousin.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; says she,
+&ldquo;they are very dirty, and of no use to him, I am
+sure.&nbsp; I shall take &rsquo;em away for my girl to clean the
+stoves with.&rdquo;&nbsp; And she put &rsquo;em in her
+pocket.&nbsp; The girl had used &rsquo;em to clean the stoves,
+and, I have no doubt, had left &rsquo;em lying on the bedroom
+mantelpiece, or on the drawers, or somewhere; and her mistress,
+looking round to see that the room was tidy, had caught &rsquo;em
+up and put &rsquo;em under the pillow where I found
+&rsquo;em.</p>
+<p>That&rsquo;s the story, sir.&rsquo;</p>
+<h3>II.&mdash;THE ARTFUL TOUCH</h3>
+<p>&lsquo;One of the most beautiful things that ever was done,
+perhaps,&rsquo; said Inspector Wield, emphasising the adjective,
+as preparing us to expect dexterity or ingenuity rather than
+strong interest, &lsquo;was a move of Sergeant
+Witchem&rsquo;s.&nbsp; It was a lovely idea!</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Witchem and me were down at Epsom one Derby Day,
+waiting at the station for the Swell Mob.&nbsp; As I mentioned,
+when we were talking about these things before, we are ready at
+the station when there&rsquo;s races, or an Agricultural Show, or
+a Chancellor sworn in for an university, or Jenny Lind, or
+anything of that sort; and as the Swell Mob come down, we send
+&rsquo;em back again by the next train.&nbsp; But some of the
+Swell Mob, on the occasion of this Derby that I refer to, so far
+kidded us as to hire a horse and shay; start away from London by
+Whitechapel, and miles round; come into Epsom from the opposite
+direction; and go to work, right and left, on the course, while
+we were waiting for &rsquo;em at the Rail.&nbsp; That, however,
+ain&rsquo;t the point of what I&rsquo;m going to tell you.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;While Witchem and me were waiting at the station, there
+comes up one Mr. Tatt; a gentleman formerly in the public line,
+quite an amateur Detective in his way, and very much
+respected.&nbsp; &ldquo;Halloa, Charley Wield,&rdquo; he
+says.&nbsp; &ldquo;What are you doing here?&nbsp; On the look out
+for some of your old friends?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes, the old
+move, Mr. Tatt.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Come along,&rdquo; he says,
+&ldquo;you and Witchem, and have a glass of sherry.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t stir from the place,&rdquo; says I,
+&ldquo;till the next train comes in; but after that, we will with
+pleasure.&rdquo;&nbsp; Mr. Tatt waits, and the train comes in,
+and then Witchem and me go off with him to the Hotel.&nbsp; Mr.
+Tatt he&rsquo;s got up quite regardless of expense, for the
+occasion; and in his shirt-front there&rsquo;s a beautiful
+diamond prop, cost him fifteen or twenty pound&mdash;a very
+handsome pin indeed.&nbsp; We drink our sherry at the bar, and
+have had our three or four glasses, when Witchem cries suddenly,
+&ldquo;Look out, Mr. Wield! stand fast!&rdquo; and a dash is made
+into the place by the Swell Mob&mdash;four of
+&rsquo;em&mdash;that have come down as I tell you, and in a
+moment Mr. Tatt&rsquo;s prop is gone!&nbsp; Witchem, he cuts
+&rsquo;em off at the door, I lay about me as hard as I can, Mr.
+Tatt shows fight like a good &lsquo;un, and there we are, all
+down together, heads and heels, knocking about on the floor of
+the bar&mdash;perhaps you never see such a scene of
+confusion!&nbsp; However, we stick to our men (Mr. Tatt being as
+good as any officer), and we take &rsquo;em all, and carry
+&rsquo;em off to the station.&rsquo;&nbsp; The station&rsquo;s
+full of people, who have been took on the course; and it&rsquo;s
+a precious piece of work to get &rsquo;em secured.&nbsp; However,
+we do it at last, and we search &rsquo;em; but nothing&rsquo;s
+found upon &rsquo;em, and they&rsquo;re locked up; and a pretty
+state of heat we are in by that time, I assure you!</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I was very blank over it, myself, to think that the
+prop had been passed away; and I said to Witchem, when we had set
+&rsquo;em to rights, and were cooling ourselves along with Mr.
+Tatt, &ldquo;we don&rsquo;t take much by <i>this</i> move,
+anyway, for nothing&rsquo;s found upon &rsquo;em, and it&rsquo;s
+only the braggadocia, <a name="citation426"></a><a
+href="#footnote426" class="citation">[426]</a> after
+all.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;What do you mean, Mr. Wield?&rdquo; says
+Witchem.&nbsp; &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the diamond pin!&rdquo; and in
+the palm of his hand there it was, safe and sound!&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Why, in the name of wonder,&rdquo; says me and Mr. Tatt,
+in astonishment, &ldquo;how did you come by that?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you how I come by it,&rdquo; says
+he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I saw which of &rsquo;em took it; and when we
+were all down on the floor together, knocking about, I just gave
+him a little touch on the back of his hand, as I knew his pal
+would; and he thought it <span class="GutSmall">WAS</span> his
+pal; and gave it me!&rdquo;&nbsp; It was beautiful,
+beau-ti-ful!</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Even that was hardly the best of the case, for that
+chap was tried at the Quarter Sessions at Guildford.&nbsp; You
+know what Quarter Sessions are, sir.&nbsp; Well, if you&rsquo;ll
+believe me, while them slow justices were looking over the Acts
+of Parliament, to see what they could do to him, I&rsquo;m blowed
+if he didn&rsquo;t cut out of the dock before their faces!&nbsp;
+He cut out of the dock, sir, then and there; swam across a river;
+and got up into a tree to dry himself.&nbsp; In the tree he was
+took&mdash;an old woman having seen him climb up&mdash;and
+Witchem&rsquo;s artful touch transported him!&rsquo;</p>
+<h3>III.&mdash;THE SOFA</h3>
+<p>&lsquo;What young men will do, sometimes, to ruin themselves
+and break their friends&rsquo; hearts,&rsquo; said Sergeant
+Dornton, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s surprising!&nbsp; I had a case at
+Saint Blank&rsquo;s Hospital which was of this sort.&nbsp; A bad
+case, indeed, with a bad end!</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The Secretary, and the House-Surgeon, and the
+Treasurer, of Saint Blank&rsquo;s Hospital, came to Scotland Yard
+to give information of numerous robberies having been committed
+on the students.&nbsp; The students could leave nothing in the
+pockets of their great-coats, while the great-coats were hanging
+at the hospital, but it was almost certain to be stolen.&nbsp;
+Property of various descriptions was constantly being lost; and
+the gentlemen were naturally uneasy about it, and anxious, for
+the credit of the institution, that the thief or thieves should
+be discovered.&nbsp; The case was entrusted to me, and I went to
+the hospital.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;Now, gentlemen,&rdquo; said I, after we had
+talked it over; &ldquo;I understand this property is usually lost
+from one room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Yes, they said.&nbsp; It was.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;I should wish, if you please,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;to see the room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It was a good-sized bare room down-stairs, with a few
+tables and forms in it, and a row of pegs, all round, for hats
+and coats.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;Next, gentlemen,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;do you
+suspect anybody?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Yes, they said.&nbsp; They did suspect somebody.&nbsp;
+They were sorry to say, they suspected one of the porters.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;I should like,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;to have
+that man pointed out to me, and to have a little time to look
+after him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;He was pointed out, and I looked after him, and then I
+went back to the hospital, and said, &ldquo;Now, gentlemen,
+it&rsquo;s not the porter.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s, unfortunately for
+himself, a little too fond of drink, but he&rsquo;s nothing
+worse.&nbsp; My suspicion is, that these robberies are committed
+by one of the students; and if you&rsquo;ll put me a sofa into
+that room where the pegs are&mdash;as there&rsquo;s no
+closet&mdash;I think I shall be able to detect the thief.&nbsp; I
+wish the sofa, if you please, to be covered with chintz, or
+something of that sort, so that I may lie on my chest, underneath
+it, without being seen.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The sofa was provided, and next day at eleven
+o&rsquo;clock, before any of the students came, I went there,
+with those gentlemen, to get underneath it.&nbsp; It turned out
+to be one of those old-fashioned sofas with a great cross-beam at
+the bottom, that would have broken my back in no time if I could
+ever have got below it.&nbsp; We had quite a job to break all
+this away in the time; however, I fell to work, and they fell to
+work, and we broke it out, and made a clear place for me.&nbsp; I
+got under the sofa, lay down on my chest, took out my knife, and
+made a convenient hole in the chintz to look through.&nbsp; It
+was then settled between me and the gentlemen that when the
+students were all up in the wards, one of the gentlemen should
+come in, and hang up a great-coat on one of the pegs.&nbsp; And
+that that great-coat should have, in one of the pockets, a
+pocket-book containing marked money.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;After I had been there some time, the students began to
+drop into the room, by ones, and twos, and threes, and to talk
+about all sorts of things, little thinking there was anybody
+under the sofa&mdash;and then to go up-stairs.&nbsp; At last
+there came in one who remained until he was alone in the room by
+himself.&nbsp; A tallish, good-looking young man of one or two
+and twenty, with a light whisker.&nbsp; He went to a particular
+hat-peg, took off a good hat that was hanging there, tried it on,
+hung his own hat in its place, and hung that hat on another peg,
+nearly opposite to me.&nbsp; I then felt quite certain that he
+was the thief, and would come back by-and-by.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;When they were all up-stairs, the gentleman came in
+with the great-coat.&nbsp; I showed him where to hang it, so that
+I might have a good view of it; and he went away; and I lay under
+the sofa on my chest, for a couple of hours or so, waiting.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;At last, the same young man came down.&nbsp; He walked
+across the room, whistling&mdash;stopped and listened&mdash;took
+another walk and whistled&mdash;stopped again, and
+listened&mdash;then began to go regularly round the pegs, feeling
+in the pockets of all the coats.&nbsp; When he came to the
+great-coat, and felt the pocket-book, he was so eager and so
+hurried that he broke the strap in tearing it open.&nbsp; As he
+began to put the money in his pocket, I crawled out from under
+the sofa, and his eyes met mine.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p428b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Dective story.  The Sofa"
+title=
+"Dective story.  The Sofa"
+ src="images/p428s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&lsquo;My face, as you may perceive, is brown now, but it was
+pale at that time, my health not being good; and looked as long
+as a horse&rsquo;s.&nbsp; Besides which, there was a great
+draught of air from the door, underneath the sofa, and I had tied
+a handkerchief round my head; so what I looked like, altogether,
+I don&rsquo;t know.&nbsp; He turned blue&mdash;literally
+blue&mdash;when he saw me crawling out, and I couldn&rsquo;t feel
+surprised at it.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;I am an officer of the Detective Police,&rdquo;
+said I, &ldquo;and have been lying here, since you first came in
+this morning.&nbsp; I regret, for the sake of yourself and your
+friends, that you should have done what you have; but this case
+is complete.&nbsp; You have the pocket-book in your hand and the
+money upon you; and I must take you into custody!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;It was impossible to make out any case in his behalf,
+and on his trial he pleaded guilty.&nbsp; How or when he got the
+means I don&rsquo;t know; but while he was awaiting his sentence,
+he poisoned himself in Newgate.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>We inquired of this officer, on the conclusion of the
+foregoing anecdote, whether the time appeared long, or short,
+when he lay in that constrained position under the sofa?</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Why, you see, sir,&rsquo; he replied, &lsquo;if he
+hadn&rsquo;t come in, the first time, and I had not been quite
+sure he was the thief, and would return, the time would have
+seemed long.&nbsp; But, as it was, I being dead certain of my
+man, the time seemed pretty short.&rsquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page430"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 430</span>ON
+DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">How</span> goes the night?&nbsp; Saint
+Giles&rsquo;s clock is striking nine.&nbsp; The weather is dull
+and wet, and the long lines of street lamps are blurred, as if we
+saw them through tears.&nbsp; A damp wind blows and rakes the
+pieman&rsquo;s fire out, when he opens the door of his little
+furnace, carrying away an eddy of sparks.</p>
+<p>Saint Giles&rsquo;s clock strikes nine.&nbsp; We are
+punctual.&nbsp; Where is Inspector Field?&nbsp; Assistant
+Commissioner of Police is already here, enwrapped in oil-skin
+cloak, and standing in the shadow of Saint Giles&rsquo;s
+steeple.&nbsp; Detective Sergeant, weary of speaking French all
+day to foreigners unpacking at the Great Exhibition, is already
+here.&nbsp; Where is Inspector Field?</p>
+<p>Inspector Field is, to-night, the guardian genius of the
+British Museum.&nbsp; He is bringing his shrewd eye to bear on
+every corner of its solitary galleries, before he reports
+&lsquo;all right.&rsquo;&nbsp; Suspicious of the Elgin marbles,
+and not to be done by cat-faced Egyptian giants with their hands
+upon their knees, Inspector Field, sagacious, vigilant, lamp in
+hand, throwing monstrous shadows on the walls and ceilings,
+passes through the spacious rooms.&nbsp; If a mummy trembled in
+an atom of its dusty covering, Inspector Field would say,
+&lsquo;Come out of that, Tom Green.&nbsp; I know
+you!&rsquo;&nbsp; If the smallest &lsquo;Gonoph&rsquo; about town
+were crouching at the bottom of a classic bath, Inspector Field
+would nose him with a finer scent than the ogre&rsquo;s, when
+adventurous Jack lay trembling in his kitchen copper.&nbsp; But
+all is quiet, and Inspector Field goes warily on, making little
+outward show of attending to anything in particular, just
+recognising the Ichthyosaurus as a familiar acquaintance, and
+wondering, perhaps, how the detectives did it in the days before
+the Flood.</p>
+<p>Will Inspector Field be long about this work?&nbsp; He may be
+half-an-hour longer.&nbsp; He sends his compliments by Police
+Constable, and proposes that we meet at St. Giles&rsquo;s Station
+House, across the road.&nbsp; Good.&nbsp; It were as well to
+stand by the fire, there, as in the shadow of Saint Giles&rsquo;s
+steeple.</p>
+<p>Anything doing here to-night?&nbsp; Not much.&nbsp; We are
+very quiet.&nbsp; A lost boy, extremely calm and small, sitting
+by the fire, whom we now confide to a constable to take home, for
+the child says that if you show him Newgate Street, he can show
+you where he lives&mdash;a raving drunken woman in the cells, who
+has screeched her voice away, and has hardly power enough left to
+declare, even with the passionate help of her feet and arms, that
+she is the daughter of a British officer, and, strike her blind
+and dead, but she&rsquo;ll write a letter to the Queen! but who
+is soothed with a drink of water&mdash;in another cell, a quiet
+woman with a child at her breast, for begging&mdash;in another,
+her husband in a smock-frock, with a basket of
+watercresses&mdash;in another, a pickpocket&mdash;in another, a
+meek tremulous old pauper man who has been out for a holiday
+&lsquo;and has took but a little drop, but it has overcome him
+after so many months in the house&rsquo;&mdash;and that&rsquo;s
+all as yet.&nbsp; Presently, a sensation at the Station House
+door.&nbsp; Mr. Field, gentlemen!</p>
+<p>Inspector Field comes in, wiping his forehead, for he is of a
+burly figure, and has come fast from the ores and metals of the
+deep mines of the earth, and from the Parrot Gods of the South
+Sea Islands, and from the birds and beetles of the tropics, and
+from the Arts of Greece and Rome, and from the Sculptures of
+Nineveh, and from the traces of an elder world, when these were
+not.&nbsp; Is Rogers ready?&nbsp; Rogers is ready, strapped and
+great-coated, with a flaming eye in the middle of his waist, like
+a deformed Cyclops.&nbsp; Lead on, Rogers, to Rats&rsquo;
+Castle!</p>
+<p>How many people may there be in London, who, if we had brought
+them deviously and blindfold, to this street, fifty paces from
+the Station House, and within call of Saint Giles&rsquo;s church,
+would know it for a not remote part of the city in which their
+lives are passed?&nbsp; How many, who amidst this compound of
+sickening smells, these heaps of filth, these tumbling houses,
+with all their vile contents, animate, and inanimate, slimily
+overflowing into the black road, would believe that they breathe
+<i>this</i> air?&nbsp; How much Red Tape may there be, that could
+look round on the faces which now hem us in&mdash;for our
+appearance here has caused a rush from all points to a common
+centre&mdash;the lowering foreheads, the sallow cheeks, the
+brutal eyes, the matted hair, the infected, vermin-haunted heaps
+of rags&mdash;and say, &lsquo;I have thought of this.&nbsp; I
+have not dismissed the thing.&nbsp; I have neither blustered it
+away, nor frozen it away, nor tied it up and put it away, nor
+smoothly said pooh, pooh! to it when it has been shown to
+me?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>This is not what Rogers wants to know, however.&nbsp; What
+Rogers wants to know, is, whether you <i>will</i> clear the way
+here, some of you, or whether you won&rsquo;t; because if you
+don&rsquo;t do it right on end, he&rsquo;ll lock you up!&nbsp;
+&lsquo;What!&nbsp; <i>You</i> are there, are you, Bob
+Miles?&nbsp; You haven&rsquo;t had enough of it yet,
+haven&rsquo;t you?&nbsp; You want three months more, do
+you?&nbsp; Come away from that gentleman!&nbsp; What are you
+creeping round there for?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What am I a doing, thinn, Mr. Rogers?&rsquo; says Bob
+Miles, appearing, villainous, at the end of a lane of light, made
+by the lantern.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll let you know pretty quick, if you
+don&rsquo;t hook it.&nbsp; <span class="smcap">Will</span> you
+hook it?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>A sycophantic murmur rises from the crowd.&nbsp; &lsquo;Hook
+it, Bob, when Mr. Rogers and Mr. Field tells you!&nbsp; Why
+don&rsquo;t you hook it, when you are told to?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The most importunate of the voices strikes familiarly on Mr.
+Rogers&rsquo;s ear.&nbsp; He suddenly turns his lantern on the
+owner.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What!&nbsp; <i>You</i> are there, are you, Mister
+Click?&nbsp; You hook it too&mdash;come!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What for?&rsquo; says Mr. Click, discomfited.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;You hook it, will you!&rsquo; says Mr. Rogers with
+stern emphasis.</p>
+<p>Both Click and Miles <i>do</i> &lsquo;hook it,&rsquo; without
+another word, or, in plainer English, sneak away.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Close up there, my men!&rsquo; says Inspector Field to
+two constables on duty who have followed.&nbsp; &lsquo;Keep
+together, gentlemen; we are going down here.&nbsp;
+Heads!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Saint Giles&rsquo;s church strikes half-past ten.&nbsp; We
+stoop low, and creep down a precipitous flight of steps into a
+dark close cellar.&nbsp; There is a fire.&nbsp; There is a long
+deal table.&nbsp; There are benches.&nbsp; The cellar is full of
+company, chiefly very young men in various conditions of dirt and
+raggedness.&nbsp; Some are eating supper.&nbsp; There are no
+girls or women present.&nbsp; Welcome to Rats&rsquo; Castle,
+gentlemen, and to this company of noted thieves!</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Well, my lads!&nbsp; How are you, my lads?&nbsp; What
+have you been doing to-day?&nbsp; Here&rsquo;s some company come
+to see you, my lads!&mdash;<i>There&rsquo;s</i> a plate of
+beefsteak, sir, for the supper of a fine young man!&nbsp; And
+there&rsquo;s a mouth for a steak, sir!&nbsp; Why, I should be
+too proud of such a mouth as that, if I had it myself!&nbsp;
+Stand up and show it, sir!&nbsp; Take off your cap.&nbsp;
+There&rsquo;s a fine young man for a nice little party,
+sir!&nbsp; An&rsquo;t he?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Inspector Field is the bustling speaker.&nbsp; Inspector
+Field&rsquo;s eye is the roving eye that searches every corner of
+the cellar as he talks.&nbsp; Inspector Field&rsquo;s hand is the
+well-known hand that has collared half the people here, and
+motioned their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, male and
+female friends, inexorably to New South Wales.&nbsp; Yet
+Inspector Field stands in this den, the Sultan of the
+place.&nbsp; Every thief here cowers before him, like a schoolboy
+before his schoolmaster.&nbsp; All watch him, all answer when
+addressed, all laugh at his jokes, all seek to propitiate
+him.&nbsp; This cellar company alone&mdash;to say nothing of the
+crowd surrounding the entrance from the street above, and making
+the steps shine with eyes&mdash;is strong enough to murder us
+all, and willing enough to do it; but, let Inspector Field have a
+mind to pick out one thief here, and take him; let him produce
+that ghostly truncheon from his pocket, and say, with his
+business-air, &lsquo;My lad, I want you!&rsquo; and all
+Rats&rsquo; Castle shall be stricken with paralysis, and not a
+finger move against him, as he fits the handcuffs on!</p>
+<p>Where&rsquo;s the Earl of Warwick?&mdash;Here he is, Mr.
+Field!&nbsp; Here&rsquo;s the Earl of Warwick, Mr. Field!&mdash;O
+there you are, my Lord.&nbsp; Come for&rsquo;ard.&nbsp;
+There&rsquo;s a chest, sir, not to have a clean shirt on.&nbsp;
+An&rsquo;t it?&nbsp; Take your hat off, my Lord.&nbsp; Why, I
+should be ashamed if I was you&mdash;and an Earl, too&mdash;to
+show myself to a gentleman with my hat on!&mdash;The Earl of
+Warwick laughs and uncovers.&nbsp; All the company laugh.&nbsp;
+One pickpocket, especially, laughs with great enthusiasm.&nbsp; O
+what a jolly game it is, when Mr. Field comes down&mdash;and
+don&rsquo;t want nobody!</p>
+<p>So, you are here, too, are you, you tall, grey,
+soldierly-looking, grave man, standing by the fire?&mdash;Yes,
+sir.&nbsp; Good evening, Mr. Field!&mdash;Let us see.&nbsp; You
+lived servant to a nobleman once?&mdash;Yes, Mr. Field.&mdash;And
+what is it you do now; I forget?&mdash;Well, Mr. Field, I job
+about as well as I can.&nbsp; I left my employment on account of
+delicate health.&nbsp; The family is still kind to me.&nbsp; Mr.
+Wix of Piccadilly is also very kind to me when I am hard
+up.&nbsp; Likewise Mr. Nix of Oxford Street.&nbsp; I get a trifle
+from them occasionally, and rub on as well as I can, Mr.
+Field.&nbsp; Mr. Field&rsquo;s eye rolls enjoyingly, for this man
+is a notorious begging-letter writer.&mdash;Good night, my
+lads!&mdash;Good night, Mr. Field, and thank&rsquo;ee, sir!</p>
+<p>Clear the street here, half a thousand of you!&nbsp; Cut it,
+Mrs. Stalker&mdash;none of that&mdash;we don&rsquo;t want
+you!&nbsp; Rogers of the flaming eye, lead on to the
+tramps&rsquo; lodging-house!</p>
+<p>A dream of baleful faces attends to the door.&nbsp; Now, stand
+back all of you!&nbsp; In the rear Detective Sergeant plants
+himself, composedly whistling, with his strong right arm across
+the narrow passage.&nbsp; Mrs. Stalker, I am something&rsquo;d
+that need not be written here, if you won&rsquo;t get yourself
+into trouble, in about half a minute, if I see that face of yours
+again!</p>
+<p>Saint Giles&rsquo;s church clock, striking eleven, hums
+through our hand from the dilapidated door of a dark outhouse as
+we open it, and are stricken back by the pestilent breath that
+issues from within.&nbsp; Rogers to the front with the light, and
+let us look!</p>
+<p>Ten, twenty, thirty&mdash;who can count them!&nbsp; Men,
+women, children, for the most part naked, heaped upon the floor
+like maggots in a cheese!&nbsp; Ho!&nbsp; In that dark corner
+yonder!&nbsp; Does anybody lie there?&nbsp; Me sir, Irish me, a
+widder, with six children.&nbsp; And yonder?&nbsp; Me sir, Irish
+me, with me wife and eight poor babes.&nbsp; And to the left
+there?&nbsp; Me sir, Irish me, along with two more Irish boys as
+is me friends.&nbsp; And to the right there?&nbsp; Me sir and the
+Murphy fam&rsquo;ly, numbering five blessed souls.&nbsp; And
+what&rsquo;s this, coiling, now, about my foot?&nbsp; Another
+Irish me, pitifully in want of shaving, whom I have awakened from
+sleep&mdash;and across my other foot lies his wife&mdash;and by
+the shoes of Inspector Field lie their three eldest&mdash;and
+their three youngest are at present squeezed between the open
+door and the wall.&nbsp; And why is there no one on that little
+mat before the sullen fire?&nbsp; Because O&rsquo;Donovan, with
+his wife and daughter, is not come in from selling
+Lucifers!&nbsp; Nor on the bit of sacking in the nearest
+corner?&nbsp; Bad luck!&nbsp; Because that Irish family is late
+to-night, a-cadging in the streets!</p>
+<p>They are all awake now, the children excepted, and most of
+them sit up, to stare.&nbsp; Wheresoever Mr. Rogers turns the
+flaming eye, there is a spectral figure rising, unshrouded, from
+a grave of rags.&nbsp; Who is the landlord here?&mdash;I am, Mr.
+Field! says a bundle of ribs and parchment against the wall,
+scratching itself.&mdash;Will you spend this money fairly, in the
+morning, to buy coffee for &rsquo;em all?&mdash;Yes, sir, I
+will!&mdash;O he&rsquo;ll do it, sir, he&rsquo;ll do it
+fair.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s honest! cry the spectres.&nbsp; And with
+thanks and Good Night sink into their graves again.</p>
+<p>Thus, we make our New Oxford Streets, and our other new
+streets, never heeding, never asking, where the wretches whom we
+clear out, crowd.&nbsp; With such scenes at our doors, with all
+the plagues of Egypt tied up with bits of cobweb in kennels so
+near our homes, we timorously make our Nuisance Bills and Boards
+of Health, nonentities, and think to keep away the Wolves of
+Crime and Filth, by our electioneering ducking to little
+vestrymen and our gentlemanly handling of Red Tape!</p>
+<p>Intelligence of the coffee-money has got abroad.&nbsp; The
+yard is full, and Rogers of the flaming eye is beleaguered with
+entreaties to show other Lodging Houses.&nbsp; Mine next!&nbsp;
+Mine!&nbsp; Mine!&nbsp; Rogers, military, obdurate, stiff-necked,
+immovable, replies not, but leads away; all falling back before
+him.&nbsp; Inspector Field follows.&nbsp; Detective Sergeant,
+with his barrier of arm across the little passage, deliberately
+waits to close the procession.&nbsp; He sees behind him, without
+any effort, and exceedingly disturbs one individual far in the
+rear by coolly calling out, &lsquo;It won&rsquo;t do, Mr.
+Michael!&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t try it!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>After council holden in the street, we enter other
+lodging-houses, public-houses, many lairs and holes; all noisome
+and offensive; none so filthy and so crowded as where Irish
+are.&nbsp; In one, The Ethiopian party are expected home
+presently&mdash;were in Oxford Street when last heard
+of&mdash;shall be fetched, for our delight, within ten
+minutes.&nbsp; In another, one of the two or three Professors who
+drew Napoleon Buonaparte and a couple of mackerel, on the
+pavement and then let the work of art out to a speculator, is
+refreshing after his labours.&nbsp; In another, the vested
+interest of the profitable nuisance has been in one family for a
+hundred years, and the landlord drives in comfortably from the
+country to his snug little stew in town.&nbsp; In all, Inspector
+Field is received with warmth.&nbsp; Coiners and smashers droop
+before him; pickpockets defer to him; the gentle sex (not very
+gentle here) smile upon him.&nbsp; Half-drunken hags check
+themselves in the midst of pots of beer, or pints of gin, to
+drink to Mr. Field, and pressingly to ask the honour of his
+finishing the draught.&nbsp; One beldame in rusty black has such
+admiration for him, that she runs a whole street&rsquo;s length
+to shake him by the hand; tumbling into a heap of mud by the way,
+and still pressing her attentions when her very form has ceased
+to be distinguishable through it.&nbsp; Before the power of the
+law, the power of superior sense&mdash;for common thieves are
+fools beside these men&mdash;and the power of a perfect mastery
+of their character, the garrison of Rats&rsquo; Castle and the
+adjacent Fortresses make but a skulking show indeed when reviewed
+by Inspector Field.</p>
+<p>Saint Giles&rsquo;s clock says it will be midnight in
+half-an-hour, and Inspector Field says we must hurry to the Old
+Mint in the Borough.&nbsp; The cab-driver is low-spirited, and
+has a solemn sense of his responsibility.&nbsp; Now, what&rsquo;s
+your fare, my lad?&mdash;O you know, Inspector Field,
+what&rsquo;s the good of asking me!</p>
+<p>Say, Parker, strapped and great-coated, and waiting in dim
+Borough doorway by appointment, to replace the trusty Rogers whom
+we left deep in Saint Giles&rsquo;s, are you ready?&nbsp; Ready,
+Inspector Field, and at a motion of my wrist behold my flaming
+eye.</p>
+<p>This narrow street, sir, is the chief part of the Old Mint,
+full of low lodging-houses, as you see by the transparent
+canvas-lamps and blinds, announcing beds for travellers!&nbsp;
+But it is greatly changed, friend Field, from my former knowledge
+of it; it is infinitely quieter and more subdued than when I was
+here last, some seven years ago?&nbsp; O yes!&nbsp; Inspector
+Haynes, a first-rate man, is on this station now and plays the
+Devil with them!</p>
+<p>Well, my lads!&nbsp; How are you to-night, my lads?&nbsp;
+Playing cards here, eh?&nbsp; Who wins?&mdash;Why, Mr. Field, I,
+the sulky gentleman with the damp flat side-curls, rubbing my
+bleared eye with the end of my neckerchief which is like a dirty
+eel-skin, am losing just at present, but I suppose I must take my
+pipe out of my mouth, and be submissive to <i>you</i>&mdash;I
+hope I see you well, Mr. Field?&mdash;Aye, all right, my
+lad.&nbsp; Deputy, who have you got up-stairs?&nbsp; Be pleased
+to show the rooms!</p>
+<p>Why Deputy, Inspector Field can&rsquo;t say.&nbsp; He only
+knows that the man who takes care of the beds and lodgers is
+always called so.&nbsp; Steady, O Deputy, with the flaring candle
+in the blacking-bottle, for this is a slushy back-yard, and the
+wooden staircase outside the house creaks and has holes in
+it.</p>
+<p>Again, in these confined intolerable rooms, burrowed out like
+the holes of rats or the nests of insect-vermin, but fuller of
+intolerable smells, are crowds of sleepers, each on his foul
+truckle-bed coiled up beneath a rug.&nbsp; Holloa here!&nbsp;
+Come!&nbsp; Let us see you!&nbsp; Show your face!&nbsp; Pilot
+Parker goes from bed to bed and turns their slumbering heads
+towards us, as a salesman might turn sheep.&nbsp; Some wake up
+with an execration and a threat.&mdash;What! who spoke?&nbsp;
+O!&nbsp; If it&rsquo;s the accursed glaring eye that fixes me, go
+where I will, I am helpless.&nbsp; Here!&nbsp; I sit up to be
+looked at.&nbsp; Is it me you want?&nbsp; Not you, lie down
+again! and I lie down, with a woful growl.</p>
+<p>Whenever the turning lane of light becomes stationary for a
+moment, some sleeper appears at the end of it, submits himself to
+be scrutinised, and fades away into the darkness.</p>
+<p>There should be strange dreams here, Deputy.&nbsp; They sleep
+sound enough, says Deputy, taking the candle out of the
+blacking-bottle, snuffing it with his fingers, throwing the snuff
+into the bottle, and corking it up with the candle; that&rsquo;s
+all <i>I</i> know.&nbsp; What is the inscription, Deputy, on all
+the discoloured sheets?&nbsp; A precaution against loss of
+linen.&nbsp; Deputy turns down the rug of an unoccupied bed and
+discloses it.&nbsp; <span class="smcap">Stop Thief</span>!</p>
+<p>To lie at night, wrapped in the legend of my slinking life; to
+take the cry that pursues me, waking, to my breast in sleep; to
+have it staring at me, and clamouring for me, as soon as
+consciousness returns; to have it for my first-foot on
+New-Year&rsquo;s day, my Valentine, my Birthday salute, my
+Christmas greeting, my parting with the old year.&nbsp; <span
+class="smcap">Stop Thief</span>!</p>
+<p>And to know that I <i>must</i> be stopped, come what
+will.&nbsp; To know that I am no match for this individual energy
+and keenness, or this organised and steady system!&nbsp; Come
+across the street, here, and, entering by a little shop and yard,
+examine these intricate passages and doors, contrived for escape,
+flapping and counter-flapping, like the lids of the
+conjurer&rsquo;s boxes.&nbsp; But what avail they?&nbsp; Who gets
+in by a nod, and shows their secret working to us?&nbsp;
+Inspector Field.</p>
+<p>Don&rsquo;t forget the old Farm House, Parker!&nbsp; Parker is
+not the man to forget it.&nbsp; We are going there, now.&nbsp; It
+is the old Manor-House of these parts, and stood in the country
+once.&nbsp; Then, perhaps, there was something, which was not the
+beastly street, to see from the shattered low fronts of the
+overhanging wooden houses we are passing under&mdash;shut up now,
+pasted over with bills about the literature and drama of the
+Mint, and mouldering away.&nbsp; This long paved yard was a
+paddock or a garden once, or a court in front of the Farm
+House.&nbsp; Perchance, with a dovecot in the centre, and fowls
+peeking about&mdash;with fair elm trees, then, where discoloured
+chimney-stacks and gables are now&mdash;noisy, then, with rooks
+which have yielded to a different sort of rookery.&nbsp;
+It&rsquo;s likelier than not, Inspector Field thinks, as we turn
+into the common kitchen, which is in the yard, and many paces
+from the house.</p>
+<p>Well, my lads and lasses, how are you all?&nbsp; Where&rsquo;s
+Blackey, who has stood near London Bridge these five-and-twenty
+years, with a painted skin to represent disease?&mdash;Here he
+is, Mr. Field!&mdash;How are you, Blackey?&mdash;Jolly, sa!&nbsp;
+Not playing the fiddle to-night, Blackey?&mdash;Not a night,
+sa!&nbsp; A sharp, smiling youth, the wit of the kitchen,
+interposes.&nbsp; He an&rsquo;t musical to-night, sir.&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;ve been giving him a moral lecture; I&rsquo;ve been a
+talking to him about his latter end, you see.&nbsp; A good many
+of these are my pupils, sir.&nbsp; This here young man (smoothing
+down the hair of one near him, reading a Sunday paper) is a pupil
+of mine.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m a teaching of him to read, sir.&nbsp;
+He&rsquo;s a promising cove, sir.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s a smith, he
+is, and gets his living by the sweat of the brow, sir.&nbsp; So
+do I, myself, sir.&nbsp; This young woman is my sister, Mr.
+Field.&nbsp; <i>She&rsquo;s</i> getting on very well too.&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;ve a deal of trouble with &rsquo;em, sir, but I&rsquo;m
+richly rewarded, now I see &rsquo;em all a doing so well, and
+growing up so creditable.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s a great comfort,
+that is, an&rsquo;t it, sir?&mdash;In the midst of the kitchen
+(the whole kitchen is in ecstasies with this impromptu
+&lsquo;chaff&rsquo;) sits a young, modest, gentle-looking
+creature, with a beautiful child in her lap.&nbsp; She seems to
+belong to the company, but is so strangely unlike it.&nbsp; She
+has such a pretty, quiet face and voice, and is so proud to hear
+the child admired&mdash;thinks you would hardly believe that he
+is only nine months old!&nbsp; Is she as bad as the rest, I
+wonder?&nbsp; Inspectorial experience does not engender a belief
+contrariwise, but prompts the answer, Not a ha&rsquo;porth of
+difference!</p>
+<p>There is a piano going in the old Farm House as we
+approach.&nbsp; It stops.&nbsp; Landlady appears.&nbsp; Has no
+objections, Mr. Field, to gentlemen being brought, but wishes it
+were at earlier hours, the lodgers complaining of
+ill-conwenience.&nbsp; Inspector Field is polite and
+soothing&mdash;knows his woman and the sex.&nbsp; Deputy (a girl
+in this case) shows the way up a heavy, broad old staircase, kept
+very clean, into clean rooms where many sleepers are, and where
+painted panels of an older time look strangely on the truckle
+beds.&nbsp; The sight of whitewash and the smell of
+soap&mdash;two things we seem by this time to have parted from in
+infancy&mdash;make the old Farm House a phenomenon, and connect
+themselves with the so curiously misplaced picture of the pretty
+mother and child long after we have left it,&mdash;long after we
+have left, besides, the neighbouring nook with something of a
+rustic flavour in it yet, where once, beneath a low wooden
+colonnade still standing as of yore, the eminent Jack Sheppard
+condescended to regale himself, and where, now, two old bachelor
+brothers in broad hats (who are whispered in the Mint to have
+made a compact long ago that if either should ever marry, he must
+forfeit his share of the joint property) still keep a sequestered
+tavern, and sit o&rsquo; nights smoking pipes in the bar, among
+ancient bottles and glasses, as our eyes behold them.</p>
+<p>How goes the night now?&nbsp; Saint George of Southwark
+answers with twelve blows upon his bell.&nbsp; Parker, good
+night, for Williams is already waiting over in the region of
+Ratcliffe Highway, to show the houses where the sailors
+dance.</p>
+<p>I should like to know where Inspector Field was born.&nbsp; In
+Ratcliffe Highway, I would have answered with confidence, but for
+his being equally at home wherever we go.&nbsp; <i>He</i> does
+not trouble his head as I do, about the river at night.&nbsp;
+<i>He</i> does not care for its creeping, black and silent, on
+our right there, rushing through sluice-gates, lapping at piles
+and posts and iron rings, hiding strange things in its mud,
+running away with suicides and accidentally drowned bodies faster
+than midnight funeral should, and acquiring such various
+experience between its cradle and its grave.&nbsp; It has no
+mystery for him.&nbsp; Is there not the Thames Police!</p>
+<p>Accordingly, Williams leads the way.&nbsp; We are a little
+late, for some of the houses are already closing.&nbsp; No
+matter.&nbsp; You show us plenty.&nbsp; All the landlords know
+Inspector Field.&nbsp; All pass him, freely and good-humouredly,
+wheresoever he wants to go.&nbsp; So thoroughly are all these
+houses open to him and our local guide, that, granting that
+sailors must be entertained in their own way&mdash;as I suppose
+they must, and have a right to be&mdash;I hardly know how such
+places could be better regulated.&nbsp; Not that I call the
+company very select, or the dancing very graceful&mdash;even so
+graceful as that of the German Sugar Bakers, whose assembly, by
+the Minories, we stopped to visit&mdash;but there is watchful
+maintenance of order in every house, and swift expulsion where
+need is.&nbsp; Even in the midst of drunkenness, both of the
+lethargic kind and the lively, there is sharp landlord
+supervision, and pockets are in less peril than out of
+doors.&nbsp; These houses show, singularly, how much of the
+picturesque and romantic there truly is in the sailor, requiring
+to be especially addressed.&nbsp; All the songs (sung in a
+hailstorm of halfpence, which are pitched at the singer without
+the least tenderness for the time or tune&mdash;mostly from great
+rolls of copper carried for the purpose&mdash;and which he
+occasionally dodges like shot as they fly near his head) are of
+the sentimental sea sort.&nbsp; All the rooms are decorated with
+nautical subjects.&nbsp; Wrecks, engagements, ships on fire,
+ships passing lighthouses on iron-bound coasts, ships blowing up,
+ships going down, ships running ashore, men lying out upon the
+main-yard in a gale of wind, sailors and ships in every variety
+of peril, constitute the illustrations of fact.&nbsp; Nothing can
+be done in the fanciful way, without a thumping boy upon a scaly
+dolphin.</p>
+<p>How goes the night now?&nbsp; Past one.&nbsp; Black and Green
+are waiting in Whitechapel to unveil the mysteries of Wentworth
+Street.&nbsp; Williams, the best of friends must part.&nbsp;
+Adieu!</p>
+<p>Are not Black and Green ready at the appointed place?&nbsp; O
+yes!&nbsp; They glide out of shadow as we stop.&nbsp;
+Imperturbable Black opens the cab-door; Imperturbable Green takes
+a mental note of the driver.&nbsp; Both Green and Black then open
+each his flaming eye, and marshal us the way that we are
+going.</p>
+<p>The lodging-house we want is hidden in a maze of streets and
+courts.&nbsp; It is fast shut.&nbsp; We knock at the door, and
+stand hushed looking up for a light at one or other of the
+begrimed old lattice windows in its ugly front, when another
+constable comes up&mdash;supposes that we want &lsquo;to see the
+school.&rsquo;&nbsp; Detective Sergeant meanwhile has got over a
+rail, opened a gate, dropped down an area, overcome some other
+little obstacles, and tapped at a window.&nbsp; Now
+returns.&nbsp; The landlord will send a deputy immediately.</p>
+<p>Deputy is heard to stumble out of bed.&nbsp; Deputy lights a
+candle, draws back a bolt or two, and appears at the door.&nbsp;
+Deputy is a shivering shirt and trousers by no means clean, a
+yawning face, a shock head much confused externally and
+internally.&nbsp; We want to look for some one.&nbsp; You may go
+up with the light, and take &rsquo;em all, if you like, says
+Deputy, resigning it, and sitting down upon a bench in the
+kitchen with his ten fingers sleepily twisting in his hair.</p>
+<p>Halloa here!&nbsp; Now then!&nbsp; Show yourselves.&nbsp;
+That&rsquo;ll do.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not you.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t
+disturb yourself any more!&nbsp; So on, through a labyrinth of
+airless rooms, each man responding, like a wild beast, to the
+keeper who has tamed him, and who goes into his cage.&nbsp; What,
+you haven&rsquo;t found him, then? says Deputy, when we came
+down.&nbsp; A woman mysteriously sitting up all night in the dark
+by the smouldering ashes of the kitchen fire, says it&rsquo;s
+only tramps and cadgers here; it&rsquo;s gonophs over the
+way.&nbsp; A man mysteriously walking about the kitchen all night
+in the dark, bids her hold her tongue.&nbsp; We come out.&nbsp;
+Deputy fastens the door and goes to bed again.</p>
+<p>Black and Green, you know Bark, lodging-house keeper and
+receiver of stolen goods?&mdash;O yes, Inspector Field.&mdash;Go
+to Bark&rsquo;s next.</p>
+<p>Bark sleeps in an inner wooden hutch, near his street
+door.&nbsp; As we parley on the step with Bark&rsquo;s Deputy,
+Bark growls in his bed.&nbsp; We enter, and Bark flies out of
+bed.&nbsp; Bark is a red villain and a wrathful, with a sanguine
+throat that looks very much as if it were expressly made for
+hanging, as he stretches it out, in pale defiance, over the
+half-door of his hutch.&nbsp; Bark&rsquo;s parts of speech are of
+an awful sort&mdash;principally adjectives.&nbsp; I won&rsquo;t,
+says Bark, have no adjective police and adjective strangers in my
+adjective premises!&nbsp; I won&rsquo;t, by adjective and
+substantive!&nbsp; Give me my trousers, and I&rsquo;ll send the
+whole adjective police to adjective and substantive!&nbsp; Give
+me, says Bark, my adjective trousers!&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll put an
+adjective knife in the whole bileing of &rsquo;em.&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;ll punch their adjective heads.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll rip up
+their adjective substantives.&nbsp; Give me my adjective
+trousers! says Bark, and I&rsquo;ll spile the bileing of
+&rsquo;em!</p>
+<p>Now, Bark, what&rsquo;s the use of this?&nbsp; Here&rsquo;s
+Black and Green, Detective Sergeant, and Inspector Field.&nbsp;
+You know we will come in.&mdash;I know you won&rsquo;t! says
+Bark.&nbsp; Somebody give me my adjective trousers!&nbsp;
+Bark&rsquo;s trousers seem difficult to find.&nbsp; He calls for
+them as Hercules might for his club.&nbsp; Give me my adjective
+trousers! says Bark, and I&rsquo;ll spile the bileing of
+&rsquo;em!</p>
+<p>Inspector Field holds that it&rsquo;s all one whether Bark
+likes the visit or don&rsquo;t like it.&nbsp; He, Inspector
+Field, is an Inspector of the Detective Police, Detective
+Sergeant is Detective Sergeant, Black and Green are constables in
+uniform.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you be a fool, Bark, or you know it
+will be the worse for you.&mdash;I don&rsquo;t care, says
+Bark.&nbsp; Give me my adjective trousers!</p>
+<p>At two o&rsquo;clock in the morning, we descend into
+Bark&rsquo;s low kitchen, leaving Bark to foam at the mouth
+above, and Imperturbable Black and Green to look at him.&nbsp;
+Bark&rsquo;s kitchen is crammed full of thieves, holding a
+conversazione there by lamp-light.&nbsp; It is by far the most
+dangerous assembly we have seen yet.&nbsp; Stimulated by the
+ravings of Bark, above, their looks are sullen, but not a man
+speaks.&nbsp; We ascend again.&nbsp; Bark has got his trousers,
+and is in a state of madness in the passage with his back against
+a door that shuts off the upper staircase.&nbsp; We observe, in
+other respects, a ferocious individuality in Bark.&nbsp; Instead
+of &lsquo;<span class="smcap">Stop Thief</span>!&rsquo; on his
+linen, he prints &lsquo;<span class="smcap">Stolen from</span>
+Bark&rsquo;s!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Now, Bark, we are going up-stairs!&mdash;No, you
+ain&rsquo;t!&mdash;You refuse admission to the Police, do you,
+Bark?&mdash;Yes, I do!&nbsp; I refuse it to all the adjective
+police, and to all the adjective substantives.&nbsp; If the
+adjective coves in the kitchen was men, they&rsquo;d come up now,
+and do for you!&nbsp; Shut me that there door! says Bark, and
+suddenly we are enclosed in the passage.&nbsp; They&rsquo;d come
+up and do for you! cries Bark, and waits.&nbsp; Not a sound in
+the kitchen!&nbsp; They&rsquo;d come up and do for you! cries
+Bark again, and waits.&nbsp; Not a sound in the kitchen!&nbsp; We
+are shut up, half-a-dozen of us, in Bark&rsquo;s house in the
+innermost recesses of the worst part of London, in the dead of
+the night&mdash;the house is crammed with notorious robbers and
+ruffians&mdash;and not a man stirs.&nbsp; No, Bark.&nbsp; They
+know the weight of the law, and they know Inspector Field and Co.
+too well.</p>
+<p>We leave bully Bark to subside at leisure out of his passion
+and his trousers, and, I dare say, to be inconveniently reminded
+of this little brush before long.&nbsp; Black and Green do
+ordinary duty here, and look serious.</p>
+<p>As to White, who waits on Holborn Hill to show the courts that
+are eaten out of Rotten Gray&rsquo;s Inn, Lane, where other
+lodging-houses are, and where (in one blind alley) the
+Thieves&rsquo; Kitchen and Seminary for the teaching of the art
+to children is, the night has so worn away, being now</p>
+<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">almost at odds with
+morning, which is which,</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>that they are quiet, and no light shines through the chinks in
+the shutters.&nbsp; As undistinctive Death will come here, one
+day, sleep comes now.&nbsp; The wicked cease from troubling
+sometimes, even in this life.</p>
+<h2><a name="page442"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 442</span>DOWN
+WITH THE TIDE</h2>
+<p>A <span class="GutSmall">VERY</span> dark night it was, and
+bitter cold; the east wind blowing bleak, and bringing with it
+stinging particles from marsh, and moor, and fen&mdash;from the
+Great Desert and Old Egypt, may be.&nbsp; Some of the component
+parts of the sharp-edged vapour that came flying up the Thames at
+London might be mummy-dust, dry atoms from the Temple at
+Jerusalem, camels&rsquo; foot-prints, crocodiles&rsquo;
+hatching-places, loosened grains of expression from the visages
+of blunt-nosed sphynxes, waifs and strays from caravans of
+turbaned merchants, vegetation from jungles, frozen snow from the
+Himalayas.&nbsp; O!&nbsp; It was very, very dark upon the Thames,
+and it was bitter, bitter cold.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;And yet,&rsquo; said the voice within the great
+pea-coat at my side, &lsquo;you&rsquo;ll have seen a good many
+rivers, too, I dare say?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Truly,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;when I come to think of
+it, not a few.&nbsp; From the Niagara, downward to the mountain
+rivers of Italy, which are like the national spirit&mdash;very
+tame, or chafing suddenly and bursting bounds, only to dwindle
+away again.&nbsp; The Moselle, and the Rhine, and the Rhone; and
+the Seine, and the Saone; and the St. Lawrence, Mississippi, and
+Ohio; and the Tiber, the Po, and the Arno; and
+the&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Peacoat coughing as if he had had enough of that, I said no
+more.&nbsp; I could have carried the catalogue on to a teasing
+length, though, if I had been in the cruel mind.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;And after all,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;this looks so
+dismal?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;So awful,&rsquo; I returned, &lsquo;at night.&nbsp; The
+Seine at Paris is very gloomy too, at such a time, and is
+probably the scene of far more crime and greater wickedness; but
+this river looks so broad and vast, so murky and silent, seems
+such an image of death in the midst of the great city&rsquo;s
+life, that&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
+<p>That Peacoat coughed again.&nbsp; He <i>could not</i> stand my
+holding forth.</p>
+<p>We were in a four-oared Thames Police Galley, lying on our
+oars in the deep shadow of Southwark Bridge&mdash;under the
+corner arch on the Surrey side&mdash;having come down with the
+tide from Vauxhall.&nbsp; We were fain to hold on pretty tight,
+though close in shore, for the river was swollen and the tide
+running down very strong.&nbsp; We were watching certain
+water-rats of human growth, and lay in the deep shade as quiet as
+mice; our light hidden and our scraps of conversation carried on
+in whispers.&nbsp; Above us, the massive iron girders of the arch
+were faintly visible, and below us its ponderous shadow seemed to
+sink down to the bottom of the stream.</p>
+<p>We had been lying here some half an hour.&nbsp; With our backs
+to the wind, it is true; but the wind being in a determined
+temper blew straight through us, and would not take the trouble
+to go round.&nbsp; I would have boarded a fireship to get into
+action, and mildly suggested as much to my friend Pea.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;No doubt,&rsquo; says he as patiently as possible;
+&lsquo;but shore-going tactics wouldn&rsquo;t do with us.&nbsp;
+River-thieves can always get rid of stolen property in a moment
+by dropping it overboard.&nbsp; We want to take them with the
+property, so we lurk about and come out upon &rsquo;em
+sharp.&nbsp; If they see us or hear us, over it goes.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Pea&rsquo;s wisdom being indisputable, there was nothing for
+it but to sit there and be blown through, for another
+half-hour.&nbsp; The water-rats thinking it wise to abscond at
+the end of that time without commission of felony, we shot out,
+disappointed, with the tide.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Grim they look, don&rsquo;t they?&rsquo; said Pea,
+seeing me glance over my shoulder at the lights upon the bridge,
+and downward at their long crooked reflections in the river.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Very,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;and make one think with a
+shudder of Suicides.&nbsp; What a night for a dreadful leap from
+that parapet!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Aye, but Waterloo&rsquo;s the favourite bridge for
+making holes in the water from,&rsquo; returned Pea.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;By the bye&mdash;avast pulling, lads!&mdash;would you like
+to speak to Waterloo on the subject?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>My face confessing a surprised desire to have some friendly
+conversation with Waterloo Bridge, and my friend Pea being the
+most obliging of men, we put about, pulled out of the force of
+the stream, and in place of going at great speed with the tide,
+began to strive against it, close in shore again.&nbsp; Every
+colour but black seemed to have departed from the world.&nbsp;
+The air was black, the water was black, the barges and hulks were
+black, the piles were black, the buildings were black, the
+shadows were only a deeper shade of black upon a black
+ground.&nbsp; Here and there, a coal fire in an iron cresset
+blazed upon a wharf; but, one knew that it too had been black a
+little while ago, and would be black again soon.&nbsp;
+Uncomfortable rushes of water suggestive of gurgling and
+drowning, ghostly rattlings of iron chains, dismal clankings of
+discordant engines, formed the music that accompanied the dip of
+our oars and their rattling in the rowlocks.&nbsp; Even the
+noises had a black sound to me&mdash;as the trumpet sounded red
+to the blind man.</p>
+<p>Our dexterous boat&rsquo;s crew made nothing of the tide, and
+pulled us gallantly up to Waterloo Bridge.&nbsp; Here Pea and I
+disembarked, passed under the black stone archway, and climbed
+the steep stone steps.&nbsp; Within a few feet of their summit,
+Pea presented me to Waterloo (or an eminent toll-taker
+representing that structure), muffled up to the eyes in a thick
+shawl, and amply great-coated and fur-capped.</p>
+<p>Waterloo received us with cordiality, and observed of the
+night that it was &lsquo;a Searcher.&rsquo;&nbsp; He had been
+originally called the Strand Bridge, he informed us, but had
+received his present name at the suggestion of the proprietors,
+when Parliament had resolved to vote three hundred thousand pound
+for the erection of a monument in honour of the victory.&nbsp;
+Parliament took the hint (said Waterloo, with the least flavour
+of misanthropy) and saved the money.&nbsp; Of course the late
+Duke of Wellington was the first passenger, and of course he paid
+his penny, and of course a noble lord preserved it
+evermore.&nbsp; The treadle and index at the toll-house (a most
+ingenious contrivance for rendering fraud impossible), were
+invented by Mr. Lethbridge, then property-man at Drury Lane
+Theatre.</p>
+<p>Was it suicide, we wanted to know about? said Waterloo.&nbsp;
+Ha!&nbsp; Well, he had seen a good deal of that work, he did
+assure us.&nbsp; He had prevented some.&nbsp; Why, one day a
+woman, poorish looking, came in between the hatch, slapped down a
+penny, and wanted to go on without the change!&nbsp; Waterloo
+suspected this, and says to his mate, &lsquo;give an eye to the
+gate,&rsquo; and bolted after her.&nbsp; She had got to the third
+seat between the piers, and was on the parapet just a going over,
+when he caught her and gave her in charge.&nbsp; At the police
+office next morning, she said it was along of trouble and a bad
+husband.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Likely enough,&rsquo; observed Waterloo to Pea and
+myself, as he adjusted his chin in his shawl.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;There&rsquo;s a deal of trouble about, you see&mdash;and
+bad husbands too!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Another time, a young woman at twelve o&rsquo;clock in the
+open day, got through, darted along; and, before Waterloo could
+come near her, jumped upon the parapet, and shot herself over
+sideways.&nbsp; Alarm given, watermen put off, lucky
+escape.&mdash;Clothes buoyed her up.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;This is where it is,&rsquo; said Waterloo.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;If people jump off straight forwards from the middle of
+the parapet of the bays of the bridge, they are seldom killed by
+drowning, but are smashed, poor things; that&rsquo;s what they
+are; they dash themselves upon the buttress of the bridge.&nbsp;
+But you jump off,&rsquo; said Waterloo to me, putting his
+fore-finger in a button-hole of my great-coat; &lsquo;you jump
+off from the side of the bay, and you&rsquo;ll tumble, true, into
+the stream under the arch.&nbsp; What you have got to do, is to
+mind how you jump in!&nbsp; There was poor Tom Steele from
+Dublin.&nbsp; Didn&rsquo;t dive!&nbsp; Bless you, didn&rsquo;t
+dive at all!&nbsp; Fell down so flat into the water, that he
+broke his breast-bone, and lived two days!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I asked Waterloo if there were a favourite side of his bridge
+for this dreadful purpose?&nbsp; He reflected, and thought yes,
+there was.&nbsp; He should say the Surrey side.</p>
+<p>Three decent-looking men went through one day, soberly and
+quietly, and went on abreast for about a dozen yards: when the
+middle one, he sung out, all of a sudden, &lsquo;Here goes,
+Jack!&rsquo; and was over in a minute.</p>
+<p>Body found?&nbsp; Well.&nbsp; Waterloo didn&rsquo;t rightly
+recollect about that.&nbsp; They were compositors, <i>they</i>
+were.</p>
+<p>He considered it astonishing how quick people were!&nbsp; Why,
+there was a cab came up one Boxing-night, with a young woman in
+it, who looked, according to Waterloo&rsquo;s opinion of her, a
+little the worse for liquor; very handsome she was too&mdash;very
+handsome.&nbsp; She stopped the cab at the gate, and said
+she&rsquo;d pay the cabman then, which she did, though there was
+a little hankering about the fare, because at first she
+didn&rsquo;t seem quite to know where she wanted to be drove
+to.&nbsp; However, she paid the man, and the toll too, and
+looking Waterloo in the face (he thought she knew him,
+don&rsquo;t you see!) said, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll finish it
+somehow!&rsquo;&nbsp; Well, the cab went off, leaving Waterloo a
+little doubtful in his mind, and while it was going on at full
+speed the young woman jumped out, never fell, hardly staggered,
+ran along the bridge pavement a little way, passing several
+people, and jumped over from the second opening.&nbsp; At the
+inquest it was giv&rsquo; in evidence that she had been
+quarrelling at the Hero of Waterloo, and it was brought in
+jealousy.&nbsp; (One of the results of Waterloo&rsquo;s
+experience was, that there was a deal of jealousy about.)</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Do we ever get madmen?&rsquo; said Waterloo, in answer
+to an inquiry of mine.&nbsp; &lsquo;Well, we <i>do</i> get
+madmen.&nbsp; Yes, we have had one or two; escaped from
+&lsquo;Sylums, I suppose.&nbsp; One hadn&rsquo;t a halfpenny; and
+because I wouldn&rsquo;t let him through, he went back a little
+way, stooped down, took a run, and butted at the hatch like a
+ram.&nbsp; He smashed his hat rarely, but his head didn&rsquo;t
+seem no worse&mdash;in my opinion on account of his being wrong
+in it afore.&nbsp; Sometimes people haven&rsquo;t got a
+halfpenny.&nbsp; If they are really tired and poor we give
+&rsquo;em one and let &rsquo;em through.&nbsp; Other people will
+leave things&mdash;pocket-handkerchiefs mostly.&nbsp; I have
+taken cravats and gloves, pocket-knives, tooth-picks, studs,
+shirt-pins, rings (generally from young gents, early in the
+morning), but handkerchiefs is the general thing.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Regular customers?&rsquo; said Waterloo.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Lord, yes!&nbsp; We have regular customers.&nbsp; One,
+such a worn-out, used-up old file as you can scarcely picter,
+comes from the Surrey side as regular as ten o&rsquo;clock at
+night comes; and goes over, <i>I</i> think, to some flash house
+on the Middlesex side.&nbsp; He comes back, he does, as
+reg&rsquo;lar as the clock strikes three in the morning, and then
+can hardly drag one of his old legs after the other.&nbsp; He
+always turns down the water-stairs, comes up again, and then goes
+on down the Waterloo Road.&nbsp; He always does the same thing,
+and never varies a minute.&nbsp; Does it every night&mdash;even
+Sundays.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>I asked Waterloo if he had given his mind to the possibility
+of this particular customer going down the water-stairs at three
+o&rsquo;clock some morning, and never coming up again?&nbsp; He
+didn&rsquo;t think that of him, he replied.&nbsp; In fact, it was
+Waterloo&rsquo;s opinion, founded on his observation of that
+file, that he know&rsquo;d a trick worth two of it.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;There&rsquo;s another queer old customer,&rsquo; said
+Waterloo, &lsquo;comes over, as punctual as the almanack, at
+eleven o&rsquo;clock on the sixth of January, at eleven
+o&rsquo;clock on the fifth of April, at eleven o&rsquo;clock on
+the sixth of July, at eleven o&rsquo;clock on the tenth of
+October.&nbsp; Drives a shaggy little, rough pony, in a sort of a
+rattle-trap arm-chair sort of a thing.&nbsp; White hair he has,
+and white whiskers, and muffles himself up with all manner of
+shawls.&nbsp; He comes back again the same afternoon, and we
+never see more of him for three months.&nbsp; He is a captain in
+the navy&mdash;retired&mdash;wery old&mdash;wery odd&mdash;and
+served with Lord Nelson.&nbsp; He is particular about drawing his
+pension at Somerset House afore the clock strikes twelve every
+quarter.&nbsp; I have heerd say that he thinks it wouldn&rsquo;t
+be according to the Act of Parliament, if he didn&rsquo;t draw it
+afore twelve.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Having related these anecdotes in a natural manner, which was
+the best warranty in the world for their genuine nature, our
+friend Waterloo was sinking deep into his shawl again, as having
+exhausted his communicative powers and taken in enough east wind,
+when my other friend Pea in a moment brought him to the surface
+by asking whether he had not been occasionally the subject of
+assault and battery in the execution of his duty?&nbsp; Waterloo
+recovering his spirits, instantly dashed into a new branch of his
+subject.&nbsp; We learnt how &lsquo;both these
+teeth&rsquo;&mdash;here he pointed to the places where two front
+teeth were not&mdash;were knocked out by an ugly customer who one
+night made a dash at him (Waterloo) while his (the ugly
+customer&rsquo;s) pal and coadjutor made a dash at the
+toll-taking apron where the money-pockets were; how Waterloo,
+letting the teeth go (to Blazes, he observed indefinitely),
+grappled with the apron-seizer, permitting the ugly one to run
+away; and how he saved the bank, and captured his man, and
+consigned him to fine and imprisonment.&nbsp; Also how, on
+another night, &lsquo;a Cove&rsquo; laid hold of Waterloo, then
+presiding at the horse-gate of his bridge, and threw him
+unceremoniously over his knee, having first cut his head open
+with his whip.&nbsp; How Waterloo &lsquo;got right,&rsquo; and
+started after the Cove all down the Waterloo Road, through
+Stamford Street, and round to the foot of Blackfriars Bridge,
+where the Cove &lsquo;cut into&rsquo; a public-house.&nbsp; How
+Waterloo cut in too; but how an aider and abettor of the
+Cove&rsquo;s, who happened to be taking a promiscuous drain at
+the bar, stopped Waterloo; and the Cove cut out again, ran across
+the road down Holland Street, and where not, and into a
+beer-shop.&nbsp; How Waterloo breaking away from his detainer was
+close upon the Cove&rsquo;s heels, attended by no end of people,
+who, seeing him running with the blood streaming down his face,
+thought something worse was &lsquo;up,&rsquo; and roared Fire!
