But does any one who traverses the historic area between Soho Square and Charing Cross give a thought to the interest that once clustered round where Crosse and Blackwell’s factory now stands? Does any one realise whilst “held up” in a broken-down “Vanguard” in Shaftesbury Avenue that the neighbourhood once echoed with the Royalist battle-cry “So-ho” in the days of that greatest of Englishmen—Cromwell? Does any one ever give it a thought that Charing Cross was not so very long ago a resort of footpads, and that even so late as the Sixties the sweet waters of the somewhat putrid Thames oozed and bubbled where the District railway station now stands? And how few are aware that, when Drummond’s Bank was in course of construction, fossils of mammoth, cave lions, rhinoceros, and Irish deer were found; and that in future ages, excavations will probably unearth skeletons of hybrids we all try to dodge and whom naturalists will describe as voracious, living on suction, apt to beg, borrow, or steal, migratory to a limited extent, and usually to be met with between Charing Cross and St. Paul’s or on the plateaus that abut on the Criterion?
As an observant judge once remarked to one of these pariahs who filled up his cup of iniquities by snatching a fowl from a confiding poulterer’s, “God has given you intelligence; your parents have given you a good education; your country has provided you with excellent prospects both for the present and future, instead of which you go about stealing ducks.”
Passing still further west along the Strand, the changes of time and idea become more apparent as one contemplates that stronghold of Christianity—Exeter Hall—plastered with bills and lately passed into alien hands; and the period, the surging crowd, all lend themselves to the illusion, and one might almost fancy one heard the echo of 1,000 years ago, “Not this man, but Barabbas.”
Oh, the irony of Fate! methought; truly does Time turn the old days to derision; and one knows not whither one’s vapourings might have landed one as a zealous constable fixed his official eye upon the stoic who, deeming it advisable to “move on,” sought consolation, but found none, in an adjoining tobacconist’s by indulging in one of Salmon and Gluckstein’s real Havanas (five for a shilling).
Skimming (not wading through) the report of the Court of Inquiry lately dragging its monotonous length in the vicinity of the Chelsea embankment, one was struck by the change that has come over these senseless preliminaries, which occasionally end in smoke and sometimes in legalised military or civil tribunals. For such courts are as old as the hills, and are convened on every possible excuse. If a soldier loses a shoebrush it is (or was) a Court of Inquiry that established the interesting fact; if an officer was accused of a more heinous offence, it was a Court of Inquiry that heard what was to be said.
The only difference is that, whereas the old style cost no more than a few sheets of foolscap and the unnecessary lumbering of regimental records, the identical luxury cannot now be indulged in without an array of Old Bailey lawyers, who harangue the old warriors that constitute the court for hours, utterly oblivious of the fact that they are better judges of things military, and not likely to be carried away by those bursts of eloquence that so impress the twelve jack-puddings of which our bulwarks and liberties are said to be composed.
The earliest of these Courts of Inquiry was in ’41, when Lord Cardigan killed Captain Tucket in a duel—and ended in his trial and acquittal by his brother peers.
Later on, in ’44, Lord William Paget and the same bellicose Earl had a domestic squabble in which the former said “he had,” and the latter said “he hadn’t,” and this began by a Court of Inquiry and culminated in the High Court.
Again, in ’54 Lieutenants Perry and Greer were hailed before a Court of Inquiry for practical jokes of a pronounced character, but the inquiry ended in smoke, as it was “revised” by the Minister of War.
In ’61 was the Court of Inquiry in the 4th Dragoon Guards which, disclosing undoubted bullying on the part of Colonel Bentinck (the present Duke of Portland’s father), ended in a court martial, when nothing but interest saved the old gentleman’s bacon.