The Works of Douglas Jerrold. With an introductory memoir by his son, W. B. Jerrold

Front matter

THE WOKKS OF DOUGLAS JEKROLD - Loudo..; Braatary 8. Evans. n Boaverie Stree'-E.c THE WORKS OF DOUGLAS JEKROLD. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR BY HIS SON, W. BLANCHARD JERROLD. VOLUME I. OONTAININfl ST. GILES AND ST. JAMES, AND PUNCH'S LETTERS TO HIS SON. LONDON : BRADBURY & EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET. 1863. LONDON : BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. A biographical introduction to the coUected writings of a working man of letters is useful, often, as explaining many of the characteristics of the author's mind, and how he reached the fields in which he fed his imagination, or built up his theories. There is pleasure in tracing the thread of his own Use, that, whether thin as spider's silk, or broad and clear, the author draws through his writings. We appear to gain a personal acquaintance with the man whose pen has charmed us, or has taught us wisdom, I beUeve that this is the chief reason why the Uves of Uterary men, even when most uneventful, are welcome to the public.

Readers are deUghted to learn how the man who, from his sUent study, so long entranced them, appeared in his sUppers. Did he eat, and drink, and sleep Uke other men ? He had genius : what, then, were his eccen tricities ? For — authors shaU spend the most humdrum Uves, living on roast and boUed duly paid for ; reading at the club ; and keeping aU the business of their days by double entry ; and it sh.aU stiU be some time before their readers wiU beUeve that a man may be a genius, and have no more eccentricity than a city banker. There are crowds of people who hold that a great scientific thinker must, of necessity, use a lady's finger as a tobacco-stopper. I remember sitting, at a continental table d'hote, near an enthusiastic famUy, who were thrown into a VI condition of dangerous mental excitement, by the arrival of a quiet, gentlemanly man ; who took his seat at the lower end of the table, and talked easily and cheerfuUy to his neighbours.

They had discovered that he was the great Mr. Blank, whose last novel they had been reading. Every ear was stretched to catch Mr. Blank's Ughtest word. But Mr. Blank, having arrived with a good appetite, confined his conversation to the merits of the dinner, with a passing aUusion to the probable state of the weather; and, his dinner over, Ughted a cigar in the court-yard, and walked smartly away — to the port. " "Who would have thought that was the great Mr. Blank ? " cried the enthusiastic family. " "Why, he might have been Mr. Brown or Jones !" The difficulty is to persuade enthusiastic readers, that most modem men of letters have the appearance and manners of ordinary EngUsh gentlemen; and never go to baUs or routs in shooting jackets, nor wear thefr hair curled to the waist. A traveUer early on his way to Richmond, passing over the then picturesque heath of Putney, some ten years ago, in the summer time; would probably see, by the gipsies' tent, a short gentleman, with wUd fron-grey hair peeping from under his straw hat ; a sharp, blight eye ; and a lip with mocking corners to it; chattering with the gipsies, who would Ue upon the grass, shielding thefr eyes from the sun, with their chestnut hands ; and laugh at thefr neighbour from the snug Lodge yonder, cur tained in Ume-trees, and musical with a little farm-yard at the back.

Preface

TO THE FIRST EDITION. TOURING the progress of the original pubUcation of " St. GUes and St. James " — which it is hoped is rendered somewhat less faulty in the present revised edition — certain critics would charge the writer with a cleaving desire to despoil the high for the profit of the low ; with a besetting tendency to mum as a sort of moral Robin Hood, stripping the rich of thefr virtues that only the veriest poor might strut in the plunder. In reply to this, I wiU content mysefr with saying that I somewhat confidently await the verdict of a different opinion from the reader who may honour these pages with a dispassionate perusal. It has been my endeavour to show in the person of St. GUes the victim of an ignorant disregard of the social claims of the poor upon the rich ; of the governed milUon upon the governing few ; to present — I am well aware how imperfectly ; but with no wilful exaggeration of the portraiture — the picture of the infant pauper reared in brutish ignorance ; a human waU of dirt and darkness.

