hangings, and an appropriate foreground of dining-room chairs. Perhaps
they will imagine that we mean an humble class of second-hand furniture
repositories. Their imagination will then naturally lead them to that
street at the back of Long-acre, which is composed almost entirely of
brokers’ shops; where you walk through groves of deceitful,
showy-looking furniture, and where the prospect is occasionally
enlivened by a bright red, blue, and yellow hearth-rug, embellished
with the pleasing device of a mail-coach at full speed, or a strange
animal, supposed to have been originally intended for a dog, with a
mass of worsted-work in his mouth, which conjecture has likened to a
basket of flowers.

This, by-the-bye, is a tempting article to young wives in the humbler
ranks of life, who have a first-floor front to furnish—they are lost in
admiration, and hardly know which to admire most. The dog is very
beautiful, but they have a dog already on the best tea-tray, and two
more on the mantel-piece. Then, there is something so genteel about
that mail-coach; and the passengers outside (who are all hat) give it
such an air of reality!

The goods here are adapted to the taste, or rather to the means, of
cheap purchasers. There are some of the most beautiful _looking_
Pembroke tables that were ever beheld: the wood as green as the trees
in the Park, and the leaves almost as certain to fall off in the course
of a year. There is also a most extensive assortment of tent and
turn-up bedsteads, made of stained wood, and innumerable specimens of
that base imposition on society—a sofa bedstead.

A turn-up bedstead is a blunt, honest piece of furniture; it may be
slightly disguised with a sham drawer; and sometimes a mad attempt is
even made to pass it off for a book-case; ornament it as you will,
however, the turn-up bedstead seems to defy disguise, and to insist on
having it distinctly understood that he is a turn-up bedstead, and
nothing else—that he is indispensably necessary, and that being so
useful, he disdains to be ornamental.

How different is the demeanour of a sofa bedstead! Ashamed of its real
use, it strives to appear an article of luxury and gentility—an attempt
in which it miserably fails. It has neither the respectability of a
sofa, nor the virtues of a bed; every man who keeps a sofa bedstead in
his house, becomes a party to a wilful and designing fraud—we question
whether you could insult him more, than by insinuating that you
entertain the least suspicion of its real use.

To return from this digression, we beg to say, that neither of these
classes of brokers’ shops, forms the subject of this sketch. The shops
to which we advert, are immeasurably inferior to those on whose outward
appearance we have slightly touched. Our readers must often have
observed in some by-street, in a poor neighbourhood, a small dirty
shop, exposing for sale the most extraordinary and confused jumble of
old, worn-out, wretched articles, that can well be imagined. Our wonder
at their ever having been bought, is only to be equalled by our
astonishment at the idea of their ever being sold again. On a board, at
the side of the door, are placed about twenty books—all odd volumes;
and as many wine-glasses—all different patterns; several locks, an old
earthenware pan, full of rusty keys; two or three gaudy
chimney-ornaments—cracked, of course; the remains of a lustre, without
any drops; a round frame like a capital O, which has once held a
mirror; a flute, complete with the exception of the middle joint; a
pair of curling-irons; and a tinder-box. In front of the shop-window,
are ranged some half-dozen high-backed chairs, with spinal complaints
and wasted legs; a corner cupboard; two or three very dark mahogany
tables with flaps like mathematical problems; some pickle-jars, some
surgeons’ ditto, with gilt labels and without stoppers; an unframed
portrait of some lady who flourished about the beginning of the
thirteenth century, by an artist who never flourished at all; an
incalculable host of miscellanies of every description, including
bottles and cabinets, rags and bones, fenders and street-door knockers,
fire-irons, wearing apparel and bedding, a hall-lamp, and a room-door.
Imagine, in addition to this incongruous mass, a black doll in a white
frock, with two faces—one looking up the street, and the other looking
down, swinging over the door; a board with the squeezed-up inscription
‘Dealer in marine stores,’ in lanky white letters, whose height is
strangely out of proportion to their width; and you have before you
precisely the kind of shop to which we wish to direct your attention.

Although the same heterogeneous mixture of things will be found at all
these places, it is curious to observe how truly and accurately some of
the minor articles which are exposed for sale—articles of wearing
apparel, for instance—mark the character of the neighbourhood. Take
Drury-Lane and Covent-garden for example.

This is essentially a theatrical neighbourhood. There is not a potboy
in the vicinity who is not, to a greater or less extent, a dramatic
character. The errand-boys and chandler’s-shop-keepers’ sons, are all
stage-struck: they ‘gets up’ plays in back kitchens hired for the
purpose, and will stand before a shop-window for hours, contemplating a
great staring portrait of Mr. Somebody or other, of the Royal Coburg
Theatre, ‘as he appeared in the character of Tongo the Denounced.’ The
consequence is, that there is not a marine-store shop in the
neighbourhood, which does not exhibit for sale some faded articles of
dramatic finery, such as three or four pairs of soiled buff boots with
turn-over red tops, heretofore worn by a ‘fourth robber,’ or ‘fifth
mob;’ a pair of rusty broadswords, a few gauntlets, and certain
resplendent ornaments, which, if they were yellow instead of white,
might be taken for insurance plates of the Sun Fire-office. There are
several of these shops in the narrow streets and dirty courts, of which
there are so many near the national theatres, and they all have
tempting goods of this description, with the addition, perhaps, of a
lady’s pink dress covered with spangles; white wreaths, stage shoes,
and a tiara like a tin lamp reflector. They have been purchased of some
wretched supernumeraries, or sixth-rate actors, and are now offered for
the benefit of the rising generation, who, on condition of making
certain weekly payments, amounting in the whole to about ten times
their value, may avail themselves of such desirable bargains.

Let us take a very different quarter, and apply it to the same test.
Look at a marine-store dealer’s, in that reservoir of dirt,
drunkenness, and drabs: thieves, oysters, baked potatoes, and pickled
salmon—Ratcliff-highway. Here, the wearing apparel is all nautical.
Rough blue jackets, with mother-of-pearl buttons, oil-skin hats, coarse
checked shirts, and large canvas trousers that look as if they were
made for a pair of bodies instead of a pair of legs, are the staple
commodities. Then, there are large bunches of cotton
pocket-handkerchiefs, in colour and pattern unlike any one ever saw
before, with the exception of those on the backs of the three young
ladies without bonnets who passed just now. The furniture is much the
same as elsewhere, with the addition of one or two models of ships, and
some old prints of naval engagements in still older frames. In the
window, are a few compasses, a small tray containing silver watches in
clumsy thick cases; and tobacco-boxes, the lid of each ornamented with
a ship, or an anchor, or some such trophy. A sailor generally pawns or
sells all he has before he has been long ashore, and if he does not,
some favoured companion kindly saves him the trouble. In either case,
it is an even chance that he afterwards unconsciously repurchases the
same things at a higher price than he gave for them at first.

Again: pay a visit with a similar object, to a part of London, as
unlike both of these as they are to each other. Cross over to the
Surrey side, and look at such shops of this description as are to be
found near the King’s Bench prison, and in ‘the Rules.’ How different,
and how strikingly illustrative of the decay of some of the unfortunate
residents in this part of the metropolis! Imprisonment and neglect have
done their work. There is contamination in the profligate denizens of a
debtor’s prison; old friends have fallen off; the recollection of
former prosperity has passed away; and with it all thoughts for the
past, all care for the future. First, watches and rings, then cloaks,
coats, and all the more expensive articles of dress, have found their
way to the pawnbroker’s. That miserable resource has failed at last,
and the sale of some trifling article at one of these shops, has been
the only mode left of raising a shilling or two, to meet the urgent
demands of the moment. Dressing-cases and writing-desks, too old to
pawn but too good to keep; guns, fishing-rods, musical instruments, all
in the same condition; have first been sold, and the sacrifice has been
but slightly felt. But hunger must be allayed, and what has already
become a habit, is easily resorted to, when an emergency arises. Light
articles of clothing, first of the ruined man, then of his wife, at
last of their children, even of the youngest, have been parted with,
piecemeal. There they are, thrown carelessly together until a purchaser
presents himself, old, and patched and repaired, it is true; but the
make and materials tell of better days; and the older they are, the
greater the misery and destitution of those whom they once adorned.

CHAPTER XXII—GIN-SHOPS

It is a remarkable circumstance, that different trades appear to
partake of the disease to which elephants and dogs are especially
liable, and to run stark, staring, raving mad, periodically. The great
distinction between the animals and the trades, is, that the former run
mad with a certain degree of propriety—they are very regular in their
irregularities. We know the period at which the emergency will arise,
and provide against it accordingly. If an elephant run mad, we are all
ready for him—kill or cure—pills or bullets, calomel in conserve of
roses, or lead in a musket-barrel. If a dog happen to look unpleasantly
warm in the summer months, and to trot about the shady side of the
streets with a quarter of a yard of tongue hanging out of his mouth, a
thick leather muzzle, which has been previously prepared in compliance
with the thoughtful injunctions of the Legislature, is instantly
clapped over his head, by way of making him cooler, and he either looks
remarkably unhappy for the next six weeks, or becomes legally insane,
and goes mad, as it were, by Act of Parliament. But these trades are as
eccentric as comets; nay, worse, for no one can calculate on the
recurrence of the strange appearances which betoken the disease.
Moreover, the contagion is general, and the quickness with which it
diffuses itself, almost incredible.

We will cite two or three cases in illustration of our meaning. Six or
eight years ago, the epidemic began to display itself among the
linen-drapers and haberdashers. The primary symptoms were an inordinate
love of plate-glass, and a passion for gas-lights and gilding. The
disease gradually progressed, and at last attained a fearful height.
Quiet, dusty old shops in different parts of town, were pulled down;
spacious premises with stuccoed fronts and gold letters, were erected
instead; floors were covered with Turkey carpets; roofs supported by
massive pillars; doors knocked into windows; a dozen squares of glass
into one; one shopman into a dozen; and there is no knowing what would
have been done, if it had not been fortunately discovered, just in
time, that the Commissioners of Bankruptcy were as competent to decide
such cases as the Commissioners of Lunacy, and that a little
confinement and gentle examination did wonders. The disease abated. It
died away. A year or two of comparative tranquillity ensued. Suddenly
it burst out again amongst the chemists; the symptoms were the same,
with the addition of a strong desire to stick the royal arms over the
shop-door, and a great rage for mahogany, varnish, and expensive
floor-cloth. Then, the hosiers were infected, and began to pull down
their shop-fronts with frantic recklessness. The mania again died away,
and the public began to congratulate themselves on its entire
disappearance, when it burst forth with tenfold violence among the
publicans, and keepers of ‘wine vaults.’ From that moment it has spread
among them with unprecedented rapidity, exhibiting a concatenation of
all the previous symptoms; onward it has rushed to every part of town,
knocking down all the old public-houses, and depositing splendid
mansions, stone balustrades, rosewood fittings, immense lamps, and
illuminated clocks, at the corner of every street.

The extensive scale on which these places are established, and the
ostentatious manner in which the business of even the smallest among
them is divided into branches, is amusing. A handsome plate of ground
glass in one door directs you ‘To the Counting-house;’ another to the
‘Bottle Department; a third to the ‘Wholesale Department;’ a fourth to
‘The Wine Promenade;’ and so forth, until we are in daily expectation
of meeting with a ‘Brandy Bell,’ or a ‘Whiskey Entrance.’ Then,
ingenuity is exhausted in devising attractive titles for the different
descriptions of gin; and the dram-drinking portion of the community as
they gaze upon the gigantic black and white announcements, which are
only to be equalled in size by the figures beneath them, are left in a
state of pleasing hesitation between ‘The Cream of the Valley,’ ‘The
Out and Out,’ ‘The No Mistake,’ ‘The Good for Mixing,’ ‘The real
Knock-me-down,’ ‘The celebrated Butter Gin,’ ‘The regular Flare-up,’
and a dozen other, equally inviting and wholesome _liqueurs_. Although
places of this description are to be met with in every second street,
they are invariably numerous and splendid in precise proportion to the
dirt and poverty of the surrounding neighbourhood. The gin-shops in and
near Drury-Lane, Holborn, St. Giles’s, Covent-garden, and Clare-market,
are the handsomest in London. There is more of filth and squalid misery
near those great thorough-fares than in any part of this mighty city.

We will endeavour to sketch the bar of a large gin-shop, and its
ordinary customers, for the edification of such of our readers as may
not have had opportunities of observing such scenes; and on the chance
of finding one well suited to our purpose, we will make for Drury-Lane,
through the narrow streets and dirty courts which divide it from
Oxford-street, and that classical spot adjoining the brewery at the
bottom of Tottenham-court-road, best known to the initiated as the
‘Rookery.’

The filthy and miserable appearance of this part of London can hardly
be imagined by those (and there are many such) who have not witnessed
it. Wretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper:
every room let out to a different family, and in many instances to two
or even three—fruit and ‘sweet-stuff’ manufacturers in the cellars,
barbers and red-herring vendors in the front parlours, cobblers in the
back; a bird-fancier in the first floor, three families on the second,
starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a ‘musician’ in the
front kitchen, and a charwoman and five hungry children in the back
one—filth everywhere—a gutter before the houses and a drain
behind—clothes drying and slops emptying, from the windows; girls of
fourteen or fifteen, with matted hair, walking about barefoot, and in
white great-coats, almost their only covering; boys of all ages, in
coats of all sizes and no coats at all; men and women, in every variety
of scanty and dirty apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking,
squabbling, fighting, and swearing.

