MUSEUMS IN PUBLICHOUSES.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2280, 11 November 1897, Page 56

MUSEUMS IN PUBLICHOUSES.

The koh-i-noor among publichouse museums — the biggest and most valuable of the lot — is, of course, that attached to the Edinburgh Castle, near Regent's Park. Here are to be seen, among other treasures, no fewer than three great auk's eggs, acquired by the Enterprising proprietor ot the tavern in question at a total outlay of G2ogs. The last of 'the trio waVbought quite recently, at a London auction; for 180gs. ) Altogether this unique collection of curiosities is valued at £10,000, and includes such widely dissimilar articles as' slave manacles from the CoDgo, gold buckles from Nelson's shoes, a pair of solid silver .salvers from the cabin oE the Victory, the medal presented by Stanley to Bmin Pasha, Oliver Cromwell's feat, the gold medal struck by the British Government for the Rajah of Mysore, a sample of the famous thirty-five-guinea-a-pound "gold-tipped" tea, a dried mermaiden, a vredding wreath made of fishes' scales, Oliver Twist's bedroom and Fagin's kitchen, and a series of waxen casts of the heads of the Flowery Land pirates.

Not so varied as ths above, perhaps, but Equally interesting in its way, is the really splendid natural history museum at the Bell and Mackerel, in the Mile End road. Originally founded by the now defunct " East London Eatomological Society," the collection numbers at the present moment some 20,000 specimens, arranged in nearly 500 separate cases. Birds, insects, animals, and Eggs predominate. There is

A YOUKG ORANG-OUTANG,

one of the first' brought to England ; a magj^tcent albatross, a beautifully-stuffed pair of antelopes, a massive golden eagle shot ■hard by, and the head of a gigantic bull.

One of the cases is devoted to freaks of nature. Here are to be seen white blackbirds, two-headed dogs, cats, lamb?, and other animals, and a pig with a dog's head. 3?he " smallest bird in the world " is also Shown — a tiny thing, no bigger tban a pea.

In an upper room is an elaborate device, 5n which the name of the bouse and the words " The Eastern Museum " are artistically outlined in butterflies and moths of various colours ; while in the taproom are a tramber of old panel paintings, representing scenes in the Mile End road and neighbourhood when meadows and cornfields ran right op to Aldgate. > Not far from the Bell and Mackerel, in the Eame road, is a house known far and near by the name o£

THE HUNDKBD-AKD OISB.

It derives its curious title from an • oil painting, of ankoown antiquity, which hangs above the ban It is a portrait of three men — " Old Fisb," Downes, and Taylor — and underneath is recorded how that between them they " dranke in this house one hundred and one pots of porter in one daye." A remarkable feat truly, and a disgusting one to" boot.

Perhaps the most heterogeneous collection of pnblichouse " curios " is that which has been gotten together for the delectation of his customers by the landlord of the wellknown Vale of Health, Hampstead Heath.

S?me of these "treasures," however, it must be confessed, are possessed of but the flimsiest "pedigree." There is a donkey's skull, for instance, which is said to have belonged to an animal once ridden by Nell Gwynn, for no better reason apparently than that it was dug up in the garden of the house she formerly inhabited in Waterlow Park ; and, of course, there is the inevitable and only original ".Dick Turpin's pistol." But setting on one side these somewhat doubtful relics, ther.e is much to be seen of interest. For example, there is a life-sized calf, with two beads," two, taile, and seven legs ; a porpoise, 7ft in- length and weighing 2cwt ; a civet cat," which lived for nine years in the bouse, and was poisoned at last by a party of bank holiday " trippers " ; a . 10ft crocodile from Korti ; a helmet of the Rassian Imperial Guard, picked up after Inkerman ; several well-executed models of catamarans and surf-boats ; a fine study of a mongoose killing a snake ; a large ivcry model of a Chinese a pair of Naasen's gloves ; and an exceedingly curious old Abyssinian blunderbuss.

After the visitor has finished inspecting the above, he can. if he is so minded, stroll up the bill to Jack Straw's castle, where is Dickens's armchair, and thence proceed to The Spaniards, and view the original knives and forks used by Dick Turpin and Jonathan Wild when they stopped, as they often did, at that renowned hostelry. One of these knives, it will be noticed, is marked with a peculiar stain. Tradition affirms that this is blood, and that Turpin 'once killed a companion with the weapon in "a fit of drunken raaje. Here also can be seen the huge key — 300 years old, at least — which unlocked the door of the secret passage leading, so the story ran, to the neighbouring mansion of Caen Wood.

On the Surrey side of the Thames are quite a number of publichouse museums, the best known probably beicg the one at the Hole in the Wall, in the Borough High street. This is sometimes christened

„ ."THE CATS' CEMETERY," , owing, to the number of feline skeletons it contains., Most of them-came from the ruins of the old Mint ; and one of them has the mummified remains of two mice tightly clasped in its bony jaws, showing that it perished in the performance of what it doubtless deemed its duty. Another gruesome relic is a pair of human skulls, discovered in a vault under the old Marshalsea prison ; and there is a curious double lamb, in addition to stuffed heads of a polar bear, reindeer, and other animals innumerable. A parrot fish, " commonly known as a • Chinese bloater,' " is another trophy that usually attracts a good deal of attention ; while near it is a stuffed cat which mews quite naturally.

Of single curiosities preserved, in publichouse bars the name is legion. To instance only a few. At the Bridge House, Canning Town, there is an immense crocodile, which the local sevants stoutly affirnr was captured in Bow Creek hard by ; a house in the purlieus of Hcundsditch boasts of an immense brass frying-pan, 12ft in circumference, and known as King Lud's stewpot ; a Peckham hostelry attracts thousands of customersevery week by the sight of a curious-looking pig ; while those interested in things pugilistic will find at any one of the half-dozen leading " sporting " houses belts, gloves, medals, and other similar articles galore, all warranted to have been at one time the property of men whose names were famous in the annals ef the prize ring.