

This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler

                                          [Picture: Logo of Everett & Co.]

First Edition,     June, 1908.
Second,,          September, 1908.
Third,,           March, 1909.
Cheap,,           March, 1914.

                                London in
                               The Sixties


                                                  (WITH A FEW DIGRESSIONS)

                                * * * * *

  By
  ONE OF THE OLD BRIGADE

London:
EVERETT & CO. LTD.
42 ESSEX STREET,
STRAND, W.C.




CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                               PAGE
        I.  1860                                         1
       II.  THE TOWER                                   13
      III.  MOTT’S AND CREMORNE                         25
       IV.  KATE HAMILTON’S AND LEICESTER SQUARE        37
        V.  THE NIGHT HOUSES OF THE HAYMARKET           48
       VI.  EVANS’S AND THE DIALS                       61
      VII.  THE RATCLIFF HIGHWAY                        73
     VIII.  THE BOOTHS ON EPSOM DOWNS                   83
       IX.  RACING _par Excellence_                     94
        X.  THE EPIDEMIC OF CARDS                      111
       XI.  THE COUP DE JARNAC                         127
      XII.  THE PUBLIC HANGING OF THE PIRATES          130
     XIII.  THE HOSTELRIES OF THE SIXTIES              140
      XIV.  THE DRAMA (LEGITIMATE AND OTHERWISE)       151
       XV.  MOSTLY “OTHERWISE” (CONTINUED)             163
      XVI.  USURERS AND MILLIONAIRES                   175
     XVII.  SOME CURIOUS FISH OF THE SIXTIES           182
    XVIII.  SPIRITUALISM AND REALISM                   192
      XIX.  THE ROCK AND THE CAPE                      205
       XX.  EASTWARD-HO!                               222
      XXI.  THE GUILLOTINE AND MADAME RACHEL           232
     XXII.  REMINISCENCES OF THE PURPLE                243
    XXIII.  DHULEEP SINGH AND FIFTY YEARS AFTER        257
     XXIV.  THE LAST OF THE OLD BRIGADE                264




CHAPTER I.
1860.


LONDON in the sixties was so different from the London of to-day that,
looking back through the long vista of years, one is astonished at the
gradual changes—unnoticed as they proceed.  Streets have been annihilated
and transformed into boulevards; churches have been removed and flats
substituted; night houses and comfortable taverns demolished and
transformed into plate-glass abominations run by foreigners and Jews,
whilst hulking louts in uniform, electro-plate and the shabby-genteel
masher have taken the place of solid silver spoons and a higher type of
humanity.  So extensive indeed has been the transformation, that, if any
night-bird of those naughty days were suddenly exhumed, and let loose in
Soho, he would assuredly wander into a church in his search of a popular
resort, and having come to scoff, might remain to pray, and so
unwittingly fall into the goody-goody ways that make up our present
monotonous existence.

The highest in the land in those benighted days turned up their coat
collars and rubbed shoulders after dusk with others of their species in
recreations which, if indulged in now, would be tantamount to social
ostracism, or imperilling the “succession.”

It was, in short, the tail end of the days of the Regency, changed,
virtuous reader, for better or worse.  It was, nevertheless, distinctly
enjoyable and straightforward, for it showed its worst, and blinked
nothing in hypocrisy.

The only recommendation for this appearance is its authenticity; every
incident passed within (or very near) my ken, for I was a veritable
“front-rank man” in that long-ago disbanded army—a veteran left behind
when better men have passed away—one of the few who could attend a muster
parade of that vast battalion of roysterers, and who, by sheer physical
strength, has survived what weaker constitutions have succumbed to—a
living contradiction of the theory of the “survival of the fittest.”

It was one morning early in 1860 that I proudly saw my name in the
_Gazette_—as a full-blown ensign.  I had scanned every paper for weeks,
although aware that our late gracious Sovereign (or her deputy) could
hardly have had time to decide the momentous question as to whether I was
to be a fusilier, a rifleman, or a Highlander, so short was the period
between passing my examination and the announcement I so fervently
awaited.  But I had great Army interest, and so it came to pass that,
within six weeks of leaving Chelsea Hospital (where the examinations took
place), I held a commission in a distinguished regiment.

