STANLEY KEMP-WELCH No. I84-- .*>">;*':'. v I p| " '- ':-;:: |p , : | : ^ : .V'v' ' '",.' : I i , '-.i : V ; - ; . :^. "-'.." - i - . - '';. -.,--, : >.>:,. : /:.:^. -'.- -,... 1 i .> SKETCHES BY BOZ. CHARLES DICKENS'S WORKS. CROWN EDITION. Price 5s. each Volume. 1. THE PICKWICK PAPERS. With 43 Illustrations by SEYMOUB and PHIZ. 2. NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. With 40 Illustrations by PHIZ. 3. DOMBEY AND SON. With 40 Illustrations by PHIZ. 4. DAVID COPPERF1ELD. With 40 Illustrations by PHIZ. 5. SKETCHES BY " BOZ." With 40 Illustrations by GEO. CBUIKSHANK. 6. MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. With 40 Illustrations by PHIZ. 7. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. With 75 Illustrations by GEOBGE CAITEBMOLE and H. K. BROWNE. 8. BARNABY RUDGE : A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty. With 76 Illustrations by GEOBGE CATTERMOLE and II. K. BKOWNE. 9, OLIVER TWIST and TALE OF TWO CITIES. With 24 Illustrations by CRUIKSHANK and 16 by PHIZ. 10. BLEAK HOUSE. With 40 Illustrations by PHIZ. 11. LITTLE DORRIT. With 40 Illustrations by PHIZ. 12. OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. With 40 Illustrations by MARCOS STONE. 13. AMERICAN NOTES; PICTURES FROM ITALY; and A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. With 16 Illustrations by MARCUS STONE. 14. CHRISTMAS BOOKS and HARD TIMES. With Illus- trations by LAUDSEEB, MACLISE, STANFIELD, LEECH, DOILE, F. WALKER, &c. Jo. CHRISTMAS STORIES AND OTHER STORIES, in- cluding HUMPHREY'S CLOCK. With Illustrations by CHAKLKS GREEN, MAUONEY, PHIZ, CATTEKMOLE, &c, 16.-GREAT EXPECTATIONS. UNCOMMERCIAL TRA- VELLER. With 16 Illustrations by MARCUS STONE. 17. EDWIN DROOD and REPRINTED PIECES. With 16 Illustrations by LUKE FILDES and F. WALKER. Uniform with above in size and binding. THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. By JOHN FORSTEU. With Portraits and Illustrations. Added at the request of numerous Subscribers. THE DICKENS DICTIONARY : a Key to the Characters and Principal Incidents in the Tales of Charles Dickens. THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES ; NO THOROUGHFARE; THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. By CHARLES DICKENS and WILKIE COLLINS. With Illustrations. SKETCHES BY BOZ ILLUSTRATIVE OF EVERY-DAY LIFE AND EVERY-DAY PEOPLE. WITH FORTY ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL ; LD. 1895. 5RLF URL PREFACE. THE whole of these Sketches were written and published, one by one, when I was a very young man. They were collected and republished while I was still a very young man ; and sent into the world with all their imperfections (a good many) on their heads. They comprise my first attempts at authorship with the exception of certain tragedies achieved at the mature age of eight or ten, and represented with great applause to overflowing nurseries. I am con- scious of their often being extremely crude and ill-considered, and bearing obvious marks of haste and inexperience; particularly in that section of the present volume which is comprised under the general head of Tales. But as this collection is not originated now, and was very leniently and favourably received when it was first made, I have not felt it right either to remodel or expunge, beyond a few words and phrases here and there. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE THE ELECTION FOK BEADLE Frontispiece VIGNETTE TITLE THE PARISH ENGINE ... .."'".' ' 1 TUB BROKER'S MAN 18 OCR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR 30 THE STREETS MORNING . . ... 36 SCOTLAND YARD 47 SEVEN DIALS . 51 MONSIOUTH STREET 54 HACKNEY COACH STANDS 60 LONDON RECREATIONS 67 GREENWICH FAIR 86 PRIVATE THEATRES 88 VAUXHALL GARDENS BY DAY 93 EARLY COACHES 97 THE LAST CAB-DRIVER 104 PUBLIC DINNERS 120 THE FIRST OF MAY 125 THE GIN-SHOP 134 THE PAWNBROKER'S SHOP 138 THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE .159 JEMIMA EVANS 170 A PICKPOCKET IN CUSTODY ..... ... 179 MR. JOHN DOUNCE 181 THE DANCING ACADEMY 190 viii List of Illustrations. PAGE MAKING A NIGHT OF IT 198 THE BOARDING HOUSE 205 THE BOARDING HOUSE. II 233 ME. MINNS AND HIS COUSIN 234 SENTIMENT . .242 THE TUGGS'S AT KAMSGATE 251 HOBATIO SPABKINS 2G7 STEAM EXCURSION. 1 288 STEAM EXCURSION. II. . . 303 THE WlNGLEBUBY DlEL 305 MB. JOSEPH PORTER 319 WATKINS TOTTLE 320 THE LOCK-UP HOUSE 340 MB. WATKINS TOTTLE AND Miss LILLERTON ...... 350 BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING . ...... 355 SKETCHES BY BOZ, OUR PARISH. CHAPTER I. THE BEADLE. THE PARISH ENGINE. THE SCHOOLMASTER. How much is conveyed in those two short words " The Parish ! " And with how many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and ruined hopes, too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery, are they associated ! A poor man, with small earnings, and a largo family, just manages to live on from hand to mouth, and to procure food from day to day ; he has barely sufficient to satisfy the present cravings of nature, and can take no heed of the future. His taxes are in arrear, quarter-day passes by, another quarter-day arrives : ho can procure no more quarter for himself, and is summoned by the parish. His goods are distrained, his children are crying with cold and hunger, and the very bed on which his sick wife is lying, is dragged from beneath her. What cau he do? To whom is he to apply for relief? To private charity? To benevolent individuals? Certainly not there is his parish. There are the parish vestry, tho parish infirmary, tho parish surgeon, the parish officers, the parish beadle. Excellent institutions, and gentle, kind-hearted men. Tho woman dies she is buried by the parish. The children have no pro- tector they are taken care of by the parish. The man first neglects, and afterwards cannot obtain, work he is relieved by tho parish ; and when distress and drunkenness have done their work upon him, he is maintained, a harmless babbling idiot, in the parish asylum. Tho parish beadle is one of tho most, perhaps the most, important member of the local administration. He is not so well off as tho churchwardens, certainly, nor is he so learned as the vestry-clerk, nor does he order things quite so much his own way as either of them. But his power is very great, notwithstanding ; and the dignity of his office is never impaired by the absence of efforts on his part to main- r n B 2 Sketches by Boz. taiu it. Tlio beadle of our parish is a splendid fellow. It is quite delightful to hear him, as he explains the state of the existing poor laws to the deaf old women in the board-room passage on business nights ; and to hear what he said to the senior churchwarden, and what the senior churchwarden said to him; and what "we" (the beadle and the other gentlemen) came to the determination of doing. A miserable-looking woman is called into the board-room, and repre- sents a case of extreme destitution, affecting herself a widow, with six small children. "Where do you live?" inquires one of the overseers. "I rents a two-pair back, gentlemen, at Mrs. Brown's, Number 3, Little King William's Alley, which has lived there this fifteen year, and knows mo to be very hard-working and industrious, and when my poor husband was alive, gentlemen, as died in the hospital " " Well, well," interrupts the overseer, taking a note of the address, " I'll send Simmons, the beadle, to-morrow morning, to ascer- tain whether your story is correct ; and if so, I suppose you must have an order into the House Simmons, go to this woman's the first thing to-morrow morning, will you ? " Simmons bows assent, and ushers the woman out. Her previous admiration of " the board " (who all sit behind great books, and with their hats on) fades into nothing before her respect for her lace-trimmed conductor ; and her account of what has passed inside, increases if that be possible the marks of respect, shown by the assembled crowd, to that solemn functionary. As to taking out a summons, it's quite a hopeless case if Simmons attends it, on behalf of the parish. He knows all the titles of the Lord Mayor by heart ; states the case without a single stammer : and it is even reported that on one occasion he ventured to make a joke, which the Lord Mayor's head footman (who happened to be present) afterwards told an intimate friend, confidentially, was almost equal to one of Mr. Hobler's. See him again on Sunday in his state-coat and cocked-hat, with a large-headed staff for show in his left hand, and a small cane for use in his right. How pompously ho marshals the children into their places I and how demurely the little urchins look at him askance as he surveys them when they are all seated, with a glare of the eye peculiar to beadles I The churchwardens and overseers being duly installed in their curtained pews, he seats himself on a mahogany bracket, erected expressly for him at the top of the aisle, and divides his attention between his prayer-book and the boys. Suddenly, just at the commencement of the communion service, when the whole congregation is hushed into a profound silence, broken only by the voice of the officiating clergyman, a penny is heard to ring on the stone floor of the aisle with astounding clearness. Observe the general- ship of the beadle. His involuntary look of horror is instantly changed into one of perfect indifference, as if he were the only person present who had not heard the noise. The artifice succeeds. After putting forth his right leg now and then, as a feeler, the victim who dropped The Beadle. 3 the money ventures to make one or two distinct dives after it ; and the beadle, gliding softly round, salutes his little round head, when it again appears above the seat, with divers double-knocks, administered with the cane before noticed, to the intense delight of three young men in an adjacent pew, who cough violently at intervals until the conclusion of the sermon. Such are a few traits of the importance and gravity of a parish beadle a gravity which has never been disturbed in any case that lias come under our observation, except when the services of that particularly useful machine, a parish fire-engine, are required : then indeed all is bustle. Two little boys run to the beadle as fast as their legs will carry them, and report from their own personal observation that some neighbouring chimney is on fire ; the engine is hastily got out, and a plentiful supply of boys being obtained, and harnessed to it with ropes, away they rattle over the pavement, the beadle, running we do not exaggerate running at the side, until they arrive at some house, smelling strongly of soot, at the door of which the beadle knocks with considerable gravity for half-an-hour. No attention being paid to these manual applications, and the turn-cock having turned on the water, the engine turns oif amidst the shouts of the boys ; it pulls up once more at the workhouse, and the beadle " pulls up " the unfortunate householder next day, for the amount of his legal reward. We never saw a parish engine at a regular fire but once. It came up in gallant style three miles and a half an hour, at least ; there was a capital supply of water, and it was first on the spot. Bang went the pumps the people cheered the beadle perspired profusely ; but it was unfortunately discovered, just as they were going to put the fire out, that nobody understood the process by which the engine was filled with water ; and that eighteen boys, and a man, had exhausted themselves in pumping for twenty minutes without producing the slightest effect ! The personages next in importance to the beadle, are the master of the workhouse and the parish schoolmaster. The vestry-clerk, as everybody knows, is a short, pudgy little man, in black, with a thick gold watch-chain of considerable length, terminating in two large seals and a key. Ho is an attorney, and generally in a bustle : at no time more so, than when he is hurrying to some parochial meeting, with his gloves crumpled up in one hand, and a large red book under the other arm. As to the churchwardens and overseers, we exclude them altogether, because all we know of them is, that they are usually respectable tradesmen, who wear hats with brims inclined to flatness, and who occasionally testify in gilt letters on a blue ground, in some conspicuous part of the church, to the important fact of a gallery having been enlarged and beautified, or an organ rebuilt. The master of the workhouse is not, in our parish nor is he usually in any other one of that class of men the better part of whose exist- ence has passed away, and who drag out the remainder in some inferior 4 Sketches by situation, with just enough thought of the past, to feel degraded by, and discontented with, the present. We are unable to guess precisely to our own satisfaction what station the man can have occupied before ; we should think he had been an inferior sort of attorney's clerk, or else the master of a national school whatever he was, it is clear his present position is a change for the better. His income is small certainly, as the rusty black coat and threadbare velvet collar demon- strate : but then he lives free of house-rent, has a limited allowance of coals and candles, and an almost unlimited allowance of authority in his petty kingdom. He is a tall, thin, bony man ; always wears shoes and black cotton stockings with his surtout ; and eyes you, as you pass his parlour-window, as if he wished you were a pauper, just to give you a specimen of his power. He is an admirable specimen of a small tyrant : morose, brutish, and ill-tempered ; bullying to his inferiors, cringing to his superiors, and jealous of the influence and authority of the beadle. Our schoolmaster is just the very reverse of this amiable official. He has been one of those men one occasionally hears of, on whom misfortune seems to have set her mark ; nothing he ever did, or was concerned in, appears to have prospered. A rich old relation who had brought him up, and openly announced his intention of providing for him, left him 10,000/. in his will, and revoked the bequest in a codicil. Thus unexpectedly reduced to the necessity of providing for himself, he procured a situation in a public office. The young clerks below him, died off" as if there were a plague among them ; but the old fellows over his head, for the reversion of whose places he was anxiously waiting, lived on and on, as if they were immortal. He speculated and lost. He speculated again and won but never got his money. His talents were great ; his disposition, easy, generous, and liberal. His friends profited by the one, and abused the other. Loss succeeded loss ; misfortune crowded on misfortune ; each suc- cessive day brought him nearer the verge of hopeless penury, and the quondam friends who had been warmest in their professions, grew strangely cold and indifferent. He had children whom he loved, and a wife on whom he doted. The former turned their backs on him ; the latter died broken-hearted. He went with the stream it had ever been his failing, and he had not courage sufficient to bear up against so many shocks he had never cared for himself, and the only being who had cared for him, in his poverty and distress, was spared to him no longer. It was at this period that he applied for parochial relief. Some kind-hearted man who had known him in happier times, chanced to bo churchwarden that year, and through his interest ho was appointed to his present situation. He is an old man now. Of the many who once crowded round him in all the hollow friendship of boon-companionship, some have died, some have fallen like himself, some have prospered all have for- gotten him. Time and misfortune have mercifully been permitted to The Curate. 5 impair his memory, and use has habituated him to his present con- dition. Meek, uncomplaining, and zealous in the discharge of his duties, he has been allowed to hold his situation long beyond the usual period ; and he will no doubt continue to hold it, until infirmity renders him incapable, or death releases him. As the grey-headed old man feebly paces up and down the sunny side of the little court- yard between school-hours, it would be difficult, indeed, for the most intimate of his former friends to recognise their once gay and happy associate, in the person of the Pauper Schoolmaster. CHAPTER II. THE CURATE. THE OLD LADY. THE HALF-PAT CAPTAIN. WE commenced our last chapter with the beadle of our parish, becauso we are deeply sensible of the importance and dignity of his office. We will begin the present with the clergyman. Our curate is a young gentleman of such prepossessing appearance, and fascinating manners, that within one month after his first appearance in the parish, half tho young-lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other half, desponding with love. Never were so many young ladies seen in our parish-church on Sunday before ; and never had the little round angels' faces on Mr. Tomkins's monument in the side aisle, beheld such devotion on earth as they all exhibited. He was about five-and-twenty when he first came to astonish the parishioners. He parted his hair on the centre of his forehead in the form of a Norman arch, wore a brilliant of the first water on the fourth finger of his left hand (which he always applied to his left cheek when he read prayers), and had a deep sepulchral voice of unusual solemnity. Innumerable were the calls made by prudent mammas on our new curate, and in- numerable the invitations with which he was assailed, and which, to do him justice, he readily accepted. If his manner in the pulpit had created an impression in his favour, the sensation was increased ten- fold, by his appearance in private circles. Pews in the immediate vicinity of the pulpit or reading-desk rose in value ; sittings in the centre aisle were at a premium : an inch of room in the front row of the gallery could not be procured for love or money ; and some people even went so far as to assert, that the three Miss Browns, who had an obscure family pew just behind the churchwardens', were detected, one Sunday, in the free seats by the communion-table, actually lying in wait for the curate as he passed to tho vestry ! He began to preach extempore sermons, and even grave papas caught the infection. Ho got out of bed at half-past twelve o'clock one winter's night, to half- baptise a washerwoman's child in a slop-basin, and the gratitude of 6 Sketches by Bos. the parishioners knew no bounds the very churchwardens grew generous, and insisted on the parish defraying the expense of the watch-box on wheels, which the new curate had ordered for himself, to perform the funeral service in, in wet weather. He sent three pints of gruel and a quarter of a pound of tea to a poor woman who had been brought to bed of four small children, all at once the parish were charmed. He got up a subscription for her the woman's fortune was made. He spoke for one hour and twenty-five minutes, at an anti-slavery meeting at the Goat and Boots the enthusiasm was at its height. A proposal was set on foot for presenting the curate with a piece of plate, as a mark of esteem for his valuable services rendered to the parish. The list of subscriptions was filled up in no time ; the contest was, not who should escape the contribution, but who should be the foremost to subscribe. A splendid silver inkstand was made, and engraved with an appropriate inscription ; the curate was invited to a public breakfast, at the before-mentioned Goat and Boots ; the inkstand was presented in a neat speech by Mr. Gubbins, the ex-churchwarden, and acknowledged by the curate in terms which drew tears into the eyes of all present the very waiters were melted. One would have supposed that, by this time, the theme of universal admiration was lifted to the very pinnacle of popularity. No such thing. The curate began to cough ; four fits of coughing one morning between the Litany and the Epistle, and five in the afternoon service. Here was a discovery the curate was consumptive. How interestingly melancholy ! If the young ladies were energetic before, their sym- pathy and solicitude now knew no bounds. Such a man as the curate such a dear such a perfect love to be consumptive ! It was too much. Anonymous presents of black-currant jam, and lozenges, elastic waistcoats, bosom friends, and warm stockings, poured in upon the curate until he was as completely fitted out, with winter clothing, as if he were on the verge of an expedition to the North Pole : verbal bulletins of the state of his health were circulated throughout the parish half-a-dozen times a day ; and the curate was in the very zenith of his popularity. About this period, a change came over the spirit of the parish. A very quiet, respectable, dozing old gentleman, who had officiated in our chapel-of-ease for twelve years previouly, died one fine morning, without having given any notice whatever of his intention. This cir- cumstance gave rise to counter-sensation the first ; and the arrival of his successor occasioned counter-sensation the second. He was a pale, thin, cadaverous man, with large black eyes, and long straggling black hair : his dress was slovenly in the extreme, his manner ungainly, his doctrines startling ; in short, he was in every respect the antipodes of the curate. Crowds of our female parishioners flocked to hear him ; at first, because he was so odd-looking, then because his face was so expressive, then because he preached so well ; and at last, because they really thought that, after all, there was something about him which it The Old Lady. '/ was quite impossible to describe. As to the curate, lie was all very well; but certainly, after all, there was no denying that that in short, the curate wasn't a novelty, and the other clergyman was. The inconstancy of public opinion is proverbial : the congregation migrated one by one. The curate coughed till he was black in the face it was iu vain. He respired with difficulty it was equally ineffectual in awakening sympathy. Seats are once again to be had in any part of our parish church, and the chapel-of-ease is going to be enlarged, as it is crowded to suffocation every Sunday ! The best known and most respected among our parishioners, is an old lady, who resided in our parish long before our name was registered in the list of baptisms. Our parish is a suburban one, and the old lady lives in a neat row of houses in the most airy and pleasant part of it. The house is her own ; and it, and everything about it, except the old lady herself, who looks a little older than she did ten years ago, is in just the same state as when the old gentleman was living. The little front parlour, which is the old lady's ordinary sitting-room, is a perfect picture of quiet neatness ; the carpet is covered with brown Holland, the glass and picture-frames are carefully enveloped in yellow nmslin ; the table-covers are never taken off, except when the leaves are turpentined and bees'-waxed, an operation which is regularly commenced every other morning at half-past nine o'clock and the little nicknacks are always arranged in precisely the same manner. The greater part of these are presents from little girls whose parents live in the same row ; but some of them, such as the two old-fashioned watches (which never keep the same time, one being always a quarter of an hour too slow, and the other a quarter of an hour too fast), the little picture of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold as they appeared in the Royal Box at Drury Lane Theatre, and others of the same class, have been in the old lady's possession for many years. Here the old lady sits with her spectacles on, busily engaged in needle- work near the window in summer time ; and if she sees you coming up the steps, and you happen to be a favourite, she trots out to open the street-door for you before you knock, and as you must be fatigued after that hot walk, insists on your swallowing two glasses of sherry before you exert yourself by talking. If you call in the evening you will find her cheerful, but rather more serious than usual, with an open Bible on the table, before her, of which " Sarah," who is just as neat and methodical as her mistress, regularly reads two or three chapters in the parlour aloud. The old lady sees scarcely any company, except the little girls before noticed, each of whom has always a regular fixed day for a periodical tea-drinking with her, to which the child looks forward as the greatest treat of its existence. She seldom visits at a greater distance than the next door but one on either side; and when she drinks tea here, Sarah runs out first and knocks a double-knock, to prevent the possibility of her " Missis's " catching cold by having to 8 Sketches by Bos. wait at the door. She is very scrupulous in returning these little in- vitations, and when she asks Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so, to meet Mr. and Mrs. Somebody-else, Sarah and she dust the urn, and the best china tea-service, and the Pope Joan board ; and the visitors are received in the drawing-room in great state. She has but few relations, and they are scattered about in different parts of the country, and she seldom sees them. She has a son in India, whom she always describes to you as a fine, handsome fellow so like the profile of his poor dear father over the sideboard, but the old lady adds, with a mournful shake of the head, that he has always been one of her greatest trials ; and that indeed he once almost broke her heart ; but it pleased God to enable her to get the better of it, and she would prefer your never mentioning the subject to her again. She has a great number of pensioners : and on Saturday, after she comes back from market, there is a regular levee of old men and women in the passage, waiting for their weekly gratuity. Her name always heads the list of any benevolent subscrip- tions, and hers are always the most liberal donations to the Winter Coal and Soup Distribution Society. She subscribed twenty pounds towards the erection of an organ in our parish church, and was so overcome the first Sunday the children sang to it, that she was obliged to be carried out by the pew-opener. Her entrance into church on Sunday is always the signal for a little bustle in- the side aisle, occasioned by a general rise among the poor people, who bow and curtsey until the pew-opener has ushered the old lady into her accustomed seat, dropped a respectful curtsey, and shut the door : and the same ceremony is repeated on her leaving church, when she walks home with the family next door but one, and talks about the sermon all the way, invariably opening the conversation by asking the youngest boy where the text was. Thus, with the annual variation of a trip to some quiet place on the sea-coast, passes the old lady's life. It has rolled on in the same un- varying and benevolent course for many years now, and must at no distant period be brought to its final close. She looks forward to its termination, with calmness and without apprehension. She has every- thing to hope and nothing to fear. A very different personage, but one who has rendered himself very conspicuous in our parish, is one of the old lady's next-door neighbours. He is an old naval officer on half-pay, and his bluff and unceremonious behaviour disturbs the old lady's domestic economy, not a little. In the first place, he will smoke cigars in the front court, and when he wants something to drink with them which is by no means an un- common circumstance he lifts up the old lady's knocker with his walking-stick, and demands to have a glass of table ale, handed over the rails. In addition to this cool proceeding, he is a bit of a Jack of all trades, or to use his own words " a regular Robinson Crusoe ; " and nothing delights him better than to experimentalise on the old lady's property. One morning he got up early, and planted three or four The Captain. 