"Tiiii. ^iORY Or yj^il LIVES PROM YEAR TO YEAR."-"SHAKESPEARE. ALL THE YEAR ROUND. A WEEKLY JOUENAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. WITH WHICH IS IISrCOKPORATED HOUSEHOLD WO.RDS.

N°- 257.] SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 1864. [PmcE 2d.

" Well; you have four horses as it is." QUITE AIONE. "Yes. My beautiful husband aUows me to « become a horse-rider in a circus. I am the BOOK THE FIKST: CHILDHOOD. Honourable Lady Blunt." CHAPTER xn.—THE WILD ANIMAL. '' Not a bit of it. Your husband is not in the MoNSiEUB. CONSTANT, giving one low but least a titled personage. He is an English authoritative tap at the door of the front drawing- gentleman, nothing more." room, turned the handle and found himself in a "He is a swindler, a gambler, a rascal!" the moment in the presence of the " wUd animal.'' lady repeated, with concentrated bitterness. She was not lying on straw. There were no "Enfln, I am the wedded wife of Monsieur bars before her. She was not grovelling a quatre Erangois Blunt. Monsieur je suis votre tres pattes. The wild animal was merely a very devouee! Oh! he is an angel, my husband 1" beautiful young woman in a black satin dress and with a great diamond necklace round her " Men p^re m'a doune pour mari, neck, and great diamond bracelets on her arms. Mon dieu, quel homme, quel homme petit," Neck and arms were bare. Thus softly whistled between his teeth Monsieur "I put on these for him. I dressed for Constant. supper," she cried in a fury, so soon as she saw " Say, rather, un homme lache—a prodigy of the valet, " and the traitor sends me word that baseness. He married me by subterfuge and he cannot come ! Sends me word by a vUe little fraud," jockey—a lacquey. He has the soul of one," she " He did," Constant echoed, agreeing with the continued, paraphrasing, perhaps unconsciously, wild animal for once; "subterfuge and fraud are Ruy Bias. " I wiU poison him. I will trample the words. Apres." upon him. My next guest shall be that brute " His millions turned out to be aU in protested of a German ambassador, who eats onions and biUs, long overdue, and for which he was re­ drinks stout." sponsible. He was crible de dettes. He made The countess was a Erenchwoman, pur sang. me dance and sing at his infamous supper "Tut, tut, tut," quoth Monsieur Constant, in parties for the amusement of his vagabond Erench, " What a disturbance you raise, to be aristocrat friends. It was I who paid the sure. You should have devoted yourself to champagne a ces beaux festins. Monsieur was melodrama, madame, and not to the manege. not too proud to draw my salary month after What a pity that you should now have nothing month. Monsieur was unfaithful to me." better to say in public than 'Haoup! hup la!' "Vous lui avez donne la repUque, ma beUe." and that to a horse too !" "He insulted me, neglected me," the lady "Coquin!" screamed the lady. "Are you went on, seeming not to have heard the valet's come to insult me ?" scornful remark. "He beat me. Beat ME, on " Do you want to wake MademoiseUe Rataplan, whom no parent or governess ever dared to lay who sleeps the sleep of the just ? She does not a finger." ask mUords to sup with her. Nor would you— "Don't you remember the Beugleuse. You were you wise—the wife of an EngUsh gentle­ tried to strangle Blunt twice, to stab him once. man, un fashionable, un lion, quoi!" You would have put something in his coffee had A deep crimson veil—a blush, not of shame, you dared." but of rage—feU, Uke a gauze in a scene in a " Only when the marks of lus hands were on spectacle, over the woman's white neck and arms. my face. There are women who like to be She set her teeth for a moment and ground them, beaten. He should have married one of them. and then, starting up, began with the passionate I teU you he is un lache." volubUity of her nation: "I know it was not a happy menage. Love "The wU'e of an EngUsh gentleman! The flew out of the window^ soon after the honeymoon, wife of a swhidler, un escroc! a gambler, a and the furniture flew after it. You used to rascal! He was to have miUions, forsooth. I smash a great deal of crockery-ware between was to have a carriage. I was to have horses, you. WeU; you would have your own way. parks, chateaux." It has brought you to the Hotel Rataplan,"

VOL. XL 257

y

1^ ^ .A

146 [Mar&h 26,1864.] ALL TH E YEitft: *tWi«!c z[Conducte: d by

"He deprived me of my chUd—of my little me in prose. What do you want here, so late at Lile," the lady went on, after a few moments' night?" silence, during which her ibosom heaved, and she "We are bath liight-birds. My visit in the panted : as though want of breath, and not want end wiU be a welcome one. I have brought you of grievances, compelled her to a temporary sur­ a hundred pounds from your husband." cease in invective. "Donneel" said the lady, coolly, and held out " No," cried Constant, quietly. " You have her hand. nothing to accuse him of, with respect to the " Not so fast. I laiow your capacity for ab­ child. He didn't deprive you of it. /did." sorbing money. Certain conditions, and not "Monster!" cried the lady, tier looks, how­ very hard ones, are attached to this advance. ever, did not bear out the acerbity of her speech. We, that is monsieur," he was respectful to the "'Benefactor rather. I did not choose to have dandy even in his absence, " must not be annoyed the little one continue in the inferno its papa for six months." and mamma were making round it. If Blunt " And you offer a miserable hundred pounds? had been left alone with it, he is so lazy, C'est peu." insouciant—thoroughly and mcurably heartless, "It is all we can give. Business has not been if you ,will—that he wo^old have left it in the prosperous. Times are very hard with us; and street, or sent it to the workhouse. Had it even this hundred pounds can be ill spared." been confided to you, it would have had its brains " I dare say. Times also are very hard with me. dashed out in one of your mad rages; or else it But tell me. Monsieur I'Ambassadeur, has my would have been educated forthe pad-saddle and precious husband any funds of his ow^n ?" the circus. One Amazon in a famUy is quite " Not a sou. He ate up his patrimony years 33 enough, countess." ago. He gave her the name bestowed upon her, half Have you ?" in envy, half in mockery, by her comrades of the Constant shrugged his shoulders. "What theatre : whom she offended by her haughtiness, can a poor domestique at wages be worth ?" he and terrified by her temper. replied. "Bon', and the child, where is it ?" "Then it is stolen money. You have stolen " Safe and sound, at school. When she is old this hundred pounds. Keep it, I wdU not enough, she shaU be a nun, and pray for her have it." wicked papa and mamma." "Hypocrite! Your mouth is watering for it, " It is the child of Erancis Blunt, and that is and you only wish that it were ten times as enough to make me hate it," said the woman. much. No, madame, it is not money stolen; it "A pretty speech for a mother. Natui^e, you is money won." ar^ a potent influence ! To be sure, you have "Bycheathig?" scarcely ever seen the poor little thing. It was "As you please. I have it here, in fiye-poiind ample time, however, to deprive you of it. Since notes." the morrow of her chi'istening you have never "Give it me, then. I don't think my husband set eyes upon her. I wiU take cai'e you never has yet devoted himself to forgery. He has not do again, if I can help it. Your tenderness is application enough. You may teU him ii'om me of a dangerous nature. When Heaven gave you that I shall not trouble him again for six months." that beautiful form, and that brUliant intellect, " What are you gomg to do with your milord ?" how was it that so trifling a matter, such a mere tTie valet asked, with a darkling look. bagateUe, as a heart, was left out, madame ?" " C'est mon affake. But if' you must know As he spoke^ he raised his flaccid lids and what I mean to do with mUord, then by Debon­ gazed upon her with gloomy intensity. She nair it is to bleed him for the good of his consti­ tossed her head scornfully, and adjusted the tution. II a trop de sang, ce moutard-la." glittering trinkets on her arms^ " He is not of age." "Do you wish to revive the old story?" she "The usurers are kind to hina." asked. "I thought that in our treaty of amity " You do not love him ?" and aUiance, offensive and defensive, there was a "Did I ever love anybody, Jean Baptiste secret article to the effect that nothing ever was Constant ? It is growing very late. I think yon to be said about the days when we were young had better give me the money and let me go to and fooUsh." bed." "When/was young, and a fool, a madman," He handed her a packet of notes, the valet retorted. " I am growing old, now. " Thank you. It is not much, though," You are stUl young, but fooUsh no more. You " Good night, Valerie." never were- Oh no ! You were always won­ "Huu?" quoth the wUd animal, witha loci derfully wise!" of simulated surprise, but profound disdain. "As you please," the wUd anhnal, who had "Since wdien. Monsieur who brushes my hus­ become strangely tranquil, perchance through band's clothes?" sheer lassitude, uttered. " I must beg you, how­ . " Good night, Mrs, Blunt, then." ever, not to bore me with these old histories of "The Honourable Lady Blunt, you mean!" Colin and Jacqueline. They are all very weU in but this last she said in mockery, " Be sure you pastel, or in porcelaine de Saxe, but they bore give my love to my husband." Charles D:\J i\.^ XI .-^. ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [March 26, ISCl] 147

" I v/iU give him as much love as you send afraid. It strikes me that the establishment, him; and shaU not waste much breath. Again not only of the Rag, but of the Senior and Junior good night." Umted Service Clubs, must have been an in­ "Good night, my bear." estimable boon to the young warriors who are He had never taken a seat during the inter­ ready to fight their country's battles, and to the view, but had half stood, half lounged, against old braves who have fought them, and rethed to the console on which he had placed his hat. grass, and whose helmets are now luves for bees. Without directing another glance towards her, To live like a fighting-cock, and to be housed he left the room. His face had turned white, like a prince; to have all the new^spapers and he was trembling aU over. But he had great and periodicals, and a first-rate library; bUliard command over his emotions, and by the time he and smoking rooms, baths and lavatories, loung­ reached the saUe a manger his countenance was ing and elbow-resting room; a numerous staff as unruffled as ever. of silent, civil, and deferential servants in im­ Rataplan had gone to bed. Constant, liow^ever, posing liveries, and as much stationery as ever was an old habitue of the house, and made him­ you w^ant; these are joys familiar to the members self comfortable with the female night-porter. La of the Rag, and of other cognate mansions. The Mere Thomas. He was uo smoker; but she young feUow on active service can run up from brewed him some mulled claret, of which he par­ Chatham or Aldershot, and have the free range took in moderation. And so remained, after a of a Venetian palace tUl his leave is out. The game or two at dominoes, with the mahogany- battered half-pay has but to provide himself with coloured sentinel, untU past four in the morning. a bedroom at half a guinea a week in Jermyn- His conversation was mainly about the "coun­ street, or St. Alban's-place, and, from nine ofthe tess" and her temper. clock on one morning tUl two or three of the clock on thc next, he may live as luxuriously as CHAPTEE, Xlll. TO GAMEIDGE'S. a Sultan of Cathay. The annual subscription is GAMBIDGE'S Hotel was in Pump-street, Re­ moderate. The table-money is inconsiderable. gent-street. Gamridge's w^as much frequented Beer, bread, and pickles are dispensed gratui­ by the junior members of the aristocracy, and by tously. The cigars are foreign. The provisions officers bearing his Majesty's commission. Gam­ and wines are suppUed at rates very little ex­ ridge's was the legitimate and Uneal successor of ceeding cost price. the old Slaughter's Coffee-house iu St. Martin's Whereas, I can't see what a civiUan wants with lane," of whose ancient waiter and young military a club at all. He has a home, which the soldier frequenters Thackeray's Vanity Eair discourses and sailor, as a rule, have not. He has a cook at dehghtfuUy. Gamridge's, in 1836, w^as at the home. He may refect himself in a decorous apogee of its popularity and renown; but, a few dining-room at home. If he wants books, let him years afterwards—such is the mutability of subscribe to the London Library, or ask Mr, human affairs—Gamridge's was destined to be Panizzi for a ticket for the Museum Reading- eclipsed by the Rag and Eamish. room, He needs no smoking-room. CiviUans Why " Rag" and why "Eamish" ? I, as a poor have no right to smoke. He needs no billiard- slouching civilian, am not, I hope, bound to room. Civilians should be men of business, and know. The Rag and Eamish seems to me a men of business have no right to play bUliards. most palatial edifice, superb in all its exterior " Clubs," says Solomon Buck, in one of his wisest appointments. I have heard that its inner apophthegms, "are weapons of offence, wielded by chambers are decorated in the most lavish style savages for the purpose of keeping off the white of Oriental splendour; that its smoking-room women." S, B. is right. Clubs, for your dashing, vies in gorgeousness wdth the Court of the Lions •rolUcking, harum-scarum soldiers and sailors, are at the Alhambra; that, in its drawing-rooms, the all very weU, The gaUant fellows need a little genius of the most eminent upholsterers iu Lon­ relaxation after the irksome restraints of bar­ don has run riot. Nobody can be in rags, no­ racks or ship-board; but clubs, to the unworthy body can possibly be famished, at the R. and E. civUian class, are merely the meanest pretexts The cuisine, I have heard, is exquisite, the wines for selfishness and self-indulgence. and liquors are beyond compare. The lightest- Having, I flatter myself, in the preceding para­ vested and brightest-buttoned foot-pages in the graph, set myself right with the ladies (whom I parish of St. James's gambol and grin belihid the am always trying to conciliate, and always un­ plate-glass doors. The most majestic and the successfully), I will proceed to the consideration longest - moustached miUtary bricks puff their of Gamridge's. Social clubs ofthe palatial order cigars on the steps. There are always half a were rare in 1836. St, James's had its exclusive dozen Hansoms iu waiting before the portal. political reunions—White's, Brooks's, Boodle's, On the Derby Day, drags by the score start from and the Uke; but none save the elect of the elect the Ptag. The pmizes in the race sweeps at the could obtain admission to them. Crockford's Rag are said to be enormous. was very fashionable, but it was a gaming-house. Let me see, what is the pay of a subaltern in The Carlton wasn't built. The Athenseum and the Line ? Some seventy or eighty pounds a year, the Reform were arrogant with the flush of the I believe. What is the half-pay of a general March of InteUect, and looked down upon the officer ? Not many hundreds per annum, I am men of the sword. The members of the now

y 148 [March 26, 1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUNl). [Conductedby defunct Alfred were quarreUing among them­ the "flying buttress" sense, like Lord Eldon, selves. The United Service only admitted officers supporting the sacred edifice from the outside. of high grade. What remained, then, for the They caUed the London University " Stinkoma- young or middle-aged warriors but Gamridge's ? lee," or the " Gower-street Pig and Whistle." Gamridge's was not a club; its coffee-room They held schools where the birch was not in daily was open to all comers; yet the character of use, as the vUest hotbeds of sedition, and were its frequenters was so strongly marked, that careful to send their children to seminaries where an outsider rarely, if ever, ventured to set they knew they would have plenty of flogging in foot within the mysterious precincts. A bag­ the good old Tory style. The society at Gam­ man who presumed to enter Gamridge's would ridge's was a permanent protest against the have had a bad time of it. There w^ould have Penny Magazine, and the steam engine, and the been wailing in Lancashire, if a Manchester pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and the man had so far forgotten himself as to in­ educational whimsies of your Broughams, Ben- trude, uninvited, on the Gamridgean exclu­ thams, Earadays, De Morgans, and compeers. siveness. In its distinctive typification, and Nothing useful, save eating and drinking, was its invisible but impassable barriers, Gam­ ever attempted at Gamridge's; and even those ridge's resembled one of the old coffee-houses of elementary functions were performed in the the preceding century. They, too, were open manner most calculated to confer the least to all; yet you seldom found any but merchants amount of benefit on the human frame. The at Garraway's or Jonathan's, soldiers at the guests breakfasted at three in the afternoon, and Crown in WhitehaU, gamesters at Sam's in dined at midnight. Gas blazed in the coffee- St. James's-street, country squires at the Star room at noon, andknocked-up roues went to bed and Garter in Pall MaU, Jacobites at the Harp at tea-time. There were many w^hite-faced at CornhUl, bookseUers' hacks at the DevU in waiters who never seemed to go to bed at all, Eleet-street, lawyers at the Cock, and publishers and to like this perpetual insomnolence. Pale at the BaU in Long-acre. ale was unknown in England then, but the There had never, in the memory of the popping of corks from bottles of mineral waters oldest inhabitant of the parish, been a Gamridge. was audible all day long. Dice, only, Mrs, Vash Who he was, if ever he were at all, there is no rigidly refused to wink at. " If gentlemen, who knowing. In '36 the landlord—landlady, rather were gentlemen," she remarked, "wanted to call —was Mrs. Vash; a handsome portly widow, a main, they must do it in the parish of St. who wore bishop's sleeves, and a multitude of James's, and not in the parish of St. George's." ribbons in her cap. She had many daughters, Mrs. Vash was one of the old school, and liked whom she kept scrupulously at boarding-school to see things done in their proper places. to preserve them from the perils of Gamridge's; It was a vicious time, and yet somewhat of for, if the "wUd prince" was dead "Poins" v/as the patriarchal element remained. Plebeian dis­ about, wilder than ever. Mrs. Vash was a sipation w^as confined to the youngsters. The woman of the world, A few, a very few, of old gentlemen went to the Deuce, mounted on her oldest customers—old gentlemen who had steady ambling cobs. A new race of rakes drove been so long and so consistently raking about them graduaUy from the coffee-room at Gam­ town that they seemed, on the principle of ridge's, and Mrs. Vash's back parlour, where extremes meeting, almost steady—were some­ they piped disparagement of the rapscallion age times admitted to the luxurious privacy of Mrs. over their port with the tawny seal. ThenCe by Vash's bar-parlour. She was an exceUent judge slow degrees they subsided into Pump-street, of port wine, and, being a generous hostess, and to Bath, and Cheltenham, andEogeydom, and would occasionaUy treat some of her prime went home to bed, and fell paralytic, and so died. favourites to a bottle with a pecuUar tawny seal. Mr, Erancis Blunt walked into Gamridge's at In the coffee-room Mrs. Vash tolerated cigars, about a quarter to one in the morning, with a and carefully charged ninepence apiece for them. light tight-fitting overcoat buttoned over him, She was equally careful to charge exorbitant swinging his cane, and looking, on the whole, "as prices for every article consumed. You might fresh as paint." The coarseness of the simile may give a dinner now-a-days at the Rag, for what a find an excuse in its literal fidelity. A fresh pah breakfast cost at Gamridge's. of lemon-coloured kid gloves decorated his hands, The politics of Gamridge's were High Tory in the many rings bulging from beneath the soft tone. The true blue patrician class had lost leather. His whiskers had been rearranged— much power and influence by Catholic Emanci­ perhaps those oimaments and his hair were not pation and the Reform BiU, and threw themselves strangers to a recent touch from the curlmg- for a change into dissipation. Liberal Conserva­ irons, for there w^ere hairdressers in the Quadrant tives had not yet perked up into existence. who kept open tiU past midnight for the behoof Among the Whigs and Radicals it was held to be of exquisites such as he—his clothes had been the orthodox thing, just then, to be steady and brushed, his whole exterior spruced and poUshed sober, to bring in moral acts of parUament, to up. He had passed a hard day, but he was ready attend lectures at the Roval Institution. The to begin a night as hard. Tories sneered contemptuously at education and There was nothing particular about the ex­ morality. They were staunch churchmen, but in terior of Gamridge's. It was a George-the-

^ Charles DicKvire;1 ALL--TH^YiE YEA R ROUND, [March 26, 1S64.] 14.9

Second mansion of sad-coloured brick with stone mg Men's Clubs is to provide every facility Ol dressings, and the lamp before the door was ofiered by the pubUc-house, without the tempta­ generally in a state of compound fracture from tions inseparable from the landlord's rooms. the exuberant playfiUness of late-returning The Working Men's Club is, in some measure, guests. "Lamp-glass broken, one pound five," an offspring of the mechanics' institute of thirty

J) atill was a common item in Mrs. Vash's long bills. years ago, but it proposes to do both more and When the late-retui-ning lodgers didn't smash the less. Though including classes for educational lamp, they smashed the fanlight, or the soda- purposes, it is not so severely scientific as its water tumblers, or the coffee-room panels, or predecessor, and it has a greater eye to recrea­ the waiters' heads. They were always breaking tion and business. Originating in the Tempe­ something, and everything was charged in the rance movement, it has now outgrown all sec­ bUl. You entered Gamridge's by a long, low, tional Umitations, and, while powerfully aiding oblique passage, seemingly specially designed the reformation of the working man, where he for the benefit of gentlemen who came home is prone to excess, it is not a mere agent or in­ late, overtaken with liquor, and sw^erved in their strument of the teetotallers. One of the earUest gait. They could not well tumble down ia their of these institutions was the Stormont House progress along that sporting passage. The Working Men's Association, started at Netting coffee-room was almost devoid of decoration. HiU in 1853 ; but this, as well as "the Hall," Had it been papered, the gentlemen would have situated in the district commonly called the Kensington Potteries, is rather a centre of re­ torn the paper off; had there been a pier-glass, ligious and temperance action than a club in the somebody would have smashed it, but, as pier- ordinary sense of the word. At the former, glasses then cost twenty pounds, the item might smoking and games are prohibited, while the have been subject to inconvenient dispute in the latter has now no regular members, but is biU, So, to be on the safe side, Mrs. Vash pro­ simply let out for the use of benefit and other vided her guests with a thick circular mirror societies, for the delivery of lectures, for prayer in a nubbly frame, which defied even a poker. meetings and devotional services, and for occa­ En revanche, the gallant youths who frequented sional dioramas, &c. The Hall was set on foot the coffee-room had scratched their names on in AprU, 1861, and for some time was more it, as well as on the window-panes, in a hundred club-like in its character; but the weekly, quar­ places, with their diamond rings. terly, and yearly subscription system was not There was an immense dumb-waiter. The found to answer, and is now abandoned. Ten tables were of mahogany, brightly polished; years earlier, some of the working men of Soho wax candlesticks, in sUver sconces, were always and the vicinity started a club 'on teetotal used, to the disdainful exclusion of gas—and principles, which failed on account of the re­ with one of those same candlesticks many a tall strictions it imposed. The more active mem­ feUow had been laid low—but the floor was bers of this body, however, have since set up another club in Crown-street, St. Giles's, on sanded, and triangular spittoons were dispersed a freer and more inviting plan, and this is still about. It was the oddest combination of luxury battling with the difficulties which generally and coarseness, of a club-room and a pot-house. beset such attempts in their early days. The In this room, a dozen of the greatest dandies Rye Harbour Club, situated some two mUes in England were assembled. Some had fifty from Rye, was also one of the first established thousand a year, and some had nothing, and of these institutions. It was projected in 1855, owed thrice fifty thousand pounds; but, poor and the club-house was erected in the following or rich, aU were fashionable. It was a congre­ year, at an expense of one thousand pounds, gation of prodigal sons and prodigal fathers, but which was entirely borne by IMr. W, D. Lucas- fathers and sons were both accustomed to sit in Shadwell, of EairUght, near Hastings. The the high places, and to have room made for them. persons for whose benefit it was designed were the men employed at the harbour works. The pj house contains dormitories for such of the WORKING MEN'S CLUBS. members as choose to use them, and the build­ ing is surrounded by a well-kept flower-garden. THE mechanic is "a very clubable man." Temperance and religious meetings are held The man of wealth and leisure joins a club for here, and discussions are aUowed, but the sub­ luxury's sake; the middle-class man, for the jects must be submitted beforehand to the Pre­ most part, does not belong to one at aU, as sident, the Rev. Mr. Churton, examining chaplain his life is pretty nearly divided between his to the Bishop of Chichester, and vicar of Ickles- place of business and his family; but the work­ ham. The same Mr. ShadweU has recently in­ ing man is almost sure to be a member of some terested himself in the creation of a club at fc: benefit society, or other body, which requires a Hastings, which has this peculiar and very place of meeting, and he has a natural and democratic feature—that all the gentlemen proper appetite for social intercourse, whicli members, mcluding the mayor, are regular cannot be indulged in his smaU, home. Prac­ weekly subscribers at twopence. ll ticaUy, he has always had his club, holding his business meetings and jovial reunions at a In 1855, a club was established at Littlemore, public-house. This has led to a great deal of near Oxford, by the Rev. G. W. Huntingford, unnecessary drinking, aud the object of Work- the government of which, as that gentleman

y X 150 [March 26, 1864.] ALL THE YEARNBQUND, onductedby I says in an account he has written of its opera­ tution is partly composed of the resident gentry. tion, was "oligarchical, with a dash of des­ It is curious to see how in these cases the pecu­ potism." This is very often the case in small Uar fancies and antipathies of the patron creep country towns and villages, where working men, out, with that craving which many excellent conscious of tiieir want of experience in busi­ people display for tying down all those over ness affairs, are glad to place themselves under whom they have any influence to their own the guidance of the local clergyman or squire. standard of right and wrong, even in matters In some places, specific religious opinions are Miiich are generally allow^ed to be debatable. required as an indispensable condition of mem­ One gentleman looks upon indulgence in fer­ bership. But in others, the artisans and la­ mented liquors as the root of all evU ; so drink­ bourers have taken the matter into their own ing is not allowed on the premises. Another hands with admirable effect. A remarkable thinks smoking the most deleterious of mortal instance of this is presented by the club recently habits, and therefore tobacco is as strictly pro­ inaugurated and now flourishing at Wednesbury, hibited as if James the Eirst were the guardian a little towm in the iron manufacturing districts genius. Mr. Bastard sets his face against both of Staffordshire, The institution was first pro­ indulgences, and the labourers of Charlton Mar­ posed at the commencement of last year; but shall must go for their pint and their pipe else­ tlie gentlemen who made the suggestion, or who where. This is surely an error. A club so promised to patronise it, slumbered over the founded is based on the mere whims of an indi­ w^ork, and the mechanics, getting tired of wait­ vidual, and cannot successfully address humau ing, set their shoulders to the w^heel, rented a nature in the general, or hope to last after the house on their own responsibUity, furnished it novelty has worn out. To endeavour thus to erect with everything necessary for such an under­ one man's practice into a rigid law for others is taking, and obtained so many members that, as benevolently arbitrary as the conduct of that although the rooms were only opened on the gentleman in an eating-house wiio, seeing a 30th of May, 1863, the club has for some stranger disposing of his steak without mustard, months past been entirely self-supporting, with and having ineffectually offered the condiment no other receipts than the subscriptions of its two or three times, with a remark that it was members and the sale of provisions within its usual to accompany all forms of beef with that walls. The subscriptions are twopence a w^eek relish, at length roared out, as he dashed the and two shillings a quarter, the honorary mem­ mustard-pot down before the astonished diner, bers giving a yearly donation of a guinea. The " Hang it, sir, you shall eat mustard with steak!" number of members at the commencement was The only way to avoid this species of dicta­ a hundred, but they increased so rapidly that it tion (most kindly in its motive, and often was soon found necessary to take larger and exercised by admirable men, but very injudi­ better premises, and the club now rents the old cious as it seems to us) is for the working Town Hall at forty-five pounds per annum. classes to establish their own clubs, and keep Judging from the information we possess, w^e the management of them in their own hands. should say that a more perfect specimen of In large towns, artisans may do all that is the genuine Working Men's Club cannot be necessary for themselves, if they only resolve to found anywhere. Tlie committee and all the work in a spirit of cheerful brotherhood, and governing officers belong to the industrial to abstain from personal rivalry and exaggerated classes; members and subscriptions are can­ self-assertion. It must be admitted that in one vassed for every Monday morning at the fac­ or two instances they have failed, owing to a tories, and the rent of the building is guaranteed want of the habits of cohesion and mutual con­ by the men themselves. In other places such cession — a conspicuous fault of the working undertakings have generally been set goiug by classes, and the cause of much of their weak­ some benevolent lady or gentleman of fortune, ness, A club established at Leeds was originally and then handed over to the management of the managed by a committee of its own members; members, subject to a few general conditions. but dissensions ensued, and the wealthy and This is the ease at the viUage of Charlton Mar­ benevolent founder of the institution felt it shall, Dorsetshire, where Mr. Hoiiock Bastard advisable to take the government into his own inaugurated an institution for labourers, contri­ hands. In many instances, however, these buted largely to the funds, and presently left the clubs are reallv under the control of workins: men to govern themselves as they thought fit, men, and are going on successfully. The great though with certain provisoes, which are to be difficulty is at the outset; ibr an undertaking of permanently observed. The patron of the newly- this kind cannot be initiated without the expen­ formed club at Eastbourne (Mr. WilUam Leaf) diture of a rather large sum of money. stipulates that all intoxicating drinks, betting, gambUng, profanity, and dancing — a rather To enable humble people to get" over this strange assortment of offences—shall be strictly first stumbUng-block, a body was established in prohibited, and that the lecture-room shall be the autumn of 1862, under the designation of used for the advocacy of total abstmence from the Working Men's Club and Institute Union, intoxicating drinks two evenings in each week. of which the president is no less a man than An attempt was made to introduce greater free­ Lord Brougham, with a long Ust of notable dom into the constitution of the club, but it persons for the vice-presidents. The active soul of this association (which has its ofiices at faUed. The managmg committee of this insti­ 150, Strand) is the secretary, the Rev. Mr, N" Charles Dick /A. EAR ROUND, [March 26, 1S64.] 151

Henry Solly; and there can be no doubt that club-house contains a common room for conver­ the movement throughout the country during sation, newspapers, refreshments, and games; the past year has been greatly accelerated by a Ubrary, a smoking-room, and rooms for educa­ the zeal and devotion of this gentleman, and of tional classes, for the business-meetings of the those who have acted with him. The precise committee, for transacting the affairs of friendly objects of the society are—to place the advan­ societies, &c., for lectures, concerts, parties, tages of these clubs prominently before the and miscellaneous amusements. In the country, public,—to assist in their formation by advice, a cricket-ground is often attached, and, even iu and (where necessary) by grants or loans of London, space is sometimes found for playing money for first expenses, as well as books, at skittles and ninepins. The subscription, in games, diagrams, fixtures, &c.,—and to help the some cases, is as low as a halfpenny a w^eek, in local committees in the work of government others a penny, but is more commonly twopence, until the new undertaking is sufficiently matured w^hile, in a few instances, it is still higher. to go alone. So little, however, does the Union There are also, in most places, quarterly, seek to fetter individual action, that, while enter­ half-yearly, and yearly subscriptions, by each of taining a strong feeling against the sale of beer which a small proportionate saving is effected in such places, it has contented itself with on the lower sum. Generally speaking, no elec­ simply recommending a rule for its prohibition, tion of members or payment of entrance-fee is and does not refuse its support to ang^ club required; but some few clubs demand both iSlfii decUning to adopt that rule. In some cases, these guarantees. The house, in the greater where the sale has been originally allowed, the number of cases, is kept open from eight in the local committees have on their own motion morning until ten or eleven at night; some in­ rescinded the permission: not, as we under­ stitutions, however, only open in the evening, stand, because any grave evils resulted from the after work-hours. Any one may enter at any license, but because it was found not to harmo­ time by paying the weekly subscription, and, as nise with the main objects of a Working Man's the great object is to make the working man Club, which are instruction and recreation. feel as much at home as he does in the taproom During the past year the Union was instrumental of the public-house, the rough working dress is in estabhshing more than forty clubs; and from no disqualification whatever. The artisan or thirty to forty weekly applications for advice labourer may go to the club in his dirt, as the and assistance are still being received at the expressive phrase is, and he wiU find a lavatory, central office. In the metropolis and its suburbs, in which he may make himself tidy and com­ the Union is in relation with clubs at Bethnal- fortable for the evening. When he has done green, Bishopsgate, Brentford, Bromley-by- this, he can turn into the bar, and get his cup Bow, Canning Town, Crown-street (St. Giles's), of coffee and bread-and-butter, or, if he has a Duck - lane (Westminster), Eitzroy Works steak or a rasher of bacon with him, he can have (Euston-road), Eorest HiU, Highgate, Hollo- it cooked on the premises for a mere trifle. Ou way, Homerton, Hounslow, Kentish Town, this head, we may mention an excellent sugges­ Peckham, Pentonville, St. Clement Danes, St. tion made by Mr, Eorster, M.P., at a meeting Martin's-in-the-Eields, Shoreditch, Southwark, held at Bradford a few months ago. He sug­ Victoria Docks, Walthamstow, Walworth, and gested the establishment, in connexion with Wandsworth, and probably by this time with these clubs, of a co-operative hotel—a public others, for the number increases so rapidly that kitchen for the working classes, such as have it is impossible to fix it for more than a few already been started by themselves in several days at any given point. The provincial clubs places. The large room, he observed, might be affiliated to the Union are so numerous that the a kitchen during the day, and a reading-room at mere mention of their names would be tedious. night. Dinners, if we mistake not, are even In addition to these, there are clubs, both in now supplied at a few of these institutions; at town and country, which are not in any way the Holloway Club, some of the members break­ ^connected with the body presided over by Lord fast on the premises, and a coal club has been Brougham; but they are in the minority. The formed for the purchase of coals at a reduced operations of the Union during 1863, were con­ rate; but these examples should be more widely ducted at the very small cost of 700^., the followed, for workmen's clubs will succeed or secretary having done a large part of his work gra­ faU in proportion as they more or less com­ tuitously. This sum chiefly accrued from dona­ pletely satisfy the legitimate w^ants of the class tions, for the regular income has not exceeded they address. 150/. The association is now seriously hampered for want of funds, and an appeal to the public The social wants are very well supplied al­ for assistance has been made by Lord Lyttclton, ready. The member may, if he please, step into one of the vice-presidents. It is an appeal which the smoking-room and enjoy his pipe; or he can we trust will be liberally answered by all who read the newspaper or a book; or he can play a have money to spare. game at draughts, chess, dominoes, solitaire, or skittles; or he can attend a class for instruction The constitution of Working Men's Clubs in some useful branch of knowledge, or a forum necessarily varies, in some of its details, in dif­ for political debate; while, on special nights, ferent places, for a rigid uniformity is neither to he is entertained by concerts, lectures, and other be expected nor desired; but certain general amusements, to which he may bring his wife and features are to be found in most of them. The children. With respect to the wives, their

y 153 [March 26,1864,] ALL THE^ YE)y3 ? i^niTAin -ffconducted by opinion seems to be decidedly in favour of the halfpenny a w^eek, and there is no extra charge club. They say it does not draw their husbands for the educational classes, as at most other from home; it only takes them from the pubUc- clubs. The resident manag-er ofthe club is the house, and sends them home in better temper, only one connected with it who receives pay, and with more money in their pockets. The and the refreshments, which are confined to bis­ members of friendly societies and the like who cuits and coffee, with ginger-beer in the summer, hold their committee-meetuigs at taverns, are are supplied at cost price. More than six hun­ almost compelled to drink, for " the good of the dred members are now upon the books; but, as house," At the club they are under no such there are no subscriptions of greater permanency obUgation, and the saving of money alone is an than a week, and as many of the people come advantage not to be disregarded. some weeks, and not others, the number is The largest of the London clubs, and perhaps practicaUy very much less—in fact, not half— the most interesting, on account of the various and the receipts are proportionately reduced. schemes engrafted on it, is the one established This Umitation of the subscriptions has been in Duck-lane, Westminster. The neighbourhood found necessary, owing to the frequent migra­ is one of the poorest and most squalid in the tions of the men. The plan originally was to metropolis, though not far from the new line of demand arrears when a member returned after splendid houses, Victoria-street. All wiio have an absence ; but the men could not see why penetrated the slums that congregate about the they should pay when they had not been there. Abbey know the ugly sights and sounds, and It was then arranged that, if a member had been the unsavoury exhalations, of that wilderness of away more than a month, he should be looked poverty and vice—the rotten old houses, the on as a new comer; but this induced some to muddy ways, the scowling population of bru- stop away that time, so as not to pay the talised men and shrewish women, lounging at arrears, while those who did pay thought it the doors and window^s, or wranghng on the hard that they should be the worse oft^ for their pavement. It is a great place for costermongers, greater conscientiousness. The weekly payment who are not generally the most civilised of men; W'as then determined on; for, says Miss Cooper, and has acquired a disgraceful notoriety as the in a letter to the present writer, " I wanted the haunt of those wretched women who are the men much more than the halfpence." Some of cause of so much evil to our household troops. the poorest, however, are remarkably generous. Of course, there is also a good deal of honest One who has moved to another part of London, poverty aud hard, ill-requited labour in the and cannot use the club, caUs regularly in the district; and, in every respect, it is one which course of the week, and renews his ticket, so pecuUarly demands the attention of the philan­ that he may still be a member. Of course, thropist. Miss Adeline Cooper—a lady who with so low a subscription, the club is not very estimates as the highest privilege of her wealth select; but it is not desired that it should be. the means of doing good—opened a club in the On the contrary, it is the wish of Miss Cooper, heart of this neighbourhood in the month of and of all w^ho have interested themselves in the December, 1860, the expenses of which were establishment of the houae, that an appeal mainly borne by herself. She believed that should more especially be made to the very there was no better way of elevating the lives poorest and roughest of the surrounding com­ of the surrounding population than by meeting munity. No inquiries are made as to the an­ them in a thoroughly friendly, unassuming tecedents of any man who comes with his spirit, endeavouring to answer their wants in a halfpenny, asking to be admitted to the benefits manner which they could understand and ap­ of the institution. It is known that many of preciate, and winning their confidence by the the members have been hard drinkers, and that absence of any wish to dictate. She even hoped some of them still are; but all that is de­ that a class avowedly irreUgious might be manded is, that they conduct themselves with brought over to some form of faith, if it were decorum w^hile they are in the buUding. The presented to them in a way wthich they could eleventh rule provides " that no person in a accept or decline without the least prejudice to state of intoxication be permitted to remain;" the other advantages which they derive from but we believe the practice is not to disturb the institution. In many respects, she has a man who has taken too much, if he keeps been singularly successful. A year after the quiet, aud is in no way offensive to good order. opening it was found necessary to enlarge the The object is to reform such persons by purely building, and last autumn it was almost en­ moral influences, and it is wisely hoped that the tirely reconstructed, with a view to considerable example of men possessing more self-respect additions. It is now a good sized hall, with may lead the offender into better ways. This rooms above and below, some of them of ample confidence has been seldom abused. During space, and all most efficiently ventilated. Its the whole time the club has been open, it has members have the benefit of a library (consisting very rarely been found necessary to eject any of about three hundred volumes), a lavatory, a one by force; and the Ul-doers have generally common-room, a class-room for education, a been very young men, with an obstinate habit room for lectures, and other apartments for of using bad language. Some of these, more­ business or pleasure. As a rule, the club is over, have afterwards come back and apolo­ only open at night, the members being at their gised. The management of the club is in the W'Ork during the day. Tlie subsqription is a hands of a committee of the men themselves,

.: 'ZX-V Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND [March 26,1864.] 153

who pay over all the receipts to Miss Cooper. simply to the material wants of its members. A Not a single defalcation has at any time oc­ short prayer-meeting takes place on Wednesdays curred, and the property of the club has been at mid-day; on Thursday evenings a Bible-class most scrupulously respected by the individual is held, at which a chapter is read and com­ members. When we visited the premises a mented upon by a clergyman ; and on Sundays few weeks ago, we were shown over them by a religious service is conducted at night. At­ the secretary, a man of excellent sense and tendance at aU these observances is perfectly address, though following the humble occupa­ optional, and the entire Uberty of choice thus tion of a hawker. A large proportion of the left to the men has resulted in their regarding members, by the w^ay, consists of men engaged reUgion with more respect than most of them in street-avocations, even including crossing- previously entertained. The numbers who go sweepers, though the muster also comprises to the services are nevertheless very small in skilled artisans and tradesmen. In the large comparison with the total number of members common-room at the basement (thirty feet by of the club. The radical divergence of the twenty-eight in measurement), we saw several labouring classes from estabUshed modes of faith persons quietly enjoying their cups of coffee is also shown, not unfrequently, at the Bible and their pipes. On the same level are to readings. Any auditor being permitted to make be found the library, the kitchen, the lavatory, such objections as occur to him — objections and every convenience necessary to the comfort which the clerical reader answers as best he of those who attend. Up-stairs, the committee can—several have availed themselves of the per­ of a Loan Society was holding a meeting, Erom mission, and some exciting controversies have this association as much as 15/. may be bor­ been carried on. rowed. Each member may take from one to One of the great tests of the permanency of four shares, at threepence each, and at the end Working Men's Clubs will be, as usual with of thirteen weeks he is entitled to a loan of \L most projects, on the financial ground. Can for every 6s. 6d. subscribed, to be repaid (with they, or can they not, be made self-supporting? interest at the rate of one shUling in the pound) Undoubtedly there are difficulties (though it is by weekly instalments at the rate of sixpence in to be hoped not insuperable difficulties) in the the pound for everypound borrowed, the borrower way of this consummation; of which difficulties continuing to pay up his shares. In an ad­ one of the most serious is the migratory life of joining room, reading and writing lessons were working men, and the consequent unsteadiness going on; and, at a later hour, we saw a small of the subscriptions at any one place. The class assembled in the pursuit of a study wthich Duck-lane Institute is the creature of private one would hardly have expected to find recog­ benevolence. It does not pay its own expenses; nised at all in an institution addressing for the it does not pretend to do so, or expect to do so. most part the humblest orders. A few young The munificent foundress is even of opinion that men were learning Erench. The class was these associations (aUowing for a few exceptions, started only a few months ago, for the benefit owing to peculiar circumstances) must always am" of some members who are employed in book­ partake of the nature of charities, for that, ii sellers' shops and foreign merchants' offices. the subscriptions are raised above a nominal At the commencement, twenty joined, but the sum, the number of members will be but few. number has suice fallen to twelve. We are in­ In many country towns, however, the number at formed that they make good progress, and, as a higher rate of weekly payment than Miss the club is in union with the Society of Arts, Cooper requires is very much larger. The club there is every guarantee that whatever is done at Leeds, with a subscription of a penny a in the way of education will be well done. It week, counts from 1500 to 2000 supporters, is not improbable that some of the Erench and has even gone up to 3500 on special occa­ students will enter their names for the next sions. Still, it must be admitted that this does examination of the Society. not pay, and the deficiency is made up by the Besides the Loan Society, four other bodies founder, Mr, Darnton Lupton, w^ho administers are held in connexion with the Duck-lane Club: the affairs of the body in the spirit of a paternal viz. a penny bank, a temperance society (with a despotism. At Bristol, a club has been esta­ sick fund for members), a cricket club, and blished at a low weekly rate of subscription, a barrow club. The last-named is a particu­ which is rapidly attaining a most prosperous larly excellent fund. By subscribing a shUling condition. The Wednesbury Club, as we have eitb: a week, any street salesman belonging to the already seen, pays its way, and is governed on general club may hire a barrow for use in his thoroughly popular principles ; here the weekly trade, and at the end of fifty weeks' subscription subscription is double that at Leeds, and four the vehicle becomes his own property without times that at Duck-lane. Those who support any further payment. The fund was started in the system of non-payment, argue that the work­ consequence of the high rate of interest which ing man is no more degraded by going to a club, the costermongers of the district were paying the expenses of which are mainly borne by some for the hire of their barrows and trucks, and benevolent lady or gentleman, than a middle which, of course, in the ordinary way of busi­ class parent is degraded by sending his son to S^- ness, did not ensure possession of the property Christ's Hospitah But there is surely a great after any amount of payment in the shape of distinction, as far as the feelings are concerned interest. The club, however, does not attend (and the feelings, rather than the reason, are the U

