< <:' <- ' < <:^' c < c c, c ' <- . c a C CC ' r C ' <^ c ' c< < C^ CjC c c c< ' < <, I ( C C I if c < Geo. G. White. John Karst. " 270 THE MOUNTAIN SIDE. ) HOMELESS HOME. DESTITUTION AND/ D )F. O. C. Darley. Charles Speigle, " 280 9. RUM'S FOOTPRINT. DEATH AND DRINK. . F. O. C. Darley. N. Orr &* Co. " 294 10. REV. C. H. SPURGEON AND MR. GOUGH > \F. O. C. Darley. John Karst. " 408 AT THE BEDSIDE OF THE DYING BOY. . . > 11. MEMORIES OF THE GARRET BED-) \ F.O.C. Darky. N. Orr & Co. " 456 12. A FATHER STEALING A TESTAMENT) FROM HIS DYING CHILD \S. G. McCutcheon. Charles S*&. " 520 13. LOOKING FOR FATHER. AN INCIDENT) \ F.O.C. Darley. J.P.Davis. " 534 THAT LED TO THE REFORM OF A RUMSELLER \ CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. LOOKING BACK OVER LIFE. Retrospection and Reflection " The Chief End of Man" The Secret of Happiness Experience, a Teacher The Guiding Hand Trifling Incidents and Momentous Consequences My Father in the English Army Famine and Despair Lying down to die Struggling back to Life Looking for Work The Office Boy The Shop Boy Power of Circumstances in shaping Character Man, Arbiter of his own Fortune Knotty Problems Dr. Wm. M. Taylor's Advice Unbelief no Refuge Boast of Napoleon Cir- cumstances not despotic Influence of Early Training My "First Shop" Downward Road easy Turn in the Tide "Man's Ex- tremity, God's Opportunity " Seven Years' Night "Morning Light " The Day Striving upwards Aim of this Volume, . Page 23 CHAPTER II. OUR WELCOME TO ENGLAND - OLD AND NEW FRIENDS. Revisiting England The Welcome Old Friends missed Kindness of Dean Stanley "Sermons in Stones" Coronation Scenes Downing Street First Address in Metropolitan Tabernacle An Overpowering Reception Warm Heart and Open Purse Early Dinners and Success Mercantile Life The Flowing Bowl in Business " Brackley-Street Mission " Costermongers' Homes War Nurses "The Gift of Giving " Children taking the Pledge Total Abstinence pays Value of Half a Sovereign "A Jolly Good Fellow " Rebuking Evil in High Places "Another Nail in my Coffin" England's Lord High Chancellor His Official Dig- nity Amazing Progress The Great Supper Temperance in English Parlors " Persistence a Cardinal Virtue," . . .32 viii CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER EEL STEEET LIFE AND SCENES IN THE WORLD'S METROPOLIS. London Life in the Metropolis Great Contrasts Unknown Depths "The London Market" Shops of London Streets and Palaces Distinctive Communities A World in Miniature Street People Cab Experience Gathering a Crowd " Vot's hup, Cabby? " Excitements of the Streets Street Children " It looks werry nice, Sir " Street Boys' Histories Awful Surround- ings in Childhood " Never had a Chance " Barnabas or Barab- bas? After the Funeral How the Boy became an Outcast Vice and Crime The Orphan's Lot Sixteen Hundred Waifs* Sleeping in an Iron Roller and in the Boot of an Omnibus " We must go to Business " Money-Making Diving in Sewers " Mud-Larks " " Wagabones and Hactors " Street Arabs " Peeler's " Difficulties Street-Boys' Wit " Penny " Merchants Street Wares Cheap Books " Raising the Wind," . . 55 CHAPTER IV. HIGH AND LOW LIFE IN LONDON CABMEN AND COCKNEYS. Cabmen of London: their Great Number "Exact Fare" "I shan't forget the Phiz " A Dandy discomfited Wealth of London Men who have risen " Cats'-Meat " Where the Dead Horses go Fortunes by Sharp Practice Roguery reduced to a System The Wine Business Tricks of Trade High Art Auctioneers Jockeyism and Horses Bought his Own Horse Londoner's Self-Esteem " Connoisseurship in Wines " Tricks of Professional Beggars The Blind Man who could see " Eddicatin' Dogs " The Lord Mayor's Show Hardships of the Lord Mayor's Office "Who is He?" Self-made Men Lord Rothschild's Remark on " Selling Matches " Schools of the Corporation Disrespectful Children "'Ow is yer 'Elth?" Inconvenience of the Letter H. The Gentleman's Story Meeting with an " Hawful Hend " Dilemma of the Alderman's Daughter The Omnibus Conductor's Vocabulary 71 CHAPTER V. JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE SCENES IN THE CRIMINAL COURTS OF LONDON. The Old Bailey A Complete Establishment " Tried in Drawing- Room ; hanged in Back Kitchen " A Criminal Trial, a Sensation Drama Waiting for the Verdict Atmosphere of the Dock CONTENTS. Crime shown in the Face The Ragged Youth and his Counsel Police Courts Ludicrous Scenes Women's Quarrels "The Love-lorn Widder " Supporting Nine Children The Irishman's Family at the Bar Disagreeing Evidence Children hired out to Beggars The Magistrate and the Chimney Sweep Drunken- ness the Path to the Police Court "Taking in" People Bird Fanciers cheated Painted Sparrows Uncertainty of the Law The Thief and his Cherries Barnacles Expense of the Civil Service Government Leeches The Mysterious Warning Pre- mium on Idleness " How not to do it," 84 CHAPTER VI. LIFE AMONG COSTERMONGERS, BEGGARS, AND THIEVES SCENES AT VICTORIA THEATRE. The Costermongers " Picking up Crusts " Street Fellowship Religion and Respectability Kindness appreciated Children near Houndsditch The Coster Boy In Business for Himself Chaffing a " Peeler " Forgiveness a Rare Trait The Coster Girl Profound Ignorance Forced to Cheat "It's werry 'ard, isn't it, Sir?" Shaming the Donkey Costermonger's Education Victoria Theatre The Multitude of Boys and Girls Excitements in the Gallery " Pull hup that 'ere Vinder Blind " " Light up the Moon " Reception of a Tragedy Whitechapel and Butchers' Row Scene of a Saturday Night Penny Gaff or Theatre Dirt, Smoke, and Vulgarity " 'Ere's yer Pannj^rammar " " Legitimit Dramay " Ratcliffe Highway Ballad Singers Street Scenes Catching Sailors The Sailor's "Futtergruff " Beer Houses and Gin Shops Beggars and Thieves Inside a Thieves' Lodging House The Countryman's Adventure, 93 CHAPTER VII. HAUNTS OF CRIME THE CITY MISSIONARIES OF LONDON AND THEIR WORK. London essentially cosmopolitan Byron's " Superb Menagerie " Thackeray's " Vanity Fair " Solitude in the Crowd Munificent Charities Cures for eveiy 111 The Aristocracy Extremes of Character The Middle Class Homes of Virtue "The Bray of Exeter Hall" City Missionaries Heroism in "Little Hell" "Never rob a Parson" Training-Schools for Thieves Practising at picking Pockets" Perverse Judgments of Perverse Natures CONTENTS. XI At Enmity with the World "The Gospel-Grinder" Philosophy of a Boy-Thief Selling "Hinguns" A Rough-and-Ready Mis- sionary " No Genus in picking a Pocket " " Fear makes Cow- ards of us " Religion hurts the Business A Publican spoiled Real Courage The Sermon of the Converted Sweep Parable of the Ignorant Cabman Rough Welcome to the Preacher, . 110 CHAPTER VIII. WAR WITH VICE TEMPERANCE WORK AMONG THE DESTI- TUTE AND DEPRAVED. Street-Preachers Fitness for their Work A Striking Scene " Music with no Melody, Laughter with no Mirth " " Murder, Mur- der, Police ! " The Street - Preacher and his Audience Plain Preaching and its Power " Reformatory and Refuge Union " Thirty-four Benevolent Institutions under One Control Good Work of a Brewer's Son Lambeth Baths Hoxton Hall A Converted Building William Noble's Mission The Blue-Ribbon Army An Audience of Reformed Men " London Times " on Gough in Hoxton Hall Report of the " Record " on the same Meeting Four Great Branches of the Temperance Work United Kingdom Alliance Temperance in Politics " Medical Temperance So- ciety " " London Temperance Hospital " Eight Thousand Patients in Six Years Medicine without Alcohol Results, . . .123 CHAPTER IX. TRAGEDIES THE SHADY SIDE OF LIFE. Power of Kindness The Scotch Minister and the "Brute " "I'll kick you down stairs" "The most God-forsaken Wretch on Earth" Perseverance rewarded "Clothed and in his Right Mind" The States-Prison Convict " The Cold, Glittering Eye " The Hard Heart melted The Mother's Influence Scene in Gray's-Inn Lane The Excited Crowd The Tattered Group, and Death among them The "Bullet-headed Man" "'Ere's a Swell vants to know vat's the Matter " Alone with the Mob Striking Experi- ence with a London Crowd of the Worst Chaisicters An Easy Es- cape Men beyond Sympathy The Toad in the Stone The Murderer in the Portland Prison Celebrating his Release by a Booze Human Parasites Trading on the Benevolence and Gen- erosity of the Soft-hearted Tramps Soup-Kitchens Getting Something for Nothing Able-bodied " Sponges on the Gener- ous" " Loafing Gentry " and Shirks, 135 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. AMONG THE POOR THE TRAFFIC IN DRINK SOCIETY'S CURSE. Sunday-Morning Breakfasts for Waifs Homeless Multitudes A Strange Audience Economizing for a Drink The Man who loved Beer His heroic Self-Defence A Pint every Two Hours " Breakfast for Nothing " Thirty Yeai-s lost Drink, the Cause and Curse of Poverty Soup-Kitchen in Glasgow Free Sunday- Morning Breakfasts in Edinburgh Seventeen Hundred Victims of Drink " We get Hot Victuals at Home " " Ducks and Green Peas " " Good Times " turned to " Hard Times " Extravagance of the Poor Satire of " Punch " The Irish Famine Distilleries at Work " Irish Distress, Irish Drinking " Burton-on-Trent Bass's Beer-Mills Bass's Annual Beer-Profits 450,000 The Drink Bill London Paper upon Mr. Bass, M.P., .... 147 CHAPTER XI. LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY HOMELESS HOMES DARKNESS AND LIGHT. Homes of the London Poor Cellar Dwellings Description of a Court in Gray's-Inn Lane King Cholera Horrible Filth " Work in the Five Dials " Dark Pictures of Life Tour of In- spection with Hon. Maude Stanley Visiting Low Localities My Audience A Motley Crowd Coifee-Palace opened by Dean Stan- leyThe Bright Side The Honest Girl in the Thieves' Court The Newspaper- Vender and the Pocket-Book "A Real Case" Artful Dodges The Workman's Independence " Principled agin taking Money " Trust and Patience of the Poor Life among the Lowly The Crippled Saint Blue Skies reflected from Muddy Pools The Story of Thomas Wright A Devoted Son Exam- ples of Nobility in Humble Life Demands for Human Sympa- thy, 156 ' CHAPTER XII. OPPOSITION TO PROGRESS THE WORLD'S BENEFACTORS, AND WHAT THEY HAVE ENDURED. Great Discoverers and Inventors The Opposition they have met Satire upon Dr. Jenner An Amusing Picture Employing the Assistance of the Devil The " Swing Swang " Practice often CONTENTS. against Theories "Horses going to the Dogs" Liverpool & Manchester Railway Railway Engines and Sheep's Wool Alarm- ing Predictions The Old Coachman Heroism for the Truth's Sake Puritanic Strictness The New-England Sabbath "Strain- ing at a Gnat " Drunk on the Sabbath Whistling for a Dog Wife-thrashing and Sabbath-breaking True Liberty and Sunday Trains Testimonies to the Christian .Sabbath: Macaulay, Black- stone, Adam Smith, Webster, Theodore Parker, &c. Holiday not Holy Day Jurists and the Sabbath Physicians and the Sabbath Statesmen and the Sabbath The Old Book Liberty under Law, ............ 167 CHAPTER XIII. MANLINESS AND MORAL PRINCIPLE INDUSTRY VERSUS IDLENESS. False Ideas of Manliness Physical Strength no Test Lord Bacon a Swindler Fast Living, cowardly Horse-Racing and Prize-Fight- ing Manliness is Godliness False Opinions scorn Labor " Only a Mechanic " The Fashion of Useless People " Only a Third- class Carriage " Story concerning Lady Charlotte Guest The Cinder-hole Labor and Etiquette Idle Men mischievous The Dandy Consequences of a Useless Life Career of Beau Brum- mell The Fop in a Breach-of-Promise Suit Influence of Society upon us Example better than Precept Value of a Noble Life Ministers and the Half-price Genius no Substitute for Moral Prin- ciple Burns's Perverted Genius The Painter Haydon, . . 178 CHAPTER XIV. HAPPINESS AND TRUE HEROISM GOLD, WHAT IT DOES AND WHAT IT DOES NOT BRING. Signing away Liberty False Ideas of Happiness Rothschild John Jacob Astor A Girl's Idea of Perfect Happiness The Snow- blocked Train Lord Chesterfield's Confession Irishman's Com- plaint of the Moon "If" The Two Buckets Sir John Sinclair and the Laborer "A New Way to pay Old Debts" The History of Misers Experience of a Millionnaire " The Happiest Fellows in the World " Anecdote of John Wilson Happiness among the Poor Lord Braco and the Farthing The Celebrity and his Hat The Burden of a Debt The Clergyman and the Collection Dodging Creditors Indebtedness degrades Extravagance Church Debts Sacrifice for Others Moral Heroism Victory over Self, . 187 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. KNOWLEDGE AND CURIOSITY ABSURD BLUNDERS AND LAUGHABLE MISTAKES. What is Knowledge? Ignorance with a Library Wisdom is applied Knowledge George Cruikshank the Simon Pure Blunders in Spelling " Preshus Sole" Laughable Mistakes The Deacon who thought he could preach Anecdote of Robert Hall Self- knowledge and Physical Health Knowing Others "Brass" no Test of Character Misjudging Others Knowledge through His- tory Goodness Mental Cultivation and Moral Corruption In- quisitiveness " Funnels of Conversation " How a Man lost his Leg Anecdote of John Randolph Misapplied Labor Dinner and Duel How to collect a Crowd Van Amburg's Lion Feats of Legerdemain Sir Charles Napier and the Indian Juggler Ig- norance and Superstition Whimsical Vagaries Senseless " Omens " Sowing for the Harvest Immortality revealed De Quincey upon the Present Faith a Necessity The Story of Poor Joe, 202 CHAPTER XVI. COMEDIES THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF LIFE. The Art of Putting Things Illustrative Anecdotes Macklin at the Theatre The Smoker on a Coach Mr. Parker's Preaching Man- aging Others The Scolding Schoolmaster The Inhuman Teacher Appeals to Honor better than Brutality The Model Principal The College President's Lecture on Spontaneous Combustion The College President guarding his New Roost The Midnight Ride Acknowledgment of Errors Bonnie Christie Matter-of-fact Peo- ple " Six-penny Caliker " No Devils ever cast out of a Man The Quaker's Answer The Physician and the Stone-Mason A Digression, but not an Argument Henderson the Actor Differ- ence between Settling down and Settling up Wit of Dr. Samuel Cox The Conceited Count Practical Jokes My Sacramento Ac- quaintance, 225 CHAPTER XVII. VICTIMS OF DRINK SCENES FROM LIFE. Beer as a Beverage Beer Drunkenness among Women Great Brit- ain's Curse " Doctored " Beer The Inside of a London Gin-Palace -What is "All Sorts"? Kinahan's L. L. The Landlord The Bar- Maid The Customers Life in the Bar-Room Disgraceful CONTENTS. XV Scenes " Fair Play " What the " London Times " says A " Gen- teel" Gin-Palace Rev. Win. Arnot on the Liquor Traffic The Fratricide A Hardened Woman The Gambler's Suicide A Hor- rible Sight Suicide of McConnell The Blood-Stains on the Floor The Meanest Man in the World The Rumseller's Bargain Result of the Trade Dr. Guthrie's Testimony That of Canon Farrar " Fruits of the Traffic " A Ghastly Story of the Prisoner at Dart- mouth The Convict's Story Rum and Murder Remorse Wait- ing for Death, 242 CHAPTER XVIII. DESPAIR AND DEATH STORIES OF RUINED HOMES AND BROKEN HEARTS. The Prisoner's Testimony How Prisons are filled The Offspring of Drink Appalling Statistics The Inhuman Father Selling a Child for Two Pairs of Stockings Getting drunk with the Proceeds The Drunken Mother and her Dying Children An Affecting Stoiy Sufferings in the Best Circles A Terrible Stoiy The Brutal Hus- band and his Dead Wife Horrible Brutality Truth stranger than Fiction The Clergyman's Suicide The Lawyer's Despair and Death Rum unmakes the Gentleman A Dreadful Domestic Scene The Beaten and Disfigured Wife Destruction of Property The Mountaineer's Home Rum-Madness Driven from Home The Night on the Mountain Terrible Destitution and Sufferings The Desolate Home Enticed to a Grog-Shop A Drunken Sot The Winter's Night Eaten by Swine, 259 CHAPTER XIX. FOOTPRINTS OF RUM STORIES OF RUINED HOMES AND BROKEN HEARTS (CONTINUED). A Cry from Connecticut Drunkenness worse than Death Five Days with Delirium Tremens Hope deferred The Drunkard's Adopted Child The Murdered Babe The Wife shielding the Murderer, only to be murdered herself The Murderer's Suicide Last Scenes in the Domestic Tragedy The Drunkard and his Dead Wife The Drunken Clergyman preaching Old Sermons Stealing Postage-Stamps to buy Rum Another Clergyman ruined by Drink An Unfeeling Father Stealing his Little Boy's Shoes to buy Drink The Drunkard's Cry Pity for the Victims A Blasted Life The Drunkard's "Ode to the Departing Year" "What of the Ship?" The Redeemed Man's Narrative Evils of Social Drinking Bitter Recollections Maddening Desire for Drink What is to be done? The Dram- Shops of Birmingham Sunday Drinking Terrible Results, . 275 XVI CONTENTS. CHAPTER XX. "SECRETS" AND "TRICKS" OF THE LIQUOR TRADE A GLANCE BEHIND THE SCENES. Rum is Rum the World over Drunken Mohammedan is said to have "gone to Jesus" Speech of Canon Farrar Ludicrous Side of the Question The Connoisseurs of Liquors Wine- Drinkers hum- bugged The Secret of Success in the Manufacture of Liquors Ingredients How "Imported Cognac Brandy" is made How Schiedam Schnapps and Common Gin are made Champagne Re- ceipt " Native Catawba Wines " made without Grapes " Fine Old Port" Receipts for making Porter "Ale" good to sleep on; how made To the Uninitiated How to bottle neatly Sugar of Lead as a Sweetener Filthiness no Hindrance to the Drinker The Effect of these Revelations The Slaves of Fashion, . . . 290 CHAPTER XXI. SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES WITH BRAZEN-FACED PEOPLE. The Life of a Public Man Peculiar Annoyances Kind Treatment of the Press " Interviewing " An Unfortunate Little Notice "John B. Gough lying dangerously ill " Mistakes in reporting Lectures Amusing Specimen Applications for Help Begging Letter- Writ- ers Tramps preferable to these Extracts from Begging-Letters Young Man's Strange Request for Fifteen Hundred Dollars Re- quest for One Thousand Dollars What the Lord is reported to have said One Thousand Dollars wanted to educate two Nieces "I am taken in " Notes and Promises to Pay A New Method A Cu- rious Plan of Professionals Begging " Mediums " Letter purport- ing to come from my Mother An Incident in Scotland, . . 304 CHAPTER XXH. AMUSING EXPERIENCES WITH LETTER-WRITERS, BEGGARS, AND ASPIRANTS FOR FAME. Letter- Writers and their Wants A Lady "wishes to get married;" full Particulars Specimen of a Class of Oddities What "the Simple Son of a Carpenter " desires An Unappreciated Benefactor of his Country A "Big Thing" to be accomplished Applications for Old Lectures The Ambitious Young Man with a "Hobby" An Aspirant for Fame Newspaper Man wishes two "Worn-out" Lectures Request for a "Moddle" Lecture Receipt for a "Mod- die" Lecture A Few Hints to the Ambitious Requests for Auto- CONTENTS. graphs Levying Black-mail Take Warning Dr. Chalmers on Autographs Demand for Photographs " Very like a Bore " Not limited to Friends Comical Arrangements of these Pictures Side by Side with the Gorilla 315 CHAPTER XXHI. UNENDURABLE BORES MY EXPERIENCES WITH THEM AFFECTATION AND " STYLE." A Class of Bores An Aggravating Case Its Sequel Incident of a Lecture Two Hingham Callers The Brilliant Young Man in a Joking Mood The Conundrum, " Canaan " " Old Dog Tray " President Woolsey and the Joking Boy Cultivation of Affectation Indifference Imitating Enthusiasm Affectation turning into a "Lithp" Unstylish Persons in Style Tarts " Fourpence a-Piece, Ma'am " Late-Comers in Church and Lecture " Who art thou? " An Officer of Her Majesty's Service Making Puns Dealing with the Superlative in Conversation Common Mistakes Petty Expressions " Lor', how cunning ! " Exaggerations in Speech Trivial Faults mar the Enjoyments of Life, .... 