We have quite lost the mug-house. This was a kind of music-hall, a large room where only men were admitted, and where ale or stout was the only drink consumed. Every man had his pipe; there was a president, a harp was played at one end of the room, and out of the company present one after the other stood up to sing. Between the songs there were toasts and speeches, sometimes of a political kind, and the people drank to each other from table to table.
It was a great fighting time. Every man who went abroad knew that he might have to fight to defend himself against footpad or bully. Most men carried a stout stick. When Dr. Johnson heard that a man had threatened to horsewhip him, he ordered a thick cudgel and was easy in his mind. There were no police, and therefore a man had to fight. It cannot be doubted that the martial spirit of the country, which during the whole century was extraordinary, was greatly maintained by the practice of fighting, which prevailed alike in all ranks. Too much order is not all pure gain. If we have got rid of the Mohocks and street scourers, we have lost a good deal of that readiness to fight which firmly met those Mohocks and made them fly.
I suppose that one can become accustomed to everything. But the gibbets which one saw stuck up everywhere, along the Edgeware Road, on the river-side, on Blackheath, on Hampstead Heath, or Kennington Common, must have been an unpleasing sight. Some of the gibbets remained until early in this century.
The subject of beer is of world-wide importance. It must be understood that all through the century the mystery of brewing was continually advancing. We finally shook off the heresies of broom, bay-berries, and ivy-berries as flavoring things for beer; we perfected the manufacture of stout. There sprang up during the century what hardly existed before – a critical feeling for beer. It may be found in the poets and in the novelists. Goldsmith has it; Fielding has it. There were over fifty brewers in London, where, as a national drink, it entirely displaced wine. The inns vied with each other in the excellence of their tap,
"Where the Red Lion, staring o'er the way,
Invites each passing stranger that can pay;
Where Calvert's broth and Parsons' black champagne
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane."
There were many houses where every night there was singing and playing, to the accompaniment of beer alone; and there was at least one famous debating club – the Robin Hood – where stout was the only drink permissible.
Here are one or two notes of domestic interest. The washing of the house was always done at home. And, which was a very curious custom, the washer-woman began her work at midnight. Why this was so ordered, I know not; but there must have been some reason. During the many wars of the century wheat went up to an incredible price. One year it was 104s. a quarter, so that bread was three times as dear as it is at present. Housewives in those times cut their bread with their own hands, and kept it until it was stale. If you wanted a place under Government, you could buy one; the sum of £500 would get you a comfortable berth in the Victualling Office, for instance, where the perquisites, pickings, and bribes for contracts made the service worth having. Members of Parliament, who had the privilege of franking letters, sometimes sold the right for £300 a year. Ale-houses were marked by chequers on the door-post – to this day the Chequers is a common tavern sign. Bakers had a lattice at their doors. All tradesmen – not servants only, but master tradesmen – asked for Christmas-boxes. The Fleet weddings went on merrily. There was great feasting on the occasion of a wedding, duly conducted in the parish church. On the day of the wedding the bridegroom himself waited on bride and guests.
If the married couple were city people, they were regaled after the ceremony with the marrow-bones and cleavers – perhaps the most delectable music ever invented. It was also costly, because the musicians wanted drink, and plenty of it, as well as money.
Nothing seems grander than to hear of a city illuminated in honor of a victory or peace, or the King's birthday. For the most part, however, the grand illumination consisted of nothing but a thin candle stuck in a lump of clay in the window.
In the days before the policeman there was a good deal of rough-and-ready justice done in the streets – pickpockets were held under the pump till they were half-dead; informers were pelted through the streets, tarred, and feathered; those worthy citizens who beat their wives were serenaded with pots and pans, and had to endure the cries of indignant matrons. The stocks were always in view; the pillory was constantly in use. Now, the pillory was essentially punishment by the people; if they sympathized with the culprit, he escaped even disgrace; if they condemned him, addled eggs, rotten potatoes, turnips, dead cats, mud and filth, flying in his face, proclaimed aloud the opinion of the people.
One thing more – the universal patten. When women went abroad all wore pattens; it was a sensible fashion in days of bad pavements and muddy crossings, as Gay wrote kindly, yet with doubtful philology:
"The patten now supports each frugal dame,
Which from the blue-eyed Patty takes the name."
There was also great expense and ostentation observed at funerals; every little shopkeeper, it was observed, must have a hearse and half a dozen mourning-coaches to be carried a hundred yards to the parish church-yard. They were often conducted at night, in order to set off the ceremony by hired mourners bearing flambeaux.
The amount of flogging in the army and navy is appalling to think of. That carried on ashore is a subject of some obscurity. The punishment of whipping has never been taken out of our laws. Garroters, and robbers who are violent are still flogged, and boys are birched. I know not when they ceased to flog men through the streets at the cart-tail, nor when they left off flogging women. The practice certainly continued well into the century. In the prisons it was a common thing to flog the men. As for the severity of the laws protecting property, one illustration will suffice. What can be thought of laws which allowed the hanging of two children for stealing a purse with two shillings and a brass counter in it? Something, however, may be said for Father Stick. He ordered everything, directed everything, superintended everything. Without him nothing was ever done; nothing could be done. Men were flogged into drill and discipline, they were flogged into courage, they were flogged into obedience, boys were flogged into learning, prentices were flogged into diligence, women were flogged into virtue. Father Stick has still his disciples, but in the last century he was king.
We have spoken of station and order. It must be remembered that there was then no pretence of a clerk, or any one of that kind, calling himself a gentleman. Steele, however, notes the attempts made by small people to dub themselves esquire, and says we shall soon be a nation of armigeri. The Georgian clerk was a servant – the servant of his master, and a very faithful servant, too, for the most part. His services were rewarded at a rate of pay varying from £20 to £100 a year. A clerk in a Government office seldom got more than £50, but some of them had chances of a kind which we now call dishonest. In other words, they took perquisites, commissions, considerations, and bribes.
I have said, elsewhere, that the London craftsman sank about this time to the lowest level he has ever reached. In the City itself, as we have seen, he was carefully looked after. Each little parish consisted of two or three streets, where every resident was well known. But already the narrow bounds of the Freedom had pushed out the people more and more. The masters – the merchants and retailers – still remained; those who were pushed out were the craftsmen. When they left the City they not only left the parish where all were friends – all, at least, belonging to the same ship's crew; where there was a kindly feeling towards the poor; where the boys and girls were taught the ways of virtue and the Catechism – they left the company, to which they were no longer apprenticed, and which became nothing but a rich company of masters or men unconnected with the trade; they left the Church; they left the school; they left all the charities, helps, encouragements which had formerly belonged to them. They went to Whitechapel, to St. Katherine's Precinct, to Spital Fields, to Clerkenwell. They lived by themselves, knowing no law except the law of necessity, and they drank – drank – drank. No energetic vicar, no active young curate, no deaconess, no Sister, no Bible-woman ventured among them. They went forth in the morning to their work, and in the evening they returned home to their dens. We read about these people in Fielding, Smollett, Colquhoun, Eden, and others; we see what they were like in Hogarth. Their very brutality rendered them harmless. Had they been a little less brutal, a little more intelligent – had they been like the lower sort of Parisian, there might have been a revolution in this country with brutalities as bad as any that marked the first act in that great drama played between 1792 and 1815.
The seamy side of London in the last century has been laid bare by one writer after another. Because it seems more picturesque than the daily humdrum life of honest folk it is always chosen in preference to the latter. Gentlemen who live by their wits are common in every age; they adorn the Victorian as much as the Elizabethan period. The rogue is always with us. There are, however, as we have seen, varieties belonging to each period. Thus the kidnapper, who has now left these islands, was formerly a very common variety of rogue. He was sometimes called crimp, sometimes kidnapper, and his trade was the procuring of recruits. In time of war he enlisted for the army and the navy, and in time of peace for the merchant service and the East India Company's. He carried on his business with all the tricks and dodges which suggested themselves to an ingenious mind, but his favorite way of working was this: He prowled about places where young countrymen might be found. One presently appeared who had come to town on business or for amusement. He lent a willing ear to the courteous and friendly stranger who so kindly advised him as to the sights and the dangers of the wicked town. He readily followed when the stranger proposed a glass in an honest tavern, which could be highly recommended. He sat down without suspicion in a parlor where there were two or three of the right sort, together with two gallant fellows in uniforms, sergeants of the grenadiers, or bo's'ns in the E. I. C. service. He listened while these heroes recounted their deeds of valor; he listened with open mouth; and, alas! he drank with open mouth as well. Presently he became so inflamed with the liquor that he acceded to the sergeant's invitation, and took the bounty money then and there. If he did not, he drank on until he was speechless. When he recovered next day, his friend – the courteous stranger of the day before – was present to remind him that he had enlisted, that the bounty money was in his pocket, and that the cockade was on his hat. If he resisted he was hauled before a magistrate, the sergeants being ready to prove that he voluntarily enlisted. This done, he was conducted to a crimp's house, of which there were many in different parts of London, and there kept until he could be put on board or taken to some military depot. In the house, which was barred and locked like a prison, he was regaled with rum which kept him stupid and senseless. Should he try to escape, he was charged with robbery and hanged.
The continual succession of wars enriched London with that delightful character, the man who had served in the army – perhaps borne his Majesty's commission – and had returned to live, not by his wits, because he had none, but by his strength of arm, his skill of fence, and his powers of bluster. He became the bully. As such he was either the Darby Captain, who was paid to be the gaming-house bully, or the Cock and Bottle Captain, who was the ale-house bully, and fought bailiffs for his friends; or the Tash Captain, who now has another name, and may be found near Coventry Street.
The Setter played a game which brought in great gains, but was extremely difficult and delicate. He was the agent for ladies whose reputations were – let us say unjustly – cracked. His object was to restore them to society by honorable marriage, and not only to society, but also to position, credit, and luxury. A noble ambition! He therefore frequented the coffee-houses, the bagnios, and the gambling places on the lookout for heirs and eldest sons, or, if possible, young men of wealth and position. Of course they must be without experience. He would thus endeavor to obtain the confidence of his victim until it became safe to introduce him to the beautiful young widow of good family, and so on; the rest we may guess. Sometimes, of course, the young heir was a young fortune-hunter, who married the widow of large fortune only to find that she was a penniless adventuress with nothing but debts, which he thus took upon himself and paid by a life-long imprisonment in the Fleet.
The travelling quack we have considered. There was another kind who was stationary and had a good house in the City. This kind cured by sympathy, by traction, by earth-bathing, by sea-bathing, by the quintessence of Bohea tea and cocoanuts distilled together, by drugs, and by potions. He advertised freely, he drove about ostentatiously in a glass coach; he had all kinds of tricks to arrest attention – for instance, the Goddess of Hygeia was to be seen by all callers daily, at the house of the great Dr. Graham. The cruel persecution of the College of Physicians has extinguished the quack, who, if he now exists, must have first passed the examinations required by the regular practitioner.
The bogus auction has always been a favorite method of getting quick returns and a rapid turnover. It is not now so common as formerly, but it still exists.
The intelligence office, where you paid a shilling and were promised a place of great profit, and were called upon for another shilling and still another, and then got nothing, is now called an agency, and is said to flourish very well indeed.
The pretended old friend, who was a common character in 1760, has, I am told, crossed the ocean and changed his name. He is now a naturalized citizen of the United States, and his name is Bunco Steerer.
Let me add to this account – too scanty and meagre – of London in the last century a brief narrative – borrowed, not invented – of a Sunday holiday. It has been seen that the City was careful about the church-going of the citizens. But laws were forgotten, manners relaxed; outside the City no such discipline was possible, nor was any attempted. And to the people within the walls, as well as to those without, Sunday gradually became a day of holiday and pleasure. You shall see what a day was made of a certain Sunday in the summer of 17 – by a pair of citizens whose names have perished.
The holiday makers slept at the Marlborough Head, in Bishopsgate Street, whence they sallied forth at four in the morning. Early as it was, the gates of the inn-yards were thronged with young people gayly dressed, waiting for the horses, chaises, and carriages which were to carry them to Windsor, Hampton Court, Richmond, etc., for the day. They were mostly journeymen or apprentices, and the ladies with them were young milliners and mantua-makers. They first walked westward, making for the Foundling Hospital, on their way passing a rabble rout drinking saloop and fighting. Arrived at the fields lying south of that institution, they met with a company of servants, men and girls, who had stolen some of their masters' wine, and were out in the fields to drink it. They shared in the drink, but deplored the crime. It will be observed, as we go along, that a very creditable amount of drink accompanied this holiday. Then they continued walking across the fields till they came to Tottenham Court Road, where the Wesleyans, in their tabernacle, were holding an early service. Outside the chapel a prize-fight was going on, with a crowd of ruffians and betting men. It was, however, fought on the cross.
They next retraced their steps across the fields and arrived at Bagnigge Wells, which lay at the east of the Gray's Inn Road, nearly opposite what is now Mecklenburgh Square, and north-east of the St. Andrew's Burying-ground. Early as it was, the place already contained several hundreds of people. The Wells included a great room for concerts and entertainments, a garden planted with trees, shrubs, and flowers, and provided with walks, a fish-pond, fountain, rustic bridge, rural cottages, and seats. The admission was threepence. They had appointed to breakfast at the Bank Coffee-house, therefore they could not wait longer here. On the way to the City they stopped at the Thatched House and took a gill of red port.
The Bank Coffee-house was filled with people taking breakfast and discussing politics or trade. It is not stated what they had for breakfast, but as one of the company is spoken of as finishing his dish of chocolate, it may be imagined that this was the usual drink. A lovely barmaid smiled farewell when they left the place. From this coffee-house they went to church at St. Mary-le-Strand, where a bishop preached a charity sermon. At the close of the sermon the charity children were placed at the doors, loudly imploring the benefactions of the people. After church they naturally wanted a little refreshment; they therefore went to a house near St. Paul's, where the landlord provided them a cold collation with a pint of Lisbon.
The day being fine, they agreed to walk to Highgate and to dine at the ordinary there. On the way they were beset by beggars in immense numbers. They arrived at Highgate just in time for the dinner – probably at two o'clock. The company consisted principally of reputable tradesmen and their families. There was an Italian musician, a gallery reporter – that is, a man who attended the House and wrote down the debates from memory – and a lawyer's clerk. The ordinary consisted of two or three dishes and cost a shilling each. They had a bottle of wine and sat till three o'clock, when they left the tavern and walked to Primrose Hill. Here they met an acquaintance in the shape of an Eastcheap cheesemonger, who was dragging his children in a four-wheel chaise up the hill, while his wife carried the good man's wig and hat on the point of his walking-stick. The hill was crowded with people of all kinds.
When they had seen enough they came away and walked to the top of Hampstead Hill. Here, at the famous Spaniard's, they rested and took a bottle of port.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon when they left Hampstead and made for Islington, intending to see the White Conduit House on their way to the Surrey side.
All these gardens – to leave these travellers for a moment – Ranelagh, Vauxhall, Bagnigge Wells, and the rest, were alike. They contained a concert and a promenade room, a garden laid out in pleasing walks, a fish-pond with arbors, and rooms for suppers, a fountain, a band of music, and a dancing-floor. The amusements of Ranelagh are thus described by a visitor who dropped into verse:
"To Ranelagh, once in my life,
By good-natured force I was driven;
The nations had ceased from their strife,
And peace beamed her radiance from heaven.
"(I stop to apologize for these two lines; but everybody knows that strife and heaven are very neat rhymes of life and driven. Otherwise I admit that they have nothing to do with Ranelagh.)
"What wonders were there to be found
That a clown might enjoy or disdain?
First we traced the gay circle around,
And then we went round it again.
"A thousand feet rustled on mats —
A carpet that once had been green;
Men bowed with their outlandish hats,
With women so fearfully keen.
Fair maids, who, at home in their haste,
Had left all their clothes but a train,
Swept the floor clean as they passed,
Then walked round and swept it again."
At these gardens this Sunday afternoon there were several hundreds of people, not of the more distinguished kind. They found a very pretty girl here who was so condescending as to take tea with them.
Leaving the Conduit House, they paid another visit to Bagnigge Wells in order to drink a bowl of negus. By this time the place was a scene of open profligacy. They next called a coach, and drove to Kensington Gardens, where they walked about for an hour seeing the great people. Among others, they had the happiness of beholding the D – of Gr-ft-n, accompanied by Miss P – , and L – d H – y with the famous Mrs. W – . Feeling the want of a little refreshment, they sought a tea-garden in Brompton known as Cromwell's Gardens or Florida Gardens, where they drank coffee, and contemplated the beauty of many lovely creatures.
It was now nine o'clock in the evening. In the neighborhood of the Mall they saw a great block of carriages on their way to Lady H – 's Sunday routs. The explorers then visited certain houses frequented by the baser sort, and were rewarded in the manner that might have been expected – namely, with ribaldry and blasphemy. As the clock struck ten they arrived at the Dog and Duck, St. George's Fields. From the Dog and Duck they repaired to The Temple of Flora, a place of the same description as Bagnigge Wells. Here, as the magistrates had refused a wine license, they kept a citizen and vintner on the premises. He, by virtue of his livery, had the right to sell wine without a license. Our friends took a bottle here. The Apollo Gardens, the Thatched House, the Flora Tea-garden, were also places of resort of the same kind, all with a garden, tea and music rooms, and a company of doubtful morals. They drove next to the Bermondsey Spa Gardens, described as an elegant place of entertainment, two miles from London Bridge, with a walk hung with colored lamps not inferior to that of Vauxhall. There was also a lovely pasteboard castle and a museum of curiosities. They had another bottle here, and a comfortable glass of cherry-brandy before getting into the carriage. Finally they reached the place whence they started at midnight, and after a final bumper of red port retired to rest. A noble Sunday, lasting from four o'clock in the morning till midnight. They walked twenty miles at least; they drank all day long – port, Lisbon, chocolate, negus, tea, coffee, and cherry-brandy, besides their beer at dinner. On nine different occasions they called for a pint or a bottle. A truly wonderful and improving Sunday!
A chapter on Georgian London would be incomplete indeed which failed to notice the institution which plays so large a part in the literature of the period – the debtors' prison. Strange it seems to us who have only recently reformed in this matter, that a man should be locked up for life because he was unable to pay a trifling debt, or even a heavy debt. Everybody knows the Fleet, with its racquet courts and its prisoners; everybody knows the King's Bench, and the Marshalsea also is familiar to us. Here, however, is a picture of Wood Street Compter, which is not so well known. In this place, one of the two City Compters under the sheriffs, were confined not only debtors, but also persons charged with night assaults – men or women – and felons and common thieves, the latter perhaps when Newgate was full. For these there was the strong room, in which men and women were locked up together, unless they could afford a separate room, for which they paid two shillings a night before commitment, and one shilling a night after. On the master's side, those of the debtors who could afford to pay for them had separate rooms, but miserably furnished; on the common side there were two wards. In one of these, which was nearly dark and called the Hole, shelves were arranged along the wall like the bunks in a cabin; here those who had any beds laid them, those who had none slept on the bare shelf. This was the living-room and the cooking-room, as well as the sleeping-room. The smell of the place, the narrator says, was intolerable. In the second ward of the common side lived those a little removed from destitution, who could pay fifteen pence a week for the accommodation of a bed. Otherwise it was the same as the first ward. The women had a separate ward. There was a drinking-bar here in a kind of cellar – "the place full of ill smells and every inconvenience that man could conceive." Quarrels, fightings, and brawls were punished by black hole. Men in prison on charge of night assaults were called rats; women under similar charges were called mice.
It seems as if life under such conditions must have been intolerable. Never to be alone, never to be clean, never to be quiet, never to be free from the smell of bad cooking, confined rooms, stale tobacco, vile spirits; never to be free from the society of vile men; this was the punishment for those who could not pay their debts. Wood Street Compter was removed to Giltspur Street in 1791.
The subject of Fleet weddings has been treated at length in a certain novel founded on one of them. They did not altogether belong to the baser sort, or to the more profligate sort. Many a young citizen arranged with his mistress to take her secretly to the Fleet, there to marry her, then back again and on their knees to the parents. This saved the expense of the wedding-feast, which was almost as great as that of the funeral-feast.
As to trade, it was marching in giant strides, such as even good old Sir Thomas Gresham had not considered possible. The increase of trade belongs to the historian; we have only to notice the great warehouses along Thames Street, the quays and wharves, the barges and lighters, the ships lying two miles in length in two long lines below bridge, the crowd of stevedores, watermen, lightermen, the never-ending turmoil of those who loaded and unloaded the ships, the solid, sober merchants dressed in brown cloth, with white silk stockings and white lace ruffles and neckerchiefs. They are growing rich – they are growing very rich. London has long been the richest city in the world.
These notes are wholly insufficient to show the London of George, the Second. They illustrate the daily life of the citizens; they also show something of the brutality, the drunkenness, and the rough side of the lower levels. The better side of London – that of the scholars, divines, writers, and professional men – comes out fully in the memoirs and letters of the period, which are fortunately abundant. There we can find the stately courtesy of the better sort, the dignity, the respect to rank, the exaction of respect, the social gradations which were recognized by those above as well as those below, the religion which was partly formal and partly touched with the old Puritanic spirit, the benevolence and the charity of the upper class, coupled with their determination that those below shall never be allowed to combine, the survival of old traditions, and all the other points which make us love this century so much. If any notes on London of this period omitted mention of these points, they would be inadequate indeed.
These notes – these chapters – to conclude, make no pretence to show more than the City life; which was decorous at all times, and especially during the last century. Of the wickedness, goodness, vice, and virtue that went on at the court, and among the aristocracy from age to age, nothing has been said. The moralist has plenty to say on this subject. Unfortunately, the moralist always picks out the worst cases, and wants us to believe that they are average specimens. A good deal might be said, I am of opinion, on the other side, in considering the many virtues; the courage, loyalty, moderation, and the sense of honor which has always distinguished the better sort among the nobility.
We have seen London from age to age. It has changed indeed. Yet in one thing it has shown no change. London has always been a city looking forward, pressing forward, fighting for the future, using up the present ruthlessly for the sake of the future, trampling on the past. As it has been, so it is. The City may have reached its highest point; it may be about to decline; but as yet it shows no sign, it has sounded no note of decay, or of decline, or of growing age. The City, which began with the East Saxon settlement among the forsaken streets thirteen hundred years ago, is still in the full strength and lustihood of manhood – perhaps as yet it is only early manhood. For which, as in private duty bound, let us laud, praise, and magnify the Providence which has so guided the steps of the citizens, and so filled their hearts, from generation to generation, with the spirit of self-reliance, hope, and courage.