longer distilled strong waters for cordials, but she made her preserves
and her pickles. She made rose-water, and lavender-water, and
hysterical-water; Plague-water, angelica-water, and all kinds of
wonderful waters, whose names and virtues are now quite forgotten. The
horror of the Plague, which survived to a hundred years ago, is shown by
the extraordinary complications of the Plague-mixture. We are to take a
pound each of twenty roots, sixteen flowers, nineteen seeds; we are to
take also an ounce each of nutmeg, cloves, and mace; we are to shred the
flowers, bruise the berries, and pound the roots and spices; to these we
must add a peck of green walnuts; after mixing all together they must be
steeped in wine lees; after a week they must be distilled.
She also made cherry-brandy, currant-gin, damson-brandy, and certain
medicinal wines or confections, of which the following is a specimen. It
is called Gascony wine. It comforts the vital parts, cures dropsy, and
keeps the old alive. Yet we have neglected so sovereign a medicine!
"Take ginger, galingale, cinnamon, nutmeg, grains of paradise, cloves
bruised, fennel seed, caraway seeds, origanum, one ounce each. Next,
take sage, wild marjorum, pennyroyal, mint, red roses, thyme, pellitory,
rosemary, wild thyme, camomile, lavender, one handful of each. Beat the
spices small, bruise the herbs, put all into a limbeck with wine for
twelve hours; then distil."
The great thing was to have as many ingredients as possible. Thus the
Plague-water took fifty-nine ingredients; the famous water called
"Mithridate" took forty-six; and the Venice treacle, sixty-two. When
they were once made, they were warranted to "rectify and maintain the
body, clarify the blood, surfle the cheek, perfume the skin, tinct the
hair, and lengthen the appetite."
The London citizen of the lower class never called in a physician unless
he was in immediate danger; the herbalist physicked him, and the wise
woman. Very often his own wife was an abyss of learning as to herbs and
their properties; the bone-setter belonged to a distinct branch of the
medical profession. There were apothecaries who prescribed as well as
sold drugs. For instance, early in the century, one Dalmahoy kept a shop
on Ludgate Hill, where he sold, among other things, drugs, potions,
electuaries, powders, sweetmeats, washes for the complexion, scented
hair-oil pomades, dentifrices, love charms, Italian masks to sleep in,
spermaceti salt, and scammony squills. And the doctor who wished to
attract the confidence of citizens found a little stage management
useful. He wore black, of course, with a huge wig; he carried a
gold-headed cane, with a pomander box on the top; he kept his hands
always in a muff, so that they might be soft, warm to the touch, and
delicate; he hung his consulting-room with looking-glasses, and he
littered it with vials; he had on the mantel-shelf a skull, and hanging
to the wall the skeleton of a monkey; on his table stood a folio in
Greek; and he preserved a Castilian gravity of countenance. Besides the
physician, the apothecary, the herbalist, and the wise woman, there was
the barber-surgeon. His pole was twined with colors three--white, red,
and blue. But I know not how long into the century the alliance of
surgeon and barber continued.
One must not overlook the quack, who plays such a conspicuous part in
the last century. There was certainly one quack--and sometimes half a
dozen--at every fair. Some of them went about with a simple caravan,
pulling teeth and selling potions and pills and powders warranted to
cure every disorder. Some of them, more ambitious, drove round the
country in coaches. They dressed in great wigs and black velvet; they
had a stage in front of their consulting-rooms, on which a mountebank
tumbled, a girl danced on the tight-rope, and a band of music played.
And the people believed in them, just as they believe nowadays in the
fellow who advertises his pills or his powders, certain to cure
everybody. It is only changing the coach, the caravan, and the stage for
the advertisement columns, with no more expense for travelling, horses,
mountebank, or music. It is just the same whether we sell "angelic
snuff" that will cure most things, or "royal snuff" that will cure the
rest, or electuaries, or distilled and medicated water that will even
make an old wig new.
