LECTURE VI

Social Abuses as Exposed by Charles Dickens

Let us revel in the company of a writer who has been perhaps even more appreciated in America than in his own country: and will you allow me to express my opinion that the greatest proof of the magnanimity of your fathers was shown in the fact that they forgave “Martin Chuzzlewit,” and took its author to their heart? No little man, and for that matter little nation, can bear to be caricatured. Many even who possess true greatness cannot endure ridicule. It must remain to the eternal credit of your country that Charles Dickens was beloved by it. Nowhere did the creator of “our Elijah Pogram,” Hannibal Chollop, Mrs. Hominy, andMr. Scadder find a warmer welcome than in the country where he discovered their prototypes; and his popularity in America is a testimony to the good humour and generosity of its people.

My object in this lecture is to endeavour to explain the England which Dickens described; and I will with your permission preface my remarks by pointing out some of the disadvantages of an old society, bearing in mind its advantages also. The England in which Dickens worked was in many respects simpler in life, yet more fertile in types of character, than it is at present. I cannot but think that people got more pleasure out of living than they do in our days. Yet if I may venture upon a paradox, the world of “Pickwick” was older, and not younger, than the one in which we are living.

Strictly speaking, modern England is not an “old” country, but a new one. Steam and electricity, the progress of science and theadvance of democratic ideas have inaugurated a new age; and we, as well as you in America, live in days of experiment rather than of tradition. But the England of the thirties was an old country. It was changing rapidly, it is true; yet it is scarce an exaggeration to say that it bore a greater resemblance to the England of Queen Elizabeth than to that of the present day; but the institutions of the past, which had changed very little in character, had become more intolerable as civilisation advanced; and, consecrated by time, they pressed very heavily on the many to the great benefit of the few interested in their maintenance.

The main thesis I shall put before you to-day is that it is time that an edition of Dickens appeared with a good popular commentary; for much of it is not intelligible even to an English reader at the present day: and one thing which the volumes should have is a map of the London which he is so fond ofdescribing. Most of the sites have become so changed as to be hardly recognisable; and the appearance of the streets is so altered that one can hardly reconstruct them even in imagination. It would be no difficult task to find plans and pictures to assist one in this direction, and the result would, I think, be most illuminating to the reader. The prisons, for example, of which we read so much, the Fleet, the Marshalsea, Newgate itself, have all disappeared, and few now know even where the two former actually stood. As to the notes and comments which might be written, I hope this lecture may indicate what I mean.

The first novel I shall take is “Oliver Twist” because it—despite the charm of the story—is almost unintelligible to the ordinary reader, where it deals with the conditions of the lives of the very poor and of the criminal classes. I need hardly remind you of the details. There is the poor little boy bornand bred in the workhouse under Mr. Bumble the beadle, his being apprenticed, his escape to London, and his introduction to the thieves’ school kept by the Jew Fagin, the devilish plot to make him a criminal, his escape, and his restoration to his family. A character like Fagin’s would be impossible in London at the present day. There may be equally dangerous criminals; but he was protected by a system which is now happily entirely obsolete. His infamous trade was to train up criminals whom he finally handed over to the arm of the law.

“I say,” said the other (the landlord of the Cripple), “what a time this would be for a sell. I’ve got Phil Barker here: so drunk that a boy might take him.” “Aha! but it’s not Phil Barker’s time,” said the Jew, looking up. “Phil has something more to do, before we can afford to part with him, so go back to the company, my dear, and tellthem to lead merry lives—while they last, ha! ha! ha!”

And again:

“Change it,” exclaimed the Jew (to Nancy).... “I will change it! Listen to me, you drab. Listen to me, who with six words can strangle Sykes, as surely as if I had his bull’s throat between my fingers now. If he comes back and leaves that boy behind him,—if he gets off free, and dead or alive fails to restore him to me—murder him yourself if you would have him escape Jack Ketch: and do it the moment he sets foot in this room, or mind me, it will be too late!”

These were no empty boasts. Fagin had literally the lives of all who thieved for him in his pocket, and this is the motive of the plot of the story. The object of Fagin is to get Oliver Twist to commit some crime and thus be able to hand him over to thepolice as soon as it was convenient to do so. Let us see how this could be managed. There were practically no police. London was protected by a horse patrol in the suburbs and a small foot patrol in the streets. Each parish had its own watchman, who might not under any circumstances leave his beat, not even to prevent a felony. The parish constable or headborough was paid a ridiculous wage: in the great parish of Shoreditch he received £4.10.0 ($22.50) a year. Yet it was, what with blackmail and fees, a lucrative office. If the headborough prosecuted, he could get expenses at the rate of $6 a day and more, and he could bring in any other friend who held the same office as a witness—expenses paid.

Crime was prevented by encouraging informers. A man could get £40 ($200) for information which led to a capital conviction, and he could sell the exemption which he also gained from serving in a public officein the parish for a similar sum. It became actually in the interest of the thief takers to allow young persons and even children to commit minor crimes in the hope that sooner or later they would be guilty of worse offences. It was naturally the prime object of the informer to obtain a conviction. Fagin combined the work of a receiver of stolen goods with that of a thief taker.