You turn the corner. What a change! All is light and brilliancy. The
hum of many voices issues from that splendid gin-shop which forms the
commencement of the two streets opposite; and the gay building with the
fantastically ornamented parapet, the illuminated clock, the
plate-glass windows surrounded by stucco rosettes, and its profusion of
gas-lights in richly-gilt burners, is perfectly dazzling when
contrasted with the darkness and dirt we have just left. The interior
is even gayer than the exterior. A bar of French-polished mahogany,
elegantly carved, extends the whole width of the place; and there are
two side-aisles of great casks, painted green and gold, enclosed within
a light brass rail, and bearing such inscriptions, as ‘Old Tom, 549;’
‘Young Tom, 360;’ ‘Samson, 1421’—the figures agreeing, we presume, with
‘gallons,’ understood. Beyond the bar is a lofty and spacious saloon,
full of the same enticing vessels, with a gallery running round it,
equally well furnished. On the counter, in addition to the usual spirit
apparatus, are two or three little baskets of cakes and biscuits, which
are carefully secured at top with wicker-work, to prevent their
contents being unlawfully abstracted. Behind it, are two
showily-dressed damsels with large necklaces, dispensing the spirits
and ‘compounds.’ They are assisted by the ostensible proprietor of the
concern, a stout, coarse fellow in a fur cap, put on very much on one
side to give him a knowing air, and to display his sandy whiskers to
the best advantage.

The two old washerwomen, who are seated on the little bench to the left
of the bar, are rather overcome by the head-dresses and haughty
demeanour of the young ladies who officiate. They receive their
half-quartern of gin and peppermint, with considerable deference,
prefacing a request for ‘one of them soft biscuits,’ with a ‘Jist be
good enough, ma’am.’ They are quite astonished at the impudent air of
the young fellow in a brown coat and bright buttons, who, ushering in
his two companions, and walking up to the bar in as careless a manner
as if he had been used to green and gold ornaments all his life, winks
at one of the young ladies with singular coolness, and calls for a
‘kervorten and a three-out-glass,’ just as if the place were his own.
‘Gin for you, sir?’ says the young lady when she has drawn it:
carefully looking every way but the right one, to show that the wink
had no effect upon her. ‘For me, Mary, my dear,’ replies the gentleman
in brown. ‘My name an’t Mary as it happens,’ says the young girl,
rather relaxing as she delivers the change. ‘Well, if it an’t, it ought
to be,’ responds the irresistible one; ‘all the Marys as ever _I_ see,
was handsome gals.’ Here the young lady, not precisely remembering how
blushes are managed in such cases, abruptly ends the flirtation by
addressing the female in the faded feathers who has just entered, and
who, after stating explicitly, to prevent any subsequent
misunderstanding, that ‘this gentleman pays,’ calls for ‘a glass of
port wine and a bit of sugar.’

Those two old men who came in ‘just to have a drain,’ finished their
third quartern a few seconds ago; they have made themselves crying
drunk; and the fat comfortable-looking elderly women, who had ‘a glass
of rum-srub’ each, having chimed in with their complaints on the
hardness of the times, one of the women has agreed to stand a glass
round, jocularly observing that ‘grief never mended no broken bones,
and as good people’s wery scarce, what I says is, make the most on ’em,
and that’s all about it!’ a sentiment which appears to afford unlimited
satisfaction to those who have nothing to pay.

It is growing late, and the throng of men, women, and children, who
have been constantly going in and out, dwindles down to two or three
occasional stragglers—cold, wretched-looking creatures, in the last
stage of emaciation and disease. The knot of Irish labourers at the
lower end of the place, who have been alternately shaking hands with,
and threatening the life of each other, for the last hour, become
furious in their disputes, and finding it impossible to silence one
man, who is particularly anxious to adjust the difference, they resort
to the expedient of knocking him down and jumping on him afterwards.
The man in the fur cap, and the potboy rush out; a scene of riot and
confusion ensues; half the Irishmen get shut out, and the other half
get shut in; the potboy is knocked among the tubs in no time; the
landlord hits everybody, and everybody hits the landlord; the barmaids
scream; the police come in; the rest is a confused mixture of arms,
legs, staves, torn coats, shouting, and struggling. Some of the party
are borne off to the station-house, and the remainder slink home to
beat their wives for complaining, and kick the children for daring to
be hungry.

We have sketched this subject very slightly, not only because our
limits compel us to do so, but because, if it were pursued farther, it
would be painful and repulsive. Well-disposed gentlemen, and charitable
ladies, would alike turn with coldness and disgust from a description
of the drunken besotted men, and wretched broken-down miserable women,
who form no inconsiderable portion of the frequenters of these haunts;
forgetting, in the pleasant consciousness of their own rectitude, the
poverty of the one, and the temptation of the other. Gin-drinking is a
great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater; and
until you improve the homes of the poor, or persuade a half-famished
wretch not to seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own misery,
with the pittance which, divided among his family, would furnish a
morsel of bread for each, gin-shops will increase in number and
splendour. If Temperance Societies would suggest an antidote against
hunger, filth, and foul air, or could establish dispensaries for the
gratuitous distribution of bottles of Lethe-water, gin-palaces would be
numbered among the things that were.

CHAPTER XXIII—THE PAWNBROKER’S SHOP

Of the numerous receptacles for misery and distress with which the
streets of London unhappily abound, there are, perhaps, none which
present such striking scenes as the pawnbrokers’ shops. The very nature
and description of these places occasions their being but little known,
except to the unfortunate beings whose profligacy or misfortune drives
them to seek the temporary relief they offer. The subject may appear,
at first sight, to be anything but an inviting one, but we venture on
it nevertheless, in the hope that, as far as the limits of our present
paper are concerned, it will present nothing to disgust even the most
fastidious reader.

There are some pawnbrokers’ shops of a very superior description. There
are grades in pawning as in everything else, and distinctions must be
observed even in poverty. The aristocratic Spanish cloak and the
plebeian calico shirt, the silver fork and the flat iron, the muslin
cravat and the Belcher neckerchief, would but ill assort together; so,
the better sort of pawnbroker calls himself a silver-smith, and
decorates his shop with handsome trinkets and expensive jewellery,
while the more humble money-lender boldly advertises his calling, and
invites observation. It is with pawnbrokers’ shops of the latter class,
that we have to do. We have selected one for our purpose, and will
endeavour to describe it.

The pawnbroker’s shop is situated near Drury-Lane, at the corner of a
court, which affords a side entrance for the accommodation of such
customers as may be desirous of avoiding the observation of the
passers-by, or the chance of recognition in the public street. It is a
low, dirty-looking, dusty shop, the door of which stands always
doubtfully, a little way open: half inviting, half repelling the
hesitating visitor, who, if he be as yet uninitiated, examines one of
the old garnet brooches in the window for a minute or two with affected
eagerness, as if he contemplated making a purchase; and then looking
cautiously round to ascertain that no one watches him, hastily slinks
in: the door closing of itself after him, to just its former width. The
shop front and the window-frames bear evident marks of having been once
painted; but, what the colour was originally, or at what date it was
probably laid on, are at this remote period questions which may be
asked, but cannot be answered. Tradition states that the transparency
in the front door, which displays at night three red balls on a blue
ground, once bore also, inscribed in graceful waves, the words ‘Money
advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of
property,’ but a few illegible hieroglyphics are all that now remain to
attest the fact. The plate and jewels would seem to have disappeared,
together with the announcement, for the articles of stock, which are
displayed in some profusion in the window, do not include any very
valuable luxuries of either kind. A few old china cups; some modern
vases, adorned with paltry paintings of three Spanish cavaliers playing
three Spanish guitars; or a party of boors carousing: each boor with
one leg painfully elevated in the air, by way of expressing his perfect
freedom and gaiety; several sets of chessmen, two or three flutes, a
few fiddles, a round-eyed portrait staring in astonishment from a very
dark ground; some gaudily-bound prayer-books and testaments, two rows
of silver watches quite as clumsy and almost as large as Ferguson’s
first; numerous old-fashioned table and tea spoons, displayed,
fan-like, in half-dozens; strings of coral with great broad gilt snaps;
cards of rings and brooches, fastened and labelled separately, like the
insects in the British Museum; cheap silver penholders and snuff-boxes,
with a masonic star, complete the jewellery department; while five or
six beds in smeary clouded ticks, strings of blankets and sheets, silk
and cotton handkerchiefs, and wearing apparel of every description,
form the more useful, though even less ornamental, part, of the
articles exposed for sale. An extensive collection of planes, chisels,
saws, and other carpenters’ tools, which have been pledged, and never
redeemed, form the foreground of the picture; while the large frames
full of ticketed bundles, which are dimly seen through the dirty
casement up-stairs—the squalid neighbourhood—the adjoining houses,
straggling, shrunken, and rotten, with one or two filthy,
unwholesome-looking heads thrust out of every window, and old red pans
and stunted plants exposed on the tottering parapets, to the manifest
hazard of the heads of the passers-by—the noisy men loitering under the
archway at the corner of the court, or about the gin-shop next door—and
their wives patiently standing on the curb-stone, with large baskets of
cheap vegetables slung round them for sale, are its immediate
auxiliaries.

If the outside of the pawnbroker’s shop be calculated to attract the
attention, or excite the interest, of the speculative pedestrian, its
interior cannot fail to produce the same effect in an increased degree.
The front door, which we have before noticed, opens into the common
shop, which is the resort of all those customers whose habitual
acquaintance with such scenes renders them indifferent to the
observation of their companions in poverty. The side door opens into a
small passage from which some half-dozen doors (which may be secured on
the inside by bolts) open into a corresponding number of little dens,
or closets, which face the counter. Here, the more timid or respectable
portion of the crowd shroud themselves from the notice of the
remainder, and patiently wait until the gentleman behind the counter,
with the curly black hair, diamond ring, and double silver watch-guard,
shall feel disposed to favour them with his notice—a consummation which
depends considerably on the temper of the aforesaid gentleman for the
time being.

At the present moment, this elegantly-attired individual is in the act
of entering the duplicate he has just made out, in a thick book: a
process from which he is diverted occasionally, by a conversation he is
carrying on with another young man similarly employed at a little
distance from him, whose allusions to ‘that last bottle of soda-water
last night,’ and ‘how regularly round my hat he felt himself when the
young ’ooman gave ’em in charge,’ would appear to refer to the
consequences of some stolen joviality of the preceding evening. The
customers generally, however, seem unable to participate in the
amusement derivable from this source, for an old sallow-looking woman,
who has been leaning with both arms on the counter with a small bundle
before her, for half an hour previously, suddenly interrupts the
conversation by addressing the jewelled shopman—‘Now, Mr. Henry, do
make haste, there’s a good soul, for my two grandchildren’s locked up
at home, and I’m afeer’d of the fire.’ The shopman slightly raises his
head, with an air of deep abstraction, and resumes his entry with as
much deliberation as if he were engraving. ‘You’re in a hurry, Mrs.
Tatham, this ev’nin’, an’t you?’ is the only notice he deigns to take,
after the lapse of five minutes or so. ‘Yes, I am indeed, Mr. Henry;
now, do serve me next, there’s a good creetur. I wouldn’t worry you,
only it’s all along o’ them botherin’ children.’ ‘What have you got
here?’ inquires the shopman, unpinning the bundle—‘old concern, I
suppose—pair o’ stays and a petticut. You must look up somethin’ else,
old ’ooman; I can’t lend you anything more upon them; they’re
completely worn out by this time, if it’s only by putting in, and
taking out again, three times a week.’ ‘Oh! you’re a rum un, you are,’
replies the old woman, laughing extremely, as in duty bound; ‘I wish
I’d got the gift of the gab like you; see if I’d be up the spout so
often then! No, no; it an’t the petticut; it’s a child’s frock and a
beautiful silk ankecher, as belongs to my husband. He gave four
shillin’ for it, the werry same blessed day as he broke his arm.’—‘What
do you want upon these?’ inquires Mr. Henry, slightly glancing at the
articles, which in all probability are old acquaintances. ‘What do you
want upon these?’—‘Eighteenpence.’—‘Lend you ninepence.’—‘Oh, make it a
shillin’; there’s a dear—do now?’—‘Not another farden.’—‘Well, I
suppose I must take it.’ The duplicate is made out, one ticket pinned
on the parcel, the other given to the old woman; the parcel is flung
carelessly down into a corner, and some other customer prefers his
claim to be served without further delay.

The choice falls on an unshaven, dirty, sottish-looking fellow, whose
tarnished paper-cap, stuck negligently over one eye, communicates an
additionally repulsive expression to his very uninviting countenance.
He was enjoying a little relaxation from his sedentary pursuits a
quarter of an hour ago, in kicking his wife up the court. He has come
to redeem some tools:—probably to complete a job with, on account of
which he has already received some money, if his inflamed countenance
and drunken staggers may be taken as evidence of the fact. Having
waited some little time, he makes his presence known by venting his
ill-humour on a ragged urchin, who, being unable to bring his face on a
level with the counter by any other process, has employed himself in
climbing up, and then hooking himself on with his elbows—an uneasy
perch, from which he has fallen at intervals, generally alighting on
the toes of the person in his immediate vicinity. In the present case,
the unfortunate little wretch has received a cuff which sends him
reeling to this door; and the donor of the blow is immediately the
object of general indignation.

