CHAP. III. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INHABITANTS OF LONDON FROM 1700 TO 1800. (continued 3)

Another account has the following additional circumstance:

"Some plates of Mr. Gresham's, by way of trial, were placed upon the same shelf with those of Mrs. Goulding's; the former stood unhurt, the whole of Mrs. Goulding's were broke in pieces.

"The servant girl is gone home to her father, the clerk of Lewisham parish; and what remains are now just as inanimate as the furniture of other houses."

The following extracts from Nugent's translation of M. Grosley's Tour to London are inserted as the means by which the reader may collect facts in proof of my opinion, that the manners of the populace are greatly improved since the above period.

"Amongst the people of London we should properly distinguish the Porters, Sailors, Chairmen, and the Day-labourers who work in the streets, not only from persons of condition, most of whom walk a-foot merely because it is their fancy, but even from the lowest class of shopkeepers.

"The former are as insolent a rabble as can be met with in countries without law or police. The French, at whom their rudeness is chiefly levelled, would be in the wrong to complain, since even the better sort of Londoners are not exempt from it. Inquire of them your way to a street: if it be upon the right, they direct you to the left, or they send you from one of their vulgar comrades to another. The most shocking abuse and ill language make a part of their pleasantry upon these occasions. To be assailed in such a manner, it is not absolutely necessary to be engaged in conversation with them; it is sufficient to pass by them. My French air, notwithstanding the simplicity of my dress, drew upon me, at the corner of every street, a volley of abusive litanies, in the midst of which I slipped on, returning thanks to God I did not understand English. The constant burthen of these litanies was, French dog, French b—: to make any answer to them, was accepting a challenge to fight; and my curiosity did not carry me so far. I saw in the streets a scuffle of this kind, between a Porter and a Frenchman, who spit in his face, not being able to make any other answer to the torrent of abuse which the former poured out against the latter without any provocation. The late Marshal Saxe, walking through London streets, happened to have a dispute with a scavenger, which ended in a boxing bout, wherein his dexterity received the general applause of the spectators: he let the scavenger come upon him, then seized him by the neck, and made him fly up into the air, in such a direction, that he fell into the middle of his cart, which was brimful of dirt.

"Happening to pass one day through Chelsea, in company with an English gentleman, a number of Watermen drew themselves up in a line, and attacked him, on my account, with all the opprobrious terms which the English language can supply, succeeding each other, like students who defend a thesis: at the third attack, my friend, stepping short, cried out to them, that they said the finest things in the world, but unluckily he was deaf: and that, as for me, I did not understand a word of English, and that their wit was of consequence thrown away upon me. This remonstrance appeased them; and they returned laughing to their business.

"M. de la Condamine, in his journey to London two or three years ago, was followed, wherever he went, by a numerous crowd, who were drawn together by a great tube of block-tin, which he had always to his ear; by an unfolded map of London which he held in his hand; and by frequent pauses, whenever he met with any object worthy of his attention. At his first going abroad, being frequently hemmed in by the crowd, which prevented his advancing forward, he cried out to his interpreter, 'What would all these people have?' Upon this, the interpreter, applying his mouth to the tube, answered by crying out to him, 'They are making game of you.' At last they became used to the sight; and ceased to crowd about him as he walked the streets.

"The day after my arrival, my servant discovered, by sad experience, what liberties the mob are accustomed to take with the French, and all who have the appearance of being such. He had followed the crowd to Tyburn, where three rogues were hanged, two of whom were father and son. The execution being over, as he was returning home through Oxford-road with the remains of the numerous multitude which had been present at the execution, he was attacked by two or three blackguards; and, the crowd having soon surrounded him, he made a sight for the rabble. Jack Ketch, the executioner, joined in the sport, and entering the circle, struck the poor sufferer upon the shoulder. They began to drag him about by the skirts of his coat, and by his shoulder-knot; when luckily for him, he was perceived by three grenadiers belonging to the French guards, who, having deserted, and crossed the seas, were then drinking at an ale-house hard by the scene of action. Armed with such weapons as chance presented them, they suddenly attacked the mob, laid on soundly upon such as came within their reach, and brought their countryman off safe to the ale-house, and from thence to my lodgings. Seven or eight campaigns which he had served with an officer in the gens-d'armes, and a year which he afterwards passed in Italy, had not sufficiently inured him to bear this rough treatment; it had a most surprising effect upon him. He shut himself up in the house a fortnight, where he vented his indignation in continual imprecations against England and the English. Strong and robust as he was, if he had had any knowledge of the language and the country, he might have come off nobly, by proposing a boxing bout to the man whom he thought weakest amongst the crowd of assailants: if victorious, he would have been honourably brought home, and had his triumph celebrated even by those who now joined against him. This is the first law of this species of combat; a law which the English punctually observe in the heat of battle, where the vanquished always find a generous conqueror in that nation. This should seem to prove, in contradiction to Hobbes, that in the state of nature, a state with which the street-scufflers of London are closely connected, man, who is by fits wicked and cruel, is, at the bottom, good-natured and generous.