The administration of the workhouse system was equally bad. The humour with which Dickens describes Mr. Bumble the beadle, his pomposity, his courtship of the matron, and his fall, is delightful; but Mr. Bumble, the visiting magistrates, and the overseers of the poor represented a state of things almost unthinkable in its brutality. Oliver himself was nearly being apprenticed to a sweep who would certainly have treated him much as Crabbe’s “Peter Grimes” treated his apprentice, and this dialogue between Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Mann, the nurse ofthe pauper children, reveals the spirit with which the indigent poor were treated.

“Mrs. Mann, I am going to London.”“Lawk, Mr. Bumble,” said Mrs. Mann, starting back.“To London, ma’am,” resumed the inflexible beadle, “by coach. I and two paupers, Mrs. Mann! A legal action is a-coming on, and the board has appointed me—me, Mrs. Mann—to depose to the matter at Clerkenwell....”“You are going by coach, Sir? I thought it was always usual to send them paupers in carts.”“That’s when they’re ill, Mrs. Mann,” said the beadle. “We put sick paupers in carts in rainy weather, to prevent their taking cold.”“Oh,” said Mrs. Mann.“The opposition coach contracts for these two; and takes them cheap,” said Mr.Bumble. “They are both in a very low state, and we find it would come two pounds cheaper to move ’em than to bury them—that is, if we can throw ’em upon another parish, which I think we shall be able to do, if they don’t die upon the road to spite us. Ha! Ha! Ha!” When Mr. Bumble had laughed a little his eyes again encountered the cocked hat; and he became grave.[29]

“Mrs. Mann, I am going to London.”

“Lawk, Mr. Bumble,” said Mrs. Mann, starting back.

“To London, ma’am,” resumed the inflexible beadle, “by coach. I and two paupers, Mrs. Mann! A legal action is a-coming on, and the board has appointed me—me, Mrs. Mann—to depose to the matter at Clerkenwell....”

“You are going by coach, Sir? I thought it was always usual to send them paupers in carts.”

“That’s when they’re ill, Mrs. Mann,” said the beadle. “We put sick paupers in carts in rainy weather, to prevent their taking cold.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Mann.

“The opposition coach contracts for these two; and takes them cheap,” said Mr.Bumble. “They are both in a very low state, and we find it would come two pounds cheaper to move ’em than to bury them—that is, if we can throw ’em upon another parish, which I think we shall be able to do, if they don’t die upon the road to spite us. Ha! Ha! Ha!” When Mr. Bumble had laughed a little his eyes again encountered the cocked hat; and he became grave.[29]

Here is fiction: let us turn to facts as we find them in a history of the England of the period:

The parish had the right to apprentice the children of poor parents to any trade.... Children under this law might be sent to any part of the Kingdom. “It is avery common practice,” wrote Romilly in 1811, “with the great populous parishes in London to bind children in large numbers to the proprietors of cotton mills ... at a distance of 200 miles.... The children, who are sent off by waggon loads at a time, are as much lost for ever to their parents as if they were shipped off for the West Indies. The parishes that bind them get rid of them for ever, and the poor children have not a human being in the world to whom they can look up for redress ... from these wholesale dealers whose object it is to get everything that they can wring from their excessive labours and fatigue.... Instances (and not very few) have occurred in our criminal tribunals of wretches who have murdered their parish apprentices that they might get fresh premiums with new apprentices.” Some manufacturers, it is shocking to state, agreed to take one idiot for every nineteen sane children.

Even naturally humane men were found to defend these dreadful abuses in the House of Commons. Here is an extract from a speech: “Although in the higher ranks of society it was true that to cultivate the affections of children for their family was the source of every virtue, yet it was not so among the lower orders.... It would be highly injurious to the public to put a stop to the binding of so many apprentices to the cotton manufacturers, as it must necessarily raise the price of labour and enhance the price of cotton manufactured goods!”

We turn next to the debtor’s prison which is so prominent in the “Pickwick Papers.” So resolute was Mr. Pickwick not to submit to the judgment against him in the famous trial that he allowed himself to be imprisoned in the Fleet. He was first put into the Warden’s room with several other prisoners. When he entered the room, the others were absent. “So he sat down on the foot of hislittle iron bedstead, and began to wonder how much a year the warden made out of the dirty room. Having satisfied himself, by mathematical calculation, that the apartment was about equal in annual value to a freehold in a small street in the suburbs of London,” etc., etc.

Here we have one of the great abuses of the horrible “debtor’s prisons” in London. They were jobbed by the officials, and the bare decencies of life could only be obtained by a heavy payment. The warders charged £1.1.0. on entrance for “garnish,” which was supposed to provide coals, candles, brooms, etc., and exorbitant fees were demanded for rooms. The state of those who could not pay was deplorable. In the prison of the Court of Requests at Birmingham, according to the Parliamentary papers of 1844, eight years after “Pickwick” was written, the male prisoners slept in an attic eleven feet long by sixteen broad on platforms littered withloose straw. For exercise, at Kidderminster they walked in a yard thirteen yards square; and their room was without even a fireplace. For food they were allowed one quarter of a loaf of bread and were allowed two jugfuls of water for drinking and washing.

