cart them off, the general mind was much unsettled in arriving at a
conclusion. As a way out of this difficulty, it concentrated
Page 185
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
itself on the acknowledged Beauty of the party, every stitch in
whose dress was verbally unripped by the old ladies then and there,
and whose 'goings on' with another and a thinner personage in a
white hat might have suffused the pump (where they were principally
discussed) with blushes, for months afterwards. Herein Titbull's
was to Titbull's true, for it has a constitutional dislike of all
strangers. As concerning innovations and improvements, it is
always of opinion that what it doesn't want itself, nobody ought to
want. But I think I have met with this opinion outside Titbull's.
Of the humble treasures of furniture brought into Titbull's by the
inmates when they establish themselves in that place of
contemplation for the rest of their days, by far the greater and
more valuable part belongs to the ladies. I may claim the honour
of having either crossed the threshold, or looked in at the door,
of every one of the nine ladies, and I have noticed that they are
all particular in the article of bedsteads, and maintain favourite
and long-established bedsteads and bedding as a regular part of
their rest. Generally an antiquated chest of drawers is among
their cherished possessions; a tea-tray always is. I know of at
least two rooms in which a little tea-kettle of genuine burnished
copper, vies with the cat in winking at the fire; and one old lady
has a tea-urn set forth in state on the top of her chest of
drawers, which urn is used as her library, and contains four
duodecimo volumes, and a black-bordered newspaper giving an account
of the funeral of Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte. Among
the poor old gentlemen there are no such niceties. Their furniture
has the air of being contributed, like some obsolete Literary
Miscellany, 'by several hands;' their few chairs never match; old
patchwork coverlets linger among them; and they have an untidy
habit of keeping their wardrobes in hat-boxes. When I recall one
old gentleman who is rather choice in his shoe-brushes and
blacking-bottle, I have summed up the domestic elegances of that
side of the building.
On the occurrence of a death in Titbull's, it is invariably agreed
among the survivors - and it is the only subject on which they do
agree - that the departed did something 'to bring it on.' Judging
by Titbull's, I should say the human race need never die, if they
took care. But they don't take care, and they do die, and when
they die in Titbull's they are buried at the cost of the
Foundation. Some provision has been made for the purpose, in
virtue of which (I record this on the strength of having seen the
funeral of Mrs. Quinch) a lively neighbouring undertaker dresses up
four of the old men, and four of the old women, hustles them into a
procession of four couples, and leads off with a large black bow at
the back of his hat, looking over his shoulder at them airily from
time to time to see that no member of the party has got lost, or
has tumbled down; as if they were a company of dim old dolls.
Resignation of a dwelling is of very rare occurrence in Titbull's.
A story does obtain there, how an old lady's son once drew a prize
of Thirty Thousand Pounds in the Lottery, and presently drove to
the gate in his own carriage, with French Horns playing up behind,
and whisked his mother away, and left ten guineas for a Feast. But
I have been unable to substantiate it by any evidence, and regard
it as an Alms-House Fairy Tale. It is curious that the only proved
case of resignation happened within my knowledge.
It happened on this wise. There is a sharp competition among the
ladies respecting the gentility of their visitors, and I have so
often observed visitors to be dressed as for a holiday occasion,
that I suppose the ladies to have besought them to make all
possible display when they come. In these circumstances much
Page 186
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
from a Greenwich Pensioner. He was a Pensioner of a bluff and
warlike appearance, with an empty coat-sleeve, and he was got up
with unusual care; his coat-buttons were extremely bright, he wore
his empty coat-sleeve in a graceful festoon, and he had a walkingstick
in his hand that must have cost money. When, with the head
of his walking-stick, he knocked at Mrs. Mitts's door - there are
no knockers in Titbull's - Mrs. Mitts was overheard by a next-door
neighbour to utter a cry of surprise expressing much agitation; and
the same neighbour did afterwards solemnly affirm that when he was
admitted into Mrs. Mitts's room, she heard a smack. Heard a smack
which was not a blow.
There was an air about this Greenwich Pensioner when he took his
departure, which imbued all Titbull's with the conviction that he
was coming again. He was eagerly looked for, and Mrs. Mitts was
closely watched. In the meantime, if anything could have placed
the unfortunate six old gentlemen at a greater disadvantage than
that at which they chronically stood, it would have been the
apparition of this Greenwich Pensioner. They were well shrunken
already, but they shrunk to nothing in comparison with the
Pensioner. Even the poor old gentlemen themselves seemed conscious
of their inferiority, and to know submissively that they could
never hope to hold their own against the Pensioner with his warlike
and maritime experience in the past, and his tobacco money in the
present: his chequered career of blue water, black gunpowder, and
red bloodshed for England, home, and beauty.