y — J

154 [March 26, 1S64.] ALL THE YEMi ROUND. [Conducted by arbiters in such cases), between the impersonal Drowse looks harassed and fidgety. He has munificence of an ancient foundation and the had twenty letters this morning, he says, all dub­ direct gift of living people, who are known to bing him Vicar of Grumbleton, all applying for suffer in pocket for what they do, and who ne­ the situation, and most of them requesting par­ cessarily acquire a certain right of control in ticulars, which, he says, he has not time to give. virtue of w^hat they have bestowed. We are But if the first post brings such a packet, what most sensible of the large amount of good ef­ will not the subsequent posts bring, as the fected bv the Duck-lane Club among a class advertisement gets through the pickets of that is generally too poor and too unaccustomed readers into the thick of the great scholastic to such work to help itself; but we should prefer host ? " Look here," says Drowse, spreading to see the working orders, as a rule, in a position the heap of letters before me. "Three damsels of entire independence in this as in other re­ from Scotland, aU for coming south. Welsh spects. Pive hundred members at twopence a girl, can smg and play the harp. A harp isn't week, with a few quarterly and yearly payments, an organ. Can't make out the address. Nine con­ will set one of these clubs on its own legs. sonants and two vowels in it. Look at this one: Surely this is not too much to expect of artisans and labourers, more especially as the expenditure " ^ Rev. Sir,—Being an unprotected female, is certain to be accompanied by a saving in many twenty-six years of age, shall feel obUged by unlooked-for ways. your informing me whether the school-house is in a lonely situation, or near the churchyard; Unless these clubs are made self-supporting,; whether you provide fuel, and what number of they can never be in a position of independence children in average attendance? If suitable, I from external influences—from the caprices of; W'Ould apply for the cituation, and would give well-intentioned tyranny, or the blight of patron­ you every satisfaction if elected. age. Institutions for the benefit of w^orking men should originate among, and be managed by, " 'Yours most humbly, themselves. None but working men know tho­ " ' MAHTHA DUNK. roughly what working men want; besides, the " ^P.S. I can play the barrel-organ, but not habit of self-government is in itself no mean the other kind.^ help towards a higher personal life and a "What must I tell," says Drowse, "that greater fitness for the duties of citizenship. young woman, or this ? With regard to the sale of beer and the chances of drunkenness, we would refer to an account, " ' Rev. Sir,—I beg to offer myself as a can­ pubUshed in the first number of this journal, of didate for your school, I am trained and certi­ a rural club where beer is vended without any fied. Can sing, play the organ, teach knitting restriction, and with no ill results whatever. It and sewing (double and single hemstitch). should also be borne in mind that social rest and Arithmetic by a new and improved process. Am social recreation for the artisan and his family married, husband wiU make himself generally are the great objects to be attained in these in­ useful: could be overseer, or if a vacancy should stitutions. Too much ambition in the matter of happen, parish clerk, if you, reverend sir, fully education is very likely to do them an injury approved of him. rather than a good. Why is the working man, " ^ Yours obediently, of aUmen in the world, to be perpetually ashamed " ' EMILY WHALEBONE. of wishing to be amused and pleased ? " "^ P.S. Am a strict disciplinarian.' "Bless us," said the vicar, "here are six references offered by the strict disciplinarian, ' SCHOOLMISTRESS AND ORGANIST. with a husband wiio can be made generally useful. Shan't write to any of them. Thirty ANTED, at Christmas, a TKAIKED AND or forty letters a day before dinner, indeed! Is W CERTIFIED SCHOOLMISTRESS, for a mixed that the postman? Ah, to be sure. Eifteen Rural School, to teach Singing and play the Organ. Salary 45?., with residence. Apply to the Vicar of more. What's this ? GruRibleton. "'Canon Boniface presents his compliments Such W'as the announcement iu the National to the Vicar of Grumbleton, and begs to inform Society's paper, which, for aU I know to the con­ him that he has a trained pupil teacher just trary, may be found there, with a changed date completing her education at Eishponds, who in it, to this day. Miss Sniggles, one of the wiU, he thinks, suit him exactly. She has a very pets of her Majesty's inspectors, had thrown affectionate manner—(Halloa!)—with children Grumbleton into a fit of excitement by entering — (Oh, well)—is nineteen years of age, and a into an engagement for another situation with­ good Christian young person. Canon Boniface out taking advice of anybody, and without let­ does not know if she can play the organ, but ting her lords, the school committee, or what these things (what things ?) are generally taught was worse, her lady visitors, know a word about in training institutions.' He doesn't teU me it. It was of no use to remonstrate with the her name either," young woman, Drowse said, for she was deter­ My poor old friend Drowse looked round hi mined, and that too, with his help, to give up at great perplexity, and fairly groaned over the Christmas the name of Sniggles. Hence hub­ produce ofthe arternoon delivery. I sought to bub, and advertisement aforesaid. soothe him by placing in his hands a letter that X Charles ijicKuns.j j^ LL THE YEAR ROUND. [•March 26,1SC4.] 155

was scenting the room, and was adorned with rallying-point, and have no champion to do thc griffins on a great armorial seal. He broke the thhiking for them. A stupid man who under­ seal, regardless of the griffins' necks, and read: stands c©mmittee-work "will wind all the fine thinkers up, spin them to sleep, and take them "Lady Skedaddle ventures to recommend to up in his spoon. It's as easy as peg-top." the Vicar of Grumbleton, ArabeUa Perkins. She has taught her infant school four months in the This is, perhaps, the reason why our vicar absence of the regular mistress. Arabella gets on so well with his committees, as he cer­ Porkins can keep the attention of the infants tainly does contrive, in the long run, to have it all his own way, and either tires them out, or alive in the most wonderful manner, by telling sends them to sleep. them most interesting tales, wholly imaginary, and then she sings beautifully." Here we are, then, in vestry assembled ; eighteen guinea patrons, who can send their My friend laid down the letter in despair, and children at half-price ; three guinea and two would not open any more. The spectacle of his guinea patrons; also the president, Mr. Drowse, bewUderment moved me to the suggestion that who subscribes five guineas •annually to th.c he should shake all" the letters weU together, school. Drowse briefly opens the proceedings. pick out five at random, and then use his dis- He informs the committee wiiat all, in our .cretion in accepting one out of the five applica­ respective personal capacities, knew before, tions. It was a happy inspiration. that Miss Sniggles had given warning to leave. "Do you know," said Drowse, "that's worth He says this as if he were the most injured consideration! I'U sleep on that idea of yours," man in the world, in consequence. There are, so Drowse says, only a few instru­ A pile of letters six inches high Ues on his ments of torture now permitted by the law ; but right hand, and another pile half as thick again the Committee of the Privy Council is one of lies on his left. them. It consists, according to Drowse—and he " I \nay say, gentlemen," continues Mr. went one day to see for himself—of a hostile Drowse, "that all these applications have been body of officials, whose business it is to pick holes carefully perused, and thought unsuitable. Any in the skins of the clergy, and then rub the sores. gentleman can look through them and satisfy Still he admits that it is not a joking matter himself of their value." when he has the committee's eye, in the shape Up jumps a two guinea patron, a radical and of Mr. Inspector, down on him. "You must a dissenter, as Drowse calls him: " We ought give him a dinner, and be civU," says Drowse. to have them all read, so as to form our own m " Only let him go into the school famished, and unbiased judgment, gentlemen, and not permit the first thing he does, is, to lose his temper, the rector to rough-ride the parish in this then he turns all their wits out of the children's manner. I'm a two guinea patron though not heads, and in ten minutes he's brimful of such a churchman, and I, for my part, haven't seen axeport as makes my skin creep," one of them; have you. Admiral Groggen ?" Such is the present trouble of our worthy and " Hasn't he," said Admiral Groggen, who just respected vicar, A good, kind-hearted old man caught one word of the last speaker's address he undoubtedly is, and slowly luminous. When through his ear-trumpet. "He has seen half a one of his parishioners, irate in vestry, exclaimed dozen of them, I know. Enterprising girls. that a Grumbleton parson would never set the Come a long way on purpose," Thames on fire, he quietly asked, " Who wants Drowse, however, to save time, hands thc to set it on fire ?" This gave him a day's credit packet of rejected addresses to our friend Grog­ -as a wit in Grumbleton, and considering that it gen, with the request that he will read aloud was said in vestry, it deserves remark. But we from them, to satisfy himself and the committee 0' ^Grumbleton folks do not like to see our good generally. old friend in trouble, and we raUy round him as " Here is one," says the admiral, "to begin he quakes before this down-rush of damsels who with: '•>' have set their hearts upon him and his school, " ' Reverend and BAUBEUOUS Sir,—On the A few days elapse, and, by the help of some 25 th ultimo sent you application for school, with friends, Drowse is made ready to face a Meeting particulars that I w:as an unprotected female, wiio of the Committee of the School, " School com­ could play the barrel-organ, and asked whether mittees," says Drowse, " are not always so J.- you found fuel, whether the house was lonely, orderly as the children;" but then, he adds, "'the or near the churchyard. Surely a man—much more there are of you, the more stupid you are more a gentleman and a clergyman—would never sure to be." His discourse on this subject is have suffered a day to pass—to say nothing of odifymg. "Now^," he says, " my committee is more than three weeks—without one luie to an instance. You wUl find in it clever men satisfy a nateral and proper curiosity. enough, taken singly, but, bless your soul, the " ' Yours, &c., average of intellect is a very low one in an as­ "'MARTHA DUNE:.'" sembly where clever and stupid men are mixed together. The stupid men drag down the clever Roars of laughter from the committee, wiiich men, and you would be surprised to see how lasted a considerable time, and left everybody in timid and w^avering many of the better class of such a good humour, that it was determined to minds become. They lose self-reliance when they go through the rest of the file as an amusement. work with a bold positive booby, have no fixed '' These ladies marry fast," remarked the ^ 156 [March 26,1S64.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby admiral, reading a postscript: 'I am married— considered by Drowse and Admiral Groggen, without encumbrance.' What does that mean?" and by the two guinea patrons, indispensable; " One reason why so many appUcations are "Eor," said Drowse, "unless we see 'em, how made by the ])upil teachers," said Drowse, " I cau we tell whether they will do ? If they dress am told, is, that they have a notion that the too smart, you know, it's a sign of vanity." Grumbleton schoolmistresses are particularly " Tut! nonsense," quoth the admiral; " I like likely to get offers. They tell one another at to see the girls dress as fine as they can. We the Training Institutions, and that's one reason always make our ships as smart as possible; and, w^hy I disapprove of bringing up a parcel of for the same reason, we should like to see our young women together." women hoist their colours bravely." "They corrupt one another," said the two Drowse w^as not disposed to contest the point. guinea patron, who felt spitefully towards Eish­ The three were to come. The day came and the ponds, and did not object to agree with the vicar damsels. Then the committee came, and was now and then. assembled in the church. Let each hear for " Corrupt one another," said Groggen; "fid­ himself. It,was difficult for us to decide; bnt dle-de-dee. How can they corrupt one another ?" Admiral Groggen, who couldn't hear anything, After reading over twenty or thirty letters, formed his judgment; aud his judgment, like that Groggen lifted up a tied packet. of Paris on the three goddesses, was not to be "What's this?" asked the admiral. impugned. The ladies' committee had some­ " Correspondence between me and Canon thing to say; old Mrs. Tittling was not entirely Boniface," answered the vicar. "You may satisfied; Mrs. Briar thought the young persons read it, if you like. It's a great pity that all modest and respectful; but Mrs. Grobey said, the additional trouble and vexation of such a she could see a snake in the grass. The ladies correspondence should be had for nothing. will, no doubt, have it all their own way, if they Without quoting the letters of the canon, can only be brought to understand among them­ which were, of course, lengthy, I may state selves what their way is; but, pending the settle­ that Drowse had started with the air of a man ment of their differences, the president and nettled that a stranger like Canon Boniface patrons of Grumbleton wUl be permitted by them should presume to think he knew of anybody to give the golden apple to her who is, in the "that would suit him exactly." So he wrote a admiral's opinion, the most deserving candidate. curt answer to that effect. Boniface rejoined in a dignified epistle, in dismal grandiose periods, which sounded like the tolling of the cathedral A GIPSY CONCERT IN MOSCOW. bell at a dean's funeral, except where a profane quotation or two from Horace broke in upon the WE were dining at one of the chief restau­ bom—bom—bom. Drowse wrote a short re­ rants in Moscow, I and Herr Grabe. We had joinder, merely asking the name ofthe candidate, been to the Russian Comedy, and were now if she were a candidate. But this personality disporting ourselves at supper. made Dr. Boniface very angry, and he refused A Russian traktir, or restaurant, is a re­ to give the name. So it was proposed by the markable place. There is nothing of the two guinea patron, seconded by the grocer, snug, homely comfort of the London tavern, and and carried nem. con., that "This committee, its intramural interment in mahogany bins; having heard the correspondence between the nothing of the cold, soUtary splendour of the Rev. Canon Boniface and the Vicar of Grumble­ coffee-room of an English hotel; but, instead ton, desires to express its censure of the former of this, a cumbrous, expensive magnificence, and its sympathy with the Rev. Mr. Drowse," with the aUoy of a semi-barbarism that casts all which is to be found in the chronicles of across that magnificence a strange cloud like Grumbleton, as well as the remainder of the the shadow of a penny-gaff. The stalls have correspondence, which proved to be more vo­ seats like the ponderous sofas that prevaU in luminous than luminous, though it was interest­ EngUsh lodging-houses, the tables are larger ing to Grumbleton, and was all printed in the than they need be, and overhung with frouzy local newspapers. red curtains that cloud you round as with a tent. We were so long engaged over the candidates The traktir we were patronising was a nest on the left hand of the vicar, that scant atten­ of rooms — up-stairs and down—rooms that tion was paid to the dozen likely candidates on opened one into the other in a labyrinthine, the right, whose claim demanded a more careful confusing, and endless way. The innumer­ consideration. The guinea patrons began to drop able waiters are clad in white tunics, wound off one by one, tiU at last there were only some round with red sashes; and never less than half-dozen left, and then it was agreed that lots half a dozen of these retainers surround you should be drawn, as the most satisfactory and ex­ when you enter to seize your hat, or remove peditious way of settling the matter. So three your fur cloak. Another peculiarity of the damsels were then chosen, and a sum of money traktir is the enormous self-playing organ, that voted from the funds to enable them to come grinds out its deafening and dumbing music to Grumbleton for the purpose of undergoing as you eat your cutlet, often drowning conversa­ examination before the committee, and that tion, and always noisily intrusive. we might all know something of their musi­ We had eaten a slice of the yellow flesh of cal powers, vocal and instrumental. This was the sturgeon, and finished our cutlets, when

^r 11 Charles Dickens.j ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [March 26, 1SC4.] 15/

