EDITED

BY A L B E R T

SMITH.

GAVARNI IN LONDON:
Sketches of Life and Character

ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAYS BY POPULAR WRITERS.

EDITED BY ALBERT SMITH.

LONDON:
D A V I D BOGUE, 86 F L E E T STREET,
MDCCOXLIX.

^«*>

IT?
LONDON!
VIAETELLY BROTHERS AND CO., P R I N T E R S AND
PETERBOROUGH COURT, 1 3 5 FLEET

ENGRAVERS,

STREET.

CONTENTS.
SUBJECTS.

AUTHORS.

PAGE.

ACROBATS

ALBERT SMITH

Front.

THE OPERA

SHIRLEY BROOKS

1

THE STREET BEGGAR .

ANGUS B. REACH

7

THE CASINO

ALBERT SMITH

13

MUSIC IN THE DRAWING-ROOM

JOHN OXENFORD

17

MUSIC IN THE STREETS

ALBERT SMITH

21

COVENT GARDEN MARKET

CHARLES KENNEY

28

THE CROSSING-SWEEPER

ALBERT SMITH

33

CARMEN AND COAL-HEAVERS

THOMAS MILLER

37

THE ORANGE-GIRL

A N OLD PLAYGOER

45

A SKETCH FROM THE WEST-END

ALBERT SMITH

49

THIEVES

JAMES HANXAY

55

A PLATE OF HEADS

HORACE MAYHEW

61

MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE

T H E HON. C. S. SAVILE

65

THE LOUNGER IN REGENT STREET

ANGUS B. REACH

70

GREENWICH FAIR

ALBERT SMITH

75

THE COULISSES

SHIRLEY BROOKS

81

THE BARMAID

J.

87

VAUXHALL

ALBERT SMITH

91

FANCY-BALLS

ROBERT B. BHOUGH

97

THE POTATO-CAN

J.

FOREIGN GENTLEMEN IN LONDON

SHIRLEY BROOKS

107

THE PARKS

ALBERT SMITH

113

.

.

.

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STIRLING COYNE

STIRLING COYNE

T H E ILLUSTRATIONS DESIGNED AND DRAWN ON WOOD BY GAYARNI,
AND ENGRAVED BY HENRY VIZETELLY.

101

ACROBATS.
[FRONTISPIECE.]

As you pass through one of those low, densely-populated districts of London
where narrow dirty streets show the openings of noisome courts, narrower and
dirtier still, and these again conduct to alleys, so dark and close, that sunlight
never comes lower down the houses than the parapets of their roofs, you will
be struck, above all things, by the swarms of children everywhere collected.
They scuffle about, and run across your path, and disappear, like rabbits in a
warren, in obscure holes. They wait on the kerb until a cab approaches, and
run under the very knees of the horse. They collect round the open water
plug, and spend the entire day there, all returning wet through to the skin.
They form the great proportion of Mr. Punch's audience, when his scream is
heard in the adjacent large thoroughfare. The barrage of the Nile is rivalled
by their indefatigable attempts to obstruct the gutters with rubbish, and form
basins in which to launch their walnut shells.
These children are not altogether the results of over-fecundity of the inhabitants, for the families thereabouts abiding are by no means large. You
occasionally see a girl of seven or eight years staggering under the weight of
a baby whose sole nurse she is ; but seldom find them with brothers and sisters.
They are only acquaintances. Their parents live huddled up in dirty single
rooms, repelling all attempts to improve their condition—for, " The People,"
we regret to say, are naturally fond of dirt—and, whenever the rain is not
actually pouring down in torrents, they turn their children out to find means
of amusement and subsistence, at the same time, in the streets.
Of all their favourite haunts, there is not one more popular than the bit
of open ground where a mass of houses have been pulled down to make room
for a new street or building. If they find an old beam of timber, so much the
better. They unite their pigmy forces to turn it into a see-saw, and, this
accomplished, a policeman is the only power that can drive them from the
spot. They build forts with brick-bats. They scuffle the mounds of rubbish
perfectly smooth by running, or being dragged up and down them ; they
excavate caves, and make huts; and know of nothing in the world capable
of affording such delight, except it be the laying down, or taking up, of some
wooden pavement.

ACROBATS.

Picture such a bit of ground, on a fine afternoon, alive with children.
Amongst the revellers there is a boy, who for the last five minutes has been
hanging by his legs to a bit of temporary railing, with his hair sweeping the
ground. Others would have had a fit long before, but this appears to be hisnatural position. On quitting it, without caring for the empty applause of
the crowd, he goes to a retired corner of the plot, and, gravely putting his
head and hands upon the ground, at a short distance from the wall, turns his
heels up in the air, until he touches the house with his feet. This accomplished,
he whistles a nigger melody, claps his shoeless soles together, goes through
certain telegraphic evolutions with his legs, and then calmly resumes his normal
position, and walks away, not caring whether anybody regards him or not.
This boy is destined to become an Acrobat—at a more advanced period
of his life to perform feats of suppleness and agility in the mud of the streets,
the saw-dust of the circus, or the turf of a race-course. His life will pass in a
marvellous series of positions, and its ordinary level course will be unknown
to him. He will look upon chairs as articles of furniture only used to support
people with the crown of their heads on the top back rail, or their legs on the
seats of two stretched out to the utmost extent allowed by their length.
Ladders, with him, will in future only be ascended by twisting in and out the
rounds like a serpent; and his fellow-tumblers will be regarded merely as
component parts of the living pedestal which is to elevate him, when required,
to the level of the first-floor windows.
The young Olympian gradually learns his business. He first of all runs
away from home and joins a troop of these agile wanderers—these British
Bedouins of the wilds and common-lands—to whom he serves an apprenticeship. It is his task, whilst sufficiently light and slender, to be tossed about
on the elevated feet of a " Professor"—to form the top figure of the living
column or pyramid, or to have his heels twisted round his neck, and then to
be thrown about or worn as a turban by the strongest man of the party—he
with the stalwart arms and wonderful external muscles of the thigh, which
are set like bands of iron when he is supporting his fellows. Next, in his
hobbledehoy state of transition—when he has grown too tall for the business
just named, but not sufficiently matured in his limbs to undertake the leading
tumbling—his office is to clear the ring with the large balls at the ends of a
cord, and to solicit the contributions of the spectators whilst the others are
preparing for some feat more frightful than any yet witnessed. And finally,
he proves his fibres to be as firmly braced as those of his companions, and
comes out in the ochred cotton tights, the rusty-spangled braces, and the fillet
of blackened silver-cord, as the perfect Acrobat.

ACROBATS.

Henceforth his life is one of the severest labour—unsettled, wandering,
and devil-may-care as his disposition may be, he cannot be called idle. The
powers of enduring physical exertion which these people acquire, by the
constant exercise of their limbs, is extraordinary. In the months of the races
near London—which period forms their " season" par excellence—you will
see them on the road to Epsom, Moulsey, Egham, or Ascot even, long before
the rush begins, in the grey morning, and whilst the dew-drops still sparkle
on the blades of grass at the way-side, to be turned into pellets of mud by
the dust in a few hours. They are all ready attired for the course, but their
finery is concealed by the ragged great-coat and second-hand tweed-wrapper of
their domestic life. One carries the drum upon his back; another has,
rolled up under his arm, the old piece of stair-carpet inseparable from all
street-tumblers and dancers, the parallel pattern of which is never seen anywhere else, except in the second-floors of lodging-houses. Following them
is a thinly-clad haggard woman, with a child at her breast, and carrying, in
addition, two or three foils, or swords, which are the " properties" of one of
the most daring feats, in the somersault and trempoline line. She intends
likewise to ply a double line of business, for she carries some of the cards,
wherewith to tempt the u noble sportsmen" of the hot noontide. Apropos of
these race-course frequenters, it is difficult to conceive what are their means of
existence at other seasons. Their being appears to be inseparably connected with
booths, flags, bad cigars, betting-stands, parasols, and carriages. That they
live out the winter, is evident from their re-appearances during the next
summer ; but where they hybernate has never been ascertained. We expect
there is some secret island to which dwarfs, giants, and gipsies; jockeys,
thimble-riggers, snuff-box throwers, and imperfect sailors : together with
Messrs. Dorling, Lindsey, Oxley, and "Wetton—" first in the lists"—all go off,
and there abide together until the announcement of the First Spring Meeting
recalls them to the world again.
To our Acrobats, however : whom we ran away from on the road to the
races at early morning. "Well, they walk this distance, which would be, in
itself, a fair day's exercise for a man of average health ; and at eleven o'clock
begin a series of extraordinary performances, which continue until six, their
intervals of repose being the time between the second bell for clearing the
course and the end of the race. They never show signs of weariness : their
last performance is as wonderful as their first; and as long as a solitary
carriage remains at the ropes, so long do they keep up their exhibition. At
night they are proudly independent of a tiled or slated roof. If it is fine
and warm, they bivouac in the warren or on the heath, where the hurdles

ACROBATS.

trimmed with fern, which helped to shelter the horses or the tubs from the
heat, make a very good shelter : if the night is dewy or cold—and their great
exertions have made them very susceptible—the corner of some canvas hostel
is always open to them. They sleep long and heavily. The sun is high up
before they rise the next morning.
The Acrobats are generally seen in London after the racing season, or
when the metropol s lies in their way from one course to another. Some go
to the sea-side—that is to say, to Thanet Tivolis and Ranelaghs; and we
have encountered a party of English tumblers at Boulogne. Others join
travelling companies of equestrians, who go from town to town with a
moveable circus—the followers of the mountebanks who visited the villages
in our young days. But still the number of summer flip-flap throwers is riot
accounted for. Without doubt they lie by to practise fresh feats; but in
what lodging they can perfect themselves in standing three high upon one
another's heads — in what building even, except Westminster Hall—is
puzzling to imagine.
When the pantomimes begin, the Acrobats find a new field for employment. In the slim spangled figures introduced in festival scenes, as " The
Mexican Wonders," or " The Thomsoni Family," you would hardly recognise
your old acquaintances of the race-course. They do not, however, always
have the good fortune to appear as principals. The majority engage as
supernumeraries: and it is not until the stage-manager at rehearsal wants
some daring spirit to tumble from the sky-borders on to the stage; to go
round on the sails of a windmill amidst fireworks; or to be knocked through
a door, or out of a window, or down a trap, that a pale man, in an old coat
that you have seen before, steps forward from the crowd at the wings, and
says that he "will undertake it, and that he can do any tumbling business
required, for he is an Acrobat.
This is the boy who stood upon his head, on the plot of improvement
ground—the youth who cleared the ring for the street performance—the man
who threw his legs over his shoulders and hopped upon his hands, on the
race-course. He is, perhaps, found to be a useful fellow and kept in the
theatre, until he becomes a sine qua non of the pantomime, and, in the
decline of life, the old nobleman of a ballet. And in the constant employment of welcoming guests to village festivals, making hopeless love to the
heroines, and expressing every known passion to order, upon the shortest
notice, his life passes away.
ALBERT SMITH.

THE

OPERA.

" C E sont cles plaisirs vifs et charmants qiHl faut gouter et fion decrireT
Thus, if we remember aright, pleads the excellent Philarete Chasles, as an
excuse for not doing with his pen what his compatriot, M. Gavarni, has so
happily done with his pencil. As, with all deference to the sensibilities of M.
Chasles, one usually finds it a far easier task to describe pleasures than to feel
them, we hesitate to offer his ingenious plea for avoiding ground which is so
well known as to be dangerous. It would perhaps be better, and certainly it
would be truer, to allege that one follows this artist with about as much
chance of putting the subject in a new light, as is left to the young gentleman
"with" Talfourd or Thesiger, when either advocate has sat down after his
speech.
Still, if one chose to be dreary, and were not troubled with a literary
conscience, it would be easy to divulge several very instructive things about
the Italian Opera. And we know, quite well, how we should treat the subject
if we were writing for the worthy millions, and not for la crime. Do you
think we should not remark upon the influence which music has exercised in
all ages, and give a cursory biography of all the instrument-makers,
from Tubal Cain to Erard ? Should we not be classically enthusiastic
concerning the choral strains of Greece, and reverentially inquisitive about
the Hebraic anthems? And if a reader escaped without an introduction to
Sappho, and an allusion to Orpheus, and a new version of the story of Arion,
he would get off better than we think he ought. What is the use of all the
general information which writers read up, if it is not to be reprinted upon
opportunity? Dogberry was a wise man, and ought to have been made
editor of a magazine in Messina for that one piece of counsel to George
Seacoal, to let his reading and writing appear "when there is no occasion for
such vanity." We could do so if we dared, and we know exactly where to
find a chronological history of the Opera in England, with statistics of all
A

2

THE

OPERA.

the managements, from Sir J o h n Gallini to Mr. L u m l e y ; and we could
tell, at second hand (for we were not at the fire), how the old house was
burned in 1789; and how the Italians went to the Haymarket and then to the
Pantheon; and how Novosielski designed the new building; and all about the
quarrels between Goold and T a y l o r ; and how Mr. Chambers, the banker,
began to be ruined ; and how worthy Mr. Ebers dashed in to the rescue of
the Opera ; and how the house was officially declared unsafe in 1824, and the
Lord Chamberlain refused to license the performances ; and how M. Laporte
succeeded, and Mr. Monck Mason did not succeed. A n d we could recount
a quantity of anecdotes — mostly very stupid, but respectable from their
antiquity and the great wear and tear they have undergone-—and, in fact,
we could borrow a great d e a l ; but, as aforesaid, there is such an affair as
conscience.
But one of the great beauties of this world is that there is no such thing
as absolute truth. There is nothing you can look at which does not become
something else if you look at it from another point of view. Now we have
not enunciated this profound reflection without a reason. W e bear in mind
two visits, out of certain others which we have made in our time, to the
Opera. I t occurs to us that b y describing these, and appending them to M.
Gavarni's engraving, we shall enable anybody, with only the ordinary number
of heads, to give a Cerberean look at the subject—to regard it three ways at
once.
T h e first season we used to go to the Opera we had not a stall of our own.
W e think it fair to add, that neither have we one now. B u t we then considered
our having been within those walls a circumstance of very great glory and
fashion, and were accustomed to regard the mean little play-bill, which we
sedulously preserved in evidence of the fact, with feelings akin to those with
which Lord Tancred now peruses his certificate of having visited the shrine of
the Sepulchre. Being unmarried, we decline offering any further particulars
as to the date of this transition-state, except that it was during Laporte's
management. On a certain non-subscription night (for we were not proud, but,
on the contrary, glad to get an order) we had gone to the pit very early, and
having found out a seat, were combining instruction and amusement by looking
after the corresponding passages in the Italian and English libretti—a harmless
recreation. The opera was the Bar Mere, and we had just stuck at Figaro's
celebrated
" Donne, donne! Eterni Dei!
Chi vi arriva a indovinar ?"

THE OPERA.

3

The house had filled, and as the lights were suddenly turned on, it appeared
to our inexperienced sense that the whole of the court and the aristocracy were
watching the progress of our studies. W e felt like the young cornet who was
naturally anxious that his helmet should be properly put on, because, having
joined yesterday only, of course the eyes of Europe were upon him. W h i l e
arranging one's hair, and generally endeavouring that none of the Marchionesses who were watching us should have just cause to censure our
appearance or attitude, we were beckoned into a box on the pit tier. But not
by a Marchioness, exactly. The invitation came from a remarkably grim and
snuffy barrister—a family friend. Never mind—a box—what glory ! W e
were soon ensconced, and if one drop of melancholy mingled in our cup of
happiness, as in Psyche's in heaven, it was the thought that nobody who knew
us at Islington was there to see our grandeur. Our thanks were profuse, but
the grim and snuffy barrister was not a pleasant person to talk civilities to.
" I thought you looked stupid, and as I have the box to myself, you are
as well here as there."
" Stupid !" Did the Marchionesses think so ? W e ventured to hint that
it was a " brilliant night." The grim and snuffy barrister looked positively
sublime (Soulie says that the manifestation of any passion, good or bad, in
excess, is sublime) with contempt.
" A what ?"
" A—a—brilliant—at least," said we, getting frightened, u there seem to
be some—some good people here."
T h e curtain rose—if we knew the name of the man who rang it up that
night, at that precise moment, we would send him a very small present. I t
saved us from annihilation.
T h e opera proceeded until Almaviva had displayed his Order, the police
had liberated him, and the stirring chorus of concerted confusion and prearranged astonishment which ends the first act, was over.
" Now," said the grim and snuffy barrister, " you obviously know nothing
about this place; and so don't call nights ' brilliant,' and people ' good,' until you
are safer. There's nobody here. You are looking at the royal box, and very
likely you think that man 's an emperor in disguise.
H e ' s the court
confectioner. I n the next box—give me the glass—that's an attorney and
his family; and if justice is done, he '11 be knocked off the rolls next Friday.
You are taking the over-dressed woman, with the emeralds, for somebody.
So she is—her husband's a Jew bill-discounter, and he 's gone into the stalls,
where he sees a young fellow who thinks to keep out of his clutches by

4

THE

OPERA.

keeping out of his sight. The fat man over there is the sub-editor of a paper
in the interest of the house ; and the man above him, with the hook nose,
black eyes, and one great diamond, is Tango, the sheriff's officer—he's on the
watch, too, for somebody, and his man 's in the lobby. That pretty woman, as
you call her, I should have thought you 'd have known—it's Miss Footlights,
of the Haymarket Theatre; and the woman she calls her mother 's with her.
Those people who have brought half their parish into the box, do so because
they only come once in the season, and like to talk about it. Next to them
is the doctor to the theatre; he invents disorders for singers who don't want to
sing, and then makes out certificates that they are very bad, I don't see
how you could suppose he was Lord Aberdeen, because there 's not the
slightest likeness. Yes, that is somebody—it's Sir Hafiz Vastator ; he 's come
because he knows his wife can't be here to-night. I forget the name of the
girl—she's in the ballet; you '11 see her leave his box before the opera is over.
There's old Fugue, the composer; nobody cares for him now, but Laporte
gives the old creature a corner sometimes, to remind him of the days when
he was the fashionable song-writer, and ruined himself by giving suppers to
the Guards. If you do not know who that lady is, I shall certainly not be
the first to tell you. Beyond her, nearer the stage, is the wife of a man who
brews Indian ale ; and beyond her again is old Mother Jonadab, who keeps
the masquerade shop, and I suppose gets boxes in payment for some of the
dresses she lends the house. On a line with us—the fourth from here—is
Barrels, who writes the novels of which Lady Laura Spike is author. They
have had a row because he wants a quarter instead of an eighth of the
purchase-money—authors are never content! Opposite is Straps, the lunatic
asylum keeper, with two harmless patients (they are both tied to their chairs);
and the last is Barabbas Yelp, the political writer, as he calls himself. He has
been abusing religion lustily for a great many years, until he has saved money
and bought his son a living. So much for your c brilliant night'!"
We waited some years before we ventured upon the term again. And
the next time we felt inclined to use it was last season.
We had the very great pleasure, on a Jenny Lind night (and a night
when Jenny sang in a part in which those not usually her worshippers
admit her perfection), of attending to the Opera-house a young lady who had
never visited it before. And when the wonders of preternatural vocalists
have ceased to produce an effect on the ear, and when the achievements of
superhuman danseuses can scarcely extort a plaudit (not that we affect to be
in any such state of used-up-ishness), there is always a fresh, and what

THE

OPERA.

f)

M. Chasles calls a vif plaisir, in watching the sensation their marvels
produce in another. Of course, that is to say, when that other is an interesting
person ; for of all bores, the greatest is a bore in a state of surprise. And we
regret to add, that there is so great a quantity of surprise going about just
now, fresh from Paris and elsewhere, that it makes society very disagreeable.
When the evening papers come in, you see every second man with his mouth
wide open—an unseemly sight.
The " Miranda" of that evening was married to her Ferdinand, but
Ferdinand promised to go to sleep in the back of the box, and leave us to
expound the mysteries of the enchanted region. Miranda had prepared
herself for the occasion; she knew every note of the opera, and she also knew
the cast. Moreover, she had a general idea of the theatre, and did not expect
(as do some) to see the Queen's box hanging from the chandelier, or (as do
others) to see straw littered down in the stalls. We led her to the box with
anticipations of considerable pleasure, and it may be satisfactory to state (the
French novelists are always accurate on these points, so we suppose there is
reason for it) that Miranda looked as a young and beautiful wife should look,
that she wore amber satin with black lace thereon, and had faintly green
grapes in her dark and massive hair—a costume which we prefer to that
suggested for her in the " Pictorial Shakspere."
We managed that Miranda should enter her box as the curtain rose for
the opening chorus. The house was filled, for Jenny Lind has shown us
that it is possible—sufficient reason being given—to get the subscribers into
their places at eight o'clock.
As Miranda advanced to the front, one huge volume of sound rose like a
giant wave, from the orchestra, while another, leaping from the stage, rushed
to meet it, and both blending, broke in a mighty tide of melody at her feet.
Such, at least, is her own tale; for ourselves, we merely heard the first bars of
the Sonnambula.
Miranda stood, very quiet and very pale, for a few
seconds, and then, without disturbance or appeal of any kind, as quietly
subsided into her seat—and fainted.
Certainly, when one thinks of it, the eye and the ear are strangely assailed
in those monster buildings. It seldom strikes the habitue, because he is always
thinking of some specific object—looking for some acquaintance—listening to
some favourite singer—watching some especial pet of the ballet—considering
where he will go next—or uttering imprecations on the button of his glove
for flying away. But to anybody who goes for the sake of the opera ; who
is not weighing the probable merits of the parties at which he has to show

6

THE OPERA.

himself afterwards ; who, not being a member of parliament, has not to
calculate how he can manage to see Carlotta Grisi's great pas and yet get
back to the House in time to speak on the Church Extension question; who,
not being a critic, has not to rush from the red opera to the green one, or from
the green to the red one (as, from the colour of the affiches, the rival houses are
now known), to compare thejlnale; who, not being in love, has not to stand
behind his idol's chair, talk as brilliantly as he can, and strive to spoil the
talk of his enemies—to anybody not so disqualified, the effect of either of
our Opera-houses must be overwhelming.
Beautifully constructed, the magic circle floats the lightest whisper to you,
and the ear is instantly at ease, finding that no effort is required to catch the
flying tones of the music. Nor is the eye worse treated ; let it fall where it
will it is charmed, rather than dazzled, by the artistic adornments lavishly,
but not carelessly, strewn around. And when those vast areas, glittering and
perfumed, are enriched by the noteabilities of the age, and jewelled by that
unrivalled beauty, which, be it a gift of fate, or an accident of race, is
indisputably the characteristic of English aristocracy ; when the stage,
unveiling, presents one of those gorgeous scenic displays of Grieve or
Marshall, in which true art, struggling with meretricious splendour for the
mastery, not seldom triumphs ; when the full glory of music, radiating from a
perfect chorus and orchestra, floods, in one delicious tide, every channel and
avenue of sound, the sense and the mind may be pardoned if alike they yield
to the mighty enchantment, and cling with the earnestness of a first love to
the localities which our artist has partially, but faithfully, depicted.
SHIRLEY BROOKS.

,f

R';?^

THE STREET BEGGAR.

haggard, unshorn face—with shrunk, lean limbs, the brown skin seen
through the rents in his ragged garments—the Street Beggar crouches beneath
the railings of a square, grasps a morsel of chalk between his long shaky
fingers, traces the words " I am starving" upon the flag-stones, and then waits
patiently for the charity of the public. Hurrying pedestrians pass unheedingly
by—dainty ladies trip past with a shudder—nursery-maids with children will
not allow the little masters or misses to stop and gaze at the suppliant—and
only a couple of shrill-whistling street urcjkfins favour him with a few
moments of their patronising company. But whether the passenger walks
briskly past, or whether an unwonted copper falls with a tingling ring upon
the pavement, the beggar appears to take little heed ; only in the latter case
he languidly stirs to deposit the coin in some mysterious corner of his rags.
Idlers may gather round him, pitying or gibing words may fall upon his ear,
but he gives no token that he has heard them. Either hunger has benumbed
and frozen up his faculties and sensations, or he is acting a part, and acting it
very well.
Which of these alternatives is the true one ? We do not hesitate to say,
in nineteen cases out of twenty, the latter. It is not people who come out
into the streets, and who beg melodramatically, who die of starvation.
Famine hides itself in nooks and chinks, in the bare garrets and straw-littered
dens of low lodging-houses. The victim dies, and makes no sign. Too proud
to seek relief, he is too proud to parade his need of it. It is when the week's
rent is unpaid—when no footfall or motion is heard in the room of the solitary
lodger—when the landlord becomes alarmed—and when the door is forced,
that the catastrophe of starvation stands revealed. A coroner's inquest makes
it public; the newspapers teem with the particulars. Perhaps a Sunday
print lies upon the unpainted tap-table of a public-house in a low neighbourhood. A vagrant-looking man is spelling it over. He comes to the paragraph
WITH

8

THE

STREET

BEGGAR.

headed u Death from Starvation." H e reads the account—how the respectable jurors were horrified at the emaciated appearance of the body—how a
fellow-lodger of the deceased had supplied him with a crust of bread and a
morsel of cheese a week ago—how no article of sustenance had been found in
the room—how the parish officers proved with officious zeal that no application
for relief had been made to them—and how, after an affecting address from
the coroner, the j u r y returned a verdict of " Died from want of the ordinary
necessaries of life." All this the vagrant-looking man reads, and presently
turns to his pint of porter and plate of grimy a-la-mode beef. H e is the
mendicant of the square—the chalker upon flag-stones. Starvation may be
death to others, but it is subsistence to him.
I f you want to prove this, the means are simple. The man is starving—
he says so. Give him a penny. There is a baker's shop round the corner,
and the steamy odour of new bread comes forth from the hot loaves. But
our vagrant never thinks of proceeding in quest of the staff of life. N o :
there he sits with that touching expression of mute anguish, and there he will
sit—it is his trade—until close of day ; when, shuffling to his feet, he crosses
his hands upon his breast, bends his lean body forward, and at length moves
limpingly off—for his legs are cramped, and no wonder—to some place of
resort frequented by others of his craft, where they can compare notes over
beer and pipes, secure from the dreaded interruption of the myrmidons of the
Mendicity Society.
There is no man acquainted with London streets and London beggars
who will not acknowledge the art with which these gentlemen make themselves up for their several parts. To undertake the starving " dodge" with
advantage a man must have physical requisites for the character. H e must
be lean—thin is not the word—raw-boned, and skinny ; a stout, portly fellow
would only be laughed at. H e must also have a sombre cast of features.
B u t other qualifications are needful as well—he must have patience to angle
unweariedly for his coppers; to preserve, hour after hour, an uncomfortable
attitude, in order to convey the idea of his being too weak and languid to
stir his pithless limbs ; and last, not least, he must be able to write. Indeed,
in most cases he forms the letters of his pitiful inscription with an ease and
boldness of stroke which show how familiarly they come to his hand. H e
has been " starving" a very long time.
Sometimes the Street Beggar varies his appeal. Occasionally you see
chalked " Hunger is a sharp thorn;" but this maxim is not greatly in favour.
I t is hardly pithy enough, and does not strike home. " l a m hungry" is far

THE

STREET

BEGGAR.

9

better ; better indeed, we think, upon the whole, than " I am starving." More
people are likely to understand the force of the former appeal than the latter.
There is something in it modest—touching—simple ; only to be equalled by
one other form, which consists of a single homely word, " H u n g e r . "
T h e Street Beggar is in rags—they are the symbol of his trade ; but, if
he knows his business, he is not unprovided with raiment more utterly and
comfortlessly squalid than that in which he appears when the air is warm,
the shrubs in squares and gardens rich with their greenest leaves, and the
summer sun hot upon the flags. I t is in rainy weather that he dons his
most pitiful attire. W h e n the cold clammy fog hangs over London streets —
when the north-east wind drives pelting volleys of sleety rain along the
drenched and muddy pavements, then does he wander shiveringly forth,
daring the weather, and weighing the chill pang which every gust shoots
through him with the augmented chances of pity and coin being both
evoked by his appearance. If the day be comfortless and forlorn, the night
will be proportionally pleasant—the blaze of the tap-room fire in the great
lowering public-house in Whitechapel, or the Almonry, or the Mint,
proportionably cozy and snug; and the greater the hardship suffered through
the long dreary hours of light, the greater the number of halfpence
probably gained, and the greater the number of pots of frothing liquor to
console him through the hours of darkness.
If the Street Beggar be naturally a plump subject, it is evident that
chalk and flag-stones will not prove the raw materials of his income. H e
must look out for some other expedient. The ruined operative is one of
the most common characters in the sad and vicious masquerade of beggary.
H o w often, reader, have you heard that doleful twanging voice chanting,
with a loud nasal drone, the woes of its possessor ? I t is the dim twilight;
lights are upon the table, and you are munching the slice of bread laid
beside your plate, in anxious anticipation of dinner. You hear the eleemosynary oration, gradually increasing in distinctness as the speaker slowly walks
down the middle of your quiet street. A t length you begin to catch the words.
You have frequently heard them before ; for somehow these distressed
mechanics have a wonderfully similar story to tell. I t goes in this v e i n : —
" M y dear and Christian friends—We are truly sorry to be obliged to
make this humiliating appeal to you, but it is want and hunger which drives
us to it, having tasted nothing since last night, and not having hardly a rag
to our backs or a shoe to our feet. M y dear and Christian friends, I was a
stocking-weaver in good business in Macclesfield, until the introduction of
15

10

THE

STREET

BEGGAR.

machinery threw me and my poor family upon the world, and gradually
reduced us to this truly painful and humiliating position. M y dear and
Christian friends, whom Heaven has blessed with affluence, spare us a small
portion of your stores, and you will be rewarded hereafter."
A n d then, after a short pause, the appeal is repeated. Go to the
window, and you will observe that the suppliants form, or pretend to form,
a family party. T h e man carries a child in his arms. T h e woman, with a
threadbare shawl swathed tightly round her scant form, probably bears
another; and some two or three sobbing and shivering urchins cling to the
skirts of both parents. Does the suppliant speak truth ? W e fear not, in
fully as great a proportion of cases as his confrere lies with chalk upon the
pavement. Distressed workmen there are—destitute wretches pushed by
competition, or the iron arms of faster toiling, unwearying mechanism, from
their stools ; but these are not the men, with very, yeiy few exceptions, who
beg loudly in the public ways. If the suppliants be, as they pretend, a decent
honest family deprived of bread, there are still other resources than the hard
streets and the incredulous public. T h e Union has an ugly name. Many a
man and woman, poor and not proud, have stifled a pang of hunger, and
borne under scanty covering the keenness of a winter's night, rather than
apply at that sombre portal. But hard and stinted as is parish fare—stern
and heart-crushing as are workhouse walls, the honest manly heart will
prefer them to raising the doleful cry of hunger and nakedness in the public
streets.
Let us see the Street Beggar in another character. I t is night. Gas-light
is streaming upon the trampled pavement through costly panes of plate-glass.
T h e unending stream of vehicles flows crashing, and rattling, and roaring by,
The swarms of pedestrians hurry, and jostle, and flit to and fro. All is
brisk, busy motion. All but where stands one group—a group of beggars.
They neither move nor speak. They display no tatters. They exhibit their
poverty, but they wish to make it appear decent, unobtrusive. They are
not importunate beggars, they are mute suppliants. They crave in silence
with an air which seems to say, " How meek we are in our adversity—what
a sad sight is respectability in ruins."
Eook at them. They are scrupulously neat and clean. Not a speck of
dust lingers upon the threadbare garments of the man. They have been
brushed and brushed, and fastened with buttons and pins, until the cloth shines,
as if in triumph at its own seediness. The trowsers are carefully strapped
down, and the morsel of linen displayed is scrupulously white. The man

THE

STREET

BEGGAR.

