The barber's chair; and, The hedgehog letters

by Douglas William Jerrold

Well, I drove as near as I could to the place, and then I got a boy to hold the horse, and got down and went along with my fare. If it didn’t make me quite savage and sick, Sam, to see hundreds of fellows—well-dressed gentry, mind you—gaping and lounging about, and now poking the grass with their sticks, as if it was something precious because blood had been shed upon it, and now breaking bits of the trees about the place, I suppose to make toothpicks and cribbage-pegs of. And then there were fathers—precious fools!—bringing their children with them, boys and girls, as though they’d brought ’em to a stall of gingerbread nuts, where they might fill their bellies and be happy! But the worst of all, Sam, was to see the women. Lots of ’em nice, young, fair creatures, tender as if they were made of best wax—there they were running along and looking at the bushes and the grass, and talking of the blood and the death-struggle, just as if they were looking at and talking of the monkeys at the ’Logical Gardens. Well, the handsomest of ’em after a time looked to me no better than young witches—and that’s the truth. Every minute I expected some of ’em to do a polka, they did after a time seem to enjoy themselves.

Well, all of a sudden I missed my fare. Looking about, I saw my gentleman go up to the brick wall. Then he took a heavy hammer out of his pocket, and knocking away, split a brick, and then knocked it out of the wall. “This is something like,” said he to me, twinkling his eye; “something to remember the murder by.” And then he carefully wrapt the pieces of brick in a silk handkerchief, and put ’em in his breast-pocket, as if they’d been lumps of diamonds. I said nothing—but I could have kicked him. However, he hadn’t done yet, for going to a part of the field, he said to his wife—for so she proved to be—“This is the place, Arabella; the very place: where’s the pots?” Then the lady took three garden-pots from a basket, and then her husband, dropping upon his knees, turned up the earth with a large clasp-knife, and when he’d filled the pots, he dug up two or three daisy roots, and set ’em; his wife smiling and looking as happy all the while as if she’d got a new gown, or a new bonnet, or both. “Come,” said the gentleman, squinting at the daisy roots, and twisting one of the pots in his hand, “this is what I call worth coming for. As I say, this is something to recollect a murder by. Humph!” and then he paused a bit, and looked very wishfully at the stile—“Humph! I should like a walking-stick out of that; but the police are so particular, I suppose they wouldn’t suffer it. Come along, Arabella;” and securing the broken brick and the daisy roots in the pots, my gentleman went back to the cab. “Now drive as fast as you can to the church,” he said; “I wouldn’t but be there for any money.” Well, I never did drive through such a crowd, but at last I managed it; and at last—but no; I haven’t patience enough to write any more upon this part of it. There was nothing wanted in and about the churchyard to make it a fair, except a few stalls and suchlike. It made me sick, Sam, to look upon this murder’s holiday. I wish you’d have seen the Yorkshire Grey public-house! No sooner did they open the doors than there was as much scrambling as at any playhouse on boxing-night. Well, the landlord didn’t make a little by his gin that day! Murder proved a good customer to him! And then to see the hundreds and hundreds struggling and pushing to get to the bar—to hear ’em laughing and shouting—and seeing ’em tossing off their liquor,—upon my life, Sam, there was a mob of well-dressed, well-to-do Englishmen, that, considering what had brought them there, wasn’t half so decent as a crowd of Zealand savages.

Cricketing’s an English sport—so is single-stick—so are bowls—and so are nine-pins—and after what I’ve seen to-day, so, I’m sure of it, is murder. For my part, it does seem a little hard to hang the murderer himself, when it appears that he gives by his wickedness so much enjoyment to his fellow-subjects.

Well, Sam, I’m now come to the marrow of my letter, and it’s this. I do think, if you will only take pains, and have all the murders of the year nicely got up, you may make a capital penn’orth of the lot with your show at Christmas. Well, lords and ladies make a scrimmage for it at police-courts; and respectable, pious people take in newspapers for the very best likenesses of prisoners and cut-throats. I’m sure you’d get custom—if the thing was well done—ay, “of the nobility, gentry, and public in general.”

Now do, Sam, take my advice. Depend upon it, the pop’lar taste sets in for blood; and so, instead on winter’s nights a-going about with your old-fashioned cry of “Gallantee Show!” sing out “Mur-der!” and your fortune’s made. And so no more from your cousin and wellwisher,

Juniper Hedgehog.

Letter XI.—To Chickweed, Widow, Penzance.

Dear Mrs Chickweed,—It has given me a vast deal of concern that you should have been frightened by the ignorant reports in the newspapers. Don’t believe a word they say on the matter. It isn’t true that the churchyard where you laid Solomon Chickweed before you went back to your native place, is to be shut up—the tombstone to be taken down—and all future burials forbidden. It’s very true that St Clement’s Churchyard is in the middle of the Strand; but that’s no reason why folks shouldn’t be buried there, twenty deep, if the sexton can only as much as sprinkle ’em with a little grave-dust. Parliament knows better than to interfere in the matter. To be sure, there’s a great hubbub about public health; but what’s public health in comparison with church fees? Some meddlesome people have been writing a report about the burying at St Clement’s, and the report says, “Thus a diluted poison is given in exchange from the dead to the living in one of the most frequented thoroughfares in the metropolis.” So, you see, your late husband—poor fellow! he’d have been sorry to think it—may at this moment be helping to kill some of his oldest and best neighbours.

But what of that? Look at what is called the moral good these churchyards do in the middle of London. What wicked people we cockneys should be without ’em! Isn’t it plain that they keep a check upon us? that they make us think of life and death? that they often give us, so to speak, a pull up when we are about to stumble? Look at the state of all the tradespeople in the neighbourhood of such churchyards as St Giles’ and St Clement’s and St Bride’s, and a hundred others, within a few yards of shop counters. Why, they’re all pattern folks. They have all so constantly death in their eyes, that it makes ’em honest to their own disadvantage. Think, too, what it is for folks from the tops of omnibuses now and then to see funerals going on in the highways of London. Do you suppose that it doesn’t do them a world of good? To be sure; and that’s the reason the rectors and so forth of the churches in London have set their faces against the new-fangled cemeteries, where people are buried in quiet, with nobody but the mourners to see the ceremony. Don’t, Mrs Chickweed, think it’s for the fees: certainly not; it’s all for the sake of the souls of the giddy, sinful people of London. It’s true enough that what is called the “effluvia” from these churchyards may poison the bodies of the living, but what of that when it helps to keep the soul so sweet? I’m called away, and so for the present can add no more. If, however, at any time they think of disturbing Solomon, depend upon it, for old acquaintance’ sake, you will hear from me. Till then, I am your wellwisher,

Juniper Hedgehog.