drama for good. Charteris, Hackabout, brother and sister, James Dalton,
the highwayman, whose “wig-box” you see in plate iii. of the _H. P._,
and Mother Needham, who continued the traditions of Dryden’s _Mother
Dulake_ (“Wild Gallant”), to Foote’s _Mother Cole_, all faded into space
before 1733. The colonel “Don Francisco”—as people with a snigger called
Charteris—was very nearly being hanged. He was cast for death; but being
immensely rich, and having, moreover, and luckily, a lord of the land,
the Earl of Wemyss, for his son-in-law, he managed to escape. Not,
indeed, Scot-free. He was compelled to make a handsome settlement on his
victim, one Ann Bond, prosecutrix in the case for which Don Francisco
had so close a riddance of “_sus per coll_” being written against his
name. The sheriffs of London, and the high bailiff of Westminster, had,
moreover, made a seizure of his rich goods and chattels, immediately
after his conviction. He had to compound with them for the restitution
of his effects, and this cost him nearly nine thousand pounds. The
profligate old miser had to sell his South Sea stock, to raise the
amount; a fact which the newspapers of the day record with much
exultation. But Nemesis was not yet satisfied. The colonel’s wife came
back from Scotland on purpose to reproach her lord. The wretched man
on his part fled _to_ Scotland, and died in Edinburgh soon afterwards.
Dalton, of the “wig-box,” having been “boned,” “habbled,” or “snabbled,”
and confined for some time in the “Rumbo,” or “Whid,” finished his
career at the “nubbing cheat,” at the top of the Edgware Road. In other
words—the first are the elegant terms used by the City marshal in his
controversial pamphlet the _Regulator_, written in disparagement of Mr.
Jonathan Wild the great—Mr. James Dalton was arrested, and after lying
some time in Newgate, was duly tried, sentenced, and hanged. “He was a
thief from his cradle, and imbibed the principles of his art with his
mother’s milk.” He went between his father’s legs in the cart to his
fatal exit at Tyburn. _Sic itur ad astra_; and thus Plutarch in the shape
of the ordinary of Newgate. As for Mother Needham, she was sentenced to
stand twice in the pillory. The first ordeal she underwent close to her
own house, in Park Place, St. James’. She was very ill, and lay “all
along” under these Caudine forks, “thus evading the law, which required
that her face should be exposed.” Two days afterwards, “complaining of
the ingratitude of the publick”—the mob had pelted her pitilessly—“and
dreading the second pillorying to which, in Old Palace Yard, she was
doomed, she gave up the ghost.”
[16] The _Modern Midnight Conversation_ had a great vogue abroad, and
is still, perhaps, one of the best known of Hogarth’s works. Copies,
adaptations, paraphrases of it have been multiplied to a vast extent in
Germany. There is a well-known French version, _Société nocturne, nommée
communément Cotterie de Débauche en Punch_; and a collection of heads
from the _Conversation_, catalogued as _Têtes des onze membres, gravées
par M. Riepenhausen_. One ingenious artist even formed a gallery of small
wax models of the principal figures. And finally, I have seen the French
_Cotterie_ enamelled on a porcelain at Leipsic, and on a golden snuffbox
in the museum of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg. There is a humorous
modern lithograph, representing a party of sapient-looking bibbers,
assembled in solemn conclave over a hogshead of Rhine wine in a cellar;
and the hint for this—albeit, the grossness is softened down—is evidently
taken from the _M. M. C._
[17] Tothall’s career was a most curious one. He was the son of an
apothecary, was left an orphan, taken care of by an uncle. He ran away
to sea; went to the West Indies, Newfoundland, and Honduras; was on one
occasion captured by hostile Spaniards, and marched “up the country,”
with no other clothing but a woollen cap and a brown waistcoat—a costume
almost as primitive as that of an unhappy French governess taken prisoner
by some followers of Schamyl, in a raid on the Russians, and driven
before them to their mountain home, the poor lady having nothing on but
a pair of blue satin corsets. Tothall had his picture painted in the
brown waistcoat. Coming afterwards to England, he entered the service
of a woollen draper, in Tavistock Court; who, after some time, told him
he was a very honest fellow, and that as he the draper only sold cloth,
Tothall might have half the shop to sell shalloons and trimmings. He
lent him money to buy stock, and recommended him to his chapmen. By and
bye, a relative of Tothall in the West Indies sent him a puncheon of
rum as a present. The recipient was about to sell the alcohol for what
it would fetch—perhaps to the landlord of the Bedford Head—when his
master interposed. “I have no use for my cellar,” quoth this benevolent
woollen draper. “Do you open the door to the street; tap your puncheon,
and draw it off in twopennyworths.” Spirit licences were not yet known.
Tothall followed the draper’s advice, speedily sold all his rum at a
good profit; sent to the West Indies for more, and drove a merry trade
in rum, shalloons, and trimmings, till it occurred to the woollen draper
to inform him one morning that he intended to retire, that he might have
all his stock at prime cost, and pay him as he could. Why are there no
such woollen-drapers now-a-days? Between the shop and the cellar Tothall
contrived to realize a very considerable fortune. All this time, this odd
man had been assiduously collecting fossils, minerals, and shells, of
which he had, at last, a handsome museum. He retired to Dover, and, true
to his old adventurous habits, entered into large speculations, in what
his biographer modestly calls the “smuggling branch of business.” But a
“byeboat,” laden with horses, in which he was interested, having been
lost between Flushing and Ostend, and some other speculations turning out
disastrously, Tothall became in his later days somewhat straitened in his
circumstances. Hogarth used frequently to visit him at a little village
near Dover, whither he retired, and where he died four years after our
painter. He left 1,500_l._ in cash, and his collection of shells, &c.
sold for a handsome sum.
[18] _Vide_ the statutes at largo for the “Black Act,” by which poaching
in disguise was made a felony, punishment death; and the curious relation
of the gentleman who fell among a gang of “Blacks,” and was courteously
entreated by them, and regaled at a rich supper, at which the solids were
composed exclusively of venison, on condition, only, of never revealing
the place of these sooty poachers’ retreat.
[19] Figg fought much more with the sword than with his fists.
An Austrian Employé.
Neither a gipsy nor an Austrian employé has any country. They both lead
a nomadic life, without home or fixed habitation; and when the gipsy has
stolen what the neighbours had to lose, and the Austrian employé has
exhausted all the squeezable properties of his office, they both move
off—the gipsy whither he likes best, the Austrian employé most frequently
whither he likes least.
The Austrian employé seldom administers in the town or province to which
he belongs. The sages of the Austrian empire had one wise axiom, on
which rested the whole of the government machinery. This axiom, sowed
hatred and distrust in the fertile plains of Hungary and the pleasant
gardens of Italy, in the homesteads of the Tyrolese and in the cottages
of the half-starved Silesians: and soon thousands of hirelings were
needed to help cut the rank ears, and bring the poisonous harvest home.
And what harvests did not Austria bring home in 1848 and 1849! The
axiom is “_Divide et impera_;” and forms the secret of Austrian policy.
Government appoints no Austrian subject to any post or office in his
native place. He would have friends and relations there, with whom he
would be tender in the matter of extortion; and Austria wants money, not
friends. If an Italian were suffered to administer in Lombardy, where
would the ducats and the spies come from? He would naturally seek to gain
the love and confidence of his compatriots; but the Government who have
standing armies and above 500,000 employés to pay, would rather have the
ducats than the love—it wants spies, not confidence. Therefore must the
Hungarian Radetsky suck the golden fluid from the veins of Lombardy,
no matter what blood or tears may be shed; the Bohemian Windischgrätz
must rule in Hungary; a garrison of Slavonians must hold the fortresses
of Silesia; a soldier must judge civilians; a council of lords promote
the interests of plebeians; and a celibatarian priest decide on causes
matrimonial.
Consequent upon these regulations, the writer’s father, a native of
Bohemia married to a Viennese lady, was sent to Hungary, to deal with a
people of whose language he knew nothing, and of whose customs he knew
worse than nothing: having scraped what little information he possessed
from books which told him everything of Hungary but the truth.