Since the original appearance of this story, the reality of this picture, in aU its vital and appalling horror, has forced itself upon the legislature ; has engaged its anxious thoughts ; and wiU ultimately triumph in its humanising sympa thies. I will only add that upon an after revision of this story, I cannot think myself open to the charge of bedizening St. Giles B

PREFACE.

TO THE FIRST EDITION. at the cost of St. James ; or of making Hog Lane the treasury of all the virtues to the moral sacking of May Fair. The completion of the first volume of a collected edition of his writings — scattered over the space of years — is an opportunity tempting to the vanity of a writer to indulge in a retrospect of the circumstauces that first made authorship his hope, as well as of the general tenor of his after vocation. I will not, at least, in these pages, yield to the inducement ; further than to say that, self helped and self-guided, I began the world at an age when, as a general rule, boys have not laid down their primers ; that the cockpit of a man-of-war was at thirteen exchanged for the struggle of London ; that appearing in print ere perhaps the meaning of words was duly mastered — no one can be more aUve than myself to the worthlessness of such early mutterings.

In conclusion, I submit this volume to the generous interpre tation of the reader. Some of it has been caUed "bitter:" indeed, " bitter " has, I think, a little too often been the ready word when certain critics have condescended to bend their eyes upon my page : so ready, that were my ink redolent of myrrh and frankincense, I well know the sort of ready-made criticism that would cry, with a denouncing shiver, "aloes-; aloes." D. J. West Lodge, Putney Lower Common, July 9, 1851.

Chapter I

The streets were empty. Pitiless cold had driven aU who had the shelter of a roof to their homes : and the north-east blast seemed to howl in triumph above the untrodden snow. Winter was at the heart of aU things. The wretched, dumb with exces sive misery, suffered, in stupid resignation, the tyranny of the season. Human blood stagnated in the breast of want ; and death in that despairing hour losing its terrors, looked, in tho eyes of many a wretch, a sweet deUverer. It was a time when the very poor, barred from the commonest things of earth, take strange counsel with themselves, and, in the deep humility of destitution, beUeve they are the burden and the offal of the world. It was a time when the easy, comfortable man, touched with finest sense of human suffering, gives from his abundance ; and, whUst bestowing, feels almost ashamed that, with such wide spread misery cfrcled round him, he has all things fitting ; all things grateful.

The smitten spirit asks wherefore he is not of the multitude of wretchedness ; demands to know for what espe cial excellence he is promoted above the thousand, thousand starving creatures : in his very tenderness for misery, tests his privUege of exemption from a woe that withers manhood in man, bowing him downward to the brute. And so questioned, this man gives in modesty of spfrit — in very thankfulness of soul. His alms are not cold, formal charities ; but reverent sacrifices to his suffering brother. It was a time when selfishness hugs itself in its own warmth ; with no other thoughts than of its pleasant possessions ; all made pleasanter, sweeter, by the desolation around. When the mere worldling rejoices the more in his warm chamber, because it is so bitter cold without ; when he eats and drinks with whetted appetite, because he hears of destitution, prowling like a wolf around his well-barred house ; when, in fine, he bears his every comfort about him with the pride of a conqueror.

A time when such a man sees in the misery of his fellow-beings nothing save his own victory of fortune — his own successes in a suffering world. To such a man the poor are but the tattered slaves that grace his triumph. It was a time, too, when human nature often shows its true divinity, and with misery like a garment clinging to it, forgets its wretchedness in sympathy with suffering. A time, when in the cellars and garrets of the poor are acted scenes which make the noblest heroism of life ; which prove the immortal texture of the human heart, not wholly seared by the branding-iron of the tor turing hours. A time when in want, in anguish, in throes of mortal agony, some seed is sown that bears a flower in heaven. Such was the time, the hour approaching midnight, when a woman sat on a door-step in a London street.

