THE SMITHFIELD POLICE STATION.
Before daybreak is the best time to see the Markets of London in all their bustle and brisk traffic, and one summer morning I accordingly took a cab from the Langham Hotel and told the sleepy driver to take me to the New Smithfield Market,which is convenient to Newgate Prison. We dashed madly in the gray of the morning (it was not yet more than four o'clock) through Regent street, up Oxford street, over the Holborn Viaduct, and so on to the Smithfield Police Station, which is situated at a few rods distant from the place where the Cock Lane Ghost was first discovered.
I had been directed by Inspector Bailey, of the Old Jewry office, to call at this police station, and he informed me that I should find a special policeman there at my disposal to show me the markets, and procure me any information I might desire in regard to them.
The Smithfield Police Station is like most London police stations, a very quiet and not pretentious edifice, just in the shadow of Smithfield New Market.
There was a little desk and a little railing, behind which sat a little man in a blue uniform of pilot cloth, and behind the little man were hung upon the plainly whitewashed walls a collection of handcuffs, pistols, and knives, all of which were deodands to the law. There were also placards, offering rewards for all kinds of offenders, thieves, forgers, murderers, and embezzlers, and giving detailed descriptions of their persons and clothing when last seen. These placards covered the walls, but did not add much to the appearance of the apartment. On producing my letter of introduction from Inspector Bailey to the Sergeant in command—who treated me with much civility, a bell was rung by the latter, and a policeman in uniform appeared, my old friend Ralfe, whom the Sergeant addressed as follows:
"Ralfe, you are to take this gentleman all through Smithfield Market, and show him the sights, and then you can transfer him to some one else to have him taken through Billingsgate Market, and after that he may take a look at Covent Garden Market, if he so desires. Show him everything that you can, then report to me back again."
"Yesir," said Mr. Ralfe, touching his hat, although he was not in uniform, and in another instant we were in the Londonstreets, which were very drear and damp, the gas lamps yet burning with a feeble light, and the daybreak as yet not having revealed itself.
The way was murky and dark, and the vicinity of the market was sufficiently indicated by the peculiar raw, fresh smell, with which newly killed meat greets the nasal organs.
Smithfield Market is built on a large, open square, and being on high ground commands a good view of the City of London proper. The site of the New Market which was opened a year ago, was formerly covered by the Cattle Market, which is now removed to Islington, in the suburbs. The building is of mixed stone and brick, and the cost was about half a million pounds. The ground on which it is built is also nearly as valuable as the building. The market is about four hundred feet in length and a hundred and fifty in width. The roof is of iron, and a vast avenue, high, broad, and spacious in every way, runs through the entire building.
THE HOT COFFEE GIRL.
When I reached the market with my friend, the policeman, the gas was still burning, and the long rows of stalls situated on the wide avenues of the market, were covered with beef and mutton, the stalls averaging thirty to forty feet in height. There was a confused hum of many voices, and coarse rough looking fellows in smalls and canvas smocks, with broad, scoop-shaped hats, rushed hither and thither with immense loins and quarters of beef on their brawny shoulders. Over each stall, and inside of the market beneath the roof, the proprietor or lessee of the stall has a small wooden edifice, with doors and windows and places to sleep for two or three persons. At each corner of the market is a lofty tower, a hundred feet high, and in these towers are board-rooms and dining-rooms, and reading rooms for select parties, and at the base or bottom floor of each tower is a bar where liquors and hot coffee, bread, butter, and tea, and other refreshments are sold during the early hours of the morning, to those who need sustainment. Two or three pretty girls were behind each of these stalls, and were serving with great dilligence and taste, the knots of butchers'helpers, cartmen, butchers' boys, and market officials who stood in their vicinity.
There are at least half a dozen meat inspectors in each market, and these men are paid one hundred pounds a year to examine and decide as to the wholesomeness of each and every pound or carcass of meat brought into the markets.
To one of these I spoke and asked him if he had much trouble with the butchers in regard to putrid meat.
"Trouble—Lord bless you sir, we have no trouble here to speak on. Ye see, sir, the class of butchers as sells meat here in Smithfield Market allers sells on commission. All this meat that you see a hanging on these ere hooks doesn't belong to the butchers. It is sent to them to sell on commission by the Railway Companies, and they do not own the stalls themselves either. They pays one pound ten shilling and sixpence a week for five square feet of ground—that's about the rate they pays, and the City owns the markit. Lord bless you, Sir," said the loquacious inspector, who was dressed like a butcher, having an apron, and stood leaning against a large quarter of beef. "I don't know where all the blessed meat comes from, but I knows that the pigs come from Hireland, and a goodish bit of the beef from Devonshire. It comes to the city by the Underground Railway, and you can see the place down stairs where all the meat comes in the mornin'."
