THE FASTEST MAN IN ENGLAND.
I don't see how any writer could make a stronger case against Royalty, (however hostile his spirit,) than this fearless exposition by the English journal of wide circulation, to which I have referred. The evidence of Sir Frederick Johnstone, which I have omitted, was too disgraceful to appear in this work, although the English papers printed every line of it. Well, the case went to the jury at last, after Lord Penzance had properly and carefully manipulated them, and a verdict was brought by them "that Lady Mordaunt being of unsound mind, was totally unfit to instruct her attorneys," and thus Sir Charles Mordaunt, having been dishonored and his domestic happiness destroyed by a conspiracy of titled persons, had to be satisfied with the verdict. In these days the plea of insanity is always a convenient one, and is very useful in a desperate case. Sir Charles was not daunted, however, and appealed his case, but met with defeat again, and thus the matter rests, and will rest. It is the intention of the injured husband to visit America, as he is an admirer of our institutions. I do not wish to offer any comment whatever on the state of society in which such corruption exists. The facts must speak for themselves.
The "fastest" young man in England is undoubtedly, William Alexander, Louis, Stephen, Douglas-Hamilton, Duke of Hamilton, Marquis of Hamilton, Marquis of Douglas, Earl of Angus, Earl of Arran, Earl of Lanark, Baron Hamilton, Aven, Polmont, Macanshire, Innerdale, Abernethey and Jedburgh Forest, and premier Duke and Peer in the Peerage of Scotland, Duke of Brandon (Suffolk), and Baron Dutton in the Peerage of Great Britain, Duke of Chatherault in France, Hereditary,Keeper of the Holyrood House, and Deputy Lieutenant of some county with an unpronounceable name in Scotland.
Possibly some of my readers, in going over this long line of titles, will recall the days of Bruce and Douglas, of "proud Angus," whom Marmion bearded in his hall, and of that Douglas who carried the heart of Bruce, like a Paladin, amid the lances of Spain; or perhaps the picture of Chevy Chase, and Douglas, and Percy, in armed fight, will be evoked with thoughts of the greatest historical House in Europe. Nobler descent, or more genuine historical honor, cannot be claimed by the holder of any lordly or royal title, than that which belongs to the present Duke of Hamilton, who is as yet only twenty-seven years of age. He is a first cousin of the Emperor of France by his mother, Stephanie, Duchess of Baden, a noble, beautiful, and good woman,—who married the old Duke of Hamilton; and one of his sisters is married to the Prince of Monaco, a sovereign in his own right. Two other sisters of the present Duke are nuns, having been educated in the Roman Catholic faith by their mother. The fourth sister is married to a private gentleman of large fortune.
duke
THE DUKE OF HAMILTON.
INSULTS THE EMPEROR.
The old Duke was in every sense a gentleman and a man of honor, but his two male descendants, the present Duke of Hamilton, and his brother, Lord Churchill Hamilton, are sad scapegraces—indeed I doubt if a rougher name would not be more appropriate. The young Duke, as soon as he came of age, fell heir to an income of £300,000 a year, and eight or nine country seats and residences. He had no sooner entered into possession of his estate, than he was surrounded by betting men, turf blackguards, spendthrifts, abandoned women, and dissolute noblemen of his own age. Every shilling of his gigantic fortune was squandered in three or four years, and his proud old name became a by-word of scorn and reproach when it was found that his debts amounted to £130,000. He had for his associates the Earl of Jersey, the Marquis of Waterford, the Prince of Wales, Lord Carington, the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl of Winchelsea, the Earl of Westmoreland, and other bankrupt and dissolute nobles. For a long time polite society tolerated the Duke of Hamilton, because of his family, birth, and fortune, but when he lost the latter, those who formerly laughed at his wild actions and peccadilloes, now began to frown upon him as anenfant perdu. He was sowing too much wild oats, and his friends began to desert him in disgust. A bad set of men who had control of the Duke, did not hesitate to drag his proud name and title through the gutters. At last his fellow noblemen, thoroughly ashamed of him, determined to give him a lesson. His name was put up for membership in the Jockey Club, and he was black-balled with great unanimity. The Duke of an almost royal family was treated in this ignominious way by the fathers of families, and brothers of girls of stainless birth, as a caution to him. The Duke being both bankrupt and disgraced, left England for the Continent, to avoid his thousand and one creditors, who cursed him bitterly when he departed. Passing through Paris, his cousin, the Emperor, invited him to dine at the Tuilleries. The Duke returned a curt verbal answer to his imperial relative, that he could not accept the invitation, "for he had neither clothes nor manners in which to appear at the Emperor's table." That same evening he appeared in a private box at the opera, dressed in a short double-breasted shooting jacket, in company with two or three of the turfites (broken down betting men, who hung on to him for what they could get), and afterwards presided at a supper of which the less that is said the better, concerning the "ladies," who composed one-half of the twenty-four persons who sat down to table.
