The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862

TO JOHN BULL

I hear a voice you can not hear,Which says it will not pay;I see a hand you can not see,Which motions t'other way.The thumb is horizontalized,The fingers perpendic'lar,And scorn for you seems giving thereA motion quite partic'lar.

LONDON FOGS AND LONDON POOR

I first saw London on a morning late in November; or, it will be more correct to say that I should have seen it, if a dense fog had not concealed every thing that belonged to it, wharves, warehouses, churches, St. Paul's, the Tower, the Monument, the Custom-House, the shipping, the river, and the bridge that spanned it. We made our dock in the Thames at an early hour, before I was dressed for landing, and by the time I had hurried upon deck to cast the first eager glance around, the fog had descended, shutting all things from view. A big, looming something was receding as I gained the top of the companion-ladder, and faded altogether before I could attach to it any distinct idea. But the great heart of the city was beating, and where I stood its throbbing was distinctly audible. A hum, in which all sounds were blended, a confused roar of the human ocean that rolled around me, fell with strange effect upon my ear, accustomed for nearly five weeks only to the noises peculiar to shipboard.

Certainly the fog did not afford me a cheering welcome. It was denser and dirtier than the fogs we had encountered off the banks of Newfoundland, and more chilling and disagreeable to the human frame. It did not disperse the whole day. What with the difficulty that attended our landing, and the long delay consequent upon the very dilatory movements of the Custom-House officers, the night had fairly closed in—it did not add much to the darkness—before I was en route to an hotel. A Scotch fellow-passenger, who had maintained a sullen reserve throughout the voyage, which ought to have placed me on my guard against him, had attached himself to me during our troubles at the Custom-House, and now joined with us all in loud rebuke of the sluggish motions and rude behavior of the officers. He knew that I was a stranger, and with a show of cordiality, for which I was very thankful, he invited me to accompany him to a quiet, respectable hotel, where the charges were not exorbitant. As his proposal suited my purse and my humor, I acquiesced willingly enough, little suspecting into what hands I had fallen. In less than an hour we were seated at a capital dinner, the best that I ever remembered to have eaten, so exquisite is the relish imparted by a keen appetite to the first meal one gets on shore after a long sea-voyage.

We were wearied with the day's annoyances, and as the streets were very uninviting, we sat smoking segars in the coffee-room of the establishment. As one person after another dropped in, we heard of the increase of the fog outside, and, indeed, it had long since entered and filled the apartment till the outline of the waiter, as he moved to and fro in supplying the wants of the company, became indistinct, and his head, whenever he approached the chandelier, radiated a glory. As I had often read of a London fog in November, I judged this to be an excellent opportunity for seeing one, and accepted my companion's proposal to repair to the door of the hotel. The scene was like nothing else I ever had witnessed. At the distance of five yards the light of a gas-lamp was invisible. We could not distinguish each other's features as we stood side by side. Stages, cabs, and coaches were creeping forward at the rate of twenty yards in a minute, the drivers carrying glaring torches, and leading the horses by their bridles. Even at this pace the danger of a collision was imminent. Pedestrians, homeward bound, were at their wits' end. As they could not have proceeded fifty paces in security without a torch, they were each provided with one, but some of them contrived to lose their way notwithstanding, and seeing us on the steps of the hotel, halted to make inquiries. One man assured us that he had been half an hour looking for the next street. The better to convince myself of the density of the mist, I extended my arm to its full length and tried to count my fingers. From ocular evidence alone, I certainly could not have told whether I had four, five, or six.

It was an amusing sight to see scores of ragged boys carrying about torches for sale. The cry of 'Links! links!' resounded on all sides. 'Light you home for sixpence, sir,' said one of them, as I stood watching their operations. 'If 'tan't far,' he added, presently, 'I'll light you for a Joey.' A Joey is the flash term for a four-penny piece, or eight cents of our money, and is so called because these silver coins, somewhat larger than a half-dime, are said to owe their origin to Mr. Joseph Hume. We witnessed a bargain struck between one of these urchins and a servant-girl, who imprudently yielded to his demand to have the money in advance. No sooner had the young rogue conveyed it to his pocket than he ran off to seek another customer as simple, leaving the poor girl to strike a wiser bargain on the next occasion.