Was she sleeping, or was she another victim of the icy season 1 Her head had fallen backward against the door, and her face shone like a white stone in the moonlight. There was a terrible history in that face ; cut and lined as it was by the twin-workers, vice and misery. Her temples were sunken ; her brow wrinkled and pinched ; and her thin, jagged mouth, in its stony silence, breathed a frightful eloquence. It was a hard mystery to work out, to look upon that face, and try to see it in its babyhood. Could it be thought that that woman was once a chUd ? StiU she was motionless — breathless. And now, a quick, tripping footstep sounds in the deserted street ; and a woman, thinly, poorly clad, but clean and neat withal, approaches the door. She is humming a tune, a bUthe defiance to the season, and her manner is of one hastening homeward.

" Good God ! if it isn't a corpse ! " she cried, standing suddenly fixed before what seemed, in truth, the efhgy of death. In a moment, recovering herself, she stooped towards the sitter, and gently shook her. " Stone cold — frozen ! Lord in heaven ! that his creatures should perish in the street ! " And then the woman, with a piercing shriek, called the watch ; but the watch, true to its reputation for sound substantial sleep, answered not. " Watch — watch ! " screamed the woman with increasing shrillness ; but the howUng of the midnight wind was the only response. A moment she paused ; then looked at what she deemed the dead ; and flinging her arms about her. flew back along the path she had trod. With scarcely breath to do common credit to her powers of scolding, she drew up at a watch-box, and addressed herself to the peaceful man within.

" Why, watch — here ! a pretty feUow ! — people pay rates, and — watch, watch ! — there 's a dead woman — dead, I teU you — watch — pay rates, and are let to die, and — watch — watch — watch ! " And stUl she screamed, and at length, clawed at and shook the modest wooden tenement which, in those happy but not distant days of England, sheltered many of England's civil guardians. The watchman was coiled up for unbroken repose. He had evidently settled the matter with himself to sleep until caUed to breakfast by the tradesman who, at the corner post, spread his hospitable table for the early wayfarers who loved saloop. Besides, the watchman was at least sixty-five years old ; twenty years he had been guardian of the public peace, and he knew — no one better — that on such a night even robbery would take a hoUday, forgetting the cares and profits of business in comfortable blankets.

At length, but slowly, did the watchman answer the summons. He gradually uncoiled himseff ; and whilst the woman's tongue rang — rang Uke a bell — he calmly pushed up his hat, and opening his two smaU, swinish eyes, looked at the intruder. "WeU ! after that I hope you are awake — and after that ' " What 's the matter 1 " asked the watchman, feeling that the hour of saloop was not arrived, and surUly shaking himseff at the disappointment, " What 's the matter 1 " " The matter ! Poppy-head ! " " Any of your bad language, and I shaU lock you up." And this the watchman said with quite the afr of a man who keeps his word. " There 's a woman froze to death," cried the disturber of the watchman's peace. " That was last night," said the watchman. " I tell you, to-night, man — to-night. She 's on a door-step ; there " — and the woman pointed down the street.

" I should Uke to know what we pay you watchmen for, if poor creatures are to drop down dead with cold on the highway." The watchman Ufted his lantern to the face of the speaker — it was a frank, Uvely, good-humoured face, with about five-and thirty years Ughtly laid upon it — and closing one eye, as if the act gave pecuUar significance to what he said, slowly obseived, syUable by syllable, "Any more of your imperance, and " — here he took an oath, confirming it with a smart blow of his stick upon the pavement, " and I '11 lock you up." The woman made some answer ; but the words were lost, ground by the watchman's rattle, which he whirled about. As cricket answers cricket, the rattle found a response. Along the street the sound was caught up, prolonged, and carried forward ; and small bye lanes gave forth a wooden voice — a voice that cried to aU the astounded streets, " Justice is awake !

" And then lantern after lantern glimmered in the night : one lantern advancing with a sober, a considerate pace ; another, with a sort of flutter ; another, dancing Uke a jack-o'-lantern over the snow. And so, lantern after lantern, with watchmen behind, came and clustered about the box of him, who was on the instant greeted as Drizzle. " What 's the row ? " cried an Irishman— a young feUow of about sixty, who flourished his stick, and stamped upon the pavement, like indignant virtue, impatient of a wrong. " What 's the row ? Is it her ? " and he was about to lay his civil hand upon the woman. Every watchman asked his separate question ; it seemed to be his separate right : and Drizzle, as though respecting the privilege of his brethren, heard them all — yes, every one — before he answered.

