tool-house, summer-house, or dwelling-house, I could not discover,
for there was nobody at home at the post-chaise when I knocked, but
it was certainly used for something, and locked up. In the wonder
of this discovery, I walked round and round the post-chaise many
times, and sat down by the post-chaise, waiting for further
elucidation. None came. At last, I made my way back to the old
London road by the further end of the allotment-gardens, and
consequently at a point beyond that from which I had diverged. I
had to scramble through a hedge and down a steep bank, and I nearly
came down a-top of a little spare man who sat breaking stones by
the roadside.
He stayed his hammer, and said, regarding me mysteriously through
his dark goggles of wire:
'Are you aware, sir, that you've been trespassing?'
'I turned out of the way,' said I, in explanation, 'to look at that
odd post-chaise. Do you happen to know anything about it?'
'I know it was many a year upon the road,' said he.
'So I supposed. Do you know to whom it belongs?'
The stone-breaker bent his brows and goggles over his heap of
stones, as if he were considering whether he should answer the
question or not. Then, raising his barred eyes to my features as
before, he said:
'To me.'
Being quite unprepared for the reply, I received it with a
sufficiently awkward 'Indeed! Dear me!' Presently I added, 'Do
you - ' I was going to say 'live there,' but it seemed so absurd a
question, that I substituted 'live near here?'
The stone-breaker, who had not broken a fragment since we began to
converse, then did as follows. He raised himself by poising his
finger on his hammer, and took his coat, on which he had been
seated, over his arm. He then backed to an easier part of the bank
than that by which I had come down, keeping his dark goggles
silently upon me all the time, and then shouldered his hammer,
suddenly turned, ascended, and was gone. His face was so small,
and his goggles were so large, that he left me wholly uninformed as
to his countenance; but he left me a profound impression that the
curved legs I had seen from behind as he vanished, were the legs of
an old postboy. It was not until then that I noticed he had been
working by a grass-grown milestone, which looked like a tombstone
erected over the grave of the London road.
My dinner-hour being close at hand, I had no leisure to pursue the
goggles or the subject then, but made my way back to the Dolphin's
Head. In the gateway I found J. Mellows, looking at nothing, and
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apparently experiencing that it failed to raise his spirits.
'I don't care for the town,' said J. Mellows, when I complimented
him on the sanitary advantages it may or may not possess; 'I wish I
had never seen the town!'
'You don't belong to it, Mr. Mellows?'
'Belong to it!' repeated Mellows. 'If I didn't belong to a better
style of town than this, I'd take and drown myself in a pail.' It
then occurred to me that Mellows, having so little to do, was
habitually thrown back on his internal resources - by which I mean
the Dolphin's cellar.
'What we want,' said Mellows, pulling off his hat, and making as if
he emptied it of the last load of Disgust that had exuded from his
brain, before he put it on again for another load; 'what we want,
is a Branch. The Petition for the Branch Bill is in the coffeeroom.
Would you put your name to it? Every little helps.'
I found the document in question stretched out flat on the coffeeroom
table by the aid of certain weights from the kitchen, and I
gave it the additional weight of my uncommercial signature. To the
best of my belief, I bound myself to the modest statement that
universal traffic, happiness, prosperity, and civilisation,
together with unbounded national triumph in competition with the
foreigner, would infallibly flow from the Branch.
Having achieved this constitutional feat, I asked Mr. Mellows if he
could grace my dinner with a pint of good wine? Mr. Mellows thus
replied.
'If I couldn't give you a pint of good wine, I'd - there! - I'd
take and drown myself in a pail. But I was deceived when I bought
this business, and the stock was higgledy-piggledy, and I haven't
yet tasted my way quite through it with a view to sorting it.
Therefore, if you order one kind and get another, change till it
comes right. For what,' said Mellows, unloading his hat as before,
'what would you or any gentleman do, if you ordered one kind of
wine and was required to drink another? Why, you'd (and naturally
and properly, having the feelings of a gentleman), you'd take and
drown yourself in a pail!'
CHAPTER XXV - THE BOILED BEEF OF NEW ENGLAND
The shabbiness of our English capital, as compared with Paris,
Bordeaux, Frankfort, Milan, Geneva - almost any important town on
the continent of Europe - I find very striking after an absence of
any duration in foreign parts. London is shabby in contrast with
Edinburgh, with Aberdeen, with Exeter, with Liverpool, with a
bright little town like Bury St. Edmunds. London is shabby in
contrast with New York, with Boston, with Philadelphia. In detail,
one would say it can rarely fail to be a disappointing piece of
shabbiness, to a stranger from any of those places. There is
nothing shabbier than Drury-lane, in Rome itself. The meanness of
Regent-street, set against the great line of Boulevards in Paris,
is as striking as the abortive ugliness of Trafalgar-square, set
against the gallant beauty of the Place de la Concorde. London is
shabby by daylight, and shabbier by gaslight. No Englishman knows
what gaslight is, until he sees the Rue de Rivoli and the Palais
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Royal after dark.