9 roots of full-grown marigolds in every bed of her front garden, to the inconceivable astonishment of the old lady, who actually thought when she got up and looked out of the window, that it was some strange eruption which had come out in the night. Another time he took to pieces the eight-day clock on the front landing, under pretence of cleaning the works, which he put together again, by some undiscovered process, in so wonderful a manner, that the large hand has done nothing but trip up the little one ever since. Then he took to breed- ing silkworms, which he would bring in two or three times a day, in little paper boxes, to show the old lady, generally dropping a worm or two at every visit. The consequence was, that one morning a very stout silkworm was discovered in the act of walking up-stairs prob- ably with the view of inquiring after his friends, for, on further inspection, it appeared that some of his companions had already found their way to every room in the house. The old lady went to the sea- side in despair, and during her absence he completely effaced the name from her brass door-plate, in his attempts to polish it with aqua-fortis. But all this is nothing to his seditious conduct in public life. He attends every vestry meeting that is held ; always opposes the con- stituted authorities of the parish, denounces the profligacy of the churchwardens, contests legal points against the vestry-clerk, will make the tax-gaf/herer call for his money till he won't call any longer, and then he sends it : finds fault with the sermon every Sunday, says that the organist ought to be ashamed of himself, offers to back himself for any amount to sing the psalms better than all the children put to- gether, male and female ; and, in short, conducts himself in the most turbulent and uproarious manner. The worst of it is, that having a high regard for the old lady, he wants to make her a convert to his views, and therefore walks into her little parlour with his newspaper in his hand, and talks violent politics by the hour. He is a charitable, open-hearted old fellow at bottom, after all ; so, although he puts the old lady a little out occasionally, they agree very well in the main, and she laughs as much at each feat of his handiwork when it is all over, as anybody else. CHAPTEE III. THE FOUR SISTERS. THE row of houses in which the old lady and her troublesome neigh- bour reside, comprises, beyond all doubt, a greater number of characters within its circumscribed limits, than all the rest of the parish put together. As wo cannot, consistently with our present plan, however, extend the number of our parochial sketches beyond six, it will be IO Sketches by Bos. better perhaps, to select the most peculiar, and to introduce them at once without further preface. The four Miss Willises, then, settled in our parish thirteen years ago. It is a melancholy reflection that the old adage, " time and tide wait for no man," applies with equal force to the fairer portion of the creation ; and willingly would we conceal the fact, that even thirteen years ago the Miss Willises were far from juvenile. Our duty as faithful parochial chroniclers, however, is paramount to every other consideration, and we are bound to state, that thirteen years since, the authorities in matrimonial cases, considered the youngest Miss Willis in a very precarious state, while the eldest sister was positively given over, as being far beyond all human hope. Well, the Miss Willises took a lease of the house ; it was fresh painted and papered from top to bottom : the paint inside was all wainscoted, the marble all cleaned, the old grates taken down, and register-stoves, you could see to dress by, put up ; four trees were planted in the back-garden, several small baskets of gravel sprinkled over the front one, vans of elegant furniture arrived, spring blinds were fitted to the windows, carpenters who had been employed in the various preparations, alterations, and repairs, made confidential statements to the different maid-servants in the row, relative to the magnificent scale on which the Miss Willises were commencing ; the maid-servants told their " Missises," the Missises told their friends, and vague rumours were circulated throughout the parish, that No. 25, in Gordon Place, had been taken by four maiden ladies of immense property. At last, the Miss Willises moved in ; and then the " calling " began. The house was the perfection of neatness so were the four Miss Willises. Everything was formal, stiff, and cold so were the four Miss Willises. Not a single chair of the whole set was ever seen out of its place not a single Miss Willis of the whole four was ever seen out of hers. There they always sat, in the same places, doing precisely the same things at the same hour. The eldest Miss Willis used to knit, the second to draw, the two others to play duets on the piano. They seemed to have no separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together. They were three long graces in drapery, with the addition, like a school-dinner, of another long grace afterwards the three fates with another sister the Siamese twins multiplied by two. The eldest Miss Willis grew bilious the four Miss Willises grew bilious immediately. The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious the four Miss Willises were ill- tempered and religious directly. Whatever the eldest did, the others did, and whatever anybody else did, they all disapproved of; and thus they vegetated living in Polar harmony among themselves, and, as they sometimes went out, or saw company "in a quiet-way" at home, occasionally iceing the neighbours. Three years passed over in this way, when an unlooked-for and extraordinary phenomenon occurred. The Miss Willises showed symptoms of summer, the frost gradually A Quadrilateral Marriage. 1 1 broke up ; a complete thaw took place. Was it possible ? one of the four Miss Willises was going to be married 1 Now, where on earth the husband came from, by what feelings the poor man could have been actuated, or by what process of reasoning the four Miss Willises succeeded in persuading themselves that it was possible for a man to marry one of them, without marrying them all, are questions too profound for us to resolve : certain it is, however, that the visits of Mr. Eobinson (a gentleman in a public office, with a good salary and a little property of his own, beside) were received that the four Miss Willises were courted in due form by the said Mr. Robinson that the neighbours were perfectly frantic in their anxiety to discover which of the four Miss Willises was the fortunate fair, and that the difficulty they experienced in solving the problem was not at all lessened by the announcement of the eldest Miss Willis, " We are going to marry Mr. Robinson." It was very extraordinary. They were so completely identified, the one with the other, that the curiosity of the whole row even of the old lady herself was roused almost beyond endurance. The subject was discussed at every little card-table and tea-drinking. The old gentleman of silkworm notoriety did not hesitate to express his decided opinion that Mr. Robinson was of Eastern descent, and contemplated marrying the whole family at once ; and the row, generally, shook their heads with considerable gravity, and declared the business to be very mysterious. They hoped it might all end well ; it certainly had a very singular appearance, but still it would be uncharitable to express any opinion without good grounds to go upon, and certainly the Miss Willises were quite old enough to judge for themselves, and to be sure people ought to know their own business best, and so forth. At last, one fine morning, at a quarter before eight o'clock, a.m., two glass-coaches drove up to the Miss Willises' door, at which Mr. Robinson had arrived in a cab ten minutes before, dressed in a light- blue coat and double-milled kersey pantaloons, white neckerchief, pumps, and dress-gloves, his manner denoting, as appeared from the evidence of the housemaid at No. 23, who was sweeping the door-steps at the time, a considerable degree of nervous excitement. It was also hastily reported on the same testimony, that the cook who opened the door, wore a large white bow of unusual dimensions, in a much smarter headdress than the regulation cap to which the Miss Willises in- variably restricted the somewhat excursive tastes of female servants in general. The intelligence spread rapidly from house to house. It was quite clear that the eventful morning had at length arrived ; the whole row stationed themselves behind their first and second-floor blinds, and waited the result in breathless expectation. At last the Miss Willises' door opened ; the door of the first glass- coach did the same. Two gentlemen, and a pair of ladies to corre- 12 Sketches by Bos. spond friends of the family, no doubt ; up went the steps, bang went the door, off went the first glass-coach, and up came the second. The street door opened again ; the excitement of the whole row increased Mr. Robinson and the eldest Miss Willis. " I thought so," said the lady at No. 19 ; "I always said it was Miss Willis ! " " Well, I never!" ejaculated the young lady at No. 18 to the young lady at No. 17. "Did you ever, dear? " responded the young lady at No. 17 to the young lady at No. 18. " It's too ridiculous ! " exclaimed a spinster of an rmcertain age, at No. 16, joining in the conversation. But who shall portray the astonishment of Gordon Place, when Mr. Robinson handed in all the Miss Willises, one after the other, and then squeezed himself into an acute angle of the glass-coach, which forthwith proceeded at a brisk pace, after the other glass-coach, which other glass-coach had itself proceeded, at a brisk pace, in the direction of the parish church ? Who shall depict the perplexity of the clergy- man, when all the Miss Willises knelt down at the communion table, and repeated the responses incidental to the marriage service in an audible voice or who shall describe the confusion which prevailed, when even after the difficulties thus occasioned had been adjusted all the Miss Willises went into hysterics at the conclusion of the cere- mony, until the sacred edifice resounded with their united wailings ? As the four sisters and Mr. Robinson continued to occupy the same house after this memorable occasion, and as the married sister, whoever she was, never appeared in public without the other three, we are not quite clear that the neighbours ever would have discovered the real Mrs. Robinson, but for a circumstance of the most gratifying descrip- tion, which icill happen occasionally in the best-regulated families. Three quarter-days elapsed, and the row, on whom a new light appeared to have been bursting for some time, began to speak with a sort of implied confidence on the subject, and to wonder how Mrs. Robinson the youngest Miss Willis that was got on ; and servants might be seen running up the steps, about nine or ten o'clock every morning, with " Missis's compliments, and wishes to know how Mrs. Robinson finds herself this morning?" And the answer always was, "Mrs. Robinson's compliments, and she's in very good spirits, and doesn't find herself any worse." The piano was heard no longer, the knitting- needles were laid aside, drawing was neglected, and mantua-making and millinery, on the smallest scale imaginable, appeared to have become the favourite amusement of the whole family. The parlour wasn't quite as tidy as it used to be, and if you called in the morning, you would see lying on a table, with an old newspaper carelessly thrown over them, two or three particularly small caps, rather larger than if they had been made for a moderate-sized doll, with a small piece of lace, in the shape of a horse-shoe, let in behind : or perhaps a white robe, not very large in circumference, but very much out of proportion in point of length, with a little tucker round the top, and a frill round the bottom ; and once when we called, we saw a long white The Ehction for Beadle. 1 3 roller, with a kind of blue margin down each side, the probable use of which, we were at a loss to conjecture. Then we fancied that Mr. Dawson, the surgeon, &c., who displays a large lamp with a different colour in every pane of glass, at the corner of the row, began to bo knocked up at night oftener than he used to be ; and once we were very much alarmed by hearing a hackney- coach stop at Mrs. Robinson's door, at half-past two o'clock in the morning, out of which there emerged a fat old woman, in a cloak and nightcap, with a bundle in one hand, and a pair of pattens in the other, who looked as if she had been suddenly knocked up out of bed for some very special purpose. When we got up in the morning we saw that the knocker was tied up in an old white kid glove ; and we, in our innocence (we were in a state of bachelorship then), wondered what on earth it all meant, until we heard the eldest Miss Willis, in proprid persona, say, with great dignity, in answer to the next inquiry, "Hy compliments, and Mrs. Robinson's doing as well as can be expected, and the little girl thrives wonderfully." And then, in common with the rest of the row, our curiosity was satisfied, and we began to wonder it had never occurred to us what the matter was, before. CHAPTER IV. THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE. A GREAT event has recently occurred in our parish. A contest of paramount interest has just terminated ; a parochial convulsion has taken place. It has been succeeded by a glorious triumph, which the country or at least the parish it is all the same will long remem- ber. We have had an election ; an election for beadle. The sup- porters of the old beadle system have been defeated in their stronghold, and the advocates of the great new beadle principles have achieved a proud victory. Our parish, which, like all other parishes, is a little world of its own, has long been divided into two parties, whose contentions, slum- bering for a while, have never failed to burst forth with unabated vigour, on any occasion on which they could by possibility be renewed. Watching-rates, lighting-rates, paving-rates, sewer's-rates, church- rates, poor's-rates all sorts of rates, have been in their turns the subjects of a grand struggle ; and as to questions of patronage, the asperity and determination with which they have been contested is scarcely credible. The leader of the official party the steady advocate of the church- wardens, and the unflinching supporter of the overseers is an old gentleman who lives in our row. He owns some half-a-dozen houses 14 Sketches by Bos. in it, and always walks on the opposite side of the way, so that he may be able to take in a view of the whole of his property at onco. He is a tall, thin, bony man, with an interrogative nose, and little restless perking eyes, which appear to have been given him for the sole purpose of peeping into other people's affairs with. He is deeply impressed with the importance of our parish business, and prides him- self, not a little, on his style of addressing the parishioners in vestry assembled. His views are rather confined than extensive ; his prin- ciples more narrow than liberal. He has been heard to declaim very loudly in favour of the liberty of the press, and advocates the repeal of the stamp duty on newspapers, because the daily journals who now have a monopoly of the public, never give verbatim reports of vestry meetings. He would not appear egotistical for the world, but at the same time he must say, that there are speeches that celebrated speech of his own, on the emoluments of the sexton, and the duties of the office, for instance which might be communicated to the public, greatly to their improvement and advantage. His great opponent in public life is Captain Purday, the old naval officer on half-pay, to whom we have already introduced our readers. The captain being a determined opponent of the constituted authorities, whoever they may chance to be, and our other friend being their steady supporter, with an equal disregard of their individual merits, it will readily be supposed, that occasions for their coming into direct collision are neither few nor far between. They divided the vestry fourteen times on a motion for heating the church Avith warm water instead of coals : and made speeches about liberty and expenditure, and prodigality and hot water, which threw the whole parish into a state of excitement. Then the captain, when he was on the visiting com- mittee, and his opponent overseer, brought forward certain distinct and specific charges relative to the management of the workhouse, boldly expressed his total want of confidence in the existing authori- ties, and moved for " a copy of the recipe by which the paupers' soup was prepared, together with any documents relating thereto." This the overseer steadily resisted ; he fortified himself by precedent, ap- pealed to the established usage, and declined to produce the papers, on the ground of the injury that would be done to the public service, if documents of a strictly private nature, passing between the master of the workhouse and the cook, were to be thus dragged to light on the motion of any individual member of the vestry. The motion was lost by a majority of two ; and then the captain, who never allows himself to be defeated, moved for a committee of inquiry into the whole subject. The affair grew serious: the question was discussed at meeting after meeting, and vestry after vestry ; speeches were made, attacks repudiated, personal defiances exchanged, explanations received, and the greatest excitement prevailed, until at last, just as the question was going to be finally decided, the vestry found that somehow or other, they had become entangled in a point of form, from which it The Candidates. 15 was impossible to escape with propriety. So, the motion was dropped, and everybody looked extremely important, and seemed quite satisfied with the meritorious nature of the whole proceeding. This was the state of affairs in our parish a week or two since, when Simmons, the beadle, suddenly died. The lamented deceased had over-exerted himself, a day or two previously, in conveying an aged female, highly intoxicated, to the strong room of the workhouse. The excitement thus occasioned, added to a severe cold, which this inde- fatigable officer had caught in his capacity of director of the parish engine, by inadvertently playing over himself instead of a fire, proved too much for a constitution already enfeebled by age ; and the intelli- gence was conveyed to the Board one evening that Simmons had died, and left his respects. The breath was scarcely out of the body of the deceased functionary, when the field was filled with competitors for the vacant office, each of whom rested his claims to public support, entirely on the number and extent of his family, as if the office of beadle were originally instituted as an encouragement for the propagation of the human species. " Bung for Beadle. Five small children ! " " Hopkins for Beadle. Seven small children ! ! " " Timkins for Beadle. Nino small children ! ! ! " Such were the placards in large black letters on a white ground, which wore plentifully pasted on the walls, and posted in the windows of the principal shops. Timkins's success was considered certain : several mothers of families half promised their votes, and the nine small children would have run over the course, but for the production of another placard, announcing the appearance of a still more meritorious candidate. "Spruggins for Beadle. Ten small children (two of them twins), and a wife ! ! ! " There was no resisting this ; ten small children would have been almost irresistible in themselves, without the twins, but the touching parenthesis about that interesting production of nature, and the still more touching allusion to Mrs. Spruggins, must ensure success. Spruggins was the favourite at once, and the appearance of his lady, as she went about to solicit votes (which encouraged confident hopes of a still further addition to the house of Spruggins at no remote period), increased the general prepossession in his favour. The other candidates, Bung alone excepted, resigned in despair. The day of election was fixed ; and the canvass proceeded with briskness and perseverance on both sides. The members of the vestry could not be supposed to escape the contagious excitement inseparable from the occasion. The majority of the lady inhabitants of the parish declared at once for Spruggins ; and the quondam overseer took the same side, on the ground that men with large families always had been elected to the office, and that although he must admit, that, in other respects, Spruggins was the least qualified candidate of the two, still it was an old practice, and ho saw no reason why an ojd practice should be departed from. This 1 6 Sketches by Bos. was enough for the captain. He immediately sided with Bung, can- vassed for him personally in all directions, wrote squibs on Spruggins, and got his butcher to skewer them up on conspicuous joints in his shop-front ; frightened his neighbour, the old lady, into a palpitation of the heart, by his awful denunciations of Spruggins's party ; and bounced in and out, and up and down, and backwards and forwards, until all the sober inhabitants of the parish thought it inevitable that he must die of a brain fever, long before- the election began. The day of election arrived. It was no longer an individual struggle, >ut a party contest between the ins and outs. The question was, whether the withering influence of the overseers, the domination of the churchwardens, and the blighting despotism of the vestry-clerk, should be allowed to render the election of beadle a form a nullity : whether they should impose a vestry-elected beadle on the parish, to do their bidding and forward their views, or whether the parishioners, fearlessly asserting their undoubted rights, should elect an independent beadle of their own. The nomination was fixed to take place in the vestry, but so great was the throng of anxious spectators, that it was found necessary to adjourn to the church, where the ceremony commenced with due solemnity. The appearance of the churchwardens and overseers, and the ex-churchwardens and ex-overseers, with Spruggins in the rear, excited general attention. Spruggins was a little thin man, in rusty black, with a long pale face, and a countenance expressive of care and fatigue, which might either be attributed to the extent of his family or the anxiety of his feelings. His opponent appeared in a cast-on 1 coat of the captain's a blue coat with bright buttons : white trousers, and that description of shoes familiarly known by the appellation of " high-lows." There was a serenity in the open countenance of Bung a kind of moral dignity in his confident air an " I wish you may get it " sort of expression in his eye which infused animation into his supporters, and evidently dispirited his opponents. The ex-churchwarden rose to propose Thomas Spruggins for beadle. He had known him long. He had had his eye upon him closely for years ; he had watched him with twofold vigilance for months. (A parishioner here suggested that this might be termed " taking a double sight," but the observation was drowned in loud cries of " Order ! ") He would repeat that he had had his eye upon him for years, and this he would say, that a more well-conducted, a more well-behaved, a more sober, a more quiet man, with a more well-regulated mind, he had never met with. A man with a larger family he had never known (cheers). The parish required a man who could be depended on ("Hear!" from the Spruggins side, answered by ironical cheers from the Bung party). Such a man he now proposed (" No," " Yes "). He would not allude to individuals (the ex-churchwarden continued, iu the celebrated negative style adopted by great speakers). He would not advert to a gentleman who had once held a high rank in Nomination. 