THE BOHEMIANS OF LONDON.
GOING east through Oxford street, when you get near High Holborn, there
is a narrow thoroughfare called Dean street. Turn down this and it will
bring you to Carlisle street, a short and dark lane, a street only
in name. This short street brings you to Soho Square, famous for its
sauces and pickles all over the world from Calcutta to New York.
The neighborhood is a very quiet one, as by its peculiar exits and
passages it is cut off from the busiest part of London on either side
of it, and leaving the Holborn or Oxford street, with their crowded
traffic, shops, busses, and cabs, in a moment you are in this quiet
square, with its little dot of green, fresh grass; that seems a relief
after the arid business waste which you have just left. Just opposite
is Greek street, which leads to St. Martin's lane, where a nest of
small dealers in milk, butter, eggs, and groceries herd together, and
where the poor, mean chop-houses form a perfect rookery, from which
comes the fumes of hot coffee, muffins, mutton chops, and kidneys
all the long day. Little dirty, rosy-cheeked children play here in
the gutters right merrily all the day through, and the noises of the
peddlers' cries, and the joyous mirth of the children "glorious at
their games," are the only sounds that break the remarkable stillness
of the noonday hour.
When the gray in the sky begins to deepen, and the shades of night fall
over and around this quiet square, then the scene changes, and life
and bustle and noisy interchange of voices fill the solitary place,
which the shabby gentility of the neighborhood cannot repress or keep
down. Then the coffee-shops become vocal, the pot-houses are once
more vivacious, and streams of thirsty and hungry men and women pour
into these places, and come out refreshed with beer and replete with
cheap but plenteous food. This neighborhood is savory with macaroni
and oils, betokening the presence of the Italian element, who flock
to Soho Square in great numbers when they arrive in London. There are
"albergos" and wine-shops where you may obtain a quarter of a fowl
for ninepence, and a bottle of Marsala, which is only a darker and
stronger sherry under another name, and you can get olives and brandied
cherries, at dessert, for a few pence. The women who attend in these
places are fat, jolly-looking persons, with rounded forms, finely
shaped faces, and magnificent black hair, done up in massive bands,
and they sit many hours of the day knitting on low stools at the doors
of these foreign-looking inns. The customers who frequent these places
are wealthy organ-grinders, men who cast figures from potters' clay and
plaster of Paris, musicians and porters in the Italian warehouses along
the docks, medical students, Bohemians, and the riff raff in general.
One of the clay figure men wanted to sell me a well executed full
length figure of Thackeray, with his spectacled, kindly face, at 7s.
6d., for which I was asked a guinea in Drury Lane, the workmanship and
material being fully as good in every essential.
In the heart of Soho Square is this little dark Carlisle street, and in
the centre of Carlisle street is a small, dingy public-house, called
the "Carlisle Arms," which is one of the resorts of the Bohemians of
London.
[Sidenote: COCKERELL'S LODGINGS.]
This old place has been from time immemorial frequented by them,
and here I was brought one cool September evening by the head clerk
of one of the leading publishing houses of London. This clerk was
still a young man, but he had the best knowledge of books and general
literature that I have ever found in a man of his position. He knew
at a glance how much a book would bring, who wrote it, when it was
published, and how many copies were to be got, were they to be dug out
of the mustiest book-stall in London. He had a familiar acquaintance
with all the members of that strange tribe of litterateurs who
contribute to the magazines and weekly and daily press of this the
greatest newspaper city in the world. He knew who it was who wrote the
last flash novel, how much he got for it, and whether he had drunk the
proceeds or not. Every first and fourth class reporter in London, all
the dramatic witlings and punsters, the great short-hand guns of the
House of Commons, the book reviewers, and the dramatic and musical
critics, were to him everyday acquaintances, and they all in turn paid
him a cordial respect for his universal knowledge. I shall call him
Cockerell, this marvel of booksellers' clerks.
