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LIVING LONDON
ITS WORK AND ITS PLAY
ITS HUMOUR AND ITS PATHOS
ITS SIGHTS AND ITS SCENES
EDITED BY . . .
GEORGE R. SIMS
VOL. II— SECTION ir
SPECIAL EDITION, WITH FULL-PAGE REMBRANDT PLATES
CASSELL AND COMPANY, Limited
London, Paris, New York & Melbourne
All Rights Reserved
OCT 28 1959
LONDON TYPES: THE ORGAN-GRINDER.
(From the Painting by W. Rainey, R.I,}
15
LONDON TYPES: THE WAITER.
'From the Painting by H. H. Fllre.)
19
LONDON TYPES: THE FLOWER GIRL.
(From the Painting by //. H. FUre.)
CONTENTS.
LONDON'S DRAPERS .
HOUSE-HUNTING LONDON
MUSIC-HALL LONDON .
HOOLIGAN LONDON .
HOTEL LONDON .
THAMES PLEASURES AND SPORTS
ROMAN CATHOLIC LONDON .
LONDON THRIFT ....
LONDON UNDER THE WEATHER
SCOTTISH, IRISH. AND WELSH
LONDON .
LIGHTING LONDON
SIDESHOW LONDON .
BAR AND SALOON LONDON
CHRISTENING LONDON
COUNTY COUNCIL LONDON
THE LONDON CITY COMPANIES
LONDON GETS UP IN THE MORNING
LONDON'S STREET INDUSTRIES
BIRD -LAND AND PET - LAND IN
LONDON ....
SCENES FROM FACTORY LONDON
LUNATIC LONDON ....
A COUNTRY COUSIN'S DAY IN TOWN
SERVANT LONDON ....
LONDON'S LITTLE WORRIES .
LONDON'S WASH-HOUSES AND BATHS
SCENES FROM OFFICIAL LIFE IN
LONDON
SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON
BY
MRS. BELLOC-LOWNDES .
GEORGE R. SIMS
H. CHANCE NEWTON.
CLARENCE ROOK.
J. C. WOOLLAN .
JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON
WILFRID MEYNELL .
SIDNEY DARK
GEORGE R. SIMS
C. O'CONOR ECCLES.
DESMOND YOUNG
A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK
GRAHAM HILL .
SHEILA E. BRAINE .
FREDERICK DOLMAN, L.C.C.
CHARLES WELCH. F.S.A. .
GEORGE R. SIMS
P. F. WILLIAM RYAN.
HENRY SCHERREN
C. DUNCAN LUCAS
T. W WILKINSON
GEORGE R. SIMS
N. MURRELL M ARRIS
GEORGE R. SIMS
I. BROOKE-ALDER
L. BRINDLE .
A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK
PAGE
209
216
222
229
236
243
249
254
261
267
274
281
286
293
298
305
311
317
324
330
338
344
351
358
364
371
378
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
London's Drapers : —
A Work Room 209
A Packing Room 210
At Dinner on a Big Sale Day 211
Left Outside 212
A Cash Desk . . 212
A Postal Order Room 213
A Sale Day at Peter Robinson's 214
HOUSK-HUNTING LONDON :—
A Well-Known Establishment in St. James's Street . 216
Shown into the Drawing-Room 217
An Inspection by the Dog 218
Let as Fast as Built 219
A Choice of Agents 220
Moving In 221
Music- Hall London: —
Ready to Pass in (" Wonderland ") 223
Waiting to Go on at a Music-Hall 223
Beneath the Arena (Hippodrome) 224
Types of Music- Hall Performers 225
Performing Dogs 226
At the Corner of York Road 227
Before the Doors Open (London Pavilion) . , . 228
Hooligan London :—
Attacked by Two 229
Pitch and Toss 230
Hooligan Weapons 231
Hooligan v. Hooligan . . 233
Sandbagging in the Fog 234
A Street Group 235
Hotel London : —
Manager Receiving Guests (Hotel Victoria) . . . 236
Page 236
Arrival of an Oriental Potentate (Claridge's) . . . 237
Porter 239
The Palm Court (Carlton Hotel) 239
Smoking Room (Grand Hotel) 239
Chambermaid 239
Lift Man . 239
Commercials " Writing up the Mail " (Manchester Hotel) 239
Drawing Room (Hotel Cecil) 240
Dining Room (Oak Salon, Hotel Mdtropole) . . .241
Lounge (Hotel Russell) 242
Thames Pleasures and Sports :—
The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race . . . -243
Doggett's Coat and Badge 243
Excursion Steamers Leaving Fresh Wharf, London
Bridge . . . .... 244
Bathing in the River 244
PACB
Thames Pleasures and Sports (continued) :—
Ready for a Row 3*5
A " Penny Sweat " 245
At Practice 247
■ " Boats to Let " 247
River Steamer 248
Roman Catholic London : —
Leaving the Oratory, South Kensington .... 249
Arrival of a Cardinal at Sardinia Street Chapel . . 250
The Red Mass as Formerly Celebrated at Sardinia Street
Chapel, Lincoln's Inn 251
Unloading a Cart at Nazareth House .... 252
Old Women's Ward, Nazareth House .... 253
London Thrift : —
The National Penny Bank (Hackney Road) . . . 254
School Teachers Receiving Pupils' Pennies . . . 255
Salvation Army Reliance Bank, Queen Victoria Street . 256
Birkbeck Bank 257
Hearts of Oak Certificate 258
F'orester's Certificate 258
A Christmas Eve Distribution of Turkeys, Geese, etc.
(Aldenham Institute) 259
Druid's Certificate . 260
Post Office Savings Bank Stamp F'orm .... 260
London Under the Weather :—
During a Summer Heat Wave 261
On the Kerbstone : Sun Hats 261
High Holborn in a Storm 262
By Torchlight 263
At the Mercy of the Wind 263
Ludgate Circus in a Fog 264
Skating on the Serpentine 263
Scottish, Irish, and Welsh London : —
Playing in the Haggis on St. Andrew's Night . . . 267
London Kymric Ladies' Choir 268
Learning Irish Reels (Athenaeum Hall, Tottenham
Court Road) 269
Irish Guardsmen • . . . 270
Shamrock Seller 270
A London Irish Hurling Match 271
Welsh Paper Published in London 272
Highland Piper and Dancer in London , . 273
Lighting London : —
Laying Electric Cables 274
Lamp-Lighter 274
In the London Electric Supply Corporation's Works . 275
Drawing Retorts by Hand (South Metropolitan Gas
Company) 276
VI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
LiUHTING LOKDCIN ( ccnttnuea J :—
I^mp Cleaner
Haying out a Leaden Cable
Supplying Arc Lamp with Carbon
Lamp Repairing Shop (South Metropolitan Gas Company)
Collecting Pennies from a Slot Meter ....
Taking in Coal at Vauxhall (South Metropolitan Gas
Company)
Sideshow London -.-^
Punch and Judy
A West-Knd Sideshow .... ...
The Lion Jawed Man ......
A RiHe R.in,s;e
A Tattooed Couple at Tea ... ...
A Waxwork Show ..... ...
A Fat Lady
P>AR AND Saloon Lonho.-j : —
Served Through the Window
Inside a Public-House on Saturday Night
The Chandos Bar and Lounge
A City Wine-Bar (The Bodega, Bucklcrsbury)
A Strand Wine-Bar (Short's)
At a " Change " in the East-End
During Prohibited Hours (Whitechapel) : Satisfying the
Landlord ; Waiting to Enter
Outside the " Bull and Bush," Hampstead, on Sunday
Morning
^78
27S
iio
2b'0
2S1
2S2
2«
284
284
285
285
287
288
289
289
290
291
292
Christeni.ng Lxjndon :—
A Christening at a Wcst-End Church
A Nurse : New Styie ....
A Nurse : Old Style . . . .
A Scottish Christening in London
A Batch of Christenings .
A Christening at the Italian Church, Hatton Garden
A Salvation Army " Dedication "
County Council London :—
At the L.C.C. Licensing Sessions (Clerkenwell) ; E.\-
amining a Witness .......
Four Days' Work : Pages from a Member s
Diary
L.C.C. Open Space Notice Board
Fire Brigade Committee Starting on an Inspection .
L C.C. Stonemasons at Work
L C.C. Wharf
A Sitting of the London County Council . . . .
Thk London City Companies:—
Dynamo Class at the City and Guilds Institute (South
Kensington)
Outside a Cell, Bridewell Hospital
Court of the Cutlers' Company : Examining the Work of
their Apprentices . .
An Examination at Apothecaries' Hall ....
The Copyright Registry, Stationers' Hall
A Playing Card Design (Playing Card M.ikers' Com-
pany)
293
294
294
295
295
297
297
299
300
300
301
302
303
304
305
30^)
307
308
309
London Gets Up in the Morning: —
Mary Jane Descends.
The Children Awake
A Late Riser .
Welcome News
Reading the Press Notices
The Bride of the Day
In the Condemned Cell
London's Street Industries : —
Net Making ; " Sweep ! " ; Crumpets ; Sweetstuff
Making ; Flags and Windmills ; Salt ; Bread
Shrimps ; Window-Cleaning ; Watercress ; Fish
Old Hats; Milk; "Scissors to Grind"; Kettle
Holder Making; Saw Sharpening ; Chair Mending
Coals ; Fly Papers ; Woolwork Picture Making
Shoeblack; Old Iron; Step-Cleaning; Green
grocer ; Brushes ; Clock-Mer.der ; Old Sacks
Yule Logs ; Licensed Messenger
317, 318. 319, 320, 321, 32
Bird Land and Pet-Land in London :-
A Pet Python
Feeding Pigeons Outside the Guildhall .
Gulls near the Thames Embankment
Feeding Pigeons in Hyde Park
Feeding Sparrows from his Hand (Hyde Park)
Feeding the Ducks in St. James's Park
A Bird Shop on Wheels ....
In a Bird and Animal Shop (Great
Street)
Caged
Feeding Pet Lemurs ....
A Street Bird Stall
Portland
Scenes from Factory London : —
Matchbox Filling ....
Cream Fondant Moulding Room
A Cigar Manufacturing Department
Marking Soap for Hotels, Clubs, etc.
The Potter at Work ....
Wrapping Infants' Food .
Printing " Living London "
Lunatic London: —
The Bethlem Magazine . . . .
A Christmas Entertainment at St. Luke's
Padded Room in a London Workhouse .
Cricket (Bethlem i
Gardening (St. Luke's) ....
Needlework (Bethlem) . . . .
A CouNT.RY Cousin's Day in Town : —
Preparing Models (Madame Tussaud's) . . , .
The Artists' Room, Pagani's
The Coliseum : From the Stage . . . . .
In the Brasserie, Hotel de I'Europe, Leicester
Square
After a Matinee ... . . . .
The Empire Promen;ide
" Good- Bye " ^ .
323
324
325
32s
325
325
325
326
327
328
328
329
33^
33 1
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
347
347
348
349
35'^
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Servant London :—
In a Registry Office : Servants Seeking Situations . . 351
Maid-ofall-Worlc ijt
Housemaid ......... 351
Outside a Registry Office : Reading the Notices . 352
<^'"b Page . • 352
Club Waiter 352
In a Servants' Hall : At Dinner 353
Coachman 354
Gfoom 354
Footman .... 354
Servants' Fire Brigade at the Hotel Cecil . . . 355
Serva.its' Recreation Room at the Army and Navy Club 356
Lady's Maid Learning Hair Dressing .... 356
Smoking Concert at a Servants' Club (St. Paul's, Knights-
bridge) 357
London's Little Worries :—
The Pestering Acquaintance 358
" Lost Ball " 350
" I will Call for an Answer " 360
"1 11 Shoot that Cat!" -360
Behind the Smokers 361
" My Purse is Gone ! " . . . ... 362
A Whining Appeal . 363
London's Wash-Houses and Baths : —
In a Public Wash-House (Marylebone Road) : Washing 364
Men's Private Baths (Hornsey Road Baths and Wash-
Houses) . . 365
London's Wash-Houses and Baths (coniinued)
In a Public Wash-House (Marshall Street, W.) : Fold
ing and Mangling
Turkish Bath (Jermyn Street) : Shampooing Room
Water Polo Match (Westminster Baths)
Teaching Schoolboys to Swim (Kensington Baths)
Turkish Bath (Jermyn Street) : Cooling Room
Ladies Using the Chute (Bath Club)
Scenes from Official Life in London : —
Awaiting the Arrival of Ministers to Attend a Cabinet
Council
A Reception at the Foreign Office
A Council at Buckingham Palace
A Deputation to the Colonial Secretary ....
After a Naval Disaster : Enquiries at the Admiralty
Presentation of War Medals on the Horse Guards
Parade : Arrival of the King ..,.'.
Saturday Night in London : —
Saturday Night in King Street, Hammersmith .
Braces
Boots and Shoes : Trying on
Saturday Night in Whitechapel Road ....
Inside a Big Provision Stores (Hammersmith) .
China
Outside a Public-House
Selling Meat by Auction
36s
307
367
368
369
370
371
372
374
375
376
377
378
379
379
3»i
382
383
383
384
Tlie IllvstratiojLs are from Drawings by J. H. Baco.v, Gordon Browne, R.I., R.B.A., James Durden, J. S. Eland,
C. H. Finnemore, H. H. Flere, Clement Flower, A. H. Fullwood, Professor Maurice Grun, A. P. Garratt,
W. H. HuMPHRis, E. Lander, W. H. Margetson, F. Pegram, H. Piffard, Victor Prout, W. Rainey, R.L,
Edward Read, A. Monro Smith, Isaac Snowman, Allen Stewart, W. R. S. Stott, L. Campbell Taylor,
H. E. Tidmarsh, F. H. Townsend, C. D. Ward, Enoch Ward, R.B.A. ; and from Photographs, nearly alt
of which were specially taken for this work, by Messrs. Cassell and Company, Limited.
LIST OF REMBRANDT PLATES.
The General Post Office Frontispiece
The Hotel Cecil To face p. 238
The Roman Catholic Cathedral, Westminster ... „ 249
The India Office „ 376
209
A WORK ROOM.
LONDON'S DRAPERS.
By MRS. BELLOC- LOWNDES.
LONDON has long been, in the business
sense of the word, the market of the
world ; but only comparatively lately
have been established, especially in the West-
End, the well-known emporiums which now
cater successfully not only for Londoners,
but for those American and Continental
visitors who formerly took the whole of their
dress custom to Paris.
A volume might well be written concerning
life at the draper's ; the more so, that not
content with what was originally their
mainstay — namely, drapery, millinery, dress-
making, and underclothing departments —
many now join to these separate sections, where
every household want is satisfied, from the
morning tea and milk to the costly fruit and
liqueurs required for a Lucullian banquet.
The time may come when no drapery
business will be able to live without these
adjuncts ; but there are still many prosperous
establishments which, like their French rivals,
deal almost entirely with the art of dress.
Let us content ourselves with, as it were,
75
taking off the roof of one of the half-dozen
busy London hives which cater almost
exclusively for the lady customer. It may
be doubted whether this can be done more
effectively than in tracing the various incidents
connected with the brief existence of one of the
many pretty items, say a hat or toque, dear to
the feminine heart, from the day when it
takes its place in the stockroom of a big
West-End establishment to the moment
when it is finally handed in at its purchaser's
door by one of the army of ^;;///i?y/j belonging
to the distribution service of the emporium
in question.
Paris is still supposed to hold the sceptre
where feminine dress is concerned : accord-
ingly, the managers of each great London
drapery business have to make a point of
being in constant communication with the
gay city, and their buj'ers — many of whom
are paid salaries averaging from six to twenty
guineas a week — are always on the look-out
for new ideas, and huge prices are paid
without a murmur for really original model
2IO
LIVING LONDON.
A PACKING ROOM.
gowns, model hats, and even model under-
clothing.
"What," the reader will ask, "has this
to do with the progress of any special article
from the workroom to the customer's hat-
box ? " Everything ; for the hat or toque
in question owes its very existence to the
care exercised by the buyer, whose business
it is to keep himself in touch with the
great Paris millinery houses ; and the piece
of headgear under discussion is almost certain
to be a clever modification of a Paris model,
so arranged by the important lady whose
business it is to superintend the millinery
department. It is she who decides of
what materials the hat or toque is to be
made, and what price is to be asked for it.
At the London draper's each day, properly
speaking, begins at 8.30, but as early as 7
o'clock the young men assistants, known
to the trade as " squadders," have started
work, cleaning, dusting, and finally un-
packing the goods which are to be shown
and offered for .sale that day. The young
ladies, who, in some great establishments
I could name, number as many as 250, have
nothing to do with what may be called
"squadder" work, although they dress the
windows of their departments ; and, of course,
the more delicate goods — and this especially
applies to millinery — are taken out of boxes
and from the
tissue paper in
which the}' were
carefully wrapped
up the night be-
fore, to display
them to the best
advantage. It
may be assumed
that particular
care is bestowed
on those windows
where the newest
millinery is dis-
pla)-ed, as so
much depends,
when headgear is
concerned, on a
first impression.
In most good
houses every
article for sale is
marked in plain figures, and there is a
" marking-off room," where everything is
priced ; but this only applies to goods that
are not made by the firm. Before a hat or
toque, for instance, has left the workrooms
it is marked by the head of the department,
for she alone can know what it has cost and
what the profit should be. It may interest
some of those ladies who spend much of
their time " at the draper's " to learn that
the best and newest goods, especially those
copied from the more recent Paris models,
are always at once put in the window. It
is there that they are first seen by the
public.
The best-looking young lady assistants
are generally to be found in the millinery
department ; for human nature being what
it is, many a middle-aged plain customer will
the more willingly invest in a hat when she has
seen it gracefully poised above the pretty
face of the young lady who has been told
off to attend to her wants. Once the piece
of headgear has been chosen, the delicate
matter of payment comes. If the customer
has an account, and is known to the as-
sistant, the amount of her purchase is
simply debited to her ; if, on the other hand,
she is a casual purchaser, she is, of course,
asked to pay ready cash, but it is also open
to her to pay on delivery.
LONDON'S DRAPERS.
211
The question of payment satisfactorily
settled, the hat or toque is packed by the
vendor, and sent down to the despatch-room,
where — and this is rather a curious fact —
the parcel is opened, to see if everything is
all right, by one of the many porters and
packers whose duty it is to finally do up the
hat-box and place it in the delivery cart.
Few ladies seem to care to begin their
shopping before 1 1 o'clock, but by midday
business is in full swing, and the outside
porters are busily minding the pet dogs which,
by a wise rule, are not allowed to accompany
their mistresses through the great glass doors
which admit them to the modern woman's
El Dorado.
The busiest times of the day are from 1 2 to
I o'clock and from 3 to 5 o'clock ; but time
has to be found for dinner, and the shop as-
sistants in most great emporiums take their
meals in five parties — half an hour being
allowed for dinner and twenty minutes for
tea. The mid-day meal consists of an ample
supply of well-cooked food — hot in winter
and generally cold in summer, everything
being done to vary the diet and to make it
palatable.
Time was when much of the drapery
business consisted of unmade-up goods.
Ladies preferred to buy their materials, and
have them made up either at home or by
their own dressmakers. Now, however, the
large.st and most profitable side of the
drapery business is the sale of made-up
goods. Customers will .sometimes arrive in
the middle of the morning and ask to be
shown a gown that they can wear the same
evening ! Accordingly, an important side
of the business is that of altering bodices and
skirts to fit the buyer's figure ; and the
workroom, though never seen by the public, is
a very busy department of a modern drapery
business.
The half-yearly sales, which play so promi-
nent a part in the lives of those connected with
great drapery businesses, and also, it may be
added, in that of some of their customers,
who are always looking forward to " sale
time," take place soon after Christmas and
about Midsummer. During the days of
the sale everything in a really good shop
is, as a rule, " marked down," especially every-
thing in the shape of a made-up garment, for
these must be cleared off at an " alarming
sacrifice " if need be ; and amazing bargains
may be secured in the millinery departments,
for the simple reason that a winter or sum-
mer piece of headgear, if it be put away for
212
LIVING LONDON.
LEFT OUTSIDE.
twelve months, always acquires a worn
look.
The preparation for a season's sale goes
on for many days previous to the date
advertised, for, as we have said, in respectable
establishments all the articles offered during
the days of a sale are " marked down " — that
is, their price is lowered — and this means an
extraordinary amount of careful work and
thought for all those concerned. On the days
of a sale, especially when some attractive "line"
is offered at what seems to the average
shrewd customer an exceptionally low price,
it is quite usual for a large crowd of ladies,
each and all eager for the fray, to gather out-
side the large plate-glass doors some half an
hour before they are actually opened ; and the
scene, when the magic hour of nine is struck,
recalls nothing so much — if one may credit
the remark made by a certain stalwart soldier
who had been through more than one cam-
paign— as that of a town being taken by as-
sault ! Once the establishment is full the doors
are again shut, and impatient customers are
often kept waiting half an hour before they
also are allowed to join the eager throng.
The more popular " lines," especially cheap
footgear — .shoes, for instance, at a shilling a
pair — and very cheap gloves, are cleared out
in the first hour. But there still remains
plenty to satisfy the bargain hunter, the more
so that, as the day goes on, fresh supplies are
brought out ; and the woman who is aware
of such simple facts as that light silks cannot
be stored for any length of time without
becoming spotted, or that a ver)- showy
Paris model will generally be "marked down "
to a third of its value, can often pick up, at
any period of a genuine sale, articles for
which she would have to pay at least fifty per
cent, more under ordinary circumstances.
During the sales weeks of the year the
assistants have scarcely time to breathe, and
the pleasant room which the managers of
most leading emporiums provide as a resting-
place for their " young ladies " is practically
deserted, the latter finding it as much as they
can do to get their meals within an hour of
the proper time.
Strangely enough, the employes of a drapery
emporium rather like sale times, and it may
be hinted that those shop assistants with
any sense of humour thoroughly enjoy the
experience, for all that is eccentric and
peculiar in London femininity is there seen
to most advantage. Again, the lady customer
attending a sale is generally far less hard to
A CASH DESK.
LONDON'S DRAPERS.
213
please than she is on ordinary days ; the
delightful thought that she is acquiring a
series of bargains — even if the articles pur-
chased by her will never be of the slightest
use to either herself or her family — filling her
with unwonted self-satisfaction. Many more
sensible people, however, wait patiently for
sale time and deliberately buy with a view
to what is to fill their wardrobe the following
year; yet it is, from the manager's point of
secure their bargains at once. One type of
customer whom the experienced saleswoman
can detect almost at a glance is she who
orders a great number of things to be paid
for " on delivery," and who then instructs her
parlourmaid or butler to refuse the parcels
when they arrive the same evening or the
next morning.
The shop-walker, that elegantly dressed
individual who seems to the casual observei
A POSTAL ORDER ROOM.
view, surprising to note how often a customer
who has a chance of securing a real bargain
in silk or fur will pass it by, and perhaps
spend just as many pounds in purchasing
cheap articles of wearing apparel — gloves,
veils, and last, not least, blouses — which have
only been " marked down " a few pence, or,
in the case of a blouse, a couple of shillings.
Although a considerable strain is put on
the parcels department, generally situated,
by the way, under the showrooms, it is
remarkable how many ladies, when attending
a sale, are content to take away their pur-
chases, even if the latter be great in
bulk. They seem to think that they must
to have so little to do, and yet who is con-
sidered so important a member of his
staff by the managers of each emporium,
finds his duties greatly lessened on the
days of a sale. It is at ordinary times,
when business is more or less slack,
that the shop-walker who knows his business
shows to advantage. It is he who then
indicates to the hesitating customer where
she may hope to find exactly what she is
seeking, or, better still, where she may be
persuaded to purchase some article of which
she is not in any sense in want.
It has often been asserted that women
cannot be taught the business side of life.
LONDON'S DRAPERS.
215
The best answer to this charge is that in
the great drapery establishments the cash
desk is almost always occupied by a girl
clerk, who does her work well and civilly.
An important and profitable branch of
the work performed each day concerns what
may be called the shopping by post depart-
ment. This is carried on in the Postal Order
Room. Many country cousins have an
account at a London shop, and all such
important customers must be answered by
return, and their wants, if it be in any way
humanly possible, supplied.
On one side of life at the draper's it
is not quite easy to touch, yet it plays a
part of no small importance. Now and
again, under " Police News," appears a para-
graph stating that " Mrs. or Miss So-and-so,
of such-and-such an address, was charged
with stealing various articles, valued at so
much, from Messrs. , Ltd." Of course,
the world at large never hears of the in-
numerable cases when ladies, detected in
appropriating more or less valuable articles
from the counters and stands, are not taken in
charge, either because they happen to be
connected with old and valued customers,
or, more often still, because it is extremely
difficult to actually catch such persons in
the act.
One method, often pursued by an intelli-
gent and well-dressed shop-lifter, is to actually
purchase and pay for, say, a pair of gloves, or
a piece of real lace, and, while the shopwoman
is obtaining change, or even when she is only
making out the bill, the thief manages to
pull over the counter several other pairs of
gloves or pieces of lace, and then, stooping
•down, stuffs them into her hand-bag, which
has been previously placed on the ground
in readiness for the operation.
The true kleptomaniac, as differentiated
from the ordinary thief, not content with
taking a number of valuable articles from
■one counter, will go through the whole shop
annexing pieces of dress material, rolls of
silk, half-a-dozen pairs of stockings, veils,
and even such articles as pairs of boots and
shoes, not one of which will fit her ! This
type is far more easily detected and punished
than her wiser and more artful sister who
contents herself with only stealing articles
from one counter, and who choo.ses pieces
of valuable real lace, or lengths of beautiful
embroidery, in preference to heavier or more
cumbersome articles.
In connection with each emporium is a
regular detective service, and during a big
sale twelve to twenty detectives are present
in the shop. At these times every drapery
business loses, in spite of the vigilance on
the part of the detectives, a great deal of
real value, mostly in fur and lace.
It is difficult to over-estimate the responsi-
bility borne during sale days by these
detectives. Much is left to their discretion
and tact, for it is not too much to say
that the making on their part of a " mistake "
— that is to say, the arresting of an innocent
person — would do the establishment with
which they are connected incalculable harm.
So true is this, that often when a detective
sees a lady walking off with, say, a valuable
piece of lace, unless he has reason to suppose
that the lady in question is really a pro-
fessional thief, he simply follows her to the
door, and, taking the article, which still bears
the ticket on it, from her hand or from under
her cloak, remarks suavely, " Excuse me,
madam ; I will have this sent home for you."
As a rule, the thief quickly disappears in
the crowd, but if she is a hardened klepto-
maniac she may reappear the very next day.
Once the day's work is over — that is, once
the doors are closed — the young lady employees
have the whole evening to play in or to work
for themselves ; they also have Saturday
afternoons from two o'clock. They are not,
however, allowed to go out from Saturday
to Monday unless they can show a letter
from their parents authorising them to do
so, and stating where they are going.
Those young ladies who remain in have
pleasant sitting-rooms in which to spend
their time, and plenty of books and games ;
while the young men have various forms
of indoor amusements, including billiards,
and on fine Saturday afternoons can enjoy the
national games of cricket and football, large
pieces of land near London having been
secured for that purpose by several of the
leading drapery firms.
2l6
A WELL-KNOWN ESTABLISHMENT IN ST. JAMES'S STREET.
HOISE-HINTING LONDON.
By GEORGE R. SIMS.
EVERY day in the year a certain number
of people are consulting agents, or
referring to the advertising columns of
the newspapers, or driving or walking round
the residential portions of London in search
of a roof for their heads. The bulk of them
are people who are already householders, but
who wish to change their addresses. Some-
times the change is due to prosperity, some-
times to adversity, frequently to the increased
accommodation required by the growing up
of little boys and girls. In some cases, in
fact in many cases, it is the mere desire for
change. But we have not, fortunately, to
concern ourselves with motives — our task is
the lighter one of accompanying the Lon-
doner in that series of adventurous expeditions
commonly known as " house-hunting."
For the wealthier class there are West-End
firms who undertake the whole business.
These firms have always in their hands the
letting of a certain number of first-class resi-
dences in the localities favoured by rank and
fashion. The fashionable hou.se-hunter can-
not go very far afield in search of his new
address. Society has certain quarters in
which it keeps itself " to itself " as much as
possible in these days of the millionaire,
native and imported ; therefore the fashion-
able house-hunter is confined to one of the
aristocratic squares or streets of the West
or South-West. These houses are not gener-
ally advertised, nor do they display as a rule
the notice boards which allow the passer-by
to know that they are to be let. They are
placed in the hands of a firm whose speciality
it is to deal in " town mansions." The
people who desire such a property send to
such a firm and request it to find them a
residence. The firm indicates the residences
on their books, and the rest is merely a
matter for the solicitors of the two parties
to the transaction. When the purchase or
the leasing is completed the world is in-
formed in the " Society " columns of the daily
papers that Lord This or Lady That has
taken Number So-and-so, Berkeley, or
Cavendish, or Portman, or Eaton, or Grosvenor
Square, or Park Lane, as the case may be.
Occasionally photographs are taken of resi-
HOUSE-HUNTING LONDON.
217
dential properties of the first class and may be
seen in the front windows of, let us say, Messrs.
E. and H. Lumley, in St. James's Street. The
higher-class house furnishers are also house
agents, and have generally on hand a number
of photographs, thus enabling their clients to
see what a house looks like without the
trouble of going to it. If the photograph
makes a good impression,
personal inspection follows ;
but in some cases houses,
principally furnished houses
let for the season or a limited
period, are taken for clients
abroad who see their new
home for the first time when
they drive to it from the
railway station.
But for the great body
of house-hunters, the ordin-
ary family folk who have
many things to consider
before their address is altered
in the Post Office Directory,
the process of house-hunting
is at once more absorbing,
more anxious, and more
fatiguing.
The time has come when
Mr. and Mrs. Horace Brown
feel that their present house
is not large enough for them.
They started housekeeping
two in family, with a couple
of servants ; now they are
five in family, and they have
three servants. Mr. Brown
is in the City, and a busy
man. He hates the idea of
moving, but his wife has dinned into his ears
morning, noon, and night that it is quite
impossible they can stay where they are any
longer, and has at last induced him to consent
to the taking of a more desirable residence.
But he absolutely refuses to take any part
in the preliminary search ; he has his business
to attend to. Once or twice on a Sunday he
has been cajoled into taking a drive round
the suburban district which Mrs. Brown
" fancies " in order to look at the houses which
are exhibiting boards ; but none of them have
seemed quite the thing, and he has declined
to make any further sacrifice of his Sunday's
76
rest to the contemplation of house agents'
boards stuck up in front gardens ; though
these boards, as will be .seen in our photo-
graphic illustration, " A Choice of Agents,"
sometimes make a brave show and furnish
quite a large amount of reading.
So Mrs. Brown has to go hunting alone.
Her instructions are to find the place
SHOWN INTO THE DRAWING-ROO.M.
that will suit, and then Mr. Brown will try
to get away from the City for an hour or
two to look at it. It is an anxious time
for poor Mrs. Brown. She reads the ad-
vertisements in the papers, she calls at house
agents', she gets their lists, day after day she
hurries off hither and thither to look at this
desirable residence and that eligible villa; but
there is always a " something." At one house
which she would have liked very much there
are an absurd number of fixtures to be taken ;
another, which is all that could be desired in
the way of accommodation, is next door to a
church with a powerful peal of bells. In
2l8
LIVING LONDON.
A\ INSl'ECTION BY THE DOG.
another she discovers that the drainage is not
above suspicion ; in }'et another that a rail-
way runs at the bottom of the garden, and
that every ten minutes the " desirable resi-
dence " rocks with all the premonitory symp-
toms of an earthquake.
She goes back to the house agent and
enters into fresh explanations, and he sup-
plies her with a list of six houses, each of
which he thinks will exactly suit her require-
ments. This time she insists on her husband
accompanying her. She is most anxious to
settle ; she wants his moral support in assist-
ing her to a decision. Mr. Brown is grump)',
but eventually con.sents to sacrifice an
afternoon, and they set out together.
The first hou.se is empty, and in charge
of a caretaker. The caretaker is a woman
with two children and a husband. The
husband is out of work, and at home ; he is
smoking a pipe, and has it in his mouth when
he opens the door. Mrs. Brown
boldly attacks the situation. She
has come to see the house, and
hands the man the agent's order
to view. The man scowls, goes to
the top of the stairs, and calls out,
" 'Lizer — somebody to see the
'ouse."
'Lizer appears, wiping her hands
on her apron, takes the card
gingerly, and flings open the dining-
room door \\ithout a word. Mr. and
Mrs. Brown look at the dining-
room, exchange a few remarks in
a low \'oice — nobody ever talks
loudly while viewing an empty
house, for there is always a sense of
restraint in the process — and come
out into the hall. 'Lizer flings open
the door on the other side, and says,
"Drorin' room." While Mr. and Mrs.
Brown are looking at the drawing-
room and mentally measuring it a
baby begins to cry in the basement,
and 'Lizer goes to the top of the
stairs and shouts down some do-
mestic instructions to her husband.
When Mr. and Mrs. Brown come
out of the drawing-room 'Lizer con-
ducts them upstairs. She walks
much after the manner of a clergy-
man preceding a coffin to the grave-
side. She flings open the bedroom doors
one after the other. Presently she gathers
from the remarks of the visitors that the
house is likely to suit them, and instantly
her manner changes. She becomes more
friendly, she volunteers little communications
as to the length of time the house has been
empty, she thinks that the reason no one
has taken it is that it is damp. She even
confesses that she and her husband have
suffered from rheumatism a good deal since
they have lived in it. She doesn't quite
volunteer this information, she allows it to
be dragged from her as it were. Mr. Brown
is impressed with her candour ; Mrs. Brown
is grateful. When the inspection is com-
pleted 'Lizer is presented with a couple of
shillings. " Thank goodness that woman
was honest," says Mr. Brown when he gets
outside ; " I shall save doctors' bills for the
next seven years ; for I liked the house."
HOUSE-HUNTING LONDON.
219
Inside, 'Lizer joins her husband in the
kitchen. " They looked like taking it," she
says; "but I told 'em it was terrible damp,
and that settled 'em." The man heaves a
sigh of relief. To have had to turn out
just now would have been decidedly incon-
venient.
The next house visited by the Browns is
occupied. The family are still in it. The
housemaid, who opens the door, looks at the
card and says, " Oh, to see the house ! " and
vanishes, leaving the visitors standing in the
outer hall.
When she returns she says, " This way,
please," and opens a door. Mr. and Mrs.
Brown are about to enter when they discover
that members of the family are there. The
members of the family try to look agreeable,
but glare. Mr. and Mrs. Brown remain on
the threshold and just peer in. " Thank you,
that will do," says Mrs. Brown. The same
process is repeated in the next room, where a
young lady is practising at the piano. " I —
er — think you'd better go and see the bed-
rooms," says Mr. Brown somewhat nervously
to his better half; " I'll stay here." And he
remains patiently in the hall, like a
man who has brought a parcel from the
draper's and is waiting for the money. The
dog of the family suddenly appears and eyes
him suspiciously. Mr. Brown feels rather
nervous, especially as the dog approaches
to make a closer scrutiny of his legs. For the
first time in his life Mr. Brown is sorry he has
never kept a dog ; he has always understood
that if you keep a dog strange dogs discover
it quickly, and become friendly. Just as he
is wondering whether it would not be wise
to call for a member of the family, in order
that it may be explained to the animal that
he is not there with dishonest intentions, a
young gentleman makes his appearance, and,
hurriedly seizing the dog by the collar, drags
him away and pushes him through the swing
door at the top of the kitchen stairs. " Keep
Bill downstairs," he calls out ; " some people
are looking over the house." Then he turns
to Mr. Brown half apologetically. " 'Bliged
to be careful with him," he says ; " he bit the
washing man yesterday."
Presently Mrs. Brown comes downstairs,
looking hot and flurried. " Do you want to
go into the kitchen ? " says the housemaid.
"No — I- — er — think not," Mrs. Brown
stammers. Mr. Brown is greatly relieved.
In a few seconds he and his wife are outside.
" Oh, my dear," she says, " I didn't see the
house, I only went into two bedrooms. The
eldest daughter was lying down in one with a
bad headache, and there was an old lady in
the other— the grandmother I think — who
has epileptic fits. She was in one then,
and, of course, I said I wouldn't disturb her."
" And I've nearly been bitten by a savage
dog," exclaims Mr. Brown. " No more house-
hunting for me ! "
LET AS FAST AS BUILT.
220
LIVING LONDON.
with STABLINC«over
SacresofGARDENjMEADOWS
' . = TO BE LET
>,^ua>Aiw>Ad<^54B0IXXJCH,,t5ZO<ANCERYUNE;
-'^•}'J'r^.^::!r"!iyii>tI)iiyiiw/u/i„ii,l;i^,.,„niMiir...
A CHOICE OF AGENTS.
But the afternoon is still young, and a
house must be found, so at last he is pacified,
and calls with his wife at the next address.
Here everything is satisfactory. The house
is admirably adapted for their requirements ;
it is sunny, it is dry, there is an excellent
garden, a good view from the windows, and
the caretaker says there are two " parties "
after it. Mr. Brown says, " Ah ! this will do ;
we'll go to the agent's at once, and see about
the fixtures, and settle." The agent is at the
West-End. They take a hansom and drive
to his place of business at once. On the way
they discuss the rooms. Mr. Brown selects
one for a smoking-room, Mrs. Brown decides
on one with a sunny outlook for her boudoir.
In two of the rooms the old carpets will fit,
which is a great blessing. They arrive at the
agent's, and inform the clerk that they will
take Laburnum Villa. The clerk goes into
the private office, and returns quickly. " Mr.
is very sorry, sir, but he has just had
a telegram to say a gentleman who looked
over the house yesterday, and had the refusal
till to-day, has wired to say he will take it."
What Mr. Brown says does not matter.
Mrs. Brown feels inclined to cry. It is so
annoying ; and it is getting late. Instead of
seeing any more houses, the Browns go home,
and the evening repast is a gloomy one. Mr.
Brown is " sick of the whole business." He
talks wildly about staying where they are —
they will have the children's beds moved into
Mrs. Brown's room, and he will sleep in the
coal cellar.
But with the morning comes reason, and
more house-hunting. Eventually the Browns
succeed in securing a house after their own
hearts, and, after paying for about forty
pounds' worth of fixtures which are of no
earthly use to them, they move in. And
once in Mr. Brown declares that he won't
move out or go house-hunting again as long
as he lives.
Flats, with all their advantages, do not
always retain their charm for Londoners.
There is a great difficulty in getting good
servants, for Mary Jane looks upon life on the
third or fourth floor of a huge block of build-
ings as too far removed from the world below.
In many flats the kitchen and the servants'
rooms look out on back streets or back
gardens, and so the servant difficulty forces
many a flat family into house-hunting. Then
comes the difficulty that the furniture of a
flat does not always suit houses which are
differently arranged, and generally much more
spacious in their room measurement. The
flat house-hunter therefore hunts generally
for a house which can be fitted and furnished
with the flat " belongings," and makes many
anxious inquiries as to rates and taxes, which
were covered by the flat rent. The flat people
invariably want more garden than anyone
HOUSE-HUNTING LONDON.
221
else, because they have been without a garden
for so long ; and, having had the use of a lift,
they look at stairs with a critical eye. To
find a house that will satisfy the family
moving from a flat is one of the house agents'
most difficult tasks.
The small house-hunter is perhaps the most
genuine hunter of all. She — it is generally
the wife, for the husband is in employment
and not his own master — covers ten miles in
her search to the better class house-hunter's
one. She has no agent to assist her,
and not only is the rent a great con-
sideration, but she must make sure that
the 'bus or train service is convenient for her
husband's daily journeys to and from his place
of employment. As quarter day approaches
the young wife becomes feverish in her an.xiety.
Notice has been given to her landlord, and
another tenant has been secured. Visions of
her household goods piled on a van with no
address to be given to the driver, and herself
and little ones homeless in the street on a
pouring wet day, haunt her imagination. At
last she is in the condition when she will take
anything. She sees a place that will suit —
though it is not quite what she would have
liked — and she hopes and prays that it will
remain vacant till Saturday, for on Saturday
afternoon her husband can go and see it. If
he says it will do, her principal terror is
removed — men's ideas of houses differ so
much from women's. At last the house is
taken, and the references given. The refer-
ences are a worry to many men who have no
banker. It is a delicate thing to write to
a friend in a good position and .say " Will you
be my reference?" As a rule, in small pro-
perties the last landlord's reference is sufficient.
But many landlords ask for two. The second
reference keeps many an honest man awake
of nights just before quarter day.
The way in which the population of London
drifts and changes, and flits from house to
house and from neighbourhood to neighbour-
hood, is always wonderful, but the most
remarkable feature of the " general post "
which takes place on the great moving days
— Lady Day and Michaelmas Day — is that
all the new villa residences springing up in
every direction around the Metropolis are
snapped up almost before the slates are on
them. Hardly are the windows in before a
large " Let " is whited on them. The old
neighbourhoods are still densely inhabited,
the boards after quarter day are few and far
between ; but in some mysterious way a new
population is continually entering the capital,
and the stream of house-hunters spreads
itself over neighbourhoods that a year
previously were green fields and meadows and
country lanes. A year later they will have
their streets of thriving shops, their pawn-
broker and hotel, their local Bon March^,
their telephone call office, and their local
newspaper.
MOVING IN.
222
MISIC-HALL LONDON.
By H. CHANCE NEWTON.
ONE of the most remarkable developments
in Living London of late years is that
of the modern music-halls — or Theatres
of Varieties, as they are mostly called, except
when the_\' are described as Empires or
Palaces. The variety form of entertainment
now so prevalent is a real boon to those
amusement-seekers who cannot, even if they
would, indulge in playgoing at the so-called
" regular " theatres. Working hours have
for many to be continued until it is too late
to reach home in time to come out again to
the play — especially for those who are only
able to afford unbookable seats.
For these hampered toilers the music-hall
or variety form of entertainment is the only
thing of the show kind available. They can
take or leave the entertainment at any hour
they please — the programme given being, of
course, everything by " turns " and nothing
long. Besides all this — and it is an important
factor — there is the chance of enjoying a
smoke, a luxury prohibited in all theatres
run under the Lord Chamberlain's licence.
The most striking examples of the modern
variety theatres in London are the Empire,
the Alhambra, and the London Hippodrome.
Next to these would undoubtedly rank those
other popular West-End resorts, the Palace
Theatre, the Oxford, the Tivoli, and the
London Pavilion, together with the more
recently established Coliseum and the con-
verted Lyceum Theatre.
The Empire is one of the most beautiful
buildings, as regards its interior, to be found
in the Metropolis. Its entertainment is of a
high class, and its gorgeous ballets and other
e.vtensive and expensive spectacular produc-
tions are patronised not only, in addition to
its large general audience, by our " gilded
youth," but by all sorts of society folk.
The Alhambra — a huge Moorish building
— is, in its status and its style of entertain-
ment, similar to the Empire, with the differ-
ence that it claims — and rightly — precedence
of all neighbouring places of the sort. Indeed,
its own proud description is, "The Premier
Variety Theatre of London." This house
was certainly the first to introduce the big
ballet and spectacular form of entertainment.
For many years a large proportion of visitors
to the Metropolis made the Alhambra their
first variety "house of call." Nowadays,
however, these visitors must perforce take in
the Empire and the other important variety
palaces.
A few steps from these huge halls is the
London Hippodrome, one of the most
remarkable buildings in the great city.
Although so close to the Empire and the
Alhambra, the entertainments and the audi-
ences are of a totally difterent character.
The Hippodrome programme is principally
made up of equestrian, gymnastic, and
menagerie "turns," plus a burletta or pan-
tomime. This last must include at least one
aquatic scene of some sort, in which the
comedians (most of them expert swimmers)
disport on or in the large lake which, by a
wonderful mechanical process, when required,
fills up the circus ring. The Hippodrome's
audiences are not of the lounging"after dinner"
or " round the town " kind, but are in a great
measure formed of family groups, headed by
pater or mater, or both. Indeed, most of
its 'patrons are of the sedate domestic sort.
There is no doubt that the fact of the Hippo-
drome being, like so many of the new large
variety theatres, forbidden a liquor licence,
is in itself (however unfair it may seem) an
attraction for most of those who take their
youngsters to such entertainments. The
Hippodrome — the auditorium of which is
a sight — resembles the Alhambra and the
Empire in one respect, namely that not a few
of its artistes are foreigners, and that many
of its performances are in dumb show. Our
photographic illustration on page 224
depicts a scene beneath the arena of the
Hippodrome. Here are heavy wooden
READY TO PASS IN (" WONDERLAND ").
WAITING TO GO ON AT A MUSIC-HALL.
224
LIVING LONDON.
" properties " about to be con\eyed abo\e,
while " supers " and stage hands are crowded
together in readiness for their particular
duties.
The O.xford, the Tivoli, and the London
Pavilion are likewise sumptuous if somewhat
smaller establishments. At these resorts,
however, comic and " serio " singing, sand-
wiched with short acrobatic, dancing, and
trick cycling " acts," and fifteen or twenty
minutes' sketches, are the rule. The best
Andre Messager'sZrt Basoche, Fortune frowned
upon the enterprise. Ere long Sir Augustus
Harris transformed it into a variety theatre,
with its present name. Its entertainment is
one of the best of its class, not only as regards
its singers and dancers, pantomimists, mimics,
sketch artists, and others of all nations and
denominations, but also its beautiful and
realistic biograph pictures.
At the Coliseum, which has an electric re-
volving stage,fourperformancesare given daily,
BENEATH THE ARENA (HIPPODROME).
available artistes are engaged at these three
houses. Oftentimes the same " stars " appear
on the same evening at the three halls, which
are virtually run by one .syndicate. When a
comic or a " serio " " star " books an engage-
ment with this syndicate, he or she is required
to stipulate by contract not to appear at any
other hall within a radius of so many
miles. This " barring out " clause, as it is
called, has also of late prevailed in connec-
tion with certain of the larger music halls in
suburban I-ondon.
The Palace Theatre, in Shaftesbury Avenue,
is a beautiful building, which was opened
by Mr. D'Oyley Carte as the English Opera
House. In spite of such excellent operatic
works as Sir Arthur Sullivan's Ivanhoe and
the entertainment being principally singing
and dancing ; while the Lyceum, with its two
" houses " a night, resembles what are called
"Empires." In each cheap seats are the rule.
It is no wonder that the old-time stuffy
music-hall has been killed by such places as
the splendid variety houses referred to, to say
nothing of those other large and admirably
conducted halls such as the Royal in Holborn,
the Metropolitan in the Edgware Road, the
Canterbury in the densely crowded Lambeth
district, and the Paragon in the still more
densely crowded Mile End region.
Besides these resorts there have sprung
up several vast " Empires " such as those
respectively at New Cross, Holloway, Strat-
ford, Shepherd's Bush, and Hackney, all
MUSIC-HALL LONDON.
225
under the direction of the wealthy syndicate that runs the London
Hippodrome and a number of "Empires" in the provinces.
If one should desire to get some notion of how the " toiling, moiling
myrmidons " (as Beranger calls them) patronise these new " Empires,"
he has only to watch outside any of them just before the doors are
opened for the first or second " house." For be it
noted that two entire performances are given at
each nightly, and at small prices of admission.
