CORRESPONDENCE.

A STREET ADVENTURE BY TOM HUGHES.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")

think the enclosed article found among the papers of my father (Mr. Tom Hughes) may be of interest to your

"I used to drop in about half-past 9 [at the chambers where he was reading for the Bar], some three-quarters of an hour before the other pupils, in order to have a quiet read to myself. This sort of reading was quite new to me. I don't know how it was with men in other sets, but at school and college I hardly ever looked at a daily paper except to read some speech of a leading Member in a great debate, and my newspaper reading was confined chiefly to the chronicles of boat races, cricket matches, pedestrianism, and (for truth must out) prize-fights in Bell's Life ; and I know that the same amount of reading satisfied most of the men with whom I lived, and they included not only those of my standing who were devoted to athletic exercises, but many quiet reading men with a strong turn for all other sorts of literature. I am merely stating facts here, and not trying to account for them ; but I suppose the reason of this is that men require to be started into actual working life themselves, before they care to see how others are living and what they are working at. Be this as it may, I read the Times daily, and one of the first and strongest impressions its perusal made on me was the cause of the adventure I am going to relate. Scarcely a day passed but I read of some brutal attack upon policemen by a lot of Irish labourers or thieves or costermongers, in which the assailants had used the most cowardly means to disable the officer, either kicking or biting or throwing great stones at short distances, or some other equally ruffianly trick, which outraged all my public-school notions of fair play ; and

so, as my turn is entirely a practical one, I made a memo- randum in a quiet corner of my mind, to go in like a man and help the first policeman I came across in the streets who had more than one man on his hands. I hope that there was not wholly wanting in me a desire to uphold the Law, and help its officers in the discharge of their duties, but certainly my resolve was chiefly grounded on the love of fair play, and the hatred of any weapon except the two fists when there was one man only on each side of a difference.

It was not long before I had an opportunity of carrying out my resolution. I was asked out to dinner one October evening at a quarter to 7 o'clock, and, as I had a great dislike of being late, had dressed by C, and was quietly strolling towards the West, along the back streets which run between Soho Square and Regent Street. Suddenly I came upon a mob of some forty boys and men, and, I am sorry to say, a few women, of the most ragged sort, in a state of great excitement. There was evidently a furious scuffle going on in the centre, and on all hands I heard cries of 'Go it, Joey," Give it the b— crusher," Kick him on the knee,' and other equally select pieces of advice. In a moment it flashed across me that one of my unknown friends of the force was in conflict with, and trying to incarcerate, a breaker of the laws, and a glance told me that he was not likely to get much fair play, or to have only one man on his hands, if no one stood by him for the next five minutes. Casting one regretful thought on my best blacks and immaculate waistcoat, I went hurling into the press, and in a second was in the middle of it. There sure enough was a policeman in close grapple with a little man whose like I had never seen before. He was all over the same colour --a dirty brown; hair, skin, clothes (consisting of a ragged jacket and trousers of sack-cloth), and shoes were of the same hue, and his battered hat and basket, which lay on a heap of street sweepings close by, were of a piece with the rest Of his outer man. He was much smaller than his opponent, but had the advantage of having both his hands free, while the policeman couldn't let go his grip on the sackcloth collar, and had only one hand to ward off blows and pinion the arms of the vigorous Joey —as the mob called the little man in their vociferations. Besides, the fury in the little man's eye, and the determined way in which he fought, showed that he was more than a match for the police- man, who didn't seem half in earnest. Just as I got close to them a successful back crook of Joey's made the policeman totter, and after a stagger or two to try and right himself, down went both on the pavement, policeman still holding on, and over and over they rolled in the dusty kennel. 'Now's your time; Joey,' shouted the crowd; 'stick your knees into him ; mark him for life." Kick him from behind, boys,' shouted another sympathiser ; and the crowd thickened round the writhing men so that the advice might have been followed in another seCond. 'Now for it,' thought I, and I sprang at the fellow nearest to the

prostrate man, a tall gaunt figure in an old shabby black coat, seized him by the collar, and swung him round against the mob. Stand back, you cowardly blackguards,' I shouted, • there's only one to one let 'em have it out. If he bites, policeman, use your staff.'

For a moment the crowd were taken aback at an interference which was plainly contrary to precedent, and a clear space was formed round the combatants, and then came a volley of abuse at me, which I needn't repeat, as I have already given enough of the style used on such occasions. Luckily, there were no loose stones about, or a more decisive volley might have followed, but the crowd began to press in again, and it was all I could do by turning my back to the combatants, who were now against the rails, and showing a determined front, to keep a small place clear for the next half-minute. I was wise enough not to strike a blow until I found it quite necessary, and before it came to that the mob sundered, and two other policemen arrived on the field of action with staves out,—one of them joined me, and the other turned to Joey ; and now the face of things was quite changed, and the mob retreated two or three yards. But the capture was not accomplished. Joey, nothing daunted at the eel& which the fate of war had cast against him, merely altered his tactics, and turning on his back kicked and struck out with undiminished vigour. One policeman held an arm, and gripped his collar at imminent risk, the other was trying to secure his' legs. 'Turn him over on his face, and then he'll only kick the ground,' I suggested, and incurred thereby a new volley of abuse from the mob, who had now settled that I was a detective, a discovery which seemed to excite their wrath more even than my dress, which had been their object of attack before. I was almost sorry I had given the advice a moment afterwards, for the thorough pluck of Joey began to interest me. But to cut a long tale short, it was not till the arrival of other policemen and a stretcher, that the little man, and his hat and basket, could be secured, and carried off in triumph.

You had better come along with us, Sir,' said the inspector to me as they were going to start ; 'the mob may follow you and be troublesome.'

Thank you,' I answered, my way is towards Regent Street. Besides, they are following the stretcher, and I don't care for them if they do come.'

Will you attend in the Court to-morrow then, Sir, and give evidence ?'

didn't see the beginning of the row, but I'll attend. Good. night.'

'Well, Sir, you know your own affairs best. If you won't come, good-night.' And away went the superintendent. My blood was up, and so, even had the mob been still round me, I should have gone my own way, so I turned towards the West, and strolled on again, half wishing that I had not seen the end of my night's adventure. Yes, certainly, when I recall the scene of that evening, which is vividly impressed on my memory, for reasons which the reader may gather if he chooses to wade to the end of this chapter, I confess, and I am sorry to confess, that I turned away from the inspector with strong, but by no means divine, anger at my heart. In the first place, I was not thoroughly satisfied that I was in the right in what I had done ; secondly, the mob were cowards, which always makes a man angry ; thirdly, the policeman had struck Joey with his staff, after anothor of the force had come to his aid, which showed that he was little better than the mob ; and so, on the whole, I felt uncommonly ready to quarrel right or wrong with any one who came in my way; and haven't you, my reader, often found your- self in an equally un-Christian temper, when you've interfered where you had no direct call, with the best intentions, but before you knew the rights of the case, and don't know whether you haven't put your foot in it ? I was not sorry, therefore, when I heard footsteps hurrying after me, and in another moment found my tall friend at my side, backed by some half-dozen men and boys who had left the crowd when they found that I had gone on my own way, for the purpose of baiting the man who had had the bad taste to help a crusher in difficulties.

My gaunt friend slackened his pace as he came abreast of me, and began a catechism interspersed with many vituperative epithets as to what the devil business was it of mine ? " how the detectives were paid ?' and getting no answer to his questions, went on to some gross abuse of the aristocracy, in which favoured body he chose to place me, and ended by threatening to punch my head, just as we came under a bright gas lamp where the street was reasonably level. I had already prepared for action by unbuttoning my left shirt sleeve and brace, and so turned short upon him with my back to the lamp so as to get the right light with. 'Now, Sir, what do you want with me ?' Poor fellow, as the light fell full upon him I saw in a moment that he was not the man I could raise a hand against—a shambling, lank creature, with thin white hands that could scarcely have crushed an egg- shell. His drawn sallow face told of bad food, long confinement, and filthy air, while his eyes and nose showed that the devil had tempted him to the worst solace for a poor man's miseries. My anger oozed away at once, and turned to a feeling of shame, so that when he repeated his question, 'What right had you to turn against the poor bone-picker ? ' I felt that I was on my defence, and said almost doubtfully, 'Why, because you were all going against the policeman.'

Twenty voices were raised at once declaring that the crusher,' as they would call him, was the greatest tyrant in the force, bad committed all sorts of iniquities, and was deserving of the worst penalties of Lynch Law; while a boy or two at the outside sug- gested that I had incurred like pains and penalties, which should be there summarily inflicted. I don't care what he is,' I said at last in a momentary lull ; you were all against him, and that's enough to make any Englishman take his part. Besides be was doing his duty, in taking up a vagabond, who I claret:my was picking pockets.'

Who told you that ? ' said a man I hadn't yet seen, pushing through the crowd and facing me; how dare you call an honest man whom you never saw before, a pickpocket F You waren t there to see what they began fighting about.' I felt I was in the wrong, and so took the course which most people follow under like circumstances, and retorted, No more were you.'

'That's a lie ! ' said he, straight out ; was there the whole time, and I say the poor fellow was only following his calling— and a bad enough one it is too, without the meddling a such fellows as that crusher to make it worse.'

I was getting heartily sick of my position, and did not feel at all inclined to take up the cudgels against poor Joey, whom I already felt I had libelled. A pickpocket would never have been in such clothing as his.

I'm sorry I called him a thief,' I said, and if he was in the right I'll go to the Court to-morrow to back him. And now you come along with me, and tell me what you saw.' The man looked me full in the face for a moment. He was a short, stout fellow, in a flannel jacket and corduroys, with a face just then full of good, strong indignation. 'Very well,' he said, 'come on.'

The crowd seeing that there was no chance of a row, broke up, and I and the short man walked on together. Now,' said I, how did the row begin ? '

' Why, answered my companion, just this way. I was coming up the street and saw Joey, as they call him, quietly picking over a heap of street dirt. You see, he lives by searching them heaps and getting the bits of bones and rags and anything else he can find. Policeman come and says, "Get on there, you dirty scamp, or I'll make you." The man looked up quite quiet and says, "I ain't stopping up the way, and I'll move on as soon as I've picked over this heap." He turns down again, and then policeman cuts at him, kicks over his basket and grabs him by the collar, and in course the poor man turns at him and tries to get away, and that's all about it.'

And you tell me, on the word of a man,' said I, that you saw the whole quarrel yourself, and that was how it begun ? '

I do,' said he, 'and, what's more, I know that policeman well, and he's as big a tyrant as any of his masters in Downing Street. Only a week or two ago a friend of mine was going quietly home at 12 o'clock along this beat, when my lord comes staggering out of a back street, and pushes him right into the kennel, and then collars him and says he'll take him to the station. But he got hold of the wrong sort that time, for he was served out nicely before any of the rest could come up.'

Well, but,' said I, interrupting him, you seem to think the police are set up by tyrants in Downing Street to oppress the poor. Why, man, they're just as much your servants as mine, or any one else's. And if there are some bad fellows like this one, they hurt me just as much as they do you.'

Do they ? ' said the man, with a sneer. 'Let alone a crusher for knowing his duty to a man with a good coat on ! But they only copy their masters. Do you mean to say now, if you and I was took up to-night for the same thing, we should get treated alike to-morrow morning in the police-court ? '

Yes, I do. and you know it as well as I.'

You don't know nothing about it,' retorted my friend.

I know as much as you,' I said, and I'll tell you what it is. It's such fellows as you who make sweeping charges against every one that don't wear fustian breeches, and say that there's no good in any one else, blinding the fools of your own class, and making the fools of ours hate and fear you, that are the curse of this country and every other. What right have you to say that I don't care for the dirtiest fellow that begs about London ? That I don't believe him to be my brother and as good a man in the sight of God as I am? Now, I tell you that I do. But I tell you that whenever I go to a poor man in London and speak to him as one man to another, he either sueaks and lies to get my money, or insults me.'

Well,' said the man, with more of civility, for he saw I was in earnest, doing's better than talking any day. There may be good men and kind men that don't wear fustians ; it's a pity they don't help them as do to get a little more of their rights. I never see them, that's all I know, and so I says, God bless the poor.'

Amen to that,' I struck in, 'and when He's blessing them and bringing them out of their misery, as He will do one of these days, they'd better learn to be rather more charitable to their richer neighbours than they are now. God never said Blessed are the proud poor ; I think you'll find it "Blessed are the poor in spirit."' ' I don't think you was blessed then when you turned round under the lamp-post,' retorted my persecutor. Nor you when you called me a liar,' said I. But come, I've no time to lose. What police-court will Joey be had up in to.morrow morning?'

'Marlborough Street, I suppose,' raid he ; • I shall get there if I can, but, Lord bless you, they'll never let off a man as has resisted the force like that.'

'Well, one can but try,' I said, 'and now good-night to you. Shake hands. I hope we may meet to-morrow.'

The man stared for a moment, and then shook my hand with a hearty good-night, much to the astonishment of three ingenious young gentlemen in loud ties who were strolling down the street as we parted,—I to my dinner, where I hope my flushed face and ruffi .d get-up didn't frighten the respectabilities, and he,—I only wish I knew where he went, for he was a man worth knowing more of, and I have never set eyes on him from that day to this ; and probably never shall again,—in this world. Tom HUGHES."