CHAPTER XXV—A VISIT TO NEWGATE

‘The force of habit’ is a trite phrase in everybody’s mouth; and it is

not a little remarkable that those who use it most as applied to

others, unconsciously afford in their own persons singular examples of

the power which habit and custom exercise over the minds of men, and of

the little reflection they are apt to bestow on subjects with which

every day’s experience has rendered them familiar. If Bedlam could be

suddenly removed like another Aladdin’s palace, and set down on the

space now occupied by Newgate, scarcely one man out of a hundred, whose

road to business every morning lies through Newgate-street, or the Old

Bailey, would pass the building without bestowing a hasty glance on its

small, grated windows, and a transient thought upon the condition of

the unhappy beings immured in its dismal cells; and yet these same men,

day by day, and hour by hour, pass and repass this gloomy depository of

the guilt and misery of London, in one perpetual stream of life and

bustle, utterly unmindful of the throng of wretched creatures pent up

within it—nay, not even knowing, or if they do, not heeding, the fact,

that as they pass one particular angle of the massive wall with a light

laugh or a merry whistle, they stand within one yard of a

fellow-creature, bound and helpless, whose hours are numbered, from

whom the last feeble ray of hope has fled for ever, and whose miserable

career will shortly terminate in a violent and shameful death. Contact

with death even in its least terrible shape, is solemn and appalling.

How much more awful is it to reflect on this near vicinity to the

dying—to men in full health and vigour, in the flower of youth or the

prime of life, with all their faculties and perceptions as acute and

perfect as your own; but dying, nevertheless—dying as surely—with the

hand of death imprinted upon them as indelibly—as if mortal disease had

wasted their frames to shadows, and corruption had already begun!

It was with some such thoughts as these that we determined, not many

weeks since, to visit the interior of Newgate—in an amateur capacity,

of course; and, having carried our intention into effect, we proceed to

lay its results before our readers, in the hope—founded more upon the

nature of the subject, than on any presumptuous confidence in our own

descriptive powers—that this paper may not be found wholly devoid of

interest. We have only to premise, that we do not intend to fatigue the

reader with any statistical accounts of the prison; they will be found

at length in numerous reports of numerous committees, and a variety of

authorities of equal weight. We took no notes, made no memoranda,

measured none of the yards, ascertained the exact number of inches in

no particular room: are unable even to report of how many apartments

the gaol is composed.

We saw the prison, and saw the prisoners; and what we did see, and what

we thought, we will tell at once in our own way.

Having delivered our credentials to the servant who answered our knock

at the door of the governor’s house, we were ushered into the ‘office;’

a little room, on the right-hand side as you enter, with two windows

looking into the Old Bailey: fitted up like an ordinary attorney’s

office, or merchant’s counting-house, with the usual fixtures—a

wainscoted partition, a shelf or two, a desk, a couple of stools, a

pair of clerks, an almanack, a clock, and a few maps. After a little

delay, occasioned by sending into the interior of the prison for the

officer whose duty it was to conduct us, that functionary arrived; a

respectable-looking man of about two or three and fifty, in a

broad-brimmed hat, and full suit of black, who, but for his keys, would

have looked quite as much like a clergyman as a turnkey. We were

disappointed; he had not even top-boots on. Following our conductor by

a door opposite to that at which we had entered, we arrived at a small

room, without any other furniture than a little desk, with a book for

visitors’ autographs, and a shelf, on which were a few boxes for

papers, and casts of the heads and faces of the two notorious

murderers, Bishop and Williams; the former, in particular, exhibiting a

style of head and set of features, which might have afforded sufficient

moral grounds for his instant execution at any time, even had there

been no other evidence against him. Leaving this room also, by an

opposite door, we found ourself in the lodge which opens on the Old

Bailey; one side of which is plentifully garnished with a choice

collection of heavy sets of irons, including those worn by the

redoubtable Jack Sheppard—genuine; and those _said_ to have been graced

by the sturdy limbs of the no less celebrated Dick Turpin—doubtful.

From this lodge, a heavy oaken gate, bound with iron, studded with

nails of the same material, and guarded by another turnkey, opens on a

few steps, if we remember right, which terminate in a narrow and dismal

stone passage, running parallel with the Old Bailey, and leading to the

different yards, through a number of tortuous and intricate windings,

guarded in their turn by huge gates and gratings, whose appearance is

sufficient to dispel at once the slightest hope of escape that any

new-comer may have entertained; and the very recollection of which, on

eventually traversing the place again, involves one in a maze of

confusion.

It is necessary to explain here, that the buildings in the prison, or

in other words the different wards—form a square, of which the four

sides abut respectively on the Old Bailey, the old College of

Physicians (now forming a part of Newgate-market), the Sessions-house,

and Newgate-street. The intermediate space is divided into several

paved yards, in which the prisoners take such air and exercise as can

be had in such a place. These yards, with the exception of that in

which prisoners under sentence of death are confined (of which we shall

presently give a more detailed description), run parallel with

Newgate-street, and consequently from the Old Bailey, as it were, to

Newgate-market. The women’s side is in the right wing of the prison

nearest the Sessions-house. As we were introduced into this part of the

building first, we will adopt the same order, and introduce our readers

to it also.

Turning to the right, then, down the passage to which we just now

adverted, omitting any mention of intervening gates—for if we noticed

every gate that was unlocked for us to pass through, and locked again

as soon as we had passed, we should require a gate at every comma—we

came to a door composed of thick bars of wood, through which were

discernible, passing to and fro in a narrow yard, some twenty women:

the majority of whom, however, as soon as they were aware of the

presence of strangers, retreated to their wards. One side of this yard

is railed off at a considerable distance, and formed into a kind of

iron cage, about five feet ten inches in height, roofed at the top, and

defended in front by iron bars, from which the friends of the female

prisoners communicate with them. In one corner of this singular-looking

den, was a yellow, haggard, decrepit old woman, in a tattered gown that

had once been black, and the remains of an old straw bonnet, with faded

ribbon of the same hue, in earnest conversation with a young girl—a

prisoner, of course—of about two-and-twenty. It is impossible to

imagine a more poverty-stricken object, or a creature so borne down in

soul and body, by excess of misery and destitution, as the old woman.

The girl was a good-looking, robust female, with a profusion of hair

streaming about in the wind—for she had no bonnet on—and a man’s silk

pocket-handkerchief loosely thrown over a most ample pair of shoulders.

The old woman was talking in that low, stifled tone of voice which

tells so forcibly of mental anguish; and every now and then burst into

an irrepressible sharp, abrupt cry of grief, the most distressing sound

that ears can hear. The girl was perfectly unmoved. Hardened beyond all

hope of redemption, she listened doggedly to her mother’s entreaties,

whatever they were: and, beyond inquiring after ‘Jem,’ and eagerly

catching at the few halfpence her miserable parent had brought her,

took no more apparent interest in the conversation than the most

unconcerned spectators. Heaven knows there were enough of them, in the

persons of the other prisoners in the yard, who were no more concerned

by what was passing before their eyes, and within their hearing, than

if they were blind and deaf. Why should they be? Inside the prison, and

out, such scenes were too familiar to them, to excite even a passing

thought, unless of ridicule or contempt for feelings which they had

long since forgotten.

A little farther on, a squalid-looking woman in a slovenly,

thick-bordered cap, with her arms muffled in a large red shawl, the

fringed ends of which straggled nearly to the bottom of a dirty white

apron, was communicating some instructions to _her_ visitor—her

daughter evidently. The girl was thinly clad, and shaking with the

cold. Some ordinary word of recognition passed between her and her

mother when she appeared at the grating, but neither hope, condolence,

regret, nor affection was expressed on either side. The mother

whispered her instructions, and the girl received them with her

pinched-up, half-starved features twisted into an expression of careful

cunning. It was some scheme for the woman’s defence that she was

disclosing, perhaps; and a sullen smile came over the girl’s face for

an instant, as if she were pleased: not so much at the probability of

her mother’s liberation, as at the chance of her ‘getting off’ in spite

of her prosecutors. The dialogue was soon concluded; and with the same

careless indifference with which they had approached each other, the

mother turned towards the inner end of the yard, and the girl to the

gate at which she had entered.

The girl belonged to a class—unhappily but too extensive—the very

existence of which, should make men’s hearts bleed. Barely past her

childhood, it required but a glance to discover that she was one of

those children, born and bred in neglect and vice, who have never known

what childhood is: who have never been taught to love and court a

parent’s smile, or to dread a parent’s frown. The thousand nameless

endearments of childhood, its gaiety and its innocence, are alike

unknown to them. They have entered at once upon the stern realities and

miseries of life, and to their better nature it is almost hopeless to

appeal in after-times, by any of the references which will awaken, if

it be only for a moment, some good feeling in ordinary bosoms, however

corrupt they may have become. Talk to _them_ of parental solicitude,

the happy days of childhood, and the merry games of infancy! Tell them

of hunger and the streets, beggary and stripes, the gin-shop, the

station-house, and the pawnbroker’s, and they will understand you.

Two or three women were standing at different parts of the grating,

conversing with their friends, but a very large proportion of the

prisoners appeared to have no friends at all, beyond such of their old

companions as might happen to be within the walls. So, passing hastily

down the yard, and pausing only for an instant to notice the little

incidents we have just recorded, we were conducted up a clean and

well-lighted flight of stone stairs to one of the wards. There are

several in this part of the building, but a description of one is a

description of the whole.

It was a spacious, bare, whitewashed apartment, lighted, of course, by

windows looking into the interior of the prison, but far more light and

airy than one could reasonably expect to find in such a situation.

There was a large fire with a deal table before it, round which ten or

a dozen women were seated on wooden forms at dinner. Along both sides

of the room ran a shelf; below it, at regular intervals, a row of large

hooks were fixed in the wall, on each of which was hung the sleeping

mat of a prisoner: her rug and blanket being folded up, and placed on

the shelf above. At night, these mats are placed on the floor, each

beneath the hook on which it hangs during the day; and the ward is thus

made to answer the purposes both of a day-room and sleeping apartment.

Over the fireplace, was a large sheet of pasteboard, on which were

displayed a variety of texts from Scripture, which were also scattered

about the room in scraps about the size and shape of the copy-slips

which are used in schools. On the table was a sufficient provision of a

kind of stewed beef and brown bread, in pewter dishes, which are kept

perfectly bright, and displayed on shelves in great order and

regularity when they are not in use.

The women rose hastily, on our entrance, and retired in a hurried

manner to either side of the fireplace. They were all cleanly—many of

them decently—attired, and there was nothing peculiar, either in their

appearance or demeanour. One or two resumed the needlework which they

had probably laid aside at the commencement of their meal; others gazed

at the visitors with listless curiosity; and a few retired behind their

companions to the very end of the room, as if desirous to avoid even

the casual observation of the strangers. Some old Irish women, both in

this and other wards, to whom the thing was no novelty, appeared

perfectly indifferent to our presence, and remained standing close to

the seats from which they had just risen; but the general feeling among

the females seemed to be one of uneasiness during the period of our

stay among them: which was very brief. Not a word was uttered during

the time of our remaining, unless, indeed, by the wardswoman in reply

to some question which we put to the turnkey who accompanied us. In

every ward on the female side, a wardswoman is appointed to preserve

order, and a similar regulation is adopted among the males. The

wardsmen and wardswomen are all prisoners, selected for good conduct.

They alone are allowed the privilege of sleeping on bedsteads; a small

stump bedstead being placed in every ward for that purpose. On both

sides of the gaol, is a small receiving-room, to which prisoners are

conducted on their first reception, and whence they cannot be removed

until they have been examined by the surgeon of the prison. [161]

Retracing our steps to the dismal passage in which we found ourselves

at first (and which, by-the-bye, contains three or four dark cells for

the accommodation of refractory prisoners), we were led through a

narrow yard to the ‘school’—a portion of the prison set apart for boys

under fourteen years of age. In a tolerable-sized room, in which were

writing-materials and some copy-books, was the schoolmaster, with a

couple of his pupils; the remainder having been fetched from an

adjoining apartment, the whole were drawn up in line for our

inspection. There were fourteen of them in all, some with shoes, some

without; some in pinafores without jackets, others in jackets without

pinafores, and one in scarce anything at all. The whole number, without

an exception we believe, had been committed for trial on charges of

pocket-picking; and fourteen such terrible little faces we never

beheld.—There was not one redeeming feature among them—not a glance of

honesty—not a wink expressive of anything but the gallows and the

hulks, in the whole collection. As to anything like shame or

contrition, that was entirely out of the question. They were evidently

quite gratified at being thought worth the trouble of looking at; their

idea appeared to be, that we had come to see Newgate as a grand affair,

and that they were an indispensable part of the show; and every boy as

he ‘fell in’ to the line, actually seemed as pleased and important as

if he had done something excessively meritorious in getting there at

all. We never looked upon a more disagreeable sight, because we never

saw fourteen such hopeless creatures of neglect, before.

On either side of the school-yard is a yard for men, in one of

which—that towards Newgate-street—prisoners of the more respectable

class are confined. Of the other, we have little description to offer,

as the different wards necessarily partake of the same character. They

are provided, like the wards on the women’s side, with mats and rugs,

which are disposed of in the same manner during the day; the only very

striking difference between their appearance and that of the wards

inhabited by the females, is the utter absence of any employment.

Huddled together on two opposite forms, by the fireside, sit twenty men

perhaps; here, a boy in livery; there, a man in a rough great-coat and

top-boots; farther on, a desperate-looking fellow in his shirt-sleeves,

with an old Scotch cap upon his shaggy head; near him again, a tall

ruffian, in a smock-frock; next to him, a miserable being of distressed

appearance, with his head resting on his hand;—all alike in one

respect, all idle and listless. When they do leave the fire, sauntering

moodily about, lounging in the window, or leaning against the wall,

vacantly swinging their bodies to and fro. With the exception of a man

reading an old newspaper, in two or three instances, this was the case

in every ward we entered.

