Andrew Wynter

“ As early as two o’clock in the morning, a person looking down the dip of Piccadilly will perceive the first influx of the daily supply of vegetables and fruit to Covent Garden market: waggons of cabbages, built up and regularly faced, with the art rather of the mason than the market-gardener; light spring-vans fragrant with strawberries; and milk-white loads of turnips which slowly roll along the great-western road, and bring the produce of the fertile alluvial shores of the Thames to the great west-end mart. ”

“ How little did we ever dream that in so doing we were calling into life one of the most subtle, active, and universal agents in nature—a spirit like Ariel to carry our thoughts with the speed of thought to the uttermost ends of the earth—a workman more delicate of hand than the Florentine Cellini, and more resistless in force than the Titans of old! ”

“ There is no more touching sight at Colney Hatch than to notice the manner in which the female lunatics have endeavoured to diversify the monotonous appearance of their cell-like sleeping-rooms with rag dolls, bits of shell, porcelain, or bright cloth placed symmetrically in the light of the window-sill. The love of ornament seems to dwell with them when all other mental power is lost; and they strew gay colours about them with no more sense, but with as much enjoyment, as the bower-bird of the Zoological Gardens adorns his playing-bower. ”

“ Around the whole quadrangle, during a busy morning, there is a party-coloured fringe of waggons backed in towards the central space, in which the light green of cabbages forms the prevailing colour, interrupted here and there with the white of turnips, or the deep orange of digit-like carrots; and as the spectator watches, the whole mass is gradually absorbed into the centre of the market. Meanwhile the space dedicated to wholesale fruit sales is all alive. Columns of empty baskets twelve feet high seem progressing through the crowd “of their own motion.” ”

“ Those who remember old Billingsgate, with its tumble-down wharf, and dock half choked with corruption and oyster-shells—a dirty remnant of the days of Elizabeth—will enter with pleasure Mr. Bunning’s new market. Through its Italian colonnade are seen the masts of the fishing smacks, and the brown wharves of the opposite side—a pleasing picture, which instantly fixes the artistic eye. The busy scene within the market between the hours of five and seven in the morning, is one of the marvels of the metropolis. ”

“ The scene which a London fire presents can never be forgotten: the shouts of the crowd as it opens to let the engines dart through it, the foaming head of water springing out of the ground, and spreading over the road until it becomes a broad mirror reflecting the glowing blaze—the black, snake-like coils of the leather hose rising and falling like things of [Pg 402] life, whilst a hundred arms work at the pump, their central heart, the applause that rings out clear above the roaring flame as the adventurous band throw the first hissing jet ”

“ The polka, the waltz, and the mazurka, performed with grace and ease, declare the social standing of the assembly; and many a pedestrian who sees the dark silhouettes of the dancers as they whirl across the light, is astonished at the festivities of the inmates. In the summer evenings the spacious courts are crowded with the patients, not gloomily walking between four dismal walls in which the very air seemed placed under restraint, but enjoying themselves in the bowling-green or in the skittle alley. The garden is at hand for those who love the culture of flowers. ”

“ There is no nobler or more national sight in our island than to behold the procession of stately vessels as they pass in panoramic pride along our shores, or navigate the great arterial streams of commerce,—to witness the deeply-laden Indiaman warped out of the docks, or to see the emigrant ship speeding with bellying sails down Blackwall Reach, watched by many weeping eyes, and the depository of many aching hearts. It would, however, spoil the enjoyment of the least-interested spectator if the veil could be lifted from the dark future ”

“ The terrible contest of the succeeding reign was the hotbed which forced the press of this country into sudden life and extraordinary vigour. Those who have wandered in the vaults of the British Museum and contemplated the vast collection of political pamphlets and the countless Mercuries which sprang full armed, on either side of the quarrel, from the strong and earnest brains which wrought in that great political trouble, will not hesitate to discover, amidst the hubbub of the Rebellion, the first throes of the press of England as a political power. ”

“ There seems to be no fear that a London mob will ever prove a serious thing in the face of our present corps of policemen. A repetition of the Lord George Gordon riots would be an impossibility. Those who shudder at the idea of an outbreak in the metropolis, containing two millions and a half of people and at least fifty thousand of the “dangerous classes,” forget that the capital is so wide that its different sections are totally unknown to each other. A mob in London is wholly without cohesion, and the individuals composing it have but few feelings, thoughts, or pursuits in common. ”

“ This fine passenger ship, of 650 tons, was struck in the Bay of Biscay: the lightning shivered the foremast, completely raked the vessel, and instantly set fire to the cargo. The passengers and crew had scarcely time to jump from their beds and put on their clothes, and leap into the boats, when the masts went over the sides, the flames shot up into the air, and the ship went down like a stone. Such extraordinary catastrophes as these seem to set forth in unmistakable terms the feebleness of man in the presence of the tremendous powers of nature. ”

“ Like the trunk of an elephant, no matter seems too minute or too gigantic, too ludicrous or too sad, to be lifted into notoriety by the giant of Printing-house Square. The partition of a thin rule suffices to separate a call for the loan of millions from the sad weak cry of the destitute gentlewoman to be allowed to slave in a nursery “for the sake of a home.” Vehement love sends its voice imploring through the world after a graceless boy, side by side with the announcement of the landing of a cargo of lively turtle, or the card of a bug-killer. ”

“ The boa and the rock-snake always swallow their prey head foremost. How is that fine neck and delicate head to make room for that bulky rabbit? thinks the spectator. Presently he sees the jaws gape, and slowly the reptile draws himself over, rather than swallows, his prey, as you draw a stocking upon your leg. The huge lump descends lower and lower beneath the speckled scales, which seem to stare with distension, and the monster coils himself up once more to digest his meal in quiet. ”