An Austrian employé has no country. No sooner has he arrived at a place,
than all his endeavours are bent on how to get away again. Of freedom he
has less than any man in the town. He dares do nothing, however innocent,
on which suspicion could by possibility fasten. He dares not visit his
fellow employés: that would be plotting; he dares not openly offer a
pinch of snuff to his superiors: that would be bribery; if he is in the
money department, he must not have father, brother, or far-away cousin
in the same office, for fear of connivance. For the Austrian Government
has the worst possible opinion of its bureaucratic members; saying
“_quibbet præsumitur_,” a thief—“_donec probetur_,” the contrary. If the
employé is an inferior, he is condemned to starvation; if a superior,
he is surrounded by a swarm of inferiors, who wait for his place, like
carrion crows waiting for the carcase on which the vultures are feeding.
When such a place is vacant, what an uproar! what whisperings and
shruggings of shoulders, what calculations and intrigues, hopes,
energies, expectations and disappointments, among the office-seeking
crowd! Early in the morning the candidate’s wife, if she is young,
or his daughters, if they are pretty, go about from office to office
canvassing for votes. Courtesies are proffered, promises are made, tears
are shed, and family miseries related again and again; variegated,
however, in pattern and direction, to suit the exigencies of the moment:
sentimental with the amiable, humble with the proud, pleading poverty to
the rich, and the rapid increase of a family to the bachelor, the fair
petitioners always close with the same formulæ—“generous protector,”
“just appreciator of the meanest merit,” “your great influence,” and
“eternal gratitude.” And sometimes the candidate opens the small chest
where, in spite of multitudinous christenings and many doctors’ bills,
he has managed to keep a few articles of family plate or ancestral
_vertù_, and, with a heavy sigh, wraps perhaps his silver candelabra in
tissue paper, and sends them to the chief power among the electors—an
incorruptible man, whom he does not attempt to bribe, but whose choice
he seeks to enlighten. In this scramble two men only come off well—the
chief elector, whom everybody propitiates, and the successful candidate:
unless, indeed, his place has cost him more than it is worth: which is
not a rare occurrence in bribing, money-loving Austria.
An Austrian employé, is nothing but an animated copying machine: for
in Austria nothing is ever said or done; everything is written. Heaven
only knows what they all write, and where those thousands of reams go
to at last; but every one writes, from nine in the morning to late at
night, and all the year round alike. Bent low over their desks, with
black fingers, black looks, and blackest _ennui_, without hope either
of an early promotion or a late dinner, there they sit and write, till
their brains are muddled and their hands are weary: head, heart, and
life are equally exhausted and dried up. Whole reams of foolscap are
written out for Section A, and duplicates thereof made for Section B.
These duplicates are copied for the Register’s Office; the copy is
copied for the Chancellor; an extract of the original copy is to be
sent to Section D; copy of the copy, and duplicate thereof, are to be
carefully written out again on foolscap, and sent to the so-called Court
Office “Hofkammer,” and there all is again written, copied, labelled,
registered, and numbered; the documents are then thrust away into the
proper pigeon-holes, where, for the most part, they get worm-eaten and
are forgotten.
After an Austrian employé has written, from the 1st of January to the
31st of December, what no one will ever want to read, he must set a
day aside whereon to fill up, in his own handwriting, the blanks left
in a printed form called _Comptabilitäts Tabelle_. The following are
the questions which he must answer there:—1. Name, age, birthplace? 2.
Of what religion? 3. Where and what he has studied? what languages he
speaks? what capabilities he possesses? 4. When he entered his Majesty’s
service? what different situations he has held? and what situation he
holds now while writing this abridged autobiography? 5. Is he husband,
bachelor, or widower? father or childless? 6. Has he any private fortune?
This last question is answered truthfully only by the very poor; for, as
the Government grants no pensions to the widows and orphans of employés
who have had a private income of 20_l._ per annum, it naturally follows
that very few employés are to be found who own to the fraction of a
zwanziger. At the foot of the paper a broad margin is left, headed by the
inoffensive title “Special Remark.” This margin is secretly filled up by
the employé’s immediate superior, who there inscribes his own private
opinion of the man who, throughout all the preceding answers, has sought
to place himself in the best light possible. This opinion is never stated
openly, but is, on the contrary, so carefully concealed that the employé
never knows what his chief thinks of him, nor what report he makes to
the greater chiefs above. The “special remark” is the indication which
the high officials consult: it is the shadow of him who is remarked on,
following him with noiseless step wherever he goes, and looming behind
him, black and threatening, when he stands in the sunlighted prospect
of a hoped-for promotion. An adverse remark is the stumbling-block, the
_pierre d’échopment_ of every Austrian bureaucrat: he cannot get over it;
unless, indeed, he is able to leap over the head of the special remarker,
and so change places and functions with him.
Yet, in spite of all these disagreeables, and notwithstanding the absence
of salary for the first years of service, a place in a Government office
is much sought after, and very difficult to procure. The curriculum, too,
leading to it, is not a light one. Neither in Hungary nor in Bohemia,
neither in Croatia nor in Corinthia, can a man obtain a Government office
unless he has studied Latin and philosophy, logic and the exact sciences.
Not that he is ever required to make use of his knowledge; but it is
decreed that the knowledge should be acquired. The “course” takes eight
years—the term prescribed by Government as absolutely necessary for the
completion of an employé’s polite education. And when, after these eight
years of hard study—after the numberless fees and presents, flatteries,
bowings, and scrapings, initiatory to an appointment—the young man has
at last wormed himself into the service, what is he to the Government?
Not more than a sharp lad who writes a good hand is to the grocer at the
corner. Indeed not so much; for the grocer would have to pay the sharp
lad for his services, while the paternal Government would not dream
of such an extravagance. No young man can hope for an apprenticeship
who expects anything beyond the honour of being allowed to serve for
love—and the future! This paternal Government—this national huckster
which deals only in paper—paper diet, paper constitution, paper money,
paper reform, neutrality, or amnesty—keeps its highly-educated apprentice
of twenty-five somewhat longer than Laban kept Jacob waiting for his
daughter. Ten, fifteen, and even twenty-five years he may have to serve
for his Rachel,—an appointment with a salary; which, however, turns out
most frequently to be only a Leah after all.
But it may be asked, how does the government manage to get so much
gratuitous service? In a country where a man must eat, drink, and clothe
himself handsomely, how can a paternal government be served for nothing?
Is all service in Austria gratuitous? Does the employé receive from the
butcher and baker and tailor the equivalent of what he bestows on the
state? Not quite so. A paternal government which gets its allies to fight
its battles for nothing, is clever enough to secure the support of its
employés by their fathers. The fathers pay their sons for the services
which these render to the state. The father of an employé expectant must
give a promissory note to government, undertaking to supply his son with
all things needful for the young man’s maintenance, if government, in
return, will be generous enough to accept his son’s time and energies,
and provide him with a place on some official treadmill. And the period
for such an undertaking is—“during the emperor’s pleasure.”
The mode in which this magnificent appointment is applied for is much
in the following manner: “The humble undersigned, who, according to
testimonial annexed _sub literâ_ A. has been born and baptized; who,
according to school testimonials _sub literis_ B. C. D. E. has studied
with good success, and pursued the course of philosophy, and has also
_heard_ about law; who, according to medical testimonial _sub literâ_
F. has been vaccinated with equally good success; who, according to
promissory note _sub literâ_ G. has a father who is willing to give
him, for the duration of his (the son’s) apprenticeship, the weekly
stipend of 1_l._; most humbly begs a well-born, most praiseworthy Chamber
to overwhelm him with the inestimable favour of making him honorary
apprentice to such and such an office. Should the undersigned be so happy
as to be accepted, he will be ready to pass the usual examinations in
three months’ time.”
Remark, that the writer of this request speaks of himself in the third
person singular. This is one of the many peculiarities in the Austrian
official style. The third person, singular, is usually employed only in
contempt. The officer addresses the private, the master the servant,
the magistrate the criminal, all as He. A humble petitioner, therefore,
must adopt the same formula when speaking of his own unworthy self
to a well-born Court Chamber. This self-denying request granted, the
candidate enters, as a probationary, the bureau in which he hopes to
become hereafter an integral particle. Here he learns to fawn upon his
chief in the proper official manner, to write confused reports about
things of which he knows nothing, to make copies—reams of copies—of
worthless original compositions; and after three months of these labours
he is examined by the Director, who asks him nothing, but awards him
a first-class testimonial—on the recommendation of the Chief. This
first-class testimonial gives the poor mean-spirited youth the privilege
of writing a second request, informing the Chamber of his good success,
and expressing his ardent desire to leave the list of Honoraries and
become an Ordinary.
