respect - drew me next, and marshalled me the way that I was going.
The Refractories were picking oakum, in a small room giving on a
yard. They sat in line on a form, with their backs to a window;
before them, a table, and their work. The oldest Refractory was,
say twenty; youngest Refractory, say sixteen. I have never yet
ascertained in the course of my uncommercial travels, why a
Refractory habit should affect the tonsils and uvula; but, I have
always observed that Refractories of both sexes and every grade,
between a Ragged School and the Old Bailey, have one voice, in
which the tonsils and uvula gain a diseased ascendency.
'Five pound indeed! I hain't a going fur to pick five pound,' said
the Chief of the Refractories, keeping time to herself with her
head and chin. 'More than enough to pick what we picks now, in
sich a place as this, and on wot we gets here!'
(This was in acknowledgment of a delicate intimation that the
amount of work was likely to be increased. It certainly was not
heavy then, for one Refractory had already done her day's task - it
was barely two o'clock - and was sitting behind it, with a head
exactly matching it.)
'A pretty Ouse this is, matron, ain't it?' said Refractory Two,
'where a pleeseman's called in, if a gal says a word!'
'And wen you're sent to prison for nothink or less!' said the
Chief, tugging at her oakum as if it were the matron's hair. 'But
any place is better than this; that's one thing, and be thankful!'
A laugh of Refractories led by Oakum Head with folded arms - who
originated nothing, but who was in command of the skirmishers
outside the conversation.
'If any place is better than this,' said my brisk guide, in the
calmest manner, 'it is a pity you left a good place when you had
one.'
'Ho, no, I didn't, matron,' returned the Chief, with another pull
at her oakum, and a very expressive look at the enemy's forehead.
'Don't say that, matron, cos it's lies!'
Oakum Head brought up the skirmishers again, skirmished, and
retired.
'And I warn't a going,' exclaimed Refractory Two, 'though I was in
one place for as long as four year - I warn't a going fur to stop
in a place that warn't fit for me - there! And where the family
warn't 'spectable characters - there! And where I fortunately or
hunfort'nately, found that the people warn't what they pretended to
make theirselves out to be - there! And where it wasn't their
faults, by chalks, if I warn't made bad and ruinated - Hah!'
During this speech, Oakum Head had again made a diversion with the
skirmishers, and had again withdrawn.
Page 15
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
The Uncommercial Traveller ventured to remark that he supposed
Chief Refractory and Number One, to be the two young women who had
been taken before the magistrate?
'Yes!' said the Chief, 'we har! and the wonder is, that a pleeseman
an't 'ad in now, and we took off agen. You can't open your lips
here, without a pleeseman.'
Number Two laughed (very uvularly), and the skirmishers followed
suit.
'I'm sure I'd be thankful,' protested the Chief, looking sideways
at the Uncommercial, 'if I could be got into a place, or got
abroad. I'm sick and tired of this precious Ouse, I am, with
reason.'
So would be, and so was, Number Two. So would be, and so was,
Oakum Head. So would be, and so were, Skirmishers.
The Uncommercial took the liberty of hinting that he hardly thought
it probable that any lady or gentleman in want of a likely young
domestic of retiring manners, would be tempted into the engagement
of either of the two leading Refractories, on her own presentation
of herself as per sample.
'It ain't no good being nothink else here,' said the Chief.
The Uncommercial thought it might be worth trying.
'Oh no it ain't,' said the Chief.
'Not a bit of good,' said Number Two.
'And I'm sure I'd be very thankful to be got into a place, or got
abroad,' said the Chief.
'And so should I,' said Number Two. 'Truly thankful, I should.'
Oakum Head then rose, and announced as an entirely new idea, the
mention of which profound novelty might be naturally expected to
startle her unprepared hearers, that she would be very thankful to
be got into a place, or got abroad. And, as if she had then said,
'Chorus, ladies!' all the Skirmishers struck up to the same
purpose. We left them, thereupon, and began a long walk among the
women who were simply old and infirm; but whenever, in the course
of this same walk, I looked out of any high window that commanded
the yard, I saw Oakum Head and all the other Refractories looking
out at their low window for me, and never failing to catch me, the
moment I showed my head.
In ten minutes I had ceased to believe in such fables of a golden
time as youth, the prime of life, or a hale old age. In ten
minutes, all the lights of womankind seemed to have been blown out,
and nothing in that way to be left this vault to brag of, but the
flickering and expiring snuffs.
