And here concerts exist where, over their beer, the listeners are regaled with the sentimental and comic songs of a generation long gathered to its fathers. To me I confess there is somewhat of pathos in these places.
What tales cannot that ancient landlord tell! The young, the beautiful, the brave he has outlived, where are they?
But let us pa.s.s on to the penny theatre, a place not hard to find in this region of sh.e.l.l-fish and fruit-pie shops, those sure indications of a neighbourhood rather poor and very wild. We pay our money at the door, and then follow the direction given us by the businesslike young woman who takes the fee, "First turn to the left, and then to the right." But instead of being allowed to enter at once, we have to wait with several others, chiefly boys, very dirty, who regard us apparently with no very favourable eye, till a fresh house is formed. Our new acquaintances are not talkative, and we are not sorry when our turn comes to enter the dirty hole set apart for the entertainment of the Sh.o.r.editch youth. We climb up a primitive staircase, and find ourselves in a gallery of the rudest description, a privilege for which we have to pay a penny extra.
Here we have an ample view of the stage and the pit, the latter chiefly filled with boys, very dirty, and full of fun, with the usual proportion of mothers with excited babies. The performance commences with a panorama of American scenery, with some very stale American criticisms, about the man who was so tall that he had to go up a ladder to shave himself, and so on; all, however, exciting much mirth amongst the youthful and apple-eating audience. Then a young lady, with very short petticoats and very thick ancles, dances, and takes all hearts by storm.
To her succeeds one who sings about true love, but not in a manner which the Sh.o.r.editch youthdom affects. Then a fool comes upon the stage, and keeps the pit in a roar, especially when he directs his wit to the three musicians who form the orchestra, and says ironically to one of them, "You could not drink a quartern of gin, could you?" and the way in which the allusion was received evidently implied that the enlightened but juvenile audience around me evidently had a very low opinion of a man who could not toss off his quartern of gin. Then we had the everlasting n.i.g.g.e.rs, with the bones, and curiously-wrought long coats, and doubtful dialect, and perpetual laughter, which the excited pit copiously rewarded. One boy tossed a b.u.t.ton on the stage, another a copper, and another an apple; and so pleasing was this liberality to the supposed young men of African descent, that they did not think it beneath them, or inconsistent with their dignity as professionals, to encourage it in every possible way. And well they might. Those gay blacks very likely had little white faces at home dependent on the liberality of the house for next day"s crust. But the treat of the evening was a screaming farce, in one act, in which the old tale of "Taming the Shrew" was set forth in the most approved Sh.o.r.editch fashion. A husband comes upon the stage, whose wife-I would not be ungallant, but conscientious regard to truth compels me sorrowfully to declare-is an unmitigated shrew. She lords it over her husband as no good woman ever did or wishes to do. The poor man obeys till he can stand it no longer. At length all his manhood is aroused. Armed with what he calls a persuader-a cudgel of most formidable pretensions-he astonishes his wife with his unexpected resistance. She tries to regain the mastery, but in vain; and great is the delight of all as the husband, holding his formidable instrument over his cowed and trembling wife, compels her to obey his every word. All the unwashed little urchins around me were furious with delight. There was no need for the husband to tell the audience, as he did, as the moral of the piece, that the best remedy for a bad wife was to get such another cudgel for her as that he held in his hand. It was quite clear the little Britons around me had resolved how they would act; and I fear, as they pa.s.sed out to the number of about 200, few of them did not resolve, as soon as they had the chance, to drink their quartern of gin and to whop their wives.
On another occasion it chanced to me to visit a penny gaff in that dark and dolorous region, the New Cut. There the company and the entertainment were of a much lower character. A great part of the proceedings were indecent and disgusting, yet very satisfactory to the half-grown girls and boys present. In the time of the earlier Georges we read much of the brutality of the lower orders. If we may believe contemporary writers on men and manners, never was the theatre so full-never was the audience so excited-never did the sc.u.m and refuse of the streets so liberally patronise the entertainment as when deeds of violence and blood were the order of the night. This old savage spirit is dying out, but in the New Cut I fear it has not given way to a better one.
RAG FAIR.
People often ask, how do the poor live in London. This a question I don"t intend answering on the present occasion. But if you ask how they clothe themselves, my answer is, at Rag Fair. Do my readers remember d.i.c.kens"s sketch of Field-lane? In "Oliver Twist," he writes, "Near to the spot at which Snow-hill and Holborn meet there opens, on the right hand as you come out of the city, a dark and dismal alley, leading to Saffron-hill. In its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge bunches of pocket handkerchiefs of all sizes and patterns, for here reside the traders who purchase them from pickpockets; hundreds of these handkerchiefs hang dangling from pegs outside the windows, or flaunting from the door-posts, and the shelves within are filled with them.