Before three weeks were out, the Pensioner reappeared. Again he
knocked at Mrs. Mitts's door with the handle of his stick, and
again was he admitted. But not again did he depart alone; for Mrs.
Mitts, in a bonnet identified as having been re-embellished, went
out walking with him, and stayed out till the ten o'clock beer,
Greenwich time.
There was now a truce, even as to the troubled waters of Mrs.
Saggers's pail; nothing was spoken of among the ladies but the
conduct of Mrs. Mitts and its blighting influence on the reputation
of Titbull's. It was agreed that Mr. Battens 'ought to take it
up,' and Mr. Battens was communicated with on the subject. That
unsatisfactory individual replied 'that he didn't see his way yet,'
and it was unanimously voted by the ladies that aggravation was in
his nature.
How it came to pass, with some appearance of inconsistency, that
Mrs. Mitts was cut by all the ladies and the Pensioner admired by
all the ladies, matters not. Before another week was out,
Titbull's was startled by another phenomenon. At ten o'clock in
the forenoon appeared a cab, containing not only the Greenwich
Pensioner with one arm, but, to boot, a Chelsea
Pensioner with one
leg. Both dismounting to assist Mrs. Mitts into the cab, the
Greenwich Pensioner bore her company inside, and the Chelsea
Pensioner mounted the box by the driver: his wooden leg sticking
out after the manner of a bowsprit, as if in jocular homage to his
friend's sea-going career. Thus the equipage drove away. No Mrs.
Mitts returned that night.
What Mr. Battens might have done in the matter of taking it up,
goaded by the infuriated state of public feeling next morning, was
anticipated by another phenomenon. A Truck, propelled by the
Greenwich Pensioner and the Chelsea Pensioner, each placidly
smoking a pipe, and pushing his warrior breast against the handle.
The display on the part of the Greenwich Pensioner of his
Page 187
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
'marriage-lines,' and his announcement that himself and friend had
looked in for the furniture of Mrs. G. Pensioner, late Mitts, by no
means reconciled the ladies to the conduct of their sister; on the
contrary, it is said that they appeared more than ever exasperated.
Nevertheless, my stray visits to Titbull's since the date of this
occurrence, have confirmed me in an impression that it was a
wholesome fillip. The nine ladies are smarter, both in mind and
dress, than they used to be, though it must be admitted that they
despise the six gentlemen to the last extent. They have a much
greater interest in the external thoroughfare too, than they had
when I first knew Titbull's. And whenever I chance to be leaning
my back against the pump or the iron railings, and to be talking to
one of the junior ladies, and to see that a flush has passed over
her face, I immediately know without looking round that a Greenwich
Pensioner has gone past.
CHAPTER XXX - THE RUFFIAN
I entertain so strong an objection to the euphonious softening of
Ruffian into Rough, which has lately become popular, that I restore
the right word to the heading of this paper; the rather, as my
object is to dwell upon the fact that the Ruffian is tolerated
among us to an extent that goes beyond all unruffianly endurance.
I take the liberty to believe that if the Ruffian besets my life, a
professional Ruffian at large in the open streets of a great city,
notoriously having no other calling than that of Ruffian, and of
disquieting and despoiling me as I go peacefully about my lawful
business, interfering with no one, then the Government under which
I have the great constitutional privilege, supreme honour and
happiness, and all the rest of it, to exist, breaks down in the
discharge of any Government's most simple elementary duty.
What did I read in the London daily papers, in the early days of
this last September? That the Police had 'AT LENGTH SUCCEEDED IN
CAPTURING TWO OF THE NOTORIOUS GANG THAT HAVE SO LONG INVESTED THE
WATERLOO ROAD.' Is it possible? What a wonderful Police! Here is
a straight, broad, public thoroughfare of immense resort; half a
mile long; gas-lighted by night; with a great gas-lighted railway
station in it, extra the street lamps; full of shops; traversed by
two popular cross thoroughfares of considerable traffic; itself the
main road to the South of London; and the admirable Police have,
after long infestment of this dark and lonely spot by a gang of
Ruffians, actually got hold of two of them. Why, can it be doubted
that any man of fair London knowledge and common resolution, armed
with the powers of the Law, could have captured the whole
confederacy in a week?
It is to the saving up of the Ruffian class by the Magistracy and
Police - to the conventional preserving of them, as if they were
Partridges - that their number and audacity must be in great part
referred. Why is a notorious Thief and Ruffian ever left at large?
