object of writing a book about us. He arrived in London one Saturday
night, and being tired, at once went to bed. At breakfast next morning
he asked for new bread; the waiter told him they only had yesterday's.
Out came the Frenchman's note-book, in which he wrote: 'In London the
bread is always baked the day before.' He then asked for the day's
paper, but was again told they had yesterday's only. A memorandum went
into the note-book: 'The London newspapers are always published
yesterday.' He then thought he would present the letter of introduction
he had brought with him to a private family, so having been directed to
the house, he saw a lady near the window, reading. Not wishing to
startle or disturb her, he gave a gentle single rap. This not being
answered, he had to give a few more raps, when at last a servant partly
opened the door and asked his business. He expressed his wish to see the
master of the house. 'Master never sees anybody to-day, but he will
perhaps to-morrow,' replied the servant, and shut the door in his face.
Another memorandum was added to the previous ones: 'In London people
never see anyone to-day, but always to-morrow.' Having nothing to do,
he thought he would go to the theatre. He inquired for Drury Lane, and
was directed to it. The doors being shut, he lounged about the
neighbourhood till they should open. As it grew later and later, and
there was no sign of a _queue_, he at last addressed a passer-by, and
asked him when the theatre would open. 'It won't open to-day,' was the
reply. This was the last straw that broke the camel's back. Our
Frenchman hurried back to his hotel, wrote in his note-book, 'In London
there are theatres, but they never open today,' took a cab, caught the
night mail, and hastened to leave so barbarous a country.
This description of London life is about as correct as that recently
given in Max O'Rell's 'John Bull and his Womankind.' What kind of
people did O'Rell visit?
I look at another book before me, written in Italian, and entitled:
'Semi-serious Observations of an Exile on England.' The book was
published at Lugano in 1831, but the author--Giuseppe Pecchio--dates his
preface from York in 1827.
He speaks thusly of the approach to London by the Dover road: 'If the
sky is gloomy, the first aspect of London is no less so. The smoky look
of the houses gives them the appearance of a recent fire. If to this
you add the silence prevailing amidst a population of a million and a
half of inhabitants, all in motion (so that you seem to behold a stage
full of Chinese shadows), and the uniformity of the houses, as if you
were in a city of beavers, you will easily understand that on entering
into such a beehive pleasure gives way to astonishment. This is the old
country style, but since the English have substituted blue pills for
suicide, or, still better, have made a journey to Paris--since, instead
of Young's "Night Thoughts," they read the novels of Walter Scott, they
have rendered their houses a little more pleasing in outward appearance.
In the West End especially they have adopted a more cheerful style of
architecture. But I do not by this mean to imply that the English
themselves have become more lively; they still take delight in ghosts,
witchcraft, cemeteries, and similar horrors. Woe to the author who
writes a novel without some apparition to make your hair stand on end!'
In speaking of the thinness of the walls and floors of London houses, he
says: 'I could hear the murmur of the conversation of the tenant of the
room above and of that of the one below me; from time to time the words
"very fine weather," "indeed," "very fine," "comfort," "comfortable,"
"great comfort," reached my ears. In fact, the houses are
ventriloquous. As already mentioned, they are all alike. In a
three-storied house there are three perpendicular bedrooms, one above
the other, and three parlours, equally so superposed.' We know how much
of this description is true.
'Why are the English,' he asks, 'not expert dancers? Because they cannot
practise dancing in their slightly-built houses, in which a lively caper
would at once send the third-floor down into the kitchen. This is the
reason why the English gesticulate so little, and have their arms always
glued to their sides. The rooms are so small that you cannot move about
rapidly without smashing some object,' or, as we should say, you cannot
swing a cat in them.
'Strangers are astounded,' continues our author, 'at the silence
prevailing among the inhabitants of London. But how could a million and
a half of people live together without silence? The noise of men,
horses, and carriages between the Strand and the Exchange is so great
that it is said that in winter there are two degrees of difference in
the thermometers of the City and of the West End. I have not verified
it,' our author is candid enough to admit, 'but considering the great
number of chimneys in the Strand, it is probable enough. From Chering
[_sic_] Cross to the Exchange is the cyclopedia of the world. Anarchy
seems to prevail, but it is only apparent. The rules which Gray gives
(in his "Trivia; or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London") seem to
me unnecessary.'