Arrived at this Chimborazo of his wishes, the youth dresses himself in
full evening costume, and at nine o’clock in the morning goes to the
office to take the oath of allegiance to his Imperial, Royal, Apostolic
Majesty. All his colleagues assemble there, with solemn faces. A crucifix
and two lighted wax tapers are on the table in the middle of the room,
and the novice, going up to the table, repeats slowly after his Chief the
oath of allegiance; which is, in fact, a solemn promise to be an early
riser and a quick penman, never to divulge an official secret, and to be
incorruptible, generally and particularly.
The first promise is easily kept. The sooner a man rises and is out of
the house, the sooner he is out of the way of his duns; for an unpaid
Austrian employé is continually haunted by his creditors. The second of
those two promises he fulfils by habit. Who would not be a swift and
expert penman when writing all day and every day? The third no one asks
him to break, for no one cares what he writes during all the weary hours
of the day; his official secrets, if he has any, are safe from every
one’s curiosity. As for the fourth, it is not kept at all. An Austrian
employé accepts everything: money and trinkets; playthings for his boy,
and gifts for his wife; hams and tongues; opera tickets and theatre
stalls—he takes them all; and in return he may help the donor over some
slippery pass, by dragging him out of the straight road into the crooked
path leading to legal safety and moral dishonesty. Government gets off
with its interests somewhat sacrificed; but the gain on one side makes up
for the loss on the other. “_Donis semper aperta est_,” is the invisible
inscription written on the Austrian office. It is forbidden to give or
to receive; and he who gives runs as great a risk as he who receives;
but both giver and receiver, running swiftly and keeping time and step
together, generally manage to outstrip the stumbling march of the
detective.
“Do not praise the day till it is over,” says the proverb; and, following
the spirit of the adage, the maxim of the employé is, Do not condemn
the Austrian Government till you are rid of it: that is, till you are
dead. Nay, even then the paternal government steps in, to take care,
not of the widows and orphans, but of more precious things; namely, the
dead employé’s goods and chattels. Widows and orphans may shift for
themselves; goods and chattels must be taken care of. So government sends
an officer to take a list of all the employé’s effects remaining, and
specially to search for money. In the case of any being found—a case as
rare as the sight of a white elephant in Europe—the widow and orphans
must give government a part: for government is co-heir whenever there
is an official inheritance to be had. Then this same wise and liberal
government refuses to grant a pension to the widow or orphan, if a
private income of twenty pounds per annum is found among the reliquiæ.
If nothing is found, and if the employé has been more than ten years an
official, and more than three years in matrimonial bondage, government
grants a pension of ten or twenty pounds yearly. If he has served for a
less term, or been married for only two years and three quarters, the
pension is forfeited.
But to look on the bright side. If the employé has died insolvent, the
sorrowing matron, who was bowed down to earth with grief and tears, rises
consoled. She is a female pensioner. Her husband is gone, her home,
her love, her independence,—all are gone; but she herself must stay.
Government has bought her. She has become its property, and cannot now
leave the country, unless she likes to leave her pension behind her.
Austria turns her paper money into chains, by which she holds her poor
pensioner, as a boy holds a bird or a cockchafer by a string. See this
ward of government, clad in a rusty black dress of doubtful condition;
on her head a black bonnet that has seen its best days, from which hangs
a long black veil; on her arm hangs a long black reticule; on her pale
lips a long tale of privation and misery. This is her picture at she
goes every three months to draw her pitiful allowance—proving by the
attestation of the parish rector that she is alive, that she is herself,
and none other. Just the same, too, is she when she goes her new year’s
rounds to her late husband’s Chiefs and colleagues, and to those members
of the Imperial family most notorious for their benevolence. On these
annual occasions she carries needlework and trifles to be raffled for,
and thinks herself happy if she can buy an extra log for her stove, or
a pound of meat for her broth, from the proceeds. Thus she drags on her
weary life, barely escaping, as _pauvre honteuse_, the misery, shame, and
degradation of downright beggary.
Such is the career of an Austrian employé; and this sketch is equally
characteristic of every employé in the Austrian service, whether civil
or military, or under whatever denomination he serves. In each and every
case the salary of the officials are so utterly inadequate to their
wants, that they are urged by the necessities of their position to devote
all their talents and energies to make money by any means in their power.
Their official rank and influence are available to extort a bribe and to
screen the guilty parties. Where all are corrupt who is to denounce the
offender?
This too faithful picture of an Austrian official will serve as a clue to
unravel the mystery of those enormous defalcations which have recently
come to light in the Austrian administration. Startling as they are to
English readers, those who are acquainted with the secret practices of
Austrian bureaucracy can only wonder that the late astounding frauds
were discovered at all—so intricate and wide-spread is the network
of chicanery and intrigue which enmeshes the Austrian system of
administration.
Sir Self and Womankind.
Sir Self-Sufficient on his mule
Went ambling stiffly o’er the ground.
Quoth he: “This womankind doth rule
Where’er a fool or slave is found;
For she is full of craft and wiles,
And dresses all her looks for show,
But not her cunning nor her smiles
Shall win a heart from me, I trow.”
His way was through the stubble-field,
Where mellow fragrance filled the air;
And from the earth’s o’erflowing yield
The scattered fruits lay ripe and fair.
There women laboured in the sun,
Uncouthly clad, and sun-embrowned,
The old, the weak, the little one,
Upon the stony furrowed ground.
Sir Self laughed softly as he went.
Quoth he: “Here nature hath her way,
And shows no other ornament
Than in the air and sunshine play.
Ah! what a sorry, sordid sight
Doth Beauty thus unfashioned make!—
You, city dames, to such a plight
Would bring the binding weed and rake.”
There came one tripping to his knee,
“Wild flowers: oh! buy wild flowers,” she said,
And looked into his face to see
What answer there was to be read.
Sir Self passed on the other side,
While from his hand a pittance came.
Quoth he: “This nature hath no pride,
Nor knoweth how to blush for shame.”
Then onward through the village lane
Of hovels dark, and cribbed, and low,
Where narrow door and knotted pane
Scant light and less of air bestow:
Scared men and women rested there,
And children swarmed and gambolled by.
Quoth he: “Among so many, where
May modesty find room to lie?”
Sir Self went saddened on his road
Toward the dimly spangled town;
A girl upon a heavy load
Beside the path had sat her down:
“Will no one help you on your way?”
“I want no help,” the girl replied,
“I bear this burden day by day.”
Quoth he: “This is true labour’s pride.”
Then other women sorely bent,
Beneath their burdens passed along;
Yet spoke they gaily as they went,
Or softly hummed a quiet song:
And some bore children, some their load
A failing sister’s pack increased.
Then thought Sir Self: “With whip and goad,
These women were like laden beast!”
The shambling, reeking suburb through,
There rose a mansion broad and high,
Whence light from countless windows flew,
And flamed a meteor in the sky;
And from its gates, at clang of bell,
Came women forth, with saucy word
And cry. Quoth he: “Can this be well
When women like the cattle herd?”
He marked the motley troop; some gay
With wilful burst of mirth long pent;
Some downcast went their silent way;
Some, stolid-featured, mocked content.
But there was labour’s stain on all,
The travailed look, the ashy skin.
Quoth he: “What may this folk befall,
With crime without and want within?”
The gleaming town shone more and more,
As fell the night’s mist-laden gloom,
Till heaven’s face seemed dotted o’er
With feeble sparks, where wheel and loom
Went on their ceaseless whirl and swing,
As busy hand and eager eye,
Mid shuttle’s flight and iron’s ring,
Their still-renewing taskwork ply.