Herr Grabe, who had risen, and was over­ centre between them. It was rather a cold hauling a pile of Russian and foreign papers, night, and second-rate music is not warmiufy. suddenly advanced towards me, his stolid eyes however noisy it may be. Some officers near beaming with pleasure, and waving in his podgy me drew their fur-Uned cloaks closer round hand a long flimsy blue playbill, them, with a suffering shrug; the ladies " Hurrah ! mein Herr Goodman," said he, huddled together, like fowls on a perch on a "here is for you a great opportunity; here is winter's night. our last Gipsy Concert—the last of the season The musicians were Uke any other musicians —our wonderful song-gifted gipsies' concert; in Paris or London. Evening dress is not they sing and dance to-morrow at the Hermitage capable of much variety. Erom the leader Gardens. It is a great opportunity, for the downwards the band degenerated in perspec­ winter has now begun, and a day later you tive, till the player on the big drum in the back­ might have missed them. They are miraculous ground grew positively shabby. With long- mimics; they are dancers of genius; they sing suffering patience we bore the short gusts of —Himmel, how they sing!" music. At seven o'clock the next night a jolting roll Weary of staring at the orchestra, I turned through the suburbs and boulevards, the dry my eyes to the decorations, and they were not leaves rustling under our wheels, brought us to altogether despicable—superior to Cremorne, the great iron gate of the Hermitage—a gate and all such modern Vauxhalls, but inferior to crowned with coloured lamps. the tasteful variety of a Paris Ulumination. The Hermitage is a sort of Cremorne—a There were some green metal aloes with pleasure-garden for summer use; like Cremorne broad, well-modeUed leaves, wide and flapping suburban, and formerly the property of a noble­ as elephants' ears—such plants as grow in man. It has a pretty little domain, with a Indian jungles, and conceal tigers' dens and the miniature lake and a sprinkUng of good trees. lairs of enormous snakes. They stood on high It has little curtained alcoves for supping in, pedestals above the flower-beds; the starry, and a bar-room for wine and "grogs." branching flowers were formed by little jets of So far I could see at a glance as I threaded gas; the pure and brilliant flame blossoming the wicket, paid for my ticket, and walked down naturally enough into flowers, A prettier night the long scantily-lit garden-path, lured on by ornament could scarcely be imagined. distant music that indicated some central source Suddenly a dark figure stole thievishly along of amusement. Herr Grabe followed me with the pasteboard battlement that formed the stolid enthusiasm, fuU of metaphysical medita­ fapade of the Music Theatre. Satan entering tions upon the price of hemp, like a good philo­ Eden could not have striven harder for ambush sophical German merchant as he was. iu order to avoid the angelic spears. Little Hurrying people passed us; not fantastic lamps of a lummous violet colour were first students, or prattling grisettes, but quiet, staid lit by this dexterous climber; they were fol­ people, intensely grave and respectable, in­ lowed by rows of burning topazes and glow­ capable of mercurial movement, or tumultuous worm-coloured lights, and radiant rubies, and gaiety. Dance ! There was no dancing in Uttle cups of bluish moonlight, that the envious them. and struggling wind kept in a restless flicker, "Where is the dancing platform ?" I said to and every now and then, in a fit of irrestrain- Herr Grabe. able petulance, blew into total darkness. "Dance?" said Herr Grabe, with horror: The black hand passed over them with the lU' "the government aUows no dancing here. We nimble flame, and brushed them back again into are not civilised enough to dance in public." light. And, all this time, the chilly concert went Oh, the blessings of a paternal government! on, and the dry leaves blew about inquiringly, What can dancing have to do with politics? and the dull visitors patroUed, and the coquet­ Can one be waltzed into republicanism, or tish bloncJes laughed and drank tea, or sipped pirouetted into Polish principles ? sticky liqueurs, and talked of the gipsies. Pading trees do not look well when lit by dim I do not think there is much real taste for lamps and tin reflectors like dish-covers. There music in Russia. People talk too much at the is a dingy gaiety about half-dead trees, seen by Opera. Everything is Erench, German, and an artificial illumination, that makes one think Italian, and what is not one of these three is bad of theatrical forests, side-scenes, and footlights. —I mean, in the fashionable world only, for the A garden of Alcinous, on a cold autumn night, native and Cossack airs are very wild, sad, and with rather a severe fresh wind sighing about original, and the peasants are passionately fond the dead leaves, and turning them over, as if of them. A spurious and half-learned civilisation hi search of some one put out of the way seems to paralyse for a time in Russia the natural and hidden underneath, is not the most se­ instincts of taste. ductive of places, without some strong induce­ On went those black-clad automatons with ment to lead you there and keep you there their mechanical playing, doling out by the bar, when you are entrapped. without feehng o^passion, the beautiful sere­ We took our seats in a sort of open-air pro­ nade in Don Juan, the wizard waltz in Eaust, prietary chapel, facing an orchestra, and with the majestic wedding-march of Mendelssohn. our backs to a refreshment-counter. There But suddenly the band broke into life, and were Ions: rows of seats, with a walk down the thundered out with the fire and exactitude that ^ ^ ^ z/— 158 [March 26, 1864.] ALL THE YEAR KOUJND. [Conducted by- only delight and practice can give, the Russian her. She did not look Uke a lady, and yet you national anthem : " God defend the Czar "— scarcely seemed to wish to judge her by the the most martial and passionate of national civilised standard. There was an indisputable anthems; and far superior, in my humble opi­ look of command about her, and a confidence of nion, to our " God save the Queen." Every hat success that showed the practised actress. went off, and five times running, as the tune Next her, on the left, sat a fat pleasant-look­ ended, a band of students and officers advanced ing woman, quiet and lady-like in manner, and to the orchestra, and shouted for a re-perform­ with the air of a retired prima douna. She was ance, uttering barbaric yells, such as might have dressed less richly, but in better taste. This better become wUd horsemen of the Don than was the dowager-queen, I felt sure. Next her modern Russian gentlemen. came a middle-aged woman, with rather flaccid And now the open-air service closed, the cheeks, but with a humorous expression about congregation thawed away, and melted into the her large dark eyes, that augured well for surrounding walks. The leader of the orchestra comedy. The other four women were coarsely regarded us, as we remained almost the last on pretty, their eyes, however, darkly luminous, and the benches, with a look of careless pity, as large as Cleopatra's. The dress of all of them he slipped his violin into its baize bag, and was peculiar, and rather bizarre and Asiatic in turned to leave the stage. We joined the stream character. of people eager forthe next phase of amusement, Then the men came in, tall rough feUows, and found ourselves at a small toll-gate, where with tumbled black hair, who ranged them­ some officers were buying concert tickets. As selves, with sullen shyness and half-rebellious we were buying ours, half a dozen dark-eyed, discipUne, in a semicircle behind the chairs. untamed-looking men, in red shirts and blue caf­ Last of all, in came the chief, the leader, the tans, passed; one of them was mounted, and, as husband, I presume, of the queen, for he placed he approached us, gave a shout, and dashed off himself near her, and beat time for the whole at a canter down a side-walk, like an aide-de­ of the performers. He carried a small species camp on a special errand. of guitar, peculiar to the Russian gipsy, in his " Wunderschon!" exclaimed Herr Grabe; right hand. He was a tall, supple young man, " those are some of the gipsies." with a pointed, crafty, Spanish sort of face, and We showed our ticket, and passed into the was dressed in rather a theatrical short tunic enclosure. It was a large area, facing a covered of red linen, that made his legs appear almost stage, with no roof, but long strings of artificial awkwardly long, though their pliancy and the .green leaves that, running parallel to each other, smallness of his feet still served to prove their formed a sort of flat tent above our heads, suit­ capacity for swift and practised movement.- able for summer, but as inadequate covering The concert began with a solo by the dowager- for a chilly October evening as a gauze dressing- queen, a wild song but of no special character, gown would be for the Arctic Ocean. sung with a good but a veUed voice—a voice Herr Grabe grew oracular. that had lost its purity and resonance. " You wUl see something typical," he said, Now a cry arose of "Marscha! Marscha!" a "my EngUsh travelled friend; not the Spanish delighted expectant cry. gipsy dances, old as the Phoenicians, not all "^Who is Marscha?'*' I asked. wriggle and oscillation, like the Nauteh girls in " Marscha is their prima donna, the one in India, mere shuffle of the feet—-toe and heel ermine," repUed Herr Grabe. scarcely lifted from the ground. No, this wUl Marscha the majestic, queenly in her ermine, be truly a Walpurgis-night, enchanted, frenzied leaned forward and bowed, not rlisdainfully, but dance, qmte original; deducible only from prin­ v/ith a sort of serene complacency, as one accus­ ciples of Arabic sesthetics, no more like your tomed to such hoir-age. tame European dances, than an ostrich of the "Oulitza! Oulitza!" shouted the weU-dressed desert is like a farm-yard goose. Thunder and mob. storm! How^ long the Egyptians are raising Marscha turned and smiled on her companions, the curtain!" as much as to say, "The old cry. See how I As if his reproof had been heard, the curtain lead them and rule them. I am their true queen instantly rose, and disclosed a stage with an to-night; the czar may have them to-morrow." amphitheatre of chairs. To them rapidly en­ So looked the saucy beauty, as she bowed to tered in careless procession—the EGYPTIAIS'^S. the well-dressed mob that .shouted and jostled Thek leader was a tall handsome woman of, with delight; and all those lesser stars, her com­ say, two-and-twenty, evidently the queen and panions, smiled and whispered. beauty of the tribe; her large dark eyes were I have seen more beautiful singers, loftier and full of a mischievous triumph, as she sailed in, whiter brows, eyes more dove-like, more saint­ not ungracefully, in her ermine robe, and took like, more full of sunshine or of fairy glamour­ the central seat placed for her. Her manner ing power, but I never saw anywhere so much of was not retiring or timid, yet there was just the grace and archness of expression as Marscha enough of deference and wild shyness about bent forward, seized the guitar, and began. her bearing to make one assist in applauding What a voice! How mellow, soft, and yet her on her arrival. She was perfectly at her powerful, gushing forth without an effort, and ease, and yet not enough so not to be glad to full of endless rises and faUs of semitones! With turn and laugh and whisper to the women next what a sensibility and expression she gave the

"X x^^. / Charles Dickens.j .... THE YEAR ROUND. [March 26, 1&C4.] 151)

words as she tossed back her head, shook ft scha, she wrapped herself in her ermines, and, re­ with a most bewitching scorn, or leaned for­ tiring to a quiet corner of the refreshment-room ward with half-shut mischievous eves, as she with a saUow droU-looking woman in a sort of struck the guitar-strings with playful triumph. chintz dress, sipped a tumbler of boUing tea in As she finished her first song, the shouts of her own^ grand bewitching way, the cynosure " Oulitza" (the voice dwelling on the " Ou" in a of all neighbouring eyes. sort of long-drawn how]) w^ere followed by fresh Presently there was a clash of brass, and a cries of "Marscha" (Mary), fizzing of violin-strings, as the crowd drifted Marscha sang "OuUtza" over again with more back to their seats under the leaf-roof with deUghtful archness and tenderness than before. much cackle of cheery talk, and much conjecture I think I nerver heard a singer who attended as to Part Two of the gipsy performance. We more attentively and instinctively, not merely jostled down into our places; there was some to light and shade, forte and piano, but also to marrow-bone-and-cleaver music of the Nabu- every minute inflection of meaning. chadonosor order, and the curtain drew up. It was a beautiful air, full, as I took it, of No actors in London or Paris could have passionate entreaty, of almost Oriental adoration, grouped the scene better. It was an encamp­ of lovers' coaxing arguments, of playful quarrel ment of Russian gipsies preparing for the cere­ —a rustic love-story, in fact, changeful as April. monies of a marriage. All was drollery and And every time Marscha sang it a fresh colour bustle. There were some rough-bearded fellows seemed to transfuse it, so varied were the tones on one side wrangling at caa^ds, and being scolded of her voice, and the phases of her grace, pride, by a witch of an old woman, who, ladle in hand, archness, and imperial coquetry. kept alternately reviling every one for not help­ I asked Herr Grabe the meaning of the words, ing more in the preparations, and stirring a for the song was in Russian patois. Alas ! for caldron of cabbage-soup, that, hanging from my imaginations. a tripod of sticks, seethed over a fire. There " They call it a gipsy air," he said, " and so it were boys dancing, shouting, and playing mis­ partly is, but I have certainly heard it in Germany. chievous tricks. There were w^omen arrans^in^: It is called there 'The Beer House.' It de­ seats for the bride and bridegroom. scribes a droll fellow staggering out of a beer-shop There was a distant shout of welcome, a and seeing two moons positively winking at trample of feet, and in came the bride and her append him; presently the houses on each side of the attendants (Marscha, of course, looking charm­ street begin nodding too, and the church dances ing in her bridal finery and streaming veU); then a cavalier seul. Then a fit of maudlin melan­ came a clatter of hoofs, and in, at a great pace, choly supervenes, and he resolves to give up his dashed the chief on horseback—the skUful beast boozing ways, turn his back on the seductive he bestrode wiurling round and round with art­ beer-shop, and go back to the old gipsy tent fully feigned impetuosit_y, and dispersing, at and his old chums. every turn, the gipsy retinue, who, with equal And on this stupid old drinking-song I had art, made way for it, with a pretence of fear. thrown away all my enthusiasm; and that w^as The bride was seated at a table, on which the revellins; measure in which Marscha had ex- stood the bridal offerings covered with muslin. pended all her fine acting. Bah ! I was vexed With dehghtfuUy acted shyness she received the —I was hurt. But who was I ? A mere fo­ homage of the bearded portly visitors, who, in reign mist. The applause was tremendous. their blue cloth caftans and high boots, acted The people rolled and billowed with deUght, the part of small tradesmen, and other well-to- Marscha's eyes lit up, but she received the do guests. It was all in dumb show, for no applause with the majesty of an empress. one spoke a word, but the men bowed, smUed, The next song was a part-song with chorus. and gesticulated, and the twenty or thirty The men struck in nobly. The air was wild and actors bustled about to express their pleasure humorous. The leader gave the signal for the at seeing each other, and at the general splen­ chorus by a swift right-about-face and a wave of dour of the entertainment. the handle of his guitar as he struck the bass Thi-oucrh the crowd all at once broke the old chords. It was a half-savage Tartar tune, Canidia of a cook, her grey hair about her ears, but tinged with fun, with a dashing crescendo in her ladle in her hand. She executed a gro­ the swiftest speed, that closed the first half of the tesque dance, quite tipsy in its droUery, its concert. The performers, led by Marscha, quitted vigour somewhat retarded by assumed age. the stage for a time, and descended to earth, Take it altogether, it partook of the hornpipe to take tea, "grogs," and champagne in the character, and w^as, perhaps, better adapted for refreshment-room. male than female performance. At intervals she They moved about the garden with royal con­ barked and yelped, and all the gipsies shouted descension. They nodded to officers, who praised in the Irish manner. 4 and flattered them with a high-bred gallantry Then a smart boy of fourteen, red-shirted worthy of the imperial salons. They collected in and booted, his lank hair of an oily blackness, gaily-dressed groups round the back door of the his face brown and sly, accepts the crone's theatre. They held animated converse witl\ their challenge. He comes forward, amidst hand- chief, the young man in the scarlet shirty who clappings and chorus-singing, with a handker­ cantered about the gardens with a purposeless chief in one hand, and executes a wild, break­ violence on a weedy brown, horse. As for Mar­ down dance, more subtle than our nigger dances. i^' /

