Transcribed from the 1860 William Tinsley edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
ABOUT LONDON.
* * * * *
BY
J. EWING RITCHIE,
Author of "Night Side of London;" "The London Pulpit;"
"Here and There in London," &c.
* * * * *
* * * * *
"The boiling town keeps secrets ill."--AURORA LEIGH.
* * * * *
* * * * *
LONDON:
WILLIAM TINSLEY, 314, STRAND.
1860.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The author of the following pages, must plead as his apology for again
trespassing on the good nature of the public, the success of his other
books. He is aware that, owing to unavoidable circumstances, the volume
here and there bears marks of haste, but he trusts that on the whole it
may be considered reliable, and not altogether unworthy of the public
favour.
* * * * *
FINCHLEY,
_June_ 16_th_, 1860.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE.
NEWSPAPER PEOPLE 1
CHAPTER II.
SPIRITUALISM 12
CHAPTER III.
ABOUT COAL 23
CHAPTER IV.
HIGHGATE 44
CHAPTER V.
TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 60
CHAPTER VI.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY 68
CHAPTER VII.
LONDON CHARITIES 76
CHAPTER VIII.
PEDESTRIANISM 84
CHAPTER IX.
OVER LONDON BRIDGE 92
CHAPTER X.
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE EARLY-CLOSING MOVEMENT 101
CHAPTER XI.
TOWN MORALS 110
CHAPTER XI.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED 121
CHAPTER XII.
LONDON MATRIMONIAL 131
CHAPTER XIII.
BREACH OF PROMISE CASES 141
CHAPTER XIV.
COMMERCIAL LONDON 149
CHAPTER XV.
LONDON GENTS 158
CHAPTER XVI.
THE LONDON VOLUNTEERS 165
CHAPTER XVII.
CRIMINAL LONDON 174
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCERNING CABS 185
CHAPTER XIX.
FREE DRINKING FOUNTAINS 193
CHAPTER XX.
CONCLUSION 203
CHAPTER I.
NEWSPAPER PEOPLE.
What would the Englishman do without his newspaper I cannot imagine. The
sun might just as well refuse to shine, as the press refuse to turn out
its myriads of newspapers. Conversation would cease at once. Brown,
with his morning paper in his hand, has very decided opinions
indeed,--can tell you what the French Emperor is about,--what the Pope
will be compelled to do,--what is the aim of Sardinia,--and what is
Austria's little game. I dined at Jenkins's yesterday, and for three
hours over the wine I was compelled to listen to what I had read in that
morning's _Times_. The worst of it was, that when I joined the ladies I
was no better off, as the dear creatures were full of the particulars of
the grand Rifle Ball. When I travel by the rail, I am gratified with
details of divorce cases--of terrible accidents--of dreadful
shipwrecks--of atrocious murders--of ingenious swindling, all brought to
light by means of the press. What people could have found to talk about
before the invention of newspapers, is beyond my limited comprehension.
They must have been a dull set in those dark days; I suppose the farmers
and country gentlemen talked of bullocks, and tradespeople about trade;
the ladies about fashions, and cookery, and the plague of bad servants.
We are wonderfully smarter now, and shine, though it be with a borrowed
light.
A daily newspaper is, to a man of my way of thinking, one of the most
wonderful phenomena of these latter days. It is a crown of glory to our
land. It is true, in some quarters, a contrary opinion is held. "The
press," Mr. David Urquhart very seriously tells us, "is an invention for
the development of original sin." In the opinion of that amiable cynic,
the late Mr. Henry Drummond, a newspaper is but a medium for the
circulation of gossip; but, in spite of individuals, the general fact
remains that the press is not merely a wonderful organization, but an
enormous power in any land--in ours most of all, where public opinion
rules more or less directly. Our army in the Crimea was saved by the
_Times_. When the _Times_ turned, free-trade was carried. The _Times_
not long since made a panic, and securities became in some cases utterly
unsaleable, and some seventy stockbrokers were ruined. The _Times_ says
we don't want a Reform Bill, and Lord John can scarce drag his measure
through the Commons. But it is not of the power, but of the organization
of the press I would speak. According to geologists, ages passed away
before this earth of ours became fit for human habitation; volcanic
agencies were previously to be in action--plants and animals, that exist
not now, were to be born, and live, and die--tropical climates were to
become temperate, and oceans, solid land. In a similar way, the
newspaper is the result of agencies and antecedents almost equally
wondrous and remote. For ages have science, and nature, and man been
preparing its way. Society had to become intellectual--letters had to be
invented--types had to be formed--paper had to be substituted for
papyrus--the printing-press had to become wedded to steam--the
electric-telegraph had to be discovered, and the problem of liberty had
to be solved, in a manner more or less satisfactory, before a newspaper,
as we understand the word, could be; and that we have the fruit of all
this laid on our breakfast-table every morning, for at the most
five-pence, and at the least one-penny, is wonderful indeed. But,
instead of dwelling on manifest truisms, let us think awhile of a
newspaper-office, and those who do business there. Externally, there is
nothing remarkable in a newspaper-office. You pass by at night, and see
many windows lighted with gas, that is all. By daylight there is nothing
