In carrying out structural alterations, the Paganis, with characteristic astuteness, determined that the “artists’ room” should not be tampered with by the builders. In London no interior is so rich in mural decorations contributed, gratis and off-hand, by distinguished men using the apartment. Tosti has written up some bars of a song, dear old Pellegrini has contributed some sketches, and other artists have from time to time added to the exhibition, happy to enrich it if only by an autograph. The sketches, signatures, and bits of musical composition, have beencovered with glass. In other respects the famous upper chamber remains much what it was in the old days. In that room I have spent many happy, interesting, and memorable nights. One of the most memorable of these was on the occasion of a supper given by my friend Patrick Edward Dove, to the members of the first company that performed “Cavalleria Rusticana” in London. Dove was a barrister of Lincoln’s Inn, famous for his knowledge of Patent Law, his acquaintance with the music of the bagpipes (he had made a collection of several hundred pibroch “scores”), and his unerring taste as a gastronome. When last I visited Pagani’s, they still mixed a salad known assalad à la Dove. The new opera had been produced at the Shaftesbury, conducted by Arditi, and the tenor part had been entrusted to Vignas, a singer new to the town. All the principals responded to Dove’s invitation, and the “artists’ room” became the arena of more noise and enthusiasm than had ever been exhibited there before. The tenor turned up rather late, being, I have no doubt, a nice judge of the psychological moment at which to contrive a dramatic entrance. These children of art and of the South proceeded “to signify their approval in the usual manner.” They rushed upon the poor man, and—men and women alike—fell upon his neck and kissed him. To a mere Englishman the scene was rather embarrassing. But it was soon over, and the rest of the night passed in immense chattering and jabbering, everybody seeming to talk at once, and the utmost amity and joyousness informing the polyglot crowd.
In the early days of Pagani’s the patrons of the restaurant were nearly all Italians, and among them the most picturesque figure was that of a very old gentleman with long silvery hair, extremely classic features, and scrupulously clean linen, a circumstance remarkable in an Italian restaurant of the period. The old gentleman made his appearance each day between twelve and one, and was always respectfully saluted by his compatriots. He had a very frugal midday meal, consisting principally of a decoction of eggs in a tumbler. After this he would sit chatting over his coffee with friends, who took chairs near him, untilwell on into the afternoon. They were informal receptions of a kind, these afternoons of the handsome old man; for he had been Garabaldi’s doctor, and naturally was held in high regard by his compatriots. His disappearance all at once from his accustomed place was, of course, much commented on. It was supposed that he was ill. On inquiry, however, it was discovered that he was only married. A lady had fallen in love with the dear old chap, carried him off, and married him. The bride probably considered that the domestic hearth was more suited to her husband than life in restaurants, and so Pagani’s knew him no more.
Romano had been a waiter at the Café Royal; and while engaged in this capacity he must have picked up a great deal of experience of London Society and its ways, which stood him in good stead when he found himself the owner of a smart restaurant in the Strand. A good many men, and, indeed, some well-known publications, like to pose as the “discoverers” of Romano’s. As a matter of fact, Romano was discovered by George Piesse, an epicurean West End book-maker; and its first regular customers were the London representative of theNew York Herald, and the ubiquitous and frugal “Ape.” It gradually became known to those who likedœuf à la cocotteand other Parisian delicacies. Then it made one of those sharp and sudden ascents into popularity, its prices ascending with a proportionate sharpness and suddenness. At luncheon-time there was a difficulty in getting a table in the long narrow saloon, looking like a disused shooting-gallery. The bar that ran in front was crammed with book-makers, pressmen, chorus-ladies, champagne-shippers, and young peers seeing life. In a word, Romano’s was “booming.” Bessie Bellwood made it one of her usual haunts of an afternoon; Hughie Drummond dropped in after a day on the Stock Exchange; “Billy” Fitzwilliam was a supporter of its clever proprietor; poor “Kim” Mandeville (afterwards Duke of Manchester) was a regular customer. The two least popular members of the congregation joined somewhat later. These were the Marquis of Ailesbury and Abingdon Baird, commonly called “the Squire.” Thesetwo gentlemen rarely appeared in public except accompanied by a couple of “bruisers,” and their attitude to society in general entirely justified the precaution they took in providing themselves with bodyguards—or body-blackguards, shall I say? Romano’s was for a long time the rallying-point of the more rapid section of men-about-town and their lady friends. But it was always more than this. Romano had learned his business in the best French school in London, and in his catering he always regarded the traditions ofla haute cuisine, and he had a fine taste in wine, the advantages of which were at the disposal of his customers.
The evolution which I have described as working itself out in three establishments, all of which originated in small and unpromising beginnings and under somewhat adverse conditions, was elsewhere evident. While the small caravanserai of Soho, with its cheap dinner andvin compriswas extending itself into the outer streets, and even as far as the suburbs, the founding of more swagger restaurants was taking place all round, and competent chefs began to look to London, and not any more to Paris, as the summit of their ambition. The Savoy was one of the first to take full advantage of the new direction of public taste. But at the present moment it has a hundred competitors, from the restaurant at the Waldorf, on the eastern confines of dinner land, to the Ritz, on its western frontier.
Having now indicated the extent and importance of the reform which has been effected in our eating and drinking during the passing of a few short years, I must return for a moment to my muttons, and record one or two of the fading memories of other days. There was a table reserved in the Café Royal grill-room at which, of an afternoon, there was always a considerable amount of laughter. Here were wont to meet MacMahon, the inventor of the electric “tape” machine; Jenks, a gentleman who had made a million by running gaming-hells; Ives, of theMorning; and Jo Aaronson, the brother of the well-known New York entrepreneur. There were others who were made welcome at this grill-room gathering, so that as often as not the table had to be doubled by adding another. Aaronson wasa quaint American with a national sense of humour, a nice knowledge of the moment at which to “chip in” with a story, and a slight stutter, which gave an added value to everything he said. I remember one day quite well when, with a face drawn and melancholy, he recounted to us the details of a misfortune which had overtaken him. His uncle John had died in London, and Jo had been entrusted with the melancholy duty of having the body cremated and buried. Jo described the cremation with great detail and picturesqueness, showed himself receiving the sacred ashes in an urn, and hurrying with his precious vase to the railway-station, in order to catch a train to town. When Jo arrived in town, he hurried out of the train, got into a cab, and automatically told the driver to go to his club. It was not until Jo arrived at the club that he recollected that he had forgotten all about Uncle John! He had placed the ashes of the deceased in the hat-rack of the railway-carriage in which he had travelled, and, when he arrived at Waterloo, had forgotten all about it. And the ashes of Uncle John have not been recovered even unto this day.
The café off which the grill-room opens, and which covers the greater portion of the ground-floor, became the most cosmopolitan rallying-point in London. For while the atmosphere of the place attracted Continental visitors of all nationalities, the quality of both the viands and wine, with the excellence of the cooking and service, soon made it a favourite resort of self-respecting Englishmen. Among the illustrious exiles who from time to time have sipped coffee over its domino-tables were Pilotel, the artist, who had left Paris after the Commune. Under that extraordinary form of misgovernment Pilotel had been Minister of Fine Arts. In London he discovered hismétierin designing models for the Court milliners, and fashion-plates for the ladies’ newspapers. A ribald wag once nicknamed him “the waister,” employing that word, not in any derogatory sense, but as a tribute to the wasp-like proportions with which the great big man could endow a woman’s bodice.