The only communication these men have with their friends, is through

two close iron gratings, with an intermediate space of about a yard in

width between the two, so that nothing can be handed across, nor can

the prisoner have any communication by touch with the person who visits

him. The married men have a separate grating, at which to see their

wives, but its construction is the same.

The prison chapel is situated at the back of the governor’s house: the

latter having no windows looking into the interior of the prison.

Whether the associations connected with the place—the knowledge that

here a portion of the burial service is, on some dreadful occasions,

performed over the quick and not upon the dead—cast over it a still

more gloomy and sombre air than art has imparted to it, we know not,

but its appearance is very striking. There is something in a silent and

deserted place of worship, solemn and impressive at any time; and the

very dissimilarity of this one from any we have been accustomed to,

only enhances the impression. The meanness of its appointments—the bare

and scanty pulpit, with the paltry painted pillars on either side—the

women’s gallery with its great heavy curtain—the men’s with its

unpainted benches and dingy front—the tottering little table at the

altar, with the commandments on the wall above it, scarcely legible

through lack of paint, and dust and damp—so unlike the velvet and

gilding, the marble and wood, of a modern church—are strange and

striking. There is one object, too, which rivets the attention and

fascinates the gaze, and from which we may turn horror-stricken in

vain, for the recollection of it will haunt us, waking and sleeping,

for a long time afterwards. Immediately below the reading-desk, on the

floor of the chapel, and forming the most conspicuous object in its

little area, is _the condemned pew_; a huge black pen, in which the

wretched people, who are singled out for death, are placed on the

Sunday preceding their execution, in sight of all their

fellow-prisoners, from many of whom they may have been separated but a

week before, to hear prayers for their own souls, to join in the

responses of their own burial service, and to listen to an address,

warning their recent companions to take example by their fate, and

urging themselves, while there is yet time—nearly four-and-twenty

hours—to ‘turn, and flee from the wrath to come!’ Imagine what have

been the feelings of the men whom that fearful pew has enclosed, and of

whom, between the gallows and the knife, no mortal remnant may now

remain! Think of the hopeless clinging to life to the last, and the

wild despair, far exceeding in anguish the felon’s death itself, by

which they have heard the certainty of their speedy transmission to

another world, with all their crimes upon their heads, rung into their

ears by the officiating clergyman!

At one time—and at no distant period either—the coffins of the men

about to be executed, were placed in that pew, upon the seat by their

side, during the whole service. It may seem incredible, but it is true.

Let us hope that the increased spirit of civilisation and humanity

which abolished this frightful and degrading custom, may extend itself

to other usages equally barbarous; usages which have not even the plea

of utility in their defence, as every year’s experience has shown them

to be more and more inefficacious.

Leaving the chapel, descending to the passage so frequently alluded to,

and crossing the yard before noticed as being allotted to prisoners of

a more respectable description than the generality of men confined

here, the visitor arrives at a thick iron gate of great size and

strength. Having been admitted through it by the turnkey on duty, he

turns sharp round to the left, and pauses before another gate; and,

having passed this last barrier, he stands in the most terrible part of

this gloomy building—the condemned ward.

The press-yard, well known by name to newspaper readers, from its

frequent mention in accounts of executions, is at the corner of the

building, and next to the ordinary’s house, in Newgate-street: running

from Newgate-street, towards the centre of the prison, parallel with

Newgate-market. It is a long, narrow court, of which a portion of the

wall in Newgate-street forms one end, and the gate the other. At the

upper end, on the left hand—that is, adjoining the wall in

Newgate-street—is a cistern of water, and at the bottom a double

grating (of which the gate itself forms a part) similar to that before

described. Through these grates the prisoners are allowed to see their

friends; a turnkey always remaining in the vacant space between, during

the whole interview. Immediately on the right as you enter, is a

building containing the press-room, day-room, and cells; the yard is on

every side surrounded by lofty walls guarded by _chevaux de frise_; and

the whole is under the constant inspection of vigilant and experienced

turnkeys.

In the first apartment into which we were conducted—which was at the

top of a staircase, and immediately over the press-room—were

five-and-twenty or thirty prisoners, all under sentence of death,

awaiting the result of the recorder’s report—men of all ages and

appearances, from a hardened old offender with swarthy face and grizzly

beard of three days’ growth, to a handsome boy, not fourteen years old,

and of singularly youthful appearance even for that age, who had been

condemned for burglary. There was nothing remarkable in the appearance

of these prisoners. One or two decently-dressed men were brooding with

a dejected air over the fire; several little groups of two or three had

been engaged in conversation at the upper end of the room, or in the

windows; and the remainder were crowded round a young man seated at a

table, who appeared to be engaged in teaching the younger ones to

write. The room was large, airy, and clean. There was very little

anxiety or mental suffering depicted in the countenance of any of the

men;—they had all been sentenced to death, it is true, and the

recorder’s report had not yet been made; but, we question whether there

was a man among them, notwithstanding, who did not _know_ that although

he had undergone the ceremony, it never was intended that his life

should be sacrificed. On the table lay a Testament, but there were no

tokens of its having been in recent use.

In the press-room below, were three men, the nature of whose offence

rendered it necessary to separate them, even from their companions in

guilt. It is a long, sombre room, with two windows sunk into the stone

wall, and here the wretched men are pinioned on the morning of their

execution, before moving towards the scaffold. The fate of one of these

prisoners was uncertain; some mitigatory circumstances having come to

light since his trial, which had been humanely represented in the

proper quarter. The other two had nothing to expect from the mercy of

the crown; their doom was sealed; no plea could be urged in extenuation

of their crime, and they well knew that for them there was no hope in

this world. ‘The two short ones,’ the turnkey whispered, ‘were dead

men.’

The man to whom we have alluded as entertaining some hopes of escape,

was lounging, at the greatest distance he could place between himself

and his companions, in the window nearest to the door. He was probably

aware of our approach, and had assumed an air of courageous

indifference; his face was purposely averted towards the window, and he

stirred not an inch while we were present. The other two men were at

the upper end of the room. One of them, who was imperfectly seen in the

dim light, had his back towards us, and was stooping over the fire,

with his right arm on the mantel-piece, and his head sunk upon it. The

other was leaning on the sill of the farthest window. The light fell

full upon him, and communicated to his pale, haggard face, and

disordered hair, an appearance which, at that distance, was ghastly.

His cheek rested upon his hand; and, with his face a little raised, and

his eyes wildly staring before him, he seemed to be unconsciously

intent on counting the chinks in the opposite wall. We passed this room

again afterwards. The first man was pacing up and down the court with a

firm military step—he had been a soldier in the foot-guards—and a cloth

cap jauntily thrown on one side of his head. He bowed respectfully to

our conductor, and the salute was returned. The other two still

remained in the positions we have described, and were as motionless as

statues. [165]

A few paces up the yard, and forming a continuation of the building, in

which are the two rooms we have just quitted, lie the condemned cells.

The entrance is by a narrow and obscure stair-case leading to a dark

passage, in which a charcoal stove casts a lurid tint over the objects

in its immediate vicinity, and diffuses something like warmth around.

From the left-hand side of this passage, the massive door of every cell

on the story opens; and from it alone can they be approached. There are

three of these passages, and three of these ranges of cells, one above

the other; but in size, furniture and appearance, they are all

precisely alike. Prior to the recorder’s report being made, all the

prisoners under sentence of death are removed from the day-room at five

o’clock in the afternoon, and locked up in these cells, where they are

allowed a candle until ten o’clock; and here they remain until seven

next morning. When the warrant for a prisoner’s execution arrives, he

is removed to the cells and confined in one of them until he leaves it

for the scaffold. He is at liberty to walk in the yard; but, both in

his walks and in his cell, he is constantly attended by a turnkey who

never leaves him on any pretence.

We entered the first cell. It was a stone dungeon, eight feet long by

six wide, with a bench at the upper end, under which were a common rug,

a bible, and prayer-book. An iron candlestick was fixed into the wall

at the side; and a small high window in the back admitted as much air

and light as could struggle in between a double row of heavy, crossed

iron bars. It contained no other furniture of any description.

Conceive the situation of a man, spending his last night on earth in

this cell. Buoyed up with some vague and undefined hope of reprieve, he

knew not why—indulging in some wild and visionary idea of escaping, he

knew not how—hour after hour of the three preceding days allowed him

for preparation, has fled with a speed which no man living would deem

possible, for none but this dying man can know. He has wearied his

friends with entreaties, exhausted the attendants with importunities,

neglected in his feverish restlessness the timely warnings of his

spiritual consoler; and, now that the illusion is at last dispelled,

now that eternity is before him and guilt behind, now that his fears of

death amount almost to madness, and an overwhelming sense of his

helpless, hopeless state rushes upon him, he is lost and stupefied, and

has neither thoughts to turn to, nor power to call upon, the Almighty

Being, from whom alone he can seek mercy and forgiveness, and before

whom his repentance can alone avail.

Hours have glided by, and still he sits upon the same stone bench with

folded arms, heedless alike of the fast decreasing time before him, and

the urgent entreaties of the good man at his side. The feeble light is

wasting gradually, and the deathlike stillness of the street without,

broken only by the rumbling of some passing vehicle which echoes

mournfully through the empty yards, warns him that the night is waning

fast away. The deep bell of St. Paul’s strikes—one! He heard it; it has

roused him. Seven hours left! He paces the narrow limits of his cell

with rapid strides, cold drops of terror starting on his forehead, and

every muscle of his frame quivering with agony. Seven hours! He suffers

himself to be led to his seat, mechanically takes the bible which is

placed in his hand, and tries to read and listen. No: his thoughts will

wander. The book is torn and soiled by use—and like the book he read

his lessons in, at school, just forty years ago! He has never bestowed

a thought upon it, perhaps, since he left it as a child: and yet the

place, the time, the room—nay, the very boys he played with, crowd as

vividly before him as if they were scenes of yesterday; and some

forgotten phrase, some childish word, rings in his ears like the echo

of one uttered but a minute since. The voice of the clergyman recalls

him to himself. He is reading from the sacred book its solemn promises

of pardon for repentance, and its awful denunciation of obdurate men.

He falls upon his knees and clasps his hands to pray. Hush! what sound

was that? He starts upon his feet. It cannot be two yet. Hark! Two

quarters have struck;—the third—the fourth. It is! Six hours left. Tell

him not of repentance! Six hours’ repentance for eight times six years

of guilt and sin! He buries his face in his hands, and throws himself

on the bench.

Worn with watching and excitement, he sleeps, and the same unsettled

state of mind pursues him in his dreams. An insupportable load is taken

from his breast; he is walking with his wife in a pleasant field, with

the bright sky above them, and a fresh and boundless prospect on every

side—how different from the stone walls of Newgate! She is looking—not

as she did when he saw her for the last time in that dreadful place,

but as she used when he loved her—long, long ago, before misery and

ill-treatment had altered her looks, and vice had changed his nature,

and she is leaning upon his arm, and looking up into his face with

tenderness and affection—and he does _not_ strike her now, nor rudely

shake her from him. And oh! how glad he is to tell her all he had

forgotten in that last hurried interview, and to fall on his knees

before her and fervently beseech her pardon for all the unkindness and

cruelty that wasted her form and broke her heart! The scene suddenly

changes. He is on his trial again: there are the judge and jury, and

prosecutors, and witnesses, just as they were before. How full the

court is—what a sea of heads—with a gallows, too, and a scaffold—and

how all those people stare at _him_! Verdict, ‘Guilty.’ No matter; he

will escape.

The night is dark and cold, the gates have been left open, and in an

instant he is in the street, flying from the scene of his imprisonment

like the wind. The streets are cleared, the open fields are gained and

the broad, wide country lies before him. Onward he dashes in the midst

of darkness, over hedge and ditch, through mud and pool, bounding from

spot to spot with a speed and lightness, astonishing even to himself.

At length he pauses; he must be safe from pursuit now; he will stretch

himself on that bank and sleep till sunrise.

A period of unconsciousness succeeds. He wakes, cold and wretched. The

dull, gray light of morning is stealing into the cell, and falls upon

the form of the attendant turnkey. Confused by his dreams, he starts

from his uneasy bed in momentary uncertainty. It is but momentary.

Every object in the narrow cell is too frightfully real to admit of

doubt or mistake. He is the condemned felon again, guilty and

despairing; and in two hours more will be dead.

CHARACTERS

CHAPTER I—THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE

It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man

may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of any

single person; his existence is a matter of interest to no one save

himself; he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one

remembered him when he was alive. There is a numerous class of people

in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and

whom nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the

first instance, they have resorted to London in search of employment,

and the means of subsistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties

which bind us to our homes and friends, and harder still to efface the

thousand recollections of happy days and old times, which have been

slumbering in our bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind, to

bring before it associations connected with the friends we have left,

the scenes we have beheld too probably for the last time, and the hopes

we once cherished, but may entertain no more. These men, however,

happily for themselves, have long forgotten such thoughts. Old country

friends have died or emigrated; former correspondents have become lost,

like themselves, in the crowd and turmoil of some busy city; and they

have gradually settled down into mere passive creatures of habit and

endurance.