The mass of London people are shabby. The absence of distinctive
dress has, no doubt, something to do with it. The porters of the
Vintners' Company, the draymen, and the butchers, are about the
only people who wear distinctive dresses; and even these do not
wear them on holidays. We have nothing which for cheapness,
cleanliness, convenience, or picturesqueness, can compare with the
belted blouse. As to our women; - next Easter or Whitsuntide, look
at the bonnets at the British Museum or the National Gallery, and
think of the pretty white French cap, the Spanish mantilla, or the
Genoese mezzero.
Probably there are not more second-hand clothes sold in London than
in Paris, and yet the mass of the London population have a secondhand
look which is not to be detected on the mass of the Parisian
population. I think this is mainly because a Parisian workman does
not in the least trouble himself about what is worn by a Parisian
idler, but dresses in the way of his own class, and for his own
comfort. In London, on the contrary, the fashions descend; and you
neve
r fully know how inconvenient or ridiculous a fashion is, until
you see it in its last descent. It was but the other day, on a
race-course, that I observed four people in a barouche deriving
great entertainment from the contemplation of four people on foot.
The four people on foot were two young men and two young women; the
four people in the barouche were two young men and two young women.
The four young women were dressed in exactly the same style; the
four young men were dressed in exactly the same style. Yet the two
couples on wheels were as much amused by the two couples on foot,
as if they were quite unconscious of having themselves set those
fashions, or of being at that very moment engaged in the display of
them.
Is it only in the matter of clothes that fashion descends here in
London - and consequently in England - and thence shabbiness
arises? Let us think a little, and be just. The 'Black Country'
round about Birmingham, is a very black country; but is it quite as
black as it has been lately painted? An appalling accident
happened at the People's Park near Birmingham, this last July, when
it was crowded with people from the Black Country - an appalling
accident consequent on a shamefully dangerous exhibition. Did the
shamefully dangerous exhibition originate in the moral blackness of
the Black Country, and in the Black People's peculiar love of the
excitement attendant on great personal hazard, which they looked on
at, but in which they did not participate? Light is much wanted in
the Black Country. O we are all agreed on that. But, we must not
quite forget the crowds of gentlefolks who set the shamefully
dangerous fashion, either. We must not quite forget the
enterprising Directors of an Institution vaunting mighty
educational pretences, who made the low sensation as strong as they
possibly could make it, by hanging the Blondin rope as high as they
possibly could hang it. All this must not be eclipsed in the
Blackness of the Black Country. The reserved seats high up by the
rope, the cleared space below it, so that no one should be smashed
but the performer, the pretence of slipping and falling off, the
baskets for the feet and the sack for the head, the photographs
everywhere, and the virtuous indignation nowhere - all this must
not be wholly swallowed up in the blackness of the jet-black
country.
Whatsoever fashion is set in England, is certain to descend. This
is a text for a perpetual sermon on care in setting fashions. When
you find a fashion low down, look back for the time (it will never
be far off) when it was the fashion high up. This is the text for
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a perpetual sermon on social justice. From imitations of Ethiopian
Serenaders, to imitations of Prince's coats and waistcoats, you
will find the original model in St. James's Parish. When the
Serenaders become tiresome, trace them beyond the Black Country;
when the coats and waistcoats become insupportable, refer them to
their source in the Upper Toady Regions.
Gentlemen's clubs were once maintained for purposes of savage party
warfare; working men's clubs of the same day assumed the same
character. Gentlemen's clubs became places of quiet inoffensive
recreation; working men's clubs began to follow suit. If working
men have seemed rather slow to appreciate advantages of combination
which have saved the pockets of gentlemen, and enhanced their
comforts, it is because working men could scarcely, for want of
capital, originate such combinations without help; and because help
has not been separable from that great impertinence, Patronage.
