It was the 11th of November. It had been raining since three o'clock. A
thick fog enveloped London. Horses smoked, as if in a terrible passion
with the weather; and omnibuses rolled along, breaking for once their
daily custom of stopping at every lamp-post on the way. I had a secret
presentiment something strange would happen.
St. Paul's struck one—two—three—four o'clock. I counted them distinctly,
one by one. They sounded like a death-knell. A dead silence ensued,
invaded only by the cries of "Cl'pam!" "M'l'end!" that broke forth in
fitful shouts from contending cads. I did not feel well. I was leaning
against a lamp-post at the corner of the Bank—wet to the skin. My mind
was very uneasy. I had that day accepted a bill. I was vowing within
myself never to accept another, when a sudden noise—a fearful rush—
recalled me to my senses. I looked around, and saw a large stream of
human beings pouring, in fearful force, from the principal door of the
Bank. Man seemed leagued in enmity against man—clerk looked on
fellow-clerk with the lowering eyes of a malignant fiend. Their looks
alarmed me. Not a policeman was in sight! What should I do? Was the Bank
on fire? I had no money there, still there are moments when we can feel
for others. It was like a human river broken from its bank, carrying
ruin and terror wherever it went. Could it be a panic? I recollected my
Julia had 500_l._ standing there in the suitable name of Smith. I dashed
the drops of perspiration from my fevered brow. I endeavoured to
recollect myself. It was but one effort. I determined, let it cost me
what it would, to follow them to the end.
There were full two hundred beings. They formed one unbroken, moving
mass. They were running, as if with one will, frantically together.
Their speed was unnatural. The rain only made them run the faster. Not
an umbrella had they amongst them. At last they reached the corner. The
clerks behind ran as if for their very lives. I was alarmed, and ran
after them, the agent of some mysterious fear. I lost sight of them for
a moment. Again I saw them—and, oh! what a scene presented itself to me!
A band of at least two hundred desperate clerks were struggling,
fighting madly, to get admission all into one omnibus. Their screams
were dreadful. One fat cashier was lying, dead or wounded, under the
door-step, bathed in mud. Another was shouting in agony, at the door,
unable to work his way out or in. Twenty or thirty clerks were climbing,
to the imminent peril of their lives, on to the roof. At the same time a
severe engagement was taking place amongst a determined dozen on the
box, to decide by brutal force who should remain master of the one seat.
In the algebraical fraction of a minute every place was invaded, and the
omnibus rolled away before me, like some frightful dream. How many lives
were lost I cannot tell. The subject was too painful to inquire into. I
felt a degree of pity for the pettiness of human nature, and had a
strong glass of brandy-and-water.
Never, as long as I live, shall I forget the 11th of November!
[This phenomenon, we have been told, is not so strange as it may
appear. Let the curious reader only be present at the Bank, on the
first _rainy_ day, when the clock strikes four, and he will
infallibly—should there be only one omnibus in waiting—witness the
same desperate struggle for places as occurred to our German-minded
correspondent on the memorable 11th. It is a very amusing sport, we
have been told, to be a spectator (under an umbrella) of this
animated clerk-race.]
LINES WRITTEN IN A LADY'S ALBUM.
BY THE LATE DANIEL LAMBERT.
Ellen, I will not praise thine eyes,
Nor laud the beauties of thy cheek;
For I have grown into a size,
That ladies titter when I speak
Of love! and vow they'll ne'er be won
By suitors weighing half a ton.
I will not sing of every spell
That decks thy form—thou'rt not for me;
For I've a voice that doth excel
A school-boy blowing in a key:
And lovely lips have o'er and o'er
Declared my singing quite a bore.
But let me breathe this fervent prayer,
That when to him thou hold'st most dear
Thou yield'st thine hand, oh! make him swear
To shun the wiles of bottled beer;
And, should he pause, then point me out,
And say—"Behold, that's horrid stout!"