of command from the Skipper of this ship - a mahogany-faced Old
Salt, with the indispensable quid in his cheek, the true nautical
roll, and all wonderfully complete - the rigging was covered with a
swarm of boys: one, the first to spring into the shrouds,
outstripping all the others, and resting on the truck of the maintopmast
in no time.
And now we stood out to sea, in a most amazing manner; the Skipper
himself, the whole crew, the Uncommercial, and all hands present,
implicitly believing that there was not a moment to lose, that the
wind had that instant chopped round and sprung up fair, and that we
were away on a voyage round the world. Get all sail upon her!
With a will, my lads! Lay out upon the main-yard there! Look
alive at the weather earring! Cheery, my boys! Let go the sheet,
now! Stand by at the braces, you! With a will, aloft there!
Belay, starboard watch! Fifer! Come aft, fifer, and give 'em a
tune! Forthwith, springs up fifer, fife in hand - smallest boy
ever seen - big lump on temple, having lately fallen down on a
paving-stone - gives 'em a tune with all his might and main. Hooroar,
fifer! With a will, my lads! Tip 'em a livelier one, fifer!
Fifer tips 'em a livelier one, and excitement increases. Shake 'em
out, my lads! Well done! There you have her! Pretty, pretty!
Every rag upon her she can carry, wind right astarn, and ship
cutting through the water fifteen knots an hour!
At this favourable moment of her voyage, I gave the alarm 'A man
overboard!' (on the gravel), but he was immediately recovered, none
the worse. Presently, I observed the Skipper overboard, but
forbore to mention it, as he seemed in no wise disconcerted by the
accident. Indeed, I soon came to regard the Skipper as an
amphibious creature, for he was so perpetually plunging overboard
to look up at the hands aloft, that he was oftener in the bosom of
the ocean than on deck. His pride in his crew on those occasions
was delightful, and the conventional unintelligibility of his
orders in the ears of uncommercial landlubbers and loblolly boys,
though they were always intelligible to the crew, was hardly less
pleasant. But we couldn't expect to go on in this way for ever;
dirty weather came on, and then worse weather, and when we least
expected it we got into tremendous difficulties. Screw loose in
the chart perhaps - something certainly wrong somewhere - but here
we were with breakers ahead, my lads, driving head on, slap on a
lee shore! The Skipper broached this terrific announcement in such
great agitation, that the small fifer, not fifeing now, but
standing looking on near the wheel with his fife under his arm,
seemed for the moment quite unboyed, though he speedily recovered
his presence of mind. In the trying circumstances that ensued, the
Skipper and the crew proved worthy of one another. The Skipper got
dreadfully hoarse, but otherwise was master of the situation. The
man at the wheel did wonders; all hands (except the fifer) were
turned up to wear ship; and I observed the fifer, when we were at
our greatest extremity, to refer to some document in his waistcoatpocket,
which I conceived to be his will. I think she struck. I
was not myself conscious of any collision, but I saw the Skipper so
very often washed overboard and back again, that I could only
impute it to the beating of the ship. I am not enough of a seaman
Page 132
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
to describe the manoeuvres by which we were saved, but they made
the Skipper very hot (French polishing his mahogany face) and the
crew very nimble, and succeeded to a marvel; for, within a few
minutes of the first alarm, we had wore ship and got her off, and
were all a-tauto - which I felt very grateful for: not that I knew
what it was, but that I perceived that we had not been all a-tauto
lately. Land now appeared on our weather-bow, and we shaped our
course for it, having the wind abeam, and frequently changing the
man at the helm, in order that every man might have his spell. We
worked into harbour under prosperous circumstances, and furled our
sails, and squared our yards, and made all ship-shape and handsome,
and so our voyage ended. When I complimented the Skipper at
parting on his exertions and those of his gallant crew, he informed
me that the latter were provided for the worst, all hands being
taught to swim and dive; and he added that the able seaman at the
main-topmast truck especially, could dive as deep as he could go
high.
The next adventure that befell me in my visit to the Short-Timers,
was the sudden apparition of a military band. I had been
inspecting the hammocks of the crew of the good ship, when I saw
with astonishment that several musical instruments, brazen and of
great size, appeared to have suddenly developed two legs each, and
to be trotting about a yard. And my astonishment was heightened
when I observed a large drum, that had previously been leaning
helpless against a wall, taking up a stout position on four legs.