+and Murder! on the hopeful chance of the matter in hand being one
+or both.&nbsp; How the Cove was ignominiously taken, in a shed
+where he had run to hide, and how at the Police Court they at
+first wanted to make a sessions job of it; but eventually
+Waterloo was allowed to be &lsquo;spoke to,&rsquo; and the Cove
+made it square with Waterloo by paying his doctor&rsquo;s bill
+(W. was laid up for a week) and giving him &lsquo;Three,
+ten.&rsquo;&nbsp; Likewise we learnt what we had faintly
+suspected before, that your sporting amateur on the Derby day,
+albeit a captain, can be&mdash;&lsquo;if he be,&rsquo; as Captain
+Bobadil observes, &lsquo;so generously
+minded&rsquo;&mdash;anything but a man of honour and a gentleman;
+not sufficiently gratifying his nice sense of humour by the witty
+scattering of flour and rotten eggs on obtuse civilians, but
+requiring the further excitement of &lsquo;bilking the
+toll,&rsquo; and &lsquo;Pitching into&rsquo; Waterloo, and
+&lsquo;cutting him about the head with his whip;&rsquo; finally
+being, when called upon to answer for the assault, what Waterloo
+described as &lsquo;Minus,&rsquo; or, as I humbly conceived it,
+not to be found.&nbsp; Likewise did Waterloo inform us, in reply
+to my inquiries, admiringly and deferentially preferred through
+my friend Pea, that the takings at the Bridge had more than
+doubled in amount, since the reduction of the toll one
+half.&nbsp; And being asked if the aforesaid takings included
+much bad money, Waterloo responded, with a look far deeper than
+the deepest part of the river, he should think not!&mdash;and so
+retired into his shawl for the rest of the night.</p>
+<p>Then did Pea and I once more embark in our four-oared galley,
+and glide swiftly down the river with the tide.&nbsp; And while
+the shrewd East rasped and notched us, as with jagged razors, did
+my friend Pea impart to me confidences of interest relating to
+the Thames Police; we, between whiles, finding &lsquo;duty
+boats&rsquo; hanging in dark corners under banks, like
+weeds&mdash;our own was a &lsquo;supervision
+boat&rsquo;&mdash;and they, as they reported &lsquo;all
+right!&rsquo; flashing their hidden light on us, and we flashing
+ours on them.&nbsp; These duty boats had one sitter in each: an
+Inspector: and were rowed &lsquo;Ran-dan,&rsquo; which&mdash;for
+the information of those who never graduated, as I was once proud
+to do, under a fireman-waterman and winner of Kean&rsquo;s Prize
+Wherry: who, in the course of his tuition, took hundreds of
+gallons of rum and egg (at my expense) at the various houses of
+note above and below bridge; not by any means because he liked
+it, but to cure a weakness in his liver, for which the faculty
+had particularly recommended it&mdash;may be explained as rowed
+by three men, two pulling an oar each, and one a pair of
+sculls.</p>
+<p>Thus, floating down our black highway, sullenly frowned upon
+by the knitted brows of Blackfriars, Southwark, and London, each
+in his lowering turn, I was shown by my friend Pea that there
+are, in the Thames Police Force, whose district extends from
+Battersea to Barking Creek, ninety-eight men, eight duty boats,
+and two supervision boats; and that these go about so silently,
+and lie in wait in such dark places, and so seem to be nowhere,
+and so may be anywhere, that they have gradually become a police
+of prevention, keeping the river almost clear of any great
+crimes, even while the increased vigilance on shore has made it
+much harder than of yore to live by &lsquo;thieving&rsquo; in the
+streets.&nbsp; And as to the various kinds of water-thieves, said
+my friend Pea, there were the Tier-rangers, who silently dropped
+alongside the tiers of shipping in the Pool, by night, and who,
+going to the companion-head, listened for two snores&mdash;snore
+number one, the skipper&rsquo;s; snore number two, the
+mate&rsquo;s&mdash;mates and skippers always snoring great guns,
+and being dead sure to be hard at it if they had turned in and
+were asleep.&nbsp; Hearing the double fire, down went the Rangers
+into the skippers&rsquo; cabins; groped for the skippers&rsquo;
+inexpressibles, which it was the custom of those gentlemen to
+shake off, watch, money, braces, boots, and all together, on the
+floor; and therewith made off as silently as might be.&nbsp; Then
+there were the Lumpers, or labourers employed to unload
+vessels.&nbsp; They wore loose canvas jackets with a broad hem in
+the bottom, turned inside, so as to form a large circular pocket
+in which they could conceal, like clowns in pantomimes, packages
+of surprising sizes.&nbsp; A great deal of property was stolen in
+this manner (Pea confided to me) from steamers; first, because
+steamers carry a larger number of small packages than other
+ships; next, because of the extreme rapidity with which they are
+obliged to be unladen for their return voyages.&nbsp; The Lumpers
+dispose of their booty easily to marine store dealers, and the
+only remedy to be suggested is that marine store shops should be
+licensed, and thus brought under the eye of the police as rigidly
+as public-houses.&nbsp; Lumpers also smuggle goods ashore for the
+crews of vessels.&nbsp; The smuggling of tobacco is so
+considerable, that it is well worth the while of the sellers of
+smuggled tobacco to use hydraulic presses, to squeeze a single
+pound into a package small enough to be contained in an ordinary
+pocket.&nbsp; Next, said my friend Pea, there were the
+Truckers&mdash;less thieves than smugglers, whose business it was
+to land more considerable parcels of goods than the Lumpers could
+manage.&nbsp; They sometimes sold articles of grocery and so
+forth, to the crews, in order to cloak their real calling, and
+get aboard without suspicion.&nbsp; Many of them had boats of
+their own, and made money.&nbsp; Besides these, there were the
+Dredgermen, who, under pretence of dredging up coals and such
+like from the bottom of the river, hung about barges and other
+undecked craft, and when they saw an opportunity, threw any
+property they could lay their hands on overboard: in order slyly
+to dredge it up when the vessel was gone.&nbsp; Sometimes, they
+dexterously used their dredges to whip away anything that might
+lie within reach.&nbsp; Some of them were mighty neat at this,
+and the accomplishment was called dry dredging.&nbsp; Then, there
+was a vast deal of property, such as copper nails, sheathing,
+hardwood, &amp;c., habitually brought away by shipwrights and
+other workmen from their employers&rsquo; yards, and disposed of
+to marine store dealers, many of whom escaped detection through
+hard swearing, and their extraordinary artful ways of accounting
+for the possession of stolen property.&nbsp; Likewise, there were
+special-pleading practitioners, for whom barges &lsquo;drifted
+away of their own selves&rsquo;&mdash;they having no hand in it,
+except first cutting them loose, and afterwards plundering
+them&mdash;innocents, meaning no harm, who had the misfortune to
+observe those foundlings wandering about the Thames.</p>
+<p>We were now going in and out, with little noise and great
+nicety, among the tiers of shipping, whose many hulls, lying
+close together, rose out of the water like black streets.&nbsp;
+Here and there, a Scotch, an Irish, or a foreign steamer, getting
+up her steam as the tide made, looked, with her great chimney and
+high sides, like a quiet factory among the common
+buildings.&nbsp; Now, the streets opened into clearer spaces, now
+contracted into alleys; but the tiers were so like houses, in the
+dark, that I could almost have believed myself in the narrower
+bye-ways of Venice.&nbsp; Everything was wonderfully still; for,
+it wanted full three hours of flood, and nothing seemed awake but
+a dog here and there.</p>
+<p>So we took no Tier-rangers captive, nor any Lumpers, nor
+Truckers, nor Dredgermen, nor other evil-disposed person or
+persons; but went ashore at Wapping, where the old Thames Police
+office is now a station-house, and where the old Court, with its
+cabin windows looking on the river, is a quaint charge room: with
+nothing worse in it usually than a stuffed cat in a glass case,
+and a portrait, pleasant to behold, of a rare old Thames Police
+officer, Mr. Superintendent Evans, now succeeded by his
+son.&nbsp; We looked over the charge books, admirably kept, and
+found the prevention so good that there were not five hundred
+entries (including drunken and disorderly) in a whole year.&nbsp;
+Then, we looked into the store-room; where there was an oakum
+smell, and a nautical seasoning of dreadnought clothing, rope
+yarn, boat-hooks, sculls and oars, spare stretchers, rudders,
+pistols, cutlasses, and the like.&nbsp; Then, into the cell,
+aired high up in the wooden wall through an opening like a
+kitchen plate-rack: wherein there was a drunken man, not at all
+warm, and very wishful to know if it were morning yet.&nbsp;
+Then, into a better sort of watch and ward room, where there was
+a squadron of stone bottles drawn up, ready to be filled with hot
+water and applied to any unfortunate creature who might be
+brought in apparently drowned.&nbsp; Finally, we shook hands with
+our worthy friend Pea, and ran all the way to Tower Hill, under
+strong Police suspicion occasionally, before we got warm.</p>
+<h2><a name="page451"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 451</span>A
+WALK IN A WORKHOUSE</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> a certain Sunday, I formed one
+of the congregation assembled in the chapel of a large
+metropolitan Workhouse.&nbsp; With the exception of the clergyman
+and clerk, and a very few officials, there were none but paupers
+present.&nbsp; The children sat in the galleries; the women in
+the body of the chapel, and in one of the side aisles; the men in
+the remaining aisle.&nbsp; The service was decorously performed,
+though the sermon might have been much better adapted to the
+comprehension and to the circumstances of the hearers.&nbsp; The
+usual supplications were offered, with more than the usual
+significancy in such a place, for the fatherless children and
+widows, for all sick persons and young children, for all that
+were desolate and oppressed, for the comforting and helping of
+the weak-hearted, for the raising-up of them that had fallen; for
+all that were in danger, necessity, and tribulation.&nbsp; The
+prayers of the congregation were desired &lsquo;for several
+persons in the various wards dangerously ill;&rsquo; and others
+who were recovering returned their thanks to Heaven.</p>
+<p>Among this congregation, were some evil-looking young women,
+and beetle-browed young men; but not many&mdash;perhaps that kind
+of characters kept away.&nbsp; Generally, the faces (those of the
+children excepted) were depressed and subdued, and wanted
+colour.&nbsp; Aged people were there, in every variety.&nbsp;
+Mumbling, blear-eyed, spectacled, stupid, deaf, lame; vacantly
+winking in the gleams of sun that now and then crept in through
+the open doors, from the paved yard; shading their listening
+ears, or blinking eyes, with their withered hands; poring over
+their books, leering at nothing, going to sleep, crouching and
+drooping in corners.&nbsp; There were weird old women, all
+skeleton within, all bonnet and cloak without, continually wiping
+their eyes with dirty dusters of pocket-handkerchiefs; and there
+were ugly old crones, both male and female, with a ghastly kind
+of contentment upon them which was not at all comforting to
+see.&nbsp; Upon the whole, it was the dragon, Pauperism, in a
+very weak and impotent condition; toothless, fangless, drawing
+his breath heavily enough, and hardly worth chaining up.</p>
+<p>When the service was over, I walked with the humane and
+conscientious gentleman whose duty it was to take that walk, that
+Sunday morning, through the little world of poverty enclosed
+within the workhouse walls.&nbsp; It was inhabited by a
+population of some fifteen hundred or two thousand paupers,
+ranging from the infant newly born or not yet come into the
+pauper world, to the old man dying on his bed.</p>
+<p>In a room opening from a squalid yard, where a number of
+listless women were lounging to and fro, trying to get warm in
+the ineffectual sunshine of the tardy May morning&mdash;in the
+&lsquo;Itch Ward,&rsquo; not to compromise the truth&mdash;a
+woman such as <span class="smcap">Hogarth</span> has often drawn,
+was hurriedly getting on her gown before a dusty fire.&nbsp; She
+was the nurse, or wardswoman, of that insalubrious
+department&mdash;herself a pauper&mdash;flabby, raw-boned,
+untidy&mdash;unpromising and coarse of aspect as need be.&nbsp;
+But, on being spoken to about the patients whom she had in
+charge, she turned round, with her shabby gown half on, half off,
+and fell a crying with all her might.&nbsp; Not for show, not
+querulously, not in any mawkish sentiment, but in the deep grief
+and affliction of her heart; turning away her dishevelled head:
+sobbing most bitterly, wringing her hands, and letting fall
+abundance of great tears, that choked her utterance.&nbsp; What
+was the matter with the nurse of the itch-ward?&nbsp; Oh,
+&lsquo;the dropped child&rsquo; was dead!&nbsp; Oh, the child
+that was found in the street, and she had brought up ever since,
+had died an hour ago, and see where the little creature lay,
+beneath this cloth!&nbsp; The dear, the pretty dear!</p>
+<p>The dropped child seemed too small and poor a thing for Death
+to be in earnest with, but Death had taken it; and already its
+diminutive form was neatly washed, composed, and stretched as if
+in sleep upon a box.&nbsp; I thought I heard a voice from Heaven
+saying, It shall be well for thee, O nurse of the itch-ward, when
+some less gentle pauper does those offices to thy cold form, that
+such as the dropped child are the angels who behold my
+Father&rsquo;s face!</p>
+<p>In another room, were several ugly old women crouching,
+witch-like, round a hearth, and chattering and nodding, after the
+manner of the monkeys.&nbsp; &lsquo;All well here?&nbsp; And
+enough to eat?&rsquo;&nbsp; A general chattering and chuckling;
+at last an answer from a volunteer.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh yes,
+gentleman!&nbsp; Bless you, gentleman!&nbsp; Lord bless the
+Parish of St. So-and-So!&nbsp; It feed the hungry, sir, and give
+drink to the thusty, and it warm them which is cold, so it do,
+and good luck to the parish of St. So-and-So, and thankee,
+gentleman!&rsquo;&nbsp; Elsewhere, a party of pauper nurses were
+at dinner.&nbsp; &lsquo;How do you get on?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh
+pretty well, sir!&nbsp; We works hard, and we lives
+hard&mdash;like the sodgers!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>In another room, a kind of purgatory or place of transition,
+six or eight noisy madwomen were gathered together, under the
+superintendence of one sane attendant.&nbsp; Among them was a
+girl of two or three and twenty, very prettily dressed, of most
+respectable appearance and good manners, who had been brought in
+from the house where she had lived as domestic servant (having, I
+suppose, no friends), on account of being subject to epileptic
+fits, and requiring to be removed under the influence of a very
+bad one.&nbsp; She was by no means of the same stuff, or the same
+breeding, or the same experience, or in the same state of mind,
+as those by whom she was surrounded; and she pathetically
+complained that the daily association and the nightly noise made
+her worse, and was driving her mad&mdash;which was perfectly
+evident.&nbsp; The case was noted for inquiry and redress, but
+she said she had already been there for some weeks.</p>
+<p>If this girl had stolen her mistress&rsquo;s watch, I do not
+hesitate to say she would have been infinitely better off.&nbsp;
+We have come to this absurd, this dangerous, this monstrous pass,
+that the dishonest felon is, in respect of cleanliness, order,
+diet, and accommodation, better provided for, and taken care of,
+than the honest pauper.</p>
+<p>And this conveys no special imputation on the workhouse of the
+parish of St. So-and-So, where, on the contrary, I saw many
+things to commend.&nbsp; It was very agreeable, recollecting that
+most infamous and atrocious enormity committed at
+Tooting&mdash;an enormity which, a hundred years hence, will
+still be vividly remembered in the bye-ways of English life, and
+which has done more to engender a gloomy discontent and suspicion
+among many thousands of the people than all the Chartist leaders
+could have done in all their lives&mdash;to find the pauper
+children in this workhouse looking robust and well, and
+apparently the objects of very great care.&nbsp; In the Infant
+School&mdash;a large, light, airy room at the top of the
+building&mdash;the little creatures, being at dinner, and eating
+their potatoes heartily, were not cowed by the presence of
+strange visitors, but stretched out their small hands to be
+shaken, with a very pleasant confidence.&nbsp; And it was
+comfortable to see two mangy pauper rocking-horses rampant in a
+corner.&nbsp; In the girls&rsquo; school, where the dinner was
+also in progress, everything bore a cheerful and healthy
+aspect.&nbsp; The meal was over, in the boys&rsquo; school, by
+the time of our arrival there, and the room was not yet quite
+rearranged; but the boys were roaming unrestrained about a large
+and airy yard, as any other schoolboys might have done.&nbsp;
+Some of them had been drawing large ships upon the schoolroom
+wall; and if they had a mast with shrouds and stays set up for
+practice (as they have in the Middlesex House of Correction), it
+would be so much the better.&nbsp; At present, if a boy should
+feel a strong impulse upon him to learn the art of going aloft,
+he could only gratify it, I presume, as the men and women paupers
+gratify their aspirations after better board and lodging, by
+smashing as many workhouse windows as possible, and being
+promoted to prison.</p>
+<p>In one place, the Newgate of the Workhouse, a company of boys
+and youths were locked up in a yard alone; their day-room being a
+kind of kennel where the casual poor used formerly to be littered
+down at night.&nbsp; Divers of them had been there some long
+time.&nbsp; &lsquo;Are they never going away?&rsquo; was the
+natural inquiry.&nbsp; &lsquo;Most of them are crippled, in some
+form or other,&rsquo; said the Wardsman, &lsquo;and not fit for
+anything.&rsquo;&nbsp; They slunk about, like dispirited wolves
+or hy&aelig;nas; and made a pounce at their food when it was
+served out, much as those animals do.&nbsp; The big-headed idiot
+shuffling his feet along the pavement, in the sunlight outside,
+was a more agreeable object everyway.</p>
+<p>Groves of babies in arms; groves of mothers and other sick
+women in bed; groves of lunatics; jungles of men in stone-paved
+down-stairs day-rooms, waiting for their dinners; longer and
+longer groves of old people, in up-stairs Infirmary wards,
+wearing out life, God knows how&mdash;this was the scenery
+through which the walk lay, for two hours.&nbsp; In some of these
+latter chambers, there were pictures stuck against the wall, and
+a neat display of crockery and pewter on a kind of sideboard; now
+and then it was a treat to see a plant or two; in almost every
+ward there was a cat.</p>
+<p>In all of these Long Walks of aged and infirm, some old people
+were bedridden, and had been for a long time; some were sitting
+on their beds half-naked; some dying in their beds; some out of
+bed, and sitting at a table near the fire.&nbsp; A sullen or
+lethargic indifference to what was asked, a blunted sensibility
+to everything but warmth and food, a moody absence of complaint
+as being of no use, a dogged silence and resentful desire to be
+left alone again, I thought were generally apparent.&nbsp; On our
+walking into the midst of one of these dreary perspectives of old
+men, nearly the following little dialogue took place, the nurse
+not being immediately at hand:</p>
+<p>&lsquo;All well here?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>No answer.&nbsp; An old man in a Scotch cap sitting among
+others on a form at the table, eating out of a tin porringer,
+pushes back his cap a little to look at us, claps it down on his
+forehead again with the palm of his hand, and goes on eating.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;All well here?&rsquo; (repeated).</p>
+<p>No answer.&nbsp; Another old man sitting on his bed,
+paralytically peeling a boiled potato, lifts his head and
+stares.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Enough to eat?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>No answer.&nbsp; Another old man, in bed, turns himself and
+coughs.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;How are you to-day?&rsquo;&nbsp; To the last old
+man.</p>
+<p>That old man says nothing; but another old man, a tall old man
+of very good address, speaking with perfect correctness, comes
+forward from somewhere, and volunteers an answer.&nbsp; The reply
+almost always proceeds from a volunteer, and not from the person
+looked at or spoken to.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;We are very old, sir,&rsquo; in a mild, distinct
+voice.&nbsp; &lsquo;We can&rsquo;t expect to be well, most of
+us.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Are you comfortable?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I have no complaint to make, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; With a
+half shake of his head, a half shrug of his shoulders, and a kind
+of apologetic smile.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Enough to eat?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Why, sir, I have but a poor appetite,&rsquo; with the
+same air as before; &lsquo;and yet I get through my allowance
+very easily.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;But,&rsquo; showing a porringer with a Sunday dinner in
+it; &lsquo;here is a portion of mutton, and three potatoes.&nbsp;
+You can&rsquo;t starve on that?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Oh dear no, sir,&rsquo; with the same apologetic
+air.&nbsp; &lsquo;Not starve.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What do you want?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;We have very little bread, sir.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s an
+exceedingly small quantity of bread.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The nurse, who is now rubbing her hands at the
+questioner&rsquo;s elbow, interferes with, &lsquo;It ain&rsquo;t
+much raly, sir.&nbsp; You see they&rsquo;ve only six ounces a
+day, and when they&rsquo;ve took their breakfast, there can only
+be a little left for night, sir.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Another old man, hitherto invisible, rises out of his
+bed-clothes, as out of a grave, and looks on.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;You have tea at night?&rsquo;&nbsp; The questioner is
+still addressing the well-spoken old man.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Yes, sir, we have tea at night.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;And you save what bread you can from the morning, to
+eat with it?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Yes, sir&mdash;if we can save any.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;And you want more to eat with it?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Yes, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; With a very anxious face.</p>
+<p>The questioner, in the kindness of his heart, appears a little
+discomposed, and changes the subject.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;What has become of the old man who used to lie in that
+bed in the corner?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The nurse don&rsquo;t remember what old man is referred
+to.&nbsp; There has been such a many old men.&nbsp; The
+well-spoken old man is doubtful.&nbsp; The spectral old man who
+has come to life in bed, says, &lsquo;Billy Stevens.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+Another old man who has previously had his head in the fireplace,
+pipes out,</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Charley Walters.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Something like a feeble interest is awakened.&nbsp; I suppose
+Charley Walters had conversation in him.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;He&rsquo;s dead,&rsquo; says the piping old man.</p>
+<p>Another old man, with one eye screwed up, hastily displaces
+the piping old man, and says.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Yes!&nbsp; Charley Walters died in that bed,
+and&mdash;and&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Billy Stevens,&rsquo; persists the spectral old
+man.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;No, no! and Johnny Rogers died in that bed,
+and&mdash;and&mdash;they&rsquo;re both on &rsquo;em
+dead&mdash;and Sam&rsquo;l Bowyer;&rsquo; this seems very
+extraordinary to him; &lsquo;he went out!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>With this he subsides, and all the old men (having had quite
+enough of it) subside, and the spectral old man goes into his
+grave again, and takes the shade of Billy Stevens with him.</p>
+<p>As we turn to go out at the door, another previously invisible
+old man, a hoarse old man in a flannel gown, is standing there,
+as if he had just come up through the floor.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I beg your pardon, sir, could I take the liberty of
+saying a word?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Yes; what is it?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I am greatly better in my health, sir; but what I want,
+to get me quite round,&rsquo; with his hand on his throat,
+&lsquo;is a little fresh air, sir.&nbsp; It has always done my
+complaint so much good, sir.&nbsp; The regular leave for going
+out, comes round so seldom, that if the gentlemen, next Friday,
+would give me leave to go out walking, now and then&mdash;for
+only an hour or so, sir!&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
+<p>Who could wonder, looking through those weary vistas of bed
+and infirmity, that it should do him good to meet with some other
+scenes, and assure himself that there was something else on
+earth?&nbsp; Who could help wondering why the old men lived on as
+they did; what grasp they had on life; what crumbs of interest or
+occupation they could pick up from its bare board; whether
+Charley Walters had ever described to them the days when he kept
+company with some old pauper woman in the bud, or Billy Stevens
+ever told them of the time when he was a dweller in the far-off
+foreign land called Home!</p>
+<p>The morsel of burnt child, lying in another room, so
+patiently, in bed, wrapped in lint, and looking steadfastly at us
+with his bright quiet eyes when we spoke to him kindly, looked as
+if the knowledge of these things, and of all the tender things
+there are to think about, might have been in his mind&mdash;as if
+he thought, with us, that there was a fellow-feeling in the
+pauper nurses which appeared to make them more kind to their
+charges than the race of common nurses in the hospitals&mdash;as
+if he mused upon the Future of some older children lying around
+him in the same place, and thought it best, perhaps, all things
+considered, that he should die&mdash;as if he knew, without fear,
+of those many coffins, made and unmade, piled up in the store
+below&mdash;and of his unknown friend, &lsquo;the dropped
+child,&rsquo; calm upon the box-lid covered with a cloth.&nbsp;
+But there was something wistful and appealing, too, in his tiny
+face, as if, in the midst of all the hard necessities and
+incongruities he pondered on, he pleaded, in behalf of the
+helpless and the aged poor, for a little more liberty&mdash;and a
+little more bread.</p>
+<h2><a name="page457"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+457</span>PRINCE BULL.&nbsp; A FAIRY TALE</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Once</span> upon a time, and of course it
+was in the Golden Age, and I hope you may know when that was, for
+I am sure I don&rsquo;t, though I have tried hard to find out,
+there lived in a rich and fertile country, a powerful Prince
+whose name was <span class="smcap">Bull</span>.&nbsp; He had gone
+through a great deal of fighting, in his time, about all sorts of
+things, including nothing; but, had gradually settled down to be
+a steady, peaceable, good-natured, corpulent, rather sleepy
+Prince.</p>
+<p>This Puissant Prince was married to a lovely Princess whose
+name was Fair Freedom.&nbsp; She had brought him a large fortune,
+and had borne him an immense number of children, and had set them
+to spinning, and farming, and engineering, and soldiering, and
+sailoring, and doctoring, and lawyering, and preaching, and all
+kinds of trades.&nbsp; The coffers of Prince Bull were full of
+treasure, his cellars were crammed with delicious wines from all
+parts of the world, the richest gold and silver plate that ever
+was seen adorned his sideboards, his sons were strong, his
+daughters were handsome, and in short you might have supposed
+that if there ever lived upon earth a fortunate and happy Prince,
+the name of that Prince, take him for all in all, was assuredly
+Prince Bull.</p>
+<p>But, appearances, as we all know, are not always to be
+trusted&mdash;far from it; and if they had led you to this
+conclusion respecting Prince Bull, they would have led you wrong
+as they often have led me.</p>
+<p>For, this good Prince had two sharp thorns in his pillow, two
+hard knobs in his crown, two heavy loads on his mind, two
+unbridled nightmares in his sleep, two rocks ahead in his
+course.&nbsp; He could not by any means get servants to suit him,
+and he had a tyrannical old godmother, whose name was Tape.</p>
+<p>She was a Fairy, this Tape, and was a bright red all
+over.&nbsp; She was disgustingly prim and formal, and could never
+bend herself a hair&rsquo;s breadth this way or that way, out of
+her naturally crooked shape.&nbsp; But, she was very potent in
+her wicked art.&nbsp; She could stop the fastest thing in the
+world, change the strongest thing into the weakest, and the most
+useful into the most useless.&nbsp; To do this she had only to
+put her cold hand upon it, and repeat her own name, Tape.&nbsp;
+Then it withered away.</p>
+<p>At the Court of Prince Bull&mdash;at least I don&rsquo;t mean
+literally at his court, because he was a very genteel Prince, and
+readily yielded to his godmother when she always reserved that
+for his hereditary Lords and Ladies&mdash;in the dominions of
+Prince Bull, among the great mass of the community who were
+called in the language of that polite country the Mobs and the
+Snobs, were a number of very ingenious men, who were always busy
+with some invention or other, for promoting the prosperity of the
+Prince&rsquo;s subjects, and augmenting the Prince&rsquo;s
+power.&nbsp; But, whenever they submitted their models for the
+Prince&rsquo;s approval, his godmother stepped forward, laid her
+hand upon them, and said &lsquo;Tape.&rsquo;&nbsp; Hence it came
+to pass, that when any particularly good discovery was made, the
+discoverer usually carried it off to some other Prince, in
+foreign parts, who had no old godmother who said Tape.&nbsp; This
+was not on the whole an advantageous state of things for Prince
+Bull, to the best of my understanding.</p>
+<p>The worst of it was, that Prince Bull had in course of years
+lapsed into such a state of subjection to this unlucky godmother,
+that he never made any serious effort to rid himself of her
+tyranny.&nbsp; I have said this was the worst of it, but there I
+was wrong, because there is a worse consequence still,
+behind.&nbsp; The Prince&rsquo;s numerous family became so
+downright sick and tired of Tape, that when they should have
+helped the Prince out of the difficulties into which that evil
+creature led him, they fell into a dangerous habit of moodily
+keeping away from him in an impassive and indifferent manner, as
+though they had quite forgotten that no harm could happen to the
+Prince their father, without its inevitably affecting
+themselves.</p>
+<p>Such was the aspect of affairs at the court of Prince Bull,
+when this great Prince found it necessary to go to war with
+Prince Bear.&nbsp; He had been for some time very doubtful of his
+servants, who, besides being indolent and addicted to enriching
+their families at his expense, domineered over him dreadfully;
+threatening to discharge themselves if they were found the least
+fault with, pretending that they had done a wonderful amount of
+work when they had done nothing, making the most unmeaning
+speeches that ever were heard in the Prince&rsquo;s name, and
+uniformly showing themselves to be very inefficient indeed.&nbsp;
+Though, that some of them had excellent characters from previous
+situations is not to be denied.&nbsp; Well; Prince Bull called
+his servants together, and said to them one and all, &lsquo;Send
+out my army against Prince Bear.&nbsp; Clothe it, arm it, feed
+it, provide it with all necessaries and contingencies, and I will
+pay the piper!&nbsp; Do your duty by my brave troops,&rsquo; said
+the Prince, &lsquo;and do it well, and I will pour my treasure
+out like water, to defray the cost.&nbsp; Who ever heard <span
+class="GutSmall">ME</span> complain of money well laid
+out!&rsquo;&nbsp; Which indeed he had reason for saying, inasmuch
+as he was well known to be a truly generous and munificent
+Prince.</p>
+<p>When the servants heard those words, they sent out the army
+against Prince Bear, and they set the army tailors to work, and
+the army provision merchants, and the makers of guns both great
+and small, and the gunpowder makers, and the makers of ball,
+shell, and shot; and they bought up all manner of stores and
+ships, without troubling their heads about the price, and
+appeared to be so busy that the good Prince rubbed his hands, and
+(using a favourite expression of his), said, &lsquo;It&rsquo;s
+all right!&rsquo;&nbsp; But, while they were thus employed, the
+Prince&rsquo;s godmother, who was a great favourite with those
+servants, looked in upon them continually all day long, and
+whenever she popped in her head at the door said, How do you do,
+my children?&nbsp; What are you doing here?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Official business, godmother.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Oho!&rsquo; says this wicked Fairy.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;&mdash;Tape!&rsquo;&nbsp; And then the business all went
+wrong, whatever it was, and the servants&rsquo; heads became so
+addled and muddled that they thought they were doing wonders.</p>
+<p>Now, this was very bad conduct on the part of the vicious old
+nuisance, and she ought to have been strangled, even if she had
+stopped here; but, she didn&rsquo;t stop here, as you shall
+learn.&nbsp; For, a number of the Prince&rsquo;s subjects, being
+very fond of the Prince&rsquo;s army who were the bravest of men,
+assembled together and provided all manner of eatables and
+drinkables, and books to read, and clothes to wear, and tobacco
+to smoke, and candies to burn, and nailed them up in great
+packing-cases, and put them aboard a great many ships, to be
+carried out to that brave army in the cold and inclement country
+where they were fighting Prince Bear.&nbsp; Then, up comes this
+wicked Fairy as the ships were weighing anchor, and says,
+&lsquo;How do you do, my children?&nbsp; What are you doing
+here?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;We are going with all these comforts to
+the army, godmother.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Oho!&rsquo; says
+she.&nbsp; &lsquo;A pleasant voyage, my
+darlings.&mdash;Tape!&rsquo;&nbsp; And from that time forth,
+those enchanting ships went sailing, against wind and tide and
+rhyme and reason, round and round the world, and whenever they
+touched at any port were ordered off immediately, and could never
+deliver their cargoes anywhere.</p>
+<p>This, again, was very bad conduct on the part of the vicious
+old nuisance, and she ought to have been strangled for it if she
+had done nothing worse; but, she did something worse still, as
+you shall learn.&nbsp; For, she got astride of an official
+broomstick, and muttered as a spell these two sentences,
+&lsquo;On Her Majesty&rsquo;s service,&rsquo; and &lsquo;I have
+the honour to be, sir, your most obedient servant,&rsquo; and
+presently alighted in the cold and inclement country where the
+army of Prince Bull were encamped to fight the army of Prince
+Bear.&nbsp; On the sea-shore of that country, she found piled
+together, a number of houses for the army to live in, and a
+quantity of provisions for the army to live upon, and a quantity
+of clothes for the army to wear: while, sitting in the mud gazing
+at them, were a group of officers as red to look at as the wicked
+old woman herself.&nbsp; So, she said to one of them, &lsquo;Who
+are <i>you</i>, my darling, and how do <i>you</i>
+do?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I am the Quartermaster General&rsquo;s
+Department, godmother, and <i>I</i> am pretty well.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+Then she said to another, &lsquo;Who are you, my darling, and how
+do you do?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I am the Commissariat Department,
+godmother, and I am pretty well!&nbsp; Then she said to another,
+&lsquo;Who are you, my darling, and how do you
+do?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I am the Head of the Medical Department,
+godmother, and <i>I</i> am pretty well.&rsquo;&nbsp; Then, she
+said to some gentlemen scented with lavender, who kept themselves
+at a great distance from the rest, &lsquo;And who are <i>you</i>,
+my pretty pets, and how do <i>you</i> do?&rsquo;&nbsp; And they
+answered, &lsquo;We-aw-are-the-aw-Staff-aw-Department, godmother,
+and we are very well indeed.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I am delighted
+to see you all, my beauties,&rsquo; says this wicked old Fairy,
+&lsquo;&mdash;Tape!&rsquo;&nbsp; Upon that, the houses, clothes,
+and provisions, all mouldered away; and the soldiers who were
+sound, fell sick; and the soldiers who were sick, died miserably:
+and the noble army of Prince Bull perished.</p>
+<p>When the dismal news of his great loss was carried to the
+Prince, he suspected his godmother very much indeed; but, he knew
+that his servants must have kept company with the malicious
+beldame, and must have given way to her, and therefore he
+resolved to turn those servants out of their places.&nbsp; So, he
+called to him a Roebuck who had the gift of speech, and he said,
+&lsquo;Good Roebuck, tell them they must go.&rsquo;&nbsp; So, the
+good Roebuck delivered his message, so like a man that you might
+have supposed him to be nothing but a man, and they were turned
+out&mdash;but, not without warning, for that they had had a long
+time.</p>
+<p>And now comes the most extraordinary part of the history of
+this Prince.&nbsp; When he had turned out those servants, of
+course he wanted others.&nbsp; What was his astonishment to find
+that in all his dominions, which contained no less than
+twenty-seven millions of people, there were not above
+five-and-twenty servants altogether!&nbsp; They were so lofty
+about it, too, that instead of discussing whether they should
+hire themselves as servants to Prince Bull, they turned things
+topsy-turvy, and considered whether as a favour they should hire
+Prince Bull to be their master!&nbsp; While they were arguing
+this point among themselves quite at their leisure, the wicked
+old red Fairy was incessantly going up and down, knocking at the
+doors of twelve of the oldest of the five-and-twenty, who were
+the oldest inhabitants in all that country, and whose united ages
+amounted to one thousand, saying, &lsquo;Will you hire Prince
+Bull for your master?&mdash;Will you hire Prince Bull for your
+master?&rsquo;&nbsp; To which one answered, &lsquo;I will if next
+door will;&rsquo; and another, &lsquo;I won&rsquo;t if over the
+way does;&rsquo; and another, &lsquo;I can&rsquo;t if he, she, or
+they, might, could, would, or should.&rsquo;&nbsp; And all this
+time Prince Bull&rsquo;s affairs were going to rack and ruin.</p>
+<p>At last, Prince Bull in the height of his perplexity assumed a
+thoughtful face, as if he were struck by an entirely new
+idea.&nbsp; The wicked old Fairy, seeing this, was at his elbow
+directly, and said, &lsquo;How do you do, my Prince, and what are
+you thinking of?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I am thinking,
+godmother,&rsquo; says he, &lsquo;that among all the
+seven-and-twenty millions of my subjects who have never been in
+service, there are men of intellect and business who have made me
+very famous both among my friends and
+enemies.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Aye, truly?&rsquo; says the
+Fairy.&mdash;&lsquo;Aye, truly,&rsquo; says the
+Prince.&mdash;&lsquo;And what then?&rsquo; says the
+Fairy.&mdash;&lsquo;Why, then,&rsquo; says he, &lsquo;since the
+regular old class of servants do so ill, are so hard to get, and
+carry it with so high a hand, perhaps I might try to make good
+servants of some of these.&rsquo;&nbsp; The words had no sooner
+passed his lips than she returned, chuckling, &lsquo;You think
+so, do you?&nbsp; Indeed, my Prince?&mdash;Tape!&rsquo;&nbsp;
+Thereupon he directly forgot what he was thinking of, and cried
+out lamentably to the old servants, &lsquo;O, do come and hire
+your poor old master!&nbsp; Pray do!&nbsp; On any
+terms!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>And this, for the present, finishes the story of Prince
+Bull.&nbsp; I wish I could wind it up by saying that he lived
+happy ever afterwards, but I cannot in my conscience do so; for,
+with Tape at his elbow, and his estranged children fatally
+repelled by her from coming near him, I do not, to tell you the
+plain truth, believe in the possibility of such an end to it.</p>
+<h2><a name="page462"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 462</span>A
+PLATED ARTICLE</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Putting</span> up for the night in one of
+the chiefest towns of Staffordshire, I find it to be by no means
+a lively town.&nbsp; In fact, it is as dull and dead a town as
+any one could desire not to see.&nbsp; It seems as if its whole
+population might be imprisoned in its Railway Station.&nbsp; The
+Refreshment Room at that Station is a vortex of dissipation
+compared with the extinct town-inn, the Dodo, in the dull High
+Street.</p>
+<p>Why High Street?&nbsp; Why not rather Low Street, Flat Street,
+Low-Spirited Street, Used-up Street?&nbsp; Where are the people
+who belong to the High Street?&nbsp; Can they all be dispersed
+over the face of the country, seeking the unfortunate Strolling
+Manager who decamped from the mouldy little Theatre last week, in
+the beginning of his season (as his play-bills testify),
+repentantly resolved to bring him back, and feed him, and be
+entertained?&nbsp; Or, can they all be gathered to their fathers
+in the two old churchyards near to the High
+Street&mdash;retirement into which churchyards appears to be a
+mere ceremony, there is so very little life outside their
+confines, and such small discernible difference between being
+buried alive in the town, and buried dead in the town
+tombs?&nbsp; Over the way, opposite to the staring blank bow
+windows of the Dodo, are a little ironmonger&rsquo;s shop, a
+little tailor&rsquo;s shop (with a picture of the Fashions in the
+small window and a bandy-legged baby on the pavement staring at
+it)&mdash;a watchmakers shop, where all the clocks and watches
+must be stopped, I am sure, for they could never have the courage
+to go, with the town in general, and the Dodo in particular,
+looking at them.&nbsp; Shade of Miss Linwood, erst of Leicester
+Square, London, thou art welcome here, and thy retreat is fitly
+chosen!&nbsp; I myself was one of the last visitors to that awful
+storehouse of thy life&rsquo;s work, where an anchorite old man
+and woman took my shilling with a solemn wonder, and conducting
+me to a gloomy sepulchre of needlework dropping to pieces with
+dust and age and shrouded in twilight at high noon, left me
+there, chilled, frightened, and alone.&nbsp; And now, in ghostly
+letters on all the dead walls of this dead town, I read thy
+honoured name, and find that thy Last Supper, worked in Berlin
+Wool, invites inspection as a powerful excitement!</p>
+<p>Where are the people who are bidden with so much cry to this
+feast of little wool?&nbsp; Where are they?&nbsp; Who are
+they?&nbsp; They are not the bandy-legged baby studying the
+fashions in the tailor&rsquo;s window.&nbsp; They are not the two
+earthy ploughmen lounging outside the saddler&rsquo;s shop, in
+the stiff square where the Town Hall stands, like a brick and
+mortar private on parade.&nbsp; They are not the landlady of the
+Dodo in the empty bar, whose eye had trouble in it and no
+welcome, when I asked for dinner.&nbsp; They are not the turnkeys
+of the Town Jail, looking out of the gateway in their uniforms,
+as if they had locked up all the balance (as my American friends
+would say) of the inhabitants, and could now rest a little.&nbsp;
+They are not the two dusty millers in the white mill down by the
+river, where the great water-wheel goes heavily round and round,
+like the monotonous days and nights in this forgotten
+place.&nbsp; Then who are they, for there is no one else?&nbsp;
+No; this deponent maketh oath and saith that there is no one
+else, save and except the waiter at the Dodo, now laying the
+cloth.&nbsp; I have paced the streets, and stared at the houses,
+and am come back to the blank bow window of the Dodo; and the
+town clocks strike seven, and the reluctant echoes seem to cry,
+&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t wake us!&rsquo; and the bandy-legged baby has
+gone home to bed.</p>
+<p>If the Dodo were only a gregarious bird&mdash;if he had only
+some confused idea of making a comfortable nest&mdash;I could
+hope to get through the hours between this and bed-time, without
+being consumed by devouring melancholy.&nbsp; But, the
+Dodo&rsquo;s habits are all wrong.&nbsp; It provides me with a
+trackless desert of sitting-room, with a chair for every day in
+the year, a table for every month, and a waste of sideboard where
+a lonely China vase pines in a corner for its mate long departed,
+and will never make a match with the candlestick in the opposite
+corner if it live till Doomsday.&nbsp; The Dodo has nothing in
+the larder.&nbsp; Even now, I behold the Boots returning with my
+sole in a piece of paper; and with that portion of my dinner, the
+Boots, perceiving me at the blank bow window, slaps his leg as he
+comes across the road, pretending it is something else.&nbsp; The
+Dodo excludes the outer air.&nbsp; When I mount up to my bedroom,
+a smell of closeness and flue gets lazily up my nose like sleepy
+snuff.&nbsp; The loose little bits of carpet writhe under my
+tread, and take wormy shapes.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know the
+ridiculous man in the looking-glass, beyond having met him once
+or twice in a dish-cover&mdash;and I can never shave <i>him</i>
+to-morrow morning!&nbsp; The Dodo is narrow-minded as to towels;
+expects me to wash on a freemason&rsquo;s apron without the
+trimming: when I asked for soap, gives me a stony-hearted
+something white, with no more lather in it than the Elgin
+marbles.&nbsp; The Dodo has seen better days, and possesses
+interminable stables at the back&mdash;silent, grass-grown,
+broken-windowed, horseless.</p>
+<p>This mournful bird can fry a sole, however, which is
+much.&nbsp; Can cook a steak, too, which is more.&nbsp; I wonder
+where it gets its Sherry?&nbsp; If I were to send my pint of wine
+to some famous chemist to be analysed, what would it turn out to
+be made of?&nbsp; It tastes of pepper, sugar, bitter-almonds,
+vinegar, warm knives, any flat drinks, and a little brandy.&nbsp;
+Would it unman a Spanish exile by reminding him of his native
+land at all?&nbsp; I think not.&nbsp; If there really be any
+townspeople out of the churchyards, and if a caravan of them ever
+do dine, with a bottle of wine per man, in this desert of the
+Dodo, it must make good for the doctor next day!</p>
+<p>Where was the waiter born?&nbsp; How did he come here?&nbsp;
+Has he any hope of getting away from here?&nbsp; Does he ever
+receive a letter, or take a ride upon the railway, or see
+anything but the Dodo?&nbsp; Perhaps he has seen the Berlin
+Wool.&nbsp; He appears to have a silent sorrow on him, and it may
+be that.&nbsp; He clears the table; draws the dingy curtains of
+the great bow window, which so unwillingly consent to meet, that
+they must be pinned together; leaves me by the fire with my pint
+decanter, and a little thin funnel-shaped wine-glass, and a plate
+of pale biscuits&mdash;in themselves engendering desperation.</p>
+<p>No book, no newspaper!&nbsp; I left the Arabian Nights in the
+railway carriage, and have nothing to read but Bradshaw, and
+&lsquo;that way madness lies.&rsquo;&nbsp; Remembering what
+prisoners and ship-wrecked mariners have done to exercise their
+minds in solitude, I repeat the multiplication table, the pence
+table, and the shilling table: which are all the tables I happen
+to know.&nbsp; What if I write something?&nbsp; The Dodo keeps no
+pens but steel pens; and those I always stick through the paper,
+and can turn to no other account.</p>
+<p>What am I to do?&nbsp; Even if I could have the bandy-legged
+baby knocked up and brought here, I could offer him nothing but
+sherry, and that would be the death of him.&nbsp; He would never
+hold up his head again if he touched it.&nbsp; I can&rsquo;t go
+to bed, because I have conceived a mortal hatred for my bedroom;
+and I can&rsquo;t go away, because there is no train for my place
+of destination until morning.&nbsp; To burn the biscuits will be
+but a fleeting joy; still it is a temporary relief, and here they
+go on the fire!&nbsp; Shall I break the plate?&nbsp; First let me
+look at the back, and see who made it.&nbsp; <span
+class="smcap">Copeland</span>.</p>
+<p>Copeland!&nbsp; Stop a moment.&nbsp; Was it yesterday I
+visited Copeland&rsquo;s works, and saw them making plates?&nbsp;
+In the confusion of travelling about, it might be yesterday or it
+might be yesterday month; but I think it was yesterday.&nbsp; I
+appeal to the plate.&nbsp; The plate says, decidedly,
+yesterday.&nbsp; I find the plate, as I look at it, growing into
+a companion.</p>
+<p>Don&rsquo;t you remember (says the plate) how you steamed
+away, yesterday morning, in the bright sun and the east wind,
+along the valley of the sparkling Trent?&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you
+recollect how many kilns you flew past, looking like the bowls of
+gigantic tobacco-pipes, cut short off from the stem and turned
+upside down?&nbsp; And the fires&mdash;and the smoke&mdash;and
+the roads made with bits of crockery, as if all the plates and
+dishes in the civilised world had been Macadamised, expressly for
+the laming of all the horses?&nbsp; Of course I do!</p>
+<p>And don&rsquo;t you remember (says the plate) how you alighted
+at Stoke&mdash;a picturesque heap of houses, kilns, smoke,
+wharfs, canals, and river, lying (as was most appropriate) in a
+basin&mdash;and how, after climbing up the sides of the basin to
+look at the prospect, you trundled down again at a walking-match
+pace, and straight proceeded to my father&rsquo;s,
+Copeland&rsquo;s, where the whole of my family, high and low,
+rich and poor, are turned out upon the world from our nursery and
+seminary, covering some fourteen acres of ground?&nbsp; And
+don&rsquo;t you remember what we spring from:&mdash;heaps of
+lumps of clay, partially prepared and cleaned in Devonshire and
+Dorsetshire, whence said clay principally comes&mdash;and hills
+of flint, without which we should want our ringing sound, and
+should never be musical?&nbsp; And as to the flint, don&rsquo;t
+you recollect that it is first burnt in kilns, and is then laid
+under the four iron feet of a demon slave, subject to violent
+stamping fits, who, when they come on, stamps away insanely with
+his four iron legs, and would crush all the flint in the Isle of
+Thanet to powder, without leaving off?&nbsp; And as to the clay,
+don&rsquo;t you recollect how it is put into mills or teazers,
+and is sliced, and dug, and cut at, by endless knives, clogged
+and sticky, but persistent&mdash;and is pressed out of that
+machine through a square trough, whose form it takes&mdash;and is
+cut off in square lumps and thrown into a vat, and there mixed
+with water, and beaten to a pulp by paddle-wheels&mdash;and is
+then run into a rough house, all rugged beams and ladders
+splashed with white,&mdash;superintended by Grindoff the Miller
+in his working clothes, all splashed with white,&mdash;where it
+passes through no end of machinery-moved sieves all splashed with
+white, arranged in an ascending scale of fineness (some so fine,
+that three hundred silk threads cross each other in a single
+square inch of their surface), and all in a violent state of ague
+with their teeth for ever chattering, and their bodies for ever
+shivering!&nbsp; And as to the flint again, isn&rsquo;t it mashed
+and mollified and troubled and soothed, exactly as rags are in a
+paper-mill, until it is reduced to a pap so fine that it contains
+no atom of &lsquo;grit&rsquo; perceptible to the nicest
+taste?&nbsp; And as to the flint and the clay together, are they
+not, after all this, mixed in the proportion of five of clay to
+one of flint, and isn&rsquo;t the compound&mdash;known as
+&lsquo;slip&rsquo;&mdash;run into oblong troughs, where its
+superfluous moisture may evaporate; and finally, isn&rsquo;t it
+slapped and banged and beaten and patted and kneaded and wedged
+and knocked about like butter, until it becomes a beautiful grey
+dough, ready for the potter&rsquo;s use?</p>
+<p>In regard of the potter, popularly so called (says the plate),
+you don&rsquo;t mean to say you have forgotten that a workman
+called a Thrower is the man under whose hand this grey dough
+takes the shapes of the simpler household vessels as quickly as
+the eye can follow?&nbsp; You don&rsquo;t mean to say you cannot
+call him up before you, sitting, with his attendant woman, at his
+potter&rsquo;s wheel&mdash;a disc about the size of a
+dinner-plate, revolving on two drums slowly or quickly as he
+wills&mdash;who made you a complete breakfast-set for a bachelor,
+as a good-humoured little off-hand joke?&nbsp; You remember how
+he took up as much dough as he wanted, and, throwing it on his
+wheel, in a moment fashioned it into a teacup&mdash;caught up
+more clay and made a saucer&mdash;a larger dab and whirled it
+into a teapot&mdash;winked at a smaller dab and converted it into
+the lid of the teapot, accurately fitting by the measurement of
+his eye alone&mdash;coaxed a middle-sized dab for two seconds,
+broke it, turned it over at the rim, and made a
+milkpot&mdash;laughed, and turned out a slop-basin&mdash;coughed,
+and provided for the sugar?&nbsp; Neither, I think, are you
+oblivious of the newer mode of making various articles, but
+especially basins, according to which improvement a mould
+revolves instead of a disc?&nbsp; For you must remember (says the
+plate) how you saw the mould of a little basin spinning round and
+round, and how the workmen smoothed and pressed a handful of
+dough upon it, and how with an instrument called a profile (a
+piece of wood, representing the profile of a basin&rsquo;s foot)
+he cleverly scraped and carved the ring which makes the base of
+any such basin, and then took the basin off the lathe like a
+doughy skull-cap to be dried, and afterwards (in what is called a
+green state) to be put into a second lathe, there to be finished
+and burnished with a steel burnisher?&nbsp; And as to moulding in
+general (says the plate), it can&rsquo;t be necessary for me to
+remind you that all ornamental articles, and indeed all articles
+not quite circular, are made in moulds.&nbsp; For you must
+remember how you saw the vegetable dishes, for example, being
+made in moulds; and how the handles of teacups, and the spouts of
+teapots, and the feet of tureens, and so forth, are all made in
+little separate moulds, and are each stuck on to the body
+corporate, of which it is destined to form a part, with a stuff
+called &lsquo;slag,&rsquo; as quickly as you can recollect
+it.&nbsp; Further, you learnt&mdash;you know you did&mdash;in the
+same visit, how the beautiful sculptures in the delicate new
+material called Parian, are all constructed in moulds; how, into
+that material, animal bones are ground up, because the phosphate
+of lime contained in bones makes it translucent; how everything
+is moulded, before going into the fire, one-fourth larger than it
+is intended to come out of the fire, because it shrinks in that
+proportion in the intense heat; how, when a figure shrinks
+unequally, it is spoiled&mdash;emerging from the furnace a
+misshapen birth; a big head and a little body, or a little head
+and a big body, or a Quasimodo with long arms and short legs, or
+a Miss Biffin with neither legs nor arms worth mentioning.</p>
+<p>And as to the Kilns, in which the firing takes place, and in
+which some of the more precious articles are burnt repeatedly, in
+various stages of their process towards completion,&mdash;as to
+the Kilns (says the plate, warming with the recollection), if you
+don&rsquo;t remember <span class="GutSmall">THEM</span> with a
+horrible interest, what did you ever go to Copeland&rsquo;s
+for?&nbsp; When you stood inside of one of those inverted bowls
+of a Pre-Adamite tobacco-pipe, looking up at the blue sky through
+the open top far off, as you might have looked up from a well,
+sunk under the centre of the pavement of the Pantheon at Rome,
+had you the least idea where you were?&nbsp; And when you found
+yourself surrounded, in that dome-shaped cavern, by innumerable
+columns of an unearthly order of architecture, supporting
+nothing, and squeezed close together as if a Pre-Adamite Samson
+had taken a vast Hall in his arms and crushed it into the
+smallest possible space, had you the least idea what they
+were?&nbsp; No (says the plate), of course not!&nbsp; And when
+you found that each of those pillars was a pile of ingeniously
+made vessels of coarse clay&mdash;called Saggers&mdash;looking,
+when separate, like raised-pies for the table of the mighty Giant
+Blunderbore, and now all full of various articles of pottery
+ranged in them in baking order, the bottom of each vessel serving
+for the cover of the one below, and the whole Kiln rapidly
+filling with these, tier upon tier, until the last workman should
+have barely room to crawl out, before the closing of the jagged
+aperture in the wall and the kindling of the gradual fire; did
+you not stand amazed to think that all the year round these dread
+chambers are heating, white hot&mdash;and cooling&mdash;and
+filling&mdash;and emptying&mdash;and being bricked up&mdash;and
+broken open&mdash;humanly speaking, for ever and ever?&nbsp; To
+be sure you did!&nbsp; And standing in one of those Kilns nearly
+full, and seeing a free crow shoot across the aperture a-top, and
+learning how the fire would wax hotter and hotter by slow
+degrees, and would cool similarly through a space of from forty
+to sixty hours, did no remembrance of the days when human clay
+was burnt oppress you?&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; I think so!&nbsp; I
+suspect that some fancy of a fiery haze and a shortening breath,
+and a growing heat, and a gasping prayer; and a figure in black
+interposing between you and the sky (as figures in black are very
+apt to do), and looking down, before it grew too hot to look and
+live, upon the Heretic in his edifying agony&mdash;I say I
+suspect (says the plate) that some such fancy was pretty strong
+upon you when you went out into the air, and blessed God for the
+bright spring day and the degenerate times!</p>
+<p>After that, I needn&rsquo;t remind you what a relief it was to
+see the simplest process of ornamenting this
+&lsquo;biscuit&rsquo; (as it is called when baked) with brown
+circles and blue trees&mdash;converting it into the common
+crockery-ware that is exported to Africa, and used in cottages at
+home.&nbsp; For (says the plate) I am well persuaded that you
+bear in mind how those particular jugs and mugs were once more
+set upon a lathe and put in motion; and how a man blew the brown
+colour (having a strong natural affinity with the material in
+that condition) on them from a blowpipe as they twirled; and how
+his daughter, with a common brush, dropped blotches of blue upon
+them in the right places; and how, tilting the blotches upside
+down, she made them run into rude images of trees, and there an
+end.</p>
+<p>And didn&rsquo;t you see (says the plate) planted upon my own
+brother that astounding blue willow, with knobbed and gnarled
+trunk, and foliage of blue ostrich feathers, which gives our
+family the title of &lsquo;willow pattern&rsquo;?&nbsp; And
+didn&rsquo;t you observe, transferred upon him at the same time,
+that blue bridge which spans nothing, growing out from the roots
+of the willow; and the three blue Chinese going over it into a
+blue temple, which has a fine crop of blue bushes sprouting out
+of the roof; and a blue boat sailing above them, the mast of
+which is burglariously sticking itself into the foundations of a
+blue villa, suspended sky-high, surmounted by a lump of blue
+rock, sky-higher, and a couple of billing blue birds,
+sky-highest&mdash;together with the rest of that amusing blue
+landscape, which has, in deference to our revered ancestors of
+the Cerulean Empire, and in defiance of every known law of
+perspective, adorned millions of our family ever since the days
+of platters?&nbsp; Didn&rsquo;t you inspect the copper-plate on
+which my pattern was deeply engraved?&nbsp; Didn&rsquo;t you
+perceive an impression of it taken in cobalt colour at a
+cylindrical press, upon a leaf of thin paper, streaming from a
+plunge-bath of soap and water?&nbsp; Wasn&rsquo;t the paper
+impression daintily spread, by a light-fingered damsel (you know
+you admired her!), over the surface of the plate, and the back of
+the paper rubbed prodigiously hard&mdash;with a long tight roll
+of flannel, tied up like a round of hung beef&mdash;without so
+much as ruffling the paper, wet as it was?&nbsp; Then (says the
+plate), was not the paper washed away with a sponge, and
+didn&rsquo;t there appear, set off upon the plate, <i>this</i>
+identical piece of Pre-Raphaelite blue distemper which you now
+behold?&nbsp; Not to be denied!&nbsp; I had seen all
+this&mdash;and more.&nbsp; I had been shown, at Copeland&rsquo;s,
+patterns of beautiful design, in faultless perspective, which are
+causing the ugly old willow to wither out of public favour; and
+which, being quite as cheap, insinuate good wholesome natural art
+into the humblest households.&nbsp; When Mr. and Mrs. Sprat have
+satisfied their material tastes by that equal division of fat and
+lean which has made their <i>m&eacute;nage</i> immortal; and
+have, after the elegant tradition, &lsquo;licked the platter
+clean,&rsquo; they can&mdash;thanks to modern artists in
+clay&mdash;feast their intellectual tastes upon excellent
+delineations of natural objects.</p>
+<p>This reflection prompts me to transfer my attention from the
+blue plate to the forlorn but cheerfully painted vase on the
+sideboard.&nbsp; And surely (says the plate) you have not
+forgotten how the outlines of such groups of flowers as you see
+there, are printed, just as I was printed, and are afterwards
+shaded and filled in with metallic colours by women and
+girls?&nbsp; As to the aristocracy of our order, made of the
+finer clay-porcelain peers and peeresses;&mdash;the slabs, and
+panels, and table-tops, and tazze; the endless nobility and
+gentry of dessert, breakfast, and tea services; the gemmed
+perfume bottles, and scarlet and gold salvers; you saw that they
+were painted by artists, with metallic colours laid on with
+camel-hair pencils, and afterwards burnt in.</p>
+<p>And talking of burning in (says the plate), didn&rsquo;t you
+find that every subject, from the willow pattern to the landscape
+after Turner&mdash;having been framed upon clay or porcelain
+biscuit&mdash;has to be glazed?&nbsp; Of course, you saw the
+glaze&mdash;composed of various vitreous materials&mdash;laid
+over every article; and of course you witnessed the close
+imprisonment of each piece in saggers upon the separate system
+rigidly enforced by means of fine-pointed earthenware stilts
+placed between the articles to prevent the slightest
+communication or contact.&nbsp; We had in my time&mdash;and I
+suppose it is the same now&mdash;fourteen hours&rsquo; firing to
+fix the glaze and to make it &lsquo;run&rsquo; all over us
+equally, so as to put a good shiny and unscratchable surface upon
+us.&nbsp; Doubtless, you observed that one sort of
+glaze&mdash;called printing-body&mdash;is burnt into the better
+sort of ware <i>before</i> it is printed.&nbsp; Upon this you saw
+some of the finest steel engravings transferred, to be fixed by
+an after glazing&mdash;didn&rsquo;t you?&nbsp; Why, of course you
+did!</p>
+<p>Of course I did.&nbsp; I had seen and enjoyed everything that
+the plate recalled to me, and had beheld with admiration how the
+rotatory motion which keeps this ball of ours in its place in the
+great scheme, with all its busy mites upon it, was necessary
+throughout the process, and could only be dispensed with in the
+fire.&nbsp; So, listening to the plate&rsquo;s reminders, and
+musing upon them, I got through the evening after all, and went
+to bed.&nbsp; I made but one sleep of it&mdash;for which I have
+no doubt I am also indebted to the plate&mdash;and left the
+lonely Dodo in the morning, quite at peace with it, before the
+bandy-legged baby was up.</p>
+<h2><a name="page470"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 470</span>OUR
+HONOURABLE FRIEND</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> are delighted to find that he
+has got in!&nbsp; Our honourable friend is triumphantly returned
+to serve in the next Parliament.&nbsp; He is the honourable
+member for Verbosity&mdash;the best represented place in
+England.</p>
+<p>Our honourable friend has issued an address of congratulation
+to the Electors, which is worthy of that noble constituency, and
+is a very pretty piece of composition.&nbsp; In electing him, he
+says, they have covered themselves with glory, and England has
+been true to herself.&nbsp; (In his preliminary address he had
+remarked, in a poetical quotation of great rarity, that nought
+could make us rue, if England to herself did prove but true.)</p>
+<p>Our honourable friend delivers a prediction, in the same
+document, that the feeble minions of a faction will never hold up
+their heads any more; and that the finger of scorn will point at
+them in their dejected state, through countless ages of
+time.&nbsp; Further, that the hireling tools that would destroy
+the sacred bulwarks of our nationality are unworthy of the name
+of Englishman; and that so long as the sea shall roll around our
+ocean-girded isle, so long his motto shall be, No
+surrender.&nbsp; Certain dogged persons of low principles and no
+intellect, have disputed whether anybody knows who the minions
+are, or what the faction is, or which are the hireling tools and
+which the sacred bulwarks, or what it is that is never to be
+surrendered, and if not, why not?&nbsp; But, our honourable
+friend the member for Verbosity knows all about it.</p>
+<p>Our honourable friend has sat in several parliaments, and
+given bushels of votes.&nbsp; He is a man of that profundity in
+the matter of vote-giving, that you never know what he
+means.&nbsp; When he seems to be voting pure white, he may be in
+reality voting jet black.&nbsp; When he says Yes, it is just as
+likely as not&mdash;or rather more so&mdash;that he means
+No.&nbsp; This is the statesmanship of our honourable
+friend.&nbsp; It is in this, that he differs from mere
+unparliamentary men.&nbsp; You may not know what he meant then,
+or what he means now; but, our honourable friend knows, and did
+from the first know, both what he meant then, and what he means
+now; and when he said he didn&rsquo;t mean it then, he did in
+fact say, that he means it now.&nbsp; And if you mean to say that
+you did not then, and do not now, know what he did mean then, or
+does mean now, our honourable friend will be glad to receive an
+explicit declaration from you whether you are prepared to destroy
+the sacred bulwarks of our nationality.</p>
+<p>Our honourable friend, the member for Verbosity, has this
+great attribute, that he always means something, and always means
+the same thing.&nbsp; When he came down to that House and
+mournfully boasted in his place, as an individual member of the
+assembled Commons of this great and happy country, that he could
+lay his hand upon his heart, and solemnly declare that no
+consideration on earth should induce him, at any time or under
+any circumstances, to go as far north as Berwick-upon-Tweed; and
+when he nevertheless, next year, did go to Berwick-upon-Tweed,
+and even beyond it, to Edinburgh; he had one single meaning, one
+and indivisible.&nbsp; And God forbid (our honourable friend
+says) that he should waste another argument upon the man who
+professes that he cannot understand it!&nbsp; &lsquo;I do <span
+class="GutSmall">NOT</span>, gentlemen,&rsquo; said our
+honourable friend, with indignant emphasis and amid great
+cheering, on one such public occasion.&nbsp; &lsquo;I do <span
+class="GutSmall">NOT</span>, gentlemen, I am free to confess,
+envy the feelings of that man whose mind is so constituted as
+that he can hold such language to me, and yet lay his head upon
+his pillow, claiming to be a native of that land,</p>
+<blockquote><p>Whose march is o&rsquo;er the mountain-wave,<br />
+Whose home is on the deep!</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>(Vehement cheering, and man expelled.)</p>
+<p>When our honourable friend issued his preliminary address to
+the constituent body of Verbosity on the occasion of one
+particular glorious triumph, it was supposed by some of his
+enemies, that even he would be placed in a situation of
+difficulty by the following comparatively trifling conjunction of
+circumstances.&nbsp; The dozen noblemen and gentlemen whom our
+honourable friend supported, had &lsquo;come in,&rsquo; expressly
+to do a certain thing.&nbsp; Now, four of the dozen said, at a
+certain place, that they didn&rsquo;t mean to do that thing, and
+had never meant to do it; another four of the dozen said, at
+another certain place, that they did mean to do that thing, and
+had always meant to do it; two of the remaining four said, at two
+other certain places, that they meant to do half of that thing
+(but differed about which half), and to do a variety of nameless
+wonders instead of the other half; and one of the remaining two
+declared that the thing itself was dead and buried, while the
+other as strenuously protested that it was alive and
+kicking.&nbsp; It was admitted that the parliamentary genius of
+our honourable friend would be quite able to reconcile such small
+discrepancies as these; but, there remained the additional
+difficulty that each of the twelve made entirely different
+statements at different places, and that all the twelve called
+everything visible and invisible, sacred and profane, to witness,
+that they were a perfectly impregnable phalanx of
+unanimity.&nbsp; This, it was apprehended, would be a
+stumbling-block to our honourable friend.</p>
+<p>The difficulty came before our honourable friend, in this
+way.&nbsp; He went down to Verbosity to meet his free and
+independent constituents, and to render an account (as he
+informed them in the local papers) of the trust they had confided
+to his hands&mdash;that trust which it was one of the proudest
+privileges of an Englishman to possess&mdash;that trust which it
+was the proudest privilege of an Englishman to hold.&nbsp; It may
+be mentioned as a proof of the great general interest attaching
+to the contest, that a Lunatic whom nobody employed or knew, went
+down to Verbosity with several thousand pounds in gold,
+determined to give the whole away&mdash;which he actually did;
+and that all the publicans opened their houses for nothing.&nbsp;
+Likewise, several fighting men, and a patriotic group of burglars
+sportively armed with life-preservers, proceeded (in barouches
+and very drunk) to the scene of action at their own expense;
+these children of nature having conceived a warm attachment to
+our honourable friend, and intending, in their artless manner, to
+testify it by knocking the voters in the opposite interest on the
+head.</p>
+<p>Our honourable friend being come into the presence of his
+constituents, and having professed with great suavity that he was
+delighted to see his good friend Tipkisson there, in his
+working-dress&mdash;his good friend Tipkisson being an inveterate
+saddler, who always opposes him, and for whom he has a mortal
+hatred&mdash;made them a brisk, ginger-beery sort of speech, in
+which he showed them how the dozen noblemen and gentlemen had (in
+exactly ten days from their coming in) exercised a surprisingly
+beneficial effect on the whole financial condition of Europe, had
+altered the state of the exports and imports for the current
+half-year, had prevented the drain of gold, had made all that
+matter right about the glut of the raw material, and had restored
+all sorts of balances with which the superseded noblemen and
+gentlemen had played the deuce&mdash;and all this, with wheat at
+so much a quarter, gold at so much an ounce, and the Bank of
+England discounting good bills at so much per cent.!&nbsp; He
+might be asked, he observed in a peroration of great power, what
+were his principles?&nbsp; His principles were what they always
+had been.&nbsp; His principles were written in the countenances
+of the lion and unicorn; were stamped indelibly upon the royal
+shield which those grand animals supported, and upon the free
+words of fire which that shield bore.&nbsp; His principles were,
+Britannia and her sea-king trident!&nbsp; His principles were,
+commercial prosperity co-existently with perfect and profound
+agricultural contentment; but short of this he would never
+stop.&nbsp; His principles were, these,&mdash;with the addition
+of his colours nailed to the mast, every man&rsquo;s heart in the
+right place, every man&rsquo;s eye open, every man&rsquo;s hand
+ready, every man&rsquo;s mind on the alert.&nbsp; His principles
+were these, concurrently with a general revision of
+something&mdash;speaking generally&mdash;and a possible
+readjustment of something else, not to be mentioned more
+particularly.&nbsp; His principles, to sum up all in a word,
+were, Hearths and Altars, Labour and Capital, Crown and Sceptre,
+Elephant and Castle.&nbsp; And now, if his good friend Tipkisson
+required any further explanation from him, he (our honourable
+friend) was there, willing and ready to give it.</p>
+<p>Tipkisson, who all this time had stood conspicuous in the
+crowd, with his arms folded and his eyes intently fastened on our
+honourable friend: Tipkisson, who throughout our honourable
+friend&rsquo;s address had not relaxed a muscle of his visage,
+but had stood there, wholly unaffected by the torrent of
+eloquence: an object of contempt and scorn to mankind (by which
+we mean, of course, to the supporters of our honourable friend);
+Tipkisson now said that he was a plain man (Cries of &lsquo;You
+are indeed!&rsquo;), and that what he wanted to know was, what
+our honourable friend and the dozen noblemen and gentlemen were
+driving at?</p>
+<p>Our honourable friend immediately replied, &lsquo;At the
+illimitable perspective.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>It was considered by the whole assembly that this happy
+statement of our honourable friend&rsquo;s political views ought,
+immediately, to have settled Tipkisson&rsquo;s business and
+covered him with confusion; but, that implacable person,
+regardless of the execrations that were heaped upon him from all
+sides (by which we mean, of course, from our honourable
+friend&rsquo;s side), persisted in retaining an unmoved
+countenance, and obstinately retorted that if our honourable
+friend meant that, he wished to know what <i>that</i> meant?</p>
+<p>It was in repelling this most objectionable and indecent
+opposition, that our honourable friend displayed his highest
+qualifications for the representation of Verbosity.&nbsp; His
+warmest supporters present, and those who were best acquainted
+with his generalship, supposed that the moment was come when he
+would fall back upon the sacred bulwarks of our
+nationality.&nbsp; No such thing.&nbsp; He replied thus:
+&lsquo;My good friend Tipkisson, gentlemen, wishes to know what I
+mean when he asks me what we are driving at, and when I candidly
+tell him, at the illimitable perspective, he wishes (if I
+understand him) to know what I mean?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I
+do!&rsquo; says Tipkisson, amid cries of &lsquo;Shame&rsquo; and
+&lsquo;Down with him.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Gentlemen,&rsquo; says
+our honourable friend, &lsquo;I will indulge my good friend
+Tipkisson, by telling him, both what I mean and what I
+don&rsquo;t mean.&nbsp; (Cheers and cries of &lsquo;Give it
+him!&rsquo;)&nbsp; Be it known to him then, and to all whom it
+may concern, that I do mean altars, hearths, and homes, and that
+I don&rsquo;t mean mosques and Mohammedanism!&rsquo;&nbsp; The
+effect of this home-thrust was terrific.&nbsp; Tipkisson (who is
+a Baptist) was hooted down and hustled out, and has ever since
+been regarded as a Turkish Renegade who contemplates an early
+pilgrimage to Mecca.&nbsp; Nor was he the only discomfited
+man.&nbsp; The charge, while it stuck to him, was magically
+transferred to our honourable friend&rsquo;s opponent, who was
+represented in an immense variety of placards as a firm believer
+in Mahomet; and the men of Verbosity were asked to choose between
+our honourable friend and the Bible, and our honourable
+friend&rsquo;s opponent and the Koran.&nbsp; They decided for our
+honourable friend, and rallied round the illimitable
+perspective.</p>
+<p>It has been claimed for our honourable friend, with much
+appearance of reason, that he was the first to bend sacred
+matters to electioneering tactics.&nbsp; However this may be, the
+fine precedent was undoubtedly set in a Verbosity election: and
+it is certain that our honourable friend (who was a disciple of
+Brahma in his youth, and was a Buddhist when we had the honour of
+travelling with him a few years ago) always professes in public
+more anxiety than the whole Bench of Bishops, regarding the
+theological and doxological opinions of every man, woman, and
+child, in the United Kingdom.</p>
+<p>As we began by saying that our honourable friend has got in
+again at this last election, and that we are delighted to find
+that he has got in, so we will conclude.&nbsp; Our honourable
+friend cannot come in for Verbosity too often.&nbsp; It is a good
+sign; it is a great example.&nbsp; It is to men like our
+honourable friend, and to contests like those from which he comes
+triumphant, that we are mainly indebted for that ready interest
+in politics, that fresh enthusiasm in the discharge of the duties
+of citizenship, that ardent desire to rush to the poll, at
+present so manifest throughout England.&nbsp; When the contest
+lies (as it sometimes does) between two such men as our
+honourable friend, it stimulates the finest emotions of our
+nature, and awakens the highest admiration of which our heads and
+hearts are capable.</p>
+<p>It is not too much to predict that our honourable friend will
+be always at his post in the ensuing session.&nbsp; Whatever the
+question be, or whatever the form of its discussion; address to
+the crown, election petition, expenditure of the public money,
+extension of the public suffrage, education, crime; in the whole
+house, in committee of the whole house, in select committee; in
+every parliamentary discussion of every subject, everywhere: the
+Honourable Member for Verbosity will most certainly be found.</p>
+<h2><a name="page475"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 475</span>OUR
+SCHOOL</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> went to look at it, only this
+last Midsummer, and found that the Railway had cut it up root and
+branch.&nbsp; A great trunk-line had swallowed the playground,
+sliced away the schoolroom, and pared off the corner of the
+house: which, thus curtailed of its proportions, presented
+itself, in a green stage of stucco, profilewise towards the road,
+like a forlorn flat-iron without a handle, standing on end.</p>
+<p>It seems as if our schools were doomed to be the sport of
+change.&nbsp; We have faint recollections of a Preparatory
+Day-School, which we have sought in vain, and which must have
+been pulled down to make a new street, ages ago.&nbsp; We have
+dim impressions, scarcely amounting to a belief, that it was over
+a dyer&rsquo;s shop.&nbsp; We know that you went up steps to it;
+that you frequently grazed your knees in doing so; that you
+generally got your leg over the scraper, in trying to scrape the
+mud off a very unsteady little shoe.&nbsp; The mistress of the
+Establishment holds no place in our memory; but, rampant on one
+eternal door-mat, in an eternal entry long and narrow, is a puffy
+pug-dog, with a personal animosity towards us, who triumphs over
+Time.&nbsp; The bark of that baleful Pug, a certain radiating way
+he had of snapping at our undefended legs, the ghastly grinning
+of his moist black muzzle and white teeth, and the insolence of
+his crisp tail curled like a pastoral crook, all live and
+flourish.&nbsp; From an otherwise unaccountable association of
+him with a fiddle, we conclude that he was of French extraction,
+and his name <i>Fid&egrave;le</i>.&nbsp; He belonged to some
+female, chiefly inhabiting a back-parlour, whose life appears to
+us to have been consumed in sniffing, and in wearing a brown
+beaver bonnet.&nbsp; For her, he would sit up and balance cake
+upon his nose, and not eat it until twenty had been
+counted.&nbsp; To the best of our belief we were once called in
+to witness this performance; when, unable, even in his milder
+moments, to endure our presence, he instantly made at us, cake
+and all.</p>
+<p>Why a something in mourning, called &lsquo;Miss Frost,&rsquo;
+should still connect itself with our preparatory school, we are
+unable to say.&nbsp; We retain no impression of the beauty of
+Miss Frost&mdash;if she were beautiful; or of the mental
+fascinations of Miss Frost&mdash;if she were accomplished; yet
+her name and her black dress hold an enduring place in our
+remembrance.&nbsp; An equally impersonal boy, whose name has long
+since shaped itself unalterably into &lsquo;Master Mawls,&rsquo;
+is not to be dislodged from our brain.&nbsp; Retaining no
+vindictive feeling towards Mawls&mdash;no feeling whatever,
+indeed&mdash;we infer that neither he nor we can have loved Miss
+Frost.&nbsp; Our first impression of Death and Burial is
+associated with this formless pair.&nbsp; We all three nestled
+awfully in a corner one wintry day, when the wind was blowing
+shrill, with Miss Frost&rsquo;s pinafore over our heads; and Miss
+Frost told us in a whisper about somebody being &lsquo;screwed
+down.&rsquo;&nbsp; It is the only distinct recollection we
+preserve of these impalpable creatures, except a suspicion that
+the manners of Master Mawls were susceptible of much
+improvement.&nbsp; Generally speaking, we may observe that
+whenever we see a child intently occupied with its nose, to the
+exclusion of all other subjects of interest, our mind reverts, in
+a flash, to Master Mawls.</p>
+<p>But, the School that was Our School before the Railroad came
+and overthrew it, was quite another sort of place.&nbsp; We were
+old enough to be put into Virgil when we went there, and to get
+Prizes for a variety of polishing on which the rust has long
+accumulated.&nbsp; It was a School of some celebrity in its
+neighbourhood&mdash;nobody could have said why&mdash;and we had
+the honour to attain and hold the eminent position of first
+boy.&nbsp; The master was supposed among us to know nothing, and
+one of the ushers was supposed to know everything.&nbsp; We are
+still inclined to think the first-named supposition perfectly
+correct.</p>
+<p>We have a general idea that its subject had been in the
+leather trade, and had bought us&mdash;meaning Our
+School&mdash;of another proprietor who was immensely
+learned.&nbsp; Whether this belief had any real foundation, we
+are not likely ever to know now.&nbsp; The only branches of
+education with which he showed the least acquaintance, were,
+ruling and corporally punishing.&nbsp; He was always ruling
+ciphering-books with a bloated mahogany ruler, or smiting the
+palms of offenders with the same diabolical instrument, or
+viciously drawing a pair of pantaloons tight with one of his
+large hands, and caning the wearer with the other.&nbsp; We have
+no doubt whatever that this occupation was the principal solace
+of his existence.</p>
+<p>A profound respect for money pervaded Our School, which was,
+of course, derived from its Chief.&nbsp; We remember an idiotic
+goggle-eyed boy, with a big head and half-crowns without end, who
+suddenly appeared as a parlour-boarder, and was rumoured to have
+come by sea from some mysterious part of the earth where his
+parents rolled in gold.&nbsp; He was usually called
+&lsquo;Mr.&rsquo; by the Chief, and was said to feed in the
+parlour on steaks and gravy; likewise to drink currant
+wine.&nbsp; And he openly stated that if rolls and coffee were
+ever denied him at breakfast, he would write home to that unknown
+part of the globe from which he had come, and cause himself to be
+recalled to the regions of gold.&nbsp; He was put into no form or
+class, but learnt alone, as little as he liked&mdash;and he liked
+very little&mdash;and there was a belief among us that this was
+because he was too wealthy to be &lsquo;taken down.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+His special treatment, and our vague association of him with the
+sea, and with storms, and sharks, and Coral Reefs occasioned the
+wildest legends to be circulated as his history.&nbsp; A tragedy
+in blank verse was written on the subject&mdash;if our memory
+does not deceive us, by the hand that now chronicles these
+recollections&mdash;in which his father figured as a Pirate, and
+was shot for a voluminous catalogue of atrocities: first
+imparting to his wife the secret of the cave in which his wealth
+was stored, and from which his only son&rsquo;s half-crowns now
+issued.&nbsp; Dumbledon (the boy&rsquo;s name) was represented as
+&lsquo;yet unborn&rsquo; when his brave father met his fate; and
+the despair and grief of Mrs. Dumbledon at that calamity was
+movingly shadowed forth as having weakened the
+parlour-boarder&rsquo;s mind.&nbsp; This production was received
+with great favour, and was twice performed with closed doors in
+the dining-room.&nbsp; But, it got wind, and was seized as
+libellous, and brought the unlucky poet into severe
+affliction.&nbsp; Some two years afterwards, all of a sudden one
+day, Dumbledon vanished.&nbsp; It was whispered that the Chief
+himself had taken him down to the Docks, and re-shipped him for
+the Spanish Main; but nothing certain was ever known about his
+disappearance.&nbsp; At this hour, we cannot thoroughly
+disconnect him from California.</p>
+<p>Our School was rather famous for mysterious pupils.&nbsp;
+There was another&mdash;a heavy young man, with a large
+double-cased silver watch, and a fat knife the handle of which
+was a perfect tool-box&mdash;who unaccountably appeared one day
+at a special desk of his own, erected close to that of the Chief,
+with whom he held familiar converse.&nbsp; He lived in the
+parlour, and went out for his walks, and never took the least
+notice of us&mdash;even of us, the first boy&mdash;unless to give
+us a deprecatory kick, or grimly to take our hat off and throw it
+away, when he encountered us out of doors, which unpleasant
+ceremony he always performed as he passed&mdash;not even
+condescending to stop for the purpose.&nbsp; Some of us believed
+that the classical attainments of this phenomenon were terrific,
+but that his penmanship and arithmetic were defective, and he had
+come there to mend them; others, that he was going to set up a
+school, and had paid the Chief &lsquo;twenty-five pound
+down,&rsquo; for leave to see Our School at work.&nbsp; The
+gloomier spirits even said that he was going to buy us; against
+which contingency, conspiracies were set on foot for a general
+defection and running away.&nbsp; However, he never did
+that.&nbsp; After staying for a quarter, during which period,
+though closely observed, he was never seen to do anything but
+make pens out of quills, write small hand in a secret portfolio,
+and punch the point of the sharpest blade in his knife into his
+desk all over it, he too disappeared, and his place knew him no
+more.</p>
+<p>There was another boy, a fair, meek boy, with a delicate
+complexion and rich curling hair, who, we found out, or thought
+we found out (we have no idea now, and probably had none then, on
+what grounds, but it was confidentially revealed from mouth to
+mouth), was the son of a Viscount who had deserted his lovely
+mother.&nbsp; It was understood that if he had his rights, he
+would be worth twenty thousand a year.&nbsp; And that if his
+mother ever met his father, she would shoot him with a silver
+pistol, which she carried, always loaded to the muzzle, for that
+purpose.&nbsp; He was a very suggestive topic.&nbsp; So was a
+young Mulatto, who was always believed (though very amiable) to
+have a dagger about him somewhere.&nbsp; But, we think they were
+both outshone, upon the whole, by another boy who claimed to have
+been born on the twenty-ninth of February, and to have only one
+birthday in five years.&nbsp; We suspect this to have been a
+fiction&mdash;but he lived upon it all the time he was at Our
+School.</p>
+<p>The principal currency of Our School was slate pencil.&nbsp;
+It had some inexplicable value, that was never ascertained, never
+reduced to a standard.&nbsp; To have a great hoard of it was
+somehow to be rich.&nbsp; We used to bestow it in charity, and
+confer it as a precious boon upon our chosen friends.&nbsp; When
+the holidays were coming, contributions were solicited for
+certain boys whose relatives were in India, and who were appealed
+for under the generic name of
+&lsquo;Holiday-stoppers,&rsquo;&mdash;appropriate marks of
+remembrance that should enliven and cheer them in their homeless
+state.&nbsp; Personally, we always contributed these tokens of
+sympathy in the form of slate pencil, and always felt that it
+would be a comfort and a treasure to them.</p>
+<p>Our School was remarkable for white mice.&nbsp; Red-polls,
+linnets, and even canaries, were kept in desks, drawers,
+hat-boxes, and other strange refuges for birds; but white mice
+were the favourite stock.&nbsp; The boys trained the mice, much
+better than the masters trained the boys.&nbsp; We recall one
+white mouse, who lived in the cover of a Latin dictionary, who
+ran up ladders, drew Roman chariots, shouldered muskets, turned
+wheels, and even made a very creditable appearance on the stage
+as the Dog of Montargis.&nbsp; He might have achieved greater
+things, but for having the misfortune to mistake his way in a
+triumphal procession to the Capitol, when he fell into a deep
+inkstand, and was dyed black and drowned.&nbsp; The mice were the
+occasion of some most ingenious engineering, in the construction
+of their houses and instruments of performance.&nbsp; The famous
+one belonged to a company of proprietors, some of whom have since
+made Railroads, Engines, and Telegraphs; the chairman has erected
+mills and bridges in New Zealand.</p>
+<p>The usher at Our School, who was considered to know everything
+as opposed to the Chief, who was considered to know nothing, was
+a bony, gentle-faced, clerical-looking young man in rusty
+black.&nbsp; It was whispered that he was sweet upon one of
+Maxby&rsquo;s sisters (Maxby lived close by, and was a day
+pupil), and further that he &lsquo;favoured Maxby.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+As we remember, he taught Italian to Maxby&rsquo;s sisters on
+half-holidays.&nbsp; He once went to the play with them, and wore
+a white waistcoat and a rose: which was considered among us
+equivalent to a declaration.&nbsp; We were of opinion on that
+occasion, that to the last moment he expected Maxby&rsquo;s
+father to ask him to dinner at five o&rsquo;clock, and therefore
+neglected his own dinner at half-past one, and finally got
+none.&nbsp; We exaggerated in our imaginations the extent to
+which he punished Maxby&rsquo;s father&rsquo;s cold meat at
+supper; and we agreed to believe that he was elevated with wine
+and water when he came home.&nbsp; But, we all liked him; for he
+had a good knowledge of boys, and would have made it a much
+better school if he had had more power.&nbsp; He was writing
+master, mathematical master, English master, made out the bills,
+mended the pens, and did all sorts of things.&nbsp; He divided
+the little boys with the Latin master (they were smuggled through
+their rudimentary books, at odd times when there was nothing else
+to do), and he always called at parents&rsquo; houses to inquire
+after sick boys, because he had gentlemanly manners.&nbsp; He was
+rather musical, and on some remote quarter-day had bought an old
+trombone; but a bit of it was lost, and it made the most
+extraordinary sounds when he sometimes tried to play it of an
+evening.&nbsp; His holidays never began (on account of the bills)
+until long after ours; but, in the summer vacations he used to
+take pedestrian excursions with a knapsack; and at Christmas
+time, he went to see his father at Chipping Norton, who we all
+said (on no authority) was a dairy-fed pork-butcher.&nbsp; Poor
+fellow!&nbsp; He was very low all day on Maxby&rsquo;s
+sister&rsquo;s wedding-day, and afterwards was thought to favour
+Maxby more than ever, though he had been expected to spite
+him.&nbsp; He has been dead these twenty years.&nbsp; Poor
+fellow!</p>
+<p>Our remembrance of Our School, presents the Latin master as a
+colourless doubled-up near-sighted man with a crutch, who was
+always cold, and always putting onions into his ears for
+deafness, and always disclosing ends of flannel under all his
+garments, and almost always applying a ball of
+pocket-handkerchief to some part of his face with a screwing
+action round and round.&nbsp; He was a very good scholar, and
+took great pains where he saw intelligence and a desire to learn:
+otherwise, perhaps not.&nbsp; Our memory presents him (unless
+teased into a passion) with as little energy as colour&mdash;as
+having been worried and tormented into monotonous
+feebleness&mdash;as having had the best part of his life ground
+out of him in a Mill of boys.&nbsp; We remember with terror how
+he fell asleep one sultry afternoon with the little smuggled
+class before him, and awoke not when the footstep of the Chief
+fell heavy on the floor; how the Chief aroused him, in the midst
+of a dread silence, and said, &lsquo;Mr. Blinkins, are you ill,
+sir?&rsquo; how he blushingly replied, &lsquo;Sir, rather
+so;&rsquo; how the Chief retorted with severity, &lsquo;Mr.
+Blinkins, this is no place to be ill in&rsquo; (which was very,
+very true), and walked back solemn as the ghost in Hamlet, until,
+catching a wandering eye, he called that boy for inattention, and
+happily expressed his feelings towards the Latin master through
+the medium of a substitute.</p>
+<p>There was a fat little dancing-master who used to come in a
+gig, and taught the more advanced among us hornpipes (as an
+accomplishment in great social demand in after life); and there
+was a brisk little French master who used to come in the sunniest
+weather, with a handleless umbrella, and to whom the Chief was
+always polite, because (as we believed), if the Chief offended
+him, he would instantly address the Chief in French, and for ever
+confound him before the boys with his inability to understand or
+reply.</p>
+<p>There was besides, a serving man, whose name was Phil.&nbsp;
+Our retrospective glance presents Phil as a shipwrecked
+carpenter, cast away upon the desert island of a school, and
+carrying into practice an ingenious inkling of many trades.&nbsp;
+He mended whatever was broken, and made whatever was
+wanted.&nbsp; He was general glazier, among other things, and
+mended all the broken windows&mdash;at the prime cost (as was
+darkly rumoured among us) of ninepence, for every square charged
+three-and-six to parents.&nbsp; We had a high opinion of his
+mechanical genius, and generally held that the Chief &lsquo;knew
+something bad of him,&rsquo; and on pain of divulgence enforced
+Phil to be his bondsman.&nbsp; We particularly remember that Phil
+had a sovereign contempt for learning: which engenders in us a
+respect for his sagacity, as it implies his accurate observation
+of the relative positions of the Chief and the ushers.&nbsp; He
+was an impenetrable man, who waited at table between whiles, and
+throughout &lsquo;the half&rsquo; kept the boxes in severe
+custody.&nbsp; He was morose, even to the Chief, and never
+smiled, except at breaking-up, when, in acknowledgment of the
+toast, &lsquo;Success to Phil!&nbsp; Hooray!&rsquo; he would
+slowly carve a grin out of his wooden face, where it would remain
+until we were all gone.&nbsp; Nevertheless, one time when we had
+the scarlet fever in the school, Phil nursed all the sick boys of
+his own accord, and was like a mother to them.</p>
+<p>There was another school not far off, and of course Our School
+could have nothing to say to that school.&nbsp; It is mostly the
+way with schools, whether of boys or men.&nbsp; Well! the railway
+has swallowed up ours, and the locomotives now run smoothly over
+its ashes.</p>
+<blockquote><p>So fades and languishes, grows dim and dies,<br />
+All that this world is proud of,</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>- and is not proud of, too.&nbsp; It had little reason to be
+proud of Our School, and has done much better since in that way,
+and will do far better yet.</p>
+<h2><a name="page481"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 481</span>OUR
+VESTRY</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have the glorious privilege of
+being always in hot water if we like.&nbsp; We are a shareholder
+in a Great Parochial British Joint Stock Bank of
+Balderdash.&nbsp; We have a Vestry in our borough, and can vote
+for a vestryman&mdash;might even <i>be</i> a vestryman, mayhap,
+if we were inspired by a lofty and noble ambition.&nbsp; Which we
+are not.</p>
+<p>Our Vestry is a deliberative assembly of the utmost dignity
+and importance.&nbsp; Like the Senate of ancient Rome, its awful
+gravity overpowers (or ought to overpower) barbarian
+visitors.&nbsp; It sits in the Capitol (we mean in the capital
+building erected for it), chiefly on Saturdays, and shakes the
+earth to its centre with the echoes of its thundering eloquence,
+in a Sunday paper.</p>
+<p>To get into this Vestry in the eminent capacity of Vestryman,
+gigantic efforts are made, and Herculean exertions used.&nbsp; It
+is made manifest to the dullest capacity at every election, that
+if we reject Snozzle we are done for, and that if we fail to
+bring in Blunderbooze at the top of the poll, we are unworthy of
+the dearest rights of Britons.&nbsp; Flaming placards are rife on
+all the dead walls in the borough, public-houses hang out
+banners, hackney-cabs burst into full-grown flowers of type, and
+everybody is, or should be, in a paroxysm of anxiety.</p>
+<p>At these momentous crises of the national fate, we are much
+assisted in our deliberations by two eminent volunteers; one of
+whom subscribes himself A Fellow Parishioner, the other, A
+Rate-Payer.&nbsp; Who they are, or what they are, or where they
+are, nobody knows; but, whatever one asserts, the other
+contradicts.&nbsp; They are both voluminous writers, indicting
+more epistles than Lord Chesterfield in a single week; and the
+greater part of their feelings are too big for utterance in
+anything less than capital letters.&nbsp; They require the
+additional aid of whole rows of notes of admiration, like
+balloons, to point their generous indignation; and they sometimes
+communicate a crushing severity to stars.&nbsp; As thus:</p>
+<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">MEN OF MOONEYMOUNT.</p>
+<p>Is it, or is it not, a * * * to saddle the parish with a debt
+of &pound;2,745 6<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i>, yet claim to be a <span
+class="GutSmall">RIGID ECONOMIST</span>?</p>
+<p>Is it, or is it not, a * * * to state as a fact what is proved
+to be <i>both a moral and a</i> <span class="GutSmall">PHYSICAL
+IMPOSSIBILITY</span>?</p>
+<p>Is it, or is it not, a * * * to call &pound;2,745 6<i>s.</i>
+9<i>d.</i> nothing; and nothing, something?</p>
+<p>Do you, or do you <i>not</i> want a * * * <span
+class="GutSmall">TO REPRESENT YOU IN THE VESTRY</span>?</p>
+<p>Your consideration of these questions is recommended to you
+by</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">A <span class="smcap">Fellow
+Parishioner</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>It was to this important public document that one of our first
+orators, <span class="smcap">Mr. Magg</span> (of Little Winkling
+Street), adverted, when he opened the great debate of the
+fourteenth of November by saying, &lsquo;Sir, I hold in my hand
+an anonymous slander&rsquo;&mdash;and when the interruption, with
+which he was at that point assailed by the opposite faction, gave
+rise to that memorable discussion on a point of order which will
+ever be remembered with interest by constitutional
+assemblies.&nbsp; In the animated debate to which we refer, no
+fewer than thirty-seven gentlemen, many of them of great
+eminence, including <span class="smcap">Mr. Wigsby</span> (of
+Chumbledon Square), were seen upon their legs at one time; and it
+was on the same great occasion that <span
+class="smcap">Dogginson</span>&mdash;regarded in our Vestry as
+&lsquo;a regular John Bull:&rsquo; we believe, in consequence of
+his having always made up his mind on every subject without
+knowing anything about it&mdash;informed another gentleman of
+similar principles on the opposite side, that if he
+&lsquo;cheek&rsquo;d him,&rsquo; he would resort to the extreme
+measure of knocking his blessed head off.</p>
+<p>This was a great occasion.&nbsp; But, our Vestry shines
+habitually.&nbsp; In asserting its own pre-eminence, for
+instance, it is very strong.&nbsp; On the least provocation, or
+on none, it will be clamorous to know whether it is to be
+&lsquo;dictated to,&rsquo; or &lsquo;trampled on,&rsquo; or
+&lsquo;ridden over rough-shod.&rsquo;&nbsp; Its great watchword
+is Self-government.&nbsp; That is to say, supposing our Vestry to
+favour any little harmless disorder like Typhus Fever, and
+supposing the Government of the country to be, by any accident,
+in such ridiculous hands, as that any of its authorities should
+consider it a duty to object to Typhus Fever&mdash;obviously an
+unconstitutional objection&mdash;then, our Vestry cuts in with a
+terrible manifesto about Self-government, and claims its
+independent right to have as much Typhus Fever as pleases
+itself.&nbsp; Some absurd and dangerous persons have represented,
+on the other hand, that though our Vestry may be able to
+&lsquo;beat the bounds&rsquo; of its own parish, it may not be
+able to beat the bounds of its own diseases; which (say they)
+spread over the whole land, in an ever expanding circle of waste,
+and misery, and death, and widowhood, and orphanage, and
+desolation.&nbsp; But, our Vestry makes short work of any such
+fellows as these.</p>
+<p>It was our Vestry&mdash;pink of Vestries as it is&mdash;that
+in support of its favourite principle took the celebrated ground
+of denying the existence of the last pestilence that raged in
+England, when the pestilence was raging at the Vestry
+doors.&nbsp; Dogginson said it was plums; Mr. Wigsby (of
+Chumbledon Square) said it was oysters; Mr. Magg (of Little
+Winkling Street) said, amid great cheering, it was the
+newspapers.&nbsp; The noble indignation of our Vestry with that
+un-English institution the Board of Health, under those
+circumstances, yields one of the finest passages in its
+history.&nbsp; It wouldn&rsquo;t hear of rescue.&nbsp; Like Mr.
+Joseph Miller&rsquo;s Frenchman, it would be drowned and nobody
+should save it.&nbsp; Transported beyond grammar by its kindled
+ire, it spoke in unknown tongues, and vented unintelligible
+bellowings, more like an ancient oracle than the modern oracle it
+is admitted on all hands to be.&nbsp; Rare exigencies produce
+rare things; and even our Vestry, new hatched to the woful time,
+came forth a greater goose than ever.</p>
+<p>But this, again, was a special occasion.&nbsp; Our Vestry, at
+more ordinary periods, demands its meed of praise.</p>
+<p>Our Vestry is eminently parliamentary.&nbsp; Playing at
+Parliament is its favourite game.&nbsp; It is even regarded by
+some of its members as a chapel of ease to the House of Commons:
+a Little Go to be passed first.&nbsp; It has its strangers&rsquo;
+gallery, and its reported debates (see the Sunday paper before
+mentioned), and our Vestrymen are in and out of order, and on and
+off their legs, and above all are transcendently quarrelsome,
+after the pattern of the real original.</p>
+<p>Our Vestry being assembled, Mr. Magg never begs to trouble Mr.
+Wigsby with a simple inquiry.&nbsp; He knows better than
+that.&nbsp; Seeing the honourable gentleman, associated in their
+minds with Chumbledon Square, in his place, he wishes to ask that
+honourable gentleman what the intentions of himself, and those
+with whom he acts, may be, on the subject of the paving of the
+district known as Piggleum Buildings?&nbsp; Mr. Wigsby replies
+(with his eye on next Sunday&rsquo;s paper) that in reference to
+the question which has been put to him by the honourable
+gentleman opposite, he must take leave to say, that if that
+honourable gentleman had had the courtesy to give him notice of
+that question, he (Mr. Wigsby) would have consulted with his
+colleagues in reference to the advisability, in the present state
+of the discussions on the new paving-rate, of answering that
+question.&nbsp; But, as the honourable gentleman has <span
+class="GutSmall">NOT</span> had the courtesy to give him notice
+of that question (great cheering from the Wigsby interest), he
+must decline to give the honourable gentleman the satisfaction he
+requires.&nbsp; Mr. Magg, instantly rising to retort, is received
+with loud cries of &lsquo;Spoke!&rsquo; from the Wigsby interest,
+and with cheers from the Magg side of the house.&nbsp; Moreover,
+five gentlemen rise to order, and one of them, in revenge for
+being taken no notice of, petrifies the assembly by moving that
+this Vestry do now adjourn; but, is persuaded to withdraw that
+awful proposal, in consideration of its tremendous consequences
+if persevered in.&nbsp; Mr. Magg, for the purpose of being heard,
+then begs to move, that you, sir, do now pass to the order of the
+day; and takes that opportunity of saying, that if an honourable
+gentleman whom he has in his eye, and will not demean himself by
+more particularly naming (oh, oh, and cheers), supposes that he
+is to be put down by clamour, that honourable
+gentleman&mdash;however supported he may be, through thick and
+thin, by a Fellow Parishioner, with whom he is well acquainted
+(cheers and counter-cheers, Mr. Magg being invariably backed by
+the Rate-Payer)&mdash;will find himself mistaken.&nbsp; Upon
+this, twenty members of our Vestry speak in succession concerning
+what the two great men have meant, until it appears, after an
+hour and twenty minutes, that neither of them meant
+anything.&nbsp; Then our Vestry begins business.</p>
+<p>We have said that, after the pattern of the real original, our
+Vestry in playing at Parliament is transcendently
+quarrelsome.&nbsp; It enjoys a personal altercation above all
+things.&nbsp; Perhaps the most redoubtable case of this kind we
+have ever had&mdash;though we have had so many that it is
+difficult to decide&mdash;was that on which the last extreme
+solemnities passed between Mr. Tiddypot (of Gumption House) and
+Captain Banger (of Wilderness Walk).</p>
+<p>In an adjourned debate on the question whether water could be
+regarded in the light of a necessary of life; respecting which
+there were great differences of opinion, and many shades of
+sentiment; Mr. Tiddypot, in a powerful burst of eloquence against
+that hypothesis, frequently made use of the expression that such
+and such a rumour had &lsquo;reached his ears.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+Captain Banger, following him, and holding that, for purposes of
+ablution and refreshment, a pint of water per diem was necessary
+for every adult of the lower classes, and half a pint for every
+child, cast ridicule upon his address in a sparkling speech, and
+concluded by saying that instead of those rumours having reached
+the ears of the honourable gentleman, he rather thought the
+honourable gentleman&rsquo;s ears must have reached the rumours,
+in consequence of their well-known length.&nbsp; Mr. Tiddypot
+immediately rose, looked the honourable and gallant gentleman
+full in the face, and left the Vestry.</p>
+<p>The excitement, at this moment painfully intense, was
+heightened to an acute degree when Captain Banger rose, and also
+left the Vestry.&nbsp; After a few moments of profound
+silence&mdash;one of those breathless pauses never to be
+forgotten&mdash;Mr. Chib (of Tucket&rsquo;s Terrace, and the
+father of the Vestry) rose.&nbsp; He said that words and looks
+had passed in that assembly, replete with consequences which
+every feeling mind must deplore.&nbsp; Time pressed.&nbsp; The
+sword was drawn, and while he spoke the scabbard might be thrown
+away.&nbsp; He moved that those honourable gentlemen who had left
+the Vestry be recalled, and required to pledge themselves upon
+their honour that this affair should go no farther.&nbsp; The
+motion being by a general union of parties unanimously agreed to
+(for everybody wanted to have the belligerents there, instead of
+out of sight: which was no fun at all), Mr. Magg was deputed to
+recover Captain Banger, and Mr. Chib himself to go in search of
+Mr. Tiddypot.&nbsp; The Captain was found in a conspicuous
+position, surveying the passing omnibuses from the top step of
+the front-door immediately adjoining the beadle&rsquo;s box; Mr.
+Tiddypot made a desperate attempt at resistance, but was
+overpowered by Mr. Chib (a remarkably hale old gentleman of
+eighty-two), and brought back in safety.</p>
+<p>Mr. Tiddypot and the Captain being restored to their places,
+and glaring on each other, were called upon by the chair to
+abandon all homicidal intentions, and give the Vestry an
+assurance that they did so.&nbsp; Mr. Tiddypot remained
+profoundly silent.&nbsp; The Captain likewise remained profoundly
+silent, saying that he was observed by those around him to fold
+his arms like Napoleon Buonaparte, and to snort in his
+breathing&mdash;actions but too expressive of gunpowder.</p>
+<p>The most intense emotion now prevailed.&nbsp; Several members
+clustered in remonstrance round the Captain, and several round
+Mr. Tiddypot; but, both were obdurate.&nbsp; Mr. Chib then
+presented himself amid tremendous cheering, and said, that not to
+shrink from the discharge of his painful duty, he must now move
+that both honourable gentlemen be taken into custody by the
+beadle, and conveyed to the nearest police-office, there to be
+held to bail.&nbsp; The union of parties still continuing, the
+motion was seconded by Mr. Wigsby&mdash;on all usual occasions
+Mr. Chib&rsquo;s opponent&mdash;and rapturously carried with only
+one dissentient voice.&nbsp; This was Dogginson&rsquo;s, who said
+from his place &lsquo;Let &rsquo;em fight it out with
+fistes;&rsquo; but whose coarse remark was received as it
+merited.</p>
+<p>The beadle now advanced along the floor of the Vestry, and
+beckoned with his cocked hat to both members.&nbsp; Every breath
+was suspended.&nbsp; To say that a pin might have been heard to
+fall, would be feebly to express the all-absorbing interest and
+silence.&nbsp; Suddenly, enthusiastic cheering broke out from
+every side of the Vestry.&nbsp; Captain Banger had
+risen&mdash;being, in fact, pulled up by a friend on either side,
+and poked up by a friend behind.</p>
+<p>The Captain said, in a deep determined voice, that he had
+every respect for that Vestry and every respect for that chair;
+that he also respected the honourable gentleman of Gumpton House;
+but, that he respected his honour more.&nbsp; Hereupon the
+Captain sat down, leaving the whole Vestry much affected.&nbsp;
+Mr. Tiddypot instantly rose, and was received with the same
+encouragement.&nbsp; He likewise said&mdash;and the exquisite art
+of this orator communicated to the observation an air of
+freshness and novelty&mdash;that he too had every respect for
+that Vestry; that he too had every respect for that chair.&nbsp;
+That he too respected the honourable and gallant gentleman of
+Wilderness Walk; but, that he too respected his honour more.
+&lsquo;Hows&rsquo;ever,&rsquo; added the distinguished Vestryman,
+&lsquo;if the honourable and gallant gentleman&rsquo;s honour is
+never more doubted and damaged than it is by me, he&rsquo;s all
+right.&rsquo;&nbsp; Captain Banger immediately started up again,
+and said that after those observations, involving as they did
+ample concession to his honour without compromising the honour of
+the honourable gentleman, he would be wanting in honour as well
+as in generosity, if he did not at once repudiate all intention
+of wounding the honour of the honourable gentleman, or saying
+anything dishonourable to his honourable feelings.&nbsp; These
+observations were repeatedly interrupted by bursts of
+cheers.&nbsp; Mr. Tiddypot retorted that he well knew the spirit
+of honour by which the honourable and gallant gentleman was so
+honourably animated, and that he accepted an honourable
+explanation, offered in a way that did him honour; but, he
+trusted that the Vestry would consider that his (Mr.