Signor Pecchio pretty well describes the movements of 'City men':
'The great monster of the capital,' he says, 'similar to a huge giant,
waking up, begins by giving signs of life at its extremities. The
movement begins at the circumference, gradually extending to the centre,
until about ten o'clock the uproar begins, increasing till four o'clock,
which is the hour for going on 'Change. The population seems to follow
the law of the tides. Up to that hour the tide rises from the periphery
to the Exchange. At half-past four, when the Exchange closes, the ebb
sets in, and currents of men, horses, and carriages flow from the
Exchange to the periphery.'
Like all foreigners, he has something to say about the dulness of an
English Sunday. 'This country, all in motion, all alive on other days
of the week,' he observes, 'seems struck with an attack of apoplexy on
the Lord's day.' Foreigners pass the day at Greenwich or Richmond,
where 'they pay dearly for a dinner, seasoned with the bows of a waiter
in silk stockings and brown livery, just like the dress of a Turin
lawyer.' But if you want to see how John Bull spends the day, it is not
in Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens you must look for him. 'If you want
to see that marvellous personage who is the wonder and laughing-stock of
all Europe, who clothes all the world, wins battles on land and sea
without much boasting, who works like three and drinks like six, who is
the pawnbroker and usurer of all Kings and all Republics, whilst he is
bankrupt at home, and sometimes, like Midas, dies of hunger in the midst
of gold, you must look for him elsewhere. In winter you must descend
into underground cellars. There, around a blazing fire, you will behold
the English workman, well dressed and shod, smoking, drinking, and
reading.... For this class of readers special Sunday newspapers are
published.... It is in these taverns, and amidst the smoke of tobacco
and the froth of their beer, the first condition of public opinion is
born and formed. It is there the conduct of every citizen is discussed
and appraised; there starts the road which leads to the Capitol or the
Tarpeian rock; there praise or blame is awarded to a Burdett issuing
triumphantly from the Tower, or to a Castlereagh descending amidst
curses to the tomb.... There are no rows in these taverns ... more
decency of conduct is observed in them than in our [Italian] churches.
When full of spirit and beer the customers, instead of fighting, fall
down on the pavement like dead men.'
After having so carefully observed the conduct of the British workman,
our Italian friend watches him in the suburban tea-garden, which he
visits with his family to take tea in the afternoon, or drink his
nut-brown ale. 'One of the handsomest,' he says, 'is Cumberland
Gardens,[#] close to Vauxhall ... there he sits smoking long pipes of
the whitest clay, which the landlord supplies, filled with tobacco, at
one penny each. Between his puffs of smoke he occasionally sends forth a
truncated phrase, such as we read in "Tristram Sandi" [_sic_] were
uttered by Trion and the captain. It being Sunday, which admits of no
amusement, no music or song is heard.' Pretty much as it is at the
present day!
[#] In the early part of 1825, therefore shortly after our author wrote,
the tavern was burnt to the ground, and the site taken possession of by
the South London Waterworks.
Having heard what both Frenchmen and an Italian had to say about London,
let us listen to what a German authoress has to tell us on the subject.
Johanna Schopenhauer, in her 'Travels through England and Scotland'
(third edition, 1826), says: 'The splendid shops, which offer the finest
sights, are situate chiefly between the working City and the more
aristocratic, enjoying Westminster,' a statement which, as every
Londoner knows, is only partially correct. 'The English custom of always
making way to the right greatly facilitates walking, so that there is no
pushing or running against anyone.' Did our author ever take a walk in
Cheapside or Fleet Street? 'Even Italians probably do not fear rain so
much as a Londoner; to catch a wetting seems to them the most terrible
misfortune; on the first falling of a few drops everyone not provided
with an umbrella hastens to take refuge in a coach.' How well the lady
has studied the habits of Londoners! What will they say to this?
'The police exercise a strict control over hackney-coaches. Woe to the
driver who ventures to over-charge!' And again: 'You may safely enter,
carrying with you untold wealth, a coach at any time of the night, as
long as someone at the house whence you start takes the number of the
coach, and lets the driver see that it is taken.'
Mrs. Schopenhauer tells us that it is customary to go for breakfast to a
pastry-cook's shop, and eat a few cakes hot from the pan. Truly, we did
not know it. Of course, she agrees with other writers as to the
smallness of the houses, every room of which you can tell from the
outside; but we were not aware that, as she informs us, all the doors
are exceedingly narrow and high, and that frequently the front-doors
look only like narrow slits in the wall.