328 CHAPTER XXTV. THE SPEAKER AND HIS AUDIENCE ANECDOTES AND INCI- DENTS. Dread of an Audience Personal Physical Suffering Mutual Sympa- thy required Incident in the Church of Dr. Joseph Parker Efforts at Reading a Hymn Experience with President Finney at Aber- deen The Minister's " Supplication " Involuntary Selection of Per- sons in every Audience My Feelings on the Platform Yivid Rec- ollections My Stolid Hearer Method of Preparing Lectures Five Thousand Temperance Addresses in Seventeen Years Inter- view with the Actor Macready His Method My Early Experi- ence with Books " Rollins' Ancient History," and " Putnam's Li- brary " My Earlier Addresses Gathering and Using Materials Incident at Rhinebeck Illustration from Niagara Falls Taking an Awful Risk before an Audience Taking down the Scaffolding from my Temple An Interesting Experience " Gough is a Story- teller " A Silly Charge The Wonderful Story " Gough a Re- tailer of Anecdotes " My Sense of the Ridiculous Value of Inci- dents, 341 1 XV111 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXV. WHAT OPPOSITION WE MEET FALSE CHARGES AND MIS- REPRESENTATIONS. " Gough not a Thinker " Unexplainable Knowledge Plagiarism and its Meaning Satire on Plagiarism of " The Little Busy B ee " Gough's Apostrophe to Water, and that by Paul Denton History of its Inception Reply to a Shameless Attack In- creased Consumption of Beer Our Pullman Cars and Liquor- drinking Increase of Intemperance in Thirty Years Worces- ter as an Example 1843 and 1880 Washingtonianism Drink- ing among Ministers Drinking among Women Murder as ex- cited by Beer Hereditary Effects of Beer-drinking Paper cir- culated by Life Insurance Men Reported Interview with the Oxford Students The True Story, and the Scene The Happy Conclu- sion 356 CHAPTER XXVI. ON THE PLATFORM PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AS A PUBLIC SPEAKER. The Judge's Speech Power of his Example " Give it to him, Old Man " Self-Possession necessary under Embarrassments Man in Faneuil Hall, and Story for his Benefit Woman and her Crying Child "Did he lose his Eggs?" One Handkerchief for Two Power of Audience over the Speaker The Man with the Newspaper How the whispering Young Ladies were stopped Cultivation of the Voice Power of Sarcasm The Donkey at Snowdon Sar- casm of O'Connell on Benjamin Disraeli John Randolph and the "Vacant" Seat Tom Marshall's "Demijohn" all but the Straw Personal Experience under Trying Circumstances " Here's one of your Cigars, Mr. Gough " Quotations from Locke and Walter Scott which were not Quotations, 370 CHAPTER XXVII. MEN I HAVE KNOWN PULPIT AND OTHER ORATORS OF GREAT BRITAIN. Public Speakers Lectures I have heard Personal Experience as to Public Occasions Ministerial and other Acquaintances Thomas Guthrie, D.D. The Audience Guthrie's Philanthropy His Ap- pearance in the Pulpit Not a "Weeping Preacher" My first CONTENTS. Impressions Power of his Utterance William Arnot, D.D. Appearance and Manner " Figs of Thistles " Newman Hall, D.D. Lincoln Tower of Christ Church Mr. Martin of Westminster Chapel Strange Texts " Man of One Book " Cowper's Model Preacher Some of my Chairmen Lord Shaftesbnry John Bright Bright's Speech at Henry Darby's Feast Sir Fitzroy Kelley : his Style and Manner Joseph Parker, D.D. Immense Power Pulpit Apolo- getic Manners out of Place Dr. Parker at Home, and as a Preacher First Impressions of the Preacher Vividness of Description " God's Testimony against Sin " Sins of Presumption Where do Texts come from? 384 CHAPTER XXVIH. MEN I HAVE KNOWN (CONTINUED) SPURGEON AMERICAN CLERGYMEN. C. H. Spurgeon: Early History His First Sermon "Who is this Spurgeon? " Park Chapel and Exeter Hall The Metropolitan Tab- ernacle Publication of Fifteen Hundred Sermons The Man a Miracle Public Institutions for Missions and Benevolence The Beautiful Work of Mrs. Spurgeon Pedigree of Pulpit Story Min- isters must be " Thick-Skinned " Anecdotes Spurgeon a Total- Ab- stainer Boys' Orphanage at Stockwell Reception of Mr. Spurgeon The Little Consumptive True Greatness Sources of Power as a Preacher The Book of Books Comments on Proverbs Tale- Bearers and Dissemblers Mr. Spurgeon and the Dog Edward Norris Kirk, D.D. Oratory and Elocution Our Last Interview Elocution sometimes a Hindrance George H. Gould, D.D. Rev. David O. Mears William M. Taylor, D.D. Power with the Script- ures Helpful Themes Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D. Preacher and Correspondent, 400 CHAPTER XXIX. OLD-TIME AND MODERN PREACHERS WORDS WITH AND WITHOUT SENSE. Sheridan Knowles Varied Pulpit Ministrations Old-time Discourses Quaint old Books Travesty on the Little Busy Bee The Pla- giarized Sermon Sermon on the Slothful Man " Awake Pesaltery- tree and Harp" "Who were the Patriarchs?" Grandiloquent Oratory Exordium upon Intemperance " Wrecked on the Tem- pestuous Sea" The baneful Upas-Tree The Drunkard's Career XX CONTENTS. on the Broad Road Peroration The Nobleman's Speech and Ob- servations Speech of an Agitator " Bruce the King of England " " Battles of Greasy and Potters " " Pass round the Hat," . 421 CHAPTER XXX. CHUECH SERVICES IRREVERENCE, BUFFOONERY, AND CANT. Ridiculous Side of Negro Preaching Absurd Mistakes The Planta- tion Preacher " Glad Tidings and Hallelujah " The Dirty Boy Church Services Singing in Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle ; and in Dr. Parker's Church The D. D.'s Stratagem The Scotchman's Experience " Don't sing, Sir " Hymns of my Boyhood Muti- lated Hymns Irreverence of Hymnology Revivalists' Buffoonery The Name above every Name Christian Irreverence Pious Cant More Puritanism needed The Christian Ideal and its Oppo- site Possible Future Pulpit Notices, 431 CHAPTER XXXI. MY VIEWS ON THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. Drunkenness a Sin and a Disease Is moderate Drinking a Sin? My First Intoxication Rum and Water in a Temperance Meeting "Gentlemanly Inebriation" The Intoxicated Boy Pathology of Drunkenness Testimony of Dr. Richardson Destructive Effects of Alcohol on the Mind Statement of Joseph Cook Legend of the Triple Choice The Sin is in the Cause, and not the Effect Statements of Wm. Arnot, D.D. Two Ways of keeping a Nation sober Total Abstinence as an Unfailing Remedy Prevention better than Cure The Giant's Hand Drunkenness unnatural Testimony of Distinguished Physicians Case of the Hon. E. C. Han- negan His former Useful Life The Terrible Fall and Dissipation The Murder, ... 443 CHAPTER XXXII. TEMPERANCE AND "THE GRACE OF GOD" MY OWN EXPE- RIENCE AND THAT OF OTHERS. Is Reform possible without Religion? Grounds of Appeal Total Abstinence does not renew Nature My First Pledge without "the Help of God" The Memory of the Garret Bedroom My Second CONTENTS. XXI Pledge under the Grace of God Does the Grace of God take away the Appetite? Poison kills the Christian and the Hottentot The Grace of God includes Voluntary Total Abstinence Is the Drunk- ard's Appetite left? My Disgust at the Drink no Proof that Appe- tite is gone Communion Wine ; its Effect Wines in Cooking Religion removes the Desire, but not the Appetite Self-Deception on this Point Thrilling Letter of a Clergyman The Converted Rum-Seller's Experience The Fallen Minister The only Safety is in Total Abstinence " The Pledge and the Cross," . . . 455 CHAPTER XXXIII. MODERATE DRINKING AND TOTAL ABSTINENCE. The Moderate Drinker The Moderate Drinker of Stockholm Gough and his Moderate-drinking Friend Dr. B. W. Richardson on Mod- erate Drinking Alcohol not included in the Scheme of Life The Most Helpless Period passed without it The Four Stages of Life Voice of Science Stimulation Harmful to Health Foods and Alco- hol "The Alcoholic Stages" "The Devil and the Peacock" Wine and Civilization Wine- drinking Nations Wine only Dirty Water Total Abstinence for the Sake of Others Abusing the " Moderate Drinker " A Dinner without Wine The Right, the Wrong, the Doubtful A Touching Story The Idolized Son Wine at New Year's Calls Misnamed Friends, 470 CHAPTER XXXIV. TEMPERANCE AND THE BIBLE MY VIEWS ON THE SCRIPT- URE QUESTION INCIDENTS. Assistance demanded from all Sides Charity The Truth our Weapon Scamp's Tavern " ' The Seven Last Plagues ' for Sale here " Specimen of Liquor-Sellers' Work The Wine of Scripture and of Commerce Conflicting Authorities One of the " Doubtful Dispu- tations " Dr. Norman Ker's Statement The Hieroglyphical Argu- 1 ment Assumed Biblical Commands against Strong Drink Dr. Samuel H. Cox and J. Fenimore Cooper upon Bible Miracles Absa- lom's Hair What Fish swallowed Jonah Good Men who endeavor to sanction Drinking How to answer these Men Advice to the Reformed Man Let Arguments alone The Outcast's Conversion Many Churches unsafe for the Reformed Drunkard, . . 481 XX11 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXV. WAR WITH DRINK TEMPERANCE ORGANIZATIONS WOM- AN'S WORK AND INFLUENCE. The National Temperance Society Women's Christian Temperance Union The Blue and Red Ribbon Armies American Temperance Society Growth of the Work Washingtonian Movement Grow- ing Unpopularity of Washingtonianism Favorite Epithets "We don't want any Religion in the Movement " Poor Tom Marshall Danger to Reform Clubs Sympathy demanded for the Lost Give the Reformed Man Work The Temperance Hall a Place of Safety The Dirt and Discomforts of some so-called Temperance Hotels Personal Experience The "Model" and "Central" Coffee Houses of Philadelphia The Medical Question Rum by the Keg Physi- cian giving Poison for Health Heroism and Fanaticism " Stand to your Principle," 494 CHAPTER XXXVI. STRIKING EXPERIENCES. Compensations of Old Age This Young Man The Old Warrior Amusing Peculiarities of Public Life The Liverpool Barber " 'Enery, sweep up this 'Air " Great Changes Reforms Improvements Children are Forces An Important Question Casket and Jewel Testimonial presented Boys' Work Twenty-five Years ago The Results Drunkard's Child " My Little Testament " Testament sold for Whiskey " God be merciful! " " Evil Habits " Custom and Habit No Man lost on a Straight Road A Good Resolution Hugh Miller 508 CHAPTER XXXVII. LAST GLEANINGS. My First Visit to the Theatre Booth and Hamblin "Apostate," and " Review " The Old Bowery My Passion for the Stage Interview with a Manager Comic Song at the Chatham Persevering Efforts to be an Actor The Summit of Ambition The Old Lion of Boston Charles Thorn Charles Eaton " Roll him in and tap him " Tinsel and Sham My Disenchantment Thanks that my Way was blocked Power to overcome Coleridge A Good Impulse " Art thee crazy, Lad? " The First Sermon Paying Debts like a Christian The Last Race Retrospection Contrasts Lessons learned Encouragements -Last Words, .... 526 SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW. CHAPTER I. LOOKING BACK OVER LITE. Retrospection and Reflection " The Chief End of Man " The Secret of Happiness Experience, a Teacher The Guiding Hand Trifling Incidents and Momentous Consequences My Father in the English Army Famine and Despair Lying down to die Straggling back to Life Looking for Work The Office Boy The Shop Boy Power of Circumstances in shaping Character Man, Arbiter of his own Fortune Knotty Problems Dr. Wm. M. Taylor's Advice Unbelief no Refuge Boast of Napoleon Cir- cumstances not despotic Influence of Early Training My "First Shop " Downward Road easy Turn in the Tide " Man's Ex- tremity, God's Opportunity " Seven Years' Night " Morning Light " The Day Striving upwards Aim of this Volume, . Page 23 I HEN" the noon of life is passed, and the shadows begin to lengthen, as the bustle and worry and excite- ment are less active, we look back and ask the question, "Have we lived the threescore years ? " It is worth while to remember, as years increase, that our lives are not measured by the years we have existed, but by the years we have lived. The time that has been misapplied, devoted to mere self-indulgence, to the gratification of unworthy appetites, is lost, and 23 24 PATCHWORK. time lost is not lived; so that the question comes, How much have I lived? not, How many years have I existed? Fuller says, "He lives long that lives well." Seneca says, " To live well is a greater benefit than life itself." There is a right ring in the good old question and answer in the Catechism " What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." If we could comprehend at our starting-point more fully all that is involved in " glorifying God," that it is to be in entire harmony not only with eternal wis- dom and beneficent law, but especially with their Source and Author, surely our lives might be filled to the brim with happy usefulness, and move on with no more friction or jar than do the processions of the seasons. With the conviction that often the experience of years may be helpful to the young, and hoping that the reflections and recollections of a life that has been for many years so fully among men may be profitable to those who have all of life before them, I venture to gather the incidents and experiences of these years, and, without apology, present them to those who may choose to accept them. A writer has said, " There are few minds but might furnish some instruction and entertainment out of their scraps, their odds and ends of thought. They who cannot weave a uniform web may at least produce a piece of patchwork which may be useful, and not without a charm of its own." So I venture on my patchwork by jotting down obser- vations, thoughts, and conclusions, gathered from wayside opportunities and sources in the course of a long experience. Shakspeare asserts : " There is a divinity that shapes MY FATHER'S SEVERE EXPERIENCE. 25 our ends, rough-hew them as we will." Canon Farrar says : " The overruling providence of God is so clearly marked in the progress of human events that the Christian hardly needs any further proof that there is a hand that guides." More incisive yet are the wisest man's words : "A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps." All our personal experiences reveal to us the fact of an overruling Providence; that we are not the creatures of chance. A very trifling incident may change the whole course of our lives. During a retreat of the English army, when closely pursued by Marshal Soult, about the year 1809, my father, then about thirty years of age, was a soldier in the Fifty-second Light Infantry. He had been slightly wounded in the chest, and though his wound was not considered fatal, it was painful and irritating. The army had suffered fearfully from exposure, fam- ine, and the heavy fatigues of an active campaign. I well remember my father saying to me, w John, you will never know what hunger is till you feel the two sides of your stomach grinding together." In that campaign, men mad with hunger fought like wolves over the half-decayed hoof of a bullock; and often when one of these poor animals, overcome with weak- ness and starvation, was staggering as if about to fall, the ready knife was applied to the throat, and the fainting soldiers, eagerly catching the blood in their hands, and hardly waiting for it to congeal, made it take the place of food. In this retreat, the Fifty- second Regiment became to use the American term demoralized ; and while they staggered on, my father threw himself out of the ranks, under the shadow of a large rock, to die : he could go no 26 FIRST THOUGHT OF AMERICA. farther. Lying there, he took from his inner pocket a hymn-book (which I have to-day, with all the marks of its seventy years upon it) , and began to read the hymn in which is the verse " When in the solemn hour of death I own Thy just decree, Be this the prayer of my last breath : O Lord, remember me." He must die it seemed inevitable though far from home, in a strange land. He was a Christian, and endeavored to prepare himself for the change. Sud- denly a large bird of prey, with a red neck growing out of a ruffle of feathers, came swooping along, almost brushing my father's body with its wings; then circling up, he alighted on the point of rock, and turned his blood-red eye on his intended victim. As my father saw that horrible thing watching, and waiting to tear him in pieces even before life was ex- tinct, it so filled him with horror and disgust that he cried, " I cannot endure this : it is too terrible. When I am unable to drive that fearful thing away, it will be tearing my flesh. I cannot endure it!" He rose to his feet and fell, then crawled and struggled away, till at length he crept into a poor hut, found safety, and soon after joined his regiment. Though he was very, very ill after that frightful episode, he recovered, and died in 1871, at the remarkable age of ninety-four years. I enjoy tracing some of these experiences in my own life. When a boy doing errands for a family about to emigrate to America, the lady, who was in a very good humor, said, "John, how would you like to go to America with us?" It was said jestingly, yet POSSESSION OF A WILL. 27 that playful word grew into the decision that made me an American citizen. In 1832 or 1833, two boys sought employment at the same establishment, in the same week. One was duly engaged as errand-boy in the office, the other as errand-boy in the bookbindery. The first was thrown into good society, among refined, Christian people, and brought under restraining influences. The other was surrounded by an entirely different atmos- phere nothing elevating, very little that was "pure, lovely, or of good report." The office-boy, encouraged by good advisers, grew in the right direction, obtained an education, became a minister, a professor in a col- lege, a celebrated Greek scholar, and died leaving behind him a splendid reputation. The shop-boy, with no restraining influences, naturally impulsive and yielding, went sadly astray, until he became as near an outcast as a young man could well become, with only a limited education, while all the natural powers God had given him were running to waste. For years he groped in darkness and almost despair. One of these became the Rev. Dr. McClintockj the other is writing these lines to-day. It is true, as the prophet records and we would not have it otherwise that " the way of man is not in himself; " yet it is undoubtedly a fact that a man is in a great degree the arbiter of his own fortune. I know I have a will to do, or not to do. Locke says, " We are born with powers and faculties capable of almost anything, but it is the exercise of these powers and faculties that gives us ability and skill in any- thing." "We are conscious of possessing a will that can consent or refuse to exercise these faculties. I know that here we trench on a great mystery, 28 "l MAKE CIRCUMSTANCES." God's plan and man's will a mystery we have nei- ther skill nor ability to unravel. I remember once, when confronting some of these knotty problems, such as the origin of evil, and the eternit} 7 ' of sin, I went to my dear friend Dr. Wm. M. Taylor, of ~New York, and asked him to give me some light. Putting his hand on my shoulder, he said, " John, lay these things on the shelf. We shall see light by and by, when He shall reveal to us the deep things of His wisdom." So I have come to the conclusion that my great aim must be to bring my will into submission to His, in perfect harmony; believing that all I do not know now I shall know in His right time, who knows the end from the beginning. I therefore seek to* put away all that childish rubbish that hedges up a belief in what I cannot understand ; inasmuch as the insolu- ble perplexities of unbelief are far greater than any that hover about faith and trust in God. Napoleon Bonaparte, when intoxicated with suc- cess and at the height of his power, is reported to have said, " I make circumstances." Let Moscow, Elba, Waterloo, and St. Helena, that rocky isle where he was caged until he fretted his life away, testify to his utter helplessness in his humiliating downfall. We cannot create circumstances, but we can make the best of them when they come. Their power is not despotic, and, by God's help and our own en- deavor, we may make them our servants. How much of the success or failure in life depends on the man- ner in which we are able to deal with the circum- stances of our early life! Cowper has written that " The color of our whole life is generally such as the first three or four years in which we are our own mas- ter, make it." The results of early training, reading, MIRACLE OF MOEXING. 29 study, self-control or indulgence, are rarely overcome. In very early life, Little's poems were Lord Byron's favorite study. " Heigho ! " he exclaimed in a letter dated 1820, " I believe all the mischief I have ever done or sung, has been owing to that confounded book." As I look back to the early years of my life, when at the age of fourteen I was my own master, so far as the control of my leisure was involved, I attribute much of the influence leading me in the wrong direction to the surroundings of that first shop into which I entered. Mark, I do not wish to excuse or palliate any wrong into which I drifted, but simply to state the fact that a boy, coming fresh from the country and the restraints of home, untainted, igno- rant of the world, and " green," I was brought into daily companionship with men acquainted with, and many of them adepts in the vices of a large city. There I saw the mystery of wickedness; there I learned to like the drink; there I became soiled; there I took the wrong direction, and thus seeds were sown that brought a bitter fruit and a wretched harvesting. I will not linger on this page, only to say that I began the drifting into darkness, hopelessness, and x the sunless gloom of moral night; but "there is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune," and a kind Providence was bringing me unconsciously to it. " Man's extrem- ity is God's opportunity ; " and in the darkest hour of my life, no light, no sun, no stars, not a gleam of hope, no expectation of a change, only a dreary and restless waiting for the end, the miracle of morn- ing came to me, beginning with the dawn. When the night has reached its limit, and its visions are broken, how great is the change made by the first 30 SUNLIGHT ON THE HILLS. line of morning light ! Most things are more clearly defined by the light; but in the experience of many the welcome and unwelcome visitations of night have only vanishing outlines, and lose shape as morning grows into day. Thirty-eight years ago ushered in the dawn of such a morning to me. The night had been one of seven years' length, and filled with murky condi- tions; but though clouds were not absent from my horizon, the break of a new day had certainly come, and a total change in the direction of my life's jour- ney must be taken. Henceforth, though the path promised to be steep, I resolved to reach higher levels, and get away from the poisoned air and treacherous ooze of that deep morass into which the seven years' night had led me. After this, to feel the ground firm under foot; to see the sunlight touching the summits of the hills of life; to have conscious- ness of growing purpose to reach these safe dis- tances, in the strength of the Mighty Hand reached down to help, is best comparable to the opening morning of a new day. Thus for all these years, though I have seen storms and sometimes cloudy skies, in difficulty and danger, in changes various and experiences manifold, it has never been dark: in the gloomiest hour there has been a consciousness of sunlight beyond the cloud. Though sorely tried, I have never despaired. In weakness I have experienced the truth that " He giveth strength to the feeble ; " and I have the con- sciousness of having been enabled to help some to a better life, to encourage some desponding hearts, and to lift up some that were sinking. For this I am most devoutly thankful, and put forth these expe- DESIRE TO HELP OTHERS. 