Cab drivers I look upon as misanthropic individuals. I fancy many of them were railway directors in the memorable year of speculation, and have known better days. The driver of a buss is a prince of good fellows compared with a cabman. The former has no pecuniary anxieties to weigh him down, he is full of fun in a quiet way, and in case of a quarrel he has his conductor to take his side—he has his regular employment and his regular pay; the cabby is alone, and has to do battle with all the world, and he has often horses to drive and people to deal with that would tire the patience of a Job. He is constantly being aggravated—there is no doubt about that; the magistrates aggravate him—the police aggravate him—his fares aggravate him—his ’oss aggravates him—the crowded state of the street, and the impossibility of getting along aggravates him—the weather aggravates him—if it is hot he feels it, and has a terrible tendency to get dry—and if it is cold and wet not even his damp wrappers and overcoats can keep out, I suspect, chilblains; and I know he has corns, and he will use bad language in a truly distressing manner. Then his hours of work are such as to ruffle a naturally serene temper, and when he finds it hard work to make both ends meet, and sees how gaily young fellows spend their money—how he drives them from one public to another, and from one place of amusement to another—and in what questionable society,—one can scarce wonder if now and then cabby is a little sour, and if his language be as rough as his thoughts. Strange tales can he tell.A friend of the writer’s once hired a chaise to take him across the country; their way led them through a turnpike-gate, and, to my friend’s horror, the driver never once pulled up to allow him to pay the toll. My friend expostulated; as the toll had to be paid, he thought the better plan was to pay it at once. “Oh, it’s all right,” said Jehu, smiling, “they know me well enough—I am the man wot drives the prisoners, and prisoners never pay.” Our London cabby is often similarly employed, and, as he rushes by, we may well speculate as to the nature and mission of his fare. Cabby so often drives rogues that we cannot wonder if in time he becomes a bit of a rogue himself.
Till lately the London poor had no means of getting water but the pump or the public-house. Of the latter we can have but a poor opinion, nor all the former much better. It appears that “the London pumps can never be otherwise than dangerous sources of supply; the porous sod from which they suck being that into which our cesspools and leaky drains discharge a great part of their fluid—sometimes even a great part of their solid contents, and in which, till very recently, all our interments have taken place. It is a soil which consequently abounds with putrid and putrefiable matter. The water derived from it invariably contains products of organic decomposition, more or less oxidised; and it is a mere chance, beyond the power of water-drinkers to measure or control, whether that oxidation shall at all times be so incomplete as to have left the water still capable of a very dangerous kind of fermentation.” We are further told that, “the shallow well water receives the drainage of Highgate Cemetery, of numerous burial grounds, and of innumerablecesspools which percolate the soil on the London side of the Cemetery, and flow towards the Metropolis. . . . That the pump-water also becomes contaminated with the residual liquors of manufacturing processes. . . . That a man who habitually makes use of London pump-water, lives in perpetual danger of disease.”
But one of the greatest and most unexpected sources of danger is, that the sense of taste or smell fails to warn us of the danger of using such water, since clearness, coolness, and tastelessness, may exist, without being evidences of wholesomeness. We are also told that “the carbonic acid of the decomposed matter makes them sparkling, and the nitrates they contain give them a pleasant coolness to the taste, so that nothing could be better adapted to lure their victims to destruction than the external qualities of these waters—hence the worst of them are most popular for drinking purposes.”
The nitrates with which these waters are charged generally proceed from the decomposition of animal matter, such as the corpses interred in London churchyards; hence the popularity of some pumps near churchyards; and to such an extent are some of these waters charged with this ingredient, that J. B. C. Aldis, M.D., declares the water of a surface-well (though cool and sparkling to the taste) twice exploded during the process of incineration when he was analysing it!
