Part 28

The popular work of Mr. James Grant.

He not only rose very early, but was also late in going to bed. On an average, he had not for twenty years slept above four hours in the twenty-four. He was often weeks without going to bed at all, and it sufficed him to have two or three hours' doze in his arm-chair, and with his clothes on. In the year 1834, he performed an unusual feat in this way: he sat up one hundred consecutive nights and days, without stretching himself on a bed, or putting himself into an horizontal position, even for a moment. For one century of consecutive nights, as Curtis phrased it, he neither put off his clothes to lie down in bed, nor anywhere else, for a second; all the sleep he had during the time was an occasional doze in his arm-chair.

Curtis's taste for witnessing executions, and for the society of persons sentenced to death, was remarkable. He had been present at every execution in the metropolis and its neighbourhood for the last quarter of a century. He actually walked before breakfast to Chelmsford, which is twenty-nine miles from London, to be present at the execution of Captain Moir. For many years he had not only heard the condemned sermons preached in Newgate, but spent many hours in the gloomy cells with the persons who had been executed in London during that period. He passed much time with Fauntleroy, and was with him a considerable part of the day previous to his execution. With Corder, too, of Red Barn notoriety, he contracted a friendship: immediately on the discovery of the murder of Maria Martin, he hastened to the scene, and remained there till Corder's execution. He afterwards wrote the Memoirs of Corder, which were published by Alderman Kelly, Lord Mayor, in 1837-8: the work had portraits of Corder and Maria Martin, and of Curtis, and nothing pleased him better than to be called the biographer of Corder.

By some unaccountable fatality, Curtis, where he was unknown, often had the mortification of being mistaken under very awkward circumstances for other persons. At Dover he was once locked up all night on suspicion of being a spy. When he went to Chelmsford to be present at Captain Moir's execution, he engaged a bed at the Three Cups inn; on returning thither in the evening the servants rushed out of his sight, or stared suspiciously at him, he knew not why, till at length the landlady, keeping some yards distant from him, said in tremulous accents, "We cannot give you a bed here; when I promised you one, I did not know the house was full." "Ma'am," replied Curtis, indignantly, "I have taken my bed, and I insist on having it." "I am very sorry for it, but you cannot sleep here to-night," was the reply. "I will sleep here to-night; I've engaged my bed, and refuse me at your peril," reiterated Curtis. The landlady then offered him the price of a bed in another place, to which Curtis replied, resenting the affront, "No, ma'am; I insist upon my rights as a public man; I have a duty to perform to-morrow." "It's all true. He says he's a public man, and that he has a duty to perform," were words which every person in the room exchanged in suppressed whispers with each other. The waiter now stepped up to Mr. Curtis, and taking him aside, said—"The reason why Mistress will not give you a bed is because you're the executioner." Curtis was astounded, but in a few moments laughed heartily at the mistake. "I'll soon convince you of your error, ma'am," said Curtis, walking out of the house. He returned in a few minutes with a gentleman of the place, who having testified to his identity being different from that supposed, the landlady apologized for the mistake, and, as some reparation, gave him the best bed in the inn.

However, a still more awkward mistake occurred. After passing night after night with Corder in prison, Curtis accompanied him to his trial, and stood up close behind him at the bar. An artist had been sent from Ipswich to sketch a portrait of Corder for one of the newspapers of that town; but the sketcher mistook Curtis for Corder, and in the next number of the journal Mr. Curtis figured at full length as the murderer of Maria Martin! He bore the mistake with good humour, and regarded this as one of the most amusing incidents of his life.

Amidst these harmless eccentricities, Mr. Curtis effected much good amongst prisoners under sentence of death. "I speak within bounds," says the author of the Great Metropolis, "when I mention that he has from first to last spent more than a hundred nights with unhappy prisoners under sentence of death, conversing with them with all seriousness and with much intelligence on the great concerns of that eternal world on whose brink they were standing. I saw a long and sensible letter which the unhappy man named Pegsworth, who was executed in March, 1837, for the crime of murder, addressed a few days before his death to Mr. Curtis, and in which he most heartily thanked Mr. C. for all the religious instructions and admonitions he had given him; adding, that he believed he had derived great spiritual benefit from them."

Bone and Shell Exhibition.

It is curious to note with what odd results of patient labour our forefathers were amused to the top of their bent. They were Curiosities in the strictest sense of the term; but as to the information conveyed by their exhibition, it was generally a lucus à non lucendo.

