Part 2
It was Judge Abbott who told me that when at the Bar he defended, and successfully, a young man charged with forging and uttering bank-notes for large values. After going fully into the case, he was entirely convinced of his client's innocence, an impression with which he succeeded in imbuing the court. After his acquittal, his client, to mark his extreme sense of gratitude to his counsel's ability, insisted upon paying him double fees. The judge's pleasure at this compliment became modified, when it soon after proved that the said fees were remitted in notes undoubtedly forged, and for the making of which he had just been tried and found "not guilty!"
Speaking one day of the general ignorance of the people one met, he very aptly quoted one of Beecher Ward's witty aphorisms, "That it is wonderful how much knowledge some people manage to steer clear of." Another quotation of his from the same ample source, I remember especially pleased me. Speaking of the morbid manner in which many dwelt persistently on the more sorrowful incidents and accidents of their lives, he said, "Don't nurse your sorrows on your knee, but spank them and put them to bed!"
On one visit to the States I took a letter of special commendation to the worthy landlord of the Parker House Hotel in Boston. On arriving I delivered my missive at the bar, was told the good gentleman was out, was duly allotted excellent rooms, and later on sat down with an English travelling companion to an equally excellent dinner in the ladies' saloon. In the middle of our repast we saw a small Jewish-looking man wending his way between the many tables in, what is literally, the marble hall, towards us. Standing beside our table, and regarding us with the benignant expression of an archbishop, he carefully, though unasked, filled and emptied a bumper of our well-iced Pommery Greno, saying, "Now, gentlemen, don't rise, but my name's Parker!"
Upon a first visit to America few things are more striking than the originality and vigour of some of the advertisements. One advocating the use of some hair-wash or cream pleased us greatly by the simple reason it gave for its purchase, "that it was both elegant and chaste." Another huge placard represented our Queen Victoria arrayed in crown, robes, and sceptre, drinking old Jacob Townsend's Sarsaparilla out of a pewter pint-pot. I also saw a most elaborate allegorical design with life-size figures, purporting to induce you to buy and try somebody's tobacco. I remember that a tall Yankee, supposed to represent Passion, was smoking the said tobacco in a very fiery and aggressive manner, that with one hand he was binding Youth and Folly together with chains, presumably for refusing him a light, whilst with the other he chucked Vice under the chin, she having apparently been more amenable and polite.
To note how customs change, I one day in New York entered a car in the Broadway, taking the last vacant seat. A few minutes, and we stopped again to admit a stout negress laden with her market purchases. The car was hot, and I was glad to yield her my seat, and stand on the cooler outside platform. She took it with a wide grin, saying with a dramatic wave of her dusky paw, "You, sir, am a gentleman, de rest am 'ogs!" a speech which would not so many years ago have probably cost her her life at the next lamppost.
A Washington doctor once told me the following little story, which seems to hold a peculiar humour of its own. A country lad and lassie, promised lovers, are in New York for a day's holiday. He takes her into one of those sugar-candy, preserved fruit, ice, and pastry shops which abound, and asks her tenderly what she'll have? She thinks she'll try a brandied peach. The waiter places a large glass cylinder holding perhaps a couple of dozen of them on their table, so that they may help themselves. These peaches, be it known, are preserved in a spirituous syrup, with the whole kernels interspersed, and are very expensive. To the horror of the young man, the girl just steadily worked her way through the whole bottleful. Having accomplished this feat without turning a hair, she pauses, when the lover, in a delicate would-be sarcastic note, asks with effusion, if she won't try another peach? To which the girl coyly answers, "No thank you, I don't like them, the seeds scratch my throat!"
As is well known, most of the waiters and servants in American hotels are Irish. Dining with a dear old Canadian friend at the Windsor Hotel in New York, we were particularly amused by the quaint look and speech of the Irish gentleman who condescended to bring us our dinner. He had a face like an unpeeled kidney potato, with twinkling merry little blue eyes. Not feeling well, I had prescribed for myself a water diet during the meal, and hoped my guest would atone for my shortcomings with the wine. After he had twice helped himself to champagne, the while I modestly sipped my seltzer, my waiter's indignation at what he supposed was nothing less than base treachery, found vent in the following stage-aside to me: "Hev an oi, sorr, on your frind, he's a-gaining on ye!"