Moreover, the programmes always contain several
highly-paid variety artistes — whether of the comic
singing, acrobatic, canine, or sketch kind. Indeed,
it is not at all unusual to find here a favourite
performer in receipt of at least one hundred pounds
per week ; not to mention this or that leading
serio-comic lady or " Comedy Queen " at a salary
not much lower. Yet, in spite of such
princely salaries, the prices of admission
are small, ranging, say, from two shillings
or eighteenpence in the best parts to
threepence in the gallery.
That these " Empires," " Palaces," and
similar halls are run not only with ex-
cellent programmes but
placed be-
fore them all
sorts of
"turns" be-
sides those
above-men-
tioned, and
also on strictly proper
lines is proved by the fact
that, moderate though the
admission prices may be,
the patrons come from
some of the best parts of
Hampstead, Stoke Newing-
ton, Catford, Blackheath,
Woodford, and
so forth. Here
recreation -
seekers may —
and do — have
TYPES OF MUSIC-HALL
PERFORMEKS.
77
comprising many examples,
such as conjurers, acrobats,
performing elephants, seals,
bears, instrumentalist.s —
comic and otherwise. Often
be found old stagers
or juvenile performers of dramatic
sketches, sometimes made up of boiled-
down plays — even of Hamlet, in a
twenty-minutes' version of that play.
To those amusement-seekers who
may prefer to take their variety enter-
tainment in a rough-and-ready form
there are still such haunts as that
Whitechapel resort fancifully named
"Wonderland." In this big hall are
provided entertainments of the most
extraordinary description. They in-
clude little plays, songs, and sketches, given first in
Yiddish dialect and afterwards translated into more or
less choice English by, as a rule, a Hebraic interpreter.
This interpreter often improves the occasion by calling
the attention of kind — and mostly alien — friends in
front to certain side shows consisting of all sorts of
armless, legless, skeleton, or spotted " freaks " scattered
around the recesses of this great galleryless hall. When once the
" freaks " have been e.xamined, or the " greeners " and other foreign
and East-End " sweated " Jew toilers have utilised the interval to indulge
in a little light refreshment according to their respective tastes, the
Yiddish sketches and songs — comic and otherwise — are resumed until
" closing time."
It is, however, on its Boxing Nights (which in this connection means
226
LIVING LONDON.
Mondays and Saturdays) that "Wonderland"
is to be seen in its most thrilling form.
Then it is indeed difficult either to get in
or to get out. In the first place it is hard
to get in because of the great crowds of
hard - faring — often hard - faced — East - End
worshippers of the fistic art ; several t\-pes
of which are to be seen in our photographic
illustration on page 223. In the second
place, if \'ou do contrive to get in you
PERP'ORMING DOGS.
speedily find yourself so hemmed in by
a .sardine-like packed mob that all egress
seems hopeless.
Several other extremely typical East-End
variety resorts, each of a totally different
kind, are close at hand. One is the huge
Paragon Theatre of Varieties, further east
in the Mile End Road. Another is the
much smaller Cambridge Music-Hail, which
is in Commercial Street, a little way west-
ward from Toynbee Hall. There are also
the Queen's Music-Hall at Poplar, the Royal
Albert at Canning Town, and the Eastern
Empire at Bow.
In spite of its cheap prices and its seeth-
ing audiences, the Paragon entertainment is
exactly on a par with those given in the
Wcst-l'Lnd and South of London Variety
Theatres. Indeed, the entertainment at the
Paragon is mostly identical with that supplied
at the Canterbury, Westminster Bridge Road,
and is under the same s^mdicate. As for the
Canterbury, the better class South London
tradesfolk and toilers go there, excepting, of
course, when they visit the newer and equally
well managed South of London variety shows.
The Cambridge Music - Hall, between
Spitalfields and Shoreditch, deserves a few
special lines. In point of fact, ever since the
time when, years ago, it was converted from
a .s\-nagogue into a music-hall, the Hebrew
residents of the locality have made it a
point of honour to attend the Cambridge.
With them they
often bring not only
their wives, but also
their black-curled,
black - eyed infants,
who may often be
seen toddling calmly
about the stalls —
especially during the
earlier of the two
" houses " per night.
Round the corner
in Shoreditch is the
London Music-Hall,
wherein the stranger
who pays his first
visit will undoubtedly
fancy for the nonce
that he has lost his
way and has by acci-
dent strayed into one of the best West-
End halls.
Further north there are several more or less
large and more or less " classy " variety
houses : for example, the two " houses " per
night resort, the Euston, opposite St. Pancras
Station ; the Bedford, in Camden Town ; the
Islington Empire, which is next door to the
Agricultural Hall ; the old-established music-
hall, Collins's, on Islington Green ; and the
newer Palaces atWalthamstow and Tottenham.
The west-central district and southern
suburbs are also well provided for in a
music-hall sense. Among others, one notes
the old Middlesex, or " Mogul," in Drury
Lane ; the Granville, at Walham Green ;
Empires at Balham and Deptford ; an
Empress at Brixton ; a Royal Standard at
Pimlico ; and a Star at Bermondsey ; and
Palaces at Camberwell, Chelsea, the London
Road (Southwark), and Croydon. To add
to the number, the old Surrey Theatre is
now run on music-hall lines. Besides these
MUSIC-HALL LONDON.
227
may be mentioned Gatti's in Westminster
Bridge Road, a Grand at Clapham Junction,
and a Palace at Hammersmith.
Like the halls themselves, the agents who
supply the managers with artistes at so
much per cent, commission on the salaries
have, too, not only much improved in
character, but have in many cases migrated
from their former dingy haunts in the York
Road, Lambeth, to more commodious — not
to say palatial — offices in or around the
Strand, the Haymarket, and elsewhere.
Some few of them, however, still have their
offices near a well-known tavern at a corner
of York Road ; and at certain hours a large
number of minor music-hall entertainers and
Nowadays the music-hail ranks include large
numbers of the worthiest of citizens. And,
what is still better, they have combined
together of late years to organise several
protective associations, such as the Variety
Club and the Music - Hall Railway Rates
Association, as well as to found some excel-
lent charities for benefiting their brethren out
of health — or out of work — and to provide
for the widows and orphans of comrades
who have fallen by the way.
The chief of these charities is the Music-
AT THE CORNER OK YORK ROAD.
their agents may — as shown in the above
illustration — still be seen congregating near
this old-established hostelry.
Music-hall "artistes" (as they love to call
themselves) have also vastly improved. Not
many years ago these were mostly shiftless
and thriftless from the "stars" downward.
Hall Benevolent Fund, a very fine organisa-
tion, the committee of which consists of many
of the most important and most honourable
men to be found in any department of
life. From time to time the smaller associa-
tions assist their parent fund, or the Music-
Hall Home for the Sick and Aged, by
:28
LIVING LONDON.
arranging matinees or sports. In the case
of the Music-Hail Railway Rates Associa-
tion all the surplus of the money subscribed
thereto for the purposes of getting the fares
reduced for travelling " artistes " is handed
over to one or other of the aforesaid charities.
And though the members of the smaller
music-hall societies delight to call themselves
by such names as " Water Rats," " Terriers,"
and " J's," and to dress themselves as ostriches,
savages, cowboys. Red Indians, and so on
at their annual sports, or to disport as comic
cricketers in all sorts of extraordinary cos-
tumes— what does it matter, seeing that they
do it all for charit)''s sake ? Thus, by draw-
ing vast crowds of the general public, they add
substantially to the funds of their excellent
charities.
As will be seen from the photographic
illustration on page 223, the " behind the
scenes" life of Music-Hail London is not
without its humours. In " Waiting to Go
On " we have, indeed, a motley throng of
variety " turns." These include a famous
" serio " in Early Victorian " dandy " cos-
tume ; a popular " comic " in the usual
battered hat and ill-fitting clothes which
such comedians always adopt ; a celebrated
conjurer, a couple of clever " descriptive "
singers, a noted strong man, and several
others. This " Waiting to Go On " repre-
sents, of course, quite a different state of
things from the arrangements in a regular
theatre, where every entrance and exit is
fixed, and where the players have to report
themselves, as a rule, some time before the
curtain rises. Music-hall entertainers must,
if they wish to earn a remunerative amount
per week, do three or four " turns " a night ;
and in order to travel from hall to hall, a
brougham — or, in the case of a troupe, a
private omnibus — has to be provided.
When they arrive they are naturally in a
hurry to get their work over, and are apt
to get in each other's way, either in the
dressing-room or at the wings. As most
music-hall entertainers start from home
already " made up," and even sometimes
" change " in their vehicles en route, it does
not take them long to be ready for their
respective " turns " ; and their punctuality is
remarkable.
To sum up, it may in common fairness be
said that without its Palaces of Variety and
its Music-Halls Living London would only be
half alive.
BEFORE THE DOORS OPEN
(LONDON PAVILION).
229
ATTACKED BY T«0.
HOOLIGAN LONDON.
By CLARENCE ROOK.
IF you will take a walk — it will be a pretty-
long one — round the inner circle of
London, and keep your eyes open, you
will see many interesting things. And, if
your eyes are open for human character
rather than for buildings or historical
associations, there is one type that will
probably remain as a lasting impression.
Start from the Elephant and Castle, and
work westward through Lambeth, cross the
river to Chelsea, fetch Netting Hill in the
circuit round by the Euston Road and
Pentonville, and then take Bethnal Green
on your way down to the Commercial Road,
and back again across the Tower Bridge for
a glance at the Old Kent Road and Wal-
worth and the Borough.
Whatever else you fail to notice on
that walk, you will scarcely fail to notice
this : the persistence of a particular type
of boy. He is somewhere between fourteen
and nineteen years of age, but he is under-
sized and underfed. You will find him
selling newspapers, or sitting on the tail of
a van, or loafing among the cabs at a stand ;
you will find him playing pitch-and-toss,
with a sentry on the look out for prying
policemen, on any convenient bit of waste
ground ; or you may spy him at a game of
cards — more especially on Sunday — on a
deserted barge in the Pool. But you will
not find him among the crowds that come
at twelve and six o'clock out of the factories,
or filter at odd hours from the big printing
establishments. The boy of this special type
which 3'ou cannot fail to notice has no fixed
purpose or permanent employment, and he
shows it in his face. He has found no place
in the orderly evolution of society. He is
a member of his Majesty's Opposition — the
permanent Opposition to law and order
which every big city develops.
Before you cross the river again on your
return journey, look a little closer. It is
Saturday night, when half London is at
leisure, and the other half ministering to its
demand for " bread and games." The man
who keeps the big cofiee-stall near the end
of the bridge is making ready for his
customers ; and the policeman who stands
230
LIVING LONDON.
hard by stamps his feet to keep them warm.
He is not permitted to take a walk, for it
is his business to see that the disorder about
the coffee-stall does not pass reasonable
limits. But things are quiet enough at
present, and the man in a reefer jacket,
shoulders slightly hunched and elbows close
to the side, which marks the London street
boy. The policeman at the coffee-stall looks
knowingly at them as they pass. He knows
well enough that the belt which this boy is
carefully tightening serves other purposes
PITCH AND TOSS.
bowler hat, and thick boots, who ostentatiously
ignores the policeman, is quite conspicuously
a plain clothes constable. Now and then,
among the strollers and the women returning
from market, there passes along a boy —
sometimes two or three together — walking
swiftly and with evident purpose. They
are not nicely dressed ; though the night
is cold there is not an overcoat among
them ; but their jackets are buttoned tight,
neckcloths supply the place of collars, and
they walk with the curious light tread,
than that of dress ; he knows that the
unusual stiffness of that boy's arm is
probably due to the presence of an iron
bar up the sleeve. But there is no law
which compels the wearing of braces instead
of belts, and the policeman, from experience
of his own, deduces the task which lies before
some of his colleagues across the river.
On the other side of the bridge these
furtive figures scatter through the streets to
left and right ; for they are moving to an
attack on Pentonville, all directed by one
HOOLIGAN LONDON.
231
WAISTBELT.
mastermind. These a broken whip.
are the boys from
the Borough who
have developed a
feud with the boys
of Pentonville, and
their leader, a lad
of seventeen, with a
chopper in his breast pocket and some notion
of tactics in his head, has foreseen the
position of the enemy and designs
to place him between two fires. A
quarter of an hour later the move-
ment has been developed. The
Pentonville boys have been caught
in one of those little streets off the
Goswell Road. Belts are off, and
the buckles swinging ; sleeves lose
their stiffening of iron ; here and
there a fortunate boy has a cheap
pistol, which startles quiet citizens
and occasionally kills them. The
fighting is independent of the Geneva
Convention ; there are no rules, only
a general desire, born of the instinct
of self-preservation, to get at once
to close quarters, for fist and muscle
are less deadly than buckle and bar
and pistol. Then come the police —
if there are enough within earshot.
But that is generally after the fight
is decided, and only the wounded
appear next morning at the police-
court and give texts for letters to
the papers. The rest scatter and run, to
gather again at the river. And if you are
at the aforesaid coffee-stall at one in the
morning you may see and hear the whoop-
ing victors wheeling back the disabled leader
on a barrow — doubtless borrowed.
That is a typical instance of the feuds
which rage between the street boys of the
various London districts. In this case the
cause of war was the oldest in the world,
a Borough Helen abstracted by a Pentonville
Paris. But these m.ysterious feuds exist, and
are fought out, between many London
districts, and there are times when a Lisson
g
n.
III.
I, CRUCIFIX. II. A
KIND OF DAGGER.
III. LOADED STICK.
Grove boy would go east of Tottenham
Court Road at his peril. All round London
these gangs are ready for provocation. The
organisation is loose, and depends mainly
on some masterful spirit of lawlessness in
direct succession to the original Patrick
Hooligan, of Lambeth. But whether at
Bethnal Green or Wandsworth, Pentonville
or Fulham, so soon as the King of Misrule
arises the ground of quarrel is assured.
Sometimes the leader of a gang develops
qualities of organisation and command which
inspire respect among the police, who know
quite well that the Hooligan is always on
the verge of crime, and often topples over.
Such was the head of a gang which
terrorised Lambeth. He was only
about seventeen years of age, but he
had had a thoroughly good criminal
education, and, while he had effected
a burglary or two, picked up his
living mainly by petty thieving. But
he had acquired a remarkable in-
fluence over the boys of Lambeth.
He made it a point of honour for
every boy who aspired to member-
ship of his gang to show a shattered
window, a smashed door, or a broken
head — the broken head opened the
way, as it were, to a commission in
the gang. He had no settled resi-
dence ; that were unadvisable ; but
the boys knew where to find him
and ask for their orders for the day.
And he collected about him as enter-
prising and capable a horde of young
ruffians as you could wish to avoid
on a winter's evening.
For this lawlessness inevitably leads
to crime. Street fighting is fun ; but why
should not the lessons it teaches be turned
to profit ? I-'rom
cracking heads for
love to bashing
" toffs " for gain is a
short step, and the
boy who has served
his apprenticeship in
a gang — such as that
WAISTBELT.
LOADED STICK.
HOOLIGAN WEAPONS.
232
LIVING LONDON.
of Lambeth — is quite willing and able to
commit an unprovoked assault on another's
enemy for half-a-crown down and another
half-a-crown when the job is done. And we
often read the result in the " police intelli-
gence" without a thought of the power of
the capitalist who has five shillings and an
enemy. Nor is the step from street fighting
to highway robbery much longer. Imagine
a couple of boys, brought up to the street
fighting in which there are no rules, with no
fear of God, man, or constable before their
eyes, and with no money in their pockets —
imagine them face to face with a lonely
wayfarer in evening dress, carrying presum-
ably a watch and a sovereign purse. It is
the simplest thing in the world. One boy
whips the overcoat back and imprisons the
victim's arms ; the other goes through the
pockets. The work of a moment, and so
easy ! No wonder the Hooligan turns his
sport to account ! The sandbag, too, is
handy. It is an American importation, and
has made some reputation in New York.
Unlike the bludgeon, it leaves no visible
mark ; unlike the cheap pistol, it makes no
noise. It is easily hidden up the sleeve
till required ; and a well-directed crack over
the head with a sandbag — especially if the
sand has been damped — will stun the
strongest man for several .minutes. Not
only gain, but also revenge, is a motive for
the Hooligan assault, and the existence of
a gang which had not been suspected was
proved by the following letter which —
marked " urgent " — turned up beneath the
nose of an editor of a morning paper : —
' Sir, — For your
■ cheek in put one of our
gang away we have Past a Rule that we will have
your Life you will not know when we will be in
your Liver tomorrow Saturday."
This note, grubby from the hand that
delivered it, was signed by the name of
the boy who was " Secterary " to the Cam-
berwell gang. The editor is still alive. But
shortly afterwards, in the small hours of the
morning, one of the compositors was set
upon and nearly killed by a gang of boys
who caught him at the southern end of
Blackfriars Bridge.
The Hooligan is a worshipper of muscle,
quite apart from criminal application, and
to him the latest hero of the ring is a god.
His saints are the wearers of the gloves in
those obscure boxing contests which take
place, mostly on Saturday night, in all
kinds of dim holes and corners of London,
where if you wear a collar you are assumed
to be a detective. There is one of these
places tucked away under a railway arch
in a certain dark street off Lambeth Walk.
You enter through a sort of hole in a big
gateway, and after stumbling forward tumble
into a square room, lighted by a flaring
gas-jet swung from the roof Space is
limited, and you sit close packed around
the square — which is called a ring. Row
upon row of eager faces ; eyes fixed on the
proprietor, in whose breast is locked the
secret of the next fight. The lowest row
is composed of the youngest — those who
came first. Above are men who have fought
their fights and apparently lost them.
Highest of all appear the cap of an
inspector of police and the helmet of a
constable, for we are within the rules.
The boys step into the ring ; their names
are announced — not their real names, for
the ring's traditions are as insistent as
those of the stage, and with better reason.
But the inspector, cocking an eye at the
boy who turns out in fighting tights with
a torso as clean and bright as a new pin,
recognises the boy he knows as a grimy,
grubby loafer in the street. Absolute clean-
liness and neatness of attire are a point of
honour in the obscurest boxing saloon, and
that is something in its favour.
It is a disillusion to see these boys, so
lithe and clean in their fighting trim, huddle
on their trousers and coat — they do it in
a corner raked by the eyes of the audience
— tie the wisp of cloth round their necks,
and revert to the slavery of their usual
habit. But the most remarkable feature of
this saloon — and of others of its kind — is
the expectant row of juniors, who got the
front places by waiting. At the least hint
of a hitch, if an expected combatant delays
a moment in facing his antagonist, half-a-
dozen coats are off, half-a-dozen shirts are
pulled over head, and half-a-dozen clean,
trained, eager boys are calling out " I'll tike
'im on." For these boys who sit patiently
night by night are waiting to get a foot
HOOLIGAN LONDON.
233
HOOLIGAN V. HOOLIGAN.
on the first rung of Fame's ladder, and are
not going to miss a chance. Some day, if
luck is theirs, they will box at "Wonderland"
in the Whitechapel Road, where the audience
is numbered by hundreds and wears collars ;
and if the luck holds at the National
Sporting Club, where the audience wears
evening dress.
To catch the street boy in his softer mood
you need not wait for a Bank Holiday or
travel so far as Hamp.stead, much less to
78
Epping Forest. On Saturday evenings they
stand in long lines at the gallery doors of
the less fashionable theatres and music-halls,
having somehow acquired the price of two
seats apiece. For every boy who has started
life on his own account considers it a point
of honour to possess a girl. The girls who
stand at the gallery door waiting for the
treat which they demand of their cavaliers
are neither particularly clean and tidy nor
very picturesque. They wear the clothes in
234
LIVING LONDON.
SANDBAGGING IN THE FOG.
which they work all the week at cardboard-
box making, jam packing, match making,
and so on — with the addition of the feathered
hat which is the glory of a woman in this
rank of life. But, on the whole, they are
reasonably good. And it is a curious fact
that the Hooligan boy seldom finds an ally
in his girl when he wants to be flagrantly
dishonest. She does not ask too many
questions — she does not, for instance,
inquire where he got the money to pay
for a hot supper after the entertainment ;
but she would prefer to think that her
boy is " in work " and " earning good
money," and she is perfectly capable of
maintaining that proposition — -with tooth
and claw, if need be — against any other
lady who presumes to doubt it.
The street boy of the type I have tried
to describe is full of a certain spasmodic
nervous energy, but he has neither ballast
nor settled purpose in life beyond the present
day. Long ago the Ragged School Union
set to work to catch this continual growth
of possible criminals and train it aright ;
and to-day the energetic Secretary from
the centre influences many institutions and
workers. Our illustrations suggest some of
the difficulties encountered in Hoxton by
a devoted teacher who to this day is engaged
in making silk purses out of unpromising
material, with no little success. The waist-
belt near the top of page 231, for example, was
laid about the teacher's head by a voluntary
scholar who had changed his mind about the
charm of education. The loaded stick at
the foot of the same page is a relic of a
great street fight outside the school ; the
missing piece was broken off over a victim's
head. But perhaps the quaintest of this
little collection is the crucifix. It is the
offering of an apostate of eleven. He had
joined a High Church club. But the world
called him ; he enlisted under the leader of
the Hoxton gang at the time, and, having
chosen the life of disorder, presented his
teacher with the symbol which had ceased
to symbolise.
A further impetus to the movement started
by the Ragged School Union was given by
the institution of Toynbee Hall, in memory
of Arnold Toynbee, of Balliol. The public
schools and the universities caught up the
idea of " boys' clubs " which should be
impregnated with something of the public-
school spirit. At present East, South-East,
and North-East London are the main seats
of these settlements, while London is breed-
ing boys from Wimbledon to Leytonstone
whom careless parents throw upon the streets
so .soon as they can run alone. Oxford
House is a notable centre. It owes its
HOOLIGAN LONDON.
235
success to Dr. Ingram, who before becoming
Bishop of London was Bishop of Stepney.
Go down to Bethnal Green — on a Saturday
evening for choice — and at Oxford House
you will find an interesting dining-hall and
common-room. They are all of them young
graduates. Some are barristers or journalists
at work all day at their own affairs ; others
are intending clergymen who wish to take
a close look at the souls they shall save.
A hurried meal, a snatched smoke, and they
scatter to the clubs where they have to take
control.
We will go to one, typical of many, within
a short walk of Oxford House. It is in a
quiet street, but near the door boys with
knitted brows are hanging about. The
entrance fee is sixpence ; and just inside a
genial official is receiving this sum — usually
in pennies — from a new member. We go
upstairs, and find a room full of boys playing
billiards and bagatelle. There is an evident
effort for cleanliness and neatness in attire.
One lad with a note -book marks down
the games and takes the money ; for the
club is run, under supervision, by the mem-
bers, and public spirit is strong against
peculation or disorder. We go further, led
by the sound of tramping feet, and find the
newest recruits to the cadet corps at their
drill. One of them, in an interval, tells you
he has just joined the football club, having
secured an income of a halfpenny a week.
He is fifteen, he says. He would pass for
twelve on a railway, and for eleven in an
Eton preparatory school ; the London
street boy is terribly undersized. In the
basement we reach the theatre, where the
minstrels of the club perform ; here, too,
we find a boy solemnly punching the ball
— for as boys will fight anyhow, they may
as well join the club and learn to box at
an initial and final outlay of one shilling,
under the sanction of the Church and the
Queensberry rules. But the boy who joins
the Webbe Institute may get a great deal
at cost price. He may even get a week
in a seaside camp every August. This is
only one of the clubs which are scattered
about the confines of the inner circle. And
music, too ! The drums and fifes cease for
a minute, and you see the contingent of
cadets join the main body and march off to
the evening service at St. Matthew's Church,
clean, erect, and enlisted from the forces of
disorder on the side of law and right
A STREET GROUP.
236
Ml
MANAGER RECEIVING GUESTS (HOTEL VICTORIA)
HOTEL LONDON.
By J. C. WOOLLAN.
PAGE.
H'
"OTEL London is great
and growing. Perhaps
no feature of London
life was more conspicuous
for a smart advance in the
closing years of the last cen-
tury and the opening of the
new than hotel accommoda-
tion of every variety, and
what might be called the
hotel habit — the living in
hotels of even Londoners
themselves. There was a
time, not so very long ago,
when London had to bear
the reproach of giving less
satisfaction in the hotel way to the visitor
than almost any other great city. Even
yet the foreigner has his complaints to
make, especially when he comes to settle
the bill, but in a general way the Metropolis
has responded excellently to an increasing
demand To-day she can fling at the cities
of the European and American continents
a boast that she will name twenty of her
hotels, and challenge each of her rivals to
produce twenty that are better, or even as
good.
You may never have reflected, and per-
chance may not have had the materials for
reflection, upon how vast and of what infinite
variety is the Hotel London of to-day. Let
us consider the first of the two points just
named, and estimate in some small way
the dimensions of Hotel-land within the
confines of the capital.
The most careful of calculations brings one
to the safe conclusion that there are daily
no fewer than 120,000 visitors in the Metro-
polis. Not all of these stay over a single
night, and of those who do a fair proportion
welcome the hospitality of friends in private
houses. Yet, when all deductions have been
made and we have fined the figures down to
tho.se of the net hotel and boarding-house
population, it is discovered that there are, on
an average, between 50,000 and 60,000 people
who daily come within this category. Of this
great number it is reckoned that the recog-
nised hotels, licensed and of varying preten-
HOTEL LONDON.
237
sions, are capable of accommodating just about
half, and the boarding-houses and private
hotels are well able to account for the rest,
■existing as they do in their thousands. It
has been found in actual practice that over
8,000 guests have slept in twenty of the chief
hotels on busy nights of the season. One
single hotel has about 1,000 bedrooms, and
there are five others with 500 or more. A
dozen of the chief hotels make up an
aggregate of only a few short of 6,000
bedrooms, a proportion of which contain a
couple of beds, so that in the whole these
sleeping apartments will very likely accom-
modate 12,000 people — the population of a
small town. And the directory gives you
the names of over 300 big licensed hotels
in London.
The story of the growth of Hotel London
to these vast proportions is tinged with not a
little of romance. Once upon a time there
was an enterprising servant in a West-End
mansion, which he forsook in order that
he might start a boarding-house. The latter
in due course developed into an hotel, and
the hotel so thrived
and grew that to-day
it is one of the biggest
in the Metropolis,
whilst the quondam
servant, for his part,
is a rich country
gentleman with large
lands. He is not
alone in his great
success. And on the
other hand, showing
again the vast out-
come of the enter-
prise of the pioneers
in the making of
modern Hotel Lon-
don, it may be cited
that a score of the
chief hotels among
them represent a
capital of about eight
millions of money,
and even the little
group of Gordon
Hotels are capable of
accounting for three
and a-half millions.
But it is not our purpose to weaty with
statistics, though such few as are in the
foregoing lines will be pardoned for the tale
of immensity which they alone can tell. We
will discover now the variety of our Hotel
London, and the even greater variety of its
patrons. Each hotel is not for every patron.
The Americans have claimed the biggest; and
have, indeed, made the success of some of
them. The Germans preponderate at others,
and there is another where we may find
a regular potpourri of highly respectable
foreigners of different nationalities. Such is
De Keyser's Royal, at the eastern extremity
of the Victoria Embankment. Do not even
the names of the hotels of the west tell their
own little tales of foreign individuality and of
cosmopolitanism ? There are the Hotel Con-
tinental and the Hotel de I'Europe with
expansive titles ; but there are so many
others, many of which you may not know,
but all by their names alone making a mute
and often successful appeal to particular
classes.
However, with this brief general survey, let
ARRIVAL OF AN ORIENTAL POTENTATE (CLARIDGE'S).
238
LIVING LONDON
us particularise. With the duty we owe to
rank let us return to the kings and nobles,
and see where they most do congregate.
You may find their majesties at two or
three places in the fashionable west. Some
time or other they are certain to be at the
pre-eminently aristocratic Claridge's, in Brook
Street, away from all the din and bustle, and
in an atmosphere which is positively scented
with exclusiveness and distinction. There
are not many hotels in the world which have
the e.xtremely restrictive peculiarity of
Claridge's. This is no place for the mere
man of money, who is nothing more than
that — with not even a social aim. Whatever
king he be, he may live here and move about
in no disguise and with perfect freedom from
any vulgar gaze. For here, tenanting the
grand and costly suites of rooms, are men and
women who are numbered amongst the fore-
most of their respective lands, men and
women who would make up for this king a
court of which he might well be proud. There
is an English duke, a Spanish princess, a
Russian grand duke, a variety of counts,
several leaders of London society, and,
generally, a collection of people in whose
veins runs the best blue blood of every nation.
Wealth, rank, and power are represented.
On a winter's evening, as we pass along the
street, a carriage with a fresh arrival rattles
up to the entrance, and with a passing fancy
that we will stake the reputation of Claridge's,
as it were, on this one haphazard throw, we
pause a moment to discover the new comer.
Claridge's wins. The American Ambassador
has just arrived from Washington, and has
driven straight to Claridge's, where he will stay
for a few weeks. Another time an Oriental
potentate comes driving up, and with some
form and ceremony and his own native ser-
vant in attendance he passes within.
Yet even Claridge's has not a monopoly of
the greatest. You may find royalty and
nobles at the Albemarle, in Piccadilly, or
at Brown's, in Dover Street, or at the Lang-
ham, in Langham Place, upon which King
Edward, when Prince of Wales, set the aris-
tocratic stamp by opening. The grand and
highly fashionable Carlton is, again, one of the
most likely places in London for the foreign
potentate or the social star of home to be
temporarily housed in, e.specially if there is a
desire to be, in the colloquial term, " in the
thick of it." In the Palm Court here one
may lounge to perfection amongst the best-
known people of at least two continents.
Different celebrities, too, have their own con-
servative tastes and their own hotels ; and
there are old-fashioned country families, most
highly respectable, who would prefer to pay
Claridge's and Carlton prices at hostelries
of far less renown but of guaranteed
" tone."
To leave the rank and fashion pure, and
seek the greater rendezvous of wealth and
lu.xury we must proceed a trifle eastward and
southward, dip down to Trafalgar Square and
Northumberland Avenue, and walk a few
score paces along the Strand. In the main-
tenance of such hotel luxury as we are speak-
ing of the American contribution pre-
ponderates. Our cousins of the States are a
very notable factor indeed of Hotel London.
At the opening of the bright summer
season they arrive with their trunks and their
money in thousands, till the Transatlantic
accent hums in the region to which we have
just passed. Always for the biggest, their
first thought is for the Cecil ; and so pass into
the courtyard any fine morning in the season,
and walk up to the tables and chairs at the
foot of the steps, where the loungers recline
preparatory to their day's assault upon the
lions of London, and you will not need to
search for the man with the American voice,
or for the girl with American smartness.
They are everywhere — here outside, inside,
there still dallying at the breakfast table,
penning picture postcards in the writing-
room, and — just a few thirsty souls are these
— sipping iced concoctions downstairs at the
American bar. There is special accommoda-
tion for the American, even to the chef.
This middle-aged man, with the kindly face
and the grey moustache, stepping into a
hansom is a great American railroad king
who means to revolutionise railway London ;
the slight dark figure in the porch is that
of a man who is an engineer of monopolies
and trusts. These are men who are feared.
The richly-apparelled lady who is sweeping
along a corridor is an American society
woman who recently gave a dinner in New
York which cost twenty pounds a head.
You will discover also a great American
o
u
O
H
O
X
bJ
Z
h
I. PORTER. II. THE PALM COURT (CARLTON HOTEL). III. SMOKING ROOM (GRAND HOTEL).
JV. CHAMBERMAID. V. LIFT MAN. VI. COMMERCIALS " WRITING UP THE MAIL " (MANCHESTER HOTEL).
240
LIVING LONDON.
contingent, as well as a fine smattering of
other nationalities, at the Metropole, the
Victoria, and the Grand — all Gordons, all in
Northumberland Avenue, and all palatial and
luxurious. The great First Avenue in Hol-
born and the Grosvenor at Victoria are also
Gordons. Well-to-do Frenchmen, well-to-do
Germans, and many besides are here in
numbers ; but then, as has been said,
De Keyser's Roj'al, on the Embankment, is
the particular resort of the Continental
visitor. Germans are here in force, and if you
move still more eastward and come to Fins-
bury Square you will find a further batch of
hotels with great German reputations. Klein's
and Seyd's are in the Square, and Buecker's
is also there. In Finsbury Square, where
beef is "bif," the sons of the Fatherland
may live precisely after the manner of the
German fighting cock.
Other nationalities, other hotels ; and many
more, especially in the east, could be added
to this already long list. In these followings
of the foreigner we are neglecting the strangers
of our own country who are temporarily
within the hospitable gates of the Metro-
polis.
Whence comes the provincial ? We dis-
cover that he comes very largely vik the termini
at Euston, St. Pancras, and King's Cross, and
here we find the great railway companies
have raised palaces for his temporary
residence. The railway hotel is essentially
the hotel for the busy man who must live in
style and comfort, but who is always catching
express trains, or who in catching but a few
must make a quick certainty of them. Of
course, such hotels as the Midland Grand —
truly grand — the Euston, and the Great
Central are for other people besides — for
families and for pleasure folk as well. All
sorts and conditions of British people, but
especially business people, are here. One of
the greatest financiers of modern times has
worked his deals from a suite of rooms in the
Midland Grand, and such is high commer-
cial loyalty that in another suite may be
found a celebrated director of the Midland
Railway itself At Charing Cross Station is
another railway hotel, and at Cannon Street,.
in the heart of the City, one more—
which is perhaps the most business-
ike of all, for a long programme of
big company meetings is negotiated
here every day. Shareholders have
DRAWING ROOM {HOTEL
CECIL).
HOTEL LONDON.
241
rejoiced and
sorrowed, con-
gratulated and
stormed, in the
Cannon Street
Hotel as in no
other. Then there
is the more purely
commercial
hostelry, of which
the Manchester,
in Aldersgate
Street, the Salis-
bury, off Fleet
Street, and An-
derton's, in the
middle of news-
paperdom, are
great examples.
You may witness
a busy scene at the
Manchester in the
evening, when the
commercial travel-
lers, their City
wanderings over, send their reports and
instructions to headquarters, or, as they call
it, " write up the mail."
Forsaking commerce, we will seek out
the hotels of the studious, and we shall find
them in Bloomsbury, hard by the British
Museum, busy hive of brainworkers. The
Thackeray, Kingsley, and Esmond trade, one
might almost say, upon the Museum ; even
the telegraphic address of one of them is
" Bookcraft." These three are temperance
hotels; so, too, are Cranston's Waverleys ;
and, in passing, let it not be forgotten that
London accommodates excellently the people
who prefer the teetotal establishment. Wild's,
in Ludgate Hill, and the Buckingham, in the
Strand, are two more among many.
If we tried we could not before leaving
Bloomsbury miss the magnificent Russell,
fashioned on the Gordon system, and bearing
the Frederick name. For patrons of a
different character, in the long street
arteries which feed Bloomsbury are count-
less private hotels, which faithfully serve
a mission of cheapness. Mostly they are
numbered, but some of them take names
to themselves ; and, being bound by no
traditions, desiring only to be up to date,
79
DINING KOO.M (OAK SALO.N, lIOTliL .MiTKOPOLEJ.
fearful and wonderful specimens of hotel
nomenclature are prepared in a single night.
What was a modest title at eventide glares
forth pretentiously as " Hotel Pretoria " next
morning, wars and patriotism just then
making the blood to leap. And by the
same token when there was a scamper for
Alaskan gold fields an " Hotel Klondyke "
came topically forward. In these days, from
highest to lowest, it is Hotel this and Hotel
that — a la mode " hotel " comes first.
Away in the farther West-End are many
other hotels of great reputation. Beginning
at Westminster, there are the cosy St
Ermin's, the Windsor, and the Westminster
Palace. At South. Kensington there is
Bailey's ; overlooking Rotten Row is the
Alexandra, of most pretentious appearance ;
hard by is the Hyde Park Hotel, carried
on in conjunction with the Carlton Hotel ;
whilst the Buckingham Palace, the Royal
Palace, the De Vere, and many others are all
institutions of the Metropolis, and there are
others, such as Morley's in Trafalgar Square,
the Holborn Viaduct Hotel, and the Queen's
in Leicester Square, which a London visitor
can hardly help but see.
Of the oddities, peculiarities, individualities
242
LIVING LONDON.
of Hotel London — ah ! they are so man\', too
many for one short survey. The trades and
the professions have their own hotels. To
take two wideh- different e.xamples, one might
point out that, whilst all who attended the
great wool sales from the country and abroad
would staj' at the Great Eastern, countr)'
lawyers and clients whose business is at the
Law Courts would favour Anderton's or the
Inns of Court, which vie with each other
in proximity to the great headquarters of
Justice. And the space in between these two
could be well filled. Come with me to Covent
Garden, and I \\ill show )ou a big hotel with
200 rooms which will not admit ladies — it is
" for gentlemen only." There is another not
far awa)- \\hich has obtained a peculiar
patronage from persons arri\ing in London
by P. and O. steamers, who know nothing
whatever of Hotel London, and have grate-
fully accepted a hint that was given them.
There is a clerical hotel ; ships' captains
have their own in dock-land ; there is a
Jewish hotel ; and in the neighbourhood of
Regent's Park there is even one which is
advertised as " the only Spiritualist hotel
in London." After that, it would be futile
to attempt a further illustration of the
possibilities of hotel individualism in the
great Metropolis.
We will go back to the Strand, and see that
each street as it runs from the great thorough-
fare southwards to theThames is honeycombed
with hotels of different sorts and sizes. And
in perambulating westwards again we may
this time note the Savoy, with its abundance
of fair fame, which we could on our last
journey hardly couple with the Cecil, though
they adjoin. The Sa\oy is as aesthetic as it
is big.
Such is Hotel London in all its magnitude
and with all its wonders. And in the
enumeration of .so many wonders we dispel
at least one. There is such a \ariety and
such a choice in hotel life that more and
more are Londoners of means forsaking their
homes and living only in hotels, with all their
careless freedom.
Lor years Hotel London has been passing
through an interesting process of evolution,
and the end of the process will not be in the
twentieth century.
LOUNGE IHOTEL RUSSELL).
243 ■
rhoto : H. Moyu. Putnty. >. H".
THE OXFORD AND CAMHKIDGH BOAT RACE.
THAMES PLEASURES AND SPORTS.
By JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.
THE pleasures and sports of the Thames
are principally above bridge ; the
business part lies below. Yet let none
forget that there is plenty of pleasure and
sport and fun to be obtained below bridge
also, and found at Greenwich, Gravesend,
Southend, Margate, Ramsgate, and elsewhere.
But, even to start for these places beloved of
a certain portion of Living London's popula-
tion— and visited often enough by a totally
distinct stratum of that popu-
lation, whose cry, as a rule,
is " anything for a change " —
one sets out by water from
above-bridge : i.e. from the Old
Swan Pier. Whenever one
does so in the summer time,
and providing the weather is
fine, the cruise is certain to be
an amusing as well as an en-
joyable one. There is always
a band on board (harp, cornet,
and flute), refreshments may
be obtained, all are determined
on enjoying themselves, and
lovers are abundant and shed
a rosy glow around. In the
case of the " husbands' boat "
— for Margate on Saturdays
DOGGETT S COAT AND
BADGE.
— it is the married men, hastening to join
their wives until Monday, who represent the
votaries of Hymen, late Cupid ; yet they too
are happy.
But we will turn to the absolute subject of
this sketch, the pleasures and sports of the
Thames. ,
By priority of age comes the race for
Doggett's Coat and Badge, a sum of money
having been left by Thomas Doggett, a
Drury Lane actor of the early
Georgian period, to commem-
orate the accession day of the
first Hanoverian monarch, i.e.
August 1st, 1715. This fur-
nishes a waterman's coat and
a silver badge — the latter as
large as a pie-dish and bearing
the white horse of Hanover on
it — and is open to any six
young Thames watermen who
desire to compete, the course
being originally from the
" Swan " at London Bridge to
the " Swan " at CheLsea. As
the event hcis existed for nearly
two hundred years, the old
actor's loyalty and enthusiasm
have been pretty well stamped
EXCURSIOX STEAMBOATS LEAVING FRESH WHARF, LONDON BRIDGE.
BATHING IN THE RIVER.
THAMES PLEASURES AND SPORTS.
245
into the minds and memories of several
generations of Londoners. The ground, or
rather water, covered by this course, and the
shores from London Bridge to Chelsea, not
only comprise almost all the chief historical
portion of the river as rejjards sport and
pleasure, but also the grandeur and might
and power of the greatest city in the
world. And — which should give us further
food for reflection — Father Thames is still
adding to our history while even now
serving the purposes of recreation and
amusement.
Lean for a moment over Chelsea Suspen-
sion Bridge on a summer day and look
around and below you. Passing under the
bridge is a steamer on its way to Kew and
Richmond and Hampton Court. Here, too,
you may see, especially if it is Saturday
afternoon, single, double, treble sculling boats
with young maidens, and, of course, their
swains, prepared for an outing, or jaunt — for
a Saturday " up the river." You may ob-
serve, also, men of sterner metal and inten-
tions passing beneath you — brawny and
muscular oarsmen sculling in wager boats,
and practising for some race the stakes of
which may be well worth winning — stakes
that may enable whosoever gains them to set
up in business as a boat-builder and a man
who will have " Boats to let," or as the land-
lord of some riverside public-house, which, as
every riparian resident knows, is the " be all
and end all," in the majority of cases, of
the professional sculler's existence.
On one side of this bridge is Chelsea
Hospital, where once stood, close by, the
celebrated Ranelagh Gardens : on the other
is Battersea Park, formed out of what was
originally a marshy, undrained piece of sub-
merged land. Now it is a very pretty place,
much given up to cyclists, especially beginners
who do not care to roam too far afield at
first or to encounter the dangers of street
traffic.
In this park, especially in summer — since it
is then green and leafy and at its best — youths
and maidens make and keep their rendezvous,
as they have always done and always will.
The nursemaid loves to saunter on its paths
with the inevitable perambulator, whilst the
warriors from Chelsea Barracks across the
river cast admiring glances at her. Once, in
the early sixties, the West-End terminus of
the Brighton line was near here, before the
railway came farther into town and before
Victoria terminus and the railway bridge
were built. Beyond this, as wc proceed up the
river, there is nothing much to call for .special
remark in the present day until we come to
Putney.
Putney is the metropolis of boating men ;
and on its embankment are the boat-
houses of the Thames, Vesta, Lcander, and
London Rowing Clubs — world -renowned
establishments, if not for their own celebrity,
which is considerable, then because, al.so, it is
from one or other of these that the boats of
the Oxford Rowing Club and the Cambridge
Rowing Club put off for their practice daily
during the fortnight before the 'Varsity Race,
and also on the momentous morning of the race.
This they have practically done since the
year 1849, when, in consequence of there
having been no race in 1847 or 1848, two
races were rowed in the former year, while
previous to 1849, with one solitary excep-
tion, the race was rowed from Westminster
to Putney.
We witness a busy scene when the start
for the great race takes place soon after
the steamers for the Press and the Uni-
versities arrive from London; when the
river is cleared for what the reporters call
the great " aquatic contest," much as the
Epsom course is cleared for the Derby, and
when hansoms, drags, char-a-bancs and
omnibuses line the esplanade, as they line
every spot where vehicles can go. The ladies
all wear favours and rosettes of their favourite
University, or, as the cynics say, of which-
ever blue suits their complexions and toilettes
the better ; and it has been whispered that
some who have sported the losing colours
before the race change it for the winning
colour afterwards. This is, however, probably
scandal.
Once off and the start made, horsemen and
light vehicles, such as hansoms, tear off from
the starting-point, make a dash across Barnes
Common to the " White Hart " at Barnes or
the " Ship " at Mortlake— the huge bend
north of the ri\er favouring the short cut —
and so get in in time for the death, or, rather,
the finish : the result being made known by
the hoisting of the winning colour above the
246
LIVING LONDON.
READY KOR A ROW.
losing one on Barnes Railway Bridge, after
which a scene of wild excitement takes place.
Old Blues — and young ones, too — clergymen
from distant parishes and lawyers from town
shake hands and nod pleasantly to each
other if their 'Varsity has won, while those
belonging to the losing side swallow their
disappointment as best they can. The negro
minstrels commence their soothing strains
and the men who swallow hot tow or allow
stones to be broken on their bare chests
give their performances ; the adjacent
public-houses become crowded ; a few
fights take place ; pigeons are let loose
for distant villages ; air-balloons
bearing the names of theatres
and their performances, or of
enterprising newspapers or Turf-
tipsters, are sent up. The vehicles
either speed back to town or take
their occupants to Richmond ; the
steam-launches turn their heads
Londonwards, and the sight-
seers on foot stream off to the
railway stations ; while the
"sportsman" who invites you
to back the " 'art, the hanker,
or the diaming," or find the
queen as he performs the
three-card trick, packs up his
traps and departs. The boat
race is over and done
with for another year.
Only a passing line of
reference need be made
to Hurliiigham. So long
connected with pigeon-
shooting — for which it was
principally founded in the
early 'sixties, while water-
polo was introduced ten
years later — it still stands
at the head of other asso-
ciations of a similar kind,
that, while they may even-
tually rival it in its beauty
and aristocratic associa-
tions, are never likely to
surpass it. Here the visitor^
or guest, finds all that can
minister to his enjoyment.
Excellent bands discourse
sweet music beneath the
ancient trees that grow down almost to
the water's edge ; and during the London
season the best dressed women of fashion
may be seen attended by men equally well
known.
The river — especially its pleasures and, in
a smaller way, its sports — would not, however,
have full justice done to it if attention were
not called to one of its most popular haunts
— i.e. Kew. For here, indeed, the home of
pleasure for many holiday-makers is estab-
lished, and there are those who think that the
succulent winkle and shrimp may be found
at their best in this resort. Bread and
' PENNY SWEAT.
THAMES PLEASURES AND SPORTS.
24;
butter, too, are, as all the world knows — or
should know — partaken of in large quan-
tities, accompanied by the health -<^iving
watercress while washed down by a stron<j
highly-flavoured tea, good for promoting
■digestion after a stroll in the celebrated
gardens. Who has not seen the mystic
legend inscribed over many a river-
side door here — the legend announcing
" Tea and hot water, gd." ? and who has
not gently wondered why the hot
water should be so emphatically
mentioned, since, to make tea without
hot water, is at present regarded as
an almost unattainable feat ?
Kew has its visitors, however, for
other things besides the Botanic
Gardens and the above appetising
river can provide. And here is the spot
where sweet-scented and beautifully varie-
gated bouquets have been sold near the
steamboat pier and the south side of the
bridge — the old bridge — from long past days,
and are still sold.
One wonders sometimes what Londoners
would be like if it were not for the river. Its
waters have not, it is true, been pellucid for
many a day ; salmon is no longer caught at
I. AT PRACTICE. II. " BOATS TO LET.
refreshments. Anglers come here to fish
for barbel, of which there is still a famous
■" swim " even lower down, namely, at
Barnes ; and there is an eyot where
skeleton leaves can be obtained in large
quantities — the kind of leaves our grand-
mothers pinned and pressed between the
pages of books with, often enough, an
auspicious date marked against them and
the initials of what was, doubtless, a masculine
name. Here, too, are rowing clubs capable of
producing crews and scullers of no mean
prowess, quite fitted to contend for victory
in any regatta or water contest which the
Putney as it was
in the middle of
the eighteenth
century, and the
nightingale no
longer sings out-
side Barn Elms or
Craven Cottage,
where Bulwer-
Lytton lived some
time. But boys
have bathed from
time immemorial
in the stream, and
will continue to do so ; they have also for
a long while hired boats in which to take
what is called " penny sweats " — i.e. enough
of them band together to hire a boat (not
generally the best the boatman has to let), and
so get their modicum of exercise. Who, too,
has not rowed on the classic stream, either in
outrigger, racing-boat, or randan ? — who that
is a Londoner has not plunged "the labouring
oar " into its waters and rowed his lady-love
up river, or, if the tide is very strong, gone
ashore and towed the boat containing the fair
one, the luncheon-basket and the tea-kettle,
as well as other things ? Who, too, has not
248
LIVLNG LONDON.
fed the swans that abound on the river, and
alternately teased or played with them, while
some, perhaps, have even witnessed the cere-
mony of swan-upping, which is occasionally
called " swan -hopping"? This ceremony
consists in marking the birds on the upper
mandible of the bill with nicks ; the Royal
swans, of which there are many, having
two diamonds, those of the Dyers Company
one nick, and those of the Vintners Company
two nicks. From this old practice comes
the corrupted inn-sign, " The Swan with
Two \ecks."