+Tiddypot&rsquo;s) honour had imperatively demanded of him that
+painful course which he had felt it due to his honour to
+adopt.&nbsp; The Captain and Mr. Tiddypot then touched their hats
+to one another across the Vestry, a great many times, and it is
+thought that these proceedings (reported to the extent of several
+columns in next Sunday&rsquo;s paper) will bring them in as
+church-wardens next year.</p>
+<p>All this was strictly after the pattern of the real original,
+and so are the whole of our Vestry&rsquo;s proceedings.&nbsp; In
+all their debates, they are laudably imitative of the windy and
+wordy slang of the real original, and of nothing that is better
+in it.&nbsp; They have head-strong party animosities, without any
+reference to the merits of questions; they tack a surprising
+amount of debate to a very little business; they set more store
+by forms than they do by substances:&mdash;all very like the real
+original!&nbsp; It has been doubted in our borough, whether our
+Vestry is of any utility; but our own conclusion is, that it is
+of the use to the Borough that a diminishing mirror is to a
+painter, as enabling it to perceive in a small focus of absurdity
+all the surface defects of the real original.</p>
+<h2><a name="page487"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 487</span>OUR
+BORE</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is unnecessary to say that we
+keep a bore.&nbsp; Everybody does.&nbsp; But, the bore whom we
+have the pleasure and honour of enumerating among our particular
+friends, is such a generic bore, and has so many traits (as it
+appears to us) in common with the great bore family, that we are
+tempted to make him the subject of the present notes.&nbsp; May
+he be generally accepted!</p>
+<p>Our bore is admitted on all hands to be a good-hearted
+man.&nbsp; He may put fifty people out of temper, but he keeps
+his own.&nbsp; He preserves a sickly solid smile upon his face,
+when other faces are ruffled by the perfection he has attained in
+his art, and has an equable voice which never travels out of one
+key or rises above one pitch.&nbsp; His manner is a manner of
+tranquil interest.&nbsp; None of his opinions are
+startling.&nbsp; Among his deepest-rooted convictions, it may be
+mentioned that he considers the air of England damp, and holds
+that our lively neighbours&mdash;he always calls the French our
+lively neighbours&mdash;have the advantage of us in that
+particular.&nbsp; Nevertheless he is unable to forget that John
+Bull is John Bull all the world over, and that England with all
+her faults is England still.</p>
+<p>Our bore has travelled.&nbsp; He could not possibly be a
+complete bore without having travelled.&nbsp; He rarely speaks of
+his travels without introducing, sometimes on his own plan of
+construction, morsels of the language of the country&mdash;which
+he always translates.&nbsp; You cannot name to him any little
+remote town in France, Italy, Germany, or Switzerland but he
+knows it well; stayed there a fortnight under peculiar
+circumstances.&nbsp; And talking of that little place, perhaps
+you know a statue over an old fountain, up a little court, which
+is the second&mdash;no, the third&mdash;stay&mdash;yes, the third
+turning on the right, after you come out of the Post-house, going
+up the hill towards the market?&nbsp; You <i>don&rsquo;t</i> know
+that statue?&nbsp; Nor that fountain?&nbsp; You surprise
+him!&nbsp; They are not usually seen by travellers (most
+extraordinary, he has never yet met with a single traveller who
+knew them, except one German, the most intelligent man he ever
+met in his life!) but he thought that <span
+class="GutSmall">YOU</span> would have been the man to find them
+out.&nbsp; And then he describes them, in a circumstantial
+lecture half an hour long, generally delivered behind a door
+which is constantly being opened from the other side; and
+implores you, if you ever revisit that place, now do go and look
+at that statue and fountain!</p>
+<p>Our bore, in a similar manner, being in Italy, made a
+discovery of a dreadful picture, which has been the terror of a
+large portion of the civilized world ever since.&nbsp; We have
+seen the liveliest men paralysed by it, across a broad
+dining-table.&nbsp; He was lounging among the mountains, sir,
+basking in the mellow influences of the climate, when he came to
+<i>una piccola chiesa</i>&mdash;a little church&mdash;or perhaps
+it would be more correct to say <i>una piccolissima
+cappella</i>&mdash;the smallest chapel you can possibly
+imagine&mdash;and walked in.&nbsp; There was nobody inside but a
+<i>cieco</i>&mdash;a blind man&mdash;saying his prayers, and a
+<i>vecchio padre</i>&mdash;old friar-rattling a money-box.&nbsp;
+But, above the head of that friar, and immediately to the right
+of the altar as you enter&mdash;to the right of the altar?&nbsp;
+No.&nbsp; To the left of the altar as you enter&mdash;or say near
+the centre&mdash;there hung a painting (subject, Virgin and
+Child) so divine in its expression, so pure and yet so warm and
+rich in its tone, so fresh in its touch, at once so glowing in
+its colour and so statuesque in its repose, that our bore cried
+out in ecstasy, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s the finest picture in
+Italy!&rsquo;&nbsp; And so it is, sir.&nbsp; There is no doubt of
+it.&nbsp; It is astonishing that that picture is so little
+known.&nbsp; Even the painter is uncertain.&nbsp; He afterwards
+took Blumb, of the Royal Academy (it is to be observed that our
+bore takes none but eminent people to see sights, and that none
+but eminent people take our bore), and you never saw a man so
+affected in your life as Blumb was.&nbsp; He cried like a
+child!&nbsp; And then our bore begins his description in
+detail&mdash;for all this is introductory&mdash;and strangles his
+hearers with the folds of the purple drapery.</p>
+<p>By an equally fortunate conjunction of accidental
+circumstances, it happened that when our bore was in Switzerland,
+he discovered a Valley, of that superb character, that Chamouni
+is not to be mentioned in the same breath with it.&nbsp; This is
+how it was, sir.&nbsp; He was travelling on a mule&mdash;had been
+in the saddle some days&mdash;when, as he and the guide, Pierre
+Blanquo: whom you may know, perhaps?&mdash;our bore is sorry you
+don&rsquo;t, because he&rsquo;s the only guide deserving of the
+name&mdash;as he and Pierre were descending, towards evening,
+among those everlasting snows, to the little village of La Croix,
+our bore observed a mountain track turning off sharply to the
+right.&nbsp; At first he was uncertain whether it <i>was</i> a
+track at all, and in fact, he said to Pierre,
+&lsquo;<i>Qu&rsquo;est que c&rsquo;est donc</i>, <i>mon
+ami</i>?&mdash;What is that, my friend?&nbsp;
+&lsquo;<i>O&ugrave;</i>, <i>monsieur</i>?&rsquo; said
+Pierre&mdash;&lsquo;Where, sir?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;<i>L&agrave;</i>!&mdash;there!&rsquo; said our bore.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;<i>Monsieur</i>, <i>ce n&rsquo;est rien de
+tout</i>&mdash;sir, it&rsquo;s nothing at all,&rsquo; said
+Pierre.&nbsp; &lsquo;<i>Allons</i>!&mdash;Make haste.&nbsp; <i>Il
+va neiget</i>&mdash;it&rsquo;s going to snow!&rsquo;&nbsp; But,
+our bore was not to be done in that way, and he firmly replied,
+&lsquo;I wish to go in that direction&mdash;<i>je veux y
+aller</i>.&nbsp; I am bent upon it&mdash;<i>je suis
+d&eacute;termin&eacute;</i>.&nbsp; <i>En avant</i>!&mdash;go
+ahead!&rsquo;&nbsp; In consequence of which firmness on our
+bore&rsquo;s part, they proceeded, sir, during two hours of
+evening, and three of moonlight (they waited in a cavern till the
+moon was up), along the slenderest track, overhanging
+perpendicularly the most awful gulfs, until they arrived, by a
+winding descent, in a valley that possibly, and he may say
+probably, was never visited by any stranger before.&nbsp; What a
+valley!&nbsp; Mountains piled on mountains, avalanches stemmed by
+pine forests; waterfalls, chalets, mountain-torrents, wooden
+bridges, every conceivable picture of Swiss scenery!&nbsp; The
+whole village turned out to receive our bore.&nbsp; The peasant
+girls kissed him, the men shook hands with him, one old lady of
+benevolent appearance wept upon his breast.&nbsp; He was
+conducted, in a primitive triumph, to the little inn: where he
+was taken ill next morning, and lay for six weeks, attended by
+the amiable hostess (the same benevolent old lady who had wept
+over night) and her charming daughter, Fanchette.&nbsp; It is
+nothing to say that they were attentive to him; they doted on
+him.&nbsp; They called him in their simple way, <i>l&rsquo;Ange
+Anglais</i>&mdash;the English Angel.&nbsp; When our bore left the
+valley, there was not a dry eye in the place; some of the people
+attended him for miles.&nbsp; He begs and entreats of you as a
+personal favour, that if you ever go to Switzerland again (you
+have mentioned that your last visit was your twenty-third), you
+will go to that valley, and see Swiss scenery for the first
+time.&nbsp; And if you want really to know the pastoral people of
+Switzerland, and to understand them, mention, in that valley, our
+bore&rsquo;s name!</p>
+<p>Our bore has a crushing brother in the East, who, somehow or
+other, was admitted to smoke pipes with Mehemet Ali, and
+instantly became an authority on the whole range of Eastern
+matters, from Haroun Alraschid to the present Sultan.&nbsp; He is
+in the habit of expressing mysterious opinions on this wide range
+of subjects, but on questions of foreign policy more
+particularly, to our bore, in letters; and our bore is
+continually sending bits of these letters to the newspapers
+(which they never insert), and carrying other bits about in his
+pocket-book.&nbsp; It is even whispered that he has been seen at
+the Foreign Office, receiving great consideration from the
+messengers, and having his card promptly borne into the sanctuary
+of the temple.&nbsp; The havoc committed in society by this
+Eastern brother is beyond belief.&nbsp; Our bore is always ready
+with him.&nbsp; We have known our bore to fall upon an
+intelligent young sojourner in the wilderness, in the first
+sentence of a narrative, and beat all confidence out of him with
+one blow of his brother.&nbsp; He became omniscient, as to
+foreign policy, in the smoking of those pipes with Mehemet
+Ali.&nbsp; The balance of power in Europe, the machinations of
+the Jesuits, the gentle and humanising influence of Austria, the
+position and prospects of that hero of the noble soul who is
+worshipped by happy France, are all easy reading to our
+bore&rsquo;s brother.&nbsp; And our bore is so provokingly
+self-denying about him!&nbsp; &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t pretend to
+more than a very general knowledge of these subjects
+myself,&rsquo; says he, after enervating the intellects of
+several strong men, &lsquo;but these are my brother&rsquo;s
+opinions, and I believe he is known to be
+well-informed.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The commonest incidents and places would appear to have been
+made special, expressly for our bore.&nbsp; Ask him whether he
+ever chanced to walk, between seven and eight in the morning,
+down St. James&rsquo;s Street, London, and he will tell you,
+never in his life but once.&nbsp; But, it&rsquo;s curious that
+that once was in eighteen thirty; and that as our bore was
+walking down the street you have just mentioned, at the hour you
+have just mentioned&mdash;half-past seven&mdash;or twenty minutes
+to eight.&nbsp; No!&nbsp; Let him be correct!&mdash;exactly a
+quarter before eight by the palace clock&mdash;he met a
+fresh-coloured, grey-haired, good-humoured looking gentleman,
+with a brown umbrella, who, as he passed him, touched his hat and
+said, &lsquo;Fine morning, sir, fine
+morning!&rsquo;&mdash;William the Fourth!</p>
+<p>Ask our bore whether he has seen Mr. Barry&rsquo;s new Houses
+of Parliament, and he will reply that he has not yet inspected
+them minutely, but, that you remind him that it was his singular
+fortune to be the last man to see the old Houses of Parliament
+before the fire broke out.&nbsp; It happened in this way.&nbsp;
+Poor John Spine, the celebrated novelist, had taken him over to
+South Lambeth to read to him the last few chapters of what was
+certainly his best book&mdash;as our bore told him at the time,
+adding, &lsquo;Now, my dear John, touch it, and you&rsquo;ll
+spoil it!&rsquo;&mdash;and our bore was going back to the club by
+way of Millbank and Parliament Street, when he stopped to think
+of Canning, and look at the Houses of Parliament.&nbsp; Now, you
+know far more of the philosophy of Mind than our bore does, and
+are much better able to explain to him than he is to explain to
+you why or wherefore, at that particular time, the thought of
+fire should come into his head.&nbsp; But, it did.&nbsp; It
+did.&nbsp; He thought, What a national calamity if an edifice
+connected with so many associations should be consumed by
+fire!&nbsp; At that time there was not a single soul in the
+street but himself.&nbsp; All was quiet, dark, and
+solitary.&nbsp; After contemplating the building for a
+minute&mdash;or, say a minute and a half, not more&mdash;our bore
+proceeded on his way, mechanically repeating, What a national
+calamity if such an edifice, connected with such associations,
+should be destroyed by&mdash;A man coming towards him in a
+violent state of agitation completed the sentence, with the
+exclamation, Fire!&nbsp; Our bore looked round, and the whole
+structure was in a blaze.</p>
+<p>In harmony and union with these experiences, our bore never
+went anywhere in a steamboat but he made either the best or the
+worst voyage ever known on that station.&nbsp; Either he
+overheard the captain say to himself, with his hands clasped,
+&lsquo;We are all lost!&rsquo; or the captain openly declared to
+him that he had never made such a run before, and never should be
+able to do it again.&nbsp; Our bore was in that express train on
+that railway, when they made (unknown to the passengers) the
+experiment of going at the rate of a hundred to miles an
+hour.&nbsp; Our bore remarked on that occasion to the other
+people in the carriage, &lsquo;This is too fast, but sit
+still!&rsquo;&nbsp; He was at the Norwich musical festival when
+the extraordinary echo for which science has been wholly unable
+to account, was heard for the first and last time.&nbsp; He and
+the bishop heard it at the same moment, and caught each
+other&rsquo;s eye.&nbsp; He was present at that illumination of
+St. Peter&rsquo;s, of which the Pope is known to have remarked,
+as he looked at it out of his window in the Vatican, &lsquo;<i>O
+Cielo</i>!&nbsp; <i>Questa cosa non sara fatta</i>, <i>mai
+ancora</i>, <i>come questa</i>&mdash;O Heaven! this thing will
+never be done again, like this!&rsquo;&nbsp; He has seen every
+lion he ever saw, under some remarkably propitious
+circumstances.&nbsp; He knows there is no fancy in it, because in
+every case the showman mentioned the fact at the time, and
+congratulated him upon it.</p>
+<p>At one period of his life, our bore had an illness.&nbsp; It
+was an illness of a dangerous character for society at
+large.&nbsp; Innocently remark that you are very well, or that
+somebody else is very well; and our bore, with a preface that one
+never knows what a blessing health is until one has lost it, is
+reminded of that illness, and drags you through the whole of its
+symptoms, progress, and treatment.&nbsp; Innocently remark that
+you are not well, or that somebody else is not well, and the same
+inevitable result ensues.&nbsp; You will learn how our bore felt
+a tightness about here, sir, for which he couldn&rsquo;t account,
+accompanied with a constant sensation as if he were being
+stabbed&mdash;or, rather, jobbed&mdash;that expresses it more
+correctly&mdash;jobbed&mdash;with a blunt knife.&nbsp; Well,
+sir!&nbsp; This went on, until sparks began to flit before his
+eyes, water-wheels to turn round in his head, and hammers to beat
+incessantly, thump, thump, thump, all down his back&mdash;along
+the whole of the spinal vertebr&aelig;.&nbsp; Our bore, when his
+sensations had come to this, thought it a duty he owed to himself
+to take advice, and he said, Now, whom shall I consult?&nbsp; He
+naturally thought of Callow, at that time one of the most eminent
+physicians in London, and he went to Callow.&nbsp; Callow said,
+&lsquo;Liver!&rsquo; and prescribed rhubarb and calomel, low
+diet, and moderate exercise.&nbsp; Our bore went on with this
+treatment, getting worse every day, until he lost confidence in
+Callow, and went to Moon, whom half the town was then mad
+about.&nbsp; Moon was interested in the case; to do him justice
+he was very much interested in the case; and he said,
+&lsquo;Kidneys!&rsquo;&nbsp; He altered the whole treatment,
+sir&mdash;gave strong acids, cupped, and blistered.&nbsp; This
+went on, our bore still getting worse every day, until he openly
+told Moon it would be a satisfaction to him if he would have a
+consultation with Clatter.&nbsp; The moment Clatter saw our bore,
+he said, &lsquo;Accumulation of fat about the heart!&rsquo;&nbsp;
+Snugglewood, who was called in with him, differed, and said,
+&lsquo;Brain!&rsquo;&nbsp; But, what they all agreed upon was, to
+lay our bore upon his back, to shave his head, to leech him, to
+administer enormous quantities of medicine, and to keep him low;
+so that he was reduced to a mere shadow, you wouldn&rsquo;t have
+known him, and nobody considered it possible that he could ever
+recover.&nbsp; This was his condition, sir, when he heard of
+Jilkins&mdash;at that period in a very small practice, and living
+in the upper part of a house in Great Portland Street; but still,
+you understand, with a rising reputation among the few people to
+whom he was known.&nbsp; Being in that condition in which a
+drowning man catches at a straw, our bore sent for Jilkins.&nbsp;
+Jilkins came.&nbsp; Our bore liked his eye, and said, &lsquo;Mr.
+Jilkins, I have a presentiment that you will do me
+good.&rsquo;&nbsp; Jilkins&rsquo;s reply was characteristic of
+the man.&nbsp; It was, &lsquo;Sir, I mean to do you
+good.&rsquo;&nbsp; This confirmed our bore&rsquo;s opinion of his
+eye, and they went into the case together&mdash;went completely
+into it.&nbsp; Jilkins then got up, walked across the room, came
+back, and sat down.&nbsp; His words were these.&nbsp; &lsquo;You
+have been humbugged.&nbsp; This is a case of indigestion,
+occasioned by deficiency of power in the Stomach.&nbsp; Take a
+mutton chop in half-an-hour, with a glass of the finest old
+sherry that can be got for money.&nbsp; Take two mutton chops
+to-morrow, and two glasses of the finest old sherry.&nbsp; Next
+day, I&rsquo;ll come again.&rsquo;&nbsp; In a week our bore was
+on his legs, and Jilkins&rsquo;s success dates from that
+period!</p>
+<p>Our bore is great in secret information.&nbsp; He happens to
+know many things that nobody else knows.&nbsp; He can generally
+tell you where the split is in the Ministry; he knows a great
+deal about the Queen; and has little anecdotes to relate of the
+royal nursery.&nbsp; He gives you the judge&rsquo;s private
+opinion of Sludge the murderer, and his thoughts when he tried
+him.&nbsp; He happens to know what such a man got by such a
+transaction, and it was fifteen thousand five hundred pounds, and
+his income is twelve thousand a year.&nbsp; Our bore is also
+great in mystery.&nbsp; He believes, with an exasperating
+appearance of profound meaning, that you saw Parkins last
+Sunday?&mdash;Yes, you did.&mdash;Did he say anything
+particular?&mdash;No, nothing particular.&mdash;Our bore is
+surprised at that.&mdash;Why?&mdash;Nothing.&nbsp; Only he
+understood that Parkins had come to tell you
+something.&mdash;What about?&mdash;Well! our bore is not at
+liberty to mention what about.&nbsp; But, he believes you will
+hear that from Parkins himself, soon, and he hopes it may not
+surprise you as it did him.&nbsp; Perhaps, however, you never
+heard about Parkins&rsquo;s wife&rsquo;s
+sister?&mdash;No.&mdash;Ah! says our bore, that explains it!</p>
+<p>Our bore is also great in argument.&nbsp; He infinitely enjoys
+a long humdrum, drowsy interchange of words of dispute about
+nothing.&nbsp; He considers that it strengthens the mind,
+consequently, he &lsquo;don&rsquo;t see that,&rsquo; very
+often.&nbsp; Or, he would be glad to know what you mean by
+that.&nbsp; Or, he doubts that.&nbsp; Or, he has always
+understood exactly the reverse of that.&nbsp; Or, he can&rsquo;t
+admit that.&nbsp; Or, he begs to deny that.&nbsp; Or, surely you
+don&rsquo;t mean that.&nbsp; And so on.&nbsp; He once advised us;
+offered us a piece of advice, after the fact, totally
+impracticable and wholly impossible of acceptance, because it
+supposed the fact, then eternally disposed of, to be yet in
+abeyance.&nbsp; It was a dozen years ago, and to this hour our
+bore benevolently wishes, in a mild voice, on certain regular
+occasions, that we had thought better of his opinion.</p>
+<p>The instinct with which our bore finds out another bore, and
+closes with him, is amazing.&nbsp; We have seen him pick his man
+out of fifty men, in a couple of minutes.&nbsp; They love to go
+(which they do naturally) into a slow argument on a previously
+exhausted subject, and to contradict each other, and to wear the
+hearers out, without impairing their own perennial freshness as
+bores.&nbsp; It improves the good understanding between them, and
+they get together afterwards, and bore each other amicably.&nbsp;
+Whenever we see our bore behind a door with another bore, we know
+that when he comes forth, he will praise the other bore as one of
+the most intelligent men he ever met.&nbsp; And this bringing us
+to the close of what we had to say about our bore, we are anxious
+to have it understood that he never bestowed this praise on
+us.</p>
+<h2><a name="page494"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 494</span>A
+MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was profoundly observed by a
+witty member of the Court of Common Council, in Council assembled
+in the City of London, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight
+hundred and fifty, that the French are a frog-eating people, who
+wear wooden shoes.</p>
+<p>We are credibly informed, in reference to the nation whom this
+choice spirit so happily disposed of, that the caricatures and
+stage representations which were current in England some half a
+century ago, exactly depict their present condition.&nbsp; For
+example, we understand that every Frenchman, without exception,
+wears a pigtail and curl-papers.&nbsp; That he is extremely
+sallow, thin, long-faced, and lantern-jawed.&nbsp; That the
+calves of his legs are invariably undeveloped; that his legs fail
+at the knees, and that his shoulders are always higher than his
+ears.&nbsp; We are likewise assured that he rarely tastes any
+food but soup maigre, and an onion; that he always says,
+&lsquo;By Gar! Aha! Vat you tell me, sare?&rsquo; at the end of
+every sentence he utters; and that the true generic name of his
+race is the Mounseers, or the Parly-voos.&nbsp; If he be not a
+dancing-master, or a barber, he must be a cook; since no other
+trades but those three are congenial to the tastes of the people,
+or permitted by the Institutions of the country.&nbsp; He is a
+slave, of course.&nbsp; The ladies of France (who are also
+slaves) invariably have their heads tied up in Belcher
+handkerchiefs, wear long earrings, carry tambourines, and beguile
+the weariness of their yoke by singing in head voices through
+their noses&mdash;principally to barrel-organs.</p>
+<p>It may be generally summed up, of this inferior people, that
+they have no idea of anything.</p>
+<p>Of a great Institution like Smithfield, they are unable to
+form the least conception.&nbsp; A Beast Market in the heart of
+Paris would be regarded an impossible nuisance.&nbsp; Nor have
+they any notion of slaughter-houses in the midst of a city.&nbsp;
+One of these benighted frog-eaters would scarcely understand your
+meaning, if you told him of the existence of such a British
+bulwark.</p>
+<p>It is agreeable, and perhaps pardonable, to indulge in a
+little self-complacency when our right to it is thoroughly
+established.&nbsp; At the present time, to be rendered memorable
+by a final attack on that good old market which is the (rotten)
+apple of the Corporation&rsquo;s eye, let us compare ourselves,
+to our national delight and pride as to these two subjects of
+slaughter-house and beast-market, with the outlandish
+foreigner.</p>
+<p>The blessings of Smithfield are too well understood to need
+recapitulation; all who run (away from mad bulls and pursuing
+oxen) may read.&nbsp; Any market-day they may be beheld in
+glorious action.&nbsp; Possibly the merits of our
+slaughter-houses are not yet quite so generally appreciated.</p>
+<p>Slaughter-houses, in the large towns of England, are always
+(with the exception of one or two enterprising towns) most
+numerous in the most densely crowded places, where there is the
+least circulation of air.&nbsp; They are often underground, in
+cellars; they are sometimes in close back yards; sometimes (as in
+Spitalfields) in the very shops where the meat is sold.&nbsp;
+Occasionally, under good private management, they are ventilated
+and clean.&nbsp; For the most part, they are unventilated and
+dirty; and, to the reeking walls, putrid fat and other offensive
+animal matter clings with a tenacious hold.&nbsp; The busiest
+slaughter-houses in London are in the neighbourhood of
+Smithfield, in Newgate Market, in Whitechapel, in Newport Market,
+in Leadenhall Market, in Clare Market.&nbsp; All these places are
+surrounded by houses of a poor description, swarming with
+inhabitants.&nbsp; Some of them are close to the worst
+burial-grounds in London.&nbsp; When the slaughter-house is below
+the ground, it is a common practice to throw the sheep down
+areas, neck and crop&mdash;which is exciting, but not at all
+cruel.&nbsp; When it is on the level surface, it is often
+extremely difficult of approach.&nbsp; Then, the beasts have to
+be worried, and goaded, and pronged, and tail-twisted, for a long
+time before they can be got in&mdash;which is entirely owing to
+their natural obstinacy.&nbsp; When it is not difficult of
+approach, but is in a foul condition, what they see and scent
+makes them still more reluctant to enter&mdash;which is their
+natural obstinacy again.&nbsp; When they do get in at last, after
+no trouble and suffering to speak of (for, there is nothing in
+the previous journey into the heart of London, the night&rsquo;s
+endurance in Smithfield, the struggle out again, among the
+crowded multitude, the coaches, carts, waggons, omnibuses, gigs,
+chaises, phaetons, cabs, trucks, dogs, boys, whoopings, roarings,
+and ten thousand other distractions), they are represented to be
+in a most unfit state to be killed, according to microscopic
+examinations made of their fevered blood by one of the most
+distinguished physiologists in the world, <span
+class="smcap">Professor Owen</span>&mdash;but that&rsquo;s
+humbug.&nbsp; When they <i>are</i> killed, at last, their reeking
+carcases are hung in impure air, to become, as the same Professor
+will explain to you, less nutritious and more
+unwholesome&mdash;but he is only an <i>un</i>common counsellor,
+so don&rsquo;t mind <i>him</i>.&nbsp; In half a quarter of a
+mile&rsquo;s length of Whitechapel, at one time, there shall be
+six hundred newly slaughtered oxen hanging up, and seven hundred
+sheep&mdash;but, the more the merrier&mdash;proof of
+prosperity.&nbsp; Hard by Snow Hill and Warwick Lane, you shall
+see the little children, inured to sights of brutality from their
+birth, trotting along the alleys, mingled with troops of horribly
+busy pigs, up to their ankles in blood&mdash;but it makes the
+young rascals hardy.&nbsp; Into the imperfect sewers of this
+overgrown city, you shall have the immense mass of corruption,
+engendered by these practices, lazily thrown out of sight, to
+rise, in poisonous gases, into your house at night, when your
+sleeping children will most readily absorb them, and to find its
+languid way, at last, into the river that you drink&mdash;but,
+the French are a frog-eating people who wear wooden shoes, and
+it&rsquo;s O the roast beef of England, my boy, the jolly old
+English roast beef.</p>
+<p>It is quite a mistake&mdash;a newfangled notion
+altogether&mdash;to suppose that there is any natural antagonism
+between putrefaction and health.&nbsp; They know better than
+that, in the Common Council.&nbsp; You may talk about Nature, in
+her wisdom, always warning man through his sense of smell, when
+he draws near to something dangerous; but, that won&rsquo;t go
+down in the City.&nbsp; Nature very often don&rsquo;t mean
+anything.&nbsp; Mrs. Quickly says that prunes are ill for a green
+wound; but whosoever says that putrid animal substances are ill
+for a green wound, or for robust vigour, or for anything or for
+anybody, is a humanity-monger and a humbug.&nbsp; Britons never,
+never, never, &amp;c., therefore.&nbsp; And prosperity to
+cattle-driving, cattle-slaughtering, bone-crushing,
+blood-boiling, trotter-scraping, tripe-dressing, paunch-cleaning,
+gut-spinning, hide-preparing, tallow-melting, and other
+salubrious proceedings, in the midst of hospitals, churchyards,
+workhouses, schools, infirmaries, refuges, dwellings,
+provision-shops nurseries, sick-beds, every stage and
+baiting-place in the journey from birth to death!</p>
+<p>These <i>un</i>common counsellors, your Professor Owens and
+fellows, will contend that to tolerate these things in a
+civilised city, is to reduce it to a worse condition than <span
+class="smcap">Bruce</span> found to prevail in <span
+class="smcap">Abyssinia</span>.&nbsp; For there (say they) the
+jackals and wild dogs came at night to devour the offal; whereas,
+here there are no such natural scavengers, and quite as savage
+customs.&nbsp; Further, they will demonstrate that nothing in
+Nature is intended to be wasted, and that besides the waste which
+such abuses occasion in the articles of health and
+life&mdash;main sources of the riches of any community&mdash;they
+lead to a prodigious waste of changing matters, which might, with
+proper preparation, and under scientific direction, be safely
+applied to the increase of the fertility of the land.&nbsp; Thus
+(they argue) does Nature ever avenge infractions of her
+beneficent laws, and so surely as Man is determined to warp any
+of her blessings into curses, shall they become curses, and shall
+he suffer heavily.&nbsp; But, this is cant.&nbsp; Just as it is
+cant of the worst description to say to the London Corporation,
+&lsquo;How can you exhibit to the people so plain a spectacle of
+dishonest equivocation, as to claim the right of holding a market
+in the midst of the great city, for one of your vested
+privileges, when you know that when your last market holding
+charter was granted to you by King Charles the First, Smithfield
+stood <span class="smcap">in the Suburbs of London</span>, and is
+in that very charter so described in those five
+words?&rsquo;&mdash;which is certainly true, but has nothing to
+do with the question.</p>
+<p>Now to the comparison, in these particulars of civilisation,
+between the capital of England, and the capital of that
+frog-eating and wooden-shoe wearing country, which the
+illustrious Common Councilman so sarcastically settled.</p>
+<p>In Paris, there is no Cattle Market.&nbsp; Cows and calves are
+sold within the city, but, the Cattle Markets are at Poissy,
+about thirteen miles off, on a line of railway; and at Sceaux,
+about five miles off.&nbsp; The Poissy market is held every
+Thursday; the Sceaux market, every Monday.&nbsp; In Paris, there
+are no slaughter-houses, in our acceptation of the term.&nbsp;
+There are five public Abattoirs&mdash;within the walls, though in
+the suburbs&mdash;and in these all the slaughtering for the city
+must be performed.&nbsp; They are managed by a Syndicat or Guild
+of Butchers, who confer with the Minister of the Interior on all
+matters affecting the trade, and who are consulted when any new
+regulations are contemplated for its government.&nbsp; They are,
+likewise, under the vigilant superintendence of the police.&nbsp;
+Every butcher must be licensed: which proves him at once to be a
+slave, for we don&rsquo;t license butchers in England&mdash;we
+only license apothecaries, attorneys, post-masters, publicans,
+hawkers, retailers of tobacco, snuff, pepper, and
+vinegar&mdash;and one or two other little trades, not worth
+mentioning.&nbsp; Every arrangement in connexion with the
+slaughtering and sale of meat, is matter of strict police
+regulation.&nbsp; (Slavery again, though we certainly have a
+general sort of Police Act here.)</p>
+<p>But, in order that the reader may understand what a monument
+of folly these frog-eaters have raised in their abattoirs and
+cattle-markets, and may compare it with what common counselling
+has done for us all these years, and would still do but for the
+innovating spirit of the times, here follows a short account of a
+recent visit to these places:</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>It was as sharp a February morning as you would desire to feel
+at your fingers&rsquo; ends when I turned out&mdash;tumbling over
+a chiffonier with his little basket and rake, who was picking up
+the bits of coloured paper that had been swept out, over-night,
+from a Bon-Bon shop&mdash;to take the Butchers&rsquo; Train to
+Poissy.&nbsp; A cold, dim light just touched the high roofs of
+the Tuileries which have seen such changes, such distracted
+crowds, such riot and bloodshed; and they looked as calm, and as
+old, all covered with white frost, as the very Pyramids.&nbsp;
+There was not light enough, yet, to strike upon the towers of
+Notre Dame across the water; but I thought of the dark pavement
+of the old Cathedral as just beginning to be streaked with grey;
+and of the lamps in the &lsquo;House of God,&rsquo; the Hospital
+close to it, burning low and being quenched; and of the keeper of
+the Morgue going about with a fading lantern, busy in the
+arrangement of his terrible waxwork for another sunny day.</p>
+<p>The sun was up, and shining merrily when the butchers and I,
+announcing our departure with an engine shriek to sleepy Paris,
+rattled away for the Cattle Market.&nbsp; Across the country,
+over the Seine, among a forest of scrubby trees&mdash;the hoar
+frost lying cold in shady places, and glittering in the
+light&mdash;and here we are&mdash;at Poissy!&nbsp; Out leap the
+butchers, who have been chattering all the way like madmen, and
+off they straggle for the Cattle Market (still chattering, of
+course, incessantly), in hats and caps of all shapes, in coats
+and blouses, in calf-skins, cow-skins, horse-skins, furs, shaggy
+mantles, hairy coats, sacking, baize, oil-skin, anything you
+please that will keep a man and a butcher warm, upon a frosty
+morning.</p>
+<p>Many a French town have I seen, between this spot of ground
+and Strasburg or Marseilles, that might sit for your picture,
+little Poissy!&nbsp; Barring the details of your old church, I
+know you well, albeit we make acquaintance, now, for the first
+time.&nbsp; I know your narrow, straggling, winding streets, with
+a kennel in the midst, and lamps slung across.&nbsp; I know your
+picturesque street-corners, winding up-hill Heaven knows why or
+where!&nbsp; I know your tradesmen&rsquo;s inscriptions, in
+letters not quite fat enough; your barbers&rsquo; brazen basins
+dangling over little shops; your Caf&eacute;s and Estaminets,
+with cloudy bottles of stale syrup in the windows, and pictures
+of crossed billiard cues outside.&nbsp; I know this identical
+grey horse with his tail rolled up in a knot like the &lsquo;back
+hair&rsquo; of an untidy woman, who won&rsquo;t be shod, and who
+makes himself heraldic by clattering across the street on his
+hind-legs, while twenty voices shriek and growl at him as a
+Brigand, an accursed Robber, and an everlastingly-doomed
+Pig.&nbsp; I know your sparkling town-fountain, too, my Poissy,
+and am glad to see it near a cattle-market, gushing so freshly,
+under the auspices of a gallant little sublimated Frenchman
+wrought in metal, perched upon the top.&nbsp; Through all the
+land of France I know this unswept room at The Glory, with its
+peculiar smell of beans and coffee, where the butchers crowd
+about the stove, drinking the thinnest of wine from the smallest
+of tumblers; where the thickest of coffee-cups mingle with the
+longest of loaves, and the weakest of lump sugar; where Madame at
+the counter easily acknowledges the homage of all entering and
+departing butchers; where the billiard-table is covered up in the
+midst like a great bird-cake&mdash;but the bird may sing
+by-and-by!</p>
+<p>A bell!&nbsp; The Calf Market!&nbsp; Polite departure of
+butchers.&nbsp; Hasty payment and departure on the part of
+amateur Visitor.&nbsp; Madame reproaches Ma&rsquo;amselle for too
+fine a susceptibility in reference to the devotion of a Butcher
+in a bear-skin.&nbsp; Monsieur, the landlord of The Glory, counts
+a double handful of sous, without an unobliterated inscription,
+or an undamaged crowned head, among them.</p>
+<p>There is little noise without, abundant space, and no
+confusion.&nbsp; The open area devoted to the market is divided
+into three portions: the Calf Market, the Cattle Market, the
+Sheep Market.&nbsp; Calves at eight, cattle at ten, sheep at
+mid-day.&nbsp; All is very clean.</p>
+<p>The Calf Market is a raised platform of stone, some three or
+four feet high, open on all sides, with a lofty overspreading
+roof, supported on stone columns, which give it the appearance of
+a sort of vineyard from Northern Italy.&nbsp; Here, on the raised
+pavement, lie innumerable calves, all bound hind-legs and
+fore-legs together, and all trembling violently&mdash;perhaps
+with cold, perhaps with fear, perhaps with pain; for, this mode
+of tying, which seems to be an absolute superstition with the
+peasantry, can hardly fail to cause great suffering.&nbsp; Here,
+they lie, patiently in rows, among the straw, with their stolid
+faces and inexpressive eyes, superintended by men and women, boys
+and girls; here they are inspected by our friends, the butchers,
+bargained for, and bought.&nbsp; Plenty of time; plenty of room;
+plenty of good humour.&nbsp; &lsquo;Monsieur Francois in the
+bear-skin, how do you do, my friend?&nbsp; You come from Paris by
+the train?&nbsp; The fresh air does you good.&nbsp; If you are in
+want of three or four fine calves this market morning, my angel,
+I, Madame Doche, shall be happy to deal with you.&nbsp; Behold
+these calves, Monsieur Francois!&nbsp; Great Heaven, you are
+doubtful!&nbsp; Well, sir, walk round and look about you.&nbsp;
+If you find better for the money, buy them.&nbsp; If not, come to
+me!&rsquo;&nbsp; Monsieur Francois goes his way leisurely, and
+keeps a wary eye upon the stock.&nbsp; No other butcher jostles
+Monsieur Francois; Monsieur Francois jostles no other
+butcher.&nbsp; Nobody is flustered and aggravated.&nbsp; Nobody
+is savage.&nbsp; In the midst of the country blue frocks and red
+handkerchiefs, and the butchers&rsquo; coats, shaggy, furry, and
+hairy: of calf-skin, cow-skin, horse-skin, and bear-skin: towers
+a cocked hat and a blue cloak.&nbsp; Slavery!&nbsp; For
+<i>our</i> Police wear great-coats and glazed hats.</p>
+<p>But now the bartering is over, and the calves are sold.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Ho! Gregoire, Antoine, Jean, Louis!&nbsp; Bring up the
+carts, my children! Quick, brave infants!&nbsp; Hola!&nbsp;
+Hi!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The carts, well littered with straw, are backed up to the edge
+of the raised pavement, and various hot infants carry calves upon
+their heads, and dexterously pitch them in, while other hot
+infants, standing in the carts, arrange the calves, and pack them
+carefully in straw.&nbsp; Here is a promising young calf, not
+sold, whom Madame Doche unbinds.&nbsp; Pardon me, Madame Doche,
+but I fear this mode of tying the four legs of a quadruped
+together, though strictly &agrave; la mode, is not quite
+right.&nbsp; You observe, Madame Doche, that the cord leaves deep
+indentations in the skin, and that the animal is so cramped at
+first as not to know, or even remotely suspect that he <i>is</i>
+unbound, until you are so obliging as to kick him, in your
+delicate little way, and pull his tail like a bell-rope.&nbsp;
+Then, he staggers to his knees, not being able to stand, and
+stumbles about like a drunken calf, or the horse at
+Franconi&rsquo;s, whom you may have seen, Madame Doche, who is
+supposed to have been mortally wounded in battle.&nbsp; But, what
+is this rubbing against me, as I apostrophise Madame Doche?&nbsp;
+It is another heated infant with a calf upon his head.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Pardon, Monsieur, but will you have the politeness to
+allow me to pass?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Ah, sir, willingly.&nbsp; I
+am vexed to obstruct the way.&rsquo;&nbsp; On he staggers, calf
+and all, and makes no allusion whatever either to my eyes or
+limbs.</p>
+<p>Now, the carts are all full.&nbsp; More straw, my Antoine, to
+shake over these top rows; then, off we will clatter, rumble,
+jolt, and rattle, a long row of us, out of the first town-gate,
+and out at the second town-gate, and past the empty sentry-box,
+and the little thin square bandbox of a guardhouse, where nobody
+seems to live: and away for Paris, by the paved road, lying, a
+straight, straight line, in the long, long avenue of trees.&nbsp;
+We can neither choose our road, nor our pace, for that is all
+prescribed to us.&nbsp; The public convenience demands that our
+carts should get to Paris by such a route, and no other (Napoleon
+had leisure to find that out, while he had a little war with the
+world upon his hands), and woe betide us if we infringe
+orders.</p>
+<p>Drovers of oxen stand in the Cattle Market, tied to iron bars
+fixed into posts of granite.&nbsp; Other droves advance slowly
+down the long avenue, past the second town-gate, and the first
+town-gate, and the sentry-box, and the bandbox, thawing the
+morning with their smoky breath as they come along.&nbsp; Plenty
+of room; plenty of time.&nbsp; Neither man nor beast is driven
+out of his wits by coaches, carts, waggons, omnibuses, gigs,
+chaises, phaetons, cabs, trucks, boys, whoopings, roarings, and
+multitudes.&nbsp; No tail-twisting is necessary&mdash;no iron
+pronging is necessary.&nbsp; There are no iron prongs here.&nbsp;
+The market for cattle is held as quietly as the market for
+calves.&nbsp; In due time, off the cattle go to Paris; the
+drovers can no more choose their road, nor their time, nor the
+numbers they shall drive, than they can choose their hour for
+dying in the course of nature.</p>
+<p>Sheep next.&nbsp; The sheep-pens are up here, past the Branch
+Bank of Paris established for the convenience of the butchers,
+and behind the two pretty fountains they are making in the
+Market.&nbsp; My name is Bull: yet I think I should like to see
+as good twin fountains&mdash;not to say in Smithfield, but in
+England anywhere.&nbsp; Plenty of room; plenty of time.&nbsp; And
+here are sheep-dogs, sensible as ever, but with a certain French
+air about them&mdash;not without a suspicion of
+dominoes&mdash;with a kind of flavour of moustache and
+beard&mdash;demonstrative dogs, shaggy and loose where an English
+dog would be tight and close&mdash;not so troubled with business
+calculations as our English drovers&rsquo; dogs, who have always
+got their sheep upon their minds, and think about their work,
+even resting, as you may see by their faces; but, dashing, showy,
+rather unreliable dogs: who might worry me instead of their
+legitimate charges if they saw occasion&mdash;and might see it
+somewhat suddenly.</p>
+<p>The market for sheep passes off like the other two; and away
+they go, by <i>their</i> allotted road to Paris.&nbsp; My way
+being the Railway, I make the best of it at twenty miles an hour;
+whirling through the now high-lighted landscape; thinking that
+the inexperienced green buds will be wishing, before long, they
+had not been tempted to come out so soon; and wondering who lives
+in this or that ch&acirc;teau, all window and lattice, and what
+the family may have for breakfast this sharp morning.</p>
+<p>After the Market comes the Abattoir.&nbsp; What abattoir shall
+I visit first?&nbsp; Montmartre is the largest.&nbsp; So I will
+go there.</p>
+<p>The abattoirs are all within the walls of Paris, with an eye
+to the receipt of the octroi duty; but, they stand in open places
+in the suburbs, removed from the press and bustle of the
+city.&nbsp; They are managed by the Syndicat or Guild of
+Butchers, under the inspection of the Police.&nbsp; Certain
+smaller items of the revenue derived from them are in part
+retained by the Guild for the payment of their expenses, and in
+part devoted by it to charitable purposes in connexion with the
+trade.&nbsp; They cost six hundred and eighty thousand pounds;
+and they return to the city of Paris an interest on that outlay,
+amounting to nearly six and a-half per cent.</p>
+<p>Here, in a sufficiently dismantled space is the Abattoir of
+Montmartre, covering nearly nine acres of ground, surrounded by a
+high wall, and looking from the outside like a cavalry
+barrack.&nbsp; At the iron gates is a small functionary in a
+large cocked hat. &lsquo;Monsieur desires to see the
+abattoir?&nbsp; Most certainly.&rsquo;&nbsp; State being
+inconvenient in private transactions, and Monsieur being already
+aware of the cocked hat, the functionary puts it into a little
+official bureau which it almost fills, and accompanies me in the
+modest attire&mdash;as to his head&mdash;of ordinary life.</p>
+<p>Many of the animals from Poissy have come here.&nbsp; On the
+arrival of each drove, it was turned into yonder ample space,
+where each butcher who had bought, selected his own
+purchases.&nbsp; Some, we see now, in these long perspectives of
+stalls with a high over-hanging roof of wood and open tiles
+rising above the walls.&nbsp; While they rest here, before being
+slaughtered, they are required to be fed and watered, and the
+stalls must be kept clean.&nbsp; A stated amount of fodder must
+always be ready in the loft above; and the supervision is of the
+strictest kind.&nbsp; The same regulations apply to sheep and
+calves; for which, portions of these perspectives are strongly
+railed off.&nbsp; All the buildings are of the strongest and most
+solid description.</p>
+<p>After traversing these lairs, through which, besides the upper
+provision for ventilation just mentioned, there may be a thorough
+current of air from opposite windows in the side walls, and from
+doors at either end, we traverse the broad, paved, court-yard
+until we come to the slaughter-houses.&nbsp; They are all exactly
+alike, and adjoin each other, to the number of eight or nine
+together, in blocks of solid building.&nbsp; Let us walk into the
+first.</p>
+<p>It is firmly built and paved with stone.&nbsp; It is well
+lighted, thoroughly aired, and lavishly provided with fresh
+water.&nbsp; It has two doors opposite each other; the first, the
+door by which I entered from the main yard; the second, which is
+opposite, opening on another smaller yard, where the sheep and
+calves are killed on benches.&nbsp; The pavement of that yard, I
+see, slopes downward to a gutter, for its being more easily
+cleansed.&nbsp; The slaughter-house is fifteen feet high, sixteen
+feet and a-half wide, and thirty-three feet long.&nbsp; It is
+fitted with a powerful windlass, by which one man at the handle
+can bring the head of an ox down to the ground to receive the
+blow from the pole-axe that is to fell him&mdash;with the means
+of raising the carcass and keeping it suspended during the
+after-operation of dressing&mdash;and with hooks on which
+carcasses can hang, when completely prepared, without touching
+the walls.&nbsp; Upon the pavement of this first stone chamber,
+lies an ox scarcely dead.&nbsp; If I except the blood draining
+from him, into a little stone well in a corner of the pavement,
+the place is free from offence as the Place de la Concorde.&nbsp;
+It is infinitely purer and cleaner, I know, my friend the
+functionary, than the Cathedral of Notre Dame.&nbsp; Ha,
+ha!&nbsp; Monsieur is pleasant, but, truly, there is reason, too,
+in what he says.</p>
+<p>I look into another of these slaughter-houses.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Pray enter,&rsquo; says a gentleman in bloody boots.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;This is a calf I have killed this morning.&nbsp; Having a
+little time upon my hands, I have cut and punctured this lace
+pattern in the coats of his stomach.&nbsp; It is pretty
+enough.&nbsp; I did it to divert myself.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;It
+is beautiful, Monsieur, the slaughterer!&rsquo;&nbsp; He tells me
+I have the gentility to say so.</p>
+<p>I look into rows of slaughter-houses.&nbsp; In many, retail
+dealers, who have come here for the purpose, are making bargains
+for meat.&nbsp; There is killing enough, certainly, to satiate an
+unused eye; and there are steaming carcasses enough, to suggest
+the expediency of a fowl and salad for dinner; but, everywhere,
+there is an orderly, clean, well-systematised routine of work in
+progress&mdash;horrible work at the best, if you please; but, so
+much the greater reason why it should be made the best of.&nbsp;
+I don&rsquo;t know (I think I have observed, my name is Bull)
+that a Parisian of the lowest order is particularly delicate, or
+that his nature is remarkable for an infinitesimal infusion of
+ferocity; but, I do know, my potent, grave, and common
+counselling Signors, that he is forced, when at this work, to
+submit himself to a thoroughly good system, and to make an
+Englishman very heartily ashamed of you.</p>
+<p>Here, within the walls of the same abattoir, in other roomy
+and commodious buildings, are a place for converting the fat into
+tallow and packing it for market&mdash;a place for cleansing and
+scalding calves&rsquo; heads and sheep&rsquo;s feet&mdash;a place
+for preparing tripe&mdash;stables and coach-houses for the
+butchers&mdash;innumerable conveniences, aiding in the diminution
+of offensiveness to its lowest possible point, and the raising of
+cleanliness and supervision to their highest.&nbsp; Hence, all
+the meat that goes out of the gate is sent away in clean covered
+carts.&nbsp; And if every trade connected with the slaughtering
+of animals were obliged by law to be carried on in the same
+place, I doubt, my friend, now reinstated in the cocked hat
+(whose civility these two francs imperfectly acknowledge, but
+appear munificently to repay), whether there could be better
+regulations than those which are carried out at the Abattoir of
+Montmartre.&nbsp; Adieu, my friend, for I am away to the other
+side of Paris, to the Abattoir of Grenelle!&nbsp; And there I
+find exactly the same thing on a smaller scale, with the addition
+of a magnificent Artesian well, and a different sort of
+conductor, in the person of a neat little woman with neat little
+eyes, and a neat little voice, who picks her neat little way
+among the bullocks in a very neat little pair of shoes and
+stockings.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Such is the Monument of French Folly which a foreigneering
+people have erected, in a national hatred and antipathy for
+common counselling wisdom.&nbsp; That wisdom, assembled in the
+City of London, having distinctly refused, after a debate of
+three days long, and by a majority of nearly seven to one, to
+associate itself with any Metropolitan Cattle Market unless it be
+held in the midst of the City, it follows that we shall lose the
+inestimable advantages of common counselling protection, and be
+thrown, for a market, on our own wretched resources.&nbsp; In all
+human probability we shall thus come, at last, to erect a
+monument of folly very like this French monument.&nbsp; If that
+be done, the consequences are obvious.&nbsp; The leather trade
+will be ruined, by the introduction of American timber, to be
+manufactured into shoes for the fallen English; the Lord Mayor
+will be required, by the popular voice, to live entirely on
+frogs; and both these changes will (how, is not at present quite
+clear, but certainly somehow or other) fall on that unhappy
+landed interest which is always being killed, yet is always found
+to be alive&mdash;and kicking.</p>
+<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2>
+<p><a name="footnote415"></a><a href="#citation415"
+class="footnote">[415]</a>&nbsp; Give a bill</p>
+<p><a name="footnote426"></a><a href="#citation426"
+class="footnote">[426]</a>&nbsp; Three months&rsquo; imprisonment
+as reputed thieves.</p>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REPRINTED PIECES***</p>
+<pre>
+
+
+***** This file should be named 872-h.htm or 872-h.zip******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/8/7/872
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
+States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
+specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
+eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
+for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
+performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
+away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
+not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
+trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
+person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
+1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
+Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country outside the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
+on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
+  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
+  are located before using this ebook.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
+other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
+Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+provided that
+
+* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
+  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+  Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
+  works.
+
+* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+  receipt of the work.
+
+* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
+Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
+www.gutenberg.org 
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary 
+Archive Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
+mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
+volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
+locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
+Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
+date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
+official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+
+    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+    Chief Executive and Director
+    gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+</pre></body>
+</html>
diff --git a/872-h/images/fpb.jpg b/872-h/images/fpb.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2cccbd9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/872-h/images/fpb.jpg
diff --git a/872-h/images/fps.jpg b/872-h/images/fps.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..572f1a4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/872-h/images/fps.jpg
diff --git a/872-h/images/p388b.jpg b/872-h/images/p388b.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f540121
--- /dev/null
+++ b/872-h/images/p388b.jpg
diff --git a/872-h/images/p388s.jpg b/872-h/images/p388s.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d2900c1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/872-h/images/p388s.jpg
diff --git a/872-h/images/p428b.jpg b/872-h/images/p428b.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..94aab32
--- /dev/null
+++ b/872-h/images/p428b.jpg
diff --git a/872-h/images/p428s.jpg b/872-h/images/p428s.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2923c32
--- /dev/null
+++ b/872-h/images/p428s.jpg
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4006280
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #872 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/872)
diff --git a/old/cdrpr10.txt b/old/cdrpr10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9fae5cc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/cdrpr10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9545 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Etext of Reprinted Pieces, by Charles Dickens
+#20 in our series by Charles Dickens
+
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+
+Reprinted Pieces
+
+by Charles Dickens
+
+April, 1997  [Etext #872]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg's Etext of Reprinted Pieces, by Charles Dickens
+*****This file should be named cdrpr10.txt or cdrpr10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, cdrpr11.txt.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, cdrpr10a.txt.
+
+
+Scanned and proofed by David Price
+ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, for time for better editing.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text
+files per month:  or 400 more Etexts in 1996 for a total of 800.
+If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
+total should reach 80 billion Etexts.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by the December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only 10% of the present number of computer users.  2001
+should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it
+will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001.
+
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.
+(CMU = Carnegie-Mellon University).
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails try our Executive Director:
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email
+(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
+
+******
+If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
+FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
+[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]
+
+ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu
+login:  anonymous
+password:  your@login
+cd etext/etext90 through /etext96
+or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET INDEX?00.GUT
+for a list of books
+and
+GET NEW GUT for general information
+and
+MGET GUT* for newsletters.
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon
+     University" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".
+
+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+Reprinted Pieces by Charles Dickens
+Scanned and proofed by David Price
+ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+Reprinted Pieces
+
+
+
+
+THE LONG VOYAGE
+
+
+
+WHEN the wind is blowing and the sleet or rain is driving against
+the dark windows, I love to sit by the fire, thinking of what I
+have read in books of voyage and travel.  Such books have had a
+strong fascination for my mind from my earliest childhood; and I
+wonder it should have come to pass that I never have been round the
+world, never have been shipwrecked, ice-environed, tomahawked, or
+eaten.
+
+Sitting on my ruddy hearth in the twilight of New Year's Eve, I
+find incidents of travel rise around me from all the latitudes and
+longitudes of the globe.  They observe no order or sequence, but
+appear and vanish as they will--'come like shadows, so depart.'
+Columbus, alone upon the sea with his disaffected crew, looks over
+the waste of waters from his high station on the poop of his ship,
+and sees the first uncertain glimmer of the light, 'rising and
+falling with the waves, like a torch in the bark of some
+fisherman,' which is the shining star of a new world.  Bruce is
+caged in Abyssinia, surrounded by the gory horrors which shall
+often startle him out of his sleep at home when years have passed
+away.  Franklin, come to the end of his unhappy overland journey -
+would that it had been his last! - lies perishing of hunger with
+his brave companions: each emaciated figure stretched upon its
+miserable bed without the power to rise: all, dividing the weary
+days between their prayers, their remembrances of the dear ones at
+home, and conversation on the pleasures of eating; the last-named
+topic being ever present to them, likewise, in their dreams.  All
+the African travellers, wayworn, solitary and sad, submit
+themselves again to drunken, murderous, man-selling despots, of the
+lowest order of humanity; and Mungo Park, fainting under a tree and
+succoured by a woman, gratefully remembers how his Good Samaritan
+has always come to him in woman's shape, the wide world over.
+
+A shadow on the wall in which my mind's eye can discern some traces
+of a rocky sea-coast, recalls to me a fearful story of travel
+derived from that unpromising narrator of such stories, a
+parliamentary blue-book.  A convict is its chief figure, and this
+man escapes with other prisoners from a penal settlement.  It is an
+island, and they seize a boat, and get to the main land.  Their way
+is by a rugged and precipitous sea-shore, and they have no earthly
+hope of ultimate escape, for the party of soldiers despatched by an
+easier course to cut them off, must inevitably arrive at their
+distant bourne long before them, and retake them if by any hazard
+they survive the horrors of the way.  Famine, as they all must have
+foreseen, besets them early in their course.  Some of the party die
+and are eaten; some are murdered by the rest and eaten.  This one
+awful creature eats his fill, and sustains his strength, and lives
+on to be recaptured and taken back.  The unrelateable experiences
+through which he has passed have been so tremendous, that he is not
+hanged as he might be, but goes back to his old chained-gang work.
+A little time, and he tempts one other prisoner away, seizes
+another boat, and flies once more - necessarily in the old hopeless
+direction, for he can take no other.  He is soon cut off, and met
+by the pursuing party face to face, upon the beach.  He is alone.
+In his former journey he acquired an inappeasable relish for his
+dreadful food.  He urged the new man away, expressly to kill him
+and eat him.  In the pockets on one side of his coarse
+convict-dress, are portions of the man's body, on which he is regaling; in
+the pockets on the other side is an untouched store of salted pork
+(stolen before he left the island) for which he has no appetite.
+He is taken back, and he is hanged.  But I shall never see that
+sea-beach on the wall or in the fire, without him, solitary
+monster, eating as he prowls along, while the sea rages and rises
+at him.
+
+Captain Bligh (a worse man to be entrusted with arbitrary power
+there could scarcely be) is handed over the side of the Bounty, and
+turned adrift on the wide ocean in an open boat, by order of
+Fletcher Christian, one of his officers, at this very minute.
+Another flash of my fire, and 'Thursday October Christian,'
+five-and-twenty years of age, son of the dead and gone Fletcher by a
+savage mother, leaps aboard His Majesty's ship Briton, hove-to off
+Pitcairn's Island; says his simple grace before eating, in good
+English; and knows that a pretty little animal on board is called a
+dog, because in his childhood he had heard of such strange
+creatures from his father and the other mutineers, grown grey under
+the shade of the bread-fruit trees, speaking of their lost country
+far away.
+
+See the Halsewell, East Indiaman outward bound, driving madly on a
+January night towards the rocks near Seacombe, on the island of
+Purbeck!  The captain's two dear daughters are aboard, and five
+other ladies.  The ship has been driving many hours, has seven feet
+water in her hold, and her mainmast has been cut away.  The
+description of her loss, familiar to me from my early boyhood,
+seems to be read aloud as she rushes to her destiny.
+
+
+'About two in the morning of Friday the sixth of January, the ship
+still driving, and approaching very fast to the shore, Mr. Henry
+Meriton, the second mate, went again into the cuddy, where the
+captain then was.  Another conversation taking place, Captain
+Pierce expressed extreme anxiety for the preservation of his
+beloved daughters, and earnestly asked the officer if he could
+devise any method of saving them.  On his answering with great
+concern, that he feared it would be impossible, but that their only
+chance would be to wait for morning, the captain lifted up his
+hands in silent and distressful ejaculation.
+
+'At this dreadful moment, the ship struck, with such violence as to
+dash the heads of those standing in the cuddy against the deck
+above them, and the shock was accompanied by a shriek of horror
+that burst at one instant from every quarter of the ship.
+
+'Many of the seamen, who had been remarkably inattentive and remiss
+in their duty during great part of the storm, now poured upon deck,
+where no exertions of the officers could keep them, while their
+assistance might have been useful.  They had actually skulked in
+their hammocks, leaving the working of the pumps and other
+necessary labours to the officers of the ship, and the soldiers,
+who had made uncommon exertions.  Roused by a sense of their
+danger, the same seamen, at this moment, in frantic exclamations,
+demanded of heaven and their fellow-sufferers that succour which
+their own efforts, timely made, might possibly have procured.
+
+'The ship continued to beat on the rocks; and soon bilging, fell
+with her broadside towards the shore.  When she struck, a number of
+the men climbed up the ensign-staff, under an apprehension of her
+immediately going to pieces.
+
+'Mr. Meriton, at this crisis, offered to these unhappy beings the
+best advice which could be given; he recommended that all should
+come to the side of the ship lying lowest on the rocks, and singly
+to take the opportunities which might then offer, of escaping to
+the shore.
+
+'Having thus provided, to the utmost of his power, for the safety
+of the desponding crew, he returned to the round-house, where, by
+this time, all the passengers and most of the officers had
+assembled.  The latter were employed in offering consolation to the
+unfortunate ladies; and, with unparalleled magnanimity, suffering
+their compassion for the fair and amiable companions of their
+misfortunes to prevail over the sense of their own danger.
+
+'In this charitable work of comfort, Mr. Meriton now joined, by
+assurances of his opinion, that, the ship would hold together till
+the morning, when all would be safe.  Captain Pierce, observing one
+of the young gentlemen loud in his exclamations of terror, and
+frequently cry that the ship was parting, cheerfully bid him be
+quiet, remarking that though the ship should go to pieces, he would
+not, but would be safe enough.
+
+'It is difficult to convey a correct idea of the scene of this
+deplorable catastrophe, without describing the place where it
+happened.  The Haleswell struck on the rocks at a part of the shore
+where the cliff is of vast height, and rises almost perpendicular
+from its base.  But at this particular spot, the foot of the cliff
+is excavated into a cavern of ten or twelve yards in depth, and of
+breadth equal to the length of a large ship.  The sides of the
+cavern are so nearly upright, as to be of extremely difficult
+access; and the bottom is strewed with sharp and uneven rocks,
+which seem, by some convulsion of the earth, to have been detached
+from its roof.
+
+'The ship lay with her broadside opposite to the mouth of this
+cavern, with her whole length stretched almost from side to side of
+it.  But when she struck, it was too dark for the unfortunate
+persons on board to discover the real magnitude of the danger, and
+the extreme horror of such a situation.
+
+'In addition to the company already in the round-house, they had
+admitted three black women and two soldiers' wives; who, with the
+husband of one of them, had been allowed to come in, though the
+seamen, who had tumultuously demanded entrance to get the lights,
+had been opposed and kept out by Mr. Rogers and Mr. Brimer, the
+third and fifth mates.  The numbers there were, therefore, now
+increased to near fifty.  Captain Pierce sat on a chair, a cot, or
+some other moveable, with a daughter on each side, whom he
+alternately pressed to his affectionate breast.  The rest of the
+melancholy assembly were seated on the deck, which was strewed with
+musical instruments, and the wreck of furniture and other articles.
+
+'Here also Mr. Meriton, after having cut several wax-candles in
+pieces, and stuck them up in various parts of the round-house, and
+lighted up all the glass lanthorns he could find, took his seat,
+intending to wait the approach of dawn; and then assist the
+partners of his dangers to escape.  But, observing that the poor
+ladies appeared parched and exhausted, he brought a basket of
+oranges and prevailed on some of them to refresh themselves by
+sucking a little of the juice.  At this time they were all
+tolerably composed, except Miss Mansel, who was in hysteric fits on
+the floor of the deck of the round-house.
+
+'But on Mr. Meriton's return to the company, he perceived a
+considerable alteration in the appearance of the ship; the sides
+were visibly giving way; the deck seemed to be lifting, and he
+discovered other strong indications that she could not hold much
+longer together.  On this account, he attempted to go forward to
+look out, but immediately saw that the ship had separated in the
+middle, and that the forepart having changed its position, lay
+rather further out towards the sea.  In such an emergency, when the
+next moment might plunge him into eternity, he determined to seize
+the present opportunity, and follow the example of the crew and the
+soldiers, who were now quitting the ship in numbers, and making
+their way to the shore, though quite ignorant of its nature and
+description.
+
+'Among other expedients, the ensign-staff had been unshipped, and
+attempted to be laid between the ship's side and some of the rocks,
+but without success, for it snapped asunder before it reached them.
+However, by the light of a lanthorn, which a seaman handed through
+the skylight of the round-house to the deck, Mr. Meriton discovered
+a spar which appeared to be laid from the ship's side to the rocks,
+and on this spar he resolved to attempt his escape.
+
+'Accordingly, lying down upon it, he thrust himself forward;
+however, he soon found that it had no communication with the rock;
+he reached the end of it, and then slipped off, receiving a very
+violent bruise in his fall, and before he could recover his legs,
+he was washed off by the surge.  He now supported himself by
+swimming, until a returning wave dashed him against the back part
+of the cavern.  Here he laid hold of a small projection in the
+rock, but was so much benumbed that he was on the point of quitting
+it, when a seaman, who had already gained a footing, extended his
+hand, and assisted him until he could secure himself a little on
+the rock; from which he clambered on a shelf still higher, and out
+of the reach of the surf.
+
+'Mr. Rogers, the third mate, remained with the captain and the
+unfortunate ladies and their companions nearly twenty minutes after
+Mr. Meriton had quitted the ship.  Soon after the latter left the
+round-house, the captain asked what was become of him, to which Mr.
+Rogers replied, that he was gone on deck to see what could be done.
+After this, a heavy sea breaking over the ship, the ladies
+exclaimed, "Oh, poor Meriton! he is drowned; had he stayed with us
+he would have been safe!" and they all, particularly Miss Mary
+Pierce, expressed great concern at the apprehension of his loss.
+
+'The sea was now breaking in at the fore part of the ship, and
+reached as far as the mainmast.  Captain Pierce gave Mr. Rogers a
+nod, and they took a lamp and went together into the stern-gallery,
+where, after viewing the rocks for some time, Captain Pierce asked
+Mr. Rogers if he thought there was any possibility of saving the
+girls; to which he replied, he feared there was none; for they
+could only discover the black face of the perpendicular rock, and
+not the cavern which afforded shelter to those who escaped.  They
+then returned to the round-house, where Mr. Rogers hung up the
+lamp, and Captain Pierce sat down between his two daughters.
+
+'The sea continuing to break in very fast, Mr. Macmanus, a
+midshipman, and Mr. Schutz, a passenger, asked Mr. Rogers what they
+could do to escape.  "Follow me," he replied, and they all went
+into the stern-gallery, and from thence to the upper-quarter
+gallery on the poop.  While there, a very heavy sea fell on board,
+and the round-house gave way; Mr. Rogers heard the ladies shriek at
+intervals, as if the water reached them; the noise of the sea at
+other times drowning their voices.
+
+'Mr. Brimer had followed him to the poop, where they remained
+together about five minutes, when on the breaking of this heavy
+sea, they jointly seized a hen-coop.  The same wave which proved
+fatal to some of those below, carried him and his companion to the
+rock, on which they were violently dashed and miserably bruised.
+
+'Here on the rock were twenty-seven men; but it now being low
+water, and as they were convinced that on the flowing of the tide
+all must be washed off, many attempted to get to the back or the
+sides of the cavern, beyond the reach of the returning sea.
+Scarcely more than six, besides Mr. Rogers and Mr. Brimer,
+succeeded.
+
+'Mr. Rogers, on gaining this station, was so nearly exhausted, that
+had his exertions been protracted only a few minutes longer, he
+must have sunk under them.  He was now prevented from joining Mr.
+Meriton, by at least twenty men between them, none of whom could
+move, without the imminent peril of his life.
+
+'They found that a very considerable number of the crew, seamen and
+soldiers, and some petty officers, were in the same situation as
+themselves, though many who had reached the rocks below, perished
+in attempting to ascend.  They could yet discern some part of the
+ship, and in their dreary station solaced themselves with the hopes
+of its remaining entire until day-break; for, in the midst of their
+own distress, the sufferings of the females on board affected them
+with the most poignant anguish; and every sea that broke inspired
+them with terror for their safety.
+
+'But, alas, their apprehensions were too soon realised!  Within a
+very few minutes of the time that Mr. Rogers gained the rock, an
+universal shriek, which long vibrated in their ears, in which the
+voice of female distress was lamentably distinguished, announced
+the dreadful catastrophe.  In a few moments all was hushed, except
+the roaring of the winds and the dashing of the waves; the wreck
+was buried in the deep, and not an atom of it was ever afterwards
+seen.'
+
+
+The most beautiful and affecting incident I know, associated with a
+shipwreck, succeeds this dismal story for a winter night.  The
+Grosvenor, East Indiaman, homeward bound, goes ashore on the coast
+of Caffraria.  It is resolved that the officers, passengers, and
+crew, in number one hundred and thirty-five souls, shall endeavour
+to penetrate on foot, across trackless deserts, infested by wild
+beasts and cruel savages, to the Dutch settlements at the Cape of
+Good Hope.  With this forlorn object before them, they finally
+separate into two parties - never more to meet on earth.
+
+There is a solitary child among the passengers - a little boy of
+seven years old who has no relation there; and when the first party
+is moving away he cries after some member of it who has been kind
+to him.  The crying of a child might be supposed to be a little
+thing to men in such great extremity; but it touches them, and he
+is immediately taken into that detachment.
+
+From which time forth, this child is sublimely made a sacred
+charge.  He is pushed, on a little raft, across broad rivers by the
+swimming sailors; they carry him by turns through the deep sand and
+long grass (he patiently walking at all other times); they share
+with him such putrid fish as they find to eat; they lie down and
+wait for him when the rough carpenter, who becomes his especial
+friend, lags behind.  Beset by lions and tigers, by savages, by
+thirst, by hunger, by death in a crowd of ghastly shapes, they
+never - O Father of all mankind, thy name be blessed for it! -
+forget this child.  The captain stops exhausted, and his faithful
+coxswain goes back and is seen to sit down by his side, and neither
+of the two shall be any more beheld until the great last day; but,
+as the rest go on for their lives, they take the child with them.
+The carpenter dies of poisonous berries eaten in starvation; and
+the steward, succeeding to the command of the party, succeeds to
+the sacred guardianship of the child.
+
+God knows all he does for the poor baby; how he cheerfully carries
+him in his arms when he himself is weak and ill; how he feeds him
+when he himself is griped with want; how he folds his ragged jacket
+round him, lays his little worn face with a woman's tenderness upon
+his sunburnt breast, soothes him in his sufferings, sings to him as
+he limps along, unmindful of his own parched and bleeding feet.
+Divided for a few days from the rest, they dig a grave in the sand
+and bury their good friend the cooper - these two companions alone
+in the wilderness - and then the time comes when they both are ill,
+and beg their wretched partners in despair, reduced and few in
+number now, to wait by them one day.  They wait by them one day,
+they wait by them two days.  On the morning of the third, they move
+very softly about, in making their preparations for the resumption
+of their journey; for, the child is sleeping by the fire, and it is
+agreed with one consent that he shall not be disturbed until the
+last moment.  The moment comes, the fire is dying - and the child
+is dead.
+
+His faithful friend, the steward, lingers but a little while behind
+him.  His grief is great, he staggers on for a few days, lies down
+in the desert, and dies.  But he shall be re-united in his immortal
+spirit - who can doubt it! - with the child, when he and the poor
+carpenter shall be raised up with the words, 'Inasmuch as ye have
+done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.'
+
+As I recall the dispersal and disappearance of nearly all the
+participators in this once famous shipwreck (a mere handful being
+recovered at last), and the legends that were long afterwards
+revived from time to time among the English officers at the Cape,
+of a white woman with an infant, said to have been seen weeping
+outside a savage hut far in the interior, who was whisperingly
+associated with the remembrance of the missing ladies saved from
+the wrecked vessel, and who was often sought but never found,
+thoughts of another kind of travel came into my mind.
+
+Thoughts of a voyager unexpectedly summoned from home, who
+travelled a vast distance, and could never return.  Thoughts of
+this unhappy wayfarer in the depths of his sorrow, in the
+bitterness of his anguish, in the helplessness of his
+self-reproach, in the desperation of his desire to set right what he had
+left wrong, and do what he had left undone.
+
+For, there were many, many things he had neglected.  Little matters
+while he was at home and surrounded by them, but things of mighty
+moment when he was at an immeasurable distance.  There were many
+many blessings that he had inadequately felt, there were many
+trivial injuries that he had not forgiven, there was love that he
+had but poorly returned, there was friendship that he had too
+lightly prized: there were a million kind words that he might have
+spoken, a million kind looks that he might have given, uncountable
+slight easy deeds in which he might have been most truly great and
+good.  O for a day (he would exclaim), for but one day to make
+amends!  But the sun never shone upon that happy day, and out of
+his remote captivity he never came.
+
+Why does this traveller's fate obscure, on New Year's Eve, the
+other histories of travellers with which my mind was filled but
+now, and cast a solemn shadow over me!  Must I one day make his
+journey?  Even so.  Who shall say, that I may not then be tortured
+by such late regrets: that I may not then look from my exile on my
+empty place and undone work?  I stand upon a sea-shore, where the
+waves are years.  They break and fall, and I may little heed them;
+but, with every wave the sea is rising, and I know that it will
+float me on this traveller's voyage at last.
+
+
+
+THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER
+
+
+
+THE amount of money he annually diverts from wholesome and useful
+purposes in the United Kingdom, would be a set-off against the
+Window Tax.  He is one of the most shameless frauds and impositions
+of this time.  In his idleness, his mendacity, and the immeasurable
+harm he does to the deserving, - dirtying the stream of true
+benevolence, and muddling the brains of foolish justices, with
+inability to distinguish between the base coin of distress, and the
+true currency we have always among us, - he is more worthy of
+Norfolk Island than three-fourths of the worst characters who are
+sent there.  Under any rational system, he would have been sent
+there long ago.
+
+I, the writer of this paper, have been, for some time, a chosen
+receiver of Begging Letters.  For fourteen years, my house has been
+made as regular a Receiving House for such communications as any
+one of the great branch Post-Offices is for general correspondence.
+I ought to know something of the Begging-Letter Writer.  He has
+besieged my door at all hours of the day and night; he has fought
+my servant; he has lain in ambush for me, going out and coming in;
+he has followed me out of town into the country; he has appeared at
+provincial hotels, where I have been staying for only a few hours;
+he has written to me from immense distances, when I have been out
+of England.  He has fallen sick; he has died and been buried; he
+has come to life again, and again departed from this transitory
+scene: he has been his own son, his own mother, his own baby, his
+idiot brother, his uncle, his aunt, his aged grandfather.  He has
+wanted a greatcoat, to go to India in; a pound to set him up in
+life for ever; a pair of boots to take him to the coast of China; a
+hat to get him into a permanent situation under Government.  He has
+frequently been exactly seven-and-sixpence short of independence.
+He has had such openings at Liverpool - posts of great trust and
+confidence in merchants' houses, which nothing but seven-and-
+sixpence was wanting to him to secure - that I wonder he is not
+Mayor of that flourishing town at the present moment.
+
+The natural phenomena of which he has been the victim, are of a
+most astounding nature.  He has had two children who have never
+grown up; who have never had anything to cover them at night; who
+have been continually driving him mad, by asking in vain for food;
+who have never come out of fevers and measles (which, I suppose,
+has accounted for his fuming his letters with tobacco smoke, as a
+disinfectant); who have never changed in the least degree through
+fourteen long revolving years.  As to his wife, what that suffering
+woman has undergone, nobody knows.  She has always been in an
+interesting situation through the same long period, and has never
+been confined yet.  His devotion to her has been unceasing.  He has
+never cared for himself; HE could have perished - he would rather,
+in short - but was it not his Christian duty as a man, a husband,
+and a father, - to write begging letters when he looked at her?
+(He has usually remarked that he would call in the evening for an
+answer to this question.)
+
+He has been the sport of the strangest misfortunes.  What his
+brother has done to him would have broken anybody else's heart.
+His brother went into business with him, and ran away with the
+money; his brother got him to be security for an immense sum and
+left him to pay it; his brother would have given him employment to
+the tune of hundreds a-year, if he would have consented to write
+letters on a Sunday; his brother enunciated principles incompatible
+with his religious views, and he could not (in consequence) permit
+his brother to provide for him.  His landlord has never shown a
+spark of human feeling.  When he put in that execution I don't
+know, but he has never taken it out.  The broker's man has grown
+grey in possession.  They will have to bury him some day.
+
+He has been attached to every conceivable pursuit.  He has been in
+the army, in the navy, in the church, in the law; connected with
+the press, the fine arts, public institutions, every description
+and grade of business.  He has been brought up as a gentleman; he
+has been at every college in Oxford and Cambridge; he can quote
+Latin in his letters (but generally misspells some minor English
+word); he can tell you what Shakespeare says about begging, better
+than you know it.  It is to be observed, that in the midst of his
+afflictions he always reads the newspapers; and rounds off his
+appeal with some allusion, that may be supposed to be in my way, to
+the popular subject of the hour.
+
+His life presents a series of inconsistencies.  Sometimes he has
+never written such a letter before.  He blushes with shame.  That
+is the first time; that shall be the last.  Don't answer it, and
+let it be understood that, then, he will kill himself quietly.
+Sometimes (and more frequently) he HAS written a few such letters.
+Then he encloses the answers, with an intimation that they are of
+inestimable value to him, and a request that they may be carefully
+returned.  He is fond of enclosing something - verses, letters,
+pawnbrokers' duplicates, anything to necessitate an answer.  He is
+very severe upon 'the pampered minion of fortune,' who refused him
+the half-sovereign referred to in the enclosure number two - but he
+knows me better.
+
+He writes in a variety of styles; sometimes in low spirits;
+sometimes quite jocosely.  When he is in low spirits he writes
+down-hill and repeats words - these little indications being
+expressive of the perturbation of his mind.  When he is more
+vivacious, he is frank with me; he is quite the agreeable rattle.
+I know what human nature is, - who better?  Well!  He had a little
+money once, and he ran through it - as many men have done before
+him.  He finds his old friends turn away from him now - many men
+have done that before him too!  Shall he tell me why he writes to
+me?  Because he has no kind of claim upon me.  He puts it on that
+ground plainly; and begs to ask for the loan (as I know human
+nature) of two sovereigns, to be repaid next Tuesday six weeks,
+before twelve at noon.
+
+Sometimes, when he is sure that I have found him out, and that
+there is no chance of money, he writes to inform me that I have got
+rid of him at last.  He has enlisted into the Company's service,
+and is off directly - but he wants a cheese.  He is informed by the
+serjeant that it is essential to his prospects in the regiment that
+he should take out a single Gloucester cheese, weighing from twelve
+to fifteen pounds.  Eight or nine shillings would buy it.  He does
+not ask for money, after what has passed; but if he calls at nine,
+to-morrow morning may he hope to find a cheese?  And is there
+anything he can do to show his gratitude in Bengal?
+
+Once he wrote me rather a special letter, proposing relief in kind.
+He had got into a little trouble by leaving parcels of mud done up
+in brown paper, at people's houses, on pretence of being a Railway-
+Porter, in which character he received carriage money.  This
+sportive fancy he expiated in the House of Correction.  Not long
+after his release, and on a Sunday morning, he called with a letter
+(having first dusted himself all over), in which he gave me to
+understand that, being resolved to earn an honest livelihood, he
+had been travelling about the country with a cart of crockery.
+That he had been doing pretty well until the day before, when his
+horse had dropped down dead near Chatham, in Kent.  That this had
+reduced him to the unpleasant necessity of getting into the shafts
+himself, and drawing the cart of crockery to London - a somewhat
+exhausting pull of thirty miles.  That he did not venture to ask
+again for money; but that if I would have the goodness TO LEAVE HIM
+OUT A DONKEY, he would call for the animal before breakfast!
+
+At another time my friend (I am describing actual experiences)
+introduced himself as a literary gentleman in the last extremity of
+distress.  He had had a play accepted at a certain Theatre - which
+was really open; its representation was delayed by the
+indisposition of a leading actor - who was really ill; and he and
+his were in a state of absolute starvation.  If he made his
+necessities known to the Manager of the Theatre, he put it to me to
+say what kind of treatment he might expect?  Well! we got over that
+difficulty to our mutual satisfaction.  A little while afterwards
+he was in some other strait.  I think Mrs. Southcote, his wife, was
+in extremity - and we adjusted that point too.  A little while
+afterwards he had taken a new house, and was going headlong to ruin
+for want of a water-butt.  I had my misgivings about the water-
+butt, and did not reply to that epistle.  But a little while
+afterwards, I had reason to feel penitent for my neglect.  He wrote
+me a few broken-hearted lines, informing me that the dear partner
+of his sorrows died in his arms last night at nine o'clock!
+
+I despatched a trusty messenger to comfort the bereaved mourner and
+his poor children; but the messenger went so soon, that the play
+was not ready to be played out; my friend was not at home, and his
+wife was in a most delightful state of health.  He was taken up by
+the Mendicity Society (informally it afterwards appeared), and I
+presented myself at a London Police-Office with my testimony
+against him.  The Magistrate was wonderfully struck by his
+educational acquirements, deeply impressed by the excellence of his
+letters, exceedingly sorry to see a man of his attainments there,
+complimented him highly on his powers of composition, and was quite
+charmed to have the agreeable duty of discharging him.  A
+collection was made for the 'poor fellow,' as he was called in the
+reports, and I left the court with a comfortable sense of being
+universally regarded as a sort of monster.  Next day comes to me a
+friend of mine, the governor of a large prison.  'Why did you ever
+go to the Police-Office against that man,' says he, 'without coming
+to me first?  I know all about him and his frauds.  He lodged in
+the house of one of my warders, at the very time when he first
+wrote to you; and then he was eating spring-lamb at eighteen-pence
+a pound, and early asparagus at I don't know how much a bundle!'
+On that very same day, and in that very same hour, my injured
+gentleman wrote a solemn address to me, demanding to know what
+compensation I proposed to make him for his having passed the night
+in a 'loathsome dungeon.'  And next morning an Irish gentleman, a
+member of the same fraternity, who had read the case, and was very
+well persuaded I should be chary of going to that Police-Office
+again, positively refused to leave my door for less than a
+sovereign, and, resolved to besiege me into compliance, literally
+'sat down' before it for ten mortal hours.  The garrison being well
+provisioned, I remained within the walls; and he raised the siege
+at midnight with a prodigious alarum on the bell.
+
+The Begging-Letter Writer often has an extensive circle of
+acquaintance.  Whole pages of the 'Court Guide' are ready to be
+references for him.  Noblemen and gentlemen write to say there
+never was such a man for probity and virtue.  They have known him
+time out of mind, and there is nothing they wouldn't do for him.
+Somehow, they don't give him that one pound ten he stands in need
+of; but perhaps it is not enough - they want to do more, and his
+modesty will not allow it.  It is to be remarked of his trade that
+it is a very fascinating one.  He never leaves it; and those who
+are near to him become smitten with a love of it, too, and sooner
+or later set up for themselves.  He employs a messenger - man,
+woman, or child.  That messenger is certain ultimately to become an
+independent Begging-Letter Writer.  His sons and daughters succeed
+to his calling, and write begging-letters when he is no more.  He
+throws off the infection of begging-letter writing, like the
+contagion of disease.  What Sydney Smith so happily called 'the
+dangerous luxury of dishonesty' is more tempting, and more
+catching, it would seem, in this instance than in any other.
+
+He always belongs to a Corresponding-Society of Begging-Letter
+Writers.  Any one who will, may ascertain this fact.  Give money
+to-day in recognition of a begging-letter, - no matter how unlike a
+common begging-letter, - and for the next fortnight you will have a
+rush of such communications.  Steadily refuse to give; and the
+begging-letters become Angels' visits, until the Society is from
+some cause or other in a dull way of business, and may as well try
+you as anybody else.  It is of little use inquiring into the
+Begging-Letter Writer's circumstances.  He may be sometimes
+accidentally found out, as in the case already mentioned (though
+that was not the first inquiry made); but apparent misery is always
+a part of his trade, and real misery very often is, in the
+intervals of spring-lamb and early asparagus.  It is naturally an
+incident of his dissipated and dishonest life.
+
+That the calling is a successful one, and that large sums of money
+are gained by it, must be evident to anybody who reads the Police
+Reports of such cases.  But, prosecutions are of rare occurrence,
+relatively to the extent to which the trade is carried on.  The
+cause of this is to be found (as no one knows better than the
+Begging-Letter Writer, for it is a part of his speculation) in the
+aversion people feel to exhibit themselves as having been imposed
+upon, or as having weakly gratified their consciences with a lazy,
+flimsy substitute for the noblest of all virtues.  There is a man
+at large, at the moment when this paper is preparing for the press
+(on the 29th of April, 1850), and never once taken up yet, who,
+within these twelvemonths, has been probably the most audacious and
+the most successful swindler that even this trade has ever known.
+There has been something singularly base in this fellow's
+proceedings; it has been his business to write to all sorts and
+conditions of people, in the names of persons of high reputation
+and unblemished honour, professing to be in distress - the general
+admiration and respect for whom has ensured a ready and generous
+reply.
+
+Now, in the hope that the results of the real experience of a real
+person may do something more to induce reflection on this subject
+than any abstract treatise - and with a personal knowledge of the
+extent to which the Begging-Letter Trade has been carried on for
+some time, and has been for some time constantly increasing - the
+writer of this paper entreats the attention of his readers to a few
+concluding words.  His experience is a type of the experience of
+many; some on a smaller, some on an infinitely larger scale.  All
+may judge of the soundness or unsoundness of his conclusions from
+it.
+
+Long doubtful of the efficacy of such assistance in any case
+whatever, and able to recall but one, within his whole individual
+knowledge, in which he had the least after-reason to suppose that
+any good was done by it, he was led, last autumn, into some serious
+considerations.  The begging-letters flying about by every post,
+made it perfectly manifest that a set of lazy vagabonds were
+interposed between the general desire to do something to relieve
+the sickness and misery under which the poor were suffering, and
+the suffering poor themselves.  That many who sought to do some
+little to repair the social wrongs, inflicted in the way of
+preventible sickness and death upon the poor, were strengthening
+those wrongs, however innocently, by wasting money on pestilent
+knaves cumbering society.  That imagination, - soberly following
+one of these knaves into his life of punishment in jail, and
+comparing it with the life of one of these poor in a cholera-
+stricken alley, or one of the children of one of these poor,
+soothed in its dying hour by the late lamented Mr. Drouet, -
+contemplated a grim farce, impossible to be presented very much
+longer before God or man.  That the crowning miracle of all the
+miracles summed up in the New Testament, after the miracle of the
+blind seeing, and the lame walking, and the restoration of the dead
+to life, was the miracle that the poor had the Gospel preached to
+them.  That while the poor were unnaturally and unnecessarily cut
+off by the thousand, in the prematurity of their age, or in the
+rottenness of their youth - for of flower or blossom such youth has
+none - the Gospel was NOT preached to them, saving in hollow and
+unmeaning voices.  That of all wrongs, this was the first mighty
+wrong the Pestilence warned us to set right.  And that no Post-
+Office Order to any amount, given to a Begging-Letter Writer for
+the quieting of an uneasy breast, would be presentable on the Last
+Great Day as anything towards it.
+
+The poor never write these letters.  Nothing could be more unlike
+their habits.  The writers are public robbers; and we who support
+them are parties to their depredations.  They trade upon every
+circumstance within their knowledge that affects us, public or
+private, joyful or sorrowful; they pervert the lessons of our
+lives; they change what ought to be our strength and virtue into
+weakness, and encouragement of vice.  There is a plain remedy, and
+it is in our own hands.  We must resolve, at any sacrifice of
+feeling, to be deaf to such appeals, and crush the trade.
+
+There are degrees in murder.  Life must be held sacred among us in
+more ways than one - sacred, not merely from the murderous weapon,
+or the subtle poison, or the cruel blow, but sacred from
+preventible diseases, distortions, and pains.  That is the first
+great end we have to set against this miserable imposition.
+Physical life respected, moral life comes next.  What will not
+content a Begging-Letter Writer for a week, would educate a score
+of children for a year.  Let us give all we can; let us give more
+than ever.  Let us do all we can; let us do more than ever.  But
+let us give, and do, with a high purpose; not to endow the scum of
+the earth, to its own greater corruption, with the offals of our
+duty.
+
+
+
+A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR
+
+
+
+THERE was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and
+thought of a number of things.  He had a sister, who was a child
+too, and his constant companion.  These two used to wonder all day
+long.  They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at
+the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of
+the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of
+GOD who made the lovely world.
+
+They used to say to one another, sometimes, Supposing all the
+children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water,
+and the sky be sorry?  They believed they would be sorry.  For,
+said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little
+playful streams that gambol down the hill-sides are the children of
+the water; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek
+in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and
+they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of
+men, no more.
+
+There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky
+before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves.  It was
+larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and
+every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window.
+Whoever saw it first cried out, 'I see the star!'  And often they
+cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and
+where.  So they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying
+down in their beds, they always looked out once again, to bid it
+good night; and when they were turning round to sleep, they used to
+say, 'God bless the star!'
+
+But while she was still very young, oh, very, very young, the
+sister drooped, and came to be so weak that she could no longer
+stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out
+by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the
+patient pale face on the bed, 'I see the star!' and then a smile
+would come upon the face, and a little weak voice used to say, 'God
+bless my brother and the star!'