U

bears & child in his arms ; observe the artistic way in which the one scanty
faded riband is attached to the infant's cap. Using his hands as well as his
arms, the beggar holds beneath the child a very limp hat—the light falls full
upon his unprotected head, and you can see the clean-shaven chin and the
carefully-brushed, unstraggling hair. By his side stands the wife—her attire
scrupulously poor, and as scrupulously clean. She holds a lucifer-match box
or a few combs in one hand, and, in the other, that of a little boy, with a wellwashed, shiny face, curly ringlets, and very conspicuously-arranged turn-over
shirt collar. A n d so they stand, hour after hour: a tableau vivant of decent,
unmerited poverty. I t is one of those dramas of which the attraction lies not
in the dialogue but in the getting-up. The thing is a little spectacle. You
think more of the stage-manager and the property-man than of the author.
T h e chalk writer is good in his way—the orator who can no longer weave
stockings is good in Ms way ; but here no one writes, no one speaks—the
dumb-show beats it all. A n d as you think of it in a dramatic point of view,
you come naturally to consider the rehearsals which must have taken place of
the unspoken drama. H o w carefully it must have been got up. How a button
would be snipped off the old coat for the insertion of that seedy substitute, a
pin—how a rent would be artfully practised in order to exhibit the decent
darn—how the limp straw-bonnet would be carefully tricked out with a sort
of humble, make-the-best-of-it riband — how the little show bits of white
linen would have been washed and ironed, and got up, and superadded to the
worn, patched, clean clothing—until the whole must seem to cry aloud to all
beholders, " Look how poor, how very poor we a r e — b u t how decent!
Look ! we are struggling after respectability. Indeed, indeed, we would if
could. W e are no ordinary, vulgar, blackguard beggars; we are no windowbreaking vagrants; we are decent, stricken-down people. Our poverty is our
misfortune, not our fault."
Trickery—trickery a l l ; no more real than the Bowers of Bliss in a
pantomime. Honest poverty is not shame-faced, but it does not parade its
woes in the crowded street, nor " m a k e u p " to excite compassion. I t does
not batten upon the very symbols of its distress, and point them out and
make them the more obvious by contrast, in order to reap the richer harvest.
N o : honest poverty will be seeking for work, while dishonest poverty is
pocketing alms.
A n d thus, among many other ways, more or less ingenious, are our streets
exjjloite'd by these professors. Surely some horrible indefinable charm must
pervade their wandering and degraded existence. Vagabondism must have

12

THE STREET

BEGGAR.

its attractions. It braves mendicity societies, and policemen, and tread-mills.
It shows itself in a hundred shapes. It grinds organs—it sings ballads—it
blackens its face and plays on bones—it crouches in corners of streets, and
exhibits deformities—it bawls aloud for charity in quiet places—it stands in
silent supplication in great roaring thoroughfares. And beggary is seldom
the resource of a temporary pinch. We have seen the same man year after
year go his rounds—always collecting broken victuals, always looking
hungry—always getting old clothes, always wearing tatters. The man who
writes " Starving" upon the pavement to-day, you may encounter a year
hence in the same plight, and chalking the same motto on the same flag-stone.
Starvation seems to be his normal condition. He is always " starving," but
the process is slow—very slow. Rest assured, in the ordinary course of
things, hunger is not what will kill him. He knows the rascalities of the
world too well for that. Rogues don't starve so often as honest men, the
more 's the pity. There are many poor and many hungry amongst us ; but
the poorest are not those who beg, nor the hungriest those who proclaim
that they are u starving."
ANGUS B. REACH.

Afi• $ > . .

THE

CASINO.

SOME time back—dates are dry things, so we need not care about the precise
year—there existed in the neighbourhood of the Lowther Arcade an
establishment called the Adelaide Gallery.
It was at first devoted to the diffusion of knowledge. Clever professors
were there, who emulated the transatlantic acquirement of u knocking all
creation into a cocked hat," by teaching elaborate sciences in lectures of
twenty minutes ; fearful engines revolved, and hissed, and quivered, as the
fettered steam that formed their entrails grumbled sullenly in its bondage ; mice
led gasping subaqueous lives in diving-bells ; clock-work steamers ticked round
and round a basin perpetually, to prove the efficacy of invisible paddles ; and
on all sides were clever machines which stray visitors were puzzled to class
either as coffee-mills, water-wheels, roasting-jacks, or musical instruments.
There were artful snares laid for giving galvanic shocks to the unwary;
steam-guns that turned bullets into bad sixpences against the target; and
dark microscopic rooms for shaking the principles of teetotalers, by showing
the wriggling abominations in a drop of the water they were supposed daily
to gulp down by pints.
Then came a transition stage in the existence of the Adelaide Gallery, at
first stealthily brought about. The oxy-hydrogen light was slily applied to
the comic magic-lantern ; and laughing gas was made instead of carbonic
acid. By degrees music stole in ; then wizards; and lastly talented vocal
foreigners from Ethiopia and the Pyrenees. Science was driven to her wit's
end for a livelihood, but she still endeavoured to appear respectable. The
names of the new attractions were covertly put into the bills, sneaking under
the original engines and machines in smaller type. She was an exemplification
of the old story of the decayed gentlewoman, who, driven to cry ei Muffins"
for her existence, always hoped that nobody heard her.
But, between the two stools of philosophy and fun, Science shared the

14

THE

CASINO.

usual fate attendant upon such a position—she broke down altogether. Her
grave votaries were disgusted with the comic songs, and the admirers of the
banjo were bored with the lectures. So neither went to see h e r ; poor Science
declined into the Gazette; and r vague as to money matters and accounts—
her common failing—fled to America.
But during all this time a mania for dancing had been gradually coming
on, and at last burst forth. Not even the propensity of St. Vitus, when, in
the middle ages, a red slipper placed on the highway was sufficient to collect
and set going a host of dancing maniacs in his popular pas, could have kept
pace with the movement. New dances were called for, and new music for
them. T h e supply was equal to the demand; the domestic " Paine's First
Set," of Quadrille's childhood, was laid aside for Herz ; then for Musard ; and
then for Jullien, Weippert, Coote, Bosisio, and a host of others. Clever people
had always defined the earth to be one large ball, and there was every chance
of its practically proving the truth of the statement.
Travellers also began to tell bright legends of Terpsichore's palaces in her
own land—of the Chaumiere, with its bosquets and Montagnes Russes ; of the
guinguettes beyond the barriers of Paris ; of the Chateau Rouge ; and lastly, of
the glittering Bal Mabille, with its palm-tree lights and trellises of bronze
vines—its ruling spirits, whose names became great facts in Paris—the " g r a n d e
brune" Mogador, the graceful Frisette and Rigolette, the inimitable student
Brididi—le moulin perpetuel, as he was called in the Quartier Latin—whom
no one could approach in his wonderful gyrations; and finally, the veteran
Chicard. A n d at last all the steam-engines and water-works were cleared
away, and the Adelaide Gallery was devoted entirely to the goddess of the
" twinkling feet," and called a Casino.
Imagine a very long and very high room—so high that there are two
rows of museum-like galleries running round the walls, between the floor and
ceiling. A t one end is a capital orchestra, and beneath it a refreshment room;
the entrance staircases are at the other. A s you enter, a Polka is going on,
and the coup-d'asil from the gallery is well worth the visit. A t first the salle
exhibits a scene of moving confusion similar to that which the drop of water
formerly showed in the microscope. T h e dancers—and there may be sixty or
eighty couples—are taking all directions, and in all styles, yet seldom coming
into collision. Some are slowly progressing, with short creeping steps, round the
outer boundary of the polka; others, more daring, drive up and down the
centre with fearful rapidity ; but all dance well—certainly as well as the mass
of habitues of the Paris public ball-rooms, and without a shade of impropriety.

THE

CASINO.

15

Should any, indeed, transgress in this respect, they are immediately
expelled.
The Polka finished, refreshments are eagerly sought after, and of these the
" sherry-cobbler " is the one in greatest request. I t must be confessed that the
peculiar vintage to which " the golden wine of X e r e s " used in that beverage
belongs, is difficult of detection. But nectar, whatever it was, could not
have been more delicious to the gods of old, than sherry-cobbler to the
polkers. I t is not strong to be sure; but this is an advantage, in addition to
that of the corresponding modesty of price. It is amusing to drink, involving
pneumatic and hydraulic principles taught in a far more pleasing manner than
was once the case with the air-pumps, and many others, on the same spot.
I t is the most social refreshment known, as two straws may be employed in
its absorption—straws that show clearly which way the wind blows; and
when eyes are so closely opposed to one another, no one knows what may
result. A n d , to the observer, it has the agreeable property of offering an
occupation, whilst his vision remains unobstructed to be employed about
him.
Raise your own eyes from the floating lumps of crystal you are so
intently watching, and let us point out to you the persons who pass in
this droll kaleiclescope of London life. That good-tempered young man
leaning against the railing, and talking to a small silver-grey plush bonnet,
is an Earl. H e is making an engagement for the next dance, when you
will see him the most active of all. By his side are two unmitigated Gents
in white coats, and hats out of the perpendicular, short sticks, and flaring
cravats, who think they are " doing the fast"—types of an overwhelming
class. T h e two young men, lounging round, arm in arm, are in the Guards.
T h e y are nodding to a good-looking fellow with long spiral mustachios
and j e t black eyes, in the reserved seats above, next to a very florid,
merry-faced gentleman, whose blood is as nearly royal as may well be,
a n d voice the same, to judge from the specimen the public is best acquainted
with. Then comes a square-built paletote'd barrister, the best deux-temps
waltzer in the place —the " B r i d i d i " of the Casino—followed by two or three of
less renown, who hang about him to share his popularity. Anon, a tribe
of young litterateurs, making the visit on the strength of the " orders"
of the journals with which they are connected. Next, a group of shop-boys,
who would like to smoke if it was allowed ; a fewmen-about-the-City from Mark
Lane, Lothbury, and Throgmorton Street; some provincial visitors; one
or two university men, out on the loose ; and then a crowd of those faces

10

THE

CASINO.

you are so familiar with, about, in the London world, but whose names
or families you never know. This singular mass keeps moving round and
round; and then the music begins again.
Laurent's band is the best for its mission in London. T h e Casino is
worth a visit, if it be only to hear it, and especially with Trien on the
cornet : it fairly lifts you off your legs. Weippert's is very good, but
better adapted to the West-end drawing-room or the county ball, where
the separate excellence of the performers comes out to greater advantage ;
and Jullien's requires an immense number of musicians to give proper
effect to his repertoire.
Barnard's would be perfect if the other instruments
did not, at times, swamp his own admirable piano playing ; and Adams's
has been so lost in a connexion who incline to Lancers and Caledonians,
and other painful fandangos, that we hardly know what he can do.
Certainly, what he, or the master of the ceremonies, puts down in his
rococo programmes, he plays most excellently well; but the dances themselves are atrocious.
W e really believe that the Casino is a wholesome institution; and that,
far from propagating Gentism, it has, in a measure, suppressed it. Individuals
who are cooped up all day, on high stools or behind counters, must have
some method of setting free their constrained energies. I n France they
despoil palaces and upset thrones, when they are out on the loose; in
England, formerly they stole knockers and smashed lamps; and they also
got wonderfully drunk. Now, at the conclusion of a Casino programme-—
after a two hours' sudatorium—all
these rollicking propensities are so
thoroughly taken out of them, that the bed, which was formerly looked
upon as a " s l o w " refuge, to be patronised, like home, when everything
else had been used up, is very calmly resorted to. W e are not going to
anatomize the company at the Casino too minutely. Bad ingredients there
are, without doubt, in its composition—but so there are in every public
assembly; and the question is, whether these objectionable particles might
not be worse occupied than in listening to a capital band, sucking up most
inoffensive sherry-cobblers, or flying round and round in a polka or waltz,
until they have hardly got an atom of wind in their lungs, or a leg to stand
upon ?

ALBERT SMITH.

•£%;C^

-r''lVr.y,$7/ • f ^ ; ^ \

MUSIC IN THE DRAWING-ROOM.

M u s i c , on occupying the drawing-room, at once established a m o n o p o l y declared itself the sole amusement. T h e portfolio, brilliant with the designs
of six young ladies—ranging from the one eye and pair of lips out of drawing, to the highly-finished Turk, with excessively " foldy" turban-—was
closed never to re-open, or confined to the inspection of lucky friends, who
might chance to call in the morning. T h e round-game table, with its
chattering, its laughter, and that species of excitement which a run of illluck might easily warm up into a " pretty quarrel," was banished, with all
its apparatus of fish and their pools. In the last case insult is added to
injury, for people are not contented with the destruction of " Pope Joan,"
and " Speculation," but talk complacently of their own advance in civilization,
because they sit vapidly listening (or pretending to listen) to some unmeaning
song, whereas of old they were actually amused by the ruder recreation.
W i t h whist a sort of compromise was effected, but greatly to the disadvantage of the card side of the question. Here and there a solitary table is
allowed to stand, that it may act as a sort of safety-valve, to carry off heavy
old ladies and "slow" young gentlemen. The whist-table is no post of
honour ; it is rather an accomplishment than otherwise not to know a spade
from a club, and no small dexterity in the art of recruiting is required to
muster a whist party of four. Generally the attempt proves a failure, and
the unopened pack and undisturbed counters stand as monuments of the
unsuccessful endeavour.
The banishment of the portfolio is not to be regretted.
T h e portfolio
was a " bore."
I t was generally filled by purchasing a tolerably good twoshilling " study," and making some execrable copies thereof. The accomplished exhibitress shrank not from comparisons, but generally displayed at
once the original and the imitation, so that you had a full opportunity of
appreciating the scratchiness of h.er shading and the deviations of her outline.
C

18

MUSIC IN T H E

DRAWING-ROOM.

The fair engraving smiled softly but ironically upon you by the side of the
grim copy; and, when expected to praise the latter, the presence of strong
facts fearfully weakened your power of flattery.
For the round game, which is now crammed into Christmas Day, together
with forfeits, &c*_, being only recognised as a festal foolery, we indulge in a
sigh. At any rate, it gave everybody something to do, and there was a chance
of winning enough to cover a pair of gloves and a turnpike home: and there
is always a pleasure in becoming suddenly strong in " small money."
But it is useless to draw distinctions. One common flood has overwhelmed all the old evening amusements. And this vast deluge, which has
annihilated so much, goes by the modest name of " a little music."
Mind, we are not talking about " soirees musicales? or any festivities at
which anything professional is introduced ; but, by " little music/' we mean
that peculiar exhibition by unprofessional " accomplished" individuals, the
signal for whose operations is the retirement of the tea-tray. The musical
parties, properly so called, are specialties, like scientific conversazioni, or
parties to hear somebody's five-act tragedy read, or literary oyster-suppers;
and do not come within the definition of general drawing-room usages.
As a revolution usually devours its own children, so did " little music,"
having dethroned Pam, and cut off crayon heads, begin to annihilate musical
instruments. Those who attend concerts and read historical novels may be
aware that there is an instrument called a harp, very pleasant to look upon,
but usually very dismal to hear. Anciently, an instrument of this description
stood in drawing-room corners, and one young lady in a large family was
heard occasionally to play upon it. There used also to be young gentlemen,
with romantic hair and white waistcoats, who would employ the flute, either
for solo or accompaniment. Nay, some would even venture into the middle
of the room, and sing to a Spanish guitar. These instruments appeared in
the first flush of victory, and were only members of " little music's" provisional government. Soon they were sent off to share the fate of the other
exiles, as " little music" declared imperatively that the voice and the piano
should be the only organs. The harp thus became a splendid Mythus; the
flute was confined to the lodgings of single gentlemen, and was regarded by
their neighbours as a nuisance, somewhat less than the cornet-a-piston; and
the guitar could only be rescued by those humorists who went at the
decidedly " funny," and modifying it into the banjo, used it to accompany
Ethiopian melodies. This, however, is but an exceptional existence.
The voice and the piano, then, are alone regnant. " Little music" may

MUSIC I N T H E

DRAWING-ROOM.

19

be divided into vocal and instrumental—the former executed by the voice
with the piano, the latter by the piano without the voice. The unaccompanied
song is an Anglo-Saxon atrocity, and is at best confined to the humorous
gentleman who dares to produce the banjo, and may do anything he pleases—
even tricks with cards. Once it existed under the form of the " song after
supper," but it was compelled to abandon that form for the very cogent reason
that supper itself (save at dances) has been demolished.
Vocal and instrumental " little music" are subject to different laws. Any
one who likes may sit down unbidden at the piano, and play waltzes and
polkas ad libitum,, without being invited by a single soul. The same party
may rush to the revolving stool at any interval between a couple of songs, and
fill up the gap by a display of his (more probably her J brilliant execution.
On the other hand, to sing uninvited would be a hideous breach of decorum
—a sort of invasion which society would have a right to resist. The abuses
to which this partial law might lead are in some measure corrected by the
circumstance that no one is expected to listen to the player, while the singer
has a right to hope for an audience of at least three in a large party, exclusive
of the enthusiast who turns over leaves, and asks everybody how he likes
Alboni.
The social morceaux, which belong to " little music," are peculiar. All
those songs which you see in Regent Street music-shops, often adorned
with very pretty sentimental lithographs, and rejoicing in such titles as
" Mary Anne," " Love Always," (with a counter-song dedicated to the
composer, called, " Do not Love at all,") " The Troubadour was a gallant
Youth," " Hasten back from the Crusades," all these are the celebrities of
" little music." They belong to no opera; they have been sung at almost
no concert, save by the single vocalist whose name appears on the title-page,
and who gave them a fillip by one single performance. They descend to no
barrel-organ—they are whistled by no butcher's boy; they are never parodied
in burlesques; the name of the composer does not strike you as remarkably
familiar—he may, perchance, be a letter of the Greek alphabet. He who
passed his life at public places would think that these works were buried in
the deepest obscurity. Not at all. Seek them in the drawing-room, and
you shall find them honourably enveloped in smart cases, and you shall even
hear them declared " sweet." They are usually sung by young ladies in a
voice so soft as to be almost inaudible three yards from the piano ; and, on
the whole, we may say that they are more popular with the performer than
the listener.

20

MUSIC IN T H E

DKAWING-ROOM.

" Little m u s i c " produces various effects upon the company assembled
during its performance. There is the fanatic (already alluded to), who
turns over the leaves, and smiles blandly on every occasion. H e is himself a
vocalist ; has no objection to sing second, if a duet, which somebody knows,
should turn up ; and insinuates that he has a stall at the ^ Opera, without
stating the fact so broadly as to commit himself. Then there are the two or
three young ladies who have a perfect knowledge of each other's resources,
who press the unwilling, and have a perfect recollection that they have
frequently heard songs in the morning from those obstinate souls, who, in the
evening, protest that they have never sung in their lives. Deeply are these
ladies versed in the contents of numer ous portfolios, and they in fact constitute
the body by which the sentence of " pretty," " ugly," " nice," " frightful,"
&c. is passed on the pictured compositions, which form the stock-in-trade
of "little music." These parties compose the whole permanent audience
of the exhibition, since nothing short of something decidedly comic, or
astoundingly bacchanalian, will fix the attention of an entire company. T h e
effect of the music on the rest is singular enough. Some persons of a taciturn
disposition, and with a strong innate dislike to strangers, drop their nature
at the first note of a song, and begin to talk as loud as they can about
politics. Others, who would never look at a line of verse, or deign to bestow
a stray glance at an engraving under any other circumstances, will, at the
same signal, creep to the table strewed with annuals, and allow themselves to be
absorbed by pictures and poetry. There are many folks with whom literature,
politics, and the fine arts are never popular, but when they serve as means
for distracting the mind from " little music."
The most honest of the
non-listeners is he who looks out for an easy chair in some remote corner of
the room, seats himself in it, luxuriantly folds his arms, and goes to sleep like
a man, neither courting nor shunning observation.
This man alone will be reproached with having n o taste for music. A t
him mammas will look scornfully, young ladies will laugh undisguisedly,
and the leaf-turning fanatic will smile compassionately, defending him with
the observation that he is " one of the old school." For, mind, the whole body
of non-listeners, with this one exception, all the hard talkers and students of
annuals, are, to a man, loud in professing admiration for " Music in the
Drawing-room," and are strong in their contempt for the ancient round
game.
JOHN OXENFORD.

MUSIC IN THE STREETS.

W E happen to live in a quarter of London peculiarly favourable for
studying the varieties of the perambulating musicians of the thoroughfares.
I n this class we do not include the brass bands who take u p their position in
front of a gin-shop, and peal out waltzes, polkas, and operatic novelties, with
all the force that cornets-a-piston and trombones can give, to large surrounding
crowds. The entrejirise, in this case, is of comparative magnitude, and the
members of the band have a certain position. They may be seen, on other
occasions, in the orchestra of the cheap public ball-room, on board the Richmond or Gravesend steamers, or possibly heading an election procession.
Nay, we have at times detected some of the troupe as beef-eaters, or anomalous
foreigners, in caps of sham tiger-skin, shaped like huge flower-pots, and robes
of bed-curtain chintz (of the "furnished-apartment" fabric, which keeps clean,
or rather conceals dirt, so long), blowing away all their energies in front of a
menagerie or dancing-show at a large fair. They have evidently many
resources for turning their acquirements to account, and are not specimens of
the tribe we are about to notice. The real Street Musician depends solely
upon the streets for his means of existence ; and they must be streets of a
certain kind.
W e have said that the one in which we reside furnishes us with good
specimens. I t leads from a great thoroughfare to next to none at all, and so
is tolerably quiet in itself, although close to a running stream of population.
The greater part of its houses are let into lodgings on the ground, first, and
second floors, and this gives it a large number of inhabitants. T h e y are
mostly quiet, stay-at-home people, either from inclination or profession—the
first are guided by their means ; the latter are artists. You may know where
they live from their tall drawing-room window rising up to the floor of the
apartment above. I n fact it is a street of artistes altogether, in the general
acceptation of the word. I n summer, when the windows are open, you will

22

MUSIC IN THE STREETS.

hear the rumblings of professional pianos, or the endeavours of tenors in
training to reach fearful notes ; you may also listen to a single violin accompanying the tuition of a pupil in the mysteries of the polka or deux-temps.
There are two medical men in the street. One enacts the high legitimate drama
of his profession—his house is solemn and unadorned ; the other trusts to
effect and scenic display, and mounts a deep red lamp like a railway danger
signal. There is not much traffic ; private carriages wait at the doors, or
drawl up and down in the shade, and hack cabs occasionally scuffle and clatter
over the stones ; or a break makes a journey of doubtful safety from the
livery-stables at the end : but this is all. Nor are the foot-passengers very
numerous, except on fine afternoons, and then such swarms of pretty girls
glide along the pavement on their way to the West-end from the Torrington, and W o b u r n , and Russell Square districts, that a susceptible
looker-on, in ambush behind his wire-gauze window-blinds, may well get
beside himself.
This is just the kind of neighbourhood that the Street Musicians affect,
and they haunt it all day long. They glean more from lodging-houses than
from private dwellings ; Tnose who are not very well off themselves have
greater sympathy with them.
T h e first music is heard at early morning, whilst we are dressing. I t is a
harsh organ, and must be played principally to the servants who are cleaning
the door-steps—its invariable air, 'f W e may be happy yet," suggesting anticipations of the evening kitchen, swept up and clean for tea: possibly a vision
of a small shop in the general line ; or, may be, a thought of the policeman or
the soldier. T h e sound vanishes, and at breakfast-time a mighty instrument
drawn on wheels, reminding one of a quantity of trumpets shut up in a
book-case and ground into tunes, takes up its place, with two attendants,
before the window, and bursts forth into the prayer from " Moses in E g y p t "
with a force perfectly startling. This collects a small audience, for there is a
conjuror in the top compartment of the case who keeps lifting up two small
cups, displaying oranges, dice, and anon nothing at all, as he bows his head
gravely and opens his mouth. There is another cup in the middle, which is
never lifted up at all, but this complicates the trick, and makes it more
mystic. There is a singular circumstance connected with this instrument
which will be worth looking after. The one we speak of is accompanied b y
a black dog who really knows the houses from which former collections have
been made. H e sits up on his hind legs and barks at the upper windows
until the expected halfpenny is thrown out ; when this is done, he puts his

MUSIC IN THE STREETS.

23

head between the area railings, and generally obtains a few scraps from the
servants.
A s this monster accordion is drawn away, a singularly distressing noise is
heard approaching from the other end of the street. If it be possible t h a t
the sounds of the Pastoral Symphony can represent certain meteorological
phenomena, and that the Lieder ohne worte suggest their own, then may this
discord depict great intestinal agony—-the stomach-ache of unripe fruit,
and bad vin ordinaire, and Italian cream. I t comes on, and we now perceive
a cripple—who prefers the mud in the middle of the road to the pavement—
dragging his own load on, until he rests himself upon a small crutch like an
augur, and tortures a clarionet in the most lamentable fashion.
This man's
performance is remarkable from its utter badness.
H e does not attempt to
play any tune, but lifts up or stops down his fingers according to chance—at
least so it appears—and always finishes on a note that has nothing at all to
do with the key. B u t the noise he contrives to make is awful.
If Verdi
were dead, he would produce more unpleasant riot in the year than anybody
else in the world.
H e moves away ; and like the Dutch toys, in'whicrj. certain objects—such
as poultry, railway trains, boats, or soldiers—are wound round and round,
popping up out of one sentry-box and ducking down into another, to the
mild tinkling of certain plectra and tightened wires within, another object
succeeds him. This is an organ again, that plays " Maid, those bright eyes,"
from La Sonnambula, unchangingly. But it has the advantage over the very
first, in possessing a mechanical attraction.
On its top is arranged a ballroom, of high society.
To the left, the Guards' band, in full uniform, is
playing to the dancers ; on the right, certain distinguished guests, in remarkable toilets, which partake of the fashions of the inmates of Noah's ark and
the small-jointed men who grind the mysterious toy-mills, in chocolate coats
and light green hats, are playing cards, reading the newspapers, or conversing.
On a revolving " turn-table," in the centre, are the dancers.
They are performing an anomalous figure. I t is neither a polka nor a deux-temps, nor an
ancient waltz ; perhaps it is that mystic measure formerly called a jig. They
are mostly paired ; but one gentleman prefers dancing by himself, and his
innate politeness is shown by his raising his hat every time he faces the
spectators. . W h e n the quadrille is over, a party of horse-artillery enter at a
pair of folding-doors, and ride across the salle-de-danse, which impresses us
with the idea that the assembly is of a seditious and turbulent character ; but
they go out again very orderly at an opposite egress, and then the ball once
more commences.

24

MUSIC

IN THE

STREETS.

T h e y have scarcely departed, when the rumbling, as it were, of an
approaching storm, breaks in upon the fete champetre, and we recognise the
approach of the Scotch itinerant band. Three tendon-scrapers, presumed to
be blind, come on, keeping close to the area railings, and making a noise more
fearful even than the man with the clarionet. Yet, through it all there is
some shadow of an air—some, " Tullochgorum," or " Cockie-leekie," or
" Gillie-callum," or " Lassie o' Pibroch," or whatever it means, for we must
confess that Scotch terms are greatly confused in our minds, from the number
of " entertainers" M r . Wilson gave rise to. They keep doggedly on, sawing
away at their instruments, and would drive their hearers distracted, did not a
piano-organ follow them, as an antidote, with " Old Dan Tucker," and the
" German Polka."
W e have met with enthusiasts who, in their admiration of any particular
artiste, have followed him or her about, from one capital to another, wherever
their engagements led them. W e have, indeed, known those who have been
present at every one of J e n n y Lind's debuts in the various cities of Europe—
who, enthralled by the charming Carlotta Grisi's impassioned
Esmeralda,
have been led, in a wandering truandaise, over pretty nearly the same route
—who have never missed one night of Van Amburgh's daring performances
with the lions, or of Palmyre Anato's graceful leaps through the hoops. T h e
performer on the piano-organ is accompanied b y an amateur of similar
constancy, in the shape of a boy with bones, who performs an obligato
whenever he stops. They have never spoken to one another, nor does any
token of recognition pass between them ; but the rattle always comes in at
the proper place with Ethiopian accuracy, and when this pitch for catching
halfpence is exhausted they move away, simultaneously, to another.
T h e old air, " H a r k ! 'tis the Indian drum!" suggests itself, as a tum-tum
sound is next heard at the end of the thoroughfare, and a lascar appears, in
company with a small dark child, who strives to sing some popular street
air, whilst he beats the time on a primitive instrument, fashioned from an
oyster barrel, with parchment ends, after the Ojibbeway pattern. T h e
performance is not calculated to impress us with high notions of an Asiatic
orchestra; and is only surpassed, in lack of meaning, by the efforts of a
revoltingly-dirty Italian boy to grind music from a dilapidated piano-organ
with only one or two wires remaining, which are struck or not as chance
directs. H e is, to appearance, an idiot; and the small fry of the neighbouring
alleys make fun of him ; but those conversant with street impostures assure
lis that it is a capital assumption of imbecility to provoke the alms of the
feeble-minded.

MUSIC IN TPIE

STREETS.

