Scene III.—The Choice of a too Lowly Youth.
Charade 3!!!
Scene I.—The Pathetic History of the Poor Little Sweep.
Scene II.—Mussulman Barbarity to Christians.
Scene III.—Merry England.
Gad's Hill Gazette Printing Office.
The various parts were taken by Dickens and his family, and the entire word of the last Charade is supposed to be "May Day."
In connection with charades, Mr. Hulkes alluded to Dickens's remarkable facility for "guessing a subject fixed on when he was out of the room, in half a dozen questions;" and related the story of how at the young people's game of "Yes and No," he found out the proper answer to a random question fixed upon by Mr. Charles Collins, one of the company, in his absence, which was, "The top-boot of the left leg of the head post-boy at Newman's Yard, London." The squire sometimes took a stroll with his neighbour, but observed "he was too fast a walker for me—I couldn't keep up with him!"
Mr. Hulkes possesses a nearly complete "file" (from 1862 to 1866) of the Gad's Hill Gazette, to which he was one of the subscribers, and which was edited by the novelist's son, Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens, and, as before stated, printed at Gad's Hill Place. It chronicled the arrivals and departures, the results of cricket matches and billiard games, with interesting gossip of events relating to the family and the neighbourhood. Occasionally there was a leading article, and now and then an acrostic appeared. Among the subscribers were the novelist and his family, The Lord Chief Justice, The Dean of Bristol, Lady Molesworth, Mrs. Milner Gibson, M. Stone, A. Halliday, J. Hulkes, C. Kent, W. H. Wills, H. F. Chorley, Edmund Yates, etc. The number for January 20th, 1866, contains a humorous correspondence on the management of the journal between "Jabez Skinner" and "Blackbury Jones." Mr. H. F. Dickens kindly allows a copy of the number for December 30th, 1865, to be reproduced, which is interesting as giving an account of the Staplehurst accident, and also the notice issued when the journal was discontinued.
Transcriber's Note: Copies of the original fascimilies can be seen by clicking on the Gazette's page numbers