After the Duke left England for the Continent, a sale of his effects was had. Hundreds of purchasers attended the sale out of curiosity, as they had attended the sale of "Skittle's" furniture, or as the Parisian dandies and lorettes attended the sale of the household gods of Marguerite Gautier, afterwards known as the "Dame aux Camelias." Every article belonging to the Duke realized a value of more than two or three hundred per cent. over its original value. Crowds of "snobs" and "cads" bought whips and pipes, riding jackets, cigar cases, canes, gloves, and boots, pictures of French dancers and German soubrettes, as well as articles of crockery, at the most extravagant prices, simply because they had once been in the possession of a real live Duke, although he was a scamp. One miserable little tea-broker gave twenty-five pounds for a worn, poorly bound copy of the "Kisses of Johannes Secundus," with the idea that he was getting something very immoral—but he was disappointed of course.
I saw him twice, this Duke of Hamilton, once in a low cabaret in Paris, which had for a name the strange and I thought very inappropriate title of the "Groves of the Evangelists."
It was in a little street, or rather lane, called the Rue Belle-Cuisse, which is in the Quartier Breda.
It was a low dingy little hole, this "Groves of the Evangelist," and the people present were chiefly infantry privates of some of the line regiments, who serve as a part of the garrison of Paris. They were a hard-drinking, ruffianly lot, and the women who sat on their laps were of all the obscene birds of night that I encountered in Paris, the very worst and most abandoned.
A little girl, with a bold face and wearing a slatternly, torn dress, with a brazen pair of steely blue eyes, acted as bar-girl in this place, and measured out to the customers, petit verres of fiery Nantes brandy.
Two men, young, and fashionably dressed, sat at a table, who appeared to be strangers in Paris, although they conversed fluently enough, in French, with each other.
One of these was a fair, girlish-faced, young gentleman, withhair which is always termed auburn by the poets, while, as a contradiction it is generally denominated, in police returns—"red hair." This was the Duke of Hamilton.
The second person at the table was a tall, athletic, and handsome-looking fellow, of twenty-four or five years of age, with a smooth face, daring, black eyes, and a massive head well set upon a pair of broad shoulders.
This individual was John De La Poer Beresford, Marquis of Waterford, Earl of Tyrone, Viscount Tyrone, and a Baron five times over in England and Ireland, a relation of the Archbishop of Armagh, Protestant Primate of Ireland, and having an income of about half a million dollars, annually, in his own right.
marquis
MARQUIS OF WATERFORD.
VILLAINY OF THE MARQUIS OF WATERFORD.
This young Marquis of Waterford, did a most dastardly thing when he seduced the wife of his bosom friend, the Hon. J.C.P. Vivian, M.P., a Junior Lord of the Treasury, who had placed the utmost confidence in the Marquis. He took Mrs. Vivian with him to Paris, and there lived with her in open adultery for some time until he became tired of his victim and then he ordered her with great coolness to return to her dishonored husband. To make the matter worse she was the mother of two lovely children. Her married sister, the Honorable Mrs. Somebody, went to Paris to attempt to reclaim her, held an interview with her, and begged of her to return to her husband. She blankly refused to do so, giving as her reason that she loved "John" too much,—"John," I need not say, being the Marquis of Waterford.
Mr. Vivian having commenced a suit for divorce, the utter villainy of the Marquis appeared when the letters of that nobleman to his quondam friend Vivian were read, in which the great trust reposed by Mr. Vivian in Waterford was most publicly made manifest.
This young nobleman is a grandson of the second Marquis of Waterford, who was distinguished as a companion to the Prince Regent, and as well for breaking off door-knockers and bell-handles—a complaint that was chronic with him, and that seems to run in the family.
The Marquis of Waterford is not quite so impoverished through his excesses as some of his friends, but I understand that his debts at one time amounted to £60,000.
My readers may recollect that, during the visit of the Prince of Wales to America, he had in the suite which accompanied him, a certain Duke of Newcastle, a young nobleman, who married, some years ago, a daughter of the great banker, Hope, who brought her husband an immense fortune. Beside these advantages there were few noblemen in England as highly connected, or as wealthy, as the Duke of Newcastle. Well, Miss Hope only served to stay the waning fortunes of this spendthrift for a short time, as he is now a bankrupt, and has to reside out of England to avoid the Sheriff's officers. While the execution was being levied in the magnificent mansion of the Duke, and before his wife could leave the premises, the Duke had gambled away thirteen thousand pounds, the last remnant of his once princely fortune. This hopeful Duke has always been very intimate with the Prince of Wales.
Another of the same reckless unprincipled set is the young Earl of Jersey, who was left an income of £50,000 a year, every shilling of which is gone. This young fool, who is endowed with the manners of a cabman, and who has a pot-house air in everything that he says or does, was deeply in debt at sixteen years of age, and before he left school he had borrowed£25,000 from the Jews, who now own him body and soul. His grand-mother, the Countess of Jersey, was, I believe, a mistress of George IV.
THE MARQUIS OF HASTINGS.