‘What do you strike the boy for, you brute?’ exclaims a slipshod woman,
with two flat irons in a little basket. ‘Do you think he’s your wife,
you willin?’ ‘Go and hang yourself!’ replies the gentleman addressed,
with a drunken look of savage stupidity, aiming at the same time a blow
at the woman which fortunately misses its object. ‘Go and hang
yourself; and wait till I come and cut you down.’—‘Cut you down,’
rejoins the woman, ‘I wish I had the cutting of you up, you wagabond!
(loud.) Oh! you precious wagabond! (rather louder.) Where’s your wife,
you willin? (louder still; women of this class are always sympathetic,
and work themselves into a tremendous passion on the shortest notice.)
Your poor dear wife as you uses worser nor a dog—strike a woman—you a
man! (very shrill;) I wish I had you—I’d murder you, I would, if I died
for it!’—‘Now be civil,’ retorts the man fiercely. ‘Be civil, you
wiper!’ ejaculates the woman contemptuously. ‘An’t it shocking?’ she
continues, turning round, and appealing to an old woman who is peeping
out of one of the little closets we have before described, and who has
not the slightest objection to join in the attack, possessing, as she
does, the comfortable conviction that she is bolted in. ‘Ain’t it
shocking, ma’am? (Dreadful! says the old woman in a parenthesis, not
exactly knowing what the question refers to.) He’s got a wife, ma’am,
as takes in mangling, and is as ’dustrious and hard-working a young
’ooman as can be, (very fast) as lives in the back parlour of our ’ous,
which my husband and me lives in the front one (with great
rapidity)—and we hears him a beaten’ on her sometimes when he comes
home drunk, the whole night through, and not only a beaten’ her, but
beaten’ his own child too, to make her more miserable—ugh, you beast!
and she, poor creater, won’t swear the peace agin him, nor do nothin’,
because she likes the wretch arter all—worse luck!’ Here, as the woman
has completely run herself out of breath, the pawnbroker himself, who
has just appeared behind the counter in a gray dressing-gown, embraces
the favourable opportunity of putting in a word:—‘Now I won’t have none
of this sort of thing on my premises!’ he interposes with an air of
authority. ‘Mrs. Mackin, keep yourself to yourself, or you don’t get
fourpence for a flat iron here; and Jinkins, you leave your ticket here
till you’re sober, and send your wife for them two planes, for I won’t
have you in my shop at no price; so make yourself scarce, before I make
you scarcer.’

This eloquent address produces anything but the effect desired; the
women rail in concert; the man hits about him in all directions, and is
in the act of establishing an indisputable claim to gratuitous lodgings
for the night, when the entrance of his wife, a wretched, worn-out
woman, apparently in the last stage of consumption, whose face bears
evident marks of recent ill-usage, and whose strength seems hardly
equal to the burden—light enough, God knows!—of the thin, sickly child
she carries in her arms, turns his cowardly rage in a safer direction.
‘Come home, dear,’ cries the miserable creature, in an imploring tone;
‘_do_ come home, there’s a good fellow, and go to bed.’—‘Go home
yourself,’ rejoins the furious ruffian. ‘Do come home quietly,’ repeats
the wife, bursting into tears. ‘Go home yourself,’ retorts the husband
again, enforcing his argument by a blow which sends the poor creature
flying out of the shop. Her ‘natural protector’ follows her up the
court, alternately venting his rage in accelerating her progress, and
in knocking the little scanty blue bonnet of the unfortunate child over
its still more scanty and faded-looking face.

In the last box, which is situated in the darkest and most obscure
corner of the shop, considerably removed from either of the gas-lights,
are a young delicate girl of about twenty, and an elderly female,
evidently her mother from the resemblance between them, who stand at
some distance back, as if to avoid the observation even of the shopman.
It is not their first visit to a pawnbroker’s shop, for they answer
without a moment’s hesitation the usual questions, put in a rather
respectful manner, and in a much lower tone than usual, of ‘What name
shall I say?—Your own property, of course?—Where do you
live?—Housekeeper or lodger?’ They bargain, too, for a higher loan than
the shopman is at first inclined to offer, which a perfect stranger
would be little disposed to do; and the elder female urges her daughter
on, in scarcely audible whispers, to exert her utmost powers of
persuasion to obtain an advance of the sum, and expatiate on the value
of the articles they have brought to raise a present supply upon. They
are a small gold chain and a ‘Forget me not’ ring: the girl’s property,
for they are both too small for the mother; given her in better times;
prized, perhaps, once, for the giver’s sake, but parted with now
without a struggle; for want has hardened the mother, and her example
has hardened the girl, and the prospect of receiving money, coupled
with a recollection of the misery they have both endured from the want
of it—the coldness of old friends—the stern refusal of some, and the
still more galling compassion of others—appears to have obliterated the
consciousness of self-humiliation, which the idea of their present
situation would once have aroused.

In the next box, is a young female, whose attire, miserably poor, but
extremely gaudy, wretchedly cold, but extravagantly fine, too plainly
bespeaks her station. The rich satin gown with its faded trimmings, the
worn-out thin shoes, and pink silk stockings, the summer bonnet in
winter, and the sunken face, where a daub of rouge only serves as an
index to the ravages of squandered health never to be regained, and
lost happiness never to be restored, and where the practised smile is a
wretched mockery of the misery of the heart, cannot be mistaken. There
is something in the glimpse she has just caught of her young neighbour,
and in the sight of the little trinkets she has offered in pawn, that
seems to have awakened in this woman’s mind some slumbering
recollection, and to have changed, for an instant, her whole demeanour.
Her first hasty impulse was to bend forward as if to scan more minutely
the appearance of her half-concealed companions; her next, on seeing
them involuntarily shrink from her, to retreat to the back of the box,
cover her face with her hands, and burst into tears.

There are strange chords in the human heart, which will lie dormant
through years of depravity and wickedness, but which will vibrate at
last to some slight circumstance apparently trivial in itself, but
connected by some undefined and indistinct association, with past days
that can never be recalled, and with bitter recollections from which
the most degraded creature in existence cannot escape.

There has been another spectator, in the person of a woman in the
common shop; the lowest of the low; dirty, unbonneted, flaunting, and
slovenly. Her curiosity was at first attracted by the little she could
see of the group; then her attention. The half-intoxicated leer changed
to an expression of something like interest, and a feeling similar to
that we have described, appeared for a moment, and only a moment, to
extend itself even to her bosom.

Who shall say how soon these women may change places? The last has but
two more stages—the hospital and the grave. How many females situated
as her two companions are, and as she may have been once, have
terminated the same wretched course, in the same wretched manner! One
is already tracing her footsteps with frightful rapidity. How soon may
the other follow her example! How many have done the same!

CHAPTER XXIV—CRIMINAL COURTS

We shall never forget the mingled feelings of awe and respect with
which we used to gaze on the exterior of Newgate in our schoolboy days.
How dreadful its rough heavy walls, and low massive doors, appeared to
us—the latter looking as if they were made for the express purpose of
letting people in, and never letting them out again. Then the fetters
over the debtors’ door, which we used to think were a _bonâ fide_ set
of irons, just hung up there, for convenience’ sake, ready to be taken
down at a moment’s notice, and riveted on the limbs of some refractory
felon! We were never tired of wondering how the hackney-coachmen on the
opposite stand could cut jokes in the presence of such horrors, and
drink pots of half-and-half so near the last drop.

Often have we strayed here, in sessions time, to catch a glimpse of the
whipping-place, and that dark building on one side of the yard, in
which is kept the gibbet with all its dreadful apparatus, and on the
door of which we half expected to see a brass plate, with the
inscription ‘Mr. Ketch;’ for we never imagined that the distinguished
functionary could by possibility live anywhere else! The days of these
childish dreams have passed away, and with them many other boyish ideas
of a gayer nature. But we still retain so much of our original feeling,
that to this hour we never pass the building without something like a
shudder.

What London pedestrian is there who has not, at some time or other,
cast a hurried glance through the wicket at which prisoners are
admitted into this gloomy mansion, and surveyed the few objects he
could discern, with an indescribable feeling of curiosity? The thick
door, plated with iron and mounted with spikes, just low enough to
enable you to see, leaning over them, an ill-looking fellow, in a
broad-brimmed hat, Belcher handkerchief and top-boots: with a brown
coat, something between a great-coat and a ‘sporting’ jacket, on his
back, and an immense key in his left hand. Perhaps you are lucky enough
to pass, just as the gate is being opened; then, you see on the other
side of the lodge, another gate, the image of its predecessor, and two
or three more turnkeys, who look like multiplications of the first one,
seated round a fire which just lights up the whitewashed apartment
sufficiently to enable you to catch a hasty glimpse of these different
objects. We have a great respect for Mrs. Fry, but she certainly ought
to have written more romances than Mrs. Radcliffe.

We were walking leisurely down the Old Bailey, some time ago, when, as
we passed this identical gate, it was opened by the officiating
turnkey. We turned quickly round, as a matter of course, and saw two
persons descending the steps. We could not help stopping and observing
them.

They were an elderly woman, of decent appearance, though evidently
poor, and a boy of about fourteen or fifteen. The woman was crying
bitterly; she carried a small bundle in her hand, and the boy followed
at a short distance behind her. Their little history was obvious. The
boy was her son, to whose early comfort she had perhaps sacrificed her
own—for whose sake she had borne misery without repining, and poverty
without a murmur—looking steadily forward to the time, when he who had
so long witnessed her struggles for himself, might be enabled to make
some exertions for their joint support. He had formed dissolute
connexions; idleness had led to crime; and he had been committed to
take his trial for some petty theft. He had been long in prison, and,
after receiving some trifling additional punishment, had been ordered
to be discharged that morning. It was his first offence, and his poor
old mother, still hoping to reclaim him, had been waiting at the gate
to implore him to return home.

We cannot forget the boy; he descended the steps with a dogged look,
shaking his head with an air of bravado and obstinate determination.
They walked a few paces, and paused. The woman put her hand upon his
shoulder in an agony of entreaty, and the boy sullenly raised his head
as if in refusal. It was a brilliant morning, and every object looked
fresh and happy in the broad, gay sunlight; he gazed round him for a
few moments, bewildered with the brightness of the scene, for it was
long since he had beheld anything save the gloomy walls of a prison.
Perhaps the wretchedness of his mother made some impression on the
boy’s heart; perhaps some undefined recollection of the time when he
was a happy child, and she his only friend, and best companion, crowded
on him—he burst into tears; and covering his face with one hand, and
hurriedly placing the other in his mother’s, walked away with her.

Curiosity has occasionally led us into both Courts at the Old Bailey.
Nothing is so likely to strike the person who enters them for the first
time, as the calm indifference with which the proceedings are
conducted; every trial seems a mere matter of business. There is a
great deal of form, but no compassion; considerable interest, but no
sympathy. Take the Old Court for example. There sit the judges, with
whose great dignity everybody is acquainted, and of whom therefore we
need say no more. Then, there is the Lord Mayor in the centre, looking
as cool as a Lord Mayor _can_ look, with an immense _bouquet_ before
him, and habited in all the splendour of his office. Then, there are
the Sheriffs, who are almost as dignified as the Lord Mayor himself;
and the Barristers, who are quite dignified enough in their own
opinion; and the spectators, who having paid for their admission, look
upon the whole scene as if it were got up especially for their
amusement. Look upon the whole group in the body of the Court—some
wholly engrossed in the morning papers, others carelessly conversing in
low whispers, and others, again, quietly dozing away an hour—and you
can scarcely believe that the result of the trial is a matter of life
or death to one wretched being present. But turn your eyes to the dock;
watch the prisoner attentively for a few moments; and the fact is
before you, in all its painful reality. Mark how restlessly he has been
engaged for the last ten minutes, in forming all sorts of fantastic
figures with the herbs which are strewed upon the ledge before him;
observe the ashy paleness of his face when a particular witness
appears, and how he changes his position and wipes his clammy forehead,
and feverish hands, when the case for the prosecution is closed, as if
it were a relief to him to feel that the jury knew the worst.

The defence is concluded; the judge proceeds to sum up the evidence;
and the prisoner watches the countenances of the jury, as a dying man,
clinging to life to the very last, vainly looks in the face of his
physician for a slight ray of hope. They turn round to consult; you can
almost hear the man’s heart beat, as he bites the stalk of rosemary,
with a desperate effort to appear composed. They resume their places—a
dead silence prevails as the foreman delivers in the verdict—‘Guilty!’
A shriek bursts from a female in the gallery; the prisoner casts one
look at the quarter from whence the noise proceeded; and is immediately
hurried from the dock by the gaoler. The clerk directs one of the
officers of the Court to ‘take the woman out,’ and fresh business is
proceeded with, as if nothing had occurred.

No imaginary contrast to a case like this, could be as complete as that
which is constantly presented in the New Court, the gravity of which is
frequently disturbed in no small degree, by the cunning and pertinacity
of juvenile offenders. A boy of thirteen is tried, say for picking the
pocket of some subject of her Majesty, and the offence is about as
clearly proved as an offence can be. He is called upon for his defence,
and contents himself with a little declamation about the jurymen and
his country—asserts that all the witnesses have committed perjury, and
hints that the police force generally have entered into a conspiracy
‘again’ him. However probable this statement may be, it fails to
convince the Court, and some such scene as the following then takes
place:

_Court_: Have you any witnesses to speak to your character, boy?