+
+And so the time came all too soon! when the child looked out alone,
+and when there was no face on the bed; and when there was a little
+grave among the graves, not there before; and when the star made
+long rays down towards him, as he saw it through his tears.
+
+Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a
+shining way from earth to Heaven, that when the child went to his
+solitary bed, he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying
+where he was, he saw a train of people taken up that sparkling road
+by angels.  And the star, opening, showed him a great world of
+light, where many more such angels waited to receive them.
+
+All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes upon
+the people who were carried up into the star; and some came out
+from the long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people's
+necks, and kissed them tenderly, and went away with them down
+avenues of light, and were so happy in their company, that lying in
+his bed he wept for joy.
+
+But, there were many angels who did not go with them, and among
+them one he knew.  The patient face that once had lain upon the bed
+was glorified and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among
+all the host.
+
+His sister's angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said
+to the leader among those who had brought the people thither:
+
+'Is my brother come?'
+
+And he said 'No.'
+
+She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his
+arms, and cried, 'O, sister, I am here!  Take me!' and then she
+turned her beaming eyes upon him, and it was night; and the star
+was shining into the room, making long rays down towards him as he
+saw it through his tears.
+
+From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on the
+home he was to go to, when his time should come; and he thought
+that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too,
+because of his sister's angel gone before.
+
+There was a baby born to be a brother to the child; and while he
+was so little that he never yet had spoken word, he stretched his
+tiny form out on his bed, and died.
+
+Again the child dreamed of the open star, and of the company of
+angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their
+beaming eyes all turned upon those people's faces.
+
+Said his sister's angel to the leader:
+
+'Is my brother come?'
+
+And he said, 'Not that one, but another.'
+
+As the child beheld his brother's angel in her arms, he cried, 'O,
+sister, I am here!  Take me!'  And she turned and smiled upon him,
+and the star was shining.
+
+He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his books when an old
+servant came to him and said:
+
+'Thy mother is no more.  I bring her blessing on her darling son!'
+
+Again at night he saw the star, and all that former company.  Said
+his sister's angel to the leader.
+
+'Is my brother come?'
+
+And he said, 'Thy mother!'
+
+A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the star, because the
+mother was re-united to her two children.  And he stretched out his
+arms and cried, 'O, mother, sister, and brother, I am here!  Take
+me!'  And they answered him, 'Not yet,' and the star was shining.
+
+He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning grey, and he was
+sitting in his chair by the fireside, heavy with grief, and with
+his face bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again.
+
+Said his sister's angel to the leader: 'Is my brother come?'
+
+And he said, 'Nay, but his maiden daughter.'
+
+And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly lost to
+him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said, 'My
+daughter's head is on my sister's bosom, and her arm is around my
+mother's neck, and at her feet there is the baby of old time, and I
+can bear the parting from her, GOD be praised!'
+
+And the star was shining.
+
+Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was
+wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was
+bent.  And one night as he lay upon his bed, his children standing
+round, he cried, as he had cried so long ago:
+
+'I see the star!'
+
+They whispered one another, 'He is dying.'
+
+And he said, 'I am.  My age is falling from me like a garment, and
+I move towards the star as a child.  And O, my Father, now I thank
+thee that it has so often opened, to receive those dear ones who
+await me!'
+
+And the star was shining; and it shines upon his grave.
+
+
+
+OUR ENGLISH WATERING-PLACE
+
+
+
+IN the Autumn-time of the year, when the great metropolis is so
+much hotter, so much noisier, so much more dusty or so much more
+water-carted, so much more crowded, so much more disturbing and
+distracting in all respects, than it usually is, a quiet sea-beach
+becomes indeed a blessed spot.  Half awake and half asleep, this
+idle morning in our sunny window on the edge of a chalk-cliff in
+the old-fashioned watering-place to which we are a faithful
+resorter, we feel a lazy inclination to sketch its picture.
+
+The place seems to respond.  Sky, sea, beach, and village, lie as
+still before us as if they were sitting for the picture.  It is
+dead low-water.  A ripple plays among the ripening corn upon the
+cliff, as if it were faintly trying from recollection to imitate
+the sea; and the world of butterflies hovering over the crop of
+radish-seed are as restless in their little way as the gulls are in
+their larger manner when the wind blows.  But the ocean lies
+winking in the sunlight like a drowsy lion - its glassy waters
+scarcely curve upon the shore - the fishing-boats in the tiny
+harbour are all stranded in the mud - our two colliers (our
+watering-place has a maritime trade employing that amount of
+shipping) have not an inch of water within a quarter of a mile of
+them, and turn, exhausted, on their sides, like faint fish of an
+antediluvian species.  Rusty cables and chains, ropes and rings,
+undermost parts of posts and piles and confused timber-defences
+against the waves, lie strewn about, in a brown litter of tangled
+sea-weed and fallen cliff which looks as if a family of giants had
+been making tea here for ages, and had observed an untidy custom of
+throwing their tea-leaves on the shore.
+
+In truth, our watering-place itself has been left somewhat high and
+dry by the tide of years.  Concerned as we are for its honour, we
+must reluctantly admit that the time when this pretty little
+semicircular sweep of houses, tapering off at the end of the wooden
+pier into a point in the sea, was a gay place, and when the
+lighthouse overlooking it shone at daybreak on company dispersing
+from public balls, is but dimly traditional now.  There is a bleak
+chamber in our watering-place which is yet called the Assembly
+'Rooms,' and understood to be available on hire for balls or
+concerts; and, some few seasons since, an ancient little gentleman
+came down and stayed at the hotel, who said that he had danced
+there, in bygone ages, with the Honourable Miss Peepy, well known
+to have been the Beauty of her day and the cruel occasion of
+innumerable duels.  But he was so old and shrivelled, and so very
+rheumatic in the legs, that it demanded more imagination than our
+watering-place can usually muster, to believe him; therefore,
+except the Master of the 'Rooms' (who to this hour wears knee-
+breeches, and who confirmed the statement with tears in his eyes),
+nobody did believe in the little lame old gentleman, or even in the
+Honourable Miss Peepy, long deceased.
+
+As to subscription balls in the Assembly Rooms of our watering-
+place now, red-hot cannon balls are less improbable.  Sometimes, a
+misguided wanderer of a Ventriloquist, or an Infant Phenomenon, or
+a juggler, or somebody with an Orrery that is several stars behind
+the time, takes the place for a night, and issues bills with the
+name of his last town lined out, and the name of ours ignominiously
+written in, but you may be sure this never happens twice to the
+same unfortunate person.  On such occasions the discoloured old
+Billiard Table that is seldom played at (unless the ghost of the
+Honourable Miss Peepy plays at pool with other ghosts) is pushed
+into a corner, and benches are solemnly constituted into front
+seats, back seats, and reserved seats - which are much the same
+after you have paid - and a few dull candles are lighted - wind
+permitting - and the performer and the scanty audience play out a
+short match which shall make the other most low-spirited - which is
+usually a drawn game.  After that, the performer instantly departs
+with maledictory expressions, and is never heard of more.
+
+But the most wonderful feature of our Assembly Rooms, is, that an
+annual sale of 'Fancy and other China,' is announced here with
+mysterious constancy and perseverance.  Where the china comes from,
+where it goes to, why it is annually put up to auction when nobody
+ever thinks of bidding for it, how it comes to pass that it is
+always the same china, whether it would not have been cheaper, with
+the sea at hand, to have thrown it away, say in eighteen hundred
+and thirty, are standing enigmas.  Every year the bills come out,
+every year the Master of the Rooms gets into a little pulpit on a
+table, and offers it for sale, every year nobody buys it, every
+year it is put away somewhere till next year, when it appears again
+as if the whole thing were a new idea.  We have a faint remembrance
+of an unearthly collection of clocks, purporting to be the work of
+Parisian and Genevese artists - chiefly bilious-faced clocks,
+supported on sickly white crutches, with their pendulums dangling
+like lame legs - to which a similar course of events occurred for
+several years, until they seemed to lapse away, of mere imbecility.
+
+Attached to our Assembly Rooms is a library.  There is a wheel of
+fortune in it, but it is rusty and dusty, and never turns.  A large
+doll, with moveable eyes, was put up to be raffled for, by five-
+and-twenty members at two shillings, seven years ago this autumn,
+and the list is not full yet.  We are rather sanguine, now, that
+the raffle will come off next year.  We think so, because we only
+want nine members, and should only want eight, but for number two
+having grown up since her name was entered, and withdrawn it when
+she was married.  Down the street, there is a toy-ship of
+considerable burden, in the same condition.  Two of the boys who
+were entered for that raffle have gone to India in real ships,
+since; and one was shot, and died in the arms of his sister's
+lover, by whom he sent his last words home.
+
+This is the library for the Minerva Press.  If you want that kind
+of reading, come to our watering-place.  The leaves of the
+romances, reduced to a condition very like curl-paper, are thickly
+studded with notes in pencil: sometimes complimentary, sometimes
+jocose.  Some of these commentators, like commentators in a more
+extensive way, quarrel with one another.  One young gentleman who
+sarcastically writes 'O!!!' after every sentimental passage, is
+pursued through his literary career by another, who writes
+'Insulting Beast!'  Miss Julia Mills has read the whole collection
+of these books.  She has left marginal notes on the pages, as 'Is
+not this truly touching?  J. M.'  'How thrilling!  J. M.'
+'Entranced here by the Magician's potent spell.  J. M.'  She has
+also italicised her favourite traits in the description of the
+hero, as 'his hair, which was DARK and WAVY, clustered in RICH
+PROFUSION around a MARBLE BROW, whose lofty paleness bespoke the
+intellect within.'  It reminds her of another hero.  She adds, 'How
+like B. L.  Can this be mere coincidence?  J. M.'
+
+You would hardly guess which is the main street of our watering-
+place, but you may know it by its being always stopped up with
+donkey-chaises.  Whenever you come here, and see harnessed donkeys
+eating clover out of barrows drawn completely across a narrow
+thoroughfare, you may be quite sure you are in our High Street.
+Our Police you may know by his uniform, likewise by his never on
+any account interfering with anybody - especially the tramps and
+vagabonds.  In our fancy shops we have a capital collection of
+damaged goods, among which the flies of countless summers 'have
+been roaming.'  We are great in obsolete seals, and in faded pin-
+cushions, and in rickety camp-stools, and in exploded cutlery, and
+in miniature vessels, and in stunted little telescopes, and in
+objects made of shells that pretend not to be shells.  Diminutive
+spades, barrows, and baskets, are our principal articles of
+commerce; but even they don't look quite new somehow.  They always
+seem to have been offered and refused somewhere else, before they
+came down to our watering-place.
+
+Yet, it must not be supposed that our watering-place is an empty
+place, deserted by all visitors except a few staunch persons of
+approved fidelity.  On the contrary, the chances are that if you
+came down here in August or September, you wouldn't find a house to
+lay your head in.  As to finding either house or lodging of which
+you could reduce the terms, you could scarcely engage in a more
+hopeless pursuit.  For all this, you are to observe that every
+season is the worst season ever known, and that the householding
+population of our watering-place are ruined regularly every autumn.
+They are like the farmers, in regard that it is surprising how much
+ruin they will bear.  We have an excellent hotel - capital baths,
+warm, cold, and shower - first-rate bathing-machines - and as good
+butchers, bakers, and grocers, as heart could desire.  They all do
+business, it is to be presumed, from motives of philanthropy - but
+it is quite certain that they are all being ruined.  Their interest
+in strangers, and their politeness under ruin, bespeak their
+amiable nature.  You would say so, if you only saw the baker
+helping a new comer to find suitable apartments.
+
+So far from being at a discount as to company, we are in fact what
+would be popularly called rather a nobby place.  Some tip-top
+'Nobbs' come down occasionally - even Dukes and Duchesses.  We have
+known such carriages to blaze among the donkey-chaises, as made
+beholders wink.  Attendant on these equipages come resplendent
+creatures in plush and powder, who are sure to be stricken
+disgusted with the indifferent accommodation of our watering-place,
+and who, of an evening (particularly when it rains), may be seen
+very much out of drawing, in rooms far too small for their fine
+figures, looking discontentedly out of little back windows into
+bye-streets.  The lords and ladies get on well enough and quite
+good-humouredly: but if you want to see the gorgeous phenomena who
+wait upon them at a perfect non-plus, you should come and look at
+the resplendent creatures with little back parlours for servants'
+halls, and turn-up bedsteads to sleep in, at our watering-place.
+You have no idea how they take it to heart.
+
+We have a pier - a queer old wooden pier, fortunately without the
+slightest pretensions to architecture, and very picturesque in
+consequence.  Boats are hauled up upon it, ropes are coiled all
+over it; lobster-pots, nets, masts, oars, spars, sails, ballast,
+and rickety capstans, make a perfect labyrinth of it.  For ever
+hovering about this pier, with their hands in their pockets, or
+leaning over the rough bulwark it opposes to the sea, gazing
+through telescopes which they carry about in the same profound
+receptacles, are the Boatmen of our watering-place.  Looking at
+them, you would say that surely these must be the laziest boatmen
+in the world.  They lounge about, in obstinate and inflexible
+pantaloons that are apparently made of wood, the whole season
+through.  Whether talking together about the shipping in the
+Channel, or gruffly unbending over mugs of beer at the public-
+house, you would consider them the slowest of men.  The chances are
+a thousand to one that you might stay here for ten seasons, and
+never see a boatman in a hurry.  A certain expression about his
+loose hands, when they are not in his pockets, as if he were
+carrying a considerable lump of iron in each, without any
+inconvenience, suggests strength, but he never seems to use it.  He
+has the appearance of perpetually strolling - running is too
+inappropriate a word to be thought of - to seed.  The only subject
+on which he seems to feel any approach to enthusiasm, is pitch.  He
+pitches everything he can lay hold of, - the pier, the palings, his
+boat, his house, - when there is nothing else left he turns to and
+even pitches his hat, or his rough-weather clothing.  Do not judge
+him by deceitful appearances.  These are among the bravest and most
+skilful mariners that exist.  Let a gale arise and swell into a
+storm, let a sea run that might appal the stoutest heart that ever
+beat, let the Light-boat on these dangerous sands throw up a rocket
+in the night, or let them hear through the angry roar the signal-
+guns of a ship in distress, and these men spring up into activity
+so dauntless, so valiant, and heroic, that the world cannot surpass
+it.  Cavillers may object that they chiefly live upon the salvage
+of valuable cargoes.  So they do, and God knows it is no great
+living that they get out of the deadly risks they run.  But put
+that hope of gain aside.  Let these rough fellows be asked, in any
+storm, who volunteers for the life-boat to save some perishing
+souls, as poor and empty-handed as themselves, whose lives the
+perfection of human reason does not rate at the value of a farthing
+each; and that boat will be manned, as surely and as cheerfully, as
+if a thousand pounds were told down on the weather-beaten pier.
+For this, and for the recollection of their comrades whom we have
+known, whom the raging sea has engulfed before their children's
+eyes in such brave efforts, whom the secret sand has buried, we
+hold the boatmen of our watering-place in our love and honour, and
+are tender of the fame they well deserve.
+
+So many children are brought down to our watering-place that, when
+they are not out of doors, as they usually are in fine weather, it
+is wonderful where they are put: the whole village seeming much too
+small to hold them under cover.  In the afternoons, you see no end
+of salt and sandy little boots drying on upper window-sills.  At
+bathing-time in the morning, the little bay re-echoes with every
+shrill variety of shriek and splash - after which, if the weather
+be at all fresh, the sands teem with small blue mottled legs.  The
+sands are the children's great resort.  They cluster there, like
+ants: so busy burying their particular friends, and making castles
+with infinite labour which the next tide overthrows, that it is
+curious to consider how their play, to the music of the sea,
+foreshadows the realities of their after lives.
+
+It is curious, too, to observe a natural ease of approach that
+there seems to be between the children and the boatmen.  They
+mutually make acquaintance, and take individual likings, without
+any help.  You will come upon one of those slow heavy fellows
+sitting down patiently mending a little ship for a mite of a boy,
+whom he could crush to death by throwing his lightest pair of
+trousers on him.  You will be sensible of the oddest contrast
+between the smooth little creature, and the rough man who seems to
+be carved out of hard-grained wood - between the delicate hand
+expectantly held out, and the immense thumb and finger that can
+hardly feel the rigging of thread they mend - between the small
+voice and the gruff growl - and yet there is a natural propriety in
+the companionship: always to be noted in confidence between a child
+and a person who has any merit of reality and genuineness: which is
+admirably pleasant.
+
+We have a preventive station at our watering-place, and much the
+same thing may be observed - in a lesser degree, because of their
+official character - of the coast blockade; a steady, trusty, well-
+conditioned, well-conducted set of men, with no misgiving about
+looking you full in the face, and with a quiet thorough-going way
+of passing along to their duty at night, carrying huge sou'-wester
+clothing in reserve, that is fraught with all good prepossession.
+They are handy fellows - neat about their houses - industrious at
+gardening - would get on with their wives, one thinks, in a desert
+island - and people it, too, soon.
+
+As to the naval officer of the station, with his hearty fresh face,
+and his blue eye that has pierced all kinds of weather, it warms
+our hearts when he comes into church on a Sunday, with that bright
+mixture of blue coat, buff waistcoat, black neck-kerchief, and gold
+epaulette, that is associated in the minds of all Englishmen with
+brave, unpretending, cordial, national service.  We like to look at
+him in his Sunday state; and if we were First Lord (really
+possessing the indispensable qualification for the office of
+knowing nothing whatever about the sea), we would give him a ship
+to-morrow.
+
+We have a church, by-the-by, of course - a hideous temple of flint,
+like a great petrified haystack.  Our chief clerical dignitary,
+who, to his honour, has done much for education both in time and
+money, and has established excellent schools, is a sound, shrewd,
+healthy gentleman, who has got into little occasional difficulties
+with the neighbouring farmers, but has had a pestilent trick of
+being right.  Under a new regulation, he has yielded the church of
+our watering-place to another clergyman.  Upon the whole we get on
+in church well.  We are a little bilious sometimes, about these
+days of fraternisation, and about nations arriving at a new and
+more unprejudiced knowledge of each other (which our Christianity
+don't quite approve), but it soon goes off, and then we get on very
+well.
+
+There are two dissenting chapels, besides, in our small watering-
+place; being in about the proportion of a hundred and twenty guns
+to a yacht.  But the dissension that has torn us lately, has not
+been a religious one.  It has arisen on the novel question of Gas.
+Our watering-place has been convulsed by the agitation, Gas or No
+Gas.  It was never reasoned why No Gas, but there was a great No
+Gas party.  Broadsides were printed and stuck about - a startling
+circumstance in our watering-place.  The No Gas party rested
+content with chalking 'No Gas!' and 'Down with Gas!' and other such
+angry war-whoops, on the few back gates and scraps of wall which
+the limits of our watering-place afford; but the Gas party printed
+and posted bills, wherein they took the high ground of proclaiming
+against the No Gas party, that it was said Let there be light and
+there was light; and that not to have light (that is gas-light) in
+our watering-place, was to contravene the great decree.  Whether by
+these thunderbolts or not, the No Gas party were defeated; and in
+this present season we have had our handful of shops illuminated
+for the first time.  Such of the No Gas party, however, as have got
+shops, remain in opposition and burn tallow - exhibiting in their
+windows the very picture of the sulkiness that punishes itself, and
+a new illustration of the old adage about cutting off your nose to
+be revenged on your face, in cutting off their gas to be revenged
+on their business.
+
+Other population than we have indicated, our watering-place has
+none.  There are a few old used-up boatmen who creep about in the
+sunlight with the help of sticks, and there is a poor imbecile
+shoemaker who wanders his lonely life away among the rocks, as if
+he were looking for his reason - which he will never find.
+Sojourners in neighbouring watering-places come occasionally in
+flys to stare at us, and drive away again as if they thought us
+very dull; Italian boys come, Punch comes, the Fantoccini come, the
+Tumblers come, the Ethiopians come; Glee-singers come at night, and
+hum and vibrate (not always melodiously) under our windows.  But
+they all go soon, and leave us to ourselves again.  We once had a
+travelling Circus and Wombwell's Menagerie at the same time.  They
+both know better than ever to try it again; and the Menagerie had
+nearly razed us from the face of the earth in getting the elephant
+away - his caravan was so large, and the watering-place so small.
+We have a fine sea, wholesome for all people; profitable for the
+body, profitable for the mind.  The poet's words are sometimes on
+its awful lips:
+
+
+And the stately ships go on
+To their haven under the hill;
+But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand.
+And the sound of a voice that is still!
+
+Break, break, break,
+At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
+But the tender grace of a day that is dead
+Will never come back to me.
+
+
+Yet it is not always so, for the speech of the sea is various, and
+wants not abundant resource of cheerfulness, hope, and lusty
+encouragement.  And since I have been idling at the window here,
+the tide has risen.  The boats are dancing on the bubbling water;
+the colliers are afloat again; the white-bordered waves rush in;
+the children
+
+
+Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
+When he comes back;
+
+
+the radiant sails are gliding past the shore, and shining on the
+far horizon; all the sea is sparkling, heaving, swelling up with
+life and beauty, this bright morning.
+
+
+
+OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE
+
+
+
+HAVING earned, by many years of fidelity, the right to be sometimes
+inconstant to our English watering-place, we have dallied for two
+or three seasons with a French watering-place: once solely known to
+us as a town with a very long street, beginning with an abattoir
+and ending with a steam-boat, which it seemed our fate to behold
+only at daybreak on winter mornings, when (in the days before
+continental railroads), just sufficiently awake to know that we
+were most uncomfortably asleep, it was our destiny always to
+clatter through it, in the coupe of the diligence from Paris, with
+a sea of mud behind us, and a sea of tumbling waves before.  In
+relation to which latter monster, our mind's eye now recalls a
+worthy Frenchman in a seal-skin cap with a braided hood over it,
+once our travelling companion in the coupe aforesaid, who, waking
+up with a pale and crumpled visage, and looking ruefully out at the
+grim row of breakers enjoying themselves fanatically on an
+instrument of torture called 'the Bar,' inquired of us whether we
+were ever sick at sea?  Both to prepare his mind for the abject
+creature we were presently to become, and also to afford him
+consolation, we replied, 'Sir, your servant is always sick when it
+is possible to be so.'  He returned, altogether uncheered by the
+bright example, 'Ah, Heaven, but I am always sick, even when it is
+IMpossible to be so.'
+
+The means of communication between the French capital and our
+French watering-place are wholly changed since those days; but, the
+Channel remains unbridged as yet, and the old floundering and
+knocking about go on there.  It must be confessed that saving in
+reasonable (and therefore rare) sea-weather, the act of arrival at
+our French watering-place from England is difficult to be achieved
+with dignity.  Several little circumstances combine to render the
+visitor an object of humiliation.  In the first place, the steamer
+no sooner touches the port, than all the passengers fall into
+captivity: being boarded by an overpowering force of Custom-house
+officers, and marched into a gloomy dungeon.  In the second place,
+the road to this dungeon is fenced off with ropes breast-high, and
+outside those ropes all the English in the place who have lately
+been sea-sick and are now well, assemble in their best clothes to
+enjoy the degradation of their dilapidated fellow-creatures.  'Oh,
+my gracious! how ill this one has been!'  'Here's a damp one coming
+next!'  'HERE'S a pale one!'  'Oh!  Ain't he green in the face,
+this next one!'  Even we ourself (not deficient in natural dignity)
+have a lively remembrance of staggering up this detested lane one
+September day in a gale of wind, when we were received like an
+irresistible comic actor, with a burst of laughter and applause,
+occasioned by the extreme imbecility of our legs.
+
+We were coming to the third place.  In the third place, the
+captives, being shut up in the gloomy dungeon, are strained, two or
+three at a time, into an inner cell, to be examined as to
+passports; and across the doorway of communication, stands a
+military creature making a bar of his arm.  Two ideas are generally
+present to the British mind during these ceremonies; first, that it
+is necessary to make for the cell with violent struggles, as if it
+were a life-boat and the dungeon a ship going down; secondly, that
+the military creature's arm is a national affront, which the
+government at home ought instantly to 'take up.'  The British mind
+and body becoming heated by these fantasies, delirious answers are
+made to inquiries, and extravagant actions performed.  Thus,
+Johnson persists in giving Johnson as his baptismal name, and
+substituting for his ancestral designation the national 'Dam!'
+Neither can he by any means be brought to recognise the distinction
+between a portmanteau-key and a passport, but will obstinately
+persevere in tendering the one when asked for the other.  This
+brings him to the fourth place, in a state of mere idiotcy; and
+when he is, in the fourth place, cast out at a little door into a
+howling wilderness of touters, he becomes a lunatic with wild eyes
+and floating hair until rescued and soothed.  If friendless and
+unrescued, he is generally put into a railway omnibus and taken to
+Paris.
+
+But, our French watering-place, when it is once got into, is a very
+enjoyable place.  It has a varied and beautiful country around it,
+and many characteristic and agreeable things within it.  To be
+sure, it might have fewer bad smells and less decaying refuse, and
+it might be better drained, and much cleaner in many parts, and
+therefore infinitely more healthy.  Still, it is a bright, airy,
+pleasant, cheerful town; and if you were to walk down either of its
+three well-paved main streets, towards five o'clock in the
+afternoon, when delicate odours of cookery fill the air, and its
+hotel windows (it is full of hotels) give glimpses of long tables
+set out for dinner, and made to look sumptuous by the aid of
+napkins folded fan-wise, you would rightly judge it to be an
+uncommonly good town to eat and drink in.
+
+We have an old walled town, rich in cool public wells of water, on
+the top of a hill within and above the present business-town; and
+if it were some hundreds of miles further from England, instead of
+being, on a clear day, within sight of the grass growing in the
+crevices of the chalk-cliffs of Dover, you would long ago have been
+bored to death about that town.  It is more picturesque and quaint
+than half the innocent places which tourists, following their
+leader like sheep, have made impostors of.  To say nothing of its
+houses with grave courtyards, its queer by-corners, and its many-
+windowed streets white and quiet in the sunlight, there is an
+ancient belfry in it that would have been in all the Annuals and
+Albums, going and gone, these hundred years if it had but been more
+expensive to get at.  Happily it has escaped so well, being only in
+our French watering-place, that you may like it of your own accord
+in a natural manner, without being required to go into convulsions
+about it.  We regard it as one of the later blessings of our life,
+that BILKINS, the only authority on Taste, never took any notice
+that we can find out, of our French watering-place.  Bilkins never
+wrote about it, never pointed out anything to be seen in it, never
+measured anything in it, always left it alone.  For which relief,
+Heaven bless the town and the memory of the immortal Bilkins
+likewise!
+
+There is a charming walk, arched and shaded by trees, on the old
+walls that form the four sides of this High Town, whence you get
+glimpses of the streets below, and changing views of the other town
+and of the river, and of the hills and of the sea.  It is made more
+agreeable and peculiar by some of the solemn houses that are rooted
+in the deep streets below, bursting into a fresher existence a-top,
+and having doors and windows, and even gardens, on these ramparts.
+A child going in at the courtyard gate of one of these houses,
+climbing up the many stairs, and coming out at the fourth-floor
+window, might conceive himself another Jack, alighting on enchanted
+ground from another bean-stalk.  It is a place wonderfully populous
+in children; English children, with governesses reading novels as
+they walk down the shady lanes of trees, or nursemaids
+interchanging gossip on the seats; French children with their
+smiling bonnes in snow-white caps, and themselves - if little boys
+- in straw head-gear like bee-hives, work-baskets and church
+hassocks.  Three years ago, there were three weazen old men, one
+bearing a frayed red ribbon in his threadbare button-hole, always
+to be found walking together among these children, before dinner-
+time.  If they walked for an appetite, they doubtless lived en
+pension - were contracted for - otherwise their poverty would have
+made it a rash action.  They were stooping, blear-eyed, dull old
+men, slip-shod and shabby, in long-skirted short-waisted coats and
+meagre trousers, and yet with a ghost of gentility hovering in
+their company.  They spoke little to each other, and looked as if
+they might have been politically discontented if they had had
+vitality enough.  Once, we overheard red-ribbon feebly complain to
+the other two that somebody, or something, was 'a Robber;' and then
+they all three set their mouths so that they would have ground
+their teeth if they had had any.  The ensuing winter gathered red-
+ribbon unto the great company of faded ribbons, and next year the
+remaining two were there - getting themselves entangled with hoops
+and dolls - familiar mysteries to the children - probably in the
+eyes of most of them, harmless creatures who had never been like
+children, and whom children could never be like.  Another winter
+came, and another old man went, and so, this present year, the last
+of the triumvirate, left off walking - it was no good, now - and
+sat by himself on a little solitary bench, with the hoops and the
+dolls as lively as ever all about him.
+
+In the Place d'Armes of this town, a little decayed market is held,
+which seems to slip through the old gateway, like water, and go
+rippling down the hill, to mingle with the murmuring market in the
+lower town, and get lost in its movement and bustle.  It is very
+agreeable on an idle summer morning to pursue this market-stream
+from the hill-top.  It begins, dozingly and dully, with a few sacks
+of corn; starts into a surprising collection of boots and shoes;
+goes brawling down the hill in a diversified channel of old
+cordage, old iron, old crockery, old clothes, civil and military,
+old rags, new cotton goods, flaming prints of saints, little
+looking-glasses, and incalculable lengths of tape; dives into a
+backway, keeping out of sight for a little while, as streams will,
+or only sparkling for a moment in the shape of a market drinking-
+shop; and suddenly reappears behind the great church, shooting
+itself into a bright confusion of white-capped women and blue-
+bloused men, poultry, vegetables, fruits, flowers, pots, pans,
+praying-chairs, soldiers, country butter, umbrellas and other
+sun-shades, girl-porters waiting to be hired with baskets at their
+backs, and one weazen little old man in a cocked hat, wearing a
+cuirass of drinking-glasses and carrying on his shoulder a crimson
+temple fluttering with flags, like a glorified pavior's rammer
+without the handle, who rings a little bell in all parts of the
+scene, and cries his cooling drink Hola, Hola, Ho-o-o! in a shrill
+cracked voice that somehow makes itself heard, above all the
+chaffering and vending hum.  Early in the afternoon, the whole
+course of the stream is dry.  The praying-chairs are put back in
+the church, the umbrellas are folded up, the unsold goods are
+carried away, the stalls and stands disappear, the square is swept,
+the hackney coaches lounge there to be hired, and on all the
+country roads (if you walk about, as much as we do) you will see
+the peasant women, always neatly and comfortably dressed, riding
+home, with the pleasantest saddle-furniture of clean milk-pails,
+bright butter-kegs, and the like, on the jolliest little donkeys in
+the world.
+
+We have another market in our French watering-place - that is to
+say, a few wooden hutches in the open street, down by the Port -
+devoted to fish.  Our fishing-boats are famous everywhere; and our
+fishing people, though they love lively colours, and taste is
+neutral (see Bilkins), are among the most picturesque people we
+ever encountered.  They have not only a quarter of their own in the
+town itself, but they occupy whole villages of their own on the
+neighbouring cliffs.  Their churches and chapels are their own;
+they consort with one another, they intermarry among themselves,
+their customs are their own, and their costume is their own and
+never changes.  As soon as one of their boys can walk, he is
+provided with a long bright red nightcap; and one of their men
+would as soon think of going afloat without his head, as without
+that indispensable appendage to it.  Then, they wear the noblest
+boots, with the hugest tops - flapping and bulging over anyhow;
+above which, they encase themselves in such wonderful overalls and
+petticoat trousers, made to all appearance of tarry old sails, so
+additionally stiffened with pitch and salt, that the wearers have a
+walk of their own, and go straddling and swinging about among the
+boats and barrels and nets and rigging, a sight to see.  Then,
+their younger women, by dint of going down to the sea barefoot, to
+fling their baskets into the boats as they come in with the tide,
+and bespeak the first fruits of the haul with propitiatory promises
+to love and marry that dear fisherman who shall fill that basket
+like an Angel, have the finest legs ever carved by Nature in the
+brightest mahogany, and they walk like Juno.  Their eyes, too, are
+so lustrous that their long gold ear-rings turn dull beside those
+brilliant neighbours; and when they are dressed, what with these
+beauties, and their fine fresh faces, and their many petticoats -
+striped petticoats, red petticoats, blue petticoats, always clean
+and smart, and never too long - and their home-made stockings,
+mulberry-coloured, blue, brown, purple, lilac - which the older
+women, taking care of the Dutch-looking children, sit in all sorts
+of places knitting, knitting, knitting from morning to night - and
+what with their little saucy bright blue jackets, knitted too, and
+fitting close to their handsome figures; and what with the natural
+grace with which they wear the commonest cap, or fold the commonest
+handkerchief round their luxuriant hair - we say, in a word and out
+of breath, that taking all these premises into our consideration,
+it has never been a matter of the least surprise to us that we have
+never once met, in the cornfields, on the dusty roads, by the
+breezy windmills, on the plots of short sweet grass overhanging the
+sea - anywhere - a young fisherman and fisherwoman of our French
+watering-place together, but the arm of that fisherman has
+invariably been, as a matter of course and without any absurd
+attempt to disguise so plain a necessity, round the neck or waist
+of that fisherwoman.  And we have had no doubt whatever, standing
+looking at their uphill streets, house rising above house, and
+terrace above terrace, and bright garments here and there lying
+sunning on rough stone parapets, that the pleasant mist on all such
+objects, caused by their being seen through the brown nets hung
+across on poles to dry, is, in the eyes of every true young
+fisherman, a mist of love and beauty, setting off the goddess of
+his heart.
+
+Moreover it is to be observed that these are an industrious people,
+and a domestic people, and an honest people.  And though we are
+aware that at the bidding of Bilkins it is our duty to fall down
+and worship the Neapolitans, we make bold very much to prefer the
+fishing people of our French watering-place - especially since our
+last visit to Naples within these twelvemonths, when we found only
+four conditions of men remaining in the whole city: to wit,
+lazzaroni, priests, spies, and soldiers, and all of them beggars;
+the paternal government having banished all its subjects except the
+rascals.
+
+But we can never henceforth separate our French watering-place from
+our own landlord of two summers, M. Loyal Devasseur, citizen and
+town-councillor.  Permit us to have the pleasure of presenting M.
+Loyal Devasseur.
+
+His own family name is simply Loyal; but, as he is married, and as
+in that part of France a husband always adds to his own name the
+family name of his wife, he writes himself Loyal Devasseur.  He
+owns a compact little estate of some twenty or thirty acres on a
+lofty hill-side, and on it he has built two country houses, which
+he lets furnished.  They are by many degrees the best houses that
+are so let near our French watering-place; we have had the honour
+of living in both, and can testify.  The entrance-hall of the first
+we inhabited was ornamented with a plan of the estate, representing
+it as about twice the size of Ireland; insomuch that when we were
+yet new to the property (M. Loyal always speaks of it as 'La
+propriete') we went three miles straight on end in search of the
+bridge of Austerlitz - which we afterwards found to be immediately
+outside the window.  The Chateau of the Old Guard, in another part
+of the grounds, and, according to the plan, about two leagues from
+the little dining-room, we sought in vain for a week, until,
+happening one evening to sit upon a bench in the forest (forest in
+the plan), a few yards from the house-door, we observed at our
+feet, in the ignominious circumstances of being upside down and
+greenly rotten, the Old Guard himself: that is to say, the painted
+effigy of a member of that distinguished corps, seven feet high,
+and in the act of carrying arms, who had had the misfortune to be
+blown down in the previous winter.  It will be perceived that M.
+Loyal is a staunch admirer of the great Napoleon.  He is an old
+soldier himself - captain of the National Guard, with a handsome
+gold vase on his chimney-piece presented to him by his company -
+and his respect for the memory of the illustrious general is
+enthusiastic.  Medallions of him, portraits of him, busts of him,
+pictures of him, are thickly sprinkled all over the property.
+During the first month of our occupation, it was our affliction to
+be constantly knocking down Napoleon: if we touched a shelf in a
+dark corner, he toppled over with a crash; and every door we
+opened, shook him to the soul.  Yet M. Loyal is not a man of mere
+castles in the air, or, as he would say, in Spain.  He has a
+specially practical, contriving, clever, skilful eye and hand.  His
+houses are delightful.  He unites French elegance and English
+comfort, in a happy manner quite his own.  He has an extraordinary
+genius for making tasteful little bedrooms in angles of his roofs,
+which an Englishman would as soon think of turning to any account
+as he would think of cultivating the Desert.  We have ourself
+reposed deliciously in an elegant chamber of M. Loyal's
+construction, with our head as nearly in the kitchen chimney-pot as
+we can conceive it likely for the head of any gentleman, not by
+profession a Sweep, to be.  And, into whatsoever strange nook M.
+Loyal's genius penetrates, it, in that nook, infallibly constructs
+a cupboard and a row of pegs.  In either of our houses, we could
+have put away the knapsacks and hung up the hats of the whole
+regiment of Guides.
+
+ Aforetime, M. Loyal was a tradesman in the town.  You can transact
+business with no present tradesman in the town, and give your card
+'chez M. Loyal,' but a brighter face shines upon you directly.  We
+doubt if there is, ever was, or ever will be, a man so universally
+pleasant in the minds of people as M. Loyal is in the minds of the
+citizens of our French watering-place.  They rub their hands and
+laugh when they speak of him.  Ah, but he is such a good child,
+such a brave boy, such a generous spirit, that Monsieur Loyal!  It
+is the honest truth.  M. Loyal's nature is the nature of a
+gentleman.  He cultivates his ground with his own hands (assisted
+by one little labourer, who falls into a fit now and then); and he
+digs and delves from morn to eve in prodigious perspirations -
+'works always,' as he says - but, cover him with dust, mud, weeds,
+water, any stains you will, you never can cover the gentleman in M.
+Loyal.  A portly, upright, broad-shouldered, brown-faced man, whose
+soldierly bearing gives him the appearance of being taller than he
+is, look into the bright eye of M. Loyal, standing before you in
+his working-blouse and cap, not particularly well shaved, and, it
+may be, very earthy, and you shall discern in M. Loyal a gentleman
+whose true politeness is ingrain, and confirmation of whose word by
+his bond you would blush to think of.  Not without reason is M.
+Loyal when he tells that story, in his own vivacious way, of his
+travelling to Fulham, near London, to buy all these hundreds and
+hundreds of trees you now see upon the Property, then a bare, bleak
+hill; and of his sojourning in Fulham three months; and of his
+jovial evenings with the market-gardeners; and of the crowning
+banquet before his departure, when the market-gardeners rose as one
+man, clinked their glasses all together (as the custom at Fulham
+is), and cried, 'Vive Loyal!'
+
+M. Loyal has an agreeable wife, but no family; and he loves to
+drill the children of his tenants, or run races with them, or do
+anything with them, or for them, that is good-natured.  He is of a
+highly convivial temperament, and his hospitality is unbounded.
+Billet a soldier on him, and he is delighted.  Five-and-thirty
+soldiers had M. Loyal billeted on him this present summer, and they
+all got fat and red-faced in two days.  It became a legend among
+the troops that whosoever got billeted on M. Loyal rolled in
+clover; and so it fell out that the fortunate man who drew the
+billet 'M. Loyal Devasseur' always leaped into the air, though in
+heavy marching order.  M. Loyal cannot bear to admit anything that
+might seem by any implication to disparage the military profession.
+We hinted to him once, that we were conscious of a remote doubt
+arising in our mind, whether a sou a day for pocket-money, tobacco,
+stockings, drink, washing, and social pleasures in general, left a
+very large margin for a soldier's enjoyment.  Pardon! said Monsieur
+Loyal, rather wincing.  It was not a fortune, but - a la bonne
+heure - it was better than it used to be!  What, we asked him on
+another occasion, were all those neighbouring peasants, each living
+with his family in one room, and each having a soldier (perhaps
+two) billeted on him every other night, required to provide for
+those soldiers?  'Faith!' said M. Loyal, reluctantly; a bed,
+monsieur, and fire to cook with, and a candle.  And they share
+their supper with those soldiers.  It is not possible that they
+could eat alone.' - 'And what allowance do they get for this?' said
+we.  Monsieur Loyal drew himself up taller, took a step back, laid
+his hand upon his breast, and said, with majesty, as speaking for
+himself and all France, 'Monsieur, it is a contribution to the
+State!'
+
+It is never going to rain, according to M. Loyal.  When it is
+impossible to deny that it is now raining in torrents, he says it
+will be fine - charming - magnificent - to-morrow.  It is never hot
+on the Property, he contends.  Likewise it is never cold.  The
+flowers, he says, come out, delighting to grow there; it is like
+Paradise this morning; it is like the Garden of Eden.  He is a
+little fanciful in his language: smilingly observing of Madame
+Loyal, when she is absent at vespers, that she is 'gone to her
+salvation' - allee a son salut.  He has a great enjoyment of
+tobacco, but nothing would induce him to continue smoking face to
+face with a lady.  His short black pipe immediately goes into his
+breast pocket, scorches his blouse, and nearly sets him on fire.
+In the Town Council and on occasions of ceremony, he appears in a
+full suit of black, with a waistcoat of magnificent breadth across
+the chest, and a shirt-collar of fabulous proportions.  Good M.
+Loyal!  Under blouse or waistcoat, he carries one of the gentlest
+hearts that beat in a nation teeming with gentle people.  He has
+had losses, and has been at his best under them.  Not only the loss
+of his way by night in the Fulham times - when a bad subject of an
+Englishman, under pretence of seeing him home, took him into all
+the night public-houses, drank 'arfanarf' in every one at his
+expense, and finally fled, leaving him shipwrecked at Cleefeeway,
+which we apprehend to be Ratcliffe Highway - but heavier losses
+than that.  Long ago a family of children and a mother were left in
+one of his houses without money, a whole year.  M. Loyal - anything
+but as rich as we wish he had been - had not the heart to say 'you
+must go;' so they stayed on and stayed on, and paying-tenants who
+would have come in couldn't come in, and at last they managed to
+get helped home across the water; and M. Loyal kissed the whole
+group, and said, 'Adieu, my poor infants!' and sat down in their
+deserted salon and smoked his pipe of peace. - 'The rent, M.
+Loyal?'  'Eh! well!  The rent!'  M. Loyal shakes his head.  'Le bon
+Dieu,' says M. Loyal presently, 'will recompense me,' and he laughs
+and smokes his pipe of peace.  May he smoke it on the Property, and
+not be recompensed, these fifty years!
+
+There are public amusements in our French watering-place, or it
+would not be French.  They are very popular, and very cheap.  The
+sea-bathing - which may rank as the most favoured daylight
+entertainment, inasmuch as the French visitors bathe all day long,
+and seldom appear to think of remaining less than an hour at a time
+in the water - is astoundingly cheap.  Omnibuses convey you, if you
+please, from a convenient part of the town to the beach and back
+again; you have a clean and comfortable bathing-machine, dress,
+linen, and all appliances; and the charge for the whole is half-a-
+franc, or fivepence.  On the pier, there is usually a guitar, which
+seems presumptuously enough to set its tinkling against the deep
+hoarseness of the sea, and there is always some boy or woman who
+sings, without any voice, little songs without any tune: the strain
+we have most frequently heard being an appeal to 'the sportsman'
+not to bag that choicest of game, the swallow.  For bathing
+purposes, we have also a subscription establishment with an
+esplanade, where people lounge about with telescopes, and seem to
+get a good deal of weariness for their money; and we have also an
+association of individual machine proprietors combined against this
+formidable rival.  M. Feroce, our own particular friend in the
+bathing line, is one of these.  How he ever came by his name we
+cannot imagine.  He is as gentle and polite a man as M. Loyal
+Devasseur himself; immensely stout withal; and of a beaming aspect.
+M. Feroce has saved so many people from drowning, and has been
+decorated with so many medals in consequence, that his stoutness
+seems a special dispensation of Providence to enable him to wear
+them; if his girth were the girth of an ordinary man, he could
+never hang them on, all at once.  It is only on very great
+occasions that M. Feroce displays his shining honours.  At other
+times they lie by, with rolls of manuscript testifying to the
+causes of their presentation, in a huge glass case in the red-
+sofa'd salon of his private residence on the beach, where M. Feroce
+also keeps his family pictures, his portraits of himself as he
+appears both in bathing life and in private life, his little boats
+that rock by clockwork, and his other ornamental possessions.
+
+Then, we have a commodious and gay Theatre - or had, for it is
+burned down now - where the opera was always preceded by a
+vaudeville, in which (as usual) everybody, down to the little old
+man with the large hat and the little cane and tassel, who always
+played either my Uncle or my Papa, suddenly broke out of the
+dialogue into the mildest vocal snatches, to the great perplexity
+of unaccustomed strangers from Great Britain, who never could make
+out when they were singing and when they were talking - and indeed
+it was pretty much the same.  But, the caterers in the way of
+entertainment to whom we are most beholden, are the Society of
+Welldoing, who are active all the summer, and give the proceeds of
+their good works to the poor.  Some of the most agreeable fetes
+they contrive, are announced as 'Dedicated to the children;' and
+the taste with which they turn a small public enclosure into an
+elegant garden beautifully illuminated; and the thorough-going
+heartiness and energy with which they personally direct the
+childish pleasures; are supremely delightful.  For fivepence a
+head, we have on these occasions donkey races with English
+'Jokeis,' and other rustic sports; lotteries for toys; roundabouts,
+dancing on the grass to the music of an admirable band, fire-
+balloons and fireworks.  Further, almost every week all through the
+summer - never mind, now, on what day of the week - there is a fete
+in some adjoining village (called in that part of the country a
+Ducasse), where the people - really THE PEOPLE - dance on the green
+turf in the open air, round a little orchestra, that seems itself
+to dance, there is such an airy motion of flags and streamers all
+about it.  And we do not suppose that between the Torrid Zone and
+the North Pole there are to be found male dancers with such
+astonishingly loose legs, furnished with so many joints in wrong
+places, utterly unknown to Professor Owen, as those who here
+disport themselves.  Sometimes, the fete appertains to a particular
+trade; you will see among the cheerful young women at the joint
+Ducasse of the milliners and tailors, a wholesome knowledge of the
+art of making common and cheap things uncommon and pretty, by good
+sense and good taste, that is a practical lesson to any rank of
+society in a whole island we could mention.  The oddest feature of
+these agreeable scenes is the everlasting Roundabout (we preserve
+an English word wherever we can, as we are writing the English
+language), on the wooden horses of which machine grown-up people of
+all ages are wound round and round with the utmost solemnity, while
+the proprietor's wife grinds an organ, capable of only one tune, in
+the centre.
+
+As to the boarding-houses of our French watering-place, they are
+Legion, and would require a distinct treatise.  It is not without a
+sentiment of national pride that we believe them to contain more
+bores from the shores of Albion than all the clubs in London.  As
+you walk timidly in their neighbourhood, the very neckcloths and
+hats of your elderly compatriots cry to you from the stones of the
+streets, 'We are Bores - avoid us!'  We have never overheard at
+street corners such lunatic scraps of political and social
+discussion as among these dear countrymen of ours.  They believe
+everything that is impossible and nothing that is true.  They carry
+rumours, and ask questions, and make corrections and improvements
+on one another, staggering to the human intellect.  And they are
+for ever rushing into the English library, propounding such
+incomprehensible paradoxes to the fair mistress of that
+establishment, that we beg to recommend her to her Majesty's
+gracious consideration as a fit object for a pension.
+
+The English form a considerable part of the population of our
+French watering-place, and are deservedly addressed and respected
+in many ways.  Some of the surface-addresses to them are odd
+enough, as when a laundress puts a placard outside her house
+announcing her possession of that curious British instrument, a
+'Mingle;' or when a tavern-keeper provides accommodation for the
+celebrated English game of 'Nokemdon.'  But, to us, it is not the
+least pleasant feature of our French watering-place that a long and
+constant fusion of the two great nations there, has taught each to
+like the other, and to learn from the other, and to rise superior
+to the absurd prejudices that have lingered among the weak and
+ignorant in both countries equally.
+
+Drumming and trumpeting of course go on for ever in our French
+watering-place.  Flag-flying is at a premium, too; but, we
+cheerfully avow that we consider a flag a very pretty object, and
+that we take such outward signs of innocent liveliness to our heart
+of hearts.  The people, in the town and in the country, are a busy
+people who work hard; they are sober, temperate, good-humoured,
+light-hearted, and generally remarkable for their engaging manners.
+Few just men, not immoderately bilious, could see them in their
+recreations without very much respecting the character that is so
+easily, so harmlessly, and so simply, pleased.
+
+
+
+BILL-STICKING
+
+
+
+IF I had an enemy whom I hated - which Heaven forbid! - and if I
+knew of something which sat heavy on his conscience, I think I
+would introduce that something into a Posting-Bill, and place a
+large impression in the hands of an active sticker.  I can scarcely
+imagine a more terrible revenge.  I should haunt him, by this
+means, night and day.  I do not mean to say that I would publish
+his secret, in red letters two feet high, for all the town to read:
+I would darkly refer to it.  It should be between him, and me, and
+the Posting-Bill.  Say, for example, that, at a certain period of
+his life, my enemy had surreptitiously possessed himself of a key.
+I would then embark my capital in the lock business, and conduct
+that business on the advertising principle.  In all my placards and
+advertisements, I would throw up the line SECRET KEYS.  Thus, if my
+enemy passed an uninhabited house, he would see his conscience
+glaring down on him from the parapets, and peeping up at him from
+the cellars.  If he took a dead wall in his walk, it would be alive
+with reproaches.  If he sought refuge in an omnibus, the panels
+thereof would become Belshazzar's palace to him.  If he took boat,
+in a wild endeavour to escape, he would see the fatal words lurking
+under the arches of the bridges over the Thames.  If he walked the
+streets with downcast eyes, he would recoil from the very stones of
+the pavement, made eloquent by lamp-black lithograph.  If he drove
+or rode, his way would be blocked up by enormous vans, each
+proclaiming the same words over and over again from its whole
+extent of surface.  Until, having gradually grown thinner and
+paler, and having at last totally rejected food, he would miserably
+perish, and I should be revenged.  This conclusion I should, no
+doubt, celebrate by laughing a hoarse laugh in three syllables, and
+folding my arms tight upon my chest agreeably to most of the
+examples of glutted animosity that I have had an opportunity of
+observing in connexion with the Drama - which, by-the-by, as
+involving a good deal of noise, appears to me to be occasionally
+confounded with the Drummer.
+
+The foregoing reflections presented themselves to my mind, the
+other day, as I contemplated (being newly come to London from the
+East Riding of Yorkshire, on a house-hunting expedition for next
+May), an old warehouse which rotting paste and rotting paper had
+brought down to the condition of an old cheese.  It would have been
+impossible to say, on the most conscientious survey, how much of
+its front was brick and mortar, and how much decaying and decayed
+plaster.  It was so thickly encrusted with fragments of bills, that
+no ship's keel after a long voyage could be half so foul.  All
+traces of the broken windows were billed out, the doors were billed
+across, the water-spout was billed over.  The building was shored
+up to prevent its tumbling into the street; and the very beams
+erected against it were less wood than paste and paper, they had
+been so continually posted and reposted.  The forlorn dregs of old
+posters so encumbered this wreck, that there was no hold for new
+posters, and the stickers had abandoned the place in despair,
+except one enterprising man who had hoisted the last masquerade to
+a clear spot near the level of the stack of chimneys where it waved
+and drooped like a shattered flag.  Below the rusty cellar-grating,
+crumpled remnants of old bills torn down, rotted away in wasting
+heaps of fallen leaves.  Here and there, some of the thick rind of
+the house had peeled off in strips, and fluttered heavily down,
+littering the street; but, still, below these rents and gashes,
+layers of decomposing posters showed themselves, as if they were
+interminable.  I thought the building could never even be pulled
+down, but in one adhesive heap of rottenness and poster.  As to
+getting in - I don't believe that if the Sleeping Beauty and her
+Court had been so billed up, the young Prince could have done it.
+
+Knowing all the posters that were yet legible, intimately, and
+pondering on their ubiquitous nature, I was led into the
+reflections with which I began this paper, by considering what an
+awful thing it would be, ever to have wronged - say M. JULLIEN for
+example - and to have his avenging name in characters of fire
+incessantly before my eyes.  Or to have injured MADAME TUSSAUD, and
+undergo a similar retribution.  Has any man a self-reproachful
+thought associated with pills, or ointment?  What an avenging
+spirit to that man is PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY!  Have I sinned in oil?
+CABBURN pursues me.  Have I a dark remembrance associated with any
+gentlemanly garments, bespoke or ready made?  MOSES and SON are on
+my track.  Did I ever aim a blow at a defenceless fellow-creature's
+head?  That head eternally being measured for a wig, or that worse
+head which was bald before it used the balsam, and hirsute
+afterwards - enforcing the benevolent moral, 'Better to be bald as
+a Dutch cheese than come to this,' - undoes me.  Have I no sore
+places in my mind which MECHI touches - which NICOLL probes - which
+no registered article whatever lacerates?  Does no discordant note
+within me thrill responsive to mysterious watchwords, as 'Revalenta
+Arabica,' or 'Number One St. Paul's Churchyard'?  Then may I enjoy
+life, and be happy.
+
+Lifting up my eyes, as I was musing to this effect, I beheld
+advancing towards me (I was then on Cornhill, near to the Royal
+Exchange), a solemn procession of three advertising vans, of first-
+class dimensions, each drawn by a very little horse.  As the
+cavalcade approached, I was at a loss to reconcile the careless
+deportment of the drivers of these vehicles, with the terrific
+announcements they conducted through the city, which being a
+summary of the contents of a Sunday newspaper, were of the most
+thrilling kind.  Robbery, fire, murder, and the ruin of the United
+Kingdom - each discharged in a line by itself, like a separate
+broad-side of red-hot shot - were among the least of the warnings
+addressed to an unthinking people.  Yet, the Ministers of Fate who
+drove the awful cars, leaned forward with their arms upon their
+knees in a state of extreme lassitude, for want of any subject of
+interest.  The first man, whose hair I might naturally have
+expected to see standing on end, scratched his head - one of the
+smoothest I ever beheld - with profound indifference.  The second
+whistled.  The third yawned.
+
+Pausing to dwell upon this apathy, it appeared to me, as the fatal
+cars came by me, that I descried in the second car, through the
+portal in which the charioteer was seated, a figure stretched upon
+the floor.  At the same time, I thought I smelt tobacco.  The
+latter impression passed quickly from me; the former remained.
+Curious to know whether this prostrate figure was the one
+impressible man of the whole capital who had been stricken
+insensible by the terrors revealed to him, and whose form had been
+placed in the car by the charioteer, from motives of humanity, I
+followed the procession.  It turned into Leadenhall-market, and
+halted at a public-house.  Each driver dismounted.  I then
+distinctly heard, proceeding from the second car, where I had dimly
+seen the prostrate form, the words:
+
+'And a pipe!'
+
+The driver entering the public-house with his fellows, apparently
+for purposes of refreshment, I could not refrain from mounting on
+the shaft of the second vehicle, and looking in at the portal.  I
+then beheld, reclining on his back upon the floor, on a kind of
+mattress or divan, a little man in a shooting-coat.  The
+exclamation 'Dear me' which irresistibly escaped my lips caused him
+to sit upright, and survey me.  I found him to be a good-looking
+little man of about fifty, with a shining face, a tight head, a
+bright eye, a moist wink, a quick speech, and a ready air.  He had
+something of a sporting way with him.
+
+He looked at me, and I looked at him, until the driver displaced me
+by handing in a pint of beer, a pipe, and what I understand is
+called 'a screw' of tobacco - an object which has the appearance of
+a curl-paper taken off the barmaid's head, with the curl in it.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' said I, when the removed person of the driver
+again admitted of my presenting my face at the portal.  'But -
+excuse my curiosity, which I inherit from my mother - do you live
+here?'
+
+'That's good, too!' returned the little man, composedly laying
+aside a pipe he had smoked out, and filling the pipe just brought
+to him.
+
+'Oh, you DON'T live here then?' said I.
+
+He shook his head, as he calmly lighted his pipe by means of a
+German tinder-box, and replied, 'This is my carriage.  When things
+are flat, I take a ride sometimes, and enjoy myself.  I am the
+inventor of these wans.'
+
+His pipe was now alight.  He drank his beer all at once, and he
+smoked and he smiled at me.
+
+'It was a great idea!' said I.
+
+'Not so bad,' returned the little man, with the modesty of merit.
+
+'Might I be permitted to inscribe your name upon the tablets of my
+memory?' I asked.
+
+'There's not much odds in the name,' returned the little man, ' -
+no name particular - I am the King of the Bill-Stickers.'
+
+'Good gracious!' said I.
+
+The monarch informed me, with a smile, that he had never been
+crowned or installed with any public ceremonies, but that he was
+peaceably acknowledged as King of the Bill-Stickers in right of
+being the oldest and most respected member of 'the old school of
+bill-sticking.'  He likewise gave me to understand that there was a
+Lord Mayor of the Bill-Stickers, whose genius was chiefly exercised
+within the limits of the city.  He made some allusion, also, to an
+inferior potentate, called 'Turkey-legs;' but I did not understand
+that this gentleman was invested with much power.  I rather
+inferred that he derived his title from some peculiarity of gait,
+and that it was of an honorary character.
+
+'My father,' pursued the King of the Bill-Stickers, 'was Engineer,
+Beadle, and Bill-Sticker to the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, in
+the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty.  My father stuck
+bills at the time of the riots of London.'
+
+'You must be acquainted with the whole subject of bill-sticking,
+from that time to the present!' said I.
+
+'Pretty well so,' was the answer.
+
+'Excuse me,' said I; 'but I am a sort of collector - '
+
+''Not Income-tax?' cried His Majesty, hastily removing his pipe
+from his lips.
+
+'No, no,' said I.
+
+'Water-rate?' said His Majesty.
+
+'No, no,' I returned.
+
+'Gas?  Assessed?  Sewers?' said His Majesty.
+
+'You misunderstand me,' I replied, soothingly.  'Not that sort of
+collector at all: a collector of facts.'
+
+'Oh, if it's only facts,' cried the King of the Bill-Stickers,
+recovering his good-humour, and banishing the great mistrust that
+had suddenly fallen upon him, 'come in and welcome!  If it had been
+income, or winders, I think I should have pitched you out of the
+wan, upon my soul!'
+
+Readily complying with the invitation, I squeezed myself in at the
+small aperture.  His Majesty, graciously handing me a little three-
+legged stool on which I took my seat in a corner, inquired if I
+smoked.
+
+'I do; - that is, I can,' I answered.
+
+'Pipe and a screw!' said His Majesty to the attendant charioteer.
+'Do you prefer a dry smoke, or do you moisten it?'
+
+As unmitigated tobacco produces most disturbing effects upon my
+system (indeed, if I had perfect moral courage, I doubt if I should
+smoke at all, under any circumstances), I advocated moisture, and
+begged the Sovereign of the Bill-Stickers to name his usual liquor,
+and to concede to me the privilege of paying for it.  After some
+delicate reluctance on his part, we were provided, through the
+instrumentality of the attendant charioteer, with a can of cold
+rum-and-water, flavoured with sugar and lemon.  We were also
+furnished with a tumbler, and I was provided with a pipe.  His
+Majesty, then observing that we might combine business with
+conversation, gave the word for the car to proceed; and, to my
+great delight, we jogged away at a foot pace.
+
+I say to my great delight, because I am very fond of novelty, and
+it was a new sensation to be jolting through the tumult of the city
+in that secluded Temple, partly open to the sky, surrounded by the
+roar without, and seeing nothing but the clouds.  Occasionally,
+blows from whips fell heavily on the Temple's walls, when by
+stopping up the road longer than usual, we irritated carters and
+coachmen to madness; but they fell harmless upon us within and
+disturbed not the serenity of our peaceful retreat.  As I looked
+upward, I felt, I should imagine, like the Astronomer Royal.  I was
+enchanted by the contrast between the freezing nature of our
+external mission on the blood of the populace, and the perfect
+composure reigning within those sacred precincts: where His
+Majesty, reclining easily on his left arm, smoked his pipe and
+drank his rum-and-water from his own side of the tumbler, which
+stood impartially between us.  As I looked down from the clouds and
+caught his royal eye, he understood my reflections.  'I have an
+idea,' he observed, with an upward glance, 'of training scarlet
+runners across in the season, - making a arbour of it, - and
+sometimes taking tea in the same, according to the song.'
+
+I nodded approval.
+
+'And here you repose and think?' said I.
+
+'And think,' said he, 'of posters - walls - and hoardings.'
+
+We were both silent, contemplating the vastness of the subject.  I
+remembered a surprising fancy of dear THOMAS HOOD'S, and wondered
+whether this monarch ever sighed to repair to the great wall of
+China, and stick bills all over it.
+
+'And so,' said he, rousing himself, 'it's facts as you collect?'
+
+'Facts,' said I.
+
+'The facts of bill-sticking,' pursued His Majesty, in a benignant
+manner, 'as known to myself, air as following.  When my father was
+Engineer, Beadle, and Bill-Sticker to the parish of St. Andrew's,
+Holborn, he employed women to post bills for him.  He employed
+women to post bills at the time of the riots of London.  He died at
+the age of seventy-five year, and was buried by the murdered Eliza
+Grimwood, over in the Waterloo Road.'
+
+As this was somewhat in the nature of a royal speech, I listened
+with deference and silently.  His Majesty, taking a scroll from his
+pocket, proceeded, with great distinctness, to pour out the
+following flood of information:-
+
+'"The bills being at that period mostly proclamations and
+declarations, and which were only a demy size, the manner of
+posting the bills (as they did not use brushes) was by means of a
+piece of wood which they called a 'dabber.'  Thus things continued
+till such time as the State Lottery was passed, and then the
+printers began to print larger bills, and men were employed instead
+of women, as the State Lottery Commissioners then began to send men
+all over England to post bills, and would keep them out for six or
+eight months at a time, and they were called by the London bill-
+stickers 'TRAMPERS,' their wages at the time being ten shillings
+per day, besides expenses.  They used sometimes to be stationed in
+large towns for five or six months together, distributing the
+schemes to all the houses in the town.  And then there were more
+caricature wood-block engravings for posting-bills than there are
+at the present time, the principal printers, at that time, of
+posting-bills being Messrs. Evans and Ruffy, of Budge Row;
+Thoroughgood and Whiting, of the present day; and Messrs. Gye and
+Balne, Gracechurch Street, City.  The largest bills printed at that
+period were a two-sheet double crown; and when they commenced
+printing four-sheet bills, two bill-stickers would work together.
+They had no settled wages per week, but had a fixed price for their
+work, and the London bill-stickers, during a lottery week, have
+been known to earn, each, eight or nine pounds per week, till the
+day of drawing; likewise the men who carried boards in the street
+used to have one pound per week, and the bill-stickers at that time
+would not allow any one to wilfully cover or destroy their bills,
+as they had a society amongst themselves, and very frequently dined
+together at some public-house where they used to go of an evening
+to have their work delivered out untoe 'em."'
+
+All this His Majesty delivered in a gallant manner; posting it, as
+it were, before me, in a great proclamation.  I took advantage of
+the pause he now made, to inquire what a 'two-sheet double crown'
+might express?
+
+'A two-sheet double crown,' replied the King, 'is a bill thirty-
+nine inches wide by thirty inches high.'
+
+'Is it possible,' said I, my mind reverting to the gigantic
+admonitions we were then displaying to the multitude - which were
+as infants to some of the posting-bills on the rotten old warehouse
+- 'that some few years ago the largest bill was no larger than
+that?'
+
+'The fact,' returned the King, 'is undoubtedly so.'  Here he
+instantly rushed again into the scroll.
+
+'"Since the abolishing of the State Lottery all that good feeling
+has gone, and nothing but jealousy exists, through the rivalry of
+each other.  Several bill-sticking companies have started, but have
+failed.  The first party that started a company was twelve year
+ago; but what was left of the old school and their dependants
+joined together and opposed them.  And for some time we were quiet
+again, till a printer of Hatton Garden formed a company by hiring
+the sides of houses; but he was not supported by the public, and he
+left his wooden frames fixed up for rent.  The last company that
+started, took advantage of the New Police Act, and hired of Messrs.
+Grissell and Peto the hoarding of Trafalgar Square, and established
+a bill-sticking office in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, and
+engaged some of the new bill-stickers to do their work, and for a
+time got the half of all our work, and with such spirit did they
+carry on their opposition towards us, that they used to give us in
+charge before the magistrate, and get us fined; but they found it
+so expensive, that they could not keep it up, for they were always
+employing a lot of ruffians from the Seven Dials to come and fight
+us; and on one occasion the old bill-stickers went to Trafalgar
+Square to attempt to post bills, when they were given in custody by
+the watchman in their employ, and fined at Queen Square five
+pounds, as they would not allow any of us to speak in the office;
+but when they were gone, we had an interview with the magistrate,
+who mitigated the fine to fifteen shillings.  During the time the
+men were waiting for the fine, this company started off to a
+public-house that we were in the habit of using, and waited for us
+coming back, where a fighting scene took place that beggars
+description.  Shortly after this, the principal one day came and
+shook hands with us, and acknowledged that he had broken up the
+company, and that he himself had lost five hundred pound in trying
+to overthrow us.  We then took possession of the hoarding in
+Trafalgar Square; but Messrs. Grissell and Peto would not allow us
+to post our bills on the said hoarding without paying them - and
+from first to last we paid upwards of two hundred pounds for that
+hoarding, and likewise the hoarding of the Reform Club-house, Pall
+Mall."'
+
+His Majesty, being now completely out of breath, laid down his
+scroll (which he appeared to have finished), puffed at his pipe,
+and took some rum-and-water.  I embraced the opportunity of asking
+how many divisions the art and mystery of bill-sticking comprised?
+He replied, three - auctioneers' bill-sticking, theatrical bill-
+sticking, general bill-sticking.
+
+'The auctioneers' porters,' said the King, 'who do their bill-
+sticking, are mostly respectable and intelligent, and generally
+well paid for their work, whether in town or country.  The price
+paid by the principal auctioneers for country work is nine
+shillings per day; that is, seven shillings for day's work, one
+shilling for lodging, and one for paste.  Town work is five
+shillings a day, including paste.'
+
+'Town work must be rather hot work,' said I, 'if there be many of
+those fighting scenes that beggar description, among the bill-
+stickers?'
+
+'Well,' replied the King, 'I an't a stranger, I assure you, to
+black eyes; a bill-sticker ought to know how to handle his fists a
+bit.  As to that row I have mentioned, that grew out of
+competition, conducted in an uncompromising spirit.  Besides a man
+in a horse-and-shay continually following us about, the company had
+a watchman on duty, night and day, to prevent us sticking bills
+upon the hoarding in Trafalgar Square.  We went there, early one
+morning, to stick bills and to black-wash their bills if we were
+interfered with.  We WERE interfered with, and I gave the word for
+laying on the wash.  It WAS laid on - pretty brisk - and we were
+all taken to Queen Square: but they couldn't fine ME.  I knew
+that,' - with a bright smile - 'I'd only give directions - I was
+only the General.'  Charmed with this monarch's affability, I
+inquired if he had ever hired a hoarding himself.
+
+'Hired a large one,' he replied, 'opposite the Lyceum Theatre, when
+the buildings was there.  Paid thirty pound for it; let out places
+on it, and called it "The External Paper-Hanging Station."  But it
+didn't answer.  Ah!' said His Majesty thoughtfully, as he filled
+the glass, 'Bill-stickers have a deal to contend with.  The bill-
+sticking clause was got into the Police Act by a member of
+Parliament that employed me at his election.  The clause is pretty
+stiff respecting where bills go; but HE didn't mind where HIS bills
+went.  It was all right enough, so long as they was HIS bills!'
+
+Fearful that I observed a shadow of misanthropy on the King's
+cheerful face, I asked whose ingenious invention that was, which I
+greatly admired, of sticking bills under the arches of the bridges.
+
+'Mine!' said His Majesty.  'I was the first that ever stuck a bill
+under a bridge!  Imitators soon rose up, of course. - When don't
+they?  But they stuck 'em at low-water, and the tide came and swept
+the bills clean away.  I knew that!'  The King laughed.
+
+'What may be the name of that instrument, like an immense fishing-
+rod,' I inquired, 'with which bills are posted on high places?'
+
+'The joints,' returned His Majesty.  'Now, we use the joints where
+formerly we used ladders - as they do still in country places.
+Once, when Madame' (Vestris, understood) 'was playing in Liverpool,
+another bill-sticker and me were at it together on the wall outside
+the Clarence Dock - me with the joints - him on a ladder.  Lord!  I
+had my bill up, right over his head, yards above him, ladder and
+all, while he was crawling to his work.  The people going in and
+out of the docks, stood and laughed! - It's about thirty years
+since the joints come in.'
+
+'Are there any bill-stickers who can't read?' I took the liberty of
+inquiring.
+
+'Some,' said the King.  'But they know which is the right side
+up'ards of their work.  They keep it as it's given out to 'em.  I
+have seen a bill or so stuck wrong side up'ards.  But it's very
+rare.'
+
+Our discourse sustained some interruption at this point, by the
+procession of cars occasioning a stoppage of about three-quarters
+of a mile in length, as nearly as I could judge.  His Majesty,
+however, entreating me not to be discomposed by the contingent
+uproar, smoked with great placidity, and surveyed the firmament.
+
+When we were again in motion, I begged to be informed what was the
+largest poster His Majesty had ever seen.  The King replied, 'A
+thirty-six sheet poster.'  I gathered, also, that there were about
+a hundred and fifty bill-stickers in London, and that His Majesty
+considered an average hand equal to the posting of one hundred
+bills (single sheets) in a day.  The King was of opinion, that,
+although posters had much increased in size, they had not increased
+in number; as the abolition of the State Lotteries had occasioned a
+great falling off, especially in the country.  Over and above which
+change, I bethought myself that the custom of advertising in
+newspapers had greatly increased.  The completion of many London
+improvements, as Trafalgar Square (I particularly observed the
+singularity of His Majesty's calling THAT an improvement), the
+Royal Exchange, &c., had of late years reduced the number of
+advantageous posting-places.  Bill-Stickers at present rather
+confine themselves to districts, than to particular descriptions of
+work.  One man would strike over Whitechapel, another would take
+round Houndsditch, Shoreditch, and the City Road; one (the King
+said) would stick to the Surrey side; another would make a beat of
+the West-end.
+
+His Majesty remarked, with some approach to severity, on the
+neglect of delicacy and taste, gradually introduced into the trade
+by the new school: a profligate and inferior race of impostors who
+took jobs at almost any price, to the detriment of the old school,
+and the confusion of their own misguided employers.  He considered
+that the trade was overdone with competition, and observed speaking
+of his subjects, 'There are too many of 'em.'  He believed, still,
+that things were a little better than they had been; adducing, as a
+proof, the fact that particular posting places were now reserved,
+by common consent, for particular posters; those places, however,
+must be regularly occupied by those posters, or, they lapsed and
+fell into other hands.  It was of no use giving a man a Drury Lane
+bill this week and not next.  Where was it to go?  He was of
+opinion that going to the expense of putting up your own board on
+which your sticker could display your own bills, was the only
+complete way of posting yourself at the present time; but, even to
+effect this, on payment of a shilling a week to the keepers of
+steamboat piers and other such places, you must be able, besides,
+to give orders for theatres and public exhibitions, or you would be
+sure to be cut out by somebody.  His Majesty regarded the passion
+for orders, as one of the most unappeasable appetites of human
+nature.  If there were a building, or if there were repairs, going
+on, anywhere, you could generally stand something and make it right
+with the foreman of the works; but, orders would be expected from
+you, and the man who could give the most orders was the man who
+would come off best.  There was this other objectionable point, in
+orders, that workmen sold them for drink, and often sold them to
+persons who were likewise troubled with the weakness of thirst:
+which led (His Majesty said) to the presentation of your orders at
+Theatre doors, by individuals who were 'too shakery' to derive
+intellectual profit from the entertainments, and who brought a
+scandal on you.  Finally, His Majesty said that you could hardly
+put too little in a poster; what you wanted, was, two or three good
+catch-lines for the eye to rest on - then, leave it alone - and
+there you were!
+
+These are the minutes of my conversation with His Majesty, as I
+noted them down shortly afterwards.  I am not aware that I have
+been betrayed into any alteration or suppression.  The manner of
+the King was frank in the extreme; and he seemed to me to avoid, at
+once that slight tendency to repetition which may have been
+observed in the conversation of His Majesty King George the Third,
+and - that slight under-current of egotism which the curious
+observer may perhaps detect in the conversation of Napoleon
+Bonaparte.
+
+I must do the King the justice to say that it was I, and not he,
+who closed the dialogue.  At this juncture, I became the subject of
+a remarkable optical delusion; the legs of my stool appeared to me
+to double up; the car to spin round and round with great violence;
+and a mist to arise between myself and His Majesty.  In addition to
+these sensations, I felt extremely unwell.  I refer these
+unpleasant effects, either to the paste with which the posters were
+affixed to the van: which may have contained some small portion of
+arsenic; or, to the printer's ink, which may have contained some
+equally deleterious ingredient.  Of this, I cannot be sure.  I am
+only sure that I was not affected, either by the smoke, or the rum-
+and-water.  I was assisted out of the vehicle, in a state of mind
+which I have only experienced in two other places - I allude to the
+Pier at Dover, and to the corresponding portion of the town of
+Calais - and sat upon a door-step until I recovered.  The
+procession had then disappeared.  I have since looked anxiously for
+the King in several other cars, but I have not yet had the
+happiness of seeing His Majesty.
+
+
+
+'BIRTHS.  MRS. MEEK, OF A SON
+
+
+
+MY name is Meek.  I am, in fact, Mr. Meek.  That son is mine and
+Mrs. Meek's.  When I saw the announcement in the Times, I dropped
+the paper.  I had put it in, myself, and paid for it, but it looked
+so noble that it overpowered me.
+
+As soon as I could compose my feelings, I took the paper up to Mrs.
+Meek's bedside.  'Maria Jane,' said I (I allude to Mrs. Meek), 'you
+are now a public character.'  We read the review of our child,
+several times, with feelings of the strongest emotion; and I sent
+the boy who cleans the boots and shoes, to the office for fifteen
+copies.  No reduction was made on taking that quantity.
+
+It is scarcely necessary for me to say, that our child had been
+expected.  In fact, it had been expected, with comparative
+confidence, for some months.  Mrs. Meek's mother, who resides with
+us - of the name of Bigby - had made every preparation for its
+admission to our circle.
+
+I hope and believe I am a quiet man.  I will go farther.  I KNOW I
+am a quiet man.  My constitution is tremulous, my voice was never
+loud, and, in point of stature, I have been from infancy, small.  I
+have the greatest respect for Maria Jane's Mama.  She is a most
+remarkable woman.  I honour Maria Jane's Mama.  In my opinion she
+would storm a town, single-handed, with a hearth-broom, and carry
+it.  I have never known her to yield any point whatever, to mortal
+man.  She is calculated to terrify the stoutest heart.
+
+Still - but I will not anticipate.
+
+The first intimation I had, of any preparations being in progress,
+on the part of Maria Jane's Mama, was one afternoon, several months
+ago.  I came home earlier than usual from the office, and,
+proceeding into the dining-room, found an obstruction behind the
+door, which prevented it from opening freely.  It was an
+obstruction of a soft nature.  On looking in, I found it to be a
+female.
+
+The female in question stood in the corner behind the door,
+consuming Sherry Wine.  From the nutty smell of that beverage
+pervading the apartment, I have no doubt she was consuming a second
+glassful.  She wore a black bonnet of large dimensions, and was
+copious in figure.  The expression of her countenance was severe
+and discontented.  The words to which she gave utterance on seeing
+me, were these, 'Oh, git along with you, Sir, if YOU please; me and
+Mrs. Bigby don't want no male parties here!'
+
+That female was Mrs. Prodgit.
+
+I immediately withdrew, of course.  I was rather hurt, but I made
+no remark.  Whether it was that I showed a lowness of spirits after
+dinner, in consequence of feeling that I seemed to intrude, I
+cannot say.  But, Maria Jane's Mama said to me on her retiring for
+the night: in a low distinct voice, and with a look of reproach
+that completely subdued me: 'George Meek, Mrs. Prodgit is your
+wife's nurse!'
+
+I bear no ill-will towards Mrs. Prodgit.  Is it likely that I,
+writing this with tears in my eyes, should be capable of deliberate
+animosity towards a female, so essential to the welfare of Maria
+Jane?  I am willing to admit that Fate may have been to blame, and
+not Mrs. Prodgit; but, it is undeniably true, that the latter
+female brought desolation and devastation into my lowly dwelling.
+
+We were happy after her first appearance; we were sometimes
+exceedingly so.  But, whenever the parlour door was opened, and
+'Mrs. Prodgit!' announced (and she was very often announced),
+misery ensued.  I could not bear Mrs. Prodgit's look.  I felt that
+I was far from wanted, and had no business to exist in Mrs.
+Prodgit's presence.  Between Maria Jane's Mama, and Mrs. Prodgit,
+there was a dreadful, secret, understanding - a dark mystery and
+conspiracy, pointing me out as a being to be shunned.  I appeared
+to have done something that was evil.  Whenever Mrs. Prodgit
+called, after dinner, I retired to my dressing-room - where the
+temperature is very low indeed, in the wintry time of the year -
+and sat looking at my frosty breath as it rose before me, and at my
+rack of boots; a serviceable article of furniture, but never, in my
+opinion, an exhilarating object.  The length of the councils that
+were held with Mrs. Prodgit, under these circumstances, I will not
+attempt to describe.  I will merely remark, that Mrs. Prodgit
+always consumed Sherry Wine while the deliberations were in
+progress; that they always ended in Maria Jane's being in wretched
+spirits on the sofa; and that Maria Jane's Mama always received me,
+when I was recalled, with a look of desolate triumph that too
+plainly said, 'NOW, George Meek!  You see my child, Maria Jane, a
+ruin, and I hope you are satisfied!'
+
+I pass, generally, over the period that intervened between the day
+when Mrs. Prodgit entered her protest against male parties, and the
+ever-memorable midnight when I brought her to my unobtrusive home
+in a cab, with an extremely large box on the roof, and a bundle, a
+bandbox, and a basket, between the driver's legs.  I have no
+objection to Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby, who I
+never can forget is the parent of Maria Jane) taking entire
+possession of my unassuming establishment.  In the recesses of my
+own breast, the thought may linger that a man in possession cannot
+be so dreadful as a woman, and that woman Mrs. Prodgit; but, I
+ought to bear a good deal, and I hope I can, and do.  Huffing and
+snubbing, prey upon my feelings; but, I can bear them without
+complaint.  They may tell in the long run; I may be hustled about,
+from post to pillar, beyond my strength; nevertheless, I wish to
+avoid giving rise to words in the family.
+
+The voice of Nature, however, cries aloud in behalf of Augustus
+George, my infant son.  It is for him that I wish to utter a few
+plaintive household words.  I am not at all angry; I am mild - but
+miserable.
+
+I wish to know why, when my child, Augustus George, was expected in
+our circle, a provision of pins was made, as if the little stranger
+were a criminal who was to be put to the torture immediately, on
+his arrival, instead of a holy babe?  I wish to know why haste was
+made to stick those pins all over his innocent form, in every
+direction?  I wish to be informed why light and air are excluded
+from Augustus George, like poisons?  Why, I ask, is my unoffending
+infant so hedged into a basket-bedstead, with dimity and calico,
+with miniature sheets and blankets, that I can only hear him
+snuffle (and no wonder!) deep down under the pink hood of a little
+bathing-machine, and can never peruse even so much of his
+lineaments as his nose?
+
+Was I expected to be the father of a French Roll, that the brushes
+of All Nations were laid in, to rasp Augustus George?  Am I to be
+told that his sensitive skin was ever intended by Nature to have
+rashes brought out upon it, by the premature and incessant use of
+those formidable little instruments?
+
+Is my son a Nutmeg, that he is to be grated on the stiff edges of
+sharp frills?  Am I the parent of a Muslin boy, that his yielding
+surface is to be crimped and small plaited?  Or is my child
+composed of Paper or of Linen, that impressions of the finer
+getting-up art, practised by the laundress, are to be printed off,
+all over his soft arms and legs, as I constantly observe them?  The
+starch enters his soul; who can wonder that he cries?
+
+Was Augustus George intended to have limbs, or to be born a Torso?
+I presume that limbs were the intention, as they are the usual
+practice.  Then, why are my poor child's limbs fettered and tied
+up?  Am I to be told that there is any analogy between Augustus
+George Meek and Jack Sheppard?
+
+Analyse Castor Oil at any Institution of Chemistry that may be
+agreed upon, and inform me what resemblance, in taste, it bears to
+that natural provision which it is at once the pride and duty of
+Maria Jane to administer to Augustus George!  Yet, I charge Mrs.
+Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with systematically
+forcing Castor Oil on my innocent son, from the first hour of his
+birth.  When that medicine, in its efficient action, causes
+internal disturbance to Augustus George, I charge Mrs. Prodgit
+(aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with insanely and inconsistently
+administering opium to allay the storm she has raised!  What is the
+meaning of this?
+
+If the days of Egyptian Mummies are past, how dare Mrs. Prodgit
+require, for the use of my son, an amount of flannel and linen that
+would carpet my humble roof?  Do I wonder that she requires it?
+No!  This morning, within an hour, I beheld this agonising sight.
+I beheld my son - Augustus George - in Mrs. Prodgit's hands, and on
+Mrs. Prodgit's knee, being dressed.  He was at the moment,
+comparatively speaking, in a state of nature; having nothing on,
+but an extremely short shirt, remarkably disproportionate to the
+length of his usual outer garments.  Trailing from Mrs. Prodgit's
+lap, on the floor, was a long narrow roller or bandage - I should
+say of several yards in extent.  In this, I SAW Mrs. Prodgit
+tightly roll the body of my unoffending infant, turning him over
+and over, now presenting his unconscious face upwards, now the back
+of his bald head, until the unnatural feat was accomplished, and
+the bandage secured by a pin, which I have every reason to believe
+entered the body of my only child.  In this tourniquet, he passes
+the present phase of his existence.  Can I know it, and smile!
+
+I fear I have been betrayed into expressing myself warmly, but I
+feel deeply.  Not for myself; for Augustus George.  I dare not
+interfere.  Will any one?  Will any publication?  Any doctor?  Any
+parent?  Any body?  I do not complain that Mrs. Prodgit (aided and
+abetted by Mrs. Bigby) entirely alienates Maria Jane's affections
+from me, and interposes an impassable barrier between us.  I do not
+complain of being made of no account.  I do not want to be of any
+account.  But, Augustus George is a production of Nature (I cannot
+think otherwise), and I claim that he should be treated with some
+remote reference to Nature.  In my opinion, Mrs. Prodgit is, from
+first to last, a convention and a superstition.  Are all the
+faculty afraid of Mrs. Prodgit?  If not, why don't they take her in
+hand and improve her?
+
+P.S.  Maria Jane's Mama boasts of her own knowledge of the subject,
+and says she brought up seven children besides Maria Jane.  But how
+do I know that she might not have brought them up much better?
+Maria Jane herself is far from strong, and is subject to headaches,
+and nervous indigestion.  Besides which, I learn from the
+statistical tables that one child in five dies within the first
+year of its life; and one child in three, within the fifth.  That
+don't look as if we could never improve in these particulars, I
+think!
+
+P.P.S. Augustus George is in convulsions.
+
+
+
+LYING AWAKE
+
+
+
+'MY uncle lay with his eyes half closed, and his nightcap drawn
+almost down to his nose.  His fancy was already wandering, and
+began to mingle up the present scene with the crater of Vesuvius,
+the French Opera, the Coliseum at Rome, Dolly's Chop-house in
+London, and all the farrago of noted places with which the brain of
+a traveller is crammed; in a word, he was just falling asleep.'
+
+Thus, that delightful writer, WASHINGTON IRVING, in his Tales of a
+Traveller.  But, it happened to me the other night to be lying: not
+with my eyes half closed, but with my eyes wide open; not with my
+nightcap drawn almost down to my nose, for on sanitary principles I
+never wear a nightcap: but with my hair pitchforked and touzled all
+over the pillow; not just falling asleep by any means, but
+glaringly, persistently, and obstinately, broad awake.  Perhaps,
+with no scientific intention or invention, I was illustrating the
+theory of the Duality of the Brain; perhaps one part of my brain,
+being wakeful, sat up to watch the other part which was sleepy.  Be
+that as it may, something in me was as desirous to go to sleep as
+it possibly could be, but something else in me WOULD NOT go to
+sleep, and was as obstinate as George the Third.