One who has looked at Mrs. Glasse's wonderful book on cookery, and
reflects upon the variety and wealth of dishes which then graced the
board, would not lightly approach the subject of food. Yet there are a
few _plats_, favorites with the people, which may be noticed. Sage tea,
for instance, with bread-and-butter, is no longer taken for breakfast;
and some of the following dishes have disappeared: Hasty pudding, made
of flour and water boiled together, to which dabs of butter and
spoonfuls of brown sugar were added when it was poured out of the
pot--no one now ever sees sugar quite so brown as that which the West
Indies used to send over a hundred and fifty years ago. Onion pottage
has assumed the more complex form of soup. A bean tansy was once
universally beloved; there were two forms of it; in the first, after
bruising your beans, you put them in a dish with pepper, salt, cloves,
mace, the yolks of six eggs, a quarter of a pound of butter, and some
slices of bacon. This you baked. The other form was when you mixed
beans, biscuits, sugar, sack, cream, and baked all in a dish with
garnish of candied orange-peel. There were drinks in endless variety,
such as purl, Old Pharaoh, knock-down, humtie-dumtie, stipple
shouldrée--names in this degenerate age, and nothing more. We can hardly
understand, either, the various possets, punch in its hundred and fifty
branches, raw shrub--which still stands in old-fashioned bars--and the
various cups, porter cup, cider cup, port-wine cup, egg flip, rum-booze,
and the rest.
The drinking of the last century went far beyond anything ever recorded;
all classes alike drank; they began to drink hard somewhere about the
year 1730, and they kept it up for a hundred years with great spirit and
admirable results, which we, their grandchildren, are now illustrating.
The clergy, grave and sober merchants, lawyers, judges, the most
responsible people, drank freely; men about town, officers, Templars,
tradesmen drank more than freely; the lowest classes spent all their
money in drink, especially in gin, upon which they could get drunk for
twopence. In the year 1736 there were 7044 gin-shops in London--one
house in six--and 3200 ale-houses where gin was secretly sold. The
people all went mad after gin. The dinner-hour was at two for the better
sort. Mrs. Glasse plainly shows that the living was extremely good, and
that expense among people in easy circumstances was not much regarded
where the table was concerned. Certain dishes, as in Tudor days,
belonged to certain days, as veal and a gammon of bacon and a tansy
pudding on Easter Day, or a roast goose at Michaelmas; red herrings and
salt-fish, with leeks, parsnips, and pease in Lent; at Martinmas,
salt-beef; at Midsummer, roast beef with butter and beans; at All
Saints, pork and souse, "spats and spurling." They were great at
puddings--one may find many an excellent receipt, long since forgotten,
in Mrs. Glasse. For dessert they had sweetmeats, fruits, liqueurs, such
as _ros solis_, rich wines, such as Lisbon and Madeira, or, where there
were men in company, port. In the morning they drank tea and chocolate.
It is pretty clear that the real business of the day was done before
dinner. That, in fact, was the custom up to twenty years ago in certain
Yorkshire towns, where everybody dined at two o'clock. The clerks were
practically left to take care of the offices in the afternoon, and the
masters sat over their wine. It must, one reflects, be a large business
indeed where the masters cannot get through their share by two o'clock.
In the evening every man had his club or coffee-house. We know that Dr.
Johnson was unhappy unless he had a club for the evening. There were
clubs for every class: they met at taverns, they gradually superseded
the coffee-houses for evening purposes. The City coffee-houses, however,
became places where a great deal of business was carried on. Thus, at
the Baltic was a subscription-room for merchants and brokers engaged in
the Russia trade; the Chapter, of Paternoster Row, was the resort of
booksellers; the Jamaica was a house of West Indian trade; Garraway's,
Robins's, Jonathan's, the Jerusalem, Lloyd's, were all City
coffee-houses turned into rendezvous for merchants. The clubs of the
last century deserve a separate paper for themselves. The London citizen
went to his club every evening. He there solemnly discussed the news of
the day, smoked his pipe of tobacco, drank his punch, and went home by
ten o'clock. The club was the social life of the City. For the ladies
there was their own social life. Women lived much more with other women;
they had their visits and society among each other in the daytime. While
the men worked at their shops and offices, the women gadded about; in
the evening they sat at home while the men went out. In one family of my
acquaintance there is a tradition belonging to the end of the last
century, that when the then head of the house came home at ten the girls
all hurried off to bed, the reason being that the good man's temper at
the late hour, what with the fatigues of the day and the punch of the
evening, was by no means uncertain.