In 1827 nearly 6000 persons in London were imprisoned for debt. We read constantly in Dickens of Chancery prisoners, especially in “Little Dorrit”; men who had been thrown into gaol to rot there for years because they could not pay for suits in which they had been quite unwillingly involved. The absurdity of the system was enhanced by the fact that they were deprived of any chance of working to pay their debts. Many were forgotten and left literally to rot. They were not even allowed to escape by bankruptcy; for unless a man failed in trade he could not claim that relief, nor could his property be divided among his creditors. The law thus gave no means ofescape to the debtor nor of payment to the creditor.

Imprisonment for debt was not abolished in England till 1869; and it is now only allowed by order of the court in the case of small debts which people can but will not pay.

The horrors of the prisons which Howard and Elizabeth Fry, for all their gallant efforts, were powerless to remove, gave rise to a wave of public sentiment which carried their administration to an opposite extreme. Dickens saw this and exposed the folly of the movement in “David Copperfield.” You will doubtless remember that David’s old schoolmaster, Mr. Creakle, of Salem House, suddenly developed from a brutal pedagogue into an ardent philanthropist, after having become a Middlesex magistrate, and devoted himself to the well-being of criminals. Copperfield, as the rising author of the day (Dickens himself), is invited to see a new model prison and takes his old friend Traddles with him.

“It was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast expense. I could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar would have been made in the country, if any deluded man had proposed to spend one half the money on the erection of an industrial school for the young or a house of refuge for the deserving old. In the kitchen repasts were being prepared for the prisoners, so delicate that none of our soldiers, sailors, labourers, or workmen could hope ever to dine half so well.”

There, in a most comfortable cell, our friends find Uriah Heep reading a hymn book, canting and complaining of the toughness of the beef; and Mr. Littimer, Steerforth’s infamous valet, gently hinting that the milk supplied might have been adulterated. To illustrate this I turned to the old numbers ofPunchof the day, a study of which, comic paper though it be, is one of the best illustrations of the current life andthought of every period since it appeared in 1839. There one finds innumerable jokes and pictures of convicts enjoying every sort of luxury, obsequiously waited on by the warders. Prison reform had to be irrational before it could become sane; for, as David Copperfield says, “Perhaps it is a good thing to have an unsound hobby ridden hard; for it’s the sooner ridden to death.”

Next we come to an abuse, on which I must speak with much diffidence, for no one but a trained lawyer could properly discuss it—the Court of Chancery. It is the theme of much of Dickens’ best work and is the whole motive of “Bleak House” and the famous Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit. The mixture of humour and pathos in the treatment of this subject tempts me to digress a little before explaining as best I may the actual state of the law at the time. We are introduced to those who were interested in the vast machinery of the Court of Chancery,as the great Jarndyce case drags its slow length along from the Lord Chancellor down to the starving law writer. We see suitors of every description like the “man from Shropshire” and “Miss Flyte.” We seem to smell the musty law papers as we read the book. I confess to feeling almost maddened by the callous slowness with which Mr. Vholes the solicitor, who “maintained an aged father in the Vale of Taunton,” played with the hopes and fears of the anxious suitors. The eminent respectability of such a practitioner, adds Dickens, was always quoted whenever a commission sat to see whether the business of the Court could be expedited. We laugh, but the tears are not far off, at the humour of such people as Miss Flyte, Mr. Gruppy, Conversation Kenge; yet we feel the pathos of all the woe and disappointment caused by the delays of the monstrous machine of the Law.

To Dickens the Court of Chancery representedtwo things: first it stood for oppression. It appeared to him a vast system backed by vested interests, which sucked unhappy suitors into litigation against their will, fettered and crippled them for the rest of their lives, and, in many cases, ultimately consigned them to the despairing misery of a debtor’s prison.

It drove men and women to madness, like poor Miss Flyte, or made them misanthropes, like Mr. Grindley, “the man from Shropshire.” It made wretched, half-ruined people hang about the courts day after day expecting a judgment, it caused houses to fall into ruin, and whole streets to become deserted because Chancery could not decide to whom they belonged. Listen to “the man from Shropshire’s” description of his own case:

“Mr. Jarndyce, consider my case. As there is a heaven above us, this is my case. I am one of two brothers. My father (afarmer) made a will and left his farm and stock to my mother for her life. After my mother’s death, all was to come to me, except a legacy of £300 that I was to pay to my brother.”

The brother claimed the legacy, Grindley said he had had some of it, and the brother filed a bill in Chancery.

“Seventeen persons were made defendants in this simple suit.” Two years elapsed and the Master in Chancery then found there ought to be another defendant, and all the proceedings were quashed. “The costs at that time—before the suit had begun, were three times the legacy.”