Dismounting from his bridled mule,
Afoot Sir Self pursued his way,
Where cries of mingled mirth and dule
Marked sottish rout or maddened fray;
Where on each lintel sat and croned
Old beldams, and the sluttish brood
Of girl-folk gossiped, laughed, and droned,
As drone the idle, laugh the lewd.
The city hath no solemn night
Like that which shades the dewy lawn,
But with a lurid, ghastly light,
Beshames the gloom, and mocks the dawn.
Still as the restless watches wore
Sir Self the stony footway paced,
Till morning waved the city o’er
Her filmy wings gold-interlaced.
But still through all the midnight blind,
And through the blinking of the morn,
On every side rose womankind
To move his pity—raise his scorn:
One mocked her shame, one pressed along
On some untimely taskwork bound;
One charmed the night with siren song;
One woke the day with plaintive sound.
Here fragile forms Sir Self passed by
At toils which lordly man disdains;
There rose some patient, piteous cry,
Where petty trade sought petty gains.
And in the morning’s mist there sate
With love that would not wince nor fail,
Poor womankind beside the gate
Of hospital and grated jail.
Sir Self forsook his stubborn mule,
And, sadly, homeward paced the ground;
Quoth he: “If womankind doth rule,
May be nor slave nor fool is bound.
’Tis not her beauty nor her wiles,
Nor all her looks dressed up for show,
But something more than craft or smiles
Has won a heart from me, I trow.”
WILLIAM DUTHIE.
The Poor Man’s Kitchen.
Not long ago, it was discovered that our prisons are palaces, that
the treadmill is as pleasant as waltzing, that picking oakum is not
more difficult than potichomanie, and that if any one desires to fare
luxuriously every day, without expense to himself, he has only to turn
thief, and be sentenced to two years’ confinement. Unfortunately, the
life of a prison is attended with a few disadvantages. We are not all
fitted for a life of monastic seclusion; silence is not always agreeable;
restraint very soon becomes irksome. In spite of these drawbacks,
however—which those who have long battled with the world, and whose
spirits are drooping under the fell influence of adversity, might well
be content to endure for the sake of peace and plenty—the condemned cell
seemed a blessed refuge for the distressed, a pretty little chamber in
the Castle of Indolence and Many Delights. In one point, especially, the
House of Correction, it was supposed, might inspire all prisoners to sing
with Dr. Watts—
“I have been there, and still would go;
’Tis like a little heaven below.”
for the larder seemed worthy of an abbey in the rare old time in which
The monks of Melrose made gude kail
On Fridays, when they fasted;
And wanted neither beef nor ale
So long us their neighbours lasted.
At all events, the poor man began to imagine that there was no such
potluck for him as he could get every day of the year in any penitentiary
throughout the land. He and his little ones were starving on a crust of
bread, and cast envious looks at the tabby waiting about the area gate
for the daily visit of the cats’-meat-man. Why should he not have as good
a dinner as the felon who had broken into the house with his centre-bit,
or had broken the bank with his frauds? Why should he pace homewards
day after day, pale-cheeked, hollow-eyed, with sinking heart and hungry
blood, all for the crime of being honest? A cry of indignation rose
throughout the country. If people did not go the length of supposing that
our prisoners are fed on turtle-soup, and sleep on feather-beds, they
declared at least that the management of prisons is such as to place a
heavy premium on crime. The criminal is not punished, but rewarded. Our
philanthropy has gone too far. We are milksops. Gaolers are gentlemen;
turnkeys are bland as the angels that opened the prison doors; they take
care that hinges never grate harshly on the ear, and they shoot the
bolts sweetly, softly, solemnly, as dying falls of music. Success to
swindling! When swindlers are thus petted, who would not go to prison?
Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. Let us have
jolly dinners with shut doors in preference to empty stomachs under the
open sky. Instead of plenty to do, and nothing to eat, let us have the
crank on Christian principles—that is, in a fine combination of texts of
scripture and boiled beef. After all, there is not a little attraction
in the fleshpots of Egypt, and for the sake of the garlic, the leeks and
the feast of fat things, with which their souls are satisfied, the chosen
Israel long to enter once more the house of bondage, rather than serve
God in the wilderness on a diet of sparrows—for what else are quails, at
least according to the London experience? Lost in those deserts of brick
and mortar, which all great cities are—famished and faint as he treads
“the stony-hearted Oxford Street”—the British workman is fain to enter
the house of his bondage for the sake of the daily allowance of cooked
meat—three ounces, without bone.
In these flattering descriptions of prison discipline there is a good
deal of exaggeration, but there is truth enough to perplex many worthy
people who are anxious for the wellbeing of the working classes. The
authorities may point to the fact that the fare of our penitentiaries is
barely sufficient to keep the prisoners from losing flesh; but this is
not a fact which appeals to the popular imagination. We see men feeding
sometimes voraciously, and yet never gaining in flesh; while others,
who are very spare eaters, grow fat in spite of themselves. Therefore,
granting that, scientifically, the weighing machine is a fair test of
what a man ought to eat, yet, practically, it is not a standard to which
the common sense of mankind can submit. There is a fallacy in these
measurements which never imposes upon the poor man. He says—“Nobody
takes the trouble to weigh me. I have as little fresh air, and as little
liberty as those fellows. I am confined in a close workshop all day.
I breathe a stifling atmosphere, which the prisoners do not. My whole
manner of life requires even more than these convicts do, a nourishing
diet. But neither for myself, nor for my family, can I get such excellent
or such abundant food as the greatest scoundrel in England obtains every
day from his warders. It is a frightful shame—it is a national crime.
Your weighing machine is a grand imposture.”
And what is the nature of this food which excites so much envy? Between
one prison and another there are differences, and it must be remembered
that in all prisons there is established a considerable difference
between criminals confined for short, and those committed for long
periods. Prisoners are divided into classes—generally three. First-class
prisoners are the aristocracy of crime, who are at the top of their
profession, who are in for more than a couple of months, and who are
entitled to first-class fare. The second-class are those who have been
sentenced to less than two months, but more than a fortnight; while
the third and lowest class includes those who have been committed for
a fortnight and under. Not to make the prisons too attractive to petty
offenders, those in the second and third classes, who may be described
as the fluctuating population of our bridewells, get the very commonest
fare. Those in the second get but a very small portion of animal food;
these in the third get none at all. It is the class who are confined
for lengthened terms, and who may almost be described as the permanent
population of our prisons, that get the sort of fare which has caused so
much envy.
We may take the dietary table of the House of Correction at Cold Bath
Fields as a fair example of the mode in which first-class prisoners are
fed. They get three meals a day—breakfast, dinner, and supper. At the
first of these, every prisoner gets six ounces and two-thirds of bread,
together with a pint of cocoa. The bread, it is true, is brown, and our
lower classes have a prejudice against loaves made from coarse flour; but
the prejudice is an absurd one. The man of wealth regards brown bread as
a luxury; it is the most wholesome, nourishing, and palatable form of
the staff of life; and those who begin by making faces at it very soon
come to enjoy it. Every day a loaf is given to each prisoner, about the
size for which we pay twopence in the shops. With two cuts of a knife,
it is divided into three parts; it is then placed in a bag and handed
to each prisoner, being his allowance for the day. He eats a third at
breakfast, a third at dinner, and the remainder at supper. We are still
at breakfast, however, and wish to know about that pint of cocoa which
is handed to each man. The general way in which the ingredients are
mixed is this:—In every hundred pints of the article, as it issues from
the kitchen, there ought to be three pounds two ounces of cocoa, eight
pounds of molasses, or four pounds of raw sugar, and twelve and a-half
pints of milk. So that the allowance to each man, in his pint of cocoa,
is half-an-ounce of cocoa, half-a-gill of milk, and either one ounce and
a-third of molasses, or two-thirds of an ounce of sugar—the rest being
water. If this is not a very luxurious breakfast, still it is not a bad
one, and many an honest man would be glad if he could command it for
himself and his family.
