"E. W. Hamilton.
"The Vestry Clerk of Lambeth."
Mr. Hill gave notice of the following motion:—
"That an instruction be given to the Prime Minister that if the proper authorities are willing to hand over the Lambeth Palace grounds for the free use of the public, this Board will accept the charge and preserve the grounds as a portion of the open spaces."
Then came a hopeless and defensive letter, before referred to, addressed both to the Standard, Telegraph, and the Times:—
"Sir,—Some of the statements (including a correspondence with the Prime Minister) which have, during the last few days, appeared in the newspapers with reference to Lambeth Palace grounds, would, I think, lead those who are unacquainted with the circumstances to suppose that these grounds have been hitherto altogether closed to the public, and reserved for the sole use of the Archbishop and his household. Will you, therefore, to prevent misapprehension, kindly allow me to state the facts of the case?
"For many years past the Archbishop of Canterbury endeavoured, in what seemed to him the best way, to make the grounds in question available, under certain restrictions, to the general public. During the summer months twenty-eight cricket clubs, some from the Lambeth parishes and some from other parts of London, have received permission to play cricket in the field, and similar arrangements have been made for football in the winter, though necessarily upon a smaller scale. The whole available ground has been carefully allotted for the different hours of each day. On certain fixed occasions the field is used for rifle corps' drill and exercises, and throughout the summer, arrangements are constantly made for 'treats' for infant and other schools unable to go out of London. Tickets giving admission to the field at all hours have been issued for some years past, in very large numbers, to the sick, aged, and poor of the surrounding streets; and the whole grounds, including the private garden, have been opened without restriction to the nurses and others of St. Thomas's Hospital.
"His Grace frequently consulted those best qualified from local experience to judge what is for the advantage of the neighbourhood, and invariably found their opinion to coincide with his own—namely, that a more public opening of the ground would interfere with the useful purposes to which it is at present turned for the benefit of the neighbourhood, and that, considering the limited space, no gain could be secured by throwing it entirely open which would at all compensate for the inevitable loss of the advantages at present enjoyed.—I am, sir, your obedient servant,
"Randall T. Davidson.
"Lambeth Palace, December 16."
On January 6, 1883, I wrote to the Daily News, saying:—
"Sir,—Your columns have recorded the steps taken by the Lambeth Vestry and by Lord Brabazon (on the part of the Open Space Society, for which he acts) with respect to the use of the pasture acres connected with the Palace grounds of Lambeth. I have been asked by a clergyman, for whose judgment I have great respect, to write some letter which shall make it plain to the public that it is not the gardens of the Palace for the use of which any one has asked, but for the nine acres of fields outside the gardens, as a small recreation ground which shall be open to the children of Lambeth, who are numerous there, and much in need of some pleasant change of that scarce and pleasant kind. No one has dined at the Lambeth Palace, or been otherwise a visitor there, without valuing the gardens which surround it and which are necessary to an episcopal residence in London. No one wishes to interfere with or curtail the garden grounds. I thought the public understood this. I shall therefore be obliged if you can insert this explanation in your columns. Much better than anything I could say upon the subject are the words which occur in the Family Churchman of December 27th, which gives the portraits of the new Archbishop, Dr. Benson, and the late Bishop of Llandaff. The editor says that 'every one knows the Archbishops of Canterbury have a splendid country seat at Addington, within easy driving distance of London. Within the same distance there are few parks so beautiful as Addington Palace, whilst, unlike some parks in other parts of the country, it is jealously closed against the public. The Palace park is remarkable for its romantic dells, filled with noble trees and an undergrowth of rhododendrons. There are, moreover, within the park, heights which command fine views of the surrounding country. It is thought, perhaps not unjustly, that the new Archbishop might well be content with this country place, and, whilst retaining the gardens at Lambeth Palace, might with graceful content see conceded to the poor, whose houses throng the neighbourhood, the nine acres of pasture land.' This is very distinct and even generous testimony on the part of the Family Churchman to the seemliness and legitimacy of the plea put forward on the part of the little people of Lambeth.—Very faithfully yours,
"George Jacob Holyoake.
"22, Essex Street W.C."
News of the Palace grounds agitation reached as far as Mentone, and Mr. R. French Blake, who was residing at the Hotel Splendide, sent an interesting letter to the Times—historical, defensive, and suggestive. He wrote on January 3, 1883, saying:—
"Sir,—Attention having recently been drawn to the Lambeth Palace grounds and the use which the late Primate made of them for the recreation of the masses, it may be interesting, especially at this juncture, to place on record what were his views with regard to those historic parts of the buildings of the Palace itself which are not actually used as the residence of the Archbishops. These chiefly consist of what is known as the Lollards' Tower, and the noble Gate Tower, called after its founder, Archbishop Moreton. The former of these has recently been put into repair, and rooms in it were granted to the late Bishop of Lichfield and his brother, by virtue of their connection with the Palace library."