At 8 o'clock I called at Cockerell's lodgings, which were in Rupert
street, near Holborn. He lived quietly in a nice, cosy room, filled
with rare and curious editions of the works of which he was most fond,
and everything around the place, from the brass andirons to the quaint
clock in the chimney place, betokened a steady-going, well-informed
man. The "Newgate Calendar," "Cruikshank's Almanacs," for twenty
years, finely illustrated, "The Slang Dictionary," "The Streets and
Antiquities of London," "A History of Signboards," "Hansard's Debates,"
a folio "Shakespeare," "The Heads of the People," illustrated by Kenny
Meadows, "Debrett's Peerage," "The Lords and Commons," several volumes
of Balzac, a volume with the wills and autographs of the Doges of
Venice, "Macaulay's Lays," some of "Sala's Sketches," a bound series
of the _Saturday Review_, and some volumes of "Punch," were among his
collection, besides a complete collection of the British plays, and
a number of Gilray's sketches, framed, hung from the walls. "Show me
a man's library, and I will tell you what he is," somebody has said,
and I believe the above works, picked out of a large library, best
explain the character of the head clerk who was to be my companion
for the night's adventure. Putting on his collar, gloves, and an old
slouch-hat, Cockerell and I reached the hall, where the maid-servant,
looking suspiciously at the writer, inquired from her master what time
he would be home.
"I don't know, Jenny, exactly," said he, "but it will be some time
before the cocks crow."
Having arrived at the "Carlisle Arms," we walked in, passing the bar,
and found our way through a low passage into a back room about twelve
feet wide by fifteen in length. The ceiling was low, and there was
no ornament to be seen with the exception of a steel engraving of
the Duke of Wellington on horseback, surrounded by a mounted staff,
and surveying through a field-glass the broken columns of the first
Bonaparte from an elevation on the plain of Waterloo. There were but
three persons in the room, which had a round oaken table in the centre,
and a quadrangle of wooden benches,--when I entered. My well-informed
friend was saluted with hearty greetings by all present, and was asked
what he would have to drink. This is an anachronism in English customs,
for the people of this tight little island generally allow a friend to
pay for his own drink, as a custom which has long ago been endorsed by
the best authorities. There is no such folly known here as may be seen
in every American public house, where the free and independent electors
stand at a bar each hour in every day, treating one and the other with
a promiscuous and reckless generosity. But among Bohemians all over
the world it is different. If they cannot pay for a drink, they will
call for it and treat each other with a liberality which is, to say the
least, a most praiseworthy trait.
[Sidenote: A PINT OF COOPER.]
I forgot to mention that there were two vases, with faded artificial
flowers, on the rusty old chimney-piece, and these flowers seemed to
the Bohemians like the waters of an oasis in the desert to a party of
Bedouins. All else was a blighted, sandy waste of small talk, tobacco
smoke, and weak gin and water. The principal spokesman of the party,
who was quite bald-headed and had but two or three teeth, rang the bell
behind the door, and presently the pot-boy appeared. In the lowest of
London publics the pot-boy waits upon the customers, washes the pewter
pots, and cleans the tables with a dish-cloth, for a stipend of ten
shillings a week in British coin. The pot-boy had not more than made
his appearance when in came the bar-maid, with natural light hair, one
of the first bar-maids I had seen in London whose hair was not dyed.
[Illustration: A BOHEMIAN CAROUSE.]
The bar-maid surveyed the room and its occupants calmly, then asked
for the orders. The pot-boy, feeling that he was only a subordinate,
retired in disgust, with his dish-cloth on his left arm. One man called
for "sherry weak," another for "gin and water," and a third for a "pint
of cooper." The cooper was brought in a metal mug, with hoops girding
it, and for this reason, I believe, the mug is called a "cooper."
Pretty soon the room began to fill with stray Bohemians, who dropped in
one by one and took their seats as if they feared no eviction.
