The Ruin of Fleet Street

The Ruin

Fleet Street.

“A Latter Day Pilgrim.”

London: E. W. Allen, 4,

Ave Maria Lane, E.C.

[1882 written in ink]

Inscription on recto of ffep: To/ Frank Jay with the kind regards of the author E. Harcourt Burrage Leslie House Redhill May 19th 1909

On verso of ffep: It is a good thing to be rich, and a good thing to be strong, but it is a better thing to be beloved by many friends. Euripides

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PREFACE.

IN the following pages I have recorded a little of my experience of life in Fleet Street. Had it been my object to write a sensational book I could easily, without diverging one hair’s-breadth from the truth have given to the reader a more extended series of painful narratives of the influence and destructive effects of what is often called the “enemy of man.” I have thought it advisable to write as an opening chapter a very scanty outline of my early literary life in the historic thoroughfare, and I have done it with a lighter pen than I could have used at the time I was passing through the ordeal. I honestly confess that it was a bitter and unwelcome experience, for the shadow of impending Want rested on me for fully two years. Some-

times Want was with me in person for a day or so, and the memory of the grim visitor is quite sufficient to give to my life, in the more prosperous present, a sweetness that is very often absent from the lives of those who have always sailed in smooth waters.

THE AUTHOR.

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CONTENTS.

CHAP.

I. BRIEFLY BUT NECESSARILY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL . . 7

II. OUR ROOMS IN FLEET STREET.—SHABBOT AND RECKLESS . 24

III. BRAZEN, MALTON AND OTHERS . . . . . 37

IV. THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF THE DRINKING QUESTION . . 52

V. A FEW MORE DIPS INTO THE WELL OF TRUTH . . . 69

VI. WHY ABSTINENCE IS NOT POPULAR IN FLEET STREET . . 88

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THE RUIN OF FLEET STREET.

CHAPTER I.

BRIEFLY BUT NECESSARILY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL.

TWENTY years ago, speaking in round numbers, I first set foot in Fleet Street. I was poor, not burdened with too many friends, could call no particular business or profession mine, and with one great stimulus to help me, the need of getting work to do, or become acquainted with the woes of poverty, with, it might be, starvation as a climax.

Men who came to London, a generation or so ago to seek their fortunes usually arrived with a shilling in their pockets. That, I believe, is the accepted

foundation of many merchant princely fortunes. Now and then a millionaire of that school, when relating his experiences has been induced to admit that he started life with half-a-crown but not a penny beyond it; and all brought their clothes in a bundle. I am not a self-made millionaire, but only passing rich with a little more than forty pounds a year, and may candidly admit bringing with me into Fleet Street a box well stocked with clothes, and nearly six pounds in honest current coin.

The first thing I did was to look out for apartments somewhere in the city, so as to be on the spot in case any opulent patron of the art desired to seize the opportunity of securing a genius with all the freshness and fire as yet held in check—bottled up and corked down, as I may say, for instant use when required. Finally, after many hours walking about and inquiring here and there I found one room in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, which suited my purse if it did not quite suit me. Thither I brought

my box, and proceeded to look about me to find a gateway that would open on the road to fame.

Temporary excursions outside the neighbourhood showed me that I had settled down on the only pasture of land for men like me, and looked no further. With a determination to do or die I began my career as a Bohemian. View it from what point you may, Fleet Street is not Arcadia, nor are its perfumes those of Arabi the Blest, or the noise and everlasting racket of its traffic and printing machines the most melodious sounds in the world, but all had a fascinating influence over me. Here I was in the home of genius, naturally a little stuffy and murky, but the home of genius still. There was Punch office, and Fun office (the other comic papers were yet to come), and the offices of all sorts of papers that I had read and admired from early boyhood. It was something to be in such a garden of the mind, however thickly it might be strewn with decidedly objectionable

matter, and my little dingy room was made bright by association with the work-field of the literary living and the dead.

The idea of joining the great army of artistic toilers brought me there, but once in the sacred neighbourhood I thought of it with fear and trembling. I felt like one who is going to intrude upon holy ground. But a diminishing purse is a fine stimulant, and I went forward boldly.

I had some notion of drawing, and at home my sketches had been much admired. If only the public could have been persuaded to see one-tenth as much in them as my dear mother did, then the roll of artistic fame would have had no brighter star, but, alas! my talent was one that ought to have been buried in a napkin, and my career as a draughtsman was simply two years of struggling with disappointment, waning hope, humiliation and despair.

I attempted to draw on the wood, and my work

was simply atrocious. An irreverent and too candid engraver, to whom I showed some of my work said “it was enough to give him fits.” With the modesty of inexperience, I called on such firms as Dalziel Brothers, and Partridge and Co., Paternoster Row, and did my best to give them sleepless nights, which I may now reasonably assume would follow the contemplation of such monstrosities. Mr. Dalziel was very civil to me and told me to “persevere,” but I think I heard him groan as he saw me to the door.

And yet for two years I lived—but how? It is a strange story but a true one. To the kindness of two men I owe my very life, speaking humanly. One was a stationer in Fleet Street, and the other a professor of science who lived up west, who in addition to being a public lecturer, edited a penny mechanics’ paper.

I called on the stationer with my portfolio full of sketches, really in sheer despair, fancying he might

give or get me some bookwork to do. He had none, but he looked at my sketches and offered me a shilling each for some of them, about a hundred per cent. more than they were worth. I accepted it, and left the shop with a sovereign in my pocket. I was absolutely without a penny at that time, and had breakfasted that morning on an entirely imaginary rasher and egg; and who can wonder that I felt like a millionaire. My sketches were put in the shop window and some benevolently disposed persons bought them. What they paid for those notable productions I do not know, but I hope it was something handsome, for my friend the stationer’s sake. For a year, about twenty every week were so disposed of, and on the money I received from that source I existed.

An accident then threw my into the way of the professor, who at that time was running a paper called the Penny Mechanic. It had a poor sale, and had to be worked cheaply. The professor was introduced to

me by an engraver living in the same house as myself, and whose talent as a “woodpecker” was on a par with mine as an artist. He asked me to do the blocks cheap. After some discussion I undertook to illustrate that magazine at the rate of three halfpence the square inch. The principal work was mechanical, and I had to copy and reduce the drawings sometimes a foot square to four inches, occasionally a little more, sometimes a little less. Now and then I was allowed to put a bit of landscape into a drawing, and, between the engraver and myself, appalling effects were introduced to a startled public.

As I had never been trained in mechanical or in any other artistic work, and as I had no instruments to properly reduce or measure my drawings, the illustrations were, in the matter of detail, not conspicuously correct. A strip of paper was my measuring rule, and a pin, a piece of cotton, and a stump of a lead pencil answered for compasses. For the most part, in reducing, I trusted to my eye, and

although it is a very useful eye for ordinary work it is, in an artistic sense, nothing to brag about. It was hard work producing drawings under such conditions. Occasionally I have laboured far into the night, sometimes all night on a nine-inch drawing, blundering over details, rubbing out here and putting in there until I was utterly worn out. But I always got my work in to time. Punctuality was the one virtue of my labours, and it kept the professor and myself together, he having weighed many cheap artists in the balance and found them wanting in that respect.

Perhaps some people will be astonished to learn that the Penny Mechanic sickened and died. It amazed me at the time, and neither the professor nor myself could account for it; he did his work well, I am sure, and I did the best I could. Could the public reasonably ask more for a penny. However, the paper died, and after occasionally reflecting upon it for many years I have arrived at the conclu-

sion that I very liberally assisted in putting it to rest.

With the Penny Mechanic dead, and a benevolent public giving out signs of having had a surfeit of my sketches, the horizon once more became gloomy. It was not a cloud “no bigger than a man’s hand,” but a fair spread of gloom right across my view. I tried to get upon another illustrated paper but my reputation was already too firmly established, and publishers politely but firmly told me they were “full.” I was told afterwards that the circulation of the P. M. had in its latter days been materially kept up by the habitues of Fleet Street, who took it in preference to a comic paper. If Punch happened to be dull, there was my work to set them grinning, and, if they are to be believed, it never failed to lighten their gloomy lives and make bright the path they trod.

