“MR. CONDUCTOR,
“Sir, I take up my pen to tell you what’s going to happen if the cause
of temperance is to be allowed to have unlicensed power to unlicense all
the public-houses. We have heard a good deal about the advantages of
Temperance (and I don’t deny them), but Mr. Ledru Rollin has taught me
to look closer than ever to the dark side of things, and tee-totalism
has its dark side like everything else; it is not all clear water, I can
tell you. I look forward to the time when strong liquors will be
abolished, and pot-houses taken from the corners of the streets or
shifted from the sides of the road, and I say, ‘how _shall_ I find my
way about?’
“For the fact is; Sir, public-houses are the great land-marks of the
country. Whether you are benighted in a Northumberland moor; lost in a
Devonshire lane (the one thing in nature which it is well known has no
end); whether you are cast away in a river; left without a clue upon
Salisbury Plain; or reduced to a state of topographical despair in a
Warwickshire wood; the first person you meet—be it he or she, gentle or
simple, old or young, a genius or an idiot—will assuredly convince you
that the only rural means of directing you are the names and signs of
places of public entertainment. ‘Go on straight till you come to the
Green Lion, then turn to the left close to the Goat and Compasses, and
after you have passed the Plough, bear off to the right; and, opposite
the Jolly Gardeners, you will see a lane: go down that lane till you
have to cross a brook by the side of the Bottle and Bagpipes, and when
you have got to the Three Whistles and Cockchafer further down, get over
a stile next to the Tinker and Turkey-Cock, take the first to the
left—and that’s it.’ Such were the directions by which I found my old
friend, Groggles, last Monday. Without the signs I have mentioned, I
never should have found Groggles to this day.
“Now, Sir, I trust the advocates of temperance will pause before they
wash away the land-marks of England (Tooting included), in order to
substitute water-marks. How are we to find our way about without signs,
I wonder? for I suppose these will not be allowed to stand when the
houses behind them are taken away. Do the great Father Mathews of this
age intend—like the monks of old—to christen the wells, and to give
names to the pumps, and springs, and fountains, and conduits? Indeed I
hope they do; for these I venture to say will be the only taps they
intend leaving to a future generation.
“Unless, Sir, they wish the topography of our native land to be utterly
confused, and desire to make voluntary locomotion impossible (I call
railways compulsory travelling, for you must go where they choose to
take you), I do intreat of them to leave us their signs, whatever they
do with the inns. Why not move the former to stand sponsors to their
new-fangled watering places? Take the ‘Puncheon of Rum’ from what used
to be the posting-house (before steam blew post-horses off the road) and
stick it on the parish pump. Let wayside wells be ornamented with
effigies of ‘Topers Heads’; transfer the ‘Barrel of Beer’ from the
village inn to the village fountain, and the ‘Jolly Full Bottle’ from
the alehouse to the conduit. Then, when a man comes to the picture of
three drunken soldiers, and the inscription, ‘The Rendezvous,’ he will
know it means a reservoir, or regular meeting of the waters. The
‘Punch-Bowl,’ in gold letters, will indicate a water-trough; the ‘Black
Jack’ would give a significant license for water to be drunk on the
premises; and the ‘Sir John Barleycorn’ would indicate that a good
supply of the ale of our first parent is not far off.
“I do hope my suggestion will be complied with. The tavern signs of
England are a great topographical institution. If they will not take
them down, the Temperance Movement may do its worst for me. I, and a
good many others who live out of town and don’t carry lanterns at night,
will still be able to find our way about, and the agricultural
population will be able to show us when we have lost it. In that case,
the Green Dragons, Marquises of Granby, Roses and Crowns, Bears and
Buttermilks, Bulls in the Pounds, Stars and Stumps, with innumerable
other signs dear to the eyes and ready to the tongues of unconverted
tipplers for the behoof of way-beguiled strangers, would not be utterly
lost to the land. Without them, I venture to assert, in conclusion, in
the words of the late Mr. Pope, England (Tooting included) will be ‘a
mighty maze without a plan.’
“I am, &c., &c.
“CHRISTOPHER SHRIMBLE.
“Paradise Row, Tooting.”