_Boy_: Yes, my Lord; fifteen gen’lm’n is a vaten outside, and vos a
vaten all day yesterday, vich they told me the night afore my trial vos
a comin’ on.

_Court_. Inquire for these witnesses.

Here, a stout beadle runs out, and vociferates for the witnesses at the
very top of his voice; for you hear his cry grow fainter and fainter as
he descends the steps into the court-yard below. After an absence of
five minutes, he returns, very warm and hoarse, and informs the Court
of what it knew perfectly well before—namely, that there are no such
witnesses in attendance. Hereupon, the boy sets up a most awful
howling; screws the lower part of the palms of his hands into the
corners of his eyes; and endeavours to look the picture of injured
innocence. The jury at once find him ‘guilty,’ and his endeavours to
squeeze out a tear or two are redoubled. The governor of the gaol then
states, in reply to an inquiry from the bench, that the prisoner has
been under his care twice before. This the urchin resolutely denies in
some such terms as—‘S’elp me, gen’lm’n, I never vos in trouble
afore—indeed, my Lord, I never vos. It’s all a howen to my having a
twin brother, vich has wrongfully got into trouble, and vich is so
exactly like me, that no vun ever knows the difference atween us.’

This representation, like the defence, fails in producing the desired
effect, and the boy is sentenced, perhaps, to seven years’
transportation. Finding it impossible to excite compassion, he gives
vent to his feelings in an imprecation bearing reference to the eyes of
‘old big vig!’ and as he declines to take the trouble of walking from
the dock, is forthwith carried out, congratulating himself on having
succeeded in giving everybody as much trouble as possible.

CHAPTER XXV—A VISIT TO NEWGATE

‘The force of habit’ is a trite phrase in everybody’s mouth; and it is
not a little remarkable that those who use it most as applied to
others, unconsciously afford in their own persons singular examples of
the power which habit and custom exercise over the minds of men, and of
the little reflection they are apt to bestow on subjects with which
every day’s experience has rendered them familiar. If Bedlam could be
suddenly removed like another Aladdin’s palace, and set down on the
space now occupied by Newgate, scarcely one man out of a hundred, whose
road to business every morning lies through Newgate-street, or the Old
Bailey, would pass the building without bestowing a hasty glance on its
small, grated windows, and a transient thought upon the condition of
the unhappy beings immured in its dismal cells; and yet these same men,
day by day, and hour by hour, pass and repass this gloomy depository of
the guilt and misery of London, in one perpetual stream of life and
bustle, utterly unmindful of the throng of wretched creatures pent up
within it—nay, not even knowing, or if they do, not heeding, the fact,
that as they pass one particular angle of the massive wall with a light
laugh or a merry whistle, they stand within one yard of a
fellow-creature, bound and helpless, whose hours are numbered, from
whom the last feeble ray of hope has fled for ever, and whose miserable
career will shortly terminate in a violent and shameful death. Contact
with death even in its least terrible shape, is solemn and appalling.
How much more awful is it to reflect on this near vicinity to the
dying—to men in full health and vigour, in the flower of youth or the
prime of life, with all their faculties and perceptions as acute and
perfect as your own; but dying, nevertheless—dying as surely—with the
hand of death imprinted upon them as indelibly—as if mortal disease had
wasted their frames to shadows, and corruption had already begun!

It was with some such thoughts as these that we determined, not many
weeks since, to visit the interior of Newgate—in an amateur capacity,
of course; and, having carried our intention into effect, we proceed to
lay its results before our readers, in the hope—founded more upon the
nature of the subject, than on any presumptuous confidence in our own
descriptive powers—that this paper may not be found wholly devoid of
interest. We have only to premise, that we do not intend to fatigue the
reader with any statistical accounts of the prison; they will be found
at length in numerous reports of numerous committees, and a variety of
authorities of equal weight. We took no notes, made no memoranda,
measured none of the yards, ascertained the exact number of inches in
no particular room: are unable even to report of how many apartments
the gaol is composed.

We saw the prison, and saw the prisoners; and what we did see, and what
we thought, we will tell at once in our own way.

Having delivered our credentials to the servant who answered our knock
at the door of the governor’s house, we were ushered into the ‘office;’
a little room, on the right-hand side as you enter, with two windows
looking into the Old Bailey: fitted up like an ordinary attorney’s
office, or merchant’s counting-house, with the usual fixtures—a
wainscoted partition, a shelf or two, a desk, a couple of stools, a
pair of clerks, an almanack, a clock, and a few maps. After a little
delay, occasioned by sending into the interior of the prison for the
officer whose duty it was to conduct us, that functionary arrived; a
respectable-looking man of about two or three and fifty, in a
broad-brimmed hat, and full suit of black, who, but for his keys, would
have looked quite as much like a clergyman as a turnkey. We were
disappointed; he had not even top-boots on. Following our conductor by
a door opposite to that at which we had entered, we arrived at a small
room, without any other furniture than a little desk, with a book for
visitors’ autographs, and a shelf, on which were a few boxes for
papers, and casts of the heads and faces of the two notorious
murderers, Bishop and Williams; the former, in particular, exhibiting a
style of head and set of features, which might have afforded sufficient
moral grounds for his instant execution at any time, even had there
been no other evidence against him. Leaving this room also, by an
opposite door, we found ourself in the lodge which opens on the Old
Bailey; one side of which is plentifully garnished with a choice
collection of heavy sets of irons, including those worn by the
redoubtable Jack Sheppard—genuine; and those _said_ to have been graced
by the sturdy limbs of the no less celebrated Dick Turpin—doubtful.
From this lodge, a heavy oaken gate, bound with iron, studded with
nails of the same material, and guarded by another turnkey, opens on a
few steps, if we remember right, which terminate in a narrow and dismal
stone passage, running parallel with the Old Bailey, and leading to the
different yards, through a number of tortuous and intricate windings,
guarded in their turn by huge gates and gratings, whose appearance is
sufficient to dispel at once the slightest hope of escape that any
new-comer may have entertained; and the very recollection of which, on
eventually traversing the place again, involves one in a maze of
confusion.

It is necessary to explain here, that the buildings in the prison, or
in other words the different wards—form a square, of which the four
sides abut respectively on the Old Bailey, the old College of
Physicians (now forming a part of Newgate-market), the Sessions-house,
and Newgate-street. The intermediate space is divided into several
paved yards, in which the prisoners take such air and exercise as can
be had in such a place. These yards, with the exception of that in
which prisoners under sentence of death are confined (of which we shall
presently give a more detailed description), run parallel with
Newgate-street, and consequently from the Old Bailey, as it were, to
Newgate-market. The women’s side is in the right wing of the prison
nearest the Sessions-house. As we were introduced into this part of the
building first, we will adopt the same order, and introduce our readers
to it also.

Turning to the right, then, down the passage to which we just now
adverted, omitting any mention of intervening gates—for if we noticed
every gate that was unlocked for us to pass through, and locked again
as soon as we had passed, we should require a gate at every comma—we
came to a door composed of thick bars of wood, through which were
discernible, passing to and fro in a narrow yard, some twenty women:
the majority of whom, however, as soon as they were aware of the
presence of strangers, retreated to their wards. One side of this yard
is railed off at a considerable distance, and formed into a kind of
iron cage, about five feet ten inches in height, roofed at the top, and
defended in front by iron bars, from which the friends of the female
prisoners communicate with them. In one corner of this singular-looking
den, was a yellow, haggard, decrepit old woman, in a tattered gown that
had once been black, and the remains of an old straw bonnet, with faded
ribbon of the same hue, in earnest conversation with a young girl—a
prisoner, of course—of about two-and-twenty. It is impossible to
imagine a more poverty-stricken object, or a creature so borne down in
soul and body, by excess of misery and destitution, as the old woman.
The girl was a good-looking, robust female, with a profusion of hair
streaming about in the wind—for she had no bonnet on—and a man’s silk
pocket-handkerchief loosely thrown over a most ample pair of shoulders.
The old woman was talking in that low, stifled tone of voice which
tells so forcibly of mental anguish; and every now and then burst into
an irrepressible sharp, abrupt cry of grief, the most distressing sound
that ears can hear. The girl was perfectly unmoved. Hardened beyond all
hope of redemption, she listened doggedly to her mother’s entreaties,
whatever they were: and, beyond inquiring after ‘Jem,’ and eagerly
catching at the few halfpence her miserable parent had brought her,
took no more apparent interest in the conversation than the most
unconcerned spectators. Heaven knows there were enough of them, in the
persons of the other prisoners in the yard, who were no more concerned
by what was passing before their eyes, and within their hearing, than
if they were blind and deaf. Why should they be? Inside the prison, and
out, such scenes were too familiar to them, to excite even a passing
thought, unless of ridicule or contempt for feelings which they had
long since forgotten.

A little farther on, a squalid-looking woman in a slovenly,
thick-bordered cap, with her arms muffled in a large red shawl, the
fringed ends of which straggled nearly to the bottom of a dirty white
apron, was communicating some instructions to _her_ visitor—her
daughter evidently. The girl was thinly clad, and shaking with the
cold. Some ordinary word of recognition passed between her and her
mother when she appeared at the grating, but neither hope, condolence,
regret, nor affection was expressed on either side. The mother
whispered her instructions, and the girl received them with her
pinched-up, half-starved features twisted into an expression of careful
cunning. It was some scheme for the woman’s defence that she was
disclosing, perhaps; and a sullen smile came over the girl’s face for
an instant, as if she were pleased: not so much at the probability of
her mother’s liberation, as at the chance of her ‘getting off’ in spite
of her prosecutors. The dialogue was soon concluded; and with the same
careless indifference with which they had approached each other, the
mother turned towards the inner end of the yard, and the girl to the
gate at which she had entered.

The girl belonged to a class—unhappily but too extensive—the very
existence of which, should make men’s hearts bleed. Barely past her
childhood, it required but a glance to discover that she was one of
those children, born and bred in neglect and vice, who have never known
what childhood is: who have never been taught to love and court a
parent’s smile, or to dread a parent’s frown. The thousand nameless
endearments of childhood, its gaiety and its innocence, are alike
unknown to them. They have entered at once upon the stern realities and
miseries of life, and to their better nature it is almost hopeless to
appeal in after-times, by any of the references which will awaken, if
it be only for a moment, some good feeling in ordinary bosoms, however
corrupt they may have become. Talk to _them_ of parental solicitude,
the happy days of childhood, and the merry games of infancy! Tell them
of hunger and the streets, beggary and stripes, the gin-shop, the
station-house, and the pawnbroker’s, and they will understand you.

Two or three women were standing at different parts of the grating,
conversing with their friends, but a very large proportion of the
prisoners appeared to have no friends at all, beyond such of their old
companions as might happen to be within the walls. So, passing hastily
down the yard, and pausing only for an instant to notice the little
incidents we have just recorded, we were conducted up a clean and
well-lighted flight of stone stairs to one of the wards. There are
several in this part of the building, but a description of one is a
description of the whole.

It was a spacious, bare, whitewashed apartment, lighted, of course, by
windows looking into the interior of the prison, but far more light and
airy than one could reasonably expect to find in such a situation.
There was a large fire with a deal table before it, round which ten or
a dozen women were seated on wooden forms at dinner. Along both sides
of the room ran a shelf; below it, at regular intervals, a row of large
hooks were fixed in the wall, on each of which was hung the sleeping
mat of a prisoner: her rug and blanket being folded up, and placed on
the shelf above. At night, these mats are placed on the floor, each
beneath the hook on which it hangs during the day; and the ward is thus
made to answer the purposes both of a day-room and sleeping apartment.
Over the fireplace, was a large sheet of pasteboard, on which were
displayed a variety of texts from Scripture, which were also scattered
about the room in scraps about the size and shape of the copy-slips
which are used in schools. On the table was a sufficient provision of a
kind of stewed beef and brown bread, in pewter dishes, which are kept
perfectly bright, and displayed on shelves in great order and
regularity when they are not in use.

The women rose hastily, on our entrance, and retired in a hurried
manner to either side of the fireplace. They were all cleanly—many of
them decently—attired, and there was nothing peculiar, either in their
appearance or demeanour. One or two resumed the needlework which they
had probably laid aside at the commencement of their meal; others gazed
at the visitors with listless curiosity; and a few retired behind their
companions to the very end of the room, as if desirous to avoid even
the casual observation of the strangers. Some old Irish women, both in
this and other wards, to whom the thing was no novelty, appeared
perfectly indifferent to our presence, and remained standing close to
the seats from which they had just risen; but the general feeling among
the females seemed to be one of uneasiness during the period of our
stay among them: which was very brief. Not a word was uttered during
the time of our remaining, unless, indeed, by the wardswoman in reply
to some question which we put to the turnkey who accompanied us. In
every ward on the female side, a wardswoman is appointed to preserve
order, and a similar regulation is adopted among the males. The
wardsmen and wardswomen are all prisoners, selected for good conduct.
They alone are allowed the privilege of sleeping on bedsteads; a small
stump bedstead being placed in every ward for that purpose. On both
sides of the gaol, is a small receiving-room, to which prisoners are
conducted on their first reception, and whence they cannot be removed
until they have been examined by the surgeon of the prison. [161]

Retracing our steps to the dismal passage in which we found ourselves
at first (and which, by-the-bye, contains three or four dark cells for
the accommodation of refractory prisoners), we were led through a
narrow yard to the ‘school’—a portion of the prison set apart for boys
under fourteen years of age. In a tolerable-sized room, in which were
writing-materials and some copy-books, was the schoolmaster, with a
couple of his pupils; the remainder having been fetched from an
adjoining apartment, the whole were drawn up in line for our
inspection. There were fourteen of them in all, some with shoes, some
without; some in pinafores without jackets, others in jackets without
pinafores, and one in scarce anything at all. The whole number, without
an exception we believe, had been committed for trial on charges of
pocket-picking; and fourteen such terrible little faces we never
beheld.—There was not one redeeming feature among them—not a glance of
honesty—not a wink expressive of anything but the gallows and the
hulks, in the whole collection. As to anything like shame or
contrition, that was entirely out of the question. They were evidently
quite gratified at being thought worth the trouble of looking at; their
idea appeared to be, that we had come to see Newgate as a grand affair,
and that they were an indispensable part of the show; and every boy as
he ‘fell in’ to the line, actually seemed as pleased and important as
if he had done something excessively meritorious in getting there at
all. We never looked upon a more disagreeable sight, because we never
saw fourteen such hopeless creatures of neglect, before.