He then replied, very measuredly — "A woman is froze to death." " What ! agin 1 " cried two or three. "Agin," answered Drizzle. Then turning himself round, he headed the watch ; and motioning to the woman to show the way, he slowly led his fellows down the street. In due time, they arrived at the spot. " Froze to death 1 " cried Drizzle doubtingly, holding his lantern to the bloodless, rigid features of the miserable outcast. " Froze to death t " asked every other watchman, on taking a like survey. " No, — no ; not dead ! Thank God ! not dead," exclaimed the woman, stooping towards her wretched sister. " Her heart beats — I think it beats." " Werry drunk ; but not a bit dead," said Drizzle : and his brethren — one and all — murmured. " WeU ! what are you going to do with her?" asked the woman, vehemently.

" What should we do with her 1 " cried Drizzle. " She isn't dead, and she isn't a breaking the peace." " But she will be dead, if she 's left here, and so I desire " "You desire ! " said Drizzle, " and after all, what 's your name, and where do you come from 1 " " My name 's Mrs. Aniseed, I live in Short's Gardens — and I come from — the Lord ha' mercy ! what 's that 1 " she cried as something stirred beneath the ends of the woman's shawl, that lay upon her lap. With the words, Mrs. Aniseed plucked the shawl aside, and discovered a sleeping infant. " What a heavenly babe ! " she cried : and, truly, the child in its marble whiteness looked beautiful ; a lovely human bud, — a sweet, unsuUied sojourner of earth, cradled on the knees of misery and vice. For an instant, the watchmen in silence gazed upon the babe.

Even their natures, hardened in scenes of crime and destitution, were touched by the appealing innocence of the child. "Poor Uttle heart ! " said one. " God help it ! " cried another. Yes ; God help it ! And with such easy adjuration do wo leave thousands and tens of thousands of human souls to want and ignorance ; doom them, when yet sleeping the sleep of guilt lessness, to future devils — thefr own unguided passions. We make them outcasts, -wretches ; and then punish, in their wickedness, our own selfishness — our own neglect. We cry "God help the babes," and hang the men. Yet a moment. The child is stiU before us. May we not see about it — contending for it — the principles of good and evil 1 A contest between the angels and the fiends 1 Come hither, states man ; you who Uve within a party circle ; you who nightly fight some miserable fight ; continually strive in some selfish struggle for power and place, considering men only as tools, the merest instruments of your aggrandisement ; come here, in the wintry street, and look upon God's image in its babyhood !

Consider this little man. Are not creatures such as these the noblest, grandest things of earth 1 Have they not solemn natures — are they not subtly touched for the highest purposes of human life '. Come they not into this world to grace and dignify it 1 There is no spot, no coarser stuff in the pauper flesh before you, that indi cates a lower nature. There is no felon mark upon it — no natural formation indicating the thief in its baby fingers — no inevitable blasphemy upon its lips. It Ues before you a fair, unsuUied thing, fresh from the hand of God. WUl you, without an effort, let the great fiend stamp his fiery brand upon it 1 Shall it, even in its sleeping innocence, be made a trading thing by misery and vice 1 A creature borne from street to street, a piece of Uving merchandise for mingled beggary and crime 1 Say ; what, with its awakening soul, shall it learn ?

What lessons whereby to pass through Use, making an item in the social sum ? Why, cunning wiU be its wisdom ; hypocrisy its truth ; theft its natural law of self-preservation. To this child, so nurtured, so taught, your whole code of morals, nay, your brief right and wrong, are writ in stranger figures than Egyptian hieroglyphs, and — time passes — and you scourge the creature never taught, for the heinous guUt of knowing nought but ill ! The good has been a sealed book to him, and the dunce is punished with the gaol. Doubtless, there are great statesmen ; wizards in bulUon and bank-paper ; thinkers profound in cotton, and every turn and variation of the markets, abroad and at home. But there are statesmen yet to come ; statesmen of nobler aims — of more heroic action ; teachers of the people ; vindicators of the universal dignity of man ; apostles of the great social truth that knowledge, which is the spiritual Ught of God, Uke his material Ught, was made to bless and comfort all men.