At the breakfast stalls I noticed that nearly every one called for "two pennorth of bread and butter," and drank with it a bowl of hot tea or a smoking cup of coffee. The girls who served the coffee were chatty and lively, and desired information of me in regard to America. One of them, a little black brunette, queried:
"They say, sir, as how that a young leedy in Hamerica can get married on nothink—if she's good looking and can cook. Is it so, sir?"
I had no means of satisfying her as to that question, and I left her as she was preparing a sandwich for a hungry clodhopper, whose eyes were bulbous with hunger and expectation,and went below to the basement story, which opens by arches on the depot of the Underground Railway, and I found the entire earthen floor cut up by rails and platforms, on to which the meat from incoming trains is shunted and delivered. All meat delivered at Smithfield is of course dead, and no slaughtering is carried on in this market. Millions of pounds worth of meat finds its way here day after day, and thousands of men—porters and helpers and butchers' assistants—find employment here, their wages ranging from ten to thirty-five shillings a week.
Each helper is paid so much for every carcass which he carries into the market on his shoulders, and broad shoulders they have to be to carry these huge quarters of beef from the wagons which are drawn up in dense masses in and around the open spaces outside of the market walls. When this market was opened by the Mayor of London and other city dignitaries, sixteen hundred officials, connected with the market and the municipal government, dined in the central avenue, and two hundred barrels of ale were drank. This is a sample of a municipal British feast.
Outside of the building are little houses or market lodges, built of stone, in which are weighing machines, where men are constantly in attendance as weighers of beef and mutton. For this service they are paid one hundred and twenty pounds a year. The weighing machine in the little house connects under the middle of the street, where a platform is constructed, level with the surface of the pavement, and when a cart-load of beef is to be weighed, horse, cart, and beef are weighed together, and the total is placed on a slate, and when the helpers have carried all the meat into the stalls in the market to be sold wholesale, (for it is not a retail market,) the horse and cart are again weighed, and then their united weight having been deducted from the gross weight, the actual weight of the meat is thus ascertained by this simple and easy process. I think that the Smithfield Market is the finest I ever saw, and its ventilation and perfect system cannot be surpassed anywhere.
THE VEGETABLE MARKET.
From Smithfield Market I went to Covent Garden Market,which is a couple of miles distant, in Russell street, forming quite a spacious area. This is the great vegetable and flower market of London. There is a market held every morning in summer, but in winter, markets are held only on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. The market is owned by the Duke of Bedford, and was built at a cost of £30,000 by a former Duke of that family, forty years ago.
It has a colonade running around the entire building on the exterior, under which are shops having apartments in the upper stories. Joined to the back of these is another row of shops facing the inner courts, and through the centre runs a passage with shops on either side, in which are exposed for sale herbs and flowers, and the most magnificent bouquets can be procured here on a fine morning in summer. Scarce and delicate plants and flowers are here found in abundance, and around these stands I noticed numbers of male servants and pages in the liveries of some of the best known families among the London aristocracy, barganing for bouquets for their mistresses' tables. The noise and hub-bub around the open spaces in this market was perfectly deafening. It was now about four o'clock in the morning, and all the open areas were thronged with market-men and women and boys, carrying baskets and flowers in their arms, to and fro, chaffing each other or cursing and swearing with great good will.
Immense vans and market-carts loaded down with cabbages, onions, peas, cauliflowers, turnips, beans, parsley, greens, cucumbers, lettuce, apples, pears, parsnips, and other vegetables and fruits, are moving to and fro, some of them blocked in with the increasing traffic, the drivers, great big hulking fellows, mopping their perspiring foreheads and shouting at each other, as is usual among all cartmen. Women are hurrying hither and thither, making bargains and chaffering about the prices of vegetables, and meanwhile, it is almost impossible to hear or understand anything that is said. The police who are scattered here and there with their tall helmets, goodnaturedly push and shove those who block the passage ways, and frown sternly at the impudent young rascals who excite crowds andgather small knots of boys against the breakfast stalls outside the market.
Here and there around these coffee stalls, which are generally kept by old men or dilapidated and ancient women, you will see a couple of drunken or half sober roysterers, who have been on the tramp all night, and have at this early hour of the morning reached Covent Garden to get a cup of hot coffee in the market, which will clear the fumes of the liquor away, before they stagger home to a fond and anxious wife or an unrelenting landlady.
Wagons and carts have been arriving from a very early hour, and five o'clock seems to be the busiest time in Covent Garden. The houses of refreshment around the market are open at half past one in summer, and little tables are placed against the wooden pillars of the market by the tea and coffee venders, from which porters and carters make hearty breakfasts. There is no need to resort to exciting liquors, as the coffee is good and hot, and a baked potato, fresh and smoking from the oven, costs only one penny.
