Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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 In the Land of 
 
 Lorna Doone. 
 
 l6mo, gilt top, $1.00. 
 
 The delightful flavor which is characteristic 
 of all these papers is manifestly due to the 
 fact that on the one hand, the writer's mind 
 IS saturated with historical and literary asso- 
 ciations ; while on the other hand, he has a 
 keen, we might almost say, a painter's eye 
 for the beauties of scenery. — N. Y. Stm, 
 
 T. Y. CROWELL k COMPANY. 
 
 NEW YORK AND BOSTON. 
 
At Hawarden 
 With Mr. Gladstone 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 TRANSATLANTIC 
 
 EXPERIENCES 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM H. RIDEING 
 
 New York: 46 East Fourteenth Street 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
 
 Boston: 100 Purchase Street 
 
 \9^%^ 
 
 

 Copyright, 1896, 
 By T. Y. Crowell & Company. 
 
 C. J. PETERS & CO., TYPOGRAPHERS, 
 BOSTON. 
 
 
 « c « « • 
 
 • • • • ♦ 
 
iKt2J5 Sgliil Carlisle. 
 
 *'A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, 
 And sweet as English air could make her." 
 
 Ml68i45 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 At Hawarden with Mr. Gladstone 
 A Run Ashore at Queenstown . . 
 The Route of the Wild Irishman 
 
 Quaint Old Yarmouth 
 
 Law, Lawyers, and Law-Courts 
 
 The House of Commons 
 
 Old and New on the Atlantic . . 
 
 29 
 75 
 
 lOI 
 
 146 
 
 183 
 225 
 
At Hawarden with Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 IN reading a recent biography of Mr. 
 Gladstone by George W. E. Russell, 
 one is struck by the applicability to the 
 household at Hawarden of the descrip- 
 tion given of the home life of the great 
 statesman's father, Sir John Gladstone. 
 "The house was, by all accounts, a 
 home pre-eminently calculated to mould 
 the thoughts and direct the course of an 
 intelligent and receptive nature. There 
 was the father's masterful will and keen 
 perception, the sweetness and piety of 
 the mother, wealth with all its substan- 
 tial advantages and few of its mischiefs, 
 a strong sense of the value of money, a 
 rigid avoidance of extravagance and ex- 
 cess; everywhere a strenuous purpose 
 
2 AT HAWARDEN 
 
 in life, constant employment, and con- 
 centrated ambition.'^ 
 
 Nearly every word of that is true of 
 the life at Hawarden to-day. The spirit 
 that rules is the spirit of simplicity itself; 
 not ascetic, not indifferent to the good 
 things of the world, but alien alike 
 to pomp, ceremony, and epicureanism. 
 Time is held as a trust to be accounted 
 for minute by minute. A wilful, pur- 
 poseless idler, no matter what his rank, 
 would find himself aloof and estranged 
 as in few other places. Not the head 
 of the house alone, but mother, sons, and 
 daughters, following his example, find 
 employment to fill the day from an early 
 rising to an early bedtime. The extrava- 
 gances of the London season and the 
 supplementary splendors of the ordinary 
 country house are shut out, and the days 
 are ordered with as little ostentation 
 and as much quiet benevolence and 
 scrupulousness as in an ideal country 
 parsonage. 
 
WITH MR. GLADSTONE. 3 
 
 This, however, must not be allowed to 
 convey an impression of cheerlessness 
 or the exclusion of natural interests of 
 the worldly sort. You may hear in this 
 household some profound theology, and 
 scan horizons of philosophy which you 
 may never reach ; you may hear more 
 of the searchings of scholarship than the 
 universities teach, and be led beyond 
 your depth in political speculation : but 
 you will also hear of the newest novel 
 and the latest play, of pictures, travels, 
 inventions, of all things not frivolous 
 that ripple through the conversation of 
 the hour. There is wine on the table at 
 luncheon and at dinner, and after dinner 
 there is music, of which Mr. Gladstone 
 is a great lover. As for cheerfulness, 
 Mr. Gladstone himself is full of gay- 
 ety in his moments of relaxation, and 
 falsifies the familiar portraits of him, 
 which represent him as being without 
 the sense of humor. There are times 
 when he has a boy's playfulness, and 
 
4 AT HA WARDEN 
 
 then his eye dances with mischievous 
 glee. 
 
 Entering the drawing-room after lunch- 
 eon we came unexpectedly upon his little 
 grandchild, not yet six years old, who 
 was running about with bare feet. We 
 had been talking about protection and 
 free trade, and the representations made 
 by the advocates of the McKinley tariff 
 as to the condition of English workmen. 
 
 " There ! " said Mr. Gladstone, as soon 
 as he saw the child, his face gleaming at 
 the mischief of the innuendo, " when you 
 return to America you might say that in 
 a free-trade country even the children 
 of the moderately well-to-do go bare- 
 footed." 
 
 Then, seriously, he added an affirma- 
 tion of his belief that no country can 
 be wholly prosperous at home, or entirely 
 happy in its foreign relations, unless it 
 is a free-trade country. 
 
 Hawarden is but a few miles from 
 Chester, and a new railway leaves one 
 
WITH MR. GLADSTONE. 5 
 
 in the village itself, which is neither 
 picturesque nor interesting, except for 
 its associations with the man who has 
 three times been prime minister of Eng- 
 land. That the value of these associa- 
 tions is not lost sight of, and that their 
 magnetism draws upon sentiment or 
 curiosity to no ordinary degree, is appar- 
 ent in the few shop windows of the old- 
 and-new village street, which by their 
 displays of photographs and souvenirs 
 show that Hawarden is the shrine of 
 many pilgrimages. I say " old-and-new 
 village street," because white, crouch- 
 ing, thatched cottages and inns of long 
 ago have for neighbors many of the two- 
 story, red-brick, bay-windowed villas of 
 later date. Before the railway it was 
 a village where the coaches changed 
 horses, and where the grumbling pas- 
 sengers, looking upon their conveyance 
 without the sentiment which their de- 
 scendants lend it, alighted to thaw their 
 stiffened joints and congealed arteries. 
 
O AT HAWARDEN 
 
 The Fox Inn, "by Maria Jones," is a 
 witness of this period. Now it is the 
 habitation, not only of farmers, but of 
 colliers and artisans ; and as Chester 
 grows it will be hardly more than a 
 suburb of that city, though forever glo- 
 rified by its association with the per- 
 sonage who is described by both friend 
 and opponent as ^'the most extraordi- 
 nary man of his time/' 
 
 The Fox Inn has a modern rival in 
 the Glynne Arms (Hawarden, it will be 
 remembered, came to Mr. Gladstone 
 through his wife, the daughter of Sir 
 Stephen Glynne), and the lodge of the 
 castle is just opposite. The park within 
 is beautiful and ample, but neither so 
 beautiful nor so ample as the estates of 
 thousands of other Englishmen. It is 
 proportioned to the sufficiency of its 
 owner's other worldly possessions, — 
 enough, but not too much ; humble, in- 
 deed, by the side of such estates as 
 Eaton Hall and Chats worth, the proprie- 
 
WITH MR. GLADSTONE. / 
 
 tors or which were once the administra- 
 tive lieutenants of Mr. Gladstone, as 
 they are still in all respects, except 
 wealth, his inferiors. The ground is 
 rolling and well-wooded, and the sound 
 of brooks comes up from the glens to 
 mingle with the rustle of beeches and 
 oaks. It is a place that at once suggests 
 a resemblance between itself and its 
 owner. Over the glade the derricks and 
 chimneys of neighboring collieries are 
 visible ; and this contiguity of sylvan 
 repose with industrial activity symbol- 
 izes the union of the academic and the 
 practical, which is one of the character- 
 istics of Mr. Gladstone's genius. 
 
 The visitors come not only singly and 
 in small parties, but in swarms, filling, on 
 occasions, entire excursion trains from 
 cities as distant as London, Birmingham, 
 and Bristol. They bring their wives 
 and children with them, and picnic and 
 play their games ; eat their buns and 
 drink their tea with the freedom that 
 
8 AT HAWARDEN 
 
 belongs to a public recreation ground. 
 One restriction alone is put on them, — 
 that they shall not cut the shrubs or 
 trees, which have suffered much in 
 times past from the knives of the relic 
 hunters. 
 
 " I fancy that a day rarely passes 
 without bringing visitors of this class 
 to Hawarden in large numbers," I said 
 to Mr. Gladstone, as we walked in the 
 direction of the keep and crumbling 
 walls of the old castle, which stands a 
 few hundred yards from the present 
 house. 
 
 " Rarely," he said, quickly adding, as 
 if to deprecate an implication of homage, 
 "you see, the people are always inter- 
 ested in an old man, and I believe that 
 no other man at my time of life has been 
 a leader of his party, though there have 
 been older men in Parliament.'' 
 
 But without venturing to traverse this 
 explanation, the guest knew within him- 
 self that there was a better one. The 
 
WITH MR. GLADSTONE. 9 
 
 attraction with these artisans from the 
 mills of Lancashire and the potteries of 
 Staffordshire is not that of curiosity, but 
 that of the pilgrim to the shrine. 
 
 The years have stolen little from Mr. 
 Gladstone's intellectual force, and have 
 left him unwearied, unvanquished, unap- 
 peased, in the appetite for achievement. 
 His capacity for work, his amazing mem- 
 ory, his interest in art and in literature, 
 continue with little visible impairment. 
 It is only by his physical condition that 
 one detects the slight frost which has 
 nipped this "political evergreen/' the 
 name happily applied to him by a recent 
 reviewer. He complains of his voice, 
 which is less resonant than it was, and 
 of his hearing ; he apologetically puts 
 us on his left side to hear us better, 
 though we ourselves would by preference 
 be the listener. 
 
 " I know myself, with such eyes, ears, 
 and years, to be politically dead," he 
 said to me, " though I doubt if the 
 
lO AT HAWARDEN 
 
 world believes it." This was within a 
 year. 
 
 He does not hold himself about the 
 shoulders with the athletic erectness of 
 ten years ago; and he tells us that he 
 has given up altogether, or nearly alto- 
 gether, his tree-chopping. But his step 
 is still light and quick, and without effort 
 and without fatigue he leads us up the 
 steep, mossy slope to the entrance of 
 the keep of the old castle. 
 
 He is conscious of his years, but they 
 do not discourage him. Our memory 
 flies back to the reply he made in the 
 House of Commons to that very bump- 
 tious gentleman, Mr. Chaplin, who at- 
 tempted to correct him in some state- 
 ment, and attributed the alleged inac- 
 curacy to the infirmities of age. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone stood up in a glow of 
 indignation, and in a touching voice 
 said : " I am unable to determine to what 
 exact degree I am suffering from the 
 infirmities of age, but I will venture to 
 
WITH MR. GLADSTONE. II 
 
 say that, while sensible that the lapse of 
 time is undoubtedly extremely formid- 
 able, and affects me in more than one 
 particular, yet I hope that for a little 
 while, at any rate, I may remain not 
 wholly unable to cope with antagonists 
 of the calibre of the right honorable 
 gentleman opposite." 
 
 Conservatives as well as Liberals and 
 Home Rulers joined in the cheers, and 
 the pompous Mr. Chaplin had nothing 
 more to say. 
 
 Hawarden Castle — the new one — is 
 a gray, turreted, machicolated mansion, 
 separated from the park by fences and 
 hedges, and within these it is surrounded 
 by gorgeous flower-beds and gravel 
 walks. It was built by an ancestor of 
 Mrs. Gladstone about a hundred and 
 twenty-eight years ago. But the old 
 castle, of which little except the keep 
 remains, was one of the links in the 
 chain of fortresses, like Conway and 
 Carnarvon, which the Edwards built to 
 
12 AT HAWARDEN 
 
 maintain their dominion over Wales. 
 Still earlier it had been in turn a strong- 
 hold of Saxon, Dane, and Norman ; later 
 the Cavaliers and Roundheads played 
 shuttlecock with it, and then pulled it 
 apart, if not feather by feather, stone 
 by stone. 
 
 But it is more recent history that pos- 
 sesses us as we stand on the highest 
 parapet of the keep, having at our side 
 that figure which has been more familiar 
 and more potent than any other in the 
 Victorian age. The Dee is in sight, 
 creeping towards the sea between low 
 sandy banks, which at high tide it 
 gently overflows. The peninsula of Che- 
 shire bounds the farther shore, and in the 
 distance the clear air is thickened by a 
 brownish cloud, to which Mr. Gladstone 
 draws our attention. That cloud is the 
 smoke of Liverpool, where he was born ; 
 and as we face it there is a minute or two 
 of silence, which for us, and probably 
 for him too, opens a long vista of memo- 
 
WITH MR. GLADSTONE. 1 3 
 
 ries. In the heart of the town stands 
 the now dingy mansion of his birth ; and 
 about four miles to the northward, near 
 the mouth of the Mersey, is the village 
 of Seaforth, where he went to school 
 with Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, the famous 
 Dean of Westminster. 
 
 I believe I possess an authentic ac- 
 count of this period of Mr. Gladstone's 
 life. Some years ago I prepared an 
 article on his schooldays for The Youth^s 
 Companion ; and with that indulgence 
 which all who are privileged to know 
 him experience, he corrected the proofs 
 for me, though he assured me he had 
 never done anything of the kind before. 
 The article was published before his 
 revision reached Boston, however, and 
 the changes he made in the original now 
 appear for the first time. 
 
 The original reads : " Mr. Gladstone 
 belongs to a substantial middle-class 
 family.'' This is altered to " an ancient 
 family of southern Scotland, depressed 
 
14 AT HAWARDEN 
 
 in the eighteenth century, when they 
 appear in malting and other trades, and 
 again beginning to rise with Mr. Glad- 
 stone's grandfather." 
 
 The original again : " They had a 
 country place at Seaforth, which was 
 then outside of Liverpool and its smoke 
 and noise, though it is now knitted to 
 the town. The little boy who was des- 
 tined to become famous used to ramble 
 about these grounds with his father's 
 friend, the great Mr. Canning, who was 
 already the foremost statesman of Eng- 
 land. Canning, it is said, would sit by 
 the hour at Seaforth meditating on the 
 policy of the country, while the boy sat 
 at his feet." 
 
 This is expunged with the following 
 comment : " I think this should disap- 
 pear. Mr. Canning took very marked 
 notice of an elder brother of mine, but 
 none whatever of me.'' 
 
 Another paragraph from the original : 
 " * The only things I inherited were igno- 
 
WITH MR. GLADSTONE. 1 5 
 
 ranee and indigence/ said Henry Clay. 
 Mr. Gladstone inherited money and so- 
 cial position, and from his infancy was 
 surrounded by every influence which 
 could help him. But ... he could not 
 have risen to his present high place 
 except by the continuous industry and 
 resolute purpose which have always dis- 
 tinguished him." 
 
 This is qualified by the subject of the 
 biography as follows : " In his boyhood, 
 however, though sometimes thoughtful 
 and always impressible, he was averse 
 from school-work, and his education dur- 
 ing the home period of his life made 
 little progress.'' 
 
 The original then describes his going 
 to Eton : "This famous school has im- 
 proved of late ; but when Mr. Gladstone 
 entered it was governed in a very loose 
 fashion, and lazy and incapable boys 
 passed through it with little else to show 
 for the years they spent there than a 
 smattering of the classics," 
 
1 6 AT HAWARDEN 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's addition to this is : 
 " From Eton, however, he drew his first 
 inspiration, and became, if not a bril- 
 liant, yet a diligent, student'' 
 
 His contributions to the Eton Miscel- 
 lany^ and his speeches in the debating 
 societies, are referred to in the original 
 in these words : " Even thus early in 
 his career his aspirations were political 
 rather than literary, and there was some- 
 thing prophetic in an essay on * Elo- 
 quence ' which he wrote for the Eton 
 Miscellany, The most elevated minds, 
 he says, are usually devoted to the legis- 
 lative hall at Westminster. * A success- 
 ful debut, an offer from the minister, a 
 secretaryship of state, and even the pre- 
 miership itself, are the objects which 
 form the vista along which a young vis- 
 ionary loves to look.' " 
 
 This passage also is qualified by Mr. 
 Gladstone by the following addition in 
 his own handwriting : " Politics, how- 
 ever, did not exercise a permanent sway 
 
WITH MR. GLADSTONE. 1/ 
 
 over his mind during the period of youth. 
 At Eton he had one special and highly 
 prized advantage in forming a very close 
 and intimate friendship with the fore- 
 most youth among his contemporaries 
 in the school. This was Arthur Henry 
 Hallam, the eldest son of Henry Hallam, 
 the distinguished historian, and the sub- 
 ject of Tennyson's wonderful poem ' In 
 Memoriam.' '' 
 
 Another passage in the original article 
 reads : " When only twenty-five he be- 
 came Under Secretary for the Colonies, 
 and representative of the department in 
 the House of Commons under the short 
 government (1834-1835) of Sir Robert 
 Peel. There exists a picture of him as 
 he appeared at this time, which little 
 resembles him in his later years. . . . 
 But the outward change has not been 
 greater than the moral and intellectual 
 change. He was a Conservative then, 
 and was described by Lord Macaulay as 
 'the hope of the stern and unbending 
 Tories.' " 
 
1 8 At HAWARDEN 
 
 The addendum to this, made on the 
 margin of the proof-sheet, is as follows : 
 "This is admitted by himself with re- 
 spect to ecclesiastical questions ; but as 
 to other matters he considers it as untrue, 
 and contradicted by the tenor of his 
 early speeches. His language is that he 
 did not then understand the value of 
 liberty for its own sake as a principle 
 of human action and as a necessary 
 condition of all high political excel- 
 lence/' 
 
 Again the original : " His early politi- 
 cal bias he has attributed in a great 
 measure to his training at Oxford. * I 
 did not learn there what I have learned 
 since,' he has said, ' to set a due value 
 on the imperishable and inestimable 
 privileges of human liberty.' " 
 
 Now Mr. Gladstone's revision of the 
 proof : " But he also says that Oxford, 
 the Oxford of his day, taught him to 
 value truth, and to follow it at all cost 
 and hazards." 
 
WITH MR. GLADSTONE. IQ 
 
 From the keep of the old castle we 
 retraced our way to the house through 
 a beautiful wooded path, which gave 
 occasion for a little discourse, revealing 
 something of Mr. Gladstone's intimate 
 knowledge and love of trees. He had 
 received a present from Doctor Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes, a work on the trees 
 of Massachusetts, and was deeply inter- 
 ested in the picture and description of 
 the Lancaster elms, though they are not 
 so full of girth as some of the elms of 
 England. 
 
 Following at our heels, with beseech- 
 ing eyes, was the little black Pomeranian 
 "Petz," whose picture has become fa- 
 miliar as a photographic celebrity in the 
 London shops, and who, at Hawarden^ 
 is Mr. Gladstone's constant companion. 
 There was nothing flattering in his greet- 
 ing when we arrived ; he treated us with 
 suspicion, and would not be coaxed into 
 a friendlier attitude until Mr. Gladstone 
 showed us the way to his heart. All we 
 
^6 AT HAWARDEI^ 
 
 had to do to placate him was to throw 
 sticks for him to recover, and we could 
 not throw them high enough or low 
 enough on the steep escarpment of the 
 keep to prevent him from "retrieving^' 
 them. Once we thought we had baffled 
 him, but, disappearing for a few minutes, 
 he returned and dropped at our feet the 
 branch, which had fallen on an appar- 
 ently inaccessible spot. 
 
 The house is not at all "smart" or aes- 
 thetic, but plain and substantial, though, 
 as it should be needless to say, it is full 
 of rare things, — rare prints, rare books, 
 and rare bric-a-brac, — the surroundings 
 of a man who is both a virtuoso and 
 a scholar, without having extravagant 
 tastes of any kind. There are but few 
 pictures, except those in black and 
 white, and photographs. The most in- 
 teresting object among them is a minia- 
 ture in the drawing-room, — the picture 
 of a handsome, dark-locked boy of two 
 and a little girl, whose arm is around 
 
WlTtl MR. GLADSTONE. 2t 
 
 his neck. This was painted over eighty 
 years ago, and the children are Mr. 
 Gladstone and his sister. 
 
 Another child may often now be seen 
 with her arm around his neck, his lit- 
 tle granddaughter. It is of her that a 
 recent visitor to the castle tells a very 
 pretty story : " She can just toddle about 
 from room to room, and she brings a ray 
 of sunlight with her wherever she goes. 
 I never saw a prettier sight than when 
 she just now ran through the open door 
 which divides the drawing-room from 
 the * Grand Old Man's ' sanctuary, and, 
 pulling at the lapels of his dressing- 
 gown, drew him imperiously away from 
 Homer or the Blue Books, or whatever 
 was engaging him. The first intimation 
 we heard in the next room was a peal 
 of laughter on Mr. Gladstone's part at 
 the obvious necessity of capitulating 
 to that daring invasion, as musical and 
 hearty as ever came from human lips, 
 — for his laugh, as you know, is one of 
 
22 AT HA WARDEN 
 
 his greatest attractions. Presently the 
 ' Grand Old Man ' and the little child, 
 separated by more than eighty years of 
 time, come hand in hand together into 
 the drawing-room. Mrs. Gladstone runs 
 to the piano and strikes up a lively waltz 
 tune, and in a second the two partners 
 are dancing together, the * Grand Old 
 Man ' putting into his pirouettes a lot of 
 funny, old-fashioned little steps, learned 
 of our great-grandmothers seventy-five 
 years ago, which it was impossible to 
 view without delight and applause, al- 
 though so much pathos mingled with the 
 comedy in the touching scene.'' 
 
 No impression of Mr. Gladstone's 
 character is so false as that which 
 deprives him of the sense of humor. 
 The passionate and sometimes extreme 
 earnestness of his convictions compels 
 him to resent all trifling in the discus- 
 sion of public questions ; but in private 
 conversation, erudite and even recondite 
 as he can be. he welcomes the turn that 
 
WITH MR. GLADSTONE. 23 
 
 opens the way for a spontaneous laugh. 
 To see him smile with a boyish twinkle 
 in the corner of the eyes, as, perhaps, 
 he pretends to tease Mrs. Gladstone at 
 the luncheon-table, is to see a face 
 which neither the portrait painter nor 
 the caricaturist, neither Millais nor Ten- 
 niel, has ever caught. The nearest 
 approach to it is in the whimsical por- 
 traiture which Harry Furniss used to 
 give us in Fu7ich. 
 
 But the expression changes, of course, 
 with the mood and the occasion. The 
 amused cynicism with which Lord Bea- 
 consfield used to sit and listen to the 
 arguments of his opponents : the con- 
 temptuous smile, the affectation of be- 
 ing bored — nothing of this sort is ever 
 visible in Mr. Gladstone's countenance 
 or attitude. If the debate is of any im- 
 portance at all, he is an eager and re- 
 spectful listener ; if it becomes heated, 
 and he or his party is put under a fire 
 of criticism, his attention is closer still ; 
 
24 AT HAWARDEN 
 
 and every accusation or misrepresenta- 
 tion brings into his face a cloud across 
 which there is a lightning-like play of 
 pain, amazement, incrCvdulity, and out- 
 raged sensibility. A very serious in- 
 dictment can be launched against an 
 enemy in one glance of Mr. Gladstone's 
 eyes, which in moments of excitement 
 glow with a heat that brands. Well I 
 remember the look of injury, just visible 
 behind the high wings of his collar, 
 which he used to fix on the Home Rul- 
 ers who shook imprecating fingers at 
 him across the House of Commons be- 
 fore he espoused their cause ; while his 
 chief secretary, Mr. Forster, with his face 
 half-buried in his ample beard, sat close 
 by quite unmoved, and scornfully indif- 
 ferent to the immoderate attacks. But 
 though not altogether unprovided with 
 the vials of wrath, Mr. Gladstone is 
 never ferocious, never malicious, and 
 never intentionally unfair. His spirit is 
 that of the proselyte, his chief reliance 
 is on persuasion. 
 
WITH MR. GLADSTONE. 2$ 
 
 The library is the room at Hawarden 
 which one regards with most interest. 
 It is very simply furnished, with a couch 
 and a few wicker and leather-covered 
 chairs. The bookcases not only sur- 
 round the walls to within a few inches 
 of the ceiling, leaving no space for pic- 
 tures and barely enough for a few busts, 
 but are built out laterally from the walls 
 into the room, forming alcoves just wide 
 enough to admit one person at a time. 
 There are two desks, one for political 
 matters, and the other for the literary 
 work from which Mr. Gladstone never 
 allows himself to be altogether di- 
 vorced ; and the classification of manu- 
 scripts, letters, and documents which is 
 possible through this method prevents 
 the confusion which would be other- 
 wise inevitable with such a mass of 
 papers. 
 
 The daily mail is enormous : it flows 
 in from all parts of the world and from 
 all classes of society ; from pitmen, 
 
26 AT HA WARDEN 
 
 weavers, and agricultural laborers ; from 
 princes, politicians, and theologians. It 
 brings letters of violent abusiveness and 
 letters of unctuous flattery ; books which 
 the authors would be glad to have Mr. 
 Gladstone review, and presents of many 
 sorts. Not more than one-tenth of it 
 is ever seen by Mr. Gladstone, how- 
 ever. It is sorted by some member of 
 the household, generally by his daugh- 
 ter, who separates the wheat from the 
 chaif. In times of political activity 
 he usually has one or two political 
 secretaries, but at other seasons the 
 only help he has is given by his chil- 
 dren. He never makes use of such 
 labor-saving devices as stenography or 
 the typewriter. His letters and his 
 manuscripts are written from beginning 
 to end, regardless of length, in his own 
 hand. When surprise at this is ex- 
 pressed, he tells us that he is too fixed 
 in his habits to adopt the new methods, 
 and, moreover, that the intervention of 
 
WITH MR. GLADSTONE. 2/ 
 
 such mechanical aids as typewriting al- 
 ways increases the distance between the 
 correspondents. In a recent note to me 
 he complains that his eyes are steadily 
 losing power, adding that " typewriting 
 (so kindly meant) tires them much more 
 than good manuscript, and there grows 
 up an inert unwillingness to touch it.'* 
 But the economical, expeditious post- 
 cards he uses freely for his briefer 
 communications ; and so much does he 
 appreciate their convenient simplicity 
 that when he went into mourning for 
 his brother, he did not discontinue using 
 them, but had a supply printed with a 
 mourning border. 
 
 There is no such flattery as that which 
 our antagonists are compelled to yield in 
 order to justify themselves. 
 
 "Why am I answering these argu- 
 ments?'' said Mr. Balfour in a recent 
 speech. " Because they are the argu- 
 ments of Mr. Gladstone," he repUed, 
 "and Mr. Gladstone's arguments de- 
 
28 AT HAWARDEN. 
 
 mand the attention which I would not 
 give to any other living man." 
 
 That is no small concession from the 
 Conservative camp, which, through the 
 mouth of Lord Randolph Churchill, pro- 
 claimed Mr. Gladstone to be "in some 
 respects, the greatest man in England." 
 
 True it is, that whoever comes under 
 the personal influence of Mr. Gladstone 
 falls under a spell which takes the fang 
 out of all political animosity. His fas- 
 cination derives its power not only from 
 his courage and genius, but also from 
 an irresistible courtliness of manner and 
 kindliness of heart. He stands at the 
 door of the library to shake hands with 
 us, and say good-by before resuming the 
 work of the day, and, apologizing be- 
 cause he has not more time to give us, 
 he says, in the most captivating manner 
 imaginable, *' I am sorry that I have to 
 give grudgingly that which is worth so 
 little." 
 
A Run Ashore at Queenstown. 
 
 QUEENSTOWN is the entrance for 
 many Americans to Europe, — the 
 point of their initiation into scenes read 
 of and mentally pictured, but yet to be 
 tried by the light of personal experience. 
 It is the first page in the book of foreign 
 travel; and it is often the last of the 
 same volume, — a place of meeting and 
 farewell, where the ocean voyage practi- 
 cally begins and ends. Those who have 
 friends bound to Europe look for its 
 name with much anxiety in the tele- 
 graphic columns of their newspapers; 
 and they are relieved by seeing among 
 the marine news the brief paragraph 
 which tells them in formal words like 
 these that the steamer for which they 
 29 
 
30 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 have been waiting has reached her des- 
 tination : — 
 
 " QuEENSTOWN, Friday, The steamer Cam- 
 pania arrived here this morning, and, having 
 landed all mails and some passengers, proceeded 
 for Liverpool immediately." 
 
 On board the ship herself this famous 
 port of call is also the subject of much 
 speculation, and the probabilities as to 
 when it will be reached occupy no small 
 part of the abundant leisure of the voy- 
 age. A miniature chart of the North 
 Atlantic on a scale so diminished that 
 a pen-line of an inch indicates three or 
 four hundred miles is hung in the com- 
 panionway, and from day to day the 
 vessel's course and position are marked 
 upon it. It is taken away from its place 
 into the chief officer's room for a few 
 minutes at noon, and when it is replaced 
 a crowd of passengers surround the lit- 
 tle frame in which it is hung, and are 
 grateful for the pledge which the ex- 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 3 1 
 
 tremity of the ink line, with its note of 
 latitude and longitude, gives that they 
 are somewhere and not nowhere, as 
 the similarity of the view day after day 
 would lead them to think. The line has 
 its beginning at Sandy Hook ; thence 
 (at certain seasons) it is drawn due east 
 about an inch, and from this point it 
 works in a curve, inclining to the south 
 as it approaches the irregular shape of 
 the Irish coast near Cape Clear. 
 