Mr. Blake then adverts to the affair of the grounds. He says:—
"Nor can I suppose that any well-informed member of the vestry could imagine that it is in the lawful power of a Prime Minister, or even of Parliament, to alienate, without consent, any portion of the Church's inheritance. It may be a somewhat high standard of right, which is referred to in the sacred writings, to 'pay for the things which we never took,' but in no standard of right whatsoever can the motto find place to 'take the things for which we never pay.' Although the Archbishop may have deemed that he turned to the very best account the ground in question, for the purposes of enjoyment and health to the surrounding population, he was far too wise and too charitable to disregard, so far as he deemed he had the power, any petition or request which might, if granted, add to the pleasure and happiness of others, and if it had been made clear to him as his duty, and an offer to that effect had been made to him by the Metropolitan Board of Works or others, I am satisfied he would have consented, not to the alienation of Church property, but to the sale of the field for a people's park, and the application of the value of the ground to mission purposes for South London, and such a scheme I happen to know was at one time discussed by some of those most intimately connected with him."
Afterwards, January 13, 1883, the Pall Mall Gazette remarked that "it is not a happy omen that the consent of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners is required before the well-fed donkey who disports himself in the Palace grounds can be joined by the ill-fed, ragged urchins who now have no playground but the streets." The Daily News rendered further aid in a leader. Then a report was made that the condition of the streets, "to which, in his correspondence with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. Holyoake had called attention, had been illustrated by the fall of several miserable tenements, in which a woman and several children were fatally buried in the ruins." The writer says there is "no hope that the unkindly exclusiveness of 'Cantuar' will be broken down."
So the matter rested for nearly twenty years before the happy news came that the London County Council had come into possession of the ecclesiastical fields, and converted them into a holy park, where pale-faced mothers and sickly children may stroll or disport themselves at will evermore. All honour to the later agents of this merciful change. There is an open gleam of Nature now in the doleful district. Sir Hudibras exclaims:
Not less so if the meddlement be with ecclesiastical iron and the contest lasts a longer time.
Being several times in France, twice in America and Canada, thrice in Italy and as many times in Holland, under circumstances which brought me into relation with representative people, enabled me to become acquainted with the ways of persons of other countries than my own. There I met great orators, poets, statesmen, philosophers, and great preachers of whom I had read—but whom to know was a greater inspiration. Thus I learned the art of not being surprised, and of regarding strangeness as a curiosity, not an offence awakening resentment as something unpardonable, or at least, an impropriety the traveller is bound to reprehend, as Mrs. Trollope and her successors have done on American peculiarities. On the Continent I found incidents to wonder at, but I confine myself in this chapter to America and Canada, countries we are accustomed to designate as "Across the Water," as the United States and the Dominion which have imperishable interest to all of the British race.
Notwithstanding the thousands of persons who now make sea journeys for the first time, I found, when it came to my turn, there was no book—nor is there now—on the art of being a sea passenger. I could find no teaching Handbook of the Ocean—what to expect under entirely new conditions, and what to do when they come, so as to extract out of a voyage the pleasure in it and increase the discomforts which occur in wave-life. One of the pleasures is—there is no dust at sea.
On my visit to America in 1879, I, at the request of Mr. Hodgson Pratt, undertook to inquire what were the prospects of emigrants to that country and Canada, which cost me labour and expense. What I found wanting, and did not exist, and which does not exist still, was an emigrant guide book informing him of the conditions of industry in different States, the rules of health necessary to be observed in different climates, and the vicissitudes to which health is liable. The book wanted is one on an epitome plan of the People's Blue Books, issued by Lord Clarendon on my suggestion, as he stated in them.
When I was at Washington, Mr. Evarts, the Secretary of State, gave me a book, published by local authorities at Washington, with maps of every department of the city, marking the portion where special diseases prevailed. London has no such book yet. Similar information concerning every State and territory in America existed in official reports. But I found that neither the Government of Washington nor Ottawa would take the responsibility of giving emigrants this information in a public and portable form, as land agents would be in revolt at the preferential choice emigrants would then have before them. It was continually denied that such information existed. Senators in their turn said so. Possibly they did not know, but Mr. Henry Villard, a son-in-law of Lloyd Garrison, told me that when he was secretary of the Social Science Association he began the kind of book I sought, and that its' issue was discouraged.
On my second visit to America in 1882, I had introductions to the President of the United States and to Lord Lome, the Governor of Canada, from his father, the Duke of Argyll, with a view of obtaining the publication of a protecting guide book such as I have described, under its authority. When I first mentioned this in New York (1879) the editor of the Star (an Irishman) wrote friendly and applauding leaders upon my project. On my second visit, in 1882, this friendly editor (having seen in the papers that Mr. Gladstone approved of my quest) wrote furious leaders against it. On asking him the reason of the change of view, he said, "Mr. Holyoake, were Mr. Gladstone and his Cabinet in this room, and I could open a trap-door under their feet and let them all fall into hell, I would do it," using words still more venomous. Then I realised the fatuity of the anti-Irish policy which drives the ablest Irishmen into exile and maintains a body of unappeasable enemies of England wherever they go. Then I saw what crazy statesmanship it was in the English to deny self-government to the Irish people, and spend ten millions a year to prevent them taking care of themselves.