The Marquis of Hastings, who died about two years ago, was also one of this same set of spendthrift, young harum-scarum, unprincipled scions of the Bluest Blood of which England can boast. All his magnificent fortune went in horses, and women, and yachts, and at last, when he died, at the age of 26, he had squandered some three or four millions of dollars, and, I believe, the title created as far back as 1389, became in the direct line, extinct. The Marquis lost one day at the Derby race on Lady Elizabeth, a favorite horse of his, the enormous sum of $150,000 in gold. He married a beautiful and wealthy girl, and her fortune went in the general crash after his death. He owned a magnificent yacht, and was in the habit of cruising in the Mediterranean with a coterie of dissolute young aristocrats like himself, and on board of this yacht scenes took place that might have made the cheek of Sardanapalus to blush—that is, provided that that bloated Assyrian ever blushed.
marquis
THE MARQUIS OF HASTINGS.
Prince Christian of Schleswig, a beggarly little German kinglet, who was allowed to marry the Princess Helena, a daughter of Queen Victoria, and a very good girl, is said to be rather wild in his ways, but his allowance, £10,000 a year from Parliament, has to satisfy him whether he likes it or not. But in 1869 Prince Christian and the Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz had occasion to journey from Dover to Calais, and thelittle German had the impudence to send a bill of sixty eight pounds expenses to Parliament, despite the fact that he received his allowance regularly. Professor Fawcett, a liberal member of Parliament, who brought in bills to abolish religious distinctions in Dublin University, and in favor of woman suffrage, demanded the items of the bill, and failing to get them, moved that the Prince Christian's bill be struck out of the estimates. To show what is thought of such unbridled extravagance—the fare being only about two pounds from Dover to Calais—I give the satire and comments of theQueen's Messengerof August 5, 1869, upon the matter. This paper is a weekly organ, published in London.
"Happily there are always two ways of looking at a question, else the following bill, which was presented last week to Parliament, might have suggested puzzling reflections:DUE FROM BRITISH TAXPAYER TO BRITISH GOVERNMENT:For cost of presents made by Duke of Edinburgh during voyage to Cape and Australia,£3,374 14 0For conveyance of Prince Christian and Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitzfrom Dover to Calais,68 0 0For royal present to Peter, king of Congo, as reward for act of Christian charity,0 12 6For luncheon to Prince William of Hesse,13 0 0For providing food for inhabitants of Cephalonia after the island had been injured by earthquake,10 9 6For rigging-out a pier at Antwerp for reception of Prince of Wales,2 1 0For robes, collars, and badges for certain persons who had received honor of knighthood,1,000 0 0For maintenance of Congo, pirate chief, at Ascension,38 3 0Cost of presents to King of Masaba, by Captain of H.M. ship Investigator,2 0 4———£4,509 0 4Thus it costs 13l.to give a luncheon to Prince William of Hesse, and only 10l.to relieve an island full of people who are dying of famine. It requires 2l.to lay down red cloth for the Prince of Wales to walk on, and only 12s.6d.to reward King Peter for an act of Christian charity. These are facts worth knowing. The only thing we regret is that Government should have withheld information as to the precise nature of the gift with which King Peter was gratified. Did this mighty Empire present him with six pairs ofcotton socks, or request him to accept a gingham umbrella second-hand? And the King of Masaba, who figures anonymously, what did he get for 2l.0s.4d.? Was it a pair of boots and some pocket-handkerchiefs, or a few pots of Scotch marmalade and a dozen pints of Bass? As to the other items of the bill, it is so obviously right that the country should be made to pay 68l.every time Prince Christian crosses the Channel, that we can only wonder anybody should ever have thought otherwise, and moved, as Mr. Fawcett did, that the sum be struck out of the estimates. We live in strange times, forsooth, when a prince cannot charge the cost of his railway-tickets on to the national purse without being made the subject of unmannered comments!"
"Happily there are always two ways of looking at a question, else the following bill, which was presented last week to Parliament, might have suggested puzzling reflections:
Thus it costs 13l.to give a luncheon to Prince William of Hesse, and only 10l.to relieve an island full of people who are dying of famine. It requires 2l.to lay down red cloth for the Prince of Wales to walk on, and only 12s.6d.to reward King Peter for an act of Christian charity. These are facts worth knowing. The only thing we regret is that Government should have withheld information as to the precise nature of the gift with which King Peter was gratified. Did this mighty Empire present him with six pairs ofcotton socks, or request him to accept a gingham umbrella second-hand? And the King of Masaba, who figures anonymously, what did he get for 2l.0s.4d.? Was it a pair of boots and some pocket-handkerchiefs, or a few pots of Scotch marmalade and a dozen pints of Bass? As to the other items of the bill, it is so obviously right that the country should be made to pay 68l.every time Prince Christian crosses the Channel, that we can only wonder anybody should ever have thought otherwise, and moved, as Mr. Fawcett did, that the sum be struck out of the estimates. We live in strange times, forsooth, when a prince cannot charge the cost of his railway-tickets on to the national purse without being made the subject of unmannered comments!"