And when these men arise— and it is worse than weak, it is sinful, to despafr of them— the youngling poor wiU not be bound upon the very threshold of human Use, and made, by want and ignorance, life's shame and curse. There is not a babe lying in the pubUc street on its mother's lap — the unconscious mendicant to ripen into the criminal — that is not a. reproach to the state ; a scandal and a crying shame upon men who study all poUtics, save the poUtics of the human heart. To return to the chUd of our story ; to the baby St. GUes ; for indeed it is he. In a moment, Mrs. Aniseed caught the infant to her bosom ; and pressed it to her cheek. As she did so, she turned pale, and tears came into her eyes. "It 's dead," she cried, "blessed angel! the cold — the cruel cold has killed it." " Nonsense," said Drizzle, "the woman's for killing everything.

It's no more dead than its mother here, and" — and here the watchman turned to his companions for counsel — " and what are we to do with her 1 " " We can't take her to the workhouse," said one, " it 's past the hour." " Past the hour ! " exclaimed Mrs. Aniseed, stiU hugging and warming the babe at her bosom — " it isn't past the hour to die, is it ? " " You 're a foolish, wiolent woman," said Drizzle. " I teU you what we must do ; we 'U take her to the watch-house." " The watch-house ! " cried Mrs. Aniseed. " Poor soul ! what have you got to comfort her with there 1" " Comfort ! Well, I 'm sure — you do talk it strong ! As if women sitting about in doorways was to be treated with comfort. Howsomever, mates," said the benevolent Drizzle, "for once we '11 try the workhouse." With this, two of the watchmen raised the woman, and stumbling at almost every step, they bore thefr burden on.

" Make haste ! " cried Drizzle, doubtless yearning for the hospitality of his box, " make haste : if the cold doesn't bite a man like nippers ! " And so, shambling along, and violently smiting in thefr turn both arms against his sides, Drizzle preceded his feUows, and at length halted at the workhouse. " It hasn't a wery kindly look, has it V he cried, as he peered at the mansion of the poor. " All gone to bed, I dare say. And catch any on 'em getting up such a night as this." So saying, Drizzle puUed manfuUy at the beU, as though fairly to test his powers of attack with the power of resistance within. " The governor, and matern, the nusses, the porter, and aU on 'em snoring in lavender." The bare thought of this Elysium added strength to Drizzle's arm, and again he puUed. "Had hot elder wine, or dog's-nose, or something o' the sort, to puU thefr precious nightcaps on !"

And again Drizzle tugged with renewed purpose. " They think o' the poor just as much as they think o' meat and 'tatos, — as only things to Uve upon." And stUl the workhouse beU rang a comfortless accompaniment to the watchman's indignation. " Now, I know it ; I could swear it " — cried Drizzle — " they 're every one on 'em awake ; they can't be otherwise ; wide awake, and thinking how precious nice thefr blankets is, and how cruel cold it is here. Yes ; they hear the beU — they do ; they can't help it ; and they say to themselves, there 's some poor devU outside that 's frost-bit and going to die, and wants a hot bed, and a dose of brandy, and aU that, to bring the Use into him again ; and he won't have it. No — it's past the hours, and he must come agin to-morrow. That 's what the varmint say" — cried Drizzle — " that 's what they say to themselves, and then they go off, and sleep all the sweeter for knowing it.

It's as good as another blanket to 'em — it is," exclaimed the watchman, enraged by the picture his fancy had executed, no less than by his abortive exertions at the workhouse beU. " And now, what 's to be done ? Why, nothin, but to go to the watch-house." " And I 'U take the baby home with me," said Mrs. Aniseed, " and warm it, and give it something, and — " " Can't aUow that," said one of the watchmen. " Why not, poor lamb ? " asked Drizzle, suddenly tender. " She 'U take care of it — and what are we to do with it 1 You don't think she 's a goin to steal it ? " " Steal it ! " cried the indignant Mrs. Aniseed. "I should think not," said Drizzle. "Folks needn't steal things o' that sort, I 'm sure ; the market 's overloaded with 'em ; they 're to be had for nothin', and thank 'ee too. So you 'U take care of it till the mother comes round 1 " " To be sure, I wiU, poor dear heart !