Boulanger has waxed voluble over his fortunes in this Regent Street refuge. And here the notorious Esterházy,in later days, has consoled himself in exile, his moments soothed by the adulation of a female admirer. Here I have sat with Fred Sandys, the artist, while he has discussed politics from the Conservative point of view with Michael Davitt, the Nationalist, the only Irish politician I ever met who gave me the idea that he believed all he said. It all comes back to me—the rattle of the dominoes on the marble slabs, the air charged with the blue, acrid smoke from a hundred cigarettes, the quick transit of the white-aproned waiters, the pungent odour of thecafé noir, the flow of conversational chatter in half a dozen languages, thefroufrouof the passing skirt, the flash of dark eyes, the smile on vermilion lips, the high-pitched laugh over some picture inLe Petit Journal pour Rire, the general air of life and the joy of it. The history of the cellar at this famous restaurant is one of the romances of the wine trade, and would be out of place here. But it may just be noted that, when the vineyards in the South of France which had supplied the brandy grape were, in the seventies, laid bare by the phylloxera, the proprietor had provided for a shortage in the eighties; and when that shortage made itself felt, Frenchmen willingly paid the three shillings which were demanded then for a liqueur-glass offin champagne.
Verrey’s, on the other side of Regent Street, I have mentioned as the second West End establishment at which a French dinner could be obtained in those gastronomically evil days which preceded the great awakening. When I first knew Verrey’s, it was run by old George Krehl, a most entertaining man of the old school. He was not a Parisian, or, indeed, a Frenchman at all; but he had been educated in the French methods, and his bisque was the most delicate to be obtained in London. At the death of the old man the restaurant descended to his son George, who has since died. George the younger Krehl was a dog-fancier in rather a large way of business. He ran a paper calledThe Stock-keeper, devoted to the interests of the “fancy.” Krehl the Younger introduced some new breeds to Society, among which were the basset-hound and the schipperké.
In old Krehl’s time Tennyson resorted to the restaurantduring his visits to town. The poet took quite a fancy to the proprietor, and Krehl preserved many souvenirs of the poet—plans of battle drawn on backs of menu-cards, and other trifles whereby Tennyson thought to make his meaning quite clear to a foreign listener.
It was in the old Krehl’s time that I received an invitation to dine with an Australian magnate of British birth, on a visit to the mother-country. The dinner was served in what was then known as the Cameo Room, and the occasion became memorable to me by reason of an acquaintanceship then made, which was destined to ripen into a lasting friendship. It was in this way. I found myself seated next to a clergyman. The circumstance at first caused me to curse my luck, for I have never taken much stock in parsons. But before we had got to the fish I found that my neighbour was not at all of the class of clergyman with whom, to that time, it had been my fortune to get acquainted. He was a man of medium height, about fifty years of age, broad-shouldered, and of portly figure. His grey beard was trimmed and pointed, and he wore a moustache. His name was Bachelor, and he was a gaol chaplain.
At that time I discovered nothing of the life-work of the individual sitting beside me; nor from himself did I ever hear anything, save incidentally, of his services to his generation—services never acknowledged, and services sometimes resented and always neglected by the authorities. I had beside me that night, in fact, one of those who, in their own persons, illustrate the truth of Henry Taylor’s apothegm: “The world knows nothing of its greatest men.” Here, at least, something may be recorded as a memorial to him. And at the same time the narrative may be enlivened by one or two of those stimulating recollections of which he seemed to be an inexhaustible mine. I never sat down to a dinner at which I enjoyed myself more. My new friend was a man of the world, a gourmet, a fine judge of wine, and withal a practical philanthropist, unresting, untiring, and undespairing.
Bachelor, after his ordination, went out to Australia as chaplain to the first Bishop of Tasmania. He passed from that position into the more active situation of chaplain tothe penal settlement there. From the beginning he took a strong human interest in his “parishioners,” and he set to work in the grim employment unhampered by traditions or instructions, or preconceived notions of any sort. From the very start, his theory was that the men to whom he had now become ghostly adviser differed from those outside the settlement chiefly in the fact that they had been found out. Of course he differentiated the material with which he had to deal. This the Governor of the settlement discovered during his first interview with the new “sky-pilot.” The conversation between them at length turned on the question of a servant for his reverence—a menial who had, of course, been selected from among the convicts.
“I’ve chosen a first-rate chap for you,” said the Governor. “Capital cook, good valet, nice quiet manner, talks French like a native, and can mend your linen like a needlewoman.”
“What’s he in for?” inquired Bachelor.
“Forgery,” replied the Governor.
“Couldn’t you let me have a murderer?” inquired the new chaplain.
“If you like,” replied the Governor, shrugging his shoulders, and regarding the new settler as a man suffering from a loose tile or so; and a murderer whose domestic accomplishments fitted him for the post was duly allotted to the parson.
“You see,” he said, in relating the circumstance, “I counted on the fellow’s gratitude; and I counted right. The chances of a murderer obtaining the position were about a million to one; and this fellow, knowing that fact, exhibited a dog’s fidelity, a woman’s solicitude, and the devotion of a fanatic to my person. He would at any moment have given his life to save mine.”
Shortly after Bachelor arrived in Tasmania with its first Bishop, his lordship sent out an invitation to the “leading citizens,” asking them to a reception at the “palace.” The day after the invitations went out, the editor and proprietor of a newspaper in Tasmania called at the “palace,” and demanded to see the new prelate. Now, this particular owner and conductor of an organ of public opinion kept his property going by asystematic levying of blackmail—an easy and lucrative game in those early days; for very few of the “new rich” in Tasmania would care to have questions publicly asked about their origin. “Do you grow your own hemp?” asked Charles Lamb of his Australian correspondent. I need not labour a point which is still sore in Tasmania. The Bishop declined to see the caller. Bachelor, as his chaplain, was deputed to conduct the interview.
“I’m the editor and proprietor of a newspaper in Tasmania, and I want to know why I’m not invited to the Bishop’s tea-fight?” said the truculent visitor, dashingin medias res.
“In your place I should accept the situation. I should not probe after reasons,” answered the chaplain with characteristic suavity.
“Gammon, parson! I’ve got to know. See? An’ if you don’t tell me now, I’ll repeat the question in the columns of my paper!” exclaimed this Australasianlittérateur.
“Sounds rather like a threat, don’t you think?” observed Bachelor, with perfect temper; “and, if youwillhave it, I think I may now give you his lordship’s reason for declining to invite you.”
“Let her go!” said the editor encouragingly.
“The Bishop’s reason for omitting your name is simply this: that, in the old country, a man conducting a paper on your lines would be considered outside the social pale.”
The editor laughed uproariously. When he had recovered his breath, he answered in these remarkable words:
“Innercent lambs! Outside the social pale, hey! Lookye here, parson! You jest tell his lordship from me that,in Tasmania,no man is outside the social pale—until he’s hanged!”
