Their sleeves are shaped like a leg of mutton; their shawls are like a dining-room carpet of the time—not like your dining-room carpet, Eighty-seven, but a carpet of flaunting colour, crimson and scarlet which would give you a headache. But the curls of the younger ladies are not without their charms, and their eyes are as bright as those of their grandchildren, are they not?
Let us stand still awhile and watch the throng where the tide of life, as Johnson said, is the fullest.
BARRACK AND OLD HOUSES ON THE SITE OF TRAFALGAR SQUARE
(From a Drawing made by F. W. Fairholt in 1826)
Here comes, with a roll intended for a military swagger, the cheap dandy. I know not what he is by trade; he is too old for a medical student, not shabby enough for an attorney’s clerk, and not respectable enough for a City clerk. Is it possible that he is a young gentleman of very small fortune which he is running through? He wears a tall hat broader at the top than at the bottom, he carries white thread gloves, sports a cane, has his trousers tightly strapped, wears a tremendously high stock, with a sham diamond pin, a coat with a velvet collar, and a double-breasted waistcoat. His right hand is stuck—it is an aggressive attitude—in his coat-tail pocket. The little old gentleman who follows him, in black shorts and white silk stockings, will be gone before your time; so will yonder still more ancient gentleman in powdered hair and pigtail who walks slowly along. Pigtails in your time will be clean forgotten as well as black silk shorts.
THE LAST CABRIOLET DRIVER
(From the Drawing by George Cruikshank in ‘Sketches by Boz’)
Do you see that thin, spare gentleman in the cloak, riding slowly along the street followed by a mounted servant? The people all take off their hats respectfully to him, and country folk gaze upon him curiously. That is the Duke. There is only one Duke to the ordinary Briton. It is the Duke with the hook nose—the Iron Duke—the Duke of Wellington.
The new-fashioned cabriolet, with a seat at the side for the driver and a high hood for the fare, is light and swift, but it is not beautiful nor is it popular. The wheels are too high and the machine is too narrow. It is always upsetting, and bringing its passengers to grief.
Here is one of the new police, with blue swallow-tail coat tightly buttoned, and white trousers. They are reported to be mightily unpopular with the light-fingered gentry, with whose pursuits they are always interfering in a manner unknown to the ancient Charley.
Here comes a gentleman, darkly and mysteriously clad in a fur-lined cloak, fastened at his neck by a brass buckle, and falling to his feet, such a cloak as in your time will only be used to enwrap the villains in a burlesque. But here no one takes any notice of it. There goes a man who may have been an officer, an actor, a literary man, a gambler—anything; whatever he was, he is now broken-down—his face is pale, his gait is shuffling, his elbows are gone, his boots are giving at the toes, and—see—the stout red-faced man with the striped waistcoat and the bundle of seals hanging at his fob has tapped him on the shoulder. That is a sheriff’s officer, and he will now be conducted, after certain formalities, to the King’s Bench or the Fleet, and in this happy retreat he will probably pass the remainder of his days. Here comes a middle-aged gentleman who looks almost like a coachman in his coat with many capes and his purple cheeks. That is the famous coaching baronet, than whom no better whip has ever been seen upon the road. Here come a pair of young bloods who scorn cloaks and greatcoats. How bravely do they tread in their tight trousers, bright-coloured waistcoats, and high satin stocks! with what a jaunty air do they tilt their low-crowned hats over their long and waving locks—you can smell the bear’s grease across the road! with what a flourish do they bear their canes! Here comes swaggering along the pavement a military gentleman in a coat much befrogged. He has the appearance of one who knows Chalk Farm, which is situated among meadows where the morning air has been known to prove suddenly fatal to many gallant gentlemen. How he swings his shoulders and squares his elbows! and how the peaceful passengers make room for him to pass! He is, no doubt, an old Peninsular; there are still many like unto him; he is the ruffling Captain known to Queen Elizabeth’s time; in the last century he took the wall and shoved everybody into the gutter. Presently he will turn into the Cigar Divan—he learned to smoke cigars in Spain—in the rooms of what was once the Repository of Art; we breathe more freely when he is gone.
Here comes a great hulking sailor; his face beams with honesty, he rolls in his gait, he hitches up his wide trousers, he wears his shiny hat at the back of his head; his hair hangs in ringlets; he chews a quid; under his arm is a parcel tied in red bandanna. He looks as if he were in some perplexity. Sighting one who appears to be a gentleman recently from the country, he bears down upon him.
‘Noble captain,’ he whispers hoarsely, ‘if you like, here’s a chance that doesn’t come every day. For why? I’ve got to go to sea again, and though they’re smuggled—I smuggled them myself, your honour—and worth their weight in gold, you shall have the box for thirty shillin’. Say the word, my captain, and come round the corner with me.’
A GREENWICH PENSIONER
(From a Drawing by George Cruikshank in ‘London Characters’)
Honest tar! Shall we meet him to-morrow with another parcel tied in the same bandanna, his face screwed up with the same perplexity and anxiety to get rid of his valuable burden? You yourself, Eighty-seven, will have your confidence trick, your ring-dropper, your thimble-and-pea, your fat partridge-seller, even though the bold smuggler be no more.
AN OMNIBUS UPSET
(From Cruikshank’s ‘Comic Almanack’)
In the matter of street music we of Thirty-seven are perhaps in advance of you of Eighty-seven. We have not, it is true, the pianoforte-organ, but we have already the other two varieties—the Rumbling Droner and the Light Tinkler. We have not yet the street nigger, or the banjo, or the band of itinerant blacks, or Christy’s Minstrels. The negro minstrel does not exist in any form. But the ingenious Mr. Rice is at this very moment studying the plantation songs of South Carolina, and we can already witness his humorous personation of ‘Jump, Jim Crow,’ and his pathetic ballad of ‘Lucy Neal.’ (He made his first appearance at the Adelphi as Jim Crow in 1836.) We have, like you, the Christian family in reduced circumstances, creeping slowly, hand in hand, along the streets, singing a hymn the while for the consolation it affords. They have not yet invented Moody and Sankey, and therefore they cannot sing ‘Hold the Fort’ or ‘Dare to be a Daniel,’ but there are hymns in every collection which suit the Gridler. We have also the ballad-singer, who warbles at the door of the gin-palace. His favourite song just now is ‘All round my Hat.’ We have the lady (or gentleman) who takes her (or his) place upon the kerb with a guitar, adorned with red ribbon, and sings a sentimental song, such as ‘Speed on, my Mules, for Leila waits for me,’ or ‘Gaily the Troubadour;’ there is the street seller of ballads at a penny each, a taste of which he gives the delighted listener; there are the horns of stage-coach and of omnibus, blown with zeal; there is the bell of the crier, exercised as religiously as that of the railway-porter; the Pandean pipes and the drum walk, not only with Punch, but also with the dancing bear. The performing dogs, the street acrobats, and the fantoccini; the noble Highlander not only stands outside the tobacconist’s, taking a pinch of snuff, but he also parades the street, blowing a most patriotic tune upon his bagpipe; the butcher serenades his young mistress with the cleaver and the bones; the Italian boy delights all the ears of those who hear