Approaching this drum and looking over it, I found two boys behind
it (it was too much for one), and then I found that each of the
brazen instruments had brought out a boy, and was going to
discourse sweet sounds. The boys - not omitting the fifer, now
playing a new instrument - were dressed in neat uniform, and stood
up in a circle at their music-stands, like any other Military Band.
They played a march or two, and then we had Cheer boys, Cheer, and
then we had Yankee Doodle, and we finished, as in loyal duty bound,
with God save the Queen. The band's proficiency was perfectly
wonderful, and it was not at all wonderful that the whole body
corporate of Short-Timers listened with faces of the liveliest
interest and pleasure.
What happened next among the Short-Timers? As if the band had
blown me into a great class-room out of their brazen tubes, IN a
great class-room I found myself now, with the whole choral force of
Short-Timers singing the praises of a summer's day to the
harmonium, and my small but highly respected friend the fifer
blazing away vocally, as if he had been saving up his wind for the
last twelvemonth; also the whole crew of the good ship Nameless
swarming up and down the scale as if they had never swarmed up and
down the rigging. This done, we threw our whole power into God
bless the Prince of Wales, and blessed his Royal Highness to such
an extent that, for my own Uncommercial part, I gasped again when
it was over. The moment this was done, we formed, with surpassing
freshness, into hollow squares, and fell to work at oral lessons as
if we never did, and had never thought of doing, anything else.
Let a veil be drawn over the self-committals into which the
Uncommercial Traveller would have been betrayed but for a discreet
reticence, coupled with an air of absolute wisdom on the part of
that artful personage. Take the square of five, multiply it by
fifteen,
divide it by three, deduct eight from it, add four dozen
to it, give me the result in pence, and tell me how many eggs I
could get for it at three farthings apiece. The problem is hardly
stated, when a dozen small boys pour out answers. Some wide, some
very nearly right, some worked as far as they go with such
accuracy, as at once to show what link of the chain has been
Page 133
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
dropped in the hurry. For the moment, none are quite right; but
behold a labouring spirit beating the buttons on its corporeal
waistcoat, in a process of internal calculation, and knitting an
accidental bump on its corporeal forehead in a concentration of
mental arithmetic! It is my honourable friend (if he will allow me
to call him so) the fifer. With right arm eagerly extended in
token of being inspired with an answer, and with right leg
foremost, the fifer solves the mystery: then recalls both arm and
leg, and with bump in ambush awaits the next poser. Take the
square of three, multiply it by seven, divide it by four, add fifty
to it, take thirteen from it, multiply it by two, double it, give
me the result in pence, and say how many halfpence. Wise as the
serpent is the four feet of performer on the nearest approach to
that instrument, whose right arm instantly appears, and quenches
this arithmetical fire. Tell me something about Great Britain,
tell me something about its principal productions, tell me
something about its ports, tell me something about its seas and
rivers, tell me something about coal, iron, cotton, timber, tin,
and turpentine. The hollow square bristles with extended right
arms; but ever faithful to fact is the fifer, ever wise as the
serpent is the performer on that instrument, ever prominently
buoyant and brilliant are all members of the band. I observe the
player of the cymbals to dash at a sounding answer now and then
rather than not cut in at all; but I take that to be in the way of
his instrument. All these questions, and many such, are put on the
spur of the moment, and by one who has never examined these boys.
The Uncommercial, invited to add another, falteringly demands how
many birthdays a man born on the twenty-ninth of February will have
had on completing his fiftieth year? A general perception of trap
and pitfall instantly arises, and the fifer is seen to retire
behind the corduroys of his next neighbours, as perceiving special
necessity for collecting himself and communing with his mind.
Meanwhile, the wisdom of the serpent suggests that the man will
have had only one birthday in all that time, for how can any man
have more than one, seeing that he is born once and dies once? The
blushing Uncommercial stands corrected, and amends the formula.
Pondering ensues, two or three wrong answers are offered, and
Cymbals strikes up 'Six!' but doesn't know why. Then modestly
emerging from his Academic Grove of corduroys appears the fifer,
right arm extended, right leg foremost, bump irradiated. 'Twelve,
and two over!'
The feminine Short-Timers passed a similar examination, and very
creditably too. Would have done better perhaps, with a little more
geniality on the part of their pupil-teacher; for a cold eye, my
young friend, and a hard, abrupt manner, are not by any means the
powerful engines that your innocence supposes them to be. Both
girls and boys wrote excellently, from copy and dictation; both
could cook; both could mend their own clothes; both could clean up
everything about them in an orderly and skilful way, the girls
having womanly household knowledge superadded. Order and method
began in the songs of the Infant School which I visited likewise,
and they were even in their dwarf degree to be found in the
Nursery, where the Uncommercial walking-stick was carried off with
acclamations, and where 'the Doctor' - a medical gentleman of two,
who took his degree on the night when he was found at an
apothecary's door - did the honours of the establishment with great
urbanity and gaiety.