In Sydney once it became the duty of Bachelor to see a well-known man out of the world through the trap of a gallows. Captain Knatchbull, a cadet of an old Kentish family, had been, while in command of one of H.M.’s ships, guilty of an offence against the civil law, for which he was tried and transported. He escaped from the convict settlement, and turned up in Sydney half mad with exposure and starvation. In the Bush he had probably perpetrated a crime which wasnever laid to his charge, for he had got rid of his convict garb, and appeared in New South Wales fully attired in the clothes of a victim who was probably done to death before parting with them. The desperate man entered a baker’s shop in a back street. The shop was empty. The man stretched his arm over the counter, and pulled out the till. The woman owning the shop suddenly appeared on the scene, and caught hold of the marauder’s wrist, screaming the while for assistance. Knatchbull flung himself free, picked up the bread-knife from the counter, and silenced the poor woman for ever. He was caught red-handed. He was brought to trial, when the prosecuting counsel was Robert Lowe, destined for future fame in England, where he was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer and a peer of the realm. On the scaffold he was attended by Bachelor.
“Is there any last word you would like to say?” whispered the chaplain in his ear.
Knatchbull looked up, cast a critical eye over the ghastly apparatus, and, nodding his head in the direction of a defect, said, with the utmost composure:
“Yes.There’s a kink in that rope!”
In another second his lifeless body was swinging at the end of the incriminated hemp. He afforded, then, did Captain Knatchbull, the supreme instance of “the ruling passion strong in death.” He must pay the extreme penalty, but he had respectfully suggested that the execution should be ship-shape.
When he returned to England, Bachelor was appointed to Dartmoor. While he was abroad he could only get at the Home Office by means of a correspondence. Now he would be able to pay personal visits to the high officials in Whitehall during his holidays. No man ever made himself a greater nuisance to a Department in the sacred cause of humanity than did Bachelor. But humanity is a mere unofficial generality with which Whitehall has nothing whatever to do. He bombarded permanent officials, and he obtained introductions to successive Home Secretaries with a view of effecting some amelioration in the condition of the convict. When, by his own personal influence withthe prisoners at Dartmoor, he was successful in quelling the biggest and most elaborately organized mutiny known up to that time, he became no more of apersona gratathan he had been before the outbreak. Officially he was merely the gaol chaplain. It was not the business of the Department to discover that they were dealing, not only with a humanitarian, but with a man who had forgotten more criminology than all the outsiders who write so glibly on the subject in journals and magazines had ever known.
I at once confess that Bachelor was not attracted to me at this dinner at Verrey’s by any qualities of my own. He understood that I was on the Press, and he always endeavoured to create an interest in his views among pressmen whom he met. For some time he had urged on the Home Office the necessity there existed for supplying prisoners with a newspaper. His theory, founded upon years of intelligent observation, was that under our prison system a man becomes either abnormally ingenious or abnormally bestial. And he held that nothing except literature could successfully divert and dissipate ideas which were likely to become obsessions; and that the most interesting literature would be news—very carefully edited, of course—of the outer world. American officials are not so hidebound as the home-made article; and the idea of my friend, neglected and contemned in England, was welcomed and adopted in the United States, where the principal penitentiaries now run their own newspapers.
We worked together subsequently at this notion of a gaol journal, and I got out a “dummy” which showed pretty fully what the proposed organ should be. At the Home Office the science of circumlocution is better understood than in any other Department in Whitehall. There was voluminous correspondence, meaning much on the part of the parson, meaning little more than a lavish waste of the tax-payer’s stiff stationery to the Home Office. Other ardent souls would have sunk under the continuous disappointments, delays, shufflings, impertinences, and utter indifference, of the Office; but Bachelor’s was not a nature to sink under anything. He was a man of the world; his sympathy with his incarcerated parish did not stand inthe way of his own reasonable pleasures. So he kept on pegging away at Home Secretary after Home Secretary, always hopeful, cheerful,débonnaire. At last his reward came. A large parcel of monthly magazines of theLeisure HourandGood Wordstype was delivered at his house, with a communication from the Home Secretary. The chaplain was requested to go through the bundle, and select such of the publications as, in his opinion, might be usefully circulated among prisoners.
Had such an act of brutal cynicism been played on the average man, he would have probably pitched the periodicals into the dustbin, and ceased to interest himself in the unfortunate creatures for whom he struggled in vain. But Bachelor had a finer temper than the average man. He reflected that a few crumbs are better than no bread at all. He congratulated himself that he had obtained some concession—small though it was—for those whose cause he had been fighting through weary years. He sat down before the bundle, conscientiously read through every magazine contained in it, and made his selection of publications deemed to be “suitable” under the very strict and elaborate instructions laid down by the Office in the covering letter.
And so it happens that the Cameo Room in Verrey’s became always associated in my mind with convicts and their champion. In those days a dinner served there was the last word in modern luxury. A big chandelier with the hundred pendent crystals hung from the centre of the ceiling. In mid-Victorian days the chandelier, with its prismatic glass pendants, was regarded as the most swagger thing in the decoration of a saloon. Candles guttered under their red shades, science not having as yet supplied the simple preventive contrivance. The dinner was beyond cavil or criticism. The contents of the cellar had been carefully selected, and its temperature was religiously observed and maintained. But the conditions attendant . . . As the wheels of my taxi turn from the rattle of the Strand and run silent over the rubber pavement on the courtyard of the Savoy, I recognize how far, in some matters, we have travelled in a very few years.
Membersof the literary staff of a newspaper were, in the far-off and half-forgotten days, deputed to write graphic descriptions of what are known as “the classic events” of the turf. A big newspaper would send as many as three special correspondents to “do” the Derby. One correspondent devoted himself to the journey down by road, a second described the journey by rail, and a third gave an animated pen-sketch of the course. Indeed, some journals whose motto was “Thorough,” were accustomed to send a man to potter about the course the night before the Derby—a writer with the James Greenwood touch, who might be depended upon for a dramatic and humorous column and a half.
Ascot and Goodwood were the other “classic events” to which the descriptive writer would be despatched. Goodwood was always supposed to necessitate the employment of certain venerable clichés. And very old journalists used, therefore, to consider it a great privilege to be sent to that aristocratic meeting. Ascot naturally gave considerable scope to the journalist who flattered himself on an intimate knowledge of Society with a capital “S.” For a whole delirious week he never left Society. He watched its menials depart for the Thames Valley on the Sunday before the meeting, and on the Sunday after he was pretty certain to turn up at Boulter’s Lock, where some representative ornaments of Society should be on view.
Out of all the men on the daily Press who have been commissioned to attend race-meetings as descriptive writers, I have never known one who became a victim of the bettinghabit. Yet I have known several sub-editors whose functions did not take them near a race-course, but whose real business in life seemed to be betting, their sub-editing being regarded as a temporary means of obtaining the original stake which, some day, was to supply the foundation of a fortune. Members of the sporting Press were betting men to a scribe. And so it happened that, no matter what the salary of a writer on the sporting Press might be, he was always in financial difficulties. If these gentlemen, presumably “in the know,” found the game unprofitable, what chance should there be, I reflected, for an outsider? Nevertheless, and holding these virtuous views, I have from time to time fallen from grace. These occasional lapses have usually followed a casual bet where the odds have been long and the “tip” has “come off.” But eventually the bookies have always got their own back again—and a bit over and above.