 It is when the line is within an inch 
 or two of Cape Clear that Queenstown 
 becomes a more engrossing topic than 
 ever; and not the day, but the hour, of 
 arrival is now spoken of with a confi- 
 dence which has dismissed any fears or 
 doubts there may have been at the out- 
 set of the voyage. The novels and 
 games which have engaged the passen- 
 gers previously are abandoned. The 
 saloon tables are littered with station- 
 ery, and the general occupation is epis- 
 tolary. No one is unexcited by the 
 
32 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 prospect save a few used-up travellers 
 who are too familiar with Queenstown to 
 care in the least about it; but to most 
 of those on board the place means many 
 things : it is land again, and brings them 
 once more in communication with home ; 
 it opens new scenes and awakens new 
 emotions, and through it old associa- 
 tions are renewed and new relations es- 
 tablished. 
 
 The land is perhaps sighted in the 
 early morning, a gray upheaval scarcely 
 distinguishable among the moist and bil- 
 lowy clouds which hang on the faint hor- 
 izon. Though sometimes pale and cold, 
 the sunrises on this southern coast are 
 often full of wild and unusual color. The 
 water holds on its surface deep greens, 
 warm browns, and a purple over which 
 a translucent white seems to have been 
 washed. At first the gray masses of 
 cloud conceal the sky, but as they break 
 and unfold they reveal gleams of opals 
 on the sea. Long before the solid 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 33 
 
 cliffs are visible the vapor shapes it- 
 self into a phantasmal coast, which 
 seems more real to the inexperienced 
 eye than the land when it appears ; 
 and if you stood upon the bridge of 
 the steamer on one of these white 
 mornings you would likely not recog- 
 nize the hills of Kerry when they 
 first disclosed themselves in the indis- 
 tinct distance to the sharp eyes of the 
 watch. 
 
 From the lofty bridge the whole length 
 of the ship is visible ; and at four in the 
 morning, though land is so near, the 
 long decks have not one passenger upon 
 them. The hills of the mountainous 
 country in which Ireland ends have ex- 
 tricated themselves from the clouds, and 
 instead of gray they appear softly blue 
 before the sleepers are stirring. By 
 seven o'clock many of the ports are 
 thrown open, and many eyes are look- 
 ing out of the small circular apertures in 
 the vessel's side to see the expected land. 
 
34 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 Then, until Queenstown is reached, 
 there is more animation than at any 
 other time during the voyage. Flags 
 are flying from each mast and astern ; 
 the decks are holystoned to a creamy 
 whiteness; the officers wear their best 
 uniforms, with the newest of gold lace ; 
 and the passengers have discarded the 
 loose and neglige costumes of the voyage 
 for the more precise and elegant attire 
 of the shore. The transformations in 
 dress are so complete that one's most 
 intimate acquaintances are not imme- 
 diately recognizable. The soft tweed 
 hat and helmet and the loose, copious 
 ulsters are packed up somewhere in the 
 rolls of shawls and rugs which the stew- 
 ards are bringing up from the cabins, and 
 those who have worn them have adopted 
 closer-fitting garments and the uncom- 
 fortable " stove-pipes " of civilization. 
 
 But what is the land like at which 
 most of the passengers are looking with 
 wistful eyes and many surmises 1 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 35 
 
 One of the first points sighted is 
 Crookhaven, a telegraph station from 
 which the arrival of the ship is tele- 
 graphed over both continents ; and a few 
 miles east of this is the island of Cape 
 Clear and the rock of Fastnet, on which 
 one of the most useful lights is pillared. 
 The distance from Fastnet to Queens- 
 town is about seventy-five miles, and be- 
 tween them the coast is broken by many 
 bays and perilous headlands which jut 
 out from the cliifs. The cliffs are lofty 
 and savage ; and in contrast with their 
 brown escarpment the sea fringes their 
 bases with a long line of white surf, 
 which is high enough to be visible many 
 miles away when the Atlantic is calm- 
 est, and which, when a gale is blowing, 
 is uplifted half-way to their tops. The 
 land above the cliffs is drowsy and va- 
 cant, a moist green in color, sad in its 
 effect, with few other signs of life upon 
 it than the dots of white where a small 
 village lies under the pale blue streak 
 
36 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 of its own smoke, and the tower and 
 enclosing walls of a lighthouse. The 
 white of the cottages and the light- 
 house looks the whiter from the dark- 
 ness of the rocks, and the cloudiness 
 which shuts out the sun, or admits it in 
 misty beams. The feeling inspired is 
 one of desolation. An uncompanion- 
 able maiden or youth may yield to this, 
 and sigh responsively to this piteous- 
 looking land ; but most of the pas- 
 sengers find too much to do to let the 
 scene absorb them. 
 
 There are good-bys to be said by 
 those who are going on to Liverpool to 
 those who are going ashore at Queens- 
 town, and telegrams and letters to be 
 written for despatch at the port of call ; 
 the purser has to be consulted on the 
 times of trains, the selection of routes 
 and hotels, and on an encyclopaedic va- 
 riety of questions with which that use- 
 ful officer is expected to be acquainted. 
 Three or four hours after passing Fast- 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 3/ 
 
 net the steamer is abreast of a bolder 
 promontory than any ; it is the Old 
 Head of Kinsale, and in the distance, 
 over the port bow, another promontory 
 is seen. This is Roche's Point, at the 
 entrance to Queenstown Harbor; and 
 standing off it is the tender which is to 
 take ashore the mails, and the passen- 
 gers who are not going on to Liverpool. 
 When we are within half a mile of 
 her our engines are slowed, and then 
 stopped, to allow her to come along- 
 side. There is a hush and a straining 
 of sight among the passengers as she 
 approaches. A few of them expect 
 friends to meet them ; all of them are 
 deeply interested. She breaks the spell 
 of the voyage, and reopens communica- 
 tion with the larger world, and undoes 
 the little social knot which the isolation 
 of the voyage has tied. The firmness 
 and greenness of the land are not more 
 welcome than the new and unfamiliar 
 faces, except to the bridal pair who 
 
38 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 have been living on the Eden isle of 
 their all-absorbing passion, and propose 
 to take that unreal estate on shore with 
 the rest of their baggage. Except to 
 them there is a sense of release, and 
 we at once begin to feel a greater ful- 
 ness of space than the immensity of 
 mid-ocean has ever impressed upon us. 
 The spell is indeed broken, and the 
 knot untied. Scarcely is the gang-plank 
 out when a vender of newspapers is 
 distributing the New York Herald and 
 the London Times, There is a flutter 
 of excitement over a weather-stained 
 leather despatch-bag which a man from 
 the shore delivers to the purser. That 
 gentleman is uncivilly mobbed by the 
 passengers in their anxiety to get at 
 the contents. The little circular plate 
 to the lock focuses their attention ; and 
 for a moment, while the key is in- 
 serted, every face is fixed in suspense. 
 A bundle of letters and telegrams is 
 brought out and distributed ; then the 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 39 
 
 mob disperses to read in quiet corners 
 what it has received, while the few disap- 
 pointed ones who have received nothing 
 mournfully try to interest themselves in 
 what is going on upon the deck. In 
 the meantime the mails have been put 
 on board the tender, and the passengers 
 are warned by bells and whistles to fol- 
 low them. This is speedily done ; and 
 the great ship, which looks nobler at 
 the end of the voyage than when she 
 started, is hailed with cheers, which are 
 answered with three hoarse blasts from 
 her fog-horn. She bears off to the 
 north-east, and the tender makes for 
 Roche's Point, within the shelter of 
 which she soon is. 
 
 Queenstown Harbor is not unlike that 
 of New York. As the Narrows protect 
 the latter, Roche's Point and its oppo- 
 site headland are so close together that 
 they shut out the storms from the for- 
 mer, and keep the water within it smooth 
 when that outside is raging. The circu- 
 
40 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 lar bay, with its islands and hilly shores, 
 is also a duplicate of what may be seen 
 in the neighborhood of Staten Island. 
 At the mouth the land is craggy, and 
 the heights are fortified, but farther in 
 the foliage is profuse. There is anchor- 
 age for thousands of ships, and a suffi- 
 cient depth of water to admit the largest 
 at all states of the tide. 
 
 At the head of the bay, in an almost 
 straight line from the Point, is the town, 
 built in terraces, one above the other, 
 on a wooded and heathery bluff. The 
 houses are nearly all white, and square 
 and uniform in feature. Their color 
 and the frequent green which surrounds 
 them give them a tropical aspect, espe- 
 cially, as is not often the case, when the 
 sun lights them up, and distils all sorts 
 of rainbow tints from the atmosphere, 
 which is usually aqueous, and gray 
 and dispiriting. On a clear and placid 
 summer day Queenstown Harbor is as 
 beautiful as anything that can be ima- 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 4 1 
 
 gined. The foliage has a soft, vaporous 
 depth; and the water is a still pool 
 of emerald, shotted with amethystine 
 gleams. Every object is refined and 
 idealized, every color harmonized. The 
 substantial things themselves seem as 
 beautifully phantasmal as their reflec- 
 tions. 
 
 At the foot of the cliff and along the 
 quays is a street of shops and taverns, 
 most of them aiming for patronage at 
 tourists, emigrants, and seamen. The 
 higher terraces are principally dwellings ; 
 and the higher they are, the better is 
 the class to which they belong. 
 
 Though the interests of Queenstown 
 are not much varied, and social compli- 
 cations are scarcely to be expected from 
 them, the lines of caste and rank are 
 drawn with English precision. Like 
 Falmouth, which is similarly situated on 
 the southern coast of England, Queens- 
 town is made for by many ships con- 
 signed to order, or, in other words, sent 
 here that the choice of a port of delivery 
 
42 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 may be governed by the condition of the 
 market, and by other ships in ballast 
 from abroad, which can be ordered from 
 here to that point where the most favor- 
 able terms for carrying a cargo are pro- 
 curable. 
 
 The captain, whose vessel is lying in 
 the harbor waiting orders, is one of the 
 familiar figures of Queenstown, — a com- 
 fortable person, with a complexion of 
 copper bronze and a marked steadiness 
 of eye, and a simplicity and brevity of 
 manner. One degree above him is the 
 ship agent, who also is a comfortable 
 person, with a villa on the heathery bluif , 
 set in its own grounds, and commanding 
 a view of the mirror-like bay, — a cosey 
 habitation, full of the spoils of travel, 
 in which he gives little dinners cele-^ 
 brated by libations as deep as they were 
 in country houses twenty years ago. 
 
 This is the great ship agent, whose 
 
 " argosies with portly sail, 
 Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood, 
 
 Do overpeer the petty traffickers." 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 43 
 
 The agent of "the petty traffickers *' 
 also has a house somewhere on the hill, 
 and a little office, filled with charts and 
 maps and pictures of ships, in the street 
 by the water-side. 
 
 Another social element is derived from 
 the officers of the garrison and the offi- 
 cers of the Board of Trade, whose duty 
 lies with the outgoing ships ; and the 
 salubrity of its climate brings a small 
 number of invalid visitors to Queens- 
 town, especially consumptives and suf- 
 ferers from nervous debility. 
 
 The dominant person in this little 
 society is the admiral of the port ; and 
 not to know him is to be unknown, at 
 least in fashionable eyes. An obsolete 
 old war-ship is moored in the harbor; 
 and though it is nominally a guard-ship, 
 its principal use is as a vessel on which 
 the admiral can fly his flag. Practically 
 he might fly his flag with no less effec- 
 tiveness from any pole on land, but 
 that would be an infringement of naval 
 
44 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 usages ; and the harmless old frigate is 
 maintained, with a crew of two hundred 
 or more men, to fulfil a tradition. Be- 
 sides flying his flag, the admiral has one 
 or two other duties to perform. Now 
 and then one of the enormous armored 
 ships calls at Queenstown, or a great 
 white transport comes into the harbor 
 to carry troops away from this inactive 
 little station to the Cape or India ; and 
 as soon as she is moored a ladder is 
 lowered down her side, and the captain 
 in full uniform enters a boat which bears 
 him away to the admiral to report, and 
 the admiral receives him with gratifying 
 blandness. 
 
 The functions of the admiral are al- 
 most entirely ornamental ; and around 
 him clusters an acquiescent little court, 
 with many naval and military courtiers. 
 
 A few yachtsmen, w^hose birdlike ves- 
 sels add to the beauty of the harbor, 
 are also present in the summer season ; 
 and sometimes there is the special cor- 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 45 
 
 respondent of an important newspaper 
 waiting to beguile some distinguished 
 traveller by sea into an "interview." 
 
 These dissimilar elements find a point 
 of contact in the club, which adheres to 
 many of the rules under which it was 
 formed in 1720, and is the oldest of all 
 yacht clubs. A writer in 1748 thus de- 
 scribes one of its customs to the Ad- 
 miralty : " I shall now acquaint your 
 Lordships with a ceremony they have 
 at Cork. It is somewhat like that of 
 the Doge of Venice's wedding the Sea. 
 A set of worthy Gentlemen who have 
 formed themselves into a body, which 
 they call the Water Club, proceed a 
 few leagues out to Sea, once a year, in 
 a Number of little Vessels which for 
 painting and gilding exceed the King's 
 Yacht at Greenwich and Deptford. Their 
 Admiral, who is annually elected, and 
 hoists his Flag on board his little Vessel, 
 leads the Van, and receives the honours 
 of the Flag. The rest of the fleet fall 
 
46 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 in their proper stations, and keep their 
 line in the same manner as the King's 
 Ships. This Fleet is attended with a 
 prodigious Number of Boats, which with 
 their colours flying. Drums beating, and 
 Trumpets sounding, forms one of the 
 most agreeable and splendid Sights your 
 Lordships can conceive." 
 
 Some of the rules of the club are very 
 odd. They direct, among other things, 
 that ** no admiral do bring more than 
 two Dishes of Meat for the Entertain- 
 ment of the Club ; " that " no admiral 
 do presume to bring more than two 
 Dozen of Wine to his Treat, for it has 
 always been deemed a Breach of the 
 ancient Rules and Constitutions of the 
 Club, except when my Lords the Judges 
 are invited ; " that " no captain do bring 
 any stranger to the Club, unless they 
 should lie at the Captain's House the 
 Night before : this order not to extend 
 to the admiral, who has a right to invite 
 whom he pleases ; " and that " no long 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 47 
 
 tail Wigs, large Sleeves, or Ruffles be 
 worn by any Member at the Club/' 
 
 Though the club is less restrictive 
 now, and is a very pleasant little house 
 of entertainment, it is not enough to be- 
 guile all the spare time which the men 
 have; and one hears many complaints 
 of ennui among those who are fixtures. 
 Queenstown is dull, and to an active 
 temperament the torpor of its ways soon 
 becomes execrable. The passengers of 
 the ocean steamers ripple the surface 
 for a few hours, but the moment they 
 are gone the place relapses into its 
 usual and oppressive quietude. 
 
 As soon as an American steamer is 
 telegraphed, it is known among the 
 thatched cottages on the hillside 
 through some rapid but mysterious 
 agency; and long before the tender 
 comes in from Roche's Point a voluble 
 and excited rabble of hawkers, beggars, 
 and carmen gathers on the quays. 
 When the passenger lands he is con- 
 
48 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 fused by the chorus of importunities to 
 buy and to give. Each carman pre- 
 tends to believe that he has been espe- 
 cially selected, and waves his whip and 
 arms frantically at the supposititious 
 hirer : *' Very well, yer haner ; this kyer, 
 yer haner ; I'm waiting for yer haner " 
 — though the person addressed has not 
 signified any intention of riding. Un- 
 less he mounts one of the shabby jaunt- 
 ing-cars, however, he will not find it 
 easy to extricate himself from the belea- 
 guering mendicants, who surround him 
 and follow him with propitiatory bless- 
 ings, which are showered upon him with 
 rapid and indistinct reiteration. There 
 are old women with long black cloaks 
 falling from the shoulders to the feet, 
 and square caps which envelop the 
 whole of the back and crown of the 
 head, surrounding the face with a clean 
 white frill, who have grapes and other 
 fruit to sell at five times their value. 
 There are hawkers of lace, shillalahs. 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 49 
 
 bog-oak, pictures, and sprigs of the 
 shamrock, — everything at unscrupulous 
 prices. There is an unblushing fluency 
 of lying, flattery, and humbug ; and when 
 the crowd is evaded without purchases 
 the blessings are quickly turned into 
 muttered curses. The Englishmen who 
 have to run this blockade scowl at the 
 nuisance, and do not disguise their an- 
 noyance with it ; but the Americans 
 treat it as capital fun, and buy and give 
 with a reckless liberality which has 
 made some of the peddlers rich, and 
 begging a lucrative profession. 
 
 From what one sees of the Irish peas- 
 ant at Queenstown, and in the tourist 
 resorts of Ireland, one is not drawn to 
 him ; and in the days of the Home Rule 
 agitation one might, at a dinner-table in 
 a house on one of the highest terraces, 
 have heard some strange stories of him. 
 
 There was a magistrate who shall be 
 called Major Parry. Parry was a harsh 
 and implacable man ; but he succeeded 
 
so A RUN ASHORE 
 
 in suppressing crime where, if he had 
 been more merciful, less relentless, he 
 would have been impotent. 
 
 Threatening letters without number 
 reached him, of course ; and once, when 
 he had arrested several persons for the 
 murder of a boy, he received one of 
 these missives, which he read to a rela- 
 tive who was seated near him. 
 
 " What do you mean to do ? '' inquired 
 his friend. 
 
 " Discover the writer, if I can. Sure, 
 he is a fooHsh fellow. Don't I know 
 that there are plenty of persons who 
 have vowed to destroy me ? But they 
 won't do it by letters like this." 
 
 On the third evening the major was 
 walking home in the dark to his cottage, 
 when a young girl, apparently about 
 sixteen^ stepped in front of him, and 
 besought "the gentleman to come and 
 see her grandfather, who was dying." 
 
 " I'm not a doctor," said he ; but she 
 still urged him, in the most piteous 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 5 I 
 
 tones, and, being in an amiable mood, 
 he yielded. 
 
 The girl set off in front of him across 
 some fields, — it was a lonely place out- 
 side Limerick, — and he was surprised 
 to see the agility with which she leaped 
 across the ditches. One was much wider 
 than the rest, and difficult even for him ; 
 and as she cleared it, he could see by 
 the starlight that she wore a pair of 
 heavy brogans, never made for female 
 feet. 
 
 Without saying a word, he quickened 
 his pace until he overtook her, when he 
 plucked off the long cloak which had 
 completely enfolded her, and beheld 
 that "she" was a boy. At the same 
 moment he presented at the boy's head 
 a roll of music which he had been carry- 
 ing home ; and, as he intended, the terri- 
 fied fellow mistook it for a pistol. 
 
 "Silence,'' cried the major, "or this 
 moment is your last ! Who sent you out 
 to lead me here ? '' 
 
52 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 *' Oh, mercy, mercy, Major ! The two 
 Fitzgeralds. ' ' 
 
 " And where are they ? " 
 
 " Just beyond in the burying-ground.'' 
 
 " Now hold your tongue, and walk 
 into Limerick before me. If you tell 
 the strict truth, I will not hurt a hair of 
 your head; but if you attempt to give 
 an alarm, or to deceive me, in another 
 minute you'll be as dead as Julius 
 Caesar, '^ and the major again flourished 
 the harmless music-roll. 
 
 When they reached the town, a party 
 of policeman was quickly sent to entrap 
 the would-be murderers, who had hoped 
 to catch the major in the secluded spot 
 where they had concealed themselves; 
 and in half an hour they were manacled 
 in his presence. 
 
 On another occasion the major was 
 walking up and down the old pig market 
 at Limerick with a relative, when he 
 suddenly turned upon a tall, fine-looking 
 young man who was loitering in their 
 vicinity. 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 53 
 
 " Pat Connolly, why don't you kill 
 me?" 
 
 It was an extraordinary question, and 
 the young man winced at it. 
 
 " Is it me^ yer honor ? Is it me that 
 would injure yer honor? Faix, then, I 
 don't understand you ! " 
 
 " Don't you ? Didn't you swear at 
 the cabin near St. Patrick's well last 
 Tuesday night to shoot me this very 
 day as I passed through the pig market ? 
 Now, my fine fellow, why don't you do 
 it?" 
 
 "Oh, thin, save your honor's glory, 
 they've been telling you a lie ! Is it me 
 that would do it ? Wasn't it only last 
 winter that you gave the wife a sack 
 of potatoes ? " 
 
 " You had perhaps forgotten that 
 when you came here this morning to 
 destroy me." 
 
 " Oh, thin, yer honor must be jokin' ! " 
 
 " Am I ? " 
 
 "Sure, I'll swear ^' — 
 
54 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 As he was raising his hand the major 
 knocked it down with a riding-whip, and 
 stepping up to him drew from his waist- 
 coat pocket an old pistol loaded up to 
 the muzzle. 
 
 The man fell on his knees and began 
 whining. 
 
 " Come, clear out of this, you cow- 
 ard ! " cried the major. " I shall have 
 my eye on you ; and when you return 
 home to-night you may tell Tim Ryan 
 that if he attempts to fire into my win- 
 dows as he has threatened to do, he 
 shall be hanged as sure as my name is 
 Parry!" 
 
 The amazing knowledge the major 
 possessed of their secret deliberations 
 and doings — knowledge gathered by 
 agents who seemed omniscient and in- 
 visible — made him as much feared by 
 the peasants as he was hated. His 
 numerous escapes gave rise to a belief 
 that he had a charmed life, and there is 
 a superstition in Ireland that a charmed 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 55 
 
 life can only be terminated by silver 
 bullets. Two of these were actually cast 
 for him; but hearing of them through 
 some mysterious channel, the major cap- 
 tured them as easily as he captured the 
 pistol in the pig market. 
 
 Among the major's lieutenants was 
 a man who was called " the jockey '' for 
 a very remarkable reason. He, with 
 some other constables, was once sent to 
 guard the house of a respectable farmer 
 who had been warned that on a certain 
 night a band of notorious thieves would 
 attack it, and destroy him and his family. 
 
 The constables reached the house by 
 different routes and at different times, 
 and then waited within for the threat- 
 ened raid. Midnight was near before a 
 knock was heard at the door, which " the 
 jockey'^ himself answered ; and when he 
 asked, '^ Who's there ? " the reply came, 
 " Sure, Mr. Moriarty, 'tis I, Paddy 
 Lynch. My wife is taken suddintly ill, 
 and I want a drop of brandy for her." 
 
56 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 Moriarty was the name of the farmer. 
 
 Imitating the voice of one of the ser- 
 vants, "the jockey '' said, "The master 
 has gone to bed, and I never open the 
 door after dark unless he orders it." 
 
 " Sure, you wouldn't let a poor crea- 
 ture die for the want of a single drop ? 
 Isn't it your ould friend Paddy Lynch 
 that's asking you, and no other ? " 
 
 " The jockey " now fastened the door 
 by the chain, and opened it so that he 
 could peer forth, when the man outside 
 made a rush for it. Slamming it to be- 
 fore he could reach it, " the jockey " said, 
 " You're not Paddy Lynch, nor any other 
 honest man ! " 
 
 The robber uttered a cry of rage, and 
 discharged his gun, calling on his fel- 
 lows who were in ambush to aid in the 
 attack, which now began in earnest, the 
 first shot being followed by a volley. 
 
 Peeping through the shutters, "the 
 jockey " could see a large number of 
 men, all disguised and all armed, and 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 5/ 
 
 he ordered the constables to fire into 
 them. A cry of fear and surprise arose 
 from them ; and they at once retreated 
 into the bushes, dragging five or six of 
 their wounded with them. But after a 
 moment's deliberation they reappeared, 
 and it was evident that they had decided 
 to make a mighty effort to force their 
 way into the house. 
 
 In another moment they had burst 
 open the door, and a terrific hand-to- 
 hand fight began between them and 
 "the jockey" and his followers. The 
 house was quite dark, and at first the 
 constables were afraid to use their rifles 
 lest they might injure their own com- 
 rades. 
 
 Presently, however, a servant came to 
 the door with a lantern, and the police 
 were then able to benefit by the superi- 
 ority of their weapons ; for the other 
 side had few pistols or rifles, their arms 
 being chiefly old swords, bludgeons, and 
 iron picks. The uniforms of the police, 
 
58 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 whose presence had not been suspec- 
 ted, also had an effect ; and, after an- 
 other struggle, the raiders made for the 
 door. 
 
 In the heat of the moment " the 
 jockey " followed them, unperceived by 
 his comrades ; and when he found him- 
 self alone among them and unsupported, 
 the door had been closed again by those 
 within. 
 
 Luckily the raiders, in the confusion 
 and darkness, took him for one of them- 
 selves ; and, waiting for an opportunity, 
 he dropped down, and lay silently in the 
 shadow of a tree. 
 
 He had not been there more than a 
 few seconds when he saw the chief of 
 the gang crawling toward him, and he 
 thought that his time had come ; for 
 while he was an unusually small man, 
 the robber, the one who had imperson- 
 ated Paddy Lynch at the door, was 
 a muscular giant. The shadow still 
 concealed him, however, and he was 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. $g 
 
 relieved to see the massive figure pass 
 on. 
 
 This was for a moment. Then quite 
 another feeling took possession of him. 
 Here he was, an officer of the law, noted 
 for sagacity and courage, and there was 
 one of the most desperate criminals of 
 Munster creeping away under his very 
 nose. This was unbearable ; and shak- 
 ing off his fears he resolved to attempt 
 a capture, even at the peril of his own 
 life. 
 
 The false Paddy Lynch had gone only 
 a few yards ; and stealthily following 
 him, like an Indian on a trail, "the 
 jockey " took him by complete surprise, 
 leaped upon his shoulders, and clung 
 there like the Old Man of the Sea on 
 Sindbad the Sailor. 
 
 Fastening his fingers like a vice upon 
 the wretch's throat and strangling every 
 sound, "the jockey" thus held him un- 
 til he sank to the ground as though dead, 
 when a relief party came from the house, 
 
6o A RUN ASHORE 
 
 and found the valiant little officer still 
 astride of his captive. He had not fired 
 his pistol, fearing that this would bring 
 the other robbers back upon him, and 
 it was by the peculiar means he had 
 taken to effect the capture that he 
 earned his sobriquet. 
 
 These reminiscences are of times now 
 several years past, but they are typical 
 of certain phases of Irish character. 
 Both Major Parry and *' the jockey" 
 were themselves Irishmen, and both 
 were successful to an uncommon degree 
 in putting down Irish crime. This, per- 
 haps, may be taken as another argument 
 in favor of "Home Rule." 
 
 What is seen during the run ashore 
 at Queenstown depends on the time 
 which the passengers have. Formerly 
 the westward-bound steamers were in 
 the harbor long enough, waiting for the 
 mails, to enable the passengers to go up 
 the river to Cork, and kiss the Blarney 
 Stone ; but now this can be done only 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 6 1 
 
 by those who arrive from New York, 
 and leave the steamer finally at the port 
 of call. 
 
 The "sweetness" of Cork has been 
 sung by one of its wittiest sons in 
 easily remembered lines, but its beauty 
 was surely in the glamour cast upon it 
 by his own fondness. The stranger 
 wanders its streets and quays in vain 
 to find a confirmation of Father Front's 
 musical verses. What he sees is a city 
 of small size, which reminds him some- 
 how of inky-sleeved and dissolute Cap- 
 tain Shandon penning the prospectus 
 of the Pall Mall Gazette in the Fleet 
 Prison. Dr. Maginn, the original of 
 that famous picture of Thackeray's, was 
 a native of Cork, as was Francis Ma- 
 hony, the gifted humorist who has sent 
 the music of the Shandon Bells all round 
 the world. 
 
 Cork, as the second city of southern 
 Ireland, is of no little commercial impor- 
 tance ; and, though its streets are untidy 
 
62 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 and its architecture is uninteresting, the 
 scenery above it and below it is exceed- 
 ingly beautiful. From the wide and 
 deep harbor of Queenstown the Lee 
 winds up to it in an almost straight 
 course, between verdant hills, with many 
 comfortable villages and luxurious resi- 
 dences upon them, and several quiet 
 little watering-places along the grassy 
 shore. The distance is eleven miles, 
 and the channel has a depth of ten feet 
 at low water. Above Cork the river 
 greatly resembles the Thames in the 
 neighborhood of Henley. It flows pla- 
 cidly through fragrant meadows, with 
 willows drooping over it, and here and 
 there almost embowering it. The banks 
 here are low and firm, and the hills are 
 distant, so that long reaches of the 
 stream are open to view. The scene has 
 the highly cultivated character of the 
 best of English landscape. 
 
 This is the way to Blarney, which is 
 five miles from Cork; and there is the 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 63 
 
 Stone of talismanic eloquence, one of 
 the greatest of the many humbugs in 
 Ireland. Blarney itself is a thriving 
 manufacturing village which produces 
 excellent cloth ; and the castle is a pic- 
 turesque ruin, once the stronghold of 
 the Earls of Clancarty. The origin of 
 the magic power ascribed to the stone is 
 not known; but whoever kisses it ac- 
 quires, in the language of one version 
 of the legend, ** the gift of gentle, insin- 
 uating speech, with soft talk in all its 
 ramifications, whether employed in vows 
 light as air, such as lead captive the 
 female heart, or elaborate mystifications 
 of a grosser grain, such as may do for 
 the House of Commons." 
 