In Suffolk Street, Cockspur Street, an ingenious Mrs. Dards got up a display of this kind, consisting of an immense collection of artificial flowers, made entirely by herself with fish-bones, the incessant labour of many years, of which she said to Mr. J. T. Smith:—"No one can imagine the trouble I had in collecting the bones for that bunch of lilies of the valley. Each cup consists of the bones which contain the brains of the turbot; and from the difficulty of matching the sizes, I never should have completed my task had it not been for the kindness of the proprietors of the London, Freemasons', and Crown and Anchor taverns, who desired their waiters to save the fish-bones for me."

This ingenious person distributed a card embellished with flowers and insects, upon which was engraven an advertisement, stating the exhibition to be the labour of thirty years, and to contain "a great variety of beautiful objects equal to nature." Likewise enabled to gratify them.

"With bones, scales, and eyes, from the prawn to the porpoise, Fruit, flies, birds, and flowers, oh, strange metamorphose!"

"Quid Rides?"

"People," says Mr. De Morgan, "are apt to believe that a smart saying or a ready retort are not a real occurrence; it was made up: it is too good to be true, &c." Perhaps there is no story which would be held more intrinsically deniable than that of the tobacconist who adopted Quid rides? for his motto on his carriage.

A friend, whose years, it will be seen, are many, has given me the following note:—

"Jacob Brandon was a tobacco-broker in the last century, a remarkable man in his way, supposed to be rich, a good companion, and extravagant in his expenses. Before the year 1800, I saw a chariot in Cheapside with a coat-of-arms, or rather a shield bearing a hand (sample) of tobacco and a motto, Quid rides? It was an old carriage, and at the time belonged to a job-master, so the driver told a person who was curious to know what the arms meant. It was this man's curiosity that caused my noticing the arms. Mentioning the circumstance in my father's presence, he said it was Brandon's old carriage. He had become gouty, and could not walk; he bought the carriage, had it newly painted, and was asked for his arms. This required consideration. Some thought Brandon was a Jew, or of Jewish extraction. Be this as it may, he loved a joke, and cared little for armorial bearings. He was telling a party in Lloyd's Coffee-house about his new carriage, and that he had determined to have a symbol of his profession on it, but that he wanted a motto. A well-known member of Lloyd's, a wit, and, as I afterwards found out, a curious reader, suggested Quid rides? which was forthwith adopted. This was Harry Calendon. I knew him well; he died within the present century. I have found that some of his witty stories about living persons were taken from old books. My father knew Brandon well, and employed him. Now, as to Quid rides? being proposed by some Irish wit as a motto for Lundy Foot, of Dublin, famous for a particular snuff, I have heard something of the history and habits of Lundy Foot; he had no carriage with arms on it. His snuff is still sold with its distinguishing wrapper and stamp, but no Quid rides?—which would certainly have been perpetuated if it had ever been adopted by the manufacturer of the snuff."

"Bolton Trotters."

This was the cognomen given to the muslin-weavers of Bolton in the days of their prosperity. The trade was that of a gentleman. They brought home their work in top-boots and ruffled shirts, carried a cane, and in some instances took a coach. Many weavers at that time used to walk about the street with a five-pound Bank of England note spread out under their hatbands; they would smoke none but long "churchwarden" pipes, and objected to the intrusion of any other handicraftsmen into the particular rooms in the public-houses which they frequented.

The "Bolton Trotters" were much addicted to practical joking, of which Mr. French, in his Life of Samuel Crompton, narrates this story:—"One of the craft visiting Bolton on a market-day, having delivered his work at the manufacturing warehouse, and obtained materials for his succeeding work, placed them carefully in one end of his blue linen wallet, and filled the other end with articles of clothing and provisions, upon which he had expended his recently received wages. He had, however, reserved a portion for his accustomed potation upon such occasions; and that he might enjoy this solace of his labour in comfort and safety, he left his wallet at the warehouse before visiting his favourite tavern. The good ale did its office, and when elevated to just the proper pitch for trotting, he met a brother of the loom, who, like himself, had transacted his day's business, and was now ready to trudge home with his wallet on his shoulder. The two weavers mingled with a little crowd gathered together to hear the strains of the Bolton volunteer band performing near the Swan Hotel. He who had left his wallet at the warehouse was not, however, too much engrossed by the martial music to neglect the tempting opportunity to trot his quondam friend, with whom he stood shoulder to shoulder, though each looked in a different direction. Provided with a needle and stout thread, and being the shorter man of the two, he had no difficulty in sewing the edge of his neighbour's well-filled wallet to the lapel of his own velveteen jacket, and then, during a momentary movement in the crowd, adroitly hitched it from his neighbour's to his own shoulder. An immediate and clamorous charge of robbery was made, and met by an indignant denial from the trotter, who coolly remonstrated with the loser on his culpable want of ordinary care, pointing out, at the same time, at the means he had taken to secure his own wallet, which no one, he said, could steal from him. This evidence was unanswerable, particularly as it was supported by many of the bystanders who had seen the whole transaction, and joined heartily in the laugh at the weaver who had been so effectually trotted for their amusement. A reconciliation was effected through the ordinary means on these occasions, of an adjournment to the alehouse."