This moralizing strain reminds me of the appearance of Robert Buchanan, the poet, as a backer of horses. Some graceless men were inclined to regard the contact of Buchanan with the Ring as something in the nature of a joke. To me it constituted a pitiful and sordid tragedy. Buchanan was another of those men who always wanted money, and who was ever on the lookout for some easy way of getting it. I do not know who it was that introduced him to the turf as a likely method of adding to his resources. But I should not care to be the man with that sin on my soul. If Buchanan knew a horse from a cow, it was about as much as he knew. As to the significance of the weights in a handicap he was entirely ignorant. He had got into his head that by luck and good advice large sums might be made out of the Ring. About twenty years ago I first came across him while he was thus engaged. It was at Epsom the day after the Derby. The grand-stand was but sparsely inhabited. In the interval between the last race and the last but one, I saw Buchanan coming across the course. I went down to meet him. He was in a flurried and excited condition. He had experienced a “rotten” day. Nor was I surprised when he proceeded to explain to me hismodus operandi. It was this:
He had engaged the services of an infallible tipster. This infallible young person I afterwards discovered to be one of the notorious “boys” of the American Bar of the Criterion, the rendezvous from which the hero of Ardlamont, it will be recollected, chose his associates. For himself and this egregious seer he had taken rooms for the week at the Sun in Kingston, the pair of them driving over to the course each morning in an open landau. As he eagerly explained to me the unsuspected occurrences which had upset the calculations of his adviser, and within how very little he came of pulling off some uncommonly good things, I was profoundly moved. Here was the author of a work of fiction of the quality of “God and the Man,” and of poems like “Fra Giacomo,” plunging on a race-course with the most sordid motives and with the most ridiculous equipment, and associating with an adviser with whom no self-respecting sportsman would care to be seen talking.
He had a very strong tip for the next race, and he was anxious that I should share in any good fortune that might result from backing it. I looked at my card. Among the starters I saw a horse named Tandragee. I said, half in earnest, that, if I had a bet at all, I should back Tandragee. He inquired very anxiously whether I had heard anything. I assured him that I knew nothing whatever, but that the animal bore the name of “Kim” Mandeville’s place in Ireland. Buchanan looked at me reproachfully, as if to suggest that I was treating in a spirit of levity a very serious, and even tragic, business. I made inquiries about Tandragee, and a member of Tattersall’s ring laid me ten to one against it. My horse won easily, and Buchanan’s “certainty,” about which he had only got three to one, was not placed.
With the most ordinary care Robert Buchanan should have acquired a nice little fortune. As it was, he lived in a series of financial straits, and when he paid the debt of nature he left all his other debts undischarged.
My recollections of race-meetings will always be dominated by the figure of Caroline, Duchess of Montrose. I was young and impressionable when I first saw this formidablegrande dame. I first beheld her on the lawn at Goodwood. Shewas accompanied by her husband, Mr. Sterling Crauford, one of the very best and most aristocratic of racing men. Her Grace had a really wonderful vocabulary. She could have debated a point with a bargee starting at even weights. Only once was she talked down. That was by the Thersites of the outer ring—Dick Dunn. This was an Homeric encounter. Rich and rare were the gems in Dick Dunn’s armoury of invective. While the battle lasted, it was a veritable interchange of torpedoes. But the vituperative book-maker won, and the Duchess burst into tears.
Caroline, Duchess of Montrose, was once in a towering rage over the defeat of one of her husband’s horses, which she had backed heavily, and, as was her wont, she was violently abusing the unhappy boy who had ridden. I rather think it was little Gallon, but am not sure. “You young rascal!” exclaimed the angry Duchess, “did I not tell you to get through and come right away before reaching the bend?”
“Yes, your Grace, you did,” blubbered the boy; “b-b-b-but I couldn’t come without the horse!”
When Sterling Crauford died, the Duchess selected as her third husband a youth who might have been her grandson.
I have just mentioned Dick Dunn, the bookmaker. This redoubtable penciller was of Irish nationality, his real name being O’Donoghue. He was an extremely good-looking, well-set-up fellow, and, casually encountered, one would never have believed him capable of the heights and depths of picturesque objurgation to which he rose and sank. But he was really a good-natured chap, with a fund of quaint and characteristic humour. I once attended a smoking-concert promoted at Hampton for a charitable purpose, at which Dick Dunn had been asked to preside. Things went very well until a local celebrity—an octogenarian—was called upon to sing. The old man began to intone a very long ballad in very slow time. The audience were getting tired, and the chairman was getting very fidgety. At last the vocalist gave the chairman his opportunity. He was trolling out a fresh verse commencing with the two lines:
“He went into a barber’s shop,There for to get him shaved.”
“He went into a barber’s shop,There for to get him shaved.”
“Well!” roared out Dunn, bringing his hammer sharply down on the table, “what do you suppose hewouldgo in for—to buy onions?”
The audience broke into laughter, and the abashed warbler sat down.
They tell me that the present is an uncommonly bad time for bookmakers. At the Albert and Victoria they are betting with each other—a tame business, and comparable only (as one of the fraternity recently put it to me) to “kissing one’s sister.” The occupation of “Oh, yell, oh!” is gone. But in my early Press days he flourished like a green bay-tree. In the early seventies Steele and Peach of Sheffield were the magnates of the Ring. Steele was a big, heavy-faced, sleepy-looking man. He commenced his commercial career by hawking fish through the streets on a barrow. Peach, who was far smarter in appearance, was of equally low origin. The two leviathans of the Ring were closely related by marriage, and ended up by becoming owners of one of the richest steel-works in Sheffield.
I can well remember Olney of Manchester and Steve Mundell of Durham. Olney was a stout, white-haired, red-faced man, who would have been a little one but for the extra weight in fat he carried. He was grumpy, but straight, and his prices were simply awful. Mundell was known as “the Durham Ox.” He was, as his sobriquet may suggest, a big, beefy man. His Durham acquaintances were very proud of him; and, indeed, he was not half a bad sort. He was fond of coursing, and kept a few greyhounds of his own.
Our old friend theDaily Telegraph, writing about some meeting in a flamboyant style, indulged in an allusion to “the genteel pencillers in the velvet costumes.” This chance allusion was the making of Fred Fraser. He and his brother—who clerked for him—always appeared dressed in brown velvet coats, cord breeches, jack-boots, and sombreros. At one time he ran a few horses, but his favourite sport was fishing, and his record exhibition of objurgation was given in connection with the pursuit of this comparatively innocent pastime. This was at Staines. He had lefthis line in the water while he went into the town. During his absence a friend fastened a dried haddock to his hook. On his return, the deluded man saw that he had “got a bite,” and proceeded to “land.” The “air went blue for miles” as the outraged fisherman expressed his opinion of the practical jokers who had tampered with his tackle. Mr. Fraser was, indeed, a gentleman who should have benefited by an extended experience of the silent system; and this he was shortly to have. He was sentenced to a long term for a particularly brutal outrage. And that was the end of “the genteel penciller” so far as Society and the Turf are concerned.
Billy Nicholls of Nottingham was a wealthy man and a “character.” He was a member of the Town Council of his native borough, and a rather good yarn used to be told of his action in this capacity when a certain matter of great local interest was brought up before thePatres Conscriptiof Nottingham. The burning question of “the town pump” had come up in another shape. Public opinion was divided as to whether or not a wall should be built round the cemetery; and, as the municipal elections were at hand, the members of the Council were also much “vexed in their righteous minds” as to how they should vote on the recommendation of the committee. It remained for Billy Nicholls to settle the question by a speech which was brief, to the point, and absolutely convincing:
“Muster Mayor, Haldermen, an’ gen’lemen hall,” he said, when he rose in his place, “it’s like this yer: the pore chaps inside can’t get out, and them what’s outside don’t want to get in. So I says, ‘No wall.’”