25

From the time of the appearance of this wretched creature, until nightfall,
the invasion of distressing sounds still keeps on. Savoyards, with hurdygurdies ; Dutch-girls, with organs and tambourines, who sing outlandish
melodies ; single violinists ; Pandgean pipists, who accompany Punch, the
fantoccini, the mountebanks, and hornpipe dancers, pass before our windows
without intermission. A n d then—when the lamps are lighted in the streets
and shops, and the ceaseless roar of wheels somewhat abates—a new class of
musicians comes forth.
These have rather more pretensions to melody than those of the daytime.
They are found now and then with a harp in their small b a n d ; and they
perform songs with voices whose wrecks show that at one time they possessed
certain taste and musical knowledge. W e have encountered females playing
the violin with no mean skill ; and once we remember to have seen an old
jangling piano wheeled about the streets, on which a poor artiste performed
with much ability. W h e n these little groups become known, they are
admitted to the entrances of taverns, or the parlours of the lower order of
public-houses, and make a considerable sum in the course of an evening ;
and then they leave our street altogether.
F o r the neutral gloom of the
middle of the thoroughfare does not suit them.
If they cannot get opposite
the flaring gas jet of a ticketed shop, or under the bright lamp of a gin-shop,
their chances of remuneration are small.
The history of these wandering professionals is generally told in the same
kind of story. Possibly, at first the man is in some kind of regular employment, and a simple musical amateur, playing for his own amusement after
hours. Gradually he ceases to attend to his proper business, and gets a
situation in the orchestra of a saloon or minor theatre, preferring to live from
u
hand to mouth"—a common failing with artistic idiosyncrasies in general.
H e r e he first meets the female, who may play small singing parts ; or is,
perhaps, in the chorus, if the establishment is of sufficient importance to
engage one. They marry, or establish some less reputable menage ; and then
the struggle for the crust begins. Several single engagements are to be
obtained at the old establishments, but none that will occupy them both. A
singing villager may be wanted, to express delight at the fete of calico roses
and papier-mache refreshments ; or a musical chambermaid is required to
sing an interpolated ballad in what is called the " carpenter's scene" of the
piece, when a pair of flats are pushed together, nearly close to the footlights,
to allow something especial to be got ready b e h i n d : but the place of the
second violin is occupied, and likely to remain so ; or vice versa.
A n d so,
D

26

MUSIC IN T H E

STREETS.

after much privation and misery, with possibly an infant to add to their
distress, they contrive to learn some duets and single ballads, and procure an
engagement at a public-house twopenny concert.
F r o m this moment they sink lower and lower in their wretchedness.
The man was not a drunkard before ; but now, as soon as he has finished his
dreary comic song, and, putting on his hat, returns to his place at one of the
tables, half-a-dozen glasses of hard ale, u turpentiny" gin-and-water, or dark
empyreumatic brandy, are offered to him by his admirers. Always something
to drink—never so much even as a biscuit and cheese, or a penny ham-sandwich
to eat. These mixed and impure beverages, the tobacco-clouded atmosphere
of the room, and the late hours, combined with the occasional wandering
from one " saloon" to another, entirely destroy his constitution. H e can eat
no breakfast, but he can drink—always drink—for he is always thirsty ; and
tlie_prima donna of the concert huddles a shawl over her worn merino dress,
and goes out for some more of the hard ale. Gradually he gets asthmatic,
and can no longer sing. T h e female goes out by herself, and earns ten or
twelve shillings a-week, the greater part of which goes in drink, until her
companion is prostrated by delirium tremens, and she is compelled to stay at
home with him.
Heaven only knows how they then contrive to exist, for they can scarcely
be said to live. The relieving officer might perhaps enlighten us thereon,
b u t relieving officers see so much wretchedness, that succeeding cases make no
impression on their minds sufficiently vivid to be retailed. A t length, however, the man recovers ; but he is no longer of any use in the concert-room.
A violin is not wanted. If he could play the piano, he might thump away
upon the grimy keys of an old grand, accompanying songs and murdering
polkas between them, for half-a-crown a-night ; and even this would be a
chance. The woman's voice is also gone, together with every trace of whatever decent appearance she might formerly have possessed: and so there is
nothing left but the streets. A n d the stony-hearted streets are henceforth
their only hope, until the hospital or workhouse finally receives them.
If you care to make the inquiry, you will find that this is the usual story,
as we have stated, of these distressed artistes.
Not being over-addicted to
the " humanity-mongery" school of writing, or putting much belief in the
" great wrongs" of the tag-rag-and-bobtail of the metropolis, we have told the
tale as simply as may be, without trying to work up the sympathies, which
have been so falsely and so frequently called upon of late by literary philanthropists, that we will not run the chance of finding no response to our appeal.

MUSIC IN T H E

27

STREETS.

But this we will say : that if you have a few halfpence jingling in the pocket
of your paletot, you will do well to give them to these poor people. They
are not beggars : they evidently do something for their livelihood ; and bad
as their performance may be, it has required some little application and
intelligence to bring it to what it really is.
Several old acquaintances who once waked the echoes of the quiet streets
have gradually departed. First and foremost, we miss the ingenious professor
who shook the hat of Chinese bells, beat the drum and cymbals with his knees,
and played the mouth-organ all at once. H e is gone, and albeit he must have
left his apparatus behind him, no one has supplied his place. T h e n there was
the wandering barytone who sang to the dulcimer, in an oil-skin cap and red
whiskers ; and whom, in the summer-tide, we can all so well recollect upon
the sunny turf of Ascot and Egham, between the ropes and the front rank of
carriages. Once, too, we had monthly visits from a foreigner, who accompanied his guitar with the Pandsean pipes ; but he appears no longer. A n d ,
humblest music of all, the simple pipe and tabor, that bespoke the presence
of the two Savoyard dolls upon the string, have departed. Possibly we are
getting more refined in our notions, and require a higher class of entertainment than these professors offered to us. This is very likely the case. T h e
gin-shop bands and the large organs are by no means to be despised. The
gems of the opera are promulgated by them about the streets ; and, should
the same improvements extend in vocal as well as instrumental music, it is
not improbable but that before long vagrant Daughters of the Regiment, and
wandering Normas may make their shrill voices heard in our thoroughfares,
as the dansenses of Covent Garden and the Haymarket have their humble
imitators on the rickety shutter or old bit of carpet placed upon the paving.

ALBERT SMITH.

COVENT GARDEN MARKET.
T H E R E is no rus in urbe like Covent Garden Market.
T h e patches of struggling vegetation in square, park, or garden, whose
only commerce with the sun is a sort of bowing acquaintance—a distant nod
exchanged en passant through the chinks of a smoky cloud—have been
wittily designated " Nature put in the pound for straying." But this is wit
at the expense of truth. They are not Nature at all, but a vile caricature,
daubed in charcoal and lampblack. T h e petrified trees of a coal-mine have as
much claim on our sympathies. They satisfy no yearnings, but are silent and
sullen as the walls that frown on them. They make no response to the inward
voice that " babbles of green fields;" and, like the windows of a prison, show
us a glimpse of the unencompassed world only through a black grating that
reminds us of our imprisonment.
H o w differently are we affected by Covent Garden Market. Here Nature
empties forth, her teeming lap, filled with the choicest produce of her happiest
generation. The loveliness of the land is there and the fatness thereof. A t
one glance we pass in review the prime and bloom of vegetation, and communicate directly with the riches of the earth. I t is the metropolitan
congress of the vegetable kingdom, where every department of the " growing"
and u blowing" world has its representatives—the useful and the ornamental,
the needful and the superfluous, the esculent and the medicinal. Here the
Londoner fraternizes with the rustic, and acknowledges that he is not all
bricks and mortar—that Nature has still some parental claims upon him which
he cannot entirely away with.
It is a twofold temple, dedicated to Pomona and Flora, in which daily
devotion is paid to the productive divinities. H e r e , as in a very temple, all
classes and grades, all denominations and distinctions of men, jostle each
other in the humility of a common dependence on the same appetites, the
same instincts, the same organs of taste, sight, and smell:—the fashionable lady

C0VENT GARDEN

MARKET.

29

who has left her Brougham at the entrance, in quest of the pampered nursling
of the conservatory, and the wan needlewoman, bent on the purchase of a
bunch of wallflowers, or a root of pale primroses to keep her paler cheeks
in countenance ; the artizan's wife, purveying for her husband's meal, and the
comfortable housekeeper, primed with the discriminating lore of Mrs. Glass,
making provisions for her winter preserves ; the bloated gourmand, in search
of precocious peas, and the sickly hypochondriac, eager to try the virtues of
some healing herb.
The priestesses who serve the temple form two distinct classes, those of
Pomona and those of Flora—the Basket-woman and the Bouquet-girl. I t is
to the first that our artist has dedicated the mingled grace and vigour of his
pencil, and has shown her to us in the midst of her athletic avocations.
Hers is no finikin type of female beauty; the taper waist and slender neck
would ill befit the rude labours she is devoted to. Her portly figure is rather
architectural than sculptural in its graces ; and with arms upraised, in support
of the basket balanced on her head, she might serve as a model for the
caryatids of a new temple to the deity she serves.
H e who would behold her in full activity must 'gratify his curiosity at
some expense. H e must voluntarily accomplish that which is enforced upon
the vegetable visitor of the market—he must tear himself from his bed,
foregoing the suavities of the morning's sleep to face the bleak air of dawning
day. Unless, indeed, he repair to the scene, as we have often done, as a sort
of " finish"—to use the language of antiquated fast men—after a round of
evening parties, his temples throbbing with an unhallowed mixture of festive
beverages, from the bland negus to the ice-bound fire of champagne punch;
his senses jaded with a thousand artificial and violent delights ; and, perhaps,
a secret wound rankling at his heart—a wound that he has attempted to treat
with light indifference, and to bury under a hecatomb of flirtations, but
which now asserts itself with redoubled pangs, and mingles its reproaches to
the many-voiced objurgations of conscience to sicken and disgust him with
his existence. U n d e r such circumstances is it that the most striking phase
of Covent Garden—that which it presents on the morning of a market-day—
will produce its fullest effect. I t is under such circumstances that it has
impressed itself upon our minds, and that we can speak of it most naturally.
Led by a vague instinct, an unconscious attraction—as towards some
refreshing influence, some healing spring that should comfort the fevered
spirit that lay sick within us—we have found ourselves mechanically following
some huge cabbage-laden waggon, as it loomed and rumbled through the

30

COVENT GARDEN MARKET.

deserted streets until it stopped and ranged itself with its companions round
the market square. Here, with vacant attention, we have watched each
process, joined each busy group, followed with our eyes the contents of each
waggon in its various distribution, snuffing eagerly the mingled perfumes
from the extempore parterres that were spreading before us, and inhaling
with joyful and dilated lungs the countryfied atmosphere that was, as it were,
being unpacked with each cart-load of rustic produce.
Gradually, as all impurities seemed cleansed away from our mind, and a
more cheerful and healthy spirit awakened within us, we took a keener
interest in the increasing bustle and variety of the spectacle that disclosed
itself with the full dawn of morning. W e watched the nature of each
particular scene and the character of the actors therein, or listened to the
arguments accompanying each bargain, until it was finally completed in the
adjoining public-house, amidst the ceremonial libations of gin, half-and-half,
or heavy wet ; scrutinizing the peculiarities of buyer and seller. First, the
various grades of rusticity in the vendors, from the complete bacon-fed
bumpkin, who has come u p with a load of turnips, and the semi-countrified
market-gardener—half'country half town, like a stagecoach-omnibus—to the
cockney nurseryman, distinguishable only by the inseparable pedantry of his
profession. The no less marked and more numerous distinctions in the
purchasers : the well-to-do shopkeeper, with neatly appointed cart and sleek
horse ; the petty dealer, whose equipage exhibits various stages of rickets ;
the hawker, with truck or donkey-cart, wdiose stentorian voice will shortly
awaken the echoes of many a tranquil quarter, with the familiar cry of
" green gooseberries," " all a-growing all a-blowing," or " cherries round and
sound," & c , &c. ; lastly, the stall-woman and the flower-girl—she of the
" two bunches a-penny"—laying out with anxious discretion the small capital
borrowed for the day, and for which exorbitant interest will have to be paid
to some extortionate old hag—some withered she-Rothschild of rags and
tatters—who, by some infernal compact with the devil of usury and a hard
heart in lieu of the philosopher's stone, contrives to reap a golden harvest
from squalid misery.*
Amidst this medley of divided interests, of varied ranks and conditions,
of larger or smaller insects, swarming and feeding on the plenteous growth of
Nature, moves the stately form of the Basket-woman, upreared above the rest
* This is a fact. There is a class of money-lenders—generally women—who furnish capital to
the lower class of hawkers, at the most outrageous profit.

COVENT GARDEN MARKET.

31

by the height of her toppling burden, discharging her simple and unvarying
functions, like the embodiment of invisible justice presiding over and
regulating the affairs of men.
Bodily refreshed by approximation with pure and wholesome objects,
gradually diverted from morbid discontent, and restored to something like
equanimity, by the contemplation of persevering industry struggling through
misery less fantastic than our own, we have bent our steps homeward, a wiser
and a more sleepy man.
Towards the afternoon another and very different phase of the market is
presented. To the range of heavy tilted carts and waggons has succeeded a
line of brilliant and elegant equipages.
T h e utile has given place to the
dulce, and pleasure now shows itself almost as busy as need. Over this period
of the day Flora more especially presides, and the Bouquet-girl—her priestess—
is in the height of her ministry.
H e r delicate fingers are now busily
employed in tricking out the loveliness of nature ; for even her loveliest
daughters must be drilled and trained ere they can make their debut in the
world of artifice they are called upon to adorn. Their slender stems need a
wiry support to prop the head, that else would droop in the oppressive
atmosphere of the ball-room or the theatre. A r t must draw fresh beauties
from the contrast of each with the other ; nor will the self-complacent
ingenuity that paints the lily and gilds refined gold be satisfied till it has
completed their toilet by investing them in a white robe of broidered paper.
The clients of the Bouquet-girl consist almost exclusively of the sighing
herd of lovers. These, with the exception of an occasional wholesale order
from the manager of a theatre with a view to some triumphant debut, form
the staple consumers of her wares. B u t among the whole tribe she has no
such insatiate customer as he who is struggling in the toils of a danseuse,
" If music be the food of love," bouquets are certainly the very air upon the
regular supply of which hangs its existence ; and on such air does the
danseuse, chameleon-like, seem exclusively to live. They are the Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and the end of her life—the symbols of her triumphs
public and domestic—the tribute exacted by the achievements of her feet, and
the conquests of her glancing eye. A collection of all the bouquets she
receives, arranged and ticketed according to date and circumstance, would
form a minute record of her career. Not but all passions, even of the humblest nature, are sufficiently burdensome in this particular, but let any man
who as yet has only " paid attentions," as it is called, in the ordinary sphere
of life, try even a flirtation with a danseuse, and he will see what an overgrown

32

COVENT GARDEN MARKET.

and ruinous item the article bouquet will form in his yearly expenditure. If
he be not a man of some substance, or prepared to face the inquisitors of
Portugal Street, he had better take us at our word than adventure on the
experiment.
Over what a multiplicity of love-affairs, in every stage of advancement,
suspense, or retrogression, does the Bouquet-girl preside, and administer to!
For the destruction of how many beleaguered citadels do her arsenals furnish
ammunition—from the open siege, carried on in the eye of the world, to the
secret and artful mine, unsuspected till some terrible explosion reveals it to
universal scandal! How many a course of true love has she traced through
all its windings. The legitimate and successful suit, whose regular supply of
bouquets ends at last with the bridal wreath of orange-flowers ; and the
illegitimate suit, whose series of bouquets has no other climax than abrupt
cessation, a gradual dying-off, or a change in the address to which they are
directed.
Depository of secrets so important, upon which depend the fair name
and the happiness of so many, what a honne fortune would the confessions of
a Bouquet-girl be to a revelation and mystery-mongering novelist. It is to
he hoped, however, that she is worthy of the trust reposed in her; indeed,
we firmly and fondly believe it ; for ourselves in the greenness of youth have
furnished our little quota of delicate confidences to the mass of perilous stuff
that slumbers in the fair bosom of one in particular, whom we will not name.
With a solemn adjuration to the Bouquet-girl to pursue her amiable but
responsible calling with inviolable secrecy and discretion, for the sake of
mercy and the peace of society in general, we will bid her farewell, and a long
ascendancy of the planet Venus.
CHARLES KENNEY.

"if

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jil - - - - -

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,^07ES^^

THE CROSSING-SWEEPER.

I T is surprising how the street exploiteurs of London acquire gradually an
acknowledged right of possession of any particular nook or corner wherein
they exercise their calling. This enterprize is not carried to anything like
the same extent in Paris. Pitches and occupation enough for Crossingsweepers there are, every one knows, but none take advantage of them ; and
if they did, they would not get much from the Monsieurs. They confine
their small trade chiefly to the bridges ; clipping and shaving domestic dogs,
or blacking shoes on the kerb, and selling cheap books on the parapets. T h e
Champs Ely sees draw the jugglers and itinerant vendors of cakes or fruit
from the streets ; now and then a small stall-keeper gets permission to display
his humble wares under a porte-cochere;
or a mendicant, such as the blind
woman on the Pont des Arts, is allowed to beg for years at the same spot ; but
these are all. I t is only in London that the chance produce of the streets is
cultivated, and made of such great value—we mean with respect to stray
halfpence, not to the things picked up. There are no stray halfpence in
France, and the cheffoniers are a tribe in themselves. But in London we
have noticed the same persons, year after year, in the same places. The pitch
becomes their property ; they inherit it from their predecessor, and they leave
it, when they give up business, to a friend or a purchaser. A n instance of
this has occurred since we last wrote respecting Street Music. A n Italian
with an organ was in the habit of playing before our windows every Monday
morning, and now and then got a penny, if there chanced to be one lying
about—more, however, by reason of his good-tempered looking face than his
music, which was dreary enough to be classical. One day, a short time since,
he came without his organ, very sprucely dressed, and accompanied by a
fellow-countryman. H e knocked at the door, and asked to see us. U p o n
being introduced, he said, with many smiles and apologies, that he was going
to return to Lucca, having " made his fortune :" but that he had called to
thank us for long-continued patronage, and begged to introduce his friend,
Guiseppe something, who had taken his organ and his ivalh of him, and who
E

34

THE

CROSSING-SWEEPER.

would play as usual! Then they "both smiled and made innumerable bows,
and departed for another house.
T h e first street-occupiers who appear in the early morning are the coffeestall keepers, with their small temporary accommodation for early breakfast;
and they always take up their position in the same place, most frequently
near a cab-stand. W e do not exactly know what time they strike their tents
and depart: we have only seen them on returning, with blinking eyes and
split gloves, from an evening party, when the straight smoke rising from the
bakers' chimneys in the sharp, clear, morning air was catching the first beams
of the sun. Next arrive the fruit-merchants, and they appear to know the
very kerb-stone of which they have established the occupancy ; others have
obtained leave to put up their stand between the doors and under the window
of a gin-shop.
The Crossing-sweepers have not yet come out. A t present the passengers
are as badly off as themselves; and the hope of coin is small. The hour of
their appearance, however, depends upon the quarter of town in which they
exercise their calling. Thus the crossings, from the Poultry to Cornhill, the
Exchange, or the Bank, must be got ready long before those in May fair,
Belgravia, or Tyburnia. Many of them, about the squares, are, in a measure,
pensioners of the families. F r o m one house they look for their Sunday
dinner—from another, a basin of broken victuals at the end of the week—
and so on ; whilst most of them have regular patrons upon whom they can
steadily reckon for the eleemosynary copper every morning, dry or muddy
as may be the thoroughfare. That some of them have literally acquired
fortunes in this way is matter of history.
A s day advances, the loquacious vendors of cheap toys, mouse-traps, china
and glass cement, corn-curers, and minor marvels, take up their places.
Some of these have been in St. Paul's Churchyard and Leicester Square
for years, altering their wares as public taste was satiated or changed. Two
or three novel speculations have lately been started. There is a fellow in
Oxford Street who sells jumping—or, as he calls them, " electric"—frogs, made
like the old toys, with the spring kept down by cobbler's wax. H e exhibits
many at once upon a tray slung before him ; and the effect of ten or twelve
of them flying about his head is exceedingly comical, whilst his volubility is
perfectly wonderful. Another man, in Coventry Street, sells model coins—
small pieces of money varying in size from that of a shirt-button to a
spangle—shut up in a bottle. Formerly he disposed of little images of
Buonaparte enclosed in like m a n n e r ; then he took to song-books, and long
zoological or historical alphabets; but always on the same beat, between the

THE

CROSSING-SWEEPER.

35

comer of Cranbourne Street and the top of the Haymarket. If a remarkable
event now occurs it is immediately turned to account by him, in a saucepan-lid
full of penny medals. H e brings out engraved cards of Jenny Lind, Hungerford Bridge, the Chinese J u n k , or the Wellington Statue, the instant they
come before the public. H e has a song ready for any popular excitement;
and is altogether a chronicle of the time in himself.
The " progress" of the day—the driving improving high-pressure go-ahead struggle for superiority which characterizes the actions of the present
time—has extended to the Crossing-sweeper. A r t is in the ascendant. Beerjugs and shaving-mugs, milk-pots, paper-knives, and sugar-tongs—at prices so
extraordinary, that our reverence for such hitherto humble domestic objects
is increased to a wonderful degree—become things to look at rather than to
use, hencefoxth to be classed with the bright poker of the hearth. Nothingis as it used to be. Even the art-manufacture of bulls'-eyes gets higher and
higher every day ; and the brandy-balls of the nursery ages are discarded for
rashers of bacon, onions, legs of mutton, oyster-shells, and candle-ends,
modelled from nature in sugar. The only things, in fact, that remain as they
were, are the family in the Noah's arks, the Richmond and Hampton Court
steam-boats, the dancing at a city ball, and the programme of entertainments
at Vauxhall Gardens.
The Crossing-sweeper has caught the epidemic. We remember how poor
John Reeve pourtrayed him in his inimitable Jack Rag—how he said that
when his work wras over, at his crossing, on Saturday night he shut up shop—
that was to say, he swept all the dirt over it again. This very dirt is now
turned to account by the sweeper of an inventive genius.
A little time ago, one Sunday, we saw a man at the T y b u r n entrance to
H y d e P a r k , who, besides a neat barrier of mud bordering his causeway,
destroyed and reconstructed as every vehicle passed, had swept the dirt into all
sorts of figures—hearts, diamonds, circles, and stars, until the road was an
exhibition in itself. But before this, a very elaborate crossing wras made, in
the winter, by a man in the new street that runs from St. Giles' into LongAcre. H e had established his right of way in front of a hoarding opposite
the neat church that has been erected there ; and this he had hedged in
entirely, with sprigs of holly stuck into the ground. It looked very gay in
the day-time ; but at night was perfectly brilliant, with inches of candle and
small tallow lamps placed along it. You were compelled to find a halfpenny,
however cold and irksome the operation of unbuttoning your coat to hunt
after it might be. Before long he found as many imitators as a man always
does who strikes out a new line in anything; and the whole street was a

3(>

THE CROSSING-SWEEPER.

succession of swept pathways. I t would have required more coppers than an
able-bodied individual could have conveniently carried at the commencement
of the thoroughfare to have satisfied the claimants.
There is an old story in the spelling-books, and other repertoires for
juvenile reading, called " Eyes and no eyes; or the art of seeing ;" in which
two lads go out for a walk, and one, of an observant turn of mind, sees
something in everything; whilst the other, like Sir Charles Coldstream in
" Used U p , " is bored at all that meets his view, finding nothing in it. T h a t
there is always something worth looking at in a walk, however dull it may be, is
true enough ; but there are certain things which never fall in the w7ay of the
most observant. W e have been favoured with the apparition of strange
sights. W e once, in a single stroll, saw a Jack in the Green tossed over by
a bull, a tipsy man upon two wooden legs, and a cabman with an umbrella.
B u t we never saw, nor did anybody else, a policeman in spectacles, a waiter
in boots, or a Crossing-sweeper with a new broom. There must be some
depot at which the brooms are bought second-hand, for they are all stumps.
A n d yet they answer their purpose very well. T h e only place in which we
ever saw the sweepers engaged in establishing a crossing, under great
difficulties, was in the new Oxford Street. Now it is being paved ; but before
this, in wet weather, the thoroughfare resembled a by-street in Venice, with
a canal of mud instead of water flowing through it. And as often as they
swept a passage the bulwarks of mud rolled slowly over it again until they
m e t ; so that at last the sweepers gave it up in despair. The two sides of the
street were almost as foreign to each other, at that time, as the opposite sides
of the British Channel ; the inhabitants saw what their vis-a-vis was about,
but knew no further.
T h e new street-sweeping machine will sadly affect the interests of the
Crossing-swTeepers. Thoughtful boys intended to be brought up to this line
of business, are beginning to turn their brooms to account in another way, b y
brushing the steps of omnibusses. They foresee the arrival of a rainy day—
hitherto, the time in which they collected their savings, instead of spending
them—when machinery will take their labour and their rewards away from
them ; and they are preparing to guard against it.
Indeed, what with
wood, asphalte, and granite, gutta percha and Indian-rubber, with the
gradual abolition of Macadamization, the Crossing-sweeper will, in time, pass
away from the world of London, and be only spoken of in common with
other extinct species.
ALBERT SMITH.

CARMEN

AND

COAL-HEAVERS.

S W A R T H , hard-handed Labour has more votaries in London than any other
city in the whole wide-rounded compass of the world ; great, grave, weighty
men, with that old solid Saxon cast of countenance which gives such an
earnest and serious appearance to all their actions, and who are no more
capable of capering, shouting, and dancing round trees of Liberty, like our
volatile neighbours, than elephants. Even drinking and smoking, with such
men as these, is one of the sober businesses of life—rest after labour ; and
they look upon it to be as necessary as either eating or sleeping. A glance at
their bulk, bone, and sinew, tells you that those limbs were " pastured in
England." The loads some of these men carry would break an ordinary
back—they might have served their apprenticeship with Atlas, and began
business by first bearing heavy worlds upon their shoulders.
First amongst these stands the Carman—the Mercury of our merchants ;
he brings the " gifts the gods provide us" to our very doors.
To his
keeping ships consign their cargoes, at his bidding the heavy railway trucks
are emptied, and he bears into our streets luxuries for which the ocean has
been ploughed, treasures for which the mine has been searched through its
deep darkness, and comforts for which hill and valley, with all their waving
corn, hanging fruit, and lowing flocks and herds, have been plundered. No
marvel that with such a trust he walks erect, carries his whip somewhat
jauntily, and looks with a proud eye at his horses—subjects who obey his
very nod, and, unlike the human wicked world, never entertain a thought of
dethroning him. Look at his boots—heavy although they are, they are neatly
laced, and fit him like gloves ; he prides himself on his rounded and wellshaped leg ; and there is a kind of natural dignity in his measured march, as he
paces stride for stride beside his beautiful and high-fed horses. H e seems to
have been distinguished for his musical taste before the time of Shakspere,
for the poet tells us that Shallow, when of Clement's Inn,'sung such tunes as

38

CARMEN AND

COAL-HEAVERS.

" the carmen whistled." In this he has not degenerated, and you may
often catch a stray note while following him, though the tune, like his own
pace, is solemn and slow. He is a good husband and an indulgent father, and
when the weather is fine and his load light, and his journey extends to some
distant suburb, you will often see his wife and children, who waited at some
appointed place, accompanying him. Sometimes he lets his little son carry
the long whip, and walk beside him for a short space, and his heart dilates as
he pictures, in that chubby specimen of small humanity, a future Carman
like himself. He seldom uses his whip, unless to crack it, for he has a brief,
grufT, peculiar method of saying " Now, then," which never fails to quicken
the pace of his horses when he sees them lagging. Even when his work is uphill, and with a heavy load, he trusts more to a few encouraging words and
friendly pats, at every necessary halt, than he does to the lash, for between him
and his horses there is somehow a silent understanding. If there is one thing
more than another about which he makes a little extra display, it is his deliverybook, which fastens with a brass clasp, and is carried in a pocket, made purposely, within the left-hand side of his jacket. This book he is rather fond
of pulling out, and apparently cogitating over its contents, although all the
entries he has to look after are the signatures of the receivers. The marks
and figures are strange puzzles to him at times, and conve}' no more notion of
what he has delivered, than an hieroglyphic whose meaning is buried in the
bye-gone nights of Egyptian darkness. He also takes great pride in furbishing
the ornaments of his harness, and is as particular about not tarnishing the
lustre of the respectable u House" to which he belongs, as the confidential
clerk who presides over the office. He rarely calls his employers masters,
but speaks of them as " Our Firm."
A thorough London Carman is very " knowing" in localities; and if a toll
can be avoided, and he is not pressed for time, he is as sure to " do the pike"
as a cabman who has bargained to carry his fare home and clear the gates.
He is invariably attended by a dog, which might have been trained by
Ducrow, for it is capable of riding upon anything, from a cask to the end of
a sugar-cane, and all it seems to delight in is balancing itself on all kinds of
imaginable things, and barking at every object that passes; for which purpose
it is eternally running from one end of the vehicle to the other, like some
poor fellow who is endeavouring to take up a dishonoured bill by getting his
own acceptance discounted—with this difference, that the dog does all the
barking and growling, while the other finds it thrown in gratis. The Carman
is fondly attached to his dog, and rarely takes a meal without allowing him

CARMEN AND COAL-HEAVERS.

39

to share in it. He is very kind to any poor brother of the whip whom he
sees tugging up-hill in vain, with a weighty load and an ill-fed team ; it needs
but little persuasion to induce him to unyoke one or two of his own powerful
horses and rush in to the rescue. We have seen many of these little kindnesses done in the hilly streets of the City ; and we have drawn strange conclusions from them. In a few words, my rich and aristocratical masters! we
have thought that if a few of you acted to your fellow-men as the Carmen do
to one another in need, the foundations of Europe would not be jarring to
the very centre, as they are now. Place a helping hand upon a willing
heart, my friends, and the very beating of its gratitude will so stir your
sluggish souls, that you will feel as if cutting your pen-feathers and getting
ready-winged for immortality. We have seen a soul in the silent shaking of
the hands between two Carmen, when one has rendered the other aid as we
have described, which would have put to shame all the studied return of thanks
ever showered forth after the u sacking" of England in Exeter Hall, to bring
up unbelieving " black babbies" for gospel sucklings, and to pave the way to
heaven with gold for the strong-haired " niggers." A poor old wayfarer has
but to ask the Carman for a lift, and if he is one of those whose heart is in the
right place, he will pull up by the roadside, and be thought none the worse
of by his employers for his kindness. For passing to and fro, as he ever is
doing, along the stirring streets, or in the dusty suburbs, he sees Splendour
seated in her chariot and squalid Misery crawling and bent with age and
hunger upon the pavement; and although he says but little, he thinks the more,
and thanks God that he is a Carman, and wishes that the poor people were
as comfortable as his horses.
He is an unmerciful denouncer of idleness, and thinks that those who are able
and will not work ought not to eat. His politics are taken from the Advertiser,
and Dispatch; and although he is an out-and-out liberal in his notions, yet
he is sensible enough to know that it is all nonsense about all men being
equal. " Because as how," he says, " I knows them what if they had a thousand to-morrow would never do a hand-stir until every farthing of it was spent."
Then he has no end of apt and homely illustrations—how Bill this, and Jack
that, and Jem the other, had all such chances as no men had before, and although
the bread was, " as the saying is, put into their mouths, howsomdever they
were too lazy to eat it." He is gallant enough to say that he should not like
to see his young u missus" go out to work, " because as how she 's been
brought up a lady, and shows so much feeling for the horses." There are
touches of delicacy about his character, such as " not" seeing the poor fellows

40

CARMEN AND COAL-HEAVERS.

who drag trucks about the streets lay hold of his cart or waggon, or it may
be, slackening the pace of his horses wdien the men come panting up behind,
attempting in vain to overtake him ; nor would they ever succeed were it
not for the word " gently" which only the horses hear, for he pretends not to
notice the party thus assisted. W e are drawing one of the most favourable of
the class—one who seldom changes masters. There are others who dehVht in
carrying off a wheel, if they can manage it nicely ; who rap out an oath loud
enough to electrify a nervous man, and lay their whips on everything that
comes in their way. Such as these the poet Gay describes running into the
" gilded chariots, and
<< __~

L a s h i n g on with sj)iteful r a g e ,

H i s ponderous spokes t h e p a i n t e d wheels e n g a g e ;

Crushed then is pride, down falls the shrieking beau,
The slabby pavement crystal fragments strew :
Black floods of mire the embroidered coat disgrace,
And mud enwraps the honours of his face."