Every few minutes, through all the roaring and shouting, singing, talking, whistling, and laughing, I could hear the clear voice of the Baked Potato man, vending his smoking tubers and shouting:
stall
BREAKFAST STALL, COVENT GARDEN MARKET.
THE POTATO MAN GETS ANGRY.
"Tates hot!—all 'ot, 'ot! Taters all 'ot." His can with its steam pipe, from which issues forth a fragrant odor on the morning air, is already surrounded by young street boys, who will run an errand for a penny, hold your horse, catch a flying hat, steal a cabbage or a pocket full of potatoes from the stalls with equal impartiality and energy. These markets are the worst places in London for young lads, as there is always some excuse for their presence in the vicinity, under pretence of earning a penny or picking up the refuse and odds and ends of a vegetable market. Observe this young rascal now, who is surveying the Baked Potato man with an assumption of scorn combined with a profound look of wisdom in his features. His hands are in his pockets, his trousers are ragged to the knees, and his linen is nowhere visible—a miserable London streetboy—and yet you would imagine, to look at him as he steps up to negotiate for a potato, that he was the agent of the Rothschilds about to make arrangements for a loan. His age does not exceed fifteen years, and he has been sleeping in the purlieus of the market all night, as his ragged and soiled coat testify, and his hair is full of slimy straws which he has accumulated while reclining his head on a market gardener's basket. The Baked Potato man eyes him with distrust and timidity, for he is well aware that there is no profit to be made from him, and that he is about to "chaff" him. The young rascals who stand around are all wide awake, and await the contest with solicitude in their countenances.
"Taters all 'ot—taters all 'ot—'ot—'ot," cries the Potato Man.
"Well, guv'nor, I see you're a keepin the steam up as usual. Vot's the werry lowest figger you names for the werry best taters, takin a lot—takin a quantity? I feels like patronizin you, I does."
"Penny a-piece, all 'ot—'ot."
"A penny a-piece forbaked taters, and the Funds agoin down like winkin! Vy, I 'ad a pine apple myself out of a Garden this mornin for two-pence. Trade's unkimmon bad, guv'nor."
"Penny apiece—all 'ot—all 'ot—I say, keep your dirty fingers away from the can. You doesn't buy anythink, I know."
"I doesn't buy hanythink, eh? There's a hopposition can, too, started by a gentleman of my acquaintance"—here the young scamp put his thumbs in his waistcoat armholes and inflated himself after the supposed aristocratic fashion—"in the 'Aymarket. He calls the can the 'Gladstone,' and it's a werry spicy concern, I tell ye. Don't he give prime taters neither? They're real nobby ones, and plenty o' butter, and pepper, and salt. Oh! not at all! And its so werry respectable for a cove comin from the Hopera to stop and have a bit of supper on his road home. My heye, and haint the pro-pre-i-e-tor a makin of his fortin neither? Of course not! Oh, no. But there 'ill be fun when he returns to his willa with a postchay in Belgrawey in a few years."
By this time the Baked Potato man is pretty mad, between the pertinacity of his young tormentor and the highly colored picture of his rival's prosperity, as depicted by the boy, and he tells him in an angry way to "move hon, hif 'e doesn't want 'is preshis neck stretched."
"Wot, wiolence to one of her Majesty's subjecks, and hin the hopen day, too? Move hon, hey? Oh, werry likely. I'm a standin 'ere on my Sovrin's kerbstone—a Briton's 'Ouse is 'is castle, and when an Englishman hexpresses his hopinion hon the subjeck of baked taters he's to move hon, is he? Consekevently I'll stay here."
The "Baked Tater" man is now almost foaming at the mouth with rage, which is not lessened by the cheers of the spectators, who are, of course, on the side of the young orator.
He is about to lay down his can and pitch into his tormentor, when all at once that young gentleman assumes a pacific attitude, after displaying so much public spirit, and says:
"I don't want money nor credit, so look sharp ole feller and pick me a stunner from the Can."
At this moment the Potato Man's countenance relaxes, as the boy produces a penny-piece, and while he extracts a mealy potato from his can, the boy proceeds to amuse his audience further by going through a series of sleight of hand tricks, such as shaking the coin out of his cap after having swallowed it, or thrusting it into his eye and bringing it out of his ear, assuring the spectators the while that he had spent £20,000 in learning these tricks, and now, when the potato is handed to him, smoking hot, he expresses his indignation at the fact that the butter is "shaved too thin," and demands that what he loses in butter shall be made up to him by an extra shake of the pepper-box. At last he goes off to eat the potato, as the gray dawn breaks, and the man at the Can says:
"Oh, my eye—he is aprecious leary cove for such a young von."
