Picturesque Sketches of London, Past and Present

by Thomas Miller

“There was nought but mourning weeds,
And sorrow and dismay;
Where burial met with burial still,
And jostled by the way.”—Hogg.

The “Registrar-General” but gives an account of those who died; but marshals up the forces which have joined the ranks of Death; how and where they fell are briefly touched upon; but a description of the battle-ground, with all those little accessories of moving light and shadow which enrich the picture, he leaves to other hands, for they come not within the compass of his graver duties. Though the task is far removed from a pleasant one, it is necessary that we should preserve some record of this eventful season, so that in after-years, when our pages are referred to, a faithful photograph, taken at the true moment of time, may therein be found. All day long was that sullen bell tolling—from morning to night, it scarcely ceased a moment; for as soon as it had rung the knell of another departed spirit, there was a fresh funeral at the churchyard-gate, and again that “ding-dong” pealed mournfully through the sad and sultry atmosphere. Those who were left behind, too ill to join the funeral procession, heard not always the returning footsteps of the muffled mourners, for sometimes Death again entered the house while they were absent; and when they reached home they found another victim ready to be borne to the grave: then they sat down and wept in very despair. Death came no longer as of old, knocking painfully at the door of life, but strode noiselessly in, and, before one was well aware, smote his victim—no one could tell how, for the strong man, who appeared hale and well one hour, was weak and helpless the next, and fell without knowing whence the blow came.

Little children were clothed suddenly in black, almost before they could reconcile themselves to the belief that they had lost their parents. Before they could well understand why their father slept so long, or was placed in a dark box, and carried out at the door in such haste, the mother had also ceased to live; and then they began to comprehend their loss, and wept bitterly to find themselves fatherless, motherless, and destitute. Some of these were so little, that they could but just repeat their prayers. Never more would they kneel at the feet of that dear, fond mother, as they had done but a night or two before; never more would those eyes beam on them again, or that sweet voice patiently instruct them, and, with a smile, repeat the words over and over again, until they knew them all by rote. Alas! they were the other night borne to a strange bed; a strange face bent over them—and, when they rose to kiss it, it turned away. Then the little orphans pressed each other more closely, and wept louder for the loss of their mother. At last, their sobbing subsided, though not until long after they had fallen asleep, perchance on the hard workhouse bed—even those who were before nursed so delicately that the cold wind had never visited their tender cheeks. Many such sudden changes as these have we met with; homes in which one day happiness and comfort reigned, changed on the morrow to the abodes of sorrow, anguish, and naked destitution; or, by the end of the week, empty and closed!

“Life and thought have gone away side by side,
Leaving door and windows wide;
Careless tenants they!
All within is dark as night: in the windows is no light,
And no murmur at the door, so frequent on its hinge before.
Close the door—the shutters close,
Or through the windows we shall see
The nakedness and vacancy
Of the deserted house.”—Tennyson.

In some houses all died; and after the dilapidated building had been closed a few days, other tenants took possession, and, in two or three of these changes, the new tenants also perished—the mercenary landlords never breathing a word about what had befallen the others. The putrid cesspool and stagnant sewer still yawned and bubbled and steamed in the sunshine, and poisoned all who inhaled the deadly gases; and when but few human beings were left, an investigation took place, and the evil was removed. In several death-engendering courts the whole of the inhabitants were driven out, and fresh shelter found for them until their wretched dwellings were purified.

So few at first escaped after they were attacked by the malignant and mysterious disease, that you looked upon them as persons who had trodden the confines of another world—as beings rescued from the jaws of death, and destined to accomplish some great mission. You gazed on them in awe and wonder. Those in the prime of life, and ruddy with apparent health, fell around you like summer flowers beneath the scythe of the mower. Then medical men of long standing began to drop off: you missed one here, and another there, and with them hope at last fled. “They cannot save themselves,” exclaimed the terror-stricken populace; “then how can we hope to escape if the disease overtake us?” Old nurses who had grown grey in the service of Death shrank back and shuddered as they heard themselves summoned to attend the sick. Thousands who had the means fled into the country and hastened to the sea-side, where they thought themselves secure; but the wings of the Angel of Death threw a melancholy shadow over the whole land.

