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 traveler 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.,
can not be footed under £25,000--120,000 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 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 upon the floor as from his
balcony Dives upon Lazarus. A line of liveried men kept back with
their staves the impatient jam 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 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 disemboweled pasties, plundered pheasants,
and half-sucked 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! wrench along for your life! ha! here we breathe
freely; thank God! You faint. Ho!"
"Never mind. This fresh air revives me."