Amongst many relics of other days and ways I have several of those old-fashioned wedding and betrothal rings which almost invariably contained a motto inscribed upon their inner surface—posy rings as they were called. The word “posy,” it may be added, is simply an abbreviated form of “poesy,” which Richardson, in his Dictionary of Derivatives, defines as “a brief poetical sentiment,” especially one inscribed on a ring. The custom of inscribing a motto or posy upon brooches survived in Scotland up to comparatively modern times. Those known as Luckenbooth brooches were sold in the “Luckenbooths” round St. Giles’ church in Edinburgh, and were used as love-tokens and betrothal gifts. On them were inscriptions such as—

lines which also occur on many old English rings. Some ladies on the death of their husbands used to convert their wedding or posy ring into a mourning one. This was effected by engraving an elongated skeleton outside the ring, its bones being brought into prominence by a background of black enamel. Occasionally a death’s-head alone was engraved outside.

RINGS

Another kind of ring which is now obsolete was the Serjeant’s ring. It was an old legal custom for a Serjeant-at-law, on his appointment, to present a ring to the Crown, and also a ring of lesser weight than the royal ring to each of his brother Serjeants. This custom was only abolished in 1873, when the office of Serjeant-at-Law was done away with. At Windsor Castle there are said to be candlesticks formed entirely of Serjeants’ rings placed one above the other. Unlike the posy rings, the inscription upon the Serjeants’ rings (a flat band of gold with a moulding at top and bottom) is placed upon the exterior surface—the motto being, as a rule, in Latin and very seldom in English. Vivat Rex et Lex and Lex regis præsidium are two to be found upon ancient rings of this kind.

Posy rings, though usually of gold, are sometimes found to be made of silver, and even of brass. For the most part quite plain, some few have decorative patterns on the outside. Besides betrothal and wedding rings, there were also posy rings made to be given as presents on St. Valentine’s Day; a certain number of these engraved with suitable inscriptions were, in all probability, always kept in stock by the goldsmiths of other days.

A curious motto found on a posy ring is—

whilst

is one of the prettiest.

Lady Cathcart, on marrying her fourth husband in 1713, had “If I survive I will have five” engraved upon her wedding ring.

Since my young days the prices of many things have changed very considerably indeed. On the whole the necessities of life have certainly become cheaper, and its minor luxuries have been brought well within the reach of those boasting but a slender purse. When I was a child we used to burn mutton-fat candles in our nursery, and it was only in 1835, as I find from a letter of my dear old governess, that we abandoned this form of illumination for a little lamp trimmed with the best sperm oil. In still older days candles made of deer-fat used, I believe, to be burnt in country houses, where the whole problem of lighting was no easy matter.

The cumbersome oil lamps of pre-electric light days were a great source of trouble and expense, apart from the danger of fire which they sometimes caused owing to careless handling. In large houses men had to be specially told off to attend to the lamps. I remember the uncle of the present Duke of Rutland showing me the lamp-room at Belvoir full of gigantic barrels of oil; at the same time he told me that no less than six men were kept constantly employed at nothing else but looking after the lamps. This Duke of Rutland was very much devoted to hunting and had several very severe falls. My husband and myself used often to go to Belvoir, and I remember that on two occasions, when going to visit there, we turned back at Grantham, it being there reported to us that the Duke, having had a terrible fall, was hovering between life and death; nevertheless he survived both these accidents. The late Duke (Lord John Manners) I always considered one of the most high-bred-looking men I ever saw in my life. I knew him in youth and in old age, and in both he was ever the typical English aristocrat; his polished and courteous address—the heritage of his race still preserved in the present generation—will always linger pleasantly in my memory.

POACHING

There was naturally something much more picturesque about old country life than is the case to-day, when, owing to railways and motor cars, people are kept in constant and close touch with town. The poacher, perhaps, is now the sole anachronism, and even he, I fancy, has discarded his old-world raiding ways in favour of more calculating and scientific methods. Poaching in old days was regarded by the country-folk much as smuggling had been by their forebears—that is, with a certain sneaking feeling of sympathetic toleration.

Many years ago, when I lived in Sussex, stories of the smugglers who formerly abounded along the coast were still told by those who had actually witnessed and, in some cases, taken part in their operations. Smuggling, as a matter of fact, hurting as it did no one but the Revenue, was not regarded with any particular horror, and the long trains of heavily loaded carts escorted by the smugglers were generally interfered with by no one except the Revenue officers and the coastguardsmen. One of the favourite haunts of the “Free Traders” was in Parham Park, and old Baroness de la Zouche used to say that, when she was a little girl, walking one day in the park with her governess, some smugglers had made her open a gate in order to facilitate the passage of a long train of pack-horses loaded with kegs, then on its way to a remote part of the park near the heronry. In Eridge Park, also, caves still exist where smugglers used to store their bales of goods. During the eighteenth century the house was not inhabited, and the surrounding park was practically a wilderness, so that these caves formed a most excellent and secure retreat. There runs beneath the present Eridge Castle a long passage, the entrance to which is far distant from the house, and as its existence has never been accounted for it is not improbable that smugglers may have had something to do with its construction; it is almost certain, at least, that they knew of it and kept it in repair.