"I have already observed, that the English themselves are not secure from the insolence of the London mob. I had a proof of this from the young Surgeon who accompanied me from Paris to Boulogne.

"At the first visit which he paid me in London, he informed me, that, a few days after his arrival, happening to take a walk through the fields on the Surrey-side of the Thames, dressed in a little green frock which he had brought from Paris, he was attacked by three of those gentlemen of the mobility, who, taking him for a Frenchman, not only abused him with the foulest language, but gave him two or three slaps on the face. 'Luckily,' added he in French, 'I did not return their ill language; for, if I had, they would certainly have thrown me into the Thames, as they assured me they would, as soon as they perceived I was an Englishman, if I ever happened to come in their way again in my Paris dress.'

"A Portuguese of my acquaintance, taking a walk in the same fields, with three of his countrymen, their conversation in Portuguese was interrupted by two Watermen, who, doubling their fists at them, cried, 'French dogs, speak your damned French, if you dare.'

"Happening to go one evening from the part of the town where I lived to the Museum, I passed by the Seven-dials. The place was crowded with people waiting to see a poor wretch stand in the pillory, whose punishment was deferred to another day. The mob, provoked at this disappointment, vented their rage upon all that passed that way, whether a-foot or in coaches; and threw at them dirt, rotten eggs, dead dogs, and all sorts of trash and ordure, which they had provided to pelt the unhappy wretch, according to custom. Their fury fell chiefly upon the hackney-coaches, the drivers of which they forced to salute them with their whips and their hats, and to cry huzza; which word is a signal for rallying in all public frays. The disturbance upon this occasion was so much the greater, as the person who was to have acted the principal part in the scene, which by being postponed had put the rabble into such an ill-humour, belonged to the nation which that rabble thinks it has most right to insult.

"In England, no rank or dignity is secure from their insults. The young Queen herself was exposed to them upon her first arrival at London: the rabble was affronted at her Majesty's keeping one window of her sedan chair drawn up.

"The politeness, the civility, and the officiousness of people of good breeding, whom we meet in the streets, as well as the obliging readiness of the citizens and shopkeepers, even of the inferior sort, sufficiently indemnify and console us for the insolence of the mob, as I have often experienced.

"Whatever haste a gentleman may be in, whom you happen to meet in the streets, as soon as you speak to him, he stops to answer, and often steps out of his way to direct you, or to consign you to the care of some one who seems to be going the same way. A gentleman one day put me in this manner under the care of a handsome young directress, who was returning home with a fine young child in her arms. I travelled on very agreeably, though I had a great way to go, lending an arm to my guide; and we conversed together as well as two persons could do, one of whom scarce understood a word spoken by the other. I had frequent conversations of this sort in the streets, in which, notwithstanding all the pains I took to make myself understood, and others took to understand me, I could not succeed: I then would quit my guide, and say to him, with a laugh, and squeeze of the hand, Tower of Babylon! He would laugh on his side likewise; and so we used to part.

"Having occasion to inquire for a certain person in Oxford-road, I shewed his address at the first shop I came to; when out stepped a young man, in white silk stockings, a waistcoat of fine cloth, and an apron about his waist. After having examined whether I was able to follow him, he made me a sign, and began to run on before me. During this race, which was from one end of the street to the other, I thought that my guide had interest in view; and therefore I got ready a shilling, which I offered him upon arriving at the proper place; but he refused it with generous disdain, and taking hold of my hand, which he shook violently, he thanked me for the pleasure I had procured him. I afterwards saw him at the tabernacle of the Methodists.

"To take a man in this manner by the arm, and shake it till his shoulder is almost dislocated, is one of the grand testimonies of friendship which the English give each other, when they happen to meet: this they do very coolly; there is no expression of friendship in their countenances, yet the whole soul enters the arm which gives the shake. This supplies the place of the embraces and salutes of the French. The English seem to regulate their behaviour upon these occasions by the rules prescribed by Alexander Severus to those who approached his person[390:A].

"I met with the same politeness and civil treatment at all the public and private assemblies to which I was admitted. At the House of Lords as well as at the House of Commons, a foreigner may take the liberty to address himself to any gentleman who understands his language; and those who are applied to upon these occasions think it their duty to answer his questions. At the first meeting of the House of Lords to try Lord Byron, I happened to be seated amidst a family as much distinguished by their high rank as their amiable qualities. They all shewed the utmost eagerness to satisfy my curiosity with regard to the several particulars of this extraordinary spectacle; to explain to me all that was said; to instruct me with regard to the origin of the most remarkable ceremonies; and, in fine, to share with me the refreshments, which the length of the trial made it necessary for them to provide.