+
+Thinking of George the Third - for I devote this paper to my train
+of thoughts as I lay awake: most people lying awake sometimes, and
+having some interest in the subject - put me in mind of BENJAMIN
+FRANKLIN, and so Benjamin Franklin's paper on the art of procuring
+pleasant dreams, which would seem necessarily to include the art of
+going to sleep, came into my head.  Now, as I often used to read
+that paper when I was a very small boy, and as I recollect
+everything I read then as perfectly as I forget everything I read
+now, I quoted 'Get out of bed, beat up and turn your pillow, shake
+the bed-clothes well with at least twenty shakes, then throw the
+bed open and leave it to cool; in the meanwhile, continuing
+undrest, walk about your chamber.  When you begin to feel the cold
+air unpleasant, then return to your bed, and you will soon fall
+asleep, and your sleep will be sweet and pleasant.'  Not a bit of
+it!  I performed the whole ceremony, and if it were possible for me
+to be more saucer-eyed than I was before, that was the only result
+that came of it.
+
+Except Niagara.  The two quotations from Washington Irving and
+Benjamin Franklin may have put it in my head by an American
+association of ideas; but there I was, and the Horse-shoe Fall was
+thundering and tumbling in my eyes and ears, and the very rainbows
+that I left upon the spray when I really did last look upon it,
+were beautiful to see.  The night-light being quite as plain,
+however, and sleep seeming to be many thousand miles further off
+than Niagara, I made up my mind to think a little about Sleep;
+which I no sooner did than I whirled off in spite of myself to
+Drury Lane Theatre, and there saw a great actor and dear friend of
+mine (whom I had been thinking of in the day) playing Macbeth, and
+heard him apostrophising 'the death of each day's life,' as I have
+heard him many a time, in the days that are gone.
+
+But, Sleep.  I WILL think about Sleep.  I am determined to think
+(this is the way I went on) about Sleep.  I must hold the word
+Sleep, tight and fast, or I shall be off at a tangent in half a
+second.  I feel myself unaccountably straying, already, into Clare
+Market.  Sleep.  It would be curious, as illustrating the equality
+of sleep, to inquire how many of its phenomena are common to all
+classes, to all degrees of wealth and poverty, to every grade of
+education and ignorance.  Here, for example, is her Majesty Queen
+Victoria in her palace, this present blessed night, and here is
+Winking Charley, a sturdy vagrant, in one of her Majesty's jails.
+Her Majesty has fallen, many thousands of times, from that same
+Tower, which I claim a right to tumble off now and then.  So has
+Winking Charley.  Her Majesty in her sleep has opened or prorogued
+Parliament, or has held a Drawing Room, attired in some very scanty
+dress, the deficiencies and improprieties of which have caused her
+great uneasiness.  I, in my degree, have suffered unspeakable
+agitation of mind from taking the chair at a public dinner at the
+London Tavern in my night-clothes, which not all the courtesy of my
+kind friend and host MR. BATHE could persuade me were quite adapted
+to the occasion.  Winking Charley has been repeatedly tried in a
+worse condition.  Her Majesty is no stranger to a vault or
+firmament, of a sort of floorcloth, with an indistinct pattern
+distantly resembling eyes, which occasionally obtrudes itself on
+her repose.  Neither am I.  Neither is Winking Charley.  It is
+quite common to all three of us to skim along with airy strides a
+little above the ground; also to hold, with the deepest interest,
+dialogues with various people, all represented by ourselves; and to
+be at our wit's end to know what they are going to tell us; and to
+be indescribably astonished by the secrets they disclose.  It is
+probable that we have all three committed murders and hidden
+bodies.  It is pretty certain that we have all desperately wanted
+to cry out, and have had no voice; that we have all gone to the
+play and not been able to get in; that we have all dreamed much
+more of our youth than of our later lives; that - I have lost it!
+The thread's broken.
+
+And up I go.  I, lying here with the night-light before me, up I
+go, for no reason on earth that I can find out, and drawn by no
+links that are visible to me, up the Great Saint Bernard!  I have
+lived in Switzerland, and rambled among the mountains; but, why I
+should go there now, and why up the Great Saint Bernard in
+preference to any other mountain, I have no idea.  As I lie here
+broad awake, and with every sense so sharpened that I can
+distinctly hear distant noises inaudible to me at another time, I
+make that journey, as I really did, on the same summer day, with
+the same happy party - ah! two since dead, I grieve to think - and
+there is the same track, with the same black wooden arms to point
+the way, and there are the same storm-refuges here and there; and
+there is the same snow falling at the top, and there are the same
+frosty mists, and there is the same intensely cold convent with its
+menagerie smell, and the same breed of dogs fast dying out, and the
+same breed of jolly young monks whom I mourn to know as humbugs,
+and the same convent parlour with its piano and the sitting round
+the fire, and the same supper, and the same lone night in a cell,
+and the same bright fresh morning when going out into the highly
+rarefied air was like a plunge into an icy bath.  Now, see here
+what comes along; and why does this thing stalk into my mind on the
+top of a Swiss mountain!
+
+It is a figure that I once saw, just after dark, chalked upon a
+door in a little back lane near a country church - my first church.
+How young a child I may have been at the time I don't know, but it
+horrified me so intensely - in connexion with the churchyard, I
+suppose, for it smokes a pipe, and has a big hat with each of its
+ears sticking out in a horizontal line under the brim, and is not
+in itself more oppressive than a mouth from ear to ear, a pair of
+goggle eyes, and hands like two bunches of carrots, five in each,
+can make it - that it is still vaguely alarming to me to recall (as
+I have often done before, lying awake) the running home, the
+looking behind, the horror, of its following me; though whether
+disconnected from the door, or door and all, I can't say, and
+perhaps never could.  It lays a disagreeable train.  I must resolve
+to think of something on the voluntary principle.
+
+The balloon ascents of this last season.  They will do to think
+about, while I lie awake, as well as anything else.  I must hold
+them tight though, for I feel them sliding away, and in their stead
+are the Mannings, husband and wife, hanging on the top of Horse-
+monger Lane Jail.  In connexion with which dismal spectacle, I
+recall this curious fantasy of the mind.  That, having beheld that
+execution, and having left those two forms dangling on the top of
+the entrance gateway - the man's, a limp, loose suit of clothes as
+if the man had gone out of them; the woman's, a fine shape, so
+elaborately corseted and artfully dressed, that it was quite
+unchanged in its trim appearance as it slowly swung from side to
+side - I never could, by my uttermost efforts, for some weeks,
+present the outside of that prison to myself (which the terrible
+impression I had received continually obliged me to do) without
+presenting it with the two figures still hanging in the morning
+air.  Until, strolling past the gloomy place one night, when the
+street was deserted and quiet, and actually seeing that the bodies
+were not there, my fancy was persuaded, as it were, to take them
+down and bury them within the precincts of the jail, where they
+have lain ever since.
+
+The balloon ascents of last season.  Let me reckon them up.  There
+were the horse, the bull, the parachute, - and the tumbler hanging
+on - chiefly by his toes, I believe - below the car.  Very wrong,
+indeed, and decidedly to be stopped.  But, in connexion with these
+and similar dangerous exhibitions, it strikes me that that portion
+of the public whom they entertain, is unjustly reproached.  Their
+pleasure is in the difficulty overcome.  They are a public of great
+faith, and are quite confident that the gentleman will not fall off
+the horse, or the lady off the bull or out of the parachute, and
+that the tumbler has a firm hold with his toes.  They do not go to
+see the adventurer vanquished, but triumphant.  There is no
+parallel in public combats between men and beasts, because nobody
+can answer for the particular beast - unless it were always the
+same beast, in which case it would be a mere stage-show, which the
+same public would go in the same state of mind to see, entirely
+believing in the brute being beforehand safely subdued by the man.
+That they are not accustomed to calculate hazards and dangers with
+any nicety, we may know from their rash exposure of themselves in
+overcrowded steamboats, and unsafe conveyances and places of all
+kinds.  And I cannot help thinking that instead of railing, and
+attributing savage motives to a people naturally well disposed and
+humane, it is better to teach them, and lead them argumentatively
+and reasonably - for they are very reasonable, if you will discuss
+a matter with them - to more considerate and wise conclusions.
+
+This is a disagreeable intrusion!  Here is a man with his throat
+cut, dashing towards me as I lie awake!  A recollection of an old
+story of a kinsman of mine, who, going home one foggy winter night
+to Hampstead, when London was much smaller and the road lonesome,
+suddenly encountered such a figure rushing past him, and presently
+two keepers from a madhouse in pursuit.  A very unpleasant creature
+indeed, to come into my mind unbidden, as I lie awake.
+
+- The balloon ascents of last season.  I must return to the
+balloons.  Why did the bleeding man start out of them?  Never mind;
+if I inquire, he will be back again.  The balloons.  This
+particular public have inherently a great pleasure in the
+contemplation of physical difficulties overcome; mainly, as I take
+it, because the lives of a large majority of them are exceedingly
+monotonous and real, and further, are a struggle against continual
+difficulties, and further still, because anything in the form of
+accidental injury, or any kind of illness or disability is so very
+serious in their own sphere.  I will explain this seeming paradox
+of mine.  Take the case of a Christmas Pantomime.  Surely nobody
+supposes that the young mother in the pit who falls into fits of
+laughter when the baby is boiled or sat upon, would be at all
+diverted by such an occurrence off the stage.  Nor is the decent
+workman in the gallery, who is transported beyond the ignorant
+present by the delight with which he sees a stout gentleman pushed
+out of a two pair of stairs window, to be slandered by the
+suspicion that he would be in the least entertained by such a
+spectacle in any street in London, Paris, or New York.  It always
+appears to me that the secret of this enjoyment lies in the
+temporary superiority to the common hazards and mischances of life;
+in seeing casualties, attended when they really occur with bodily
+and mental suffering, tears, and poverty, happen through a very
+rough sort of poetry without the least harm being done to any one -
+the pretence of distress in a pantomime being so broadly humorous
+as to be no pretence at all.  Much as in the comic fiction I can
+understand the mother with a very vulnerable baby at home, greatly
+relishing the invulnerable baby on the stage, so in the Cremorne
+reality I can understand the mason who is always liable to fall off
+a scaffold in his working jacket and to be carried to the hospital,
+having an infinite admiration of the radiant personage in spangles
+who goes into the clouds upon a bull, or upside down, and who, he
+takes it for granted - not reflecting upon the thing - has, by
+uncommon skill and dexterity, conquered such mischances as those to
+which he and his acquaintance are continually exposed.
+
+I wish the Morgue in Paris would not come here as I lie awake, with
+its ghastly beds, and the swollen saturated clothes hanging up, and
+the water dripping, dripping all day long, upon that other swollen
+saturated something in the corner, like a heap of crushed over-ripe
+figs that I have seen in Italy!  And this detestable Morgue comes
+back again at the head of a procession of forgotten ghost stories.
+This will never do.  I must think of something else as I lie awake;
+or, like that sagacious animal in the United States who recognised
+the colonel who was such a dead shot, I am a gone 'Coon.  What
+shall I think of?  The late brutal assaults.  Very good subject.
+The late brutal assaults.
+
+(Though whether, supposing I should see, here before me as I lie
+awake, the awful phantom described in one of those ghost stories,
+who, with a head-dress of shroud, was always seen looking in
+through a certain glass door at a certain dead hour - whether, in
+such a case it would be the least consolation to me to know on
+philosophical grounds that it was merely my imagination, is a
+question I can't help asking myself by the way.)
+
+The late brutal assaults.  I strongly question the expediency of
+advocating the revival of whipping for those crimes.  It is a
+natural and generous impulse to be indignant at the perpetration of
+inconceivable brutality, but I doubt the whipping panacea gravely.
+Not in the least regard or pity for the criminal, whom I hold in
+far lower estimation than a mad wolf, but in consideration for the
+general tone and feeling, which is very much improved since the
+whipping times.  It is bad for a people to be familiarised with
+such punishments.  When the whip went out of Bridewell, and ceased
+to be flourished at the carts tail and at the whipping-post, it
+began to fade out of madhouses, and workhouses, and schools and
+families, and to give place to a better system everywhere, than
+cruel driving.  It would be hasty, because a few brutes may be
+inadequately punished, to revive, in any aspect, what, in so many
+aspects, society is hardly yet happily rid of.  The whip is a very
+contagious kind of thing, and difficult to confine within one set
+of bounds.  Utterly abolish punishment by fine - a barbarous
+device, quite as much out of date as wager by battle, but
+particularly connected in the vulgar mind with this class of
+offence - at least quadruple the term of imprisonment for
+aggravated assaults - and above all let us, in such cases, have no
+Pet Prisoning, vain glorifying, strong soup, and roasted meats, but
+hard work, and one unchanging and uncompromising dietary of bread
+and water, well or ill; and we shall do much better than by going
+down into the dark to grope for the whip among the rusty fragments
+of the rack, and the branding iron, and the chains and gibbet from
+the public roads, and the weights that pressed men to death in the
+cells of Newgate.
+
+I had proceeded thus far, when I found I had been lying awake so
+long that the very dead began to wake too, and to crowd into my
+thoughts most sorrowfully.  Therefore, I resolved to lie awake no
+more, but to get up and go out for a night walk - which resolution
+was an acceptable relief to me, as I dare say it may prove now to a
+great many more.
+
+
+
+THE GHOST OF ART
+
+
+
+I AM a bachelor, residing in rather a dreary set of chambers in the
+Temple.  They are situated in a square court of high houses, which
+would be a complete well, but for the want of water and the absence
+of a bucket.  I live at the top of the house, among the tiles and
+sparrows.  Like the little man in the nursery-story, I live by
+myself, and all the bread and cheese I get - which is not much - I
+put upon a shelf.  I need scarcely add, perhaps, that I am in love,
+and that the father of my charming Julia objects to our union.
+
+I mention these little particulars as I might deliver a letter of
+introduction.  The reader is now acquainted with me, and perhaps
+will condescend to listen to my narrative.
+
+I am naturally of a dreamy turn of mind; and my abundant leisure -
+for I am called to the Bar - coupled with much lonely listening to
+the twittering of sparrows, and the pattering of rain, has
+encouraged that disposition.  In my 'top set' I hear the wind howl
+on a winter night, when the man on the ground floor believes it is
+perfectly still weather.  The dim lamps with which our Honourable
+Society (supposed to be as yet unconscious of the new discovery
+called Gas) make the horrors of the staircase visible, deepen the
+gloom which generally settles on my soul when I go home at night.
+
+I am in the Law, but not of it.  I can't exactly make out what it
+means.  I sit in Westminster Hall sometimes (in character) from ten
+to four; and when I go out of Court, I don't know whether I am
+standing on my wig or my boots.
+
+It appears to me (I mention this in confidence) as if there were
+too much talk and too much law - as if some grains of truth were
+started overboard into a tempestuous sea of chaff.
+
+All this may make me mystical.  Still, I am confident that what I
+am going to describe myself as having seen and heard, I actually
+did see and hear.
+
+It is necessary that I should observe that I have a great delight
+in pictures.  I am no painter myself, but I have studied pictures
+and written about them.  I have seen all the most famous pictures
+in the world; my education and reading have been sufficiently
+general to possess me beforehand with a knowledge of most of the
+subjects to which a Painter is likely to have recourse; and,
+although I might be in some doubt as to the rightful fashion of the
+scabbard of King Lear's sword, for instance, I think I should know
+King Lear tolerably well, if I happened to meet with him.
+
+I go to all the Modern Exhibitions every season, and of course I
+revere the Royal Academy.  I stand by its forty Academical articles
+almost as firmly as I stand by the thirty-nine Articles of the
+Church of England.  I am convinced that in neither case could there
+be, by any rightful possibility, one article more or less.
+
+It is now exactly three years - three years ago, this very month -
+since I went from Westminster to the Temple, one Thursday
+afternoon, in a cheap steamboat.  The sky was black, when I
+imprudently walked on board.  It began to thunder and lighten
+immediately afterwards, and the rain poured down in torrents.  The
+deck seeming to smoke with the wet, I went below; but so many
+passengers were there, smoking too, that I came up again, and
+buttoning my pea-coat, and standing in the shadow of the paddle-
+box, stood as upright as I could, and made the best of it.
+
+It was at this moment that I first beheld the terrible Being, who
+is the subject of my present recollections.
+
+Standing against the funnel, apparently with the intention of
+drying himself by the heat as fast as he got wet, was a shabby man
+in threadbare black, and with his hands in his pockets, who
+fascinated me from the memorable instant when I caught his eye.
+
+Where had I caught that eye before?  Who was he?  Why did I connect
+him, all at once, with the Vicar of Wakefield, Alfred the Great,
+Gil Blas, Charles the Second, Joseph and his Brethren, the Fairy
+Queen, Tom Jones, the Decameron of Boccaccio, Tam O'Shanter, the
+Marriage of the Doge of Venice with the Adriatic, and the Great
+Plague of London?  Why, when he bent one leg, and placed one hand
+upon the back of the seat near him, did my mind associate him
+wildly with the words, 'Number one hundred and forty-two, Portrait
+of a gentleman'?  Could it be that I was going mad?
+
+I looked at him again, and now I could have taken my affidavit that
+he belonged to the Vicar of Wakefield's family.  Whether he was the
+Vicar, or Moses, or Mr. Burchill, or the Squire, or a
+conglomeration of all four, I knew not; but I was impelled to seize
+him by the throat, and charge him with being, in some fell way,
+connected with the Primrose blood.  He looked up at the rain, and
+then - oh Heaven! - he became Saint John.  He folded his arms,
+resigning himself to the weather, and I was frantically inclined to
+address him as the Spectator, and firmly demand to know what he had
+done with Sir Roger de Coverley.
+
+The frightful suspicion that I was becoming deranged, returned upon
+me with redoubled force.  Meantime, this awful stranger,
+inexplicably linked to my distress, stood drying himself at the
+funnel; and ever, as the steam rose from his clothes, diffusing a
+mist around him, I saw through the ghostly medium all the people I
+have mentioned, and a score more, sacred and profane.
+
+I am conscious of a dreadful inclination that stole upon me, as it
+thundered and lightened, to grapple with this man, or demon, and
+plunge him over the side.  But, I constrained myself - I know not
+how - to speak to him, and in a pause of the storm, I crossed the
+deck, and said:
+
+'What are you?'
+
+He replied, hoarsely, 'A Model.'
+
+'A what?' said I.
+
+'A Model,' he replied.  'I sets to the profession for a bob a-
+hour.'  (All through this narrative I give his own words, which are
+indelibly imprinted on my memory.)
+
+The relief which this disclosure gave me, the exquisite delight of
+the restoration of my confidence in my own sanity, I cannot
+describe.  I should have fallen on his neck, but for the
+consciousness of being observed by the man at the wheel.
+
+'You then,' said I, shaking him so warmly by the hand, that I wrung
+the rain out of his coat-cuff, 'are the gentleman whom I have so
+frequently contemplated, in connection with a high-backed chair
+with a red cushion, and a table with twisted legs.'
+
+'I am that Model,' he rejoined moodily, 'and I wish I was anything
+else.'
+
+'Say not so,' I returned.  'I have seen you in the society of many
+beautiful young women;' as in truth I had, and always (I now
+remember) in the act of making the most of his legs.
+
+'No doubt,' said he.  'And you've seen me along with warses of
+flowers, and any number of table-kivers, and antique cabinets, and
+warious gammon.'
+
+'Sir?' said I.
+
+'And warious gammon,' he repeated, in a louder voice.  'You might
+have seen me in armour, too, if you had looked sharp.  Blessed if I
+ha'n't stood in half the suits of armour as ever came out of
+Pratt's shop: and sat, for weeks together, a-eating nothing, out of
+half the gold and silver dishes as has ever been lent for the
+purpose out of Storrses, and Mortimerses, or Garrardses, and
+Davenportseseses.'
+
+Excited, as it appeared, by a sense of injury, I thought he would
+never have found an end for the last word.  But, at length it
+rolled sullenly away with the thunder.
+
+'Pardon me,' said I, 'you are a well-favoured, well-made man, and
+yet - forgive me - I find, on examining my mind, that I associate
+you with - that my recollection indistinctly makes you, in short -
+excuse me - a kind of powerful monster.'
+
+'It would be a wonder if it didn't,' he said.  'Do you know what my
+points are?'
+
+'No,' said I.
+
+'My throat and my legs,' said he.  'When I don't set for a head, I
+mostly sets for a throat and a pair of legs.  Now, granted you was
+a painter, and was to work at my throat for a week together, I
+suppose you'd see a lot of lumps and bumps there, that would never
+be there at all, if you looked at me, complete, instead of only my
+throat.  Wouldn't you?'
+
+'Probably,' said I, surveying him.
+
+'Why, it stands to reason,' said the Model.  'Work another week at
+my legs, and it'll be the same thing.  You'll make 'em out as
+knotty and as knobby, at last, as if they was the trunks of two old
+trees.  Then, take and stick my legs and throat on to another man's
+body, and you'll make a reg'lar monster.  And that's the way the
+public gets their reg'lar monsters, every first Monday in May, when
+the Royal Academy Exhibition opens.'
+
+'You are a critic,' said I, with an air of deference.
+
+'I'm in an uncommon ill humour, if that's it,' rejoined the Model,
+with great indignation.  'As if it warn't bad enough for a bob a-
+hour, for a man to be mixing himself up with that there jolly old
+furniter that one 'ud think the public know'd the wery nails in by
+this time - or to be putting on greasy old 'ats and cloaks, and
+playing tambourines in the Bay o' Naples, with Wesuvius a smokin'
+according to pattern in the background, and the wines a bearing
+wonderful in the middle distance - or to be unpolitely kicking up
+his legs among a lot o' gals, with no reason whatever in his mind
+but to show 'em - as if this warn't bad enough, I'm to go and be
+thrown out of employment too!'
+
+'Surely no!' said I.
+
+'Surely yes,' said the indignant Model.  'BUT I'LL GROW ONE.'
+
+The gloomy and threatening manner in which he muttered the last
+words, can never be effaced from my remembrance.  My blood ran
+cold.
+
+I asked of myself, what was it that this desperate Being was
+resolved to grow.  My breast made no response.
+
+I ventured to implore him to explain his meaning.  With a scornful
+laugh, he uttered this dark prophecy:
+
+'I'LL GROW ONE.  AND, MARK MY WORDS, IT SHALL HAUNT YOU!'
+
+We parted in the storm, after I had forced half-a-crown on his
+acceptance, with a trembling hand.  I conclude that something
+supernatural happened to the steamboat, as it bore his reeking
+figure down the river; but it never got into the papers.
+
+Two years elapsed, during which I followed my profession without
+any vicissitudes; never holding so much as a motion, of course.  At
+the expiration of that period, I found myself making my way home to
+the Temple, one night, in precisely such another storm of thunder
+and lightning as that by which I had been overtaken on board the
+steamboat - except that this storm, bursting over the town at
+midnight, was rendered much more awful by the darkness and the
+hour.
+
+As I turned into my court, I really thought a thunderbolt would
+fall, and plough the pavement up.  Every brick and stone in the
+place seemed to have an echo of its own for the thunder.  The
+waterspouts were overcharged, and the rain came tearing down from
+the house-tops as if they had been mountain-tops.
+
+Mrs. Parkins, my laundress - wife of Parkins the porter, then newly
+dead of a dropsy - had particular instructions to place a bedroom
+candle and a match under the staircase lamp on my landing, in order
+that I might light my candle there, whenever I came home.  Mrs.
+Parkins invariably disregarding all instructions, they were never
+there.  Thus it happened that on this occasion I groped my way into
+my sitting-room to find the candle, and came out to light it.
+
+What were my emotions when, underneath the staircase lamp, shining
+with wet as if he had never been dry since our last meeting, stood
+the mysterious Being whom I had encountered on the steamboat in a
+thunderstorm, two years before!  His prediction rushed upon my
+mind, and I turned faint.
+
+'I said I'd do it,' he observed, in a hollow voice, 'and I have
+done it.  May I come in?'
+
+'Misguided creature, what have you done?' I returned.
+
+'I'll let you know,' was his reply, 'if you'll let me in.'
+
+Could it be murder that he had done?  And had he been so successful
+that he wanted to do it again, at my expense?
+
+I hesitated.
+
+'May I come in?' said he.
+
+I inclined my head, with as much presence of mind as I could
+command, and he followed me into my chambers.  There, I saw that
+the lower part of his face was tied up, in what is commonly called
+a Belcher handkerchief.  He slowly removed this bandage, and
+exposed to view a long dark beard, curling over his upper lip,
+twisting about the corners of his mouth, and hanging down upon his
+breast.
+
+'What is this?' I exclaimed involuntarily, 'and what have you
+become?'
+
+'I am the Ghost of Art!' said he.
+
+The effect of these words, slowly uttered in the thunder-storm at
+midnight, was appalling in the last degree.  More dead than alive,
+I surveyed him in silence.
+
+'The German taste came up,' said he, 'and threw me out of bread.  I
+am ready for the taste now.'
+
+He made his beard a little jagged with his hands, folded his arms,
+and said,
+
+'Severity!'
+
+I shuddered.  It was so severe.
+
+He made his beard flowing on his breast, and, leaning both hands on
+the staff of a carpet-broom which Mrs. Parkins had left among my
+books, said:
+
+'Benevolence.'
+
+I stood transfixed.  The change of sentiment was entirely in the
+beard.  The man might have left his face alone, or had no face.
+
+The beard did everything.
+
+He lay down, on his back, on my table, and with that action of his
+head threw up his beard at the chin.
+
+'That's death!' said he.
+
+He got off my table and, looking up at the ceiling, cocked his
+beard a little awry; at the same time making it stick out before
+him.
+
+'Adoration, or a vow of vengeance,' he observed.
+
+He turned his profile to me, making his upper lip very bulky with
+the upper part of his beard.
+
+'Romantic character,' said he.
+
+He looked sideways out of his beard, as if it were an ivy-bush.
+'Jealousy,' said he.  He gave it an ingenious twist in the air, and
+informed me that he was carousing.  He made it shaggy with his
+fingers - and it was Despair; lank - and it was avarice: tossed it
+all kinds of ways - and it was rage.  The beard did everything.
+
+'I am the Ghost of Art,' said he.  'Two bob a-day now, and more
+when it's longer!  Hair's the true expression.  There is no other.
+I SAID I'D GROW IT, AND I'VE GROWN IT, AND IT SHALL HAUNT YOU!'
+
+He may have tumbled down-stairs in the dark, but he never walked
+down or ran down.  I looked over the banisters, and I was alone
+with the thunder.
+
+Need I add more of my terrific fate?  IT HAS haunted me ever since.
+It glares upon me from the walls of the Royal Academy, (except when
+MACLISE subdues it to his genius,) it fills my soul with terror at
+the British Institution, it lures young artists on to their
+destruction.  Go where I will, the Ghost of Art, eternally working
+the passions in hair, and expressing everything by beard, pursues
+me.  The prediction is accomplished, and the victim has no rest.
+
+
+
+OUT OF TOWN
+
+
+
+SITTING, on a bright September morning, among my books and papers
+at my open window on the cliff overhanging the sea-beach, I have
+the sky and ocean framed before me like a beautiful picture.  A
+beautiful picture, but with such movement in it, such changes of
+light upon the sails of ships and wake of steamboats, such dazzling
+gleams of silver far out at sea, such fresh touches on the crisp
+wave-tops as they break and roll towards me - a picture with such
+music in the billowy rush upon the shingle, the blowing of morning
+wind through the corn-sheaves where the farmers' waggons are busy,
+the singing of the larks, and the distant voices of children at
+play - such charms of sight and sound as all the Galleries on earth
+can but poorly suggest.
+
+So dreamy is the murmur of the sea below my window, that I may have
+been here, for anything I know, one hundred years.  Not that I have
+grown old, for, daily on the neighbouring downs and grassy hill-
+sides, I find that I can still in reason walk any distance, jump
+over anything, and climb up anywhere; but, that the sound of the
+ocean seems to have become so customary to my musings, and other
+realities seem so to have gone aboard ship and floated away over
+the horizon, that, for aught I will undertake to the contrary, I am
+the enchanted son of the King my father, shut up in a tower on the
+sea-shore, for protection against an old she-goblin who insisted on
+being my godmother, and who foresaw at the font - wonderful
+creature! - that I should get into a scrape before I was twenty-
+one.  I remember to have been in a City (my Royal parent's
+dominions, I suppose), and apparently not long ago either, that was
+in the dreariest condition.  The principal inhabitants had all been
+changed into old newspapers, and in that form were preserving their
+window-blinds from dust, and wrapping all their smaller household
+gods in curl-papers.  I walked through gloomy streets where every
+house was shut up and newspapered, and where my solitary footsteps
+echoed on the deserted pavements.  In the public rides there were
+no carriages, no horses, no animated existence, but a few sleepy
+policemen, and a few adventurous boys taking advantage of the
+devastation to swarm up the lamp-posts.  In the Westward streets
+there was no traffic; in the Westward shops, no business.  The
+water-patterns which the 'Prentices had trickled out on the
+pavements early in the morning, remained uneffaced by human feet.
+At the corners of mews, Cochin-China fowls stalked gaunt and
+savage; nobody being left in the deserted city (as it appeared to
+me), to feed them.  Public Houses, where splendid footmen swinging
+their legs over gorgeous hammer-cloths beside wigged coachmen were
+wont to regale, were silent, and the unused pewter pots shone, too
+bright for business, on the shelves.  I beheld a Punch's Show
+leaning against a wall near Park Lane, as if it had fainted.  It
+was deserted, and there were none to heed its desolation.  In
+Belgrave Square I met the last man - an ostler - sitting on a post
+in a ragged red waistcoat, eating straw, and mildewing away.
+
+If I recollect the name of the little town, on whose shore this sea
+is murmuring - but I am not just now, as I have premised, to be
+relied upon for anything - it is Pavilionstone.  Within a quarter
+of a century, it was a little fishing town, and they do say, that
+the time was, when it was a little smuggling town.  I have heard
+that it was rather famous in the hollands and brandy way, and that
+coevally with that reputation the lamplighter's was considered a
+bad life at the Assurance Offices.  It was observed that if he were
+not particular about lighting up, he lived in peace; but that, if
+he made the best of the oil-lamps in the steep and narrow streets,
+he usually fell over the cliff at an early age.  Now, gas and
+electricity run to the very water's edge, and the South-Eastern
+Railway Company screech at us in the dead of night.
+
+But, the old little fishing and smuggling town remains, and is so
+tempting a place for the latter purpose, that I think of going out
+some night next week, in a fur cap and a pair of petticoat
+trousers, and running an empty tub, as a kind of archaeological
+pursuit.  Let nobody with corns come to Pavilionstone, for there
+are breakneck flights of ragged steps, connecting the principal
+streets by back-ways, which will cripple that visitor in half an
+hour.  These are the ways by which, when I run that tub, I shall
+escape.  I shall make a Thermopylae of the corner of one of them,
+defend it with my cutlass against the coast-guard until my brave
+companions have sheered off, then dive into the darkness, and
+regain my Susan's arms.  In connection with these breakneck steps I
+observe some wooden cottages, with tumble-down out-houses, and
+back-yards three feet square, adorned with garlands of dried fish,
+in one of which (though the General Board of Health might object)
+my Susan dwells.
+
+The South-Eastern Company have brought Pavilionstone into such
+vogue, with their tidal trains and splendid steam-packets, that a
+new Pavilionstone is rising up.  I am, myself, of New
+Pavilionstone.  We are a little mortary and limey at present, but
+we are getting on capitally.  Indeed, we were getting on so fast,
+at one time, that we rather overdid it, and built a street of
+shops, the business of which may be expected to arrive in about ten
+years.  We are sensibly laid out in general; and with a little care
+and pains (by no means wanting, so far), shall become a very pretty
+place.  We ought to be, for our situation is delightful, our air is
+delicious, and our breezy hills and downs, carpeted with wild
+thyme, and decorated with millions of wild flowers, are, on the
+faith of a pedestrian, perfect.  In New Pavilionstone we are a
+little too much addicted to small windows with more bricks in them
+than glass, and we are not over-fanciful in the way of decorative
+architecture, and we get unexpected sea-views through cracks in the
+street doors; on the whole, however, we are very snug and
+comfortable, and well accommodated.  But the Home Secretary (if
+there be such an officer) cannot too soon shut up the burial-ground
+of the old parish church.  It is in the midst of us, and
+Pavilionstone will get no good of it, if it be too long left alone.
+
+The lion of Pavilionstone is its Great Hotel.  A dozen years ago,
+going over to Paris by South-Eastern Tidal Steamer, you used to be
+dropped upon the platform of the main line Pavilionstone Station
+(not a junction then), at eleven o'clock on a dark winter's night,
+in a roaring wind; and in the howling wilderness outside the
+station, was a short omnibus which brought you up by the forehead
+the instant you got in at the door; and nobody cared about you, and
+you were alone in the world.  You bumped over infinite chalk, until
+you were turned out at a strange building which had just left off
+being a barn without having quite begun to be a house, where nobody
+expected your coming, or knew what to do with you when you were
+come, and where you were usually blown about, until you happened to
+be blown against the cold beef, and finally into bed.  At five in
+the morning you were blown out of bed, and after a dreary
+breakfast, with crumpled company, in the midst of confusion, were
+hustled on board a steamboat and lay wretched on deck until you saw
+France lunging and surging at you with great vehemence over the
+bowsprit.
+
+Now, you come down to Pavilionstone in a free and easy manner, an
+irresponsible agent, made over in trust to the South-Eastern
+Company, until you get out of the railway-carriage at high-water
+mark.  If you are crossing by the boat at once, you have nothing to
+do but walk on board and be happy there if you can - I can't.  If
+you are going to our Great Pavilionstone Hotel, the sprightliest
+porters under the sun, whose cheerful looks are a pleasant welcome,
+shoulder your luggage, drive it off in vans, bowl it away in
+trucks, and enjoy themselves in playing athletic games with it.  If
+you are for public life at our great Pavilionstone Hotel, you walk
+into that establishment as if it were your club; and find ready for
+you, your news-room, dining-room, smoking-room, billiard-room,
+music-room, public breakfast, public dinner twice a-day (one plain,
+one gorgeous), hot baths and cold baths.  If you want to be bored,
+there are plenty of bores always ready for you, and from Saturday
+to Monday in particular, you can be bored (if you like it) through
+and through.  Should you want to be private at our Great
+Pavilionstone Hotel, say but the word, look at the list of charges,
+choose your floor, name your figure - there you are, established in
+your castle, by the day, week, month, or year, innocent of all
+comers or goers, unless you have my fancy for walking early in the
+morning down the groves of boots and shoes, which so regularly
+flourish at all the chamber-doors before breakfast, that it seems
+to me as if nobody ever got up or took them in.  Are you going
+across the Alps, and would you like to air your Italian at our
+Great Pavilionstone Hotel?  Talk to the Manager - always
+conversational, accomplished, and polite.  Do you want to be aided,
+abetted, comforted, or advised, at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel?
+Send for the good landlord, and he is your friend.  Should you, or
+any one belonging to you, ever be taken ill at our Great
+Pavilionstone Hotel, you will not soon forget him or his kind wife.
+And when you pay your bill at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel, you
+will not be put out of humour by anything you find in it.
+
+A thoroughly good inn, in the days of coaching and posting, was a
+noble place.  But no such inn would have been equal to the
+reception of four or five hundred people, all of them wet through,
+and half of them dead sick, every day in the year.  This is where
+we shine, in our Pavilionstone Hotel.  Again - who, coming and
+going, pitching and tossing, boating and training, hurrying in, and
+flying out, could ever have calculated the fees to be paid at an
+old-fashioned house?  In our Pavilionstone Hotel vocabulary, there
+is no such word as fee.  Everything is done for you; every service
+is provided at a fixed and reasonable charge; all the prices are
+hung up in all the rooms; and you can make out your own bill
+beforehand, as well as the book-keeper.
+
+In the case of your being a pictorial artist, desirous of studying
+at small expense the physiognomies and beards of different nations,
+come, on receipt of this, to Pavilionstone.  You shall find all the
+nations of the earth, and all the styles of shaving and not
+shaving, hair cutting and hair letting alone, for ever flowing
+through our hotel.  Couriers you shall see by hundreds; fat
+leathern bags for five-franc pieces, closing with violent snaps,
+like discharges of fire-arms, by thousands; more luggage in a
+morning than, fifty years ago, all Europe saw in a week.  Looking
+at trains, steamboats, sick travellers, and luggage, is our great
+Pavilionstone recreation.  We are not strong in other public
+amusements.  We have a Literary and Scientific Institution, and we
+have a Working Men's Institution - may it hold many gipsy holidays
+in summer fields, with the kettle boiling, the band of music
+playing, and the people dancing; and may I be on the hill-side,
+looking on with pleasure at a wholesome sight too rare in England!
+- and we have two or three churches, and more chapels than I have
+yet added up.  But public amusements are scarce with us.  If a poor
+theatrical manager comes with his company to give us, in a loft,
+Mary Bax, or the Murder on the Sand Hills, we don't care much for
+him - starve him out, in fact.  We take more kindly to wax-work,
+especially if it moves; in which case it keeps much clearer of the
+second commandment than when it is still.  Cooke's Circus (Mr.
+Cooke is my friend, and always leaves a good name behind him) gives
+us only a night in passing through.  Nor does the travelling
+menagerie think us worth a longer visit.  It gave us a look-in the
+other day, bringing with it the residentiary van with the stained
+glass windows, which Her Majesty kept ready-made at Windsor Castle,
+until she found a suitable opportunity of submitting it for the
+proprietor's acceptance.  I brought away five wonderments from this
+exhibition.  I have wondered ever since, Whether the beasts ever do
+get used to those small places of confinement; Whether the monkeys
+have that very horrible flavour in their free state; Whether wild
+animals have a natural ear for time and tune, and therefore every
+four-footed creature began to howl in despair when the band began
+to play; What the giraffe does with his neck when his cart is shut
+up; and, Whether the elephant feels ashamed of himself when he is
+brought out of his den to stand on his head in the presence of the
+whole Collection.
+
+We are a tidal harbour at Pavilionstone, as indeed I have implied
+already in my mention of tidal trains.  At low water, we are a heap
+of mud, with an empty channel in it where a couple of men in big
+boots always shovel and scoop: with what exact object, I am unable
+to say.  At that time, all the stranded fishing-boats turn over on
+their sides, as if they were dead marine monsters; the colliers and
+other shipping stick disconsolate in the mud; the steamers look as
+if their white chimneys would never smoke more, and their red
+paddles never turn again; the green sea-slime and weed upon the
+rough stones at the entrance, seem records of obsolete high tides
+never more to flow; the flagstaff-halyards droop; the very little
+wooden lighthouse shrinks in the idle glare of the sun.  And here I
+may observe of the very little wooden lighthouse, that when it is
+lighted at night, - red and green, - it looks so like a medical
+man's, that several distracted husbands have at various times been
+found, on occasions of premature domestic anxiety, going round and
+round it, trying to find the Nightbell.
+
+But, the moment the tide begins to make, the Pavilionstone Harbour
+begins to revive.  It feels the breeze of the rising water before
+the water comes, and begins to flutter and stir.  When the little
+shallow waves creep in, barely overlapping one another, the vanes
+at the mastheads wake, and become agitated.  As the tide rises, the
+fishing-boats get into good spirits and dance, the flagstaff hoists
+a bright red flag, the steamboat smokes, cranes creak, horses and
+carriages dangle in the air, stray passengers and luggage appear.
+Now, the shipping is afloat, and comes up buoyantly, to look at the
+wharf.  Now, the carts that have come down for coals, load away as
+hard as they can load.  Now, the steamer smokes immensely, and
+occasionally blows at the paddle-boxes like a vaporous whale-
+greatly disturbing nervous loungers.  Now, both the tide and the
+breeze have risen, and you are holding your hat on (if you want to
+see how the ladies hold THEIR hats on, with a stay, passing over
+the broad brim and down the nose, come to Pavilionstone).  Now,
+everything in the harbour splashes, dashes, and bobs.  Now, the
+Down Tidal Train is telegraphed, and you know (without knowing how
+you know), that two hundred and eighty-seven people are coming.
+Now, the fishing-boats that have been out, sail in at the top of
+the tide.  Now, the bell goes, and the locomotive hisses and
+shrieks, and the train comes gliding in, and the two hundred and
+eighty-seven come scuffling out.  Now, there is not only a tide of
+water, but a tide of people, and a tide of luggage - all tumbling
+and flowing and bouncing about together.  Now, after infinite
+bustle, the steamer steams out, and we (on the Pier) are all
+delighted when she rolls as if she would roll her funnel out, and
+all are disappointed when she don't.  Now, the other steamer is
+coming in, and the Custom House prepares, and the wharf-labourers
+assemble, and the hawsers are made ready, and the Hotel Porters
+come rattling down with van and truck, eager to begin more Olympic
+games with more luggage.  And this is the way in which we go on,
+down at Pavilionstone, every tide.  And, if you want to live a life
+of luggage, or to see it lived, or to breathe sweet air which will
+send you to sleep at a moment's notice at any period of the day or
+night, or to disport yourself upon or in the sea, or to scamper
+about Kent, or to come out of town for the enjoyment of all or any
+of these pleasures, come to Pavilionstone.
+
+
+
+OUT OF THE  SEASON
+
+
+
+IT fell to my lot, this last bleak Spring, to find myself in a
+watering-place out of the Season.  A vicious north-east squall blew
+me into it from foreign parts, and I tarried in it alone for three
+days, resolved to be exceedingly busy.
+
+On the first day, I began business by looking for two hours at the
+sea, and staring the Foreign Militia out of countenance.  Having
+disposed of these important engagements, I sat down at one of the
+two windows of my room, intent on doing something desperate in the
+way of literary composition, and writing a chapter of unheard-of
+excellence - with which the present essay has no connexion.
+
+It is a remarkable quality in a watering-place out of the season,
+that everything in it, will and must be looked at.  I had no
+previous suspicion of this fatal truth but, the moment I sat down
+to write, I began to perceive it.  I had scarcely fallen into my
+most promising attitude, and dipped my pen in the ink, when I found
+the clock upon the pier - a red-faced clock with a white rim -
+importuning me in a highly vexatious manner to consult my watch,
+and see how I was off for Greenwich time.  Having no intention of
+making a voyage or taking an observation, I had not the least need
+of Greenwich time, and could have put up with watering-place time
+as a sufficiently accurate article.  The pier-clock, however,
+persisting, I felt it necessary to lay down my pen, compare my
+watch with him, and fall into a grave solicitude about half-
+seconds.  I had taken up my pen again, and was about to commence
+that valuable chapter, when a Custom-house cutter under the window
+requested that I would hold a naval review of her, immediately.
+
+It was impossible, under the circumstances, for any mental
+resolution, merely human, to dismiss the Custom-house cutter,
+because the shadow of her topmast fell upon my paper, and the vane
+played on the masterly blank chapter.  I was therefore under the
+necessity of going to the other window; sitting astride of the
+chair there, like Napoleon bivouacking in the print; and inspecting
+the cutter as she lay, all that day, in the way of my chapter, O!
+She was rigged to carry a quantity of canvas, but her hull was so
+very small that four giants aboard of her (three men and a boy) who
+were vigilantly scraping at her, all together, inspired me with a
+terror lest they should scrape her away.  A fifth giant, who
+appeared to consider himself 'below' - as indeed he was, from the
+waist downwards - meditated, in such close proximity with the
+little gusty chimney-pipe, that he seemed to be smoking it.
+Several boys looked on from the wharf, and, when the gigantic
+attention appeared to be fully occupied, one or other of these
+would furtively swing himself in mid-air over the Custom-house
+cutter, by means of a line pendant from her rigging, like a young
+spirit of the storm.  Presently, a sixth hand brought down two
+little water-casks; presently afterwards, a truck came, and
+delivered a hamper.  I was now under an obligation to consider that
+the cutter was going on a cruise, and to wonder where she was
+going, and when she was going, and why she was going, and at what
+date she might be expected back, and who commanded her?  With these
+pressing questions I was fully occupied when the Packet, making
+ready to go across, and blowing off her spare steam, roared, 'Look
+at me!'
+
+It became a positive duty to look at the Packet preparing to go
+across; aboard of which, the people newly come down by the rail-
+road were hurrying in a great fluster.  The crew had got their
+tarry overalls on - and one knew what THAT meant - not to mention
+the white basins, ranged in neat little piles of a dozen each,
+behind the door of the after-cabin.  One lady as I looked, one
+resigning and far-seeing woman, took her basin from the store of
+crockery, as she might have taken a refreshment-ticket, laid
+herself down on deck with that utensil at her ear, muffled her feet
+in one shawl, solemnly covered her countenance after the antique
+manner with another, and on the completion of these preparations
+appeared by the strength of her volition to become insensible.  The
+mail-bags (O that I myself had the sea-legs of a mail-bag!) were
+tumbled aboard; the Packet left off roaring, warped out, and made
+at the white line upon the bar.  One dip, one roll, one break of
+the sea over her bows, and Moore's Almanack or the sage Raphael
+could not have told me more of the state of things aboard, than I
+knew.
+
+The famous chapter was all but begun now, and would have been quite
+begun, but for the wind.  It was blowing stiffly from the east, and
+it rumbled in the chimney and shook the house.  That was not much;
+but, looking out into the wind's grey eye for inspiration, I laid
+down my pen again to make the remark to myself, how emphatically
+everything by the sea declares that it has a great concern in the
+state of the wind.  The trees blown all one way; the defences of
+the harbour reared highest and strongest against the raging point;
+the shingle flung up on the beach from the same direction; the
+number of arrows pointed at the common enemy; the sea tumbling in
+and rushing towards them as if it were inflamed by the sight.  This
+put it in my head that I really ought to go out and take a walk in
+the wind; so, I gave up the magnificent chapter for that day,
+entirely persuading myself that I was under a moral obligation to
+have a blow.
+
+I had a good one, and that on the high road - the very high road -
+on the top of the cliffs, where I met the stage-coach with all the
+outsides holding their hats on and themselves too, and overtook a
+flock of sheep with the wool about their necks blown into such
+great ruffs that they looked like fleecy owls.  The wind played
+upon the lighthouse as if it were a great whistle, the spray was
+driven over the sea in a cloud of haze, the ships rolled and
+pitched heavily, and at intervals long slants and flaws of light
+made mountain-steeps of communication between the ocean and the
+sky.  A walk of ten miles brought me to a seaside town without a
+cliff, which, like the town I had come from, was out of the season
+too.  Half of the houses were shut up; half of the other half were
+to let; the town might have done as much business as it was doing
+then, if it had been at the bottom of the sea.  Nobody seemed to
+flourish save the attorney; his clerk's pen was going in the bow-
+window of his wooden house; his brass door-plate alone was free
+from salt, and had been polished up that morning.  On the beach,
+among the rough buggers and capstans, groups of storm-beaten
+boatmen, like a sort of marine monsters, watched under the lee of
+those objects, or stood leaning forward against the wind, looking
+out through battered spy-glasses.  The parlour bell in the Admiral
+Benbow had grown so flat with being out of the season, that neither
+could I hear it ring when I pulled the handle for lunch, nor could
+the young woman in black stockings and strong shoes, who acted as
+waiter out of the season, until it had been tinkled three times.
+
+Admiral Benbow's cheese was out of the season, but his home-made
+bread was good, and his beer was perfect.  Deluded by some earlier
+spring day which had been warm and sunny, the Admiral had cleared
+the firing out of his parlour stove, and had put some flower-pots
+in - which was amiable and hopeful in the Admiral, but not
+judicious: the room being, at that present visiting, transcendantly
+cold.  I therefore took the liberty of peeping out across a little
+stone passage into the Admiral's kitchen, and, seeing a high settle
+with its back towards me drawn out in front of the Admiral's
+kitchen fire, I strolled in, bread and cheese in hand, munching and
+looking about.  One landsman and two boatmen were seated on the
+settle, smoking pipes and drinking beer out of thick pint crockery
+mugs - mugs peculiar to such places, with parti-coloured rings
+round them, and ornaments between the rings like frayed-out roots.
+The landsman was relating his experience, as yet only three nights
+old, of a fearful running-down case in the Channel, and therein
+presented to my imagination a sound of music that it will not soon
+forget.
+
+'At that identical moment of time,' said he (he was a prosy man by
+nature, who rose with his subject), 'the night being light and
+calm, but with a grey mist upon the water that didn't seem to
+spread for more than two or three mile, I was walking up and down
+the wooden causeway next the pier, off where it happened, along
+with a friend of mine, which his name is Mr. Clocker.  Mr. Clocker
+is a grocer over yonder.'  (From the direction in which he pointed
+the bowl of his pipe, I might have judged Mr. Clocker to be a
+merman, established in the grocery trade in five-and-twenty fathoms
+of water.)  'We were smoking our pipes, and walking up and down the
+causeway, talking of one thing and talking of another.  We were
+quite alone there, except that a few hovellers' (the Kentish name
+for 'long-shore boatmen like his companions) 'were hanging about
+their lugs, waiting while the tide made, as hovellers will.'  (One
+of the two boatmen, thoughtfully regarding me, shut up one eye;
+this I understood to mean: first, that he took me into the
+conversation: secondly, that he confirmed the proposition: thirdly,
+that he announced himself as a hoveller.)  'All of a sudden Mr.
+Clocker and me stood rooted to the spot, by hearing a sound come
+through the stillness, right over the sea, LIKE A GREAT SORROWFUL
+FLUTE OR AEOLIAN HARP.  We didn't in the least know what it was,
+and judge of our surprise when we saw the hovellers, to a man, leap
+into the boats and tear about to hoist sail and get off, as if they
+had every one of 'em gone, in a moment, raving mad!  But THEY knew
+it was the cry of distress from the sinking emigrant ship.'
+
+When I got back to my watering-place out of the season, and had
+done my twenty miles in good style, I found that the celebrated
+Black Mesmerist intended favouring the public that evening in the
+Hall of the Muses, which he had engaged for the purpose.  After a
+good dinner, seated by the fire in an easy chair, I began to waver
+in a design I had formed of waiting on the Black Mesmerist, and to
+incline towards the expediency of remaining where I was.  Indeed a
+point of gallantry was involved in my doing so, inasmuch as I had
+not left France alone, but had come from the prisons of St. Pelagie
+with my distinguished and unfortunate friend Madame Roland (in two
+volumes which I bought for two francs each, at the book-stall in
+the Place de la Concorde, Paris, at the corner of the Rue Royale).
+Deciding to pass the evening tete-a-tete with Madame Roland, I
+derived, as I always do, great pleasure from that spiritual woman's
+society, and the charms of her brave soul and engaging
+conversation.  I must confess that if she had only some more
+faults, only a few more passionate failings of any kind, I might
+love her better; but I am content to believe that the deficiency is
+in me, and not in her.  We spent some sadly interesting hours
+together on this occasion, and she told me again of her cruel
+discharge from the Abbaye, and of her being re-arrested before her
+free feet had sprung lightly up half-a-dozen steps of her own
+staircase, and carried off to the prison which she only left for
+the guillotine.
+
+Madame Roland and I took leave of one another before mid-night, and
+I went to bed full of vast intentions for next day, in connexion
+with the unparalleled chapter.  To hear the foreign mail-steamers
+coming in at dawn of day, and to know that I was not aboard or
+obliged to get up, was very comfortable; so, I rose for the chapter
+in great force.
+
+I had advanced so far as to sit down at my window again on my
+second morning, and to write the first half-line of the chapter and
+strike it out, not liking it, when my conscience reproached me with
+not having surveyed the watering-place out of the season, after
+all, yesterday, but with having gone straight out of it at the rate
+of four miles and a half an hour.  Obviously the best amends that I
+could make for this remissness was to go and look at it without
+another moment's delay.  So - altogether as a matter of duty - I
+gave up the magnificent chapter for another day, and sauntered out
+with my hands in my pockets.
+
+All the houses and lodgings ever let to visitors, were to let that
+morning.  It seemed to have snowed bills with To Let upon them.
+This put me upon thinking what the owners of all those apartments
+did, out of the season; how they employed their time, and occupied
+their minds.  They could not be always going to the Methodist
+chapels, of which I passed one every other minute.  They must have
+some other recreation.  Whether they pretended to take one
+another's lodgings, and opened one another's tea-caddies in fun?
+Whether they cut slices off their own beef and mutton, and made
+believe that it belonged to somebody else?  Whether they played
+little dramas of life, as children do, and said, 'I ought to come
+and look at your apartments, and you ought to ask two guineas a-
+week too much, and then I ought to say I must have the rest of the
+day to think of it, and then you ought to say that another lady and
+gentleman with no children in family had made an offer very close
+to your own terms, and you had passed your word to give them a
+positive answer in half an hour, and indeed were just going to take
+the bill down when you heard the knock, and then I ought to take
+them, you know?'  Twenty such speculations engaged my thoughts.
+Then, after passing, still clinging to the walls, defaced rags of
+the bills of last year's Circus, I came to a back field near a
+timber-yard where the Circus itself had been, and where there was
+yet a sort of monkish tonsure on the grass, indicating the spot
+where the young lady had gone round upon her pet steed Firefly in
+her daring flight.  Turning into the town again, I came among the
+shops, and they were emphatically out of the season.  The chemist
+had no boxes of ginger-beer powders, no beautifying sea-side soaps
+and washes, no attractive scents; nothing but his great goggle-eyed
+red bottles, looking as if the winds of winter and the drift of the
+salt-sea had inflamed them.  The grocers' hot pickles, Harvey's
+Sauce, Doctor Kitchener's Zest, Anchovy Paste, Dundee Marmalade,
+and the whole stock of luxurious helps to appetite, were
+hybernating somewhere underground.  The china-shop had no trifles
+from anywhere.  The Bazaar had given in altogether, and presented a
+notice on the shutters that this establishment would re-open at
+Whitsuntide, and that the proprietor in the meantime might be heard
+of at Wild Lodge, East Cliff.  At the Sea-bathing Establishment, a
+row of neat little wooden houses seven or eight feet high, I SAW
+the proprietor in bed in the shower-bath.  As to the bathing-
+machines, they were (how they got there, is not for me to say) at
+the top of a hill at least a mile and a half off.  The library,
+which I had never seen otherwise than wide open, was tight shut;
+and two peevish bald old gentlemen seemed to be hermetically sealed
+up inside, eternally reading the paper.  That wonderful mystery,
+the music-shop, carried it off as usual (except that it had more
+cabinet pianos in stock), as if season or no season were all one to
+it.  It made the same prodigious display of bright brazen wind-
+instruments, horribly twisted, worth, as I should conceive, some
+thousands of pounds, and which it is utterly impossible that
+anybody in any season can ever play or want to play.  It had five
+triangles in the window, six pairs of castanets, and three harps;
+likewise every polka with a coloured frontispiece that ever was
+published; from the original one where a smooth male and female
+Pole of high rank are coming at the observer with their arms a-
+kimbo, to the Ratcatcher's Daughter.  Astonishing establishment,
+amazing enigma!  Three other shops were pretty much out of the
+season, what they were used to be in it.  First, the shop where
+they sell the sailors' watches, which had still the old collection
+of enormous timekeepers, apparently designed to break a fall from
+the masthead: with places to wind them up, like fire-plugs.
+Secondly, the shop where they sell the sailors' clothing, which
+displayed the old sou'-westers, and the old oily suits, and the old
+pea-jackets, and the old one sea-chest, with its handles like a
+pair of rope ear-rings.  Thirdly, the unchangeable shop for the
+sale of literature that has been left behind.  Here, Dr. Faustus
+was still going down to very red and yellow perdition, under the
+superintendence of three green personages of a scaly humour, with
+excrescential serpents growing out of their blade-bones.  Here, the
+Golden Dreamer, and the Norwood Fortune Teller, were still on sale
+at sixpence each, with instructions for making the dumb cake, and
+reading destinies in tea-cups, and with a picture of a young woman
+with a high waist lying on a sofa in an attitude so uncomfortable
+as almost to account for her dreaming at one and the same time of a
+conflagration, a shipwreck, an earthquake, a skeleton, a church-
+porch, lightning, funerals performed, and a young man in a bright
+blue coat and canary pantaloons.  Here, were Little Warblers and
+Fairburn's Comic Songsters.  Here, too, were ballads on the old
+ballad paper and in the old confusion of types; with an old man in
+a cocked hat, and an arm-chair, for the illustration to Will Watch
+the bold Smuggler; and the Friar of Orders Grey, represented by a
+little girl in a hoop, with a ship in the distance.  All these as
+of yore, when they were infinite delights to me!
+
+It took me so long fully to relish these many enjoyments, that I
+had not more than an hour before bedtime to devote to Madame
+Roland.  We got on admirably together on the subject of her convent
+education, and I rose next morning with the full conviction that
+the day for the great chapter was at last arrived.
+
+It had fallen calm, however, in the night, and as I sat at
+breakfast I blushed to remember that I had not yet been on the
+Downs.  I a walker, and not yet on the Downs!  Really, on so quiet
+and bright a morning this must be set right.  As an essential part
+of the Whole Duty of Man, therefore, I left the chapter to itself -
+for the present - and went on the Downs.  They were wonderfully
+green and beautiful, and gave me a good deal to do.  When I had
+done with the free air and the view, I had to go down into the
+valley and look after the hops (which I know nothing about), and to
+be equally solicitous as to the cherry orchards.  Then I took it on
+myself to cross-examine a tramping family in black (mother alleged,
+I have no doubt by herself in person, to have died last week), and
+to accompany eighteenpence which produced a great effect, with
+moral admonitions which produced none at all.  Finally, it was late
+in the afternoon before I got back to the unprecedented chapter,
+and then I determined that it was out of the season, as the place
+was, and put it away.
+
+I went at night to the benefit of Mrs. B. Wedgington at the
+Theatre, who had placarded the town with the admonition, 'DON'T
+FORGET IT!'  I made the house, according to my calculation, four
+and ninepence to begin with, and it may have warmed up, in the
+course of the evening, to half a sovereign.  There was nothing to
+offend any one, - the good Mr. Baines of Leeds excepted.  Mrs. B.
+Wedgington sang to a grand piano.  Mr. B. Wedgington did the like,
+and also took off his coat, tucked up his trousers, and danced in
+clogs.  Master B. Wedgington, aged ten months, was nursed by a
+shivering young person in the boxes, and the eye of Mrs. B.
+Wedgington wandered that way more than once.  Peace be with all the
+Wedgingtons from A. to Z.  May they find themselves in the Season
+somewhere!
+
+
+
+A POOR MAN'S TALE OF A PATENT
+
+
+
+I AM not used to writing for print.  What working-man, that never
+labours less (some Mondays, and Christmas Time and Easter Time
+excepted) than twelve or fourteen hours a day, is?  But I have been
+asked to put down, plain, what I have got to say; and so I take
+pen-and-ink, and do it to the best of my power, hoping defects will
+find excuse.
+
+I was born nigh London, but have worked in a shop at Birmingham
+(what you would call Manufactories, we call Shops), almost ever
+since I was out of my time.  I served my apprenticeship at
+Deptford, nigh where I was born, and I am a smith by trade.  My
+name is John.  I have been called 'Old John' ever since I was
+nineteen year of age, on account of not having much hair.  I am
+fifty-six year of age at the present time, and I don't find myself
+with more hair, nor yet with less, to signify, than at nineteen
+year of age aforesaid.
+
+I have been married five and thirty year, come next April.  I was
+married on All Fools' Day.  Let them laugh that will.  I won a good
+wife that day, and it was as sensible a day to me as ever I had.
+
+We have had a matter of ten children, six whereof are living.  My
+eldest son is engineer in the Italian steam-packet 'Mezzo Giorno,
+plying between Marseilles and Naples, and calling at Genoa,
+Leghorn, and Civita Vecchia.'  He was a good workman.  He invented
+a many useful little things that brought him in - nothing.  I have
+two sons doing well at Sydney, New South Wales - single, when last
+heard from.  One of my sons (James) went wild and for a soldier,
+where he was shot in India, living six weeks in hospital with a
+musket-ball lodged in his shoulder-blade, which he wrote with his
+own hand.  He was the best looking.  One of my two daughters (Mary)
+is comfortable in her circumstances, but water on the chest.  The
+other (Charlotte), her husband run away from her in the basest
+manner, and she and her three children live with us.  The youngest,
+six year old, has a turn for mechanics.
+
+I am not a Chartist, and I never was.  I don't mean to say but what
+I see a good many public points to complain of, still I don't think
+that's the way to set them right.  If I did think so, I should be a
+Chartist.  But I don't think so, and I am not a Chartist.  I read
+the paper, and hear discussion, at what we call 'a parlour,' in
+Birmingham, and I know many good men and workmen who are Chartists.
+Note.  Not Physical force.
+
+It won't be took as boastful in me, if I make the remark (for I
+can't put down what I have got to say, without putting that down
+before going any further), that I have always been of an ingenious
+turn.  I once got twenty pound by a screw, and it's in use now.  I
+have been twenty year, off and on, completing an Invention and
+perfecting it.  I perfected of it, last Christmas Eve at ten
+o'clock at night.  Me and my wife stood and let some tears fall
+over the Model, when it was done and I brought her in to take a
+look at it.
+
+A friend of mine, by the name of William Butcher, is a Chartist.
+Moderate.  He is a good speaker.  He is very animated.  I have
+often heard him deliver that what is, at every turn, in the way of
+us working-men, is, that too many places have been made, in the
+course of time, to provide for people that never ought to have been
+provided for; and that we have to obey forms and to pay fees to
+support those places when we shouldn't ought.  'True,' (delivers
+William Butcher), 'all the public has to do this, but it falls
+heaviest on the working-man, because he has least to spare; and
+likewise because impediments shouldn't be put in his way, when he
+wants redress of wrong or furtherance of right.'  Note.  I have
+wrote down those words from William Butcher's own mouth.  W. B.
+delivering them fresh for the aforesaid purpose.
+
+Now, to my Model again.  There it was, perfected of, on Christmas
+Eve, gone nigh a year, at ten o'clock at night.  All the money I
+could spare I had laid out upon the Model; and when times was bad,
+or my daughter Charlotte's children sickly, or both, it had stood
+still, months at a spell.  I had pulled it to pieces, and made it
+over again with improvements, I don't know how often.  There it
+stood, at last, a perfected Model as aforesaid.
+
+William Butcher and me had a long talk, Christmas Day, respecting
+of the Model.  William is very sensible.  But sometimes cranky.
+William said, 'What will you do with it, John?'  I said, 'Patent
+it.'  William said, 'How patent it, John?'  I said, 'By taking out
+a Patent.'  William then delivered that the law of Patent was a
+cruel wrong.  William said, 'John, if you make your invention
+public, before you get a Patent, any one may rob you of the fruits
+of your hard work.  You are put in a cleft stick, John.  Either you
+must drive a bargain very much against yourself, by getting a party
+to come forward beforehand with the great expenses of the Patent;
+or, you must be put about, from post to pillar, among so many
+parties, trying to make a better bargain for yourself, and showing
+your invention, that your invention will be took from you over your
+head.'  I said, 'William Butcher, are you cranky?  You are
+sometimes cranky.'  William said, 'No, John, I tell you the truth;'
+which he then delivered more at length.  I said to W. B. I would
+Patent the invention myself.
+
+My wife's brother, George Bury of West Bromwich (his wife
+unfortunately took to drinking, made away with everything, and
+seventeen times committed to Birmingham Jail before happy release
+in every point of view), left my wife, his sister, when he died, a
+legacy of one hundred and twenty-eight pound ten, Bank of England
+Stocks.  Me and my wife never broke into that money yet.  Note.  We
+might come to be old and past our work.  We now agreed to Patent
+the invention.  We said we would make a hole in it - I mean in the
+aforesaid money - and Patent the invention.  William Butcher wrote
+me a letter to Thomas Joy, in London.  T. J. is a carpenter, six
+foot four in height, and plays quoits well.  He lives in Chelsea,
+London, by the church.  I got leave from the shop, to be took on
+again when I come back.  I am a good workman.  Not a Teetotaller;
+but never drunk.  When the Christmas holidays were over, I went up
+to London by the Parliamentary Train, and hired a lodging for a
+week with Thomas Joy.  He is married.  He has one son gone to sea.
+
+Thomas Joy delivered (from a book he had) that the first step to be
+took, in Patenting the invention, was to prepare a petition unto
+Queen Victoria.  William Butcher had delivered similar, and drawn
+it up.  Note.  William is a ready writer.  A declaration before a
+Master in Chancery was to be added to it.  That, we likewise drew
+up.  After a deal of trouble I found out a Master, in Southampton
+Buildings, Chancery Lane, nigh Temple Bar, where I made the
+declaration, and paid eighteen-pence.  I was told to take the
+declaration and petition to the Home Office, in Whitehall, where I
+left it to be signed by the Home Secretary (after I had found the
+office out), and where I paid two pound, two, and sixpence.  In six
+days he signed it, and I was told to take it to the Attorney-
+General's chambers, and leave it there for a report.  I did so, and
+paid four pound, four.  Note.  Nobody all through, ever thankful
+for their money, but all uncivil.
+
+My lodging at Thomas Joy's was now hired for another week, whereof
+five days were gone.  The Attorney-General made what they called a
+Report-of-course (my invention being, as William Butcher had
+delivered before starting, unopposed), and I was sent back with it
+to the Home Office.  They made a Copy of it, which was called a
+Warrant.  For this warrant, I paid seven pound, thirteen, and six.
+It was sent to the Queen, to sign.  The Queen sent it back, signed.
+The Home Secretary signed it again.  The gentleman throwed it at me
+when I called, and said, 'Now take it to the Patent Office in
+Lincoln's Inn.'  I was then in my third week at Thomas Joy's living
+very sparing, on account of fees.  I found myself losing heart.
+
+At the Patent Office in Lincoln's Inn, they made 'a draft of the
+Queen's bill,' of my invention, and a 'docket of the bill.'  I paid
+five pound, ten, and six, for this.  They 'engrossed two copies of
+the bill; one for the Signet Office, and one for the Privy-Seal
+Office.'  I paid one pound, seven, and six, for this.  Stamp duty
+over and above, three pound.  The Engrossing Clerk of the same
+office engrossed the Queen's bill for signature.  I paid him one
+pound, one.  Stamp-duty, again, one pound, ten.  I was next to take
+the Queen's bill to the Attorney-General again, and get it signed
+again.  I took it, and paid five pound more.  I fetched it away,
+and took it to the Home Secretary again.  He sent it to the Queen
+again.  She signed it again.  I paid seven pound, thirteen, and
+six, more, for this.  I had been over a month at Thomas Joy's.  I
+was quite wore out, patience and pocket.
+
+Thomas Joy delivered all this, as it went on, to William Butcher.
+William Butcher delivered it again to three Birmingham Parlours,
+from which it got to all the other Parlours, and was took, as I
+have been told since, right through all the shops in the North of
+England.  Note.  William Butcher delivered, at his Parlour, in a
+speech, that it was a Patent way of making Chartists.
+
+But I hadn't nigh done yet.  The Queen's bill was to be took to the
+Signet Office in Somerset House, Strand - where the stamp shop is.
+The Clerk of the Signet made 'a Signet bill for the Lord Keeper of
+the Privy Seal.'  I paid him four pound, seven.  The Clerk of the
+Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal made 'a Privy-Seal bill for the Lord
+Chancellor.'  I paid him, four pound, two.  The Privy-Seal bill was
+handed over to the Clerk of the Patents, who engrossed the
+aforesaid.  I paid him five pound, seventeen, and eight; at the
+same time, I paid Stamp-duty for the Patent, in one lump, thirty
+pound.  I next paid for 'boxes for the Patent,' nine and sixpence.
+Note.  Thomas Joy would have made the same at a profit for
+eighteen-pence.  I next paid 'fees to the Deputy, the Lord
+Chancellor's Purse-bearer,' two pound, two.  I next paid 'fees to
+the Clerk of the Hanapar,' seven pound, thirteen.  I next paid
+'fees to the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper,' ten shillings.  I next
+paid, to the Lord Chancellor again, one pound, eleven, and six.
+Last of all, I paid 'fees to the Deputy Sealer, and Deputy Chaff-
+wax,' ten shillings and sixpence.  I had lodged at Thomas Joy's
+over six weeks, and the unopposed Patent for my invention, for
+England only, had cost me ninety-six pound, seven, and eightpence.
+If I had taken it out for the United Kingdom, it would have cost me
+more than three hundred pound.
+
+Now, teaching had not come up but very limited when I was young.
+So much the worse for me you'll say.  I say the same.  William
+Butcher is twenty year younger than me.  He knows a hundred year
+more.  If William Butcher had wanted to Patent an invention, he
+might have been sharper than myself when hustled backwards and
+forwards among all those offices, though I doubt if so patient.
+Note.  William being sometimes cranky, and consider porters,
+messengers, and clerks.
+
+Thereby I say nothing of my being tired of my life, while I was
+Patenting my invention.  But I put this: Is it reasonable to make a
+man feel as if, in inventing an ingenious improvement meant to do
+good, he had done something wrong?  How else can a man feel, when
+he is met by such difficulties at every turn?  All inventors taking
+out a Patent MUST feel so.  And look at the expense.  How hard on
+me, and how hard on the country if there's any merit in me (and my
+invention is took up now, I am thankful to say, and doing well), to
+put me to all that expense before I can move a finger!  Make the
+addition yourself, and it'll come to ninety-six pound, seven, and
+eightpence.  No more, and no less.
+
+What can I say against William Butcher, about places?  Look at the
+Home Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Patent Office, the
+Engrossing Clerk, the Lord Chancellor, the Privy Seal, the Clerk of
+the Patents, the Lord Chancellor's Purse-bearer, the Clerk of the
+Hanaper, the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper, the Deputy Sealer, and
+the Deputy Chaff-wax.  No man in England could get a Patent for an
+Indian-rubber band, or an iron-hoop, without feeing all of them.
+Some of them, over and over again.  I went through thirty-five
+stages.  I began with the Queen upon the Throne.  I ended with the
+Deputy Chaff-wax.  Note.  I should like to see the Deputy Chaff-
+wax.  Is it a man, or what is it?
+
+What I had to tell, I have told.  I have wrote it down.  I hope
+it's plain.  Not so much in the handwriting (though nothing to
+boast of there), as in the sense of it.  I will now conclude with
+Thomas Joy.  Thomas said to me, when we parted, 'John, if the laws
+of this country were as honest as they ought to be, you would have
+come to London - registered an exact description and drawing of
+your invention - paid half-a-crown or so for doing of it - and
+therein and thereby have got your Patent.'
+
+My opinion is the same as Thomas Joy.  Further.  In William
+Butcher's delivering 'that the whole gang of Hanapers and Chaff-
+waxes must be done away with, and that England has been chaffed and
+waxed sufficient,' I agree.
+
+
+
+THE NOBLE SAVAGE
+
+
+
+TO come to the point at once, I beg to say that I have not the
+least belief in the Noble Savage.  I consider him a prodigious
+nuisance, and an enormous superstition.  His calling rum fire-
+water, and me a pale face, wholly fail to reconcile me to him.  I
+don't care what he calls me.  I call him a savage, and I call a
+savage a something highly desirable to be civilised off the face of
+the earth.  I think a mere gent (which I take to be the lowest form
+of civilisation) better than a howling, whistling, clucking,
+stamping, jumping, tearing savage.  It is all one to me, whether he
+sticks a fish-bone through his visage, or bits of trees through the
+lobes of his ears, or bird's feathers in his head; whether he
+flattens his hair between two boards, or spreads his nose over the
+breadth of his face, or drags his lower lip down by great weights,
+or blackens his teeth, or knocks them out, or paints one cheek red
+and the other blue, or tattoos himself, or oils himself, or rubs
+his body with fat, or crimps it with knives.  Yielding to
+whichsoever of these agreeable eccentricities, he is a savage -
+cruel, false, thievish, murderous; addicted more or less to grease,
+entrails, and beastly customs; a wild animal with the questionable
+gift of boasting; a conceited, tiresome, bloodthirsty, monotonous
+humbug.
+
+Yet it is extraordinary to observe how some people will talk about
+him, as they talk about the good old times; how they will regret
+his disappearance, in the course of this world's development, from
+such and such lands where his absence is a blessed relief and an
+indispensable preparation for the sowing of the very first seeds of
+any influence that can exalt humanity; how, even with the evidence
+of himself before them, they will either be determined to believe,
+or will suffer themselves to be persuaded into believing, that he
+is something which their five senses tell them he is not.
+
+There was Mr. Catlin, some few years ago, with his Ojibbeway
+Indians.  Mr. Catlin was an energetic, earnest man, who had lived
+among more tribes of Indians than I need reckon up here, and who
+had written a picturesque and glowing book about them.  With his
+party of Indians squatting and spitting on the table before him, or
+dancing their miserable jigs after their own dreary manner, he
+called, in all good faith, upon his civilised audience to take
+notice of their symmetry and grace, their perfect limbs, and the
+exquisite expression of their pantomime; and his civilised
+audience, in all good faith, complied and admired.  Whereas, as
+mere animals, they were wretched creatures, very low in the scale
+and very poorly formed; and as men and women possessing any power
+of truthful dramatic expression by means of action, they were no
+better than the chorus at an Italian Opera in England - and would
+have been worse if such a thing were possible.
+
+Mine are no new views of the noble savage.  The greatest writers on
+natural history found him out long ago.  BUFFON knew what he was,
+and showed why he is the sulky tyrant that he is to his women, and
+how it happens (Heaven be praised!) that his race is spare in
+numbers.  For evidence of the quality of his moral nature, pass
+himself for a moment and refer to his 'faithful dog.'  Has he ever
+improved a dog, or attached a dog, since his nobility first ran
+wild in woods, and was brought down (at a very long shot) by POPE?
+Or does the animal that is the friend of man, always degenerate in
+his low society?
+
+It is not the miserable nature of the noble savage that is the new
+thing; it is the whimpering over him with maudlin admiration, and
+the affecting to regret him, and the drawing of any comparison of
+advantage between the blemishes of civilisation and the tenor of
+his swinish life.  There may have been a change now and then in
+those diseased absurdities, but there is none in him.
+
+Think of the Bushmen.  Think of the two men and the two women who
+have been exhibited about England for some years.  Are the majority
+of persons - who remember the horrid little leader of that party in
+his festering bundle of hides, with his filth and his antipathy to
+water, and his straddled legs, and his odious eyes shaded by his
+brutal hand, and his cry of 'Qu-u-u-u-aaa!' (Bosjesman for
+something desperately insulting I have no doubt) - conscious of an
+affectionate yearning towards that noble savage, or is it
+idiosyncratic in me to abhor, detest, abominate, and abjure him?  I
+have no reserve on this subject, and will frankly state that,
+setting aside that stage of the entertainment when he counterfeited
+the death of some creature he had shot, by laying his head on his
+hand and shaking his left leg - at which time I think it would have
+been justifiable homicide to slay him - I have never seen that
+group sleeping, smoking, and expectorating round their brazier, but
+I have sincerely desired that something might happen to the
+charcoal smouldering therein, which would cause the immediate
+suffocation of the whole of the noble strangers.
+
+There is at present a party of Zulu Kaffirs exhibiting at the St.
+George's Gallery, Hyde Park Corner, London.  These noble savages
+are represented in a most agreeable manner; they are seen in an
+elegant theatre, fitted with appropriate scenery of great beauty,
+and they are described in a very sensible and unpretending lecture,
+delivered with a modesty which is quite a pattern to all similar
+exponents.  Though extremely ugly, they are much better shaped than
+such of their predecessors as I have referred to; and they are
+rather picturesque to the eye, though far from odoriferous to the
+nose.  What a visitor left to his own interpretings and imaginings
+might suppose these noblemen to be about, when they give vent to
+that pantomimic expression which is quite settled to be the natural
+gift of the noble savage, I cannot possibly conceive; for it is so
+much too luminous for my personal civilisation that it conveys no
+idea to my mind beyond a general stamping, ramping, and raving,
+remarkable (as everything in savage life is) for its dire
+uniformity.  But let us - with the interpreter's assistance, of
+which I for one stand so much in need - see what the noble savage
+does in Zulu Kaffirland.
+
+The noble savage sets a king to reign over him, to whom he submits
+his life and limbs without a murmur or question, and whose whole
+life is passed chin deep in a lake of blood; but who, after killing
+incessantly, is in his turn killed by his relations and friends,
+the moment a grey hair appears on his head.  All the noble savage's
+wars with his fellow-savages (and he takes no pleasure in anything
+else) are wars of extermination - which is the best thing I know of
+him, and the most comfortable to my mind when I look at him.  He
+has no moral feelings of any kind, sort, or description; and his
+'mission' may be summed up as simply diabolical.
+
+The ceremonies with which he faintly diversifies his life are, of
+course, of a kindred nature.  If he wants a wife he appears before
+the kennel of the gentleman whom he has selected for his father-in-
+law, attended by a party of male friends of a very strong flavour,
+who screech and whistle and stamp an offer of so many cows for the
+young lady's hand.  The chosen father-in-law - also supported by a
+high-flavoured party of male friends - screeches, whistles, and
+yells (being seated on the ground, he can't stamp) that there never
+was such a daughter in the market as his daughter, and that he must
+have six more cows.  The son-in-law and his select circle of
+backers screech, whistle, stamp, and yell in reply, that they will
+give three more cows.  The father-in-law (an old deluder, overpaid
+at the beginning) accepts four, and rises to bind the bargain.  The
+whole party, the young lady included, then falling into epileptic
+convulsions, and screeching, whistling, stamping, and yelling
+together - and nobody taking any notice of the young lady (whose
+charms are not to be thought of without a shudder) - the noble
+savage is considered married, and his friends make demoniacal leaps
+at him by way of congratulation.
+
+When the noble savage finds himself a little unwell, and mentions
+the circumstance to his friends, it is immediately perceived that
+he is under the influence of witchcraft.  A learned personage,
+called an Imyanger or Witch Doctor, is immediately sent for to
+Nooker the Umtargartie, or smell out the witch.  The male
+inhabitants of the kraal being seated on the ground, the learned
+doctor, got up like a grizzly bear, appears, and administers a
+dance of a most terrific nature, during the exhibition of which
+remedy he incessantly gnashes his teeth, and howls:- 'I am the
+original physician to Nooker the Umtargartie.  Yow yow yow!  No
+connexion with any other establishment.  Till till till!  All other
+Umtargarties are feigned Umtargarties, Boroo Boroo! but I perceive
+here a genuine and real Umtargartie, Hoosh Hoosh Hoosh! in whose
+blood I, the original Imyanger and Nookerer, Blizzerum Boo! will
+wash these bear's claws of mine.  O yow yow yow!'  All this time
+the learned physician is looking out among the attentive faces for
+some unfortunate man who owes him a cow, or who has given him any
+small offence, or against whom, without offence, he has conceived a
+spite.  Him he never fails to Nooker as the Umtargartie, and he is
+instantly killed.  In the absence of such an individual, the usual
+practice is to Nooker the quietest and most gentlemanly person in
+company.  But the nookering is invariably followed on the spot by
+the butchering.
+
+Some of the noble savages in whom Mr. Catlin was so strongly
+interested, and the diminution of whose numbers, by rum and
+smallpox, greatly affected him, had a custom not unlike this,
+though much more appalling and disgusting in its odious details.
+
+The women being at work in the fields, hoeing the Indian corn, and
+the noble savage being asleep in the shade, the chief has sometimes
+the condescension to come forth, and lighten the labour by looking
+at it.  On these occasions, he seats himself in his own savage
+chair, and is attended by his shield-bearer: who holds over his
+head a shield of cowhide - in shape like an immense mussel shell -
+fearfully and wonderfully, after the manner of a theatrical
+supernumerary.  But lest the great man should forget his greatness
+in the contemplation of the humble works of agriculture, there
+suddenly rushes in a poet, retained for the purpose, called a
+Praiser.  This literary gentleman wears a leopard's head over his
+own, and a dress of tigers' tails; he has the appearance of having
+come express on his hind legs from the Zoological Gardens; and he
+incontinently strikes up the chief's praises, plunging and tearing
+all the while.  There is a frantic wickedness in this brute's
+manner of worrying the air, and gnashing out, 'O what a delightful
+chief he is!  O what a delicious quantity of blood he sheds!  O how
+majestically he laps it up!  O how charmingly cruel he is!  O how
+he tears the flesh of his enemies and crunches the bones!  O how
+like the tiger and the leopard and the wolf and the bear he is!  O,
+row row row row, how fond I am of him!' which might tempt the
+Society of Friends to charge at a hand-gallop into the Swartz-Kop
+location and exterminate the whole kraal.
+
+When war is afoot among the noble savages - which is always - the
+chief holds a council to ascertain whether it is the opinion of his
+brothers and friends in general that the enemy shall be
+exterminated.  On this occasion, after the performance of an
+Umsebeuza, or war song, - which is exactly like all the other
+songs, - the chief makes a speech to his brothers and friends,
+arranged in single file.  No particular order is observed during
+the delivery of this address, but every gentleman who finds himself
+excited by the subject, instead of crying 'Hear, hear!' as is the
+custom with us, darts from the rank and tramples out the life, or
+crushes the skull, or mashes the face, or scoops out the eyes, or
+breaks the limbs, or performs a whirlwind of atrocities on the
+body, of an imaginary enemy.  Several gentlemen becoming thus
+excited at once, and pounding away without the least regard to the
+orator, that illustrious person is rather in the position of an
+orator in an Irish House of Commons.  But, several of these scenes
+of savage life bear a strong generic resemblance to an Irish
+election, and I think would be extremely well received and
+understood at Cork.
+
+In all these ceremonies the noble savage holds forth to the utmost
+possible extent about himself; from which (to turn him to some
+civilised account) we may learn, I think, that as egotism is one of
+the most offensive and contemptible littlenesses a civilised man
+can exhibit, so it is really incompatible with the interchange of
+ideas; inasmuch as if we all talked about ourselves we should soon
+have no listeners, and must be all yelling and screeching at once
+on our own separate accounts: making society hideous.  It is my
+opinion that if we retained in us anything of the noble savage, we
+could not get rid of it too soon.  But the fact is clearly
+otherwise.  Upon the wife and dowry question, substituting coin for
+cows, we have assuredly nothing of the Zulu Kaffir left.  The
+endurance of despotism is one great distinguishing mark of a savage
+always.  The improving world has quite got the better of that too.
+In like manner, Paris is a civilised city, and the Theatre Francais
+a highly civilised theatre; and we shall never hear, and never have
+heard in these later days (of course) of the Praiser THERE.  No,
+no, civilised poets have better work to do.  As to Nookering
+Umtargarties, there are no pretended Umtargarties in Europe, and no
+European powers to Nooker them; that would be mere spydom,
+subordination, small malice, superstition, and false pretence.  And
+as to private Umtargarties, are we not in the year eighteen hundred
+and fifty-three, with spirits rapping at our doors?
+
+To conclude as I began.  My position is, that if we have anything
+to learn from the Noble Savage, it is what to avoid.  His virtues
+are a fable; his happiness is a delusion; his nobility, nonsense.
+
+We have no greater justification for being cruel to the miserable
+object, than for being cruel to a WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE or an ISAAC
+NEWTON; but he passes away before an immeasurably better and higher
+power than ever ran wild in any earthly woods, and the world will
+be all the better when his place knows him no more.
+
+
+
+A FLIGHT
+
+
+
+WHEN Don Diego de - I forget his name - the inventor of the last
+new Flying Machines, price so many francs for ladies, so many more
+for gentlemen - when Don Diego, by permission of Deputy Chaff-wax
+and his noble band, shall have taken out a Patent for the Queen's
+dominions, and shall have opened a commodious Warehouse in an airy
+situation; and when all persons of any gentility will keep at least
+a pair of wings, and be seen skimming about in every direction; I
+shall take a flight to Paris (as I soar round the world) in a cheap
+and independent manner.  At present, my reliance is on the South-
+Eastern Railway Company, in whose Express Train here I sit, at
+eight of the clock on a very hot morning, under the very hot roof
+of the Terminus at London Bridge, in danger of being 'forced' like
+a cucumber or a melon, or a pine-apple.  And talking of pine-
+apples, I suppose there never were so many pine-apples in a Train
+as there appear to be in this Train.
+
+Whew!  The hot-house air is faint with pine-apples.  Every French
+citizen or citizeness is carrying pine-apples home.  The compact
+little Enchantress in the corner of my carriage (French actress, to
+whom I yielded up my heart under the auspices of that brave child,
+'MEAT-CHELL,' at the St. James's Theatre the night before last) has
+a pine-apple in her lap.  Compact Enchantress's friend, confidante,
+mother, mystery, Heaven knows what, has two pine-apples in her lap,
+and a bundle of them under the seat.  Tobacco-smoky Frenchman in
+Algerine wrapper, with peaked hood behind, who might be Abd-el-
+Kader dyed rifle-green, and who seems to be dressed entirely in
+dirt and braid, carries pine-apples in a covered basket.  Tall,
+grave, melancholy Frenchman, with black Vandyke beard, and hair
+close-cropped, with expansive chest to waistcoat, and compressive
+waist to coat: saturnine as to his pantaloons, calm as to his
+feminine boots, precious as to his jewellery, smooth and white as
+to his linen: dark-eyed, high-foreheaded, hawk-nosed - got up, one
+thinks, like Lucifer or Mephistopheles, or Zamiel, transformed into
+a highly genteel Parisian - has the green end of a pine-apple
+sticking out of his neat valise.
