Station, with a Reserve of assistance, is very near at hand. They
cannot pretend to any trade, not even to be porters or messengers.
It would be idle if they did, for he knows them, and they know that
he knows them, to be nothing but professed Thieves and Ruffians.
He knows where they resort, knows by what slang names they call one
another, knows how often they have been in prison, and how long,
and for what. All this is known at his Station, too, and is (or
ought to be) known at Scotland Yard, too. But does he know, or
does his Station know, or does Scotland Yard know, or does anybody
know, why these fellows should be here at liberty, when, as reputed
Thieves to whom a whole Division of Police could swear, they might
all be under lock and key at hard labour? Not he; truly he would
be a wise man if he did! He only knows that these are members of
the 'notorious gang,' which, according to the newspaper Policeoffice
reports of this last past September, 'have so long infested'
the awful solitudes of the Waterloo Road, and out of which almost
impregnable fastnesses the Police have at length dragged Two, to
the unspeakable admiration of all good civilians.
The consequences of this contemplative habit on the part of the
Executive - a habit to be looked for in a hermit, but not in a
Police System - are familiar to us all. The Ruffian becomes one of
the established orders of the body politic. Under the playful name
of Rough (as if he were merely a practical joker) his movements and
successes are recorded on public occasions. Whether he mustered in
large numbers, or small; whether he was in good spirits, or
depressed; whether he turned his generous exertions to very
prosperous account, or Fortune was against him; whether he was in a
sanguinary mood, or robbed with amiable horse-play and a gracious
consideration for life and limb; all this is chronicled as if he
were an Institution. Is there any city in Europe, out of England,
in which these terms are held with the pests of Society? Or in
which, at this day, such violent robberies from the person are
constantly committed as in London?
The Preparatory Schools of Ruffianism are similarly borne with.
The young Ruffians of London - not Thieves yet, but training for
scholarships and fellowships in the Criminal Court Universities -
molest quiet people and their property, to an extent that is hardly
credible. The throwing of stones in the streets has become a
dangerous and destructive offence, which surely could have got to
no greater height though we had had no Police but our own ridingwhips
and walking-sticks - the Police to which I myself appeal on
these occasions. The throwing of stones at the windows of railway
carriages in motion - an act of wanton wickedness with the very
Arch-Fiend's hand in it - had become a crying evil, when the
railway companies forced it on Police notice. Constabular
contemplation had until then been the order of the day.
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Within these twelve months, there arose among the young gentlemen
of London aspiring to Ruffianism, and cultivating that muchencouraged
social art, a facetious cry of 'I'll have this!'
accompanied with a clutch at some article of a passing lady's
dress. I have known a lady's veil to be thus humorously torn from
her face and carried off in the open streets at noon; and I have
had the honour of myself giving chase, on Westminster Bridge, to
another young Ruffian, who, in full daylight early on a summer
evening, had nearly thrown a modest young woman into a swoon of
indignation and confusion, by his shameful manner of attacking her
with this cry as she harmlessly passed along before me. MR.
CARLYLE, some time since, awakened a little pleasantry by writing
of his own experience of the Ruffian of the streets. I have seen
the Ruffian act in exact accordance with Mr. Carlyle's description,
innumerable times, and I never saw him checked.
The blaring use of the very worst language possible, in our public
thoroughfares - especially in those set apart for recreation - is
another disgrace to us, and another result of constabular
contemplation, the like of which I have never heard in any other
country to which my uncommercial travels have extended. Years ago,
when I had a near interest in certain children who were sent with
their nurses, for air and exercise, into the Regent's Park, I found
this evil to be so abhorrent and horrible there, that I called
public attention to it, and also to its contemplative reception by
the Police. Looking afterwards into the newest Police Act, and
finding that the offence was punishable under it, I resolved, when
striking occasion should arise, to try my hand as prosecutor. The
occasion arose soon enough, and I ran the following gauntlet.
The utterer of the base coin in question was a girl of seventeen or
eighteen, who, with a suitable attendance of blackguards, youths,
and boys, was flaunting along the streets, returning from an Irish
funeral, in a Progress interspersed with singing and dancing. She
had turned round to me and expressed herself in the most audible
manner, to the great delight of that select circle. I attended the
party, on the opposite side of the way, for a mile further, and
then encountered a Police-constable. The party had made themselves
merry at my expense until now, but seeing me speak to the
constable, its male members instantly took to their heels, leaving
the girl alone. I asked the constable did he know my name? Yes,
he did. 'Take that girl into custody, on my charge, for using bad
language in the streets.' He had never heard of such a charge. I
had. Would he take my word that he should get into no trouble?