Of course I had made many acquaintances, of whom more anon. They were chiefly of the free

and easy Bohemian class—the true Bohemian, living from hand to mouth, and changing their lodgings too often to give anybody their address with the notion of being found there at the end of the week. The elegant Bohemian of Success was as high above them and me as the clouds are above the earth.

I was bewailing my artistic decadence one day to a select circle of these friends when one of them suggested that I should “write.” I will give him the name of Johnny Gusher [Charles Stevens], for he was one of the most effusive of men, always ready with good advice to others, and occasionally offering it when it did not seem to be wanted. I, however, am grateful to him as he did me good service by making the suggestion.

“I can see it in your eye that you can write,” he said. It was his great gift. Whatever a man had in his eye he could see at a glance. “Go and write at once. There’s a fortune waiting for you.”

I was doubtful about my ability in that direction, but my landlady had been giving my several bits of

her mind lately, and the wolf of hunger was howling at the door, so I went back to my room with half a quire of foolscap, and after some reflection wrote a short love story.* Near Wine Office Court was a publishing office of cheap journalism, and there I called and left it. *[English Girls Journal, Young Briton etc.]

I am not writing an autobiography, but I feel the necessity of dwelling awhile on that part of my career which introduced me to Fleet Street, to give authenticity to what follows. I have been as brief as possible, passing over much that might possibly have been interesting, to the uninitiated at least. It was a weary time, but not entirely without hope even when absolute want came. Enforced abstinence from food for a day or a day and a half is sufficient to give one a fine idea of what starvation is. I experienced it, and it was enough for me.

The day after I left my MSS. I called at the office to know if it was accepted. Of course there was no answer. Day after day for a whole fortnight

I called, sometimes lingering about for hours with the hope of seeing that mysterious personage “the editor.” As a matter of fact I saw him several times as he passed through, but I did not know him, and he took no notice of me. I was soon a familiar figure at that office, and I daresay a bit of a nuisance.

One morning two gentlemen, whom I often saw go in and out, stopped near me and one of them asked, kindly enough, “what I wanted.”

“I left some manuscript a fortnight ago,” I replied, “and I wish to know if it is suitable; I am very anxious about it.”

He glanced at me and smiled.

“What is the title of it?”

I told him.

Turning to his companion, he said, “See if you can find it, Tom, and look at it,” and with a friendly nod he left the office.

“See if you can find it.” That sentence entered my heart like a bullet; my precious manuscript had

not been looked at, and they had not even debated once upon its acceptance. I went back to my apartment utterly broken down, my landlady followed me up and gave me the biggest piece of her mind I had yet received, the whole of the vituperative side of the mind I may call it. She was a coarse, illiterate woman, and her vocabulary was of a very strong order; but she railed as if to the deaf. I heard and heeded not, but when she had finished for want of breath, I believe I said that I would pay something on account in a few days. It was the promise of despair without even a feeble hope of being kept.

I did not go to the office the next day, for I thought my MSS. was only being looked for, but on the following morning I sauntered in with a nonchalant air. I knew, or thought I knew, what the answer would be, but I was not going to let them see my gaping wounds. “Tom,” was behind the counter talking to one of the assistant publishers; he looked up and gave me a good-day.

“I have looked at your manuscript,” he said; “it is crude, but there is something in it; by-and-by you may write; and I—have sent your little story to the printers. Call on Saturday for your money.” [35/-]

He held out his hand and I took it; after that I have a dim idea that I turned into Wine Office Court, and reeled up like a drunken man. It was a small thing in the history of this seething world, but it was renewed life to me. In the quietude of Gough Square, I sauntered up and down and composed myself.

This was the beginning of better times. I have never been great, never could by any possible earthly assistance, or fortuitous series of circumstances have been more than I am, a humble wielder of the pen; but I have lived, and as the world goes, lived well; and trust that such a good fortune as I have may never desert me; if it does not I shall be content.

On Saturday I called for my money. There was a

little host of authors and artists in the office, who were there with the same object. They fraternised with me instantly, and if they had any doubts as to the advisability of encouraging a possible rival they did not show it. We had to wait a little time, and shortly after my arrival the question arose as to who had money and who had not. Three only could boast of any coin of the realm, and their united wealth amounted to three shillings. With that we all in a body adjourned to an adjacent publichouse to have a drink.

We lingered there for an hour or so, and then the word passed round that “Will,” [W. L. Emmett] as they called the proprietor, had arrived. We sallied into the office, an elated brotherhood, and some went into an inner room to be paid; I, with a few others of the small fry, waited in the outer office. In my turn I received my money for seven columns—thirty-five shillings.

A body of millionaires left that office. I lingered in the street with the rest, immeasurably lightened

at heart by my little fortune and glad of the opportunity to talk with men who had a fund of mirth in them. The work they did was not of the highest class, but the majority of them could have done better things. For the most part they never attempted to do so, and perhaps never thought of it. For the day, for the hour they lived, and thereby hangs a tale I may tell you by-and-by.

As I had been hospitably treated before I received my pay, I could do no less than return the compliment. We all had money and were inclined to be generous. Young, ardent, and in some cases reckless, what did we think of the road we took. It was pleasant enough on that day at least. We adjourned again to a publichouse.

It was a bright, beautiful summer day, and we spent it in the gloom of a tavern. Drinking, smoking, talking, dreaming, the hours passed away, and when at last the party fairly broke up darkness had arrived.

How much of our money we had spent, I scarcely like to say for fear of not being believed. Of my little pittance fifteen shillings were gone, and the others had been “liberal” in proportion. There were married men among them, and what was left in the publican’s till was wanted at home. But of that I knew nothing—cared nothing—as I lay down to rest with my brain in a whirl of excitement, seething with mad dreams of fame and fortune, idle enough as time has shown, but, like the fantasies of the opium-eater, very pleasant while they lasted.

CHAPTER II.

OUR ROOMS IN FLEET STREET—SHABBOT AND RECKLESS.

AFTER a few weeks, during which I lived by odd contributions to the journals published at “Will’s” [Young Briton etc.] office, I secured a regular engagement, and one way or another found myself the possessor of fully four pounds a week. It was the wealth of a mine to me, and not so very long before I might have wondered what I should do with it. But I was already initiated into the art of getting rid of any superfluous cash I became possessed of, and my money just carried my through the week and not an hour beyond it.

I was now a full-blown Bohemian, and every day got deeper and deeper into the circle. I left Wine Office Court, and, with three others, took rooms in

the upper part of a house in Fleet Street, which were our “studios.” Two authors and one artist and an engraver were thus brought together.

My brother author, to whom I give the fictitious name, Harry Reckless, was certainly one of the most reckless men I ever knew. To give his correct name, of the true names of any who figure in this book, would serve no good purpose. What is in a name? The men lived, and some of them still live, but the majority, alas! are gone. I will extenuate where I can, and set down nothing in malice concerning the living or the dead. I write nothing but the simple solid truth, and the names I give must suffice for the uninitiated reader.

The artist, Jack Burly, was a genial, young fellow, with a talent for copying but not a spark of originality. He was the son of an engineer, a man with money, and had run away from home to go upon the stage. After many vicissitudes in the provinces, raw turnips for dinner being the most

prominent in his reminiscences, he returned home, and received a polite intimation from his father that he was not wanted.

“While I live,” said Burly senior, “I shall give you nothing, but, when I die, you will share with the rest of your brothers. So for the present go and do as well as you can.”

Jack brought his six feet of humanity into Fleet Street and became what is known as a “faker artist.” He could compose a picture from a dozen others, and turn out an article that passed muster with the majority of the public. He did small blocks for weekly journals, and blocks and even occasionally cartoons for comic papers that came in due time into the market, and was also entrusted with cartoons. I have seen him draw a figure for one of the latter, taking the head from Teniel, the body from Leech, and the limbs from Doyle. I have even known him to take the limbs from separate artists. He could do nothing without a copy and he copied

faithfully. The result of some of his labours was enough to give a truly artistic man the nightmare. But he passed muster, and lived.