We were seated in the enclosure of St. James’s Park the other day, when

our attention was attracted by a man whom we immediately put down in

our own mind as one of this class. He was a tall, thin, pale person, in

a black coat, scanty gray trousers, little pinched-up gaiters, and

brown beaver gloves. He had an umbrella in his hand—not for use, for

the day was fine—but, evidently, because he always carried one to the

office in the morning. He walked up and down before the little patch of

grass on which the chairs are placed for hire, not as if he were doing

it for pleasure or recreation, but as if it were a matter of

compulsion, just as he would walk to the office every morning from the

back settlements of Islington. It was Monday; he had escaped for

four-and-twenty hours from the thraldom of the desk; and was walking

here for exercise and amusement—perhaps for the first time in his life.

We were inclined to think he had never had a holiday before, and that

he did not know what to do with himself. Children were playing on the

grass; groups of people were loitering about, chatting and laughing;

but the man walked steadily up and down, unheeding and unheeded his

spare, pale face looking as if it were incapable of bearing the

expression of curiosity or interest.

There was something in the man’s manner and appearance which told us,

we fancied, his whole life, or rather his whole day, for a man of this

sort has no variety of days. We thought we almost saw the dingy little

back office into which he walks every morning, hanging his hat on the

same peg, and placing his legs beneath the same desk: first, taking off

that black coat which lasts the year through, and putting on the one

which did duty last year, and which he keeps in his desk to save the

other. There he sits till five o’clock, working on, all day, as

regularly as the dial over the mantel-piece, whose loud ticking is as

monotonous as his whole existence: only raising his head when some one

enters the counting-house, or when, in the midst of some difficult

calculation, he looks up to the ceiling as if there were inspiration in

the dusty skylight with a green knot in the centre of every pane of

glass. About five, or half-past, he slowly dismounts from his

accustomed stool, and again changing his coat, proceeds to his usual

dining-place, somewhere near Bucklersbury. The waiter recites the bill

of fare in a rather confidential manner—for he is a regular

customer—and after inquiring ‘What’s in the best cut?’ and ‘What was up

last?’ he orders a small plate of roast beef, with greens, and

half-a-pint of porter. He has a small plate to-day, because greens are

a penny more than potatoes, and he had ‘two breads’ yesterday, with the

additional enormity of ‘a cheese’ the day before. This important point

settled, he hangs up his hat—he took it off the moment he sat down—and

bespeaks the paper after the next gentleman. If he can get it while he

is at dinner, he eats with much greater zest; balancing it against the

water-bottle, and eating a bit of beef, and reading a line or two,

alternately. Exactly at five minutes before the hour is up, he produces

a shilling, pays the reckoning, carefully deposits the change in his

waistcoat-pocket (first deducting a penny for the waiter), and returns

to the office, from which, if it is not foreign post night, he again

sallies forth, in about half an hour. He then walks home, at his usual

pace, to his little back room at Islington, where he has his tea;

perhaps solacing himself during the meal with the conversation of his

landlady’s little boy, whom he occasionally rewards with a penny, for

solving problems in simple addition. Sometimes, there is a letter or

two to take up to his employer’s, in Russell-square; and then, the

wealthy man of business, hearing his voice, calls out from the

dining-parlour,—‘Come in, Mr. Smith:’ and Mr. Smith, putting his hat at

the feet of one of the hall chairs, walks timidly in, and being

condescendingly desired to sit down, carefully tucks his legs under his

chair, and sits at a considerable distance from the table while he

drinks the glass of sherry which is poured out for him by the eldest

boy, and after drinking which, he backs and slides out of the room, in

a state of nervous agitation from which he does not perfectly recover,

until he finds himself once more in the Islington-road. Poor, harmless

creatures such men are; contented but not happy; broken-spirited and

humbled, they may feel no pain, but they never know pleasure.

Compare these men with another class of beings who, like them, have

neither friend nor companion, but whose position in society is the

result of their own choice. These are generally old fellows with white

heads and red faces, addicted to port wine and Hessian boots, who from

some cause, real or imaginary—generally the former, the excellent

reason being that they are rich, and their relations poor—grow

suspicious of everybody, and do the misanthropical in chambers, taking

great delight in thinking themselves unhappy, and making everybody they

come near, miserable. You may see such men as these, anywhere; you will

know them at coffee-houses by their discontented exclamations and the

luxury of their dinners; at theatres, by their always sitting in the

same place and looking with a jaundiced eye on all the young people

near them; at church, by the pomposity with which they enter, and the

loud tone in which they repeat the responses; at parties, by their

getting cross at whist and hating music. An old fellow of this kind

will have his chambers splendidly furnished, and collect books, plate,

and pictures about him in profusion; not so much for his own

gratification, as to be superior to those who have the desire, but not

the means, to compete with him. He belongs to two or three clubs, and

is envied, and flattered, and hated by the members of them all.

Sometimes he will be appealed to by a poor relation—a married nephew

perhaps—for some little assistance: and then he will declaim with

honest indignation on the improvidence of young married people, the

worthlessness of a wife, the insolence of having a family, the atrocity

of getting into debt with a hundred and twenty-five pounds a year, and

other unpardonable crimes; winding up his exhortations with a

complacent review of his own conduct, and a delicate allusion to

parochial relief. He dies, some day after dinner, of apoplexy, having

bequeathed his property to a Public Society, and the Institution erects

a tablet to his memory, expressive of their admiration of his Christian

conduct in this world, and their comfortable conviction of his

happiness in the next.

But, next to our very particular friends, hackney-coachmen, cabmen and

cads, whom we admire in proportion to the extent of their cool

impudence and perfect self-possession, there is no class of people who

amuse us more than London apprentices. They are no longer an organised

body, bound down by solemn compact to terrify his Majesty’s subjects

whenever it pleases them to take offence in their heads and staves in

their hands. They are only bound, now, by indentures, and, as to their

valour, it is easily restrained by the wholesome dread of the New

Police, and a perspective view of a damp station-house, terminating in

a police-office and a reprimand. They are still, however, a peculiar

class, and not the less pleasant for being inoffensive. Can any one

fail to have noticed them in the streets on Sunday? And were there ever

such harmless efforts at the grand and magnificent as the young fellows

display! We walked down the Strand, a Sunday or two ago, behind a

little group; and they furnished food for our amusement the whole way.

They had come out of some part of the city; it was between three and

four o’clock in the afternoon; and they were on their way to the Park.

There were four of them, all arm-in-arm, with white kid gloves like so

many bridegrooms, light trousers of unprecedented patterns, and coats

for which the English language has yet no name—a kind of cross between

a great-coat and a surtout, with the collar of the one, the skirts of

the other, and pockets peculiar to themselves.

Each of the gentlemen carried a thick stick, with a large tassel at the

top, which he occasionally twirled gracefully round; and the whole

four, by way of looking easy and unconcerned, were walking with a

paralytic swagger irresistibly ludicrous. One of the party had a watch

about the size and shape of a reasonable Ribstone pippin, jammed into

his waistcoat-pocket, which he carefully compared with the clocks at

St. Clement’s and the New Church, the illuminated clock at Exeter

‘Change, the clock of St. Martin’s Church, and the clock of the Horse

Guards. When they at last arrived in St. James’s Park, the member of

the party who had the best-made boots on, hired a second chair

expressly for his feet, and flung himself on this two-pennyworth of

sylvan luxury with an air which levelled all distinctions between

Brookes’s and Snooks’s, Crockford’s and Bagnigge Wells.

We may smile at such people, but they can never excite our anger. They

are usually on the best terms with themselves, and it follows almost as

a matter of course, in good humour with every one about them. Besides,

they are always the faint reflection of higher lights; and, if they do

display a little occasional foolery in their own proper persons, it is

surely more tolerable than precocious puppyism in the Quadrant,

whiskered dandyism in Regent-street and Pall-mall, or gallantry in its

dotage anywhere.

CHAPTER II—A CHRISTMAS DINNER

Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast

something like a jovial feeling is not roused—in whose mind some

pleasant associations are not awakened—by the recurrence of Christmas.

There are people who will tell you that Christmas is not to them what

it used to be; that each succeeding Christmas has found some cherished

hope, or happy prospect, of the year before, dimmed or passed away;

that the present only serves to remind them of reduced circumstances

and straitened incomes—of the feasts they once bestowed on hollow

friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in adversity and

misfortune. Never heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few men who

have lived long enough in the world, who cannot call up such thoughts

any day in the year. Then do not select the merriest of the three

hundred and sixty-five for your doleful recollections, but draw your

chair nearer the blazing fire—fill the glass and send round the

song—and if your room be smaller than it was a dozen years ago, or if

your glass be filled with reeking punch, instead of sparkling wine, put

a good face on the matter, and empty it off-hand, and fill another, and

troll off the old ditty you used to sing, and thank God it’s no worse.

Look on the merry faces of your children (if you have any) as they sit

round the fire. One little seat may be empty; one slight form that

gladdened the father’s heart, and roused the mother’s pride to look

upon, may not be there. Dwell not upon the past; think not that one

short year ago, the fair child now resolving into dust, sat before you,

with the bloom of health upon its cheek, and the gaiety of infancy in

its joyous eye. Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man

has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill

your glass again, with a merry face and contented heart. Our life on

it, but your Christmas shall be merry, and your new year a happy one!

Who can be insensible to the outpourings of good feeling, and the

honest interchange of affectionate attachment, which abound at this

season of the year? A Christmas family-party! We know nothing in nature

more delightful! There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas.

Petty jealousies and discords are forgotten; social feelings are

awakened, in bosoms to which they have long been strangers; father and

son, or brother and sister, who have met and passed with averted gaze,

or a look of cold recognition, for months before, proffer and return

the cordial embrace, and bury their past animosities in their present

happiness. Kindly hearts that have yearned towards each other, but have

been withheld by false notions of pride and self-dignity, are again

reunited, and all is kindness and benevolence! Would that Christmas

lasted the whole year through (as it ought), and that the prejudices

and passions which deform our better nature, were never called into

action among those to whom they should ever be strangers!

The Christmas family-party that we mean, is not a mere assemblage of

relations, got up at a week or two’s notice, originating this year,

having no family precedent in the last, and not likely to be repeated

in the next. No. It is an annual gathering of all the accessible

members of the family, young or old, rich or poor; and all the children

look forward to it, for two months beforehand, in a fever of

anticipation. Formerly, it was held at grandpapa’s; but grandpapa

getting old, and grandmamma getting old too, and rather infirm, they

have given up house-keeping, and domesticated themselves with uncle

George; so, the party always takes place at uncle George’s house, but

grandmamma sends in most of the good things, and grandpapa always

_will_ toddle down, all the way to Newgate-market, to buy the turkey,

which he engages a porter to bring home behind him in triumph, always

insisting on the man’s being rewarded with a glass of spirits, over and

above his hire, to drink ‘a merry Christmas and a happy new year’ to

aunt George. As to grandmamma, she is very secret and mysterious for

two or three days beforehand, but not sufficiently so, to prevent

rumours getting afloat that she has purchased a beautiful new cap with

pink ribbons for each of the servants, together with sundry books, and

pen-knives, and pencil-cases, for the younger branches; to say nothing

of divers secret additions to the order originally given by aunt George

at the pastry-cook’s, such as another dozen of mince-pies for the

dinner, and a large plum-cake for the children.

On Christmas-eve, grandmamma is always in excellent spirits, and after

employing all the children, during the day, in stoning the plums, and

all that, insists, regularly every year, on uncle George coming down

into the kitchen, taking off his coat, and stirring the pudding for

half an hour or so, which uncle George good-humouredly does, to the

vociferous delight of the children and servants. The evening concludes

with a glorious game of blind-man’s-buff, in an early stage of which

grandpapa takes great care to be caught, in order that he may have an

opportunity of displaying his dexterity.

On the following morning, the old couple, with as many of the children

as the pew will hold, go to church in great state: leaving aunt George

at home dusting decanters and filling casters, and uncle George

carrying bottles into the dining-parlour, and calling for corkscrews,

and getting into everybody’s way.

When the church-party return to lunch, grandpapa produces a small sprig

of mistletoe from his pocket, and tempts the boys to kiss their little

cousins under it—a proceeding which affords both the boys and the old

gentleman unlimited satisfaction, but which rather outrages

grandmamma’s ideas of decorum, until grandpapa says, that when he was

just thirteen years and three months old, _he_ kissed grandmamma under

a mistletoe too, on which the children clap their hands, and laugh very

heartily, as do aunt George and uncle George; and grandmamma looks

pleased, and says, with a benevolent smile, that grandpapa was an

impudent young dog, on which the children laugh very heartily again,

and grandpapa more heartily than any of them.

But all these diversions are nothing to the subsequent excitement when

grandmamma in a high cap, and slate-coloured silk gown; and grandpapa

with a beautifully plaited shirt-frill, and white neckerchief; seat

themselves on one side of the drawing-room fire, with uncle George’s

children and little cousins innumerable, seated in the front, waiting

the arrival of the expected visitors. Suddenly a hackney-coach is heard

to stop, and uncle George, who has been looking out of the window,

exclaims ‘Here’s Jane!’ on which the children rush to the door, and

helter-skelter down-stairs; and uncle Robert and aunt Jane, and the

dear little baby, and the nurse, and the whole party, are ushered

up-stairs amidst tumultuous shouts of ‘Oh, my!’ from the children, and

frequently repeated warnings not to hurt baby from the nurse. And

grandpapa takes the child, and grandmamma kisses her daughter, and the

confusion of this first entry has scarcely subsided, when some other

aunts and uncles with more cousins arrive, and the grown-up cousins

flirt with each other, and so do the little cousins too, for that

matter, and nothing is to be heard but a confused din of talking,

laughing, and merriment.