1 7 the service of his majesty ; he would not say, that that gentleman was no gentleman ; he would not assert, that that man was no man ; he would not say, that he was a turbulent parishioner ; he would not say, that he had grossly misbehaved himself, not only on this, but on all former occasions ; he would not say, that he was one of those discontented and treasonable spirits, who carried confusion and dis- order wherever they went ; he would not say that he harboured in his heart envy, and hatred, and malice, and all tmcharitableness. No ! He wished to have everything comfortable and pleasant, and therefore, lie would say nothing about him (cheers). The captain replied in a similar parliamentary style. He would not say, he was astonished at the speech they had just heard ; he would not say, he was disgusted (cheers). He would not retort the epithets which had been hurled against him (renewed cheering) ; he would not allude to men once in office, but now happily out of it, who had mismanaged the workhouse, ground the paupers, diluted the beer, slack-baked the bread, boned the meat, heightened the work, and lowered the soup (tremendous cheers). He would not ask what such men deserved (a voice, " Nothing a day, and find themselves ! "). He would not say, that one burst of general indignation should drive them from the parish they polluted with their presence (" Give it him ! "). Ho would not allude to the unfortunate man who had been proposed he would not say, as the vestry's tool, but as Beadle. He would not advert to that individual's family ; ho would not say, that nine children, twins, and a wife, were very bad examples for pauper imitation (loud cheers). He would not advert in detail to the qualifi- cations of Bung. The man stood before him, and he would not say in his presence, what he might be disposed to say of him, if he were absent. (Hero Mr. Bung telegraphed to a friend near him, under cover of Ids hat, by contracting his left eye, and applying his right thumb to the tip of his nose.) It had been objected to Bung that he had only five children (" Hear, hear ! " from the opposition). Well ; he had yet to learn that the legislature had affixed any precise amount of infantine qualification to the office of beadle ; but taking it for granted that an extensive family were a great requisite, he entreated them to look to facts, and compare data, about which there could be no mistake. Bung was 35 years of age. Spruggins of whom ho wished to speak with all possible respect was 50. Was it not more than possible was it not very probable that by the time Bung attained the latter age, he might see around him a family, even exceeding in number and extent, that to which Spruggins at present laid claim (deafening cheers and waving of handkerchiefs) ? The captain concluded, amidst loud applause, by calling upon the parishioners to sound the tocsin, rush to the poll, free themselves from dictation, or be slaves for ever. On the following day the polling began, and we never have had such a bustle in our parish sine* we got up our famous anti-slavery 1 8 Sketches by JBoz. petition, which was such an important one, that the House of Commons ordered it to be printed, on the motion of the member for the district. The captain engaged two hackney-coaches and a cab for Bung's people the cab for the drunken voters, and the two coaches for the old ladies, the greater portion of whom, owing to the captain's impetuosity, were driven up to the poll and home again, before they recovered from their flurry sufficiently to know, with any degree of clearness, what they had been doing. The opposite party wholly neglected these precautions, and the consequence was, that a great many ladies who were walking leisurely up to the church for it was a very hot day to vote for Spruggins, were artfully decoyed into the coaches, and voted for Bung. The captain's arguments, too, had produced considerable effect : the attempted influence of the vestry produced a greater. A threat of exclusive dealing was clearly established against the vestry-clerk a case of heartless and profligate atrocity. It appeared that the delinquent had been in the habit of purchasing six- penn'orth of muffins, weekly, from an old woman who rents a small house in the parish, and resides among the original settlers ; on her last weekly visit, a message was conveyed to her through the medium of the cook, couched in mysterious terms, but indicating with sufficient clearness, that the vestry-clerk's appetite for muffins, in future, de- pended entirely on her vote on the beadleship. This was sufficient : the stream had been turning previously, and the impulse thus ad- ministered directed its final course. The Bung party ordered one shilling's-worth of muffins weekly for the remainder of the old woman's natural life ; the parishioners were loud in their exclamations ; and the fate of Spruggins was sealed. It was in vain that the twins were exhibited in dresses of the same pattern, and night-caps to match, at the church-door : the boy in Mrs Spruggins's right arm, and the girl in her left even Mrs. Spruggins herself failed to be an object of sympathy any longer. The majority attained by Bung on the gross poll was four hundred and twenty- eight, and the cause of the parishioners triumphed. CHAPTEE V. THE BROKER'S MAN. THE excitement of the late election has subsided, and our parish being once again restored to a state of comparative tranquillity, we are enabled to devote our attention to those parishioners who take little share in our party contests or in the turmoil and bustle of public life. And we feel sincere pleasure in acknowledging here, that in collecting materials for this task we have been greatly assisted by Mr. Bung Mr. Bung. 19 himself, who has imposed on us a debt of obligation which we fear wo can never repay. The life of this gentleman has been one of a very chequered description : he has undergone transitions not from grave to gay, for he never was grave not from lively to severe, for severity forms no part of his disposition ; his fluctuations have been between poverty in the extreme, and poverty modified, or, to use his own emphatic language, " between nothing to eat and just half enough." He is not, as he forcibly remarks, " one of those fortunate men who, if they were to dive under one side of a barge stark-naked, would come up on the other with a new suit of clothes on, and a ticket for soup in the waistcoat-pocket : " neither is ho one of those, whose spirit has been broken beyond redemption by misfortune and want. He is just one of the careless, good-for-nothing, happy fellows, who float, cork-like, on the surface, for the world to play at hockey with: knocked here, and there, and everywhere : now to the right, then to the left, again up in the air, and anon to the bottom, but always reappearing and bounding with the stream buoyantly and merrily along. Some few months before he was prevailed upon to stand a contested election for the office of beadle, necessity attached him to the service of a broker ; and on the opportunities he here acquired of ascertaining the condition of most of the poorer inhabitants of the parish, his patron, the captain, first grounded his claims to public support. Chance threw the man in our way a short time since. We were, in the first instance, attracted by his prepossessing impudence at the election ; we were not surprised, on further acquaintance, to find him a shrewd knowing fellow, with no inconsiderable power of observation ; and, after conversing with him a little, were somewhat struck (as wo dare say our readers have frequently been in other cases) with the power some men seem to have, not only of sympathising with, but to all appearance of understanding feelings to which they themselves are entire strangers. We had been expressing to the new functionary our surprise that ho should ever have served in the capacity to which we have just adverted, when we gradually led him into one or two professional anecdotes. As we are induced to think, on reflection, that they will tell better in nearly his own words, than with any attempted embellishments of ours, we will at once entitle them MR. BUNG'S NARRATIVE. "It's very true, as you say, sir," Mr. Bung commenced, "that a broker's man's is not a life to be envied ; and in course you know as well as I do, though you don't say it, that people hate and scout 'em because they're the ministers of wretchedness, like, to poor people. But what could I do, sir ? The thing was no worse because I did it, instead of somebody else ; and if putting me in possession of a house would put me in possession of three and sixpence a day, and levying a distress on another man's goods would relieve my distress and that 2O Sketches by Bos. of my family, it can't be expected but what I'd take the job and go through with it. I never liked it, God knows ; I always looked out for something else, and the moment I got other work to do, I left it. If there is anything wrong in being the agent in such matters not the principal, mind you I'm sure the business, to a beginner like I was, at all events, carries its own punishment along with it. I wished again and again that the people would only blow me up, or pitch into me that I wouldn't have minded, it's all in my way ; but it's the being shut up by yourself in one room for five days, without so much as an old newspaper to look at, or anything to see out o' the winder but the roofs and chimneys at the back of the house, or anything to listen to, but the ticking, perhaps, of an old Dutch clock, the sobbing of the missis, now and then, the low talking of friends in the next room, who speak in whispers, lest ' the man ' should overhear them, or perhaps the occasional opening of the door, as a child peeps in to look at you, and then runs half-frightened away It's all this, that makes you feel sneaking somehow, and ashamed of yourself ; and then, if it's winter time, they just give you fire enough to make you think you'd like more, and bring in your grub as if they wished it 'ud choke you as I dare say they do, for the matter of that, most heartily. If they're very civil, they make you up a bed in the room at night, and if they don't, your master sends one in for you ; but there you are, without being washed or shaved all the time, shunned by everybody, and spoken to by no one, unless some one comes in at dinner-time, and asks you whether you want any more, in a tone as much as to say, ' I hope you don't,' or, in the evening, to inquire whether you wouldn't rather have a candle, after you've been sitting in the dark half the night. When I was left in this way, I used to sit, think, think, thinking, till I felt as lonesome as a kitten in a wash-house copper with the lid on ; but I believe the old brokers' men who are regularly trained to it, never think at all. I have heard some on 'em say, indeed, that they don't know how ! " I put in a good many distresses in my time (continued Mr. Bung), and in course I wasn't long in finding, that some people are not as much to be pitied as others are, and that people with good incomes who get into difficulties, which they keep patching up day after day, and week after week, get so used to these sort of things in time, that at last they come scarcely to feel them at all. I remember the very first place I was put in possession of, was a gentleman's house in this parish here, that everybody would suppose couldn't help having money if he tried. I went with old Fixem, my old master, 'bout half arter eight in the morning; rang the area-bell; servant in livery opened the door : ' Governor at home ? ' ' Yes, he is,' says the man ; ' but he's breakfasting just now.' 'Never mind,' says Fixem, 'just you tell him there's a gentleman here, as wants to speak to him partickler.' So the servant he opens his eyes, and stares about him all ways looking for the gentleman, as it struck me, for I don't think anybody but a Mr. Bung's best Job. 2 1 man as was stone-blind would mistake Fixem for one ; and as for me, I was as seedy as a cheap cowcumber. Hows'ever, he turns round, and goes to the breakfast-parlour, which was a little snug sort of room at the end of the passage, and Fixem (as we always did in that pro- fession), without waiting to be announced, walks in artcr him, and before the servant could get out, ' Please, sir, here's a man as wants to speak to you,' looks in at the door as familiar and pleasant as may be. ' Who the devil are you, and how dare you walk into a gentleman's house without leave ? ' says the master, as fierce as a bull in fits. ' My name,' says Fixem, winking to the master to send the servant away, and putting the warrant into his hands folded up like a note, ' My name's Smith,' says he, ' and I called from Johnson's about that business of Thompson's.' 'Oh,' says the other, quite down on him directly, ' How is Thompson ? ' says he ; ' Pray sit down, Mr. Smith : John, leave the room.' Out went the servant ; and the gentleman and Fixem looked at one another till they couldn't look any longer, and then they varied the amusements by looking at me, who had been standing on the mat all this time. ' Hundred and fifty pounds, I see,' said the gentleman at last. ' Hundred and fifty pound,' said Fixem, ' besides cost of levy, sheriff's poundage, and all other incidental expenses.' ' Um,' says the gentleman, ' I shan't be able to settle this before to-morrow afternoon.' ' Very sorry ; but I shall be obliged to leave my man here till then,' replies Fixem, pretending to look very miserable over it. * That's very unfort'nate,' says the gentleman, ' for I have got a large party here to-night, and I'm ruined if these fellows of mine get an inkling of the matter just step here, Mr. Smith,' says he, after a short pause. So Fixem walks with him up to the window, and after a good deal of whispering, and a little chinking of suverins, and looking at me, he comes back and says, ' Bung, you're a handy fellow, and very honest, I know. This gentleman wants an assistant to clean the plate and wait at table to-day, and if you're not particu- larly engaged,' says old Fixem, grinning like mad, and shoving a couple of suverins into my hand, ' he'll be very glad to avail himself of your services.' Well, I laughed : and the gentleman laughed, and we all laughed ; and I went home and cleaned myself, leaving Fixem there, and when 1 went back, Fixem went away, and I polished up the plate, and waited at table, and gammoned the servants, and nobody had the least idea I was in possession, though it very nearly came out after all ; for one of the last gentlemen who remained, came down- stairs into the hall where I was sitting pretty late at night, and putting half-a-crown into my hand, says, Here, my man,' says he, ' run and get me a coach, will you ? ' 1 thought it was a do, to get me out of the house, and was just going to say so, sulkily enough, when the gentleman (who was up to everything) came running down-stairs, as if ho was in great anxiety. ' Bung,' says he, pretending to be in a consuming passion. ' Sir,' says I. ' Why the devil an't you looking after that plate ? ' ' I was just going to send him for a coach for me,' 22 Sketches by Bos. says the other gentleman. ' And I was just a going to say,' says I ' Anybody else, my dear fellow,' interrupts the master of the house, pushing me down the passage to get out of the way ' anybody else ; but I have put this man in possession of all the plate and valuables, and I cannot allow him on any consideration whatever, to leave tho house. Bung, you scoundrel, go and count those forks in the break- fast-parlour instantly.' You may be sure I went laughing pretty hearty when I found it was all right. The money was paid next day, with the addition of something else for myself, and that was the best job that I (and I suspect old Fixem too) ever got in that line. " But this is the bright side of the picture, sir, after all," resumed Mr. Bung, laying aside the knowing look, and flash air, with which he had repeated the previous anecdote " and I'm sorry to say, it's the side one sees very, very seldom, in comparison with the dark one. The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none ; and there's a consolation even in being able to patch up one difficulty, to make way for another, to which very poor people are strangers. I was once put into a house down George's Yard that little dirty court at the back of the oas-works ; and I never shall forget the misery of them people, dear me ! It was a distress for half- a-year's rent two pound ten I think. There was only two rooms in the house, and as there was no passage, the lodgers up-stairs always went through the room of the people of the house, as they passed in and out ; and every time they did so which, on the average, was about four times every quarter of an hour they blowed up quite frightful : for their things had been seized too, and included in tho inventory. There was a little piece of enclosed dust in front of the house, with a cinder-path leading up to the door, and an open rain- water butt on one side. A dirty striped curtain, on a very slack string, hung in the window, and a little triangular bit of broken looking-glass rested on the sill inside. I suppose it was meant for the people's use, but their appearance was so wretched, and so miserable, that I'm certain they never could have plucked up courage to look themselves in the face a second time, if they survived the fright of doing so once. There was two or three chairs, that might have been worth, in their best days, from eightpence to a shilling a-piece ; a small deal table, an old corner cupboard with nothing in it, and one of those bed- steads which turn up half-way, and leave the bottom legs sticking out for you to knock your head against, or hang your hat upon ; no bed, no bedding. There was an old sack, by way of rug, before the fire-place, and four or five children were grovelling about, among the sand on the floor. The execution was only put in, to get 'em out of the house, for there was nothing to take to pay the expenses; and here I stopped for three days, though that was a mere form too : for, in course, I knew, and we all knew, they could never pay the money. In one of the chairs, by the side of the place where the fire ought to have been, was an old 'ooman the ugliest and dirtiest I ever see The Dark Side of t/ie Picture. 23 who sat rocking herself backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, without once stopping, except for an instant now and then, to clasp together the withered hands which, with these exceptions, she kept constantly rubbing upon her knees, just raising and depressing her fingers convulsively, in time to the rocking of the chair. On the other side sat the mother with an infant in her arms, which cried till it cried itself to sleep, and when it 'woke, cried till it cried itself off again. The old 'ooman's voice I never heard : she seemed completely stupified ; and as to the mother's, it would have been better if she had been so too, for misery had changed her to a devil. If you had heard how she cursed the little naked children as was rolling on the floor, and seen how savagely she struck the infant when it cried with hunger, you'd have shuddered as much as I did. There they remained all the time : the children ate a morsel of bread once or twice, and I gave 'em best part of the dinners my missis brought me, but the woman ate nothing ; they never even laid on the bedstead, nor was the room swept or cleaned all the time. The neighbours were all too poor themselves to take any notice of 'em, but from what I could make out from the abuse of the woman up-stairs, it seemed the husband had been transported a few weeks before. When the time was up, the landlord and old Fixem too, got rather frightened about the family, and so they made a stir about it, and had 'em taken to the workhouse. They sent the sick couch for the old 'ooman, and Simmons took the children away at night. The old 'ooman went into the infirmary, and very soon died. The children are all in the house to this day, and very comfortable they are in comparison. As to the mother, there was no taming her at all. She had been a quiet, hard- working woman, I believe, but her misery had actually drove her wild ; so after she had been sent to the house of correction half-a- dozen times, for throwing inkstands at the overseers, blaspheming the churchwardens, and smashing everybody as come near her, she burst a blood-vessel one mornin', and died too ; and a happy release it was, both for herself and the old paupers, male and female, which she used to tip over in all directions, as if they were so many skittles, and she the ball. " Now this was bad enough," resumed Mr. Bung, taking a half-step towards the door, as if to intimate that he had nearly concluded. " This was bad enough, but there was a sort of quiet misery if you understand what I mean by that, sir about a lady at one house I was put into, as touched me a good deal more. It doesn't matter where it was exactly : indeed, I'd rather not say, but it was the same sort o' job. I went with Fixem in the usual way there was a year's rent in arrear ; a very small servant-girl opened the door, and three or four fine-looking little children was in the front parlour we were shown into, which was very clean, but very scantily furnished, much like the children themselves. ' Bung,' says Fixem to me, in a low voice, when we were left alone for a minute, ' I know something about this here 24 Sketches by Boz. family, and my opinion is, it's no go.' ' Do you think they can't settle ? ' says I, quite anxiously ; for I liked the looks of them children. Fixem shook his head, and was just about to reply, when the door opened, and in came a lady, as white as ever I see anyone in my days, except about the eyes, which were red with crying. She walked in, as firm as I could have done ; shut the door carefully after her, and sat herself down with a face as composed as if it was made of stone. ' What is the matter, gentlemen ? ' says she, in a surprisin' steady voice. ' Is this an execution ? ' 'It is, mum,' says Fixem. The lady looked at him as steady as ever : she didn't seem to have understood him. ' It is, mum,' says Fixem again ; ' this is my warrant of distress, mum,' says he, handing it over as polite as if it was a newspaper which had been bespoke arter the next gentleman. " The lady's lip trembled as she took the printed paper. She cast her eye over it, and old Fixem began to explain the form, but I saw she wasn't reading it, plain enough, poor thing. ' Oh, my God ! ' says she, suddenly a bursting out crying, letting the warrant fall, and hiding her face in her hands. ' Oh, my God ! what will become ot us ? ' The noise she made, brought in a young lady of about nineteen or twenty, who, I suppose, had been a listening at the door, and who had got a little boy in her arms : she sat him down in the lady's lap, without speaking, and she hugged the poor little fellow to her bosom, and cried over him, till even old Fixem put on his blue spectacles to hide the two tears, that was a trickling down, one on each side of his dirty face. 'Now, dear ma,' says the young lady, 'you know how much you have borne. For all our sakes for pa's sake,' says she, ' don't give way to this ! ' ' No, no, I won't ! ' says the lady, gathering herself up, hastily, and drying her eyes ; ' I am very foolish, but I'm better now much better.' And then she roused herself up, went with us into every room while we took the inventory, opened all the drawers of her own accord, sorted the children's little clothes to make the work easier ; and, except doing everything in a strange sort of hurry, seemed as calm and composed as if nothing had happened. When we came down-stairs again, she hesitated a minute or two, and at last says, ' Gentlemen,' says she, ' I am afraid I have done wrong, and perhaps it may bring you into trouble. I secreted just now,' she says, ' the only trinket I have left in the world here it is.' So she lays down on the table a little miniature mounted in gold. ' It's a miniature,' she says, ' of my poor dear father ! I little thought once, that I should ever thank God for depriving me of the original, but I do, and have done for years back, most fervently. Take it away, sir,' she says, ' it's a face that never turned from me in sickness or distress, and I can hardly bear to turn from it now, when, God knows, I suffer both in no ordinary degree.' I couldn't say nothing, but I raised my head from the inventory which I was filling up, and looked at Fixem ; the old fellow nodded to me significantly, so I ran my pen through the ' Mini ' I had just written, and left the miniature on the table. The Ladies' Societies. 