by Richard H. Horne (uncredited).
Originally published in Household Words (Bradbury & Evans) vol.2 #45 (01 Feb 1851).
It was a dusky evening in the latter end of autumn, with a mizzling rain, when I passed up the Strand, and turned into the gloomy archway-entrance of old smoke-dried Somerset House. I was in a meditative mood. Having nothing to do, which is a circumstance that constitutes (though I do not by any means recommend it as a general rule), one of the best Aids to Reflection, I began very slowly—over-coat buttoned close up—arms folded—eyes bent upon the moist flag-stones—with heavy, pausing paces, to perambulate the quadrangle. How long I continued doing this, or what was the main subject of my thoughts, it is not necessary to relate; suffice it to say that, almost unconsciously, I stopped beside the parapet wall beneath the great stone figure of Father Thames, who is pointing down into the dark depths of the semi-circular vault, pit, or basement, beneath. With closed hands, and elbows lodged against the edge of the parapet, I leaned my head upon my hands, quietly crushing in the front of my hat, until I had attained the thinking attitude I meditated. This being accomplished, and no policeman chancing to pass near, who might have thought himself justified in taking charge of me as a
gentleman in an "abnormal" state of mind, my meditation progressed at a great rate.
The duration of this is immaterial to my story; all I know is, that I was aroused by a sound—soft and trickling at first, and then bubbling and pouring, and falling with a quick succession of splashes. A warm vapour at the same time began to steal underneath my hat, and bedew my cheek-bones. I raised my head. The great smoke-black recumbent figure of Father Thames was evidently looking at me with a grim, gaunt smile, while out of the mouth of his huge, bent-down urn, a thick hot stream of no definite colour was now rapidly pouring forth, and falling with a loud noise to the bottom of the deep and dark semi-circular area below.
To this his great fore-finger pointed with more than usual significance. The clock of St. Mary-le-Strand now tolled six, and while the echo in the court below was still vibrating, a great voice, very like the distant sound of a captain on deck calling out through his speaking trumpet to somebody on shore—exclaimed "Good evening, Mr. Beverage! will you take a cup of tea with Old Thames!"
I sank backward a pace at this address. I am a great tea-drinker, it is true, but I could not feel otherwise than overcome, at the moment, by the tremendous cordiality of this invitation. I looked upward at the shadowy countenance of the giant. The grotesque features had relaxed into a good-humoured though still a very grim smile; and, while his inverted urn still continued to vomit forth the stream, a strong odour of various kinds, in which that of tea might be detected—or, at any rate, imagined—rose in clouds of vapour from the deep semicircular abyss to which his forefinger so significantly pointed. If, indeed, I did not take a draught, I certainly found it impossible to avoid inhaling a considerable portion of the infusion. It was by no means to my liking.
Again, the great, distant-sounding speaking-trumpet voice echoed over the quadrangle—"Mr. Beverage, will you take a jolly good cup of tea?"
The stupendous familiarity of this renewed invitation did not place me, by any means, so much at my ease as was intended; I, however, summoned sufficient boldness to reply,—"Oh, Father of Rivers! I am, indeed, a very considerable tea-drinker, and I thank you for
the high and unlooked-for favour of this your invitation; but, pardon me, most venerable of River-deities, if I add, that, having already inhaled a good 'taste of your quality,' a certain little scruple interferes with my availing myself of further favours."
"Speak it aloud to the Metropolis!" said Father Thames.
"Do not think me ungrateful," said I, "nor by any means insensible of the honour you do me; but the truth is, that, although I drink more tea than most men, probably than any other gentleman in London, I am rather scrupulous as to the water I make it with."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the River-god;" then come with me, and I will show you the magnificent broad stream from which my urn is constantly filled."
A great torch flashed before my eyes!—then another!—then three or four!—then a dozen were dancing round me, and waving me onward, and along with them—now this way, now that, now up, now descending slippery steps—till I found myself seated in a huge dark barge, with Father Thames; and floating slowly down the stream by torch-light.
"How black and solid stands the forest of shipping on each side!—how large and black lie their shadows on the water!—how the lights glance from the windows on the shore!—how fast the current runs! Commerce—commerce!—but, what is that floating by?—pah! it's a dead dog, or something—'a sort of not-of-the-newest poor-John!' How very thick the water is hereabouts, Father Thames; and, pray, may I inquire what that black, sluggish stream may be which I see pouring into you from a wide, bricked archway, yonder?"