 This magniloquence is of a piece with 
 the description Father Prout gave Sir 
 Walter Scott, who made a pilgrimage to 
 Blarney in 1825. "You behold. Sir Wal- 
 ter, the most valuable remnant of Ire- 
 land's ancient glory, the most precious 
 lot of her Phoenician inheritance. Pos- 
 
64 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 sessed of this treasure, she may well be 
 designated 
 
 ' First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea ; ' 
 
 for neither the musical stone of Memnon 
 that so * sweetly played in tune/ nor the 
 oracular stone of Delphi, nor the lapi- 
 dary talisman of the Lydian Gyges, 
 nor the colossal granite shaped into a 
 Sphinx in Upper Egypt, nor Stonehenge, 
 nor the Pelasgic walls of Palestrina, offer 
 so many attractions. The long-sought 
 lapis p kilos op horu7n^ compared with this 
 jewel, dwindles into insignificance ; nay, 
 the savory fragment which was substi- 
 tuted for the infant Jupiter when Saturn 
 had the mania for devouring his chil- 
 dren ; the Luxor obelisk ; the treaty 
 stone of Limerick, with all its historic 
 endearments ; the zodiacal monument of 
 Denderah, with all its astronomic impor- 
 tance ; the Elgin marbles, with all their 
 sculptured, the Arundelian, with all their 
 lettered, riches — cannot for a moment 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 6$ 
 
 Stand in competition with the Blarney 
 block. What stone in the world save 
 this alone can communicate to the tongue 
 that suavity of speech and that splendid 
 effrontery so necessary to get through 
 life?" 
 
 The authentic stone can only be 
 reached by a perilous suspension from 
 the top of the castle tower; but the 
 more sensible visitors satisfy any ambi- 
 tion they may have to add unconscion- 
 able garrulity to their other vices by 
 touching a less horrifying part of the 
 masonry with their lips. After the os- 
 culation a rapid journey must be made 
 to the harbor. The mails will be on 
 board the tender, and the beggars and 
 peddlers crying for patronage with in- 
 creasing urgency. An hour later 
 Queenstown will be behind, and from 
 the quiet headlands the long black 
 shape of the westward bound steamer 
 emitting an endless chain of smoke will 
 be seen silently gliding into the sunset. 
 
66 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 The greatest pleasure of the run 
 ashore is, however, when the passenger 
 lands from an inward-bound steamer, 
 and has time to visit Glengariff and Kil- 
 larney. There are some disadvantages 
 connected with this excursion. The 
 rain is as wearily persistent as the sun- 
 shine is infrequent. The mountains are 
 nearly always in a gray retirement. 
 The rains and mists are not so objec- 
 tionable, however, that the splendor of 
 scenery will not atone for them. What 
 detracts from the tour most is the miser- 
 able comprehensiveness of the beggars, 
 who from end to end of the journey fol- 
 low the visitor with dogged persever- 
 ance, and chase him for miles and miles, 
 — barefooted women, shock-headed chil- 
 dren, and even able-bodied men whose 
 appearance is far from that of destitu- 
 tion. He can never be alone, never for 
 a moment left to the quiet enjoyment of 
 what he has come to see. Every cot- 
 tage on the way sends out after him a 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 6/ 
 
 rosy-faced and well-fed crowd of beg- 
 gars, who will not take the most abso- 
 lute refusal nor the most savage rebuke, 
 and who keep at his heels until another 
 cottage is reached, when they give up 
 the chase to the emissaries of that, who 
 continue it until they reach their limit, 
 where they leave their next neighbor to 
 sustain the agony. There is a deliber- 
 ate intention to weary him into surren- 
 der, and surrender increases rather than 
 diminishes the plague. Killarney can 
 only be half enjoyed under these cir- 
 cumstances ; but it is so lovely that 
 the pleasure which can be derived from 
 it is great, despite the many annoy- 
 ances. 
 
 All natural beauties are embraced in 
 this region ; not one form, but all forms, 
 — mountains and lakes, gaunt hills and 
 delightful valleys, the amplest fertility 
 and the most unconquerable barrenness, 
 the bleakest uplands, and glens and 
 lanes in which everything is green. 
 
68 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 History, tradition, and poetry increase 
 the charm which Nature herself pos- 
 sesses. Scarcely a spot is unstoried ; 
 scarcely a spot unsung, or unclaimed by 
 fable. 
 
 There are two ways of approaching 
 the lakes, and that which includes Glen- 
 gariff is the better. The train leaves 
 the traveller at Bantry, a little town on a 
 magnificent bay which sweeps in from 
 the Atlantic between jutting and rocky 
 shores, and carries its brine in a deep 
 flood at least seven miles inland. Ban- 
 try is the terminus of the railway ; and 
 thence the way is by car along the 
 edge of the bay, which is now on a 
 level with the road, and then far down 
 at the foot of the bowlder-strewn 
 slopes. 
 
 At the head of the bay, under the 
 shadow of clustered mountains, is Glen- 
 gariif. When it is discovered from 
 a height, the scene is one of sterile 
 and tawny-colored splendor. The water 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 69 
 
 spreading out to its gates is encircled 
 by savage mountains ; the rocks are 
 bare and brown ; the sky is cold. There 
 is no promise of the fragrance and juicy 
 verdure, the melting mood in which na- 
 ture is found at a lower elevation ; and 
 as from the top of the hill we go down 
 into an ever-increasing luxuriance of 
 green of varying shades, from the solemn 
 dark of the fir to the transparence and 
 luminousness of banks of ferns, winding 
 into tunnels of foliage, mixed with which 
 is the blazing berry of the mountain 
 ash, and the fire-drops of the fuchsia, it 
 seems like penetrating the outer brusque- 
 ness of one who at heart is full of gen- 
 tleness. The cordiality of nature is 
 expressed in elastic turf, springing softly 
 under the pressure of the foot, in the 
 moist exuberance of the verdure, in the 
 sound of many rills which gush out from 
 and between the rocks, in the strength 
 and brilliance of scores of flowers, and 
 in the languishing mildness of the air. 
 
70 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 The very hedges, as dense and as trim 
 as the hawthorn of English fields, are 
 compact masses of blossom ; and the 
 vines clamber up above the window-sills 
 to the roofs, enmeshing every stone in 
 their tenacious threads. The moun- 
 tains that from above look shaggy and 
 awful are quieting in their influence 
 down here ; and the salt-water bay, with 
 its woody islands, is like a calm inland 
 lake. One or two houses and two ho- 
 tels of uncommon excellence are built 
 in this happy spot, and the climate is 
 so genial that they are occupied all the 
 year round. 
 
 Winding away from Glengariff again, 
 of which Thackeray, Macaulay, Froude, 
 Lever, and many more writers have sung 
 the praises, — their testimony being hung 
 in a printed form on the walls of all the 
 bedrooms, — the fertility is succeeded, 
 as the mountains are ascended, by wild, 
 stony pastures, deserted farms, sad moor- 
 lands, and craggy ridges ; and for nearly 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. /I 
 
 forty miles these are the characteristics 
 of the scenery. Great long rocky valleys 
 are revealed, shut in by lofty mountains, 
 and entered by dark and forbidding 
 ravines ; and the predominant color is a 
 russet brown, or, in the farthest distance, 
 a stormy blue. In one of these valleys, 
 looking small, bleak, and wild, the three 
 lakes of Killarney are at first seen from 
 the summit of the Kenmare Road, a 
 distance at which all their less austere 
 beauties are hidden ; but, as in ap- 
 proaching Glengariff, the way descends 
 from sterile uplands into a maze of fo- 
 liage, and overhead and at both sides 
 crops up the luscious green entangle- 
 ment. The drive down from the police 
 barracks to the untidy little town, a 
 large part of whose population lives on 
 the alms of summer visitors, is along a 
 smooth and clean road. On one hand 
 is a precipitous mountain slope com- 
 pletely covered with grasses, mosses, 
 ferns, and shrubs ; and in all that high 
 
^2 A RUN ASHORE 
 
 embankment, soaring up many hundred 
 feet, not one gray rock nor one black 
 patch of earth is without its crown of 
 green. On the other hand is a magnifi- 
 cent demesne of pasture and woodland 
 opening out into vistas of the placid 
 lakes, with their many islets, and the 
 shadowy forms of the opposite moun- 
 tains springing into the clouds. 
 
 It is impossible to imagine a fuller 
 loveliness than that of Killarney. To- 
 day we strike out between the immense 
 walls of Dunloe Gap, where the moun- 
 tains almost clasp one another over- 
 head, and the bluish-gray rocks bear 
 all the evidences of their fierce origin, 
 and the spent force of immemorial ages. 
 Up this way there are Acherontic pools 
 whose unrippled waters are dyed black 
 by the surrounding fields of peat, and 
 spongy bogs treacherously covered with 
 pallid and feeble grasses, whose nature 
 is forever sullen and threatening. To- 
 morrow we loiter under the arbutus 
 
AT QUEENSTOWN. 73 
 
 groves and by the white ruins of sweet 
 Innisfallen, or tread through the vacant 
 chambers of old Ross Castle, or conjure 
 up the past out of the picturesque decay 
 of Muckross Abbey. One hour we may 
 be amid an uncompromising sterility, 
 and the next imprisoned in a tropical 
 prodigality of leafage, where the Tore 
 waterfall leaps seventy feet down a 
 precipice ; one hour in the cool shadows 
 of the Colleen Bawn caves, or calling 
 echoes from the towering bluff of the 
 Eagle's Nest, or swiftly shooting down 
 the race under the old weir bridge, and 
 next lying idly in the pasturage of the 
 Earl of Kenmare's demesne, and watch- 
 ing a scene of pastoral contentment 
 which seems to belong to another world 
 than the Gap of Dunloe. 
 
 So lovely is Killarney that the run 
 ashore at Queenstown will be a memo- 
 rable experience if it include this almost 
 incomparable pleasure-ground. It has 
 been so much to me that I should like to 
 
74 A RUN ASHORE. 
 
 forget and forgive the pertinacity of the 
 beggars and the cunning and servility 
 of the guides, ay, and all the mist and 
 the showers which make a tour of the 
 lakes a game of hide-and-seek. 
 
The Route of the Wild Irishman. 
 
 THIS Wild Irishman is the fast train 
 which carries the American mails 
 from London to Holyhead, en route to 
 Dublin and Queenstown, and vice versd. 
 It drives down from Euston to Chester 
 at a speed of forty-five miles or more an 
 hour, and, issuing from that dear, quaint, 
 gabled, and galleried city through a gap 
 in the splendid walls, it continues on 
 its course to Holyhead along the pictu- 
 resque shores of North Wales. 
 
 Many Americans travel by it, since 
 in leaving or in joining the Atlantic 
 steamer at Queenstown they can save 
 several hours by taking this route ; but 
 it is usually night when they are borne 
 along, and the journey finds no dwelling- 
 75 
 
76 THE ROUTE OF 
 
 place in their memories. They miss the 
 long reaches of solidly built sea-wall 
 which the high tides of the Dee bespatter 
 and gnaw at ; and while propping up 
 their weary heads, and striving to close 
 their senses to the jolt and jar of the 
 train, they are unconsciously flying under 
 the embattlements of historic castles, 
 along the base of sea-washed mountains, 
 and through the great iron tube which 
 bridges the Menai Strait. Precipitous 
 cliffs frown down upon the meteor-like 
 train : on one side are the stormy waters 
 of the St. George's Channel, and on the 
 other the mountains descend without 
 any intervening foot-hills ; but by means 
 of tunnels, embankments, and viaducts, 
 every natural obstacle in the route of 
 the Wild Irishman has been overcome. 
 The distance between Chester and 
 Holyhead is accomplished in less than 
 two hours. A tubular bridge spans the 
 Menai Strait, the ferrying of which for- 
 merly led to many tragedies. Another 
 
THE WILD IRISHMAN. 7/ 
 
 bridge is hung over the Conway River; 
 and Penmaenmawr, the great headland, 
 not unlike Anthony's Nose in the High- 
 lands of the Hudson, is pierced by a 
 tunnel, through which the train winds 
 like a ring through the nose of a sav- 
 age. 
 
 When the train leaves Chester it soon 
 crosses the boundary-line between Che- 
 shire and North Wales, and for the rest 
 of the distance to Holyhead it is in the 
 latter country. The Dee is visible out 
 of the carriage windows, like a brazen 
 serpent crawling over a desert of mud 
 and sand. At high water the whole 
 space between the banks is overflowed ; 
 but as the ebbing tide withdraws, it 
 only leaves a winding rivulet in a des- 
 ert of sand, which is of little use to 
 any except the smallest craft. Once 
 the river was wide and deep, and made 
 Chester a great port when Liverpool 
 was not sure even of its own name ; 
 but the channel has been shoaled by 
 
78 THE ROUTE OF 
 
 the washings of the hills, and the traffic 
 which belonged to the Dee has sought 
 the Mersey. Only a narrow tongue of 
 land which Cheshire thrusts out sepa- 
 rates the two rivers ; and a little below 
 Chester we can see from the windows 
 of the Wild Irishman the place where 
 they meet and mingle. 
 
 On the other side of the train lies a 
 country of increasing hilliness, — a land- 
 scape like that of England, with trim 
 hedgerows, thatched cottages, and the 
 solid-looking sculpturesque foliage, which 
 is a sort of atonement for the persistent 
 humidity of the climate. Hawarden, 
 Mr. Gladstone's seat, is about two miles 
 off the line ; and about twenty minutes 
 after leaving Chester the train runs close 
 against the walls of Flint Castle, — a 
 gaunt, denuded mass of rock, upon 
 which decay has set no sign of regret, 
 and age has put no assuaging mantle. 
 The castle was built by Edward I., and 
 Shakespeare has made its " rude ribs " 
 
THE WILD IRISHMAN. 79 
 
 and "tattered" battlements one of the 
 scenes of " Richard 11/' 
 
 Some readers, especially those who 
 keep up the best literary habit con- 
 ceivable, — that of an intimate famil- 
 iarity with the greatest of dramatists, — 
 will remember Bolingbroke's speech in 
 the third scene of the third act : — 
 
 ** The Welshmen are dispersed, . . . 
 
 Noble lords, 
 
 Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle ; 
 
 Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley 
 
 Into his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver : 
 
 Henry Bolingbroke 
 
 On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand 
 
 And sends allegiance and true faith of heart 
 
 To his most royal person, hither come 
 
 Even at his feet to lay my arms and power, 
 
 Provided that my banishment repeal'd 
 
 And lands restor'd again be freely granted : 
 
 If not, I'll use the advantage of my power 
 
 And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood 
 
 Rain'd from the wounds of slaughter'd Englishmen." 
 
 A pretty speech ! and so typical of af- 
 fairs of love and diplomacy as they are 
 
80 • THE ROUTE OF 
 
 to this very day ! Any combination, 
 any compromise, so that / am satisfied ; 
 allegiance while allegiance pays ; my 
 heart and hand if you yield to me ; 
 yield not, and though I love you as 
 much as ever, you shall die ! 
 
 But is this a paper on morals ? . . . 
 
 Behind the hills which slope down to 
 Flint is Holywell, a town which derives 
 its name from a miraculously copious 
 spring, of such efficacy in healing that 
 the beautiful Gothic shrine built over 
 it, and ascribed to the generosity of the 
 mother of Henry VII., is hung with the 
 crutches and trusses of those who have 
 been cured by bathing in it. There has 
 been a confirmation of the mediaeval 
 miracle quite recently; and cures are 
 reported quite as wonderful as those at 
 Lourdes, though when I was a boy the 
 only people who bathed in it were ex- 
 tremely vigorous young men, who turned 
 blue after their immersion. 
 
 Beyond Holywell and Mostyn nearly 
 
THE WILD IRISHMAN. 8 1 
 
 every village along the coast aspires, 
 with some success, to be a watering- 
 place. The climate is salubrious, but 
 how bleak, how Novemberish, to us who 
 have just escaped from the Senegam- 
 bian fervor of the American July ! The 
 thermometer is down below 60° ; but 
 the women are dressed in muslins, and 
 the children, digging and building in the 
 sands, are bare-legged and bare-shoul- 
 dered. 
 
 The Wild Irishman scarcely slackens 
 its speed at Rhyl, the flat and rectan- 
 gular little watering-place whose noisy 
 excursionists from Lancashire and York- 
 shire bathe in a yellow mixture of mud 
 washed down from the Dee and the 
 Mersey; and we also will pass it by, 
 leaving it, with Abergeley, Llandulas, 
 and Colwyn Bay, to tourists who have 
 time to see the coast in detail. But 
 presently we cross a river which, flowing 
 down from between high hills, empties 
 into the sea within sight of the train, at 
 
82 THE ROUTE OF 
 
 a point where a massive headland juts 
 outward, and reaching the farther side, 
 we are borne under the shadow of a 
 cliff-like wall. We look out and up, and 
 there are towers, battlements, and para- 
 pets. These are so high, and the train 
 is so close to the base, that we have 
 to almost dislocate our neck in order to 
 see the summit. It is really a castle, 
 not a cliff ; but it seems to grow out of 
 the rock upon which it stands, and when 
 it was built nature and art joined hands 
 to give it a double strength. 
 
 When Edward I. had conquered the 
 Welsh he built three great castles and 
 some smaller ones, like Flint, to keep 
 the vanquished down ; and, though dis- 
 mantled and despoiled, they are still 
 very substantial examples of the archi- 
 tecture of his time. One is at Carnarvon, 
 another at Beaumaris, and the third is 
 this at Conway ; Conway being the com- 
 mon name of the river which we have 
 just crossed, the castle, and the little 
 
THE WILD IRISHMAN. 83 
 
 town which lies under the castle, shut 
 within a harp-shaped wall which for- 
 merly had twenty-four round towers. 
 
 We are disposed to take Pennant's 
 word when the antiquary declares Con- 
 way to be the most beautiful of for- 
 tresses. The form is oblong, placed in 
 all parts on the verge of precipitous 
 rock. One side is bounded by the river, 
 one by a creek which fills with every 
 tide, and the other two face the town. 
 Within are two courts, around which are 
 the various apartments, or what remains 
 of them. But the banqueting-hall has 
 tumbled into the kitchen, and the 
 Queen's boudoir is scarcely distinguish- 
 able from the dungeon cell. No roof or 
 rafters remain, and the grass grows on 
 the floor of the Council Chamber. The 
 cold wind rushes through the empty 
 fireplaces, the windows have nothing in 
 them except the vines, and the winding 
 stairways only go up a few steps, and 
 then leave us standing on the brink of 
 
84 THE ROUTE OF 
 
 some ragged gap. Ivy, moss, and grass 
 have taken hold even of the highest 
 towers, and the only pomp is the pomp 
 of age. 
 
 Aldrich's lines come flowing back to 
 us over the Atlantic as we stand on the 
 ramparts : — 
 
 " Here, in the old 
 Forgotten springs, 
 
 Was wassail held by queens and kings ; 
 Here at the board 
 Sat clown and lord. 
 Maiden fair and lover bold, 
 Baron fat and minstrel lean, 
 The prince with his stars. 
 The knight with his scars. 
 The priest in his garbardine. 
 
 All is dead here : 
 
 Poppies are red here. 
 
 Vines in my lady's chamber grow — 
 
 If 'twas her chamber 
 
 Where they clamber 
 
 Up from the poisonous weeds below." 
 
 We look at the smooth river issuing 
 between the hills to the sea, and the 
 
THE WILD IRISHMAN. 85 
 
 quaint town and its little houses shut 
 within the triangular walls. That head- 
 land of which we have spoken once or 
 twice is the Great Orme's-Head, one of 
 the most conspicuous points to all ves- 
 sels passing up and down the channel ; 
 and between it and a similar though 
 smaller elevation we can see some of the 
 roofs of Llandudno which would be one 
 of the most delightful of watering-places 
 if the tripper could be excluded from 
 it. But all other things are dwarfed in 
 comparison with Penmaenmawr, which 
 now looms up ; and we can pity the 
 traveller who, before the days of the 
 Wild Irishman, found this shoulder of 
 rock — a very cold shoulder indeed, 
 quite like the shoulder of one's success- 
 ful friend — thrust into his face. 
 
 Change is visible everywhere about 
 the castle, and some thrifty husbandman 
 is raising cabbages and potatoes in the 
 moat. Other parts of the grounds are 
 also turned to account as vegetable 
 
86 THE ROUTE OF 
 
 gardens, and the gate has no more 
 formidable guard than a Birket Foster 
 little girl in a blue pinafore. 
 
 But while we sat eating our luncheon 
 at the inn adjoining the castle, we were 
 reminded that though the relics of med- 
 iaeval chivalry belong to museums, the 
 love of military glory is still as strong in 
 the female breast as it was before the 
 watch on the ramparts had become a 
 noiseless spectre. 
 
 The little waitress was in a flutter of 
 intense excitement. Some Volunteers, 
 with faces as red from beer and whiskey 
 and water as their uniforms, who had 
 been encamped outside, were leaving 
 the town ; and she was divided between 
 her anxiety to be attentive to us, — to 
 give us knives as well as forks, and not 
 to fill the claret glasses with mint sauce, 
 — and her desire to look out of the win- 
 dow at them. 
 
 " Will you have some cheese, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am ; oh, yes, ma'am ! they're 
 the Volunteers.'' 
 
THE WILD IRISHMAN. 8/ 
 
 She tried hard to control herself ; but 
 she was carried away in her ecstasy, 
 and we saw her run to the window and 
 bring her hands together as if to ap- 
 plaud. Her pink face beamed, and the 
 ribbons in her lace cap danced. 
 
 " Oh, if you please, ma'am, doesn't 
 the band play lovely ! " she exclaimed 
 in a burst of rapture ; and then she 
 looked frightened, and hurried back to 
 the table to give us our coffee, and her 
 poor red, coarse little hands trembled, 
 and one could feel the pain of bereave- 
 ment shaking her silly, undisciplined 
 heart. 
 
 A minute or two after the train leaves 
 Conway the mountains begin to crowd 
 down upon the Wild Irishman, and 
 threaten to shove the line into the sea. 
 It is these that the traveller from Amer- 
 ica sees from the deck of the ocean 
 steamer as she passes up the St. 
 George's Channel to Liverpool. They 
 are a northern spur of the Snowdon 
 
88 THE ROUTE OF 
 
 range ; and among the huddled masses 
 rises one, a very Gibraltar of a peak, 
 higher than all the rest. 
 
 This, which strangers often mistake 
 for Snowdon itself, is Penmaenmawr, 
 the via mala of the old route to Holy- 
 head, upon which many a traveller has 
 come to grief between the crumbling 
 strata of the mountain on one side and 
 the unprotected precipice on the other. 
 
 The old road is grooved in the moun- 
 tain ; and, says Nicholson, writing of it 
 as it was before the day of the Wild 
 Irishman : " The amazingly abrupt pre- 
 cipice, variegated with fragments and 
 ruins, presents a scene of horror. In 
 some places rocks of vast magnitude, 
 which have probably fallen from the 
 summit, lodge on projecting ledges, and 
 appear in the act of taking another 
 bound.'' 
 
 But carried along by this fast train, 
 we have only the momentary darkness 
 of a tunnel to remind us of what Pen- 
 
THE WILD IRISHMAN. 89 
 
 maenmawr was a century ago. The 
 Wild Irishman stops nowhere, not even 
 at the little cathedral city of Bangor; 
 and it hurries us on to the Menai Strait, 
 which resembles the Hudson at Tarry- 
 town, with villas and cottages visible 
 everywhere. 
 
 Once again we are in darkness, but 
 this time the reverberations are not 
 those of a tunnel. The sounds are hol- 
 low and metallic ; we are crossing the 
 strait by the tubular bridge which Ste- 
 phenson built between 1846 and 1850, 
 and which put an end to the frequent 
 accidents that had previously occurred 
 to passengers crossing by the ferry. It 
 was an amazing thing in its day ; but 
 we who have Brooklyn bridges, Tower 
 bridges, Tay bridges, and Forth bridges 
 — pray do not speak of it ! 
 
 One end of the bridge — that by 
 which we enter — is in Carnarvonshire ; 
 and when we reach the other we are in 
 the island of Anglesey, the Mona of 
 
90 THE ROUTE OF 
 
 early English history, and the last 
 refuge of the Druids. It is not a very 
 large island, only twenty miles from 
 north to south, and twenty-eight miles 
 from east to west. The surface is low 
 and rolling, and, except in the straits, 
 the seaward edge is a long line of cliffs 
 of varying height, at the base of which 
 many a ship has come to grief. There 
 are many Druidical remains on the 
 island, cromlechs and other enigmatical 
 masses of stone which the old hierarchy 
 of the woods has left unexplained ; and 
 it was in Anglesey that Suetonius burned 
 the last of the Druids in their own altar 
 fires. Tacitus has painted the wild 
 scene which opened upon the Roman 
 forces when they landed — the motley 
 army in close array and well armed, 
 with women running frantically about, 
 their dishevelled hair streaming in the 
 wind, while they brandished torches in 
 their hands, and the priests moving 
 among them, and, with arms reached 
 
THE WILD IRISHMAN. 9I 
 
 out to heaven, uttering the most awful 
 curses on the invaders. The Roman 
 soldiers were spellbound, and for some 
 time were, as Tacitus puts it, resigned 
 to every wound ; but at length, aroused 
 by their leader, and calling on one 
 another not to be intimidated by 
 a womanly and fanatic band, they 
 displayed their ensigns, and quickly 
 hushed their antagonists. 
 
 Anglesey has another claim to remem- 
 brance, as the home of the founder of 
 the Tudor dynasty, who danced so well 
 that he won the heart of the fair widow 
 of Henry V. 
 
 The queen, says an old chronicler, 
 " beyng young and lustye, foUowyng 
 more her own appetyte than frendely 
 consaill, and regardyng more her pri- 
 vate affection than her open honour, 
 toke to husband privily a goodly gentyl- 
 man, and a beautiful person, garnized 
 with manye godly gyftes, both of nature 
 and of grace, called Owen Teuther, a 
 
92 THE ROUTE OF 
 
 man brought forth and come of the no- 
 ble linage and auncient lyne of Cadwal- 
 ader, the last Kynge of the Britonnes." 
 
 Some courtiers who were sent to 
 Wales to ascertain the condition of the 
 Tudors found Owen's mother seated in 
 a field with her goats around her ; but 
 there is no doubt that, though reduced 
 in circumstances, the family was of high 
 descent. They certainly lived among 
 the mountains, and they probably stole 
 sheep. 
 
 A few miles from Holyhead we pass 
 within a short distance of Aberffraw, the 
 seat of the native princes of Wales ; and 
 thus the Wild Irishman completes its 
 course, and lands us at the gangway of 
 the channel steamer. 
 
 The lugubrious passage is not for us 
 this time ; and knowing what it is, we 
 watch the other passengers embark with 
 feelings of pity. It is not an affair of 
 eighty or ninety minutes, like that from 
 Dover to Calais, or from Folkestone to 
 
THE WILD IRISHMAN. 93 
 
 Boulogne. It takes much longer, and 
 the sea gives the steamer that irregular, 
 eccentric motion which nothing can re- 
 sist. It is a gusty and rainy expanse, 
 and it is seldom peaceful or sunny. Few 
 who have made it think of it except with 
 abhorrence, and to recall it is to have 
 visions of wet and slippery decks, pelt- 
 ing showers of spray, gray, low-hung 
 clouds, and angry-looking waters. 
 
 The steamer is sheltered in a large 
 masonry dock ; but, looking out to the 
 mouth of the harbor, we can see the 
 waves spattering over the breakwater, 
 and a sallow-hued anticipation of dis- 
 comforts to come is visible in the faces 
 of those who are stumbling down the 
 narrow gangplank. There are members 
 of Parliament, government messengers, 
 sportsmen, tourists, and commercial 
 travellers. There are few English peo- 
 ple, but many Americans, who could 
 be identified by their enormous iron-clad 
 trunks if they were not individualized in 
 
94 THE ROUTE OF 
 
 Other ways. The transfer from the train 
 to the boat is quickly effected. Sarato- 
 gas, knapsacks, gun-cases, fishing-rods, 
 bicycles, and despatch-boxes are rushed 
 on board after the passengers, and then 
 the mail is heaped upon the deck. The 
 bags are lettered with the names of 
 American cities ; and while we are specu- 
 lating on their contents the little steamer 
 starts, and in a very few minutes passes 
 out beyond the breakwater into the open 
 sea. 
 
 It is then that we discover what an 
 empty, noiseless little place Holyhead 
 is. It is the nearest port to Ireland; 
 and that is, and always has been, the 
 reason of its existence. They say that 
 it may some day become the terminus 
 of the great Liverpool liners ; but that 
 cannot be until the channel has been 
 deepened. The harbor is the principal 
 part of it now, as it was years ago, when 
 there were no steamers, and the vessels 
 used were small sailboats, which often 
 
THE WILD IRISHMAN. 95 
 
 took days and weeks in making the pas- 
 sage between here and Dublin. Vast 
 sums have been spent on its beacons, 
 and on the long granite breakwater, the 
 granite docks, and the lofty sheds lighted 
 by electricity. There are rumors, as I 
 have said, that some day it will be the 
 terminus of a line of transatlantic steam- 
 ers, which, by using it, will avoid the 
 fogs and tidal delays of the Liverpool 
 bar ; but in the meantime it has the 
 appearance of a premature expansion. 
 After the departure of the mail-boat it 
 suddenly becomes silent and sepul- 
 chrally still. The vociferous newsboy, 
 the wharfingers, the porters, and the 
 railway and steamboat officials all dis- 
 appear. The ticket-office windows are 
 abruptly closed, and the pensive attend- 
 ant in the refreshment-room turns the 
 lock on the mildewed veal pies and the 
 sawdust sandwiches, which have re- 
 minded us of Mugby Junction. Our 
 footsteps sound boisterously loud, and 
 
96 THE ROUTE OF 
 
 we have a feeling of detachment and 
 sequestration. Looking down the har- 
 bor, we can see no movement. Half a 
 dozen or more spare boats are moored 
 along the spendid piers, but they are out 
 of service and unmanned. 
 