On either side of the school-yard is a yard for men, in one of
which—that towards Newgate-street—prisoners of the more respectable
class are confined. Of the other, we have little description to offer,
as the different wards necessarily partake of the same character. They
are provided, like the wards on the women’s side, with mats and rugs,
which are disposed of in the same manner during the day; the only very
striking difference between their appearance and that of the wards
inhabited by the females, is the utter absence of any employment.
Huddled together on two opposite forms, by the fireside, sit twenty men
perhaps; here, a boy in livery; there, a man in a rough great-coat and
top-boots; farther on, a desperate-looking fellow in his shirt-sleeves,
with an old Scotch cap upon his shaggy head; near him again, a tall
ruffian, in a smock-frock; next to him, a miserable being of distressed
appearance, with his head resting on his hand;—all alike in one
respect, all idle and listless. When they do leave the fire, sauntering
moodily about, lounging in the window, or leaning against the wall,
vacantly swinging their bodies to and fro. With the exception of a man
reading an old newspaper, in two or three instances, this was the case
in every ward we entered.

The only communication these men have with their friends, is through
two close iron gratings, with an intermediate space of about a yard in
width between the two, so that nothing can be handed across, nor can
the prisoner have any communication by touch with the person who visits
him. The married men have a separate grating, at which to see their
wives, but its construction is the same.

The prison chapel is situated at the back of the governor’s house: the
latter having no windows looking into the interior of the prison.
Whether the associations connected with the place—the knowledge that
here a portion of the burial service is, on some dreadful occasions,
performed over the quick and not upon the dead—cast over it a still
more gloomy and sombre air than art has imparted to it, we know not,
but its appearance is very striking. There is something in a silent and
deserted place of worship, solemn and impressive at any time; and the
very dissimilarity of this one from any we have been accustomed to,
only enhances the impression. The meanness of its appointments—the bare
and scanty pulpit, with the paltry painted pillars on either side—the
women’s gallery with its great heavy curtain—the men’s with its
unpainted benches and dingy front—the tottering little table at the
altar, with the commandments on the wall above it, scarcely legible
through lack of paint, and dust and damp—so unlike the velvet and
gilding, the marble and wood, of a modern church—are strange and
striking. There is one object, too, which rivets the attention and
fascinates the gaze, and from which we may turn horror-stricken in
vain, for the recollection of it will haunt us, waking and sleeping,
for a long time afterwards. Immediately below the reading-desk, on the
floor of the chapel, and forming the most conspicuous object in its
little area, is _the condemned pew_; a huge black pen, in which the
wretched people, who are singled out for death, are placed on the
Sunday preceding their execution, in sight of all their
fellow-prisoners, from many of whom they may have been separated but a
week before, to hear prayers for their own souls, to join in the
responses of their own burial service, and to listen to an address,
warning their recent companions to take example by their fate, and
urging themselves, while there is yet time—nearly four-and-twenty
hours—to ‘turn, and flee from the wrath to come!’ Imagine what have
been the feelings of the men whom that fearful pew has enclosed, and of
whom, between the gallows and the knife, no mortal remnant may now
remain! Think of the hopeless clinging to life to the last, and the
wild despair, far exceeding in anguish the felon’s death itself, by
which they have heard the certainty of their speedy transmission to
another world, with all their crimes upon their heads, rung into their
ears by the officiating clergyman!

At one time—and at no distant period either—the coffins of the men
about to be executed, were placed in that pew, upon the seat by their
side, during the whole service. It may seem incredible, but it is true.
Let us hope that the increased spirit of civilisation and humanity
which abolished this frightful and degrading custom, may extend itself
to other usages equally barbarous; usages which have not even the plea
of utility in their defence, as every year’s experience has shown them
to be more and more inefficacious.

Leaving the chapel, descending to the passage so frequently alluded to,
and crossing the yard before noticed as being allotted to prisoners of
a more respectable description than the generality of men confined
here, the visitor arrives at a thick iron gate of great size and
strength. Having been admitted through it by the turnkey on duty, he
turns sharp round to the left, and pauses before another gate; and,
having passed this last barrier, he stands in the most terrible part of
this gloomy building—the condemned ward.

The press-yard, well known by name to newspaper readers, from its
frequent mention in accounts of executions, is at the corner of the
building, and next to the ordinary’s house, in Newgate-street: running
from Newgate-street, towards the centre of the prison, parallel with
Newgate-market. It is a long, narrow court, of which a portion of the
wall in Newgate-street forms one end, and the gate the other. At the
upper end, on the left hand—that is, adjoining the wall in
Newgate-street—is a cistern of water, and at the bottom a double
grating (of which the gate itself forms a part) similar to that before
described. Through these grates the prisoners are allowed to see their
friends; a turnkey always remaining in the vacant space between, during
the whole interview. Immediately on the right as you enter, is a
building containing the press-room, day-room, and cells; the yard is on
every side surrounded by lofty walls guarded by _chevaux de frise_; and
the whole is under the constant inspection of vigilant and experienced
turnkeys.

In the first apartment into which we were conducted—which was at the
top of a staircase, and immediately over the press-room—were
five-and-twenty or thirty prisoners, all under sentence of death,
awaiting the result of the recorder’s report—men of all ages and
appearances, from a hardened old offender with swarthy face and grizzly
beard of three days’ growth, to a handsome boy, not fourteen years old,
and of singularly youthful appearance even for that age, who had been
condemned for burglary. There was nothing remarkable in the appearance
of these prisoners. One or two decently-dressed men were brooding with
a dejected air over the fire; several little groups of two or three had
been engaged in conversation at the upper end of the room, or in the
windows; and the remainder were crowded round a young man seated at a
table, who appeared to be engaged in teaching the younger ones to
write. The room was large, airy, and clean. There was very little
anxiety or mental suffering depicted in the countenance of any of the
men;—they had all been sentenced to death, it is true, and the
recorder’s report had not yet been made; but, we question whether there
was a man among them, notwithstanding, who did not _know_ that although
he had undergone the ceremony, it never was intended that his life
should be sacrificed. On the table lay a Testament, but there were no
tokens of its having been in recent use.

In the press-room below, were three men, the nature of whose offence
rendered it necessary to separate them, even from their companions in
guilt. It is a long, sombre room, with two windows sunk into the stone
wall, and here the wretched men are pinioned on the morning of their
execution, before moving towards the scaffold. The fate of one of these
prisoners was uncertain; some mitigatory circumstances having come to
light since his trial, which had been humanely represented in the
proper quarter. The other two had nothing to expect from the mercy of
the crown; their doom was sealed; no plea could be urged in extenuation
of their crime, and they well knew that for them there was no hope in
this world. ‘The two short ones,’ the turnkey whispered, ‘were dead
men.’

The man to whom we have alluded as entertaining some hopes of escape,
was lounging, at the greatest distance he could place between himself
and his companions, in the window nearest to the door. He was probably
aware of our approach, and had assumed an air of courageous
indifference; his face was purposely averted towards the window, and he
stirred not an inch while we were present. The other two men were at
the upper end of the room. One of them, who was imperfectly seen in the
dim light, had his back towards us, and was stooping over the fire,
with his right arm on the mantel-piece, and his head sunk upon it. The
other was leaning on the sill of the farthest window. The light fell
full upon him, and communicated to his pale, haggard face, and
disordered hair, an appearance which, at that distance, was ghastly.
His cheek rested upon his hand; and, with his face a little raised, and
his eyes wildly staring before him, he seemed to be unconsciously
intent on counting the chinks in the opposite wall. We passed this room
again afterwards. The first man was pacing up and down the court with a
firm military step—he had been a soldier in the foot-guards—and a cloth
cap jauntily thrown on one side of his head. He bowed respectfully to
our conductor, and the salute was returned. The other two still
remained in the positions we have described, and were as motionless as
statues. [165]

A few paces up the yard, and forming a continuation of the building, in
which are the two rooms we have just quitted, lie the condemned cells.
The entrance is by a narrow and obscure stair-case leading to a dark
passage, in which a charcoal stove casts a lurid tint over the objects
in its immediate vicinity, and diffuses something like warmth around.
From the left-hand side of this passage, the massive door of every cell
on the story opens; and from it alone can they be approached. There are
three of these passages, and three of these ranges of cells, one above
the other; but in size, furniture and appearance, they are all
precisely alike. Prior to the recorder’s report being made, all the
prisoners under sentence of death are removed from the day-room at five
o’clock in the afternoon, and locked up in these cells, where they are
allowed a candle until ten o’clock; and here they remain until seven
next morning. When the warrant for a prisoner’s execution arrives, he
is removed to the cells and confined in one of them until he leaves it
for the scaffold. He is at liberty to walk in the yard; but, both in
his walks and in his cell, he is constantly attended by a turnkey who
never leaves him on any pretence.

We entered the first cell. It was a stone dungeon, eight feet long by
six wide, with a bench at the upper end, under which were a common rug,
a bible, and prayer-book. An iron candlestick was fixed into the wall
at the side; and a small high window in the back admitted as much air
and light as could struggle in between a double row of heavy, crossed
iron bars. It contained no other furniture of any description.

Conceive the situation of a man, spending his last night on earth in
this cell. Buoyed up with some vague and undefined hope of reprieve, he
knew not why—indulging in some wild and visionary idea of escaping, he
knew not how—hour after hour of the three preceding days allowed him
for preparation, has fled with a speed which no man living would deem
possible, for none but this dying man can know. He has wearied his
friends with entreaties, exhausted the attendants with importunities,
neglected in his feverish restlessness the timely warnings of his
spiritual consoler; and, now that the illusion is at last dispelled,
now that eternity is before him and guilt behind, now that his fears of
death amount almost to madness, and an overwhelming sense of his
helpless, hopeless state rushes upon him, he is lost and stupefied, and
has neither thoughts to turn to, nor power to call upon, the Almighty
Being, from whom alone he can seek mercy and forgiveness, and before
whom his repentance can alone avail.

Hours have glided by, and still he sits upon the same stone bench with
folded arms, heedless alike of the fast decreasing time before him, and
the urgent entreaties of the good man at his side. The feeble light is
wasting gradually, and the deathlike stillness of the street without,
broken only by the rumbling of some passing vehicle which echoes
mournfully through the empty yards, warns him that the night is waning
fast away. The deep bell of St. Paul’s strikes—one! He heard it; it has
roused him. Seven hours left! He paces the narrow limits of his cell
with rapid strides, cold drops of terror starting on his forehead, and
every muscle of his frame quivering with agony. Seven hours! He suffers
himself to be led to his seat, mechanically takes the bible which is
placed in his hand, and tries to read and listen. No: his thoughts will
wander. The book is torn and soiled by use—and like the book he read
his lessons in, at school, just forty years ago! He has never bestowed
a thought upon it, perhaps, since he left it as a child: and yet the
place, the time, the room—nay, the very boys he played with, crowd as
vividly before him as if they were scenes of yesterday; and some
forgotten phrase, some childish word, rings in his ears like the echo
of one uttered but a minute since. The voice of the clergyman recalls
him to himself. He is reading from the sacred book its solemn promises
of pardon for repentance, and its awful denunciation of obdurate men.
He falls upon his knees and clasps his hands to pray. Hush! what sound
was that? He starts upon his feet. It cannot be two yet. Hark! Two
quarters have struck;—the third—the fourth. It is! Six hours left. Tell
him not of repentance! Six hours’ repentance for eight times six years
of guilt and sin! He buries his face in his hands, and throws himself
on the bench.

Worn with watching and excitement, he sleeps, and the same unsettled
state of mind pursues him in his dreams. An insupportable load is taken
from his breast; he is walking with his wife in a pleasant field, with
the bright sky above them, and a fresh and boundless prospect on every
side—how different from the stone walls of Newgate! She is looking—not
as she did when he saw her for the last time in that dreadful place,
but as she used when he loved her—long, long ago, before misery and
ill-treatment had altered her looks, and vice had changed his nature,
and she is leaning upon his arm, and looking up into his face with
tenderness and affection—and he does _not_ strike her now, nor rudely
shake her from him. And oh! how glad he is to tell her all he had
forgotten in that last hurried interview, and to fall on his knees
before her and fervently beseech her pardon for all the unkindness and
cruelty that wasted her form and broke her heart! The scene suddenly
changes. He is on his trial again: there are the judge and jury, and
prosecutors, and witnesses, just as they were before. How full the
court is—what a sea of heads—with a gallows, too, and a scaffold—and
how all those people stare at _him_! Verdict, ‘Guilty.’ No matter; he
will escape.