And “no wall” it was.
Charlie Head was a bookie of a different type. He was dapper, well dressed—in fact, a bit of a dandy. The waxed ends of his moustache were a source of general joy to his friends at a time when this mode of treating what Mr. Frank Richardson would call “face fungi” was comparatively neglected. I first met Head, not on the course, but at the theatre. He was a devoted supporter of the drama, and it was only reasonable that he should look to the drama tosupport him. This it very generously did, when the Philharmonic in Islington was turned into a theatre for the production of “Genevieve de Brabant,” one of the most popular examples ofopera bouffeever given in England. All the town flocked lightly to theterra incognitato see Emily Soldene in her bewitching cook’s uniform, just as all the town some years before had flocked to see Marie Wilton and her clever company in the equally unknown little playhouse in Tottenham Street. In his management of the Philharmonic Theatre, at this very profitable period of its history, Head was associated with Charles Morton—a gentleman whose name was never connected with failure.
Tom King, the well-known champion of the prize ring, was also making a book in the seventies. King was a splendid chap, tall, and well set up as a guardsman. His nose was slightly out of drawing—the result, no doubt, of a professional misadventure. When he left the prize ring Tom cultivated a beard and moustache, which were always carefully trimmed. Anything more unlike a “bruiser” it would be impossible to imagine. His “book” was not his only source of income: he enjoyed large profits as a barge owner. King was a remarkable raconteur, and had a practically inexhaustible collection of yarns, none of them quite suitable for spinning in pages intended for general circulation.
Waterhouse was one of the best of his class. He was a short, fat man, with a funny littlemoucheon his lower lip. With the exception of this spot, his chubby face was clean-shaven. He was a hot-tempered chap, but as straight as a gun-barrel. He had made a hobby of pigeons, of which he was a well-known and eminently successful exhibitor. Waterhouse was commissioner for Lord Bradford’s stable, and won, I believe, a lot of money when Sir Hugo, at 40 to I, beat La Flêche in the Derby of 1892—a date, I should recollect, which lands me two years beyond the chronological limits of these memoirs.
But, to my way of thinking, Charles Brewer was far and away the best of the old bookmakers. He had his offices in Charles Street, St. James’s. He was joint owner with Charles Blanton, the trainer of that famous racehorse, Robert theDevil. Thousands of the British public, as well as the owners, were bitterly disappointed when Robert the Devil failed to pull off the Derby in 1880. The race was won, it will be remembered, by the Duke of Westminster’s Bend Or. I saw that exciting finish. It was lost to Robert the Devil owing to the cock-sureness of Rossiter, the jockey. He took matters far too easy, and was imprudent enough to look over his shoulder at the psychological moment. Archer, that king of riders, saw his advantage in a flash, and caught his opponent at the post.
And a curious consideration, not altogether unconnected with psychological ramifications, appeals to me here. When I have been deputed to go to a race-meeting for the purpose of making a column or so of descriptive “copy,” the Ring has always presented itself to me as a modern Inferno packed with raucous, foul-mouthed demons—rapacious, brutal, sordid. Again and again have I reeled off impressionist descriptions of what I conceived to be a very brutal exhibition. Yet, in looking back to those old times, the picture of the betting ring does not come back to me as a complete and vivid impression. Faces gaze out at me one by one, and they are all the faces of men who have made their last settlement. One becomes more charitable with the passing of the years, I suppose, and Time teaches us to differentiate. I fail altogether now to recall the Ring as a raging, seething pit. I only recall, with feelings not estranged, some of its members whom I have known, and with whom I have done a little business from time to time. Their manners may not have been those of a Chesterfield, but their principles of commercial morality were more commendable than those of the nobleman whose “Letters,” according to honest Samuel Johnson, inculcated the morals of a monkey and the manners of—well, of something even less respectable than our simian ancestor.
But, having said so much in favour of the personal qualities of certain members of the betting ring, and having admitted that the transactions of the fraternity are as a rule honest and open, I venture to suggest that the institution itself is capable of considerable improvement—that, indeed,the time has come when it might, with benefit to the community and to the Government, be improved off the face of the earth. We are a nation of hypocrites, and are governed by a series of Ministries who play up to our hypocrisy. To certain phases of certain subjects our Government elects to remain blind. By a minority of our countrymen betting is set down as a sin. This minority (many of whom make bets on the sly) has an influence with those in power. Therefore the Government of the day assumes that there is no such thing as wagering for money over horse-racing. The bookmaker is a myth. In the words of Mrs. Gamp, a Minister will tell you, “I don’t believe there’s no sich a person.” And yet what an income is waiting for that Chancellor of the Exchequer who will possess the courage to disestablish the betting ring by instituting the system ofParis Mutuels! The “sin” of betting would not be increased thereby, so that the moral minority should not be perturbed. Absolute protection would be afforded to backers, so that the public would be safeguarded and gratified. And the income derivable from commission to the Government would go far towards providing a newDreadnoughtevery year, so that, in any event, the nation must be a gainer.
Mr. Lloyd George might talk the matter over with ‘Dr.’ Clifford, Mr. Silvester Horne, and the President of the Methodist Conference. The predominant partner—Mr. John Redmond, to wit—would, I am confident, give his consent to an experiment the object of which would be to give some movement to treasuries which have long since ceased to be “flowing.”
I once spent some hours in the house of a bookmaker, and had an opportunity of studying the penciller’sménage. I had often had a bet with Andy Anderson. His prices were a trifle short, but he was an agreeable man to do business with—jovial, good-tempered, and amusing. After a day’s racing at Hurst Park, he overtook “Boris” of theRefereeand myself, and suggested a “lift” as far as Surbiton—without consulting us as to whether or not Surbiton was on our way home. “Boris”—who in private life was Mr. Harry Bromhead—accepted the invitation. We were given theback seats on Andy’s jobbed landau and pair, the bookie and his clerk facing us, and his “runner” sitting on the box. The carriage eventually drew up at a detached house standing back from an umbrageous front-garden in one of the most highly respectable avenues in Surbiton. The spick-and-span appearance of the façade of the “desirable family residence” suggested the home of a prosperous stockbroker—a class of sportsman then affecting the neighbourhood. Anderson got out, followed by his guests. The landau bowled off with the clerk and the “runner” aboard, and Andy effusively invited us to enter.
We were shown into the drawing-room, where we found Mrs. Anderson—a remarkably fine woman, with much of her husband’s easy good temper—petting a remarkably uninteresting mongrel. Then occurred one of those incidents which illustrated a strange boyish side of Andy’s character. Having formally introduced us to his wife, he gazed at the dog on her lap with an expression of amazement and admiration, and asked, with great seriousness:
“Where did you get that dog, my dear?”
“Bought him off a man on the tow-path,” replied Mrs. Andy.
“What did you give?” he inquired.
“Five shillings.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Andy, “you’ve had a better day on the tow-path than I’ve had on the course. Why, that dog is worth fifty quid. You take great care of him, my dear.”
“What breed is he?” asked Mrs. Anderson.
“He’s a tripe-hound,” answered Andy, without moving a muscle, and still regarding the wretched animal with the satisfied air of an expert.