This market, as well as all the other London markets, is haunted with beggars who appeal to the charity of strangers with great effect.
FRUIT AND VEGETABLES.
One of these sat up behind a pile of empty baskets, and I saw that his trousers had rotted away at the bottom from long use and dirt. His face was that of a prematurely aged young man, and his torn shirt and worn features bespoke real misery. He was deaf and dumb it seemed, and the manner in which he solicited alms was by pointing to the following sentence, written on the flag-stone before him with a piece of chalk:
I am Starving. Help me.
I am Starving. Help me.
A rental of about £26,000 a year is derived from Covent Garden Market by its proprietor, the Duke of Bedford, and the shops and stalls rent at from two to four hundred pounds a year. In the immediate neighborhood is Covent Garden Theatre, and all the little old rookeries of chop houses in this quarter have the smell of the greenroom and the rehearsal lingering about them. Here was, formerly, the garden of the Convent of Westminster.
Before the construction of the present market this was one of the most dangerous places in London with its tumble-down and crazy old structures, where abounded people of both sexes herded together like pigs. The Convent has become a play-house, and the monks and nuns have been transposed into actors and actresses. Where the salad was cut for the Lady Abbess in past times, drunkards now brawl and attack each other, and the flowers that would have been in the olden time plucked to adorn the statues of the Virgin or St. Peter, are now chosen to grace the marble mantel of some proud dame of Belgravia, or some gaudy and painted courtezan of Pimlico. The foreign fruit trade of Covent Garden is very extensive in pine apples, melons, cherries, apples, and plums. Pine apples were first cried in the London streets at "a penny a slice," twenty-five years ago. To supply this market with vegetables alone, 25,000 acres are required to be cultivated, and about 10,000 acres of trees are necessary to supply its annual demand for fruit. The trade in water-cresses is immense and they are chiefly hawked about the markets by little girls, although, of course, every stall has its own stock of cresses. They supply the same want as arelish for the Londoners' table that the small red radishes do to an American's appetite.
A man, curious in such things, has estimated as follows the yearly sales of this appetizing little green relish:
Covent Garden Market, 2,000,000 bunches, Farringdon Market, 15,000,000 bunches, Borough Market, (Southwark), 1,000,000 bunches, Spitalfield's Market, 500,000 bunches, Portman Market, 260,000 bunches, and Oxford Market, 200,000 bunches. It will be seen that Cockneys relish greens very much.
A little of everything can be procured at Covent Garden. Here are peddlers of account books, lead pencils, watch chains, dog-collars, whips, chains, curry-combs, pastry, money-bags, tissue-paper for the tops of strawberry-pottles, and horse-chestnut leaves for garnishing fruit-stalls; coffee-stalls, and stalls of pea-soup and pickled eels; basket-makers; women making up nosegays; and girls splitting huge bundles of water-cresses into little bunches.
Here are fruits and vegetables from all parts of the world; peas, and asparagus, and new potatoes, from the south of France, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, and the Bermudas, are brought in steam-vessels. Besides Deptford onions, Battersea cabbages, Mortlake asparagus, Chelsea celery, and Charlton peas, immense quantities are brought by railway from Cornwall and Devonshire, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey, the Kentish and Essex banks of the Thames, the banks of the Humber, the Mersey, the Orwell, the Trent, and the Ouse.
The Scilly Isles send early articles by steamer to Southampton, and thence to Covent Garden by railway. Strawberries are sent from gardens about Bath. The money paid annually for fruits and vegetables sold in this market is estimated at three millions sterling: for 6 or 700,000 pottles of strawberries; 40,000,000 cabbages; 2,000,000 cauliflowers; 300,000 bushels of peas; 750,000 lettuces; and 500,000 bushels of onions. In Centre-row, hot-house grapes are sold at 25s.per pound, British Queen and Black Prince strawberries at 1s.per ounce, slender French beans at 3s.per hundred, peas at aguinea a quart, and new potatoes at 4s.6d.per pound; a moss-rose for half-a-crown, and bouquets of flowers from one shilling to two guineas each.
Green peas have been sold here at Christmas when they are deemed a luxury, for three pounds a quart, and asparagus has brought, in the same season, a pound, and rhubarb, a pound and five shillings a bunch.
The cries of the children peddling violets are sometimes almost heartrending, as these little waifs are very often fasting for a whole day before they can realize a few pennies to buy their food, to say nothing of food for those who have sent them to peddle the violets.
There is an Artesian well under Covent Garden Market, 280 feet deep, which supplies 1,600 gallons an hour, sufficient for the needs of the market people, most of which is consumed in watering flowers and vegetables, or in giving horses to drink. There are elegant conservatories over the colonnades of the market fifteen feet broad and fifteen feet high, for the preservation of the more costly and delicate plants and flowers. From this market nearly all the button-hole flowers which are vended at from a penny to four-pence a piece are obtained for the use of the London "swells."