In half an hour there were a dozen present, and the room was so
crowded that two of them had to stand up. One or two were dandies,
and wore heavy scarfs and pins, and talked French because, forsooth,
they had been on the Continent. Some of them were artists on the half
score of comic weeklies which are to be seen in the windows of every
news-shop in London. Some were wood-engravers, some were painters
in a small way, and there were correspondents of the Birmingham,
Manchester, and Liverpool papers also present. All were in the literary
or artistic line, and a few had been in the gallery of the House of
Commons as reporters, doing short-hand work, and there was one really
clever artist, who had illustrated books by some of the best authors
in England. This man was a little scant of hair on the top of the
forehead, and had a light moustache. He had been to many prize-fights,
and had gloated over many a frightful murder, through his sketches in
the weekly illustrated newspapers. He was a merry, good-natured fellow,
with a genuine fund of pleasant anecdote and a liking for Burton ale.
There was another man very quiet in appearance, and wearing a gray
mixed sack coat, with his bosom open in the style of Walt Whitman.
He puzzled me when I first looked at him, but after a while I found
that he was a German by birth, very recondite,--from Lower Prussia,
domiciled in London for many years, who had written a work with the
mystical title of "Entities of God." None of his intimates had ever
even read this book; with the exception of one man, (a dear friend,)
who was in his debt, and had honored his friendship so far as to read
the preface, but could not get any farther for a different reason from
that assigned by the Heidelberg student, who, after reading a work of
John Stuart Mill, threw down the book in disgust, saying that "it was
too clear;" yet he was respected in this mixed assemblage of topers
and clever fellows, because he had written a book that no one could
understand. Such is the force of intellect.
There were two Irishmen present who sat in a corner together, drank
together, gave each other a light for the pipes which they smoked, and
quarreled with a fraternal regard.
[Sidenote: THE RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE.]
One was an old man with a grey moustache, an Orangeman, who had been
in America in the old days when Virginia and South Carolina ruled the
Senate of the republic, and since then he had been a correspondent by
turns for some of the London newspapers abroad, and again a literary
hack for the shabby sheets that are read in the obscure holes of the
city. His friend was a much younger man, full blooded, and a thorough
Irish Nationalist, although he disclaimed Fenianism. He was a reporter,
and had an extensive knowledge of his professional associates on the
London press. His name was Fitzgerald, and his venerable friend was
known as Dawson. The German of the profound intellect was called Meyer,
or Herr Meyer. The names of the French dandies I have forgotten; they
were but poor specimens, and did not furnish any entertainment during
the evening.
There were two reporters of the morning press at this feast of reason
and flow of beer, but they did not contribute much amusement to the
party, as they were discussing the respective rates of salaries on the
_Daily Bludgeon_ and the _Morning Budget_ during the entire evening's
conversation. The two Irishmen were perpetually at loggerheads about
politics, "Fitz" being a Radical, Dawson a Conservative Churchman of
the old school. Occasionally they gave each other the lie, and then I
expected to see them striking out at each other; but in three minutes
after they would vow eternal friendship, and shake each other's hand
with great warmth. The name of the artist was Sullivan. Sullivan hailed
the head clerk with great feeling, and as he sat down there was a drink
all around.
"Well, old Cockerell," said the vivacious Fitz, "how is Slogger's book
getting on with yeer people?"
"It 'ill soon be published. We have it on hand now, and expect to sell
twenty thousand copies. The pictures will sell it alone, although, I
must say, Slogger's text is very good for his subject. We are getting
all the trade now. Every fellow that thinks he can scribble comes to
us, and the big fish are also in our net. Murray must have been cut
up pretty bad to find Gladstone leaving him and going to McMillan. It
all comes of having a magazine. A publishing house that can command
the columns of a well circulated magazine can print as many books as
they like, and, what is better, they can sell them. Our house does the
heavy flash business, and it pays well. Old 'Swoslam' is a keen blade,
and is always on the lookout for a novelty. McMillan has sold, I'm
told, four editions of their magazines having the Byron article. Well,
old fellow, how are you (to Sullivan), and what are you doing?"
