Henry Mayhew

“ The noise brought the hundred-and-one lodgers from their apartments to the stairs, and, from the top to the bottom, at every landing-place, was a bunch of heads “of all nations,”—bearded, whiskered, and moustachio’d,—some in turbans, others in Greek caps, fez-caps, and nightcaps—all enjoying the scene, and mightily taken with the piebald state of Mrs. Quinine’s face and robe-de-chambre, and the party-coloured character of Mr. Sandboy’s complexion.
Nor was Mrs. Sandboys less fortunate in her endeavours to free herself from the black of the coals. ”

“ Chutney turned as pale as a young lady of East Indian extraction could turn, and replied: “I’m sure—it’s—a—very good of you, ma’am—a—to take care of me, but—a—I can assure you I shall be safe—a—indeed I shall, ma’am.”
“No, no, my dear child!” returned Miss Wewitz, with her blandest smile, “you think so, I dare say—giddy, foolish thing as you are; for how can you be expected to know the ways of the world at your time of life. But I shall not be gone above half-an-hour at the utmost, so you can easily find something to amuse yourself for so short a time. ”

“ So is it with Buttermere: there the traveller will find no butcher, no baker, no grocer, no draper, no bookseller, no pawnbroker, no street-musicians, no confectioners, and no criminals. Burst your pantaloons—oh, mountain tourist!—and it is five miles to the nearest tailor. Wear the sole of your shoe to the bone on the sharp craigs of Robinson or of the Goat-gills, and you must walk to Lowes Water for a shoemaker. Be mad with the toothache, caught from continued exposure to the mountain breeze, and, go which way you will—to Keswick or to Cockermouth—it is ten miles to the nearest chemist. ”

“ What depth of thought and ingenuity, and what length of time must it have cost, before man could have learned from a seed to raise and prepare so useful a product as linen! Must not that society be vainly curious among whom this admirable commodity, after it is made, shall not be thought fit to be used even by the poorest of all, before it is brought to a perfect whiteness, which is not to be done but with the assistance of great chemical knowledge, joined to a world of industry and patience? ”

“ None admire the simple sturdy honesty of the working men of England more than ourselves; but to say that they like work better than pleasure, would be to chime in with the rhodomontade of the time, and make out that there is an especial delight in industry,—that is to say, in continuous labour; whereas this is precisely what is repulsive to human nature, and what all men are striving, and, indeed, paying large sums of money to avoid. If industry be such a supreme enjoyment, as the idle rich ever rejoice in declaring, then where is the virtue of it? ”

“ Jobby, with his mouth wide agape, stood outside the gates watching the posturers pile themselves, three men and a boy, high on one another’s shoulders.
The exhibition was as new as it was exciting to the lad. With a thrill of pleasurable amazement the youth saw for the first time in his life the “pole balancer” in his suit of spangled cotton “fleshings,” and the tawdry black velvet fillet round his well-oiled hair, lie on his back on a small handkerchief of carpet, and balance and catch and twirl the heavy pole on the soles of his feet. ”

“ Sandboys could do to force his way through them, and it was not until a new-comer entered with a sack at his back, that they left him to hurry off and feel the old clothes-bag, as they clamoured for first peep at its contents.
Once in the body of the Market, Cursty had time to look well about him, and a curious sight it was—perhaps one of the most curious in all London. He had never heard, never dreamt of there being such a place. A greater bustle and eagerness appear to rage among the buyers of the refuse of London, than among the traders in its most valuable commodities. ”

“ Immediately the gate was opened, Miss Wewitz took Miss Chutney by the arm and hurried into the house, where the smell of stale tobacco nearly overpowered her, while the thought of her hard-earned reputation being sacrificed in so cruel a manner made the tears rush in a flood to her eyes. The house never could be got sweet again—that was certain; and what would the mothers think on bringing their daughters back to an establishment, reeking of tobacco smoke worse than a common taproom! ”

“ Cursty Sandboys was the wickedness of all the world but Buttermere.
And yet to have looked at the man, one would never suppose that Sandboys could be nervous about anything. Taller than even the tallest of the villagers, among whom he had been bred and born, he looked a grand specimen of the human race in a country where it is by no means uncommon to see a labouring man with form and features as dignified, and manners as grave and self-possessed, as the highest bred nobleman in the land. ”

“ Sandboys proceeded, under the guidance of the Inspector, to take a glance round the town.
Manchester at any time is, perhaps, one of the peculiar sights that this country affords.
To see the city of factories in all its bustle and all its life, with its forests of tall chimneys, like huge masts of brick, with long black flags of smoke streaming from their tops, is to look upon one of those scenes of giant industry that England alone can show. As you pace its busy streets, you hear the drone of a thousand steam-engines, humming in the ears like a hive. ”