THE JEWS' ORANGE MARKET.
One of the most curious places in London is the Orange and Nut Market, in Houndsditch. This market is chiefly in the hands of the lowest kind of Jews, men in greasy garments, and having frightfully hooked noses. The Costermongers come here for oranges, nuts, and lemons, to sell or hawk them around the suburbs or slums of London. The market is called Dukes'-Place Market. There is a big, massive, Synagogue, a lot of ancient-looking houses, the oranges themselves have a cob-webbed appearance, and the people are all dingy here. The nuts are for sale in sacks, and the baskets have a dilapidated look. The Jews, in all countries, are an industrious and economical people, and in London, as elsewhere, they monopolize the most profitable and least laborious occupations. They are represented by lawyers, members of Parliament, great bankers, like Rothschild, merchants, like Solomons, and men of liberaltaste, like Sir Francis Goldsmid. The number of Jews in London is estimated at 48,000.
market
THE ORANGE MARKET.
Each dwelling around this Orange Market seems as if it had been partially consumed by fire, for not one of the shops have a window, and they are comparatively empty, save where a crate of oranges, or a bag of nuts, are exposed for sale. A few sickly fowls, looking as if they were dyspeptic, wander here picking up crumbs among the orange baskets and nut sacks, and dirty, ragged little Jewish children, play around with great equanimity among the rubbish. The disputes among the loud-voiced Costermongers who come here with their little wagons and jackasses, to draw their fruit, and the Jews who have all glib-toned, smooth voices,—at some times, when the oranges are changing hands from sellers to buyers—are very amusing.
There I saw slatternly-looking girls sorting the good from the bad fruit, and one big, tall Jewish wench, was engaged overa barrel of common black grapes, plunging her dirty arms down in the barrel and pulling up the decayed fruit which she gave to a little child who stood by her, and ate of them greedily from her hand. Some of these Jewish fruit-traders take in as much as £200 in a day's sale of oranges, from Costermongers. Most of these oranges are sent to the Jews on commission. Years ago the Jew boys had a monopoly of the orange peddling trade, but now the monopoly is in the hands of Irish boys, who are more eloquent, more aggressive, and more popular, than the Jews, and consequently sell they more fruit.
FARRINGDON MARKET.
Farringdon Market, near the Strand, on the sloping surface of the hill, upon which the Holborn and Fleet street stand, is one of the principal markets in London, though it covers but an acre and a half. The ground and buildings cost about £200,000. The market building is 480 feet long at the centre, 41 feet high, and 48 feet broad, and has a court-yard in the centre of which the wagons, and baskets, and market lumber, are placed. The court, or, as it is called, the quadrangle, is generally filled with vegetables and fruit.
tailpiece
CHAPTER XXX.
SECRETS OF A RIVER.
IT had been a stormy night in the London streets. In the Strand the shopkeepers' assistants were hurriedly fastening the shutters upon the windows of their masters' shops, eager to escape the hurricane of rain which swept over the London housetops, and tore through the lanes of brick and mortar like an enraged fiend. Thirsty souls who were draining huge mugs of malt liquor in the many publics along Thames street, looked out with scared faces on the river which was beating its sides angrily against the shipping and lesser craft.
The waters of the Thames ran high and wild, and down in the Pool and by Limehouse Reach, huge ships bearing the colors of many nations at their peaks, swung and rocked in the seething tides, while black night and the angry shades of the coming storm gathered around their twinkling red and blue signal lamps, which lazily danced from their yards over the surface of the river, leaving faint streaks of light that were ever and anon swallowed by the angry waters. Boatmen were anxiously securing wherries and fastening them under bridges and by water-stairs, and all the while the clouds above lowered, and the sweeping gusts of rain stung the faces of those who were unfortunate enough to be in the streets without shelter. Shutters slapped and banged in and out, and chimney pots were whirled about by the fierce and howling winds.
I had been on a tour of inspection, with a friend and a policesergeant, through London during the night, and had left the Alhambra at midnight for Evan's Supper Rooms, in Covent Garden, where we passed an hour listening to the music of the glee and madrigal boys, and on leaving Evan's at one o'clock in the morning, my friend had parted with me to go to bed, and I left him at the corner of Wellington street and the Strand, he going westward to his residence in Westminster, while the police Sergeant and myself called a cab, as I had a desire to see London in the small hours, and Sergeant Scott had insinuated that a stormy night was the best for seeing strange sights. He little thought at the time how truly he spoke.
After some discussion between this veteran of the Old Jewry office and myself, it was decided that we should visit some of the thieves' haunts in the Borough of Southwark, as it was about the hour when these night birds came home to roost, and of a consequence the best time to see their places of residence.