SMUGGLING

The officers of the Customs, who were called “riding officers,” though sometimes assisted by dragoons, could do but little against the smugglers, who sometimes indulged in very savage reprisals. The last occasion when life was lost in a smuggling affray was in 1838 at Camber Castle, but it was some time before that date that the last great party of smugglers passed through Petworth—sixty well-armed men, pistols in their belts and cutlasses by their sides. They escorted two carts and a number of horses loaded with tubs of brandy and hollands, whilst a few of them also had bales of silk slung across their backs. This picturesque procession—the funeral cortège, as it were, of smuggling—came into the old town on a Sunday morning, whilst the inhabitants were at church, and made its way through the streets in a very leisurely fashion, some of the smugglers even halting at the inns to have a drink, for it was in the days when licensing reform was as yet a thing of the future. The last of the smugglers were armed chiefly with “bats”—thick ash poles about six feet long. An old smuggler, Smithurst by name, killed in a fight at Bexhill in 1828, was found with his bat almost hacked to pieces but still grasped tightly in his hands.

A particularly ferocious murder committed by smugglers was that of some Custom House officers in 1749, when five men actually robbed the Custom House at Poole. The criminals were eventually caught, hung, and gibbeted in chains, one only escaping this fate through dying of fright whilst being measured for his irons. One of the leg-irons of William Carter, a member of this gang, who was hung in chains near Rake on the Portsmouth Road, came into my possession, and this I still retain.

The last example of hanging in chains took place when I was a child in 1834, in which year a man named Cook, a bookbinder, who had murdered a Mr. Paas at Leicester, was hung and gibbeted in Saffron Lane outside the town. So much disorder and rioting, however, prevailed that the body was very soon removed, and in the same year hanging in chains was finally abolished.

It has been sometimes declared that criminals were at one time actually hung alive in chains, but this is pure fiction. Before being hung, a criminal, it is true, was measured for his irons—an ordeal under which many completely broke down. After the hanging, the body was taken down and thrown into a cauldron of boiling pitch, on being taken out of which it was placed in the chains, which were riveted around it, and then slung up upon a gibbet, where it swung in the wind as long as the chains held together. In some instances sacks took the place of chains.

At the last public execution in England, which took place in 1852 at Northampton, the crowd which had assembled was exceedingly incensed at finding that the day had been changed. Some of them, indeed, loudly declared that if they could only get at the Under-Sheriff “they would let him know what it was to keep honest folk in suspense,” whilst one old lady, who was especially vociferous in her denunciation, announced that she should certainly claim her expenses from the authorities. It was also at Northampton in 1818 that the governor proudly described the new drop set up at the county gaol as being admirably suited for the hanging of twelve persons comfortably.

THE GIBBET AND GALLOWS

It may be observed that pictures of gibbets are exceedingly rarely to be found, the greatest number, oddly enough, being in works illustrated by Thomas Bewick. There are several gibbets in the tailpieces of his British Birds, and also one or two in his Quadrupeds. I may add that some sixteen years ago a very interesting little volume on the subject of Hanging in Chains was written by Mr. Albert Hartshorne, a gentleman well known for his knowledge of old English glass and general love of research into the past. The book in question, however, which is fully illustrated, has now, unfortunately, become somewhat difficult to procure.

On North Heath, north of Midhurst, a gallows once stood. From this, some hundred and eight years ago, swung in chains the brothers Drewitt, convicted of having robbed the mail on that spot. Their guilt, nevertheless, does not appear to have been thoroughly proved, the real criminal, it was thought by some, having been their father, who after the execution used to be seen sitting at the foot of the gallows beneath the bodies of his sons. A curious old Sussex tradition declared that a dead man’s hand would cure any affection of the throat, and people would walk great distances to put this cure to the test. Whilst the body of the younger of the two Drewitts swung in the wind (which it did for a long time, a further proof, it was pointed out, of his innocence), children were brought from far away and held up in the air in order that the dead man’s hand might swing across their throat. The younger Drewitt, who to his last breath maintained that he was quite unconnected with the robbery, was generally considered a martyr in the district, and the tale of his unjust fate, together with numerous details of his capture, “in a new pair of buckskin breeches,” was told at many a cottage fireside long years after hanging in chains had become but a memory of the past.

PRESSING TO DEATH

A far more barbarous method of punishment than hanging in chains was “pressing to death,” the last recorded infliction of which took place in Sussex, at Horsham gaol, in 1736. When a man, for no matter what reason, refused to plead, he was ordered to be laid naked on his back on the bare floor of a low dark chamber, and as great a weight of iron as he could bear—and more—put upon him. From time to time he was questioned, and should he continue to refuse to answer, heavier weights were added. As the victims of this torture sometimes survived for days, the law very humanely provided that on the first day they were to be allowed three morsels of the “worst bread procurable,” whilst on the second three draughts of “standing water” were allowed. This alternation of food and drink was to continue from day to day till the prisoners answered or till they died. The last man to suffer this horrible punishment was one who was charged with robbery and with murdering a woman at Bognor, and who refused to plead, not uttering a word. Many endeavours were made to induce him to speak, but all of them proving useless, he was taken back to Horsham gaol to be pressed to death. The weight which finally killed him was some four hundred pounds, in addition to which the executioner, a man turning the scale at sixteen stone, jumped upon the board and thus administered the coup de grâce.

