In the year 1814, during the summer following my first taste of the
‘Poor Man’s Pudding,’ a sea voyage was recommended to me by my
physician. The battle of Waterloo having closed the long drama of
Napoleon’s wars, many strangers were visiting Europe. I arrived in
London at the time the victorious princes were there assembled enjoying
the Arabian Nights’ hospitalities of a grateful and gorgeous
aristocracy, and the courtliest of gentlemen and kings--George the
Prince Regent.
I had declined all letters but one to my banker. I wandered about for
the best reception an adventurous traveller can have--the reception, I
mean, which unsolicited chance and accident throw in his venturous way.
But I omit all else to recount one hour’s hap under the lead of a very
friendly man, whose acquaintance I made in the open street of Cheapside.
He wore a uniform, and was some sort of a civic subordinate; I forget
exactly what. He was off duty that day. His discourse was chiefly of the
noble charities of London. He took me to two or three, and made admiring
mention of many more.
‘But,’ said he, as we turned into Cheapside again, ‘if you are at all
curious about such things, let me take you--if it be not too late--to
one of the most interesting of all--our Lord Mayor’s Charities, sir;
nay, the charities not only of a Lord Mayor, but, I may truly say, in
this one instance, of emperors, regents, and kings. You remember the
event of yesterday?’
‘That sad fire on the river-side, you mean, unhousing so many of the
poor?’
‘No. The grand Guildhall Banquet to the princes. Who can forget it? Sir,
the dinner was served on nothing but solid silver and gold plate, worth
at the least £200,000--that is, 1,000,000 of your dollars; while the
mere expenditure of meats, wines, attendance, and upholstery, etc.,
cannot be footed under £25,000--125,000 dollars of your hard cash.’
‘But, surely, my friend, you do not call that charity--feeding kings at
that rate?’
‘No. The feast came first--yesterday; and the charity after--to-day. How
else would you have it, where princes are concerned? But I think we
shall be quite in time--come; here we are at King Street, and down there
is Guildhall. Will you go?’
‘Gladly, my good friend. Take me where you will. I come but to roam and
see.’
Avoiding the main entrance of the hall, which was barred, he took me
through some private way, and we found ourselves in a rear blind-walled
place in the open air. I looked round amazed. The spot was grimy as a
backyard in the Five Points. It was packed with a mass of lean,
famished, ferocious creatures, struggling and fighting for some
mysterious precedency, and all holding soiled blue tickets in their
hands.
‘There is no other way,’ said my guide; ‘we can only get in with the
crowd. Will you try it? I hope you have not on your drawing-room suit?
What do you say? It will be well worth your sight. So noble a charity
does not often offer. The one following the annual banquet of Lord
Mayor’s day--fine a charity as that certainly is--is not to be mentioned
with what will be seen to-day. Is it, ay?’
As he spoke, a basement door in the distance was thrown open, and the
squalid mass made a rush for the dark vault beyond.
I nodded to my guide, and sideways we joined in with the rest. Ere long
we found our retreat cut off by the yelping crowd behind, and I could
not but congratulate myself on having a civic, as well as civil guide;
one, too, whose uniform made evident his authority.
It was just the same as if I were pressed by a mob of cannibals on some
pagan beach. The beings round me roared with famine. For in this mighty
London misery but maddens. In the country it softens. As I gazed on the
meagre, murderous pack, I thought of the blue eye of the gentle wife of
poor Coulter. Some sort of curved, glittering steel thing (not a sword;
I know not what it was), before worn in his belt, was now flourished
overhead by my guide, menacing the creatures to forbear offering the
stranger violence.
As we drove, slow and wedge-like, into the gloomy vault, the howls of
the mass reverberated. I seemed seething in the Pit with the Lost. On
and on, through the dark and the damp, and then up a stone stairway to a
wide portal; when, diffusing, the pestiferous mob poured in bright day
between painted walls and beneath a painted dome. I thought of the
anarchic sack of Versailles.
A few moments more and I stood bewildered among the beggars in the
famous Guildhall.
Where I stood--where the thronged rabble stood, less than twelve hours
before sat His Imperial Majesty, Alexander of Russia; His Royal Majesty,
Frederick William, King of Prussia; His Royal Highness, George, Prince
Regent of England; His world-renowned Grace, the Duke of Wellington;
with a mob of magnificoes made up of conquering field-marshals, earls,
counts, and innumerable other nobles of mark.
The walls swept to and fro, like the foliage of a forest with blazonings
of conquerors’ flags. Naught outside the hall was visible. No windows
were within four-and-twenty feet of the floor. Cut off from all other
sights, I was hemmed in by one splendid spectacle--splendid, I mean,
everywhere, but as the eye fell toward the floor. _That_ was foul as a
hovel’s--as a kennel’s; the naked boards being strewed with the smaller
and more wasteful fragments of the feast, while the two long parallel
lines, up and down the hall, of now unrobed, shabby, dirty pine-tables
were piled with less trampled wrecks. The dyed banners were in keeping
with the last night’s kings; the floor suited the beggars of to-day. The
banners looked down upon the floor as from his balcony Dives upon
Lazarus. A line of liveried men kept back with their staves the
impatient jamb of the mob, who, otherwise, might have instantaneously
converted the Charity into a Pillage. Another body of gowned and gilded
officials distributed the broken meats--the cold victuals and crumbs of
kings. One after another the beggars held up their dirty blue tickets,
and were served with the plundered wreck of a pheasant, or the rim of a
pasty--like the detached crown of an old hat--the solids and meats
stolen out.
