INTO THE MAELSTROM
A call to the Bar and a residence in the Temple necessitate a somewhat
intimate acquaintance with Fleet Street. But, of course, they do not
make of one a Fleet Street man in the journalistic meaning of that
phrase. Some time was to pass yet ere I could regard myself as free of
the street—so to say. The haunts of the Templar are not those of the
Pressman. The former, when of an afternoon he quits the “dusty purlieus
of the Law,” usually hastens westward. The haunts of the journalist are
in Fleet Street itself. Yet it was to barristers, after all, that I owed
my initiation into the mysteries of the newspaper world.
In those days a considerable number of young barristers—and some old
ones—were more or less dependent on their contributions to the Press for
an income. Tired of idling in chambers and
“Beckoning the tardy briefs,
The briefs that never came.”
they had struck boldly off into the whirling, throbbing life that
surrounded their quiet cloisters. Among those who were to influence my
career at this stage were “Willie” Dixon, son of Hepworth Dixon, the
author of “Spiritual Wives” and other books which had a mighty vogue in
their day and seem now to be forgotten; Patrick Macdonald, a Scotsman
with a knowledge of Law that would have landed him on the Bench had he
lived to justify the opinion of the solicitors who “discovered” him too
late; and Robert Williams. To the former gentlemen I owed my
introduction to the Savage Club, where for a time I became a frequent
visitor, though not qualified for membership under their drastic first
rule—a rule which has, I understand, become considerably relaxed, in
order to give admission to that Mammon of Unrighteousness with which
clubmen, among others, are commanded to “make friends.” Here, for the
first time, I met some of the practical journalists—the men whose
profession it was to feed the palpitating monsters of Fleet Street with
their mighty pabulum of “copy.”
But my real introducer was Williams. It was to his influence that I was
indebted for my “chance.” His unerring advice, his ungrudging
assistance, his fine faith in my aptitude, made the beginning easy for
me. Robert Williams was, perhaps, the most remarkable man of his time in
the Street of Adventure. He was a Welshman, with but little of the Welsh
temperament save the hopefulness characteristic of that race. He was a
graduate of Jesus College, Oxford, becoming thereafter a Fellow of
Merton. His nickname at the University was “Scholar” Williams, which
sufficiently indicates the sort of reputation he had acquired. He was
one of the finest Greek scholars of his day. His “Notes on Aristotle”
are still regarded as authoritative by examiners. He was, I think, tutor
both to Lord Rosebery and Lord Lansdowne. He was a member of the Reform
Club before he had ever seen Pall Mall. Lord Rosebery took a great
interest in the career of Williams after he left Oxford and had flung
himself into Fleet Street, for he married and threw up his Fellowship.
Lord Rosebery’s influence took an extremely practical turn. For
instance, he bought the _Examiner_ for Williams. But the “Scholar,”
although a very accomplished contributor, had not been cut out by Nature
for an editor. This he proved, not only in his conduct of the
_Examiner_, but in the founding and editorial management of a venture
which followed. He sold the property which Lord Rosebery had made over
to him, and with the proceeds started a weekly illustrated paper called
_Sketch_—to be distinguished from _The Sketch_ belonging to the Ingram
group, a much more recent candidate for popular favour. The capital
which Williams had acquired by the sale of the _Examiner_ was only
sufficient to keep his new venture running for a few weeks. He
transferred it to an owner of sporting papers, in whose hands it died the
death.
But the finest journalistic work of “Scholar” Williams may be seen in his
leading articles in the _Daily Telegraph_. For some years he was
retained on the staff of that journal, transferring his services
eventually to the _Standard_. He had a prodigious memory. In that
respect he was the equal of Lord Macaulay. Indeed, at Oxford he was
always regarded as a “coming Lord Macaulay.” He knew Dickens by heart,
and his apposite quotations from that author are more frequent than
allusions from Aristotle. He had a very keen sense of humour, and in
exercising his gifts in that way he had no sort of compunction. Indeed,
I fear that to his habit of “giving away the secrets of the Prison House”
in humorous recital and to mixed audiences may be attributed the events
which immediately preceded his transference from Peterborough Court to
Shoe Lane.