Executions in quite modern times were horrible affairs. Within my own lifetime the skin of more than one murderer has been taken from his body, tanned, and used to bind a book. Such a thing happened after the execution of William Corder, who was hung at Bury St. Edmunds in the year 1828, having been found guilty of murdering Maria Martin. On this occasion the Bury coach on its way to London was stopped in order that the passengers might witness the execution. Macready used to say that during the performance of Macbeth the same evening at Drury Lane the actor who impersonated Duncan was interrupted at the words, “Is execution done on Cawdor?” by a man in the gallery who shouted out, “Yes! He was hung this morning at Bury.” In connection with books bound in human skin it may be mentioned that a copy of the Poetical Works of John Milton in the Exeter Museum is said to be bound in the skin of George Cudmore, a Devonshire murderer executed in 1830, whilst I believe there is also a large quarto volume preserved at Bristol which is bound in the skin of a murderer executed as recently as 1843.

During the Reign of Terror in France, it has been stated, several pairs of ladies’ white kid gloves were made from the same gruesome material.

In my childhood also, “resurrection men,” as those who stole dead bodies for sale to the surgeons were called, were much dreaded, extraordinary methods of protecting corpses from being carried away being often employed. Such things seem quite of another age to-day, but the evil in question was only ended in 1832 when the Anatomy Act was passed.

In the eighteenth century the Sussex roads were notorious for their bad condition, and little effort was made to improve them, partly owing to an idea that better means of communication would bring many cut-throats, pickpockets, and other undesirable folk down from London. Indeed, when the road to Brighton through Cuckfield was first made, the inhabitants of Hurstpierpoint became so alarmed at the proposal to run it through that place that they petitioned Parliament, and were successful in having it diverted. So bad were some of these Sussex roads that there are records of people having habitually used oxen to draw their coaches. Defoe, for instance, travelling in Sussex in the eighteenth century, came upon a lady, whom he describes as “of very good quality,” being drawn to church in a village near Lewes by six oxen.

OLD SUSSEX

It was largely owing to the isolation produced by faulty means of travel that Sussex villages, up to comparatively recent times, retained so much of old-world quaintness and charm. Many of the labourers of a past generation never moved out of their own district during the whole of their lives. A story used to be told of a Heathfield labourer who, after a quarrel with his wife, deserted his home and went to another village a few miles away. Home sickness, however, soon overcame him, and, coming back to his family, he declared that he had had quite enough of “furrin parts”—nothing like Old England after all! An old lady of the village of Ditchling, who was going up to London, being asked what sort of place she thought she was about to see, replied that she expected it would be “about like the bustling part of Ditchling.”

The old cottages in the villages were formerly full of Sussex ironwork, and of this I made a collection, which includes some very good specimens—fire-dogs and backs, rush-light holders, tongs, and the like—of this extinct industry. At that time I lived in the very centre of what was formerly a great iron-producing district, for near Heathfield were many furnaces which at one time kept half the population in full employ. Many Sussex families owed their fortunes to the ironworks, amongst them the Fullers, one grateful member of which set up the inscription “Carbone et Forcipibus” on the house. The old hammer ponds still existing are extremely picturesque, in many cases having clear rippling streams, containing brook trout, flowing out of them. The last furnace in Sussex—Ashburnham Furnace—was only finally blown out in 1825, having been worked by Lord Ashburnham up to that time; the iron produced there was at one time said to be the best in the world. As the iron industry decayed hop-growing was introduced, which gave some measure of employment to the population which began to find its old occupation gone.

COWDRAY

Some time before I began collecting Sussex ironwork I used to live in quite another part of the county bordering upon Hampshire, and here also I found much of great antiquarian interest. Not many miles distant from our house, for instance, stood the crumbling walls of Cowdray, the beautiful seat which once belonged to the Brownes, and was destroyed by fire in 1793. I have several relics and pictures of this old mansion. At the time of the fire the young owner, Lord Montague, was away on the Continent, and the house was being renovated in view of his return. In the disastrous conflagration perished many valuable relics of art and pictures, for the house being under repair at the time, everything had been stored in the north gallery, which was difficult of access. A picture of Charles I. at Woburn is said to have been one of the few saved, another being a painting of the two brothers Fitzwilliam lying dead in armour. Many relics from Battle Abbey were also destroyed, among them, it is said, the sword of the Conqueror, his coronation robe ornamented with gold and rare gems, and, most interesting perhaps of all, the Roll of Battle Abbey. These had been removed to Cowdray when the seventh Lord Montague sold Battle Abbey in 1717.

After the burning of Cowdray no care appears to have been taken to safeguard any of the contents which remained undamaged. Things, indeed, saved from the fire were taken away to Midhurst by any one who cared to take the trouble, the whole neighbourhood being allowed to roam through the ruins. I myself, indeed, as has been said, possess some relics of Cowdray—several good pieces of carved woodwork (the decoration of the salon) which I purchased near Midhurst from a man whose grandfather, I am very much afraid, had in all probability annexed them without leave.

It was in the Abbots’ Hall at Battle that the curse of fire and water was pronounced against Sir Anthony Browne, who was holding his first great feast there after the spoliation of the monasteries by Henry VIII., the abbey having been granted to him by that king, in whose favour he stood very high. Striding through the crowd of guests and retainers, a monk is said to have made his way to the daïs where Sir Anthony sat, and, raising his voice, to have solemnly cursed him and his posterity. “By fire and water thy line shall come to an end; thus shall it perish out of the land.”