Of late years old customs have been
revived on the Royal River which had
quite sunk out of fashion, and they now
share with the boat-clubs of men and
women the office of furnishing both pleasure
and sport upon it. Regattas have much
increased and multiplied ; so, too, have water
carnivals. Richmond, amongst other places,
organises several of the latter, and the beauti-
ful and brilliant scenes on the illuminated
water and the river banks on a summer
night are not unworthy competitors with
those of Venice. Indeed, the Thames above
bridge, while having its fair share in utility,,
is the greatest contributor to the Londoner's
open-air enjoyment, and is without a rival.
For the pleasure-seeker can bathe and row^
if he chooses ; he can, on the other hand, if
he is not athletically disposed, be conveyed
upon it in steamers or launches or sailing-
boats, and he can dwell on its shores at any
point which he choo.ses to select ; while, when
he has left London a few miles behind him^
he can, if an angler, fish to his heart's content.
Moreover, no part of England is better fur-
nished with good hotels and inns where
everything that the heart of man can desire
is to be found, so that, as one poet has
remarked, the holiday-maker can " take his
ease at his inn," and, in the words of another,
" find his warmest welcome there."
RIVER STEAMER.
The Roman Catholic Cathedral, Westminster,
249
ROMAN CATHOLIC LONDON.
By WILFRID MEYNELL
LONDON entertains, perhaps unawares,
some half-million of persons professing
the Roman Catholic faith. Not all of
this multitude actually practises its religion
cover a larger total area of earth, and West-
minster Cathedral boasts the broadest nave of
all. A bold man is he who builds a cathedral ;
he has about him the tongues of Babel, and
LEAVING THE ORATORY, SOUTH KENSINGTON.
by going to mass on Sundays and to its
"duties" (confession and communion) at
Easter. " The world is too much with us "
is a Wordsworthian sigh upon the lips of
nominal adherents of every creed.
" Nominal Catholics," therefore, exist; other-
wise the antithetical term "practical Catholics "
would not need to be very commonly heard
among them. Of the number of these
practical Catholics, failing an official census,
nothing can be certainly known. But
London has no fewer than eighty churches
for their accommodation — and in nearly all
of these a succession of masses on Sunday
morning, so that every seat may have been
occupied twice or thrice. The Westminster
Cathedral, dreamt of by Cardinal Manning
and realised by Cardinal Vaughan, possesses
that ideal conjunction — an actual as well
as an official pre-eminence. Only the Abbey
and St. Paul's of all churches in London
80
in this Westminster case nearly Babel's tower.
Cardinal Vaughan heard, and, more difficult
still, did not hear. He wasted on idle dis-
cussions none of the energy which was
otherwise required. Fortune and generosity
supplied the ;if 200,000 that had to pass into
the bare outwork of bricks.
Next to the Westminster Cathedral in
size comes the Oratory Church at South
Kensington. It is served by over a dozen
fathers. These do not belong to an " order "
in the sense in which Franciscans or Bene-
dictines do ; but they live in community.
Their rule is that of St. Philip Neri, adapted
to English life by Cardinal Newman. He
(from Birmingham, too !) was the nominal
founder of the London Oratory ; but its
actual founder was Father Faber — he whose
hymns, sung within their native walls at Sun-
day and week-day evening services, are echoed
in churches and chapels of every other creed
2 so
LIVING LONDON.
— in truth, a great " conspiracy of song."
Its site lies wiiere se\eral ways meet and
part — types of the many crises of the
spiritual life its walls have witnessed— the
fare-veils involved by " conversions," the
meetings, the marriages, the last rites over
the dead. In this church, or in its prede-
cessor on the same site, Lothair (the third
Marquess of Bute) was married (but not
to Corisande), Lord Beaconsfield languidl)-
churches which need, for the most part, no
special description. But " Farm Street " —
the church of the Jesuit Fathers, planted amid
the mundane glories of Grosvcnor Square
— demands a word. Between Oratorians
and Jesuits may be supposed to exist a
certain "holy rivalry," which the westerly
and south-westerly trend of the social stream,
perhaps, intensifies. But the sons of St.
Ignatius, who are sometimes called the
looking on. Here, too, the Marquess of " Apostles of the Genteels," are really of
Ripon laid do\\n his
wand as Grand Master
of the Freemasons, Mr.
Gladstone metaphoricalh'
observing anything but
languidly ; forging, indeed,
out of that hot mood, a
famous new arrow - head
for his quiver as an
anti- Vatican pamphleteer.
Here was the Requiem
sung over beloved Car-
dinal Manning's bier ; here
was held the Victorian
Diamond Jubilee .service
of 1897 ; here Edward
VII., when Prince of
Wales, has assisted at a
nuptial mass ; and here,
too, is a bench which
has been the judges' — all
ARRIVAL OF A CARDINAL AT
SARDINIA STREET CHAPEL.
no fixed time or place.
They are a floating popu-
lation, sent hither and
thither by their superiors
— it may be to martyr-
dom in Japan, or in the
London slums, or in the
fumes of Widnes. They
come and go. At one of
these altars, where mem-
bers of the devout female
sex, and of the sex that
is not devout, may be
seen kneeling at all hours
to-day. Manning said his
first mass. Only a few
weeks earlier he was
"charging" Chichester as
its archdeacon ; and in
later years, by another
great change of domestic
gathered together to pay the last tribute sentiment, he ceased to love Jesuits.
of homage to Lord Russell of Killowen. The mention of Manning recalls his
History gets made quickly, you perceive ; saying that pulpit oratory is one of the
for it is only about fifty years since the three wounds of the Roman Catholic Church
first Oratorians in England (most of whom in England. Sermons, in fact, take a
were Oxford and clerical converts) settled secondary place to-day, as ever, in Catholic
on this site, and were stoned in the streets services ; preaching is not practised as an
for their pains. Their own pile of stones art. " Farm Street," however, has its eloquent
is that which remains, and the noble dome preacher in Father Bernard Vaughan, as
which crowns the edifice is an admitted the Oratory has in Father Sebastian Bowden
adornment — amid a hundred modern de- (formerly an officer in the Guards) its direct
facements — of London. Apart from its one. Of this Mayfair church Mrs. Craigie
memories (and a full share of sad ones) (" John Oliver Hobbes ") — herself a wor-
the church is a " show " one, by reason of shipper there — says, in " The Gods, Some
its size, its abundance of marble, its many Mortals, and Lord Wickenham," that her hero
altars, its .saints and cherubs, with all the " used to sit near the altar of Our Lady of
flourishes and flying draperies of the Italian Lourdes, where he could see, at the end of the
Renascence. aisle, another altar and the pendant lamps
I dwell on this very representative church before it. The odour of the flowers, incense,
because what is said of it can be more or melting wax, and that .something else, like
less applied to the other seventy and nine the scent of goodly fruit stored away for
THE RED MASS AS FORMERLY CELEBRATED AT SARDINL\ STREET CHAPEL,
LINCOLN'S INN.
252
LIVING LONDON.
the hungry winter, gave liim a welcome.
The little silver hearts which hung in a case
by the altar had each some stor)^ to tell of
a faithful vow." This is the literature of
fiction. The literature of fact has its
devotees inside the large red-brick house
adjoining the church ; and among the busiest
researchers at the British Museum are sons
of St. Ignatius.
To the east and to the west, two miles
each way from the Marble Arch (the site
of old T)-burn, where many a Jesuit was
hanged, drawn, and quartered, lie the churches
of St. Etheldreda and of St. Mary of the
Angels, served by sons of St. Charles Bor-
romeo. The " Tube " covers in a few minutes
the four miles between them. In Ely Place,
an enclosure on the very confines of the Cit}',
and within sight almost of La Belle Sauvage
Yard, stands St. litheldreda's Church, with
its thirteenth-century cr_\pt — an ancient fane,
and one of the few of the actual churches of
" The Old Religion " restored to the ancient
rites. It somehow got into the market, and
was bought by Father Lockhart, a relative
of Walter Scott's son-in-law, and himself the
first of Newman's young community at Little-
more to secede from the Anglican Church.
Long will the memory remain of his hand-
some face and figure, as he stood in the
surrounding streets preaching on the tee-
totalism he practised. He belonged to the
Fathers of Charity ; and there was full
accord between his aim and name. The
sons of St Charles Borromeo (he was an
archbishoiJ of Milan, who loved the poor
UNLOADING A CART AT NAZARETH HOUSE.
and fought the plague and established Sunday
schools) were planted by Manning among
rather mean streets in Bayswater. You note
the meanness, because it contrasts with the
reputed " ambition " of its founder. Hither
to him came the world to which he would
not go ; and " receptions into the Church "
— the only receptions he ever loved — have
not ceased to be an order of the day.
To churches with specialised congregations
— for Italians, in Hatton Garden, and others
— reference is elsewhere made in this work.
The Sardinia Street Chapel, Lincoln's
Inn, once tolerated and protected only
as a chapel of an ambassador, became in
the fulness of time the scene of the Red
Mass (so called in Paris from the colour of
the legal robes), where Roman Catholic
members of the Bar gathered at the beginning
of a term to invoke a blessing on its labours
— a notable gathering in which might be
seen, at one time or another. Lord Brampton,
Lord Russell of Killowen, Sir John Day,
Sir James Mathew, Sir Joseph Walton, and
Lord Llandaff. Cross the water to South-
wark, and you find its own cathedral, famous
for its congregational singing, and the centre
of a circle of spiritual and temporal activities
for the amelioration of the lot of the poor
who, as Charles Booth shows, are poorest
of the poor in that region.
The Religious Orders are dotted about
London, which loses in picturesqueness by
the non-appearance in the streets in their
own religious dress of Friars of Orders
Grey and of monks who make their habits,
though habits do not make the
monk. By Act of Parliament they
are forced into the coats, trousers,
and headgear that mean despair for
the artist. The Carmelites abstain
from flesh, and rise by night to sing
the Divine Office, in Church Street,
Kensington ; the Dominicans are at
Haverstock Hill, the Capuchins at
Peckham, Franciscans at Stratford,
Passionists at Highgate, Benedictines
at PLaling, Augustinians (whose habit
Luther wore) at Hoxton Square ;
and there are Canons Regular,
Redemptorists, Servites, and many
more. Congregations of women
abound ; and their habits are seen
ROMAN CATHOLIC LONDON.
253
OLD WOMEN S WARD, NAZARETH HOUSE.
in the streets, for in this matter of the
rehgioiis dress, as in most others, it is women
who lead. Carmehte nuns, with St. Teresa's
habit, and Poor Clares, do not come from
their enclosure. But Sisters of Nazareth
will call anywhere in their carriage —
they name it a cart — on anyone in " the
world," and they do not always wait for
invitations. They beg in fact from door
to door for food for the six or seven hun-
dred poor whom they entertain at Naza-
reth House, Hammersmith. In this great
family are young children and old men and
old women, into one of whose wards
our illustrator has taken no idly intru-
sive peep. The Little Sisters of the
Poor are of their kindred ; and there are
Sisters of Mercy, who, among their works of
the same kind, include the Hospital of St.
John and St. Elizabeth for suffering children
at St. John's Wood ; nuns of the Good
Shepherd, with their great laundry worked
by penitent women ; the nuns who manage
the French Hospital ; the Sisters of Zion,
those of the Sacred Heart, and those at the
Convent of the Assumption, to all of whom
flock girls of Catholic parents for education —
these and many more ; the Sisters who go
out to nurse (and do not refuse a small-pox
case), and the Sisters who carry on the great
night Refuge in Crispin Street ; those who
assist the Rescue Crusade among boys,
and, last but not least in a list not easily
exhausted, the Sisters of Charity, in whose
great house, in Carlisle Place, Lady Ethel-
dreda Howard amid other all noble women
has chosen the life of sacrifice.
Come, finally, to Archbishop's House,
Westminster, where Archbishop Bourne
rules, and preserves a stately solitude,
though surrounded by a large working
staff.'
He has a word for everyone — well judged,
shrewd, fatherly. Forms and formalism are
not necessarily related. The Archbishop is
a young man among the Bishops over
whom he presides. These include Bishop
Hedley, a literary man and a Benedictine ;
also Bishop Amigo, from Southwark, like
the Archbishop himself, a teetotaller. Then
you see an ex-Army chaplain, wearing
military orders ; and you have been able,
perhaps, before you have taken your leave,
to tell Monsignor John.son how indebted
to his " Catholic Directory " is any writer
(and therefore any reader) of a paper such
as this — crumbs gathered from his abundant
table.
2S4
THE NATIONAL PENNY BANK (HACKNEY ROAD).
LONDON THRIFT.
By SIDNEY DARK.
IT is doubtful whether, both from the nature
of his being and the character of his
environment, the Londoner of any class
can be said to be unduly addicted to thrift.
In the sense in which the French peasant
and the Paris bourgeois, the Scotsman and
the Cornishman, always save a little, however
small may be their income, the Londoner
is a monument of extravagance. It must, of
course, be remembered that expenses of living
in the Metropolis are immeasurably greater
in proportion to income than they are almost
anywhere else, and the storm and stress of
life in a great city practically compel a man
to spend a certain part of his income in
amusement and distraction which in healthier
circumstances he would not require. At the
same time, alongside the manifold agencies for
spending money that exist in our city, there
are innumerable agencies for the encourage-
ment of thrift, from great institutions like
the Post Office Savings Bank, with its
millions of depositors, to the humble Slate
Club held in the top room of a public-
hou.se, with its constant difficulties of ob-
taining subscriptions from its members and
sometimes of getting them back from its
treasurer !
The baby's money box may be said to be
the beginning of thrift ; but in these pro-
gressive days the money box, from which
ingenuity and a dinner knife can extract the
pennies, is naturally regarded with suspicion.
So the modern baby obtains, presumably
through his legal guardians, a form from the
nearest Post Office, turns his pennies into
stamps, and sticks them on to the form,
and then, when he has collected twelve,
lodges them at the nearest Post Office, where
the money, instead of lying idle and unpro-
ductive like the talent of the unfaithful servant
hidden in a tin money box instead of a napkin,
earns, as soon as a pound has been accumu-
lated, two and a-half per cent, for the thrifty
infant. Or, if the legal guardian to whom I
have referred is a person of individualistic
tendencies who regards the enlargement of
governmental action with suspicion, the child
may take his pennies to the nearest branch
of the National Penny Bank, which receives
deposits from a penny upwards, and there
the directors will guard his money for him,
LONDON THRIFT.
2SS
and also give him a certain rate of interest.
There is even for the budding capitalist a
third alternative. The Salvation Army Reli-
ance Bank will provide him with a money
box not of unsubstantial tin or brittle wood
which will enable the greed for chocolate
of to-day to break through and steal the
careful forethought of yesterday, but a strong
receptacle, recalling in a miniature manner
the masterpieces of the great safe-makers.
This bo.x is supplied with a strong padlock,
the key of which is in the hands of the Salva-
tion Army agent, who at certain periods visits
the house, unlocks the box, counts the pennies,
for which he gives a receipt, and, going one
better than the Post Office allows the youthful
depositor three per cent.
In any account of the way London saves,
the Post Office, both from the magnitude of
its transactions and its governmental position,
naturally claims first consideration. More
than ;^i40,ooo,ooo are deposited in the
Post Office Savings Bank, and of this huge
sum, though there are no official figures,
London may be assumed to own a quarter.
Of the total number of depositors sixty per
cent, are women and children, ninety per
cent, own less than fifty pounds, and pro-
bably seventy-five per cent, belong to the
industrial clas.ses. It is natural and
inevitable that amongst the folk, who in
their most prosperous times are only removed
one hair's breadth from .semi-starvation, the
women should be the most thrifty. This fact
is illustrated in the figures issued by institu-
tions similar to the Post Office Savings Bank.
There are a thousand branch savings banks
in London. At the central office 3,000
persons, of whom nearly half are women,
are engaged in managing the savings of the
poor man. The Post Office encourages
youthful thrift by allowing school teachers to
collect the pennies of their pupils either by
the use of stamp forms or by instituting
penny banks, the funds of which are placed
in bulk in the Post Office Savings Bank.
Somewhat similar in aim and method is the
National Penny Bank, founded by Mr. (now
Sir) George C. T. Bartley, M.P., with the late
Duke of Westminster, the late Earl of Derby,
and other friends, in 1875. The Penny
Bank, which began as a philanthropic insti-
tution, has by careful management been put
on a thoroughly sound commercial basis,
and its depositors have the .satisfaction
of knowing that they are obtaining the
benefits of a genuine business and not of a
mere charit}'. The National Penny Bank has
SCHOOL TEACHERS RECEIVING PUPILS PENNIES.
256
LIVING LONDON.
SALVATION ARMY RELIANCE BANK, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET.
thirteen branches, of which that in the
Hackney Road is one of the busiest. As
an illustration of its operations, during
one week before Christmas ;^ 150000 was
withdrawn by its depositors, while during
the week previous the weight of money
paid over the counters was i ton 18 cwts.
1 1 1 lbs., of which ninety per cent, was silver.
The ledgers are probably the most remark-
able documents owned by any banking house.
Here is a typical account. It began on
the first day of a month with the deposit
of a penny, which was increased four days
afterwards to eightpence. Two days later
it was brought down to twopence by the
withdrawal of sixpence. It then rose again
in three jumps to one and twopence, fell
again to , threepence, then to a penny, and
after an interval of three months the account
was closed. This is an instance of the
intricate nature of the bank's account. Some
years back there was, for various reasons, a
run on the bank. Customers poured in
demanding their money. Everyone was paid,
including two costermongers, who drew out
between them in gold and silver something
like fifty pounds. About an hour afterwards
they returned and asked the cashier if he
would kindly take their money back again.
" What has made you alter your minds ? "
said the cashier. " Well, guv'nor," said one
of the costers, " me and my mate, w'en we
got outside, didn't know wot to do with the
stuff, so Bill sez to me, ' Let's tyke it to
Coutts's.' We went dahn the Strand, guv'nor,
and blowed if Coutts's man didn't refuse to
tyke it ! So we've come back to you."
The Salvation Army Reliance Bank, which
has its headquarters in Queen Victoria Street,
is, as far as its deposit side is concerned,
worked in much the same manner as the Post
Office. The bank itself, with its counters
and brass railings, flanked with clerks in
red jerseys with " S.A." on their collars, has
a novel and unexpected appearance ; and
on my visit I could not help being impressed
by the unusual cheerfulness and civility of
everybody, from the happy-looking old
gentleman acting as hall door porter, who
directed me when I entered, to the able and
courteous manager — also in a red jersey —
whose manner and appearance were about
as unlike one's ideas of a financial magnate
as well could be. The curious mixture of
spiritual fervour with business acumen which
is characteristic of a great deal of General
Booth's organisation was exemplified by the
fact that this officer was reading when I was
shown into his room a copy of the latest
Stock Exchange prices, to settle, no doubt.
LONDON THRIFT.
257
in which direction to invest his bani<'s
money.
Turning to another branch of the subject,
it would be impossible to attempt even to
enumerate the different benefit and friendly
societies of one sort or another that exist
in the city of London. Inquiries go to prove
that in almost every large business — railway
companies, foundries, manufactories, and so
on — there is, in addition to the larger outside
societies, some sort of benefit fund attached
to the firm itself, in which the men's subscrip-
tions are often augmented by subscriptions
from the masters. These funds are looked
upon with a very great deal of distrust by
the trade unions and friendly societies'
leaders, and there seems some reason to
believe that in certain cases they are ad-
ministered too much by the master and too
little by the men, though I am inclined to
think that this is rather the exception than
the rule. A large number of publicans and
licensed grocers in working class localities
also start goose clubs and Christmas clubs
amongst their customers, in which, again, the
few pence or shillings put by every week for
the Christmas festivities are often increased
by the publican.
Perhaps more important and more inter-
esting are the great friendly societies and
their host of small imitators. Briefly, the
object of a friendly society may be stated
to be the payment of a certain weekly sum
to the members in time of sickness and
sometimes, also, when out of work, and of
a certain sum to the widow or orphans
on the decease of a member. No one
unacquainted with the London poor can
have any idea of the extraordinary desire,
especially amongst the women, for what is
called a decent funeral ; and I find by
inquiries amongst clergymen in the poorest
districts of London that the burial club
is a far more popular institution than the
organisation which provides funds to tide
its members over bad times, whether from
sickness or from want of employment.
There is a well known story of a poor
woman who dearly loved her .son, but who,
rather than spend certain money in buying
port wine and risk his having a pauper's
funeral, left him to die without the wine,
and had a burying which astonished the
neighbourhood. I myself once overheard a
conversation in an omnibus between two
elderly matrons, one of whom said to the
81
BIRKBECK BANK, SOUTHAMPTON BUILDINGS.
25S
LIVING LONDON.
HKARTS OF OAK CERTIKICATE.
the Sons of Temperance, and the two
Orders of Sons of the Phoenix — the last
four being teetotal organisations. Their
ramifications are very difficult to follow,
and much of their proceedings is kept
secret from the outsider. But generally
they may be fairly accurately said to be
a combination of freemasonry and an
ordinary friendly society. The Foresters,
for example, which is the most interest-
ing of them all, is said — I do not vouch
for the accuracy of the statement — to
have been founded by Robin Hood.
Anyhow, a court was in existence in
Leeds in 1790, and Forestry was intro-
duced into London in 1837. It con-
sists of nearly a million members, male,
female, and juvenile, and its funds are
approaching seven millions sterling.
The admirable objects of the Foresters,
which again may be taken to be fairly
typical of these societies, are : —
To establish and maintain benefit funds,
from which, on satisfactory evidence of the
death of a member of the society who has
complied with all its lawful requirements, a
sum shall be paid to the widow, orphans,
dependents, or other beneficiary whom the
and it must
pore thing, to
other, " Oh, it was a beautiful funeral !
After we come back we had wine and
biscuits and sangwitches
'ave done 'er 'eart good,
'ave been able to bury 'er 'usband so
nice." Of course, it is easy to philosophise
over the wastefulness of money spent on
elaborate funerals, but it is all very
human and very touching.
Christmas goose clubs are held in con-
nection with many institutes and clubs.
The Aldenham Institute, St. Pancras,
has a club consisting of nearly 2,500
members, who pay weekly contributions
towards a Christmas dinner, the distribu-
tion of the good things taking place on
Christmas Eve. Thanks perhaps to
Dickens, putting by for Christmas Day
is one of the most popular forms of
London Thrift.
Among the friendly societies having
branches in London are the P^oresters,
the Buffaloes, the Druids, the United
Patriots, the Oddfellows, the Rechabites,
FORESTER S CERTIKICATE.
LONDON THRIFT.
259
member has designated, or to the personal re-
presentative of the member, as laid down in the
said laws.
To secure for its members such other advantages
as are from time to time designated.
To unite fraternally all persons entitled to member-
ship under the laws of the society; and the
word " laws " shall include general laws and bye-
laws.
To give all moral and material aid in its power to
its members and those dependent upon them.
To educate its members socially, morally, and
intellectually.
To establish a fund for the relief of sick and
distressed members.
A characteristic of the Foresters and most
called " death money." Young men in good
health in receipt of a wage of not less
than 24s. per week are eligible for membership
between the ages of eighteen and thirty.
The entrance fee is 2s. 6d., and the sub-
scription about £2 a year. For this the
benefits include i8s. a week in case of sick-
ness, ^20 for a member's funeral, and ;^io
for the funeral of a member's wife — ladies
apparently costing less to bury than gentle-
men— 30s. for a wife's lying-in, and £1$ for
loss in case of fire. The tremendous business
done by the Hearts of Oak, as well as the
fertility of its members, may be gauged
A CHRISTMAS EVE DISTRIBUTION OK TURKEYS, GEESE, ETC. (AI.DENHAM I.NSTITUTE).
of the other societies I have mentioned is
found in their picturesque regalia.
The older trade unions also very largely act
as benefit societies, and offer much the same
advantages to their members. But it will be
remembered that when the new Unionist
movement started after the Dock Strike, it
was made a great feature that the trade
union should be exclusively a fighting body,
and that its power to fight for higher wages
and better conditions of labour should not be
weakened by including within its functions
those of a friendly society.
The Hearts of Oak, which has its head-
quarters near Fitzroy Square, is a benefit
society worked from a central office. It, too,
offers to its members sick pay and what is
by the fact that from 1842, when the society
was founded, to the end of December, 1904,
no less a sum than ;^ 1,1 90,628 was paid for
lying-in claims alone, while the total money
disbursed for all benefits amounted to over
seven and a half million pounds.
Before leaving this branch of the subject it
is interesting to notice that the Jewish and
the foreign quarters of London have their
own friendly societies, with their own peculiar
names, of which the following may be taken
as specimens : — The Podumbitzer Friendly
Society, United Brothers of Kalish, Socheti-
bover Sick Benefit, Grand Order of the Sons
of Jacob, and so on.
The building society is the favourite means
of thrift among the artisan and clerk classes.
26o
LIVING LONDON.
f
"^£^
^
DRUID S CERTIFICATE.
There are innumerable building societies all
over London, some of which are, rather oddly,
connected with Dissenting chapels, and often
have the minister of the chapel as one of the
trustees. The method of the building society
is to collect money in small sums from a large
number of persons and lend it to others
upon real securit}'. The method has many
variations. Usually after a member has de-
posited a certain amount with the society
sufficient to pay a proportion of the price
of a house the directors, after an in-
vestigation by their surveyor, advance the
balance of the purchase price, holding the
deeds as security, and this advance, together
with interest, has to be repaid in instalments
over a specified number of years, the result, of
course, being that the borrower pays probably
rather less a sum than
would be demanded of
him for rent, and in the
course of a few years owns
a house of his own. In
one instance which has
come to my knowledge a
doorkeeper of a factory in
the Euston Road has in
the course of forty years
acquired about twenty
houses in this manner, and
has become possessed of a
comfortable income which he will, of course,
be able to bequeath to his heirs.
There are between 2,000 and 3,000 build-
ing societies in England and Wales, and the
amount of business they do may be gauged
by the fact that in the Birkbeck — one of
the best known London societies — during a
recent twelvemonth 8,700 persons became
depositors, and the total cash received during
its first fifty years of existence amounted
to over ^290,000,000 sterling. Our photo-
graphic reproduction on page 257 depicts
the interior of the well-known Birkbeck
Bank, where the business both of the
building society and of the bank itself is
transacted.
Among interesting minor thrift societies
mention may be made of a very admirable
idea which has been started in West London
by one or two ladies, whereby servant girls
contribute a small sum monthly to the funds
of what is called a Clothes Club, and are
provided with rather more than the value of
their subscriptions in garments.
I have endeavoured to give a kaleido-
scopic view of the many varied organisations,
some entirely engineered by the members
themselves, others guided and fostered by
clergymen, philanthropists. Government of-
ficials, and employers of labour, which have
for their aim the encouragement of putting
by for a rainy day — the enunciation 01
the doctrine that to look after the pennies
is a sure and certain way of finding that
the pounds will look after themselves, and
that by the help of that marvellous institution
called interest, if you cast your bread upon
the waters, it will come back to j'ou largely
increased in bulk.
■.■•^^■'
Poslagc Sl;niips for
DcpoMi of Oiiii .shiiUng in' the Post Office
Siivinsrs Bank.
12 Penny Stamps to be aHl^ed below.
4
I
POST OEFICE SA\I.\GS BANK STAMP FOKM.
26 1
DUIUNG A SUMMER HEAT WAVE.
LONDON INDER THE WEATHER.
By GEORGE R. SIMS.
THE stapl
commodit
le
ity
of London
conversation is the
weather. In the
street the usual
greeting among
passing acquaint-
ances is " Fine
day," or "Wretched
weather," as the
case may be. At
the social gather-
ing the weather is
the subject which
usually breaks the
ice, and at the
clubs the members
meeting in the
hall, or gazing out
of the big front windows, invariably refer to
the atmospheric conditions. Of late years
it has been the fashion to describe most of
the seasons as " trying," and to-da}' the news-
papers have taken to headlining their me-
teorological paragraphs. The word "phenom-
enal " has come into vogue for the autumn
that is hot and the spring that is cold. The
ON THE KERBSTONE :
SUN HATS.
Londoner seems to be always hardly used
by the atmosphere, and the elements are
continually against him. If it is hot, it is a
" heat wave " and unbearable ; if it is cold,
it is a " blizzard " and murderous.
Having made up their minds that the
weather is extraordinary, Londoners comport
themselves under its variations in a more
or less extraordinary manner. They are
never prepared for heat or cold. A few
days of blazing sunshine fill the streets with
eccentric costumes for man and beast alike.
A few days of snow drive the borough
councils to the end of their wits, and paralyse
the traffic of the busiest city in the world.
But though only the extremes of heat and
cold emphasise the Londoner's helplessness
to the point of ridicule, the weather in all
its phases frames a picture of serio-comic
suffering which is well worth the attention
of the student of men and manners.
London in the heat wave is always inter-
esting. The streets suddenly become white
with the straw hats of men and women.
The waistcoat of civilisation is abandoned,
and daring young men wear sashes of
colour around their waists which are dignified
by the name of " cummerbunds." The ladies
262
LIVING LONDON.
in their lightest array anxiously shield their
complexions beneath umbrellas or parasols
of. sufficiently large dimensions to be of use
as well as ornament. Aristocratic London in
the heat wave — so much of it as remains in
town — seeks the shade of the Park at an
early hour. Occasionally it breakfasts in
Kensington Gardens ; it dines at night with
its windows wide open amid shaded lights ;
HIGH HOLBORN IN A STOUM.
and the balconies of the west have an
Oriental character until the midnight hour.
Ordinary London — working London and
loafing London — maintains no dignity in
the heat wave. Its coats come off in un-
accustomed places ; the business man carries
his Panama in his hand, and mops his brow ;
the 'busmen and the cabmen adorn their
horses' heads with straw bonnets, and tuck
handkerchiefs under their own hats, after
the fashion of the Indian puggaree. " Ice "
becomes the legend in the public-house
windows ; the sale of white linen hats
becomes a trade of the kerbstone ; and
tattered humanity reclines in the streets^
after the manner of the Neapolitan lazzaroni.
The steps of St. Paul's in the height of a
heat wave are frequently used for the at
fresco siesta of worker and loafer alike.
London in a thunderstorm is a scene
of panic. At the first clap women utter a
little cry of terror in chorus, and make
hurried darts into drapers' shops or con-
venient doorways. Pre-
sently the heavens burst,
and a terrific storm of
rain sweeps over the
town. Instantly, as if by
magic, the streets are
cleared : where the pedes-
trians have vanished to
is a mystery. But the
'buses and the cabs can-
not escape. The 'buses
are full inside ; the out-
side passengers bend
their heads to the pitiless
storm, cowering under
umbrellas if they have
them.
The cabmen turn up
their coat collars, and the
wet reins slip through
their hands ; but the cab
horse plays no pranks in
the heavy downpour.
The rain rattles against
the lowered glass ; a
small Niagara pours off
the brim of cabby's hat
and further impedes his
view ; the wheels splash
through small rivers
of muddy water ; and presently the shop
windows and the adjacent rails are mud-
bespattered, as if they had been pelted by
an indignant crowd. When the storm abates,
macintoshed stragglers appear in the streets,
but the outlook seems dank and miserable.
The ladies compelled to be abroad tread
gingerly on the tips of their toes. A cat
has no greater horror of wet under foot than
a female Londoner.
London in a fog ! The " scene " is unique ;
no other capital in the world can show the
equal of " the London Particular." When
the yellow, choking mist commences to roll
LONDON UNDER TIIK WEATHER.
263
up in the daytime,
London is filled with
Rembrandtesque
effects even at high
noon. The h'ghts
in the shops are
flaring, the hghts in
the private houses
are full on. You
see more of the
""domestic interior"
on a foggy day than
at any other time,
for the blinds are
not drawn. There
is no more pictur-
-esque peep-show
than the London
"domestic interior"
lighted up in the
daytime with the
firelight flickering
■on the walls.
Towards night, when the fog has not
Hfted, the situation becomes tragic. Fog
signals explode with startling detonation on
the railways ; Dante's Inferno seems to have
been transported to the town upon the
liV TOk(.HI.U;HT.
AT THE MEKCY OF THE WIND
Thames. Boys and men wander here and
there with torches, and lend a diabolical
element to the Cimmerian gloom ; the warn-
ing shouts of 'busmen and cabmen, as they
move slowly forward, now getting on to the
pavement, now colliding with a lamp-post,
come from the unseen. Wayfarers, busi-
ness men returning from their occupation,
belated travellers bound for distant parts of
the Metropolis, grope their way blindly along,
clutching at the railings of the houses to
make sure that they do not wander into the
roadway ; when they come suddenly upon
something that looks like a policeman, they
ask in plaintive voices for topographical
guidance. But somehow or other everybody
gets home — the cabmen find their stables,
the 'busmen their yards. On the morrow, when
the gift of sight is once more of practical use,
we relate our adventures as humorous ex-
periences to our friends who had the good
fortune to remain indoors during " a London
fog."
London in a gale. London, when the
wild north-easter blows over a wind-dried
city, is trying alike to the temper and the
dignity. As the sign-boards swing the
nervous pedestrian glances uneasily aloft. At
times he ceases to glance anywhere, and,
turning his back on the blast, closes his eyes ;
LUDGATE CIRCUS IN A FOG.
LONDON UNDER THE WEATHER.
265
for the dust which has eddied and swirled
in the roadway comes on a sudden gust, in
a thick cloud, straight at him. In this position
the male pedestrian is uncomfortable enough,
but the female pedestrian is an object to melt
the heart of a woman-hater. To keep her hat
on and stand her ground, as the wind blowing
fifty miles an hour spends its fury on her
ample skirts, is a feat that requires long
practice. If she is wise she clutches at a lamp-
post or a railing ; if she trusts to her own
unaided efforts she is generally blown along
in a series of undignified little jumps.
When the wind blows furiously in London
the pavements and roadways are strewn with
rubbish and torn paper, fragments of news-
paper contents bills, and shop sweepings.
It is as though a caravan of dust-carts had
strewn their contents about the Metropolis.
The newspaper bills have a partiality for the
middle of the roadway, where they frighten
horses or, occasionally rising like kites in the
air, wrap themselves round the face of a
carman or an outside 'bus passenger. The
theatre boards and newspaper boards outside
the shops are blown down here and there
with a sharp little bang, and the spectacle
of a gentleman wildly careering among the
traffic after his hat is common. A gale is
usually more prolific in accidents than a fog,
and there is always a long list of casualties.
London in a drizzle — the damp, warm
drizzle that goes on and on and colours
all things a gloomy drab — is a misery unto
men and a woe unto women. There is a
penetrating dampness about the London
drizzle that seems gradually to mildew the
mind. The weather is repeated in the
countenance of everybody one meets. The
pavements have become gradually like the
sea sand at low tide. They are a series of
small puddles relieved by pools where the
stones have been removed for repair. The
nice conduct of an umbrella is not within the
genius of the Londoner, and so where the
crowd waits for the 'buses that are always full
inside, or in the busy streets where there are
always two opposing streams of pedestrians,
there is constant collision and apology,
and occasionally one man's umbrella drips
down the neck of his neighbour. The
bestowal of wet umbrellas in omnibuses and
tram-cars is a fertile source of trouble. With
82
twelve saturated umbrellas all draining at
once on to the floor of a crowded vehicle, and
frequently down the garments of the
passengers, the inside of a public conveyance
closely resembles a bathing machine.
There is a peculiar blight that descends on
London occasionally and lies heavily upon
it for days. The skies are of a smoky grey, a
yellowish haze narrows the horizon; in the
parks and open spaces a light blue mist
hangs upon the grass and envelops the
trunks of the trees. The birds are silent, the
church clocks strike with a muffled sound.
The depression extends alike to beast
and man. The cab and 'bus horses go
lazily, the crowds of human beings move about
as though they had a silent sorrow. It is
then the words " Beastly weather " are heard
everywhere, and men yawn publicly. There
is even a pessimistic note in the public Press,
and if Parliament is sitting a dyspeptic tone
pervades the debates.
But it is when London has had a snowstorm
that the Londoner is seen under the most
depressing conditions of all. The beautiful
snow of the Christmas number has no joys for
him. Short spells of frost may come now
and then, but they are marred by the dread
anticipations of the thaw that must follow.
London under a rapid thaw is the paradise
of plumbers, but it is the other place for
everybody else.
Yet London half-flooded by thaw is but a
minor evil compared with the flooding of
certain low - lying districts that follows a
long period of heavy rain. South London
is sometimes the scene of an e.xtensive
inundation. Lambeth Marshes are under
water ; houses in this neighbourhood are
flooded in cellar and basement, founda-
tions are rendered unsafe, and the inhab-
itants are for many days amphibious. The
Thames once e.xtended as far as the
Elephant and Castle and Newington Butts,
and at times of heavy downpours the
dwellers in this district are unpleasantly
reminded of the fact.
But to return to the snow. When the
Londoner wakes up in the morning and
sees that it has fallen heavily in the night
— when the Londoner looks out upon a
" white city " — he for a moment appreciates
the poetry of the picture. But directly
266
LIVING LONDON.
London begins its day's work the scene
is changed. The traffic, foot and horse,
rapidly crushes the snow into a slushy paste
resembling chocolate in the early process
of manufacture. The pavements become
slippery, the wood and the asphalt are
skating rinks. If the snow still continues
and the roads freeze hard, or only partially
thaw, London does nothing. The unemployed
are immediately remembered, and indignant
citizens rush into print, demanding an army
of men for the relief of the situation.
Presently the authorities summon up courage
to attack the difficulty. The householder has
felt compelled to clear so much of the pave-
ment as lies in front of his habitation, or has
emplo\-ed the men with spades who peram-
bulate the suburbs shouting, " Sweep your
doorway." But the municipal officials have
" waited." When they set to work they
generally clear the roadway by shovelling the
snow into great heaps on either side.
London then becomes a miniature Switzer-
land with a small Alpine range running along
its roadways.
If the frost holds and the London lakes
freeze over, then the Serpentine and the
ornamental waters in Regent's Park revive
for a day or two the vanished glories of
the Ice Fair. The banks are lined with men
who bring old cane-bottomed or Windsor
chairs with them, and do a roaring trade
in affixing skates to the boots of the select.
Sliding is the sport of the small boy, who
is largel}' represented on these occasions.
Picturesque figures are the Royal Humane
Society men in their cork jackets, and not
infrequently their services are reauired to
rescue an adventurous skater who has dis-
dained the warning notice-board of danger.
London while the frost holds and the snow
is hard is exhilarating for the young and the
idle ; snow-balling is indulged in in spite
of police prohibition, and in some parts of
the suburbs you may come upon the juvenile
sculptor's effort at a snowman. But snow dis-
organises the traffic, and the business man
suffers and growls, while the poor feel their
situation acutely. Many trades cease. Frozen-
out gardeners and bricklayers make their
appearance in slowly walking little groups,
and seek to open the purse strings of the
charitable by chanting doleful ditties.
But London under the snow that is half
snow and half slush — London under a week
of alternating snow and frost — is a piteous
spectacle. A general paralysis attacks the
whole working organisation. The train
service gradually dissociates itself from the
time tables, the omnibus service is cut down
to infinitesimal proportions, and the news-
papers are filled with sarcastic comments
concerning " The Beautiful Snow." Then
indeed is London " Under the Weather."
w
• ^ It.
4w W
Fkolo : rori 4 Son-, yotung ihll. If.
SKATING ON THE SERPENTINE,
267
SCOTTISH, IRISH, AND WELSH LONDON.
By C. O'CONOR ECCLES.
EVERY year from Scotland, from Ireland,
and from Wales young men flock in
hundreds to London. They are of
all classes, all degrees of education, united
in one common aim, that, namely, of making
squares to struggling practitioners in White-
chapel and South wark. Irish barristers are
numerous, and, thanks to the eloquence which
is their birthright, win fame and fortune in
their profession. Journalism likewise attracts
PLAYING IN THE HAGGIS ON ST. ANDREWS NIGHT.
a living. The new-comers find employment
in many different ways. Scotland and
Ireland largely recruit the ranks of the
police force. The Civil Service, too, in all
its branches employs many Irishmen, whose
brilliant talents often enable them to rise
from small posts to places of high emolument
and power. Mercantile clerkships attract the
Scot, who has a happy knack of coming
South with the traditional half-crown in his
pocket, and by thrift, ability, and industry
amassing a fortune. Scottish and Irish
doctors, too, abound, from men who have
made a name and dwell in fashionable
large numbers of Scotsmen and Irishmen
so that it is a saying in Fleet Street that
English editors are kept simply to correct
the " shalls " and " wills " of their colleagues.
Welshmen in their pursuits are usually
either musical or mercantile, and frequently
both. Many of London's leading singers,
both men and women, are Welsh, though
both Ireland and Scotland contribute their
quota of musical talent. Indeed, perhaps,
the gayest and most picturesque figure to
be seen in London streets is the itinerant
Scottish piper with his bagpipes, a man
who, if he does not rank in the eyes of the
268
LIVING LONDON.
LONDON KYMRIC LADIES CHOIR.
world with the musical celebrities of his
nation, would seem to have a " guid conceit "
of himself, and to enjoy mightily the interest
he rouses in quiet residential quarters.
From music to milk is an easy transition,
if we may judge by the innumerable old
Welsh ballads which begin by stating that
"Winnie" or " Nesta " was a milkmaid. It
is consequently interesting to learn that
the milk trade of London is to a great
extent in the hands of the Welsh. Several
drapery establishments, too, are owned by
enterprising Welshmen.
Very many Irishmen of the poorest class
likewise drift to London in search of employ-
ment. Debarred by lack of means from
lodgings where the rate of payment is high,
and yet compelled to be near the great
industrial centres where chance jobs may be
most easily picked up, they and their
families are automatically forced into slum
dwellings in such neighbourhoods as Poplar,
Islington, and Southwark, where they form
colonies of people wonderfully good and
helpful to each other, but over-crowded,
deprived of all that brightens and beautifies
existence, and compelled to bring up their
children under circumstances that give the
little ones but a slender chance of developing
their highest po.ssibilities.
The Scot who comes to London is sure
sooner or later to find himself in touch
with the Scottish Corporation in Crane
Court, Fleet Street. This body occupies
No. 7, a spacious building at the extreme
end, with high-pitched roof, small turrets
to the front, and other features of Scottish
architecture. Scottish life in London centres
round the spot. It is the headquarters of
many county associations, of the Highland
Society, the Caledonian Society, the Gaelic
Society, and various other organisations.
Because of the innumerable activities and
interests concentrated there, 7, Crane Court,
has been called " The Scottish Consulate."
The house is modern, having been rebuilt in
1880 on the site of the old hall purchased at
the end of the eighteenth century by the
Corporation from the Royal Society. Sir
Isaac Newton's presidential chair was saved
from the fire which destroyed this original
building as well as many valuable paintings
and records ; it now stands in the board
room.
Ever since 1665 the Corporation has held
an annual dinner on St. Andrew's Night,
where the guests in full Highland costume
are marshalled to their places by skirling
pipers, who later in the evening head a
majestic procession of cooks, each bearing
on a trencher a haggis, " great chieftain of
the pudding race," the national dish which
to the palate of the true-born Scot surpasses
all that the South can offer. At this festival
SCOTTISH, IRISH, AND WELSH LONDON.
269
some prominent Scottish nobleman presides,
and on the walls appear Scottish emblems,
" the ruddy lion rampt in gold," the banners
and shields of Highland clans, with clay-
mores, dirks, and pistols. Funds are collected
for the relief of distress, and thanks to
Scottish benevolence many a humble home
has been kept together, and many a decent
body, brought low by misfortune, has been
pensioned and enabled to spend his last
days in peace. It is an interesting sight
clad in the Stuart tartan, and ready at their
teacher's word to sing plaintive Jacobite
ballads in sweet childish trebles. Their
soft notes have more than once melted the
hearts and loosened the purse-strings of
Scottish visitors. Practical good sense is
shown in the training given.
Scottish gentlemen of position, officers of
Scottish regiments and others, foregather at
the Caledonian Club, 30, Charles Street,
St. James's. The house is roomy and old-
fashioned, with wide corridors and lofty,
spacious apartments. The Club, though
only established in 1898, numbers over a
thousand members, and, like the famous
LEARNI.NG IRISH REELS (ATHEN^UM
HALL, TOTTE.NHAM COURT ROAD).
to see the old people come for their pensions
once a month.
Should an indigent Scotsman die in
London, or a Scottish soldier, sailor or
marine be disabled when on active service,
his children will be received at the Royal
Caledonian Asylum, which has now its head-
quarters at Bushey. It is worth while to
go down any morning and, escorted by the
kindly Secretary, see the kilted boy pipers
march up and down skirling bravely, or
watch the little lads dance the Reel, the
Highland Fling, and the Sword Dance.
There are about ninety of them, all well-fed,
well-cared-for, well-taught, and bright-faced.
Along the corridor, on the girls' side of
the building, are some si.xty bonnie lasses,
giantess, is " still growing." Ladies are
admitted as guests daily to lunch and tea,
and once or twice a week to dinner. The
fine reading-room with its panels of dark
green silk brocade is given over to them,
and a special dining-room is reserved for
them and their hosts.
The Scottish Golf Club at Wimbledon,
founded in 1865 by a group of London
Scotsmen, has a large body of members,
devotees of the national game.
Seldom is a London winter sufficiently
rigorous to admit of curling, but when the
ice bears, the members of the Shinto Curling
Club are there, ready to take advantage of
it for this exciting game.
The Irishman finds in London his own
270
LIVING LONDON.
literary, athletic, political, and social institu-
tions. He may join the Irish Literary
Society, and stroll down to its headquarters,
where he can read all the Irish papers, have
luncheon, tea, or dinner, and meet his friends,
since this organisation combines the advan-
tages of a club with lectures, concerts, and
other attractions, and is becoming more and
more the chief centre of social intercourse
for the Irish in London. It is non-sectarian
and non-political, and, as its primary object
is the advancement of Irish literature, appeals
to all parties. To it belong many literary
men and women of Irish nationality. Several
of these are members of a kindred association,
the Irish Texts Society This was estab-
lished to publish, with English translations,
glossaries, and notes, the large and interesting
body of Irish MSS. which still e.xists.
The most Irish of the Irish belong to
a flourishing young organisation which is
friendly in its relations with the Irish
Literary Society, though quite independent
of it. I allude to the Gaelic League, which
attracts a number of the most energetic
and practical of the younger generation, and
has its headquarters at Duke Street, Adelphi.
Its direct object is to extend the living
Irish language, and preserve the store of fine
Irish songs and traditions that, without such
SHAMROCK SELLER.
