The Uncommercial Traveller

by Dickens, Charles

  be a garden by-and-by, is one of the wonders I have added to my

  always-lengthening list of the wonders of the world. I have got it

  into my mind that they live in a state of chronic injury and

  resentment, and on that account refuse to decorate the building

  with a human interest. As I have known legatees deeply injured by

  a bequest of five hundred pounds because it was not five thousand,

  and as I was once acquainted with a pensioner on the Public to the

  extent of two hundred a year, who perpetually anathematised his

  Country because he was not in the receipt of four, having no claim

  whatever to sixpence: so perhaps it usually happens, within

  certain limits, that to get a little help is to get a notion of

  being defrauded of more. 'How do they pass their lives in this

  beautiful and peaceful place!' was the subject of my speculation

  with a visitor who once accompanied me to a charming rustic retreat

  for old men and women: a quaint ancient foundation in a pleasant

  English country, behind a picturesque church and among rich old

  convent gardens. There were but some dozen or so of houses, and we

  agreed that we would talk with the inhabitants, as they sat in

  their groined rooms between the light of their fires and the light

  shining in at their latticed windows, and would find out. They

  passed their lives in considering themselves mulcted of certain

  ounces of tea by a deaf old steward who lived among them in the

  quadrangle. There was no reason to suppose that any such ounces of

  tea had ever been in existence, or that the old steward so much as

  knew what was the matter; - he passed HIS life in considering

  himself periodically defrauded of a birch-broom by the beadle.

  But it is neither to old Alms-Houses in the country, nor to new

  Alms-Houses by the railroad, that these present Uncommercial notes

  relate. They refer back to journeys made among those common-place,

  smoky-fronted London Alms-Houses, with a little paved court-yard in

  front enclosed by iron railings, which have got snowed up, as it

  were, by bricks and mortar; which were once in a suburb, but are

  now in the densely populated town; gaps in the busy life around

  them, parentheses in the close and blotted texts of the streets.

  Sometimes, these Alms-Houses belong to a Company or Society.

  Sometimes, they were established by individuals, and are maintained

  out of private funds bequeathed in perpetuity long ago. My

  favourite among them is Titbull's, which establishment is a picture

  of many. Of Titbull I know no more than that he deceased in 1723,

  that his Christian name was Sampson, and his social designation

  Esquire, and that he founded these Alms-Houses as Dwellings for

  Nine Poor Women and Six Poor Men by his Will and Testament. I

  should not know even this much, but for its being inscribed on a

  grim stone very difficult to read, let into the front of the centre

  house of Titbull's Alms-Houses, and which stone is ornamented a-top

  with a piece of sculptured drapery resembling the effigy of

  Titbull's bath-towel.

  Titbull's Alms-Houses are in the east of London, in a great

  highway, in a poor, busy, and thronged neighbourhood. Old iron and

  fried fish, cough drops and artificial flowers, boiled pigs'-feet

  and household furniture that looks as if it were polished up with

  lip-salve, umbrellas full of vocal literature and saucers full of

  shell-fish in a green juice which I hope is natural to them when

  their health is good, garnish the paved sideways as you go to

  Titbull's. I take the ground to have risen in those parts since

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  Titbull's time, and you drop into his domain by three stone steps.

  So did I first drop into it, very nearly striking my brows against

  Titbull's pump, which stands with its back to the thoroughfare just

  inside the gate, and has a conceited air of reviewing Titbull's

  pensioners.

  'And a worse one,' said a virulent old man with a pitcher, 'there

  isn't nowhere. A harder one to work, nor a grudginer one to yield,

  there isn't nowhere!' This old man wore a long coat, such as we

  see Hogarth's Chairmen represented with, and it was of that

  peculiar green-pea hue without the green, which seems to come of

  poverty. It had also that peculiar smell of cupboard which seems

  to come of poverty.

  'The pump is rusty, perhaps,' said I.

  'Not IT,' said the old man, regarding it with undiluted virulence

  in his watery eye. 'It never were fit to be termed a pump. That's

  what's the matter with IT.'

  'Whose fault is that?' said I.

  The old man, who had a working mouth which seemed to be trying to

  masticate his anger and to find that it was too hard and there was

  too much of it, replied, 'Them gentlemen.'

  'What gentlemen?'

  'Maybe you're one of 'em?' said the old man, suspiciously.

  'The trustees?'

  'I wouldn't trust 'em myself,' said the virulent old man.

  'If you mean the gentlemen who administer this place, no, I am not

  one of them; nor have I ever so much as heard of them.'

  'I wish I never heard of them,' gasped the old man: 'at my time of

  life - with the rheumatics - drawing water-from that thing!' Not

  to be deluded into calling it a Pump, the old man gave it another

  virulent look, took up his pitcher, and carried it into a corner

  dwelling-house, shutting the door after him.