Confined as the limits of Field-lane are, it has its barber, its coffee-shop, its beer-shop, and its fried fish warehouse. It is a commercial colony of itself-the emporium of petty larceny, visited at early morning and setting in of dusk by silent merchants, who traffic in dark back parlours, and go as strangely as they come. Here the clothes-man, the shoe vamper, and the rag merchant display their goods as signboards to the petty thief, and stores of old iron and bones, and heaps of mildewy fragments of woollen, stuff, and linen rust and rot in the grimy cellars." Expand this picture. Instead of one street have several-make it the resort of all the dealers in old clo", old iron, old rags, old tools, old bones, old anything that a human creature can sell or buy; fill it with a miscellaneous crowd of Jews, Irish, navvies, artisans, pickpockets, and thieves, bargaining with all the energy of which their natures are susceptible; make it damp and warm with their vapour, and a very Babel with their discordant sounds, and you get a dim idea of Rag Fair and its guests, unwashed as they appear every day from twelve to two, but especially on a Sunday, to the great scandal of the devout and respectable in that locality, who are too apt to quarrel with the effect and forget the cause.
Let us enter Houndsditch, a place where the Jews collected together long before the royal house of Guelph occupied its present pleasant position on the English throne. Poverty and wretchedness, it may be, are bashful at the West End, but they are not so here,
"Where no contiguous palace rears its head, To mark the meanness of their humble shed."
In a little court on our left, a little way down, we come to a building known as the Old Clothes Exchange. The building was erected some dozen years ago by one of the leading merchants in the old clothes line. A small entrance fee is demanded. You had better pay, as otherwise admission will be denied you. You had better not attempt to pa.s.s in without paying, as the toll-collector is an ex-prize-fighter; and the chances are, in a set-to, you would come off second best. If it be Sunday you had better not, especially if the weather be warm, attempt a pa.s.sage at all. The scrambling, and wedging, and pushing, and driving are dreadful. A man must have some nerve who forces his way in. In the week day, and you are a seller, you are soon pounced on by the Jews hungering and thirsting after bargains. In that peculiar dialect affected by the ancient people you have the most magnificent offers made.
"My coot friend, have you cot any preakage?" says one. "Cot any old boots?" says another. "I alvays gives a coot prishe," says a third. And the seller is surrounded by an eager crowd, as if he had the Koh-i-noor, and was going to part with it dirt cheap. If you are a buyer, you are quite as quickly attacked. "Want a new hat?" says one. "Shall I sell you a coot coat?" says another; and whichever way you turn, you see the same buying and selling. The cheap jewellery, the china ornaments, the general wares, are not of the most _recherche_, but of the most popular character. You may buy a stock close by that will set up all the fairs in England. Here a seller of crockery ware has come back, and is disposing of the treasures he has acquired in the course of his travels.
There a woman is discharging a similar miscellaneous cargo. All round are buyers, examining their goods. Everything here will be made useful.
That bit of old iron will become new; those boots, ruined, as you deemed them, will be vamped up, and shall dance merrily to accompanying shillalaghs at Donnybrook fair; that resplendent vest, once the delight of Belgravia, in a few weeks will adorn Quashie as he serenades his Mary Blane beneath West Indian moons. Even those bits of waste leather will be carefully treasured up and converted into a dye that may tint the rich man"s costly robe. Now, you need not wonder why you find suspicious-looking men and women bargaining with your servants for left-off clothes, or rags, or plunder of any kind, and you are not surprised when you hear even out of this dirty trade riches are made, and the gains are great.
A wit was once asked what he thought of Ireland. "Why," was his answer, "I never knew before what the people of England did with their cast-off clothes." A similar remark might be made with regard to Rag Fair. But we have not yet described the locality. Very dark and very dismal, but very much inclined to do business, the Exchange, as it is termed, is not a building of a very gorgeous style of architecture. In its erection the useful and the economical evidently was considered more than the beautiful. It seems dest.i.tute alike of shape and substance. Mr. Mayhew says it consists of a plot of ground about an acre in extent; but Mr.