IGO [March 26,1S64.] ALL TIIE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by

figures with the agility of a Highlandman exult­ n and less droll, but far more scientific and difficult. Every now and then he drops the handkerchief, ing in the Fling, Wt with more lithe and crafty and picks it up in a certain ecstatic moment neatness. He is so quick, you can hear nothing of the dance, without losing time, and this feat but the tap of his heel and toe, and the soft is rewarded by storms of laughter and applause. low beat of his companion's toe and heel Now His little booted legs shake about as pliant and then, as the band shout in a jerky ecstatic as a harlequin's, and his sly vain face pre­ way, he slashes the sw^ord through the air, and serves one steady expression of crafty determi­ cuts figures of Ught before the girl's unflinching nation. He ends a series of impossibilities by eyes, she aU the time playing graceful antics a gigantic effort in double shuffling. " That with her shawl, that she alternately loosens and boy," Isaid to Herr Grabe, "if he isn't hung tightens. There is no violence about the dance, prematurely for picking pockets, will become a but it is fuU of a robust Spanish spirit, and is world-known ballet-master." defiant in its character. Suddenly the music "No," said he, '4t is wunderbar; but these quickened, the dancers redoubled their efforts, people have refused offers to travel that would and approached eaeh other more closely; swift have brought them hundreds and hundreds of as lightning that horrible menacing sword flew pounds. They are proud; they are free as round the girl's head, whistled over and around Tartars ; they Uke their own ways. Have you her on left and right, close, close—one hair's not heard how Catalani once, after hearing one breadth more—one instant of haste or panic, or of their women sing, took off a shawl, worth of thoughtless and excited eagerness, and the thousands of roubles, that some emperor had gipsy girl had fallen dead on the stage. given her, and threw it over the gipsy's " Whish—whish !" went the sword, gUttering shoulders, exclaiming: 'I am dethroned—this through the air, the dance growing every second is the Queen of Song!' It may be true: I tell faster and madder. Suddenly, an uncontrollable it you for true. Why not ?" thirst for blood seemed to seize the swordsman; And all this time Marscha sat queenly in her he passed his hand upward through his hair, and white attire. Now the chief stepped to her, and it stood on end in a maniacal, Corybantic way. handed her a gipsy guitar. It seemed impossible Then, tossing the sword behind his back, he to approach that woman without reverence. raised it to cleave that proud and smiling She took it, and threw the blue band across her antagonist to the breast-bone; he raised the left shoulder. Instantly a tremulous tune rose sword that instant the music stopped, the from the strings of the wild instrument. dance was over, and the applause broke forth The great finale of the gipsy entertainment like thunder in a BrazUian forest. was approaching. There was to be a duet sword- I wiped the hot dew from my forehead, and dance between the chief and that tall stately gave a sigh of relief, buxom girl on the right of Marscha. Now I " It is divaine, it is divaine 1" exclaimed my had heard gipsy music in Spain, where the anti­ German friend; " come, let us hurry off to the quarians declare it to be partly Phcenician and fireworks." partly Grecian in character. I had found it to And so we did. The people, ungratefully eager resemble in many respects the Arab music, being for new amusement, were crowding in black monotonous, quaint, and full of minute in­ masses on the dark edge of the garden lake. flections, almost too subtle to be distinguished They looked like ghosts waiting for Charon ou except by a practised ear; at times exciting the banks of Lethe's fat and sullen stream. and passionate, yet generally more like an in­ Here and there a spark rose up on the oppo­ cantation than pure honest music, and there can site shore, and by that spark we could see black be no doubt profoundly corrupt in its mystic figures moving about with lights. significance. "Bang!" went the maroons, with a crack- The guitar, and the incessant hand-clapping, mg detonation; up went a golden Une, and furnished a fitting music for such a dance, wthich broke into a star of burning diamonds, " Bang! is probably of Tartar origin and of extreme an­ bang !" with spiteful and abrupt reports. tiquity. The chief, girding himself up, and " Hiss, hiss !" hke flying serpents, went the looking down at his boots to see if he was in fireworks, and branched into saffron-coloured, sound dancing trim, stepped forward to the foot­ starry fire; into golden willows, into branching lights, and addressed some words in Russian, threads, each tipped with a star of biiUiants. that I could not hear, to an officer in white uni­ Up went other fireworks, that, high up, blos­ form, who sat in the front row. somed into blue, and crimson, and green, and The officer rose, bowed, and unbuckling his melted into the cold unruffled darkness. heavy cavalry sword, handed it up in its glittering "Whiz! hiss! whiz!" spread the fire over steel sheath to the gipsy dancer. He took it, the frameworks, and broke out into circles, and drew the blade from its sheath, and returned letters, and crowns, and laurel-leaves, andthe em­ the sheath to the owner. peror's name, and " God protect the Czar !" and Then, holding the sword in his hand, and over burnt away at last into black revolving scaffold­ his head, he advanced to the girl who, wrapped ing, with here and there a lingering spark. in her shawl, paced forward to oppose him in Out on the water too, like flying serpent-fire, the dance. They challenge each other, they burst out the fireworks, and ran and blazed and cross and interchange with the gravity of minuet hissed and discharged their very lives in breath dancers. She points at his feet and marks out the of flame and showers of golden sparks. 'I^- X =^:, z. Charles Diclnnis: I AI.LT-SE YEAR ROUND, nMarch26, 1S64.] 161

But even to fireworks there is an end, and as cate marine plants, rendered more tender by the the last rocket shot forth its stars, w^e ran to action of the waves, and tinged by the influence the gate, leaped into a droschky, and drove at a of light. The natives are not full grown until rattling pace homewards. between five and seven years old, and as we learn the age of a horse out of his own mouth, The next day, late in the afternoon, I went that of the oyster is disclosed by annual layers again to the Hermitage alone. The Bower of Vain on the convex sheU. Oysters possess distinct Delights had a forlorn look; dead leaves strewed organs of digestion, respiration, and circulation, the walk. Blackened squib-cases floated ou the with a weU-defined nervous system. They are lake, below the tawdry pasteboard mountains. sensible of light, and close their valves at the In the stables, an enormous elephant swayed shadow of au approaching body, so that the un­ to and fro, and undulated his proboscis. In dulation of the w^aters may not reach them. the coui't-yard, a tame bear lamented angrily his When brought to BiUingsgate, the natives are blindness. The empty stage looked disconsolate subjected to sanitary treatment by being placed as a house after a funeral. Tlie roof of artificial in vats of sea-water, or of water holding a saline leaves rustled in the cold au\ The tawdry mixture in solution, to which oatmeal is added, triumphal arches seemed to shrink away from a process which tends rather to increase their the honest dajlight, that is so frank, and so dis­ fat than improve their flavour. dains shame aud concealment of all kinds. I felt When the native is in perfection, the fish like the magician's boy in the Indian fable, who should approach the roundness of a baU, and be unwittingly has repeated the spell that has turned wiiite as the kernel of a nut. According to his father's palace into a poverty-stricken hovel. Kitchener, the barreUed oysters are commonly the smallest natives not full grown; but per­ haps he goes rather too far in asserting that all OYSTERS AND OYSTER CULTURE. the objections which exist to the use of unripe vegetables, apply to immature animals. THERE are aristocratic and plebeian oysters, Geological researches constantly reveal the suited to the pockets as well as to the palates long-entombed remains of well-shaped and full- of their admirers, and amongst the former our grown fossil oysters, whicli make us regret that natives are pre-eminent in flavour as well as in such dainties came into the world before their price. This distinction has long prevailed. time, and to little purpose. The oyster-bank in Phillips, who published in the reign of Anne the vicinity of Reading, in Berkshire, an inland a poem, the name of whieh is disclosed in the county, is a most remarkable deposit, occupying following lines, declared six acres, and forming a strata over two feet Happy the man, who void of care and strife, deep. Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, In silken or in leathern purse contains whom Johnson honoured with a Ufe amongst the A splendid shilling; he ne'er hears with pain British poets, published in 1667, in his History Fresh oysters cried! of the Royal Society, an original paper, in which The democratic, or deep-sea oysters, princi­ he complained that, "although British oysters pally from the Channel Islands, earliest take have been famous in the world since the island the field in London, the Colchesters next be- was discovered, yet the skill how to set them jcome visible, while the high-bred or "melting aright has been so Uttle considered amongst "natives" from Milton, Whitstable, Eaversham, ourselves, that w^e see at this day it is confined and other locaUties on the Kentish coast, wait to some narrow creeks of one single county." to see the grouse and partridge seasons pass, That county w^as, of course, Kent. Essex and come in with the pheasants in October. has since become a competitor, the Burnham The old English line which has become a oysters from the river Crouch being highly proverb, "In the R'd months you may your prized; indeed, the Kentish bishop, in his zeal, oysters eat," is a mere translation of a Leonine w^ould seem to have forgotten that, in the days rhyme of the Middle Ages— of Queen Bess, Colchester sent presents of Mensibus erratis, oysters to the royal favourites, Leicester and Vos ostrea manducatis. Walsingham. The Romans were great admirers The natives are reared from the developed of oysters, and early learned the excellence of spawn, teclmically termed the spat, which is those from the Kentish coast. Juvenal alludes to transplanted from its birthplace to feeding- the discriminating taste of the court sycophant, grounds appropriated to this privileged class; Montanus,at the feasts ofthe Emperor Domitian, for, like other fashionables, they are believed to in lines which have been thus paraphrased: improve by changes of sea air, and become meta­ Who morphosed from all fin and no fat, to all fat At the first bite each oyster's birthplace knew, and smaU fin. They thrive best in the artificial Whether a Lucrine or Circsean he had bitten, beds of sheltered bays and estuaries, and im­ Or one from Rutupinian deeps in Britain. prove most in the neighbourhood of fresh-water A Roman millionnaire, Sergius Orata, whom springs. The greenish colour which the fins Cicero designated the master of luxuries, con­ sometimes present, is acquired by exposing the ceived tlie idea of originating an oyster-park in adult oysters in shallow pools to the sun's rays, the Lucrine Lake, a salt-water lagoon on the and probably, in some measure, arises from the coast of Campania, adjoining the Gulf of Raise, absorption of the microscopic shoots of deli­ and separated from the sea by a narrow strip or