The Irish learned to think better of Mr. Gladstone some years later. One night when he was sitting alone in the House of Commons writing his usual letter to the Queen, after debates were over, he was startled by a ringing cheer that filled the chamber, when looking up he found the Irish members, who had returned to express their gratitude to him. Surely no nation ever proclaimed its obligation in so romantic a way. The tenderest prayer put up in my time was that of W. D. Sullivan:—
I take pride in the thought that I was the first person who lectured upon "English Co-operation" in Montreal and Boston. It was with pride I spoke in Stacey Hall in Boston, from the desk at which Lloyd Garrison was once speaking, when he was seized by a slave-owning mob with intent to hang him. As I spoke I could look into the stairway on my right, down which he was dragged.
The interviewers, the terror of most "strangers," were welcome to me. The engraving in Frank Leslie's paper reproduced in "Among the Americans," representing the interview with me in the Hoffman House, was probably the first picture of that process published in England (1881). I advocated the cultivation of the art in Great Britain, which, though prevalent in America, was still in a crude state there. The questions put to me were poor, abrupt, containing no adequate suggestion of the information sought The interviewer should have some conception of the knowledge of the person questioned, and skill in reporting his answers. Some whom I met put down the very opposite of what was said to them. The only protection against such perverters, when they came again, was to say the contrary to what I meant, when their rendering would be what I wished it to be. Some interviewers put into your mouth what they desired you to say. Against them there is no remedy save avoidance. On the whole, I found interviewers a great advantage. I had certain ideas to make known and information to ask for, and the skilful interviewer, in his alluring way, sends everything all over the land. Wise questioning is the fine art of daily life. "It is misunderstanding," says the Dutch proverb, "which brings lies to town." Everybody knows that misunderstandings create divisions in families and alienations in friendships—in parties as well as in persons—which timely inquiries would dissipate. Intelligent questioning elicits hidden facts—it increases knowledge without ostentation—it clears away obscurity, and renders information definite—it supersedes assumptions—it tests suspicions and throws light upon conjecture—it undermines error, without incensing those who hold it—it leads misconception to confute itself without the affront of direct refutation—it warns inquirers not to give absolute assent to anything uncorroborated, or which cannot be interrogated. Relevant questioning is the handmaid of accuracy, and makes straight the pathway of Truth.
The privations of Protection, which a quick and independent-minded people endured, was one of the wonders I saw. In Montreal, for a writing pad to use on my voyage home, I had to pay seven shillings and sixpence, which I could have bought in London for eighteen-pence. I took to America a noble, full-length portrait of John Bright, just as he stood when addressing the House of Commons, more than half life-size—the greatest of Mayall's triumphs. Though it was not for sale, but a present to my friend, James Charlton, of Chicago, the well-known railway agent, the Custom House demanded a payment of 30 dols. (£6) import duty. It was only after much negotiations in high quarters, and in consideration that it was a portrait of Mr. Bright, brought as a gift to an American citizen, that the import duty was reduced to 6 dollars.
The disadvantage of Protection is that no one can make a gift to America or to its citizens without being heavily taxed to discourage international generosity.
The Mayor of Brighton, Mr. Alderman Hallet, had entrusted to me some 200 volumes, of considerable value, on City Sanitation, greatly needed in America. They lay in the Custom House three months, before I discovered that the Smithsonian Institute could claim them under its charter. Otherwise I must have paid a return freight to Brighton, as America is protected from accepting offerings of civil or sanitary service. There often come to us, from that country, emissaries of Evangelism, to improve us in piety, but at home they levy 25 per cent, upon the importation of the Holy Scriptures—thus taxing the very means of Salvation.
For a time I sent presents of books to working-class friends in America whom I wished to serve or to interest, who wrote to me to say that "they were unable to redeem them from the post-office, the import tax being more than they could pay," and they reminded me that "having been in America, I ought to know that working people could not afford to have imported presents made to them." Indeed, I had often noticed how destitute their homes were in matters of table service and all bright decoration, plentiful even in the houses of our miners and mechanics in England. American workmen would tell me that a present of cutlery or porcelain, if I could bring that about, would interest them greatly.
On leaving New York a friend of mine, a Custom House officer, told me he needed a coast coat, suitable to the service he was engaged in, and that he would be much obliged if I would have one made for him in England. He would leave it to me to contrive how it could reach him. The coat he wanted, he said, would cost him £9 in New York. I had it made in London, entirely to his satisfaction, for £4 15s., but how to get it to him free of Custom duties was a problem. I had to wait until a friend of mine—a property owner in Montreal—was returning there. He went out in the vessel in which Princess Louise sailed. He wore it occasionally on deck to qualify it being regarded as a personal garment. So it arrived duty free at Montreal. After looking about for two or three months for a friend who would wear it across the frontier, it arrived, after six months' travelling diplomacy, at the house of my friend in New York.
I did not find in America or Canada anything more wonderful, beggarly and humiliating than the policy of Protection. But we are not without counterparts in folly of another kind.
Visitors to England no doubt wonder to find us, a commercial nation, fining the merchant of enterprise a shilling (the workman was so fined until late years) for every pound he expends on journeys of business—keeping a travelling tax to discourage trade. But John Bull does not profess to be over-bright, while Uncle Sam thinks himself the smartest man in creation. We retain in 1904 a tax Peel condemned in 1844. But then we live under a monarchy, from which Uncle Sam is free.
