CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE HISTORICAL STREET OF THE TOWN.

For historical lore, few continuous ranges of buildings in the kingdom are connected with so many national and local incidents as West Street, Brighton, which was formerly approached from the west, at the south end, by a hill, that ranged with Kent Street, which originally terminated due south to the West Cliff. The hill was of an altitude that, upon its removal, to make the roadway level between Russell Street and West Street, the front doors of the houses were one story above the pathway, compelling the construction of flights of steps in the fore-courts, commencing from east to west half the distance up, where a landing was formed, from whence another flight set off northward to the door-ways. The Cliff there at that time, was known as The Bank, a provincial term still used for it by most of the aborigines. The incline of the Gap went from the east corner of the street, direct south to the sea, which washed it in stormy weather, when, for safety, the bathing-machines and the boats stationed thereabouts, were hauled into the street as high up as Duke Street.

Upon the first house in the street, that at the south corner of Kent Street, for many years, just beneath the parapet which surmounted the front wall, was a Latin inscription in raised Roman capitals, which at various periods, as some of the letters became obliterated by their great exposure to the weather, and from their restoration not being effected with promptitude, underwent several changes, as, EXCITAT ACTA ROBUR, strength awakens action, i.e., the consciousness of power arouses men to acts; EXCITAS ACTIS ROBUR, thou awakest strength by deeds; EXCITAT ACTIS ROBUR, he arouses to strength by acts; EXCITAS ACTA, ROBUR, thou wakest or excitest to deeds or actions, O strength. Its last appearance, EXCITUS ACTA ROPAT,--which defied all efforts of translation,--being the cause of much ridicule, the letters were entirely removed. Immediately opposite this house, suspended from the Cliff, was the town fire-cage, constructed of iron hoops, wherein, at night, a fire of strombolum--collected along the sea shore,--and common coal, was generally kindled, as a guide to the fishermen on their return to shore. On New Year's Day, 1810, a horrid act of brutal violence was committed in connexion with this land-mark: Two men, named Rolfe and Barton, who were engaged to attend to the fire, having some words in the course of the evening, Rolfe determined to arrange the beacon by himself, and therefore procured a new iron frame and suspended it accordingly. This, however, he had no sooner done than Barton attempted to cut the fastenings and let it over the Cliff, and as Rolfe endeavoured to prevent his carrying his ill-natured design into effect, Barton thrust a knife into his abdomen, and literally let out some of his bowels. Barton escaped, but a reward of 20 being offered through the Town Crier, he was captured, but only suffered a short imprisonment, as Rolfe, after having endured great pain, eventually recovered.

The events connected with the King's Head have been detailed in Chapter XVIII. The low, stone-coloured, brick building immediately opposite this hostelry, was the favourite residence of Mrs. Thrale, the wife of the wealthy owner of the London Brewery, now known as "Barclay and Perkins's Brewery." Amongst the general visitors to Mrs. Thrale were Dr. Samuel Johnson and Madame D'Arblay--Fanny Burney--the authoress of Evelena, who in one of her letters--Madame d'Arblay's Diary--describes the residence as being at the court end of the town, and exactly opposite the inn where Charles II. lay hid previous to leaving the kingdom. "So I fail not," she adds, "to look at it with loyal satisfaction, and His black-wigged Majesty has from the time of its restoration been its sign." Mrs. Thrale, who upon her second marriage was Madame Piozzi, the mother of Mrs. Mostyn, who died recently at Sillwood House, has her name thus recorded in the parish book--

February 16th, 1791.--On application of Mrs Thrale, it is ordered that a poor boy proposed by her be received into the Poor House, during the pleasure of the officers, on being paid by the said Mrs Thrale 4s weekly for his board.

It happened upon one occasion that while Dr. Johnson was visiting the Thrales, he accompanied them to the Baths,--those on the site where Brill's Ladies' Swimming Bath now stands,--at which public lounge he met the Vicar, the Rev. Henry Michell, with whom, drawing their chairs close to the fire in the ante-room, he soon got into conversation. For some time their manner was calm and their language subdued; but at length some strong difference arising in their arguments, the Vicar seized the poker, and the Doctor the tongs, with which, upon the grate they suited "their action to the word" with the utmost energy. The general company present, who were enjoying a country dance, suddenly ceased their evolutions, which could not be resumed till the Master of the Ceremonies, Wade, with his proverbial politeness, pacified the heated debaters.

The water from a wooden pump at Thrale's house, was supposed to be endowed with peculiar medicinal properties, from the circumstance that after his too potent night indulgences in wine, Dr. Johnson was accustomed early the following morning--before the family were about,--to slip down stairs in his dressing gown, and doffing his wig, require of the female domestic to pump freely on his over-heated bald head. Mr. Hargraves, apothecary, who afterwards occupied the premises, being aware of the Doctor's infallible restorative after his potations, strongly, in the way of business, prescribed the marvellous liquid to customers who had been too devout at the shrine of Bacchus.