Stout-hearted men who had families started suddenly from their sleep in the dead of night, if they only heard one of their children moaning in its slumber: words muttered in a dream were like a sharp icicle thrust into the heart, for they feared that the Destroyer had come; and they knew that he seldom retired without carrying off his victim. In old tavern-parlours, where the same company had assembled for years, the sounds of merriment were no longer heard. Men spoke to one another “with bated breath;” inquired who was dead, and who dying; and if some old acquaintance was but a few minutes behind his usual time, they sat gazing on his vacant chair in silence, or perchance one ventured to inquire in a whisper if he had been seen that night. Many shook hands at the tavern-doors, went home, and never met again. Four in the morning was a dreaded hour, and numbers no doubt died through fright who were attacked in the faint dawning of the day, for they believed that time to be fatal. In some streets five or six shops that stood together were closed—many were not opened again for several days. You saw the windows standing open day and night, but not a living soul stirred within those walls. Many who died were removed in the night: sometimes twenty were buried in one grave.

Then the cry arose that the churchyards were too full, that there was no longer any room for the dead. “I must find room, or I shall be ruined,” exclaimed the sexton; “it cost me all I had in the world to get elected.” The grave-digger threw down his spade, wiped the perspiration from his brow, and said, “Our occupation’s gone.” The cry increased; and then the incessant tolling of the bell ceased; for an order was issued that the dead should no longer rout the dead, or their sleep be broken almost before the features had been effaced by slow decay. Then Death ceased to become his own avenger; for when he found that the secrets of his dark dominions were no more to be laid bare to the open eye of day, he no longer smote those who trod reverentially on the verge of his territories. The streets were no longer darkened with funerals; you no longer saw men running in every direction with coffins on their heads, knocking at doors, and delivering them with no more ceremony or feeling than the postman delivers his letters. The solemn hearse and the dark mourning-coach now moved slowly along, and the dead were borne away to green and peaceful cemeteries, far removed from the dwellings of the living. Nuisances were removed—sewers were cleansed—the abodes of the poor purified, and at last rendered habitable; and then “the plague was stayed.”

It seemed as if the winds of Heaven, which had been driven away for want of breathing-room, came back again, and flapped their “healing wings” above the homes of mankind; as if they were weary of wandering over the houseless sea, and gladly returned to sweep through the lofty streets and open squares, from which they had been driven by the poison-traps which were set every where to destroy them. The sun again gladdened the day, and the round moon walked up the starry steep of heaven, while the sky bared its blue bosom, and shewed that the silvery clouds still slumbered there as tranquilly as if the Destroying Angel had never thrown his shadow betwixt earth and heaven.

Alas, the sun rose upon a shore strown with wrecks, and blackened with the bodies of the dead! If the eye alighted upon the living, it every where settled upon a group of mourners. Death had gone like a gleaner through the land, and taken an ear from every field. Where before had stood a bed of flowers, one resting upon and supporting another, a bare and open gap was found; and too often the tallest, around which the rest clung, had withered, and fallen and died. The place they had once known “would know them no more for ever.” The young bride, before the honeymoon had waned, came forth in her widowed weeds. Their first-born child came too late into the world to look on the face of its father. Sometimes the young mother fell before her infant had seen the light: the opening rose and the unfolded bud perished together. Respectable families fell from a state of comfort to almost naked destitution in a single night, leaving no mark on the steps of the ladder of time, by which men rise and fall, but plunging headlong to the foot of it in a moment. Some had passed many years in faithful servitude, and at last attained the long-coveted promotion. The larger house, so often talked of, was taken; they entered, and so did Death: the father fell, and with him all their hopes for ever perished. Since that day the garden-roller has never been moved, and where the spade was thrust into the ground when the improvements first commenced, there it rests: perchance the robin may alight upon the handle, and there chant his mournful anthem; but one branch is sawn from the overhanging tree that darkened the drawing-room window; all the rest remain untouched, for the workmen have departed. The merry Christmas so often talked of was a mournful meeting within those walls. What at another period would have formed a little history of trial, patient endurance, slow change, and long coming misfortune, was now accomplished almost as soon as one could say “It lightens.”