The brother tried to back out, but the court would not let him. The whole property was sucked away in a suit which common-sense could have decided in a day.

The demoralising effect of a court so dilatory and so capricious also revealed itself in its influence on character. Men and womenspent their lives in waiting for a decision and found it impossible to settle to any regular calling.

The court was, in fact, like a gigantic lottery. A favourable decision might make a man wealthy in a day, and with such a prospect it was impossible for him to settle down to the drudgery of a profession. In addition to this, so conflicting were the interests involved that families were divided hopelessly.

How pathetically does Dickens sketch the character of Richard Carstone! He tries physic, the army, the law, and cannot stick to any as his vocation. He feels that at any time the Jarndyce case may make him a rich man. His only hope is to drive it to a conclusion. Under the influence of Mr. Vholes he learns to distrust his old friend Mr. John Jarndyce, and even, in part, his betrothed, the sweet Ada, because they too have interests in the suit. When the case comes to an end by all the money beingabsorbed in costs, he dies, despairing yet penitent.

Let us now see how the bare facts, stripped of romance, appear.

The Court of Chancery represents Equity, which is, ideally, law in its highest aspect, regarded not as interpreted by statute or custom but from the standpoint of justice tempered by mercy. As such Equity came to be regarded as more important than Common law; and the Chancery overshadowed the other courts. The Chancellor rose constantly in importance, and as the chief of the King’s chaplains and his adviser in the exercise of the prerogative of mercy he became “the keeper of the King’s conscience.” As time went on, Equity like Common law was based on precedent, and its original purpose fell into the background. The business of the Chancery was continually on the increase, and it finally became utterly unmanageable. Protracted law suits are certainlyno new thing and in the 15th century there are, I believe, examples of interminable litigation. At an early date, the “law’s delay” had passed into a proverb; and nothing was done to remedy the growing evil. The Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls were the only available judges; and as population increased and conditions of life became more complicated, the grievances of the wretched suitors in Chancery became intolerable. As you know, in the prize ring, when a boxer had got his adversary into a hopeless position and could treat him as he liked, the beaten man was said to be “in chancery.”

It is generally supposed that the Chancellor in “Bleak House” is the famous Lord Eldon, whose tenure of that exalted office is almost the longest on record. He was a man of many virtues and singularly kind-hearted,—the description of his reception of the wards in Chancery in the book beforeus does ample justice to this trait—and as a lawyer he ranks among the very foremost exponents of the law of England. But he knew and valued the merits of the legal system; and despite the fact of many cases of individual hardship, these were many, and he was so anxious to give judgments in exact accordance with the law that he had great difficulty in making up his mind. As a matter of fact a judgment by Lord Eldon is even now accepted in your country as well as mine: but his conscientious thoroughness was a great drawback in delaying the congested business of the court. I will now give some formal examples of the condition of the Chancery, taken from Spencer Walpole’s “History of England fromA.D.1816.”

But first let me quote Dean Swift’s description of the law’s delay a century earlier. It is of course a caricature: but his satire is so pungent and his wit so satirical that I cannot resist the temptation of using his famous book.

Swift makes Gulliver explain the law of England to the Houyhnhnms, the horses who rule over the human Yahoos.

“It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever hath been done may be legally done again; and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities, to justify the most iniquitous opinions, and the judges never fail of directing accordingly.

“In pleading they studiously avoid entering into the merits of a case; but are loud, violent, and tedious, in dwelling on all circumstances which are not to the purpose. For instance, in the case already mentioned (a claim to a cow) they never desire to know what claim or title my adversary hath to my cow; but whether the said cow were red or black; her horns long or short; whether the field I graze her in be round or square;whether she was milked at home or abroad; what diseases she is subject to and the like; after which they consult precedents, adjourn the cause from time to time, and in ten, twenty, or thirty years come to an issue.”

Here is a typical undefended Chancery suit. A will which came into force in 1819 contained bequests to charities. These legacies were contrary to the Mortmain laws, and were consequently void. The heir-at-law filed a bill in Chancery to make them so. During 1820 the trustees of the charities put in their answers. In 1821 the case was referred to the Master in Chancery to find out who was the heir at law. By 1823 he was ready with an answer, and the court directed him to give an account of the property. He did so in 1824. In 1825 the case was set down for further directions; in 1826 the Master was told to ascertain the children of the testator’s half-nephews. Thistook till 1828, when the case was reported to the House of Commons. The Master was then still pursuing his enquiries. A defended case was naturally slower. The case was referred to the Master in Chancery; he reported: exceptions were then taken to his report, and so on. In about ten years something probably occurred to make it necessary to begin again. The Masters were paid by fees and were interested in making a case last. Their incomes often amounted to as much as from £3000 ($15,000) to £4000 ($20,000) a year. The amount of law copying was prodigious. In one case it came to 10,497 folios, for which a charge of six shillings and eight pence ($1.60) for each folio was made. You recollect the poor captain who sunk to the position of a law-copying clerk. Be sure he was not paid at this rate.