The Coal-heaver is the next who figures upon our picturesque stage—the
knight of the fan-tail and shovel—the man whose body must be like the face
of the moon, full of hills and holes, caused by lumps of coal of every size,
wdiich fit to his back as if made for it. Look how he holds the quart-pot !
You can see at a glance that the half left will just be enough for one moderate
draught: if he drinks first, he never takes his lips awTay until he sees a small
portion of the bottom of the tankard, for that is a Coal-heaver's calculation of
a fair share—a little of the best of it. You should see him breakfast at the
front of the bar, about five o'clock of a summer's morning. A pound and a
half of bread, with half that weight of meat, the fatter the better, form his
common rations. H e uses no plate, but with his huge clasp-knife cuts under
and over, until the whole is consumed. H e then draws the back of his hand
across his mouth, and is silent for nearly a minute, while he takes a " pull" at
the foaming pot ; a deep, long-drawn " ah!" proclaims the return of breath,
which seems to come back like the rush of an express train through the
Watford tunnel. H e then takes off his fan-tail, and passes his jacket-sleeve
across his forehead, for such eating and drinking is almost as hard work as
carrying coals. H e pulls his short pipe from somewhere among the hills and
valleys of his dress, then his steel tobacco-box from another " deep profound,"
and having filled, he closes the lid with a loud snap ; he then applies a light
to the fragrant weed, and with one eye closed " wThiffs " at his " own sweet
will " until he hears the first stroke of the six o'clock bell. It has often

CARMEN AND

COAL-HEAVERS.

41

puzzled him why that bell tolls, morning after morning, at the same hour;
and he has asked Jem, and Jem has asked Ned, who is rather " cute," and the
conclusion they have arrived at is that " it's the six-o'clock bell." You would,
after his hearty meal and quiet smoke, to look at him when he first arises from
his seat at the front of the public-house bar, take him for a dull, half-asleep
sort-of-a man, and such he seems as he enters the gates of the capacious coalwharf. But once see him plant his foot upon the elastic plank that stretches
across to the coal-barge, and he is in a moment a new man. Unlike others,
whose countenances are lighted up by the expression of the thought within, he
looks more intellectual at every step he takes, as if his feet, which are so
accustomed to action, had assumed the command both over the mind and the
other members of the body, and that they alone looked to his steps, and took
heed of his ways. As if conscious of this, he takes a particular pride in his
legs, and clothes them at times in white stockings and well-fitting shoes or
boots ; above droops the dingy fan-tail and the dusty jacket, which seem but
made as cushions for heavy burdens—for the upper part is but a mere
resting-place for coal-sacks. Below all is free, and clean, and uncumbered ;
there lie the will and the command ; it is their duty to see that the load is
carried away safely and deposited in its allotted place ; they are all eye, all
life, all watchfulness. If they make a false step all is over with " him," for
they alone have the charge of the man. It is their look-out to see that he
stumbles not, or is carried away by the current to be deposited under one of
the arches of the bridge, or peradventure borne onward to become a mere
covering for the archway over the Thames Tunnel. No marvel he pats
them at times, and that we err in supposing he is only beating out the coaldust. He best knows how much he is beholden to them, and doubtless has
his own way of expressing gratitude.
Only try to use his sharp-pointed concave shovel, and just fill a single
sack, and ten to one at the very first attempt you would strike upon a large
lump of coal with such a blow as would make every fibre of the arm jar
again; while he, by some peculiar turn of the elbow, throws up one shovelful after the other as if the whole barge was laden with smooth sand, and no
such obstacles as lumps were to be found in the cargo. It would twist the
spine of an unpractised man only to place one of those heavy sacks either upon
the weighing-machine or in the waggon ; while he, with his accustomed jerk,
drops his burden with as much ease and safety as a gipsy-woman slides
down her little sun-tanned brat from her back. A true Coal-heaver must
be " to the manner born" to excel.
F

42

CARMEN AND

COAL-HEAVERS.

The toys he buys for his children are tiny shovels and little waggons filled
with coal-sacks; and sometimes he purchases for his son and heir a juvenile
fan-tail, with which the embryo Coal-heaver is delighted. H e is fond of
folding his arms when he is not busy, and watching the craft as they pass
up and down the river, or having a gossip with " our" bargeman. If anybody
talks about the power of steam, he takes a long pull at his pipe, and wonders
what it would be without coals. H e pities the poor creatures who come
prowling about the barges, at low-water mark, to pick up the pieces of coal
that have fallen overboard ; and no doubt, were he to make an open confession, he has occasionally let a lump or two fall on purpose, as waif and stray
for these half-clad human " amphibiousnesses." H e ever likes low situations.
I f he goes as far as Greenwich, he rarely ascends the breezy summits of the
park, but loiters about beside the piers, trying to discover what " Coalliers" are
coming into Pool. If he speaks about the large houses in London, his
remarks are chiefly confined to the roomy cellarage, and the number of tons
he and his " Butty" have shot into them during a twelve-month. H e wonders
how people can live at all in France, where he has heard they burn nothing
but wood, and have so few gridirons.
W h e n he is clean shaved you can
tell he is a Coal-heaver, dress however he may, for a crop of coal-dust still
vegetates in the roots of his beard : he calls it new seed, and prides himself
on taking off the edge of his barber's razor. T h e barber himself says that a
Coal-heaver is as hard to shave as a sand-bag.
T h e eating-houses at the foot of those hilly streets beside the river, which are
frequented by these men of the sack and shovel, display different and more
substantial fare than you will find in any other quarter of London. Nowhere
beside will you see briskets of beef so fat, or puddings containing such
quantities of suet. Go in and call for a Coal-heaver's plate of meat, even
after having fasted for a long summer-day, and then you will not be able to
consume the half of it. A plate of mixed vegetables there is half an enormous
cabbage, with three or four gigantic potatoes to match; while a half-quartern
loaf cuts up into four " Coal-heaver's breads." If you want to find out a
house where the best porter is drawn, look out for one patronized by the
fraternity of fan-tails, and there you are as sure to get a superior tap as you
are to find a pure spring by following in the wake of a flock of waterwag-tails.
To the Carman and the Coal-heaver we are indebted for many comforts.
A m i d rain, blow, and snow, they cheerfully do their allotted duties. The
fire that throws such a warm and summer-like look around the apartment,

CARMEN AND

COAL-HEAVERS.

43

when outside " all around the wind doth blow," was placed under our very
feet by their united labours. John's yellow-plush would burn like an ominous
sunset, were he even trusted with the favourite horse and gig to fetch a sack
of " black-diamonds" from the wharf ; and Betty's face would out-redden the
hue of her brightest copper coal-scuttle, if only sent to the nearest shed for a
small supply. W h a t a many bickerings and heart-burnings do these willing
labourers save us from ! T h e appearance of a laden coal-waggon gives a look
of respectability to a man's house ; and we have known a tax-gatherer put off
his call for a month, and a landlord wait patiently until the end of the next
quarter for his rent, through seeing a couple of fan-tails with their load afrthe
door. A merry acquaintance of ours, though he can only afford to purchase
a single sack at a time, always contrives to have it delivered when a full
waggon is sent round. H e says the look of the thing is well worth the pot of
beer he gives to the men, as they have to halt a short time while they drink
it, and he knows not how many of his creditors may chance to pass at the
time. I t is whispered that if he makes a promise to pay, and cannot
keep it —it is generally when the waggon is likely to call—then he pleads
as an excuse that he is " busy with the coals."
But, to see a Goal-heaver to perfection, he must be visited in his " daily
walks and ancient neighbourhood"—a water-side tap-room. The very name,
we are well aware, is enough to make a pretty lady gather together her white
flounces for fear of contamination. W e , who look at mankind either through
an opera-glass, or see the moving shadows mirrored deep down in a pot of
half-and-half, care not for such trifles. A heavy-heeled boot makes a less,
lasting impression on a floor strewn with sand or saw-dust than on a Turkey
carpet: for the one is swept away with every new morrow, while the dent on
the other remains until the very spot is worn thread-bare. There you may see
him superintending the gridiron. W h a t a steak ! what a couple of chops !
Either the one or the other would bump down a honest pound weight. H e
would draw the leg of a chicken through his teeth, and clear it at a single
mouthful. His eye is on the great black clock, with its three inches in length
figures, for it beats time like his own measured footsteps, in its dark
unadorned case ; and he knows to a second where the big hand ought to
point after the process of cooking, when he has dined, and when he has
lighted his pipe. H e would back that old clock against all the watches
in Europe ; for it keeps his time, and has done so for years. The great
sliding-box under the table he draws out whenever he pleases, and throws
the coals on the fire with as much freedom as if he were filling his own sacks

44

CARMEN AND COAL-HEAVERS.

from the barges—a piled-up shovel-ful goes on the fire at every throw. He
" takes his ease at his inn," like Falstaff; and woe be to the landlord who
dares to propose a reformation! There his political opinions are law, and he
would cuff even Cuffey himself if he dared to oppose him. He became a
" special," to protect himself; and argued, " If so be's that a thief steals my
governor's coals, why he gets no money for them ; and if he gets no money
whatsomdever, how can he pay I my wages, what is." So far he beats Louis
Blanc, by hitting the nail at once on the head; for the Coal-heaver is a man
who, when he finds a lump that will not go into his sack, breaks it up, and
makes it to fit, whether or no.
THOMAS MILLER.

THE

ORANGE-GXRL.

I AM an old-fashioned man, born before the invention of nerves,* influenza,
railways, a fast" modes of doing everything, and Chartists. Sometimes I am
sorry that the range of my life was fated to extend to the present time. I am
amused at a great deal I see, but I am more frequently saddened. All the
things I took real delight in—bright summer-day journeys on pleasant
coaches, excellent representations of the reviled legitimate drama, fresh walks
out of town, when an hour took you from Bloomsbury to fields, hedge-rows,
and green lanes—these, and many more, that I could fill the space allowed me
by enumerating, are no more.
There was not the struggle amongst the theatres that characterizes the
present dramatic age, when I used to attend them regularly. Three or four
were open, and were sufficient for us. We read their modest little single
bills and went; and the report of a successful piece was passed about by word,
from one to the other. We did not believe that a new play had been a " hit "
one whit the readier for seeing it so stated in the bills, or blazoned forth upon
the walls in rainbow placards, hiding one another in their fight for publicity.
N o ; I took it all calmly, and my friends did the same. If the play was of
good report we went and spread its fame ; if it was not, we stopped away,
and then the manager withdrew it. The managers of those days were honest
men, with a position in society and a name to guard; but we should not have
believed them upon their own word about the success of one of their productions. We might as soon have put faith in the assertions of the Jew
merchants, who then sold pencils, sponge, and oranges, at the White-horse
Cellar, that their wares were the best to be had for money.
Pleasant enough it then was to go to the theatres, but with some there
were attractions in addition to the performances. When I first recollect the
present Surrey it was literally in St. George's fields. You might have plucked
a nosegay—we had no bouquets then—of shepherd's heart-purses, or cowslips

46

THE

ORANGE-GIRL,

even, at the right time, within a stone's throw of the theatre, and taken it in
with you. Now all this is altered, the only green patch is in front of the
riding-school, and, except here, you will not see a blade of grass, not counting
the dusty tufts of the larks in the cages h u n g out from the second-floor
windows.
Sadler's Wells, too, was quite a provincial theatre. You got such a view
from the heights of Islington over London that the afternoon walk was equal
in itself to the performance. F e w can understand now how this could have
been, as they look down upon the hazy glare that seems to choke and burn up
the outskirts of Clerkenwell at their feet. Yet so it was; and I used to arrive
at the Wells always an hour before the time of commencement, for the express
purpose of sitting in one of the arbours of the adjoining tea-gardens, in which
were lilacs in the spring-time, and honeysuckles, and, afterwards, such fine
hops and scarlet-runners that I have never seen equalled ; watching the boys
fishing in the New River, under the shade of the fine trees; and drinking
my pint of wine, sent over from the theatre. I tried to find out where this
garden had stood the last time I was at Sadler's Wells, about a year ago, but
there was not a trace of it left. Some ungainly houses occupied its site, and
these were encompassed by more houses, and so on to spots that in my time
must have been perfect wilds.
T h e accompanying sketch of the Orange-girl called up these recollections.
Living quietly as I do, I almost thought that she also had departed, followed
in the wake of the " barrow-woman," whom I can just remember—only
perpetuated by a rude copy of the sheet of woodcuts representing the " cries"
of London, in the British Museum, which I have stuck in a scrap-book—not
an album, but an honest, old-fashioned scrap-book, swollen to bursting with
its contents, and crammed with all the most popular jests of the last century,
cut out of some hundreds of comical corners. I f I chose to make that old
scrap-hook public, what a fearful check it would be against the would-be
original wits of the present day ; why, it contains everything they say and
get circulated, with the advantage of being much better put. W e oldfashioned people were not so " slow " after all.
Your M. Gavarni may consider himself fortunate in having found an
Orange-girl. There are very few now. Apart from the old Irishman at the
stalls, the trade in oranges is chiefly carried on by children and old women.
W h e n I regularly frequented the theatres, thirty years ago and more, they
were features in the entertainment: fine buxom young women, with a sharp
answer always ready for those who tried to banter them. They were of quite

THE ORANGE-GIRL.

47

a different stamp to the theatre-moulded women in the rusty black dresses,
wdio push by your legs across the present pits, with their cottony fruit and
warm ginger-beer. They appeared to consider themselves descendants of
Nell Gwynne, and as such, bound to keep u p their characters for smart
repartee; but beyond this they were quiet enough.
They cried their wares in a tone by no means disagreeably loud ; and
must, therefore, have considerably softened down since the days of " rare
Ben Jonson," when the Orange-women were amongst the special annoyances
whom Morose, in " T h e Silent Woman," wore a " huge turban of nightcaps on his head, buckled over his ears," to protect him from. Some of them
were very pretty, too, and assumed a coquettish air that would not have been
amiss in their betters. They have now no parallels. T h e women in the
cigar-shops are too conventional i n their talk and jaded in their looks; and
the waitresses at the night oyster-rooms too emptily flippant. Perhaps the
gingerbread girls at the fairs and races'approach nearest to them in persuasive
manner.
This has been a great season for oranges. I can look back for many years
and never recollect them so cheap, for, a month or two ago, they were crying
them under my window at four a-penny. A n d what a glorious fruit is the
orange—how precious should we think it if its price was above coppers !
Its fragrance spreads agreeably over the costly dessert of the West-end dinner.
There is nothing that can compare with it for the bed-table of the invalid.
Small Tom Simmons, in the sixpenny gallery, would not give a pin for the
performance unless he had an orange to suck the whiles ; and the " shuck "
afterwards left to fling at the leader's head if he delayed the overture longer
than the gods thought becoming.
I t is said that Sir Walter Raleigh was the first to introduce oranges into
England. Oranges and tobacco! great boons certainly—for I love my pipe —
which in themselves ought to have insured a man from decapitation. I don't
know whether this was the case or no, but, whoever it was, he deserves a
testimonial ; and I say this as one who lived before testimonials were invented,
at least after the fashion of the present day.
I used to think that the Orange-women in the streets dealt for their
golden fruit wTith the warehousemen of the river districts. M y father had a
situation in the Customs, and we lived in a street off Tower Hill. There were
not such long rows of suburban villas in those days ; the City folks abided in
the City, and thought it quite good and healthy enough for them. T h e y
frequently died in the same house they had been born in. Their promenade

48

THE ORANGE-GIRL.

was the Pavement, or Finsbury Square ; and they sought solitude, where
only the splash of the fountain in Draper's Hill broke it. My earliest
recollection of wandering loose about London pertain to when I was permitted
to go alone, and wait for my father at the Custom House—to walk back with
him, having bought a large crab or some dried fish in Billingsgate ; and then
I always started from my house half-an-hour in advance, to linger for that
time in Botolph Lane, amongst the warehouses. They were to me the
greatest wonder of London, I could scarcely understand the wealth of fruit
that these dingy rooms gave glimpses of, as overwhelming to my young eyes
as Ali Baba must have found the treasures of the forty thieves. It appeared
impossible that such a quantity could ever be eaten.
When the quarter-chest of Seville oranges used to come home for winemaking, I marvelled at the number, in their thin French coffin-looking
boxes, and each one wrapped in its own paper envelope ; but here there was
no end to the ripe and juicy spheres. There were other grand attractions,
too, in Botolph Lane—nut-hunting in the gutters. From some mysterious
source or another, water was always rushing down the kennel of the steep
thoroughfare ; and on its surface hundreds of nuts made troubled journeys
until they were swept down the grating of the sewer, to come up again in the
river, where we see them now, in company with the old corks and morsels of
Essex-marsh rushes. It was my great amusement to catch these nuts. They
never paid for the time, for they were invariably faulty; but they had a fine
healthy, promising look, that every day lured me on again to chase them, as
the lotteries each succeeding year bit those again who had invariably lost.
Besides this, the men who worked the cranes, and loaded the waggons at the
warehouses, began to know me. A small intimacy was established, and they
would give me oranges that had spoiled, from being over-ripe, in coming
over; and when the flaw of the condemned fruit had been taken away, how
delicious was the rest! I used to be very proud, when returning with my
father, to nod grandly, but very politely at the same time, to these men, as I
clutched his hand, and showed him that I had acquaintances in the City
whom even he did n't know.
But I am losing myself in these recollections. I was about to have said
that these street-vendors buy their goods, not of these warehousemen, but in
Covent Garden Market. The Orange girl is gradually departing; and in a
few years our illustration will be that of the same species with Hogarth's
and Tempest's.
AN OLD PLAYGOER,

E«fl|x

-/rip *

A SKETCH

FROM T H E W E S T - E N D .

I T is very curious to speculate as to what part of England will ultimately be
the West-end of London—no less than to watch the gradual progress that
the apparent desire of the fashionable world to get still nearer the sunset has
made in that direction for many years. Keeping within the recollection of
old inhabitants still extant, we find that the anomalous neighbourhood
between the Foundling Hospital and Red Lion Square, north and south ;
and Gray's Inn Lane and Bloomsbury, east and west, was once the patrician
quarter of London. The houses, even in their decay of quality, have a
respectable look. Their style of architecture is passe, it is true ; but they
evidently make a great struggle to keep up appearances. If chance leads
you into them, you will find that they are all similarly appointed, even to
their inhabitants. All the furniture is rubbed up to the last degree of friction
polish, and the carpets are brushed cleanly threadbare. The window-curtains,
blanched in the sun of thirty or forty summers, until their once crimson hue
has paled to a doubtful buff: the large semicircular fireplace, with its brasshandled poker and latticed fender : the secretary and large flap-table, on
which is the knife-case with its forlorn single leaf, or shell, in marqueterie on
the cover—all remain as they were. Even the ancient landladies have given
the same conservative care to their flaxen fronts and remarkable caps. They
are grave and dignified in their demeanours, for they believe Great Ormond
Street still to be the focus of the West-end. It is long since they have
been out, to learn to the contrary: left stationary, whilst Time has flown by
them, like an object in the tranquil side-water of a stream whilst similar ones
are hurried past with the torrent, they still regard Russell and Bedford
Squares as their Belgravia—-for at every epoch all fashionable parts of town
had an ultra-aristocratic neighbourhood. So, when the superior classes
still moved on towTards the west, colonizing Percy and Newman Streets and
the old thoroughfares about Soho, Fitzroy and Golden Squares were in turn
looked up to.
G

50

A SKETCH FKOM T H E W E S T - E N D .

Proceeding in two parallel directions, divided by Oxford Street, Hanover
Square gradually declined before that of Grosvenor, and Portman rose above
Manchester.
Still fashion kept marching on—the former division tending
towards May Pair, and the latter to the Edgeware Road ; until the first,
turned aside in its course by H y d e Park, reached the site of Belgravia, and
the second, heedless of the associations connected with the gallows, and the
decaying foliage of the Bayswater tea-gardens, colonized Tyburnia for
its territory.
A n d powerful indeed are the rules which fashion issues from these
strongholds.
She directs our tastes in amusements, and regulates our own
private economy, whether we will or no. She turns night into day—sends
us to bed in the fresh morning, and calls us up at noon, if indeed so early;
she even sets the laws of Nature at defiance—repudiates the four seasons of
the old calendars, and merges them all into one, which begins and ends
whenever she pleases.
W e cannot learn the ingress of the West-end London season by the
almanacs. None of those mystic marks which Francis Moore so delights
in—those hooks and eyes and signs from chemists' bottles—would be of the
slightest use in determining its commencement, even to those who understood
them.
B u t there are certain signs by which the initiated recognise its
approach, and prepare for it accordingly, as certainly as though they were
anticipating a shower of rain from a low weather-glass.
The earliest indication of this is the opening of the theatre for the
French plays, when, in astrological language, Mitchell enters St. James's.
Before that, we do not know who is in town ; but the subscription list
collects the earliest harbingers of spring—long before the swallows—together.
T h e shutters of the West-end squares open again, and the newspapers that
covered the blinds disappear: the chandeliers cast their brown holland skins,
and the chairs, sofas, and ottomans, that have been hybernating in the same
manner, come out as gay as ever. Then, before the pantomimes have died
away in the blaze of their last scene—before the CIOAVII has put his head under
the curtain, and bidden a final " g o o d n i g h t " to his friends, come the
announcements of the Operas ; dinner-parties collect the autumnal truants
together again, and cards increase in the bowl of the drawing-room, or lookingglass frame of the chambers, until Easter passes, the days lengthen, and the
Season, par excellence, commences in all its glory.
A n d then, indeed, the West-end generally is, towards afternoon, worth
seeing—as different a world to the City in its habits, its population, and its

A SKETCH FROM T H E

WEST-END.

51

pursuits, as though the two parts of the metropolis were hundreds of miles
apart. In what a whirl are the great thoroughfares : it puzzles one to
think where so many pretty women, and fine horses, and elegant equipages,
can come from. The pavement, too, is almost obliterated by the flaneurs,
and the entrances to the shops blockaded by servants. Every shade of tint
in the prism may be found in the dresses that the eye can gaze at in ten
minutes ; every style, or mode, of dress that Paris can invent will pass within
the same time. And there is no repose—no cessation of motion in this turmoil.
Crowds of fresh women, and horses, and equipages, succeed the others ; the
thunder of wheels and knockers never dies away; the last parties going home
to dinner meet the first coming down to the operas or theatres. Until grey
morning does this dash, and glitter, and heated dusty excitement go on ; and
then the West-end population goes to bed, and, for a while, leaves the stage
clear for those whose exertions are required to administer to its wants or
fancies.
The close of the West-end season must not be taken as the close of
summer weather—-very far from it. When it ends, the leaves are still deeply
green upon the trees, the sun bright and warm, and the days sufficiently long
for anything. New pleasures, new whirls of excitement begin for the
patricians, and, following as usual in their wake, the parvenus, Then come
the pleasant parties at country-houses, for race-balls, pic-nics, and charades;
the creeping about the coast, or, perhaps, boldly crossing to Cherbourg in
yachts, or sleeping in Southampton water, or glittering in the sunlight off
Cowes ; the attempt to reproduce Regent Street and the Parks on the cliffs
of Brighton.
And now the West-end becomes a perfect desert. The thousands who
leave London make no difference to the stream of life that daily flows along
its business thoroughfares ; but Regent Street assimilates to Pompeii in its
loneliness. There are no more lines of carriages at the kerb; no concert
programmes at the music-shops ; nor bouquets and lap-dogs on the pavements.
Men run in and out of their clubs in a shy and nervous manner, as though
they were burrows; not caring to be seen, and inventing lame reasons for their
continuance in London. You may wander all round Eaton Square without
finding a single window lighted up, or meeting one carriage rolling along, with
its lamps like two bright eyes, to a party. All have departed—the handsome
girls to recruit their somewhat jaded strength, and recover from the pallor
induced by late hours and the thousand fretting emotions of society; the men
to shoot, and ride, and sail; the heads of the families to retain their caste,

52

A SKETCH FROM T H E

WEST-END.

because it is proper to do so ; but all to get away as soon and as fast as they
can, when Parliament is prorogued^ and the grouse are reported to be ready
for slaughter.
It is a matter of some interest to inquire where the autumnal tourists
intend to go this year. Every avenue of the Continent appears to be so closed
to them that Europe has become a species of enormous maze, requiring the
utmost caution and ingenuity to thread its perplexities in safety. This state
of things will not induce home-travelling, as the Cumberland and Llaneversomuch innkeepers fondly believe; because a man gets no attention
paid him in society if he only talks about Derwentwater or Snowdon,
whereas he commands an audience directly if he alludes to Zurich or Vesuvius.
Some new route will, without doubt, be struck out, and all the world—which
means the West-end and its dependencies—will follow it. Where it will be
we cannot as yet state, but we may perhaps attempt to pourtray the feelings
of the " travelling English " in this dilemma, in the following lyric : —
WHERE CAN WE GO THIS YEAR?
(A

LAY

OF

THE

SEASON.)

I.
J

The season s drawing to a close,
And all are leaving town—
Some seek the lakes, and Wales, and some
To country-seats go down !
But I dislike home travelling,
It is so dull and dear!
And so one question worries me,—
Where can we go this year ?
II.

I've walked upon the Ramsgate sands—
I Ve seen the Isle of Wight,
And nodded to the Gravesend bands
That play from morn till night.
And Guernsey is too far away,
And Brighton is too near,
And dreary Worthing 's like a tomb—
Where can we go this year ?

A SKETCH FROM THE WEST-END.

III.

We cannot venture into France,
For every one's afraid
Of being upset, coach and all,
To form a barricade !
Besides, all those who value life
Must see at once " Moarir
Pour la patrie" is rather slow—
Where can we go this year ?

VI.

We cannot even see Mont Blanc ;
In fact I scarcely know
Whether or no Sardinia's heat
Has melted all its snow.
About the Schleswig-Holstein row
My notions are not clear,
Except that they are fighting too—•
Where can we go this year ?

V.

And even Milan's handsome streets,
So tidy always kept,
By Lombardy's artillery
Are night and morning swept!
And on to Venice, all the way
We should be in the rear
Of fighting troops and bellowing guns—
Where can we go this year ?

VI.

And Spain just now is not at all
The lodging for John Bull,
And e'en the " lella Napolf
Of squabbling mobs is full.

53

54

A SKETCH FROM THE WEST-END.

In fact, whichever way you turn,
One sentiment you hear,
Which seems to mean " A has le monde /"
Where can we go this year ?

VII.

America is insolent,
The Cape won't do at all,
And China's used-up since the junk
Was anchored at Blackwall.
And Chartists soon at Botany Bay
Will swarm—indeed 't is clear
That Timbuctoo 's the only place
For tourists left this year.
ALBERT SMITH.

T H I E V E S .

" F U L L Y committed. Take him away."
So speaks the grave magistrate ; and, rising from the bench of justice,
passes by obsequious officials, and rolls home in his brougham to dinner. T h e
reporter pockets his bundle of greasy notes, and hurries out of the 'Court ;
and the " fully committed" one, a few minutes afterwards, is borne away to
prison in that sombre vehicle—that hearse of the living—the van. Tell us,
ye who have seen it passing through the crowded streets, is a funeral a sight
half as melancholy ?
Viewing with impartiality the Thief of the present day, we are disposed
to consider him, on the whole, inferior to his predecessor—a good symptom for
society. The species of gentleman highwayman no longer exists to frighten
the traveller, and does no greater harm than put you to sleep in the pages
of a novel. A gentleman can now roll through the country in his travellingcarriage without any fear of being robbed by a gallant horseman, summoning
him to surrender with the air of a courtier, and pocketing his money with a
quotation from Horace. T h e last of these heroes long ago died on that
greatest of all " trees of liberty," the tree of Tyburn ; and his only representative, now-a-days, is the common foot-pad—a vulgar fellow who knocks you
down and rifles you when insensible. After all, it must have been much
more agreeable to be plundered like a gentleman! But the change shows
that the profession is no longer worth following by men of genius ; and the
inferior nature of the modern members of it makes them an easy prey of the
police.
While we admit, however, that the Macheath school is completely at an
end, we must recollect that late years have produced several specimens of
robbers of a certain degree of cultivation. W e allude to plunderers in places
of trust—the absconding secretary and the fugitive clerk. A young man
from the provinces gets a situation in the great house of Argent, Doubloon,

56

THIEVES.

and Co., the bankers. H e comes up to London after an affectionate parting,
and a great deal of good advice, carrying with him a five-pound note, a Bible,
a watch, and a lock of hair, perhaps, which he values more than all. His father
has recommended to him the study of commerce, and told him the history of
Whittington. H e is assured that patience and energy will make him rich in
time, and he begins his career pretty contentedly, one of a population of twro
millions, and in the enjoyment of £ 9 0 per annum. H e takes quiet lodgings,
declines a latch-key, comes home to tea when office-hours are over, and,
perhaps, having a proper interest in public affairs, peruses a work on the
Organization of Labour, and dips into the currency—a sea of speculation
where the strongest man cannot swim. Next day he propounds a question
on the subject to one of his fellow-clerks, who looks at him as if he questioned
his sanity, and asks him the odds against Cock-a-whoop for the St. Leger.
H e is ashamed of his ignorance on such a vital point, goes to work and learns
it, and a great deal more. His lodgings now are duller than ever ; somehow
or other (as he says) the evenings are longer than they used to be. H e then
finds out that the knowledge of books is comparatively unnecessary ; one
should know the world, and to see it in all its phases it must be observed
occasionally at two in the morning. A n d then comes the dinner in the
country, and the evening " on the loose ;" the acquaintance of " good
fellows," and the being " up to a thing or two." Our hero now begins to call
his male parent " governor," to grow critical in cigars, knowing about
sweeps, and inquisitive about the ballet. Debt increases, and he is fairly
placed in that worst of all social positions, confirmed in expensive habits, with
a limited income. A t length he comes to that important crisis in a man's
life, more important than his first love—we mean his first bill. Ruin begins
to stare him in the face, and the countenance of Ruin is about the ugliest we
know.
The tide of his life's folly has now reached its height. With a head
weakened, and a heart corrupted by dissipation, he has to resist the tempter;
and the tempter is never so dangerous as when the forbidden fruit he offers
you is golden. H e is doubly powerful in the garden of the Hesperides.
Messrs. Argent and Doubloon's office is some morning observed to be in
a great state of confusion. Mr. Johnson is not there, and—curious coincidence
— £ 1 5 0 0 is missing also. I n two hours a detective officer is hurrying to
Liverpool. Sometimes the culprit is discovered in a ship about to sail, and
not unfrequently in a private room in an hotel, drowning his terror in
champagne.

