Picturesque Sketches of London, Past and Present

by Thomas Miller

The game you brought home yourself was never sweet; what the landlady purchased for you was always good. Many cheap game-hawkers came to the door; and sometimes the landlady was dining off a fine pheasant, while your own was thrown into the dust-bin.

The whole household were troubled with bad memories, and were always making mistakes. If you laid out a pair of trousers or a coat to be repaired, you found sixpence or ninepence on the mantelpiece a morning or two after, which was all the old clothesman would give for them. Then they were very sorry, but that stupid girl was always making some mistake or another, and the landlady would call on the tailor herself another time. There were no queen’s-heads in those days; and when we sent the money to prepay a letter, they invariably forgot to stamp “paid” on it at the post-office, though the girl knew to an inch where she had put the money at the time, and could remember every thing that was on the counter; and sometimes she said she had put the money in the scales, and was sure it could not have rolled off and fallen on the floor. Butter in these houses was very solid: it was wonderful what a thin slice you had for half a pound, though the Cinderella of the establishment swore that she saw it bump the scale down. Your linen wore out very fast, and, after the buttons began to come off, they were never fit to be sent to the laundress again. Your stockings stood darning twice; pocket-handkerchiefs and light gloves the landlady was kind enough to purchase for you every week. Your brushes, hair-brushes, combs, &c. were, of course, common property. They sent you up the newspaper about five minutes before the boy called for it, provided every body below had done with it.

In some of these houses every thing about you is cold, hard, bright, and uncomfortably clean, as if always ready to be let—“got up,” as it were, to strike every new comer. If you drop a crumb on the carpet it is picked up before your face, by way of a gentle hint; a stain of ink on the table-cover you would never hear the last of. Some mysterious kind of white cabbage-network covers the back of the easy chair, and lies grinning at you, full of holes, all over the sofa; you see nothing but knots, and would as soon think of finding ease were you to lie down on a stone floor strewn with bullets as on that hard white knotted cordage. Everything in the room is for show, nothing for comfort. The mantelpiece is covered with articles which are neither ornamental nor useful: shells, four a shilling; a couple of white delf candlesticks; two old hand-screens, picked up dirt-cheap at an auction; in the centre three ugly-shaped earthenware articles, red, blue, and gilt tarnished, holding about a dozen spills each, which are never used—you are sick of seeing them reflected in the long mirror which was bought a bargain. If you have a handful of fire in the cold glittering grate on a bitter winter night, it makes you shiver to look at it: the poker looks so bright and chilling, you are afraid to touch it; and if a piece of coal falls out, they come in to see if you called, for they are always listening. Sometimes you shove your boot toe into the fire in utter desperation, or walk up and down the room, and storm heartily for exercise. You feel as if you would like to kick the couple of cursed carpet-covered hassocks about to warm you, and end by knocking down the fire-irons, to break the homeless silence. Never, in such places, on any account, begin to sharpen your razors near midnight, for the Evil One seems ever to be lurking in the gloomy corners of such cheerless houses, and there is no knowing what thoughts he might put into your head.

These are the class of houses in which you see neat bills in the windows, announcing “Respectable Apartments for Single Gentlemen.” They never admit children into these old, keen, money-making lodging-houses: the echoes of those houses are never broken by childish laughter, nor these creaking floors shaken by merry romps; they like your shy, silent, bashful man, who submits quietly to every imposition; for they care not what he thinks, so long as he complains not openly.

In some streets you find lodging-houses inhabited by three distinct classes, who are as much separated from each other as if they lived fifty miles apart. The poor inhabitant in the attic may be dying while the first-floor lodger is entertaining a party of friends; and although they have both dwelt under the same roof for years, it is likely enough that not a single word was ever exchanged between them.