Chat No. 4.
"_Give them strength to brook and bear, Trial pain, and trial care; Let them see Thy saving light; Be Thou 'Watchman of their night.'_" --Sabbath Evening Song.
Armed with a special order of the then Lord Mayor, Sir Robert Nicholas Fowler, I sallied forth one lovely blue day in June, and timidly rang the little brass bell beside the little green door giving into Newgate Prison.
The gaol is now only used to house the prisoners on the days of trial, and for executions on the days of expiation; at other times, save for the presence of a couple of warders, it is entirely empty, and empty it was on this my day of call.
Presenting my mandate to the very civil warder who replied to my summons, I was (he having to guard the door) handed to his colleague's care, to be shown the mysteries of this great silent tomb, lying so gloomily amid the City's stir.
The first point of interest was the chapel, with that terribly suggestive chair, standing alone in the centre of the floor opposite the pulpit, on which the condemned used to sit the Sunday before his dreadful death, and, the observed of all the other prisoners, heard his own funeral sermon preached--a refinement of cruelty difficult to understand in this very Christian country. Then followed a visit to the condemned cells, two in number, and which are situated far below the level of the outside street. They are small square rooms with whitewashed walls, enlivened by one or two peculiarly ill-chosen texts; in each is a fixed truckle bedstead, with a warder's fixed seat on either side. The warder in attendance stated that he had passed many nights in them with condemned prisoners, and had rarely found his charges either restless or unable to sleep well, long, and calmly!
There is an old story told of a murderer, about whose case some doubt was raised, and to whom the prison chaplain, as he lay under sentence of death, lent a Bible. In due course a free pardon arrived, and as the prisoner left the gaol, he turned to the chaplain saying, "Well, sir, here's your Bible; many thanks for the loan of it, and I only hope I shall never want it again."
Then we visited the pinioning room; this process is carried out by strapping on a sort of leather strait-waistcoat, with buckles at the back and outside sockets for the arms and wrists. While putting on one of these, I found the leather was cold and damp; it then occurred to me, with some horror, that it was still moist with the death-sweat of the executed.
The scaffold stands alone across one of the yards, in a little wooden building not inappropriately like a butcher's shop. When used, the large shutter in front is let down, and the interior is seen to consist of a heavy cross-beam on two uprights, a link or two of chain in the middle, a very deep drop, with padded leather sides to deaden the sound of the falling platform, a covered space on one side for the coffin, and on the other a strong lever, such as is used on railways to move the points, and which here draws the bolt, releasing the platform on which the culprit stands; a high stool for the victim, should he prove nervous or faint--and that is all the furniture and fittings of this gruesome building.
The dark cell is perhaps the most dreadful part of this peculiarly ghastly show, and after being shut in it for a few minutes, which seemed hours, one fully understood its terrific taming power over the most rebellious prisoners: you are literally enveloped in a sort of velvety blackness that can be felt, which, with the absolute and awful silence, seemed to force the blood to the head and choke one.
Upon asking the warder to tell us something of the idiosyncrasies of the more celebrated criminals he had known, he stated that Wainright the murderer was the most talkative, vain, and boastful person he had seen there, that his craving for tobacco was curiously extreme, and he was immensely gratified when the governor of the prison promised him a large cigar the night before his execution. The promise kept, he walked up and down the yard with the governor, detailing with unctuous pleasure his youthful amours and deceptions, like another Pepys. "But," added my informant, "the pleasantest, cheeriest man we ever had to hang in my time was Dr. Lampson, full of fun and anecdote, with nice manners that made him friends all round. He was outwardly very brave in facing his fate, and yet, as he walked to the scaffold, those behind him saw all the back muscles writhing, working, and twitching like snakes in a bag, and thus belying the calm face and gentle smile in front. Ah! we missed him very much indeed, and were very sorry to lose him. A real gentleman he was in every way!"