'Bedrooms seldom can contain more than one bed; but English bedsteads
are large enough to hold three persons. And it is a universal custom
not to sleep alone; sisters, relations, and female friends share a bed
without ceremony, and the mistress of the house is not ashamed to take
her servant to bed with her, for English ladies are afraid of being
alone in a room at night, having never been brought up to it.... The
counterpane is fastened to the mattress, leaving but an opening for
slipping in between the two.'
Again, we are told to our astonishment: 'The majority of Londoners,
workmen and shopkeepers, who form but one category, on the whole lead
sad lives. Heavy taxes, the high prices of necessaries, extravagance of
dress, compel them to observe a frugality of living which, in other
countries, would be called poverty.
'The shopkeeper, for ever tied to his shop and the dark parlour behind,
must deny himself every amusement. Theatres are too far off and too
expensive; the wife of a well-to-do tradesman seldom can visit one more
than twice a year.
'During the week they cannot leave the shop between nine in the morning
and twelve at night. The wife generally attends to it, while the
husband sits in the parlour behind and keeps the accounts. True, on
Sundays all the shops are closed, but so are the theatres, and as all
domestics and other employes insist on having that day to themselves,
the mistress has to stay at home to take care of the house.
'Merchants lead lives nearly as dull. They have to deny themselves
social pleasures indulged in by the rich merchants of Hamburg or
Leipsic. English ladies are more domesticated, and not accustomed to
the bustle of public amusements. But their husbands, after business
hours, occasionally seek for recreation in cafes and taverns.'
How very one-sided and imperfect a view of English middle life, even as
it was seventy years ago, when these remarks were written, is presented
to us by them is self-evident!
English ladies, according to our author, 'seldom go out, and when they
do, they prefer a shopping excursion to every other kind of promenade.
They also are fond of visiting pastry-cooks' shops, and as these are
open to the street, ladies may safely enter them. But that is not
allowable at Mr. Birch's in Cornhill, whose shop ladies cannot visit
without being accompanied by gentlemen, the breakfast-room being at the
back of the house, at the end of a long passage, and lit up all the year
round (as daylight does not penetrate into it) with wax candles, by the
light of which ladies and gentlemen--usually amidst solemn
silence--swallow their turtle-soup and small hot patties. The house
supplies nothing else ... but its former proprietor, Master Horton, by
his patties and soup made a fortune of one hundred thousand pounds, and
his successor seems in a fair way of doing the same.' We hope the
assumption was verified.
According to Mrs. Schopenhauer, Londoners are not very hospitable, and
'prefer entertaining a friend they invite to dinner at a coffee-house or
tavern, rather than at their own homes, where the presence of ladies is
a restraint upon them. Ladies are treated with great respect, but, like
all personages imposing respect, they are avoided as much as possible.'
Our traveller must have come in contact with some very ungallant
Englishmen. She describes a dinner at a private house; we are told that
'there are twelve to fourteen guests, who fill the small drawing-room,
the ladies sitting in armchairs, whilst the gentlemen stand about, some
warming themselves by the fire, often in a not very decent manner. At
the dinner-table napkins are found only in houses which have acquired
foreign polish, and they are not many. The tablecloth hangs down to the
floor, and every guest takes it upon his knee, and uses it as a
napkin.... The lady of the house serves the dishes, and there is no end
to her questions put to her guests as to the seasoning, the part of the
joint, the sauce, etc., they like,' questions which are exceedingly
troublesome to a foreigner who is not up to all the technical terms of
English cookery. Of course, the hobnobbing and taking wine with
everybody--a fashion now happily abolished--comes in for a good deal of
censure, which, indeed, is richly deserved. 'Conversation on any subject
of interest is out of the question during dinner; were anyone to attempt
it, the master would immediately interrupt him with, "Sir, you are
losing your dinner; by-and-by we will discuss these matters." The
ladies from sheer modesty speak but little; foreigners must beware from
saying much, lest they be considered monstrous bold.'
Whilst, after dinner, the gentlemen sit over their wine, the ladies are
yawning the time away in the drawing-room, until their hostess sends
word down to the dining-room that tea is ready. 'It is said,' continues
our author, 'that the slow or quick attention given to this message
shows who is master in the house, the husband or the wife.' Long after
midnight the guests drive home 'through the streets still swarming with
people. All the shops are still open, and lighted up; the street-lamps,
of course, are alight, and burn till the rising of the sun.' Has any
Londoner ever seen all the shops open and lighted up all night? Did our
author have visions?
A London Sunday, of course, is commented on. The complaint raised quite
recently by some of our bishops seems but a revival of wailings uttered
long ago, for we learn from Mrs. Schopenhauer that in her time (sixty
years ago) 'some of the highest families in the kingdom were called to
account for desecrating the Sabbath with amateur concerts, dances, and
card-playing,' so that it would indeed seem there is nothing new under
the sun. 'The genuine Englishman,' says our authoress, 'divides his time
on Sundays between church and the bottle; his wife spends the hours her
religious duties leave her with a gossip, and abuses her neighbours and
acquaintances, which is quite lawful on Sundays.'
We allow Mrs. Schopenhauer to make her bow and retire with this parting
shot. Still, that lady was not singular in attributing great drinking
powers to Englishmen. M. Larcher, who in 1861 published a book entitled
'Les Anglais, Londres et l'Angleterre,' says therein that in good
society the ladies after dinner retire into another room, after having
partaken very moderately of wine, while the gentlemen are left to empty
bottles of port, madeira, claret, and champagne. 'And it is,' he adds,
'a constant habit among the ladies to empty bottles of brandy.' And he
quotes from a work by General Fillet: 'Towards forty years of age every
well-bred English lady goes to bed intoxicated.'
M. Jules Lecomte says in his 'Journey of Troubles to London' ('Un Voyage
de Desagrements a Londres,' 1854) that he accompanied a blonde English
miss to the Exhibition in Hyde Park, where at one sitting she ate six
shillings' worth of cake resembling a black brick ornamented with
currants.
According to M. Francis Wey's account of 'The English at Home' ('Les
Anglais chez Eux,' 1856), at Cremorne Gardens the popular refreshment,
and particularly with an Oxford theologian, is ginger-beer. M. Wey
probably means shandy-gaff. He agrees with M. Lecomte: the consumption
of food by one English young lady would suffice for four Paris porters!
A Russian visitor to London, the 'Own Correspondent' of the _Northern
Bee_ Russian newspaper, who inspected London in 1861, asserts, in his
'England and Russia,' that any English miss of eighteen is capable of
imbibing sundry glasses of wine 'without making a face.'
In the _Daily Graphic_ of November 1, 1893, a statement appeared,
according to which a French journalist at this present day informs the
world, through _Le Jour_, that in London--nay, in all England--not one
cyclist is to be found, the Government having rigidly suppressed them.
Well, M. Levi has told us that there are no umbrellas in London; now we
learn that there are no cyclists (how we wish this were true!). What
curious information we get from France about ourselves!
When will travellers leave off being Muenchausens?
*XII.*
*OLD LONDON TAVERNS AND TEA-GARDENS.[#]*
*I.--THE GALLERIED TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON.*
[#] This chapter is based on ancient and modern histories of London; on
works treating of special localities; on essays in periodical
publications; on the Transactions of Antiquarian and other Societies,
and as it is not a product of imagination, but of research, nothing new
to the student, but a great deal new to the general reader, may be
expected; though the stones are old, the house is new.
London abounded in taverns. A folio volume might be filled with
accounts of the more important of them, but as we have only a limited
number of pages at our command, we shall confine ourselves to the
description of one peculiarly characteristic sort of them, namely, the
taverns with galleried courtyards, and, in consequence of their great
number, our notice of each will have to be brief.
These old taverns, very few of which are now left standing, formed,
architecturally, squares, the buildings surrounding a yard, furnished on
three sides with outer galleries to the floors above; and the reason why
this form of construction was adopted was because then the yards were
rendered suitable for theatrical representations, which, before the
erection of regular theatres, were usually given in inn-yards. Access
to these yards was obtained either through the part of the tavern facing
the street, or through the gateway, through which coaches, carts and
waggons entered the yard. The stage was erected, in a primitive and
temporary manner, behind the front portion of the square, and faced the
galleries at the back and sides of it. The yard itself then formed the
pit, and the galleries the boxes of the theatre. A yard so surrounded
by galleries, with their banisters or open panels, often of elegant
design, looked very picturesque; but did this style of construction
contribute to the comfort of the guests? Scarcely. The ground-floors
of the inn-buildings, on the level of the yard, were given up to
stables, coach-houses, store-rooms, etc. Access to the galleries was
obtained by staircases, often steep, twisted and narrow; along the
galleries were the bedrooms, the doors, and frequently the windows, of
which opened on to them, and there were no other means of reaching these
rooms. Now, consider that these galleries were open, exposed to all the
changes of the weather, to wind, rain, hail, sleet and snow, which must
have been very trying, especially at night, when the bedrooms had to be
entered by the light of a candle, difficult to keep burning, whilst the
wind was driving rain or snow into the gallery. Remember also that the
roughly paved yard and the stables surrounding it were full of noises,
not only during the day, but all the night through. There were the
horses kicking, coaches and waggons constantly coming in through the
gateway, or going out, stablemen, coachmen, carters shouting, horses
being harnessed to carts, and other vehicles starting early in the
morning on their journeys, and the rest of the sleepers in the bedrooms
along the galleries must have been sadly interfered with. Nor can the
smell arising from the stables and from the manure heap, all confined
within the well formed by the surrounding buildings, have added to the
comfort of the guests staying at the inn. As the bar of the inn
frequently was in the yard, the noises made by its visitors, and the
quarrels they occasionally indulged in, and which often would be settled
by a fight in the yard, were not calculated to promote sound sleep. But
our ancestors were not so particular in these matters; even aristocratic
quarters of London were given up to dirt and rowdyism. In St. James's
Square offal, cinders, dead cats and dogs were shot under the very
windows of the gilded saloons in which the first magnates of the
land--Norfolks, Ormonds, Kents and Pembrokes--gave banquets and balls.
Lord Macaulay quotes the condition of Lincoln's Inn Fields as a striking
example of the indifference felt by the most polite and splendid members
of society in a former age to what would now be deemed the common
decencies of life. But the poorest cottage and the meanest galleried
inn-yard look well in a picture. Be glad that you have not to live in
either. But a few generations ago, as we have pointed out, tastes and
habits were different, and even now there are old fogeys so wedded to
ancient customs that they still patronize the dark boxes yet found in
some antiquated taverns, which afford room for four or six customers,
who have to sit upright against the perpendicular backs of the boxes,
lest they slide off the twelve-inch-wide shelves on which they have to
perch and disappear under the table. Strange were the customs of the
days referred to. The people seemed to live in taverns, physicians met
their patients and apothecaries there, lawyers their clients, business
men their customers, people of fashion their acquaintances. 'Even men
of fortune,' says Macaulay, 'who might in their own mansions have
enjoyed every luxury, were often in the habit of passing their evenings
in the parlour of some neighbouring house of public entertainment,' in
the company of ill-bred, loud talking, roisterous and
spittoon-patronizing smokers. Johnson declared that the tavern chair was
the throne of human felicity. To him it was, because there he found his
toadies, whom he could bully to his heart's content. But the man who
could say
'My mind to me a kingdom is'
did not care to sit on such a throne.
But we have insensibly strayed into side-openings; let us return to the
main avenue of galleried taverns. We shall have to mention so many, that
we see no better means of preventing our getting confused and losing our
way altogether than to arrange them alphabetically according to the
signs they were known by.
The first inn thus on our list is the Angel, at Islington. Its
establishment dates back two hundred years. Originally it presented the
usual features of a large country inn, having a long front, with an
overhanging tiled roof; the principal entrance was beneath a projection,
which extended along a portion of the front, and had a wooden gallery at
top. The inn-yard, approached by a gateway in the centre, was nearly a
quadrangle, having double galleries supported by plain columns and
carved pilasters, with caryatides and other figures. This courtyard, as
it was more than a hundred years, was preserved by Hogarth in his print
of a 'Stage Coach.' There is also a view of it in Pinks's 'History of
Clerkenwell.' In olden days the inn was a great halting-place for
travellers from London, and from the northern and western counties. On
the King's birthday the royal mail coaches used to meet there, as shown
in an engraving of 1812, in the Crace collection in the British Museum.
In 1819 the old house was pulled down, and the present ordinary-looking
building erected in its stead, a grand opportunity, afforded by its
commanding position, ninety-nine feet above the Trinity high water-mark,
at the meeting of so many important roads, being thus stupidly lost.