France used to be the one land which was hospitable to new ideas, and for that it is still pre-eminent in Europe. But America excels Europe now in this respect. Canada has not emerged from its Colonialism, and has no national aspiration. Voltaire found when he was in London, that England had fifty religions and only one sauce. America has no distinction in sauces, but it has more than 200 religions, and having no State Church there is no poison of Social Ascendency in piety, but equality in worship and prophesying. I found that a man might be of any religion he pleased—though as a matter of civility he was expected to be of some—and if he said he was of none, he was thought to be phenomenally fastidious, if not one of theirs would suit him, since America provided a greater variety for the visitor to choose from than any other country in the world.
Though naturally disappointed at being unable to suit the stranger's taste, they were not intolerant. He was at liberty to import or invent a religion of his own. Let not the reader imagine that because people are free to believe as they please, there is no religion in America.
Nearing Santa Fe in New Mexico, I passed by the adobe temple of Montezuma. Adobe is pronounced in three syllables—a-do-be—and is the Mexican name for a mud-built house, which is usually one story high; so that Santa Fe has been compared to a town blown down. When the Emperor Montezuma perished he told his followers to keep the fire burning in the Temple, as he would come again from the east, and they should see "his face bright and fair." In warfare and pestilence and decimation of their race, these faithful worshippers kept the fire burning night and day for three centuries, and it has not long been extinguished. Europe can show no faith so patient, enduring, and pathetic as this.
The pleasantest hours of exploration I spent in Santa Fe were in the old church of San Miguel. Though the oldest church in America, there are those who would remove rather than restore it. A book lay upon an altar in which all who would subscribe to save it had inserted their names, and I added mine for five shillings.
When an Englishman goes abroad, he takes with him a greater load of prejudices than any man of any other nation could bear, and, as a rule, he expresses pretty freely his opinion of things which do not conform to his notions, as though the inhabitants ought to have consulted his preferences, forgetting that in his own country he seldom shows that consideration to others. On fit occasion I did not withhold my opinion of things which seemed to me capable of improvement; but before giving my impressions I thought over what equivalent absurdity existed in England, and by comparing British instances with those before me, no one took offence—some were instructed or amused at finding that hardly any nation enjoyed a monopoly of stupidity. There is all the difference in the world between saying to an international host, "How badly you do things in your country," and saying, "We are as unsuccessful as you in 'striking twelve all at once.'"
We all know the maxim: "'Before finding fault with another, think of your own." But Charles Dickens, with all his brightness, forgot this when he wrote of America. Few nations have as yet attained perfection in all things—not even England.
When in Boston, America, 1879, I went to the best Bible store I could find or be directed to, to purchase a copy of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament. In a church where I had to make a discourse, I wanted to read the dialogue between the prophet Esdras and the angel Uriel. The only copy I could obtain was on poor, thin paper; of small, almost invisible print, and meanly bound. The price was 4s. 2d. "How is it," I inquired, "that you ask so much in the Hub of the Universe for even this indifferent portion of Scripture—seeing that at the house of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, in Northumberland Avenue, London, a house ten times handsomer than yours, in a much more costly situation—I can buy the same book on good, strong paper, in large type, in a bright, substantial cover for exactly 3s. less than you ask me." "You see, sir," said the manager of the store, "we have duty to pay." "Duty!" I exclaimed. "Do you mean me to understand that in this land of Puritan Christians, you tax the means of salvation?" He did not like to admit that, and could not deny it, so after a confused moment he answered: "All books imported have to pay twenty-five per cent, duty." All I could say was that "it seemed to me that their protective duties protected sin; and, being interested in the welfare of emigrants, I must make a note counselling all who wish to be converted, to get that done before coming out; for if they arrive in America in an unconverted state they could not afford to be converted here." Until then I was unaware that Protection protected the Devil, and that he had a personal interest in its enactment.
My article in the Nineteenth Century entitled, "A Stranger in America," written in the uncarping spirit as to defects and ungrudgingly recognising the circumstances which frustrated or retarded other excellences in their power, was acknowledged by the press of that country, and was said by G. W. Smalley—the greatest American critic in this country then—to be "one of those articles which create international goodwill." Approval worth having could no further go. It was surprising to me that mere two-sided travelling fairness should meet with such assent, whereas I expected it would be regarded as tame and uninteresting.
The voyage out to America described in the last chapter included an instance of the extraordinary behaviour of the Established Church at sea, which deserves special mention as it is still repeated.
There is an offensive rule on board ships that the service on Sunday shall be that of the Church of England, and that the preacher selected shall be of that persuasion.
Several of the twelve ministers of religion among the passengers of the Bothnia in 1879 were distinguished preachers, whereas the clergyman selected to preach to us was not at all distinguished, and made a sermon which I, as an Englishman, was ashamed to hear delivered before an audience of intelligent Americans. The preacher told a woful story of loss of trade and distress in England, which gave the audience the idea that John Bull was "up a tree." Were he up ever so high I would not have told it to an alien audience.