" answered Mrs. Aniseed, hugging the chUd closer. " And your name 's Aniseed, eh ? Yes ? And you live in Short's Gardens 1 AU right : to-morrow morning bring the baby to the watch-house. We 've nobody to nurse it there, neither wet nor dry." This touch of humour was not lost upon the watchmen, for they acknowledged it with a loud laugh. Then one of them, suddenly aUve to the humanities of his calling, cried, "Let's bear a hand with the woman, or I 'm blessed if she won't be dead outright." And with this, the watchmen bore the mother to the watch house, and Mrs. Aniseed hurried with the child to her home.

Chapter II

It was past twelve when Mrs. Aniseed reached her abiding place in Short's Gardens : a place, whose name gave warranty of by-gone rusticity ; of a tune when St. GUes reaUy breathed in the Fields ; when blossoming hawthorns offered incense to the saint ; when linnets, building hi the furze, sang matin hymns to the protector of the leper. Many changes has St. Giles beheld : other and better changes are, we hope, to come. Here, in the fields, was good St. GUes instaUed the physician and the comforter of leprosy. Here was he known, and prayed to as intercessor between Heaven and suffering man. Disease, the born thing of dirt and poverty, knelt at his shrine and begged for health. And years passed on, and the disease abated. The plague of human kind — arrested by human knowledge and energy — was smitten down, and the leper became a sufferer unknown.

And then St. Giles gathered about him the children of poverty. He became the titular saint of rags and squalor. The destitute and the criminal took refuge under his protecting wings. The daily hypocrite on crutches owned St. Giles for his protector ; cheats and mumpers of every sort — the town brigands, that with well-aimed falsehoods make wayfaring compassion stand and deliver — dwelt about the shrine of St. Giles, and lied and cheated, starved and revelled in his name. A St. Giles's bird was a human animal of prey — a raven, a kite, a carrion-crow. And once again, the saint presided over filth, and its born evil, disease ; again, St. Giles was sought by lepers, most hideous, most incurable — the lepers of crime and poverty. And — it cannot be doubted — St. Giles suffered in reputation from the unseemly flocks that gathered about him.

In the imagi nations of men, he became a low, pauper saint ; a saint of vulgar tastes, and vile employments ; a saint that was scarcely spoken of, save in connection with craft, and ill manners, and drunken ness, and lying, and thieving. Even saints suffer in renown by constant association with poverty and wickedness. And then they made St. GUes a hanging saint : made him keep a sort of half-way house, where he offered the final bowl to the Tyburn-bound felon. St. Giles was poor, and was assorted with the gallows. That ignominy is, however, past. Now St. Giles does not offer a comforting draught to thieves : no ; he only breeds them. And now is St. Giles to be whoUy reformed. He is to be made a cleanly saint. His cellars, where his infant votaries are begotten for crime, and nurtured for the gaol, are to be destroyed — fiUed up again.

The demon typhus is to be killed with sweet air and fresh water. The brotherhood of St. GUes are no longer to be of tho Blessed Order of FUth ; they are to wear Unen, and wash their hands and faces ! To our story. It was past twelve, when Mrs. Aniseed ascended the third flight of stairs that led to her home — her one room. A voice was heard proceeding from that room — a voice, droning a street baUad of the day. " Why, Susan, I 'm blessed if I hadn't given you up," said the voice, the owner of it being a short, broad chested block of a man, seated before a tolerable fire, which, with half-contemplative look, he continued to scrutinise ; never turning his eye towards the partner of his bosom and his hearth. And thus, complacently whining smoke from a rum of a pipe, he con tinued to stare at the coals and talk : " If I didn't think some body had run away with you.