 Wandering out of the brick and granite 
 enclosures of the modern docks, we en- 
 ter the straggling, arid little town, which 
 has a curious old parish church, with 
 an authentic record from the reign of 
 Edward III. ; and then leaving the 
 crouching white cottages with the for- 
 tress-like walls behind, we strike out in 
 the direction of the mountain which 
 slopes upward to the north and west of 
 the town, and is of such a height that 
 a veil of blue or purple always hangs 
 upon it. 
 
 This is Holyhead itself, the point 
 from which nearly all vessels passing 
 up and down the channel are signalled, 
 and which is familiar to all readers 
 through the maritime columns of the 
 
THE WILD IRISHMAN. 97 
 
 newspapers. The slope upward from 
 the harbor and town forms a buttress to 
 the wall which the mountain presents 
 to the sea, and from the summit we can 
 look down as dizzy and terrifying a pre- 
 cipice as there is on the coast of North 
 Wales. 
 
 The face of the rock is scarred and 
 seamed in an extraordinary manner ; 
 and at its base the sea has bored several 
 enormous caverns and alcoves, one of 
 which, called the Parliament House, is 
 seventy feet high. 
 
 Our path up the slope is through some 
 rocky, heather-strewn fields, and then 
 over the shoulder of the mountain, and 
 down a deep stairway in the cliif. The 
 sea reaches out before us, quivering and 
 glinting; and down below us rises an 
 appalling mass of rock, linked to the 
 mountain by a frail suspension-bridge, 
 and surrounded by a chain of breakers. 
 On all sides of us there are vertical 
 spaces and jagged edges; and the es- 
 
98 THE ROUTE OF 
 
 carpment has a strange and crumpled 
 look, as if it had been torn with difficulty 
 from some other mass by a sudden dis- 
 rupting force. On every ledge there 
 are flocks of birds, — sea-gulls, razor- 
 bills, cormorants, and guillemots, which 
 whirl and sweep around us, and add to 
 the wildness of the scene by their un- 
 earthly shrieks. We might suppose that 
 no other living creatures would be found 
 here; but man's ingenuity has utilized 
 that detached mass of rock, which though 
 below us, is still nearly one hundred and 
 fifty feet above the level of the sea, and 
 on the summit rises the white pillar of 
 a lighthouse and the neat cottages of 
 the keepers. The sea has cut a tunnel 
 through it, and when the wind is high 
 the spray is carried over the suspension- 
 bridge which loops the outer cliff with 
 the inner. But, whirl and thunder as 
 the gale will, the waters have never yet 
 reached the lantern, and at night it is 
 visible over the whole of Carnarvon Bay, 
 
THE WILD IRISHMAN. 99 
 
 and in conjunction with the light on the 
 Skerries, this on the South Stack, as the 
 outer rock on which we are looking is 
 called, guides the boat from Dublin into 
 the harbor, where the Wild Irishman is 
 waiting to retrace its way to the noisy 
 metropolis. 
 
 The South Stack is a terror to navi- 
 gators in thick weather. To double it 
 successfully in a fog is like weathering 
 the Cape. Some great ships of the 
 great lines have touched it, grazed it, 
 and gone away from it with a shudder. 
 I remember stealing up the channel in 
 the record-holder of her day, and hear- 
 ing a thrilling cry, " Land ahead ! " It 
 was daylight, and there was a rush of 
 crew and passengers to the starboard 
 side. Then there was an appalling, de- 
 spairing voice, — the voice of one whom 
 we knew to have knowledge, " My God ! 
 If s the South Stack ! " But the bruised 
 steamer backed off into smooth water, 
 and that was one ship saved. 
 
lOO THE WILD IRISHMAN. 
 
 Quite recently the Cunarder " Ceph- 
 alonia" went ashore under the cliffs, 
 and but for the smoothness of the sea 
 would have become a total wreck. 
 
Quaint Old Yarmouth. 
 
 You reach Yarmouth through a Dutch 
 landscape of watery green levels, 
 with many windmills flinging their arms 
 in the great open spaces, where the hori- 
 zon is distant, and the sky seems unusu- 
 ally high. These marshes are unable 
 to hold their own against the sea ; and 
 the windmills are placed among them 
 to pump the inundating water into dikes, 
 which return the unwelcome floods to the 
 oceanic reservoir from which the tides 
 bring them. The adjacent coast has no 
 height within several miles. Its only 
 defence against the water is in yellow- 
 green dunes; and it seems more than 
 half inclined to surrender to the sea, 
 from which this part of it has been re- 
 
I02 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 covered within seven or eight hundred 
 years. 
 
 The recovery was not speedy, and it 
 is not yet complete. When the gales 
 blow over the German Ocean and strike 
 Norfolk, which juts into it, with Yar- 
 mouth on its farthest point, the pallid 
 and low-lying sands threaten to dissolve, 
 and let the sea regain the boundaries 
 which it once had some twenty miles 
 farther inland. 
 
 Yarmouth is built on one of these 
 banks, a strip of beach stretching north 
 and south along the coast, less than half 
 a mile wide at one end, and just more 
 than a mile at the other. The Yare, 
 flowing along nearly the whole of the 
 length of its western borders, and emp- 
 tying at its southern extremity, gives it 
 the form of a peninsula. At one time 
 the Yare, from which its name is de- 
 rived, also cut it off from the mainland 
 at the northern end, and in finding the 
 sea by two channels, made an island of 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. IO3 
 
 it ; but the northern passage was gradu- 
 ally choked up by the sand, and was 
 finally closed in 1336, when the south 
 channel became, as it is now, the only 
 outlet to the sea. 
 
 Perhaps the reader remembers that 
 young David Copperfield went on a visit 
 to Yarmouth with his mother's hand- 
 maiden, who bore the name of Peggotty, 
 and that he has recorded his impres- 
 sions of the place with some humor: 
 " It looked rather spongy and soppy, I 
 thought, as I carried my eye over the 
 great dull waste that lay across the 
 river ; and I could not help wondering, 
 if the world were really as round as my 
 geography book said, how any part of it 
 came to be so flat. But I reflected that 
 Yarmouth might be situated at one of 
 the poles, which would account for it. 
 As we drew a little nearer, and saw the 
 whole adjacent prospect lying a straight 
 low line under the sky, I hinted to Peg- 
 gotty that a mound or so might have 
 
104 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 improved it, and also that if the land 
 had been a little more separated from 
 the sea, and the town and the tide had 
 not been quite so much mixed up, like 
 toast and water, it would have been nicer. 
 But Peggotty said, with greater empha- 
 sis than usual, that we must take things 
 as we found them, and that for her part 
 she was proud to call herself a Yarmouth 
 bloater." 
 
 Geologically speaking, Yarmouth is an 
 infant in arms, not having been called 
 up from the deep until the time of 
 William the Conqueror, when the capri- 
 cious tides left it an insular sand-bank, 
 visible along the edge of the mainland. 
 Its chances of survival seemed very small, 
 and its resources were so meagre that it 
 was said the sands had set up business 
 for themselves. Barren as it was, how- 
 ever, there were good reasons for its 
 existence, as we shall see by and by; 
 and though from time to time the sea 
 endeavored to cancel its gift, the people 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. I05 
 
 who came to live on it successfully re- 
 sisted the assaults by which the original 
 possessor sought restitution. 
 
 " As the sand upon which Yarmouth 
 is built did grow to be drye, and was 
 not overflowen by the sea, but waxed in 
 height, and also in greatnes, much store 
 of people from the counties of Norfolk 
 and Suffolk did resorte thither, and did 
 pitche tabernacles and boothes for the 
 enterteynenge of such sea-faring men 
 and fishermen and merchants as would 
 resorte unto that place, eyther to sell 
 their herringes-fish, or other comodoties, 
 and for providenge such things as those 
 seamen neede and wante." 
 
 This account of an old writer is sup- 
 plemented by another, in which the or- 
 thography is more fantastic. 
 
 " In the tyme of Kinge William Rufus, 
 Kinge of this Realm, one Herertus, Bis- 
 shop of the Sea of Norwiche, percey- 
 venge greate resorte and concourse of 
 people to be daylie and yearlie uppon 
 
I06 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 the said Sande, and intendinge to pro- 
 vide for there sowles healthe, did founde 
 and buylde uppon said Sande a certen 
 Chappell for the devotion of the people 
 resortinge thither, and therein did place 
 a Chappelayne of his owne to saye and 
 read divin service, and to recevve such 
 oblations and offerings as the people 
 wolde give and bestowe upon him, and 
 this continewed aboute the space of 
 fourtye years at the leaste. After- 
 wardes, in the tymes of the Reignes of 
 Kinge Henrye the Firste, Kinge Steven, 
 Kinge Henrye the Second, and Kinge 
 Richard the Firste, Kinges of this lande, 
 the saide Sand did grow into firme 
 grounde by the providence of Almightie 
 God, and was conjoined to the mayne 
 contynent of the yland of Est Flegge on 
 the north parte. The which thinge 
 caused muche people as well of the 
 Citye of Norwiche, as of the Counties 
 of Norff. and Suff., to repaier unto said 
 place, who being soe gathered together 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. lO/ 
 
 beganne to buylde howses and dwellinge 
 places there. And the foresaid Kinges 
 being enformed of the resorte of people 
 there, by there commission did appoynte 
 a Ruler and Gouvernour by the name of 
 there Provost of lernemouth. And the 
 Bisshop of Norwiche seeing such Buyld- 
 engs made, and stur of people resortinge 
 thither, buylded by himselfe and by de- 
 votion of good people a fayer and good- 
 lie church, for the honor of God and 
 St. Nicholas. To the whiche Churche, 
 beinge buylded, were given many offer- 
 inges and tythes by the seamen thither 
 resortinge.^' 
 
 Though the sand was at length made 
 permanent, the sea was grudging, and 
 kept the occupiers busy for centuries in 
 preserving it. Without a harbor it was 
 worth no more than any half-submerged 
 knoll which adds to the difficulties of 
 mariners ; and though when formed it 
 had a snug haven along the whole of its 
 inner boundary, with two seaward out- 
 
I08 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 lets, one of the latter was soon filled up, 
 and the other was only kept open by 
 constant labor. 
 
 The sands, having set up in business 
 for themselves, proved to be distress- 
 ingly shifting and irresolute. Having 
 been choked up five times, the harbor 
 was nearly rebuilt for a sixth time, when 
 it was destroyed by rebels, and then 
 followed a disastrous inundation, when 
 men could row up and down the unfor- 
 tunate little streets. It was several 
 years before the people shook off the 
 despair which this brought upon them ; 
 but when they did, the men were helped 
 in building the seventh harbor by women 
 and children, and they were rewarded 
 with success ; the seventh harbor being 
 the one which still exists, and shelters 
 many thousand vessels in a year. Those 
 built before it had only lasted thirty 
 years on an average, while the present 
 one has now been in use nearly three 
 hundred and forty years. 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. lOQ 
 
 Some credit is due to a Dutch engi- 
 neer who was invited to come from Hol- 
 land to take part in the work, and who 
 brought with him an experience in the 
 erection of dikes which had saved his 
 country from the flood. Had the work 
 not succeeded, the fate of Yarmouth 
 would have been sealed, and Robinson 
 Crusoe would not have had it for a 
 shelter in the gale which struck the ship 
 of that luckless mariner soon after he 
 left the port of Hull. The inhabitants 
 had little patience left, and their money 
 was exhausted. They had sold the 
 church ornaments, the communion plate, 
 and the bells in the steeple, to secure 
 money for the preservation of their har- 
 bor ; another failure would have dis- 
 persed them, and the pirates hanging 
 out on the dunes, as a warning to others 
 of their kind who were still at large, 
 would have had the sands to themselves. 
 
 Taking things as we find them, accord- 
 ing to Peggotty's advice, let us see what 
 
no QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 sort of a town has grown out of the 
 struggles of these early inhabitants. It 
 appears, in a hasty survey, to be much 
 younger than it is, for many of its an- 
 cient buildings have been modernized 
 out of all recognition. The houses of 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
 with their f agades of cut flint or moulded 
 brick, high-pitched roofs, round chim- 
 neys, ample porches, and latticed case- 
 ments, have disappeared in sweeping 
 alterations ; and though the walls of 
 some of them are standing, the fronts 
 have been sheathed with white brick, 
 and the ornaments removed ; useless 
 parapets have been run up to hide the 
 high-pitched roofs and dormer windows ; 
 modern porticos have been substituted 
 for the former porches ; and in the in- 
 terior, wainscoting and tapestry have 
 been torn down, and carved panels and 
 sumptuous chimney-pieces painted white. 
 There are really two towns, — the old 
 one, with its fishing industries, and the 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. Ill 
 
 new one on the beach^ with its Parade 
 and all the adjuncts of a popular holi- 
 day resort. The Parade is after the 
 fashion of English watering places, and 
 has hotels and lodging-houses on one 
 side, and a white sandy beach, with the 
 wheeled sentry-boxes called bathing- 
 machines, and gayly painted pleasure- 
 boats, on the other. It has a sea-wall 
 of masonry, and several piers project- 
 ing into the sea. 
 
 Nearly all the traffic which passes 
 along the English coast from Leith, 
 Hull, Sunderland, and Newcastle to 
 London and other southern ports, can 
 be seen from the Parade ; and so many 
 vessels are in sight at all hours that it 
 seems like the estuary of a great river 
 rather than the open sea. The shape- 
 less colliers, with their funnels far astern, 
 are more numerous than any other steam- 
 ers, and the horizon is always laced with 
 the brown cords of their smoke. The 
 endless procession in the water also in- 
 
112 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 eludes some handsomer steamers belong- 
 ing to the Mediterranean trade, and 
 fleets of brigs, barks, and schooners, 
 which in unfavorable weather cast their 
 anchors in the Yarmouth roads. When 
 the water is smooth and the wind in a 
 suitable quarter, Yarmouth itself sends 
 out two hundred or more shrimp-boats, 
 which mottle the sea with their dun- 
 colored sails; and several times a day 
 a cutter, as smart as any yacht, may be 
 seen beating up to that haven with a 
 load of fish on board, and her agent's 
 ensign and a pennant as long as her 
 mast flying from her peak. 
 
 A Yarmouth cutter is as handy, as 
 swift, and as pretty as almost any craft 
 afloat. If the wind is not against her, 
 she is independent of the tug-boat which 
 is sent out to meet her, and only accepts 
 the escort near the mouth of the harbor, 
 where the channel is not easily managed 
 under sail. 
 
 The fishing-boats themselves, to which 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. II3 
 
 the cutters are tenders, collecting the 
 fish from the fleet in the North Sea and 
 carrying it to port, are graceful and 
 swift vessels ; and one of them is usually 
 in sight of the Parade, coming home 
 from an eight weeks' cruise, or going 
 out to rejoin the fleet, which may be two 
 or three hundred miles off. 
 
 Thus the summer visitors to Yar- 
 mouth, who are numbered by thousands, 
 have a picture full of life always before 
 them ; and as a holiday ground the old 
 town is increasing in favor every year. 
 The openness of the sea is a disadvan- 
 tage in winter. The houses on the 
 Parade are not more than sixty yards 
 from the low-water mark; and the east- 
 erly gales heap up the sands against 
 their doors, and even carry the spray 
 over their roofs. The wrecks also are 
 brought to their very doors, and the 
 tenants raise their blinds upon many a 
 pitiful sight in the gray mornings. Our 
 landlady told us how she looked out one 
 
114 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 morning, and saw seven bodies cast up 
 lifeless by the remorseless sea of a Janu- 
 ary night — an experience which has 
 many parallels in Yarmouth. 
 
 The extent to which the people are 
 interested in the fisheries is visible in 
 many ways and in every direction. A 
 sort of conscription seems to have at- 
 tached nearly all the inhabitants to this 
 industry, from the freckled and tanned 
 urchin who wears a big oil-skin sou'- 
 wester with a fan-shaped brim that 
 reaches over his shoulders to his waist, 
 to the merchant who, though in another 
 line of business, owns a smack, or has 
 some shares in a curing-house. 
 
 The fisheries have been the chief sup- 
 port of Yarmouth from the beginning, 
 and coals are not a more evident staple 
 in Newcastle than the produce of the 
 sea is in this old Norfolk town. The 
 dark-blue guernsey shirt is a uniform 
 among a large number of the inhabi- 
 tants, and colors every gathering. The 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. II5 
 
 oil-skin suit, spread out like a scarecrow, 
 dangles in the windows and over the 
 doors of many shops, in which jack- 
 knives, high boots, tin plates, very small 
 mirrors, and the miscellaneous articles 
 of seamen's wardrobes, are also dis- 
 played. The scant vegetation of the 
 dunes outside the town is darkened by 
 the nets spread out to dry ; and it is 
 impossible to go far in any direction 
 without seeing a black coil sluggishly 
 issuing from a loft into a cart, which re- 
 ceives it on the street below, this also 
 being a net. Within the loft are many 
 tarry-fingered Penelopes mending old 
 nets and meshing new ones, and men in 
 canvas attire who are soaking their nets 
 in oil and pitch to make them stronger. 
 The nets are hung over fences, hauled 
 up on poles, and drawn out in neat 
 squares wherever there is an unincum- 
 bered and convenient space. The odor 
 of them is pungent in the air. The fish- 
 carts, of a light two-wheeled pattern, 
 
Il6 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 rattle along the streets with impressive 
 speed and urgency ; and one of the fea- 
 tures of the beach and the harbor mouth 
 is the number of lookout boxes perched 
 on the roofs of houses, and on props of 
 their own, in which blue-jacketed and 
 oracular men, with copper-bronzed faces, 
 are constantly aiming telescopes at shad- 
 owy specks against the horizon. 
 
 Yarmouth is piscatory beyond com- 
 parison and beyond description. The 
 conversation on the quays has nothing 
 but fish for its burden. 
 
 A shy-looking man with a brown face, 
 far-looking eyes, and a guernsey, is ac- 
 costed by another person with an am- 
 phibious exterior. '* Hello, my boy ! 
 hello, old shipmet ! how many fish ? " 
 cries the latter ; and the person addressed 
 shrugs his shoulders and looks at the 
 sky as he gives the inquirer the particu- 
 lars of his last catch. 
 
 Then we meet a young fisherman 
 coming home, with a soft yellow beard. 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 11/ 
 
 grown during his absence, and his can- 
 vas bag thrown over his shoulders — 
 an open-faced young Saxon, marching 
 happily between two friends who are 
 welcoming him ; and there are few places 
 in the world where there are more such 
 fair, winsome Saxon faces as his than in 
 Yarmouth, — honest brown faces with 
 flaxen beards and glistening blue and 
 gray eyes, — or where the speech is 
 more courteous or less servile, and the 
 manners so independently bluif without 
 a touch of incivility. 
 
 On the borders of the town the red 
 brick curing-houses, which look like ar- 
 senal stores, are conspicuous ; and though 
 the old boat in which the Peggottys 
 lived has disappeared from the spot on 
 the south dunes where it stood up to a 
 few years ago, the obsolete vessels of 
 the fishing-fleet are utilized in many 
 ways for which they were never intended, 
 and sections of their bulwarks may be 
 seen filling up the gaps in the fences on 
 
Il8 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 the western meadows. Some of these 
 veterans are laid up in ordinary on the 
 Suffolk side of the Yare, dismasted and 
 altogether unequipped, but more beauti- 
 ful than ever they were when prepared 
 for sea ; and their successive coats of 
 paint have melted into one another, and 
 the sea and the sun have refined them 
 into the softest tints. 
 
 Even the parish church is dedicated 
 to Nicholas, patron saint of fishermen, 
 and the municipal arms are three demi- 
 lions impaling three herrings' tails. An- 
 ciently there were three herrings argent 
 on a field azure ; but Edward the Third, 
 in acknowledgment of the services done 
 for him by the town in his wars with 
 France, " demidiated " them with his 
 own, and the herrings are now anomal- 
 ous beasts, half appetizing bloater and 
 half royal lion. 
 
 When we know Yarmouth, whatever our 
 doubts on first acquaintance, it turns out 
 to be one of the quaintest of old towns. 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. II9 
 
 The old Church of St. Nicholas, which 
 seen from the sea looms up splendidly 
 above the low-lying town, a bulk of sad 
 gray, with a spire serving as a landmark, 
 is the largest parish church in the coun- 
 try, and exceeds the dimensions of eigh- 
 teen of the cathedrals. Much increased 
 and altered, of course, it is the same 
 church which was founded by the Bis- 
 hop of Norwich in 11 01 for the souls' 
 salvation of the fishermen who built 
 their huts on the tide-given spit of sand ; 
 and in these centuries it has been wrought 
 upon in many different styles of archi- 
 tecture, without the harmony of purpose 
 which was necessary to make it as beau- 
 tiful as it is bulky ; the weather, too, the 
 unsparing chisel of time, has done its 
 work on the gray walls, and left many 
 fractures and ragged apertures. The 
 roof of the nave and aisles is so low that 
 the full proportions of the interior are 
 lost. The congregation often exceeds 
 three thousands persons ; and if the seats 
 
I20 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 were removed, there would be standing- 
 room for over ten thousand persons. 
 The oaken pews are sufficiently uncom- 
 fortable ; but the atmosphere is warmed 
 by many stained-glass windows, one of 
 which was inserted by a general sub- 
 scription of the townspeople to the 
 memory of Sarah Martin, a poor sewing- 
 woman who devoted all her leisure and 
 her small means to the reclamation of 
 the prisoners in the borough jail. The 
 church library contains many treasures, 
 and the key is always in the not-inacces- 
 sible depths of the parish clerk's pocket. 
 Perhaps the best of them is an old 
 black-letter Bible, which is interesting 
 for its laborious orthography, and also 
 for its proof that Bible revision is not 
 a guaranty of invariable improvement, 
 though this, after all, is a matter of 
 opinion. Thus, the present version of 
 Deuteronomy xxvi. 13, "I have not 
 transgressed thy commandments/^ reads 
 in the black-letter, " I have not over- 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 121 
 
 skypped thy commandments ; " and 
 Numbers xi. i8, " Ye have wept in the 
 ears of the Lord," reads, " Your whyn- 
 ynge is in the ears of the Lorde ^' ; while 
 Joshua X. 25, "Be strong and of good 
 courage," reads in the black-letter far 
 more idiomatically, " Be stronge and 
 plucke up your hearts." In i Samuel 
 xix. 10 of the accepted version, "And 
 Saul sought to smite David even to the 
 wall with the javelin," reads, "And 
 Saul entended to nayle David to the 
 wall with the iavelin." Proverbs xx. 
 14, "It is naught, it is naught, saith the 
 buyer ; but when he is gone his way, 
 then he boasteth," is rendered in the 
 old version, " It is naught, it is naught 
 (sayeth he that byeth anyethynge) ; but 
 when he cometh to hys owne house, then 
 he boasteth of his penyworth." 
 
 The same bland, accommodating sac- 
 ristan shows us an illuminated manu- 
 script on vellum which contains the 
 whole of the Book of Esther in Hebrew, 
 
122 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 illustrated with many droll little figures 
 in the margin, and mounted on a carved 
 ivory handle upon which it rolls ; but bet- 
 ter than anything else which he has in 
 his collection — better than the seat near 
 the western door formed of the skull 
 and first vertebra of a whale which drifted 
 ashore and was captured at Caistor, hard 
 by — is a reading-desk of the Middle 
 Ages, which is so superior to anything 
 we have in this nineteenth century, that 
 we wish some ingenious and adaptive 
 person would find out the secret of its 
 mechanism, and give it to the world. 
 
 It is apparently as simple as possible, 
 consisting of a series of rotary shelves 
 placed between two uprights. The 
 shelves are ample to hold a score or 
 more of quarto volumes ; and on them a 
 student could put every book he needed 
 in a day's work, and by a touch of a 
 crank bring any one before him in an 
 instant without upsetting the others. 
 The shelves are something like the 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 1 23 
 
 paddle-wheels of a steamer, but they 
 keep at one angle while they are revolv- 
 ing. That is the beauty of them, and 
 therein is the secret. On each upright 
 is a cylinder, and in this cylinder is the 
 controlling mechanism. Who that has 
 had twenty books of reference before 
 him, and has had to take each one up 
 and put it down, and take it up again 
 at least twenty times, reaching across 
 his table and upsetting his ink-pot, or 
 stumbling off a ladder while groping 
 at the ordinary shelves against the 
 walls, losing his composure and his in- 
 spiration, all to verify some petty but 
 arbitrary and requisite fact — who that 
 knows these mishaps and vexations of a 
 library, would not give much to possess 
 such a boon ? It was made about the 
 end of the sixteenth century, and is 
 therefore far beyond the reach of the 
 priority claims of modern inventors. 
 
 Having shown this to us, the parish 
 clerk says, " Now, gentlemen, you have 
 
124 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 seen all I have," with the fine suavity 
 which the Duke of Devonshire might dis- 
 play in relieving himself of a guest at 
 Chatsworth, and a strong suggestion of 
 personal ownership, which we recog- 
 nize by giving him what Junius Henri 
 Browne has called, to offset the reproach 
 of "the almighty dollar," "the omnip- 
 otent shilling." 
 
 Yarmouth was a walled town, and a 
 good part of the ancient enclosure has 
 been preserved, with the old towers 
 which stood at the gates. The venera- 
 tion in which it has been held is remark- 
 able, in contrast with the desecrating 
 spirit which has gutted so many of the 
 old houses; and when the new board 
 schools were built near the north gate, 
 a large section of it which stood in the 
 way was not sacrificed, but embrasures 
 were made in it to give access to the 
 shining academic buildings, and the rag- 
 gedness of the openings was smoothed 
 with the flaring scarlet brick of the 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 12$ 
 
 schools, which blazes in contrast with 
 the mottled gray and grass-tufted walls. 
 On Middlegate Street is the borough 
 jail, which has been known for ages as 
 the Toll-house, because in the old times 
 the bailiffs were accustomed to receive 
 their tolls in the great chamber on the 
 first floor ; and there are few buildings 
 in England of more interest from an 
 architectural point of view than this, 
 which has an external balustered stair- 
 case and gallery, and has been un- 
 touched by the indiscriminate hands of 
 modern improvers. The staircase leads 
 to an Early English stone doorway, with 
 good mouldings and shafts, and at the 
 side are two unglazed Early English 
 windows with cinque-foil heads. The 
 building has been used as a jail for over 
 six hundred years ; and that seems but 
 a moderate span in so old a place as 
 Yarmouth, in some of the nooks of 
 which but little effort is required to put 
 one back into the Middle Ages. 
 
126 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 At one time the inhabitants of this 
 old borough took to living on a plan 
 almost entirely their own, and the Rows 
 in which they built their houses remain 
 to this day the most curious of all the 
 features of the ancient town. The Rows 
 are narrow streets leading to and from 
 the quays — not narrow in the ordinary 
 sense, but narrower, perhaps, than any 
 other streets in the world, their average 
 width being six feet. They are not 
 isolated, infrequent lanes left between 
 more commodious thoroughfares by the 
 incomplete modification of early plans, 
 but they form a system, and their aggre- 
 gate length is about eight miles. Six 
 feet is their average width ; but some of 
 them are scarcely more than three feet, 
 and two persons cannot pass one another 
 without contracting themselves and pain- 
 fully sidling in the opposite directions. 
 The pavement is of rough cobble-stones, 
 with sometimes a strip of flags down the 
 middle to ease the way of the pedes- 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 12/ 
 
 trian. The houses tower up with smooth 
 perpendicular walls, like cliffs, on both 
 sides, and shut out the light, the upper 
 stories projecting in many cases beyond 
 the lower, and forming an arch over the 
 narrow passage below. Most of these 
 houses are very old ; and the material of 
 which they are built is flint or stone, 
 often whitewashed, though occasionally 
 left in its natural condition, with open 
 timbering in the fronts — in one or two 
 the masonry is of the herring-bone pat- 
 tern ; but huddled up as they are, with- 
 out regard to privacy or ventilation, 
 staring into one another's faces with un- 
 desirable intimacy, they are of a good 
 class, and are in good condition, and 
 some of them have lateral court-yards, 
 with nasturtiums and scarlet-runners 
 dragging a tender green web over their 
 white walls. The narrowest of the 
 Rows is only two feet three inches in 
 width. There are in all one hundred 
 and fifty-six of them, each known by its 
 
128 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 number. The object of the frugal plan 
 in which they originated is a mystery. 
 One of the guesses at it is this : — 
 
 The fishermen spread their nets out to 
 dry very carefully, and leave on the four 
 sides of each net a clear passage four, 
 five, or six feet wide. It is suggested 
 that the ground on which the Rows 
 stand was once used for this purpose, 
 and that the passages became so well 
 defined from constant traffic that event- 
 ually they were perpetuated as streets. 
 However this be, it is certain that some 
 of the houses in the Rows were among 
 the first built in the town, and certain 
 also that, leading from the main street, 
 they give easy access to the quay, 
 whereon Yarmouth finds its chief inter- 
 est. When the moon is full, and throws 
 black beams of shadow across these 
 alleys, and opens seeming pitfalls in 
 their rugged pavement, a stranger hes- 
 itates to enter them. At all times they 
 seem to properly belong to conspirators ; 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 1 29 
 
 but they are quite safe and reputable. 
 In olden times the watchmen patrolled 
 them " crying the wind " for sleepless 
 merchants and anxious skippers ; and 
 the bellmen of the Church of St. Nicho- 
 las prayed in them for the souls of those 
 who had bequeathed money for the pur- 
 pose. The wind holds pretty well to 
 one quarter in Yarmouth, and it is said 
 that the watchmen seldom had occasion 
 to vary their announcements : " East is 
 the wind; east-northeast; past two, and 
 a cloudy morning.'' 
 