Mrs. Anderson accepted the legend in deadly earnest. The next day, as I afterwards heard, she went into Kingston, purchased a silver collar with her name and address engraved thereon, obtained a lead, and appeared every afternoon on the promenade by the river with her priceless pet. When asked about its pedigree by friends, she explained that she was obliged to take great care of him, as he was atripe-hound. It was Bessie Bellwood who eventually “gave the show away.” Making a call on Mrs. Anderson, and feeling a curiosity to ascertain why such a woman should make a pet of such an entirely hopeless hybrid, she asked about it, and received the usual reply, given with an air of complacent pride in possession. Bessie’s sense of humour was keen, and her expression of it tumultuous. She burst into a fit of irrepressible laughter. Explanations ensued. The tripe-hound was disposed of, and relations between Andy and his wife became somewhat strained.
From the drawing-room, furnished in the most crowded fashion of Early Victorian period, we were conducted to the dining-room, to have what just at that time was becoming known as “a bottle of the boy.” Meeting with a bookmaker socially always meant in those days a bottle of champagne. The pencillers seemed to swim in it. It is different now. The simple and less expensive whisky-and-soda is regarded by the majority of the Ring as an excellent substitute for the exhilarating vintages of Ay and Épernay and Grammont. In his own house Andy was the soul of hospitality. He pressed us to remain to dinner. But we both had duties in town. However, we sat listening to his anecdotes and experiences for an hour or more. The most surprising of his reminiscences was that he, Andy Anderson the bookmaker, was the son of a Baptist minister! At first I was inclined to rate the confession with the legend of the tripe-hound, but the statement was one of fact. I commend it to the consideration of Nonconformist Turf-haters; they can take it either of two ways—as an inducement to regard charitably a calling which provides fine openings for the bright sons of Baptist ministers, or as an argument in favour of theParis Mutuels, whereby the temptation to become bookmakers would be for ever removed from the precocious progeny of the “unco’ guid.”
The mention of Bromhead naturally reminds me of the paper which he served so well for so many years. TheRefereewas established by Henry Sampson some few yew after Mr. Corlett found the continuous-paragraph method so sudden and so triumphant a success. But the foundersof the new paper, while appreciating the main reason of their rival’s success, were not slow to observe the departments in which the older paper was “slack.” So from the start theRefereegave a proper attention to arrangement of contents and sub-editing. And the paper is still distinguished for its care in these respects. In a former chapter I have alluded sympathetically to the fact that death has dogged the footsteps of Mr. Corlett’s staff. TheRefereehas a more fortunate record. Of the original staff of theReferee, four members are still living and working. These are Mr. Richard Butler, Mr. H. Chance Newton, Mr. Edwards, and Mr. George R. Sims. The “Handbook” on the first page has of recent years become a valued feature. The best of the series was contributed by the patient and reflective Nesbit, of theTimes. He was followed by Christie Murray. The present writer is Mr. Arnold White, whose range is more limited than that of his predecessors. But he strikes the patriotic note all the time. And the expression of his patriotism never rings false.
In the seventies thedoyenof the racing Press was Comyns Cole, of theTimesand theField. In whatever society he might be found Cole was always a striking personality. He was not only an accomplished journalist, but he was a typical English gentleman of the school even then becoming regarded as “old.” He possessed all the gracious courtesy of a more formal age. At the time when I made his acquaintance he was well over sixty, but he was erect in carriage, slim in figure, always carefully dressed to suit the occasion, and impartially polite to Dukes and jockeys. His carefully-cultured grey moustache gave him something of a military appearance. His greatest charm was, perhaps, in a voice of unusual sweetness. And on the Turf he was liked and respected by everybody, high and low. Not merely was Cole a gentleman in thought and act, but he spoke and wrote like one. He could never have become contaminated by the baleful influences of the Press-room.
In my early days there were a lot of small race-meetings in the vicinity of London which have ceased to exist, their suppression or extinction, owing to natural causes, being acircumstance on which Society may be greatly congratulated. Of these, Hampton was one of the most notorious. It was a great Cockney carnival, and was held on the ground over which Hurst Park now stretches. All the costers of the East End drove down to this event on their “flying bedsteads,” in the shafts of which conveyances were harnessed their “mokes.” On one side of the bedstead, with legs hanging over the front, was the coster, urging his “moke” with comic blasphemies. On the other side sat his “dona,” all hat and feathers, howling snatches of the music-hall songs of the moment, and in the intervals plying her “bloke” with beer. All the pickpockets, welchers, thimble-riggers, and confidence-tricksters of the Metropolis turned up at this event, and nowhere else would you be likely to come across scenes of more unbridled blackguardism. The inhabitants of Hampton—standing as it does on one of the prettiest of the nearer reaches of the Thames—were naturally incensed by the annual Saturnalia.
Not all those who were attracted to the meeting came down for the sport. Many of them hired skiffs and went on the water. These greatly daring adventurers had but the most rudimentary use of the sculls, and their immunity from accident can only be traced to that watchful Providence which is believed to look after drunken men and infants. On one occasion I happened during these races to be at Hampton, which is, of course, on the other side of the river. I there saw a rather cranky skiff let out by a local boat-owner to a party of a dozen happy Cockneys, male and female of their kind, not one of whom could row and few of whom could swim. As they zigzagged their way to midstream, I thought it my duty to remonstrate with the boat-owner.
“I shouldn’t have let a boat to that lot: they’re sure to capsize,” I ventured to suggest.
“It’s orright, guv’nor,” answered the man cheerily; “I’ve ’ad a quid deposit!”
Funny thing, the point of view. I was solicitous about the safety of the Cockney excursionists. My boat-hiring friend could only imagine that I was anxious lest his skiffshould come to grief, and was happy to assure me that he had secured himself against all possible loss!
At Kingsbury there was another of these classic events. It was never my proud privilege to witness the racing at Kingsbury; but the suppression of that meeting was a never-ceasing cause of regret to Warner, of the Welsh Harp, Hendon. I made the acquaintance of that illustrious man when I was sent down to interview Mrs. Girling on the part of a daily paper “whose name shall be nameless,” as a villain of melodrama once put it. The name of Mrs. Girling, I imagine, will call up no memories in the present generation. The poor lady, although she made a wonderful commotion in her time, has failed to write her name with any legibility on the page of history.
Mrs. Girling, then, was the president, or high-priestess, or boss of the Shaker community, which at one time thought to establish itself in the country of a hundred religions and one sauce. Notwithstanding all that has been alleged to the contrary, the English still possess a certain sense of humour, and their knowledge of the new sect was chiefly derived from the writings of Artemus Ward, who had devoted a chapter of “His Book” to the more salient eccentricities of the Shakers. One of the sect he described as looking like “a last year’s bean-pole dressed in a long meal-bag.”
The corybantic religionists who had come across the Atlantic with Mrs. Girling in the pious hope of converting the islanders had been evicted from their quarters in the New Forest, and had encamped on, and under, the grandstand on the Kingsbury racecourse. The expulsion of the Shakers from their Hampshire Eden became the subject of a great deal of comment in the Press, and Warner, who was above all else a showman, at once saw his way to make some money out of the eccentric exiles from the States. So he philanthropically offered the evicted evangelists such shelter as the Kingsbury grand-stand afforded. Mrs. Girling was grateful. Half London flocked to Hendon to inspect the high-priestess and her faithful following of Latter-Day Saints, and, incidentally, to partake of refreshments at theWelsh Harp. It was on my way home after my interview with Mrs. Girling that I made the acquaintance of Mr. Warner himself. He was a large, jovial, effusive person—quite the typical Boniface, in fact. I was about to write “the typical John Bull,” when I recollected that the national nickname has acquired associations which render it—well, not quite typical.