The fact that the eighth Lord Montague was drowned when attempting to shoot the falls of Laufenburg at the very time that Cowdray (then being renovated in view of his coming of age) was consumed by fire has been regarded by many as the fulfilment of the curse, but it must not be forgotten that Sir Anthony Browne himself and his descendants lived quite free from misfortune for some two hundred years. As is well known, the two sons of Lord Montague’s only sister, Mrs. Poyntz, were drowned in the very flower of their youth, before the eyes of their parents, in a boating accident at Bognor in 1815—another sad catastrophe also attributed to the curse. On the death of Mr. Poyntz the Cowdray estate passed out of the Browne family, being divided amongst his sisters, and in 1843 it was sold to the sixth Earl of Egmont for some three hundred thousand pounds. The new possessors of the place made no attempt to restore the ruins of the noble old mansion, a splendid example of domestic architecture, but built a new house on the site of the keeper’s lodge which was pulled down.

OTWAY

In West Sussex we had many pleasant neighbours, amongst them the Rev. Mr. Knox, a most amusing man and a great authority on birds. He lived in an ancient manor-house which belonged to my husband—Trotton Place, a quaint old house still the property of my eldest son. Trotton, a small village on the Petersfield Road, possesses some claim to attention in having been the birthplace of the unfortunate Otway, who was the son of the rector of the adjacent parish of Woolbeding. Educated at Winchester and Oxford, Otway, when twenty years old, betook himself to London and became an actor, and, some five years later, a playwright. Obtaining a cornet’s commission in a regiment about to proceed to Flanders, his military career was short and unfortunate, lasting only about a year. The force to which he was attached never reached its destination, the money voted for transport having been diverted by King Charles II., who preferred the worship of Venus to that of Mars, to more peaceful and congenial purposes. In his comedy of The Soldiers Fortune Otway clearly alludes to his disappointment:—

After his retirement from the army the young poet wrote several plays, amongst them The Orphan, and in 1685 the powerful and beautiful Venice Preserved, which, as Dr. Johnson wrote, though the work of a man not attentive to decency or zealous for virtue, yet shows that the author was a man of great force and originality, and had consulted nature in his own breast.

At thirty-four years of age Otway died, choked, it is said, by a roll which he too hastily swallowed after a long fast. The unfortunate poet, almost naked, starving, and fearfully harassed by creditors, was given a guinea by a friendly gentleman in a coffee-house where he had asked for a shilling. Out of this guinea he purchased the piece of bread which caused his death. Another account declares that Otway, desirous of avenging the death of a friend who had been shot in the street, pursued the assassin as far as Dover on foot, which brought on a fever from which he died in the “Bull Inn” on Tower Hill. Pope corroborates this version of Otway’s death, but says his friend had been merely robbed and not murdered.

A brass affixed to the wall of Trotton church within comparatively recent years commemorates the memory of the unfortunate young man, but Otway himself lies in a vault under the church of St. Clement Danes.

CHURCH RESTORATION

Trotton church is an interesting old building, which contains a tomb of great archæological interest—the sarcophagus of Sir John Camoys and the Lady Elizabeth, his wife. This church has, like many village churches, suffered more or less from the restorations to which it has been subjected. One alteration which particularly annoyed me was the removal of an old door which bore the mark of many a Cromwellian bullet upon its exterior side. Within the last few years, however, some attempt has been made to repair the ravages of the restorer—the old wooden altar-rails having been replaced in their original position, whilst certain very curious mural paintings have been once more exposed to view. In the ’sixties and ’seventies the fiend of restoration may be said to have stalked rampant through the land, and rectors vied with one another in renovating and vulgarising the sacred edifices committed to their charge. At a Sussex church in a village quite close to where we lived, great indignation was, I remember, aroused by workshops being erected all over the churchyard, in which workmen fashioned modern Gothic pinnacles and other architectural gewgaws wherewith to decorate the stately old church. Tombstones were temporarily taken up, no particular attention being paid to their exact position, and in consequence no one felt at all certain that they were ever replaced in their old position—the tombstone of “John Smith” being in many cases placed over the grave of “Thomas Brown,” and vice versa, a proceeding not entirely satisfactory to their families, some of whom were very annoyed. The rector, however, who was delighted at his vulgarised church, thought little of such a trifle as this, and organised an ornate service of reopening at which his parishioners somewhat ruefully returned thanks for the blessings of the restoration.

Not very far from Trotton is the town of Midhurst, for which Charles James Fox, when only nineteen years of age, was returned in 1768. He actually had two encounters in debate with Burke before he attained his majority. On one of these occasions, it is said, when Fox had set the Treasury Bench in a roar of laughter at Burke’s expense, the latter was much nettled, and turning on the youthful member, exclaimed, “You may speak if you like, but being a minor you have no right to vote.”

At one time Midhurst was a great place for the manufacture of quilts, and from this, no doubt, originated the weaver’s shuttle which was stamped on the town pieces or tokens about 1670. These were known as Midhurst farthings, issued, as the legend on one side of them said, “For ye use of ye Poor.”

