by W.S. Gilbert [William Schwenck Gilbert].
Originally published in Belgravia (John Maxwell) vol.2 #5 (Mar 1867).
To the Londoner every London street has an unmistakable individuality. I use the term "Londoner" in a restricted sense; for by it I mean not a mere resident in London, but one who is intimately acquainted with the great city in all its ramifications. It requires but little familiarity with London streets to be able to distinguish at a glance Piccadilly from Fleet-street, or even Oxford-street from the Strand; for the physical distinctions between these great thoroughfares are broadly marked. But to know Baker-street from Wimpole or Harley-street—to be able to state positively, from the mere aspect of the two places, whether you are in Bedford or Russell-square—argues an exceptional familiarity not only with the geography, but with the minuter physical attributes of the respective localities. Every street in London, however, possesses peculiarities of its own, which distinguish it in the eyes of an habitué from every other of the same class. I do not allude to mere architectural peculiarities, but rather to the individuality which it derives from the characteristic men and women who are to be found in it. This is particularly true of the main thoroughfares of London. I do not, of course, mean that a man who may be taken as a representative characteristic of a particular street is not to be met with beyond its precincts; we find costermongers in Piccadilly, and peers in Whitechapel; but Piccadilly and Whitechapel retain, nevertheless, their unmistakable identities.
Perhaps this curious feature of the streets of London is seen to the best advantage in the course of a walk from, say, Ludgate Hill to Hyde Park corner. In the course of this walk you meet with thirty or forty distinct types of men who may be broadly taken as belonging to the same social class, but who possess, nevertheless, individualities which a skilled observer will have very little difficulty in detecting. Authors, artists, publishers, actors, government and bankers' clerks, barristers, attorneys, members of parliament, dramatists, men about town of every type, medical men, students of law, physic, and divinity—together with an infinite variety of types of a lower class—small tradesmen, barristers' and attorneys' clerks, comic singers, detectives, Jew cigar-dealers, foreigners in trouble; and in a lower class still, card and skittle sharpers, acrobats, and beggars. Each and every one of these classes of "representative" men may be divided and sub-divided by a skilful observer into an infinity of smaller groups, each of which has a strongly-marked individuality of its own.
If I start westward from St. Paul's Churchyard, the first important type that I meet with is the Old-Bailey witness. And it is curious to observe how wonderfully alike these Old-Bailey witnesses are, considering that they are not brought together by any process of selection. They are merely a "fortuitous concourse of atoms" brought into contact by totally distinct chains of circumstance. They have, probably, no concern in common, save the desire to procure the conviction or acquittal of the prisoners in whom they are respectively interested; but they seem to be drawn from precisely the same class of society, and to be, moreover, on intimate terms with each other. They all look as if they had been waiting about the corner of Ludgate-hill and the Old Bailey for months past, and had had no opportunity of attending to their toilets during the time. They all look mildewy and unwholesome; and they wear, for the most part, the same look of painful preoccupation. But, wonderfully as they resemble each other at first sight, it does not require the eye of a detective to distinguish the thieves' witnesses from those for the prosecution. The "witnesses to character," the respectable tradesman" who has known the gentleman at the bar from a babby," may be identified by the hope, that is photographed in his face, that there may happen to be no detective in court who knows that he is "wanted." The wife who has been stamped upon is there to exaggerate the provocation she has given her husband, in the hopes that it will reduce his sentence, and so restore the bread-winner (such as he is) to her in a shorter time than if she told the bald truth about it. They are an unsavoury set, these witnesses; and moreover there are many professional pickpockets among them, who are apt to while away the weary hours of waiting by the exercise of their professional calling upon casual passers-by. So we will, if you please, tarry among them no longer than we can help.
Who are these seedy, gin-flavoured, red-nosed, knowing-looking fellows who hang about the corner common to Bridge-street and Fleet-street? They occupy the whole breadth of the footway, and so drive respectable passers-by into the muddy roadway. They are betting-men, and they are busy with their books on the principal forthcoming "events." A curious feature of these gentry is that their toilet is spruce and to a certain extent neat, though decidedly flashy as regards the upper part of their persons; but the lower you go down, the seedier they get. Their hats are old, but they are glossy notwithstanding—glossy with the gloss they derive from the application of wet sponges; their collars are often clean, and their neck-scarfs are arranged with an elaborate precision which you would look for in vain among members of recognised professions; you will find them secured with a thick gold pin, and this thick gold pin will be stuck with mathematical precision right into their exact centres. But after this comes a falling off. The coat, which once was blue or green, is a rusty brown, except in those parts which are partially protected from atmospheric and other influences by the collar, pocket-flaps, and arms, and from which you may obtain a clue that will guide you to the garment's original colour. But bad as are their coats, they are quite respectable when the trousers are taken into consideration; and the trousers are evidently ashamed (and with reason) of their association with the boots. I suppose that this anomalous state of things is to be accounted for by the fact that these gentlemen transact their business in great crowds, and the lower part of their persons being consequently concealed from view, they do not see the necessity of spending much money upon its adornment. Moreover, the money they save in boots and trousers they are enabled to spend upon neckties and gold pins, and so convey an impression of capital which they otherwise might find some little difficulty in doing.