The preacher said that these losses were owing to our sins—that is the sins of Englishmen. The devotion of the American hearers was varied with a smile at this announcement. It was their surpassing ingenuity and rivalry in trade which had affected our exports for a time. Our chief "sins" were uninventiveness and commercial incapacity, and the greater wit and ingenuity of the audience were the actual punishment the preacher was pleading against, and praying them to be contrite on account of their own success. The minister described bad trade as a punishment from God, as though God had made the rascally merchants who took out shoddy calico and ruined the markets. It was not God that had driven the best French and German artists and workmen into America, where they have enriched its manufacturers with their skill and industry, and enabled that country to compete with ours.
The preacher's text was as wide of any mark as his sermon. It asked the question, "How can we sing in a strange land?" When we should arrive there, there would hardly be a dozen of us in the vessel who would be in a strange land; the great majority were going home—mostly commercial reapers of an English harvest who were returning home rejoicing—bearing their golden sheaves with them. Neither the sea nor the land were strange to them. Many of them were as familiar with the Atlantic as with the prairie. I sat at table by a Toronto dealer who had crossed the ocean twenty-nine times. The congregation at sea formed a very poor opinion of the discernment of the Established Church.
On the return voyage in the Gallia we had another "burning" but not "a shining light" of the Church of England to discourse. He was a young man, and it required some assurance on his part to look into the eyes of the intelligent Christians around him, who had three times his years, experience, and knowledge, and lecture them upon matters of which he was absolutely ignorant.
This clergyman enforced the old doctrine of severity in parental discipline of the young, and on the wisdom of compelling children to unquestioning obedience, and argued that submission to a higher will was good for men during life. At least two-thirds of the congregation were American, who regard parental severity as cruelty to the young, and utterly uninstructive; and unquestioning obedience they hold to be calamitous and demoralising education. They expect reasonable obedience, and seek to obtain it by reason. Submission to a "higher will" as applied to man, is submission to arbitrary authority against which the whole polity of American life is a magnificent protest. The only higher will they recognise in worldly affairs is the will of the people, intelligently formed, impartially gathered, and constitutionally recorded—facts of which the speaker had not the remotest idea.
Who can read this narrative of the ignorance and effrontery, nurtured by the Established Church and obtruded on passengers at sea, without a sense of patriotic humiliation that it is continued every Sunday in every ship? It is thought dangerous to be wrecked and not to have taken part in this pitiable exhibition.
Were I persuaded, as many are, that each person is a subject of Providential care, I might count myself as one of the well-favoured. I should do so, did it not demand unseemly egotism to believe the Supreme Master of all the worlds of the Universe gave a portion of His eternal time to personally guide my unimportant footsteps, or snatch me from harm, which might befall me on doing my duty, or when I inadvertently, negligently, or ignorantly put myself in the way of disaster. Whatever may be the explanation, I have oft been saved in jeopardy.
The first specific deliverance occurred when I was a young man, in the Baskeville Mill, Birmingham. Working at a button lathe, the kerchief round my neck was caught by the "chock," and I saw myself drawn swiftly to it. To avert being strangled, I held back my neck with what force I could. All would have been in vain had not a friendly Irishman, who was grinding spectacle glasses in an adjoining room, come to my assistance, by which I escaped decapitation without benefit of the clergy, or the merciful swiftness of the guillotine.
In days when the cheap train ran very early in the morning, I set out before daylight from Exeter, where I had been lecturing. At the station at which the train stopped for an hour or two, as was the custom in days before the repeal of the tax on third-class passengers, we were in what Omar Khayyam called the "false dawn of morning." The train did not properly draw up to the platform, and when I stepped out I had a considerable fall, which sprained my ankle and went near breaking my neck.
On my arrival in Boston, 1879, I was invited by a newspaper friend, whom I had brought with me into the city, to join a party of pressmen who were to assemble next morning at Parker House, to report upon the test ascent of a new elevator. It happened that Mr. Wendell Phillips visited me early at Adam's House, before I was up. He sat familiarly on the bedrail, and proposed to drive me round the city and show me the historic glories of Boston, which being proud to accept, I sent an apology for my absence to the elevator party at Parker House. That morning the elevator broke down, and out of five pressmen who went into it only four were rescued—more or less in a state of pulp. One was killed. But for Mr. Phillips's fortunate visit I should have been among them.
In Kansas City, in the same year (1879), I was taken by my transatlantic friend, Mr. James Charlton, to see a sugar bakery, concerning which I was curious. The day was hot enough to singe the beard of Satan, and I was glad to retreat into the bakery, which, however, I found still hotter, and I left, intending to return at a cooler hour next morning. At the time I was to arrive I heard that the whole building had fallen in. Some were killed and many injured. This was the City of Kansas, of which the mayor once said: "He wished the people would let some one die a natural death, that a stranger might know how healthy the city was. Accidents, duels, and shootings prevented cases of longevity occurring."
Another occasion when misadventure took place, when we—my daughter, Mrs. Marsh, and I—were crossing the Tesuque Valley, below Santa Fe, the party occupied three carriages; road, there was none, and the horses knew it, and when they came to a difficulty—either a ravine or hill—the driver would give the horses the rein, when they spread themselves out with good sagacity, and descended or ascended with success. One pair of horses broke the spring of their carriage, making matters unpleasant to the occupants; another pair broke the shaft, which, cutting them, made them mad, and they ran away. The carriage in which I was remained sound, and I had the pleasure for once of watching the misfortunes of my friends.
The river was low, the sand was soft, and the distance through the Tesuque River was considerable, and we calculated that no horses were mad enough to continue their efforts to run through it, and we were rewarded by seeing them alter their minds in the midst of it, and continue their journey in a sensible manner.
Returning from Guelph, which lies below Hamilton, in the Niagara corner of Canada, where we had been to see the famous Agricultural College, we were one night on the railway in what the Scotch call the "gloaming." My daughter remarked that the scenery outside the carriage was more fixed than she had before observed it, and upon inquiry it appeared that we were fixed too—for the train had parted in the middle, and the movable portion had gone peacefully on its way to Hamilton. We were left forming an excellent obstruction to any other train which might come down the line. Fortunately, the guard could see the last station we had left, two miles from us, and see also the train following us arrive there. We hoped that the stationmaster would have some knowledge of our being upon the line, and stop the advancing train; but when we saw it leave the station on its way to us we were all ordered to leave the carriages, which was no easy thing, as the banks right and left of us were steep, and the ditch at the base was deep. However, our friends, Mr. Littlehales and Mr. Smith, being strong of arm and active on a hill, very soon drew us up to a point where we could observe a collision with more satisfaction than when in the carriages. Fortunately, the man who bore the only lamp left us, and who was sent on to intercept the train, succeeded in doing it. Ultimately we arrived at Hamilton only two hours late. When we were all safely at home, one lady, who accompanied us, fainted—which showed admirable judgment to postpone that necessary operation until it was no longer an inconvenience. One lady fainted in the midst of the trouble, which only increased it. The excitement made fainting sooner or later justifiable, although an impediment, but I was glad to observe my daughter did not think it necessary to faint at any time.
As we were leaving the sleepy Falls of Montmorency in the carriage, we looked out to see whether the Frenchman had got sight of us, fully expecting he would take a chaise and come after us to collect some other impost which we had evaded paying. The sun was in great force, and I was reposing in its delicious rays, thinking how delightful it was to ride into Quebec on such a day, when in an instant of time we were all dispersed about the road. In a field hard by, where a great load of lumber as high as a house was piled, a boy who was extracting a log set the upper logs rolling. This frightened the horses. They were two black steeds of high spirit, and therefore very mad when alarmed. Had they run on in their uncontrollable state, they would, if they escaped vehicles on the way, have arrived at a narrow bridge where unknown mischief must have occurred. The driver, who was a strongly built Irishman, about sixty, with good judgment and intrepidity, instantly threw the horses on to the fence, which they broke, got into the ditch, and seriously cut their knees. I leaped out into the ditch with a view to help my daughter out of the carriage; but she, nimbler than I, intending to render me the same service, arrived at the ditch, and assisted me out, merely asking "whether four quietly disposed persons being distributed over the Dominion at a minute's notice was a mode of travelling in Canada?" Mrs. Hall, who was riding with us, also escaped unhurt Her husband deliberately remained some time to see what the horses were going to do, but finding them frantic, he also abandoned the carriage.
Later, in England, being Ashton way, I paid a visit to my friend the Rev. Joseph Rayner Stephens, whose voice, in early Chartist times, was the most eloquent in the two counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire. He fought the "New Poor Law" and the "Long Timers" in the Ten Hours' agitation. His views were changed in many respects, but that did not alter my regard for his Chartist services—and there remained his varied affluence of language, his fitly chosen terms, his humorous statement, his exactness of expression and strong coherence, in which the sequence of his reasoning never disappeared through the crevice of a sentence. All this made his conversation always charming and instructive.
After lecturing in the Temperance Hall and the "evening was far spent," a cab was procured to take me to Mr. Stephens's at the "Hollins." A friend, Mr. Scott, in perfect wanton courtesy, having no presentiment in his mind, would accompany me. When we arrived at Stalybridge (where there is a real bridge), the cabman, instead of driving over it, drove against it. I thought, perhaps, this was the way with Ashton cabmen; but my friend came to a different conclusion. He said the cabman had not taken the "pledge" that afternoon. I was told Ashton cabmen needed to take it often. The driver, resenting our remonstrance, drove wildly down a narrow, ugly, deserted street, which he found at hand. It was all the same to me, who did not know one street from the other. My friend, who knew there was no outlet save into the river, called out violently to cabby to stop. The only effect was that he drove more furiously. Mr. Scott leaped out and seized the horse, and prevented my being overthrown. Before us were the remains of an old building, with the cellars all open, in one of which we should soon have descended. Cabby would have killed his horse, and probably himself, which no doubt would have been an advantage to Ashton.
As the place was deserted I should have been found next morning curled up and inarticulate. We paid our dangerous driver his full fare to that spot, and advised him to put himself in communication with a temperance society. He abused us as "not being gentlemen" for stopping his cab in that unhandsome way.
