 Chapter 20 of Scenes from Skechers by Boz. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ruth Golding. Skechers by Boz by Charles Dickens. Illustrations by George Crookshank. Chapter 20 of Scenes. The First of May. Now, ladies, up in the sky, parlor, only once a year, if you please. Young lady with brass ladle. Sweep, sweep, sweep! Illegal watchword. The First of May. There is a merry freshness in the sound, calling to our minds a thousand thoughts of all that is pleasant in nature, and beautiful in her most delightful form. What man is there, over whose mind a bright spring morning does not exercise a magic influence? Carrying him back to the days of his childish sports, and conjuring up before him the old green field with its gently waving trees, where the birds sang as he has never heard them since, where the butterfly fluttered far more gaily than he ever sees him now in all his ramblings, where the sky seemed bluer, and the sun shone more brightly, where the air blew more freshly over greener grass and sweeter smelling flowers, where everything wore a richer and more brilliant hue than it is ever dressed in now. Such are the deep feelings of childhood, and such are the impressions which every lovely object stamps upon its heart. The hardy traveller wanders through the maze of thick and pestilous woods, where the sun's rays never shone, and heaven's pure air never played. He stands on the brink of the roaring waterfall, and giddy and bewildered watches the foaming mass as it leaps from stone to stone and from crag to crag. He lingers in the fertile plains of a land of perpetual sunshine, and revels in the luxury of their balmy breath. But what are the deep forests, or the thundering waters, or the richest landscapes that Bounteous Nature ever spread, to charm the eyes and captivate the senses of man, compared with the recollection of the old scenes of his early youth? Magic scenes, indeed, for the fancies of childhood dressed them in colours brighter than the rainbow, and almost as fleeting. In former times, spring brought with it not only such associations as these connected with the past, but sports and games for the present. Merry dances round rustic pillars, adorned with emblems of the season, and reared in honour of its coming. Where are they now? Pillars we have, but they are no longer rustic ones, and as to dancers they are used to runes and lights, and would not show well in the open air. Think of the immorality, too. What would your sabbath-enthusiasts say to an aristocratic ring encircling the Duke of York's column in Colton Terrace, a grand pusset of the middle classes round Alderman Waisman's monument in Fleet Street, or a general hand's four round of ten-pound householders at the foot of the obelisk in St. George's Fields? Alas! Romance can make no head against the riot-act, and pastoral simplicity is not understood by the police. Well, many years ago we began to be a steady and matter-of-fact sort of people, and dancing in spring, being beneath our dignity, we gave it up, and in course of time it descended to the sweeps, a fall certainly, because those sweeps are very good fellows in their way, and moreover very useful in a civilised community, they are not exactly the sort of people to give the tone to the little elegances of society. The sweeps, however, got the dancing to themselves, and they kept it up, and handed it down. This was a severe blow to the romance of springtime, but it did not entirely destroy it, either. For a portion of it descended to the sweeps with the dancing, and rendered them objects of great interest. A mystery hung over the sweeps in those days. Sweeps were in existence of wealthy gentlemen who had lost children, and who, after many years of sorrow and suffering, had found them in the character of sweeps. Stories were related of a young boy who, having been stolen from his parents in his infancy and devoted to the occupation of chimney-sweeping, was sent, in the course of his professional career, to sweep the chimney of his mother's bedroom, and how, being hot and tired when he came out of the chimney, he got into the bed he had so often slept in as an infant, and was discovered and recognised therein by his mother, who once every year of her life thereafter requested the pleasure of the company of every London sweep, at half-bast one o'clock, to roast beef, plum pudding, porter, and sixpence. Such stories as these, and there were many such, threw an air of mystery round the sweeps, and produced for them some of those good effects which animals arrive from the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. No one, except the masters, thought of ill-treating a sweep, because no one knew who he might be, or what noblemen's or gentleman's son he might turn out. Chimney-sweeping was, by many believers in the marvellous, considered as a sort of probationary term, at an earlier or later period of which divers young noblemen were to come into possession of their rank and titles, and the profession was held by them in great respect accordingly. We remember, in our young days, a little sweep about our own age, with curly hair and white teeth, whom we devoutly and sincerely believed to be the lost son and heir of some illustrious personage, an impression which was resolved into an unchangeable conviction on our infant mind, by the subject of our speculations informing us one day, in reply to our question, propounded a few moments before his assent to the summit of the kitchen-chimney, that he believed he'd been born in the vercus, but he'd never known his father. We felt certain from that time forth that he would one day be owned by a lord, and we never heard the church bell's ring, or saw a flag hoisted in the neighbourhood, without thinking that the happy event had at last occurred, and that his long-lost parent had arrived in a coach and six to take him home to Grovener Square. He never came, however. And at the present moment the young gentleman in question is settled down as a master sweep in the neighbourhood of Battlebridge, his distinguishing characteristics being a decided antipathy to washing himself, and the possession of a pair of legs very inadequate to the support of his unwieldy and corpulent body. The romance of spring having gone out before our time, we were feigned to console ourselves as we best could, with the uncertainty that enveloped the birth and parentage of its attendant dancers, the sweeps, and we did console ourselves with it for many years. But even this wretched source of comfort received a shock from which it has never recovered, a shock which has been in reality its death-blow. We could not disguise from ourselves the fact that whole families of sweeps were regularly born of sweeps in the rural districts of Somerstown and Camdentown, that the eldest son succeeded to the father's business, that the other branches assisted him therein and commenced on their own account, that their children again were educated to the profession, and that about their identity there could be no mistake whatever. We could not be blind, we say, to this melancholy truth, but we could not bring ourselves to admit it nevertheless, and we lived on for some years in a state of voluntary ignorance. We were roused from our pleasant slumber by certain dark insinuations thrown out by a friend of ours to the effect that children in the lower ranks of life were beginning to choose chimney-sweeping as their particular walk, that applications had been made by various boys to the constituted authorities to allow them to pursue the object of their ambition with the full concurrence and sanction of the law, that the affair in short was becoming one of mere legal contract. We turned a deaf ear to these rumours at first, but slowly and surely they stole upon us. Month after month, week after week, nay day after day at last did we meet with accounts of similar applications. The veil was removed, all mystery was at an end, and chimney-sweeping had become a favourite and chosen pursuit. There is no longer any occasion to steal boys, for boys flock in crowds to bind themselves. The romance of the trade has fled, and the chimney-sweeper of the present day is no more like unto him of thirty years ago than is a Fleet Street pickpocket to a Spanish brigand or Paul Pride to Caleb Williams. This gradual decay and disuse of the practice of leading noble youths into captivity and compelling them to ascend chimneys was a severe blow, if we may so speak, to the romance of chimney-sweeping, and to the romance of spring at the same time. But even this was not all, for some few years ago the dancing on May Day began to decline. All sweeps were observed to congregate in twos or threes, unsupported by a green, with no my lord to act as master of the ceremonies, and no my lady to preside over the exchequer. Even in companies where there was a green it was an absolute nothing, a mere sprout. And the instrumental accompaniments rarely extended beyond the shovels and a set of pans-pipes, better known to the many as a mouth-organ. These were signs of the times, portentous omens of a coming change. And what was the result which they shadowed forth? Why, the master sweeps, influenced by a restless spirit of innovation, actually interposed their authority in opposition to the dancing, and substituted a dinner, an anniversary dinner at White Conduate House, where clean faces appeared in lieu of black ones smeared with rose-pink, and knee-cords and tops superseded nankine drawers and roseted shoes. Gentlemen who were in the habit of riding shy horses, and steady-going people who have no vagrancy in their souls, lauded this alteration to the skies, and the conduct of the master sweeps was described as beyond the reach of praise. But how stands the real fact? Let any man deny, if he can, that when the cloth had been removed, fresh pots and pipes laid upon the table, and the customary loyal and patriotic toasts proposed, the celebrated Mr. Sluffin of Adam and Eve Court, whose authority not the most malignant of our opponents can call in question, expressed himself in a manner following. That now he'd caught the chairman's high, he vis-she might be jolly well-blessed if he weren't going to have these innings, which he would say these ear observations. That our son, Miss Jeeves Coase, has known nothing about the concern, and tried to sit people again the master sweeps, and take the shine out of their business, and the bread out of the traps of their precious kids, by a making of this ear remark, as chimblies could be as well-scept by sheenery as by boys. And that the making use of boys, for that their purpose, was barbarous. Whereas he had been a chummy, he begged the chairman's parting for using such a vulgar expression, more nor 30 year, he might say he'd been born in a chimble, and he know'd uncommon well as sheenery, for's thus nor a no use. And as to cahualty to the boys, everybody in the chimbley line know'd as well as he did, that they liked the climbing better nor nothing as far as. From this day we date the total fall of the last lingering remnant of May Day dancing, among the elite of the profession. And from this period we commence a new era in that portion of our spring associations, which relates to the first of May. We are aware that the unthinking part of the population will meet us here with the assertion that dancing on May Day still continues, that greens are annually seen to roll along the streets, that youths in the garb of clowns proceed them, giving vent to the ebolitions of their sportive fancies, and that lords and ladies follow in their wake. Granted, we are ready to acknowledge that in outward show these processions have greatly improved. We do not deny the introduction of solos on the drum. We will even go so far as to admit an occasional fantasia on the triangle. But here our admissions end. We positively deny that the sweeps have art or part in these proceedings. We distinctly charge the dustmen with throwing what they ought to clear away into the eyes of the public. We accuse scavengers, brickmakers and gentlemen who devote their energies to the costume-ungering line with obtaining money once a year under false pretenses. We cling with peculiar fondness to the custom of days gone by, and have shut out conviction as long as we could, but it has forced itself upon us, and we now proclaim to a deluded public that the May Day dancers are not sweeps. The size of them alone is sufficient to repudiate the idea. It is a notorious fact that the widely spread taste for register stoves has materially increased the demand for small boys, whereas the men who under a fictitious character dance about the streets on the 1st of May nowadays would be a tight fit in a kitchen flu to say nothing of the parlour. This is strong presumptive evidence, but we have positive proof, the evidence of our own senses, and here is our testimony. Upon the morning of the second of the merry month of May, in the year of our Lord 1,836, we went out for a stroll, with a kind of forlorn hope of seeing something or other which might induce us to believe that it was really spring, and not Christmas. After wandering as far as Copenhagen House, without meeting anything calculated to dispel our impression that there was a mistake in the Ormanax, we turned back down Maiden Lane, with the intention of passing through the extensive colony lying between It and Battle Bridge, which is inhabited by proprietors of donkey carts, boilers of horse-flesh, makers of tiles, and sifters of cinders, through which colony we should have passed, without stoppage or interruption, if a little crowd gathered round a shed had not attracted our attention and induced us to pause. When we say a shed, we do not mean the conservatory sort of building which, according to the old song, Love tenanted when he was a young man, but a wooden house with windows stuffed with rags and paper, and a small yard at the side with one dust-cart, two baskets, a few shovels, and little heaps of cinders and fragments of china and tiles scuttered about it. Before this inviting spot we paused, and the longer we looked, the more we wondered what exciting circumstance it could be that induced the foremost members of the crowd to flatten their noses against the parlor window, in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of what was going on inside. After staring vacantly about us for some minutes we appealed, touching the cause of this assemblage, to a gentleman in a suit of tarpauling, who was smoking his pipe on our right hand. But as the only answer we obtained was a playful inquiry whether our mother had disposed of her mangle, we determined to await the issue in silence. Judge of our virtuous indignation, when the street door of the shed opened, and a party emerged there from, clad in the costume and emulating the appearance of May Day sweeps. The first person who appeared was My Lord, habited in a blue coat and bright buttons with gilt paper tacked over the seams, yellow knee breeches, pink cotton stockings, and shoes, a cocked hat ornamented with sheds of various coloured paper on his head, a bouquet the size of a prized cauliflower in his buttonhole, a long belcher handkerchief in his right hand, and a thin cane in his left. A murmur of applause ran through the crowd, which was chiefly composed of his lordship's personal friends, when this graceful figure made his appearance, which swelled into a burst of applause as his fair partner in the dance bounded forth to join him. Her ladyship was attired in pink crepe over bed furniture with a low body and short sleeves. The symmetry of her ankles was partially concealed by a very perceptible pair of frilled trousers, and the inconvenience which might have resulted from the circumstance of her white satin shoes being a few sizes too large was obviated by their being firmly attached to her legs with strong tape sandals. Her head was ornamented with a profusion of artificial flowers, and in her hand she bore a large brass ladle wherein to receive what she figuratively denominated the tin. The other characters were a young gentleman in girls' clothes and a widow's cap, two clowns who walked upon their hands in the mud to the immeasurable delight of all the spectators, a man with a drum, another man with a flagellate, a dirty woman in a large shawl with a box under her arm for the money, and last, though not least, the green, animated by no lesser personage than our identical friend in the tar-pawling suit. The man hammered away at the drum, the flagellate squeaked, the shovels rattled, the green rolled about pitching first on one side and then on the other. My lady threw her right foot over her left ankle and her left foot over her right ankle, alternately. My lord ran a few paces forward and butted at the green, and then a few paces backward upon the toes of the crowd, and then went to the right and then to the left, and then dodged my lady round the green, and finally drew her arm through his and called upon the boys to shout, which they did lustily, for this was the dancing. We passed the same group accidentally in the evening. We never saw a green so drunk, a lord so quarrelsome. No, not even in the house of peers after dinner. A pair of clowns so melancholy, a lady so muddy, or a party so miserable. How has May Day decayed? End of Chapter 20 of Scenes from Sketches by Boz. Chapter 21 of Scenes from Sketches by Boz. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Miet. Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens. Illustrations by George Cruickshank. Chapter 21 of Scenes. Brokers and Marine Store Shops. When we affirm that broker's shops are strange places, and that if an authentic history of their contents could be procured, it would furnish many a page of amusement and many a melancholy tale. It is necessary to explain the class of shops to which we allude. Perhaps when we make use of the term broker's shop, the mind of our readers will at once picture large, handsome warehouses exhibiting a long perspective of French-pullished dining tables, rosewood chiffoniers and mahogany wash handstands, with an occasional vista of a four-post bedstead and hangings, and an appropriate foreground of dining room chairs. Perhaps they will imagine that we mean an humble class of second-hand furniture repositories. Their imagination will then naturally lead them to that street at the back of Longacre, which is composed almost entirely of broker's shops, where you walk through groves of deceitful, showy-looking furniture, and where the prospect is occasionally enlivened by a bright red, blue and yellow hearth rug, embellished with the pleasing device of a male coach at full speed, or a strange animal supposed to have been originally intended for a dog, with a mass of worsted work in his mouth which conjecture has likened to a basket of flowers. This, by the by, is a tempting article to young wives in the humbler ranks of life, who first flaw front to furnish. They are lost in admiration and hardly know which to admire most. The dog is very beautiful, but they have a dog already on the best tea tray, and two more on the mantelpiece. Then there is something so genteel about that male coach, and the passengers outside, who are all hat, give it such an air of reality. The goods here are adapted to the taste, or rather to the means, of cheap purchases. There are some of the most beautiful looking Pembroke tables that were ever beheld, the wood as green as the trees in the park, and leaves almost a certain to fall off in the course of a year. There is also a most extensive assortment of tent and turn-up bedsteads, made of stained wood, and innumerable specimens of that base in position on society, a sofa bedstead. A turn-up bedstead is a blunt, honest piece of furniture. It may be slightly disguised with a sham drawer, and sometimes a mad attempt is even made to pass it off for a bookcase. Ornamented as you will, however, the turn-up bedstead seems to defy disguise, and who insists on having it distinctly understood that he is a turn-up bedstead and nothing else, that he is indispensable necessary, and that being so useful, he disdains to be ornamental. How different is the demeanour of a sofa bedstead? Ashamed of its real use, it strives to appear an article of luxury and gentility, an attempt in which it miserably fails. It has neither the profitability of a sofa nor the virtues of a bed. Every man who keeps a sofa bedstead in his house becomes a party to a willful and designing fraud. We question whether you could insult him more than by insinuating that you entertain the least suspicion of its real use. To return from this digression we beg to say that neither of these classes of broker-shops forms the subject of this sketch. The shops to which we advert are immeasurably inferior to those on whose outward appearance we have slightly touched. Our readers must often have observed in some by-street, in a poor neighbourhood, a small dirty shop, exposing for sale the most extraordinary and confused jumble of old, worn-out, wretched articles that can well be imagined. Our wonder at their ever-having been bought is only to be equaled by our astonishment at the idea of their ever being sold again. On a board, at the side of the door, are placed about twenty books, all odd volumes, and as many wine-glasses, all different patterns, several looks, an old earthenware pan, full of rusty keys, two or three gaudy chimney ornaments, cracked, of course, the remains of a luster without any drops, a round frame like a capital O, which has once held a mirror, a flute complete with the exception of the middle joint, a pair of curling irons, and a tinder-box. In front of the shop window are arranged some half-dozen high-backed chairs with spinal complaints and wasted legs, a corner cupboard, two or three very dark mahogany tables with flaps like mathematical problems, some pickle jars, some surgeon's ditto with guilt labels and without stoppers, an unframed portrait of some lady who flourished about the beginning of the 13th century by an artist who never flourished at all, an incalculable host of miscellanies of every description, including bottles and cabinets, rags and bones, fenders and street-door knockers, fire irons, wearing apparel and bedding, a hall lamp, and a room door. Imagine, in addition to this incongruous mass, a black doll in a white frock with two faces, one looking up the street and the other looking down, swinging over the door, a board with a squeezed-up inscription, dealer in marine stores in lanky white letters whose height is strangely out of proportion to their width, and you have before you precisely the kind of shop to which we wish to direct your attention. Although the same heterogeneous mixture of things will be found at all these places, it is curious to observe how truly and accurately some of the minor articles which are exposed for sale, articles of wearing apparel, for instance, mark the character of the neighbourhood. Take Drury Lane and Covert Garden, for example. This is essentially a theatrical neighbourhood. There is not a pot boy in the vicinity who is not, to a greater or less extent, a dramatic character. The errand boys and Chandler's shopkeepers' sons are all stage-struck. They get up plays in back-kitchens hired for the purpose, and will stand before a shop window for hours, contemplating a great, staring portrait of Mr somebody or other, of the Royal Coburg Theatre, as he appeared in the character of Tongo the Denounced. The consequence is that there is not a marine store-shop in the neighbourhood which does not exhibit for sale some faded articles of dramatic finery, such as three or four pairs of soiled buff-boots with turnover red-tops, here to forewarn by a fourth robber or fifth mob. A pair of rusty broad-swords, a few gauntlets and certain wrist-blended ornaments, which, if they were yellow instead of white, might be taken for insurance plates of the Sunfire Office. There are several of these shops in the narrow streets and dirty courts, of which there are so many near the National theatres, and they all have tempting goods of this description, with the addition, perhaps, of a lady's pink dress covered with spangles, white wreaths, staid shoes and a tiara like a tin lamp reflector. They've been purchased of some wretched super-numeraries, or sixth-rate actors, and are now offered for the benefit of the rising generation, who, on condition of making certain weekly payments, amounting in the whole to about ten times their value, may avail themselves of such desirable bargains. Let us take a very different quarter, and apply it to the same test. Look at a marine store dealers, in that reservoir of dirt, drunkenness and drabbs, thieves, oysters, baked potatoes, and pickled salmon, Ratcliffe Highway. Here, the wearing apparel is all nautical. Rough blue jackets with mother-of-pearl buttons, oil-skin hats, cast-checkered shirts and large carnivorous trousers that look as if they were made for a pair of bodies instead of a pair of legs, are the staple commodities. Then there are large bunches of cotton pocket handkerchiefs in colour and pattern unlike anyone ever saw before. With the exception of those on the backs of the three young ladies without bonnets who passed just now, the furniture is much the same as elsewhere with the addition of one or two models of ships and some old prints of naval engagements and still older frames. In the window are a few compasses, a small tray containing silver watches in clumsy thick cases, and tobacco boxes, the lid of each ornamented with a ship or an anchor or some such trophy. A sailor generally pawns or sells all he has before he has been long ashore and if he does not, some favoured companion kindly saves him the trouble. In either case, it is an even chance that he afterwards unconsciously repurchases the same things at a higher price than he gave for them at first. Again, pay a visit with a similar object to a part of London as unlike both of these as they are to each other. Cross over to the Surrey side and look at such shops of this description as are to be found near the King's bench prison. And in the rules, how different and how strikingly illustrative of the decay of some of the unfortunate residents in this part of the metropolis. Imprisonment and neglect have done their work. There is contamination in the profligate denizens of a debtor's prison. Old friends have fallen off. The recollection of former prosperity has passed away and with it all, thoughts for the past, all care for the future. First, watches and rings, then cliques, coats and all the more expensive articles of dress have found their way to the pawnbrokers. That miserable resource has failed at last and the sale of some trifling article at one of these shops has been the only mode left of raising a shilling or two to meet the urgent demands of the moment. Dressing cases and writing desks, too old to pawn but too good to keep. Guns, fishing roads, musical instruments, all in the same condition have first been sold and the sacrifice has been but a slightly felt. But hunger must be allayed and what has already become a habit is easily resorted to when an emergency arises. Light articles of clothing, first of the ruined man, then of his wife, at last of their children, even of the youngest, have been parted with piecemeal. There they are, thrown carelessly together until a purchaser presents himself. Old and patched and repaired it is true, but the make and materials tell of better days and the older they are, the greater the misery and destitution of those whom they once adorned. End of Chapter 21 of Scenes from Sketches by Boz Recording by Miet of Miet's bedtime story podcast Chapter 22 of Scenes from Sketches by Boz This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Miet Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens Illustrations by George Crookshank Chapter 22 of Scenes Gin Shops It is a remarkable circumstance that different trades appear to partake of the disease to which elephants and dogs are especially liable, and to run stark, staring, raving mad periodically. The great distinction between the animals and the trades is that the former run mad with a certain degree of propriety. They are very regular in their irregularities. We know the period at which the emergency will arise and provide against it accordingly. If an elephant run mad we are all ready for him, kill or cure, pills or bullets, columnal in conserve of roses, or laid in a musket barrel. If a dog happened to look unpleasantly warm in the summer months and to trot about the shady side of the streets with a quarter of a yard of tongue hanging out of his mouth, a thick leather muzzle which has been previously prepared in compliance with the thoughtful injunctions of the legislature is instantly clapped over his head by a way of making him cooler, and he either looks remarkably unhappy for the next six weeks or becomes legally insane and goes mad, as it were, by act of parliament. But these trades are as eccentric as Cummits. Nay worse, for no one can calculate on the recurrence of the strange appearances which betoken the disease. Moreover, the contagion is general, and the quickness with which it diffuses itself almost incredible. We will cite two or three cases in illustration of our meaning. Six or eight years ago the epidemic began to display itself among the linen drapers and haberdasher. The primary symptoms were an inordinate love of plate glass and a passion for gas lights and gilding. The disease gradually progressed and at last attained a fearful height. Quiet, dusty old shops in different parts of town were pulled down, spacious premises with stuccoed fronts and gold letters were erected instead, floors were covered with turkey carpets, roofs supported by massive pillars, doors knocked into windows, a dozen squares of glass into one, one shopman into a dozen, and there is no knowing what would have been done if it had not been fortunately discovered just in time that the commissioners of bankruptcy were as competent to decide such cases as the commissioners of lunacy, and that a little confinement and gentle examination did wonders. The disease abated. It died away. A year or two of comparative tranquility ensued. Suddenly it burst out again among the chemists. The symptoms were the same with the addition of a strong desire to stick the royal arms over the shop door and a great rage for mahogany, varnish and expensive floor cloth. Then the hosiers were infected and began to pull down their shop fronts with frantic recklessness. The mania again died away and the public began to congratulate themselves on its entire disappearance when it burst forth with tenfold violence among the publicans and keepers of wine vaults. From that moment it has spread among them with unprecedented rapidity, exhibiting a concordination of all their previous symptoms. Onward it has rushed to every part of town, knocking down all the old public houses and depositing splendid merchants, stone balustrades, rosewood fittings, immense lamps, and illuminated clocks at the corner of every street. The extensive scale on which these places are established and the ostentatious manner in which the business of even the smallest among them is divided into branches is amusing. A handsome plate of ground glass in one door directs you to the counting house, another to the bottle department, a third to the wholesale department, a fourth to the wine promenade, and so forth. Until we are in daily expectation of meeting with a brandy bell or a whiskey entrance. Then ingenuity is exhausted in devising attractive titles for the different descriptions of gin and the dram-drinking portion of the community as they gaze upon the gigantic black and white announcements which are only to be equalled in size by their figures beneath them. I'll left in a state of pleasing hesitation between the cream of the valley, the out and out, the no mistake, the good for mixing, the real knock me down, the celebrated butter gin, the regular flair up, and a dozen other equally inviting and wholesome liqueurs. Although places of this description are to be met within every second street, they are invariably numerous and splendid in precise proportion to the dirt and poverty of the surrounding neighbourhoods. The gin shops in and near Drury Lane, Hallburn, San Jules, Covent Garden, and Claremarket are the Huntsmiston London. There is more of filth and squalor misery near those great thoroughfares than in any part of this mighty city. We will endeavour to sketch the bar of a large gin shop and its ordinary customers for the edification of such of our readers as may not have had opportunities of observing such scenes, and on the chance of finding one well suited to our purpose, we will make for Drury Lane. Through the narrow streets and dirty courts which divide it from Oxford Street and that classical spot adjoining the brewery at the bottom of Tottenham Court Road, best known to the initiated as the Rookery. The filthy and miserable appearance of this part of London can hardly be imagined by those, and there are many such, who have not witnessed it. Wretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper, every room let out to a different family and in many instances to two or even three. Fruit and sweet stuff manufacturers in the cellars, barbers and red-haring vendors in the front parlours, coblers in the back, a bird fancier in the first floor, three families on the second, starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a musician in the front kitchen, and a charwoman and five hungry children in the back one. Filth everywhere, a gutter before the houses and a drain behind, clothes drying and slopes emptying from the windows, girls of 14 or 15 with matted hair walking about barefoot and in white great coats almost their only covering, boys of all ages in coats of all sizes and no coats at all, men and women in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting and swearing. You turn the corner, what a change, all is light and brilliancy. The hum of many voices' issues from that splendid gin shop which forms the commencement of the two streets opposite and the gay building with the fantastically ornamented parapet, the illuminated clock, the plate glass windows surrounded by stucco rosettes and its profusion of gas lights and richly gilt burners is perfectly dazzling when contrasted with the darkness and dirt we have just left. The interior is even gayer than the exterior. A bar of French polished mahogany elegantly carved extends the whole width of the place and there are two side aisles of great casks, painted green and gold and closed within a light brass rail and bearing such inscriptions as Old Tom 549, Young Tom 360, Samson 1421. The figures agreeing we presume with garlands understood. Beyond the bar is a lofty and spacious saloon full of the same enticing vessels with the gallery running around it, equally well furnished. On the counter in addition to the usual spirit apparatus, are two or three little baskets of cakes and biscuits, which are carefully secured at top with wicker work to prevent their contents being unlawfully abstracted. Behind it are two showily dressed damsels with large necklaces dispensing the spirits and compounds. They are assisted by the ostensible proprietor of the concern, a stout, coarse fellow in a fur cap, put on very much on one side to give him a knowing air and to display his sandy whiskers to the best advantage. The two old washer-woman, who are seated on the little bench to the left of the bar, are rather overcome by the headdresses and haughty demeanour of the young ladies who officiate. They receive the half-quarton of gin and peppermint with considerable deference, prefacing a request for one of them soft biscuits. Would that just be good enough, ma'am? They are quite astonished at the impudent air of the young fellow in a brown coat and bright buttons, who, ushering in his two companions and walking up to the bar in as careless a manner as if he had been used to green and gold ornaments all his life, winks at one of the young ladies with a singular coolness and calls for a cavorten and a three-out glass, just as if the place were his own. Gin, for you, sir, says the young lady when she has drawn it, carefully looking every way but the right one to show that the wink had no effect upon her. For me, Mary, my dear, replies the gentleman in brown. When it made Mary as it happens, said the young girl, rather relaxing as she delivers the change. Well, if it ain't it ought to be, responds the irresistible one. All the Marys as I ever see was handsome gals. Here the young lady, not precisely remembering how blushes are managed in such cases, abruptly ends the flirtation by addressing the female in the faded feathers who has just entered, and who, after stazing explicitly, prevent any subsequent misunderstanding, that this gentleman pays calls for a glass of pot-line and a bit of sugar. These two old men, who came in just to have a drain, finished their third quarten a few seconds ago. They have made themselves crying drunk, and the fat, comfortable-looking elderly women who had a glass of rum's shrub each have chimed in with their complaints on the hardness of the times. One of the women has agreed to stand a glass round, jocularly observing that grief never mended no broken bones, and as good people's worries scarce, what I says is, make the most on him, and that's about it. A sentiment which appears to afford unlimited satisfaction to those who have nothing to pay. It is growing late, and the throng of men, women and children who have been constantly going in and out dwindles down to two or three occasional stragglers, cold, wretched-looking creatures in the last stage of emaciation and disease. The null-to-virus labourers at the lower end of the place, who have been alternately shaking hands with and threatening the life of each other for the last hour, becomes furious in their disputes, and finding it impossible to silence one man who was particularly anxious to adjust the difference, they resort to the expedient of knocking him down and jumping on him afterwards. The man in the fur cap and the pot boy rush out. A scene of riot and confusion ensues. Half the Irishman gets shot out, and the other half get shot in. The pot boy's knocked among the tubs in no time. The landlord hits everybody, and everybody hits the landlord. The barmaids scream. The police come in. And the rest is a confused mixture of arms, legs, staves, torn coats, shouting and struggling. Some of the party are born off to the station house, and the remainder slink home to beat their wives for complaining and kick the children for daring to be hungry. We have sketched this subject very slightly, not only because our limits compel us to do so, but because, if it were pursued farther, it would be painful and repulsive. Well-disposed gentlemen and charitable ladies would alike turn with coldness and disgust from a description of the drunken, besotted men and wretched, broken-down, miserable women who form no inconsiderable portion of the frequenters of these horns, forgetting in the pleasant consciousness of their own rectitude the poverty of the one and the temptation of the other. Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater, and until you improve the homes of the poor, or persuade a half-famished wretch not to seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own misery, with the pittance which, divided among his family, would furnish a morsel of bread for each, gin-shops will increase in number and splendor. If temperance societies would suggest an antidote against hunger, filth and foul air, or could establish dispensaries for the gratuitous distribution of bottles of leather-water, gin-palaces would be numbered among the things that were. End of CHAPTER XXII OF SCENES FROM SKETCHES BY BOZ Recording by Miet of Miet's Bedtime Story podcast. CHAPTER XXIII OF SCENES FROM SKETCHES BY BOZ The Pawnbroker's Shop Of the numerous receptacles for misery and distress with which the streets of London unhappily abound, there are perhaps none which presents such striking scenes as the Pawnbroker's shops. The very nature and description of these places occasions there being but little known, except to the unfortunate beings whose profligacy or misfortune drives them to seek the temporary relief they offer. The subject may appear at first sight to be anything but an inviting one, but we venture on it nevertheless in the hope that, as far as the limits of our present paper are concerned, it will present nothing to disgust even the most fastidious reader. There are some Pawnbroker's shops of a very superior description. There are grades impawning as in everything else and distinctions must be observed even in poverty. The aristocratic Spanish cloak and the plebeian calico shirt, the silver fork and the flat iron, the muslin cravat and the belcher neckerchief would but ill assort together. So the better sort of Pawnbroker calls himself a silversmith and decorates his shop with handsome trinkets and expensive jewellery, while the more humble moneylender boldly advertises his calling and invites observation. It is with Pawnbroker's shops of the latter class that we have to do. We have selected one for our purpose and will endeavour to describe it. The Pawnbroker's shop is situated near Drury Lane at the corner of a court which affords a side entrance for the accommodation of such customers as may be desirous of avoiding customers by or the chance of recognition in the public street. It is a low, dirty-looking, dusty shop, the door of which stands always doubtfully a little way open, half inviting, half repelling the hesitating visitor. Who, if he be as yet uninitiated, examines one of the old garnet brooches in the window for a minute or two with affected eagerness, as if he contemplated making a purchase and then looked cautiously around to ascertain that no one watches him. Hastily slinks in, the door closing of itself after him to just its former width. The shop front and the window frames bear evident marks of having been once painted, but what the colour was originally or at what date it was probably laid on are at this remote period questions which may be asked but cannot be answered. Tradition states that the transparency in the front door which displays at night three red balls on a blue ground once bore also inscribed in graceful waves the words money advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of property. But a few illegible hieroglyphics are all that now remain to attest to the fact. The plate and jewels would seem to have disappeared together with the announcement for the articles of stock which are displayed in some profusion in the window, do not include any very valuable luxuries of either kind. A few old china cups, some modern vases, adorned with poultry paintings of three Spanish cavaliers playing three Spanish guitars or a party of boors carousing, each bore with one leg painfully elevated in the air by way of expressing his perfect freedom and gaiety, several sets of chessmen, two or three flutes, a few fiddles, a round-eyed portrait staring in astonishment from a very dark ground, some gaudily bound prayer books and testaments, two rows of silver watches quite as clumsy and almost as large as Ferguson's first, numerous old-fashioned table and teaspoons, displayed fan-like in half-dozens, strings of coral with great broad gilt snaps, cards of rings and brooches fastened and labelled separately like the insects in the British Museum. Cheap silver pen holders and snuff boxes with a masonic star complete the jewellery department, while five or six beds and smeary clouded ticks, strings of blankets and sheets, silk and cotton hankerchiefs and wearing apparel of every description form the more useful, even though less ornamental, part of the articles exposed for sale. An extensive collection of planes, chisels, saws and other carpenter's tools which have been pledged and never redeemed form the foreground of the picture, while the large frames full of ticketed bundles which are dimly seen through the dirty casement upstairs, the squalid neighbourhood, the adjoining houses straggling, shrunken and rotten with one or two filthy and wholesome-looking heads thrust out of every window, and old red ponds and stunted plants exposed on the torturing parapets to the manifest hazard of the heads of the passers-by, the noisy men loitering under the archway at the corner of the court or about the gin-shop next door, and their wives patiently standing on the curb-stone with large baskets of cheap vegetables slung round them for sale are its immediate auxiliaries. If the outside of the Pawnbroker's shop be calculated to attract the attention or excite the interest of the speculative pedestrian, its interior cannot fail to produce the same effect in an increased degree. The front door, which we have before noticed, opens into the common-shop, which is the result of all those customers whose habitual acquaintance with such scenes renders them indifferent to the observation of the companions in poverty. The side door opens into a small passage from which some half-dozen doors, which may be secured on the inside by bolts, open into a corresponding number of little dens or closets which face the counter. Here the more timid or respectable portion of the crowd shroud themselves from the notice of the remainder. And patiently wait until the gentleman behind the counter, with the curly black hair, diamond ring and double silver watch-guard, shall feel disposed to favour them with his notice, a consummation which depends considerably on the temper of the aforesaid gentleman for the time being. At the present moment this elegantly attired individual is in the act of entering the duplicate he has just made out in a thick book, a process from which he is diverted occasionally by a conversation he is carrying on with another young man similarly employed at a little distance from him, whose allusions to that last bottle of soda water last night and how regularly round my hat he felt himself when the young woman gave him in charge would appear to refer to the consequences of some stolen joviality of the preceding evening, the customers generally, however, seem unable to participate in the amusement derivable from this sauce. For an old, salo-looking woman who has been leaning with both arms on the counter with a small bundle before her for half an hour previously, suddenly interrupts the conversation by addressing the jewelled shopman. Now, Mr. Henry, do make haste. There's a good soul for my two grandchildren's locked up at home, and I'm a fear of the fire. The shopman slightly raises his head with an air of deep obstruction and resumes his entry with as much deliberation as if he were engraving. You're in a hurry, Mrs. Tatham, this evening, ain't you? Is only notice he deans to take after the lapse of five minutes or so. Yes, I'm indeed, Mr. Henry. Now, do serve me next. There's a good creature. I wouldn't worry you. It's only all along with them bothering children. What have you got here? inquires the shopman, unpinning the bundle. Old concern, I suppose. A pair of stairs and a petticoat. You must look up something else, old woman. I can't lend you anything more upon them. They're completely worn out by this time, if it's only by buttoning and taking out again three times a week. Oh, you're a rummer, you are, replies the old woman, laughing extremely as in duty-bound. I wish I'd got the gift of garb like you. See if I'd be up the spout so often then. No, no, it ain't the petticoat. It's a child's frook and a beautiful silk anchor chair as belonged to my husband. He gave four shillings for it the very same blessed day as he broke his arm. What do you want upon these inquires, Mr. Henry? Slightly glancing at the article, switch and all probability are old acquaintances. What do you want upon these? Eighteen pence. Lend you nine pence. Oh, make it a shilling, there's a dear do now. Not another farden. Well, I suppose I must take it. The duplicate is made out, one ticket pinned on the parcel, the other given to the old woman. The parcel is flunk carelessly down into a corner and some of the customer prefers his claim to be served without further delay. The choice falls on an unshaven, dirty, sortish-looking fellow whose tarnished paper-cap stuck negligently over one eye communicates an additionally repulsive expression to his very uninviting countenance. He was enjoying a little relaxation from his sedentary pursuits a quarter of an hour ago in kicking his wife up the cart. He has come to redeem some tools, probably to complete a job with, on account of which he has already received some money if his inflamed countenance and drunken staggers may be taken as evidence of that fact. Having waited some little time he makes his presence known by venting his ill humour on a ragged urchin, who, being unable to bring his face on a level with a counter by any other process, has employed himself in climbing up and then hooking himself on with his elbows, an uneasy perch from which he has fallen at intervals, generally alighting on the toes of the person in his immediate vicinity. In the present case, the unfortunate little wretch has received a cuff which sends him reeling to this door and the donor of the blow is immediately the object of general indignation. What do you strike the boy for, you brute? Exclaims a slipshod woman with two flat irons and a little basket. Do you think he's your wife, you willing? Go and hang yourself, replies the gentleman addressed with a drunken look of savage stupidity, aiming at the same time a blow at the woman which fortunately misses its object. Go and hang yourself and wait till I come cut you down. Cut you down, rejoins the woman. I wish I had the cutting of you up, you wagabond. Loud. Oh, you precious wagabond. Rather louder. Where's your wife, you willing? Louder still. Women of this class are always sympathetic and work themselves into a tremendous passion on the shot as notice. Your poor dear wife as you uses worse than not a dog, strike a woman. You a man? Very shrill. I wish I had you. I'd murder you, I would, if I died for it. Now be civil, retorts the man fiercely. Be civil, you wiper! ejaculates the woman contemptuously. Ain't it shocking? She continues turning round and appealing to an old woman who is peeping out of one of the little closets we have before described, and who has not the slightest objection to join in the attack, possessing as she does the comfortable conviction that she is bolted in. Ain't it shocking, ma'am? Dreadful, says the old woman in a parenthesis, not exactly knowing what the question refers to. He's got a wife, ma'am, and takes in mangling and is as industrious and hard-working as a young woman as can be, very fast, as lives in the back parlor of our house, which my husband and me lives in the front one, with great rapidity, and we hears him a-beaten on her sometimes when he comes home drunk the whole night through and not only a-beaten her, but beaten his own child, too, to make her more miserable. Ugh, you beast! And she, poor creature, won't swear the piece again him. Nor do you nothing because you like the wretch after all. Worst luck. Here, as the woman has completely run herself out of breath, the pawnbroker himself, who has just appeared behind the counter in a gray dressing gown, embraces the favourable opportunity of putting in a word. Now I won't have none of this sort of thing on my premises. He interposes with an air of authority. Mrs. Makin, keep yourself to yourself, or you don't get four pence for a flat iron here. And Jenkins, you leave your ticket here till you're sober and send your wife for them two planes, for I won't have you in my shop at no price. So make yourself scarce before I make you scarcer. This eloquent address produces anything but the effect desired. The women rail in concert, the man hits about him in all directions, and is in the act of establishing an indisputable claim to gratuitous lodgings for the night, when the entrance of his wife, a wretched, worn-out woman, apparently in the last stage of consumption, whose face bears evident marks of recent ill usage, and whose strength seems hardly equal to the burden, light enough, God knows, of the thin, sickly child she carries in her arms. Turns his cowardly rage in a safer direction. Come home, dear, cries the miserable creature in an imploring tone. Do you come home? There's a good fellow and go to bed. Go home yourself, rejoins the furious Ruffian. Do you come home quietly? repeats the wife, bursting into tears. Go home yourself! retorts the husband again, crossing his argument by a blow which sends the poor creature flying out of the shop. Her natural protector follows her up the court, alternately venting his rage in accelerating her progress, and in knocking the little scanty blue bunnet off the unfortunate child over its still more scanty and faded-looking face. In the last box, which is situated in the darkest and most obscure corner of the shop, considerably removed from either of the gas lights, are a young, delicate girl of about twenty, and an elderly female, evidently her mother from the resemblance between them, who stand at some distance back as to avoid the observation even of the shopman. It is not their first visit to a pawnbroker's shop, for they answer without a moment's hesitation the usual questions. Put in a rather respectful manner, and in a much lower tone than usual, what name shall I say? Your own property, of course. Where do you live? Housekeeper or lodger? They bargain, too, for a higher loan than the shopman is at first inclined to offer, which a perfect stranger would be little disposed to do. And the elder female urges her daughter on in scarcely audible whispers to exert her utmost powers of persuasion to obtain an advance of the sum, and expatiate on the value of the articles that they've brought in to raise a present supply on. They are a small gold chain and a forget-me-not ring. The girl's property, for they are both too small for the mother, given her in better times. Prized perhaps once for the giver's sake, but parted with now without a struggle, for want has hardened the mother, and her example has hardened the girl. And the prospect of receiving money, coupled with the recollection of the misery they have both endured from the want of it, the coldness of old friends, the stern refusal of some and the still more galling compassion of others appears to have obliterated the consciousness of self-humiliation, which the idea of their present situation would once have aroused. In the next box is a young female whose attire, miserably poor but extremely gaudy, wretchedly cold but extravagantly fine, too plainly bespeaks her station. The rich sat and gown with its faded trimmings, the worn-out thin shoes and pink silk stockings, the summer bonnet in winter, and the sunken face where a dab of rouge only serves as an index to the ravages of squandered health never to be regained, and lost happiness never to be restored, and where the practised smile is a wretched mockery of the misery of the heart, cannot be mistaken. There is something in the glimpse she has just caught of her young neighbour, and in the sight of the little trinkets she has offered in porn that seems to have awakened in this woman's mind some slumbering recollection, and to have changed for an instant her whole demeanour. Her first hasty impulse was to bend forward as if to scan more minutely the appearance of her half-concealed companions, her next on seeing them involuntarily shrink from her, to retreat to the back of the box, cover her face with her hands, and burst into tears. There are strange chords in the human heart which will lie dormant through years of depravity and wickedness, but which will vibrate at last to some slight circumstance apparently trivial in itself but connected by some undefined and indistinct association with past days that can never be recalled and with bitter recollections from which the most degraded creature in existence cannot escape. There has been another spectator in the person of a woman in the common shop, the lowest of the low, dirty, unbonneted, flaunting and slovenly. Her curiosity was at first attracted by the little she could see of the group, then her attention. The half-intoxicated Lea changed to an expression of something like interest and a feeling similar to that we have described, appearing for a moment and only a moment to extend itself even to her bosom. Who shall say how soon these women may change places? The last has bought two more stages, the hospital and the grave. How many females situated as her two companions are and as she may have been once have terminated the same wretched course in the same wretched manner. One is already tracing her footsteps with frightful rapidity. How soon may the other follow her example? How many have done the same? End of Chapter 23 of Scenes from Sketches by Bos Recording by Miet of Miet's Bedtime Story podcast Chapter 24 of Scenes from Sketches by Bos This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Sketches by Bos by Charles Dickens Illustrations by George Crookshank Chapter 24 of Scenes, Criminal Courts We shall never forget the mingled feelings of awe and respect with which we used to gaze on the exterior of Newgate in our schoolboy days. How dreadful its rough heavy walls and low massive doors appeared to us, the latter looking as if they were made for the express purpose of letting people in and never letting them out again. Then the fetters over the debtor's door, which we used to think were a bona fide set of irons, just hung up there for convenience's sake, ready to be taken down at a moment's notice and riveted on the limbs of some refactory felon. We were never tired of wondering how the hackney coachman on the opposite stand could cut jokes in the presence of such horrors and drink pots of half-and-half so near the last drop. Often we have strayed here in session's time to catch a glimpse of the whipping-place and that dark building on one side of the yard in which is kept the gibbet with all its dreadful apparatus, and on the door of which we half-expected to see a brass plate with the inscription Mr. Ketch, for we never imagined that the distinguished functionery could, by possibility, live anywhere else. The days of these childish dreams have passed away and with them many other boyish ideas of a gayer nature. But we still retain so much of our original feeling that to this hour we never passed the building without something like a shudder. What London pedestrian is there who has not at some time or other cast a hurried glance through the wicket at which prisoners are admitted into this gloomy mansion and surveyed the few objects he could discern with an indescribable feeling of curiosity. The thick door plated with iron and mounted with spikes, just low enough to enable you to see leaning over them an ill-looking fellow in a broad-brimmed hat, Belcher handkerchief and top boots with a brown coat, something between a great coat and a sporting jacket on his back and an immense key in his left hand. Perhaps you are lucky enough to pass just as the gate is being opened. Then you see, on the other side of the lodge, another gate, the image of its predecessor and two or three more turn keys who look like multiplications of the first one seated round a fire which just lights up the whitewashed apartment sufficiently to enable you to catch a hasty glimpse of these different objects. We have a great respect for Mrs Frye, but she's certainly ought to have written more romances than Mrs Radcliffe. We were walking leisurely down the Old Bailey some time ago when, as we passed this identical gate, it was opened by the officiating turn key. We turned quickly round as a matter of course and saw two persons descending the steps. We could not help stopping and observing them. They were an elderly woman of decent appearance, though evidently poor, and a boy of about fourteen or fifteen. The woman was crying bitterly. She carried a small bundle in her hand and the boy followed at a short distance behind her. Their little history was obvious. The boy was her son, to whose early comfort she had perhaps sacrificed her own, for whose sake she had borne misery without repining and poverty without a murmur, looking steadily forward to the time when he, who had so long witnessed her struggles for himself, might be enabled to make some exertions for their joint support. He had formed dissolute connections. Idleness had led to crime and he had been committed to take his trial for some petty theft. He had been long in prison and after receiving some trifling additional punishment had been ordered to be discharged that morning. It was his first offence and his poor old mother still hoping to reclaim him had been waiting at the gate to implore him to return home. We cannot forget the boy. He descended the steps with a dogged look, shaking his head with an air of bravado and obstinate determination. They walked a few paces and paused. The woman put her hand upon his shoulder in an agony of entreaty and the boy sullenly raised his head as if in refusal. It was a brilliant morning and every object looked fresh and happy in the broad, gay sunlight. He gazed round him for a few moments, bewildered with the brightness of the scene, for it was long since he had beheld anything, save the gloomy walls of a prison. Perhaps the wretchedness of his mother made some impression on the boy's heart, perhaps some undefined recollection of the time when he was a happy child and she, his only friend and best companion, crowded on him. He burst into tears and covering his face with one hand and hurriedly placing the other in his mother's, walked away with her. Curiosity had occasionally led us into both courts at the Old Bailey. Nothing is so lightly to strike the person who enters them for the first time as the calm indifference with which the proceedings are conducted. Every trial seems a mere matter of business. There is a great deal of form, but no compassion, considerable interest, but no sympathy. Take the Old Court, for example. There sit the judges, with whose great dignity everybody is acquainted with whom therefore we need say no more. Then there is the Lord Mayor in the centre, looking as cool as a Lord Mayor can look, with an immense bouquet before him and habited in all the splendour of his office. Then there are the sheriffs who are almost as dignified as the Lord Mayor himself and the barristers who are quite dignified enough in their own opinion and the spectators who, having paid for their admission, look upon the whole scene as if it were got up especially for their amusement. Look upon the whole group in the body of the court, some wholly engrossed in the morning papers, others carelessly conversing in low whispers, and others again quietly dozing away an hour. And you can scarcely believe that the result of the trial is a matter of life or death to one wretched being present. But turn your eyes to the dock. Look at the prisoner attentively for a few moments, and the fact is before you in all its painful reality. Mark how restlessly he has been engaged for the last ten minutes in forming all sorts of fantastic figures with the herbs which are strewed upon the ledge before him. Observe the ashy paleness of his face when a particular witness appears and how he changes his position and wipes his clammy forehead and feverish hands when the case for the prosecution is closed as if it were a relief to him to feel that the jury knew the worst. The defence is concluded. The judge proceeds to sum up the evidence, and the prisoner watches the countenances of the jury as a dying man clinging to life to the very last, vainly looks in the face of his physician for a slight ray of hope. They turn round to consult. You can almost hear the man's heart beat as he bites the stalk of Rosemary with a desperate effort to appear composed. They resume their places. A dead silence prevails as the foreman delivers in the verdict. Guilty! A shriek bursts from a female in the gallery. The prisoner casts one look at the quarter from whence the noise proceeded and is immediately hurried from the dock by the jailer. The clerk directs one of the officers of the court to take the woman out, and fresh business is preceded with as if nothing had occurred. No imaginary contrast to a case like this could be as complete as that which is constantly presented in the new court, the gravity of which is frequently disturbed in no small degree by the cunning and pertinacity of juvenile offenders. A boy of thirteen is tried, say, for picking the pocket of some subject of Her Majesty and the offence is about as clearly proved as an offence can be. He is called upon for his defence and contents himself with a little declamation about the juryman and his country asserts that all the witnesses have committed perjury and hints that the police force generally have entered into a conspiracy against him. However probable this statement may be, it fails to convince the court and some such scene as the following then takes place. Court Have you any witnesses to speak to your character, boy? Boy. Yes, my Lord, fifteen gentlemen is abating outside, was abating all day yesterday, which they told me the night before my trial was coming on. Court Inquire for these witnesses. Here a stout beetle runs out and vociferates for the witnesses at the very top of his voice for you hear his cry grow fainter and fainter as he descends the steps into the courtyard below. After an absence of five minutes he returns, very warm and hoarse, and informs the court of what it knew perfectly well before, namely that there are no such witnesses in attendance. Hereupon the boy sets up a most awful howling, screws the lower part of the palms of his hands into the corners of his eyes and endeavors to look the picture of injured innocence. The jury at once finds him guilty, and his endeavors to squeeze out a tear or two are redoubled. The governor of the jail then states, in reply to an inquiry from the bench, that the prisoner has been under his care twice before. This the urchin resolutely denies in some such terms as, Help me, gentlemen, I never was in trouble before. Indeed, my Lord, I never was. It's all a howling am I having a twin brother. Vitch has wrongfully got into trouble, and Vitch is so exactly like me that no one ever knows the difference between us. This representation, like the defence, fails in producing the desired effect, and the boy is sentenced, perhaps, to seven years' transportation. Finding it impossible to excite compassion, he gives vent to his feelings in an implication bearing reference to the eyes of old big-fig, and as he declines to take the trouble of walking from the dock, his forthwith carried out, congratulating himself on having succeeded in giving everybody as much trouble as possible.