THE GREAT WASHED.
My father, Bucephalus Upmore, had been, at the time of my birth, a
Radical, and owed his conversion from loose ideas to no amount of
argument, or even of wider observation, but to a little accident. Upon
his return, one winter night, from a meeting in St. Pancras, not only of
a liberal, but a wildly generous character, somebody tripped him up, and
stole his watch, and purse, and Sunday hat. A small man might have
accepted this as a lesson against subversive views, and a smaller one as
a confirmation of them; but my father was not of that sort. His practice
was, to take his stand upon what he considered right, and allow no
evidence to move him one hair's breadth from the true conclusions poured
into him. And he never read anything, that did not cap and sawder down
his own contents.
This had made his life thus far most happy, enabling him to despise all
people who differed in any way from him, as well as to enlarge himself,
without any compulsion to pay for it. And he might have gone on in this
easy way, calling upon the people behind him to rob the people in front
of him, if he had not undergone the bad luck to be robbed himself. When
he came to speak of this, among his friends, not one of them failed to
express deep sorrow, and to assure him that such things must happen,
whenever the Conservatives were in office. At the same time they
intimated gently, that when he made so much money out of working men, it
served him right to lose some of it.
His feelings were hurt by this sometimes; especially when the suggestion
came from gentlemen, who had attained that degree, by adulterating the
victuals of the working man. However, he smothered his common sense, as
the first duty is of Liberals; till his body and mind came thump upon a
stumbling-block, and no mistake.
Arising in a vast hall of Reform, to second a motion that all men are
equal, and must have the same money for their work (whether they do it,
or leave it undone), and must not do more than six hours in a day--for
fear of imparting infection to the rest--with his mouth full of reason,
and his heart full of hope [that none of his men might be there to hear
him], my dear father gave a stamp, and found it fall upon something soft
and dull. He felt himself more at home through this, having so much soft
stuff round his vats, and his eloquence mounted to full swell, till he
wanted to jump to give emphasis. This he attempted to do with a clap of
his hands, to complete a grand sentence, when up came something between
his legs, and got stuck on the top of his highlows. With laudable
agility, my father stooped, while the audience cheered lustily,
supposing him to be in quest of some word big enough to express his
sentiments.
These, however, demanded outlet, in a very short one, when he found in
his hand his own lost hat, with a hole in the brim from the stamp of his
heel, and the crown chock-full of heads for speech, and demolitionist
statistics. He examined his hat, and descried B. U. just in under the
tuck of the lining, where a Liberal always puts his mark, on the
Vote-by-ballot principle.
This alone was enough to shake his confidence in his party; though all
the gentlemen around him looked quite incapable of doing anything. And
he might, as he said to my mother, have believed that his old hat had
come down from heaven, if only his new hat, bought last Friday, had been
left for him to go home with. That, however, was not the case; his new
hat managed to leave that great assembly upon the head of some eminent
Liberal; and my father went home with his old hat on, greasy, and dirty,
and showing signs of conflict, but containing a head that would be
Radical no more.
Now, I need not have told that little story--which repeats itself among
such people, more often than it is repeated--except to explain what it
was that took us, in the summer holidays, to a place called
"Happystowe-on-Sea."
It appears that my father was by no means satisfied so to lose his
hats--though in truth it was no great grievance, thus to save the
contents at the cost of the case--and like a thorough Briton, as he
always was, he determined not to get the worst of it. Several
opportunities for reprisal had been allowed to escape him; when, soon
after Bill Chumps went to Oxford, there came among us, and excited our
principles, a contested election for Marylebone. By means of their
noble organization, the Liberals knew, from the outset, that the battle
of freedom was sure to be won; or, as our people put it, rank bribery
and corruption, truckling and swilling would defeat the right.
Nevertheless, a just hope was entertained, on both sides, of a very
lively contest, and a fair occasion (without legal intervention) for
sounding the capacity of an adversary's head. My father was flying a big
blue flag, which we could see from the _Partheneion_, with "Church and
State for ever" on it; and Mr. John Windsor, and Chumps Esquire--as we
called the great butcher in respect of his son--and "_The Best End of
the Scrag_," all had the same; and only a man who knocked horses on the
head durst hang out the red rag, up our Lane.