31 riences, observations, and opinions, hoping that the cause of truth and right may thereby be advanced. I pretend to no literary ability, and am aware that I am more at home on the platform than with the pen. Thus I pay little regard to the " unities," or the chronology. My book will be somewhat desultory, one thing leading on to another. My aim is to inter- est, perhaps amuse, and, above all, to help. CHAPTER H. OUK WELCOME TO ENGLAND. OLD AND NEW FEIENDS. Revisiting England The Welcome Old Friends missed Kindness of Dean Stanley "Sermons in Stones" Coronation Scenes Downing Street First Address in Metropolitan Tabernacle An Overpowering Reception Warm Heart and Open Purse Early Dinners and Success Mercantile Life The Flowing Bowl in Business " Brackley-Street Mission" Costermongers' Homes War Nurses "The Gift of Giving " Children taking the Pledge Total Abstinence pays Value of Half a Sovereign "A Jolly Good Fellow" Rebuking Evil in High Places "Another Nail in my Coffin" England's Lord High Chancellor His Official Dig- nity Amazing Progress The Great Supper Temperance in English Parlors " Persistence a Cardinal Virtue," . . .32 >EELING the necessity of rest, after thirty-six years of almost unbroken hard work, I determined to revisit England, see my old and valued friends, accept the numerous offers of hospitality, and spend perhaps two years in Europe. In answer to repeated and urgent requests, I proposed giving thirty lectures while in England, and to pass some months on the Continent. So on the 10th of July, 1878, Mrs. Gough and myself sailed from New York for Liverpool, two of our nieces accompanying us. On our landing, we were met by a committee of the " National Temperance League," of the " United Kingdom Band of Hope Union," of the " Good Tem- 32 PLEASANT RECEPTION. 33 plars," who presented me with a beautifully engrossed address of welcome; and a deputation from the "Liv- erpool Temperance Union," and from the " Liverpool Popular Central Association." My dear, good friend William Logan, who went home to heaven on the last day I spent in Glasgow, came from Scotland to greet us, and John M. Cook, Esq., rendered us valuable assistance. It had been pleasantly arranged that there should be a social gathering of the friends to meet me, before commencing my public work. By the kind permis- sion of the Dean and Chapter, a garden party was given in the College Gardens of Westminster Abbey. It was a peculiarly gratifying occasion, especially con- sidering the high social position of those who gave me their greeting. The American minister, Hon. Mr. Welch, was present; also several dignitaries of the Church, some members of Parliament, and a splendid representation from the different temperance organ- izations. Tea and coffee were served in a marquee, and dur- ing refreshments the band of the Royal Greenwich Hospital performed a selection of music. It was a most enjoyable affair. Many of our dear old friends, and many new ones, were there; yet we missed sev- eral familiar faces that our hearts yearned again to greet. But I will not dwell on this very pleasant episode, and only say that after speeches by Samuel Bowly, Esq., his Excellency the American minister, Canon Duckworth, Dr. Richardson, Canon Ellison, Samuel Morley, Esq., M.P., Dean Stanley spoke a few words of welcome, and offered to conduct us through the abbey, which he did to our great delight. That beautiful garden, the smooth lawn, the surroundings 3 34 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. on one side the gray towers of the venerable abbey, and on the other the clock-tower and Victoria tower of the Parliament houses the whole scene, so charming, will never fade from my memory. Any attempt to describe Westminster Abbey wonld be presumptuous, following the many who have so eloquently succeeded. If it is true that there are " sermons in stones," and that there are, we have the authority of Shakespeare, where shall we go for a better sermon than to Westminster Abbey? standing, as it does, gray and hoary and majestic, rich with the memories of the past, and consecrated with the bones and ashes and reputations of the great! All that Britain contained or contains of the illustrious or good, of genius or culture, have trodden its aisles, have come hither to worship, to admire, to mourn, or, it may be, after life's fitful fever, to sleep. Here maj- esty, amidst pomp and splendor, has assumed the crown, and, amidst equal pomp and circumstance, has laid it down; here the nation has mourned the bard whose verse is as immortal as her tongue ; and here she has wept over her greatest statesmen dead. In the neighborhood of the abbey we are in the centre of English civilization, and near the brain of government that Downing Street from which Eng- land, Scotland, Ireland, ay, and lands far remote, peopled by alien races, professing alien creeds, speak- ing alien tongues, are ruled. Royalty resides in close proximity; and in ermined gown and solemn wig and official pomp the proud peers of Britain assemble to legislate, not a stone's throw from this sacred shrine. It was arranged to commence my public work at the Metropolitan Tabernacle (Rev. Mr. Spurgeon's) on Tuesday, September 22d. After spending a week FIRST LECTURE. 35 with our dear friends Mr. and Mrs. George Brown, of Hough ton, Hunts, we started for the Continent; but after four weeks of almost incessant wet weather, we returned to London, and took -lodgings at 185 Piccadilly, resting till the important evening should arrive. What an audience, and what a greeting! It was overpowering. The papers stated that seven thousand were present. It was a happy beginning of our allotted work. The chairman on that occasion was Sir Charles Reed, honored as chairman of the London School Board, formerly M.P. for the borough of Hackney,* a leading man in every good word and work. He is the second son of the celebrated philan- thropist the late Dr. Andrew Reed, who was sent as a deputation to America by the English Congrega- tionalists as far back as 1833. Sir Charles is a typefounder in Aldersgate Street, and was intimately associated with our illustrious Peabody, of whose estate he was the executor. He is also one of the leading men in connection with the Sunday School Union. He is a prompt man of business, always managing to come at the right time, say and do the right thing, and then be off to another meeting or committee elsewhere. He is a brother-in-law of Hon. Edward Baines, the proprietor of that influential jour- nal the "Leeds Mercury." Sir Charles has been a successful man through life, and for years has been more or less a public man, especially in connection with the city of London ; and I believe he might have been Lord Mayor had his ambition led him in that direction, but as he refrained from coming forward as an alderman, of course he cannot rise to that dignity. His hair is white, his form erect, and there is a hearty * Elected in 1880 as a member for St. Ives. 36 A MODEL BUSINESS MAN. glow on his benevolent face, which shows that his work agrees with him. He has an easy and natural way of speaking. What he says seems to come to him naturally and with little effort. He is very pop- ular, and is generally hailed on his public appearances with hearty applause. The chairmen of my other meetings have impressed upon me the conviction that never before has the Temperance cause been more thoroughly allied to the highest culture. Yividly do I recall Samuel Morley, M.P. for the city of Bristol, one of those merchant- princes who are the glory and pride of London, and of England. He is a tall, well-made man, with rather a serious, but extremely intelligent and attractive face, with a warm heart and a smile for every ear- nest worker in the cause of humanity. Nor is this all. His purse is as big as his heart, and he rarely refuses a handsome donation in every case of real distress. To him many have been indebted for the building of a chapel, Wesleyan, Baptist or Congre- gationalist, and the erection of mission halls or coffee palaces; to the establishment of school and college, or to special efforts made by the Bible and tract societies, and the " Sunday School Union." I think he is almost seventy years old, and he seems to have an immense power of work in him yet, looking much younger than his years. I am told that of his in- come, which is set down at 70,000 a year, half of it is spent in charity. In politics he is one of the liberal leaders in the city. He is a dissenter, and a Congregationalist. As a man of business he has few equals. His factory is at Nottingham; his warehouse in Wood Street, Cheapside ; and he has a superb resi- dence some way from town, hi one of the most beau- SAMUEL MORLEY. 37 tiful districts of the county of Kent. He does not make long speeches, but what he says is always to the point, and comes from the heart. In spite of his great wealth he always dines in the middle of the day, as his young men, of whom there are some seven or eight hundred, dine at that time. Such a habit gives him ample opportunity to devote his evenings to useful, philanthropic, and religious work. This dinner-hour was recommended to him, when quite a young man, by his uncle, who said to him, " l^ow, Samuel, never give in to the fashion of late dinners; if you do, you will never be able to do any good in the world." And Mr. Morley has ever since avoided late dinners, and thus devotes the time he has gained to the promotion of the welfare of his fellow-man and to the glory of God. A more sincere Christian man I know not. In the city he is an earnest supporter of the Tem- perance movement. He was also one of the first members of the London School Board. There is a great deal of drinking in London mercantile life. The great houses have their buyers, and these buy- ers are exposed to great temptations. The agents of the manufacturers invite them to heavy lunches, or grand dinners, where the wine circulates freely, and business is transacted over the flowing bowl. Against this custom Mr. Morley ever utters a conscientious protest, and he will not sanction it in any way, as he has seen so much of the mischief, and the mental, bodily and spiritual ruin it creates. He is president of the " Band of Hope Union," and often stands side by side with the noble Earl of Shaftesbury in the cause of ragged schools. One sees Mr. Morley driving about in a fine mail 38 ROAST BEEF ANT) PLUM PUDDING. phaeton, as if he were some thirty or forty years younger than he really is. I can quite understand his desire to take things a little easier, but it seems that people will not let him; for instance, he wishes to retire from Parliament, but the Bristol people in- sist on retaining him as their M.P. In one thing he is especially interested, and that is in the Brackley Street Mission. You must know that though they are pulling down all the old houses, and all the unhealthy, fever-breeding tenements in London, as fast as they can, many of them are still left. One of these is in Brackley Street, a very low part of the city, where a great number of the costermongers live, not very far from the grand warehouses in Cheapside and Gresham Street. In this street Mr. Morley's employes have established a mission church, where a city missionary preaches every Sunday. A flourishing Sunday school has also been established, where all the agencies connected with such places are worked by Mr. Morley's young men. At Christmas time a grand dinner of roast-beef and plum-pudding is provided for the poor people connected with the mission hall, and presents are given to the children; and Mr. Morley is sure to be present on such occasions. There is another institution in the suburbs of Lon- don, almost entirely supported by Mr. Morley and his brother, viz., the Protestant Deaconess' Institute, at Tottenham, just opposite the spot where dear old Isaac Walton, the angler as he tells us in his book, loved to refresh himself when he went fishing in the direction of the river Lea. There Dr. Losereau, a medical man, has found a nice old-fashioned house, which he has converted into a hospital, and in which he appoints a certain number of respectable, religious THE GIFT OF GIVING. 39 young women of the middle class, whom he trains to nurse the sick, and at the same time to minister to the mind diseased and to solace and strengthen it with the consolations religion imparts. In all parts of the country these nurses have been employed. They have also been useful in the East, and in the war between France and Germany; and whatever power they have been for good has been chiefly due to the constant and liberal support of such a man as Mr. Morley. Yet with all this, Mr. Morley is a per- fectly unostentatious man. Often if A gives a hundred pounds to some charity, B gives another to prove himself as good a man as A.. In a fashionable comedy, a city merchant is rep- resented as telling his private secretary to send so many hundred pounds to all the charities which pub- lished the names of the donors, and to put it down under the head of advertisements. Mr. Morley is not a man of that class. Nor is he like a wealthy brother of whom I heard the other day. He be- longed, it seems, to the Baptist denomination; and, upon an intimation to the church of his desire to be set apart for ministerial training, a deputation was appointed to confer with him on the subject. After due and anxious deliberation, they returned with their report. It was to the effect that the young man in question had one great talent which might be usefully employed for the good of the community, for the ser- vice of the church, and for the honor of God; and that was the gift of giving. Mr. Morley has that talent in perfection, and he makes a noble use of it; but he has other and greater and better gifts as well. Another chairman was Canon Farrar, the author of the most successful "Life of Christ" that has appeared 40 KEY. CANON FARRAR. in our day. He is the son of a clergyman, and with his delicately chiselled face and fair complexion, looks every inch a gentleman. Originally he devoted more time to teaching than to preaching. He was one of the masters at that beautiful Harrow school, where Lord Byron and Sir Robert Peel were trained. Mr. Farrar was appointed head master; he is now, how- ever, one of the canons of Westminster, and one of the most attractive and fascinating orators in the English Church. He has a calm and gentle, and yet very telling way of speaking, and when he preaches at Westminster, the grand old abbey is crowded in every part. He is quite in the prime of life indeed he looks very young, considering the work he has done and the reputation he has gained. His books have a great sale, and so have his single sermons. He has also written some good stories for boys. He presided twice in Exeter Hall at my lectures. I heard him speak only for a few minutes, but there was a magnetism about him making us long to hear more. His utterances for temperance are not uncer- tain: he is thoroughly in earnest, and speaks power- fully and very eloquently. He has spoken in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford; and at Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen universities, and is doing a very important work. He told me that all his children had signed the total-abstinence pledge. He is a most valuable acquisition to the temperance cause in England, and his influence through his pub- lished speeches is extensively acknowledged in this country. Another chairman was the Lord Bishop of Exeter, a great contrast to his predecessor, the renowned Tory, Bishop Philpots. Dr. Temple was at one time LORD BISHOP OF EXETER. 41 master of Rugby Grammar School, the successor of Dr. Arnold, whose life was admirably written by Dean Stanley while a professor in Oxford, and who raised the reputation of that school to the very pinnacle, Rugby made so familiar to us by Thomas Hughes in his " Tom Brown's Schooldays." Bishop Temple reminds you not a little of Dr. Cummings, of the Scotch church, in his best days. He is dark in com- plexion and hair; he has an ecclesiastic, scholastic, and high-bred appearance. There was what I have heard called a " tremendous row," when he was made Bishop of Exeter, as he was one of the seven who wrote the " Essays," which some years ago made so much talk, and were the theme of so much discussion in England, on the Continent, and in America. The doctor has outlived the odium tkeologicum, per- haps one of the most virulent forms of human ani- mosity, and is universally esteemed and respected. His speech on temperance was very attractive and decisive; he impressed me as a man with profound convictions, who knew what he was talking about, and uttered every sentence with a decision that im- pressed you with his sense of the importance of his own utterances. His language was perfection. He was received by the audience at Plymouth with great enthusiasm. Another, who presided at my lecture at Croydon, was the Lord Bishop of Rochester, who has one of the sweetest faces I ever looked upon. He is small in person, but great in effort, dignified but not stiff, exceedingly courteous and genial, and the perfect gentleman. A short time since, he was a hard-work- ing English clergyman; now he is an evangelical bishop in one of the busiest of English dioceses. 42 BORROWING HALF A SOVEREIGN". His speech is grave but forcible and to the point. He said emphatically: "I deserve neither praise nor pity for being a total abstainer. I do not deserve praise, because I never did a better thing for myself in all my life ; nor do I deserve pity, for it has doubled my working power." He is held in high esteem, and is universally respected and beloved. He spoke to me of the great delight which he has always expe- rienced in his repeated visits to the United States. The Bishop of Bangor presided at my lecture at Carnarvon, but, owing to his late arrival, I saw but little of him beyond the personal formalities of the immediate occasion. The Bishop of Bedford presided at my lecture in Oswestry. He preached the Temperance sermon in Westminster Abbey for the League, in March last. Canon Ellison presided for me at Oxford; Canon Wilberforce, at Southampton; Canon Connor, at Newport, Isle of Wight; the Dean of York, at York; the Dean of Durham, at Newcastle; the Lord Lieu- tenant and father of the House of Commons, Hon. Mr. Talbot, at Swansea; the Lord Mayor of Dublin, at Dublin. What a change in public sentiment in twenty years! when it was rare to obtain the service of a clergyman to preside. Another chairman was Benjamin Whitworth, a man who has made his own way in the world, and who is now, or was till lately, one of the largest employers of labor in England. He is a man of middle height, gray hair, pleasant in aspect, calm and convincing in speech. Said a friend of mine to one who knew him well some years ago, " How did Mr. Whitworth make all his money?" " Why, by borrowing half a sover- eign," was the reply. My friend said to me, " I'm MAKING A FOKTUNE. 43 afraid that cannot be the secret of his success, as I went at once and borrowed a sovereign, and yet I am far from having made a fortune. It requires financial genius to make a fortune out of half a sovereign; but that genius Mr. Whitworth has in an eminent degree, and it has made him a member of Parliament, and a man of mark." He commenced his speech of intro- duction with a few very pithy remarks, announcing himself as the oldest total-abstainer perhaps in the world, as he was sixty-two years of age, and had never tasted intoxicating drink in his life. With such a record, he carries a great deal of power; and, though rich and of commanding influence, he is very simple in his manners, thoroughly the gentleman without any superciliousness. I was very much at- tracted to him, and enjoyed meeting him exceed- ingly. I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting Sir Wilfred Lawson, the president of the United King- dom Alliance, who was the chairman at my third lecture in Mr. Spurgeon's tabernacle. He is one of the wittiest men in the House of Commons. I am told that his income from land alone is 100,000 per annum. If he were not a teetotaler, he would be a "jolly good fellow," perhaps, in the bacchanalian sense of the term; as it is, he is a "jolly good fellow" in a higher and nobler sense. It is impossible to converse with him for five minutes without being affected by his goodness and humor. He overflows with what Lord Beaconsfield terms " gay wisdom," and is even more witty in private than in public life. His wit seems to be hereditary. Many years ago, when Henry Brougham canvassed Cumberland, Sir Wilfred's grand- father was his vigorous supporter. On one occasion, 44 SIR WILFRED LAWSOtf. observing that the conservative side of the hustings was crowded with clergymen, the old gentleman stretched out his hand towards them, exclaiming, " The Lord gave the word, and great was the company of the preachers," an allusion that was extremely well relished in the hustings. Sir Wilfred takes the world easily. He is good-tempered, and makes you good-tempered as well. He has a fine, manly pres- ence, and looks as if he might do good service to the cause of temperance and righteousness for many years to come. As a speaker, he is very fascinating, and at once put his audience en rapport with himself. When- ever you see a speech of his reported, you find con- stantly the notice " [roars of laughter] "; not that he is flippant, by any means; but he introduces side hits that are irresistibly funny, and seems to do so some- times with an utter unconsciousness that he has said anything ludicrous; and his half inquiring, half sur- prised look at the convulsed audience only adds to their merriment. He exhibits in his speeches sound common-sense, unanswerable argument, logic without a flaw, and what in other men would be a break or digression, with him is only reaching out for and employing some outside implement to drive home the truth. His good-nature is unshaken by opposition; and when sometimes he utters an unpalatable truth, for he is fearless in his expressions of belief, there may be a storm of hissing, he is perfectly im- perturbable, and will quietly introduce a story or illustration so pat, so apt, as to throw the laugh upon his opponents. This he does so gracefully that the objectors are to be seen laughing as heartily as the others at their own discomfiture, reminding you of Charles Lamb when he hooted and hissed as loud as PEACE WITH HONOR. 