A striking appearance was that of Robert Williams. I can recall vividly
his form at this moment as he makes his way down Fleet Street. In figure
he was a miniature Dr. Johnson—bulky, short in the neck and short in the
sight. He had a broad, clean-shaven face, and, so far as his features
were concerned, possessed the true forensic aspect. He went always clad
in black, and invariably proceeded down the street with a book or a paper
held close to his eyes. As he forged his way ahead he constantly
collided with citizens hastening in the opposite direction. These
frequent impacts did not seem to retard his progress or inconvenience in
any way the stolid scholar who walked slowly and serenely on, oblivious
of the frequent rebukes and objurgations which his progress evoked. He
had a loud metallic voice, which in conversation was always raised, so
that his observations were heard by persons at a considerable distance
off. His laugh—well it did you good to hear Williams laugh at a joker,
his own or another’s.
Williams, too, was a man who could not only laugh at a joke against
himself, but could even tell a joke against himself. One of these
stories is worth recalling in this place, although it has to do, not with
his journalistic, but with his barristerial work. I may perhaps premise
this, as elucidatory of the point of the narrative: Montagu Williams was
at that time one of the most popular men at the Criminal Bar. He was the
terror of evil-doers. And if he were engaged for the prosecution, the
unfortunate man in the dock often pleaded guilty, “lest a worse thing
happen unto him.”
It happened that Robert Williams was briefed one day to prosecute a
prisoner for burglary. The trial took place at the Old Bailey, and
Williams was seated just beneath the dock, and well within hearing of
anything that might transpire there. The prisoner was duly put forward,
the indictment read, and the malefactor asked to plead. Williams then
heard the following whispered colloquy take place between the accused man
and the warder:
“Who’s a-prosecutin’ me?” inquired the caged gaol-bird.
“Mr. Williams,” whispered the warder.
“GUILTY, me lord!” said the prisoner to the court in the accent of
penitential despair.
In due course Williams rose to enlighten the tribunal as to certain
incidents in the previous career of the individual whom he was
endeavouring to consign to “chokey.” The thread of his narrative was,
however, cut by the following conversation, hurriedly battledored between
the burglar and his custodian:
“I thort,” said the man, indignantly reproachful, “you said as Mister
Williams was a-prosecutin’ me.”
“Well,” replied the warder, “that _is_ Mr. Williams—Mr. Robert Williams.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the prisoner, as one become the subject of a sudden
illumination. “I thought you meant Mr. _Montagu_ Williams. I ain’t
a-goin’ to plead guilty to that little beggar. . . . NOT GUILTY, me
lord!”
It is satisfactory to be able to add that on this occasion, and in spite
of his amended plea. Williams succeeded in consigning his cynical
detractor to a long term of imprisonment.
Once I accompanied Williams to the Court of Queen’s Bench. On that
occasion he was less triumphant. It was at the old Courts in
Westminster. Williams had to move for a new trial before three of Her
Majesty’s Judges. One of them happened to be Blackburn. Williams moved
on three points. He had said but a few words on the first of these
heads, when Blackburn, with that brutal disregard for the
susceptibilities of the Junior Bar for which he was notorious, cut my
unfortunate friend short with the request: “Get on with your next point.”
Somewhat abashed, Williams proceeded to open his second argument. He had
barely stated his point, when his tormentor again interrupted with—
“Let us hear what you’ve got to say about your third reason.”
Williams was nettled. The influential solicitor who had instructed him
was in court. He felt that he must make a stand for his client.
“I trust, my lord, that I am not irrelevant,” he ventured, with a tone of
offended dignity.
“_But you are_!” was the brusque retort of Blackburn (J.).
The effect of this rebuff was so considerable that Williams attacked his
third point without spirit, without interruption, and without success.
I have said that some of the finest journalistic work of Robert Williams
appeared as “leaders” in the _Daily Telegraph_. I might go farther. In
my opinion, some of those leading articles were, for trip, style,
reasoning, and allusiveness, the best things that had ever appeared in
that newspaper. I am speaking now of the best of Williams, for he was an
unequal writer, and his success depended much on the sympathy evoked by
his subject. He threw the essays off with consummate ease. I remember
congratulating him on this wonderful facility.