Mayhew has certainly fallen into error here. The place is scarcely fenced in; and here and there you come to a h.o.a.rding, in the inside of which are some stalls and benches, scarce covered from the rain-others not so. Some of these benches, all looking very dirty and greasy, are ranged back to back, and here sit the sellers of old clothes, with their unsightly and unsavoury store of garments strewn or piled on the ground at their feet, while between the rows of petty dealers pa.s.s the merchant buyers on the look-out for bargains, or the workman, equally inclined to get as much as possible for his penny. But the curious spectator must not stop here. Near is the "City Clothes Emporium," and all the streets and alleys in the neighbourhood are similarly occupied. The place has the appearance of a foreign colony. They are not Saxon names you see, nor Saxon eyes that look wistfully at you, nor Saxon dialects you hear, but Hebrew. Every street around is part and parcel of the fair, the bazaar is but one section of the immense market which is here carried on; but let the anxious inquirer not be too curious or too lost in wonder, else some prying hand may be inserted into his pocket, and the loss of a handkerchief, or even of something else more valuable, may be the result of a visit to Rag Fair, a place unparalleled in this vast city for rags, and dirt, and seeming wretchedness. It is true that part of the nuisance is done away with. The police keep a close look-out on a Sunday, and a great portion of the traffic on that day is very properly stopped. But there are greater nuisances in the neighbourhood on the Sabbath which the police do not look after, but which they might.
THE COMMERCIAL ROAD AND THE COAL-WHIPPERS.
The Commercial Road, ab.u.t.ting on the Docks and Whitechapel, is the residence of the London coal whippers-a race of men singularly unfortunate-the complete slaves of the publicans of that quarter, and deserving universal sympathy. I have been down in their wretched homes; I have seen father, mother, children all sleeping, eating, living in one small apartment, ill-ventilated, inconvenient, and unhealthy; and I believe no cla.s.s of labourers in this great metropolis, where so many thousands are ill-paid and hard-worked, and are reduced almost to the condition of brutes, suffer more than the coal-whippers you meet in that busy street of traffic and toil-the Commercial Road.
The coal-whippers are men employed to _whip_ the coals out of the colliers into the barges, which latter bring them up for the supply of the inhabitants of London. Theirs is a precarious and laborious life, and therefore they have special claims upon the consideration of the public. Mr. Deering tells us "it may possibly serve to bespeak interest in the subject if it be known that it is one which affects for weal or for woe no fewer than 10,000 persons, there being nearly 2,000 coal-whippers, together with their wives and families." From the opening of the coal-whippers" office in 1843 to the close of 1850, the quant.i.ty of coals delivered through it was 16,864,613 tons, and the amount of wages paid to the men during that time was 589,180 11s. 5d. At times these men have to wait long without employment, sometimes a ship only breaks bulk, and a small quant.i.ty of coal is taken out, sometimes the whole cargo is worked right out. Thus the men"s remuneration varies. In some cases a coal-whipper earns but 8s. 9d. a week, and in none more than 16s. Let us now speak of the work. As we have already intimated, that is very hard. It is carried on by gangs of nine, four work in the hold of the ship and fill the basket, four work on the ways, and whip the coal-that is, raise the basket to the top-and one, the basket man, turns it into the meter"s box. The four on the whip have very hard work, and after twelve or fourteen tons have been raised go down into the hold, where they are choked with coal dust, but have not quite so difficult a task. Men who are employed in this labour describe it as most laborious and irksome. Nor from their description can we well conceive it to be otherwise.
Under the old system these men got all their work through the public-house. That was a fearful system. We have heard coal-whippers speak of it as "slavery, tyranny, and degradation;" and well they might.
"The only coves who got the work," as one man told us, "were the Lushingtons." If a man did not spend his money at the public-house he got no employment; and actually we heard in one case of a _landlady_ who turned off a gang in the middle of their work because they would not spend so much money in her public-house as she thought desirable. One publican who had several of these gangs under his thumb, by various exactions, we were positively a.s.sured, made as much as 35 per week by them. The publicans, says Mr. Deering, the able and intelligent secretary to the commissioners, compelled every man to pay on an average to the amount of eight shillings, and in some instances ten shillings, per week for liquor on sh.o.r.e and on board, whether drunk by him or not.
The plan was to compel the coal-whippers to visit their houses previous to obtaining employment, and on the night before obtaining a ship to commence the score, and at six o"clock in the morning, before going to work, to drink a pot of beer, or spirits to an equal amount of value; then to take on board for each gang nine pots of beer, to be repeated on delivering every forty-nine tons during the day; after which they were compelled to pay nine or ten shillings per man for each ship for gear.