And what was very curious, was, that these dim old women had one
company notion which was the fashion of the place. Every old woman
who became aware of a visitor and was not in bed hobbled over a
form into her accustomed seat, and became one of a line of dim old
women confronting another line of dim old women across a narrow
table. There was no obligation whatever upon them to range
themselves in this way; it was their manner of 'receiving.' As a
Page 16
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
rule, they made no attempt to talk to one another, or to look at
the visitor, or to look at anything, but sat silently working their
mouths, like a sort of poor old Cows. In some of these wards, it
was good to see a few green plants; in others, an isolated
Refractory acting as nurse, who did well enough in that capacity,
when separated from her compeers; every one of these wards, day
room, night room, or both combined, was scrupulously clean and
fresh. I have seen as many such places as most travellers in my
line, and I never saw one such, better kept.
Among the bedridden there was great patience, great reliance on the
books under the pillow, great faith in GOD. All cared for
sympathy, but none much cared to be encouraged with hope of
recovery; on the whole, I should say, it was considered rather a
distinction to have a complication of disorders, and to be in a
worse way than the rest. From some of the windows, the river could
be seen with all its life and movement; the day was bright, but I
came upon no one who was looking out.
In one large ward, sitting by the fire in arm-chairs of
distinction, like the President and Vice of the good company, were
two old women, upwards of ninety years of age. The younger of the
two, just turned ninety, was deaf, but not very, and could easily
be made to h
ear. In her early time she had nursed a child, who was
now another old woman, more infirm than herself, inhabiting the
very same chamber. She perfectly understood this when the matron
told it, and, with sundry nods and motions of her forefinger,
pointed out the woman in question. The elder of this pair, ninetythree,
seated before an illustrated newspaper (but not reading it),
was a bright-eyed old soul, really not deaf, wonderfully preserved,
and amazingly conversational. She had not long lost her husband,
and had been in that place little more than a year. At Boston, in
the State of Massachusetts, this poor creature would have been
individually addressed, would have been tended in her own room, and
would have had her life gently assimilated to a comfortable life
out of doors. Would that be much to do in England for a woman who
has kept herself out of a workhouse more than ninety rough long
years? When Britain first, at Heaven's command, arose, with a
great deal of allegorical confusion, from out the azure main, did
her guardian angels positively forbid it in the Charter which has
been so much besung?
The object of my journey was accomplished when the nimble matron
had no more to show me. As I shook hands with her at the gate, I
told her that I thought justice had not used her very well, and
that the wise men of the East were not infallible.
Now, I reasoned with myself, as I made my journey home again,
concerning those Foul wards. They ought not to exist; no person of
common decency and humanity can see them and doubt it. But what is
this Union to do? The necessary alteration would cost several
thousands of pounds; it has already to support three workhouses;
its inhabitants work hard for their bare lives, and are already
rated for the relief of the Poor to the utmost extent of reasonable
endurance. One poor parish in this very Union is rated to the
amount of FIVE AND SIXPENCE in the pound, at the very same time
when the rich parish of Saint George's, Hanover-square, is rated at
about SEVENPENCE in the pound, Paddington at about FOURPENCE, Saint
James's, Westminster, at about TENPENCE! It is only through the
equalisation of Poor Rates that what is left undone in this wise,
can be done. Much more is left undone, or is ill-done, than I have
space to suggest in these notes of a single uncommercial journey;
but, the wise men of the East, before they can reasonably hold
forth about it, must look to the North and South and West; let them
Page 17
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
also, any morning before taking the seat of Solomon, look into the
shops and dwellings all around the Temple, and first ask themselves
'how much more can these poor people - many of whom keep themselves
with difficulty enough out of the workhouse - bear?'
I had yet other matter for reflection as I journeyed home, inasmuch
as, before I altogether departed from the neighbourhood of Mr.
Baker's trap, I had knocked at the gate of the workhouse of St.
George's-in-the-East, and had found it to be an establishment
highly creditable to those parts, and thoroughly well administered
by a most intelligent master. I remarked in it, an instance of the
collateral harm that obstinate vanity and folly can do. 'This was
the Hall where those old paupers, male and female, whom I had just
seen, met for the Church service, was it?' - 'Yes.' - 'Did they
sing the Psalms to any instrument?' - 'They would like to, very
much; they would have an extraordinary interest in doing so.' -
'And could none be got?' - 'Well, a piano could even have been got
for nothing, but these unfortunate dissensions - ' Ah! better, far
better, my Christian friend in the beautiful garment, to have let
the singing boys alone, and left the multitude to sing for
themselves! You should know better than I, but I think I have read
that they did so, once upon a time, and that 'when they had sung an
hymn,' Some one (not in a beautiful garment) went up into the Mount
of Olives.
