Aged fifty, from London, admitted December 2, 1819. This poor old
fellow was formerly a lighterman on the Thames. The ideal immensity of
his riches is his favourite topic, and his fancy is as much filled and
delighted by this unreal mockery, as if he were the actual possessor of
all the wealth he boasts. According to him he is the sole proprietor
of all ships, barges, boats, or other craft that float on the River
Thames; the Bank of England belongs exclusively to him, and in short
the extent of his property is beyond all reach of calculation in our
vulgar way. He says that when his son married, he gave him a fortune of
957,000,000 of money, besides some loose silver he had in his pocket,
and four pennyworths of halfpence: but his son was a profligate fellow,
and all this money soon went. He has some notion of paying off the
national debt, if he understood how things were going on.
He affects to know every visitor who comes to the hospital, but by
names and characters quite different from those they now assume. Lord
---- he knew to be a tinker seven and thirty years ago; but he robbed
a public house, made his fortune, bought his title, and now rolls in
riches and grandeur. Lady ---- was a washerwoman. When he knew her
first she lived below bridge; but she happened to be brought to bed
of a carrotty-haired child; this lord got her to swear the child to a
waterman, although it was his lordship’s own; and afterwards, when she
threatened to expose the particulars, his lordship married her. Such a
gentleman was formerly a coal-porter; another was a post-boy; a third
was a poor fellow who used to ply about the boats at the waterman’s
stairs, begging halfpence, with “pray remember poor Jack;” a fourth
he knew as a Jew receiver of stolen goods at Ratcliff Highway; a
fifth was arrested for cheating two keepers who once lived here, and
was transported. He knows all this: cannot be mistaken. “Lord bless
you,” he will exclaim, “do you think I don’t know? What, me not know?
it’s all stuff; I know every thing, both here and hereafter; you can’t
deceive me; no, no, my friend, that won’t do.” He is perfectly harmless
and quiet, so long as no one presumes to question his wealth, or doubt
his universal knowledge.