TOPOGRAPHY AND TEMPERANCE.

FROM MR. CHRISTOPHER SHRIMBLE.

“Mr. Conductor,

“Sir, I take up my pen to tell you what’s going to happen if the cause of temperance is to be allowed to have unlicensed power to unlicense all the public-houses. We have heard a good deal about the advantages of Temperance (and I don’t deny them), but Mr. Ledru Rollin has taught me to look closer than ever to the dark side of things, and tee-totalism has its dark side like everything else; it is not all clear water, I can tell you. I look forward to the time when strong liquors will be abolished, and pot-houses taken from the corners of the streets or shifted from the sides of the road, and I say, ‘how shall I find my way about?’

“For the fact is; Sir, public-houses are the great land-marks of the country. Whether you are benighted in a Northumberland moor; lost in a Devonshire lane (the one thing in nature which it is well known has no end); whether you are cast away in a river; left without a clue upon Salisbury Plain; or reduced to a state of topographical despair in a Warwickshire wood; the first person you meet—be it he or she, gentle or simple, old or young, a genius or an idiot—will assuredly convince you that the only rural means of directing you are the names and signs of places of public entertainment. ‘Go on straight till you come to the Green Lion, then turn to the left close to the Goat and Compasses, and after you have passed the Plough, bear off to the right; and, opposite the Jolly Gardeners, you will see a lane: go down that lane till you have to cross a brook by the side of the Bottle and Bagpipes, and when you have got to the Three Whistles and Cockchafer further down, get over a stile next to the Tinker and Turkey-Cock, take the first to the left—and that’s it.’ Such were the directions by which I found my old friend, Groggles, last Monday. Without the signs I have mentioned, I never should have found Groggles to this day.

“Now, Sir, I trust the advocates of temperance will pause before they wash away the land-marks of England (Tooting included), in order to substitute water-marks. How are we to find our way about without signs, I wonder? for I suppose these will not be allowed to stand when the houses behind them are taken away. Do the great Father Mathews of this age intend—like the monks of old—to christen the wells, and to give names to the pumps, and springs, and fountains, and conduits? Indeed I hope they do; for these I venture to say will be the only taps they intend leaving to a future generation.

“Unless, Sir, they wish the topography of our native land to be utterly confused, and desire to make voluntary locomotion impossible (I call railways compulsory travelling, for you must go where they choose to take you), I do intreat of them to leave us their signs, whatever they do with the inns. Why not move the former to stand sponsors to their new-fangled watering places? Take the ‘Puncheon of Rum’ from what used to be the posting-house (before steam blew post-horses off the road) and stick it on the parish pump. Let wayside wells be ornamented with effigies of ‘Topers Heads’; transfer the ‘Barrel of Beer’ from the village inn to the village fountain, and the ‘Jolly Full Bottle’ from the alehouse to the conduit. Then, when a man comes to the picture of three drunken soldiers, and the inscription, ‘The Rendezvous,’ he will know it means a reservoir, or regular meeting of the waters. The ‘Punch-Bowl,’ in gold letters, will indicate a water-trough; the ‘Black Jack’ would give a significant license for water to be drunk on the premises; and the ‘Sir John Barleycorn’ would indicate that a good supply of the ale of our first parent is not far off.

“I do hope my suggestion will be complied with. The tavern signs of England are a great topographical institution. If they will not take them down, the Temperance Movement may do its worst for me. I, and a good many others who live out of town and don’t carry lanterns at night, will still be able to find our way about, and the agricultural population will be able to show us when we have lost it. In that case, the Green Dragons, Marquises of Granby, Roses and Crowns, Bears and Buttermilks, Bulls in the Pounds, Stars and Stumps, with innumerable other signs dear to the eyes and ready to the tongues of unconverted tipplers for the behoof of way-beguiled strangers, would not be utterly 525lost to the land. Without them, I venture to assert, in conclusion, in the words of the late Mr. Pope, England (Tooting included) will be ‘a mighty maze without a plan.’

“I am, &c., &c.

“Christopher Shrimble.

“Paradise Row, Tooting.”