Chapter VI: Part I: The National Outlook (6)

When the Alexandra Palace on Muswell Hill was opened in the summer of 1873, its gardens, statues and catering were praised in a welcome to "Alexandra" after the manner of the Laureate. Two days after this welcome appeared, the new Palace was destroyed by fire, and on July 5, 1873, _Punch_ rather cruelly published a review of a poem composed on the event by Joseph Gwyer, potato-salesman of Penge. A few of the stanzas are worth rescuing from oblivion if only for their artless simplicity:--

On Muswell Hill there lately stood,
The Alexandra Palace great and good,
Both to our own and foreign land,
It claimed from each a prestige grand.

With works of art it did abound,
Which were wont the ignorant to astound,
The sightly dome for miles was seen
Surrounded by the pastures green.

But on the 9th of June the palace caught on fire,
Each moment seemed to send the flames much higher,
Flinging around with consternation spell
Such sad results as no mortal could foretell.

The shouts of alarm at this dread afray
Many were stricken and did prostrate lay,
As if they'd been wounded by some deadly foe,
So painful was the unexpected great blow.

While some were witnessing this awful view,
Others were anxious as to what they should do,
Some it was seen appeared quite romantic,
While the poor stall-girls seemed nearly frantic.

* * * * *

In two short hours it was a blaze
Which took some years to build and raise
Grand Alexandra's noble Dome,
Alas! all vanished the Ninth of June.

The Pantheon, mentioned in the previous volume, though shorn of its early glories, was still a feature of London in the 'sixties, and "Jack Easel," in January, 1862, describes a visit to the Pantheon, "once dedicated to the Tragic Muse, now a temple of all the gods," combining a bazaar, an aviary and a picture gallery, chiefly frequented by ladies--"Belindas in Balmorals." The pictures were a very mixed lot, including King Alfred and the Cakes, Actæon, and the Dead Body of King Harold. But the Pantheon in its last days was chiefly remarkable for an assemblage of wondrous knick-knacks, cheap bijouterie, antique vases, antimacassars, Buhl caskets, _bonbonnières_, china candlesticks, cheese-cakes, daguerreotypes, decanters, Gothic go-carts, German glass, rag dolls and ratafia.

[Sidenote: _Tattersall's_]

Of more robust interest is the elegy in April, 1865, on the "Transit of Tattersall's," when the old mart for selling horses in Grosvenor Place at the side of St. George's Hospital, founded by "Old Tatt," was pulled down and a move made to Knightsbridge Green. "Old Tatt," originally studgroom to the Duke of Kingston, leased the premises at Hyde Park Corner from the Earl of Grosvenor in 1766, set up as a horse auctioneer, and founded his fortunes by the purchase for £2,500 of the famous racer Highflyer from Lord Bolingbroke:--

Good bye, old Corner, where so long
Turf swells have loved to band,
Since first old Tatt his broad-brimmed hat
Showed in the well-known stand.

Where, ninety years of hopes and fears,
And nine to back of that,
The sporting swell with nags to sell
Still found a Tit for Tatt.

* * * * *

If walls have ears, what startling tales,
Those old rooms must have heard:
What sermons they might preach, the stones
That paved that old court-yard!

* * * * *

By those oak-pales the first Oaks' stakes
Were put down long ago:
Germ of that Epsom growth that now
All ring-fence doth outgrow.

There the first Derby favourite
Was measured by the yard:
And there a century's Sellengers[12]
Fortunes have made or marred.

Till the world grew so fond of "books,"
So giv'n to make the same,
That the old ground too small was found,
For the Turf's "little game";

As from _his_ Grosvenor Place old Tatt
Started to win life's race,
Young Tatt, on fortune bent, again
Takes flight from Grosvenor Place.

At Knightsbridge, lo, a fair glass roof
Stands for the dark old sheds:
We've tiles as shiny 'neath our feet,
As those upon our heads:

But still we love the haunts where first
The Turf's keen breath we drew:
And what recalls those ancient halls
We best love in the new--

The old brown fox, that from his box
Still peers with artful face,
A hint that to the sharp as well
As swift, is given the race.

We miss the verdant lawn, where paced
Crowds of green men and still:
The gravelled walk, which losers oft
More gravelled, used to fill:

And sadder loss than all--no more
The old cow crops the lawn:
Meek monitor of draughts to come
From milch-cows yet undrawn!

Good bye, old yard, and may the new
As long its honours wear;
And though they leave the Corner still,
May Tatts be on the Square!

[Footnote 12: St. Legers.]

Even so small an event as the giving up in 1865 of his business by Farrance, the confectioner's at Charing Cross, was not allowed to pass without due homage:--

Other Farrances may rise,
Quite as bilious as before,
But the old familiar pies
(Veal and Ham) will glad our eyes
Nevermore, O nevermore!