The first place chosen for a visit was a den in the New Kent Road, and to get there it was necessary for us to cross Waterloo Bridge.
THE STRANGER AT WATERLOO BRIDGE.
To cross some of the bridges in London it is necessary to pay a trifling toll, which goes toward the repairs of the bridge. The charge for each pedestrian on Westminster and Waterloo Bridges is half a penny each—for a horse one penny. As the cab dashed up to the turnstile at Waterloo Bridge, the toll keeper came out to take his dues, a gruff looking fellow wrapped up in a big hairy coat. He took the two pence grumblingly, and just at that moment I noticed a woman coming up to the toll-house in a gaudy looking silk dress, and having a soiled velvet wrapper about her shivering shoulders. The light from the toll-house shone on her face, which was very pale, the eyes burning with a strange light, and the garments which hung to her figure were dripping with the rain.
"Please let me pass," said she to the gruff toll keeper, with an imploring glance, "I have not a penny in the world—please let me cross the bridge?"
"Please let yer cross the bridge—yer 'aint got a penny?Well wot d'ye want ter cross the bridge for then? If yer 'aint got a h'apenny I thinks yer as well on the one side of the bridge as the other? Well go on with ye, I don't mind a h'apenny, and go to bed as soon as ye can," the toll keeper shouted through the storm after the wretched woman as she dashed through the turnstile on the bridge, and was lost in the storm and darkness of the night.
As she fled into the night, my companion caught sight of her face, and a hasty exclamation escaped his lips.
"My God, that's Mag S——, that we saw to-night at the Alhambra! D'ye remember that pale faced girl who asked you to give her some liquor in the Canteen?"
"The woman who seemed out of her senses or crazed, and who danced and swore?" I asked.
"Yes sir, the same—well that's her, and what she can be doing here on this bridge at this time I don't know. She used to be a highflyer once, did Mag, but her fancy man has left her, and I'm afraid she's dead broke now, at times. My eye, wot a temper she has to be sure, when she blazes hup."
By this time we had reached the end of the bridge at the Southwark side, and the cab dashed madly by a female figure cowering in an alcove of the structure, the cabby swearing an oath as the horse shied at it going by.
As the night advanced, it blew harder and harder, and the storm raged with great violence. The waters under the bridge rebounded against the base of the stone arches, but the rain had ceased. We were now on our route back to the city, having inspected the dens of thievery to my great satisfaction. While going and coming, until we reached the bridge again, the mind of my companion, Sergeant Scott, seemed ill at ease in regard to the woman whom we had met upon the bridge before we had crossed. He was anxious and uneasy, and talked of the meeting incessantly, to my surprise.
"Some'ow or anuther I don't like meeting that gal on the bridge, Sir," said he. "She looked a little desperate, and when they looks that way I don't like to see 'em near water. Its touch and go with 'em then."
"Do you fear that the girl will attempt to commit suicide?" said I to him.
"I do, Sir. You see there's twelve hundred suicides in London every year, and half of 'em or more drowns themselves. The gals are more fonder of the water than the men. A man will blow his brains out or take pison, but a gal allers takes to the water. Why, bless you, Sir, we have as many as a hundred and twenty suicides hoff this here Waterloo Bridge every year. And this is their favorite bridge, this Waterloo Bridge. When they haven't got a penny in the world, and no friends, then they leap hoff the battelmints."
By this time we had reached the toll gate again, and the cab horse was walking slowly over the stone floor of the bridge, making echoes with his feet. The bridge was quite dark, yet I could see the buildings and spires on the London side piercing the skies, and the railway depot at Charing Cross Bridge, the towers of the Parliament Houses, and the square roofs of the St. Thomas' Hospitals rising vaguely and in shadows above the river.
There are stone alcoves on all the London bridges, which bulge out in a semi-circular form over the water on either side, and they will each accommodate a dozen persons, should such a number wish to sit down and look at the river. There are eight of these alcoves on Waterloo Bridge, and a raised sidewalk runs along on each side of the road, of solid and smooth flagging. The middle of the bridge is taken up by a causeway fifty or sixty feet wide, and this causeway is paved with a sort of Russ, or rather large Belgian pavement.
The cabby had stopped his horse to give me an opportunity to take a look at the river.
THREE O'CLOCK.
One boom—two booms—three booms! The bell in the Clock Tower at Westminster rolled out over the river. Three o'clock of a stormy morning, and all London asleep. It was a grand and impressive sight, the dark river, with bridge after bridge girdling it, and nothing to be heard but the champing of the horse in the awful stillness of that lone hour. Hark! There are voices on the bridge, voices passionate and imploring, thatseem to shudder over the water and to creep through the arches of the bridge.