"I'm fhoine, me dharling, and me appetite is just as good as ever, but
me powers of dhrinking are failing fast. As for what I'm doing, Miss
Sthabber has got me to make pictures for her new novel, which she got a
hundred and fifty pounds for in the 'Thames Mag.,' and now she is going
to publish it in book form. It's a nice title she has for it, 'The Red
Divil of the Yallow Mountin; or, the Ghost of the Place de Greve.' I
sometimes think the woman is going crazy whin she sinds for me in the
mornin' to talk to her about her new books down Brompton way, where
she lives. I generally find her in bed with a decanther of brandy,
a pot of coffee, and a square box of cigarettes by her bedside on a
table. 'Soolivan,' said she, 'I want two Convent scenes in the sixth
chapter; a rocky pass, with a skeleton standing in the middle of the
gap, his grisly arms outstretched, for the ninth chapter; and in the
fifteenth chapter you must give me a powerful tableoo where the chief
butler is discovered in the room off the banquetting hall poisoning his
misthresses's wine.
"'For the details I'll trust to your powerful Irish imagination; and
now, Soolivan, you low blackguard, turn your back and help yourself to
the brandy while I'm putting on me wrapper, as I don't wan't you to be
making fancy pictures of 'Vanus going to the Bath,' or any such gammon
as that, for pot-houses, with the great female London novelist--I
believe that's what they call me, isn't it, Soolivan?--as an original.'
Indade, I think that Miss Sthabber is more nor half mad, but I must say
that she is the divil at plots and incidents, and she drinks excellent
brandy."
[Sidenote: THE SHORT-HAND REPORTER.]
"Stabber is a clever woman," said Cockerell, the head clerk. "Whackem &
Co., Paternoster Row, sold thirty-two thousand copies of her 'Blue-Eyed
Demon' in three months, and she refused £950 for it from an Edinburgh
house, so Whackem must have given her more. By the way, do any of
your fellows know the name of this man who has written the last new
novel 'Girded with Steel?' I fancy he must be one of your newspaper
fellows, because he has a lot of stuff in it about 'leader writing,'
'my note-book,' 'two columns is more than earthquake should be allowed
in a newspaper,' and there are, besides, the details of editorial life
which an outsider could not know. Who is he?"
"Oh, he's a young reporter on the _Omniverous Clam_, but I could
not give his name on a pint of honor," said Fitz. "He's a clever
chap, though, and will make his way. He's only been two years in the
professhion, and he's the best short-hand man on the _Clam_ now, so
maybe you know who I mean now."
"It's Billingsgate," said one.
"No, it's Gravelly," said another.
"Boys, ye are not right; it's Goby, and he's five hundred and fifty
pounds the betther of it, which is a nice little lump for a reporther
who gets five guineas a week, and has to work like a horse for that in
the session," said Fitzgerald.
"Reporthers have harder work now then they had whin I first went in
the Gallery," said old Dawson. "Me father, as yez know, boys, was a
reporther before me; and I might say it runs in the family. Ah! thim
were good times, boys, when the ould man did his short-hand wurruk. He
knew all the great reporthers of the day; and fine fellows they were,
too. There was William Radcliffe, the husband of the woman who wrote
all the bloodthirsty novels. Radcliffe was a mimry reporther, and he'd
go to the House and sit the debates out, and nivir take a note at all,
at all. Then he'd go to the office and dictate two different articles
at a time to the juniors who took it all down, and out it came,
sphick-and-sphan, in the morning, without a flaw.