+
+Whew!  If I were to be kept here long, under this forcing-frame, I
+wonder what would become of me - whether I should be forced into a
+giant, or should sprout or blow into some other phenomenon!
+Compact Enchantress is not ruffled by the heat - she is always
+composed, always compact.  O look at her little ribbons, frills,
+and edges, at her shawl, at her gloves, at her hair, at her
+bracelets, at her bonnet, at everything about her!  How is it
+accomplished?  What does she do to be so neat?  How is it that
+every trifle she wears belongs to her, and cannot choose but be a
+part of her?  And even Mystery, look at HER!  A model.  Mystery is
+not young, not pretty, though still of an average candle-light
+passability; but she does such miracles in her own behalf, that,
+one of these days, when she dies, they'll be amazed to find an old
+woman in her bed, distantly like her.  She was an actress once, I
+shouldn't wonder, and had a Mystery attendant on herself.  Perhaps,
+Compact Enchantress will live to be a Mystery, and to wait with a
+shawl at the side-scenes, and to sit opposite to Mademoiselle in
+railway carriages, and smile and talk subserviently, as Mystery
+does now.  That's hard to believe!
+
+Two Englishmen, and now our carriage is full.  First Englishman, in
+the monied interest - flushed, highly respectable - Stock Exchange,
+perhaps - City, certainly.  Faculties of second Englishman entirely
+absorbed in hurry.  Plunges into the carriage, blind.  Calls out of
+window concerning his luggage, deaf.  Suffocates himself under
+pillows of great-coats, for no reason, and in a demented manner.
+Will receive no assurance from any porter whatsoever.  Is stout and
+hot, and wipes his head, and makes himself hotter by breathing so
+hard.  Is totally incredulous respecting assurance of Collected
+Guard, that 'there's no hurry.'  No hurry!  And a flight to Paris
+in eleven hours!
+
+It is all one to me in this drowsy corner, hurry or no hurry.
+Until Don Diego shall send home my wings, my flight is with the
+South-Eastern Company.  I can fly with the South-Eastern, more
+lazily, at all events, than in the upper air.  I have but to sit
+here thinking as idly as I please, and be whisked away.  I am not
+accountable to anybody for the idleness of my thoughts in such an
+idle summer flight; my flight is provided for by the South-Eastern
+and is no business of mine.
+
+The bell!  With all my heart.  It does not require me to do so much
+as even to flap my wings.  Something snorts for me, something
+shrieks for me, something proclaims to everything else that it had
+better keep out of my way, - and away I go.
+
+Ah!  The fresh air is pleasant after the forcing-frame, though it
+does blow over these interminable streets, and scatter the smoke of
+this vast wilderness of chimneys.  Here we are - no, I mean there
+we were, for it has darted far into the rear - in Bermondsey where
+the tanners live.  Flash!  The distant shipping in the Thames is
+gone.  Whirr!  The little streets of new brick and red tile, with
+here and there a flagstaff growing like a tall weed out of the
+scarlet beans, and, everywhere, plenty of open sewer and ditch for
+the promotion of the public health, have been fired off in a
+volley.  Whizz!  Dust-heaps, market-gardens, and waste grounds.
+Rattle!  New Cross Station.  Shock!  There we were at Croydon.
+Bur-r-r-r!  The tunnel.
+
+I wonder why it is that when I shut my eyes in a tunnel I begin to
+feel as if I were going at an Express pace the other way.  I am
+clearly going back to London now.  Compact Enchantress must have
+forgotten something, and reversed the engine.  No!  After long
+darkness, pale fitful streaks of light appear.  I am still flying
+on for Folkestone.  The streaks grow stronger - become continuous -
+become the ghost of day - become the living day - became I mean -
+the tunnel is miles and miles away, and here I fly through
+sunlight, all among the harvest and the Kentish hops.
+
+There is a dreamy pleasure in this flying.  I wonder where it was,
+and when it was, that we exploded, blew into space somehow, a
+Parliamentary Train, with a crowd of heads and faces looking at us
+out of cages, and some hats waving.  Monied Interest says it was at
+Reigate Station.  Expounds to Mystery how Reigate Station is so
+many miles from London, which Mystery again develops to Compact
+Enchantress.  There might be neither a Reigate nor a London for me,
+as I fly away among the Kentish hops and harvest.  What do I care?
+
+Bang!  We have let another Station off, and fly away regardless.
+Everything is flying.  The hop-gardens turn gracefully towards me,
+presenting regular avenues of hops in rapid flight, then whirl
+away.  So do the pools and rushes, haystacks, sheep, clover in full
+bloom delicious to the sight and smell, corn-sheaves, cherry-
+orchards, apple-orchards, reapers, gleaners, hedges, gates, fields
+that taper off into little angular corners, cottages, gardens, now
+and then a church.  Bang, bang!  A double-barrelled Station!  Now a
+wood, now a bridge, now a landscape, now a cutting, now a - Bang! a
+single-barrelled Station - there was a cricket-match somewhere with
+two white tents, and then four flying cows, then turnips - now the
+wires of the electric telegraph are all alive, and spin, and blurr
+their edges, and go up and down, and make the intervals between
+each other most irregular: contracting and expanding in the
+strangest manner.  Now we slacken.  With a screwing, and a
+grinding, and a smell of water thrown on ashes, now we stop!
+
+Demented Traveller, who has been for two or three minutes watchful,
+clutches his great-coats, plunges at the door, rattles it, cries
+'Hi!' eager to embark on board of impossible packets, far inland.
+Collected Guard appears.  'Are you for Tunbridge, sir?'
+'Tunbridge?  No.  Paris.'  'Plenty of time, sir.  No hurry.  Five
+minutes here, sir, for refreshment.'  I am so blest (anticipating
+Zamiel, by half a second) as to procure a glass of water for
+Compact Enchantress.
+
+Who would suppose we had been flying at such a rate, and shall take
+wing again directly?  Refreshment-room full, platform full, porter
+with watering-pot deliberately cooling a hot wheel, another porter
+with equal deliberation helping the rest of the wheels bountifully
+to ice cream.  Monied Interest and I re-entering the carriage
+first, and being there alone, he intimates to me that the French
+are 'no go' as a Nation.  I ask why?  He says, that Reign of Terror
+of theirs was quite enough.  I ventured to inquire whether he
+remembers anything that preceded said Reign of Terror?  He says not
+particularly.  'Because,' I remark, 'the harvest that is reaped,
+has sometimes been sown.'  Monied Interest repeats, as quite enough
+for him, that the French are revolutionary, - 'and always at it.'
+
+Bell.  Compact Enchantress, helped in by Zamiel (whom the stars
+confound!), gives us her charming little side-box look, and smites
+me to the core.  Mystery eating sponge-cake.  Pine-apple atmosphere
+faintly tinged with suspicions of sherry.  Demented Traveller flits
+past the carriage, looking for it.  Is blind with agitation, and
+can't see it.  Seems singled out by Destiny to be the only unhappy
+creature in the flight, who has any cause to hurry himself.  Is
+nearly left behind.  Is seized by Collected Guard after the Train
+is in motion, and bundled in.  Still, has lingering suspicions that
+there must be a boat in the neighbourhood, and WILL look wildly out
+of window for it.
+
+Flight resumed.  Corn-sheaves, hop-gardens, reapers, gleaners,
+apple-orchards, cherry-orchards, Stations single and double-
+barrelled, Ashford.  Compact Enchantress (constantly talking to
+Mystery, in an exquisite manner) gives a little scream; a sound
+that seems to come from high up in her precious little head; from
+behind her bright little eyebrows.  'Great Heaven, my pine-apple!
+My Angel!  It is lost!'  Mystery is desolated.  A search made.  It
+is not lost.  Zamiel finds it.  I curse him (flying) in the Persian
+manner.  May his face be turned upside down, and jackasses sit upon
+his uncle's grave!
+
+Now fresher air, now glimpses of unenclosed Down-land with flapping
+crows flying over it whom we soon outfly, now the Sea, now
+Folkestone at a quarter after ten.  'Tickets ready, gentlemen!'
+Demented dashes at the door.  'For Paris, sir?  No hurry.'
+
+Not the least.  We are dropped slowly down to the Port, and sidle
+to and fro (the whole Train) before the insensible Royal George
+Hotel, for some ten minutes.  The Royal George takes no more heed
+of us than its namesake under water at Spithead, or under earth at
+Windsor, does.  The Royal George's dog lies winking and blinking at
+us, without taking the trouble to sit up; and the Royal George's
+'wedding party' at the open window (who seem, I must say, rather
+tired of bliss) don't bestow a solitary glance upon us, flying thus
+to Paris in eleven hours.  The first gentleman in Folkestone is
+evidently used up, on this subject.
+
+Meanwhile, Demented chafes.  Conceives that every man's hand is
+against him, and exerting itself to prevent his getting to Paris.
+Refuses consolation.  Rattles door.  Sees smoke on the horizon, and
+'knows' it's the boat gone without him.  Monied Interest
+resentfully explains that HE is going to Paris too.  Demented
+signifies, that if Monied Interest chooses to be left behind, HE
+don't.
+
+'Refreshments in the Waiting-Room, ladies and gentlemen.  No hurry,
+ladies and gentlemen, for Paris.  No hurry whatever!'
+
+Twenty minutes' pause, by Folkestone clock, for looking at
+Enchantress while she eats a sandwich, and at Mystery while she
+eats of everything there that is eatable, from pork-pie, sausage,
+jam, and gooseberries, to lumps of sugar.  All this time, there is
+a very waterfall of luggage, with a spray of dust, tumbling
+slantwise from the pier into the steamboat.  All this time,
+Demented (who has no business with it) watches it with starting
+eyes, fiercely requiring to be shown HIS luggage.  When it at last
+concludes the cataract, he rushes hotly to refresh - is shouted
+after, pursued, jostled, brought back, pitched into the departing
+steamer upside down, and caught by mariners disgracefully.
+
+A lovely harvest-day, a cloudless sky, a tranquil sea.  The piston-
+rods of the engines so regularly coming up from below, to look (as
+well they may) at the bright weather, and so regularly almost
+knocking their iron heads against the cross beam of the skylight,
+and never doing it!  Another Parisian actress is on board, attended
+by another Mystery.  Compact Enchantress greets her sister artist -
+Oh, the Compact One's pretty teeth! - and Mystery greets Mystery.
+My Mystery soon ceases to be conversational - is taken poorly, in a
+word, having lunched too miscellaneously - and goes below.  The
+remaining Mystery then smiles upon the sister artists (who, I am
+afraid, wouldn't greatly mind stabbing each other), and is upon the
+whole ravished.
+
+And now I find that all the French people on board begin to grow,
+and all the English people to shrink.  The French are nearing home,
+and shaking off a disadvantage, whereas we are shaking it on.
+Zamiel is the same man, and Abd-el-Kader is the same man, but each
+seems to come into possession of an indescribable confidence that
+departs from us - from Monied Interest, for instance, and from me.
+Just what they gain, we lose.  Certain British 'Gents' about the
+steersman, intellectually nurtured at home on parody of everything
+and truth of nothing, become subdued, and in a manner forlorn; and
+when the steersman tells them (not exultingly) how he has 'been
+upon this station now eight year, and never see the old town of
+Bullum yet,' one of them, with an imbecile reliance on a reed, asks
+him what he considers to be the best hotel in Paris?
+
+Now, I tread upon French ground, and am greeted by the three
+charming words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, painted up (in
+letters a little too thin for their height) on the Custom-house
+wall - also by the sight of large cocked hats, without which
+demonstrative head-gear nothing of a public nature can be done upon
+this soil.  All the rabid Hotel population of Boulogne howl and
+shriek outside a distant barrier, frantic to get at us.  Demented,
+by some unlucky means peculiar to himself, is delivered over to
+their fury, and is presently seen struggling in a whirlpool of
+Touters - is somehow understood to be going to Paris - is, with
+infinite noise, rescued by two cocked hats, and brought into
+Custom-house bondage with the rest of us.
+
+Here, I resign the active duties of life to an eager being, of
+preternatural sharpness, with a shelving forehead and a shabby
+snuff-coloured coat, who (from the wharf) brought me down with his
+eye before the boat came into port.  He darts upon my luggage, on
+the floor where all the luggage is strewn like a wreck at the
+bottom of the great deep; gets it proclaimed and weighed as the
+property of 'Monsieur a traveller unknown;' pays certain francs for
+it, to a certain functionary behind a Pigeon Hole, like a pay-box
+at a Theatre (the arrangements in general are on a wholesale scale,
+half military and half theatrical); and I suppose I shall find it
+when I come to Paris - he says I shall.  I know nothing about it,
+except that I pay him his small fee, and pocket the ticket he gives
+me, and sit upon a counter, involved in the general distraction.
+
+Railway station.  'Lunch or dinner, ladies and gentlemen.  Plenty
+of time for Paris.  Plenty of time!'  Large hall, long counter,
+long strips of dining-table, bottles of wine, plates of meat, roast
+chickens, little loaves of bread, basins of soup, little caraffes
+of brandy, cakes, and fruit.  Comfortably restored from these
+resources, I begin to fly again.
+
+I saw Zamiel (before I took wing) presented to Compact Enchantress
+and Sister Artist, by an officer in uniform, with a waist like a
+wasp's, and pantaloons like two balloons.  They all got into the
+next carriage together, accompanied by the two Mysteries.  They
+laughed.  I am alone in the carriage (for I don't consider Demented
+anybody) and alone in the world.
+
+Fields, windmills, low grounds, pollard-trees, windmills, fields,
+fortifications, Abbeville, soldiering and drumming.  I wonder where
+England is, and when I was there last - about two years ago, I
+should say.  Flying in and out among these trenches and batteries,
+skimming the clattering drawbridges, looking down into the stagnant
+ditches, I become a prisoner of state, escaping.  I am confined
+with a comrade in a fortress.  Our room is in an upper story.  We
+have tried to get up the chimney, but there's an iron grating
+across it, imbedded in the masonry.  After months of labour, we
+have worked the grating loose with the poker, and can lift it up.
+We have also made a hook, and twisted our rugs and blankets into
+ropes.  Our plan is, to go up the chimney, hook our ropes to the
+top, descend hand over hand upon the roof of the guard-house far
+below, shake the hook loose, watch the opportunity of the sentinels
+pacing away, hook again, drop into the ditch, swim across it, creep
+into the shelter of the wood.  The time is come - a wild and stormy
+night.  We are up the chimney, we are on the guard-house roof, we
+are swimming in the murky ditch, when lo!  'Qui v'la?' a bugle, the
+alarm, a crash!  What is it?  Death?  No, Amiens.
+
+More fortifications, more soldiering and drumming, more basins of
+soup, more little loaves of bread, more bottles of wine, more
+caraffes of brandy, more time for refreshment.  Everything good,
+and everything ready.  Bright, unsubstantial-looking, scenic sort
+of station.  People waiting.  Houses, uniforms, beards, moustaches,
+some sabots, plenty of neat women, and a few old-visaged children.
+Unless it be a delusion born of my giddy flight, the grown-up
+people and the children seem to change places in France.  In
+general, the boys and girls are little old men and women, and the
+men and women lively boys and girls.
+
+Bugle, shriek, flight resumed.  Monied Interest has come into my
+carriage.  Says the manner of refreshing is 'not bad,' but
+considers it French.  Admits great dexterity and politeness in the
+attendants.  Thinks a decimal currency may have something to do
+with their despatch in settling accounts, and don't know but what
+it's sensible and convenient.  Adds, however, as a general protest,
+that they're a revolutionary people - and always at it.
+
+Ramparts, canals, cathedral, river, soldiering and drumming, open
+country, river, earthenware manufactures, Creil.  Again ten
+minutes.  Not even Demented in a hurry.  Station, a drawing-room
+with a verandah: like a planter's house.  Monied Interest considers
+it a band-box, and not made to last.  Little round tables in it, at
+one of which the Sister Artists and attendant Mysteries are
+established with Wasp and Zamiel, as if they were going to stay a
+week.
+
+Anon, with no more trouble than before, I am flying again, and
+lazily wondering as I fly.  What has the South-Eastern done with
+all the horrible little villages we used to pass through, in the
+DILIGENCE?  What have they done with all the summer dust, with all
+the winter mud, with all the dreary avenues of little trees, with
+all the ramshackle postyards, with all the beggars (who used to
+turn out at night with bits of lighted candle, to look in at the
+coach windows), with all the long-tailed horses who were always
+biting one another, with all the big postilions in jack-boots -
+with all the mouldy cafes that we used to stop at, where a long
+mildewed table-cloth, set forth with jovial bottles of vinegar and
+oil, and with a Siamese arrangement of pepper and salt, was never
+wanting?  Where are the grass-grown little towns, the wonderful
+little market-places all unconscious of markets, the shops that
+nobody kept, the streets that nobody trod, the churches that nobody
+went to, the bells that nobody rang, the tumble-down old buildings
+plastered with many-coloured bills that nobody read?  Where are the
+two-and-twenty weary hours of long, long day and night journey,
+sure to be either insupportably hot or insupportably cold?  Where
+are the pains in my bones, where are the fidgets in my legs, where
+is the Frenchman with the nightcap who never WOULD have the little
+coupe-window down, and who always fell upon me when he went to
+sleep, and always slept all night snoring onions?
+
+A voice breaks in with 'Paris!  Here we are!'
+
+I have overflown myself, perhaps, but I can't believe it.  I feel
+as if I were enchanted or bewitched.  It is barely eight o'clock
+yet - it is nothing like half-past - when I have had my luggage
+examined at that briskest of Custom-houses attached to the station,
+and am rattling over the pavement in a hackney-cabriolet.
+
+Surely, not the pavement of Paris?  Yes, I think it is, too.  I
+don't know any other place where there are all these high houses,
+all these haggard-looking wine shops, all these billiard tables,
+all these stocking-makers with flat red or yellow legs of wood for
+signboard, all these fuel shops with stacks of billets painted
+outside, and real billets sawing in the gutter, all these dirty
+corners of streets, all these cabinet pictures over dark doorways
+representing discreet matrons nursing babies.  And yet this morning
+- I'll think of it in a warm-bath.
+
+Very like a small room that I remember in the Chinese baths upon
+the Boulevard, certainly; and, though I see it through the steam, I
+think that I might swear to that peculiar hot-linen basket, like a
+large wicker hour-glass.  When can it have been that I left home?
+When was it that I paid 'through to Paris' at London Bridge, and
+discharged myself of all responsibility, except the preservation of
+a voucher ruled into three divisions, of which the first was
+snipped off at Folkestone, the second aboard the boat, and the
+third taken at my journey's end?  It seems to have been ages ago.
+Calculation is useless.  I will go out for a walk.
+
+The crowds in the streets, the lights in the shops and balconies,
+the elegance, variety, and beauty of their decorations, the number
+of the theatres, the brilliant cafes with their windows thrown up
+high and their vivacious groups at little tables on the pavement,
+the light and glitter of the houses turned as it were inside out,
+soon convince me that it is no dream; that I am in Paris, howsoever
+I got there.  I stroll down to the sparkling Palais Royal, up the
+Rue de Rivoli, to the Place Vendome.  As I glance into a print-shop
+window, Monied Interest, my late travelling companion, comes upon
+me, laughing with the highest relish of disdain.  'Here's a
+people!' he says, pointing to Napoleon in the window and Napoleon
+on the column.  'Only one idea all over Paris!  A monomania!'
+Humph!  I THINK I have seen Napoleon's match?  There was a statue,
+when I came away, at Hyde Park Corner, and another in the City, and
+a print or two in the shops.
+
+I walk up to the Barriere de l'Etoile, sufficiently dazed by my
+flight to have a pleasant doubt of the reality of everything about
+me; of the lively crowd, the overhanging trees, the performing
+dogs, the hobby-horses, the beautiful perspectives of shining
+lamps: the hundred and one enclosures, where the singing is, in
+gleaming orchestras of azure and gold, and where a star-eyed Houri
+comes round with a box for voluntary offerings.  So, I pass to my
+hotel, enchanted; sup, enchanted; go to bed, enchanted; pushing
+back this morning (if it really were this morning) into the
+remoteness of time, blessing the South-Eastern Company for
+realising the Arabian Nights in these prose days, murmuring, as I
+wing my idle flight into the land of dreams, 'No hurry, ladies and
+gentlemen, going to Paris in eleven hours.  It is so well done,
+that there really is no hurry!'
+
+
+
+THE DETECTIVE POLICE
+
+
+
+WE are not by any means devout believers in the old Bow Street
+Police.  To say the truth, we think there was a vast amount of
+humbug about those worthies.  Apart from many of them being men of
+very indifferent character, and far too much in the habit of
+consorting with thieves and the like, they never lost a public
+occasion of jobbing and trading in mystery and making the most of
+themselves.  Continually puffed besides by incompetent magistrates
+anxious to conceal their own deficiencies, and hand-in-glove with
+the penny-a-liners of that time, they became a sort of
+superstition.  Although as a Preventive Police they were utterly
+ineffective, and as a Detective Police were very loose and
+uncertain in their operations, they remain with some people a
+superstition to the present day.
+
+On the other hand, the Detective Force organised since the
+establishment of the existing Police, is so well chosen and
+trained, proceeds so systematically and quietly, does its business
+in such a workmanlike manner, and is always so calmly and steadily
+engaged in the service of the public, that the public really do not
+know enough of it, to know a tithe of its usefulness.  Impressed
+with this conviction, and interested in the men themselves, we
+represented to the authorities at Scotland Yard, that we should be
+glad, if there were no official objection, to have some talk with
+the Detectives.  A most obliging and ready permission being given,
+a certain evening was appointed with a certain Inspector for a
+social conference between ourselves and the Detectives, at The
+Household Words Office in Wellington Street, Strand, London.  In
+consequence of which appointment the party 'came off,' which we are
+about to describe.  And we beg to repeat that, avoiding such topics
+as it might for obvious reasons be injurious to the public, or
+disagreeable to respectable individuals, to touch upon in print,
+our description is as exact as we can make it.
+
+The reader will have the goodness to imagine the Sanctum Sanctorum
+of Household Words.  Anything that best suits the reader's fancy,
+will best represent that magnificent chamber.  We merely stipulate
+for a round table in the middle, with some glasses and cigars
+arranged upon it; and the editorial sofa elegantly hemmed in
+between that stately piece of furniture and the wall.
+
+It is a sultry evening at dusk.  The stones of Wellington Street
+are hot and gritty, and the watermen and hackney-coachmen at the
+Theatre opposite, are much flushed and aggravated.  Carriages are
+constantly setting down the people who have come to Fairy-Land; and
+there is a mighty shouting and bellowing every now and then,
+deafening us for the moment, through the open windows.
+
+Just at dusk, Inspectors Wield and Stalker are announced; but we do
+not undertake to warrant the orthography of any of the names here
+mentioned.  Inspector Wield presents Inspector Stalker.  Inspector
+Wield is a middle-aged man of a portly presence, with a large,
+moist, knowing eye, a husky voice, and a habit of emphasising his
+conversation by the aid of a corpulent fore-finger, which is
+constantly in juxtaposition with his eyes or nose.  Inspector
+Stalker is a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman - in appearance not at
+all unlike a very acute, thoroughly-trained schoolmaster, from the
+Normal Establishment at Glasgow.  Inspector Wield one might have
+known, perhaps, for what he is - Inspector Stalker, never.
+
+The ceremonies of reception over, Inspectors Wield and Stalker
+observe that they have brought some sergeants with them.  The
+sergeants are presented - five in number, Sergeant Dornton,
+Sergeant Witchem, Sergeant Mith, Sergeant Fendall, and Sergeant
+Straw.  We have the whole Detective Force from Scotland Yard, with
+one exception.  They sit down in a semi-circle (the two Inspectors
+at the two ends) at a little distance from the round table, facing
+the editorial sofa.  Every man of them, in a glance, immediately
+takes an inventory of the furniture and an accurate sketch of the
+editorial presence.  The Editor feels that any gentleman in company
+could take him up, if need should be, without the smallest
+hesitation, twenty years hence.
+
+The whole party are in plain clothes.  Sergeant Dornton about fifty
+years of age, with a ruddy face and a high sunburnt forehead, has
+the air of one who has been a Sergeant in the army - he might have
+sat to Wilkie for the Soldier in the Reading of the Will.  He is
+famous for steadily pursuing the inductive process, and, from small
+beginnings, working on from clue to clue until he bags his man.
+Sergeant Witchem, shorter and thicker-set, and marked with the
+small-pox, has something of a reserved and thoughtful air, as if he
+were engaged in deep arithmetical calculations.  He is renowned for
+his acquaintance with the swell mob.  Sergeant Mith, a smooth-faced
+man with a fresh bright complexion, and a strange air of
+simplicity, is a dab at housebreakers.  Sergeant Fendall, a light-
+haired, well-spoken, polite person, is a prodigious hand at
+pursuing private inquiries of a delicate nature.  Straw, a little
+wiry Sergeant of meek demeanour and strong sense, would knock at a
+door and ask a series of questions in any mild character you choose
+to prescribe to him, from a charity-boy upwards, and seem as
+innocent as an infant.  They are, one and all, respectable-looking
+men; of perfectly good deportment and unusual intelligence; with
+nothing lounging or slinking in their manners; with an air of keen
+observation and quick perception when addressed; and generally
+presenting in their faces, traces more or less marked of habitually
+leading lives of strong mental excitement.  They have all good
+eyes; and they all can, and they all do, look full at whomsoever
+they speak to.
+
+We light the cigars, and hand round the glasses (which are very
+temperately used indeed), and the conversation begins by a modest
+amateur reference on the Editorial part to the swell mob.
+Inspector Wield immediately removes his cigar from his lips, waves
+his right hand, and says, 'Regarding the swell mob, sir, I can't do
+better than call upon Sergeant Witchem.  Because the reason why?
+I'll tell you.  Sergeant Witchem is better acquainted with the
+swell mob than any officer in London.'
+
+Our heart leaping up when we beheld this rainbow in the sky, we
+turn to Sergeant Witchem, who very concisely, and in well-chosen
+language, goes into the subject forthwith.  Meantime, the whole of
+his brother officers are closely interested in attending to what he
+says, and observing its effect.  Presently they begin to strike in,
+one or two together, when an opportunity offers, and the
+conversation becomes general.  But these brother officers only come
+in to the assistance of each other - not to the contradiction - and
+a more amicable brotherhood there could not be.  From the swell
+mob, we diverge to the kindred topics of cracksmen, fences, public-
+house dancers, area-sneaks, designing young people who go out
+'gonophing,' and other 'schools.'  It is observable throughout
+these revelations, that Inspector Stalker, the Scotchman, is always
+exact and statistical, and that when any question of figures
+arises, everybody as by one consent pauses, and looks to him.
+
+When we have exhausted the various schools of Art - during which
+discussion the whole body have remained profoundly attentive,
+except when some unusual noise at the Theatre over the way has
+induced some gentleman to glance inquiringly towards the window in
+that direction, behind his next neighbour's back - we burrow for
+information on such points as the following.  Whether there really
+are any highway robberies in London, or whether some circumstances
+not convenient to be mentioned by the aggrieved party, usually
+precede the robberies complained of, under that head, which quite
+change their character?  Certainly the latter, almost always.
+Whether in the case of robberies in houses, where servants are
+necessarily exposed to doubt, innocence under suspicion ever
+becomes so like guilt in appearance, that a good officer need be
+cautious how he judges it?  Undoubtedly.  Nothing is so common or
+deceptive as such appearances at first.  Whether in a place of
+public amusement, a thief knows an officer, and an officer knows a
+thief - supposing them, beforehand, strangers to each other -
+because each recognises in the other, under all disguise, an
+inattention to what is going on, and a purpose that is not the
+purpose of being entertained?  Yes.  That's the way exactly.
+Whether it is reasonable or ridiculous to trust to the alleged
+experiences of thieves as narrated by themselves, in prisons, or
+penitentiaries, or anywhere?  In general, nothing more absurd.
+Lying is their habit and their trade; and they would rather lie -
+even if they hadn't an interest in it, and didn't want to make
+themselves agreeable - than tell the truth.
+
+From these topics, we glide into a review of the most celebrated
+and horrible of the great crimes that have been committed within
+the last fifteen or twenty years.  The men engaged in the discovery
+of almost all of them, and in the pursuit or apprehension of the
+murderers, are here, down to the very last instance.  One of our
+guests gave chase to and boarded the emigrant ship, in which the
+murderess last hanged in London was supposed to have embarked.  We
+learn from him that his errand was not announced to the passengers,
+who may have no idea of it to this hour.  That he went below, with
+the captain, lamp in hand - it being dark, and the whole steerage
+abed and sea-sick - and engaged the Mrs. Manning who WAS on board,
+in a conversation about her luggage, until she was, with no small
+pains, induced to raise her head, and turn her face towards the
+light.  Satisfied that she was not the object of his search, he
+quietly re-embarked in the Government steamer along-side, and
+steamed home again with the intelligence.
+
+When we have exhausted these subjects, too, which occupy a
+considerable time in the discussion, two or three leave their
+chairs, whisper Sergeant Witchem, and resume their seat.  Sergeant
+Witchem, leaning forward a little, and placing a hand on each of
+his legs, then modestly speaks as follows:
+
+'My brother-officers wish me to relate a little account of my
+taking Tally-ho Thompson.  A man oughtn't to tell what he has done
+himself; but still, as nobody was with me, and, consequently, as
+nobody but myself can tell it, I'll do it in the best way I can, if
+it should meet your approval.'
+
+We assure Sergeant Witchem that he will oblige us very much, and we
+all compose ourselves to listen with great interest and attention.
+
+'Tally-ho Thompson,' says Sergeant Witchem, after merely wetting
+his lips with his brandy-and-water, 'Tally-ho Thompson was a famous
+horse-stealer, couper, and magsman.  Thompson, in conjunction with
+a pal that occasionally worked with him, gammoned a countryman out
+of a good round sum of money, under pretence of getting him a
+situation - the regular old dodge - and was afterwards in the "Hue
+and Cry" for a horse - a horse that he stole down in Hertfordshire.
+I had to look after Thompson, and I applied myself, of course, in
+the first instance, to discovering where he was.  Now, Thompson's
+wife lived, along with a little daughter, at Chelsea.  Knowing that
+Thompson was somewhere in the country, I watched the house -
+especially at post-time in the morning - thinking Thompson was
+pretty likely to write to her.  Sure enough, one morning the
+postman comes up, and delivers a letter at Mrs. Thompson's door.
+Little girl opens the door, and takes it in.  We're not always sure
+of postmen, though the people at the post-offices are always very
+obliging.  A postman may help us, or he may not, - just as it
+happens.  However, I go across the road, and I say to the postman,
+after he has left the letter, "Good morning! how are you?"  "How
+are YOU!" says he.  "You've just delivered a letter for Mrs.
+Thompson."  "Yes, I have."  "You didn't happen to remark what the
+post-mark was, perhaps?"  "No," says he, "I didn't."  "Come," says
+I, "I'll be plain with you.  I'm in a small way of business, and I
+have given Thompson credit, and I can't afford to lose what he owes
+me.  I know he's got money, and I know he's in the country, and if
+you could tell me what the post-mark was, I should be very much
+obliged to you, and you'd do a service to a tradesman in a small
+way of business that can't afford a loss."  "Well," he said, "I do
+assure you that I did not observe what the post-mark was; all I
+know is, that there was money in the letter - I should say a
+sovereign."  This was enough for me, because of course I knew that
+Thompson having sent his wife money, it was probable she'd write to
+Thompson, by return of post, to acknowledge the receipt.  So I said
+"Thankee" to the postman, and I kept on the watch.  In the
+afternoon I saw the little girl come out.  Of course I followed
+her.  She went into a stationer's shop, and I needn't say to you
+that I looked in at the window.  She bought some writing-paper and
+envelopes, and a pen.  I think to myself, "That'll do!" - watch her
+home again - and don't go away, you may be sure, knowing that Mrs.
+Thompson was writing her letter to Tally-ho, and that the letter
+would be posted presently.  In about an hour or so, out came the
+little girl again, with the letter in her hand.  I went up, and
+said something to the child, whatever it might have been; but I
+couldn't see the direction of the letter, because she held it with
+the seal upwards.  However, I observed that on the back of the
+letter there was what we call a kiss - a drop of wax by the side of
+the seal - and again, you understand, that was enough for me.  I
+saw her post the letter, waited till she was gone, then went into
+the shop, and asked to see the Master.  When he came out, I told
+him, "Now, I'm an Officer in the Detective Force; there's a letter
+with a kiss been posted here just now, for a man that I'm in search
+of; and what I have to ask of you, is, that you will let me look at
+the direction of that letter."  He was very civil - took a lot of
+letters from the box in the window - shook 'em out on the counter
+with the faces downwards - and there among 'em was the identical
+letter with the kiss.  It was directed, Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post
+Office, B-, to be left till called for.  Down I went to B- (a
+hundred and twenty miles or so) that night.  Early next morning I
+went to the Post Office; saw the gentleman in charge of that
+department; told him who I was; and that my object was to see, and
+track, the party that should come for the letter for Mr. Thomas
+Pigeon.  He was very polite, and said, "You shall have every
+assistance we can give you; you can wait inside the office; and
+we'll take care to let you know when anybody comes for the letter."
+Well, I waited there three days, and began to think that nobody
+ever WOULD come.  At last the clerk whispered to me, "Here!
+Detective!  Somebody's come for the letter!"  "Keep him a minute,"
+said I, and I ran round to the outside of the office.  There I saw
+a young chap with the appearance of an Ostler, holding a horse by
+the bridle - stretching the bridle across the pavement, while he
+waited at the Post Office Window for the letter.  I began to pat
+the horse, and that; and I said to the boy, "Why, this is Mr.
+Jones's Mare!"  "No.  It an't."  "No?" said I.  "She's very like
+Mr. Jones's Mare!"  "She an't Mr. Jones's Mare, anyhow," says he.
+"It's Mr. So and So's, of the Warwick Arms."  And up he jumped, and
+off he went - letter and all.  I got a cab, followed on the box,
+and was so quick after him that I came into the stable-yard of the
+Warwick Arms, by one gate, just as he came in by another.  I went
+into the bar, where there was a young woman serving, and called for
+a glass of brandy-and-water.  He came in directly, and handed her
+the letter.  She casually looked at it, without saying anything,
+and stuck it up behind the glass over the chimney-piece.  What was
+to be done next?
+
+'I turned it over in my mind while I drank my brandy-and-water
+(looking pretty sharp at the letter the while), but I couldn't see
+my way out of it at all.  I tried to get lodgings in the house, but
+there had been a horse-fair, or something of that sort, and it was
+full.  I was obliged to put up somewhere else, but I came backwards
+and forwards to the bar for a couple of days, and there was the
+letter always behind the glass.  At last I thought I'd write a
+letter to Mr. Pigeon myself, and see what that would do.  So I
+wrote one, and posted it, but I purposely addressed it, Mr. John
+Pigeon, instead of Mr. Thomas Pigeon, to see what THAT would do.
+In the morning (a very wet morning it was) I watched the postman
+down the street, and cut into the bar, just before he reached the
+Warwick Arms.  In he came presently with my letter.  "Is there a
+Mr. John Pigeon staying here?"  "No! - stop a bit though," says the
+barmaid; and she took down the letter behind the glass.  "No," says
+she, "it's Thomas, and HE is not staying here.  Would you do me a
+favour, and post this for me, as it is so wet?"  The postman said
+Yes; she folded it in another envelope, directed it, and gave it
+him.  He put it in his hat, and away he went.
+
+'I had no difficulty in finding out the direction of that letter.
+It was addressed Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post Office, R-,
+Northamptonshire, to be left till called for.  Off I started
+directly for R-; I said the same at the Post Office there, as I had
+said at B-; and again I waited three days before anybody came.  At
+last another chap on horseback came.  "Any letters for Mr. Thomas
+Pigeon?"  "Where do you come from?"  "New Inn, near R-."  He got
+the letter, and away HE went at a canter.
+
+'I made my inquiries about the New Inn, near R-, and hearing it was
+a solitary sort of house, a little in the horse line, about a
+couple of miles from the station, I thought I'd go and have a look
+at it.  I found it what it had been described, and sauntered in, to
+look about me.  The landlady was in the bar, and I was trying to
+get into conversation with her; asked her how business was, and
+spoke about the wet weather, and so on; when I saw, through an open
+door, three men sitting by the fire in a sort of parlour, or
+kitchen; and one of those men, according to the description I had
+of him, was Tally-ho Thompson!
+
+'I went and sat down among 'em, and tried to make things agreeable;
+but they were very shy - wouldn't talk at all - looked at me, and
+at one another, in a way quite the reverse of sociable.  I reckoned
+'em up, and finding that they were all three bigger men than me,
+and considering that their looks were ugly - that it was a lonely
+place - railroad station two miles off - and night coming on -
+thought I couldn't do better than have a drop of brandy-and-water
+to keep my courage up.  So I called for my brandy-and-water; and as
+I was sitting drinking it by the fire, Thompson got up and went
+out.
+
+'Now the difficulty of it was, that I wasn't sure it WAS Thompson,
+because I had never set eyes on him before; and what I had wanted
+was to be quite certain of him.  However, there was nothing for it
+now, but to follow, and put a bold face upon it.  I found him
+talking, outside in the yard, with the landlady.  It turned out
+afterwards that he was wanted by a Northampton officer for
+something else, and that, knowing that officer to be pock-marked
+(as I am myself), he mistook me for him.  As I have observed, I
+found him talking to the landlady, outside.  I put my hand upon his
+shoulder - this way - and said, "Tally-ho Thompson, it's no use.  I
+know you.  I'm an officer from London, and I take you into custody
+for felony!"  "That be d-d!" says Tally-ho Thompson.
+
+'We went back into the house, and the two friends began to cut up
+rough, and their looks didn't please me at all, I assure you.  "Let
+the man go.  What are you going to do with him?"  "I'll tell you
+what I'm going to do with him.  I'm going to take him to London to-
+night, as sure as I'm alive.  I'm not alone here, whatever you may
+think.  You mind your own business, and keep yourselves to
+yourselves.  It'll be better for you, for I know you both very
+well."  I'D never seen or heard of 'em in all my life, but my
+bouncing cowed 'em a bit, and they kept off, while Thompson was
+making ready to go.  I thought to myself, however, that they might
+be coming after me on the dark road, to rescue Thompson; so I said
+to the landlady, "What men have you got in the house, Missis?"  "We
+haven't got no men here," she says, sulkily.  "You have got an
+ostler, I suppose?"  "Yes, we've got an ostler."  "Let me see him."
+Presently he came, and a shaggy-headed young fellow he was.  "Now
+attend to me, young man," says I; "I'm a Detective Officer from
+London.  This man's name is Thompson.  I have taken him into
+custody for felony.  I am going to take him to the railroad
+station.  I call upon you in the Queen's name to assist me; and
+mind you, my friend, you'll get yourself into more trouble than you
+know of, if you don't!'  You never saw a person open his eyes so
+wide.  "Now, Thompson, come along!" says I.  But when I took out
+the handcuffs, Thompson cries, "No!  None of that!  I won't stand
+THEM!  I'll go along with you quiet, but I won't bear none of
+that!"  "Tally-ho Thompson," I said, "I'm willing to behave as a
+man to you, if you are willing to behave as a man to me.  Give me
+your word that you'll come peaceably along, and I don't want to
+handcuff you."  "I will," says Thompson, "but I'll have a glass of
+brandy first."  "I don't care if I've another," said I.  "We'll
+have two more, Missis," said the friends, "and confound you,
+Constable, you'll give your man a drop, won't you?"  I was
+agreeable to that, so we had it all round, and then my man and I
+took Tally-ho Thompson safe to the railroad, and I carried him to
+London that night.  He was afterwards acquitted, on account of a
+defect in the evidence; and I understand he always praises me up to
+the skies, and says I'm one of the best of men.'
+
+This story coming to a termination amidst general applause,
+Inspector Wield, after a little grave smoking, fixes his eye on his
+host, and thus delivers himself:
+
+'It wasn't a bad plant that of mine, on Fikey, the man accused of
+forging the Sou'-Western Railway debentures - it was only t'other
+day - because the reason why?  I'll tell you.
+
+'I had information that Fikey and his brother kept a factory over
+yonder there,' - indicating any region on the Surrey side of the
+river - 'where he bought second-hand carriages; so after I'd tried
+in vain to get hold of him by other means, I wrote him a letter in
+an assumed name, saying that I'd got a horse and shay to dispose
+of, and would drive down next day that he might view the lot, and
+make an offer - very reasonable it was, I said - a reg'lar bargain.
+Straw and me then went off to a friend of mine that's in the livery
+and job business, and hired a turn-out for the day, a precious
+smart turn-out it was - quite a slap-up thing!  Down we drove,
+accordingly, with a friend (who's not in the Force himself); and
+leaving my friend in the shay near a public-house, to take care of
+the horse, we went to the factory, which was some little way off.
+In the factory, there was a number of strong fellows at work, and
+after reckoning 'em up, it was clear to me that it wouldn't do to
+try it on there.  They were too many for us.  We must get our man
+out of doors.  "Mr. Fikey at home?"  "No, he ain't."  "Expected
+home soon?"  "Why, no, not soon."  "Ah!  Is his brother here?"
+"I'M his brother."  "Oh! well, this is an ill-conwenience, this is.
+I wrote him a letter yesterday, saying I'd got a little turn-out to
+dispose of, and I've took the trouble to bring the turn-out down a'
+purpose, and now he ain't in the way."  "No, he ain't in the way.
+You couldn't make it convenient to call again, could you?"  "Why,
+no, I couldn't.  I want to sell; that's the fact; and I can't put
+it off.  Could you find him anywheres?"  At first he said No, he
+couldn't, and then he wasn't sure about it, and then he'd go and
+try.  So at last he went up-stairs, where there was a sort of loft,
+and presently down comes my man himself in his shirt-sleeves.
+
+'"Well," he says, "this seems to be rayther a pressing matter of
+yours."  "Yes," I says, "it IS rayther a pressing matter, and
+you'll find it a bargain - dirt cheap."  "I ain't in partickler
+want of a bargain just now," he says, "but where is it?"  "Why," I
+says, "the turn-out's just outside.  Come and look at it."  He
+hasn't any suspicions, and away we go.  And the first thing that
+happens is, that the horse runs away with my friend (who knows no
+more of driving than a child) when he takes a little trot along the
+road to show his paces.  You never saw such a game in your life!
+
+'When the bolt is over, and the turn-out has come to a standstill
+again, Fikey walks round and round it as grave as a judge - me too.
+"There, sir!" I says.  "There's a neat thing!"  "It ain't a bad
+style of thing," he says.  "I believe you," says I.  "And there's a
+horse!" - for I saw him looking at it.  "Rising eight!" I says,
+rubbing his fore-legs.  (Bless you, there ain't a man in the world
+knows less of horses than I do, but I'd heard my friend at the
+Livery Stables say he was eight year old, so I says, as knowing as
+possible, "Rising eight.")  "Rising eight, is he?" says he.
+"Rising eight," says I.  "Well," he says, "what do you want for
+it?"  "Why, the first and last figure for the whole concern is
+five-and-twenty pound!"  "That's very cheap!" he says, looking at
+me.  "Ain't it?" I says.  "I told you it was a bargain!  Now,
+without any higgling and haggling about it, what I want is to sell,
+and that's my price.  Further, I'll make it easy to you, and take
+half the money down, and you can do a bit of stiff (1) for the
+balance."
+
+" Well," he says again, "that's very cheap."  "I believe you," says
+I; "get in and try it, and you'll buy it.  Come! take a trial!"
+
+'Ecod, he gets in, and we get in, and we drive along the road, to
+show him to one of the railway clerks that was hid in the public-
+house window to identify him.  But the clerk was bothered, and
+didn't know whether it was him, or wasn't - because the reason why?
+I'll tell you, - on account of his having shaved his whiskers.
+"It's a clever little horse," he says, "and trots well; and the
+shay runs light."  "Not a doubt about it," I says.  "And now, Mr.
+Fikey, I may as well make it all right, without wasting any more of
+your time.  The fact is, I'm Inspector Wield, and you're my
+prisoner."  "You don't mean that?" he says.  "I do, indeed."  "Then
+burn my body," says Fikey, "if this ain't TOO bad!"
+
+'Perhaps you never saw a man so knocked over with surprise.  "I
+hope you'll let me have my coat?" he says.  "By all means."  "Well,
+then, let's drive to the factory."  "Why, not exactly that, I
+think," said I; "I've been there, once before, to-day.  Suppose we
+send for it."  He saw it was no go, so he sent for it, and put it
+on, and we drove him up to London, comfortable.'
+
+This reminiscence is in the height of its success, when a general
+proposal is made to the fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer,
+with the strange air of simplicity, to tell the 'Butcher's Story.'
+
+The fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer, with the strange air
+of simplicity, began with a rustic smile, and in a soft, wheedling
+tone of voice, to relate the Butcher's Story, thus:
+
+'It's just about six years ago, now, since information was given at
+Scotland Yard of there being extensive robberies of lawns and silks
+going on, at some wholesale houses in the City.  Directions were
+given for the business being looked into; and Straw, and Fendall,
+and me, we were all in it.'
+
+'When you received your instructions,' said we, 'you went away, and
+held a sort of Cabinet Council together!'
+
+The smooth-faced officer coaxingly replied, 'Ye-es.  Just so.  We
+turned it over among ourselves a good deal.  It appeared, when we
+went into it, that the goods were sold by the receivers
+extraordinarily cheap - much cheaper than they could have been if
+they had been honestly come by.  The receivers were in the trade,
+and kept capital shops - establishments of the first respectability
+- one of 'em at the West End, one down in Westminster.  After a lot
+of watching and inquiry, and this and that among ourselves, we
+found that the job was managed, and the purchases of the stolen
+goods made, at a little public-house near Smithfield, down by Saint
+Bartholomew's; where the Warehouse Porters, who were the thieves,
+took 'em for that purpose, don't you see? and made appointments to
+meet the people that went between themselves and the receivers.
+This public-house was principally used by journeymen butchers from
+the country, out of place, and in want of situations; so, what did
+we do, but - ha, ha, ha! - we agreed that I should be dressed up
+like a butcher myself, and go and live there!'
+
+Never, surely, was a faculty of observation better brought to bear
+upon a purpose, than that which picked out this officer for the
+part.  Nothing in all creation could have suited him better.  Even
+while he spoke, he became a greasy, sleepy, shy, good-natured,
+chuckle-headed, unsuspicious, and confiding young butcher.  His
+very hair seemed to have suet in it, as he made it smooth upon his
+head, and his fresh complexion to be lubricated by large quantities
+of animal food.
+
+' - So I - ha, ha, ha!' (always with the confiding snigger of the
+foolish young butcher) 'so I dressed myself in the regular way,
+made up a little bundle of clothes, and went to the public-house,
+and asked if I could have a lodging there?  They says, "yes, you
+can have a lodging here," and I got a bedroom, and settled myself
+down in the tap.  There was a number of people about the place, and
+coming backwards and forwards to the house; and first one says, and
+then another says, "Are you from the country, young man?"  "Yes," I
+says, "I am.  I'm come out of Northamptonshire, and I'm quite
+lonely here, for I don't know London at all, and it's such a mighty
+big town."  "It IS a big town," they says.  "Oh, it's a VERY big
+town!" I says.  "Really and truly I never was in such a town.  It
+quite confuses of me!" and all that, you know.
+
+'When some of the journeymen Butchers that used the house, found
+that I wanted a place, they says, "Oh, we'll get you a place!"  And
+they actually took me to a sight of places, in Newgate Market,
+Newport Market, Clare, Carnaby - I don't know where all.  But the
+wages was - ha, ha, ha! - was not sufficient, and I never could
+suit myself, don't you see?  Some of the queer frequenters of the
+house were a little suspicious of me at first, and I was obliged to
+be very cautious indeed how I communicated with Straw or Fendall.
+Sometimes, when I went out, pretending to stop and look into the
+shop windows, and just casting my eye round, I used to see some of
+'em following me; but, being perhaps better accustomed than they
+thought for, to that sort of thing, I used to lead 'em on as far as
+I thought necessary or convenient - sometimes a long way - and then
+turn sharp round, and meet 'em, and say, "Oh, dear, how glad I am
+to come upon you so fortunate!  This London's such a place, I'm
+blowed if I ain't lost again!"  And then we'd go back all together,
+to the public-house, and - ha, ha, ha! and smoke our pipes, don't
+you see?
+
+'They were very attentive to me, I am sure.  It was a common thing,
+while I was living there, for some of 'em to take me out, and show
+me London.  They showed me the Prisons - showed me Newgate - and
+when they showed me Newgate, I stops at the place where the Porters
+pitch their loads, and says, "Oh dear, is this where they hang the
+men?  Oh Lor!"  "That!" they says, "what a simple cove he is!  THAT
+ain't it!"  And then, they pointed out which WAS it, and I says
+"Lor!" and they says, "Now you'll know it agen, won't you?"  And I
+said I thought I should if I tried hard - and I assure you I kept a
+sharp look out for the City Police when we were out in this way,
+for if any of 'em had happened to know me, and had spoke to me, it
+would have been all up in a minute.  However, by good luck such a
+thing never happened, and all went on quiet: though the
+difficulties I had in communicating with my brother officers were
+quite extraordinary.
+
+'The stolen goods that were brought to the public-house by the
+Warehouse Porters, were always disposed of in a back parlour.  For
+a long time, I never could get into this parlour, or see what was
+done there.  As I sat smoking my pipe, like an innocent young chap,
+by the tap-room fire, I'd hear some of the parties to the robbery,
+as they came in and out, say softly to the landlord, "Who's that?
+What does HE do here?"  "Bless your soul," says the landlord, "he's
+only a" - ha, ha, ha! - "he's only a green young fellow from the
+country, as is looking for a butcher's sitiwation.  Don't mind
+HIM!"  So, in course of time, they were so convinced of my being
+green, and got to be so accustomed to me, that I was as free of the
+parlour as any of 'em, and I have seen as much as Seventy Pounds'
+Worth of fine lawn sold there, in one night, that was stolen from a
+warehouse in Friday Street.  After the sale the buyers always stood
+treat - hot supper, or dinner, or what not - and they'd say on
+those occasions, "Come on, Butcher!  Put your best leg foremost,
+young 'un, and walk into it!"  Which I used to do - and hear, at
+table, all manner of particulars that it was very important for us
+Detectives to know.
+
+'This went on for ten weeks.  I lived in the public-house all the
+time, and never was out of the Butcher's dress - except in bed.  At
+last, when I had followed seven of the thieves, and set 'em to
+rights - that's an expression of ours, don't you see, by which I
+mean to say that I traced 'em, and found out where the robberies
+were done, and all about 'em - Straw, and Fendall, and I, gave one
+another the office, and at a time agreed upon, a descent was made
+upon the public-house, and the apprehensions effected.  One of the
+first things the officers did, was to collar me - for the parties
+to the robbery weren't to suppose yet, that I was anything but a
+Butcher - on which the landlord cries out, "Don't take HIM," he
+says, "whatever you do!  He's only a poor young chap from the
+country, and butter wouldn't melt in his mouth!"  However, they -
+ha, ha, ha! - they took me, and pretended to search my bedroom,
+where nothing was found but an old fiddle belonging to the
+landlord, that had got there somehow or another.  But, it entirely
+changed the landlord's opinion, for when it was produced, he says,
+"My fiddle!  The Butcher's a purloiner!  I give him into custody
+for the robbery of a musical instrument!"
+
+'The man that had stolen the goods in Friday Street was not taken
+yet.  He had told me, in confidence, that he had his suspicions
+there was something wrong (on account of the City Police having
+captured one of the party), and that he was going to make himself
+scarce.  I asked him, "Where do you mean to go, Mr. Shepherdson?"
+"Why, Butcher," says he, "the Setting Moon, in the Commercial Road,
+is a snug house, and I shall bang out there for a time.  I shall
+call myself Simpson, which appears to me to be a modest sort of a
+name.  Perhaps you'll give us a look in, Butcher?"  "Well," says I,
+"I think I WILL give you a call" - which I fully intended, don't
+you see, because, of course, he was to be taken!  I went over to
+the Setting Moon next day, with a brother officer, and asked at the
+bar for Simpson.  They pointed out his room, up-stairs.  As we were
+going up, he looks down over the banister, and calls out, "Halloa,
+Butcher! is that you?"  "Yes, it's me.  How do you find yourself?"
+"Bobbish," he says; "but who's that with you?"  "It's only a young
+man, that's a friend of mine," I says.  "Come along, then," says
+he; "any friend of the Butcher's is as welcome as the Butcher!"
+So, I made my friend acquainted with him, and we took him into
+custody.
+
+'You have no idea, sir, what a sight it was, in Court, when they
+first knew that I wasn't a Butcher, after all!  I wasn't produced
+at the first examination, when there was a remand; but I was at the
+second.  And when I stepped into the box, in full police uniform,
+and the whole party saw how they had been done, actually a groan of
+horror and dismay proceeded from 'em in the dock!
+
+'At the Old Bailey, when their trials came on, Mr. Clarkson was
+engaged for the defence, and he COULDN'T make out how it was, about
+the Butcher.  He thought, all along, it was a real Butcher.  When
+the counsel for the prosecution said, "I will now call before you,
+gentlemen, the Police-officer," meaning myself, Mr. Clarkson says,
+"Why Police-officer?  Why more Police-officers?  I don't want
+Police.  We have had a great deal too much of the Police.  I want
+the Butcher!"  However, sir, he had the Butcher and the Police-
+officer, both in one.  Out of seven prisoners committed for trial,
+five were found guilty, and some of 'em were transported.  The
+respectable firm at the West End got a term of imprisonment; and
+that's the Butcher's Story!'
+
+The story done, the chuckle-headed Butcher again resolved himself
+into the smooth-faced Detective.  But, he was so extremely tickled
+by their having taken him about, when he was that Dragon in
+disguise, to show him London, that he could not help reverting to
+that point in his narrative; and gently repeating with the Butcher
+snigger, '"Oh, dear," I says, "is that where they hang the men?
+Oh, Lor!"  "THAT!" says they.  "What a simple cove he is!"'
+
+It being now late, and the party very modest in their fear of being
+too diffuse, there were some tokens of separation; when Sergeant
+Dornton, the soldierly-looking man, said, looking round him with a
+smile:
+
+'Before we break up, sir, perhaps you might have some amusement in
+hearing of the Adventures of a Carpet Bag.  They are very short;
+and, I think, curious.'
+
+We welcomed the Carpet Bag, as cordially as Mr. Shepherdson
+welcomed the false Butcher at the Setting Moon.  Sergeant Dornton
+proceeded.
+
+'In 1847, I was despatched to Chatham, in search of one Mesheck, a
+Jew.  He had been carrying on, pretty heavily, in the bill-stealing
+way, getting acceptances from young men of good connexions (in the
+army chiefly), on pretence of discount, and bolting with the same.
+
+'Mesheck was off, before I got to Chatham.  All I could learn about
+him was, that he had gone, probably to London, and had with him - a
+Carpet Bag.
+
+'I came back to town, by the last train from Blackwall, and made
+inquiries concerning a Jew passenger with - a Carpet Bag.
+
+'The office was shut up, it being the last train.  There were only
+two or three porters left.  Looking after a Jew with a Carpet Bag,
+on the Blackwall Railway, which was then the high road to a great
+Military Depot, was worse than looking after a needle in a hayrick.
+But it happened that one of these porters had carried, for a
+certain Jew, to a certain public-house, a certain - Carpet Bag.
+
+'I went to the public-house, but the Jew had only left his luggage
+there for a few hours, and had called for it in a cab, and taken it
+away.  I put such questions there, and to the porter, as I thought
+prudent, and got at this description of - the Carpet Bag.
+
+'It was a bag which had, on one side of it, worked in worsted, a
+green parrot on a stand.  A green parrot on a stand was the means
+by which to identify that - Carpet Bag.
+
+'I traced Mesheck, by means of this green parrot on a stand, to
+Cheltenham, to Birmingham, to Liverpool, to the Atlantic Ocean.  At
+Liverpool he was too many for me.  He had gone to the United
+States, and I gave up all thoughts of Mesheck, and likewise of his
+- Carpet Bag.
+
+'Many months afterwards - near a year afterwards - there was a bank
+in Ireland robbed of seven thousand pounds, by a person of the name
+of Doctor Dundey, who escaped to America; from which country some
+of the stolen notes came home.  He was supposed to have bought a
+farm in New Jersey.  Under proper management, that estate could be
+seized and sold, for the benefit of the parties he had defrauded.
+I was sent off to America for this purpose.
+
+'I landed at Boston.  I went on to New York.  I found that he had
+lately changed New York paper-money for New Jersey paper money, and
+had banked cash in New Brunswick.  To take this Doctor Dundey, it
+was necessary to entrap him into the State of New York, which
+required a deal of artifice and trouble.  At one time, he couldn't
+be drawn into an appointment.  At another time, he appointed to
+come to meet me, and a New York officer, on a pretext I made; and
+then his children had the measles.  At last he came, per steamboat,
+and I took him, and lodged him in a New York prison called the
+Tombs; which I dare say you know, sir?'
+
+Editorial acknowledgment to that effect.
+
+'I went to the Tombs, on the morning after his capture, to attend
+the examination before the magistrate.  I was passing through the
+magistrate's private room, when, happening to look round me to take
+notice of the place, as we generally have a habit of doing, I
+clapped my eyes, in one corner, on a - Carpet Bag.
+
+'What did I see upon that Carpet Bag, if you'll believe me, but a
+green parrot on a stand, as large as life!
+
+'"That Carpet Bag, with the representation of a green parrot on a
+stand," said I, "belongs to an English Jew, named Aaron Mesheck,
+and to no other man, alive or dead!"
+
+'I give you my word the New York Police Officers were doubled up
+with surprise.
+
+'"How did you ever come to know that?" said they.
+
+'"I think I ought to know that green parrot by this time," said I;
+"for I have had as pretty a dance after that bird, at home, as ever
+I had, in all my life!"'
+
+
+'And was it Mesheck's?' we submissively inquired.
+
+'Was it, sir?  Of course it was!  He was in custody for another
+offence, in that very identical Tombs, at that very identical time.
+And, more than that!  Some memoranda, relating to the fraud for
+which I had vainly endeavoured to take him, were found to be, at
+that moment, lying in that very same individual - Carpet Bag!'
+
+
+Such are the curious coincidences and such is the peculiar ability,
+always sharpening and being improved by practice, and always
+adapting itself to every variety of circumstances, and opposing
+itself to every new device that perverted ingenuity can invent, for
+which this important social branch of the public service is
+remarkable!  For ever on the watch, with their wits stretched to
+the utmost, these officers have, from day to day and year to year,
+to set themselves against every novelty of trickery and dexterity
+that the combined imaginations of all the lawless rascals in
+England can devise, and to keep pace with every such invention that
+comes out.  In the Courts of Justice, the materials of thousands of
+such stories as we have narrated - often elevated into the
+marvellous and romantic, by the circumstances of the case - are
+dryly compressed into the set phrase, 'in consequence of
+information I received, I did so and so.'  Suspicion was to be
+directed, by careful inference and deduction, upon the right
+person; the right person was to be taken, wherever he had gone, or
+whatever he was doing to avoid detection: he is taken; there he is
+at the bar; that is enough.  From information I, the officer,
+received, I did it; and, according to the custom in these cases, I
+say no more.
+
+These games of chess, played with live pieces, are played before
+small audiences, and are chronicled nowhere.  The interest of the
+game supports the player.  Its results are enough for justice.  To
+compare great things with small, suppose LEVERRIER or ADAMS
+informing the public that from information he had received he had
+discovered a new planet; or COLUMBUS informing the public of his
+day that from information he had received he had discovered a new
+continent; so the Detectives inform it that they have discovered a
+new fraud or an old offender, and the process is unknown.
+
+Thus, at midnight, closed the proceedings of our curious and
+interesting party.  But one other circumstance finally wound up the
+evening, after our Detective guests had left us.  One of the
+sharpest among them, and the officer best acquainted with the Swell
+Mob, had his pocket picked, going home!
+
+
+
+THREE 'DETECTIVE' ANECDOTES
+
+
+
+I. - THE PAIR OF GLOVES
+
+
+'IT'S a singler story, sir,' said Inspector Wield, of the Detective
+Police, who, in company with Sergeants Dornton and Mith, paid us
+another twilight visit, one July evening; 'and I've been thinking
+you might like to know it.
+
+'It's concerning the murder of the young woman, Eliza Grimwood,
+some years ago, over in the Waterloo Road.  She was commonly called
+The Countess, because of her handsome appearance and her proud way
+of carrying of herself; and when I saw the poor Countess (I had
+known her well to speak to), lying dead, with her throat cut, on
+the floor of her bedroom, you'll believe me that a variety of
+reflections calculated to make a man rather low in his spirits,
+came into my head.
+
+'That's neither here nor there.  I went to the house the morning
+after the murder, and examined the body, and made a general
+observation of the bedroom where it was.  Turning down the pillow
+of the bed with my hand, I found, underneath it, a pair of gloves.
+A pair of gentleman's dress gloves, very dirty; and inside the
+lining, the letters TR, and a cross.
+
+'Well, sir, I took them gloves away, and I showed 'em to the
+magistrate, over at Union Hall, before whom the case was.  He says,
+"Wield," he says, "there's no doubt this is a discovery that may
+lead to something very important; and what you have got to do,
+Wield, is, to find out the owner of these gloves."
+
+'I was of the same opinion, of course, and I went at it
+immediately.  I looked at the gloves pretty narrowly, and it was my
+opinion that they had been cleaned.  There was a smell of sulphur
+and rosin about 'em, you know, which cleaned gloves usually have,
+more or less.  I took 'em over to a friend of mine at Kennington,
+who was in that line, and I put it to him.  "What do you say now?
+Have these gloves been cleaned?"  "These gloves have been cleaned,"
+says he.  "Have you any idea who cleaned them?" says I.  "Not at
+all," says he; "I've a very distinct idea who DIDN'T clean 'em, and
+that's myself.  But I'll tell you what, Wield, there ain't above
+eight or nine reg'lar glove-cleaners in London," - there were not,
+at that time, it seems - "and I think I can give you their
+addresses, and you may find out, by that means, who did clean 'em."
+Accordingly, he gave me the directions, and I went here, and I went
+there, and I looked up this man, and I looked up that man; but,
+though they all agreed that the gloves had been cleaned, I couldn't
+find the man, woman, or child, that had cleaned that aforesaid pair
+of gloves.
+
+'What with this person not being at home, and that person being
+expected home in the afternoon, and so forth, the inquiry took me
+three days.  On the evening of the third day, coming over Waterloo
+Bridge from the Surrey side of the river, quite beat, and very much
+vexed and disappointed, I thought I'd have a shilling's worth of
+entertainment at the Lyceum Theatre to freshen myself up.  So I
+went into the Pit, at half-price, and I sat myself down next to a
+very quiet, modest sort of young man.  Seeing I was a stranger
+(which I thought it just as well to appear to be) he told me the
+names of the actors on the stage, and we got into conversation.
+When the play was over, we came out together, and I said, "We've
+been very companionable and agreeable, and perhaps you wouldn't
+object to a drain?"  "Well, you're very good," says he; "I
+SHOULDN'T object to a drain."  Accordingly, we went to a public-
+house, near the Theatre, sat ourselves down in a quiet room up-
+stairs on the first floor, and called for a pint of half-and-half,
+apiece, and a pipe.
+
+'Well, sir, we put our pipes aboard, and we drank our half-and-
+half, and sat a-talking, very sociably, when the young man says,
+"You must excuse me stopping very long," he says, "because I'm
+forced to go home in good time.  I must be at work all night."  "At
+work all night?" says I.  "You ain't a baker?"  "No," he says,
+laughing, "I ain't a baker."  "I thought not," says I, "you haven't
+the looks of a baker."  "No," says he, "I'm a glove-cleaner."
+
+'I never was more astonished in my life, than when I heard them
+words come out of his lips.  "You're a glove-cleaner, are you?"
+says I.  "Yes," he says, "I am."  "Then, perhaps," says I, taking
+the gloves out of my pocket, "you can tell me who cleaned this pair
+of gloves?  It's a rum story," I says.  "I was dining over at
+Lambeth, the other day, at a free-and-easy - quite promiscuous -
+with a public company - when some gentleman, he left these gloves
+behind him!  Another gentleman and me, you see, we laid a wager of
+a sovereign, that I wouldn't find out who they belonged to.  I've
+spent as much as seven shillings already, in trying to discover;
+but, if you could help me, I'd stand another seven and welcome.
+You see there's TR and a cross, inside."  "I see," he says.  "Bless
+you, I know these gloves very well!  I've seen dozens of pairs
+belonging to the same party."  "No?" says I.  "Yes," says he.
+"Then you know who cleaned 'em?" says I.  "Rather so," says he.
+"My father cleaned 'em."
+
+'"Where does your father live?" says I.  "Just round the corner,"
+says the young man, "near Exeter Street, here.  He'll tell you who
+they belong to, directly."  "Would you come round with me now?"
+says I.  "Certainly," says he, "but you needn't tell my father that
+you found me at the play, you know, because he mightn't like it."
+"All right!"  We went round to the place, and there we found an old
+man in a white apron, with two or three daughters, all rubbing and
+cleaning away at lots of gloves, in a front parlour.  "Oh, Father!"
+says the young man, "here's a person been and made a bet about the
+ownership of a pair of gloves, and I've told him you can settle
+it."  "Good evening, sir," says I to the old gentleman.  "Here's
+the gloves your son speaks of.  Letters TR, you see, and a cross."
+"Oh yes," he says, "I know these gloves very well; I've cleaned
+dozens of pairs of 'em.  They belong to Mr. Trinkle, the great
+upholsterer in Cheapside."  "Did you get 'em from Mr. Trinkle,
+direct," says I, "if you'll excuse my asking the question?"  "No,"
+says he; "Mr. Trinkle always sends 'em to Mr. Phibbs's, the
+haberdasher's, opposite his shop, and the haberdasher sends 'em to
+me."  "Perhaps YOU wouldn't object to a drain?" says I.  "Not in
+the least!" says he.  So I took the old gentleman out, and had a
+little more talk with him and his son, over a glass, and we parted
+excellent friends.
+
+'This was late on a Saturday night.  First thing on the Monday
+morning, I went to the haberdasher's shop, opposite Mr. Trinkle's,
+the great upholsterer's in Cheapside.  "Mr. Phibbs in the way?"
+"My name is Phibbs."  "Oh!  I believe you sent this pair of gloves
+to be cleaned?"  "Yes, I did, for young Mr. Trinkle over the way.
+There he is in the shop!"  "Oh! that's him in the shop, is it?  Him
+in the green coat?"  "The same individual."  "Well, Mr. Phibbs,
+this is an unpleasant affair; but the fact is, I am Inspector Wield
+of the Detective Police, and I found these gloves under the pillow
+of the young woman that was murdered the other day, over in the
+Waterloo Road!"  "Good Heaven!" says he.  "He's a most respectable
+young man, and if his father was to hear of it, it would be the
+ruin of him!"  "I'm very sorry for it," says I, "but I must take
+him into custody."  "Good Heaven!" says Mr. Phibbs, again; "can
+nothing be done?"  "Nothing," says I.  "Will you allow me to call
+him over here," says he, "that his father may not see it done?"  "I
+don't object to that," says I; "but unfortunately, Mr. Phibbs, I
+can't allow of any communication between you.  If any was
+attempted, I should have to interfere directly.  Perhaps you'll
+beckon him over here?'  Mr. Phibbs went to the door and beckoned,
+and the young fellow came across the street directly; a smart,
+brisk young fellow.
+
+'"Good morning, sir," says I.  "Good morning, sir," says he.
+"Would you allow me to inquire, sir," says I, "if you ever had any
+acquaintance with a party of the name of Grimwood?"  "Grimwood!
+Grimwood!" says he.  "No!"  "You know the Waterloo Road?"  "Oh! of
+course I know the Waterloo Road!"  "Happen to have heard of a young
+woman being murdered there?"  "Yes, I read it in the paper, and
+very sorry I was to read it."  "Here's a pair of gloves belonging
+to you, that I found under her pillow the morning afterwards!"
+
+'He was in a dreadful state, sir; a dreadful state I "Mr. Wield,"
+he says, "upon my solemn oath I never was there.  I never so much
+as saw her, to my knowledge, in my life!"  "I am very sorry," says
+I.  "To tell you the truth; I don't think you ARE the murderer, but
+I must take you to Union Hall in a cab.  However, I think it's a
+case of that sort, that, at present, at all events, the magistrate
+will hear it in private."
+
+'A private examination took place, and then it came out that this
+young man was acquainted with a cousin of the unfortunate Eliza
+Grimwood, and that, calling to see this cousin a day or two before
+the murder, he left these gloves upon the table.  Who should come
+in, shortly afterwards, but Eliza Grimwood!  "Whose gloves are
+these?" she says, taking 'em up.  "Those are Mr. Trinkle's gloves,"
+says her cousin.  "Oh!" says she, "they are very dirty, and of no
+use to him, I am sure.  I shall take 'em away for my girl to clean
+the stoves with."  And she put 'em in her pocket.  The girl had
+used 'em to clean the stoves, and, I have no doubt, had left 'em
+lying on the bedroom mantelpiece, or on the drawers, or somewhere;
+and her mistress, looking round to see that the room was tidy, had
+caught 'em up and put 'em under the pillow where I found 'em.
+
+That's the story, sir.'
+
+
+II. - THE ARTFUL TOUCH
+
+
+'One of the most BEAUTIFUL things that ever was done, perhaps,'
+said Inspector Wield, emphasising the adjective, as preparing us to
+expect dexterity or ingenuity rather than strong interest, 'was a
+move of Sergeant Witchem's.  It was a lovely idea!
+
+'Witchem and me were down at Epsom one Derby Day, waiting at the
+station for the Swell Mob.  As I mentioned, when we were talking
+about these things before, we are ready at the station when there's
+races, or an Agricultural Show, or a Chancellor sworn in for an
+university, or Jenny Lind, or anything of that sort; and as the
+Swell Mob come down, we send 'em back again by the next train.  But
+some of the Swell Mob, on the occasion of this Derby that I refer
+to, so far kidded us as to hire a horse and shay; start away from
+London by Whitechapel, and miles round; come into Epsom from the
+opposite direction; and go to work, right and left, on the course,
+while we were waiting for 'em at the Rail.  That, however, ain't
+the point of what I'm going to tell you.
+
+'While Witchem and me were waiting at the station, there comes up
+one Mr. Tatt; a gentleman formerly in the public line, quite an
+amateur Detective in his way, and very much respected.  "Halloa,
+Charley Wield," he says.  "What are you doing here?  On the look
+out for some of your old friends?"  "Yes, the old move, Mr. Tatt."
+"Come along," he says, "you and Witchem, and have a glass of
+sherry."  "We can't stir from the place," says I, "till the next
+train comes in; but after that, we will with pleasure."  Mr. Tatt
+waits, and the train comes in, and then Witchem and me go off with
+him to the Hotel.  Mr. Tatt he's got up quite regardless of
+expense, for the occasion; and in his shirt-front there's a
+beautiful diamond prop, cost him fifteen or twenty pound - a very
+handsome pin indeed.  We drink our sherry at the bar, and have had
+our three or four glasses, when Witchem cries suddenly, "Look out,
+Mr. Wield! stand fast!" and a dash is made into the place by the
+Swell Mob - four of 'em - that have come down as I tell you, and in
+a moment Mr. Tatt's prop is gone!  Witchem, he cuts 'em off at the
+door, I lay about me as hard as I can, Mr. Tatt shows fight like a
+good 'un, and there we are, all down together, heads and heels,
+knocking about on the floor of the bar - perhaps you never see such
+a scene of confusion!  However, we stick to our men (Mr. Tatt being
+as good as any officer), and we take 'em all, and carry 'em off to
+the station.'  The station's full of people, who have been took on
+the course; and it's a precious piece of work to get 'em secured.
+However, we do it at last, and we search 'em; but nothing's found
+upon 'em, and they're locked up; and a pretty state of heat we are
+in by that time, I assure you!
+
+'I was very blank over it, myself, to think that the prop had been
+passed away; and I said to Witchem, when we had set 'em to rights,
+and were cooling ourselves along with Mr. Tatt, "we don't take much
+by THIS move, anyway, for nothing's found upon 'em, and it's only
+the braggadocia, (2) after all."  "What do you mean, Mr. Wield?"
+says Witchem.  "Here's the diamond pin!" and in the palm of his
+hand there it was, safe and sound!  "Why, in the name of wonder,"
+says me and Mr. Tatt, in astonishment, "how did you come by that?"
+"I'll tell you how I come by it," says he.  "I saw which of 'em
+took it; and when we were all down on the floor together, knocking
+about, I just gave him a little touch on the back of his hand, as I
+knew his pal would; and he thought it WAS his pal; and gave it me!"
+It was beautiful, beau-ti-ful!
+
+'Even that was hardly the best of the case, for that chap was tried
+at the Quarter Sessions at Guildford.  You know what Quarter
+Sessions are, sir.  Well, if you'll believe me, while them slow
+justices were looking over the Acts of Parliament, to see what they
+could do to him, I'm blowed if he didn't cut out of the dock before
+their faces!  He cut out of the dock, sir, then and there; swam
+across a river; and got up into a tree to dry himself.  In the tree
+he was took - an old woman having seen him climb up - and Witchem's
+artful touch transported him!'
+
+
+III. - THE SOFA
+
+
+"What young men will do, sometimes, to ruin themselves and break
+their friends' hearts,' said Sergeant Dornton, 'it's surprising!  I
+had a case at Saint Blank's Hospital which was of this sort.  A bad
+case, indeed, with a bad end!
+
+'The Secretary, and the House-Surgeon, and the Treasurer, of Saint
+Blank's Hospital, came to Scotland Yard to give information of
+numerous robberies having been committed on the students.  The
+students could leave nothing in the pockets of their great-coats,
+while the great-coats were hanging at the hospital, but it was
+almost certain to be stolen.  Property of various descriptions was
+constantly being lost; and the gentlemen were naturally uneasy
+about it, and anxious, for the credit of the institution, that the
+thief or thieves should be discovered.  The case was entrusted to
+me, and I went to the hospital.
+
+'"Now, gentlemen," said I, after we had talked it over; "I
+understand this property is usually lost from one room."
+
+'Yes, they said.  It was.
+
+'"I should wish, if you please," said I, "to see the room."
+
+'It was a good-sized bare room down-stairs, with a few tables and
+forms in it, and a row of pegs, all round, for hats and coats.
+
+'"Next, gentlemen," said I, "do you suspect anybody?"
+
+'Yes, they said.  They did suspect somebody.  They were sorry to
+say, they suspected one of the porters.
+
+'"I should like," said I, "to have that man pointed out to me, and
+to have a little time to look after him."
+
+'He was pointed out, and I looked after him, and then I went back
+to the hospital, and said, "Now, gentlemen, it's not the porter.
+He's, unfortunately for himself, a little too fond of drink, but
+he's nothing worse.  My suspicion is, that these robberies are
+committed by one of the students; and if you'll put me a sofa into
+that room where the pegs are - as there's no closet - I think I
+shall be able to detect the thief.  I wish the sofa, if you please,
+to be covered with chintz, or something of that sort, so that I may
+lie on my chest, underneath it, without being seen."
+
+'The sofa was provided, and next day at eleven o'clock, before any
+of the students came, I went there, with those gentlemen, to get
+underneath it.  It turned out to be one of those old-fashioned
+sofas with a great cross-beam at the bottom, that would have broken
+my back in no time if I could ever have got below it.  We had quite
+a job to break all this away in the time; however, I fell to work,
+and they fell to work, and we broke it out, and made a clear place
+for me.  I got under the sofa, lay down on my chest, took out my
+knife, and made a convenient hole in the chintz to look through.
+It was then settled between me and the gentlemen that when the
+students were all up in the wards, one of the gentlemen should come
+in, and hang up a great-coat on one of the pegs.  And that that
+great-coat should have, in one of the pockets, a pocket-book
+containing marked money.
+
+'After I had been there some time, the students began to drop into
+the room, by ones, and twos, and threes, and to talk about all
+sorts of things, little thinking there was anybody under the sofa -
+and then to go up-stairs.  At last there came in one who remained
+until he was alone in the room by himself.  A tallish, good-looking
+young man of one or two and twenty, with a light whisker.  He went
+to a particular hat-peg, took off a good hat that was hanging
+there, tried it on, hung his own hat in its place, and hung that
+hat on another peg, nearly opposite to me.  I then felt quite
+certain that he was the thief, and would come back by-and-by.
+
+'When they were all up-stairs, the gentleman came in with the
+great-coat.  I showed him where to hang it, so that I might have a
+good view of it; and he went away; and I lay under the sofa on my
+chest, for a couple of hours or so, waiting.
+
+'At last, the same young man came down.  He walked across the room,
+whistling - stopped and listened - took another walk and whistled -
+stopped again, and listened - then began to go regularly round the
+pegs, feeling in the pockets of all the coats.  When he came to the
+great-coat, and felt the pocket-book, he was so eager and so
+hurried that he broke the strap in tearing it open.  As he began to
+put the money in his pocket, I crawled out from under the sofa, and
+his eyes met mine.
+
+'My face, as you may perceive, is brown now, but it was pale at
+that time, my health not being good; and looked as long as a
+horse's.  Besides which, there was a great draught of air from the
+door, underneath the sofa, and I had tied a handkerchief round my
+head; so what I looked like, altogether, I don't know.  He turned
+blue - literally blue - when he saw me crawling out, and I couldn't
+feel surprised at it.
+
+'"I am an officer of the Detective Police," said I, "and have been
+lying here, since you first came in this morning.  I regret, for
+the sake of yourself and your friends, that you should have done
+what you have; but this case is complete.  You have the pocket-book
+in your hand and the money upon you; and I must take you into
+custody!"
+
+'It was impossible to make out any case in his behalf, and on his
+trial he pleaded guilty.  How or when he got the means I don't
+know; but while he was awaiting his sentence, he poisoned himself
+in Newgate.'
+
+We inquired of this officer, on the conclusion of the foregoing
+anecdote, whether the time appeared long, or short, when he lay in
+that constrained position under the sofa?
+
+'Why, you see, sir,' he replied, 'if he hadn't come in, the first
+time, and I had not been quite sure he was the thief, and would
+return, the time would have seemed long.  But, as it was, I being
+dead certain of my man, the time seemed pretty short.'
+
+
+
+ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD
+
+
+
+HOW goes the night?  Saint Giles's clock is striking nine.  The
+weather is dull and wet, and the long lines of street lamps are
+blurred, as if we saw them through tears.  A damp wind blows and
+rakes the pieman's fire out, when he opens the door of his little
+furnace, carrying away an eddy of sparks.
+
+Saint Giles's clock strikes nine.  We are punctual.  Where is
+Inspector Field?  Assistant Commissioner of Police is already here,
+enwrapped in oil-skin cloak, and standing in the shadow of Saint
+Giles's steeple.  Detective Sergeant, weary of speaking French all
+day to foreigners unpacking at the Great Exhibition, is already
+here.  Where is Inspector Field?
+
+Inspector Field is, to-night, the guardian genius of the British
+Museum.  He is bringing his shrewd eye to bear on every corner of
+its solitary galleries, before he reports 'all right.'  Suspicious
+of the Elgin marbles, and not to be done by cat-faced Egyptian
+giants with their hands upon their knees, Inspector Field,
+sagacious, vigilant, lamp in hand, throwing monstrous shadows on
+the walls and ceilings, passes through the spacious rooms.  If a
+mummy trembled in an atom of its dusty covering, Inspector Field
+would say, 'Come out of that, Tom Green.  I know you!'  If the
+smallest 'Gonoph' about town were crouching at the bottom of a
+classic bath, Inspector Field would nose him with a finer scent
+than the ogre's, when adventurous Jack lay trembling in his kitchen
+copper.  But all is quiet, and Inspector Field goes warily on,
+making little outward show of attending to anything in particular,
+just recognising the Ichthyosaurus as a familiar acquaintance, and
+wondering, perhaps, how the detectives did it in the days before
+the Flood.
+
+Will Inspector Field be long about this work?  He may be half-an-
+hour longer.  He sends his compliments by Police Constable, and
+proposes that we meet at St. Giles's Station House, across the
+road.  Good.  It were as well to stand by the fire, there, as in
+the shadow of Saint Giles's steeple.
+
+Anything doing here to-night?  Not much.  We are very quiet.  A
+lost boy, extremely calm and small, sitting by the fire, whom we
+now confide to a constable to take home, for the child says that if
+you show him Newgate Street, he can show you where he lives - a
+raving drunken woman in the cells, who has screeched her voice
+away, and has hardly power enough left to declare, even with the
+passionate help of her feet and arms, that she is the daughter of a
+British officer, and, strike her blind and dead, but she'll write a
+letter to the Queen! but who is soothed with a drink of water - in
+another cell, a quiet woman with a child at her breast, for begging
+- in another, her husband in a smock-frock, with a basket of
+watercresses - in another, a pickpocket - in another, a meek
+tremulous old pauper man who has been out for a holiday 'and has
+took but a little drop, but it has overcome him after so many
+months in the house' - and that's all as yet.  Presently, a
+sensation at the Station House door.  Mr. Field, gentlemen!
+
+Inspector Field comes in, wiping his forehead, for he is of a burly
+figure, and has come fast from the ores and metals of the deep
+mines of the earth, and from the Parrot Gods of the South Sea
+Islands, and from the birds and beetles of the tropics, and from
+the Arts of Greece and Rome, and from the Sculptures of Nineveh,
+and from the traces of an elder world, when these were not.  Is
+Rogers ready?  Rogers is ready, strapped and great-coated, with a
+flaming eye in the middle of his waist, like a deformed Cyclops.
+Lead on, Rogers, to Rats' Castle!
+
+How many people may there be in London, who, if we had brought them
+deviously and blindfold, to this street, fifty paces from the
+Station House, and within call of Saint Giles's church, would know
+it for a not remote part of the city in which their lives are
+passed?  How many, who amidst this compound of sickening smells,
+these heaps of filth, these tumbling houses, with all their vile
+contents, animate, and inanimate, slimily overflowing into the
+black road, would believe that they breathe THIS air?  How much Red
+Tape may there be, that could look round on the faces which now hem
+us in - for our appearance here has caused a rush from all points
+to a common centre - the lowering foreheads, the sallow cheeks, the
+brutal eyes, the matted hair, the infected, vermin-haunted heaps of
+rags - and say, 'I have thought of this.  I have not dismissed the
+thing.  I have neither blustered it away, nor frozen it away, nor
+tied it up and put it away, nor smoothly said pooh, pooh! to it
+when it has been shown to me?'
+
+This is not what Rogers wants to know, however.  What Rogers wants
+to know, is, whether you WILL clear the way here, some of you, or
+whether you won't; because if you don't do it right on end, he'll
+lock you up!  'What!  YOU are there, are you, Bob Miles?  You
+haven't had enough of it yet, haven't you?  You want three months
+more, do you?  Come away from that gentleman!  What are you
+creeping round there for?'
+
+'What am I a doing, thinn, Mr. Rogers?' says Bob Miles, appearing,
+villainous, at the end of a lane of light, made by the lantern.
+
+'I'll let you know pretty quick, if you don't hook it.  WILL you
+hook it?'
+
+A sycophantic murmur rises from the crowd.  'Hook it, Bob, when Mr.
+Rogers and Mr. Field tells you!  Why don't you hook it, when you
+are told to?'
+
+The most importunate of the voices strikes familiarly on Mr.
+Rogers's ear.  He suddenly turns his lantern on the owner.
+
+'What!  YOU are there, are you, Mister Click?  You hook it too -
+come!'
+
+'What for?' says Mr. Click, discomfited.
+
+'You hook it, will you!' says Mr. Rogers with stern emphasis.
+
+Both Click and Miles DO 'hook it,' without another word, or, in
+plainer English, sneak away.
+
+'Close up there, my men!' says Inspector Field to two constables on
+duty who have followed.  'Keep together, gentlemen; we are going
+down here.  Heads!'
+
+Saint Giles's church strikes half-past ten.  We stoop low, and
+creep down a precipitous flight of steps into a dark close cellar.
+There is a fire.  There is a long deal table.  There are benches.
+The cellar is full of company, chiefly very young men in various
+conditions of dirt and raggedness.  Some are eating supper.  There
+are no girls or women present.  Welcome to Rats' Castle, gentlemen,
+and to this company of noted thieves!
+
+'Well, my lads!  How are you, my lads?  What have you been doing
+to-day?  Here's some company come to see you, my lads! - THERE'S a
+plate of beefsteak, sir, for the supper of a fine young man!  And
+there's a mouth for a steak, sir!  Why, I should be too proud of
+such a mouth as that, if I had it myself!  Stand up and show it,
+sir!  Take off your cap.  There's a fine young man for a nice
+little party, sir!  An't he?'