45 any of the audience who condemned the farce on which he had built such hopes of emolument. I heard him twice: once at a meeting of the United Kingdom Alliance, and again when he pre- sided at Mr. Spurgeon's tabernacle. I was very anxious that he should speak at length, and accord- ingly asked him to occupy as much time as possible. I thoroughly enjoyed his speech. As a specimen of his style, though his manner is unapproachable and indescribable, I give a few sentences from one of his speeches on the liquor traffic. He said : " The pub- licans, if you read their speeches at their dinners, generally tell you that they are licensed by the law as the guardians of public morality; and we all know that the police are the guardians of the public peace. Therefore we may say, with regard to this licensing question, and this conjunction of publicans and police, that righteousness and peace have kissed each other." He is a strong liberal, and often introduces a hit, very keen, but very smooth, at the opposition. One of the mottoes of the conservative party in reference to the mission to Berlin, is, "Peace with honor;" so in speaking of the publicans, he said: "If you read their speeches as I have done, you would say that the whole tone of them is, that they are great public benefactors, unappreciated by a hard-hearted world, who would retire and take refuge in some less philan- thropic and arduous business, where they might find * Peace with honor,' " here he was interrupted by cheers, laughter, and hisses, when he finished with " if it were not for their burning desire, to minister to their own comfort, and promote the happiness and well-being of the people." Take him for all in all, he is one of the most effective speakers for the legisla- 46 WITTY SPEECHES. tive temperance question in England. He has pun- gent sarcasm without bitterness, meets opposition with unfailing good -humor; his wit is sharp, but never causes a rankling wound. He is immensely popular, and the very announcement of his name creates enthusiasm. I met him at the dinner of the Medical Temperance Society, at Langham Hotel, and was charmed by his easy and gentlemanly courtesy. I venture to give a short extract or two from his speech at the Tabernacle, believing it will be interest- ing to many: " Ladies and Gentlemen : I was at a large meeting last night. I took up the ' Echo ' newspaper just before I came here this evening, and I saw a paragraph in which it stated that Sir Wilfred Lawson made a 4 tolerably long speech.' I am afraid there was a little misprint, and that the writer meant an intolerably long speech. [Laughter.] I shall take warning, and not make you an intolerably long speech to-night ; but Mr. Gough kindly wishes me to say a few words before I have the pleasure of introducing him to this magnificent meeting, [loud cheers,] for it is the grandest meeting which ever I had the pleasure of address- ing. [Renewed cheers.] I thank those gentlemen who have promoted this meeting for having done me the honor of asking me to preside over it. I feel that it is an honor, and more than that, it is a luxury; for I am more in the habit, at these meetings, of speaking than of listening. To-night I shall have the treat which will be all the greater because it will be shared by the many thousands whom I see around me of hear- ing And another reason why I feel it pleasant to come to this meeting, is because I am in the habit of about five times a week attend- ing another meeting, [laughter,] which is held at St. Stephen's, and I assure you I do not attend it with much pleasure, for the business which we are engaged in, in that great assembly, is one which is enough to wound the heart of any man of feeling. [" Hear, hear."] There we are, day by day, and night by night, devising means for the torture and the slaughter of our fellow-men." [Uproar.] In speaking of the results of drink, he said: "Take lunacy. Lord Shaftesbury, himself a lunacy commissioner, has told us that drink is one of the principal causes of madness in thia country. By the by, while I am talking about lunacy, there comes into my mind a remark which was made in this very borough, I think, or DR. B. W. RICHARDSON. 47 near it, by a very great friend of your member's, who sits by my side. That good friend was Mr. Morgan Howard, who, making a speech at a political meeting not long since, assured his audience that during the time when Mr. Gladstone was in office there were more lunatics in the asylums of this country than at any other period. [Laughter.] I state that to show you the enormity of the evil, because I am quite sure you will agree with me that, since the present government came in, the lunatics have got loose ! " And in conclusion he said: " I don't need to tell you to hear him ; what I do tell you, is to heed him, to take to heart the counsels which he will give you, and to send him back, when in a short time he goes across the Atlantic, to the Republic of the West, with a message that we intend to live henceforth in unity and peace with them, [loud cheers,] and that the only strife between us shall be the generous rivalry as to which country first shall overthrow that foul and degraded system, based on prejudice, on tyran- nous custom, and on unjust laws, which at present is the greatest hin- drance in all the paths of virtue and holiness and of true glory, which yet blocks the way of the two greatest nations of the world." [Ap- plause.] One of the men upon whom the friends of temper- ance in England rely very much for medical testi- mony against alcoholic drinks is Dr. Richardson, and I believe the cause has received through his advocacy a most powerful impetus, not only in Great Britain, but all over the world where the English language is spoken; moreover, his works have been translated into several foreign languages. He hails from the county of Leicester, and was born in the year 1828. His education was chiefly in Scotland. In 1855 he originated the first sanitary English journal, the "Journal of Public Health, and Sanitary Review," which he edited for several years. In 1856 he gained the Astley Cooper prize of three hundred guineas for an essay on the coagulation of the blood, and he be- came a member of the Royal College of Physicians. As a lecturer and writer On the diseases of modern 48 FAREWELL RECEPTION. life, on the influence of alcohol and other matters of similar character, no one is more popular or more suc- cessful than Dr. Richardson; and he speaks with the more authority and effect, because at one time he be- lieved in and used wine, and recommended its use. His numerous works speak for him. His style is very attractive. I heard him lecture once in Exeter Hall, and was fascinated from the first utterances to the closing words; and so intense was the interest which he awakened, that at his conclusion, when the spell was lifted, there was left the regret that I could not hear it all again. To those (and there are many in this country) who have read his works, I need not say how charming as well as vigorous is his style. He is not very tall, rather stout, but well formed, and with a face of remarkable intelligence and geni- ality. He was one of the first to greet me on my arrival in England, and I -found him a sincere friend and cordial ally. The last evening I spent in London was at a ^ farewell reception in his house, where I met a delightful company; among them the venerable S. C. Hall, known for two generations as an authority on matters of art, the editor for years of the "Art Journal," and a good worker for temperance; his wife, Mrs. Anna Maria Hall, who has written very elo- quently on social reform, was detained by ill-health. Another medical man claimed by the total abstain- ers, (I was not so fortunate as to meet him,) and received as an authority by those who are engaged in the temperance work, is Sir Henry Thompson. He was born in Framlingham, in Suffolk, the son of a grocer and draper, and became in course of time, when a young man, a partner in his father's business ; but he soon left it, and entered himself as a student SIR HENRY THOMPSON. 49 at University College, London, with an aim to study medicine. He passed successfully through all his classes, and then went to Paris to study the French language and surgery. He returned to London, mar- ried Kate Loder, the celebrated pianist, set up in practice in Wimpole Street, in the fashionable quarter of the town. Here his essay won the Jacksonian prize for the year, and he at once became a man of mark. He was brought under the notice of the King of the Belgians, on whom he performed a successful operation, where surgeons in Paris and London had failed. The result was that he rose at once to the first rank in his profession. The King of the Bel- gians gave him, so I have heard, 3,000. The Queen of England made him a knight, and nobles and great men consulted him ; and it is said that his practice is worth 20,000 per year. His letter to the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, on the evils of moderate drink- ing, begging his Grace to use his influence to stop it, created an immense sensation, and did much to open men's eyes, and convince them of the evils of the moderate use of alcohol. Sir Henry has great talents as an artist, and has been a frequent exhibitor in the Royal Academy. His Thursday dinners, at which the artists and wits assemble, are among the most cele- brated in London. He is tall, thin, gentlemanly, with a gray, thick moustache, a dark eye that looks you through and through, and a clear, emphatic manner, which makes the patient feel that he is safe in his hands. Calm, imperturbable as he is, Sir Henry feels much. It is said that at the end of a very difficult operation he has exclaimed, " There's another nail in my coffin." I was brought into contact with these men by my 4 50 LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR. connection with them as chairmen at special efforts in the temperance cause. My list would be incomplete without mentioning one of the noblest men of England. I refer to the then Lord High Chancellor, Earl Cairns; the man who stands next to the throne in official cir- cles ; the chairman of that august assembly, the House of Lords; a man who would not bind himself to any cause that was not a noble one; who has all a law- yer's caution; who has in his bearing that hardness which constitutes a man of the world, before whom sophistry and sentimentalism plead in vain. It was a beautiful sight to see him, in the height of the London season, when time was with him most valuable, when his mind was most strained with important state affairs, devote one afternoon to preside at a lecture of mine in Exeter Hall, and, with chastened eloquence and matured wisdom, earnestly commend- ing the cause of which I was the advocate, and with which I have been identified so many years. In his gown and wig, on the woolsack in the House of Lords, with his gold mace before him, the Lord High Chancellor is a very formidable personage. Even as a plain man in the streets, you would notice Lord Cairns by his stateliness and calmness, indicative of a temperament and resolve of iron, which has lifted him up, the son of a clergyman, to the very topmost pin- nacle of the London world. When such a man is delighted to lend the weight of his name and influ- ence and presence and speech to such efforts, how great has been the progress of temperance principles in the highest circles of the old country! And what a personal triumph, to be thus honored for my work's sake in the land where I was born to so low n lot! LOUD PEOYOST COLLETS. 51 Truly the progress in twenty-five years has been amazing and remarkable. At Rochdale, where I spoke, the Mayor of the city was in the chair, the Mayor of Bury supporting him on one side, the Mayor of Old- ham on the other, giving their countenance, in their official capacity, (for they wore the massive gold chains and insignia of office,) to the temperance cause. In Glasgow, the Lord Provost Collins pre- sided and entertained us at his residence. He is thoroughly devoted to the reform, gives liberally, and is always ready to give his whole influence most heartily to the work. On January 1, 1879, he enter- tained eight thousand of the unemployed at a sub- stantial meal. Several of the largest halls in Glas- gow were engaged for the occasion, and appropriate speeches were made by ministers of the Gospel and by others. In many ways he has manifested his deep interest in and sympathy for the poor people, espe- cially the deserving working class. The Duke of Westminster had engaged to preside at my meeting at Chester, but a severe attack of bronchitis prevented. He is the wealthiest man in England; a small, thin, dark-complexioned man, not celebrated as an orator, but a nobleman who mani- fests a deep interest in the temperance' cause, and who exerts a powerful influence. He has been the means of reducing the number of public-houses on his large estates. He is a personal abstainer. Though occupying so high a position, he is very unassuming, as all truly great men are. A friend of mine, who was a stranger to his Grace, was one day at a musical soiree in the great reception-rooms of Grosvenor House, and as he was standing with some others in the doorway, a gentleman asked them to take a 52 DUKE OP WESTMINSTER. seat in the next room, "where," he said, "you can hear just as well." " Oh," said my friend, " I don't care where I sit, so long as I can hear what the Duke has to say for himself." " Oh," observed the stranger, "I will let you know when I am going to speak." My friend was talking to the great Duke himself. I was delighted to meet again my dear and honored friend, Samuel Bowly, whose tall, erect, and manly presence shows how well teetotalers can bear the heat and burden of the day, and who has for many years constantly and liberally devoted his time and means to the promotion of every good work. In his advanced age, he is as useful and powerful, and I believe more influential, than ever. With his high social position, he has done a great work for the tem- perance cause among those who could not otherwise have been reached, by his very successful parlor-meet- ings at the houses, and in the drawing-rooms of the wealthy and educated, introducing teetotalism into many a circle where it was once a thing to be scoffed at. As a deputation for the National Temperance League, of which he is the honored president, he has presented the cause all over the country by his excel- lent and persuasive platform speeches, and by his agency the principles are honored and revered where they were once held in contempt. I know of no man more universally beloved than dear Samuel Bowly of Gloucester. Robert Rae, Secretary of the National Temperance League, is one of the noble self-sacrificing workers that inspire with new courage those who are ready to faint; always hopeful, ever striving for an object, constantly organizing for some new effort, he is in- PERSISTENCE A CARDINAL VIRTUE. 53 Valuable to the association. One of the most patient yet persistent men I ever knew; holding his own, when convinced he is right, against all opponents without flinching, yet with wonderful equanimity; never dictatorial, but always firm; a reliable friend, and a generous enemy; bold in denouncing sin, yet tender to the sinner, with a stern rebuke for the per- sistent transgressor, but with deep sympathy for the unfortunate; never compromising wrong, yet very gentle to the wronged. He is one whom all respect and many love. A grand worker and representative Scotchman was Thomas Knox of Edinburgh, whose sudden death last December was felt as a national loss, and most keenly mourned by the temperance friends who had known him for so many years as a firm adherent to our prin- ciples. He once said to me, " I believe persistence to be one of the cardinal virtues ; " and most thoroughly did he exhibit that virtue. When I was in Scotland, as early as 1853, he was writing powerful articles in the secular papers on education, and proposed the introduction of temperance lesson-books. He was strongly opposed by one section of the community, and barely tolerated by another, while many of the friends of temperance looked coldly on his scheme. But he persevered, and for twenty years worked for this object, with small encouragement from any source, and lived to see his plan becoming popular, lived to see temperance literature introduced into many of the schools of his beloved Scotland, and to know that his scheme is extensively advocated and adopted, not only on the continent of Europe, but in the United States. He was a genial man, one for whom I have a strong affection. He has encouraged me when de- 54 DEAR, TRUE FRIENDS. spending, cheered me when sad, comforted me when suffering, helped me when I needed it. He was my firm, true, tried, and trusted friend, and I shall always thank God that I ever knew Thomas Knox. As I pen these recollections of good men, I see them coming in troops before me, and I must forbear, or I should fill my book with the outpouring of my heart towards the dear, true friends of my life. CHAPTEK HI. STREET LIFE AND SCENES TN THE WORLD'S METROPOLIS. London Life in the Metropolis Great Contrasts Unknown Depths "The London Market" Shops of London Streets and Palaces Distinctive Communities A World in Miniature Street People Cab Experience Gathering a Crowd " Vot's hup, Cabby? " Excitements of the Streets Street Children "It looks werry nice, Sir " Street Boys' Histories Awful Surround- ings in Childhood " Never had a Chance " Barnabas or Barab- bas? After the Funeral How the Boy became an Outcast Vice and Crime The Orphan's Lot Sixteen Hundred Waifs Sleeping in an Iron Roller and in the Boot of an Omnibus " We must go to Business " Money-Making Diving in Sewers " Mud-Larks " " Wagabones and Hactors " Street Arabs " Peeler's " Difficulties Street-Boys' Wit " Penny " Merchants Street Wares Cheap Books " Raising the Wind," . . 65 this book is intended for, and will be read principally by, Americans, I ven- ture to introduce many of my expe- riences and jottings in London and England. London is a fruitful theme; every year a fresh crop of material springs up. I do not say that he who has seen London has seen the world, but I do say, that to all of Anglo-Saxon origin on the face of the wide world, there is no city fuller of interest and excitement than London. The traditions and archives of our race are treasured there. To us, when we 55 56 EXPLORING LONDON. cross the Atlantic, London holds out a friendly hand; and I say of London, as Cowper said of England, for I have tasted its hospitality, partaken of its gen- erosity, and been familiar with its people, " London, with all thy faults, I love thee still." Yes; London, the great metropolis whose street scenes so fascinated me; London, with its contrasts, its squalid poverty and its enormous wealth. I ex- plored London with great interest, becoming more attracted with a closer acquaintance. How few know London! Though I spent days and nights in my explorations, I know but very little of the great me- tropolis. Out of America, I had rather live in London than in any city in the world. You cannot know it by merely spending a few weeks in a lodging-house or hotel, and " doing the sights : " you must explore. By simply skimming the surface, you know nothing, comparatively. It is a place that grows in interest on acquaintance. At first, it seems darker, duller, noisier, and more bustling than any ordinary town or city. Few like London on a first visit ; no one who has long lived there but leaves it with regret. The fairest of England's daughters, the manliest of England's sons, all press to London as the fitting arena of enterprise, conquest, or display. London drains the country, and from it the country is supplied. Go to the Land's End, or the Scilly Isles, and see field after field grown with vegetables ; inquire, and you are told " they are for the London market." In the most remote parts of Scotland, ask the sportsman shooting grouse the des- tination of those wagon-loads of game, and you are told "they are for the London market." Cross to Ireland, that butter and those pigs on the quays of LOCH LEVEN TROUT. 