LONDON TOWN TALE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LIII, Issue 5951, 23 March 1880, Page 5

LONDON TOWN TALE.

(from llio Com tpon dew if tJii XeUxmnte Argus.)

The “Dickens’ Letters” are doubtless a most valuable contribution to literature} but there should have been one volume of them instead of two. The correspondence of no other man is so interesting ana characteristic, but there has not Keen sufficient care exercised in the selection, or rather in curtailing the selections. There are far too many letters to Macready, and they are too much alike. Upon the whole, though many are charming, 1 think there are no letters of Dickens’ in the present publication equal to that upon Hone’s funeral, published in MrEield’s “ Yesterdays with Authors.” The comparison, however, is severe, for probably; there is no such amusing letter as that in print, y . . There was ft rumour in the air f to t ventured to allude some, weeks ftgo, that the great Mudio was tp bo. opposed by another potentate—that there was to bo. a Battle of the Books, or at least of the circulating libraries, on a truly imperial scale—and that rumour has now taken shape.. Sir Coatts Lindsay is the doughty knight who has struck with the sharp end of his spear the shield of the magician of New Oxford street, and the hall from which ho hulls and, where, he designs to camp his opposition forces,! is the Grosvenor Gallery in Bond street. If rivalry is to be attempted at all, he is the man to carry it to a successful issue, but cartes he will have his work to dp. Mr Mudie is said to count his subscribers by teds of thousands, and Mr W. H, Smith is hot so far behind but that he galls his heels. And against both these men must Sir Ooutts place lance in rest. He has money at his back, blit his board of directors is but a narrow one, though curiously enough it comprises two authors, Mr Oomyns Carr and Mr Sala. They are not novelists, it is true, but since they are makers of books, such behaviour shows a high conrage; for it is not likely that Messrss Mudie and Smith will look with favour on their books for the future. ;

To those who are not behind the scenes, it is almost impossible to convey asense of the important bearings that this new scheme may have upon literature, and especially upon literature of fiction. Tor every book that is bought now nine books are borrowed from the circulating libraries. The. establishment of a third will probably increase the circulation of all good authors, and I hope decrease that of bad Ones. Indeed, one of the evils Sir Coutts seeks to remedy is. the ever-growing Accumulation of trash. Whether from some arrangement over which he has no control or from ancient custom, Mr Mudie, it seems, takes some copies of everything, however feeble, and as these feeble works are very numerous, the money he spends on them, though he buys them cheap, is sufficient to cripple him in the purchase of better books. Every country subscriber knows what a lot of things he doesn’t want come down in his book box in place of those he does; and of this rubbish Sir Coutts says he will have none. As to what will happen I suspend my judgment; but he is certainly a.formidable toe, and the Grosvenor Gallery is a very convenient spot for him on which to pitch his camp. The last development of semntgalism is much more extraordinary, and it must be added much more unpleasant, than anything that has preceded it. One girl has pushed her master’s child into the river; another has held it to roast before the kitchen fire; a third put phosphorus into the family soup; and a fourth has set fire to the house in which she lived—all within a week. In the second and worst instance the young lady had no excuse for her extraordinary conduct, except that she wished to leave her place; a plea which reminds one: of Charles Lamb’s account of the discovery of roast pork among the Chinese 5 but in the other three cases the explanation was that the “ could not get on with their mistresses.” Even this, though I dare say they were “ aggravated,’? seems a little strong measures; but the fact is there is no class by whom the school board is so much wanted as that of our servant girls. The national constitution must certainly be very strong if the last annual report of the amount spent on patent medicines is to he relied on ; the duty paid on stamps was no less than £132,000, and as it is never more than three halfpence in each case, it follows that a million pounds’ worth of pills and other decoctions have been bought, and presumably swallowed. At the same time, I have heard it stated by an eminent physician, though there is nothing, of course, miraculous in patent medicines, they'are as a rule made from really g >od prescriptions, which have been found effio rcious.

There have been received simultaneously from ladies two applications to be admitted as candidates, one for the preliminary examination of solicitors, and one for .that of barristers. To the latter the Inn of Court applied to has rejoined that ladies are not allowed to enter as students. The attorneys, even less gallant, have answered that “ they do not feel themselves at liberty to accept the notice of any woman.” Erom the point of view of their pockets they are doubtless correct; they are wise in their generation though it be one of vipers, for what male advocate could stand a chance against a female one—and in a wig, too, which is particularly becoming; or what male solicitor could expect to hold his own against that sex whose solicitations, though they have been hitherto confined to leap year, are so rarely made in vain.

