There appears always to have been a radical element in Chelsea, for a
large contingent met on Chelsea Common and marched to Kennington Common
to give the Dorsetshire Labourers, Frost, Williams, and Jones, a grand
reception on their return from imprisonment. They were drawn by four
horses in a hackney carriage with outriders, and followed by a large
number of vehicles occupied by their admirers, and a large crowd, when a
meeting was held on Kennington Common, and violent speeches were made.
The crowd became very disorderly, some ugly rushes were made, and the few
police and constables who were there got very roughly handled, and in one
of the scrimmages a policeman's top hat was knocked off, and got kicked,
and I had a kick at it--what boy would not do so? In the excitement,
anyhow, I got collared, and was being dragged away when a rush was made,
the police upset, and we all rolled in the mud together, and I got away.
More police came up and began to hunt the crowd, and made many arrests.
I, in one of the crowds, rushed down a mews at the back of the houses in
the Kennington Road. As I was without a cap, and covered in mud and my
face was bleeding, it was thought they were after me, so I was picked
bodily up and pitched over the wall into a lilac bush in one of the long
gardens, and I slid down on to a stone garden roller on which I sat,
pretty well dazed and thoroughly done up. I do not think I was noticed
by the people in the house, for I sat there some considerable time, when
some children from an upper window noticed me. Soon after, an old
gentleman in a dressing gown and a scarlet smoking cap and two or three
ladies appeared on a sort of verandah at the back of the house, and had a
good look at me, but did not attempt to come down in the garden.
Presently two men came up the steps from the kitchen under the verandah,
one of them dressed as a groom, and the other in his shirt sleeves and a
big rough hairy cap on, who I found afterwards was the potman at the
White Bear Tavern opposite, while the other was the doctor's groom, who
lived two or three doors higher up the road, who had been fetched in to
arrest me. They brought me up into the hall at the bottom of the kitchen
stairs, and the old gentleman began to question how I got into such a
scrape, and where I came from. When I told him I came from Chelsea near
the Hospital, he asked if I knew any of the officers, and as I mentioned
several of them by name that he knew; he told me he was a retired army
surgeon. I was allowed to go into the scullery to have a wash and brush
the mud off, and it was suggested by the potman that I had better stop
until it was dark for fear I should be known, and as I had no cap he went
off to his mistress and begged an old one belonging to one of her boys,
who had just gone back to school. As soon as it was dark I was let up
the area steps and started home and went to bed saying nothing about it,
but felt awfully sore and bad.
In speaking of the King's Road I forgot to mention a very famous pump
which stood opposite the "Six Bells," close to the old burial ground, and
that had the reputation of giving the most transparent and sparkling
water that was to be obtained, which was fetched from far and near. The
boys used to play some trick by placing a large stone up the curved
nozzle, so that when the servants came with their jugs and began to pump
it would send out the stone and through the bottoms of the jugs. It got
complained of, and the parish put a grating which stopped that little
game. The reputation of the water went on till some wag asserted that a
human tooth had been pumped up and found its way to the water bottle on
the dressing table. It then began to dawn on the authorities that it
might not be so wholesome as reported, and the handle of the old pump was
chained up, and soon after the road was widened by taking a part of the
burial ground, and the old pump was done away with.