THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION.
Dreadful Fire—Destruction of both Houses of Parliament—The Speaker’s House gutted—Reports of Incendiarism.
IT is our unexpected lot to announce that the Houses of Lords and Commons, so often threatened with combustion, are in a state of actual ignition. At this moment, both fabrics are furiously burning. We are writing this paragraph without the aid of lamp or candles; by the mere reflection of the flames. Nothing is known of the origin of the fire, although it is throwing a light upon everything else.—Evening Star.
The devouring element which destroyed Covent Garden and Drury Lane, the Royalty and the Pantheon, has made its appearance on a new stage, equally devoted to declamatory elocution. St. Stephen’s Chapel is in flames! The floor which was trodden by the eloquent legs of a Fox, a Burke, a Pitt, and a Sheridan, is reduced to a heap of ashes; and the benches which sustained the Demosthenic weight of a Wyndham, a Whitbread, and a Wilberforce, are a mere mass of charcoal. The very roof that re-echoed the classicalities of Canning is nodding to its fall. In Parliamentary language, Fire is in possession of the House: the Destructive spirit is on its legs, and the Conservative principle can offer but a feeble opposition.—Daily Post.
The blow is struck. What we have long foreseen has come to pass. Incendiarism triumphs! The whole British Empire, as represented by the three estates, is in a blaze! The Throne, the Lords, and the Commons, are now burning. The cycle is complete. The spirit of Guy Fawkes revives in 1834!
England seems to have changed places with Italy; London with Naples. We stand hourly on the brink of a crater; every step we take is on a solfaterra—not a land of Sol Fa, as some musical people would translate it; but a frail crust, with a treacherous subsoil of ardent brimstone! At length the eyes of our rulers are opened; but we must ask, could nothing short of such an eruption awaken them to a sense of the perilous state of the country? For weeks, nay, months past, at the risk of being considered alarmists, we have called the attention of the legislature and magistracy to a variety of suspicious symptoms and signs of the times, and in particular to the multiplied chemical inventions, for the purpose of obtaining instantaneous lights. Well are certain matches or fire-boxes called Lucifers, for they may be applied to the most diabolical purposes! The origin of the fire cannot raise the shadow of a doubt in any reasonable mind. Accident is out of the question. Tell us not of tallies. We have just tried our milk-woman’s, and it contained so much water, that nothing could make it ignite.—Britannic Guardian.
The Houses of Parliament are in flames. We shall stop the press to give full particulars. Our reporters are at the spot, and Mons. C——, the celebrated Salamander, is engaged to give a description of the blazing interiors, exclusively for this journal.—Daily Times.
From a Correspondent.
On Thursday evening, towards seven o’clock, I was struck by the singular appearance of the moon silvering the opposite chimneys with a blood-red light, a lunar phenomenon, which I conceived belonged only to our theatres. It speedily occurred to me that there must be a conflagration in my vicinity, and after a little hunting by scent as well as sight, I found myself in front of the Houses of Lords and Commons, which were burning with a rapidity and brilliancy that I make bold to say did not always characterise their proceedings. By favour of my natural assurance, which seemed to identify me with the firemen, I was allowed to pass through the lines of guards and policemen, who surrounded the blazing pile, and was thus enabled to select a favourable position for overlooking the whole scene. It was an imposing sight. The flames rose from the Peers’ in a volume, as red as the Extraordinary Red Book, and the House of Commons was not at all behind-hand in voting supplies of timber and other combustibles. Westminster Hall reminded me vividly of a London cry, “Hall hot, Hall hot,” that was familiar in our childhood—and the Gothic architecture of the Abbey seemed unusually florid. Instead of dingy stone, the venerable pile appeared to be built of the well-baked brick of the Elizabethan age. Indeed, so red-hot was its aspect, that it led to a ludicrous misapprehension on the part of the populace. A procession, bearing several male and female figures in a state of insensibility, naturally gave rise to the most painful conjectures, inferring loss of human life by the devouring element, but I have reason to believe it was only the Dean and Chapter saving the Wax-Work. As far as my own observation went, the first object carried out certainly bore a strong resemblance to General Monk.