That I might fairly appreciate the character of the fog, my companion proposed that we should 'put off into the unknown dark.' Not till I had got into the street, and was groping my way among the pedestrians, instead of watching them in security from the topmost of a flight of steps, could I estimate its real nature. To my bewildered eyes it had the appearance of a solid wall constantly opposing our further progress. The blazing torches that we met were invisible at fifty yards' distance. The tradesmen had closed their stores from fear of thieves, who are remarkably active at such seasons. I afterward learned that in one of the leading thoroughfares a vender of hams and bacon, who had a quantity of goods exposed in front of his open store, was robbed in a most daring manner at an early hour of the evening. The thieves drove a cart to his door, and had nearly filled the vehicle with spoil before they were observed. The tradesman rushed into the street, but the villains had urged on the horse, and although he heard the noise of the wheels, pursuit was an utter impossibility. Robberies on the person are of frequent occurrence at such times, even in the most crowded streets, the security with which the thief attacks a single individual rendering his audacity almost incredible. Before assistance can arrive he has darted across the road, and is in safety at a few yards' distance from the scene of his violence.

We were about a quarter of a mile from the hotel, and were on the point of retracing our steps when a cry of 'Fire!' was raised in our vicinity, followed by a rush of several persons in the direction from which the alarm proceeded. In a few minutes all the torches in the street seemed to be collected in one spot, and the crowd grew rapidly. I expected to hear the fire-bell, but I was told that the Londoners have no alarm-bell of any kind. The glare of a conflagration is usually the first warning conveyed to the firemen, when instantly a score of engines are turned out, horses, that are always kept ready harnessed, are fastened to the shafts, and away they go, pell-mell, through the streets, every vehicle, to the Lord Mayor's or Prime Minister's carriage, being compelled to draw aside and give them room to pass. On this occasion their services were not required, the fire being confined to the basement-story of the building in which it had originated, and extinguished by the exertions of the inmates before any material injury was sustained. The crowd that had collected was not a small one, and the congregation of so many torches dispelled in part the oppressive gloom of the fog. But when they had dispersed, and the unnatural darkness was made more palpable by the sudden contrast effected by the withdrawal of such a glare of light, I found that my companion had disappeared. Once I fancied that my name was called, and I thought that he was perhaps searching for me in a wrong direction. I ran, as I conjectured, in pursuit of his retreating footsteps, but was soon abruptly brought to a halt by a wall, against which I nearly dashed myself with a force that would have stunned me. Of the name of the hotel, or even of the street on which it was situated, I was utterly ignorant, and as the climax of my difficulty, I discovered that all the money I had in my pocket was a fifty-cent piece that I had brought from New-York. I attempted to buy a torch of a boy, but I could not persuade him that my half-dollar, though it was not current money, was worth much more than an English sixpence, valued as old silver. He evidently regarded me as an improper character, and refused to deal with me. I detained the first man I met, and explained my situation, but as I could give him no clue to the whereabouts of the hotel, he could furnish me no assistance. As nearly as I could conjecture, it was within half a mile of the spot where I was standing, but I could not indicate the direction, 'There are fifty hotels,' he said, 'within that distance, taking the sweep of the compass.'