+
+Inspector Field is the bustling speaker.  Inspector Field's eye is
+the roving eye that searches every corner of the cellar as he
+talks.  Inspector Field's hand is the well-known hand that has
+collared half the people here, and motioned their brothers,
+sisters, fathers, mothers, male and female friends, inexorably to
+New South Wales.  Yet Inspector Field stands in this den, the
+Sultan of the place.  Every thief here cowers before him, like a
+schoolboy before his schoolmaster.  All watch him, all answer when
+addressed, all laugh at his jokes, all seek to propitiate him.
+This cellar company alone - to say nothing of the crowd surrounding
+the entrance from the street above, and making the steps shine with
+eyes - is strong enough to murder us all, and willing enough to do
+it; but, let Inspector Field have a mind to pick out one thief
+here, and take him; let him produce that ghostly truncheon from his
+pocket, and say, with his business-air, 'My lad, I want you!' and
+all Rats' Castle shall be stricken with paralysis, and not a finger
+move against him, as he fits the handcuffs on!
+
+Where's the Earl of Warwick? - Here he is, Mr. Field!  Here's the
+Earl of Warwick, Mr. Field! - O there you are, my Lord.  Come
+for'ard.  There's a chest, sir, not to have a clean shirt on.  An't
+it?  Take your hat off, my Lord.  Why, I should be ashamed if I was
+you - and an Earl, too - to show myself to a gentleman with my hat
+on! - The Earl of Warwick laughs and uncovers.  All the company
+laugh.  One pickpocket, especially, laughs with great enthusiasm.
+O what a jolly game it is, when Mr. Field comes down - and don't
+want nobody!
+
+So, YOU are here, too, are you, you tall, grey, soldierly-looking,
+grave man, standing by the fire? - Yes, sir.  Good evening, Mr.
+Field! - Let us see.  You lived servant to a nobleman once? - Yes,
+Mr. Field. - And what is it you do now; I forget? - Well, Mr.
+Field, I job about as well as I can.  I left my employment on
+account of delicate health.  The family is still kind to me.  Mr.
+Wix of Piccadilly is also very kind to me when I am hard up.
+Likewise Mr. Nix of Oxford Street.  I get a trifle from them
+occasionally, and rub on as well as I can, Mr. Field.  Mr. Field's
+eye rolls enjoyingly, for this man is a notorious begging-letter
+writer. - Good night, my lads! - Good night, Mr. Field, and
+thank'ee, sir!
+
+Clear the street here, half a thousand of you!  Cut it, Mrs.
+Stalker - none of that - we don't want you!  Rogers of the flaming
+eye, lead on to the tramps' lodging-house!
+
+A dream of baleful faces attends to the door.  Now, stand back all
+of you!  In the rear Detective Sergeant plants himself, composedly
+whistling, with his strong right arm across the narrow passage.
+Mrs. Stalker, I am something'd that need not be written here, if
+you won't get yourself into trouble, in about half a minute, if I
+see that face of yours again!
+
+Saint Giles's church clock, striking eleven, hums through our hand
+from the dilapidated door of a dark outhouse as we open it, and are
+stricken back by the pestilent breath that issues from within.
+Rogers to the front with the light, and let us look!
+
+Ten, twenty, thirty - who can count them!  Men, women, children,
+for the most part naked, heaped upon the floor like maggots in a
+cheese!  Ho!  In that dark corner yonder!  Does anybody lie there?
+Me sir, Irish me, a widder, with six children.  And yonder?  Me
+sir, Irish me, with me wife and eight poor babes.  And to the left
+there?  Me sir, Irish me, along with two more Irish boys as is me
+friends.  And to the right there?  Me sir and the Murphy fam'ly,
+numbering five blessed souls.  And what's this, coiling, now, about
+my foot?  Another Irish me, pitifully in want of shaving, whom I
+have awakened from sleep - and across my other foot lies his wife -
+and by the shoes of Inspector Field lie their three eldest - and
+their three youngest are at present squeezed between the open door
+and the wall.  And why is there no one on that little mat before
+the sullen fire?  Because O'Donovan, with his wife and daughter, is
+not come in from selling Lucifers!  Nor on the bit of sacking in
+the nearest corner?  Bad luck!  Because that Irish family is late
+to-night, a-cadging in the streets!
+
+They are all awake now, the children excepted, and most of them sit
+up, to stare.  Wheresoever Mr. Rogers turns the flaming eye, there
+is a spectral figure rising, unshrouded, from a grave of rags.  Who
+is the landlord here? - I am, Mr. Field! says a bundle of ribs and
+parchment against the wall, scratching itself. - Will you spend
+this money fairly, in the morning, to buy coffee for 'em all? -
+Yes, sir, I will! - O he'll do it, sir, he'll do it fair.  He's
+honest! cry the spectres.  And with thanks and Good Night sink into
+their graves again.
+
+Thus, we make our New Oxford Streets, and our other new streets,
+never heeding, never asking, where the wretches whom we clear out,
+crowd.  With such scenes at our doors, with all the plagues of
+Egypt tied up with bits of cobweb in kennels so near our homes, we
+timorously make our Nuisance Bills and Boards of Health,
+nonentities, and think to keep away the Wolves of Crime and Filth,
+by our electioneering ducking to little vestrymen and our
+gentlemanly handling of Red Tape!
+
+Intelligence of the coffee-money has got abroad.  The yard is full,
+and Rogers of the flaming eye is beleaguered with entreaties to
+show other Lodging Houses.  Mine next!  Mine!  Mine!  Rogers,
+military, obdurate, stiff-necked, immovable, replies not, but leads
+away; all falling back before him.  Inspector Field follows.
+Detective Sergeant, with his barrier of arm across the little
+passage, deliberately waits to close the procession.  He sees
+behind him, without any effort, and exceedingly disturbs one
+individual far in the rear by coolly calling out, 'It won't do, Mr.
+Michael!  Don't try it!'
+
+After council holden in the street, we enter other lodging-houses,
+public-houses, many lairs and holes; all noisome and offensive;
+none so filthy and so crowded as where Irish are.  In one, The
+Ethiopian party are expected home presently - were in Oxford Street
+when last heard of - shall be fetched, for our delight, within ten
+minutes.  In another, one of the two or three Professors who drew
+Napoleon Buonaparte and a couple of mackerel, on the pavement and
+then let the work of art out to a speculator, is refreshing after
+his labours.  In another, the vested interest of the profitable
+nuisance has been in one family for a hundred years, and the
+landlord drives in comfortably from the country to his snug little
+stew in town.  In all, Inspector Field is received with warmth.
+Coiners and smashers droop before him; pickpockets defer to him;
+the gentle sex (not very gentle here) smile upon him.  Half-drunken
+hags check themselves in the midst of pots of beer, or pints of
+gin, to drink to Mr. Field, and pressingly to ask the honour of his
+finishing the draught.  One beldame in rusty black has such
+admiration for him, that she runs a whole street's length to shake
+him by the hand; tumbling into a heap of mud by the way, and still
+pressing her attentions when her very form has ceased to be
+distinguishable through it.  Before the power of the law, the power
+of superior sense - for common thieves are fools beside these men -
+and the power of a perfect mastery of their character, the garrison
+of Rats' Castle and the adjacent Fortresses make but a skulking
+show indeed when reviewed by Inspector Field.
+
+Saint Giles's clock says it will be midnight in half-an-hour, and
+Inspector Field says we must hurry to the Old Mint in the Borough.
+The cab-driver is low-spirited, and has a solemn sense of his
+responsibility.  Now, what's your fare, my lad? - O YOU know,
+Inspector Field, what's the good of asking ME!
+
+Say, Parker, strapped and great-coated, and waiting in dim Borough
+doorway by appointment, to replace the trusty Rogers whom we left
+deep in Saint Giles's, are you ready?  Ready, Inspector Field, and
+at a motion of my wrist behold my flaming eye.
+
+This narrow street, sir, is the chief part of the Old Mint, full of
+low lodging-houses, as you see by the transparent canvas-lamps and
+blinds, announcing beds for travellers!  But it is greatly changed,
+friend Field, from my former knowledge of it; it is infinitely
+quieter and more subdued than when I was here last, some seven
+years ago?  O yes!  Inspector Haynes, a first-rate man, is on this
+station now and plays the Devil with them!
+
+Well, my lads!  How are you to-night, my lads?  Playing cards here,
+eh?  Who wins? - Why, Mr. Field, I, the sulky gentleman with the
+damp flat side-curls, rubbing my bleared eye with the end of my
+neckerchief which is like a dirty eel-skin, am losing just at
+present, but I suppose I must take my pipe out of my mouth, and be
+submissive to YOU - I hope I see you well, Mr. Field? - Aye, all
+right, my lad.  Deputy, who have you got up-stairs?  Be pleased to
+show the rooms!
+
+Why Deputy, Inspector Field can't say.  He only knows that the man
+who takes care of the beds and lodgers is always called so.
+Steady, O Deputy, with the flaring candle in the blacking-bottle,
+for this is a slushy back-yard, and the wooden staircase outside
+the house creaks and has holes in it.
+
+Again, in these confined intolerable rooms, burrowed out like the
+holes of rats or the nests of insect-vermin, but fuller of
+intolerable smells, are crowds of sleepers, each on his foul
+truckle-bed coiled up beneath a rug.  Holloa here!  Come!  Let us
+see you!  Show your face!  Pilot Parker goes from bed to bed and
+turns their slumbering heads towards us, as a salesman might turn
+sheep.  Some wake up with an execration and a threat. - What! who
+spoke?  O!  If it's the accursed glaring eye that fixes me, go
+where I will, I am helpless.  Here!  I sit up to be looked at.  Is
+it me you want?  Not you, lie down again! and I lie down, with a
+woful growl.
+
+Whenever the turning lane of light becomes stationary for a moment,
+some sleeper appears at the end of it, submits himself to be
+scrutinised, and fades away into the darkness.
+
+There should be strange dreams here, Deputy.  They sleep sound
+enough, says Deputy, taking the candle out of the blacking-bottle,
+snuffing it with his fingers, throwing the snuff into the bottle,
+and corking it up with the candle; that's all I know.  What is the
+inscription, Deputy, on all the discoloured sheets?  A precaution
+against loss of linen.  Deputy turns down the rug of an unoccupied
+bed and discloses it.  STOP THIEF!
+
+To lie at night, wrapped in the legend of my slinking life; to take
+the cry that pursues me, waking, to my breast in sleep; to have it
+staring at me, and clamouring for me, as soon as consciousness
+returns; to have it for my first-foot on New-Year's day, my
+Valentine, my Birthday salute, my Christmas greeting, my parting
+with the old year.  STOP THIEF!
+
+And to know that I MUST be stopped, come what will.  To know that I
+am no match for this individual energy and keenness, or this
+organised and steady system!  Come across the street, here, and,
+entering by a little shop and yard, examine these intricate
+passages and doors, contrived for escape, flapping and counter-
+flapping, like the lids of the conjurer's boxes.  But what avail
+they?  Who gets in by a nod, and shows their secret working to us?
+Inspector Field.
+
+Don't forget the old Farm House, Parker!  Parker is not the man to
+forget it.  We are going there, now.  It is the old Manor-House of
+these parts, and stood in the country once.  Then, perhaps, there
+was something, which was not the beastly street, to see from the
+shattered low fronts of the overhanging wooden houses we are
+passing under - shut up now, pasted over with bills about the
+literature and drama of the Mint, and mouldering away.  This long
+paved yard was a paddock or a garden once, or a court in front of
+the Farm House.  Perchance, with a dovecot in the centre, and fowls
+peeking about - with fair elm trees, then, where discoloured
+chimney-stacks and gables are now - noisy, then, with rooks which
+have yielded to a different sort of rookery.  It's likelier than
+not, Inspector Field thinks, as we turn into the common kitchen,
+which is in the yard, and many paces from the house.
+
+Well, my lads and lasses, how are you all?  Where's Blackey, who
+has stood near London Bridge these five-and-twenty years, with a
+painted skin to represent disease? - Here he is, Mr. Field! - How
+are you, Blackey? - Jolly, sa!  Not playing the fiddle to-night,
+Blackey? - Not a night, sa!  A sharp, smiling youth, the wit of the
+kitchen, interposes.  He an't musical to-night, sir.  I've been
+giving him a moral lecture; I've been a talking to him about his
+latter end, you see.  A good many of these are my pupils, sir.
+This here young man (smoothing down the hair of one near him,
+reading a Sunday paper) is a pupil of mine.  I'm a teaching of him
+to read, sir.  He's a promising cove, sir.  He's a smith, he is,
+and gets his living by the sweat of the brow, sir.  So do I,
+myself, sir.  This young woman is my sister, Mr. Field.  SHE'S
+getting on very well too.  I've a deal of trouble with 'em, sir,
+but I'm richly rewarded, now I see 'em all a doing so well, and
+growing up so creditable.  That's a great comfort, that is, an't
+it, sir? - In the midst of the kitchen (the whole kitchen is in
+ecstasies with this impromptu 'chaff') sits a young, modest,
+gentle-looking creature, with a beautiful child in her lap.  She
+seems to belong to the company, but is so strangely unlike it.  She
+has such a pretty, quiet face and voice, and is so proud to hear
+the child admired - thinks you would hardly believe that he is only
+nine months old!  Is she as bad as the rest, I wonder?
+Inspectorial experience does not engender a belief contrariwise,
+but prompts the answer, Not a ha'porth of difference!
+
+There is a piano going in the old Farm House as we approach.  It
+stops.  Landlady appears.  Has no objections, Mr. Field, to
+gentlemen being brought, but wishes it were at earlier hours, the
+lodgers complaining of ill-conwenience.  Inspector Field is polite
+and soothing - knows his woman and the sex.  Deputy (a girl in this
+case) shows the way up a heavy, broad old staircase, kept very
+clean, into clean rooms where many sleepers are, and where painted
+panels of an older time look strangely on the truckle beds.  The
+sight of whitewash and the smell of soap - two things we seem by
+this time to have parted from in infancy - make the old Farm House
+a phenomenon, and connect themselves with the so curiously
+misplaced picture of the pretty mother and child long after we have
+left it, - long after we have left, besides, the neighbouring nook
+with something of a rustic flavour in it yet, where once, beneath a
+low wooden colonnade still standing as of yore, the eminent Jack
+Sheppard condescended to regale himself, and where, now, two old
+bachelor brothers in broad hats (who are whispered in the Mint to
+have made a compact long ago that if either should ever marry, he
+must forfeit his share of the joint property) still keep a
+sequestered tavern, and sit o' nights smoking pipes in the bar,
+among ancient bottles and glasses, as our eyes behold them.
+
+How goes the night now?  Saint George of Southwark answers with
+twelve blows upon his bell.  Parker, good night, for Williams is
+already waiting over in the region of Ratcliffe Highway, to show
+the houses where the sailors dance.
+
+I should like to know where Inspector Field was born.  In Ratcliffe
+Highway, I would have answered with confidence, but for his being
+equally at home wherever we go.  HE does not trouble his head as I
+do, about the river at night.  HE does not care for its creeping,
+black and silent, on our right there, rushing through sluice-gates,
+lapping at piles and posts and iron rings, hiding strange things in
+its mud, running away with suicides and accidentally drowned bodies
+faster than midnight funeral should, and acquiring such various
+experience between its cradle and its grave.  It has no mystery for
+HIM.  Is there not the Thames Police!
+
+Accordingly, Williams leads the way.  We are a little late, for
+some of the houses are already closing.  No matter.  You show us
+plenty.  All the landlords know Inspector Field.  All pass him,
+freely and good-humouredly, wheresoever he wants to go.  So
+thoroughly are all these houses open to him and our local guide,
+that, granting that sailors must be entertained in their own way -
+as I suppose they must, and have a right to be - I hardly know how
+such places could be better regulated.  Not that I call the company
+very select, or the dancing very graceful - even so graceful as
+that of the German Sugar Bakers, whose assembly, by the Minories,
+we stopped to visit - but there is watchful maintenance of order in
+every house, and swift expulsion where need is.  Even in the midst
+of drunkenness, both of the lethargic kind and the lively, there is
+sharp landlord supervision, and pockets are in less peril than out
+of doors.  These houses show, singularly, how much of the
+picturesque and romantic there truly is in the sailor, requiring to
+be especially addressed.  All the songs (sung in a hailstorm of
+halfpence, which are pitched at the singer without the least
+tenderness for the time or tune - mostly from great rolls of copper
+carried for the purpose - and which he occasionally dodges like
+shot as they fly near his head) are of the sentimental sea sort.
+All the rooms are decorated with nautical subjects.  Wrecks,
+engagements, ships on fire, ships passing lighthouses on iron-bound
+coasts, ships blowing up, ships going down, ships running ashore,
+men lying out upon the main-yard in a gale of wind, sailors and
+ships in every variety of peril, constitute the illustrations of
+fact.  Nothing can be done in the fanciful way, without a thumping
+boy upon a scaly dolphin.
+
+How goes the night now?  Past one.  Black and Green are waiting in
+Whitechapel to unveil the mysteries of Wentworth Street.  Williams,
+the best of friends must part.  Adieu!
+
+Are not Black and Green ready at the appointed place?  O yes!  They
+glide out of shadow as we stop.  Imperturbable Black opens the cab-
+door; Imperturbable Green takes a mental note of the driver.  Both
+Green and Black then open each his flaming eye, and marshal us the
+way that we are going.
+
+The lodging-house we want is hidden in a maze of streets and
+courts.  It is fast shut.  We knock at the door, and stand hushed
+looking up for a light at one or other of the begrimed old lattice
+windows in its ugly front, when another constable comes up -
+supposes that we want 'to see the school.'  Detective Sergeant
+meanwhile has got over a rail, opened a gate, dropped down an area,
+overcome some other little obstacles, and tapped at a window.  Now
+returns.  The landlord will send a deputy immediately.
+
+Deputy is heard to stumble out of bed.  Deputy lights a candle,
+draws back a bolt or two, and appears at the door.  Deputy is a
+shivering shirt and trousers by no means clean, a yawning face, a
+shock head much confused externally and internally.  We want to
+look for some one.  You may go up with the light, and take 'em all,
+if you like, says Deputy, resigning it, and sitting down upon a
+bench in the kitchen with his ten fingers sleepily twisting in his
+hair.
+
+Halloa here!  Now then!  Show yourselves.  That'll do.  It's not
+you.  Don't disturb yourself any more!  So on, through a labyrinth
+of airless rooms, each man responding, like a wild beast, to the
+keeper who has tamed him, and who goes into his cage.  What, you
+haven't found him, then? says Deputy, when we came down.  A woman
+mysteriously sitting up all night in the dark by the smouldering
+ashes of the kitchen fire, says it's only tramps and cadgers here;
+it's gonophs over the way.  A man mysteriously walking about the
+kitchen all night in the dark, bids her hold her tongue.  We come
+out.  Deputy fastens the door and goes to bed again.
+
+Black and Green, you know Bark, lodging-house keeper and receiver
+of stolen goods? - O yes, Inspector Field. - Go to Bark's next.
+
+Bark sleeps in an inner wooden hutch, near his street door.  As we
+parley on the step with Bark's Deputy, Bark growls in his bed.  We
+enter, and Bark flies out of bed.  Bark is a red villain and a
+wrathful, with a sanguine throat that looks very much as if it were
+expressly made for hanging, as he stretches it out, in pale
+defiance, over the half-door of his hutch.  Bark's parts of speech
+are of an awful sort - principally adjectives.  I won't, says Bark,
+have no adjective police and adjective strangers in my adjective
+premises!  I won't, by adjective and substantive!  Give me my
+trousers, and I'll send the whole adjective police to adjective and
+substantive!  Give me, says Bark, my adjective trousers!  I'll put
+an adjective knife in the whole bileing of 'em.  I'll punch their
+adjective heads.  I'll rip up their adjective substantives.  Give
+me my adjective trousers! says Bark, and I'll spile the bileing of
+'em!
+
+Now, Bark, what's the use of this?  Here's Black and Green,
+Detective Sergeant, and Inspector Field.  You know we will come in.
+- I know you won't! says Bark.  Somebody give me my adjective
+trousers!  Bark's trousers seem difficult to find.  He calls for
+them as Hercules might for his club.  Give me my adjective
+trousers! says Bark, and I'll spile the bileing of 'em!
+
+Inspector Field holds that it's all one whether Bark likes the
+visit or don't like it.  He, Inspector Field, is an Inspector of
+the Detective Police, Detective Sergeant IS Detective Sergeant,
+Black and Green are constables in uniform.  Don't you be a fool,
+Bark, or you know it will be the worse for you. - I don't care,
+says Bark.  Give me my adjective trousers!
+
+At two o'clock in the morning, we descend into Bark's low kitchen,
+leaving Bark to foam at the mouth above, and Imperturbable Black
+and Green to look at him.  Bark's kitchen is crammed full of
+thieves, holding a CONVERSAZIONE there by lamp-light.  It is by far
+the most dangerous assembly we have seen yet.  Stimulated by the
+ravings of Bark, above, their looks are sullen, but not a man
+speaks.  We ascend again.  Bark has got his trousers, and is in a
+state of madness in the passage with his back against a door that
+shuts off the upper staircase.  We observe, in other respects, a
+ferocious individuality in Bark.  Instead of 'STOP THIEF!' on his
+linen, he prints 'STOLEN FROM Bark's!'
+
+Now, Bark, we are going up-stairs! - No, you ain't! - YOU refuse
+admission to the Police, do you, Bark? - Yes, I do!  I refuse it to
+all the adjective police, and to all the adjective substantives.
+If the adjective coves in the kitchen was men, they'd come up now,
+and do for you!  Shut me that there door! says Bark, and suddenly
+we are enclosed in the passage.  They'd come up and do for you!
+cries Bark, and waits.  Not a sound in the kitchen!  They'd come up
+and do for you! cries Bark again, and waits.  Not a sound in the
+kitchen!  We are shut up, half-a-dozen of us, in Bark's house in
+the innermost recesses of the worst part of London, in the dead of
+the night - the house is crammed with notorious robbers and
+ruffians - and not a man stirs.  No, Bark.  They know the weight of
+the law, and they know Inspector Field and Co. too well.
+
+We leave bully Bark to subside at leisure out of his passion and
+his trousers, and, I dare say, to be inconveniently reminded of
+this little brush before long.  Black and Green do ordinary duty
+here, and look serious.
+
+As to White, who waits on Holborn Hill to show the courts that are
+eaten out of Rotten Gray's Inn, Lane, where other lodging-houses
+are, and where (in one blind alley) the Thieves' Kitchen and
+Seminary for the teaching of the art to children is, the night has
+so worn away, being now
+
+
+almost at odds with morning, which is which,
+
+
+that they are quiet, and no light shines through the chinks in the
+shutters.  As undistinctive Death will come here, one day, sleep
+comes now.  The wicked cease from troubling sometimes, even in this
+life.
+
+
+
+DOWN WITH THE TIDE
+
+
+
+A VERY dark night it was, and bitter cold; the east wind blowing
+bleak, and bringing with it stinging particles from marsh, and
+moor, and fen - from the Great Desert and Old Egypt, may be.  Some
+of the component parts of the sharp-edged vapour that came flying
+up the Thames at London might be mummy-dust, dry atoms from the
+Temple at Jerusalem, camels' foot-prints, crocodiles' hatching-
+places, loosened grains of expression from the visages of blunt-
+nosed sphynxes, waifs and strays from caravans of turbaned
+merchants, vegetation from jungles, frozen snow from the Himalayas.
+O!  It was very, very dark upon the Thames, and it was bitter,
+bitter cold.
+
+'And yet,' said the voice within the great pea-coat at my side,
+'you'll have seen a good many rivers, too, I dare say?'
+
+'Truly,' said I, 'when I come to think of it, not a few.  From the
+Niagara, downward to the mountain rivers of Italy, which are like
+the national spirit - very tame, or chafing suddenly and bursting
+bounds, only to dwindle away again.  The Moselle, and the Rhine,
+and the Rhone; and the Seine, and the Saone; and the St. Lawrence,
+Mississippi, and Ohio; and the Tiber, the Po, and the Arno; and the
+- '
+
+Peacoat coughing as if he had had enough of that, I said no more.
+I could have carried the catalogue on to a teasing length, though,
+if I had been in the cruel mind.
+
+'And after all,' said he, 'this looks so dismal?'
+
+'So awful,' I returned, 'at night.  The Seine at Paris is very
+gloomy too, at such a time, and is probably the scene of far more
+crime and greater wickedness; but this river looks so broad and
+vast, so murky and silent, seems such an image of death in the
+midst of the great city's life, that - '
+
+That Peacoat coughed again.  He COULD NOT stand my holding forth.
+
+We were in a four-oared Thames Police Galley, lying on our oars in
+the deep shadow of Southwark Bridge - under the corner arch on the
+Surrey side - having come down with the tide from Vauxhall.  We
+were fain to hold on pretty tight, though close in shore, for the
+river was swollen and the tide running down very strong.  We were
+watching certain water-rats of human growth, and lay in the deep
+shade as quiet as mice; our light hidden and our scraps of
+conversation carried on in whispers.  Above us, the massive iron
+girders of the arch were faintly visible, and below us its
+ponderous shadow seemed to sink down to the bottom of the stream.
+
+We had been lying here some half an hour.  With our backs to the
+wind, it is true; but the wind being in a determined temper blew
+straight through us, and would not take the trouble to go round.  I
+would have boarded a fireship to get into action, and mildly
+suggested as much to my friend Pea.
+
+'No doubt,' says he as patiently as possible; 'but shore-going
+tactics wouldn't do with us.  River-thieves can always get rid of
+stolen property in a moment by dropping it overboard.  We want to
+take them WITH the property, so we lurk about and come out upon 'em
+sharp.  If they see us or hear us, over it goes.'
+
+Pea's wisdom being indisputable, there was nothing for it but to
+sit there and be blown through, for another half-hour.  The water-
+rats thinking it wise to abscond at the end of that time without
+commission of felony, we shot out, disappointed, with the tide.
+
+'Grim they look, don't they?' said Pea, seeing me glance over my
+shoulder at the lights upon the bridge, and downward at their long
+crooked reflections in the river.
+
+'Very,' said I, 'and make one think with a shudder of Suicides.
+What a night for a dreadful leap from that parapet!'
+
+'Aye, but Waterloo's the favourite bridge for making holes in the
+water from,' returned Pea.  'By the bye - avast pulling, lads! -
+would you like to speak to Waterloo on the subject?'
+
+My face confessing a surprised desire to have some friendly
+conversation with Waterloo Bridge, and my friend Pea being the most
+obliging of men, we put about, pulled out of the force of the
+stream, and in place of going at great speed with the tide, began
+to strive against it, close in shore again.  Every colour but black
+seemed to have departed from the world.  The air was black, the
+water was black, the barges and hulks were black, the piles were
+black, the buildings were black, the shadows were only a deeper
+shade of black upon a black ground.  Here and there, a coal fire in
+an iron cresset blazed upon a wharf; but, one knew that it too had
+been black a little while ago, and would be black again soon.
+Uncomfortable rushes of water suggestive of gurgling and drowning,
+ghostly rattlings of iron chains, dismal clankings of discordant
+engines, formed the music that accompanied the dip of our oars and
+their rattling in the rowlocks.  Even the noises had a black sound
+to me - as the trumpet sounded red to the blind man.
+
+Our dexterous boat's crew made nothing of the tide, and pulled us
+gallantly up to Waterloo Bridge.  Here Pea and I disembarked,
+passed under the black stone archway, and climbed the steep stone
+steps.  Within a few feet of their summit, Pea presented me to
+Waterloo (or an eminent toll-taker representing that structure),
+muffled up to the eyes in a thick shawl, and amply great-coated and
+fur-capped.
+
+Waterloo received us with cordiality, and observed of the night
+that it was 'a Searcher.'  He had been originally called the Strand
+Bridge, he informed us, but had received his present name at the
+suggestion of the proprietors, when Parliament had resolved to vote
+three hundred thousand pound for the erection of a monument in
+honour of the victory.  Parliament took the hint (said Waterloo,
+with the least flavour of misanthropy) and saved the money.  Of
+course the late Duke of Wellington was the first passenger, and of
+course he paid his penny, and of course a noble lord preserved it
+evermore.  The treadle and index at the toll-house (a most
+ingenious contrivance for rendering fraud impossible), were
+invented by Mr. Lethbridge, then property-man at Drury Lane
+Theatre.
+
+Was it suicide, we wanted to know about? said Waterloo.  Ha!  Well,
+he had seen a good deal of that work, he did assure us.  He had
+prevented some.  Why, one day a woman, poorish looking, came in
+between the hatch, slapped down a penny, and wanted to go on
+without the change!  Waterloo suspected this, and says to his mate,
+'give an eye to the gate,' and bolted after her.  She had got to
+the third seat between the piers, and was on the parapet just a
+going over, when he caught her and gave her in charge.  At the
+police office next morning, she said it was along of trouble and a
+bad husband.
+
+'Likely enough,' observed Waterloo to Pea and myself, as he
+adjusted his chin in his shawl.  'There's a deal of trouble about,
+you see - and bad husbands too!'
+
+Another time, a young woman at twelve o'clock in the open day, got
+through, darted along; and, before Waterloo could come near her,
+jumped upon the parapet, and shot herself over sideways.  Alarm
+given, watermen put off, lucky escape. - Clothes buoyed her up.
+
+'This is where it is,' said Waterloo.  'If people jump off straight
+forwards from the middle of the parapet of the bays of the bridge,
+they are seldom killed by drowning, but are smashed, poor things;
+that's what THEY are; they dash themselves upon the buttress of the
+bridge.  But you jump off,' said Waterloo to me, putting his
+fore-finger in a button-hole of my great-coat; 'you jump off from the
+side of the bay, and you'll tumble, true, into the stream under the
+arch.  What you have got to do, is to mind how you jump in!  There
+was poor Tom Steele from Dublin.  Didn't dive!  Bless you, didn't
+dive at all!  Fell down so flat into the water, that he broke his
+breast-bone, and lived two days!'
+
+I asked Waterloo if there were a favourite side of his bridge for
+this dreadful purpose?  He reflected, and thought yes, there was.
+He should say the Surrey side.
+
+Three decent-looking men went through one day, soberly and quietly,
+and went on abreast for about a dozen yards: when the middle one,
+he sung out, all of a sudden, 'Here goes, Jack!' and was over in a
+minute.
+
+Body found?  Well.  Waterloo didn't rightly recollect about that.
+They were compositors, THEY were.
+
+He considered it astonishing how quick people were!  Why, there was
+a cab came up one Boxing-night, with a young woman in it, who
+looked, according to Waterloo's opinion of her, a little the worse
+for liquor; very handsome she was too - very handsome.  She stopped
+the cab at the gate, and said she'd pay the cabman then, which she
+did, though there was a little hankering about the fare, because at
+first she didn't seem quite to know where she wanted to be drove
+to.  However, she paid the man, and the toll too, and looking
+Waterloo in the face (he thought she knew him, don't you see!)
+said, 'I'll finish it somehow!'  Well, the cab went off, leaving
+Waterloo a little doubtful in his mind, and while it was going on
+at full speed the young woman jumped out, never fell, hardly
+staggered, ran along the bridge pavement a little way, passing
+several people, and jumped over from the second opening.  At the
+inquest it was giv' in evidence that she had been quarrelling at
+the Hero of Waterloo, and it was brought in jealousy.  (One of the
+results of Waterloo's experience was, that there was a deal of
+jealousy about.)
+
+'Do we ever get madmen?' said Waterloo, in answer to an inquiry of
+mine.  'Well, we DO get madmen.  Yes, we have had one or two;
+escaped from 'Sylums, I suppose.  One hadn't a halfpenny; and
+because I wouldn't let him through, he went back a little way,
+stooped down, took a run, and butted at the hatch like a ram.  He
+smashed his hat rarely, but his head didn't seem no worse - in my
+opinion on account of his being wrong in it afore.  Sometimes
+people haven't got a halfpenny.  If they are really tired and poor
+we give 'em one and let 'em through.  Other people will leave
+things - pocket-handkerchiefs mostly.  I HAVE taken cravats and
+gloves, pocket-knives, tooth-picks, studs, shirt-pins, rings
+(generally from young gents, early in the morning), but
+handkerchiefs is the general thing.'
+
+'Regular customers?' said Waterloo.  'Lord, yes!  We have regular
+customers.  One, such a worn-out, used-up old file as you can
+scarcely picter, comes from the Surrey side as regular as ten
+o'clock at night comes; and goes over, I think, to some flash house
+on the Middlesex side.  He comes back, he does, as reg'lar as the
+clock strikes three in the morning, and then can hardly drag one of
+his old legs after the other.  He always turns down the water-
+stairs, comes up again, and then goes on down the Waterloo Road.
+He always does the same thing, and never varies a minute.  Does it
+every night - even Sundays.'
+
+I asked Waterloo if he had given his mind to the possibility of
+this particular customer going down the water-stairs at three
+o'clock some morning, and never coming up again?  He didn't think
+THAT of him, he replied.  In fact, it was Waterloo's opinion,
+founded on his observation of that file, that he know'd a trick
+worth two of it.
+
+'There's another queer old customer,' said Waterloo, 'comes over,
+as punctual as the almanack, at eleven o'clock on the sixth of
+January, at eleven o'clock on the fifth of April, at eleven o'clock
+on the sixth of July, at eleven o'clock on the tenth of October.
+Drives a shaggy little, rough pony, in a sort of a rattle-trap arm-
+chair sort of a thing.  White hair he has, and white whiskers, and
+muffles himself up with all manner of shawls.  He comes back again
+the same afternoon, and we never see more of him for three months.
+He is a captain in the navy - retired - wery old - wery odd - and
+served with Lord Nelson.  He is particular about drawing his
+pension at Somerset House afore the clock strikes twelve every
+quarter.  I HAVE heerd say that he thinks it wouldn't be according
+to the Act of Parliament, if he didn't draw it afore twelve.'
+
+Having related these anecdotes in a natural manner, which was the
+best warranty in the world for their genuine nature, our friend
+Waterloo was sinking deep into his shawl again, as having exhausted
+his communicative powers and taken in enough east wind, when my
+other friend Pea in a moment brought him to the surface by asking
+whether he had not been occasionally the subject of assault and
+battery in the execution of his duty?  Waterloo recovering his
+spirits, instantly dashed into a new branch of his subject.  We
+learnt how 'both these teeth' - here he pointed to the places where
+two front teeth were not - were knocked out by an ugly customer who
+one night made a dash at him (Waterloo) while his (the ugly
+customer's) pal and coadjutor made a dash at the toll-taking apron
+where the money-pockets were; how Waterloo, letting the teeth go
+(to Blazes, he observed indefinitely), grappled with the apron-
+seizer, permitting the ugly one to run away; and how he saved the
+bank, and captured his man, and consigned him to fine and
+imprisonment.  Also how, on another night, 'a Cove' laid hold of
+Waterloo, then presiding at the horse-gate of his bridge, and threw
+him unceremoniously over his knee, having first cut his head open
+with his whip.  How Waterloo 'got right,' and started after the
+Cove all down the Waterloo Road, through Stamford Street, and round
+to the foot of Blackfriars Bridge, where the Cove 'cut into' a
+public-house.  How Waterloo cut in too; but how an aider and
+abettor of the Cove's, who happened to be taking a promiscuous
+drain at the bar, stopped Waterloo; and the Cove cut out again, ran
+across the road down Holland Street, and where not, and into a
+beer-shop.  How Waterloo breaking away from his detainer was close
+upon the Cove's heels, attended by no end of people, who, seeing
+him running with the blood streaming down his face, thought
+something worse was 'up,' and roared Fire! and Murder! on the
+hopeful chance of the matter in hand being one or both.  How the
+Cove was ignominiously taken, in a shed where he had run to hide,
+and how at the Police Court they at first wanted to make a sessions
+job of it; but eventually Waterloo was allowed to be 'spoke to,'
+and the Cove made it square with Waterloo by paying his doctor's
+bill (W. was laid up for a week) and giving him 'Three, ten.'
+Likewise we learnt what we had faintly suspected before, that your
+sporting amateur on the Derby day, albeit a captain, can be - 'if
+he be,' as Captain Bobadil observes, 'so generously minded' -
+anything but a man of honour and a gentleman; not sufficiently
+gratifying his nice sense of humour by the witty scattering of
+flour and rotten eggs on obtuse civilians, but requiring the
+further excitement of 'bilking the toll,' and 'Pitching into'
+Waterloo, and 'cutting him about the head with his whip;' finally
+being, when called upon to answer for the assault, what Waterloo
+described as 'Minus,' or, as I humbly conceived it, not to be
+found.  Likewise did Waterloo inform us, in reply to my inquiries,
+admiringly and deferentially preferred through my friend Pea, that
+the takings at the Bridge had more than doubled in amount, since
+the reduction of the toll one half.  And being asked if the
+aforesaid takings included much bad money, Waterloo responded, with
+a look far deeper than the deepest part of the river, HE should
+think not! - and so retired into his shawl for the rest of the
+night.
+
+Then did Pea and I once more embark in our four-oared galley, and
+glide swiftly down the river with the tide.  And while the shrewd
+East rasped and notched us, as with jagged razors, did my friend
+Pea impart to me confidences of interest relating to the Thames
+Police; we, between whiles, finding 'duty boats' hanging in dark
+corners under banks, like weeds - our own was a 'supervision boat'
+- and they, as they reported 'all right!' flashing their hidden
+light on us, and we flashing ours on them.  These duty boats had
+one sitter in each: an Inspector: and were rowed 'Ran-dan,' which -
+for the information of those who never graduated, as I was once
+proud to do, under a fireman-waterman and winner of Kean's Prize
+Wherry: who, in the course of his tuition, took hundreds of gallons
+of rum and egg (at my expense) at the various houses of note above
+and below bridge; not by any means because he liked it, but to cure
+a weakness in his liver, for which the faculty had particularly
+recommended it - may be explained as rowed by three men, two
+pulling an oar each, and one a pair of sculls.
+
+Thus, floating down our black highway, sullenly frowned upon by the
+knitted brows of Blackfriars, Southwark, and London, each in his
+lowering turn, I was shown by my friend Pea that there are, in the
+Thames Police Force, whose district extends from Battersea to
+Barking Creek, ninety-eight men, eight duty boats, and two
+supervision boats; and that these go about so silently, and lie in
+wait in such dark places, and so seem to be nowhere, and so may be
+anywhere, that they have gradually become a police of prevention,
+keeping the river almost clear of any great crimes, even while the
+increased vigilance on shore has made it much harder than of yore
+to live by 'thieving' in the streets.  And as to the various kinds
+of water-thieves, said my friend Pea, there were the Tier-rangers,
+who silently dropped alongside the tiers of shipping in the Pool,
+by night, and who, going to the companion-head, listened for two
+snores - snore number one, the skipper's; snore number two, the
+mate's - mates and skippers always snoring great guns, and being
+dead sure to be hard at it if they had turned in and were asleep.
+Hearing the double fire, down went the Rangers into the skippers'
+cabins; groped for the skippers' inexpressibles, which it was the
+custom of those gentlemen to shake off, watch, money, braces,
+boots, and all together, on the floor; and therewith made off as
+silently as might be.  Then there were the Lumpers, or labourers
+employed to unload vessels.  They wore loose canvas jackets with a
+broad hem in the bottom, turned inside, so as to form a large
+circular pocket in which they could conceal, like clowns in
+pantomimes, packages of surprising sizes.  A great deal of property
+was stolen in this manner (Pea confided to me) from steamers;
+first, because steamers carry a larger number of small packages
+than other ships; next, because of the extreme rapidity with which
+they are obliged to be unladen for their return voyages.  The
+Lumpers dispose of their booty easily to marine store dealers, and
+the only remedy to be suggested is that marine store shops should
+be licensed, and thus brought under the eye of the police as
+rigidly as public-houses.  Lumpers also smuggle goods ashore for
+the crews of vessels.  The smuggling of tobacco is so considerable,
+that it is well worth the while of the sellers of smuggled tobacco
+to use hydraulic presses, to squeeze a single pound into a package
+small enough to be contained in an ordinary pocket.  Next, said my
+friend Pea, there were the Truckers - less thieves than smugglers,
+whose business it was to land more considerable parcels of goods
+than the Lumpers could manage.  They sometimes sold articles of
+grocery and so forth, to the crews, in order to cloak their real
+calling, and get aboard without suspicion.  Many of them had boats
+of their own, and made money.  Besides these, there were the
+Dredgermen, who, under pretence of dredging up coals and such like
+from the bottom of the river, hung about barges and other undecked
+craft, and when they saw an opportunity, threw any property they
+could lay their hands on overboard: in order slyly to dredge it up
+when the vessel was gone.  Sometimes, they dexterously used their
+dredges to whip away anything that might lie within reach.  Some of
+them were mighty neat at this, and the accomplishment was called
+dry dredging.  Then, there was a vast deal of property, such as
+copper nails, sheathing, hardwood, &c., habitually brought away by
+shipwrights and other workmen from their employers' yards, and
+disposed of to marine store dealers, many of whom escaped detection
+through hard swearing, and their extraordinary artful ways of
+accounting for the possession of stolen property.  Likewise, there
+were special-pleading practitioners, for whom barges 'drifted away
+of their own selves' - they having no hand in it, except first
+cutting them loose, and afterwards plundering them - innocents,
+meaning no harm, who had the misfortune to observe those foundlings
+wandering about the Thames.
+
+We were now going in and out, with little noise and great nicety,
+among the tiers of shipping, whose many hulls, lying close
+together, rose out of the water like black streets.  Here and
+there, a Scotch, an Irish, or a foreign steamer, getting up her
+steam as the tide made, looked, with her great chimney and high
+sides, like a quiet factory among the common buildings.  Now, the
+streets opened into clearer spaces, now contracted into alleys; but
+the tiers were so like houses, in the dark, that I could almost
+have believed myself in the narrower bye-ways of Venice.
+Everything was wonderfully still; for, it wanted full three hours
+of flood, and nothing seemed awake but a dog here and there.
+
+So we took no Tier-rangers captive, nor any Lumpers, nor Truckers,
+nor Dredgermen, nor other evil-disposed person or persons; but went
+ashore at Wapping, where the old Thames Police office is now a
+station-house, and where the old Court, with its cabin windows
+looking on the river, is a quaint charge room: with nothing worse
+in it usually than a stuffed cat in a glass case, and a portrait,
+pleasant to behold, of a rare old Thames Police officer, Mr.
+Superintendent Evans, now succeeded by his son.  We looked over the
+charge books, admirably kept, and found the prevention so good that
+there were not five hundred entries (including drunken and
+disorderly) in a whole year.  Then, we looked into the store-room;
+where there was an oakum smell, and a nautical seasoning of
+dreadnought clothing, rope yarn, boat-hooks, sculls and oars, spare
+stretchers, rudders, pistols, cutlasses, and the like.  Then, into
+the cell, aired high up in the wooden wall through an opening like
+a kitchen plate-rack: wherein there was a drunken man, not at all
+warm, and very wishful to know if it were morning yet.  Then, into
+a better sort of watch and ward room, where there was a squadron of
+stone bottles drawn up, ready to be filled with hot water and
+applied to any unfortunate creature who might be brought in
+apparently drowned.  Finally, we shook hands with our worthy friend
+Pea, and ran all the way to Tower Hill, under strong Police
+suspicion occasionally, before we got warm.
+
+
+
+A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE
+
+
+
+ON a certain Sunday, I formed one of the congregation assembled in
+the chapel of a large metropolitan Workhouse.  With the exception
+of the clergyman and clerk, and a very few officials, there were
+none but paupers present.  The children sat in the galleries; the
+women in the body of the chapel, and in one of the side aisles; the
+men in the remaining aisle.  The service was decorously performed,
+though the sermon might have been much better adapted to the
+comprehension and to the circumstances of the hearers.  The usual
+supplications were offered, with more than the usual significancy
+in such a place, for the fatherless children and widows, for all
+sick persons and young children, for all that were desolate and
+oppressed, for the comforting and helping of the weak-hearted, for
+the raising-up of them that had fallen; for all that were in
+danger, necessity, and tribulation.  The prayers of the
+congregation were desired 'for several persons in the various wards
+dangerously ill;' and others who were recovering returned their
+thanks to Heaven.
+
+Among this congregation, were some evil-looking young women, and
+beetle-browed young men; but not many - perhaps that kind of
+characters kept away.  Generally, the faces (those of the children
+excepted) were depressed and subdued, and wanted colour.  Aged
+people were there, in every variety.  Mumbling, blear-eyed,
+spectacled, stupid, deaf, lame; vacantly winking in the gleams of
+sun that now and then crept in through the open doors, from the
+paved yard; shading their listening ears, or blinking eyes, with
+their withered hands; poring over their books, leering at nothing,
+going to sleep, crouching and drooping in corners.  There were
+weird old women, all skeleton within, all bonnet and cloak without,
+continually wiping their eyes with dirty dusters of pocket-
+handkerchiefs; and there were ugly old crones, both male and
+female, with a ghastly kind of contentment upon them which was not
+at all comforting to see.  Upon the whole, it was the dragon,
+Pauperism, in a very weak and impotent condition; toothless,
+fangless, drawing his breath heavily enough, and hardly worth
+chaining up.
+
+When the service was over, I walked with the humane and
+conscientious gentleman whose duty it was to take that walk, that
+Sunday morning, through the little world of poverty enclosed within
+the workhouse walls.  It was inhabited by a population of some
+fifteen hundred or two thousand paupers, ranging from the infant
+newly born or not yet come into the pauper world, to the old man
+dying on his bed.
+
+In a room opening from a squalid yard, where a number of listless
+women were lounging to and fro, trying to get warm in the
+ineffectual sunshine of the tardy May morning - in the 'Itch Ward,'
+not to compromise the truth - a woman such as HOGARTH has often
+drawn, was hurriedly getting on her gown before a dusty fire.  She
+was the nurse, or wardswoman, of that insalubrious department -
+herself a pauper - flabby, raw-boned, untidy - unpromising and
+coarse of aspect as need be.  But, on being spoken to about the
+patients whom she had in charge, she turned round, with her shabby
+gown half on, half off, and fell a crying with all her might.  Not
+for show, not querulously, not in any mawkish sentiment, but in the
+deep grief and affliction of her heart; turning away her
+dishevelled head: sobbing most bitterly, wringing her hands, and
+letting fall abundance of great tears, that choked her utterance.
+What was the matter with the nurse of the itch-ward?  Oh, 'the
+dropped child' was dead!  Oh, the child that was found in the
+street, and she had brought up ever since, had died an hour ago,
+and see where the little creature lay, beneath this cloth!  The
+dear, the pretty dear!
+
+The dropped child seemed too small and poor a thing for Death to be
+in earnest with, but Death had taken it; and already its diminutive
+form was neatly washed, composed, and stretched as if in sleep upon
+a box.  I thought I heard a voice from Heaven saying, It shall be
+well for thee, O nurse of the itch-ward, when some less gentle
+pauper does those offices to thy cold form, that such as the
+dropped child are the angels who behold my Father's face!
+
+In another room, were several ugly old women crouching, witch-like,
+round a hearth, and chattering and nodding, after the manner of the
+monkeys.  'All well here?  And enough to eat?'  A general
+chattering and chuckling; at last an answer from a volunteer.  'Oh
+yes, gentleman!  Bless you, gentleman!  Lord bless the Parish of
+St. So-and-So!  It feed the hungry, sir, and give drink to the
+thusty, and it warm them which is cold, so it do, and good luck to
+the parish of St. So-and-So, and thankee, gentleman!'  Elsewhere, a
+party of pauper nurses were at dinner.  'How do YOU get on?'  'Oh
+pretty well, sir!  We works hard, and we lives hard - like the
+sodgers!'
+
+In another room, a kind of purgatory or place of transition, six or
+eight noisy madwomen were gathered together, under the
+superintendence of one sane attendant.  Among them was a girl of
+two or three and twenty, very prettily dressed, of most respectable
+appearance and good manners, who had been brought in from the house
+where she had lived as domestic servant (having, I suppose, no
+friends), on account of being subject to epileptic fits, and
+requiring to be removed under the influence of a very bad one.  She
+was by no means of the same stuff, or the same breeding, or the
+same experience, or in the same state of mind, as those by whom she
+was surrounded; and she pathetically complained that the daily
+association and the nightly noise made her worse, and was driving
+her mad - which was perfectly evident.  The case was noted for
+inquiry and redress, but she said she had already been there for
+some weeks.
+
+If this girl had stolen her mistress's watch, I do not hesitate to
+say she would have been infinitely better off.  We have come to
+this absurd, this dangerous, this monstrous pass, that the
+dishonest felon is, in respect of cleanliness, order, diet, and
+accommodation, better provided for, and taken care of, than the
+honest pauper.
+
+And this conveys no special imputation on the workhouse of the
+parish of St. So-and-So, where, on the contrary, I saw many things
+to commend.  It was very agreeable, recollecting that most infamous
+and atrocious enormity committed at Tooting - an enormity which, a
+hundred years hence, will still be vividly remembered in the bye-
+ways of English life, and which has done more to engender a gloomy
+discontent and suspicion among many thousands of the people than
+all the Chartist leaders could have done in all their lives - to
+find the pauper children in this workhouse looking robust and well,
+and apparently the objects of very great care.  In the Infant
+School - a large, light, airy room at the top of the building - the
+little creatures, being at dinner, and eating their potatoes
+heartily, were not cowed by the presence of strange visitors, but
+stretched out their small hands to be shaken, with a very pleasant
+confidence.  And it was comfortable to see two mangy pauper
+rocking-horses rampant in a corner.  In the girls' school, where
+the dinner was also in progress, everything bore a cheerful and
+healthy aspect.  The meal was over, in the boys' school, by the
+time of our arrival there, and the room was not yet quite
+rearranged; but the boys were roaming unrestrained about a large
+and airy yard, as any other schoolboys might have done.  Some of
+them had been drawing large ships upon the schoolroom wall; and if
+they had a mast with shrouds and stays set up for practice (as they
+have in the Middlesex House of Correction), it would be so much the
+better.  At present, if a boy should feel a strong impulse upon him
+to learn the art of going aloft, he could only gratify it, I
+presume, as the men and women paupers gratify their aspirations
+after better board and lodging, by smashing as many workhouse
+windows as possible, and being promoted to prison.
+
+In one place, the Newgate of the Workhouse, a company of boys and
+youths were locked up in a yard alone; their day-room being a kind
+of kennel where the casual poor used formerly to be littered down
+at night.  Divers of them had been there some long time.  'Are they
+never going away?' was the natural inquiry.  'Most of them are
+crippled, in some form or other,' said the Wardsman, 'and not fit
+for anything.'  They slunk about, like dispirited wolves or
+hyaenas; and made a pounce at their food when it was served out,
+much as those animals do.  The big-headed idiot shuffling his feet
+along the pavement, in the sunlight outside, was a more agreeable
+object everyway.
+
+Groves of babies in arms; groves of mothers and other sick women in
+bed; groves of lunatics; jungles of men in stone-paved down-stairs
+day-rooms, waiting for their dinners; longer and longer groves of
+old people, in up-stairs Infirmary wards, wearing out life, God
+knows how - this was the scenery through which the walk lay, for
+two hours.  In some of these latter chambers, there were pictures
+stuck against the wall, and a neat display of crockery and pewter
+on a kind of sideboard; now and then it was a treat to see a plant
+or two; in almost every ward there was a cat.
+
+In all of these Long Walks of aged and infirm, some old people were
+bedridden, and had been for a long time; some were sitting on their
+beds half-naked; some dying in their beds; some out of bed, and
+sitting at a table near the fire.  A sullen or lethargic
+indifference to what was asked, a blunted sensibility to everything
+but warmth and food, a moody absence of complaint as being of no
+use, a dogged silence and resentful desire to be left alone again,
+I thought were generally apparent.  On our walking into the midst
+of one of these dreary perspectives of old men, nearly the
+following little dialogue took place, the nurse not being
+immediately at hand:
+
+'All well here?'
+
+No answer.  An old man in a Scotch cap sitting among others on a
+form at the table, eating out of a tin porringer, pushes back his
+cap a little to look at us, claps it down on his forehead again
+with the palm of his hand, and goes on eating.
+
+'All well here?' (repeated).
+
+No answer.  Another old man sitting on his bed, paralytically
+peeling a boiled potato, lifts his head and stares.
+
+'Enough to eat?'
+
+No answer.  Another old man, in bed, turns himself and coughs.
+
+'How are YOU to-day?'  To the last old man.
+
+That old man says nothing; but another old man, a tall old man of
+very good address, speaking with perfect correctness, comes forward
+from somewhere, and volunteers an answer.  The reply almost always
+proceeds from a volunteer, and not from the person looked at or
+spoken to.
+
+'We are very old, sir,' in a mild, distinct voice.  'We can't
+expect to be well, most of us.'
+
+'Are you comfortable?'
+
+'I have no complaint to make, sir.'  With a half shake of his head,
+a half shrug of his shoulders, and a kind of apologetic smile.
+
+'Enough to eat?'
+
+'Why, sir, I have but a poor appetite,' with the same air as
+before; 'and yet I get through my allowance very easily.'
+
+'But,' showing a porringer with a Sunday dinner in it; 'here is a
+portion of mutton, and three potatoes.  You can't starve on that?'
+
+'Oh dear no, sir,' with the same apologetic air.  'Not starve.'
+
+'What do you want?'
+
+'We have very little bread, sir.  It's an exceedingly small
+quantity of bread.'
+
+The nurse, who is now rubbing her hands at the questioner's elbow,
+interferes with, 'It ain't much raly, sir.  You see they've only
+six ounces a day, and when they've took their breakfast, there CAN
+only be a little left for night, sir.'
+
+Another old man, hitherto invisible, rises out of his bed-clothes,
+as out of a grave, and looks on.
+
+'You have tea at night?'  The questioner is still addressing the
+well-spoken old man.
+
+'Yes, sir, we have tea at night.'
+
+'And you save what bread you can from the morning, to eat with it?'
+
+'Yes, sir - if we can save any.'
+
+'And you want more to eat with it?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'  With a very anxious face.
+
+The questioner, in the kindness of his heart, appears a little
+discomposed, and changes the subject.
+
+'What has become of the old man who used to lie in that bed in the
+corner?'
+
+The nurse don't remember what old man is referred to.  There has
+been such a many old men.  The well-spoken old man is doubtful.
+The spectral old man who has come to life in bed, says, 'Billy
+Stevens.'  Another old man who has previously had his head in the
+fireplace, pipes out,
+
+'Charley Walters.'
+
+Something like a feeble interest is awakened.  I suppose Charley
+Walters had conversation in him.
+
+'He's dead,' says the piping old man.
+
+Another old man, with one eye screwed up, hastily displaces the
+piping old man, and says.
+
+'Yes!  Charley Walters died in that bed, and - and - '
+
+'Billy Stevens,' persists the spectral old man.
+
+'No, no! and Johnny Rogers died in that bed, and - and - they're
+both on 'em dead - and Sam'l Bowyer;' this seems very extraordinary
+to him; 'he went out!'
+
+With this he subsides, and all the old men (having had quite enough
+of it) subside, and the spectral old man goes into his grave again,
+and takes the shade of Billy Stevens with him.
+
+As we turn to go out at the door, another previously invisible old
+man, a hoarse old man in a flannel gown, is standing there, as if
+he had just come up through the floor.
+
+'I beg your pardon, sir, could I take the liberty of saying a
+word?'
+
+'Yes; what is it?'
+
+'I am greatly better in my health, sir; but what I want, to get me
+quite round,' with his hand on his throat, 'is a little fresh air,
+sir.  It has always done my complaint so much good, sir.  The
+regular leave for going out, comes round so seldom, that if the
+gentlemen, next Friday, would give me leave to go out walking, now
+and then - for only an hour or so, sir! - '
+
+Who could wonder, looking through those weary vistas of bed and
+infirmity, that it should do him good to meet with some other
+scenes, and assure himself that there was something else on earth?
+Who could help wondering why the old men lived on as they did; what
+grasp they had on life; what crumbs of interest or occupation they
+could pick up from its bare board; whether Charley Walters had ever
+described to them the days when he kept company with some old
+pauper woman in the bud, or Billy Stevens ever told them of the
+time when he was a dweller in the far-off foreign land called Home!
+
+The morsel of burnt child, lying in another room, so patiently, in
+bed, wrapped in lint, and looking steadfastly at us with his bright
+quiet eyes when we spoke to him kindly, looked as if the knowledge
+of these things, and of all the tender things there are to think
+about, might have been in his mind - as if he thought, with us,
+that there was a fellow-feeling in the pauper nurses which appeared
+to make them more kind to their charges than the race of common
+nurses in the hospitals - as if he mused upon the Future of some
+older children lying around him in the same place, and thought it
+best, perhaps, all things considered, that he should die - as if he
+knew, without fear, of those many coffins, made and unmade, piled
+up in the store below - and of his unknown friend, 'the dropped
+child,' calm upon the box-lid covered with a cloth.  But there was
+something wistful and appealing, too, in his tiny face, as if, in
+the midst of all the hard necessities and incongruities he pondered
+on, he pleaded, in behalf of the helpless and the aged poor, for a
+little more liberty - and a little more bread.
+
+
+
+PRINCE BULL.  A FAIRY TALE
+
+
+
+ONCE upon a time, and of course it was in the Golden Age, and I
+hope you may know when that was, for I am sure I don't, though I
+have tried hard to find out, there lived in a rich and fertile
+country, a powerful Prince whose name was BULL.  He had gone
+through a great deal of fighting, in his time, about all sorts of
+things, including nothing; but, had gradually settled down to be a
+steady, peaceable, good-natured, corpulent, rather sleepy Prince.
+
+This Puissant Prince was married to a lovely Princess whose name
+was Fair Freedom.  She had brought him a large fortune, and had
+borne him an immense number of children, and had set them to
+spinning, and farming, and engineering, and soldiering, and
+sailoring, and doctoring, and lawyering, and preaching, and all
+kinds of trades.  The coffers of Prince Bull were full of treasure,
+his cellars were crammed with delicious wines from all parts of the
+world, the richest gold and silver plate that ever was seen adorned
+his sideboards, his sons were strong, his daughters were handsome,
+and in short you might have supposed that if there ever lived upon
+earth a fortunate and happy Prince, the name of that Prince, take
+him for all in all, was assuredly Prince Bull.
+
+But, appearances, as we all know, are not always to be trusted -
+far from it; and if they had led you to this conclusion respecting
+Prince Bull, they would have led you wrong as they often have led
+me.
+
+For, this good Prince had two sharp thorns in his pillow, two hard
+knobs in his crown, two heavy loads on his mind, two unbridled
+nightmares in his sleep, two rocks ahead in his course.  He could
+not by any means get servants to suit him, and he had a tyrannical
+old godmother, whose name was Tape.
+
+She was a Fairy, this Tape, and was a bright red all over.  She was
+disgustingly prim and formal, and could never bend herself a hair's
+breadth this way or that way, out of her naturally crooked shape.
+But, she was very potent in her wicked art.  She could stop the
+fastest thing in the world, change the strongest thing into the
+weakest, and the most useful into the most useless.  To do this she
+had only to put her cold hand upon it, and repeat her own name,
+Tape.  Then it withered away.
+
+At the Court of Prince Bull - at least I don't mean literally at
+his court, because he was a very genteel Prince, and readily
+yielded to his godmother when she always reserved that for his
+hereditary Lords and Ladies - in the dominions of Prince Bull,
+among the great mass of the community who were called in the
+language of that polite country the Mobs and the Snobs, were a
+number of very ingenious men, who were always busy with some
+invention or other, for promoting the prosperity of the Prince's
+subjects, and augmenting the Prince's power.  But, whenever they
+submitted their models for the Prince's approval, his godmother
+stepped forward, laid her hand upon them, and said 'Tape.'  Hence
+it came to pass, that when any particularly good discovery was
+made, the discoverer usually carried it off to some other Prince,
+in foreign parts, who had no old godmother who said Tape.  This was
+not on the whole an advantageous state of things for Prince Bull,
+to the best of my understanding.
+
+The worst of it was, that Prince Bull had in course of years lapsed
+into such a state of subjection to this unlucky godmother, that he
+never made any serious effort to rid himself of her tyranny.  I
+have said this was the worst of it, but there I was wrong, because
+there is a worse consequence still, behind.  The Prince's numerous
+family became so downright sick and tired of Tape, that when they
+should have helped the Prince out of the difficulties into which
+that evil creature led him, they fell into a dangerous habit of
+moodily keeping away from him in an impassive and indifferent
+manner, as though they had quite forgotten that no harm could
+happen to the Prince their father, without its inevitably affecting
+themselves.
+
+Such was the aspect of affairs at the court of Prince Bull, when
+this great Prince found it necessary to go to war with Prince Bear.
+He had been for some time very doubtful of his servants, who,
+besides being indolent and addicted to enriching their families at
+his expense, domineered over him dreadfully; threatening to
+discharge themselves if they were found the least fault with,
+pretending that they had done a wonderful amount of work when they
+had done nothing, making the most unmeaning speeches that ever were
+heard in the Prince's name, and uniformly showing themselves to be
+very inefficient indeed.  Though, that some of them had excellent
+characters from previous situations is not to be denied.  Well;
+Prince Bull called his servants together, and said to them one and
+all, 'Send out my army against Prince Bear.  Clothe it, arm it,
+feed it, provide it with all necessaries and contingencies, and I
+will pay the piper!  Do your duty by my brave troops,' said the
+Prince, 'and do it well, and I will pour my treasure out like
+water, to defray the cost.  Who ever heard ME complain of money
+well laid out!'  Which indeed he had reason for saying, inasmuch as
+he was well known to be a truly generous and munificent Prince.
+
+When the servants heard those words, they sent out the army against
+Prince Bear, and they set the army tailors to work, and the army
+provision merchants, and the makers of guns both great and small,
+and the gunpowder makers, and the makers of ball, shell, and shot;
+and they bought up all manner of stores and ships, without
+troubling their heads about the price, and appeared to be so busy
+that the good Prince rubbed his hands, and (using a favourite
+expression of his), said, 'It's all right I' But, while they were
+thus employed, the Prince's godmother, who was a great favourite
+with those servants, looked in upon them continually all day long,
+and whenever she popped in her head at the door said, How do you
+do, my children?  What are you doing here?'  'Official business,
+godmother.'  'Oho!' says this wicked Fairy.  '- Tape!'  And then
+the business all went wrong, whatever it was, and the servants'
+heads became so addled and muddled that they thought they were
+doing wonders.
+
+Now, this was very bad conduct on the part of the vicious old
+nuisance, and she ought to have been strangled, even if she had
+stopped here; but, she didn't stop here, as you shall learn.  For,
+a number of the Prince's subjects, being very fond of the Prince's
+army who were the bravest of men, assembled together and provided
+all manner of eatables and drinkables, and books to read, and
+clothes to wear, and tobacco to smoke, and candies to burn, and
+nailed them up in great packing-cases, and put them aboard a great
+many ships, to be carried out to that brave army in the cold and
+inclement country where they were fighting Prince Bear.  Then, up
+comes this wicked Fairy as the ships were weighing anchor, and
+says, 'How do you do, my children?  What are you doing here?' - 'We
+are going with all these comforts to the army, godmother.' - 'Oho!'
+says she.  'A pleasant voyage, my darlings. - Tape!'  And from that
+time forth, those enchanting ships went sailing, against wind and
+tide and rhyme and reason, round and round the world, and whenever
+they touched at any port were ordered off immediately, and could
+never deliver their cargoes anywhere.
+
+This, again, was very bad conduct on the part of the vicious old
+nuisance, and she ought to have been strangled for it if she had
+done nothing worse; but, she did something worse still, as you
+shall learn.  For, she got astride of an official broomstick, and
+muttered as a spell these two sentences, 'On Her Majesty's
+service,' and 'I have the honour to be, sir, your most obedient
+servant,' and presently alighted in the cold and inclement country
+where the army of Prince Bull were encamped to fight the army of
+Prince Bear.  On the sea-shore of that country, she found piled
+together, a number of houses for the army to live in, and a
+quantity of provisions for the army to live upon, and a quantity of
+clothes for the army to wear: while, sitting in the mud gazing at
+them, were a group of officers as red to look at as the wicked old
+woman herself.  So, she said to one of them, 'Who are you, my
+darling, and how do you do?' - 'I am the Quartermaster General's
+Department, godmother, and I am pretty well.'  Then she said to
+another, 'Who are YOU, my darling, and how do YOU do?' - 'I am the
+Commissariat Department, godmother, and I am pretty well!  Then she
+said to another, 'Who are YOU, my darling, and how do YOU do?' - 'I
+am the Head of the Medical Department, godmother, and I am pretty
+well.'  Then, she said to some gentlemen scented with lavender, who
+kept themselves at a great distance from the rest, 'And who are
+YOU, my pretty pets, and how do YOU do?'  And they answered, 'We-
+aw-are-the-aw-Staff-aw-Department, godmother, and we are very well
+indeed.' - 'I am delighted to see you all, my beauties,' says this
+wicked old Fairy, ' - Tape!'  Upon that, the houses, clothes, and
+provisions, all mouldered away; and the soldiers who were sound,
+fell sick; and the soldiers who were sick, died miserably: and the
+noble army of Prince Bull perished.
+
+When the dismal news of his great loss was carried to the Prince,
+he suspected his godmother very much indeed; but, he knew that his
+servants must have kept company with the malicious beldame, and
+must have given way to her, and therefore he resolved to turn those
+servants out of their places.  So, he called to him a Roebuck who
+had the gift of speech, and he said, 'Good Roebuck, tell them they
+must go.'  So, the good Roebuck delivered his message, so like a
+man that you might have supposed him to be nothing but a man, and
+they were turned out - but, not without warning, for that they had
+had a long time.
+
+And now comes the most extraordinary part of the history of this
+Prince.  When he had turned out those servants, of course he wanted
+others.  What was his astonishment to find that in all his
+dominions, which contained no less than twenty-seven millions of
+people, there were not above five-and-twenty servants altogether!
+They were so lofty about it, too, that instead of discussing
+whether they should hire themselves as servants to Prince Bull,
+they turned things topsy-turvy, and considered whether as a favour
+they should hire Prince Bull to be their master!  While they were
+arguing this point among themselves quite at their leisure, the
+wicked old red Fairy was incessantly going up and down, knocking at
+the doors of twelve of the oldest of the five-and-twenty, who were
+the oldest inhabitants in all that country, and whose united ages
+amounted to one thousand, saying, 'Will YOU hire Prince Bull for
+your master? - Will YOU hire Prince Bull for your master?'  To
+which one answered, 'I will if next door will;' and another, 'I
+won't if over the way does;' and another, 'I can't if he, she, or
+they, might, could, would, or should.'  And all this time Prince
+Bull's affairs were going to rack and ruin.
+
+At last, Prince Bull in the height of his perplexity assumed a
+thoughtful face, as if he were struck by an entirely new idea.  The
+wicked old Fairy, seeing this, was at his elbow directly, and said,
+'How do you do, my Prince, and what are you thinking of?' - 'I am
+thinking, godmother,' says he, 'that among all the seven-and-twenty
+millions of my subjects who have never been in service, there are
+men of intellect and business who have made me very famous both
+among my friends and enemies.' - 'Aye, truly?' says the Fairy. -
+'Aye, truly,' says the Prince. - 'And what then?' says the Fairy. -
+'Why, then,' says he, 'since the regular old class of servants do
+so ill, are so hard to get, and carry it with so high a hand,
+perhaps I might try to make good servants of some of these.'  The
+words had no sooner passed his lips than she returned, chuckling,
+'You think so, do you?  Indeed, my Prince? - Tape!'  Thereupon he
+directly forgot what he was thinking of, and cried out lamentably
+to the old servants, 'O, do come and hire your poor old master!
+Pray do!  On any terms!'
+
+And this, for the present, finishes the story of Prince Bull.  I
+wish I could wind it up by saying that he lived happy ever
+afterwards, but I cannot in my conscience do so; for, with Tape at
+his elbow, and his estranged children fatally repelled by her from
+coming near him, I do not, to tell you the plain truth, believe in
+the possibility of such an end to it.
+
+
+
+A PLATED ARTICLE
+
+
+
+PUTTING up for the night in one of the chiefest towns of
+Staffordshire, I find it to be by no means a lively town.  In fact,
+it is as dull and dead a town as any one could desire not to see.
+It seems as if its whole population might be imprisoned in its
+Railway Station.  The Refreshment Room at that Station is a vortex
+of dissipation compared with the extinct town-inn, the Dodo, in the
+dull High Street.
+
+Why High Street?  Why not rather Low Street, Flat Street, Low-
+Spirited Street, Used-up Street?  Where are the people who belong
+to the High Street?  Can they all be dispersed over the face of the
+country, seeking the unfortunate Strolling Manager who decamped
+from the mouldy little Theatre last week, in the beginning of his
+season (as his play-bills testify), repentantly resolved to bring
+him back, and feed him, and be entertained?  Or, can they all be
+gathered to their fathers in the two old churchyards near to the
+High Street - retirement into which churchyards appears to be a
+mere ceremony, there is so very little life outside their confines,
+and such small discernible difference between being buried alive in
+the town, and buried dead in the town tombs?  Over the way,
+opposite to the staring blank bow windows of the Dodo, are a little
+ironmonger's shop, a little tailor's shop (with a picture of the
+Fashions in the small window and a bandy-legged baby on the
+pavement staring at it) - a watchmakers shop, where all the clocks
+and watches must be stopped, I am sure, for they could never have
+the courage to go, with the town in general, and the Dodo in
+particular, looking at them.  Shade of Miss Linwood, erst of
+Leicester Square, London, thou art welcome here, and thy retreat is
+fitly chosen!  I myself was one of the last visitors to that awful
+storehouse of thy life's work, where an anchorite old man and woman
+took my shilling with a solemn wonder, and conducting me to a
+gloomy sepulchre of needlework dropping to pieces with dust and age
+and shrouded in twilight at high noon, left me there, chilled,
+frightened, and alone.  And now, in ghostly letters on all the dead
+walls of this dead town, I read thy honoured name, and find that
+thy Last Supper, worked in Berlin Wool, invites inspection as a
+powerful excitement!
+
+Where are the people who are bidden with so much cry to this feast
+of little wool?  Where are they?  Who are they?  They are not the
+bandy-legged baby studying the fashions in the tailor's window.
+They are not the two earthy ploughmen lounging outside the
+saddler's shop, in the stiff square where the Town Hall stands,
+like a brick and mortar private on parade.  They are not the
+landlady of the Dodo in the empty bar, whose eye had trouble in it
+and no welcome, when I asked for dinner.  They are not the turnkeys
+of the Town Jail, looking out of the gateway in their uniforms, as
+if they had locked up all the balance (as my American friends would
+say) of the inhabitants, and could now rest a little.  They are not
+the two dusty millers in the white mill down by the river, where
+the great water-wheel goes heavily round and round, like the
+monotonous days and nights in this forgotten place.  Then who are
+they, for there is no one else?  No; this deponent maketh oath and
+saith that there is no one else, save and except the waiter at the
+Dodo, now laying the cloth.  I have paced the streets, and stared
+at the houses, and am come back to the blank bow window of the
+Dodo; and the town clocks strike seven, and the reluctant echoes
+seem to cry, 'Don't wake us!' and the bandy-legged baby has gone
+home to bed.
+
+If the Dodo were only a gregarious bird - if he had only some
+confused idea of making a comfortable nest - I could hope to get
+through the hours between this and bed-time, without being consumed
+by devouring melancholy.  But, the Dodo's habits are all wrong.  It
+provides me with a trackless desert of sitting-room, with a chair
+for every day in the year, a table for every month, and a waste of
+sideboard where a lonely China vase pines in a corner for its mate
+long departed, and will never make a match with the candlestick in
+the opposite corner if it live till Doomsday.  The Dodo has nothing
+in the larder.  Even now, I behold the Boots returning with my sole
+in a piece of paper; and with that portion of my dinner, the Boots,
+perceiving me at the blank bow window, slaps his leg as he comes
+across the road, pretending it is something else.  The Dodo
+excludes the outer air.  When I mount up to my bedroom, a smell of
+closeness and flue gets lazily up my nose like sleepy snuff.  The
+loose little bits of carpet writhe under my tread, and take wormy
+shapes.  I don't know the ridiculous man in the looking-glass,
+beyond having met him once or twice in a dish-cover - and I can
+never shave HIM to-morrow morning!  The Dodo is narrow-minded as to
+towels; expects me to wash on a freemason's apron without the
+trimming: when I asked for soap, gives me a stony-hearted something
+white, with no more lather in it than the Elgin marbles.  The Dodo
+has seen better days, and possesses interminable stables at the
+back - silent, grass-grown, broken-windowed, horseless.
+
+This mournful bird can fry a sole, however, which is much.  Can
+cook a steak, too, which is more.  I wonder where it gets its
+Sherry?  If I were to send my pint of wine to some famous chemist
+to be analysed, what would it turn out to be made of?  It tastes of
+pepper, sugar, bitter-almonds, vinegar, warm knives, any flat
+drinks, and a little brandy.  Would it unman a Spanish exile by
+reminding him of his native land at all?  I think not.  If there
+really be any townspeople out of the churchyards, and if a caravan
+of them ever do dine, with a bottle of wine per man, in this desert
+of the Dodo, it must make good for the doctor next day!
+
+Where was the waiter born?  How did he come here?  Has he any hope
+of getting away from here?  Does he ever receive a letter, or take
+a ride upon the railway, or see anything but the Dodo?  Perhaps he
+has seen the Berlin Wool.  He appears to have a silent sorrow on
+him, and it may be that.  He clears the table; draws the dingy
+curtains of the great bow window, which so unwillingly consent to
+meet, that they must be pinned together; leaves me by the fire with
+my pint decanter, and a little thin funnel-shaped wine-glass, and a
+plate of pale biscuits - in themselves engendering desperation.
+
+No book, no newspaper!  I left the Arabian Nights in the railway
+carriage, and have nothing to read but Bradshaw, and 'that way
+madness lies.'  Remembering what prisoners and ship-wrecked
+mariners have done to exercise their minds in solitude, I repeat
+the multiplication table, the pence table, and the shilling table:
+which are all the tables I happen to know.  What if I write
+something?  The Dodo keeps no pens but steel pens; and those I
+always stick through the paper, and can turn to no other account.
+
+What am I to do?  Even if I could have the bandy-legged baby
+knocked up and brought here, I could offer him nothing but sherry,
+and that would be the death of him.  He would never hold up his
+head again if he touched it.  I can't go to bed, because I have
+conceived a mortal hatred for my bedroom; and I can't go away,
+because there is no train for my place of destination until
+morning.  To burn the biscuits will be but a fleeting joy; still it
+is a temporary relief, and here they go on the fire!  Shall I break
+the plate?  First let me look at the back, and see who made it.
+COPELAND.
+
+Copeland!  Stop a moment.  Was it yesterday I visited Copeland's
+works, and saw them making plates?  In the confusion of travelling
+about, it might be yesterday or it might be yesterday month; but I
+think it was yesterday.  I appeal to the plate.  The plate says,
+decidedly, yesterday.  I find the plate, as I look at it, growing
+into a companion.
+
+Don't you remember (says the plate) how you steamed away, yesterday
+morning, in the bright sun and the east wind, along the valley of
+the sparkling Trent?  Don't you recollect how many kilns you flew
+past, looking like the bowls of gigantic tobacco-pipes, cut short
+off from the stem and turned upside down?  And the fires - and the
+smoke - and the roads made with bits of crockery, as if all the
+plates and dishes in the civilised world had been Macadamised,
+expressly for the laming of all the horses?  Of course I do!
+
+And don't you remember (says the plate) how you alighted at Stoke -
+a picturesque heap of houses, kilns, smoke, wharfs, canals, and
+river, lying (as was most appropriate) in a basin - and how, after
+climbing up the sides of the basin to look at the prospect, you
+trundled down again at a walking-match pace, and straight proceeded
+to my father's, Copeland's, where the whole of my family, high and
+low, rich and poor, are turned out upon the world from our nursery
+and seminary, covering some fourteen acres of ground?  And don't
+you remember what we spring from:- heaps of lumps of clay,
+partially prepared and cleaned in Devonshire and Dorsetshire,
+whence said clay principally comes - and hills of flint, without
+which we should want our ringing sound, and should never be
+musical?  And as to the flint, don't you recollect that it is first
+burnt in kilns, and is then laid under the four iron feet of a
+demon slave, subject to violent stamping fits, who, when they come
+on, stamps away insanely with his four iron legs, and would crush
+all the flint in the Isle of Thanet to powder, without leaving off?
+And as to the clay, don't you recollect how it is put into mills or
+teazers, and is sliced, and dug, and cut at, by endless knives,
+clogged and sticky, but persistent - and is pressed out of that
+machine through a square trough, whose form it takes - and is cut
+off in square lumps and thrown into a vat, and there mixed with
+water, and beaten to a pulp by paddle-wheels - and is then run into
+a rough house, all rugged beams and ladders splashed with white, -
+superintended by Grindoff the Miller in his working clothes, all
+splashed with white, - where it passes through no end of machinery-
+moved sieves all splashed with white, arranged in an ascending
+scale of fineness (some so fine, that three hundred silk threads
+cross each other in a single square inch of their surface), and all
+in a violent state of ague with their teeth for ever chattering,
+and their bodies for ever shivering!  And as to the flint again,
+isn't it mashed and mollified and troubled and soothed, exactly as
+rags are in a paper-mill, until it is reduced to a pap so fine that
+it contains no atom of 'grit' perceptible to the nicest taste?  And
+as to the flint and the clay together, are they not, after all
+this, mixed in the proportion of five of clay to one of flint, and
+isn't the compound - known as 'slip' - run into oblong troughs,
+where its superfluous moisture may evaporate; and finally, isn't it
+slapped and banged and beaten and patted and kneaded and wedged and
+knocked about like butter, until it becomes a beautiful grey dough,
+ready for the potter's use?
+
+In regard of the potter, popularly so called (says the plate), you
+don't mean to say you have forgotten that a workman called a
+Thrower is the man under whose hand this grey dough takes the
+shapes of the simpler household vessels as quickly as the eye can
+follow?  You don't mean to say you cannot call him up before you,
+sitting, with his attendant woman, at his potter's wheel - a disc
+about the size of a dinner-plate, revolving on two drums slowly or
+quickly as he wills - who made you a complete breakfast-set for a
+bachelor, as a good-humoured little off-hand joke?  You remember
+how he took up as much dough as he wanted, and, throwing it on his
+wheel, in a moment fashioned it into a teacup - caught up more clay
+and made a saucer - a larger dab and whirled it into a teapot -
+winked at a smaller dab and converted it into the lid of the
+teapot, accurately fitting by the measurement of his eye alone -
+coaxed a middle-sized dab for two seconds, broke it, turned it over
+at the rim, and made a milkpot - laughed, and turned out a slop-
+basin - coughed, and provided for the sugar?  Neither, I think, are
+you oblivious of the newer mode of making various articles, but
+especially basins, according to which improvement a mould revolves
+instead of a disc?  For you MUST remember (says the plate) how you
+saw the mould of a little basin spinning round and round, and how
+the workmen smoothed and pressed a handful of dough upon it, and
+how with an instrument called a profile (a piece of wood,
+representing the profile of a basin's foot) he cleverly scraped and
+carved the ring which makes the base of any such basin, and then
+took the basin off the lathe like a doughy skull-cap to be dried,
+and afterwards (in what is called a green state) to be put into a
+second lathe, there to be finished and burnished with a steel
+burnisher?  And as to moulding in general (says the plate), it
+can't be necessary for me to remind you that all ornamental
+articles, and indeed all articles not quite circular, are made in
+moulds.  For you must remember how you saw the vegetable dishes,
+for example, being made in moulds; and how the handles of teacups,
+and the spouts of teapots, and the feet of tureens, and so forth,
+are all made in little separate moulds, and are each stuck on to
+the body corporate, of which it is destined to form a part, with a
+stuff called 'slag,' as quickly as you can recollect it.  Further,
+you learnt - you know you did - in the same visit, how the
+beautiful sculptures in the delicate new material called Parian,
+are all constructed in moulds; how, into that material, animal
+bones are ground up, because the phosphate of lime contained in
+bones makes it translucent; how everything is moulded, before going
+into the fire, one-fourth larger than it is intended to come out of
+the fire, because it shrinks in that proportion in the intense
+heat; how, when a figure shrinks unequally, it is spoiled -
+emerging from the furnace a misshapen birth; a big head and a
+little body, or a little head and a big body, or a Quasimodo with
+long arms and short legs, or a Miss Biffin with neither legs nor
+arms worth mentioning.
+
+And as to the Kilns, in which the firing takes place, and in which
+some of the more precious articles are burnt repeatedly, in various
+stages of their process towards completion, - as to the Kilns (says
+the plate, warming with the recollection), if you don't remember
+THEM with a horrible interest, what did you ever go to Copeland's
+for?  When you stood inside of one of those inverted bowls of a
+Pre-Adamite tobacco-pipe, looking up at the blue sky through the
+open top far off, as you might have looked up from a well, sunk
+under the centre of the pavement of the Pantheon at Rome, had you
+the least idea where you were?  And when you found yourself
+surrounded, in that dome-shaped cavern, by innumerable columns of
+an unearthly order of architecture, supporting nothing, and
+squeezed close together as if a Pre-Adamite Samson had taken a vast
+Hall in his arms and crushed it into the smallest possible space,
+had you the least idea what they were?  No (says the plate), of
+course not!  And when you found that each of those pillars was a
+pile of ingeniously made vessels of coarse clay - called Saggers -
+looking, when separate, like raised-pies for the table of the
+mighty Giant Blunderbore, and now all full of various articles of
+pottery ranged in them in baking order, the bottom of each vessel
+serving for the cover of the one below, and the whole Kiln rapidly
+filling with these, tier upon tier, until the last workman should
+have barely room to crawl out, before the closing of the jagged
+aperture in the wall and the kindling of the gradual fire; did you
+not stand amazed to think that all the year round these dread
+chambers are heating, white hot - and cooling - and filling - and
+emptying - and being bricked up - and broken open - humanly
+speaking, for ever and ever?  To be sure you did!  And standing in
+one of those Kilns nearly full, and seeing a free crow shoot across
+the aperture a-top, and learning how the fire would wax hotter and
+hotter by slow degrees, and would cool similarly through a space of
+from forty to sixty hours, did no remembrance of the days when
+human clay was burnt oppress you?  Yes.  I think so!  I suspect
+that some fancy of a fiery haze and a shortening breath, and a
+growing heat, and a gasping prayer; and a figure in black
+interposing between you and the sky (as figures in black are very
+apt to do), and looking down, before it grew too hot to look and
+live, upon the Heretic in his edifying agony - I say I suspect
+(says the plate) that some such fancy was pretty strong upon you
+when you went out into the air, and blessed God for the bright
+spring day and the degenerate times!
+
+After that, I needn't remind you what a relief it was to see the
+simplest process of ornamenting this 'biscuit' (as it is called
+when baked) with brown circles and blue trees - converting it into
+the common crockery-ware that is exported to Africa, and used in
+cottages at home.  For (says the plate) I am well persuaded that
+you bear in mind how those particular jugs and mugs were once more
+set upon a lathe and put in motion; and how a man blew the brown
+colour (having a strong natural affinity with the material in that
+condition) on them from a blowpipe as they twirled; and how his
+daughter, with a common brush, dropped blotches of blue upon them
+in the right places; and how, tilting the blotches upside down, she
+made them run into rude images of trees, and there an end.
+
+And didn't you see (says the plate) planted upon my own brother
+that astounding blue willow, with knobbed and gnarled trunk, and
+foliage of blue ostrich feathers, which gives our family the title
+of 'willow pattern'?  And didn't you observe, transferred upon him
+at the same time, that blue bridge which spans nothing, growing out
+from the roots of the willow; and the three blue Chinese going over
+it into a blue temple, which has a fine crop of blue bushes
+sprouting out of the roof; and a blue boat sailing above them, the
+mast of which is burglariously sticking itself into the foundations
+of a blue villa, suspended sky-high, surmounted by a lump of blue
+rock, sky-higher, and a couple of billing blue birds, sky-highest -
+together with the rest of that amusing blue landscape, which has,
+in deference to our revered ancestors of the Cerulean Empire, and
+in defiance of every known law of perspective, adorned millions of
+our family ever since the days of platters?  Didn't you inspect the
+copper-plate on which my pattern was deeply engraved?  Didn't you
+perceive an impression of it taken in cobalt colour at a
+cylindrical press, upon a leaf of thin paper, streaming from a
+plunge-bath of soap and water?  Wasn't the paper impression
+daintily spread, by a light-fingered damsel (you KNOW you admired
+her!), over the surface of the plate, and the back of the paper
+rubbed prodigiously hard - with a long tight roll of flannel, tied
+up like a round of hung beef - without so much as ruffling the
+paper, wet as it was?  Then (says the plate), was not the paper
+washed away with a sponge, and didn't there appear, set off upon
+the plate, THIS identical piece of Pre-Raphaelite blue distemper
+which you now behold?  Not to be denied!  I had seen all this - and
+more.  I had been shown, at Copeland's, patterns of beautiful
+design, in faultless perspective, which are causing the ugly old
+willow to wither out of public favour; and which, being quite as
+cheap, insinuate good wholesome natural art into the humblest
+households.  When Mr. and Mrs. Sprat have satisfied their material
+tastes by that equal division of fat and lean which has made their
+MENAGE immortal; and have, after the elegant tradition, 'licked the
+platter clean,' they can - thanks to modern artists in clay - feast
+their intellectual tastes upon excellent delineations of natural
+objects.