In the meantime a select party had effected an entrance into the Hall, but not without some serious delay, occasioned, I believe, by somebody within bringing the wrong key, that belonged to a tea-caddy. However, at last they entered, and I followed their example. The first person I beheld was the veteran Higginbottom, so unfairly, but facetiously, put to death by the authors of the Rejected Addresses; for no man is more alive to his duty. But he was sadly hampered. First came one Hon. Gent. said to be Mr. Morrison, and insisted on directing the Hose department; and next arrived a noble Lord from Crockford’s, who wouldn’t sit out, but persisted in taking a hand, and playing, though every body agreed that he played too high. I mention this, because some of the journals have imputed mismanagement to the engines, and have insinuated that the pipes wanted organising; indeed, I myself overheard a noble director of the Academy of Music lamenting that the firemen did not “play in concert.”
PLAYING AT HAZARD.
The same remark applies with greater force to the House of Commons. Here all was confusion worse confounded, and Higginbottom’s station was enviable, compared with that of some of the poor fellows in St. Stephen’s Chapel. A considerable number of members had arrived, and without any attention to their usual parliamentary rules, were all making motions at once, which nobody seconded. The most prominent, I was informed, were Mr. Hume, Mr. O’Connell, Mr. Attwood, Mr. Buckingham, Mr. Pease, Sir Andrew, and Mr. Buxton—the latter almost covered with blacks. The clamour was terrific, and I really expected that the poor foremen who held the pipes would be torn in pieces. Every body wanted to command the Coldstream. Nothing but shouts of “Here! here! here!” answered like an Irish echo by cries of “There! there! there!” “Oh, save my savings!”—“My poor, Poor Bill!” “More water—more water for my Drunkenness!” “Work awa, lads, work awa—it’s no the Sabbath, and ye may just play at what ye like!”
In pleasing contrast to this tumult, was the unusual and cordial unanimity of the members of both Houses, in rescuing whatever was portable from the flames. It was a delightful novelty to see the Lords helping the Commons in whatever they moved or carried. No party spirit—no Whig, pulling at one leg of the table, whilst a Tory tugged at another in the opposite direction. They seemed to belong to the Hand-in-Hand. Peers and Commoners were alike seen burthened with loads of papers or furniture. Mr. Calvert, in particular, worked like any porter. Of course, in rescuing the papers and parchments, there was no time for inspecting their contents, and some curious results were the consequence. Every body remembers the pathetic story in the Tatler, of the lover who saved a strange lady from a burning theatre, under the idea that he was preserving the mistress of his affections, and some similar mistakes are currently reported to have occurred at the late conflagration—and equally to the chagrin of the parties. I go by hearsay, and cannot vouch for the facts, but it is said that the unpopular Six Acts, including what I believe is called the Gagging Act, were actually preserved by Mr. Cobbett. Mr. O’Connell saved the Irish Coercion Bill, whilst the Reform Bill was snatched like “a brand out of the fire,” by a certain noble Duke, who resolutely set his face against it in all its stages! Amongst others, Mr. Ricardo saved an old tattered flag, which he thought was “the standard of value.”
CRIBBAGE:—ONE FOR HIS NOB AND TWO FOR HIS HEELS.
However deficient in general combination, and concentration of energies, individual efforts were beyond all praise. The instances of personal exertion and daring were numerous. Mr. Rice worked amidst the flames till he was nearly baked; and everybody expected that Mr. Pease would be parched. The greatest danger was from the melted metal pouring down from the windows and roof. The heads of some of the Hon. Gentlemen were literally nothing but lead. Great apprehensions were entertained of the falling in of one of the walls, which eventually gave way, but fortunately everybody had retreated on the timely warning of a gentleman, Mr. O’Connell, I believe, who declared that he saw a Rent in it.
