The Uncommercial Traveller

by Dickens, Charles

  respect - drew me next, and marshalled me the way that I was going.

  The Refractories were picking oakum, in a small room giving on a

  yard. They sat in line on a form, with their backs to a window;

  before them, a table, and their work. The oldest Refractory was,

  say twenty; youngest Refractory, say sixteen. I have never yet

  ascertained in the course of my uncommercial travels, why a

  Refractory habit should affect the tonsils and uvula; but, I have

  always observed that Refractories of both sexes and every grade,

  between a Ragged School and the Old Bailey, have one voice, in

  which the tonsils and uvula gain a diseased ascendency.

  'Five pound indeed! I hain't a going fur to pick five pound,' said

  the Chief of the Refractories, keeping time to herself with her

  head and chin. 'More than enough to pick what we picks now, in

  sich a place as this, and on wot we gets here!'

  (This was in acknowledgment of a delicate intimation that the

  amount of work was likely to be increased. It certainly was not

  heavy then, for one Refractory had already done her day's task - it

  was barely two o'clock - and was sitting behind it, with a head

  exactly matching it.)

  'A pretty Ouse this is, matron, ain't it?' said Refractory Two,

  'where a pleeseman's called in, if a gal says a word!'

  'And wen you're sent to prison for nothink or less!' said the

  Chief, tugging at her oakum as if it were the matron's hair. 'But

  any place is better than this; that's one thing, and be thankful!'

  A laugh of Refractories led by Oakum Head with folded arms - who

  originated nothing, but who was in command of the skirmishers

  outside the conversation.

  'If any place is better than this,' said my brisk guide, in the

  calmest manner, 'it is a pity you left a good place when you had

  one.'

  'Ho, no, I didn't, matron,' returned the Chief, with another pull

  at her oakum, and a very expressive look at the enemy's forehead.

  'Don't say that, matron, cos it's lies!'

  Oakum Head brought up the skirmishers again, skirmished, and

  retired.

  'And I warn't a going,' exclaimed Refractory Two, 'though I was in

  one place for as long as four year - I warn't a going fur to stop

  in a place that warn't fit for me - there! And where the family

  warn't 'spectable characters - there! And where I fortunately or

  hunfort'nately, found that the people warn't what they pretended to

  make theirselves out to be - there! And where it wasn't their

  faults, by chalks, if I warn't made bad and ruinated - Hah!'

  During this speech, Oakum Head had again made a diversion with the

  skirmishers, and had again withdrawn.

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  Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller

  The Uncommercial Traveller ventured to remark that he supposed

  Chief Refractory and Number One, to be the two young women who had

  been taken before the magistrate?

  'Yes!' said the Chief, 'we har! and the wonder is, that a pleeseman

  an't 'ad in now, and we took off agen. You can't open your lips

  here, without a pleeseman.'

  Number Two laughed (very uvularly), and the skirmishers followed

  suit.

  'I'm sure I'd be thankful,' protested the Chief, looking sideways

  at the Uncommercial, 'if I could be got into a place, or got

  abroad. I'm sick and tired of this precious Ouse, I am, with

  reason.'

  So would be, and so was, Number Two. So would be, and so was,

  Oakum Head. So would be, and so were, Skirmishers.

  The Uncommercial took the liberty of hinting that he hardly thought

  it probable that any lady or gentleman in want of a likely young

  domestic of retiring manners, would be tempted into the engagement

  of either of the two leading Refractories, on her own presentation

  of herself as per sample.

  'It ain't no good being nothink else here,' said the Chief.

  The Uncommercial thought it might be worth trying.

  'Oh no it ain't,' said the Chief.

  'Not a bit of good,' said Number Two.

  'And I'm sure I'd be very thankful to be got into a place, or got

  abroad,' said the Chief.

  'And so should I,' said Number Two. 'Truly thankful, I should.'

  Oakum Head then rose, and announced as an entirely new idea, the

  mention of which profound novelty might be naturally expected to

  startle her unprepared hearers, that she would be very thankful to

  be got into a place, or got abroad. And, as if she had then said,

  'Chorus, ladies!' all the Skirmishers struck up to the same

  purpose. We left them, thereupon, and began a long walk among the

  women who were simply old and infirm; but whenever, in the course

  of this same walk, I looked out of any high window that commanded

  the yard, I saw Oakum Head and all the other Refractories looking

  out at their low window for me, and never failing to catch me, the

  moment I showed my head.

  In ten minutes I had ceased to believe in such fables of a golden

  time as youth, the prime of life, or a hale old age. In ten

  minutes, all the lights of womankind seemed to have been blown out,

  and nothing in that way to be left this vault to brag of, but the

  flickering and expiring snuffs.