+
+This reflection prompts me to transfer my attention from the blue
+plate to the forlorn but cheerfully painted vase on the sideboard.
+And surely (says the plate) you have not forgotten how the outlines
+of such groups of flowers as you see there, are printed, just as I
+was printed, and are afterwards shaded and filled in with metallic
+colours by women and girls?  As to the aristocracy of our order,
+made of the finer clay-porcelain peers and peeresses; - the slabs,
+and panels, and table-tops, and tazze; the endless nobility and
+gentry of dessert, breakfast, and tea services; the gemmed perfume
+bottles, and scarlet and gold salvers; you saw that they were
+painted by artists, with metallic colours laid on with camel-hair
+pencils, and afterwards burnt in.
+
+And talking of burning in (says the plate), didn't you find that
+every subject, from the willow pattern to the landscape after
+Turner - having been framed upon clay or porcelain biscuit - has to
+be glazed?  Of course, you saw the glaze - composed of various
+vitreous materials - laid over every article; and of course you
+witnessed the close imprisonment of each piece in saggers upon the
+separate system rigidly enforced by means of fine-pointed
+earthenware stilts placed between the articles to prevent the
+slightest communication or contact.  We had in my time - and I
+suppose it is the same now - fourteen hours' firing to fix the
+glaze and to make it 'run' all over us equally, so as to put a good
+shiny and unscratchable surface upon us.  Doubtless, you observed
+that one sort of glaze - called printing-body - is burnt into the
+better sort of ware BEFORE it is printed.  Upon this you saw some
+of the finest steel engravings transferred, to be fixed by an after
+glazing - didn't you?  Why, of course you did!
+
+Of course I did.  I had seen and enjoyed everything that the plate
+recalled to me, and had beheld with admiration how the rotatory
+motion which keeps this ball of ours in its place in the great
+scheme, with all its busy mites upon it, was necessary throughout
+the process, and could only be dispensed with in the fire.  So,
+listening to the plate's reminders, and musing upon them, I got
+through the evening after all, and went to bed.  I made but one
+sleep of it - for which I have no doubt I am also indebted to the
+plate - and left the lonely Dodo in the morning, quite at peace
+with it, before the bandy-legged baby was up.
+
+
+
+OUR HONOURABLE FRIEND
+
+
+
+WE are delighted to find that he has got in!  Our honourable friend
+is triumphantly returned to serve in the next Parliament.  He is
+the honourable member for Verbosity - the best represented place in
+England.
+
+Our honourable friend has issued an address of congratulation to
+the Electors, which is worthy of that noble constituency, and is a
+very pretty piece of composition.  In electing him, he says, they
+have covered themselves with glory, and England has been true to
+herself.  (In his preliminary address he had remarked, in a
+poetical quotation of great rarity, that nought could make us rue,
+if England to herself did prove but true.)
+
+Our honourable friend delivers a prediction, in the same document,
+that the feeble minions of a faction will never hold up their heads
+any more; and that the finger of scorn will point at them in their
+dejected state, through countless ages of time.  Further, that the
+hireling tools that would destroy the sacred bulwarks of our
+nationality are unworthy of the name of Englishman; and that so
+long as the sea shall roll around our ocean-girded isle, so long
+his motto shall be, No surrender.  Certain dogged persons of low
+principles and no intellect, have disputed whether anybody knows
+who the minions are, or what the faction is, or which are the
+hireling tools and which the sacred bulwarks, or what it is that is
+never to be surrendered, and if not, why not?  But, our honourable
+friend the member for Verbosity knows all about it.
+
+Our honourable friend has sat in several parliaments, and given
+bushels of votes.  He is a man of that profundity in the matter of
+vote-giving, that you never know what he means.  When he seems to
+be voting pure white, he may be in reality voting jet black.  When
+he says Yes, it is just as likely as not - or rather more so - that
+he means No.  This is the statesmanship of our honourable friend.
+It is in this, that he differs from mere unparliamentary men.  YOU
+may not know what he meant then, or what he means now; but, our
+honourable friend knows, and did from the first know, both what he
+meant then, and what he means now; and when he said he didn't mean
+it then, he did in fact say, that he means it now.  And if you mean
+to say that you did not then, and do not now, know what he did mean
+then, or does mean now, our honourable friend will be glad to
+receive an explicit declaration from you whether you are prepared
+to destroy the sacred bulwarks of our nationality.
+
+Our honourable friend, the member for Verbosity, has this great
+attribute, that he always means something, and always means the
+same thing.  When he came down to that House and mournfully boasted
+in his place, as an individual member of the assembled Commons of
+this great and happy country, that he could lay his hand upon his
+heart, and solemnly declare that no consideration on earth should
+induce him, at any time or under any circumstances, to go as far
+north as Berwick-upon-Tweed; and when he nevertheless, next year,
+did go to Berwick-upon-Tweed, and even beyond it, to Edinburgh; he
+had one single meaning, one and indivisible.  And God forbid (our
+honourable friend says) that he should waste another argument upon
+the man who professes that he cannot understand it!  'I do NOT,
+gentlemen,' said our honourable friend, with indignant emphasis and
+amid great cheering, on one such public occasion.  'I do NOT,
+gentlemen, I am free to confess, envy the feelings of that man
+whose mind is so constituted as that he can hold such language to
+me, and yet lay his head upon his pillow, claiming to be a native
+of that land,
+
+
+Whose march is o'er the mountain-wave,
+Whose home is on the deep!
+
+
+(Vehement cheering, and man expelled.)
+
+When our honourable friend issued his preliminary address to the
+constituent body of Verbosity on the occasion of one particular
+glorious triumph, it was supposed by some of his enemies, that even
+he would be placed in a situation of difficulty by the following
+comparatively trifling conjunction of circumstances.  The dozen
+noblemen and gentlemen whom our honourable friend supported, had
+'come in,' expressly to do a certain thing.  Now, four of the dozen
+said, at a certain place, that they didn't mean to do that thing,
+and had never meant to do it; another four of the dozen said, at
+another certain place, that they did mean to do that thing, and had
+always meant to do it; two of the remaining four said, at two other
+certain places, that they meant to do half of that thing (but
+differed about which half), and to do a variety of nameless wonders
+instead of the other half; and one of the remaining two declared
+that the thing itself was dead and buried, while the other as
+strenuously protested that it was alive and kicking.  It was
+admitted that the parliamentary genius of our honourable friend
+would be quite able to reconcile such small discrepancies as these;
+but, there remained the additional difficulty that each of the
+twelve made entirely different statements at different places, and
+that all the twelve called everything visible and invisible, sacred
+and profane, to witness, that they were a perfectly impregnable
+phalanx of unanimity.  This, it was apprehended, would be a
+stumbling-block to our honourable friend.
+
+The difficulty came before our honourable friend, in this way.  He
+went down to Verbosity to meet his free and independent
+constituents, and to render an account (as he informed them in the
+local papers) of the trust they had confided to his hands - that
+trust which it was one of the proudest privileges of an Englishman
+to possess - that trust which it was the proudest privilege of an
+Englishman to hold.  It may be mentioned as a proof of the great
+general interest attaching to the contest, that a Lunatic whom
+nobody employed or knew, went down to Verbosity with several
+thousand pounds in gold, determined to give the whole away - which
+he actually did; and that all the publicans opened their houses for
+nothing.  Likewise, several fighting men, and a patriotic group of
+burglars sportively armed with life-preservers, proceeded (in
+barouches and very drunk) to the scene of action at their own
+expense; these children of nature having conceived a warm
+attachment to our honourable friend, and intending, in their
+artless manner, to testify it by knocking the voters in the
+opposite interest on the head.
+
+Our honourable friend being come into the presence of his
+constituents, and having professed with great suavity that he was
+delighted to see his good friend Tipkisson there, in his working-
+dress - his good friend Tipkisson being an inveterate saddler, who
+always opposes him, and for whom he has a mortal hatred - made them
+a brisk, ginger-beery sort of speech, in which he showed them how
+the dozen noblemen and gentlemen had (in exactly ten days from
+their coming in) exercised a surprisingly beneficial effect on the
+whole financial condition of Europe, had altered the state of the
+exports and imports for the current half-year, had prevented the
+drain of gold, had made all that matter right about the glut of the
+raw material, and had restored all sorts of balances with which the
+superseded noblemen and gentlemen had played the deuce - and all
+this, with wheat at so much a quarter, gold at so much an ounce,
+and the Bank of England discounting good bills at so much per
+cent.!  He might be asked, he observed in a peroration of great
+power, what were his principles?  His principles were what they
+always had been.  His principles were written in the countenances
+of the lion and unicorn; were stamped indelibly upon the royal
+shield which those grand animals supported, and upon the free words
+of fire which that shield bore.  His principles were, Britannia and
+her sea-king trident!  His principles were, commercial prosperity
+co-existently with perfect and profound agricultural contentment;
+but short of this he would never stop.  His principles were, these,
+- with the addition of his colours nailed to the mast, every man's
+heart in the right place, every man's eye open, every man's hand
+ready, every man's mind on the alert.  His principles were these,
+concurrently with a general revision of something - speaking
+generally - and a possible readjustment of something else, not to
+be mentioned more particularly.  His principles, to sum up all in a
+word, were, Hearths and Altars, Labour and Capital, Crown and
+Sceptre, Elephant and Castle.  And now, if his good friend
+Tipkisson required any further explanation from him, he (our
+honourable friend) was there, willing and ready to give it.
+
+Tipkisson, who all this time had stood conspicuous in the crowd,
+with his arms folded and his eyes intently fastened on our
+honourable friend: Tipkisson, who throughout our honourable
+friend's address had not relaxed a muscle of his visage, but had
+stood there, wholly unaffected by the torrent of eloquence: an
+object of contempt and scorn to mankind (by which we mean, of
+course, to the supporters of our honourable friend); Tipkisson now
+said that he was a plain man (Cries of 'You are indeed!'), and that
+what he wanted to know was, what our honourable friend and the
+dozen noblemen and gentlemen were driving at?
+
+Our honourable friend immediately replied, 'At the illimitable
+perspective.'
+
+It was considered by the whole assembly that this happy statement
+of our honourable friend's political views ought, immediately, to
+have settled Tipkisson's business and covered him with confusion;
+but, that implacable person, regardless of the execrations that
+were heaped upon him from all sides (by which we mean, of course,
+from our honourable friend's side), persisted in retaining an
+unmoved countenance, and obstinately retorted that if our
+honourable friend meant that, he wished to know what THAT meant?
+
+It was in repelling this most objectionable and indecent
+opposition, that our honourable friend displayed his highest
+qualifications for the representation of Verbosity.  His warmest
+supporters present, and those who were best acquainted with his
+generalship, supposed that the moment was come when he would fall
+back upon the sacred bulwarks of our nationality.  No such thing.
+He replied thus: 'My good friend Tipkisson, gentlemen, wishes to
+know what I mean when he asks me what we are driving at, and when I
+candidly tell him, at the illimitable perspective, he wishes (if I
+understand him) to know what I mean?' - 'I do!' says Tipkisson,
+amid cries of 'Shame' and 'Down with him.'  'Gentlemen,' says our
+honourable friend, 'I will indulge my good friend Tipkisson, by
+telling him, both what I mean and what I don't mean.  (Cheers and
+cries of 'Give it him!')  Be it known to him then, and to all whom
+it may concern, that I do mean altars, hearths, and homes, and that
+I don't mean mosques and Mohammedanism!'  The effect of this home-
+thrust was terrific.  Tipkisson (who is a Baptist) was hooted down
+and hustled out, and has ever since been regarded as a Turkish
+Renegade who contemplates an early pilgrimage to Mecca.  Nor was he
+the only discomfited man.  The charge, while it stuck to him, was
+magically transferred to our honourable friend's opponent, who was
+represented in an immense variety of placards as a firm believer in
+Mahomet; and the men of Verbosity were asked to choose between our
+honourable friend and the Bible, and our honourable friend's
+opponent and the Koran.  They decided for our honourable friend,
+and rallied round the illimitable perspective.
+
+It has been claimed for our honourable friend, with much appearance
+of reason, that he was the first to bend sacred matters to
+electioneering tactics.  However this may be, the fine precedent
+was undoubtedly set in a Verbosity election: and it is certain that
+our honourable friend (who was a disciple of Brahma in his youth,
+and was a Buddhist when we had the honour of travelling with him a
+few years ago) always professes in public more anxiety than the
+whole Bench of Bishops, regarding the theological and doxological
+opinions of every man, woman, and child, in the United Kingdom.
+
+As we began by saying that our honourable friend has got in again
+at this last election, and that we are delighted to find that he
+has got in, so we will conclude.  Our honourable friend cannot come
+in for Verbosity too often.  It is a good sign; it is a great
+example.  It is to men like our honourable friend, and to contests
+like those from which he comes triumphant, that we are mainly
+indebted for that ready interest in politics, that fresh enthusiasm
+in the discharge of the duties of citizenship, that ardent desire
+to rush to the poll, at present so manifest throughout England.
+When the contest lies (as it sometimes does) between two such men
+as our honourable friend, it stimulates the finest emotions of our
+nature, and awakens the highest admiration of which our heads and
+hearts are capable.
+
+It is not too much to predict that our honourable friend will be
+always at his post in the ensuing session.  Whatever the question
+be, or whatever the form of its discussion; address to the crown,
+election petition, expenditure of the public money, extension of
+the public suffrage, education, crime; in the whole house, in
+committee of the whole house, in select committee; in every
+parliamentary discussion of every subject, everywhere: the
+Honourable Member for Verbosity will most certainly be found.
+
+
+
+OUR SCHOOL
+
+
+
+WE went to look at it, only this last Midsummer, and found that the
+Railway had cut it up root and branch.  A great trunk-line had
+swallowed the playground, sliced away the schoolroom, and pared off
+the corner of the house: which, thus curtailed of its proportions,
+presented itself, in a green stage of stucco, profilewise towards
+the road, like a forlorn flat-iron without a handle, standing on
+end.
+
+It seems as if our schools were doomed to be the sport of change.
+We have faint recollections of a Preparatory Day-School, which we
+have sought in vain, and which must have been pulled down to make a
+new street, ages ago.  We have dim impressions, scarcely amounting
+to a belief, that it was over a dyer's shop.  We know that you went
+up steps to it; that you frequently grazed your knees in doing so;
+that you generally got your leg over the scraper, in trying to
+scrape the mud off a very unsteady little shoe.  The mistress of
+the Establishment holds no place in our memory; but, rampant on one
+eternal door-mat, in an eternal entry long and narrow, is a puffy
+pug-dog, with a personal animosity towards us, who triumphs over
+Time.  The bark of that baleful Pug, a certain radiating way he had
+of snapping at our undefended legs, the ghastly grinning of his
+moist black muzzle and white teeth, and the insolence of his crisp
+tail curled like a pastoral crook, all live and flourish.  From an
+otherwise unaccountable association of him with a fiddle, we
+conclude that he was of French extraction, and his name FIDELE.  He
+belonged to some female, chiefly inhabiting a back-parlour, whose
+life appears to us to have been consumed in sniffing, and in
+wearing a brown beaver bonnet.  For her, he would sit up and
+balance cake upon his nose, and not eat it until twenty had been
+counted.  To the best of our belief we were once called in to
+witness this performance; when, unable, even in his milder moments,
+to endure our presence, he instantly made at us, cake and all.
+
+Why a something in mourning, called 'Miss Frost,' should still
+connect itself with our preparatory school, we are unable to say.
+We retain no impression of the beauty of Miss Frost - if she were
+beautiful; or of the mental fascinations of Miss Frost - if she
+were accomplished; yet her name and her black dress hold an
+enduring place in our remembrance.  An equally impersonal boy,
+whose name has long since shaped itself unalterably into 'Master
+Mawls,' is not to be dislodged from our brain.  Retaining no
+vindictive feeling towards Mawls - no feeling whatever, indeed - we
+infer that neither he nor we can have loved Miss Frost.  Our first
+impression of Death and Burial is associated with this formless
+pair.  We all three nestled awfully in a corner one wintry day,
+when the wind was blowing shrill, with Miss Frost's pinafore over
+our heads; and Miss Frost told us in a whisper about somebody being
+'screwed down.'  It is the only distinct recollection we preserve
+of these impalpable creatures, except a suspicion that the manners
+of Master Mawls were susceptible of much improvement.  Generally
+speaking, we may observe that whenever we see a child intently
+occupied with its nose, to the exclusion of all other subjects of
+interest, our mind reverts, in a flash, to Master Mawls.
+
+But, the School that was Our School before the Railroad came and
+overthrew it, was quite another sort of place.  We were old enough
+to be put into Virgil when we went there, and to get Prizes for a
+variety of polishing on which the rust has long accumulated.  It
+was a School of some celebrity in its neighbourhood - nobody could
+have said why - and we had the honour to attain and hold the
+eminent position of first boy.  The master was supposed among us to
+know nothing, and one of the ushers was supposed to know
+everything.  We are still inclined to think the first-named
+supposition perfectly correct.
+
+We have a general idea that its subject had been in the leather
+trade, and had bought us - meaning Our School - of another
+proprietor who was immensely learned.  Whether this belief had any
+real foundation, we are not likely ever to know now.  The only
+branches of education with which he showed the least acquaintance,
+were, ruling and corporally punishing.  He was always ruling
+ciphering-books with a bloated mahogany ruler, or smiting the palms
+of offenders with the same diabolical instrument, or viciously
+drawing a pair of pantaloons tight with one of his large hands, and
+caning the wearer with the other.  We have no doubt whatever that
+this occupation was the principal solace of his existence.
+
+A profound respect for money pervaded Our School, which was, of
+course, derived from its Chief.  We remember an idiotic goggle-eyed
+boy, with a big head and half-crowns without end, who suddenly
+appeared as a parlour-boarder, and was rumoured to have come by sea
+from some mysterious part of the earth where his parents rolled in
+gold.  He was usually called 'Mr.' by the Chief, and was said to
+feed in the parlour on steaks and gravy; likewise to drink currant
+wine.  And he openly stated that if rolls and coffee were ever
+denied him at breakfast, he would write home to that unknown part
+of the globe from which he had come, and cause himself to be
+recalled to the regions of gold.  He was put into no form or class,
+but learnt alone, as little as he liked - and he liked very little
+- and there was a belief among us that this was because he was too
+wealthy to be 'taken down.'  His special treatment, and our vague
+association of him with the sea, and with storms, and sharks, and
+Coral Reefs occasioned the wildest legends to be circulated as his
+history.  A tragedy in blank verse was written on the subject - if
+our memory does not deceive us, by the hand that now chronicles
+these recollections - in which his father figured as a Pirate, and
+was shot for a voluminous catalogue of atrocities: first imparting
+to his wife the secret of the cave in which his wealth was stored,
+and from which his only son's half-crowns now issued.  Dumbledon
+(the boy's name) was represented as 'yet unborn' when his brave
+father met his fate; and the despair and grief of Mrs. Dumbledon at
+that calamity was movingly shadowed forth as having weakened the
+parlour-boarder's mind.  This production was received with great
+favour, and was twice performed with closed doors in the dining-
+room.  But, it got wind, and was seized as libellous, and brought
+the unlucky poet into severe affliction.  Some two years
+afterwards, all of a sudden one day, Dumbledon vanished.  It was
+whispered that the Chief himself had taken him down to the Docks,
+and re-shipped him for the Spanish Main; but nothing certain was
+ever known about his disappearance.  At this hour, we cannot
+thoroughly disconnect him from California.
+
+Our School was rather famous for mysterious pupils.  There was
+another - a heavy young man, with a large double-cased silver
+watch, and a fat knife the handle of which was a perfect tool-box -
+who unaccountably appeared one day at a special desk of his own,
+erected close to that of the Chief, with whom he held familiar
+converse.  He lived in the parlour, and went out for his walks, and
+never took the least notice of us - even of us, the first boy -
+unless to give us a deprecatory kick, or grimly to take our hat off
+and throw it away, when he encountered us out of doors, which
+unpleasant ceremony he always performed as he passed - not even
+condescending to stop for the purpose.  Some of us believed that
+the classical attainments of this phenomenon were terrific, but
+that his penmanship and arithmetic were defective, and he had come
+there to mend them; others, that he was going to set up a school,
+and had paid the Chief 'twenty-five pound down,' for leave to see
+Our School at work.  The gloomier spirits even said that he was
+going to buy us; against which contingency, conspiracies were set
+on foot for a general defection and running away.  However, he
+never did that.  After staying for a quarter, during which period,
+though closely observed, he was never seen to do anything but make
+pens out of quills, write small hand in a secret portfolio, and
+punch the point of the sharpest blade in his knife into his desk
+all over it, he too disappeared, and his place knew him no more.
+
+There was another boy, a fair, meek boy, with a delicate complexion
+and rich curling hair, who, we found out, or thought we found out
+(we have no idea now, and probably had none then, on what grounds,
+but it was confidentially revealed from mouth to mouth), was the
+son of a Viscount who had deserted his lovely mother.  It was
+understood that if he had his rights, he would be worth twenty
+thousand a year.  And that if his mother ever met his father, she
+would shoot him with a silver pistol, which she carried, always
+loaded to the muzzle, for that purpose.  He was a very suggestive
+topic.  So was a young Mulatto, who was always believed (though
+very amiable) to have a dagger about him somewhere.  But, we think
+they were both outshone, upon the whole, by another boy who claimed
+to have been born on the twenty-ninth of February, and to have only
+one birthday in five years.  We suspect this to have been a fiction
+- but he lived upon it all the time he was at Our School.
+
+The principal currency of Our School was slate pencil.  It had some
+inexplicable value, that was never ascertained, never reduced to a
+standard.  To have a great hoard of it was somehow to be rich.  We
+used to bestow it in charity, and confer it as a precious boon upon
+our chosen friends.  When the holidays were coming, contributions
+were solicited for certain boys whose relatives were in India, and
+who were appealed for under the generic name of 'Holiday-stoppers,'
+- appropriate marks of remembrance that should enliven and cheer
+them in their homeless state.  Personally, we always contributed
+these tokens of sympathy in the form of slate pencil, and always
+felt that it would be a comfort and a treasure to them.
+
+Our School was remarkable for white mice.  Red-polls, linnets, and
+even canaries, were kept in desks, drawers, hat-boxes, and other
+strange refuges for birds; but white mice were the favourite stock.
+The boys trained the mice, much better than the masters trained the
+boys.  We recall one white mouse, who lived in the cover of a Latin
+dictionary, who ran up ladders, drew Roman chariots, shouldered
+muskets, turned wheels, and even made a very creditable appearance
+on the stage as the Dog of Montargis.  He might have achieved
+greater things, but for having the misfortune to mistake his way in
+a triumphal procession to the Capitol, when he fell into a deep
+inkstand, and was dyed black and drowned.  The mice were the
+occasion of some most ingenious engineering, in the construction of
+their houses and instruments of performance.  The famous one
+belonged to a company of proprietors, some of whom have since made
+Railroads, Engines, and Telegraphs; the chairman has erected mills
+and bridges in New Zealand.
+
+The usher at Our School, who was considered to know everything as
+opposed to the Chief, who was considered to know nothing, was a
+bony, gentle-faced, clerical-looking young man in rusty black.  It
+was whispered that he was sweet upon one of Maxby's sisters (Maxby
+lived close by, and was a day pupil), and further that he 'favoured
+Maxby.'  As we remember, he taught Italian to Maxby's sisters on
+half-holidays.  He once went to the play with them, and wore a
+white waistcoat and a rose: which was considered among us
+equivalent to a declaration.  We were of opinion on that occasion,
+that to the last moment he expected Maxby's father to ask him to
+dinner at five o'clock, and therefore neglected his own dinner at
+half-past one, and finally got none.  We exaggerated in our
+imaginations the extent to which he punished Maxby's father's cold
+meat at supper; and we agreed to believe that he was elevated with
+wine and water when he came home.  But, we all liked him; for he
+had a good knowledge of boys, and would have made it a much better
+school if he had had more power.  He was writing master,
+mathematical master, English master, made out the bills, mended the
+pens, and did all sorts of things.  He divided the little boys with
+the Latin master (they were smuggled through their rudimentary
+books, at odd times when there was nothing else to do), and he
+always called at parents' houses to inquire after sick boys,
+because he had gentlemanly manners.  He was rather musical, and on
+some remote quarter-day had bought an old trombone; but a bit of it
+was lost, and it made the most extraordinary sounds when he
+sometimes tried to play it of an evening.  His holidays never began
+(on account of the bills) until long after ours; but, in the summer
+vacations he used to take pedestrian excursions with a knapsack;
+and at Christmas time, he went to see his father at Chipping
+Norton, who we all said (on no authority) was a dairy-fed pork-
+butcher.  Poor fellow!  He was very low all day on Maxby's sister's
+wedding-day, and afterwards was thought to favour Maxby more than
+ever, though he had been expected to spite him.  He has been dead
+these twenty years.  Poor fellow!
+
+Our remembrance of Our School, presents the Latin master as a
+colourless doubled-up near-sighted man with a crutch, who was
+always cold, and always putting onions into his ears for deafness,
+and always disclosing ends of flannel under all his garments, and
+almost always applying a ball of pocket-handkerchief to some part
+of his face with a screwing action round and round.  He was a very
+good scholar, and took great pains where he saw intelligence and a
+desire to learn: otherwise, perhaps not.  Our memory presents him
+(unless teased into a passion) with as little energy as colour - as
+having been worried and tormented into monotonous feebleness - as
+having had the best part of his life ground out of him in a Mill of
+boys.  We remember with terror how he fell asleep one sultry
+afternoon with the little smuggled class before him, and awoke not
+when the footstep of the Chief fell heavy on the floor; how the
+Chief aroused him, in the midst of a dread silence, and said, 'Mr.
+Blinkins, are you ill, sir?' how he blushingly replied, 'Sir,
+rather so;' how the Chief retorted with severity, 'Mr. Blinkins,
+this is no place to be ill in' (which was very, very true), and
+walked back solemn as the ghost in Hamlet, until, catching a
+wandering eye, he called that boy for inattention, and happily
+expressed his feelings towards the Latin master through the medium
+of a substitute.
+
+There was a fat little dancing-master who used to come in a gig,
+and taught the more advanced among us hornpipes (as an
+accomplishment in great social demand in after life); and there was
+a brisk little French master who used to come in the sunniest
+weather, with a handleless umbrella, and to whom the Chief was
+always polite, because (as we believed), if the Chief offended him,
+he would instantly address the Chief in French, and for ever
+confound him before the boys with his inability to understand or
+reply.
+
+There was besides, a serving man, whose name was Phil.  Our
+retrospective glance presents Phil as a shipwrecked carpenter, cast
+away upon the desert island of a school, and carrying into practice
+an ingenious inkling of many trades.  He mended whatever was
+broken, and made whatever was wanted.  He was general glazier,
+among other things, and mended all the broken windows - at the
+prime cost (as was darkly rumoured among us) of ninepence, for
+every square charged three-and-six to parents.  We had a high
+opinion of his mechanical genius, and generally held that the Chief
+'knew something bad of him,' and on pain of divulgence enforced
+Phil to be his bondsman.  We particularly remember that Phil had a
+sovereign contempt for learning: which engenders in us a respect
+for his sagacity, as it implies his accurate observation of the
+relative positions of the Chief and the ushers.  He was an
+impenetrable man, who waited at table between whiles, and
+throughout 'the half' kept the boxes in severe custody.  He was
+morose, even to the Chief, and never smiled, except at breaking-up,
+when, in acknowledgment of the toast, 'Success to Phil!  Hooray!'
+he would slowly carve a grin out of his wooden face, where it would
+remain until we were all gone.  Nevertheless, one time when we had
+the scarlet fever in the school, Phil nursed all the sick boys of
+his own accord, and was like a mother to them.
+
+There was another school not far off, and of course Our School
+could have nothing to say to that school.  It is mostly the way
+with schools, whether of boys or men.  Well! the railway has
+swallowed up ours, and the locomotives now run smoothly over its
+ashes.
+
+
+So fades and languishes, grows dim and dies,
+All that this world is proud of,
+
+
+- and is not proud of, too.  It had little reason to be proud of
+Our School, and has done much better since in that way, and will do
+far better yet.
+
+
+
+OUR VESTRY
+
+
+
+WE have the glorious privilege of being always in hot water if we
+like.  We are a shareholder in a Great Parochial British Joint
+Stock Bank of Balderdash.  We have a Vestry in our borough, and can
+vote for a vestryman - might even BE a vestryman, mayhap, if we
+were inspired by a lofty and noble ambition.  Which we are not.
+
+Our Vestry is a deliberative assembly of the utmost dignity and
+importance.  Like the Senate of ancient Rome, its awful gravity
+overpowers (or ought to overpower) barbarian visitors.  It sits in
+the Capitol (we mean in the capital building erected for it),
+chiefly on Saturdays, and shakes the earth to its centre with the
+echoes of its thundering eloquence, in a Sunday paper.
+
+To get into this Vestry in the eminent capacity of Vestryman,
+gigantic efforts are made, and Herculean exertions used.  It is
+made manifest to the dullest capacity at every election, that if we
+reject Snozzle we are done for, and that if we fail to bring in
+Blunderbooze at the top of the poll, we are unworthy of the dearest
+rights of Britons.  Flaming placards are rife on all the dead walls
+in the borough, public-houses hang out banners, hackney-cabs burst
+into full-grown flowers of type, and everybody is, or should be, in
+a paroxysm of anxiety.
+
+At these momentous crises of the national fate, we are much
+assisted in our deliberations by two eminent volunteers; one of
+whom subscribes himself A Fellow Parishioner, the other, A Rate-
+Payer.  Who they are, or what they are, or where they are, nobody
+knows; but, whatever one asserts, the other contradicts.  They are
+both voluminous writers, indicting more epistles than Lord
+Chesterfield in a single week; and the greater part of their
+feelings are too big for utterance in anything less than capital
+letters.  They require the additional aid of whole rows of notes of
+admiration, like balloons, to point their generous indignation; and
+they sometimes communicate a crushing severity to stars.  As thus:
+
+
+MEN OF MOONEYMOUNT.
+
+
+Is it, or is it not, a * * * to saddle the parish with a debt of
+2,745 pounds 6S. 9D., yet claim to be a RIGID ECONOMIST?
+
+Is it, or is it not, a * * * to state as a fact what is proved to
+be BOTH A MORAL AND A PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY?
+
+Is it, or is it not, a * * * to call 2,745 pounds 6S. 9D. nothing;
+and nothing, something?
+
+Do you, or do you NOT want a * * * TO REPRESENT YOU IN THE VESTRY?
+
+Your consideration of these questions is recommended to you by
+
+A FELLOW PARISHIONER.
+
+
+It was to this important public document that one of our first
+orators, MR. MAGG (of Little Winkling Street), adverted, when he
+opened the great debate of the fourteenth of November by saying,
+'Sir, I hold in my hand an anonymous slander' - and when the
+interruption, with which he was at that point assailed by the
+opposite faction, gave rise to that memorable discussion on a point
+of order which will ever be remembered with interest by
+constitutional assemblies.  In the animated debate to which we
+refer, no fewer than thirty-seven gentlemen, many of them of great
+eminence, including MR. WIGSBY (of Chumbledon Square), were seen
+upon their legs at one time; and it was on the same great occasion
+that DOGGINSON - regarded in our Vestry as 'a regular John Bull:'
+we believe, in consequence of his having always made up his mind on
+every subject without knowing anything about it - informed another
+gentleman of similar principles on the opposite side, that if he
+'cheek'd him,' he would resort to the extreme measure of knocking
+his blessed head off.
+
+This was a great occasion.  But, our Vestry shines habitually.  In
+asserting its own pre-eminence, for instance, it is very strong.
+On the least provocation, or on none, it will be clamorous to know
+whether it is to be 'dictated to,' or 'trampled on,' or 'ridden
+over rough-shod.'  Its great watchword is Self-government.  That is
+to say, supposing our Vestry to favour any little harmless disorder
+like Typhus Fever, and supposing the Government of the country to
+be, by any accident, in such ridiculous hands, as that any of its
+authorities should consider it a duty to object to Typhus Fever -
+obviously an unconstitutional objection - then, our Vestry cuts in
+with a terrible manifesto about Self-government, and claims its
+independent right to have as much Typhus Fever as pleases itself.
+Some absurd and dangerous persons have represented, on the other
+hand, that though our Vestry may be able to 'beat the bounds' of
+its own parish, it may not be able to beat the bounds of its own
+diseases; which (say they) spread over the whole land, in an ever
+expanding circle of waste, and misery, and death, and widowhood,
+and orphanage, and desolation.  But, our Vestry makes short work of
+any such fellows as these.
+
+It was our Vestry - pink of Vestries as it is - that in support of
+its favourite principle took the celebrated ground of denying the
+existence of the last pestilence that raged in England, when the
+pestilence was raging at the Vestry doors.  Dogginson said it was
+plums; Mr. Wigsby (of Chumbledon Square) said it was oysters; Mr.
+Magg (of Little Winkling Street) said, amid great cheering, it was
+the newspapers.  The noble indignation of our Vestry with that
+un-English institution the Board of Health, under those circumstances,
+yields one of the finest passages in its history.  It wouldn't hear
+of rescue.  Like Mr. Joseph Miller's Frenchman, it would be drowned
+and nobody should save it.  Transported beyond grammar by its
+kindled ire, it spoke in unknown tongues, and vented unintelligible
+bellowings, more like an ancient oracle than the modern oracle it
+is admitted on all hands to be.  Rare exigencies produce rare
+things; and even our Vestry, new hatched to the woful time, came
+forth a greater goose than ever.
+
+But this, again, was a special occasion.  Our Vestry, at more
+ordinary periods, demands its meed of praise.
+
+Our Vestry is eminently parliamentary.  Playing at Parliament is
+its favourite game.  It is even regarded by some of its members as
+a chapel of ease to the House of Commons: a Little Go to be passed
+first.  It has its strangers' gallery, and its reported debates
+(see the Sunday paper before mentioned), and our Vestrymen are in
+and out of order, and on and off their legs, and above all are
+transcendently quarrelsome, after the pattern of the real original.
+
+Our Vestry being assembled, Mr. Magg never begs to trouble Mr.
+Wigsby with a simple inquiry.  He knows better than that.  Seeing
+the honourable gentleman, associated in their minds with Chumbledon
+Square, in his place, he wishes to ask that honourable gentleman
+what the intentions of himself, and those with whom he acts, may
+be, on the subject of the paving of the district known as Piggleum
+Buildings?  Mr. Wigsby replies (with his eye on next Sunday's
+paper) that in reference to the question which has been put to him
+by the honourable gentleman opposite, he must take leave to say,
+that if that honourable gentleman had had the courtesy to give him
+notice of that question, he (Mr. Wigsby) would have consulted with
+his colleagues in reference to the advisability, in the present
+state of the discussions on the new paving-rate, of answering that
+question.  But, as the honourable gentleman has NOT had the
+courtesy to give him notice of that question (great cheering from
+the Wigsby interest), he must decline to give the honourable
+gentleman the satisfaction he requires.  Mr. Magg, instantly rising
+to retort, is received with loud cries of 'Spoke!' from the Wigsby
+interest, and with cheers from the Magg side of the house.
+Moreover, five gentlemen rise to order, and one of them, in revenge
+for being taken no notice of, petrifies the assembly by moving that
+this Vestry do now adjourn; but, is persuaded to withdraw that
+awful proposal, in consideration of its tremendous consequences if
+persevered in.  Mr. Magg, for the purpose of being heard, then begs
+to move, that you, sir, do now pass to the order of the day; and
+takes that opportunity of saying, that if an honourable gentleman
+whom he has in his eye, and will not demean himself by more
+particularly naming (oh, oh, and cheers), supposes that he is to be
+put down by clamour, that honourable gentleman - however supported
+he may be, through thick and thin, by a Fellow Parishioner, with
+whom he is well acquainted (cheers and counter-cheers, Mr. Magg
+being invariably backed by the Rate-Payer) - will find himself
+mistaken.  Upon this, twenty members of our Vestry speak in
+succession concerning what the two great men have meant, until it
+appears, after an hour and twenty minutes, that neither of them
+meant anything.  Then our Vestry begins business.
+
+We have said that, after the pattern of the real original, our
+Vestry in playing at Parliament is transcendently quarrelsome.  It
+enjoys a personal altercation above all things.  Perhaps the most
+redoubtable case of this kind we have ever had - though we have had
+so many that it is difficult to decide - was that on which the last
+extreme solemnities passed between Mr. Tiddypot (of Gumption House)
+and Captain Banger (of Wilderness Walk).
+
+In an adjourned debate on the question whether water could be
+regarded in the light of a necessary of life; respecting which
+there were great differences of opinion, and many shades of
+sentiment; Mr. Tiddypot, in a powerful burst of eloquence against
+that hypothesis, frequently made use of the expression that such
+and such a rumour had 'reached his ears.'  Captain Banger,
+following him, and holding that, for purposes of ablution and
+refreshment, a pint of water per diem was necessary for every adult
+of the lower classes, and half a pint for every child, cast
+ridicule upon his address in a sparkling speech, and concluded by
+saying that instead of those rumours having reached the ears of the
+honourable gentleman, he rather thought the honourable gentleman's
+ears must have reached the rumours, in consequence of their
+well-known length.  Mr. Tiddypot immediately rose, looked the honourable
+and gallant gentleman full in the face, and left the Vestry.
+
+The excitement, at this moment painfully intense, was heightened to
+an acute degree when Captain Banger rose, and also left the Vestry.
+After a few moments of profound silence - one of those breathless
+pauses never to be forgotten - Mr. Chib (of Tucket's Terrace, and
+the father of the Vestry) rose.  He said that words and looks had
+passed in that assembly, replete with consequences which every
+feeling mind must deplore.  Time pressed.  The sword was drawn, and
+while he spoke the scabbard might be thrown away.  He moved that
+those honourable gentlemen who had left the Vestry be recalled, and
+required to pledge themselves upon their honour that this affair
+should go no farther.  The motion being by a general union of
+parties unanimously agreed to (for everybody wanted to have the
+belligerents there, instead of out of sight: which was no fun at
+all), Mr. Magg was deputed to recover Captain Banger, and Mr. Chib
+himself to go in search of Mr. Tiddypot.  The Captain was found in
+a conspicuous position, surveying the passing omnibuses from the
+top step of the front-door immediately adjoining the beadle's box;
+Mr. Tiddypot made a desperate attempt at resistance, but was
+overpowered by Mr. Chib (a remarkably hale old gentleman of eighty-
+two), and brought back in safety.
+
+Mr. Tiddypot and the Captain being restored to their places, and
+glaring on each other, were called upon by the chair to abandon all
+homicidal intentions, and give the Vestry an assurance that they
+did so.  Mr. Tiddypot remained profoundly silent.  The Captain
+likewise remained profoundly silent, saying that he was observed by
+those around him to fold his arms like Napoleon Buonaparte, and to
+snort in his breathing - actions but too expressive of gunpowder.
+
+The most intense emotion now prevailed.  Several members clustered
+in remonstrance round the Captain, and several round Mr. Tiddypot;
+but, both were obdurate.  Mr. Chib then presented himself amid
+tremendous cheering, and said, that not to shrink from the
+discharge of his painful duty, he must now move that both
+honourable gentlemen be taken into custody by the beadle, and
+conveyed to the nearest police-office, there to be held to bail.
+The union of parties still continuing, the motion was seconded by
+Mr. Wigsby - on all usual occasions Mr. Chib's opponent - and
+rapturously carried with only one dissentient voice.  This was
+Dogginson's, who said from his place 'Let 'em fight it out with
+fistes;' but whose coarse remark was received as it merited.
+
+The beadle now advanced along the floor of the Vestry, and beckoned
+with his cocked hat to both members.  Every breath was suspended.
+To say that a pin might have been heard to fall, would be feebly to
+express the all-absorbing interest and silence.  Suddenly,
+enthusiastic cheering broke out from every side of the Vestry.
+Captain Banger had risen - being, in fact, pulled up by a friend on
+either side, and poked up by a friend behind.
+
+The Captain said, in a deep determined voice, that he had every
+respect for that Vestry and every respect for that chair; that he
+also respected the honourable gentleman of Gumpton House; but, that
+he respected his honour more.  Hereupon the Captain sat down,
+leaving the whole Vestry much affected.  Mr. Tiddypot instantly
+rose, and was received with the same encouragement.  He likewise
+said - and the exquisite art of this orator communicated to the
+observation an air of freshness and novelty - that he too had every
+respect for that Vestry; that he too had every respect for that
+chair.  That he too respected the honourable and gallant gentleman
+of Wilderness Walk; but, that he too respected his honour more.
+'Hows'ever,' added the distinguished Vestryman, 'if the honourable
+and gallant gentleman's honour is never more doubted and damaged
+than it is by me, he's all right.'  Captain Banger immediately
+started up again, and said that after those observations, involving
+as they did ample concession to his honour without compromising the
+honour of the honourable gentleman, he would be wanting in honour
+as well as in generosity, if he did not at once repudiate all
+intention of wounding the honour of the honourable gentleman, or
+saying anything dishonourable to his honourable feelings.  These
+observations were repeatedly interrupted by bursts of cheers.  Mr.
+Tiddypot retorted that he well knew the spirit of honour by which
+the honourable and gallant gentleman was so honourably animated,
+and that he accepted an honourable explanation, offered in a way
+that did him honour; but, he trusted that the Vestry would consider
+that his (Mr. Tiddypot's) honour had imperatively demanded of him
+that painful course which he had felt it due to his honour to
+adopt.  The Captain and Mr. Tiddypot then touched their hats to one
+another across the Vestry, a great many times, and it is thought
+that these proceedings (reported to the extent of several columns
+in next Sunday's paper) will bring them in as church-wardens next
+year.
+
+All this was strictly after the pattern of the real original, and
+so are the whole of our Vestry's proceedings.  In all their
+debates, they are laudably imitative of the windy and wordy slang
+of the real original, and of nothing that is better in it.  They
+have head-strong party animosities, without any reference to the
+merits of questions; they tack a surprising amount of debate to a
+very little business; they set more store by forms than they do by
+substances: - all very like the real original!  It has been doubted
+in our borough, whether our Vestry is of any utility; but our own
+conclusion is, that it is of the use to the Borough that a
+diminishing mirror is to a painter, as enabling it to perceive in a
+small focus of absurdity all the surface defects of the real
+original.
+
+
+
+OUR BORE
+
+
+
+IT is unnecessary to say that we keep a bore.  Everybody does.
+But, the bore whom we have the pleasure and honour of enumerating
+among our particular friends, is such a generic bore, and has so
+many traits (as it appears to us) in common with the great bore
+family, that we are tempted to make him the subject of the present
+notes.  May he be generally accepted!
+
+Our bore is admitted on all hands to be a good-hearted man.  He may
+put fifty people out of temper, but he keeps his own.  He preserves
+a sickly solid smile upon his face, when other faces are ruffled by
+the perfection he has attained in his art, and has an equable voice
+which never travels out of one key or rises above one pitch.  His
+manner is a manner of tranquil interest.  None of his opinions are
+startling.  Among his deepest-rooted convictions, it may be
+mentioned that he considers the air of England damp, and holds that
+our lively neighbours - he always calls the French our lively
+neighbours - have the advantage of us in that particular.
+Nevertheless he is unable to forget that John Bull is John Bull all
+the world over, and that England with all her faults is England
+still.
+
+Our bore has travelled.  He could not possibly be a complete bore
+without having travelled.  He rarely speaks of his travels without
+introducing, sometimes on his own plan of construction, morsels of
+the language of the country - which he always translates.  You
+cannot name to him any little remote town in France, Italy,
+Germany, or Switzerland but he knows it well; stayed there a
+fortnight under peculiar circumstances.  And talking of that little
+place, perhaps you know a statue over an old fountain, up a little
+court, which is the second - no, the third - stay - yes, the third
+turning on the right, after you come out of the Post-house, going
+up the hill towards the market?  You DON'T know that statue?  Nor
+that fountain?  You surprise him!  They are not usually seen by
+travellers (most extraordinary, he has never yet met with a single
+traveller who knew them, except one German, the most intelligent
+man he ever met in his life!) but he thought that YOU would have
+been the man to find them out.  And then he describes them, in a
+circumstantial lecture half an hour long, generally delivered
+behind a door which is constantly being opened from the other side;
+and implores you, if you ever revisit that place, now do go and
+look at that statue and fountain!
+
+Our bore, in a similar manner, being in Italy, made a discovery of
+a dreadful picture, which has been the terror of a large portion of
+the civilized world ever since.  We have seen the liveliest men
+paralysed by it, across a broad dining-table.  He was lounging
+among the mountains, sir, basking in the mellow influences of the
+climate, when he came to UNA PICCOLA CHIESA - a little church - or
+perhaps it would be more correct to say UNA PICCOLISSIMA CAPPELLA -
+the smallest chapel you can possibly imagine - and walked in.
+There was nobody inside but a CIECO - a blind man - saying his
+prayers, and a VECCHIO PADRE - old friar-rattling a money-box.
+But, above the head of that friar, and immediately to the right of
+the altar as you enter - to the right of the altar?  No.  To the
+left of the altar as you enter - or say near the centre - there
+hung a painting (subject, Virgin and Child) so divine in its
+expression, so pure and yet so warm and rich in its tone, so fresh
+in its touch, at once so glowing in its colour and so statuesque in
+its repose, that our bore cried out in ecstasy, 'That's the finest
+picture in Italy!'  And so it is, sir.  There is no doubt of it.
+It is astonishing that that picture is so little known.  Even the
+painter is uncertain.  He afterwards took Blumb, of the Royal
+Academy (it is to be observed that our bore takes none but eminent
+people to see sights, and that none but eminent people take our
+bore), and you never saw a man so affected in your life as Blumb
+was.  He cried like a child!  And then our bore begins his
+description in detail - for all this is introductory - and
+strangles his hearers with the folds of the purple drapery.
+
+By an equally fortunate conjunction of accidental circumstances, it
+happened that when our bore was in Switzerland, he discovered a
+Valley, of that superb character, that Chamouni is not to be
+mentioned in the same breath with it.  This is how it was, sir.  He
+was travelling on a mule - had been in the saddle some days - when,
+as he and the guide, Pierre Blanquo: whom you may know, perhaps? -
+our bore is sorry you don't, because he's the only guide deserving
+of the name - as he and Pierre were descending, towards evening,
+among those everlasting snows, to the little village of La Croix,
+our bore observed a mountain track turning off sharply to the
+right.  At first he was uncertain whether it WAS a track at all,
+and in fact, he said to Pierre, 'QU'EST QUE C'EST DONC, MON AMI? -
+What is that, my friend?  'Ou, MONSIEUR!' said Pierre - 'Where,
+sir?' ' La! - there!' said our bore.  'MONSIEUR, CE N'EST RIEN DE
+TOUT - sir, it's nothing at all,' said Pierre.  'ALLONS! - Make
+haste.  IL VA NEIGET - it's going to snow!'  But, our bore was not
+to be done in that way, and he firmly replied, 'I wish to go in
+that direction - JE VEUX Y ALLER.  I am bent upon it - JE SUIS
+DETERMINE.  EN AVANT! - go ahead!'  In consequence of which
+firmness on our bore's part, they proceeded, sir, during two hours
+of evening, and three of moonlight (they waited in a cavern till
+the moon was up), along the slenderest track, overhanging
+perpendicularly the most awful gulfs, until they arrived, by a
+winding descent, in a valley that possibly, and he may say
+probably, was never visited by any stranger before.  What a valley!
+Mountains piled on mountains, avalanches stemmed by pine forests;
+waterfalls, chalets, mountain-torrents, wooden bridges, every
+conceivable picture of Swiss scenery!  The whole village turned out
+to receive our bore.  The peasant girls kissed him, the men shook
+hands with him, one old lady of benevolent appearance wept upon his
+breast.  He was conducted, in a primitive triumph, to the little
+inn: where he was taken ill next morning, and lay for six weeks,
+attended by the amiable hostess (the same benevolent old lady who
+had wept over night) and her charming daughter, Fanchette.  It is
+nothing to say that they were attentive to him; they doted on him.
+They called him in their simple way, L'ANGE ANGLAIS - the English
+Angel.  When our bore left the valley, there was not a dry eye in
+the place; some of the people attended him for miles.  He begs and
+entreats of you as a personal favour, that if you ever go to
+Switzerland again (you have mentioned that your last visit was your
+twenty-third), you will go to that valley, and see Swiss scenery
+for the first time.  And if you want really to know the pastoral
+people of Switzerland, and to understand them, mention, in that
+valley, our bore's name!
+
+Our bore has a crushing brother in the East, who, somehow or other,
+was admitted to smoke pipes with Mehemet Ali, and instantly became
+an authority on the whole range of Eastern matters, from Haroun
+Alraschid to the present Sultan.  He is in the habit of expressing
+mysterious opinions on this wide range of subjects, but on
+questions of foreign policy more particularly, to our bore, in
+letters; and our bore is continually sending bits of these letters
+to the newspapers (which they never insert), and carrying other
+bits about in his pocket-book.  It is even whispered that he has
+been seen at the Foreign Office, receiving great consideration from
+the messengers, and having his card promptly borne into the
+sanctuary of the temple.  The havoc committed in society by this
+Eastern brother is beyond belief.  Our bore is always ready with
+him.  We have known our bore to fall upon an intelligent young
+sojourner in the wilderness, in the first sentence of a narrative,
+and beat all confidence out of him with one blow of his brother.
+He became omniscient, as to foreign policy, in the smoking of those
+pipes with Mehemet Ali.  The balance of power in Europe, the
+machinations of the Jesuits, the gentle and humanising influence of
+Austria, the position and prospects of that hero of the noble soul
+who is worshipped by happy France, are all easy reading to our
+bore's brother.  And our bore is so provokingly self-denying about
+him!  'I don't pretend to more than a very general knowledge of
+these subjects myself,' says he, after enervating the intellects of
+several strong men, 'but these are my brother's opinions, and I
+believe he is known to be well-informed.'
+
+The commonest incidents and places would appear to have been made
+special, expressly for our bore.  Ask him whether he ever chanced
+to walk, between seven and eight in the morning, down St. James's
+Street, London, and he will tell you, never in his life but once.
+But, it's curious that that once was in eighteen thirty; and that
+as our bore was walking down the street you have just mentioned, at
+the hour you have just mentioned - half-past seven - or twenty
+minutes to eight.  No!  Let him be correct! - exactly a quarter
+before eight by the palace clock - he met a fresh-coloured, grey-
+haired, good-humoured looking gentleman, with a brown umbrella,
+who, as he passed him, touched his hat and said, 'Fine morning,
+sir, fine morning!' - William the Fourth!
+
+Ask our bore whether he has seen Mr. Barry's new Houses of
+Parliament, and he will reply that he has not yet inspected them
+minutely, but, that you remind him that it was his singular fortune
+to be the last man to see the old Houses of Parliament before the
+fire broke out.  It happened in this way.  Poor John Spine, the
+celebrated novelist, had taken him over to South Lambeth to read to
+him the last few chapters of what was certainly his best book - as
+our bore told him at the time, adding, 'Now, my dear John, touch
+it, and you'll spoil it!' - and our bore was going back to the club
+by way of Millbank and Parliament Street, when he stopped to think
+of Canning, and look at the Houses of Parliament.  Now, you know
+far more of the philosophy of Mind than our bore does, and are much
+better able to explain to him than he is to explain to you why or
+wherefore, at that particular time, the thought of fire should come
+into his head.  But, it did.  It did.  He thought, What a national
+calamity if an edifice connected with so many associations should
+be consumed by fire!  At that time there was not a single soul in
+the street but himself.  All was quiet, dark, and solitary.  After
+contemplating the building for a minute - or, say a minute and a
+half, not more - our bore proceeded on his way, mechanically
+repeating, What a national calamity if such an edifice, connected
+with such associations, should be destroyed by - A man coming
+towards him in a violent state of agitation completed the sentence,
+with the exclamation, Fire!  Our bore looked round, and the whole
+structure was in a blaze.
+
+In harmony and union with these experiences, our bore never went
+anywhere in a steamboat but he made either the best or the worst
+voyage ever known on that station.  Either he overheard the captain
+say to himself, with his hands clasped, 'We are all lost!' or the
+captain openly declared to him that he had never made such a run
+before, and never should be able to do it again.  Our bore was in
+that express train on that railway, when they made (unknown to the
+passengers) the experiment of going at the rate of a hundred to
+miles an hour.  Our bore remarked on that occasion to the other
+people in the carriage, 'This is too fast, but sit still!'  He was
+at the Norwich musical festival when the extraordinary echo for
+which science has been wholly unable to account, was heard for the
+first and last time.  He and the bishop heard it at the same
+moment, and caught each other's eye.  He was present at that
+illumination of St. Peter's, of which the Pope is known to have
+remarked, as he looked at it out of his window in the Vatican, 'O
+CIELO!  QUESTA COSA NON SARA FATTA, MAI ANCORA, COME QUESTA - O
+Heaven! this thing will never be done again, like this!'  He has
+seen every lion he ever saw, under some remarkably propitious
+circumstances.  He knows there is no fancy in it, because in every
+case the showman mentioned the fact at the time, and congratulated
+him upon it.
+
+At one period of his life, our bore had an illness.  It was an
+illness of a dangerous character for society at large.  Innocently
+remark that you are very well, or that somebody else is very well;
+and our bore, with a preface that one never knows what a blessing
+health is until one has lost it, is reminded of that illness, and
+drags you through the whole of its symptoms, progress, and
+treatment.  Innocently remark that you are not well, or that
+somebody else is not well, and the same inevitable result ensues.
+You will learn how our bore felt a tightness about here, sir, for
+which he couldn't account, accompanied with a constant sensation as
+if he were being stabbed - or, rather, jobbed - that expresses it
+more correctly - jobbed - with a blunt knife.  Well, sir!  This
+went on, until sparks began to flit before his eyes, water-wheels
+to turn round in his head, and hammers to beat incessantly, thump,
+thump, thump, all down his back - along the whole of the spinal
+vertebrae.  Our bore, when his sensations had come to this, thought
+it a duty he owed to himself to take advice, and he said, Now, whom
+shall I consult?  He naturally thought of Callow, at that time one
+of the most eminent physicians in London, and he went to Callow.
+Callow said, 'Liver!' and prescribed rhubarb and calomel, low diet,
+and moderate exercise.  Our bore went on with this treatment,
+getting worse every day, until he lost confidence in Callow, and
+went to Moon, whom half the town was then mad about.  Moon was
+interested in the case; to do him justice he was very much
+interested in the case; and he said, 'Kidneys!'  He altered the
+whole treatment, sir - gave strong acids, cupped, and blistered.
+This went on, our bore still getting worse every day, until he
+openly told Moon it would be a satisfaction to him if he would have
+a consultation with Clatter.  The moment Clatter saw our bore, he
+said, 'Accumulation of fat about the heart!'  Snugglewood, who was
+called in with him, differed, and said, 'Brain!'  But, what they
+all agreed upon was, to lay our bore upon his back, to shave his
+head, to leech him, to administer enormous quantities of medicine,
+and to keep him low; so that he was reduced to a mere shadow, you
+wouldn't have known him, and nobody considered it possible that he
+could ever recover.  This was his condition, sir, when he heard of
+Jilkins - at that period in a very small practice, and living in
+the upper part of a house in Great Portland Street; but still, you
+understand, with a rising reputation among the few people to whom
+he was known.  Being in that condition in which a drowning man
+catches at a straw, our bore sent for Jilkins.  Jilkins came.  Our
+bore liked his eye, and said, 'Mr. Jilkins, I have a presentiment
+that you will do me good.'  Jilkins's reply was characteristic of
+the man.  It was, 'Sir, I mean to do you good.'  This confirmed our
+bore's opinion of his eye, and they went into the case together -
+went completely into it.  Jilkins then got up, walked across the
+room, came back, and sat down.  His words were these.  'You have
+been humbugged.  This is a case of indigestion, occasioned by
+deficiency of power in the Stomach.  Take a mutton chop in half-an-
+hour, with a glass of the finest old sherry that can be got for
+money.  Take two mutton chops to-morrow, and two glasses of the
+finest old sherry.  Next day, I'll come again.'  In a week our bore
+was on his legs, and Jilkins's success dates from that period!
+
+Our bore is great in secret information.  He happens to know many
+things that nobody else knows.  He can generally tell you where the
+split is in the Ministry; he knows a great deal about the Queen;
+and has little anecdotes to relate of the royal nursery.  He gives
+you the judge's private opinion of Sludge the murderer, and his
+thoughts when he tried him.  He happens to know what such a man got
+by such a transaction, and it was fifteen thousand five hundred
+pounds, and his income is twelve thousand a year.  Our bore is also
+great in mystery.  He believes, with an exasperating appearance of
+profound meaning, that you saw Parkins last Sunday? - Yes, you did.
+- Did he say anything particular? - No, nothing particular. - Our
+bore is surprised at that. - Why? - Nothing.  Only he understood
+that Parkins had come to tell you something. - What about? - Well!
+our bore is not at liberty to mention what about.  But, he believes
+you will hear that from Parkins himself, soon, and he hopes it may
+not surprise you as it did him.  Perhaps, however, you never heard
+about Parkins's wife's sister? - No. - Ah! says our bore, that
+explains it!
+
+Our bore is also great in argument.  He infinitely enjoys a long
+humdrum, drowsy interchange of words of dispute about nothing.  He
+considers that it strengthens the mind, consequently, he 'don't see
+that,' very often.  Or, he would be glad to know what you mean by
+that.  Or, he doubts that.  Or, he has always understood exactly
+the reverse of that.  Or, he can't admit that.  Or, he begs to deny
+that.  Or, surely you don't mean that.  And so on.  He once advised
+us; offered us a piece of advice, after the fact, totally
+impracticable and wholly impossible of acceptance, because it
+supposed the fact, then eternally disposed of, to be yet in
+abeyance.  It was a dozen years ago, and to this hour our bore
+benevolently wishes, in a mild voice, on certain regular occasions,
+that we had thought better of his opinion.
+
+The instinct with which our bore finds out another bore, and closes
+with him, is amazing.  We have seen him pick his man out of fifty
+men, in a couple of minutes.  They love to go (which they do
+naturally) into a slow argument on a previously exhausted subject,
+and to contradict each other, and to wear the hearers out, without
+impairing their own perennial freshness as bores.  It improves the
+good understanding between them, and they get together afterwards,
+and bore each other amicably.  Whenever we see our bore behind a
+door with another bore, we know that when he comes forth, he will
+praise the other bore as one of the most intelligent men he ever
+met.  And this bringing us to the close of what we had to say about
+our bore, we are anxious to have it understood that he never
+bestowed this praise on us.
+
+
+
+A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY
+
+
+
+IT was profoundly observed by a witty member of the Court of Common
+Council, in Council assembled in the City of London, in the year of
+our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty, that the French are
+a frog-eating people, who wear wooden shoes.
+
+We are credibly informed, in reference to the nation whom this
+choice spirit so happily disposed of, that the caricatures and
+stage representations which were current in England some half a
+century ago, exactly depict their present condition.  For example,
+we understand that every Frenchman, without exception, wears a
+pigtail and curl-papers.  That he is extremely sallow, thin, long-
+faced, and lantern-jawed.  That the calves of his legs are
+invariably undeveloped; that his legs fail at the knees, and that
+his shoulders are always higher than his ears.  We are likewise
+assured that he rarely tastes any food but soup maigre, and an
+onion; that he always says, 'By Gar! Aha! Vat you tell me, sare?'
+at the end of every sentence he utters; and that the true generic
+name of his race is the Mounseers, or the Parly-voos.  If he be not
+a dancing-master, or a barber, he must be a cook; since no other
+trades but those three are congenial to the tastes of the people,
+or permitted by the Institutions of the country.  He is a slave, of
+course.  The ladies of France (who are also slaves) invariably have
+their heads tied up in Belcher handkerchiefs, wear long earrings,
+carry tambourines, and beguile the weariness of their yoke by
+singing in head voices through their noses - principally to barrel-
+organs.
+
+It may be generally summed up, of this inferior people, that they
+have no idea of anything.
+
+Of a great Institution like Smithfield, they are unable to form the
+least conception.  A Beast Market in the heart of Paris would be
+regarded an impossible nuisance.  Nor have they any notion of
+slaughter-houses in the midst of a city.  One of these benighted
+frog-eaters would scarcely understand your meaning, if you told him
+of the existence of such a British bulwark.
+
+It is agreeable, and perhaps pardonable, to indulge in a little
+self-complacency when our right to it is thoroughly established.
+At the present time, to be rendered memorable by a final attack on
+that good old market which is the (rotten) apple of the
+Corporation's eye, let us compare ourselves, to our national
+delight and pride as to these two subjects of slaughter-house and
+beast-market, with the outlandish foreigner.
+
+The blessings of Smithfield are too well understood to need
+recapitulation; all who run (away from mad bulls and pursuing oxen)
+may read.  Any market-day they may be beheld in glorious action.
+Possibly the merits of our slaughter-houses are not yet quite so
+generally appreciated.
+
+Slaughter-houses, in the large towns of England, are always (with
+the exception of one or two enterprising towns) most numerous in
+the most densely crowded places, where there is the least
+circulation of air.  They are often underground, in cellars; they
+are sometimes in close back yards; sometimes (as in Spitalfields)
+in the very shops where the meat is sold.  Occasionally, under good
+private management, they are ventilated and clean.  For the most
+part, they are unventilated and dirty; and, to the reeking walls,
+putrid fat and other offensive animal matter clings with a
+tenacious hold.  The busiest slaughter-houses in London are in the
+neighbourhood of Smithfield, in Newgate Market, in Whitechapel, in
+Newport Market, in Leadenhall Market, in Clare Market.  All these
+places are surrounded by houses of a poor description, swarming
+with inhabitants.  Some of them are close to the worst
+burial-grounds in London.  When the slaughter-house is below the ground,
+it is a common practice to throw the sheep down areas, neck and
+crop - which is exciting, but not at all cruel.  When it is on the
+level surface, it is often extremely difficult of approach.  Then,
+the beasts have to be worried, and goaded, and pronged, and
+tail-twisted, for a long time before they can be got in - which is
+entirely owing to their natural obstinacy.  When it is not
+difficult of approach, but is in a foul condition, what they see
+and scent makes them still more reluctant to enter - which is their
+natural obstinacy again.  When they do get in at last, after no
+trouble and suffering to speak of (for, there is nothing in the
+previous journey into the heart of London, the night's endurance in
+Smithfield, the struggle out again, among the crowded multitude,
+the coaches, carts, waggons, omnibuses, gigs, chaises, phaetons,
+cabs, trucks, dogs, boys, whoopings, roarings, and ten thousand
+other distractions), they are represented to be in a most unfit
+state to be killed, according to microscopic examinations made of
+their fevered blood by one of the most distinguished physiologists
+in the world, PROFESSOR OWEN - but that's humbug.  When they ARE
+killed, at last, their reeking carcases are hung in impure air, to
+become, as the same Professor will explain to you, less nutritious
+and more unwholesome - but he is only an UNcommon counsellor, so
+don't mind HIM.  In half a quarter of a mile's length of
+Whitechapel, at one time, there shall be six hundred newly
+slaughtered oxen hanging up, and seven hundred sheep - but, the
+more the merrier - proof of prosperity.  Hard by Snow Hill and
+Warwick Lane, you shall see the little children, inured to sights
+of brutality from their birth, trotting along the alleys, mingled
+with troops of horribly busy pigs, up to their ankles in blood -
+but it makes the young rascals hardy.  Into the imperfect sewers of
+this overgrown city, you shall have the immense mass of corruption,
+engendered by these practices, lazily thrown out of sight, to rise,
+in poisonous gases, into your house at night, when your sleeping
+children will most readily absorb them, and to find its languid
+way, at last, into the river that you drink - but, the French are a
+frog-eating people who wear wooden shoes, and it's O the roast beef
+of England, my boy, the jolly old English roast beef.
+
+It is quite a mistake - a newfangled notion altogether - to suppose
+that there is any natural antagonism between putrefaction and
+health.  They know better than that, in the Common Council.  You
+may talk about Nature, in her wisdom, always warning man through
+his sense of smell, when he draws near to something dangerous; but,
+that won't go down in the City.  Nature very often don't mean
+anything.  Mrs. Quickly says that prunes are ill for a green wound;
+but whosoever says that putrid animal substances are ill for a
+green wound, or for robust vigour, or for anything or for anybody,
+is a humanity-monger and a humbug.  Britons never, never, never,
+&c., therefore.  And prosperity to cattle-driving, cattle-
+slaughtering, bone-crushing, blood-boiling, trotter-scraping,
+tripe-dressing, paunch-cleaning, gut-spinning, hide-preparing,
+tallow-melting, and other salubrious proceedings, in the midst of
+hospitals, churchyards, workhouses, schools, infirmaries, refuges,
+dwellings, provision-shops nurseries, sick-beds, every stage and
+baiting-place in the journey from birth to death!
+
+These UNcommon counsellors, your Professor Owens and fellows, will
+contend that to tolerate these things in a civilised city, is to
+reduce it to a worse condition than BRUCE found to prevail in
+ABYSSINIA.  For there (say they) the jackals and wild dogs came at
+night to devour the offal; whereas, here there are no such natural
+scavengers, and quite as savage customs.  Further, they will
+demonstrate that nothing in Nature is intended to be wasted, and
+that besides the waste which such abuses occasion in the articles
+of health and life - main sources of the riches of any community -
+they lead to a prodigious waste of changing matters, which might,
+with proper preparation, and under scientific direction, be safely
+applied to the increase of the fertility of the land.  Thus (they
+argue) does Nature ever avenge infractions of her beneficent laws,
+and so surely as Man is determined to warp any of her blessings
+into curses, shall they become curses, and shall he suffer heavily.
+But, this is cant.  Just as it is cant of the worst description to
+say to the London Corporation, 'How can you exhibit to the people
+so plain a spectacle of dishonest equivocation, as to claim the
+right of holding a market in the midst of the great city, for one
+of your vested privileges, when you know that when your last market
+holding charter was granted to you by King Charles the First,
+Smithfield stood IN THE SUBURBS OF LONDON, and is in that very
+charter so described in those five words?' - which is certainly
+true, but has nothing to do with the question.
+
+Now to the comparison, in these particulars of civilisation,
+between the capital of England, and the capital of that frog-eating
+and wooden-shoe wearing country, which the illustrious Common
+Councilman so sarcastically settled.
+
+In Paris, there is no Cattle Market.  Cows and calves are sold
+within the city, but, the Cattle Markets are at Poissy, about
+thirteen miles off, on a line of railway; and at Sceaux, about five
+miles off.  The Poissy market is held every Thursday; the Sceaux
+market, every Monday.  In Paris, there are no slaughter-houses, in
+our acceptation of the term.  There are five public Abattoirs -
+within the walls, though in the suburbs - and in these all the
+slaughtering for the city must be performed.  They are managed by a
+Syndicat or Guild of Butchers, who confer with the Minister of the
+Interior on all matters affecting the trade, and who are consulted
+when any new regulations are contemplated for its government.  They
+are, likewise, under the vigilant superintendence of the police.
+Every butcher must be licensed: which proves him at once to be a
+slave, for we don't license butchers in England - we only license
+apothecaries, attorneys, post-masters, publicans, hawkers,
+retailers of tobacco, snuff, pepper, and vinegar - and one or two
+other little trades, not worth mentioning.  Every arrangement in
+connexion with the slaughtering and sale of meat, is matter of
+strict police regulation.  (Slavery again, though we certainly have
+a general sort of Police Act here.)
+
+But, in order that the reader may understand what a monument of
+folly these frog-eaters have raised in their abattoirs and cattle-
+markets, and may compare it with what common counselling has done
+for us all these years, and would still do but for the innovating
+spirit of the times, here follows a short account of a recent visit
+to these places:
+
+
+It was as sharp a February morning as you would desire to feel at
+your fingers' ends when I turned out - tumbling over a chiffonier
+with his little basket and rake, who was picking up the bits of
+coloured paper that had been swept out, over-night, from a Bon-Bon
+shop - to take the Butchers' Train to Poissy.  A cold, dim light
+just touched the high roofs of the Tuileries which have seen such
+changes, such distracted crowds, such riot and bloodshed; and they
+looked as calm, and as old, all covered with white frost, as the
+very Pyramids.  There was not light enough, yet, to strike upon the
+towers of Notre Dame across the water; but I thought of the dark
+pavement of the old Cathedral as just beginning to be streaked with
+grey; and of the lamps in the 'House of God,' the Hospital close to
+it, burning low and being quenched; and of the keeper of the Morgue
+going about with a fading lantern, busy in the arrangement of his
+terrible waxwork for another sunny day.
+
+The sun was up, and shining merrily when the butchers and I,
+announcing our departure with an engine shriek to sleepy Paris,
+rattled away for the Cattle Market.  Across the country, over the
+Seine, among a forest of scrubby trees - the hoar frost lying cold
+in shady places, and glittering in the light - and here we are - at
+Poissy!  Out leap the butchers, who have been chattering all the
+way like madmen, and off they straggle for the Cattle Market (still
+chattering, of course, incessantly), in hats and caps of all
+shapes, in coats and blouses, in calf-skins, cow-skins, horse-
+skins, furs, shaggy mantles, hairy coats, sacking, baize, oil-skin,
+anything you please that will keep a man and a butcher warm, upon a
+frosty morning.
+
+Many a French town have I seen, between this spot of ground and
+Strasburg or Marseilles, that might sit for your picture, little
+Poissy!  Barring the details of your old church, I know you well,
+albeit we make acquaintance, now, for the first time.  I know your
+narrow, straggling, winding streets, with a kennel in the midst,
+and lamps slung across.  I know your picturesque street-corners,
+winding up-hill Heaven knows why or where!  I know your tradesmen's
+inscriptions, in letters not quite fat enough; your barbers' brazen
+basins dangling over little shops; your Cafes and Estaminets, with
+cloudy bottles of stale syrup in the windows, and pictures of
+crossed billiard cues outside.  I know this identical grey horse
+with his tail rolled up in a knot like the 'back hair' of an untidy
+woman, who won't be shod, and who makes himself heraldic by
+clattering across the street on his hind-legs, while twenty voices
+shriek and growl at him as a Brigand, an accursed Robber, and an
+everlastingly-doomed Pig.  I know your sparkling town-fountain,
+too, my Poissy, and am glad to see it near a cattle-market, gushing
+so freshly, under the auspices of a gallant little sublimated
+Frenchman wrought in metal, perched upon the top.  Through all the
+land of France I know this unswept room at The Glory, with its
+peculiar smell of beans and coffee, where the butchers crowd about
+the stove, drinking the thinnest of wine from the smallest of
+tumblers; where the thickest of coffee-cups mingle with the longest
+of loaves, and the weakest of lump sugar; where Madame at the
+counter easily acknowledges the homage of all entering and
+departing butchers; where the billiard-table is covered up in the
+midst like a great bird-cake - but the bird may sing by-and-by!
+
+A bell!  The Calf Market!  Polite departure of butchers.  Hasty
+payment and departure on the part of amateur Visitor.  Madame
+reproaches Ma'amselle for too fine a susceptibility in reference to
+the devotion of a Butcher in a bear-skin.  Monsieur, the landlord
+of The Glory, counts a double handful of sous, without an
+unobliterated inscription, or an undamaged crowned head, among
+them.
+
+There is little noise without, abundant space, and no confusion.
+The open area devoted to the market is divided into three portions:
+the Calf Market, the Cattle Market, the Sheep Market.  Calves at
+eight, cattle at ten, sheep at mid-day.  All is very clean.
+
+The Calf Market is a raised platform of stone, some three or four
+feet high, open on all sides, with a lofty overspreading roof,
+supported on stone columns, which give it the appearance of a sort
+of vineyard from Northern Italy.  Here, on the raised pavement, lie
+innumerable calves, all bound hind-legs and fore-legs together, and
+all trembling violently - perhaps with cold, perhaps with fear,
+perhaps with pain; for, this mode of tying, which seems to be an
+absolute superstition with the peasantry, can hardly fail to cause
+great suffering.  Here, they lie, patiently in rows, among the
+straw, with their stolid faces and inexpressive eyes, superintended
+by men and women, boys and girls; here they are inspected by our
+friends, the butchers, bargained for, and bought.  Plenty of time;
+plenty of room; plenty of good humour.  'Monsieur Francois in the
+bear-skin, how do you do, my friend?  You come from Paris by the
+train?  The fresh air does you good.  If you are in want of three
+or four fine calves this market morning, my angel, I, Madame Doche,
+shall be happy to deal with you.  Behold these calves, Monsieur
+Francois!  Great Heaven, you are doubtful!  Well, sir, walk round
+and look about you.  If you find better for the money, buy them.
+If not, come to me!'  Monsieur Francois goes his way leisurely, and
+keeps a wary eye upon the stock.  No other butcher jostles Monsieur
+Francois; Monsieur Francois jostles no other butcher.  Nobody is
+flustered and aggravated.  Nobody is savage.  In the midst of the
+country blue frocks and red handkerchiefs, and the butchers' coats,
+shaggy, furry, and hairy: of calf-skin, cow-skin, horse-skin, and
+bear-skin: towers a cocked hat and a blue cloak.  Slavery!  For OUR
+Police wear great-coats and glazed hats.
+
+But now the bartering is over, and the calves are sold.  'Ho!
+Gregoire, Antoine, Jean, Louis!  Bring up the carts, my children!
+Quick, brave infants!  Hola!  Hi!'
+
+The carts, well littered with straw, are backed up to the edge of
+the raised pavement, and various hot infants carry calves upon
+their heads, and dexterously pitch them in, while other hot
+infants, standing in the carts, arrange the calves, and pack them
+carefully in straw.  Here is a promising young calf, not sold, whom
+Madame Doche unbinds.  Pardon me, Madame Doche, but I fear this
+mode of tying the four legs of a quadruped together, though
+strictly a la mode, is not quite right.  You observe, Madame Doche,
+that the cord leaves deep indentations in the skin, and that the
+animal is so cramped at first as not to know, or even remotely
+suspect that HE is unbound, until you are so obliging as to kick
+him, in your delicate little way, and pull his tail like a bell-
+rope.  Then, he staggers to his knees, not being able to stand, and
+stumbles about like a drunken calf, or the horse at Franconi's,
+whom you may have seen, Madame Doche, who is supposed to have been
+mortally wounded in battle.  But, what is this rubbing against me,
+as I apostrophise Madame Doche?  It is another heated infant with a
+calf upon his head.  'Pardon, Monsieur, but will you have the
+politeness to allow me to pass?'  'Ah, sir, willingly.  I am vexed
+to obstruct the way.'  On he staggers, calf and all, and makes no
+allusion whatever either to my eyes or limbs.
+
+Now, the carts are all full.  More straw, my Antoine, to shake over
+these top rows; then, off we will clatter, rumble, jolt, and
+rattle, a long row of us, out of the first town-gate, and out at
+the second town-gate, and past the empty sentry-box, and the little
+thin square bandbox of a guardhouse, where nobody seems to live:
+and away for Paris, by the paved road, lying, a straight, straight
+line, in the long, long avenue of trees.  We can neither choose our
+road, nor our pace, for that is all prescribed to us.  The public
+convenience demands that our carts should get to Paris by such a
+route, and no other (Napoleon had leisure to find that out, while
+he had a little war with the world upon his hands), and woe betide
+us if we infringe orders.
+
+Drovers of oxen stand in the Cattle Market, tied to iron bars fixed
+into posts of granite.  Other droves advance slowly down the long
+avenue, past the second town-gate, and the first town-gate, and the
+sentry-box, and the bandbox, thawing the morning with their smoky
+breath as they come along.  Plenty of room; plenty of time.
+Neither man nor beast is driven out of his wits by coaches, carts,
+waggons, omnibuses, gigs, chaises, phaetons, cabs, trucks, boys,
+whoopings, roarings, and multitudes.  No tail-twisting is necessary
+- no iron pronging is necessary.  There are no iron prongs here.
+The market for cattle is held as quietly as the market for calves.
+In due time, off the cattle go to Paris; the drovers can no more
+choose their road, nor their time, nor the numbers they shall
+drive, than they can choose their hour for dying in the course of
+nature.
+
+Sheep next.  The sheep-pens are up here, past the Branch Bank of
+Paris established for the convenience of the butchers, and behind
+the two pretty fountains they are making in the Market.  My name is
+Bull: yet I think I should like to see as good twin fountains - not
+to say in Smithfield, but in England anywhere.  Plenty of room;
+plenty of time.  And here are sheep-dogs, sensible as ever, but
+with a certain French air about them - not without a suspicion of
+dominoes - with a kind of flavour of moustache and beard -
+demonstrative dogs, shaggy and loose where an English dog would be
+tight and close - not so troubled with business calculations as our
+English drovers' dogs, who have always got their sheep upon their
+minds, and think about their work, even resting, as you may see by
+their faces; but, dashing, showy, rather unreliable dogs: who might
+worry me instead of their legitimate charges if they saw occasion -
+and might see it somewhat suddenly.
+
+The market for sheep passes off like the other two; and away they
+go, by THEIR allotted road to Paris.  My way being the Railway, I
+make the best of it at twenty miles an hour; whirling through the
+now high-lighted landscape; thinking that the inexperienced green
+buds will be wishing, before long, they had not been tempted to
+come out so soon; and wondering who lives in this or that chateau,
+all window and lattice, and what the family may have for breakfast
+this sharp morning.
+
+After the Market comes the Abattoir.  What abattoir shall I visit
+first?  Montmartre is the largest.  So I will go there.
+
+The abattoirs are all within the walls of Paris, with an eye to the
+receipt of the octroi duty; but, they stand in open places in the
+suburbs, removed from the press and bustle of the city.  They are
+managed by the Syndicat or Guild of Butchers, under the inspection
+of the Police.  Certain smaller items of the revenue derived from
+them are in part retained by the Guild for the payment of their
+expenses, and in part devoted by it to charitable purposes in
+connexion with the trade.  They cost six hundred and eighty
+thousand pounds; and they return to the city of Paris an interest
+on that outlay, amounting to nearly six and a-half per cent.
+
+Here, in a sufficiently dismantled space is the Abattoir of
+Montmartre, covering nearly nine acres of ground, surrounded by a
+high wall, and looking from the outside like a cavalry barrack.  At
+the iron gates is a small functionary in a large cocked hat.
+'Monsieur desires to see the abattoir?  Most certainly.'  State
+being inconvenient in private transactions, and Monsieur being
+already aware of the cocked hat, the functionary puts it into a
+little official bureau which it almost fills, and accompanies me in
+the modest attire - as to his head - of ordinary life.
+
+Many of the animals from Poissy have come here.  On the arrival of
+each drove, it was turned into yonder ample space, where each
+butcher who had bought, selected his own purchases.  Some, we see
+now, in these long perspectives of stalls with a high over-hanging
+roof of wood and open tiles rising above the walls.  While they
+rest here, before being slaughtered, they are required to be fed
+and watered, and the stalls must be kept clean.  A stated amount of
+fodder must always be ready in the loft above; and the supervision
+is of the strictest kind.  The same regulations apply to sheep and
+calves; for which, portions of these perspectives are strongly
+railed off.  All the buildings are of the strongest and most solid
+description.
+
+After traversing these lairs, through which, besides the upper
+provision for ventilation just mentioned, there may be a thorough
+current of air from opposite windows in the side walls, and from
+doors at either end, we traverse the broad, paved, court-yard until
+we come to the slaughter-houses.  They are all exactly alike, and
+adjoin each other, to the number of eight or nine together, in
+blocks of solid building.  Let us walk into the first.
+
+It is firmly built and paved with stone.  It is well lighted,
+thoroughly aired, and lavishly provided with fresh water.  It has
+two doors opposite each other; the first, the door by which I
+entered from the main yard; the second, which is opposite, opening
+on another smaller yard, where the sheep and calves are killed on
+benches.  The pavement of that yard, I see, slopes downward to a
+gutter, for its being more easily cleansed.  The slaughter-house is
+fifteen feet high, sixteen feet and a-half wide, and thirty-three
+feet long.  It is fitted with a powerful windlass, by which one man
+at the handle can bring the head of an ox down to the ground to
+receive the blow from the pole-axe that is to fell him - with the
+means of raising the carcass and keeping it suspended during the
+after-operation of dressing - and with hooks on which carcasses can
+hang, when completely prepared, without touching the walls.  Upon
+the pavement of this first stone chamber, lies an ox scarcely dead.
+If I except the blood draining from him, into a little stone well
+in a corner of the pavement, the place is free from offence as the
+Place de la Concorde.  It is infinitely purer and cleaner, I know,
+my friend the functionary, than the Cathedral of Notre Dame.  Ha,
+ha!  Monsieur is pleasant, but, truly, there is reason, too, in
+what he says.
+
+I look into another of these slaughter-houses.  'Pray enter,' says
+a gentleman in bloody boots.  'This is a calf I have killed this
+morning.  Having a little time upon my hands, I have cut and
+punctured this lace pattern in the coats of his stomach.  It is
+pretty enough.  I did it to divert myself.' - 'It is beautiful,
+Monsieur, the slaughterer!'  He tells me I have the gentility to
+say so.
+
+I look into rows of slaughter-houses.  In many, retail dealers, who
+have come here for the purpose, are making bargains for meat.
+There is killing enough, certainly, to satiate an unused eye; and
+there are steaming carcasses enough, to suggest the expediency of a
+fowl and salad for dinner; but, everywhere, there is an orderly,
+clean, well-systematised routine of work in progress - horrible
+work at the best, if you please; but, so much the greater reason
+why it should be made the best of.  I don't know (I think I have
+observed, my name is Bull) that a Parisian of the lowest order is
+particularly delicate, or that his nature is remarkable for an
+infinitesimal infusion of ferocity; but, I do know, my potent,
+grave, and common counselling Signors, that he is forced, when at
+this work, to submit himself to a thoroughly good system, and to
+make an Englishman very heartily ashamed of you.
+
+Here, within the walls of the same abattoir, in other roomy and
+commodious buildings, are a place for converting the fat into
+tallow and packing it for market - a place for cleansing and
+scalding calves' heads and sheep's feet - a place for preparing
+tripe - stables and coach-houses for the butchers - innumerable
+conveniences, aiding in the diminution of offensiveness to its
+lowest possible point, and the raising of cleanliness and
+supervision to their highest.  Hence, all the meat that goes out of
+the gate is sent away in clean covered carts.  And if every trade
+connected with the slaughtering of animals were obliged by law to
+be carried on in the same place, I doubt, my friend, now reinstated
+in the cocked hat (whose civility these two francs imperfectly
+acknowledge, but appear munificently to repay), whether there could
+be better regulations than those which are carried out at the
+Abattoir of Montmartre.  Adieu, my friend, for I am away to the
+other side of Paris, to the Abattoir of Grenelle!  And there I find
+exactly the same thing on a smaller scale, with the addition of a
+magnificent Artesian well, and a different sort of conductor, in
+the person of a neat little woman with neat little eyes, and a neat
+little voice, who picks her neat little way among the bullocks in a
+very neat little pair of shoes and stockings.
+
+
+Such is the Monument of French Folly which a foreigneering people
+have erected, in a national hatred and antipathy for common
+counselling wisdom.  That wisdom, assembled in the City of London,
+having distinctly refused, after a debate of three days long, and
+by a majority of nearly seven to one, to associate itself with any
+Metropolitan Cattle Market unless it be held in the midst of the
+City, it follows that we shall lose the inestimable advantages of
+common counselling protection, and be thrown, for a market, on our
+own wretched resources.  In all human probability we shall thus
+come, at last, to erect a monument of folly very like this French
+monument.  If that be done, the consequences are obvious.  The
+leather trade will be ruined, by the introduction of American
+timber, to be manufactured into shoes for the fallen English; the
+Lord Mayor will be required, by the popular voice, to live entirely
+on frogs; and both these changes will (how, is not at present quite
+clear, but certainly somehow or other) fall on that unhappy landed
+interest which is always being killed, yet is always found to be
+alive - and kicking.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+(1) Give a bill
+
+(2) Three months' imprisonment as reputed thieves.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Reprinted Pieces, by Charles Dickens
+
diff --git a/old/cdrpr10.zip b/old/cdrpr10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8461f07
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/cdrpr10.zip