Dinner comes at two o’clock. The men sit down on narrow benches, before
long strips of table. A table-cloth is laid for each; it is a piece
of brown paper somewhat less than the size of the present page. Upon
this the salt, to which the prisoner is allowed to help himself in any
quantity, or his bread, or anything else, is deposited, and after dinner
he pockets the paper, for he will receive a new table-cloth on the
morrow. His quantity of bread I have already mentioned. It is a third
part of the little loaf which is handed to him in a numbered bag, and for
each meal weighs six ounces and two-thirds. The foundation of the dinner,
however, is animal food. On four days of the week, the prisoners get meat
and potatoes; on three they get soup. The meat (though not the soup) has
the disadvantage of being served up cold; but this is unavoidable when a
great quantity of beef or mutton has to be divided simultaneously into
small pieces for a thousand prisoners, who commence their meal at one and
the same moment. Each man gets six ounces of meat and half a pound of
potatoes. During the winter half of the year the meat is beef and mutton
alternate fortnights; during the summer half it is beef entirely. In some
prisons the allowance is as low as three ounces of cooked meat without
bone; but as provisions are probably dearer in London than anywhere
else, it is worth while for the purposes of comparison, to confine
our attention to the rations permitted in the Houses of Correction at
Clerkenwell and Westminster. We shall then be able to put the case
against the prisons in the strongest light. The sufficiency of the prison
diet will be equally seen if we now turn to examine the nature of the
dinner on the three days of the week, which are allotted to soup, with
the usual modicum of bread. Each man gets a pint and a half of soup.
This mess is so prepared that in every hundred pints of it there are
stewed down two ox-heads, three pounds of barley, six pounds of peas,
three pounds of rice, one pound of salt, and two ounces of pepper, with
a due proportion of such vegetables as are in season—carrots, leeks,
turnips. This is the Westminster receipt. In other prisons the receipt
varies a little. At Lewes, for example, every quart of soup contains
six ounces of meat without bone, five ounces of potatoes, two ounces of
oatmeal and flour mixed, a sufficient quantity of leeks or onions, and a
little parsley or thyme. At Horsemonger Lane, it is made from pot liquor
of the boiling beef, and contains per pint, an ounce of chopped beef,
two ounces of peas or barley, and vegetables seasoned with pepper and
salt. At other prisons the mess is made into a sort of Irish stew, that
besides containing plenty of nourishment, is rendered palatable by mint
or other pot herbs. On the whole it will be admitted that the dinner, if
it is of a very plain character, is also substantial, and that no one
who can command such fare need starve or complain. There are thousands
of poor men who would say that the meal requires but one thing to make
it perfect, and that is the glass of beer which is allowed in the Munich
prison.
Supper is the meal for which fastidious appetites will have least
inclination, for it consists of the usual quantity of bread, together
with a pint of gruel. What is this gruel which has such an evil
reputation? It contains about one and a half ounces of oatmeal to the
pint, and is seasoned with salt or sugar, as the case may be. Now, from
the time when Dr. Johnson in his dictionary defined oats to be the
substance on which horses are fed in England, and men in Scotland, to the
present day, this very fattening article of diet has been the object of
innumerable sneers. Lord Kames, with that audacious patriotism for which
his countrymen are distinguished, retorted with not a little wit—“Yes,
and where can you find such horses and such men?” These matters are very
much under the shadow of prejudice. The Hebrew declines ham, and the
Englishman can never become partial to frogs and snails. A Scotchman is
astonished to find that turnip-tops are eaten in England, and we were
all very much surprised when the illustrious Soyer told us not long ago,
that the nettle is one of the most delicious green vegetables—fit for the
table of a prince, though the poor man can pluck it by the road-side.
About this oatmeal, it was but recently that we had some of our public
men pronouncing upon its merits in the most dogmatic terms. Mr. Bright
described oatmeal porridge as a horrible mess, and seemed to think it
one of the grievances of the lower classes in Scotland that they are
condemned to feed upon it. The Scotch were at once in arms against him,
and they had some right on their side. First of all rose the Duke of
Argyll, and declared emphatically that oatmeal porridge is capital food.
Then came Dr. Guthrie, who did battle for another preparation of oatmeal,
called sowens. “I stand up for Scotland and oatmeal porridge!” he said.
“Clearly Mr. Bright knew nothing of what he was speaking about when he
disparaged them.” (The Scotch, it will be observed, have a respectful
habit of designating their food in the plural number. As kings and
editors are always “we,” broth and porridge are always “they.”) “I have
heard the case of a countryman of his somewhat in point, who was fain
to say a good word for something with less substance. Travelling in the
Highlands, he got tired; he got bemisted; he got, what an Englishman,
is very apt to do, hungry, and so cast himself upon the hospitality of
a cottage he stumbled on. The good woman had no English, and he had no
Gaelic; but by the language of signs she came to understand what he
wanted. She had no oatmeal in the house—nothing better than what we call
sowens. Now sowens, you know, are very good and palatable when they are
manufactured; but before that process they bear a remarkable resemblance
to dirty water. That the man thankfully swallowed them I make no
doubt—for he went home and told his friends that he had been the object
of the most remarkable providence that ever befell a human being. Quoth
he, after telling the first part of the story, the woman took some dirty
water and put it into a pot, and, by the blessing of God, it came out
a pudding!” There is certainly one mode of preparing oatmeal which all
Englishmen relish—namely, when the finer qualities of the meal are baked
into those thin cakes, which are obtained in perfection only in the north
of Scotland; and with regard to the gruel at which Mr. Bright and other
members of “the bloated aristocracy,” turn up their noses, it is, even
in its simplest form, not to be despised by hungering men; while, by the
addition of some cheap condiment, it can always be made agreeable to the
taste. The prisoners, at all events, partake of it heartily; and a little
butter, milk, or treacle, helps it wonderfully.
The conclusion which is drawn from all this is, that prisoners are well
fed, that the diet provided is beyond the means of many poor families and
that there must be something wrong if criminals are so much better off
than the honest artisan who is starving with his family on a pittance of
20_s._ a week. That there is something wrong it is not necessary to deny.
But the question may be raised, whether the wrong lies in our system of
prison discipline. If the fare which is provided for our criminals is
good and ample, is even generous, there is this also to be remembered,
at the same time, that it is dirt-cheap. It is so cheap that when the
cost of it is mentioned, everybody will at once admit that the idea of
lowering the price still further would be a ridiculous meanness. At the
Clerkenwell House of Correction the diet which we have described is
provided to each prisoner at the cost of certainly not more than 4_d._
a day. The average cost of feeding all the prisoners in that gaol
during the year 1859 was 2_s._ a week for each man; but as this average
is struck so as to include the second and third-class prisoners, there
will be a difference in the calculation if we take account only of the
first-class prisoners receiving first-class fare. That difference,
however, must be very slight, as, among the 1,200 daily inmates of
the prison, there is but a sprinkling of the second and third-class
criminals. We are clearly within the mark if we put down 4_d._ a day
for each man. At the Ely House of Correction the charge is 3¼_d._ for
each. At the Salford New Bailey the daily cost of food is 2¾_d._ a head.
For the whole of England the average cost of each prisoner’s diet is
3¾_d._ a day. There is a very curious and instructive table in one of
our blue-books, which shows the total average cost per annum of each
prisoner; and when people talk of the luxury of prisons, we may ask them
to read this table, and then to say what they think:—
£. _s._ _d._
Prison diet, &c. 5 12 5¼
Clothing, bedding, and straw 1 7 2
Medicines, &c. 0 1 7¼
Wine, beer, and spirits 0 0 10
Washing and cooking 0 1 7
Fuel, soap, candles, oil, and gas 1 17 11
Stationary, printing, and books 0 6 3¾
Furniture 0 4 11¼
Rents, rates, and taxes 0 2 6¾
Officers’ salaries 9 19 7¾
Pensions to retired officers 0 7 10¼
Support of prisoners removed under contract to other
jurisdictions 0 3 10½
Removal of prisoners to and from trial 0 8 11¼
Removing transported convicts 0 5 0
Repairs, alterations, and additions 2 9 5
Sundry contingencies not enumerated 1 1 9¾
Annual repayment of principal or interest of money
borrowed for alterations or rebuilding of prison 2 12 9¾
--------------
£26 19 8½
It should be stated with regard to this return, although it does not in
the least affect the general argument, that it is an average with which
what are called the Government prisons have nothing to do. The above
average is derived from a comparison of the county and borough prisons.