to attract curiosity, indeed, in the early part of the day, there is
little going on at a newspaper-office. When you and I are hard at work,
newspaper people are enjoying their night; when you and I are asleep,
they are hard at work for us. They have a hot-house appearance, and are
rarely octogenarians. The conscientious editor of a daily newspaper can
never be free from anxiety. He has enough to do to keep all to their
post; he must see that the leader-writers are all up to the mark--that
the reporters do their duty--that the literary critic, and the theatrical
critic, and the musical critic, and the city correspondent, and the
special reporter, and the host of nameless contributors, do not
disappoint or deceive the public, and that every day the daily sheet
shall have something in it to excite, or inform, or improve. But while
you and I are standing outside, the editor, in some remote suburb, is, it
may be, dreaming of pleasanter things than politics and papers. One man,
however, is on the premises, and that is the manager. He represents the
proprietors, and is, in his sphere, as great a man as the editor. It is
well to be deferential to the manager. He is a wonder in his
way,--literary man, yet man of business. He must know everybody, be able
at a moment's notice to pick the right man out, and send him, it may be,
to the Antipodes. Of all events that are to come off in the course of
the year, unexpected or the reverse, he must have a clear and distinct
perception, that he may have eye-witnesses there for the benefit of the
British public. He, too, must contrive, so that out-goings shall not
exceed receipts, and that the paper pays. He must be active, wide-awake,
possessed of considerable tact, and if, when an Irish gentleman, with a
big stick, calls and asks to see the editor or manager, he knows how to
knock a man down, so much the better. Of course, managers are not
required for the smaller weeklies. In some of the offices there is very
little subdivision of labour. The editor writes the leaders and reviews,
and the sub-editor does the paste-and-scissors work. But let us return
to the daily paper;--outside of the office of which we have been so rude
as to leave the reader standing all this while.
At present there is no sign of life. It is true, already the postman has
delivered innumerable letters from all quarters of the globe--that the
electric telegraph has sent its messages--that the railways have brought
their despatches--that the publishers have furnished books of all sorts
and sizes for review--and that tickets from all the London exhibitions
are soliciting a friendly notice. There let them lie unheeded, till the
coming man appears. Even the publisher, who was here at five o'clock in
the morning, has gone home: only a few clerks, connected with the
financial department of the paper, or to receive advertisements, are on
the spot. We may suppose that somewhere between one and two the first
editorial visit will be paid, and that then this chaos is reduced to
order; and that the ideas, which are to be represented in the paper of
to-morrow, are discussed, and the daily organs received, and gossip of
all sorts from the clubs--from the house--from the city--collected and
condensed; a little later perhaps assistants arrive--one to cull all the
sweets from the provincial journals--another to look over the files of
foreign papers--another it may be to translate important documents. The
great machine is now getting steadily at work. Up in the composing-room
are printers already fingering their types.
In the law-courts, a briefless barrister is taking notes--in the
police-courts, reporters are at work, and far away in the city, "our city
correspondent" is collecting the commercial news of the hour--and in all
parts of London penny-a-liners, like eagles scenting carrion, are
ferreting out for the particulars of the last "extraordinary elopement,"
or "romantic suicide." The later it grows the more gigantic becomes the
pressure. The parliamentary reporters are now furnishing their quota;
gentlemen who have been assisting at public-dinners come redolent of
post-prandial eloquence, which has to be reduced to sense and grammar.
It is now midnight, and yet we have to wait the arrival of the close of
the parliamentary debate, on which the editor must write a leader before
he leaves; and the theatrical critic's verdict on the new play. In the
meanwhile the foreman of the printers takes stock, being perfectly aware
that he cannot perform the wonderful feat of making a pint bottle hold a
quart. Woe is me! he has already half a dozen columns in excess. What
is to be done? Well, the literature must stand over, that's very clear,
then those translations from the French will do to-morrow, and this
report will also not hurt by delay--as to the rest, that must be cut down
and still further condensed; but quickly, for time is passing, and we
must be on the machine at three. Quickly fly the minutes--hotter becomes
the gas-lit room--wearier the editorial staff. But the hours bring
relief. The principal editor has done his leader and departed--the
assistants have done the same--so have the reporters, only the sub-editor
remains, and as daylight is glimmering in the east, and even fast London
is asleep, he quietly lights a cigar, and likewise departs; the printers
will follow as soon as the forms have gone down, and the movements below
indicate that the machine, by the aid of steam, is printing.
