Part 17

There is only one more sovereign about whom I may say a few words, the late Queen of Holland, highly gifted as she was, and most charming in society. She frequently came to England; according to the newspapers, as a friend and advocate of the Emperor Napoleon. She was far too wise, however, to attempt to play such a part at the English court. But that she was much admired and won the hearts of many people in London is certainly true. She came to lunch with Stanley at the Deanery. She had asked him to invite a number of literary men—Tennyson, Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton), Huxley, and several more. We were waiting and waiting, but Tennyson did not appear. Stanley suggested that we should not wait any longer, but the Queen refused to sit down before the great poet’s arrival. At last it was suggested that Tennyson might be mooning about in the Cloisters, and so he was. He was caught, and was placed next to the Queen. The Queen knew wonderfully how to hide her Crown, and put everybody at their ease. She took the conversation into her own hands, and kept the ball rolling during the whole luncheon. But she got nothing out of Tennyson. He was evidently in low spirits, and, sitting next to him, I could hear how to every question the Queen addressed to him he answered, “Yes, Ma’am,” “No, Ma’am,” and at last, by a great effort, “Ma’am, there is a good deal to be said on both sides of the question.” He then turned to me and said in a whisper, but a loud whisper: “I wish they had put some of you talking fellows next to Regina.”

While I am finishing these “Recollections of Royalties,” and sending the proof sheets to press, the last echoes of the greatest triumph that has ever been granted to royalty, which has ever been celebrated by royalty, are vanishing from our ears. May those royal recollections never vanish from our memories! We need not, nay, we cannot exaggerate their importance. Magnificent as the pageant has been of the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen of England, what was invisible in it was far greater than what was so brilliantly visible in the royal procession passing through the crowded streets of London. Has there ever been an empire like the British, not excluding the Babylonian, the Persian, the Macedonian, or the Roman empires? Sixty years of one reign is not a mere numerical expression; no, it means permanent vitality, unbroken continuity, sustained strength and vigour, such as, I believe, have never been witnessed in any reign during the whole history of the world.

And England is not only the greatest, it is also the freest, country in the world, so free that even republics may well envy it its fresh and pure air; and yet was there ever among the vast masses, rich and poor, a more universal outburst of hearty loyalty to the Throne, of personal love of the sovereign, than in the days of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee?

It was said early in her reign by a royal and loyal thinker that constitutional government was then on its trial in England. So it was, but it has come out triumphant, and stronger than ever. Constitutional government under a royal protector will henceforth be recognised as the most perfect form of government which human ingenuity has been able to devise, after many centuries of patient and impatient search. Royalty has proved its right to exist, and that under the sceptre of a Queen who, if compared to other sovereigns, will be famous not only for much that she has done, but also for much that she has not done. Constitutional government has proved its superiority over any form of government by the triumph on 22nd June.

If the people have been loyal to the Queen, how loyal has the Queen been to her people; if her subjects have shared her joys and sorrows, how warmly has she taken the sufferings of her people to heart. Royalty has its dangers, and mankind has suffered much from kings and emperors, but the greatness of England during the last sixty years has chiefly been due to the mutual esteem and love of her people and their sovereign. The world will know henceforth one at least of the secret springs of England’s health and wealth and strength—namely, the true sympathy that for years has knitted ruler and ruled together. England has had great ministers and counsellors, but ask those ministers, who for years has been their truest and most trusted counsellor, and they will not hesitate in their answer. No wonder that England, celebrating the Sixty-years’ Jubilee of her Sovereign, should have roused the admiration—and it may be, the envy also—of other nations. Let us hope that the admiration, so ungrudgingly bestowed, may last, and that the envy, if any, may pass away. “Viel Ehr, viel Feind” is as true here as elsewhere. Let other nations blame and criticise, it is the highest compliment they can pay. But let them ponder what Europe would have been without England, what the world would have been without the sceptre of the wise and good Queen Victoria.