To give the number of the dear old corps would at best be misleading, for
numerals and the prestige that attached to them were wiped out long ago
by one scratch of the pen of that great civilian who remodelled our Army
from what it was when it suppressed the Mutiny to what it became before
the Boer War.

England at this period bristled with soldiers—bronzed old warriors with
beards down to their waists, who had not seen their native shores for
twelve or fifteen or twenty years; who, till they were scraped (in
conformity with St. James’s campaigning ideas), looked fit to do
anything, or go anywhere—men who had survived the trenches and the twenty
degrees of frost in the Crimea, and sweltered twelve months later at
Gwalior, Jhansi, Lucknow, and Delhi, and had at last found their reward,
amidst cocked hats, red tape, recruits’ drill, and discharge, in that
haven of rest, “merrie England.”

My future regiment, then on its way home, was no exception to the rule,
and I remember, as but yesterday, the comparisons I drew a few weeks
later on the Barrack Square of the (then) new barracks at Gosport,
between the pasty-faced “strong-detachment” from the depôt and the grand
old veterans that towered over them.

And every man-jack of them was possessed of valuable jewels.  Where the
worthy rogues had captured the loot needs not to inquire, suffice to say
that oriental stones worth hundreds were retailed for a few shillings,
and found their way to the coffers, and tended to build up the fortune,
of an astute Hebrew who, by “the encouragement of British industries,”
eventually became a knight, and died not long ago in the odour of
sanctity, rich and respected—as all rich men do.

It was amid these surroundings that I began my military career, despite
the fact that every rascal with anything to sell had radiated towards
Gosport from every point of the compass.

Gosport and Portsmouth were in those days the first stepping stones in
the filtration towards Aldershot, after which, and only after a drill
season, the grandest soldiers England ever possessed, were considered as
presentable troops.

The barrack squares in those happy days, after a regiment had landed,
resembled oriental bazaars rather than the starchy, adamant quadrangles
familiar to the present generation.  Every forenoon officers and men were
surrounded by hucksterers of every care and creed, and one’s very
quarters were invaded by Jews and Gentiles anxious to sell or buy
something.

“This is the most arakristic trap in the west of England, so ’elp me
Gawd; isn’t it, Cyril?” one Hebrew would inquire of another, as the
points of an ancient buggy and a quadruped standing in the square were
extolled to ambitious youngsters; and “Yes it is, so ’elp me Gawd,” often
succeeded in selling a rattle-trap that had done duty in every regiment
stationed at Gosport from time immemorial.  Old clothes-dealers, too,
abounded by the score, ready to buy anything for next to nothing.  But
some of us youngsters were not to be caught like the veterans who were
unfamiliar with depôt ways, and the judicious deposit of a farthing in a
pocket now and again resulted in phenomenal prices for cast-off garments
till the hucksterers “tumbled,” and the harvests ended; and so, between
the goose step and a thousand other delights, the happiest days many of
us ever enjoyed (though unaware of it at the time) passed slowly on.

At this period the Volunteers had just come into existence, and, not
having developed the splendid qualities they proved themselves possessed
of during the Boer War, naturally came in for considerable chaff and
ridicule.

As a specimen of the senseless jokes that abounded at the time, I may
quote what was generally mooted in military messes, that at a recent
levée the volunteers who had attended had shown so much _esprit de corps_
that Her Majesty had ordered the windows to be opened; and it is, I
believe, an absolute fact that on one occasion an inspecting officer
nearly had a fit when the major of a gallant corps appeared with the
medal his prize sow had won pinned upon his breast.

It was the Volunteer review in Hyde Park in 1860 that was responsible for
my first appearance in uniform.  Determined that the review should lack
nothing of military recognition, stands had been erected, for which
officers in uniform were entitled to tickets for themselves and their
relations.  In an unlucky moment the announcement had caught the eye of a
sister, with the result that, terribly nervous, nay almost defiant, I was
marched boldly down to Bond Street on the day of the review, and, _nolens
volens_, dressed at Ridpath and Manning’s in my brand new cast-iron
uniform.

Conceive, kind reader, a wretched youth—dressed inch by inch by a
ruthless tailor in broad daylight on a sunny afternoon, incapable of
deceiving the most inexperienced by his amateur attempts of appearing at
home—huddled into the clothes, and then hustled into the street by a
proud sister and father, and some idea of my abject misery will be
apparent to you.