I did not enter the House of Lords, which was now one mass of glowing fire, but directed my attention towards the Speaker’s mansion, which was partially burning. The garden behind was nearly filled with miscellaneous property—and numbers of well-dressed gentlemen were every moment rushing into the house, from which they issued again, laden with spits, sauce-pans, and other culinary implements. I, myself, saw one zealous individual thus encumbered—with a stew-pan on his head, the meat-screen under one arm, the dripping-pan under the other, the frying-pan in his right hand, the grid-iron in his left, and the rolling-pin in his mouth. Indeed, it is said that every article in the kitchen was saved down to the salt-box; and the cook declares that such was the anxiety to save her she was “cotched up in twelve gentlemen’s arms, and never felt her feet till the corner of Abingdon Street.”
The whole of the Foot Guards were in attendance, as well as a great number of the police, but the thieves had mustered in great force, and there was a good deal of plundering, which was however checked temporarily by a gentleman said to be one of the members and magistrates for Essex, who jumped up on a railing and addressed the populace to the following effect, “How do you hall dare!”
The origin of the fire is involved in much mystery; nor is it correctly ascertained by whom it was first discovered. Some say that one of the serjeants, in taking up the insignia, was astonished to find the mace as hot as ginger. Others relate that a Mr. Spell, or Shell, or Snell, whilst viewing the House, although no dancer, began suddenly, and in his boots, to the utter amazement of his companions and Mrs. Wright, the housekeeper, to jump and caper like a bear upon a hotted floor. This story certainly seems to countenance a report that the mischief originated in the warming apparatus, an opinion that is very current, but, for my own part, I cannot conceive that the Collective Wisdom, which knows how to lay down laws for us all, should not know how to lay down flues. Rumours of Incendiarism are also very generally prevalent, and stories are in circulation of the finding of half-burnt matches and other combustibles. But these facts rest on very frail foundations. The links said to have been found in the Speaker’s garden have turned out to be nothing but German sausages; and another cock-and-a-bull that has got abroad will probably come to no better end. A Mr. Dudley affirms that he smelt the fire before it broke out, at Cooper’s Hill; but such olfactories are too much like manufactories to be believed.
I am, Sir, your most obedient Servant,
X. Y. Z.
Another Account.
The writer of these lines, who resides in Lambeth, was first awakened to a sense of conflagration by a cry of “Fire” from a number of persons who were running in the direction of Westminster Bridge. Owning myself a warm enthusiast on the subject of ignition, and indeed not having missed a fire for the last fifty years, except one, and that was only a chimney, it may be supposed the exclamation in question had an electric effect. We are all the slaves of some physical bias, strange as it may appear to others with opposite tendencies. It is recorded of some great marshal that he disliked music, but testified the liveliest pleasure at a salvo of artillery or a roll of thunder, and the rumble of an engine has the same effect on the author of these lines. To say I am a guebre, or fire-worshipper, is only to confess the truth. I have a sort of observatory erected on the roof of my house, from which, if there be a break-out within the circuit of the metropolis, it may be discovered, and before going to bed I invariably visit this look-out.
Every man has his hobby-horse, and, figuratively speaking, mine was always kept harnessed and ready to run to a fire with the first engine. Many a time I have arrived before the turncocks, though I perhaps had to traverse half London, and I scarcely remember an instance that I did not appear long before the water. Habit is second nature—I verily believe I could sniff a conflagration by instinct; and if I was not, I ought to have been, the trainer of the firemen’s dog, which at present attracts so much of the public attention, by his eager running along with the Sun, the Globe, the British, and the Hand-in-Hand.
“’TIS DISTANCE LENDS ENCHANTMENT TO THE VIEW.”
Of course I have seen a great many fires in my time—Rotherhithe, the theatres, the Custom-house, &c. &c. I remember in the days of Thistlewood and Co., when the metropolis was expected to be set on fire, I slept for three weeks in my clothes in order to be ready for the first alarm; for I had the good fortune to witness the great riots of 1780, when no less than eight fires were blazing at once, and a lamentable sight it was. I say lamentable, because it was impossible to be present at them all at the same time; but my good genius directed me to Langdale’s the Distiller, which made (excuse the vulgar popular phrase) a very satisfactory flare-up.