Foote, the comedian, one day, dining at the house, with Johnson and others, finding nothing to his liking, for some time sat in expectation of something better. A neck of mutton being the last thing, he refused it, as he had the others. As the servant was taking it away, however, understanding that there was nothing more, Foote called out to him, "Holloa! John, bring that back again, for I find it's neck or nothing."

Prior to 1794, a low public house, called the Half-Moon, stood out prominently and fronted down the street immediately below Bunker's Hill. It was the general resort of gipsies and beggars, who so continued to throng the house during the Summer months, that on their taking their leave at the termination of the previous Autumn, the owner, Mr. Patching, demolished the old premises and constructed the present building, known as the Brighton Sauce Warehouse, to afford the wandering customers better accommodation upon their return. The Winter of 1793-4 was very severe; to facilitate, then, the progress of the building during the frost, the boulders of which the front is principally composed, were heated at the malt-kiln of the West Street Brewery, the men employed in the work being principally the soldiers of the militia regiments quartered in the West Street Barracks. The new building proved to be a great mistake; as the migratory tribes, on their return in the Summer, thinking that extra charges would be made upon them to assist in defraying the expenses of the new erection, betook themselves to other quarters, and hence, from lack of custom, the license was transferred to a smaller house, the present Half-Moon, at the corner of Boyce's Street, just below which, in Ashby Court, lived an old matchman, a well-known character of the town.

Although "Lucifers" have almost rendered null and void the flint, steel, and tinder-box, yet in villages the brimstone-tipped bunches of flat matches are even now extant, and age picks up a scant existence in vending them from door to door, to dames who pride themselves upon their antiquated notions and doing what their good mothers did before them; their almost sacred observance being always to have hot embers on their social hearth, from which by means of a common match, a light may always be obtained.

In Brighton, the most celebrated of the match-vending craft, was John Standing, familiary known as "Old Rosemary Lane," from the following song which he incessantly uttered while pursuing his daily avocation:--

There was an old 'oman In Rosemary Lane, She cuts 'em and dips 'em And I do the same.

Come, buy my fine matches Come, buy 'em of me, They are the best matches 'Most ever you see.

For lighting your candle Or kindling your fire They are the best matches As you can desire.

Standing was a native of Hurstperpoint, where for some years he followed the occupation of a bricklayer, and was considered a good workman; but having had the misfortune to fall from a scaffold when about 30 years old, he was disabled from his usual employment, as he by the accident received a severe injury to the spine, which ever after prevented him from assuming an erect posture; and one of his eyes was knocked out, his thumb was broken and reversed, and he was otherwise much mutilated.

At first his business circuit with matches was through the villages under the hill, where he was very well known; but other venders, of the gipsey tribe, combining to drive him off their ground by underselling him, he moved on to Brighton, where his injured bodily condition and the novelty of his ditty obtained him a good trade, and in a very short time many regular customers. In fact, to the outward world his prospects appeared so thriving, that many persons asserted he was, miser-like, accumulating a fortune; for although he never asked alms, his lame, blind, and aged condition excited sympathy amongst strangers, who rather gave to him than purchased of him.

John was married; but his wife, who was also aged, was not without her share of misfortunes. She was the manufacturer of the establishment, and being exposed to hard work and the rigour of a severe winter, the cold so affected her limbs that it was found necessary to amputate one of her legs, and, also remove nearly all the toes from the other foot, from their becoming frostbitten; added to which, she by an accident lost an eye. In January, 1833, Standen was taken suddenly ill in East Street, during one of his morning perambulations, and in a few days, on the 9th of February, he terminated his life, after having for nearly 40 years traversed the town, singing his unvaried song, day by day, through all weathers. His wife survived him but three days, the shock, occasioned by his death, being too severe for her shattered constitution to withstand. They were borne together to their grave in the Old Churchyard, by some kind neighbours, their coffins having been provided by the parish.

The house, the Albany Tavern, at the top of Duke Street, commanding the view of the sea, down West Street, was for many seasons during the abode of George IV. in Brighton, the residence in lodgings, of Johnny Townsend, the noted Bow Street Runner, who was in constant attendance for a long series of years, upon the Royal Personage when he was Prince of Wales and King. West Street at that period was a place of fashionable resort, especially for equestrians, Royal blood daily frequenting it, and often paying a visit to Townsend, with whom they frequently essayed to luncheon, the viands for the occasion being sent up from the Royal Pavilion. Townsend was a shrewd but illiterate man, a staunch politician of the Tory school, kind-hearted, generous, and charitable, an agreeable companion with his equals, a man who commanded the respect of his superiors and his inferiors; but he was a sore terror of refractory boys and girls.