LORD ARTHUR CLINTON.
And now having given as brief a resume as I possibly could of the salient characteristics of the "fast" young English aristocracy—having shown how extravagant, useless, dishonorable and unprincipled many of them are, I will close by mentioning that it is not long since the English journals were filled with the evidence on the trial of two young men who were arrested in London for dressing and appearing in public as females. They were frequently seen at the Opera, the race course, and in other public places, in company with Lord Arthur Clinton, a well-known young nobleman. Their apartments were searched, and waterfalls, chignons, puffs, and all the articles of the female toilet and female wearing apparel, were found in their possession. Brought before a magistrate, they manifested a strange and unmanly behavior, and bore without shame the details of the medical examination. Lord Clinton, in company with some other friends, had been paying their addresses to these hybrid creatures, and following in the footsteps of some of the disgusting court favorites, of which Juvenal and the Satirists of the Lower Empire speak, he was jealous of another young Lord, the cause being a rivalry for the affections of one of these hybrid things in a woman's clothes!
CHAPTER XVIII.
LORDS AND COMMONS.
WHY, Sir, I do think the times 'ave changed a great deal, but I am afeered they will change wuss nor ever agin. They do say as how Gladstone has, wen he likes, a will of his own to overturn the Crown itself. And I know 'is son—'a past eight-and-twenty years the young one is. He is just a bit of a curate in yon church of St. Mary's, Lambith; and I can say for 'im as he is a hard-working man—it's no bed of ease, the parish—and 'is father, who is now more than the Queen herself, might have given young Gladstone the richest living in Ingland, and nobody to say boo to him for the favor. Yisar, I'm sixty past, last Miklemas, and man and boy I've lived in Lambeth; and now I'm broke down with the parlyatics—but I once was a good man on the river, and could pull a wherry or waterman's tub with the best on 'em."
The murky beams of an August sun were falling slantingly on the muddy waters beneath my feet as I leaned over the stone balustrades of Westminster Bridge, which connects the ancient borough of Westminster with the Surrey side of the River Thames. Far down the river, I could see craft of every description lying in the stone docks, the pride and boast of all Englishmen. Bridge after bridge loomed up in the sun's hazy beams. Waterloo, Charing Cross, Blackfriars, Vauxhall, and Lambeth Bridges, crowded with traffic and swarming with the wild, heedless, ever-bustling life of the greatest city of themodern world. Under the piers of this grand bridge, nearly a thousand feet long, swept coal barges, wherries bearing noisy cockney watermen, who halloed to each other from roast-beef stomachs and brown-stout lungs, and every minute the paddling, roaring steamboats, peculiar to the Thames,—each boat about sixty feet long, their clean black hulls set off to advantage by the narrow streaks of red paint that served as an ornament to their keels, dashed to and fro, in and out of the bridge, conveying homeward clerks, shop boys, barristers, solicitors, M. P.'s, business men from the city, physicians, and here and there a stray white neck-clothed curate of the Established Church, disgusted with the latest work of Parliament, while, within a few feet of him, scarcely conscious of the visible triumph that shone over his face, sat a Dissenting preacher reading Bright's last effort in the Commons on behalf of Disestablishment.
parliament
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
On either side of the Thames, beginning at one end and ceasing at the other end of the Houses of Parliament, the magnificent embankment of hewn granite stone stretches, thirty or forty feet in width, for a mile each way, thousands of foot passengers traversing its massive blocks, each man and woman busy with his or her thoughts, or preoccupied with the passing vagaries of the hour.
VIEW FROM WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.
On my right is Westminster Palace and the Houses of Parliament, the finest modern gothic buildings in the world. The dozen towers and belfries of this truly glorious edifice, gilded over with brass, glisten with the refulgent hues of the dying sunset,—for nine hundred and forty feet on the river, these massive, brown buildings, (that, on the first view, bring up memories of some grand, old Gothic Cathedral,) stretch away with tower, buttress, and pinnacle, presenting a river facade which cannot be equaled by any other edifice for legislative purposes in the world.
Beyond, to the left, on the Surrey side, I can see Lambeth Palace, with its faded reddish-brown brick piled up to the clouds, where resides his Grace, the high and puissant spiritual prince, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of England. The feverish broil and confusion of the great city are all roundme, and are present in, and to an extent pervade, the air above me. The whistling and puffing of the locomotives may be heard night and day as they sweep to and fro, conveying passengers and freight to and from all parts of England and the Continent, over Charing Cross Bridge. The old man by my side on the bridge, with whom I have been conversing for half an hour, is an intelligent artisan of the conservative class, benumbed and enfeebled by illness, and his poor old watery, dazed utterances confess to his astonishment at the marvelous rapidity with which one of the great strongholds of every Englishman's belief,—the Established Church, has been over-turned by the now foremost man in Britain—William Ewart Gladstone. The old man has relations in America, somewhere,—he thinks, near Cincinnati, and he asks after their health and well-being with the most implicit trust that I should know all about them, believing that the Queen City is only a few miles distant by rail from New York. Yet the relatives of his youth and manhood have been absent over twenty years, and are possibly all dead and dust by this time.
gladstone
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.