Shabbot, the engraver, was an old man, a great beer drinker and smoker. His pipe was nearly always in his mouth and when there was any drink about he had an insinuating way of getting his share of it. In his young days he must have read vastly, for he had a wonderful knowledge of English literature, and a splendid memory. He could and did talk well, but worked very little. On a certain day in the week he used to go the Illustrated London News office and get his “bit” or portion of one of their blocks, generally a sky-piece. This he would engrave at the office, working on till it was done; then he would take it back and get his money. The rest of the week he did nothing but sit and talk, smoke and drink “half-and-half.”

His wife, he told us, was dead, and he lived with a married daughter who gave him a bed, breakfast, and

supper. Dinner he never had, unless we invited him to have some with us. But as we had to find him with drink and tobacco four days a week, we treated him as a living encyclopaedia of useful information, and paid him in this fashion; we soon ceased to offer dinner, especially as he seemed to get on just as well without it. Once a week, when he took his money at the News office, he got drunk, at other times he was only muddled; as for his share of the rent, he gave his I.O.U. every week with faithful regularity, and considered he had done all that was required of him.

Picture to yourself this man. A good engraver, naturally intelligent, well read, and one, who with moderate industry, could have done well. But he liked his “pipe and his glass,” and detested work, so he settled down to a drifting, bibulous, worthless, and almost useless old man. Old did I say? He was not more than fifty-three when he died.

Jack Burly and myself paid the rent, for Reckless

also gave I.O.U’s with great cheerfulness, and never named them afterwards. He was a fine, good-looking young fellow, well-educated, almost as well read as Shabbot, and decidedly talented. He could write well, and competence if not fame was ahead of him. But he was indifferent to success, and only worked so that he might live for the time.

His father was a retired West-end tradesman, and, like Burly, a rupture existed between the pair. In the flimsy pleasures of Bohemian life, Reckless had turned his back upon a profitable business, and allowed it to fall into the hands of strangers. Even then he would have fared well, if he had only worked and avoided the enemy, for he really had great gifts which he only imperfectly exercised while he had the power. He was yet in early manhood when he died.

His story is a sad and bitter one. There was something in harmony in our natures, and for a few months we were close friends, but a series of mad

pranks in our rooms in Fleet Street brought about a diminution of warmth. I was obliged, in self-defence, to insist upon what he called “a dissolution of the firm.” It was distracting, if not alarming, to have a man practising at the wainscotting, with a carelessly-handled saloon pistol, and I could not write if he were there. One day, when I objected to it, he opened the window—it was a back room—and began to practise upon the chimney pots hard by. The breaking of the nearest, and a threatened invasion from the inhabitants of Crown Court induced him to desist; and we dissolved partnership there and then.

For several years I continued to meet him as I met others, and for a short time we liven in the same house at Dulwich, but it was impossible to make any mistake about the road he was going. It was all downhill, with a grave yawning at the bottom.

It was downhill with myself, too, in one sense. I

occasionally broke out, and thought no great harm of it. We were not the men to discuss the merits of the alcohol question, except as a question of prudence. If we drank too much, we could not do our work, and if there was no work done, there was no pay; that was the check put on a few of us, myself among the number, and beyond that we can claim no credit for being better than our fellows.

I must get on and finish with Reckless. Almost seven years after we met, his father died, and left him some money. Nobody knew how much, but it was supposed to be something handsome. He had by that time come down to the lower strata of Bohemian life, living from hand to mouth, seedy and dissipated, but believed in still, and with work ready to his hand when he chose to do it. When he came into his money he cast his work to the winds.

And away also went all of the dissolute air of the

true Bohemian. The chrysalis disappeared and he became a butterfly. He emerged as a man of fashion, an epicure, and a connoisseur of the most expensive drinks. The wild imagination of his friends credited him with thousands a year.

He made the acquaintance of some people in the country, friends of mine, and he married a young girl, ill suited in years and experience to govern such a man. It was supposed that he could keep her in modest comfort, but shortly after the marriage the crash came. He had in one year spent thirteen hundred pounds, his little fortune, and was penniless.

I had seen a great deal of him, just prior to his marriage and after it. We were friends, but he never hinted at the true state of his circumstances, and I could not make inquiries. No good could come of my playing the busybody. When the bubble burst, I was take aback. He broke the news himself to me in my study, in a few words.

“My bank is closed,” he said.

“What will you do?” I asked.

“Go to work,” he replied.

He meant it as earnestly as any man ever mean[t] a thing in this world. But the power for mental labour was gone. A long idleness and the habit he had fallen into had sapped the once brilliant mind. He, as many have done, and still do, went to his enemy with the hope of finding a friend, but stimulants no longer aided him—the mockery of their sham assistance was fully developed in his helplessness.

I saw him make what I believe was his last effort to work. He sat for a full hour and, if I may use the expression, “dug” at his brains for an idea. He headed a chapter “The Dead Alive,” but how the dead was to become the living he never penned. “I must take a little more rest,” he said, adding, after a few minutes, “and a little more whisky.”

A few days afterwards he took his wife into the country and left her there. Returning to town, he

passed a day in drinking with some of his old friends, cashed a cheque that he knew was worthless and paid a debt with it, and act savouring of madness. Then at midnight took a cab, and went to the house of a friend.

No bed was available, but they made him up a makeshift on the sofa. He said it would do, and asked if there was any whisky in the house. His host gave him the decanter and a tumbler. He filled the latter with whisky and water, drank it, and, in a strangely quiet tone, bade his friends good night.

A quarter of an hour afterwards he was heard moving about below, and after traversing the hall he entered the kitchen. As he had certainly been drinking his host listened with some anxiety for his next movement, but nothing was heard beyond the shifting of a chair. That was his last movement on earth, for when the servant came down in the morning she found him dead.

He had hanged himself with an appearance of deliberation that is appalling, even when I contemplate through the vista of seven years. He was a tall man, and the kitchen door was not high enough to hang upon. But he had put a handkerchief round his neck, fastened it to a hook, then knelt upon the chair and pushed it away so as to make an artificial drop. It proved to be a too effectual arrangement.

What had led to this deplorable result?

I have stated the case, and I have given my evidence, and I leave it to any twelve of my countrymen—twelve publicans if you will—to give in a true verdict, and they can only answer, “Drink.”

In this case is sapped the mind and energies of a clever and physically powerful man who might, with no great effort, have at least made a respectable figure in the roll of literary fame, for he was not in the thirties when, with the maddening whisky surging in his veins he, despairing of

ever being able to work again, crept into that silent kitchen and took away his life.

This is but a brief outline of the career of poor Reckless. Of many of his mad pranks, his utter indifference to consequences, and many other things that led up to the final disaster, I will be silent. Others demand my attention, for he, alas! was but one of many.

CHAPTER III.

BRAZEN, MALTON AND OTHERS.

ONE swallow does not make a summer, and one story of a sad ending does not prove the theory I advance, that alcoholic drink is the curse of literary men. Unhappily, I have more stories than I can crowd in one little volume, and, if proof were wanting, could fill three such books as this with the true records of my twenty years’ experience. Memories of the lost and fallen crowd thick and fast upon me.

I do not profess to speak of the whole literary world. Like everything else it is made up of circles, and I can only vouch for that which I have moved in. It was a pretty large circle in its way, and if we had none among us whom the world calls great,

we were men who wrote for the million, and were therefore not entirely without influence in the world. They were for the most part what the higher geniuses call “small fry,” but the mighty magnates who write in the shilling magazines have not the influence over their readers that their humbler brethren undoubtedly have over theirs. Therefore the moral tone and mental condition of the small fry is not an unimportant matter.

A few years ago nothing could be done in our circle without a drink. If one man met another, the pair would immediately adjourn to one of the publichouses with which Fleet Street is liberally supplied. If the two after a drink came out and met a third they all went back together, and I have known the rolling stone of good fellowship to gather in this way until at least half a score men were rolling drunk. On Saturday, the recognised pay day, the man who wished to go home sober, had to take his money and sneak off by the courts or get inside

an omnibus and hide his guilty head in the far corner.

Different houses in turn received our patronage, and like all communities we had our “residuum”—men who never had any money, never seemed to eat, and always ready to drink. They came down upon us on Saturday like vultures, hungering, if I may use such an expression, for potations.