[Illustration: VISITING CARD]
A manuscript diary of a middle-class family belonging to the time of
George the First shows anything but a stay-at-home life. The ladies were
always going about. But they stayed at home in the evenings. There was a
very good reason why the women should stay at home. The streets were
infested with prowling thieves and with dangerous bullies: no woman
could go out after dark in the City without an armed escort of her
father's apprentices or his men-servants. In 1744 the Lord Mayor
complains that "confederacies of evil-disposed persons, armed with
bludgeons, pistols, and cutlasses, infest lanes and private passages,"
and issue forth to rob and wound peaceful people. Further, that these
gangs have defeated, wounded, and killed the officers of justice sent
against them. As yet they had not arrived at the simple expedient of
strengthening the police.
As for the dangers of venturing out after dark, they are summed up by
Jonson:
"Prepare for death if here at night you roam,
And sign your will before you step from home.
Some fiery fop, with new commission vain,
Who sleeps in brambles till he kills his man--
Some frolic drunkard reeling from a feast,
Provokes a broil and stabs you for a jest.
Yet even these heroes mischievously gay,
Lords of the street and terrors of the way,
Flushed as they are with folly, youth, and wine,
Their prudent insults to the poor confine:
Afar they mark the flambeau's bright approach,
And shun the shining train and golden coach."
The occupations of a young lady--not a lady of the highest fashion--of
this time are given by a contemporary writer. He says that she makes
tippets, works handkerchiefs in catgut, collects shells, makes grottoes,
copies music, paints, cuts out figures and landscapes, and makes
screens. She dances a minuet or cotillion, and she can play ombre,
lansquenet, quadrille, and Pope Joan. These are frivolous
accomplishments, but the writer says nothing of the morning's work--the
distilling of creams, the confecting of cakes and puddings and sauces,
the needle-work, and all the useful things. When these were done, why
should not the poor girl show her accomplishments and taste in the
cutting out of landscapes with a pair of scissors?
They certainly did not always stay at home. In the summer they sometimes
went to Vauxhall, where the girls enjoyed the sight of the wicked world
as much as they liked, the singing and the supper and the punch that
followed.
We have quite lost the mug-house. This was a kind of music-hall, a large
room where only men were admitted, and where ale or stout was the only
drink consumed. Every man had his pipe; there was a president, a harp
was played at one end of the room, and out of the company present one
after the other stood up to sing. Between the songs there were toasts
and speeches, sometimes of a political kind, and the people drank to
each other from table to table.
It was a great fighting time. Every man who went abroad knew that he
might have to fight to defend himself against footpad or bully. Most men
carried a stout stick. When Dr. Johnson heard that a man had threatened
to horsewhip him, he ordered a thick cudgel and was easy in his mind.
There were no police, and therefore a man had to fight. It cannot be
doubted that the martial spirit of the country, which during the whole
century was extraordinary, was greatly maintained by the practice of
fighting, which prevailed alike in all ranks. Too much order is not all
pure gain. If we have got rid of the Mohocks and street scourers, we
have lost a good deal of that readiness to fight which firmly met those
Mohocks and made them fly.
I suppose that one can become accustomed to everything. But the gibbets
which one saw stuck up everywhere, along the Edgeware Road, on the
river-side, on Blackheath, on Hampstead Heath, or Kennington Common,
must have been an unpleasing sight. Some of the gibbets remained until
early in this century.
[Illustration: VAUXHALL]
The subject of beer is of world-wide importance. It must be understood
that all through the century the mystery of brewing was continually
advancing. We finally shook off the heresies of broom, bay-berries, and
ivy-berries as flavoring things for beer; we perfected the manufacture
of stout. There sprang up during the century what hardly existed
before--a critical feeling for beer. It may be found in the poets and
in the novelists. Goldsmith has it; Fielding has it. There were over
fifty brewers in London, where, as a national drink, it entirely
displaced wine. The inns vied with each other in the excellence of their
tap,
"Where the Red Lion, staring o'er the way,
Invites each passing stranger that can pay;
Where Calvert's broth and Parsons' black champagne
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane."
