PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. (Joseph Hatton, in the People.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2499, 5 February 1902, Page 65

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. (Joseph Hatton, in the People.)

The ghosts of the London midnight, celebrated shades one thinks of as revisiting the glimpses of the moon, would get lost in the new London that is springing up everywhere. Think of Leicester square and its surroundings, what it was before it degenerated into a dustheap some five-and-twenty years' ago, and what it has become in our time, and the changes that are still going on round this classic spot! I recently told its story in a contemporary, which narrative I propose to supplement in this after-dinner chat with a few additional notes. Where reminiscences of places are accompanied with personal recollections of men and manners one may safely count upon interesting the reader. In the old days Leicester Fields, eventually narrowing into Leicester square, covered a wide area sufficient to take in Bedford street, with which my earliest memories of literary and artistic London are associated. When first I knew Mark Lemon, the famous editor of Punch, we had chambers in the same house in Bedford street, and I think he had just then finished his "Up and Down the London Streets," which, after his death, I was invited to revise and enlarge. Oddly enough, in the new building that was erected on the site of our London domicile (M. L. had a house at Crawley and I had a house in Worcester) Harry Furniss, on his secession from Punch, established his editorial offices for a new publication, which has to be counted among the splendid financial failures of the great publishing -world. Artistic success is one thing, commercial prosperity another — reasons for which are frankly set forth by Mr Harry Furniss in his delightful book, "The Confessions of a Caricaturist," published by Fisher Unwin. Punch has always been among my literary fetishes. But that is another story. I recall not long before his death many pleasant rambles about Bedford street, Garrick street, Leicester square, and Covent Garden with Mark Lemon, and as I do so I can smell the odours and perfumes of the dear old refusestrewn garden when there was no washing down of the great market with hose and indiarubber brush as there is to-day. Since Mark Lemon's time there has been quite a removal of publishers and newspapers from the city to the garden and the adjacent streets. While some of our great printers are leaving London for the country, there is a tendency year after year for publishers to come West. It is the same witL theatres. One of these days the Strand houses may be left behind, as the New York theatres in Broadway hav-a been eclipsed by rival houses up town. One night I accompanied Mark Lemon to a reception at Baroness Burdett-Coutts's. There was music. Our mutual friend, Sir Julius -Benedict, conducted the concert. Mark Lemon sat on one side of the Baroness, and I had the honour of a seat on the other in the front row of chairs, arranged for her Ladyship's distinguished guests. The editor of Punch — the first of that famous publication — was a man of distinguished appearance — a lion-like head,

with silky white hair that became his handsome florid complexion. He was evidently regarded as a persona grata by her Ladyship's guests". The Baroness, then, as now, one of the most popular -women in her Majesty's dominions, was, I remember, particularly gracious, and made everybody about her quite at home. The music was fine, and we enjoyed it, and the refreshments were what the fashionable reporter would describe as light and elegant ; but when a- favourable opportunity offered Mark made his excuses to the Baroness, and we left for other, alas! much less reputable scenes. "A noble woman," he said, "and dear old Benedict a great creature ; but I like a bit more melody, don't you?" he said, and he hummed a bar or two of "You'll remember me." And what did I think of taking in a contrast to high society on the way home? I thought well of it, of course. T was young enough to be game for anything, though no younger at heart than my genial friend, who now and then showed me the sights of ■ the great town ; so he carried me off to a quiet" little tavern between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester square, where we saw Jimmy Shaw, the champion light-weignt, encounter with gloves one or two clever opponents ' r but we gave a rat-pit the go-by, and finished the night at Paddy" Green's with 'The men of Harlech," "Who will o'er the downs," and a. very pleasant company. Happy days, "when all the world was young," and chops and steaks and roast potatoes, and wholesome ale, and a pipe, and a glass of grog were good enough for the brilliant crowd of men who met night after night at Evans's to tat their suppers, and listen to the glees, quartettes, catches, and choruses of Purcell, Bishop, my namesake Hatton, an 3 still older compositions dear to the heart of every British nationality! Dear old Paddy Green, with his old-world manners of courtesy, his rubicund visage, his bandy snuff-box, and his pleasant gossip of the social and literary world, he was typical of an age that had many more home-like enjoyments and comforts than it possesses in our time, though it would be impossible to return to them ; you can't very well go back to pipes and grog and a sawdust floor after champagne and cigars, and velvet pikr. and obsequious servants in livery. The Londoner has changed his ordinary lodging of Paddy Green's' day for palatial chambers ; his free-and-easy clubs of Evans's and the Albion, open to all, for establishments the most luxurious and costly ; his music hall of the days of the chairman, and pipes and grog, for the Palace, the Empire, the Alhambra, and the Tivoli, that rival-in appointments the finest theatres ; and' live* like a prince, as compared with the commoner of the early Victorian era. ' The multitudes of distinguished-looking men and women who crowd the famous hotel restaurants after the theatres is "a sight to see."