The next morning I went to the scene of the previous night's adventure. Had Mr. Henley, the loud, coarse-tongued member for Oxfordshire at that time, seen the place, he would have said we were making an "ugly rush" for the river. Not that we should ever have reached the river, for we should certainly have broken our necks in the brick vaults our driver was whipping his horse into.
As I needed another cab on my arrival at Euston, I selected a quiet-looking white horse, and a Good Templar-looking cabman, first asking the superintendent what he thought of him. "O, he's all right," was the answer, and things went pleasantly until we arrived at a narrow, winding street. I was thinking of my friend, Mr. Stephens, and of the concert which at that hour he had daily in his bedroom, when I was suddenly jerked off my seat and found the white horse on the foot-pavement. I stepped out and adjured the cabman, "By the carpet-bag of St Peter" (no more suitable adjuration presented itself on the occasion), to tell me what he was at. I said,
"Are you from Ashton?" "Nothing the matter, sir. All right Jump in. Only my horse shied at the costermonger's carrot-cart there. She's a capital horse, only she's apt to shy." I answered, "Yes; and unless I change my mode of travelling by cabs, I shall become shy myself."
Late one night, after the close of the Festive Co-operative Meeting in Huddersfield, a cab was fetched for me from the fair—it being fair time. The messenger knew it was a bad night for the whip, as he might be "touched in the head" by the festivities, so he said to cabby: "Now, though it is fair night, you must do the fair thing by this fare. He does not mind spreading principles, but he objects to being spread himself." Cabby came with alacrity. He thought he had to take some "boozing cuss" about the fair, with an occasional pull up at the "Spread Eagle." When he found me issuing from a temperance hotel, bound for Fernbrook, he did not conceal his disappointment by tongue or whip, and jerked his horse like a Bashi-Bazouk when a Montenegrin is after him. I cared nothing, as I had made up my mind not to say another word about cabs if they broke my neck. I knew we had a stout hill before us, which would bring things quiet The next day the hotel people, who saw the cabman's rage, said they thought there was mischief in store for me. They knew nothing of Ashton ways, and their apprehensions were original.
After a pleasant sojourn in Brighton, where the November sun is bright, and the fogs are thin, grey and graceful, softening the glare of the white coast, tempering it to the sensitive sight, I returned to London one cold, frosty day, when snow and ice made the streets slippery. I had chosen a cabman whose solid, honest face was assuring, and being lumpy and large himself I thought he would keep his "four-wheeler" steady by his own weight. Being himself lame and rheumatic, he appeared one who would prefer quiet driving for his own sake. We went on steadily until we reached Pall Mall, when he turned sharply up Suffolk Street. Looking out, I called to my friend on the box, saying, "This is not Essex Street" "Beg your pardon, sir, I thought you said Suffolk Street," and began to turn his horse round. In that street the ground rises, and the carriage-way is convex and narrow, it required skill to turn the cab, and the cabman was wanting therein. He said his rein had caught, and when he thought he was pulling the horse round, the horse had taken a different view of his intention, and imagined he was backing him, and, giving me the benefit of the doubt, did back, and overturned the cab, and me too. Not liking collisions of late, I had, on leaving Brighton, wrapped myself in a railway cloak, that it might act as a sort of buffer in case of bumping—yet not expecting I should require it so soon.
Seeing what the horse was at, and taking what survey I could of the situation, I found I was being driven against the window of the house in which Cobden died. I have my own taste as to the mode in which I should like to be killed. To be run over by a butcher's cart, or smashed by a coal train or brewer's van is not my choice; but being killed in Pall Mall is more eligible, yet not satisfactory.
As I had long lived in Pall Mall, I knew the habits of the place. There is a gradation of killing in the streets of London, well-known to West-end cabmen. As they enter Trafalgar Square, they run over the passenger without ceremony. At Waterloo Place, where gentlemen wander about, they merely knock you down, but as they enter Club-land, which begins at Pall Mall West, where Judges and Cabinet Ministers and members of Parliament abound, they merely run at you; so I knew I was on the spot where death is never inflicted. Therefore I took hold of the strap on the opposite side of the cab to that on which I saw I should fall. For better being able to look after my portmanteau, I had it with me, and, fortunately had placed it on the side on which I fell. Placing myself against it when the crash came, and the glass broke, I was saved from my face being cut by it. My hat was crushed, and head bruised. It was impossible to open the door, which was then above me, and had the horse taken to kicking, as is the manner of these animals when in doubt, it would have fared ill with me. Possibly the horse was a member of the Peace Society, and showed no belligerent tendency; more likely he was tired, and glad of the opportunity of resting himself. The street, which seemed empty, was quickly filled, as though people sprang out of the ground. Two Micawbers who were looking out for anything which "turned up," or turned over, came and forced open the cab-door at the top, and dragged me up, somewhat dazed, my hat off, my grey hair dishevelled, my blue spectacles rather awry on my face—I was sensible of a newly-contrived, music-hall appearance as my shoulders peered above the cab. A spirit merchant near kindly invited me into his house, where some cold brandy and water given to me seemed more agreeable and refreshing than it ever did before or since. The cab had been pulled together somehow. My rheumatic friend on the box had been picked up not much the worse—possibly the fall had done his rheumatism good. I thought it a pity the poor fellow should lose his fare as well as his windows, and so continued my journey with him.