The Rotherhithe fire, not the recent little job, but some fifteen or twenty years ago, was also on a grand scale, and very lasting. The engine-pipes were wilfully cut; and I remember some of my friends rallying me on my well-known propensity, jocularly accusing me of lending my knife and my assistance. The Custom-house was a disappointment; it certainly cleared itself effectually, but it was done by day-light, and consequently the long-room fell short of my anticipations. Drury-lane and Covent-garden were better: but I have observed generally that theatres burn with more attention to stage effect. They avoid the noon; a dark night to a fire is like the black letters in a benefit-bill, setting off the red ones.
The destruction of the Kent Indiaman I should like to have witnessed, but contrary to the opinion of many experienced amateurs I conceive the Dartford Mills must have been a failure. Powder magazines make very indifferent conflagrations; they are no sooner on fire than they are off,—all is over before you know where you are, and there is no getting under, which quite puts you out. But fires, generally, are not what they used to be. What with gas, and new police, steam, and one cause or other, they have become what one might call slow explosions. A body of flame bursts from all the windows at once, and before B 25 can call fi-er in two syllables, the roof falls in, and all is over. It was not so in my time. First a little smoke would issue from a window-shutter, like the puff of a cigar, and after a long spring of his rattle, the rheumatic watchman had time to knock double and treble knocks, from No. 9 to No. 35, before a spark made its appearance out of the chimney-pot. The Volunteers had time to assemble under arms, and muffle their drums, and the bell-ringers to collect in the belfry, and pull an alarm peal backwards. The parish engines even, although pulled along by the pursy churchwardens, and the paralytic paupers, contrived to arrive before the fire fairly broke out in the shape of a little squib-like eruption from the garret-window. The affrighted family, fourteen in number, all elaborately drest in their best Sunday clothes, saved themselves by the street-door, according to seniority, the furniture was carefully removed, and after an hour’s pumping, the fire was extinguished without extending beyond the room where it originated, namely a bed-room on the second floor. Such was the progress in my time of a fire, but it is the fashion now to sacrifice everything to pace. Look at our race-horses, and look at our fox-hounds,—and I will add look at our conflagrations. All that is cared for is a burst—no matter how short, if it be but rapid. The devouring element never sits down now to a regular meal—it pitches on a house and bolts it.
But I am wandering from the point. The announcement of both Houses of Parliament being in flames thrilled through every fibre. It seemed to promise what I may call a crowning event to the Conflagrationary Reminiscences of an Octogenarian. I snatched up my hat, and rushed into the street, at eighty years of age, with the alacrity of eighteen, when I ran from Highgate to Horselydown, to be present at the gutting of a ship chandler’s. As the bard says—
“Ev’n in our ashes live their wonted fires,”
and I could almost have supposed myself a fireman belonging to the Phœnix. My first step into the street discouraged me, the moonlight was so brilliant, and in such cases the most splendid blaze is somewhat “shorn of its beams.” But a few steps reassured me. Even at the Surrey side of the river the sparks and burning particles were falling like flakes of snow—I mean of course the red snow formerly discovered by Captain Ross, and the light was so great that I could have read the small print of the Police Gazette with the greatest ease, only I don’t take it in. I of course made the best of my way towards the scene, but the crowd was already so dense that I could only attain a situation on the Strand opposite Cotton Gardens, up to my knees in mud. Both Houses of Parliament were at this time in a blaze, and no doubt presented as striking objects of conflagration as the metropolis could offer. I say, “no doubt,”—forgetting jammed against a barge with my back towards the fire, I am unable to state anything on my own authority as an eye-witness, excepting that the buildings on the Surreyside exhibited a glowing reflection for some hours. At last the flowing of the tide caused the multitude to retreat, and releasing me from my retrospective position allowed me to gaze upon the ruins. By what I hear, it was a most imposing sight—but in spite of my Lord Althorpe, I cannot help thinking that Westminster Hall, with its long range, would have made up an admirable fire. Neither can I agree with the many that it was an Incendiary Act, that passed through both houses so rapidly. To enjoy the thing, a later hour and a darker night would certainly have been chosen. Fire-light and moon-light do not mix well:—they are best neat.