As I have a desire to pay a visit to the House of Commons, and be a witness of the proceedings of that dignified body of legislators, I bid the Old Man of Lambeth a very good day, which he acknowledges in his own fashion, and I stroll across the Bridge and down Bridges street toward the Commons. As I pass the huge and massive Clock Tower, said to be four hundred feet in height, and of most beautiful design, I am warned by what I see all around me, that I am in the close vicinity of that edifice which contains within its walls annually the chosen wisdom and supposed best talent of England. Directly before me is the magnificent fane of Westminster Abbey, holding within its thousand storied urns, the ashes of the bravest, most intellectual, and most renowned, as well as the most wretched and unfortunate of Britain's dead. I can see, as I cross the bridge, the back portion of the Chapel of Henry the Seventh, with its superb and intricate net-work of tower, cornice, buttress, groined and fillagree stone-work. Cabs, four-wheelers, and open carriages, with coachmen and footmen attired in gorgeous liveries, their wigs powdered and frizzed, are driving hither and thither, the occupants of some in full dress going to dinner, or to listen to the debates which are to take place to-night in the Lords or Commons.
"BOBBIES" AND "CABBIES."
These magnificent flunkies wear a contemptuous look of ennui on their faces, and they survey all foot-passengers with blase glances of indifferent serenity, which I find almost impossible to describe justly. The court-yard directly opposite St. Margaret's, of Westminster, is in a hollow below the grading of the approach to the bridge, and is surrounded by a very handsome gilded iron railing, which is in turn surmounted by a row of lamps which encircle the House of Commons at night like a belt of fire. Within this enclosure are continually stationed fifty or sixty hansom cabs for the convenience of the members who may need them in the intervals of debate, and on top of these cabs are to be found the cabbies who delight to bark and bite at the unsophisticated and verdant stranger.
There are half a dozen of policemen, or "bobbies," as the cockney, in his refined slang, chooses to term them, wearing dark blue uniforms with silver gilt buttons, and the letter and number of their division on their close coat collars. The thick cloth-board hats, of a helmeted shape, that these poor fellows are compelled to wear, even in hot weather, are heavy enough to excite the compassion of the most hard-hearted person, An inspector of hacks, always on duty in the Palace Yard, may beseen moving to and fro, giving instructions to the malicious cabbies, who are listening to his scoldings with the most provoking indifference, real or assumed, as the case may be.
Not being aware of the regulations, which do not permit a stranger or visitor to enter the House of Commons without being possessed of the written order of a member, I find myself notified at the splendidly arched gothic doorway that I cannot pass. Here is a difficulty I had not counted on. A friend from America, however, shows an order, which I afterwards discover only admitted one person. We pass in under the groined roof of one of the finest halls, architecturally considered, in Europe. In this hall, over six hundred years ago on a New Year's day, a monarch of the Plantagenet line fed six thousand poor people, and one may well believe the legend of old prosy Abbot Ingulph, of Croyland, as he looks around and above him at the grand dimensions of the stately hall. On either side as one enters are marble statues, life-size, of Hampden, Falkland, Walpole, Fox, Pitt, Burke, Grattan, and others,—the work of England's greatest sculptors, placed on pedestals of stone.
We are told by the policeman who attends at one of the inner doorways to seat ourselves on a stone bench in an alcove, and wait our turn as is the custom here. The Stranger's Gallery will not hold more than a hundred persons when crowded; and when a heavy debate is in progress, on a great public measure, the gallery is sure to be full. Five persons are admitted to the gallery at a time as soon as a gap is made in the benches by the departure of an equal number of spectators. Should a man leave his seat in the alcove for an instant he is certain to lose his turn, and he will be compelled to go to the bottom place and begin over again. As soon as there is room, the policeman makes a sign to those in waiting, and he marshals the five persons who have tickets, and they follow him through several passages and halls to the Lobby of the Commons—a large, square hall, beautifully decorated, and, turning to the left, they all ascend a winding stair to the ante-room, where the tickets are examined by an old, white-haired gentleman who sits in a chair in evening dress, and, if correct, the batch are admitted to the Stranger's Gallery, which is on the same floor, at the end of another dark passage.
BILL OF FARE.