Warner appeared to spend most of his time sitting in a wooden armchair of Brobdingnagian proportions. When in an anecdotal or reminiscent mood, he could be extremely entertaining. One of his reminiscences may be worth repeating. The Welsh Harp pleasure-grounds had become a favourite arena for the managers of Sunday-school treats and high jinks of a similar character. During the summer months thousands of children were carted down from the lanes and alleys of the town to pick daisies in Warner’s fields, to wander by the margin of Warner’s lake, and to “wolf” Warner’s buns and ginger-beer amid delightfully rural surroundings. Consternation, therefore, seized this particular section of Society when there appeared in the papers the report that the pet bear of the Welsh Harp had escaped from its den, and had taken refuge in some neighbouring thicket. In vain did Warner write solemn disclaimers to the daily papers. His pathetic denials of the existence of any bear on the estate were received with frigid scepticism. The rumour had been sown broadcast, and had taken root. The crop was accepted as first-class fact. The more strongly did Warner protest, the more picturesque became the newspaper reports of the bear-hunt, the methods of the trackers, and their failure to trap their quarry.
Meanwhile the outlook was becoming serious for the owner of the famous pleasaunce. Every post brought the poor man letters from the promoters of bean-feasts and Sunday-school treats cancelling their dates. In moments of desperation the brain sometimes becomes superactive. At such a moment Warner was the subject of an inspiration, or, as he himself put it, “an ’appy thought struck him.” He drove off to Jamrach’s, the famous dealers in wild animals, in the Ratcliff Highway, and there he purchased the cheapestbear in the market. The brute was taken to the Welsh Harp in a van and at dead of night. The following morning the animal was found tied up to a tree in the grounds, and Warner triumphantly issued to the Press a purely imaginary account of its pursuit and capture. The consequences of the ruse were satisfactory all round. Nobody seemed to remember anything at all of Warner’s pathetic denials of the existence of a bear. The accuracy of the Press reporters was vindicated, and the publication of Warner’s circumstantial account of the chase and capture attracted thousands of sightseers to the Welsh Harp—most of them thirsty. In a few days the ingenious designer of this public deception was able to recoup himself for the losses sustained owing to the alleged ravages of an ursine “Mrs. Harris” by the production of a real bear—a hired, harmless, and humiliated brute.
Time has been kind to the old Welsh Harp, and I fervently hope that the day is far distant ere even a garden city shall be established by the shores of the wonderful lake whereon the Cockney sailed and fished in the summer, and skated—and was periodically immersed—in the winter months. For a little while at least its memory will be kept green by Chevalier’s “Coster’s Serenade”:
“You ain’t forgotten yet that night in MayDahn at the Welsh ’Arp, which is ’Endon way?Youfancied winkles and a pot of tea;‘Four ’alf,’ I murmured, ‘’s good enough forme.Give me a word of ’ope that I may win.’You prods me gently with the winkle pin.We was as ’appy as could be that dayDahn at the Welsh ’Arp, which is ’Endon way.”
“You ain’t forgotten yet that night in MayDahn at the Welsh ’Arp, which is ’Endon way?Youfancied winkles and a pot of tea;‘Four ’alf,’ I murmured, ‘’s good enough forme.Give me a word of ’ope that I may win.’You prods me gently with the winkle pin.We was as ’appy as could be that dayDahn at the Welsh ’Arp, which is ’Endon way.”
TwoAmerican managers had made themselves very well known to the Street of Adventure in the early eighties. It was before the advent of the mighty Frohman and other engineers of the great combine. The one was known as “Johnny” Rogers, and the other was W. W. Kelly. The last-named gentleman must be, I imagine, still to the fore, for during the last General Election I visited two provincial centres, and saw, peeling from the walls of each, the mammoth posters of that wonderful Napoleonic melodrama “A Royal Divorce.” I wonder whether, if the spirit of my old friend, W. G. Wills, revisited these “glimpses of the moon,” he would recognize his workmanship and marvel at sight of the crowds it still attracts.
Kelly was a tall, florid man, flamboyant in manner, and gifted with an eloquence which was never ungarnished. Rogers was a little man, with a nice taste in diamonds. The time that he did not spend in the theatre writing Press notices about his “star” was devoted to running around the newspaper offices seeking publicity for his lucubrations.
Rogers managed for a little lady called Minnie Palmer, who appeared at the Strand Theatre in a sort of pinafore-and-golden-curls part. She continued playing the pinaforeingénueuntil she was well over forty. Poor little “Johnny,” who had taught the lady all she knew, was quite broken-hearted when she left his for another management. Kelly also made his reputation in London as manager for an actress. This performer was called Grace Hawthorne. Miss Hawthorne took the Olympic and the Princess’s, and spentquite a fortune in the attempt to establish the position of her theatres.
Kelly had a humour of his own, which, if Irish in its origin, was American in its expression. In the Junior Garrick Club one afternoon some men were assembled in the hall (the hall-porter, called “Tap,” was a bit of a bookmaker, and we loyally accepted his ridiculous prices). The conversation turned on lying, and some of us were relating our experiences of great liars whom we had known, and quoting examples of their skill. Kelly entered during the recital with a member whose guest he was, and listened quietly for a while; then, taking advantage of the first pause, he said:
“I guess what you fellows know about lyin’ ain’t worth a cent. There are only three liars in the world . . . is one,and Rogers is the other two.”
When Wilson Barrett produced Mr. Caine’s “Ben My Chree” at the Princess’s, Kelly had some rights in either the piece or the theatre. After the first performance, Kelly went round to Barrett’s dressing-room, and urged the actor to cut down the dialogue before again presenting the piece. The critics, Kelly assured him, were very much annoyed by the length of some of the speeches. “Don’t you believe it,” replied Barrett reassuringly. “To-morrow morning every paper in London will have over a column of unadulterated praise, and the booking-office will be besieged by a public mad to buy seats!”
In relating the incident to me, Kelly concluded thus:
“And Wilson Barrett was right. The following morning they brought the papers up to my bedroom.Times, a solid column of sugar-candy;Telegraph, a column and a quarter of molasses, laid on thick;Post, syrup suited for Society. I dressed in a hurry, raced through my breakfast, ordered a hansom, and told the man to drive like the devil to the Princess’s Theatre. I was anxious to see the queue waiting to book, as discerned in the prophetic vision of my actor-managerial confrère. Never before did the journey from St. John’s Wood to Oxford Street appear so long. It was just on noon when we passed through Oxford Circus, but by the time we passed Peter Robinson’s I could see a crowdgathered in front of the theatre. ‘By Crœsus, Barrett’s right again!’ I said to myself as I paid the cabby and turned to enter the house; and then the horrible truth burst upon me. The crowd was entirely composed of Wilson Barrett’s creditors!”
There was very littleposeabout the pressman of the jocund days. There was an editorialpose, of course—that was as essential as an ecclesiastical or as a judicialpose—but among the rank and file nothing of the sort was known, and nothing of the sort would have been tolerated. Journalists were like so many schoolboys grown up, and affectations of all kinds were an abomination to them; yet the seed for some of the artistic make-believe which is now so wide spread was sown in an earlier and, I venture to think, a more healthy time.