THIEVES.

57

There are cases in which these unfortunates, availing themselves of their
stolen wealth, rid themselves of the habits which had led to the crime, and
prosper in business; and years after their flight the firm is surprised to receive
a remittance of the money that they had lost. B u t it is almost needless to
say, that the thief is generally captured, and goes to Botany Bay, much about
the time that his mother, from the same cause, is going to the grave.
The reader will observe in our artist's engraving, that tall figure on the
right, with hat cocked knowingly, and peering small eye. H e is of the
swell-mob. T h e swell-mob man knows the world ; he aims at the " gentlemanly appearance," or the " respectable look!" H e is a dangerous bird of
prey, but hides his talons in kid gloves. F o r he knows the world, and is
aware that yon poor ill-clad wretch, through whose tattered garments the
keen north wind bites, is an object of suspicion whom prudent men pass by
with caution. B u t who suspects the " respectable look?" Men seem to argue
in these cases as if everybody had their exact deserts in the world, as if no one
was ill-dressed by misfortune, or well-dressed by swindling—a fallacy on which
he of the swell-mob feeds. H e is a public character, to be seen at political
meetings, at exhibitions, at theatres, at Exeter Hall. H e is the only man
who makes anything by the Chartist movement ; it gives him a chance of
emptying a pocket. I t is when the " stormy wave of the multitude " (as
Curran calls it) runs high, that he is seen hovering about it, like the stormy
petrel. A group of respectable men are standing together, observing something of interest. They are joined by a stranger of imposing mien, who
bows, points out objects of attention, and kindly allows a neighbour to stand
before him, that he may see better. In an instant he is gone—suddenly—
irrevocably. W i t h an Englishman's instinct, the neighbour puts his hand in
his pocket. Then there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. T h e victim cries
out with the miser, in the Aulularia of Plautus—
" Ilei mihi!
Perii hercle ! aurum rapitur,"
" W h o , " he says, " would have suspected him ? Did you see his ring?"
Dr. Johnson said of a dabbler in letters, that he was " an author generated
from the corruption of a bookseller." W e may say of the swell-mob man,
that he is a thief generated from the corruption of a flunkey, or a billiardmarker. It is from those mysterious classes—dishonest servants turned out of
place ; broken-down gamblers ; adventurers who, under the vague name of
" agents," have failed in a hundred schemes; billiard-markers; jockeys turned
H

58

THIEVES.

off the turf, and thimble-rig professors—that this army is recruited.
Having
seen a few of the upper classes at those haunts where the fools of one order
are found combined with the rogues of the other, the swell-mob man has learned
to ape the manners of a gentleman to a certain extent. Imperturbable impudence does the rest. W i t h carpet-bag in hand, he walks into a hotel, dines
sumptuously, sends a letter directed to some titled personage to the post, and
retires. Next morning he has departed, and watches, dressing-cases, and
plate, have vanished with him. W e should not be surprised were we to hear
that the swell-mob made a good harvest in the D r u r y Lane riots the other
day ; and so employed their " native talent " (the first that has been displayed
there for some time) to a good advantage.
A s every new discovery in science brings some degree of evil with its
good, to mitigate the arrogance of ingenuity ; as chemical discoveries assist
the forger, chloroform suffocates the too curious, and gun-cotton blows up
the speculator—so railways have given employment to a set of ingenious
Thieves who haunt the stations at the arrival of trains, on the look-out for
luggage. W h e n a train has arrived at the station, and its passengers are
seen rushing out of the carriages, like bees from a hive, then the person
depicted by our artist in travelling garb is busiest of the busy on the platform.
H e is not there to welcome a friend from the provinces, or to receive back
some prodigal son recalled to his family by repentance and the second column
of the Times.
His object is to make himself generally useful, by removing
all the luggage he can get; and he dooms many a traveller to regret in the
morning the anxiety to find his friends which induced him to lose his
portmanteau.
The classes of Thieves, or rather (as it is the fashion now to give a fine
name to everything) appropriators, below the swell-mob in rank, are the
common professionals who can turn their hands (and very skilfully) to anything. They are the " general practitioners" of the faculty, who will take a watch
if they can get it, but not disdain to stoop even to a cotton pocket-handkerchief. They are hardened offenders, and take imprisonment as a matter of
course. W h e n brought before the magistrate, and tried at the Old Bailey,
they of course deny with much solemnity the charge ; but when sentenced, go
quietly away. They are old friends of the jailors and police, and even on a
certain footing of familiarity—a kind of nodding acquaintance (in the dock),—
with the Common Sergeant. " I think we have seen each other before ?" that
worthy j u d g e will say, and the prisoner will bow and acknowledge the
honour. W e should'nt wonder if these fellows were to leave a card at his

THIEVES.

59

house on returning from Brixton, or a P . P . C. before leaving for "Van
Diemen's land. These are generally stolidly incorrigible; but before we
express any surprise at it, let us stop and look where they come from, how
they are brought up, whence springs all this crime.
In the very heart of London—in its densest and closest parts—in long
narrow lanes—in vile dark cellars—dwell, in huddled thousands, the children
of the poor. Fresh air, pure water, wholesome food, come never to their
dwellings. The very light of heaven struggles through filthy panes of coarse
glass to reach them. The air is heavy with tainted matter. The voices of
birds, the bloom of green trees, all the riches that lie in Nature's lap, exist
not for them any more than for the dead ; all that God has given of beautiful
to the world is lost to these his children. The very sound of the churchbells suggests nothing to them but the approaching close of the gin-shop. N o
such state of things existed either in ancient E g y p t or ancient Rome ; nor
does it now, even in modern Smyrna ! This is " progress"—progress to the
jail, the convict-hulk, and the grave; this is " l i b e r t y " — yes, what Carlyle
calls " liberty to starve." A blessed privilege ! A n y one who goes into the
haunts of the class of which we speak, will recognise what we say to be true;
and of this we feel certain, any one who goes there will leave the place one
of two things —a reformer, or a fiend.
Now, those who know anything of the evidence collected on the subject
by the good and gallant Lord Ashley—the Bayard of Social Reform—who
(as Mr. Shiel said, rather affectedly) " has made humanity one of Shaftesbury's
Characteristics"—will recognise the intimate connexion between this state of
things and the existence of Thieves, and perceive the propriety of our alluding
to it here. If a man be, in the vigorous language of Churchill,
" To mischief trained ev'n from his mother's womb,
Grown old in fraud, tho' yet in manhood's bloom "—
if he be born, bred, and brought up in this miserable state of starvation,
degradation, and indecency, a thief he must naturally be, and will be, all
magistrates, vans, jailors, common-sergeants, and hangmen to the contrary
notwithstanding. Ragged schools can do good, but not much ; education,
independent of practical assistance, is but the seed thrown on the rocky
ground. A sum in arithmetic is not half so good in such a case as a loaf of
bread; and to get the last for the poor must now be the object of society—if
it intends to exist—which is its own affair, of course.
The police establishments have done much to prevent the organization of

60

THIEVES.

Thieves in later times, and we are inclined to believe that no adventurer is
now likely to fall in with such a " k e n " as that whence the anomalous dandy
Pelham escaped by the help of his sword. Indeed, Sir Edward Litton (as we
may remark by the way), whatever he may know of Plato, was pronounced
by a great authority to be " superficial" in slang.
In fact, the Thieves of to-day, though numerous, mischievous, and dangerous, are common-place and unromantic people enough—not, as was once the
case, Thieves from taste or wantonness, but from hard necessity ; becoming so,
in short, just as sailors become cannibals, and eat each other, when there is no
food to be got. If we may be allowed the comparison, we would say, that
they no more resemble their old predecessors, than the gentlemen of the
Temple do the Templars of the Crusades. A modern inquirer will meet
clever men among thieves, just as he will among Chartists, or any other class;
but no Jonathan Wilds —still less, any Paul Cliffords. They are even more
prudent and economical than of old ; the utilitarian philosophy has spread
among them, as elsewhere. The painful result of this, as of every other inquiry,
is, that there is much to be reformed y e t : and when our reader sees the van
moving along with its human luggage to Newgate, let him lay this reflection
to his soul, that in all human probability there are more than one criminal
in it, who, had he (the reader) and others done their duty to mankind, would
have been walking in freedom, honest and useful members of the community.
JAMES HANNAY.

A PLATE

OF

HEADS.

" F I E S T get your hare," says Mrs. Glass—" then dress it." As with the hare,
so with the head. I t is equally clear that you must first find your head,
before you can possibly dress it. The next question, then, is—how is it to be
dressed ? whether a la sauce piquante, or cm nature I ? whether en papillotes,
like a lazy head that comes down late to breakfast, or aux cornichons, like
one of the stupid empty heads that buy tickets in those Heine-ous-Humbug
Lotteries, and expect to receive in return a waggon-load-full of florins and
a feudal castle on the banks of the Danube.
T h e plate is before the reader, and he has only to pick out what head he
pleases. There are all sorts. The carte of a French restaurateur could not
contain a more puzzling variety. There are undoubted calves' heads, and
sheep's heads; heads of which game can be made in a moment; and heads of
fishj so exceedingly queer, that they scarcely come under any head at all.
The reader is invited to discuss them. If he be a man of real taste—and I
would not doubt it for the world—he cannot fail to enjoy the rich pictorial
feast that M. Gravarni has liberally laid before him.
I t has been said by cooks and philosophers—Soyers and Bacons—that
the first requisite for enjoying a head is the accompaniment of brains. Now,
without wishing to be personal to anybody, this is very absurd; for the heads
which are generally enjoyed the most in society are precisely those which
have the smallest " portion" of brains. W h o is it that generally sets the
table in a roar ?—but the Block-Head
W h o is it that is welcome at every
board 5 that gets more laughs, that provokes more wit, that causes more delight
to children, grandpapas, and all ?—but the great big Blunderhead who is liked
by every one and feared by none, and cares no more for the jokes that are
cracked upon him than a donkey does for the blows that are dealt about his
head to make him lively!
These are the Thick-Heads—otherwise the
good-natured people; and it is the very want of brains that makes them so
delightful, by reason of the peculiar dressing they never fail to get from

02

A PLATE OF H E A D S .

some kind friend or other, who enjoys a reputation, which an anchovy might
be proud of, for " plenty of sauce." Take the Thickheads away, and there
would be nothing left in this world but the Longheads—gentlemen probably
with brains enough to supply a House of Commons, and nearly as dull as
the M.P.'s who sit in it. I t is only the Blockheads who make the Longheads laugh. If we all had brains, what a set of miserable creatures we
should be ! T h e world would be as sprightly as a conversazione of the Royal
Society, or an evening party of mutes.
It is curious to watch the heads in the pit of a theatre. I do not mean
the Opera-house, for emotion is not fashionable, and the heads of the
aristocracy, besides, are more or less disguised with wigs, and other devices,
to conceal the emigration of hair; nor do I mean the pit of a French theatre
where the Voix des Femmes is never heard, and where, as in Mahomet's
Paradise, a woman is not admitted; nor do I exactly mean the pit of Exeter
Hall, where the features are painted in black and the clothes in drab, and
where the predominant feeling is that we were only " born to be miserable,"
as Mr. Drummond so beautifully expressed it the other night—and certainly
his speech could have left no other impression on his audience; but I mean
the pit of an English theatre. The heads are packed as close as those in a
bundle of asparagus.
There is every variety of organ. A phrenologist,
doubtlessly, woidd play a voluntary upon them as easily as Mr. Adams does
on the Apollonicon, and extract a sort of cerebral " Ode on the Passions" out
of the black and white keys (the latter formed by the bald heads) before him.
This is a sleight of hand, however—a tremendous power of fingering—-to
which only a phrenologist could pretend.
How strange it is that, out of the immense number of lines, each line containing an immense number of dots, there are not two heads alike ! There may
be two noses of the same order of architecture—or two mouths approaching
within an inch of the same width—or two eyes, or rather four, that do not
positively contradict one another in the precise shade of colour; but we do not
find, pick them where we will, two faces that contain a perfect resemblance of
all those beautiful features. You will find this the case in boxes, gallery, everywhere. W a t c h a theatre when God save the Queen is being sung—and it has
been repeated so often lately that I wonder the instruments, from the excessive loyalty to which they have been attuned, do not play it now of their own
accord. Well, there is the cry of " H a t s ofF!"—even that poor Frenchman
with the republican hat has been compelled to uncover—and every head is
exposed to view. W h a t a collection ! Some as round as bullets—others so
flat that they look as if they had been purposely planed—some with foreheads

A PLATE~OF

HEADS.

63

that run out so far that they seem as if they were padded like an officer's breast,
and a pretty fair sprinkling with temples that slant off in the style of the roof of
the Tuileries, capital heads for a shower of rain. Then there are bald heads,
that shine like ostrich-eggs, and are not unlike them in shape ; and others, with
a few hairs, like the bars of a gridiron, very " few and far between"—old
heads—grey heads—young curly heads—heads with perruques and without
them—there are not two that are facsimile.
Nature's Book of
Beauty,
it appears, never contains two engravings of the same face.
The only public heads that cherish a seeming similarity are brewers and
porters. The head of the beer and stout which they are constantly imbibing,
may produce a family resemblance on the shoulders of the former; and the
knots, with the heavy burdens on them, may have something to do in knocking into the same rough shape the heads of the latter. Covent Garden market
women and coal-heavers also exhibit a sort of family likeness. These are all
persons who work essentially with their heads.
I t is curious to watch the uplifted heads during a display of fireworks at
Vauxhall, or when Mount JEtna, or the fashionable volcano of the season, is
vomiting its sky-rockets and Roman candles at the Surrey Zoological. All the
noses are nearly turned upside down, and I have often thought if a jocular spirit
from above, or some star that wras fond of playing practical jokes, sprinkled
down a small shower of snufl^ what an universal sneezing there would be.
The heads at an auction, with all the eyes radiating to the Demosthenes
who is flourishing his hammer in the pulpit, are well woith looking at. The
extreme caution of the Jews, the brokers nodding as they are prompted by
the capitalists whispering at their sides, the nervousness of the female bidders,
the triumph of the hero who carries off the gridiron after a series of the most
valiant advances, are little amusing scenes of physiognomy to anybody who,
in studying expression, thinks pre-eminently that " the play 's the thing."
The gentlemen at the passport-offices must be sadly puzzled sometimes.
There are some heads and faces so unmeaning that they give you nothing to
take hold of—which must be very convenient for them if they happen to be
Irishmen, or quarrelsome. There are others so unfortunately comical, or
plain, that the clerk's pen must halt two or three times before it can have the
courage to write the awful truth. Supposing it puts upon paper the very worst,
think of the feelings of that poor fellow who has to carry about with him
everywhere the written confession of an unhappy squint, and has to exhibit
the cruel testimonial to every gendarme—to
every cocked hat at a barrier,
that calls upon him to produce the voucher of his unhappy identity.
The pompous official looks to the paper, sees " louche" then looks up to the

64

A PLATE

OF H E A D S ,

poor fellow's eyes, and returns the paper with a most cutting " C'est tout en
regie, Monsieur"
W h y ! It is fairly insulting a man to his face !
There used to be a most polite gentleman at the Poland Street Office.
If he had been a portrait painter, he would have made his fortune long ago —
he used to flatter everybody with such a grace. " Your profession, sir?" he
would say with a most fluty voice. " Author," you answered with a half-blush.
There was no staring, not the smallest decrease of the man's civility; and
when you referred to the paper, you found he had generously disguised the
" A u t h o r " under the title of " R e n t i e r / " These are little compliments that
make you think all the better of mankind.
There are often advertisements addressed to " heads of families." These
heads must have great weight, for everything is submitted to them, from
Infant Soojie down to patent pokers and tongs. Nothing is good unless it is
patronized by them; and if the heads should belong to the Royal Family, the
patronage is, of course, so much the higher. There was an absurd instance
of this the other day, in a Professor laying the Ointment to his flattering soul,
and advertising it as "patronized b y the heads of the Royal Family."
Another genius, too, has been puffing his " gutta percha elastic stockings," as
" patronized by numerous heads of the nobility." I can hardly imagine a
nobleman wearing a stocking round his head, unless he happened to have a cold.
E v e r y nation has its own respective head. Meet with an Englishman
where you will—under the falls of Niagara, on the top of the Pyramids, or at
the bottom of an Austrian salt-mine—no matter whether he is spoilt by
foreign coxcombries, or is hidden in a miner's dress suit of dirty leather, or
however much he is masquerading in moustaches, Turkish caps, tobacco pouches,
or Tyrolean hats—you are sure to recognise him long before he has opened his
mouth. There is that individuality about him which no tailor, or barber,
can possibly disguise. The same with a Frenchman. But it is easier for
an English head to pass for a Frenchman's than vice versa. H o w is this?
Is it easier to caricature humanity than to embellish it ? Is it that there is
nothing to add in the Englishman's head, and if you garnish it with hair,
and trim it with whiskers, and serve it up with moustaches, it is only a
fine head spoilt ? This is a curious head for an argument, and which would
take a wiser head than mine to determine—for a person in endeavouring to
be too national often hits a point with additional strength in order to drive
it home. Thus, Prejudice hammers away at Truth, just like a tenpenny nail,
and knocks it on the head!

HORACE MAYHEW.

"MARRIAGE

IN

HIGH

LIFE.

" A T St. George's Church, Hanover Square, by the R i g h t Reverend the
Bishop of London, the Right Honourable the Earl of Normandale, eldest son
of the Marquis of Hallidon, K.G., to Katharine, second daughter of John,
Earl of Dashmore. The lovely bride, who wore a splendid dress of entirely
British manufacture, was accompanied to the altar by a numerous circle of relations, and given away by her noble father. A t the conclusion of the ceremony
the happy pair started in a carriage and four for Dodsworth Park, the seat of the
D u k e of Thanet, uncle to the bride, where they intend to pass the honeymoon.
" A n elegant dejeuner was given by the Countess of Dashmore at her
mansion in Berkeley Square, to the relatives of the newly-married couple, and
to some of the elite of the nobility, among whom were the Duke and Duchess
of
-? the Marquis of
, the Earls of
9 and, & c , & c , &c."
Often may paragraphs similar to the above be read, chiefly towards the
end of the season, in the fashionable journals of our metropolis, with, in
general, many additional observations by the penny-a-liners of the day,
as how the beauteous bride was overcome by her feelings, and how she
was related to this and that illustrious personage ; all which is greedily read
and regarded as most important information by the inhabitants of the three
kingdoms, while many a country Miss envies the happiness of Lady Katherine,
making conjectures as to whether she be dark or fair, and whether she has
plenty of jewels ; and thinks how delightful it is to be a Countess.
All this is the bright side of the picture. W e r e there no dark side, fashionable weddings would be scenes from the garden of Eden, or tableaux from Paradise (not a Mahometan one). All however is not gold that glitters, and could we
see through the blonde and silk that covers the bosom of the fair bride, and
obtain a view of the heart beneath, we should probably be let into the secret
of many sad sacrifices made to the Mammon of wealth and rank.
Before proceeding any further, let us examine how the marriage announced
in the above paragraph has in all probability been brought about.
i

M

MARRIAGE IN H I G H

LIFE.

Lord and Lady Dashmore are gifted with a large and numerous family ;
their quiver indeed is full; whether or not that circumstance adds to their
felicity is to be questioned. Be that as it may, few of our first fathers, although
rejoicing in the usage of polygamy, could boast of such numerous progeny as
your English nobleman, although limited by the laws of his country and
religion to one solitary wife. Of the Dashmore family six are daughters, the
eldest of whom, notwithstanding her want of fortune and beauty, has by the
admirable management of Lady Dashmore been married to an Irish peer.
Lady Katharine, however, is the phoenix of the family; upon her are founded
the most unbounded and ambitious hopes, and at the age of eighteen she is
brought out into the London marriage market, after many oft-repeated
lessons of how she is to snub and avoid all younger sons as though they
possessed the venom of the reptile whose name they bear, while, at the same
time, no stone must be left unturned in order to remove all barriers between
herself and the heart of some elder son.
T h e debut of the Lady Katherine was most successful; her beauty and
her grace were the theme of many club conversations, and she was
acknowledged by all to be the handsomest and most spirituelle girl that had
been presented during the season. No fault, indeed, could be found with
her, excepting that she was one of eleven children ; for, alas! there was no
possibility of concealing that unfortunate particular, although three of her
brothers were at Eton, and four of her sisters in the schoolroom at home.
F o r the editor of Burkes
Peerage is beyond the power of bribery and
corruption ; all that can be obtained of him is the omission of the ladies' ages,
and the placing of their names at the bottom of the family list, leaving the
reader to suppose that the eldest daughter is junior to the youngest son. T h e
mother, however, of Lady Katherine did all in her power to counterbalance
the evil, by giving dinners to which none but elder sons were invited; and
parties from which younger brothers were, as much as possible, excluded.
I n the ball-room, Lady Dashmore never left her daughter's side, excepting
on some eligible partner presenting himself; and stout must have been the
heart of that " scorpion," who, undaunted at the majestic frown of the
indignant mother, dared to ask the Lady Katherine to dance.
I t may be imagined, that brought up in such a diplomatic school, the
Lady Katherine Dashmore could not possibly be incommoded by any of
those faults which emanate from the heart. Surely such a one could never
be so foolish as to fall in love with anything but a title and a large estate.
In her eyes, any one whose rent-roll consisted of less than five figures, ought
naturally to have been regarded as quite out of the question, apart from his

MARRIAGE IN H I G H

LIFE.

67

personal merits ; for Lady Dashmore had many a time and oft attempted to
impress upon the mind of her daughter the utter impossibility of living upon
less than ten thousand a-year; " a n d that ought only to be accepted when
there appears no chance of getting more," was wont to observe the sapient
matron. Still, notwithstanding all the maternal precepts that had been
instilled into her mind, Lady Katherine was actually foolish enough to fall in
love with a younger brother. Certes! the eye must be difficult to please
which could have found fault with either the form or face of Augustus
Courtenay. His manly bearing, too, few could equal ; while his mind is as
upright as his form, and as noble as his face. But, alas! he is the younger
brother of Lord Stanmore; and as the latter cannot, of course, afford to spend
the slightest portion of his forty thousand a-year upon any one but himself,
Augustus Courtenay is little better than a pauper, although by birth, education, and habits, the equal of his elder brother. B u t such is the law of
England, which sacrifices all the younger branches of a family in order to
keep intact the fortune of the eldest born son. W h a t does it signify if
thousands are deprived of their natural rights, and driven forth into the
world to seek for the means of existence, unfitted, too, as they are, for
labour, by their habits and education ? What does it matter, if a quantity of
wretched " scorpions " groan beneath the weight of their poverty, so that the
head of the family continues to loll in luxury and roll in wealth, while his
younger brothers are treated as though they were bastards, for they have
neither inheritance nor birthright.
The contraband love affair between Lady Katherine and Augustus
Courtenay must, however, have been soon discovered by the eagle eyes of Lady
Dashmore ; and it may be perceived how successfully she has opposed its
progress, on reading the paragraph containing the account of her daughter's
marriage with Lord Normaudale—a young nobleman noted for imbecility
and ugliness, and whose mind is as narrow as his chest. Look, however, at
his " h a p p y " bride as she approaches the altar. Do not imagine that she is at all
downcast, because her face wears an expression of sadness. Oh n o ! that
cannot of course arise from her observing that Augustus Courtenay is
gazing upon the ceremony from a distant corner, but from the emotion
naturally caused by leaving her family; and that flood of tears into which she
bursts as she enters the carriage, followed by her noble and wealthy husband,
has probably the same origin, and not from any comparison between the
rejected and the accepted crossing her mind. H o w could that be ? Is not
England a free country, where none can be forced to marry against their will!
Lady Katherine's choice, therefore, has been unbiassed ; and how could that

68

MARRIAGE

IN H I G H

LIFE.

foolish young Courtenay imagine for a moment that he could be preferred to
the eldest son of a Marquis, with fifty thousand a-year !
I t is customary in England to ridicule the mar iages de convenance of the
Continent. Now, we request permission to inquire whether the same system
is not carried on among the higher classes in this country ? for out of fifty
marriages which take place at St. George's Church, Hanover Square, on an
average not more than one can be called a mariage d'inclination.
The
remainder are, for the most part, brought about by husband-hunting and
intriguing mothers, who, in marrying their children, take very little, if at all,
into consideration the natural affections of the h e a r t ; on the contrary, they
look towards the establishment of their daughters in the possession of a large
estate (all the better if it be accompanied by a title) as the chief end oi
matrimony. The names of every elder son that comes out, with the supposed
amount of his fortune, his expectations, et ejusdem generis omnia, axe carefully
inscribed upon the tablets of the mother's mind, who makes her selections
accordingly, having classed them in schedules A , B , &c. A young nobleman,
or at least a large landed proprietor, is of course marked down in schedule A ;
and no scheme is left untried in order to induce him to propose. T h e
mothers are not unfrequently most ably seconded by their daughters, who are
not all Ladies Katharine; and should the girl be not decidedly ugly, it often
happens that a high-flying bird is brought down and captured, after having
been made to believe that the affections of the young lady are entirely
engrossed by him, and that he is loved for himself only.
W e r e the vivid descriptions given by the Morning Post, the Herald, and
the Court Journal, of the fashionable weddings that are continually taking
place at this season of the year really true and unexaggerated, what a bower
of true and devoted love must this metropolis be—how many truly happy
couples must bless the hour they m e t !
Surely, there is more romantic
affection going on in smoky, foggy London, than one would give the place
credit for; besides, were there no previous mutual affection in the case,
surely that exquisite carriage- and-four is sufficient to inspire with it the
hearts of the newly-married couple. Blonde lace, too, and diamonds and
settlements, go far towards beautifying a husband's face, figure, mind, and
soul, in the imagination of his young bride ; so that we will make an effort,
and be sufficiently polite to flatter ourselves that fashionable weddings in
town are conducive of all possible happiness. Indeed, it would appear
that, for the marriage to be a happy one, the ceremony should be
celebrated in L o n d o n ; for frequently, although the preliminaries have
taken place in the country, the parties come up to London, from the longest

MARRIAGE IN H I G H

LIFE.

09

distances, in order to have the connubial knot tied at St. George's Church ;
it would appear, too, that there is a charm in having the ceremony performed
by a Bishop ; or a Dean ; or at least by an Honourable and Reverend,
frequently the brother of the fair bride, and the incumbent of a living in the
gift of his father—for the Church of England is a great refuge for destitute
younger brothers, many of whom would otherwise starve.
A t fashionable weddings in London, and indeed throughout the British
empire generally, it is the custom, when the bridegroom is an eldest son, for
innumerable presents to be showered upon him and his bride. One relation
sends a new carriage fresh from Long-Acre ; others give diamonds and pearls
in abundance; Cashmere shawls also, and gold dressing-cases, are not
wanting; indeed, on beholding the quantity of gifts that pour in from all
quarters, an utter stranger might be led to suppose that the two persons about
to be joined together in holy matrimony had previously been without the
commonest means of existence. But, mark the difference when the bridegroom is a younger son (unless, indeed, he marries a rich heiress, then
presents are sent as in the case of an elder brother)—not a gift is forthcoming
—a few hollow good-wishes and compliments form the sum total of what is
bestowed ; for in England, more than in any other country in the world, is
the maxim carried out, that " u n t o him that hath shall be given, and to him
that hath not shall be taken away, even what he hath."
B u t we must conclude: the important beadle has put back the idlers from
the church-steps; the long array of carriages takes up the elegant company,
one after the other, and the flashing doors are banged to with a noise that
reverberates all along the street, as the lashed horses clatter away over the
stones, whirling the company to the next scene in the drama—the dejeuner.
Then the mob disperses : there is another wedding, to be s u r e ; but a glass
coach and two hack cabs contain the affianced and their friends, and it is 9
therefore, not worth waiting to see.
A n d yet, after all, the noble bride might possibly gain in happiness by
exchanging her own feelings for those of the fresh and pretty girl—crying,
smiling, blushing, and blanching, all at once—in the comparatively ignoble
cortege that succeeds her o w n !

CHARLES STUART SAVILE.

THE

LOUNGER

IN

REGENT

STREET.

I T is the beginning of the evening in the City—and therefore high noon in
the West. A bright summer sun is warmly white upon the terraced and
stuccoed ranges of Regent Street.
T h e flaring, dusty thoroughfare is
swarming with flashing equipages, and pouring crowds of gay pedestrians.
T h e ample wooden pavement is divided into two long lines of moving
vehicles. H o w they sweep gaudily on—a changing, shifting panorama of
glittering pannels and glancing wheels, and sleek-pacing horses, and overpowering footmen, and delicious peeps into the dim cushioned interiors,
where the eye loses itself in half-seen, half-missed, visions of fair faces and
rich tresses, and reclining forms dressed in cool muslins, or lost in the
massive folds of costly shawls. A n d the broad, clean, white pave ! H o w it
swarms with that continuous procession of gaily-dressed women and men.
How, as you glance along it, the multitude—the shifting, rushing, rolling
multitude—becomes one dazzling, puzzling, confounding chaos of faces and
forms, and hats and bonnets, and paletots and visites, and moustaches and
curls—all jumbled up together—all mixing—all blending—and all forming
one confounding, bewildering, bewitching whole—which, as you contemplate
it, makes the eye dazzle and the brain ache!
I t is high noon in Regent Street.
A t every shop-door the big-calved,
gaudy-plushed footmen cluster. B y every lamp-post the dealers in poodles
and terriers and spaniel pups congregate. Men with pen-knives, which seem
all blades, abound. Along the kerb-stone, itinerant vendors of prints, and
stain-cleaning pastes, and mosaic gold chains, and studs, display their
merchandise ; and round the corner, near the tavern door, the Italian boy
grinds his piano-organ in dumb show. Happily, the music of the wheels
drowns the noise of the instrument.
The shops are as brilliant as they may be. H o w richly falls the drapery
of those emblazoned shawls through the fair plate-glass. H o w the rows of

/^MH!! V ' ; r'

THE LOUNGER IN REGENT STREFT.