Brazen, for instance, always turned up with a keen eye for those who had money. Like the bird of prey named, he could scent or sight his prey from afar, and he was pretty sure to come up in time for a little picking. He said he was a literary man, but nobody knew what he wrote or who published it. For years he carried a roll of manuscript which he was just going to deliver and get the money for only the editor happened to be out. The roll of paper grew old and frayed in the service, but the was not ashamed of it. He appeared to live entirely upon small sums borrowed from believers or

those who objected to be bored, and were willing to pay black mail to be let alone. I have seen him drink a great deal but never eat anything—and he must have eaten something sometimes. His place of abode was unknown, and, as for his apparel, I do not think he had any change for years until his boots finally fell to pieces and he took to a pair of dirty slippers. A flourishing, braggart, insinuating man was Brazen, and not all proud. If you declined to lend him a shilling, he would take sixpence, or, failing that, threepence, twopence, a penny—anything in the way of current coin. He disappeared long ago, and whether alive or dead, nobody seems to know.

Malton was an author of some ability, and his books five-and-twenty years ago had a good paying sale. He could easily have saved enough to keep him well in his old age; but when I first met him he was something between forty and fifty, and ought to have been in his prime, but he was a wreck of a

man, with one craving—drink was all he asked and all he sought. His reputation got him two or three engagements, but he could not work. When he put pen to paper he scrawled nothing but the most wretched, meaningless stuff. But he thought it as good as the work of old. One day he said to me,—“You young men drive me out of the market. Everything is new. The ways of everybody are different. The world is turned upside down.” I thought that he might have turned with it if he had kept from drink, but I did not say so. A man who devotes all his thoughts and energies to drink stands a very good chance of being left stranded upon a mudbank. The last six weeks of Malton’s life he had no food, nothing but drink given him by his old friends. He himself said so on the last day he was seen in Fleet Street. The next day I heard of his having died in the night in a casual ward.

There was another man, we called him the “Fireater,” [sic] [W. Stephens Hayward ?] in recognition of his having been a

traveller in savage lands and the general pugnacity of his disposition. He was clever, could write well, and his books still sell, although he has been dead fifteen years. The familiar failing shattered him, and with the object of restoring his health he went to live quietly down by the sea. It was a wise step, but taken too late. He was writing for a journal with which I was connected as sub-editor. [Young Briton] No copy was received from him until it was almost the hour of going to press. I wired to him, and by post that night he sent a small roll of paper directed in a sprawling hand. I opened that packet and found nothing but incoherent words, the final being: “In the wood—wood—wood—in the—the—the—wood,” and so on, for more than three folios. We knew he must be seriously ill, and one of our staff, a friend of his, went down to see him—and found him dead.

I knew a man, who was some acquaintance with us but without being connected with literature, who was a frequenter of one of the best known taverns in

Fleet Street. He was a master tailor, living in a quiet private house, Bloomsbury way, and did a very good business among his circle of acquaintances. He was a widower with grown-up sons. Possessed of an iron constitution he drank heavily for years without its making any marked inroads upon his strength. He was proud of getting drunk six nights in the week, and would boast of the number of “pals” whom he had seen “go out” after a dissipated career.

“There are only two of my old chums left,” he once told me. “I shall drink them all out. I said I should years ago.” And he seemed to think that he was labouring in a worthy cause.

He was, perhaps, the most systematic drunkard I ever met. On Sunday he never took any alcoholic liquor except what he called “one big drink” early in the morning. What it was or how much I do not know. He had also one meal about noon, and spent the whole day in bed, reading. But reading what?

Highwaymen stories of he lowest type, books of the worst description, once sold by the thousands in the now semi-purified Bookseller’s Row, née Holywell Street. It is a dismal fact of which he often spoke and was not ashamed. Had drink anything to do with the moral degradation of this man? He has been dead years, his children are scattered over the world, and there is no offence in telling his story. What do you think of it?

One of the strangest men I ever knew was the illegitimate son of a nobleman. That he was so was indubitably proved by his rustic mother being in receipt of a small pension left by her high-born lover, and the boy being named after him. Never mind what that name was. Let us call him Claverly Hodge.

He was a literary man in a sense, without a spark of invention or originality; he was engaged on journals devoted to fiction, and to the uninitiated his work was very good. But he was what is known

as a “faker,” that is, he borrowed the plots of authors, dead and living, and when he could safely do it, their books almost word for word, cutting out or adding according to the requirements of the time. Sometimes he earned good money, sometimes he found it very hard to live, but, in prosperity or in need, there was little outward change in him. The trade mark of Fleet Street Bohemianism at its worst was stamped upon his attire, and society up west would scarcely have received him into its bosom.

In his cups a strange fancy would take possession of him, a developing fancy I may call it. When “getting on,” he would bewail his hard lot, and say,

“Look here, you fellows, see the difference of the two sides of the wedding ring. I am on the wrong side, and misery and want are my sole friends. Claverly, my brother, is on the right side. He has wealth, honours, prestige, royal friends, and

the home of a prince. If I called upon him in a friendly way he would kick me out.”

To which we all cordially assented, feeling that Claverly Hodge would dishonour the profession, and show a most unworthy cringing spirit in seeking high society on any pretence whatever.

After another drink or two, he would say, “There was always something about my birth that I could never make out, but I will get to the bottom of it some day;” and, finally, when very drunk he would breathe fire and vengeance against “that usurper,” his illegitimate brother, “the earl.”

“When I can get a few pounds together,” he would cry, “I’ll have the matter settled in a law court. Then, when I have gained the day, as I must and will, some of you fellows shall come down to the old family house and have a jolly time of it.” This was one of the mad ideas born of drink; when sober he never referred to it. Drunk or sober he never got the few pounds together and the action

to recover his title and property was never commenced.

Incredible as it may seem, some of his boon companions, in their cups, believed in him and often drank to “the rightful heir.” But, alas! for his and their hopes. One morning, when walking down Chancery Lane, he was seen to stagger into the roadway and fall. A passer-by raised him up, and restoratives were administered to him, but all was over—Claverly Hodge was no more.

There was an inquest, of course, and three publicans were on the jury; their verdict was, “Died from disease of the heart, accelerated by want.” Want of what? Not food, surely, for Claverly Hodge was seldom so poor as to be absolutely penniless, and at the time he was earning good money. Perhaps it was the want of discretion and self-command. Poor Hodge seldom began to drink early in the day, without finishing off at night with intoxication. If, however, he could keep from it

until after dinner, he would go to bed tolerably sober.

One of the most pitiful cases of intemperance I have met with was that of little Muffler, whose whole moral nature was crushed if not utterly destroyed by the curse of drink. When I first knew him he was about twenty-four years of age, and from his talk, I judged he had already suffered on two or three occasions from delirium tremens. He was in fact just recovering from one of these attacks, and was disposed to be “very careful with his liquor.” After his third glass of bitter beer, he said he must knock off until dinner time, and made an effort to go home. But, urged by his friends, he had the fatal one glass more, and by noon was sodden with beer and spirits.

I saw him almost daily for some time afterwards, and he appeared to me the spectacle of a man completely demoralized by drink. I have no reason to suppose that he was originally otherwise than

honourable and trustworthy; indeed, I may say that I heard from a good source that he was so, but during the years I knew him, I never once heard him spoken of otherwise than an incurable liar, and a man whose word was not to be taken for the most trifling thing.

He borrowed money when he ought to have had no need to do so, and never repaid it. He would deny on oath that he had a penny in his pocket when he had but a few minutes before received several pounds. In the middle of the week he would borrow money “for his wife and children,” and promise repayment on the morrow or, perhaps, in a few hours. With tears in his eyes and considerable warmth he would thank the generous lender, and then enter the nearest publichouse and not leave it while he had a penny left.

There are many tricks played upon publishers, such as “dummying copy,” and borrowing money and refusing to work it out. Muffler never lost an

opportunity to play a prank of this sort. He was a useful man in his line, and could get engagements easily, but nobody could trust him. He was openly treated as little better than a thief. He was never spoken of as otherwise than a contemptible humbug and incurable liar; and when, after years of disreputable existence, he succumbed to the enemy, nobody was surprised, nobody expressed any sorrow at the loss of a friend, nobody cared. Only the neglected wife and children mourned the lost man who, if not all he ought to have been to them, had his sins and follies softened down by natural affection.