The evil effects of such a system it is unnecessary to point out. After a week"s hard work, a man had nothing to take home. The coal-whippers became a drunken and degraded cla.s.s, the family were starved, the boys early learned to thieve, and the girls were too often thrown upon the streets. No wonder the men rebelled against this cruel tyranny. For long they bore it, but at length they plucked up courage, and demanded deliverance.
Generation after generation had struggled for their rights, and numerous Acts were pa.s.sed to redress their grievances; but no sooner was an Act pa.s.sed than ways and means were found to evade it. Then four brave men, Robert Newell, Henry Barthorpe, George Applegate, and Daniel Brown, created amongst their oppressed fellow-labourers an excitement which never subsided till the Corporation of London took their case in hand.
Lieutenant Arnold, with a view to benefit them, established an office, but the publicans combined against him and drove him out of the field.
The London Corporation appointed a committee to examine into the whole matter. Government was besieged, but Mr. Labouchere told the coal-whippers that they could not interfere, "as it would be too great an interference with the rights of labour." The coal-whippers, however, were not to be daunted, and after years of unremitting toil, in which their claims had become increasingly appreciated, Mr. Gladstone prevailed upon the House of Commons to pa.s.s the Act which on the 22nd of August, 1843, received the royal a.s.sent. The Act simply provided that an office should be established where the coal-whippers should a.s.semble, and that owners and captains of vessels discharging their cargoes by hired men and by the process of whipping should make to them the first offer to discharge their cargoes. It in no way interfered with or attempted to fix the price of the labour. This was left as a matter of contract between employers and employed. As there were conflicting interests to be consulted, the bill provided that the proposed office should be placed under the management of nine commissioners, four of whom should be appointed by the Board of Trade, and four by the Corporation of the City of London, the chairman to be the chairman for the time being of the Shipowners" Society of London. To show how the Act has worked, we make the following extract from an appeal to the House of Commons by the Committee of the Registered Coal-whippers in the Port of London, published in May of the present year, and which bears the names of John Farrow, John Doyle, William Brown, Michael Barry, John Cronin. They say:-"The object contemplated by the Legislature in the establishment of the office was to secure to the men the full amount of their earnings _immediately_ after their labour was completed, with the exception of one farthing in the shilling, which is required to be left in the office to defray necessary expenses. At first the office was fiercely opposed by interested parties, because it broke up a system of vile, degrading, and unjust extortion, by which these men derived their profits; but this opposition soon subsided, the price of labour became equalised by an understanding between the employers and the employed, the former being at liberty to offer any price they were willing to give, and the latter to accept or refuse as they thought proper; and the only compulsory clause in the Act, in favour of the coal-whippers, is that, an office being established at which they a.s.semble for the purpose of being hired, the shipowners _shall first make an offer to the coal-whippers_ registered at the office, and if refused by them at the price offered, a discharge is given, empowering the captains to obtain any other labourers elsewhere, at not a greater price than that offered to the registered men. The good effects resulting from the establishment of the office are-relief to the men from extortion and a demoralising system, ruinous alike to both body and soul-a fair turn of work in rotation-immediate payment of their wages in money-and an opportunity of disposing of their labour (if any is to be had elsewhere) in the interim of their clearing one ship and obtaining another. The advantage to the trade has been the regularity and certainty with which they obtain their coals from on board ship, instead of the injurious delay which occurred before the office was established, while the men (goaded by oppression) and the captains were contending about the price of the labour; and the advantage to the shipowner has been-the prevention of delay in the delivery of his cargoes-by always finding a sufficient number of men in attendance at the office, for the delivery of the ships-steadiness in the price of labour, and avoidance of detention through "strikes" for higher wages, _and on the whole_, _a lower price for labour than prevailed before the office was established_.
In some years, nearly 100,000 has pa.s.sed through the office for wages earned, but of late that amount has been greatly reduced in consequence of the introduction of machinery in docks and other places; the decrease in importation coastwise; the employment of "_bona fide_" servants by some gas companies, and by a few coal merchants; and _by frequent evasions of the Act through the interference of persons who have nothing whatever to do with the payment of wages_, _and who derive pecuniary advantage to themselves by so doing_. The retention of the word "purchaser" in the Act gives them power to do this."