It made my heart ache to think of this miserable trifling, in the
streets of a city where every stone seemed to call to me, as I
walked along, 'Turn this way, man, and see what waits to be done!'
So I decoyed myself into another train of thought to ease my heart.
But, I don't know that I did it, for I was so full of paupers, that
it was, after all, only a change to a single pauper, who took
possession of my remembrance instead of a thousand.
'I beg your pardon, sir,' he had said, in a confidential manner, on
another occasion, taking me aside; 'but I have seen better days.'
'I am very sorry to hear it.'
'Sir, I have a complaint to make against the master.'
'I have no power here, I assure you. And if I had - '
'But, allow me, sir, to mention it, as between yourself and a man
who has seen better days, sir. The master and myself are both
masons, sir, and I make him the sign continually; but, because I am
in this unfortunate position, sir, he won't give me the countersign!'
CHAPTER IV - TWO VIEWS OF A CHEAP THEATRE
As I shut the door of my lodging behind me, and came out into the
streets at six on a drizzling Saturday evening in the last past
month of January, all that neighbourhood of Covent-garden looked
better days, that bad weather affects it sooner than another place
which has not come down in the World. In its present reduced
condition it bears a thaw almost worse than any place I know. It
gets so dreadfully low-spirited when damp breaks forth. Those
wonderful houses about Drury-lane Theatre, which in the palmy days
of theatres were prosperous and long-settled places of business,
Page 18
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
and which now change hands every week, but never change their
character of being divided and sub-divided on the ground floor into
mouldy dens of shops where an orange and half-a-dozen nuts, or a
pomatum-pot, one cake of fancy soap, and a cigar box, are offered
for sale and never sold, were most ruefully contemplated that
evening, by the statue of Shakespeare, with the rain-drops coursing
one another down its innocent nose. Those inscrutable pigeon-hole
offices, with nothing in them (not so much as an inkstand) but a
model of a theatre before the curtain, where, in the Italian Opera
season, tickets at reduced prices are kept on sale by nomadic
gentlemen in smeary hats too tall for them, whom one occasionally
seems to have seen on race-courses, not wholly unconnected with
strips of cloth of various colours and a rolling ball - those
Bedouin establishments, deserted by the tribe, and tenantless,
except when sheltering in one corner an irregular row of gingerbeer
bottles, which would have made one shudder on such a night,
but for its being plain that they had nothing in them, shrunk from
the shrill cries of the news-boys at their Exchange in the kennel
of Catherine-street,
like guilty things upon a fearful summons. At
the pipe-shop in Great Russell-street, the Death's-head pipes were
like theatrical memento mori, admonishing beholders of the decline
of the playhouse as an Institution. I walked up Bow-street,
disposed to be angry with the shops there, that were letting out
theatrical secrets by exhibiting to work-a-day humanity the stuff
of which diadems and robes of kings are made. I noticed that some
shops which had once been in the dramatic line, and had struggled
out of it, were not getting on prosperously - like some actors I
have known, who took to business and failed to make it answer. In
a word, those streets looked so dull, and, considered as theatrical
streets, so broken and bankrupt, that the FOUND DEAD on the black
board at the police station might have announced the decease of the
Drama, and the pools of water outside the fire-engine maker's at
the corner of Long-acre might have been occasioned by his having
brought out the whole of his stock to play upon its last
smouldering ashes.
And yet, on such a night in so degenerate a time, the object of my
journey was theatrical. And yet within half an hour I was in an
immense theatre, capable of holding nearly five thousand people.
What Theatre? Her Majesty's? Far better. Royal Italian Opera?
Far better. Infinitely superior to the latter for hearing in;
infinitely superior to both, for seeing in. To every part of this
Theatre, spacious fire-proof ways of ingress and egress. For every
part of it, convenient places of refreshment and retiring rooms.
Everything to eat and drink carefully supervised as to quality, and
sold at an appointed price; respectable female attendants ready for
the commonest women in the audience; a general air of
consideration, decorum, and supervision, most commendable; an
unquestionably humanising influence in all the social arrangements
of the place.
Surely a dear Theatre, then? Because there were in London (not
very long ago) Theatres with entrance-prices up to half-a-guinea a
head, whose arrangements were not half so civilised. Surely,
therefore, a dear Theatre? Not very dear. A gallery at threepence,
another gallery at fourpence, a pit at sixpence, boxes and
pit-stalls at a shilling, and a few private boxes at half-a-crown.
My uncommercial curiosity induced me to go into every nook of this
great place, and among every class of the audience assembled in it