It is not with the idea of judging this unhappy man or others that I write in this strain. God forbid that should judge any man, except as one, knowing his own weaknesses and follies, is disposed to be merciful to his brethren. I simply pen the truth to show the horrible depth of moral degradation to which drink will drag a man. And to drink I charge a large percentage of the sins and

follies of Muffler. Without it, I honestly believe that he would have been both happy, honourable, and prosperous.

CHAPTER IV.

THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF THE DRINKING QUESTION.

“YES! I was as drunk as anything last night. I never had such a lark in my life. Didn’t get home till I don’t know what o’clock, and fell asleep on the doorstep. I think it was three o’clock when I woke up shivering, and crawled in. The governor didn’t hear me, and the old woman at breakfast said I looked bilious and must have some senna tea.”

The speaker was a youth of eighteen, and, with three companions about the same age, was on his way to town in a second-class smoking carriage. They were all well dressed, and had the appearance of being the sons of well-to-do people. I judged they were bankers’ or mercantile clerks, on their way to business.

The brief story of the previous night’s adventure was hailed with a burst of laughter, and the talk turned entirely on “drunken larks,” in which the speakers had figured at one time or the other. It seemed as if nothing could be funnier to them than a night devoted to it—drinking followed by the inane tricks of intoxication. Deceiving the “governor” and the “old woman” appeared to be an especially amusing thing to do.

If feverish lips, bloodshot eyes, and symptoms of ague are merry possessions, then the youth who spoke first was in a decidedly mirthful mood. His companions found these symptoms good pegs to hang their little wits upon, and he was favoured with occasional sallies with a humour not apparent to the ordinary listener, but sufficiently clear to keep up their mirth. The victim of these sallies laughed and the wit throwers laughed, therefore we will assume for the nonce that there was something funny in this youthful debauch.

Now this little scene was nothing uncommon. There is a very widely spread idea that there is something highly humorous in the sayings and doings of a drunken man. I have entertained the idea myself, and even now, when I am old enough to know better, sometimes I can feel my visible [sic] muscles affected by the antics of a man the worse for drink. How I with others have gained and fostered this belief, we shall presently see.

It is an old idea, but of recent years it has been more and more fostered to the great detriment of the cause of temperance by writers great and small. I make the assertion with confidence, for I know it to be true that there is no clog so great to the wheels of sobriety as the notion that “it is great fun to be drunk,” and that the antics of the inebriate are especially entertaining and whimsical.

Nobody boasts that he is a drunkard, mark you! for if you give that title to a man he is offended, but he seldom cares to deny that he has been occa-

sionally overcome, and while in that state has made an arrant fool of himself. We all excuse a man, or see extenuating circumstances in anything he has done if he has been drinking. The public, magistrates, judges, and juries all see a road to condonement if a crime is committed when a man is the worse for liquor.

Now from whence comes this idea? What, during the last fifty years, has propagated and given it such dark root in the public mind? I charge it to a class of literature of the age; I lay the sin of it upon the cultivated idea of the “humorous sight” a bibulous man affords. And I do most heartily regret that I am unable to deny that I have myself propagated the fatal notion.

Turn to the comic papers for instance, any or all of them, and you will see what an excellent joke lies in the spectacle of a man of middle life playing some fool’s antics prompted by a drink-sodden brain. To be a drunkard and dishonest are both excellent

jokes. Fictitious contributors who never pay their debts, or who are ever drinking, who shuffle and deal dishonestly with all who they come in contact with, are the lay figures of the comic writer.

Members of the staff are supposed to be always thirsty, always in debt, and are humorously acquainted with the “Jumps” or the “Jim Jams” or something else facetious, the funny names of the fanny man for the delirium tremens, one of the most ghastly forms of suffering to which flesh is heir to.

To crawl downstairs in the middle of the night, to grope about for soda water, to see blue lobsters tumbling about your dinner plate, to walk the streets and fancy half the living things you see are the shadowy creation of the “Jim Jams” are all mirth-provoking details of the drunkard’s life. It is a style of things that never seems to pall, but goes on and on, week after week, and year after year with an ever-increasing body of readers and believers.

Yes, believers! for there are thousands of youths now read the merry anecdotes and accept them as a guide to their lives. Thousands are led to drink to excess by the comic literature of our country. From it they get the start and where they finish is in a prison, a madhouse, abject poverty, or an early grave. It is a solemn fact that may be denied but cannot be refuted.

I make no charge against those who cater thus for an eager public, I have no desire to take upon myself the task of reproving any class or even any man. I state facts, things which I know to be true, for my readers to reflect upon.

With regard to the class of humour I ought to say that it emanates for the most part from men who live sober and decent lives, who are good husbands and fathers, true friends and honourable in their worldly dealings; herein lies a little food for further reflection.

Hypocrisy is denounced, and righteously denounced,

as inexpressibly vile and mean. The man who professes religion and is discovered to be practising profanity comes under the lash of the pen and suffers contumely. But is not the profession of inebriety with the practice of sobriety, also a form of hypocrisy that deserves censure! It is a question well worth the consideration of the clever men who, led away by their sense of humour, and the demands of the vitiated taste of the public, pourtray drunkenness as a round of merriment, and the vagaries of its victims as so many side-splitting jokes.

Let me tell you a mirthful story of a young fellow, with whom I was intimate during my early days in Fleet Street. Never mind his name. If I gave you one it would be fictitious, because I have no desire to pain the living or drag the dead into needless prominence. I vouch for the truth of all I have set down in these pages.

He was about twenty-eight years of age, clever, good-looking, fairly prosperous, and apparently pos-

sessed of an iron constitution. It was supposed that he could drink with impunity and did drink very heavily. Ever ready to have a glass with a friend, he was in and out the various bars all day, and at night he went home to his place of abode. Fond of company, and never happy alone, he had chosen to reside at a tavern in the north of London.

It was a place frequented by the middle classes, the coffee room at night was filled with the elderly tradesmen, and the younger and more fiery men found a vent to their oratorical powers and animal spirits, in a debating club, that met there twice a week. The young fellow I speak of joined it, and as he invariably put in an appearance very much the worse for liquor he was soon recognised, thanks to his rabid outpourings, as the humorous debater, and the man to be put up and grinned at when the discussion flagged.

I belonged to the same society, and heard him speak more than once, and can honestly say that a

madman would have been as coherent. Occasionally he went a little too far, and was stopped by the chairman; sometimes the other members compelled him to resume his seat, and once he was forcibly ejected from the room.

One morning, on my way to the city, my road lay past the tavern, I called for him by appointment. I was told he was unwell, and, after some hesitation on the part of the landlord, was allowed to go up to his room and see him. There I saw such a spectacle as I had never looked upon before. The mirth-provoking delirium tremens, alias the “Jim Jams,” had come upon him, and, with murderous hand, laid him low.

I had heard of it, of course, but had never seen or conceived the horror of it. No words of mine can do justice to the awful look upon his face. A first glimpse of hell, suddenly and unexpectedly, might have produced its counterpart in the face of a man but nothing less. The staring eyes, the quivering

lips, foam-flecked mouth, the dilated nostril and death-hued cheek, combined to make a dreadful picture that haunted me day and night for weeks afterwards.

Even now, looking back through a vista of long years, that terror-stricken countenance stands out against the dim background of the past like a face illuminated by the ghastly light of phosphorus in a dark chamber.

I could not help him in any way. He knew nobody, and was nothing less than a raving maniac. Imperative business matters called me out of town for a few days, but on my return I hastened at once to see how he fared. My inquiries in the bar were answered with a doleful shake of the head.

The vast joke of the “Jim Jams” had been too much for him. He was dead.

Yet another story, and I have done with the “amusing” side of this grim question.