"Let us get out of the cab and see what it is, Sir, if you please. There's some cadgers a bunking in this vicinity, I imagines," said the police officer.
We walked along the bridge for a hundred feet or so, but could see nothing, although we heard the voices still.
"There's something wrong a-goin' on, but I don't know wot it is," said he again.
We advanced still further, and could see a woman's figure half hidden by the alcove which was across on the other side of the bridge from us. The woman was in earnest conversation with a man, who spoke in a clear, manly voice to her.
"This is the woman that begged the toll-gate man to let her cross to-night cos she hadn't a tanner," said the officer to me. "Let's watch 'em," said he; and feeling that it was an adventure of some sort, I silently acquiesced. We concealed ourselves in an alcove or embrasure.
"Keep quiet, now, and we'll see something, sure," said the Sergeant.
And we kept very quiet for a few minutes. The man was talking earnestly with the woman, who seemed half crazy with drink or excitement, we could not tell which, as we could only hear snatches of the conversation now and then.
It was the man's voice which we now heard.
"Come home, for God's sake, Margaret, and all will be well. You will be forgiven, and nothing will ever be cast up to you. I'll pledge you my word to that. Your mother is in the city, and your father is dead. She has come up from Glastonbury to see you, and I've spent eight nights walking for you, and hoping to get a sight of a face that was once dearer to me than life, and is now even still dear to me, if it only was to see you reformed, poor, unfortunate girl. Come home, for God's sake. Make the attempt, and it will be all well once more."
WEARY OF LIFE.
The girl was sobbing now very hard. The man seemed to implore her by all that had ever been sacred or dear to the lostgirl, and she was evidently moved by his tone and earnestness, and the recollections that he had called forth.
"He's doin' of his best, and we can't do any think more—hany of us," said the Sergeant, who seemed a little touched.
"You talk to me of my mother, Harry? Why, I have not heard that name in three years. I thought I'd never hear it again. I have thought of her, too. But it's too late, Harry. The girl that my mother expects to see is the bright little Maggie, the school-girl who never had a hard word or an unkind look from her. I had an innocent face then, and was not afraid to meet her kind old eyes. But now, to meet her in this garb"—and she shook her flaunting silks—"I dare not—I dare not. Harry, I tell you it is too late. Too late. Too late."
"It's never too late, poor girl," said the stranger, "come home at once, or if you'll wait here a moment I'll go and call a cab and take you home to your mother at once. Wait here a moment and I will get a cab. Wait a moment, Maggie, only a moment:" and the stranger ran across the bridge, up King William street, and in the direction of the Bank, where he expected to find a cab.
The lost girl was left alone. Alone with night and solitude. Alone with naught but her past life, which arose from the waters like a shadow to keep her company. Alone and miserable, with the cruel sky darkling above her as if to shut out all hope, while the river yawned and gaped beneath, seeking an offering. God unheeded, her bosom cold as a stone; no prayer to conquer her anguish; with memories of promises broken and tender words unsaid; the passionate love of a fond mother given in vain; and at last an atonement is to be made. The old, old story—betrayal, dishonor, and the grave.
We crept nearer by some unknown impulse, to where she stood, and could hear her talking to herself, though we could not see her features, or anything definite, but a weird figure looming up like a shadow against the balustrade of the bridge. Her voice, which had fallen to a murmur almost, was like some forgotten music, the strains of which are heard in a dream.Who was this lone, wretched girl, and why came she here at this hour?
"My God, why should I go back to shame my poor old mother? I never will. I cannot do it. The sight of her would blast me. And Charley, for whom I lost all, where is he? In India, and no one here to-night, and I alone with my black thoughts on this spot. Why am I here? What do I live for? My life has been wretched enough. Why prolong it any longer? I will settle the matter now and forever. Good-by, Mother," said the wretched girl, looking up at the sky, and before she could be stopped in her fearful purpose, she had mounted the parapet by the embrasure, and leaped with a shriek into the devouring river beneath.
"By Heavens," said the Sergeant, darting forward and making an effort to catch at her clothes as her figure disappeared, "she has made a hole in the water with herself." At this moment a patrolman, hearing the girl scream and the shouts of the policeman, appeared upon the parapet. All three of us dashed down the stairs of the old bridge, and it was the work of a moment only to get a boat out, which, fortunately, had the oars inside. In a minute we were all out on the river, and the tide running very fast in the direction of the Pool—after pulling towards the middle arch the Sergeant cried out:
"Steady your rudder, there; what's that bobbing up and down on the water? That's a woman's head, sure; she's got hoops, too; that's lucky. Pull away, for your lives!"