I speak of this, only as a circumstance to prove that our neighbourhood
was Constitutional, and that the Radical element, however respectable it
might have been when kept at home, had no right whatever to come
invading us, and desiring to trample on our principles. They knew that
for nearly three hundred and fifty yards, the inhabitants were all
true-Blue, beginning with the Indigo factory on the South, and going all
through the ash-heaps, and ending with my father. But in the wantonness
of triumph, when their majority was posted up 2,000 [though our side
claimed 1,500 in front] these "Demi-Cats"--as Bill had sent us word from
Oxford to entitle them, and so we did--must needs assemble at King's
Cross, in their thousands, and resolve to storm every Blue house in
Maiden Lane.
The beginning of their enterprise was most glorious; nothing could
stand before them. They broke all the glass that had a blue flag near
it, and they knocked down every man who had got blue eyes. The premises
of Mr. Chumps were sacked; his legs of mutton walked off, as if they
were alive, and his salt beef was stuck on poles, even bigger than the
skewers he weighed it out with; every drop in the cellars of the
Conservative Hotel ran uphill inside a big Radical, and Mr. John Windsor
lost soap enough pretty nearly to clean half the Liberals. However, he
contrived to get over a back wall, together with his wife and daughter
Polly--Jack was luckily at the _Partheneion_, and the other four gone to
see their Aunt, with old _Fangs_ to protect them from the Liberals--and
by taking an in-and-out way through the cinders, the three arrived
safely at our back door, without breath enough to blow out one of their
own dips.
Till now my father had scarcely struck a blow on behalf of the
Constitution, beyond giving his vote, and knocking down a man who was
anxious to do the like to him; but now it did seem a bit too hard that
the Liberals should extinguish thus all liberty of opinion.
"John," he said now, as he brought in the fugitives, and heard a
tremendous noise coming up the Lane, "this is what I call coming it too
strong. Mrs. Windsor, ma'am, you are all of a tremble. Sophy, get
whiskey and water, at once."
"Bubbly," poor Mr. Windsor gasped, "this is most kind, and cordial of
you. My dear, you require a stimulant, however much you dislike it. But,
Upmore, down with your flag, at once! Down with your flag, that the
fellows may go by."
"Oh yes, Mr. Upmore," implored Mrs. Windsor, a lady of a most superior
kind; "please not to lose a moment in hauling down your flag; it is
flying in the face of Providence. Do cut the ropes, if it won't untie."
"Will I?" said my father, and his face took on, as my mother said
afterwards, a very fine expression; "lower my flag, to the scum of the
earth! Ladies, go down to the cellar, and keep quiet. You will have no
one here, while my flag is flying. Mr. Windsor is a man of high spirit,
as he has proved many times, in our debates. He, and I, will go to the
boiling-house, and defend the true-blue, come what will."
My mother declares that Mr. Windsor was going, at his best pace, to the
cellar-stairs, when she locked him out, and pulled out the key; but
mother was always severe upon him, because of his wholesale ways, and
talk. At any rate, he did not flag or fly, although he may have longed
to do so perhaps.
"Now, John," said my father, as he took his arm, to confirm his courage
(which required it), and led him down the red-tiled passage to the
boiling-house; "you have had a great many good laughs at my little
steam-engine, haven't you? Very well, we'll try it on the 'Great
unwashed;' if there happens to be a bit of fire left. My men are all
away, the same as yours--or else these fellows would not come to sack
us. I gave them the quarter-day to vote, the same as you did with yours;
and mine are gone the right colour to a man, I do believe. But I
happened to say, 'leave a little steam on;' and I can get up a great
deal in ten minutes, and the blackguards won't be here for twenty.
They've got three blue houses yet to wreck, and my double-gates will
keep them out, at least five minutes."
"I see, I see, what you mean to do. What a glorious fellow you are,
Bubbly! I'll go half the waste of phleg."
"Then go and see that all the bolts are right, while I get up steam, and
have the double hose ready."
These two gallant, and sturdy, boilers very soon had the front and back
gates barred and bolted, and strengthened with struts against the
styles; so that all the men who could get at them must take at least
five minutes to get through them; and meanwhile the furnace of the
little engine was beginning to roar, and the steam to puff.
"Capital! I call this first-rate stoking;" exclaimed my father, as he
stopped to breathe. "Now you understand the hose, John? It is only
three-inch pipe, and therefore as handy as a walking-stick. You put your
nozzle upon that trestle, commanding the back doors, while I keep ready
for the time they have broken the front gate down. We have got a big vat
of hot stuff to draw from; but I don't think they'll want half of it."