The night is dark and cold, the gates have been left open, and in an
instant he is in the street, flying from the scene of his imprisonment
like the wind. The streets are cleared, the open fields are gained and
the broad, wide country lies before him. Onward he dashes in the midst
of darkness, over hedge and ditch, through mud and pool, bounding from
spot to spot with a speed and lightness, astonishing even to himself.
At length he pauses; he must be safe from pursuit now; he will stretch
himself on that bank and sleep till sunrise.

A period of unconsciousness succeeds. He wakes, cold and wretched. The
dull, gray light of morning is stealing into the cell, and falls upon
the form of the attendant turnkey. Confused by his dreams, he starts
from his uneasy bed in momentary uncertainty. It is but momentary.
Every object in the narrow cell is too frightfully real to admit of
doubt or mistake. He is the condemned felon again, guilty and
despairing; and in two hours more will be dead.

CHARACTERS

CHAPTER I—THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE

It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man
may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of any
single person; his existence is a matter of interest to no one save
himself; he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one
remembered him when he was alive. There is a numerous class of people
in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and
whom nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the
first instance, they have resorted to London in search of employment,
and the means of subsistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties
which bind us to our homes and friends, and harder still to efface the
thousand recollections of happy days and old times, which have been
slumbering in our bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind, to
bring before it associations connected with the friends we have left,
the scenes we have beheld too probably for the last time, and the hopes
we once cherished, but may entertain no more. These men, however,
happily for themselves, have long forgotten such thoughts. Old country
friends have died or emigrated; former correspondents have become lost,
like themselves, in the crowd and turmoil of some busy city; and they
have gradually settled down into mere passive creatures of habit and
endurance.

We were seated in the enclosure of St. James’s Park the other day, when
our attention was attracted by a man whom we immediately put down in
our own mind as one of this class. He was a tall, thin, pale person, in
a black coat, scanty gray trousers, little pinched-up gaiters, and
brown beaver gloves. He had an umbrella in his hand—not for use, for
the day was fine—but, evidently, because he always carried one to the
office in the morning. He walked up and down before the little patch of
grass on which the chairs are placed for hire, not as if he were doing
it for pleasure or recreation, but as if it were a matter of
compulsion, just as he would walk to the office every morning from the
back settlements of Islington. It was Monday; he had escaped for
four-and-twenty hours from the thraldom of the desk; and was walking
here for exercise and amusement—perhaps for the first time in his life.
We were inclined to think he had never had a holiday before, and that
he did not know what to do with himself. Children were playing on the
grass; groups of people were loitering about, chatting and laughing;
but the man walked steadily up and down, unheeding and unheeded his
spare, pale face looking as if it were incapable of bearing the
expression of curiosity or interest.

There was something in the man’s manner and appearance which told us,
we fancied, his whole life, or rather his whole day, for a man of this
sort has no variety of days. We thought we almost saw the dingy little
back office into which he walks every morning, hanging his hat on the
same peg, and placing his legs beneath the same desk: first, taking off
that black coat which lasts the year through, and putting on the one
which did duty last year, and which he keeps in his desk to save the
other. There he sits till five o’clock, working on, all day, as
regularly as the dial over the mantel-piece, whose loud ticking is as
monotonous as his whole existence: only raising his head when some one
enters the counting-house, or when, in the midst of some difficult
calculation, he looks up to the ceiling as if there were inspiration in
the dusty skylight with a green knot in the centre of every pane of
glass. About five, or half-past, he slowly dismounts from his
accustomed stool, and again changing his coat, proceeds to his usual
dining-place, somewhere near Bucklersbury. The waiter recites the bill
of fare in a rather confidential manner—for he is a regular
customer—and after inquiring ‘What’s in the best cut?’ and ‘What was up
last?’ he orders a small plate of roast beef, with greens, and
half-a-pint of porter. He has a small plate to-day, because greens are
a penny more than potatoes, and he had ‘two breads’ yesterday, with the
additional enormity of ‘a cheese’ the day before. This important point
settled, he hangs up his hat—he took it off the moment he sat down—and
bespeaks the paper after the next gentleman. If he can get it while he
is at dinner, he eats with much greater zest; balancing it against the
water-bottle, and eating a bit of beef, and reading a line or two,
alternately. Exactly at five minutes before the hour is up, he produces
a shilling, pays the reckoning, carefully deposits the change in his
waistcoat-pocket (first deducting a penny for the waiter), and returns
to the office, from which, if it is not foreign post night, he again
sallies forth, in about half an hour. He then walks home, at his usual
pace, to his little back room at Islington, where he has his tea;
perhaps solacing himself during the meal with the conversation of his
landlady’s little boy, whom he occasionally rewards with a penny, for
solving problems in simple addition. Sometimes, there is a letter or
two to take up to his employer’s, in Russell-square; and then, the
wealthy man of business, hearing his voice, calls out from the
dining-parlour,—‘Come in, Mr. Smith:’ and Mr. Smith, putting his hat at
the feet of one of the hall chairs, walks timidly in, and being
condescendingly desired to sit down, carefully tucks his legs under his
chair, and sits at a considerable distance from the table while he
drinks the glass of sherry which is poured out for him by the eldest
boy, and after drinking which, he backs and slides out of the room, in
a state of nervous agitation from which he does not perfectly recover,
until he finds himself once more in the Islington-road. Poor, harmless
creatures such men are; contented but not happy; broken-spirited and
humbled, they may feel no pain, but they never know pleasure.

Compare these men with another class of beings who, like them, have
neither friend nor companion, but whose position in society is the
result of their own choice. These are generally old fellows with white
heads and red faces, addicted to port wine and Hessian boots, who from
some cause, real or imaginary—generally the former, the excellent
reason being that they are rich, and their relations poor—grow
suspicious of everybody, and do the misanthropical in chambers, taking
great delight in thinking themselves unhappy, and making everybody they
come near, miserable. You may see such men as these, anywhere; you will
know them at coffee-houses by their discontented exclamations and the
luxury of their dinners; at theatres, by their always sitting in the
same place and looking with a jaundiced eye on all the young people
near them; at church, by the pomposity with which they enter, and the
loud tone in which they repeat the responses; at parties, by their
getting cross at whist and hating music. An old fellow of this kind
will have his chambers splendidly furnished, and collect books, plate,
and pictures about him in profusion; not so much for his own
gratification, as to be superior to those who have the desire, but not
the means, to compete with him. He belongs to two or three clubs, and
is envied, and flattered, and hated by the members of them all.
Sometimes he will be appealed to by a poor relation—a married nephew
perhaps—for some little assistance: and then he will declaim with
honest indignation on the improvidence of young married people, the
worthlessness of a wife, the insolence of having a family, the atrocity
of getting into debt with a hundred and twenty-five pounds a year, and
other unpardonable crimes; winding up his exhortations with a
complacent review of his own conduct, and a delicate allusion to
parochial relief. He dies, some day after dinner, of apoplexy, having
bequeathed his property to a Public Society, and the Institution erects
a tablet to his memory, expressive of their admiration of his Christian
conduct in this world, and their comfortable conviction of his
happiness in the next.

But, next to our very particular friends, hackney-coachmen, cabmen and
cads, whom we admire in proportion to the extent of their cool
impudence and perfect self-possession, there is no class of people who
amuse us more than London apprentices. They are no longer an organised
body, bound down by solemn compact to terrify his Majesty’s subjects
whenever it pleases them to take offence in their heads and staves in
their hands. They are only bound, now, by indentures, and, as to their
valour, it is easily restrained by the wholesome dread of the New
Police, and a perspective view of a damp station-house, terminating in
a police-office and a reprimand. They are still, however, a peculiar
class, and not the less pleasant for being inoffensive. Can any one
fail to have noticed them in the streets on Sunday? And were there ever
such harmless efforts at the grand and magnificent as the young fellows
display! We walked down the Strand, a Sunday or two ago, behind a
little group; and they furnished food for our amusement the whole way.
They had come out of some part of the city; it was between three and
four o’clock in the afternoon; and they were on their way to the Park.
There were four of them, all arm-in-arm, with white kid gloves like so
many bridegrooms, light trousers of unprecedented patterns, and coats
for which the English language has yet no name—a kind of cross between
a great-coat and a surtout, with the collar of the one, the skirts of
the other, and pockets peculiar to themselves.

Each of the gentlemen carried a thick stick, with a large tassel at the
top, which he occasionally twirled gracefully round; and the whole
four, by way of looking easy and unconcerned, were walking with a
paralytic swagger irresistibly ludicrous. One of the party had a watch
about the size and shape of a reasonable Ribstone pippin, jammed into
his waistcoat-pocket, which he carefully compared with the clocks at
St. Clement’s and the New Church, the illuminated clock at Exeter
‘Change, the clock of St. Martin’s Church, and the clock of the Horse
Guards. When they at last arrived in St. James’s Park, the member of
the party who had the best-made boots on, hired a second chair
expressly for his feet, and flung himself on this two-pennyworth of
sylvan luxury with an air which levelled all distinctions between
Brookes’s and Snooks’s, Crockford’s and Bagnigge Wells.

We may smile at such people, but they can never excite our anger. They
are usually on the best terms with themselves, and it follows almost as
a matter of course, in good humour with every one about them. Besides,
they are always the faint reflection of higher lights; and, if they do
display a little occasional foolery in their own proper persons, it is
surely more tolerable than precocious puppyism in the Quadrant,
whiskered dandyism in Regent-street and Pall-mall, or gallantry in its
dotage anywhere.

CHAPTER II—A CHRISTMAS DINNER

Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast
something like a jovial feeling is not roused—in whose mind some
pleasant associations are not awakened—by the recurrence of Christmas.
There are people who will tell you that Christmas is not to them what
it used to be; that each succeeding Christmas has found some cherished
hope, or happy prospect, of the year before, dimmed or passed away;
that the present only serves to remind them of reduced circumstances
and straitened incomes—of the feasts they once bestowed on hollow
friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in adversity and
misfortune. Never heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few men who
have lived long enough in the world, who cannot call up such thoughts
any day in the year. Then do not select the merriest of the three
hundred and sixty-five for your doleful recollections, but draw your
chair nearer the blazing fire—fill the glass and send round the
song—and if your room be smaller than it was a dozen years ago, or if
your glass be filled with reeking punch, instead of sparkling wine, put
a good face on the matter, and empty it off-hand, and fill another, and
troll off the old ditty you used to sing, and thank God it’s no worse.
Look on the merry faces of your children (if you have any) as they sit
round the fire. One little seat may be empty; one slight form that
gladdened the father’s heart, and roused the mother’s pride to look
upon, may not be there. Dwell not upon the past; think not that one
short year ago, the fair child now resolving into dust, sat before you,
with the bloom of health upon its cheek, and the gaiety of infancy in
its joyous eye. Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man
has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill
your glass again, with a merry face and contented heart. Our life on
it, but your Christmas shall be merry, and your new year a happy one!

Who can be insensible to the outpourings of good feeling, and the
honest interchange of affectionate attachment, which abound at this
season of the year? A Christmas family-party! We know nothing in nature
more delightful! There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas.
Petty jealousies and discords are forgotten; social feelings are
awakened, in bosoms to which they have long been strangers; father and
son, or brother and sister, who have met and passed with averted gaze,
or a look of cold recognition, for months before, proffer and return
the cordial embrace, and bury their past animosities in their present
happiness. Kindly hearts that have yearned towards each other, but have
been withheld by false notions of pride and self-dignity, are again
reunited, and all is kindness and benevolence! Would that Christmas
lasted the whole year through (as it ought), and that the prejudices
and passions which deform our better nature, were never called into
action among those to whom they should ever be strangers!

The Christmas family-party that we mean, is not a mere assemblage of
relations, got up at a week or two’s notice, originating this year,
having no family precedent in the last, and not likely to be repeated
in the next. No. It is an annual gathering of all the accessible
members of the family, young or old, rich or poor; and all the children
look forward to it, for two months beforehand, in a fever of
anticipation. Formerly, it was held at grandpapa’s; but grandpapa
getting old, and grandmamma getting old too, and rather infirm, they
have given up house-keeping, and domesticated themselves with uncle
George; so, the party always takes place at uncle George’s house, but
grandmamma sends in most of the good things, and grandpapa always
_will_ toddle down, all the way to Newgate-market, to buy the turkey,
which he engages a porter to bring home behind him in triumph, always
insisting on the man’s being rewarded with a glass of spirits, over and
above his hire, to drink ‘a merry Christmas and a happy new year’ to
aunt George. As to grandmamma, she is very secret and mysterious for
two or three days beforehand, but not sufficiently so, to prevent
rumours getting afloat that she has purchased a beautiful new cap with
pink ribbons for each of the servants, together with sundry books, and
pen-knives, and pencil-cases, for the younger branches; to say nothing
of divers secret additions to the order originally given by aunt George
at the pastry-cook’s, such as another dozen of mince-pies for the
dinner, and a large plum-cake for the children.