  And what was very curious, was, that these dim old women had one

  company notion which was the fashion of the place. Every old woman

  who became aware of a visitor and was not in bed hobbled over a

  form into her accustomed seat, and became one of a line of dim old

  women confronting another line of dim old women across a narrow

  table. There was no obligation whatever upon them to range

  themselves in this way; it was their manner of 'receiving.' As a

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  Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller

  rule, they made no attempt to talk to one another, or to look at

  the visitor, or to look at anything, but sat silently working their

  mouths, like a sort of poor old Cows. In some of these wards, it

  was good to see a few green plants; in others, an isolated

  Refractory acting as nurse, who did well enough in that capacity,

  when separated from her compeers; every one of these wards, day

  room, night room, or both combined, was scrupulously clean and

  fresh. I have seen as many such places as most travellers in my

  line, and I never saw one such, better kept.

  Among the bedridden there was great patience, great reliance on the

  books under the pillow, great faith in GOD. All cared for

  sympathy, but none much cared to be encouraged with hope of

  recovery; on the whole, I should say, it was considered rather a

  distinction to have a complication of disorders, and to be in a

  worse way than the rest. From some of the windows, the river could

  be seen with all its life and movement; the day was bright, but I

  came upon no one who was looking out.

  In one large ward, sitting by the fire in arm-chairs of

  distinction, like the President and Vice of the good company, were

  two old women, upwards of ninety years of age. The younger of the

  two, just turned ninety, was deaf, but not very, and could easily

  be made to h
ear. In her early time she had nursed a child, who was

  now another old woman, more infirm than herself, inhabiting the

  very same chamber. She perfectly understood this when the matron

  told it, and, with sundry nods and motions of her forefinger,

  pointed out the woman in question. The elder of this pair, ninetythree,

  seated before an illustrated newspaper (but not reading it),

  was a bright-eyed old soul, really not deaf, wonderfully preserved,

  and amazingly conversational. She had not long lost her husband,

  and had been in that place little more than a year. At Boston, in

  the State of Massachusetts, this poor creature would have been

  individually addressed, would have been tended in her own room, and

  would have had her life gently assimilated to a comfortable life

  out of doors. Would that be much to do in England for a woman who

  has kept herself out of a workhouse more than ninety rough long

  years? When Britain first, at Heaven's command, arose, with a

  great deal of allegorical confusion, from out the azure main, did

  her guardian angels positively forbid it in the Charter which has

  been so much besung?

  The object of my journey was accomplished when the nimble matron

  had no more to show me. As I shook hands with her at the gate, I

  told her that I thought justice had not used her very well, and

  that the wise men of the East were not infallible.

  Now, I reasoned with myself, as I made my journey home again,

  concerning those Foul wards. They ought not to exist; no person of

  common decency and humanity can see them and doubt it. But what is

  this Union to do? The necessary alteration would cost several

  thousands of pounds; it has already to support three workhouses;

  its inhabitants work hard for their bare lives, and are already

  rated for the relief of the Poor to the utmost extent of reasonable

  endurance. One poor parish in this very Union is rated to the

  amount of FIVE AND SIXPENCE in the pound, at the very same time

  when the rich parish of Saint George's, Hanover-square, is rated at

  about SEVENPENCE in the pound, Paddington at about FOURPENCE, Saint

  James's, Westminster, at about TENPENCE! It is only through the

  equalisation of Poor Rates that what is left undone in this wise,

  can be done. Much more is left undone, or is ill-done, than I have

  space to suggest in these notes of a single uncommercial journey;

  but, the wise men of the East, before they can reasonably hold

  forth about it, must look to the North and South and West; let them

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  Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller

  also, any morning before taking the seat of Solomon, look into the

  shops and dwellings all around the Temple, and first ask themselves

  'how much more can these poor people - many of whom keep themselves

  with difficulty enough out of the workhouse - bear?'

  I had yet other matter for reflection as I journeyed home, inasmuch

  as, before I altogether departed from the neighbourhood of Mr.

  Baker's trap, I had knocked at the gate of the workhouse of St.

  George's-in-the-East, and had found it to be an establishment

  highly creditable to those parts, and thoroughly well administered

  by a most intelligent master. I remarked in it, an instance of the

  collateral harm that obstinate vanity and folly can do. 'This was

  the Hall where those old paupers, male and female, whom I had just

  seen, met for the Church service, was it?' - 'Yes.' - 'Did they

  sing the Psalms to any instrument?' - 'They would like to, very

  much; they would have an extraordinary interest in doing so.' -

  'And could none be got?' - 'Well, a piano could even have been got

  for nothing, but these unfortunate dissensions - ' Ah! better, far

  better, my Christian friend in the beautiful garment, to have let

  the singing boys alone, and left the multitude to sing for

  themselves! You should know better than I, but I think I have read

  that they did so, once upon a time, and that 'when they had sung an

  hymn,' Some one (not in a beautiful garment) went up into the Mount

  of Olives.

