Mornings at Bow Street — Page 50-63

LATE HOURS AND OYSTERS.

Two gentlemen of pretty considerable respectability--one tall, and the other short--were charged with having assaulted the watch; and no fewer than five "ancient and quiet watchmen" appeared, to testify against them.

Dennis Mack was the first in order.

He said he found the two gentlemen at the door of the oyster shop in New-street, Covent-garden, between one and two o'clock in the morning, kicking up a great row with a hackney-coach and two ladies.

He told them to go home to bed, and not be making such a bother as all that, when the short one laid hold of his staff, and tried to twist it out of his hand, whereupon he sprung his rattle for assistance, &c. Thomas Robinson was the next.

He was a smart, upright, _Corporal Trim_-like sort of a watchman, and his discourse was somewhat "stuffed with epithets of war."

He heard the _rattle-call_ of his _comrade_, and _advanced_ to his _relief_--he made his _approaches_ with caution in order to _reconnoitre_ the party--having so done, he challenged the offenders to _surrender_, and received the point-blank charge of a fist in his belly--saving his worship's presence.

"What are you?"

asked the magistrate, struck by the novelty of his phraseology.

"I have been a soldier, your honour," he replied; "but since I was discharged from the army, I have endeavoured to fulfil the part of a cobbler."

Patrick Donaghue, a six-foot Emerald Islander, with an astonishing perpendicular expansion of countenance, was the third in order.

He heard the _hubbuboo_ as he was _paceably_ walking his _bate_, and went, right on end, to _larn_ the rights of it; and the biggest of the two--without saying "by yer _lave_,"--took him a mighty _dacent_ stroke over the _jaws_.

Two other watchmen followed; but, as they said, they only came in at the tail of the _row_, and therefore they did not see the beginning of it.

However, they bore testimony to the extreme repugnance of the gentlemen to go to the watch-house.

The gentlemen were now called upon for their defence, and the short one undertook the task of making it.

It appeared that he and his tall friend were out so late _because_ they were eating _oysters_, consequently the oysters were solely to blame, as far as late hours were concerned.

Then, as they were coming out of the oyster-shop, they found two _ladies_, who also had been up stairs eating oysters, sitting in a hackney coach at the door.

There was nothing extraordinary in this; but somehow or other the coachman had got it into his head that these two unlucky gentlemen had ordered the coach for the use of the ladies, then comfortably sitting therein, and of course he looked to them for the fare.

The _ladies_ themselves encouraged the coachman in this "iniquitous idea," and seemed to enjoy it very much; but our oyster-eaters were not to be had in this way.

They _re_-sisted the "abominable demand," the coachman _per_-sisted, the ladies laughed, the watch came up, and the oyster eaters were hauled off to durance, most unjustly.

As to the blow on the belly, the _dacent_ stroke on the jaws, &c. , they denied all that sort of thing _in toto_.

They were nevertheless held to bail for their appearance at the sessions;

and, doubtless, should they ever be taken with an oyster fit again, they will try to get it over earlier.

SUPPING OUT.

Messrs. Theodore Planque (a very tall gentleman), Hugh Jackson (a very short one), and Robert Thomas Huff (neither tall nor short, but, as it were, between both), and a _bamboo cane_, almost as long and large as a little scaffold-pole, were brought before the magistrates from the subterraneous saloons of St. Martin's watch-house, charged with dreadful doings among the _Charleys_.

[13] [Illustration] [Illustration] It appeared by the statements _pro_ and _con.

_, that the prisoners are very respectable people, and that on Friday night they went to sup with an unquestionably highly respectable tradesman in Long-acre.

This supper was given on the occasion of his brother, who is a captain in the navy, having returned from a long and perilous voyage; and, of course, on such an extraordinary occasion, they drank deeper than ordinary.

It is really surprising what a quantity of thirsty sentiments an occasion of this kind gives rise to.

At last the tall gentleman--or, as one of the watchmen called him, "the _long_ one"--was found stretched out at his length on the pavement before the door, completely done up.

It was a _charley_ who found him, and a very honest charley too, as times go; but whilst he was endeavouring to gather him up, the short gentleman came behind and floored poor charley himself, with the great _bamboo_, above mentioned.

He was soon up again, however--though, as he said, he never was floored by such a queer thing in his life before, nor half so _clanely_.

Once on his legs again, round went his rattle, and in half-a-dozen seconds up came half-a-dozen of his brethren.

The short gentleman with his bamboo, seeing this, laid about him lustily--ribs, canisters,[14] or lanterns, it was all one to him.

But "who can control his fate?"

or what can one single arm do against a dozen?

He was _bundled_ up, or enveloped as it were, in a _posse_ of _charleys_, all in full _tog_, enough to smother up a Hercules;

and after some little ineffectual sprunting, he, and "the long one," and the "middle-sized one," and the great bamboo, were all safely lodged in the watch-house; where the long one, having shaken off his drunken slumbers, committed divers outrageous assaults upon the night constable and his men, as they were putting them down into the cellars.

In their defence before the magistrate, they admitted the drunkenness, but denied the violence; and begged his worship to believe that it was "entirely a case of _simple intoxication_."

[Illustration: BUNDLING UP.

] The magistrate ordered the long one to find bail upon four distinct assaults; the short one to find bail upon two distinct assaults; and the middle-sized one was discharged on payment of his fees.

A GREAT MAN IN DISTRESS.

A personage, who described himself as "General Sarsfield Lucan, Viscount Kilmallock in Ireland, a peer of France, and a descendant of Charlemagne," presented himself before the magistrates to solicit a few shillings to enable him to proceed on important business to Wexford.