"Oh, that's one of my sewers," replied the Father of Rivers, without turning his head, "my Blackfriars sewer-outlet; and a fine, generous, open fellow, he is."
"So he seems," said I; "have you any more of them?"
"Oh, yes: one generally near every bridge, with here and there another, and another, just as the quantity of sewage in a neighbourhood has determined. They all come to me. I have, in fact, a hundred and forty-one sewers between Battersea and London Bridge. All come to me, sir."
"That's very kind of them. But what are those smaller mouths that send forth strange party-coloured currents, to mingle with your waters?"
"That one belongs to a soap-boiler—a particular friend of mine; the next to it, is from a slaughter-house, kept by a very estimable friend indeed, who wouldn't allow a particle of the refuse and drainage of his yards to run anywhere else, on any account. From Brentford down to Blackwall, everybody presents his compliments to me. Those other agreeable little outlets you are looking at, or will shortly see, on both sides of my banks, are from gas-factories, brewhouses, shot-factories, coal-wharfs, cow-houses, tan-pits, gut-spinners, fish-markets, and other cheerful and odoriferous tributaries; while the inky flood yonder which your eyes are now fixed upon, is from a very populous grave-yard, which produces so large a quantity of liquid every four-and-twenty hours, that it has to be drained off by regular arrangement, and made to flow into my convenient, all-embracing bosom. Some people affect to turn up their noses at this; but the City Corporations are more wise than nice, and they know better."
I was silent for some time, as well I might be, after such a dose of "information for the people; and during this pause in the conversation, I had unconsciously dangled one arm over the side of the barge, till presently my hand, by a swell of the current, was immersed above the wrist. I drew it up, and found it covered—coated, I may say—with a thick, dingy, slimy liquid of an offensive odour. Gazing on the water around, as we proceeded, I saw that we were surrounded by whole acres of it. I looked at the imperturbable countenance of Father Thames.
"What in the world is all this?" said I.
"The mess we are passing through?" responded the giant coolly;—"oh, it's only a little scum derived from barges, and lime-works, and colliers, and the shipping around us, and bone-grinders, and tar-works, and dredging-machines, and steamers, and back-gardens, and floating remains of creatures from knackers' yards, and rotting vegetables, and what not."
"And what not, indeed, Father Thames!" cried I, starting up, quite unable to endure it any longer; "is this the water you make your tea with?"
"And do all my cooking with," continued Old Thames, taking no sort of notice of my dismay and excitement; "and all my washing. I have done so, you must know very well, for years and years—my water being in just the same state as you now see it. Don't all our ships, bound to foreign ports, fill their tanks with it? and don't they find it keep good a wonderful length of time? It has, to be sure, to putrify once, during which time sailors who are thirsty on a hot day in the tropics, have to go into a dark corner to drink it, straining it through their teeth as it goes
down; but after all the queer stuff has sunk to the bottom of the tanks, and settled for good, everybody says there's no water like it. So now—about barge—we'll return home to Somerset House to tea!"
"Father Thames," said I, firmly, though with every respect; "Father Thames, if I drink a single cup of your tea, then—to quote the words of the immortal Falstaff, who knew a trick worth two of it—'fillip me with a three-man beetle.'"
"Why, how now, Mr. Beverage!—what is the meaning of this?"
"You really must excuse me—I can't drink your tea."
"Why not?"
"I may be thought too scrupulous by my City friends, as to the water, but in truth I can't—in short, I won't."
"Oh, Sir Beverage, of Rockwell! this fine gentleman must be your fanciful descendant! scrupulous about the water you drink!" exclaimed Old Thames; "of course, then, you are not a Londoner—they don't mind what they drink. A genuine Londoner can stand anything, and for any number of years."
"I am fully persuaded of it," answered I; "but there must be changes in all things. Even Londoners—and let me assure you that I am one—even Londoners will some day or other come to a determination to have a purer stream to their kettles and urns, than is at present furnished by your Rivership's noble current. We live in a time of changes, and even you cannot much longer escape them."
"Changes!" exclaimed the Father of Rivers—"there you touch me to the very mud; for what changes have I not undergone, of which this generation, and the one before it, have not only no memory, but no idea. I, however, know it too well."
"Ah, do you so?—pray unbosom yourself, Great River!"