Midhurst and Rye were the only two places in Sussex which issued town tokens, that is, one token struck for the use of the whole town. The custom of striking tokens—small coins of the value of farthings, halfpennies, and pennies—only prevailed from about 1648 till 1672. As a rule, these were issued by tradesmen, but in some cases towns struck them. In Somersetshire, for instance, there were thirteen town tokens; in Dorsetshire, eight; in Devonshire, five; in Kent, one; and in Sussex the two which have just been mentioned. In Yorkshire there were none at all.

ORATORY IN THE COUNTRY

Midhurst has more than once been somewhat closely associated with great political orators, for not far away, at Dunford, lived Mr. Cobden, whom I often used to go and hear speak in the House of Commons, where his oratory never failed to secure the appreciation which it deserved. In West Sussex, however, he did not excite any extraordinary attention either as an orator or politician, many regarding his political views with extreme distrust, whilst others did not understand them. Very often it is the case that politicians of quite European reputation are but lightly esteemed in their own part of the country, a state of affairs which is sometimes caused by their talking over the heads of the audiences whom they address. Country-folk as a rule do not (or did not) appreciate highly cultured oratorical efforts, but prefer speeches, not devoid of humour, dealing with matters of local interest.

I once heard a peculiarly apt criticism of a speech made by a politician of profound learning and knowledge, but one not very much in sympathy with the more frivolous side of life. This orator, having to address a meeting in a country town, had beforehand been begged to remember that his audience was not remarkable for any great intellectual culture, and was consequently unlikely to appreciate historical allusions or erudite criticism—a chatty, sparkling speech judiciously peppered with anecdote and chaff would be the sort of thing to arouse enthusiasm and capture its sympathies. The evening having come, the speaker, determined to profit by these hints, attempted to enliven his discourse by here and there interpolating remarks of a less serious kind than those which his speeches usually contained. Well satisfied with the result, and driving away with an old friend, he said to him: “Well, I hope that suited you; at any rate no one could say I spoke too seriously.” “It was a capital speech,” came the reply, “only, to tell you the truth, it rather reminded me of an article from the Quarterly Review out for a lark.”

Looking back to old days in the ’thirties and ’forties, what gigantic changes come into view! Nearly everything was on a different footing from to-day, and things which are now permanent institutions were at that time either at their very beginning or not dreamt of at all.

The majority of modern inventions were unknown, or in their infancy, whilst life in general went on very much in the happy-go-lucky fashion characteristic of another age. Law and order, it is true, exercised a sort of sway, but the former, if just, was often terribly cruel, whilst the latter was, by comparison with to-day, only indifferently maintained. Three years after I was born our excellent modern police had been established by Sir Robert Peel, but the county police in Norfolk were only constituted some ten years later—a salutary innovation which, strangely enough, was not greeted with universal approbation. In 1842, indeed, when the new guardians of law and order had already done duty for three years, my father, at a meeting of the county magistrates at Norwich, presented a petition, signed by himself and a large number of other landowners, praying for some reduction or even the abolition of the police force, on the ground that it produced nothing but expense, and caused people to be prosecuted for offences of a very trivial nature.

My father, of course, disliked the new police force principally on account of its being an innovation, for, a staunch Conservative, he opposed changes of any kind whatever, including railroads, which were his special abomination. The advent of the railway in Norfolk was, I remember, a depressing blow to him, and he did all he could to keep the line outside the borders of his property so that he might forget its existence. Direct railway communication between London and Norwich was not established till 1845, the first through train starting from Trowse on the morning of June 30 of that year. In January 1846 all the coaches between Norwich and London had ceased to run, the last of them to go being the mail through Bury St. Edmunds.

In the ’forties came the railway mania, when many of a speculative disposition were completely carried away by dreams of immediate and colossal wealth. Within a year or two, however, a dreadful awakening was the lot of those who had gambled in railway shares, which went down faster than they had risen, a large number of people being completely ruined, amongst them the great Hudson himself. During the time when things were going well, flattery and praise were heaped upon him and he was the recipient of several public testimonials; but after the disastrous fall in railway shares he at once became the principal object of an outburst of widespread popular indignation.

HUDSON

Hudson, to whom Carlyle once alluded as “the big swollen gambler,” lived on to the early ’seventies, an annuity having been purchased for his benefit by some friends only a few years before. In his prosperous days the “railway king” used to entertain very lavishly at his house at Albert Gate. This mansion, together with the one opposite to it, was built by Cubitt, and the two houses used to be called the “two Gibraltars,” it being prophesied that they never would or could be taken; however, as has been said, Mr. Hudson soon falsified this prediction. The house is now the French Embassy.

Previous to the construction of the railway between London and Norwich, several experiments had been made in Norfolk with steam carriages to run upon the roads—the precursors of our modern motor cars. As early, indeed, as 1842, a Mr. Parr had patented a steam carriage to run for hire between Norwich and Yarmouth, whilst in the following year a steam coach was experimentally put upon the Yarmouth road. This vehicle, however, did not answer its inventor’s expectations, as its wheels refused to revolve unless lifted up from the road, when, as a contemporary somewhat quaintly put it, they at once flew round with alarming velocity.