In August, 1856, the Act which did so much good expired. Parliament refused to continue it on the express promise of parties connected with the coal trade, that a model office should be created, which should be conducted in such a manner that the publicans should not be able to renew the hideous evil of the old system. THIS CONTRACT WITH PARLIAMENT HAS BEEN BROKEN, and at this moment the coal-whippers are suffering from a return to the fearful slavery and tyranny of old times. Already one-third of the trade is again in the hands of the publicans. The first thing the model office did was immediately to throw 252 coal-whippers out of employment. Of course these men were necessitated to go to the publicans. Another complaint against the model office is, that in two cases the men were paid 2d. a ton, and in another case 3d. a ton, less than the price paid to the office. Another grievance is, instead of the persons connected with the coal trade going to the model office, the _bona fide_ offices created by the Act, and by means of which it was abused, still exist, and we were informed one of the largest merchants has still his office with a gang of eighty-one men. Of course the publicans are delighted. They have the whole trade in their own hands again; but this must not be. The righteous feeling of the country must be interposed between the publican and his victims-a body of hard-working men are not to be forced into drunkenness and poverty and crime merely that a few publicans may increase their ill-gotten gains. Reason, morality, religion, all protest against such a d.a.m.nable doctrine. Almost immediately after the Act had ceased, the Rev. Mr. Sangar, the rector of Shadwell, presided over a meeting of coal-whippers "because the coal-whipped office was established in his parish, and because the Coal-whippers" Act had put down drunkenness, prevented the exactions of middlemen, induced morality, and benefited a large number of industrious men." Meetings for a similar purpose are held almost every month. On similar grounds we have taken up the case of the coal-whippers-and for the same reasons we ask the aid of the charitable, and religious, and humane. Especially do we ask the temperance societies of the metropolis to interfere in this matter. Many of the coal-whippers are total abstainers. Now that Mr. Gladstone"s Act is obsolete, they have some of them been forced back into the public-house. We must save them ere they be lost for ever. The coal-whippers are in earnest in this matter. They want very little. Simply a renewal of Mr. Gladstone"s Act, with the proviso that there shall be only one office. It was the absence of that proviso that enabled interested parties to evade the provisions of the Act to a certain extent. Surely this is no great boon for Parliament to grant.
THE STOCK EXCHANGE.
This country, said the late Mr. Rothschild, is, in general, the bank of the whole world. That distinguished capitalist never said a truer thing.
If Russia wants a railway, or Turkey an army, if Ohio would borrow cash, or Timbuctoo build a railway, they all come to London. The English stockholder is the richest and softest animal under the sun-as repudiated foreign stocks and exploded joint-stock projects at home have too frequently ill.u.s.trated. When the unfortunate stockholder has in this way invested his all, the result is at times very painful. The cause of this is not always to be traced to "greenness," but to the desire to derive large dividends or interest, without due regard to the security of the investment. Not even is the _bona fide_ investor always safe. He is the goose that lays the golden egg. In one respect this weakness is somewhat tragic. For instance, to give an extreme case:-Suppose A. B., twelve years back, had, as the result of a life of industry, saved 5,000, and invested it in the London and North Western Railway, when that famous stock was in demand, and quoted as high as 250, what must be the unhappy condition of that too-confiding A. B., supposing he has not already died of a broken heart, when he finds London and North Western stock quoted, as at this present time, under 100? Again, supposing C. D. had died, leaving his disconsolate widow and twelve children, innocent but helpless, a nice little property consisting of shares in the Western Bank of Scotland. What must be the state of that disconsolate widow and those twelve children, innocent but helpless, upon finding that not only have all the original shares completely vanished into ducks and drakes, but that upon each share a responsibility of somewhere about one hundred and fifty pounds has been incurred besides? Can we calculate the sum total of bitter misery thus created and scattered far and wide? As well might we attempt to realise the dark and dismal regions of the d.a.m.ned. The caution cannot be too often repeated, to avoid investments which entail unknown liabilities, or which are subject to great fluctuations of price or the amount of dividend. Abundant opportunity for safe investment is offered in the Debentures, Preference and Guaranteed Stocks of British Railways, which pay from 4 to 5 per cent. per annum. The aggregate value of the stocks and shares which are dealt in on the London Stock Exchange is somewhat bewildering in its enormous amount. First and foremost are the several stocks const.i.tuting the National Debt of Great Britain, which may be taken at between eight and nine hundred millions. The capitals of the various British railways amount to upwards of three hundred millions.
The capitals of the Bank of England and of sundry joint-stock banks amount to more than thirty millions. Then there is a large amount invested in ca.n.a.ls, gas and water, steam, telegraph, and dock companies.