A few years ago there used to be an old man, or

rather a man who was prematurely old, whose appearance in Fleet Street was a thing of daily occurrence, and always a source of amusement to those who knew him. Apparently, he never did anything but go from one publichouse to another, drinking at the expense of others when he could, or at his own when no generous brother “boozers” were at hand. I believe he was allowed by his friends, whoever they were, a small income, just sufficient for him to have lived decently; but as it all, or nearly all, went to the publicans’ till, his life was that of a degraded, depraved old man.

It was said of him that he used to “string himself up” in the morning by starting from Farringdon Street (he lived in one of its narrow byeways), going up Fleet Street on the south side and working his way down on the north side, stopping at every publichouse on his way for a drink. By the time he reached Farringdon Street again, he was sufficiently braced up to “begin the day.”

This was, of course, an exaggeration, one of the many jokes inspired by the humorous state of filth and degradation in which he lived. But I can vouch for one thing, that he was only able in his latter days to crawl in the morning into one of the publichouses he frequented, and drink what was promptly given to him. He was well known, and never asked for what he wanted. He could NOT ask for the first glass. I have seen him holding on to the bar and drink three half-quarterns of whisky, not without some trouble in getting the glass to his mouth, one after the other, before he was able to do more than mumble.

This was how he would begin the day. By noon perhaps, a little sooner or later, he would be coherent, and talk like what he was, a clever man. He was educated at Oxford and took his degree, and it was said by those who ought to know that he had a first-class knowledge of Greek. Latin he quoted freely, and at times he talked cleverly, and even brilliantly,

on the arts and sciences, geography, history, politics, or any subject on hand. He was particularly good when discussing the rise and fall of nations, and deeply deplored the decadence of Greece, Italy, and Spain.

But after noon, what then? First a little haziness of speech, then a general vagueness, next silent stolidity, but still drinking, drinking, drinking while he could get it, and finally, when no more was to be obtained, or when the prudent barman refused to serve him, he would reel into the street and find his way home in the eccentric fashion of the drunkard, an entertaining object indeed, of there is any real mirth in such a spectacle.

One night he reeled away and never returned. What became of him I never knew. Nobody knew exactly where he lived; and whether he died then, or was taken away by his friends, or threw himself off Blackfriars Bridge to swell the long list of unknowns found in the Thames, nobody knew or cared. He

was missed as a familiar figure, and that was all.

Many writers have dwelt upon the contrast afforded by a babe in a mother’s arms and the man in degradation or suffering a shameful death. It is, indeed, something to reflect upon. Of what avail was a mother’s tender love, a father’s care, education, and perhaps a brave early struggle with the world, if drink in the end stepped in and turned him into the image of moral and physical abomination, as this old lost man was at last.

And yet we laughed at the sight and cracked our feeble jokes at his expense; and, what is far more sad, some who laughed at him have gone the same road, and others have set their face towards it. Since then they have added their quota to the budget of fun at the expense of their prosperity, happiness, and lives.

I have been asked, “What will your old friends say when they read your book?” My answer has

been, “I do not know; but I trust they will accept it as honestly written, with the hope of dealing a blow, however feeble, at the enemy.”

Its truthfulness none will care to deny. The world will not recognise the sketches I have made, and to outside readers I only wish them to be types; but some men I know will put their fingers on these records and say, “This is So-and-so and So-and-so,” and reflection must tell them that I have not used the darkest colours in any of the pictures. I have not distorted but softened down.

A judge recently descended from the bench to dabble in literature, and he chose as a theme, “Drink.” He pointed out the pleasure it gave to thousands, its virtues at the dinner table, its merits as an assistant to friendly intercourse. A beautiful picture of the Bacchanalian at his best was laid before the reading world, and the most potent daily paper honoured him with an article of high commendation.

Perhaps he was worthy of it; but there are men and women, who have lost sons and daughters whose honour have been blasted, and all their lives embittered by alcohol, who think that a judge might be employed in something better than advocating a cause that is already too strong, and an editor might fill his paper with more worthy and profitable matter.

The brewer and distiller are strong enough—strong in the weakness of men—and need no outside aid. If the worthy judge wants to see drink in full action as a social assistant, let him go to some of the homes of the poor, where the husband holds HIS views and enforces them by drinking away the better part of his wages, and answers all remonstrances by beating his wife with the brutal ferocity of the savage.

Social intercourse must be a poor thing for it to need the support of strong drink. A palatable drink all men enjoy as they do palatable food; but when

the tickled palate means ruined health, and social intercourse winds up with a fight, let us think of health and peace first, and drink afterwards.

One thing I can fearlessly assert. Drink never fostered or cemented friendship in Fleet Street. On the contrary, I have now and then known it to lead to a rupture between very good friends, who have by-and-bye felt ashamed of their violence.

“It was the drink, old fellow, you know; let us shake hands;” and in sobriety the little tempest ends.

But the worthy judge moves in a higher sphere. Everybody, I must assume, knows how to keep this side of the border. And yet there are whispers of an opposite nature; and I have occasionally seen a very gentlemanly man not so sober as he ought to be. But—no matter.

CHAPTER V.

A FEW MORE DIPS INTO THE WELL OF TRUTH.

OF the living I would say something, but it would ill become me to do more than generalize upon that part of my subject. I have no desire to ruffle the feelings of the most sensitive, or to drag a single man into objectionable prominence; but that there are many living whose chances of life have been thrown away, whose health has been undermined, and whose whole career has been embittered by drink, nobody will venture to deny.

It may be remarked that I have chiefly dwelt upon the lower strata of the literary world, and I admit it. I have only dwelt upon what is known to me. My higher brethren may be exempt from evil; I hope so. There are rumours to the

contrary, but I have purposely avoided indulging in hearsay.

Eminent literary men may be supposed to be never killed by drink. It is the great mental strain they have undergone in producing about a twentieth part of what their poorer brethren are obliged to do, or “pulmonary affection” that cuts them short in their prime. Cases are not common, of course, and I speak in all seriousness, but there is a sufficient percentage of the overwork and pulmonary cases to produce a conviction that the enemy is so far like as rain to fall upon the wise and foolish, the weak and strong, the eminent and obscure.

Too many men take stimulants to “keep the ball rolling,” and for a time they can do a lot of extra work with their aid; but the candle is burning at both ends and it soon dies out. Few men who drink freely, I won’t say to excess, can rise early and after breakfast settle to work. It is in the afternoon and evening that they feel they can take

up the pen and use it more readily. This shows that something is wrong.

A healthy man can do his work better in the early hours of the day, no matter what that work may be. The poet who first dribbled about “burning the midnight taper” was a gentleman who would not easily have been induced to sign the pledge. The midnight taper was no real friend to him.

“So-and-so is working on Scotch ale,” a publisher once remarked to me. “I shall get some good work from him.” So he did, but it was little and good. It was a serial story that was to be founded on Scotch ale, and in the middle the author broke off, and an apology was inserted in the journal for its temporary suspension.

The reader was told that the author was “indisposed.” Undoubtedly he was. Indisposed to any form of work. The noisy allurements of Margate in the season were more congenial to a mind stimulated with Scotch ale. The story was eventually

finished by another man, for the author went from ale to whisky, and for months did little or nothing.

This is only a typical story. The idleness, indifference, and wilful neglect engendered by drink is a too common matter of regret with publishers, and those who have to rely upon a particular staff have often a trying time of it. As a rule, publishers are generous and forbearing men, and sins of omission and commission that would be unpardonable in the eyes of merchants and bankers are forgiven again and again. But they are only men, and there comes a time when they will pardon no more.

Last autumn I noticed two men who were strangers to me, but whom I instantly recognizes as brethren of the pen. A few words addressed by one to the other as we all stood by a print shop in the Strand confirmed my surmise, and for weeks afterwards I rarely walked in that direction without meeting them. They were young, healthy men, well-dressed, cleanly, sober, and clearly in their right minds.

During the winter I was seldom in town, and saw nothing of them, but early in the spring I came upon the pair in Fleet Street arm in arm, and holding to each other in a manner so affectionate, that the suspicions of the experienced observer were naturally aroused. Yes, they were drunk! There is nothing like the plain old-fashioned word in these cases, and not only drunk, but dirty, seedy, and disreputable. It was a bitter cold day, but one of them was wearing an old pair of carpet slippers, and the boots of the other had more cracks than eyelet holes for the laces. The rest of their apparel was in harmony.