Under these peculiar circumstances it does seem strange that in London the weary, the thirsty, and the poor have thus practically been driven to the publichouse, and that they should have been left without an alternative. A man toiling all day, bearing, it may be, heavy burdens in the summer sun, miles it may be from his home, parched with thirst, practically to quench that thirst has been compelled to resort to the beer-shop or the gin-palace. And what has been the consequence, that the man has been led to drink more than was good for him—that he has got into bad company—that he has wasted his time and his money, injured his health, and possibly been led into the commission of vice and crime. Every day the evil has been demonstrated in the most striking, in the most alarming, and in the most abundant manner. A benevolent gentleman at Liverpool was the first to see the evil, and to devise a remedy. He erected fountains, elegant and attractive in character, furnished with pure water, and in one day of about thirteen hours twenty-four thousand seven hundred and two persons drank at the thirteen fountains in that town. Of that twenty-four thousand seven hundred and two persons, many would otherwise have resorted to public-houses or gin-palaces to quench their thirst. In smaller places, where results are easier to ascertain, it has been found that in reality the fountains do keep people from frequenting beer-shops, and, therefore, do keep them sober. A gentleman who largely employs workmen in ironworks in the town of Wednesbury, having recently erected fountains for his workpeople, says that his manager has since observed an improvement in their habits and regularityof attendance, attributable to their discarded use of beer, in consequence of the facility of obtaining pure water which the fountains afford. The publicans in London understand this, as it appears from the report of the committee of the Free Drinking Association, held at Willis’s Rooms last week, when the drinking cups have been missing they have invariably been found at some neighbouring public-house. The movement, as we have intimated, commenced at Liverpool; it was not long before it reached London. According to Mr. Wakefield, the honorary secretary of the Association, there was a greater need for this movement in London than elsewhere, owing to the fact that the greater radiation of heat from a larger surface of buildings, less shade, more smoke and dust, and longer street distances, combines to make London a more thirst-exciting place than any provincial town. Mr. Samuel Gurney, M.P., was the first, who, in a letter published in some of the Loudon papers, called attention to the grievous privation which the want of these fountains inflicted on the London poor, and subsequently by his great personal influence and liberal pecuniary contributions, and unwearied exertions founded the Association; the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Earl of Carlisle, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other distinguished noblemen and gentlemen rallied around him. London parishes and vestries have most of them come forward and contributed, and already nearly a hundred drinking fountains have been erected by this Association. It is inferred from the Liverpoolstatistics that at least 400 fountains might be advantageously erected in London; these could not be constructed and kept in repair at a less cost than £20,000. To gain this sum the Association appeals to the public. Last year the total receipts of the Association amounted to £2,609; much more is required; a very good sign, indicative of the appreciation on the part of Londoners of the boon offered them, is found in the fact that the poor themselves are contributing voluntarily and in an unostentatious manner to defray the expenses of erection. The plan of attaching moneyboxes to the fountains for the donations of friends has been adopted, and the first money-box has been placed at the first erected fountain on Snow Hill. So far as the experience of four weeks justifies an opinion, it is very encouraging, and a sum of 8d. a day has been deposited in small coins, varying from farthings to two-shilling pieces. The experiment is to be extended to five other fountains, when, if successful, it is proposed to supply every fountain with a money-box, when the erection will be more than self-supporting. “Of all the efforts I have been called to make,” said the Earl of Shaftesbury, “there is none that so strongly commends itself to my feelings and my judgment as the Free Drinking Fountain movement.” The Earl of Carlisle says, “Erect drinking fountains, and habits of intemperance will soon show a diminution, and with a diminution of intemperance will be stopped the most prolific of all the sources of crime and misery.” Most people willsay the same, and we look upon these fountains—elegant in character, supplied with pure water—as a grateful acknowledgment by the richer classes of the interest and sympathy they feel for those in less happy circumstances.
As evidence of the grateful interest elicited by this movement in the humblest classes, let the reader take the following letters. The first was addressed, “for Mr. Samuel Gurney Esquire who bilt the fountaine Newgate Street.”
to Mr. Gurney esquireJuly 9Kind Siri take liberty to giv you my best thanks fore the butiful fountaine what you wos so kind to giv to us poor men for Newgate Street and i would plese ask you sir to be so kind and giv us 2 more cups extra fore wen in Newgate street i see the squeeging and shovin for water for only the 2 cups of woman and little boys is not enuff this verry hot days and God bless you Sir fore all your goodness what you dofrom a poor man in London.
to Mr. Gurney esquire
July 9
Kind Sir
i take liberty to giv you my best thanks fore the butiful fountaine what you wos so kind to giv to us poor men for Newgate Street and i would plese ask you sir to be so kind and giv us 2 more cups extra fore wen in Newgate street i see the squeeging and shovin for water for only the 2 cups of woman and little boys is not enuff this verry hot days and God bless you Sir fore all your goodness what you do
from a poor man in London.
Monday June the 20thGentlemen of the CommitteeI see by the paper of yesterday the working Men had a large Meeting on the Fountain question. I think under your care and good Management the Working Women could also form and domuch good. Also the Ladies could associate with the working Classes as their Subscriptions could be distinct from ours; as of course our means are very limited; but surely we could most of us become Subscribers at twopence per week in so noble a cause that bids fair to drive the curse of Public Houses from our land—King’s Cross wants one much, and there is room in the open Square also at the Portland Road at the end of Euston Road. They ought to be round or Square with 4 or 6 places to Drink from, with something of interest to mark to whose honour they were raised. One Subject could be Prince Edward suppressing the wine houses in Gibraltar, 1792. I think nothing could be better for the purpose as we all feel something must be done to stop this crying evil that is sending thousands to Death and Madness—the other subject could be Alderman Wood who rose from a poor Charity School Boy of Tiverton Devonshire to plead the Duke of Kent’s return to England that his child, our present good queen, should be born on British ground; so we as a people have to thank the late Sir Matthew Wood for that. I think the wives and daughters of freemasons will give freely in respect to the late Duke of Kent who spent I may say thousands to raise the standard of that noble order. . . . Forgive these few remarks of A Soldier and a Mason’s Daughter who has her country’s interest at heart.J. DUNN × 103 Euston Road Euston Sq. Gentlemen forgive the intrusion on your time also mybad grammar but remember I hear and see every Day the Curse of Drink.