25 " Well, sir, to make short of a long story, I was left in possession, and in possession I remained ; and though I was an ignorant man, and tlio master of the house a clever one, I saw what ho never did, but what ho would give worlds now (if ho had 'em) to have seen in time. I saw, sir, that his wife was wasting away, beneath cares of which she never complained, and griefs she never told. I saw that she was dying before his eyes ; I knew that one exertion from him might have saved her, but he never made it. I don't blame him : I don't think ho could rouse himself. She had so long anticipated all his wishes, and actod for him, that he was a lost man when left to himself. I used to think when I caught sight of her, in the clothes she used to wear, which looked shabby oven upon her, and would have been scarcely decent on anyone else, that if I was a gentleman it would wring my very heart to see the woman that was a smart and merry girl when I courted her, so altered through her love for me. Bitter cold and damp weather it was, yet, though her dress was thin, and her shoes none of the best, during the whole three days, from morning to night, she was out-of-doors running about to try and raise the money. The money was raised and the execution was paid out. The whole family crowded into the room where I was, when the money arrived. The father was quite happy as the inconvenience was removed I dare say ho didn't know how ; the children looked merry and cheerful again ; the eldest girl was bustling about, making preparations for the first comfortable meal they had had since the distress was put in ; and the mother looked pleased to see them all so. But if ever I saw death in a woman's face, I saw it in hers that night. " I was right, sir," continued Mr. Bung, hurriedly passing his coat- sleeve over his face ; " the family grew more prosperous, and good fortune arrived. But it was too late. Those children are motherless now, and their father woiilct give up all he has since gained house, home, goods, money : all that he has, or ever can have, to restore the wife he has lost." CHAPTER VI. THE LADIES' SOCIETIES. OCR Parish is very prolific in ladies' charitable institutions. In winter, when wet feet are common, and colds not scarce, we have the ladies' soup distribution society, the ladies' coal distribution society, and the ladies' blanket distribution society ; in summer, when stono fruits flourish and stomach-aches prevail, we have the ladies' dis- pensary, and the ladies' sick visitation committee ; and all the year round we have the ladies' child's examination society, the ladies' bible 26 Sketches by Bos and prayer-book circulation society, and the ladies' childbed-linen monthly loan society. The two latter are decidedly the most im- portant ; whether they are productive of more benefit than the rest, it is not for us to say, but we can take upon ourselves to affirm, with the utmost solemnity, that they create a greater stir and more bustle, than all the others put together. We should be disposed to affirm, on the first blush of the matter, that the bible and prayer-book society is not so popular as the child- bed-linen society; the bible and prayer-book society has, however, considerably increased in importance within the last year or two, having derived some adventitious aid from the factious opposition of the child's examination society ; which factious opposition originated in manner following : When the young curate was popular, and all the unmarried ladies in the parish took a serious turn, the charity children all at once became objects of peculiar and especial interest. The three Miss Browns (enthusiastic admirers of the curate) taught, and exercised, and examined, and re-examined the unfortunate children, until the boys grew pale, and the girls consumptive with study and fatigue. The three Miss Browns stood it out very well, because they relieved each other ; but the children, having no relief at all, ex- hibited decided symptoms of weariness and care. The unthinking part of the parishioners laughed at all this, but the more reflective portion of the inhabitants abstained from expressing any opinion on the subject until that of the curate had been clearly ascertained. The opportunity was not long wanting. The curate preached a charity sermon on behalf of the charity school, and in the charity sermon aforesaid, expatiated in glowing terms on the praiseworthy and indefatigable exertions of certain estimable individuals. Sobs were heard to issue from the three Miss Browns' pew ; the pew- opener of the division was seen to hurry down the centre aisle to the vestry door, and to return immediately, bearing a glass of water in her hand. A low moaning ensued ; two more pew-openers rushed to the spot, and the three Miss Browns, each supported by a pew-opener, were led out of the church, and led in again after the lapse of five minutes with white pocket-handkerchiefs to their eyes, as if they had been attending a funeral in the churchyard adjoining. If any doubt had for a moment existed, as to whom the allusion was intended to apply, it was at once removed. The wish to enlighten the charity children became universal, and the three Miss Browns were unani- mously besought to divide the school into classes, and to assign each class to the superintendence of two young ladies. A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a little patronage is more so ; the three Miss Browns appointed all the old maids, and carjefully excluded the young ones. Maiden aunts triumphed, mammas were reduced to the lowest depths of despair, and there is no telling in what act of violence the general indignation against the three Miss Browns might have vented itself, had not a perfectly The three Miss Browns. 27 providential occurrence changed the tide of public feeling. Mrs. Johnson Parker, the mother of seven extremely fine girls all un- married hastily reported to several other mammas of several other unmarried families, that five old men, six old women, and children innumerable, in the free seats near her pew, were in the habit of coming to church every Sunday, without either bible or prayer-book. Was this to be borne in a civilised country ? Could such things bo tolerated in a Christian land ? Never ! A ladies' bible and prayer- book distribution society was instantly formed : president, Mrs. John- son Parker ; treasurers, auditors, and secretary, the Misses Johnson Parker : subscriptions were entered into, books were bought, all the free-seat people provided therewith, and when the first lesson was given out, on the first Sunday succeeding these events, there was such a dropping of books, and rustling of leaves, that it was morally impossible to hear one word of the service for five minutes afterwards. The three Miss Browns, and their party, saw the approaching danger, and endeavoured to avert it by ridicule and sarcasm. Neither the old men nor the old women could read their books, now they had got them, said the three Miss Browns. Never mind ; they could learn, replied Mrs. Johnson Parker. The children couldn't read either, suggested the throe Miss Browns. No matter ; they could bo taught, retorted Mrs. Johnson Parker. A balance of parties took place. The Miss Browns publicly examined popular feeling inclined to the child's examination society. The Miss Johnson Parkers publicly distributed a reaction took place in favour of the prayer- book distribution. A feather would have turned the scale, and a feather did turn it. A missionary returned from the West Indies ; he was to be presented to the Dissenters' Missionary Society on his marriage with a wealthy widow. Overtures were made to the Dis- senters by the Johnson Parkers. Their object was the same, and why not have a joint meeting of the two societies ? The proposition was accepted. The meeting was duly heralded by public announcement, and the room was crowded to suffocation. The Missionary appeared on the platform; he was hailed with enthusiasm. He repeated a dialogue he had heard between two negroes, behind a hedge, on the subject of distribution societies; the approbation was tumultuous. He gave an imitation of the two negroes in broken English ; the roof was rent with applause. From that period wo date (with one trifling exception) a daily increase in the popularity of the distribution society, and an increase of popularity, which the feeble and impotent oppo- sition of the examination party, has only tended to augment. Now, the great points about the childbed-linen monthly loan society are, that it is less dependent on the fluctuations of public opinion than either the distribution or the child's examination ; and that, come what may, there is never any lack of objects on which to exercise its benevolence. Our parish is a very populous one, and, if anything, contributes, we should be disposed to say, rather more than 28 S ketches by Boz. its due share to the aggregate amount of births in the metropolis and its environs. The consequence is, that the monthly loan society flourishes, and invests its members with a most enviable amount of bustling patronage. The society (whose only notion of dividing time, would appear to bo its allotment into months) holds monthly tea- drinkings, at which the monthly report is received, a secretary elected for the month ensuing, and such of the monthly boxes as may not happen to be out on loan for the month, carefully examined. We were never present at one of these meetings, from all of which it is scarcely necessary to say, gentlemen are carefully excluded ; but Mr. Bung has been called before the board once or twice, and we have his authority for stating, that its proceedings are conducted with great order and regularity : not more than four members being allowed to speak at one time on any pretence whatever. The regular committee is composed exclusively of married ladies, but a vast number of young unmarried ladies of from eighteen to twenty-five years of age, respec- tively, are admitted as honorary members, partly because they are very useful in replenishing the boxes, and visiting the confined ; partly because it is highly desirable that they should be initiated at an early period, into the more serious and matronly duties of after- life ; and partly, because prudent mammas have not unfrequently been known to turn this circumstance to wonderfully good account in matrimonial speculations. In addition to the loan of the monthly boxes (which are always painted blue, with the name of the society in large white letters on the lid), the society dispense occasional grants of beef-tea, and a com- position of warm beer, spice, eggs, and sugar, commonly known by the name of " caudle," to its patients. And here again the services of the honorary members are called into requisition, and most cheerfully conceded. Deputations of twos or threes are sent out to visit the patients, and on these occasions there is such a tasting of caudle and beef-tea, such a stirring about of little messes in tiny saucepans on the hob, such a dressing and undressing of infants, such a tying, and folding, and pinning ; such a nursing and warming of little legs and feet before the fire, such a delightful confusion of talking and cooking, bustle, importance, and ofiiciousness, as never can be enjoyed in its full extent but on similar occasions. In rivalry of these two institutions, and as a last expiring effort to acquire parochial popularity, the child's examination people deter- mined, the other day, on having a grand public examination of the pupils ; and the large school-room of the national seminary was, by and with the consent of the parish authorities, devoted to the purpose. Invitation circulars were forwarded to all the principal parishioners, including, of course, the heads of the other two societies, for whose especial behoof and edification the display was intended ; and a large audience was confidently anticipated on the occasion. The floor was carefully scrubbed the day before, under the immediate superin~ Triumph of Mrs. Johnson Parker. 29 tendenco of the three Miss Browns ; forms were placed across the room for the accommodation of the visitors, specimens in writing were carefully selected, and as carefully patched and touched np, until they astonished the children who had written them, rather more than the company who read them ; sums in compouud addition were rehearsed and re-rehearsed until all the children had the totals by heart ; and the preparations altogether were on the most laborious and most compre- hensive scale. The morning arrived : the children were yellow-soaped and flannelled, and towelled, till their faces shone again ; every pupil's hair was carefully combed into his or her eyes, as the case might be ; the girls were adorned with snow-white tippets, and caps bound round the head by a single purple ribbon : the necks of the elder boys were fixed into collars of startling dimensions. The doors were thown open, and the Misses Brown and Co. were discovered in plain white muslin dresses, and caps of the same the child's examination uniform. The room filled : the greetings of the company were loud and cordial. The distributionists trembled, for their popularity was at stake. The eldest boy fell forward, and delivered a propitiatory address from behind his collar. It was from the pen of Mr. Henry Brown ; the applause was universal, and the Johnson Parkers were aghast. The examination proceeded with success, and terminated in triumph. The child's examination society gained a momentary victory, and the Johnson Parkers retreated in despair. A secret council of the distributionists was held that night, with Mrs. Johnson Parker in the chair, to consider of the best means of recovering the ground they had lost in the favour of the parish. What could be done ? Another meeting ! Alas ! who was to attend it ? The Missionary would not do twice ; and the slaves wero emancipated. A bold step must be taken. The parish must be astonished in some way or other ; but no one was able to suggest what the step should be. At length, a very old lady was heard to mumble, in indistinct tones, " Exeter Hall." A sudden light broke in upon the meeting. It was unanimously resolved, that a deputation of old ladies should wait upon a celebrated orator, imploring his assist- ance, and the favour of a speech ; and the deputation should also wait on two or three other imbecile old women, not resident in the parish, and entreat their attendance. The application was successful, the meeting 'was held ; the orator (an Irishman) came. He talked of green isles other shores vast Atlantic bosom of the deep Chris- tian charity blood and extermination mercy in hearts arms in hands altars and homes household gods. He wiped his eyes, ho blew his nose, and he quoted Latin. The effect was tremendous the Latin was a decided hit. Nobody knew exactly what it was about, but everybody knew it must be affecting, because even the orator was overcome. The popularity of the distribution society among the ladies of our parish is unprecedented ; and the child's examination is going fast to decay. ?O Sketches by Boz. CHAPTER VII. OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR. WE are very fond of speculating as we walk through a street, on the character and pursuits of the people who inhabit it ; and nothing so materially assists us in these speculations as the appearance of the house-doors. The various expressions of the human countenance afford a beautiful and interesting study ; but there is something in the physiognomy of street-door knockers, almost as characteristic, and nearly as infallible. Whenever we visit a man for the first time, we contemplate the features of his knocker with the greatest curiosity, for we well know, that between the man and his knocker, there will inevitably be a greater or less degree of resemblance and sympathy. For instance, there is one description of knocker that used to bo common enough, but which is fast passing away a large round one, with the jolly face of a convivial lion smiling blandly at you, as you twist the sides of your hair into a curl, or pull up your shirt-collar while you are waiting for the door to be opened ; we never saw that knocker on the door of a churlish man so far as our experience is concerned, it invariably bespoke hospitality and another bottle. No man ever saw this knocker on the door of a small attorney or bill-broker ; they always patronise the other lion ; a heavy ferocious- looking fellow, with a countenance expressive of savage stupidity a sort Jof grand master among the knockers, and a great favourite with the selfish and brutal. Then there is a little pert Egyptian knocker, with a long thin face, a pinched-up nose, and a very sharp chin ; he is most in vogue with your government-office people, in light drabs and starched cravats ; little spare priggish men, who are perfectly satisfied with their own opinions, and consider themselves of paramount importance. We were greatly troubled a few years ago, by the innovation of a new kind of knocker, without any face at all, composed of a wreath, depending from a hand or small truncheon. A little trouble and attention, however, enabled us to overcome this difficulty, and to recon- cile the new system to our favourite theory. You will invariably find this knocker on the doors of cold and formal people, who always ask you why you don't come, and never say do. Everybody knows the brass knocker is common to suburban villas, and extensive boarding-schools ; and having noticed this genus we have recapitulated all the most prominent and strongly-defined species. Some phrenologists affirm, that the agitation of a man's brain by different passions, produces corresponding developments in the form of his skull. Do not let us be understood as pushing our theory to Knockers of the Past. 3 1 the full length of asserting, that any alteration in a man's disposition would produce a visible effect on the feature of his knocker. Our position merely is, that in such a case, the magnetism which must exist between a man and his knocker, would induce the man to remove, and seek some knocker more congenial to his altered feelings. If you ever find a man changing his habitation without any reasonable pretext, depend upon it, that, although he may not be aware of the fact himself, it is because he and his knocker are at variance. This is a new theory, but we venture to launch it, nevertheless, as being quite as ingenious and infallible as many thousands of the learned speculations which are daily broached for public good and private fortune-making. Entertaining these feelings on the subject of knockers, it will be readily imagined with what consternation we viewed the entire removal of the knocker from the door of the next house to the one we lived in, some time ago, and the substitution of a bell. This was a calamity we had never anticipated. The bare idea of anybody being able to exist without a knocker appeared so wild and visionary, that it had never for one instant entered our imagination. We sauntered moodily from the spot, and bent our steps towards Eaton Square, then just building. What was our astonishment and indignation to find that bells were fast becoming the rule, and knockers the exception ! Our theory trembled beneath the shock. We hastened home ; and fancying we foresaw in the swift progress of events, its entire abolition, resolved from that day forward to vent our specula- tions on our next-door neighbours in person. The house adjoining ours on the left hand was uninhabited, and we had, therefore, plenty of leisure to observe our next-door neighbours on the other side. The house without the knocker was in the occupation of a City clerk, and there was a neatly-written bill in the parlour window intimating that lodgings for a single gentleman were to be let within. It was a neat, dull little house, on the shady side of the way, with new, narrow floorcloth in the passage, and new, narrow stair-carpets up to the first floor. The paper was new, and the paint was new, and the furniture was new; and all three, paper, paint, and furniture, bespoke the limited means of the tenant. There was a little red and black carpet in the drawing-room, with a border of flooring all the way round ; a few stained chairs and a pembroke table. A pink shell was displayed on each of the little sideboards, which, with the addition of a tea-tray and caddy, a few more shells on the mantelpiece, and three peacock's feathers tastefully arranged above them, completed the decorative furniture of the apartment. This was the room destined for the reception of the single gentle- man during the day, and a little back-room on the same floor was assigned as his sleeping apartment by night. The bill had not been long in the window, when a stout, good- humoured looking gentleman, of about five-and-thirty, appeared as a candidate for the tenancy. Terms were soon arranged, for the bill 32 Sketches by Bos. was taken down immediately after his first visit. In a day or two the single gentleman came in, and shortly afterwards his real character came out. First of all, he displayed a most extraordinary partiality for sitting up till three or four o'clock in the morning, drinking whiskey-and- water, and smoking cigars ; then he invited friends home, who used to come at ten o'clock, and begin to get happy about the small hours, when they evinced their perfect contentment by singing songs with half-a-dozen verses of two lines each, and a chorus of ten, which chorus used to be shouted forth by the whole strength of the company, in the most enthusiastic and vociferous manner, to the great annoyance of the neighbours, and the special discomfort of another single gentle- man overhead. Now, this was bad enough, occurring as it did three times a week on the average, but this was not all ; for when the company did go away, instead of walking quietly down the street, as anybody else's company would have done, they amused themselves by making alarm- ing and frightful noises, and counterfeiting the shrieks of females in distress , and one night, a red-faced gentleman in a white hat knocked in the most urgent manner at the door of the powdered-headed old gentleman at No 3, and when the powdered-headed old gentleman, who thought one of his married daughters must have been taken ill prematurely, had groped down-stairs, and after a great deal of unbolt- ing and key-turning, opened the street door, the red-faced man in the white hat said he hoped he'd excuse his giving him so much trouble, but he'd feel obliged if he'd favour him with a glass of cold spring-water, and the loan of shilling for a cab to take him home, on which the old gentleman slammed the door and went up-stairs, and threw the con- tents of his water-jug out of window very straight, only it went over the wrong man ; and the whole street was involved in confusion. A joke's a joke ; and even practical jests are very capital in their way, if you can only get the other party to see the fun of them ; but the population of our street were so dull of apprehension, as to be quite lost to a sense of the drollery of this proceeding : and the con- sequence was, that our next-door neighbour was obliged to tell the single gentleman, that unless he gave up entertaining his friends at home, he really must be compelled to part with him. The single gentleman received the remonstrance with great good-humour, and promised from that time forward, to spend his evenings at a coffee- house a determination which afforded general and unmixed satis- faction The next night passed off very well, everybody being delighted with the change ; but on the next, the noises were renewed with greater spirit than ever. The single gentleman's friends being unable to see him in his own house every alternate night, had come to the deter- mination of seeing him homo every night ; and what with the dis- cordant greetings of the friends at parting, and the noise created by The Lodgers next door. 33 the single gentleman in his passage up-stairs, and his subsequent struggles to get his boots off, the evil was not to be borne. So, our next-door neighbour gave the single gentleman, who was a very good lodger in other respects, notice to quit ; and the single gentleman went away, and entertained his friends in other lodgings. The next applicant for the vacant first-floor, was of a very different character from the troublesome single gentleman who had just quitted it. He was a tall, thin, young gentleman, with a profusion of brown hair, reddish whiskers, and very slightly developed mustaches. He wore a braided surtout, with frogs behind, light grey trousers, and wash-leather gloves, and had altogether rather a military appearance. So unlike the roystering single gentleman. Such insinuating manners, and such a delightful address ! So seriously disposed, too ! When he first came to look at the lodgings, he inquired most particularly whether he was sure to be able to get a seat in the parish church ; and when he had agreed to take them, he requested to have a list of the different local charities, as he intended to subscribe his mite to the most deserving among them. Our next-door neighbour was now perfectly happy. He had got a lodger at last, of just his own way of thinking a serious, well-disposed man, who abhorred gaiety, and loved retirement. He took down the bill with a light heart, and pictured in imagination a long series of quiet Sundays, on which he and his lodger would exchange mutual civilities and Sunday papers. The serious man arrived, and his luggage was to arrive from the country next morning. He borrowed a clean shirt, and a prayer-book, from our next-door neighbour, and retired to rest at an early hour, re- questing that he might be called punctually at ten o'clock next morn- ing not before, as he was much fatigued. He icas called, and did not answer : he was called again, but there was no reply. Our next-door neighbour became alarmed, and burst the door open. The serious man had left the house mysteriously; carrying with him the shirt, the prayer-book, a teaspoon, and the bed- clothes. Whether this occurrence, coupled with the irregularities of his former lodger, gave our next-door neighbour an aversion to single gentlemen, we know not ; we only know that the next bill which made its appearance in the parlour-window intimated generally, that there were furnished apartments to let on the first-floor. The bill was soon removed. The new lodgers at first attracted our curiosity, and after- wards excited our interest. They were a young lad of eighteen or nineteen, and his mother, a lady of about fifty, or it might be less. The mother wore a widow's weeds, and the boy was also clothed in deep mourning. They were poor very poor ; for their only means of support arose from the pittance the boy earned, by copying writings, and translating for booksellers. 