 Having invented the narrowest streets 
 in the world, the inhabitants had to de- 
 vise an original vehicle for their locomo- 
 tion, as'no ordinary cart could enter them, 
 and this necessity was relieved by the 
 " trolly " — a peculiar cart about twelve 
 feet long, with two wheels revolving on 
 a low axle placed underneath the sledge, 
 the extreme width of the vehicle being 
 about three feet six inches. 
 
 Even in the dead of night the Rows are 
 
130 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 not quite still. All of them lead toward 
 the river, and some of them reveal the 
 black lines of clustered masts and rig- 
 ging. Many of the houses are occupied 
 by fishermen, who are astir at all hours. 
 The shrimpers go out to meet the tide 
 at eleven or twelve o'clock ; and though 
 the river has some traffic with distant 
 ports, the most frequent vessels on it are 
 the " dandy-rigged " boats and the rak- 
 ish cutters which belong to the great 
 industry of the town. 
 
 The industry is great in every sense 
 of the word. Over three million dol- 
 lars, or six hundred thousand pounds, is 
 invested in it ; it employs more than one 
 thousand vessels and eight thousand men, 
 and the late Frank Buckland computed 
 that the herrings caught in one year would 
 be sufficient to make fourteen meals for 
 every man, woman, and child in the 
 United Kingdom. 
 
 The herring is the mainstay of the 
 town's prosperity ; it was the abundance 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. I3I 
 
 of this palatable and wholesome fish that 
 attracted the early settlers to the sands. 
 Statistically it is nearly as interesting 
 as it is upon the breakfast-table. Yar- 
 mouth and the adjacent town of Lowes- 
 toft catch four hundred and fifty million 
 a year ; and the gross yearly produce of 
 the North Sea and East Atlantic fish- 
 eries is said by Mr. William Watt of 
 Aberdeen (the author of an exceedingly 
 interesting essay on the subject), to be 
 not less than twenty-four hundred mil- 
 lion, or two herrings to every man, 
 woman, and child in the world. The 
 cod, ling, and hake destroy twelve times 
 as many herrings as all the fishermen of 
 Europe catch, and the shoals are also 
 preyed upon by other fish and great 
 flocks of birds. Nearly all the fish that 
 swim prey upon the herring at one stage 
 or another of its existence. The spawn- 
 ing grounds are ravaged by crabs and 
 lobsters, and by all sorts of flatfish ; and 
 the fry is consumed by the haddock, the 
 
132 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 whiting, and the herring itself. The 
 shoals are sometimes four miles long 
 and two broad, and the fish are so 
 densely packed that those in the rear 
 have been known to push the front 
 ranks ashore. The nets used by the 
 Scotch and Yarmouth fisheries together 
 are long enough to reach from Liver- 
 pool to New York more than four times ; 
 and yet some commissioners who are 
 appointed to investigate the subject have 
 reported that nothing which man has 
 done has diminished the stock of her- 
 rings in the sea, and nothing which man 
 is likely to do can diminish it. The 
 fecundity of the fish is so great that the 
 progeny of a single female would at one 
 spawning, if all the ova were hatched, 
 be sufficient to fill about forty barrels, 
 and it is this reproductive power which 
 enables the species to hold its place. 
 
 The North Sea is the principal home 
 of the herring, and the shoals come and 
 go from shore to deep water and back 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 1 33 
 
 again, influenced by temperature, spawn- 
 ing, and the location of their food. In 
 the north of Scotland they are most 
 abundant by the ist of August, while in 
 the vicinity of Yarmouth the principal 
 fishing does not begin until September. 
 No herrings are caught in January. 
 Toward the end of February the fisher- 
 men begin to catcli spring herrings, and 
 continue to do so during March, April, 
 and May. In June and July the mid- 
 summer herrings are caught; and little 
 is done in August preliminary to the 
 opening of the autumn or home fishing, 
 which lasts from September until about 
 Christmas. Two or three days before 
 the great festival, all the boats come in, 
 and are moored along the wharf, bow 
 on, from the Southtown Bridge to the 
 estuary where the Yare empties between 
 two picturesque wooden piers into the 
 sea. 
 
 The boats are not like the broad- 
 beamed, red-sailed luggers of the south 
 
134 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 coast, which are so effective in water- 
 color pictures, but are of slender propor- 
 tions, and yacht-like neatness and grace. 
 They are decked vessels of from twenty- 
 five to forty-five tons, narrow and low in 
 the water, with a slope from stem and 
 stern to the centre, and they have the 
 speed as well as the appearance of 
 yachts. Their rig is what is known as 
 the " dandy '' pattern, probably from its 
 trimness. 
 
 But their resemblance to a yacht is 
 only external. The greater part of the 
 interior is taken up by the hold, in which 
 the fish is packed, and far astern is the 
 small cabin in which the captain and 
 his crew take what little rest they can 
 get. 
 
 Cabin 1 Let the reader picture to 
 himself a small coal cellar, and consider 
 that this is better ventilated and quite 
 as light as the quarters given in many 
 of the boats to eight men. The whole 
 space is about seven feet square, and 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 1 35 
 
 six feet high from deck to deck; and it 
 is utilized with the ingenious economy 
 of a portable kitchen, in which pot fits 
 within pot, and the grate compasses the 
 whole paraphernalia. Let into the sides 
 are two bunks, each about thirty inches 
 high, for the accommodation of four men, 
 and a bench is fixed to three sides, with 
 mysterious lockers under it; the fourth 
 side gives way to a ladder leading to the 
 upper deck, and a stove about ten inches 
 square, across the front of which a chain 
 is drawn to keep the kettle from rolling 
 ofi in the lurching of the boat. The 
 sleeping and eating of the crew and the 
 cooking are all accomplished in this 
 close and dusky kennel. 
 
 Out of the herring season, the boats 
 are at sea for eight weeks, trawling for 
 mackerel, whiting, cod, and soles ; and 
 they often get as far away from home as 
 two hundred miles, and are out in the 
 heaviest gales. It is nothing but work 
 and wet and cold for the men during 
 
136 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 these eight winter weeks ; and they have 
 no recreation but sleep, and Httle food 
 in addition to their own fish. Perhaps, 
 if they have money, they get boozy on 
 the grog supplied to them by the floating 
 dram-shops which are sent out by the 
 Dutch ; perhaps, if they have not money, 
 and are dishonest, which is rarely the 
 case, they still attain this felicity by giv- 
 ing some part of the boat's tackle in 
 exchange for the illicit spirit. At the 
 end of eight weeks, the captain, whose 
 knowledge of navigation is very small, 
 gropes his way home, depending on 
 soundings and the look of things rather 
 than on any exact observations for his 
 guidance, and not sleeping until the gray 
 spire of the old parish church, and the 
 immense column erected to the memory 
 of Nelson on the South Dunes, are in 
 sight, and he has safely passed the nar- 
 row mouth of the Yare, from which 
 many maritime wiseacres have been 
 watching him for hours. 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 1 37 
 
 A week ashore is allowed for refitting 
 between cruises, and the crew is then 
 paid off. The captain receives for his 
 ceaseless toil about eighteen shillings a 
 week, and a small percentage of the 
 value of his cargo, which does not aver- 
 age more than eight shillings a week 
 extra, and the men are paid from eight 
 to ten shillings a week. 
 
 While the boats are in the trawling- 
 grounds they are divided into fleets, 
 each being under an " admiral," — one 
 of the most experienced of the masters, 
 who receives a small sum for directing 
 them in sailing and trawling, and in 
 conveying their fish to the carrying cut- 
 ters. The boats do not bring their fish 
 into port, but deliver it to fast cutters, 
 which go among them to collect it, and 
 take it to Yarmouth, or sometimes, when 
 the wind is favorable, to Billingsgate. 
 The coming in of the cutters is one of 
 the prettiest and most familiar sights 
 in Yarmouth. With a fair breeze they 
 
138 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 travel at the rate of ten or eleven knots 
 an hour, and are as fast as almost any 
 tugboat, and make the harbor without 
 assistance ; but when the wind is against 
 them, and they are expected, all eyes are 
 strained in the lookout boxes at the har- 
 bor mouth, and a steamer is sent out to 
 help them in. Although the steamer is 
 hired at a guinea an hour, and her con- 
 nection with them ends as soon as she 
 has brought them up to the wharf, her 
 crew take a personal interest in the 
 search, and speak of the particular cut- 
 ter for which they are sent as "our 
 cutter," and the pennant which she car- 
 ries as "our pennant." There was a 
 poor coal-blackened fellow, who bore the 
 triple labor of stoker, deck-hand, and 
 cabin-boy, on board the steamer in which 
 we went out, whose zeal in this every- 
 day business of looking for a cutter 
 knew no bounds. It was evidently a 
 passion with him. 
 
 When the cutter is found, she is tri- 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 1 39 
 
 umphantly towed over the bar and up 
 the narrow river to the commodious new 
 fish wharf, if her load is for the Yar- 
 mouth market, and soon there is a clang- 
 ing of bells and a crowding of men, who 
 gather about the auctioneer in response 
 to the urgent invitations of his clerk. 
 " Now, you mackerel-buyers ! " " This 
 way for soles ! " " Now, you haddock- 
 ers, this way ! this way ! '^ If the load 
 is for London, it is taken to the railway 
 wharf farther up the river, and shot 
 along smooth planks from the deck into 
 the truck. The fish is packed on board 
 the boats in small wooden crates, each 
 bearing a tag with the name of the 
 vessel to which it belongs, and they are 
 covered with ice as they are piled up in 
 the truck. 
 
 In the herring season, instead of being 
 out eight weeks at a time, the boats are 
 only away for a day or two. The best 
 fishing is on dark nights ; for the herring 
 knows a net when he sees it, and the 
 
140 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 moonlight enables him to avoid it. Drift- 
 nets are used, each from eighteen to 
 twenty yards long ; and while the boat 
 is fishing, her mast is lowered to ease 
 her rolling. There are few brisker 
 sights than the fish wharf on a sunny 
 morning in season, when hundreds of 
 boats are moored alongside, and the fish, 
 overflowing the baskets, lie in silvery 
 heaps on the stones. 
 
 The glory of Yarmouth is its bloater, 
 but the highest qualities of the bloater 
 are so fleeting that only those who live 
 in or near the town can know how de- 
 served the glory is. Take one of the 
 primest of these herrings, " spit " it, and 
 smoke it from eighteen to twenty-four 
 hours ; thus the common herring is 
 transmuted into the delicate and incom- 
 parable bloater. The arsenal-like red 
 brick buildings seen in many parts of 
 the town are used for this purpose. The 
 choicest of the herrings, technically 
 " bloater stuff," are selected, and threaded 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. I4I 
 
 through the gills on sticks or " spits " 
 about a yard long, and placed in racks, 
 one above the other, to a height of thirty- 
 feet or more, in a building called the 
 smoke-house. One man stands in the 
 racks with his legs astraddle, and puts 
 "spit" after "spit" in position, about 
 twenty-five herrings being on each " spit," 
 until thousands of the fish are hanging 
 like stalactites under the high roof. 
 
 " We call these loves," an old man told 
 us as he climbed up the racks ; "I'm up 
 among the loves." 
 
 " Loves ? " we repeated incredulously. 
 
 "Yes, 1-o-v-e with a hes^^'' he replied 
 positively; though we afterward found 
 out that he was mistaken, and that the 
 proper name of the racks is louvres. 
 
 When " the loves " are filled, a log of 
 oak is lighted and left to smoulder, and 
 in about eighteen hours the herrings 
 have absorbed a certain proportion of the 
 smoke, and become perfect bloaters, with 
 an unmatched delicacy of flavor. They 
 
142 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 have so little salt in them and are so 
 finely cured that they are too perishable 
 to be sent any distance, and thus it is 
 that in this condition the bloater is only 
 known to those who are in or near Yar- 
 mouth. Smoked for a longer period, 
 and salted, they are prepared for the 
 foreign markets, and an exposure of 
 twelve or thirteen days to the fumes of 
 the oak produces the vulgar red herring. 
 The stale fish, and those which have lost 
 their heads or are in any way disfigured, 
 are packed in barrels and compressed by 
 a machine like a cheese-press, in which 
 form they are sent to Italy, where they 
 may often be seen in the shop windows 
 adding a shining disk to the glitter of a 
 Venetian day. 
 
 After the herrings the things caught 
 in greatest abundance by the Yarmouth 
 fishermen are shrimps; and one of the 
 commonest signs in the town is this : — 
 
 Shrimps Boiled and Alive, 
 Sold by the Catcher. 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. I43 
 
 The catcher is usually out all night 
 in a small open boat. He uses a small 
 trawling-net, which drags along the bot- 
 tom of the sea, and receives all the 
 things it disturbs. When he hauls it in, 
 it contains many strange creatures be- 
 sides the frisky, grasshopper-like decapod 
 crustacean for which he is seeking, but 
 when the weather is fair and the tide 
 favorable, he gets a fair load of the lat- 
 ter, which he brings home alive in the 
 morning. 
 
 Considering how much they have done 
 for it, and the arduousness of their lives, 
 the town has done little for its fisher- 
 men. In a corner of the market-place 
 is a low building of dusky red brick, with 
 a steep red-tiled roof, and dormer win- 
 dows with diamond panes. It is nearly 
 two centuries old. It forms a hollow 
 square, and is divided into twenty cot- 
 tages, each containing a bedroom and a 
 sitting-room. Here twenty poor fisher- 
 men, all of them over sixty years of age, 
 
144 QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 
 
 are provided with fairly comfortable 
 lodgings, one of the cottages being 
 allowed to each man and his wife, or, if 
 he is unmarried, another is quartered 
 with him. By the railing which encloses 
 the old building from the street are two 
 benches, one opposite the other ; and on 
 these, in fine weather, one may see the 
 pensioners, very old and feeble men 
 indeed, who cough and chat among 
 themselves, and wait with dreamy resig- 
 nation for the end of their days. Many 
 of them wear blue guernsey shirts with 
 canvas trousers; but among them are all 
 sorts of make-shift costumes, and on 
 Sundays all of them reach the dignity 
 of a chimney-pot hat. In honor of this 
 day and all festivals they hoist up any 
 old flags they can get hold of, — the 
 discarded streamers of a circus, or the 
 advertising banner of a shopkeeper, — 
 and when sunset comes, they bring this 
 shabby old bunting down, and, after a 
 quiet pipe, steal off silently to their 
 
QUAINT OLD YARMOUTH. 1 45 
 
 rooms. They seem to be content. 
 Their grandchildren and great-grand- 
 children, going to the parish school near 
 by, come in and chat with them, and 
 they have visits from dutiful daughters 
 who help them in keeping their rooms 
 in order. The last we saw of them was 
 in leaving the parish church one Sunday 
 evening, when they were punctiliously 
 lowering their flags as the sun went 
 down, and it seemed to us to be their 
 sun that was setting. 
 
 One word of advice : if you would see 
 these quaint people and their quaint old 
 town, go there late in the autumn or 
 early in the spring. In midsummer, 
 alas ! Yarmouth is the paradise of the 
 cad. 
 
Law, Lawyers^ and Law-Courts. 
 
 THE days of Miss Flite are over. 
 The ruinous delays of chancery 
 and the battledore and shuttlecock of 
 unfortunate litigants between the courts 
 of equity and the courts of common law, 
 which disfigured English justice for cen- 
 turies, are done away with by recent 
 changes in the system of judicature. 
 The law has been altered and remodelled 
 according to the dictates of common- 
 sense, and the old engines of heart- 
 breaking procrastination are become 
 obsolete. 
 
 When Miss Flite was alive, a suit 
 
 often lasted for a quarter of a century 
 
 or more, and the cost of the litigation 
 
 exceeded the value of the property in 
 
 146 
 
LAWYERS AND LAW-COURTS. I47 
 
 dispute. Every person interested was 
 made a plaintiff or defendant, and if one 
 of them died during its progress the 
 suit had to be begun again; and this 
 was also the case if a woman in either 
 party married. 
 
 Under the Judicature Act of 1875 the 
 courts of common law and the courts of 
 chancery, with their separate jurisdic- 
 tions, were consolidated into one supreme 
 court of judicature ; and law and equity, 
 instead of being antagonistic and apart, 
 were brought within the range of one tri- 
 bunal. The Court of King's (or Queen's) 
 Bench, which formerly heard only crimi- 
 nal cases, the Common Pleas, which ex- 
 isted for disputes between subject and 
 subject, and the Exchequer, whose 
 functions were limited to suits in con- 
 nection with the collection of the rev- 
 enue, were harmonized and enlarged in 
 scope ; and a private person may now 
 bring his action in either of them. Un- 
 der the same act numberless other em- 
 
148 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 barrassments and eccentricities were 
 swept away. 
 
 An illustration of the toilsome course 
 of justice in former times may be seen 
 in the speech of the judge to a man who, 
 previous to the opening of the present 
 Divorce court, was convicted of bigamy, 
 at Warwick. 
 
 " You tell me," said his lordship to 
 the prisoner, *^that your first wife left 
 her home and her young children to live 
 with another man. You say this prose- 
 cution is an instrument of extortion on 
 the part of the offenders. . . . These 
 are circumstances of which the law does 
 not take notice. Now, listen to me, and 
 I will tell you what you ought to have 
 done. Immediately you heard of your 
 wife's falsehood, you should have gone 
 to an attorney, and directed him to bring 
 an action against her betrayer. You 
 should have prepared your evidence, 
 instructed counsel, and proved the case 
 in court; and recollect that it was 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. 1 49 
 
 imperative you should recover — I do 
 not mean actually obtain — substantial 
 damages. Having proceeded thus far, 
 you should have employed a proctor, 
 and instituted a suit in the ecclesiastical 
 courts for a divorce a mensa et thoro, 
 I doubt not that you would have ob- 
 tained it. Then you had only to obtain 
 a private act of Parliament to dissolve 
 your marriage ; and, upon payment of 
 the proper fees, and proof of the facts, 
 you might have lawfully married again. 
 I see that you would tell me that those 
 proceedings would have cost you one 
 thousand pounds, and that all your small 
 stock in trade is not worth one hundred 
 pounds. Perhaps it may be so. The 
 law has nothing to say to that. As you 
 have not taken the proceedings I have 
 named, you stand a convicted culprit, 
 and it is my duty to pass sentence upon 
 you. You will be imprisoned for one 
 day." 
 
 As a recent writer has said, what was 
 
150 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 justice on one side of Westminster Hall 
 was injustice on the other ; and the ex- 
 istence of two different principles under 
 that one historic roof gave rise to many 
 unseemly feuds and undignified contra- 
 dictions between the propounders of 
 each. The judicature has not yet been 
 relieved of all its anomalies, its historic 
 excrescences, its circuitous pomp, its red 
 tape, but it has been very much simpli- 
 fied and smoothed out. The oddities 
 that cling to it are mostly ornamental 
 and not obstructive, and it would have 
 been contrary to the English reverence 
 for tradition to disencumber it of all its 
 quaint and picturesque accessories. So, 
 when the judges of assize travel through 
 a county, the sheriff has to provide a 
 sufficient escort of javelin-men for their 
 protection, if necessary ; and when there 
 is a maiden assize — that is, one at which 
 no prisoners are to be tried — he is ex- 
 pected to present their " ludships " with 
 a pair of white gloves apiece. 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. I5I 
 
 The complaint of some imaginative 
 writers that there is less encouragement 
 to place the scenes of their novels in this 
 country than in England — less opportu- 
 nity for vivid effects of literary color — 
 must seem to an American who visits 
 the English law-courts justified in them 
 at least, when he contrasts their sombre 
 state and suggestive adjuncts with the 
 prosaic and almost mercantile appear- 
 ance of the courts at home. He recalls 
 the picture as it is there : the frescoed, 
 wide-windowed court-room, furnished 
 like a merchant's office, with the sun 
 flooding it, and unsubdued newness evi- 
 dent upon everything, — his honor the 
 judge seated on the bench (a youngish 
 man most likely), without wig or gown, 
 but with a political diamond shining in 
 his well-exposed shirt-front ; the criers 
 without insignia, the lawyers mixed up 
 with and undistinguishable from the re- 
 porters, the litigants and spectators look- 
 ing very much alike, and all, indeed. 
 
152 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 without any strong marks of individu- 
 ality. 
 
 Then he turns his attention to one of 
 the English courts, and he at once sees 
 more character, more color, and, if less 
 common-sense, more picturesque formal- 
 ity. My lord on the bench is robed and 
 wigged, and wears a becoming air of 
 judicial severity. He seems apart from 
 other men, and exhibits outward signs 
 of his special functions. The barristers 
 also are robed and wigged; and they 
 look like barristers, a special class, and 
 are not, like American lawyers, undis- 
 tinguishable from the shopkeepers and 
 merchants who fill the jury-box. The 
 clerks and minor officials of the court 
 have their distinct individuality, and 
 each is as unmistakable as the judge 
 himself. Even the spectators in an 
 English court-room have certain special 
 characteristics which separate them from 
 other crowds, and add a tributary force 
 to the scene. Plaintiff and defendant 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. 1 53 
 
 loom up with as strong a personality as 
 any of the characters of Dickens. Any 
 oddity of manner seems almost unduly 
 emphasized, as if the grotesque develop- 
 ing light of the humorist had been 
 thrown upon it. 
 
 The court-room itself is an inspiration 
 to the imagination ; it has a mystic at- 
 mosphere, as if it held somewhere out of 
 sight the spirits of its departed litigants. 
 A voice sounds full and reverberant as 
 if it came from a tunnel. The persons 
 present move on tiptoes, and communi- 
 cate with each other in the lowest whis- 
 pers. The windows are diamond-paned 
 and mullioned, and are veiled as with 
 crepe by the soot which the rain has 
 washed upon them. The open rafters 
 of the roof are oaken, and the walls are 
 panelled in with the same wood. There 
 are heavy hangings of drapery, and the 
 whole effect of the chamber is so dark 
 that the blazonry of the royal arms glows 
 over the bench like a fire. Listening 
 
154 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 here, and taking in the details of the 
 scene, one need not be a novelist to feel 
 how strong a background it makes for 
 fiction. 
 
 The channels through which a litigant 
 has to pass before he reaches the court 
 are also full of what may briefly be 
 called literary material. Any interest 
 which an American writer can get out 
 of an interview with a lawyer must 
 come from the situation of his char- 
 acters ; it cannot be evolved out of any 
 description of the lawyer's office, which 
 is probably in some new ten-storied nest 
 of brokers and merchants, a wonder of 
 convenience, but a place without any 
 color except the astonishing and py- 
 rotechnically brilliant frescos, without 
 any movement that is not pushing, and 
 without a corner in it, from the well- 
 aired concrete basement to the roof 
 (where the janitor has a sort of little 
 suburban house), in which Romance 
 could harbor. But how fertile in sug- 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. I 55 
 
 gestion of plot are the narrow alleys 
 and inns which the lawyers reserve for 
 themselves in English cities, and espe- 
 cially in London, monopolizing a whole 
 neighborhood, even naming its streets 
 after the processes and dignitaries of 
 their own profession, and giving it a 
 local and definite aspect not to be con- 
 founded with other neighborhoods ! How 
 easily their offices fit into a story, the 
 walls iron-clad with dark-green deed- 
 boxes, the clerks so well defined in rank 
 and personality, from the neat and airy 
 young gentlemen who are " articled," to 
 the shabby penman, and the threadbare 
 old retainer who always sits at a back 
 desk! With what interest and mystery 
 the door of the principal opens and 
 closes, the voices within rising higher 
 for a moment or two as one interview 
 ends and some one hurriedly passes out, 
 and another who has been waiting with 
 heavy-breathing anxiety passes in ! How 
 like itself alone Chancery Lane is, with 
 
156 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 the lawyers' clerks hurrying to and fro, 
 carrying glazed-leather bags, and the 
 barristers afoot and in cabs, hastening 
 to and from their chambers, and wear- 
 ing their loose gowns and gray wigs in 
 the street with a recklessness which 
 seems sure to bring a cold upon them ! 
 And how fleet the wings of the imagina- 
 tion become within the precincts of the 
 old Inns of Court, the sooty barracks, 
 with sinking and weatherworn roofs, in 
 which young lawyers live very much 
 as they did in the time when George 
 Warrington smoked his cutty-pipe, and 
 dipped into pewters of ale between the 
 paragraphs of his articles, and gave bluff 
 encouragement to young Pendennis when 
 the latter was writing "At the Church- 
 Porch " ! 
 
 The old Inns of Court have a fascina- 
 nation which defeats all attempts at 
 vandal innovation ; and the barristers 
 of unborn generations will probably sit 
 contentedly under the same cobwebs. 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. I 5/ 
 
 and read by the light of the same little 
 windows, which their predecessors have 
 sat under and read by for uncounted 
 years. 
 
 The mould, the cracked plaster, the 
 shaky stairs, and the dirty windows of 
 the Inns of Courts are not endured for 
 any economical reasons. The drawing- 
 room floor in one of the many pretty 
 suburbs of London would cost no more 
 than the three little rooms which look 
 out on the fountain in Temple Court. 
 But young Briefless is happier there than 
 anywhere else. A new apartment-house 
 fitted with every convenience for himself 
 and his kind might be built for him, but 
 it would seem like forsaking his profes- 
 sion to leave the odd little historic dens 
 out of which all the leaders of the bench 
 and bar have passed. He is even proud 
 of them, and lets the dust and cobwebs 
 accumulate in them as the right of his 
 successor. 
 
 Not only are the inconveniences of 
 
158 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 chambers costly in English law. A bar- 
 rister requires at least three hundred 
 pounds for his preliminary expenses, and 
 it is likely that he will have to spend 
 more than twice as much again before 
 a brief comes to him. Many a struggle 
 with poverty is going on in those dark 
 little chambers. There is a justice in 
 London who does not mince matters, 
 who talks in the bluntest way. His 
 
 name is Mr. Commissioner K . On 
 
 a certain occasion he peremptorily re- 
 fused to make an order of committal on 
 a judgment summons, declaring that it 
 was not shown that the debtor had 
 means to pay. 
 
 " But," said the applicant, " he is a 
 barrister, with chambers in the Temple." 
 
 ^^No matter," rejoined the commis- 
 sioner, literally in these words ; " lots of 
 barristers in the Temple are starving; 
 two-thirds of them are doing no busi- 
 ness." 
 
 The bar is, indeed, overcrowded. It is 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. I 59 
 
 the refuge of many young men of good 
 family who have no aptitude of any kind, 
 and who enter it because it is genteel. 
 Some of them drift into other profes- 
 sions, nearly all of them dabble in liter- 
 ature, and a few of them wait patiently 
 for years until some chance brief comes 
 to them like a good fairy. Mr. Gilbert^s 
 satire has not missed these unfortunates ; 
 and one of the characters in " Trial by 
 Jury " tells how when young he had an 
 appetite fresh and hearty, and was, as 
 most young barristers are, " an impecu- 
 nious party." 
 
 The privilege of making barristers in 
 England belongs to the Inner Temple, 
 the Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and 
 Gray's Inn, the four ancient law-societies. 
 Until recently students had only to pay 
 some fees, and eat a certain number of 
 dinners in the halls of their inns, to qual- 
 ify themselves for being called to the 
 bar ; and many men who had no idea or 
 intention of practising had themselves 
 
l60 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 enrolled as barristers in much the same 
 spirit as they would have their names 
 put up at a club. But, with the excep- 
 tion of members of the universities, all 
 have now to undergo a preliminary ex- 
 amination in general knowledge before 
 they are admitted as students ; and all 
 must pass satisfactory examinations in 
 law before receiving the degree of bar- 
 rister, which entitles them to practise in 
 all English courts. The degree is also 
 accompanied by the legal right to the 
 universally appropriated title of "es- 
 quire.'' 
 
 It costs scarcely less to make an at- 
 torney than a barrister. Unless a man is 
 content to be an office-drudge all his life, 
 he must have a handsome sum to back 
 him at the outset of his career. In all 
 attorneys' offices there are two sorts of 
 clerks, — unarticled clerks and articled 
 clerks. The former are poor scriveners, 
 without distinction or special value. The 
 latter are apprentices, who are received 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. l6l 
 
 into the office for instruction, and pay a 
 large premium for the privilege; and it 
 is expected that they will in the end be- 
 come members of the firm. The articles 
 are articles of indenture; and it is not 
 likely that before the tyro is out of them 
 he will have spent less than a thousand 
 pounds, and, as articled clerks are gen- 
 erally very ornamental and extravagant 
 young men, their parents and guardians 
 often sorrowfully find the cost of their 
 training double this sum. From time 
 to time the articled clerks of provincial 
 cities come to London to read with a 
 " coach ^^ in one of the inns ; and most 
 of them improve the opportunity at the 
 Criterion, the Gaiety, and other places 
 of amusement. An hour's reading a day 
 covers the whole of their studies, and 
 after a certain term of this they appear 
 at the Law Institute and are examined. 
 