It was pleasant, and a vast relief after this strange experience, to emerge suddenly from this dream of mad, sad, bad things into the roar of the City streets, to see the blue sky, and find men's faces looking once again pleasantly into our own; but, nevertheless, Newgate should be seen by the curious, and those who can do so without coercion, before it disappears.
Chat No. 5.
"_To all their dated backs he turns you round: These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound._" --Pope.
It is the present fashion to extol the old bookbinders at the expense of the living, and for collectors to give fabulous prices for a volume bound by De Thou, Geoffroy Tory, Philippe le Noir, the two Eves (Nicolas and Clovis), Le Gascon, Derome, and others.
Beautiful, rare, and interesting as their work is, I venture to say that we have modern bookbinders in England and France who can, and do, if you give them plenty of time and a free hand as to price, produce work as fine, as original, as closely thought out, as beautiful in design, material, and colour, as that of any of the great masters of the craft of olden days.
For perfectly simple work of the best kind, examine the bindings of the late Francis Bedford; and his name reminds me of a curious freak of the late Duke of Portland in relation to this art. He subscribed for all the ordinary newspapers and magazines of the day, and instead of consigning them to the waste-paper basket when read, had them whole bound in beautiful crushed morocco coats of many colours by the said Bedford; then he had perfectly fitting oaken boxes made, lined with white velvet, and fitted with a patent Bramah lock and duplicate keys, each box to hold one volume, the total cost of thus habiting this literary rubbish being about £40 a volume. Bedford kept a special staff of expert workmen upon this curious standing order until the Duke died. By his will he, unfortunately, made them heirlooms, otherwise they would have sold well as curiosities, many bibliophiles liking to have possessed a volume with so odd a history. Soon after the Duke's death I went over the well-known house in Cavendish Square with my kind friend Mr. Woods of King Street, and he showed me piles of these boxes, each containing its beautifully bound volume of uselessness.
But to return to our sheepskins. I would ask, where can you see finer workmanship than Mr. Joseph W. Zaehnsdorf puts into his enchanting covers? He once produced two lovely pieces of softly tanned, vellum-like leather of the purest white colour, and asked if I knew what they were. After some ineffectual guesses, he stated that the one with the somewhat coarser texture was a man's skin, and the finer specimen a woman's. The idea was disagreeable, and I declined to purchase or to have any volumes belonging to my simple shelves clothed in such garments.
An English bookbinder who made a name in his day was Hayday; he flourished (as the biographical dictionaries are fond of saying) in the beginning of the present reign. I possess Samuel Rogers' "Poems" and "Italy," in two quarto volumes, bound by him very charmingly. In this size Turner's drawings, which illustrate these two books, are shown to admiration, and alone galvanise these otherwise dreary works. Hayday was succeeded by one Mansell, who also did some good work; but I think domestic affliction beclouded his later years, and affected his business, as I have lost sight of him for some years.
Among other English bookbinders of the present day I would name Tout, whose simple, Quaker-like work, with Grolier tooling, is worth seeing. Mackenzie was, in his day, a good old Scotch binder; but the treasure I have personally found and introduced to many, is my excellent friend Mr. Birdsall of Northampton. His specialty is supposed to be in vellum bindings, which material he manipulates with a grace and finish very satisfactory to see. He can make the hinges of a vellum-bound book swing as easily as a friend's door. He spares no time, thought, or trouble in working out suitable designs for the books entrusted to his care. For instance, I possess Benjamin D'Israeli's German Grammar, used by him when a boy, and to bind it as he felt it deserved, he specially cast a brass stamp, with D'Israeli's crest, which, impressed adown the back and on the panels, correctly finishes this interesting memento. Then, again, when he had Beau Brummell's "Life" to work upon, he used dies representing a poppy, as an emblem flower, a money-bag, very empty, and a teasel, signifying the hanger-on: these show thought, as well as a pleasant fancy, and greatly add to the interest of the completed binding.