Such then were a few of the abuses of one branch of the legal system which Dickensexposed. They have in the main been disposed of since 1873. We cannot, however, leave the subject without a few words on his inexhaustible fertility in drawing the characters of lawyers.

The profession is represented throughout. We see Mr. Justice Stareleigh trying Mr. Pickwick and waking up at intervals. Who can forget the cross-examination of Sam Weller.

“‘Is it a good place?’” Sam is asked. Yes, Sir. “‘Little to do and plenty to get,’ said Sergeant Buzfuz jocularly. ‘Plenty to get, as the soldier said when they gave him six dozen,’ replied Sam. ‘You mustn’t tell us what the soldier or anybody else said,’ remarked the judge, waking up suddenly. ‘It is not evidence.’” Immortal too are the counsel in that famous case, the eloquent Buzfuz and the abstracted Stubbin; nor can we forget the unlucky novice, Mr. Phunky, who ruined the case for Mr. Pickwickby the way he cross-examined Mr. Winkle.

No profession has risen more in dignity and respectability in England in recent years than that of the solicitor or attorney. In Scott and in almost all earlier novelists, the man who prepared the work for counsel and was engaged in the humbler practice of the courts is nearly always represented as a rogue. How often do we find him described as a “miserable pettifogger” and charged with “sharp practice.” It is the same with Dickens. Even Mr. Perker in “Pickwick,” who is thoroughly honest, cannot withhold his admiration of Dodson and Fogg’s acuteness.

“‘Dodson and Fogg have taken Mrs. Bardell in execution for her costs, Sir,’ said Job.‘No,’ exclaimed Perker, putting his hands in his pockets, and reclining against the sideboard.‘Yes,’ said Job. ‘It seems they got acognovit out of her, for the amount of ’em, directly after the trial.’‘By Jove!’ said Perker, taking both hands out of his pockets, and striking the knuckles of his right against the palm of his left, emphatically, ‘those are the cleverest scamps I ever had anything to do with.’‘The sharpest practitionersIever knew, Sir,’ observed Lowten.‘Sharp,’ echoed Perker. ‘There’s no knowing where to have them.’‘Very true, sir, there is not,’ replied Lowten: and then both master and man pondered for a few seconds, with animated countenances, as if they were reflecting upon one of the most beautiful and ingenious discoveries the intellect of man had ever made, etc.”

“‘Dodson and Fogg have taken Mrs. Bardell in execution for her costs, Sir,’ said Job.

‘No,’ exclaimed Perker, putting his hands in his pockets, and reclining against the sideboard.

‘Yes,’ said Job. ‘It seems they got acognovit out of her, for the amount of ’em, directly after the trial.’

‘By Jove!’ said Perker, taking both hands out of his pockets, and striking the knuckles of his right against the palm of his left, emphatically, ‘those are the cleverest scamps I ever had anything to do with.’

‘The sharpest practitionersIever knew, Sir,’ observed Lowten.

‘Sharp,’ echoed Perker. ‘There’s no knowing where to have them.’

‘Very true, sir, there is not,’ replied Lowten: and then both master and man pondered for a few seconds, with animated countenances, as if they were reflecting upon one of the most beautiful and ingenious discoveries the intellect of man had ever made, etc.”

In treating of the dishonest little legal practitioners Dickens indulges his taste for burlesque humour. Witness the scene inwhich Dodson and Fogg are visited by Mr. Pickwick, and the two lawyers try to provoke him to commit an assault or to use slanderous language, and Sam Weller without ceremony drags his master out of the office. Mr. Sampson Brass is also a subject of rollicking humour, as is his sister, the fair Sally. Witness the scene where Brass visits Quilp at his wharf on the Thames and is compelled to drink spirits neat and almost boiling, and is made sick by the pipe the little monster makes him smoke; or when Brass, aided by Quilp’s wife and mother-in-law, is writing a description of the supposed corpse of his missing client, and recalls Quilp’s characteristics, “his wit and humour, his pathos and his umberella.” I confess I do not quite understand how Brass was able to get Kit imprisoned; our author’s law appears a little stagey. I should say that type of lawyer had disappeared; but I once did come across a Dodson and Fogg, thougha pianoforte, not a widow, was the cause of my costly experience.

Let us now turn from the somewhat painful abuses which Dickens denounces to a more cheerful subject, that of Parliamentary elections.

Here I can speak frivolously, for I am one of those who have grave doubts whether a good or a bad system of election, in my country at any rate, matters much, for choose them how you will, the representatives of the people never seem to represent anything but their own private interests. Let us take Mr. Pickwick’s experiences at Eatandswill, which is, I believe, the now disfranchised borough of Sudbury in Suffolk, about fourteen miles from Bury St. Edmunds, whither Mr. Pickwick started on his expedition to thwart the plans of Mr. Jingle, and had his famous experience at the young ladies’ school. His friend, Mr. Perker, was, you will recollect, the agent of the Hon. Samuel Slumkey.