 As some of the laziest and most dis- 
 sipated young men I ever knew suc- 
 ceeded in passing the examination and 
 
1 62 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 being enrolled as attorneys, I fancy that 
 protracted devotions to plump barmaids, 
 late hours, and brandies and sodas are 
 favorable rather than otherwise to suc- 
 cess. At all events, as one of these 
 young men told me when the time for 
 examination was near and I ventured to 
 warn him, seeing that his reading had 
 consisted principally of The Referee and 
 The Era, "It isn't reading they care 
 about " (referring to the examiners) ; 
 "it's a knowledge of the ordinary work 
 of an office." 
 
 The attorneys were formerly distin- 
 guished from proctors, who practised in 
 the ecclesiastical courts, and from solici- 
 tors, who practised in chancery — the 
 latter being so called because originally 
 employed to solicit the clerks of the 
 court to give priority to their clients' 
 cases. But attorneys, proctors, and so- 
 licitors are now one. The bench exer- 
 cises a close watch over their conduct, 
 and may strike any name off the rolls. 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. 1 63 
 
 As a rule, their character both for intel- 
 ligence and integrity is very high. But 
 here and there a little sharp practice 
 may pass unnoticed ; here and there a 
 rogue is discovered whose methods re- 
 mind one of the " shysters " of the New 
 York police courts. 
 
 Up to a few years ago one of the large 
 towns in the North possessed a certain 
 criminal lawyer who combined Wem- 
 mick's passion for portable property with 
 the facility of a J aggers in extricating 
 his clients out of the little difficulties 
 into which housebreaking and other 
 peccadilloes plunged them. If he was 
 for the prisoner, the evidence had to be 
 very strong indeed against that unfor- 
 tunate to secure his conviction. The 
 prosecutor generally felt hopeless when 
 
 he saw that C was his antagonist. 
 
 C 's forefinger, like that of Jaggers, 
 
 made the witnesses perjure themselves, 
 and terrified the magistrates. He had a 
 fine income, of course, but it was not 
 
164 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 enough to sustain him in the profligate 
 life which he led. He appeared in court 
 in a dandified dress, with a flower in his 
 buttonhole and the aroma of frangipanni 
 on his linen ; but his eyes were bloodshot 
 with the unextinguished fires of the pre- 
 vious night's debauch, and the odor of 
 his breath was of the morning dram. He 
 was often penniless after those "sprees;" 
 and, like many men who are generous 
 when well supplied with money, he was 
 not over-particular as to his ways of 
 raising more when he was short. When 
 any one came to his office to engage his 
 services on these occasions, he would 
 not listen to a word until he had dis- 
 covered the resources of his caller. 
 
 " Come, come, now ! What have you 
 got ? Be quick, be quick ; let me see ! " 
 
 The caller emptied his pocket be- 
 fore him ; and C shook his head or 
 
 nodded it with satisfaction, as the case 
 might be. 
 
 If the sum was small, he scolded : 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. l6$ 
 
 " You ought to be ashamed of yourself, 
 coming to me with such a sum as that ! " 
 But, however small the amount was, he 
 put it into his pocket, and added to it 
 everything " portable " that he could 
 secure. On one occasion, having ac- 
 cepted a large fee, he used it to prolong 
 a debauch, and forgot his engagement 
 to his client, who, when he found that 
 his counsel was absent, threatened to 
 expose him. Some friends of the lawyer 
 sent for him in haste, but he was in- 
 capable of appearing. 
 
 *^ There,'' he said in alarm, thrusting 
 one guinea of the several he had received 
 into a young attorney's hand, "for heav- 
 en's sake, go and do what you can for 
 the noisy wretch ! He deserves the tread- 
 mill." 
 
 At length his irregularities became 
 too flagrant to escape the notice of the 
 court, and his name would surely have 
 been taken off the rolls had not his 
 death made the action unnecessary. 
 
l66 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 For the purposes of judicature Eng- 
 land and Wales are divided into eight 
 "circuits," which are periodically vis- 
 ited by certain of the judges, who trans- 
 act the civil and criminal business of 
 the towns within them at assizes held 
 in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. 
 Certain judges have certain circuits as- 
 signed to them, and they are followed 
 from town to town by certain barristers 
 who identify themselves with them. 
 Thus, the Midland circuit has one set 
 of judges and barristers, and the North- 
 ern circuit another set ; and thus, also, 
 they move together in their own orbit, 
 and become used to one another. The 
 judges are selected from among the bar- 
 risters, and he who is at the bar of one 
 circuit to-day may be on the bench of 
 the same circuit to-morrow. A kindly 
 feeling, which springs from a sense of 
 brotherhood, exists between them. One 
 of the reasons which are urged against 
 the removal of the present distinction 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. 1 6/ 
 
 between barristers and solicitors is that 
 the advocate should feel himself identi- 
 fied with the court and a part of it, as 
 under the present system he does ; the 
 effect being that, while individuals may 
 have anything said on their behalf which 
 it is proper to say, the public are secured 
 against undignified attempts to misrep- 
 resent the law for the casual advantage 
 of particular litigants. Take away the 
 distinction between barristers and solici- 
 tors, it is said, and the security will be 
 diminished, or the distinction will repro- 
 duce itself in another form. If men 
 should practise in the courts exception- 
 ally or occasionally, giving the greater 
 part of their time to other work, their 
 behavior in court would be that of inex- 
 perienced strangers, not sharing the sen- 
 timents of the court, and not concerned 
 for its dignity or the general success 
 of its operations. This is the argument 
 of those who are opposed to a change ; 
 and, though it may appear specious and 
 
1 68 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 disingenuous, even frivolous, to persons 
 unfamiliar with the peculiarities of the 
 English system, it is essentially sound. 
 There can be no doubt that the rela- 
 tions of barristers and judges as they 
 now are tend to protect the honor and 
 uphold the dignity of the law. The bar 
 is a critical body, and its opinion of 
 judicial decisions and judicial character 
 is looked upon by the judges themselves 
 as of high value and importance. 
 
 The main difference between a bar- 
 rister and a solicitor is that the case is 
 prepared by the latter, and presented to 
 the court by the former. The barrister 
 has no direct relations with the party 
 upon whose side he is in the suit. He 
 is " instructed " by the solicitor, and from 
 him receives the brief, upon which the 
 amount of his honorarium is marked. 
 The figures on the brief are unaccom- 
 panied by any contract, and the amount 
 cannot be recovered at law. Sometimes 
 additions are made to the original fig- 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. 1 69 
 
 ures, until the brief looks like a paper 
 upon which a mathematician has been 
 working out a complicated problem. 
 The sums paid to barristers are often 
 enormous ; but in the case of young men 
 who are struggling along in one of the 
 gloomy old chambers, and rwho are only 
 saved from starvation by the help which 
 literature often gives to the educated 
 man when his own profession neglects 
 him, they are small enough. Several 
 hundred guineas to begin with, and one 
 hundred guineas for each day of the 
 case, are not unusual as the reward of 
 a distinguished counsel. 
 
 When the present Lord Chief Justice 
 was plain Mr. Russell, Q.C., he and Sir 
 John Holker were oppositely engaged 
 in a case at Liverpool. The former re- 
 ferred to some occurrence in connection 
 with the case as a *' matter of history." 
 
 " Will my learned friend define what 
 he means by a * matter of history ' ? " 
 said Sir John. 
 
I/O LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 " Well, I might say," courteously an- 
 swered Mr. Russell, " that it is a matter 
 of history when Sir John Holker comes 
 to Liverpool." 
 
 *' Indeed ! " said the object of the 
 compliment ; and, quickly looking at the 
 handsome figures marked on his brief, 
 he added, " then I do not care how 
 often history repeats itself." 
 
 The judges are chosen from among 
 the barristers. When a vacancy occurs, 
 the government in power, of course, 
 prefers to appoint one of its supporters 
 to the position ; but if a fitter man is 
 found in the Opposition his political 
 opinions do not disqualify him. Mr. 
 Gladstone appointed Sir John Holker 
 as justice of the Court of Appeals, 
 though he had been the Conservative 
 attorney-general in Lord Beaconsfield's 
 ministry, and both in and out of the 
 House a bitter opponent of the Liberal 
 party. 
 
 A visitor to the superior courts must 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. I /I 
 
 be struck by the dignity, the impartial- 
 ity, and the wisdom with which justice 
 is administered. There is something 
 parental in the judge's attitude. He is 
 quick to reprove the smallest sign of 
 disrespect, and sharp in pinning down 
 any inaccuracy. But he strives to un- 
 derstand a confused witness, and to help 
 out a blundering counsel. He is not 
 likely to be inferior in knowledge or 
 experience to any of the counsel appear- 
 ing before him ; and what was said of 
 Sir George Bramwell applies to most 
 of his associates on the bench : " How 
 often we have had to recognize that 
 when, by the force of his inexorable 
 logic, he has driven us into a dilemma, 
 he was prompt to hold out the hand of 
 his friendship to extricate us from the 
 difficulty which was overwhelming us ! 
 We all know, too, when necessity re- 
 quired that he should strike an incisive 
 blow with the weapon of his speech, 
 how apt he was to lessen the pain of 
 
1/2 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 the wound by the covering of an epi- 
 gram." 
 
 In the minor courts it is different. 
 Among county justices of the peace and 
 police-magistrates there is too often an 
 arrogance, a lack of discrimination, and 
 a pompous display of authority, in which 
 personal inclinations are taken into ac- 
 count rather than law. But the news- 
 papers are so alert that any gross mis- 
 carriage of justice is inevitably brought 
 before the Home Secretary, and in most 
 instances rectified. The police-reports, 
 however, often contain cases which show 
 that the Fang whom Dickens described 
 in " Oliver Twist " is not extinct, though 
 his chances for mischief may be cur- 
 tailed. The likeness is so strong that 
 one could easily mistake the judge, whose 
 frankly expressed opinion on the con- 
 dition of barristers I have already 
 quoted, for the original of this charac- 
 ter. Not long ago he was hearing a 
 suit for the recovery of a debt, in which 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. 1 73 
 
 the defendant pleaded insufficiency of 
 means, showing that his income was 
 only ninety pounds, or four hundred 
 and fifty dollars, a year, and that he had 
 a wife and family to support, besides an 
 invalid sister. 
 
 "You are not bound to support your 
 sister," sharply said the commissioner. 
 
 "But there is no one else to support 
 her,'* the unfortunate man cried. 
 
 "Yes, there is," retorted this humane 
 lawgiver; "there's the workhouse." 
 
 " I could not let her go there," contin- 
 ued the witness. 
 
 "You must^^^ persisted his worship. 
 " Debts must be paid first, and charity 
 dispensed afterward. As to means, I 
 am beginning to learn how people can 
 and do live. I had an application made 
 to me for out-door relief the other day 
 by a woman who supported herself, hus- 
 band, and child on fifteen shillings 
 [three dollars and seventy-five cents] 
 a week, earned by waistcoat-making. 
 
174 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 Ninety pounds a year will keep a good 
 home, if properly laid out ; but if a 
 great part of it is spent in tobacco 
 and the public house, it is a different 
 thing. I shall make an order for com- 
 mittal. People must learn to exercise 
 self-restraint.'' 
 
 Municipal ordinances in Great Britain 
 are not passed to display aldermanic 
 phraseology and then to be evaded. 
 The individual is required to respect the 
 law in its least weighty decrees as the 
 law respects him ; it will not be hood- 
 winked, as it so often is in the United 
 States, especially in the large cities. 
 There are ordinances in the municipal 
 code of the latter which are intended to 
 control drinking-places, houses of amuse- 
 ment, public conveyances, and the 
 weights and measures of shopkeepers ; 
 but they are rarely enforced. If every 
 ordinance which lies unobserved and 
 disregarded on the shelves of the Com- 
 mon Council were put in force. New 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. 1/5 
 
 York would be a model city. There are 
 laws enough, indeed, but there is not 
 enough law. 
 
 Now, in England, though there is some 
 evasion, law is generally enforced. As 
 in American cities, there are ordinances 
 relating to public-houses, conveyances, 
 adulterations, and weights and measures ; 
 but they cannot be violated with impu- 
 nity. All glasses, tankards, and measures 
 in public-houses are periodically tested ; 
 and, if the publican would avoid a fine, 
 they must be exactly of the prescribed 
 standard. Should he sell as a pint a 
 measure containing a little less than that 
 quantity, he would surely, if discovered, 
 be summoned before a magistrate and 
 fined. He must give an exact pint, — 
 no more and no less. 
 
 Some inspectors are absurdly punctil- 
 ious. Not long ago one of them hap- 
 pened to be in a tavern near Liverpool 
 when a pretty servant-girl came in for the 
 dinner-beer. She handed the barman 
 
176 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 her jug, asking for a pint; and he, out of 
 compliment to the dainty white cap she 
 wore, or perhaps to her face, gave her 
 what is known as the " long pull,'^ or 
 nearly double the standard quantity. 
 Mr. Inspector here made himself known, 
 seized the jug, measured its contents, 
 and, having found out the excess, sum- 
 moned the barman to a police court, 
 where the magistrate decided that it was 
 as illegal to give too much as too little. 
 
 The scales, weights, and measures of 
 butchers, grocers, and all other provis- 
 ion-dealers are also examined from time 
 to time ; and the severity with which all 
 delinquencies are punished protects the 
 public against frauds which are common 
 enough in this country. 
 
 Eleven o'clock in the provinces and 
 half-past twelve in the metropolis is the 
 hour prescribed for closing the drink- 
 ing-places or public-houses ("pubs'' 
 as they are vulgarly called). While the 
 clocks are striking, every public-house 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. 1 7/ 
 
 is emptied, and a few minutes later the 
 lights are all out. No delay is allowed ; 
 and few publicans who care about re- 
 taining their licenses venture under any 
 circumstances to sell a glass, even to 
 their best and most trusted customers, 
 one minute after the specified hour. 
 
 On Sundays the public-houses are 
 opened only between one and three 
 o'clock in the afternoon, and between 
 six and ten o'clock p.m. in the provinces, 
 and six and eleven in London. In the 
 intervals they are positively and without 
 exception closed. 
 
 Out of the city and at the railway- 
 stations, however, there is a loophole to 
 the law, through which the toper can 
 obtain his " nip.'' He can walk a cer- 
 tain distance from his home, and demand 
 refreshment as a "traveller." All the 
 little taverns on the borders of London 
 do a large Sunday business with " trav- 
 ellers." They are closed to persons 
 living in the immediate neighborhood, 
 
1/8 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 who are cautioned against attempting to 
 enter them ; but persons coming from a 
 distance are entitled to use them. A 
 man is posted at the door who questions 
 each comer. 
 
 " A traveller, sir ? " he inquires. 
 
 And if the answer is only vaguely 
 affirmative, if it is only a nod or a 
 movement of the lips, the applicant for 
 admission is allowed to pass. 
 
 At Kew, Hampstead Heath, and other 
 popular resorts, on Sundays there are 
 so many travellers that one gets the 
 idea of being at a geographical con- 
 gress ; and the delegates are so thirsty 
 that they might all be from the Libyan 
 Desert or El Llano Estacado. A bona 
 fide traveller has been judicially defined 
 as a person who has not slept on the 
 previous night within three miles of the 
 place at which he applies for refresh- 
 ment. A constitutional walk thus makes 
 a traveller of one man who may never 
 have been beyond the sound of Bow 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. 1/9 
 
 Bells, while another who has crossed 
 Africa, and is on his way from New 
 York to Tierra del Fuego, is said to be 
 no traveller because he slept only two 
 miles away on the previous night. The 
 English law in this matter is not without 
 absurdities. 
 
 At the principal railway-stations, also, 
 the bars are open on Sundays ; and be- 
 fore serving a customer the attendants 
 ask him, "Are you going by train, sir ? *' 
 Of course he is going by train, otherwise 
 he could not get his refreshment ; but 
 if, as is sometimes the case, he is asked 
 to show his ticket, he is often unable to 
 do so. 
 
 Great is the contrast between the 
 police of English cities and those drafted 
 from the political " heelers " of New 
 York or Chicago. The former bear 
 themselves as humble servants of the 
 people. You may see them in a " row " 
 with a crowd of drunken laborers on a 
 Saturday night, or among some brawling 
 
l80 LAW, LAWYERS, 
 
 soldiers. Their attitude is one of Chris- 
 tian-like forbearance. They don't rush 
 in and club every head within reach, 
 but use moral suasion before they apply 
 any other force. I have seen one of 
 these model officers standing alone in a 
 threatening crowd of disorderly people, 
 and not replying to threat with threat, 
 but patiently endeavoring to have them 
 " move on." I have seen a posse of 
 them put along the sidewalk to keep 
 order on Lord Mayor's Day, or at some 
 other public celebration; and I have 
 been forced to admire their good humor 
 as the crowd, becoming restive, has 
 made bold attempts to break bounds, 
 and invade the space barricaded off for 
 the procession. The big, full-chested 
 fellows have stood shoulder to shoulder, 
 and held back the mass behind them 
 as by a wall. There was no clubbing or 
 bullying; and, continuing to hold their 
 position against all the impatient push- 
 ing, the policemen, or ^ ^ Bobbies " as 
 
AND LAW-COURTS. l8l 
 
 they are commonly called, have smiled 
 triumphantly, and perhaps jokingly 
 taunted the besiegers with their failure. 
 Watching them, an American looker-on 
 must have thought how different it 
 would have been in New York, — how 
 much aggressive ferocity there would 
 have been, how many dazed and bleed- 
 ing heads. 
 
 The club is not encouraged in Eng- 
 land. In one of my note-books I have 
 an extract from a London newspaper, 
 which gives an account of a charge of 
 assault brought by a policeman against 
 a corner ruffian who had struck him on 
 the nose. The policeman had afterward 
 struck his assailant with his club, or, as 
 the much modified and reduced weapon 
 is called in England, his truncheon. 
 
 "This is a very serious case," said the 
 Solon on the bench, gravely putting on 
 his spectacles. " Using the club is wholly 
 reprehensible, and your position should 
 have been one of extreme forbearance." 
 
1 82 LAWYERS AND LAW-COURTS. 
 
 As the unfortunate officer saw the 
 prisoner discharged, he must have 
 wondered when in that magistrate's eyes 
 he would have been justified in resent- 
 ing the mutilation of his person and the 
 defacement of his countenance; and as 
 he counted his next week's pay he might 
 appropriately have hummed the song, 
 "A policeman's lot is not a happy 
 one." 
 
 The salary of an American policeman 
 is from twenty to thirty dollars a week, 
 and the salary of an English policeman 
 is about seven. There surely cannot be 
 any scarcity of Christian virtues in a 
 country where fortitude and valor are 
 purchasable at so low a price as seven 
 dollars a week. 
 
The House of Commons. 
 
 IF London has not the fascination of 
 Paris, one need not love it to feel 
 that it is the greater city in something 
 more than area. Its vaster and more 
 ponderous movement, and the depth and 
 impenetrability of its life, affect one with 
 a much more serious interest than the 
 superficial gayety and decorative opu- 
 lence of the French capital. 
 
 But there are certain points of view 
 from which its external magnificence 
 alone is impressive. The best of these 
 is Westminster Bridge when Parliament 
 is in session, especially on a fine night. 
 The bridge is wide and crowded; and 
 the string of lamps along the parapet pro- 
 jects uneasy reflections on the Thames, 
 which flows black and silent under the 
 183 
 
184 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 piers, coming from a valley as lovely as 
 any in England to wind through the heart 
 of London, then to strike out through 
 quiet marshes and by many busy towns, 
 like Sheerness and Gravesend, to the sea, 
 some forty miles beyond. The lamps on 
 the Victoria Embankment also throw a 
 long line of golden bars on the dark 
 water, and about a mile northward a 
 starry string stretches across Waterloo 
 Bridge. 
 
 Let us imagine ourselves standing in 
 the middle of the bridge, with the traffic 
 whirling by us and along the Embank- 
 ment. Just across the way is the superb 
 pile of the Parliament buildings, cover- 
 ing about eight acres. The clock-tower 
 at the northern end contains **Big Ben," 
 whose booming record of the hours can 
 be distinctly heard as far away as the 
 Whittington Stone on Highgate Hill, and 
 whose immense face, seen from Trafal- 
 gar Square, hangs in the air like a ball 
 of fire. The course of the river at this 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 18$ 
 
 point is north and south, and the Houses 
 of Parliament front upon it. The build- 
 ings are exceedingly beautiful ; and their 
 bulk is relieved by sculpture, spires, 
 buttresses, and the fretted masonry and 
 gilded vanes of the Tudor-Gothic style. 
 Jutting from them is Westminster Hall, 
 and a little farther away are St. Mar- 
 garet's Church and the Abbey. 
 
 This is the most imposing architec- 
 tural cluster in the city, and at any time 
 of the day it is a gratifying and exalting 
 sight. There is always a good deal of 
 motion and bustle in the neighborhood, 
 and the traffic seems to have a special 
 urgency and dignity. During a night- 
 sitting of Parliament, however, the pic- 
 turesqueness is increased, and we feel 
 ourselves to be at the very heart of 
 the far-reaching empire. The House of 
 Commons has been called " the most 
 ancient and most honorable assembly in 
 the world " by a member of it who is 
 never loath to criticise its faults ; and 
 
1 86 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 any Anglo-Saxon must admit some awe 
 before the fountain-head of constitu- 
 tional government which has shaped the 
 law of his race. The pleasure which the 
 architecture of the buildings affords is 
 supplemented by the reminiscences they 
 call forth of the long chain of events by 
 which the character of the government 
 has been formed, and the supremacy of 
 the crown adjusted to permit the sover- 
 eignty of the people. 
 
 After dark a lantern on the highest 
 point of the tower burns while the House 
 is sitting; and this, as we have said, is 
 the most favorable time to see West- 
 minster, and to feel the charm of its 
 associations. The palace-yard in front 
 of Westminster Hall blazes with lamps; 
 and vehicles enter and leave it with oc- 
 cupants who, from the degree of atten- 
 tion they receive from the spectators, 
 may be judged to be members, and per- 
 haps Cabinet ministers. But the spec- 
 tators have no privileges ; and their 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 18/ 
 
 curiosity is piqued rather than satisfied 
 by a passing glimpse of some great 
 statesman, which the helmeted police- 
 men allow them to have before dispers- 
 ing them with a constantly reiterated 
 command to "Move on.'^ 
 
 The public offices are guarded by the 
 military; but the Houses of Parliament 
 are intrusted to the police, armed with 
 no more formidable weapons than trun- 
 cheons ; and these officers are picked 
 men, who zealously keep the yard free 
 from idlers. The bayonet and scarlet 
 coat are prohibited, with a sensitive ap- 
 preciation of their inappropriateness to 
 the surroundings of an assembly in which 
 antagonisms are limited to reason and 
 debate. Outside the yard the spectators 
 have more liberty to congregate, and 
 there is usually a large number of them. 
 Westminster at night is in fact one of 
 the busiest and noisiest parts of the 
 metropolis. There is an endless pro- 
 cession of cabs and omnibuses, and 
 
1 88 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 above their din and rattle the chimes 
 throw out melodious peals. 
 
 In the afternoon some of the members 
 come down on horseback, attended by 
 liveried grooms, or in private carriages; 
 but most of them, especially at night, 
 avail themselves of the democratic and 
 always convenient shilling cab. As the 
 evening advances, the traffic over the 
 bridge decreases, but the palace-yard is 
 still bustling. The lantern in the tower 
 is often ablaze at midnight — sometimes 
 long after the crowds have disappeared 
 from the streets, and until the gilded 
 tips of the Parliament buildings begin to 
 glitter with the first rays of dawn. Be- 
 yond the glare of the lamps in the yard 
 is the Gothic bulk of the Abbey; and 
 the proximity of this exalted temple 
 to the legislative halls is as an inspira- 
 tion and an admonition. Here is the 
 arena, wherein the struggles are to be en- 
 dured, the honors won ; here the sanc- 
 tuary, the deep sleep, and the gratitude 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 1 89 
 
 of a nation speaking above the preju- 
 dices and jealousies of parties. 
 
 The public are admitted to view the 
 House of Commons on Saturdays, when 
 there is no sitting; and at other times 
 they are admitted to the Strangers' Gal- 
 lery on the order of a member or of one 
 of the ambassadors in London. Each 
 member has the privilege of issuing a 
 card for two persons every day the House 
 is in session ; but the gallery holds only 
 two hundred persons, and when the pri- 
 vilege is fully exercised there are about 
 six times more applicants than seats. 
 
 The simple elector who comes from 
 quiet country ways for a London holiday 
 secures a pass to the House of Commons 
 from his representative; and, fortified 
 with it, he boldly approaches the portals, 
 foreseeing no difficulty. 
 
 As he enters he is awed by the solemn 
 splendor of the architecture, the long, 
 groined corridors, the statuary, the his- 
 torical paintings on the walls, and the 
 
igO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 stained windows. The decorations are 
 florid Gothic, the oak and masonry are 
 lighted up by touches of gold and crim- 
 son, the floors are richly tiled. On his 
 left he passes Westminster Hall, which 
 dates from the time of Richard the Sec- 
 ond, and he remembers that it was under 
 this roof, with its span of seventy-four 
 feet, that Charles the First was tried for 
 treason. 
 
 Wrapped up in revery and in admira- 
 tion of the many beauties of the place, 
 he is about to proceed, when a police- 
 man accosts him, to whom he shows his 
 member's order. 
 
 ^^Sit down there, sir,^' the officer tells 
 him, pointing to a long bench between 
 the statues, on which perhaps as many 
 as sixty or seventy persons are already 
 seated, all provided with members' orders, 
 and all waiting for admission to the gal- 
 lery, which is already full. He then 
 learns how little his pass is worth. Pos- 
 sibly not one of those now in the gallery 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. IQI 
 
 will surrender his place during the whole 
 of the sitting ; possibly half a dozen or 
 less, not finding the proceedings inter- 
 esting, or being called away by business, 
 may come out ; and for these five or six 
 vacancies the sixty or seventy persons 
 on the bench are candidates. Each of 
 them has one chance in twenty of suc- 
 ceeding ; and he is usually willing to wait 
 for hours, buoyed up with the hope that 
 good fortune will come to him. 
 
 Appreciating the compliment implied 
 in this patience, the House took compas- 
 sion on the strangers some time ago, and 
 voted to upholster the benches, which 
 had been uncovered and comfortless 
 stone ; more than this, they consider- 
 ately resolved that the cushions should 
 be of exactly the same color and quality 
 as the seats in their own chamber, — 
 wherein was a subtle token of that sense 
 of equality which becomes a popular 
 legislature. If the strangers were ad- 
 mitted to the gallery in rotation, any one 
 
192 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 coming and finding a score or more 
 before him would have no chance at all ; 
 but they are admitted by ballot, and in 
 this way the man who presents himself 
 at nine o'clock in the evening may ob- 
 tain a seat before those who have been 
 waiting since six or seven. The cards 
 are taken from all comers, and put into 
 a glass jar ; and as often as a place in the 
 gallery becomes vacant the policeman 
 shakes the jar and withdraws one of the 
 cards, the person whose name it bears 
 being entitled to enter the House forth- 
 with. There is an amusing gleam of 
 triumph in the eyes of those who are 
 called, and a peculiar alacrity of move- 
 ment ; while those who are relegated to 
 hope grow dejected as the hours creep 
 on towards midnight. 
 
 A seat having been found for him, 
 however, the visitor to the Strangers' 
 Gallery is bundled up a penal-looking 
 staircase into the very incommodious 
 quarters provided for him. 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. I93 
 
 The best way into the House itself 
 is by the members' private entrance, 
 which is a little to the left of West- 
 minster Hall, and which leads by the 
 cloakroom, once the cloisters of St. 
 Stephen's Chapel. These cloisters were 
 built about three hundred and sixty 
 years ago, and were restored when the 
 new Houses of Parliament were built in 
 1834. The roof is superbly ornamented 
 with " fan-tracery," lace-like masses of 
 carved stone which expand from the 
 wall-columns in the form of a fan. The 
 bosses in the centre of each compart- 
 ment are enriched with heraldic devices 
 and foliage, and some of the ribs are 
 adorned with the square-leaved " Tudor 
 flower." 
 
 This entrance through the cloakroom 
 is for members alone ; but it seems pos- 
 sible for any one with some effrontery 
 to walk in and deceive the doorkeeper, 
 especially after a general election, when 
 many of the six hundred and fifty-two 
 
194 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 members are new and unknown to him. 
 If he should challenge any one without 
 justification, the member challenged 
 would naturally complain of the indig- 
 nity; and so the doorkeeper apparently 
 has to trust as much to the honesty of 
 persons presenting themselves as to his 
 memory. 
 