Monday June the 20th
Gentlemen of the Committee
I see by the paper of yesterday the working Men had a large Meeting on the Fountain question. I think under your care and good Management the Working Women could also form and domuch good. Also the Ladies could associate with the working Classes as their Subscriptions could be distinct from ours; as of course our means are very limited; but surely we could most of us become Subscribers at twopence per week in so noble a cause that bids fair to drive the curse of Public Houses from our land—King’s Cross wants one much, and there is room in the open Square also at the Portland Road at the end of Euston Road. They ought to be round or Square with 4 or 6 places to Drink from, with something of interest to mark to whose honour they were raised. One Subject could be Prince Edward suppressing the wine houses in Gibraltar, 1792. I think nothing could be better for the purpose as we all feel something must be done to stop this crying evil that is sending thousands to Death and Madness—the other subject could be Alderman Wood who rose from a poor Charity School Boy of Tiverton Devonshire to plead the Duke of Kent’s return to England that his child, our present good queen, should be born on British ground; so we as a people have to thank the late Sir Matthew Wood for that. I think the wives and daughters of freemasons will give freely in respect to the late Duke of Kent who spent I may say thousands to raise the standard of that noble order. . . . Forgive these few remarks of A Soldier and a Mason’s Daughter who has her country’s interest at heart.
J. DUNN × 103 Euston Road Euston Sq. Gentlemen forgive the intrusion on your time also mybad grammar but remember I hear and see every Day the Curse of Drink.
As evidence of the filthy nature of London water and of the need of fountains, let the reader take the following letter from Dr. Letheby, the City Medical Officer, addressed to the Honorary Secretary of the Drinking Fountain Association; and let the reader bear in mind that Dr. Letheby’s evidence is confirmed by that of upwards of fifty other medical gentlemen. Dr. Letheby says,—
“From what I know of the habits of the poor within this city, I am led to believe that the erection of drinking fountains would be of especial service to them; for although the average supply of water to the metropolis is abundant, yet the distribution of it is so unequal that the poorer classes do not obtain their proper proportion; in fact, this has become so serious a matter in most of the courts and alleys of this city, that I have great difficulty in dealing with it. You are, no doubt, aware that the water companies have been obliged to shorten the time of supply ever since they have been compelled by the Act of Parliament to furnish filtered water to the public; and, as the poor have not the means of altering the present condition of the service, and adapting it to the new arrangement, their receptacles are never filled during the short time that the water is on. Every contrivance is, therefore,used to secure as much water as possible while it is flowing; but, partly from the filthy state of the cisterns, and partly from the fœtid emanations to which the water is exposed in the over-crowded rooms in which it is kept, it is rarely, if ever, drinkable. The poor, then, would be too glad to avail themselves of the opportunities afforded by the public fountains, and would, I am quite sure, hail them as boons of the greatest value; and when it comes to be known that the water which flows from the fountains is as pure as chemical and other contrivances can render it, the boon will most assuredly be prized by all.“At present, the public wells of this city are largely used by all classes of persons; and, knowing what I do of the composition of these waters, I have looked with much concern at the probable mischief that might be occasioned by them; for though they are generally grateful to the palate, and deliriously cool, they are rich in all kinds of filthy decomposing products, as the soakage from sewers and cesspools, and the not less repulsive matters from the over-crowded churchyards. What, therefore, can be of greater importance to the public than the opportunity of drinking water which shall not only be grateful and cool, as that from the city pumps, but which shall have none of its lurking dangers?“As to the quality of the water that is now supplied by the public companies I can speak in the fullest confidence, for it is not merely the most available foryour purposes, but it is in reality the best supply that can be obtained. I need not describe the admirable arrangements that have been employed by the several companies for the purification of the water, but I may state that there is not a city in Europe that has so large a supply of good water as this metropolis, and I do not know where or how you could obtain a better. I say, therefore, without hesitation, that the water supplied by the public companies is the best that can be used for the fountains; and, seeing that it will be twice filtered, and carefully freed from every kind of impurity by the most perfect chemical and mechanical contrivances, there need be no hesitation on the part of the most fastidious in freely drinking at the public fountains.”