The instinctive revolt of his spirit against patronage, is a
quality much to be respected in the English working man. It is the
base of the base of his best qualities. Nor is it surprising that
he should be unduly suspicious of patronage, and sometimes
resentful of it even where it is not, seeing what a flood of washy
talk has been let loose on his devoted head, or with what
complacent condescension the same devoted head has been smoothed
and patted. It is a proof to me of his self-control that he never
strikes out pugilistically, right and left, when addressed as one
of 'My friends,' or 'My assembled friends;' that he does not become
inappeasable, and run amuck like a Malay, whenever he sees a biped
in broadcloth getting on a platform to talk to him; that any
pretence of improving his mind, does not instantly drive him out of
his mind, and cause him to toss his obliging patron like a mad
bull.
For, how often have I heard the unfortunate working man lectured,
as if he were a little charity-child, humid as to his nasal
development, strictly literal as to his Catechism, and called by
Providence to walk all his days in a station in life represented on
festive occasions by a mug of warm milk-and-water and a bun! What
popguns of jokes have these ears tingled to hear let off at him,
what asinine sentiments, what impotent conclusions, what spellingbook
moralities, what adaptations of the orator's insufferable
tediousness to the assumed level of his understanding! If his
sledge-hammers, his spades and pick-axes, his saws and chisels, his
paint-pots and brushes, his forges, furnaces, and engines, the
horses that he drove at his work, and the machines that drove him
at his work, were all toys in one little paper box, and he the baby
who played with them, he could not have been discoursed to, more
impertinently and absurdly than I have heard him discoursed to
times innumerable. Consequently, not being a fool or a fawner, he
has come to acknowledge his patronage by virtually saying: 'Let me
alone. If you understand me no better than THAT, sir and madam,
let me alone. You mean very well, I dare say, but I don't like it,
and I won't come here again to have any more of it.'
Whatever is done for the comfort and advancement of the working man
must be so far done by himself as that it is maintained by himself.
And there must be in it no touch of condescension, no shadow of
patronage. In the great working districts, this truth is studied
first in Glasgow, and afterwards in Manchester, that the working
people should be shown how to avail themselves of the advantages
derivable from system, and from the combination of numbers, in the
purchase and the cooking of their food, this truth was above all
things borne in mind. The quick consequence was, that suspicion
and reluctance were vanquished, and that the effort resulted in an
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astonishing and a complete success.
Such thoughts passed through my mind on a July morning of this
summer, as I walked towards Commercial Street (not Uncommercial
Street), Whitechapel. The Glasgow and Manchester system had been
lately set a-going there, by certain gentlemen who felt an inter
est
in its diffusion, and I had been attracted by the following handbill
printed on rose-coloured paper:
SELF-SUPPORTING
COOKING DEPOT
FOR THE WORKING CLASSES
Commercial-street, Whitechapel,
Where Accommodation is provided for Dining comfortably
300 Persons at a time.
Open from 7 A.M. till 7 P.M.
PRICES.
All Articles of the BEST QUALITY.
Cup of Tea or Coffee One Penny
Bread and Butter One Penny
Bread and Cheese One Penny
Slice of bread One half-penny or
One Penny
Boiled Egg One Penny
Ginger Beer One Penny
The above Articles always ready.
Besides the above may be had, from 12 to 3 o'clock,
Bowl of Scotch Broth One Penny
Bowl of Soup One Penny
Plate of Potatoes One Penny
Plate of Minced Beef Twopence
Plate of Cold Beef Twopence
Plate of Cold Ham Twopence
Plate of Plum Pudding or Rice One Penny
As the Economy of Cooking depends greatly upon the simplicity of
the arrangements with which a great number of persons can be served
at one time, the Upper Room of this Establishment will be
especially set apart for a
PUBLIC DINNER EVERY DAY
From 12 till 3 o'clock,
CONSISTING OF THE FOLLOWING DISHES,
Bowl of Broth, or Soup,
Plate of Cold Beef or Ham,
Plate of Potatoes,
Plum Pudding, or Rice.
FIXED CHARGE 4.5D.
THE DAILY PAPERS PROVIDED.
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N.B. - This Establishment is conducted on the strictest business
principles, with the full intention of making it self-supporting,
so that every one may frequent it with a feeling of perfect
independence.
The assistance of all frequenting the Depot is confidently expected
in checking anything interfering with the comfort, quiet, and
regularity of the establishment.
Please do not destroy this Hand Bill, but hand it to some other
person whom it may interest.
The Self-Supporting Cooking Depot (not a very good name, and one
would rather give it an English one) had hired a newly-built
warehouse that it found to let; therefore it was not established in
premises specially designed for the purpose. But, at a small cost
they were exceedingly well adapted to the purpose: being light,