Does any sane man want to be told how this change had been brought about? I think not. It was the old, old story; the common enemy had been at work and robbed them of all, and brought them down lower than the dust, into the very mire of poverty, and all in a few short months! The very stones in the old street will rise up and bear witness

of my story, if any man dares to say that I have lied.

Who does not know the Greek scholar, once editor of a paper, naturally a refined, courteous man, kindly and gentle when sober, but who cannot, with sixpence in his pocket, keep away from drink? Who among the present generation of Fleet Street men has not heard or seen the senior wrangler who spent the last years of his life near the familiar street as chairman to a debating society, where his pay was drink free, and perhaps the loan of a shilling or so now and then? We, who know the place, have seen him, palsied and mumbling, making his way to the scene of his nightly duty, with a gang of idle urchins, grimy with oil and printers’ ink, hooting at his heels—an appalling spectacle to one who cares to think upon the state that man was in. He would fraternise with any man, or any creature, any rough or foul-mouthed loafer, who asked him to drink. The gentleman and the MAN were dead within him.

He has disappeared; he has become one of the shadows of the past. His friends took him away, and he died in Scotland. His grave is somewhere in Glasgow. Better have put it where the “Griffin” bars the road, with the story of his fate, and a few words of warning to those who come to the street of the Fleet to earn their bread.

“There goes another of them,” a friend of mine remarked to me this morning, as we were passing down Fetter Lane. I looked at the man referred to and saw one of the too familiar figures.

“You should have seen him two months ago,” added my companion; “like a coin fresh from the mint.”

“What is he?” I inquired.

“He is on the —— paper,” was the reply, “and is a smart man. But he can’t keep from IT.”

There was no need to specify what “it” was. There is only one thing that brings a man down with a rush to such a level. No other vice or infatuation could do it in treble the time.

There are many men who do not show signs of utter depravity, but who are also victims to alcohol. Putting things at the best they are not what they might have been. As for their homes, the less said about them the better. No matter what their labour may bring them in, the wives and children know little change from squalor and semi-starvation. On Saturday morning, let us say, the husband comes to town, resolved to draw the line for once, and only have a glass or so with a friend; but this glass often leads to many, and at a late hour they go home as they have too often gone before. They struggle, and struggle hard some of them, but they strive for liberty too late. The net is around them and drawn close; alone they can do nothing.

Drinking habits lead to the dreadful impecuniosity that tempts them to practise all sorts of shifts to get money. A little in advance from the publisher is asked for, and if obtained there is the unpalatable work ahead of doing something that is already paid

for—“working a dead horse,” as it is called. The distasteful duty will keep some men idle for days. They cannot begin the task of writing off the money that is gone. Now and then it is not done at all. Result—a quarrel with the publisher and a change in the field of labour, with, of course, the same thing to be shortly again enacted.

What follies a man will be guilty of under the influence of alcohol. Let us take the case of Grappler, who was a sober, quiet man at home, inoffensive and of an almost child-like disposition. He was in fact rather too mild and gentle for a man, except on days when he came to Fleet Street. Then the first friendly glass, a very doubtful friend to him, would set him off.

First he began to talk “shop,” and point out to all who cared to listen the way to make their fortunes by writing a certain story or producing a certain paper. It was his little weakness, when thus affected, to think that he alone possessed the germs

of lasting success. There were a few ephemeral journals and papers being issued it was true, and here and there a man or woman who was temporarily popular as authors with the public, but Grappler knew their true worth, and he had within the book and volume of his brain a series of plots and ideas for new journals that would revolutionize the whole literary world and produce a new and delightful order of things.

Ah, those plots! what fearful things they were after the third or fourth glass. What harrowing, mystical, dreamy, unworkable things they were—love and hate, gallant deeds and midnight murder, mixed up in glorious confusion. How happy was Grappler if he could only pen an unsuspecting victim into a corner, and keep him there while he relieved his teeming brain of the great burden of plots it bore!

I remember one man who many years ago came among us, as an amateur among professionals. He

occasionally got a small joke into the comic papers, for which he was sometimes paid, and sometimes not, much depending on the paper’s pecuniary success, which in some cases was not overwhelming. I forget how we first made his acquaintance, but we did make it, and now and then during dinner hour (he was clerk somewhere in St. Paul’s Churchyard), he would come as far as Fleet Street to dine at a place frequented by Bohemians. [Cheshire Cheese]

His burning desire appeared to be to make the acquaintance of some REAL genius in literature or art. He was frankly told that the humble persons he addressed were unable to gratify his longing; but it occurred to a wag of the party that he and Grappler ought to be brought together, the latter to be the great genius incog.; and one Saturday, when Grappler was in town, and the amateur comic man had a half-holiday, they were thrust into each other’s society.

No introduction was made. Grappler had no idea

of what was expected of him, but the aspiring amateur received a hint to encourage him to talk and to make mental notes of what he said.

The amateur was seated in a corner of the drinking box, and Grappler, who had already been drinking a little, was put next to him. During dinner Grappler talked the whole time. The experienced members of the party did not listen to him, and he soon addressed himself entirely to the stranger, fixing him as surely and fatally as Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner did the wedding guest.

He was worse than the old salt in question, for HE confined himself to one story, whereas Grappler poured out plot after plot until he, in his accustomed manner, began to cut them short in the middle and begin another. For a time the listener was quite cheerful under the infliction, but at length the blows began to tell, and he became as hopelessly entangled in all sorts of mysteries as the narrator himself.

There was no escape for him. He could not get away, and with a dull, despairing eye fixed on his fiend tormentor, he sat long after dinner, and long after the rest had stolen away well satisfied with their little joke.

Late in the afternoon he was seen hurrying towards Ludgate Hill Station as a man flees from an enemy, and he never came back to that little circle again. One dose of real genius, slightly under the influence of strong liquor, had been quite sufficient for him.

There is not the slightest exaggeration in the foregoing story. It is all true. That there is a humorous side to it nobody will deny; but is it not more than counterbalanced by the serious one? What did Mrs. Grappler think when her husband returned, often with a battered hat, sometimes covered with mud, his eyes wild, and his lips breathing fragments of nonsense in which an undeveloped plot, unjust hate of a friend, and threats

to do something or bring out something that was to ruin the whole publishing world and make Grappler the Bismarck of the press were all mixed together? How about the humour of it with her, when he came staggering it to be put to bed, and lie there two or three days, before he could be called a man again?

His case is only another phase of the evil. Without drink he was, as I have said, a placid, harmless creature, who despite his years would not have seemed out of place trundling a hoop or seated on a rocking-horse. With it, he was a rabid, sense-less being, an object of mirth for a time, but, when the joke palled, a veritable nuisance. But he is gone from us; and, now that he has played the part of witness against our enemy drink, let him rest in peace.

Fleet Street is the happy hunting ground of shameless impecuniosity and in it a few men live by genteel begging and borrowing. They also find

a little game outside, in the Strand as far as Somerset House, but the birds there are sparse and poor and hardly worth looking up. In the street of the Fleet they do not set their snares in vain.

It must not be supposed that they are all men connected with literature—far from it. Not more than a tithe of their number are either authors of artists, and make no pretence of being either.

But there is something in the air of this street that attracts the persistent borrower. I am disposed to think that it is the generosity of literary men, when flush of money, that draws these petty carrion crows together.

Some years ago I had a little business with a lawyer, and while waiting in his office, as I occasionally had to do, I chatted with his clerk, a mild little man with a watery eye and inflamed nose. He borrowed a few shillings of me one day, having, as he informed me, “mislaid the key of his desk, and he could not get at his petty cash.” He was

very anxious that his employer should not know he had lost the key, as it was a patent lock which he held in great value; I lent him the money. It was to be repaid at ten o’clock on Saturday morning punctually if I would call, or he would bring or send it to any place I chose to appoint.

Well! I did not get my money, and my business being finished, I went my way and soon forgot the debt. But, lo! in after years I found my man in Fleet Street. He stopped me, and immediately I was in an atmosphere of stale beer and tobacco. With tears in his eyes, he apologised for not having returned me that money, but he not only lost the key of the desk but “somebody had stolen the petty cash and he was discharged by his unmerciful employer.” Since then he had been in sore straits, and his “little boy was dead, and would I give him a trifle towards the funeral expenses.” I did so; but I have good reason to believe that his child had been buried months before.