There were many houses where every night there was singing and playing,
to the accompaniment of beer alone; and there was at least one famous
debating club--the Robin Hood--where stout was the only drink
permissible.
Here are one or two notes of domestic interest. The washing of the house
was always done at home. And, which was a very curious custom, the
washer-woman began her work at midnight. Why this was so ordered, I know
not; but there must have been some reason. During the many wars of the
century wheat went up to an incredible price. One year it was 104s. a
quarter, so that bread was three times as dear as it is at present.
Housewives in those times cut their bread with their own hands, and kept
it until it was stale. If you wanted a place under Government, you could
buy one; the sum of £500 would get you a comfortable berth in the
Victualling Office, for instance, where the perquisites, pickings, and
bribes for contracts made the service worth having. Members of
Parliament, who had the privilege of franking letters, sometimes sold
the right for £300 a year. Ale-houses were marked by chequers on the
door-post--to this day the Chequers is a common tavern sign. Bakers had
a lattice at their doors. All tradesmen--not servants only, but master
tradesmen--asked for Christmas-boxes. The Fleet weddings went on
merrily. There was great feasting on the occasion of a wedding, duly
conducted in the parish church. On the day of the wedding the bridegroom
himself waited on bride and guests.
If the married couple were city people, they were regaled after the
ceremony with the marrow-bones and cleavers--perhaps the most delectable
music ever invented. It was also costly, because the musicians wanted
drink, and plenty of it, as well as money.
Nothing seems grander than to hear of a city illuminated in honor of a
victory or peace, or the King's birthday. For the most part, however,
the grand illumination consisted of nothing but a thin candle stuck in a
lump of clay in the window.
In the days before the policeman there was a good deal of
rough-and-ready justice done in the streets--pickpockets were held under
the pump till they were half-dead; informers were pelted through the
streets, tarred, and feathered; those worthy citizens who beat their
wives were serenaded with pots and pans, and had to endure the cries of
indignant matrons. The stocks were always in view; the pillory was
constantly in use. Now, the pillory was essentially punishment by the
people; if they sympathized with the culprit, he escaped even disgrace;
if they condemned him, addled eggs, rotten potatoes, turnips, dead cats,
mud and filth, flying in his face, proclaimed aloud the opinion of the
people.
One thing more--the universal patten. When women went abroad all wore
pattens; it was a sensible fashion in days of bad pavements and muddy
crossings, as Gay wrote kindly, yet with doubtful philology:
"The patten now supports each frugal dame,
Which from the blue-eyed Patty takes the name."
There was also great expense and ostentation observed at funerals; every
little shopkeeper, it was observed, must have a hearse and half a dozen
mourning-coaches to be carried a hundred yards to the parish
church-yard. They were often conducted at night, in order to set off the
ceremony by hired mourners bearing flambeaux.
The amount of flogging in the army and navy is appalling to think of.
That carried on ashore is a subject of some obscurity. The punishment of
whipping has never been taken out of our laws. Garroters, and robbers
who are violent are still flogged, and boys are birched. I know not when
they ceased to flog men through the streets at the cart-tail, nor when
they left off flogging women. The practice certainly continued well into
the century. In the prisons it was a common thing to flog the men. As
for the severity of the laws protecting property, one illustration will
suffice. What can be thought of laws which allowed the hanging of two
children for stealing a purse with two shillings and a brass counter in
it? Something, however, may be said for Father Stick. He ordered
everything, directed everything, superintended everything. Without him
nothing was ever done; nothing could be done. Men were flogged into
drill and discipline, they were flogged into courage, they were flogged
into obedience, boys were flogged into learning, prentices were flogged
into diligence, women were flogged into virtue. Father Stick has still
his disciples, but in the last century he was king.