57 Dublin and Cork are for the London market. Sail up the remotest bays and fiords of old Norway, and ask whither they are sending those lobsters, crabs, and salmon; plant yourself in some picturesque part of Normandy, and ask why they are filling these vessels with potatoes and eggs, the answer is still the same, " for the London market." In the shops of London, the finest and rarest productions of the world are to be found. In Covent Garden you may buy green peas, ripe strawberries, and exquisite flowers the year round; and, as I said, it is from London that the country is supplied. Per- haps you are dining with a gentleman two or three hundred miles from town, by the seaside ; you ask where he obtained so fine a fish, he tells you it was brought by train from London. I was at one time engaged to speak near Loch Leven. The gentleman who entertained me said, "I shall give you a rare treat for supper to-night, Loch Leven trout." " Not very rare to you," I replied, " for you must have them in abundance during the season." " Indeed," said he, " we do not ; we who live here cannot obtain them for love or money, except on special occasions, and this is one. The tacksman sent me a fine dish of them, that you might eat trout on the borders of Loch Leven, which we very seldom do." In reply to my inquiry, he told me that all the fish were contracted for in London at a certain rate, on condition that none should be sold under any circumstances; and that the disposal of a single trout for money would break the contract; and said he, " if we want Loch Leven trout, we must obtain them from London." London is a very fascinating place to most who have resided there long, in spite of its smoke, dirt, 58 SEVERAL CITIES IN ONE. and fog. Charles Lamb, in a letter to Manning, in reference to a journey in the country, thus speaks of London : " Streets, streets, streets, markets, theatres, churches ; Covent Gardens ; shops sparkling with pretty faces of industrious milliners, neat seamstresses, ladies cheapening, gentlemen behind counters lying ; authors in the streets with spectacles; lamps lit at night; if you happen to wake at midnight, cries of fire ! and stop thief ! inns of court, with their learned air, and halls, and butteries, old book-stalls, Jeremy Taylors, Burtons on Melancholy, and Religio Medicis at every stall ; these are thy pleasures, O London ! and for these may Keswick and her giant brood go hang! " Dr. Johnson could live nowhere else but in London with comfort. London is several cities rolled into one. If you walk along Regent Street, it is a city of gorgeous shops; if you turn to the west, of parks and palaces; if you travel St. Giles, of gin and dirt; in Belgravia, it is rich and grand; in Pimlico, it is poor and pretentious ; in Russell Square it is well-to- do, successful professional men abiding in what Mr. Wilson Croker called its unexplored regions. You will find between each neighborhood a regular line of demarcation. "When I consider this great city," wrote Addison, and the language is applicable now, " in its several quarters and divisions, I look upon it as an aggregate of various nations, distinguished from each other by their respective customs, manners, and interests. The courts of two countries do not so much differ from one another as the court and city of London, in their peculiar ways of life and conversa- tion. In short," he says, "the inhabitants of St. James, notwithstanding they live under the same WANT OF FRESH AIR. 59 laws, and speak the same language, are a distinct people from those of Cheapside, by several climates and degrees, in their way of thinking as well as con- versing." Fashion migrates to the west; actors and musi- cians live about Brompton; the medical students take possession of whole streets in the vicinity of their respective hospitals; the inns of court are chiefly inhabited by barristers; France, Italy, Hungary, Po- land, you will find represented by the cafes and cigar- shops, billiard-rooms and restaurants of Leicester Square; Wapping, Rotherhithe, and the Commercial Road abound with sailors of every nation under the sun; Quakers live about Edmonton and Stoke-New- ington; Jews congregate in Houndsditch. In short, the swells in the parks, the millers in Mark Lane, the graziers in the new Cattle Market, the prim, pale lads in the city, the silk-weavers of Spitalfields, or the sugar- bakers of White Chapel, really form distinct commu- nities, and seem absolutely localized in their ideas. The late Dr. Arnott, one of the greatest sanitary reformers of the age, used to say, that though Lon- don was not a place where the rate of mortality was very high, yet it was a place where no one enjoyed very good health. There is more and more danger every year of its health being diminished, by want of fresh air. People live out of town, rents are too high in the city, and, in consequence of its rapid extension, the great and growing evil is the want of fresh air. It is stated, in confirmation of this fact, that every year the hospital surgeons in London find it more difficult to cure wounds and injuries to the human body, on account of the growing impurity of the London air. A few years ago there was such a fog 60 " 'OLD 'AKD, HOLD FELLER." in London, not only in the city, but at the Agricul- tural Hall at Islington, that fat cattle worth hundreds of pounds cattle that had won prizes at various fairs were actually suffocated. Long ago, that famous man, Count Rumford, used to estimate the amount of coal suspended in the London air as some millions of chaldrons. It is a curious fact that Sir Rutherford Alcock, when he visited the great wall in China, brought back with him a couple of bricks; one of these bricks he put outside a London balcony. In two years it had gone entirely to pieces, being disintegrated by the action of the atmosphere. This materially affects out-of-door monuments in particu- lar, and street architecture in general. They have been compelled to cover the Obelisk on the Embank- ment with a preparation, to preserve it, as it began to crumble. The people in the London streets, by day or night, are fascinating to me; and I never weary of strolling about and watching them. It is very easy to gather a crowd: a horse falls down, and in a few minutes it requires a policeman to clear the street. One evening I started in a cab from the Midland Railway Station for Piccadilly, accompanied by a lady. We had passed the Five Dials, and were in Gerrard Street, when the horse staggered and fell. At once a crowd of men, women, boys, and girls gathered round us. " Yot's hup, cabby?" " Yy, don't yer see vot's hup? My 'orse is down; that's vot's hup." "Yah, he's got the staggers, blest if he 'asn't." "'Old 'ard, hold feller;" to the horse, who was struggling. "Now, then, stupid, do you vant your blessed legs broke vith them 'ere 'eels? " " Yot are ye vipping him for?" " Yun of ye sit on 'is 'ed, and vee'l get 'im out of the STKEET BOYS AND GIRLS. 61 shafts in a jiffy." Such a din! boys laughing, women screaming at every fresh struggle of the wretched horse, or pitying him with, "poor thing!" "vot a shame ! " The poor, beer-soaked cabman was perfectly bewildered, the crowd and confusion increasing, some one cried out, " 'ere's the perlice," and by his direc- tion we transferred our luggage to another cab; and, paying half a crown in fees, beside the cabby's fare, we got away, leaving the poor horse on the ground, and the crowd undiminished. You hail a cab, or hansom, where there is a stream of passers-by, and immediately a group of persons will stop to see you get in. Stand stock-still, and stare in one direction, and a dense crowd will soon be formed; ask a man, " What is the matter ; what are the people standing like that for?" He doesn't know, he says, and yet he is staring as earnestly as any. The street folks are easily excited. In some parts of the city, in the evening, you see an organ-grinder at work, and young girls dancing with as keen an enjoyment as the fashionable lady at the stylish ball. These street boys and girls are uncontrollable. I found them, after twenty years, just the same, keen, sharp, impudent. Coming through the Strand, a flake of soot fell on my moustache. I began to run my fingers through the hair, when a ragged, little bit of a boy looked up at me and said, with a perfectly sober face, " It looks wery nice, sir." It is to be hoped that the compulsory education by the school boards will be effectual in repressing them in some degree; but it is wonderful the numbers who evade the provisions of the School Act, and every day the " Bobbies," as they term the policemen, are commissioned to arrest a truant. It is vastly 62 AN AMUSING CHASE. amusing when a policeman undertakes to capture one or more of these wild boys or girls, as they rush about, followed by the panting " Bobby," out of breath, and altogether too heavy to cope with such small fry. The little one has the game in his own hands, and he knows it. Policeman has no chance in a fair race; at a long distance, the odds might be in his favor. He has long legs; he has, perhaps, more than an average amount of bone and muscle; but he is not fairly matched : he can't dodge under horses ; he can't crawl between the wheels of a street-car, or an omnibus; he can't hide his portly form behind a pillar box; and his pursuit is like a buffalo chasing a butterfly, which generally ends in failure, and perhaps the last act of the farce is the little rascal taking a sight at him. Occasionally one is caught; and now let us question the poor little fellow. You find he is shrewd, quick, sensitive, yet thoroughly wicked, a waif of the streets. Read his history before you pass judgment. His home is a cellar; his mother a shameless beggar; his father a drunkard; his sisters, with livid, withered, sad faces, ply their dreadful trade. His family are vagabonds and outcasts. He dwells amid unclean- ness and cruelty, catching the contagion of sin, and in sympathy with polluted humanity in every form. His history? It is one of darkness, without one ray of light ; a history which, if traced in tears 'and written in blood, none of us would have nerve enough to read. Born and brought up in the midst of such horrible surroundings, he is what he is. How can he grow God-like, while all the influences of his life tend to make and keep him morally hideous? Take one of your own dear ones, and give him the education that BARNABAS NOT BAEABBAS. 63 boy has had, with all his woftil experience of life, and he would be as he is no better, no worse. Would you be what you are if your infancy and childhood had been passed among all the horrible influences that have surrounded him? Think of this, and look at him as he is; and do not sweep him away with the pitiful leavings of the street, but help him, give him knowledge, teach him the Lord's Prayer, tell him of Jesus. That, boy may be made a Barnabas, instead of a Barabbas. As we know more of such neglected ones, the less critical and the more loving we shall be. He who knew the hearts of all was the most gentle in dealing with ignorance. He, the undenled, en- deavored to win the hearts of the guilty, because He loved them ; and surely we may be patient ay, even believing and hoping in all our efforts to lift up the unfortunate, and thus do Christ's work on earth. Solomon says, that " Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child ; " and what is to be expected of these boys born and bred in the streets? I have seen the children from a Christian home go astray. Some of the sons of the wealthy and refined have become poor and coarse; but these children of the drunkard and the thief never had a chance. A poor working-man in Lambeth, when returning one Sabbath afternoon from a ragged school, found a little boy sitting in a very destitute condition on a door-step, took hitn home, and asked his history. The lad was about ten years of age; his mother had died when he was a baby, so that he had no recollection of her; his father had been dead about twelve months partly from the effects of drink. The furniture of his room was sold the day of the funeral to pay the expenses. When the lad returned from the grave, 64 WAIFS OF THE STREETS. he found a man busy removing the poor sticks and rags from the wretched apartment, making it more desolate in its emptiness. The boy left that room an outcast. The first night he slept in a court; then he found refuge in a railway arch; then in the boot of an omnibus. Such was his story. Is it wonderful, when we think of these things, that there should be vice and crime in London? Sixteen hundred of these poor little waifs were gathered from the streets, and, on examination, one hundred and sixty-two confessed that they had been in prison not merely once or twice, but several of them many times ; one hundred and sixteen had run away from their homes ; one hun- dred and seventy slept in the lodging houses; two hundred and fifty-three had lived together by begging; two hundred and sixteen had neither shoes nor stock- ings ; two hundred and eighty had no cap or covering for the head ; one hundred and one had no linen ; two hundred and forty-nine had never slept in a bed; sixty-eight were the children of convicts. How did they live? Why, as they could: by sweeping cross- ings, turning somersaults for the amusement of passers-by, selling lucifer matches, oranges, tapes, or ballads. One boy, during the inclement winter, passed the greater part of his nights in the large iron roller in Regents Park. As an illustration of the low rate of morality, I would mention what passed at a ragged school, to which some fourteen or fifteen boys were admitted. One Sunday evening, when the clock struck eight, they all arose. The master took one little fellow by the arm, as he was leaving, and said, " You must remain, the lesson is not over." The reply was, "We must go to busi- ness." The master inquired what business; the an- MONEY-MAKING METHODS. 65 swer was, that they must be off to " catch the people as they came out of churches and chapels." In short, they were pickpockets. Lord Ingestre says, in his " Meliora," that he vis- ited some low dancing-saloons. In one, a man was pointed out, respectably dressed, who gained his living by drawing pictures of a ship or steam-engine on the pavement. These pictures were sold to boys at one shilling each. The man made several of these draw- ings in various localities before people were about, and thus did very well. In London there is an immense variety of methods for making money. A lady was one day driving along one of the green lanes that are still to be met with in the vicinity of London, and saw a poor woman gathering some chestnut-leaves. She stopped and asked for what purpose; the reply was, that the leaves were sold to the fruiterers in Covent Garden, to put in their baskets of fruit. On another occasion, it came out that women and children tore down the placards in the streets at night, and thus made a trifle by selling them as waste paper. One man dives in the sewers for what may be washed away. A capitalist buys up all the dust and ashes of the city, and they are sifted by women so black and grimy, that you could scarcely tell them to be women at all. There is no waste in London ; everything is picked up and turned to account. One man buys old bones; another, old rags; another buys cigar-ends for snuff, in short, there is nothing so mean or filthy but is made merchandise by the poor of London. One man advertises for old postage-stamps that have been used, on the pretence that some crusty old parent will not let his daughter marry till she has collected a million. 5 66 THE UNFINISHED GENTLEMAN. The pretence is a hoax; the old stamps are pasted together, and in some of the obscure parts of the town are offered you at a reduced price. The post- office authorities have issued a new pattern of stamp, because nearly one-third received had been cancelled and renewed. There are five or six hundred boys and girls called " mud larks," who live by searching the mud of the Thames for bones, coals, and other articles. You often see men who may be called " Jack-of-all-trades," who run " herrands," " 'old yer 'oss," reminding you of Billy Downey, in the "Unfinished Gentleman," who sold clothes-props and pins. Then in the literary line, carrying round newspapers, spreading knowl- edge and information. Then in the " wagabone " line, a " hactor," performing the " 'ind legs of the helephant fifty-three successful nights," till the chap " vot done the forelegs " and he happened to get into a fight " vile they vos hin the helephant;" and the "conse- kens vos, they hupset the 'ole concern," and in course he got the bag from the theatre; and now he "'olds 'osses, runs herrands, blacks boots," and makes him- self generally useful. Not long since, some children were poisoned by drinking some belladonna. It appears they had stolen it out of a case in the street off Covent Garden, had put it in a bottle with water, and sold it to other chil- dren at a pin for a spoonful, thinking the belladonna was Spanish liquorice; and in this way had carried on an active business. Some of these little arabs are too restless and irri- table to be easily reclaimed ; the monotony of decent life is almost insupportable. If you reclaim them, many will contrive to get away again. A gentleman by the name of Driver, who had been TEASING POLICEMEN. 67 for years engaged in endeavoring to reclaim these little urchins, says that on one occasion he met some of them, all dirt and rags, near the Kelson Monu- ment. Said he : "I addressed myself principally to one boy, whom some time before I had pulled from underneath a tarpaulin in Covent Garden Market in the middle of a winter's night. He had been twice imder my care for short periods, but gave the prefer- ence to a street life. I said, * Well, Jim, are you not tired of this sort of life? ' 'No,' he answered with a grin, ' not yet ; and when I am, sir, I will come to you.' 'Very well,' I replied; 'I suppose you will have your game out first.' ' Now, sir, I'll tell you the real truth. I'd come to you to-morrow, if you'd give me an ounce of 'bacca a week, some ha'pence in my pocket to spend, and an hour's holiday every day ; it would not be worth my while to do it under that it would not, indeed, sir! ' All these ragged urchins have an object and, I fear, but one object of terror, and that is a police- man. They will teach their dogs to bark furiously at the word " Bobby " or " Peeler." They will tease them in all possible ways. A policeman brought a boy before a magistrate on a charge of insulting him. "What did he say to you?" " Oh, he said nothing to me." "What did he do?" "Well, he pointed at me, and asked another boy if he ever see a rabbit-pie made out of mutton." " Oh, I cannot entertain such a charge as that." At every accident to a policeman their delight is uncontrollable. "Jem, hi! Look 'ere ! come 'ere ! sitch a lark ! Hooray ! Oh my ! 'ere's a perleeceman fell down on a slide ! Hooray ! ! " To a flashily dressed snob they are very provoking. " Oh my ! hi ! there goes eightpence out of a sbil- 68 TUKNXN T G A PENNTT. ling ! " If on horseback, so much the worse. " Hi there! you'll tumble off the shop-board! " If he is a timid rider, "Billy, see, 'ere's a swell; let's frighten 'is 'oss! " As witty a thing as I ever heard, was a remark made by one boy to another, as a showily dressed person passed, evidently vain of his appearance: "Hi! 'ow does that 'ere chap's hat stay up, without nothing hunder it? " Ask this ragged little wretch, " Can you read? " "No; but I can stand on my 'ed and drink a glass of gin." A judicious old lady said, when a boy accosted her with " Stand on my 'ed, ma'am, for a penny," " No, little boy; there's a penny for keeping right side upwards." Another boy, " Now, my little man, what would you say, if I should give you a penny?" "Vy, that you vas a jolly old brick." " Punch " gives some very graphic descriptions of this class of boys. A stroll through the streets amazes you at the vari- ety of methods for " turning a penny." Everything is a penny, cigar lights, pencils, sham jewelry, ingen- ious puzzles, and very questionable publications, which yield enormous profits, one of them realizing for the ignoble owner many thousands a year. At one time it is the " Devil " that is put for sale at the price of one penny; at -another, "London Life," "London Gossip," or " Town Talk." There is also always a great sale of prints and photographs, all at one penny. The run on the evening papers particularly when there has been a sensational murder, or a divorce case with spicy details is immense; and as edition after edition is worked off, the streets are filled with men and women, lads and girls, offering them for sale. In this way a good deal of money is made, especially by "MATRIMONIAL NEWS." 69 the venders who manage to get first in the neighbor- hood of the Exchange and the Mansion House, and thus reach a class of customers who are not particular in the matter of change. Unprotected females, as they walk down Cheapside, are exceedingly annoyed by the impertinence of some of these fellows, who thrust the " Matrimonial News " before them, as they bawl in stentorian tones, " Want an 'usband, marm? Lot's of 'usbands to be had. Only a penny ! " One thing to be noted is the temporary character of these penny salable articles. Some are to be met with all the year round, such as studs, cigar lights, pocket-books, diaries, almanacs, beetles (which, at- tached to an india-rubber string, dance about as if they were alive), india-rubber balls, specimens of geology, steel pens, note-paper, German toys, refresh- ing drinks, bird-whistles, &c. Others are dependent on the season, and you get wonderful flowers, ca- mellias made of turnips, apples, pears, oranges, wal- nuts, and slices of pineapple; and the costermongers who thus cater for the million are indeed a blessing, as they supply the poor of the metropolis with cheap fruit. In the summer you have the retailer of sherbet and the penny ice and shell-fish; in the winter the same man deals in roasted chestnuts or baked pota- toes, or keeps a coffee-stall. All the year round, some enterprising individuals supply the public, who need to have their blood purified, with penny sarsa- parilla drinks. When Lord Beaconsfield came back from the Ber- lin Congress, there was a card hawked about called the " European Mystery," and the puzzle was to find Lord Beaconsfield in the picture. One of the most curious eiforts I heard of in Lon- 70 ADVERTISING DODGE. don for "raising the wind" was the "Continental Advertising Refreshment Plate Company," the aim of which was, to distribute neatly designed adver- tisements on the rims of refreshment plates, dishes, saucers, &c., made of porcelain, china, earthenware, or other material, among the different hotels and cafes and restaurants in the various cities and towns of France and Belgium. It was reckoned this was to be the cheapest way of advertising ever known; and to carry it out only 5,000 were asked, which the promoters, however, probably failed to obtain, as the company was never started. CHAPTER IY. HIGH AND LOW LIFE IN LONDON. CABMEN AND COCKNEYS. Cabmen of London: their Great Number "Exact Fare" "I shan't forget the Phiz " A Dandy discomfited Wealth of London Men who have risen " Cats' -Meat " Where the Dead Horses go Fortunes by Sharp Practice Roguery reduced to a System The Wine Business Tricks of Trade High Art Auctioneers Jockeyism and Horses Bought his Own Horse Londoner's Self-Esteem " Connoisseurship in Wines " Tricks of Professional Beggars The Blind Man who could see " Eddicatin' Dogs " The Lord Mayor's Show Hardships of the Lord Mayor's Office "Who is He?" Self-made Men Lord Rothschild's Remark on " Selling Matches " Schools of the Corporation Disrespectful Children "'Ow is yer 'Elth?" Inconvenience of the Letter H. The Gentleman's Story Meeting with an "Hawful Hend " Dilemma of the Alderman's Daughter The Omnibus Conductor's Vocabulary, ........... 