As far back as 1831 a Parliamentary Committee had decided that carriages weighing three tons, propelled by steam and carrying fourteen passengers, could travel on the ordinary roads at an average speed of ten miles an hour with perfect safety. The first steam omnibus, constructed by Mr. Hancock, ran from the Bank at Paddington in April 1833; it could attain a speed of from ten to fifteen miles an hour, carrying some twenty-five passengers, and consumed a sack of coke every eight miles. Two years later Mr. Hancock ran what was called a “steam-engine coach” between Whitechapel and his house at Stratford. Colonel Macirone and Sir Charles Dance also ran steam cars, as did Mr. Gurney, whose coaches averaged about nine miles an hour. Though these early motor cars were by no means inefficient, they were for some reason or other put down by legislative interference, and a great industry was thus held in abeyance for some forty or fifty years.

STEAM CARRIAGES

Prints of the old steam carriages have now become difficult to obtain, as they are eagerly snapped up by votaries of the motor car, many of whom make a hobby of collecting the records connected with the early infancy of their favourite sport. One of the most curious of these prints represents an accident which happened to a Scotch steam carriage in the summer of 1834. Designed by an eye-witness of the catastrophe, it shows the unlucky passengers, several of whom were killed, being shot into the air, the boiler of the car having burst owing to an overstrain. It is said that this accident was really caused by the trustees of the road between Paisley and Glasgow who were very much opposed to the new method of locomotion, and therefore purposely kept the surface of the highway in such a condition as to impede its progress as much as possible. The remains of the wrecked steam carriage are still preserved in a museum at Glasgow. Its maker was John Scott Russell, the builder of the Great Eastern steamship, which at the time it was launched was considered one of the wonders of the world.

The spirit of what we call Progress made its influence felt in the ’thirties and ’forties, and in the course of a few years, after the passing of the great Reform Bill, quite a new England began to come into existence. Old customs and ways gradually lost their hold upon the people and another order of things arose, whilst such privileges as the upper classes enjoyed became subjects of comment and criticism, with the eventual result that most of them were voluntarily relinquished.

Amongst minor changes of this sort was the abolition of the practice of franking letters. Up to the year 1840, when uniform penny postage was introduced, Peers and members of the House of Commons were entitled to have their letters conveyed free of any charge, and I still treasure a few of these frank-marked envelopes—faded souvenirs of a bygone age. In the course of the same year appeared the artistic Mulready envelope, which has now become somewhat scarce, specimens in good condition being much prized by stamp collectors.

Many of the older people shook their heads at what they called new-fangled schemes and inventions, and some, like my father, indiscriminately denounced all reforms and reformers of every kind. My father, as I have before said, hated all innovations, and would hardly consider any merits which they might possess. He was, however, by no means alone in taking up this standpoint, which to-day, when all the world eagerly grasps at anything new, seems almost inconceivable. Men of his generation viewed things from a curious point of view, being firmly imbued with the idea that the acceptance of new methods would send England to the dogs. Their outlook upon life was in reality that of the eighteenth century, and in addition to this they would appear to have vaguely realised that new ways meant the annihilation of their power as a dominant class. Even at that time there were many who foresaw the rise of democracy, a development which they regarded with feelings of the utmost alarm, as tending to bring about the ruin of England. Nor did the wonderful new inventions please pessimists of this sort, who declined to welcome them with enthusiasm, and predicted that in the end they would make for unhappiness and discontentment. As a matter of fact these vaticinations, ridiculous as they seemed, have not proved so fallacious after all, for modern inventions have produced the commercialism which is undoubtedly one of the chief causes of that curious creed—Socialism—which, deliberately ignoring the immutable instincts of human nature, holds out the prospect of a visionary Utopia, and promises everything to every one at somebody else’s expense.

SOCIETY AND ITS PLEASURES

In another chapter I have spoken of the great changes which have taken place in the constitution of what is known as “Society,” but since I first knew it there is one respect in which there has in reality been no alteration at all—I refer to its love of amusement and pleasure. True it is, perhaps, that in past days these were indulged in with a certain reserve and dignity—qualities which to-day seem to be considered as being of small account. True it is also that seldom did the passing fancies and follies of its leaders find their way into the public Press. Nevertheless they existed, though perhaps in a more modified form than to-day, when publicity is too often welcomed rather than shunned. Society, which is after all but a collection of quite ordinary individuals—many with more money than brains,—naturally contains (as it always has done) a certain number of people whose wealth prompts them to gratify many a costly caprice. There is nothing very astonishing about this, nor is it likely that any effect will be produced by the fulminations of those critics whose ideal society would appear to consist of a collection of prigs, faddists, and cranks, perpetually interfering in other people’s business as well as lecturing and boring the world in general. In all probability London society is no better or worse than it was in the past, though certainly more stupid. Clever people seem rarer than in former days, whilst an undue importance is attached to wealth, no matter how uninteresting may be its possessor.

Nevertheless, considering all things, society might be a great deal worse, and it certainly does not deserve the indiscriminate censure which is frequently passed upon it, there being, after all, a large measure of real kindliness and generous feeling to be found hidden beneath its veneer of frivolity. Society, however, is always an easy and attractive subject for attack, the British public being apparently never tired of hearing of its crimes. Sometimes it is blamed for the vast sums expended in entertaining, which, after all, circulates money and is good for trade; nor is it clear why people in a position to do so should not entertain their friends, or even their enemies for that matter. By the austere it is upbraided for its bridge playing, and here, perhaps, is a more legitimate reason for censure, the game in question (which I do not play, disliking all card games) having utterly destroyed much pleasant conversation. At the same time it seems to amuse a great number who would otherwise be bored, and many people welcome the game as a pleasant change from the exchange of empty and commonplace remarks.