71

" loves of bonnets," each upon its peg, gladden and sadden at the same
moment bright female eyes. How chastely luscious in its artistic network
depend the rich clusters of precious old-fashioned lace. H o w gorgeously
shines the plate—massive lumps of chased, and carved, and graven, and
frosted silver and gold; and how pleasant to look upon lie the tempting
cakes, and bon-bons, and jellies, ranged 'round the glistening barley-sugar
cages in the confectioner's window! Everything and everybody looks their
best—the very pictures on the music in Jullien's shop become artistic; the
unchanging prints of Moyen age fashions, and odd scraps from Daumier's
pencil in Delaporte's big window, look cheerful; and the symmetrical one
leg, in half of a pair of buckskin breeches and a top boot, which ornaments
the shop hard by, seems positively about to hop through the window, and
kick anybody who does not look happy, and flustered, and smiling, and h o t !
Yes—once more we repeat, it is high noon in the West.
Regent Street
is at its fullest, and its brightest, and its gayest; and the Regent Street
Lounger is abroad with the butterflies!
Now, therefore, to plunge into his
habits and characteristics.
T h e Regent Street Lounger must not be confounded with other loungers
who occasionally lounge in Regent Street. H e is not the Lounger of the
Lowther Arcade—or of the steam-boat piers—or of the stage doors—or of
the piazzas of Covent Garden, or the central fruity and flowery tunnel
thereof. H e is not even the Lounger of the Quadrant. H a r d as inferior
philosophers may find it to believe, the Lounger of the Quadrant is a different
being from the Lounger of Regent Street. T h e former is a mosaic edition of
the latter. H e shuns the glare of the open street, and finds comfort in the
subdued light of the colonnade. His smartness is often alloyed by seediness.
His hat has more jauntiness in its set than nap in its texture. His linen is
questionable, and his general air is mildewy. H e haunts dim cigar shops, and
glides furtively into fifth-rate billiard rooms. Often the Quadrant Lounger
is a foreigner. Then he smokes cigarettes, and has brown fingers heavy with
dim rings ; and if you look to his broad feet, you are instantly,transported in
imagination to Boulogne-sur-Mer, Rue de l'Ecu—the shop where they are
always selling bankrupt stocks of divers-coloured boots, with pearl buttons
which don't button, and little toe-tips of varnished leather, at the reasonable
rate of four francs a-pair.
But the Regent Street Lounger is a better style of man than his neighbour of the Quadrant. You may see him in the evening at the Opera j ust at
the break of the stalls, with his back to the stage, sweeping the house with a

72

THE LOUNGER IN REGENT STREET.

double-barrelled lorgnette. H e is also to be met with at Lovegrove's when
the whitebait is smallest and crispest. A n o n he is pastoral in Kensington
Gardens—only when the band plays though—and, eke, he is on view sundry
nights in the week at such theatres as the St. James's or the Lyceum. But,
'tis very odd, we will keep wandering from the text—it is in Regent's Street
we have now to do with him.
W h e r e he lives, how he lives, and what he is when he is at home, we
are not sufficiently impertinent to inquire. Never mind the coulisse of his
existence, Regent Street is the stage. A n d is not the make-up good?—the hat
glistening with so perfect a polish, the Joinville arranged in so faultless a tie,
the coat so dustless and creaseless, the boots so faultless in their proportions,
and all this carried off with such an air, or rather such a wonderful combination of airs, at once so easy, so graceful, so knowing, so indifferent, so
sprightly, so lazy—in fact, and the word sums up the sentence—so exquisitely
" loungy."
T h e Regent Street Lounger knows Town. H e is of it, perhaps on it.
H e may not perhaps approach the inner penetralia of West-end life, but he
hangs upon its outward development. If he cannot ride m the coronetted
carriage, he will at least be within sound of the wheels. I f he does not know
the peer, he knows the peer's liveries. T r y him—cross-question him. Not a
carriage which rolls along the wood, or waits along the kerb, but he can tell
the occupant of. H e is learned in hammer-cloths, elaborate on crests, and can
discern the strawberry leaf on the pannel even when the two sleek and glossy
horses, with their foaming mouths and high action, being put to their mettle
by the fat be-wigged coachman, seem to shoot past like a rocket.
The Regent Street Lounger cares little about the shops. The people are
his study. H e is not like the more easterly tribes of Loungers. H e never
stops to listen to a man whistling canary notes with a quill in a tin j u g of
water. A n excavated gas-pipe has no charms for him. H e can withstand
the temptation of an omnibus horse which has slipped on the wooden pavement, and he pays not the most remote attention to the gentleman who
disposes of favourite lyric poetry at six yards a-penny; on the contrary, he
paces easily yet jauntily on from the baker's at the corner of Glasshouse Street
to the music-shop which marks the confluence of Regent and Oxford Streets.
These are the general frontiers of his lounging dominions. A n d he traverses
his kingdom with a certain observant thoughtfulness. Not a lady escapes the
ordeal. His eye falls listlessly, yet searchingly, on face and form, and toilet
and dress—from the saucy little boot to the flutter of the parasol fringe. H e

THE LOUNGER IN REGENT STREET.

73

has a keen appreciation of visites, and entertains deep theories on the handling and disposing of shawls. Gentlemen fare no better. H e divides them
into two classes—the " good style of men" and " the bad style of men." T h e
mere harmless, pitiful little gent does not even excite his contempt. H e is
philosophic, and knows that we are all mortal—little minnows and big whales.
A s we have said, the Regent Street Lounger does not much affect
the shops. His eye ranges calmly and superciliously along the squares of
plate-glass. If he peer in, 'tis to see the customers, not the goods ; 'tis where
half-a-dozen carriages are drawn up at the mercer's door, or by the pastrycook's lintels. I n the latter establishment he sometimes, for a brief space,
conducts his lounge. H e does not look at the little bill of fare, spread on the
miniature bat—why should he ? H e knows everything in the shop, and the
price of everything, from the humble bun to the recherche preserve; from
vapid soda-water to fragrant Maraschino. So he idly eats his ice, and then
imbibes his tumbler of water, and listlessly drums with his neatly gloved
fingers on the marble table, and watches in pleasant contemplation the swarms
of ladies who sip, and nibble, and chatter so gaily, and who are afterwards so
silent, and have such wretched appetites at dinner; after which he lounges
out as he lounged in, and resumes his lounge up and down the street, just
where he left it off.
On occasions of a sudden shower, the Regent Street Lounger has—putting
out of view the shops—two harbours of refuge. A s he happens to be respectively
next the Oxford Street or the Piccadilly end of his lounge, he retreats either
to the Pantheon, making for the back entrance through Marlborough Street,
as he seeks for shelter in the Quadrant. I n neither of these sanctuaries,
however, can he be said to lounge. H e seldom makes his way into the mare
magnum of the Pantheon, contenting him self with loitering in the conservatory,
idly watching the parroquets and love birds, and ready, the moment the rain
has ceased to tinkle on the glass roof, to betake himself to his beloved pavement. In the same way, his demeanour under the colonnade of the Quadrant
triumphantly proves him to be a mere visitor—not an habitue.
H e fidgets
uneasily about the upper end, watching the sky, and casting only a contemptuous glance at the humble shops behind him, with their wares of snuffboxes, cheroots, meerschaums, gents' paletots, artists' lay figures, toys, wigs,
walking-sticks, and paint-boxes. T h e moment the sky clears, and adventurous
folk mount the outsides of the passing omnibusses, he starts again on his
pilgrimage. I t is rare, very rare, to find our Lounger upon the western
pavement of his favourite lounge. H e calls that the " eighteen-penny side " of
j

74

T H E LOUNGER IN R E G E N T

STREET

Eegent Street; dignifying the eastern footway by the title of the " half-crown
side." Accordingly, unless he has just made a run across, to look at a new
monstrosity, in the way of a flat hard German print, at the dismal high-art
shop a little above Vigo Street, or unless he has a mind to sip a thimbleful
of Verey's cognac, he never, unless the sun be burning indeed, shows himself
in the shady, alias the eighteenpenny side, of Regent Street.
Of course the Regent Street Lounger has his seasons of glory. W h e n
Parliament is up, and the Operas closed, and the French Plays over, and the
concerts hushed—when people are climbing the Alps, or shooting grouse on
the Grampians, or talking bad French on the Boulevards, or cursing the bills
of the Rhine hotels, or up to the neck in salt-water at Ramsgate, or in hot
mud at Baden—when that autumnal time comes, the Lounger disappears.
H e fades with the waning year. W h e n nought but hack cabs rattle along
the wood, none but highlows clatter along the pavement. The coronetted
panel and the glazed boot disappear together. If a solitary Lounger show,
'tis as we sometimes hear of an unseasonable wroodcock. No, the wide
thoroughfare is empty and dismal. The shops are in undress ; remains of
summer stocks are being sold off at a tremendous sacrifice ; the beautiful face
which graced the town-chariot ornaments the travelling landau; the poodle
and spaniel pup men have g o n e ; the penknife men have gone ; the chain
and stud men have g o n e ; the pretty toilets have gone ; the merry parties
in the pastry-cooks have gone ; the shawls and the bonnets in the windows
have g o n e ; the happy, bustling, thronging, talking, laughing, flirting,
fluttering mob have gone ; and, with all these, men, women, children, and
things, there has gone—whether, we know not—how, we know not—when,
werknow not—why, we know not—but there has also gone the Lounger in
Regent Street.

ANGUS B. REACH.

GREENWICH

FAIR.

T H E R E is not a goodlier day of merry-making, for the regular traditional
Monday-keepers, passed in the neighbourhood of London than at Greenwich
Fair. T h e Pool, and the Port, of London are always objects of astonishment
to a foreigner; but to see them on Whit-Monday, or at the commencement
of a fine Easter week, is the most extraordinary sight he will meet with.
A t a very early hour, there is a busy note of preparation sounded at the
steam-boat piers along the river. T h e streets are thronged with decently
dressed people, the greater part of whom are progressing towards the Thames.
These increase as the day advances; and by three o'clock in the afternoon,
the masses of Londoners waiting for their chance of passage in the Greenwich
boats are so immense, that they form a sight in themselves. Nor is there a
less multitude, in proportion, at the terminus of the railway. The trains
can scarcely run fast enough to convey the passengers ; and sturdy barriers
are erected to break the pressure of the crowd, and only admit such a number
at a time as can be conveniently accommodated in the carriages.
Later still, the river below London Bridge—the parapets of which are
swarming with idlers, clustering like bees to the coping—presents a singularly
animated scene. Nearly all the vessels in the pool hoist their flags, in compliment to the holiday—bands of music, that only appear competent to play
" Love n o t " and " Jeannette and Jeannot," are stationed at some of the
wharfs, or on board the boats ; and almost every minute a steamer passes,
deep in the water, by reason of her crowded freight of human beings. It is
only by extreme look-out that numberless accidents are avoided; for the
highway is covered with small boats as well, together with ships being towed
into dock, and heavy barges always getting directly across the way, so that
sometimes a perfect stoppage of several minutes is necessary. Every available
corner of the decks, cabins, and paddle-boxes of the steamers is occupied; and
more than two-thirds of the voyagers are obliged to be content with standing-

76

GREENWICH

FAIR.

room during the journey—which, under these circumstances, is not made
very rapidly. Indeed, we are but little under the hour going from Swan
stairs to Greenwich pier; but everybody is in thorough good temper with
themselves and everybody else, so that there is no grumbling at the want of
accommodation. They appear only too happy to get there at all, albeit all
the way the boats roll and sway until the water nearly washes in at the
cabin windows.
The fair begins directly you land. F r o m the Ship Torbay Tavern up to
the park gates, the road is bordered on either side with stalls, games, and
hand-waggons, containing goods or refreshments of every description. MrPunch, too, sets up the temple of his illegitimate drama at three or four
points of the thoroughfare, at each of which (in our belief that there is but
one P u n c h and that he is ubiquitous), he is pursuing that reckless career of vice
and dissipation with which his audience are always so delighted. Snuff-boxes
to throw at—refreshments of singularly untempting appearance, which nevertheless find eager purchasers—vendors of spring rattles, who ensure " the
whole fun o' the fair for a penny"—speculators in heavy stocks of Waterloo
crackers and detonating balls—proprietors of small percussion guns, to shoot
with at targets for nuts—keep increasing, together with the visitors, as we
near the park ; until the diminished breadth of the street brings them all
together in one struggle to get through the gates, like the grains of sand
in an egg-glass.
I t is a great relief to exchange the dust and jostling of the street for the
greensward and wide area of the park, albeit the grass is, in some places,
perfectly shuffled away by the countless feet that pass over it in the course of
the day. Observatory Hill is the chief point of attraction, and here the
great mass of people is collected. Nothing can be more animated or mirthinspiring than the coup cfoeil from the summit of this rise. The myriads of
visitors all in their gayest dresses; for the humblest amongst them has
mounted something new, be it only a ribbon, in compliment to the holiday—
the perpetual motion of the different groups and their various occupations—
the continuation of the bustle to the river, seen beyond the hospital, covered
with ships and steamboats as far as the eye can reach—and above all, the
clear bright light shed over the entire panorama, except where the cloudy
smoke of London hangs on the horizon—altogether form a moving picture of
life and festivity only to be witnessed at Greenwich Fair.
The maimed and weather-beaten forms of the old pensioners offer odd
contrasts to the lively active groups on every side. But even they are

GREENWICH

FAIR.

77

keeping holiday.
Some of them, it is true, would find it a task of no small
difficulty to climb up the hill, or run down it, with the alacrity or headlong
velocity of the younger visitors ; so they content themselves with sitting
down upon the smooth turf to watch the others, or entertaining attentive
listeners with their accounts of former engagements, in descriptions which
depend more or less upon the fertility of their imaginations, but so ingeniously
framed that they usually are contrived to end in an eleemosynary appeal to
the generosity of the " noble captain" or other complimentary officer who
listens to them. T h e other chief entertainments on the Observatory Hill
consist in running down with helter-skelter rapidity, or scrambling oranges
and apples amongst the boys on its declivity, which fruits are liberally
showered forth by the more wealthy visitors on the summit. Frequently, an
unwary damsel, crossing the slope, is entrapped by a handkerchief extended
between two swift-footed swains, and compelled to finish her journey down
the hill in much quicker time than she intended. A n d then what struggling
there is—what exclamations of " Ha' done, t h e n ! " and " B e quiet, n o w ! "
until there is no breath left to give utterance to these remonstrances, and the
victim is hurried to the foot of the steep between her two reckless persecutors,
fortunate if she arrives at the foot without any downfall. F o r such accidents
are of common occurrence, and roars of laughter arise from the crowds on
either side when any luckless wight over-runs himself, and salutes the
turf in consequence.
There is always the same concourse of people outside the upper park
gates, upon Blackheath ; but the style of amusement is here varied. Fortunetellers and donkeys form the chief attraction ; and the hirers of the latter
continually bestridden and belaboured animals meet with as frequent falls as
the runners on the hill, and apparently with as little consequences. The
gipsies, also, are driving a brisk trade amongst the credulous, inviting everybody to peep into their own futurity ; indeed we are so frequently addressed
as " M y pretty gentleman," and hear so many gratifying things for nothing,
told in the hope of luring us on to cross the olive hand presented to us with
a " piece of silver," that we begin to think our own lot in life is not so miserable
after all. Not, however, that we ever feel particularly despondent at Greenwich
Fair. W e always endeavour to take the bright side of SLUJ circumstances we
may be thrown amongst; and here there is so little care to be met with, and
so much merriment—boisterous at times, it is true, and what very refined
people would think common and vulgar, but withal, innocent and heartfelt—
that we are forced to be cheerful in spite of our owm feelings, had we been

78

GREENWICH

FAIR.

otherwise disposed. There is so much, too, to entertain. Look at that
fortune-telling group. A little fair man has evidently been prevailed upon
by " t h e young woman he keeps company with " to treat her to a revelation
of her future destiny.
H e has been listening, with a smirk of selfcomplacency, to the commencement of the gipsy's oration; but his countenance gradually falls as he hears something about u a tall, dark gentleman
as desires to go courting her," until, in the implicit belief that the
Bohemienne has not only the power of predicting but also of directing
future events, he cuts short the story of the prophetess, and leads his intended
away in high dudgeon. But, if you meet them afterwards, you will find
that the cloud has completely passed away.
Upon One Tree Hill, which derives its name from a trunk upon the
summit, whose bare branches are presumed, at some period long lost in
antiquity, to have put forth occasional leaves, but which now looks more like
a tree growing topsy-turvy, with its root in the air—upon this elevation the
principal array of telescopes is established ; and the old pensioners who own
them, and adapt their focus to the eyes of the curious, find plenty of custom.
Some years ago, when the late Mr. Hone visited the fair for his Every-day
Book, the first sight always demanded was " the men in chains"—the bodies
of the executed pirates formerly suspended on the river bank. But alas
for the progress of civilization! These interesting objects have long since
disappeared, and there is nothing equally exciting to supply their place, so
that the pensioners are drawn to invent fresh wonders. But what with the
sights the visitors actually do see, and what with those they do not, and those
they persuade themselves they do, the end is, to all appearances, answered
just the same.
The " Fair," properly so called, is a long narrow thoroughfare of stalls,
booths, and shows, in a lane leading from the town to the bridge at
Deptford Creek. Perhaps this is the least attractive part of the day's amusement. T h e crowd is so dense and disorderly as to threaten each minute the
erection of barricades of " brandy-snaps," and the overthrow and deposition of
the gilt gingerbread kings ranged on each side. More refreshment stalls
border the way—wonderfully uninviting shell-fish, of shapes you have never
before encountered—mysterious effervescing drinks, like dirty soap-suds and
carbonic acid mixed together—eels in different states of cookery, pickled,
stewed, and in pies—strangely indigestible lumps of pudding, studded at
uncertain intervals with black lumps, presumed to be plums—masses of cold
fried fish, liberally peppered with dust ; and dreadful oysters as large as

GREENWICH

FAIR.

79

soup-plates—oysters in J u n e ! But all are doing good business, and rapidly
disposing of their stock.
The shows, possibly, are our greatest delight, for we love to be harmlessly
imposed upon at these wandering exhibitions. The last time we were at
Greenwich Fair, we saw one held in a dismantled dwelling-house, where
various forms in wTax-work, of the true Mrs. Jarley breed, were set up for
inspection. I n the recess of a window were placed two figures, evidently
intended, originally, for A m y Robsart and the Earl of Leicester, but which
represented, we were informed, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, enjoying
the retirement of private life, apart from the pomp of royalty. W h y they
should have chosen to enjoy retirement in fancy dresses of the Elizabethan
period, those best acquainted with the habits of those august personages can
possibly inform us. All the characters of the exhibition were, however, old
friends. W e fancied that we once knew them in H i g h Holborn, where the
organ turned at the door, and the monkey sat on the hot gas-pipe. A t all
events, if they were not the identical ones, the artist had cast two in the same
mould whilst he was about it. W e do not think he had been happy in the
likenesses. Sir Robert Peel was, unmistakeably, Mr. Buckstone grown a
foot taller, and wearing a light flaxen wig. Lady Sale we once knew as
Queen Adelaide ; and Oxford had transmigrated into W i x , the eyes having
been manifestly wrenched violently round to form the squint of the latter
miserable culprit. I n one point the artist had excelled nature. H e had
preserved the apparent dryness and coolness of the skin, whilst the folks
looking on were melting with the heat.
I n another show were some learned birds. This was also held in an
unfinished house. A curtain nailed to the rafters divided the rude interior
into two parts ; by pushing it aside we saw a flock-bed upon the ground, a
mouldering fire, and a tin saucepan : a thin unhappy dog was persuading
himself that he was asleep on the bed. I n front of the 'penetralia was a dirty
breeding-cage, in which five or six poor little ragged canaries were sitting
on a perch, huddled up together as if for better self-defence. A man came
to the front and said, " Stand back, gents, and then all can see—the canaries,
the performing canaries, brought from the Canary Islands for the Queen."
The birds were then taken out, and had to pull carts and draw water, sit on
the end of a trumpet whilst it was played, and fire cannon; the explosion of
the gunpowder throwing them into a state of tumbling, chuffing, and
sneezing, from which they did not recover by the conclusion of the
entertainment.

80

GREENWICH

FAIR.

As soon as it is dusk, the crowd in the Fair thickens ; and its sole object
appears to be to push a way violently through everything, to the extreme
end, and then to return again in the same manner. In the town every tavern
and public-house is filled to overflowing with hungry, or rather thirsty,
occupants ; the clouds of tobacco-smoke from the open windows proving the
crowded state of the apartments. The steam-boats now cease to ply, but the
trains on the railway continue until a late hour. If you return to town b y
the latter method of conveyance, you will meet hundreds more proceeding to
Greenwich, even at very advanced periods of the evening. W h e r e they get
to when they arrive, or how they contrive to return home again when the
F a i r closes, is beyond conjecture. Those, however, who go simply to look
on are not sorry, by this time, to get clear of the increasing riot and confusion
—to which, on arriving once more in London, the bustle of Cheapside appears
almost seclusion and tranquillity.

ALBERT SMITH.

THE

COULISSES.

I N an unpretending little work which must, one would imagine, be found very
useful in promoting a partial comprehension of fashionable newspaper accounts
of aristocratic festivities, we find the word Coulisse explained t h u s : —
"s.f. Groove. Scene of a play-house. Gutter." Not one of these synonymes
quite imparts the sense contained in the term, as ordinarily used, though it
has a certain affinity with all three. Let us venture to add a foot-note to the
favourite volume we have cited, popularly known as Le Nouveau
Dictionnaire
de Poche, par

THOMAS

NUGENT.

Some years ago, before children's books were abolished, and tiny novels
and fairy tales were set aside for illustrations of the steam-engine and
heterodox German twaddle, there was a very clever little story, called
" Curiosity and Enquiry." I t was certainly a book " with a purpose," and
that was the only thing that could be said against it, for the " purpose " was
utterly annihilated by the liveliness of the tale. There were two young
ladies, one u curious," and the other a enquiring," and the author designed to
show the difference, and to set forth the advantage which the latter possessed
over her rattle-brained sister. But the author's favourite is not always the
reader's, as has been shown in various excellent works, from Paradise Lost, in
which a Royal Highness, stated by Shakspere to be also a gentleman, certainly
" has the pull," to Sir Bulwer Lytton's last romance, in which that pious
-ZEneas, Harold, is completely ecrase by his more effective rival, the Achilles
of Normandy. A n d so it was with our little story, in studying which we
irreverently eschewed the improving narrative of the good Miss Enquiry,
whose hair was always nicely patted down, and who asked pertinent questions,
or begged grandpapa to point out a book in which she might obtain the information she desired, and we gave our heart to the bright-eyed scapegrace
Curiosity, who, wishing to know how the clock in the hall was made, and
why it struck, piled a mountain of footstools upon a kitchen chair, and
K

82

THE

COULISSES.

scrambling up the ascent, opened the glass-door, tampered with the works,
set the clock striking all kinds of wild hours, got frightened, and came
tumbling down, dusty and dishevelled, and bumped her head on the marble
floor. All through life, we are sorry to say, we have had the same deplorable
taste for the wrong side of the question; and hence, though the proper way
of treating our present subject is clearly that of prosaic explanation as to what
Coulisses are, and then adding some sensible advice against " dispelling the
illusion of the stage," and so forth, we prefer to scramble into the works, like
Curiosity in our story-book.
The " P e t of the Ballet" is, unquestionably, the queen of the Coulisses.
In that strange, motley scene, exhibited behind the opera curtain, between
the time grudged to Mozart and that gladly yielded to Pugni, comes
the Pet's nightly coronation. There, amid that busy, chattering mob, her
sovereignty is manifest. Look ! there stands magnificent Grisi, flushed with
the exertion of the night, and there staggers away her servant under the
merciless load of the flowers which have been hurled to her. She is excited
with her new triumph, and is the centre of a group of first-rate artists, in the
gorgeous costumes of the opera just concluded, a mass of colours relieved by
the simple black of half-a-dozen young aristocrats from the stalls, who are
lavishing well-worn compliments in French of various merit. The stage is
filling—fair girls, in fleecy clouds of gauze, trip on by twos and threes,
striking out their well-turned limbs, and pointing their pliant feet, that no
mischance amid the mysteries of dress may interfere with their flexible
movements in the approaching ballet. Peasants, red, green, and blue, straggle
in towards their proper places in the " picture" upon which the curtain is to
rise. Carpenters hurry about, urged to frenzy by the officer in command, who
alternately storms at a misplaced "flat," and bows to some vacant-looking
lounger. The little " Vanity Fair" is at its busiest, when a lane is suddenly
formed, and into the heart of the crowd glides the P e t of the Ballet. A
graceful gyration or two, more a matter of habit than of business, and the
little creature stands, with a gracious smile, to receive the incense every hand
is bringing. See how the white (don't say whitened) arms fold gently across,
a finger tip just reaching the opposite elbow ! H o w the diamonds sparkle in
the gas-light ! Even the radiant Grisi nods, friendlily, to the star of another
sphere. A Duke, not a young one, salutes her, with the bow Avhich has
become as proverbial as a certain other Duke's touch of the hat.
Danseiises
know the value of Dukes—nobody better ; and nothing can be sweeter than
the answering look. But His Grace's attentions are merely courtesies, and he

THE

COULISSES.

83

is as calm as an ice-lake. B u t look there. That young Marquis is in the
Guards, and he is in love with h e r ; and observe how restless his eye is. H e
sees a new bracelet of emerald on her arm, and he does not see his own last
present; and although he is a Marquis, and a guardsman, and moreover a
member of Parliament, who ought, at this moment, to be in his place,
supporting the Religious Education Bill (on which he spoke very well the
night before the Derby), he is about as plebeianly jealous as any shopman out
for a Sunday with his little milliner.
A n d here comes another of her
admirers, a Hebrew Crgesus, with a bow not so fine as the Duke's, but with a
waistcoat far finer than his—and he presents a bouquet, fastened into a jewelled
band.
A n d there comes the grave but courteous manager, to hope that
Mademoiselle has recovered from her headache, and with him the writer of a
leading journal—see how she smiles at him, though he brings neither a
bouquet nor a fine waistcoat. A n d how everybody looks at her, especially all
the third and fourth rate dancers, who envy her, and attribute her success not
to her wonderful power and her intense industry, but to all sorts of unworthinesses ; the fact being that she is as good a girl as one knows, and
keeps a bronze-coloured, old, snuffy, French father, and a fat mother, and a
long, sallow, scampish, billiard-playing brother, and some scrags of sisters,
together with the legion of other relations who infest her (as they do all
foreign artists), in noble lodgings in the Haymarket. She works terrifically
hard—harder than anybody, who does not know a dancer's life, can imagine,
and deserves all the honours, as every one does who labours, honourably, for
them. Let us hope that she saves money, and will not marry that gambling
Parisian Count, who will spend it all, and then beat her (as happens in so
many cases one hears of) ; and that she will enjoy the dinner the D u k e is
going to give to a picked party, at the Castle at Richmond, on S u n d a y ; and
that she will be well cared for when her day is over—for that day will come,
when, as Mrs. Norton says (in one of the most exquisite poems in the language),
" Younger slaves have skill, and those thy lords employ."
Nobody ought to be allowed to go behind the scenes of a theatre, except
those who have a business connection with it. A n d this is a rule which is
fast gaining ground ; and which, to the credit of lady-managers be it
recorded, they were the first to lay down, and are the most rigid in observing
Without going into the cant of " abstraction," and "absorption into a
character"—feats happily rendered less and less necessary, now that the
nuisance of the heavy drama is abating, under the sanitary jurisdiction of

84

THE

COULISSES.

public taste—no actor can do his work so well when constantly diverted from
the personation he is attempting, as when his mind is allowed to repose, as
well as to exert itself, in the author's conception. That many artists act
admirably, in spite of interruption, is no answer, because the highest order
of talent can do anything ; but that scores of performers of lesser merit would
play far better than they do, had they fewer distractions from their business,
is a melancholy commonplace perpetually forced upon everybody who understands theatrical matters. A n d experience proves that the more exclusive the
green-room, the more perfect is the stage.
" Behind the scenes" has been so well and so often described (and by
nobody better than by our friend the Editor of this series of sketches), that we
shall certainly abstain from essaying anything of the kind. B u t we shall tell
a story as 'twas told to us.
W e have a friend—a man who would rather do us a good turn than an ill
one, if the former gave him no more trouble than the latter, which is about
equivalent to the friendship David felt for Jonathan, or Damon for Pythias
—allowing for the modern depreciation of social currency. H e lives, when he
has done stockbroking, or whatever he calls it, in a pleasant villa at Notting
Hill, where he has a phaeton and three horses, and most of Edwin Landseer's
prints, and a capital cellar, and a meerchaum, silver mounted, and a wife, and
many other luxuries. Something put it into this foolish stockbroker's head
that he wanted to go u behind the scenes." F o r nearly a year he kept poking
his wish at us in various forms, and over various wines and spirituous
liquors. Now, although in reality " behind the scenes" is a far more
harmless place than any club, from the House of Commons upwards ; or than
a good many drawing-rooms where we have met doctors in divinity; and
though the ladies and gentlemen of " the profession " are just as likely to
encourage or allow a stranger to commit himself in any way as Alboni is
likely to stop in the middle of her divine Non piu mesta to ask M. Costa
what he means to have for supper—there is in lady-minds a prejudice
against the green-room. A n d we had—have—a considerable respect for our
friend's wife, inasmuch as she never lets him give a dinner-party without
asking the present writer. So we were as deaf as a railway-clerk. But
when, finally, deliberately, and with open and advised speaking, our friend,
Paul Honeyball, demanded of us an introduction to the green-room of a
certain theatre, very dear to us, what could be done! W e ejaculated something, neither mentally nor ornamentally, obtained managerial permission,
and this is Paul's report of the result:—

THE

COULISSES.