“From what I know of the habits of the poor within this city, I am led to believe that the erection of drinking fountains would be of especial service to them; for although the average supply of water to the metropolis is abundant, yet the distribution of it is so unequal that the poorer classes do not obtain their proper proportion; in fact, this has become so serious a matter in most of the courts and alleys of this city, that I have great difficulty in dealing with it. You are, no doubt, aware that the water companies have been obliged to shorten the time of supply ever since they have been compelled by the Act of Parliament to furnish filtered water to the public; and, as the poor have not the means of altering the present condition of the service, and adapting it to the new arrangement, their receptacles are never filled during the short time that the water is on. Every contrivance is, therefore,used to secure as much water as possible while it is flowing; but, partly from the filthy state of the cisterns, and partly from the fœtid emanations to which the water is exposed in the over-crowded rooms in which it is kept, it is rarely, if ever, drinkable. The poor, then, would be too glad to avail themselves of the opportunities afforded by the public fountains, and would, I am quite sure, hail them as boons of the greatest value; and when it comes to be known that the water which flows from the fountains is as pure as chemical and other contrivances can render it, the boon will most assuredly be prized by all.
“At present, the public wells of this city are largely used by all classes of persons; and, knowing what I do of the composition of these waters, I have looked with much concern at the probable mischief that might be occasioned by them; for though they are generally grateful to the palate, and deliriously cool, they are rich in all kinds of filthy decomposing products, as the soakage from sewers and cesspools, and the not less repulsive matters from the over-crowded churchyards. What, therefore, can be of greater importance to the public than the opportunity of drinking water which shall not only be grateful and cool, as that from the city pumps, but which shall have none of its lurking dangers?
“As to the quality of the water that is now supplied by the public companies I can speak in the fullest confidence, for it is not merely the most available foryour purposes, but it is in reality the best supply that can be obtained. I need not describe the admirable arrangements that have been employed by the several companies for the purification of the water, but I may state that there is not a city in Europe that has so large a supply of good water as this metropolis, and I do not know where or how you could obtain a better. I say, therefore, without hesitation, that the water supplied by the public companies is the best that can be used for the fountains; and, seeing that it will be twice filtered, and carefully freed from every kind of impurity by the most perfect chemical and mechanical contrivances, there need be no hesitation on the part of the most fastidious in freely drinking at the public fountains.”
One bright May morning in the year of our Lord, 1445, the streets of London presented an unusually animated appearance. Here and there were quaint devices and rare allegories, well pleasing alike to the rude eye and taste of citizen and peer. From dark lane and darker alley poured forth swarms eager to behold the stranger, who, young, high-spirited, and beautiful, had come to wear the diadem of royalty, and to share the English throne. The land of love and song had given her birth. Her “gorgeous beauty,” as our national dramatist describes it, had been ripened but by fifteen summers’s suns. Hope told a flattering tale. She discerned not the signs that prophesied a dark and dreary future. A tempest rudely greeted her as she landed on our shores. Sickness preyed upon her frame. Those whose fathers’s bones were bleaching on the battle-fields of France murmured that Maine and Anjou, won by so free an expenditure of English blood and gold, should be ceded to the sire of one who, dowerless, came to claim the throne, and, asit speedily appeared, to rule the fortunes, ofHenry Plantagenet. In mercy the sad perspective of thirty wintry years was hidden from her view. She dreamt not of the cup of bitterness it was hers to drink—how she should be driven from the land that then hailed her with delight—how all that woman should abhor should be laid to her charge—how, in her desolate chateau, stripped of her power, and fame, and crown, lonely and broken-hearted, she should spend the evening of her life in unavailing sorrow and regret, till, with bloodshot eyes, and wrinkled brow, and leprous skin, she should become all that men shuddered to behold. But onward passed the procession, and smiles were on her lips, and joy was in her heart. Bright was her queenly eye, and beautiful was her flaxen hair, so well known in romance or in the songs of wandering troubadour. Around her were the children of no common race, gallant and haughty, dark-eyed Norman barons, ready to keep, as their fathers had won, with their own good swords, power and nobility upon British soil.