Between this and Chancery-lane the predominant feature in the crowd will be a number of seedy, rather dirty, but more or less intellectual-looking men, with long hair, unkempt beards, and no gloves. These are probably journalists. They all know each other, and they are all very sociably disposed. So much: so, indeed, that they find it a work of time to get from one end of Fleet-street to the other. A "gentleman of the press" who sets out from Temple-bar to, say, Shoe-lane, meets another at the Inner-Temple Gate, who is going in the opposite direction. For the sake of a few minutes of congenial companionship, he walks westward with him as far, perhaps, as Essex-street, where, finding Polter of the Morning Muffin travelling in the direction in which he originally started, he hooks on to Polter, and travels with him towards Shoe-lane. But Polter is only going as far as Wine-Office Court, at the corner of which is the Cheshire Cheese, where sherry and bitters may be had. They have their sherry and bitters; and as they are about to part, who should come in but Balderby, who does smart leaders for the Daily Detonator! Balderby is going to his publisher's in the Strand about some reprints, and the traveller to Shoe-lane turns back with Balderby, and saunters with him as far as Fetter-lane. Here he meets Wilkins the comic artist, who is going home to Camberwell to finish the sketches for his pantomime masks, which are all behindhand; and it is just possible that, as Wilkins engrosses my traveller's attention by displaying his rough sketches one after another, as they walk along arm-in-arm, my traveller may reach the desired haven of Shoe-lane without further interruption.
Other features of this eastward half of Fleet-street are pale-faced men with shock heads and weak eyes, who go about in shirt-sleeves and slippers, and small boys with smudgy faces, big dirty calico aprons, and arms bared to the elbow. These are printers and "devils." They are to be found in great numbers about the turnings north of Fleet-street, especially Wine-Office Court, between one and two o'clock in the afternoon. They will turn up again when we have passed the Church of St. Mary-in-the-Strand.
Now we come under Temple influences. The ugly, clever-looking men, with powerful mouths and firm upper lips, who are dressed carelessly enough, but who look like gentlemen notwithstanding, are barristers eminent at Westminster and Guildhall. It may be taken as a tolerably safe rule that the shabbier the barrister, the more he has to do. There are certainly such things as dandy Queen's Counsel and needy men in their first year to be found; but these may be taken as the exceptions which are said to prove every rule. The string of gentlemanly, well-dressed young fellows who are turning into Inner Temple Lane as we pass are bar-students, who are bound for the Common-Law lecture in Inner Temple Hall. They are smart enough now; but ten years hence, if they attain anything like success in the profession they have chosen, they will be as careless as to their personal appearance as they are now particular. The snuffy, dried-up old gentleman who is crossing the road towards Chancery-lane, and who would look like an undertaker's mute if we judged him by his clothes alone, is an eminent common-law judge on his way to Judges' Chambers in Serjeants' Inn.
But, as a rule, the shabbiness of the working barrister is a totally different thing to the shabbiness of an unsuccessful professional man. His clothes are well cut, and they are shabby not because they are old, but because they are carelessly kept; his hat is not worn out, it is simply unbrushed; and then his linen is in good order. He wears no gloves, and his hands are habitually in his trousers' pockets; and he carries no stick or umbrella when you see him in mid-day, for he is only going to the "Cock," or to Prosser's, or to Lynn's, for his afternoon chop or a dozen oysters, or he is bound for Judges' Chambers or his bookseller's. Very different to the shabbiness of the barrister is the shabbiness of the attorney, when he is shabby. He is often carefully dressed; for he is brought face to face with clients and witnesses much more frequently than the barrister, who, save perhaps at an occasional consultation, never sees either until the case in which they are concerned is called on in court. But if the attorney is shabby, he is shabby indeed. His clothes wear the seediness of clothes that never were good, and his boots bulge with the lopsided bulginess of boots that are bought ready-made.