IRISH GUARDS.VIEN.
timely help, might die
out; indirectly — being
based on principles of
national self-reliance —
it stands for the revival
of Irish industries, for
all that is at once
national and progres-
sive. The visitor to the
Athenaium Hall, Tot-
tenham Court Road,
will find on any Mon-
day evening some two
hundred young men
and women assembled
to study Gaelic. There is always a large
mi.xture of Irish speakers who make it a
point of honour at these meetings to speak
in Gaelic only. Amongst them are some who,
though born and bred in London and speak-
ing English without a trace of accent, are
well acquainted with the sweet native tongue
of their forefathers. The League has fifteen
Irish schools in the Metropolis. Recreation,
on traditional lines, is not lost sight of. The
Irish dancing classes are always popular, and
in addition there are in summer pleasant
Seilgi and Scoruidheachta, or excursions and
social gatherings, with now and then a Pleraca
or dance, while an annual musical festival is
held at the Queen's Hall. This has a large
number of Gaelic songs on the programme,
and the music is exclusively traditional.
This festival is now considered the central
event in the Irish musical year. It is distinct
from the Irish concert now held at the
Queen's Hall on St. Patrick's Night, which
is on the lines of the popular Scottish con-
cert on St. Andrew's Night, and attracts the
same kind of audience. On St. Patrick's
Day there is a wonderful sale of so-called
" shamrock " in the London streets — most
of it, alas, pure clover that grew probably
in Surrey meadows. It is often decorated
with sparkling bits of gold foil, and to the
uninitiated looks cheap at a penny a bunch.
The expert, however, notes the white dot
on each leaf and the hairy stems, and prefers
to get his button-hole direct from Ireland,
where, indeed, there is a considerable export
trade in the genuine article about this time.
The religious service in honour of St. Patrick
at the Roman Catholic Church, Dockhead, is
SCOTTISH, IRISH, AND WELSH LONDON.
271
unique, the hymns, sermons, and responses
being respectively in Irish and Latin. It
attracts a crowded congregation.
The GaeUc Athletic Association possesses
some eight or nine clubs, mostly in North
London, devoted to hurling, football, and
athletics generally, their chief grounds being
at Muswell Hill and Lea Bridge. They
hold no matches or competitions with
English clubs. The "G.A.A." has its head-
quarters in Ireland, and Great Britain ranks
as one of its provinces, London being con-
pected later to play All Ireland for the
championship.
In Holborn there is an Irish club the
members of which are civil servants, medical
men and others ; the medical men having also
an association of their own at II, Chandos
Street, one of the objects of which is to
secure the recognition of Irish degrees by
London hospitals, which in distributing
appointments often refuse to accept Irish
qualifications, however capable may be the
men holding them.
A LONDON IRISH HURLING MATCH.
sidered a county. There are in the Metro-
polis a large body of members, of whom
over 200 belong to the Hibernian Athletic
Club, the oldest of the group, which was
founded in 1895. Hurling, as practised by
Irish teams, differs in certain respects from
hockey, and is a more dashing game ; while
the Gaelic Athletic Rules for football prohibit
handling, pushing, or tripping, which are
permitted by Rugbj' rules. When the grass
is very wet, however, some of the pla\'ers
discard boots and stockings. The various
G.A.A. clubs in London challenge each
other, and then the winning team challenges
some other county, as, for example, the
Manchester and Liverpool G.A.A. The
winner in this latter match is always ex-
While the various Irish counties have no
such societies as the Scottish for bringing
natives together, a province, Ulster, has its
own association. It owes it origin to the
casual encounter of two or three enthusiastic
Northerners who lamented that, proud as
was the position of their compatriots in
London, they had no general meeting place.
Its inaugural banquet was held in Januar}',
1897, when many recruits joined the Society,
and, thanks to excellent management, the
membership has since greatly increased.
Balls, concerts, Cinderella dances, banquets,
and a river trip are among the entertainments
offered. The headquarters of the as.sociation
are at the Hotel Cecil.
In the days of Parnell, the Westminster
2/2
LIVING LONDON.
tk« -LONDON KXLT.-
• Cymtw^. \XVH. Y Ph<c«l a Hw«m« Jmms, JLA.
: m^
ar5ir--:»'i.-=it=: -; *
i
PUBLISHED IX LONDON.
Palace Hotel was a favourite rendezvous
of the Irish Nationalist Members of I'arlia-
ment. Nowadays, however, they have no
recognised centre, but hold their meetings
sometimes at one place, sometimes at another.
Some of them have town houses, others live
in apartments, others again chum together
and have rooms or chambers in common,
whether in localities like Kensington or
Chelsea, or on the Surrey side, which, if
less fashionable, is within easier reach of the
House of Commons. There are, it may be
added, many purely political associations for
Irishmen in London.
The above may be taken as covering
Irish Ireland in London, but there is also
fashionable Ireland, which, if the bull may
be pardoned, is not Irish at all, since it
includes wealthy non-resident Irish landlords
who, for the most part, like the Duke of
Devonshire and the Marquess of London-
derry, are Englishmen born and bred, but
hold estates across the Channel. Many
wealthy women, however, in this circle do
good work in buying Irish manufactures,
and no trousseau of an aristocratic bride
is complete unless the dainty stitchery, the
fairy-like embroidery, and the costly lace
are provided by workers in some Irish
convent. The Irish Peasantry Society at
Stamford Street, Blackfriars, offers a free
education to a certain number of the
London born children of Irish parents.
preference being given to those whose fathers
were soldiers or sailors. This Association
also offers small prizes in Ireland for the
best kept cottages.
Since the establishment of the Irish Guards
by Queen Victoria, in compliment to Irish
valour in South Africa, the uniform and the
flat cap with its green band have become
familiar in the London streets. The three
figures in our photographic illustration on
page 270 are shown standing in front of a
coat of arms affixed to a wall in the Tower
of London. There is also a well-known Irish
Volunteer regiment, the London Irish Rifles,
already mentioned in the article on " Volun-
teer London."
The Welsh inhabitants of London, though
they number some fifty thousand, have no
such central meeting places as the Scots
and Irish. True, they possess an admirable
literary society, the Cymmrodorion, which
gives aid to necessitous members of the
community, but Welsh life in London
centres chiefly in the chapels, and its
activities for the most part are religious, or,
at any rate, connected with religion. To
gain some idea of its true inwardness, one
cannot do better than attend the New
Jewin Chapel or the Welsh Tabernacle in
the Pentonville Road some Sunday evening
when a popular preacher has come up to
address the congregation. The stranger will
find the building thronged with well-dressed
people, for the most part prosperous business
men and women, the number of the former
sex being remarkable. The majority are
Calvinistic Methodists, for to this body
the bulk of the London Welsh population
belong, though there are also many Welsh
Congregationalists, Baptists, and Wesleyans
in the capital, while the Established Church
finds a certain number of adherents. The
sermon, the hymns, the announcements are
all in Welsh, so that the visitor feels himself
an outsider and a foreigner, despite the
familiar aspect of everyone and everything.
As might be e.xpected where a race is .so
musical, the congregational singing is ex-
ceptionally good. The organist at the Welsh
Tabernacle, Mrs. Frances Rees-Rowlands, is
conductress of the London Kymric Ladies'
Choir, of which Lady Puleston is president.
The members are selected from all the Welsh
SCOTTISH, IRISH, AND WELSH LONDON.
273
chapels, the best voices only being picked
out, with the result that this choir was
awarded the first and second prizes at the
Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales, and
has appeared before Royalty. All the singers
are dressed in their national costume, with
the Welshwoman's characteristic hat.
On St. David's Eve Welsh people have
special services at the City Temple and
St. Paul's ; and on St. David's Day, though
few of them sport the leek as the Irish
sport the shamrock, they eat it at their
annual dinner in the form of Cawl Cenin,
a favourite soup. The Welsh in London
possess a political society, the Cymru Fydd,
which is Radical in its tendencies, and to
which most of the Welsh Members of
Parliament belong. Moreover, they have a
newspaper of their own printed partly in
their own language, and bearing the title of
The London Welshman {Cymro Llundain).
Thrifty, cleanly, industrious, neighbourly
and united, the London Welsh form an
important and valuable addition to the
population.
Indeed, the Scottish, Iri.sh, and Welsh
elements do and have done much towards
making London a world city, and in leaven-
ing the Anglo-Saxons with Celtic impetuosity
and mental alertness have, with other causes,
given to metropolitans a width of outlook
and a receptivity not to be found in pro-
vincial towns where these elements do not
bulk as largely or act as potently.
HIGHLAND PIl^EK AND DANCER IN LONDON.
83
274
LAYING ELECTRIC CABLES.
LIGHTING LONDON.
By DESMOND YOUNG.
IF one could only hover in a balloon over
Central London as night falls ! To see,
as the man with the long stick makes
his round and switches are turned on and
levers pulled behind the scenes, the trans-
formation scene gradually unfold and the
myriad lights spurt out of the grey gloom
beneath: the sinuous Thames
become outhned by moonlike
arc lamps ; the bridges start
up as if set pieces of fire-
works ; Leicester Square
assert itself as the hub of
Pleasure London in a blaze
of bluish - white refulgence,
more than ever eclipsmg its
sedate neighbour, Trafalgar
Square ; long lines of stars
shoot out from the busy,
pulsing heart below, radiating
in all directions, beginning
with steady white orbs and
fading away in glimmering
specks of yellowish luminosity
— what a picture it would be !
Innumerable are the lights
of London and well-nitjh in-
LAMP LIGHTER.
conceivably vast is the system by which
they are produced and maintained. Scores
of private companies, as well as a number
of public bodies, including the County
Council, are engaged in the work ; the capital
sunk in it is fabulous in amount ; and the
pipes and cables connected with it form an
amazingly complex subter-
ranean network, of which
Londoners get a glimpse
when the streets are " up."
Electricity is generated in
the Metropolis at scores of
points. The oldest company
distributing the energy is the
London Electric Supply Cor-
poration, whose station at
Deptford was long the largest
in the world. Whether it is
now or not, its capacity is
enormous. To obtain even
a superficial knowledge of
the lighting of London these
works must be visited. Here
we are, then. A bewildering
maze of engines and
machinery fills the large
LIGHTING LONDON.
275
engine house. To the right is the older
plant — powerful engines connected to
dynamos by rope pulleys. To the left are
some of the newer engines, coupled direct
to huge dynamos which are revolving so
rapidly and noiselessly that but for the
little sparks that come and go they would
seem to be motionless. At present — it
is 1 1 a.m., with a bright sky overhead —
there is a light load on, not much electricity
is being consumed. Hence there are only
two engines running. As the demand in-
etc, of the mysterious current that is passing
through the cables below, and the handles
enable them to regulate it. Though they
seem to have it completely in harness,
this is the most dangerous part of the
works.
Among the municipal corporations which
supply electricity St. Pancras and Shoreditch
occupy important positions. Of the London
authorities St. Pancras led the way in open-
ing a station, while Shoreditch was the first
borough in the country to combine on a
IX THE LONDON ELECTKIC SUPPLY CORPORATION S WORKS,
creases others will be started to keep pace
with it. There is no drawing on reserves
when the rush comes about dusk, as at a
gas works. As electricity is wanted so it
must be generated and supplied, because
storing it, while possible, is not commercially
practicable. And, as a consequence, some
engines are always running.
On a gallery to the left the switch-board
is situated. It has as many rows of dials
as a clockmaker's shop, and underneath arc
ranged levers like those in the signal cabin
on the iron road. The quivering hands of
the gauges show the attendants the pressure.
large scale the destruction of dust and refuse
with the production of electricity. The two
things often go hand in hand now. Still,
to Shoreditch is due the credit which should
always be given to the pioneer.
Let us take a peep at its station. Begin
at the yard, into which the refuse — household,
trade, and street^is brought. Little moun-
tains of clinkers from the furnaces are here
a feature of the scenery. The economic
disposal of this waste is one of the most
important problems connected with the
undertaking — which is not creditable to us
as a commercial nation. Among it, for one
LIGHTING LONDON.
277
thing, are some articles which would pass
as relics from Pompeii.
Cross the yard, and we are at the lift which
raises the rubbish to the top of the furnaces
(already described in the article on " London's
Toilet "). Through the engine house, along the
gallery in front of an elaborate switch-board,
and into another room containing a switch-
board for public lighting. If you pulled
down one of those levers projecting from it,
all the arc lamps on one side of a street
would go out. The lights are, except when
fog envelops the borough, switched on and
off according to a time table. And that
points to the coming doom of the man with
the stick as well as of the lamp cleaner with
his light, portable ladder. Electric lamps, of
course, do not need their attention. Both
will be superseded by the now familiar
figure who supplies the arc lamps with
carbon, which is consumed in the production
of the light.
Electricity is coming more and more into
use in London for lighting. Hundreds of
miles of streets are laid with cables, and yet
it is impossible to walk very far without
seeing more being put down. The road is
up. In the gutter stands a huge reel of
leaden cable. Presently this is rolled nearer
the hole, and then the passers-by stop and
gaze expectantly. At last they are going
to behold that famous little dog which rushes
through the earthenware pipe with a string
tied to its tail and thus makes a connection
between two lengths. But, alas I this
sagacious animal is purely mythical. No
dog is used, no member of the brute
creation, though there is a tradition that
a rat was once pressed into service, and
that to ensure all possible speed a ferret
was sent after it to tell it to hurry up.
Instead of resorting to any device of this
kind, the men put an ordinary drain rod
through the pipe. To the end of this very
prosaic tool a string is attached, and to the
end of the string a rope, and to the end
of the rope the beginning of the cable. It
is all very simple. Londoners, however, are
likely to see much of it in the near future.
Gas is supplied to the great city mostly
by two corporations. One, the Gas Light
and Coke Company, has more than sixty
square miles of territory north of the Thames
and makes, in round figures, 22,21 i.ooo.cxx)
cubic feet of gas per annum. Its works are
scattered all over London, though the output
at Beckton is as large as at all the others
combined. The other great company is
the South Metropolitan, which supplies an
enormous area on the south side of the river
with 11,272,916,000 cubic feet per annum.
These companies, with the Commercial Com-
pany, supply most of the gas u.sed for street
lighting, as well as that consumed by the
" flares " on theatres and other public build-
ings. There are, however, a number of minor
companies — the Crystal Palace, the Totten-
ham, the West Ham, the Wandsworth and
District, and others.
To see one of the sources of the old-
fashioned light we cannot do better than
journey up the Old Kent Road to the
headquarters of the South Metropolitan
Gas Company. Through the gateway past
towers, stacks of pipes, heaps of coke, shops
in which lamp-repairing and other work is
being carried on, and enormous gas-holders,
and, behold ! the egg stage of gas-mak-
ing— taking in the coal.
Belc
the
Surrey Canal, to our side of which
three barges are moored. High above,
a number of cranes. With a rattle as the
chain runs over the wheel at the end of the
arm, an iron tub descends, lights on a heap
of slack in the hold of one of the craft,
opens like a pair of scissors, and closes on
the top of the mass. Then a signal, and
away the big bucket swings aloft. It is as
if a giant's arm had reached down and seized
a handful. The illustration on page 280
shows the coal being taken in at the
Vauxhall works of the South Metropolitan
Gas Company.
Next, the retorts — the old type of retorts,
fed by hand, and not the modern gas-extract-
ing chambers that are stoked by machinery,
though there are some of these in the works.
And now it is hot, scorchingly hot. Mounted
on a platform that runs on rails, a half-naked
stoker, black, shiny, arms and face so beaded
with perspiration that they catch and hold
every speck of dust, stands in front of one
of a whole series of doors something like
those of an ordinary steam boiler, from the
top of each of which a pipe runs upwards.
Mopping his brow with one hand, he takes
278
LIVING LOiNDON.
LAMP CLEANER.
a light from a jet
close by, and ap-
plies it to the
door. Pop ! A
flame bursts out
all round it, burns
for a few mo-
ments, and then
dies out. That
gets rid of the
gas in the retort.
And now there
is a blinding,
searing glare of
light that casts
the muscular
worker into vivid
relief. He has
thrown the door open.
One glance, with his
hands shading his eyes,
and, having cleared the
opening of the pipe of
the tar which has been
deposited in it, he plunges
a rake into the retort,
and draws out the car-
bonised contents, from
which smoke ascends in
clouds as they fall down
between the platform and
the retorts on to sloping
iron shelves below where
we stand, there to have
water played on them
and assume the appearance of the coke of
commerce. Soon the retort is empty, an
incandescent tube, whose sides are white with
the intensity of the heat.
Perspiration pours from the silhouetted
figure of the stoker. You can see it oozing
out of him in great beads. But on ! on !
there is no time to lose. The retort must
be charged speedily, else the cold air will
bring about a certain loss of efficiency. So
he wheels round to a long scoop like an
enormous cheese taster that has been filled
with coal from a heap in the rear. By the
help of his assistants, he raises the end of
this implement to the mouth of the retort,
runs it in and turns it over, thus discharging
the contents. Again and again does he
repeat this operation till the retort is charged.
There ! the work is done — done for six
hours. Remember, however, that only one-
half of the process has been visible to us.
An exact duplicate of the scene we have wit-
nessed has taken place on the other side,
for the retorts are drawn and filled from
both ends. And, of course, some of the re-
torts are emptied and fed without using the
movable platform, as shown in the illustra-
tion on page 276.
We cannot follow the gas from the retorts
to the mains. That were too long a
journey. Enough that it is drawn off by
engines, known as " exhausters," which
send it through the works— through plant
where it is cooled, washed, etc. ; through
the meters, which are of the size that the
harassed householder sometimes sees in his
dreams at the end of the
Christmas quarter (they
are as big as a railway
carriage and register up
to hundreds of millions
of cubic feet on seven
dials) ; and, lastly, into
the huge, towering gas-
holders, the largest of
which — the famous tele-
scopic "Jumbo" — has a
capacity of 5,500,000
feet. Vast as this
monster is, however,
there are two larger
at the South Metro-
politan Company's
PAVLNG OUT A LEADEN CABLE.
works on Green-
wich Marshes
One of these is
actually double
the size of
" Jumbo " !
I<"rom the huge
holders the gas
passes, at a pres-
sure regulated just
inside the gates,
into the mains, to
be distributed
among hundreds
of thousands of
customers. Within
recent years these
have increased
SUPPLYING ARC LAMP
WITH CARBON.
LIGHTING LONDON.
279
enormously. Thanks to that beneficial in-
vention, the coin-freed meter, gas companies
have tapped a new public — a public which
purchases gas by the pennyworth ; and now
consumers of this class are numbered by
the million and are being added to daily.
The South Metropolitan Company alone has
more than 120,000 slot meters in use, and
is installing others at the rate of 250 or 300
per week.
Not that these figures repre.sent so many
Round that special instrument tragedy and
comedy centre. It gives the gas industry
a human interest which it did not possess in
the old days. Let us take a short walk with
one of the officials who collect the coppers
from meters of this class. Before we reach
his round — and matters are so arranged that
every person who buys gas by the penny-
worth is visited once every five weeks — he
tells of a Mrs. Jones who sent a message
post-haste to the works the other day. That
LAMP REPAIRING SHOP (SOUTH METROPOLITAN GAS COMPANY).
new customers. No ; some people who feel
the pinch of poverty acutely clear out their
ordinary meter h\d get a slot one in its place.
The advantage is obvious. They pay as
they go on. There is no bill running up,
no looking forward with anxiety to the end
of the quarter, no risk of receiving the com-
pany's terrible ultimatum, " Pay up, or your
gas will be cut off." It is true that this
threat is not often carried out, even when
an unfortunate consumer cannot scrape
together enough to wipe off the debt ; but
how many thousands there are in this great
city who expect to hear it four times a
year ! In general, however, the installing of
a slot meter means the gaining of a new
customer.
message, as delivered accurately enough by
her daughter, was this : — -
" i\Iother wants you to send a man to open
our meter at once. She's put some money
in, and she can't get father's dinner."
Now the collector begins to make his calls.
For a while he proceeds without incident ;
but presently he picks out a two-shilling
piece from among a lot of coppers. What is it
doing in that galley ? Accident ? Ignorance
of the principle of the meter ? No ; the
occupier of the house deliberately put it
there to prevent herself from spending it.
So she is not surprised when the collector
hands her is. iid. Slot meters, that official
observes afterwards, are very popular as
money boxes.
2S0
LIVING LONDON.
COLLECTING PENNIES FKOM A SLOT METER.
And SO we go on till we come to an un-
occupied house, the late tenant of which
has not given the gas company notice of
removal. Perhaps the collector will find
that he has been anticipated — that one of
those ingenious and enterprising gentry
who make a speciality of entering empty
dwellings and breaking open slot meters
has been here before him. But no ; the
money is safe.
By this time the collector is burdened
with copper. We will satisfy our curiosity
as to how he gets rid of his load, and then
will leave him. There proves to be no great
mystery about the matter, after all. He has
shopkeepers who take the bronze from him
in small quantities, and such as he cannot
dispose of in this way he leaves at a branch
of the company's bank.
But the mass of coin he and his fellow
collectors — nearly a hundred in all — handle
in the course of a year is enormous. Con-
ceive, if you can, ;^320,ooo, the takings per
annum from the slot meters, in pennies.
Seven hundred and fifteen tons of bronze !
What mind can grasp the vastness and
the infinite ramifications of the lighting
system of London ? None. The subject
is too large, too complicated, and is yearly
becoming larger and more complicated.
TAKING IN COAL AT VAUXHALL (SOUTH METKOPOLITAN GAS COMPANY).
PUNCH AMJ JUDY.
SIDESHOW LONDON.
By A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK.
TO repeat a highly respectable platitude —
London is one vast Vanity Fair. You
can walk about and see most of its
shows and sideshows for nothing, but there
are proprietorial sideshows in it that you
cannot see without first paying a penny at
the door or putting at least a halfpenny into
the slot.
This " slot " variety is a recent development,
and managers of the older sideshows find it
such a formidable competitor that they adopt
it now as a supplement to their customary
exhibits ; hence the pleasure-seeker is tempted
in some busy London thoroughfare by a
display of automatic picture machines ranged
round an open-fronted shop, at the rear
of which a shooting range yawns like a
gigantic baker's oven, with gas jets shining in
the depths of it ; while for a penny paid to
a vociferous showman he can go upstairs and
admire a bearded lady seated in an otherwise
empty drawing-room, and look into the un-
furnished dining-room where, for his delight,
three reputed Africans lick red-hot pokers
that sizzle on their tongues, and quaff boiling
lead out of rusty ladles with manifestations
of keen enjoyment.
These upstairs exhibitions do not commence,
84
as a rule, until evening, so if you are bent on
a round of visits to Sideshow London you
begin with the automatic shows, the shooting
galleries, and the penny waxworks, which are
open all day.
Shops devoted wholly to automatic shows
have multiplied rapidly, and are as popular in
Blackwall, Kentish Town, and Lambeth, as in
Oxford Street and the more select ways of
the West. Some drape their doors with
crimson hangings and are ornately decorated
inside, others are unadorned to very bleak-
ness ; but it is a rare thing to see any of them
without visitors, and of an evening they are
all crowded.
The public enter gratis and, sooner or later,
succumb to the fascinations of one or other of
the machines, and drop in a penny or a half-
penny as the case may be, to set little leaden
figures under glass playing cricket or foot-
ball, or peer down a glazed opening and turn
a handle to witness, in a series of biograph
views, a scene from a familiar melodrama, the
changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace,
or some ludicrous episode of domestic life.
Suppose, however, you make Piccadilly
Circus your starting point, and, pacing one of
the most fashionable streets thereabouts, drop
28:
LIVING LONDON.
into a typical West-End sideshow of more
catholic pretensions.
It is a frontless shop in which well-dressed
people stroll among groves of automatic
machines ; at intervals a coin rattles into
a slot and the whirr of the handle turning
breaks the quiet of the place, or the sharp
crack of a rifle sounds from the select shoot-
ing gallery at the end, where a marksman
is disbursing a penny on two shots at the
target.
Near the shooting gallery is a curtained
appears on a cramped stage to astonish all
beholders with tricks of parlour magic.
On your way to this sideshow, if in your
north-west passage you navigated the sombre
old backwaters of Bloomsbury, it is more
than likely that, as you turned into Russell
Square, }'ou were greeted by reedy tootlings
and that quavering nasal chatter that is the
birthright of Punch, and there you beheld his
striped theatre erected against the railings
and a semi-circle of auditors, mostly juvenile,
spreading out before it.
A WEST-END SIDESHOW.
doorway, with " Pay here " on a label pinned
to the curtain, and if )-ou hand sixpence to
the lecturer waiting there he will usher you
into a small lobby and call your attention to
the beauties of a huge painting that is less
patronised by daylight critics than by young
and elderly connoisseurs who swagger in
and out in evening dress after the gas is
lighted.
Across London, in the north-west, is a
similar sideshow, larger but less aristocratic,
noisy with the jolly ripple and rumble of
a piano playing popular airs by machinery,
and possessing, instead of the shooting
gallery, a dapper juggler who periodically
Of course, you have known his prepos-
terous drama by heart since childhood, yet
you were constrained to linger shamefacedly
and laugh at it again, looking over the
children's heads, and when the solemn show-
man, piping and thumping his drum, shook
his little bag insinuatingly under your chin,
your hand went involuntarily to your pocket
for old remembrance sake.
Perhaps, if you are a well-to-do father or
grandfather, when the performance ended and
the other showman was walking off with the
theatre, you stopped the man with the drum
and retained Mr. Punch and his company as
a sideshow for an imminent children's party ;
SIDESHOW LONDON.
283
in which event there
will be work to do in
the way of rehabilitating
the puppets to-night
when the show gets
home.
There are peripatetic
waxworks that wander
about London restlessly
and, conscious of their
own artistic d e-
ficiencies, occasionally
acquire alien attractions
by leaguing themselves
with a cheap palmist or
phrenologist and keep-
ing him on tap, as it
were, in a bower among
the effigies. But our
half-dozen permanent
penny waxworks are
superior to this, and
we will take a peep
at a typical one of them. The window
tempting you with a waxwork nur.se
soothing a wounded waxwork soldier by
showing him a bottle of physic, you pay
at the turnstile in the doorway, the lady
THE LION-JAWED MAN.
A RIFLE RANGE.
attendant discontinuing a fantasia on the
barrel organ to take your penny.
The shop and the floors above are rich in
waxen allegories symbolising the might of
the British Empire ; also in wax models 01
statesmen, warriors, thinkers, with here and
there distributed among them renowned
ruffians who have been crowded out of the
Chamber of Horrors, which galaxy of great
criminals is on the third floor here, though in
some of the other waxworks it is down in the
basement, and gains an additional horror
from its situation.
The chief object in the principal room is a
waxwork Cabinet Meeting, obviously called
together at a supreme crisis, for three
Ministers have risen to speak simultaneously,
and a choice collection of British generals is
crowded into a tight corner in the immediate
background ready for any emergency. You
may not recognise everybody, but that
is immaterial, as each gentleman has his
name written on a scrap of paper pinned
to his chest.
As for the shooting galleries, like the
automatic shows they are everywhere. A
few are attached to cutlers' shops ; a few to
barbers' shops, where customers improve their
marksmanship while they wait to be shaved ;
most of them, however, are independent
284
LIVING LONDON.
A TATTOOED COUPLE AT TEA.
of such trade connections. The primitive type
with rows of bottles for targets still survives,
but the better equipped, thoroughly modern-
ised gallery is more generally favoured, and
not infrequently flourishes under the special
patronage of local rifle associations.
There is one of this latter class at Islington ;
it is a fixture there all the year round, and at
the right time of year the proprietor enlarges
his enterprise by engaging travelling showmen
to set up their shows in his first-floor apart-
ments.
The right time
of year is in the
winter. Through-
out the summer
living skeletons,
midget families,
and such like
celebrities tour
about in caravans
end are to be
viewed in tents
at country fairs ;
but winter drives
them into
London and the
big provincial
cities.
Here their
showmen sometimes hire untenanted shops
at low rentals till they are re-let, and run
shows on their own account ; oftener they
are glad to get engagements for successive
weeks at regular show places, such as the
two at Islington, those in Whitechapel,
in Kilburn, in Deptford, or in Canning
Town.
Wherefore, while the Cattle Show and
later the World's Fair are in progress
at the Agricultural Hall, you may pay
your penny and be entertained over the
shooting gallery at Islington by a pair 01
Oriental jugglers in one room, and in the
other by a gentleman and his wife who
are tattooed from necks to heels with
ingenious designs in half the colours of
the rainbow.
Going again next week you find the
front room appropriated to an elegant
" electric lady," who communicates electric
shocks to those who touch her ; while the
back room is the happy hunting ground
of a noble savage. Good living and little
exercise incline him to obesity, but he exerts
himself in a war dance when enough pennj'
spectators are present, and performs the feat
that has won for him the proud title of
" The Lion-jawed Man." Having crammed
four bones as large as human fingers cross-
wise in between his teeth, he inserts the
A WAXWORK SHOW.
SIDESHOW LONDON.
285
mouth of a tankard into his own, closes
his thick lips all round it like a sucker,
and thus holding- it defies mankind at large
to pull it out.
During this same period the Whitechapel
establishment is graced by the presence of
a fat woman of stupendous girth and weight.
Here the shows are held in the shop itself, the
rearward half of it being temporarily curtained
off just now and transformed into a living-
room for the stout lady, she taking no
pleasure in going up and down stairs.
Her showman shouts
at the door, while one
of his subordinates
manipulates the barrel
organ with masterly
skill ; and as soon as
-a satisfactory percent-
Next week she is bewitching: Islington ;
the tattooed people have transferred them-
selves to Canning Town ; and the noble savage
is earning fresh laurels with his tankard in
the wilds of Kilburn.
One of the regular show shops has a weird
predilection for dead skeletons. Two or
three of them have a touching belief in the
attractiveness of freaks preserved in spirits ;
and these are plentiful, whereas the living
article is by way of becoming scarce in
London, for good live freaks gravitate to
Barnum's nowadays
unless a minor show-
man is lucky enough
to hear of them in
time and intercept
them. It is true you
may e\en yet be
A FAT LADV.
age of the crowd outside has come in and
paid its pennies, the organist stops to breathe,
and the showman, posing by the drapery
that conceals his treasure, cries impressively,
" Ladies and gentlemen, the young lady will
now appear ! "
She is always a "young lady," whatever her
age may be, and she dawns on our expectant
eyes from between the curtains, gliding with
a solid and queenly dignity that is only
slightly marred by the fact that she carries
an oyster shell in which she will presently take
a collection for her private exchequer, the
taking of private collections being a weakness
inherent in all freaks and living sideshows
from time immemorial.
startled by seeing in a shop window a
presentment of an elephant-headed man
larger than life, with one leg elephantine
and the other human, and a writhing trunk
of the first water ; but inside you discover
that he dwindles to a leathery-looking object
pickled in a glass jar, and having the
appearance of a fossilised small boy playing
a flageolet.
Nevertheless there was once a real elephant-
headed man about town , likewise an elastic-
skinned man, and other personages equally
gifted, and you may go and see them immor-
talised in wax to this day in one of the per-
manent pcnn)' waxworks ; but in the flesh,
Sideshow London knows them no more.
286
SKK\ED THROUGH THK WINDOW (WHITECHAPEL ROAD).
BAR AND SALOON LONDON.
By GRAHAM HILL
WITH the exception of one particularly
privileged house in Covent Garden
— which is permitted to be opened
on three days of the week for twenty-one and
a-half hours out of the twenty-four — the
licensed hours within the Metropolitan area
are twenty and a-haif a day. The public-
house is the first to open its doors in
the morning ; it is the last to close them
in the early morning following. Mid-day
and midnight are both embraced in the
working hours of the London licensed
victualler. There are suburbs in which the
closure is applied at 1 1 p.m., and bars
in the West-End where the presence of
a customer before eleven o'clock in the
day would be regarded as an intrusion.
London has been styled the city of great
contrasts, and the truth of this remark is
emphasised to the visitor who regards the
Metropolis from the " licensed to be drunk
on the premises " point of view. Lu.xury
and squalor, gilded affluence and shame-
faced dinginess, the marble entrance-hall
and the swing doors, stand shoulder to
shoulder through the heart of the town.
If we would obtain a comprehensive im-
pression of Bar and Saloon London we
must be astir with the dawn. All through
the night the market carts have been jogging
into town, and although it is not yet three
o'clock Covent Garden Market has been long
awake. Already a small crowd is gathered
around the portals of the market house.
With the first stroke of three the doors
are unbolted, and the business of the day
commences. For the next four or five hours
the smart-looking, alert barmen will, literally
and figuratively, have their hands full.
The buffets at the terminal railway stations
are among the earliest saloons to open, and
as we make our way to Piccadilly through
the smaller thoroughfares signs of activity
are everywhere observable in the licensed
world. Tubs of bar refu.se, which repose
on the kerbs against the coming of the
dustmen, attract the scrutiny of the early
prowler, potmen are polishing the huge
swinging lamps and plate-glass windows,
and barrels of beer are being lowered into
dark yawning cellars. The four thousand
licensed houses and beer shops of the
Metropolis are being put in order for the
daily round.
Let us pause for a moment in the security
of the island pavement in Piccadilly Circus.
Here such well-known bars as the Piccadilly
and the Leicester Lounge are in sight,
while behind the solid blockade of buildings
that hedge about the Circus half a hundred
licensed houses are within a few minutes'
walk of our halting place. We proceed along
288
LIVING LONDON.
Cranbourn Street, glancing at the Hay- which cover the walls. Stageland in the
market as we go, and if we decide to more exalted form of leading actors and
pass through Leicester Square and thence theatrical capitalists is to the fore again at
walk on to Maiden Lane — we have no Romano's, which rears its striking yellow
time to look into the handsome bar of frontage in the Strand. Other well-known
THK CHAXDDS BAR AND I.OUNGP:.
the Queen's Hotel, or dive into the beer resorts are also in this part of the town,
saloon of the adjacent Brasserie on our including the Gaiety and Short's famous
way — we shall find at Rule's an interesting wine-house. The Garrick is a somewhat
gathering of people. There is a distinctly newer theatrical rendezvous, and facing it,
theatrical flavour about the company, and hard by St. Martin's Church, is yet another,
the theatrical traditions of the house are the Chandos, with its imposing bar and
recalled by the pictures and playbills lounge, a morning house of call for ladies who
BAR AND SALOON LONDON.
2S9
have paid their
diurnal visit to one
or other of the
dramatic and
musical agencies
that flourish in the
locality.
In the wine
houses a different
class of customer
is usually en-
countered. At
Short's, whose chief
branch is just east
of the Gaiety
Restaurant in the
Strand, port is the
favourite beverage.
A few wine shops
are conducted by a
privileged class
called "free
vintners " — men who have completed service
under indentures with a free vintner — who
require no licence, and who have the con-
solation of knowing that, on dying, their
businesses can be carried on by their widows
with the same immunity from restrictions.
The Cheshire Cheese, rich in tradition of
A CITY WIXE-B.\K ' -
(THE BODEGA,
BUCKLERSBURV)
85
STRAND WINE-BAR (SHORT S).
Dr. Johnson and his contemporaries, still
retains its ancient form. We approach the
sanded bar through a narrow court, and
warm ourselves before the old shell-shaped
iron grate in a company that is repre.senta-
tive of journalism rather than literature, the
journalism of sport predominating. The
Rainbow Tavern, which for scores of
years did one of the most serious,
select, and conservative businesses in
London, is now a Bodega. The
Bodegas adapt themselves to circum-
stances. They cater for men and
women or for men only, according
to locality and environment. Let us
drop into the commodious branch in
Bucklersbury, sometimes known as the
" Free Exchange." The heavy swing
doorway is flanked on either side by
a sandwich counter and a cigar stall.
The circular bar occupies the centre
of the shop, and on an adjacent stand
reposes a whole Cheddar cheese of
noble proportions ; while baskets of
plain but wholesome lunch biscuits
are within reach. Besides the above,
mention may be made of Henekey's
wine house in High Holborn, which
was established as far back as 1695.
The Stock Exchange has for years
resorted to Mabey's, in Throgmorton
290
LIVING LONDON.
Street, for both meat and drink. It is a hat-
less and hustling crowd that one encounters
in this famous establishment, a note-book
and pencil-carrying crowd, that converses
in figures and argues in vulgar fractions.
Mabey's from the outside has the appearance
of a City sale room ; some of the other bars
of the neighbourhood are small and dimly
lighted offices, fitted up with a counter and
stocked with good liquor. There are half a
dozen such within hail of Shorter's Court.
Going further east into Bishopsgate Street
Without we come to " Dirty Dick's," so
named after its original proprietor, who
found a grubby consolation for blighted
matrimonial projects — his intended bride
died on the morning appointed for the
wedding — in a protracted abstinence from
soap and water.
Dirty Dick is
also known to
history on
account of the
rule, that was
rigorously en-
forced at this
house during
his lifetime,
which denied a
customer more
than one drink
at each visit.
At an adjacent
hostelry in
Artillery Lane
this " one call,
one cup"
system still ob-
tains, and a
printed copy
of the rules of
the house is
presented to
each new
customer. For-
merly another
curious East-
End public-house — which was merely a
wooden building — stood, detached and
apart, like an island, in the middle of
Mile End Road. Near by, in White-
chapel Road, there is to be seen an
open bar — the only one of its kind in
AT A
London — where, as shown in our photo-
graphic illustration on page 286, customers
stand on the pavement about the pewter-
topped window-ledge, and imbibe their
refreshments in sight of the passers by.
Discussion halls, which constituted a
popular feature of public-house life some
fifty years ago, are now almost extinct,
and the time-honoured practice of formally
celebrating a change of ov/nership of licensed
property is fast falling into disuse. The
Cogers' Hall, near Fleet Street, still holds
discussions ; but the custom of inviting
some of the nobility and gentry of the
neighbourhood to spend a long damp day
at the joint expense of an outgoing
and an incoming tenant is now seldom
observed. A modified form of " a change "
is still occa-
sionally to be
witnessed, but
the proceedings
are marked by
their brevity
and orderli-
ness. T h e
gaugers em-
ployed by the
two contract-
ing parties-
having com-
pleted Iheir
duties of
checking the
stock, the legal
deeds are
signed, the
money is paid
over, and an
adjournment is
then made to
the bar. A
fund is started
by the new
and the old
landlords, the
other interested
parties also contribute, and the proceeds are
devoted to the disbursement of champagne
and other liquors among the assembled
well-wishers of the new management.
Sunday closing in London, though rigor-
ously paraded, is rarely strictly observed.
IN THE EAST-E.ND.
BAR AND SALOOiN LONDON
291
Many houses in the City proper and the people assemble on the Sabbath to sell
West-End are held on the six days' licence, and purchase ready-made and re-made
which precludes a Sunday trade, but by clothes. The doors of the local hostelry are
far the greater number of publicans are open for bond fide travellers, but they are
entitled to
open on Sun-
days between
the hours of
one and three
in the after-
noon and from
six to eleven
in the evening.
The licensing
law permits a
traveller, who
has journeyed
a distance of
three miles, to
obtain refresh-
ment during
closed hours,
provided that
he has not travelled for the express
purpose of obtaining the drink to
which he is legally entitled. But this
provision is seldom enforced.
For example, on Sundays during
the summer months the Bull and Bush
at Hampstead is a very popular resort
with pedestrians, cyclists, horsemen,
motorists, and travellers in every
description of conveyance. All the
morning there is a continuous stream
of visitors, and the broad roadway is
filled with a great variety of vehicles, from
the neat dogcart to the stately four-in-hand.
Stylish gowns mingle with cycling suits and
immaculate frock coats, the outer walls
present a network of spokes and handle-bars,
and the snorting motor is oftentimes the
centre of an interested group apart.
zealously guarded. The proprietor, with
note-book in hand, interrogates every
aspiring customer. If he is without a
railway ticket, his name and address
are duly entered upon the landlord's
tablet ; if he produces his " return half,"
it is subjected to clo.se scrutiny. Should
the date be obliterated — by accident or
otherwise — the policeman on point duty
is consulted. The precaution is adopted
at all the houses in the neighbourhood.
It was an observant Frenchman who,
arguing from
insufficient in-
formation, was
deluded by
the obvious
into the re-
flection that
the omnibus
system of
London was
arranged for
the purpo.se,
when it was
not taking
travellers from
a public-house
to a railway
station, or
from a railway
station to a public-house, of conveying pas-
sengers from one public-house to another. It
is, of course, a fact that the termini of the
majority of 'bus routes are made at public-
houses, and that the average Londoner, in
pointing out the way to a stranger, will
punctuate his directions with references to
DURING PKOHIBITED HOUKS (WHITE-
CHAPEL) : I. SATISKVIXG THE
LANDLORD. IL WAITING TO
ENTER.
In the poorer parts of the Metropolis the well-known taverns. Tell the most puzzled
authorities assume a more precautionary
attitude towards travellers who demand to
be served with liquid refreshment out of
licensed hours on Sunday morning. The
same law applies to both Hampstead and
Whitechapel, but in the latter neighbour-
hood it is dispensed with rigid formality.
In the Clothing Exchange, locally known
as " Rag Fair," which lies off Middlesex
cabman the name of the nearest hostelry,
and you give him his bearings in a word.
Wonderful structures are these establish-
ments that give individuality to neighbour-
hoods. Islington has its "Angel," Crickle-
wood its " Crown," Kilburn its " Lord
Palmerston," Newington its "Elephant and
Castle," Camden Town its " Mother Red
Cap," Hendon its "Welsh Harp," Finsbury
Street {nh Petticoat Lane), thousands of Park its " Manor House," Finchley its " Bald-
292
LIVING LONDON.
Faced Stag," Kentish Town its " Mother
Shipton," and Pimlico its " Monster," while
" Swiss Cottage " is named after its dis-
tinguishing hostelry. No Londoner could
associate any of these houses with any other
neighbourhood. Structurally they may be
widely different, but in their general plan
and their working arrangements they are
so much alike that a description of one
will stand as a description of all.
Let us glance into this palatial building
that runs like a headland into the sea of
traffic and divides the current of it into
two streams. Omnibuses are drawn up
against the kerb on both sides of the house,
and a dozen huge lamps throw a flood of
light far across the roadways. The interior
is divided into some half-dozen compart-
ments, which are duly labelled, and the
printed announcement, " Parlour prices
charged in this department," or " Glasses
only," signifies that a practical purpose is
served by these partitions. There is a great
deal of noise, but no technical disorder, in
the " four-ale " bar, where a small crowd of
omnibus drivers and conductors are making
full use of their short respite. In the
corresponding bar opposite the " horny-
handed sons of toil " are interspersed with
lady customers ; and in the bottle and jug
department more women are to be descried.
who while their vessels are being filled are
fortifying themselves against the return
journey. Of children there are none to
be seen. This is a flourishing house, and,
rather than be bothered with the labour
of " corking and sealing " the vessels and
interrogating the deceptively ancient-looking
youngsters as to their age, Mr. Publican
will not serve any children under the age
of fourteen years. The distinction between
the " private " bar and the " saloon " bar is
subtle. The same prices are charged in
both. The customer whose desire is to
escape the " mutable many " will patronise
the former ; the latter is affected by the
"lads of the village" and their ladies.
The saloon bar is the ante-chamber of the
billiard-room, its habitues are mostly known
to the landlord, and often address the bar-
maids by their Christian names.
As the hour of twelve-thirty approaches,
preparations for closing are ostentatiously
paraded ; the potmen look to the fastenings
of doors, lights are lowered, and cries of
" Time, gentlemen, please ! " grow more
peremptory as the minute hand creeps to-
wards its nadir. With the clock strike the
customers are outside, the doors are bolted,
and the policeman on duty disperses the
reluctant groups and clears his beat of
dawdlers against the visit of the inspector.
QUTSIDE THE '" liULI, AND BUSH," HAMPSTKAD, ON SUNDAY MORNING.
293
A CHRISTENING AT A WEST-END CHURCH.
CHRISTENING LONDON.
By SHEILA E. BRAINE.
BABIES may be all alike — to quote a piece
of masculine heterodoxy — but anyone
who looks into the subject will speedily
discover that christenings differ. The tiny
pilgrims just starting on life's strange
and perilous journey have their feet set for
them in this path or that. The Church,
broadly speaking, receives them : but there
are more creeds and churches than one, and,
in consequence, varying modes of reception.
London, city of the world, furnishes us with
many examples in kind and in degree.
Let us begin at the top of the social scale,
and find ourselves for the nonce among the
highest in the land. Here comes a white-
robed nurse, tall and elegant, with trailing
skirts ; she carries in her arms a royal infant,
and a powdered footman precedes her. Arrived
at the drawing-room, where an august party
is already assembled, a lady-in-waiting takes
the precious baby from her, and the christen-
ing service begins. She then presents him to
the Queen, the chief sponsor, and her Majesty,
at the prescribed moment, hands him to the
Archbishop of Canterbury. The princeling
is baptised with consecrated water brought
from the Jordan, while the " font " is re-
presented by a golden bowl of exquisite
design, which, by the way, is used for all
infant " royalties " born within the limits of
the United Kingdom. Around it the sponsors
are grouped, according to their rank. An
ordinary baby contents himself with three,
but the heir to a throne may have as many
as a dozen, all told.
Needless to say, the hero of the day is
always clothed in the daintiest and most
costly of garments : nothing is too beautiful
for him. He wears pure white, naturally,
as we think ; but less than half a century back
another royal baby went through a similar
ceremony in all the bravery of a silver cloth
dress tied with pink bows, and an enormously
long train. Any sum, say the authori-
ties on such matters, may be paid for a
christening robe trimmed with real lace.
294
LIVING LONDON.
Fifteen guineas is an ordinan- price : one from
the Paris Exhibition was sold by a Kniglits-
bridge tradesman for fift\- ! Some families
possess historic christening suits, which are
A NURSE : NEW STYLE.
preserved with the greatest care. A London-
Scottish young lady was baptised in her
grandmother's wedding veil and the robe
worn successively by her father and two
aunts.
The Chapel Royal, St. James's, sees many
a christening in " high life " ; so does All
Saints' Church, Knightsbridge. A favourite
time is shortly after luncheon. The guests
then return to the house for tea, at which
[jopular and informal gathering a splendid
cake is sure to figure, with Baby's name and
the date of his birth writ large upon it.
Sometimes a Mamma of sentiment will save
a slice for her darling to taste in after-years.
The ceremony at the church is neither
long nor elaborate. The family and friends
group themselves near the font. The god-
mother, when the time arrives, gives the
baby to the officiating clergyman — a terrible
moment for the }Oung, unpractised curate —
and the chief godfather replies to the question
" Name this child." The clergyman either
sprinkles the baby or pours a few drops of
water on its face from a carved, silver-
mounted shell.
The carriages convey the christening party
back to the house, or, if the guests .separate,
they probably meet again at a grand dinner
given in honour of the son and heir. Baby
in full array and Baby's presents are on view,
while Nurse, all smiles, does not disdain any
occasional offerings slipped discreetly into her
palm. Very different is she from the " Sarah
Gamp " portrayed by Dickens. As to the
christening gifts, a simple silver mug is no
longer the only article that suggests itself
to the mind. Wealthy godfathers and " fairy
godmothers " bestow a handsome sum of
money, from £iOO to ;{^ i ,000, or arrange that
the child shall have a certain amount of
" pocket money," paid regularly on each
birthday until his twenty-first. Here is
a list of presents given to some lucky
babies of both sexes : A clock, Irish loving-
cup, gold bowl (from the King), perambulator,
carriage rug, gold bangle, Louis XV. spoons,
silver porringer of antique pattern, clasped
Bible, prayer book and hymn book, any
number of lovely embroidered robes, and
real lace handkerchiefs and veils. A popular
present is a tiny gold charm representing the
sign of the Zodiac under which the child
was born ; this the little angel wears, hung
round his neck for luck, by a fine gold
chain.