34 Sketches by Bos. They bad removed from some country place and settled in London ; partly because it afforded better chances of employment for the boy, and partly, perhaps, with the natural desire to leave a place where they had been in better circumstances, and where their poverty was known. They were proud under their reverses, and above revealing their wants and privations to strangers. How bitter those privations were, and how hard the boy worked to remove them, no one ever knew but them- selves. Night after night, two, three, four hours after midnight, could we hear the occasional raking up of the scanty fire, or the hollow and half-stifled cough, which indicated his being still at work ; and day after day, could we see more plainly that nature had set that un- earthly light in his plaintive face, which is the beacon of her worst disease. Actuated, we hope, by a higher feeling than mere curiosity, we con- trived to establish, first an acquaintance, and then a close intimacy, with the poor strangers. Our worst fears were realised ; the boy was sinking fast. Through a part of the winter, and the whole of the following spring and summer, his labours were unceasingly prolonged : and the mother attempted to procure needlework, embroidery any- thing for bread. A few shillings now and then, were all she could earn. The boy worked steadily on ; dying by minutes, but never once giving utter- ance to complaint or murmur. One beautiful autumn evening we went to pay our customary visit to the invalid. His little remaining strength had been decreasing rapidly for two or three days preceding, and he was lying on the sofa at the open window, gazing at the setting sun. His mother had been reading the Bible to him, for she closed the book as we entered, and advanced to meet us. " I was telling William," she said, " that we must manage to take him into the country somewhere, so that he may get quite well. He is not ill, you know, but he is not very strong, and has exerted himself too much lately." Poor thing ! The tears that streamed through her fingers, as she turned aside, as if to adjust her close widow's cap, too plainly showed how fruitless was the attempt to deceive herself. We sat down by the head of the sofa, but said nothing, for we saw the breath of life was passing gently but rapidly from the young form before us. At every respiration, his heart beat more slowly. The boy placed one hand in ours, grasped his mother's arm with the other, drew her hastily towards him, and fervently kissed her cheek. There was a pause. He sunk back upon his pillow, and looked long and earnestly in his mother's face. " William, William ! " murmured the mother, after a long interval, " don't look at me so speak to me, dear ! " The boy smiled languidly, but an instant afterwards his features resolved into the same cold, solemn gaze. " William, dear William ! rouse yourself; don't look at me so, love T/te Dying Request. 35 pray don't ! Oh, my God ! what shall I do ! " cried the widow, clasping her hands in agony " my dear boy ! he is dying ! " The boy raised himself by a violent effort, and folded his hands together " Mother ! dear, dear mother, bury me in the open fields anywhere but in these dreadful streets. I should like to be where you can see my grave, but not in these close crowded streets ; they have killed me ; kiss me again, mother ; put your arm round my neck ' Ho fell back, and a strange expression stole upon his features ; not of pain or suffering, but an indescribable fixing of every line and muscle. The boy was dead. 36 Sketches by Boz. SCENES. CHAPTER I. THE STREETS MORNING. THE appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sunrise, on a summer's morning, is most striking even to the few whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, cause them to be well acquainted with the scene. There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely-shut buildings, which through- out the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive. The last drunken man, who shall find his way home before sunlight, has just staggered heavily along, roaring out the burden of the drink- ing song of the previous night : the last houseless vagrant whom penury and police have left in the streets, has coiled up his chilly limbs in some paved corner, to dream of food and warmth. The drunken, the dissipated, and the wretched have disappeared ; the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labours of the day, and the stillness of death is over the streets ; its very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the grey, sombre light of daybreak. The coach-stands in the larger thoroughfares are deserted : the night-houses are closed ; and the chosen promenades of profligate misery are empty. An occasional policeman may alone be seen at the street-corners, listlessly gazing on the deserted prospect before him ; and now and then a rakish-looking cat runs stealthily across the road and descends his own area with as much caution and slyness bounding first on the water-butt, then on the dust-dole, and then alighting on the flag-stones as if he were conscious that his character depended on his gallantry of the preceding night escaping public observation. A partially opened bedroom-window here and there, bespeaks the heat of the weather, and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant ; and the dim scanty flicker of the rushlight, through the window-blind, denotes the An Hour after Daybreak. 37 chamber of watching or sickness. With these few exceptions, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. An hour wears away ; the spires of the churches and roofs of the principal buildings are faintly tinged with the light of the rising sun ; and the streets, by almost imperceptible degrees, begin to resume their bustle and animation. Market-carts roll slowly along: the sleepy waggoner impatiently urging on his tired horses or vainly endeavouring to awaken the boy, who, luxuriously stretched on the top of the fruit- baskets, forgets, in happy oblivion, his long-cherished curiosity to behold the wonders of London. Rough, sleepy-looking animals of strange appearance, something between ostlers and hackney-coachmen, begin to take down the shutters of early public-houses ; and little deal tables, with the ordinary pre- parations for a street breakfast, make their appearance at the customary stations. Numbers of men and women (principally the latter), carrying upon their heads heavy baskets of fruit, toil down the park side of Piccadilly, on their way to Covent Garden, and, following each other in rapid succession, form a long straggling line from thence to the turn of the road at Knightsbridge. Hero and there, a bricklayer's labourer, Avith the day's dinner tied up in a handkerchief, walks briskly to his work, and occasionally a little knot of three or four schoolboys on a stolen bathing expedition rattle merrily over the pavement, their boisterous mirth contrasting forcibly with the demeanour of the little sweep, who, having knocked and rung till his arm aches, and being interdicted by a merciful legis- lature from endangering his lungs by calling out, sits patiently down on the door-step, until the housemaid may happen to awake. Covent Garden Market, and the avenues leading to it, are thronged with carts of all sorts, sizes, and descriptions, from the heavy lumber- ing waggon, with its four stout horses, to the jingling costermonger's cart, with its consumptive donkey. The pavement is already strewed with decayed cabbage-leaves, broken hay-bands, and all the inde- scribable litter of a vegetable market ; men are shouting, carts backing, horses neighing, boys fighting, basket-women talking, piemen ex- patiating on the excellence of their pastry, and donkeys braying. These and a hundred other sounds form a compound discordant enough to a Londoner's ears, and remarkably disagreeable to those of country gentlemen who are sleeping at the Hummums for the first time. Another hour passes away, and the day begins in good earnest The servant of all work, who, under the plea of sleeping very soundly, has utterly disregarded " Missis's " ringing for half-an-hour pre- viously, is warned by Master (whom Missis has sent up in his drapery to the landing-place for that purpose), that it's half-past six, where- upon she awakes all of a sudden, with well-feigned astonishment, and goes down-stairs very sulkily, wishing, while she strikes a light, that the principle of spontaneous combustion would extend itself to coals and kitchen range. When the fire is lighted, she opens the street-door to 38 Sketches by Boz. take in the milk, when, by the most singular coincidence in the world, she discovers that the servant next door has just taken in her milk too, and that Mr. Todd's young man over the way, is, by an equally extraordinary chance, taking down his master's shutters. The in- evitable consequence is, that she just steps, milk-jug in hand, as far as next door, just to say " good morning " to Betsy Clark, and that Mr. Todd's young man just steps over the way to say " good morning " to both of 'em ; and as the aforesaid Mr. Todd's young man is almost as good-looking and fascinating as the baker himself, the conversation quickly becomes very interesting, and probably would become more so, if Betsy Clark's Missis, who always will be a followin' her about, didn't give an angry tap at her bedroom window, on which Mr. Todd's young man tries to whistle coolly, as he goes back to his shop much faster than he came from it; and the two girls run back to their respective places, and shut their street-doors with surprising softness, each of them poking their heads out of the front-parlour window, a minute afterwards, however, ostensibly with the view of looking at the mail which just then passes by, but really for the purpose of catching another glimpse of Mr. Todd's young man, who being fond of mails, but more of females, takes a short look at the mails, and a long look at the girls, much to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. The mail itself goes on to the coach-office in due course, and the passengers who are going out by the early coach, stare with astonish- ment at the passengers who are coming in by the early coach, who look blue and dismal, and are evidently under the influence of that odd feeling produced by travelling, which makes the events of yester- day morning seem as if they had happened at least six months ago, and induces people to wonder with considerable gravity whether the friends and relations they took leave of a fortnight before, have altered much since they have left them. The coach-office is all alive, and the coaches which are just going out, are surrounded by the usual crowd of Jews and nondescripts, who seem to consider, Heaven knows why, that it is quite impossible any man can mount a coach without re- quiring at least sixpennyworth of oranges, a penknife, a pocket-book, a last year's annual, a pencil-case, a piece of sponge, and a small series of caricatures. Half an hour more, and the sun darts his bright rays cheerfully down the still half-empty streets, and shines with sufficient force to rouse the dismal laziness of the apprentice, who pauses every other minute from his task of sweeping out the shop and watering the pave- ment in front of it, to tell another apprentice similarly employed, how hot it will be to-day, or to stand with his right hand shading his eyes, and his left resting on the broom, gazing at the " Wonder," or the " Tally-ho," or the " Nimrod," or some other fast coach, till it is out of sight, when he re-enters the shop, envying the passengers on the outside of the fast coach, and thinking of the old red-brick house " down in the country," where he went to school : the miseries of the Beginning Business. 39 milk and water, and thick bread-and-scrapings, fading into nothing before the pleasant recollection of the green field the boys used to play in, and the green pond he was caned for presuming to fall into, and other schoolboy associations. Cabs, with trunks and bandboxes between the drivers' legs and out- side the apron, rattle briskly up and down the streets on their way to the coach-offices or steam-packet wharfs; and the cab-drivers and hackney-coachmen who are on the stand polish up the ornamental part of their dingy vehicles the former wondering how people can prefer " them wild beast cariwans of homnibuses, to a riglar cab with a fast trotter," and the latter admiring how people can trust their necks into one of " them crazy cabs, when they can have a 'spectable 'ackney cotcho with a pair of 'orses as von't run away with no vnn ; " a consolation unquestionably founded on fact, seeing that a hackney- coach horse never was known to run at all, " except," as the smart cabman in front of the rank observes, "except one, and lie run back'ards." The shops are now completely opened, and apprentices and shop- men are busily engaged in cleaning and decking the windows for the day. The bakers' shops in town are filled with servants and children waiting for the drawing of the first batch of rolls an operation which was performed a full hour ago in the suburbs ; for the early clerk population of Somers and Cainden Towns, Islington, and Pentonville, are fast pouring into the City, or directing their steps towards Chancery Lane and the Inns of Court. Middle-aged men, whose salaries have by no means increased in the same proportion as their families, plod steadily along, apparently with no object in view but the counting-house ; knowing by sight almost everybody they meet or overtake, for they have seen them every morning (Sundays excepted) during the last twenty years, but speaking to no one. If they do happen to overtake a personal acquaintance, they just exchange a hurried salutation, and keep walking on, either by his side, or in front of him, as his rate of walking may chance to be. As to stopping to shake hands, or to take the friend's arm, they seem to think that as it is not included in their salary, they have no right to do it. Small office lads in large hats, who are made men before they are boys, hurry along in pairs, with their first coat carefully brushed, and the white trousers of last Sunday plentifully besmeared with dust and ink. It evidently requires a considerable mental struggle to avoid investing part of the day's dinner-money in the purchase of the stale tarts so temptingly exposed in dusty tins at the pastry-cooks' doors ; but a consciousness of their own importance and the receipt of seven shillings a week, with the prospect of an early rise to eight, comes to their aid, and they accordingly put their hats a little more on one side, and look under the bonnets of all the milliners' and staymakers' apprentices they meet poor girls! the hardest worked, the worst paid, and too often, the worst used class of the community. 4O Sketches by Boz. Eleven o'clock, and a new set of people fill the streets. The goods in the shop-windows are invitingly arranged ; the shopmen in their white neckerchiefs and spruce coats, look as if they couldn't clean a window if their lives depended on it ; the carts have disappeared from Covent Garden ; the waggoners have returned, and the costermongers repaired to their ordinary " beats " in the suburbs ; clerks are at their offices, and gigs, cabs, omnibuses, and saddle-horses, are conveying their masters to the same destination. The streets are thronged with a vast concourse of people, gay and shabby, rich and poor, idle and industrious ; and we come to the heat, bustle, and activity of NOON. CHAPTER II. i'.j _ j-. .... > * THE STREETS NIGHT. BUT the streets of London, to be beheld in the very height of their glory, should be seen on a dark, dull, murky winter's night, when there is just enough damp gently stealing down to make the pavement greasy, without cleansing it of any of its impurities ; and when the heavy lazy mist, which hangs over every object, makes the gas-lamps look brighter, and the brilliantly-lighted shops more splendid, from the contrast they present to the darkness around. All the people who are at home on such a night as this, seem disposed to make themselves as snug and comfortable as possible ; and the passengers in the streets have excellent reason to envy the fortunate individuals who are seated by their own firesides. In the larger and better kind of streets, dining-parlour curtains are closely drawn, kitchen fires blaze brightly up, and savoury steams of hot dinners salute the nostrils of the hungry wayfarer, as he plods wearily by the area railings. In the suburbs, the muffin-boy rings his way down the little street, much more slowly than he is wont to do ; for Mrs. Macklin, of No. 4, has no sooner opened her little street-door, and screamed out " Muffins ! " with all her might, than Mrs. Walker, at No. 5, puts her head out of the parlour-window, and screams " Muffins ! " too ; and Mrs. Walker has scarcely got the words out of her lips, than Mrs. Peplow, over the way, lets loose Master Peplow, who darts down the street, with a velocity which nothing but buttered muffins in perspective could possibly inspire, and drags the boy back by main force, whereupon Mrs. Macklin and Mrs. Walker, just to save the boy trouble, and to say a few neighbourly words to Mrs. Peplow at the same time, run over the way and buy their muffins at Mrs. Peplow's door, when it appears from the voluntary statement of Mrs. Walker, that her " kittle's jist a biling, and the cups and sarsers ready laid," and that, as it was such a wretched night out o' doors, she'd. A Winter Evening in London. 41 made up her mind to have a nice hot comfortable cup o' tea a deter- mination at which, by the most singular coincidence, the other two ladies had simultaneously arrived. After a little conversation about the wretchedness of the weather and the merits of tea, with a digression relative to the viciousness of boys as a rule, and the amiability of Master Peplow as an exception, Mrs. Walker sees her husband coming down the street ; and as he must want his tea, poor man, after his dirty walk from the Docks, she instantly runs across, muffins in hand, and Mrs. Macklin does the same, and after a few words to Mrs. Walker, they all pop into their little houses, and slam their little street-doors, which are not opened again for the remainder of the evening, except to the nine o'clock " beer," who comes round with a lantern in front of his tray, and says, as ho lends Mrs. Walker " Yesterday's 'Tiser," that he's blessed if he can hardly hold the pot, much less feel the paper, for it's one of the bitterest nights he ever felt, 'cept the night when the man was frozen to death in the Brickfield. After a little prophetic conversation with the policeman at the street-corner, touching a probable change in the weather, and the sotting-in of a hard frost, the nine o'clock beer returns to his master's house, and employs himself for the remainder of the evening, in assiduously stirring the tap-room fire, and deferentially taking part in the conversation of the worthies assembled round it. The streets in the vicinity of the Marsh Gate and Victoria Theatre present an appearance of dirt and discomfort on such a night, which the groups who lounge about them in no degree tend to diminish. Even the little block-tin temple sacred to baked potatoes, surmounted by a splendid design in variegated lamps, looks less gay than usual ; and as to the kidney-pie stand, its glory has quite departed. The candle in the transparent lamp, manufactured of oil-paper, embellished with " characters," has been blown out fifty times, so the kidney-pie merchant, tired with running backwards and forwards to the next wine-vaults, to get a light, has given up the idea of illumination in despair, and the only signs of his " whereabout," are the bright sparks, of which a long irregular train is whirled down the street every time he opens his portable oven to hand a hot kidney-pie to a customer. Flat fish, oyster, and fruit venders linger hopelessly in the kennel, in vain endeavouring to attract customers ; and the ragged boys who usually disport themselves about the streets, stand crouched in little knots in some projecting doorway, or under the canvas blind of a cheesemonger's, where great flaring gas-lights, unshaded by any glass, display huge piles of bright red, and pale yellow cheeses, mingled with little fivepenny dabs of dingy bacon, various tubs of weekly Dorset, and cloudy rolls of " best fresh." Here they amuse themselves with theatrical converse, arising out of their last half-price visit to the Victoria gallery, admire the terrific combat, which is nightly encored, and expatiate on the inimitabJe 42 Sketches by Boz. manner in which Bill Thompson can " come the double monkey," or go through the mysterious involutions of a sailor's hornpipe. It is nearly eleven o'clock, and the cold thin rain which has been drizzling so long, is beginning to pour down in good earnest; the baked-potato man has departed the kidney-pie man has just walked away with his warehouse on his arm the cheesemonger has drawn in his blind, and the boys have dispersed. The constant clicking of pattens on the slippy and uneven pavement, and the rustling of umbrellas, as the wind blows against the shop-windows, bear testi- mony to the inclemency of the night ; and the policeman, with his oilskin cape buttoned closely round him, seems as he holds his hat on his head, and turns round to avoid the gust of wind and rain which tlrives against him at the street-corner, to be very far from con- gratulating himself on the prospect before him. The little chandler's shop with the cracked bell behind the door, whose melancholy tinkling has been regulated by the demand for quarterns of sugar and half-ounces of coifee, is shutting up. The crowds which have been passing to and fro during the whole day, are rapidly dwindling away ; and the noise of shouting and quarrelling which issues from the public-houses, is almost the only sound that breaks the melancholy stillness of the night. There was another, but it has ceased. That wretched woman with the infant in her arms, round whose meagre form the remnant of her own scanty shawl is carefully wrapped, has been attempting to sing some popular ballad, in the hope of wringing a few pence from the compassionate passer-by. A brutal laugh at her weak voice is all she has gained. The tears fall thick and fast down her own pale face ; the child is cold and hungry, and its low half-stifled wailing adds to the misery of its wretched mother, as she moans aloud, and sinks despairingly down, on a cold damp door-step. Singing ! How few of those who pass such a miserable creature as this, think of the anguish of heart, the sinking of soul and spirit, which the very effort of singing produces. Bitter mockery ! Disease, neg- lect, and starvation, faintly articulating the words of the joyous ditty, that has enlivened your hours of feasting and merriment, God knows how often ! It is no subject of jeering. The weak tremulous voice tells a fearful tale of want and famishing ; and the feeble singer of this roaring song may turn away, only to die of cold and hunger. One o'clock ! Parties returning from the different theatres foot it through the muddy streets; cabs, hackney-coaches, carriages, and theatre omnibuses, roll swiftly by ; watermen with dim dirty lanterns in their hands, and large brass plates upon their breasts, who have been shouting and rushing about for the last two hours, retire to their watering-houses, to solace themselves with the creature comforts of pipes and purl ; the half-price pit and box frequenters of the theatres throng to the different houses of refreshment ; and chops, kidneys, rabbits, oysters, stout, cigars, and " goes " innumerable, are served up A Cave of Harmony. 