The dapper showy young men who cross and re-cross to Chancery-lane are barristers' clerks—I mean, clerks that really are clerks, and not domestic servants. There are two classes of barristers' clerks: young and middle-aged men, who work hard and well at legitimate clerking, and who are often intelligent assistants to their employer in his professional duties; and small boys and faded old men, who are "shared" by three or four briefless ones, and whose only duties are to receive and deliver messages for their masters, to fetch and carry beer and oysters, and to assist the local "laundress" in her domestic duties. If the proprietors, or any of them, of a small boy happen to get into professional business, the small boy's prospects will probably improve with those of his master's; but for the faded old men there is little hope.
The attorneys' clerks are a totally different class of men. They are seldom very showy (except on Sundays, with which we have nothing to do), and they carry their briefs as if they were not ashamed of them. They are very knowing in the matter of the respective merits of different eminent counsel, and speak of them in a horribly familiar manner.
Temple influences extend to Essex-street; and from Essex-street to Somerset-house there is little to remark in the passers-by, except that there is a certain rustic look about many of them, combined with an expression of thoughtful anxiety on their faces which suggests that they are inventors, and would-be patentees, who are occupying temporary lodgings in Norfolk and Arundel-streets. Passing a group of raw youths, who are King's-College students, we find ourselves in the midst of a crowd of passengers, most of whom are government clerks. These are gentlemanly-looking young men, who are employés in the Admiralty and Audit Offices, and others, not quite so gentlemanly, who devote their attention to the innumerable details of the Inland Revenue. In the "season" these young men are, for the most part, carefully dressed; for they are liberated from their official duties at four o'clock, and intend to spend the two subsequent hours over the rails in Rotten-row, of which they are—especially the younger members of them—distinguished ornaments. A government clerk knows no medium between being a great swell and an irreclaimable dowdy. The great swells marry on 250l. a-year; and, becoming dowdies perforce, they have to exchange hansom cabs and Rotten-row for the tops of omnibuses and a dreary cottage at Hammersmith.
As soon as we have passed Wellington-street, the Strand assumes a theatrical tone which there is no mistaking. Close-shaven men, with new hats, blue chins, and moustachios, pervade the thoroughfare in twos and threes, between Wellington-street and Lacy's, the theatrical bookseller. Young ladies,—whose faces you seem to know, but you can't think where you have seen them,—pass and repass, nodding to the blue-chinned gentlemen, whose appearance is not altogether unfamiliar to you, although you can't make out, for the life of you, where you and they have met. These are actors and actresses—not of the first rank in the profession perhaps, but decent middle-class professionals, whose names, at all events, are known to you, if you are a pretty regular theatre-goer. They are going to, or coming from, rehearsal; or perhaps the gentlemen are out of engagements, and having no "lengths" to study and no rehearsals to attend, find a consolation in spending the tedious day in the neighbourhood of the theatrical taverns and small clubs with which the district north of the Strand abounds. And perhaps the ladies are bound for their afternoon coffee and buns at Creighton's.
The interval between Southampton-street and the Adelphi may be regarded as the peculiar property of dramatists, actors, essayists, and authors of every reputable class. Three or four well-known literary and theatrical clubs are within a few hundred yards of this classic spot; and it will rarely happen that you can traverse the short distance between Southampton-street and the Adelphi without meeting someone whose name, at all events, is or should be familiar to you, if you pretend to be at all au fait in literary or theatrical affairs. This is particularly the case on a Saturday afternoon. New pieces of importance are usually produced on Saturday nights nowadays; and the actors, dramatists, and critics who are interested in the result usually dine at one or other of the clubs to which I have alluded, before they proceed to the "business of the evening."
The interval between the Adelphi and Pall Mall has perhaps less individuality than any other portion of the route we have chosen, though the Lowther Arcade, the cheaper military lodging-houses of Craven-street and Northumberland-street, the Charing-cross railway, and the National Gallery, each and all contribute their peculiar quota to the busy tide of passers-by. Perhaps it is because the stream owes its existence to so many sources that I find a difficulty in readily identifying its nature. The intending travellers by the Charing-cross line, the family party for the Lowther Arcade, the soldierly occupants of the Northumberland-street lodgings, and the country or holiday visitors to the National Gallery may be identified at a glance.