I now began seriously to fear that I should have to pass the night in the streets. My clothes were already moist with the fog, and I knew that before morning they must be saturated. A policeman, who chanced to pass at this juncture, recommended me to obtain a bed at the nearest inn, and to renew my search in the morning. Then arose the difficulty about the money; but as it occurred to me that I could leave my watch in charge of the landlord as security for the payment of my expenses, I decided to accompany him to an inn in the neighborhood, to which he undertook to guide me. It was an indifferent place, being one of the gin-palaces for which London is famous, but I was content, under the circumstances, to remain there. The landlord, having examined my watch, and being satisfied that it would cover all reasonable charges, if I never reappeared to claim it, conferred with his wife respecting her domestic arrangements. It was not usual, he told me, personally, for him to let beds at such a late hour to strangers, but he thought I could be accommodated. The policeman's satisfaction was very cordially expressed, and as he lingered at my elbow, and significantly remarked that the fog had got into his throat, I ordered him a glass of warm brandy and water, for which he bowed acknowledgments. He was dressed, I noticed, in the livery with which the engravings in Punch have made our public familiar. He asked me several questions about the police in New-York, complained that it was impossible for a man to live decently in England, and remarked that 'if it weren't for the knocking-up money, a policeman in London couldn't do it nohow.' I inquired what he meant by 'knocking-up money,' and was informed that it was the custom in London, and in all the large towns, for laboring men, who had to rise to their work at an early hour, to pay a small sum weekly to the policeman in whose 'beat' they resided, for knocking loudly at their doors in the morning to awaken them. It is usual for policemen to add several shillings to their weekly wages by this practice, and it is so far recognized by the regulations of the force, that men who have slightly misconducted themselves are punished by being removed from a 'beat' where there is a great deal of 'knocking-up' to be performed, and transferred to a more respectable quarter of the town, where the inhabitants are not compelled to rise until they choose.

I had leisure before the arrangements for my night's repose were concluded, to contemplate the novel scene which the interior of the gin-palace presented. Many of our Broadway liquor-stores are, in point of gilding and decoration, equally splendid, but there all resemblance ceases. Behind the spacious bar stood immense vats containing whole hogsheads of ardent spirits. These were elevated on a pedestal about four feet from the floor, and reached to the lofty ceiling. Their contents were gin, whisky, rum, and brandy, of various standards. Others of a somewhat smaller size contained port, sherry, and Madeira wines, or the adulterations which pass by their names, with an undiscriminating public. When these vats were empty, they were filled from barrels in the cellars beneath by means of a force-pump.

The customers at the bar were of a motley description. There were many females among them, mostly girls of the town, who were swallowing undiluted drams of gin and peppermint. Pallid mechanics and their wives, the latter sometimes bearing young children in their arms, exhibited varying degrees of drunkenness, from the hilarious or maudlin state to that of rolling intoxication. Even children, whose size was so diminutive that they had to stand on tiptoe to elevate their heads above the counter, demanded and received their liquor, imbibing the burning fluid with eyes that sparkled delight. I was in the temple of the gin-fiend, and the crowd around me were his daily devotees.

The next morning when I awoke I hastened to the window of my room. The opposite houses were visible, and the ordinary traffic of the streets was not impeded. A drizzling rain was falling, and pedestrians waded ankle deep in slush and mud. The fog, though partially dispelled, brooded over the house-tops, and concealed the chimneys. All the stores were lighted with gas, and one could well imagine that the sun had never shone in that dismal climate.

The landlord readily consented to advance me a pound sterling on my watch, and without stopping to take breakfast, I plunged into the miry streets. I was at a loss what course to pursue. The fog of the previous evening had prevented my noticing any of the external features of the hotel in which I had dined with my Scotch acquaintance, and where my trunks, that contained all the money for my travels, and the introductory letters that were essential to the purpose for which I had visited Europe, were deposited. The house in which I had passed the night was situated in St. Martin's Lane, and a radius thrown out from that centre would, in some quarter, touch the hotel at a distance of half a mile or thereabout. I was sure of that, as of one ascertained fact, but I had no other clue to guide my footsteps.

I know not how many hotels I entered during that day. The night, I know, had closed in, and found me a denizen of the streets, splashed with mud to the collar of my coat, and worn out with fatigue. At night I got a bed at a small coffee-house, for I saw that it would be necessary to economize the few shillings that I had in my possession. The sun was really shining the next morning, when I breakfasted, and the landlord spoke of the blue sky, remarking that the day would be a fine one. To my apprehension the sky was gray, which is, indeed, almost always the color of the English sky at all seasons. From the Post-Office Directory, which I found at the coffee-house, I copied a list of all the hotels within half a mile of St. Martin's Lane. Entering one of these about noon—it was situated in Rupert street—I recognized the first waiter who presented himself. I thought it strange that he did not seem surprised at my appearance, or allude to my enforced absence, but upon inquiring for the Scotchman, I was utterly confounded by his reply: 'Oh! the gentleman that dined with you, sir, the day before yesterday. He went away yesterday, sir, and took your trunks with him.'