I am, Sir, Yours, &c.,
SENEX.
Various Accounts.
WE are concerned to state that Sir Jacob Jubb the new member for Shrops was severely burnt, by taking his seat in the House, on a bench that was burning under him. The danger of his situation was several times pointed out to him, but he replied that his seat had cost him ten thousand pounds, and he wouldn’t quit. He was at length removed by force.—Morning Ledger.
A great many foolish anecdotes of the fire are in circulation. One of our contemporaries gravely asserts that the Marquis of Culpepper was the last person who left the South Turret, a fact we beg leave to question, for the exquisite reason that noble lord alluded to is at present at Constantinople.—The Real Sun.
We are enabled to state that the individual who displayed so much coolness in the South Turret was Captain Back.—The Public Journal.
FANCY PORTRAIT:—CAPTAIN BACK.
It is said that considerable interest was evinced by the members of the House of Commons who were present at the fire, as to the fate of their respective Bills. One honourable gentleman, in particular, was observed anxiously watching the last scintillations of some burnt paper. “Oh, my Sabbath Observances!” he exclaimed, “There’s an end of religion! There go the Parson and Clerk!”—Public Diary.
The Earl of M. had a very narrow escape. His lordship was on the point of kicking a bucket when a labourer rushed forward and snatched it out of the way. The individual’s name is M’Farrel. We understand he is a sober, honest, hard-working man, and has two wives, and a numerous family; the eldest not above a year old.—Daily Chronicle.
The exclamation of a noble lord, high in office, who was very active at the fire, has been very incorrectly given. The words were as follows:—“Blow the Commons! let ’em flare up—but oh,—for a save-all! a save-all.”—Morning News.
The public attention has been greatly excited by the extraordinary statement of a commercial gentleman, that he smelt the fire at the Cock and Bottle, in Coventry. He asserts that he mentioned the fact in the commercial room to a deaf gentleman, and likewise to a dumb waiter, but neither have any recollection of the circumstance. He has been examined before the Common Council, who have elicited that he actually arrived at Coventry on the night in question, by the Tallyho, and the near leader of that coach has been sent for by express.—New Monitor.
We were in error in stating that the Atlas was the first engine at the scene of action. So early as five o’clock Mr. Alderman A. arrived with his own garden engine, and began immediately to play upon the Thames.—British Guardian.
It must have struck everyone who witnessed the operations in the House of Commons, that there was a lamentable want of “order! order! order!” A great many gentlemen succeeded in making pumps of themselves, without producing any check on the flames. The conduct of the military also was far from unexceptionable. On the arrival of the Coldstream at the fire they actually refused to fall in. Many declined to stand at ease on the burning rafters—but what is the public interest to a private?—Public Advertiser.
Monsieur C.’s Account. (Exclusive.)
WHEN I am come first to the fire it was not long burnt up; and I was oblige to walk up and down the floor to keep myself warm. At last, I take my seat on the stove, quite convenient to look about. In the House of Commons there was nobody, and I am all alone. The first thing I observe was a great many rats, ratting about—but they did not known which way to turn. So they were all burnt dead. The flames grew very fast; and I am interested very much with the seats, how they burned, quite different from one another. Some seats made what you call a great splutter, and popped and bounced, and some other seats made no noise at all. Mr. Bulwer’s place burned of a blue colour; Mr. Buckstone’s turned quite black; and there was one made a flame the colour of a drab. I observe one green flame and one orange, side by side, and they hiss and roar at one another very furious. The gallery cleared itself quite quickly, and the seat of Messieurs the reporters, exploded itself like a cannon of forty-eight pounds. The speaking chair burnt without any sound at all.