“Nothing in it, my dear fellow,” he replied. “You’ve only to follow
strictly the rule of our office, and your leader will come as easy as
sand off a shovel.”
“And the rule?”
“All leaders,” he replied, “are divided into three paragraphs, and no
paragraph must begin with the word ‘The.’ Simple, ain’t it? Eh, what?”
An answer which seemed rather to argue that, his extraordinary
journalistic capacity notwithstanding, he regarded the Press with a
sentiment not far removed from cynical contempt.
And yet to have taken a first place as a writer on a journal boasting
such a staff as the _Telegraph_ then possessed should have gratified the
ambition of any ordinary man. Mr. (subsequently Sir) Edwin Arnold was
really Editor, though nominally working under the direction of Mr. Edward
Lawson (now Lord Burnham). A courteous and accomplished gentleman,
Arnold will perhaps be remembered by posterity in respect of his “Light
of Asia.” That poem was an awakening for the easy-going, slow-thinking,
credulous, missionary-meeting-supporting British public, who had been
taught from infancy that Buddha was a false god, and the centre of a foul
and degrading faith. To Sir Edwin Arnold is mainly due the fact that in
England to-day there are thousands who have some appreciation of the life
and the doctrines of “the teacher of Nirvana and the Law.” Sir Edwin had
the courage of his Oriental convictions. He chose as his second wife a
Japanese lady.
But the writer who had given the _Telegraph_ its peculiar _cachet_, and
whose work was readily recognized by the readers of the paper, was George
Augustus Sala. Sala, I maintain, was the best all-round journalist of
his time. Nothing came amiss to him. Although the _Saturday_ and
Matthew might affect to sneer at the erudition of his “leaders,” it may
be mentioned here that those superior critics sometimes mistook for
Sala’s the work of Williams, whose scholarship was at least equal to that
of the detractors. As a descriptive writer, Sala was quite without a
rival, and the public soon “tumbled” to his piping. The early vogue of
the “_Telly_” was due to his brilliant and unceasing series of
pen-pictures. One saw the pageants that he wrote about. Coronations,
royal functions, the marriage of Princes, great cathedral services—these
incidents lived again in his vivid columns. Sala’s versatility was
amazing. He wrote at least one remarkable novel; he illustrated some of
his own humours; he is the author of a ballad—printed for private
circulation only—of which Swift would have been proud. His “Conversion
of Colonel Quagg” is one of the most humorous short stories ever written.
He wrote an excellent burlesque for the Gaiety Theatre. His articles on
Hogarth, contributed to the _Cornhill_, at the suggestion of Thackeray,
exhibit him as an art critic of insight and of profound technical
knowledge. His lectures on the conflict between North and South,
delivered on his return from his mission as Special Correspondent during
the American War, drew the town. He was a fine linguist, and, at a time
when the art of after-dinner speaking was still held in some repute, he
was easily first among many rivals. In the preface to one of his books,
he says of the proprietors of the paper with which he was identified:
“They accorded me the treatment of a gentleman and the wages of an
Ambassador.” It is pleasant to be able to reflect that, however high the
scale of remuneration may have been, Sala was always worth a bit more
than his pay.
There is one phrase of Sala’s which, by means of quotation, has become a
household word. “‘Sir,’ said Dr. Johnson, ‘let us take a walk down Fleet
Street,’” is piously repeated even by well-informed literary persons as a
saying of the great dictionary-maker duly recorded in Boswell’s “Life.”
Johnson and Boswell were both innocent of it. The saw was one of Sala’s
harmless forgeries, and was used by him as the motto of _Temple Bar_ when
he edited that magazine. There appeared in _Punch_ one week a clever
skit entitled “Egoes of the Week.” This was a travesty of an article
which Sala was then contributing to the _Illustrated London News_ under
the title of “Echoes of the Week.” The parody was merciless, and, as
some thought, malicious. The weaknesses of Sala’s manner were rendered
with laughable exaggeration. His peculiarities of diction were
ruthlessly imitated and emphasized. Some of his friends hoped to see him
incensed, and looked forward eagerly for reprisals. But Sala took the
attack lying down, emulating the spirit of his own Colonel Quagg. And
the reason for this evidence of magnanimity under attack somewhat puzzled
his associates until it was discovered that the _Punch_ parody was
written by Sala himself!