In the government establishments, which hold the criminals that under
the old system would be sentenced to transportation, the cost of each
prisoner may be one or two pounds more. If we must be exact, let the
figures be quoted, and from these it will be found that in 1856, the
gross total cost for each prisoner was 28_l._ 5_s._, and that this sum
was reduced to 16_l._ 5_s._ 4_d._ by setting against it the value of
prisoners’ labour. Putting these prisons then aside, as not affecting the
general argument, and looking simply at the ordinary houses of correction
to be found in every county in England, what do we discover? We discover
in the first place, that every prisoner costs the county at the rate of
27_l._ a year, or a trifle over ten shillings a week. If we take into
consideration the numerous items which that sum covers, it does not
appear that this is a vary exorbitant sum. But when we turn our attention
to the first six items of the foregoing list, which include the diet,
the clothing, the bedding, medicines, wine, beer and spirits, washing,
cooking, fuel, soap, candles, oil and gas, everybody must be astonished
at the smallness of the amount sufficient to meet what may be described
as the personal wants of the prisoner. He is fed and clothed, he is
warmed and lighted, he is washed and doctored throughout the year for
9_l._ 1_s._, 6½_d._ These first six items which constitute the expense of
living, are covered by sixpence a day. The one article of diet is, I have
already stated, covered by the sum of threepence-three-farthings a day.
What is the inference to be deduced from such a fact? Will any body say
that our prisoners are extravagantly fed? Will anybody undertake to
keep them in life, on a smaller sum? It is surely palpable that if a
comparison with the diet of prisoners, the fare of our honest poor looks
meagre enough; that if a premium seems to be placed on crime by the
goodness of the penitentiary kitchen, there may be a wrong somewhere, but
it is certainly not in the system of prison discipline. Surely the wrong
is not that prisoners are so well fed, but that honest men are worse fed.
Why should they be worse fed? They pay far more than fourpence a day for
their food, and that food is not nearly so nice, nor so wholesome, as
that which every pick-pocket obtains. The proper inference is that in
prisons these things are managed well, while in the poor man’s dwelling
they are managed badly. It is entirely an affair of management.
There are two great losses which the poor man suffers from. In the first
place he has to buy from the retail dealer, and consequently pays more
for every article that he requires. He has to pay so much indeed for
each item, that a number of little delicacies which he has to buy fresh
every day in order to give a flavour to his food—such as parsley, cost
him far more than they are worth—cost it may be two or three hundred per
cent. beyond their real value. In the second place, after he has got all
his articles of food together, there is a great deal of waste because
things are prepared on a small scale. He will buy bone with his meat, but
he is unable to turn the bone to account. Or he gets too much fat with
his meat, and he has either to cut it off, or to throw it into the pot
so as to spoil the dinner. Besides which, in nine cases out of ten, his
wife is a vile cook, and would spoil the best of food. What with buying
his things dear, buying what he cannot turn to any use, and having to
trust to the tender mercies of those culinary artists who are said to
be chiefly provided by the enemy of mankind, the working man’s teeth
enjoy but poor practice. The remedy for the startling contrast between
the dinner-tables of the thief in prison and honesty in a garret, is not
to place the felon on shorter commons, but to teach honesty the art of
combination, and to bring that system of the division of labour which in
manufactures has achieved the most splendid results, to bear upon the
ordinary economy of human life.
The wild theories of communists have unfortunately brought discredit on
the principle of combination as applied to the domestic life. But there
was wisdom in the idea of a common kitchen, if not of a common purse.
How will the poor man ever be able to command twenty ounces of bread,
six ounces of cooked meat, eight ounces of potatoes, a pint of cocoa and
a pint of gruel, all for fourpence (indeed less than fourpence), except
by combination of some sort? In the manufacturing towns of the north,
the workmen form themselves into a sort of joint-stock company, purchase
their provisions wholesale, sell them to the members of the company at
a profit barely sufficient to cover the expenses, and so contrive to
live at a comparatively cheap rate. There are other schemes of a similar
description afoot, which have been more or less successful; and it may be
that in time the working classes will establish institutions for cooking,
for brewing, and for providing themselves with all the necessaries of
life. Such institutions as these must be left to spring up spontaneously
among themselves; but, in the meantime, it seems to us that something may
be done to show the lower classes what is in their power if they only set
about it in the right way. As a general rule, the establishment of large
kitchens for the purpose of victualling the poor must be left to private
enterprise. They will be established by persons who see their way to make
a moderate profit in providing wholesome food at a cheaper rate than has
yet been possible. If anybody sneers at cheapness, and suggests a doubt
whether such undertakings can ever be sustained except by charitable
contributions, there is a very good answer at hand in the success of the
model lodging-houses. It was said that model lodging-houses would never
pay. But they pay so well, that Mr. Newson, who has built a couple of
such houses at the back of Berkeley Square (and they are well worth going
to see), has declared his readiness to build similar houses in the City,
say about Farringdon Street, if he can only get the ground at a moderate
rent. The accommodation which in this way he gives to the families of
the working classes for 3_s._ 6_d._ or 4_s._ 6_d._ a week, is perfectly
marvellous. And what an enterprising builder has thus accomplished in
providing house-room, enterprising victuallers will emulate in providing
cheap, wholesome, palatable food, and in making a profit out of the
transaction. The idea is not worth much unless it will pay. It can have
no genuine vitality unless it will be self-supporting. If Clerkenwell
House of Correction can feed 1,200 prisoners daily at fourpence each,
surely it is within the bounds of probability that as many customers
can be well served with food for eightpence or ninepence a day, and a
tolerable margin of profit be left to the account?
But those who hold strenuously, as we do, that schemes of this sort
must pay their own way, and should be left to the enterprize of
individuals—that they are purely a question of commerce, with which
charity and patronage have nothing to do—may nevertheless think that,
in the first instance, an example has to be set, and that trade, which
is always suspicious of new projects, is not likely to set the example
in a hurry. It was not the instincts of trade that started the model
lodging-houses; but, once started, the tradesman is glad to keep up
the game. So it is not likely that the mere instinct of trade will in
a moment set cheap kitchens afloat; and in these matters the example
has generally to be given by persons who are willing to act together
on philanthropic grounds. On public grounds, a committee of noblemen
and gentlemen, headed by Prince Albert, started the Crystal Palace, ran
all the risk of failure, carried the scheme to a successful issue, and
inspired the directors of the palace at Sydenham to follow the example,
under certain modifications, with pounds, shillings, and pence as the
motive power. Perhaps a poor man’s kitchen ought not to be mentioned in
the same page with crystal palaces; but perhaps, also, it is capable of
producing as much real good as acres of glass and miles of iron pillars.
And surely there are many gentlemen in this metropolis who take an
interest in the poor of our great cities, who only require that such
facts as the foregoing should be brought under their notice, in order
to follow them up to a practical conclusion, and whose names would be
certain to obtain from the public the small sum of money necessary to
erect the cooking apparatus, and to put the scheme in motion.
The working-classes have lately exhibited such a talent for organization,
that there is every likelihood of their speedily learning the lesson.
The builders have but lately concluded a strike for more pay. It is
demonstrable that they can, by their own exertions, obtain all that
they demand. If they have failed in obtaining more wages, it is still
possible for them to achieve what comes to the same thing—to make the
actual amount of wages go as far as the increased rate which they desire.
Why should not Messrs. Potter and Co. turn their formidable powers of
organization in this direction? It is surely more feasible, as well as
more laudable, for trade unions to provide their members with cheap and
nourishing food, than to aim at the intimidation of masters, and of men
not belonging to the society. The unions are anxious to embrace every
member of the particular trades to which they are attached. Could any
machinery be established more certain to bring about that result, than
the institution of kitchens connected with each trade? Every member of
the union, on presenting his ticket, would get his rations at cost price,
while those, not members of the union, would get the same rations if they
chose to pay a little more. That slight increase of price would be a
screw that would act effectually in inducing all workmen to belong to a
society. The advantages which a trades’ union holds forth to the members
are, for the most part, contingent. If a union workman is sick, he will
have an allowance in his sickness; if he dies, his family will have a
claim on the society; should he innocently get into trouble with his
employers, he will be backed by all the funds and influence of his fellow
members. But many workmen cannot bring themselves to anticipate such
contingencies. They are not sick; they are not going to die; nobody is
troubling them. Why should they join a society? But offer them every day
a cheaper and a better dinner than they can get, save as being enrolled
in the union, and they will join to a man. The unions, which in spite of
the illegal and tyrannical purposes they have been made to serve, are
a most valuable institution, which no man of sense would wish to take
away from the working man, would then produce greater good than they have
yet accomplished; they would fill the poor man’s mouth, and it generally
happens that when the mouth has done all that it wants to do in the way
of eating it is not inclined to do much in the way of sedition.