"Then there was another grate fellow, ould Billy Woodfall, who had a
paper of his own called the _Diary_; and that was before the House
allowed the reporthers to take notes during the debates. They used
to call him "Mimory Woodfall," because he'd never forget anything
that he had heard; and when strangers would come from the country to
visit the House the first questions they would ask would be, 'Which
is Woodfall?' 'Which is the Sphaker?' Me fawther told me many a story
about him. He had a fashion of bringing hard-boiled eggs with him,
which he carried in his hat, and whin he came to the House he'd take
off his hat carefully, put it between his knees, take the eggs out,
keeping his head well down for fear the Sargint-at-Arrums would see him
eating, and then he'd brake the shells and eat the eggs with as great
relish as if they were game pies. A reporther on an opposition paper
wanted to play a joke on Billy one night, and when he laid his hat down
he took the two hard-boiled eggs out and put two in the hat that had
nivir been boiled at all, and when Billy wint to crack the shells the
yoke sphattered all over his breeches, bedad, so it did. Billy nivir
forgave the joke until the day of his death. Woodfall did all his own
reporthin', and the _Diary_ did well for a time, until the _Morning
Chronicle_ started in opposition, with Perry at the head of it. Perry
hired a lot of reporthers to take notes of the debates and write them
out, and by the time that Woodfall had his notes written out, the
_Chronicle_ was selling in every sthreet in London; and that was what
took all the wind out of poor Billy's sails."
"Perry was a foine reporther himself, and when the House was thrying
Admiral Palliser and Admiral Keppel for their loives, Perry'd send in
eight or ten colyums every week of the debates, without any assistance;
but, bedad, we wouldn't think much of that now. Woodfall used to say,
in a joking way, that 'he had been fined by the House of Commons,
confined by the House of Lords, fined and confined by the Coort of
King's Binch, and indicted in the Ould Bailey,' for his offinces. Oh,
them were foine times, bedad, whin you could go in and get yer nice
chop and yer glass of sherry, or a sweet little sthake fresh from the
rump, and maybe have the Juke of Wellington and George Canning sitting
at the same table wid ye; and they'd be at the chops and sthakes too."
[Sidenote: A SONG FROM THE SPEAKER.]
"Dawson, me boy, tell us about Mark Supple and the Quaker, and take
another jugfull of beer to wet yer whistle," said the artist, who had
just withdrawn his nose from the pewter pot which he was now sadly
contemplating in its mournful emptiness.
"Oh! is it Supple ye mane, Jimmy. I'll tell ye all about him, yer
riverence, and I'll take a pint of sthout to strinthin' me nerves afore
I begin. Ye see," said Dawson, after he had taken a long pull at the
mug, "Mark was fondher of a joke than he was of his breakfast. He was a
good reporther, too, and liked a little dhrop now and thin, like more
of his counthrymin, God forgive thim. One night Mark was in the gallery
reporthing for the _Morning Chronicle_, when Mr. Addington was the
Sphaker. Mark was a big, raw-boned native of sweet Tipperary, and was
fond of hearing a song at all times. He used to take a glass of wine
or two in Bellamy's, and thin go up in the gallery and take out his
note-book and whack away with the pot-hooks and colophons. Mark was a
foine scholar and a janius. They say he'd dhress up a mimbir's speech,
and put retterick and flowers and poethry into a dull six-mile oration,
and it used to puzzle the mimbirs so that they would hardly know their
own words again. Of course, they all liked Mark, and he sometimes took
a good dale of freedom with thim.
"He had a mighthy quare style intirely with him, and an English mimbir
who was fond of a joke, like Mark's self, said that Mark's style
of reporthin' was 'a mixture of the hyperbolical, with a vane of
Orientalism and a dash of the bog-throtter.' They are quick enough, God
knows, to sneer about the poor bog-throtters. Well, this night was a
quiet one in the House. A number of the mimbirs were asleep, some were
nodding, some were at their dinners; and when Mark looked down from the
gallery the Sphaker, Mr. Addington, had nothing to do, and there was a
silence in the House so that you might have heard a pin dhrop. All at
once Mark called out in a reckless loud voice:
"'A song from Mr. Sphaker.'
"You can imagine the horror of Mr. Addington as he stood up, his tall,
thin figure stretched to its full linth, and his peevish eyes scanning
the House from top to bottom. Every one roared out laughing, and
William Pitt had the tears sthraming down his ould, withered cheeks.
After a while the House recovered its gravity, or rather its stupidity,
and the Sarjint-at-Arrums began his search for the man who had hallooed
in the sacred place. He went up among the reporthers, who all knew the
offindhir; but none of the boys would tell on Mark, who was well liked;
and, bedad, the Sarjint-at-Arrums was bursting his skin with rage.