A hesitating double knock at the street-door, heard during a momentary

pause in the conversation, excites a general inquiry of ‘Who’s that?’

and two or three children, who have been standing at the window,

announce in a low voice, that it’s ‘poor aunt Margaret.’ Upon which,

aunt George leaves the room to welcome the new-comer; and grandmamma

draws herself up, rather stiff and stately; for Margaret married a poor

man without her consent, and poverty not being a sufficiently weighty

punishment for her offence, has been discarded by her friends, and

debarred the society of her dearest relatives. But Christmas has come

round, and the unkind feelings that have struggled against better

dispositions during the year, have melted away before its genial

influence, like half-formed ice beneath the morning sun. It is not

difficult in a moment of angry feeling for a parent to denounce a

disobedient child; but, to banish her at a period of general good-will

and hilarity, from the hearth, round which she has sat on so many

anniversaries of the same day, expanding by slow degrees from infancy

to girlhood, and then bursting, almost imperceptibly, into a woman, is

widely different. The air of conscious rectitude, and cold forgiveness,

which the old lady has assumed, sits ill upon her; and when the poor

girl is led in by her sister, pale in looks and broken in hope—not from

poverty, for that she could bear, but from the consciousness of

undeserved neglect, and unmerited unkindness—it is easy to see how much

of it is assumed. A momentary pause succeeds; the girl breaks suddenly

from her sister and throws herself, sobbing, on her mother’s neck. The

father steps hastily forward, and takes her husband’s hand. Friends

crowd round to offer their hearty congratulations, and happiness and

harmony again prevail.

As to the dinner, it’s perfectly delightful—nothing goes wrong, and

everybody is in the very best of spirits, and disposed to please and be

pleased. Grandpapa relates a circumstantial account of the purchase of

the turkey, with a slight digression relative to the purchase of

previous turkeys, on former Christmas-days, which grandmamma

corroborates in the minutest particular. Uncle George tells stories,

and carves poultry, and takes wine, and jokes with the children at the

side-table, and winks at the cousins that are making love, or being

made love to, and exhilarates everybody with his good humour and

hospitality; and when, at last, a stout servant staggers in with a

gigantic pudding, with a sprig of holly in the top, there is such a

laughing, and shouting, and clapping of little chubby hands, and

kicking up of fat dumpy legs, as can only be equalled by the applause

with which the astonishing feat of pouring lighted brandy into

mince-pies, is received by the younger visitors. Then the dessert!—and

the wine!—and the fun! Such beautiful speeches, and _such_ songs, from

aunt Margaret’s husband, who turns out to be such a nice man, and _so_

attentive to grandmamma! Even grandpapa not only sings his annual song

with unprecedented vigour, but on being honoured with an unanimous

_encore_, according to annual custom, actually comes out with a new one

which nobody but grandmamma ever heard before; and a young scapegrace

of a cousin, who has been in some disgrace with the old people, for

certain heinous sins of omission and commission—neglecting to call, and

persisting in drinking Burton Ale—astonishes everybody into convulsions

of laughter by volunteering the most extraordinary comic songs that

ever were heard. And thus the evening passes, in a strain of rational

good-will and cheerfulness, doing more to awaken the sympathies of

every member of the party in behalf of his neighbour, and to perpetuate

their good feeling during the ensuing year, than half the homilies that

have ever been written, by half the Divines that have ever lived.

CHAPTER III—THE NEW YEAR

Next to Christmas-day, the most pleasant annual epoch in existence is

the advent of the New Year. There are a lachrymose set of people who

usher in the New Year with watching and fasting, as if they were bound

to attend as chief mourners at the obsequies of the old one. Now, we

cannot but think it a great deal more complimentary, both to the old

year that has rolled away, and to the New Year that is just beginning

to dawn upon us, to see the old fellow out, and the new one in, with

gaiety and glee.

There must have been some few occurrences in the past year to which we

can look back, with a smile of cheerful recollection, if not with a

feeling of heartfelt thankfulness. And we are bound by every rule of

justice and equity to give the New Year credit for being a good one,

until he proves himself unworthy the confidence we repose in him.

This is our view of the matter; and entertaining it, notwithstanding

our respect for the old year, one of the few remaining moments of whose

existence passes away with every word we write, here we are, seated by

our fireside on this last night of the old year, one thousand eight

hundred and thirty-six, penning this article with as jovial a face as

if nothing extraordinary had happened, or was about to happen, to

disturb our good humour.

Hackney-coaches and carriages keep rattling up the street and down the

street in rapid succession, conveying, doubtless, smartly-dressed

coachfuls to crowded parties; loud and repeated double knocks at the

house with green blinds, opposite, announce to the whole neighbourhood

that there’s one large party in the street at all events; and we saw

through the window, and through the fog too, till it grew so thick that

we rung for candles, and drew our curtains, pastry-cooks’ men with

green boxes on their heads, and rout-furniture-warehouse-carts, with

cane seats and French lamps, hurrying to the numerous houses where an

annual festival is held in honour of the occasion.

We can fancy one of these parties, we think, as well as if we were duly

dress-coated and pumped, and had just been announced at the

drawing-room door.

Take the house with the green blinds for instance. We know it is a

quadrille party, because we saw some men taking up the front

drawing-room carpet while we sat at breakfast this morning, and if

further evidence be required, and we must tell the truth, we just now

saw one of the young ladies ‘doing’ another of the young ladies’ hair,

near one of the bedroom windows, in an unusual style of splendour,

which nothing else but a quadrille party could possibly justify.

The master of the house with the green blinds is in a public office; we

know the fact by the cut of his coat, the tie of his neckcloth, and the

self-satisfaction of his gait—the very green blinds themselves have a

Somerset House air about them.

Hark!—a cab! That’s a junior clerk in the same office; a tidy sort of

young man, with a tendency to cold and corns, who comes in a pair of

boots with black cloth fronts, and brings his shoes in his coat-pocket,

which shoes he is at this very moment putting on in the hall. Now he is

announced by the man in the passage to another man in a blue coat, who

is a disguised messenger from the office.

The man on the first landing precedes him to the drawing-room door.

‘Mr. Tupple!’ shouts the messenger. ‘How _are_ you, Tupple?’ says the

master of the house, advancing from the fire, before which he has been

talking politics and airing himself. ‘My dear, this is Mr. Tupple (a

courteous salute from the lady of the house); Tupple, my eldest

daughter; Julia, my dear, Mr. Tupple; Tupple, my other daughters; my

son, sir;’ Tupple rubs his hands very hard, and smiles as if it were

all capital fun, and keeps constantly bowing and turning himself round,

till the whole family have been introduced, when he glides into a chair

at the corner of the sofa, and opens a miscellaneous conversation with

the young ladies upon the weather, and the theatres, and the old year,

and the last new murder, and the balloon, and the ladies’ sleeves, and

the festivities of the season, and a great many other topics of small

talk.

More double knocks! what an extensive party! what an incessant hum of

conversation and general sipping of coffee! We see Tupple now, in our

mind’s eye, in the height of his glory. He has just handed that stout

old lady’s cup to the servant; and now, he dives among the crowd of

young men by the door, to intercept the other servant, and secure the

muffin-plate for the old lady’s daughter, before he leaves the room;

and now, as he passes the sofa on his way back, he bestows a glance of

recognition and patronage upon the young ladies as condescending and

familiar as if he had known them from infancy.

Charming person Mr. Tupple—perfect ladies’ man—such a delightful

companion, too! Laugh!—nobody ever understood papa’s jokes half so well

as Mr. Tupple, who laughs himself into convulsions at every fresh burst

of facetiousness. Most delightful partner! talks through the whole set!

and although he does seem at first rather gay and frivolous, so

romantic and with so _much_ feeling! Quite a love. No great favourite

with the young men, certainly, who sneer at, and affect to despise him;

but everybody knows that’s only envy, and they needn’t give themselves

the trouble to depreciate his merits at any rate, for Ma says he shall

be asked to every future dinner-party, if it’s only to talk to people

between the courses, and distract their attention when there’s any

unexpected delay in the kitchen.

At supper, Mr. Tupple shows to still greater advantage than he has done

throughout the evening, and when Pa requests every one to fill their

glasses for the purpose of drinking happiness throughout the year, Mr.

Tupple is _so_ droll: insisting on all the young ladies having their

glasses filled, notwithstanding their repeated assurances that they

never can, by any possibility, think of emptying them and subsequently

begging permission to say a few words on the sentiment which has just

been uttered by Pa—when he makes one of the most brilliant and poetical

speeches that can possibly be imagined, about the old year and the new

one. After the toast has been drunk, and when the ladies have retired,

Mr. Tupple requests that every gentleman will do him the favour of

filling his glass, for he has a toast to propose: on which all the

gentlemen cry ‘Hear! hear!’ and pass the decanters accordingly: and Mr.

Tupple being informed by the master of the house that they are all

charged, and waiting for his toast, rises, and begs to remind the

gentlemen present, how much they have been delighted by the dazzling

array of elegance and beauty which the drawing-room has exhibited that

night, and how their senses have been charmed, and their hearts

captivated, by the bewitching concentration of female loveliness which

that very room has so recently displayed. (Loud cries of ‘Hear!’) Much

as he (Tupple) would be disposed to deplore the absence of the ladies,

on other grounds, he cannot but derive some consolation from the

reflection that the very circumstance of their not being present,

enables him to propose a toast, which he would have otherwise been

prevented from giving—that toast he begs to say is—‘The Ladies!’ (Great

applause.) The Ladies! among whom the fascinating daughters of their

excellent host, are alike conspicuous for their beauty, their

accomplishments, and their elegance. He begs them to drain a bumper to

‘The Ladies, and a happy new year to them!’ (Prolonged approbation;

above which the noise of the ladies dancing the Spanish dance among

themselves, overhead, is distinctly audible.)

The applause consequent on this toast, has scarcely subsided, when a

young gentleman in a pink under-waistcoat, sitting towards the bottom

of the table, is observed to grow very restless and fidgety, and to

evince strong indications of some latent desire to give vent to his

feelings in a speech, which the wary Tupple at once perceiving,

determines to forestall by speaking himself. He, therefore, rises

again, with an air of solemn importance, and trusts he may be permitted

to propose another toast (unqualified approbation, and Mr. Tupple

proceeds). He is sure they must all be deeply impressed with the

hospitality—he may say the splendour—with which they have been that

night received by their worthy host and hostess. (Unbounded applause.)

Although this is the first occasion on which he has had the pleasure

and delight of sitting at that board, he has known his friend Dobble

long and intimately; he has been connected with him in business—he

wishes everybody present knew Dobble as well as he does. (A cough from

the host.) He (Tupple) can lay his hand upon his (Tupple’s) heart, and

declare his confident belief that a better man, a better husband, a

better father, a better brother, a better son, a better relation in any

relation of life, than Dobble, never existed. (Loud cries of ‘Hear!’)

They have seen him to-night in the peaceful bosom of his family; they

should see him in the morning, in the trying duties of his office. Calm

in the perusal of the morning papers, uncompromising in the signature

of his name, dignified in his replies to the inquiries of stranger

applicants, deferential in his behaviour to his superiors, majestic in

his deportment to the messengers. (Cheers.) When he bears this merited

testimony to the excellent qualities of his friend Dobble, what can he

say in approaching such a subject as Mrs. Dobble? Is it requisite for

him to expatiate on the qualities of that amiable woman? No; he will

spare his friend Dobble’s feelings; he will spare the feelings of his

friend—if he will allow him to have the honour of calling him so—Mr.

Dobble, junior. (Here Mr. Dobble, junior, who has been previously

distending his mouth to a considerable width, by thrusting a

particularly fine orange into that feature, suspends operations, and

assumes a proper appearance of intense melancholy). He will simply

say—and he is quite certain it is a sentiment in which all who hear him

will readily concur—that his friend Dobble is as superior to any man he

ever knew, as Mrs. Dobble is far beyond any woman he ever saw (except

her daughters); and he will conclude by proposing their worthy ‘Host

and Hostess, and may they live to enjoy many more new years!’

The toast is drunk with acclamation; Dobble returns thanks, and the

whole party rejoin the ladies in the drawing-room. Young men who were

too bashful to dance before supper, find tongues and partners; the

musicians exhibit unequivocal symptoms of having drunk the new year in,

while the company were out; and dancing is kept up, until far in the

first morning of the new year.

We have scarcely written the last word of the previous sentence, when

the first stroke of twelve, peals from the neighbouring churches. There

certainly—we must confess it now—is something awful in the sound.

Strictly speaking, it may not be more impressive now, than at any other

time; for the hours steal as swiftly on, at other periods, and their

flight is little heeded. But, we measure man’s life by years, and it is

a solemn knell that warns us we have passed another of the landmarks

which stands between us and the grave. Disguise it as we may, the

reflection will force itself on our minds, that when the next bell

announces the arrival of a new year, we may be insensible alike of the

timely warning we have so often neglected, and of all the warm feelings

that glow within us now.

CHAPTER IV—MISS EVANS AND THE EAGLE

Mr. Samuel Wilkins was a carpenter, a journeyman carpenter of small

dimensions, decidedly below the middle size—bordering, perhaps, upon

the dwarfish. His face was round and shining, and his hair carefully

twisted into the outer corner of each eye, till it formed a variety of

that description of semi-curls, usually known as ‘aggerawators.’ His

earnings were all-sufficient for his wants, varying from eighteen

shillings to one pound five, weekly—his manner undeniable—his sabbath

waistcoats dazzling. No wonder that, with these qualifications, Samuel

Wilkins found favour in the eyes of the other sex: many women have been

captivated by far less substantial qualifications. But, Samuel was

proof against their blandishments, until at length his eyes rested on

those of a Being for whom, from that time forth, he felt fate had

destined him. He came, and conquered—proposed, and was accepted—loved,

and was beloved. Mr. Wilkins ‘kept company’ with Jemima Evans.