Years have come and gone. The great ones of the earth have felt their power slip from them. Crowns and sceptres have turned to dust. Thrones have tottered to their fall; but there was then that evolving itself of which succeeding ages have witnessed but the more full development. In that procession there were symptoms of a coming change—signs, and warning voices, that told the noble that the power and pride of the individual man was being torn from him—that he had been weighedin the balance and found wanting. The trading companies—the sons of the Saxon churl—the middle classes—for the first time appeared upon the scene, and were deemed a fitting escort to royalty. History herself has deigned to tell us of their show and bravery—how, on horseback, with blue gowns and embroidered shoes, and red hoods, they joined the nobles and prelates of our land. Four hundred years have but seen the increase of their wealth, of their respectability, and power. Their struggle upwards has been long and tedious, but it has been safe and sure. The wars of the red rose and the white—wars which beggared the princes of England, and spilt the blood of its nobles like water—were favourable to the progress of the middle class. The battle of Barnet witnessed the fall and death of the kingmaker, and with her champion feudalism fell. The power passed from the baron. The most thoughtless began to perceive that a time was coming when mere brute strength would fail its possessor. Dim and shadowy notions of the superiority of right to might were loosened from the bondage of the past, and set afloat; discoveries, strange and wonderful, became the property of the many; the fountains of knowledge, and thought, and fame were opened, and men pressed thither, eager to win higher honour than that obtained by the intrigues of court, or the accidents of birth.
With all that was bright and good did the middle classes identify themselves. In them was the stronghold of civilization. The prince and peer were unwilling toadmit of changes in polity, in religion, or in law, which to them could bring no good, and might possibly bring harm. Conventional usage had stamped them with a higher worth than that which by right belonged to them; their adulterated gold passed as current coin; hence it was their interest to oppose every attempt to establish a more natural test. The aristocracy ceased to be the thinkers of the age. From the middle classes came the men whose words and deeds we will not willingly let die. Shakspere, Milton, and Cromwell shew what of genius, and power, and divine aim, at one time the middle classes contained.
And now, once more, is there not an upheaving of humanity from beneath? and over society as it is, does not once more loom the shadow of a coming change? Does not middle-class civilization in its mode of utterance and thought, betoken symptoms of decay? Look at it as it does the genteel thing, and sleeps an easy hour in Episcopalian church or Dissenting chapel—as it faintly applauds a world-renovating principle, and gracefully bows assent to a divine idea. Ask it its problem of life, its mission, and it knows no other than to have a good account at the bank, and to keep a gig; possibly, if it be very ambitious, it may, in its heart of hearts, yearn for a couple of flunkeys and a fashionable square. It is very moral and very religious. Much is it attached to morality and religion in the abstract; but to take one step in their behalf—to cut the shop, for their sake, for an hour—is a thing it rarely does. Often is it too muchtrouble for it to vote at a municipal election—to employ the franchise to which it has a right—to support the man or the paper that advocates its principles. That is, it refuses to grapple with the great principle of ill with which man comes into this world to make war; and, rather than lose a pound, or sacrifice its respectability, or depart from the routine of formalism into which it has grown, it will let the devil take possession of the world.
Looked at from a right point of view, the world’s history is a series of dissolving views. We have had the gorgeous age of nobility, the money-making one of the middle-classes—lower still we must go. Truth lies at the bottom of the well; the pearls, whose lustre outshine even beauty’s eye are hidden in the deep. The men who now stamp their impress on the age—whose thought is genuine and free—who shew the hollowness of shams—who demand for the common brotherhood of man their common rights—who herald a coming age—who are its teachers and apostles—originally laboured in coal-mines, like Stephenson; or mended shoes, like Cooper; or plied the shuttle, like Fox; or stood, as did Burns and Nicoll, at the plough, withGod’sheaven above them, andGod’sinspiration in their hearts.
The decline and fall of England has already found chroniclers enough. Ledru Rollin and the Protectionists are agreed as regards the lamentable fact. G. F. Young, the chairman of the Society for the Protection of British Industry and Capital, believed it as firmly as his ownexistence. A similar opinion is more than hinted in the tedious History of Dr. Alison. At a still earlier period the same doleful tale was ever on the lips and pervaded the writings of Southey, the Laureate and the renegade. If these gentlemen are right, then the melancholy conviction must be forced upon us that England has seen her best days; that it will never be with her what it was in time past, when she bred up an indomitable race, when her flag of triumph fluttered in every breeze, and floated on every sea. We must believe that England’s sun is about to set; that, with its brightness and its beauty, it will never more bless and irradiate the world.
Against such a conclusion we emphatically protest. We look back upon our national career, and we see that each age has witnessed the people’s growth in political power; that especially since that grand field-day of Democracy, the French Revolution, that power has gone on increasing with accelerated force; that it was to the increased ascendancy of that power that we owed it that we rode in safety whilst the political ocean was covered with wreck and ruin. If one thing be clearer than another in our national history, it is that our greatness and the power of the people have grown together. At a season like the present it is well to remember this. Prophets often fulfil their own prophecies. The Jeremiads of the weak, or the interested, or the fearful, may damp the courage of some hearts; and a people told that they are ruined, that the poor are becoming poorer every day, that theend of all labour is the workhouse or the gaol, that their life is but a lingering death, may come to believe that the handwriting is upon the wall, and that it is hopeless to war with fate.