Seeing that he could not get any information, he turned to Mark, who
was looking as solemn as a toomstone, and asked him if he knew who had
called for a song.
"Mark purtended that he was very busy with his pencils, and, nivir
sayin' a wurd, pointed his finger to a fat Quaker who sat asleep, two
or three seats off, with his hands clasped quietly over the pit of
his stomach. The Quaker was seized in a minute, and given into the
custody of the House, vainly declaring his innocence, and was kept
in confinement two hours, until Mark, in a manly way, acknowledged
his crime, and was put in the Quaker's place, to meditate on his
foolishness. He was brought to the Bar of the House thin, and let off,
whin he promised to do betther in the future, and nivir call upon the
Sphaker for another song."
"Tell us about Supple and Wilberforce, Dawson," said Fitzgerald to the
veteran.
"Oh, that wasn't Supple that played the thrick on Wilberforce: that was
Pether Finnerty," said Dawson. "Pether was on the _Chronicle_; and one
night, when the House was full of business, Pether sat drinking too
long in Bellamy's and lost his turn. When he got into the House, he
asked some of the boys, who had been sphakin'? One of them who had been
present told Pether that Wilberforce had been sphakin' for an hour.
"'What did he say?' says Pether.
"'Take out yer book, and I'll give it to ye, me boy, in a jiffy,' says
the other. Pether was so far gone that he would have made Wilberforce
say anything, however ridiculous, and when the other reporther began as
follows, he did not see the joke:
[Sidenote: THE BEAUTIFUL POTATO.]
"'Potatoes make men healthy, vigorous, and active; but, what is still
more in their favor, they make men tall'--
"Did he say that, the jewel?" said Pether, who was touched with this
tribute to the esculent of his native isle.
"I'll give you my word, he said it,--'and when I look around this
house, and see before me such fine, vigorous specimens of Irish
manhood, all reared on the potato, and think of my own stunted, weak
figure and attenuated frame, I must always regret and lament that my
parents did not foster me on that fragrant and genial vegetable, the
beautiful potato.'"
"'Oh! murther!' said Pether; 'but Wilberforce is the fine fellow to use
such poetical language;' and off he wint to the _Chronicle_ office to
write out his notes. And the next morning there it was--the thribute
to the potato and all the rest of it--and all London was laughing at
Wilberforce, and every one believed that he was drunk when he spoke the
words. The next day Pether was brought before the bar of the House to
stand his trial, and Wilberforce rose and said:
"'Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen: Were I capable of using such language
as was attributed to me in a morning journal, in its reports of
yesterday's debates, I would be unworthy of the attention which I now
claim from this House and unfit to occupy a seat in this honorable
body. Rather would I be worthy of a straight-jacket in a lunatic
asylum, where I might learn better sense of the dignity of this House.'
Pether was let off, like Mark Supple, and he was ever afterwards very
careful in his reports. But the joke stuck to Wilberforce's coat for
many a long day afther."
By this time the greater part of the Bohemians had left for their
homes, and after a song and a few more stories from Fitz and Sullivan,
the erratic band broke up, and the tap-room was deserted. Such was
the scene--a singular one--which occurs in the old dingy Public House
night after night among the wandering journalists and penny-a-liners
of the London press and their associates of kindred professions. The
old, haunted Public could tell many a ludicrous story of a like kind
had it a tongue to speak--of the amusing, wandering, never-do-well Free
Lances, of the Press, who find food and clothing, and a good deal to
drink, by their ephemeral contributions to the journalistic and light
literature of England's metropolis.
In addition to the "Carlisle Arms" there is another resort of the
higher class of writers, authors, and artists, in the neighborhood
of the theatres, and this place is known to those who frequent it as
the "Albion." At the Albion, there is an excellent restaurant, and
well-cooked viands, and wines of the best quality, may be obtained
there at reasonable prices. Choice little dinners, illuminated by wit
and humor, are given here by journalists to each other.
[Illustration]