“‘Spirited contest, my dear Sir,’ said Mr. Perker to Pickwick.

‘I am delighted to hear it,’ said Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his hands.

‘I like to see sturdy patriotism, on whatever side it is called forth;—and so it’s a spirited contest?’

‘O yes,’ said the little man, ‘very much so indeed. We have opened all the public houses in the place, and left our adversary nothing but the beer shops—masterly stroke of policy that, my dear Sir, eh?’”

The prospects however were doubtful, for Mr. Fizkin had thirty-three electors locked up in the coach house of the White Hart. All the hotels were full of voters and Mrs. Perker had brought green parasols for the wives of doubtful supporters of Mr. Slumkey. Then came the day of nomination and “During the whole time of the polling, the town was in a perpetual fever of excitement. Everything was conducted on the most liberaland delightful scale. Exciseable articles were remarkably cheap at all the public houses.... A small body of electors remained unpolled until the very last day. They were calculating and reflecting persons, who had not yet been convinced by the arguments of either party, although they had had frequent conferences with each. One hour before the close of the poll Mr. Perker solicited the honour of a private interview with these intelligent, these noble, these patriotic men. It was granted. His arguments were brief, but satisfactory. They went in a body to the poll; and when they returned, the honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, was returned also.”

To persons accustomed to modern Parliamentary elections in England this passage would need a commentary to be understood. The nomination and the show of hands amid riotous disorder is a thing of the past. The protracted poll, lasting insome cases for several days, the non-resident electors billeted in the inns at the candidates’ expense, and the whole scene Dickens depicted belongs to another age which is almost incomprehensible to the England of to-day.

Sam Weller’s story of his father and the voters had more point in those days than now. Mr. Weller was offered a twenty-pound note ($100) and it was suggested that if the coach were overturned by the bank of a canal it might be a good thing. Strangely enough an accident happened. To quote Sam’s words: “You wouldn’t believe it, sir,” continued Sam, with a look of inexpressible impudence at his master, “that on the wery day he came down with those voters, his coachwasupset on that ’ere wery spot, and every man of them was turned into the canal.” In the unreformed Parliament, before 1832, the boroughs had each its own peculiar electorate; and I am glad to use for my information a book written by twolearned scholars now in America, Mr. and Mrs. Porritt. In not a few places the election of members was vested in the Mayor and burgesses, in others the different guilds and corporations were the electors. In one case the franchise was more democratic even than now, the very tramps who slept in the town of Preston became voters. Not infrequently the members were nominated by a local magnate. In many cases the town sold its nomination to the highest bidder; and this was occasionally the case at Eatandswill, if so be that it represents Sudbury. But frequently the electors were the so-called “freemen” of the borough. The name takes us back to mediæval times, when slavery was in existence, or to the days when the guilds were close corporations, and no one not free of them could practise any trade. But in later times the freedom was a matter of inheritance and could even be taken up, in some cases, by marriage with a“freeman’s” daughter. The franchise in many towns was enjoyed only by these freemen, and in Ipswich, to take an example familiar to me, most of them were non-resident.

In an election in the “twenties,” which is reputed to have cost the candidates £30,000 ($150,000), I have been told that they chartered ships to bring electors from Holland. This is, doubtless, why all the hotels in Eatandswill were crowded, and explains the elder Mr. Weller’s adventure by the canal. Bribery was illegal; and in a famous case in 1819 Sir Manasseh Massey Lopez was fined £10,000 ($50,000) and imprisoned for two years for practising it at Grampound. But it was an exceptional case; and the Lords threw out the bill for disfranchising the borough.

Now we are on the subject of political life I cannot resist reminding you of a perfectly delightful sketch of a political fraudin the person of Mr. Gregsbury in “Nicholas Nickleby.” He comes into the story for no particular reason except to give Dickens the joy of describing the sort of man he had doubtless observed when he was a pressman in the House of Commons.

Nicholas is present when the deputation arrives to request Mr. Gregsbury to resign his seat, and Mr. Pugstyles is its spokesman.

“‘My conduct, Pugstyles,’ said Mr. Gregsbury, looking round upon the deputation with gracious magnanimity, ‘my conduct has been, and ever will be, regulated by a sincere regard for this great and happy country. Whether I look at home, or abroad; whether I behold the peaceful industrious communities of our island home: her rivers covered with steamboats, her road with locomotives, her streets with cabs, her skies with balloons of a power and magnitude hitherto unknown in the history of aëronautics—I say whether I look at home, etc.,etc., I clasp my hands, and, turning my eyes to the broad expanse above my head, exclaim, Thank God I am a Briton.’” When even this outburst does not meet with approval and the deputation presses Mr. Gregsbury to resign, the member reads a letter he has addressed to Mr. Pugstyles in which he says, “Actuated by no personal motives, but moved only by high and great constitutional considerations ... I would rather keep my seat, and intend doing so.” No, in all the changes time has brought, one thing does not change—our politicians are still the same.