He never turns his liberty to any account but violence and plunder,
he never did a day's work out of gaol, he never will do a day's
work out of gaol. As a proved notorious Thief he is always
consignable to prison for three months. When he comes out, he is
surely as notorious a Thief as he was when he went in. Then send
him back again. 'Just Heaven!' cries the Society for the
protection of remonstrant Ruffians. 'This is equivalent to a
sentence of perpetual imprisonment!' Precisely for that reason it
has my advocacy. I demand to have the Ruffian kept out of my way,
Page 188
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
and out of the way of all decent people. I demand to have the
Ruffian employed, perforce, in hewing wood and drawing water
somewhere for the general service, instead of hewing at her
Majesty's subjects and drawing their watches out of their pockets.
If this be termed an unreasonable demand, then the tax-gatherer's
demand on me must be far more unreasonable, and cannot be otherwise
than extortionate and unjust.
It will be seen that I treat of the Thief and Ruffian as one. I do
so, because I know the two characters to be one, in the vast
majority of cases, just as well as the Police know it. (As to the
Magistracy, with a few exceptions, they know nothing about it but
what the Police choose to tell them.) There are disorderly classes
of men who are not thieves; as railway-navigators, brickmakers,
wood-sawyers, costermongers. These classes are often disorderly
and troublesome; but it is mostly among themselves, and at any rate
they have their industrious avocations, they work early and late,
and work hard. The generic Ruffian - honourable member for what is
tenderly called the Rough Element - is either a Thief, or the
companion of Thieves. When he infamously molests women coming out
of chapel on Sunday evenings (for which I would have his back
scarified often and deep) it is not only for the gratification of
his pleasant instincts, but that there may be a confusion raised by
which either he or his friends may profit, in the commission of
highway robberies or in picking pockets. When he gets a policeconstable
down and kicks him helpless for life, it is because that
constable once did his duty in bringing him to justice. When he
rushes into the bar of a public-house and scoops an eye out of one
of the company there, or bites his ear off, it is because the man
he maims gave evidence against him. When he and a line of comrades
extending across the footway - say of that solitary mountain-spur
of the Abruzzi, the Waterloo Road - advance towards me 'skylarking'
among themselves, my purse or shirt-pin is in predestined peril
from his playfulness. Always a Ruffian, always a Thief. Always a
Thief, always a Ruffian.
Now, when I, who am not paid to know these things, know them daily
on the evidence of my senses and experience; when I know that the
Ruffian never jostles a lady in the streets, or knocks a hat off,
but in order that the Thief may profit, is it surprising that I
should require from those who ARE paid to know these things,
prevention of them?
&
nbsp; Look at this group at a street corner. Number one is a shirking
fellow of five-and-twenty, in an ill-favoured and ill-savoured
suit, his trousers of corduroy, his coat of some indiscernible
groundwork for the deposition of grease, his neckerchief like an
eel, his complexion like dirty dough, his mangy fur cap pulled low
upon his beetle brows to hide the prison cut of his hair. His
hands are in his pockets. He puts them there when they are idle,
as naturally as in other people's pockets when they are busy, for
he knows that they are not roughened by work, and that they tell a
tale. Hence, whenever he takes one out to draw a sleeve across his
nose - which is often, for he has weak eyes and a constitutional
cold in his head - he restores it to its pocket immediately
afterwards. Number two is a burly brute of five-and-thirty, in a
tall stiff hat; is a composite as to his clothes of betting-man and
fighting-man; is whiskered; has a staring pin in his breast, along
with his right hand; has insolent and cruel eyes: large shoulders;
strong legs booted and tipped for kicking. Number three is forty
years of age; is short, thick-set, strong, and bow-legged; wears
knee cords and white stockings, a very long-sleeved waistcoat, a
very large neckerchief doubled or trebled round his throat, and a
crumpled white hat crowns his ghastly parchment face. This fellow
Page 189
Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller
looks like an executed postboy of other days, cut down from the
gallows too soon, and restored and preserved by express diabolical
agency. Numbers five, six, and seven, are hulking, idle, slouching
young men, patched and shabby, too short in the sleeves and too
tight in the legs, slimily clothed, foul-spoken, repulsive wretches
inside and out. In all the party there obtains a certain twitching
character of mouth and furtiveness of eye, that hint how the coward
is lurking under the bully. The hint is quite correct, for they
are a slinking sneaking set, far more prone to lie down on their
backs and kick out, when in difficulty, than to make a stand for
it. (This may account for the street mud on the backs of Numbers
five, six, and seven, being much fresher than the stale splashes on
their legs.)
These engaging gentry a Police-constable stands contemplating. His