Godfrey Turner was another of the “handy-men” of the _Telegraph_. He had
not that _élan_ in style which characterized his colleague Sala, but he
was a most agreeable essayist, and turned out some extremely neat _vers
de société_. His song, supposed to be written by Boswell on Dr. Johnson,
has genuine humour. Boswell sets out sober in the first stanza; he
becomes merry as he proceeds; when he gets to the last verse he is drunk,
and blurts out his real opinion of the great lexicographer. That
catastrophic verse ran something like this, I think:
“‘The man that makes a pun,’ says he,
‘Would e’en commit a felony.
And hanged he deserves to be’—
Says (_hic_) that old fool Doctor Johnson.”
Turner was a bit of a purist, and sought always for the fittest word; and
he was as particular in his dress as in his “copy.” He was a stickler
for “good form,” and sometimes, when engaged on a mission, would offer a
gentle hint to some eager correspondent whose manner in public offended
his fastidious taste. Sometimes the hint was taken in good part;
sometimes it was resented. On one occasion it secured for poor Godfrey a
retort which covered him for a moment with ridicule. It happened in this
way:
Some sapient person in society had come to the conclusion that the
ordinary coffin was not constructed on the right hygienic principles. He
contended that we should, when our turns came, be buried in coffins made
of wicker-work. He constructed quite a number of these melancholy
receptacles. They were brought to Stafford House for exhibition, and the
leaders of Society and the representatives of the Press were invited to
inspect. I attended the quaint and rather gruesome collection. Among
the other journalists present were my friend Godfrey Turner and
Humphreys, the sub-Editor of the _Morning Post_. Humphreys was an
Irishman, a hopelessly eccentric individual, negligent in his dress and
flamboyant in his manner. He was a fine fellow, however, had a head and
beard like those attributed to Homer, and was every inch a gentleman.
His foible was a belief in spiritualism. That he really believed in the
actual presence of the dear departed I am convinced, for I have been in
his company in the Strand and close to the offices of his own paper when
he has interrupted the conversation to speak with the spirit of his
great-grandfather, which had just made its presence known to him. The
coffins at Stafford House seemed to appeal to his sense of humour. He
became quite hilarious over them, and addressed several of the noble
persons present by name, slapping belted Earls on the back, and repeating
his cemetery jokes for the benefit of Countesses. This affronted the
fastidious taste of Turner, who at last got Humphreys into a corner, and
thus gently admonished him:
“I say, my dear fellow, _do_ let us try and behave like gentlemen!”
“Thry away, me boy. It costs _me_ no effort!” exclaimed Humphreys,
leaving his discomfited friend for the society of a Viscount.
Clement Scott was another of the “young lions.” He was not very popular
with the other members of the staff. Sala, I know, disliked him, for he
told me so. Scott was the dramatic critic of the paper. He wrote a
sugary, young-ladylike style that “took” with a large section of the
public. It was a chocolate-creamy style, and “went down”—like chocolate
creams. He understood the value of a phrase, and when he got hold of an
effective one he ran it to death. For instance, there are poppies in the
cornfields round Cromer. Probably there is a much greater profusion of
poppies in cornfields in Kent or in Bucks, but Scott gives to Cromer a
kind of monopoly in the right sort of poppy. The country in that part of
East Anglia he “wrote up” as “Poppyland,” to the great advantage of the
Great Eastern Railway Company, to which corporation he became a sort of
unofficial Poet Laureate. When I first knew him, Scott had not yet
“discovered” Cromer or written the syrupy sentiments of “The Garden of
Sleep.” He was eloquent at that period over the beauties of the Isle of
Thanet, for “Clemmy” was a personal friend of Mr. Joseph Moses Levy, the
principal proprietor of the _Telegraph_, and was frequently his guest
somewhere in the neighbourhood of Ramsgate. Clement Scott always took
himself very seriously. Now, that was a pose rarely adopted by the
journalists of my day. We regarded our calling as a means of obtaining a
livelihood, certainly, and to that extent a serious occupation, but in
the pursuit of it we gave ourselves no airs. We considered the whole
business rather good fun, and were upheld by a consciousness of the fact
that we were all more or less humbugs. Scott’s nonsense, however, suited
the nonsense of the followers of Peterborough Court, and at a time of
general scepticism it was refreshing to encounter a man who believed in
something, even if that something happened to be himself.