Thus, what a mighty growth of rank vegetation has followed the discovery by Swinburne of Fitzgerald’s paraphrase of the “Rubaiyat” of Omar Khayyám! Swinburne’s “find” in Quaritch’s shop was, perhaps, the most important event that ever took place there. From a commercial point of view the transaction was naught, for the neglected verses were rescued by the poet from the “All these at twopence” box of the expert in old editions. Nor was there anything at all sensational in the circumstance of one poet lighting upon the undiscovered genius of a brother bard. One can understand Swinburne’s keen delight and sympathetic appreciation, but what of the rising flood of slushy adulation which has followed on the part of men who are without literary discrimination or poetic insight? The names of eminent members of the Press appear in the lists of those assembled to do honour to the memory of the Persian voluptuary. This is a pity, I think. To be in harmony with their object, these celebrations should be orgies, and as long as they are conducted on any other lines they should be left to the professors of a vapid dilettantism.
Omar Khayyám had a fine sense of humour, and, scanning mundane affairs from his retreat in Paradise, he must sometimes shake with laughter as he regards the class of admirers who assemble and meet together, drinking to his memory,sending roses to be planted on his grave, and ruffling it for a night in the character of irresponsible roisterers. There is a touch of the comic about the situation that just redeems it; otherwise, it were pitiful. What on earth does old Omar make in that galley? The dominant note of the diners is that of a stifling modernity. The purveyors of literary gossip are here, with the prurient and the anæmic, and the few normal persons who are present are here from a mere desire to gratify their curiosity or their gregariousness. All are in the attire decreed by social convention for functions of the sort. Many of them wear spectacles. When the hour strikes, and the operation of the Licensing Act compels them to bring their feast to an end, they “taxi” off to their suburban villas, where they pay rates and elect Borough Councillors. Here they are “waited up for” by their faithful wives, middle-aged and highly respectable matrons, to whom, with more or less lucidity, they relate all they have been doing and saying in honour of a lusty human animal of primeval instincts, who, had he any “say” in the matter, would eloquently resent the familiarity which is being taken with his name by persons with whom he could never have had anything in common.
And this reflection reminds me of an incident related to me by Sala. He told it of James Hannay. That accomplished writer was a great admirer of the works of Horace, and on December 8—the poet’s birthday—he gave a dinner in honour of his favourite author. At these annual assemblies the majority of the guests were men having a scholarly acquaintance with the writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus. On one of these anniversaries it happened that the scholarly persons were all prevented from attending, and Hannay found himself surrounded at dinner by friends whose knowledge of Horace, if anything at all, was of a schoolboy and negligible kind. It was Hannay’s custom on these occasions to propose one toast—“The Memory of Horace.” He rose to make his customary address, which he brought to a conclusion in the following words:
“Would that the great poet were with us now! Here he would tell us of his Venusian home under the shadow ofthe Apulian Hills; here he would explain the recondite personal allusions in his ‘Satires’; here he would lift the veil from his inner life in quoting passages from the ‘Epistles’; here he would recite, as only he could, his lighter or his graver ‘Odes,’ happily conscious of the fact that not one person in his hearing understood a word of the language in which he was speaking!”
And, according to Sala, no one resented the pleasantry. It may be assumed that Hannay was more exercised about the memory of Horace than he was about his own. One never hears him quoted now; yet he established a claim on the memory of posterity far more valid than that of a score of writers who have become accepted as speaking with authority. His “Satire and Satirists” proves him to be as fine a master of satire as many of those with whom he deals. His “Singleton Fontenoy” is full of wit and humour, and the shrewd wisdom of a thorough man of the world. He wrote largely in theQuarterly Review, was a contributor toPunch, and a regular writer on the Press. There is no English critic to whose pages I revert with keener satisfaction; but that taste is not general. Hannay, alas! has written his name in water.
Charles Reade wrote one of the greatest novels produced in the Victorian era—I refer, of course, to “The Cloister and the Hearth”—and he was probably one of the greatest personalities of his own time. I knew him fairly well. Like Robert Buchanan, he was ready to rush into newspaper correspondence on the slightest provocation, and, having once commenced operations, he hit out in a way that was perfectly wonderful; yet—again like poor Buchanan—he was a man with a soft heart and a generous nature. He would roar through a whole column, hurling at his opponent the most weird and lurid denunciations, but he bore no malice. He was afflicted now and then with righteous indignation, but once the steam was let off, he cooed like a sucking-dove. In the height of his argument he would coin the most wonderful phrases, for Reade never raged as the heathen rage. Tom Purnell “had at” the old gentleman in theAthenæum, and Reade was out after his scalp inrather less than no time. His philippic on this occasion incidentally enriched the English language by the addition of a word. “Pseudonymuncule” was the epithet which he forged for the confusion of his opponent.
Reade was a big burly man, with a grey beard, short clipped. Henry Byron once described him as “Great Briton,” and the phrase was apt enough. A tumultuous, overwhelming personage was Reade. His advertisements to “Thief Takers,” offering rewards to those who caught unscrupulous persons pirating his works, were surely the “maddest, merriest” things ever set up in type; yet they were quite seriously meant by their author. On the subject of piracy he was always in deadly earnest. One of his last contributions to the Press was a series of articles in theDaily Telegraphon “Ambidextrous Man.” On this subject he waxed as emphatic, insistent, and eloquent as if the world were arrayed in one great stupid conspiracy against his contention. As a matter of fact, the world did not care a farthing about it one way or the other. Perhaps his most dramatic exhibition of violent indignation was afforded when the authorities wanted to acquire his house at Albert Gate. Among other devices to which he resorted in order to bring his persecutors to their senses was a very characteristic one. He had a huge board affixed to the forefront of his dwelling, and painted thereon, for all the world to see, was the legend “Naboth’s Vineyard.” One would have imagined that this would have stricken his enemies with a sense of shame. In that direction, however, I regret to say, it failed.
When the prize-ring was set up between four walls, and its contests decided after dinner before a mob of gentlemen in evening dress, its chief London home was, and is, the National Sporting Club. The National Sporting Club was not the direct descendant of the prize-ring, but came to the sons of men by way of the West London Rowing Club, in connection with which there was a boxing-club supported by such sportsmen as “Pills” Holloway, “Nobby” Hall, and other gentlemen pugilists. The umpires, referees, and time-keepers at the National Sporting Club had graduatedat the West London, which had its premises on the tow-path by Putney Bridge. The chief of these were Mr. “Jack” Angle, Mr. Vyse, and Mr. “Tom” Anderson, of the Board of Trade. All three were men of dress and of address—what used to be called “swells,” in fact—and Anderson was always noted for the wonderful depth of his linen collars; indeed, he may be said to have set that fashion in collars which a few years since bid fair to strangle the rising hope of England. Whenever a boxing contest came off at the National Sporting, the names of these three veterans of the gloves appeared in the newspapers publishing reports of the “fights.” When Sir Courtney Boyle became Chief of the Board of Trade, he was scandalized to find the name of a gentleman holding an important position in the office appearing publicly in such a degrading connection, and Anderson was tabled, and informed that if he wished to retain his position he must abandon all official connection with the “ring.” Anderson’s resentment may, perhaps, be found expressed in the fact that shortly afterwards Sir Courtney became known in Whitehall as “Doubtful Boyle.” On being asked the meaning of the sobriquet, Anderson would slyly answer: “The chief is so called because he is always in doubt as to whether godamighty made him or he made godamighty!”