The lodger who occupies the first floor seldom condescends to speak to the “common people” who live in the garrets, for there is almost as much difference in their habits as there is between the aristocracy and the quiet plodding citizen. He who occupies the attic is very probably an honest hard-handed mechanic, who comes home to his dinner regularly at twelve o’clock, gives one loud single knock at the door, and is admitted by his poor but clean-looking wife: he wipes his feet carefully before going up stairs—first and second-floor doors never by any possible chance opening in the mean time. Second-floor comes with a bold double-knock, something between a bum-bailiff’s, a postman’s, and a tax-gatherer’s; he dines at one or two, and is on nodding terms with the first-floor; he persevered for months trying on a “Fine morning, sir,” and at last was made happy by a most surly “Very, sir.” He progressed a step farther one day by saying something unpleasant about the “common people up-stairs.” First-floor dines at three or four, if he is a clerk or holds some slight situation under government, obtained, perhaps, through his father selling his vote at a country election: he gives a regular “ran-tan-tan-tirra-irra-tir-tir-tir,” for he keeps a little draggle-tailed, dirty, poor parish-child, and she answers the door—that is “our servant.” The ground-floor people—that is, generally, the landlord and his family (if they do not live in the kitchen)—bow and smile at the first-floor from the parlour window: he is such a respectable “gent,” and pays so regular; has a gallon of spirits sent in at a time, and never disgraces the house by having in such beggarly things as half-a-hundred of coals and two bundles of wood.

But the picture is not complete without the children. First-floor have their hair plaited behind (if they are girls), and the ends of these long tails are tied with either blue or pink ribbon; they also wear little trousers, frilled about the ankles like little bantam-cocks, and strut about before the door like the above-named bird. Second-floor children are very tidy, as most of the washing is put out, and the mother can spare time to look after them; they are taught to “toady” to first-floor as soon as they have learned to talk; to call them “miss” or “master,” and their father and mother “pa” and “ma.” Your heart aches while you look on the canting little creatures, whose every motion is watched by the eyes of the parents. Second-floor’s children are always to blame if any thing goes wrong, and the lick-spittle parents chide their children for the faults of the others, to keep in with first-floor. You have in those dear children a true picture of the humbug and hollow-heartedness of the insincere portion of mankind.

Mean time, third-floor are sitting on the top landing, eating dry bread, their hands and faces very dirty through playing with the coal-scuttle, while their poor, pale, industrious mother is busy washing. But they will be taken out for a walk somewhere on Sunday, and for one day in the week be the happiest party under that roof. We are sorry that this savage-looking picture is true to nature; but on scanning it narrowly, there is not a single feature that we ought to soften down.

Happy are they who can find lodging-houses in London in which they can feel “at home.” That there are thousands of these comfortable places, we entertain no doubt of; the worst of it is, young men are too fond of shifting about, and have not patience to wait until they become accustomed to the ways of these really respectable people. “Slow” has become a bad word of late; and they are generally empty-headed, think-much-of-themselves, “fast,” frothy fellows, who use it. “Slow and sure” was an old saying, often quoted by our wise forefathers.

Considering how cheerless and comfortless many of these lodging-houses are, we cease to wonder at the number of taverns and coffee-houses which abound in London, and should be glad to see a few more such admirable institutions as the Whittington Club, for we here see at least one cause why they are so much frequented. How lonely seems a place (except to a man whose studious habits require solitude), on a long winter night, where a young man has to sit five or six hours without having a living soul to speak to. He lights his lucifer-match, and, as the faint blue speck slowly bursts into flame, he looks round upon the voiceless solitude, and sighs. He sets a light to the sticks and coal which the char-woman or the dirty Cinderella placed in the grate, after they had arranged his bedroom in the morning, and for a time the crackling of the fire seems like pleasant companionship. Then the church-clock tolls slowly and sadly, and he yawns while he thinks of the weary hours that have yet to pass away before bedtime. He makes his own tea—or, perchance, the little dirty servant, who has sixpence a week and her “wittals,” brings it up: when he has finished, he rings the bell, the things are cleared away, and then he may hang himself if he pleases, quite certain that the deed would never be discovered until the morrow. Were he taken ill, and to ring the bell, the little servant would be sent to fetch a doctor, if the lodger had the wherewithal to pay; if not, they would advise him to go to one of the hospitals. If he required attendance, some old woman (fond of gin), who had perhaps been discharged from the hospitals for drunkenness, would be hired to nurse him, grumbling every time she entered the room, and declaring that she could not find a single thing she wanted in the house. Perhaps on the first day of his illness he would receive notice to quit the apartments at the end of the week: we have witnessed such conduct in a keen money-making London lodging-house in our day, and had much ado to prevent ourselves from throwing the mercenary wretch down-stairs who had given the helpless lodger warning to leave. In such houses as these there are always apartments to let, for very few stay a day longer than they are compelled.