“ Nevertheless, without any wish to indulge in that mock humility which seeks to disparage our own productions, when, if there be an innate propensity, it is to value our own work immeasurably beyond its true worth, we must confess that the one craft appears no more worthy of respect than the other; so, we say again, the Great Exhibition, where all these matters are forced upon the mind, rightly considered, is a huge academy for teaching men the true dignity of even what are thought the inferior grades of labour. ”

“ And yet, the man who could visit Buttermere without a sense of the sublimity and the beauty which encompass him on every side, must be indeed dead to the higher enjoyments of life. Here, the mountains heave like the billows of the land, telling of the storm that swept across the earth before man was on it. Here, deep in their huge bowl of hills, lie the grey-green waters of Crummock and of Buttermere, tinted with the hues of the sloping fells around them, as if the mountain dyes had trickled into their streams. ”

“ Sandboys, over and through every one of the same obstacles, making a fresh rent in his trousers at every “whin-bush”—scratched, torn, panting, slipping, and—if we must confess it—swearing; now tumbling, now up again, but still holding on to the pig, or the pig holding on to him, for grim death.
But if it were difficult to ascend a Cumberland fell with a pig in front, how much more trying the descent! No sooner had “Cwoley” turned the pig at the top, than Sandboys, as he looked down the precipitous mountain up which his porker had dragged him, “saw his work before him.” ”

“ While the preceding train of thoughts had been passing through the mind of the wavering Cursty, a like chain of reasoning had been going on in Mrs. Sandboys’ brain, unknown to her husband. She, too, had been asking herself “how it would look,” when the neighbours came to know that they had never so much as put their heads inside the doors of the very place they had come hundreds of miles to see; and she, like her lord and master, had been persuading herself, that at least, if she chose to keep away, it was her bounden duty to let the “dear” children see the grand sight. ”

“ Sandboys, with the weeping Elcy at her side, sat trembling in her Adelaides, and experiencing at each fresh opening of the door the same breathless and “sinking” sensation as is peculiar to steamboats on pitching deep down into the trough of the sea. To her ineffable relief, however, the red-faced Jobby at length darted into the office, carrying the reply from Parthenon House in his hand. ”

“ Sandboys by the arm, he cried, “Here we are. Come along, quick! or we shall be carried off to Chelsea;” and made a desperate effort to reach the plank that connected the “Bee” with the pier; but no sooner did he trust the weight of his body to the treacherous gutta percha limb, which the heat of the funnel had by this time rendered as limp as a stale sugar-stick in a confectioner’s window, than it bent under him like a soldier’s penny cane, and down went the Major on his side, dragging the terrified Cursty along with him. ”

“ I serve all the first people, I can assure you, sir. Then I have a charitable society in connexion with my establishment, for the gratuitous distribution of eyes to the poor, and a very great relief it is to them, sir. To servants they are a real blessing—for mistresses object to one-eyed nurses, or lady’s-maids, or cooks, you know, sir—so I let those kind of people have my eyes at what they cost me, and they are very thankful for them, indeed, sir. ”

“ Sandboys was so crammed in and jammed in, so jostled and hustled, and so pushed and crushed, that all of a sudden her senses went from her, and she fell like a lifeless lump into her Cursty’s arms.
Then and then only was it possible for them to get extricated from the dense mass of human beings that hemmed them in on all sides; for immediately it was made known that the lady had fainted, a passage was made for Mr. Sandboys, so that he might carry her to some more open part.
On “coming to herself,” Aggy was in no way inclined to venture into the crowd a second time ”

“ Quinine was in no way prepared for the sight of a “man of colour” in such a place or at such a time. Had even her own husband pounced so unexpectedly upon her, the shock would have been sufficient to have driven all the breath out of the body of so susceptible a lady; but to find herself, without the least preparation, face to face with “a black”—as Mr. Cursty Sandboys appeared to be—was more than the shattered state of her nerves was able to bear. ”

“ To trust her out of her sight was more than she dare do, or else she certainly would have left her at her schoolfellow’s until the Frenchman had been got out of the house. But while the girl was under her own eye no harm could possibly come to her, though, with a swarm of horrid Frenchmen on the premises, it would be as much as she could do to look after her, she was such a giddy, weak thing, ready to fall in love with the first man who looked at her. However, Miss Wewitz had made up her mind to one thing—and that was, to keep her in the music-room so long as these men were in the house. ”

“ The lady no sooner set eyes upon the sable monster than she screamed like a railway engine on coming to some dark tunnel, and fainted off dead into the arms of the astonished and terrified Sandboys; and as the lifeless body of the invalid fell heavily against the wretched Cursty, the dusty, grimy, coaly garments of that gentleman left their deep black mark not only upon the white cambric robe but imprinted a large black patch upon the cheek of the poor unconscious Mrs. Quinine. ”

“ Here, too, the visitor may sometimes see the farmers’ wives grouped outside one of the homestead gates—watching their little lasses set forth on their five-mile pilgrimage to school, their baskets filled with their week’s provisions hanging on their arms, and the hoods of their blue-grey cloaks dancing as they skip playfully along, thoughtless of the six days’ absence, or mountain road before them. At other times, some good-wife or ruddy servant girl, sallies briskly from the neighbouring farm, and dodges across the road the truant pig that has dashed boldly from the midden. ”