BEGGARS

Often when I had related to my friends some of my painful experiences with beggars and they laughed at me, “Wait,” I said, “I shall have my revenge; and when I am unfit to do anything else, I shall write a book about Beggars.” Now it has sometimes happened to me of late that, when I had sat down to do the work to which I have been accustomed for so many years, I could not get on at all, or if by a great effort of will I managed to do something, it was of no use, and had to be done again. I felt, therefore, that the time had come for rest, or at all events, for a change of occupation, and, though I had not yet sufficient time to spare for writing a whole book on beggars, I thought I might jot down a few of my experiences, not only as an amusement to myself, but possibly as a useful lesson to some of my friends. It seems to me that my experience has been large, larger than that of most of my acquaintances. Why, I cannot tell; but beggars, and extremely clever beggars too, have evidently singled me out as an easy prey. They seem to have imagined—in fact they told me so again and again—that I was a rich man, and could well afford to help a poor beggar. They little knew what a poor beggar I was myself, and how hard I have had to work through life to keep myself afloat, and to live as I was expected to live among my wealthy colleagues at Oxford. They would have smiled incredulously if I had told them how many hours, nay, how many weeks, a scholar has often to do the hardest drudgery without getting a penny for his work. He has often to be thankful if he can find a publisher for what is the outcome of years of hard labour. It is schoolbooks only that are remunerative, or novels and sermons, and novels he has to leave to his worldly, sermons to his unworldly, fellow-labourers.

Some of my beggar acquaintances were so clever and so well educated that they might easily have made a living for themselves; but, as one of them told me when I thought I had made him thoroughly ashamed of himself, and quite confidential, they preferred begging to any other kind of occupation. “Talk of shooting partridges or pheasants,” he said, “talk of racing or gambling, there is no sport like begging. There must always be risk in sport, and the risk in begging is very great. You are fighting,” my half-penitent informant said, “against tremendous odds. You ring at the door, and you must first of all face a servant, who generally scrutinises you with great suspicion, and declines to take your name or your card, unless you have a clean shirt and a decent pair of boots. Then, after you have been admitted to the presence, you have to watch every expression of your enemy or your friend, as the case may be. You have to face the cleverest people in the world, and you know all the time that the slightest mistake in your looks or in the tone of your voice may lead to ruin. You may be kicked out of the house, and if you meet with a high-minded and public-spirited gentleman, who does not mind trouble and expense, you may find yourself in the hands of the police for trying to obtain money under false pretences. No,” he concluded, “I have known in my time what hunting and shooting and gambling are; but I assure you there is no sport like begging.”

What is one to do with such a visitor—in appearance, in manners, and in language, quite a gentleman, or a _ci-devant_ gentleman, a man who has been at a university, and who, when asked, will translate a page of Homer to you very fairly, who bears, of course, a noble name, and has friends, as he gives you to understand, in every university or at every court in Europe—what is one to do with him, if not to accelerate his departure by means of a small gift, for which he is generally very grateful? But that is really the worst one can do. For, on the strength of it, your noble sportsman will at once go to other covers, to all your friends, tell them that you have helped him, describe your generosity, your room, your dog, your cat, and thus among your unsuspecting friends secure a fresh bag, dearer to him, if you may believe him, than any number of pheasants and partridges.

The information which these beggars possess is quite astounding. They have stepped into my room, and given me the most minute information about my friends and relations in Germany, who live in a small and little-known town, describing their houses, their gardens, their dogs—everything, in fact, to show that they had been on the most familiar terms with them. This happened to me some years ago when the organisation among the foreign beggars in London was far more perfect than it is, or seems to be, at present. It may be, of course, that they know that an old fox who has been hunted again and again is difficult to catch. Anyhow, I have not of late heard of any such exploits as, unfortunately, I have had to suffer from in former years.