 Formerly the members could be iden- 
 tified in a certain measure by the re- 
 spectability of their dress and the air of 
 social distinction which attached to them. 
 They were nearly all men of fashion, and 
 most of them men of wealth. The author 
 of " Endymion '' informs us that twenty 
 years before the period of that story no 
 man would have thought of coming down 
 to the House except in evening dress. 
 ^'The Minister always came down in 
 silk stockings and pantaloons or knee- 
 breeches.'' But now the doorkeeper 
 would blunder egregiously if he at- 
 tempted to discriminate between mem- 
 bers and others by their attire. The 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. I95 
 
 House of Commons is no better dressed 
 than the Senate at Washington, and its 
 members are not generally conspicuous 
 for the distinction of their bearing. The 
 cut of their clothes is often so unortho- 
 dox that it would send a shudder through 
 Poole. The swallow-tail is seldom seen, 
 and the soft felt hat of democracy has 
 become familiar on the head of the Brit- 
 ish legislator. Even the tweed helmet 
 has been made familiar by Keir Hardy. 
 If the stranger expects to see an assem- 
 bly of *^ swells," he will be disappointed. 
 What he will see is not at all unlike the 
 scenes in the lobby at Washington, ex- 
 cept that this hall of informal discussion 
 in the English Parliament building is 
 much handsomer than the one used for 
 the same purpose in the Capitol, and we 
 miss that inevitable adjunct of American 
 political intercourse, the spittoon. 
 
 The proceedings in the House of 
 Commons, except in special instances, 
 are opened at four o'clock ; and at that 
 
196 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 hour, or a few minutes before, the hum 
 of conversation in the lobby is hushed 
 as room is demanded in a loud voice 
 for "Mr. Speaker." All present defer- 
 entially uncover and stand aside as 
 two gentlemen enter dressed in court- 
 suits of black, — black knee-breeches, 
 black silk stockings, shoes with silver 
 buckles, exquisitely frilled shirts, and 
 gold-mounted swords in black sheaths, 
 — one of whom bears the heavy gold 
 mace which emblemizes the power of 
 the sovereign, and which Cromwell con- 
 temptuously called " that bauble." Fol- 
 lowing these is Mr. Speaker himself, 
 bewigged and begowned, with his train- 
 bearer holding up the yard and a half of 
 silk which trails behind him ; and be- 
 hind come the Speaker's chaplain and 
 the Speaker's secretary, and a few others. 
 The little procession enters the House 
 from the lobby by the door opposite the 
 one which leads from Octagon Hall ; 
 and an usher then announces that " Mr. 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. IQ/ 
 
 Speaker is at prayers," and, a few mo- 
 ments later, that " Mr. Speaker is in the 
 chair.'' 
 
 The Speaker is the president of the 
 House, and many privileges are con- 
 ferred upon him. It is his business to 
 protect the House from affront and to 
 admonish refractory members ; and, in 
 case of a "tie," he has the casting vote. 
 He receives a salary of five thousand 
 pounds, and when relieved of his office 
 is promoted to the peerage, with a pen- 
 sion of four thousand pounds a year for 
 two lives. Most of the servants of the 
 House are generously treated in the 
 matter of salaries, about fifty thousand 
 pounds a year being distributed among 
 forty of them. The chief clerk, my 
 friend Sir Reginald Palgrave, the em- 
 inent authority on parliamentary proce- 
 dure, receives two thousand pounds a 
 year, and the sergeant-at-arms twelve 
 hundred; and in addition to their sal- 
 aries, both the Speaker and the clerk 
 
198 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 are provided with residences in Speaker's 
 Court. 
 
 The public are excluded from the 
 House while the Speaker is at prayers ; 
 but, by one of those anomalies which 
 give a humorous flavor to some forms 
 of English legislation, the authorities do 
 not recognize the existence of the Ladies' 
 Gallery, and by this pleasantry the oc- 
 cupants of it are permitted to witness 
 the spiritual devotions of the Speaker. 
 When it is announced that he is in the 
 chair, the Strangers' Gallery and the 
 Speaker's Gallery are opened, and we 
 may then enter. From neither of these 
 can a good view be obtained, and the 
 visitor finds the interest of the proceed- 
 ings and his comfort increased if he has 
 already made himself familiar with the 
 building itself on one of those occasions 
 when it is open to the public. 
 
 When the florid beauties of St. 
 Stephen's Hall and Octagon Hall, and 
 the sumptuous decorations of the House 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. I99 
 
 of Lords have been seen, the House of 
 Commons, like the members in the 
 lobby, is disappointing, and the insuffi- 
 ciency of its size is at once apparent. 
 It is nearly square, and the walls and 
 ceiling are panelled with carved oak of 
 a sombre hue. The windows are bor- 
 dered with stained glass, in which the 
 motto Dieu et mo?i droit is repeated side- 
 ways and lengthwise. There is also a 
 large plate of delicately tinted glass in 
 the roof, through which the light falls 
 with grateful softness. At the farther 
 end of the hall from the entrance the 
 Speaker sits in a canopied oak chair; 
 and in front of him is the clerks' table, 
 upon which rests the ponderous mace, 
 bearing the initials C. R. and a crown. 
 The benches upon which the members 
 sit are placed four deep along the sides 
 of the hall from end to end, and are 
 upholstered in dark leather. Unlike the 
 seats in the Senate or House of Repre- 
 sentatives, they have no desks or tables 
 
200 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 attached to them ; and if the occupants 
 want to write they must use their knees. 
 The benches on the Speaker's right hand 
 are occupied by the ministerial party, 
 and those on the left by the Opposition. 
 They are divided — those on the right 
 and left — by an aisle about twelve feet 
 wide, and are intersected midway by a 
 traverse passage called the "gangway;" 
 the members who sit below this, whether 
 they are on the Conservative side of the 
 House or the Liberal, indicating that 
 they do not give unreserved allegiance 
 to their party. At the end opposite to 
 the Speaker is the bar of the House, two 
 pillars united by a hollow brass rod ; 
 and, excepting the clerks at the table, 
 only members are admitted within this 
 limit. Even the sergeant-at-arms and 
 the deputy sergeant-at-arms are ex- 
 cluded, and sit outside the bar; and if 
 a letter or telegram arrives for a mem- 
 ber, it is passed along from hand to 
 hand until it reaches him. Many tra- 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 20I 
 
 ditions are perpetuated in the House of 
 Commons at the cost of convenience. 
 
 A narrow gallery extends on all four 
 sides of the House. That part over the 
 Speaker's chair is given up to the re- 
 porters, and the accommodations are so 
 limited that one man has to do the work 
 for a score of newspapers. Behind the 
 reporters a space is let into the wall and 
 screened with ornamental iron-work, the 
 purpose of which seems to the stranger 
 to be ventilation ; but as he looks at 
 it closer he perceives indistinct figures 
 moving at the other side of the screen ; 
 and if he inquires what it is he will be 
 told by any one acquainted with the 
 House that it is the "cage," — a name 
 appropriate in a double sense to the 
 Ladies' Gallery, where feminine curios- 
 ity can only be gratified by the sacrifice 
 of a good deal of personal comfort. 
 
 The side-galleries are nominally re- 
 served for the peers, but on crowded 
 nights many members who cannot find 
 
202 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 room on the floor occupy them. The 
 gallery opposite the Speaker's chair is 
 divided into three sections ; the front 
 seats being intended for the attaches of 
 the various legations in London, the 
 seats behind these for persons entering 
 with a Speaker's order^ and the seats in 
 the extreme rear for ^^ strangers," or 
 those provided with members' orders. 
 
 The ushers, who wear evening dress 
 and large gilt badges hung round their 
 necks, seem to feel that the dignity of 
 the House rests on their shoulders ; and 
 they bear the responsibility with a lack 
 of courtesy which, combined with the 
 uncomfortable seat provided for him, is 
 likely to put the spectator out of humor 
 as, after coming up the narrow stairway 
 from the lobby, he sits down in front 
 of Mr. Speaker. The proceedings are 
 usually so interesting in form, if not in 
 substance, however, that he soon forgets 
 his injuries in watching them. The 
 rules of themselves, and the methods of 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 203 
 
 carrying them out, curiously and intri- 
 cately blend simplicity and utility with a 
 hypersensitive regard for ornamental and 
 imaginative tradition. Macaulay speaks 
 of the House as adhering to ancient 
 forms with the punctilious accuracy of a 
 college of heralds ; and this decorous per- 
 petuation of what is practically obsolete 
 leads to many cumbrous paradoxes. 
 
 The number of fictions with which 
 the House deludes — or perhaps we 
 should say amuses — itself is amazing. 
 Not only is the Ladies' Gallery treated 
 as having no existence, and its inmates 
 allowed to remain in it when the House 
 is cleared of all others, even of the mem- 
 bers of the press, but, by another hy- 
 pothesis, the visitors licensed to attend by 
 a Speaker's or member's order are only 
 recognized as interlopers. Formerly, 
 when the galleries were full, any mem- 
 ber could have them emptied by calling 
 the Speaker's attention to the very ob- 
 vious fact that "strangers were in the 
 
204 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 House ; " this notification being always 
 followed by a request on the part of the 
 Speaker that the strangers would with- 
 draw. When a member now wishes for 
 privacy, and calls attention to the stran- 
 gers, the question is put to the Hoiise as 
 to whether there are or are not strangers 
 present, and gravely negatived, though 
 all the galleries may be crammed at the 
 time. By another fiction the sovereign 
 is supposed to be present while the mace 
 is on the table, but not present when 
 the mace is hung up near the seat of 
 the sergeant-at-arms, as it is when the 
 House is in committee of the whole. 
 
 Another fanciful observance is the in- 
 troduction of all members to the Speaker 
 at the opening of a new Parliament, 
 including those who have merely been 
 re-elected, and who perhaps have been 
 members for a score or more continuous 
 years. Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chamberlain, 
 Mr. Goschen, and Sir William Harcourt, 
 like the rest, are each taken up to him 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 20$ 
 
 between two members and formally in- 
 troduced, the Speaker shaking hands 
 and murmuring a few words of courte- 
 ous greeting. The custom of searching 
 the cellars of the House for gunpowder, 
 instituted after the Guy Fawkes con- 
 spiracy, is observed in the first week of 
 every January. 
 
 An obstructive or disorderly member 
 is disposed of by the Speaker's "nam- 
 ing him.'^ This measure is resorted to 
 only in extreme instances, and after the 
 Speaker's admonitions have been wil- 
 fully disregarded. 
 
 "Mr. Wordy," says Mr. Speaker, if 
 that happens to be the member's name, 
 " I name you as having disregarded the 
 authority of the chair." 
 
 Forthwith one of the ministers de- 
 clares, " I now have to move, according 
 to the standing orders of the House, that 
 Mr. Wordy be suspended from the ser- 
 vice of the House during the remainder 
 of the sitting." 
 
206 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 The question is put to the House ; and 
 if concurred in, the Speaker urbanely 
 requests Mr. Wordy to withdraw, and he 
 is escorted to the bar of the House by 
 that polite gentleman in knee-breeches 
 whom we have seen carrying the mace, 
 — the sergeant-at-arms. 
 
 These are but a few disconnected ex- 
 amples (which come to mind at random) 
 of the fidelity of the House to usages 
 which are sometimes remarkable for 
 their simplicity, and sometimes as an- 
 tiquely ceremonious and hypothetical as 
 the etiquette of a Spanish court. The 
 contradictions and the anachronisms re- 
 late only to minor affairs, however, and 
 scarcely embarrass the business of the 
 House ; while from a stranger's point of 
 view they increase the interest of the 
 proceedings. Despite their existence, 
 the constitution of the House is flexible, 
 generous, and intelligent. Like an old 
 tree, it has proved the soundness of its 
 roots by the vigor with which it has 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 20/ 
 
 received and nourished the many new 
 branches grafted upon it. 
 
 I remember seeing in the Peers' Gal- 
 lery one evening, several years ago, a 
 certain elderly gentleman, whose pres- 
 ence there must have been as full of 
 suggestiveness to him as it was to the 
 other persons in the House who recog- 
 nized him, for he himself had been a 
 leader in the proceedings of which he 
 was now a spectator. Any one observ- 
 ing him without looking at his face 
 might have taken him for some old beau, 
 from the fastidiousness of his dress and 
 manner, the lavender kid gloves which 
 he wore, and the scant dark locks parted 
 and drawn into ringlets with Philistine 
 care and macassar. But to look into 
 Lord Beaconsfield's face was to doubt 
 that he could ever have been handsome, 
 — the Adonis of the drawing-rooms of 
 sixty years ago, as some chroniclers 
 have given us to understand. His face, 
 indeed, had many of the least pleasant 
 
208 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 features of the Israelitish type, and was 
 not improved by a tuft of beard worn 
 close under the chin. It was sagacious, 
 but unsympathetic and coldly cynical. 
 Yet none of the spectators seemed more 
 interested in the proceedings on the 
 evening referred to than this political 
 wizard, who, with little genuine affection 
 for the people, but much cleverness in 
 playing on their foibles, comprehended 
 the power and aspirations of the House 
 of Commons, and became the most dis- 
 creet guide the House of Lords could 
 have had in its somewhat delicate rela- 
 tions with the popular chamber. 
 
 His lordship has given us many vivid 
 glimpses of parliamentary life in ** En- 
 dymion." Says the old member, speak- 
 ing privately to the hero in the House, 
 " ' It is very different from what it was 
 when I was your age. Up to Easter we 
 rarely had a regular debate — never a 
 party division; very few people came up, 
 indeed. But there was a good deal of 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 2O9 
 
 speaking on all subjects before dinner. 
 We had the privilege of speaking then 
 on the presentation of petitions at any 
 length, and we seldom spoke on any- 
 other occasion. After Easter there was 
 always at least one great party fight. 
 This was a mighty affair, talked of for 
 weeks before it came off. . . . We were 
 gentlemen used to sit up late, and should 
 have been sitting up somewhere else had 
 we not been in the House of Commons. 
 After this party fight the House, for the 
 rest of the session, was a mere club.' 
 — * There was not much business doing 
 then,' said Endymion. * There was not 
 much business in the country then. The 
 House of Commons was very much like 
 what the House of Lords is now. You 
 went home to dine, and now and then 
 came back for an important division. . . . 
 All things change ; and quoting Virgil, 
 as that young gentleman has just done, 
 will be the next thing to disappear. In 
 the last Parliament we often had Latin 
 
2IO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 quotations, but never from a member 
 with a new constituency. I have heard 
 Greek quoted here, but that was a great 
 mistake : the House was quite alarmed. 
 Charles Fox used to say, as to quota- 
 tion, " No Greek ; as much Latin as you 
 like, and never French under any cir- 
 cumstances ; no English poet unless he 
 has completed his century. ^^ These were, 
 like some other good rules, the unwritten 
 orders of the House of Commons.' '' 
 
 The ministers sit on the front bench 
 above the gangway, at the Speaker's right 
 hand ; and the faces of most of them are 
 familiar even to a stranger. On the 
 occasion when I saw Lord Beaconsfield 
 in the gallery, there was no mistaking 
 the gentleman who sat in the middle of 
 them, — the possessor of a sad, white, 
 intellectual face, almost ascetic in its 
 pallor, with white side-whiskers, and thin 
 white hair falling from a broad project- 
 ing forehead as pale and as smooth as 
 marble. His dress was a suit of dark 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 211 
 
 tweed, with a simple morning coat, a 
 high white collar, and an old-fashioned 
 black silk stock. He sat with arms folded 
 and his eyes fixed abstractedly before 
 him, as if paying little heed to what was 
 taking place, until a word uttered in some 
 part of the House seemed to startle him, 
 and he came to his feet with a response 
 which showed that not the veriest trifle 
 said had escaped him, and that his mind 
 had been analyzing and reasoning while 
 receiving. If he had not been recognized 
 by his face, Mr. Gladstone would have es- 
 tablished his identity when his voice was 
 heard, — exquisitely modulated, never 
 loud, and yet audible in the farthest 
 corners of the House, — speaking with 
 the measured and balanced completeness 
 of phrase which belongs to literature. 
 
 Sir William Harcourt, then Home Sec- 
 retary, sat next to him on one side ; and 
 on the other was Mr. Forster, the Sec- 
 retary for Ireland, who that session was 
 scarcely less interesting than the Prime 
 Minister himself. 
 
212 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 Mr. Forster's customary attitude was 
 singularly expressive of the difficulties 
 which hedged him in. He had a rugged 
 physique and an appearance of brusque- 
 ness, though his heavily bearded face 
 was attractive. He sat with folded 
 knees and arms, with his chin resting 
 on his breast, and his eyes directed at 
 the floor of the House : this was a 
 posture which he seldom changed. He 
 looked fagged out, dejected, perplexed, 
 — a man in a dilemma from which he 
 had so often unsuccessfully endeavored 
 to extricate himself that despair had 
 fallen upon him. The lugubriousness 
 was almost comical. Mr. Forster's hair 
 and beard were all awry ; his mental dis- 
 tress was reflected in the anarchy of his 
 toilet. But his dejection was not to be 
 wondered at. He was, as Secretary of 
 State for Ireland, the most abused man 
 in Parliament. A sincere friend of the 
 country which he represented in the 
 Cabinet, the Irish party, which had 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 213 
 
 forced the government into coercion, 
 criticised and denounced him with a 
 bitterness which exceeded the limits of 
 decency. Under this fire Mr. Forster 
 sat patiently as we have described him, 
 only now and then raising his eyes to 
 stare at some speaker who cast another 
 and heavier stone at him. 
 
 There is a portrait of John Bright in 
 the New York Chamber of Commerce 
 which was shown to a visitor one day 
 with the remark, " Of course you know 
 who that is t " — " Oh, yes,'' he replied 
 confidently ; " that's John Bull." 
 
 Mr. Bright, a member of the same 
 Cabinet, was still the ideal of a pros- 
 perous English merchant in the prime 
 of life, — placid, content, practical, and 
 robust. His face, with its youthful com- 
 plexion, beamed with mature content- 
 ment, and the conviction of security 
 which reflects a mind little inclined to 
 hesitating misgivings. His manner con- 
 veyed the impression of one who, if tak- 
 
214 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 ing things seriously, took them easily 
 and deliberately. The short, sturdy fig- 
 ure was not in the least bent or stiffened 
 by its seventy years ; it was carried erect 
 and with graceful suppleness. Though 
 quite white, the wavy hair, the side- 
 whiskers, and the fringe of beard under- 
 neath the chin, were abundant and 
 carefully arranged. This primness and 
 blandness of the Chancellor of the 
 Duchy of Lancaster was all the more 
 striking in contrast with the distraught 
 appearance of Mr. Forster who sat near 
 him. 
 
 The etiquette of the House permits 
 the members to wear their hats, except 
 when passing or addressing Mr. Speaker ; 
 and this is a privilege of which nearly 
 all avail themselves. They also study 
 comfort more than appearances in the 
 attitudes which they choose. They do 
 not actually lie down, or project their 
 legs over the seats in front of them ; but 
 they sit edgeways, stretched out in a 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 21 5 
 
 sort of zigzag, with feet thrust under 
 the benches, and bodies steeply inclined 
 in another direction, with their thumbs 
 in their arm-holes or hands dived into 
 the uttermost depths of their trousers 
 pockets. Though one member always 
 refers to another as "the honorable or 
 right honorable member," they are not 
 invariably civil beyond this point. 
 
 Not many of them can speak well or 
 without a boyish hesitancy and embar- 
 rassment, but they are severe critics, and 
 vent their disapprobation with juvenile 
 boisterousness. Sometimes the boister- 
 ousness would become the Stock Ex- 
 change more than a legislature. When, 
 at the opening of Parliament, they are 
 summoned to the House of Lords to 
 hear the Queen^s speech, precedence, 
 after the Speaker and the ministry, is 
 nominally decided by ballot, as in the 
 case of " notices of motion." The 
 Speaker heads the procession, with the 
 mace, his chaplain, and the train-bearer, 
 
2l6 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 followed by the ministry, and the mem- 
 bers in succession as the clerk of the 
 House calls out their names. All is 
 dignified until the Speaker disappears. 
 The clerk then continues to call out the 
 names ; but no heed is paid to him, and 
 the ballot is superseded by a physical 
 struggle among the members for leading 
 places. This, says one who has wit- 
 nessed the proceeding, is vainly resisted 
 by honorable and right honorable mem- 
 bers, who, standing shoulder to shoulder, 
 essay to guard the sacred person of 
 the Speaker from physical outrage. At 
 best, the Speaker invariably presents 
 the appearance of being projected into 
 the House of Lords as it were from a 
 catapult, while behind, with a great 
 noise, sweep in "the gentlemen of the 
 House of Commons." 
 
 The business of the House is far more 
 varied and urgent than it was before 
 the Reform Bill and the extension of the 
 franchise. At four o'clock most of the 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 21/ 
 
 members are in their places ; and at this 
 hour the Speaker cries, " Order ! order ! 
 Notices of motion." This means that 
 members having motions to make must 
 now give notice of them, and the choice 
 of the day on which they may be made 
 to the House is decided by ballot. The 
 members write their names in a book 
 with numbered lines, and tickets bearing 
 duplicate numbers are folded up and 
 thrown into a box on the table. The 
 book is held by the Speaker; and the 
 clerk dips his hand into the box, and 
 withdraws the tickets one by one, calling 
 the numbers on them as he does so. 
 The member whose name is opposite the 
 first number called has the first choice 
 of the days on which he can make his 
 motion within a month ; the member 
 whose name is opposite the second num- 
 ber called has the second choice ; and 
 so on until the box is exhausted. This 
 part of the business done, ^' question- 
 time ^' follows ; and the ministers are then 
 
2l8 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 in their places to answer interrogato- 
 ries of which notice has been previously 
 given. 
 
 The House is usually full at '^ question- 
 time/' and the inquiries made cover a 
 wide range of topics. One honorable 
 member asks if it is true that a lady 
 of the Sultan's harem, who sought refuge 
 in the British embassy and was given 
 up, has been strangled as an accomplice 
 in a palace conspiracy. The Under- 
 Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 
 assures him that such is not the case — 
 that the lady is well and happy, and 
 about to be married. Another honorable 
 member inquires if it is true that a statue 
 of the builder is to be put up in a new 
 public building. The Financial Secre- 
 tary informs him that what was intended 
 for a likeness of the architect has been 
 carved on a gargoyle ; that the architect, 
 however, does not recognize the likeness, 
 but that, as another gargoyle remains 
 to be carved, it might be well to memo- 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 219 
 
 rialize the builder also. Another honor- 
 able member desires to know if it is true 
 that the Home Secretary has received a 
 cable despatch from a released dynamiter 
 in New York threatening him with ex- 
 tinction, and whether he has made any 
 representations to the United States 
 Government on the subject. The Home 
 Secretary, who is quite blithe, though 
 plethoric of habit, replies that he has 
 received a menacing telegram, but that 
 as long as the sender keeps beyond the 
 dominions of the Queen it is not worth 
 while troubling about him. As to mak- 
 ing representations to the United States 
 Government, he will not do that, as the 
 United States would probably have most 
 ground of complaint. 
 
 When all the questions have been 
 made and answered, the House settles 
 down to the evening^s debate ; and, as 
 we have said, it does not adjourn until 
 one or two o'clock in the morning. On 
 one memorable occasion it was in session 
 
220 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 for forty-one consecutive hours. There 
 are at least seven stages at which de- 
 bates on every bill introduced can be 
 raised. First, leave to introduce a bill 
 has to be applied for, and then it has 
 to be read a first time. Next comes the 
 second reading, which is followed by the 
 motion for going into committee. Next 
 comes the committee of the whole House, 
 in which the bill is debated clause by 
 clause, while each member may move an 
 unlimited number of amendments, and 
 speak on every amendment any number 
 of times ; and when the committee has 
 finished, the bill has to be brought up in 
 the report, and again there is unlimited 
 opportunity for debate. Finally come 
 the third reading and the vote ; and even 
 now it may be sent back for amendment, 
 or rejected altogether. Relief in emer- 
 gency can be found, however, through 
 the closure, by which, when a motion 
 is made, after due notice that the state 
 of public business is urgent, the Speaker 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 221 
 
 may put the question forthwith, without 
 allowing debate, amendment, or adjourn- 
 ment, provided that a majority of at 
 least three to one vote in favor of the 
 motion. 
 
 The impatience of the House is ex- 
 pressed in a murmuring cry of " Divide, 
 Vide, Vide, Vide, Vide," which is re- 
 peated faster and faster as a prolix mem- 
 ber occupies the time, until it sounds 
 like the hum of a hive of angry bees. 
 The division is the method of voting; 
 and, when it is ordered, a sand-glass on 
 the clerks' table is turned, and an electric 
 bell set tinkling all over the House, the 
 lobby, and the retiring-rooms. The sand- 
 glass takes two minutes to run out, giv- 
 ing all members who are absent time to 
 come in. The House is enclosed by two 
 corridors, known as the " division lob- 
 bies ; " and the members voting "Ay " go 
 into the lobby on the right, while those 
 voting "No'^ go into the lobby on the 
 left. At the far end of each lobby is a 
 
222 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 wicket, and as they pass through their 
 names are ^* ticked " off from a full list 
 by two clerks. They are also counted 
 as they pass by two tellers, one belong- 
 ing to the Government, and the other to 
 the Opposition. The figures from both 
 sides are reported to the clerk at the 
 table, who writes them down on a piece 
 of paper, which he hands to the teller of 
 the victorious side, and the latter reads 
 them out to the House. 
 
 There is a social side to the House 
 which ameliorates some of the hardships, 
 the toil, the discipline, and the irregular 
 hours which the members have to en- 
 dure. They have not only magnificent 
 writing-rooms, reading-rooms, and din- 
 ing-rooms for themselves, but other 
 dining-rooms into which they can invite 
 their friends. 
 
 And then there is " The Terrace," 
 which is as distinctive a feature of the 
 London season as "The Row" itself. 
 " The Terrace " stretches along the 
 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 223 
 
 river side of the building ; and the 
 Thames, with its many-colored, russet- 
 sailed barges, gurgles along its bal- 
 ustrade. Westminster Bridge springs 
 lightly from Middlesex to Surrey, and 
 just across the way the pavilions of St. 
 Thomas's Hospital are ranged like a row 
 of red books lying open. The gray 
 building up stream is Lambeth Palace ; 
 and the machiolated tower is the Lol- 
 lards' Tower, from which the martyrs 
 were, after torture, dropped into the 
 river. Many whispers of English his- 
 tory are heard above the murmur of the 
 river. 
 
 Little tables are set out on the ter- 
 race; and hither the members come to 
 afternoon tea, bringing with them their 
 friends, an astounding number of whom 
 are fine ladies dressed in the latest 
 fashion. And the weather being fine, 
 I cannot recall a scene more distinc- 
 tive than this, with its babble of voices 
 and its kaleidoscope of feminine gowns 
 
224 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 and bonnets moving and blending, while 
 the deep voice of " Big Ben '' booms 
 out the hours as from a cavern, and the 
 sun bursting out of Alpine ranges of 
 clouds lacquers the old river, and spikes 
 the hundred peaks and pinnacles of the 
 Parliament House with metallic radi- 
 ance, after spreading a conflagration 
 over the diamond-paned windows and 
 Dieu et mon droit. 
 
Old and New on the Atlantic. 
 
 IN a quarter of a century there have 
 been as many changes for the crew 
 as for the passengers. In the old days, 
 when the only lines on the North Atlan- 
 tic were the Inman and the Cunard, 
 there was no electric telegraph either 
 between the bridge and the engine-room, 
 or between the bridge and the wheel- 
 house. The bridge itself in those days 
 was but a narrow foothold, three planks 
 wide from paddlebox to paddlebox, or 
 in screw ships it was a similar structure 
 raised slightly above the deckhouses. 
 The orders for the engineer were rung 
 upon a common wired bell, or gurgled 
 down a speaking-tube ; and those for the 
 men at the helm were passed along the 
 225 
 
226 OLD AND NEW 
 
 deck by word of mouth, from officer to 
 officer, until they reached the wheel- 
 house far aft, where two, and sometimes 
 four, quartermasters stood grasping the 
 spokes of the brass-bound teak-wood 
 wheel. 
 
 Gruff and awesome were the vocal 
 efforts to transmit any word in a strong 
 gale. Only the lungs of a sailor could 
 have bellowed loud enough. 
 
 " Hard a-port ! " cried the captain on 
 the bridge ; the wind caught the sylla- 
 bles and dislocated them, and tried to 
 drown them in the rattle of the spray 
 and the whistling in the rigging; one 
 officer standing abaft the funnel picked 
 up the fragments and passed them to 
 another officer, who in turn reverber- 
 ated them until they reached the helms- 
 men. 
 
 " Hard a-port it is ! " cried the latter 
 as the wheel spun round ; and then it 
 was necessary to repeat the words back 
 to the captain, or to the officer of the 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 22/ 
 
 watch, to reassure him that the order 
 had been received and obeyed. 
 
 It was a strong voice that made itself 
 heard in the strife of wind and sea 
 against the ship ; the steam escaped out 
 of the pipes in gusts like a fog-horn ; 
 the shrouds had more strings for the 
 wind to play on than a harp ; a sea 
 once scooped up remained on board, 
 swashing between the poop and the 
 high bulwarks. Indeed, there is a 
 legend of a gale so strong that when 
 one of the officers opened his mouth 
 to cry " Hard a-port ! " he was unable to 
 shut it until the ship's surgeon came to 
 his relief. 
 
