Surely no passer-by can walk under the porch of Gilbey’s offices in Oxford Street without shuddering at the many sad scenes that ancient portico and that ancient street have witnessed.
It was beneath it that De Quincey nightly waited for poor Anne when both were on the verge of starvation; and it was there that he poured out his lamentations of the stony-hearted stepmother—Oxford Street.
The same miseries exist in the present day, and every night bundles of human rags lie huddled together under its inhospitable shelter; whilst within, the old Pantheon—delight of our childhood when it was a huge bazaar—blazes with electric light as the headquarters of a certain whisky which, advertisements tell us, may be procured of 3,000 agents.
The trial and execution of Müller in ’64 for the murder of Mr. Briggs in one of the tunnels on the Brighton Railway, created more universal excitement than anything before or since, except, perhaps, the case of Mrs. Maybrick. On the night before his execution, the German Ambassador was closeted with the Home Secretary at the urgent request of his Government, and petitions innumerable were presented; but the Home Secretary was a firm man, and the culprit was duly hanged next morning in front of Newgate. Personally, I was sceptical of his guilt, and so interested was I that I obtained an order to visit Newgate, and by the judicious expenditure of a shilling, peeped through the observation hole of the condemned cell; later on I saw him hanged, and it was only on his confession to the Lutheran minister, just before the bolt was drawn, that I admitted the justice of the sentence. But the fair-haired Saxon youth of refined and prepossessing appearance had got on my nerves, and when, a week later, his effigy was advertised as having been added to Tussaud’s Wax-works, I determined to again see the youth, whom I had last seen being jerked into eternity.
In those days the exhibition was in the Baker Street Bazaar, and if the premises were not as roomy as the present palatial building, they certainly appeared to me “snugger.” The Chamber of Horrors was snugness itself.
It was whilst exploring this dismal chamber that an attendant told me that wax figures were the most improvident creatures in the world; that they ran their toes through their stockings with reckless unconcern, and that two or three people were constantly employed darning and mending the belongings of these weird beings.
As I left the building I pondered over what I had seen and heard, and soon discovered I had not heard the last of Müller yet. This is what I saw, or fancied I saw, in my dreams:
As I entered the Chamber of Horrors a few nights after, Müller—whose pose is of the meekest and most becoming—suddenly shot out his arm, and, pointing at me, exclaimed in a loud and guttural voice: “Seize him, seize him; the man!” Then Rush and Greenacre and a host of others yelled and execrated me, and Mrs. Manning (whose crime was probably the cruellest on record) shrieked like a curlew: “Seize him, seize him!” On this I dropped my umbrella—a weakness that I trust will be deemed pardonable—under the circumstances—and immediately followed it with a terrific flop on the floor; so terrific, indeed, was it that it brought me to my senses, and I awoke in a cold perspiration in Jermyn Street.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE HOSTELRIES OF THE SIXTIES.
Long’s Hotel, in Bond Street, as it appeared in the sixties, was a species of adjunct to half the clubs in London. Men playing till three or four in the morning in clubs that aspired to being considered “correct” usually adjourned to Long’s, and one man having engaged a bedroom, the rest trooped in after him. To such an extent, indeed, was this recognised, that a commodious bedroom on the ground floor was especially set apart for these nocturnal emergencies, and within five minutes of entering the most methodical of night porters produced cards, candles, and the inevitable brandy and sodas. Here play of a very high order frequently took place, and here also drunken rows and card disputes often ensued, unrestrained by the unwritten sanctity of a high-class club. It was here that a well-known baronet—long since dead—had a barging match with a peer still above the horizon, but rarely visible to the naked eye, where, after strong language, blows were exchanged, and a meeting arranged across the Channel, which happily never came off, the belligerents agreeing, after calm reflection, that dirty linen was best washed at home, as their respective laundry baskets were considerably overfreighted as it was and needed no further handicapping in the way of publicity; it was here that a young ass—still living—paid £4,000 for a broken-down ex-Derby horse that would have been dear at £100.