Yes, sir, he would do that. So he took the girl, and I went home
for my Police Act.
With this potent instrument in my pocket, I literally as well as
figuratively 'returned to the charge,' and presented myself at the
Police Station of the district. There, I found on duty a very
intelligent Inspector (they are all intelligent men), who,
likewise, had never heard of such a charge. I showed him my
clause, and we went over it together twice or thrice. It was
plain, and I engaged to wait upon the suburban Magistrate to-morrow
morning at ten o'clock.
In the morning I put my Police Act in my pocket again, and waited
on the suburban Magistrate. I was not quite so courteously
received by him as I should have been by The Lord Chancellor or The
Lord Chief Justice, but that was a question of good breeding on the
suburban Magistrate's part, and I had my clause ready with its leaf
turned down. Which was enough for ME.
Conference took place between the Magistrate and clerk respecting
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the charge. During conference I was evidently regarded as a much
more objectionable person than the prisoner; - one giving trouble
by coming
there voluntarily, which the prisoner could not be
accused of doing. The prisoner had been got up, since I last had
the pleasure of seeing her, with a great effect of white apron and
straw bonnet. She reminded me of an elder sister of Red Riding
Hood, and I seemed to remind the sympathising Chimney Sweep by whom
she was attended, of the Wolf.
The Magistrate was doubtful, Mr. Uncommercial Traveller, whether
this charge could be entertained. It was not known. Mr.
Uncommercial Traveller replied that he wished it were better known,
and that, if he could afford the leisure, he would use his
endeavours to make it so. There was no question about it, however,
he contended. Here was the clause.
The clause was handed in, and more conference resulted. After
which I was asked the extraordinary question: 'Mr. Uncommercial,
do you really wish this girl to be sent to prison?' To which I
grimly answered, staring: 'If I didn't, why should I take the
trouble to come here?' Finally, I was sworn, and gave my agreeable
evidence in detail, and White Riding Hood was fined ten shillings,
under the clause, or sent to prison for so many days. 'Why, Lord
bless you, sir,' said the Police-officer, who showed me out, with a
great enjoyment of the jest of her having been got up so
effectively, and caused so much hesitation: 'if she goes to
prison, that will be nothing new to HER. She comes from Charles
Street, Drury Lane!'
The Police, all things considered, are an excellent force, and I
have borne my small testimony to their merits. Constabular
contemplation is the result of a bad system; a system which is
administered, not invented, by the man in constable's uniform,
employed at twenty shillings a week. He has his orders, and would
be marked for discouragement if he overstepped them. That the
system is bad, there needs no lengthened argument to prove, because
the fact is self-evident. If it were anything else, the results
that have attended it could not possibly have come to pass. Who
will say that under a good system, our streets could have got into
their present state?
The objection to the whole Police system, as concerning the
Ruffian, may be stated, and its failure exemplified, as follows.
It is well known that on all great occasions, when they come
together in numbers, the mass of the English people are their own
trustworthy Police. It is well known that wheresoever there is
collected together any fair general representation of the people, a
respect for law and order, and a determination to discountenance
lawlessness and disorder, may be relied upon. As to one another,
the people are a very good Police, and yet are quite willing in
their good-nature that the stipendiary Police should have the
credit of the people's moderation. But we are all of us powerless
against the Ruffian, because we submit to the law, and it is his
only trade, by superior force and by violence, to defy it.
Moreover, we are constantly admonished from high places (like so
many Sunday-school children out for a holiday of buns and milk-andwater)
that we are not to take the law into our own hands, but are
to hand our defence over to it. It is clear that the common enemy
to be punished and exterminated first of all is the Ruffian. It is
clear that he is, of all others, THE offender for whose repressal
we maintain a costly system of Police. Him, therefore, we
expressly present to the Police to deal with, conscious that, on
the whole, we can, and do, deal reasonably well with one another.
Him the Police deal with so inefficiently and absurdly that he
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flourishes, and multiplies, and, with all his evil deeds upon his
head as notoriously as his hat is, pervades the streets with no
more let or hindrance than ourselves.
CHAPTER XXXI - ABOARD SHIP
My journeys as Uncommercial Traveller for the firm of Human-
Interest Brothers have not slackened since I last reported of them,
but have kept me continually on the move. I remain in the same
idle employment. I never solicit an order, I never get any
commission, I am the rolling stone that gathers no moss, - unless
any should by chance be found among these samples.