It is a very humiliating reflection that eating and drinking occupy
more of our thoughts than anything else in heaven above or in the earth
beneath. We are not yet as the lilies that take no thought of such
matters. Man is like the lower animals in this respect that with the
vast majority of our race, the struggle for existence is a struggle for
dinner. We have all somewhat of the Tartar Khan in us, and after we
ourselves have dined, are ready to proclaim that the whole world may
dine also. But we first. Nobody shall dine with our good will, if we are
starving. Who can count all the wars, murders and quarrels that have
arisen out of this one question of dinner—the question of questions? How
many of the piteous cases that come before Sir Cresswell Cresswell are
to be explained by deficiency of food, badness of cooking, and fits of
indigestion? There is no such irritant as hunger and deranged gastronomy.
If we could only get at the wisdom which is supposed to lie in ancient
fables we should probably find that Pandora’s box, the source of every
mischief, was an empty oven or larder, or some such receptacle. The poor
man especially feels the truth of this doctrine. He conspires against the
rich, because he never gets a dinner, and on that point he feels with the
Great Cham. He beats his wife, because with his hard won earnings she
can place only bad food before him. He drinks beer, and drowns himself
in gin, because no meat that he can get is half so pleasant. People
imagine that by introducing the light wines of France into this country
we shall put a stop to drunkenness. It is a great mistake. The French are
a sober people, not because they drink wine, but because they are good
cooks. Where you have bad cookery and good liquor, depend upon it the
liquor will carry the day. And we shall not stop the rage for liquor in
this country by making it still better—by turning the gin into Cognac,
and by turning the beer into Bordeaux. The cure lies rather in restoring
the balance between meat and drink. Put the meat more on a par with the
drink, and then see what the result will be. Either teach the poor man to
cook, or give him his meat well cooked. Let the Temperance Leagues and
Alliances look to it. They will accomplish far more good by improving the
working man’s edibles than by meddling with his potables—by seconding
that natural law which makes a man chiefly dependent on his food, rather
than by attempting to place artificial barriers in the way of his getting
whatever drink he may require. The best cure for the drunkenness of the
lower classes is not a Maine Liquor Law—but soup and sausages, pudding
and pies; is not to shut the beershops, but to open the poor man’s
kitchen.
Roundabout Papers.—No. IV.
ON SOME LATE GREAT VICTORIES.
[Illustration]
On the 18th day of April last I went to see a friend in a neighbouring
Crescent, and on the steps of the next house beheld a group something
like that here depicted. A news-boy had stopped in his walk, and was
reading aloud the journal which it was his duty to deliver; a pretty
orange girl, with a heap of blazing fruit, rendered more brilliant
by one of those great blue papers in which oranges are now artfully
wrapped, leant over the railing and listened; and opposite the _nympham
discentem_ there was a capering and acute eared young satirist of a
crossing-sweeper, who had left his neighbouring professional avocation
and chance of profit, in order to listen to the tale of the little
news-boy.
That intelligent reader, with his hand following the line as he
read it out to his audience, was saying:—“And—now—Tom—coming up
smiling—after his fall—dee—delivered a rattling clinker upon the Benicia
Boy’s—potatoe-trap—but was met by a—punisher on the nose—which,” &c. &c.;
or words to that effect. Betty at 52 let me in, while the boy was reading
his lecture; and, having been some twenty minutes or so in the house and
paid my visit, I took leave.
The little lecturer was still at work on the 51 doorstep, and his
audience had scarcely changed their position. Having read every word
of the battle myself in the morning, I did not stay to listen further;
but if the gentleman who expected his paper at the usual hour that day
experienced delay and a little disappointment I shall not be surprised.
I am not going to expatiate on the battle. I have read in the
correspondent’s letter of a Northern newspaper, that in the midst of the
company assembled the reader’s humble servant was present, and in a very
polite society, too, of “poets, clergymen, men of letters, and members of
both Houses of Parliament.” If so, I must have walked to the station in
my sleep, paid three guineas in a profound fit of mental abstraction, and
returned to bed unconscious, for I certainly woke there about the time
when history relates that the fight was over. I do not know whose colours
I wore—the Benician’s, or those of the Irish champion; nor remember
where the fight took place, which, indeed, no somnambulist is bound to
recollect. Ought Mr. Sayers to be honoured for being brave, or punished
for being naughty? By the shade of Brutus the elder, I don’t know.
In George II.’s time, there was a turbulent navy lieutenant (Handsome
Smith he was called—his picture is at Greenwich now, in brown velvet, and
gold and scarlet; his coat handsome, his waistcoat exceedingly handsome;
but his face by no means the beauty)—there was, I say, a turbulent
young lieutenant who was broke on a complaint of the French ambassador,
for obliging a French ship of war to lower her topsails to his ship at
Spithead. But, by the King’s orders, Tom was next day made Captain Smith.
Well, if I were absolute king, I would send Tom Sayers to the mill for
a month, and make him Sir Thomas on coming out of Clerkenwell. You are
a naughty boy, Tom! but then, you know, we ought to love our brethren,
though ever so naughty. We are moralists, and reprimand you; and you are
hereby reprimanded accordingly. But in case England should ever have need
of a few score thousand champions, who laugh at danger; who cope with
giants; who, stricken to the ground, jump up and gaily rally, and fall,
and rise again, and strike, and die rather than yield—in case the country
should need such men, and you should know them, be pleased to send lists
of the misguided persons to the principal police stations, where means
may some day be found to utilize their wretched powers, and give their
deplorable energies a right direction. Suppose, Tom, that you and your
friends are pitted against an immense invader—suppose you are bent on
holding the ground, and dying there, if need be—suppose it is life,
freedom, honour, home, you are fighting for, and there is a death-dealing
sword or rifle in your hand, with which you are going to resist some
tremendous enemy who challenges your championship on your native shore?
Then, Sir Thomas, resist him to the death, and it is all right: kill him,
and heaven bless you. Drive him into the sea, and there destroy, smash,
and drown him; and let us sing, _Laudamus_. In these national cases,
you see, we override the indisputable first laws of morals. Loving your
neighbour is very well, but suppose your neighbour comes over from Calais
and Boulogne to rob you of your laws, your liberties, your newspapers,
your parliament (all of which _some_ dear neighbours of ours have given
up in the most self-denying manner): suppose any neighbour were to
cross the water and propose this kind of thing to us? Should we not be
justified in humbly trying to pitch him into the water? If it were the
King of Belgium himself we must do so. I mean that fighting, of course,
is wrong; but that there are occasions when &c.—I suppose I mean that
that one-handed fight of Sayers is one of the most spirit-stirring little
stories ever told: and, with every love and respect for Morality—my
spirit says to her, “Do, for goodness’ sake, my dear madam, keep your
true, and pure, and womanly, and gentle remarks for another day. Have the
great kindness to stand a _leetle_ aside, and just let us see one or two
more rounds between the men. That little man with the one hand powerless
on his breast facing yonder giant for hours, and felling him, too, every
now and then! It is the little Java and the Constitution over again!”
I think it is a most fortunate event for the brave Heenan, who has
acted and written since the battle with a true warrior’s courtesy, and
with a great deal of good logic too, that the battle was a drawn one.
The advantage was all on Mr. Sayers’s side. Say a young lad of sixteen
insults me in the street, and I try and thrash him, and do it. Well,
I have thrashed a young lad. You great, big tyrant, couldn’t you hit
your own size? But say the lad thrashes me? In either case I walk away
discomfited: but in the latter, I am positively put to shame. Now, when
the ropes were cut from that death-grip, and Sir Thomas released by the
recognized, the Eu-rope-an laws—the gentleman of Benicia was confessedly
blind of one eye, and speedily afterwards was blind of both. Could Mr.