In “Our Mutual Friend” our author touches once more on the state of the poor and their terror of “the parish.” No one who has read this novel, with its wealth of characters amazing even for Dickens—for even in his other works you fail to find so many types as Bella Wilfer, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, Fascination Fledgby, the dolls’ dressmaker,Mr. Silas Wegg, Mr. Venus, Rogue Riderhood, the Veneerings, to mention only a few—no one, I say, can ever forget the old washerwoman Betty Higden and her horror of the workhouse, how it haunted her whole life and gave an additional terror to death, that thereby she would fall into the hands of the parish and be buried by it. And in this novel Dickens is as severe on the injudicious charity of philanthropists and faddists as he is upon the callousness of the guardians of the poor. There is no more terrible satire on the mistakes of the education of that age than his delineation of Bradley Headstone. I have never to my recollection read any discussion of this character but I have often thought that in Headstone and Charley Hexam, his pupil, he is giving a warning of the dangers of modern education.

Universal education was not yet adopted in England, which was the most backward of countries in this respect. But it was inthe air, and Dickens foresaw that some of the principles adopted would prove serious to the community. He dwells on the mechanical efficiency of the teaching; the learning to write essays on any subject exactly one slate long, for example; on the miscellaneous and useless information imparted; on a Bible teaching which has nothing to do with vital religion. Dickens recognised that the education of all classes was killing individuality, and not fostering moral or spiritual qualities. He recognised that in the type of Charley Hexam it was encouraging a desire for “respectability,” consisting, not in taking one’s coat off to work, but in working in a black coat, which was killing the finer feelings in which the poor often shew to the advantage of the rich. And in Bradley Headstone Dickens points out, that all this smug education was powerless to restrain the elemental ferocity of human nature in the schoolmaster, who looked natural inRogue Riderhood’s clothes, and not himself in his decent black coat. There was latent in him all the ferocity of a hardened criminal; and recent events are shewing how powerless education is really to civilise the heart of man.

I have spoken of the need of a map of London to understand Dickens, and I shall now take an extract from “Oliver Twist” to illustrate this remark. Oliver has just met with John Dawkins, otherwise the Artful Dodger, who offered to take him to a lodging. “It was nearly eleven o’clock when they reached the turnpike at Islington. They crossed from the Angel into St. John’s Road; struck down the small street which terminates at Sadlers Wells Theatre; through Exmouth Street and Coppice Row; down the little court by the side of the workhouse; across the classic ground which once bore the name of Hockley in the Hole, thence to little Saffron Hill the Great and so on to when theyreached the bottom of the hill, his (Oliver’s) conductor, catching him by the arm, pushed open the door of a house near Field Lane.”

Now I almost defy anyone to find all these localities in a modern map. You would have, in the first place, to start in the middle of London at the Angel at Islington. Sadlers Wells is now in the midst of a network of streets. It was only when I turned to Northcock’s history of London, which has a good map dated 1772, that all was plain. Islington was a village outside London; Sadlers Wells a suburban resort; Exmouth street was not yet built;[30]but Coppice row, Hockley in the Hole, and of course Saffron Hill and Field Lane, were all easily found.

In speaking of this great delineator of human character as now needing explanation and comment, I have no doubt that he belongs to that small group of writers whoseworks belong to all ages. We hear complaints in England that young people do not read him; and the same were made when we were young.

But with us, and I believe with you, his popularity from time to time revives, and no educated man or woman can ignore him. The fact that he has appealed so strongly to the imagination of America is alone a proof of the universality of his genius; for, like Shakespeare and the classics of all countries, his works are the property, not of one people, but of the world. He is not perfect; we should not love him so much if he were. He has faults of style, of arrangement, even of taste. It is easy to criticise; but because of his very excellences, his humour, his pathos, his wide sympathy, his hatred of injustice and oppression, it seems almost presumption to endeavour to sing his praises.

May I conclude with those prophetic words he puts into the mouth of Martin Chuzzlewit on leaving your country, which he made hisown by denouncing its failings as unsparingly as he did those of his own mother land, in the hope that both you and we, America and England, would conquer them and become the common benefactors of humanity.

“‘I am thinking,’ said Mark, ‘that if I was a painter and was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it?’‘Paint it as like an Eagle as you could, I suppose.’‘No,’ said Mark, ‘that wouldn’t do for me, sir. I should want to draw it like a Bat for its shortsightedness, like a Bantam for its bragging, like a Magpie for its honesty, like a Peacock for its vanity, like an Ostrich for putting its head in the mud and thinking nobody sees it.’‘And like a Phœnix for its power of springing from the ashes of its faults and vices and soaring up into the sky.’‘Well, Mark, let us hope so.’”

“‘I am thinking,’ said Mark, ‘that if I was a painter and was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it?’

‘Paint it as like an Eagle as you could, I suppose.’

‘No,’ said Mark, ‘that wouldn’t do for me, sir. I should want to draw it like a Bat for its shortsightedness, like a Bantam for its bragging, like a Magpie for its honesty, like a Peacock for its vanity, like an Ostrich for putting its head in the mud and thinking nobody sees it.’