"Changes, Mr. Beverage!—there you reach the bottom of my proud old heart, and make me confess how much of my indifference, however I may be hardened by long habit, is assumed. I, in some measure, pretend not to care for those abominations, because I cannot help them. The City loves them; the seven District Commissioners of Sewers, long cherished them; the West-end turns up its nose at mention of them, and walks away; aldermen scream out against innovation and purification—what hope have I? I don't pretend that I was ever a pellucid stream—a crystal current such as pastoral poets delight to describe—no great river, with much shipping or other water-traffic upon it, ever can be clear; but it may be a vast deal clearer than my present condition—ay, purer beyond all comparison as beyond all doubt."
"Pardon me, venerable River, said I," if I ask how this could be; for did not the sewers empty themselves into you formerly as they do now?"
"Yes" said Old Thames, "they certainly did; but then their stream was not what it now is. Formerly, the sewers were rain-courses—mere land and surface drains; they were for water only, and if anybody threw a dead cat into me, an old pair of boots, a bullock's offal, or any other refuse, he was punishable by the law."
"Where then did the house-drains have their outlets?" I anxiously inquired.
"House-drains—our ancestors' house-drains!—ha! ha! ha!" laughed Father Thames—"why, they had none. The very idea had never occurred to them."
"An extensive system of cesspools, then," said I, " like our own, till very recently?"
"Not even so decent as this. Every house took care of itself, after its own sweet will, and the passengers in the streets, especially at night, had also to take care of themselves, and run sometimes, for their lives, when they heard a window opened above them."
"Very much in the same way as in some parts of Scotland at the present time," said I.
"I know nothing of the Scotch water-works," said Old Thames:—"I have always had enough to do with my own affairs. What with one tributary and another, each bringing fresh trouble into my waters, I am sometimes almost sick of my life—especially in the dog-days—when—a painful subject that of dogs, for they suggest cats and kittens, and other varieties, with or without brickbats round their necks. One hot summer's day, half a horse, that used to draw the Lord Mayor's coach, came float—but I shall spoil your tea; let's change the current of our discourse."
I now proposed that we should converse a little on the different Water Companies of the Metropolis. At mention of these, Father Thames sank back against a bulk-head and laughed aloud. "Where do you think the Water Companies derive their supplies from?" said he.
"From beautiful, unpolluted, clear rivers, rising in the rural districts," answered I, with frank innocence.
"Shall I give you the source and derivation of each of them?"
"I shall feel exceedingly obliged to you," answered I, in some little trepidation, for I began to fear that my tea-drinking was likely to be troubled by his information.
"Then, behold in me that source," said Father Thames. "I, Sir, I am that beautiful, unpolluted, clear river, from which the greatest part of them derive their supplies. Some of these are peculiarly favoured by circumstances. The Southwark Company, and the Vauxhall Company take their stock in trade from me near Vauxhall,—a neighbourhood which constantly presents me with so abundant a supply of the most objectionable contributions, that it is no wonder the water of these two companies should furnish the mass of microscopic monsters which have recently occupied the attention of Mr. Arthur Hill Hassall. The Lambeth Company fills its pipes from me at Lambeth, famous for the grand outlet of a capacious sewer, hard by. In this way do the Water Companies wisely cater for the London public. You see, they know your taste."
"Taste!—I beg, Father Thames, you will make me an exception to any such taste. My heart resents—I may say, rises at it."
"Well, well— I don't very much wonder. You are not so well seasoned to it as some people. As for me, I am well-nigh grown callous, being hopeless of amendment amidst the insincere and prevaricating process of all Government legislation on the matter. To what end are all the elaborately prepared reports of the Board of Health;—to what end do the Commissioners of Sewers lay their heavy heads together, lay down pipes, and listen, while their secretary lays down the law;—to what end do surveyors and clerks carry each other pick-a-back through the main sewers once a week, to guage, and weigh, and sniff, and snuff about, at their lives' peril,—if, after all, my Lord Do-nothing sits in the highest chair, wiping his spectacles and clearing his throat, and reducing everybody to his own condition of inactivity?"
"But surely, in your remarks on the Water Companies, you except the New River?"
"The New River Company derives its supply from springs, called its 'Head,' which may be simply described as a small pool, filled from a narrow ditch full of weeds and half-animated plants, and swarms of animalculæ in great variety of ugly shapes, which often rise from the surface and display themselves in clouds along the margin. Indifferent as these springs must therefore be, as to purity, the supply is not limited to them, but assisted from the River Lea. It has also an accession to its volume from a well and two reservoirs at Cheshunt (cleared out and cleansed once in twelve years), and it used to derive a final supply in aid from my waters along Upper Thames Street (convenient to Billinsgate), where they still keep up their 'works,' in case of need, and people do say, &c. The long canal, ingeniously denominated New River, is also a famous place at numerous spots for bathing. There's nothing unwholesome in bath-water, is there?"