Miss Evans (or Ivins, to adopt the pronunciation most in vogue with her

circle of acquaintance) had adopted in early life the useful pursuit of

shoe-binding, to which she had afterwards superadded the occupation of

a straw-bonnet maker. Herself, her maternal parent, and two sisters,

formed an harmonious quartett in the most secluded portion of

Camden-town; and here it was that Mr. Wilkins presented himself, one

Monday afternoon, in his best attire, with his face more shining and

his waistcoat more bright than either had ever appeared before. The

family were just going to tea, and were _so_ glad to see him. It was

quite a little feast; two ounces of seven-and-sixpenny green, and a

quarter of a pound of the best fresh; and Mr. Wilkins had brought a

pint of shrimps, neatly folded up in a clean belcher, to give a zest to

the meal, and propitiate Mrs. Ivins. Jemima was ‘cleaning herself’

up-stairs; so Mr. Samuel Wilkins sat down and talked domestic economy

with Mrs. Ivins, whilst the two youngest Miss Ivinses poked bits of

lighted brown paper between the bars under the kettle, to make the

water boil for tea.

‘I wos a thinking,’ said Mr. Samuel Wilkins, during a pause in the

conversation—‘I wos a thinking of taking J’mima to the Eagle

to-night.’—‘O my!’ exclaimed Mrs. Ivins. ‘Lor! how nice!’ said the

youngest Miss Ivins. ‘Well, I declare!’ added the youngest Miss Ivins

but one. ‘Tell J’mima to put on her white muslin, Tilly,’ screamed Mrs.

Ivins, with motherly anxiety; and down came J’mima herself soon

afterwards in a white muslin gown carefully hooked and eyed, a little

red shawl, plentifully pinned, a white straw bonnet trimmed with red

ribbons, a small necklace, a large pair of bracelets, Denmark satin

shoes, and open-worked stockings; white cotton gloves on her fingers,

and a cambric pocket-handkerchief, carefully folded up, in her hand—all

quite genteel and ladylike. And away went Miss J’mima Ivins and Mr.

Samuel Wilkins, and a dress-cane, with a gilt knob at the top, to the

admiration and envy of the street in general, and to the high

gratification of Mrs. Ivins, and the two youngest Miss Ivinses in

particular. They had no sooner turned into the Pancras-road, than who

should Miss J’mima Ivins stumble upon, by the most fortunate accident

in the world, but a young lady as she knew, with _her_ young man!—And

it is so strange how things do turn out sometimes—they were actually

going to the Eagle too. So Mr. Samuel Wilkins was introduced to Miss

J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man, and they all walked on together,

talking, and laughing, and joking away like anything; and when they got

as far as Pentonville, Miss Ivins’s friend’s young man _would_ have the

ladies go into the Crown, to taste some shrub, which, after a great

blushing and giggling, and hiding of faces in elaborate

pocket-handkerchiefs, they consented to do. Having tasted it once, they

were easily prevailed upon to taste it again; and they sat out in the

garden tasting shrub, and looking at the Busses alternately, till it

was just the proper time to go to the Eagle; and then they resumed

their journey, and walked very fast, for fear they should lose the

beginning of the concert in the Rotunda.

‘How ev’nly!’ said Miss J’mima Ivins, and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend,

both at once, when they had passed the gate and were fairly inside the

gardens. There were the walks, beautifully gravelled and planted—and

the refreshment-boxes, painted and ornamented like so many

snuff-boxes—and the variegated lamps shedding their rich light upon the

company’s heads—and the place for dancing ready chalked for the

company’s feet—and a Moorish band playing at one end of the gardens—and

an opposition military band playing away at the other. Then, the

waiters were rushing to and fro with glasses of negus, and glasses of

brandy-and-water, and bottles of ale, and bottles of stout; and

ginger-beer was going off in one place, and practical jokes were going

on in another; and people were crowding to the door of the Rotunda; and

in short the whole scene was, as Miss J’mima Ivins, inspired by the

novelty, or the shrub, or both, observed—‘one of dazzling excitement.’

As to the concert-room, never was anything half so splendid. There was

an orchestra for the singers, all paint, gilding, and plate-glass; and

such an organ! Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man whispered it had

cost ‘four hundred pound,’ which Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was ‘not dear

neither;’ an opinion in which the ladies perfectly coincided. The

audience were seated on elevated benches round the room, and crowded

into every part of it; and everybody was eating and drinking as

comfortably as possible. Just before the concert commenced, Mr. Samuel

Wilkins ordered two glasses of rum-and-water ‘warm with—’ and two

slices of lemon, for himself and the other young man, together with ‘a

pint o’ sherry wine for the ladies, and some sweet carraway-seed

biscuits;’ and they would have been quite comfortable and happy, only a

strange gentleman with large whiskers _would_ stare at Miss J’mima

Ivins, and another gentleman in a plaid waistcoat _would_ wink at Miss

J’mima Ivins’s friend; on which Miss Jemima Ivins’s friend’s young man

exhibited symptoms of boiling over, and began to mutter about ‘people’s

imperence,’ and ‘swells out o’ luck;’ and to intimate, in oblique

terms, a vague intention of knocking somebody’s head off; which he was

only prevented from announcing more emphatically, by both Miss J’mima

Ivins and her friend threatening to faint away on the spot if he said

another word.

The concert commenced—overture on the organ. ‘How solemn!’ exclaimed

Miss J’mima Ivins, glancing, perhaps unconsciously, at the gentleman

with the whiskers. Mr. Samuel Wilkins, who had been muttering apart for

some time past, as if he were holding a confidential conversation with

the gilt knob of the dress-cane, breathed hard-breathing vengeance,

perhaps,—but said nothing. ‘The soldier tired,’ Miss Somebody in white

satin. ‘Ancore!’ cried Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend. ‘Ancore!’ shouted

the gentleman in the plaid waistcoat immediately, hammering the table

with a stout-bottle. Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man eyed the

man behind the waistcoat from head to foot, and cast a look of

interrogative contempt towards Mr. Samuel Wilkins. Comic song,

accompanied on the organ. Miss J’mima Ivins was convulsed with

laughter—so was the man with the whiskers. Everything the ladies did,

the plaid waistcoat and whiskers did, by way of expressing unity of

sentiment and congeniality of soul; and Miss J’mima Ivins, and Miss

J’mima Ivins’s friend, grew lively and talkative, as Mr. Samuel

Wilkins, and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man, grew morose and

surly in inverse proportion.

Now, if the matter had ended here, the little party might soon have

recovered their former equanimity; but Mr. Samuel Wilkins and his

friend began to throw looks of defiance upon the waistcoat and

whiskers. And the waistcoat and whiskers, by way of intimating the

slight degree in which they were affected by the looks aforesaid,

bestowed glances of increased admiration upon Miss J’mima Ivins and

friend. The concert and vaudeville concluded, they promenaded the

gardens. The waistcoat and whiskers did the same; and made divers

remarks complimentary to the ankles of Miss J’mima Ivins and friend, in

an audible tone. At length, not satisfied with these numerous

atrocities, they actually came up and asked Miss J’mima Ivins, and Miss

J’mima Ivins’s friend, to dance, without taking no more notice of Mr.

Samuel Wilkins, and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man, than if

they was nobody!

‘What do you mean by that, scoundrel!’ exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins,

grasping the gilt-knobbed dress-cane firmly in his right hand. ‘What’s

the matter with _you_, you little humbug?’ replied the whiskers. ‘How

dare you insult me and my friend?’ inquired the friend’s young man.

‘You and your friend be hanged!’ responded the waistcoat. ‘Take that,’

exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins. The ferrule of the gilt-knobbed

dress-cane was visible for an instant, and then the light of the

variegated lamps shone brightly upon it as it whirled into the air,

cane and all. ‘Give it him,’ said the waistcoat. ‘Horficer!’ screamed

the ladies. Miss J’mima Ivins’s beau, and the friend’s young man, lay

gasping on the gravel, and the waistcoat and whiskers were seen no

more.

Miss J’mima Ivins and friend being conscious that the affray was in no

slight degree attributable to themselves, of course went into hysterics

forthwith; declared themselves the most injured of women; exclaimed, in

incoherent ravings, that they had been suspected—wrongfully

suspected—oh! that they should ever have lived to see the day—and so

forth; suffered a relapse every time they opened their eyes and saw

their unfortunate little admirers; and were carried to their respective

abodes in a hackney-coach, and a state of insensibility, compounded of

shrub, sherry, and excitement.

CHAPTER V—THE PARLOUR ORATOR

We had been lounging one evening, down Oxford-street, Holborn,

Cheapside, Coleman-street, Finsbury-square, and so on, with the

intention of returning westward, by Pentonville and the New-road, when

we began to feel rather thirsty, and disposed to rest for five or ten

minutes. So, we turned back towards an old, quiet, decent public-house,

which we remembered to have passed but a moment before (it was not far

from the City-road), for the purpose of solacing ourself with a glass

of ale. The house was none of your stuccoed, French-polished,

illuminated palaces, but a modest public-house of the old school, with

a little old bar, and a little old landlord, who, with a wife and

daughter of the same pattern, was comfortably seated in the bar

aforesaid—a snug little room with a cheerful fire, protected by a large

screen: from behind which the young lady emerged on our representing

our inclination for a glass of ale.

‘Won’t you walk into the parlour, sir?’ said the young lady, in

seductive tones.

‘You had better walk into the parlour, sir,’ said the little old

landlord, throwing his chair back, and looking round one side of the

screen, to survey our appearance.

‘You had much better step into the parlour, sir,’ said the little old

lady, popping out her head, on the other side of the screen.

We cast a slight glance around, as if to express our ignorance of the

locality so much recommended. The little old landlord observed it;

bustled out of the small door of the small bar; and forthwith ushered

us into the parlour itself.

It was an ancient, dark-looking room, with oaken wainscoting, a sanded

floor, and a high mantel-piece. The walls were ornamented with three or

four old coloured prints in black frames, each print representing a

naval engagement, with a couple of men-of-war banging away at each

other most vigorously, while another vessel or two were blowing up in

the distance, and the foreground presented a miscellaneous collection

of broken masts and blue legs sticking up out of the water. Depending

from the ceiling in the centre of the room, were a gas-light and

bell-pull; on each side were three or four long narrow tables, behind

which was a thickly-planted row of those slippery, shiny-looking wooden

chairs, peculiar to hostelries of this description. The monotonous

appearance of the sanded boards was relieved by an occasional spittoon;

and a triangular pile of those useful articles adorned the two upper

corners of the apartment.

At the furthest table, nearest the fire, with his face towards the door

at the bottom of the room, sat a stoutish man of about forty, whose

short, stiff, black hair curled closely round a broad high forehead,

and a face to which something besides water and exercise had

communicated a rather inflamed appearance. He was smoking a cigar, with

his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and had that confident oracular air

which marked him as the leading politician, general authority, and

universal anecdote-relater, of the place. He had evidently just

delivered himself of something very weighty; for the remainder of the

company were puffing at their respective pipes and cigars in a kind of

solemn abstraction, as if quite overwhelmed with the magnitude of the

subject recently under discussion.

On his right hand sat an elderly gentleman with a white head, and

broad-brimmed brown hat; on his left, a sharp-nosed, light-haired man

in a brown surtout reaching nearly to his heels, who took a whiff at

his pipe, and an admiring glance at the red-faced man, alternately.

‘Very extraordinary!’ said the light-haired man after a pause of five

minutes. A murmur of assent ran through the company.

‘Not at all extraordinary—not at all,’ said the red-faced man,

awakening suddenly from his reverie, and turning upon the light-haired

man, the moment he had spoken.

‘Why should it be extraordinary?—why is it extraordinary?—prove it to

be extraordinary!’

‘Oh, if you come to that—’ said the light-haired man, meekly.

‘Come to that!’ ejaculated the man with the red face; ‘but we _must_

come to that. We stand, in these times, upon a calm elevation of

intellectual attainment, and not in the dark recess of mental

deprivation. Proof, is what I require—proof, and not assertions, in

these stirring times. Every gen’lem’n that knows me, knows what was the

nature and effect of my observations, when it was in the contemplation

of the Old-street Suburban Representative Discovery Society, to

recommend a candidate for that place in Cornwall there—I forget the

name of it. “Mr. Snobee,” said Mr. Wilson, “is a fit and proper person

to represent the borough in Parliament.” “Prove it,” says I. “He is a

friend to Reform,” says Mr. Wilson. “Prove it,” says I. “The

abolitionist of the national debt, the unflinching opponent of

pensions, the uncompromising advocate of the negro, the reducer of

sinecures and the duration of Parliaments; the extender of nothing but

the suffrages of the people,” says Mr. Wilson. “Prove it,” says I. “His

acts prove it,” says he. “Prove _them_,” says I.

‘And he could not prove them,’ said the red-faced man, looking round

triumphantly; ‘and the borough didn’t have him; and if you carried this

principle to the full extent, you’d have no debt, no pensions, no

sinecures, no negroes, no nothing. And then, standing upon an elevation

of intellectual attainment, and having reached the summit of popular

prosperity, you might bid defiance to the nations of the earth, and

erect yourselves in the proud confidence of wisdom and superiority.

This is my argument—this always has been my argument—and if I was a

Member of the House of Commons to-morrow, I’d make ’em shake in their

shoes with it. And the red-faced man, having struck the table very hard

with his clenched fist, to add weight to the declaration, smoked away

like a brewery.