  Looking around and seeing that each little house was a house of two

  little rooms; and seeing that the little oblong court-yard in front

  was like a graveyard for the inhabitants, saving that no word was

  engraven on its flat dry stones; and seeing that the currents of

  life and noise ran to and fro outside, having no more to do with

  the place than if it were a sort of low-water mark on a lively

  beach; I say, seeing this and nothing else, I was going out at the

  gate when one of the doors opened.

  'Was you looking for anything, sir?' asked a tidy, well-favoured

  woman.

  Really, no; I couldn't say I was.

  'Not wanting any one, sir?'

  'No - at least I - pray what is the name of the elderly gentleman

  who lives in the corner there?'

  The tidy woman stepped out to be sure of the door I indicated, and

  she and the pump and I stood all three in a row with our backs to

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  the thoroughfare.

  'Oh! HIS name is Mr. Battens,' said the tidy woman, dropping her

  voice.

  'I have just been talking with him.'

  'Indeed?' said the tidy woman. 'Ho! I wonder Mr. Battens talked!'

  'Is he usually so silent?'

  'Well, Mr. Battens is the oldest here - that is to say, the oldest

  of the old gentlemen - in point of residence.'

  She had a way of passing her hands over and under one another as

  she spoke, that was not only tidy but propitiatory; so I asked her

  if I might look at her little sitting-room? She willingly replied

  Yes, and we went into it together: she leaving the door open,
with

  an eye as I understood to the social proprieties. The door opening

  at once into the room without any intervening entry, even scandal

  must have been silenced by the precaution.

  It was a gloomy little chamber, but clean, and with a mug of

  wallflower in the window. On the chimney-piece were two peacock's

  feathers, a carved ship, a few shells, and a black profile with one

  eyelash; whether this portrait purported to be male or female

  passed my comprehension, until my hostess informed me that it was

  her only son, and 'quite a speaking one.'

  'He is alive, I hope?'

  'No, sir,' said the widow, 'he were cast away in China.' This was

  said with a modest sense of its reflecting a certain geographical

  distinction on his mother.

  'If the old gentlemen here are not given to talking,' said I, 'I

  hope the old ladies are? - not that you are one.'

  She shook her head. 'You see they get so cross.'

  'How is that?'

  'Well, whether the gentlemen really do deprive us of any little

  matters which ought to be ours by rights, I cannot say for certain;

  but the opinion of the old ones is they do. And Mr. Battens he do

  even go so far as to doubt whether credit is due to the Founder.

  For Mr. Battens he do say, anyhow he got his name up by it and he

  done it cheap.'

  'I am afraid the pump has soured Mr. Battens.'

  'It may be so,' returned the tidy widow, 'but the handle does go

  very hard. Still, what I say to myself is, the gentlemen MAY not

  pocket the difference between a good pump and a bad one, and I

  would wish to think well of them. And the dwellings,' said my

  hostess, glancing round her room; 'perhaps they were convenient

  dwellings in the Founder's time, considered AS his time, and

  therefore he should not be blamed. But Mrs. Saggers is very hard

  upon them.'

  'Mrs. Saggers is the oldest here?'

  'The oldest but one. Mrs. Quinch being the oldest, and have

  totally lost her head.'

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  'And you?'

  'I am the youngest in residence, and consequently am not looked up

  to. But when Mrs. Quinch makes a happy release, there will be one

  below me. Nor is it to be expected that Mrs. Saggers will prove

  herself immortal.'

  'True. Nor Mr. Battens.'

  'Regarding the old gentlemen,' said my widow slightingly, 'they

  count among themselves. They do not count among us. Mr. Battens

  is that exceptional that he have written to the gentlemen many

  times and have worked the case against them. Therefore he have

  took a higher ground. But we do not, as a rule, greatly reckon the

  old gentlemen.'

  Pursuing the subject, I found it to be traditionally settled among

  the poor ladies that the poor gentlemen, whatever their ages, were

  all very old indeed, and in a state of dotage. I also discovered

  that the juniors and newcomers preserved, for a time, a waning

  disposition to believe in Titbull and his trustees, but that as

  they gained social standing they lost this faith, and disparaged

  Titbull and all his works.