No flourish of trumpets heralds the recep-
A NUKSE : OLD STYLE.
tion of a " slum " baby into the bosom of the
Church. No cake, no presents, no lace
furbelows are for him 1 He arrives rolled up
in an old shawl, and wearing a hood borrowed
from a neighbour. In some parishes — at
Poplar and Westminster, for example — there
are evening christenings once a week, to fit in
with the hard-working parents' daily engage-
ments. Wander in some Wednesday night
CHRISTENING LONDON.
295
about half-past eight, and
you may chance upon a
curate, two women, and a
baby standing round the font,
in a silent, dimly - lighted
church. Sponsors? Well,
"Albert Edward" has a god-
mother, at any rate, although
his godfathers are con-
spicuously absent ; and, being
a wise child, he sleeps placidly
through the entire ceremony.
Sunday afternoon is a
grand time for christenings
in populous neighbourhoods.
The officiating clergyman
may find as many as half a
dozen babies awaiting him,
decked out as finely as their
proud mothers can manage.
One, disliking the whole pro-
ceeding, starts crying ; the rest
follow suit: and the parson's voice is drowned
by a chorus of wails. Poor little souls, they
already find life too hard for them !
Not unfrequently the clergy are called upon
to bestow rather singular names in holy
baptism. The parents have a leaning
towards something flowery, as, for instance,
" Dahlia Lorella " ; or they desire to " date "
their offspring, and so label them " Corona-
A SCOTTISH CHRISTHXI.NG IN LONDON.
tion," " Mafeking," " Magersfontein," or some-
thing equally terrible. Royal appellations are
popular ; hence we get the certainly startling
'' Queen Victoria " Jones, also " Princess
Alice Maud Mary," shortened for common
use into " Princess Mogg," and the less
ambitious " Princess." The last mentioned
was selected by a harassed father, because
the relatives fought pitched battles about
A BATCH OF CHRISTENINGS.
296
LIVING LONDON.
the baby's name, and he decided that
" Princess " could give offence to no one.
In the register of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields
we find " Alice Centurion." One small scrap
of humanity had to be " Bill," for the reason
that William and Willy were already there ;
while a certain wee Jack owned an elder
brother John and a father also Joim.
The tall Scottish minister entering )onder
house is about to christen a " bonny
bairn," and the family and sundry friends
are already seated round the drawing-room.
They rise as he enters, in his ordinary attire,
and the brief and simple ceremony commences.
A white cloth is spread upon a small table,
and the family punch-bowl, an old relic, serves
for a more sacred purpose than the one for
which it was originally designed. A trying
moment soon arrives for the father : he has
to stand, the rest being seated, while the
minister solemnly and pointedly addresses him
on behalf of the child, indicating his duties
and responsibilities towards it. Then the
mother places the baby in her husband's arms,
and it is he who presents it to the minister.
Dark eyes, olive complexions, the murmur
of a Southern tongue — signs are these that
we have reached the Italian quarter of our
all-embracing Metropolis. Entering the
Italian church, Hatton Garden, one presently
discovers, by the dim light of a dull afternoon,
a couple of tiny bambini, probably from
Saffron Hill, with their attendant guardians.
Italians, be it remarked, choose their
children's godparents most carefully, for the
latter will henceforth rank almost as mem-
bers of the family.
An old nurse, with strongly marked features,
dressed in her native costume, carries Annun-
ziata, aged five days, who is wrapped in a
voluminous white shawl, tied round the
middle, rather like a Christmas cracker, with
a broad, red ribbon. Baby number two,
small Agostino, wears a mantle, a much be-
ribboned hood, and a cap with a blue bow.
As he is to be christened first, these adorn-
ments are removed with speed.
The baptismal service used in the Roman
Catholic Church is a highly .symbolic one :
we can but glance briefly at its most salient
details. The priest asks, meeting the
baptismal group, " Agostino, what dost thou
demand of the Church ? " and the sponsors
reply, " Eternal life." The evil spirit is
exorcised that it may come out of the child,
the sign of the cross made upon the little
one's forehead and breast, prayers are offered,
and the " salt of wisdom " is put into its
mouth. Arrived at the font, the priest touches
the child's ears and nose ; a burning taper is
also placed for a second in the tiny hand, in
token that it must keep its light shining be-
fore the world. The sponsors holding it over
the font, due east and west, the priest anoints
it with oil between the shoulders in the form
of a cross. He next pours the holy water
three times upon the little head ; and, with
a brief exhortation, the service is ended.
Wesleyans have no sponsors for their
children, neither have the Congregationalists ;
with the latter baptism, although generally
practised, is optional. Quakers do not christen
at all, and the Salvation Army " dedicates."
A " dedication " is naturally of a military
character. We are passing the barracks ; let
us enter the hall where an evening prayer-
meeting has begun. Yonder stands the Captain
of the corps, and the Adjutant and his wife,
parents of the child about to be " dedicated."
Behind them are rows of earnest faces, many
framed in the dark blue bonnet we know so
well. The little girl smiles in her mother's
arms, recking not of future warfare, while her
parents promise to train her up as a " faithful
soldier " and to keep her from " intoxicat-
ing drink, finery, wealth, hurtful reading,
worldly acquaintance." The Captain takes
the child, the corps stand, and solemnly
" Mary Greenwood " is dedicated to the
service of God and the Salvation Army. He
calls out, energetically: "Those who will pray
for these parents and this child, and in every
way they can help them to carry out the
promises made this day — Bayonets — fix I "
" God bless these parents ! "
" Amen ! "
" God bless this child ! "
" Amen ! "
" God bless the Army ! "
" Amen ! "
The " volleys " rattle through the hall ;
the new recruit cries.
Does not this touch of nature make all our
babies kin ? And so, having brought them
to this first stage on their earthly pilgrimage,
let us take our leave of them.
I. A CHRISTENING AT THE ITALIAN CHURCH, HATTON GARDEN. II. A SALVATION ARMY
" DEDICATION."
86
298
COUNTY COUNCIL LONDON.
By FREDERICK DOLMAN, L.C.C.
THE London County Council has nothing
like the Lord Mayor's Show with
which to impress the Londoner in the
street, and the annual dinner of its Chairman
cannot yet pretend to the prestige of the
Guildhall banquet. Yet during its exist-
ence it has acquired for London's millions
a human interest and a living significance
such as no other public body has ever pos-
sessed. In the civic activity it calls forth
the Council's election every three years is
comparable only with London's share in Par-
liamentary general elections.
On the other hand, it would be hard to find
a provincial town which knows so little of its
municipal rulers and the actual method ot
their daily work as does London of its County
Council. At election time the Council and
its work are the subject of hundreds of meet-
ings, of thousands of newspaper columns, and
millions of leaflets and pamphlets. At all
times Londoners are constantly confronted
with the letters " L.C.C." — at street improve-
ment works, in the parks and on the bridges,
on fire-engines and tramcars, and so on. But
you might ask a dozen men in the street to
direct you to the Council's meeting place
without obtaining the desired information.
London has not yet its Hotel de Ville,
like Paris or Brussels, to be regarded not onl}-
as one of the sights of the capital for its
strangers, but also as the head-centre of muni-
cipal activity for its citizens. Perhaps this is
largely the rea.son why Londoners, now well
acquainted with the civic energy which is
transforming the face of their great city, are
at present apt to know so little of its
source.
Of the hundreds who are crossing Trafalgar
Square at this moment, I wonder what small
fraction are aware that within a stone's throw
— up a side street — are the headquarters of
the largest municipality in the world, with a
revenue exceeding that posse.ssed by several
of the European states. It would require
some enterprise for any one of them to
discover the " Entrance to Public Gallery "
between the shops in Cockspur Street,
although to a few earnest students of
municipal affairs this is a place of weekly
pilgrimage. As it is nearly half-past two on
Tuesday afternoon, the County Hall's front
door round the corner in Spring Gardens might
be identified, after a few moments' observation,
by the intermittent stream of members
making their way to it for the usual weekly
meeting at that hour.
It is a formidable programme of business
which each member finds ready for him on
his seat in the unpretentious but comfortable
council chamber. There are over a hundred
large pages in the " agenda," to be disposed
of in the four hours and a half which
usually represent the limit of the sitting!
Nothing surprises the stranger in the gallery
so much as the speed with which, at times,
page after page of this agenda is turned
over by the Chairman, amidst the silent
acquiescence of the members. The stranger
afterwards learns that practically the whole
business of the Council is put before it in the
shape of reports from its committees, which
the members of the Council generally have
already carefully read in the privacy of their
homes, the agenda invariably reaching them
by Saturday night's post in readiness for
Sunday's leisure. Furthermore, the com-
mittees work so well that, as a rule, it is only
on important matters of policy that their
decisions are ever challenged in the open
Council.
Nor is debate on these matters ever unduly
prolonged. A fifteen minutes rule prevails at
Spring Gardens, and the member who would
speak longer than this time must receive the
consent of the Council, whilst with the
approval of the Chairman the debate can be
"closured" at any time. Notwithstanding
these time-saving expedients, the Chairman
finds it necessary to travel through the agenda-
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LIVIXG LONDON.
MONDAY, May 16th.
WEDNESDAY, 17th.
A«ylum Sub-Committ«e (BftnstMd), at A$glHm ... 10J&
d*o Lo<tge Kestdcnti&l School MwiuiDg
<:^'mmn^tt. at the School 1O.30
Education dub-OonxBUttec (Dar Schools— SectioD
r« Examtnatioa*), ol Atfucolutt f^KcM ... H.O
Thames ConserTUCj Board -11.30
Education Sub-CommittM (l>Kf Schools— Section
rt Vacation SchooU), of Arf<H»>(t»n OJflt*§ .. 13,30
Buildinc ActComuuftee 3.0
EducaUun Sub-Corn. (Buildirgs and AttendAaoe;
.Accounts, at 1.30). at £dwat,»n Oltutt ... 2.0
EJui-atiun t>ub-Coinmittee [Speci*! Schools).
Anertvy Residential School Managing Com-
TtaiX**, at tkt School J,0
Oenerai X^^rpo«es Sub-Oommitt«e (General) ... JJO
Jvint Committee on Underfed Childrtsn, ut OomhIv
Hall 2-30
Oeneral Purposes Committee 3.0
Education i)ub-Oommitte« (OenenI Purpoees—
Accounts at 3.30^, dr Cuunfy tfd// 4.O
ruMic Health Sub*Committee fCattlc Inspector),.. 4.0
Rivers Committee 4.15
TUESDAY, 16tn.
Education , Sub-Committee {Teaching Staff-
Section rt Selecuon o( Teaohen and Inbtructora)
at Sducatton Ofices 10,0
Firo Brigade Committee (View). {Train lemvtt
Charing-crot4 Railwajt Station (>. E. & c. R.) at 10.32
Educatioo Sub-Committee ^Special Schools— In-
dustrial Schools Coses Section), at Hdacation
OffLMM , 11.0
Housing of the Working Classes Committee ... 11.0
Fiuanue Sub-<.:omimtt«e (Education Accounts], at
hducatton Officet 13.0
Education Comtuittee, at County Halt 3-0
Improcements Committee 8.0
Finance Sub-Committee (ileneralAooounls) ... 2.15
Undges Committee 2.30
Theatres 8ab-Committ«e 330
Fmanoe Committee 3.0
Theatres and Music Halls Committee 3.30
THURSDAY, 18th.
AiiTlura Sub-Committee (Cone Hill), at As\/lum... lOJiO
Ed'ucition Sub-Com. [Special Schools). " Sha/tea-
but7 " IVaining Ship Managing Committee, at
the Ship . ^ 11.15
Parks Committee ( Vihit to places in S.E. district).
Mtft at ChariuQ-crott Are brigade Pier at ... 1^0
at Education 0]ficet 3.0
Establishment CommitteP 3-0
Mum DrainoKe Sub-Committee (Accounts) ... 3,15
Uigtiways Committee 3.30
Main Drainage Committee 2.;iO
Fire Brigade Committee 8.30
Public Health Committee 3.30
Parliamentary Conunittee ... 4.0
Education Sub-Com. (Polytechnics and Evening
SchooU) (Accounts and Requisitions, 4.15), at
Aducation Offieet 4.30
E4- Sub-Com. (Day Schools^, at Edwation Offictt 10.30
Eiiucatiun Sub-Com. (Special Schoolt). Drury-
lane Day Industrial School Managing Com-
ntittM, at the School 10-80
A'Tlums Sub-Committee (General Purposes) ... ll.Q
lii«bways Sub-Committee (Acoounta, Stores and
(ienewl) 12.0
Housing Sub-Committee (Estates) 13.30
Ix>onl Government Sub-Cora. (Street Naming) ... 3.0
Parliameriury Sub - Committee ( rbomes Con-
serTancy UillJ i/Fif«j»nrj/ 2,0
Public Control Sub-Committee (Ix>comotiTes on
Highways! 2.0
COUNtCit 9.30
FOUR D.WS WORK : PAGES FROM A MEMBER S DIARY.
paper at a high rate of speed, and as he
proceeds it may be observed that first one
member, then another, shows an anxious
alertness, ready to strike in at the proper
moment with his question or his challenge.
" Report of the Committee," calls
out the Chairman of the Council. " I
move the reception of the report," responds
a voice from the front row of the semi-
circular benches on which seats are allotted
to the chairmen of the committees. " That
the report be received," says the Chair-
man of the Council. If it is the report of
a committee, such as the " Highways " or the
" Theatres," dealing with some subject of
great current interest, there will be a bunch
of questions for its chairman "on the reception
of the report," and possibly a general debate.
The report having been received, its
recommendations are enumerated. To any
of these recommendations an amendment may
be moved, the usual form of which is to refer
it back to the committee " for further con-
sidei'ation," with sometimes a statement of
the reason for this course. A show of hands,
as a rule, decides the fate of such amend-
ments, the decisions mostly confirming that of
the committee. On the rare occasions \\-hen
ten members rise in their places to claim a
division, the division is taken by passing
through an " aye " and " no " lobby as in the
House of Commons.
Although the benches
are always fairly well filled,
the stranger in the gallery
will notice much coming
and going on the part of
members. There is a con-
stituent or a friend to be
seen in the lobb)-, a book to
be consulted in the library,
or even a cigarette to be
enjoyed in the smoking-
room. After four o'clock
the desire for tea begins
to manifest itself The
Council's tea-room is an
important feature in what
may be termed the inner
life of the L.C.C. Tea, with
the kindred beverages that
cheer without inebriating,
bread - and - butter, and a
dainty assortment of cakes form the only
refreshments obtainable at Spring Gardens,
and they are provided, together with the
service of waitresses, at the councillors' own
cost. Now and again the Council's sittings
have been unduly prolonged, and on such
occasions these edibles have, of course,
proved wofully inadequate. The minority,
it is said, once nearly starved the majority
into surrender on an important question by
L.C.C. OPEN SPACE NOTICE BOARD.
COUNTY COUNCIL LONDON.
301
keeping the Council sitting till long past
midnight, sustaining themselves in the mean-
time on a pre-organised supply of provender
from one of the political clubs.
But if the tea-room is deficient in its
resources in such an emergency, it has at
normal times an important influence on the
good-fellowship of the members of the Council,
and therefore on the easy working of the
great administrative machine which is in their
hands.
Apart from exceptional occasions, such as
the Chairman's garden party in the summer, it
affords the general body
of , members their best
opportunities of becoming
personally acquainted
with each other. Over the
teacups sit together in
amity Moderate and Pro-
gressive who would other-
wise remain strangers
unless they happened to
belong to the same com-
mittee. Over the teacups
they learn to respect and
even esteem each other
without compromising
their differences of opinion.
In the tea-room, too,
members entertain the
visitors they have intro-
duced to the Chairman's
dais, and it is often graced
by the presence of ladies,
whose animated talk is
arrest on their catchin^
inspiring maps or plans with which the walls
are usually adorned, the room being devoted
to the labours of committees on other days
of the week.
Yes, if you could see this room on the
morrow you would begin to realise the vast
amount of the Council's varied work, of which
this weekly meeting is only a sort of synopsis,
a synopsis which is again reduced to the
smallest proportion in the newspaper reports,
from which alone Londoners generally learn
of their Council's doings. Probably ten or a
dozen members of a committee of fifteen are
seated round a long table, their chairman
at the head, with a clerk and one or two other
officials by his side. They are steadih' going
through a paper of business which may con-
tain over a hundred items, listening to official
reports, examining maps and plans, perhaps
interviewing small deputations representing
affected interests ; then quietly discussing in
an easy conversational style matters on which
difference of opinion shows itself. The com-
mittee has been sitting for two hours, and
may sit for two hours more. It is the Council
in miniature, with the diflerences which
privacy creates. On some matters, for ex-
ample, speech is freer from the absence of
reporters, and a useful part is taken in the
FIRE BRIGADE COMMITTEE STARTING ON AN INSPECTION.
prone to sudden
sight of the awe-
deliberations of the committee by members
who never have the courage to rise from their
seats in the Council chamber.
• If we leave this room and pass along
the lobby, we shall probably find four or fi\e
rooms in succession similarly occupied.
There are over twenty standing committees,
and only six rooms at Spring Gardens avail-
able for their meetings. Some meet weekly,
others fortnightly, and, including sub-commit-
tees, it is a common thing for sixty engage-
ments to figure on the Council's printed diary
for the week. Although, as we shall see,
some of these are not at tlie County Hall,
it is obvious that each of the six committee-
rooms sees a great deal of service, whilst
occasionally even the library and the smoking-
room have to be invaded for purposes of
302
LIVING LONDON.
joint deliberation. The largest of the com-
mittee-rooms, for instance, is this afternoon
tenanted by the Theatres Committee, which is
just now in consultation with a distinguished
actor-manager respecting alterations in his
theatre required by public safety. To-morrow
it may be occupied b\' the Parliamentary or
the Public Health Committee, the one busy
with the preparation of the Council's legislation
for the coming session, the other immersed in
important details concerning the regulation of
1 1, Regent Street ; if you then desire to inter-
view some member of the Chemist's staff, you
must retrace your steps to Craven Street,
only to find that }'ou have passed on the
way in Pall Mall the office of a gentleman
whom it is necessary to consult on some
architectural matter. There is no estimating
the loss of time and temper which during
a single week of County Council London is
thus occasioned to officials and business men
generally. Let us hope that with their
L.C.C. STONE.MASOXS AT WORK.
cowsheds, slaughter-houses, common lodging-
houses, and the .sanitary supervision of
London generally. On another afternoon it
will be taken possession of by the General
Purposes Committee — the Cabinet at Spring
Gardens, consisting mainly of the chairmen of
all the other committees, and advising the
Council on all matters of policy — or the
scarcely less influential Finance Committee,
which regulates its purse-strings.
In the County Hall it.self there is room for
only a small portion of the professional and
clerical staff employed by the Council. This
is scattered in about thirty different build-
ings, .some of them very nearly half a mile
away. If you have business with the Parks
Department, for instance, you must go to
expletives they mingle prayers for the time
when the whole central staff shall be con-
centrated in a County Hall which shall be
worthy of the Imperial capital.
This central staff, which maintains an ex-
cellent esprit de coi-ps with the help of their
own monthly journal and several recreative
clubs, forms, of course, but a small proportion
of the army of workers employed by the
L.C.C. — an army now about 15,000 strong,
or 35, 000 if school teachers are included —
whose operations extend all over the 1 18
square miles of County Council London, and
a good distance beyond. In the illustration
on this page are to be seen a few of the two
or three thousand men — masons, bricklayers,
navvies, and others — in the regular em-
COUNTY COUNCIL LONDON.
303
ployment of the Works Department of the
Council.
As I have said, members of the Council
themselves have to travel far and wide in
fulfilment of their duties. Let us accompany
some of them on their journeying.s.
It is about half-past nine on Monday morn-
ing when a little group of L.C.C.'s meet on
the platform of Waterloo Station. They
are members of the Education Committee,
and are bound
for Feltham,
where is situated
one of the
L.C.C. schools
for reclaiming
boys from an
evil 1 i f e. It
is an hour's
journey in train
and waggonette,
followed by a
tour of inspec-
tion and two or
three hours'
work round the
committee-
table, with an
interval for
luncheon pro-
vided from the
school stores at
the individual
cost of each
member. Once
a month this
visit is made ;
and every
summer, at the
annual sports,
the whole Council has an opportunity of
becoming acquainted with the school, while
the best cricketers among them will probabl}'
engage in a match with the school team.
The care of these boys takes members of
the committee further afield than Feltham
and Mayford, inasmuch as the Council has
a home at Lowestoft for apprentices to the
fishing smacks, whilst other boys are given
their start in life on farms to which one of
their legal guardians, out of regard for their
welfare, occasionally pays surprise visits.
Most of the work of the Asylums Com-
L.C.C. WHARF.
mittee similarly involves its thirty or forty
members in journeys out of London, the
main body dividing themselves into sub-com-
mittees for regularly visiting the .seven L.C.C.
asylums in the country around the Metropolis.
It is one of the largest committees, and at the
same time the one for which there is least
competition among the general body of the
Council's 137 members. This is not simply
because of the exceptional demand it makes
upon the mem-
bers' time —
several of them
often spend
about half the
week, I believe,
in visiting
asylums — but
because of the
nervous strain
imposed by
constant inter-
course with
hundreds of
painfully af-
flicted people.
Everyautumn
the members of
the Theatres
Committee hold
sittings at the
Clerkenwell and
Newington Ses-
sions Houses,
sitting one day
to licen.se places
of entertainment
north of the
Thames, and
another day to
license those situated south of the Thames.
Nearly all the other committees have occa-
sional " views " to undertake. During the
summer the members of the Parks Committee
spend some of their Saturday afternoons
driving round to the Council's many open
spaces, in order that improvements may be
considered and difficulties grappled with on the
spot. Once a year the Fire Brigade Committee
inspects every fire station in London, driving
through each district in its turn on one of the
Brigade vans, and making one or two trips
up and down the Thames in a Brigade tug.
304
LIVING LONDON.
Now and again the members of the Main
Drainage Committee are conveyed from
Charing Cross Pier in the Council's launcli
Beatrice to see the progress of worl< at
Barking and Crossness, where the sewage of
London is so dealt with before reaching
the river that whitebait can now be caught as
well as eaten at Greenwich, and there are
rumours of salmon at Staines. Then the
Bridges Committee may have to visit one
of the ten Thames bridges which are under
the control of the L.C.C. Then, again,
the Housing Committee must occasionally
make an expedition to Tottenham and
Edmonton, in furtherance of its scheme for
the establishment of a County Council town
there with some 40,cxx) inhabitants ; or
possibly to some such place south or west
of London, with a view to the purchase of
another estate for the accommodation of
overcrowded Londoners.
As for the officials of the Council, they are
ubiquitous, although it is practically only the
firemen that the general public ever recognise
at their work. In one street survej'ors will
be examining an infringement of what is
known as the " building line " — securing
uniform width of road and pavement — for
report to the Building Act Committee. In
another representatives of the Public Control
Department have stopped an itinerant coal-
vendor and are testing his weights. This
shop is visited on a complaint that the young
women employed there are worked excessive
hours or are unprovided with seats ; that
factory is being surveyed to ascertain whether
it has adequate means of exit for its hundreds
of workers in the event of fire. And so
on through the whole range of social and
industrial life in the Metropolis. There are
important features of the L.C.C. 's administra-
tion, such as the schools and parks, to which
I have only incidentally alluded, for they are
dealt with elsewhere in this work. But in
numberless relatively small matters, lost in
the crowd of its larger activities, the County
Council day by day has its part in Living
London.
A SITTING OK THK LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL.
30S
DYNAMO CLASS AT THE CITY AND GUILDS INSTITUTE (SOUTH KENSINGTON).
THE LONDON CITY COMPANIES.
By CHARLES WELCH, F.S.A
OF London it may be truly said that the
past lives in the present. Turn whither
we will, we find sturdy modern institu-
tions, fully up-to-date and foremost in the
ranks of progress, whose origin dates back to
a venerable antiquity. Especially is this the
case with those great public bodies, known to
most Londoners in little more than name —
the City Livery Companies. Some of their
functions have become closely identified with
our national life. Take, for instance, the
term " hall-marked." How many of us realise
that we owe this expression to the stamping
by the Companies of the approved wares
of craftsmen ? What was once a practice
with most of the guilds now survives almost
solely with the Goldsmiths' Company, which
carries out these duties by virtue of ancient
charters and modern statutes, and without
cost, either direct or indirect, to the trade
or to the public. The ancient ceremony
known as the " Trial of the Pyx," for testing
the coinage of the realm, also takes place at
Goldsmiths' Hall, under the joint direction
of the officers of his Majesty's Mint and
those of the Goldsmiths' Company.
87
Little is generally known ol the inner life
of these great corporate bodies. Let us take
a peep behind the scenes. The Companies
follow an ancient order of precedence which
includes eighty-nine crafts. Of these seventy-
.seven only survive, but the gaps caused by
the extinct corporations have not been filled
up, each Company still retaining its ancient
rank. At the head of the list are the twelve
Great Companies, distinguished from the
remainder by their greater wealth and import-
ance. The relative importance of the Minor
Companies, as the rest are called, is fairly
well indicated by their position on the list,
with but one or two exceptions. The
Mercers are the premier Company, and an old
dispute as to seniority between the Skinners
(the sixth) and the Merchant Taylors (the
seventh) is now only remembered by the wise
decision of the Lord Mayor of the time, who
ordered that each Company should every year
invite the other to dinner.
The governing body varies in the different
guilds, but usually consists of a Master,
Bailiff, or Prime Warden, two or more other
wardens, and a Court of Assistants the latter
^o6
LIVING LONDON.
being elected from the general body of
the Company who are known as Liverj'men.
Another class, that of the Freemen, have
no share in the government, but possess a
claim upon the charity of the Company.
Substantial fees are payable to qualify
for each of these grades, the first step
being to " take up the Freedom." Those
who enter by " patrimony," as sons of Free-
men, or by " ser\itude " as apprentices of
Freemen, are received at a lower scale than
" redemptioners," who, as outsiders, have no
claim upon the Company for admission, which
they can obtain only by special consent.
The Master and Wardens wear gowns
deeply trimmed with fur, and in certain Com-
OUTSmE A CELL, BRIDEWELL HOSPITAL.
panies a hood is also worn. Some Companies
provide silver medals for their Liverymen,
and a gold badge for each of the Assistants ;
others present a badge to every Past-Master.
These insignia become the personal property
of the recipients, but the official badge of the
Master, a jewel of far higher value, is solely
for official use.
The election day, held on the feast of the
Company's patron saint, is the red-letter day
of the year, and very quaint are the ceremonies
observed on the occasion. These vary, of
course, in the different guilds. With
some, the new Master and Wardens are
crowned at table by the outgoing officials
with the ancient election garlands. In
other Companies the new officials are
pledged by their outgoing brethren in the
loving cup during the course of the banquet
Many of the Companies attend a neigh-
bouring church in procession to hear a
sermon before or after the election. The
Mercers' Company has a chapel of its own
at its Hall in Cheapside, where divine service
is performed every Sunday throughout the
year.
Each of the Halls has a court-room, where
the meetings of the governing body are held,
the Master and Wardens being clothed in
their robes, attended by the Clerk and other
officers in their official dress. Our photo-
graphic illustration opposite represents a
sitting of the Court of the Cutlers' Company,
at which the Company's apprentices attend to
show specimens of their work.
Some of the Companies possess
estates in Ireland which form part
of the original Plantation of Ulster
in the reign of James I. Two of
the Companies, the Vintners and the
Dyers, have important privileges on
the river Thames, enjoying with the
Crown the right of keeping a " game
of swans." The Fishmongers per-
form a very useful public office in
seizing all unsound fish brought for
'M ^^'^ *^° Billingsgate.
Perhaps the greatest work which
the Companies perform is in the
cause of education. Their public
schools have a world-wide reputation.
To the Mercers Dean Colet entrusted
his great foundation, St. Paul's
School, which is now housed in a splendid
building at Hammersmith. This Company
has also its own school at Barnard's Inn.
Merchant Taylors' School, which long stood
in Suffolk Lane, is now more pleasantly
accommodated at the Charterhouse. The
Haberdashers are trustees of the Aske
Schools at Hoxton and Hatcham, the
Skinners have their famous school at
Tonbridge, and the Drapers, Stationers,
Brewers, Coopers, and other Companies have
well-known and flourishing schools under
their charge. The Ironmongers' and Haber-
dashers' Companies, though possessed of
small corporate incomes, administer most ex-
tensive and varied educational endowments.
The University scholarships and exhibitions
which so many of the Companies have in
3oS
LIVING LONDON.
their gift are tiie means of launching man)-
an earnest student of slender means upon
a successful career in life. But apart from
their trust income the Companies liberally
support the claims of national education ;
a noteworth}- instance being that of the
Drapers' Companj', which has bestowed
upon each of the Universities of Oxford
and London munificent grants of several
thousands of pounds.
The City Companies were the pioneers in
technical education, and jointly with the City
Corporation founded in 1880 the City and
Guilds of London Institute. Here, at the
Institute's City and West-End colleges,
young students receive at moderate fees
practical as well as theoretical instruction
in various arts and handicrafts. The Gold-
smiths' Company for long had an Institute
of their own at New Cross, and the Drapers
extended similar support to the People's
Palace in East London. The latter insti-
tution— already referred to in " Institute
London " — combines general with technical
instruction, and has a recreative side.
Many of the Companies also make in-
dependent provision for technical instruction
in their particular crafts. The Carpenters
hold lectures and classes at their Hall, and
AN EXAMINATION' AT APOTHFXARIES HALL.
other Companies hold periodical exhibitions,
at which prizes are awarded for excellent
workmanship. The Clothworkers' Company
follow their industry to its principal .seat
in Yorkshire, where they have established
and support successful technical colleges.
Another useful work is that of registering,
after examination, duly qualified workmen,
who receive certificates of competency, and
in some cases the freedom of the Company.
The Plumbers took the lead in this direc-
tion, and have sought legislative authority
for compulsory registration. The Spectacle
Makers' and Turners' Companies have also
taken action on these useful lines.
Great as are the educational trusts com-
mitted to the care of the City guilds, their
charitable endowments are even more
numerous, and comprise almost every form
of practical benevolence. The oldest form
of provision for the aged and decayed guilds-
man was the almshouse. In many a quiet
corner of the City until recently were to be
seen the almshouses of the various Com-
panies. Later on, the value of City land
and the need of less confined quarters led
to the removal of these retreats to more
open sites.
Of the grants and subscriptions made by
the Companies to our great national charities
it is unnecessary to speak : the donation lists
of these institutions show how greatly they
are indebted to such munificence.
An entire wing of the London
Hospital was built by the Grocers'
Company at an e.xpense of
;6^25,ooo. Some Companies ad-
minister trusts for special classes
of sufferers — the Clothworkers
and others have in their gift
important charities
" '- for the blind. The
Home for Conva-
lescents, estab-
lished by the
Merchant Taylors'
Company at Bog-
nor, is free, e.xcel-
lently managed,
and replete with
every comfort.
Each Company
has a marked in-
THE LONDON CITY COMPANIES.
309
dividuality, which comes upon the visitor as
a pleasant surprise. At the election feast of
the Broderers there is a Master's song, which
the newly elected Master is required to sing.
The Fruiterers present every new Lord
Mayor with a magnificent trophy of fruit,
and are in return invited to a banquet at
the Mansion House. The Makers of Playing
Cards present each guest at their annual
Livery banquet with a pack of cards, the
back of which is embellished with an elabo-
rate artistic design. (On the next page is a
facsimile of one of the designs.) The Clock-
makers have a library and museum, both of
exclusive right of publication of any work
it must be •' entered at Stationers' Hall,"
This process, which is effected in the Registry,
is illustrated on this page.
The Halls of the Companies are among
the chief public ornaments of the City.
Some of the minor Companies have never
possessed Halls; many others, whose Halls
were destroyed in the Great Fire of London,
or subsequently, did not rebuild them ; and
which are deposited in the Guildhall Library.
At Apothecaries' Hall the aspiring medical
student can, after duly satisfying the examiners,
obtain a qualification to practise medicine
and surgery ; here, too, the profession and
the public can obtain pure drugs. The Gun-
makers have a proof-house at Whitechapel,
where they examine and stamp firearms.
The Stationers are strictly a trade company,
and, like the Society of Apothecaries, have
a trading stock, shares in which are allotted to
their members in rotation. Their chief pub-
lications are almanacs, and among these
is the authorised edition of the celebrated
■" Old Moore." Of much greater importance
are the duties devolving on the Stationers
under the Copyright Act. To secure the
THE COPYRIGHT REGISTRY, STATIONERS HALL.
the number of existing buildings of this kind
is thus reduced to thirty-seven. In most
cases these sumptuous structures have to be
sought for, their street frontage being insig-
nificant. This is especially the case with the
Mercers', Drapers', Merchant Taylors', and
Clothworkers' Halls, where one enters through
a narrow doorway into a veritable palace. The
gardens have almost all disappeared, but that
of the Drapers, in Throgmorton Avenue, and
the famous mulberry tree of the Girdlers, in
Basinghall Street, still afford a refreshing
sight in summer.
These stately homes of the Companies have
the highest interest for the connoisseur, on
account of their many historic and art trea-
sures, some of which are of great antiquity,
while others are masterpieces of modern art.
To the former belong the specimens of
ancient plate, illuminated records, tapestries,
3IO
LIVING LONDOxN.
early paintings, and ancient armour. The
latter include modern paintings, sculpture,
porcelain, etc., found chiefly in the Halls of
the more wealthy Companies.
The privilege of the Honorary Freedom
and Livery is granted at rare intervals by
many of the guilds to eminent statesmen,
warriors, travellers, philanthropists, and others.
Even ladies have been thus honoured by the
Turners' and other Companies, whilst many
of the guilds permit women to take up their
freedom by patrimon}-. Twice in the year
the whole of the Livery are summoned to
the Guildhall — on Midsummer Day to elect
the Sheriffs, and on Michaelmas Da\' to elect
the Lord Mayor and other officers. They
have also a vote in the election of members
of Parliament for the City. Apprentices are
bound at the Halls and encouraged by gifts
and good advice, receiving also in some cases
help to start in business. The disobedient
and incorrigible are brought before the City
Chamberlain, who, in his court at Guildhall,
has power to commit them to a short term
of imprisonment at Bridewell. Part of one
of the cells in tliis Hospital is shown in our
illustration on page 306.
The hospitality of the Companies is ex-
tended to all the most notable in our land,
and to distinguished visitors from our colonies
and from foreign countries. The Salters
present each guest with a pair of little bone
spoons, a survival, possibly, of the old practice
which required all who came to dinner to
bring with them their knife and spoon. At
many of the Halls the guest is presented,
on leaving, with a box of cakes or candied
fruits, technically known as " service."
The position of the City Companies of
to-day is unique, not only in the history of our
own countr}', but in that of the world. Their
existence, in the case of the most ancient
guilds, for a period of from 700 to possibly
1,000 years ; their past and present services
to the country ; the immense trusts of which
they have been the chosen and faithful
almoners ; the independence and admirable
fitness of their present condition ; and the dis-
tinguished men who have adorned and still
adorn their roll of members — in all these re-
spects they present a combination of age,
excellence, and modern vigour absolutely
without parallel. Well may we join in the
sentiment of the toast so often heard in their
Halls, "May they flourish, root and branch,
for ever."
A PLAYING CARD DESIGN (PLAYING
CARD makers' company).
311
LONDON GETS IP IN THE MORNING.
By GEORGE R. SIMS.
LONDON is a city that never sleeps, but a
> very large proportion of its inhabitants
take a night's rest, and consequently
have to get up in the morning. The process,
simple enough in itself, has many attendant
variations. There are lazy people who some-
times envy the domestic dog, who wakes,
stretches himself, shakes himself, wags his
tail, and is ready for another day of life ;
there are others to whom the
ablutions and toilet are
a delight, not to be
hurried over or me-
•chanically performed.
It is a wonderfully
human picture — this
rising of the people of
a great city for the
labours and pleasures of
the day — that would
greet our eyes could we,
like Asmodeus, lift the
roofs and gaze within
the houses. Let us
glance at a few of its
details.
In the hospitals, the
great palaces of pain,
certain nurses and
officers remain on night
duty till the waking
hour. Between five and
Jialf-past the sufferers
who are asleep are
gently roused by a
nurse, and tho.se who
are able to get up begin
to wash and dress.
Then the stronger
patients, those who are
■getting better, make
their tea and boil their
•eggs and help to prepare
breakfast for the ca.ses
■who are too weak to mary jane
help themselves. By seven o'clock the wards
are all awake, the day nurses have come on,
and everything is being prepared for the
visit of the matron, to be followed by that
of the house surgeon.
After the hospital is up, the patients who
can get about pay little visits of sympathy to
the bedsides of their weaker fellow sufferers.
Pale faces appear at the windows, sunken
eyes look out upon the daily life of the streets,
and, in fancy, see far
away to the home where
dear ones are waking
and whispering, maybe,
a little prayer for the
absent one fighting the
battle of life and death.
But there are men,
labouring men, whose
waking hour is earlier
than that of the hos-
pitals. By four o'clock
in the morning certain
workers must be sum-
moned, for the day's
toil will begin at five —
at the dock gate and
in the great markets
you must be afoot be-
times. In the common
lodging-houses there is
frequently a " caller,"
who goes round and
wakes the heavy
sleepers. The man who
lives in lodgings and
has no wife is occasion-
ally roused by a passing
policeman, who performs
the friendly act from
the street.
The rising of the
domestic servant is fre-
quently one of the little
DESCENDS. worries of the good
312
LIVING LONDON.
housewife. She has generally a quick ear,
and, tread Mary Jane never so softly, should
she descend the stairs at a later hour than
usual the mistress will hear her, and there
will be " words " later in the morning.
Cook, in the ordinary household in which
there is no kitchenmaid, is the first to rise,
for she has to light the kitchen fire and
prepare the kitchen breakfast. One by one
the girls come down, as a rule listlessl}-, for
domestic service lends itself to heavy sleep,
and the household work of the day begins.
In houses where there is a nursery it is
there that the first Joyous sounds of a new day
of life are heard. Young children, like the
birds, have a habit of saluting the morning
either with song or its equivalent. Romps
are frequently indulged in before nightgowns
are off and baths are ready. There is an
urgent enquiry for toys directly the little eyes
are open. Baby girls betray the maternal
instinct in a demand for dolls, while little
boys have been known to introduce, not only
woolly rabbits and baa-lambs on wheels into
the nursery bed, but have frequently emptied
the entire contents of a huge Noah's Ark on
the counterpane pell-mell with Shem, Ham,
and Japhet, who have passed an open-eyed
night in close quarters, their necks entangled
in the hind legs of the greater carnivora.
If, in a weak moment. Papa has bought
the baby boy a
trumpet or a
drum, music will
sometimes
assault the
parental ear at
an hour when it
is least soothing.
It is not in-
freq uently
Baby's gentle
task to wake
Mamma, especi-
ally if it is a
first baby.
When Baby has
grown to the
age of four or
five he — if it is
a he — occasion-
ally toddles out
of his bed and
rouses Papa, bringing a new and favourite
toy with him. The fond father, who wakes
up with a terrified start to find a black kitten
sitting on his neck, easily checks his wrath
when he finds that it is his little son who
has placed it there, and is eagerly waiting
for Daddy to have a game of romps with
him.
The family getting up in the morning
where the children have to start for school
before nine o'clock is to many a mother a
daily anxiety. There is so much to be done
in a short time ; and when it happens also
that Papa is a City man, who goes early to
business, there is a double strain. Between
her husband's comfort and the punctual
despatch of the children with the maid, who
sees them safely to the seminary, her time
is fully occupied. Sometimes everything
goes wrong. The servants begin it by over-
sleeping themselves. There is trouble among
the children — sometimes a quarrel and tears.
Boots at the last moment are found not to be
ready ; a school-book has been mislaid. Papa
has found his razors have been used by
Master Tom for wood-carving, and the
shaving process has involved loss of time and
temper.
But at last the children have been hastily
despatched, with injunctions to hurry, for
they are ten minutes late. At last Papa,
THE CHILDREN AWAKE
LONDON GETS UP IN THE MORNING
313
with a piece of black sticking-
plaster on his chin, has gone
grumbling down the garden
path on his way to the suburban
railway station. Then the sorely
tried wife and mother returns
to the empty breakfast table,
and has a strong cup of tea to
soothe her nerves, and for a
few minutes forgets her family
cares, until the housemaid
comes in to clear away. Then
she takes the opportunity of
expressing her views upon early
rising.
In the getting up of the idle
classes the variety is endless, for
the riser has, as a rule, but
himself or herself to please.
The society belle may continue
to take her beauty sleep long
after the ordinary world is astir,
and then enjoy the extra luxury
of breakfast in bed ; or she
may be one of the bright,
healthy English girls who are
up betimes, and taking their morning canter
in the Row between eight and nine a.m.
The young gentleman who, living in bachelor
chambers, is studying life from its late side,
is not an early riser. His valet looks in
occasionally as the morning advances, and
finding him still sleeping retires discreetly.
Such a young gentleman, when he wakes
to the consciousness that another day has
arrived to be killed, occasionally feels
" hipped," and requires a slight stimulant
before he rises and performs his toilet, and
in dressing-gown and slippers lounges into
his sitting-room and toys with a carefully
prepared breakfast. His earlier toilet is
not an elaborate process. He postpones
the artistic touches until he is ready to
saunter out and allow the fashionable
streets of the West to become aware of
his presence.
But the waking up is not all comedy even
to the well-to-do and well dressed. The
night is merciful to most of us in that it
brings a little space of forgetfulness, but
with the morning the knowledge of life
returns. Many a beautiful English girl opens
her eyes to the morning sunshine and finds
88
A LATE RISER.
no joy in it, or in the song of the glad birds
that fill the air with melody.
For her the course of true love has
justified the proverb. There are jealous
pangs gnawing at her heart, perhaps despair
is in her soul. The scene of last night's ball
comes back to her as the flood-gates of
memory are opened. It may have been only
a lovers' tiff, it may have been the parting
of the ways ; but it makes the waking hour
a sad one, and the doubting maiden sighs
with Mariana that she is weary, and she rises
with a pale face and dresses listlessly.
The morning postman plays an important
part in the domestic drama of " The Awaken-
ing." The envelope pushed into the little
box with the familiar rat-tat, now in many
districts supplemented by the vigorous ring
■ — for knockers are .somewhat out of fashion —
may contain the best or the worst of news.
Brought to the bedside of the late sleeper
it may make his waking hour one of tragedy
or flood the room with sunlight on the
foggiest November day.
314
LIVING LONDON.
The letter may be eagerly expected, or
anticipated with dread. It comes at hist,
and nearly al\va\s by the first post. If
you are in doubt as to the view \\hich
the Fates have taken of the situation, you
either tear the envelope open hastily with
trembling fingers or you turn it over and
over and then put it aside for a while, post-
poning the verdict as long as possible.
In many a little home the morning letter
ma\- mean ruin or salvation. The young
clerk out of a berth, with a wife and child
to keep, has sent in his application for a
situation that has been advertised. He has
mentioned his references ; he has spent his
last sixpence in postage stamps. When he
WELCOME NEWS
wakes in the morning— lying late, as he
has no work to do — his anxious wife stands
by his bedside with a letter.
He takes it, but dreads to open it. Is it
a mes.sage of hope bidding him call at a
City office, or is it the stereotyped reply which
some firms are courteous enough to send to
applicants if they are not too numerous?
The wife waits ; the man sits up, and,
nerving himself for his fate, tears the envelope
open. Tremblingly he unfolds the letter and
scans the contents. " Thank God ! " he cries,
" Thank God ! " There is no need to say
more. The loving little wife's eyes fill with
grateful tears as she falls on her knees and
puts her arms round her husband's neck.
The letter lies open on the counterpane ;
she can read the glad news. " Mr. is
requested to call at the City office. If his
references are satisfactor}-," etc., etc
There are certain days in our lives when
most of us wake with eager anticipation of
the postman's burden. The birthday means
loving greetings from relatives and friends
long after it has ceased to mean presents, and,
because it is still customary to consider the
knocking off of another year of our allotted
span as a feat to rejoice at, most men and
women who have retained the "joy of living"
wake smilingly upon their birthday morn
and ask for their letters.
The waking of the dramatist on the
morning after the production of his new play,
of the actors and actresses who have taken
part in it, is largely influenced by the
previous night's reception ; but all are anxious
"to see the papers"
'iU"|if 1 which are brought
to them with their
morning tea. No
matter what may
be happening in
the world, no
matter how mo-
mentous may be
the events of the
day, theatrical folk
^_, have only one
4^^J^ *^^i* thought when they
~" ^ open the great
journals. They
scorn the leaders,
' ' and spare not a
glance for the latest news. The criticism of
the new play is the printed matter in which
their interest is centred. They read notice
after notice, sometimes with a smile,
.sometimes with a frown. On the nature of
the notices, so far as they are individually
concerned, depends the humour in which the
player folk will get up in the morning.
There are times when the " paper in bed "
makes half the country rise gloomily from
slumber. The news of a disaster to England's-
arms, of a terrible accident at sea, of the
death of a popular member of the Royal
Family, affects the spirits of the whole
thinking community. There have been days
when all London has risen with an aching^
heart, and gone .sadly and wearily forth to
the day's work.
And there are days when the greater part
of London rises gaiiy. These are the days
LONDON GETS UP IN THE MORNING.
315
of national rejoicing, of street pageantry, of
general holiday-making. The spirit of the
gala day is infectious ; even those who can
take no part in it have a kindly sympathy
with it, and get up with a sense of pleasure
which has no part in the
ordinary working day.
So vast is London, and so
small the area usually covered
by a public pageant, that early
rising is the order of the day
on most of these occasions.
The police regulations compel
the crowd to concentrate on
the given points long before
the hour of procession. Then
the knuckles of the housemaid
knock at the bedroom door at
an unaccustomed hour, and
there is no turning of the
sluggard for the " slumber
again." Habitual late risers
are invariably the first to get
up on these occasions. They
make elaborate over-night pre-
parations for not being late
down, and are among the
earliest in the streets. If the
morning is fine and warm, they
descant loudly on its beauty,
and announce their intention
of turning over a new leaf and
enjoying the early hours of
London's sunshine more fre-
quently. Rut the.se promises
are rarely kept.
On Sunday morning the
majority of Londoners take " an
e.xtra hour " in bed. There are
good folk who go to early ser-
vice, and many Roman Catholics
who go to early mas.s. There
are people bound for distant
country trips who are up and
about before the life of the day
begins ; but as a rule the .ser-
vants have a little indulgence,
and breakfast is later. The
workers, enjoying the relief
from labour, and accepting
Sunday as a " day of rest,"
interpret the phrase literally,
and take a portion of it in bed.
The " getting up " is a slower and more
elaborate process. The creeping hands of
the clock inspire no terror of lost trains, the
warning horn of the express 'bus will not
sound to-day, and church, which is generally
KKADI.VG THE
I'KESS NOTICES.
THE BRIDE OF
THE DAY.
316
LIVING LONDON.
close at hand, does not begin till eleven.
In humble homes Mother is up and about
long before F"ather ; for the children must
be dressed neatly and sent to Sunday
school, with credit to themselves and their
parents.