43 amidst a noise and confusion of smoking, running, knife-clattering, and waiter-chattering, perfectly indescribable. The more musical portion of the play-going community betake themselves to some harmonic meeting. As a matter of curiosity let us follow them thither for a few moments. In a lofty room of spacious dimensions, are seated some eighty or a hundred guests knocking little pewter measures on the tables, and hammering away, with the handles of their knives, as if they were so many trunk-makers. They are applauding a glee, which has just been executed by the three " professional gentlemen " at the top of the centre table, one of whom is in the chair the little pompous man with the bald head just emerging from the collar of his green coat. The others are seated on either side of him the stout man with the small voice, and the thin-faced dark man in black. The little man in the chair is a most amusing personage, such condescending grandeur, and such a voice ! " Bass ! " as the young gentleman near us with the blue stock forcibly remarks to his companion, " bass ! I b'lieve you ; he can go down lower than any man : so low sometimes that you can't hear him." And so he does. To hear him growling away, gradually lower and lower down, till he can't get back again, is the most delightful thing in the world, and it is quite impossible to witness unmoved the impres- sive solemnity with which he pours forth his soul in " My 'art's in the 'ighlands," or " The brave old Hoak." The stout man is also addicted to sentimentality, and warbles, " Fly, fly from the world, my Bessy, with me," or some such song, with ladylike sweetness, and in the most seductive tones imaginable. " Pray give your orders, genl'm'n pray give your orders," says the pate-faced man with the red head ; and demands foi " goes " of gin and " goes " of brandy, and pints of stout, and cigars of peculiar mild- ness, are vociferously made from all parts of the room. The " profes- sional gentlemen " are in the very height of their glory, and bestow condescending nods, or even a word or two of recognition, on the better-known frequenters of the room, in the most bland and patronising manner possible. That little round-faced man, with the brown small surtout, white stockings and shoes, is in the comic line ; the mixed air of self-denial, and mental consciousness of his own powers, with which he acknowledges the call of the chair, is particularly gratifying. " GenTmen," says the little pompous man, accompanying the word with a knock of the pre- sident's hammer on the table " GenTmen, allow me to claim your attention our friend, Mr. Smuggins, will oblige." " Bravo ! " shout the company ; and Smuggins, after a considerable quantity of coughing by way of symphony, and a most facetious sniff or two, which afford general delight, sings a comic song, with a fal-de-ral tol-de-rol chorus at the end of every verse, much longer than the verse itself. It is received with unbounded applause, and after some aspiring 44 Sketches by Boz. genius has volunteered a recitation, and failed dismally therein, the little pompous man gives another knock, and says " GenTmen, we will attempt a glee, if you please." This announcement calls forth tumultuous applause, and the more energetic spirits express the un- qualified approbation it affords them, by knocking one or two stout glasses off their legs a humorous device ; but one which frequently occasions some slight altercation when the form of paying the damage is proposed to be gone through by the waiter. Scenes like these are continued until three or four o'clock in the morning ; and even when they close, fresh ones open to the inquisitive novice. But as a description of all of them, however slight, would require a volume, the contents of which, however instructive, would be by no means pleasing, we make our bow, and drop the curtain. CHAPTEE III. SHOPS AND THEIK TENANTS. WHAT inexhaustible food for speculation, do the streets of London afford ! We never were able to agree with Sterne in pitying the man who could travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say that all was barren ; we have not the slightest commiseration for the man who can take up his hat and stick, and walk from Covent Garden to St. Paul's Churchyard, and back into the bargain, without deriving some amusement we had almost said instruction from his perambulation. And yet there are such beings : we meet them every day. Large black stocks and light waistcoats, jet canes and discontented countenances, are the charac- teristics of the race ; other people brush quickly by you, steadily plodding on to business, or cheerfully running after pleasure. These rnen linger listlessly past, looking as happy and animated as a police- man on duty. Nothing seems to make an impression on their minds : nothing short of being knocked down by a porter, or run over by a cab, will disturb their equanimity. You will meet them on a fine day in any of the leading thoroughfares : peep through the window of a west-end cigar shop in the evening, if you can manage to get a glimpse between the blue curtains which intercept the vulgar gaze, and you see them in their only enjoyment of existence. There they are lounging about, on round tubs and pipe boxes, in all the dignity of whiskers, and gilt watch-guards ; whispering soft nothings to the young lady in amber, with the large earrings, who, as she sits behind the counter in a blaze of adoration and gas-light, is the admiration of all the female servants in the neighbourhood, and the envy of every milliner's apprentice within two miles round. One of our principal amusements is to watch the gradual progress A Doomed Shop. 45 the rise or fall of particular shops. We have formed an intimate acquaintance with several, in different parts of town, and are perfectly acquainted with their whole history. We could name off-hand, twenty at least, which we are quite sure have paid no taxes for the last six years. They are never inhabited for more than two months consecu- tively, and, we verily believe, have witnessed every retail trade in the Directory. There is one, whose history is a sample of the rest, in whose fate we have taken especial interest, having had the pleasure of knowing it ever since it has been a shop. It is on the Surrey side of the water a little distance beyond the Marsh Gate. It was originally a sub- stantial, good-looking private house enough ; the landlord got into difficulties, the house got into Chancery, the tenant went away, and the house went to ruin. At this period our acquaintance with it commenced ; the paint was all worn off; the windows were broken, the area was green with neglect and the overflowings of the water- butt ; the butt itself was without a lid, and the street-door was the very picture of misery. The chief pastime of the children in the vicinity had been to assemble in a body on the steps, and to take it in turn to knock loud double-knocks at the door, to the great satisfaction of the neighbours generally, and especially of the nervous old lady next door but one. Numerous complaints were made, and several small basins of water discharged over the offenders, but without effect. In this state of things, the marine-store dealer at the corner of the street, in the most obliging manner took the knocker off, and sold it : and the unfortunate house looked more wretched than ever. We deserted our friend for a few weeks. What was our surprise, on our return, to find no trace of its existence ! In its place was a handsome shop, fast approaching to a state of completion, and on the shutters were large bills, informing the public that it would shortly be opened with " an extensive stock of linen drapery and haberdashery." It opened in due course ; there was the name of the proprietor " and Co," in gilt letters, almost too dazzling to look at. Such ribbons and shawls ! and two such elegant young men behind the counter, each in a clean collar and white neckcloth, like the lover in a farce. As to the proprietor, he did nothing but walk up and down the shop, and hand seats to the ladies, and hold important conversations with the handsomest of the young men, who was shrewdly suspected by the neighbours to be the " Co." We saw all this with sorrow ; we felt a fatal presentiment that the shop was doomed and so it was. Its decay was slow, but sure. Tickets gradually appeared in the windo\vs ; then rolls of flannel, with labels on them, were stuck outside the door ; then a bill was pasted on the street-door, intimating that the first-floor was to let unfurnished ; then one of the young men disappeared alto- gether, and the other took to a black neckerchief, and the proprietor took to drinking. The shop became dirty, broken panes of glass remained unmended, and the stock disappeared piecemeal. At last 46 Sketches by Boz. the company's man caine to cut off the water, and then the linen- draper cut off himself, leaving the landlord his compliments and the key. The next occupant was a fancy stationer. The shop was more modestly painted than before, still it was neat; but somehow we always thought, as we passed, that it looked like a poor and struggling concern. We wished the man well, but we trembled for his success. He was a widower evidently, and had employment elsewhere, for he passed us every morning on his road to the City. The business was carried on by his eldest daughter. Poor girl ! she needed no assist- ance. We occasionally caught a glimpse of two or three children, in mourning like herself, as they sat in the little parlour behind the shop ; and we never passed at night without seeing the eldest girl at work, either for them, or in making some elegant little trifle for sale. We often thought, as her pale face looked more sad and pensive in the dim candle-light, that if those thoughtless females who interfere with the miserable market of poor creatures such as these, knew but one- half of the misery they suffer, and the bitter privations they endure, in their honourable attempts to earn a scanty subsistence, they would, perhaps, resign even opportunities for the gratification of vanity, and an immodest love of self-display, rather than drive them to a last dreadful resource, which it would shock the delicate feelings of these charitable ladies to hear named. But we are forgetting the shop. Well, we continued to watch it, and every day showed too clearly the increasing poverty of its inmates. The children were clean, it is true, but their clothes were- threadbare and shabby ; no tenant had been procured for the upper part of the house, from the letting of which, a portion of the means of paying the rent was to have been derived, and a slow, wasting consumption pre- vented the eldest girl from continuing her exertions. Quarter-day arrived. The landlord had suffered from the extravagance of his last tenant, and he had no compassion for the struggles of his successor ; he put in an execution. As we passed one morning, the broker's men were removing the little furniture there was in the house, and a newly-posted bill informed us it was again " To Let." What became of the last tenant we never could learn ; we believe the girl is past all suffering, and beyond all sorrow. God help her ! We hope she is. We were somewhat curious to ascertain what would be the next stage for that the place had no chance of succeeding now, was per- fectly clear. The bill was soon taken down, and some alterations were being made in the interior of the shop. We were in a fever of expecta- tion ; we exhausted conjecture we imagined all possible trades, none of which were perfectly reconcilable with our idea of the gradual decay of the tenement. It opened, and we wondered why we had not guessed at the real state of the case before. The shop not a large one at the best of times had been converted into two : one was a bonnet-shape maker's, the other was opened by a tobacconist, who also Scotland Yard. 47 dealt in walking-sticks and Sunday newspapers ; the two were separated by a thin partition, covered with tawdry striped paper. The tobacconist remained in possession longer than any tenant within our recollection. He was a red-faced, impudent, good-for- nothing dog, evidently accustomed to take things as they came, and to make the best of a bad job. He sold as many cigars as he could, and smoked the rest. He occupied the shop as long as he could make peace with the landlord, and when he could no longer live in quiet, he very coolly locked the door, and bolted himself. From this period, the two little dens have undergone innumerable changes. The tobacconist was succeeded by a theatrical hairdresser, who ornamented the window with a great variety of " characters," and terrific combats. The bonnet-shape maker gave place to a greengrocer, and tho histrionic barber was succeeded, in his turn, by a tailor. So numerous have been the changes, that we have of late xlone little more than mark the peculiar but certain indications of a house being poorly inhabited. It has been progressing by almost imperceptible degrees. The occupiers of the shops have gradually given up room after room, until they have only reserved the little parlour for themselves. First there appeared a brass plate on the private door, with "Ladies' School " legibly engraved thereon ; shortly afterwards we observed a second brass plate, then a bell, and then another bell. When we paused in front of our old friend, and observed these signs of poverty, which are not to be mistaken, we thought as we turned away, that the house had attained its lowest pitch of degradation. We were wrong. When we last passed it, a " dairy " was established in tho area, and a party of melancholy-looking fowls were amusing them- selves by running in at the front door, and out at tho back one. CHAPTER IV. SCOTLAND YARD. SCOTLAND YARD is a small a very small tract of land, bounded on one side by the river Thames, on the other by the gardens of Northumberland House: abutting at one end on the bottom of Northumberland Street, at the other on tho back of Whitehall Place. When this territory was first accidentally discovered by a country gentleman who lost his way in the Strand, some years ago, the original settlers were found to be a tailor, a publican, two eating- house keepers, and a fruit-pie maker ; and it was also found to con- tain a race of strong and bulky men, who repaired to the wharfs in Scotland Yard regularly every morning, about five or six o'clock, to fill heavy waggons with coal, with which they proceeded to distant 48 Sketches by Bdz. places up the country, and supplied the inhabitants with fuel. When they had emptied their waggons, they again returned for a fresh supply ; and this trade was continued throughout the year. As the settlers derived their subsistence from ministering to the wants of these primitive traders, the articles exposed for sale, and the places where they were sold, bore strong outward marks of being ex- pressly adapted to their tastes and wishes. The tailor displayed in his window a Lilliputian pair of leather gaiters, and a diminutive round frock, while each doorpost was appropriately garnished with a model of a coal-sack. The two eating-house keepers exhibited joints of a magnitude, and puddings of a solidity which coalheavers alone could appreciate; and the fruit-pie maker displayed on his well-scrubbed window-board large white compositions of flour and dripping, orna- mented with pink stains, giving rich promise of the fruit within, which made their huge mouths water, as they lingered past. But the choicest spot in all Scotland Yard was the old public-house in the corner. Here, in a dark wainscoted-room of ancient appearance, cheered by the glow of a mighty fire, and decorated with an enormous clock, whereof the face was white, and the figures black, sat the lusty coalheavers, quaffing large draughts of Barclay's best, and puffing forth volumes of smoke, which wreathed heavily above their heads, and involved the room in a thick dark cloud. From this apartment might their voices be heard on a winter's night, penetrating to the very bank of the river, as they shouted out some sturdy chorus, or roared forth the burden of a popular song; dwelling upon the last few words with a strength and length of emphasis which made the very roof tremble above them. Here, too, would they tell old legends of what the Thames was in ancient times, when the Patent Shot Manufactory wasn't built, and Waterloo Bridge had never been thought of; and then they would shake their heads with portentous looks, to the deep edification of the rising generation of heavers, who crowded round them, and wondered where all this would end; whereat the tailor would take his pipe solemnly from his mouth, and say, how that he hoped it might end well, but he very much doubted whether it would or not, and couldn't rightly tell what to make of it a mysterious expression of opinion, delivered with a semi-prophetic air, which never failed to elicit the fullest concurrence of the assembled company ; and so they would go on drinking and wondering till ten o'clock came, and with it the tailor's wife to fetch him home, when the little party broke up, to meet again in the same room, and say and do precisely the same things, on the following evening at the same hour. About this time the barges that came up the river began to bring vague rumours to Scotland Yard of somebodyin the City having been heard to say, that the Lord Mayor had threatened in so many words to pull down the old London Bridge, and build up a new one. At first these rumours were disregarded as idle tales, wholly destitute of The Spirit of Change. 49 foundation, for nobody in Scotland Yard doubted that if tho Lord Mayor contemplated any such dark design, he would just be clapped up in the Tower for a week or two, and then killed off for high treason. By degrees, however, the reports grew stronger, and more frequent, and at last a barge, laden with numerous chaldrons of the best Wallsend, brought up the positive intelligence that several of the arches of the old bridge were stopped, and that preparations were actually in pro- gress for constructing the new one. What an excitement was visible in tho old tap-room on that memorable night ! Each man looked into his neighbour's face, pale with alarm and astonishment, and read therein an echo of the sentiments which filled his own breast. The oldest heaver present proved to demonstration, that the moment the piers were removed, all the water in the Thames would run clean off, and leave a dry gully in its place. What was to become of the coal- barges of tho trade of Scotland Yard of the very existence of its population '? Tho tailor shook his head more sagely than iisual, and grimly pointing to a knife on tho table, bid them wait and see what happened. Ho said nothing not he ; but if the Lord Mayor didn't fall a victim to popular indignation, why he would be rather astonished ; that was all. They did wait ; barge after barge arrived, and still no tidings of tho assassination of tho Lord Mayor. Tho first stone was laid : it was done by a Duke the King's brother. Years passed away, and the bridge was opened by the King himself. In course of time, the piers were removed ; and when the people in Scotland Yard got up next morning in tho confident expectation of being able to step over to Pedlar's Acre without wetting the soles of their shoes, they found to their unspeakable astonishment that tho water was just where it used to be. A result so different from that which they had anticipated from this first improvement, produced its full effect upon the inhabitants of Scotland Yard. One of tho eating-house keepers began to court public opinion, and to look for customers among a new class of people. He covered his little dining-tables with white cloths, and got a painter's apprentice to inscribe something about hot joints from twelve to two, in one of the little panes of his shop-window. Improve- ments began to march with rapid strides to the very threshold of Scotland Yard. A new market sprung up at Hungerford, and the Police Commissioners established their office in Whitehall Place, The traffic in Scotland Yard increased ; fresh Members were added to the House of Commons, the Metropolitan Representatives found it a near cut, and many other foot-passengers followed their example. We marked tho advance of civilisation, and beheld it with a sigh. Tho eating-house keeper who manfully resisted the innovation of table-cloths, was losing ground every day, as his opponent gained it, and a deadly feud sprung up between them. The genteel one no 5O Sketches by Boz. longer took his evening's pint in Scotland Yard, but drank gin-and- water at a " parlour " in Parliament Street. The fruit-pie maker still continued to visit the old room, but he took to smoking cigars, and began to call himself a pastrycook, and to read the papers. The old heavers still assembled round the ancient fireplace, but their talk was mournful: and the loud song and the joyous shout were heard no more. And what is Scotland Yard now ? How have its old customs changed ; and how has the ancient simplicity of its inhabitants faded away ! The old tottering public-house is converted into a spacious and lofty " wine-vaults ; " gold leaf has been used in the construction of the letters which emblazon its exterior, and the poet's art has been called into requisition, to intimate that if you drink a certain description of ale, you must hold fast by the rail. The tailor exhibits in his window the pattern of a foreign-looking brown surtout, with silk buttons, a fur collar, and fur cuffs. He wears a stripe down the outside of each leg of his trousers : and we have detected his assistants (for he has assistants now) in the act of sitting on the shop-board in the same uniform. At the other end of the little row of houses a bootmaker has established himself in a brick box, with the additional innovation of a first-floor ; and here he exposes for sale, boots real Wellington boots an article which a few years ago, none of the original inhabitants had ever seen or heard of. It was but the other day, that a dress- maker opened another little box in the middle of the row ; and, when we thought that the spirit of change could produce no alteration beyond that, a jeweller appeared, and not content with exposing gilt rings and copper bracelets out of number, put up an announcement, which still sticks in his window, that " ladies' ears may be pierced within." The dressmaker employs a young lady who wears pockets in her apron ; and the tailor informs the public that gentlemen may have their own materials made up. Amidst all this change, and restlessness, and innovation, there remains but one old man, who seems to mourn the downfall of this ancient place. He holds no converse with human kind, but, seated on a wooden bench at the angle of the wall which fronts the crossing from Whitehall Place, watches in silence the gambols of his sleek and well-fed dogs. He is the presiding genius of Scotland Yard. Years and years have rolled over his head ; but, in fine weather or in foul, hot or cold, wet or dry, hail, rain, or snow, he is still in his accustomed spot. Misery and want are depicted in his countenance ; his form is bent by age, his head is grey with length of trial, but there he sits from day to day, brooding over the past ; and thither he will continue to drag his feeble limbs, until his eyes have closed upon Scotland Yard, and upon the world together. A few years hence, and the antiquary of another generation looking into some mouldy record of the strife and passions that agitated the world in these times, may glance his eye over the pages we have just A London Maze. 51 filled : and not all his knowledge of the history of the past, not all his black-letter lore, or his skill in book-collecting, not all the dry studies of a long life, or the dusty volumes that have cost him a fortune, may help him to the whereabouts, either of Scotland Yard, or of any one of the landmarks we have mentioned in describing it. CHAPTER V. SEVEN DIALS. WE have always been of opinion that if Tom King and the French- man had not immortalised Seven Dials, Seven Dials would have im- mortalised itself. Seven Dials ! the region of song and poetry first effusions, and last dying speeches : hallowed by the names of Catnach and of Pitts names that will entwine themselves with costermongers, and barrel-organs, when penny magazines shall have superseded penny yards of song, and capital punishment be unknown ! Look at the construction of the place. The Gordian knot was all very well in its way : so was the maze of Hampton Court : so is the maze at the Beulah Spa : so were the ties of stiff white neckcloths, when the difficulty of getting one on, was only to be equalled by the apparent impossibility of ever getting it off again. But what involu- tions can compare with those of Seven Dials ? Where is there such another maze of streets, courts, lanes, and alleys ? Where such a pure mixture of Englishmen and Irishmen, as in this complicated part of London ? We boldly aver that we doubt the veracity of the legend to which we have adverted. We can suppose a man rash enough to inquire at random at a house with lodgers too for a Mr. Thompson, with all but the certainty before his eyes, of finding at least two or three Thompsons in any house of moderate dimensions ; but a Frenchman a Frenchman in Seven Dials ! Pooh ! He was an Irishman. Tom King's education had been neglected in his infancy, and as he couldn't understand half the man said, he took it for granted he was talking French. The stranger who finds himself in " The Dials " for the first time, and stands Belzoni-like, at the entrance of seven obscure passages, uncertain which to take, will see enough around him to keep his curiosity and attention awake for no inconsiderable time. From the irregular square into which he has plunged, the streets and courts dart in all directions, until they are lost in the unwholesome vapour which hangs over the house-tops, and renders the dirty perspective uncertain and confined ; and lounging at every corner, as if they came there to take a few gasps of such fresh air as has found its way so far, but is too much exhausted already, to be enabled to force itself into 52 Sketches by Boz. the narrow alleys around, are groups of people, whose appearance and dwellings would nil any mind but a regular Londoner's with astonishment. On one side, a little crowd has collected round a couple of ladies, who having imbibed the contents of various " three-outs " of gin-and- bitters in the course of the morning, have at length differed on some point of domestic arrangement, and are on the eve of settling the quarrel satisfactorily, by an appeal to blows, greatly to the interest of other ladies who live in the same house, and tenements adjoining, and who are all partisans on one side or other. " Vy don't you pitch into her, Sarah ? " exclaims one half-dressed matron, by way of encouragement. " Vy don't you ? if my 'usband had treated her with a drain last night, unbeknown to me, I'd tear her precious eyes out a wixen ! " "What's the matter, ma'am?" inquires another old woman, who has just bustled up to the spot. " Matter ! " replies the first speaker, talking at the obnoxious com- batant, " matter ! Here's poor dear Mrs. Sulliwin, as has five blessed children of her own, can't go out a charing for one arternoon, but what hussies must be a comin', and 'ticing avay her oun' 'usband, as she's been married to twelve year come next Easter Monday, for I see the certificate ven I vas drinkin' a cup o' tea vith her, only the werry last blessed Ven'sday as ever was sent. I 'appen'd to say pro- miscuously, ' Mrs. Sulliwin,' says I " " What do you mean by hussies ? " interrupts a champion of the other party, who has evinced a strong inclination throughout to get up a branch fight on her own account (" Hooroar," ejaculates a pot- boy in parenthesis, " put the kye-bosk on her, Mary). " What do you mean by hussies ? " reiterates the champion. " Niver mind," replies the opposition expressively, " niver mind ; you go home, and, ven you're quite sober, mend your stockings." This somewhat personal allusion, not only to the lady's habits of intemperance, but also to the state of her wardrobe, rouses her utmost ire, and she accordingly complies with the urgent request of the bystanders to " pitch in," with considerable alacrity. The scuffle became general, and terminates, in minor play-bill phraseology, with " arrival of the policemen, interior of the station-house, and impressive denouement." In addition to the numerous groups who are idling about the gin- shops and squabbling in the centre of the road, every post in the open space has its occupant, who leans against it for hours, with listless per- severance. It is odd enough that one class of men in London appear to have no enjoyment beyond leaning against posts. We never saw a regular bricklayer's labourer take any other recreation, fighting ex- cepted. Pass through St. Giles's in the evening of a week-day, there they are in their fustian dresses, spotted with brick-dust and white- wash, leaning against posts. Walk through Seven Dials on Sunday The Dials in general. 