Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London Life

by Daniel Joseph Kirwan

When the gray in the sky begins to deepen, and the shades of night fall over and around this quiet square, then the scene changes, and life and bustle and noisy interchange of voices fill the solitary place, which the shabby gentility of the neighborhood cannot repress or keep down. Then the coffee-shops become vocal, the pot-houses are once more vivacious, and streams of thirsty and hungry men and women pour into these places, and come out refreshed with beer and replete with cheap but plenteous food. This neighborhood is savory with macaroni and oils, betokening the presence of the Italian element, who flock to Soho Square in great numbers when they arrive in London. There are "albergos" and wine-shops where you may obtain a quarter of a fowl for ninepence, and a bottle of Marsala, which is only a darker and stronger sherry under another name, and you can get olives and brandied cherries, at dessert, for a few pence. The women who attend in these places are fat, jolly-looking persons, with rounded forms, finely shaped faces, and magnificent black hair, done up in massive bands, and they sit many hours of the day knitting on low stools at the doors of these foreign-looking inns. The customers who frequent these places are wealthy organ-grinders, men who cast figures from potters' clay and plaster of Paris, musicians and porters in the Italian warehouses along the docks, medical students, Bohemians, and the riff raff in general. One of the clay figure men wanted to sell me a well executed full length figure of Thackeray, with his spectacled, kindly face, at 7s. 6d., for which I was asked a guinea in Drury Lane, the workmanship and material being fully as good in every essential.

In the heart of Soho Square is this little dark Carlisle street, and in the centre of Carlisle street is a small, dingy public-house, called the "Carlisle Arms," which is one of the resorts of the Bohemians of London.

COCKERELL'S LODGINGS.

This old place has been from time immemorial frequented by them, and here I was brought one cool September evening by the head clerk of one of the leading publishing houses of London. This clerk was still a young man, but he had the best knowledge of books and general literature that I have ever found in a man of his position. He knew at a glance how much a book would bring, who wrote it, when it was published, and how many copies were to be got, were they to be dug out of the mustiest book-stall in London. He had a familiar acquaintance with all the members of that strange tribe of litterateurs who contribute to the magazines and weekly and daily press of this the greatest newspaper city in the world. He knew who it was who wrote the last flash novel, how much he got for it, and whether he had drunk the proceeds or not. Every first and fourth class reporter in London, all the dramatic witlings and punsters, the great short-hand guns of the House of Commons, the book reviewers, and the dramatic and musical critics, were to him everyday acquaintances, and they all in turn paid him a cordial respect for his universal knowledge. I shall call him Cockerell, this marvel of booksellers' clerks.

At 8 o'clock I called at Cockerell's lodgings, which were in Rupert street, near Holborn. He lived quietly in a nice, cosy room, filled with rare and curious editions of the works of which he was most fond, and everything around the place, from the brass andirons to the quaint clock in the chimney place, betokened a steady-going, well-informed man. The "Newgate Calendar," "Cruikshank's Almanacs," for twenty years, finely illustrated, "The Slang Dictionary," "The Streets and Antiquities of London," "A History of Signboards," "Hansard's Debates," a folio "Shakespeare," "The Heads of the People," illustrated by Kenny Meadows, "Debrett's Peerage," "The Lords and Commons," several volumes of Balzac, a volume with the wills and autographs of the Doges of Venice, "Macaulay's Lays," some of "Sala's Sketches," a bound series of the Saturday Review, and some volumes of "Punch," were among his collection, besides a complete collection of the British plays, and a number of Gilray's sketches, framed, hung from the walls. "Show me a man's library, and I will tell you what he is," somebody has said, and I believe the above works, picked out of a large library, best explain the character of the head clerk who was to be my companion for the night's adventure. Putting on his collar, gloves, and an old slouch-hat, Cockerell and I reached the hall, where the maid-servant, looking suspiciously at the writer, inquired from her master what time he would be home.

"I don't know, Jenny, exactly," said he, "but it will be some time before the cocks crow."

Having arrived at the "Carlisle Arms," we walked in, passing the bar, and found our way through a low passage into a back room about twelve feet wide by fifteen in length. The ceiling was low, and there was no ornament to be seen with the exception of a steel engraving of the Duke of Wellington on horseback, surrounded by a mounted staff, and surveying through a field-glass the broken columns of the first Bonaparte from an elevation on the plain of Waterloo. There were but three persons in the room, which had a round oaken table in the centre, and a quadrangle of wooden benches,—when I entered. My well-informed friend was saluted with hearty greetings by all present, and was asked what he would have to drink. This is an anachronism in English customs, for the people of this tight little island generally allow a friend to pay for his own drink, as a custom which has long ago been endorsed by the best authorities. There is no such folly known here as may be seen in every American public house, where the free and independent electors stand at a bar each hour in every day, treating one and the other with a promiscuous and reckless generosity. But among Bohemians all over the world it is different. If they cannot pay for a drink, they will call for it and treat each other with a liberality which is, to say the least, a most praiseworthy trait.

A PINT OF COOPER.

I forgot to mention that there were two vases, with faded artificial flowers, on the rusty old chimney-piece, and these flowers seemed to the Bohemians like the waters of an oasis in the desert to a party of Bedouins. All else was a blighted, sandy waste of small talk, tobacco smoke, and weak gin and water. The principal spokesman of the party, who was quite bald-headed and had but two or three teeth, rang the bell behind the door, and presently the pot-boy appeared. In the lowest of London publics the pot-boy waits upon the customers, washes the pewter pots, and cleans the tables with a dish-cloth, for a stipend of ten shillings a week in British coin. The pot-boy had not more than made his appearance when in came the bar-maid, with natural light hair, one of the first bar-maids I had seen in London whose hair was not dyed.