All the hopes and fears of life come home
to London in its waking hour. Some of
its children rise with their hearts elate and
their nerves braced for high endeavour ;
others wake with a sigh for the days that are
no more, and with grim forebodings for the
future.
The bride of the day, her heart full of
love for the man whose life she is to share,
wakes for the last time in the old, familiar
home. Some little mist may gather in her
eyes as she thinks of the parting from those
who have been beside her always until now,
and she is filled with vague wonder as to
how the new tie may mould and fashion the
life that is to be.
But she has given her heart long ago, and
to-day she is to give her hand. And so love
overcomes all the pain of parting, and hope
is in her heart, though the tears may be in
her eyes as she looks round the little room
for the last time, and begins the elaborate
preparations that lead up to the bridal dress
and veil and the little family circle of admira-
tion, before she timidly goes down the steps
to the carriage leaning on her fathers arm,
and is driven away to change her name and
be linked by a golden fetter to the man of
her heart.
And there is one waking hour on which
all thoughts are concentrated now and again
as the days go by.
When the hour of doom is to sound for
a fellow creature, the hour known and fixed
beforehand, many a man and many a woman
wake with a feeling of intense pity — not so
much, perhaps, for the condemned criminal
as for those who love him.
When a hanging morning dawns on London
our thoughts go out to the condemned cell in
which a fellow creature is waking from his
last sleep on earth.
It is said that most of these unhappy ones
sleep soundly until the warder approaches
and, gently touching them, bids them rise
and prepare for the awful moment that has
come.
It is not good to dwell upon this waking
scene. But, with all its horror, the mental
torture for the victim is a question of an hour
or two at most.
But for the mother, the wife, of such a man.
Ah ! God help them in their waking upon
that fatal day. The pity of every human
heart is theirs when the hour of doom strikes
upon their listening ears, and they know
that, far away from them, to son or to husband
the awful end has come.
I.V THE CONDKM.NED CP:lL.
317
NKT MAKING.
' SWEEP
LONDON'S STREET INDISTRIES.
By P F. WILLIAM RYAN.
T
^RADE followed
the flag ! Trade
was a chubby
fellow about the height
of an umbrella, with an
empty bottle clutched
tightly under his arm.
With his left hand he
helped along a tiny mite
who was as yet but a
novice in the art of
walking. The mite's
left fist, about the size
of a small tomato, was
clenched desperately. It was an exciting
moment ; the eyes of the children proclaimed
it. Fifty or sixty yards away was the man
selling flags and windmills, his handcart
surrounded by an eager crowd of juveniles.
What a calamity it would be if the two
arrived on the scene only to find his stock
sold out ! Their troubles were not quite over
when, breathless, they reached the spot ; for,
though there were plenty of flags, there was
still some danger that they might have to
wait for their proper turn amongst a dozen
customers. In the Borough you never wait
for your turn. You make it, and take it.
The elder boy was a staunch Imperialist.
He handed over his bottle and accepted a
miniature Union Jack reverently. The babe
solemnly opened his fist and looked at his
halfpenny. What would it be — flag or wind-
mill, windmill or flag? His small soul was
torn with doubt, yet they cruelly hurried him.
Then he took a windmill, just because he
wanted a flag, and toddled away broken-
hearted to cry his big blue eyes out for his
folly and his halfpenny.
The toffee-man enjoys beyond all his peers
the admiration of the juniors amongst the
rising generation. They would make him
a Minister of the Crown if only in his flight
to Downing Street he would forget to leave a
deputy-warden of his stock-in-trade. The
toffee-man manufactures his sweetstuff" under
CRUMPETS.
31!^
LIVING LONDON.
FLAGS AND WINDMILLS.
the e\-es of his patrons.
In this respect he
differs from all his
rivals. In Farringdon
Street, Fleet Street, the
Strand, Ludgate Hill,
and many other tho-
roughfares pedestrians
are tempted with nougat and American
caramels, Turkish delight, and other mys-
terious compounds set out on handcarts
with some pretence at artistic effect.
Besides the street confectioners and
fruiterers, who pander, of course, to mere
lu.xur)', there is a legion of men and women
who make a living out of the sale of homely
delicacies. Some of these are nearly as well
known as though their names figured in
beautiful gilt letters over a shop in Piccadilly
or O.xford Street. Watercress is much
favoured by Londoners, and the numberless
hawkers who trade in it find a
ready sale for their stock. The
shrimp -sellers hardly command
such extensive patronage, but they
nevertheless cater largely for the
metropolitan tea-table. In many
quarters there is a brisk demand
for mufifins and crumpets ; nor is
there any lack of customers for
fritters. The fish hawker is a
regular feature of street life. In
the eastern districts especially his
hand-cart is a great aid to the
humble housekeeper in varying
the daily menu.
The baker, the milkman, and
the saltman ma)- not be popular idols, but
from a commercial point of \iew their posi-
tion is impregnable. The milkman labours
under the imputation of slavishly imitating
the early rising habits of the lark. A sleepy
age might forgive him the plagiarism ; what
e.xcites its wrath is the spirited reveille he
performs with his tin cans on the area
railings.
Most of those who culti-
vate a street industry adhere
absolutely to one line of
business. Take the men who
hawk hats — and there are
many of them — they never
think of bartering any other
article of dress. Almost any
day one can buy a brand
new silk hat for five or six
shillings in certain streets.
The seller is usually also the
maker, which accounts for its
cheapness. Its pattern might
not be the theme of universal
laudation at a church parade ; but hats are
worn at other places. Then there is the
vendor of hats that have seen their zenith,
and in the autumn of their days are glad
to find a resting place on anybody's head.
BREAD
They are at the
best second-hand ;
and at the worst,
goodness knows
how many hands
they have passed
through. But the
best as well as
the worst go for
LONDON'S STREET INDUSTRIES.
a song.
thread
trifles
Needles and
and similar
for women's
SHRIMPS.
319
of the limited liability
companies which
exist for purposes of
WATEKCKESS.
use are hawked from
house to house in the
poorer neighbourhoods, while many an honest
penny is turned by the sale of plants suitable
for suburban gardens.
To one man, at all events, London never
metes out hard times. It is always the
harvest of the chimney-sweep, whose familiar
cry brings his calling within the category
of Street Industries. One sees him every-
where, and the richness of his workaday
complexion serves as well as an auditors'
report to demonstrate his prosperity. On
Sundays he often drives out with his family,
happy in the consciousness that neither war
nor pestilence can eliminate soot from this
beautiful world. The window-cleaner is
almost equally happy so far as business
is concerned, for the climate is
his faithful ally. Sometimes he
is a permanent servant of one
WINDOW-CLEANING.
There is,
quite an
this trade
however
army of window-cleaners who work for
themselves. These are often Jacks-of-all-
trades, ready to put in a pane of glass as
well as to polish it.
The coal man is known by his cry. As
he leads his horse through the streets he
occasionally curves his hand round his mouth
and indulges in a demoniacal yell, which is
doubtless his professional rendering of " Coal !
Coal ! " Nobody understands him ; everybody
hears him ! Another familiar street trader is
the greengrocer, who carts his stock from door
to door, and whose brisk business many a
shopkeeper might envy. The china-mender
is a less striking figure in the streets than
the chair-mender. When the latter is at
work a contingent of children
belonging to the neighbourhood
generally act as his overseers.
FISH.
UI.I) HA'i'S.
MILK.
320
LIVING LONDON.
SCISSORS TO GKIXD.
Sometimes
he is assisted
by his wife,
somet i mes
he labours
in single
blessedness.
Occasionally
the chair-
mender is a
woman — the
wido\\', \'cry
likely, of one
of the trade.
The broken
chair is
usually
taken to a quiet square or to a retired
quarter of the pavement, and there operated
upon. The industry is far from being as
good as it once was.
The periodical visits of the scissors-grinder,
with his impressive machinery, is an event in
the more gloomy streets of the Metropolis.
It could not
well be
otherwise
seeing the
fuss his
w heel
makes, not
to speak of
the sparks
he sends
flying when
a knife bearing signs of long and arduous
ser\ice is submitted to his tender mercies.
Judging b)' appearances, the scissors-grinder
is often one who has acquired a hankering
after " cold steel " in the ranks of the King's
army. Saw sharpening is much less show)%
much less exciting. There are no sparks,
and but a poor substitute in the form of
a diabolical noise that might well set even
artificial teeth on edge. To the butcher, how-
ever, it is a delicate' operation, to be watched
with the same solicitude as a Paderewski
might bestow upon his piano when in the
tuner's hands.
Street manufacturers are not numerous.
Amongst them, however, must be reckoned
I. KKTTLE-HOLDER MAKING.
II. SAW SHAKPEXI.NG
CHAIR-MENDING.
the old ladies who make holders for kettles
and irons. The tinker is never at a loss for
opportunities to practise his calling ; and his
wife, with the most praiseworthy
industry, adds to the family income
by making wire stands for flower-
pots and similar trifles, which she
hawks from house to house. That
fishing nets should still be made
by hand at a seaside village seems
only natural ; but to see them in
process of manufacture in a London
thoroughfare lends an unexpected
suggestion of poetry to a prosaic
scene. Greater dignity, however,
belongs to the woolwork-picture
maker, for he is an artist. With
his needle and thread he launches
coquettish yachts on frolicsome
waves, and dots the horizon with
armadas. The photographer is an
LONDON'S STREET INDUSTRIES.
i^'i
aristocrat amongst those who make a living
in the streets. The engraver on glass finds
his patrons mainly amongst publicans, though
glass ware has now become so cheap that his
services are little needed.
One's sympathies go out to the shoeblack
more than to any other
class of street industrial-
ist, except perhaps the
flower-girl. Little
wonder ; for his life is a
hard one, his earnings are
sometimes precarious, and
yet he is always civil,
and apparently content
with a small payment.
The shoeblacks, following
the example of more
important crafts, have
trade societies. Of these the
oldest and most important
belongs to the City. Its mem-
bers, like those of the Borough
organisation, wear red jackets.
Blue is the colour of the
fraternity in East London. In
Marylebone they affect white,
and at King's Cross brown. Some of the
more well-to-do members of the trade
provide chairs for their patients, with
convenient pedestals for the feet. To the
average customer five minutes in one of these
imposing chairs must be rather trying. It is
probably for the purpose of assisting modest
patrons to bear with equanimity the "splendid
isolation " of the position that the proprietors
sometimes keep on hand a supply of periodical
literature. One remarkable member of the
corps has a partner in the business — a cat.
Since the days of her kittenhood she has been
89
in the trade. A most worthy cat she is in
all respects, her one fault being a pronounced
spice of vanity. At a word of praise, such as
one might let drop as a matter of course with-
out any thought of flattering a reprehensible
weakness, she arches her back and rubs
against your ankles, purring in an ecstasy ol
delight.
Step-cleaners in the Metropolis — " step-
girls " they are usually called — are legion. It
is a curious calling, but those who follow it no
doubt prefer it, with all its drawbacks, to
employment which would impose restrictions
on their liberty. As a class they are in a
sense alien to the hard-driven sisterhood
of more mature years who offer
their services as charwomen. The
vendor of fly-paper is more than
a business man, he is a humani-
tarian. He displays samples of
his goods on his hat, a mode of
advertisement that is frequently
productive of painful surprises to
the unthinking fly. Many humble
workers eke out an existence by pre-
paring firewood. The pulling down
of an old
bu ilding
comes as
a godsend
to these
people.
The rotten
timber is
bought for
next to
nothing, and
cut into
small pieces.
It is then
hawked
through the
poorer quar-
ters in a
barrow, and
sold by
measure.
I. COAI.S. n. FI.Y-PAPEKS.
HI. WOOLWORK PICTURE
.M.AKING. IV. SHOEBLACK.
32
LIVING LONDON.
The parts that are too tough to be sawn up
are called " chump wood." There is firewood
and firewood ! It is a prosaic trade till
OLD IRON.
Christmas comes.
Think of the logs
flaming and crackling
in the grate on a
December night — tJic
Night — when the
blinds are drawn, and
the light shines on
the faces of loved
ones, and transmutes
to gold the mistletoe
berries, and to
globules of glistening
crimson the ripe holly
fruit. The Yule-log
man is not there, he
is out in the shadows;
but he has thrown
the glamour of poetry
over that English
hearth.
Perhaps the day is wet.
man offering sacks to
STEP-CLEANING.
is now a pathetic figure amongst the army of
street dealers ; his trade is no longer what it
was. The man who buys old iron is one of
the few who make a living on the streets by
paying out money rather than taking it
in.
What cannot you buy in London's high-
ways ? Here is a hawker with feather dusters
on cane handles, and another with brushes of
all sorts and sizes. There are artificial
flowers of tints to make a botanist green with
envy, and artificial butterflies of tropical
brilliancy. A man with " counter cloths " —
used for mopping up the liquor which over-
flows from customers' glasses — is disappearing
into a public-house.
At your heels is a
locksmith rattling a
hundred keys on a
huge ring. The
traffic in old leather
bags and portman-
teaux is limited. On
Saturday nights you
may see a barrow
laden with them in
the neighbourhood of
a cheap restaurant or
a big public-house.
On Sunday after-
noons in summer
choice fruits are
hawked noisily
through the residen-
tial streets of the
west. But in summer
and winter, through
Here is a sales-
keep out the rain.
This one is old and blind, and in other days
was a miller. He is useful still ; for, though
some people are above facing the weather in
a closely woven sack, there are carters and
scavengers and errand boys who think little
of fashion and much of a dry skin. A parcel
has to be .sent post-ha.ste ; you can purchase
the services of a licensed messenger at the
nearest corner. You drive up to your door in
a four-wheeler. Before you have stepped on
to the pavement a couple of rivals for the
privilege of helping with your luggage have
appeared as if by magic. The clock-mender
GREENGROCER.
every night of the year, there is a delicacy
on sale which shames the language of eulogy
— the baked potato. There it is, big as
LONDON'S STREET INDUSTRIES.
323
a melon, and piping hot, its jacket of
brown crisped in parts to big, shiny, coal-
black blisters.
The children of Little Italy supply a fair
proportion of those who trade in chestnuts
and ice-cream. Often the Italian cannot
speak a word of English. What does it
matter! The coppers of his customers are
sufficiently explanatory. In the City and the
URUSHES.
leading arteries of the town business is good,
but one can only marvel how the chestnut
man in the quieter districts wards off starva-
tion— sometimes, indeed, famine must press
close upon his heels. There is a young
Sicilian who rolls his barrow to one of
the sleepiest of the central London squares.
Why he should select such a pitch is a
mystery. For hours the nuts on his fire
crisp, and crisp, and burn ; yet, except on
Sundays, hardly a coin comes his way. In
CLOCK-ME.NDER.
the deepening gloom of a winter's evening,
when the tide of life sets homewards, one
sometimes sees a group of children gathered
round him. They are not buying. They are
gaping at him in silence, hypnotised by
his pinched face, his great haggard eyes, his
air of patient, abject poverty. The tattered
dreamer, the wondering children, the battered
furnace, form a strangely unreal picture, half
buried in the shadows that swathe the square.
The man is a helpless, hapless, stricken
lotus-eater ; the melancholy antithesis of the
eager, alert, strenuous army — the tireless,
dauntless army, of all ages and all nations
— who wring a livelihood, copper by copper,
in the fair way of trade from the countless
simple needs of the World's Emporium.
OLD SACKS.
YULE LOGS.
LICENSED MESSENGER.
324
BIRD-LAND AND PET-UND IN LONDON.
By HENRY SCHERREN.
A PET PYTHON.
LONDON
/ is a para-
dise of
birds. Here
you may see,
b e t w e e n
January and
December, a
wealth of bird
life which can
scarcely be
paralleled in
any equal
area in the
British Isles.
The Metro-
polis is one
vast preserve;
and there is no other city where such interest
is taken by the people in the birds.
All have watched the gulls on the Thames,
with their outlying flocks that spread into St.
James's Park, making the sky white with
their pinions, or flecking the river with silver-
grey patches as they settle on its bosom. At
the working man's dinner-hour there will be
few among the crowds that line the Embank-
ment who have forgotten their feathered
friends. The gulls swoop down to the
parapet to seize the food thrown to them in
the air, the bolder ones coming so near as to
be within hand's reach, but all fearless from
past experience of their treatment. Here is,
then, the link between man and the gulls.
The birds have learnt that it is pleasanter
to spend the winter on a sheltered river,
where people provide them with food, than
to forage on the sea-shore, when close-time
is over, and the plume-hunter is on the look-
out for " wings."
London has its share — its full share — of
sparrows. They swarm everywhere ; they
nest under the eaves, in trees, bushes, in ivy
and other climbing plants, and the predatory
cat takes heavy toll of their young. They
come to the window-sill for breadcrumbs,
squabble in the streets for the corn dropped
from the nosebags of the cab horses, and
carry off dainty morsels from beneath the
bills of larger birds. They soon learn to
know their friends. A gentleman feeds those
in Hyde Park and St. James's Park. The
birds fly to meet him, circle round him, and
have grown so tame that they will take food
from his hand.
The London pigeons are as familiar as
those of Venice, from which they differ in
being the pets of the people, not of visitors.
Illustrations on the opposite page show how
they are fed outside the Guildhall and
in Hyde Park. Similar scenes may
be witnessed any day round St. Paul's
Cathedral, where are two colonies — one
frequenting the east and the other the west
end of the building — that do not intermix.
At the British Museum many of the regular
visitors to the Reading Room make a practice
of bringing food for the pigeons that come
flying down from their resting places among
the statuary of the pediment. Let me de-
scribe a pretty incident of which I was an
eye-witness. The children of a boarding
school were feeding some birds which were
enjoying the feast, and hard by was a group
of poorly-clad girls and boys, looking on with
wistful eyes. A dainty little miss, after con-
sulting her governess, left her companions,
and pressed her bag of food into the hands
of one of the astonished children. East and
west were immediately united in the pleasant
task of feeding the birds.
Among the strangest facts of London bird-
life are the numbers and the tameness of the
wood-pigeons which began to settle here about
1880. In St. James's Park, in many of the
squares, and on the Embankment, they may
be seen strutting about quite fearlessly
heedless of the presence of man. This is
in strong contrast to their wildness in the
country. They are summer visitors — leaving
I. FEEDING PIGEONS OUTSIDE THE GUILDHALL. II. GULLS NEAR THE TH.^MES EMBANKMENT.
in. FEEDING PIGEONS IN HYDE PARK. IV. FEEDING SPARROWS FROM HIS HAND (HYDE PARK).
V. FEEDING THE DUCKS IN ST. JAMES's PARK.
326
LIVING LONDON.
A BIRD SHOP ON" WHEPXS.
US in the autumn to return again in spring,
and many nest here. Birds, and of course
other animals, have means of communication
of which man knows nothing, beyond the
fact that it exists. A naturaHst, passing
through a West-End square, saw a soHtary
wood-pigeon. He scattered some corn on the
ground, of which the bird picked up a few
grains, and then flew off in the direction of
St. James's Park. It returned in a few
minutes accompanied by its mate. It had
evidently imparted the good news that there
were free rations for wood-pigeons within
easy distance.
London is a great centre for homing
pigeons, which so many people miscall
" carriers." As one comes into town,
especially on the east side, one must notice
the dormer windows leading into the lofts
of the pigeon-flyers. Not that pigeon-racing
is confined to the East-End. The King and
the Prince of Wales are among its patrons.
At a race of the London North Road Federa-
tion thirty birds from the royal lofts were
tossed with the rest ; and at a show at the
Royal Aquarium birds from the Sandringham
lofts have been exhibited. The London homers
fly to, wot from, the Metropolis. Their power
of finding their way back is due to training
for condition and for knowledge of the route,
over which they are tossed at constantly in-
creasing distances. Even with this training a
considerable percentage of birds is lost in
long-distance races. Some
of the London newspapers
still employ homing
pigeons to bring " copy "
and sketches from Epsom
and the 'Varsity Boat
Race.
" Fancy " pigeons are
largely kept, bred, and
exhibited. At the Crystal
Palace and the Royal
Aquarium showsare penned
the finest specimens of the
numberless varietie.s. Here
are heavily wattled carriers,
snaky magpies, pouters
swelling with the sense of
their dignity, snowy fan-
tails that emulate the
peacock in display, and a
host of other breeds, nearly every one of
which has its special club, all governed by
the rules of the Pigeon Club, which takes
cognisance of matters relating to the " fancy "
generally.
Rookeries, with the exception of the colony
in Gray's Inn, are confined to the suburbs.
Interference with the trees, as in Kensington
Gardens, has driven the birds away. But one
may be pretty sure of seeing a magpie in
Regent's Park, the jay in some of the out-
lying districts, and an occasional jackdaw.
In all the parks the ornamental waterfowl
are a great feature ; and feeding the birds
constitutes one of the chief pleasures of the
children. The stately swan is conspicuous
among the ducks and geese. The dabchick
and moorhen have nested on some of the
lakes ; the kingfisher and mallard have been
noted on the Regent's Canal ; and the ring-
plover has been photographed on her nest
within the postal district. From time to time
the surplus stock of waterfowl belonging to
the County Council is sold in Battersea Park.
The parks have become the home of a
number of species of smaller birds that
there find sheltered nesting places. In the
County Council parks miniature aviaries
have been erected, in which many bright-
plumaged species are kept, to the delight of
the visitors.
Bird-lovers are social. In one of the large
rooms at a famous West-End restaurant,
BIRD-LAND AND PET-LAND IN LONDON.
327
after a modest dinner, the members of the
British Ornithologists' Club discuss matters
relating to birds, and exhibit rare specimens.
The East-End, too, has its social evenings,
devoted not so much to exhibition as to
singing contests, in which the birds seem to
take as much interest as their owners.
Pet-Land is an extensive region, with
boundaries that cannot be strictly defined.
Just as "one man's meat is another man's
poison," so one man's pet may be, and often
is, the abhorrence of his next-door neighbour.
The man whom Shylock quoted as unable
to abide the " harmless, necessary cat " was
neither the first nor the last of his kind.
Nevertheless, he may have had a Pet-Land
of his own, though its limits were too strait
to admit of Puss dwelling therein. To feline
as well as to canine pets, however, I need
merely refer, for they have 'oeen already
dealt with in the article on " Cat and Dog
London."
The providing of pets is a distinct calling.
In many of the places where costermongers
have their " pitches " may be seen a bird
stall, usually with a pretty good stock.
Here, at a reasonable price — perhaps from a
perambulating dealer — one may buy a grey
parrot, with an unimpeachable character as
to language, a gaily-plumaged pafrakeet, or
a cockatoo. Java sparrows and other East
Indian finches are here in plenty. The
buyer who wants a
British bird can be
supplied, for the stock
includes a jackdaw, a
magpie, a jay, larks,
starlings, blackbirds,
thrushes, linnets, bull-
finches, and a goldfinch
or two. These dealers
will also supply cages
— gorgeous affairs, re-
splendent with brass
and gilding — for their
permanent residence,
or small wooden
structures in which to
take the new pets
home. When the pur-
chaser declines to pay
the few pence asked
for a small wooden
cage, the bird is deftly put into a paper
bag, with the corners twisted up, and so
carried off by its new owner.
From the street-dealers other pets may
be procured — gold-fish for the aquarium ;
pond-tortoises, as surely carnivorous as the
land-tortoises (mendaciously warranted to
clear the garden of slugs) are vegetarians ;
green lizards imported from the Continent ;
the smaller lizards of our own country and
their legless relation, the slow-worm ; newts,
brilliant in nuptial attire, with a waving crest
all down the back ; Wack-and-yellow .sala-
manders from Central Europe ; and tree-frogs,
scarcely to be distinguished from the leaves
on which they have taken up their position.
Larger and rarer pets are to be obtained
from the shops where such things are
made a speciality. Does the purchaser want
a monkey? The dealer will show him a
macaque from India, a green monkey from
Africa, or a capuchin from South America,
and might guarantee to deliver a gorilla
within a reasonable time. Are lemurs
more to his taste ? Here are all sorts
and sizes, from the tiny " mouse " he can
carry away in his pocket, to the ruffed
lemur, as big and as fluffy as a Persian cat.
Would he like a suricate, or meerkat, as the
C.I.V.'s learnt to call this funny little beast
in South Africa ? There are half a dozen
sitting bolt-upright, like tiny mungooses, and
IN A BIRD AND ANIMAL SHOP (GKKAT PORTLAND STREET).
328
LIVING LONDON.
... ■
1
■ ..
^ p
■ r^
.-.1 *i^
au
m ilk -
^p^
■■j yg
Bm
^^^^Kss£d^HriU
CAGKD.
scratching away at the wire-netting in vain
efforts to get out. A few armadilloes are
pretty sure to be in stock ; and, if something
specially "creepy" is wanted, there is no lack
of snakes, or a few baby crocodiles may
be produced for inspection.
In such a shop there is sure to be plenty of
bird.s — Indian mynahs that " talk," the rarer
parrots and parrakeets, the monstrous-billed
toucans, and a host of others to be seen year
after year at the Cage Bird Shows. There
are special shops where the stock consists of
canaries of various breeds — Norwich, Hartz
Mountain Rollers, Lizards, etc. — • fancy
pigeons, poultry, and waterfowl.
Children affect guinea-pigs, rabbits, white
mice and rats. Birds require too much
attention for them, and will not bear the
vigorous display of interest the average child
takes in its pets. Guinea-pigs may be
handled and rabbits carried about by the
ears without ill-consequences ; while mice
and rats will thrive under conditions that
would soon kill any cage-bird. A little girl
of my acquaintance has a pretty pet rat,
which is tame and affectionate. Immediately
its cage door is opened it runs to her, climbs
on her shoulder, and waits to be fed.
The goat is the pet of the children of the
poor, and may be said to be, in some degree,
their playmate. It has also another charac-
ter— it is their draught animal ; and some
of them show considerable ingenuity in
utilising an old box for a carriage and scraps
of rope for harness.
There are not very many London dwell-
ings in which a pet of some kind is not
kept. Among the labouring classes who
have migrated to town from rural dis-
tricts larks and blackbirds are in high
favour, and the song brings back memories
of green fields far away. The poor are
always considerate towards their pets, and
many instances are . known in which they
have denied themselves necessaries that their
favourites should be fed.
Everyone will recognise the first illustration
on this page as characteristic of not a few
London homes, especially in the suburbs.
Some rail at the cruelty of keeping caged
birds ; but even in the case of those that have
been deprived of their freedom there is
another side to the question — the brightness
these petted little prisoners bring into dull,
grey human lives. That all caged birds are
not unhappy is shown by the fact that some,
when released, have returned of their own
accord. They are well fed and cared for,
and the loss of liberty is not too high a
price to pay for such advantages, to which
FEEDING PET LEMUKS.
BIRD-LAND AND PET-LAND IN LONDON.
329
must be added security from their natural
enemies.
The fowls and ducks of suburban gardens
are on the confines of Pet-Land rather than
true denizens ; but many fanciers make pets
of their poultry, especially of stock birds
whose progeny have won honours in the show-
pen.
The monkey, from its intelligence and
affection, is a king of pets, when its propensity
for mischief can be kept within due bounds.
If a census could be taken of the pet monkeys
in London, the number would come as a
surprise to most people. The temper of these
animals is, however, somewhat uncertain ;
and some which are on their best behaviour
with the master will scratch and bite the
children or the maids. The Monkey-House
at the Zoological Gardens is a sort of
penitentiary for such naughty pets.
The second illustration on the opposite page
represents a collection of pet lemurs and
squirrel monkeys probably unequalled in this
country. The animals are kept in roomy
cages, with space for exercise ; the house is
just warm enough, with a current of pure air
flowing through. They are well cared for
by the man in charge, but their owner and
friend would feel he had missed a pleasure if
he omitted to visit them at least once a day
The lady to whom the lo-foot python
shown on page 324 belongs is exceedingly
proud of it, as she may well be, for it is a
fine reptile, quite tame, and seemingly de-
lighted to be handled by its mistress, and
showing no sign of resentment when taken
up by others. Every Friday it is treated
to a swim in a large bath, and the next
day it gets its weekly meal.
The care shown for wild birds and for pets
of all kinds is repaid a thousand-fold by the
pleasure derived from the consequent fear-
lessness in the one case and the affection in
the other. A bond of sympathy is thus
established between Man and the lower
animals over which he has dominion. But
the care of pets imposes obligations, and
these will be best discharged if we resolve —
" Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."
A STUEKT lilKn STALL,
90
3>o
MATCHBOX FILLING (MESSRS. R. BELL AND CO., LTD.).
SCENES EROM FACTORY LONDON.
By C. DUNCAN LUCAS.
WE are early astir to-da)'. The resi-
dential west is like a city of the
dead : not a blind is up ; save for
a few stragglers — a weary-eyed policeman
or two, a white-faced night-bird in evening
dress tramping to his rooms, and a sprinkling
of loafers — the streets are deserted. The
only sound that breaks the stillness is the
clatter of our cab-horse's hoofs. En route
to the east we pass the great City work-
rooms, affording employment to thousands
of men, women, and girls — tailors, dress-
makers, shirt -makers, milliners, tie- makers,
makers of artificial flowers — too many, in
fact, to name. Little by little the .scene
changes. As each mile is covered it be-
comes more animated. The drama of
the day is beginning. London's toilers
are turning out, multiplying minute by
minute, and as the tall chimneys come
into view we are plunged into a stream of
hurrying humanity that carries everything
before it. The humble homes are sending
forth their wage-earners. A kiss on the
doorstep, a wave of the hand, and the father
or mother has joined the great throng.
It is a many-sided crowd, a crowd repre-
senting almost every nationality in Europe,
and every kind of man, woman, and child.
A picture of more violent contrasts you
could not imagine. Extreme age walks side
by side with adolescent youth, and rude
health brings out in sharp relief the pallid
features of the consumptive. Every turning
helps to swell the tide, which sweeps on
fast and furious until at length there is a
diversion. We are now in a factory quarter
of London, and the crowd suddenly scatters.
A thousand eager souls race for this building,
another thousand for that. The rest dis-
SCENES FROM FACTORY LONDON.
33'
appear through big gates as if by magic.
There are factories for the preparation of
almost everything that mortal man can
desire — for tinned meats, jams, biscuits,
pickles, cheap clothing, hats, babies' food,
mineral waters, sweets, cakes, soap, matches,
tobacco, pipes, jewellery, upholstery, leather,
pottery — indeed it is difficult to call to
mind a single article in everyday use in
the manufacture of which the Metropolis is
not concerned.
The average person has little idea of the
arrayed in many colours have just trooped in.
They are match-makers, and the factory
belongs to Messrs. R. Bell and Co., of Bromley-
by-Bow. Picture to yourself a gigantic room,
clean and airy. To the right a couple of
drums in charge of women are revolving,
and on these drums are strands of cotton —
a hundred of them, and each one 2,500 yards
in length. On its way from one drum to
the other the cotton is drawn through a pan
of hot stearin until its coating of wax is of
the required thickness. It is then put aside,
CREAM FONDANT MOULDING ROOM (MESSRS. CLARKE, NICKOLLS AND COOMBS, LTD.).
immensity of London's Factory-land or of
the vast number of people who find employ-
ment there. In its busy hives hundreds of
thousands of workers are engaged day by
day in performing some essential service to
the British race ; and it is not too much to
say that if its factories were to disappear
this big, ever-growing city would be bereft
of half its strength.
Let us visit that huge place opposite, the
yard of which is stacked with timber. A
regiment of bright-looking women and girls
and when it is sufficiently firm it is given
over to the young woman on our left.
She is a fine-looking girl. Quietly dressed
and with an air of responsibility about her,
she is a young mother. Her husband is
employed at the soap works hard by, and
though some one has to tend the babies
during the day she is happy — happy because
there are two incomes to maintain the bairns
in plenty. Her daily output is 2,500,000
match stems. Watch her. She has a cutting
machine all to herself, and as the strands of
332
LIVING LONDON.
wax flow into the frame she presses her
thumbs at a certain spot, and behold a
hundred stems are cut. Her thumbs never
wear)'. The stems ready, up the_\- go to the
roof to be dipped. A man stands at a shib
on which is spread the composition — a thick
paste. He tai<es a frame and presses it on
to the slab, and in ten seconds you have
10,000 finished matches. If anj' one should
suffer from the deadly " phossy jaw " this
man should, for he has been dipping matches
for a quarter of a centur\-, but he breathes
the air of Heaven — the kindly proprietors,
who do not look upon their employes
merely as so many machines, lay stress on
this — and as a further precaution fans are
kept going throughout the day to drive
away the fumes.
No one is idle here. Big strapping girls
are making wooden boxes at the rate of
120 gross a day : others are filling the boxes
with matches at a speed that beggars descrip-
tion ; while over the way men are cutting
timber for wooden " lights " with knives as
sliarp as razors.
If time did not press there would be much
more to see, but we are due at Hackney
Wick to witness 2,000 men and women
making sweets.
The factory of Messrs. Clarke, Nickolls
& Coombs supplies the sweet - toothed
brigade of Great Britain with 2,000 varieties
of sweets, and so agreeable is the stuff that
in the course of twelve months from fifteen
to twenty tons of it are consumed by the
employes themselves. Step into this building
by the railway where the workers are a
hundred strong. Some are boiling sugar in
great pans ; some are kneading a thick, jelly-
like, transparent substance that we have never
seen before. It is sugar and water. One
woman is especially vigorous, and we admire
her biceps. Presently she flings her jelly
on to an iron peg and proceeds to pull it
about with the strength of a Sandow. In
two or three minutes it resembles a beautiful
skein of silk. Later on it will go through
a rolling machine, from which it will emerge
a delicious sweetmeat.
There are few more curious sights than
those that are presented at a sweet factory.
On our tour of inspection we drop into the
fondant room. It is full of grey-headed
women. But they are not aged. Their
greyness is merely starch. Wash away the
starch and you have pretty young English-
women. These grey-faced damsels make
the starch moulds into which the fondant
material in its licjuid state is dropped to be
properly shaped. Walk upstairs and you
have a contrast. An apartment is reserved
for the exertions of half a dozen girls whose
complexions are of a rich coffee colour.
Brown as a berry, we put them down as
thorough-bred Africans. But they are
Cockneys, and brown only because they
dabble in coffee and cocoa beans. They
are experts in chocolate.
What an industry this is ! Men and
women, old and young, scrupulously clean,
2,000 of them, are working for dear life.
Literally tons of sweets are in the process
of making. Suddenly a bell clangs. It is
the dinner hour. Labour ceases on the
instant, and 700 women troop into the great
dining-hall, where penny, twopenny, and
threepenny meals are in readiness. There
is some chaffing going on to-day, and on
inquiry we learn that a chocolate specialist
is about to be married. As she has been
making sweets for five years the good-
natured firm will present her with a five-
pound note on her wedding day.
We will now introduce ourselves to the
soap-worker. Stand on tip-toe — we are in
the factory of Messrs. Edward Cook and Co.,
of Bow — and peer into that colossal pan.
The perspiring individual by our side is the
soap-boiler, and the tumbling yellow liquid
that we see is soap in its first stage. There
are a hundred tons of it, and the men are pump-
ing it into an iron vessel. Passing through
iron pipes into an adjoining room it flows
into frames, where it remains for forty-eight
hours until it has cooled. They are extra
busy to-day. One lot of frames is already
cold, and the men are attacking the soap —
great solid blocks over half a ton in weight.
These blocks are carried away, and busy
hands will presently cut them up into
bars.
Women, girls, and boys, as well as men,
find employment here. It is a case of soap
in every nook and cranny. One woman is
engaged on toilet soap. As the slabs are
pushed into the mill she adds the colouring
334
LIVING LONDON.
matter and pours in the sweet-smelling scent, and they make cigars all day long, from two
Round and round goes the mill, and presently
the soap is thrown out in beautiful long
ribbons. These ribbons are subsequently
put into a machine which binds them. Tons
to three hundred per day apiece. There is
no busier spot in the universe than a tobacco
factory. Scrutinise these men ; read their
faces. Doggedness is written all over them ;
MARKING SOAP FOR HOTELS, CLUBS, ETC. (MESSRS. EDWARD COOK AND CO., LTD.).
upon tons of soap are in preparation. One
group of workers is marking soap for hotels,
clubs, shipping companies, etc. Not a
moment is wasted. Study the face of that
young bread-winner in the blue blouse. It
is as clear as noonday that she is thinking
of her home One of a little group, she packs
up soap from early morning till dewy eve.
And observe that lad over there. He is the
sole support of a widowed mother. As
a shop boy he might be worth five or si.x
shillings a week, but here as a soap-wrapper
he earns double that sum.
Glance now at our photographic picture
of a corner of a department in the great
tobacco factory belonging to Messrs. Salmon
and Gluckstein, Clarence Works, City Road.
In this room are employed some 250 persons
— Englishmen, Scotsmen, Welshmen, Irish-
men, Frenchmen, Germans, Scandinavians,
Dutchmen, Belgians, Poles, and others —
their fingers are never idle ; their backs never
ache. As soon as a man has finished his
hundred cigars away he rushes to get enough
leaf to produce another hundred. He earns
on an average from £2 los. to .^3 a week.
In the next room women are just as busy.
These are stripping the stalks from the
leaves ; those are sorting the leaves for
quality ; to the right, men are employed in
preparing the leaf for the cigar maker. Ic
other rooms you find girls busily engaged in
banding, bundling, and boxing cigars, which
are then passed on for maturing. In an ad-
joining department cigarette making is in
progress on a colossal scale, and many
machines are here running at a high rate of
speed, producing huge quantities of cigarettes
hourly. Apart from these machines, very
large numbers of men and women are en-
gaged in making cigarettes by hand.
The whole factory is a beehive of activity
SCENES FROM FACTORY LONDON.
335
Yet despite the feverish movements, which
form the chief characteristic of this splendidly
equipped establishment, there is a pleasant
sense of comfort about the place. Of stuffi-
ness there is none ; every room is well lighted
and ventilated, and both men and women are
not only interested but happy in their work.
Perfection of organisation and consideration
for the welfare and health of the employ(fs are
apparent throughout this huge and up-to-date
tobacco factory.
Down at Lambeth, at Messrs. Doulton's,
we have the artistic factory hand — the potter.
The clay is brought by ship and barge from
the pits, and when it has been crushed,
washed, and mixed is passed on to the
potter. Come into the potter's room. There
he is at his wheel spinning round a piece
of clay that is soon to be a tea-pot. He is
a genius this fellow, and has innumerable
differently-shaped articles to his credit. Close
by a muscular little fellow is committing a
violent assault and battery on a lump of clay.
Dashing it down on a slab, he punches it for
all he is worth. There is humour in his
bright young eye ; he belongs to a boxing
club. He is not playing, however. He is
" knocking the wind out of it," so to speak,
so that when he hands it to the potter the
latter will have no difficulty in dealing with
it. From the potter's room we go to the
turners' room. Here a dozen men are giving
our potter's vessels — they have been put
aside for a while to get stiff — the
finish necessary for decorative pur-
poses. Each man
is working his
hardest. The big
fellow to our right
is putting on
handles and
spouts ; the small
boys who look so
chirpy carry the
vessels away — on
their heads — when
they are complete
and ready for
ornamentation.
Downstairs are
the studios. The
one we stop at is
tenanted entirely
by ladies. Twenty of them are seated at
a table. They are colouring and decorating
the ware prior to its despatch to the kilns.
The colours are all very quiet in effect, but
will ultimately be developed by the firing.
Now to the kilns below. One of them is
as big as a house. It is choke-full of ware.
Stokers are here, there, and everywhere,
and the fires are at white heat. The
kilns are unapproachable, so fierce are the
flames ; yet the jugs and the candlesticks
and the teapots and every other sort ot
ware must remain in that fiery furnace for
nine days. Such is the work of the potter.
By way of a change we will visit a babies'
and invalids' food factory at Peckham. To-
day at Messrs. Mellin's they are making
enough food-stuff to fill a hundred thousand
little stomachs for a month. The factory
is a mass of food. British babies must be
fed, and men and women are scurrying
hither and thither intent on one purpose
only — the nourishing of the young. Yet
there is absolute cleanliness and, strange to
say, scarcely any noise. The food is non-
farinaceous, or starch free, and in the process
of manufacture the wheaten flour and malt
after saturation are transformed at a certain
temperature and then strained through the
finest of sieves and taken into vacuum pans
THE POTTEli AT WOKK CMESSRS. DOi;i,T0X AND CO., LTD.).
336
LIVING LONDON.
of great capacity — five in number — in which
the liquid is evaporated until the result is
a fine powder. A great point of interest in
connection with the food is that it is un-
touched by hand.
The next process is the most interesting
of all ; but we must see this for ourselves,
so we will look into the bottling department.
A number of men are standing at a narrow-
table. At the far end is the bottling
machine. At the top is a hopper, and a
conveyer feeds the machine which rotates
and fills the bottles — four thousand in an
hour. And the men ? They are working
like mad, for the bottles are being carried
along the table by an endless chain,
and each man has .something to do
and something that must be done in a
second. One is putting a strip of cork into
the mouths of the bottles as they travel by,
another is dropping in the stoppers, a third
is pressing the stoppers down, and so on.
It is a kind of magic. Upstairs women are
wrapping the food as fast as they can go.
Baby is clamouring, and his appetite must,
of course, be appeased, and at a break-neck
pace too.
And now before quitting Factory Land
let us glance at those who produce " Living
WKAPPING INF.ANTS FOOD (MESSRS.
MELLLn's food, LTD.).
London." The vast printing works of La
Belle Sauvage are teeming with life. We
will not wait to count the men, because their
name is legion, but we will count the
machines. There are forty of them in the
basement, besides others in different parts
of the immense buildings, and monthly
magazines and weekly periodicals, presently
to be scattered over the face of the globe,
are being reeled off at the most furious
rate. So great are the bustle and the din
that it is impossible to hear one's self speak.
Those machines over yonder are printing
" Living London." The boys at the top,
as agile as young monkeys, are slipping in
the paper, one sheet at a time. Away it
goes, round rolls the sheet over the type, and
out it comes at the other end. It falls into a
tray, and a clean shaven man, very wide-
awake, having satisfied himself that it is
perfect, it is left where it is until the tray
is full. Before anything further can be done
the ink must be allowed to dry, so the
hillock of sheets is put into a lift and sent
up to the next floor to the drying room.
In this chamber " Living London " remains
for a couple of days, when, the ink being
dry, it goes away to a machine to be cut
up into sheets of eight pages.
Ascend now to the fourth storey, to an
SCENES FROM FACTORY LONDON.
337
airy room which is full of women. Several
thousands of sheets have just come up.
This young woman with the jet-black hair
is looking after a machine which is folding
the sheets into four ; her colleagues at the
tables are folding them by hand. Further
on we introduce ourselves to a battalion of
British maidens armed with long needles.
They are sewing the folded sheets together.
From the sewing department " Living
London " proceeds to an adjoining room,
where it is bound into parts. Observe that
big man with the enormous glue pot. A
pile of stitched parts of " Living London "
is by his side, and he is smearing the
backs with glue. As fast as each pile is
finished it is passed on to another regiment
of women, who fix on the outside covers :
and then the copies are trimmed and tied
up in parcels. How many hundreds of
parcels lie before us one is unable to say,
but presently an attack is made on them.
A number of broad-shouldered men appear
and pack them away in the lift, which
conveys them to the ground floor, from
which they are transferred to the publishing
department, where for the time being we
leave them. Returning early on publishing
day we witness one of the busiest and
most interesting scenes in the world of
print. La Belle Sauvage Yard is crammed
with vehicles. Newsagents' carts, carriers'
carts, railway vans block up the entire
space ; while from the publishing office per-
spiring men and boys are hurrying out with
stacks of " Living London " and other
publications on their backs. One by one the
carts and vans pass out with their loads,
and " Living London " has started on its
journey across the English-speaking globe.
Such is the useful life of some scores of
thousands of dwellers in the great city.
When the hands of the clock — how anxiously
they are watched ! — point to six, seven, or
eight, as the case m.ay be, comes the hour
of release. The bells begin to sound, the
streets are once more full, and the factory
worker heads for home, happy in the
consciousness that a good day's work has
been accomplished.
PRINTING "living LONDON" (.MESSRS. CASSELL AND CO., LTD.).
91
338
LINATIC LONDON.
By T. W. WILKINSON.
"Cinder tbe IDoine.
F
Th£ QuARTERlV MaoaZINE- nF
Beihum RofAL HosmAL.
THE BETHI.EM MAGAZINE.
ROM Whitehall the roads of Lunatic
London radiate in all directions — to
the " mental " wards in workhouses,
to Bcthlem and St. Luke's Hospitals, to
private asylums and the more distant county
institutions, to remote suburban solitudes
where doctors, unknown to most of their
clientele, have charge of " single patients."
Whitehall is the hub, because there is
situated the office of the Commissioners in
Lunacy, under whose care the law places
all who are certified to be mentally deranged.
But a number of those found insane by
inquisition — " Chancery lunatics " — are
detained in private houses and chartered
hospitals, and, being frequently .seen by the
Lord Chancellor's visitors, they are, as a
result, most carefully looked after.
I-'or those lowest in the social scale —
pauper lunatics — the workhou.se is usually
the first place of custody. Bright, well-
fitted rooms are here their quarters unless
they become violent, when they are placed
in a padded room. Padded room ! The
sound conjures up all sorts of unpleasant
visions. But the newest type of such prisons
is as comfortable as maniacal fury warrants.
It is about three feet wide and seven feet
high, and lined throughout — top, bottom,
sides, and door — with perfectly smooth
padded rubber, more yielding than a pneu-
matic tyre inflated for a lady's weight.
Lunatics not suitable for treatment in the
workhouse are transferred sooner or later to
the county a.sylum. They are sent away
singly or in batches, and then London may
see them no more, may never hear of them
again. Sometimes a man is lost to the outer
world for ever when he leaves the poorhouse
gate, and never in more pathetic circum-
stances than when he is absolutely unknown.
This is of a truth one of life's tragedies.
A poor creature, found wandering, is brought
to the workhouse by a policeman. " What's
your name ? " A stare or a guttural noise: no
intelligible reply. " What's — -your — name?"
Still silence. Further questioning, then
.searching, then attempting to induce him to
write are alike futile to discover his identity.
Not a word does he utter, not a letter does
he form on the slate. At the asylum renewed
efforts are made to find out his name. It is
all in vain. Who he is, whence he comes,
to what circumstances his mental condition
is due — these things are mysteries, and
mysteries they remain to the end of the
chapter. He continues to be a nameless
lunatic as long as life lasts, and ultimately
descends to the grave unknown.
Patients whose condition appears to admit
of amelioration, and who, while belonging
to a superior class to that confined in public
madhouses, are yet unable to pay the cost
of maintenance in a private asylum, are
eligible for admission to Bethlem and St.
Luke's Hospitals. Of the two charities the
former is the older and more important,
and, if no longer one of the fashionable
sights of London, is nevertheless deeply
interesting.
LUNATIC LONDON.
339
Enter it, marking as you cross its portals
the notice prohibiting visitors from posting
patients' letters without showing them to
the medical superintendent — a rule made,
of course, solely in the interests of the
general public. At once you arc struck by
the blending of the old and new. The
building itself, the third Bethlem, belongs to
the first decade of the nineteenth century ;
its fittings and appointments are only of
yesterday. In the board-room, you discover
presently, there is a collection of shields
bearing the names, crests, and mottoes of
an unbroken line of presidents and treasurers
of the hospital extending far back into the
sixteenth century ; in the wards the most
modern methods in the care and treatment
of the insane can be studied. Ancient as
Bethlem is, it is the centre whence the latest
knowledge pertaining to the medical aspects
of lunacy are diffused all over the world.