'Took my trunks with him!' I exclaimed.

'Yes, sir; he said that you had gone on to Birmingham, by the mail-train, and that he was to follow with the luggage.'

I almost reeled at the intelligence. The perfidy of the Scotchman was manifest. He had taken me into the fog to lose me, and while I was picturing his dismay at the accident which had separated us, and his anxiety on my account, the scoundrel was appropriating my trunks and valises. I hastened to confer with the proprietor of the hotel respecting the step which it would be best to take. He was a very respectable man, and was sincerely grieved for my loss.

'We will go to Scotland Yard immediately,' he said, 'and acquaint the Chief of Police.'

My money, my letters, every thing that stood between me and beggary were in the purloined trunks. The landlord told me to regard his house as my home. The police-officer heard my story patiently, but seemed to think that the chance of getting back the trunks was a small one. And the sequel proved he was right.

Altogether, I resided fifteen months in London, and the present record will consist of my later and more matured impressions. An American who has never seen this metropolis can have but a faint idea of it. A fair distribution of the houses would cover Manhattan Island. Two of its parks contain some square miles of pleasure-ground, and the smallest of five would clear New-York of buildings from the City Hall to the Battery. It is indeed a mammoth city. The ancient suburbs of Westminster, Southwark, Lambeth, Chelsea, Islington, Pentonville, Shoreditch, Hackney, Whitechapel, Limehouse, Rotherhithe, with the modern Pimlico, Knightsbridge, Old and New Brompton, Bayswater, Paddington, St. John's Wood, Camden Town, Somer's Town, Kingsland, Camberwell, and many more, are now united with it, and make it by far the largest city in the world. Starting from almost any point of its extreme boundary, and traversing the city till you reach the opposite boundary—as from Brompton to Hackney—you will walk nine miles nearly in a straight line without quitting the pavement. I was disappointed in many of the public buildings; I would be understood, however, to refer to them only as works of architecture, for to the interest attaching to their historical associations I could not be insensible. Protestantism has built no churches. St. Paul's is its best effort, and that is a failure. It is, indeed, a wonderful building, considered per se, but compare it with the Continental cathedrals, or with York Minster. I must own that the shameful exaction of money at the doors created a feeling of dissatisfaction which, perhaps, in some measure transferred itself to the edifice. The English are the only people who are so mercenary as to charge for admission to their temples, and the man who guards the door of St. Paul's is one of the worst specimens of his class. I paid cheerfully a dollar and a quarter to see a play of Shakspeare's performed at the Haymarket Theatre, but I grudged the four cents that I dropped into the exacting palm of the rubicund janitor of St. Paul's, 'Tis a vile system. They sell the memories of their famous heroes, of their philosophers and poets, by making a raree-show of their tombs. A nation should have free access to the hallowed spots where rest the ashes of its mightiest dead. St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, and all such buildings, should be free as the streets to decent people, for genius receives inspiration at such altars, and men fresh from the commonplace of every-day life rub off the rust of the world in the holy and awful calm of these and kindred sanctuaries. How venerable would they appear to the American, if they were not markets of gain and greed to their clerical proprietors! The poets whose tombs are the chief attraction in Westminster Abbey are not foreigners to the Anglo-Saxon race of the New World. We, too, claim a property in their works. Our forefathers were cotemporaries with Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, inhabited the same land, breathed the same air, were subject to the same laws; and we speak to-day the language of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Tennyson. We have, I insist, a claim on the glorious memories that give renown to England; and the avarice that bars the gates of her abbeys and cathedrals against the poor, is a disgrace to a great nation.

There has been lately a report that St. Paul's had grown ashamed of its greediness, and Westminster Abbey has at length really admitted the public without demanding its sixpences—admitted, that is, to a large portion of the building, but not to the whole. The mausoleums of the kings are still worthy, in the opinion of the Dean and Chapter, of some silver coins sterling. Let them remain so. We are not especially anxious to do homage to them. The intellectually great of England are worthy of much—sometimes of all reverence; her kings of very little, or of none. But St. Paul's is closed still, notwithstanding the report of free admission which recently agitated the public of London. Nelson's sepulchre is worth some score of pounds sterling per annum. Dr. Johnson's statue can be seen any day for twopence, which is tenpence less than Madame Tassaud charges for admission to her wax effigies, and must therefore be considered cheap.