"May I request, Father Thames, that you will put me ashore?"
"To tea—well, you need not make so shocking a grimace, Mr. Beverage. You can get no better tea-water in London. But I'll add a word or two. The East London Company takes its supply from the Lea, which is joined by several small rivers; and in its course runs through three-and-twenty small towns and villages, most of which use the water for various purposes of washing and bathing; and some of them drain their sewers into it. Moreover, the Lea is a barge-river; and as bargemen and their families are proverbial for the elegance and refinement of their habits, nobody but your over-nice people could object to drink after them. The Lea reaches my stream near Blackwall, and half of its water is in fact derived from me. Stop! I have not done. The Hampstead— What's the matter?"
"Oh, Father Thames!" cried I, "it's a wonder and a mercy we are not all poisoned. We Londoners have, for the most part, a very pale look—and here's the cause, I do believe."
As I said this, a strange expression lighted up the face of the River-god; and rousing himself from his indolent recumbency in the barge, he suddenly exclaimed, "Vengeance! yes, vengeance, Mr. Beverage! It is true that I have become hardened to all these outrages, and almost callous; but, Sir, I have some feeling left; and though I would not myself condescend to be vindictive on the populations whom I have so long reared in commercial prosperity, yet you cannot expect me to shed tears over the punishment which they bring upon themselves. For every dead dog and cat that is flung into my bosom, there's a typhus patient—perhaps a dozen; for every slaughter-house, fish-market, or graveyard near my banks, there's a dozen
scarlet fever patients—perhaps a hundred;—for every main sewer draining into me, there is a legion of cholera patients, in due season. I have been deeply injured, but lam amply avenged."
The barge was again nearly abreast of Somerset House, and the time was at hand for me to go ashore. The grand tone of melancholy which Old Thames had now fallen into, with the absence of any personal anger at all his years of ill-usage, gave me an additional interest in him. Though I certainly could not take tea with him, I yet did not like to lose his company.
"We are now about to part, Mr. Beverage," said the River-god, shouldering his urn—"I return to my broad pedestal in the gloomy quadrangle—you to your equally solitary tea."
"Nevertheless, oh Father of Rivers," said I, "there is no immediate hurry. Besides—I am thinking."
"Of what, Mr. Beverage? Why do you stand and muse thus? On what imaginary cup of perfect tea, or toast-and-water, do you speculate?"
"On one made with exquisite spring-water, of which I have recently been reading."[1]
"That is easily found—enough for you and I, and a friend or two; but for my people, my throngs of London people, my commercial offspring—where shall we find enough pure water from rock or well, or land-spring, to supply all their necessities?"
"That very thing is asserted by scientific men who have recently been to make tea there. Boiled some beef also—and made a bowl of punch. But tea's the best test."
"And a good draught of the water itself the best of all—and the only safe guide?"
"Shall we go there?"
"Be it so;" said the River-god, "I have nothing else to do, but pour up, and pour down currents, and my time will be as well spent in this visit, as in lying along my stone pedestal, pointing down into the deep basement."
So, again, the torches flashed around us, for the night was far advanced, and up the stream we went, the tide having just turned.
Father Thames remained silent for some time. He had fallen into a profound meditation, which I could not venture to interrupt. At length he broke forth into the following strain:—
"To pour up, and pour down currents for ever—nothing else remained for me, did I say? Nothing!—oh yes, there is the Memory of the Past, with all its mighty images. Where are all my city walls, and gates, and embattled towers, of olden time! Fallen—vanished. Excepting a few of the oldest fragments of the Tower of London, scarcely a stone remains of the edifices that adorned me four or five hundred years ago. Where are the numerous barges, of royal state and high nobility, that constantly moved up and down my breast,—now in the centre of my stream, (then comparatively pure, and never offensive,) now gliding beneath the huge overhanging gables of houses on my banks? Where is burly old Harry, in his barge—where resolute Queen Bess in hers—coming down the stream with flags flying, and trumpets, shawms, harps, and divers instruments of minstrelsy? I ask not for these, or such like sovereigns to live again, but where are their representatives? Where are all my fleets of snow-white swans? Choked—sunk. How often did I see William Shakspeare and his troupe coming along in his boat to play at the palace! And now all this is over. I ask not again to see a condemned king or queen, or noble, all in black array, sit pale in a creeping barge to the Tower dungeon, or to the axe on Tower Hill; but where are the festive river-throngs to replace those gloomy scenes with those of better times? Where are my palaces, each with its landing-place, and steps—its barges and boats, worthy of all the romance of Venice? Transformed to wharfs for boxes, bales, and coal-barges. Where is the Strand—with its flourishing trees, its sloping gardens, its turrets, and pinnacles? All its ancient beauty is jammed into brick-work and shop-windows. Where are the forty thousand watermen who belonged to me?[2] Transmogrified into cabmen and omnibus-drivers. Where are all their songs? Forgotten—lost—all excepting those of my dear son John Taylor, the water-poet, who for so many years rowed a wherry on my stream, and wrote a volume of poems to my honour. The decrease of his calling by the gradual innovation of coaches, is well recorded by my son, where, in 1662, he sayeth—
'When Queen Elizabeth came to the crown,
A coach in England then was scarcely known.'
