The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 272: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MYSTERIES OF THE OOURT. tables were covered with immense joints and dishes of vegetebles: the knives and forks were all chained to the tables; the beer was drunk out of the commonest brown muge—for no publican would trust his pewter pots within the wails of that place. The atmosphere was of the sickliest deseription—hot, fetid, and nauseating—made up of the breaths of many persons, the odours of the damp rags which wrapped their forms, the steam of the greasy viands, and the strong smell of the vegatablee. But what hideous objects were the eings who were thas banquetting! The blind, the halt, and the maimed—the paralyzed and the eonsumptive—as well as the hale, lusty, and strong—the sturdy beggar who obtains charity by coercive insolencé, and the whining one who elicita it by his piteous tale—the one who for twenty years has always had a wife and five emall children perishirg ef home—the wo- man who every day for the last dozen years hae had a husband lying dead and no money to bury him—tho girl of sixteen who ever since she was ten has told the same tale of having only just eome out of the hospital and got na home nor fathes or mother—that great hulking fellow im a ragged seaman’s garb, whose daily nazrative of shipwreck and loss of all he possessed, hag won for him five shillings in the course of a few hours’ wandering—the sanetimonious-looking, calcylating vagrant, whose diurnal reckoning is that from eleven to five he oan traverse sixty strocte and in every street pick up at least a panny, so that his daily income is likewise five shillings—the elderly woman dressed in widow's weeds, who evary day for tha last five-and-twenty years has jast lost an excellent husband and been thrown ont of a once happy home-—the ingenious fellow who in the wintertime is a starved-out gardener, and in the gummer-time a factory operative suffering from the badness of the times,—all these, and other varieties of imposture and mendicant roguory, were fully represented at this congress of joyously feasting beggars. On quitting the scene whieh we have just do- scribed, the comstable conducted the two officers to the large tap-room of e@ public-house situated in the neighbourhood of a saloon where theatrical re- presentations, singing, and dancing take place. Previously to entering this tap-room, the police- man informed Lord Charies Meredith and Osptain Btanley that every individual whom they would see there was a noted thief--and that thero would mot be one present who had not figured in the police-courts—many at the seagions—some at tho Old Bajley--and all more or jess often upon the treedmill. With this information the place was entered: a fow knowing winks were bestowed u the police-eonstable; but apart from these famili signs of recognition, little attention was paid to the visitors. The frequenters of that place were accustomed to behold “swoils,”’ as they deno- mizated them, drop in to see a little of London life—-or,on the other hard, to search after some thief who had exercised his manipulating skill upon them. All the varied and manifold impressions whieh villany and exime, in their different grades and degrees, can stamp upon the human counte- nance, might be discerned in that room ;—and, hesvens! what a stady for the phrenologist! Wherefore go to Newgate to inspect the plaster 269 ae coe easte of the countenances of defunct criminals, when there are these haunts in London where the faces of shoals of living evil-doers can be studied, and with all the more fearful accuracy—with all the more frightfully real intensity, inasmuch as the worst and darkest passions which are known to the human soul can be then observed working upon animated features and in their most hideous vitality. At the numerous tebies in this room the com- pany were seated,—all of them smoking, and all drinking too—but the liquors were varied according to tastes and pecuniary resources: so that passing through those grades which were represented by the daring burglar—the bold thief—the cunning larcenist —-the pitiful area-eneak —or the mi- serable pudding-stealer,—a corresponding gamut might be specified in the form of steaming punch— tumblers of hot spirits-and.water—quarterns of gin—pote of ale—and pints of porter. In this deleetable place Lord Oharles Meredith and Oaptain Stanley remained for about balf-an-bour,—at the expiration of which they took their departure, atill necompanied by the police-offlcér. Three or four other dens of depravity were visited; and it | was now past midnight: but as yet not the elizht- est sign was discerned of the objects of their search. They did not of course think it of the slightest use to visit the house in which the Burker and the Scotts had been wont to live, nor to take the slightest trouble in watching the premises of the Smedleys: for there could be little doubt that the Burker and Bill Scott had kept out of the way at the time they must have known the trial was coming on at Liverpool, so as to be on their guard in case of a result perilous to their own personal safety. And now, too, that the intelligence of this result had arrived in London, it was all the more certain that the ruffian and his guilty accomplice would have taken the best possibile precautions to elude the search which was sure to be instituted after them. Captain Stanley and Lord Charles now held a consultation with the police-constable: for a certain idea had struck the first-mettioned gentloman ; and he thus expressed himself :— “Thanks to your assistance, constable, we havo recsived the initiative into fhe various phases which the haunts of crime, vico, poverty, and de- bauchery exhibit. But it strikes me there must be places which such villains as those of whom woe are in search, would specially seek under exist- ing olrcamstances, and whence the very firat glimpse of a police-officer’s uniform would scate them away. Now, are not these likewise places into which it may be possibly sought to inveigle those well-dressed persons who might chance to be in the neighbour- hood P” “"Yes—there are such places,” replied the con- stable: * but i¢ would be next to madhess for you to seek to penetrate into them. You would risk your life: but even if you escaped with that, you might reckon with certainty upon being robbed and ill-treated.” Nevertheless,” rejoined Oaptain Stanley, “ only show me such a place as we have been speaking of, and I will risk everything !” “ And I assuredly am not the man to flinch from such danger,” said Lord Charles Meredith. “ But there is one thing to be thought of. If it be pos- PE TE EE 2 wwe sau” ae! Opt Oe 6 epee ne aeeneiene w @ ‘4 (GO) an (C DOO Col