71 is no class of men less under- stood than the cabmen of London. The general verdict is, " Oh, they'll overcharge and bully you whenever they get a chance." Not more than the hackrnen of New York. It is to be expected that, among twelve thou- sand or more men, with few advantages and constant exposure, meeting and dealing with all shades of character, that there will be some hard cases, and a good many. But in my experi- ence, with only a few exceptions, I have found them 71 72 "YOU AIN'T SENT THEM OATS." civil, and nearly always grateful for liberal treatment. To the screw who will pay them the " exact fare " and there are many who pride themselves on always paying the "exact fare" of one shilling with two persons for a two-miles' ride they sometimes give a little chaffing. One of this class, who had paid the " exact fare," was asked, " Beg pardon, but are you all pretty much alike in your family, sir? " " Well, yes, a little so." " Oh, all right; I shan't forget the phiz, and blowed if any of you will ride in my cab again." On one occasion two ladies had paid the shilling for the two miles, with one fourpenny-bit, two threepenny-pieces, one penny, and two halfpence : cabby looked at the coins, and turning them over in his hand, said very insinuatingly, " Well, how long might you have been saving up for this little treat? " They can discover the weak points in any they choose to chaff: as, when an exquisite dandy had handed two ladies into a cab, and drawled out, " Dwivah, dwive these ladies to 44 Manchester Square, just two miles, and here's the shilling," cabby said, "All right; but, I say, mister, you ain't sent them oats round to our place yet, that we ordered ; " which took him down most essentially. " Punch " gives some capital hits at, and illustrations of the peculiarities of the cabmen. The wealth of London is enormous, and the for- tunes accumulated are in their extent bewildering; yet many of the wealthy men in London have risen from obscurity. A certain late Lord Mayor, when a boy, swept the office of which he became the head. There was a member of Parliament, and a man of wealth, who once cleaned the shoes of one of his constituents. As you walk along Cheapside, you see CATS' MEAT. 73 warehouses of vast extent, filled with the costliest productions; the owners of many of these places live in magnificent villas, yet some of them came penni- less to London. It is stated that Lindsay, the well- known ship-owner, was a wretched, half-starved boy in Liverpool. Johnson Fox, who became the mem- ber for Oldham, was a Norwich weaver-boy. The late chairman of the Oriental Steam Navigation Company was a poor Highland laddie. I have heard John Cassell, the publisher, say that he came to London with three halfpence in his pocket ; and he died leaving a splendid business. I suppose, from the days of Whittington, such cases have been fre- quent. In America we know that very many of our rich men rose from obscurity and poverty; but the oppor- tunities and advantages for such a rise are a hundred- fold greater here than in England. Princely fortunes are made by trifles in London, as well as in New York. Out of the profits of his Vegetable Pills, Morrison purchased a splendid estate; Holloway, of the world-renowned Ointment, drove in one of the handsomest " turn-outs " you will meet in the Strand. I was once riding in the suburbs, when one of the prettiest country houses I ever saw was pointed out to me; the grounds were laid out, and the very rails of the iron fence were gilt. I was told that the pro- prietor was actually *a dealer in " cats' meat." He bought up old, sick, or dead horses, and I assure you he made the most of them. I was informed that he cut up the flesh for "cats' meat;" that, besides the hair and hide and bones, the uses of which we can all understand, the nostrils and hoofs were used for gelatine, and the blood was employed in the manu- 74 SYSTEMATIC SWINDLING. facture of ketchup, to which it is supposed to impart a delicious flavor; the livers were burned, to be mixed with coffee. So we see a great deal can be made of a dead horse. There, as here, fortunes are sometimes made by sharp practice. An intelligent lawyer once said that he did not believe there was such a thing as commer- cial morality at all altogether a too sweeping asser- tion; but there is an enormous amount of unfair dealing, in adulteration and various other methods of dishonesty. The Bankruptcy Court has developed an immense amount of villany. The number of those who live by rascality is very great, and astound- ing disclosures are made of the almost perfect system by which their roguery is accomplished. There are no limits to the tricks and deceptions of trade. In one shop there is a sale going on at an enormous sacrifice, but the purchaser, not the seller, makes it; in another, new goods are sold as second-hand. This is a favorite and very successful trick with the pawnbrokers. But of the wines, the pictures, I can hardly trust myself to speak. The wine, when it is brought into England, and before it is taken to the wine-merchant's cellar and pays duty, is kept in the docks. It undergoes a wonderful transformation. In one case, some wine deposited as very superior sherry was found to have been transmogrified into very fine old port. In another case, some wine that had been in the dock a few years, in spite of leakage and what had been subtracted for samples, had in a most re- markable manner increased in bulk. I saw an account of an action in which it came out that a man had contracted to turn a certain quantity of British wine into genuine sherry. HORSE TRADES. 75 As to pictures, the mock-auction in which paint- ings not by the old masters are sold, is generally held in some leading thoroughfare. The auctioneer is well dressed, facetious, fluent, and well up in the slang of art; he can talk of the tone of this picture and the coloring of the other, of the chiar-oscuro, &c. The verdant provincial steps in, and sees what he believes to be a genuine picture worth hundreds going for as many pounds ; he bids, and immediately there is a furious competition. Around him are con- federates, whom he imagines to be strangers like himself: they bid against him; he becomes excited, and finds himself the possessor of a copy worth but little. It is the same with other auctions ; where the stran- ger sees the bidders quarrel, and the auctioneer re- fuses to interfere, he thinks the sale must be genuine, and buys his belief to the contrary at a costly rate. The deceptions in the horse-trade are still bolder and more ingenious. Very often a man does not know his own horse when he gets it into the dealer's hands. I have heard of cases in which a man has unknowingly bought back a horse, at a high figure, which he had previously disposed of as almost worth- less. You read in the " Times " (and whenever a Londoner wants to know where to buy anything, he is sure to look in the advertising columns of the " Times ") that a horse, quiet to ride and drive, the property of a gentleman who has no further use for him, is to be parted with; you are referred to a cer- tain livery stable; you see the animal, as strong and showy a beast as you can possibly desire; indeed, it is vamped and doctored in a wonderful manner; if 76 CONNOISSEURS IN WINE. slow, it is made to run fast, if lame, to walk; the horse strikes you as like Barry Cornwall's Gamana " Strong, black, and of the desert breed, Full of fire and full of bone, All his line of fathers known ; Fine his nose, his nostrils thin, But blown abroad by the pride within ; His mane a stormy river flowing, And his eyes like embers glowing In the darkness of the night ; And his pace as swift as light." While you are admiring this creature of man's in- genuity, a groom in livery comes into the yard for some well-known nobleman, or public character anx- ious to secure this horse at any price; but the dealer has offered him to you, and he won't deviate from his word. You buy the animal, and, when you get him home, you find oat your mistake. Sometimes the confederate is a commercial traveller: he happens to come into the yard just as you are examining the horse; he seems so respectable a man, and so fond of his horse, and so reluctant to part with it, that you are completely thrown off your guard. The Londoner of a certain class, however, is never deprived of his self-esteem; he is a judge of every- thing; especially he prides himself on being a judge of wine, spirits, and porter. I give you a fact. Three gentlemen were dining together at the house of one of them, and after dinner a bottle of claret was pro- duced. The connoisseurs turned up their noses, and declared it would not do. Their host was very sorry; apologized; said he would give them a bottle of a better sort: he stepped down into his cellar, and, without their knowledge, gave them a bottle of the same kind. "Ah ! " said the connoisseurs, " that is THEODORE HOOK. 77 beautiful; that has the real bouquet; that is the real thing ! " So much for connoisseurship in wine. Every London tavern-keeper could tell scores of similar tales. A great judge of wine, a nobleman, had placed before him a bottle of champagne and a bottle of gooseberry wine. The noble lord was requested to judge which was the genuine article. He, after much consideration, gave the preference to the gooseberry wine. In England, at dinner time, when wine is served at table, the custom was for one gentleman to say to another, or to a lady, " Sir, (or madam,) may I have the pleasure of taking a glass of wine with you?" " With pleasure." The glasses are then filled, and, as they drink, they look at each other and bow. Theodore Hook was once observed, during a dinner at Hatfield House, nodding like a Chinese mandarin in a tea-shop. On being asked the reason, he said, "When no one asks me, I take sherry with the epergne, and bow to the flowers." As I am speaking of drinking, I would here refer to the celebrated " whitebait," a sound very musical to Cockney ears. To the large taverns at Blackwall and Greenwich gourmands flock to eat " whitebait," a delicious little fish caught in the reach of the Thames, and directly netted out of the river into the frying-pan. They appear about the end of March, or early in April, and are taken every flood-tide till September. The fashion of eating them is sanctioned by the highest authority, from the Court of St. James in the west, to the Court of the Lord Mayor in the east. The Cabinet winds up the parliamentary ses- sion with an annual whitebait dinner, to which they go in an ordnance barge or government steamer. Whitebait are eaten with lemon and brown bread and 7o FASHIONABLE ECONOMY. butter. I believe that, after all, there is not much in them, but that gentlemen make a whitebait dinner an excuse for a run out of town, little bit of holiday, and for drinking champagne and iced punch. London is not a cheap place to live in; yet an economical man, I believe, may live as cheaply there as in any city in the world. He may read all the newspapers and magazines for a penny; he may pass the day in exhibitions and museums without spending a farthing; he may find a decent bedroom for five shillings a week, and may dine comfortably for a shil- ling. Mr. Wellesley Pole used to say it was impos- sible to live in England under 4,000 a year. Mr. Brummel told a lady of rank, who asked him how much she ought to allow her son for dress, that it might be done for 800 a year, with strict economy. Mr. Senior, in an article in the " Encyclopedia Met- ropolitana," stated that a carriage for a woman of fashion must be regarded as one of the necessaries of life ; and every young swell must have his brougham, his man, and his own establishment. But a great deal is done on credit. " What a clever man my son is ! " said an English gentleman, speaking of the well- known Tom Duncombe. " I allow him 300 a year, and he spends 3,000!" The tricks of the professional beggars are almost inconceivable. They will simulate every disease under the sun. Sometimes they are thrown off their guard. A man was standing with a board in front of him, with the inscription, " I am blind," when a gentleman threw a shilling on the ground: the blind man in- stantly picked it up. The gentleman said, " Why, I thought you were blind." The fellow, after a mo- ment's hesitation, looked at his board, and then said, "I EDDICATE DOGS." 79 " I'm blessed if they haven't made a mistake, and put a wrong board on me this morning! I'm deaf and dumb!" A man, being led by a dog, was accosted by a policeman : " You're not blind." " Yell, vot if I ain't? " " What are you going through the streets for with that dog? " " Yy, Lor' bless ye, I eddicate dogs for blind men." I must say a word or two about the Lord Mayor, and the Lord Mayor's Show, which I saw during my recent visit, and which seemed to me more popular than ever, and about as silly. For the day, business is almost suspended. At an early hour the leading streets are closed to traffic; the shop-windows are filled with young people and their papas and mammas and older relatives. The streets are crowded \vith spectators all the way from the city to Westminster Hall, where the Lord Mayor is officially introduced to the judges, and invites them to dinner. I suppose a million of people come to see the Lord Mayor's Show, which returns by the Thames Embankment a famous place for a crowd, and where generally, in spite of the police, there is a good deal of horse-play on such occasions, as it is there the riffraff of the metropolis love to meet. The Lord Mayor of Lou- don, for the time being, is the first man in the city; and by the city I mean the busy hive of industry de- voted entirely to business, in which few people live, situated between what was known as Aldgate Pump, in the east, and Temple Bar, in the west. He has usually a hard life of it, as for the year of office he is chairman of almost everything that goes on in the city; even his Sundays he cannot call his own, as on that day he is generally expected to attend, in state, some city church on the occasion of a charity sermon. 00 LORD MAYOR OF LONDON". He has the Mansion House to live in, and has some twelve thousand pounds allowed him to spend, which he generally spends, and often a good deal more. I have been informed that he gives a bond of 4,000 for the plate. He is much thought of in foreign parts more than in London, where it is the fashion of the great city merchants to look down upon the corporation, and where the city is, as regards size and population, such a small section of the great metrop- olis itself; but to the eyes of foreigners, the Lord Mayor of London is a mighty personage in'deed. Earl Russell told Lord Albemarle that when, as a young man, the late Lord Romilly visited Paris, at a time when he was giving promise of making a figure at the English bar, some French friend said to him, " To what dignities may you not aspire ! You may become Lord Chancellor; w T ho knows? even," he added, " Lord Mayor of London ! " Twice the Lord Mayor has paid the French metropolis a visit, and on each time great was the sensation he pro- duced. On the first occasion, that is, after the Exhibition of 1851, the "Journal des Debats " ob- served that his " physiognomy implied deference and respect." Another spoke of his appearance as indi- cating the possession of good and loyal sentiments. As the municipal procession made its way through the streets, the " gamins " in the crowd shouted, "A bas V aristocrat" There was one person, however, whom all conspired to honor, and that was the Lord Mayor's coachman, in his state livery, all gold and silver, silk and velvet. I suppose he is more orna- mental than useful, as the grand grooms on each side of the six horses take care that they shall go right ; but he is a sight, with his gold cap and grand bouquet MAKING A FORTUNE. 81 of costly flowers, his silk stockings, and his shoes with silver buckles, his scarlet face, for he is gen- erally what is called a good liver, though his own liver may be ever so bad. " Who is he? " anxiously asked the French, as he passed along. The reply of one, who appeared to be or pretended to be better informed than the rest, was, that he was the Lord Mayor's chief chasseur, who attended his lord- ship on all his hunting expeditions ! I can assure you the Lord Mayor of London finds very little time to go a-hunting, even if he had the inclination and the means. Many of the Lord Mayors are self-made men, and began the world quite low in the social scale. In all England, as everywhere else, " it is the hand of the diligent that maketh rich ; " and the people who begin the world with half a crown in their pockets, and so make a fortune, are almost as plentiful in London as they are in America, or any- where else, and deserve as much credit, if obtained honestly. One day, a lady who was seated next to the great Rothschild at a dinner party, kept tormenting him by asking what business she should put her son to, in order to make a fortune. " Madam," was the reply, " selling matches is a good business if you sell enough of them." And so it is. Only a year or two ago, there died in the city of London, a Jew who was worth a million at the time of his decease. He began with lucifer matches, thence he went on to pencils, and so on till he got into the wool trade, and died rich, as I have said. It is from such men as these that the ranks of the Lord Mayors of London are recruited. There are many schools in and about London, be- 6 82 "'ow is YER 'ELTH?" longing to the great city companies, under the patron- age of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, who visit them on the occasion of the distribution of prizes. I have been told that it is occasionally quite amusing, after the Lord Mayor and his friends have left, when the cere- mony is over, to find the scholars especially the girls taking off the defects of their illustrious visitors, saying to one another, " 'Ow is yer 'elth ? " " Give us yer 'and." I am told that such is a fact often tak- ing place, and will be, till the corporation of London is reformed, and Lord Mayors are elected by a wider mass of citizens, and not as now by a mere handful. It is really comical the work the cockneys make with the letter h ; not only the cockneys, but many in other parts of the province. I was once at a gentle- man's house, surrounded with all that wealth could procure, pictures, plate, an elegant residence, and the gentleman said to me, " He met with an hawful hend; he was riding near the railway, and 'is 'orse threw 'im hover 'is ? ed, and the hengine run hover 'im, and mashed 'im to hattoms." I was told that not long since a London alderman gave a grand garden party at his beautiful seat in the picturesque village of Highgate, where Coleridge lived, and where Lady Burdett Coutts now lives. The Alderman had a handsome daughter, who, when taken out to lunch by a "West End swell, quite per- plexed him by innocently asking him, " Do you think I get pretty? " She was thinking of " Highgate," and not of herself." I heard of an omnibus conductor that was calling out, " 'Ere ye are, 'ighgate, 'ighgate ; hall for 'ighgate." Some one said, "'A'-PEKNY A MILE." 83 " You've dropped something." " Yot 'ave I dropped?" " Only some H's." " Oh! that's nothing; I'll pick 'em up ven I gets to jETislington." Two costers were looking at a railway time-table. " Say, Jem," said one of them, " vot's P. M. mean? " " ^y> penny a mile, to be sure." "Yell, vot's A.M.?" " 'A'-penny a mile, to be sure ! " CHAPTER Y. JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE. SCENES IN THE CRIMINAL COURTS OF LONDON. The Old Bailey A Complete Establishment "Tried in Dra wing- Room ; hanged in Back Kitchen " A Criminal Trial, a Sensation Drama Waiting for the Verdict Atmosphere of the Dock Crime shown in the Face The Ragged Youth and his Counsel Police Courts Ludicrous Scenes Women's Quarrels " The Love-lorn Widder " Supporting Nine Children The Irishman's Family at the Bar Disagreeing Evidence Children hired out to Beggars The Magistrate and the Chimney Sweep Drunken- ness the Path to the Police Court "Taking in" People Bird Fanciers cheated Painted Sparrows Uncertainty of the Law The Thief and his Cherries Barnacles Expense of the Civil Service Government Leeches The Mysterious Warning Pre- mium on Idleness " How not to do it," 84 HE Old Bailey is one of the institu- tions of London, associated with greasy squalor, and crime of every descrip- tion; a cold, bleak-looking prison, with an awful little iron door, three feet or so from the ground. The Central Criminal Court is "par excellence " the criminal court of the country. It is said that more innocent men are charged with crime, and more guilty men escape, at the Old Bailey, than at any other court in the kingdom. It is said that the Old Bailey barrister is loud of voice and in- solent in manner. The Old Bailey is very compact. 84 THE OLD BAILEY. 