On Christmas-eve, grandmamma is always in excellent spirits, and after
employing all the children, during the day, in stoning the plums, and
all that, insists, regularly every year, on uncle George coming down
into the kitchen, taking off his coat, and stirring the pudding for
half an hour or so, which uncle George good-humouredly does, to the
vociferous delight of the children and servants. The evening concludes
with a glorious game of blind-man’s-buff, in an early stage of which
grandpapa takes great care to be caught, in order that he may have an
opportunity of displaying his dexterity.

On the following morning, the old couple, with as many of the children
as the pew will hold, go to church in great state: leaving aunt George
at home dusting decanters and filling casters, and uncle George
carrying bottles into the dining-parlour, and calling for corkscrews,
and getting into everybody’s way.

When the church-party return to lunch, grandpapa produces a small sprig
of mistletoe from his pocket, and tempts the boys to kiss their little
cousins under it—a proceeding which affords both the boys and the old
gentleman unlimited satisfaction, but which rather outrages
grandmamma’s ideas of decorum, until grandpapa says, that when he was
just thirteen years and three months old, _he_ kissed grandmamma under
a mistletoe too, on which the children clap their hands, and laugh very
heartily, as do aunt George and uncle George; and grandmamma looks
pleased, and says, with a benevolent smile, that grandpapa was an
impudent young dog, on which the children laugh very heartily again,
and grandpapa more heartily than any of them.

But all these diversions are nothing to the subsequent excitement when
grandmamma in a high cap, and slate-coloured silk gown; and grandpapa
with a beautifully plaited shirt-frill, and white neckerchief; seat
themselves on one side of the drawing-room fire, with uncle George’s
children and little cousins innumerable, seated in the front, waiting
the arrival of the expected visitors. Suddenly a hackney-coach is heard
to stop, and uncle George, who has been looking out of the window,
exclaims ‘Here’s Jane!’ on which the children rush to the door, and
helter-skelter down-stairs; and uncle Robert and aunt Jane, and the
dear little baby, and the nurse, and the whole party, are ushered
up-stairs amidst tumultuous shouts of ‘Oh, my!’ from the children, and
frequently repeated warnings not to hurt baby from the nurse. And
grandpapa takes the child, and grandmamma kisses her daughter, and the
confusion of this first entry has scarcely subsided, when some other
aunts and uncles with more cousins arrive, and the grown-up cousins
flirt with each other, and so do the little cousins too, for that
matter, and nothing is to be heard but a confused din of talking,
laughing, and merriment.

A hesitating double knock at the street-door, heard during a momentary
pause in the conversation, excites a general inquiry of ‘Who’s that?’
and two or three children, who have been standing at the window,
announce in a low voice, that it’s ‘poor aunt Margaret.’ Upon which,
aunt George leaves the room to welcome the new-comer; and grandmamma
draws herself up, rather stiff and stately; for Margaret married a poor
man without her consent, and poverty not being a sufficiently weighty
punishment for her offence, has been discarded by her friends, and
debarred the society of her dearest relatives. But Christmas has come
round, and the unkind feelings that have struggled against better
dispositions during the year, have melted away before its genial
influence, like half-formed ice beneath the morning sun. It is not
difficult in a moment of angry feeling for a parent to denounce a
disobedient child; but, to banish her at a period of general good-will
and hilarity, from the hearth, round which she has sat on so many
anniversaries of the same day, expanding by slow degrees from infancy
to girlhood, and then bursting, almost imperceptibly, into a woman, is
widely different. The air of conscious rectitude, and cold forgiveness,
which the old lady has assumed, sits ill upon her; and when the poor
girl is led in by her sister, pale in looks and broken in hope—not from
poverty, for that she could bear, but from the consciousness of
undeserved neglect, and unmerited unkindness—it is easy to see how much
of it is assumed. A momentary pause succeeds; the girl breaks suddenly
from her sister and throws herself, sobbing, on her mother’s neck. The
father steps hastily forward, and takes her husband’s hand. Friends
crowd round to offer their hearty congratulations, and happiness and
harmony again prevail.

As to the dinner, it’s perfectly delightful—nothing goes wrong, and
everybody is in the very best of spirits, and disposed to please and be
pleased. Grandpapa relates a circumstantial account of the purchase of
the turkey, with a slight digression relative to the purchase of
previous turkeys, on former Christmas-days, which grandmamma
corroborates in the minutest particular. Uncle George tells stories,
and carves poultry, and takes wine, and jokes with the children at the
side-table, and winks at the cousins that are making love, or being
made love to, and exhilarates everybody with his good humour and
hospitality; and when, at last, a stout servant staggers in with a
gigantic pudding, with a sprig of holly in the top, there is such a
laughing, and shouting, and clapping of little chubby hands, and
kicking up of fat dumpy legs, as can only be equalled by the applause
with which the astonishing feat of pouring lighted brandy into
mince-pies, is received by the younger visitors. Then the dessert!—and
the wine!—and the fun! Such beautiful speeches, and _such_ songs, from
aunt Margaret’s husband, who turns out to be such a nice man, and _so_
attentive to grandmamma! Even grandpapa not only sings his annual song
with unprecedented vigour, but on being honoured with an unanimous
_encore_, according to annual custom, actually comes out with a new one
which nobody but grandmamma ever heard before; and a young scapegrace
of a cousin, who has been in some disgrace with the old people, for
certain heinous sins of omission and commission—neglecting to call, and
persisting in drinking Burton Ale—astonishes everybody into convulsions
of laughter by volunteering the most extraordinary comic songs that
ever were heard. And thus the evening passes, in a strain of rational
good-will and cheerfulness, doing more to awaken the sympathies of
every member of the party in behalf of his neighbour, and to perpetuate
their good feeling during the ensuing year, than half the homilies that
have ever been written, by half the Divines that have ever lived.

CHAPTER III—THE NEW YEAR

Next to Christmas-day, the most pleasant annual epoch in existence is
the advent of the New Year. There are a lachrymose set of people who
usher in the New Year with watching and fasting, as if they were bound
to attend as chief mourners at the obsequies of the old one. Now, we
cannot but think it a great deal more complimentary, both to the old
year that has rolled away, and to the New Year that is just beginning
to dawn upon us, to see the old fellow out, and the new one in, with
gaiety and glee.

There must have been some few occurrences in the past year to which we
can look back, with a smile of cheerful recollection, if not with a
feeling of heartfelt thankfulness. And we are bound by every rule of
justice and equity to give the New Year credit for being a good one,
until he proves himself unworthy the confidence we repose in him.

This is our view of the matter; and entertaining it, notwithstanding
our respect for the old year, one of the few remaining moments of whose
existence passes away with every word we write, here we are, seated by
our fireside on this last night of the old year, one thousand eight
hundred and thirty-six, penning this article with as jovial a face as
if nothing extraordinary had happened, or was about to happen, to
disturb our good humour.

Hackney-coaches and carriages keep rattling up the street and down the
street in rapid succession, conveying, doubtless, smartly-dressed
coachfuls to crowded parties; loud and repeated double knocks at the
house with green blinds, opposite, announce to the whole neighbourhood
that there’s one large party in the street at all events; and we saw
through the window, and through the fog too, till it grew so thick that
we rung for candles, and drew our curtains, pastry-cooks’ men with
green boxes on their heads, and rout-furniture-warehouse-carts, with
cane seats and French lamps, hurrying to the numerous houses where an
annual festival is held in honour of the occasion.

We can fancy one of these parties, we think, as well as if we were duly
dress-coated and pumped, and had just been announced at the
drawing-room door.

Take the house with the green blinds for instance. We know it is a
quadrille party, because we saw some men taking up the front
drawing-room carpet while we sat at breakfast this morning, and if
further evidence be required, and we must tell the truth, we just now
saw one of the young ladies ‘doing’ another of the young ladies’ hair,
near one of the bedroom windows, in an unusual style of splendour,
which nothing else but a quadrille party could possibly justify.

The master of the house with the green blinds is in a public office; we
know the fact by the cut of his coat, the tie of his neckcloth, and the
self-satisfaction of his gait—the very green blinds themselves have a
Somerset House air about them.

Hark!—a cab! That’s a junior clerk in the same office; a tidy sort of
young man, with a tendency to cold and corns, who comes in a pair of
boots with black cloth fronts, and brings his shoes in his coat-pocket,
which shoes he is at this very moment putting on in the hall. Now he is
announced by the man in the passage to another man in a blue coat, who
is a disguised messenger from the office.

The man on the first landing precedes him to the drawing-room door.
‘Mr. Tupple!’ shouts the messenger. ‘How _are_ you, Tupple?’ says the
master of the house, advancing from the fire, before which he has been
talking politics and airing himself. ‘My dear, this is Mr. Tupple (a
courteous salute from the lady of the house); Tupple, my eldest
daughter; Julia, my dear, Mr. Tupple; Tupple, my other daughters; my
son, sir;’ Tupple rubs his hands very hard, and smiles as if it were
all capital fun, and keeps constantly bowing and turning himself round,
till the whole family have been introduced, when he glides into a chair
at the corner of the sofa, and opens a miscellaneous conversation with
the young ladies upon the weather, and the theatres, and the old year,
and the last new murder, and the balloon, and the ladies’ sleeves, and
the festivities of the season, and a great many other topics of small
talk.

More double knocks! what an extensive party! what an incessant hum of
conversation and general sipping of coffee! We see Tupple now, in our
mind’s eye, in the height of his glory. He has just handed that stout
old lady’s cup to the servant; and now, he dives among the crowd of
young men by the door, to intercept the other servant, and secure the
muffin-plate for the old lady’s daughter, before he leaves the room;
and now, as he passes the sofa on his way back, he bestows a glance of
recognition and patronage upon the young ladies as condescending and
familiar as if he had known them from infancy.

Charming person Mr. Tupple—perfect ladies’ man—such a delightful
companion, too! Laugh!—nobody ever understood papa’s jokes half so well
as Mr. Tupple, who laughs himself into convulsions at every fresh burst
of facetiousness. Most delightful partner! talks through the whole set!
and although he does seem at first rather gay and frivolous, so
romantic and with so _much_ feeling! Quite a love. No great favourite
with the young men, certainly, who sneer at, and affect to despise him;
but everybody knows that’s only envy, and they needn’t give themselves
the trouble to depreciate his merits at any rate, for Ma says he shall
be asked to every future dinner-party, if it’s only to talk to people
between the courses, and distract their attention when there’s any
unexpected delay in the kitchen.

At supper, Mr. Tupple shows to still greater advantage than he has done
throughout the evening, and when Pa requests every one to fill their
glasses for the purpose of drinking happiness throughout the year, Mr.
Tupple is _so_ droll: insisting on all the young ladies having their
glasses filled, notwithstanding their repeated assurances that they
never can, by any possibility, think of emptying them and subsequently
begging permission to say a few words on the sentiment which has just
been uttered by Pa—when he makes one of the most brilliant and poetical
speeches that can possibly be imagined, about the old year and the new
one. After the toast has been drunk, and when the ladies have retired,
Mr. Tupple requests that every gentleman will do him the favour of
filling his glass, for he has a toast to propose: on which all the
gentlemen cry ‘Hear! hear!’ and pass the decanters accordingly: and Mr.
Tupple being informed by the master of the house that they are all
charged, and waiting for his toast, rises, and begs to remind the
gentlemen present, how much they have been delighted by the dazzling
array of elegance and beauty which the drawing-room has exhibited that
night, and how their senses have been charmed, and their hearts
captivated, by the bewitching concentration of female loveliness which
that very room has so recently displayed. (Loud cries of ‘Hear!’) Much
as he (Tupple) would be disposed to deplore the absence of the ladies,
on other grounds, he cannot but derive some consolation from the
reflection that the very circumstance of their not being present,
enables him to propose a toast, which he would have otherwise been
prevented from giving—that toast he begs to say is—‘The Ladies!’ (Great
applause.) The Ladies! among whom the fascinating daughters of their
excellent host, are alike conspicuous for their beauty, their
accomplishments, and their elegance. He begs them to drain a bumper to
‘The Ladies, and a happy new year to them!’ (Prolonged approbation;
above which the noise of the ladies dancing the Spanish dance among
themselves, overhead, is distinctly audible.)

The applause consequent on this toast, has scarcely subsided, when a
young gentleman in a pink under-waistcoat, sitting towards the bottom
of the table, is observed to grow very restless and fidgety, and to
evince strong indications of some latent desire to give vent to his
feelings in a speech, which the wary Tupple at once perceiving,
determines to forestall by speaking himself. He, therefore, rises
again, with an air of solemn importance, and trusts he may be permitted
to propose another toast (unqualified approbation, and Mr. Tupple
proceeds). He is sure they must all be deeply impressed with the
hospitality—he may say the splendour—with which they have been that
night received by their worthy host and hostess. (Unbounded applause.)
Although this is the first occasion on which he has had the pleasure
and delight of sitting at that board, he has known his friend Dobble
long and intimately; he has been connected with him in business—he
wishes everybody present knew Dobble as well as he does. (A cough from
the host.) He (Tupple) can lay his hand upon his (Tupple’s) heart, and
declare his confident belief that a better man, a better husband, a
better father, a better brother, a better son, a better relation in any
relation of life, than Dobble, never existed. (Loud cries of ‘Hear!’)
They have seen him to-night in the peaceful bosom of his family; they
should see him in the morning, in the trying duties of his office. Calm
in the perusal of the morning papers, uncompromising in the signature
of his name, dignified in his replies to the inquiries of stranger
applicants, deferential in his behaviour to his superiors, majestic in
his deportment to the messengers. (Cheers.) When he bears this merited
testimony to the excellent qualities of his friend Dobble, what can he
say in approaching such a subject as Mrs. Dobble? Is it requisite for
him to expatiate on the qualities of that amiable woman? No; he will
spare his friend Dobble’s feelings; he will spare the feelings of his
friend—if he will allow him to have the honour of calling him so—Mr.
Dobble, junior. (Here Mr. Dobble, junior, who has been previously
distending his mouth to a considerable width, by thrusting a
particularly fine orange into that feature, suspends operations, and
assumes a proper appearance of intense melancholy). He will simply
say—and he is quite certain it is a sentiment in which all who hear him
will readily concur—that his friend Dobble is as superior to any man he
ever knew, as Mrs. Dobble is far beyond any woman he ever saw (except
her daughters); and he will conclude by proposing their worthy ‘Host
and Hostess, and may they live to enjoy many more new years!’