In a few moments we were alongside of the dark, floating object, and the patrolman, drawing his lantern out, threw its reflection over the waters, while the head of the boat was kept well up to the dismal object.
The policeman leaned over the gunwale of the skiff and caught at the dress, and dragged in what he supposed to be a woman's body, but was only a bundle of rags and straw, the refuse of some lodging-house bed.
This was a severe disappointment to all in the boat, and welooked at each other without speaking, for a minute. The Sergeant had a scared look, and said aloud:
SADLY IMPORTUNATE.
"I'm afraid poor Mag's gone. She must have struck the bottom of the arches when she went down, and if she did, all's over and settled. The tide's running fast, too, and we will have hard work to find her."
For half an hour the most diligent search was made for her body, but no traces could be found of it but a bonnet and shawl, which were caught in some floating wood below the bridge.
We left the bridge, and the cab was driven home slowly, after the nearest police station had been notified of the poor girl's death or disappearance. The Sergeant of the Police District said that he would have another search in the morning, and I remained at the station to accompany the police in their visit.
A little after daybreak we were on Waterloo bridge again, and even at that hour a small assemblage had gathered around some object at the Southwark end of the bridge, where we could see the tall helmets of two policemen in the midst of the crowd of carters and market gardeners, who were en route to Covent Garden Market, and had stopped to look upon the body of a woman who had been fished up from the river.
Yes, there lay the body of the girl whose toll to eternity had been paid by her own rash act—stretched out on the cold stones, her garments dripping, her fingers clinched, and her eyes stark wide open. A young woman she was, but oh, how worn! The face was pinched, and the long, silken lashes sunk into the eyebrows.
The day was breaking in the East, but the policemen held their lanterns, which they had not yet extinguished, over the poor, pale features, and the grimy garments, revealing the long, matted, and tangled hair, and the stark, cold body, which had once held an Immortal Soul, but was now all that remained of the gay, merry-hearted, lost girl, who had fully reaped the harvest of vice—the Wages of Sin—called by the Evangelist,Death.
Last year, the number of suicides in London amounted to 1,160, and of this number 415 committed self-destruction by drowning. The Thames Watermen fish many a ghastly body from the River, and for each carcass—the result of their terrible trolling, they receive three pounds from the City authorities.
tailpiece
CHAPTER XXXI.
INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH.
VERY singular is the appearance of Leicester square, where are the resorts and lodgings of the foreign colonists of London. It is the dirtiest and darkest square in the city, with the exception of some of the fields in the outer suburbs. On every side you may behold traces of the foreign element which centres here. The people whom you meet in Leicester square, if you ask them a question, will be sure to answer you in a strange tongue, or else in a strange gibberish of English or Continental patois. There is an acre or two of sickly grass in the middle of the square which is guarded from the footsteps of pedestrians by a rickety and worn iron railing. In the middle of this patch of scanty grass is an equestrian statue of one of the Georges on an iron horse, the nose of which has been broken or has rotted off, and its appearance is in keeping with the buildings that tower all round it. The streets leading to and from the square are filled with foreign restaurants, and they are narrow and from them all issue forth smells such as the olfactories of a traveler encounter in the back slums of Paris or Vienna.
The buildings are shabby, the windows are shabby, and the people sitting at the tables, whom you may see through the dusty windows, rattling dominoes and playing cards at little tables, are shabby. Were it not for the statue in the middleof the square, it might be taken for the Gross Platz of a Continental town. Houses with strange names rise on every side, having signs in their windows of "Restaurant a la Carte," "Table d'hote a cinq heures," and are passed in quick succession, and the linen-drapers and other shopkeepers in the neighborhood take especial pains to inform all the passers-by that their employees can speak German, French, and Italian, and occasionally Spanish or Portuguese.
cafe
FOREIGN CAFE IN COVENTRY STREET.
The loungers in the square give visible and olfactory demonstration that they are not Cockneys; their tanned skins, long moustachios, military coats, and brigand-like hats, their polite and impressive bows,—all show the Frenchman, the Spaniard, the Polish exile, the Italian revolutionist, and the Greek wine merchant. The mingled fumes of tobacco and garlic, the peddlers who make desperate attempts to sell you copies of theInternationale,Patrie,Journal Pour Rire, andDiritto, all give ample evidence that you are in a strange quarter of London. The lodging-houses here are on the Parisian plan, and are let at five to ten shillings a week to mysterious men, who rise late, and are away all day in the cafés or gaming-houses to come home singing operatic airs at a late hour of the morning. Polish exiles, Italian supernumeraries of the opera, French figurantes of the inferior grades, German musicians, teachers and translators of languages, touters for gambling-dens—allcongregate here. This is their Arcadia—their place of meeting, eating, drinking and sleeping—and for a hundred years past it has been frequented by such parasites.