It is now eleven a.m. The wards are nearly
deserted, most of the inmates being in the
extensive grounds at the back. Let us pause
here for a moment. Down below, spread
like a panorama, there is a slice of the
gardens, with a maze of trees and shrubs
and flower beds, among which females are
A CHRISTMAS ENTERTAINMENT AT ST. LUKES.
3lo
LIVING LOXDOx\.
PADDED ROOM IN A LONDON WORKHOUSE.
winding in the sun. Nearer the building
more are pacing to and fro ; and over
there others are resting on seats. With
these male figures are mingled — figures of
doctors, who are making their morning
round.
A few steps, and we gaze on a companion
picture, which includes men only. And now
there is more life and movement, and the
babble of v'oices and the sound of joyous
laughter rise on the fresh morning air.
Yonder the tennis courts — seven or ei<jht
o
in number — with their light-hearted players,
and there the rackets courts. Not at all
like prisoners are those men. And, indeed,
some of them are not such in any sense
whatever. Several could walk into Lambeth
Road this minute, for they are voluntary
boarders— patients, that is to say, who have
come here of their own free will and without
being certified.
In the background is another remedial
agent, which looks from here like the
apparatus of a lark-catching combine, but
which is really an all-the-year-round cricket
ground. The pitch is of asphalt covered with
cocoa-nut matting, while the ball — which is an
ordinary composition one — cannot travel far
before it is pulled up .short by a net. Play
takes place on this pocket ground two or
three times a week, summer and winter alike,
and it has been the scene of a distinct
novelty in English sports — a cricket week
at Christmas.
To one ol the female wards now. It is
a long, narrow apartment, with a bright and
cheerful air and a dominating note of com-
fort. Some of the female patients are
occupied with needlework ; in the middle
distance a young lady is seated at one of
the many excellent pianos that are scattered
about the building ; and be}-ond her another
female guest is working and curing herself
simultaneously by painting flowers on the
panels of the door leading to the adjoining
ward. The pursuit of art, as well as of
music and literature, is encouraged to the
utmost. Neither here nor at St. Luke's is
it possible to carry out the rule in county
asylums of finding most patients bodily work
— though at the latter institution some of
the inmates are employed at gardening, etc.
— because the guests generally belong to
the educated and professional classes. So
the policy followed at Bethlem is the culti-
vation of music, painting, and literary com-
position. This practice, unlike that in opera-
tion in large institutions for the insane, does
not effect a financial saving on the one hand,
and, on the other, it necessarily affords no
physical exercise. But the other reasons for
which lunatics are employed — occupying the
mind and restoring confidence — are fully
attained.
To see the Bethlem .system in operation
let us take a peep into a male ward after
dinner. Why, the place is a regular academy
of fine arts. All the pianos are engaged ;
easels are scattered over the floor, with an
inmate working away in front of each ; and
here and there a guest is bent over a table,
pen in hand, and committing his thoughts
to paper — writing, perhaps, for the quarterly
magazine of the hospital. Under the Dome. He
may be on the staff of that entertaining little
periodical, which has its own art critic —
who, of course, " does " the picture exhibitions
— or one of the regular gentlemen who attend
concerts and confer immortality on instru-
mentalists and vocalists. Or he may be
(this is a frightful drop, but no matter) only
an outside contributor, bent on submitting
a poem or an essay to the editor in spite
LUNATIC LONDON.
341
of that gentleman's notice that he cannot
undertake to return rejected communications.
Altogether, the ward is the very antithesis of
that conjured up by the popular imagination.
Pass now to the recreation room, noticing
on the way the many pictures with which
the walls are hung. Some are from the
brushes of inmates, and are consequently
interesting apart from their artistic merit,
which in some cases is considerable. The
most curious example is not in the wards,
but near the main staircase. The subject
is Father Christmas, but Father Christmas
as he was never yet conceived by a sound
mind. Scarcely recognisable is our old friend
in the character presented — as a man of
sorrows, with long-drawn face and tear-laden
eyes.
But to the recreation room. Night is the
time to see this delightful side of the hospital.
Viewed from the back when a play is
presented, it is like a West-End
theatre on a small scale. From the
orchestra — which is occupied by a
band composed of doctors, attendants,
and inmates under treatment — come
the strains of the overture. Then
there is a lull, broken only by the
usual chatter, which presently ceases
abruptly. Another burst from the
orchestra, the curtain which has hidden
the fine stage ascends, the characters
in the " opening " are " discovered,"
and then all settle down with a
buzz of expectancy. The play has
begun.
Such is the scene on one night.
On another there is a dance, on a
third a " social " or concert, and so
on. Entertainments follow one an-
other in quick succession. And
Bethlem was once a show place,
where the morbid flocked to see its
inmates in chains ! Nowadays it
merits the name by which it is
known to many of its guests —
Liberty Hall.
Grimy, forbidding St. Luke's is
essentially the twin-sister of Bethlem ;
not so comfortable, perhaps, not with
such fine grounds, but broadly a
replica of the famous cure house.
It receives the same class of patients,
has pretty much the same rules, and has the
same system of wards.
Though it is not seen at its best and
brightest soon after lunch time, we will stroll
through it when the inmates are indoors,
resting after their mid-day meal. Into a
long room, windows overlooking Old Street
on one side, doors leading into sleeping
chambers on the other. Silence, absolute
silence. The taciturnity of the insane,
coupled with their self-absorption and their
love of solitude, makes the patients seem
more like lay figures than living, breathing
men. Through one of the windows a man
appears to gaze on the kaleidoscopic bustle
and movement below — appears, because his
eye is fixed as if he saw nothing and his
face is marble in its impassivity. Near him
a younger man, his gaze fixed on the ceiling
with the same stoniness. To right and left
men asleep or looking fixedly at nothing
CRICKET (BETHLEM).
342
LIVING LONDON.
GARDENING (ST. LUKES).
but a chair, the legs of a couch, or the floor.
Over all an air of unreality. With one
exception, the patients are automata. That
exception, the only natural and life-like
personality in the room, sits at a table —
a greybeard, engaged in his favourite pastime
of making copies, in water colour, of pictures
from the illustrated papers.
Another room, where the worst female
cases are associated. More movement and
noise here, but not much. Yonder is
a group of patients, with two attendants
of neat, nurse -like appearance. In one
corner a woman is to be seen standing like
a pillar ; in another a lunatic is in the atti-
tude of prayer — outwardly, a rapt devotee ;
and close by a poor deluded creature is
kneeling before a box of paints, some of
which she has been sucking.
And here is a striking contrast. While
a middle-aged woman is sitting in listless
vacuity, her head drooping, her hands clasped
in her lap, fit model for Melancholia, in the
middle of the room there is another striding
to and fro with regular steps over a fixed
course — so many forward, so many
back — muttering unintelligibly and
raising her arms aloft with machine-
like regularity.
How truly painful it is to study
the faces of the patients in this and
other rooms ! The knitted brow of
acute melancholia, the grotesque
indications of delusion — here per-
plexity, misery, and fear, there
dignity and exaltation — the fixed
look of weariness indicative of the
reaction that follows acute mania,
are all present, with many other
characteristic expressions. The rage
depicted on some faces might make
a thoughtful man apprehensive.
What chance would the attendants
have if a number of the patients
banded together and attacked them?
Yes, but by a blessed dispensation
of Providence lunatics never combine;
they have lost the faculty of com-
bination.
Very different from the ordinary
routine aspect we have seen is that
which the hospital wears on St.
Luke's Day. For then its little
chapel is filled with inmates and officials, and
a sacred concert is given, as well as an
address, which is generally delivered by an
eminent divine. Christmas also is a great
festival at St. Luke's, having for many years
been celelarated with much seasonable fare
and fun.
With these and other red-letter days,
frequent dramatic and musical entertain-
ments, occasional dances, billiards and other
games, and ample reading facilities, life in
the hospital is not so dull and monotonous
as thousands who pass along Old Street may
ipiagine. Everything possible is done to
rouse and amuse patients, and that in this
the officials succeed is attested by the high
percentage of cures — a percentage which,
happily, increases every year.
Another part of Lunatic London remains
to be noticed briefly. It is composed of a
large number of ordinary dwelling-houses
interspersed with private asylums, and
inhabited by the general body of that section
of the insane who can afford to pay for care
and treatment. The tenants of the common-
LUNATIC LONDON.
343
place residences are mostly doctors, who
receive " single patients " — harmless, chronic
•cases, as a rule — for about two guineas per
week, for the same reason that " paying
guests " are received. Whether they all give
adequate value for the money is a point
which, interesting though it may be, need
not be entered into here.
The other establishments, which are
euphemistically known as " licensed houses,"
because they are licensed annually by the
Commissioners in Lunacy, who have power
to grant, renew, or withhold such licences
in their absolute discretion, vary as much
in comfort and charges as in size. Some
have all the appointments of a good private
house, and a patient may, if he or his
friends choose to pay accordingly, have
his own private suite of rooms and his
own special attendant. And no doubt these
proprietary asylums are, as a whole, well
conducted.
NEEDLEWORK (BETHLEM).
344
PREPARING MODELS (MADAME TUSSAUD's).
A COINTRY COISIN'S DAY IN TOWN.
By GEORGE R. SIMS.
MOST of us have country cousins. Some-
times they come to town. When they
come in a family party they have, as a
rule, a definite programme, and can be relied
upon to " do " many of the sights of the
Metropolis without your personal guidance.
But the male country cousin occasionally
comes alone — comes for a day — " runs up to
London," having previously sent you a
letter to say that he shall take it kindly if
you will meet him and show him round.
In my mind's eye I have a typical country
cousin. He is of frugal mind and not given
to jauntings. But there is an excursion
from the Lancashire town in which he
lives — one of the so-called pleasure trips
which take you from your home in the
dead of night and deposit you in London
shortly after breakfast time, giving you a
long day in the capital, and picking you
up again on platform I2 about midnight for
reconveyance to the town in which you have
a vote and a bed.
It is a country cousin of that kind I am
waiting for this autumn morning at St.
Pancras. Punctually at nine o'clock the
long " excursion " by which he is travelling
steams into the station. I grasp his hand,
hurry him into a hansom, take him to my
house, where he " smartens himself up " and
has a hasty breakfast ; and then we sally forth
to put an amount of hard work into the four-
teen hours' holiday that lie before us that
would justify the charge of " slave-driving "
against any employer who compelled us to do
it for money.
First, because I live in Regent's Park, near
Baker Street, I take my country cousin to
the famous waxworks of Madame Tuisaud.
At the great waxwork show, after we have
made the acquaintance of kings and emperors,
rulers and statesmen, literary and historic and
scientific celebrities, and that great gallery of
criminal notorieties who remain permanently
underground, I have the good fortune to meet
Mr. John Tussaud, the modeller to the
world-famed exhibition. Here is a chance
of taking my companion behind the
scenes, and showing him something that
the ordinary visitor would never see.
A COUNTRY COUSIN'S DAY IN TOWN.
345
Following Mr. Tussaud into his atelier, we
find several celebrities rapidly approaching
completion. The figures have been built up,
the features have been modelled — in many
instances from sittings given by the originals
— and now they are ready to have their hair
on and their eyes put in.
In the wig department there is a stock of
every shade of hair. Directly the correct
nuance has been ascertained, the hitherto
bald head is carefully covered. The parting
is scientifically made, and the curling or
waving, if any, is performed by an experi-
enced coiffeur. Mr. Tussaud, as we enter
his atelier, points to a reigning sovereign
whose hair is
at present
much in the
condition it
would be
afte r his
morning
bath.
"We can't
do his hair
yet," says the
artist, " be-
cause we
don't know
whether he
parts it in
the middle
or at the
side."
At that
moment the
assistant enters with a telegram in his hand.
" The Emperor of parts his hair at
the side, sir," he says, holding up the opened
" wire."
Tussaud's have telegraphed to the Court
Chamberlain asking for the information, and
thus the parting of his Imperial Majesty's
hair has been settled beyond dispute.
We notice that another figure, that of a
woman who has just been tried and found
guilty at the Old Bailey of poisoning her
husband, is without eyes. The sockets are
empty. Presently the eye specialist enters, in
a blouse such as sculptors wear at their work.
In his hand is a box containing eyes of all
possible colours. Pinned to the figure is a
memorandum on which are all the details
92
TH'E artists' room, PAGAKI'S
of identification that u.sed to be given on
certain foreign passports. The eyes, accord-
ing to this memorandum, are light blue. The .
specialist picks out a couple of eyes, and Mr.
Tussaud steps back and criticises the effect.
" Too dark," he says ; " try a lighter pair."
The eyes are removed, and a fresh pair
tried. This time the effect is considered
satisfactor}'. The eyes are passed. P^or
years to come the visitors to Tussaud's will
gaze into them, and perhaps wonder how a
woman with such gentle eyes could have
been guilty of so cruel a crime.
We should like to stay longer at Tussaud's,
for my country cousin is intensely interested
in this pri-
vate view,
but time is
on the wing,
and so must
we be.
We hurry
off to the
Baker Street
station of the
Metropoli-
tan Railway,
jump into a
train just as
it is starting,
the doors are
closed one
after the
other by an
acrobatic
porter, and
we plunge into the dark tunnel with "Bang!
bang!! bang!!!" ringing in our ears. In
a short time we alight at Mark Lane, and
steering our way through the busy throng.s
of business men and workers we enter the
charmed precincts of the Tower.
Every country visitor looks upon the
Tower as one of the sights of London that
must on no account be missed, though there
are thousands of Londoners living within
a mile or two of it who have never entered
it. In " Living London " it has a special
article to itself
After an hour at the Tower we make
our way out, and joining the great stream
of dull drab humanity hurry to Cheapside ;
where, to show my friend a phase of City
346
LIVING LONDON.
life, I take him into Pimm's, and let him
elbow bankers and stockjobbers and City
merchants and clerks at the famous luncheon
counter. Here he eats with appetite a mag-
nificent slice of game pie, and when he has
drained the foaming goblet of ebony stout
asks for another, and fills me with envy of
his digestive powers. He would have taken
his time, amid the rush of hasty snacksmen,
but I have to tear him awa}-, for the items
on the programme are not few, though far
between.
We now make our way towards the great
amusement centre, and find there an em-
barrassment of riches. We are in good
time for the afternoon performance at the
Hippodrome, and it takes the fancy of
my country cousin at once. I have to im-
press upon him the fact that unless we hurry
we may fail to get a seat. The magnificent
Roman chariot with the prancing steeds that
crowns the edifice has caught his eye, and
he is gazing aloft at it with open-mouthed
astonishment, in the manner of a rural popu-
lation paralysed by the unexpected appear-
ance of a balloon in the skies above.
When at last I get him comfortabl}' seated
in a spacious fauteuil, he continues to gaze
around him at the appointments of the
building. The decorations attract him first,
then the packed audience in the upper
portion of the house. But when the splen-
did orchestra finishes the overture with a
crash of melodious sound, and a bevy of
charming young ladies, attired as courtiers
of the days of Historical Romance, line up,
and form an avenue of beauty through which
the performers concerned in the first item on
the programme enter, my visitor settles him-
self in his seat for a couple of hours' enjoyment.
He is delighted with the ring " turns," and
the "turns" on the stage, but the climax of
his excitement is reached when the entire
arena is transformed before the eyes of the
audience. The rolling up and wheeling away
of the great carpet positively thrill him.
When, as if by clockwork, an army of as-
sistants obey the whistle of the ubiquitous
stage manager, and a fairy scene is built
up by a .series of " Hey Presto's," he is doubly
impressed.
When I tell him that sometimes, when a
water carnival is the close of the entertain-
ment, the whole floor of the arena sinks down
several feet, and the space is rapidly filled by
a small ocean of fresh warm water, he says,
" I have heard about it. Some friends of
mine at home came here and saw the
plunging elephants. They talked about it
for a month afterwards."
After the wonders of the Hippodrome have
come to an end, and we are in the street, I
suggest that we shall have some tea, and
then go to the Coliseum. We make our
way to Piccadilly, pass through a crowcl^
largely composed of ladies, coming away
from a matinee at St. James's Theatre, take
our tea at the Popular Cafe, of which he has
heard and read a great deal, and then — I had
anticipated this item of the programme, and
secured seats earlier in the day — we join the
eager crowds that are pressing towards the
colossal building in St. Martin's Lane.
Again my country cousin gazes spellbound
at the beauty of the appointments and the
palatial magnificence of the house of enter-
ment, at which you can secure an advanced
and numbered seat for sixpence. The per-
formance is beginning as we take our seats.
The song scenas my cousin thinks delight-
ful, and he is greatly attracted by the white-
garbed chorus sitting on either side of the
proscenium. When he gets a scena from a
grand opera, sung by grand opera favourites,
he is silent. He has temporarily exhausted
his vocabulary of admiration. But he re-
covers his power of speech presently, and
remarks that it is the most marvellous show
he ever saw in his life.
I tell him that this vast building is packed
four times a day, and he accepts my state-
ment, but wonders where so many people
with nothing to do but amuse themselves
can come from. I assure him that, vast as
the population of the capital is, that is a
question which Londoners very frequently
ask themselves.
The big " sea piece " of the show, with the
moving panorama, and the stage that seems
a live thing performing miracles on its own
account, brings mj' country cousin's en-
thusiasm to a climax, and as we pass out
with the mighty crowd into the street, with-
out the slightest confusion or difificulty, he
grasps my arm and says, "It was worth
coming to London only to see this. By
THE COLISKUM : FROM THE STAGK.
IN THE BRASSERIE, HOTEL DE l'EUROPE, LEICESTER SQUARE.
34S
LIVING LONDON.
Jove, I'm not sure I wouldn't like to go
back again and see the next show — the one
from 9 to ii. It's all different, isn't it?"
" Yes," I reply, " every item is different.
There's a double company. One company
plays from 12 to 2 and 6 to 8, and the other
from 3 to 5 and 9 to 11." "Four shows a
day," he murmurs. " Well, it's wonderful. I
suppose presently you Londoners will want a
show that never leaves off at all ! "
It is now eight o'clock, and in our hunger
for amusement we have forgotten all about
dinner, so I venture to suggest that we
might find a place in the programme for a
form of entertainment which, if not exciting,
is always agreeable. My country cousin
confesses that an idea of refreshment a little
more elaborate than a cup of tea has been
passing through his mind. So I take him to
Pagani's, because I want to show him some-
thing that everybody who dines at a restaurant
does not see.
By the courtesy of Signor Meschini, one of
the proprietors, the world-famous little
" artists' room " is reserved for us, and
there we dine a deux:
A wonderful room this, and renowned over
Europe ; for here the most artistic of London's
visitors and London's celebrities have written
their names on the wall
Here in lead pencil are
autographs that the col-
lector would give gold
for. Here are drawings
made on the spot at the hour of coffee and
cigars. The Italian prima donna, the world-
famous pianist, the fashionable artist, the great
humourist, the queen of tragedy, the king
of comedy, have all contributed to the wall of
celebrities. One day not long since a new
waiter, eager to show his usefulness, began to
scrub out what he called " the scribbling on
the wall." Messrs. Pagani have in conse-
quence protected the signatures of their world-
famed patrons with thick sheets of glass.
These have been obligingly removed for our
photographer.
From Pagani's soon after eight o'clock we
set out on foot. We pass down Regent
Street, where, thanks to the sensible habit of
some of the tradespeople of leaving the shutters
down and the shops lighted up, the gloom of
the desert no longer prevails after closing
hours ; and so across Piccadilly Circus, gay
with illuminated devices, into the ever
gorgeous Leicester Square.
First I take my friend into the Alhambra.
Here we see one of the poetic and beautifully
draped ballets for which the house is famous,
and my friend, who has music in his soul,
is loud in his praise of the magnificent
orchestra.
There is many a tempting item upon the
programme, but the
hours are hastening on.
Leaving by the Leicester
Square exit, we stroll
across to the brightly
AFTER A MATINEE
A COUNTRY COUSIN'S DAY IN TOWN.
349
THE EMPIRE PROMENADE.
glittering brasserie of the Hotel de I'Europe,
where at comfortable tables, amid jewelled
lights, one can drink the long glass of lager
in the most approved Continental manner,
and listen to the strains of an admirable
band.
Here are the citizens dark and fair of many
capitals, little family parties, husbands and
wives, lovers and their lasses, folk from the
country slightly overawed by the surrounding
splendour, and young Londoners complacently
accepting the new advance towards the
comfort and roominess of the Continental
bier halle and cafe. My country cousin
would gladly linger over his lager. But the
hour of the Biograph is approaching at
the Palace, and thither we wend our way.
The Palace is peculiar among the great
theatres of variety. It has no promenade,
and its stall audiences are frequently as
fashionable as that of the opera, with here and
there a tourist not in evening dress, who
only heightens the effect of the surrounding
toilettes.
The Biograph is the distinguishing feature
of the Palace. It followed the living pictures,
and has not disappeared ; it looks like
becoming a permanent feature of the pro-
gramme. There are a truthfulness and a
reality about the Palace pictures. They are
always original, up to date. You can see the
Derby run over again on the evening of the
race ; a Royal reception repeated within a few
hours of its happening. The journey on a
railway engine through Swiss valleys or
Canadian snows gives one the feeling of
travelling. When my friend has travelled
by the express train of the Palace Biograph
over the Rocky Mountains, and finds himself
as the lights go up still sitting in his stall,
he jumps up and exclaims, " Do we get out
here ? "
I reply in the affirmative, for still before us
lies another palace of pleasure, the famous
Empire. At the Empire we stroll about,
for I want the man from the North to see
something of Living London as it takes
its evening pleasure in grand array.
To point out to him the famous men about
town, the great financiers, the eminent counsel,
the "club men," the racing men, and the
literary and artistic celebrities who promenade
in the grand lounge and chatter in the famous
foyer, amid the rustle of silks and the flashing
of diamonds, is exhausting, so I suggest
that we should take two seats, for which
we have already paid, and see the perform-
ance. We are in time for the finish of the
grand ballet. All that lavish outlay and
3 so
LIVING LONDON.
artistic taste can accomplish in the matter
of adorning the female form divine is accom-
plished at the Empire. Nowhere in the
world is the grand finale of a ballet presented
with more costly and at the same time
refined magnificence. The three great variety
theatres of London — the Alhambra,the Palace,
and the Empire — are unique ; no other capital
has anything like them. As a consequence,
and also to a certain extent because the enter-
tainment does not demand a great knowledge
of the language, they always include among
their audience a very large proportion of
foreign as well as provincial visitors.
Soon after eleven the audience in mostplaces
of entertainment in London begins to make
a decided move. At the variety theatres the
stalls for some reason empty first, although
one would have thought that the train and
tram and 'bus catchers to the suburbs would
have been the earliest to go.
Byt at ten minutes past eleven the house
empties rapidly from all parts, and by half-
past eleven most of the lights of the theatres
and halls in the West-End of London have
paled their highly effectual fires.
At a quarter past eleven, having given my
country cousin a hurried peep into one
of the bars found near Piccadilly Circus,
and allowed him to feast his eyes upon
the tempting display of lobsters and crabs
in the famous front windows of Scott's, I
assure him it is time to take a hansom.
But we are outside the entrance to the
Cafe Royal, and he suggests that, as he has
a long journey before him, he shall be
allowed to take his final refreshment .seated
comfortably on a luxurious lounge at this, one
of the oldest and also one of the best-known
cafe restaurants of London.
And so it is twenty minutes to twelve
when at last I succeed in putting him into
a hansom, which bears us swiftly to St. Pancras,
where we find platform number 12 rapidly
filling with the excursionists who have had
a day in London, and are now going to have
a night on the railway.
The clock points to ten minutes past
midnight, the porters begin to shut doors,
the rear guard waves the green lantern, and
with a hearty " Good-bye " my country cousin
is whirled away into the darkness.
And, having seen more of the amusements
of London in one day than I generally see in
six months, I go home to bed, and dream
that all the shows of London are performing
round me, and that I am vainly endeavour-
ing to fight my way through the crowd of
wild performers and seek refuge in a hermit's
cell beside a silent pool.
A country cousin can accomplish an amount
of sight-seeing in twelve hours without fatigue
which would leave the ordinary Londoner a
hopeless wreck.
' GOOD-BYE.'
351
IN A REGISTRY OFFICE : SERVANTS SEEKING
SITUATIONS.
SERVANT LONDON.
By N. MURRELL MARRIS.
r-pi
^HERE are
no s e r-
vants to
be had ! "
The cry begins
with the mis-
tresses, it is
taken up by the
registry offices, it
is repeated in the
Press. Yet in
London alone we
have a great
army of servants,
who spend their
lives waiting
upon a still
larger army of their fellow men and upon
each other.
There are always servants for the rich.
Money will buy service, if it will not buy
faithfulness ; it will buy plausibility, if it can-
not secure honesty. In the humbler house-
hold, where the servant is truly one of the
family, character becomes a matter of the
utmost importance ; and amid this great army
the friendly, faithful domestic is still to be
MAID-OF-ALL-WOKK.
found. Servant London is an integral part of
all London life, and the class which employs
no servants most often supplies them. So
huge is the panorama now unfolded, that only
a few of its scenes can be given, only a few
of its figures can be sketched in
When the great city wakes, the servants
wake with it. Peep through the grey and
curtainless
windows of
West m i n s ter
Hospital. In
the servants'
quarters the
drowsy ward-
maids and
kitchen staff are
dressing. It is
only half- past
five, and a raw
winter morning;
yet within an
hour the great
building will be
cleaned down
from top to
bottom, and the housemaid.
35=
LIVING LONDOxX.
their day's work :
long procession of
meals will have begun.
No chattering over
work, no exchange of
amenities at the area
steps; housemaid,
ward maid, kitchen-
maid, cook — all are
subject to rigid dis-
cipline.
Eastward the sun is
rising, and the river
glows a fitful red ;
eastward still, past the
Tower, where the
ofificials' households
are waking and the
soldier servants begin
east, and further east to the furthest edge of
the city, where Greater London is now wide
awake. Follow the river till you reach a
desolate region lying below high-water mark,
not very far from the Victoria Docks — a
region where still the pools on the waste land
are salt when the tide is high, and where
thousands of grey-faced houses, built squat
upon the reeking earth, lean towards each
other for mutual support.
This is the servantless land.
These endless rows of expressionless grey
houses, with their specious air of comfort and
gentility, their bay window and antimacassar-
covered table, are tenanted by two, it may
even be by
three, fami-
lies housed
in the four
r o o m s .
These are
the people
who "do
for them-
selves." And
here many of
our servants
get such
guidance in
housework
as serves
them for a
training.
Here are
CLUB PAGE. born and
OUTSmE A KKGISTKV OFFICE (TOTTENHAM
COURT KOAD) : HEADING THE NOTICES.
bred the sisters of the
little " Marchioness,"
true " slaveys " in all
but spirit, who recount
the last battle with
the " missus " with
that dramatic instinct
which never fails the
child of the street.
" And I give 'er as
good as 'er give me,
I did ; and well she
knows I won't stand
'er lip ! "
Louisarann is fortu-
nate; she left school in
the seventh standard
(says her mother proudly), and now the
" Mabys Ladies " (Metropolitan Association
for Befriending Young Servants) have been
able to find her " a place — ^8 a year all
found, and no washin'." Lucky girl ! Alice
Mary, her sister, left school as ignorant as she
entered it, but she too has found work. She
has gone as " ' general ' to the public-house
round the corner — father bein' an old cus-
tomer, and the ' Pig and Whistle ' mos'
respectable." She minds the " biby " during
the day, and perhaps takes a turn at " mindin'
the bar" during the evenings.
Let us follow Louisarann to her first place.
A lodging-house is " genteel," but life there
is not very amusing. It is about six when,
on a winter morning, a small
object, she
creeps out
of her dingy
pallet bed at
the back of
the under-
g round
kitchen
which is
her home.
A grated
window
shows the
filthy pave-
ment, the
yellow fog,
and the
boots of the
passers-by.
shivering
CLUB WAITER.
SERVANT LONDON.
353
Hastily gathering her meagre wardrobe from
the bed where she has piled it for warmth,
she dresses herself, gives her face a shudder-
ing smudge of ice-cold water, and draws on
a pair of old gloves given to her by " one
of the gents upstairs," to keep the soot out
of her broken chilblains while she cleans
her flues. Poor Louisarann is neither quick
nor skilful, and she gets blacker and blacker
as she works
She has only time to wipe off a few of the
worst smuts before she is carrying hot water
when she has a chance, and she gives an
extra " shine " to the " drorin'-room gent's."
He is a " real swell, and mos' considerut, the
dinin'-room bein' a commercial gent," good-
natured, but stingy as to tips. The gents are
all right, " but it's the top floor widdy and me
as falls out!"
To be rung up three pair of stairs just to
be sent all the way down and up again for
" an extry knife, as though hanyone couldn't
wipe the bacon fat off on a bit o' bread, is one
of the widdy's narsty ways." Louisarann has
IN A servants' HAI.L : AT DINNER.
up to the top of the house. Down she
clatters, and snatching her brushes climbs up
again to do the grates in the three sitting-
rooms ; then up and down she toils, carrying
coal and removing ashes. Her mistress, half
awake and proportionately cross, comes into
the now warm kitchen to make herself a cup
of tea and get the breakfast for husband and
household. Upstairs Louisarann removes the
dirty glasses and cigarette ends, gives a hasty
" sweep up," and then, amid the appetising
smell of frizzling bacon, toils again up and
down stairs, staggering under the heavy
breakfast trays. While all the hungry souls
but herself are breakfasting, she cleans the
rows of boots.
93
She likes to do things well
to snatch her breakfast — as she does all her
meals — standing.
But the girl has pluck ; she refrains from
" langwidge," when " missus " is worse than
usual, being determined to stay long enough
to get a character. Behind all is the great
consolation — the day out ! To-day she
makes her way through the thick and filthy
fog to a great house in Berkeley Square,
where her cousin Jane is housemaid, " second
of four." Carefully the " slavey " feels her
way down the area steps, and is admitted.
Jane is a little ashamed of her cousin's
shabby appearance, so she takes Louisarann
upstairs and " tidies her up a bit." The
" slavey " looks round the neat room, and
354
LIVING LONDON.
thinks of her bed in the back kitchen, and
then and there makes up her mind to " better
herself, for she wouldn't stay no longer, not if
she was rose every month, she wouldn't."
And Jane, sympathising, offers to step round
with her to the registry office, if she can get
off b)--and-by, and speak for her. As they
go downstairs, the " slavey " sees a young lady
sitting by a fire in a pretty room, sewing,
while a housemaid " takes up the bits." Jane
gives an expressive shrug, but as the lady
looks up saj's sweetly, " Good morning,
mademoiselle." Jane wants to buy her next
best dress from her ladyship's maid, who has
all the " wardrobe," and who knows how to
put on the price
if one is not over
civil. Allda\-long
the panorama of
life below stairs
unfolds itself be-
fore Louisarann's
astonished gaze ;
and she reads
with awe the
printed rules
ably, and in some great state is observed.
Then the upper servants, among whom the
groom of the chambers is numbered, do not
take their meals with the " hall " servants.
They are served in the steward's room, and
sup per
at nine
o'clock is
really
dinner in
m i n i a -
ture. Each
c o u r s e
which ap-
pears up-
FOOT.M.W.
regulatmg
the work
of the huge
household.
During
dinner the
butler
takes the
head, the
cook the
foot of the table ; men sit one side, women
the other. As the meat is cleared away, the
butler and cook, lady's maid and valet, rise
and sweep from the .servants' hall. They
have gone to the housekeeper's room for
dessert and their after-dinner chat. The
distinction between " room " servants and
"hall" servants is rigidly maintained.
Customs in the big houses vary consider-
COACHMAN.
stairs is re-
peated below
for the "room"
servants, even
to the "second"
ices, prepared
by the still-
room maids,
and dessert of
every kind. A
glass of claret
replaces the homely beer — occasionally some-
thing costlier than claret. The ladies are
in demi-toilette, with evening blouses, and
not seldom with gloves and fan ; on great
occasions the lady's maid appears in full
dress, with ornaments and even jewels, a
complete copy of her ladyship. Precedence
is strictly observed, and the servants sit
according to their masters' rank. The valets
and ladies' maids staying in the house join
the party in the steward's room. When
there are a number coming and going, the
presiding butler and housekeeper do not
trouble about the individual names, but use
those of the master for convenience. Thus
the inquiry may be heard, " What can I
pass your ladyship ? " " Duke, what will you
take ? "
Where do these servants all come from —
SERVANT LONDON.
355
who supplies them ? There are formal and
informal registry offices. One coachman
carries the news of Jones leaving to another ;
there are inquiries at the china shop, or the
mistress "just mentions it" to her butcher, a
most respectable man, who has served her
since her marriage. There are also Servants'
Homes, to each of which a registry is at-
tached, and which may be termed, in fact,
if not in name,
Protection So-
cieties, as the
officials fight the
servants' battles
for them, recover-
ing wages due
and giving them
that " character "
without which
they can never
get a respectable
situation. The
difficulties of
securing true
characters are
enormous —
about one - half
the mistresses are
employed in ob-
taining servants'
characters from
the other half —
and when ob-
tained they are
not always to be
relied upon, for
a mistress " does
not like to have
unpleasantness."
The law of master and servant also is suf-
ficiently rigid, and prevents a mistress from
recording suspicions which she is not able to
prove.
Certain registry offices (especially the larger
ones in the West End) have a black list,
which is always kept carefully posted up and
which records the history of the black sheep,
male and female. Even as there is a trade
in the writing of begging letters, so there is
one in the manufacturing of servants' char-
acters, and such a calling will prosper, in
spite of all risks of detection and punish-
ment, so long as a written character is
SERVANTS FIRE BRIGADE AT THE HOTEL CECIL.
deemed sufficient. What can there be to
prevent the accomplice from impersonating
the complaisant mistress who is losing a
" treasure " ? The Associated Guild of Regis-
tries does much to separate the sheep from
the goats, but it cannot prevent the risk to
servants who answer specious advertisements
There are " situations," with " good wages
for suitable young women," which are not
" places " within
the accepted
meaning of the
word, and if the
lights in Servant
London are
bright the
shadows are
black indeed.
A much-dressed
lady is deep in
conversation with
the head of the
registry office.
She is the wife
of a rich trades-
man at Clapham.
She keeps a
cook - general,
house-parlour-
maid, and nurse.
They are all very
trim and neat,
and the house-
parlourmaid
wears the latest
thing in cap
streamers. The
nurse's white
dress in summer
and her grey uniform in winter mark her
separation from the common nurse in
coloured clothes. These servants have good
places, and they know it, although the rule
of " No followers allowed " is strictly adhered
to. They serve their mistress fairly, though
they do not care about her. The children
are the bond between them ; and " cook " is
always sure of a kiss if she asks for one, for
the children — as yet — are no respecters of
persons. Next door to them lives Selina,
grim and grey, who serves her old-maid
mistress with a faithfulness proof against
all temptations, but who rules her with a
J3^
LIVING LONDON.
servants' kecreation room at the
akmv and navy club.
combination of obstinate humility and rampant
remonstrances. Yet her mistress, who some-
times sheds a tear in secret because " Selina
is so cross," would not change her for all the
streamer-bedecked parlourmaids in the world.
Across the road a young housemaid sings
as she does her work. She has joined the
Girls' Friendly Society, and a portrait of
her "G.F.S. lady" is on the mantelpiece in
her pretty attic bedroom looking over the
Common. On Sundays she gets out to
service regularly. She lifts her dress high to
show the starched white petticoat beneath it,
and as she carries iier new prayer-book in the
other hand she feels sure that soon there will
be a desirable young man only too ready to
walk out with her, and then she would not
change places with anyone in the world.
Let us now enter one of the fashionable
squares on a summer afternoon. Servant
life is manifest on every hand. In the
garden nurses are sitting under the trees ;
from the doors the children and nursery
maids are driving off to the park, with the
schoolroom footman on the box. A newsboy
comes leisurely across the .square, making it
ring with his cry, " Mall the winners ! " He
knows his customers. The door of a great
house opens. A powdered footman stands on
the steps and signals to the boy ; his face is
anxious as he takes the
paper. He is gone in a
moment, and the house
is impassive and undis-
turbed once more. A
little later the butler
comes out, and makes his
way along Piccadilly to-
wards Charing Cross. He
drops in, say, at the
Hotel Cecil for a moment,
and hears news of the
latest interesting arrival.
He has several friends
there, one a chef in the
servants' kitchen, which
provides for the wants of the staff of
500 persons ; another a waiter in the banquet-
ing-room. The latter is one of the hotel
fire brigade, and the butler stays to witness
a drill and practice. His master is a naval
officer, so he next visits a friend, a waiter
at the Army and Navy Club, who gives
him the latest gossip; for in the recreation
room set apart for the club servants the
day's news is discussed with vigour over a
game of billiards.
In connection with St. Paul's, Knights-
bridge, is a Servants' Club which offers a
variety of attractions. The Chesterfield
Union, a benefit society for gentlemen's
LADY S MAID LEARNING HAIR-DRESSING.
SERVANT LONDON.
3S;
servants, meets on the ground-floor. Above
are a couple of billiard tables and one for
bagatelle, while in the basement are a skittle
alley and a fine ping-pong table. The top
floor contains a reading and dining room,
where a chop and tea may be obtained at
one end, and light literature at the other;
here, too, smoking concerts such as are de-
picted in our illustration below are organised
by the members.
A coachmen's club is to be found in the
immediate neighbourhood of Berkeley Square,
and the Duke of Westminster gave land for
the Grosvenor Club in Buckingham Palace
Road ; but here, though there are a number of
members who are servants, men engaged in
other occupations are also admitted.
Hyde Park is the real recreation ground of
West-End servants. Before the dew is off
the grass the grooms are exercising the
horses. Here is a grey-haired man, grown
old in the service of " the family," now
proudly superintending the baby horseman-
ship of the young heir on his diminutive
pony. Behind him flies a young girl at
full canter, her long hair streaming in the
wind, as the groom thunders along after his
delightful little mistress. As the sun grows
hotter the " generals " bring their " bibies "
to sprawl and sleep on the grass. The neat
maid returning from a hairdressing lesson in
Bond Street has an interesting chat with a
gentleman's gentleman who has just turned
his master out in first-class style, and is him-
self as near a copy of him as possible. In
the late afternoon the magnificent coachman
surveys with stolid pride his equally magnifi-
cent horses, as they sweep round into the
Drive — " my horses," which even " her lady-
ship " cannot have out at will. As dusk falls
sweethearts crowd the shady alleys of the Pa rk
or wile away an hour upon the Serpentine ;
and more than one of the cyclists enjoying
the cool of the evening is a domestic servant.
" What ! " exclaimed a visitor to her friend,
" another new bicycle, and such a beauty ? "
as she looked at two machines side by side
in the narrow hall.
" Oh, no ! That is not mine ; that is cook's —
she says she can't keep in condition unless
she has her ride every day."
The great wheel of life in London is for
ever turning, and the hands which turn it are
those of the servants.
SMOKI.NG CONCERT AT A SERVANTS* CLUB (ST. PAUL'S, KMGHTSBRIDGE).
358
THE PESTERING ACOUAINTAXCE.
LONDON'S LITTLE WORRIES.
By GEORGE R. SIMS.
SOME one has said that a succession
of Httle worries lias a worse effect
on the nervous system than one great
big worry. Whether that be true or not,
there is no doubt that the Londoner's hfe is
beset with httle worries, and that he manages
to bear up against them with commendable
fortitude.
The business man has a hundred little
worries beside the ordinary and legitimate
cares of his business. Let him be guarded
in his office never so effectually the worriers
will manage to get at him. They will
waylay him in the street as he goes to his
lunch, stop him on the steps of the Metro-
politan Railway as he is about to dive
down below for his evening train, seize his
arm as he is stepping into his hansom or
his brougham. As a rule these people have
some slight claim of acquaintanceship or
introduction, or the City man would make
short work of them. The worrier generally
succeeds in capturing his prey just when
every second is valuable. There are heads of
great business houses who face a commercial
crisis with iron nerves, but are haunted day
and night by the dread of being held up
by one of the worrying fraternity.
While the business man is suffering in
the City, his wife has frequently her little
worries at home. In this catalogue the
great servant question does not enter, for
when a worry comes in that direction it
is almost always a big one. The next-
door neighbours are a fruitful source of a
wife's little worries. The family on one side
have dear little children who play at ball in
the garden. If they would keep the ball on
their own ground all would be well, but it
is constantly coming over into some one
else's. If you are the some one else and
amiable, you don't object to your servant
answering the pitiful little cry, " Please will
you give me my ball ? " say three or four
times a day. But if the youthful pleaders
cannot make anyone hear ihcy will come
LONDON'S LITTLE WORRIES.
359
to the front door and ring and ask per-
mission to go into the garden themselves and
hunt for the missing property. If it has
hidden itself among the flower beds the
search is not always conducted with dex-
terity of tread. When it dawns upon you
that your neighbour's children are making
your garden their daily hunting ground for
lost balls, you lose your temper. One day
you pronounce an ultimatum. You will
preserve your flowers though a hundred
balls be lost. Then you are looked upon
as unneighbourly by the children's parents.
They scowl at you when you meet in the
street. Occasionally on fine summer even-
ings they make audible remarks to your
disparagement.
A small vendetta grows sometimes out
of this lost ball business. You find a dead
cat in your garden path, and you credit it at
once to the big brother next door. Occasion-
ally you look up from your garden chair
and discover the small children at an upper
window making rude faces at you. A letter
for you, left by mistake at your neighbour's
house, is kept for two days and
then given back to the postman.
Unneighbourly messages are sent in
when you have a musical evening.
Music enters largely into the
catalogue of London's little worries.
The piano next door is a fertile
source of annoyance. In a flat it
occasionally embitters existence. In
most London houses there is a
piano, and it must occasionally be
played. But the hours of practice
are, as a rule, ill chosen. A piano
against a wall in terraces or semi-
detached villas invariably plays into
two houses at once. The next-door
piano sometimes leads to the Law
Courts.
There are three animals who
contribute largely to London's little
worries — the dog that barks, the cat
that trespasses, and the cock that
crows. The parrot is a rarer source
of annoyance, but he makes up for
it by being more persistent. To
live next door to a screaming parrot
would tax the patience of Job.
People who have suffered under the
infliction have often wondered why it was
not included in the lengthy list of that good
man's visitations.
The dog does not matter so much in
the daytime ; such noise as he makes
mingles with and is lost in the general
brouhaha. But when in the dead of night
— the hour of sleep — he begins to howl, or
to bark savagely at imaginary burglars, or
to bay the moon, he is a source of discom-
fort to an entire neighbourhood. Many a
father of a family forgets that his wife is
awake too, when out of the fulness of his
heart his mouth speaketh.
The cat worry leads to a retaliation of
a more practical kind. It has been known
to cause threats of murder to poor pussy.
" If she comes into my garden again, madam,"
cries the indignant householder proud of
his floriculture, " I'll shoot that cat ! " There
is a more terrible end than being shot.
It is one to which poor Tom often comes
through playing Romeo under the balcony
of a feline Juliet. The Capulets in their
wrath with the Montagus seek the Apothe-
" LOST liALI..
36o
LIVL\G LONDON.
cary, and the dose proves fatal to Romeo,
who, finding a tempting supper in Juliet's
garden, partakes of it and crawls home to
die. You may see at any time in London
handbills offering a reward for information
which will lead to the detection of the
poisoner of a favourite cat. In the Dogs'
Cemeter}' in Hyde Park a heartbroken
mistress has buried her murdered tabb\-.
Over its grave originally was an inscription
which consigned to dreadful torture here-
after the heartless assassin. The inscription
was considered out of order in a cemetery,
and the lady was compelled to remove it.
So she went to a Chaldean student and had
the inscription translated into that language.
There it now figures on Pussy's headstone.
As no one can read it, it gives no offence.
But the curse remains.
The parrot up to a certain point, when
his language has been carefully selected for
him, is amusing. But he begins to be the
reverse when he is placed in the balcony
to enjoy the sunshine of a summer's day.
In his joy he becomes incoherent, and
shrieks. When a jubilating parrot shrieks
for a couple of hours at a stretch he is
the little worry of an entire neighbourhood.
The begging letter impostor who knocks
at your door and leaves a catalogue of
'I WILL CALL FOR AN ANSWER.
" I'll shoot that cat ! "
his miseries, stating that he will call for
an answer later on, is an infliction so
widespread that he deserves an article to
himself He often works in connection with
a gang.
The rush for the omnibus is a little
worry which the fair .sex appreciate more
than the mere man. You can see a crowd
of ladies at certain hours of the day
standing at well-known street corners, and
every face is anxious. For 'bus after 'bus
comes up full inside and out. On wet days
the anxiety is increased, for then " inside "
is a necessity. To make sure of securing a
seat in the 'bus is always an anxiety to a
woman, when her time is limited, or she has
to be at a certain place at a certain hour.
When it is a case of the " last 'bus," the
anxiety becomes tearful, almost hysterical.
For to many a cab is a consideration ; the
difference between half-a-crown and two-
pence is sufficient to worry the careful house-
wife who has a limited income, the young
professional lady, the governess, or the shop
assistant.
In the winter time there are little worries
with the domestic interior which disturb
the whole family. The chimney that will
fill the sitting room with a choking smoke
is one of them. In the summer the chim-
LONDON'S LITTLE WORRIES.
361
ney, always a fertile source of anxiety,
varies the performance by emptying its
soot suddenly over the hearthrug and
carpet, and reducing antimacassars and
chair covers to a pitiful plight indeed. In
the winter, when the frost sets in, comes the
never so well-to-do the loss is a worry
to him. He regrets that watch and refers
to it for many a month afterwards. If it
is a gold one he registers a vow never
again to wear anything but a Waterbury.
The lost umbrella is a little worry familiar
head of the articles that Londoners have
a habit of losing. It is left in cabs
and trams and railway trains and on
counters. It occasionally happens that you
are utterly unable to say where you left it.
worry of the frozen cistern and the waterless to all of us. The umbrella stands at the
home. When the frost is followed by a
sudden thaw comes the worst worry of all
— the bursting pipe. Then the household
assembles hurriedly with cries of terror, as
through the ceiling descends a sudden moun-
tain torrent. The servants rush
hither and thither with basins and
buckets to collect the cataract,
and a male member is despatched
in hot haste for the plumber. In
most cases the plumber is wanted
in half a dozen houses at once
and arrives when the last possible
pound's worth of mischief has
been done.
The chimney on fire, in addition
to the mess and anxiety and the
damage, means a summons and
a fine. " Only a chim." is the
official report at the fire station
when the message for help comes
through, but " only a chim." is
very expensive to the London
householder.
One of the worries to which
all Londoners are subjected is
that of having their pockets
picked. There is not a day
passes but a lady finds that while
shopping, or travelling by 'bus or
tram or by train, she has been relieved of The umbrella acquires a new value in the
BEHIND THE SMOKEKS.
her purse, which she invariably carries in
a manner to facilitate its extraction by the
expert London thief When she returns
to her home pale, tearful and excited, and
gasps out, " I've had my pocket picked —
my purse is gone ! " the worry is shared
by her family. Then there is frequently
much anxious calculation as to what was
in it. People who lose their purses are
rarely quite sure what was in them. Some-
times there is intense relief to find that a
five-pound note or a trinket had been left
at home. Papa does not carry his money
so recklessly as Mamma, but he occasion-
ally loses his watch, or a pin, and be he
94
Londoner's eyes when he comes home
without it. In the first hour of his bereave-
ment he discovers that his umbrella was
very dear to him. Few of us lose an
umbrella with equanimity. It is always a
passing cloud across the everyday skies of
life.