DECREASE OF GAMBLING

The question of gambling is another and a graver matter, though I personally have never heard of any young lady being dragged into playing for stakes which she could ill afford, and, indeed, I wonder very much what sort of host or hostess it could be who would allow such proceedings under his or her roof. Society is to-day a very wide term, covering as it does a great number of different sets which gradually fade away into an almost imperceptible outer fringe; but even in the most remote of its confines, surely any man who deliberately laid himself out to win money from a young girl (as has been alleged) would be visited with the censure he deserved. As a matter of fact good bridge players, as is perfectly well known, dislike nothing more than the intrusion of a novice whose errors must of necessity ruin their game.

Gambling on the Turf has without question decreased. Where are the plungers of to-day? Non-existent. Modern youth, except in a few rare instances, knows better than to risk a fortune on a racehorse—an act of folly which in former days was very often committed. On the other hand, the insidious craze for speculating in stocks and shares has an almost unlimited number of votaries—women as well as men—whose one thought is to obtain information (as a rule unreliable) as to the chances of a rise or fall. This is an entirely new development. The great ladies of the past would as soon have thought of dabbling in City matters as of witnessing a prize fight; in fact, of the two I think they would have given the preference to the latter as being the more select. Those, however, were the days before the City had conquered the West End, and when the jargon of the Stock Exchange was as yet unfamiliar to aristocratic ears.

Finance in these latter days has become as much the appanage of society as politics were in the past, whilst all doors fly open at the advent of a successful speculator or financier. Politics, of course, which in old days were something of an engrossing pastime for the leisured classes, have now become a much more serious affair altogether.

Since the days of my childhood many and great changes have occurred in Parliament in the method of electing its members, and in the admission of others than Protestants to sit in the House of Commons. The first Roman Catholic to take his seat since the downfall of the Stewarts was Daniel O’Connell, who, elected member for Clare County in 1828, was admitted to Westminster in the following year, when the Catholic Emancipation Act having been passed, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Dormer, and Lord Clifford also took their seats in the House of Lords. The first English Roman Catholic member of the House of Commons was Lord Surrey, who was returned for Horsham at the same time.

MR. BRADLAUGH

Though Mr. Joseph Pease had been admitted as an M.P. on making an affirmation in 1833, the objection of the late Mr. Bradlaugh as a Freethinker to taking the Parliamentary oath created a very great sensation some forty-seven years later. In May 1880 the member for Northampton was refused permission to affirm, and it was only some two months later that a resolution moved by Mr. Gladstone allowed him to do so. Much acrimonious controversy ensued as to the legality of such an act, Mr. Bradlaugh being on one occasion prevented from entering the House of Commons by the police. Finally, in 1886, Mr. Bradlaugh was permitted to take the oath, further intervention being stopped by the Speaker. A thoroughly sincere man, the member for Northampton lived to gain the goodwill and respect of the House of Commons, and when he died in 1891, worn out by hard work and worry, universal regret was expressed at his demise. A pronounced individualist, he was quite uncompromising in his denunciation of anything which he deemed to be false or untrue, and in the debates in which he indulged with certain ministers of religion was very outspoken as to his views on the Christian faith. This not unnaturally caused him to be regarded as a monster of iniquity by many who had no opportunity of realising the splendid qualities which he in reality possessed, and many were the absurd stories circulated about him—generally, I fear, to his discredit.

It was declared, for instance, that on more than one occasion he had defied Heaven itself, by taking out his watch at public meetings and saying, “If there be a God, let Him strike me dead within the next five minutes.”

I do not know what truth there may have been in this story, but some of the Russian revolutionary agitators (so I hear) have actually uttered this blasphemous challenge—their idea being to emancipate the peasants from the thraldom of their priests. It is said that an agitator of this sort came one day to an out-of-the-way village, and proceeded to address the peasants thus: “The God whom you fear so much does not exist, and I will prove it to you; for if I am not speaking the truth let Him kill me within the next five minutes!” Four minutes passed and the orator, more defiant than ever, jubilantly exclaimed, “You see I am right; there is no God, for I am still alive.” The headman of the village, however, stepping to the front, altogether changed the aspect of affairs. “You have proved nothing,” said he. “God exists, and you are going to die. God has not chosen to kill you, for He knew we should do so for Him,” after which statement the unfortunate apostle of Atheism was duly despatched.

One of the most striking features of the last seventy years is the prodigious growth of the Press. In 1836 there were only about a hundred and sixty newspapers published in England, whilst all the daily papers put together had only an average of 12,000 copies a day. At that time there were, I believe, but five hundred and fifty newspapers in the United States, of which fifty were dailies. The London morning papers were, of course, few in number, and as a rule not more than sixty to eighty persons were employed upon their production. None of the illustrated papers now issued were then in existence, the Illustrated London News only making its appearance in the ’forties. Newspapers were considered quite precious things in old days, being frequently treasured up to be sent on to friends—a very different state of affairs from to-day, when edition succeeds edition with lightning rapidity, and a paper a day old is never looked at again.