We have spoken of station and order. It must be remembered that there
was then no pretence of a clerk, or any one of that kind, calling
himself a gentleman. Steele, however, notes the attempts made by small
people to dub themselves esquire, and says we shall soon be a nation of
_armigeri_. The Georgian clerk was a servant--the servant of his master,
and a very faithful servant, too, for the most part. His services were
rewarded at a rate of pay varying from £20 to £100 a year. A clerk in a
Government office seldom got more than £50, but some of them had chances
of a kind which we now call dishonest. In other words, they took
perquisites, commissions, considerations, and bribes.
I have said, elsewhere, that the London craftsman sank about this time
to the lowest level he has ever reached. In the City itself, as we have
seen, he was carefully looked after. Each little parish consisted of two
or three streets, where every resident was well known. But already the
narrow bounds of the Freedom had pushed out the people more and more.
The masters--the merchants and retailers--still remained; those who were
pushed out were the craftsmen. When they left the City they not only
left the parish where all were friends--all, at least, belonging to the
same ship's crew; where there was a kindly feeling towards the poor;
where the boys and girls were taught the ways of virtue and the
Catechism--they left the company, to which they were no longer
apprenticed, and which became nothing but a rich company of masters or
men unconnected with the trade; they left the Church; they left the
school; they left all the charities, helps, encouragements which had
formerly belonged to them. They went to Whitechapel, to St. Katherine's
Precinct, to Spital Fields, to Clerkenwell. They lived by themselves,
knowing no law except the law of necessity, and they drank--drank--drank.
No energetic vicar, no active young curate, no deaconess, no Sister, no
Bible-woman ventured among them. They went forth in the morning to their
work, and in the evening they returned home to their dens. We read about
these people in Fielding, Smollett, Colquhoun, Eden, and others; we see
what they were like in Hogarth. Their very brutality rendered them
harmless. Had they been a little less brutal, a little more
intelligent--had they been like the lower sort of Parisian, there might
have been a revolution in this country with brutalities as bad as any
that marked the first act in that great drama played between 1792 and
1815.
[Illustration: SIR JOHN FIELDING'S COURT, BOW STREET]
The seamy side of London in the last century has been laid bare by one
writer after another. Because it seems more picturesque than the daily
humdrum life of honest folk it is always chosen in preference to the
latter. Gentlemen who live by their wits are common in every age; they
adorn the Victorian as much as the Elizabethan period. The rogue is
always with us. There are, however, as we have seen, varieties belonging
to each period. Thus the kidnapper, who has now left these islands, was
formerly a very common variety of rogue. He was sometimes called crimp,
sometimes kidnapper, and his trade was the procuring of recruits. In
time of war he enlisted for the army and the navy, and in time of peace
for the merchant service and the East India Company's. He carried on his
business with all the tricks and dodges which suggested themselves to an
ingenious mind, but his favorite way of working was this: He prowled
about places where young countrymen might be found. One presently
appeared who had come to town on business or for amusement. He lent a
willing ear to the courteous and friendly stranger who so kindly advised
him as to the sights and the dangers of the wicked town. He readily
followed when the stranger proposed a glass in an honest tavern, which
could be highly recommended. He sat down without suspicion in a parlor
where there were two or three of the right sort, together with two
gallant fellows in uniforms, sergeants of the grenadiers, or bo's'ns in
the E. I. C. service. He listened while these heroes recounted their
deeds of valor; he listened with open mouth; and, alas! he drank with
open mouth as well. Presently he became so inflamed with the liquor that
he acceded to the sergeant's invitation, and took the bounty money then
and there. If he did not, he drank on until he was speechless. When he
recovered next day, his friend--the courteous stranger of the day
before--was present to remind him that he had enlisted, that the bounty
money was in his pocket, and that the cockade was on his hat. If he
resisted he was hauled before a magistrate, the sergeants being ready to
prove that he voluntarily enlisted. This done, he was conducted to a
crimp's house, of which there were many in different parts of London,
and there kept until he could be put on board or taken to some military
depot. In the house, which was barred and locked like a prison, he was
regaled with rum which kept him stupid and senseless. Should he try to
escape, he was charged with robbery and hanged.