Another of the “young lions” who roared in the Peterborough Court
menagerie was Drew Gay. Phil Robinson perched for a while on the staff,
and flitted elsewhere. All those I have named have finished their
accounts with this world. Bennet Burleigh still lives, a prosperous
gentleman, and the doyen of war-correspondents. Burleigh professed
strong Socialistic principles at a time when they were regarded by
respectable people as the most damnable heresies. My first experience of
a Socialist Club was gained through Bennet Burleigh. He introduced me
one night to the Social Democratic Club. This select association held
its meetings in the cellars of a new building in Chancery Lane. One had
to dive down two flights of stone steps to the subterranean rooms of the
club. The rooms were full of gaunt, long-haired men of both home and
foreign growth, and women in clinging (and not very cleanly) raiment.
Whiskies and sodas were hospitably dispensed, and most of the women were
smoking cigarettes and trying to look as though they were quite used to
it and liked it. I encountered Dr. Tanner, the Member for Mid-Cork. He
introduced me to a bright, interesting old lady, whose name I forget. We
had an edifying chat, she and I, and when, a few nights afterwards, I met
Tanner in the Lobby of the House of Commons, I asked him about the lady
to whom he had introduced me.
“Oh,” replied Tanner good-humouredly, “that was the celebrated Madeline
Smith. She is a married woman now.”
“You don’t mean Madeline Smith, the murderess?” I asked.
“I mean Madeline Smith, who was _tried_ for murder, and for whom the jury
found a Scotch verdict of ‘Not proven,’” he reminded me.
“And of such is the Social Democratic Club?” I observed.
“Que voulez-vous?” said Tanner, shrugging his shoulders.
But I have wandered somewhat wide of the matter in hand, which was to
afford a little idea of the principal members of the staff among whom
Robert Williams became enrolled.
Fleet Street—the thoroughfare itself, I mean—has undergone considerable
change since those days. Nearly all the Dickens features have been shorn
away from it, and the Dickens-land that impinged upon it has ceased to be
recognizable. From the West we then entered Fleet Street through Temple
Bar. In the north wing of that historic but obstructive gateway an old
barber plied his calling. He reminded me of Mr. Krook in “Bleak House.”
He was never what you would call quite sober. His face was blotched and
fiery with his excesses, and his hand that held the razor trembled so
violently that one wondered how he got through the day without wounding
some of his customers. Once the operation commenced, however, the
trembling ceased, and the razor sped unerring, steady, expert. What
became of the old fellow when Temple Bar was taken down I have never
heard. He would hardly, I imagine, have survived his disestablishment.
Sir Henry Meux bought the old structure, and had the Bar erected again as
one of the entrances to Theobald Park. I have no doubt that Lady Meux
had a word to say in the matter, for Lady Meux was a “sport” all over. I
first knew her as Valerie Reece, of the Gaiety Theatre, where she was
noted as being the most high-spirited of an extremely high-spirited lot.
Her early days at Theobald Park were remarkable for some sporting events
of a novel and exciting kind. Thus—or so the story went—her ladyship
ordered a cargo of monkeys from India, and had the unfortunate Simian
immigrants let loose in the park. As they fled gibbering from branch to
branch, the determined little sportswoman took pot-shots at them, and had
good fun while the supply held out.
Close by Temple Bar stood the old “Cock” Tavern. It was a snug, smelly,
inconvenient, homely, stuffy, and (I should imagine) hopelessly
insanitary old crib, much resorted to by barristers at lunch-time, for
the chops and steaks were excellent. The “Cock” port was also reputed
above reproach, but I never quite acquired the port habit, and should not
like to obtrude my opinion; but I “hae ma doots.” The tavern will live
for a while in Tennyson’s lines:
“O plump head-waiter at the Cock,
To which I most resort.
How goes the time? ’Tis five o’clock.
Go fetch a pint of port.”