‘Well!’ said the sharp-nosed man, in a very slow and soft voice,

addressing the company in general, ‘I always do say, that of all the

gentlemen I have the pleasure of meeting in this room, there is not one

whose conversation I like to hear so much as Mr. Rogers’s, or who is

such improving company.’

‘Improving company!’ said Mr. Rogers, for that, it seemed, was the name

of the red-faced man. ‘You may say I am improving company, for I’ve

improved you all to some purpose; though as to my conversation being as

my friend Mr. Ellis here describes it, that is not for me to say

anything about. You, gentlemen, are the best judges on that point; but

this I will say, when I came into this parish, and first used this

room, ten years ago, I don’t believe there was one man in it, who knew

he was a slave—and now you all know it, and writhe under it. Inscribe

that upon my tomb, and I am satisfied.’

‘Why, as to inscribing it on your tomb,’ said a little greengrocer with

a chubby face, ‘of course you can have anything chalked up, as you

likes to pay for, so far as it relates to yourself and your affairs;

but, when you come to talk about slaves, and that there abuse, you’d

better keep it in the family, ’cos I for one don’t like to be called

them names, night after night.’

‘You _are_ a slave,’ said the red-faced man, ‘and the most pitiable of

all slaves.’

‘Werry hard if I am,’ interrupted the greengrocer, ‘for I got no good

out of the twenty million that was paid for ’mancipation, anyhow.’

‘A willing slave,’ ejaculated the red-faced man, getting more red with

eloquence, and contradiction—‘resigning the dearest birthright of your

children—neglecting the sacred call of Liberty—who, standing

imploringly before you, appeals to the warmest feelings of your heart,

and points to your helpless infants, but in vain.’

‘Prove it,’ said the greengrocer.

‘Prove it!’ sneered the man with the red face. ‘What! bending beneath

the yoke of an insolent and factious oligarchy; bowed down by the

domination of cruel laws; groaning beneath tyranny and oppression on

every hand, at every side, and in every corner. Prove it!—’ The

red-faced man abruptly broke off, sneered melo-dramatically, and buried

his countenance and his indignation together, in a quart pot.

‘Ah, to be sure, Mr. Rogers,’ said a stout broker in a large waistcoat,

who had kept his eyes fixed on this luminary all the time he was

speaking. ‘Ah, to be sure,’ said the broker with a sigh, ‘that’s the

point.’

‘Of course, of course,’ said divers members of the company, who

understood almost as much about the matter as the broker himself.

‘You had better let him alone, Tommy,’ said the broker, by way of

advice to the little greengrocer; ‘he can tell what’s o’clock by an

eight-day, without looking at the minute hand, he can. Try it on, on

some other suit; it won’t do with him, Tommy.’

‘What is a man?’ continued the red-faced specimen of the species,

jerking his hat indignantly from its peg on the wall. ‘What is an

Englishman? Is he to be trampled upon by every oppressor? Is he to be

knocked down at everybody’s bidding? What’s freedom? Not a standing

army. What’s a standing army? Not freedom. What’s general happiness?

Not universal misery. Liberty ain’t the window-tax, is it? The Lords

ain’t the Commons, are they?’ And the red-faced man, gradually bursting

into a radiating sentence, in which such adjectives as ‘dastardly,’

‘oppressive,’ ‘violent,’ and ‘sanguinary,’ formed the most conspicuous

words, knocked his hat indignantly over his eyes, left the room, and

slammed the door after him.

‘Wonderful man!’ said he of the sharp nose.

‘Splendid speaker!’ added the broker.

‘Great power!’ said everybody but the greengrocer. And as they said it,

the whole party shook their heads mysteriously, and one by one retired,

leaving us alone in the old parlour.

If we had followed the established precedent in all such instances, we

should have fallen into a fit of musing, without delay. The ancient

appearance of the room—the old panelling of the wall—the chimney

blackened with smoke and age—would have carried us back a hundred years

at least, and we should have gone dreaming on, until the pewter-pot on

the table, or the little beer-chiller on the fire, had started into

life, and addressed to us a long story of days gone by. But, by some

means or other, we were not in a romantic humour; and although we tried

very hard to invest the furniture with vitality, it remained perfectly

unmoved, obstinate, and sullen. Being thus reduced to the unpleasant

necessity of musing about ordinary matters, our thoughts reverted to

the red-faced man, and his oratorical display.

A numerous race are these red-faced men; there is not a parlour, or

club-room, or benefit society, or humble party of any kind, without its

red-faced man. Weak-pated dolts they are, and a great deal of mischief

they do to their cause, however good. So, just to hold a pattern one

up, to know the others by, we took his likeness at once, and put him in

here. And that is the reason why we have written this paper.

CHAPTER VI—THE HOSPITAL PATIENT

In our rambles through the streets of London after evening has set in,

we often pause beneath the windows of some public hospital, and picture

to ourself the gloomy and mournful scenes that are passing within. The

sudden moving of a taper as its feeble ray shoots from window to

window, until its light gradually disappears, as if it were carried

farther back into the room to the bedside of some suffering patient, is

enough to awaken a whole crowd of reflections; the mere glimmering of

the low-burning lamps, which, when all other habitations are wrapped in

darkness and slumber, denote the chamber where so many forms are

writhing with pain, or wasting with disease, is sufficient to check the

most boisterous merriment.

Who can tell the anguish of those weary hours, when the only sound the

sick man hears, is the disjointed wanderings of some feverish slumberer

near him, the low moan of pain, or perhaps the muttered, long-forgotten

prayer of a dying man? Who, but they who have felt it, can imagine the

sense of loneliness and desolation which must be the portion of those

who in the hour of dangerous illness are left to be tended by

strangers; for what hands, be they ever so gentle, can wipe the clammy

brow, or smooth the restless bed, like those of mother, wife, or child?

Impressed with these thoughts, we have turned away, through the

nearly-deserted streets; and the sight of the few miserable creatures

still hovering about them, has not tended to lessen the pain which such

meditations awaken. The hospital is a refuge and resting-place for

hundreds, who but for such institutions must die in the streets and

doorways; but what can be the feelings of some outcasts when they are

stretched on the bed of sickness with scarcely a hope of recovery? The

wretched woman who lingers about the pavement, hours after midnight,

and the miserable shadow of a man—the ghastly remnant that want and

drunkenness have left—which crouches beneath a window-ledge, to sleep

where there is some shelter from the rain, have little to bind them to

life, but what have they to look back upon, in death? What are the

unwonted comforts of a roof and a bed, to them, when the recollections

of a whole life of debasement stalk before them; when repentance seems

a mockery, and sorrow comes too late?

About a twelvemonth ago, as we were strolling through Covent-garden (we

had been thinking about these things over-night), we were attracted by

the very prepossessing appearance of a pickpocket, who having declined

to take the trouble of walking to the Police-office, on the ground that

he hadn’t the slightest wish to go there at all, was being conveyed

thither in a wheelbarrow, to the huge delight of a crowd.

Somehow, we never can resist joining a crowd, so we turned back with

the mob, and entered the office, in company with our friend the

pickpocket, a couple of policemen, and as many dirty-faced spectators

as could squeeze their way in.

There was a powerful, ill-looking young fellow at the bar, who was

undergoing an examination, on the very common charge of having, on the

previous night, ill-treated a woman, with whom he lived in some court

hard by. Several witnesses bore testimony to acts of the grossest

brutality; and a certificate was read from the house-surgeon of a

neighbouring hospital, describing the nature of the injuries the woman

had received, and intimating that her recovery was extremely doubtful.

Some question appeared to have been raised about the identity of the

prisoner; for when it was agreed that the two magistrates should visit

the hospital at eight o’clock that evening, to take her deposition, it

was settled that the man should be taken there also. He turned pale at

this, and we saw him clench the bar very hard when the order was given.

He was removed directly afterwards, and he spoke not a word.

We felt an irrepressible curiosity to witness this interview, although

it is hard to tell why, at this instant, for we knew it must be a

painful one. It was no very difficult matter for us to gain permission,

and we obtained it.

The prisoner, and the officer who had him in custody, were already at

the hospital when we reached it, and waiting the arrival of the

magistrates in a small room below stairs. The man was handcuffed, and

his hat was pulled forward over his eyes. It was easy to see, though,

by the whiteness of his countenance, and the constant twitching of the

muscles of his face, that he dreaded what was to come. After a short

interval, the magistrates and clerk were bowed in by the house-surgeon

and a couple of young men who smelt very strong of tobacco-smoke—they

were introduced as ‘dressers’—and after one magistrate had complained

bitterly of the cold, and the other of the absence of any news in the

evening paper, it was announced that the patient was prepared; and we

were conducted to the ‘casualty ward’ in which she was lying.

The dim light which burnt in the spacious room, increased rather than

diminished the ghastly appearance of the hapless creatures in the beds,

which were ranged in two long rows on either side. In one bed, lay a

child enveloped in bandages, with its body half-consumed by fire; in

another, a female, rendered hideous by some dreadful accident, was

wildly beating her clenched fists on the coverlet, in pain; on a third,

there lay stretched a young girl, apparently in the heavy stupor often

the immediate precursor of death: her face was stained with blood, and

her breast and arms were bound up in folds of linen. Two or three of

the beds were empty, and their recent occupants were sitting beside

them, but with faces so wan, and eyes so bright and glassy, that it was

fearful to meet their gaze. On every face was stamped the expression of

anguish and suffering.

The object of the visit was lying at the upper end of the room. She was

a fine young woman of about two or three and twenty. Her long black

hair, which had been hastily cut from near the wounds on her head,

streamed over the pillow in jagged and matted locks. Her face bore deep

marks of the ill-usage she had received: her hand was pressed upon her

side, as if her chief pain were there; her breathing was short and

heavy; and it was plain to see that she was dying fast. She murmured a

few words in reply to the magistrate’s inquiry whether she was in great

pain; and, having been raised on the pillow by the nurse, looked

vacantly upon the strange countenances that surrounded her bed. The

magistrate nodded to the officer, to bring the man forward. He did so,

and stationed him at the bedside. The girl looked on with a wild and

troubled expression of face; but her sight was dim, and she did not

know him.

‘Take off his hat,’ said the magistrate. The officer did as he was

desired, and the man’s features were disclosed.

The girl started up, with an energy quite preternatural; the fire

gleamed in her heavy eyes, and the blood rushed to her pale and sunken

cheeks. It was a convulsive effort. She fell back upon her pillow, and

covering her scarred and bruised face with her hands, burst into tears.

The man cast an anxious look towards her, but otherwise appeared wholly

unmoved. After a brief pause the nature of the errand was explained,

and the oath tendered.

‘Oh, no, gentlemen,’ said the girl, raising herself once more, and

folding her hands together; ‘no, gentlemen, for God’s sake! I did it

myself—it was nobody’s fault—it was an accident. He didn’t hurt me; he

wouldn’t for all the world. Jack, dear Jack, you know you wouldn’t!’

Her sight was fast failing her, and her hand groped over the bedclothes

in search of his. Brute as the man was, he was not prepared for this.

He turned his face from the bed, and sobbed. The girl’s colour changed,

and her breathing grew more difficult. She was evidently dying.

‘We respect the feelings which prompt you to this,’ said the gentleman

who had spoken first, ‘but let me warn you, not to persist in what you

know to be untrue, until it is too late. It cannot save him.’

‘Jack,’ murmured the girl, laying her hand upon his arm, ‘they shall

not persuade me to swear your life away. He didn’t do it, gentlemen. He

never hurt me.’ She grasped his arm tightly, and added, in a broken

whisper, ‘I hope God Almighty will forgive me all the wrong I have

done, and the life I have led. God bless you, Jack. Some kind gentleman

take my love to my poor old father. Five years ago, he said he wished I

had died a child. Oh, I wish I had! I wish I had!’

The nurse bent over the girl for a few seconds, and then drew the sheet

over her face. It covered a corpse.

CHAPTER VII—THE MISPLACED ATTACHMENT OF MR. JOHN DOUNCE

If we had to make a classification of society, there is a particular

kind of men whom we should immediately set down under the head of ‘Old

Boys;’ and a column of most extensive dimensions the old boys would

require. To what precise causes the rapid advance of old-boy population

is to be traced, we are unable to determine. It would be an interesting

and curious speculation, but, as we have not sufficient space to devote

to it here, we simply state the fact that the numbers of the old boys

have been gradually augmenting within the last few years, and that they

are at this moment alarmingly on the increase.

Upon a general review of the subject, and without considering it

minutely in detail, we should be disposed to subdivide the old boys

into two distinct classes—the gay old boys, and the steady old boys.

The gay old boys, are paunchy old men in the disguise of young ones,

who frequent the Quadrant and Regent-street in the day-time: the

theatres (especially theatres under lady management) at night; and who

assume all the foppishness and levity of boys, without the excuse of

youth or inexperience. The steady old boys are certain stout old

gentlemen of clean appearance, who are always to be seen in the same

taverns, at the same hours every evening, smoking and drinking in the

same company.

There was once a fine collection of old boys to be seen round the

circular table at Offley’s every night, between the hours of half-past

eight and half-past eleven. We have lost sight of them for some time.

There were, and may be still, for aught we know, two splendid specimens

in full blossom at the Rainbow Tavern in Fleet-street, who always used

to sit in the box nearest the fireplace, and smoked long cherry-stick

pipes which went under the table, with the bowls resting on the floor.

Grand old boys they were—fat, red-faced, white-headed old

fellows—always there—one on one side the table, and the other

opposite—puffing and drinking away in great state. Everybody knew them,

and it was supposed by some people that they were both immortal.