85 You can be detained there between the time of your committal and your trial; you can be tried there, sentenced there, and comfortably hanged and buried there. Since there are no more public executions, there is no occasion to go outside the four walls; as some one has said, " You are tried in the drawing- room, confined in the scullery, and hanged in the back kitchen." A criminal trial is a fearfully interesting sight, a real sensation drama; as the case draws to a close, it grows more exciting: the charge to the jury; the waiting for the verdict; the sharp, anxious look the prisoner casts around him as they render the verdict: see the compressed lips and contracted brow, and listen to the great, deep sigh as he learns the worst! Then the sentence ! The silence is awful, broken, perhaps, by a woman's shriek; and all is over, as far as the spectator is concerned. It is said that the atmosphere of the dock invests the very countenance of one who may happen to be in it. A well-known counsel who was defending a singularly ill-favored prisoner said to the jury, " Gentlemen, you must not allow yourselves to be carried away by any effect which the prisoner's appearance may have upon you. Remember he is in the dock; and I will undertake to say, that if my lord were to be taken from the bench and placed where the prisoner is now standing, you would find, even in his lordship's face, indications of crime which you would look for in vain in any other situation." There is a curious tale of a youth whose ragged head was frequently to be seen in the dock of the Old Bailey. It turns upon the affection of the crim- inal for his pet counsel, and his utter dislike to be 86 BOW STREET POLICE-OFFICE. defended by any one else. The youth had appeared in the dock after having been at large only a short time, and immediately objected to the case being pro- ceeded with, as he was not properly represented by counsel. The judge pointed out to him that that must not be allowed to delay the trial. The pupil of Fagin replied, " That won't do, my lord; my counsel is Mr. , (naming a well-known barrister,) and I cannot be tried without him." The judge postponed the case till the next day, when the same little scene was enacted, and the young rogue maintained that he had paid for his counsel, and that he would be de- fended by liim, and by no one else. At length, after several similar delays, the case was adjourned until the next session, when the barrister whom the "young gentleman" had paid for appeared, and succeeded in obtaining an acquittal. In the many police-courts of London are to be wit- nessed some queer scenes, and some phases of human- ity that can be seen nowhere else. Go to Bow Street or "Worship Street; and there, as has been said, sits an educated gentleman, receiving 1,200 per year, settling petty squabbles between quarrelsome women, as part of the duties of his office. The most ludicrous scenes take place during the testimony. Take the following as recorded. A woman appears as a complainant for an assault: the defendant is placed in the bar. His Worship: "Well." Woman : " Please yer 'onor, this woman at the bar, if she can call herself such " " Now, no reflection on the defendant, if you please." "MBS. FINCH TOLD ME." 87 " Well, sir, ever since last Tuesday week, come last Christmas " " Never mind about Christmas ; tell us what hap- pened." " Please yer worship, she told Mr. Waters " " Don't bother us with what she said to Mr. Waters ; tell us what she said to you" " Well, sir, Mrs. Finch told me " " Never mind what Mrs. Finch told you." " Please yer worship, I'm a lone, 'lorn widder, with- out an 'usband to pertect my character, and I lives by working 'ard at the tub for the support of nine chil- dren, four living and five dead, and ever since that female," &c. The magistrate was compelled to let her tell her story her own way. Take another reported case. A forlorn-looking Irishman, accompanied by his wife and two children, is found begging, contrary to law. When brought before the magistrate, they are examined separately, the wife first, the others being out of the court. " Now, my good woman, that's your husband, is it?" "Yes, please yer 'onor; and a honest, hard-work- ing " " Never mind that. When were you married to him? " "When, yer 'onor? Well, about twelve years ago, and I " " Where did the marriage take place? " "Did ye say where? Yes, sir, I think it was in Tipperary, and hard work it was " " What is your husband's name? " " His name, yer 'onor? Macarty, yer 'onor." 88 "AX MY WIFE." " What was your name before you were married to him? " " Cromartie, yer 'onor." "Are these your only children in twelve years? " " Well, yer 'onor, they are the only darlings left to us; or there would have been five, but for the three that were taken from us by the typhus ; and a trouble it was to raise the money " " Call in the man." " What's your name? " " Kelly, yer 'onor." " Oh, I thought it was Macarty." " So it is, yer 'onor ; I didn't know it was my other name ye were axing for." "And so this woman is your wife, is she? " " Yes, yer 'onor; and a hardworking " " Wait a bit. What was her name before you were married? " " Well, yer 'onor, I hardly remember, for it was a long time ago." "A long time ago? " " Not exactly that; I meant about seven years ago, and it's a long time to remember a name that you have no further use for." " Oh, then you've been married seven years? " "About that; but if ye'll ax my wife " " Where were you married? " "I'm not sure, yer 'onor; I've a bad memory; but if ye'll ax my wife " " Surely you remember where you were married? " " Well then, I think it was Dublin, to the best of my belief." " Then if your wife said Cork " " Oh, certainly; yes, Cork it was." "I'M NO SCHOLAR." 89 " How many children have you? " " There is the two darlings in court to-day, yer 'onor." " Oh, but haven't you lost some children? " The woman, who has remained in court, slyly holds up three fingers. " Please yer 'onor, I did not think of the three that died with the measles." " But how many have you had? " The woman holds up five fingers ; the man mistakes her meaning. " Well, I never thought to mention the five we have in service." "How many children do you make of it alto- gether? " " Please yer 'onor, I'm no hand at calculations ; but if ye'll ax " "I think I can help you. Two here to-day, three dead, five in service, that makes ten, ten children in seven years! Can you explain that? " "Well yer 'onor, I'm no scholar; but if ye'll ax my wife " " Stand down ; put the boy in the box " "Now, boy, look at me; where's your father and mother?" "Please sir, my father's in jail, and my mother sells oranges in the street." And so it turns out that these children are rented at sixpence a day to these street beggars, and they are committed as rogues and vagabonds. One can always see or hear something amusing in a police court. When I was in the city, the follow- ing dialogue took place between a sweep, who was as black as an African, and the presiding magistrate. 90 A PAINTED SPARROW. Said the latter, " My good man, how often do you wash yourself ? " " Once a week, regular, whether I wants it or not." "Well, you might wash yourself more often, I think." " I cleans myself of a Sunday, sir." The sweep was evidently a strict disciplinarian; there was no shrinking from the weekly tub, no namby-pamby thoughts that perhaps it might be as well to postpone the painful operation till a warmer day. No, the sweep was above all that. And you can see some heart-rending cases of brutality, especially to women. Drunkenness brings nine-tenths of the cases to the police court. A few weeks ago, a cler- gyman of the Church of England was brought up and fined five shillings for drunkenness. The next case was a physician, fined the same sum and costs for the same offence; and in another court that day, one, who called himself a gentleman, and refused to give his name, was committed for drunkenness. Ahl If I should go on, I could fill page after page with the records of the doings of drink. Some people are easily taken in. In horse trades, all tricks seem to be lawful. It is just the same in London with the birds. The latest example of this kind of swindling was exposed lately in a London police court. The swindler was charged with obtain- ing a watch from a pot-man, by palming off on him a painted sparrow for a piping bullfinch. When the next morning came, the imposition was detected. There was a further charge against the same person of obtaining a diamond ring, value 10, from a medical student, by pretending that a common star- ling was a rare American bird. Of course the pris- THE BARNACLES. 91 oner was convicted; but doubtless he had taken many people in, in a similar manner. The glorious uncertainty of the law was illustrated about the same time, in the case of a William Smith, charged with walking off from Covent Garden with a basket of cherries without the owner's consent. In mitigation, he pleaded that the porter ought to have stopped him sooner, and not to have allowed him to go so far. The vindication apparently satisfied the court, and he was discharged, when he said, " Yould yer lordship give me a few coppers, as I have only twopence-halfpenny in the world." Actually, the judge and jury and counsel took up a collection for his benefit. There is another tale told in which the case did not end quite so happily for the defendant, who had stolen a piece of bacon, and was asked how far he had carried it. " O, only a hundred yards or so, yer lordship," was the man's reply. " Ah, well," said the judge meditatively, "then I am afraid you have carried the joke a little too far. Three months' imprisonment." It was Dickens who gave the name of Barnacle to the officials and employees in the public offices; and I believe that many are still making John Bull bleed pretty freely, by giving him as little work as they possibly can for their money. In 1857-58, the sum required for the civil service was 14,300,000. In 1877-78, the estimates were 23,400,000, being an increase of 9,000,000 during a period of what was termed reorganization and retrenchment. A little while ago, a new writer was appointed to work with the Barnacles in the custom-house. He says that when he took to his work in the way he was accus- tomed to do it in the city warehouses, every eye was 92 HOW NOT TO DO IT. turned upon him, with an expression of the deepest pity and amazement. Suddenly, a bit of paper fell upon his book; the writing on it ran thus, "A nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse." The new hand says he went on with his work harder than ever. Then came another bit of paper, " Why work so desperately hard? Nobody works hard here." Re- gardless of the advice, he kept on writing as if he were in a commercial warehouse in the city. In a few minutes, an angry voice sounded in his ear: "For God's sake, man, don't work like that; you'll have the whole office against you, and you won't do yourself a bit of good." " Indeed! " was the reply. " Yes, it is a fact. Nobble's got to give you the next book when you've done, and he won't be ready for you before next Saturday." Now the natural query of the new employee was, how he should kill the remaining time. " Why," said the older Barnacle, " look about you, read the papers, do a bit, then stop and rest. If you don't, all the fellows in the Barnacle office will be dead against you." It was there, the man tells us, that he first learned his lesson in " how not to do it." He began to look about him, and to dawdle over his work. Somehow he discovered, as he confessed, that to look about him and to daily grumble, are the chief occupations of her Majesty's Barnacles. CHAPTEK VI. LIFE AMONG COSTERMONGERS, BEGGARS, AND THIEVES. SCENES AT VICTORIA THEATRE. The Costermongers " Picking up Crusts " Street Fellowship Religion and Respectability Kindness appreciated Children near Houndsditch The Coster Boy In Business for Himself Chaffing a " Peeler " Forgiveness a Rare Trait The Coster Girl Profound Ignorance Forced to Cheat "It's werry 'ard, isn't it, Sir?" Shaming the Donkey Costermonger's Education Victoria Theatre The Multitude of Boys and Girls Excitements in the Gallery " Pull hup that 'ere Vinder Blind " " Light up the Moon " Reception of a Tragedy Whitechapel and Butchers' Row Scene of a Saturday Night Penny Gaff or Theatre Dirt, Smoke, and Vulgarity " 'Ere's yer Pannyrammar " " Legitimit Dramay " Ratcliffe Highway Ballad Singers Street Scenes Catching Sailors The Sailor's " Futtergruff " Beer Houses and Gin Shops Beggars and Thieves Inside a Thieves' Lodging House The Countryman's Adventure, 93 OSTERMO]S"GERS deserve a passing notice. They are a large and varied class, numbering some sixty thousand, seen nowhere else but in London or some of the larger towns of England. They pick up their living in the street, selling anything by which they may, as their saying is, " pick up a crust." Charles Knight, in his " London," says : " The cos- termonger was originally an apple-seller; a particu- 93 94 COSTEKMOtfGERS. lar kind of apple, called a costard, gave them their name." The working life of a coster is spent in the streets, and his leisure very much devoted to the beer-shop, the dancing-room, and the theatre; yet there are ex- ceptions, some of them being very sober, orderly, God-fearing people. Home has few attractions to a man whose life is a street-life. They have their own beer-shops, theatres, and other places of amusement. They are rather exclusive, and like to be let alone. They are true to each other. If a coster falls ill, and gets into the hospital, he is visited by scores of his fellows. Religion is rather a puzzle to the costermongers. They see people coming out of church, and, as they are mostly well-dressed, they somehow mix up being religious with being respectable, and have a queer sort of a feeling about it. They will listen to the street-preacher; but I think the most unimpressible of all with whom I have been brought into contact, on purely moral and religious subjects, are the Lon- don costermongers. They do not understand how it is possible that you can feel any interest in their spir- itual welfare ; but if you relieve the necessities of any one in distress, you are at once popular. Once near Houndsditch I saw some poor, pinched little creatures playing in the gutter. I said to one, "Do you want an orange?" The child looked up, half timid, half scared, and said nothing. I stepped up to the stand and took an orange, and oifered it to the child; it was at once taken; and then they flocked around me, and I must have given twenty or thirty oranges away, when I saw a group of costers looking on. As I left the crowd, the men gave a hurrah, and SHARP AS TERRIERS. 95 said, " That's a gentleman ; " whereas if I had offered them a tract, I might have had some chaffing. But the city missionaries, of whom I shall speak in another chapter, are doing great good among them. The life of a coster-boy is a hard one from morning till night: at first hallooing for his father, then in business for himself with a barrow; next he looks out for a girl to keep house for him. Very many are not married to the women with whom they live, yet they are very jealous, and sometimes behave very badly to the girl. One fellow about sixteen said to Mr. Mayhew, " If I seed my gal a-talking to another chap, I'd fetch her sich a punch of the 'ed as 'ud precious soon settle that matter." These boys are very keen; as an old coster said, " These young 'uns are as sharp as terriers, and learns the business in half no time. I know vun, hate years old, that'll chaff a peeler monstrous sewere." As I said, they have strange ideas about religion. In the " London Labor and London Poor " there are very many interesting details in reference to this class, and several conversations between Mr. Mayhew and the street-folk are reported. One of them said, "I 'ave heerd about Christianity; but if a cove vos to fetch me a lick of the 'ed, I'd give it to 'im again, vether he was a little vun or a big 'tin." The idea of forgiving injuries and loving enemies seems to them absurd. One said, " I'd precious soon see a henemy of mine shot afore I'd forgive 'im." Said another, " I've heerd of this 'ere creation you speaks about. In coorse God Almighty made the world, but the bricklayers made the 'ouses; that's my opinion. I heerd a little about the Saviour: they seem to say He vos a goodish sort of a man; but if He says that a 96 "IT'S WERRY 'ARD ON us." cove is to forgive a feller as 'its 'im, I should say that He knows nothing about it." Another said, " I know they says in the Lord's Prayer, l Forgive us our tres- passes as we forgive them;' but no coster can't do it," The coster-girl's life is very sad : her time, from her earliest years, is fully occupied in doing or getting something. " Education? vy, that von't earn a gal a living ! " Mind, heart, soul, all absorbed in the strug- gle to live! One of the coster-girls said, in reply to some questions, " Father told me that God made the world, and the first man and woman; but that must have been more than a hundred years ago. Father told us that the Saviour gin poor people a penny loaf and a bit of fish vonce ; which shows He was a werry kind gentleman. He made the ten commandments and the miracles." When questioned on the principle of forgiveness, she said, " I don't think I could for- give a henemy. I don't know vy, excep' I'm poor and never learned." Said another girl, " It seems to me vonderful that this 'ere vorld vos made in six days. I should have thought that London vould have took up double that time. If ve cheats, ve shan't go to 'even; but it's werry 'ard on us, 'cos customers vants happles for less than they cost us, so ve're forced to shove in bad 'uns with the good 'uns ; and if we've to be shut out of 'even for that, it's werry 'ard, isn't it, sir? " There are grades among the coster-mongers, some of them more intelligent than this; sometimes they keep donkeys, and are occasionally very kind to them. Driving up Holborn Hill, one of these donkeys, in spite of all coaxing, refused to go farther; so the man took the animal out of the shafts, and began pulling the cart up the hill. Some one asked why he VICTORIA THEATHE. 97 did that. "Oh, I'm trying to shame 'im into it." Some drive a barrow, and many carry their loads on their heads. They are a peculiar folk, and we mourn over the ignorance and immorality of this large class ; but we shall be less surprised at it if we visit their places of amusement, or what may be called their " educational institutions." Victoria theatre is the great place of amusement for a coster-monger. By a little management, we get a seat in the side or sixpenny gallery. On an attrac- tive night, the rush to the threepenny gallery of the " Vic " (as it is called) is aw T ful. We have a good view of them. It is the largest gallery in London; it will hold 1,500 to 2,000 persons. The majority of visitors are lads from twelve to fifteen years of age, and young girls are very plentiful. When the theatre is well packed, it is usual to see crowds of boys on each other's shoulders at the back of the gallery. As you look up the vast slanting mass of heads, each one appears on the move. The huge heap dotted with faces, spotted with white shirt sleeves, almost pains the eye; and when they clap their hands, the twinkling nearly blinds you. The men take off their coats, and the bonnets of the women are hung over the iron rail- ing in front; and one of the amusements of the lads is to pitch orange peel and nutshells into them a good aim being rewarded with shouts of laughter. When the orchestra begins, you cannot hear the music. It is laughable to see the puffed cheeks of the trumpet- ers, the quick sawing of the fiddlers, the rise and fall of the drum-sticks, and to hear no music. But we have not come for music or performance, but to see this wonderful audience, to be seen nowhere else than in the galleries of the "Victoria." Hear them I 7 98 A PENNYWORTH OF LIVELINESS. " Bill, Holloa ! " " What's hup ? " " Where's Sal ? " "Ha, ha, ha. Bob!" "Holloa!" Look! see that boy coming actually over the heads of the ' mass ; he must roll over into the pit below! No, they catch him! See the confusion! There's a fight; every man rises from his seat; a dozen pair of arms fall to; and the whole gallery moves about like eels, with shouts, and screams of " Bravo ! " In the midst of all this uproar, the curtain rises, when there are cries of "Order;" " Silence;" "Down in front;" "Hats hoff." They fall into their places as merry as if nothing had happened. If the curtain is not high enough to suit them, they will sing out. " Pull hup that 'ere vinder-blind ; " " Higher the blue;" "Light up the moon." To the orchestra, the minute the curtain is down, " Now, then, catgut- scrapers, give us a pennyworth of liveliness." The " Yic " gallery is not moved by sentiment; a hornpipe or a terrific combat is sure to be encored. A grand ^banquet on the stage is certain to call forth, " Here, give us a bit of that 'ere?" All affecting situations .are interrupted with, " Blow that," or else the vo- ciferous cry of " O-r-d-a-r-e." The heroine begging for her father's life is told to " Speak hup, hold gal ! " But if the heroine should turn up her cuffs, and seize on one or two soldiers and shake them by the collar, the enthusiasm would know no bounds, and " Go it, my tulip," would resound from every throat. Comic songs and dances are popular; and during a highland fling, the stamping of feet, beating time, and the whistling drown the music. But the great hit of the evening is when a song is to be sung in which all can join in the chorus. While the solo is rendered, all is .still. If any one should break in before the time, the CURIOUS PERFORMANCE. 