However, since then I have to an extent been persecuted by this man. He is pitiless, shameless, and remorseless. He is not a creature to be denied, but will follow behind or dance in a shuffling way in front of you, in a way that is, as the Yankees say, “powerfully irritating.” Only a few days ago he fastened upon me at the “Griffin,” of Temple Bar fame, and dodged about in front of me down to Essex Street.

He only wanted sixpence to get heels put to his boots, which I could see had no soles worth mentioning, and he was sure, with the respectability that mended boots would give him, he could get a situation at once. After many refusals and expostulations I suddenly pulled up and said,

“Will you get out of my road?”

“Look here,” he said, with the air of a man who is making a generous offer; “I’ll go for twopence, and not trouble you for a month.”

I was impressed by the nature of this offer, as

well as the manner of the man, and gave him the money. He has still some sense of honour left, for the other day, when we passed each other, he merely saluted me with the cold courtesy of an enemy who is restrained from attacking by a flag of truce.

And so I might go on and dilate upon this subject, but this sketch of one vagabond will serve for many. Going deeper I might endeavour to count the men who are prematurely gone from among us, and estimate how much of Fleet Street could be paved with their bones, or I might, without turning aside one step from the path of truth, give page after page to the mad pranks, follies, and misery of the victims of drink, and still find that my task is barely begun.

But I think I have said enough to prove my case, that the enemy is rampant in Fleet Street. There he stalks abroad in the light of day, and scarce one earnest hand is lifted to check or stay him.

But some may ask, Why have you chosen Fleet Street especially, when the foe is everywhere? Because I know that thoroughfare better than any other in the wide world, and its name is to the people of Great Britain as familiar as household words.

CHAPTER VI.

WHY ABSTINENCE IS NOT POPULAR IN FLEET STREET.

TOTAL abstinence, if not very popular, is at least more practised than preached by literary men. With rare exceptions they are either indifferent or antagonistic to the movement that has for its object the destruction of the liquor traffic. A variety of causes conspire to bring about this undesirable reticence and antagonism.

First and foremost, with the utmost reluctance and only with the desire of pointing out where the shoe pinches, I must charge a certain class of orators and writers who have in their enthusiasm and ignorance said or written things which have gone far to bring the cause of abstinence into contempt. Stories are told or written of such a character as to be beyond

the belief of any rational person, and beneath the criticism of one endowed with ordinary mental capacity.

These are harsh words, but they are penned after much earnest thought as to the advisability of putting cold water upon any effort made to induce men to abandon drinking habits. But it is only too true that these mistaken efforts create a very powerful antagonism to the temperance cause, and lead to a liberal use in skilful hands of that most potent weapon—ridicule. Only a small percentage of orators and writers have to be held accountable, but unhappily their words and works are often chosen types of the water drinkers’ literature, while sound, sterling orations and powerfully written books are passed by in silence.

I wish to give an instance. About a year ago or a little more, I went to listen to an orator from over the sea—a man who came here with a tremendous reputation.

Nearly everything he said was rapturously applauded, but I do not think that I ever in my life listened to such nonsense as he favoured us with in a narrative form. Let me give an instance.

He told us a story of a man who had been a persistent drunkard for thirty years. He was a man of refinement and followed literary pursuits, but he spent his days with sottish companions, and it was not an uncommon sight to see him rolling in the road, or even sleeping in the gutter. The lecturer knowing him well, so he declared, called upon him. “He found him sitting in a room without a waistcoat but with a splendid shirt on.” (What is a splendid shirt? Was is splendidly clean, or frilled or laced?) The lecturer made his appeal to him and was successful. He signed the pledge, and in three weeks appeared at a meeting, not only clothed and in his right mind, but “magnificently attired,” and with all his faculties at their best.

Now literary men are not fools. The humblest,

even those who have tried and failed, are men of some capacity, and stories like this disgust and anger them. Let us make an analysis of it.

A man of great literary attainments was a drunkard for thirty years. To be great he must have exercised his gifts during that time, although he does spend his days in low society. His home was wretched, his one child neglected, but after all these years he is found with a “splendid shirt” which may have worn well, or been bought by him, and, after an earnest appeal, reforms. In three weeks he is as if he and drink had ever been strangers.

Now let any man of average intelligence reflect upon that story, and what will he think of it? And yet it was but one of many told to an enthusiastic, but at the time unreflecting, audience. Is that sort of thing likely to do good or harm? Will it win Fleet Street or any other street from its ruinous drinking habits? Could it enlist intelligent lookers-on to the cause of abstinence?

Earnest, good-hearted, but inexperienced people sit down and write a story which they think will do good. They ask for no remuneration, and in some cases are willing to go to some expense in publishing it, but weak invention, ignorance of the world and lack of ability, combine to produce a pamphlet or book that is deemed by the people to whom it is addressed as an insult to their understanding. Scores of men who might be friends to any temperance movement are chilled, or driven into the opposite camp, by works of this description.

It is assumed by the masses, and it is directly and indirectly preached daily into their ears that abstinence is a sign of weakness, and an abstainer a legitimate mark for shooting weak wit at. Stories, ridiculous in their exaggeration and untruthfulness to life, whether written or told, go far to justify this assumption. And yet it is a hasty and false assumption, for some of the most brilliant men of the day have espoused the cause; and at this moment

there are thousands of waverers all held back by the weapon ridicule. It has a keen point, and they do not care for it. Meanwhile the drink bill of the nation is as heavy as ever.

I know I run a risk of giving offense in some quarters, but why should I fear the consequences. A little plain speaking is good for us all. It is a sad and solemn truth that the army of temperance has as yet only won a few outposts, and the main ground of the enemy still holds out against it. And yet the arguments in favour of abstinence are really unanswerable, and a brief experience of its practice will convince the most sceptical.

Win Fleet Street to the cause and the way to complete success will soon be opened. But at present how do matters stand. The most powerful engines of the press shoot the shafts of ridicule at the cause of temperance. The word “fanatic” is always a powerful missile, and, when hurled with a [s]trong arm, is sure to do mischief. The mighty

“dailies” say that abstainers are “drinkers of muddy cocoa and weak tea,” rabid men, who rush out of the dark corners of ignorance, and strike wildly right and left, until driven back by the weapons of common sense. Millions of readers who seldom take the trouble to think for themselves take in these views of the question like mothers’ milk—unquestioning, and with a complete trust in truth being their source. With their common sense appealed to they naturally feel that the writer must be right.

That appeal to common sense is seldom without avail. If you say to a man, “Doesn’t your common sense tell you it is so?” he will, in nine cases out of ten, accept your views without troubling himself to fairly balance the two sides of the question.

Common sense ought to tell a man not to condemn the practice of abstinence until he has tried it. But men who have never given it a trial, men who are not even moderate in their drinking, will

rail and rave at it as if it were an offense against morality and religion. I have heard a man, shaking with gin and water fever, declare that “a little drop is good for him.” Perhaps he will admit that “a big drop is bad for him,” but he won’t go beyond that. “Give it up,” cries one; “what for?” The answer might be, “To restore your health, to give you strength, to make a decent man of you, to save your life,” only it will not do to be so very personal in Fleet Street, for pugnacity is not entirely unknown within its precincts.

But it is a pitiful thing, and no reasoning or reasonable man will deny it, to see the havoc that alcohol is working in the literary ranks, and to dwell upon what it has done in the past. You may talk as you please but the fact remains. “Moderation in all things,” is a good motto, but the moderation in drinking could very safely be carried to its total abandonment. A man can not only live without alcohol, but is better without it; and, as an

assistant to mental labour, it is swift and sure destruction.

On that ground I take my stand. As a support I have that common sense so often invoked on the opposite side; and, as my witnesses, I have the victims of the past and present. The ruin of Fleet Street is—

“DRINK.”

[When shown this small work to E. J. Brett by the author, Brett remarked, “Ah, Burrage” you have only touched the fringe of the evil of Fleet Street.]