Mr. John Dounce was an old boy of the latter class (we don’t mean

immortal, but steady), a retired glove and braces maker, a widower,

resident with three daughters—all grown up, and all unmarried—in

Cursitor-street, Chancery-lane. He was a short, round, large-faced,

tubbish sort of man, with a broad-brimmed hat, and a square coat; and

had that grave, but confident, kind of roll, peculiar to old boys in

general. Regular as clockwork—breakfast at nine—dress and tittivate a

little—down to the Sir Somebody’s Head—a glass of ale and the

paper—come back again, and take daughters out for a walk—dinner at

three—glass of grog and pipe—nap—tea—little walk—Sir Somebody’s Head

again—capital house—delightful evenings. There were Mr. Harris, the

law-stationer, and Mr. Jennings, the robe-maker (two jolly young

fellows like himself), and Jones, the barrister’s clerk—rum fellow that

Jones—capital company—full of anecdote!—and there they sat every night

till just ten minutes before twelve, drinking their brandy-and-water,

and smoking their pipes, and telling stories, and enjoying themselves

with a kind of solemn joviality particularly edifying.

Sometimes Jones would propose a half-price visit to Drury Lane or

Covent Garden, to see two acts of a five-act play, and a new farce,

perhaps, or a ballet, on which occasions the whole four of them went

together: none of your hurrying and nonsense, but having their

brandy-and-water first, comfortably, and ordering a steak and some

oysters for their supper against they came back, and then walking

coolly into the pit, when the ‘rush’ had gone in, as all sensible

people do, and did when Mr. Dounce was a young man, except when the

celebrated Master Betty was at the height of his popularity, and then,

sir,—then—Mr. Dounce perfectly well remembered getting a holiday from

business; and going to the pit doors at eleven o’clock in the forenoon,

and waiting there, till six in the afternoon, with some sandwiches in a

pocket-handkerchief and some wine in a phial; and fainting after all,

with the heat and fatigue, before the play began; in which situation he

was lifted out of the pit, into one of the dress boxes, sir, by five of

the finest women of that day, sir, who compassionated his situation and

administered restoratives, and sent a black servant, six foot high, in

blue and silver livery, next morning with their compliments, and to

know how he found himself, sir—by G-! Between the acts Mr. Dounce and

Mr. Harris, and Mr. Jennings, used to stand up, and look round the

house, and Jones—knowing fellow that Jones—knew everybody—pointed out

the fashionable and celebrated Lady So-and-So in the boxes, at the

mention of whose name Mr. Dounce, after brushing up his hair, and

adjusting his neckerchief, would inspect the aforesaid Lady So-and-So

through an immense glass, and remark, either, that she was a ‘fine

woman—very fine woman, indeed,’ or that ‘there might be a little more

of her, eh, Jones?’ Just as the case might happen to be. When the

dancing began, John Dounce and the other old boys were particularly

anxious to see what was going forward on the stage, and Jones—wicked

dog that Jones—whispered little critical remarks into the ears of John

Dounce, which John Dounce retailed to Mr. Harris and Mr. Harris to Mr.

Jennings; and then they all four laughed, until the tears ran down out

of their eyes.

When the curtain fell, they walked back together, two and two, to the

steaks and oysters; and when they came to the second glass of

brandy-and-water, Jones—hoaxing scamp, that Jones—used to recount how

he had observed a lady in white feathers, in one of the pit boxes,

gazing intently on Mr. Dounce all the evening, and how he had caught

Mr. Dounce, whenever he thought no one was looking at him, bestowing

ardent looks of intense devotion on the lady in return; on which Mr.

Harris and Mr. Jennings used to laugh very heartily, and John Dounce

more heartily than either of them, acknowledging, however, that the

time _had_ been when he _might_ have done such things; upon which Mr.

Jones used to poke him in the ribs, and tell him he had been a sad dog

in his time, which John Dounce with chuckles confessed. And after Mr.

Harris and Mr. Jennings had preferred their claims to the character of

having been sad dogs too, they separated harmoniously, and trotted

home.

The decrees of Fate, and the means by which they are brought about, are

mysterious and inscrutable. John Dounce had led this life for twenty

years and upwards, without wish for change, or care for variety, when

his whole social system was suddenly upset and turned completely

topsy-turvy—not by an earthquake, or some other dreadful convulsion of

nature, as the reader would be inclined to suppose, but by the simple

agency of an oyster; and thus it happened.

Mr. John Dounce was returning one night from the Sir Somebody’s Head,

to his residence in Cursitor-street—not tipsy, but rather excited, for

it was Mr. Jennings’s birthday, and they had had a brace of partridges

for supper, and a brace of extra glasses afterwards, and Jones had been

more than ordinarily amusing—when his eyes rested on a newly-opened

oyster-shop, on a magnificent scale, with natives laid, one deep, in

circular marble basins in the windows, together with little round

barrels of oysters directed to Lords and Baronets, and Colonels and

Captains, in every part of the habitable globe.

Behind the natives were the barrels, and behind the barrels was a young

lady of about five-and-twenty, all in blue, and all alone—splendid

creature, charming face and lovely figure! It is difficult to say

whether Mr. John Dounce’s red countenance, illuminated as it was by the

flickering gas-light in the window before which he paused, excited the

lady’s risibility, or whether a natural exuberance of animal spirits

proved too much for that staidness of demeanour which the forms of

society rather dictatorially prescribe. But certain it is, that the

lady smiled; then put her finger upon her lip, with a striking

recollection of what was due to herself; and finally retired, in

oyster-like bashfulness, to the very back of the counter. The sad-dog

sort of feeling came strongly upon John Dounce: he lingered—the lady in

blue made no sign. He coughed—still she came not. He entered the shop.

‘Can you open me an oyster, my dear?’ said Mr. John Dounce.

‘Dare say I can, sir,’ replied the lady in blue, with playfulness. And

Mr. John Dounce eat one oyster, and then looked at the young lady, and

then eat another, and then squeezed the young lady’s hand as she was

opening the third, and so forth, until he had devoured a dozen of those

at eightpence in less than no time.

‘Can you open me half-a-dozen more, my dear?’ inquired Mr. John Dounce.

‘I’ll see what I can do for you, sir,’ replied the young lady in blue,

even more bewitchingly than before; and Mr. John Dounce eat

half-a-dozen more of those at eightpence.

‘You couldn’t manage to get me a glass of brandy-and-water, my dear, I

suppose?’ said Mr. John Dounce, when he had finished the oysters: in a

tone which clearly implied his supposition that she could.

‘I’ll see, sir,’ said the young lady: and away she ran out of the shop,

and down the street, her long auburn ringlets shaking in the wind in

the most enchanting manner; and back she came again, tripping over the

coal-cellar lids like a whipping-top, with a tumbler of

brandy-and-water, which Mr. John Dounce insisted on her taking a share

of, as it was regular ladies’ grog—hot, strong, sweet, and plenty of

it.

So, the young lady sat down with Mr. John Dounce, in a little red box

with a green curtain, and took a small sip of the brandy-and-water, and

a small look at Mr. John Dounce, and then turned her head away, and

went through various other serio-pantomimic fascinations, which

forcibly reminded Mr. John Dounce of the first time he courted his

first wife, and which made him feel more affectionate than ever; in

pursuance of which affection, and actuated by which feeling, Mr. John

Dounce sounded the young lady on her matrimonial engagements, when the

young lady denied having formed any such engagements at all—she

couldn’t abear the men, they were such deceivers; thereupon Mr. John

Dounce inquired whether this sweeping condemnation was meant to include

other than very young men; on which the young lady blushed deeply—at

least she turned away her head, and said Mr. John Dounce had made her

blush, so of course she _did_ blush—and Mr. John Dounce was a long time

drinking the brandy-and-water; and, at last, John Dounce went home to

bed, and dreamed of his first wife, and his second wife, and the young

lady, and partridges, and oysters, and brandy-and-water, and

disinterested attachments.

The next morning, John Dounce was rather feverish with the extra

brandy-and-water of the previous night; and, partly in the hope of

cooling himself with an oyster, and partly with the view of

ascertaining whether he owed the young lady anything, or not, went back

to the oyster-shop. If the young lady had appeared beautiful by night,

she was perfectly irresistible by day; and, from this time forward, a

change came over the spirit of John Dounce’s dream. He bought

shirt-pins; wore a ring on his third finger; read poetry; bribed a

cheap miniature-painter to perpetrate a faint resemblance to a youthful

face, with a curtain over his head, six large books in the background,

and an open country in the distance (this he called his portrait);

‘went on’ altogether in such an uproarious manner, that the three Miss

Dounces went off on small pensions, he having made the tenement in

Cursitor-street too warm to contain them; and in short, comported and

demeaned himself in every respect like an unmitigated old Saracen, as

he was.

As to his ancient friends, the other old boys, at the Sir Somebody’s

Head, he dropped off from them by gradual degrees; for, even when he

did go there, Jones—vulgar fellow that Jones—persisted in asking ‘when

it was to be?’ and ‘whether he was to have any gloves?’ together with

other inquiries of an equally offensive nature: at which not only

Harris laughed, but Jennings also; so, he cut the two, altogether, and

attached himself solely to the blue young lady at the smart

oyster-shop.

Now comes the moral of the story—for it has a moral after all. The

last-mentioned young lady, having derived sufficient profit and

emolument from John Dounce’s attachment, not only refused, when matters

came to a crisis, to take him for better for worse, but expressly

declared, to use her own forcible words, that she ‘wouldn’t have him at

no price;’ and John Dounce, having lost his old friends, alienated his

relations, and rendered himself ridiculous to everybody, made offers

successively to a schoolmistress, a landlady, a feminine tobacconist,

and a housekeeper; and, being directly rejected by each and every of

them, was accepted by his cook, with whom he now lives, a henpecked

husband, a melancholy monument of antiquated misery, and a living

warning to all uxorious old boys.

CHAPTER VIII—THE MISTAKEN MILLINER. A TALE OF AMBITION

Miss Amelia Martin was pale, tallish, thin, and two-and-thirty—what

ill-natured people would call plain, and police reports interesting.

She was a milliner and dressmaker, living on her business and not above

it. If you had been a young lady in service, and had wanted Miss

Martin, as a great many young ladies in service did, you would just

have stepped up, in the evening, to number forty-seven,

Drummond-street, George-street, Euston-square, and after casting your

eye on a brass door-plate, one foot ten by one and a half, ornamented

with a great brass knob at each of the four corners, and bearing the

inscription ‘Miss Martin; millinery and dressmaking, in all its

branches;’ you’d just have knocked two loud knocks at the street-door;

and down would have come Miss Martin herself, in a merino gown of the

newest fashion, black velvet bracelets on the genteelest principle, and

other little elegancies of the most approved description.

If Miss Martin knew the young lady who called, or if the young lady who

called had been recommended by any other young lady whom Miss Martin

knew, Miss Martin would forthwith show her up-stairs into the two-pair

front, and chat she would—_so_ kind, and _so_ comfortable—it really

wasn’t like a matter of business, she was so friendly; and, then Miss

Martin, after contemplating the figure and general appearance of the

young lady in service with great apparent admiration, would say how

well she would look, to be sure, in a low dress with short sleeves;

made very full in the skirts, with four tucks in the bottom; to which

the young lady in service would reply in terms expressive of her entire

concurrence in the notion, and of the virtuous indignation with which

she reflected on the tyranny of ‘Missis,’ who wouldn’t allow a young

girl to wear a short sleeve of an arternoon—no, nor nothing smart, not

even a pair of ear-rings; let alone hiding people’s heads of hair under

them frightful caps. At the termination of this complaint, Miss Amelia

Martin would distantly suggest certain dark suspicions that some people

were jealous on account of their own daughters, and were obliged to

keep their servants’ charms under, for fear they should get married

first, which was no uncommon circumstance—leastways she had known two

or three young ladies in service, who had married a great deal better

than their missises, and _they_ were not very good-looking either; and

then the young lady would inform Miss Martin, in confidence, that how

one of their young ladies was engaged to a young man and was a-going to

be married, and Missis was so proud about it there was no bearing of

her; but how she needn’t hold her head quite so high neither, for,

after all, he was only a clerk. And, after expressing due contempt for

clerks in general, and the engaged clerk in particular, and the highest

opinion possible of themselves and each other, Miss Martin and the

young lady in service would bid each other good night, in a friendly

but perfectly genteel manner: and the one went back to her ‘place,’ and

the other, to her room on the second-floor front.

There is no saying how long Miss Amelia Martin might have continued

this course of life; how extensive a connection she might have

established among young ladies in service; or what amount her demands

upon their quarterly receipts might have ultimately attained, had not

an unforeseen train of circumstances directed her thoughts to a sphere

of action very different from dressmaking or millinery.

A friend of Miss Martin’s who had long been keeping company with an

ornamental painter and decorator’s journeyman, at last consented (on

being at last asked to do so) to name the day which would make the

aforesaid journeyman a happy husband. It was a Monday that was

appointed for the celebration of the nuptials, and Miss Amelia Martin

was invited, among others, to honour the wedding-dinner with her

presence. It was a charming party; Somers-town the locality, and a

front parlour the apartment. The ornamental painter and decorator’s

journeyman had taken a house—no lodgings nor vulgarity of that kind,

but a house—four beautiful rooms, and a delightful little washhouse at

the end of the passage—which was the most convenient thing in the

world, for the bridesmaids could sit in the front parlour and receive

the company, and then run into the little washhouse and see how the

pudding and boiled pork were getting on in the copper, and then pop

back into the parlour again, as snug and comfortable as possible. And

such a parlour as it was! Beautiful Kidderminster carpet—six bran-new

cane-bottomed stained chairs—three wine-glasses and a tumbler on each

sideboard—farmer’s girl and farmer’s boy on the mantelpiece: girl

tumbling over a stile, and boy spitting himself, on the handle of a

pitchfork—long white dimity curtains in the window—and, in short,

everything on the most genteel scale imaginable.