"Bubbly, I don't seem to understand it," said Mr. Windsor, who was
slow-headed, and losing his presence of mind, perhaps (although he had
got his coat off) from working so hard while he was fat, and with
terrible Liberal screeches already arising in the air, above the rattle
of the gates; "suppose, my dear friend, that we killed some fellow!"
"No hope of that," said my father, being now in a rancorous, and
determined frame; "I am afraid that the temperature won't be above 160°,
if so much; and it cools in passing through the air too fast. It will
only make their eyes sharp, and their faces clean, as they should be on
a holiday. No white feather, John Windsor, now! Ah, they've fetched the
blacksmith, as I knew they would. Think of your wife and children, John,
and of the British Constitution. Things must be come to a very pretty
pass, if a man mayn't syringe a born jackass! Especially when the
jackass kicks his gate in."
"In for a penny, then, in for a pound," his brother boiler answered,
with his courage up; "whatever you order shall be done, friend Bubbly.
This vat shall run away, before I do."
"I'll go bail for the front gate, Johnny, if you'll be ready for the
rear attack, supposing they've the cheek to try one. This engine works a
double hose, you see, on the principle of a well-coil. Now, my fine
fellows, what do you want here?"
The blacksmith, though working against his will--for my father always
paid him ready money--had prized one heavy gate off its hinges, and the
other was swagging to fall with it.
"We wants you, guv'nor, and your scurvy flag;" cried the leader of the
mob, a chimney-sweep.
"B'iler, b'iler; we wants the Tory b'iler!" cried a hundred dirty
fellows, as the gates crashed in.
"Well, and you shall have him," said my father, who was standing just
outside the slow-house door, with the nozzle of the hose tucked under
his arm, and a rod in his right hand to put the pressure on; "if you
come a yard further, you shall taste the boiler. Only let blacksmith
Grimes get out of the way. I don't wish to boil a respectable neighbour.
And I don't want to boil you, unless you insist on it."
Not only Grimes, but a great many others would have liked to get out of
the way at this; but the bulk of the tumult behind shoved on, and the
heads, that were fain to hang back, got jammed up in front against the
smash, and then shot over. Father just waited, till the chimney-sweep, a
termagant of the highest rank, was hurra-ing, and waving a
soot-brush,--and then he let go hot candles at them. In a long white
column, flew the scalding fluid, spreading, like a sheaf, when it met
their faces, and coating every man of them with poisonous gray froth. No
man could swear, for his mouth was bunged up; and no man could strike,
for his arms were stuck to him, with a weight of deposit, like a
stalactite. Good stearine it was, of the value of at least three
halfpence a pound, in the unrefined state; and it went inside their
shirts, and stung like hornets, and settled into every cracked place of
the skin, and made a man tight in his linings. And to add to their
grief, such a steam arose among them--not to mention something else
beginning with same letters--that the slits of any eyes, that were left
half open, were as useless as in a thick London fog.
"There's a deal more to come," said my father calmly; "noble reformers,
stand shoulder to shoulder; as one of your writers has beautifully
said--the deeper we go, the more strength we get."
The issue is told in a ballad written that same night at "_The Best End
of the Scrag_;" which,--though inspired by Liberal ale, for "_The
Scrag_" had not a drop left of its own, and was obliged to send across
the road for it--is a poem of high merit; and my father was told upon
the best authority that the poet, from first to last, received nearly
fifteen shillings for it. Our house subscribed for sixpence-worth, and
so did Mr. Windsor; and all the boys of the lower order, up to
Grotto-day, were singing--no matter what their politics might be--and
wrapping their bulls' eyes up in, "The lay of the soporific
soap-boilers." The Radicals bore this satire well, having had their own
way in everything, and laughed on the right side of their mouths; and
even the men, who had been cased in grease, made a good thing of it,
when they scraped themselves, by going to the rag-and-bone-shops. Yet,
as bad luck would have it, the leading mind among them--that of Mr. Joe
Cowl, the Master-sweep--was not content, and broke out into a summons at
the Clerkenwell Police Court. For Mr. Cowl, meeting all the first of the
discharges, before the stearine was well up in the hose, was a loser
instead of a receiver of deposit. All the soot on his body was clean
washed off; and nothing being left to fill the pores, the abnormal
exposure of his system led to a pungent, pervasive, and radical catarrh.
Mrs. Cowl sent for a doctor, but her husband Joe had still enough
vitality to kick him out; and then jumping from the frying-pan into the
fire, shouted loudly for a lawyer; and he recommended law.