The total amount of American railways is about one hundred and sixty-eight millions sterling; European railways, two hundred millions; and those of India and our colonies, fifty millions. Moreover, there is a vast aggregate amount of foreign stocks and loans, which our readers will not care that we particularise.
The grand mart for the traffic in such things is a large building situate in Capel-court, just opposite the Bank of England. It has three other entrances-one in Shorter"s-court, Throgmorton-street, one in New-court, ditto, and one in Hercules-pa.s.sage, Broad-street. You cannot get in, for a porter guards each door, and if you elude him you are easily detected by the _habitues_, and obliged to beat a precipitate retreat. But from the entrance in Hercules-pa.s.sage, by peeping through the gla.s.s folding doors, you may manage to get an imperfect view of the interior. You will see that in the middle of the day there are a great number of well-dressed, sharp-looking gentlemen talking very energetically, and apparently doing a great deal of business. As they pa.s.s in and out you hear them discourse as familiarly of thousands as
"Maids of fourteen do of puppy dogs."
Let me add that there are a variety of distinct markets-the English for stocks and exchequer bills, the foreign for stocks, and the railway and mining, and miscellaneous share department. I may also add that a news-room is attached, where the daily papers, especially the city articles, are very eagerly perused. I am told that the _Daily News_ is the favourite, and that the demand for that paper is very great. The Stock Exchange does not recognise in its dealings any other parties than its own members. Every bargain, therefore, whether for account of the member effecting it, or for account of a princ.i.p.al, must be fulfilled according to the regulations and usages of the house. Its affairs are conducted by a committee of thirty, annually elected. "Every member of the Stock Exchange and every clerk to a member shall attend the committee for general purposes when required, and shall give the committee such information as may be in his possession relative to any matter then under investigation." The committee have the right to expel any member guilty of dishonourable or disgraceful conduct, or who may violate any of the regulations, or fail to comply with any of the committee"s decisions.
As regards small people outside like ourselves, the functions of the Stock Exchange are soon fulfilled. I have worked hard-I have saved a few hundreds-I want to invest them-I call upon a stock-broker-they are (I mean nothing offensive by the comparison) as thick as thieves in this neighbourhood. I commission him to buy me a certain number of shares in such and such a company. My broker rushes into the Exchange, goes to the particular spot where the dealer in such shares is to be met with, and buys them for me, to be delivered on such a day. I pay him a commission for brokerage, and my business is done. Suppose I want to buy government stock. What is stock? says one, unhappily, in consequence of his own laziness and ill-luck, or of the laziness and ill-luck of his fathers before him, not a holder of such. Stock, O benighted individual, is a term applied to the various funds which const.i.tute the National Debt, the interest on which is paid half-yearly. Few persons buy or sell stock except through a broker, and this is the original business of the stockbroker, and it was for this the Stock Exchange was erected in 1803.
It is only since the peace that the present immense traffic has sprung up in miscellaneous and railway shares. Let me suppose I have a thousand pounds to invest in the Three per Cents., which are now quoted at about 96. I wait on a stockbroker; he goes over to the Exchange and purchases them for me, and then sees to their transfer in the Bank of England, receiving as his commission one eighth per cent., or 2s. 6d. in the 100 upon the amount of stock transferred. But I am of a speculative turn, and wish to make a fortune rapidly by means of the Stock Exchange. I again have recourse to a broker. As I a.s.sume that I am a mere gambler-a man of straw-I stand to lose or gain a large sum of money on a certain contingency. I draw a blank, and leave my broker in the lurch, who has to settle his accounts as best he can. If he cannot pay by half-past two on the day of settlement, which in shares is once a fortnight, and in consols monthly, he despatches a short communication to the committee of the Stock Exchange; an official then suddenly gives three loud knocks with a mallet, and announces the unpleasant fact that my broker is unable to meet his engagements. He is termed a lame duck, and cannot again figure on the Exchange till he pays a composition of 6s. 8d. in the pound. The readmission of defaulters is in three cla.s.ses. The first cla.s.s to be for cases of failure arising from the defection of princ.i.p.als, or from other unfortunate vicissitudes, where no bad faith or breach of the regulations of the house has been practised; where the operations have been in reasonable proportion to the defaulter"s means or resources; and where his general character has been irreproachable. The second cla.s.s, for cases marked by indiscretion, and by the absence of reasonable caution only, or by conduct reprehensible in other respects.