It was at the moment, whilst waiting on the pavement to enter our
carriage, that a huge Guardsman passed and thought fit to “salute.”  My
first instinct was to wring him by the hand and present him with a
sovereign; then all became indistinct, and I tumbled into the carriage.

The excitement was too much for me—I almost fainted.

A splendid specimen of the Hibernian type in my regiment was a man called
Madden (and by his familiars “Payther”), who, as a character, deserves
special mention.  This giant had not long previously been “claimed” by an
elder brother whilst serving in a Highland Regiment, and it was reported
that on one occasion, when on sentry at Lucknow, the general officer
impressed by his six feet three in full Highland costume, having pulled
up and addressed him with, “What part of the Highlands do you come from,
my man?” was considerably nonplussed by being informed, “Oi come from
Clonakilty, yer honour, in the County Cork.”  Our colonel, too, was an
undoubted Irishman by birth; but had succeeded, after forty years’
service, in being capable of assuming the Scotch, Irish, or English
dialect as circumstances seemed to require.  In addition, moreover, to an
excessive amount of _esprit de corps_, he had the reputation of being the
greatest liar in the Army; not a liar be it understood in the offensive
application of the term, but incapable of accuracy or divesting his
statements of exaggeration when notoriety or circumstances gave him an
opening.  This failing of “Bill Sykes,” as he was called, was so
universally known throughout the Army, that one evening a trap was laid
for him by some jovial spirits in the smoking-room of a famous Army club.

“Here comes old Bill,” was remarked by Cootie, of the Bays, as the
Colonel sauntered in with a toothpick in his mouth.  “I’ll bet a fiver
I’ll start a yarn he’ll never be able to cap.”

“Done!” cried Kirby, “and if he doesn’t keep up his reputation I’ll pay
you on the nail, and send in my papers in the morning.”

“Good evening, Colonel,” began Cootie.  “I was just relating a most
extraordinary coincidence that was lately told me by a man whose veracity
I can vouch for—Shute of ours.”

“Indeed,” replied the Colonel, filling a pipe—Bill invariably smoked a
dudeen at the head of the regiment.  “By all means let me hear it.”

“It is simply this.  Coming home on sick leave in a P. and O. not long
ago, the look-out man descried half a mile out at sea what appeared to be
a huge box; a long boat was immediately lowered, and when the derelict
was brought on deck, conceive the astonishment of everybody in
discovering that it was a hencoop, and a live man inside.  It was a case
of shipwreck it appears, and the man saved was the only survivor of some
180 souls.  Rum thing, wasn’t it? but some people have infernal luck.”

“Yes,” replied the Colonel.  “I believe I was horn under a lucky star;
perhaps you will be surprised to hear that _I_ was the man.”

A roar of astonishment greeted this admission, whilst Cootie, hastily
thrusting a fiver into Kirby’s hand, whispered, “I presume you won’t send
in your papers to-morrow?”

But, despite his peculiarity, old Bill was universally popular.  A
splendid billiard player, he had in India created such excitement in a
match for £500, that even Lord Faulkland, the Governor of Bombay, who
never parted with a sixpence without looking at it twice, was said to
have put a gold mohur on it, and in later times I can remember the Club
House at Aldershot being crammed to suffocation when the same redoubtable
warrior licked Curry the Brigade Major, who till our arrival had no
compeer.

One curious experience he had had which he never tired of narrating: “I
was once waiting for the d— packet at Dover to take me over to Calais,
and at the hostelry I met a d— Frenchman, who asked me if I could ‘parley
vous,’ and I said ‘no,’ but offered to play him a game of billiards.  We
had a fiver on it, but I soon discovered that no matter where I left the
balls the d— fellow made a cannon.  I was only about three ahead of him,
so when next I played I knocked a ball off the table.  The first time the
d— fellow sympathised with me, and picked up the ball; after two or three
repetitions the coincidence appeared to puzzle him.  ‘I can’t play if
Mooser does this,’ he said angrily.  ‘I can’t help that,’ I replied, and
ran out with a break.  He declined to go double or quits, so I pocketed
the fiver, and often found myself laughing over it in the d— boat, where
I was d— ill.”

This persistent swearing may sound curious to the student of to-day, but
in those halcyon days everybody swore.  The Iron Duke, it is well known,
never opened his mouth without