Before I leave the Lobby of the Commons, let me describe it briefly together with the Lunch Counter of the house, which even the greatest public men find it necessary to visit occasionally. It is a large square hall of lofty proportions, almost every inch of the walls and ceiling being ornamented in relief with the insignia of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
A score of the members are in the Lobby talking with one another, in an animated but not loud tone, or mayhap to some of their favored constituents who have admission. To the right is a counter running across an angle of the Lobby, at which ices, sandwiches, a glass of sherry, a glass of port, or a glass of brandy—all of a good quality, can be obtained by those of the members who do not wish to spoil a dinner by a hearty luncheon, or who do not wish to spend the time in going down stairs into a cosy suite of rooms, which I almost fancied were carved out of the beautiful oak paneling, and where a dinner nearly as good as may be found in England can be obtained at the prices and at the hours which I give in the Bill of Fare: One o'clock—Soups: Jardiniere, 1s.; Calf's Tail, 1s.Joints: Shoulder of Mutton, 2s.; Steak, stewed, 2s.Entrees: Hashed Venison, 3s.; Filet B[oe]uf au Vin, 2s.; Mutton Cutlets piquante, 2s.; Lamb Chop, 1s.3d.Five o'clock to 6.30—Salmon, Is.6d.; Sole, 1s.; White Bait, 1s.; Saddle of Mutton, 2s.; Cold Roast Beef, 1s.3d.; Cold Boiled Beef, 1s.3d.; Cold Lamb, 2s.; Cold Ham, 1s.3d.; Lobster, 1s.3d.; Ribs of Beef, 2s.At 7 o'clock, same prices. Puddings, 6d.; Tarts, 6d.; Wine Jelly, 6d.; French Beans, 6d.; Green Peas, 6d.; Salad, 6d.; Cheese, 4d.This is the bill of fare, for one day only, of the steward, Mr. Nicoll, who purveys for the Lords and Commons of England in both Houses.
I give the prices as a curiosity, showing on what nutriment heroes, statesmen, and orators are fed while attending St. Stephens, and how much they are taxed for their food. This may be trivial to some persons, but I contend the sum of human existence is made up of trifles, and in England, particularly, of such substantial trifles as I have given above. Wellington gained the battle of Waterloo because his troops were well fed, while the raw levies, and even the Old Guard of Napoleon, had been fighting for three days at Ligny and Quatre Bras, and had to lie the night before Waterloo in a wet morass, hungry and exhausted. The articles of food that I have named are to be procured here at a cheaper rate and of better quality than anywhere else in London, only that to enjoy the luxuries which I have enumerated at moderate prices, it is first necessary to gain admittance to the Houses of Parliament, which can only be done through a member's order. The chops and steaks here are truly magnificent, and on a scale of grandeur commensurate with the architectural pretensions of Westminster Palace.
Besides all this, away down below the bustle and eloquence of the Commons, in those dark, quaint oak passages enclosed by marvelous paneling, the visitor is certain to find one of the most beautiful bar-maids in London to wait upon him—and hand him cold sherry at sixpence a glass.
This comely damsel had some tickets to sell. Her uncle—I think it was her uncle—it was who had broken his leg. He belonged to the Noble Order of Foresters, and it was necessary that the public should be called upon to make up a purse to have the uncle's leg set. I had a benevolent American along with me who knew not what to do with his newly cashed sovereigns, and he listened with a compassionate ear to the tale of distress. The result was a small contribution of a half sovereign to the uncle.
MR. BRUCE AND HIS STEAKS.
The bar-maid said, in presence of two of her country friends—they came from Ilfracombe, down in the country: "I am so much obliged to you, sir. My uncle is very bad. Will you have soda and brandy, sir, or will you have a little bitter beer? The bitter beer is very good after a mutton-chop and potatoes. Mr. Bright always prefers a glass of sherry when he comes down here, but Mr. Disraeli takes brandy and soda. The Hirish members, they are so jolly, and they do carry on so, and they make such jokes with us girls. I likes Lord Stanley, the member for Lynn, least of them all. Somehow, you can't joke with him. He looks awfully sewere, and whenever he speaks it's just like a father for all the world. You know, sir, he's got the hold Darby blood hintoo 'im, and he is a great man."
"Who do you like best in the House of Commons, sissy?" said my frolicsome American friend to the joyous bar-maid.
barmaid
THE LEGISLATIVE BAR-MAID.
"Well, sir, I likes Mr. Bruce, the 'Ome Sekretary, the best of hall of them. He has sich a hinfluence. When he comes down here he always takes a steak, and he is hawful pertikler habout it as how it is to be cooked. He halways likes to have one side raw and the other side burnt. Oh, I have been so worrited about Mr. Bruce and 'is steaks—the waiters always comes to me and says, 'I say, wot kind of a man is this 'ere 'Ome Sekretary, he ought to get some silk binding on to his steaks, he is so werry pertikler.' But he always drops 'em a sixpence and that makes it hup."
The door of the members' entrance to the Commons is guarded by two persons in evening dress, who are dignified enough in presence and feature to sit in the Senate of the United States. At each side is a handsomely carved, oaken box, shaped like a sentry's hut in camp, and in the sides of these boxes are placed notches or racks where all messages and letters for the members are left in the charge of the doorkeepers, as no outsiders whatever are permitted to penetrate this entrance excepting the Lords or distinguished foreigners, and the latter only by invitation of the House itself.