Sayers have held out for three minutes, for five minutes, for ten minutes
more? He says he could. So we say _we_ could have held out, and did,
and had beaten off the enemy at Waterloo, even if the Prussians hadn’t
come up. The opinions differ pretty much according to the nature of the
opinants. I say the Duke and Tom could have held out, that they meant
to hold out, that they did hold out, and that there has been fistifying
enough. That crowd which came in and stopped the fight ought to be
considered like one of those divine clouds which the gods send in Homer:
“Apollo shrouds
The godlike Trojan in a veil of clouds.”
It is the best way of getting the godlike Trojan out of the scrape,
don’t you see. The _nodus_ is cut; Tom is out of chancery; the Benicia
Boy not a bit the worse, nay, better than if he had beaten the little
man. He has not the humiliation of conquest. He is greater, and will
be loved more hereafter by the gentle sex. Suppose he had overcome the
godlike Trojan? Suppose he had tied Tom’s corpse to his cab-wheels, and
driven to Farnham, smoking the pipe of triumph? Faugh! the great, hulking
conqueror! Why did you not hold your hand from yonder hero? Everybody,
I say, was relieved by that opportune appearance of the British gods,
protectors of native valour, who interfered, and “withdrew” their
champion.
Now, suppose six-feet-two conqueror, and five-feet-eight beaten; would
Sayers have been a whit the less gallant and meritorious? If Sancho had
been allowed _really_ to reign in Barataria, I make no doubt that, with
his good sense and kindness of heart, he would have devised some means
of rewarding the brave vanquished, as well as the brave victors in the
Baratarian army, and that a champion who had fought a good fight would
have been a knight of King Don Sancho’s orders, whatever the upshot
of the combat had been. Suppose Wellington overwhelmed on the plateau
of Mount St. John; suppose Washington attacked and beaten at Valley
Forge—and either supposition is quite easy—and what becomes of the
heroes? They would have been as brave, honest, heroic, wise; but their
glory, where would it have been? Should we have had their portraits
hanging in our chambers? have been familiar with their histories? have
pondered over their letters, common lives, and daily sayings? There is
not only merit, but luck which goes to making a hero out of a gentleman.
Mind, please you, I am not saying that the hero is after all not so very
heroic; and have not the least desire to grudge him his merit because of
his good fortune.
Have you any idea whither this Roundabout Essay on some late great
victories is tending? Do you suppose that by those words I mean Trenton,
Brandywine, Salamanca, Vittoria, and so forth? By a great victory I can’t
mean that affair at Farnham, for it was a drawn fight. Where then are the
victories, pray, and when are we coming to them?
My good sir, you will perceive that in this Nicæan discourse I have only
as yet advanced as far as this—that a hero, whether he wins or loses, is
a hero; and that if a fellow will but be honest and courageous, and do
his best, we are for paying all honour to him. Furthermore, it has been
asserted that Fortune has a good deal to do with the making of heroes;
and thus hinted for the consolation of those who don’t happen to be
engaged in any stupendous victories, that, had opportunity so served,
they might have been heroes too. If you are not, friend, it is not your
fault, whilst I don’t wish to detract from any gentleman’s reputation who
is. There. My worst enemy can’t take objection to that. The point might
have been put more briefly perhaps; but, if you please, we will not argue
that question.
Well, then. The victories which I wish especially to commemorate in
this the last article of our first volume, are the six great, complete,
prodigious, and undeniable victories, achieved by the corps which the
editor of the CORNHILL MAGAZINE has the honour to command. When I
seemed to speak disparagingly but now of generals, it was that chief I
had in my I (if you will permit me the expression), I wished him not
to be elated by too much prosperity; I warned him against assuming
heroic imperatorial airs, and cocking his laurels too jauntily over
his ear. I was his conscience, and stood on the splash-board of his
triumph-car, whispering, “_Hominem memento te_.” As we rolled along the
way, and passed the weathercocks on the temples, I saluted the symbol
of the goddess Fortune with a reverend awe. “We have done our little
endeavour,” I said, bowing my head, “and mortals can do no more. But we
might have fought bravely, and _not_ won. We might have cast the coin,
calling ‘Head,’ and, lo! Tail might have come uppermost.” Oh! thou
Ruler of Victories!—thou awarder of Fame!—thou Giver of Crowns (and
shillings)—if thou hast smiled upon us, shall we not be thankful? There
is a Saturnine philosopher, standing at the door of his book-shop, who,
I fancy, has a pooh-pooh expression as the triumph passes. (I can’t see
quite clearly for the laurels, which have fallen down over my nose.) One
hand is reining in the two white elephants that draw the car; I raise
the other hand up to—to the laurels, and pass on, waving him a graceful
recognition. Up the Hill of Ludgate—around the Pauline Square—by the side
of Chepe—until it reaches our own Hill of Corn—the procession passes.
The Imperator is bowing to the people; the captains of the legions are
riding round the car, their gallant minds struck by the thought, “Have
we not fought as well as yonder fellow, swaggering in the chariot, and
are we not as good as he?” Granted, with all my heart, my dear lads. When
your consulship arrives, may you be as fortunate. When these hands, now
growing old, shall lay down sword and truncheon, may you mount the car,
and ride to the temple of Jupiter. Be yours the laurel then. _Neque me
myrtus dedecet_, looking cosily down from the arbour where I sit under
the arched vine.
I fancy the Imperator standing on the steps of the temple (erected by
Titus) on the Mons Frumentarius, and addressing the citizens: “Quirites!”
he says “in our campaign of six months, we have been engaged six times,
and in each action have taken near upon a _hundred thousand prisoners_.
Go to! What are other magazines compared to our magazine? (Sound,
trumpeter!) What banner is there like that of Cornhill? You, philosopher
yonder? (he shirks under his mantle). Do you know what it is to have a
hundred and ten thousand readers? A hundred thousand readers? a hundred
thousand _buyers_!’ (Cries of No!—Pooh! Yes, upon my honour! Oh, come!
and murmurs of applause and derision)—‘I say more than a hundred thousand
purchasers—and I believe _as much as a million_ readers! (Immense
sensation.) To these have we said an unkind word? We have enemies; have
we hit them an unkind blow? Have we sought to pursue party aims, to
forward private jobs, to advance selfish schemes? The only persons to
whom wittingly we have given pain are some who have volunteered for our
corps—and of these volunteers we have had _thousands_[20] (Murmurs and
grumbles.) What commander, citizens, could place all these men—could make
officers of all these men? (cries of No—no! and laughter)—could say ‘I
accept this recruit, though he is too short for our standard, because
he is poor and has a mother at home who wants bread? could enrol this
other, who is too weak to bear arms, because he says, ‘Look, sir, I
shall be stronger anon.’ The leader of such an army as ours must select
his men, not because they are good and virtuous, but because they are
strong and capable. To these our ranks are ever open, and in addition
to the warriors—who surround me—(the generals look proudly conscious)—I
tell you, citizens, that I am in treaty with other and most tremendous
champions, who will march by the side of our veterans to the achievement
of fresh victories. Now, blow trumpets! Bang, ye gongs! and drummers,
drub the thundering skins! Generals and chiefs, we go to sacrifice to the
Gods.”
Crowned with flowers, the captains enter the temple, the other magazines
walking modestly behind them. The people huzza; and, in some instances,
kneel and kiss the fringes of the robes of the warriors. The Philosopher
puts up his shutters, and retires into his shop, deeply moved. In ancient
times, Pliny (_apud_ Smith) relates it was the custom of the Imperator
“to paint his whole body a bright red;” and, also, on ascending the Hill,
to have some of the hostile chiefs led aside “to the adjoining prison,
and put to death.” We propose to dispense with both these ceremonies.
FOOTNOTES
[20] The average of contributions has been for the last two months 100
a-week; and we beseech candidates to bear the above fact in mind, and
consider that it is impossible to reply personally to all of them; or
give special reasons why such and such an article is not suited to the
Magazine.—ED. _C. H. M._
London: Printed by SMITH, ELDER and Co.,
Little Green Arbour Court, E.C.