Eccentric Lord Coleraine.

J. T. Smith, in his Life of Nollekens, has left these sensible remarks upon a class of persons whose lives present many instances of right feeling and upright conduct, although mixed up with less estimable qualities. "I believe," says Mr. Smith, "every age produces at least one eccentric in every city, town, and village. Be this as it may, go where you will, you will find some half-witted fellow, under the nickname either of Dolly, Silly Billy, or Foolish Sam, who is generally the butt and sport of his neighbours, and from whom, simple as he may sometimes be, a sensible answer is expected to an unthinking question: like the common children, who will, to our annoyance, inquire of our neighbour's parrot what it is o'clock. In some such light Nollekens was often held by his brother artists; and I once heard Fuseli cry out, when on the opposite side of the street: 'Nollekens, Nollekens, why do you walk in the sun? If you have no love for your few brains, you should not melt your coat buttons!'"

Fuseli had one day sharply criticised the work of a brother R.A., whom he sought to alleviate by remarking that the conceited scene-painter, Mr. Capon, to whom Sheridan had given the nickname of "Pompous Billy," had piled up his lumps of rock as regularly on the side scene, as a baker would his quartern-loaves upon the shelves behind his counter to cool.

The eccentric character is, likewise, sure to be found in London, where there are several curious varieties of this class of persons to be met with. In our walks, perchance, we may meet a man who always casts his eye towards the ground, as if he were ashamed of looking any one in the face; and who pretends, when accosted, to be near-sighted, so that he does not know even the friend that had served him. This short-sightedness is very common. Indeed, he draws his hat across his forehead to act as an eye-shade, so that his sallow visage cannot be immediately recognised, which makes him look as if he had done something wrong; whilst his coat is according to the true Addison cut, with square pockets large enough to carry the folio Ship of Fools. No man was more gazed at than Lord Coleraine, who lived near the New Queen's Head and Artichoke, in Marylebone Fields, and who never met Nollekens without saluting him. "Well, Nollekens, my old boy, how goes it? You never sent me the bust of the Prince." To which Nollekens replied: "You know you said you would call for it one of these days, and give me the money, and take it away in a hackney-coach." "I remember," says J. T. Smith, "seeing his lordship, after he had purchased a book entitled the American Buccaneers, sit down close to the shop from which he had bought it, in the open street, in St. Giles's, to read it. I also once heard Lord Coleraine, as I was passing the wall at the end of the Portland Road, where an old apple-woman, with whom his lordship held frequent conversations, was packing up her fruit, ask her the following question: 'What are you about, mother?' 'Why, my lord, I am going home to my tea; if your lordship wants any information I shall come again presently.' 'Oh! don't balk trade. Leave your things on the table as they are: I will mind your shop till you come back;' so saying, he seated himself in the old woman's wooden chair, in which he had often sat before whilst chatting with her. Being determined to witness the result, after strolling about till the return of the old lady, I heard his lordship declare the amount of his receipts by saying: 'Well, mother, I have taken threepence-halfpenny for you. Did your daughter Nancy drink tea with you?'"

Eccentric Travellers.

Curious stories are told of tourists being so fascinated by certain incidents in their travels as to be diverted from their purposes by finding themselves so comfortable as to wish to proceed no further—a lesson of content which is rarely lost on sensible persons.

