Another startling change is in the matter of duels. The duels in Pickwick come about quite as a matter of course, and as a common social incident. In the “forties” I recall a
military uncle of my own—a gentleman, like uncle Toby—handing his card to some one in a billiard room, with a view to “a meeting.” Dickens’ friend Forster was at one time “going out” with another gentleman. Mr. Lang thinks that duelling was prohibited about 1844, and “Courts of Honour” substituted. But the real cause was the duel between Colonel Fawcett and Lieut. Munro, brothers-in-law, when the former was killed. This, and some other tragedies of the kind, shocked the public. The “Courts of Honour,” of course, only affected military men.
Mr. Pickwick, himself, had nearly “gone out” on two or three occasions, once with Mr. Slammer, once with Mr. Magnus; while his scuffle with Tupman would surely have led to one. Winkle, presumed to be a coward, had no less than three “affairs” on his hands: one with Slammer, one with Dowler, and one with Bob Sawyer. At Bob Sawyer’s Party, the two medical students,
tendered their cards. For so amiable a man, Mr. Pickwick had some extraordinary failings. He seems to have had no restraint where drink was in the case, and was hopelessly drunk about six times—on three occasions, at least, he was preparing to assault violently. He once hurled an inkstand; he once struck a person; once challenged his friend to “come on.” Yet the capital comedy spirit of the author carries us over these blemishes.
When Sam was relating to his master the story of the sausage maker’s disappearance, Mr. Pickwick, horrified, asked had he been “Burked?” There Boz might have repeated his apologetic footnote, on Jingle’s share in the Revolution of 1830. “A remarkable instance of his force of prophetic imagination, etc.” For the sausage story was related in the year of grace 1827, and Burke was executed in 1829, some two years later.
Mr. Lang has suggested that the bodies Mr. Sawyer and his friend subscribed for,
were “snatched,” but he forgets that this traffic was a secret one, and the bodies were brought to the private residence of the physicians, the only safe way (Vide the memoirs of Sir A. Cooper). At a great public Hospital the practice would be impossible.
“Hot elder wine, well qualified with brandy and spice,” is a drink that would not now be accepted with enthusiasm at the humblest wedding, even in the rural districts: we are assured that sound “was the sleep and pleasant were the dreams that followed.” Which is not so certain. The cake was cut and “passed through the ring,” also an exploded custom, whatever its meaning was. In what novel now-a-days would there be an allusion to “Warren’s blacking,” or to “Rowland’s oil,” which was, of course, their famous “Macassar.” These articles, however, may still be procured, and to that oil we owe the familiar interposing towel or piece of embroidery the “antimacassar,” devised to protect the sofa or easy chair from the
unguent of the hair. “Moral pocket handkerchiefs,” for teaching religion to natives of the West Indies, combining amusement with instruction, “blending select tales with woodcuts,” are no longer used.
Old Temple Bar has long since disappeared, so has the Holborn Valley. The Fleet was pulled down about ten years after Pickwick, but imprisonment for debt continued until 1860 or so. Indeed Mr. Lang seems to think it still goes on, for he says it is now “disguised as imprisonment for contempt of Court.” This is a mistake. In the County Courts when small debts under £3 10s. are sued for, the judge will order a small weekly sum to be paid in discharge; in case of failure to pay, he will punish the disobedience by duress not exceeding fifteen days—a wholly different thing from imprisonment for debt.