Towards new or projected buildings _Punch_ was seldom benevolent. When it was announced that a new National Gallery was to be erected on the site spoiled by the old, he was sceptical of the result, but he greeted the tardy appearance of the lions in Trafalgar Square in 1867, and welcomed the opening of the Albert Hall on March 28, 1871, as providing a building unrivalled for space, sound and light--a eulogy hardly fulfilled as far as acoustics are concerned. But it has a splendid echo, it can hold 10,000 people, and as a scene for the activities of massed brass bands there is nothing to touch it, in London at any rate. Over the Holborn Restaurant, which in 1874 replaced an institution contrived to pay a double debt to bathing and dancing, _Punch_ waxed positively fulsome, but his praise was chiefly inspired by the _cuisine_; in those days good restaurants for the middle classes were few and far between.

The buildings for the International Exhibition of 1862, planned by Captain Francis Fowke, R.E., did not altogether commend themselves to _Punch_, who was inclined to cavil at the bad arrangements, and to compare the structure unfavourably with the Crystal Palace, but Fowke's plans had been scamped owing to lack of funds, and he was not responsible for the artistic shortcomings of the building. _Punch's_ comments are chiefly remarkable for his prophetic observations on our choice of executive officials:--

We are certainly a wonderful people, and work, as perhaps our
foreign friends will think, in a paradoxical sort of way. It was a
gardener who planned our Crystal Palace for '51, and eleven years
later we are indebted for the design of another Exhibition to a
soldier. A barrister superintends the casting of our great bells,
and we have an architect who is an authority on fortification.
Well, perhaps when our coasts are invaded a bishop may be a
Secretary at War, and a physician presiding at the Admiralty.

"Thank you, Sir Edwin. England at last has 'done her duty.'"]

The somewhat chequered career of "Big Ben" is followed with sympathy and interest throughout this period by _Punch_, who claimed to have given him his name. Those who lived in London during the years when his voice was hushed, and welcomed the breaking of his war silence on Armistice Day, will read, not without emotion, the lines which appeared on November 29, 1873:--

BIG BEN

"The great clock of the Houses of Parliament is stopped for a day
or two, in order that the 'going train' may be cleaned by Messrs.
Dent. During the present month its accumulated error has on no
occasion exceeded a second."--_Pall Mall Gazette_.

Big Ben, that beats from Barry's Tower
The march of time and tide,
To Britain's Commons, and the world
Of London far and wide,
Stops--and the town that marked the hush
Of his deep voice with pain,
Is glad to hear 'tis but a halt,
To clean his "going train."

* * * * *

O, brave Big Ben, that keep'st true step
Thus with the tide of time,
Long may'st thou to the Commons set
Example so sublime;
That England, both of House below
And Clock above, may say,
'Tis no vain boast that to the world
She shows the time of day!

May headlong Wits, that on the seats
Under the Clock may show,
Learn by its even beat above
To tune hot brains below.
And never hold up hands unless
The voice of truth to swell;
Nor strike, except at the right hour,
And then strike strokes that tell.

[Sidenote: _Cabs v. Omnibuses_]

Complaints against the public vehicles of London and their drivers continue, but are hardly pitched in so strident a tone as in earlier years. Still the brigandage of competitive 'buses is severely denounced in 1858; the extent of the evil may be gauged from the drastic regulations issued in the autumn of 1860, so drastic as to excite compassion for the conductor who faithfully carried them out.

_Punch's_ hostility to the "growler" and its bibulous and rapacious driver as the first of all London nuisances remained implacable. A report was circulated at the close of 1869 that their final disappearance was imminent; it was nearly fifty years too "previous," but the wish being father to the thought, _Punch_ indulged in a premature farewell to this "unseemly vehicle". With the advent of "clean cabs and civil drivers" he anticipated that no one would ever think of entering an omnibus, little thinking that a time would come when, with clean and swift 'buses, only the affluent would think of entering a taxi-cab.

CABBY: "Thank you, sir, all the same; but I never take it. I'm a follerin' Mr. Bantin's adwice for corpulence, sir. He says, I may take two or three glasses o' good claret, or a glass or two of sherry wine, or red port, or medeiry, any sort o' sperits--"

(_Swell, deeply touched, makes the sixpence half-a-crown._)]

The placidity which one associates with mid-Victorian life was rudely disturbed in London by the garrotting scare in the 'sixties. Complaints of the inefficiency of the police and attacks on the Commissioner are frequent in those years. Yet street accidents were far fewer, and, on the whole, it cannot be maintained that London has become safer to live in. The mention of the police reminds one that the tall hat was discarded in 1865 for the helmet, a sensible change which was at first met with undeserved ridicule. The possibility of a strike of policemen at the end of 1872 seemed to _Punch_ so incredible that he declined to treat it seriously.

TOMKINS (loq.): "Let 'em try it on again, that's all."]