useful to the present generation. And while there was so much fuss made as to the criminality of a false quantity in Greek, or a deficient acquaintance with those awkward verbs in "Mi," or above all a false concord (every one of which derelictions in duty involved severe punishment), let us remember that all this time Holywell Street was suffered to infect Charterhouse with its poison (I speak of long ago, before Lord Campbell's wholesome Act), and that our clerical tutors and governors professionally recognised no sort of sins or shortcomings but those committed in class! They practically ignored everything out of school, much as a captain knows nothing of his company off duty. It was the idle system of boys set to govern boys, that the masters might have no damage. I think the system was called Lancastrian.
One very noticeable trait in the parson-schoolmasters of those old days (and perhaps it still survives) was the subserviency to rank and wealth towards any pupils likely to give them livings, whereof more anon; at present, an appropriate instance occurs to me. I was in my thirteenth year monitor of the playground, when one Dillon, a scion of a titled family, hunted and killed a stray dog there, and much to their credit for humanity a number of other boys hunted and pelted him into a dry ditch or vallum, dug for the leaping-pole under a Captain Clias who taught us athletics. I was technically responsible for this open insult offered to Hibernian nobility, however well disposed to look another way and let lynch-law take its course. Accordingly, the Doctor had me up for punishment, and he inflicted an almost impossible imposition, Book Epsilon of the Iliad (the longest of all) to be translated word for word, English and Greek, and to be given to him in MS. within a month (it would have been work for a year), that or expulsion. Had Mr. Dillon been a plebeian, no notice would have been taken of the matter, but he was an honourable, so Russell must avenge his righteous punishment. However, the result of this outrageous set-task was curious and worthy of this its first and only record. All the seventy boys in Irvine's house and others elsewhere, volunteered to do the whole imposition for me, and within a week hundreds of pages closely written with Greek and Latin, were sewn together, making a large quarto pamphlet, which was duly handed by me to the wondering Doctor; who had, however, too much shrewdness to care to inquire closely as to this popular outburst of a general indignation, so he said nothing more about it.
For other playground reminiscences: I saw, even in those tame times for cricket when overhand bowling was illegal, and the fierce artillery of a Spofforth impossible, a poor lad killed in the field, one Honourable Henry Howard; he was taken to the pump for recovery, as from a swoon, but the ball had struck him behind the ear, stone-dead. Again as to that pump; it was sometimes maliciously used for sousing unfortunate day-boys, who were allowed two minutes law out of school to enable them to escape pursuit after lessons, most unjustly, and injuriously, seeing that old Sutton founded his Charterhouse mainly for day-boys (John Leech was one in my time) and for pensioners ("old Cods") whereof Colonel Newcome of Thackeray fame, was another; but both of these charity classes were utterly despised and ignored by the reverend brigands who kept all the loaves and fishes for themselves.
One remarkable playground experience was the fact that it helped to develop in me antiquarian inclinations, and my own discovered hunting-ground for Roman numismatics in the south of England, long afterwards expanded in "Farley Heath" near Albury. At Charterhouse there was a great slope or semi-mound which had in old times been utilised as a wholesale grave for the victims of plague and other epidemics. It strikes me now as most perilous, but we boys used to dig and scratch among bones and other débris for on occasional coin or lead token, whereof I found several; it is only a wonder that we did not unearth pestilence, but mould is fortunately very antiseptic. Another playground peculiarity was that after the hoop season, usually driven in duplicate or triplicate, the hoops were "stored" or "shied" into the branching elms, from which they were again brought down by hockey-sticks flung at them; a great boon to the smaller boys who thus gratuitously became possessed of valuable properties. And for all else, there were fights behind the school, in those pugilistic days scientifically conducted with seconds and bottleholders, and some "claret" drawn, and other like fashionable brutalities; also in its season came football, but not quite so fiercely fought as it is now; and there was Mr. Rackwitz, the man of sweets and pastries at the corner; and another sort of rackets in the tennis court; and for another sort of court there was then extant a bit of ruinous Gothic in old Rutland Court, a ghostly entrance from Charterhouse Square, some thought haunted, and long since cleared away.