There are also telegraph offices in the corners of the lobby, with stained glass windows, from whence telegrams can be sent without delay to the Mediterranean, to Paris, St. Petersburg, New York, Washington, San Francisco, Madrid, Pekin, or any place in the bounds of civilization. As I turn from the contemplation of these offices, and from the benches where a number of messengers and smart-looking and handsomely-uniformed pages are in readiness to rush to the clubs in Pall Mall, to the Opera, or to the private residences of the members of the House, in obedience to the beck or nod of the "whip" of the government, (Sir Henry Brand,) in case of a division, I see before me in the doorway a magnificently attired gentleman, in black silk stockings, buckled shoes, and powdered hair and ruffles, wearing a bright sword at his hip. He looks like a picture stepped out of a frame of the period which Thackeray loved to dwell upon—when George the Third was king.
This gentleman is none other than the Sergeant-At-Arms of the House of Commons, Lord Charles James Fox Russell, a scion of the great house of Bedford, of which Earl Russell is a member. How different he looks from the sergeant-at-arms of some of our State Legislatures, or even of the National Houses of Congress. Here is no promoted bar-keeper or reformed rowdy, but a gentleman bearing one of the proudest names in England, and befitting by position and character the elevated office which he holds. It is more than easy to believe that a slung-shot or revolver could not be pulled upon this gorgeous and venerated being while in the performance of his august duties. The most malicious derringer would be silent in his awful presence, and no slung-shot, however moulded, could ever impinge that hereditary forehead.
THE GREAT COMMONER.
A story is told of a man who once penetrated even to the floor of the House itself, and sat there on the benches, being taken for some new member by his colleagues who was yet to be sworn in. But before the morning broke, the House having sat all night, the horror of his position had so paralyzed himthat his jetty hair had turned white. Stay, as I have no ticket I will throw myself upon the country and abide the issue. I sent in to the Hon. John Francis Maguire, M.P., my card, with the written desire that I should be admitted to the gallery, and then I awaited the issue, whether for the Tower or the House.
While I waited, strolling about the gallery, a gentleman came out of the door of the Commons, upon whom every eye was turned, and walked in an upright, John Bull fashion towards the refreshment counter. A whisper went round the lobby, "That is John Bright," and then I knew that for the first time I stood in the presence of England's greatest Commoner, the apostle of the Manchester school and Tribune of the people. I who had seen so many caricatures of the great orator in Punch, which has always depicted him as a fat, pursy, vulgar-looking person, sans breeding, sans ceremonie, failed at the first glance to identify the noble-looking old man in evening dress, with an irreproachable white neck-tie, and a decidedly polished exterior, who halted at the refreshment bar to slowly sip a strawberry ice after the heat of the debate.
john
JOHN BRIGHT.
Every inch this was a man, as I looked at him, and a king among men, if the outward shell can serve at all to indicate what is concealed within. And he has a princely following too. For around him I can see a number of men whose names are known wherever the English language is spoken, and wherever English newspapers are printed and read,—eager to get a word or a look from him, plain JohnBright, once the best hated man in England, and now, by sheer force of will and dogged pluck, enshrined forever in the admiration, if not the love, of his countrymen. I have as yet only been waiting a few minutes when I see approaching me a messenger of the House, who points the writer out to a stout, compact-looking man in evening dress, of advanced years, fair complexion, and with a keen look in his face which serves as a front to a large, solid head, well set on strong shoulders. This is the Hon. John Francis Maguire, M.P. for Cork, author of "Rome and its Rulers," "The Life of Father Matthew," "The Irish in America," and editor of the CorkExaminer, a man well known in Ireland and America, and one of the Irish leaders of the Liberal side in the House.
Mr. Maguire has taken the trouble to leave his seat in the House during debate to oblige the writer of this book, and I must here make my acknowledgment for the courtesy done. Mr. Maguire hands me a slip of paper which he has procured for me from the Right Honorable John Evelyn Denison, Bart., Speaker of the House, and this order entitles me to a reserved seat on the front bench of the Gallery. I now pass the dignitary in the black stockings and buckles, who smiles most graciously at me out of the respect to the Speaker's order, and, after traversing a narrow stair, emerge into the Speaker's Gallery, and find myself at last inside the English House of Commons, of which I have heard so much and so often.
It is now after dusk, and I can hear the silvery chime of "Big Ben" in the huge clock tower of St. Stephen's, as it peals the hour of eight through the corridors and galleries. There is just now a recess among the members for consultation, and but few are on the floor of the House, the majority being in the lobby button-holing each other, and the rest, with the exception of fifteen or twenty on the seats behind the Treasury Bench, are at dinner.
HALL OF THE COMMONS.
There are fifty or sixty persons in the Gallery, behind and above me, the place where I sit being reserved for those whose names have been inscribed on the list of the Speaker. The Commons' Galleries run lengthwise on either side of the House,for nearly a hundred feet, having an upper and lower bench, covered with green leather. The House is about forty-five feet wide, and one hundred feet long, and the ceiling is over forty feet from the ground floor, where the debates are held. It is impossible for me to convey an idea of the richness and splendor of this Hall of the Commons. Suffice to say that there is nothing to compare with it in America for architectural effect and compactness.