It is told of an English gentleman, who started on a tour in 1815, the year of the battle of Waterloo, that he landed at Ostend, with the design of pushing on to Brussels, and took his place in the canal-boat that plied between Brussels and Ghent. The traveller went abroad, not merely to see foreign lands, but with the hope of meeting with illustrious personages and distinguished characters. Finding, however, that on board the trekschuit he not only fell in with many persons worth meeting, but had the opportunity of sitting down with them at the table-d'hôte, he thought he could not do better, and went backwards and forwards, never getting farther than Ghent.

Mr. Thackeray, in his Vanity Fair, gives this somewhat different version of the story:—"The famous regiment ... was drafted in canal-boats to Bruges, thence to march to Brussels. Jos. accompanied the ladies in the public boats; the which all old travellers in Flanders must remember for the luxury and accommodation they afforded. So prodigiously good was the eating and drinking on board these sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that there are legends extant of an English traveller, who, coming to Belgium for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so delighted with the fare there, that he went backwards and forwards from Ghent to Bruges perpetually, until the railroads were introduced, when he drowned himself on the last trip of the passage-boat." Possibly the catastrophe is an embellishment.

To these ana, Mr. Sala has added the story of the Englishman, who is said to have made a bet that Van Amburgh, the lion-tamer, would be eaten by his voracious pupils within a given time; and who followed him about the continents of Europe and America in the hope of seeing him at last devoured, and so winning his stakes. Eugène Sue introduces this mythical Englishman among the dramatis personæ of the Wandering Jew.

The Russians, also, have a story of an eccentric traveller—of course, an Englishman—who posted overland, and in the depth of winter, to St. Petersburgh, merely to see the famous wrought-iron gates of the Summer Garden. He is said to have died of grief at finding the gates superior to those at the entrance to his own park at home. Add to this the lying traveller, who boasted that he had been everywhere, and who, being asked how he liked Persia, replied that he scarcely knew, as he had only stayed there a day. Note, likewise, among eccentricities, the nobleman of whom it was inquired, at dinner, what he thought of Athens during an Oriental tour. He turned to his body-servant, waiting behind his chair, and said, "John, what did I think of Athens?"

In May, 1865, died Charles Waterton, "the gentle and gifted squire" of Walton Hall, in Yorkshire, in his eighty-second year. Of this gentleman one of the most eccentric incidents in modern travel is related to have occurred in his wanderings in South America. His attendant Indian had made an instrument to take a cayman, or alligator, of Guiana, on the banks of the Essequibo river. It was very simple; there were four pieces of tough, hard wood, a foot long, and about as thick as your little finger; they were tied round the ends of a rope in such a manner that if you conceive the rope to be an arrow, these four sticks would form the arrow's head; or that one end of the four united sticks answered to the point of the arrow's head, while the other end of the sticks expanded at equal distances round the rope. Now, it is evident that if the cayman swallowed this, the other end of the rope (which was thirty yards long) being fastened to a tree, the more he pulled the faster the barbs would stick into his stomach. The hook was well baited with flesh, and entrails twisted round the rope for about a foot above it. Into the steep sand-banks of the river the Indian pricked a stick, and at its extremity was fixed the machine which hung suspended about a foot from the water. Mr. Waterton and his companions then went back to their hammocks for the night.

Next morning was found a cayman ten feet and a half long, fast to the end of the rope. The next point was to get him out of the water without injuring his scales. After revolving many projects, Mr. Waterton had his canoe brought round; he then took out the mast, eight feet long, and as thick as his wrist, and wrapped the sail round the end of it; he then sunk down on one knee, about four yards from the water's edge, backed by his seven attendants, and pulled the cayman to the surface; he plunged furiously, and immediately went below again on their slackening the rope; they pulled again, and out he came. "By the time," says Mr. Waterton, "the cayman was within ten yards of me, I saw he was in a state of fear and perturbation; I instantly dropped the mast, sprung up, and jumped on his back, turning half round as I vaulted, so that I gained my seat with my face in a right position. I immediately seized his fore-legs, and, by main force, twisted them on his back; thus they served me for a bridle." He now plunged furiously, and lashed the sand with his tail. The people stoutly dragged him and the traveller about forty yards on the sand. After repeated attempts to regain his liberty, the cayman gave in, exhausted. Mr. Waterton then tied up his jaws, and secured his fore-feet in the position he had held them; there was still another struggle; while some of the people pressed upon his head and shoulders, Mr. Waterton threw himself upon his tail, keeping it down to the ground; and having conveyed the cayman away, his throat was cut, and dissection commenced.