The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 297: what you’re looking at

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

282 This last speech einanated from the lips of an elderly woman of enormous corpulency, and whose immense bloated face, watery eyes, husky voice, and general appearance too well betokened a life of habitual intemperance. She was lolling in a half- tipsy state in a large arm-chair; and the constable, in a whisper to the two noblemen, made them aware that she was the mistress of the den. The younger daughter,—whose appearance so much resembled the elder’s that it requires no special description,— was seated next to the mother; and a dozen ragged, dirty, squalid-looking, half-naked boys and girls were placed round a ricketty old table, on which were bottles, jugs, quart-pots, pipes, cigars, tobacco, and cards. The ages of these children averaged from nine to sixteen: vice was indelibly stamped upon their countenances. “A few had been naturally good-looking— but it required an almost micro- scopic eye to discern the traces thereof beneath the grime that masked the features of. some, and the bold traits of habitual profligacy, intemperance, and dissipation which characterized others. The room was miserably furnished: the walls and ceiling were so completely blackened with smoke and dirt that the place looked like a sweep’s abode; and the crazy boards that formed the floor, sinking beneath the feet, produced gurgling, plashy, slushy sounds, as if the planks rested upon a bed of thick slime -and mud. Such indeed, to a certain extent, was the case: for in consequence of bad drainage—or perhaps the absence of all drainage whatsoever— the refuse-water could not flow*off and collected in the foundations of the house." The atmosphere was sickly in odour and stifling in heat—it was actually pestilential ;—and after merely glancing around this room, the two noblemen were constrained to step back into the passage with the intention of leaving the loathsome den at once. “You'd better see it all, my lords, now that you're here,” whispered the constable. ‘ This scene is nothing to what you'll find up-stairs. Come, Biddy—lead the way and show the light.” Sees The woman accordingly. conducted the visitors into a back room, the aspect of which was as horrible as that of the other. Here there was a fire; and a dozen boys and girls, of the same description as the first lot seen by the visitors, were engaged some in drinking and card-playing, and others in cooking things for their supper. Sausages, bits of fish, tripe, and slices of liver were all frying together in one enormous pan: while in a pot—or rather cauldron—cow-heels, more tripe, trotters, chitter- lings, and other abominations purchased from the cat’s-meat shop, were stewing together. The boys and girls hushed their uproarious mirth (as had been the case in the other room) on the appearance of the two noblemen with the constable. They recognized the last-mentioned individual; and some of them began to what they termed “chaff him,”— giving utterance to horrible imprecations and dis- gusting obscenities as glibly and as unconcernedly as if these phrases formed necessary integral parts of the English language. We cannot of course sully our pages therewith: but we may record the sense and tendency of some of the characteristic ob- servations. “Hullo, you Peeler! what d’ye come here for?” damanded a girl of about sixteen, and who though half-naked was utterly unabashed. “If you're look- eS ee (E(@) THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. ing arter me you'll catch a rum’un: for I’m blowed if I don’t spile that precious face of your’n.” “ He don’t come for me,” said a youth as thin as a skeleton, horribly squalid, and clothed in rags, so that his frightful emaciation was painfully visible: “cos why I’ve took never a fogle all day———have I though? that’s all! No~I’m sniggered if I’m wanted this time.” “T’ll tell’ee what, Peeler,” said another boy, “if you’ve come to ax about my karricter I must refer you to the beak which sent me to the everlasting stepper six months ago. Oh! won’t he speak a jolly good word for me—that’s all!” “Come, I say, you Polly,” cried an urchin of nine, with a face like a monkey, and addressing the officer in a shrill voice, “ it isn’t me that’s in trouble, be it now? You can’t say as how I’m a cross-cove, though you chaps does swear to anything. Crikey, how them Pollies does swear——my eye!” “Don’t bully the poor man,” observed another juvenile tatterdemalion, who was eating a baked potatoe; “he’s a good feller in his way. Here, old chap—have some of this heremurphy? It’s deuced good, if the butter wasn’t rank. Ah! you Pollies doesn’t get sich nice things as we does. You +9 poor—you be—poor devils!” “Tip us your mawley, Peeler,” squeaked forth another urchin, with a shock of hair like a piece of a carriage-mat; “and let’s see that you're not nosing on us. Don’t be afeard to come near me— I won’t knock yer down, I won't.” “Kim aup, Peeler—what air ye arter here? Tell us, there’s a good chap, and ve von’t be too ’ard upon yer. But no lies, mind—no lies; or I’m blowed if I'll put aup vith it for one:’—and this was said by the smallest boy in the whole com- any. * What’ll you give me, you Bobby, you,” cried a girl whose age certainly was not above ten, but who seemed amazingly sharp, “if I tell yer how much I got by filching yesterday and to-day. Nineteen ankerchers—seventeen purses—forty-two gold snuff- boxes—and a big lump of cheese.” At this sally of thieves’ wit there was an up- roarious outburst of laughter on the part of the whole juvenile crew, in the midst of which the visitors quitted the room. But as they ascended the dirty, ricketty, narrow staircase,—still conducted by Biddy Burley,—the shouts of mirth from the back room appeared to follow them, until those sounds were lost in another tempest of uproar which emanated from the upper part of the house. Biddy Burley conducted the two noblemen and the constable into the front room on the first floor ; and there indeed a strange and revolting spectacle met the eye. The floor was strown with rotting rags as completely as a stable is littered with straw or an uncleansed pig’s-stye is ankle-deep in filth. There was not a vestige of furniture in the place. A solitary candle burnt in the chimney. The at- mosphere was hot and stifling, as well as of the most fetid odour. It struck with a sickly taste to the tongue, and at once produced a nausea and heaving at the stomach. Those who have never visited such a place can form no idea of the loath- someness of the heavy stagnant air: it seemed to be compounded solely of fetid breaths. The exha- lations of putrid fever were nothing to it. And there, in that room, were crowded some fifteen os GomiGvooks