The fact is, nations, when they die, die offelo-de-se. The national heart becomes unsound, and the national arm weak. The virtue has gone out of it. Its rulers have usurped despotic powers, and the people have been sunk in utter imbecility, or have looked upon life as a May-day game, and nothing more. In our cold northern clime—with the remains of that equality born and bred amidst the beech-forests that bordered the Baltic—the English people could never stoop to this; and hence our glorious destiny. No nation under heaven’s broad light has been more sorely tried than our own. We have taken into pay almost every European power. Our war to restore theBourbons, and thus to crush Liberalism at home, and keep the Tories in office, was carried on at a cost which only Englishmen could have paid; and yet from our long seasons of distress—from our commercial panics, the result of fettered trade—from our formidable continental wars—we have emerged with flying colours, and indomitable strength. Mr. Porter’s statistics showed what we had done in the face of difficulty and danger, and the progress we have made since Mr. Porter’s time is something prodigious. Not yet has the arm of the people been weakened or its eye dulled.
These are facts such as the united Croaker tribe canneither refute nor deny. We understand the meaning of such men when they raise a cry of alarm. What such men dread does in reality infuse into the constitution fresh vigour and life. Not national death, but the reverse is the result. The removal of one abuse, behind which monopoly and class legislation have skulked, is like stripping from the monarch of the forest the foul parasite by which his beauty is hidden and his strength devoured. From such operations the constitution comes out with the elements of life more copious and active in it than before. It finds a wider base in the support and attachment of the people; it becomes more sympathetic with them. It grows with their growth and strengthens with their strength.
It is not true, then, that for us the future is more fraught with anxiety than hope. The theory is denied by fact. It is not true commercially, nor is it true morally. Our progress in morals and manners is, at least, equal to our progress in trade. The coarse manners—the brutal intoxication—the want of all faith in spiritual realities, held not merely by the laity but by the clergy as well of the last century, now no longer exists. Reverend Deans do not now write to ladies as did the bitter Dean of St. Patrick’s to his Stella. Sure are we that Victoria cannot speak of her bishops as, according to Lord Hervey, George II. did, and justly, speak of his. No Prime Minister now would dare to insult the good feeling of the nation by handing his paramour to her carriage from the Opera in the presence of Majesty. Fielding’s novelsgraphically display a state of things which happily now no longer exists. The gossip of our times reveals enough—alas!—too much—of human weakness and immorality; but the gossip of our times is as far superior to that which Horace Walpole has so faithfully preserved, or to that which Mrs. Manley in her “New Atlantis” sullied her woman’s name by retailing, or to that which Count Grammont thought it no disgrace to record, as light to darkness or as dross to gold. Macaulay thus describes the country squire of the seventeenth century:—“His chief pleasures were commonly derived from field-sports, and from an unrefined sensuality. His language and his pronunciation were such as we should now only expect to hear from ignorant clowns. His oaths, coarse jokes, and scurrilous terms of abuse were uttered with the broadest accents of his province.” The country squire of the nineteenth century is surely some improvement upon this; nor has the improvement been confined to him—it has extended to all classes. We still hear much, for instance, of drunkenness, but drunkenness does not prevail as it did when publicans wrote on their signs, as Smollett tells us they did,—“You may here get drunk for one penny, dead drunk for two pence, and clean straw for nothing.”
After all, then, we lay down our pen in hope. We have undergone struggles deep and severe, and such struggles we may still continue to have. With a debt of eight hundred millions like a millstone round our neck—with a population increasing at the rate of a thousand aday—with Ireland’s ills not yet remedied—with half the landed property of the country in the hands of the lawyer or the Jew—with discordant colonies in all parts of the globe—with large masses in our midst degraded by woe and want—barbarians in the midst of civilization—heathens in the full blaze of Christian light—no man can deny that there are breakers ahead. Rather from what we see around us we may conclude that we shall have storms to weather, severe as any that have awakened the energy and heroism of our countrymen in days gone by. But the history of the past teaches us how those storms will be met and overcome. Not by accident is modern history so rich in the possession of the new creed and the new blood, for the want of which the glory of Athens and Corinth, and of her “who was named eternal” passed away as a dream of the night. Not that England may perish does that new blood course through the veins, and that new creed fructify in the hearts of her sons. The progress we have made is the surest indication of the progress it is yet our destiny to make. Onward, then, ye labourers for humanity, heralds of a coming age—onward then till
“We sweep into a younger day.Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.”
“We sweep into a younger day.Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.”