  Improving my acquaintance subsequently with this respected lady,

  whose name was Mrs. Mitts, and occasionally dropping in upon her

  with a little offering of sound Family Hyson in my pocket, I

  gradually became familiar with the inner politics and ways of

  Titbull's Alms-Houses. But I never could find out who the trustees

  were, or where they were: it being one of the fixed ideas of the

  place that those authorities must be vaguely and mysteriously

  mentioned as 'the gentlemen' only. The secretary of 'the

  gentlemen' was once pointed out to me, evidently engaged in

  championing the obnoxious pump against the attacks of the

  discontented Mr. Battens; but I am not in a condition to report

  further of him than that he had the sprightly bearing of a lawyer's

  clerk. I had it from Mrs. Mitts's lips in a very confidential

  moment, that Mr. Battens was once 'had up before the gentlemen' to

  stand or fall by his accusations, and that an old shoe was thrown

  after him on his departure from the building on this dread errand;

  - not ineffectually, for, the interview resulting in a plumber, was

  considered to have encircled the temples of Mr. Battens with the

  wreath of victory,

  In Titbull's Alms-Houses, the local society is not regarded as good

  society. A gentleman or lady receiving visitors from without, or

  going out to tea, counts, as it were, accordingly; but visitings or

  tea-drinkings interchanged among Titbullians do not score. Such

  interchanges, however, are rare, in consequence of internal

  dissensions occasioned by Mrs. Saggers's pail: which household

  article has split Titbull's into almost as many parties as there

  are dwellings in that precinct. The extremely complicated nature

  of the conflicting articles of belief on the subject prevents my

  stating them here with my usual perspicuity, but I think they have

  all branched off from the root-and-trunk question, Has Mrs. Saggers

  any right to stand her pail outside her dwelling? The question has

  been much refined upon, but roughly stated may be stated in those

  terms.

  There are two old men in Titbull's Alms-Houses who, I have been

  given to understand, knew each other in the world beyond its pump

  and iron railings, when they were both 'in trade.' They make the

  best of their reverses, and are looked upon with great contempt.

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  They are little, stooping, blear-eyed old men of cheerful

  countenance, and they hobble up and down the court-yard wagging

  their chins and talking together quite gaily. This has given

  offence, and has, moreover, raised the question whether they are

  justified in passing any other windows than their own. Mr.

  Battens, however, permitting them to pass HIS windows, on the

  disdainful ground that their imbecility almost amounts to

  irresponsibility, they are allowed to take their walk in peace.

  They live next door to one another, and take it by turns to read

  the newspaper aloud (that is to say, the newest newspaper they can

  get), and they play cribbage at night. On warm and sunny days they

  have been known to go so far as to bring out two chairs and sit by

  the iron railings, looking forth; but this low conduct, being much

  remarked upon throughout Titbull's, they were deterred by an

  outraged public opinion from repeating it. There is a rumour - but

  it may be malicious - that they hold the memory of Titbull in some

  weak sort of veneration, and that they once set off together on a

  pilgrimage to the parish churchyard to find his tomb. To this,

  perhaps, might be traced a general suspicion that they are spies of

  'the gentlemen:' to which they were supposed to have given colour

  in my own presence on the occasion of the weak attempt at

  justification of the pump by the gentlemen's clerk; when they

  emerged bare-headed from the doors of their dwellings, as if their


  dwellings and themselves constituted an old-fashioned weather-glass

  of double action with two figures of old ladies inside, and

  deferentially bowed to him at intervals until he took his

  departure. They are understood to be perfectly friendless and

  relationless. Unquestionably the two poor fellows make the very

  best of their lives in Titbull's Alms-Houses, and unquestionably

  they are (as before mentioned) the subjects of unmitigated contempt

  there.

  On Saturday nights, when there is a greater stir than usual

  outside, and when itinerant vendors of miscellaneous wares even

  take their stations and light up their smoky lamps before the iron

  railings, Titbull's becomes flurried. Mrs. Saggers has her

  celebrated palpitations of the heart, for the most part, on

  Saturday nights. But Titbull's is unfit to strive with the uproar

  of the streets in any of its phases. It is religiously believed at

  Titbull's that people push more than they used, and likewise that

  the foremost object of the population of England and Wales is to

  get you down and trample on you. Even of railroads they know, at

  Titbull's, little more than the shriek (which Mrs. Saggers says

  goes through her, and ought to be taken up by Government); and the

  penny postage may even yet be unknown there, for I have never seen

  a letter delivered to any inhabitant. But there is a tall,

  straight, sallow lady resident in Number Seven, Titbull's, who

  never speaks to anybody, who is surrounded by a superstitious halo

  of lost wealth, who does her household work in housemaid's gloves,

  and who is secretly much deferred to, though openly cavilled at;

  and it has obscurely leaked out that this old lady has a son,

  grandson, nephew, or other relative, who is 'a Contractor,' and who

  would think it nothing of a job to knock down Titbull's, pack it

  off into Cornwall, and knock it together again. An immense

  sensation was made by a gipsy-party calling in a spring-van, to

  take this old lady up to go for a day's pleasure into Epping

  Forest, and notes were compared as to which of the company was the

  son, grandson, nephew, or other relative, the Contractor. A thickset

  personage with a white hat and a cigar in his mouth, was the

  favourite: though as Titbull's had no other reason to believe that

  the Contractor was there at all, than that this man was supposed to

  eye the chimney stacks as if he would like to knock them down and