Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II.
Who callously spurning humanity's bounds,
Now sells his old servant as food for the hounds.
The Squire having occasion to call at a banker's in Fleet Street, the
two friends entered at the moment when a countryman with a most rueful
expression of countenance, stood transfixed to the floor, like the
statue of Despair, incapable either of speech or motion. After an
absorption of mental faculty of several minutes duration, he burst out
into the incoherent exclamations of
“Murrian take un, zay I!--Icod, I'ze in a voine pickle! I ha brought my
pigs to market wi a vengeance! O luord! O luord! whoa would ha thought
en't?”
He then began exercising his feet by stamping each alternately on the
floor, with a violence that shook the room to its foundation; and
this vehement thunder he accompanied by correspondent energy of
gesticulation; distorting his visage, and casting about his arms with
the action of an infuriated maniac. The place was thrown into alarm, and
business was suspended. Dashall now addressing himself to the presumed
lunatic, begged him to compose himself, and endeavour briefly to state
what had happened, that if he had sustained an injury, redress might be
obtained.
After several fruitless attempts at narration, he at length told his
story; and that it may lose nothing of its originality, we shall give it
in the first person.
“I'ze cuom zur, frae Zumersetzshire to Lunnon, first time o' my loife,
by coach, where it putt en at a pleace called the two Gooses necks, and
zo having a cheque on this house for Fifty Pounds, and not knowing
the way, I axed a vera civil gentleman whom I met wi' hovering about
Inn-yard; and telling him my business, Pze go with you, zaid he,
vera kindly, and help thee to take care o! thy money, vor there be a
desperate set o' sharp fellows in Lunnon ready to take every advantage
of a stranger; ~92~~ and zoa we came along, and just avore we gotten
into house here, he said to I, zays he, I'ze take thy money and zee that
all's right, vor there be a vast many bad sovereigns about.--Well,
zur, zoa he did; and just as I wur looking about, it seems he had taen
himself off wi'the money, vor when I looked round he wur no where to be
zeen; and zoa zur, I have lost Fifty good Pounds to my sorrow. Who would
ha thought it!--I wish the murrian had ha hold on me avore I had come to
this wicked world o' Lunnon!”
Here the countryman concluded his narrative, exciting the amusement of
some and the sympathy of others of his auditory.--The banker dispatched
one of his clerks with the unlucky wight to one of the Public Offices,
for the purpose of describing the depredator, altho' with very small
chance of recovering the property.{1}
Eliminating on the folly of this credulous countryman, our perambulators
now proceeded down Fleet Street, where casting a look into Bolt
Court--“Here,” said Dashall, “lived and died the colossus of English
literature, Doctor Samuel Johnson,{2} a man whose like the world may
1 In all the Coach and Waggon yards in London there are
fellows loitering about with the view of plunder; they
frequently are taken by the unwary countryman, for domestics
of the Inn, and as such are entrusted with property with
which they immediately decamp, and by many other artful
manouvres secure their spoil.
2 The most trivial circumstance in the life of a great man,
carries with it a certain somewhat of importance, infinitely
more agreeable to the generality of readers than the long
details which history usually presents. Amongst the numerous
anecdotes of Doctor Johnson, perhaps the following is not
the least amusing.--When the Doctor first became acquainted
with David Mallet, they once went, with some other
gentlemen, to laugh away an hour at South-wark-fair. At one
of the booths where wild beasts were exhibited to the
wondering crowd, was a very large bear, which the showman
assured them was “cotched” in the undiscovered deserts of
the remotest Russia. The bear was muzzled, and might
therefore be approached with safety; but to all the company,
except Johnson, was very surly and ill tempered. Of the
philosopher he appeared extremely fond, rubbed against him,
and displayed every mark of awkward partiality, and ursine
kindness. “How is it, (said one of the company,) that; this
savage animal is so attached to Mr. Johnson?” From a very
natural cause, replied Mallet: “the bear is a Russian
philosopher, and he knows that Linnæus would have placed him
in the same class with the English moralist. They are two
barbarous animals of one species.”--Johnson disliked Mallet
for his tendency to infidelity, and this sarcasm turned his
dislike into downright hatred. He never spoke to him
afterwards, but has gibbeted him in his octavo dictionary,
under the article “Alias.”
~93~~perhaps never see again; yet with all his vast erudition he had
his prejudices and superstitions; he believed in apparitions, and he
despised all countries save his own.--The Scotch and Irish he affected
particularly to dislike.--In his poem of “London,” in imitation of
Juvenal, he says,--
For who unbrib'd would leave Hibernia's land,
Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand?--
There none are swept by sudden death away,
But all whom Hunger spares, with age decay!
But, with all his foibles, (and who is there without human infirmity?)
Doctor Samuel Johnson was the most highly talented writer of any age or
nation.”
Facing the Obelisk, “let us stroll down the market,” said Dashall,
“considered the cheapest in London.--Flesh, fish and fowl, fruits, roots
and vegetables, are here abundantly attainable, and at moderate prices.”
Amongst the various venders, our two observers passed on, unmolestedly,
excepting the annoyance and importunity of “What d'ye buy? what d'ye
buy, buy, buy?” from” barking butchers, who instinctively reiterated
the phrase as the casual passenger approached, like so many parrots,
unconscious of its import being unproductive in effect; for who would
be induced to purchase by the clamorous invitation universally in use by
these vociferous butchers of the metropolis?--“My fine fellow,” observed
Tallyho to one who annoyed him, “good wine, they say, needs no bush,
neither does good meat require a barker.”
“Bad luck to my mother's own daughter, and that is myself, sure,”
exclaimed a retail venderess of vegetables, to her opponent in trade,
“if I wouldn't for the value of a tester, or for the value of nothing at
all at all, give you freely just what you ask for my jewel.--Arrah now,
is it law that you want of me! Faith and troth then you shall have it,
_club-law_, when and where you plase, my darling!”
“Dirty end,” rejoined the other lady, “to the girl who fear* you!--Here
am I, Kate, of the Maclusky's of Ballymena, in the county of Antrim,
long life to it! and it would be a hard case, and a shameful one to
boot, if a well educated northern lass should suffer her own self to be
disgraced by a Munster-woman.”
~94~~ “The devil fly away with Ballymena, and the Macluskys along with
it!” retorted the other; “and is it Munster and heddication that you are
bothering about? Whillaloe graraachree! my sweet one! and did you begin
your larning in Ballymena, and come to finish it in Fleet-market? By
my conscience, Kate Maclusky, if you are not very much belied, you know
more than you ought to do.”
“And what would you 'sinuate by that?” demanded Kate;--“What do you
'sinuate by that, Ma'am?--I acknowledge that I'm both a whore and a
thief--what then? Bating that I defy you to say, black is the white of
my eye!”
Here Mrs. Maclusky with arms a-kimbo, and a visage strongly expressing
exasperation and defiance, advanced towards the Munster-woman.
“Let us step aside,” said Dashall, “hostilities are about to commence.”
He was right; a few more irritable preliminaries, and the heroines came
in contact, in due order of battle.
“Two to one on the Munster-woman.” “Done! Ulster for ever! go it
Kate!--handle your dawdles, my girl;--shiver her ivory;--darken her
skylights;--flatten her sneizer;--foul, foul,--ah you Munster b----ch!”
“Fair, fair;--arrah, now for the honor of Munster;--dig away;--mind your
hits;--rattle her bread basket;--set her claret-spout a-going;--stand
firm on your pegs;--what, down!”
Thus ended round the first; the amazons had, in the fray, reduced each
other from the waist upwards to nearly a state of nudity. On either side
the partisans were numerous, the combatants eager to renew the fight,
and the spectators, the majority of whom were of Irish distraction,
anxious for the result, when the officious interposition of official
authority, terminated the “tug of war,” and the honor of the two
provinces remained undecided.--
“Success to the land that gave Patrick his birth.” Tranquillity thus
restored, a new scene in the drama of Fleet-market attracted the
attention of the two visitants.
A rabbit pole-woman passing through the market, was accosted by a lady,
who enquiring the price of the Rabbits, purchased a couple, in front
of the shop of a similar exhibitant.--This was considered by the
rabbit-dealers of the market, a gross breach of privilege, more
particularly as the obnoxious female had presumed to undersell them,
even with a superior article. Not willing, however, from ~95~~prudential
reasons, to appear in avowed personal hostility against the object of
their vengeance, and that, too, a woman, who had inadvertently incurred
the displeasure of their high mightinesses, the subordinate agency of
boys was deputed for the purpose of wrecking summary retribution; and
the juvenile deputation quickly overthrew in the apparent wantonness of
mischief, the whole of the poor girl's day-property, and scrambling for
the spoil, disseminated themselves in different directions, leaving not
the vestige of a rabbit behind!
A torrent of tears, feelingly shewed the anguish of her mind. She was
ruined beyond hope of redemption; the rabbits she had every morning on
credit, she plied the streets in selling them, through many a wearisome
hour in the day, happy if next morning, having realized a very moderate
profit by her laborious vocation, she could settle accounts with the
wholesale dealer, and take a fresh cargo with which to commence another
day's adventure.--But now, wringing her hands in an agony of grief,
“It is all over with me!” she exclaimed,--” my means of subsistence is
gone,--my credit is lost,--and God's will be done,--I must go home and
starve!”{1}
1 It is scarcely credible that one salesman in Leadenhall
market, at the present time, sells on an average 14,000
rabbits weekly. He contracts with the coach masters for the
carriage, and pays them eleven pounds per thousand,
amounting, weekly, to £154. The way he disposes of them, is
by employing 150 travelling pole-men and women; in the
morning they are started upon credit, and the next day they
return, bringing back the skins, settle the accounts, and
then take a fresh cargo.
Ever prone to relieve distress, Dashall and Tallyho sympathized most
sincerely with this unfortunate girl; there was an indescribable
something of extreme interest about her, which was well calculated to
excite a feeling of generous commiseration.
Shall we now say the two philanthropists? for such they
proved themselves. Each then, in the same moment, expanded his purse,
and together more than compensated the delighted and astonished girl for
her loss, who, blessing her benefactors, went home rejoicing.
Gaining the extremity of the market, at the bottom of Skinner-street,