In humble homes washing day is a
little worry — especially to father. Mother's
mind is occupied, and the feminine nose is
not so delicate in the matter of the steamy
odour which washing diffuses through
the house. In the humble home, scrub-
bing day is also a trial to the male
members. For this reason many respectable
362
LIVING LONDON.
" MV I'lRSE IS GONE ! "
working - class fathers do not immediately
return to the domestic roof when released
from toil on Saturday afternoon.
Spring cleaning and house painting are
little worries with which all Londoners are
familiar. I hesitate to put spring clean-
ing in the catalogue. It extends over a
period of time, and runs into so many
" new " things in the carpet and curtain
line which " we really must have " when the
house has been done up, that it strikes the
major rather than the minor note in one's
" troubled lot below."
The latchkey occasionally leads to a little
worry. Sometimes we go out without it
when we are supposed to have it with us.
This always happens when its possession
is most sorely needed. Paterfamilias is
going to a City banquet, or to dine at
his club, and won't be home till late.
The household retires at its usual time.
About one o'clock the head of the family
returns from the festivity in a hansom.
He pays the driver and dismisses him,
then puffing calmly at his cigar puts his
hand in his pocket for his latchkey. It isn't
there. There is nothing for it but to knock.
It is no good ringing, because the bells ring
below, and everyone is upstairs. So he
knocks, gently at first, then, seeing no light
moving about, he knocks again and presently
loses his temper and
bangs furiously. The
whole neighbourhood
probably hears him before
his own people. But
eventually he sees a light,
and inside the door he
can hear a nervous hand
manipulating the chain.
The forgotten latchkey
is a little worry that wise
men have decided to
avoid. They now carry
the useful and convenient
article on a chain attached
to their braces.
There are Londoners
who suffer systematic
annoyance from the un-
fortunate peculiarities of
the locality in which they
have made a home.
Brown is in a constant state of fever owing
to the proximity of certain church bells,
which he declares ring without ceasing.
Jones is the victim of a steam whistle,
which at some large works hard by his
happy home makes hideous disturbance at
an unearthly hour in the morning and at
intervals during the day. Robinson is the
victim of " vibration," a railway passing near
his residence, his windows are perpetually
rattling, his house occasionally " shudders,"
and when a limited mail passes in the night
his bed (the expression is his) " rocks him "
not to sleep but out of it.
Street noises have become such madden-
ing minor worries to Londoners of late
years that the law has been invoked. The
old London cries are no longer prized for
their quaintness. The street hawker is
ordered to moderate his methods by the
passing policeman, and the newspaper boy
gets fourteen days for announcing another
" great railway accident " or a " shocking
murder" to the homestaying householder.
There are little worries of the outdoor
walk with which all Londoners are familiar.
Orange peel and banana skins on the
pavement are so worrying to pedestrians
that special police notices are issued with
regard to them.
The Londoner who doesn't smoke is con-
LONDON'S LITTLE WORRIES.
363
stantly finding a worry in the Londoner
who does. Since the fair sex and the " pale
young curate " have socially elevated the
top of the 'bus and the roof of the tram
there has been continual outcry against the
outside smoker, who puffs his tobacco
into an eye that looks upon it unsym-
pathetically. On some 'buses and trams
in the back seats only may pipe, cigar, or
cigarette be indulged in. The tobacco smoke
worry has been relieved to this extent.
There is another little worry which many
Londoners have endured for years almost
uncomplainingly, that is the worry of trying
to buy a postage stamp after 8 p.m. in a
suburban neighbourhood. It occasionally
leads to another little worry, namely, a letter
of no particular interest, for which you have
to pay the postman twopence.
That the area merchant — the gentleman
with a bag on a barrow — who calls at
your area door to barter with your cook-
is a worry is proved by the large number
of London houses which now exhibit in
bold display the printed legend " No
Bottles," sometimes in conjunction with the
warning hint " Beware of the Dog."
Against this worry one can always barri-
cade one's doors, but there is a worrier from
whom there is little protection. The whin-
ing beggar who follows nervous women in
the lonely street after nightfall is not easily
disposed of If the beggar is a man he has
only to look villainous and to talk gruffly
to levy his blackmail. If the beggar is a
woman she sometimes obtains her object
by pleasantly referring to the fact that she has
left the bedside of a child who is suffering
from scarlet fever, small-pox, or some other
infectious disease. There are nervous ladies
who, after being accompanied for a few
minutes by such a woman, not only bestow
alms in their alarm, but rush home and
disrobe and subject their clothes to a dis-
infecting process before they wear them
again. For the worrying beggar with the
scarlatina child always takes care to rub
shoulders with her prey.
These are but a few of London's little
worries, but they are a sample of the
mass. They are inevitable in the complex
life of a great city. On the whole they are
borne philosophically by everyone — except
the people personally affected by them.
A WHl.NI.NG APPEAL.
3^4
LONDON'S WASH-HOISES AND BATHS.
By I. BROOKE-ALDER.
GREAT as ha\-e been the improvements to
London, and numerous the benefits
bestowed upon its inhabitants during
recent years, there is probably no item of
advancement more noticeable than that
which concerns provision for cleanliness.
Time was when to find a fitted bath-room in
an otherwise elegant private house was the
exception, and when a swimming bath was
a well-nigh unknown luxury to dwellers in
the Metropolis ; but nowadays quite modest
houses boast their hot-water furnished bath,
rendering the all-over wash an easily acquired
feature of the daily programme ; and almost
every district owns its public bathing estab-
lishment, comprising under one roof several
grades of baths — private and swimming.
But besides these noteworthy signs of
grace, immense progress has been made in
regard to wash-houses, or laundries, where,
under the new order of things, the public
is provided with accommodation and every
time-saving appliance for the washing of
clothes and household belongings. For the
rapid increase in the facilities for cleanli-
ness thanks are due to the various Borough
Councils and to the liberality of certain
philanthropists, who, in conjunction with
the (ordinarily) grumbling ratepayers, have
provided the means to this satisfactory
end. The modern public baths and their
adjacent wash-houses are the natural result of
the gradual adoption of an Act of Parliament
relating to this subject. The comprehensive
scale of their enterprise can be gauged by
realising the extent to which they have been
adopted in the Metropolis and its suburbs.
Their far-reaching influence for good can,
IN A PUBLIC WASH-HOUSE (MAKYLEBONE KOAU) : WASHING.
LONDON'S WASH-HOUSES AND BATHS.
3<5S
MEN S PRIVATE BATHS (HOKNSEY ROAD BATHS
AND WASH-HOUSES).
however, only be adequately judged by those
who are familiar with the daily life of
Living London, in its many phases, from
the lowest upwards.
To such a well-informed Cockney the con-
sideration of " how London washes " would
provide a fairly exhaustive review of
Metropolitan existence. He would see in
his mind's eye the various representatives
of hard-working poverty washing their
meagre scraps of clothing ; the moderately
prosperous mem-
bers of the
tradesman class
enjoying frequent
hot baths ; the
vast numbers
that stand for
energetic youth
taking lessons in
swimming, or
joining in aquatic
sports ; and the
smaller detach-
ment which im-
personates
leisurely wealth
indulging in the
various kinds of comparatively expensive
baths, such as medicated, electric, vapour,
spray, and Turkish.
The first visit to a public wash-house is an
experience that is not easily banished from
the memory, especially if it take place in
a poor locality and on a popular day. Shore-
ditch, Hackney, Bermondsey, Westminster,
Soho (Marshall Street, Golden Square), are
fruitful examples, and Friday and Saturday
notable days. Marylebone runs them close.
It is remarkable that as the week progresses
the class of person who brings her possessions
to the wash-houses deteriorates. By some
unwritten law or unpublished code of manners
the orderly members of the local community
almost entirely monopolise the first half of
the week, whilst the last three days belong
to a gradually descending scale. The ex-
ceptions to this almost invariable rule are
furnished by those whose wage-earning
employment leaves them free only during
the "early closing" hours of Saturday. On
Monday come demure dames, primly
precise of bearing, arrayed with an almost
awe-inspiring neatness, even to the full
complement of buttons on boots and gloves,
and the exact adjustment of the chenille
spotted veil. Behind these worthy matrons
is borne by an attendant the brown paper
IN A PUBLIC WASH-HOUSE (MARSHALL STREET, W.) : FOLDING AND MANGLING.
366
LIVING LONDON.
enclosed consignment of linen destined for
the soapsuds. Tuesday sees a reproduction
of such dignified processions, with, perhaps,
less dignity as the afternoon advances. By
Wednesday all pomp and vanity have dis-
appeared. Washing is frankly carried, tied
up in a sheet by the laundress herself, the
great bundle protruding from the shawl that
serves her as hat and mantle combined, or
it shares a crippled perambulator with two
small children. To Tom and Sallie the
weekly sojourn in the wash-house ante-room,
'"long er Mrs. O'Hagan's Pat and Norah,"
while their mothers do the washing, is the
most delightful of outings !
On entering such a laundry from the street,
or a cool stone staircase, the immediate
impression is of overwhelming heat and
discomforting clouds of steam ; but that soon
passes, and one is conscious of a lofty, well-
ventilated room, divided from end to end
by rows of troughs, separated into couples
by six-feet high partitions. In each division
stands a woman washing ; at her feet a pile of
dirty clothes, and behind her a basket of
clean ones. Her arms are plunged elbow-
deep into one of the two troughs of which
she is temporary proprietress. Water in
plenty, hot and cold, is hers for the turning of
overhanging taps, whilst the conversion of
the rinsing trough into a copper is as easily
accomplished— by opening a steam-containing
valve. Her " wash " completed, she carries
her basket to one of the men in charge of
the row of wringers situated in an adjoining
room. A few moments of rapid water-ex-
pelling whirling whilst the laundress " stands
at ea.se," and the clothes are returned to
her almost dry. She folds them on long
tables near at hand, and puts them into
a mangle, many of which machines are, it
should be stated, now worked automatically.
Should she wish to iron her finer items, she
has but to take ready-heated irons from the
stove hard by. Would she air her clothes
she hangs them on a "horse" and pushes
it into a hot-air compartment.
And for all this luxury as laundress the
authorities charge but three-halfpence an
hour ! Soap and soda they do not provide,
nor do they limit her to any given number of
hours ; so she may stay from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
should she feel disposed. The average attend-
ance at each wash-house of the Metropolis
is from two to three hundred persons every
weekday.
It is curious to notice in the most crowded
districts hew many nationalities are repre-
sented by these people — a blonde Swedish
girl helping a dusky daughter of the South
to get through a heap of ironing, or a broad-
nosed Russian grudgingly lending a piece of
soap to a sharp-featured Polish Jewess.
Strange peeps into home tragedies can some-
times be gained, as when the overworked
looking eldest child comes clattering up the
stone staircase bringing to its mother for
a little while, the few-weeks-old baby ; or
when the half-sober husband lounges in to
bully the price of another drink out of her.
She is the breadwinner, it seems.
The price charged for hot baths and use of
towels is twopence, fourpence, and sixpence,
according to class and locality, and half each
of these sums for children. All such private
baths are kept scrupulously clean, and the
cabins in which they are fixed are furnished
with a seat, hooks for clothing, and, in the case
of the best, a strip of carpet, mirror, and
brush and comb. That these liberal con-
ditions are appreciated is testified by the
fact that they are used by between fifty and
seventy thousand persons at each institution
annually. At Westminster they tell a tale of
a certain flower-seller which is well worth
quoting: Every Saturday evening, week in,
week out, comes this girl, clad just as she
would be when crying " Penny er bunch " on
the kerb-stone She enters from the street
by the " wash-house " door, and proceeds to a
private room, where she takes off all her
clothes but her skirt and jacket, and puts her
front locks into curlers. Then she hires a
trough, mangle, etc., for an hour, submits her
underwear to the cleansing process, finally
hanging it up to air ; that done, she buys a
ticket for a twopenny hot bath, bathes herself,
puts on her clean clothes, combs her fringe, and
for the expenditure of threepence-halfpenny
emerges as good an imitation of "new woman "
as anybody else could compass at any price !
For those who can afford a " first-class "
bath a comfortable waiting-room is provided,
with fire and a goodly supply of newspapers.
It often serves as a sort of House of Assem-
bly to a certain set of local worthies, who
TURKISH BATH (JERMYN STREET) : SHAMPOOING ROOM.
WATER POLO MATCH (WESTMINSTER BATHS).
36S
LIVING LONDON:
TEACHING SCHOOLBOVS TO SWIM (KKXSIXGTON BATHS).
count on the opportunity thus afforded to
meet neighbours and discuss the affairs of
the nation.
That swimming should at last have come
to be regarded by the School Board as a
necessary item of education is a fact on
which we should heartily congratulate our-
selves. Thanks in the matter are undoubtedly
due to the persistent efforts of a few private
enthusiasts as well as to the energy of such
philanthropic bodies as the Life-saving
Society, the Swimming Association of Eng-
land, and the London Schools Swimming
Association.
Practical testimony is given to the serious-
ness of the modern views of J:he situation
by the provision of free lessons in swimming
at the public elementary schools. All the
summer large detachments from the various
Board schools, in charge of masters or mis-
tresses, present themselves daily for lessons
at several of the baths. Funny scenes
occur when the children take their first
plunge into so large an expan.se of water !
Some of them decline to leave the steps at
the shallow end, or cling desperately to the
rail that runs round, only gaining courage
by very slow degrees and after having been
carried about by the patient instructor. But
such alarms are gradually conquered, and
the children become as much at home as
ducks in the water, and willingly take part
in various sports and life-saving instruction,
their competency as swimmers and life-savers
often being the means of rescuing playmates
from drowning in the course of holiday expe-
ditions. It has even happened that a child
has rescued his father.
In order to bring the benefits afforded by the
swimming bath within the reach of most young
folk the ordinary twopenny entrance-fee is
reduced to a penny for schools ; and that the
art of natation may be more generally acquired
many University men and others generously
give their services as instructors and also pay
for the bath. There are, for instance, associa-
tions formed amongst the Post Office employes,
telegraph boys, shop assistants, poor boys
and girls in Homes, and others, all of which
are encouraged by well-known enthusiastic
experts, and meet for practice and instruction.
The swimming clubs of London number
about two hundred, and are composed of
members of every class — boys and girls,
young men and maidens, representing all the
various grades of well-being. In several
instances their formation resulted from the
initiative of some of the large employers,
such as Messrs. Cook, Son and Co., of St.
Paul's Churchyard, whose care for the
physical development of their clerks and
others has had the happiest effect both
mentally and physically. The " Ravens-
bourne " is the designation by which Messrs.
Cook's club is known ; and, thanks to the
excellent work done at its weekly meetings,
its annual display at Westminster Baths draws
great crowds of spectators^friends of the
competitors and members of similar asso-
ciations.
Another popular meeting is the free public
display held every summer at the Highgate
LONDON'S WASH-HOUSES AND BATHS.
369
Ponds by the Life-saving Society, at which
as many as 30,000 spectators assemble.
A curious lack of knowledj^e of self-pre-
servation is disclosed by our soldiers, it having
been found necessary to teach swimming to
thousands of the Guards. They learned
the art at St. George's Baths, Buckingham
Palace Road, and it was amusing to note
that some of the stalwart fellows, absolutely
dauntless in other circumstances, showed an
almost childlike timidity in facing so un-
accustomed an experience. How well their
quickly acquired courage and ability in
dealing with water have served them has
since been remarkably demonstrated.
Although the feminine portion of the
community is making undeniable progress
towards the popularising of swimming, it
is found somewhat difficult to interest the
poorer classes of girls in this art. Broadly
speaking, they do not care for gymnastics of
whatever sort in anything like the degree
that their brothers do. This they prove by
their disregard of the opportunity for e.xercise
provided all the winter by the covering in
and fitting with gymnastic appliances of
some of the swimming baths. But the same
remarks do not hold good in connection with
the sisters of our public school boys. Uni-
versity men, and so on ; they are veritable
mermaids ! Ambitious mermaids, too, with
a. very decided in-
tention to rival all
comers in pro
ficiency and grace.
Thanks to their
comprehensive love
of frame-develop-
ing sports, their
achievements in the
water are of no
mean order. To
see them at their
best one should
belong to the Bath
Club, a luxurious
institution in Dover
Street, Piccadilly,
once the town
mansion of Lord
Abergavenny,
where, whilst en-
joying all the
95
advantages of an ordinary social club, one
has the run of every variety of bath — Turki.sh,
shower, douche, swimming, etc. — provided
on the premises. This popular and well-
managed establishment is frequented by both
ladies and gentlemen, who claim the use
of the baths on alternate days. There are
2,000 members, of whom 500 are of the
gentler sex.
The swimming bath at this club is unique
in its accessories, having suspended over the
water, besides several diving boards and
Newman's water-chute, not a few gymnastic
appliances, such as trapeze and travelling
rings. The contests at the Bath Club, either
for the men members or their feminine
relatives, always attract a large attendance
• — spectators filling the gallery and thickly
surrounding the bath edge. The variety of
costumes worn by the ladies — some of
mermaid-imitating scales, others of gaily
striped materials — and the floral decorations
of the place provide a very attractive
spectacle.
The height of luxury in the way of taking
a bath is attained by the Turkish variety.
It is practised in perfection at the Hammam
(or Turkish bath) in Jermyn Street, St. James's.
It costs four shillings, and it takes two hours ;
but nothing yet invented by Londoners, or
annexed from abroad, has ever come near
cftrtri."
£;^5l>^ i?
SirV.
TURKISH BATH (JEK.MVN STREET) : COOLING ROOM.
370
LIVING LONDON.
the delicious experience or the restorative
quality of the Turkish bath. One enters, a
world-weary wreck, tired from travelliny^,
working, pleasuring, ma\-be, rheumatic ; one
sits, or reclines, in a succession of hot-air
rooms, each of the eight hotter than the last
—varying from 112° F. to 280° F. — until a
sufficient perspiration has been attained.
Then one is conducted to the shampooing
room, and, whilst reposing on a marble slab,
one is massaged by light-handed attendants.
That process is followed by a series of
brushes and different soaps ; and, after a
variety of shower douches and a plunge into
cold water, the bath is complete. A sojourn
in a lofty cooling room, a quiet smoke, or
a light meal, and one sallies forth a new
being. A visit to the gallery of the attendant
hairdressers makes perfection more perfect.
This bath is patronised by gentlemen only,
but many districts now boast their Hammam,
open to both sexes — among others, Charing
Cross, Earl's Court, Islington, Camden Town,
Bri.xton — at all of which the price is ex-
tremely moderate, some even descending to
one shilling.
The vapour bath (obtainable at the
Marylebone and a few other public baths)
is an excellent substitute for the Turkish
should limited time be a consideration.
Various medicated baths are also used by
a section of Londoners — such as pine, bran^
sulphur — to cure certain ailments, as alterna-
tive to foreign springs, etc., whilst electricity
is impelled through the water at the request
of some others. This sort of bath is occasion-
ally used in conjunction with the Swedish
system of treatment (massage and exercises
by means of mechanical appliances), now
much practised in the Metropolis.
Given the desire to wash, the means are
certainly not lacking in Living London.
LADIES USING THE CHUTE (BATH CLUB).
371
AWAITING THE AKkl\ AL Ob Mi.MSTEKS Tu A'lTE.NU A CABINET COUNXIL.
SCENES EROM OFEICIAL LIEE IN LONDON.
By L. BRINDLE.
IT has been said, and with very good
reason, that the things that impress
one most in London are the thincfs
that one does not see, which one cannot
see, but of which one has a tolerably ac-
curate knowledge if a student of such
matters, derived and assimilated from a
hundred sources in the course of many
years.
Royalty, Parliament, the City, all these
are in truth wonderfully impressive, and we
see them, or something pertaining to them,
almost every day of our lives in London.
But all the time there is something else
which we feel among us, but which we
never .see unless we are more than usually
favoured mortals. In London, especially
when some country visitor is with us, we
often feel a sense of pride and import-
ance which may be partly accounted for
by the ostensible wonders of the capital
and partly by the common instinct to
which Dr. Johnson gave utterance when he
remarked to Boswell, " I will venture to say
there is more learning and science within
the circumference of ten miles from where
we now sit than in all the rest of the
kingdom." Yet even with all this there is
a balance still to be accounted for, and I
think that if most of my readers will
examine their own minds on the subject
they will agree that it is made up of that
other instinct which consists mainly of one's
appreciation of the fact that here in Lon-
don we are pulling every day the strings
of the Empire, the greatest empire which
has ever existed. We do not see these
strings, nor do we see anybody pulling
them — seldom indeed do we catch a glimpse
of the dignitaries who perform this awe-
inspiring task. But we know that it is
done, and we know furthermore that there
is not a nation of the world but has just
as much appreciation — it may be admiring
appreciation or it may be bitter appreciation
— of this great and all - important fact as
we and our country visitor have. We
walk with him along the western side of
Whitehall, and we point out to him the
solid and stately structures which make this
such a noble thoroughfare. And it is
here, within an area of but a few acres
after all, that these strings are for the most
part pulled. To-day a Minister in one of
A RECEPTION AT THE FOREIGN OFFICIi
SCENES FROM OFFICIAL LIFE IN LONDON.
373
these buildings dictates an instruction to
one of his private secretaries ; an hour
later the message which is the result of
it is speeding its way along thousands of
miles of the ocean bed. To-morrow our
great pro-consul acts upon the order which
he has received, and the news of the sig-
nificant departure in policy is cabled back
to every newspaper in London, to every
newspaper in the world — more than that,
to the chancellery of every Power ; and the
foreign Ministers knit their foreheads and
bite their pens and scowl when they read this
news, and understand that Downing Street
has advanced another point. One of the
big strings has been pulled again.
And, again, there is a crisis in some home
affair which is of urgent importance to the
well-being of a very large number of people.
It may pertain to the care of an industry,
or to the soundness of the people's educa-
tion, or to any other of the thousand ques-
tions which ever and again are troubling
the public mind. Interested persons hurry
now to Whitehall, and there are long
conversations in the rooms of Ministers,
after which the interested persons, with
their minds all in a state of doubt and
trepidation, go their way. A few hours
later an order is promulgated from the seat
of authority, and, as likely as not, the
trouble at that moment is at an end. One
of the smaller strings has been pulled.
We never see the pulling of these strings,
but we feel each and every day that it is
being done here in London as it can be
nowhere else, and somehow this grand,
this exalted official life that is being lived
in the Metropolis permeates the atmosphere
which we breathe and gives us a quicken-
ing sense of pride and importance.
But now, though we have said that none
of these things are visible, we will avail
ourselves of a more than usually special
permit — which we will say at once would
be granted to no person alive, save the
King and his Ministers — and will take brief
glimp.ses at some of the scenes which are
enacted in Downing Street and other places
curtained off from the public gaze. When
we come down to a cold analysis there is
much that is quite ordinary in these scenes ;
but they inspire a vast amount of awe not-
withstanding. To all outward appearances
a meeting of company directors is much
the same as a meeting of kings, but they
are very different meetings after all. So it
is with these scenes.
What meeting, for instance, would one
regard with greater interest and curiosity
than a meeting of the Cabinet, fraught
as it often is with the destiny of the
nation ? This is so well realised that,
especially on a cold damp afternoon in the
middle of winter when the Ministers gather
themselves together from the four points of
the compass in Downing Street for the first
time since the beginning of the autumn recess,
there is quite a big crowd to see them going
in, one by one, to their solemn deliberations
which have regard to the programme of
the forthcoming session of Parliament.
Some come on foot, .some in hansom cabs,
others drive up in their own well - ap-
pointed carriages, and Ministers have even
been known upon occasion to ride up to a
Cabinet Council upon their cycles. It is
the same with other Cabinet Councils, which
are held in frequent succession after the
first one, but it is in this that the public
interest is keenest, because it marks the
awakening of official life after the autumn
siesta. The people see the Ministers come
and see them disappear under the archway
that leads to the great quadrangle, and then
as far as they are concerned, the Cabinet
Council is at an end, for they witness no more
of it, and only the most meagre paragraph
report of its doings, and that usually
mere speculation, ever finds its way into
the papers.
A wonderful secrecy is preserved with
regard to all that pertains to these meetings.
They are usually held in a room on the
ground floor at the Foreign Office, and
in white letters there is painted on the
door of it " Private." The furniture of ihe
room is not elaborate, and there is little
to distract the attention of Ministers from
the business in hand. The Prime Minister
takes his seat at the head of the table,
and the other Ministers place themselves
round the board as best suits their con-
venience, but in no set order. Then the
door is closed, and upon no pretence
whatever may any outsider gain admission
374
LIVING LONDON.
to the chamber until all is over. The
Prime Minister has an electric bell at his
elbow, and if need arises he summons
a departmental official or a servant to the
room, but he docs so as seldom as possible,
and when the outsider is present the de-
liberations are suspended. Ministers may
bring with tliein the private Government
papers which have been addressed to them,
and of which the>- have need, and there are
also upon the table documents that have
been printed in the private Government
printing office, and which are endorsed
" Most Secret. For the use of the Cabi-
net " ; but they may produce no paper
for the making of notes for their own
use as to the proceedings of the day. It
is a strict rule that no minutes of any
kind whatsoever shall be made of the
business which is discussed, each Minister
having perforce to content himself with
his mental impression of what takes place.
This is all for the sake of secrecy. The
business may be comparatively trivial, and
may last but half an hour ; or there may be
laid before this meeting of the executive
Government a threat of war or a proposal
for peace from some foreign country, and
for hours and hours the Cabinet may sit
with anxious faces and minds which hesitate
between two courses upon which depend the
future of our Empire. Ministers have even
been known to be summoned to a meeting
of the Cabinet when Big Ben hard by has
been striking the midnight hour, and have
remained in conference until the daylight
has streamed through the windows upon
their ashen, worn-out countenances.
But there is another great Council of
the State, about which we are privileged to
learn even less. The only report which we
are ever allowed to read is the simple
one contained in the Court announcements,
which may run thus : —
" His Majesty The King held a Council at Buck-
ingham Palace to-day at 12 o'clock. There were
present : — The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke
of Devonshire, K.G. (Lord President), the Duke of
Norfolk, K.G., and the Marquess of Cholmondoley."
That is all. It is a Privy Council which
has been held in this case, and it usually
assembles in one of the royal residences, the
King, of course, presiding. There are many
members of the Privy Council ; but as a
rule only Ministers, certain great officers of
the Household, and sometimes the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, are summoned to the
meetings.
A COUNCIL AT BUCKINGHAM i'ALACK.
SCENES FROM OFFICIAL LIFE IN LONDON.
375
A summons to the whole
Council is sent out only upon
the most extraordinary occa-
sion. What the functions of
the Privy Council precisely are
it is hard to say ; a Privy
Councillor himself would
have difficulty in answering
such a question. But in
theory it is what the Cabinet
is in practice. Its real prac-
tical value is as a necessary
medium between the throne
and the executive Govern-
ment, and so we may imagine
at these meetings the King
and his Ministers chatting
over points in matters of
State, or perchance discussing
details of some ceremony
which is soon to take place.
The Privy Council is thus
of service ; but perhaps the
general sentiment concerning
it as a whole, as apart from
its divisions, is that it is a
very good reserve council,
which might conceivably
upon occasion be of the
greatest utility. The Privy
Councillor, whom we see in
our fancy with the King, has taken an oath
that he will " advise his Majesty to the best
of his cunning and discretion," that he will
keep the King's council secret, that he will
help and strengthen the execution of what
shall be resolved, and, amongst other things,
that he will observe, keep, and do all that
a good and true Councillor ought to do
to his Sovereign Lord. Besides the King
and his Councillors there is admitted to
the apartment the Clerk of the Council,
who has also to take a most solemn oath
that he will reveal nothing of what is dis-
cussed.
These are the Councils of the chiefs ;
consider the latter now in their own de-
partments where they are certainly not less
interesting, and only a trifle less private.
There are two of the ministerial offices that
help to make up the great quadrangle to
the left of Downing Street, which possess
deeper interest for the curious outsider than
A DEPUTATION TO THE COLONIAL SECRETARY.
most of the others, and these are the
Foreign Office and the Colonial Office, the
work of each of which is of vast and en-
during importance.
Observe the Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs at work in his own room.
As befits the apartment which is reserved
for the man who deals direct with the
heads of all other Governments, it is lux-
uriously furnished. There are beautiful,
morocco leather - covered chairs, and there
is a particular one of them upon which
scores of ambassadors have in turn been
wont to sit when they have called upon
the Minister to discuss some matter of
urgent international importance. There is
a writing table in the room with a number
of pigeon-holes attached to it, labelled
" Home Secretary," " Minister of the
Colonies," and so forth. It is not too
much to say that here are contained the
secrets of an empire. At the Foreign Office
376
L1\I.\G LONDON.
AFTER A NA\AL DISASTER : ENQUTREKS AT THE ADMIRALTY.
upon occasion his Lordship will hold a great
reception, and there will come to it the
Corps Diplomatique, and many other persons
of high degree, presenting an imposing and
even showy spectacle.
There are perhaps fewer displays of
magnificence in connection with other great
departments, but they are scarcely less
interesting. The Foreign Office may deal
with the world ; but at least the Colonial
Office, on the other side of the great arch-
way, concerns itself with all that part of
the world which we have the pleasure to
call our own. Wending our way up the ,
wide and handsome staircase, having some
business with the Colonial Secretary or one
of his subordinates, we are ushered by an
attendant into a waiting-room overlooking
the quadrangle, which is pleasant enough in
its way, but which is principally decorated
with maps with big blotches of red upon
them. This is indicative of the business of
the office. I'robably there are many other
persons waiting in this room, even some
with dark skins who form a deputation to
the Minister from one of those far-off lands
which are under the British sway. Within,
the Colonial .Secretary is hard at work with
more maps around him. Everything in the
room suggests work,
hard work, and heavy
responsibility.
In another depart-
ment there is the Home
Secretary on duty. He.
too, is a very busy man,
controlling as he does
most of those insular
matters which more
closely affect the comfort
and prosperity of people
at home. Ordinary folk
understand the functions
of the Home Secretary
better than they do
those of the Foreign
Minister. Some of
them may have heard
that he has in a little
room hard by his own
a telephone by means
of which he may speak
direct to New Scotland
Yard at any time without a moment's
delay upon a matter of life or death. It
is really .so.
A little further down Whitehall there is a
building, one of the Government group,
at the sight of which all but millionaires
are often apt to experience a curious creepy
feeling. This is the Treasury, which is pre-
sided over by the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, and whence the income tax and
all other taxes come. It is the headquarters
of the national finance, and when folk want
to grumble whilst there is yet time — as
they invariably do — at the taxes they have
to pay, they repair to the Treasury in
deputation form, and talk the matter over
with the Chancellor. But whoever he be, the
Chancellor is invariably a .shrewd man
with a cold heart, and the deputation in
departing is not often a merry one. Else-
where there are the Education Office, the
Board of Trade, the India Office, and
others, the precise characters of which are
indicated in their titles. There is an office
for everything and everywhere.
There are still two which have not yet
been mentioned, but in regard to which
public interest is always keen ; at special
times exceptionally so. The War Office
o
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SCENES FROM OFFICIAL LIFE IN LONDON.
377
and the Admiralty, controlling as they do
the mighty forces of the Empire on land and
sea, have in due season news to give which
will make London throb with pride, and
which will at the same time cast a per-
petual shadow over many homes that
were once the happiest in the land. There
may be a report that a British warship has
foundered, and there are groups of terror-
stricken mothers and wives and sisters —
perhaps male relatives also — in the comfort-
less corridors of the enormous building which
lies between Spring Gardens and the Horse
Guards. Looking from one of the windows
the King, with a brilliant staff of War Office
officials, may perhaps be seen distributing
the medals of victory to his soldiers upon
the Horse Guards Parade, but these poor
creatures in the Admiralty can hardly think
at such a time of the glory of arms. A sooth-
ing word may be spoken by one of the officials
attired in a blue uniform with an anchor on
his cap, but what consolation is that?
In the War Office itself the Secretary of
State is assisted in the multifarious duties
he performs by the distinguished men
who form the Army Council. In imagina-
tion one may see a line of red and khaki
spreading from the War Office to the
uttermost ends of the Empire, and with
our preliminary reflection in mind the
War Office then is a convenient spot to
terminate a tour through secret places
which have told such a tale of the great
imperial body of which London is the
mighty throbbing heart.
rholv: rtHutU i Snnt. Hati'CSt. , Vf.
PRESENTATION OF WAR MEDALS ON THE HORSE GUARDS PARADE : ARRIVAL OF THE KING.
96
378
SATURDAY NIGHT l\ LONDON.
By A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK.
FOR persons who live above a certain
social level Saturday night has no
particular features to distinguish it
from any other night of the week ; but for
the vast majority of those who live below
that serene altitude it is the most important
night of the secular six : it means to them
pretty much what a coming into port means
to the seaman or a harvest-home to the
farmer.
The City emptying itself much earlier than
usual on Saturday, outgoing trains, 'buses,
and trams are crammed to excess between
one o'clock and five ; then, from six to eight,
incoming trams,, 'buses, and trains are equally
burdened, for many who went out early are
returning now with friends, sweethearts,
wives, or, at pantomime time, with small
excited members of their families, in a hurry
to add themselves to the extra long Saturday-
night queues stretching away from the pit
and gallery doors of the principal theatres.
Now, too, when there is a chance of
escaping observation in the darkness, the
pawn-shops are at their busiest : shrinking
figures, mostly of women, flit in and out by
obscure side-doors, some on a regular Satur-
day night errand to redeem Sunday wearing
apparel that is as regularly put away again
on Tuesday or Wednesday when the domestic
treasury is again exhausted ; others carrying
household articles sufficiently mortgageable
to raise the price of to-morrow's dinner, a
husband being out of work, or delayed on
the way home exhaustively refreshing himself,
and not expected to arrive with any con-
siderable salvage of his week's wages.
There are insignificant, comfortable people
who sent a servant out to do their shopping
this morning or ordered their Sunday require-
ments of tradesmen who call at the door, and
this evening they will go, perhaps, to some
little party at the house of a friend, or give
a little party of their own ; or, during the
summer and autumn, they may make an
afternoon excursion up the river to Hampton
Court or down to Greenwich, and come back
SATUKUAY NIGHT IN KING STREET,
HAMMERSMITH.
SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON.
379
BRACES.
pleasantly tired, just in time to share a 'bus
or a railway carriage with jovial amateur
cricketers or footballers homing from a
Saturday's match.
In the main, however, Saturday night is
given over to the great weekly shopping
carnival of the poor, and of all such as
live carefully on limited incomes. They do
their marketing, from custom or necessity
or for sheer preference, in the very last
hours of the last day of the week, and they
do most of it in those boisterous, cheerful,
plenteous, cornucopia-like thoroughfares where
costermongers are still allowed to congregate
and compete with the shopkeepers.
Of course, the genteel business ways of
the west know nothing whatever of that
carnival. In that region shutters are up
early, and when Berwick Street and other
arteries of Soho are congested with stalls
and buyers and sellers, and doing a roaring
trade in every sense of the phrase, the select
shops of Oxford Street, Regent Street, and
Piccadilly are, nearly all of them, closed and
enjoying a foretaste of their Sunday sleep.
Broadly speaking, Saturday night's trade
follows the costers, and finds them all over
London : it finds them south under the arches
and littering the streets around Brixton
Station, in the Old Kent Road, on Deptford
Broadway ; up north in Phcenix Street, in
Chapel Street, Islington, in Queen's Crescent,
Kentish Town ; away west straggling for a
mile or more along Harrow Road, or in
King Street, Hammersmith ; eastward in
Chrisp Street by the docks, and nowhere in
greater variety, more breezily good-humoured,
or attended by a more cosmopolitan crowd
than in Whitechapel Road.
On the way thither, through Aldgate, we
pass Butchers' Row and the uncommonly
miscellaneous line of stalls facing it, where
business has been steadily increasing ever
since noon. Some of the butchers have put
up intimations that they make a speciality
of " kosher " meat, and other signs are not
wanting that we are in the neighbourhood
of the Ghetto : round the side-streets are
Jewish hotels and restaurants; in the High
Street there are bakers, printers, all manner
of traders who have announcements in
Hebrew characters painted on their windows ;
a Hebrew theatrical poster appeals to us
from a hoarding ; dusky foreign Jews pass
in the crowd chattering in a barbarous
Yiddish.
As we push farther east the crowd becomes
denser and livelier : an incongruouslj' blended
multitude in which abject squalor elbows
coquettish elegance, and sickly misery and
robust good-humour, and frank poverty and
poverty decently disguised, and lean knavery
and leaner honesty, drunkenness and sobriety,
care and frivolity, shabby home-bred loafers
and picturesque, quaintly-garbed loafers from
over sea, all hustle or loiter side by side, in
one vast, motley, ever-moving panorama
BOOTS AND SHOES : TRYING ON.
38o
LIVING LONDON.
By this we are past the Pavilion Theatre
and on the broad pavement that sweeps
down to IMile End Gate. Up between flags
of the pavement sprout stunted trees that
drip dirty tears in the foggy \\'eeks of winter
and with the coming of spring break into
a pleasant laughter of dusty green leaves.
They are girdled with iron railings, and
betwixt and before and behind them coster-
mongers' stands and barrows are scattered
in great plenty.
There are fruit and vegetable stalls, there
.are fish stalls, haberdashers', stationers', tailors',
toy, jewellery, butchers', cutlery, boot, hat and
cap, and unmistakably second-hand ironmon-
gery stalls, all along to Mile End Gate ; and,
to add to the crush and the tumult, enter-
prising shopkeepers have rushed selections
of their goods out of doors and ranged them
among the stalls and set assistants bawling
in wildernesses of furniture and crockery, or
chaunting incessantly amidst clustered pillars
of linoleum and carpet like lay priests in
ruined temples.
The stalls and these overflowings of the
shops are intersected by stands where weary
marketers may solace themselves with light
refreshments in the way of whelks liberally
seasoned with vinegar and pepper, cheap but
indigestible pastry, toffee, or fried soles ; and
there are ice-cream barrows that dispense
ices and ginger-beer in summer, and in winter
supply baked potatoes and hot drinks.
Intersecting other stalls are a cripple in
a wheeled-chair manipulating a concertina ;
a man with a tray suspended round his neck
selling " electric " pens ; an enormous brass
weighing machine that soars up glittering
and catching light from all the surrounding
naphtha lamps till it seems itself a thing of
fire ; a galvanic battery and a " lung-tester,"
both popular with boys, who take shocks
from the one and blow into the long tube
of the other with a joy in the results that
is worth at least twice what they pay for it ;
and, with a naphtha lamp all to himself, a
.sombre, wooden-legged man presides over
a seedy collection of umbrellas stuck in a
ricketty home-made stand and holds a
specimen umbrella open over his own head
as if he lived at the be.st of times in an
invisible shower.
And buyers are stopping to haggle with
the sellers ; loafers and lurchers go by con-
tinuously ; passing by also are rough artisans
in their working clothes out shopping with
their wives, and dainty fascinating young
Jewesses dressed in ornate imitation of the
latest West-End fashions and escorted by
dapper young Jews in tall hats, resplendent
linen, and suits reminiscent of Piccadilly.
Stand aside and see them passing ; and
here, passing with them, a couple of jovial
sailors, arm-in-arm, flourishing their pipes
and singing lustily ; a wan woman in rusty
widow's weeds leading a child in one hand
and carrying her frugal marketings in the
other ; a young man wheeling a perambulator
with a baby and some beef and a cabbage
in it, while his wife, a keen, brisk little
woman, chaffers at the fish stall for some-
thing toothsome to take home for supper ;
dowdy women, ]ew and Gentile, in faded
bonnets, or bright-coloured shawls, or with
no other head-covering than their own
plenteous hair ; three dandy soldiers making
a splash of red where the throng is drabbest ;
a sleek Oriental, astray from the docks, in
his white linen costume and white turbair
or crimson fez ; a lank, long-bearded Hebrew
in an ample frock coat and ancient tall hat,
moving in profound meditation, with a certain
air of aloofness separating him from the
surging, restless mob, as if the sanctities of
the Synagogue and his newly-ended Sabbath
still wrapped him about in an atmosphere
of unworldly calm.
A few paces farther on, and here is a
weedy youth swathed in a white apron
shrilly inviting attention to a pyramid of
pigs'-trotters on a board on trestles against
the front of a public-house, in the saloon
doorway of which a pair of musicians are
manufacturing music with a diminutive har-
monium and a tin-whistle, while outside the
smaller public-house near by gossiping men
and women with no taste for either music
or pig's-trotters lounge drinking in the open
air.
Across in the New Cut, and Lower Marsh,
Lambeth, there is the same crush and uproar,
the same smoky flare of innumerable naphtha
lamps, the same bewildering miscellany of
stalls, but the customers and idlers are, on
the whole, more poverty-stricken, more
depressed, more common-place. There are
SATURDAY NIGHT IN WHITECHAPEL ROAD.
382
LIVING LONDON
flower-stalls and second-hand book stalls
here, as there are in Farringdon Street and
Shoreditch High Street ; there is a sedate
optician's stall with wilted old ladies and
gentlemen pottering about it at intervals
testing their sights at different-sized letters
printed on a card and sparing a trifle from
their week's addlings to treat themselves to
new pairs of spectacles ; there is a misan-
diropic-looking man sitting on a stool in
the gutter with piles of muffins on a small
table beside him ; and there are the
the road is blocked by an eager concourse
of girls and young and elderly women, and
peering over their agitated shoulders we
focus with difficulty a low, improvised
counter buried under stacks of ladies' jackets,
blouses, dresses, shawls, while four feminine
hucksters, one at each corner of the counter,
hold up articles of such wearing apparel for
inspection and cackle persuasively in chorus.
They do the thing better in such a place as
Hoxton Street, for there the roadway is left
to every other description of stall, and the
INSIDE A BIG PROVISION STORES (HAMMERSMITH).
usual hawkers wandering up and down with
toasting forks, boot-laces, braces, song-sheets,
and meat-jacks with wooden legs of mutton
turning on them to illustrate their uses.
In nearly every market street to-night
there are cheap-jacks selling crockery, and
quacks vending corn-cures and ointment,
and in .some, notably in Stratford High
Street and Deptford Broadway, there is
occasionally a male quack, or one of the
gentler sex, who, to create a sensation and
gather an audience, will plant a chair in the
public eye and extract the teeth of penurious
sufferers gratis.
Half way through one Saturday market
trade in women's clothing is carried on in
skeleton shops, the fronts of which have
been knocked out so that passing ladies may
stray in without hindrance and wallow in
second-hand garments that hang thickly
round the walls and are strewn and heaped
prodigally about the floors.
In other streets we have side-glimpses of
brilliantly-lighted interiors opulently fes-
tooned and garlanded and hung with cheap
boots and shoes, and, thus environed, men
and women, affluent with Saturday's wages,
examining and selecting from the stock, or
a small child on a high chair having a pair
of shoes tried on under the critical gaze of
SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON.
383
CHINA.
its father and mother and the shopman ; or,
especially in such localities as Leather Lane
and Whitecross Street, where boot-stalls
abound, a similar scene is frequently enact-
ing in the open air, with the diminutive
customer perched, for " fitting " purposes,
close to the stall.
In all the tumultuous market streets, and
in broad, centre thoroughfares where there
are few or no costermongers, big drapers have
a passion for Saturday clearance sales that
no woman who loves a bargain is stoical
enough to ignore ; and provision shops and
mammoth general stores, in a cheery glamour
of gas or electric light, are simmering and
humming like exaggerated hives. Smart
servant-maids in some districts, and in all
practical housewives, domesticated husbands,
children, singly or in pairs, and furnished with
baskets and pencilled lists of their require-
ments, flow in and out of these emporiums
in apparently endless streams.
While the Saturday saturnalia is thus at
its fiercest and gayest and noisiest throughout
the main roads and market streets, in grimy,
quiet byways of Whitechapel there are snug
Hebrew coffee rooms and restaurants, re-
awakened after a Sabbath snooze, wherein
Jews of divers nationalities are gossiping
over coffee and wine and cigarettes, or
beguiling the hours with dominoes and
card-playing. In other dim, sinister byways
there is, here and there, in an obscure room
behind some retiring hostelry, a boxing
match going forward for the delectation of
an audience of flashy, rowdy sportsmen and
their down-at-heel hangers-on ; like-
wise, about Whitechapel and Ber-
mondsey, Southwark and Soho, in
shyer, furtive dens that are over-
shadowed always by fear of a police
raid, there are feverish, secret gamesters
gathered round the green tables. In
the neighbourhood of Soho — much
favoured by exiles from all countries
— they are more numerous and of
superior quality, and in some exclusive,
elegant, equally secret clubs you may
gamble with bejewelled gentry whose
losses on the turn of the wheel or
the cards arc far from being limited
by the size of a week's salary.
Meanwhile, theatres are full, and
music-halls ; and Saturday dances, sing-
songs, and smoking concerts in assembly
rooms and over public - houses are liberally
encouraged. When people begin to come
out from these entertainments, the crowd
that is still abroad marketing is of a poorer,
hungrier stamp than that which enlivened
the streets an hour or two ago. Stalls are
beginning to disappear, and those that remain
are mostly refreshment stalls, or fruit and
meat stalls that are trying to sell off their
surplus stock by auction.
Fruit stalls in Whitechapel Road have
a special weakness for finishing up in this
way — a way which is common to the meat
shops and stalls in all the market streets
OUTSmE A PUBLIC-HOLSK.
384
LIVING LONDON.
everywhere. The large cheap butchers' shops
in Bermondsey and elsewhere make a practice
of "selling off" by auction all the evening,
but elsewhere it is the custom to adopt this
course only after ten o'clock.
Then, after ten o'clock, you may see
feminine butchers hammering on their stalls
with the blunt ends of their choppers, and
shouting and cheapening their primest beef
and mutton as frantically and as successfully
as any butcher of the sterner sex who,
goaded to frenzy by the approach of mid-
night, is pedestalled on his stall, or on the
block in his doorway or the sloping flap
outside his window, and is lifting meat
boastfully in both hands, offering it at
absurdly high prices, and yet selling it for
ever so little a pound to whomsoever will
buy.
Rain or snow will thin the streets by
keeping folk at home or driving them to
the nearest shops, or to such roofed paradises
for the small trader as the Portman Market
off Edgware Road. But to-night has been
fine, and everything at its best.
And now 'buses and trams begin to fill
with laughing, chattering myriads returning
from the theatres, and with shop assistants just
emancipated. Laundry vans are coming
back from delivering the last of their wash-
ing ; in thousands of lowly, decent house-
holds busy mothers are ironing the last of
to-morrow's linen on a corner of the supper
table, or the whole family are seated to a
rare but inexpensive feast at the latter end
of a hard week.
Twelve strikes, and the public-houses close,
not without brawling and a drunken fight
or two ; but the last stragglers will soon be
making for home ; the last stall will soon
have packed up and gone away ; the latest
shop will be putting up its shutters, and all
the flare and fever and flurry and wrangling
and business and merriment of Saturday
night will be quieting down at last under
the touch of Sunday morning.
■f^J^Sp^^^".-"'t^^*^'^^
SELLING MEAT BY AUCTION.
Peinted by Casseli, and Company. Limited, La Belle ^auvage, Ludgate Hill, London, E.G.
LtL'
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;(librakyj;
SIMS, G.R.
Living London.
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