NEWSPAPERS OF THE PAST

In the way of provincial journalism Norfolk was early in the field, for the Norfolk Chronicle was founded in 1761, whilst the Norwich Postman is said to have been the first local newspaper published in England. It has frequently been stated that the oldest provincial newspaper is the Worcester Journal, the first copy of which appeared in 1709; but as a matter of fact, I believe that the Norwich Postman appeared some three years earlier, being first published in 1706 by T. Goddard, a bookseller of the town. It was sold for a penny, unless that sum could not be obtained, when, it is rather amusing to learn, a halfpenny would generally be accepted.

The Newcastle-upon-Tyne Courant is another paper which can lay claim to a very respectable antiquity, dating as it does from 1711. Many people, in consequence, have stoutly declared that the organ in question, and not the Worcester Journal (or Worcester Postman, as it was originally called), was in reality the first provincial newspaper; but, as I have said, it is now pretty well authenticated that from Norwich issued the first beginning of what has now become the great and influential Provincial Press.

John Bull, a daily paper which has long ceased to exist, was a great favourite with my father, and we children used to look upon its columns with a sort of respectful awe. In 1855 began a new era in journalism with the foundation of the Daily Telegraph and the Saturday Review, the latter of which for many years exercised such a remarkable influence by reason of the able writers who at different times were members of its staff. Ten years later, in 1865, was founded the Pall Mall Gazette, which still flourishes under the very able editorship of my friend Sir Douglas Straight. It may not, perhaps, be generally known that the word “Gazette” is derived from the name of a small Venetian coin which was the price asked for the first newspaper sold in the city of Venice.

One of the most curious advertisements which has ever appeared was that inserted in the Times of 10th March 1858. This stated that the secretary of the Army and Navy Club would pay the sum of £50 on the due conviction and punishment of the offender who had sent the Punch cartoon of “The Crowing Colonel” (a picture very unflattering to the French army, it is hardly necessary to say), accompanied by a forged message from the club to an officer in command of a French regiment. Notwithstanding this liberal reward, the culprit was, I believe, never discovered.

SOCIETY JOURNALISM

Although so-called society journalism, as it exists to-day, was unheard of, the newspapers of the past occasionally inserted scraps of gossip dealing with well-known scandals and the like. In 1840 was published a somewhat amusing correspondence between Lady Seymour, the Queen of Beauty at the Eglinton tournament (to whom reference has before been made—she was afterwards Duchess of Somerset), and Lady Shuckburgh. Lady Seymour, having written to the latter to ask the character of a servant named Stedman, and whether she was a good plain cook, received the reply that Lady Shuckburgh, having a professed cook and housekeeper, knew nothing about the under-servants. Upon this, Lady Seymour wrote again to explain that she understood that Stedman, in addition to her other talents, had had some practice in cooking for the little Shuckburghs. Lady Shuckburgh instructed her house-maid to answer this as follows:—“Stedman informs me that your ladyship does not keep either a cook or a housekeeper, and that you only require a girl who can cook a mutton chop; if so, Stedman or any other scullion will be found fully equal to cook for or manage the establishment of the Queen of Beauty.”

At the Eglinton tournament, which had taken place just a year before, Prince Louis Napoleon appeared in a broadsword encounter with a Mr. Lamb, who enacted the part of the Knight of the White Rose.

Prince Napoleon’s pretensions to the throne of France were not at that time regarded as being serious, though he himself ever entertained a fixed idea that he would one day succeed in obtaining the Imperial Crown. This conviction, which was firmly implanted in his mind, no doubt had a good deal to do with his ultimate success.

I remember him perfectly well, and suppose that I am about the last living of the partners who danced with him in the London ballrooms of some sixty years ago. An agreeable and clever talker, he could be amusing when he chose, and in later years, when Emperor, many stories were current as to his witty sayings. Perhaps the most amusing of these was the remark which he is supposed to have made at a fancy dress ball at the Tuileries, to which a certain lady had come attired in a costume which was an adornment rather than a covering. In the course of the evening the Imperial host approached this lady and, congratulating her upon her beautiful dress, at the same time inquired what it might be intended to represent. “L’Afrique, Sire,” was the reply. “Très bien,” said the Emperor, “I must then again congratulate you on the accuracy with which you have followed the progress of geographical exploration; for of your dress, as of the Dark Continent, it may truthfully be said que c’est seulement la partie centrale qui n’est pas encore découverte.”

I was little in Paris during the second Empire, but after the disastrous war of 1870 I paid a visit to France and collected a few relics of that dreadful struggle. Amongst other things I purchased a number of very amusing caricatures, some of them dealing with the humours of underground life in the cellars during the siege of Paris; in others the (very) irregular forces improvised by the so-called Government of the Commune, such as the “Voltigeurs de la Villette” and the “Chasseurs de Belleville,” were held up to ridicule.

THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR

English sympathies during the Franco-German war were very generally given to the French, and a good deal of sarcastic comment was passed upon the pious utterances of the old Emperor William, whose piety was nevertheless quite sincere. Amongst other skits were published some very ribald verses supposed to be written in imitation of the Prussian King’s letters to his Queen after a victory. They began, as far as I remember:—