85

" Now then, as Mrs. Paul's gone, try that Burgundy, and 111 tell you all
about it. I went to the stage-door, and sent in your note. Presently a man
came and told me to ' come this way.' I followed him through a dark place,
with many turns, and I kept knocking my hat against something soft (not
my head—ha! ha! put that in your next play, my boy), and then I came upon
the lady of the establishment. She had a sword and a shield, so we could
not exactly shake hands ; but she spoke in a ringing, merry voice, and asked
how you were. Before I could answer she rushed on the stage, and defied a
fellow, all over hair, to fight her. I wanted to see the fight, so I went
forward, when a man, in his shirt-sleeves, told me I was in sight of the
audience. ' Oh!' I said, and went somewhere else. Then another man told
me I mustn't stand there. ' Oh!' I said, and changed my place ; when I
felt something hot going down my neck ; and looking back, a demon was
shaking a fiery torch, full of rosin, at the lady. I ran back, when a scene was
suddenly shoved up, and I was fixed against a white wall. I bawled, and
the prompter looked round, and swore at me for making a noise."
" It's a sad thing, but prompters will swear."
" I wriggled out, when a scene-shifter came, begged my pardon, and said
he should be glad to drink my health."
" He was glad to do it—so am I. Well ? "
" Well, I was all over white, so I went into the green-room—d'ye see—
put that in your next play! Everybody looked at me, and then took no
further notice. So I asked a young lady, with pink legs, if she was fond of
acting. She said she never acted ; then she went away. A man came in,
with a brown George and grey stockings. I recognised him, and told him
he had often made me laugh. He looked very grim, and said I did him
proud, and went away. Then a sort of lady's-maid came with a basin and
towels, and a rouge-pot and a woman's dress in her hand, and all the men
were turned out of the room—something about a ' quick change'—1 didn't
understand. So not knowing what to do next, I went up some steps, and
looked out at the window of a castle. In a minute I heard a roar of laughter,
and found I was in front of the audience ; but before I could retreat, an old
man in a king's dress pushed me away, told me I was mad, put his head out
at the same hole, and said he wasn't at home. I came down, but could not
get away, for about twenty dirty soldiers, with halberts, informed me I must
wait till they * went on,' so I stood stewing there for half-an-hour, while they
grinned at me. Presently they all levelled their weapons, shouted very loud,
and ran upon the stage, every one trying to push me over. I had enough of

86

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it, so I got out—thanks to a little girl who" piloted me—and you don't
catch me there again, I can tell you. It's all very dull, except what's very
disagreeable."
Doubtless other people give other versions. For ourselves, we have had
many a pleasant evening in the society of artists, who, if anything more than
artists, are, from opportunity of observation and manner of narration, most
delightful raconteurs, and sometimes very brilliant conversationists. But if
the truth were told, we fancy the much-coveted entree to the Coulisses would
result, in nineteen cases out of twenty, in the same disappointment as our
friend Honeyball's. We are, of course, aware that there are faultlessly dressed
gentlemen, and faultily dressed Gents, who alike covet that entree for other
reasons than Paul's, but with the vice which they form most exaggerated
hopes of discovering, we have nothing to do. We love a truism—there are
bad and good people everywhere, even in the Coulisses—a term we trust we
have now made comprehensible by the million.
SHIRLEY BROOKS.

THE

BARMAID.

W H O is she that sitteth in the shrine of the temple of Bacchus ?—the
Priestess of that ancient worship whose mysteries are celebrated in the Halls
of Evans. Her brows are crowned with mint and juniper, and her shining
tresses curl like the rind of the artfully peeled orange upon her polished
shoulders ; in her right hand she beareth a bowl of fragrant nectar, and in
her left presseth a golden lemon ; gas-lights burn brilliantly around her, and
the rich odours of Geneva fill the air ; pleasantly she smileth upon her
customers through clouds of incense wafted from patrician Principes or plebeian
Pickwicks, and tempereth the ardency of Cognac with mild modicums from
the New River. A legion of kind familiar spirits obey her behests: hers are
the refreshing fountains of Soda, and hers the gently-flowing waters of Carrara!
Who asks her name ? Who knows not the pretty Barmaid—the modern
Hebe, whose champagne is not more intoxicating than her millades ?
Like the moon she never shines with full lustre till night ; then she comes
out in all the fascinations of satin and small talk—bestowing, with perfect
impartiality, a smile upon one admirer, a tender glance upon another, and a
kind word or two upon a third ; leaving each in the happy belief that he is
himself the fortunate individual upon whom she has secretly bestowed her
affections. She carries on a flirtation while concocting a sherry-cobbler,
accepts a lover in the act of sweetening a glass of toddy, and even permits a
gentle pressure of the hand when giving you change out of your sovereign.
But all this is selon son metier—a mere matter of business with which the
heart has nothing to do.
Thus the Barmaid seems to be a kind of moral salamander, living unharmed
in the midst of the amorous furnace in which Destiny has placed her. Long
habit has perhaps inured her to this state of insensibility, upon which her
safety as well as her happiness depends ; but we believe it is an established
fact in her history that no Barmaid ever gave away her heart, or permitted
it to be sponged from her fingers' ends, across the counter.

88

THE BARMAID.

I t is during her soiree—when her little court is filled with Gents, swells,
and loungers from the theatres, that the Barmaid's triumph is at its height.
Then in the plenitude of her power she flings back saucy repartees to pert
addresses, and generally—for she has the sympathies of her audience with
her—turns the laugh against the fool who has the temerity to hazard a skirmish
of wit with her.
She has a wonderful acquaintance with all the floating topics of the day,
and talks with as much confidence of Sir Robert's great speech, and Sibthorpe's
last joke as a parliamentary reporter. She thinks the Guards " delightful
fellows," and declares her decided partiality for moustaches; she has a settled
conviction that Jullien is " a duck," and considers the two mounted Blues
at the Horse Guards models of manly and equine beauty.
These, however, are b u t the general outlines of the portrait: the Barmaid, like the chameleon, takes her local colour from the character of her
visitors, and insensibly adopts the professional manners and language of the
class in society with which she associates. Thus, at Limehouse she is marine,
and in Albany Street military ; in the neighbourhood of the Temple, and
all about Chancery Lane she talks of sittings, and after-sittings—of caveats,
pleas, and demurrers, with the gravity of an old Chancery barrister. I n the
vicinity of Covent Garden, along the Strand, and up the Haymarket, the
Barmaid discourses most eloquently upon things theatrical; she has all the
scandal of the green-rooms " by express," and knows the name of every
danseuse who gives Lord So-and-so a seat in her brougham in H y d e Park.
She calls Mr. Macready " Mac," and Buckstone u little B u c k y ; " she has,
moreover, a white satin slipper of Taglioni's, and a presentation copy of
Baugniet's admirable lithographic portrait of Paul Bedford, with the great
creature's autograph at foot, framed and hung up in the bar. I n the
Sporting Houses the Barmaid affects the Turf, and confesses, privately, that
she has no objection to the Ring.
She knows the names of the favourites for
the Derby and Leger, and backs them all round for any amount of gloves,
handkerchiefs, ribbons, and other small wares, knowing that if she wins, she
will be paid ; and, if she loses, she never insults a gentleman by mentioning
it. ' W i t h i n the circuit of half-a-mile of the London University the Barmaid
is a blue; and if you be not on your guard, you may chance to get floored
with a quotation from Horace, or a problem from Euclid. Besides these,
there is the medical student Barmaid—near the hospitals ; and the musical
Barmaid—near the operas ; and the artist Barmaid—anywhere ; and the
newspaper Barmaid—everywhere ; with fifty others in various professions,

THE BARMAID.

89,

who having picked up a smattering of the subjects they hear continually
discussed, talk upon them as fluently, and sometimes quite as sensibly,
as their instructors.
Having sketched the Barmaid at home, let us now present her to our
readers as she appears abroad. True, her enjoyments beyond the narrow
limits of the bar, and that mysterious little back parlour behind it, have been
few ; she has lived all her life amidst the grimy bricks and tiles of London.
But she has an instinctive love of Nature implanted in her heart. The geranium
in the little pot on her window-sill, and the flowers that she daily places
in water on a shelf in the bar, are touching evidences that her heart has not
lost its freshness in the withering atmosphere in which it has been placed.
When her periodical holiday arrives—that anxiously looked-for happy
"

day that comes between
The Saturday and Monday"—

how joyfully does she prepare for an excursion with " the young man that
keeps her company" to Greenwich, or Hampstead, or Rosherville ; but most
she delights in a trip to Richmond by water. Seldom beats a happier heart
than the young Barmaid's on a fine summer's morning, when, with a
delicious consciousness of liberty — that only those whose patrimony is
servitude can taste—she hurries, with her equally happy lover, on board
" T h e Vivid" steamer at Hungerford-pier—trembling lest they should be
late, although they are full twenty minutes before the time of starting.
During the voyage up, she is in raptures with every object she sees ;—the
winding banks—the beautiful villas, peeping through thick foliage—the
green aits—and the graceful swans, whose snowy plumage acquires a dazzling
splendour as they glide in the dark shadow of the overhanging shore.
Everything, in short, is brighter and fairer than ever it appeared before.
Then there is the landing, and the walk up the hill to the Park—where,
seated under an umbrageous chestnut-tree, she gaily unpacks her handbasket,
and produces her little feast. Were ever sandwiches so delicious! And the
snowy napkin for a table-cloth ; and the salt in a wooden lemon, unscrewing
at the equator—the prize of some dexterous hand at the popular game of
" three throws a penny;" and the morsel of cheese in the corner of an old
newspaper; and the white roll; and the something—in the very bottom of
the basket, carefully concealed from view—which must not be seen till the
fitting moment arrives—and which, after the sandwiches have been dispatched,
and a good deal of coaxing and coquetting has been performed, is brought forth,
L

90

THE BARMAID.

and proves to be a Lazenby's sauce bottle, full to the cork with—what do you
think ?—real French brandy—the very best pale we engage too. Of course
this cleverly managed little incident gives occasion for fresh laughter, and the
lover begins to fancy how pleasant it would be to have a wife who could feel
so much solicitude for his comforts ; and this thought sinks into his heart as
the brandy sinks in the flask; and by the time they have got on board
" T h e Vivid" on their return, he has almost made up his mind to pop the
interesting question.
We will not follow the pair to the reserved seat they have secured in a
quiet corner of the deck, for there are little mysteries even in the heart of a
Barmaid which we hold inviolably sacred. All we are at liberty to
divulge is, that the conversation must be deeply interesting; for, when a
gruff voice shouts—" Now then ! Hungerford ! Who 's for Hungerford ?"
as the steamer slowly approaches the pier, she raises her head with the
expression of one who has been disturbed from a pleasing dream ; and
looking around her exclaims—" Dear me ! I declare we 're at Hungerford
already !"
*

*

*

*

*

*

" A change comes o'er the spirit of my dream."—Five years have
passed away
the girl has become a matron—the pretty Barmaid has
ripened into a handsome Hostess. She now stands behind her own bar, the
undisputed mistress of her little realm ; waiters tremble at her nod, and
enamoured Gents get intoxicated upon her smiles. Time has mellowed, but
not impaired her beauty—at least not in the estimation of those who measure
feminine beauty by the standard of Reubens. The roses on her cheeks have
perhaps taken a deeper tint—her abundant hair, wandering no longer in
ringlets over her neck, is clustered beneath a cap of the most becoming
fashion—the light robe is replaced by the glossy black satin—and a massive
gold chain depends from her neck, where the plain ribbon hung before ; but
she is still the same frank, lively, and kind creature that we always knew
her. The Hostess, indeed, is but the perfected Barmaid;—to whose
numerous admirers we respectfully dedicate this sketch.
J. STIRLING COYNE.

VAUXHALL.
T H E earliest notions I ever had of Vauxhall were formed from an old
coloured print which decorated a bed-room at home, and represented the
Gardens as they were in the time of hoops and high head-dresses, bag-wigs
and swords. The general outline was almost that of the present day, and the
disposition of the orchestra, firework-ground, and covered walks the same.
But the Royal Property was surrounded by clumps of trees and pastures:
shepherds smoked their pipes where the tall chimneys of Lambeth now pour
out their dense encircling clouds, to blight or blacken every attempt at
vegetation in the neighbourhood : and where the rustics played cricket at the
water-side, massive arches and mighty girders bear the steaming, gleaming,
screaming train on its way to the new terminus.
I had a vague notion, also, of the style of entertainments there offered.
I n several old pocket-books and magazines, that were kept covered with
mould and cobwebs in a damp spare-room closet, I used to read the ballads put
down as u sung by Mrs. Wrighten at Vauxhall." They were not very extraordinary compositions. Here is one, which may be taken as a sample of all,
called a
RONDEAU.
Sung by M R S . W E I C H S E L .

Set

by M R . HOOK.

Maidens, let your lovers languish,
If you 'd have them constant prove;
Doubts and fears, and sighs and anguish,
Are the chains that fasten love.
JocJcy woo'd, and I consented,
Soon as e'er I heard his tale,
He with conquest quite contented,
Boasting, rov'd around the vale.
Maidens, let your lovers, dc.

02

VAUXHALL.

Now he dotes on scornful Molly,
Who rejects him with disdain;
Love 's a strange bewitching folly,
Never pleased without some pain.
Maidens, let your lovers, do.
I was also told of hundreds of thousands of lamps, and an attempt was
made to imitate their effect by pricking pinholes in the picture, and putting a
light behind it—for the glass had disappeared at some remote period, and had
never been replaced; and for years I looked forward to going to Vauxhall, as
a treat too magnificent ever to take place.
T h e time came, though, at last—not until I was twelve years old: and then
it was to celebrate my having moved head-boy from the division form into
the fourth, at Merchant Tailor's School. Twenty years have gone by, this
summer, since that eventful night, but the impression made upon me is as
vivid as it was on the following day. I remember being shown the lights of
the orchestra twinkling through the trees, from the road, and hearing the
indistinct crash of the band as I waited for all our party, literally trembling
with expectation at the pay place. Then there came the dark passage, which
I hurried along with feelings almost of awe : and finally the bewildering coup
cPoeil, as the dazzling walk before the great supper-room, with its balloons,
and flags, and crowns of light—its panels of looking-glass, and long lines of
radiant stars, festoons, and arches, burst upon me and took away my breath,
with almost every other faculty. I could not speak. I heard nothing that
was said to me ; and if anybody had afterwards assured me that I entered
the Garden upon my head instead of my heels I could scarcely have contradicted them. I have never experienced anything like the intensity ot
that feeling but once since; and that was when I caught the first sight of
London b y night from a great elevation, during the balloon ascent last year
which so nearly terminated in the destruction of all our party.
T h e entire evening was to me one scene of continuous enchantment.
The Battle of Waterloo was being represented on the firework-ground, and
I could not divest myself of the idea that it was a real engagement I was
witnessing, as the sharpshooters fired from behind the trees, the artillerywaggon blew up, and the struggle and conflagration took place at Hougomont.
W h e n I stood years afterwards on the real battle-field I was disappointed in
its effect. I thought it ought to have been a great deal more like Vauxhall.
The supper was another great feature—eating by the light of variegated
lamps, with romantic views painted on the walls, and music playing all the

VAUXHALL.

93

time, was on a level with the most brilliant entertainment described in the
maddest, wildest traditions of Eastern story-tellers. And as the " rack
punch"—" racking," would be a better term—was imbibed, until all the lamps
formed a revolving firework of themselves, what little sense of the real and
actual I had retained, departed altogether. I broke some wine-glasses, I
danced with the waiter in the red coat, and finally I tumbled down, from which
point my reminiscences are hazy and confused. I remember the next morning, though, being called by the kind relative who had taken me at half-past
five—half-past five after going to bed upon rack punch at two!—and starting
on my way to school with a headache that appeared to be pulling my brain
into halves. I had to go for my books to the house of the master with whom
I boarded. I got there before anybody was up, and not daring to knock or
ring, I sat upon the door-step at the end of Newcastle Court, College
Hill, and went to sleep. It was all cold, and grey, and dreary—a rough
foretaste of the many disenchantments that pleasures have since brought
in their train.
Amongst the unrevealed mysteries of London, is the hybernal existence
of Vauxhall. What becomes of it in the depth of winter ? People see the
blackened tops of the skeleton trees rising above the palings of Kennington
Lane and the chimneys of Lambeth, and therefore suppose it still to be
in the same place ; but no one appears ever to have gained its interior. An
imaginative mind, tinged with superstition, can fancy fearful scenes going on
there in dark January. It can picture the cold bright frosty moon shedding
a ghastly light upon the almost rained-out Constantinople or Venice, as the
case may b e ; and glistening on the icicles depending from the nostrils of
Neptune's horses, or the hair of the Eve at the fountain. The cutting wind
whistles through the airy abode of Joel il Diavolo. The snow is deep upon
the ground, capping the orchestra also, and drifting into the supper boxes ;
whilst a few spectral leaves, on which the light of many a summer orgy
whilome rested, chase one another with pattering noise along the covered
promenades, or whifHe about amongst the decaying benches of the firework
gallery. It is impossible to conceive anything more dreary—a wet November
Sunday, in a grave family at Clapham, is nothing to it.
If there were any supernatural anniversary in England, as the first of
May is upon the Hartz mountains, Vauxhall would be the trysting-place of
the spirits at such a season. Wild unearthly dances of spectral girls and
demon Gents would be held upon the platform. Blue corpse-candle lights
would gleam from the lamps; and bands of waiting apparitions would troop

94

VAUXHALL.

along the walks with cold phantom fowls and necromantic films of ham,
through which the touch could pass as through air. Music would resound
from the orchestra, played and sung by shadowy professors, such as followed
Burger's Lenora in her unearthly ride, and resembling the incantation
melodies of " Der Freyschutz," " Robert le Diable," " Macbeth," and the
" Mountain Sylph," all played at once. Death on the pale horse would ride
ceaselessly round the arena in place of Caroline, Louise Tournaire, or Marie
Macarte; and His Sable Highness himself, the true Prince of Darkness,
might be found excelling " dat child" Juba in his active exercises, or
outrivalling Pell on the cross-bones. There is no telling what might not be
seen by the daring wight who invaded the dead wintry seclusion of
Vauxhall.
If I may be permitted to quote myself, I once described Vauxhall as a
perennial, whose progress was always to be watched with interest. Summer
goes by and its glories fade ; its fruits—which are the lamps—are gathered ;
and the whole place becomes a dismal waste. It is always in this off-season
that the whispers alluded to are promulgated, about Vauxhall being " built
upon." We look at the hapless orchestra, seen through the grimy branches,
as a doomed thing ; the very sight of the wooden porticos, with their scraps
of placards relating to past festivals, is distressing ; and the hazardous
scaffolding of the daring gentleman, who, all on fire, shoots down the rope,
with its winter-beaten forlorn flag which has never been removed, is regarded
with a sense of ghastliness almost akin to that with which in former times
one would have looked upon the gibbets that held the men in chains. Anon
as Whitsuntide comes round, we find that Vauxhall springs up again, with
all its coloured posting-bills, as gay as a fuchsia that has been cut down for
hybernation. The lamps bud out again upon their accustomed wires ; the
hermit returns to life—I wonder what becomes of him at Christmas, and if
he employs all the winter months in writing the fortunes he distributes in the
summer ones—and the brass band once more wakes the echoes of the promenades and dark walks. The Gardens are then found to be still a great fact—
not yet desecrated into dwellings for luxuriating clerks ; or vinegar, chimneytile, and composite candle manufactories. Despite its hacknied amusements,
we have all pleasant associations connected with Vauxhall: I would not
willingly exchange my own for dearer reminiscences of things far more
important in the romance of- life. It is at least pleasant, when jaded, baited,
and spirit-wearied, to think that there really was a time when the lamps were
regarded—not as little glass vessels with smoky wicks and common oil

VAUXHALL.

95

within, but as terrestrial stars, lighted by fairy hands, and fitted only to shed
their radiance round, as did the dazzling and tempting fruit of Aladdin's
subterranean garden. It is refreshing to know there was a period, up to
which the Arabian Nights Entertainments had only been pictured with a
magnificence depending upon the powers of the reader's imagination ; but
that, after its arrival, the glories awaiting upon the careers of Noureddin,
Camaralzaman, Ali Baba, the Calenders, Prince Bahman, Codadad, and all
the rest of our old friends, could be readily conjured up. The night-palaces
so gorgeously lighted up—the wonderful music—and the dancing slaves,
formed together so many Vauxhalls, peopled with coryphees and brass bands,
and pitched upon the twinkling banks of the Tigris instead of the Thames.
I still like to be deceived—to deceive myself even, rather than not give
way sometimes to the power of illusion. So when I see it announced that on
the occasion of an especial Vauxhall festival, there will be twenty thousand
additional lamps, I take it for granted that there will be that exact number to
a wick. If I find, on various occasions, that the Gardens will be adorned with
emblematical devices, I anticipate looking at them. Cold experience tells me
that if it is an Irish fete all the old harps and shamrocks will come out again;
if a Scottish one, I shall find huge illuminated thistles, and the motto Auld
Lang Syne, similarly glittering ; and if a juvenile one, that sparkling tops,
kites, and rocking-horses, will be fixed against the trees. But I do not let
my mind dwell on these facts : I strive to forget them, and enjoy the devices
as keenly as the most excitable of the visitors in whose especial honour they
are intended. When I hear, on great anniversaries, that two hundred Highland chieftains have promised to attend in their national costumes, and dance
flings, yell, and play the bag-pipes, I make myself fully expect to meet them;
and if it is said, on the occasion of masquerades, that the most splendid fancydresses, worn at the Eoyal and Noble Bate Costumes, of the season, will be
worn in the Gardens, I like to believe it, and go anticipating the effect of
their appearance. True it is, that the reality will sometimes fall short of the
expectation; but this is a result so purely natural, that it never annoys me.
If I do not meet the Pibroch of Pibroch, or the Pladdie of Pladdie, or the
Sawney of Sawney, with their retainers, but find, in their stead, two or three
gentlemen in kilts, trying not to look ashamed of themselves, I invent a
reason for the non-appearance of the chieftains. And if the costumes at a Bal
Masque do not exactly impress me with ideas of a Court ball, I feel assured
that the patrician dresses would have been there but for the bad weather.
It is possible that the deities who, in the mythological days of old, took

96

VAUXHALL.

the vegetable world under their protection, may still exist in the trees of
Vauxhall. If it be true—and I have no reason for saying it is not, seeing
that the statement is made in " Lempriere," which is a collection of
traditions worthy of belief, and instilled by cane and imposition into youthful
minds—that these graceful Hamadryads co-exist with the trees they affect,
drooping with their decline, and expiring with their death, without the
power of changing their abode, I fear that the days of Vauxhall are
numbered—at least as Gardens. Their topmost branches have long presented
nothing to the view but bare forks, which pruning and lopping does not
improve. They have arrived, in their age, at a parallel to that fatal time of
man's life, when tipping his hair does not keep it from falling off, or make
it grow the faster. It is possible, in the make-all-you-can-of-whatever-youhave spirit of the age, that these very trees may ultimately be cut down to
build the houses hereafter to be erected on the Royal Property. But this, I
opine, would be a dangerous experiment. Like the Laputa cucumbers that
absorbed the sunbeams, their timbers must have imbibed, in their time, so
much light and revelry, that they would be giving this out constantly
afterwards ; and the domestic disturbances that scared the inmates of Woodstock in 1649—the candles, and noises, and horses' hoofs, and fireworks, as
chronicled by Glanvil—would be nothing to the excitement created in the
ill-starred mansions.
And yet, to descend to the real and practical, it is possible the time may
arrive when " Vauxhall Terrace," or " Kennington Place," may occupy the
site of the Italian Walk—when " Lambeth Square" may rise from the
firework-ground, or " Southampton Circus" define the former position of the
equestrian arena. For old gentlemen of our own time there abiding, there
will still be some consolation. They will be able to recall former days, and
feel young again, as, according to their situation, they point out the diningroom sideboard as the site of the bar through whose window the legendary
rack punch and ham of other days was once handed; the front area and
coal-cellar as the identical position of the ball-room ; or the library as
covering part of the area on which the Battle of Waterloo was fought, and
the balloons and rockets went up for the edification of the hundreds who
paid in the gallery, and the thousands who enjoyed the same treat in
the road, for nothing.
ALBERT SMITH.

FANCY-BALLS.

I N our present capacity, we feel that we are nothing more than a showman.
We have been fortunate enough to obtain an engagement in a tolerably
attractive and popular exhibition, through a certain portion of which it is
our duty to conduct the public—pointing out, as we go on, the various
beauties of our department, and commenting and enlarging upon the same,
with as much eloquence as we are master of. We are sure of a numerous and
fashionable audience ; the attractions held out by the " spirited proprietor "
render it impossible that it should be otherwise. But, that they will listen to
our observations with that profound attention which we could wish, cannot,
we are afraid, be counted on with anything like a similar degree of certainty.
Indeed-—however humiliating the prospect may be—we cannot shut our eyes
to the possibility of our having to talk on unheeded. Still, as there may be
a discerning few among the crowd who will deem us worthy of a minute's
attention, we will do our best to make ourselves as agreeable as possible—
feeling that, if we should happen to get mentioned as " that rather amusing
young man, who showed us through such and such a department," with the
addition that " one or two remarks that he made were really not so bad"—
we shall be more than compensated for the indifference of thousands.
We will begin, in the style of our peripatetic brethren—Ladies and
gentlemen, please to " observe the pictur." Don't be in a hurry, if you
please, as there is plenty of time for you to go through the rest of the
collection, and this is one that requires particular and careful examination.
The scene is an English Fancy Dress Ball. Observe, not a vulgar Gentish
affair, where pasteboard-noses, clowns, and smoking are tolerated, and whereof
the harmony is likely to be disturbed by some of the company getting
intoxicated and fighting with empty bottles. It is an assembly for which no
tills have been robbed (save indirectly, perhaps, in the way of some bills that
will never be paid), and which will not give the police any trouble in dispersing.
M

03

FANCY-BALLS.

T h e parties present are, in fact, ladies and gentlemen who wear their own
dresses, and have arrived, and will depart, in their own private conveyances;
and whose doing will be chronicled, at great length, in to-morrow's Post—
the readers of which illustrious publication will receive a sort of " Dorling's
Correct C a r d , " setting forth the names, weights (in society), and colours of
the riders of the various hobbies trotted out for the occasion.
A n d before we go any further with our picture, let us stop awhile and
consider what sort of one the Post will draw of the subject. H e will
doubtless give a most glowing and bewitching view of the whole affair; and
as to truthfulness in every particular of lace, feather, trinket, and ribbon, we
will back him for being right to a spangle. On every point on which the valet,
lady's-maid, tailor, or dress-maker may be considered an authority, his
information may be relied on. I f he says that the Countess of Koseville,
as Boadicea, wore a blue satin paletot lined with puce baize, and trimmed with
Honiton lace, four inches and one-eighth deep, at twenty-four pounds, six
and threepence a-yard ; and a stomacher of red fustian, ornamented with two
pounds and an ounce of the most expensive black bugles—depend upon it he
is right. Or, if he tells you that Lord Crowdy, as Tippoo Saib, looked
magnificently, in green velvet pantaloons, tied, at each ankle, with threequarters of a yard of gold c o r d ; and wore a superb peacock's feather,
containing four hundred and sixty-four fibres—make sure that such was the
case. I n fact, as regards detail, his picture will be perfect. But will the
true tone and general effect of the thing be given with like accuracy ?
We
are afraid not. W e rather fear that—like a regular fashionable portraitpainter, as he is—he will make his picture like enough to be recognised, but
tremendously flattered. Our knowledge of his style tells us that he will
represent the scene as one of such thrilling rapture and delight, as to seem—
if not quite up to the mark of Elysium—at all events so near an approach to
it as to answer every purpose.
A n d is it not in t r u t h a happy scene ? L e t us now turn to our picture
and inquire. Let us see what the two prominent figures—the not by any
means bad-looking fellow in the Highland dress, and his Cavalier friend with
the eye-glass—have to say on the subject.
T h e answer they give us is to a very different tune. According to them,
the whole affair is rather " s l o w " and disheartening, and they are evidently
feeling, in secret, rather ashamed of themselves for being parties to it. T h e y
have discovered that their dresses, which cost them so much money and
consideration, are conducive rather to discomfort and awkwardness than

FANCY-BALLS.

99

enjoyment. The Cavalier is not at all sure that his sword will not play him
some dreadful trick, before he has done with i t ; and the Highlander is cold
about the legs. B u t what annoys them most of all, is the dreadfully humiliating
feeling which they have struggled hard to stifle within their bosoms—that
they have been making fools of themselves to no purpose. Still, as to confess
one's-self disappointed, in such a case, would be equivalent to confessing
one's-self taken in—which no one likes to do—they are striving hard to conceal
their discomfiture, not by pretending to enjoy themselves—that they could
not manage with anything like success, were they to try ever so—but by an
appearance of apathetic languor (seasoned on the Scotchman's part with a
dash of scorn) calculated to impress the spectator with an idea that they
are as much pleased as two such distinguished and blase individuals possibly
can be.
But—we think we hear some one say—there are but two figures shown;
and is not taking those two as a sample of the whole, a proceeding rather
similar to that of the ancient sage, who carried a brick about with him, as a
specimen of the house he wished to sell ? B u t we say, No ; rather let them
be compared to a glass of wine, which gives the taster as good an idea of the
quality of the pipe from which it has been drawn, as he would get by having
the head of the cask stove in. Some experience that we have had in such
matters tells us that the spirit and flavour of the whole assembly—aye ! and
of all such assemblies—may be got at by means of those two countenances.
And it must be confessed that the spirit is by no means an ardent one, and
that the flavour is dreadfully flat.
F o r we are disposed to maintain, and we will do it boldly, that all affairs
of the sort must be failures. From the magnificent scene at Willis's, for the
benefit of the Distressed Poles, or the Distressed Trowser-strap-button-holeMakers, with Duchesses and Countesses for presiding spirits, down to the
humble attempt made in the long room of some suburban public-house, at
the very moderate figure of " Gents, three-and-six ; Ladies, two-and-six," and
which is for the benefit of nobody but the landlord, and especially for the
benefit of nobody's morals—the same may be said of them all. There is a
restraint, in a fancy dress, incompatible with true enjoyment; and, however
violent our passions for a polka, or however much we may delight in the
intoxicating evolutions of a deux-temps, when properly dressed and gloved for
the occasion, there is a dispiriting and wet-blanket-like influence which
always attends the wearing of fantastic costumes, such as we are not accustomed to. Nor is this influence much dispelled by the melancholy attempts

100

FANCY-BALLS.

which are always, more or less, made to a keep up" the characters assumed—~
as if the character of Cardinal Wolsey were at all compatible with polkas;
or* the peculiarities of Roderick Dhu, or Haroun Alraschid, could be
expressed in the movements of a quadrille. True, there may be some to
whom the scene brings no disappointment; vain ones to whom the pleasure
of walking about to be looked at, in a splendid dress, is ample compensation
for hours of dulness. But that the thing is dull and stupid beyond compare,
we are none the less convinced.
It may be said that a Fancy-Ball is a fine sight. We grant that, if " got
up regardless of expense," it is. It is a very fine thing, indeed, to see a
spacious and brilliantly-lighted room, thronged with people, dressed in
fashions selected from almost every age and country—to say nothing of an
immense quantity that never could have been prevalent in any age or country.
It is is very delightful to see haughty Crusaders, so far unbending as to
fraternize with Swiss Peasants and Spanish Brigands, laying aside the
rugged ferocity of their dispositions, and chatting peacefully with military
officers. It is very delightful, we repeat; even though some of the Brigands
be rather weak in the knees, and a portion of the Crusaders are rather too
short and fat quite to come up to the notion of what those hardy warriors
ought to be. But we do not consider that making one in a grand tableau
is in itself very great diversion. The Poses Vlastique are a very fine sight;
so, for the matter of that, is the Lord Mayor's Show. But we do not know
that we should much enjoy appearing as the " Eagle-Slayer" at the one, or
officiating as " Man in Armour" at the other.
We have had our brief say.
We do not belong to the virtuousindignation school of writers—it never having been made sufficiently worth
our while to join it; nevertheless, we must plead guilty to having, in this
instance, written with " a purpose." We are not vain about our influence ;
but if the observations in this unpretending paper should have the effect of
inducing any lady of title to alter her present determination of giving a
bal costume during the forthcoming season, and make it instead, a good,
festive, sociable party (at which we shall be most happy to make one), our
purpose will be answered. And whether rewarded in the manner we have
just hinted in parenthesis, or not, we shall exult in the proud conviction that
we have done service to a number of our fellow-creatures. '
ROBERT B. BROUGH.

THE

POTATO-CAN.

" K I N D or morose — urbane or surly reader! as the case maybe, are you
ready to accompany us in a stroll through the Strand?"
You shrug your shoulders doubtingly—
" The hour!"
a
Well, it is not so late; St. Clement's clock has only chimed nine."
You thrust your face between the closely-drawn window-curtains of your
luxuriously-appointed snuggery, and peeping out on a raw foggy November
night, through which the gas-lamps shine with a sort of fuddled brilliancy
upon the wet flagways, reply by a shake of the head, and an affectionate
glance at the bright burning fire in your grate.
" Pooh! never mind the night; light your cigar, and come with us :
we are going character-hunting."
' ' A h ! that will be interesting. I place myself in your hands."
" Thanks, good reader. Now let us begone."
" Allons !—But where are we to seek for your characters ?"
" Have I not told you ?—in the Strand. We will cast out our nets at
random, and trust me we shall soon bring up a curious specimen of the gemls
homo that will reward our trouble. Hark !".
" Tatoes hot!—all hot! hot! hot!"
" There; I said we should not be long till we had caught one. Listen
to that cry!"
" Tatoes hot!—penny a-piece—all hot! hot! hotI"
" The performer is not far distant. There he stands by the pillar, under
the archway that leads from Pickett Street into Clement's Inn, the proprietor
of the most popular Baked 'Tato-Can within the bills of mortality."
" You surely do not call this fellow a character ?"
" Why not, my friend ? I anticipate your objections : he may be somewhat too vulgar to figure in a legitimate comedy or a fashionable novel, but

102

T H E POTATO-CAN.

he is nevertheless a character; and humble though he be, he fills an important position in the social stratum to which he belongs. You that have
been accustomed to the piquant plats of a French cuisine may probably
despise the simple fare that he offers ; but let me tell you there are worse
things in the world on a frosty night than a piping-hot baked potato; and
many a costly whitebait dinner at Blackwall has been eaten with less relish
than an unpretending murphy from a Potato-Can."
Stand forth, then, thou " Soyer for the Million," while we sketch thy
portrait, and celebrate the flavour of thy Irish fruit, though the dignity of
the subject might require a pen like his that made " The Groves of Blarney"
immortal—
" Oh! had I janus like that bould prater
Lord Harry Brougham, or like Masther Dan,
I 'd surely be thy brave can-tator,
And sing the praises of thy tator-can!"
Here we can stand in the shadow of the spacious archway and observe him.
The busy and eager throng that throughout the day filled the streets are
gradually receding before new multitudes, as busy and as eager as those that
have passed away. A n d so it is with the world: centuries sweep onward,
as wave follows wave, and still the ceaseless human tide swells and rolls its
living billows to the illimitable Ocean of Eternity. A new race of workers
and idlers have succeeded to those that flowed through the veins and arteries
of the City in the morning—artisans from close workshops; clerks from dim
offices or dingy warehouses; pale children of misery to whom Night offers a
friendly veil; and the numerous brood of crime and shame who live in the
shadow of its ebon wings, are hurrying or loitering along. Here, a serious
party, returning from a Temperance Soiree, is jostled by a group of drapers'
assistants, who are making an " Early Closing M o v e m e n t " in the direction
of the Casino. A n d there, a steady citizen, hastening to the bosom of his
family, is nearly overturned by a lawyer's clerk rushing to the pit of the
Olympic Theatre at half-price.
Then what an indescribable medley of
sounds fills the air ! W h a t clattering, rolling, screaming, whistling, singing,
talking, laughing, and crying on all sides, mingled and confounded into one
deep roar, amidst which the quick peculiar cry of our neighbour of the
Potato-Can comes at regular intervals on the ear—
" Tatoes hot!—all hot ! h o t ! h o t ! "
Observe with what intense admiration the group of urchins who surround
his locomotive kitchen watch the slender jet of steam that issues from its

THE

POTATO-CAN.

103

diminutive safety-pipe, and wreathes its light drapery around the massive
pillar against which he has established himself. W e doubt whether " the
Father of the Steam-Engine "—as some enthusiast in railways once called the
ingenious Watt—ever excited so much interest b y his monster offspring as the
Baked 'Tatoe Man creates nightly in the minds and stomachs of the penniless investigators of the scientific principles of his simple cooking-machine.
But hold! a customer approaches—a youngster, rich in the sole proprietorship of a penny, which he has determined upon investing in " a jolly mealy
'tator, with a shave of butter, and a shake of pepper—certingly.' , There is not
much in the external appearance of the gamin to command respect: his cap
is a deal too small for his head, and his bluchers a deal too large for his feet;
the remainder of his incongruous habiliments seem to hang rather by complaisance than necessity to his body. Yet there is a certain confidence in the
manner in which he thrusts his hands into a couple of wide chasms, originally
intended for pocket-holes, in the garment he calls his trowsers, and a saucy
independence in the way he juts out his elbows, that forces a conviction of
his wealth, and procures for him the deference always paid to its envied
possessor. T h e circle opens to admit the young gonrma?id, who, with a
knowing wink of the eye, commences a sort of preliminary skirmish with the
potato-vendor before he enters upon the serious business of ordering his
supper.
u

Well, guv'nor, I see you're a-keeping the steam up as usual. Vot's the
lowest figure now for your werry best—takin' a quantity?"
ie
P e n n y a-piece—all hot !"
" P e n n y a-piece for baked 'tators, and the funds a-going down like
winkin ! W h y , I had a pine-apple myself out of Common Garden this
morning for twopence. T r a d e ' s uncommon bad, guv'nor 6 "
" Penny a-piece—all h o t — h o t . "
" There's a hopposition can, too, started by a gentleman at the corner of
the Olympic Theyatre, ' T h e Halbert and JYictoria? it's called. Isn't it a
spicy concern ? and don't they give prime 'tators there—real nobby ones, :
with plenty of butter. Oh ! not at all ! A n d 'tis so respectable, it's a
pleasure for a gentleman, coming from the hop'ra, to stop and have a bit of
supper there on his road home. I des'say the proper-ietor is a-making of his
fortune, and that he'll retire from business in a couple of years to his willa in
the Regency Park."
This picture of his rival's prosperity irritates the owner of the original
" Victoria" can, and he orders his tormentor to " move on, directly."

104

THE

POTATO-CAN.

" Oh ! werry likely. I'm a-standing here on Her Majesty's kerb-stone,
expressing my opinions upon the pop'lur subject of 'tators, and consekvently
shan't move on."
A murmur of applause runs through the juvenile circle for the spirited
speaker.
" I don't want money or credit, so look sharp, old fellow—open your
can, and pick me out a stunner from the lot."
The potato-baker's countenance relaxes at the sight of an ostentatiously
displayed penny-piece; and while he extracts a mealy tuber from his stock,
the gamin goes through a series of sleight-of-hand performances with the
coin—such as shaking it out of his cap after having swallowed it, or thrusting
it into his eye and bringing it out of his ear ; assuring the spectators, all the
time, that he has spent two large fortunes, which have not yet come to him,
in learning these tricks. Then he turns to the potato-man, and expressing
his indignation at the ridiculously thin shave of butter inserted in his potato,
demands to have the deficiency made up by an extra shake of the pepperbox ; and having obtained it, makes his exit in one of T. P. Cooke's favourite
hornpipe steps.
The gamin has scarcely departed, when a pale, elderly man, in whose
hollow cheeks want and misery have ploughed deep furrows, approaches
timidly. His threadbare black coat is buttoned closely to his throat; he casts
around him a quick, fearful glance to ascertain that he is not observed—
hastily places his penny in the hand of the potato-baker, and receives in
return one of the steaming esculents, with which, without speaking a word,
he hurries away, to devour it in his fireless, lightless, solitary garret. That
man-—some fifteen years ago—was one of the u merchant princes" of
London; his commerce extended to every quarter of the globe, and his credit
was unimpeachable wherever his name was known. Luxury and ostentation,
however, went hand and hand with affluence, and the vast wealth of L
was only equalled by the princely magnificence of his mansion, his equipage,
and his entertainments. But the fair wind of prosperity, which had so long
filled his sails, at length shifted round—an extensive mining speculation, in
which he had invested a large sum, proved a complete failure; this was
followed by other heavy losses: but the credit of the house remained unshaken,
and prudence and economy only were required to restore it to its former high
position, when the railway mania burst forth and spread like a contagion
throughout the land. Amongst the most reckless adventurers was L
,
who hoped by a brilliant coup to recover all that he had latterly lost. The

THE

POTATO-CAN.

105

sequel may be anticipated. W h e n the monster bubble burst, L
found
himself a ruined man. I t would be painful to describe his subsequent career
in the downward struggles of poverty, until, abandoned by the friends of his
prosperity—family he had none — he sunk to his present miserable condition, the recipient of a niggardly allowance of a few shillings a-week from a
distant relative—barely sufficient to keep him from the Workhouse door.
Thus slides the world ! The Amphytrion whose epicurean dinners were praised
by the most fastidious gastronomes, sups to-night on a baked potato purchased
with his last penny at a vulgar 'Tato-Can.
But, while we have been engaged with the misfortunes of the ruined
merchant, another customer appears: a girl, rather short than tall—rather
smart than pretty—rather fine than neat—rather voluble than persuasive—the
maid-of-all-work from a lodging-house in Surrey Street, who has been dispatched by Mr. Malachi Daly, the Irish law-student in the second floor, for
a thundering big dish-full of his native fruit. M r . Daly has invited his cousin,
Tom Geoghegan of Ballydine, Counsellor Donnellan, Mat Burke of Kiltulla,
and three or four more of the boys, to " a slight sketch" of a supper, consisting of a Wicklow ham (a present from his A u n t Moriarty in Dublin),
backed by a tea-tray full of oysters and the aforesaid dish of baked potatoes,
with an unlimited allowance of whisky-punch—for the judicious manufacture
of which a regiment of Kinahan's real L L quart bottles have been paraded
on the chimney-piece, and the large metal kettle from the kitchen has been
ordered to be kept perpetually boiling on Mr. Daly's own fire.
But here come new figures upon the scene: a young working man, clad
in a stout flannel jacket, accompanied by his pretty-looking wife, have
mingled in the group, and are evidently undecided whether the few pence
they have determined to spend on some little luxury shall be devoted to
Baked 'Tatoes or to the Hot Mutton Pies of which a neighbouring professor
is boasting the delicious quality. A secret misgiving, perhaps, relative to the
feline character of the Pie-material, induces them to give the preference to
the productions of the Potato-Can.
A thickly-coated, short, fat man, with fine purply-tinted features, and
little grey eyes twinkling beneath a pair of light bushy eyebrows, next bustles
into the circle to light his cigar at the potato-vender's lamp. That is the
Chairman of a Charitable Society, who, in the true spirit of the benevolence
which begins at home, has been dining with the Treasurer, Secretary, and
Committee at the London Tavern, at the cost of the Institution. A rich
odour of charity and roast venison diffuses itself around him, and words of

106

THE

POTATO-CAN.

the warmest sympathy for human sufferings seem to hang upon his moist lip,
till a poor shivering woman, who has been anxiously watching the countenances of the passers-by, ventures, in a subdued voice, to ask for a penny.
" Penny, be d—d! Go to the Workhouse if you're hungry," replies the
benevolent Chairman, puffing the smoke of his cigar indignantly before him
as he shuffles off.
A miscellaneous crowd from the theatres now surround the Baked 'Tatoe
Man—customers pour in, and we leave him with his hands full of business—
trusting, as sermons may be found in stones, that something good may be
extracted even from a Potato-Can.
J. STIRLING COYNE.

FOREIGN GENTLEMEN IN LONDON.

O N E of these days there will be no foreigners. W e have very nearly managed
the preliminary arrangements, and I have great hope that several years before
Lord Nelson gets his lions, Mr. Barry his Victoria Tower, or the Peninsular
hero his medal, the genus Foreigner will be extinct. Time is already no
more, and we have now only to abolish space—a trifling task in an age of
ebullitions and abolitions like this.
T h e electric telegraph at present writes its own letters. I believe this is the
last improvement, but I have not seen the Mechanic's Magazine for a
week, and by this time, perhaps, the telegraph may deliver its own letters
also, and ask for the postage. But, at all events, this is what we are coming
to. The submarine line between Dover and Calais would have been open
ere this but for the absurd curiosity of a large fish (perhaps the sea-serpent
seen by Captain M'Quhge, of H . M . S . Daedalus, the other day), which rooted
up half a league of rope, with epicurean views; but the damage will soon be
repaired. The Liverpool and New Y o r k submarine telegraph will be ready in
time for Mr. Macready to threaten the first " legitimate " misfortune which is
to fall upon next season. The Leadenhall Street and Calcutta line is slightly
delayed—the East India Directors, who had solemnly promised to guarantee
a dividend, having changed their minds, and being anxious to persuade the
share-holders that no such promise was ever made; but Young Ganges is
impetuous, and will have his rights. And, although so much expedition is
hardly possible, it is hoped that the telegraph to the West Indies will be
complete before the poor planters can finally resolve upon renouncing their
connexion with us, and annexing themselves to some country which will
ruin them a little more creditably. B y the time these branches are ready to
transmit intelligence, all Europe will be similarly furnished. The next step
will obviously be a universal language; and that once settled, I should be glad
to know what a foreigner is, or how there can be such a person? All man-

108

Jf'OKKiGN G E N T L E M E N

IN LONDON.

kind will be brothers; but Mr. Cobden need not exult, nor the Horse Guards
look Blue, for we shall not sink the navy nor disband the army, until it be
shown, contrary to present belief, that brothers cannot quarrel as energetically
as anybody else.
There will be no foreigners, but we shall fight just as much as we do
now, or perhaps a little more, for the better one knows a person the less
chance there is of agreeing with him, The moment people grow intimate,
they begin to take liberties, and to bore you; and Orlando was perfectly right,
if he wished to be upon good terms with Jaques, to desire that they " might
be better strangers." But all distinction of nationality must cease and die
away; and if you address a dusky Gent as u Child of India," or an ebonycoloured lionne as u Daughter of Africa," you will be answered in the tone a
still darker cosmopolite uses in the Memoires du Diable, " Monsieur le 'wron,
je vous ferai observer, quen m' appelant Jils de Vcnfer^ vous dites une de ces
letises qui ont cours dans toutes les langues connues.
Je ne suis pas plus le
Jils de Venfer que vous netes le Jils de voire chamhre—parce que vous
Ihabitez."
But in the mean time, and while, with all our disposition to fraternize, there
still exists a difference between the gentlemen who bank respectively with
Miss Coutts in London, Citizen G o u i n i n Paris, Count Torlonia in Rome, M .
Salamanca in Madrid, and Mr. K i n g in New York, it may be worth while
to note a few of the characteristics which are about to be lost.
Here, by the way, I beg to record my personal protest against an act
which seems to me one of great inhospitality—I mean the destruction of the
Quadrant. Probably, by the time this paper appears, the columns will have
fallen, and in each crash of their iron, London ought to hear a reproach for its
treatment of the foreigner.
F o r the Quadrant was the especial refuge,
harbour, and retreat of the stranger.
One might parody Cowper on his
poplars:—
" The Quadrant has fallen—farewell to the shade
And the cabbage-cigars of that cool colonnade.
There lap-dogs no longer are vended by thieves,
Nor Poles wear great stars, in which no one believes.
" The Frenchmen have fled to some other retreat,
With their quaint puckered trowsers and mal chausses feet,
And the scene, where their eloquence charmed us before,
Resounds with Republican argot no more.

FOREIGN

GENTLEMEN

IN

LONDON.

109

" 'Tis a sight to convince us, if anything can,
That the bump of destructiveness triumphs in man ;
Of a streetful of columns behold the debris,
While we can't finish one for the Cid of the Sea."
T h e Quadrant was the home of the stranger. T h e Parisian was there
reminded (though he never would confess it) of his Palais-Royal, and its
glittering boutiques.
The Italian remembered his own brilliant shies, and (as
a Roman who had retained enough of the old conquering spirit to vanquish
our language, and reduce it to the slavery of jokes, declared) resorted to the
Quadrant as the only way of finding out where the sun was. The German,
not particular where he was, rather liked a place where he could smoke
without getting wet, but still was not particular. T h e Pole found his account
in a promenade where fair and charitable ladies walked in an afternoon, purse
in hand, and where his sallow face and melodramatic expression of something
between hunger and anger, often brought a disgusted footman stalking after
him with a half-sovereign, which the delicacy of the sender had enveloped in
paper, and with which the grateful recipient immediately proceeded to
billiards. Then the Jews, though the Prince Regent's architecture does not,
perhaps, recall to them any precise image, liked to show themselves (as they
always do) where smart and rich people congregate, and where money is spent;
and the Mosaic-Arab race was usually well represented on the Regent Street
Rialto. Of the Orientals—who hypocritically sweep crossings in the day-time,
but who, it is believed, are Thugs, and go about at night strangling stray
young noblemen—there was also a specimen or two near the Quadrant, lurking
near carriage-doors to identify the victims. I n short, the Quadrant was a
prolonged vestibule to the Hall of Nations. Vale! vale! inquit lolas.
But I
should not like to be the ghost of the gentleman who prepared the A c t of
Parliament for destroying the place, when he meets the ghost of George the
F o u r t h in purgatory.
Foreign Gentlemen in London have, as has been said, certain distinctive
marks—although, as a general rule, gentlemen are pretty much alike every where.
A n d there is one place where foreign gentlemen—it is useless and foolish to
blink the fact—have an enormous advantage over English gentlemen. I mean
in the drawing-room. Patriotic moralists, and writers who are not unwilling to
stoop for popularity to clique prejudices, have laboured, by dint of much cant,
to prove the reverse; and lady-writers especially, who like at every turn to
parade the "object" of their stories, have endeavoured, by putting down the
foreigner, to exalt the Englishman, and have twaddled about " showy,

110

FOREIGN

GENTLEMEN

IN

LONDON.

theatrical manners," and " n o b l e , manly reserve," and have imagined they
were making out a case for their clients by speaking contemptuously of a man
" who sought to be acceptable to every person present/' and in contrasting
him with the stiff-backed native, " too proud to try to please, and apart and
distinct, like a superior being." This is not the place to preach, or one might
say something to professed moralists about Christian humility and the like —
nay, but that I do not conceive man to be a u worm " (except in his capacity
of a filter of ardent spirits), one might make a severe allusion to one's fellowworm curling himself up in a corner, instead of wriggling about like his companions. But as one prod of the bayonet is worth a dozen marchings and
counter-marchings ( I feel I am quoting Tristram Shandy very badly), we will
take a fact. Look at the foreign gentleman in the drawing-room, and ask the
ladies of the party their opinion of his desirability.
W h i l e that talented young author, Mr. Fleshbrush (whose hair resembles
the useful article from which, perhaps, he took his name), is sniffing the air,
and pretending to be abstracted, and imbibing inspiration from the alabaster
Ariadne on the mantelpiece—while Mr. Pointercount, the composer, is
reclining in a queer attitude on the couch, pestering an old dowager (who is
wishing him a dowager's worst wish, and that's not a rose-water curse, I
know) with eulogiums on Mendellsohn, because he is dead and unpopular,
and abuse of Balfe, because he is living and triumphant—while Mr. De
Vellum, really a rising lawyer, is explaining the Rule in Shelley's Case to little
Kate Mortimer, who is eighteen and in her first season, and is urging her t<*
say she is engaged when that Guardsman comes to ask her to dance, promising,
en revanche, to tell her an anecdote which arose during one of the hearings of
" Small v. Attwood"—while Mr. Boke, of Trinity College, Cambridge,
is leaving those three pretty and talkable women, that he may go and tell
Mr. Bloke, of St. John's, what he thinks of an article by Mr. Stoke, of
Caius, about the second aorist—and while a whole gang of "superior
beings" are stopping up the door, alternately smiling and scowling, but
always at nothing, for nobody speaks to them and they speak to nobody—what
is the " Foreign Gentleman " about? Making himself agreeable. W h a t else
did he come there for? One can sniff the air, and sneer at Balfe, and lay
down the law, and rehearse the particles of one's belief in Greek, and lounge,
and scowl, and smirk, and sulk in fifty fitter places than a drawing-room.
Look at M . Alexis de Lannois, that young French gentleman. I select him
as a good type of his order; and I select a French gentleman for the obvious
reason that every well-regulated English mind firmly believes all foreigners
to be Frenchmen, because most foreigners speak French.

FOREIGN GENTLEMEN TN LONDON.

Ill

Yes, look at M. De Lannois, young gentlemen of " manly reserve," too
proud to behave yourselves properly. Look at him, you affected author. Sir,
when you have won your race for reputation, you will regret that you started
carrying so many lbs., self-imposed, while he ran his natural weight. Listen
to him, dear Pointercount, for he does not know a tenth part as much about
music as you do, but has imparted ten times as much information about it.
De Vellum, De Vellum, he knows young ladies do not care about law, and
would no more think of reading commentaries on the Code Napoleon to his
partner than you will of calling your laundress in to listen to your next consultation with Sergeant Talfourd. Boke, M. De Lannois got some KV^OS- for
a paper on the inscriptions on the Luxor Obelisk in the Place de la Be volution,
and M. De Lamartine spoke of it at the Institut; but Alexis will not leave
your pretty cousin there, in order to go and talk about it with that profoundlooking Guy in spectacles. I speak to you as to clever men, which you all
are, in your various ways—of course, one expects folly from fools.
M. Alexis de Lannois has danced several times, and has sung two songs;
one Beranger's, the other out of UAme en Peine, the latter apropos of Mr.
Charles Braham's debut, of which somebody happened to speak—for Alexis
does not come " primed" with certain airs, any more than with certain
speeches. Pie has complimented Pointercount's dowager on her diamonds,
and on her sister's good singing; and as the diamonds are false, and her sister
is her daughter, the elderly lady is enchanted, and he dines in Berkeley Street
on Tuesday—the " sister " is single, and has eleven thousand pounds. He
has been introduced to Fleshbrush, and, catching the word " poet," told him
how much his charming lyrics are admired in Paris: the work is an epic, but
Fleshbrush is so pleased and flurried that he forgets that—nay, believes that
somebody has read it. He has spoken to De Vellum, and as Alexis actually
remembers seeing his face as he was shown through the Courts of Law, and,
moreover, heard part of De Vellum's infliction on Kate Mortimer, begs, in
flattering terms, to thank De Vellum for the pleasure he gave him by his
brilliant speech the other day. De Vellum is mystified, but recollects having
moved that the Court windows should be shut, and that Mr. Justice Maule
thanked him for acting as amicus curiae, and supposes that is what De Lannois
means—riimporte, the impression is favourable. Then Alexis has scattered
about him half-a-dozen jeux de mot of Jules Janin; has told a merry married
lady a piquant story about the Duchesse de
; has given an imitation of
Rachel, frantically singing Mourir pour la Patrie; has promised Pointercount
an introduction to Meyerbeer ; has explained to De Vellum the real reason

112

FOREIGN GENTLEMEN IN LONDON.

why M . Cremieux would not let Lord Brougham become a Frenchman; and
has even sent little Louisa Earnshaw, the niece of the house, to bed perfectly
happy, b y engaging to call and show her how they blow soap-bubbles, and
fill them full of cigar smoke. Finally, he goes away sprinkling a shower of
pretty things, and b y the time he has turned into P a r k Lane, everybody is
praising him, and he is caring as much about them as—come, you u superior
beings," be honest—as much as you care about the people you met at any of
your parties last season. I t is of no use for you to say, " it's all very hollow"
—of course it is, and so are you— but it is very pleasant, and we meet to be
pleased; and, after all, the Frenchman's is the glittering hollowness of one of
the soap-bubbles he promised Louisa, while yours is the sulky hollowness of
an empty cask.
Circumstances—Anglice, sundry English miles—prevent my having the
advantage of seeing the sketch which M . Gavarni will prefix to this paper ;
but I shall be surprised if, with all his proper love of his country, he prove
more ready to do his countrymen justice than

SHIRLEY BROOKS.

THE PARKS.
T H E English are not fond of out-of-door lounging, for several reasons.
They have, in the first place, for the most part, comfortable homes ; they
have an eccentric climate ; and they have no spare time—at least very little.
When they have, in their restless locomotive nature, they must still keep
going on. Hence they prefer taking the air on the railway or steamer to
sitting still on chairs. Those which surround the Cabinets de Lecture and
the Cafe de la Rotonde, in the Palais Royal (they may call it " National"
for the nonce, if they please, but it always will be the Palais Royal), would in
themselves supply all the Parks of London, from Primrose Hill to Storey's
Gate—from Kensington Gardens to Bethnal Green. How different are they
in Paris in this respect: unless one has witnessed it, it is impossible to conceive
the fondness of the inhabitants for getting out of doors. • Wet or fine—in
peace or rebellion—warm or cold—winter or summer, they turn out just the
same, to wander about the public promenades of their adored city, or dream
away the time upon those same eternal little rush-bottomed chairs, which they
hire at two sous each, reading the newspapers, or tapping the toes of their
well-polished boots with their umbrellas. It is fortunate that our English
words home and comfort have no synonyms in their language. If they had,
the Parisians would be painfully worried to understand the meaning of
them.
But, although we do not find such crowds of idlers in the Park at the
present day, possibly the types encountered are more distinct. We say at
the present day, because formerly the gayest of the gay thronged the walks,
including royalty itself, with its attendant suite. Dear old Pepys has left us
a mass of little mems thereanent. See where he says, on the 16th of March,
1662, that, while idling there in the Park, " which is now very pleasant," he
" saw the King and Duke come to see their fowle play." In 1661, in April,
he says, " To St. James' Park, where I saw the Duke of York playing at pall-

o

114

THE

PARKS.

mall, the first time that ever I saw the sport." A n d later, which is quaintly
interesting, he writes: " Dec. 15. To the Duke, and followed him into the
Park, where, though the ice was broken, he would go slide upon his skaits,
which I did not like, but he slides very well." W e can imagine that Pepys
was not strong upon skates. T h e first tumble—and nobody learns to skate
without being sorely contused—would have been quite sufficient to have
disgusted him with this then novel amusement. W e find, however, that the
love of feeding the ducks and skating in the P a r k has not diminished.
Afterwards, he tells us how he saw the K i n g and Queen, with Lady Castlemaine and Mrs. Stuart, cum multis aliis, walking about. H e adds: u All the
ladies walked, talking and fiddling with their hats and feathers, and changing
and trying one another's heads, and laughing. But it was the finest sight to
see, considering their great beauties and dress, that ever I did see in all my life."
Evelyn is a little more scandalous. H e says, on March 1 , 1 6 7 1 : " I once
walked with the K i n g through St. James' P a r k to the garden, where I both
saw and heard a very familiar discourse between Mrs. Nellie, as they called
an impudent comedian; she looking out of her garden on a terrace at the top
of the wall, and
standing on the green walk under it. I was heartily
sorry at this scene. Thence the King walked to the Duchess of Cleveland "
—(the Lady Castlemaine of P e p y s ) — " another lady of pleasure, and curse of
our nation." Horace Walpole, eighty years afterwards, speaks of receiving
a card from Lady Caroline Petersham to go with her to Vauxhall. A n d the
party that sailed up the P a r k , " with all our colours flying," he says, consisted of the D u k e of Kingston, Lady Caroline, Lord March, Mr. Whithead,
" a pretty Miss Beauclerc, and a very foolish Miss Sparre." H e adds, that
Lady Caroline and little Ashe, or the Pollard Ashe, as they called her, had
just finished their last layer of red, and looked as handsome as crimson could
make them; and that they marched to their barge, with a boat of French
horns attending, and little Ashe singing.
Now-a-days, the idlers in the P a r k remind us little of the personages in
the above extracts. Poverty is far more frequently encountered there than
wealth; and more, we fear, walk there to dine with " Duke Humfrey" than
to get an appetite for a meal elsewhere. A t early morning, when the air is
clearest, you encounter few persons; nor, somewhat later, do you find the
crowds assembled to read the papers and discuss the politics after breakfast, as
in Paris. Y o u may, perhaps, encounter a student reading hard at some
uninviting-looking book, and stumbling over the withies bent into the
shuffled-out grass, as he moves along; or, perchance, an actor, as he threatens

THE PARKS.

115

the lower boughs of the larger trees with his stick (most actors carry sticks),
while he is rehearsing his part in some forthcoming play. A n d yet, lonely
as the Park is at this time, and half deserted, it is seldom chosen for the purpose of tender declarations, avowals, promises, oaths, quarrels, and all the
other usual accompaniments of courtship. N o ; in this respect, perhaps, those
chiefly concerned show their wit. The world, with its broad daylight, its
tumultuous noise, and its distracted eyes—is far more adapted for secrecy than
the shade and the retreat; and more than this, society will always lend itself
as an accomplice of things which are not sought to be concealed.
Towards noon, a movement of laughing mirth and noise commences by
the arrival of the children and their nursery-maids; and in the children lies,
in our opinion, the greatest attraction here offered—even beyond the ducks—
the real zoological " ducks." Not that we think slightingly of feeding them.
W e have heard, by the way, that it was one of the great O'Connell's favourite
delassemens, and that he enjoyed it as much as the smallest fellow capable of
tossing a bit of biscuit. I t is great fun to see the rush made after a morsel: how
the birds flash through the water to obtain it, and how, as in every community,
the strongest always gets it. B u t if you want to enjoy the sport to perfection,
throw in one of the small round rolls you get at evening-party supper-tables,
and a fearful tumult is created. The prize is much too large for them to get
hold of, as it is too valuable to be relinquished: and so it is pushed and
floated about, and vainly pecked at, surrounded by the whole tribe, squabbling,
splashing, and fluttering—swayed, like large crowds, here and there—until it
get sufficiently soft to be accessible to their bills, when its consumption is
speedily achieved.
B u t to return to the children. W e mean especially those who have not yet
numbered eight years, and whose limbs have still all the smooth roundness of
infancy. There is something very pleasing in their graceful movements, their
fresh cheeks, and their beautiful hair, and a perfect charm in their gaiety; in
the innocent joy sparkling in their eyes, and the pure and living blood
colouring their cheeks, which our brightest belles would give so much to
imitate. This attraction, perhaps, belongs only to those who run about:
albeit it takes a great deal to beat the saucy beauty of an English baby. I t
is almost enough to make one a convert in favour of matrimony, even in these
" fast" times. T h e only pity is that these little people should ever be destined
to become men.
ALBERT SMITH.

•9

§
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