On one occasion, after an enchanted evening in the suburbs of Kensington, a fog came on. The driver of the voiture drove into an enclosure of stables, and went round and round. Noticing there was a recurring recess, I kept the door open until we arrived at it again, and leapt into it as we passed again. When the driver, who was bewildered, came round a third time, I surprised him by shouts, and advised him to let his horse take us out by the way he came in. There was no house, or light, or person to be seen, and there was the prospect of a night in the cold, tempered by contingent accident.
Having engaged to be surety for the son of a Hindoo judge, who was about to enter as a student in the Inns of Court, a new adventure befel me. I had accepted from his father the appointment of guardian of his son. My ward was a young man of many virtues, save that of punctuality. As he did not appear by appointment, I set out in search of him. Crossing Trafalgar Square I found myself suddenly confronted by two horses' heads. An omnibus had come down upon me. It flashed through my mind that, as I had often said, I was in more danger of being killed in the streets of London than in any foreign city or on the sea; and I concluded the occasion had come. I knew no more until I found myself lying on my back in the mud after rain, but, seeing an aperture between the two wheels, I made an attempt to crawl through. A crowd of spectators had gathered round and voices shouted to me to remain where I was until the wheels were drawn from me. Lying down in the mud again was new to me. There was nothing over me but the omnibus, and as I had never seen the bottom of one before, I examined it.
It happened that a surgeon of the Humane Society was among the spectators, who assisted in raising me up, and took me to the society's rooms close by, where I was bathed and vaseline applied to my bruises. My overcoat was torn and spoiled, but I was not much hurt. The hoof of one horse had made black part of one arm. It appears I had fallen between them, and had it not been for their intelligent discrimination I might have been killed. I sent two bags of the fattest feeding cake the Co-operative Agricultural Association could supply, as a present to those two horses. I had no other means of showing my gratitude to them. I was not so grateful to the Humane Society's surgeon, who sent me in a bill for two guineas for attendance upon me, and threatened me with legal proceedings if I did not pay it. As he accompanied me to the National Liberal Club, whence I had set out, I sent him one guinea for that courtesy, and heard no more of him, and did not want to.
One evening, after leaving a Co-operative Board Meeting in Leman Street, Whitechapel, I incautiously stepped into the roadway to hail a cab, when a lurry came round a corner behind me and knocked me into the mud, which was very prevalent that day. Some bystanders picked me up, and one, good-naturedly, lent me a handkerchief with which to clear my face and head, both being blackened and bleeding. The policeman who took charge of me asked me where I wanted to be taken. I answered that I was on my way to Fleet Street to an assembly of the Institute of Journalists to meet M. Zola, then on a visit to us. "I think, sir," said the reflective policeman, "we had better take you to the London Hospital," and another policeman accompanied me in a passing tram, which went by the hospital door. After some dreary waiting in the accident ward it was found that I had no rib or bone broken, but my nose and forehead were bound up with grim-looking plasters, and when I arrived at the hotel, four miles away, where I was residing, and entered the commercial room, I had the appearance of a prize-fighter, who had had a bad time of it in the ring. Knowing the second day of an accident was usually the worst, I took an early train home while I could move. My ribs, though not broken, were all painful, and I remember squealing for a fortnight on being taken out of bed. After my last adventure the Accident Insurance Company (though I had never troubled them but once) refused to accept any further premium from me, which I had paid twenty or thirty years, and left me to deal with further providential escapes from my own resources.
Thinking I was safe in Brighton near my own home, I was walking up the Marine Parade, one quiet Sunday morning, when a gentleman on a bicycle rushed down a bye street and knocked me down with a bound. Seeing two ladies crossing the street I concluded matters were safe. The rider told me that he had seen the ladies and had arranged to clear them, but as I stepped forward he could not clear me, so gave me the preference. As I had always been in favour of the rights of women, I said he did rightly, though the result was not to my mind. He had the courtesy to accompany me to my door, apologising for what he had done, but left me to pay the bill of the physician, who was called in to examine me. When I recovered my proper senses I found he had not left his card. Though I advertised for him, he made no reappearance.
Another serene Sunday morning I was crossing the Old Steine with a son-in-law; nothing was to be seen in motion save a small dog-cart, which had passed before we stepped into the road. Soon we found ourselves both thrown to the ground with violence. A huge dog, as large as the "Hound of the Baskervilles" described by Conan Doyle, had loitered behind and suddenly discovered his master had driven ahead, and he, like a Leming rat, made straight for his master, quite regardless of our being in his way.
In these and other adventures or mis-adventures, I need not say I was never killed, though the escapes were narrow. To say they were providential escapes would be to come under the rebuke of Archbishop Whately, who, when a curate reported himself as providentially saved from the terrible wreck of the Amazon, asked: "I to understand that all less fortunate passengers were providentially drowned?" The belief that the Deity is capricious or partial in His mercies is a form of holy egotism which better deserves indictment than many errors of speech which have been so visited. I have no theory of my many exemptions from fatal consequences. All I can say is that, had I been a saint, I could not have been more fortunate.