We have thus seen most of the newspaper people off the premises. As we
go out into the open air, we may yet find a few of them scorning an
ignoble repose. For instance, there is a penny-a-liner--literally he is
not a penny-a-liner, as he is generally paid three-farthings a line, and
very good pay that is, as the same account, written on very thin paper,
called flimsy, is left at all the newspaper-offices, which, if they all
insert, they all pay for, and one short tale may put the penny-a-liner in
funds for a week. The penny-a-liner has long been the butt of a
heartless world. He ought to be a cynic, and I fear is but an
indifferent Christian, and very so-so as head of a family. His
appearance is somewhat against him, and his antecedents are eccentric;
his face has a beery appearance; his clothes are worn in defiance of
fashion; neither his hat nor his boots would be considered by a swell as
the correct stilton; you would scarce take him as the representative of
the potent fourth estate. Yet penny-a-liner's rise; one of them is now
the editor of a morning paper; another is the manager of a commercial
establishment, with a salary of almost a thousand a year; but chiefly, I
imagine, they are jolly good fellows going down the hill. Charles Lamb
said he never greatly cared for the society of what are called good
people. The penny-a-liners have a similar weakness; they are true
Bohemians, and are prone to hear the chimes at midnight. Literally, they
take no thought for to-morrow, and occasionally are put to hard shifts.
Hence it is sub-editors have to be on their guard with their dealings
with them. Their powers of imagination and description are great. They
are prone to harrow up your souls with horrors that never existed; and as
they are paid by the line, a harsh prosaic brevity is by no means their
fault. Occasionally they take in the papers. Not long since a most
extraordinary breach of promise case went the round of the evening
papers, which was entirely a fiction of the penny-a-liners. Yet let us
not think disparagingly of them--of a daily newspaper no small part is
the result of their diligent research. And if they do occasionally
indulge in fiction, their fictions are generally founded on fact. The
reader, if he be a wise man, will smile and pass on--a dull dog will take
the matter seriously and make an ass of himself. For instance, only this
very year, there was a serious controversy about Disraeli's literary
piracies, as they were called in the _Manchester Examiner_. It appears a
paragraph was inserted in an obscure London journal giving an account of
an evening party at Mr. Gladstone's, at which Mr. Disraeli had been
present--an event just as probable as that the Bishop of Oxford would
take tea at Mr. Spurgeon's. Mr. Disraeli's remarks were reported, and
the paragraph--notwithstanding its glaring absurdity--was quoted in the
_Manchester Examiner_. Some acute reader remembered to have read a
similar conversation attributed to Coleridge, and immediately wrote to
the _Examiner_ to that effect. The letter was unhandsomely inserted with
a bold heading,--several letters were inserted on the same subject, and
hence, just because a poor penny-a-liner at his wits' end doctored up a
little par, and attributed a very old conversation to Mr. Disraeli, the
latter is believed in Cottonopolis guilty of a piracy, Cottonopolis being
all the more ready to believe this of Mr. Disraeli, as the latter
gentleman is at the head of a party not supposed to be particularly
attached to the doctrines of what are termed the Manchester School.
Really editors and correspondents should be up to these little dodges,
and not believe all they see in print.
I would also speak of another class of newspaper people--the newspaper
boy, agile as a lamp-lighter, sharp in his glances as a cat. The
newspaper boy is of all ages, from twelve to forty, but they are all
alike, very disorderly, and very ardent politicians; and while they are
waiting in the publishing-office for their papers they are prone to
indulge in political gossip, after the manner of their betters at the
west-end clubs. On the trial of Bernard, the excitement among the
newspaper boys was very great. I heard some of them, on the last day of
the trial, confess to having been too excited all that day to do
anything; their admiration of the speech of Edwin James was intense. A
small enthusiast near me said to another, "That ere James is the fellow
to work 'em; didn't he pitch hin to the hemperor?"
"Yes," said a sadder and wiser boy; "yes, he's all werry well, but he'd a
spoke on t'other side just as well if he'd been paid."
"No; would he?"
"Yes, to be sure."
"Well, that's wot I call swindling."
"No, it ain't. They does their best. Them as pays you, you works for."
Whether the explanation was satisfactory I can't say, as the small boy's
master's name was called, and he vanished with "two quire" on his
youthful head. But generally these small boys prefer wit to politics;
they are much given to practical jokes at each other's expense, and have
no mercy for individual peculiarities. Theirs is a hard life, from five
in the morning, when the daily papers commence publishing, to seven in
the evening, when the second edition of the _Sun_ with the _Gazette_
appears. What becomes of them when they cease to be newspaper boys, must
be left to conjecture. Surely such riotous youths can never become
tradesmen in a small way, retailers of greens, itinerant dealers in coal.
Do not offend these gentry if you are a newspaper proprietor. Their
power for mischief is great. At the _Illustrated __News_ office I have
seen a policeman required to reduce them to order.
Finally, of all newspaper people, high or low, let me ask the public to
speak charitably. They are hard-worked, they are not over-paid, and some
of them die prematurely old. Ten years of night-work in the office of a
daily newspaper is enough to kill any man, even if he has the
constitution of a horse; one can't get on without them; and it is a sad
day for his family when Paterfamilias misses his paper. Whigs, tories,
prelates, princes, valiant warriors, and great lawyers, are not so
essential to the daily weal of the public, as newspaper people. In other
ways they are useful--the great British naturalist, Mr. Yarell, was a
newspaper vendor.