  It made my heart ache to think of this miserable trifling, in the

  streets of a city where every stone seemed to call to me, as I

  walked along, 'Turn this way, man, and see what waits to be done!'

  So I decoyed myself into another train of thought to ease my heart.

  But, I don't know that I did it, for I was so full of paupers, that

  it was, after all, only a change to a single pauper, who took

  possession of my remembrance instead of a thousand.

  'I beg your pardon, sir,' he had said, in a confidential manner, on

  another occasion, taking me aside; 'but I have seen better days.'

  'I am very sorry to hear it.'

  'Sir, I have a complaint to make against the master.'

  'I have no power here, I assure you. And if I had - '

  'But, allow me, sir, to mention it, as between yourself and a man

  who has seen better days, sir. The master and myself are both

  masons, sir, and I make him the sign continually; but, because I am

  in this unfortunate position, sir, he won't give me the countersign!'

  CHAPTER IV - TWO VIEWS OF A CHEAP THEATRE

  As I shut the door of my lodging behind me, and came out into the

  streets at six on a drizzling Saturday evening in the last past

  month of January, all that neighbourhood of Covent-garden looked

  very desolate. It is so essentially a neighbourhood which has seen

  better days, that bad weather affects it sooner than another place

  which has not come down in the World. In its present reduced

  condition it bears a thaw almost worse than any place I know. It

  gets so dreadfully low-spirited when damp breaks forth. Those

  wonderful houses about Drury-lane Theatre, which in the palmy days

  of theatres were prosperous and long-settled places of business,

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  and which now change hands every week, but never change their

  character of being divided and sub-divided on the ground floor into

  mouldy dens of shops where an orange and half-a-dozen nuts, or a

  pomatum-pot, one cake of fancy soap, and a cigar box, are offered

  for sale and never sold, were most ruefully contemplated that

  evening, by the statue of Shakespeare, with the rain-drops coursing

  one another down its innocent nose. Those inscrutable pigeon-hole

  offices, with nothing in them (not so much as an inkstand) but a

  model of a theatre before the curtain, where, in the Italian Opera

  season, tickets at reduced prices are kept on sale by nomadic

  gentlemen in smeary hats too tall for them, whom one occasionally

  seems to have seen on race-courses, not wholly unconnected with

  strips of cloth of various colours and a rolling ball - those

  Bedouin establishments, deserted by the tribe, and tenantless,

  except when sheltering in one corner an irregular row of gingerbeer

  bottles, which would have made one shudder on such a night,

  but for its being plain that they had nothing in them, shrunk from

  the shrill cries of the news-boys at their Exchange in the kennel

  of Catherine-street,
like guilty things upon a fearful summons. At

  the pipe-shop in Great Russell-street, the Death's-head pipes were

  like theatrical memento mori, admonishing beholders of the decline

  of the playhouse as an Institution. I walked up Bow-street,

  disposed to be angry with the shops there, that were letting out

  theatrical secrets by exhibiting to work-a-day humanity the stuff

  of which diadems and robes of kings are made. I noticed that some

  shops which had once been in the dramatic line, and had struggled

  out of it, were not getting on prosperously - like some actors I

  have known, who took to business and failed to make it answer. In

  a word, those streets looked so dull, and, considered as theatrical

  streets, so broken and bankrupt, that the FOUND DEAD on the black

  board at the police station might have announced the decease of the

  Drama, and the pools of water outside the fire-engine maker's at

  the corner of Long-acre might have been occasioned by his having

  brought out the whole of his stock to play upon its last

  smouldering ashes.

  And yet, on such a night in so degenerate a time, the object of my

  journey was theatrical. And yet within half an hour I was in an

  immense theatre, capable of holding nearly five thousand people.

  What Theatre? Her Majesty's? Far better. Royal Italian Opera?

  Far better. Infinitely superior to the latter for hearing in;

  infinitely superior to both, for seeing in. To every part of this

  Theatre, spacious fire-proof ways of ingress and egress. For every

  part of it, convenient places of refreshment and retiring rooms.

  Everything to eat and drink carefully supervised as to quality, and

  sold at an appointed price; respectable female attendants ready for

  the commonest women in the audience; a general air of

  consideration, decorum, and supervision, most commendable; an

  unquestionably humanising influence in all the social arrangements

  of the place.

  Surely a dear Theatre, then? Because there were in London (not

  very long ago) Theatres with entrance-prices up to half-a-guinea a

  head, whose arrangements were not half so civilised. Surely,

  therefore, a dear Theatre? Not very dear. A gallery at threepence,

  another gallery at fourpence, a pit at sixpence, boxes and

  pit-stalls at a shilling, and a few private boxes at half-a-crown.

  My uncommercial curiosity induced me to go into every nook of this

  great place, and among every class of the audience assembled in it