But if, in his day, the melancholy transformation of boats into land carriages had commenced, how must I observe the desertion now? Still, let me say, I am not ungrateful to fate—I do not repine that instead of meeting a queen, or a noble, or a dramatist and his players, a gentleman's barge to church, or a fleet of apricot-boats to market, I now encounter a succession of steamers, several men-of-war, great merchant ships, or a fleet of colliers. No—I feel that I am not only the Father of Rivers—I am the Father of English Commerce. This supports me—this consoles me; and the glories of the present (though I cannot forgive—I cannot patiently bear the pollution of my waters) rewards me for all my labours, and enables me to look back upon the past without too deep a sorrow."
By this time we had arrived at the entrance of the river Wey. The torch-bearers were now dismissed; they returned rapidly down the stream, flashing out, one by one,—and with a gentle swerve, the great black barge passed through the mouth and went rippling onward, while the banks and borders seemed gradually to close in as we proceeded.
It was a fine clear night. The stars were out in myriads. Following the windings of the river—now between ranks of dwarf willows—now between green grassy banks and slopes—here coming close among colonies of osiers—there brushing against squadrons of bulrushes, or between lengthy marginal fringes of rustling sedge, the barge of Old Thames pursued its course. It was the same barge as at first, and yet it seemed a smaller one; for, somehow, it had imperceptibly contracted, narrowing and shortening itself to accommodate its form and size to the changeable width and windings of the river. At length it came to a stop. Its dark broad bows were buried in a low green bank.
"We can go afloat no further here," said Father Thames. "But come; I know the place you have mentioned, and have been curious to visit it for some time. If all be true that I have heard, it will be the saving of me, as it will of the lives of millions who drink me. So, jump out of the barge and follow me." I did so; and in the morning twilight, with stars still shining, and the moon still visible, though pale and very high, Father Thames led the way along green marshy patches, and over wet grassy fields, and moist fallow land, and through long oozy plots of rushes, till finally we arrived at a sandy district, interspersed with large heaths and stony tracks, and then more sands,—and finally a region of fresh water springs, all glancing, and bubbling, and rippling along, like pure crystal, or liquid silver, or rivulets of clear light, according to the light and shade that fell upon them!
The Father of Rivers stopped—looked down at the bright spouting springs, following their several courses with his eye—now in one direction, now in another; then clasping his hands, and raising his face to the blush of morning now tinging the east, he exclaimed aloud, "Heaven and Earth be praised!—there's some hope for Old Thames, and for all London at last! Look here!—and look yonder!—and yonder! and yet again there! and there! and yonder! and beyond! There are fifty millions of gallons a-day!"
He paused a moment; then added, "My dear Mr. Beverage do you see this?"
"I do! I do! venerable River-god!" I exclaimed. "Fifty millions of gallons of pure spring water a-day! There's tea, and salubrious drinks, and wholesome cooking for all London at last! No more emulsion of dead dogs and what-not—no more Water Company monopolies—no more qualms of nose and eye, and others to follow within—but water, such as Nature intended man to drink, not only savage man, but civilised man, too, if he will but have the sense to value the blessing.
"I breathe fresh life," ejaculated the River-god, devoutly; "I rejoice in my civilisation, and in the science that will govern it, when Thames, being free of his pollutions, shall be himself again!"
1. See Sir William Napier's Report on the Bagshot Springs.
2. See Knight's London, Vol. I, "The Silent Highway."