These have long been excellent schools; long before the days of the
Short-Time. I first saw them, twelve or fifteen years ago. But
since the introduction of the Short-Time system it has been proved
here that eighteen hours a week of book-learning are more
profitable than thirty-six, and that the pupils are far quicker and
Page 134
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
brighter than of yore. The good influences of music on the whole
body of children have likewise been surprisingly proved. Obviously
another of the immense advantages of the Short-Time system to the
cause of good education is the great diminution of its cost, and of
the period of time over which it extends. The last is a most
important consideration, as poor parents are always impatient to
profit by their children's labour.
It will be objected: Firstly, that this is all very well, but
special local advantages and special selection of children must be
necessary to such success. Secondly, that this is all very well,
but must be very expensive. Thirdly, that this is all very well,
but we have no proof of the results, sir, no proof.
On the first head of local advantages and special selection. Would
Limehouse Hole be picked out for the site of a Children's Paradise?
long-shore population of such a riverside district, be regarded as
unusually favourable specimens to work with? Yet these schools are
at Limehouse, and are the Pauper Schools of the Stepney Pauper
Union.
On the second head of expense. Would sixpence a week be considered
a very large cost for the education of each pupil, including all
salaries of teachers and rations of teachers? But supposing the
cost were not sixpence a week, not fivepence? it is FOURPENCEHALFPENNY.
On the third head of no proof, sir, no proof. Is there any proof
in the facts that Pupil Teachers more in number, and more highly
qualified, have been produced here under the Short-Time system than
under the Long-Time system? That the Short-Timers, in a writing
competition, beat the Long-Timers of a first-class National School?
That the sailor-boys are in such demand for merchant ships, that
whereas, before they were trained, 10L. premium used to be given
with each boy - too often to some greedy brute of a drunken
skipper, who disappeared before the term of apprenticeship was out,
if the ill-used boy didn't - captains of the best character now
take these boys more than willingly, with no premium at all? That
they are also much esteemed in the Royal Navy, which they prefer,
'because everything is so neat and clean and orderly'? Or, is
there any proof in Naval captains writing 'Your little fellows are
all that I can desire'? Or, is there any proof in such testimony
as this: 'The owner of a vessel called at the school, and said
that as his ship was going down Channel on her last voy
age, with
one of the boys from the school on board, the pilot said, "It would
be as well if the royal were lowered; I wish it were down."
Without waiting for any orders, and unobserved by the pilot, the
lad, whom they had taken on board from the school, instantly
mounted the mast and lowered the royal, and at the next glance of
the pilot to the masthead, he perceived that the sail had been let
down. He exclaimed, "Who's done that job?" The owner, who was on
board, said, "That was the little fellow whom I put on board two
days ago." The pilot immediately said, "Why, where could he have
been brought up?" The boy had never seen the sea or been on a real
ship before'? Or, is there any proof in these boys being in
greater demand for Regimental Bands than the Union can meet? Or,
in ninety-eight of them having gone into Regimental Bands in three
years? Or, in twelve of them being in the band of one regiment?
Or, in the colonel of that regiment writing, 'We want six more
boys; they are excellent lads'? Or, in one of the boys having
risen to be band-corporal in the same regiment? Or, in employers
of all kinds chorusing, 'Give us drilled boys, for they are prompt,
obedient, and punctual'? Other proofs I have myself beheld with
Page 135
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
these Uncommercial eyes, though I do not regard myself as having a
right to relate in what social positions they have seen respected
men and women who were once pauper children of the Stepney Union.
Into what admirable soldiers others of these boys have the
capabilities for being turned, I need not point out. Many of them
are always ambitious of military service; and once upon a time when
an old boy came back to see the old place, a cavalry soldier all
complete, WITH HIS SPURS ON, such a yearning broke out to get into
cavalry regiments and wear those sublime appendages, that it was
one of the greatest excitements ever known in the school. The
girls make excellent domestic servants, and at certain periods come
back, a score or two at a time, to see the old building, and to
take tea with the old teachers, and to hear the old band, and to
see the old ship with her masts towering up above the neighbouring
roofs and chimneys. As to the physical health of these schools, it
is so exceptionally remarkable (simply because the sanitary