‘And like a Phœnix for its power of springing from the ashes of its faults and vices and soaring up into the sky.’

‘Well, Mark, let us hope so.’”

APPENDIX TO LECTURE VI

To shew Dickens’ care in collecting his facts the following report of a case relating to Yorkshire Schools is of interest. It was supplied to the author by C. S. Kenny, Esq., Downing Professor of the Laws of England, Cambridge.

Chapter II. The Relevancy of Evidence[Evidence must be confined to the points in issue.]BOLDRONv.WIDDOWSWestminster N. P. Sittings. 1824.1Carrington and Payne65.This was an action for defamation. The declaration stated that the plaintiff kept a school, and had divers scholars; and that the defendant spoke of him in his business of a schoolmaster certain words there set out. The words were variously laid in different counts; but they were, in substance, that the scholars were ill fed, and badly lodged, had had the itch, and were full of vermin. Some of the counts laid the loss of certain scholars as special damage. Pleas—the general issue; and justifications, that the whole of the words were true.For the plaintiff, several witnesses proved the speaking of the words, and that the boys were boarded, educated, and clothed, by the plaintiff, at £20 a year each, near Richmond in Yorkshire: and the usher of the school was called to prove that the boys were wellfed and well lodged, and had no itch. In his cross-examination it appeared that there were between eighty and ninety boys; that about seventy of them had had a cutaneous disease; and that they all slept in three rooms close to the roof, with no ceiling; and that there was a general combing of the heads of the whole school every morning over a pewter dish, and that the vermin combed out were thrown into the yard; no boy was free from them. A piece of bread of a perfectly black hue was shewn him: he did not think the bread in the school so black as that.The witness having stated that he had himself been at the Appleby grammar-school, the plaintiff’s counsel wished to ask him what was the quality of the provisions used by the plaintiff’s school, compared with those consumed by the Appleby grammar-school.The defendant’s counsel objected to this.Abbott, C.J. That cannot be asked; what is done at any particular school is not evidence. You may shew the general treatment of boys at schools, and shew that the plaintiff treated the boys here as well as they could be treated for £20 a year each, for board, education, and clothes.One of the plaintiff’s scholars was then called to prove the plaintiff’s good treatment of them.In cross-examination, the defendant’s counsel wished to ask him whether the plaintiff did not set the boys to plant potatoes in school hours?Abbott, C.J. I do not think you can ask this; the issue here being whether the plaintiff’s scholars were illfed, badly lodged, had the itch, and had vermin. Nothing has been said as to their being badly educated. Their education is not in question here.Gurney, for the defendant, addressed the jury, and called witnesses to prove the truth of the words.Verdict for the plaintiff, damages £120.

Chapter II. The Relevancy of Evidence

[Evidence must be confined to the points in issue.]

BOLDRONv.WIDDOWS

Westminster N. P. Sittings. 1824.

1Carrington and Payne65.

This was an action for defamation. The declaration stated that the plaintiff kept a school, and had divers scholars; and that the defendant spoke of him in his business of a schoolmaster certain words there set out. The words were variously laid in different counts; but they were, in substance, that the scholars were ill fed, and badly lodged, had had the itch, and were full of vermin. Some of the counts laid the loss of certain scholars as special damage. Pleas—the general issue; and justifications, that the whole of the words were true.

For the plaintiff, several witnesses proved the speaking of the words, and that the boys were boarded, educated, and clothed, by the plaintiff, at £20 a year each, near Richmond in Yorkshire: and the usher of the school was called to prove that the boys were wellfed and well lodged, and had no itch. In his cross-examination it appeared that there were between eighty and ninety boys; that about seventy of them had had a cutaneous disease; and that they all slept in three rooms close to the roof, with no ceiling; and that there was a general combing of the heads of the whole school every morning over a pewter dish, and that the vermin combed out were thrown into the yard; no boy was free from them. A piece of bread of a perfectly black hue was shewn him: he did not think the bread in the school so black as that.

The witness having stated that he had himself been at the Appleby grammar-school, the plaintiff’s counsel wished to ask him what was the quality of the provisions used by the plaintiff’s school, compared with those consumed by the Appleby grammar-school.

The defendant’s counsel objected to this.

Abbott, C.J. That cannot be asked; what is done at any particular school is not evidence. You may shew the general treatment of boys at schools, and shew that the plaintiff treated the boys here as well as they could be treated for £20 a year each, for board, education, and clothes.

One of the plaintiff’s scholars was then called to prove the plaintiff’s good treatment of them.

In cross-examination, the defendant’s counsel wished to ask him whether the plaintiff did not set the boys to plant potatoes in school hours?

Abbott, C.J. I do not think you can ask this; the issue here being whether the plaintiff’s scholars were illfed, badly lodged, had the itch, and had vermin. Nothing has been said as to their being badly educated. Their education is not in question here.

Gurney, for the defendant, addressed the jury, and called witnesses to prove the truth of the words.

Verdict for the plaintiff, damages £120.

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