General Sarsfield Lucan wore an old brown surtout, with the collar turned up behind to keep his neck warm, and a scrap of dirty white ribbon fastened to one of the button-holes; a black velvet waistcoat, powdered with tarnished silver _fleurs-de-lis_, and an ancient well-worn _chapeau bras_, surmounted with a fringe of black feathers.

He carried under his arm a large roll of writings, and all his pockets were stuffed with tin cases, pocket-books, and bundles of papers: his "fell of hair" was ruefully matted; an enormous tawny whisker covered either cheek and his upper lip and chin,--which, for want of shaving, "showed like a stubble-field at harvest home,"--was all begrimed with real Scotch.

He said he was a native of Wexford in Ireland, and had spent the last seven years in Paris, where his cousin, Louis XVIII.

, nominated him a peer, and gave him a decoration (the bit of white ribbon above mentioned);

but his instalment had been postponed by the then recent change in the ministry; his cousin (Louis XVIII.

) assuring him, that as soon as his present ministers were kicked out, he should come in.

In the meantime his father had died, and willed him certain lands and houses in Wexford;

whereupon he wrote to his sisters, who were resident there, to desire them to send him the proceeds of his estates forthwith; but instead of so doing, they had themselves administered to the will, and were dissipating his patrimony.

Under these circumstances, his cousin, the king, advised him to set out immediately for Ireland, and seek redress in person.

"Journeying with this intent," he landed at Dover a few days before, but on reaching London he found his finances exhausted, and he was now driven to the unpleasant necessity of applying to their worships for a few shillings, to enable him to proceed.

Sir R. Birnie said, he wondered his royal cousin had not furnished him with the means of prosecuting his journey.

"Sir!

I scorned to trouble him at all on such a _palthry_ subject as money," replied the general, with some warmth; and he then went on to state, that in order to satisfy his coach-hire from Dover to London, he had been necessitated to give up possession of his working tools.

"Your _working tools_!"

said the magistrate; "and pray may I ask what trade your lordship follows?"

"No trade in the world at all," replied the general; "I am not the person to be after following trades.

--The tools I am _spaking_ about are what I used in some of the greatest inventions the world ever saw.

I invented a _happaratus_ for extracting stone and gravel from the _blather_, without any operation at all.

I invented a machine for fishing up vessels foundered at sea, as _aisy_ as fishing up an oyster; and I invented another machine for making _accouchement_ the most _aisy_ thing in existence--a mere _fla-bite_ to the most tender lady imaginable!

And it was partly these inventions, indeed, that brought me to this country now--because I did not choose to be giving foreigners the benefit of them."

"Pray, Sir," said Mr. Minshull, "will you give me leave to ask whether you were ever confined?"

The General--"_Confined!

_ for what would I be confined?"

Mr. Minshull--"If you do not understand the nature of my question, I am sorry I put it; but it certainly appeared to me possible that----" The General--"Sir, you appear to me to be after _taalking_ in a very queer kind of a way to a _jontleman_!

You ought to know what is due to a respectable and _graat_ man, even though he is in distress."

Mr. Minshull--"Well, Sir, I will speak as plainly to you as you do to me.

It is my opinion, and the opinion, I believe, of every person present, that you are out of your mind; and that if you have never been confined, it is high time you were so."

The General angrily declared he was altogether _mens sana in corpore sano_; and professed himself astonished that any body should entertain a contrary opinion; then taking from his side-pocket a round tin case, nearly as large as a demi-culverin, he offered to produce from it documents to show that he was really the important personage he professed himself to be.

The magistrates, however, had no faith in the matter; they told him it might be all very true, but they had no funds to assist him with; and, as he appeared very incredulous on this subject, they at length ordered him to withdraw upon pain of being committed to prison under the Vagrant Act.

This was an awful alternative, which the gallant "General" did not think proper to risk; so gathering up his patents and papers, he put his feather-fringed _chapeau_ upon his head, and taking an ample pinch of snuff--so ample, indeed, that it rushed through his olfactory labyrinth with the noise of a mighty cataract--he stalked majestically out of the office, muttering anathemas as he went.

MRS.

WILLIAMS'S PETTICOAT.

This was a proceeding under the Pawnbrokers' Act, by which Mrs. Priscilla Williams sought to recover a compensation in damages for the loss of certain property pledged with a Mr. Simmons.

Mrs. Priscilla Williams is a bouncing buxom belle, of five-and-thirty or thereabouts, who, having occasion to raise the sum of eighteen-pence on some sudden emergency, was fain to carry her best black bombasine petticoat--or _bum-be-seen_ petticoat, as she called it--to Mr. Simmons, of Seven Dials, a diminutive elder, who gathereth profit unto himself daily, by lending to the poor: in common _parlance_, a pawnbroker; or, poetically speaking, "_My Uncle!

_" This Mr. Simmons received the petticoat; held it up to the light; observed that "it might well be called a _bum-be-seen_ petticoat, for the moths had riddled[15] it sadly;" and finally, he lent the money required; but when she applied to redeem the petticoat, he told her it was lost, and refused to make her any compensation for it.

Mr. Simmons, in his defence, admitted having received the petticoat, and also having lost it; but he declared Mrs. Priscilla Williams had deluged him with abominable abuse; and he humbly submitted that the said abuse ought to go as a set-off against the lost petticoat.

Mrs. Priscilla Williams protested against any such settlement as that.

She readily admitted having "blown Mr. Simmons up a bit," and she thought he richly deserved it; for he d----d her and her petticoat too, in the most _notoriousest_ way imaginable:--"I shouldn't have minded his d----g me," she added, "because it couldn't hurt me, but I thought it extremely _ongenteel_ in him to d----n my _petticoat_."

The magistrate ordered that Mr. Simmons should pay the value of the petticoat, with full costs of suit.