In the house immediately above Duke Street, and directly opposite Cranbourne Street, lived, on his retirement from business, Mr. Beach Roberts, a Brighton celebrity, who, at the commencement of the present century was a tinman, carrying on a respectable and lucrative business upon the premises now occupied by Mr. B. Lewis, silversmith, Ship Street. In his latter days he was termed the "Walking Newspaper," inasmuch as he was acquainted with all--and sometimes more than all, of the news of the day. On the 13th March, 1810, some person, by way of a hoax, inserted in the London papers, the following:--"Died, yesterday, Beach Roberts, Esq.,--a gentleman who had enjoyed a wider sphere of connexion in the County of Sussex than most men, who had been elected to the office of High Constable of this Parish seven different times; for the last twelve years been foreman of the Grand Jury at the Quarter Sessions at Lewes; and who has left one hundred thousand pounds; ten thousand of which are to be applied to charitable purposes within the limits of the town; one thousand towards the support of the Magdalen Hospital, and the remainder to be equally divided between his son and daughter." The hoax became the current topic of the day, and subjected Mr. Roberts to several congratulatory addresses from his friends; as he was at the time about forty-five years of age, in the enjoyment of good health, and of a promising constitution. It may be added that he never served the office of High Constable, and that he had no children.

In the house next above that wherein Mr. Roberts lived, for some little time resided--carrying on the business of a butcher,--James Ings, who on the 23rd of February, 1820, was, on the information of a confederate, apprehended with eight others, in a hay-loft, in Cato Street, Paddington, for being concerned in a plot to destroy the Ministers of the King, while at a cabinet dinner that evening in Grosvenor Square, London, at the residence of the Earl of Harrowby, the President of the Council. The plot is known as the Cato Street Conspiracy, wherein Ings took so conspicuous a part that it was arranged that on their leader, Arthur Thistlewood, presenting a parcel at the door of Lord Harrowby's house, he should head the rest of the conspirators, rush in where the company were assembled, and massacre the whole of them indiscriminately. Just previous to their apprehension Ings prepared himself for the desperate enterprise, by putting a black belt round his waist and another over his shoulders; he also put on two bags like haversacks, and placed a pair of pistols in his belt. Then looking at himself with an air of exultation he exclaimed, uttering an oath, "I'm not complete now; I have forgot my steel;" whereupon he seized a large knife, about twelve inches long, and, brandishing it about, swore he would bring away two heads in his bags, and one of Lord Castlereagh's hands, which he would preserve in brine, as it might be thought a good deal of hereafter. The whole of the conspirators were found guilty of High Treason, and on the morning of the first of May, Thistlewood, Ings, and three others were hanged and decapitated at Newgate; the rest of the traitors were transported.

The executioner of these misguided men was James Botting, a native of Brighton, and son of Jemmy Botting, the possessor of some small property at the back of West Field Lodge, immediately to the west of the bottom of Cannon Place, and known as Botting's Rookery, from its being the resort of tramps of the lowest order. Botting also, on the 30th of November, 1824, at Newgate, carried out the last penalty of the law upon Henry Fauntleroy, the banker, who formerly had his residence at the west end of Codrington Place, Western Road, and was found guilty of uttering a forged deed with intent to defraud Frances Young of 5,000 Stock, and a power of attorney to defraud the firm of Marsh, Stacey, Fauntleroy, and Graham, Bankers, Berner's Street, London, of which house he was the acting partner.

For several years previous to his decease, which took place at Brighton, October 1st, 1837, Botting, in consequence of paralysis retired from his situation as public hangman, the latter days of his existence being eked out by a pension of five shillings a week, granted by the Court of Aldermen of the City of London, for whom, in the course of his duties, he had deprived 175 "parties"--as he termed them--of their lives; as during his career executions at Newgate were very common, the offences for which life was forfeited being so numerous that in one week thirteen persons, namely, eight on Wednesday, November 23rd, and five on the Tuesday following, November 29th, 1821, suffered, none of the crimes for which they were executed--thanks to the enlightenment of our legislators,--now exacting as a penalty the life of a fellow creature. Botting, in his latter days, was a well known character about Brighton, the streets of which he was accustomed to traverse by means of a chair, which he alternately used as a species of crutch, and as a seat, but he always appeared isolated from the world, as no grade of society seemed ambitious of the acquaintance of Jack Ketch.

The most commodious and commanding family mansions of the Old Town are in West Street, wherein have resided, during the past forty years, several of the magistrates and the clergy, and many members of the medical profession of Brighton. At the present time several of the houses are occupied by opulent families: and the lanes and courts which formerly on its west side detracted from the general respectability of the street, having been demolished, the property thereabouts has become considerably enhanced in value, and is much sought after.