“ Who knows what strange things a bold adventurer might pick up who, like Schiller’s diver, would penetrate the horrid depths of the whirlpool, not for the jewelled cup of the monarch, but for the hidden living treasures nature has planted there? Doubtless, among the rusty anchors and weed-clung ribs of long-lost armadas, there nestle gigantic zoophytes and enormous starfish, which would make the fortune of the Gardens in a single season. ”

“ A gun suddenly fired into a rookery could not cause a greater commotion than this publication of the names of dishonest tradesmen; nor does the daylight, when you lift a stone, startle ugly and loathsome things more quickly than the pencil of light, streaming through a quarter-inch lens, surprised in their naked ugliness the thousand and one illegal substances which enter more or less into every description of food that it will pay to adulterate. ”

“ Here, from the shores of this tight island, comes the morning news gathered by watchers, telescopes in hand, on remote headlands, of what ships have just hove in sight, or what craft have foundered or come ashore—to this room, swifter beyond comparison than the carrier-dove of old, the wire speeds the name of the winner of the Derby or the Oaks. How the four winds are blowing throughout the island; how stocks rise or fall every hour of the day in all the great towns and in the continental capitals ”

“ The furious maniac who arrives at Colney Hatch or Hanwell in a cart, or a hand-barrow, bound with ropes like a frantic animal, the terror of his friends and himself, is no sooner within the building which imagination invests with such terrors, than half his miseries cease. ”

“ At times, indeed, he is perfectly furious, and his vast strength has necessitated the reconstruction of his house on a much stronger plan. Those only who have seen him rush with extended jaws at the massive oaken door of his apartment, returning again and again to the charge, and making the solid beams quiver as though they were only of inch-deal, can understand the dangerous fits which now and then are exhibited by a creature, who was so gentle, when he made his début, that he could not go to sleep without having his Arab keeper’s feet to lay his neck upon. ”

“ No one can help feeling a certain sense of strangeness at seeing these creatures of all climes scattered amid a flourishing garden—to witness beasts, ensanguined in tooth and claw, impatiently pacing to and fro between banks of scarlet geraniums or beds brilliant with the countless blooms of early dahlias—or, still more oddly, to witness birds of prey which love to career in the storm surrounded by monthly roses. ”

“ As every policeman must be able to read and write, have a good character, and be of sound body and mind, the mere overflowings of the labour-market are excluded from the force; moreover, persons can always leave the service by giving a month’s notice. For these reasons a much more intelligent class of men recruit the police than the army, and it is singular to note how this intelligence tells. The drill of constables and soldiers is nearly alike, yet the former learn all their movements in a fortnight, whilst the latter require at least two months. ”

“ Nor shall we rest where we are. It is our belief as well as our hope that, before another generation has gone by, the last vestige of restraint, in the shape of dismal airing-courts, and outside walls, which serve to wound the spirit rather than to enslave the limbs, will pass for ever among us, and only be remembered with the hobbles and the manacles of the past.
It has been asserted by some psychologists that lunacy is on the increase, and that its rapid development of late years has been consequent upon the increased activity of the national mind. ”

“ Some boys are infinitely more nimble-fingered than others, and the sharpest earn eight or nine shillings a-week at the work.
Nimble as their little fingers ply, however, the hands of machinery laugh them to scorn. In the room below we note as we descend strange wheel-like frames revolving horizontally, and others working up and down into tanks of paper pulp. These are the new machines destined to supplant the little children over-head, and to hush the ceaseless hum of their human labour. ”

“ The potentate who stands on the highest pinnacle of human greatness, surrounded, it would seem, with every condition favourable to comfort and longevity, fenced about from casualties which constantly beset the paths of ordinary mortals—his would appear indeed a charmed life; yet the hard fact will stare us in the face, that the sands of life run far quicker with him than with any other of the educated classes. His years are on an average but 64, or 10 less than the clergy, who probably have to fight the hardest battle in the world—the fight of comparative poverty against appearances. ”

“ Is it true that civilisation has called to life a monster such as that which appalled Frankenstein? Is it a necessity of progress that it shall ever be accompanied by that fearful black rider which, like Despair, sits behind it? ”

“ No sooner comes the alarm, than one sees with a shudder the rush of one of these engines through the crowded streets, the tearing horses covered with foam, the heavy vehicle swerving from side to side, and the black helmeted attendants swaying to and fro. The wonder is that horses or men ever get safely to their destination: the wonder is still greater that no one is ridden over in their furious drive. ”

“ If the stranger can make his way through the crowd, and by means of some vantage-ground or door-step can manage to raise himself a few feet above the general level, he sees before him in one direction, by the dim red light of hundreds of torches, a writhing party-coloured mass, surmounted by twisting horns, some in rows, tied to rails which run along the whole length of the open space, some gathered together in one struggling knot. In another quarter, the moving torches reveal to him now and then, through the misty light, a couple of acres of living wool, or roods of pigs’ skins. ”

“ The ropes cut, he stands up once more free from restraint, kind words are spoken to him, he is soothed by a bath, and, if still violent, the padded room, which offers no aggravating mechanical or personal resistance, calms his fury, and sleep, which has so long been a stranger to him, visits him the first night which he spends in the dreaded asylum. An old lady—a relapsed patient—whose silver locks hung dishevelled on her shoulders, was, when we visited Hanwell, waiting in a cab in a state of the wildest excitement. ”