From above in the ceiling a flood of mellow light pours through sixty-four stained glass windows, and on either side of the House the windows are gorgeous in their designs of shields and coats of arms, indicating the living presence of the monarchy of Great Britain and Ireland. The numerous gas jets are concealed at the top of the glass panelling of the ceiling, throwing a brilliant but subdued light upon the Speaker as he sits in his high, over-hanging oak chair; on the members; on the spectators, and on the ladies who are assembled behind the glass screen at the back of and above the Speaker's chair. Beneath the Ladies' Gallery, and also behind the Speaker's chair, is the Reporters' Gallery, so arranged that each member, as he faces the Speaker, shall also face the numerous corps of reporters who are in attendance to note down whatever wheat may develop itself in the wilderness of chaff spoken in this House.
The lowest bench on the right hand of the Speaker is devoted to the Ministry, and on this side, immediately above, the supporters of the government congregate within hearing distance of the Premier, night after night, during the sessions. Whenever the Ministerial side is thin of speakers, Mr. Gladstone simply turns around, and a nod or look will bring upon his feet whatever member he thinks will best fill the gap. Underneath the Strangers' gallery is placed a special seat for the august Sergeant-at-Arms or his deputy, who is, if I mistake not, a baronet. The walls and ceiling all round are of stone of a peculiar color, which is neither brown, white, grey, nor yellow, but is a combination of all four; and I can best describe the tone of color by likening it to the hue of the bronchialtroches or lozenges that are sold in the druggists' shops in America. Otherwise I might call it a brownish-grey, of which John Ruskin has examples enough and to spare in his "Stones of Venice."
It is certainly a very rich color, and admirably adapted to the damp and foggy atmosphere of London. Wherever the eye may choose to rest in the Houses of Parliament, it is sure to be confronted with the emblazoning of royal and princely cognizances. On both sides of the House are the Division lobbies, where the members go to be counted by the tellers, when a division is called for. That on the west side is for the "ayes," and on the opposite side is the lobby for the "noes." There are also libraries, residences for all the officers of the House, on a scale of the most princely magnificence, and more than a score of committee-rooms abutting off the longest corridors of any public building in the world, not excepting the Escurial in Spain. Everywhere you may see acres of polished oak above and around you.
tailpiece
CHAPTER XIX.
LORDS AND COMMONS.—CONTINUED.
DIRECTLY in front of the gallery where I am sitting, is the Reporter's Gallery. There are fifteen boxes for their use to take notes in, each reporter sitting separately from his comrade, and writing characters for dear life. These boxes resemble private boxes in our New York Opera House, with the difference that they have no roofs above them, and are open to the public gaze. Behind these fifteen boxes are seats for twenty more reporters, to take the place of those in the boxes in turn. Each reporter takes short-hand notes for a space of ten to fifteen minutes time, and is then relieved by his colleague, waiting above him, who steps into his place as the other retires to the Reporter's Room, in the corridor, to write out his notes, and thence to take them to the newspaper office, or else, if he chooses, he may send them by the small boys waiting in the gallery, who are employed by the newspapers at a salary of from eight to twelve British shillings a week to act as messengers. Late at night, it is customary for the reporter who has notes of a very important speech—which he desires to get to the composing-rooms of his journal, to take a cab from the Palace Yard, where there are dozens of them always waiting, and thus dash off to be in time for the press. TheTimeskeeps thirteen reporters constantly in the gallery during the session, and theStandardas many more, if I am not mistaken. These men are all expert short-hand reporters, and receive from five to eight guineas per week, according to their capability. There is also a man who remains late to get the gist of what is said and done in debate, and from his notes he makes up a clear and comprehensive summary for the morning edition. Then there is the "leader-writer," "the editor" proper, and a "special reporter," who receive cards of admission to that part of the house under the Reporter's Gallery, and consequently on the floor of the House behind the Speaker's chair. This is a high favor, and only granted most sparingly, and with discretion.
There are generally to be found about twenty reporters in the gallery, but this number is greatly increased on a "field night," when it is usual to find as many as thirty-five or forty journalists in the gallery. From what I have seen of these parliamentary reporters they seem to be very deliberate in their movements, and they do not allow anything to hurry them. They are nearly all, however, very pleasant gentlemen, and with few exceptions, men of experience and scholarly attainments, two-thirds of them being men who have taken honors at the universities, or at Harrow, Eton, or Rugby, and in not a few instances they have begun life by taking minor orders in the church, and having toyed with journalism for some time they were unable at last to resist its feverish fascination. Some few of them are in the Inns of Court—embryo barristers during the day, and at night they practise short-hand, earn a respectable living, and gain experience from England's chosen representatives up in their secluded nooks in the gallery of the House. It was not always that the press and its reporters had such privileges as they now possess in the House of Commons.