"When the King came to the House of Lords to give the royal assent to Bills, one of the Bishops near whom I was seated offered to be my interpreter; and he took upon him to serve me in that capacity during the whole time I staid.

"At the courts of Common Pleas, King's Bench, and Exchequer, in Westminster, I seated myself amongst the Lawyers; and upon my speaking French to the two next me, neither of whom happened to understand that language, one of them rose, and brought a brother Lawyer, who, being acquainted with the French tongue, explained to me the best he could all that passed.

"At the play-houses and other public diversions, I had the same good fortune. Those that did not understand me, were eager to look for somebody that did; and my interpreter, who had taken a bottle of wine with him, never drank without afterwards presenting me with it: I made it a rule to drink, because having declined the first time it was offered, I was given to understand, that such a refusal was contrary to the laws of English politeness.

"It must, however, be observed, that this obliging behaviour is not accompanied with all those external demonstrations of civility, which are customary upon such occasions in France. If an English gentleman, who did not understand me, went in quest of an interpreter, he rose, and quitted me with an air, which seemed rather to be that of a whimsical humourist, than of a gentleman who was going to do a polite action; and I saw no more of him.

"I met with the same civility and complaisance amongst all the shop-keepers, whether great or little. The tradesman sent his son or his daughter to me, who often served me as guide, after having first acted as an interpreter: for some years past, the French language has been taught as universally as the English, in all the boarding-schools of London; so that French will soon be by choice the language of the people of England, as it was by constraint and necessity under the Norman Kings. This is a demonstration, that the antipathy of that Nation for every thing belonging to the French is not universal and without exception.

"The French are apt to imagine, that it is on account of their country they are pushed and shoved in the most frequented streets, and often driven into the kennel; but they are mistaken. The English walk very fast: their thoughts being entirely engrossed by business, they are very punctual to their appointments, and those who happen to be in their way are sure to be sufferers by it: constantly darting forward, they jostle them with a force proportioned to their bulk and the velocity of their motion. I have seen foreigners, not used to this exercise, let themselves be tossed and whirled about a long time, in the midst of a crowd of passengers, who had nothing else in view but to get forward. Having soon adopted the English custom, I made the best of my way through crowded streets, exerting my utmost efforts to shun persons who were equally careful to avoid me.

"We should be equally in an error, if we were to imagine that the English fashions, diametrically opposite to those of France, are contrived in the manner they are, in order to avoid all resemblance to those of our Nation: on the contrary, if the former are any way influenced by the latter, it is by the desire of imitating them. A mode begins to be out of date at Paris, just when it has been introduced at London by some English Nobleman. The Court and the first-rate Nobility immediately take it up: it is next introduced about St. James's by those that ape the manners of the Court; and by the time it has reached the City, a contrary mode already prevails at Paris, where the English, bringing with them the obsolete mode, appear like the people of another world. The little hats, for example, at present so fashionable in France, begin to be wore by the Nobility, who borrowed the model from Paris: by degrees the English will come at the diminutive size; but the great hats will then be resumed at Paris. This holds good in general, with regard both to men and women's apparel."

It has long been customary for the lower classes to hold a burlesque election at Wandsworth after a dissolution of Parliament for the choice of a Mayor of Garratt. To describe the strange proceedings of the candidates, who are always selected from the most ludicrous or most hideous of the community, or the riotous freaks of the mob, would be impossible. One vast wave of the populace rolls impetuous from London after the candidates and officers of the election; and, if there is but little taste in their dresses, there is always much "unreal mockery" of finery disposed in a manner which cannot but excite laughter, and the curiosity of those who are but little satisfied to witness the quarrels and intoxication that distinguish the electors of the borough of Garratt.

Many whimsical and satirical imitations of speeches and promises are made upon these occasions; but the electors, contrary to the customs of other elections, always treat themselves, though tin sixpences have sometimes been thrown amongst the mob as bribes.

The present member for Garratt is Sir Henry Dimsdale, Citizen and Muffin-seller, one of the oddest productions of injured nature, and an idiot. It is strange that the people who act these follies cannot perceive they are satirizing themselves. If they were not willing to be deceived, promises never meant to be performed would not be made; and, if they would neither receive bribes nor be treated, candidates would never offer the former, or furnish materials for the latter. When they chair a real member through Westminster, after having violated the freedom of election by deeds which deserve hanging, these wanton fools pull the hustings over their own heads, and frequently maim peaceable spectators.—Such are the electors of Garratt and . . . . . . . . !

FOOTNOTES: