We have spoken in a former chapter of the oil lamps, which, “few and far
between,” just made darkness visible, and of the old watchmen, who were
supposed or not supposed to be the guardians of our lives and property.
The latter deserve another word. The old watchmen, or “Charleys,” as
they were generally called, were perfect “curiosities of humanity,” and
the principle on which they were selected and the rules by which they
were guided were as curious as themselves. They seem to be chosen as
schoolmasters are still chosen in remote villages in the rural districts,
namely, because they were fit for nothing else, and must be kept off the
parish as long as possible. They were for the most part, wheezy,
asthmatic old men, generally with a very bad cough, and groaning under
the weight of an immense great coat, with immense capes, which almost
crushed them to the ground, the very ditto, indeed of him of whom it was
written,
“Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,
Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door.”
They carried a thick staff, not so much a weapon of offence as to support
their tottering steps. They had also rattles in their hands, typical, we
presume, of the coming rattles in the throat, for they were of no earthly
use whatever. Each of them was furnished with a snug box, in which they
slept as long as possible. But, if ever they did wake up, their
proceedings were of a most remarkable kind. They set forth round their
beat with a lantern in their hands, as a kind of a beacon to warn thieves
and rogues that it was time to hide, until these guardians of the night
had performed the farce of vigilance and gone back to snore. Moreover,
like an army marching to surprise an enemy with all the regimental bands
performing a grand chorus, they also gave notice of their approach to the
same kind of gentry by yelling the hour of the night and the state of the
weather with a tremulous and querulous voice, something between a grunt
and a squeak, which even yet reminds us of the lines in Dunciad;
“Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
And makes night hideous: answer him, ye owls.”
But, to be sure, the wisdom of our forefathers had a double object in
view when they ordered this musical performance to be got up. It not
only saved the poor old watchmen from conflicts in which they must have
suffered grievously, but it served another purpose, and so “killed two
birds with one stone” with a vengeance. Only fancy the happiness of a
peaceful citizen, fast asleep after the toils and fatigues of the day, to
have his first slumber disturbed that he might be told that it was
“half-past eleven o’clock, and a cloudy night,” and then, by the time
that he had digested this interesting intelligence and was composing
himself on his pillow again, to be again aroused to learn that it was now
“twelve o’clock, and a starlight morning,” and so on every half-hour
until day-break. The vagaries of the veritable queen Mab, with
“tithe-pigs’ tails” and all the rest of it, were only more poetical, not
the least more rest-disturbing, than the shouts of these bawlers of the
night. Truly, the watch committee of those days might have taken for
their motto, “Macbeth does murder sleep.” And many were the funny tricks
played upon these poor, helpless old creatures, by the practical jokers
who then so abounded amongst us. Sometimes they would, when caught
napping, be nailed up in their boxes, while occasionally, by way of
variety, their persecutors would lay them gently on the ground with the
doors downwards, so that their unhappy inmates would be as helpless as a
turtle turned upon its back, and be kept prisoners till morning. In
short, “a Charley” was considered fair game for every lover of mischief
to practise upon, and their tormentors were never tired of inventing new
devices for teazing and annoying them. Latterly, however, as the town
grew larger, the veteran battalions, the cripples, wheezers, coughers,
and asthmatics, were superseded by a more stalwart race, who looked as if
they would stand no nonsense, and could do a little fighting at a pinch.
The last of these men, whom we recollect before the establishment of the
new police, had the beat in the neighbourhood of Clayton-square. Many of
our readers must recollect him. He was a six-foot muscular Irishman.
“Well, Pat,” some of the young ones, who are middle aged gentlemen now,
used to say to him, “Well, Pat, what of O’Connell?” On such occasions
Pat invariably drew himself up, like a soldier on parade, to his full
height, looked devoutly upwards, and then solemnly exclaimed, “There’s
One above, sir—and—next to him—is Daniel O’Connell!” And it was a name
to conjure with in his day! We respected, as often as we heard of it,
that poor fellow’s reverence for his mighty countryman, and felt that,
had we been Irish, we also should have placed that name first and
foremost in our calendar of saints, martyrs, patriots and heroes. Who is
there now of his name and nation who can rise and say, “Mr. Speaker, I
address you as the representative of Ireland.” But, forward. How the
old times, and the old things, and the old oil-lamps, and the old
watchmen have all passed away and disappeared! And the old pigtails,
too, have vanished with them. When we first escaped from petticoats into
jacket and trousers, every man, young and old, wore a hairy appendage at
the back of his head, called a pigtail, as if anxious to support Lord
Monboddo’s theory, that man had originally been a tailed animal of the
monkey tribe; for surely our _wholesale re-tailing_, if we may so speak,
could have been for no other purpose. Pigtails were of various sorts and
sizes. The sailors wore an immense club of hair reaching half-way down
their backs, like that worn by one of Ingoldsby’s heroes, and thus
described by him,—
“And his pigtail is long, and bushy, and thick,
Like a pump handle stuck on the end of a stick.”
Those of the soldiers were somewhat less in magnitude, but still enormous
in their proportions. And quiet citizens wore jauntily one little dainty
lock, tied up neatly with black ribbon, and just showing itself over the
coat collar. It was a strange practice, but custom renders us familiar
with everything. At last, however, Fashion, in one of her capricious
moods, issued her fiat, and _pigtails_ were _curtailed_. But some few
old stagers, lovers of things as they were, and the enemies of all
innovation, saw revolution in the doom of pigtails, and persevered in
wearing them long after they had generally disappeared. The pigtail
finally seen in society in Liverpool dangled on the back of —; but, no,
no! never mind his name. He still toddles about on ’Change, and might
not like to be joked about it, even at this distance of time. Its fate
was curious. Through evil report and good report he had stood by that
pigtail as part and parcel of the British Constitution, the very
Palladium of Magna Charta, Habeas Corpus, and the Bill of Rights. But
the time for a new edition of _The Rape of the Lock_ arrived. He dined
one day with a party of gay fellows like himself. The bottle went freely
round, until, under its influence, our unlucky friend fell fast asleep.
The opportunity was seized upon. After some hours’ refreshing slumber he
awoke, and found himself alone. On the table before him was a neat
little parcel, directed to him, made up in silvery paper, and tied with a
delicate blue ribbon. What could it be? He eagerly opened it, and
found, _Il Diavolo_! that it was his pigtail. “Achilles’ wrath,” as sung
by Homer, was nothing compared with the fury of the wretched man. He
stormed, he swore, he threatened, but he could never discover who had
been the operator who had so despoiled him, like another Samson, of his
pride. Let us hope that remorse has severely visited the guilty
criminal. Its work, however, must have been inwardly, for outwardly he
is a hale, hearty, cheerful-looking old man, who still carries himself
among his brother merchants as if he had never perpetrated such an
enormous atrocity.
This, we said, was the last of the pigtails seen in Liverpool society.
But we did meet with another, the very _Ultimus Romanorum_, after a lapse
of many years, under very peculiar and interesting circumstances. We
were walking in Lime-street, when all at once we caught sight of a tall,
patriarchal, respectably-dressed man, some three-quarters of a century
old, with a pigtail. It was like the ghost of the past, or a mummy from
Egypt, rising suddenly before us. The old gentleman, whose pigtail
seemed saucily to defy all modern improvements as the works of Satan and
his emissaries, was, with spectacles on nose, reading some document on
the wall. Being naturally of an inquisitive turn of mind, and especially
anxious at that moment to find out what still on earth could interest a
pigtail, we stopped to make the discovery. Ha! ha ha! It nearly killed
us with laughter. It was the electioneering address of Sir Howard
Douglas. No wonder the old man’s sympathies were excited: it was pigtail
studying pigtail, Noah holding sweet communion with Methuselah or Tubal
Cain. We often marvel within ourselves whether that last survivor of the
pigtail dynasty is yet alive, and whether he believes in steam-ships, and
railways, and electric telegraphs; whether indeed he believes in the
nineteenth century at all, or in anything except Sir Howard Douglas and
pigtails.
Hair-powder, which also used generally to be worn in those days, went out
of fashion with pigtails. It was in allusion to this practice that the
old song laughingly asked,
“And what are bachelors made of?
Powder and puff,
And such like stuff,
Such are bachelors made of—
Made of!
Such are bachelors made of.”
Even ladies wore hair-powder. The last, within our memory, so adorned,
was Mrs. Bridge, the mother of Mr. James Oakes Bridge, who lived in St.
Anne-street, and a fine, stately, venerable lady of the old school she
was.
A terrible time was it for hair-dressers, who then carried on a thriving
business, when pigtails and hair-powder were abolished at one fell swoop.
It was in reality to them like the repeal of the Navigation laws, in
idea, to the ship-owners, or free-trade to the farmers. We were
amusingly reminded of it only a few weeks since. Being on our travels,
with rather a wilderness of hair upon our head, we turned into a barber’s
shop, in a small town through which a railway, lately opened, runs. The
barber had a melancholy look, and seemed to be borne down by some secret
sorrow, to which he gave utterance from time to time in the most dreadful
groans. At length he found a voice, and rather sobbed than said, “Oh
sir, these railways will be the ruin of the country!” Did our ears
deceive us? Or was the barber really gone mad? We were silent, but, we
suppose, looked unutterable things, for he continued, “Yes, sir, before
this line was opened, I shaved twenty post-boys a day from the White
Hart, and now if I shave one in a week I am in high luck.” Unhappy
shaver, to be thus shaved by the march of improvement! And inconsistent
George Hudson! thou talkest of the vested rights of shipowners and
landlords, and yet didst thou ever stay thy ruthless hand and project a
line the less that country post-boys might flourish, and country barbers
live by shaving their superfluous beards? O! most close shaver thyself,
not to make compensation to thy shavers thus thrown out of bread and
beards by thy countless innovations!
But it is time that we should finish this chapter, and we will do so with
copying an anecdote touching hair powder, which greatly struck us as we
lately read it in the _History of Hungary_. Some great measure was under
discussion in the diet of that country, when Count Szechenyi appeared in
the Chamber of Magnates, on the 28th of October, 1844, in splendid
uniform, his breast covered with stars and ribbons of the various orders
to which he belonged. “It is now thirty-three years,” said he, “and
eleven days since I was sent to the camp of Marshal Blucher. I arrived
at the dawn of day, and at the entrance of the tent found a soldier
occupied in powdering his hair before a looking-glass. I was rather
surprised, but, on passing on a little further, I found a page engaged in
the same way. At last I reached the tent of the old general himself, and
found him, like the others, powdering and dressing his hair also.
‘General,’ said I, ‘I should have thought this was the time to put powder
in the cannon and not in the hair.’ ‘We hope,’ was the reply, ‘to
celebrate a grand _fête_ to-day, and we must, therefore, appear in our
best costume.’ On that day the battle of Leipsic was fought. For a
similar reason, gentlemen, I appear here to-day, dressed in this singular
manner. I believe that we are to-day about to perform one of the
brightest acts in the history of our nation.” The address was received
with loud acclamations. But hair-powder and gunpowder have, we believe,
long since been divorced, even in the camp. It was inconvenient. It was
found, as touching the former, that, on a hot day, it was impossible “to
keep your powder dry.”