53 morning: there they are again, drab or light corduroy trousers, Blucher boots, blue coats, and great yellow waistcoats, leaning against posts. The idea of a man dressing himself in his best clothes, to lean against a post all day ! The peculiar character of these streets, and the close resemblance each one bears to its neighbour, by no means tends to decrease the bewilderment in which the unexperienced wayfarer through " the Dials " finds himself involved. He traverses streets of dirty straggling houses, with now and then an unexpected court composed of buildings as ill-proportioned and deformed as the half-naked children that wallow in the kennels. Here and there, a little dark chandler's shop, with a cracked bell hung up behind the door to announce the entrance of a customer, or betray the presence of some young gentleman, in whom a passion for shop-tills has developed itself at an early age : others, as if for support, against some handsome lofty building, which usurps the place of a low dingy public-house ; long rows of broken and patched windows expose plants that may have flourished when " the Dials " were built, in vessels as dirty as " the Dials " themselves ; and shops for the purchase of rags, bones, old iron, and kitchen-stuff, vie in cleanliness with the bird-fanciers and rabbit-dealers, which one might fancy so many arks, but for the irresistible conviction that no bird in its proper senses, who was permitted to leave one of them, would ever come back again. Brokers' shops, which would seem to have been established by humane individuals, as refuges for destitute bugs, interspersed with announcements of day-schools, penny theatres, petition-writers, mangles, and music for balls or routs, complete the " still life " of the subject ; and dirty men, filthy women, squalid children, fluttering shuttlecocks, noisy battledores, reeking pipes, bad fruit, more than doubtful oysters, attenuated cats, depressed dogs, and anatomical fowls, are its cheerful accompaniments. If the external appearance of the houses, or a glance at their in- habitants, present but few attractions, a closer acquaintance with either is little calculated to alter one's first impression. Every room has its separate tenant, and every tenant is, by the same mysterious dis- pensation which causes a country curate to " increase and multiply " most marvellously, generally the head of a numerous family. The man in the shop, perhaps, is in the baked " jemmy " line, or the firewood and hearthstone line, or any other line which requires a floating capital of eighteenpence or thereabouts: and he and his family live in the shop, and the small back-parlour behind it. Then there is an Irish labourer and his family in the back-kitchen, and a jobbing man carpet-beater and so forth with his family in the front one. In the front one-pair, there's another man with another wife and family, and in the back one-pair, there's " a young 'oman as takes in tambour-work, and dresses quite genteel," who talks a good deal about "my friend," and can't "a-bear anything low." The second- floor front, and the rest of the lodgers, are just a second edition of the 54 Sketches by Bos. people below, except a shabby-genteel man in the back-attic, who has his half-pint of coffee every morning from the coffee-shop next door but one, which boasts a little front den called a coffee-room, with a fireplace, over which is an inscription, politely requesting that, " to prevent mistakes," customers will " please to pay on delivery." The shabby-genteel man is an object of some mystery, but as he leads a life of seclusion, and never was known to buy anything beyond an occasional pen, except half-pints of coffee, penny loaves, and ha'porths of ink, his fellow-lodgers very naturally suppose him to be an author ; and rumours are current in the Dials, that he writes poems for Mr. Warren. Now anybody who passed through the Dials on a hot summer's evening, and saw the different women of the house gossiping on the steps, would be apt to think that all was harmony among them, and that a more primitive set of people than the native Diallers could not be imagined. Alas ! the man in the shop ill-treats his family ; the carpet-beater extends his professional pursuits to his wife ; the one- pair front has an undying feud with the two-pair front, in consequence of the two-pair front persisting in dancing over his (the one-pair front's) head, when he and his family have retired for the night ; the two-pair back will interfere with the front kitchen's children; the Irishman comes home drunk every other night, and attacks everybody ; and the one-pair back screams at everything. Animosities spring up between floor and floor ; the very cellar asserts his equality. Mrs. A. "smacks" Mrs. B.'s child, for "making faces." Mrs. B. forthwith throws cold water over Mrs. B.'s child for "calling names." The husbands are embroiled the quarrel becomes general an assault is the consequence, and a police-officer the result. CHAPTER VI. MEDITATIONS IN MONMOUTH STREET. WE have always entertained a particular attachment towards Mon- mouth Street, as the only true and real emporium for second-hand wearing apparel. Monmouth Street is venerable from its antiquity, and respectable from its usefulness. Holywell Street we despise ; the red-headed and red-whiskered Jews who forcibly haul you into their squalid houses, and thrust you into a suit of clothes, whether you will or not, we detest. The inhabitants of Monmouth Street are a distinct class ; a peace- able and retiring race, who immure themselves for the most part in deep cellars, or small back-parlours, and who seldom come forth into the world, except in the dusk and coolness of the evening, when they Old ClotJies. 55 may be seen seated, in chairs on the pavement, smoking their pipes, or watching the gambols of their engaging children as they revel in the gutter, a happy troop of infantine scavengers. Their countenances bear a thoughtful and a dirty cast, certain indications of their love of traffic; and their habitations are distinguished by that disregard of outward appearance and neglect of personal comfort, so common among people who are constantly immersed in profound speculations, and deeply engaged in sedentary pursuits. We have hinted at the antiquity of our favourite spot. " A Mon- mouth Street laced coat " was a by-word a century ago ; and still we find Monmouth Street the same. Pilot greatcoats with wooden buttons, have usurped the place of the ponderous laced coats with full skirts ; embroidered waistcoats with large flaps, have yielded to double-breasted checks with roll-collars ; and three-cornered hats of quaint appearance, have given place to the low crowns and broad brims of the coachman school ; but it is the times that have changed, not Monmouth Street. Through every alteration and every change, Monmouth Street has still remained the burial-place of the fashions ; and such, to judge from all present appearances, it will remain until there are no more fashions to bury. We love to walk among these extensive groves of the illustrious dead, and to indulge in the speculations to which they give rise ; now fitting a deceased coat, then a dead pair of trousers, and anon the mortal remains of a gaudy waistcoat, upon some being of our own conjuring up, and endeavouring, from the shape and fashion of the garment itself, to bring its former owner before our mind's eye. We have gone on speculating in this way, until whole rows of coats have started from their pegs, and buttoned up, of their own accord, round the waists of imaginary wearers ; lines of trousers have jumped down to meet them ; waistcoats have almost burst with anxiety to put themselves on ; and half an acre of shoes have suddenly found feet to fit them, and gone stumping down the street with a noise which has fairly awakened us from our pleasant reverie, and driven us slowly away, with a bewildered stare, an object of astonishment to the good people of Monmouth Street, and of no slight suspicion to the police- man at the opposite street-corner. We were occupied in this manner the other day, endeavouring to fit a pair of lace-up half-boots on an ideal personage, for whom, to say the truth, they were full a couple of sizes too small, when our eyes happened to alight on a few suits of clothes ranged outside a shop- window, which it immediately struck us, must at different periods have all belonged to, and been worn by, the same individual, and had now, by one of those strange conjunctions of circumstances which will occur sometimes, come to be exposed together for sale in the same shop. The idea seemed a fantastic one, and we looked at the clothes again with a firm determination not to be easily led away. No, we were right ; the more we looked, the more we were convinced of the accuracy 56 Sketches by Boz. of our previous impression. There was the man's whole life written as legibly on those clothes, as if we had his autobiography engrossed on parchment before us. The first was a patched and much-soiled skeleton suit ; one of those straight blue cloth cases in which small boys used to be confined, before belts and tunics had come in, and old notions had gone out : an ingenious contrivance for displaying the full symmetry of a boy's figure, by fastening him into a very tight jacket, with an ornamental row of buttons over each shoulder, and then buttoning his trousers over it, so as to give his legs the appearance of being hooked on, just under the armpits. This was the boy's dress. It had belonged to a town boy, we could see ; there was a shortness about the legs and arms of the suit ; and a bagging at the knees, peculiar to the rising youth of London streets. A small day-school he had been at, evidently. If it had been a regular boys' school they wouldn't have let him play on the floor so much, and rub his knees so white. He had an indulgent mother too, and plenty of halfpence, as the numerous smears of some sticky substance about the pockets, and just below the chin, which even the salesman's skill could not succeed in disguising, sufficiently betokened. They were decent people, but not overburdened with riches, or he would not have so far outgrown the suit when he passed into those corduroys with the round jacket ; in which he went to a boys' school, however, and learnt to write and in ink of pretty toler- able blackness, too, if the place where he used to wipe his pen might be taken as evidence. A black suit and the jacket changed into a diminutive coat. His father had died, and the mother had got the boy a message-lad's place in some office. A long-worn suit that one ; rusty and threadbare before it was laid aside, but clean and free from soil to the last. Poor woman ! We could imagine her assumed cheerfulness over the scanty meal, and the refusal of her own small portion, that her hungry boy might have enough. Her constant anxiety for his welfare, her pride in his growth mingled sometimes with the thought, almost too acute to bear, that as he grew to be a man his old affection might cool, old kindnesses fade from his mind, and old promises be forgotten the sharp pain that even then a careless word or a cold look would give her all crowded on our thoughts as vividly as if the very scene were passing before us. These things happen every hour, and we all know it ; and yet we felt as much sorrow when we saw, or fancied we saw it makes no difference which the change that began to take place now, as if wo had just conceived the bare possibility of such a thing for the first time. The next suit, smart but slovenly ; meant to be gay, and yet not half so decent as the threadbare apparel ; redolent of the idle lounge, and the blackguard companions, told us, we thought, that the widow's comfort had rapidly faded away. We could imagine that coat imagine ! we could see it ; we had seen it a hundred times saunter- Day Dreaming. 57 ing in company with throe or four other coats of the same cut, about some place of profligate resort at night. We dressed, from the same shop- window in an instant, half-a-dozen boys of from fifteen to twenty ; and putting cigars into their mouths, and their hands into their pockets, watched them as they sauntered down the street, and lingered at the corner, with the obscene jest, and the oft-repeated oath. We never lost sight of them, till they had cocked their hats a little more on one side, and swaggered into the public- house ; and then we entered the desolate home, where the mother sat late in the night, alone ; we watched her, as she paced the room in feverish anxiety, and every now and then opened the door, looked wistfully into the dark and empty street, and again returned, to be again and again disappointed. We beheld the look of patience with which she bore the brutish threat, nay, even the drunken blow ; and we heard the agony of tears that gushed from her very heart, as she sank upon her knees in her solitary and wretched apartment. A long period had elapsed, and a greater change had taken place, by the time of casting off the suit that hung above. It was that of a stout, broad-shouldered, sturdy-chested man ; and we knew at once, as anybody would, who glanced at that broad-skirted green coat, with the largo metal buttons, that its wearer seldom walked forth without a dog at his heels, and some idle ruffian, the very counterpart of himself, at his side. The vices of the boy had grown Avith the man, and we fancied his home then if such a place deserve the name. We saw the bare and miserable room, destitute of furniture, crowded with his wife and children, pale, hungry, and emaciated ; the man cursing their lamentations, staggering to the tap-room, from whence he had just returned, followed by his wife and a sickly infant, clamour- ing for bread ; and heard the street-wrangle and noisy recrimination that his striking her occasioned. And then imagination led ns to some metropolitan workhouse, situated in the midst of crowded streets and alleys, filled with noxious vapours, and ringing with boisterous cries, where an old and feeble woman, imploring pardon for her son, lay dying in a close dark room, with no child to clasp her hand, and no pure air from heaven to fan her brow. A stranger closed the eyes that settled into a cold unmeaning glare, and strange ears received the words that murmured from the white and half-closed lips. A coarse round frock, with a worn cotton neckerchief, and other articles of clothing of the commonest description, completed the history. A prison, and the sentence banishment or the gallows. What would the man have given then, to be once again the contented humble drudge of his boyish years ; to have restored to life, but for a week, a day, an hour, a minute, only for so long a time as would enable him to say one word of passionate regret to, and hear one sound of heartfelt for- giveness from, the cold and ghastly form that lay rotting in the pauper's grave ! The children wild iu the streets, the mother a destitute widow ; both deeply tainted with the deep disgrace of the husband and father's 58 Sketches by Bos. name, and impelled by sheer necessity, down the precipice that had led him to a lingering death, possibly of many years' duration, thousands of miles away. We had no clue to the end of the tale ; but it was easy to guess its termination. We took a step or two further on, and by way of restoring the naturally cheerful tone of our thoughts, began fitting visionary feet and legs into a cellar-board full of boots and shoes, with a speed and accuracy that would have astonished the most expert artist in leather, living. There was one pair of boots in particular a jolly, good- tempered, hearty-looking, pair of tops, that excited our warmest regard ; and we had got a fine, red-faced, jovial fellow of a market- gardener into them, before we had made their acquaintance half a minute. They were just the very thing for him. There were his huge fat legs bulging over the tops, and fitting them too tight to admit of his tucking in ths loops he had pulled them on by ; and his knee- cords with an interval of stocking ; and his blue apron tucked up round his waist ; and his red neckerchief and blue coat, and a white hat stuck on one side of his head ; and there he stood with a broad grin on his great red face, whistling away, as if any other idea but that of being happy and comfortable had never entered his brain. This was the very man after our own heart ; we knew all about him ; we had seen him coming up to Covent Garden in his green chaise-cart, with the fat tubby little horse, half a thousand times ; and even while we cast an affectionate look upon his boots, at that instant, the form of a coquettish servant-maid suddenly sprung into a pair of Denmark satin shoes that stood beside them, and we at once recognised the very girl who accepted his offer of a ride, just on this side the Hammersmith Suspension Bridge, the very last Tuesday morning we rode into town from Richmond. A very smart female, in a showy bonnet, stepped into a pair of grey cloth boots, with black fringe and binding, that were studiously point- ing out their toes on the other side of the top-boots, and seemed very anxious to engage his attention, but we didn't observe that our friend the market-gardener appeared at all captivated with these blandish- ments ; for beyond giving a knowing wink when they first began, as if to imply that he quite understood their end and object, he took no further notice of them. His indifference, however, was amply recom- pensed by the excessive gallantry of a very old gentleman with a silver-headed stick, who tottered into a pair of large list shoes, that were standing in one corner of the board, and indulged in a variety of gestures expressive of his admiration of the lady in the cloth boots, to the immeasurable amusement of a young fellow we put into a pair of long-quartered pumps, who we thought would have split the coat that slid down to meet him, with laughing. We had been looking on at this little pantomime with great satis- faction for some time, when, to our unspeakable astonishment, we A rude Awakening. 59 perceived that the whole of the characters, including a numerous corps de ballet of boots and shoes in the background, into which we had been hastily thrusting as many feet as we could press into the service, were arranging themselves in order for dancing; and some music striking up at the moment, to it they went without delay. It was perfectly delightful to witness the agility of the market-gardener. Out went the boots, first on one side, then on the other, then cutting, then shuffling, then setting to the Denmark satins, then advancing, then retreating, then going round, and then repeating the whole of the evolutions again, without appearing to suffer -in the least from the violence of the exercise. Nor were the Denmark satins a bit behindhand, for they jumped and bounded about, in all directions ; and though they were neither so regular, nor so true to the time as the cloth boots, still, as they seemed to do it from the heart, and to enjoy it more, we candidly confess that we preferred their style of dancing to the other. But the old gentle- man in the list shoes was the most amusing object in the whole party ; for, besides his grotesque attempts to appear youthful, and amorous, which were sufficiently entertaining in themselves, the young fellow in the pumps managed so artfully that every time the old gentleman advanced to salute the lady in the cloth boots, he trod with his whole weight on the old fellow's toes, which made him roar with anguish, and rendered all the others like to die of laughing. We were in the full enjoyment of these festivities when we heard a shrill, and by no means musical voice, exclaim, " Hope you'll know me agin, imperence ! " and on looking intently forward to see from whence the sound came, we found that it proceeded, not from the young lady in the cloth boots, as we had at first been inclined to suppose, but from a bulky lady of elderly appearance who was seated in a chair at the head of the cellar-steps, apparently for the purpose of superintending the sale of the articles arranged there. A barrel-organ, which had been in full force close behind us, ceased playing ; the people we had been fitting into the shoes and boots took to flight at the interruption ; and as we were conscious that in the depth of our meditations we might have been rudely staring at the old lady for half an hour without knowing it, wo took to flight too, and were soon immersed in the deepest obscurity of the adjacent " Dials." 6o Sketches by Bos. CHAPTER VII. HACKNEY-COACH STANDS. WE maintain that hackney-coaches, properly so called, belong solely to the metropolis. We may be told, that there are hackney-coach stands in Edinburgh ; and not to go quite so far for a contradiction to our position, we may be reminded that Liverpool, Manchester, " and other large towns" (as the Parliamentary phrase goes), have their hackney-coach stands. We readily concede to these places, the possession of certain vehicles, which may look almost as dirty, and even go almost as slowly, as London hackney-coaches : but that they have the slightest claim to compete with the metropolis, either in point of stands, drivers, or cattle, we indignantly deny. Take a regular, ponderous, rickety, London hackney-coach of the old school, and let any man have the boldness to assert, if he can, that he ever beheld any object on the face of the earth which at all resembles it, unless, indeed, it were another hackney-coach of the same date. We have recently observed on certain stands, and we say it with deep regret, rather dapper green chariots, and coaches of polished yellow, with four wheels of the same colour as the coach, whereas it is perfectly notorious to every one who has studied the subject, that every wheel ought to be of a different colour, and a different size. These are innovations, and, like other miscalled improvements, awful signs of the restlessness of the public mind, and the little respect paid to our time-honoured institutions. Why should hackney-coaches be clean? Our ancestors found them dirty, and left them so. Why should we, with a feverish wish to " keep moving," desire to roll along at the rate of six miles an hour, while they were content to rumble over the stones at four ? These are solemn considerations. Hackney- coaches are part and parcel of the law of the land ; they were settled by the Legislature ; plated and numbered by the wisdom of Parlia- ment. Then why have they been swamped by cabs and omnibuses ? Or why should people be allowed to ride quickly for eightpence a mile, after Parliament had come to the solemn decision that they should pay a shilling a mile for riding slowly ? We pause for a reply ; and, having no chance of getting one, begin a fresh paragraph. Our acquaintance with hackney-coach stands is of long standing. We are a walking book of fares, feeling ourselves, half-bound, as it were, to be always in the right on contested points. We know all the regular watermen within three miles of Covent Garden by sight, and should be almost tempted to believe that all the hackney-coach horses in that district knew us by sight too, if one-half of them were not blind. We take great interest in hackney-coaches, but we seldom Our Knowledge of our Subject. 