When everything is quite done in the Commons I leave them off, and go to the House of Lords, where the fire was all in one sheet, and almost the whole of its inside burnt out. I was able in this room to take off my great coat. I could find nothing to be saved except one great ink-stand, that was red hot, and which I carry away in my two hands. Likewise here, as well as in the Commons, I bottled up several bottles of smoke, to distribute afterwards, at five guineas a-piece, and may be more; for I know the English people admire such things, and are fond after reliques, like a madness almost. I did not make a long stop, for whenever I was visible, the pompiers was so foolish as play water upon me, and I was afraid of a catch-cold. In fact, when I arrive at home, I find myself stuffed in my head, and fast in my chest, and my throat was a little horse. I am going for it into a bath of boiling water, and cannot write any more at full length.
A Letter to a Labouring Man.
BUSHELL,
When you made a holiday last Whitsuntide to see the Sights of London, in your way to the Waxwork and Westminster Abbey, you probably noticed a vast pile of buildings in Palace Yard, and you stood and scratched that shock head of yours, and wondered whose fine houses they were. Seeing you to be a country clodpole, no doubt some well-dressed vagabond, by way of putting a hoax upon the hawbuck, told you that in those buildings congregated all the talent, all the integrity and public spirit of the country—that beneath those roofs the best and wisest, and the most honest men to be found in three kingdoms, met to deliberate and enact the most wholesome, and just, and judicious laws for the good of the nation. He called them the oracles of our constitution, the guardians of our rights, and the assertors of our liberties. Of course, Bushell, you were told all this; but nobody told you, I dare say, that within those walls your master had lifted up his voice, and delivered the only sound, rational, and wholesome, upright, and able speeches that were ever uttered in St. Stephen’s Chapel. No, nobody told you that. But when I come home, Bushell, I will lend you all my printed speeches, and when you have spelt them, and read them, and studied them, and got them by heart, bumpkin as you are, Bushell, you will know as much of legislation as all our precious members together.
“OUR CONSTITUTION’S GONE!”
Well, Bushell, the fine houses you stood gaping at are burnt down, gutted, as the vulgar call it, and nothing is left but the bare walls. You saw Farmer Gubbins’ house, or, at least, the shell of it, after the fire there: well, the Parliament Houses are exactly in the same state. There is news for you! and now, Bushell, how do you feel? Why, if the well-dressed vagabond told you the truth, you feel as if you had had a stroke—for all the British Constitution is affected, and you are a fraction of it, that is to say, a British subject. Your bacon grows rusty in your mouth, and your table-beer turns to vinegar on your palate. You cannot sleep at night, or work by day. You have no heart for anything. You can hardly drag one clouted shoe after another. And how do you look? Why, as pale as a parsnip, and as thin as a hurdle, and your carroty locks stand bolt upright as if you had just met old Lawson’s ghost with his head under his arm. I say thus you must feel and look, Bushell, if what the well-dressed vagabond told you is the truth. But is that the case? No. You drink your small-beer with a sigh and smack of delight; and you bolt your bacon with a relish, as if, as the virtuous Americans say, you could “go the whole hog.” Your clouted shoes clatter about as if you were counting hobnails with the Lord Mayor, and you work like a young horse, or an old ass, and at night you snore like an oratorio of jews’ harps. Your face is as bold and ruddy as the Red Lion’s. Your carroty locks lie sleek upon your poll, and as for poor old Lawson’s ghost, you could lend him flesh and blood enough to set him up again in life. But what, say you, does all this tend to? I will tell you, Bushell. There are a great many well-dressed vagabonds, besides the one you met in Palace Yard, who would persuade a poor man that a House of Lords or Commons is as good to him as his bread, beer, beef, bacon, bed, and breeches; and therefore I address this to you, Bushell, to set such notions to rights by an appeal to your own back and belly. And now I will tell you what you shall do. You shall go three nights a week to the Red Lion (when your work is done), and you may score up a pint of beer, at my cost, each time. And when the parson, or the exciseman, or the tax-gatherer, or any such gentry, begin to talk of that deplorable great burning, and the national calamity, and such-like trash, you shall pull out my letter and read to them—I say, Bushell, you shall read this letter to them, twice over, loudly and distinctly, and tell them from me, that the burning of twenty Parliament Houses wouldn’t be such a national calamity as a fire at No. 1, Bolt Court.