ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 291, 4 September 1937, Page 6 (Supplement)

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Some months after the accession of Queen Victoria, the Rev. Sydney Smith, canon residentiary, was in correspondence with Lord John Russell on the subject of free admission to St. Paul’s Cathedral. For over 100 years a charge of 2d. had been made during most of the day; and a London society for “teaching the fine arts to the common people” had petitioned the Queen for its removal. In Sydney Smith’s own words, they had “very naturally turned their attention to St Paul’s as exemplifying (with a very few exceptions) every fault in sculpture which the diligent student ought to avoid.”

Lord John, being then Home Secretary in the Melbourne administration, inquired of the cathedral authorities whether or how far they could meet the petitioners’ wishes. In one of his letters he said that, if any additional police were required “in the interior of the church,” he was sure they would be supplied. A suggestion so repugnant to the modern mind is explained by the evidence on the state of St. Paul’s sent in reply. Sydney Smith himself went into particulars. After mentioning that there would be at one time 2000 or 3000 people “with their hats on, laughing, talking, walking, eating, and making an uproar,” he proceeded : —“if tlie doors of St. Paul’s were flung open, the church would become, as it lias been in times past, a place of assignation for all the worst characters, male and female, of the metropolis . • • Even now, with the restricted rights of entrance, we see beggars, men with burdens, women knitting, parties eating luncheon, dogs and children playing, loud laughter, talking ... On one side of a line the congregation are praying; on the other side is all the levity, indecorum aud tumult of a Loudon mob squabbling with the police . . . The monuments are scribbled all over, and often with the greatest indecency.” People who do not respect their churches will respect nothing; and this picture of the desecration of St. Paul’s is but one of a long gallery which might be painted, if decency allowed, of English society at th ebeginning of the Victorian age. Charles Dickens went as far as he dared or as his cheerful observation would allow him. But the whole truth about England in the early nineteenth century is not to be found in Dickens. It must be sought assiduously in the newspaper files. These, if studied day by day for a few years, would cure emancipated youth of the habit of gibing at Victorian respectability.

Dryden praised Charles II for reforming, by the excellence of his manners, a nation lost in barbarism. With more reason might Victoria be praised for reforming, by the influence of her spirit, a nation Which in behaviour—and neither character nor religion is here in question—was uncivilised and degenerate. Contempt for the middle class was constantly shown by Guards officers, by rich young men about town, by the bearers of honoured names and honourable titles, on occasions which took them to the police court. They were brought there by inconceivably mad pranks at the expense of the humble

Manners When Victoria Came to the Throne

citizen, tlie doctor or small merchant, or the wives of such folk; and the court let them off very easily indeed, a guinea or two paying for a dastardly assault.

The private soldier was as big a bully as his officer. In a drunken affray he would draw his side-arm and run riot, threatening wounds and death. The files have much to say on this subject. And the contagon of contempt spread to all who were dressed in a little brief authority. The omnibus, a Jew importation to London, was a rich source of civilian worries. Conductors swindled their passengers, hustled them in and out, abused them if they protested. The language of the streets and alleys was perhaps no worse and no better than that of to-day: judging from the police reports, the epithets and condemnatory phrases in common use were much the same, just as unimaginative and monotonous. A signal difference, however, appears in pronunciation. The tricks played with the letters “v” and “w,” to which readers are used in Dickens, lend colour to the narratives of crime and misdemeanour picturesquely retailed in the columns of “The Times.”

In higher circles than that of the Wellers there was great discrepancy in verbal manners. Parliamentary speech, with Latin tags, was ponderously decorous, but on the hustings the political candidate let himself go. O’Connell ou the platform was a different man from O’Connell in the House, no longer quoting Horace and Virgil, but raging in the vulgar tongue. If morality rather than manners were here under examination much might be said of the open foul morass into which sections of society, high and low, had fallen. Relatively innocent was the indulgence in elopement to Gretna Green and elsewhere. Duelling remained ithe province of gentlemen.

In the country the bull had been well-nigh rescued from his baiting, though there is evidence now and then that ruder folk clung to those amusements which have left their mark on Midland place-names like Bull Stake and High Bullen. But in the shadow of Westminster Abbey men pitted themselves against rats, not as the apostle fought beasts at Ephesus; wives were still sold at country fairs, a halter round their necks and apparently submissive or even willing partners in the fun; and the old prize fight with naked fists and an inordinate number of rounds was an unconscionable time a-dying. On the other hand, a growing interest was taken in cricket.

The theatres had good actors and bad plays. Sentiment, farce and impossible plots were loudly applauded or derisively booed. The noise was sometimes so great as to drown the dialogue.

The conclusion of the whole matter is that, hardy and energetic as it may have been, the age had shocking bad manners. It needed a little respectability, and if it eventually got too much the maxim holds that excess breeds excess. "When improvement came, and was noted, the effect was to import a Arm belief in human progress and the perfectibility of man. No wonder!