Those who would deny the people their political rights—who would teach a Christianity unworthy of its name—who would inculcate a conventional morality—who would degrade the national heart by perpetuatingreligious and political shams—they, and not the foreigner, are our national enemies. Against them must we wage untiring war, for they are hostile to the progress of the nation, and by that hostility sin against the progress of the world. England will still stand foremost in the files of time—and of that England, London will still remain the heart and head.
london:printed by william ostell,hart street,bloomsbury.
Price3s.6d.,bound in cloth,Second Edition,Revised.
byJAMES EWING RITCHIE.
Contents: Seeing a Man hanged—Catherine-street—The Bal Masqué—Up the Haymarket—Ratcliffe Highway—Judge and Jury Clubs—The Cave of Harmony—Discussion Clubs—Cider Cellars—Leicester Square—Boxing Night—Caldwell’s—Cremorne—The Costermongers’ Free-and-Easy, &c.
opinions of the press.
“We would wish for this little volume an attentive perusal on the part of all to whom inclination or duty, or both, give an interest in the moral, the social, and the religious condition of their fellow-men; above all, we should wish to see it in the hands of bishops, and other ecclesiastical dignitaries—of metropolitan rectors and fashionable preachers—of statesmen and legislators—and of that most mischievous class of men, well-meaning philanthropists. The picture of life in London, of its manifold pitfalls of temptation and corruption, which are here presented to the reader’s eye, is truly appalling. No one can rise from it without a deep conviction that something must be done, ay, and that soon, if the metropolis of the British Empire is not to become a modern Sodom and Gomorrah.”—John Bull.
“There is a matter-of-fact reality about the sketches, but they are chiefly remarkable for the moral tone of their reflections. Generally speaking, painters of these subjects rather throw a purple light over the actual scenes, and say nothing of the consequences to which they lead. Mr. Ritchie is ever stripping off the mask of the mock gaiety before him, and pointing the end to which it must finally come.”—Spectator.
“We have kept Mr. Ritchie’s book lying on our table, hoping that we might find an opportunity for making it the basis of an article on the fearful evils which it discloses. We must be satisfied, however, for the present, with recommending all our readers who are anxious to promote the social and moral regeneration of our great cities to read it carefully; and to remember, while they read, that London does not stand alone, but that all our larger towns are cursed with abominations, such as those which Mr. Ritchie has so vigourously and effectually described.”—Eclectic Review.
“The author of ‘The Night-Side of London’ has graphically described the scenes of debauchery which are to be found at night. It is a fearful and shockingexpose.”—Illustrated Times.
Price2s.,Cheap Edition,Revised and Enlarged,
byJAMES EWING RITCHIE.
Contents: The Religious Denominations of London—Sketches of the Rev. J. M. Bellew—Dale—Liddell—Maurice—Melville—Villiers—Baldwin Brown—Binney—Dr. Campbell—Lynch—Morris—Martin—Brock—Howard Hinton—Sheridan Knowles—Baptist Noel—Spurgeon—Dr. Cumming—Dr. James Hamilton—W. Forster—H. Ierson—Cardinal Wiseman—Miall—Dr. Wolf, &c., &c.
“The subject is an interesting one, and it is treated with very considerable ability. Mr. Ritchie has the valuable art of saying many things in few words: he is never diffuse, never dull, and succeeds in being graphic without becoming flippant. Occasionally his strength of thought and style borders rather too closely on coarseness; but this fault of vigorous natures is counterbalanced by compensatory merit—by an utter absence of cant, a manly grasp of thought, and a wise and genial human-heartedness. The book is a sincere book; the writer says what he means, and means what he says. In these half-earnest days it is a comfort to meet with any one who has ‘the courage of his opinions’ especially on such a subject as the ‘London Pulpit.’”—Daily News.
“One of the cleverest productions of the present day.”—Morning Herald.
Just Published,price3s.6d.,bound in cloth,post-free3s.10d.
byJAMES EWING RITCHIE.
Contents: The House of Commons from the Stranger’s Gallery—A Night with the Lords—The Reporters’ Gallery—The Lobby of the House of Commons—Our London Correspondent—Exeter Hall—A Sunday at the Obelisk—The Penny Gaff—The Derby—Vauxhall—The Stock Exchange—Rag Fair—Mark Lane—The Coal Whippers—Portland Place—An Omnibus Yard—The New Cattle Market—The Government Office—Paternoster Row—The London Hospital.
“We have no doubt that his work will be extensively read, and it deserves no less, for it is thoroughly impartial, very graphic, reliable in its details, and extremely well written.”—Illustrated News of the World.
“We recommend the book as being likely to afford a spare half-hour of pleasant recreation.”—Leader.