Some half a year ago, I found myself in my idlest, dreamiest, and
least accountable condition altogether, on board ship, in the
harbour of the city of New York, in the United States of America.
Of all the good ships afloat, mine was the good steamship 'RUSSIA,'
CAPT. COOK, Cunard Line, bound for Liverpool. What more could I
wish for?
I had nothing to wish for but a prosperous passage. My salad-days,
when I was green of visage and sea-sick, being gone with better
things (and no worse), no coming event cast its shadow before.
I might but a few moments previously have imitated Sterne, and
said, '"And yet, methinks, Eugenius," - laying my forefinger
wistfully on his coat-sleeve, thus, - "and yet, methinks, Eugenius,
'tis but sorry work to part with thee, for what fresh fields, . . .
my dear Eugenius, . . . can be fresher than thou art, and in what
pastures new shall I find Eliza, or call her, Eugenius, if thou
wilt, Annie?"' - I say I might have done this; but Eugenius was
gone, and I hadn't done it.
I was resting on a skylight on the hurricane-deck, watching the
England. It was high noon on a most brilliant day in April, and
the beautiful bay was glorious and glowing. Full many a time, on
shore there, had I seen the snow come down, down, down (itself like
down), until it lay deep in all the ways of men, and particularly,
as it seemed, in my way, for I had not gone dry-shod many hours for
months. Within two or three days last past had I watched the
feathery fall setting in with the ardour of a new idea, instead of
dragging at the skirts of a worn-out winter, and permitting
glimpses of a fresh young spring. But a bright sun and a clear sky
had melted the snow in the great crucible of nature; and it had
been poured out again that morning over sea and land, transformed
into myriads of gold and silver sparkles.
The ship was fragrant with flowers. Something of the old Mexican
passion for flowers may have gradually passed into North America,
where flowers are luxuriously grown, and tastefully combined in the
richest profusion; but, be that as it may, such gorgeous farewells
in flowers had come on board, that the small officer's cabin on
deck, which I tenanted, bloomed over into the adjacent scuppers,
and banks of other flowers that it couldn't hold made a garden of
the unoccupied tables in the passengers' saloon. These delicious
scents of the shore, mingling with the fresh airs of the sea, made
the atmosphere a dreamy, an enchanting one. And so, with the watch
aloft setting all the sails, and with the screw below revolving at
a mighty rate, and occasionally giving the ship an angry shake for
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resisting, I fell into my idlest ways, and lost myself.
As, for instance, whether it was I lying there, or some other
entity even more mysterious, was a matter I was far too lazy to
look into. What did it signify to me if it were I? or to the more
mysterious entity, if it were he? Equally as to the remembrances
that drowsily floated by me, or by him, why ask when or where the
things happened? Was it not enough that they befell at some time,
somewhere?
There was that assisting at the church service on board another
steamship, one Sunday, in a stiff breeze. Perhaps on the passage
out. No matter. Pleasant to hear the ship's bells go as like
church-bells as they could; pleasant to see the watch off duty
mustered and come in: best hats, best Guernseys, washed hands and
faces, smoothed heads. But then arose a set of circumstances so
rampantly comical, that no check which the gravest intentions could
put upon them would hold them in hand. Thus the scene. Some
seventy passengers assembled at the saloon tables. Prayer-books on
tables. Ship rolling heavily. Pause. No minister. Rumour has
related that a modest young clergyman on board has responded to the
captain's request that he will officiate. Pause again, and very
heavy rolling.
Closed double doors suddenly burst open, and two strong stewards
skate in, supporting minister between them. General appearance as
of somebody picked up drunk and incapable, and under conveyance to
station-house. Stoppage, pause, and particularly heavy rolling.
Stewards watch their opportunity, and balance themselves, but
cannot balance minister; who, struggling with a drooping head and a
backward tendency, seems determined to return below, while they are
as determined that he shall be got to the reading-desk in midsaloon.
Desk portable, sliding away down a long table, and aiming
itself at the breasts of various members of the congregation. Here
the double doors, which have been carefully closed by other
stewards, fly open again, and worldly passenger tumbles in,
seemingly with pale-ale designs: who, seeking friend, says 'Joe!'
Perceiving incongruity, says, 'Hullo! Beg yer pardon!' and tumbles
out again. All this time the congregation have been breaking up
into sects, - as the manner of congregations often is, each sect