6l drive, having a knack of turning ourselves over when wo attempt to do so. Wo are as great friends to horses, hackney-coach and otherwise, as the renowned Mr. Martin, of costermonger notoriety, and yet we never ride. Wo keep no horse, but a clothes-horse ; enjoy no saddle so much as a saddle of mutton ; and, following our own inclinations, have never followed the hounds. Leaving these fleeter means of getting over the ground, or of depositing oue's-self upon it, to those who like them, by hackney-coach stands we take our stand. There is a hackney-coach stand under the very window at which we are writing ; there is only one coach on it now, but it is a fair specimen of the class of vehicles to which we have alluded a great, lumbering, square concern of a dingy yellow colour (like a bilious brunette), with very small glasses, but very large frames ; the panels are ornamented with a faded coat of arms, in shape something like a dissected bat, the axletree is red, and the majority of the wheels are green. The box is partially covered by an old great-coat, with a multiplicity of capes, and some extraordinary-looking clothes ; and the straw, with which the canvas cushion is stuffed, is sticking up in several places, as if in rivalry of the hay, which is peeping through the chinks in the boot. The horses, with drooping heads, and each with a mane and tail as scanty and straggling as those of a worn-out rocking-horse, are stand- ing patiently on some damp straw, occasionally wincing, and rattling the harness ; and now and then, one of them lifts his mouth to the ear of his companion, as if he were saying, in a whisper, that ho should like to assassinate the coachman. The coachman himself is in the watering-house ; and the waterman, with his hands forced into his pockets as far as they can possibly go, is dancing the " double shuffle," in front of the pump, to keep his feet warm. The servant-girl, with the pink ribbons, at No. 5, opposite, suddenly opens the street-door, and four small children forthwith rush out, and scream " Coach ! " with all their might and main. The waterman darts from the pump, seizes the horses by their respective bridles, and drags them, and the coach too, round to the house, shouting all the time for the coachman at the very top, or rather very bottom of his voice, for it is a deep bass growl. A response is heard from the tap- room ; the coachman, in his wooden-soled shoes, makes the street echo again as he runs across it ; and then there is such a struggling, and backing, and grating of the kennel, to get the coach-door opposite the house-door, that the children are in perfect ecstasies of delight. What a commotion ! The old lady, who has been stopping there for the last month, is going back to the country. Out comes box after box, and one side of the vehicle is filled with luggage in no time ; the children get into everybody's way, and the youngest, who has upset himself in his attempts to carry an umbrella, is borne off wounded and kicking. The youngsters disappear, and a short pause ensues, during which the old lady is, no doubt, kissing them all round in the back-parlour. She appears at last, followed by her married daughter, all the children, and 62 Sketches by Boz. both the servants, who, with the joint assistance of the coachman and waterman, manage to get her safely into the coach. A cloak is handed in, and a little basket, which we could almost swear contains a small black bottle, and a paper of sandwiches. Up go the steps, bang goes the door, " Golden Cross, Charing Cross, Tom," says the waterman ; " Good-bye, grandma," cry the children, off jingles the coach at the rate of three miles an hour, and the mamma and children retire into the house, with the exception of one little villain, who runs up the street at the top of his speed, pursued by the servant ; not ill-pleased to have such an opportunity of displaying her attractions. She brings him back, and, after casting two or three gracious glances across the way, which are either intended for us or the pot-boy (we are not quite certain which), shuts the door, and the hackney-coach stand is again at a standstill. We have been frequently amused with the intense delight with which " a servant of all work," who is sent for a coach, deposits her- self inside ; and the unspeakable gratification which boys, who have been despatched on a similar errand, appear to derive from mounting the box. But we never recollect to have been more amused with a hackney-coach party, than one we saw early the other morning in Tottenham-court Eoad. It was a wedding-party, and emerged from one of the inferior streets near Fitzroy Square. There were the bride, with a thin white dress, and a great red face ; and the bridesmaid, a little, dumpy, good-humoured young woman, dressed, of course, in the same appropriate costume ; and the bridegroom and his chosen friend, in blue coats, yellow waistcoats, white trousers, and Berlin gloves to match. They stopped at the corner of the street, and called a coach with an air of indescribable dignity. The moment they were in, the bridesmaid threw a red shawl, which she had, no doubt, brought on purpose, negligently over the number on the door, evidently to delude pedestrians into the belief that the hackney-coach was a private carriage ; and away they went, perfectly satisfied that the imposition was successful, and quite unconscious that there was a great staring number stuck up behind, on a plate as large as a schoolboy's slate. A shilling a mile ! the ride was worth five, at least, to them. What an interesting book a hackney-coach might produce, if it could carry as much in its head as it does in its body ! The autobiography of a broken-down hackney-coach, would surely be as amusing as the autobiography of a broken-down hackneyed dramatist ; and it might tell as much of its travels with the pole, as others have of their expeditions to it. How many stories might be related of the different people it had conveyed on matters of business or profit pleasure or pain ! And how many melancholy tales of the same people at different periods ! The country-girl the showy, over-dressed woman the drunken prostitute ! The raw apprentice the dissipated spendthrift the thief! Talk of cabs 1 Cabs are all very well in cases of expedition, when it's a matter of neck or nothing, life or death, your temporary home or Doctors' Commons. 63 your long one. But, besides a cab's lacking that gravity of deport- ment which so peculiarly distinguishes a hackney-coach, let it never be forgotten that a cab is a thing of yesterday, and that ho never was anything better. A hackney-cab has always been a hackney-cab, from his first entry into life ; whereas a hackney-coach is a remnant of past gentility, a victim to fashion, a hanger-on of an old English family, wearing their arms,'and, in days of yore, escorted by men wearing their livery, stripped of his finery, and thrown upon the world, like a once- smart footman when he is no longer sufficiently juvenile for his office, progressing lower and lower in the scale of four-wheeled degradation, until at last it comes to a stand ! CHAPTER VIII. DOCTORS' COMMONS. WALKING, without any definite object through St. Paul's Churchyard, a little while ago, we happened to turn down a street entitled " Paul's Chain," and keeping straight forward for a few hundred yards, found ourself, as a natural consequence, in Doctors' Commons. Now Doctors' Commons being familiar by name to everybody, as the place whero they grant marriage-licences to love-sick couples, and divorces to un- faithful ones ; register the wills of people who have any property to leave, and punish hasty gentlemen who call ladies by unpleasant names, wo no sooner discovered that we were really within its precincts, than we felt a laudable desire to become better acquainted therewith ; and as the first object of our curiosity was the Court, whoso decrees can even unloose the bonds of matrimony, we procured a direction to it ; and bent or steps thither without delay. Crossing a quiet and shady court-yard, paved with stone, and frowned upon by old red-brick houses, on the doors of which were painted the names of sundry learned civilians, we paused before a small, green-baizcd, brass-headed-nailed door, which yielding to our gentle push, at once admitted us into an old quaint-looking apartment, with sunken windows, and black carved wainscoting, at the upper end of which, seated on a raised platform, of semicircular shape, were about a dozen solemn-looking gentlemen, in crimson gowns and wigs. At a more elevated desk in the centre, sat a very fat and red-faced gentleman, in tortoise-shell spectacles, whose dignified appearance announced the judge; and round a long green-baized table below, something like a billiard-table without the cushions and pockets, were a number of very self-important-looking personages, in stiff neckcloths, and black gowns with white fur collars, whom we at once set down as proctors. At the lower end of the billiard-table was an individual in 64 Sketches by Boz. an arm-chair, and a wig, whom we afterwards discovered to be the registrar; and seated behind a little desk, near the door, were a respectable-looking man in black, of about twenty stone weight or thereabouts, and a fat-faced, smirking, civil-looking body, in a black gown, black kid gloves, knee shorts, and silks, with a shirt-frill in his bosom, curls on his head, and a silver staff in his hand, whom we had no difficulty in recognising as the officer of the Court. The latter, indeed, speedily set our mind at rest upon this point, for, advancing to our elbow, and opening a conversation forthwith, he had communicated to us, in less than five minutes, that he was the apparitor, and the other the court-keeper ; that this was the Arches Court, and therefore the counsel wore red gowns, and the proctors fur collars ; and that when the other Courts sat there, they didn't wear red gowns or fur collars either ; with many other scraps of intelligence equally interest- ing. Besides these two officers, there was a little thin old man, with long grizzly hair, crouched in a remote corner, whose duty, our com- municative friend informed us, was to ring a large hand-bell when the Court opened in the morning, and who, for aught his appearance betokened to the contrary, might have been similarly employed for the last two centuries at least. The red-faced gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles had got all the talk to himself just then, and very well he was doing it, too, only he spoke very fast, but that was habit ; and rather thick, but that was good living. So we had plenty of time to look about us. There was one individual who amused us mightily. This was one of the bewigged gentlemen in the red robes, who was straddling before the fire in the centre of the Court, in the attitude of the brazen Colossus, to the complete exclusion of everybody else. He had gathered up his robe behind, in much the same manner as a slovenly woman would her petticoats on a very dirty day, in order that he might feel the full warmth of the fire. His wig was put on all awry, with the tail straggling about his neck, his scanty grey trousers and short black gaiters, made in the worst possible style, imparted an additional inelegant .appearance to his uncouth person ; and his limp, badly- starched shirt-collar almost obscured his eyes. We shall never be able to claim any credit as a physiognomist again, for, after a careful scrutiny of this gentleman's countenance, we had come to the con- clusion that it bespoke nothing but conceit and silliness, when our friend with the silver staff whispered in our ear that he was no other than a doctor of civil law, and Heaven knows what besides. So of course we were mistaken, and he must be a very talented man. He conceals it so well 'though perhaps with the merciful view of not astonishing ordinary people too much that you would suppose him to be one of the stupidest dogs alive. The gentleman in the spectacles having concluded his judgment, and a few minutes having been allowed to elapse, to afford time for the buzz in the Court to subside, the registrar called on the next The Arches Court. 65 cause, which was " the office of the Judge promoted by Bumple against Sludberry." A general movement was visible in the Court, at this announcement, and the obliging functionary with silver staff whispered us that " there would bo some fun now, for this was a brawling case." We were not rendered much the wiser by this piece of information, till we found by the opening speech of the counsel for the promoter, that, under a half-obsolete statute of one of the Edwards, the Court was empowered to visit with the penalty of excommunication, any person who should be proved guilty of the crime of " brawling," or " smiting," in any church, or vestry adjoining thereto ; and it appeared, by some eight-and-twenty affidavits, which were duly referred to, that on a certain night, at a certain vestry-meeting, in a certain parish particu- larly set forth, Thomas Sludberry, the party appeared against in that suit, had made use of, and applied to Michael Bumple, the promoter, the words " You be blowed ; " and that, on the said Michael Bumple and others remonstrating with the said Thomas Sludberry, on the im- propriety of his conduct, the said Thomas Sludberry repeated the aforesaid expression, " You be blowed ; " and furthermore desired and requested to know, whether the said Michael Bumple " wanted any- thing for himself ; " adding, " that if the said Michael Bumple did want anything for himself, he, the said Thomas Sludberry, was the man to give it him ; " at the same time making use of other heinous and sinful expressions, all of which, Bumple submitted, came within the intent and meaning of the Act ; and therefore he, for the soul's health and chastening of Sludberry, prayed for sentence of excom- munication against him accordingly. Upon these facts a long argument was entered into, on both sides, to the great edification of a number of persons interested in the parochial squabbles, who crowded the Court ; and when some very long and grave speeches had been made pro and con, the red-faced gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles took a review of the case, which occupied half-an-hour more, and then pronounced upon Slud- berry the awful sentence of excommunication for a fortnight, and pay- ment of the costs of the suit. Upon this, Sludberry, who was a little, red-faced, sly-looking, ginger-beer seller, addressed the court, and said, if they'd bo good enough to take off the costs, and excommunicato him for the term of his natural life instead, it would be much more convenient to him, for he never went to church at all. To this appeal the gentleman in the spectacles made no other reply than a look of virtuous indignation ; and Sludberry and his friends retired. As the man with the silver staff informed us that the Court was on the point of rising, we retired too pondering, as we walked away, upon the beautiful spirit of these ancient ecclesiastical laws, the kind and neighbourly feelings they are calculated to awaken, and the strong attachment to religious institutions which they cannot fail to engender. We were so lost in these meditations, that we had turned into the street, and run up against a door-post, before we recollected where wo F 66 Sketches by Boz. were walking. On looking upwards to see what house we had stumbled upon, the words " Prerogative Office," written in large characters, met our eye ; and as we were in a sight-seeing humour and the place was a public one, we walked in. The room into which we walked, was a long, busy-looking place, partitioned off, on either side, into a variety of little boxes, in which a few clerks were engaged in copying or examining deeds. Down the centre of the room were several desks nearly breast-high, at each of which, three or four people were standing, poring over large volumes. As we knew that they were searching for wills, they attracted our attention at once. It was curious to contrast the lazy indifference of the attorneys' clerks who were making a search for some legal purpose, with the air of earnestness and interest which distinguished the strangers to tho place, who were looking up the will of some deceased relative ; the former pausing every now and then with an impatient yawn, or raising their heads to look at the people who passed up and down the room ; the latter stooping over the book, and running down column after column of names in the deepest abstraction. There was one little dirty-faced man in a blue apron, who after a whole morning's search, extending some fifty years back, had just found the will to which he wished to refer, which one of the officials was reading to him in a low hurried voice from a thick vellum book with large clasps. It was perfectly evident that the more the clerk read, the less the man with the blue apron understood about the matter. When the volume was first brought down, he took off his hat, smoothed down his hair, smiled with great self-satisfaction, and looked up in the reader's face with the air of a man who had made up his mind to recollect every word he heard. The first two or three lines were intelligible enough ; but then the technicalities began, and the little man began to look rather dubious. Then came a whole string of complicated trusts, and he was regularly at sea. As the reader pro- ceeded, it was quite apparent that it was a hopeless case, and the little man, with his mouth open and his eyes fixed upon his face, looked on with an expression of bewilderment and perplexity irresistibly ludicrous. A little further on, a hard-featured old man with a deeply-wrinkled face, was intently perusing a lengthy will with the aid of a pair of horn spectacles : occasionally pausing from his task, and slily noting down some brief memorandum of the bequests contained in it. Every wrinkle about his toothless mouth, and sharp keen eyes, told of avarice and cunning. His clothes were nearly threadbare, but it was easy to see that he wore them from choice and not from necessity ; all his looks and gestures down to the very small pinches of snuff which ho every now and then took from a little tin canister, told of wealth, and penury, and avarice. As he leisurely closed the register, put up his spectacles, and folded Wills. 67 his scraps of paper in a large leather pocket-book, we thought what a nice hard bargain he was driving with some poverty-stricken legatee, who, tired of waiting year after year, until some life-interest should fall in, was selling his chance, just as it began to grow most valuable, for a twelfth part of its worth. It was a good speculation a very safe one. The old man stowed his pocket-book carefully in the breast of his great-coat, and hobbled away with a leer of triumph. That will had made him ten years younger at the lowest computation. Having commenced our observations, we should certainly have ex- tended them to another dozen of people at least, had not a sudden shutting up and putting away of the worm-eaten old books, warned us that the time for closing the office had arrived ; and thus deprived us of a pleasure, and spared our readers an infliction. We naturally fell into a train of reflection as we walked homewards, upon the curious old records of likings and dislikings ; of jealousies and revenges ; of affection defying the power of death, and hatred pursued beyond the grave, which these depositories contain ; silent but striking tokens, some of them, of excellence of heart, and nobleness of soul ; melancholy examples, others, of the worst passions of human nature. How many men as they lay speechless and helpless on the bed of death, would have given worlds but for the strength and power to blot out the silent evidence of animosity and bitterness, which now stands registered against them in Doctors' Commons ! CHAPTEE IX. LONDON RECREATIONS. THE wish of persons in the humbler classes of life, to ape the manners and customs of those whom fortune has placed above them, is often the subject of remark, and not unfrequently of complaint. The in- clination may, and no doubt does, exist to a great extent, among the small gentility the would-be aristocrats of the middle classes. Tradesmen and clerks, with fashionable novel-reading families, and circulating-library-subscribing daughters, get up small assemblies in humble imitation of Almack's, and promenade the dingy " large room " of some second-rate hotel with as much complacency as the enviable few who are privileged to exhibit their magnificence in that exclusive haunt of fashion and foolery. Aspiring young ladies, who read flaming accounts of some " fancy fair in high life," suddenly grow desperately charitable ; visions of admiration and matrimony float before their eyes ; some wonderfully meritorious institution, which, by the strangest accident in the world, has never been heard of before, is discovered to be in a languishing condition : Thomson's great room, 68 Sketches by Boz. or Johnson's nursery-ground, is forthwith engaged, and the aforesaid young ladies, from mere charity, exhibit themselves for three days, from twelve to four, for the small charge of one shilling per head ! With the exception of these classes of society, however, and a few weak and insignificant persons, we do not think the attempt at imitation to which we have alluded, prevails in any great degree. The different character of the recreations of different classes, has often afforded us amusement ; and we have chosen it for the subject of our present sketch, in the hope that it may possess some amusement for our readers. If the regular City man, who leaves Lloyd's at five o'clock, and drives home to Hackney, Clapton, Stamford Hill, or elsewhere, can bo said to have any daily recreation beyond his dinner, it is his garden. He never does anything to it with his own hands ; but he takes great pride in it notwithstanding ; and if you are desirous of paying your addresses to the youngest daughter, be sure to be in raptures with every flower and shrub it contains. If your poverty of expression compel you to make any distinction between the two, we would certainly recommend your bestowing more admiration on his garden than his wine. He always takes a walk round it, before he starts for town in the morning, and is particularly anxious that the fish-pond should be kept specially neat. If you call on him on Sunday in summer-time, about an hour before dinner, you will find him sitting in an arm-chair, on the lawn behind the house, with a straw hat on, reading a Sunday paper. A short distance from him you will most likely observe a handsome paroquet in a large brass-wire cage ; ten to one but the two eldest girls are loitering in one of the side-walks accompanied by a couple of young gentlemen, who are holding parasols over them of course only to keep the sun off while the younger children, with the under nursery-maid, are strolling listlessly about, in the shade. Beyond these occasions, his delight in his garden appears to arise more from the consciousness of possession than actual enjoy- ment of it. When he drives you down to dinner on a week-day, he is rather fatigued with the occupations of the morning, and tolerably cross into the bargain ; but when the cloth is removed, and he has drank three or four glasses of his favourite port, he orders the French windows of his dining-room (which of course look into the garden) to be opened, and throwing a silk handkerchief over his head, and leaning back in his arm-chair, descants at considerable length upon its beauty, and the cost of maintaining it. This is to impress you who are a young friend of the family with a due sense of the excellence of the garden, and the wealth of its owner ; and when he has exhausted the subject, he goes to sleep. There is another and a very different class of men, whose recreation is their garden. An individual of this class, resides some short distance from town say in the Hampstead Road, or the Kilburn Road, or any other road where the houses are small and neat, and The Light of Life. 69 have little slips of back-garden. He and his wife who is as clean and compact a little body as himself have occupied the same house ever since he retired from business twenty years ago. They have no family. They once had a son, who died at about five years old. The child's portrait hangs over the mantelpiece in the best sitting-room, and a little cart he used to draw about, is carefully preserved as a relic. In fine weather the old gentleman is almost constantly in the garden ; and when it is too wet to go into it, he will look out of the window at it, by the hour together. He has always something to do there, and you will see him digging, and sweeping, and cutting, and planting, with manifest delight. In spring time, there is no end to the sowing of seeds, and sticking little bits of wood over them, with labels, which look like epitaphs to their memory ; and in the evening, when the sun has gone down, the perseverance with which he lugs a great watering-pot about is perfectly astonishing. The only other recreation he has, is the newspaper, which he peruses every day, from beginning to end, generally reading the most interesting pieces of intelligence to his wife, during breakfast. The old lady is very fond of flowers, as the hyacinth-glasses in the parlour- window, and geranium- pots in the little front court, testify. She takes great pride in the garden too: and when one of the four fruit-trees produces rather a larger gooseberry than usual, it is carefully preserved under a wine- glass on the sideboard, for the edification of visitors, who are duly informed that Mr. So-and-so planted the tree which produced it, with his own hands. On a summer's evening, when the large watering-pot has been filled and emptied some fourteen times, and the old couple have quite exhausted themselves by trotting about, you will see them sitting happily together in the little summer-house, enjoying the calm and peace of the twilight, and watching the shadows as they fall upon the garden, and gradually growing thicker and more sombre, obscure the tints of their gayest flowers no bad emblem of the years that have silently rolled over their heads, deadening in their course the brightest hues of early hopes and feelings which have long since faded away. These are their only recreations, and they require no more. They have within themselves, the materials of comfort and content ; and the only anxiety of each, is to die before the other. This is no ideal sketch. There used to be many old people of this description; their numbers may have diminished, and may decrease still more. Whether the course female education has taken of late days whether the pursuit of giddy frivolities, and empty nothings, has tended to unfit women for that quiet domestic life, in which they show far more beautifully than in the most crowded assembly, is a question we should feel little gratification in discussing : we hope not. Let us turn now, to another portion of the London population, whose recreations present about as strong a contrast as can well be conceived we mean the Sunday pleasurers; and let us beg our readers to 7