y 1^ r 162 [llarcli 26,1S64.] ALL THE YEAIbnOU])?!)SH . .f^nducted by bank of sand. The lake was shaUow, and situated has been restored, and the tanks discovered are in the vicinity of the enchanting, although highly probably the remains of those laid down two volcanic, country which the rich and luxurious thousand years ago by Sergius Orata, who de­ Romans were in the habit of selecting for their rived a large income from his oyster-beds on the splendid rural villas. In those retreats, they spot. It would seem that pieces of rock, to enjoyed the Lucrine and Circsean oysters, the which the young oysters adhered, had, with a latter from the coast of Latium; according to view to transport them undisturbed from the na­ Pliny, "theBritishshoreshadnot as yet sent their tural waters in which they had been born, been supplies at the time when Orata ennobled the brought and deposited in the oyster-parks. The Lucrine oysters." It is difficult to conceive fishermen on Lake Eusaro, and other Itahan the mode of carriage that enabled them to salt lagoons, even at this day form artificial retain their fulness and fiavour in a journey banks by sinking stakes in the ground in the to the imperial city, but Apicius is said to have form of a circle, which rise above the surface supplied the Emperor Trajan with fresh oysters of the water, so that they may be reached and all the year round. The Rutupinian district raised by the handwiien necessary. Stakes are of England derived its name from thc Roman also laid down in rows, connected by ropes, city of Rutupinus, now Richborough, or the from W'hich fagots composed of thin pieces of town of the Reach, in the Isle of Thanet, beiug wood are suspended, the ropes ^nabling tbe built on what was then an estuary. On its de­ number of movable pieces to be increased as struction by the Danes, and within a mile of its they may be required. It is probable that the site, rose the Saxon towai Sondwick, buUt by present inhabitants only traditionally follow the Canute on the salt sands, where the oysters practice of their celebrated ancestors; ancient "most do congregate;"—now the modern Sand­ funereal vases are preserved in the museums at wich, one of the Cinque Ports. It is believed Rome on which may be clearly traced the out­ that in the days of the Romans the surrounding lines of the modern Italian system. It wiU country was covered with water; and Mi\ form one amongst the many strange revelations Roach Smith, in his recent antiquarian re­ of our times if, after the lapse of so many cen­ searches respecting Richborough, informs us, turies, v/e shall adopt on the English coast— that in digging in the neighbouring marshes, from wthich the Romans derived their most de­ what were once large beds of oysters are to this licious oysters—the example and appliances of day brought to light. Steam has revolutionised ancient Rome as a means of multiplying the the oyster trade; but although the production production of our natives. must have increased vastly since the days of In the spawning season, wthich is generally Bishop Sprat, the supply does not keep pace from June to September, the oysters shed their with the demand, arising from increased wealth spat, but they do not, like other marine creatures, and population; and the price of the real natives abandon their young; they protect them during has risen higher and higher, untU it has become the process of incubation in the folds of their extravagant. When Christmas approaches, pyra­ mantle, between their branchial plates. The mids of oyster-barrels crowd the platforms of our youngsters remain in the mucous matter requi­ railway termini, destined for the wide circles of site for their evolution, until they ultimately rural cousins, in return for brawn, hares, and effect their embryo development. The mass country turkeys. which the young oysters then form, resembles The imperial government of Erauce, with the in colour and consistence thick cream ; whitish view of multiplying those favourites of epicu­ at first, it gradually turns yellow, and ends by rean taste and social enjoyment, has recently degenerating into a grey brown, or grey violet devoted much attention to the artificial culture colour, losing its fluidity in consequence of its of oysters, and confided the inquiries to M. absorption as nutriment. That state announces Coste, a member of the Institute, who had made that the development has terminated, that the the natural history of fish his peculiar study. oysters may cease to be nurses, that the infants M, Coste has officiaUy visited all the celebrated are fit for weaning, and it indicates their ap­ oyster-rearing coasts, and amongst others those proaching expulsion from the maternal shells. of the British Isles; indeed, the number of his Previous to starting, thc tiny brood may be seen, christian names—Jean, Jacques, Marie, Cyprien, through a powerful microscope, opening and Victor—^is sufficient to entitle him, under a shutting their minute valves, and practising separate one, to naturalisation in almost every their evolutions in a rotatory motion preparatory European state. In the course of his explora­ to their entrance into independent existence. tory researches he discovered, in the Lago de The moment they emerge from their cradles, Eusaro, on the Neapolitan shore, celebrated for they roll about in search of future residences, its trout, the remains of ancient salt-water tanks beiii^ furnished with an apparatus for swimming, stiU visible, which lead to the belief that it is whicli enables them to seek some solid body to the site of the ancient Lucrine Lake. Nume^ which they cau attach themselves. The number rous remains of ancient villas and tombs can be of young ones thus ejected from the mantle of a traced in its vicinity; and it had been long sup­ single mother cannot, it is conceived, be less posed to be the crater of an extinct volcano, a than from one to two miUions; but if the Uttle surmise w hich was proved to be correct by the floating animalcules are unable to find resting- emission, in 1838, of such quantities of mephitic places, they inevitably perish. The Italian h\ gases as destroyed all the oysters. The race practice is admhably adapted to providing against the immense losses which result; the surface in the nature of buoys. Our insular portions of rock and fagots with whicli they position must present many available localities, encircle and cover the artificial banks are pre­ and the example of our neiarhhours ought to cisely what nature requires to arrest in their stimulate similar experiments in aU the favour­ passage the minute floating population, and to able spots on our extensive coasts, the more present surfaces on wthich it can settle, as a particularly as an act of the last reign (7 and 8 tree on wiiich they rest enables a swarm of bees WiUiam IV., c. 29) has conferred and secured to be swept into the hive. When fixed, each of territorial rights to the proprietors of all English the little corpuscules, stiU almost invisible, oyster-beds. An excellent site for the formation begins to form its sheUs. Shakespeare makes of new English oyster-beds has been lately ob­ the fool in Lear ask the old king : " Canst tell tained in a grant of shore near Harwich. how an oyster makes his sliell ?" Lear ; " No." Scotland is justly proud of her pandores, so Eool: "Nor I neither!" And the question highly prized in Edinburgh, and an ancient would, w'e believe, puzzle even our modern rivalry exists between our epicures and the wiseheads. On raishig the twigs, the annual viveurs of the sister island, as to the relative growth of each of the young brood is distinctly excellence of the natives in comparison with the traceable; but the fishermen, as the breeding most celebrated Irish oysters. Those from the season commences, take care to present fresh bay of Caiiingford, on the coast of Louth, nortli fagots, and, when the fishing begins, they with- of Dublin, were long famous, but sueh w^as the draAv from the water the wood on which the voracity of the public, and the avarice as well as full-grown oysters had settled. After having ignorance of those interested in the beds, that gathered the grapes on those artificial vines, some years since the race disappeared as if they they restore them again to the beds, in order to had been exterminated. The cause was of become the resting-places of a new generation, course traceable to over-dredging, as weU as to renewing and perpetuating the race by annual the want of due precautions to renew the additions. The oysters, when raised, are de­ brood, and as nature makes no provision for posited in Gzier baskets of a spherical or bottle the spontaneous or hnmediate revival of a form, with large meshes graduaUy enlarging from species that has been allowed to become ex­ the mouth dowiiw^ard—possibly a preferable tinct, the superior merits of the Carlingfords form to our oyster-barrel—and it is probable that have become mere matter of history. The Red- similar ones were used for carrying the British bank Burren oysters from the coast of Clare, oysters to Rome. bordering on the southern extremity of Galway The Italian system having been approved of, Bay, are deservedly extolled; the fin is of a deep it has been adopted by the imperial government olive green, a^id the fish smacks ofthe Atlantic. of France, and extensive artificial oyster-parks The beds lie on a limestone shore, over subter­ have been laid down under the direction of the raneous crevices, through which the fresh water minister of marine on the Erench coast, parti­ of the springs from the surrounding mountains cularly in the Bay of Brieuc, near Brest, in rises and mingles with that of the ocean, and to Brittany. The locality w^as considered favour­ this admixture their excellence is attributed. able, for our Kentish dredgers annually expend, M. Coste, than wiiom there cannot be higher with a view to colonisation, considerable sums authority, being well acquainted with our na­ in the purchase of spat at Granville, on the same tives in their perfection, adjudged the palm to south-west shore. The official reports speak the Redbank Burrens, declaring that they were highly of the success ofthe experiments^; fascines the best oysters he had ever met. On first tasting are adopted formed of numerous branches bound them, he expressed his admiration of their together, and anchored bv hrse stones, so as to whiteness and their plumpness by exclaiming, be kept constantly afloat. These fascines, when "Chicken! chicken!" A few barrels occasionaUy raised, have been found covered with oysters in reach London as special presents, but the demand such profusion as to resemble the trees of an is too great in DubUii to permit Londoners orchard in spring, in all the exuberance of its practically to test the judgment of M. Coste. tk blossoms. We are assured by M. Coste that Some local acts regulate particular English twenty thousand youugoysters have been counted oyster fisheries—such, for instance, as those in on a single fascine, not occupying more space the neighbourhood of the Medw^ay—by which a in the water than a sheaf of corn similarly jury of free dredgers are empowered to make re­ bound would in a field, and it is needless to gulations ; but we believe that there is no ge­ speculate on their pecuniary value wiien they neral law of that nature applicable to all the shall arrive at perfection. It has also been oyster-beds on our coasts. Ireland, however, ascertained that by paving the bottom of the possesses a special legislative measure for the park with oyster-shells, myriads of the floating increase and government of her oyster fisheries monads are attracted and induced to settle. A& —the Lush Eisheries Act of eighteen 'fifty, it has been found that oysters born in a particular the forty-first section of which enables the spot improve in size and flavour on transplanta­ owner or occupier of any land bordering on tion, even to other parts of the same bed, it has the sea, or on any estuary, or any person with been proposed to form the artificial banks so the consent of such owner or occupier, on ob­ that they may be floated from one portion of taining a Ucense from the Commissioners of the feeding-ground to another, by having the Eisheries, to form and plant an oyster-bed on fascines attached to movable frames ou the the adjacent shore, and confers on it all the

> 164 [March 26, 1864.] ALL THE OUND. if^bnducted by

attributes of property. The report of the old, and, being in delicate health, a long sea commissioners, presented to parliament during voyage in a sailing vessel was thought better the last session, states that they have already for me than a berth in one of the ill-ventilated granted licenses to twenty-six different proprie­ and over-crowded steamers then and still running tors for laying down new oyster-beds on dif­ between San Francisco and New York via Pa­ ferent districts ofthe coast, to the extent of five nama. Thus I became a passenger for Liverpool thousand one hundred and forty-eight acres, in the David Brown, a large American clipper, amongst which is one for Carlingford Bay; and distinguished for size, cleanliness, and tlie excel­ it appears, by the appendix, that eight addi­ lence of its passenger accommodation. tional applications were under consideration. The only feUow-passengers to whom I need Admirable by-laws have been also framed under allude were a lady from British Columbia, whom the direction of the inspecting commissioner; I w^ill call Mrs. E , wife of a major in the amongst other regulations, prohibiting the re­ British army. She had with her two children moval from a bed of any oysters of less than and a female servant. I had known this lady fixed dimensions; and as parliament has recently previously, in Vancouver Island. We were sanctioned the appointment of English com­ friends, therefore, at once. missioners, it is desirable that simUar salutary On the eleventh of October, 'sixty-one, the provisions should be extended to the oyster- beautiful vessel, laden with her two thousand bearing coasts of Great Britain. tons of grain, slowly and gracefully sailed out With a view to the extension of the culture, of the noble bay of San Francisco, Dear the first step that suggests itself is, that the in­ friends were standing on the wharf; the bitter specting commissioner, who has devoted much partings w^ere over. The sun was shining as it attention to the subject, should be deputed to always does in California, until the sea, and the examine the modern system adopted by our rocks, and the vast city, seemed literally glitter­ neighbours, the Erench, and report on its re­ ing with sunUght. One long look back to the sults ; and if that report shall sustain the ac­ happy home of the last six years, to the home counts which have reached us, the British public still of the husband and brothers obhged to will then have from an authorised source all the remain behind, and at last I had only the sea information necessary to enable oyster-parks to that parted us to look at through my tears. be laid down on the most approved principles, Our friends had seen us set sail in what seemed in such available districts of our coast as pro­ a gallant ship. It had been chosen from all mise abundant supplies and remunerative re­ others as the one to send us home in for its turns. If it shall be found that the fresh water show of perfectness. There were men in San of springs enriches the saline beds, artificial Francisco who knew that the ship was unsea- means can be devised for its diffusion; and if worthy (having been frightfuUy strained in her the practice of laying fascines shall prove effec­ last voyage to China), and that she was in no fit tive, it may, perhaps, dispense with the slovenly condition to be trusted with the lives of helpless and destructive process of dredging. The pearl- women and children, yet they let us saU without diver of Ceylon descends to fiU his basket with a word of warnins:. oysters without any implement but a sinking- Poor Mrs. E and myself had not been stone to accelerate the rapidity of his descent; tvvo days at sea before we found out what a and the only precaution to which he resorts, is frightful mistake had been made in the choice of the mystic ceremony of the shark-charmer, a saUing vessel as our home for the next three whose exorcism is believed to be always recog­ months. We were so miserable, that at last, nised and respected by the sharks. Divers on Uke two school-girls, we kept a Ust of aU the our shores need not apprehend such intruders, days on a sUp of paper, notching them off at and as the modern invention of Deane's diving- night with glee because another day was over. helmet enables the wearer to remain at his ease When we had been a week at sea the ship for five or six hours under water, it would seem was hove to one day. There was a small leak, that its application to our oyster fisheries might which the carpenter tried to repair, but, I sup­ enable the full-grown oysters to be selected and as­ pose, ineffectually. The captain made Ught of sorted, whUe the immature remained undisturbed. it, and we had no fear, never thinking it pro­ bable that this small leak was a warning of the utmost peril. Often the vessel was stopped for TEN TERRIBLE DAYS. the same small feak, but if we made inquiry we were told there was no cause for fear, and did IN the year eighteen hundred and sixty-one, not fear. about thirty vessels laden with wheat were con­ For, except these short pauses, the ship signed to England from California. In that sailed gaUantly on, we had lovely weather, and ^i wonderfully luxuriant country the harvest had the captain really thought to make a quick aud been more plentiful than usual, and merchants profitable passage. were adventuring it in shiploads to all parts of We rounded Cape Horn ou a lovely summer the world. day (our winter being its summer), and the I, a woman, who am about to tell the true, little Cape pigeons were flying around us con­ unvarnished tale of the most terrible ten days tinually, to the great dehght of the children. of her life, was going to England at that time About this time the second officer caught an with my only child, a Uttle girl of four years albatross for the amusement of the ladies and X Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [ilarch26,1S64.] 165

children, but the untimely fate of the "Ancient mained, till dawn, shivering and shaking below, Mariner" having taken strong hold on the for by keeping the three pumps at work, and captain's imagination, the bird was immediately lightening the vessel of her heavy cargo, the thrown into the sea, and the officer got a severe captain meant to save her if he could. rebuke for his temerity. We passed along the At dawn, taking my little girl by the hand, coast of Brazil, and were so near Pernambuco I went on deck. The storm had in some mea­ that we could see the Ughts in the houses and sure abated, but the sea looked black and suUen, hear music from shore. And then the captain and the swell of the vast heavy waves seemed said that the next land we should see would be to mock our fraUty. The saUors had been up the long low shores of Ireland. all night, and were as men playing at some fero­ On the night of the fourth of January, 'sixty- cious game; some working in desperation at two, we had been eighty-six days out, and, in the pumps, and singing at the pitch of their ten more, we thought to'be in England. voices wild sea-songs to time their common Our little ones were fast asleep in bed, and efforts; others employed in throwing hundreds we had been on deck for a few moments watch­ of bags of grain into the sea that they might ing the stir of angry waters, for the heavens thus lighten the ship. This I think, more than looked dark and threatening, and the sailors all, showed me our perU. I wandered about prophesied a stormy niglit. too miserable to remain in any one spot, till the We had not been below in the saloon for captain assembled us all once more in the cabin many minutes, when there was a little son born to get some food, saying that it was impossible to one of the passengers. We all did what we to save the ship, aud that we should have need could for the poor mother, but there was no of all our fortitude. I remember my own vain doctor on board, and, as all the other children attempt to eat some bread, but the poor little awoke with the unusual noise and bustle, we chUdren took their breakfast and enjoyed it. were nearly deafened with their screaming. The We were then each provided with a large bag wind, too, increased in fury, and the ship rolled made of sailcloth, and were advised by the till we could not stand. captain to fill it with the warmest articles of Half frightened at the roaring of the waters, clothing we possessed. and deeply impressed with the new respon­ All my w^orldly possessions were on board, sibility of having this poor sick woman and her comprising many memorials of dear friends, helpless baby to take care of, we went re­ portraits of loved ones I shall never see again, luctantly to bed. My own little one had again and my money loss I knew v/ould be no trifle. faUen asleep, and, after gaziug at her long and In perfect bewUderment, I looked around, and earnestly with some vague unacknowledged fear, filled my bag with stockmgs and a couple of I at last fell into an uneasy restless slumber. warmshawis. On the top of a box I saw a little I remember waking once, and seeing the parcel that had been entrusted to me by a lady captain quickly pass with his charts in his hand, in California to deliver to her mother in Liver­ when Anita said, "Oh, mamma! what noise is pool, I put that in my bag, and she got it. I that?" True enough, the noise on deck was then dressed myself and the child in as many awful, for the wind and the waves seemed lash­ things as wx could possibly bear, for I thought ing the ship to madness; but the child fell of the cold drenching nights, and shuddered asleep again, and I lay half asleep, when sud­ when I looked at that only little one on whom denly I heard a voice caUing my name in quick rough winds had never been allowed to blow, sharp tones. Starting up wildly, I saw at my the idol of her parents' hearts, so fair and deli­ cabin door the trembling figure of Mrs. F , cate, who must now venture out in a frail boat her face white with fear, her eyes distended on the wide stormy sea. I uttered a wild with horror. My own teeth chattering with prayer to God for her, full of sobs and anguish, fright, I asked her what was the matter. "Oh, with tears that don't come often in a lifetime, d- we are going down," she said. " The ship is and then there followed a dead calm, in wliich I sinking!" Husband, mother, brothers, sisters, saw every minute detail of the scene about me. came to my thought in that instant with a There had been no thought of removing the fearful agony of yearning. My cliUd, my only breakfast, and with the rolling of the ship, one, was asleep beside me. Wildly I stooped whicli was every moment becoming worse, and kissed her, for I thought at that first everything had fallen on the floor, and was dash­ moment there was no hope, and that, foundered ing about in all directions. Boxes, water-jugs, at sea, we were going down rapidly. The child plates, dishes, chairs, glasses, were pitching from slept on, and I hushed my breath to listen. one end of the saloon to the other. Children Stand 1 could not, for the ship was roUing screaming, sailors shouting and cursing, and frightfully, and every few moments a great wave loud above all there was the creaking of timbers, would dash with remorseless force against her and the sullen sound of water fast gaining upon sides, making her shake and quiver again. us iti the hold of the ship, which groaned and laboured like a Uving thing in agony. Mrs. F had gone with her two Uttle ones into the captain's cabin. Awaking my chUd, I Poor Mrs. E was in a terrible strait at this hastily dressed her and myself in the first bits moment. Her little boy was discovered helping of clothing I could find, and joined my friend. himself out of the medicine-chest, particularly The small leak had at last burst into a large busy with the contents of a broken calomel one, and the ship w^as filling rapidly. We re­ bottle. How^ pale she looked with her poor —=^^^^ 166 [March 26,1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby

Uttle baby in her arms. If I remember aright, future looked, yet she was with me, so far safe we made the boy drink some lamp oil as an and well. emetic. At any rate, he survived the calomel. Aw^ay w^e drifted, a mere speck upon the And now the first mate, upon whose decision ocean. Before night there came a storm of and firmness much depended, having lost his thunder, lightning, wind, and rain, that lasted presence of mind, had drunk deeply of wiiisky. through the darkness, and by whicli we were He was intoxicated, and so, too, were many of drenched through and thi'ough. I sat up for the sailors, who had foUowed his example. What some twelve or fourteen hours on a narrow W w^as to become of us with a fast sinking ship plank, with my child in my arms, utterly and a parcel of di'unken men for our protectors ? miserable, cold, and hopeless, soaked to the skin, The captain had'been busily employed in order­ blinded by the salt spray, my face and hands ing out food and water to supply the boats, smarting intolerably with the unusual ex­ collecting his ship's papers, examining his charts, posure. When daylight came we all looked &c. The lowering of the boats he had entrusted wan and lost. There was a faint light in the to his officers. On hearing of the drunkenness distance, which w^e hoped might be a ship's light, on deck, lus first thought was to get the women but it proved to be on board the other boat, and children off at once, for should the sailors with its now sobered crew. For three days seize the boats, what would become of us ? Two we kept in sight of each other, but the boats had already been smashed wliUst lowering third day we parted company, and saw them no them^into the sea, and there were only two re­ more. maining. Forty-seven people to cram into two fraU boats, fifteen hundred miles from land. During the storm and confusion the greater Delicately-nurtured women, helpless children, part of our biscuits had been soaked with salt drunken and desperate men. w^ater and made useless, Itw^as also discovered that the food collected for the captain's boat The captain and the second officer (a Scotch­ had been thrown by mistake into the other, man from Greenock) behaved admirably at this therefore it was necessary at once to put us on time. By the help of the most sober of the aUow^ance; half a pint of water, and half a sailors, the captain's own boat was lowered; biscuit a day to each person. Except the some small mattresses, piUow^s, blankets, a cask biscuit, there were only a few smaU tins of of water, sacks of biscuit, and nautical instru­ preserved strawberries and Indian corn, and ments necessary for the captain's use were first these were given to the ladies. How the poor put in; then we were let down by ropes. It children cried with hunger as the days dragged seems marveUous, when I think of it now, that on ! Think what it must have been to the in our descent we were not dashed to pieces mothers to hear chUdren delicately nurtured against the ship's side. We had to wait for sobbing ravenously for a piece of bread or a each descent a favourable moment whUst she drink of water, craving for it aU day, falling was leaning over. Then the word of command asleep whilst asking for it, awaking in the was given, and we were slung down like sheep. night with the same heartrending cry, and the My heart stood stUl whilst my little one was broken-hearted mothers utteriy powerless to going down, and then I followed. It was a satisfy them. I felt desperate, mad, at that terrible sight for a woman to see that poor time. I would have flung myself thankfully creature whose baby was born the night before, into the waves, if by so doing I could have looking like a corpse in a long dressing-gown of procured bread for my child, white flannel, with the poor little atom of Eor the first two or three days we were fall mortaUty tightly clasped in her arms. I thought of hope that we should meet a ship, aud she would die before the day was over. consoled each other by labouring to make hght At last we were all in the boat; four women, of our difficulties. Yet had it not been that we five children, the second mate, and sixteen sailors. were shipwrecked in w^arm latitudes, we could The captain stayed on the ship, providing for not have saved our lives. the safety of the drunken creatures who could The boat leaked from the beginning, and the not take care of themselves, and then he joined saUors by turns baled the water out in httle us. How small our boat looked by the side of cans. Thus we v/ere continually lying or sittmg that large ship ! And we had to get quickly in salt water. The part of the boat set apart out of her reach, for she was rolling so heavily for the women and children w^as amidships, and that the waters near her boiled up Uke a mael­ about seven feet square. There we always re­ strom. mained huddled together from sunset to sunrise, The chief officer, three passengers, and the when we had to leave our places, and in tbe remaining saUors, were stiU on board the David daytime stow ourselves anywhere to give the Brown when we left her. I suppose they were men room for their rowing. soon in their boat, for they overtook us some Exposed to the glare of a tropical sun for hours after. hours together, nearly mad with thirst, bearing It was no light trial to look at that once my child in my weak arms, for she was too much beautiful ship, left to her fate in the stormy sea, exhausted to stand, there was a feeling of burn­ with all my little treasiu'cs in her, for the waters ing, sickening heat on my brain, and the horrid to close over. Yet still how little was the disgust for everybody audi everything around me worth to me of everything she contained in was almost more than I could endure. I never comparison with my child. And dark as the shed any tears. Often I would sit for hours X Charles Dic]:Gns.j ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [March 26,1S6'4.] 167

without any thought at all, vacantly gazing on haustion, only to wake with a shuddering start the ocean. at feeling something on my face. I would put We had three days of dead calm. The sun up my hands in a fright and find my face covered glared down upon us pitUessly, and I thought with the dirty wet feet of a sleeping sailor. how pleasant it would be to throw myself into the Then I would push them away with my small sea, and sink calmly to death beneath its waves. amount of strength, but that made no impres­ I lost aU wish to live—for Ufe seemed horrible. sion. Then I would say, " Oh, please take your I cannot describe the days as they passed, sepa­ feet away," and a heavy snore or a curse would rately one by one. When I look upon them be the only answer, the frightful amount of they aU seem to have been one misery. I re­ cursii\^ and swearing common among the sailors member that on the third day out poor Kitty's at a time when every day seemed Ukely to be baby died—indeed, it had been dying from the our last, filled me with horror and amazeriient. first. It never had a chance of living, for it I must not forget one incident, trifling in it­ had no fit attention and no sustenance. The self, but whicli might have caused the death of poor mother cried bitterly when at last it became one of the saUors. On the day of the wreck I cold on her bosom, but its death was a merciful had caused two or three bottles of ale and one release. Wrapped in a shawl of bright colours, of claret to be put in the boat, thinking it might it was thrown overboard, but was so light that be of great use to us. On the third or fom-th it could not sink, and floated for hours on a sea night out, when we were shivering helplessly so cahn hi the hot sun that scarce a ripple could after a drenching shower of rain, we thought be seen. At last it disappeared suddenly, the prey that a bottle of ale should be opened for the of some hungry shark, aud when afterwards the women and chUdren, but not a bottle of any horrid monsters crowded round our boat they sort was to be found. The rage of the captain added to our misery. Hitherto the chUdren had was awful. "Who amongst the sailors," cried been plunged into the sea every morning to pre­ he, " could be so base, so cruel, as to drink the serve them in health, butw^e dared not continue ale belonging to one of the ladies, and put on this practice with those horrid creatures on our board expressly for the suffering Avomen ?" Eor lee. Every evening, before the sun went down, some time the thief could not be discovered, but a sailor was sent to the top of the mast to look at last one of the men told who was the delin­ out. But every evening he reported no vessel quent, and then the captain, in his wrath, said in sight, and again and again the sun set on us that the man who could be guilty of such mean­ without hope. Then we had nights of drench­ ness at such a time was worthy of death, and ing pitUess rain, for we were now in the region should be thrown overboard. And the decree where squalls come up with great fury. The would certainly have been executed, had not Mrs. sky suddenly becomes dark, and a quick sharp E—— and myself implored the captain to spare wind arises, herald of a rain-storm. When the man's life. After many prayers on our part travelUng by the steamers in these latitudes the he consented. I do not know whether the man captain calls out, "There's a squall coming; was grateful or not; certainly he never said ladies better go below," upon which there is a that he was. I mention this incident to show great rushing and collecting of books and shawls, how men take the law into their own hands at and in a few moments the decks are deserted, a time of great and common perU. while the passengers, peeping out of the windows, rather enjoy the little excitement. Very different Every day now increased our suffering; the was our case, for we could only w^atch the storm hunger of the children was frightful, and when gathering in the distance, and know that we had the water was served out they would fight for to Ue there to be drenched through, and to dry it with their little hands, and often upset it again under the blazing sun, half a dozen times entirely in their eager haste to possess it. As in a day, and at night to have the same trouble, the days dragged along, the men looked almost only aggravated by the darkness. wolfish in their hunger and desperation. And they were hard worked, too, for they had to From this cause, and the incesstint contact row night and day alternately. Some of their with salt water, which continually leaked into faces entirely lost their natural expression, be­ the boat, the delicate skin of the women and coming wild with hunger and thirst. And then children became frightfully irritated, and in the a fearful talk arose among some of the crew% total absence of fresh water this irritation pro­ that they might eat the children. But .the duced sores. Ah me! What a horrid thing it captain was warned of their plot, and there were t was to be literally surrounded by water, soaked brave men among the sailors who had pityfor us. through with it, our eyes aching with the sight It was on the morning of the tenth day that of it, and yet longing with unutterable agony this frightful thought came into the heads of for a draught of it to quench our burning thirst, three or four desperate men, and the captain or to wash our smarting bUstering skin. and a few trustworthy companions had made up One night w^hen it was raining heavUy I tried their minds to slay the would-be murderers that the experiment of lying down with my mouth very night in their sleep. The last and fatal open to catch a few stray drops, but a huge hour of our great agony seemed to be come; but wave came dashing along and burst full upon there was pity in Heaven. The evening before, us, pouring down my throat and almost choking when the sun set in glorious tropical splendour, me. It was cruelly salt and nauseous. I kissed my child in despair, because another I would sometimes fall asleep from pure ex­ day had gone and had brought no relief, w'hen

-', y *A _ ^. 168 ALL THE Y&Srft UUi^D, [March 26,1864.] she said, "Mamma, I wiU pray to God." Tlie she sees so many people, she will pass us like little one was only four years old, a blue-eyed, that cursed thing this morning." golden-haired creature, with a wondrously fair Down we went breathless. complexion and innocent face, and the contrast Nearer and nearer she came, faster rowed our of this pretty thing kneeling in the desolate boat hungry sailors, when there rose a wUd shout, with the wUd, haggard-looking men and women " She has stopped !" and surely there she was at who surrounded her, was almost startling. Her rest in the waters, waiting to see what manner prayer Avas very simple ; with clasped hands of beings we were. " Row faster, my men, and and trustful eyes raised to heaven, she said: keep down the women and children." Ah! "Please God send a ship." That was aU. The hot did he think that the sight of us poor women tears gushed to my eyes for the first time in that would frighten away that ship ? And then boat, and I took her in my almost powerless the sweet voice of my little one said, "Oh, arms, and we both slept the sleep of exhaustion. mamma, God has heard my prayer,'he has sent On the morning of the tenth day, about a ship to save us.'* eleven o'clock, some one called out, "A sail, a Oh, what a lovely afternoon that was when sail." Wonderful sound ! how we started, we were saved—such a blaze of sunshine, such almost upsetting the boat in our eagerness to blue skies, such a glistening, glowing sea, as see where it was and what it was. if even the treacherous ocean were rejoicing The next question was how could we make with us. At length we were close alongside of her see us ? We could see her, it is true, a the ship, and saw crowds of human beings faint speck on the horizon, but we were so small, clustering about to look at us—dark, swarthy such a pitiful little boat, and had no flags, no faces, for they were all Spaniards, but fuU of signals of distress. What if she were to pass pity, wonderment, and horror. They took us all us ! Frightful thought—to be so near help and in one by one, and when they saw the Women yet not to reach it. We hoisted a white towel, and little children they wept. They could not and shouted, and tried every means in our speak our language, and looked upon us with power to attract attention. On she came, nearer bewilderment, but when I (who fortunately could and nearer, until we could make out that she speak Spanish), kneeling down on deck, said was a barque. The captain could even dis­ Gracias a Dies (thank God), their tongues were tinguish that she carried the Hamburg flag. loosened, aud there was a flood of questions and Why she had her flag hoisted, if she did not see crowding round us, with weeping and laughing us, I cannot say. Never mind who or what she and shaking of hands. How good were those was. She passed along and left us. kind-hearted men! How I thank them all, Theu curses loud and deep came from the every one, now as I write, from the worthy sailors' lips. Then the women looked into each captain down to the lowest of his crew. And other's faces, and the chUdren cried, and the they brought us bread and wine and water- wolfish eyes of the would-be cannibals were precious water, how good it w^as 1 fixed upon us, and I sat still for hours without Saved at last, when we could have endured a word. no more. Let it at least be permitted to a Forsaken apparently by God and man, I was mother to beUeve that the prayer of her little trying, with the stupor of despair, and (I think) one had risen to the Mercy Seat. coming delirium, to meet my fate; and some songs that I used to sing iu San Francisco NEW WORK BY ME. DICKENS, came into my head. The notes would not come In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions cf right, and I wondered whether such a note was "Pickwick," " Copperfleld," &c. G sharp, or A flat, and the sea looked red and On APRIL 30th "will be published, PART I., price Is., oi full of specks. It was a burning hot day, and I was half A ^iW WORK BY CHARLES DICKENS asleep about three P.M., when again was heard IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS. the cry of '^ A sail, a sail." This time I made With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE. a very feeble attempt to look about me, but the London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, PiccadUly, captain and his crew were all alert, and a vessel surely was in sight. Now ready, bound in cloth, price os. 6d., On she came, looking so large to our forlorn eyes. Again our towel was hoisted. Would THE TENTH YOLUME. she pass us ? "Let the women and children lie down in the The GENERAL INDEX is now ready^ bottom of the boat," roared the captain; "if price 4id.

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