It would really seam as though the eyes of our upper middle classes are at last being opened to the sham of public school education, ■ So long as they had plenty of money, so high was the value they set on having their boys brought up with lords and millionnaires, and so ingrained was their belief in the advantages of the classics and the benefit of “ the tone,” that they did not grudge tbe settlement of those little accounts which their offspring brought home with hem every holiday. It is not too much to f ay that in many cases these sums were oqual to the whole annual income their boys would ever inherit; but for all that, Paterfamilias flattered himself he had somehow got his quid, pro quo. He remembered to have read that “ when house and land were gone and spent, learning is most excellent,” and tried to believe that at least Tom and Jack were being qualified to make their way in the world. But when the long days of depression in land and trade began to set in, Paterfamilias felt' the pinch, and paid the school accounts with a less good grace, and of late has been actually looking into them. “ How comes it,” he inquires “ that a boy of 15 can possibly cost for his keep and education £2OO a year, one-third of which year he spends at home P” Of course it must be the education that is the expensive item, and in an evil hour for “ Culture ” and “ Tone," he has taken to investigating it. What Paterfamilias has discovered is, that his Torn at a fashionable school absolutely knows less of English and arithmetic than his butler’s Tom, who goes to a board school for 6d a week. This is no news to some popple, but it is a great shock to Paterfamilias., I once heard a self-made man . of a good type, a Scotchman, who had made a name for nimself both in literature and science, conversing on this subject with an Englishman not inferior to him in reputation, and better born and bred. Except that the Scotchman would quote Horace, and not always very correctly, he was in every way a more well-informed man than the other, and the other knew it. “ I have been through the whole, mill," said the latter, meaning the public school and university course, “and considering what it cost my people—close upon £2ooo—l got marvellously little out it.", “Two thousand pounds!” exclaimed the Scotchman. “ Well, ; I could only spare two years for learning, except what I taught myself ; hut my school bills were but two thousand pence—a little over £4 per year.” There is no necessity of course for such extremes as this, but it is certain that if Paterfamilias keeps awake, and especially if ho keeps osking questions as to Tom’s progress, the cost of education will be confined within more reasonable limits. The Ooon of Culture, as regards charges, will have to come down. . We Londoners are once more promised — for. about the tenth time—a constant supply of sea water. The latter has, been so far advanced that the rate of payment' has been fixed at 80s a year for every house Pf a rental of £SO. Ho doubt the aquarium at West-

minster may be relied on aS * customer, but otherwise nothing seems ‘fixed except the -rates, and the enterprise is a very big thing indeed. The water is to come through pipes from Brighton, to bo pumped up, of course, by monster steam-engines. 1 foresee a dreadful pulling up of public thoroughfares that sea* water mains may be laid (by no means_ in amity) beside freshwater ones, gas mains, main sewers and electric telegraphs. This last Christmas in London was more like a Christmas Eve, and a pretty lute one too. The darkness produced by the fog was almost tangible, and that very morning a leading article in The Times informed us that the atmosphere in question was comprised of smoke neatly wrapped up in pellicles of oiL Those who could be “ jolly ” under such circumstances must have been first cousins to Mark Taplcy. At night matters grew worse, and' family parties went out to dinner with the footman walking before the horses’ heads like a funeral procession, I trust that our gallant fellow-countrymen at Oabul will soon have their communications opened up again, and get their English Jotters and newspapers, but among the latter I hope the Dublin Nation will not be found. “The punishment of pirates,” says that intelligent organ (which seems to imagine we have a naval force at Cabul), “robbers and murderers, should always give satisfaction to. honest men, and for that reason the events in Afghanistan (i.e., our blockade by the Afghans) have had in this country quite a charming effect.” Those are the "compliments of the season ” with a vengeance. The pretence and pinchbeck of art criticism have at length penetrated into the furniture shops, where 1 hope we shall see the end of it, “Young men” from ‘the great upholstery establishments talk the same affected gibberish that is used by the disciples of Mr Burne Jones and Mr Whistler. I heard theother day of a sideboard being sent to a gentleman “about to furnish,” with the following recommendation; —“It is not a Chippendale, my dear sir, but it has a Chippendale feeling in it.”

It seems to have become the fashion to supply Mr Gladstone with wearing apparel and woollen goods by way of testimonial, as though he . were the honorary secretary of a clothing club. In Scotland they gave him shawls and rugs, but of course not “ trows,” which are contrary to the customs of the country.- And now certain manufacturers have clubbed together, and given him a new hat..

We are fond of complaining of onr English climate, but the cold of late in Paris has been much keener than that of London; and it must be remembered that the Parisians have no appliances for avoiding cold. They have no carpets, and the comforts of an open grate are unknown to them. Moreover, I see the price of coals last week in Paris was 48s a ton. The Parisians have shown a prudence which reminds one of their former connexion with Scotland with respect to their national palace the Elyses; the door handles and knobs of it still bear the Imperial eagle and cipher, the cost of removal and substitution having been estimated at no less than £3200, Their knowledge of English life, on the other ■ hand, does not improve. One of their newsSapers gravely informs us this week “ that I. Homerule has expressed his indignation at the arrests in Ireland. The same M. Homerule has also assured the prisoners of the sympathy of the Irish residents in England.” Jack Sheppard, it seems, has found a successor, A prisoner in Leominster gaol, last ascended his chimney, crawled on all foiuwdpng the roof, and descending some othergentleman’s chimney, got—though not very clean—away. If he had taken half the trouble to keep out of gaol as he did to escape from it he would never probably have been in it; and the same philosophic reflection applies to debt.

Dr Eichavdson’s position, with a collar of wine ho doesn’t drink and has conscientious scruples (which I should share) about giving it away, is very peculiar. Of one thing I am certain, that if he does anything fanatical with it—when it could at least be sold for much and given (in other forms) to the poor—such as smashing the bottles, or pouring their contents into the Thames, he will be doing a vital injury to the teetotal cause. No one doubts the genuineness of his convictions, so that there is no occasion for such wanton waste, while such dog-in-the-manger conduct would be resented not only by all lovers of good wine, hut by all advocates of common sense. There is an idea already prevalent that the extreme apostles of temperance do not require any alcoholic stimulants to put them off their heads; and any rash or wasteful act on the doctor’s part—however well intentioned—would corroborate and extend this view of their intellectual position exceedingly. His best way would be to sell the wine, and found a college with the proceeds for the advancement of his principles. If there is anything in them, the public benefit would then be surely greater than any private hurt which the wines might do to those who bought them, and who would buy other wines if they did not. I remark by the way, that water is not always harmless (quite independent of its poisoning folks by hundreds ’by means of typhoid particles.) A. good lady who was in the habit of using a foot-bottle of stone at night, put it into the oven last week, when it exploded and killed her. Supposing she had taken a glass of hot negus before retiring to her couch, and warmed herself from the inside instead, that accident would not have occurred.