“Lively and attractive.”—Spectator.
“Light and graceful sketches of the interior life of the great metropolis.”—Inquirer.
314, Strand,W.C.,Nov.1, 1860.
NOW READY,PRICE FIVE SHILLINGS,
A NEW WORKbyMR. BLANCHARD JERROLD,entitled
This work consists of a series of quaint stories and papers, contributed by Mr. Jerrold to “Household Words.”
[Now ready.
preparing for immediate publication,A New, Revised, and Enlarged Edition of
third edition.BY J. EWING RITCHIE,
author of“about london,”etc.
NEW WORK BY MR. RITCHIE.
just published;price five shillings,
byJ. EWING RITCHIE,author of“The Night Side of London,” “Here and there in London,”“The London Pulpit,”&c.
Contents:—Newspaper People—Spiritualism—About Coal—Highgate—Tom Tidler’s Ground—Westminster Abbey—London Charities—Pedestrianism—Over London Bridge—The House of Commons and the Early Closing Movement—Town Morals—The same subject continued—London Matrimonial—Breach-of-Promise Cases—The London Volunteers—Criminal London—Concerning Cabs—Free Drinking Fountains—Conclusion.
“Mr. Ritchie ought to be a popular author, and largely read by a numerous and highly respectable class.”—Athenæum.
“They are all written with such a knowledge of each subject as might be expected from a perceptive and accurate observer, who has gained his experience from himself, while the descriptive writing is that of a practised hand.”—Illustrated London News.
“We can give to this work our heartiest praise. ‘About London’ is written by one whose object is as much to instruct as to amuse, and who succeeds without any apparent effort in doing both. We say without any apparent effort, because Mr. Ritchie’s sketches are too bold to be stiff, his style too fluent and natural to be laboured. Notwithstanding this, ‘About London’ displays an amount of industrious research very rarely met with, and a knowledge of men and manners which only experience—and active experience, moreover—can supply.”—Literary Gazette.
“The subjects for the most part are familiar to us, and the easy and unaffected style in which they are treated is always sure to gratify without wearying the reader.”—Morning Advertiser.
“Mr. Ritchie has already given us various works devoted to metropolitan subjects, such as ‘The Night Side of Loudon,’ ‘The London Pulpit,’ ‘Here and There in London.’ His volume ‘About London’ will, no doubt, be as widely circulated as its predecessors. In it he communicates a vast mass of information in a pleasant, gossiping style.—Illustrated News of the World.
“Mr. Ritchie is well and favourably known as one of those writers who, whilst possessed of a keen and observant eye, remarks all the social inconsistencies of which human society in the great modern Babylon is composed, and spares neither those who may be said to hold the language of the first murderer—‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ nor others, who grovel in the sensuality, which speedily deforms man into little less than the beast of the earth. In this, the last of the several books in which he has related the doings of London life, high and low, he does not enter so fully into the mysteries of the singular career of the Arabs of our streets, but touches matterson a somewhat higher level with the same force and intelligence, which he has hitherto manifested, combined with a more genial and pleasant refinement, which will commend its information to those who may have been disposed to be somewhat hypercritical as to the advisability of too closely ‘holding the mirror up to nature,’ and showing vice its own deformity and horror.—Bella Weekly Messenger.
“The new book by Mr. Ritchie, entitled ‘About London,’ fully sustains the reputation of the author of ‘The Night Side of London.’ It is, both in matter and manner, a most readable volume. In a series of twenty chapters the more conspicuous and characteristic places and persons about London are admirably sketched. The author indulges in all his modes. He is observant, penetrative, didactic, satirical, and reflective. Health, cheerfulness, and hope, however, are the pervading tones of this work. Whether the subject be the ‘Newspaper People,’ ‘Spiritualism,’ ‘London Gents.’ or ‘Criminal London,’ he has the happy disposition of educing good and ennobling lessons and influence from each and all.—Press.
NOW READY:A New Edition, revised and greatly enlarged, with a full Index,dr. wardrop’s valuable work:ON THE NATURE AND TREATMENTof the
containing also somenew views of the circulation of the blood,withan account of the muscolo-cardiac,the pulmo-cardiac,and the veno-pulmonary functions.
byJAMES WARDROP, M.D.,
Surgeon to the person of George IV.,Fellow of the Royal Society,and of theRoyal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh;Fellow of the Royal College ofSurgeons of England;Member of the Imperial Academy of Medicineof Paris,Moscow,St. Petersburgh,and Wilna;Member of theRoyal Medical and Surgical Society of Berlin,and of theMedical Society of Leipsic,&c. &c. &c.
A New Edition, carefully Revised, with considerable Additions,and a copious index.
[Large Octavo, 18s.