The third cla.s.s for cases where the defaulter is ineligible under either of the former cla.s.ses, but whom, nevertheless, the committee may not feel warranted in excluding from the Stock Exchange. The final decision of the committee on each defaulter"s application will be notified to the members in the usual way, and remain posted in the Stock Exchange for forty days. Stockbrokers rarely go into the Bankruptcy Court, as the house appoints a.s.signees, and settles the affair in a much easier way.
Lame ducks are not always ruined in purse. I knew one who waddled off the Stock Exchange, he having been a speculator on his own account, and thus evaded the payment of rather a heavy sum. I met him at Brighton this summer, living in one of the best houses in Kemp-town.
Stock-brokers are very facetious fellows, and amuse their leisure hours in many ways, such as tossing for halfcrowns in a hat, and practical jokes; occasionally a good deal of small wit pa.s.ses current. I have heard of an almanac, circulated in MS., in which the various peculiarities of individual members of the Exchange were very cleverly hit off. A late Exchange wit has given birth to the following _jeu d"esprit_, which has attained a wide-spread popularity in the City:-
"When the market takes a rise, Then the public comes and buys; But when they want to realise, Oh! it"s "Oop de doodum doo!""
When the government broker appears to operate on behalf of the Commissioners, for the Reduction of the National Debt he mounts into a "box," and is surrounded by a clamorous host, all eager to buy or sell.
The present number of members of the Stock Exchange approaches nearly 800, each paying a subscription of 10 per annum, besides finding securities for between 800 and 900 for three years. Our stockbroker generally spends his money freely. If he is a married man he has a nice villa at Norwood or Clapham, and affects a stylish appearance. Then there are the "jobbers," who remain inside the stock market, waiting for the broker, and who are prepared, immediately he appears, to make a price at which they are either buyers or sellers-the jobber calculating upon making it right with the broker, who has undertaken an operation the reverse of his own. Occasionally the jobber runs considerable risk, since, after concluding a bargain, and while endeavouring to obtain a profit on it, the market may turn. Still he is a useful middle-man, and saves the broker a world of trouble.
But there is much business transacted which is less legitimate, and is known as time bargains, which are bargains to deliver stock on certain days at a certain price, the seller, of course, hoping that the price will fall, and the buyer, that it will rise when the period for completing the bargain has arrived. The speculative settlement is effected without making full payment for stock; the losing party simply pays the difference. One who speculates for a rise is a Bull (it is said the great Rothschild made a vast deal of money in this way), the speculator for a fall is a Bear. Continuation is the interest on money lent on the security of stock. A great deal of business is done in this way. A merchant, or a railway company, or a bank, have large sums of money to dispose of. Instead of locking it up they employ a broker, who lends it on certain securities, for a few days or a few weeks.
Operations on the Stock Exchange answer in this way, but the small tradesman, or clerk, or professional man who ventures within the charmed circle of Capel-court for the purpose of speculation, generally learns bitterly to rue the day.
THE LONDON HOSPITAL.
I am walking along the streets, and in doing so pa.s.s a scaffolding where some new buildings are being erected. Suddenly I hear a shriek, and see a small crowd collected. A beery Milesian, ascending a ladder with a hod of mortar, slips and falls on the pavement below. He is a stranger in London, has no friends, no money, scarcely any acquaintance. "What"s his name?" we ask. "He ain"t got no name," says one of his mates; "we calls him Carroty Bill." What"s to be done? Why, take him to the hospital.
The police fetch a stretcher. "Carroty Bill" is raised on it, and a small procession is formed. It swells as it goes along. The idle street population joins. We form one. A medical student is in the rear; he meets a chum, and exclaims exultingly, "They are taking him to our hospital." The chum turns back, and the door is reached; admittance is easy. Happily, the place is not a Government establishment, and patients are received whilst there is hope. Poor "Carroty Bill," bruised and bleeding, yet stupid with drink, is examined carefully by the attendant surgeons. It is of no use asking him what"s the matter; his expressions, never very direct or refined, are now very muddy, and not a little coa.r.s.e. A careful diagnosis reveals the extent of the injuries received.