I have some work by M. Marius Michel, the great French binder, whose show-cases in the Faubourg-Saint-Germain, in Paris, were a treat to examine. He was kind enough to let me one fine day select and take therefrom two volumes of E. A. Poe's works translated and noted by Beaudelaire, beautifully clothed by him; and he, at the same visit, gave me an autograph copy of his "L'Ornamentation des Reliures Modernes," with which, when I returned to England, I asked Mr. Birdsall to do what he could. Set a binder to catch a binder, was in this case our motto, and Mr. Birdsall has, I think, fairly caught out his great rival, although I have not yet had an opportunity of taking M. Michel's opinion upon the Englishman's work.
* * * * *
One of the leading characteristics of the present day is its craze for work, unceasing work, work early and late, work done with a rush, destroying nerves, and rendering repose impossible. "Late taking rest and eating the bread of carefulness" do not go together, the bread being as a rule anything but carefully consumed. R. L. Stevenson somewhere says, "So long as you are a bit of a coward, and inflexible in money matters, you fulfil the whole duty of man," and perhaps this is the creed of the present race of over-workers. In the City of London we see this hasting to be rich brought to the perfection of a Fine Art (with a capital F and a capital A).
Charles Dickens, who always resolved the wit of every question into a nutshell, makes Eugene Wrayburn, in "Our Mutual Friend," strenuously object to being always urged forward in the path of energy.
"There's nothing like work," said Mr. Boffin; "look at the bees!"
"I beg your pardon," returned Eugene, with a reluctant smile, "but will you excuse my mentioning that I always protest against being referred to the bees? ... I object on principle, as a two-footed creature, to being constantly referred to insects and four-footed creatures. I object to being required to model my proceedings according to the proceedings of the bee, or the dog, or the spider, or the camel. I fully admit that the camel, for instance, is an excessively temperate person; but he has several stomachs to entertain himself with, and I have only one." ...
"But," urged Mr. Boffin, "I said the bee, they work."
"Yes," returned Eugene disparagingly, "they work, but don't you think they overdo it? They work so much more than they need--they make so much more than they can eat--they are so incessantly boring and buzzing at their one idea till Death comes upon them--that don't you think they overdo it?"
Some time since I cut from the pages of the _St. James' Gazette_ the following "Cynical Song of the City," which pleasantly sets forth the present craze for work, and again proves, like Dickens' bee, that we rather overdo it:--
"Through the slush and the rain and the fog, When a greatcoat is worth a king's ransom, To the City we jolt and we jog On foot, in a 'bus, or a hansom; To labour a few years, and then have done, A capital prospect at twenty-one!
There's a wife and three children to keep, With chances of more in the offing; We've a house at Earl's Court on the cheap, And sometimes we get a day's golfing. Well! sooner or later we'll have better fun; The heart is still hopeful at thirty-one.
The boy's gone to college to-day, The girls must have ladylike dresses; Thank goodness we're able to pay-- The business has had its successes; We must grind at the mill for the sake of our son. Besides, we're still youngish at forty-one.
It has come! We've a house in the shires, We're one of the land-owning gentry, The children have all their desires, But _we_ must do more double-entry; We must keep things together, no time left for fun, Ah! had we been twenty--not fifty--one!
A Baronet! J.P.! D.L.! But it means harder work, little pleasure; We must stick to the City as well, Though we're tired and longing for leisure. We shall soon become toothless, dyspeptic, and done, As rich as the Bank, though we can't chew a bun, And the gold-grubber's grave is the goal that we've won At seventy--eighty--or ninety-one."
* * * * *
Guests at Foxwold are given the opportunity, when black Monday arrives, of catching a most unearthly and uneasily early train, which involves their rising with anything but a lark, swallowing a hurried breakfast, a mounting into fiery untamed one-horse shays soon after eight, and then being puffed away through South-Eastern tunnels to the busy hum of those unduly busy men of whom we speak.