 The bridge of a modern steamer, like 
 that of the St. Louis, is a solid super- 
 structure nearly seventy feet above the 
 keel-plates, with electric communication 
 with every part of the ship, aft and for- 
 ward, as well as down to the engine- 
 room. The helmsman is there with the 
 officers of the watch, and, with a tiller 
 
228 OLD AND NEW 
 
 or a wheel not more than a sixth of the 
 diameter of those that were used in a 
 ship of three thousand tons, steers the 
 big vessel of more than ten thousand 
 tons without more effort than the ladies' 
 cabin-boy could make — or even the 
 barber. The spray that turns the black, 
 red, or cream-colored funnel into a white 
 one rattles on the oilskin coats and sou'- 
 westers of those who are up there ; but 
 " a sea " seldom, if ever, reaches them, 
 and as for the bridge being carried 
 away, as it often was in the days of the 
 old Cunarder Canada and her precur- 
 sors, that is well-nigh an impossibility. 
 
 Then the duties of the officers along 
 the deck brought them into contact with 
 the cabin passengers, and there was a 
 pleasant familiarity between them. If 
 an unlucky fellow had been frozen to 
 the deck in a blizzard from the west as 
 the ship approached the American coast 
 in winter, there were smiles to thaw him ; 
 and at all times his duties were cheered 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 229 
 
 by the friendship of the passengers. 
 Now the only navigating officer who is 
 ever seen among the passengers is the 
 chief officer, who occupies a position 
 relative to that of the executive officer 
 of a warship, and who no longer stands 
 a watch. The others pass silently and 
 unknown between the bridge and their 
 quarters, with faces of humility and a 
 taciturn manner, enforced by the com- 
 pany's rules. The old savage of a 
 "bosun,'^ with the rumbling voice and 
 the eerie whistle, fades from the picture, 
 and a master-at-arms has sprung into 
 existence, a sort of roundsman of the 
 decks, whose business it is to see that 
 everything is ship-shape and in apple- 
 pie order. 
 
 Things have changed among the en- 
 gineers and stewards too. The galley 
 used to be amidships on the main deck, 
 and everything cooked in it had to be 
 carried in the open air to the saloon 
 aft. The flavor of the food was not 
 
230 OLD AND NEW 
 
 improved by this ill-considered manner 
 of serving it. In fair weather, and at 
 the best, the dishes were cooled in tran- 
 sit ; and in foul weather only portions of 
 them ever reached the pantry safely. 
 The steward who carried them was ex- 
 posed to all the mischief of the gale ; 
 and you would sometimes see him knee- 
 deep in the swash, clinging manfully to 
 the joint, and doing his best to protect 
 it from the flying spray. Sometimes he 
 succeeded, sometimes he was flung with 
 his load into the scuppers, — napkin, 
 pewter cover, and all. 
 
 If they did not get much, the passen- 
 gers were not disappointed, because they 
 were reconciled to not expecting much. 
 There were saloon stewards, bedroom 
 stewards, and a stewardess. There was 
 no smoking-room steward, because there 
 was no smoking-room. Passengers who 
 smoked had to do so either on deck, or 
 in a space over a hatchway, known as 
 the " fiddles.'' There were no bell-boys. 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 23 1 
 
 because there were no bells. The only 
 way to call a steward was to bawl for 
 him along the dark passages below the 
 main-deck, where most of the passen- 
 gers were berthed. Electricians, bar- 
 bers, printers, as well as bell-boys, are 
 recruits to the ship's company who 
 have found employment only in recent 
 years. 
 
 The entire crew numbered scarcely 
 more than one hundred in the most 
 popular ships, and sailors preponder- 
 ated. Engineers and firemen were fewer 
 than those who navigated and sailed the 
 ship ; for the engine was thought of as 
 but an auxiliary to the sails that were 
 spread and trimmed to catch every varia- 
 tion of the wind. The stewards were 
 fewer still ; for there were not many 
 passengers to wait on, and those were 
 bullied into a belief that their presence 
 during the amazingly difficult feat of 
 navigating a tea-kettle across the Atlantic 
 was due in no small measure to the con- 
 
^3^ OLD And new 
 
 descension of the captain and the clerks 
 in the Liverpool office. 
 
 " A floating hotel ! " Had the captain 
 heard a whisper of such a thing he 
 would have been speechless at the hint 
 of such a humiliating comparison. From 
 the fo'c'sle to the *' glory-hole'^ there 
 was no room for a landsman on board, 
 unless he held a ticket ; and even the 
 stewards, down to the cherubic ladies' 
 cabin-boy, were sea-dogs. A ship was 
 a ship, with nothing of the hotel about 
 it, the captain would have you know; 
 and by the time you were half-way over 
 you were ready to admit it. 
 
 But now the "floating hotel'' is the 
 ideal to which all hands are expected to 
 conform, and the passenger who was so 
 slighted is the main consideration of all 
 endeavor. Not his comfort and safety 
 merely, but his very whims, are studied. 
 To him, and to his transportation from 
 continent to continent, all things are 
 subordinated, except the sea and the 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 233 
 
 wind, which still assert their majesty, 
 and proclaim all human beings vassals. 
 Instead of one hundred, the modern 
 transatlantic liner of the highest class 
 has a crew of over four hundred; but 
 the sailors are not predominant. With 
 the supremacy of steam and the aban- 
 donment of sails they have shrunk into 
 a minority ; and, excepting in the quarter- 
 masters, there is no call, or very little call, 
 for the qualities of seamanship among 
 them. They are drudges along the 
 deck, — sweepers, painters, handlers of 
 the cargo, — though they are still rated 
 as A B^s, and still, on an emergency, 
 can man a boat or work aloft. They 
 are nearly three times outnumbered by 
 the stewards, and nearly four times by 
 the engineers and firemen. In fact, the 
 ship is no more a ship in the old sense, 
 but a great marine projectile. When 
 you see her rising over the horizon, it 
 is not like a bird with a widespread 
 wing flashing in the light, but like a 
 
234 ^LD AND NEW 
 
 volcano ; and with her slender poles 
 almost invisible, dark, heavy, formidable, 
 warlike, she overhauls everything on 
 her course, and vanishes ahead in the 
 brown spoutings of her three funnels. 
 In the engineers' department alone 
 there are two hundred men. Formerly 
 there was a chief, with five assistants, 
 besides firemen and trimmers. Now 
 there is a chief who has under him 
 eighteen assistant engineers. There 
 are three electricians, two hydraulic 
 engineers, two refrigerator engineers, 
 seven water-tenders, three storekeepers, 
 and one engineers' clerk ; in all, thirty- 
 eight who may be ranked as officers or 
 petty officers. There are sixty-five fire- 
 men, sixty-six trimmers, and thirty-two 
 greasers. The engines burn from three 
 to five hundred tons of coal in every 
 twenty-four hours, and if they could 
 burn more it would be gladly supplied 
 for the sake of an extra knot or two 
 in the day's run. 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 235 
 
 The passenger above passes from 
 promenade deck to saloon deck, from 
 saloon deck to upper deck, and upper 
 deck to lower deck, — all now in chief 
 part reserved for those who carry sa- 
 loon tickets, — and sees nothing but 
 fresh white paint, carpets and hangings 
 of warm colors ; not only the essentials 
 of comfort, but the prodigalities of lux- 
 ury too. He may go up and down the 
 height and length of four decks, and 
 see the studious regard for his sover- 
 eignty which competition has imposed 
 on steamship managers. The vibration 
 of the engines, the columns of smoke 
 uprising from the funnels, the frothy 
 wake, are reminders of the prime motor 
 that is propelling the ship ; and if he is 
 observant he may have further intima- 
 tions of what is below and out of sight, 
 through the appearance at the end of 
 each watch of gangs of greasy, sweating 
 men, naked about the throat and chest, 
 whose pallor is made more evident by 
 
236 OLD AND NEW 
 
 the smoke and coal-dust clinging to 
 them. 
 
 But the combustion that is ever going 
 on in the bowels of the ship, except when 
 she is at anchor or in port, the constant 
 human effort in darkness and in airless 
 spaces, unreached by spray or wind, to 
 make her go a little faster, the gray flash 
 of knees, arms, and shoulders of steel, the 
 blinding glare of the furnaces, spitting 
 out their sparks when their mouths are 
 opened to be fed again, — these are fea- 
 tures of the mechanism which are unob- 
 trusive throughout the voyage, whatever 
 the weather may be. They are active on 
 the radiant summer's day, when the sun 
 is focussed out of a shadeless sky on the 
 white sands and dwarf cedars of Sandy 
 Hook, and no less active on the still 
 moonlight nights when all the passengers 
 are rejoicing in deliverance from "the 
 hot spell " of August. 
 
 There is not a moment when every 
 section of the engines is not under the 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 237 
 
 supervision of the engineers of the watch, 
 not a moment when a hand is not ready 
 in case of need to arrest the eighteen 
 or twenty thousand horse-power of the 
 engines. One could wish some physi- 
 cians of the human body to be as watch- 
 ful of the varying condition of their 
 patients as the engineers are of all the 
 symptoms of this giant that is intrusted 
 to them. 
 
 And while the engineers are feeling 
 the pulse and listening to the breathing 
 of the giant, alert to every irregularity in 
 the complicated mechanism, the firemen, 
 on a lower level, are feeding the fires 
 which keep the Titan alive. Not a mo- 
 ment is there when the doors of the 
 furnaces are not being opened and shut 
 as fresh supplies are tossed into them 
 by the streaming, half-naked firemen, 
 who in the showers of sparks and flash 
 of light lose all human likeness. The 
 temperature may be at a point where the 
 workers cannot be asked to stand the full 
 
238 OLD AND NEW 
 
 watch, where it is necessary to relieve 
 them frequently for a breath of fresh air. 
 They are pitiable objects as they crawl 
 up the iron ladders out of the hot night 
 which is perpetual in the stoke-hole. 
 Sometimes the heat reaches a hundred 
 and forty degrees, and any one unused 
 to it would be prostrated by a moment's 
 exposure to it. But if, when they get on 
 deck, a rival steamer should be in sight, 
 and gaining on them, or even keeping 
 up with them, down they go again with- 
 out asking, to renew their toil, to rake 
 the fires, to "chuck" in more coal, to 
 coax the giant to do a little better, and 
 leave the rival astern. The managing 
 director, the chief engineer, even the 
 captain himself, is not more eager to 
 " break a record " than these poor devils 
 — the only name for them — whose pay 
 is five pounds a month. 
 
 The wages of the crew of a transatlan- 
 tic liner are very small in the eyes of an 
 American ; but it must be remembered 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 239 
 
 that money goes much farther in Liver- 
 pool or Southampton than it would in 
 New York. Until a few years ago the 
 fireman were paid less than five pounds 
 a month. Now they receive that amount, 
 while the trimmers are paid four pounds 
 fifteen shillings, their work being to pass 
 the coal from the bunkers to the fur- 
 naces. The sailors are paid four pounds 
 ten shillings a month, unless they rank 
 as quartermasters or lookout men, in 
 which case they receive an additional 
 ten shillings a month. 
 
 The poorest pay of all is that of the 
 stewards, who receive but three pounds 
 ten shillings a month, and on that are ex- 
 pected to appear at table in clean linen, 
 neat navy-blue trousers and jackets, and 
 white cotton gloves. They have to de- 
 pend on " tips " from the passengers, 
 which are an uncertain source of income. 
 When a rapid passage has been made, 
 and the passengers are excited and 
 elated, the half-sovereigns, and even 
 
240 OLD AND NEW 
 
 sovereigns, slip easily into the steward's 
 pockets ; but if there is any dissatisfac- 
 tion it reacts on him, and he is invariably 
 a misanthrope. Why not ? He has been 
 the victim of too many reversals of the 
 proverb, '' Everything comes to him who 
 waits," to have the stability of tempera- 
 ment which finds philosophic repose 
 easy. 
 
 Then the passengers are perverse, and 
 always upsetting the steward's calcula- 
 tions. 
 
 " It's like this, sir. There's some as 
 does and some as doesn't. And them 
 as does is them you wouldn't think would. 
 Last voyage there was a gentleman at my 
 table, and prop'ly rich he was, too, so I've 
 'card — him, and his wife and six chil- 
 dren. No end of trouble they was, and 
 he very harsh-like in speaking, and 
 nothink quite good enough for him, 
 and the children reg'lar nuisances, com- 
 ing from their table to carry off the fruit 
 and the sweets from the saloon. But he 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 24I 
 
 did keep me busy ! At the end of the 
 voyage says he to me, ' You've been very 
 kind and attentive, William, and I want 
 to make you a small present.' — ' Thank 
 you, sir,' says I. And with that he gives 
 me a shillin' ! You could have knocked 
 me down with a feather ! " 
 
 And then there are the cooks, all in 
 white, as in the kitchen of a great hotel, 
 with a c/i^f who has a French name and 
 a large salary ; seventeen of them, be- 
 sides three butchers and five bakers. 
 
 In the old days, it has been said, the 
 galley was " forrard " of amidships ; and 
 everything cooked in it for the saloon 
 had to be carried along the open deck 
 to the pantry, which was far aft. There 
 was a strange, superstitious obstinacy 
 in disregarding the natural relation of 
 things in planning the old ships. Now 
 the galley is in the only place which 
 common-sense could suggest for it, — 
 immediately under one of the two pan- 
 tries, in which the food is carved and 
 
242 OLD AND NEW 
 
 served, the dishes being sent from one 
 level to the other in hydraulic elevators. 
 It is a large kitchen, with every appli- 
 ance that may be found in the kitchen 
 of Delmonico's. Low in the depths of 
 the ship as it is, the system of ventila- 
 tion is so nearly perfect, and its isolation 
 so complete, that never a passenger un- 
 informed of it would suspect its location. 
 Here, working in the light of electric 
 lamps, which illuminate all parts of the 
 ship, — engine-room, stoke-hole, and f o'- 
 c'sle, — the cooks are astir by four o'clock 
 in the morning ; and they are not done 
 until the last Welsh rarebit or devilled 
 kidney has been whipped up in the 
 dumb-waiter at ten o'clock at night. In 
 between come breakfast, luncheon, tea, 
 and dinner for it may be six hundred 
 cabin passengers, who have to be served 
 in relays. Breakfast is ^^on," as they 
 say, from eight o'clock till ten ; the first 
 luncheon from noon till one ; the sec- 
 ond luncheon from one till two : tea at 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 243 
 
 four ; the first dinner from five o'clock 
 till half -past six ; and the second dinner 
 from half-past six till eight. The dinner 
 is not the simple matter of a soup, a 
 fish, a joint, and a bit of pastry that it 
 was. There are mysterious ejitr/es, gar- 
 nished with the names of princes and 
 ambassadors and field-marshals ; all 
 sorts of kickshaws, such, perhaps, as 
 those that debilitated the French at 
 Cressy, all set forth in Anglo-French on 
 a printed menu, with the English and 
 American colors amicably lashed to- 
 gether at the top. 
 
 The weather makes no difference. 
 When the wind is barricading the course 
 of the ship, and building up solid walls 
 to keep her back, and she thunders 
 through them like a battering-ram ; when 
 there is not a corner of the deck into 
 which the spray does not find its way, — 
 here still are your hlanquettes de poulet 
 and champignons^ your cailles sur canapes 
 and what-nots, just as if the floor of the 
 
244 OLD AND NEW 
 
 kitchen had not been making an irregu- 
 lar precipice of itself all day long, and 
 jolting pots and pans out of the deep 
 grooves in which they are fitted to the 
 range, sliding them and their sauces 
 over the floor with almost as much de- 
 structiveness as Victor Hugo's cannon 
 in " Ninety-three." Did we say that the 
 weather makes no difference ? It does 
 not with the dinner, but with the cooks it 
 does. Their work is not done without 
 scorchings, scaldings, and burnings, — 
 sometimes very serious ones, — and they 
 pass to the hospital unseen by the pas- 
 sengers, and unremembered ; though 
 when a sailor man is cut or bruised 
 the accident quickly becomes known, 
 and a purse is subscribed without delay. 
 The stewards' department in such a 
 ship as the St. Louis — that is to say, in 
 a steamship of the very highest class — 
 includes nearly one hundred and sixty 
 men. Under the chief steward, who, 
 like Mr. Thompson, must be a man of 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 245 
 
 the widest experience in his way, pos- 
 sessed of great executive ability, there are 
 two second stewards, four storekeepers, 
 seven stewardesses, seven bell-boys, and 
 nearly sixty waiters and chamberlains, 
 or, as they are called, saloon stewards 
 and bedroom stewards, the former at- 
 tending to the tables and the latter to 
 the staterooms. There are two interpre- 
 ters, one linen-keeper, one barber, and 
 one printer, who not only prints the 
 daily 7ne7iu^ but publishes, when weather 
 permits, a little newspaper for circula- 
 tion among the passengers. 
 
 The nationality of the crew is mixed. 
 The firemen and stokers are nearly all 
 Irish ; the seamen are English and Irish, 
 with an increasing number of Scandi- 
 navians creeping in among them ; the 
 stewards are chiefly English ; and the 
 engineers have gathered from all parts 
 of Scotland through the nursery of the 
 marine engine, the Clyde, on whose 
 muddy banks nearly all the Liverpool 
 
246 OLD AND NEW 
 
 liners, many of the Hamburg and Bremen 
 liners, most of the Antwerp, Rotterdam, 
 and Amsterdam liners, and a few of the 
 French liners, have been built. 
 
 The navigating officers are generally 
 English, and that reminds us to qualify 
 a previous statement. They are paid 
 less than any others in the ship's com- 
 pany, taking into consideration the char- 
 acter of their abilities and services. 
 All of them are capable of navigating 
 the ship, and most of them hold mas- 
 ters' certificates. Generally they are 
 men of education and good birth, and 
 will in time rise to command. They 
 have no perquisites, and are, of course, 
 above "tips." In the older ships they 
 could let their rooms to passengers when 
 there were more passengers than cabins, 
 finding temporary bunks for themselves 
 in the wheelhouse or in the hospital, 
 and making five or ten pounds through 
 the sacrifice. Now their rooms are in a 
 quarter of the ship where a passenger 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 24/ 
 
 would not care to be, bonus or no bonus. 
 A survey of all the professions will not 
 discover one — not even beggarly litera- 
 ture — in which the wages are so small 
 in proportion to the mental, moral, and 
 physical qualifications exacted as the 
 wages of the navigating officers of the 
 transatlantic liners. 
 
 All the ship's company, from the cap- 
 tain down to the cabin-boys, are paid 
 by the month. They ** sign articles " 
 for the round trip, and all are nominally 
 discharged when the ship returns to 
 port. The " articles " are the covenant 
 between the owners, the captain and 
 the crew, binding them respectively as 
 to services, wages, and rations. Every- 
 body must sign them in presence of an 
 officer of the Board of Trade. The 
 captain may have been in the service 
 of one company all his lifetime ; but he, 
 too, must put his signature at the head of 
 the list, which begins with the navigat- 
 ing officers, and runs down through the 
 
248 OLD AND NEW 
 
 Macgregors, the Mackenzies, the Rosses, 
 and the Campbells of the engineers' 
 department, through the Atkinses, the 
 Wilkinses, and the Tompkinses of the 
 stewards' department, to the O'Briens, 
 the O'Callaghans, the Duffys, and the 
 Finegans of the stoke-hole. Every time 
 the ship returns to her home port all 
 the crew are discharged, and to each is 
 given a certificate of the fact. The cap- 
 tain takes his as the rest do ; and that 
 gallant veteran who commands the Paris, 
 and who has crossed the ocean over 
 eight hundred times, Frederick Watkins, 
 must have been dismissed ten times a 
 year for forty years from the service 
 which he honors. White Star captains, 
 Cunard captains. Anchor Line captains, 
 — all have to endure the same apparent 
 ignominy within a day or two of their 
 safe arrival home. But it does not call 
 for much fortitude, nor lead to retire- 
 ment. The discharge is only nominal, 
 a compliance with the decrees of the 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 249 
 
 Board of Trade ; and on the day that it 
 occurs, or the next day, the same crew 
 is " shipped ^^ again, and the " articles," 
 "in pursuance of 17 & 18 Vict. c. 104," 
 are signed in the big, round hand of the 
 bell-boys, and in all the hands that may 
 be imagined between the skipper's and 
 Paddy Maguire's " his mark." Indeed, 
 the ship's company changes little from 
 month to month and year to year ; and 
 when a popular vessel is " laid up," her 
 old hands, who meanwhile may have 
 been employed in other ships, come 
 back to her as soon as she is ready for 
 sea again. 
 
 If the navigating officers are the worst 
 paid, they have, however, the solace of a 
 great expectation, a splendid possibility ; 
 they all may in time be captains. The 
 fourth officer, who draws little more 
 than a steward, is in the direct line of 
 promotion to the supreme position on 
 board the ship. If he has not made 
 any mistake as to his vocation ; if he is 
 
250 OLD AND NEW 
 
 diligent, astute, patient under rebuke, 
 adjusted, like a watch, to extremes of 
 heat and cold, waterproof and wind- 
 proof ; if his judgment never fails him, 
 and he never allows a blind passenger 
 to walk over the gang-plank into the 
 water, nor a rotten hawser to break 
 when the ship is being warped into 
 dock ; if he always understands every 
 order the skipper whispers to him in a 
 gale of wind, and is quite meek when 
 his seniors snub him ; if in fog and ice, 
 and entering or leaving port, he avoids 
 all kinds of errors ; if he lives long 
 enough, and pleases all his superiors 
 ashore and afloat, he may some day find 
 himself wearing three chevrons of gold 
 lace on his sleeves, and sitting in a 
 beautiful cabin, much more comfortable 
 than any other cabin on board the ship, 
 with portable electric lights, and a ser- 
 vant of his own, provided by the com- 
 pany, to wait on him. Then he will 
 have a comfortable, though far from 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 2$l 
 
 magnificent, salary, and all the glory of 
 commanding the ship. 
 
 Too sad to think of ! The glory will 
 not glitter as he thought it would, and 
 manifold new cares will weigh upon 
 him. He is now responsible not for 
 alternate watches, but for all watches; 
 for passengers, crew, and ship ; and must 
 not only navigate the ship, but see that, 
 above and below, nothing loses efficiency. 
 So long as a fog lasts he must be on the 
 bridge, and that may be for forty-eight 
 hours or longer at a stretch. If the 
 engines are not doing their work to 
 perfection, there is a reflection on the 
 captain when his vessel arrives behind 
 time. If a staysail is ripped up into 
 shreds in a hurricane, if one of the steer- 
 age stewards is reported to have kissed 
 a girl from Mullingar, if a crotchety old 
 gentleman thinks the ship is full of rats, 
 if a skylarking sailor man lets his paint- 
 pot spill on the fringe of a lady's " cir- 
 cular," if the grouse at dinner are " high," 
 
252 OLD AND NEW 
 
 if the pilot does not know his business 
 and thinks there are twenty-eight feet 
 when there are only twenty-seven, if a 
 mail-bag is lost, if a subordinate has 
 been uncivil to a passenger — whatever 
 may happen, it is the captain who has to 
 account for it. 
 
 There are captains and commodore- 
 captains. When the senior chief officer 
 of a line is appointed to a command he 
 is usually assigned to the smallest, old- 
 est, or slowest ship in the service ; and 
 he passes from ship to ship, until the 
 newest and fastest becomes his. The in- 
 crease of size, and the increase of speed, 
 as each new addition is made to the 
 fleet, add to his responsibilities ; but 
 when he sweeps from the northward, 
 and makes Fire Island, knowing that 
 what his ship has done draws two con- 
 tinents nearer, and shrivelled up a league 
 or two of sea — well, perhaps you could 
 induce him to confess that after all a 
 sailor's life is not quite a dog's life. 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 253 
 
 As I have said, one sees little of the 
 navigating officers in the new ships ; but 
 now and then the captain descends from 
 the bridge to chat with the passengers. 
 As like as not he is a humorist of 
 portly mien, who has seen service in 
 many seas, and has passed through peril 
 and privation with an unruffled geniality 
 of temper. Marvellous are the yarns 
 he spins, and rollicking is the spirit of 
 his narrations. He has incredible cures 
 for seasickness, and with diplomatic im- 
 partiality he bestows amazing compli- 
 ments upon the ladies. 
 
 Has the steward been inattentive ? 
 Instantly the culprit blanches as the 
 captain calls him up. Has there been 
 a dispute as to the course of the Gulf 
 Stream, the new moon, the age of the 
 ship, the distance to Roche's Point, the 
 prospects of the weather? The cap- 
 tain's word is a law beyond which there 
 is no attempt at appeal. Has somebody 
 been bitten by a flea in the night ? What 
 
254 OLD AND NEW 
 
 has the captain got to say to that? 
 He listens very good-naturedly to many 
 frivolous complaints and silly questions, 
 with his hands deep in his coat pockets, 
 and a merry twinkle in his eye. Then 
 one of the junior officers respectfully 
 approaches him, and he returns to the 
 bridge. 
 
 The men on watch in the foretop have 
 reported soniething in sight, and the 
 news is no sooner whispered than a 
 score of conflicting rumors clash in the 
 air. There is as much excitement as 
 when the stout Cortez with all his men 
 discovered the Pacific from Darien. 
 
 " It is the Etruria ! '' — " No, the Etru- 
 ria is in Liverpool." — " It is the New 
 York ! " — No, it is not that ship, either. 
 It is a bark, a schooner, a French 
 steamer, a fishing-boat. 
 
 What is it, really? For a quarter of 
 an hour the sharpest eyes are not able 
 to make it out distinctly, even with the 
 aid of field and marine glasses; and 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 255 
 
 meanwhile contradictions are rife, and 
 superior intelligence, noisily assertive, 
 is ignominiously discomfited and si- 
 lenced. 
 
 Take up a fine crystal goblet, in the 
 rim of which a careless servant has left 
 an almost invisible flaw, and as you 
 hold it at arm's length in the sunlight 
 the notch will show like a speck of 
 white, a bead hung on the edge. That 
 is the appearance of this object, — a 
 speck on the horizon whiter than any 
 sail, unfeathered by the trail of smoke 
 which lies behind a steamer. It scarcely 
 moves ; but we rapidly draw upon it, and 
 the word is then confirmed with author- 
 ity from the bridge that it is an iceberg. 
 
 The ship is thrilled with excitement 
 from the fo'c'sle down to the engine- 
 room. The cook in his white cap and 
 apron, the apple-faced cabin-boy, the 
 stokers who are not below, the stewards 
 in their jackets, the passengers with tel- 
 escopes and opera-glasses, crowd along 
 
256 OLD AND NEW 
 
 the rail, and watch the glittering mass 
 as we bear down toward it. 
 
 The interest increases as we find out 
 its size — it is fully half a mile long, 
 an island of ice and snow, with perpen- 
 dicular cliffs. A curious thing is that 
 along the edge one can imagine build- 
 ings with colonnades, domes, and tow- 
 ers, like the fantastic architecture of 
 the sandstone clays in the Far West — 
 like it in form, but frozen and glacial 
 in substance, milky-white and pale-green 
 in color, as though composed of emerald 
 and opal, layer upon layer. 
 
 In a few minutes we are abreast of 
 it ; and very soon it is the bead on the 
 goblet again, drifting, creeping, swinging 
 slowly southward, dissolving continually 
 in the warming current, but menacing 
 navigation so long as it exists. As it 
 vanishes the thought lingers of the po- 
 tential mischief which, in fog and dark- 
 ness, goes with it for all ships that cross 
 its track. 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 25/ 
 
 The region of ice is also the region of 
 fogs. A thousand miles from New York 
 we come upon a fleet of fishing-boats, 
 and it is well for them that the day is 
 clear. The fierce Atlantic gale is not so 
 great a source of peril to them as the 
 passing and repassing of the steamers 
 when there is fog upon " the Banks." 
 They lie quite helpless on the smooth, 
 heaving sea ; and at any moment, unfore- 
 told except by the strident blast of a 
 whistle, a huge gray shape, triplicated 
 or quadrupled in height by their terror- 
 stricken eyes, may descend upon them. 
 
 On the larger vessel every precaution 
 is taken to avoid collision. The watch 
 is doubled, and the captain never leaves 
 the bridge. At intervals of thirty sec- 
 onds the whistle sends across the sea its 
 poignant warning, and all other sounds 
 are subdued. The funnels and the 
 masts seem to have grown bigger in the 
 gray envelopment; the long ridges of 
 the sea are pale, as though mixed with 
 
25S OLD And new 
 
 the washings of a chalky shore. When 
 night falls, and we listen to the pulsation 
 of the engines, and gaze out into the 
 mystifying vapor, there comes over us a 
 strange sense of disembodied things; 
 the bustle on deck has ceased momen- 
 tarily, and in the hush the voices of the 
 captain and the officers upon the bridge 
 are alone audible. The moisture drips 
 from the cordage and the eaves of the 
 deck-houses ; a vibrant hum issues from 
 the engines ; the whistle splits the air ; 
 every lamp has a nebulous blur. We 
 are conscious of existence of movement ; 
 but nothing seems tangible or distinct, 
 and the sense of disembodiment grows 
 upon us. 
 
 Away from the whitey-green water of 
 **the Banks," and out of the ice-track, 
 we speed up northward where the twi- 
 light lingers in the summer until ten 
 o'clock ; and early on the fifth or sixth 
 day we are in sight of land, — the gray 
 cliffs and green turf of Ireland. It 
 
ON THE ATLANTIC. 259 
 
 does not seem possible that the voyage 
 is over; that twenty-eight hundred miles 
 of ocean have been crossed. Surely it 
 was but yesterday that we stood looking 
 down upon that mosaic of faces of 
 friends on the end of the wharf as the 
 great ship glided into the stream, and 
 that Sandy Hook reached its white arm 
 after us in the scorching sun of the 
 west ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 N"artoaotJ Press : 
 Berwick & Smith, Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 

M168145 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY