FIFTY YEARS AGO.
WE will go back just fifty years. Mr. Rennie's new London Bridge is open, but the old structure is not yet -taken down. The London University—Theodore Hook's " Stinko- make "—is a new thing. The Penny Magazine and Chambers's Journal are just begun, or beginning, and the Saturday Maga- zine of the S.P.C.K. is not far off. The Liverpool and Man- chester Railway has been opened, and has killed Mr. Huskisson. .Caricatures, in which the Duke of Wellington, Lord Lyndhurst, and most of the Bishops are strung up in a row on gibbets, are popular with the " masses." The country is in a flame about the Reform Bill; what will Brougham do next, or Lord John, or Earl Grey, or Sir Francis Burdett ? Barking is a terror in the air, and so is Springheel Jack. Captain Swing is not forgotten. More awful still is the cholera ; people go to church in crowds to pray, everybody wears camphor, and the horrible-looking ambulance, with the blue, groaning patient inside it, on the way to the workhouse, meets you at every street-corner. The cheapest tea is five shillings a pound, and cocoa is just becoming popular. Poor men cannot read news- papers at all, unless they borrow them, or go to a coffee-house. In this respect, however, they are not so badly off, for it is in evidence before a Parliamentary Committee that the working- man may and does get tea, coffee, or cocoa, with bread and butter, for 3d., at coffee-houses where there are forty daily news- papers for him to read. Mr. Shillibeer has lately introduced his omnibuses. Mr. Hancock is running, or about to run, his hand- some steam omnibuses—the "Era," the "Autopsy," and the " Enterprise "—up and down the City Road. Part of what we now call Camden Town joins Hampstead Heath, all broom and gorse and wild roses ; waving corn-fields run up close to Kenning- ton turnpike ; while young ladies' schools go out botanising by Lock's Fields, Walworth. King William IV. is hailed as our " Sailor King," our "Reforming Monarch," or "Silly Billy," according to the humour of the populace; while the Duke is for the most part "Old Nosey "—" much disrespected wherever he goes, with his cast-iron windows and Waterloo nose, sing Dumbledumdeary !" The Georgian era is, of course, gone, dead, but that some of its spirit survives will be made plain by
brief abstract of a guide to idling in London, for small annuitants, "By A Gentleman" of King William's reign. Ac- cording to this manual, issued by "Thomas Griffiths, Wel- lington Street, Strand," you—that is, the small annuitant of the day, old or young, may "live well" in London on
£100 a year, and "comfortably" on £50. In the course of the treatise, however, this " comfort " (on £50 a year) is frankly cut down to a "bare existence," and the annuitant is recom- mended to add to his income by taking some employment.
The hypothesis of the book appears to be that you come up from the country eager to taste "life in London," though not in the "Toni and Jerry" sense, for we are, if you please, to be strictly decorous. " You are a stranger in this immense metro- polis—you have scarcely arrived. The twanging horn pro- claims the approach of the York, Tewksbury, Dover, Wolver- hamton, Liverpool, or Bristol coach. You are cramped and sleepy inside, or you are covered with dust and probably pinched with cold outside." Very good ; "call a hackney-coach ; get your luggage into it; and drive instantly to the George and Blue Boar, Holborn." This is "admirably centrical," and a good inn. "Go to bed, and breakfast in the coffee-room next morning." You will have to pay for your entertainment as follows :—" Glass of brandy-and-water, is.; bed, 2s. ; chamber- maid, 6d.; breakfast, coffee, eggs, is. 6d. ; waiter, 6d.; boots, 3d.; total, Ss. 9d." Pray observe the brandy-and-water, which is taken for granted.
Rising refreshed, "you will be in a fit state to choose a lodging." "For this purpose, I advise you to make a round westwards from Tottenham-Court Road to Baker Street. On no account cross over to the Bedford Square side of Totten- ham-Court Road. In that case, you will at once plunge into gloom, filth, and incivility ; begin, rather, on the west side of Berners Street." Having avoided the "gloom, filth, and in- civility" of the east side of Tottenham-Court Road, you have probably secured two rooms on the second floor for five or six shillings a week. These you will furnish yourself, according to the very minute directions which are given by "A Gentleman," the greater part of the articles being bought in the Westminster Bridge Road, cheap, as they probably would be now :—" Pay for them, get a receipt, and order them to be sent to your lodgings forthwith. Be there to receive them."
Having woke up for the first time in your lodgings, you are to "sally forth," in order to get your first meal. But you are left in no doubt of the place at which to take it :—" A walk before breakfast will give you an appetite. Proceed at once to No. 34 Brewer Street, Golden Square ; you may there breakfast for sixpence,—bread, butter, a plate of cold meat, and a large cup of excellent coffee ! What think you of that You may there read the French and English newspapers; after which, make calls or walk in St.. James' Park." Here follows a list of places for "dining cheaply ;" but you must "avoid the Haymarket, for a cup of coffee there, no larger than a wine-glass, will cost you sixpence, with nothing to eat ! !" You will only have to pay one shilling for your dinner, which includes meat, two kinds of vegetables, bread, and stout. "Apple pie or pudding, with cheese, would be fivepence more." On high days and holidays you may dine handsomely at the " Garrick's Head," Bow Street, at a five o'clock table d'hôte, for two shillings. But the best and cheapest place in London is by Wellington Street, where you may dine off soup, fish, meat, vegetables, with bread and ale, finishing off with "a cup of superb coffee in the drawing-room, all for one shilling and ninepence."
When the evening does not find you at the theatre, you may "lounge at the Cigar Divan in the Strand, where you may have admirable coffee, a cigar, and all the papers and magazines to read, in a splendid room, well warmed in winter," and all this for a shilling. But "the best and cheapest place is the Crown Coffee-house, Holborn. Go up-stairs, you will be in a handsome room, and be waited on by a pretty and civil &mantle. Tea or coffee, 3d.; round of toast, ditto ; girl, Id.; total, 7d. Here, also, you may read" all the papers and magazines."
You have now had your three meals, and it is time to come to the cost of clothes,—which, for anything that appears in the manual, you might have been dispensing with up to this time. Two suits per annum, with an additional fancy waistcoat "— that is a touch of the time—will be sufficient. These "must be made in the first style of fashion," and "will cost you thirteen guineas per annum." Take off three guineas for what they will sell for at the year's end to "S. Pearson, 22 Lamb's Conduit Street," and your clothes will come to £10 10s. a year. Two hats will be £1 168.—the days had not yet arrived for the " four- and-nine " silk hat, which street-boys used to throw stones at. Omitting some details, we find the total expenditure Of the "annuitant" thus far is £92 us. 6d. "The surplus is sufficient
pocket-money for all but the vicious. For these I write not." You are next instructed where to get your razors set, and your hair cut. Yon may, out of the surplus, lounge at "the Colosseum, among beautiful statues and as beautiful women. The collection of works of Art is second only to those of the Louvre or the Vatican." The British Museum is also agreeable, "but there are no seats in it." There is the Diorama, the Zoological Gardens ; you may go to Richmond "by stage" for a shilling, or "to Herne Bay and back for five shillings." Besides all this, "no man of any tact is twelve months in London without making such theatrical and operatic acquaintances as will give him the privilege of entering the theatres without expense once a week. In these cases, the obligation is on the part of the management, for you fill up an unsightly gap with your own welbdressed person. Surely, in the splendid talents of Kean, Macready, Young, Miss Kemble, Miss Phillips; the racy humour of Farren, Liston, and Reeve ; in the vocal and personal fasci- nations of Miss Coveney, Madame Vestris, Mrs. Wood, and Miss Cawse ; in Taglioui's sublime impersonations of Classic beauty ; in the triumphs of Pasta, the Corinne of the opera ; and finally, in the unsurpassable skill of Paganini or Nicholson, you have the materials whereof, in art, to rear an edifice of delight."
The edifice of delight being reared, it becomes time to think of religion. We have, however, treated other things first ; and, even now that we must speak a little of religion, we are to com- mence with dinner :—
" One solid dish his week-day meal affords ;
An added pudding solemnised the Lord's."
Like Sir Balaam, you are to distinguish Sunday by a" delicious honne-bouche," and you are informed where to get it "for two shillings and threepence. After dinner, take a rural walk." Religion is now introduced, with an assurance that the reader is not to expect any of "the snuffling exagitations of the hypocrite, or the dogmas of the Puritan." Neither is he to indulge "any suspicion of insanity." This is evidently a side- blow at Edward Irving and the unknown tongues. The pupil is to avoid "insanity." He is to go to "the Magdalen or Philan- thropic," and pay a shilling at the door, for which he will have the pleasure of listening to a good sermon, with the consciousness that he is "contributing to the formation of virtue and happiness." By this means, beginning with "a delicious bonne-bouche," proceeding to "a rural walk," and winding up with a shilling's-worth- of "divine service," the "torpor of a Sunday in London will be completely vanquished."
Now we come to marriage, friendship, and that kind of thing. Never bcrrow or lend money. Never accept a favour, for you may be called upon to do one in return. Never take a lady to the play, for "the poor thing" will certainly have "forgotten her purse," and you will have to pay. Never visit at houses where there are pretty glids who are poor ; you may be enticed into matrimony. If a girl is rich, "you may very properly follow up les petit some." But beware of " nobility." Even if you have titled relatives, take care how you do more than "nod to them." You "cannot associate with Nobility on One Hundred Pounds a year. I will not deceive you, the thing is impossible." Next comes a small piece of counsel which at least shows how much we have altered in the matter of smoking :—" Never smoke cigars out of a divan ; never swagger ; never make promises that are at all likely to be broken ; never adopt a vulgar slang, or swear ; never behave with incivility to women ; never be without a halfpenny for a beggar, if you think him or her, really in distress." Never go to "the Coalhole or the Finish," after leaving the theatre. Lest you should be brought to the verge of starvation by "two- penny-post letters and a red coat, never give your address." Have your letters taken in at a coffee-house. "And now, adieu! The Athenians said "—but it does not matter.
The fifty-pound annuitant is put off with one room ; and in- stead of a boune-bouche, he is to be content, pretty often, with "chop, 41; vegetable, id; bread, ld. ; ale, id.; waiter, id.; total, 8d. ;" and he is to take in tea and breakfast at "an inferior coffee- shop." But it is very noticeable that his Sundays are not pro- vided for. He would probably avoid the "rural walk," for fear of wearing out his boots ; and, as he certainly could not afford either "a delicious bonne-bouche" for dinner, or a sermon at the Magdalen, he is, for anything that appears, handed over to "torpor, dogma, or sun ii ing exagitation." This starveling is to have "two hats per annum, 21 163.," just like his wealthy brother, though he is not supposed even to "nod at nobility." It has been said that as a man has only one head, he has no business with two hats, but even one seems too many for such an empty head as that of this" Gentleman" or his pupil. There are plenty of idlers in London even now ; indeed, the world seems half-full of men and women who, having what they call "a small in- dependency," laze away their existence. But it is certain that a manual of life in London written to-day would, apart from money matters, contain elements of high and serious suggestion which did not even cross the mind of the " buck " of King William IV.'s time to whom we have been indebted for this rather ignoble entertainment.
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