We will, if you please, avoid the Haymarket, and make our way westward through Pall Mall. After passing an unsavoury collection of Jew cigar-dealers, distinguished foreigners, and cheap little men about town, which infests the Colonnade, we reach the eastern limit of West-end life. Pall Mall is, as everybody knows, the head-quarters of London clubdom. The first indication of this is to be found in the pursy, mottle-faced old warriors who are to be seen going in and out of the "Senior." They do not lounge on the steps of their club, these mottle-faced old gentlemen, as do their younger brethren of the "Rag." They go in and come out with an air of doing it with a purpose: for the most part, their days of lounging and loafing about London are long past. They have been bucks of the first water in their day; but their day is gone by, and though they are bucks still, they are bucks with a smack rather of the Regency than of the Victorian era. They still stick to the high collars, stiff satin stock, curly hat and tight straps of forty years ago; but, for all their accuracy of dress and punctilio of manner, these old gentlemen, as a rule, are very jolly old gentlemen indeed, when they get together. They have good stories to tell about this or that dowager,—when she was a reigning beauty in '23; though, for matter of that, they do not confine their attention to dowagers. The beauties of '23 have grown old in mind as well as in body; but the dashing subs who admired them then have remained much as they were, save in the matter of rank and outward appearance. Their faces are redder and their moustachios whiter, their sword-belts have been let out some half-dozen holes, and their morning headaches have given way to chronic gout; but their tastes are those of young fellows of thirty, nevertheless. They have the reputation of being stern old pipeclayists, and the stiff high stock, cross-belts, and white-braided coatee, find staunch advocates among them still. Many of them are decrepit enough now; but see them on a levee day: decrepitude never looks so well as when decked out in stars, medals, and K.C.B. ribbons, and passers-by who would not hesitate to sneer at the quiet and rather eccentric-looking old gentleman in clothes of superannuated cut as a "mouldy old fogy," step respectfully aside to allow him to pass, when decked in the bravery he has won in the Peninsula, India, and Crimea.
Who are these solemn old gentlemen, with gold eye-glasses, and ugly but intelligent faces, who are turning in and out of the building at the opposite corner of Waterloo-place? They are members of the Athenæum, the most eminent, from an intellectual point of view, and the most unsociable from a domestic point of view, of all the first-class clubs in London. These grave old gentlemen are distinguished antiquarians, adventurous travellers, eminent divines, successful barristers, popular novelists, and first-class essayists. If you want to make one of them, you must wait patiently for the fifteen years or so which must elapse between your nomination and election—don't be deterred by the consideration that you are not an eminent man now—you may be utterly unknown to every soul in England except your relations and your tradespeople at the date of your nomination, and Great Britain may ring with your fame long before your election. You will have plenty of time between those two dates to make for yourself a famous name—and to lose it, and be utterly forgotten too, for the matter of that.
These busy, independent-looking gentlemen are members of the Reform Club; and those remarkably gentlemanly-looking old Conservatives are members of the Carlton—two clubs that sit side by side, and frown at each other out of the corners of their eyes, like two old ladies who are not "on terms," but who happen to rent adjoining stalls at the Opera.
Another batch of dashing-going civil servants are hovering about the entrance to the War Office; and opposite a group of smart young warriors are lounging about the steps of the Rag. These young gentlemen are a fair type of better middle-class young Englishmen. They are generally well-dressed; they smoke fair cigars; they are honourable; they are in debt; they are brave; they are rather fast, but, nevertheless, they are gentlemanly. I should like to talk about them for two or three pages more, for I take a kindly pleasure in studying the ways and means of these military and civil servants of the Crown; but the exigencies of time and space will only allow me to glance at them en passant. The British linesman is altogether a peculiar being—utterly unlike any other member of any other profession, and he deserves an essay to himself. As you see him here, on the steps of the Rag, he is probably up from Aldershott, Canterbury, or Colchester, for a few days in Piccadilly, the Burlington Arcade, and (in the season) Rotten-row and the drive—and for a few nights at the burlesque theatres.
Passing the gloomy portals of the Oxford and Cambridge Club, with its clerical and country-gentlemen members, and the snug little "Guards," with its soldierly aristocratic habitués, we come upon St. James's-street, where the constituents of all the clubs in Pall Mall, besides those of Arthur's, White's, Boodle's, the Conservative, the St. James's, the New University, and half-a-dozen others, meet on common ground, and so into Piccadilly, where the stream of West-end life is considerably adulterated by the admixture of a powerful trade element—which, however, may be said to cease where the Green Park begins, and from this point to Hyde Park Corner the people you meet are for the most part such as those you found in Pall Mall, together with a considerable sprinkling of the mercantile and clerkly element, especially between four and six o'clock in the afternoon.
I have only glanced at the different classes of men who may be said to be typical of the various districts of the great thoroughfares through which we have passed; but I have, I think, made out my case, that every 100 yards of metropolitan street has a distinguishing characteristic of its own—entirely apart from that which it derives from its architectural peculiarities. And this is as true of Whitechapel and Shoreditch as it is of Pall Mall and St. James's-street. In the eyes of the practised East-ender there is as great a difference between Whitechapel and Shoreditch as there is between Piccadilly and Pall Mall in the eyes of a West-end lounger.