And one notes here that Tennyson owns up to the barbarous custom of
drinking port at five o’clock in the afternoon! Well, the “Cock” has
gone by the board. A curious incident disturbed its declining days. A
carved rooster was the sign of the tavern, and stood over the narrow
entrance in Fleet Street. While the owner was under notice to quit his
building, the sign was stolen one night, and has never been recovered
from that day to this. Another “Cock” Tavern has been opened on the
opposite side of Fleet Street, and lower down. This place also displays
as its sign a carved rooster, which is believed to be the original from
over the way. But it is _not_ the original bird. That ancient fowl has
become the property of the great American people. The wonder to me is
how they missed collaring Temple Bar!
The widening of Fleet Street by throwing back the building line of the
south side has naturally involved the removal of a good number of
landmarks; and even where the widening has not been carried out, one
observes, with certain pangs of regret, the disappearance of some
well-beloved feature. The banking-house of Hoare (“Mr. W.,” as the
squeamish lady called him) still stands, the carved wallet in its
forefront bearing witness to the “pride that apes humility.”
But Gosling’s, as I knew it, is gone. Gosling’s I have always identified
with Tellson’s in “A Tale of Two Cities.” “It was very small, very dark,
very ugly, very incommodious. . . . After bursting open a door of
idiotic obstinacity with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into
Tellson’s down two steps, and came to your senses in a miserable little
shop, with two little counters where the oldest of men made your cheque
shake as if the wind rustled it while they examined the signature by the
dingiest of windows, which were always under a shower-bath of mud from
Fleet Street.” The description exactly fits Gosling’s before it got
itself a new façade and became the mere branch of a bigger bank. And the
Dickens Fellowship should have looked to it, and preserved for the nation
this memorial of the master.
Close by was a shop for the sale of mechanical toys, in the window of
which a steamer laboured heavily in a sou’-westerly gale, the rolling
waves kept in a state of agitation by clockwork, and the whole effect
being particularly real and naturalistic. The proprietor of this
scientific toy-shop was eventually attacked by the virus that runs
through Fleet Street. He became a newspaper proprietor, and a successful
one. His translation happened in this way: Young Kenealy, son of the
eminent but erratic counsel for the Claimant, founded a paper called
_Modern Society_. His pious object was to rehabilitate his late father,
and this could only be accomplished by reopening the whole of the dreary
Tichborne case, of which the public was heartily sick. The paper did not
pay, and it was eventually acquired, as a property, by the owner of the
clockwork ocean. He, worthy man, had no axe to grind. He retained the
services of a pliant editor, and made the organ a vehicle for that sort
of gossip which goes down so well with suburban matrons. The paper went
up by leaps and bounds. The new proprietor gave himself airs, dressed
the part, exhibited himself in the Park, and in a brief period had
managed to shed all traces of the obsequious Fleet Street tradesman. He
crossed the bar years since—perhaps in his mechanical steamer—but his
paper persists to this day.
At the corner of Chancery Lane, and above the shop of Partridge and
Cooper, was a new restaurant called “The London.” The proprietor was a
sanguine man, but made the mistake of being a little before his time.
The Fleet Street men of his period preferred to lunch and dine
uncomfortably. The owner of “The London” did us too well, and attended
too scrupulously to the nicer amenities of the table. We tried the
establishment, and then returned to our husks. Outside the new
restaurant stood a burly commissionaire, with puffy red cheeks and purple
nose. When the restaurant closed its doors for ever, the commissionaire
remained, eager to perform the errands of all and sundry. He was rather
a picturesque old fellow, and was for a long time one of the features of
that end of the street. He wore a red shako, which added greatly to the
picturesqueness of his appearance, and I should not be surprised to learn
that in private life he drank heavily.