All that science can do for him is done. If he is taken as an inmate he will have as good nursing and food, and as skilful care and as unremitting attention, as if he were a prince of royal blood. Wonderful places are these hospitals. If Sawney, subject to an unpleasant sensation on the epidermis, blesses the memory of the good duke who erected on his broad domain convenient posts, let us bless a thousandfold the memory of Rahere, who obtained from Henry I. a piece of waste ground, upon which he built a hospital (now known as St. Bartholomew"s) for a master, brethren, and sisters, sick persons, and pregnant women; or of Thomas Guy, son of a lighterman in Horsleydown; but himself a bookseller in Lombard-street after the Great Fire; or of the nameless Prior of Bermondsey, who founded, adjoining the wall of his monastery, a house of alms, now known as St. Thomas"s Hospital. Likewise let us thankfully record the gifts of the rich, of whose liberality such hospitals as those of King"s, and University, and Westminster, and the London, and St.
George"s, are the magnificent results.
Now let us return to our friend Carroty Bill. As we have intimated, he is in the ward appropriated to such cases. One of the professors is now going his round, accompanied by his students. Let us go in. The first thing that strikes us is the size, and cleanliness, and convenience of the wards; how comfortable they are, how light, how cheerful, how lofty, and well ventilated! Each patient is stretched on a clean bed, and at the top are pinned the particulars of his case, and on a chair by his side are the few little necessaries he requires. The practised physician soon detects the disease and the remedies. His pupils are examined; the patient forms the subject of a hasty lecture. One is asked what he would do, another what disease such and such a symptom denotes; a word is whispered to the nurse; the sick man, whose wistful eye hangs on every movement, is bid to keep up his spirits, and he feels all the more confident and the better fitted to struggle back to health for the few short words of the professor, to whom rich men pay enormous fees, and whose fame perhaps extends over the habitable globe. And so we pa.s.s on from bed to bed. Occasionally the professor extracts a moral. This man is dying of gin. "How much did you take a day?"-"Only a quartern."-"And for how many years?"-"Seven." The professor shakes his head-the students know that the man is past cure, that death is only a question of time. A similar process is gone through on the women"s ride, and anxiously do sad eyes follow the little group as the professor and students pa.s.s on, in their best way mitigating human agony, and bidding the downcast hope.
What tales might be told! Here lies down the prodigal to die; here the village maid hides her shame beneath the dark wings of death. Under these hospital walls-reared and maintained by Christian charity, what men once proud, and rich, and great-what women once tenderly nursed and slavishly obeyed-what beauties once fondly caressed, old, withered, wan, without money and without friends, alone in the bleak, bitter world-linger and pa.s.s away for ever.
Let us go down stairs, along that long pa.s.sage through which eager students are hurrying. The door opens, and we find ourselves in a theatre, as full as it can possibly be of the future surgeons of England, now very rough and noisy. At the bottom, far beneath us, is a small s.p.a.ce with a long narrow table, covered with oilskin; behind the table is a door. That door opens, and one or two of the _elite_ of the students known as dressers enter. A matronly female, dressed in the hospital garb, follows; some stout porters bring in a poor creature gently, and place him on the table, and a few professors and professional a.s.sistants fill up the group; the noisy students are still and eager. The professor advances to the table, in a few words explains the nature of the malady, and the patient, more dead than alive, endeavours to nerve himself for his impending fate. It is our old friend; his leg is smashed and requires amputation. An a.s.sistant administers chloroform, while the operator looks on, watch in hand. In a few seconds it is clear the patient is insensible, and the knife is handed to the operator, who, with his arm bare, and his sleeves tucked up, commences his painful task. Up squirts the red blood, and many a pale face and averted eye around testify how painful the exhibition is to those who are not accustomed to it. Happily, the medical men near have the calm composure and readiness of resource true science suggests. The first incision made, and the skin peeled around, an a.s.sistant hands a saw, and in the twinkling of an eye the limb is severed, and the stump, bleeding and smoking, is being sewn up by skilful hands almost before the poor fellow wakes up, wearied and exhausted by loss of blood, from what must have been to him, if we may judge by his moans and exclamations, a terrible dream. As soon as possible he is borne away, the blood is sponged up, the table wiped down; and another patient, it may be a pale-faced girl or a little boy suffering from some fatal malformation, succeeds. All that humanity can suggest is resorted to. Here science loses her stern aspects, and beats with a woman"s tenderness and love; and not in vain, for from that table rise, who otherwise would have painfully perished, many to bless their families, it may be the world. But all is over, and we follow the crowd out, avoiding that other pa.s.sage leading to the dissecting-room, where on many a table lie the mangled forms of what were once men and women, in all stages of dissection and decay, with students hard at work on them, painfully gathering or seeking to gather a clue to the mystery of mysteries we call life. Possibly by the fire-place some half-dozen young fellows will be smoking and drinking beer. But why note the contrast?