It was after the Schleswig-Holstein war, in about 1850, that one morning a young military-looking man stepped into my room. He limped, and told me he had still a ball in his leg, which must be removed. He presented himself as an officer in the Danish Army—the only officer who had joined the rebels, the Schleswig-Holsteiners—and had been taken prisoner at the battle of Idstedt in 1850. He described most graphically how he was confronted with his former Danish comrades, how his epaulettes were torn off, how his sword was broken, and he himself sent to a military prison, previous, as he thought, to being _fusillé_ for high treason. All this naturally appealed to my sympathy, and then he went on telling me, in the most confidential way, that when at last sentence of death had been pronounced against him, he knew quite well that it would never be carried out, because the Queen of Denmark was his dearest friend, and would never have allowed such a thing. “Give me some paper,” he said; “I must write to my beloved Queen, and tell her I am safe in England. She will be in deep distress till she hears of me.” He sat down and wrote a letter, which he wished me to read. I only saw the beginning of it: that was quite enough; it was in a style which only the most devoted lover could have used. That letter was stamped—I supplied the stamps—dropped into the pillar-box, sent to Copenhagen, and must have been delivered to the Queen, though I doubt its being preserved in the royal archives. And that was not all. In a few days a letter came from Copenhagen, delivered by post, which again I was asked to read, but declined. I did not wish to pry into State or Court secrets. But all this showed, at all events, how cleverly the whole scheme had been laid, so that a confederate could send from Copenhagen a letter apparently written by the Queen, in answer to a letter despatched to her a few days before. I was completely taken in. The young officer went to London to have the ball extracted. I doubt now whether there was any ball to extract. There he made many acquaintances, and was helped by some very influential people. I remember one, who afterwards rose to the highest post in our Diplomatic Service, and was at that time known among his friends as never having a five-pound note in his possession. He gave him £10, and when I asked him: “But, my dear fellow, where in the world did you get that ten-pound note?” he used, as was his wont, very strong language, and said: “I borrowed it from the porter at my club.” This little comedy went on for some time. The man himself must have enjoyed his sport thoroughly, and he never lost his presence of mind. I still think that he must have been at one time in the Danish Service, as he possessed very accurate information about Danish officials and Danish affairs in general, though in what capacity he served his country and his Queen has never been found out. His ostensible correspondence with the Queen continued for some time. Even remittances arrived, as we were told from his royal patroness, but most of his funds were drawn, I am sorry to say, from English pockets, and might have served some better purpose. As far as I remember—for I am trying to recall events that happened nearly fifty years ago—a collection was made for our clever adventurer, and he left England uninjured to look for more dupes in the United States.

Though I might have learnt a lesson, I have to confess that hardly a month passed without something of the same kind happening to me. Few swindlers were so clever or had their schemes so beautifully prepared as my Danish friend, but I generally felt whenever I was taken in that I could hardly have acted differently. Nay, when I mustered courage to say “No,” I often regretted it. Let me give an instance. A gentleman steps into your room, tells you that he has been robbed, offers you his gold watch, and asks you to lend him a pound to pay his bill at the hotel. What are you to do? I declined to advance any money, particularly as my visitor behaved rather like a sturdy beggar, and what was the consequence? He broke out into violent abuse, mentioned a number of newspapers whose correspondent he professed to be, and told me I should rue the day when I had insulted him. And it was not a vain threat. From time to time I received extracts, not indeed from _The Times_ or the _Débats_ or the _Augsburger Zeitung_, but from some obscure local papers, with violent tirades against me as an ignoramus, as a Jesuit, as a German spy, as a hard-hearted miser, etc. For all I know, the man may have been in momentary distress, but was I to open a pawnbroker’s shop in my house?

There was a time, and it lasted for several years, when a man, though he never tried his hand on me, victimised a large number of my friends. He called himself my brother, evidently unaware of the fact that I never had a brother. He must have taken the “Clergy List,” for week after week came letters from my friends, mostly clergymen in London who had known me at Oxford and who had been swindled by my brother.

Twice _The Times_ was kind enough to print a letter from me in large type to warn my friends. It was of no use. I seldom went to London without some friend coming up to me and asking after my brother, or expressing himself thoroughly ashamed of having allowed himself to be so stupidly victimised by a common impostor. One friend told me that he was so convinced that the man was a swindler that he had him turned out of the house. But then it struck him that after all the man might really be my brother, who only wanted a ticket to go to Oxford, so he rushed into the street after him, apologised, and pressed a sovereign into his hand. “There were telegraphs in those days, and why did you not telegraph to me?” I said. But my brother went on unabashed. He once called at the house of Lord W., telling the old story of having been robbed, and wanting a ticket to go to Oxford to see his dear brother. Lord W. was not to be taken in so easily, but Lady W., who came into the room and heard the story, said to the young man: “Perhaps you are not aware that you are speaking to a very near relation of your brother, who is the husband of my niece?” The man never flinched, but was rushing up to Lady W. to shake hands most affectionately and to embrace her, if she had not beaten a sudden retreat. Lord W. was quite convinced that the man was an impudent beggar, took him to the front door, and told him to be gone. “Would you tell your servant to call a cab for me,” he said, “to go to the station?” A servant, who was present, hailed a cab. “Please to give the man half a crown,” my brother said. The half-crown was given, and the man got away unharmed, having swindled one of the cleverest financial men in London out of half a crown. Only a few minutes after, my wife called at her aunt’s house, and regretted that she was just too late to make the long-desired personal acquaintance of my lost brother.