The toast is drunk with acclamation; Dobble returns thanks, and the
whole party rejoin the ladies in the drawing-room. Young men who were
too bashful to dance before supper, find tongues and partners; the
musicians exhibit unequivocal symptoms of having drunk the new year in,
while the company were out; and dancing is kept up, until far in the
first morning of the new year.

We have scarcely written the last word of the previous sentence, when
the first stroke of twelve, peals from the neighbouring churches. There
certainly—we must confess it now—is something awful in the sound.
Strictly speaking, it may not be more impressive now, than at any other
time; for the hours steal as swiftly on, at other periods, and their
flight is little heeded. But, we measure man’s life by years, and it is
a solemn knell that warns us we have passed another of the landmarks
which stands between us and the grave. Disguise it as we may, the
reflection will force itself on our minds, that when the next bell
announces the arrival of a new year, we may be insensible alike of the
timely warning we have so often neglected, and of all the warm feelings
that glow within us now.

CHAPTER IV—MISS EVANS AND THE EAGLE

Mr. Samuel Wilkins was a carpenter, a journeyman carpenter of small
dimensions, decidedly below the middle size—bordering, perhaps, upon
the dwarfish. His face was round and shining, and his hair carefully
twisted into the outer corner of each eye, till it formed a variety of
that description of semi-curls, usually known as ‘aggerawators.’ His
earnings were all-sufficient for his wants, varying from eighteen
shillings to one pound five, weekly—his manner undeniable—his sabbath
waistcoats dazzling. No wonder that, with these qualifications, Samuel
Wilkins found favour in the eyes of the other sex: many women have been
captivated by far less substantial qualifications. But, Samuel was
proof against their blandishments, until at length his eyes rested on
those of a Being for whom, from that time forth, he felt fate had
destined him. He came, and conquered—proposed, and was accepted—loved,
and was beloved. Mr. Wilkins ‘kept company’ with Jemima Evans.

Miss Evans (or Ivins, to adopt the pronunciation most in vogue with her
circle of acquaintance) had adopted in early life the useful pursuit of
shoe-binding, to which she had afterwards superadded the occupation of
a straw-bonnet maker. Herself, her maternal parent, and two sisters,
formed an harmonious quartett in the most secluded portion of
Camden-town; and here it was that Mr. Wilkins presented himself, one
Monday afternoon, in his best attire, with his face more shining and
his waistcoat more bright than either had ever appeared before. The
family were just going to tea, and were _so_ glad to see him. It was
quite a little feast; two ounces of seven-and-sixpenny green, and a
quarter of a pound of the best fresh; and Mr. Wilkins had brought a
pint of shrimps, neatly folded up in a clean belcher, to give a zest to
the meal, and propitiate Mrs. Ivins. Jemima was ‘cleaning herself’
up-stairs; so Mr. Samuel Wilkins sat down and talked domestic economy
with Mrs. Ivins, whilst the two youngest Miss Ivinses poked bits of
lighted brown paper between the bars under the kettle, to make the
water boil for tea.

‘I wos a thinking,’ said Mr. Samuel Wilkins, during a pause in the
conversation—‘I wos a thinking of taking J’mima to the Eagle
to-night.’—‘O my!’ exclaimed Mrs. Ivins. ‘Lor! how nice!’ said the
youngest Miss Ivins. ‘Well, I declare!’ added the youngest Miss Ivins
but one. ‘Tell J’mima to put on her white muslin, Tilly,’ screamed Mrs.
Ivins, with motherly anxiety; and down came J’mima herself soon
afterwards in a white muslin gown carefully hooked and eyed, a little
red shawl, plentifully pinned, a white straw bonnet trimmed with red
ribbons, a small necklace, a large pair of bracelets, Denmark satin
shoes, and open-worked stockings; white cotton gloves on her fingers,
and a cambric pocket-handkerchief, carefully folded up, in her hand—all
quite genteel and ladylike. And away went Miss J’mima Ivins and Mr.
Samuel Wilkins, and a dress-cane, with a gilt knob at the top, to the
admiration and envy of the street in general, and to the high
gratification of Mrs. Ivins, and the two youngest Miss Ivinses in
particular. They had no sooner turned into the Pancras-road, than who
should Miss J’mima Ivins stumble upon, by the most fortunate accident
in the world, but a young lady as she knew, with _her_ young man!—And
it is so strange how things do turn out sometimes—they were actually
going to the Eagle too. So Mr. Samuel Wilkins was introduced to Miss
J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man, and they all walked on together,
talking, and laughing, and joking away like anything; and when they got
as far as Pentonville, Miss Ivins’s friend’s young man _would_ have the
ladies go into the Crown, to taste some shrub, which, after a great
blushing and giggling, and hiding of faces in elaborate
pocket-handkerchiefs, they consented to do. Having tasted it once, they
were easily prevailed upon to taste it again; and they sat out in the
garden tasting shrub, and looking at the Busses alternately, till it
was just the proper time to go to the Eagle; and then they resumed
their journey, and walked very fast, for fear they should lose the
beginning of the concert in the Rotunda.

‘How ev’nly!’ said Miss J’mima Ivins, and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend,
both at once, when they had passed the gate and were fairly inside the
gardens. There were the walks, beautifully gravelled and planted—and
the refreshment-boxes, painted and ornamented like so many
snuff-boxes—and the variegated lamps shedding their rich light upon the
company’s heads—and the place for dancing ready chalked for the
company’s feet—and a Moorish band playing at one end of the gardens—and
an opposition military band playing away at the other. Then, the
waiters were rushing to and fro with glasses of negus, and glasses of
brandy-and-water, and bottles of ale, and bottles of stout; and
ginger-beer was going off in one place, and practical jokes were going
on in another; and people were crowding to the door of the Rotunda; and
in short the whole scene was, as Miss J’mima Ivins, inspired by the
novelty, or the shrub, or both, observed—‘one of dazzling excitement.’
As to the concert-room, never was anything half so splendid. There was
an orchestra for the singers, all paint, gilding, and plate-glass; and
such an organ! Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man whispered it had
cost ‘four hundred pound,’ which Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was ‘not dear
neither;’ an opinion in which the ladies perfectly coincided. The
audience were seated on elevated benches round the room, and crowded
into every part of it; and everybody was eating and drinking as
comfortably as possible. Just before the concert commenced, Mr. Samuel
Wilkins ordered two glasses of rum-and-water ‘warm with—’ and two
slices of lemon, for himself and the other young man, together with ‘a
pint o’ sherry wine for the ladies, and some sweet carraway-seed
biscuits;’ and they would have been quite comfortable and happy, only a
strange gentleman with large whiskers _would_ stare at Miss J’mima
Ivins, and another gentleman in a plaid waistcoat _would_ wink at Miss
J’mima Ivins’s friend; on which Miss Jemima Ivins’s friend’s young man
exhibited symptoms of boiling over, and began to mutter about ‘people’s
imperence,’ and ‘swells out o’ luck;’ and to intimate, in oblique
terms, a vague intention of knocking somebody’s head off; which he was
only prevented from announcing more emphatically, by both Miss J’mima
Ivins and her friend threatening to faint away on the spot if he said
another word.

The concert commenced—overture on the organ. ‘How solemn!’ exclaimed
Miss J’mima Ivins, glancing, perhaps unconsciously, at the gentleman
with the whiskers. Mr. Samuel Wilkins, who had been muttering apart for
some time past, as if he were holding a confidential conversation with
the gilt knob of the dress-cane, breathed hard-breathing vengeance,
perhaps,—but said nothing. ‘The soldier tired,’ Miss Somebody in white
satin. ‘Ancore!’ cried Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend. ‘Ancore!’ shouted
the gentleman in the plaid waistcoat immediately, hammering the table
with a stout-bottle. Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man eyed the
man behind the waistcoat from head to foot, and cast a look of
interrogative contempt towards Mr. Samuel Wilkins. Comic song,
accompanied on the organ. Miss J’mima Ivins was convulsed with
laughter—so was the man with the whiskers. Everything the ladies did,
the plaid waistcoat and whiskers did, by way of expressing unity of
sentiment and congeniality of soul; and Miss J’mima Ivins, and Miss
J’mima Ivins’s friend, grew lively and talkative, as Mr. Samuel
Wilkins, and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man, grew morose and
surly in inverse proportion.

Now, if the matter had ended here, the little party might soon have
recovered their former equanimity; but Mr. Samuel Wilkins and his
friend began to throw looks of defiance upon the waistcoat and
whiskers. And the waistcoat and whiskers, by way of intimating the
slight degree in which they were affected by the looks aforesaid,
bestowed glances of increased admiration upon Miss J’mima Ivins and
friend. The concert and vaudeville concluded, they promenaded the
gardens. The waistcoat and whiskers did the same; and made divers
remarks complimentary to the ankles of Miss J’mima Ivins and friend, in
an audible tone. At length, not satisfied with these numerous
atrocities, they actually came up and asked Miss J’mima Ivins, and Miss
J’mima Ivins’s friend, to dance, without taking no more notice of Mr.
Samuel Wilkins, and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man, than if
they was nobody!

‘What do you mean by that, scoundrel!’ exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins,
grasping the gilt-knobbed dress-cane firmly in his right hand. ‘What’s
the matter with _you_, you little humbug?’ replied the whiskers. ‘How
dare you insult me and my friend?’ inquired the friend’s young man.
‘You and your friend be hanged!’ responded the waistcoat. ‘Take that,’
exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins. The ferrule of the gilt-knobbed
dress-cane was visible for an instant, and then the light of the
variegated lamps shone brightly upon it as it whirled into the air,
cane and all. ‘Give it him,’ said the waistcoat. ‘Horficer!’ screamed
the ladies. Miss J’mima Ivins’s beau, and the friend’s young man, lay
gasping on the gravel, and the waistcoat and whiskers were seen no
more.

Miss J’mima Ivins and friend being conscious that the affray was in no
slight degree attributable to themselves, of course went into hysterics
forthwith; declared themselves the most injured of women; exclaimed, in
incoherent ravings, that they had been suspected—wrongfully
suspected—oh! that they should ever have lived to see the day—and so
forth; suffered a relapse every time they opened their eyes and saw
their unfortunate little admirers; and were carried to their respective
abodes in a hackney-coach, and a state of insensibility, compounded of
shrub, sherry, and excitement.

CHAPTER V—THE PARLOUR ORATOR

We had been lounging one evening, down Oxford-street, Holborn,
Cheapside, Coleman-street, Finsbury-square, and so on, with the
intention of returning westward, by Pentonville and the New-road, when
we began to feel rather thirsty, and disposed to rest for five or ten
minutes. So, we turned back towards an old, quiet, decent public-house,
which we remembered to have passed but a moment before (it was not far
from the City-road), for the purpose of solacing ourself with a glass
of ale. The house was none of your stuccoed, French-polished,
illuminated palaces, but a modest public-house of the old school, with
a little old bar, and a little old landlord, who, with a wife and
daughter of the same pattern, was comfortably seated in the bar
aforesaid—a snug little room with a cheerful fire, protected by a large
screen: from behind which the young lady emerged on our representing
our inclination for a glass of ale.

‘Won’t you walk into the parlour, sir?’ said the young lady, in
seductive tones.

‘You had better walk into the parlour, sir,’ said the little old
landlord, throwing his chair back, and looking round one side of the
screen, to survey our appearance.

‘You had much better step into the parlour, sir,’ said the little old
lady, popping out her head, on the other side of the screen.

We cast a slight glance around, as if to express our ignorance of the
locality so much recommended. The little old landlord observed it;
bustled out of the small door of the small bar; and forthwith ushered
us into the parlour itself.

It was an ancient, dark-looking room, with oaken wainscoting, a sanded
floor, and a high mantel-piece. The walls were ornamented with three or
four old coloured prints in black frames, each print representing a
naval engagement, with a couple of men-of-war banging away at each
other most vigorously, while another vessel or two were blowing up in
the distance, and the foreground presented a miscellaneous collection
of broken masts and blue legs sticking up out of the water. Depending
from the ceiling in the centre of the room, were a gas-light and
bell-pull; on each side were three or four long narrow tables, behind
which was a thickly-planted row of those slippery, shiny-looking wooden
chairs, peculiar to hostelries of this description. The monotonous