An American is astonished at the number of beggars in every city of England. Even the small towns and the smallest villages have them. Their numbers in London are roundly estimated at one hundred and twenty thousand. You meet them every where. They are, in some quarters, like the paving-stones of the street—eternally present. There are artists in colored chalks, who limn the heads of Christ and Napoleon on the pavement, with the inscription: 'I am starving.' Very fairly are the portraits executed; very decent artists they are, and they grovel by the side of their handiwork in an attitude of broken-hearted despondency, and pocket the pennies of the charitable. Objects the most decrepit in nature, hideous, half-nude wretches, male and female, creep along the streets, shivering, too evidently starving, till your heart aches at the spectacle, and you deprive yourself of your last cent to administer relief. These are impostors. So are the respectable class—the broken-down tradesmen, who, in a suit of decent black Saxony cloth, and wearing a spotless white kerchief around their necks, offer lead-pencils for sale. So respectable are they, that you start to see them, and are almost ashamed to offer them a dollar; but they will accept a cent, and will ply the same trade for years to come, in a suit equally as respectable. It is one of the mysteries connected with them, that their clothes never wear out. I grew familiar with the features of one of these respectable men, from seeing him almost daily in some quarter of London. During the twelve months that I kept my eye upon him, the condition of his apparel was unchanged. His coat never got old, nor did he ever have a new one. That man is at this moment an unpleasant puzzle to me—a conundrum without a solution. The income of this class of beggars, I was told, is considerable—much better than a clerk's in Lombard or Wall street.

The lodging-houses of the lowest class of professed beggars, who do not trade on assumed respectability, or make a pretense of having once been better off, present to an American a spectacle, or chapter of spectacles, of which he can previously have no conception. They are situated in the most densely crowded and dirtiest quarters of the town, and are approached through lanes of the most noisome filth. No comparison holds good with any quarter of Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, or any city of the Union, for there is nothing in our cities to compare with them. Let us enter one of them. The common boarding-room, in which meals are taken, is about forty feet long by twenty broad. Either the floor has never been paved, or a thick layer of street-soil has hidden the stones for many a day past. Along each side of a long, narrow table, runs a wooden bench of rough construction, which is the only seat the place affords. The knives and forks are chained to the table. Strange implements they are, and a thief, one would think, must be reduced to shifts indeed if they could offer him a temptation. Almost every fork has lost one of its prongs, and every knife has been notched or otherwise abused. The plaster has mostly fallen from the walls of the room, the very laths are cut away, and the naked bricks and rude masonry are exposed. The ceiling is blackened with the tobacco-smoke of years, ascending every night from a hundred pipes. The filth that accumulates is seldom cleared away, but is swept into heaps in the corners, and remains there perhaps for weeks. A stench pervades the place, and a horrible moisture settles upon the walls. The room every night has the appearance of a market-place, where beggars vend and where beggars are the purchasers. From the roof a dim light is suspended, and candles stuck into glass bottles are placed upon the table. The daily contributions of the benevolent are here disposed of; what one has, another lacks. Old coats, old boots and shoes, old gowns, are freely bartered for tobacco and gin. Women from neighboring rag-shops attend to buy, and candle-makers send their agents to collect fat and grease. Every individual brings his own food, for the proprietor of the house finds lodging only, and not board. The atmosphere reeks with the smell of herrings and fried sausages. After supper is finished, a fiddler—one of their number, paid for his services by contributions of tobacco and beer—strikes up some merry music; dancing commences, and goes on till midnight, and often far into the morning. Save in such houses, such dancing and such dancers were never seen. The lame cast aside their crutches, the blind regain their sight, the paralyzed are alert and nimble, the trampers of every species jig in turn, or altogether, shaking their rags unto the jocund tune; and where is there a blither party? Burns has pictured the scene in his 'Jolly Beggars,' and he is the laureate of the night.