‘What a noble charity!’ whispered my guide. ‘See that pasty now,
snatched by that pale girl; I dare say the Emperor of Russia ate of that
last night.’
‘Very probably,’ murmured I; ‘it looks as though some omnivorous emperor
or other had had a finger in that pie.’
‘And see yon pheasant too--there--_that_ one--the boy in the torn shirt
has it now--look! The Prince Regent might have dined off that.’
The two breasts were gouged ruthlessly out, exposing the bare bones,
embellished with the untouched pinions and legs.
‘Yes, who knows!’ said my guide, ‘His Royal Highness the Prince Regent
might have eaten of that identical pheasant.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ murmured I, ‘he is said to be uncommonly fond of the
breast. But where is Napoleon’s head in a charger? I should fancy _that_
ought to have been the principal dish.’
‘You are merry. Sir, even Cossacks are charitable here in Guildhall.
Look! the famous Platoff, the Hetman himself--(he was here last night
with the rest)--no doubt he thrust a lance into yon fat pork-pie there.
Look! the old shirtless man has it now. How he licks his chops over it,
little thinking of or thanking the good, kind Cossack that left it him!
Ah! another--a stouter has grabbed it. It falls; bless my soul!--the
dish is quite empty--only a bit of the hacked crust.’
‘The Cossacks, my friend, are said to be immoderately fond of fat,’
observed I. ‘The Hetman was hardly so charitable as you thought.’
‘A noble charity, upon the whole, for all that. See, even Gog and Magog
yonder, at the other end of the hall, fairly laugh out their delight at
the scene.’
‘But don’t you think, though,’ hinted I, ‘that the sculptor, whoever he
was, carved the laugh too much into a grin--a sort of sardonical grin?’
‘Well, that’s as you take it, sir. But see--now I’d wager a guinea the
Lord Mayor’s lady dipped her golden spoon into yonder golden-hued jelly.
See, the jelly-eyed old body has slipped it, in one broad gulp, down his
throat.’
‘Peace to that jelly!’ breathed I.
‘What a generous, noble, magnanimous charity this is! unheard of in any
country but England, which feeds her very beggars with golden-hued
jellies.’
‘But not three times every day, my friend. And do you really think that
jellies are the best sort of relief you can furnish to beggars? Would
not plain beef and bread, with something to do, and be paid for, be
better?’
‘But plain beef and bread were not eaten here. Emperors, and prince
regents, and kings, and field-marshals don’t often dine on plain beef
and bread. So the leavings are according. Tell me, can you expect that
the crumbs of kings can be like the crumbs of squirrels?’
‘_You!_ I mean _you!_ stand aside, or else be served and away! Here,
take this pasty, and be thankful that you taste of the same dish with
Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire. Graceless ragamuffin, do you hear?’
These words were bellowed at me through the din by a red-gowned official
nigh the board.
‘Surely he does not mean _me_,’ said I to my guide; ‘he has not
confounded _me_ with the rest.’
‘One is known by the company he keeps,’ smiled my guide. ‘See! not only
stands your hat awry and bunged on your head, but your coat is fouled
and torn. Nay,’ he cried to the red-gown, ‘this is an unfortunate
friend; a simple spectator, I assure you.’
‘Ah! is that you, old lad!’ responded the red-gown, in familiar
recognition of my guide--a personal friend as it seemed; ‘well, convey
your friend out forthwith. Mind the grand crash; it will soon be coming;
hark! now! away with him!’
Too late. The last dish had been seized. The yet unglutted mob raised a
fierce yell, which wafted the banners like a strong gust, and filled the
air with a reek as from sewers. They surged against the tables, broke
through all barriers, and billowed over the hall--their bare tossed arms
like the dashed ribs of a wreck. It seemed to me as if a sudden impotent
fury of fell envy possessed them. That one half-hour’s peep at the mere
remnants of the glories of the Banquets of Kings; the unsatisfying
mouthfuls of disembowelled pasties, plundered pheasants, and half-sacked
jellies, served to remind them of the intrinsic contempt of the alms. In
this sudden mood, or whatever mysterious thing it was that now seized
them, these Lazaruses seemed ready to spew up in repentant scorn the
contumelious crumbs of Dives.
‘This way, this way! stick like a bee to my back,’ intensely whispered
my guide. ‘My friend there has answered my beck, and thrown open yon
private door for us two. Wedge--wedge in--quick--there goes your bunged
hat--never stop for your coat-tail--hit that man--strike him down! hold!
jam! now! now! wrench along for your life! ha! here we breathe freely;
thank God! You faint. Ho!’
‘Never mind. This fresh air revives me.’