Then, the dinner. There was baked leg of mutton at the top, boiled leg

of mutton at the bottom, pair of fowls and leg of pork in the middle;

porter-pots at the corners; pepper, mustard, and vinegar in the centre;

vegetables on the floor; and plum-pudding and apple-pie and tartlets

without number: to say nothing of cheese, and celery, and

water-cresses, and all that sort of thing. As to the Company! Miss

Amelia Martin herself declared, on a subsequent occasion, that, much as

she had heard of the ornamental painter’s journeyman’s connexion, she

never could have supposed it was half so genteel. There was his father,

such a funny old gentleman—and his mother, such a dear old lady—and his

sister, such a charming girl—and his brother, such a manly-looking

young man—with such a eye! But even all these were as nothing when

compared with his musical friends, Mr. and Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, from

White Conduit, with whom the ornamental painter’s journeyman had been

fortunate enough to contract an intimacy while engaged in decorating

the concert-room of that noble institution. To hear them sing

separately, was divine, but when they went through the tragic duet of

‘Red Ruffian, retire!’ it was, as Miss Martin afterwards remarked,

‘thrilling.’ And why (as Mr. Jennings Rodolph observed) why were they

not engaged at one of the patent theatres? If he was to be told that

their voices were not powerful enough to fill the House, his only reply

was, that he would back himself for any amount to fill Russell-square—a

statement in which the company, after hearing the duet, expressed their

full belief; so they all said it was shameful treatment; and both Mr.

and Mrs. Jennings Rodolph said it was shameful too; and Mr. Jennings

Rodolph looked very serious, and said he knew who his malignant

opponents were, but they had better take care how far they went, for if

they irritated him too much he had not quite made up his mind whether

he wouldn’t bring the subject before Parliament; and they all agreed

that it ‘’ud serve ’em quite right, and it was very proper that such

people should be made an example of.’ So Mr. Jennings Rodolph said he’d

think of it.

When the conversation resumed its former tone, Mr. Jennings Rodolph

claimed his right to call upon a lady, and the right being conceded,

trusted Miss Martin would favour the company—a proposal which met with

unanimous approbation, whereupon Miss Martin, after sundry hesitatings

and coughings, with a preparatory choke or two, and an introductory

declaration that she was frightened to death to attempt it before such

great judges of the art, commenced a species of treble chirruping

containing frequent allusions to some young gentleman of the name of

Hen-e-ry, with an occasional reference to madness and broken hearts.

Mr. Jennings Rodolph frequently interrupted the progress of the song,

by ejaculating ‘Beautiful!’—‘Charming!’—‘Brilliant!’—‘Oh! splendid,’

&c.; and at its close the admiration of himself, and his lady, knew no

bounds.

‘Did you ever hear so sweet a voice, my dear?’ inquired Mr. Jennings

Rodolph of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph.

‘Never; indeed I never did, love,’ replied Mrs. Jennings Rodolph.

‘Don’t you think Miss Martin, with a little cultivation, would be very

like Signora Marra Boni, my dear?’ asked Mr. Jennings Rodolph.

‘Just exactly the very thing that struck me, my love,’ answered Mrs.

Jennings Rodolph.

And thus the time passed away; Mr. Jennings Rodolph played tunes on a

walking-stick, and then went behind the parlour-door and gave his

celebrated imitations of actors, edge-tools, and animals; Miss Martin

sang several other songs with increased admiration every time; and even

the funny old gentleman began singing. His song had properly seven

verses, but as he couldn’t recollect more than the first one, he sang

that over seven times, apparently very much to his own personal

gratification. And then all the company sang the national anthem with

national independence—each for himself, without reference to the

other—and finally separated: all declaring that they never had spent so

pleasant an evening: and Miss Martin inwardly resolving to adopt the

advice of Mr. Jennings Rodolph, and to ‘come out’ without delay.

Now, ‘coming out,’ either in acting, or singing, or society, or

facetiousness, or anything else, is all very well, and remarkably

pleasant to the individual principally concerned, if he or she can but

manage to come out with a burst, and being out, to keep out, and not go

in again; but, it does unfortunately happen that both consummations are

extremely difficult to accomplish, and that the difficulties, of

getting out at all in the first instance, and if you surmount them, of

keeping out in the second, are pretty much on a par, and no slight ones

either—and so Miss Amelia Martin shortly discovered. It is a singular

fact (there being ladies in the case) that Miss Amelia Martin’s

principal foible was vanity, and the leading characteristic of Mrs.

Jennings Rodolph an attachment to dress. Dismal wailings were heard to

issue from the second-floor front of number forty-seven,

Drummond-street, George-street, Euston-square; it was Miss Martin

practising. Half-suppressed murmurs disturbed the calm dignity of the

White Conduit orchestra at the commencement of the season. It was the

appearance of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph in full dress, that occasioned

them. Miss Martin studied incessantly—the practising was the

consequence. Mrs. Jennings Rodolph taught gratuitously now and then—the

dresses were the result.

Weeks passed away; the White Conduit season had begun, and progressed,

and was more than half over. The dressmaking business had fallen off,

from neglect; and its profits had dwindled away almost imperceptibly. A

benefit-night approached; Mr. Jennings Rodolph yielded to the earnest

solicitations of Miss Amelia Martin, and introduced her personally to

the ‘comic gentleman’ whose benefit it was. The comic gentleman was all

smiles and blandness—he had composed a duet, expressly for the

occasion, and Miss Martin should sing it with him. The night arrived;

there was an immense room—ninety-seven sixpenn’orths of gin-and-water,

thirty-two small glasses of brandy-and-water, five-and-twenty bottled

ales, and forty-one neguses; and the ornamental painter’s journeyman,

with his wife and a select circle of acquaintance, were seated at one

of the side-tables near the orchestra. The concert began.

Song—sentimental—by a light-haired young gentleman in a blue coat, and

bright basket buttons—[applause]. Another song, doubtful, by another

gentleman in another blue coat and more bright basket

buttons—[increased applause]. Duet, Mr. Jennings Rodolph, and Mrs.

Jennings Rodolph, ‘Red Ruffian, retire!’—[great applause]. Solo, Miss

Julia Montague (positively on this occasion only)—‘I am a

Friar’—[enthusiasm]. Original duet, comic—Mr. H. Taplin (the comic

gentleman) and Miss Martin—‘The Time of Day.’ ‘Brayvo!—Brayvo!’ cried

the ornamental painter’s journeyman’s party, as Miss Martin was

gracefully led in by the comic gentleman. ‘Go to work, Harry,’ cried

the comic gentleman’s personal friends. ‘Tap-tap-tap,’ went the

leader’s bow on the music-desk. The symphony began, and was soon

afterwards followed by a faint kind of ventriloquial chirping,

proceeding apparently from the deepest recesses of the interior of Miss

Amelia Martin. ‘Sing out’—shouted one gentleman in a white great-coat.

‘Don’t be afraid to put the steam on, old gal,’ exclaimed another,

‘S-s-s-s-s-s-s’-went the five-and-twenty bottled ales. ‘Shame, shame!’

remonstrated the ornamental painter’s journeyman’s party—‘S-s-s-s’ went

the bottled ales again, accompanied by all the gins, and a majority of

the brandies.

‘Turn them geese out,’ cried the ornamental painter’s journeyman’s

party, with great indignation.

‘Sing out,’ whispered Mr. Jennings Rodolph.

‘So I do,’ responded Miss Amelia Martin.

‘Sing louder,’ said Mrs. Jennings Rodolph.

‘I can’t,’ replied Miss Amelia Martin.

‘Off, off, off,’ cried the rest of the audience.

‘Bray-vo!’ shouted the painter’s party. It wouldn’t do—Miss Amelia

Martin left the orchestra, with much less ceremony than she had entered

it; and, as she couldn’t sing out, never came out. The general good

humour was not restored until Mr. Jennings Rodolph had become purple in

the face, by imitating divers quadrupeds for half an hour, without

being able to render himself audible; and, to this day, neither has

Miss Amelia Martin’s good humour been restored, nor the dresses made

for and presented to Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, nor the local abilities

which Mr. Jennings Rodolph once staked his professional reputation that

Miss Martin possessed.

CHAPTER IX—THE DANCING ACADEMY

Of all the dancing academies that ever were established, there never

was one more popular in its immediate vicinity than Signor

Billsmethi’s, of the ‘King’s Theatre.’ It was not in Spring-gardens, or

Newman-street, or Berners-street, or Gower-street, or Charlotte-street,

or Percy-street, or any other of the numerous streets which have been

devoted time out of mind to professional people, dispensaries, and

boarding-houses; it was not in the West-end at all—it rather

approximated to the eastern portion of London, being situated in the

populous and improving neighbourhood of Gray’s-inn-lane. It was not a

dear dancing academy—four-and-sixpence a quarter is decidedly cheap

upon the whole. It was _very_ select, the number of pupils being

strictly limited to seventy-five, and a quarter’s payment in advance

being rigidly exacted. There was public tuition and private tuition—an

assembly-room and a parlour. Signor Billsmethi’s family were always

thrown in with the parlour, and included in parlour price; that is to

say, a private pupil had Signor Billsmethi’s parlour to dance _in_, and

Signor Billsmethi’s family to dance _with_; and when he had been

sufficiently broken in in the parlour, he began to run in couples in

the assembly-room.

Such was the dancing academy of Signor Billsmethi, when Mr. Augustus

Cooper, of Fetter-lane, first saw an unstamped advertisement walking

leisurely down Holborn-hill, announcing to the world that Signor

Billsmethi, of the King’s Theatre, intended opening for the season with

a Grand Ball.

Now, Mr. Augustus Cooper was in the oil and colour line—just of age,

with a little money, a little business, and a little mother, who,

having managed her husband and _his_ business in his lifetime, took to

managing her son and _his_ business after his decease; and so, somehow

or other, he had been cooped up in the little back parlour behind the

shop on week-days, and in a little deal box without a lid (called by

courtesy a pew) at Bethel Chapel, on Sundays, and had seen no more of

the world than if he had been an infant all his days; whereas Young

White, at the gas-fitter’s over the way, three years younger than him,

had been flaring away like winkin’—going to the theatre—supping at

harmonic meetings—eating oysters by the barrel—drinking stout by the

gallon—even out all night, and coming home as cool in the morning as if

nothing had happened. So Mr. Augustus Cooper made up his mind that he

would not stand it any longer, and had that very morning expressed to

his mother a firm determination to be ‘blowed,’ in the event of his not

being instantly provided with a street-door key. And he was walking

down Holborn-hill, thinking about all these things, and wondering how

he could manage to get introduced into genteel society for the first

time, when his eyes rested on Signor Billsmethi’s announcement, which

it immediately struck him was just the very thing he wanted; for he

should not only be able to select a genteel circle of acquaintance at

once, out of the five-and-seventy pupils at four-and-sixpence a

quarter, but should qualify himself at the same time to go through a

hornpipe in private society, with perfect ease to himself and great

delight to his friends. So, he stopped the unstamped advertisement—an

animated sandwich, composed of a boy between two boards—and having

procured a very small card with the Signor’s address indented thereon,

walked straight at once to the Signor’s house—and very fast he walked

too, for fear the list should be filled up, and the five-and-seventy

completed, before he got there. The Signor was at home, and, what was

still more gratifying, he was an Englishman! Such a nice man—and so

polite! The list was not full, but it was a most extraordinary

circumstance that there was only just one vacancy, and even that one

would have been filled up, that very morning, only Signor Billsmethi

was dissatisfied with the reference, and, being very much afraid that

the lady wasn’t select, wouldn’t take her.

‘And very much delighted I am, Mr. Cooper,’ said Signor Billsmethi,

‘that I did _not_ take her. I assure you, Mr. Cooper—I don’t say it to

flatter you, for I know you’re above it—that I consider myself

extremely fortunate in having a gentleman of your manners and

appearance, sir.’

‘I am very glad of it too, sir,’ said Augustus Cooper.

‘And I hope we shall be better acquainted, sir,’ said Signor

Billsmethi.

‘And I’m sure I hope we shall too, sir,’ responded Augustus Cooper.

Just then, the door opened, and in came a young lady, with her hair

curled in a crop all over her head, and her shoes tied in sandals all

over her ankles.

‘Don’t run away, my dear,’ said Signor Billsmethi; for the young lady

didn’t know Mr. Cooper was there when she ran in, and was going to run

out again in her modesty, all in confusion-like. ‘Don’t run away, my

dear,’ said Signor Billsmethi, ‘this is Mr. Cooper—Mr. Cooper, of

Fetter-lane. Mr. Cooper, my daughter, sir—Miss Billsmethi, sir, who I

hope will have the pleasure of dancing many a quadrille, minuet,

gavotte, country-dance, fandango, double-hornpipe, and

farinagholkajingo with you, sir. She dances them all, sir; and so shall

you, sir, before you’re a quarter older, sir.’

And Signor Bellsmethi slapped Mr. Augustus Cooper on the back, as if he

had known him a dozen years,—so friendly;—and Mr. Cooper bowed to the

young lady, and the young lady curtseyed to him, and Signor Billsmethi

said they were as handsome a pair as ever he’d wish to see; upon which

the young lady exclaimed, ‘Lor, pa!’ and blushed as red as Mr. Cooper

himself—you might have thought they were both standing under a red lamp

at a chemist’s shop; and before Mr. Cooper went away it was settled

that he should join the family circle that very night—taking them just

as they were—no ceremony nor nonsense of that kind—and learn his

positions in order that he might lose no time, and be able to come out

at the forthcoming ball.