Well do I remember the immense care which devotees of tobacco used to take, when sallying forth in the country to enjoy it, not to allow the faintest whiff of smoke to penetrate into the hall as they lit their cigars at the door. The whole thing was really ridiculous, but I suppose it would have still been going on had it not been for our present King, who most sensibly took the lead in promoting the toleration of what is, after all, a great addition to the pleasures of life.
Besides this, there can be no doubt that the cigarette-smoking now practically universally prevalent after lunch and dinner has been a considerable factor in the direction of temperance, and has ended the practice of consuming large quantities of wine, which in old days was more or less universal. On the whole, I believe that smoking does more good than harm, in spite of the attacks sometimes levelled against it. Cigarettes, of course, are a modern invention, but I believe they already existed in a slightly different form at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when old Peninsular officers used to smoke tobacco rolled up tight in a piece of paper. They called this a papelito, and I fancy it was much the same thing as a cigarette. The exact time when cigars were introduced into England seems very uncertain. In Westward Ho! Charles Kingsley pictures Amyas Leigh smoking a cigar, and it is to be presumed that he had authority for this. At the same time it is quite clear that cigars were hardly known in England at all as late as 1730, for the writer of a book published about that time, when describing the adventures of certain English sailors taken prisoners by a Spanish pirate in South America, notes with special astonishment that the captives were presented with “segars,” of which he gives a detailed description.
The greatest traditionary smoker is, of course, Dr. Parr, whose motto is said to have been, “No pipe—no Parr.” He is also declared to have once very wittily told a lady, who had triumphantly prevented him from indulging in his beloved tobacco, that “she was the greatest tobacco stopper in England.”
VIII
London of the past—Eccentricities of modern architecture—Dreary modern streets—Decay of the picturesque—The dignity of old London—“The only running footman”—Berkeley Square and its memories—Lady Cowper—Lord and Lady Haversham—Charles Street and Mayfair—Curzon Street and Piccadilly—Wimborne House—A great party—Changes since the ’sixties—The last of the apothecaries—Lady Londonderry—The Sultan and his Ambassadress—Shadows of the past.
MODERN ARCHITECTURE
Since the days when as a child I first knew London the outward aspect of most of the streets may be said to have completely changed. Up to within the last twenty years the alteration was not very marked, being for the most part gradual, but now a veritable architectural revolution seems to be taking place. Everywhere the boxlike Georgian house is passing away, and on all sides towering mansions with elaborate frontages in every possible style (some indeed being little but collections of decorative samples jumbled up together) are making their appearance. Amongst other eccentricities modern architects seem to have an especial love for small windows, which, considering the not over-abundant supply of sunshine and light available in London, seem somewhat out of place. On one estate (I believe that belonging to the Duke of Westminster), a clause in every lease forbids the building of a house with any but windows of very moderate dimensions. In modern street architecture uniformity seems to have little place; it is, I fancy, considered inartistic by English architects, who, careless of the example of Mansard (the designer of the Place de la Concorde) and other men of the past, who were capable of really great architectural conceptions, imagine that decoration, no matter how exotic or inappropriate, produces a more striking effect than that well-proportioned, dignified, and graceful uniformity of construction to which, I fear, they are quite unable to attain. The best modern street in the West End, I think, is Mount Street, which, notwithstanding the diversity of style exhibited in the façades of the houses, is a really fine street, and one, moreover, not entirely unpicturesque. Most of the old streets in the West End are too narrow for the lofty houses now so frequently being erected. How the occupants of these mansions—overshadowed as they must be by other giant constructions facing them, and for the most part only furnished with ridiculous little windows—ever obtain any light, is a mystery which I think their builders would be considerably puzzled to explain. The old Georgian houses were quite devoid of any pretension to especial decorative merit, but some of them were not lacking in a certain dignity of proportion, whilst ample provision for the admission of light was always to be found. The ironwork of the railings was also in some cases extremely artistic, never erring (as almost invariably does modern ironwork) in the direction of over-elaboration and meaningless eccentricity.
In former years Punch and Judy shows were quite common in the London streets, but they are now rarely to be met with, and the piano-organs look like sharing their fate, for of late there has been a great diminution in their numbers, and few are now to be heard in the West End. They have indeed been practically banished from many squares and streets, in some of which draconian edicts are posted up against them. Personally I rather deplore their disappearance, but then I have never had the slightest pretension to being endowed with a musical ear, and I suppose many people find them a great nuisance. Nevertheless, all the barrel-organs in London could not produce anything like the din made by that clanging and clattering conveyance, the motor omnibus. The old red-coated crossing-sweepers are now also almost a thing of the past, though one or two are still to be seen striking a picturesque note in certain squares; modern methods of road-cleaning have, however, rendered this humble vocation more or less obsolete. Some years ago street vendors shouting out their picturesque cries still survived as a feature of some London streets, but now, I believe, there are regulations preventing any one shouting out anything, and even the newsboys, who formerly used to utter the most strident cries when shouting out news, real or imaginary, have been sternly bidden to hold their peace.
DECAY OF THE PICTURESQUE
Rowlandson or Wheatley would find no picturesque types in London streets to-day, from which even the Guy Fawkes celebrations, not very long ago pretty well universal, have now been practically banished. As for the Jack of the Green, with his attendants, he has long become but a memory of other days, and with him has gone that strange instrumentalist who, playing any number of instruments, may be said to have been a musical host in himself. The tendency of the age now seems distinctly hostile to everything which is not regulated, and a good-humoured toleration is no longer meted out to the picturesque, if somewhat disreputable, characters who were formerly well-known features of certain thoroughfares. London, indeed, is altogether a different and, no doubt, a much more orderly city than when Pierce Egan’s heroes, Corinthian Tom and Jerry Hawthorn, were witnessing the day and night scenes which Cruikshank pictured with such quaint and inimitable skill.