99 cry is " O-r-d-a-a-r," and at the proper time the noise is almost deafening. Sometimes the singer on the stage will give the cue, " Now, then, gentlemen, the Hexeter 'all touch, if you please," beating time with his hand, to their uncontrollable delight, and there is sure to be an encore to that. Occasionally, a heavy tragedy is tolerated, and sometimes in parts listened to; but a terrific combat must be introduced in something of this style, with accompaniments. Actor. "Ha! sayestthou?" Audience. (Get over on t'other side.) Actor. " Aye ! by the mass." Audience. ( Cut away, hold feller.) Actor. " Have at thee, then." Audience. (Go it, tigJits.) Actor. " Thy life- or mine." Audience. (Play hup,fusic.) Actor. " Blood shall wipe out blood." And at it they go, striking one another's swords: the more fire they strike out, the better. One, two, three; keeping time, advancing and retreating; one makes a blow at the other's feet, who, jumping a yard high, comes down with his hands on his knees, crying out, " No, ye don't," to the rapturous applause of the audience, after a sword exercise, reminding you of " Crummies " in " Nicholas Nickleby." One falls ; the other, about to dispatch him, is prevented by some heroine; they separate with " We shall meet again, Sir Count." Then, if the tragedy is very heavy, they will hear it, especially if the actor mouths and rants. This is a favorite style: " Ha-ha-ha-ha, what have I ha-ha to do ha- ha-ha with ha-ha happiness." 100 DOWN WHITECHAPEL WAT. Sometimes they will join in a running accompani- ment, and woe to the actor who shall lose his temper. The great object seems to be to make the tragedian laugh. Some poor luckless wight perhaps is cast for Richard III., and the performance commences some- thing like this : "]^ow is the. winter of our discontent " ("Louder! Louder! 'old hup yer 'ed") " Made glorious summer by this sun of York." ("Hooray! Brayvo, old feller !") " And all the clouds that lowered above our house " ("Meauw; Bow-wow; Hooray!") " In the deep bosom of the ocean buried." (" Blow that 'ere; lioff, hoff, hooray ! did yer go to the funeral?") and so on, whenever this poor victim makes his appearance. Sometimes these actors are mere sticks. I heard of one who rendered the pas- sage " Instead of mounting barbed steeds, To fright the souls of fearful adversaries," &c., thus " Instead of mounting bare bedsteads, To fright," &c. Let us take a run down to Whitechapel, past St. Paul's, through Cheapside, strike up Cornhill, cross Grace Church Street! Oh, how fascinating to me is a night ride or stroll in London streets ! We cross the Minories and we are in Butchers' Row,* Whitechapel. The gas glares from primitive tubes on a long vista of meat, meat, meat everywhere legs, loins, shoulders, ribs, hearts, livers, kidneys buy, buy, buy. Along the whole line are every description of butchers cry- ing out "buy, buy." Women are here by scores, * Part of this description I have borrowed from "Household Words." BUTCHERS' BOW. 101 pretty, ugly, old, young all chaffering, higgling, beating down, and joking. On the opposite side of the pavement are the interminable lines of trucks, bar- rows, baskets, boards on trestles laden with oysters, vegetables, fruit, combs, ballads, cakes, fried fish, arti- ficial flowers, chairs, brooms, soap, candles, crockery- ware, iron-ware, cheese, walking-sticks, looking- glasses, frying-pans, Bibles, toys, fire-wood, and so on. Here's a woman fiercely beating down the price of carrots, while that newly married artisan's wife, who has just begun life as a housekeeper, looks on bewildered and timid. Here's a blackguard boy, with a painted face, tumbling head over heels in the mud for a halfpenny. Oh, the noise of Butchers' Row, Whitechapel, especially on a Saturday night ! Yelling, screeching, howling, swearing, fighting, laughing. It's a combination of commerce, fun, frolic, cheating, begging, thieving, deviltry, short pipes, thick sticks, mouldy umbrellas, dirty faces, and ragged coats. Here are gin palaces in profusion. The company such as you see nowhere else, yet, as I said before, the sameness is sickening. In some of them it is hardly safe to venture without a policeman ; very few bar- maids men, strong, stout, fighting-men dispense the liquor. Let us step into this penny gaff or theatre. "We are now past Butchers' Row and out in High Street, Whitechapel. " Vun penny, if you please, hunless you takes a stall, and them's tuppence." We take a stall ; the place is horribly dirty. A low stage at one end, and the body filled with the company. Oh, what a company ! Some light their pipes at the foot-lights for two-thirds are smoking. The curtain rises, a man and woman sing a comic duet; they quarrel, they 102 RATCLLFFE HIGHWAY. fight, they make up again ; but towards the close ugh! it's too vile, let us come away. We leave just as a young lady, in a cotton velvet spencer, short white calico skirt, bare arms and neck, is received with screams of applause. " Here's your pannyram- mer," says a man with a blackened face, at the door of a dirty den, " honly a penny ; " and we enter. We sit for a few minutes, but we can make neither head nor tail to the matter; but we are here to see the company, and it is the same as at the gaif. Cross over the street there's another. Hear the doorkeeper that little stunted, pockmarked man, with small keen eyes, " 'Ere's the legitimit dramay; threepence for the stalls if you please." There's a fellow on the stage, evidently doing a heavy business. Hear him rant to the awe-struck audience. " May you blew Evin a Pour a down rew-ing a Hon the tarator's 'ed." That'll do. We come out, and before we turn down to Ratcliffe Highway, take another look at Whitechapel, shops, gaffs, thieves, and beggars. Katcliffe Highway lies contiguous to the port of London, and always has a strong offensive, sickening odor of fish fried in oil. As we pass down the street, you notice the shops, and the character of the wares : enormous boots, oil-skin caps, coats and trow- sers, rough woollen shirts, compasses and charts, huge silver watches and glaring jewelry, fried fish, second- hand clothes. Everything has a nautical adaptation. The ballad-singers deal in nautical songs. See that poor, half-naked man, with an old tarpaulin on his head. Hound him gather a crowd of men, women A BALLAD SINGER. 103 and children. He sings with more energy than har- mony, and bawls more fact than poetry. Hear him. " Come all good Keristians And give attenshin Unto these lines I will unfold With heartfelt feel inks To you I'll menshin. I'm sure that it will make Your werry hearts'-blood run cold. The good ship Mariar, she Sailed from the Humber On the twenty-fourth of October, Eighten hundred and forty- three. Her crew was seven men and a boy in number, Which was all swallowed up by the raging sea." Hartley Coleridge said " There is certainly nothing so lugubrious as the cracked voice of a ballad-singer in a dull, ill-lighted back street, on a rainy night in November." Up and down Ratcliffe Highway, the sailors of every country stroll. Negroes, Lascars, Britons, Ital- ians, Yankees, Danes, men who worship a hundred gods and men who worship none. Now let us walk carefully, taking no notice of any remarks as we ex- plore. Here is where poor Jack is " taken in and done for." Whatever Jack may be at sea, on shore he is often the weakest and simplest of men, and there is but little need to cover the hook with bait to catch him. When ashore, he seems to have but one idea, that is to spend as much money in as short a time as possible. A photographer in Plymouth told me that a shock-headed, jolly-looking, but by no means handsome sailor, came in one day, " Here, ship- mate, I want a futtergruif, as 'andsome as never you 104 THE HANDSOME " FOTTERGRUFF." can make it." The " futtergruff " was taken. " That me? That's too blessed hugly; I want it for my mother and sister, and I shan't send such a looking chap as that ere down, as me. Take another." Another and another was taken, but none was satis- factory, and by his wonderful efforts to look handsome, the pictures were anything but flattering. At last, looking at the pictures on the wall, he said, " Why don't you make as 'andsum one as that ere?" point- ing out the most genteel among them all. " Come, shipmate, sell me vun of them;" and he actually bought and paid for one frame and all, and went away happy to think he had got a " futtergruff " that would do him credit at home. Every few yards we come to a beer-house, or gin- shop, doorways temptingly open; from the upper rooms come the tramp of feet and the sound of the violin. Attached to many of the houses is a crew of infamous women to tempt Jack in to treat them. His drink is drugged, and against their villany he has no chance. It is said that many so-called respectable people have made fortunes there. Grog and dancing meet us at every turn. Women wild-eyed, bois- terous, cheeks red with rouge, flabby with intem- perance, decked with ribbons of gayest hue, all coarse, insolent, unlovely dancing in the beer-shop, drink- ing at the bar, all bent on victimizing the poor sailor. Let us take a peep into this Music Hall. See how crowded it is with sailors and women seated with pots of porter before them; every tar, and some of the women, with pipes, listening to songs, and witnessing performances of a very questionable moral character, and not very artistic. Some of these places of amuse- THIEVES' LODGINGS. 105 ment are of too low a character to be described, yet licensed by Act of Parliament. By-and-by the grog will do its work. Then unruly tongues are loosed; there are quarrels and blows ; heads broken ; cries of " police ! " victims for the hospital, station-house, or lunatic asylum; and perhaps some poor wretch, mad- dened by drink and shame, plunges into the muddy waters of the nearest neighboring dock, seeking vainly the oblivion never found in the dancing, drink- ing-houses of Ratcliffe Highway. I made some explorations among the beggars and thieves of London; sometimes with police officers, at other times with city missionaries in the thieves' dis- trict. You get more information in company with a missionary than with a policeman; for while the latter knows almost every thief in the city, the thief knows every policeman, whether in uniform or not, and they are generally reticent while in their presence. Come with me, and I will show you where the lowest class live; come down this narrow street, as we advance, picking our way through kennels, stum- bling over heaps of rubbish and oyster-shells. All the repulsive and hideous features of the place are disclosed before us. Every human being seems bru- talized and degraded. We go down this dark and noisome alley; as the detective lifts the latch of the door, we enter a sort of kitchen, this is a thieves' ken or lodging-house. On one side there is a long table, at which sit a number of men of sinister aspect. The principal light is afforded by a candle stuck against the wall. In one corner, with his head resting on a heap of coals, lies a boy as black as a chimney- sweeper, that is the waiter. " Here's some com- pany come to see you, lads! Here you, stand up 106 PICKPOCKETS' TRICKS. and take off your cap." You see the thief cowers before the representative of law, lawless as he is. Let the officer simply say, " My lad, I want you," he would probably turn to the others and say, " Good- by, coves," and march off without another word. As we turn to leave them, we see by the expression of their faces that we are not wanted. They have but very little mercy on their victims. I was told that a countryman was leaning 011 the parapet of one of the bridges in London, when he was accosted by a thief. " Nice river." " Ees, I'se been looking at it awhile ; wot lots of ships ! " " Lord love ye, them ain't ships, they are boats ; vos you never in London before? " " No, I never was." " You'll have to look out sharp." "Why, what for?" " For the thieves ; the pickpockets will get all your money." "No, they won't. I aren't afeard of a pick- pocket." " Perhaps you ain't got no money." " Oh, ees I have. I got a sovereign." " Yere do you keep it? " " Ah, that's telling." " Oh, I know; you keep it in yer handkerchief back of yer neck." "No, I don't." " Then you keeps it in yer stocking." "No, I don't. I don't mind telling where I do keep it; ha! ha! I've got it in my mouth, right agin AN INNOCENT COUNTRYMAN. 109 my cheek, away back; and no thief will get that, I know." " You're a deep one, you are. Good day." In a short time, a boy runs up against the country- man, and drops a handful of coppers, with one or two pieces of silver, " Oh, dear! oh, dear! my money," and commences to pick it up, assisted by the country- man and others, who gather as a crowd will gather at a moment's notice in London. Still, when all the pieces had been returned to the boy, he cried, " Oh, my money ! my money ! " Some one said, " Have you not got your money? " "Oh, no; I 'ad a sovereign! I 'ad a sovereign ! " Up steps the thief, who had come, mingling with the crowd. " You've lost a sovereign, 'ave ye ? " *" Yes, sir. Oh, dear! oh, dear!" " Yy, I see that chap there," pointing to the coun- tryman, "pick up something, and put it in his mouth." At this the countryman stands bewildered, till some one cries out, " Find out whether he's got it; " another catches him by the throat, and squeezing him till nearly choking, to save himself from strangulation he ejects the sovereign, which is given to the boy, with a great deal of sympathy. The poor countryman is hustled by the crowd, and may consider himself lucky if he escapes a ducking in the river. CHAPTEE YH. HAUNTS OF CRIME. THE CITY MISSIONARIES OF LONDON AND THEIR WORK. London essentially cosmopolitan Byron's " Superb Menagerie " Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" Solitude in the Crowd Munificent Charities Cures for every 111 The Aristocracy Extremes of Character The Middle Class Homes of Virtue "The Bray of Exeter Hall " City Missionaries Heroism in " Little Hell " " Never rob a Parson " Training-Schools for Thieves Practising at picking Pockets" Perverse Judgments of Perverse Natures' At Enmity with the World "The Gospel-Grinder" Philosophy of a Boy -Thief Selling "Hinguns" A Rough-and-Ready Mis- sionary "No Genus in picking a Pocket" "Fear makes Cow- ards of us " Religion hurts the Business A Publican spoiled Real Courage The Sermon of the Converted Sweep Parable of the Ignorant Cabman Rough Welcome to the Preacher. CXNDO^sT and its people are an inex- haustible theme. The different opin- ions of different people about London would fill volumes. Dr. Johnson says: " I have often amused myself with thinking how different a place London is to different people. A politician thinks of it merely as the seat of gov- 'ernment; a grazier, as a great mart for cat- tle; a man of pleasure, as an assemblage of taverns and theatres; a mercantile man, as a place where a prodigious amount of business is done upon 'Change ; but the intellectual man is struck with it as compre- 110 INEXHAUSTIBLE LONDON". Ill * hending the whole of human life in all its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible." The same great authority declared that Fleet Street contained " the most sublime and picturesque combinations of objects within the periphery of our terraqueous ball." On another occasion the sage exclaims : " Sir, no man that is at all intellectual will leave London. No, sir. When he has exhausted London, he has exhausted life; for there is in London all that life can afford." " The literature of England, of Europe, of the world, at any place or any time," wrote the author of " Mod- ern Babylon," " contains not a page, a volume, or a book so mighty in import, so magnificent in explana- tion, as the single word London." Byron called London " one superb menagerie ; " Cobbett called it " a great wen;" Thackeray called it " Vanity Fair." Charles Lamb, Horace Smith, and other wits, could live nowhere but in London. As these men loved London for its society, so other men love it for its quiet. "A man of letters," writes the elder D'Israeli, " more intent on the acquisitions of literature than on the intrigues of politicians or the speculations of com- merce, may find a deeper solitude in the populous metropolis than in the seclusion of the country." Gibbon in the same spirit tells us: "While coaches were rattling through Bond Street, I have passed many a solitary evening in my lodgings with my books. I withdrew without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company and dissipation without pleasure." The philanthropist may contemplate with delightful astonishment the amazing charities of London. All thoughtful foreign visitors are struck with the mu- nificence and charities of London. What a noble 112 EXTREMES OF SOCIETY. V array of charities for the sick body, the suddenly dis- abled by accident, the means of cure for blinded eyes, for deafened ears, for the cough of the con- sumptive, and the tearing fingers of cancer! In short, there is a refuge in London for almost every bodily ill, where all that science, skill, and experience can do is freely given to the poorest. How these streams are kept in a perennial flow you see by the words carved high on all these noble institutions: " Supported by voluntary contribution." I have dwelt long on the darker shades of London life, on some saddening parts of it. I have given you my experiences, the results of observation and inves- tigation; described to you scenes I have looked on, and shown you pictures of a certain phase of life in the great metropolis; I have brought before you what are termed the "lower classes," between whom and the higher classes, the aristocracy and nobility, there is a " great gulf fixed," across which I have never attempted to pass, and should probably have been foiled if I had. I can tell you nothing of the habits, manners, or customs of that class, and will only say that among them there are some of the noblest and some of the meanest of mankind, the most liberal and the most conservative, the most sympathetic and the most heartless. We know this from their work, not by contact with them, except on occasions when their benevolence and desire to advance the interests of the people have brought us together for a brief space. But between the two extremes of society we find most of the active benevolence, the saving influences ; and it is delightful to know that in London, with all its crime and poverty and degradation, there are so many thousand rills of loving and holy effort to heal KOMAXCE OF THE STREETS. 113 the moral sicknesses. We can only faintly picture the household fires gleaming warm and bright on groups where cultivated parents so train and guard the chil- dren as to see them walk the path of life with un- spotted garments. Space would fail to record the pure pleasures, the lovely social gatherings ; the quiet plans of employers to make those who serve them wise concerning the good, and simple concerning the evil; the scores of meetings every night pulsating with hearty effort to dry up the fountain of sin and suffering, and to get help from above in a work that, in the aggregate, is enough to appall the most cour- ageous benevolence. I could tell you of Exeter Hall, now purchased by the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation, the name having been for years the synonyme for benevolent and reformatory effort. This Exeter Hall influence on religion and reformatory progress was unwillingly avowed when, in a moment of vexa- tion at its blocking his path in some degree, a great man called it, in his place before the people, " the bray of Exeter Hall." "We will show you some of the modes of operation outside the direct teaching and influence of the churches. The City Missionaries are indeed a self-denying class of men, living on a bare pittance, and often sharing their poor crust with the destitute. They are not " Stigginses," nor " Chadbands," nor " red- nosed shepherds." From my heart I pity those who can find no better representatives of these Christian workers. Read the following, from the "Romance of the Streets," relating to a missionary : " During fifteen years he worked in one of the worst districts of the metropolis, in the rear of Lisson Grove. In one street, known by the name of ' Little Hell,' he 114 CITY MISSIONARIES. attended eighty-five cases of typhus fever. As a common visitor among divers diseases, he has never personally suffered, but his children have more than once been prostrated by infection carried home. In this infamous rookery he walked safely at all hours among the haunts of the most vicious of our race, so completely were the respect and confidence of the inhabitants gained. There was not a ruffian in the entire length of the street who would not have de- fended the < parson ' by word and hand, had occasion arisen." One may ask what possible good can a religious teacher do among this class. Frequently one of these missionaries seems to be qualified in a remarkable de- gree for this work. It is not by his soft speech nor his polished eloquence, but often in a blunt, rough- and-ready way; he will lose no chance of warning the younger ones of the evil of their ways. All these are wonderful men, going about their business in a cheerful, hopeful way, humming snatches of hymns. Sometimes the missionary will rescue a wife out of the cruel hands of her brutal husband, when police- men are loath to interfere. One of them told me that he had never lost anything but once, though he had worked amongst them sixteen years, and then a boy brought his handkerchief back to him the next day, apologizing that it was a new boy that took it, " vot didn't know the missionary." Rev. Charles Stovel said, in a speech at Exeter Hall: "Passing down Rosemary Lane, one night, a handkerchief was extracted from my pocket by a lad, who ran away with it. Soon afterwards, however, he returned and said, * Please, sir, is this yours?' * Yes, it is,' I replied. ' Take it,' said he, and then added, NEVER BOB A PAHS(XN". 115 ' Please, sir, give me something for bringing it back.' 'No, my boy,' I said, 'I must not do that; but I will leave a little book for you with my friend here.' The boy came the next day to the house of my friend, and said, ' Please, sir, was not that a minister?' 'Yes,' was the answer.