The favourite luncheon haunts of the journalist in the consulate of
Plancus were the Cheshire Cheese in Wine Office Court, and the
refreshment bar of Spiers and Pond at Ludgate Hill Railway-Station. At
the latter place, between the hours of one and three, you were pretty
certain to meet a number of confrères. Christopher Pond, one of the
partners who ran the bar and restaurant at Ludgate Hill, was to be seen
here on most days of the week. He was a big, broad-shouldered, hearty
man, who made no secret of his desire to conciliate the members of the
London Press. Among those who were daily worshippers at this shrine were
Tom Hood, the Editor of _Fun_; Henry Sampson, then one of Hood’s staff,
but afterwards to become famous as the founder of the _Referee_: “Bill”
Brunton, the artist; Charles Williams, the war-correspondent; and John
Augustus O’Shea, of the _Standard_. John Corlett used to drop in
occasionally, and John Ryder, who lived down the line, invariably called
in on his way to the theatre. Ryder was a fine raconteur, and he had the
largest and most varied assortment of amusing reminiscences of any man I
have ever met. Mr. Henry Labouchere used to tell a story of “Jack” Ryder
which was eminently characteristic of the actor. When Labouchere
produced “The Last Days of Pompeii” at the old Queen’s Theatre in Long
Acre, Ryder was his stage-manager, and, in his desire to make the
production as naturalistic as possible, he asked Labouchere to obtain
some real lions. Labouchere demurred; Ryder pleaded.
“But,” objected Labouchere at last, “suppose the lions broke loose?”
“Well,” answered John cheerily, “they’d have to eat the band first.”
Another habitué of the Ludgate Hill resort was Louis Lewis. This
extraordinary little man was a brother of the late George Lewis. Like
his more illustrious relative, Louis also was a solicitor. One day
Brunton had been having his lunch at the table in the corner, and before
leaving the artist had made a drawing, on the tablecloth, of a somewhat
Rabelaisian character. Louis Lewis entered as Brunton left, and took the
seat which had been vacated by the artist. He at once saw the drawing,
which appealed to such sense of humour as he possessed, and began to ogle
it, laughing with a peculiar subdued chuckle which was peculiarly his
own. At that moment Christopher Pond happened to come in. He noticed
the mirth of little Louis, and proceeded to ascertain the cause of it.
When he grasped the gross intention of the drawing, and as he conceived
Lewis to be the author of it, he became extremely indignant, ordered his
waiters to turn the innocent and protesting man off the premises, and
informed those trembling menials that if any of them ever served the
offender again it would mean instant dismissal. The smirched cloth was
then removed, and at the laundry all evidence that could convict the real
culprit was in due course destroyed. But the incensed solicitor served a
writ on Pond the very next day, and the action was “settled out of
court.”
There was a gentleman connected with the sporting Press in the seventies
called Barney Briant. No one knew exactly what it was he wrote, or
whether he wrote at all, but he had obtained an undoubted reputation as a
sporting writer of parts. His most salient physical peculiarity
consisted in the fact that his elbows seemed to have become glued to his
sides. If Barney shook hands with a man—and he was for ever shaking
hands—he moved his arm from the elbow only, never from the shoulder. I
observed on this peculiarity to Reginald Shirley Brooks (assuredly one of
the most amiable and most talented of the men of his time), and his
explanation was illuminating.
“You see,” said Shirley, “Barney spends nearly the whole day in the
narrow passage in front of the Cheshire Cheese bar. To do this in
comfort, he has to keep his elbows well screwed in, to let the customers
pass to and from the dining-room. In the course of generations the arms
of his descendants will grow from the waist.”
The incident is recorded in this place as illustrating better than any
mere verbal description the exiguous nature of the main passages of the
Cheshire Cheese. The bar in the passage has been disestablished this
many a year. It was a sort of glass case with barely room for two
barmaids, a beer-engine, and some shelves of bottles. Sala called it
“the bird-cage,” and the name stuck to the structure ever after. In
recent years the Cheshire Cheese has attracted a considerable clientele
on a claim that it was the favourite Fleet Street resort of Dr. Johnson.
Mr. Seymour Lucas, the Royal Academician, indeed, adopted the theory
without any exhaustive inquiry, and painted a picture in which the Great
Bear is depicted “taking his ease” in this inn. There are some things
which we may not know about the author of “Rasselas,” but among them,
most assuredly, cannot be numbered the houses of entertainment which he
frequented. Boswell followed old man Johnson about to all his “pubs,”
and the fact that there is no mention in Boswell’s “Life” of his hero
having visited the “Cheese” is evidence presumptive that he never _did_
visit it. In his time the tavern in Wine Office Court was the nightly
resort of the respectable tradesmen of Fleet Street who still lived above
their shops—the last sort of company upon which the Doctor would think of
intruding.
But if the Johnson legend must be dismissed as mythical, the chops,
steaks, beefsteak puddings, and stewed cheeses, were substantial and
indisputable. Godfrey Turner wrote in one of the Christmas annuals, then
in great favour, a description of a meal at the Cheshire Cheese. The
thing was wonderfully well done, and gave considerable umbrage to the
proprietor, and to some of the literary gentlemen whom the writer
introduced. The waiter in the room downstairs was one Tom Brown, who
used to drive up from his place in the suburbs in a smart dogcart.
William, who had no other name, was a short red-haired man with
(appropriately enough) mutton-chop whiskers, very prominent teeth, a
pink-and-white complexion, and a perennial sheep-like smile. Diners gave
him their orders with minute particularity, assured that he would
communicate their wishes to the cook, which William never did. This is
the sort of thing that would happen:
FIRST CUSTOMER: “A mutton chop very well done, please, waiter.”
WILLIAM: “Well done, sir? Yessir.”
SECOND CUSTOMER: “Underdone chop, William.”
WILLIAM: “Chop underdone, sir? Very good, sir.”
[_Exit_ WILLIAM.
WILLIAM (_heard without_): “Cook, two muts down together, cook!”
On Saturday an enormous beefsteak pudding delightfully fortified with
larks, oysters, mushrooms, and other seasoning, was served. This monster
of the pudding tribe was put down to boil at one o’clock in the morning,
and was served with great ceremony at one o’clock on the afternoon of the
same day. Moore, the proprietor, cut the savoury mountain up. Every
seat was taken a quarter of an hour before the dish made its appearance,
and late-comers had to turn disconsolate away. On one fateful morning—a
cold, foggy day in mid-winter—the usual congregation of
pudding-worshippers had gathered together, hungry, expectant, keen-set.
At the stroke of one the step of William was heard on the stair, and a
pungent steam was wafted to the waiting gourmets. Then all at once was
heard a slip, a groan, and, last of all, an awful crash. William, with
the pudding in his arms, had slipped on the top of the flight of stairs
leading to the hall, and the place was flooded with broken pudding-bowl
and dismembered pudding, now mixing itself ineffectually with the sawdust
of the floor. Mingled sighs and oaths arose on all sides. The mischief
was, alas! irreparable.
After this, William was pensioned off by Moore, but the devoted old man
could not be induced to quit the scene in which most of his life had been
passed. He was not permitted to resume his official position as a
waiter, but he turned up every morning at his usual time, and remained on
the premises until closing-time. They were puzzled at first what to do
with him. At last it was resolved to put him into a leather apron, and
let him pretend to be having a very busy time in the cellar. From that
cool and cobwebby grot he made frequent emergences during meal-times to
indulge the one pleasure left him—that of a little familiar talk with an
old customer. One day William was missed and his old customers knew
instinctively that he was dead. The old fellow left considerable
personality and some real estate.
I have now tried to sketch, however indifferently, some of the centres
round which the Fleet Street maelstrom roared. Ceaselessly for more than
twenty years I whirled round and round in its irresistible eddies. One
never hoped, one never wished, for deliverance from the seething circle.
Once caught up in it, the daily round was discovered to possess a
fascination overwhelming, imperious, inexorable. It was a career the
most strenuous, at once, and the most irresponsible. There was a sense
of freedom, yet one was a slave of the lamp; a feeling of power, yet one
was the mere mouthpiece of an organ. By the outsider one was alternately
hated and courted, and one went one’s way.
As free-lance, as a member of a “staff,” as special correspondent, as
leader-writer, book-reviewer, and dramatic critic, my experience has been
considerable, and I have generally found my work delightful; but its
greatest charm, after all, has been in the society of the comrades whom I
have met by the way. Good-fellowship, loyalty to one another, a fine
sense of chivalry, a constant readiness to help the lame dog over the
style, a stern ostracism of the unhappy wight who evinced a congenital
inability to play the game—these were the characteristics of the men of
my time. Sitting down in the afternoon of my day to recall that pleasant
past, I now, as I intimated in my opening chapter, drop all pretence of
sequent autobiography, and proceed to present such groups and incidents,
such characters and scenes, such _mots_ and anecdotes, as may appeal to
those who live in another time and pursue their calling under other
conditions.