After carrying on this business for more than two years in England, and chiefly in London, the place seems to have become too hot at last. He vanished from the soil of England without ever having called on his brother at Oxford, and the next I heard of him was through some friends in New Zealand, who had suffered as others had suffered before in England.

The worst of such experiences is that they make us very hard-hearted. One believes nothing that a man tells one who comes begging to the door. And yet how much of real misery there is! It is a problem which really seems to admit of no solution. Of course we must not expect angels to come to us in the disguise of beggars. All beggars are more or less disreputable; not one of them would venture to tell the true story of his life. Yet they generally have something to say for themselves, and they hardly know the mischief they are doing by making it impossible for any one with any self-respect to believe the old, old stories which they are telling. They say: “What can we do? We must say something to appeal to your pity, and the unvarnished tale of our life is too long and too dry, and not likely to excite your sympathy.” All this is true, but what is to be done to alleviate or to cure this terrible evil of poverty and beggary? Nothing really seems to remain but to adopt the example of the Buddhists, and give to the beggar a recognised status in society. The Buddhists have no poor rates, but whoever is admitted to the brotherhood has a right to go round the village or town once or twice a day, to hold out his begging bowl, and to take home to his monastery whatever is given him. No householder likes these Bhikshus or beggars to depart from his house without having received a gift, however small, while the Bhikshu himself is not degraded, but enjoys, on the contrary, the same respect which the begging friars enjoyed during the middle ages. Even in later times we hear in Scotland of the Gaberlunzie men, and elsewhere of Bedesmen, Bluegowns, etc., all forming a kind of begging fraternity, and having a recognised position in society.

Free above Scot-free, that observe no laws, Obey no governor, use no religion, But what they draw from their own ancient custom, Or constitute themselves, yet they are no rebels. “Antiquary,” chap. xii.

All this is extinct now, but the beggar is not extinct, and never will be, as we are told. What then is to be done? for we are all more or less responsible for their existence. It seems to me that there is only one thing to be done, namely, to give up, every one of us, whatever quotum of our income we think right, and to hand it over to such societies as take the trouble to find out for us some not quite undeserving poor. Our Charity Organisation Society does no doubt much good, but it should have another branch, the members of which should be understood to give, say, a tenth part, or any other quotum of their annual income for charitable purposes. Such a society existed formerly. The members of it were not subjected to any inquisitorial questions. They simply declared that they would regularly devote a tenth of their income to the alleviation of poverty, and they were left perfectly free to do it each in his own way. What has become of that society? The organiser and leading spirit of it died, and no one seems to have taken it up again.

There is, however, one class of beggars and impostors more objectionable than any—people who do not beg for money, but borrow, and never mean to return either the money or any thanks. I have known of a good many cases where young men visiting Oxford and having made a few acquaintances among the undergraduates, were invited to dinner in college, and not only borrowed from their young companions, but, introduced by their young friends, ran up bills among the tradesmen of the town, and then quietly slipped away, leaving their friends to satisfy their creditors as best they could. All this goes on, and it seems impossible to stop it. Even if now and then these swindlers make a mistake, and place themselves within the clutches of the law, what satisfaction is it to keep them in prison for a month or two? No one knows their real names. They are boarded and fed at the expense of the country, and enjoy a little rest from their labours. That is all. They go in and come out of prison as if nothing had happened, and all they have learnt in prison is how to be more careful in future.

Who can doubt that there is much poverty and suffering, even undeserved suffering, among the poor, more particularly among poor foreigners in London? The Society for the Relief of Foreigners in Distress does much, but that much is but like a drop of milk in an ocean of salt water. The stories of the applicants printed each year, and carefully sifted by the committee, are simply heart-rending. And those who go to see for themselves often wish they had never crossed the thresholds of these hovels in which whole families live huddled up together, hungry, sick, dying, dead. One feels utterly hopeless and helpless at the sights one sees. One might as well jump into the Atlantic to save a sinking vessel and a drowning crew as attempt to rescue this drowning humanity.

And the men, after all, can help themselves. They can work, they may fight and beg, and even steal, and be sent to prison. But what is the fate of the poor unfortunate women!