“ Her fingers were all of a work, and it was evidently as much as she could do to keep her hands from tearing the landlady’s cap from her head. She could have borne any imputation in the world save an aspersion on her virtue.
Again she demanded of Mrs. Fokesell an immediate and full explanation. How dare a low-bred woman like her tell her she was not an honest woman—when Mrs. Fokesell, herself a married female, (and Mrs. Sandboys laid a strong emphasis on both of the words,) was without so much as a husband to show for herself. ”

“ It was at this alarming crisis that the family of the Sandboys came down from their respective bed-rooms, all smiles and ribbons, and on the tiptoe of expectation for the long-looked-for peep at the Great Exhibition. The first thing that met their eyes on reaching the passage were the forms of the wretched landlady and nurse buried beneath the heavy body of the jobbing carpenter. ”

“ But if these arts are sufficient to excite our wonder, especially when made to contribute to the happiness of the most destitute of our race, and to confer on our paupers comforts and luxuries, formerly unknown to our princes, surely the art of working in metal—the manufacture of the buttons on the workhouse coat, the making of the nails on the bottom of the workhouse floor, is a thousand times more wonderful. Who can look at the commonest pocket-knife or padlock, and not feel an intense reverence for the art and artists that could fashion those most useful instruments out of a lump of stone? ”

“ Then too there are floors crowded with looms all at work, tramping like an army, and busy weaving the shirts and gowns of the entire world, and making the stranger wonder how, with the myriads of bales of cotton that are here spun, and with the myriads of yards of cotton that are here woven, there can be one bare back to be found among the whole human family. ”

“ When mining becomes with us a geological art—when the agricultural labourer is an organic chemist—when the feeder and breeder of cattle is an experimental physiologist—when, indeed, every handicraft is made both a scientific and æsthetic operation—then, and then alone, will the handicraftsmen hold that high and honourable position in the country, which, as the producers of all our wealth—as those to whom we owe our every comfort and luxury, they ought most assuredly to occupy.
The Great Exhibition is a higher boon to labour than a general advance of wages. ”

“ And as the conflict of affection and determination went on in his brain, he now felt assured it was all selfishness on his part to keep his children locked up in abstemious solitude—and the next moment was declaring that he should be a woman and worse than a woman, if he were weak enough to allow them whom he loved best in all the world to be exposed to the vicious allurements of the Great Metropolis. ”

“ It were to be desired that gentlemen would perform similar services to the above in their several parts of the kingdom, so that, by a large collection of facts, the public might be at last convinced how pernicious to a community is promiscuous charity. Of all lessons there is none so dangerous as to teach people that they can live by other means than labour.
It was Mr. Sandboys’ special delight, of an evening, to read the newspaper aloud to his family, and endeavour to impress his wife and children with the same sense of the rascality of the outer world as reigned within his own bosom. ”

“ The street-seller no sooner caught sight of Mrs. Sandboys, than he shouted again—“Fine flowers! sweet-scented flowers. Take any old clothes for ’em, ma’am. You may have the pick of the basket for an old coat.”
Mrs. Sandboys shook her head, but the street-seller seeing her still look up, put his basket down on the pavement, and began trying to have a deal with her down the area railings.
“Now’s your time, ladies,” he cried, “you can have this here moss-rose for an old weskit, or a pair of satin shoes. Now’s your time, ladies; all a-blowing! all a-growing!” ”

“ At Workington, the Sandboys, who, on their arrival, much to the horror of the cleanly Mrs. S., might have been taken for a family of Ethiopian serenaders, having bleached themselves as well as possible with their pocket handkerchiefs—Mrs. Sandboys standing on tiptoe the while to wipe the nasty, filthy blacks from out the wrinkles and dimples of her dear Cursty’s face—proceeded to make the necessary inquiries touching the continuation of their journey to London. ”

“ Or if we wish to have a just appreciation of the intellect required for the discovery and perfection of the metallurgic arts, let us imagine ourselves placed on an uninhabited island—another Juan Fernandez—and then fancy how we, even though we have lived among the very arts all our days, should set to work. Let us think whether we could make a pin or a needle out of a piece of rock to save our lives.
Is there any more skill to put words together than to manufacture a razor out of a lump of iron-stone? We know which seems to us by far the easier occupation of the two. ”

“ In the fright of the moment she uttered a suppressed scream, and immediately disappeared. “Gracious! gracious! and it’s impossible to let him know I didn’t mean it,” she cried;—“it must have seemed to him for all the world like as if I was calling to him. Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!? and, in the flurry of her emotions, she sat herself down on the top of the screw-press for the table-cloths, that stood in the extreme corner of the room, and hiding her face in her hands, beat a tattoo with her feet on the floor in vexation at what had happened. ”