And now crossing the Square we come to No. 41, the Queen Anne fashioned mansion where Mr. Andrew Irvine (another Reverend Master, who like all the rest, except Churton, almost never "did duty," and when he did manifestly could neither read, preach, not pray) had a houseful of pupils, whereof the writer was one. That long room is full of ancient memories of past and gone Carthusians, though it is now humiliated into a local charity school. I remember some humorous scenes there, chiefly owing to the master's notorious niggardliness. Andrew had some Gruyere cheese, easily accessible to the boyish plunderers of his larder. Now we had complained that our slabs of butter laid between the cut sides of the rolls often were salt and strong, so one "Punsonby" (afterwards an earl) managed to put a piece of highly-flavoured Gruyere into a roll, and publicly at breakfast produced it before Mr. Irvine as a proof of the bad butter provided by the unfortunate housekeeper. He was overborne against his own convictions, by the heroic impudence of chief big boys whom he dared not offend, and actually pretended indignation, promising better butter in future!
For another small scholastic recollection: Andrew's Indian brother had brought over a lot of curiosities from the East, including a rhinoceros skin, and bows and arrows, idols, and the like, all of which were carelessly stored away in a cellar near the larder aforesaid. Of course the boys made a raid upon such spolia opima, and divers portions of that thick hide were exhibited as Indian rubber: but Andrew never knew that many other things vanished, and that for example Knighton used to walk home on Saturdays with preternaturally stiff arms, an arrow (possibly poisoned) being hid in each sleeve! some creeses also were appropriated by others. I wonder if any Carthusian of my time survives as the possessor of such loot.
Let me record, too, that in those evil days (for I am not one who can think this age as "pejor avis") boys used to go, on their Monday mornings' return from the weekly holiday, out of their way to see the wretches hanging at Newgate; that the scenes of cruelty to animals in Smithfield were terrible; that books of the vilest character were circulated in the long-room; and that both morality and religion were ignored by the seven clergymen who reaped fortunes by neglecting five hundred boys. If more memories are wanted of those times, here are two; the planned famine on one occasion, when—under monitorial inspiration—all the juniors clamoured for "more, more," seeing they had slabbed on the underside of the tables masses of bread and butter supposed to have been eaten-out; and on another, that lobsters, surreptitiously obtained from out-of-bounds by the big boys were sworn in the débris of their smaller claws to be pieces of sealing-wax! and nothing else: at least a reckless young aristocrat declared that they were so—and the mean-spirited Andrew, fearful of giving offence in such high quarters, pretended to believe him.
Yet another trifle; for I find that such trivials are attractive to homeflock readers, by whose taste I feel the more public pulse, even as Rousseau did with his housekeeper. We, that is Knighton and Ellis and I, used to return on Sunday night in my father's carriage by the back way of Clerkenwell to Charterhouse in order to avoid the crowds of cattle; and I well remember that sometimes we would utilise apples and nuts from the dessert as missiles from our carriage window as we sped along. Alas! on one occasion Knighton was skilful enough to smash a chemist's blue bottle with an apple—and on another I am aware that an oil lamp in Carthusian Street succumbed to my only too-true cockshy: "Et hoc meminisse dolendum."
Another incident was amusing in its way. Poor Mr. Irvine (who was going to be married) mended up a very much smashed greenhouse to greet his bride thereby with floral joy. Unluckily, the boys preferred broken panes to whole ones, so nothing was easier than by flinging brickbats and even mugs over the laundry wall to revel in the sweet sound of smashed glass; moreover this would go to evidence the popular animosity against a wretched bridegroom. Then, when he reappeared after some temporary absence before the wedding, it was after this ridiculous fashion.