To catch this early train, which means that you "leave the warm precincts of your cheerful bed, nor cast one longing lingering look behind," some of our friends most justly object, preferring the early calm, the well-considered uprisal, the dawdled breakfast, and the ladies' train at the maturer hour of 10.30. Our dear friend, Mr. Anstey Guthrie, having firmly and most wisely declined the early train and any consequent worm, one very chilly morn, as the early risers were starting for the station, appeared at his chamber window awfully arrayed in white, and muttering with the fervour of another John Bradford, "There goes Anstey Guthrie--but for the grace of God," plunged back into his rapidly cooling couch, "and left the world to darkness and to us."
Chat No. 6.
"_It's idle to repine, I know; I'll tell you what I'll do instead, I'll drink my arrowroot, and go To bed._"--C. S. C.
My good and kind old friend Robert Baxter, who now rests from his labours, was, during his long active life in Westminster (dispensing law to the rich and sharing its profits with the poor), one of the most charitable and hospitable of men.
Occasionally, however, even his goodness was taxed with such severity, as to somewhat try his patience.
The once well-known Mrs. X---- of A----, a philanthropic but foolish old woman, arrived late one evening, uninvited, at his house in Queen's Square, suffering from the first symptoms of rheumatic fever. Calmly establishing herself in the best guest-chamber, and surrounded by the necessary maid, nurse, and doctor, she turned her kind host's dwelling into a private hospital for many weeks. When at last she reached the stage of convalescence, and was allowed to take daily outings and airings, Mr. Baxter's capital old butler, Sage, had the privilege of carrying the fair but weighty invalid downstairs to the carriage, and upstairs to her rooms once, and often twice, a day. No small effort for any man's strength, however athletic he might be, and Sage, be it conceded, was a moderate giant.
The weeks dragged themselves away, and at last the welcome date for a final flitting to her own home arrived. Sage felt that he had well earned an extraordinary douceur for all his labours, and was not therefore surprised when the good lady on leaving slipped into his willing hand a suggestive looking folded-up blue slip of paper instead of the more limited gold. Retiring to his pantry to satisfy his very natural curiosity as to the amount of the vail so fully deserved, his feelings may be imagined, but not described, when he found that instead of the expected cheque, it was what, in evangelical circles, is called a leaflet, bearing on its face the following appropriate and cheerful text: "Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee!"
Whilst upon the subject of misapplied texts, another instance, touched with a pleasant humour, occurs to me. Many years ago I visited for the first time an old friend and his wife in their pleasant country house. Upon being shown into what was evidently one of the best guest-chambers, I was intensely delighted to find over the mantelpiece the following framed text, in large illuminated letters: "Occupy till I come!" Unprepared to make so long a stay, I left on the Monday morning following, and have no doubt the generous invitation still remains to welcome the coming guest.
Another story of a like nature was told us by Mr. Anstey Guthrie, and is therefore worth repeating. He once saw a long procession of happy school-children going to some feast, headed by a band of music and a standard-bearer. The latter was staggering beneath an immense banner, on which was painted the Lion of Saint Mark's, rampant, with mouth, teeth, and claws ready and rapacious; underneath was the singularly appropriate and happy legend, "Suffer little children to come unto Me."
Another capital story from the same source, which time cannot wither, nor custom stale, is, that at some small English seaside resort a spirited and generous townsman has presented a number of free seats for the parade, each one adorned with an iron label stating that "Mr. Jones of this town presented these free seats for the public's use, the sea is his, and he made it."
Chat No. 7
"_Where are my friends? I am alone; No playmate shares my beaker: Some lie beneath the churchyard stone, And some--before the Speaker: And some compose a tragedy, And some compose a rondo; And some draw sword for Liberty, And some draw pleas for John Doe._" --W. M. Praed.
"_All analysis comes late._"--Aurora Leigh.